Leo Christos: Dusk approached the market but had not yet settled wholly?no, the autumnal sky burned in yellow-limned oranges similar to the inner flame of a match (the perimeter of the building-framed horizon blurred in pink-stained clouds) and only a handful of sellers had lit up their lanterns for consumers to better view the merchandise. A young man, a vagrant boy, prowled through the myriad of booths with an innocuously easy-going gait that didn't stop or hesitate in order to avoid drawing suspicion for too long a pause would reveal him to be the scamp that he was. After all, he was barefoot at the onset of November like a street urchin, the edges of his feet browned with the cold filth of the street that he picked up along his way, and his attire did not suggest that he would prove to be an honorable, paying customer. A wild kind of thing, this burgeoning teenager that could've been aged anywhere between sixteen and eighteen, it was difficult to tell ? a pair of old, camel-colored linen pants draped his legs, a size too large, hemmed in with a belt of narrowly braided rope, their ends tattered up to the ankles, and a long-sleeved button-up was also oversized, cape-like and undone to expose the early definition of solid-forming muscle. Not to mention all that hair: it was damned medieval nearly like a lawn gone unkempt for far too long, tangled and gnarled, barely maintained by the lick of leather the majority back away from his face though the forelocks were tempestuous, clotting up unevenly around his temples, a lock of gold tumbling down the front of his face. Munching down hard on a pilfered apple that he'd stolen a couple blocks back, he used the end of his uncuffed sleeve at intervals to carelessly wipe the juice that dribbled from his mouth downward toward his chin, handsome heathen that he was, his eyes lidded. From their darkly-lashed corners, he surveyed the booths discreetly in passing, possibly waiting for something shiny to catch his eye -- the theft would be an impulsive thing, quick and hectic, but like any good thief, he was searching for a worthwhile cause.
Mesteno: Autumn seemed made for him, an extension of his natural palette in fiery hues which not only washed the skies, but carpeted the ground in thick leaf fall beneath every deciduous tree and dominated the stalls in the marketplace where the seasonal produce was being snatched up at its best. Despite the dramatically dipping temperatures, he was content to throw on the thick layers of clothing which added a subtle bulk to his otherwise insubstantial frame, and though once he too might have capered about the city barefoot, undersides hard as leather, he was too fond of the thick, steel soled boots which should have announced his approach wherever he walked, heavy as they were. He travelled cat quiet though, an economy of movement which came from years of playing chameleon amidst the crowds, years of stalking and hunting, and which had become so habitual he accommodated it thoughtlessly now. A tan, suede duster draped his shoulders, hair bound at the centre of his spine, its tail end so long that sitting on it was a likelihood, not an almost. The absence of summer's harsh sunlight had dulled the gold in it somewhat, left it deeper reds, a violent riot of burnished shades which made his eyes more startling, wolf amber, gold-spun and fiercely sharp. He wasn't out looking for troublemakers that afternoon though, with the light waning and the cold sinking deeper into bones gently aching with the legacy of old fractures and breaks. He was pressing through a crowd which seemed to part naturally for him, via a combination of body language and sharp looks. He'd a bundle tucked beneath one arm, the slender, unsanded and unwaxed shafts required for fletching, and he'd come prowling out of the end of the market place where people did not venture not due to danger, but because the tanners there offended people's noses. It did not cling to him however. He was leather and metal and cinnamon, cider on his breath, and evidently under the impression that he was untouchable. He certainly seemed to exude a confidence at odds with his whipcord slender frame, striding with the angular line of his jaw uptipped and his shoulders pulled back. Here and there he tipped nods of greetings, but people seemed disinclined to stall him for small talk. There was something unsettling about him, after all.
