Paint sticks and paper with their thick preprinted lines: a coloring book. Lirssa had trouble staying in lines, but never had she thought the lines would have trouble staying in the page. The golem had taken form and shape, twitched to life on the page. Its mouth swallowed Miss Kazzy's hand and the unmistakable battle begun. Her fingers upon the page, the sticky, muddy texture not the waxen expectant feel coated a sharp flash of darkness.

The darkness was frightening in its familiarity. A touch to her stomach, the pulse of an evil abyss, and it was there again. It was there beyond the explosion of a book into a fluttering of paper shreds and stinky mire. It was in the pitch darkness of emerald eyes she had held. And the darkness touched back.

Lirssa had been pushed out of her place just a moment, her feeble shields no match to the seeking probe. In that moment the world had folded in on her, whispered dangers in her ear, and taunted her to flee. She fought the urge as anti-saints and unheroes stepped in the path of that darkness. Kendall, Eleanor, Nigel were star shots of distraction, and the darkness drew its —her— gaze away.

More chaos, more trickery of dark and light in turmoil, and always Lirssa wanted to run. Run she did to the north and to the Abbey.

The Abbey's gate was both formidable and friendly, a sanctuary. Dante, honoring the legends and myths of his kin, was the faithful companion at her side. Together they pushed past the gate, stepped along pathways that summoned a courage and a comfort to the door. There Lirssa knocked, hoping for shelter to confine her from being a danger or drawing its gaze.

The tremble of dark was a sharp memory. Lirssa looked around her as she waited. Her fingertips kept in touch with the door, the newsboy cap low over her eyes, and shoulders hunched.

The door opened, drifting away from fingers. Lirssa snatched the newsboy cap from her head and a breeze picked up wayward tendrils to toss about her face and paint stray shadows. The widening of the door, Lirssa took as an invitation to enter. Or maybe she just needed and wanted to read it that way. Feet crossed that threshold, letting out a ragged breath like she'd crossed into a place where others could not. Her dog followed.

"Sorry it's so late, Miss Kyrie. Only, got some worries I'm thinking only you can answer." A tug at her hair, then clasping the cap to her chest, she spoke. "I got some things to ask"or maybe it's more like tell. Or?" where to start' There was the memory of darkness that drew ash over simple things like coloring a book, touching a page. It was a haven from that sinister touch drawn out of emerald eyes.

"I need to talk." She needed more than talk. "Someone got by, you know, the barriers." Lirssa looked behind her and around to stained windows like she might see the figure with the emerald eyes just watching and waiting in those fragile shades of color toned dark by night. The crack of a fire alive with kindling heated away a measure of that worry. Lirssa turned back to the lady. "I'm sorry bringing it here, but thought maybe? might be she wouldn't think of me here or, well, you bein" you, she'd not try to cross you. If it's trouble, I'll go.?

There had to be an up and a down, but Lirssa had lost her spot on the ground as the night flipped her about one way and then another. One tumult out of simplicity, one simplicity out of tumult, and touch involved in both. The landing to get herself knowing what to do had been rough, uneven, and still she shook and faltered not knowing the next step.

The Abbey, her cocoon and refuge some months ago, had been first in her mind more so than the West End residence because its occupant keys to lock away doors of the cursed gift. That lady who stood there so mysterious, wrapping dark in light and now illumined by the glow of the room around her. Maybe Miss Kyrie could guide Lirssa to the safe landing, spot the ground where she could not, and wash away that shadowy tone that twice brushed across her memory.

Lirssa nodded, taking the seat and pulling the cup of steaming tea close. Dante curled up by her feet and rested his head on his paws at such an angle it let the tip rest on the toes of her boots. Canine support of his pack member. Heat pulled up against her side, a flicker of a glance to it and then blinking back to the lady across from her. Every image from the night wanted to push its way out of her mouth at the same time. Wild cats of chaos, she pulled and ordered them only for them to claw back. She focused on the first thing she could, "Was tending bar, like I do sometimes. Miss Kazzy was there coloring in a coloring book. Page had a golemn. Serena, you know she tends bar, too, she said Miss Kazzy should be careful like, and then...well, the image moved. Just a little at first." A twitch of her own foot in unconscious mirror of what the drawing had done just hours before. A sip of tea, it called her to drink to bid the heart slow again. Through the rush of memories girl's words brought order and context to the jumble of colors and bright emotions. Fear, with its confusing muddle of sharp and dark coursed through the undercurrents, a shark hunting the scent of blood. A golem, clay puppet, an eater of names. Kyrie nodded for Lirssa to continue and lifted her tea for a sip, swallowing a frown. Chewing on the inside of her cheek, she looked into the tea. Its reflection held her half shadowed face in negative relief. Little ripples bobbing that picture when she lowered the mug to her lap. "It just got worse. Came alive it did, only, not so much of the page, no, but opened it's mouth and swallowed Miss Kazzy's hand! When," a clearing of her throat to loosen the tightness growing there again, "When I tried to hold it down, put my fingers on the page so Miss Kazzy could pull free, it wasn't wax and paper, it was mud, and there was....the darkness." Painful, troubling memory rose up unable to be squashed again. "Felt it once before. Same dark, awful frightening dark not like nighttime, but deeper like I never saw 'cept that once and again tonight. Saw it in her eyes." The telling jumping around again, tethering thoughts to just that dark.

