April 18th, 2011.

He'd settled amongst the flame blackened masonry littering the woodland of his home, piled like cairns, the sorry remnants of what had once been a grandiose old building. They were mossy now and half swallowed up, and their sharp edges were softened by this overgrowth, and the tangled vines which sought to crumble them into so much rubble. It did not discomfit him to recline against them, long, lean legs stretched out amidst last Autumn's leaf litter and the sun gilding the edges of the rich, plum leaves?forming the canopy overhead. The heat made him drowsy. The scent of rare, hot house flowers which should never have been able to flourish beneath the dappled gloom was intoxicatingly heady. It was a perfect recipe for slumber, and slumber he did, chin sunk towards his collarbones and vitals slowing to that near-death infrequency which was nothing short of alarming to watch. He dreamed then, though not of the haven surrounding him. Instead it was another familiar locale, hazed in fog, a world moon-silvered and still. There seemed to be no danger, here.

So the lounging sleeping beauty thought.? But really, there wasn't.? How could one consider a waifish thing like her something dangerous?? Half the time she walked around as if in her own world, sprouting riddles and drawing pictures in the air.? Others spent humming soft lullabies to those inky shadows that always seemed to follow.? It wasn't her fault that Trouble seemed to trip up at her feet around every corner; perhaps she should pay more attention.? She knew what would happen if she fell asleep.? He told her.? But there comes a point where you just can run from it anymore.? It'll catch up and knock you senseless.? And that's what happened to her, right there in that chair she had pulled so close to the window the tips of her bare toes touched it.? Curled in a ball of pale limb, black hair, and cotton, another exotic beauty fell into slumber and into the other's foggy memory.

Mesteno was no far-seer, darkness never seemed to impede his vision. He knew the ground under his feet, rocky beneath the thin turf, and fog thick as this only existed during the winter months, when every blade of grass was frost laced and rigid, crunching softly when stepped upon. He stepped, and found himself barefoot. He craned his neck to look overhead, and saw that beyond the mist, the night sky was clear of clouds. Two moons, stars which winked like diamonds, but the air did not burn in his lungs, cold and frigid as it should have, and the mist stroked his skin like ghosts or wisps or silk. He could not feel his weight as he should have, there was no substance to him - he might have been as transparent as the fog for all he knew, but a glance down assured him otherwise. A dream then, he decided, and waited for something, anything to happen.

Mesteno was going to be mad.? She was sure of it.? Looking back on their past encounters, they always ended with...some sort of strong emotion.? A conflict.? And threats.? She probably should learn not to test him because one of these times, he was bound to carry one out.? Aoife had no more ability to see or hear than he.? She lurked somewhere just behind the shadow statue of him in that silver blanket of mist.? Her feet were bare, just the same, and the frosted grass promised icy pinpricks of touch to the soles? and ankles of her feet.? So the girl with eyes the color of early morning mist said, "I was beginning to think that there was no place in your head where it didn't rain." That was awfully saucy of her.? She was starting off what was going to be a...trying conversation teetering on the edge of a cliff.

He responded sluggishly. She might have been speaking to someone else, for all the time it took him to turn around and notice her, and when he did his eyes possessed the languid quality of someone on the cusp of sleep. They held no malice for the intruding Dreamwalker, and here in his dreams they lacked the nocturnal gleam they seemed to exhibit in the waking world, as if he were unaware of it, or the knowledge did not translate into his mental projection of himself. "It doesn't like to rain here," he?replied absently, as if the weather choosing to restrain its downpour for somewhere else were perfectly natural. "There's nothing to see. We should go down." Down? The ground was so smothered in fog that the descent was all but invisible, but it was there, just a few feet away, steep and unkind to un toughened soles, but easily navigable. Quietly, and with the slowness he might apply whilst wary of spooking a wild animal, he lifted a hand to offer it to Aoife. The veins showing prominently in his wrist were black, branching like tree limbs, but he didn't seem to regard this with anything but resignation. "Don't be scared."

Through the curtain of mist she couldn't make out his face, just the hand that hovered there, waiting her decision.? The world around them seemed silenced, as if it had snowed.? Sounds were muffled.? It was too quiet.? Hesitation always pulled at her heels and even in the Dreaming, where she had control, it was no different.? But she didn't have control.? Not anymore.? And like a memory from another world, something familiar that lingered in the background, she reached through the thickness and gave him her hand.? Her touch was cool, like the clear waters hidden deep in the oasis tucked away from seeking eyes.? "Do the stars fall for you?"? She should have asked what was at the bottom of down.