Leo Christos: Upon venturing beyond a particular booth, Leo did pause; out of the corner of a lowlidded eye, he did not overlook a much younger boy of about six huddled conspicuously between two vendors, lip-licking as he viewed the produce on the cart to his left but not yet desperate enough to risk losing a hand. Halting instantly in his tracks, a mouthful of apple crunching between his molars, the rapscallion eyed the boy with the distinguished arches of his eyebrows flattening downward in guilt-tinged contemplation. Call it inherent nature?that some things could not entirely be unlearned for they were further than habit, deeper than teachings, tied up in the nuisances of the soul's character itself; what moved a person or what did not. Rumatively inspecting the half-eaten fruit then the boy, Leo shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he scratched at his scalp with blunt, but strong fingernails in a way that unsettled another spray of rich, wheaten hair from its clumsy prison. The debate couldn't have lasted for more than a moment before he edged closer to the opening between the two vendor's booths, and crouching somewhat to put himself a little more level with the urchin, he offered the rest over while swallowing the bits that'd been ground down by his teeth a moment earlier. Gesturing to himself to the boy, he nudged the hand out indicatively two, three times, kind with the ghost of dimples marking crescents in his cheeks, paling in the winter from a diminishing tan that hadn't had a chance to stick. "Take," he instructed the urchin, simply, and after the wary expression slowly transformed to careless hunger, the tiny scramp did?grabbed it and ran off, leaving the benefactor laughing low in his wake. Straightening up to continue in his previous path through the market, he rubbed a palm through the folds of his shirt to his stomach where it growled, and as his feet picked his pace back up, his nostrils twitched at the surrounding scents curiously. He extended his vigil to include the surrounding mill of bodies, a precursor, perhaps for a guard or official in case he decided to take from the perimeter. Instead, he saw a red-haired man?not a friendly-looking sort, you'd have to agree?and though his gaze was nothing more than passing, it turned down instead of moving on to the side of him as though he were momentarily disoriented, confused, unfocused. An eerie sliver of d?j? vu? Do I know him? It was enough for his pace to slow, slow even more, so he could twist his jaw up - try to catch a second glimpse to see if he could find the man again, discern if he'd seen him through one of his uncles or the clan property. If not, and he saw... saw something, it could mean running before he was spotted in return.
Mesteno: Orphans were commonplace in the city. Every town he'd lived in seemed to have a long-term colony, and no matter how many times they were chased from their bolt-holes, or made examples of by the local law, their numbers replenished with each season. Parents more often lost to violence, or Rhy'Din's preternatural elements instead of something so simple as the chill of winter. Mesteno saw them as he passed amongst the stalls, but none but those most familiar with his ephemeral expressions would recognise the tension about his eyes, the subtle flattening of a generously formed mouth as they flitted like wraiths waiting for opportunity to knock. He did not like children. It was not a simple distaste, but a gut reaction which left him recoiling. He didn't make any attempt to analyse quite why he felt such a deep-seated revulsion, particularly when he had once been one of them, in precisely that situation, just as desperate, just as sickeningly vulnerable. It was the child running away with the remnants of an apple clutched in its sticky fist that drew his eyes like a hunting hawk to a darting hare, and the wooden shafts creaked beneath his arm as the sinewy limb tightened about them. So long as it didn't come tripping about his feet with a horde of angry stall keepers in its wake, he could relax, and he waited with gold-shot eyes hooded as it dipped out of sight. His feet had not carried him much further when another of the city's rapscallion population caught his eyes, though this one so much older. Really, too old to still be roaming the city in the state he seemed to be, but it was not Leo's ill-fitting attire (what there was of it) which stalled him. No, it was that he'd seen the glance his way, even if for just a moment, and his paranoia stirred. A ring master, perhaps? He shrugged the bundle of arrow shafts from one arm to the other, leaving the arm closest to the teenager free, in case he needed to use it, but rather than wait for him to err and possibly make a target of him, he stopped dead, leaving the other market browsers to weave around where he stood like a resolute rock in the stream of their movement. He fixed the boy with a look, dispassionate and grim mouthed. "I wouldn't bother," he warned him. Soft-spoken, as he had always been, and an accent which could not be mistaken for another man's, for it was a butchered mess of what was common, and the foreign lick of Latin, the Dead Language. Now there was cause for unwarranted nostalgia!
Leo Christos: As a teenager, he was somewhat over-pretty?still forming his masculinity, but like an unripened fruit, he had not hit his prime which dismissed the concept that he was eighteen, already a man; younger, but perhaps nudging closer toward that peak of early manhood. Generous-mouthed, the upper lip was even more tender than the lower (an odd characteristic, less-common than the vice versa), and his jaw was still in the process of widening out to fill in his face so it was the slope of the cheek bones that were more prominent at this age. He wasn't starved, but like most boys in his age range, he had an almost insatiable sort of hunger that lent him the appearance of a habitual scavenger?only, just now, he was staring at the man oh so queerly, and this glance must've seemed a hundred breaths longer than the first. Complex, wide, and a glimmer of the lantern could have easily shown on the exposed irises, made them gleam richly in the sunset hour like liquid gold. And that shape -- there was something about it, wasn't it? That soulful-eyed sort of deal of a natural-born dreamer, and when they looked even the slightest bit haunted like they did now?oh. I know you. He didn't know from where, or why, or how - it didn't come to him like that; sometimes it came in snippets of images, sometimes it was a feeling, and sometimes it was both. In a dream, or a situation that inspired the buried strangled half-memories to flutter brokenly like a connection mostly shattered but with a bare thread that clung onward. It was an image and nothing more - perhaps even a remembrance of briefly seeing this face before, some other time, and it surprised the older scamp, but he showed no trace of fear in its wake. Still, maybe he'd misinterpreted the warning (the man was rather off-putting, dangerous-seeming, like someone you didn't want to mess with) because he showed his white teeth faintly like a cat in answer to a threat, then grinned like a little bastard, dimpling devil-may-care and saluting the man. In the next instant, he was sprinting through the crowd back the way he'd come, away from him, like a wild, adolescent stallion, causing the crowd around him to curse, disperse, and reflexively contract by turns in an easily viewed trail of chaos.