Hungry art, swallowing the hand that fed it. It was a story Kyrie wished she did not know so well. "Wha' face did th'Muse wear?" Looking up, her mouth drawn down and the deep furrow of fear pulling an ache between brows. "Green eyes, a lady's face. I didn't know. I served her wine, but then...saw her eyes. Saw that dark in them. And she saw me." The rest came out in a rush. "I felt it, just came right through, only she didn't...don't know. I don't know what, only couldn't a been long. Eleanor there, and Nigel. And words and words exchanged and so much. I got back and away, then Mister Lucky and Tara and Taneth and more of that. I just got so lost, Miss Kyrie. Like fallin while on my feet. Most what scared me, is...the dark saw me." Lost Children pray on their feet. Michael's words echoed back like a loop in time, connecting a circle. Cold hands set her cup aside the reached to close over the girl's, four hands around one mug. "Ye are still 'ere. Still whole. Still ye." Sable eyes, nearly black, held a darkness like space; vast and full of the potential of stars. It was a darkness that breathed. The ghost of a smile haunted corners of her eyes. "I am proud o' ye."

Proud. Proud of her. Lirssa felt shrunken. She did not feel she deserved such praise or the pride the woman spoke. All the meaning of it flipped around inside her, trying to grow against the self censure. "I don't know why, ma'am. It's what set me a worryin' first came upon this curse. Someone's gonna use it, and I cannot stop it. Makes me wanna run, only, got all bound up now." Her shoulders twisted one way and then another, like it might free her from that feeling. "What'm I gonna do?" It was easier to ask that then try to puzzle out how the wise woman across from her could feel any pride in the weak and wretched thing Lirssa felt herself to be at that moment.

Ah, if the girl but knew what sort of muddy waters the Priestess had so often nearly drowned in....Wise wouldn't be the word. But lessons hardest won were lessons held closest and shared with care. Some internal decision made, notes of it heard in the steady pitch of her soft alto lilt. "We," the word pointedly chosen, "cannae solve this all in one nigh'. I sugges' sleep. Thin's usually look brigh'er by dayligh'." Her smile was gentle, the first unfurling of a rose petal. "Ye should stay 'ere, I'll wake ye in th'mornin' early 'nough ta get 'ome before maman worries." A deep breath that drew in all the smells and warmth, she lit it draw all the way down so that the lungs felt overripe and near to bursting with them. The thought of staying there, in the cocoon of the Abbey, eased Lirssa's spirit enough to let the weariness wrap up the frantic images of the night in a fuzzy blanket. They were there, but muffled by the gentle calm of her surroundings. "Daylight. Yes'm. I..." Lirssa was not sure what she wanted to say. There were things like apologies, gratitude, fear, and hope all mushing impossible combinations of letters together. "I'm grateful, ma'am. Someday, I'll be showin up on your doorstep smellin of daises, not prickle bushes." The pitiful grasp of it all, she lifts the tea mug for another sip, letting herself feel the comfort of the chair for the first time that night. "Well, rosebushes are th'prickliest," and didn't she have an ache in her left hand to prove it' "An' some would say smell th'sweetest." She rose, silk falling in a hush and prepared a place for the girl to sleep, a fold-out cot brought near the fire piled with quilts.

Lirssa opened her mouth to counter, but found she really couldn't. It was a lame sort of, "Huh," as she set aside the mug and helped with the cot. She's putting the woman out, she could at least help. Once the chairs and cups had been put away, the girl tucked in, and the coals banked, all was calm. All was quiet, but for the soft symphony of cinders of the home-fire.

(Adapted from live play with Lirssa Sarengrave.)