Strange he thought, that her hand felt cold. Why did nothing else? He could feel the pressure of its weight too, and closed his fingers around it clumsily. The fog ahead of them churned like a storm-tossed sea, and he pulled her after him and into them. Descending into them was to relinquish sight, only what was immediately ahead visible, and the world became disorienting. The ground skipped beneath their feet, not to dislodge or tumble them, but neatly repositioning them on the slope from one plateau to?the next. Rocks skittered out of their way as if bare feet had kicked them, and went echoing down in loud click-clacks only to be silenced further ahead. Sounds half remembered, or too muffled for him to dream their ends. "Why would they fall, Aoife?" he asked her. "Do you want them to? I could try and dream it for you, but things might change. It's safe here." He seemed so sure.

She had to trust him not to pull them off a cliff.? The sounds that weren't all sounds disappeared into nothing.? Her fingers curled tighter within his as he tugged her along.? "No.? They did once.? I like them where they are now."? She reached away from her body with her other hand, fingers splayed to seek anything that may gift her with a clue as to where they were going.? She looked at him, studied those sharp features through the moonlight and mist.? "We need safe." I have something to tell you, was lost in translation.? Distraction proved to be her weakness, let?s hope he kept it at bay.

He'd always resented her presence there, always brandished his voice like a whip in demand of explanations, or to give threat. But he knew this place, and her presence would not prevent him getting to where he wanted. Why not take her with him? Why not share that 'someplace good' with her, and prove it was not all memory made nightmare? "Me too," he agreed, and at last they reached smoother ground, only the slightest slope, and the mist thinning, peeling away to unveil what it concealed. Ahead of them, vast and unutterably beautiful, a lake lay still and reflective as a mirror. Not a ripple touched its surface, and though the stars remained firmly pinned in the dreamscape above their heads, there shining on the water, they seemed close enough to pluck free and close tight in a palm. On either side, the rocky shore gave way to tall, undefined trees, stately silhouettes where the mist still clung like spectral forms. It was a world cast in argent monochrome, and he sighed, letting go of Aoife's hand to?stand near the water's edge. Everything seemed strangely ethereal, as if they'd stepped into the spirit world, and perhaps he forgot her then, because he looked out over it as if he'd happily stare forever.

Indeed the visage before her was beautiful.? It reminded her of something.? Someplace else that she knew once before.? She let him go ahead and chose to linger in the background, maybe to fade should she need it.? Seeing him like this, gave her pause to be the bearer of bad news.? So instead, "This place.? It means something to you."? No more a question than a statement.? Restless fingers toyed with the hem of her loose shirt sleeves? She couldn't stop watching him and that made her...unsure.? Perhaps if she kept him talking it would lessen the blow.? Beneath her feet, the rocks were smooth which didn't seem possible as the lake remained so still.? So what softened the edges?

He wondered whether he would feel the cold if he stepped into the water, but it was too perfect to disturb. Any ripple might crack it like a pane of glass, spoil the remembering. He breathed in, but the usual scents of ever-green and water were absent. He could smell nothing. Feel no intake of crisp air. It lacked sorely. The beauty was shallow without it, and he frowned, oh so faintly before turning to regard her over a shoulder, profile limned in the light reflected off the lake. "Didn't someone take it?" he asked her, rather than answer her question. "I wanted to find him and ask him how, because then you might not be here. But you are." His feet made no noise as he turned, voice subdued in that way of a man unsure, trying to remember what he couldn't. "Is this all right? Are you scared?" There was no logic to the order of his questions. His attention wandered with the passing of a single pale, firefly.

Her lips parted as if she was going to answer, but the words fell as silent as the scene before them.? She was watching him.? Carefully.? The moons spilled silver threads through the darkness of her hair giving her just as much ethereal appearance as their surroundings.? He was dreaming, but she was real.? And he remembered a conversation they once had, but his reaction wasn't this...it just wasn't like this.? "I am."