Mesteno: This he hadn't expected. Normally when confronted, adolescents of this one's age were either antagonistic and abusive, or they bolted for fear of getting caught. Many (despite the dangerous aspect which Leo had so wisely detected) misjudged his slender build, the greyhound narrowness and coltish limbs and thought to better him. With neither reliable response to work with, he found himself dumbfounded, staring at the whiskey eyed youth with open suspicion. It was a suspicion which gave way to quiet scrutiny after mere moments though. It wasn't that the youth was a handsome creature - or at least at this age, destined to be some day, and caught between prettiness and juvenile masculinity in the meantime - but that once upon a time he'd known eyes like those. The shape was not precisely what he'd known, and perhaps it was only the unusual hue, he might suppose, but something there served to make him wonder. A relative of a friend? A child he'd known when he himself had been abandoning the pick-pocket existence of the street rats for work more illicit? His dark, auburn brows knotted sharply, etching lines into an otherwise smooth brow and all at once he seemed more troubled than a man wondering. He thought of a sweet, wet-eyed whore in a brothel at the docks. He thought of a letter full of confessions, and felt the ill stirring of nausea in his stomach at a fresh rousing of grief. It was still a sore wound, a failure which would always gnaw guiltily at his conscience. He had no time to say more though, no time to reminisce, because the youth was bolting, cutting through the crowd like a knife and sending the late lingering crowds into localised chaos along the path he took. Let him go, you fool. It's just a boy. Chiding himself in that manner spurred him forwards a few steps at a different trajectory, but impulse had always been a ruling factor in his mind, and with a sigh and a curse, he set off in pursuit. His was not the mad dash of the young. It was calculated, and saw him in short order scaling the fire-escapes to arrive at the rooftop world limned so spectacularly in autumn's fire. From there, with a bird's eye view, he could watch the progress from afar, without the obstruction of so many bodies playing meat shield for his quarry. Leo was being hunted.
Leo Christos: Admittedly, he wasn't accustomed to being hunted; not seriously, at least, and not in this extremely short and very strange life that he had lived thus far. His escape was more practical than fearful, for he'd been cleverly taught, through analysis of his 'visions,' that if he ever thought he recognized someone?in that eerie way?that he must run and never be acknowledged as someone other than Leo, the son of Baptista and Dianthe, kinsmen of the Christos clan. Ghita said he'd been someone else once, a man with enemies who walked a perilous path, and that he must never, ever own that persona; that man was buried and memorialized in the their backyard, and it was better she said to leave some things where they were. Like a nimble circus monkey, the teenager had climbed vendor's poles up to their canopies, danced over the yielding canvas only to leap to the next, grab the next with his hands and swing under only to race onward to the inky concave of an alley. He hid better in the shadows than his counterpart had, but three twists into the darkening network, he relaxed; glanced up at the sky between the buildings he hunkered between as if to measure the time by them and stole a wistful look back behind him. His market adventure was over, and if he wasn't home at least shortly after total dark, Baptista would lecture him and Dianthe would worry herself into a knot of raw nerves. With a sigh, he dug his hands into his pockets to fish out a sad, thin stick of jerky (the only thing now left from his earlier mischief makings) to chew on as he rolled forward, hanging a right into the next back alley, slipsliding and apt, careful of all the usual predators that could have been hiding in the city's darker nooks. Youth took an edge off his paranoia, and he imagined himself at least somewhat invincible, so as he picked his way through half-shadows and over puddles of broken bottle glass, he never once presumed that he truly would be followed - or kept up with, for that matter.
