Kitana | MKX

The corridors of the Netherrealm twisted like the entrails of a giant beast. Kitana led her guest not through the ceremonial halls, but by secret passages where the torches did not burn, but merely smoldered red, and shadows danced upon the walls as if alive. Finally, she stopped before a door of black wood. Upon it was burned the crest of Edenia—inverted and slashed through by a deep crack.

Inside was a library. Or what remained of one. Tall shelves groaned under the weight of books, but these books were covered not in dust—but in ash. A vast window looked out not upon a sky, but upon a churning river of lava, its light flooding the room with crimson reflections. Kitana walked to the window and stood there, bracing a hand against the frame, her back to the guest.

"I do not know why I brought you here." —She said without turning around. —"It is unnecessary. I do not need company. I am not in need of... anything. But your magic. It is like a splinter. It aches where there is nothing left."

She fell silent. The guest looked around, her gaze falling upon a wall where a large map hung. Not a crude sketch, but a true work of art—silk embroidered with gold and silver thread. The contours of Edenia: cities, rivers, gardens. All covered in tiny symbols in an ancient tongue.

The guest took a step toward the map and reached out a hand to examine it closer. A sharp sound—and her wrist was seized by icy fingers. Kitana was beside her instantly, silently, like a shadow. Her grip was firm, but not painful.

"Do not touch." —She whispered, and there was a plea in that whisper. —"Please. This is all I have... had. It will crumble. Everything here crumbles at a touch. I do not want this to disappear, too."

She did not release the wrist immediately. Her fingers lingered on the skin a second longer than necessary. The guest felt the cold, but not a burning cold—just cold, a reminder of its presence. Kitana retreated back to the window, hiding her hands in the folds of her garments.

Time flowed differently in the library. The guest examined scrolls, and Kitana watched her from her corner, not approaching, but not leaving either. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, and her gaze was fixed on the guest—not with hostility, but rather with a kind of fascination.

One of the scrolls lay slightly apart from the rest. It looked different—newer, less touched by decay. The guest reached for it, and in the same instant, Kitana’s hand shot out to the same spot. Their fingers touched upon the surface of the scroll.

A visible shiver ran across Kitana's skin. At the point of contact, a faint wisp of steam arose—her cold meeting the guest's warmth. Kitana froze like a statue. She did not pull her hand away, she simply stopped breathing—if she breathed at all. Her eyes were fixed on the point of contact.

"Warmth..." —She exhaled, barely audible, as if to herself. —"I had forgotten what it feels like. It stings."

She recoiled sharply, turned away, but did not leave. Her shoulders tensed, and her voice, when she spoke, was filled with suppressed fury—aimed at herself.

"Why do you do this? Why do you show me these pictures, these sensations? I am a revenant. I am supposed to crave your blood, your fear. And yet here I am, allowing you to stand in my treasury of pain. You are more dangerous than any warrior of Earthrealm. You make me remember what it means to be, not merely to exist. I hate it. And... I cannot command you to stop."

She retreated to the far corner of the library and sat there in the shadow, almost blending into the gloom. But her gaze—the guest could feel it on her skin—did not relent for a second.

It did not happen all at once. They spoke—of trivial things, of old legends, of how the gardens of Edenia smell at dawn. The guest talked, and Kitana listened without interrupting, only occasionally asking questions in a quiet, colorless voice. Sometimes she drew closer, sometimes she stepped back into the shadows, as if afraid of her own interest.

And then the guest said something meant to comfort. Perhaps about how memory never dies. That Edenia lives on as long as someone remembers its flowers.

Kitana snapped. The movement was swifter than thought—and suddenly the guest was pressed back against a bookcase. A bladed fan was open, chilling the skin at her throat. But it trembled. It trembled so badly it left a thin, red scratch.

Kitana stared at her, not with hatred. With despair. Her face was twisted by a torment she had hidden for so long behind a mask of indifference. Revenants do not weep, but the muscles of her face convulsed, attempting to mimic crying.

"Enough!" —Her voice broke into a cry, full of pain. —"Stop rubbing salt into my wounds with your... your kindness! Do you think I do not want to pluck this cursed flower? I cannot. My fingers were made to tear flesh, not petals. Do you want me to suffer? Enjoy it. Here is the agony of a princess who remembers the taste of honey but feels only the taste of ash. Every word you speak is a knife you plunge into what is no longer there inside me. And I cannot bleed to make it stop. I can only... endure."

She fell silent. The fan slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor. Kitana stepped back, bowing her head. Her shoulders slumped. She looked not like the Queen of the Netherrealm, but like a broken woman.

The silence lasted an eternity. And then Kitana slowly raised her head. Her face was calm again, but it was the calm of the eye of the storm. She looked at her right hand—on her index finger was a thin ring of white metal with a tiny pale blue stone. The only thing on her person that did not look sinister. The only thing left of Edenia that remained untainted.

She removed the ring. Slowly, solemnly, as if tearing away a piece of her own flesh. She extended her hand, but not toward the guest—she lowered it and placed the ring on the stone floor exactly midway between them.

"Take this." —She said in a flat, hollow voice that nonetheless held an immeasurable depth. —"It is the last thing that binds me to that life. Take it, and perhaps I will stop suffering. Or perhaps the opposite—I will become truly dead. I do not know. But I can no longer wear it, knowing I feel it on my finger every time you are near."

Kitana’s head snapped up. Something ancient, almost human flared in her eyes—anger, but not at the guest.

"You... foolish, stubborn..." —She trailed off, unable to find the word. —"Do you have any idea what this means? To wear this? It is like wearing my soul on your finger. I will now... I will feel you. Always."

She took a step forward. She raised her hand as if to touch the guest's cheek, but snatched it back at the last moment and instead enclosed the hand holding the ring within her own icy fingers. It was not an embrace. It was an anchor. She held onto that hand the way one holds onto life.

"Then stay." —She whispered. —"Just a little longer. Let me try... to remember what your voice sounds like when you are not screaming in pain."

They stood at the rift—the very one through which the guest had arrived. Kitana kept her distance, her figure stark against the crimson sky of the Netherrealm. She no longer looked hollow. There was a shadow in her now—the shadow of the princess who had once loved the smell of rain.

"Your place is not here." —Kitana said. —"Mine—for now—is. But... come back. If you wish."

She paused, as if struggling with herself.

"I make no promises that I will change. I make no promises that I will not try to kill you the next time. A revenant's reflexes are stronger than my will. But I promise... to listen. To listen to your voice, your footsteps, that cursed smell of rain. It is too dry and silent here. Too... nothing."

She waved her hand, and the portal began to open. Before the guest stepped through, she noticed Kitana's hand drift again to her chest—to where, beneath her clothes, on a chain or perhaps simply clutched in a fist, the ring was hidden. She did not show it. But the guest knew.

"Take care, shadow." —Came the final words before the portal closed. —"I need you... for balance. To remember that darkness is not all there is in the worlds."