She was too real. In her he saw the detail which everything else lacked, as if a photograph had been inserted into a whimsical watercolour piece with a complete lack of subtlety. He leaned back carefully against the edge of a boulder, the contours of which were prone to change, amorphous as a cloud, but they held his weight, somehow. Her response made him gesture eloquently, palms up, shoulders shrugging. He'd no means by which to hurt her, and lucid of the fact that he dreamed, surely he could keep it that way. "Nothing bad happens here," he repeated, and wondered why he cared enough to reassure. "What is there to be scared of?" Though no sooner had he asked than he realized that it was a particularly stupid question. He remained quiet and expectant.

"No."? She read his expression as it was and shook her head to reassure him that what he thought wasn't all that true.? She finally shifted her attention from him to the glassy surface of the lake.? Like his, her feet made no noise when she walked even though smaller rocks shifted with her weight when she passed.? She paused at the water's edge and crouched down to balance on the balls of her feet just inches from the crystal edge.? "I'm afraid he'll keep it."? A silly thing to be afraid of a burden wasn't it?? Old scars throbbed with buried memories of amber liquid, shiny silver, and a Swan's song which cried tears of red.? Without pulling up her sleeve, she reached with an index finger to touch the water.?

"Is that so bad?" he asked, watching her move as if spellbound, as if she were more lovely than the valley he'd brought her down into. He didn't realize what she intended until she reached, and his warning came too late. No ripples, but yes, there was the crack. Not like he'd expected though. Instead of shattered glass, it spread in fine, spider-web lines as if she'd cracked a film of ice. It ran in so many directions it resembled filigree, and the stars vanished from the surface as if they'd been lights?callously flicked out at the touch of a switch. He didn't think to look up and see if they remained in the sky. "Why would you want to walk into people's heads? Dream their dreams? This is my dream." He gestured to the lake, cracks still spreading, broadening, with the loud echoing noises of a glacier shifting. "You spoiled my water," he added, pointlessly.

"Nothing bad happens here."? She echoed his words at him, her voice nothing more than a murmur.? She stood then and remained where she was watching the spider's web spread across the once glistening surface with a muted fascination.? "That's not what he took."? Pale fingers curled up into her palms to sing them a song.? Her lips curled into a odd smile though he wouldn't see it.? Her head tipped to the side as she followed a particular crack with her eyes.? "Every time you dream....I'll be there."

He felt a stab of panic at that. She'd seen too much already. Seen Vincent. Seen the Field. Seen Samiel bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. He leaned there slack-limbed against his boulder and tried to absorb it, though his sleeping mind could not wholly contemplate the consequences. Only process the wrongness, the intensity with which he wanted to deny the truth of her words! Out beneath Sanctuary's trees, he groaned in his slumber. "No," he told her, as if he could somehow refuse her. "That's not right. No." Had he been awake, he might have been able to assault her with questions. How was it possible? Surely they would not always be asleep at the same time. Surely he would not always dream!

"And I can't stop it.? Any of it."? She stepped away from the shattered reflection of the water and turned to walk along the shore closer to his resting spot, shifting her attention from the water to the sky above.? The stars still winked in the blackness that blanketed the dream to its hazy edges.? She ought to pay more attention.? "Every time."

I can't sleep, he realized, fumbling through thought, though he didn't share it with her. He just watched her, unaware of the mute appeal in his eyes that begged no, don't do this, as if she were the one at fault. Instead he only groaned, sank down against the stone in a way that ought to have dragged at every heavy ring in his spine, but did not because his dreaming mind had not imagined such detail there, and the rock was only lumpy, instead of rough and craggy. "Who is he? Where is he?" He asked from behind his palms, voice unmuffled as if they weren't there against his lips at all. The black veins in the back of his hands looked like polluted rivers, ugly under dark skin.

Silent steps in a silent world and she was crouching down before him.? With a boldness that she had only in the Dreaming, she reached for one of his hands with gentle fingers and pulled it close to examine the dark lines there.? "He's anywhere all the time."? More riddles and nonsense.? She tipped her head, leaned over, angled his hand in the moon light like she had a right to do it.? "Why?"? She was asking about his hands, but how would he know that?