Mesteno: There was no refuge in the city's alleyways. Not from a man who walked them as if they were his personal territory. Not from a creature who could call upon the shadows and distort them, to turn the narrow passages into a nightmare dreamscape of unfamiliar mazes. If he'd been cruel enough (and he was, often, but not now) he might have populated the labyrinthine twists and turns of the alleys with shadow creatures, twisted silhouettes of the wretches and demons which the populace tried to forget lived amongst them, but Mesteno commanded a clear view from his rooftop vantage point, and he wished to keep it. The better to observe the stranger, seeking unwisely some further familiarity which would make him less of one. Who are you? He seethed quietly, and took care not to let the roiling irritation of his failing memory make his passage careless. He was young...so young that he could not now imagine he had been in any of the packs he had been a part of. The younger ones were the blurriest recollections of all, children who had yet to form character enough to make themselves remembered. So where then? From where did he know those eyes? Why did he continually seek another man's face in the developing masculinity of this rapscallion? Traversing the rooftops in cat-like leaps and bounds, landing light and neat, and taking care to memorise the way, he made the decision to let the boy gain his refuge, and corner him there. Most likely the basement of some disused building, or perhaps the very opposite - some lofty attic space where the kids shared living quarters with the pigeons and parasites. The bundle he still clutched close, not because it had any great monetary value, but because some part of him resented the pursuit, even if he could not resist the mystery which led him onward. He'd be damned if the boy made inconvenienced him in anything but the spending of time.
Leo Christos: He could've been Bjorn's son, couldn't he? Only he was far more reminiscent of the man than his own son, Jacob, would ever be?all their similarities were only faded by a gap in ages, perhaps, because those dimples (though long-lost to times too long ago) were painfully familiar, the decadent mouth that would, in time, narrow some but nonetheless retain a generous flair. Youth kept him hairless, though, except for that extravagant lion's mane tied back and a little dirty for the day's activities, or the fine translucent growth on his lean arms but that couldn't be seen due to the largeness of the undone shirt's sleeves. It wasn't easy being less than a year old, and this his first winter, knowing more than he should; leaving behind what was known and familiar by each week that shivered by him, drawing change and transformation to the surface. He didn't know this, but of course, when had it ever been easy? If Mesteno decided to pursue him to his refuge, the walk would seem to last forever ? even depart from the alleyways eventually to a main road heading toward the outskirts of town, slipsliding from one hiding spot to another easily to keep as much attention off of himself as he could though he did not know he was being pursued by the man from the market. On the way, he shared bits of his meagre jerky with strays for one who's life passed so quickly by him could not be altogether too choosy about the connections he made along the way. It was better construed as unthinking charity, a streak of absentminded kindness. By now, they were closing in on a scattered area of residential properties, low income but not starvingly poor, and there were no cloisters of orphans in this part of town. Would Mesteno take his chance now or watch it slip from his fingers should the boy veer off onto one of the upcoming property lines to the protection of a family?
Mesteno: This area he knew little of, and once they progressed from familiar boundaries, his resolve faltered. What was he doing? Stalking a teenager for no reason beyond a resemblance to a man dead and gone? He'd lost friends before, suffered the heartache of their absence and his own irrefutable failings. Had something in him snapped? Was he seeking a resurrection because one close to his heart had been dragged back so recently? If it was possible for one, why not another? He bit back a growl, and the air before his eyes clouded from the heat of his breath. One of the shafts in the bundle snapped dully under the squeeze of his arm, and he watched the boy become smaller, beginning to lose clarity even to his sharp and focussed eyes. If he slipped from sight, he might be able to scrape back some common sense, apply logic where it had remained elusive before, but his feet moved almost as if without his say-so, and his long, lithe limbs made short work of the distance, agile and propelling him through the fading light until the threat of the property loomed near. Indeed, Leo was too close for comfort (surely he'd allies within) when Mesteno's feet returned to terra firma, and at last he ran him down. He didn't barrel into him, nor even try to snatch hold of his arm, but he caught him up on silent feet and curved a loop around him to confront and scrutinise, his pulse pounding in his temple and some disgusted voice in his head crying folly. Now the man from the marketplace looked truly dangerous, his hair unbound and tangled like so many snakes about his arms and back, the tie long lost. There was an odd, febrile gleam to golden eyes, a look that cut like knives as he barred the way, one arm extended, the palm raised in the universal gesture for stop. "You," he began, and was surprised by how breathless he was. Not from exertion, but from raw edged nerves, from the wrongness of what he'd done, and was doing. "I know you." It was a protest to an expected denial which Leo hadn't even offered yet.
