In the middle of a long dirt road she stood. In her hands nothing but the tender art <possibility> and that of moulding, evoking the sensations in her, the energies that spoke. The ones that would seek.

She swore to herself her involvement in this would be limited. She would execute as need be a plan, and then allow Mish and Maia to take the reigns. She trusted them, implicitly, to do what needed to be done, if what was to be done was indeed needed, as everything thus far was assumption.


The breeze tufted at her, limp curls settling about her neck as she began to walk. She had only a magic she rarely used and the derringer clipped to her hip. Precaution, only. The road was heavy with lights of mauve colours, for it was very very early. The sky spread itself in darkest blue and to pastel soaked swirls, and then returned to its violet tone; troubled, devious, malignant.

With her eyes closed she began her walk in that straight line, and raised her arms into the air. Sparing no thought, she focused entirely on what was to be done, enchantress to seek, enchantress to beckon out of the gloom the sandman. They sensed one another, primal creatures, he more feral than she ever, but no less alike. A dance of the same direction, but with moves she learnt as not tight tope but fight, grip and scratch, savour, applaud, relate, then fight some more. It frightened her, deep down at the gut level, though aroused in her a feeling that perhaps what these Pillars were, what had tied them together, was for this very scenario. How awful it was, they shared in it.


Coming to a dead stop, heart thrumming, eyes flashed open and she bent her fingers into her palms, and pressed there, her body echoing with the lightning and the pleasure, with the static and the hot running air of Skado. Lashes fluttered and she sent a tendril to Mish, and to Maia. There was no more time for delay. She would find Skado, ask the question, fight at his side, and Maia and Mish would do what they did best; eloquently and quickly, severely and mercilessly.


She hoped heads would not roll, though knew the scent of copper was inevitable.

Legs spread, soles flat on the ground, hands limp at her side, she did not return his gaze with malice, with hate, with competition, only the trail end of fatigue, that bled into exhaustion. She fell to her knees and rolled her hands into fists at her stomach and then she flopped forward, breathing in the stifling wind.

"Viki.....Viki is gone", she wheezed, eyes lifting with her chin, as she forced her head up, forced herself to not submerge, this strange, sheer environment lapping at her each and every sense. Her body was frail here, her spirit quaint, but the power pulled her through, energies ebbing like light down a vast, damp tunnel, throwing rays about itself and onto.


She knew it was pointless to say who did it, even she couldn't be sure, even when all the signs pointed to. The power inside swelled, grew to drape her heart, fuel to clear her mind. In her eyes, suns did not die. Planets were distant, wistful things. She was pure, here.

The space about them in the sterile plane began to crumble. Cracks in the earth as black, bleak mists ensconced their bodies so very quickly, shards of earth like biscuit pieces, and then they were two fighter hearts, on a rail road to no where. Between them, were wooden planks, a track, between these slats, perfect white pebbles.


"Skado.."


She got to her feet, legs quaking beneath her waist, and as she rose selected a pebble and rolled it within her palm, a cool soothing trifle.

"They say it is your Brother"

Her head hung a moment, bowed in silence, the rails sighing iron hymns.

Patience returned, she watched him laugh that sardonic, desert true laugh. As he moved towards her Lerida did not move back, she watched for his shadows, those guileless things that jamb doors and pester her own silhouette, to fall over her, or near her, and tickle with tension.


Her hand, limply, lifted with his and outwards as the pebble was snatched and singed.


Potential prey paid glare to Predator, eyes narrowed.


"You would dare as much, Skado" she replied distantly, regarding his willing abomination of this sanctuary for discussion, snaking a hand about her waist and holding herself, as if she had been punched. Her eyes held dismissal, and lashes fell, showcurtains down, and all around became sweating stones and bleak, sand roads, nowhere, but the rails were gone and the sky was a bruised blue, knocking at dawn. She'd not shed first blood in This. She sensed no one on that stretch of road, and so let rails that sung eerie and hollow dissapate.

In the dire light, as the feeling of a chill set in, she searched for his eyes in dark, her own unlit and her body no longer quaking with power. She stood tall, prostrated to the left in her stance.

"Where do we find him? Where is it we travel to?"


The silence rent her of carrying on the bitter dance, and instead making clear her intention.

"Others will look. You know, help us"


She saw the way he looked at her, how her balloons and kites and stage lights irked him, how her streamers and confetti only fogged his vision. Even without ebbing her energies, she was raining, snowflakes of things that ate his words. She remembered.


"Will you?"


It was then she grew backwards, suede boot digging to firm earth. The wind blew again, and with it came copper and currents of ugly truthes. She dropped her eyes from him, she didn't enjoy the vision of his devouring her that filled his seemingly empty gaze.

"I'm here. For you, for those that seek your Lover. I will be as much as I can"


Again, she recalled that no one could speak with authority when slivered in shadow, as competitive predawn light cracked across their forms. Here, she was white and rose and leather streaking the air before him, shadows, his and foreign, reaching out, hers sleek and refrained.

Her pathology squirmed, colour filled her cheeks, and she stood still as he passed, with purpose. Her eyelids fell and she turned to face him, watching his back and the hue of this hour invade him, imbue him with blues and deeper grays, charcoals, leaves of shades, dousing him in near invisibility.


So, WestEnd was where Irrykin hid. There was no doubt the man was to be sought at some point, but near irrefutable that it wasn't him, and yet, until this point, she had not been willing to believe, to chance guesses.


"I will be the sensory, Skado", she offered in a gentle voice, rocking back on a heel and turning to face his back completely, as the wind warped in disononant chants. The dischord between them practically vibrated, heat and power, sand and sea, chemistries alike and yet he would grind against her, when she all but considered him, it was, his reaction, as if she were dirt at his heels, the pebble in his hand, now but dust. The action rude, but undeniably a sandman venture, where she was concerned.


She knew that there was no need to say bye, for this scenario would have them meet again, on some shallow ground, in victory or loss. Until then, she would walk with body sensitive and honed, to tingle with the reverb from the swarming energies, locustmany about, and forget the heat and friction of his presence, only his information would be kept close in her mind.


Her boots rounded as she headed off down that stretch of nowhere, a cigarette snapped to life, and she thought on nothing all the way to WestEnd, as if everything had been shrunk to that sole kernal of information, and once she arrived there, she was all smoke and dusty skin.

She was not a destroyer. It was lucky she was as controlled as she was, that she resisted the charms of the sandman's wishing to provoke <would he push and push and push until she was ripe, and she would fight, and he'd take her in the throes of palpitations, those shark teeth the tunnel to her end>. She had her knowledge, had stayed true, and would keep her distance.

Lerida On'Esand was not willing to be his dinner.