It sounded like the kind of nonsense answer he might dream someone saying, and for a moment he prayed that this wasn't her. That he'd actually dreamed her for once instead, and that it really was a nightmare. The solidity of her hand persuaded him otherwise. A safe place in ruins. She'd ruined it. Bad things would happen wherever she wandered. "Need to kill him," he spat venomously. "It'll come back then. God." in her grasp, he watched the flesh slough away from his fingers, and he snatched his hand back to curl in against him as if embarrassed by it. He felt no pain, not even the wetness as putrefying veins spilled their oily dark contents to bleed him out on the rocks.

"That's you.? Why does it do that?"? It wasn't her.? She had no abilities save for the one dumping her in his head every time he dreamed, and even that was controlled by someone else.? She didn't move either, but studied his hand and alternately the look on his face.? If he expected her to object to him killing Fairweather, he'd be disappointed.? She curled her own fingers over her knees and persisted in invading his personal space inches too deep with eyes that would not give up.

Would she still remain close, even when he reached out and closed that terrible, rotted hand about her wrist? So very like the way Judah had decayed all over her when his corpse had first come calling. "Because I need my hands. I need them...they're always the first to go." Seething turned to mania, and he laughed at the spectacle, at the maddening, inescapable message she'd brought to him. "It likes me to be useless, vulnerable," he told her, when his chuckling subsided, though he didn't say what, and did not let go of her wrist. He remained as surely fastened as an anchor to the ocean floor, and then slipped into odd silence, peering back out over the lake. The cracks had stopped spreading, the ice latticed as far as the eye could see, and the rot seemed to ebb and crawl no further with his distraction. Perhaps looking away had been purposeful. "I need to find him, Aoife. Can you take me there?"

When he grabbed her wrist there was much more on the surface.? Perhaps the rotting also gave way to the loss of sensation of ridges there.? They tracked further up and up, up that arm.? It set her off balance and she reached out with her other hand to stay herself on the ground so she didn't fall into his lap.? She twisted her arm in his hand, palm facing her and fingers curling in. She remembered the first time when Bishop came, perhaps it was her dance with madness that made her stumble over that. "If I call him...I have to...give him something."? He said nothing bad happened here.? Nothing bad.

It never had. Not in memory and he had trusted that somehow, the lack of misdeed would have protected them from anything else. He had not expected his own nature, his own subconscious to sabotage what should have been somewhere perfectly serene. "Then you should," he informed her bluntly. "Call him and give him whatever he wants, do whatever he wants, but let me be there and I'll kill him. I'll do it." He'd have killed her, too, once upon a time, but Bjorn's words had been all he needed to divert him from that particular path. He'd no particular revulsion at the notion of killing a guilty man. Gender, in some cases, made the difference.

She stared at him, more like his profile as he stared across the cracked surface of the once beautiful lake.? He didn't know what Fairweather wanted.? She twisted her wrist again, a subtle movement within his fingers.? "Your hands.? Do they mean that much?"? Perhaps there was a way to do as he asked without payment.? She needed to think.? She needed time,? but right now, she was there with him until he woke up.? "It's just a dream.? It has no purpose but to feed off you."

The flex of her wrist saw him release her, the vile talons his fingers had become - bone protruding beneath the slick, black rot - vanishing beneath folded arms, "There was a bullet once," he recalled, "and then the English came and one of them took my fingers." It was more nonsense talk, surely, for his hands were whole and hale back in the waking world. Long and lean and deft, albeit with their share of scars from bare knuckle brawling. "Mikhail put them back, you see?" he asked her, and when he uncovered his hand to wave it before her face, there was no rot. The flesh was unblemished, as if mere thought of their repair had healed them. "I can't play if I don't have them. When will you take me?" His eyes were back on hers.?

When he released her, fingers sought the hems of her sleeves and tugged them into the cradle of her fists which she tucked between her body and legs in her crouch.? "Anytime.? He'll come if I call."? Of course he would, expecting payment in full for everything no doubt.? "So you can play...." An afterthought spoken out loud with the what? dangling silently.? Again, she was caught up in his eyes.? Such an unusual color even in this world which took colors and rearranged them as it saw fit.? But these were his eyes and they hadn't changed...not entirely.? "Mikhail fixes everything for you?"? Names had power and this one unsettled her.