Leo Christos: By now, he could feel a familiar soreness so deep down, it infiltrated his bones?it was why by then, so close to home and Ghita's special teas that she prepared just for him, special, he began massaging his arms through the overlarge sleeves of his billowing, dust-stained shirt with his palms, tender in contrast to the slow-building sharpness of them, nurturing even the wrists and hands and their fingers when their time came. He'd been winging his shoulders out, arching the spine, rolling his neck as if to urge the sensations out when surprised by the man from the market, and he was swift to stop dead in his tracks, slickly backstep, distrustful and wary?indeed, this overgrown kid eyed him like any other would a suspicious stalker in this strange town, cautious of the intent behind the contact, smart enough to keep himself out of arms' reach should he need to run or yell out. This, however, was no common occurrence; thus far, he'd never had a vision of a face that he did not know from this life that came into the flesh, staring right back at him, and it unsettled him much more than he let on when coupled with that weird, permeating taste of d?j? vu that made his head?or something, made something?feel funny. "You don't know me and I don't know you, mister," he lied (but he didn't - not completely, and maybe that made it believable), and his chin jutted up though his tone was civilized, more mature than it should've been, strange for a boy of his age dressed as he was. And those eyes, they were level yet guarded, fool's gold bright in the approaching eventide lights lit up around the scattered neighborhood; penetrating, yet closed, seeing things. "I'm on my way home for dinner, and if I'm late, I'll hear it real good from my kin." Watchful, he backstepped one more time before trying his luck half-circling the guy in his way without giving his back up, insistent on his path without time to argue a stranger's madness - especially at this hour, alone, and ill-equipped should the intention be a bad one. "I'm sorry, mister, but I don't know you." Was he really talking to him like one would to soothe a crazy person on a street-corner?
Mesteno: Mente alieno are - I'm going crazy. No doubt about it. His head throbbed, a build up of pressure in his temples, spanning his brow. The realisation troubled him, but not more so than the look the kid was giving him. He shook his head as if to refuse his words, and yet there was nothing he could grasp at to argue his corner. He was the crazy guy everyone veered around in town. He was the stalker that needed putting down. When he laughed, he sounded unhinged, and he was so startled by the sound that he pressed a palm over his mouth as if to smother anything that might follow, swallowing thickly as the guilt turned to nausea. "God... I'm just-- I'm sorry. This was a bad call of judgement." Bad was an understatement, and yet the more he rambled apology, the more he kept the boy from the kin waiting inside. Make it succinct, fool. Vale. Go! But he couldn't help looking one last time, breathing slowing so that it was deep and steady, and where the crazy man had been there was only one with sombre eyes and no way of really making up for his error. "You just look so much like him," he concluded, breathing the words out on an exhale so that they sounded particularly weary. The boy was trying to get around him, and he moved to clear the way, almost as if the youth was the dangerous one now, and owed undisturbed passage. The wind tugged at his clothing, his hair. Reminded him of the imminent cold and darkness and the fact that he was in ground he did not know well. Getting back would be a pain, and the bundle beneath his arm was bruising the unpadded contours of his ribcage on one side. Turning his back, he ploughed back the way he'd come at a grim march, wedging his free hand into the pocket of his coat, fingers curled to a fist because he was too full of tension for it not to bleed out into the way he carried himself, even into the rigid set of a spine more prone to sinuous dexterity. Bjorn was dead, and though it might still be a fresh wound, it was no excuse for his behaviour.
Leo Christos: This kid wasn't normal?or at least he wasn't as common as most of his kind that trampled about town, and nothing about his expression contained the vapidness the youth. Complex, confusing - he seemed innocent, at least through the silent language of facial expression, more innocent than a boy his age should've been, a little more naked and vulnerable dismissing his promising size, his teenhood; but at once, not innocent, not at all. All of it was new to him, yet it was old-hand at the same time; he walked in the borderline of a waking dream, ghost and flesh at once, lost but found and well-kept. Only knowing I've been here before or I must've done this before, his childhood pilfered by another man he barely even remembered at all. What was this? Had that other man known this one?was this one of the enemies that had buried him in that lonely backyard sprawl clotted by tall grass and unruly bushes? All that quietly caged emotion from the man - he didn't understand it, recognize what it was, or what it meant. What he did know was that his stomach twisted, for some reason he wasn't even close to pinpointing, and his mouth opened as he rounded to the other side, his path now unblocked - but he bit his tongue, remembering a fierce-taught caution, and refrained from whatever had slithered over the roof of his mouth to scatter over the lips. No matter what, he was still a youth - more than anyone'd ever realize - and even as he called out, he worried that he was stepping into a messy pile of shit. "Who are you?" It yielded Mesteno nothing; no answers, no hope (for after all, this was a teenage boy with kin apparently), but the mannerisms were strikingly similar when he hooked half of a hand in the front pocket of his pants, palm pressed in, and lifted his chin to pronounce the careful question. But with the man's back turned, that was so easily missed altogether and who needed such painful, strange reminders?
Mesteno: At that point, bitterly accepting his instability, the last thing he'd needed was for the youngster to call after him. Better if it had been something worded to see him off for good, a warning which might harden his resolve and make his mental self-flagellation all the more vicious. This was not an episode he wanted to repeat. He couldn't live without his wits intact, and they'd been proven lacking that evening. Bjorn, his friend, had never been a man easily helped, and Mesteno's inability to save him, at least in the end was not something he would ever accept. All this stupidity was guilt-induced, he decided, just as his attack on Jill had been at the tavern, when the viper's double crossing had seen him desperately seeking some form of retribution for the lion. He should have learned from that episode. He was never quite sane whilst guilt-stricken. Who are you? The boy's voice, and it was as effective as the cold metal of a bit reining in a horse, stalling his feet and half-turning him there, to look back and deliver him the blandest look he could summon. Still, how bland and disinteresting could a wolfish creature like him appear? Even dragged low and maudlin as he was, there was nothing easy to forget about him. His lips parted to show a gleam of teeth, a wry smile with eyes hooded somnolently. "Just a fool chasing ghosts," he confided, derision in his tone that was not meant for the boy. "Get inside, before y'lose y'toes to frostbite," he added, relieved that he'd managed to say that much without coming across as some lunatic. He was clawing his composure back, and was, deep down, thoroughly embarrassed, ashamed that he'd lost it in the first place.
Leo Christos: "A friend or enemy?" Inquired the scamp who, by then, had stolen several more feet of distance in case his questions were not as wisely measured and sheerly casual as he intended for them to be; mind you, this was utterly forbidden. Ghita would have howled at the moon, Evander would have smacked him upside the head so hard that it had his vision spinning for days, and Dianthe would have cried in her pillow for all the nervous moments spent had he confided this selfish inquiry and strange circumstance. Outsiders were forbidden to know, particularly one he may have seen in one of his visions, and for all he knew, he could have been courting a second death with... that other guy's murderer. But could they have truly blamed the youth and his brief flash of curiosity? This strange boy who'd been nothing more than a babe several months ago and still hadn't caught up to his peers in life experience, but had more muscle memory than someone twice their age? Or was this morbid, this one thing he asked - even as the bottoms of his chilly feet edged further away that said the moment was coming to an end, and indeed, he would sprint the last half-mile home to the waiting warmth of his brood.
Bronze Mesteno: This time he did not turn back, and the youth's interrogation tested his patience. His head dipped, chin tucked into the collar of his coat as he prowled away and the shafts appreciated now, for the wind barrier they provided him. "A man seekin' his enemy's ghosts would be a fool indeed. He's likely to get haunted if he finds him," he laughed breezily, a soft, thin sound which did not carry well. The boy... well he'd get swallowed up by Rhy'Din, and Mesteno would be unlikely to spot him again. That alone was a comfort. He angled his steps down the first alley he came to, not because he knew it, but because he wanted some respite. He wanted the youth's eyes gone from his back, a cessation to the questions. The sooner his voice was silenced the sooner he could concentrate on reconstructing his walls. Not easily done, but he was becoming something of an expert at picking up the pieces. A pity that they seemed to crumble more readily with each new knock.
Leo Christos: "Maybe it's wiser to leave buried things alone," was all the boy said, as if in agreement, because he was unsure if the man had declared himself an enemy or friend of his ghost. Who could even say, for absolute certain, that their ghosts were the same? Still, it was a hell of a strange thing to say, and the boy didn't stand around to keep the strained conversation going, instead walking backwards for several measures until he felt relaxed enough to swivel around. Gliding into a comfortable, youthful jog to eat up the last half-mile that separated him from his home, he glanced upward at the sky - scowled for the presumable hour that it was - and kicked up his speed to shorten whatever lecture may have awaited him at with his kinsmen for he was not habitually allowed to prowl the city alone after-dark, as rare as the privilege had been so far as it was. Leo reached the property soon enough, a spread with several plain, old houses scattered over several acres of land where the grass had been left to its own devices for too long.