"Not here," he told her brusquely. "I can't function here. Outside, where it's real." There wasn't a chance in hell that he'd let her call this Fairweather into his dreams. It was bad enough that SHE was in his head! His hand dropped, touched down on grass which didn't feel like grass, as if the ends of his fingers had been numbed by leprosy. "Mikhail, the White Death," he mumbled when she asked, and though he spoke the name with no particular dread, it was not a title earned without cause. "Don't ask?questions here, it's not fair. I don't know what I'm saying." He added softly, shaking his head. If she thought his eyes were odd, she ought to have seen her own!

The eyes are the window to the soul, they say.? Don't look too close, Sadist.? "You're asking me to be fair?" The statement he made seemed to amuse her in a twisted way that only she would understand.? Her smile was faint, slightly unbelievable.? "I wouldn't ask him here.? He has everything.? On the other side he is ...weaker."? And then..."You function as your mind sees fit here.? You just have to...believe it."? And then she stood.

Her smiles always captivated him, not in the dreamy way an admirer might be entranced, but in the helplessly curious manner a cat might watch something climbing a pane of glass on its opposite side, unreachable by patting paw. "How did he take it, Aoife?" He asked her, wondering whether he'd remember when he woke. His dreams had faded quickly, once upon a time, but of late, those she invaded tended to remain, or at least the impression of the emotions he felt did. "Why? How did he find you? How did he even know?" It wasn't as if she advertised her abilities, after all.

"He reached and took." She almost flinched.? Almost.? Her smile faded quickly and she stepped away from him, away from the shattered surface of the lake.? Almost an instinct, her arms lifted to cross over her chest.? She was walked towards the shelter of those trees.? "He used to work for...someone.? Her lackey.? She was Fae.? She knew."? Mind you now, this was all past tense.

"Fae," he repeated the world with only a mild version of the groan he'd have let slip in reality. If Sam found out, it would only rile him. "Of course...But you won't say her name, and that's good. No better than saying his name." Kymeera. What fun the freakish fae would have in a dream like this! the trees seemed to move away from her as she walked, the barren stretch of shore they'd reached extending onward unreasonably. Mesteno moved to follow, but his legs were awkward as a colt's and he peered down at them with unveiled indignation. It was then it happened, the dream shimmering like the mouth of a visible rift, engulfed in a sudden flash of silver and then...gone. The slobbery tongue dragging against one cheek was sufficiently disgusting to have woken him. Bear, the enormous brute of a dog (who lived up to his name rather admirably) looked entirely too pleased with himself, despite his owner being sat bolt upright, wide eyed and startled.

Her next step carried her through the ground with a start until it swallowed her whole in a swath of darkness. She dropped into herself with the same kind of start the Sadist across down had.? So much that she straightened her legs and pushed off the window, upsetting the gray cat who dozed on the arm of that chair into jumping off.? This wakening only had her leaning forward to grab her head with her hands, balancing elbows on knees.? What did she just agree too?

April 30th, 2011.

It was nothing but a building. Abandoned and lonely, forgotten somewhere in the West End. A thick layer of dust and grime layered the windows from the inside, sea spray and debris carried in by the wind crusted over the outside. Boards had been nailed crudely across the two entrances. It was the perfect place. The sun had begun it's descent into the waters leaving the moons to watch over through the pitch of blackness that would be night. No one would notice the girl who always wandered climbing up sacked crates left in shadows to get through a broken window. Be careful, the glass was sharp.

Rest, she'd told him, and so he had. He'd taken what reprieve he could from her visitations and wiled away hours in slumber recuperating from the lack of it. He'd fed, in that unconventional way he had, charging what innate ability he possessed until he felt it crawling through him like cold tar, ready to bleed out with the slightest provocation. With the building in sight, the svelte figure limned in failing light entering surreptitiously via a window ahead of him, he quickened his pace to catch up, a palm resting lightly atop the battered scabbard hanging from the broad belt spanning his hips. He'd not come unarmed, and the sword seated in it was as thirsty as he, though for now it rested dormant and inconspicuous. He'd passed this building a dozen times before, never wondering what was inside it, but he was about to find out, clambering over glass shards which splintered further beneath the heavy tread of his boots. He landed light as a cat on both feet, eyes adjusting swiftly to the gloom.

The inside was as forgotten as the out. Shipping crates were stacked all around, looming like towers in the fractured light that broke through the dirty glass. There was no order to the chaos that had blown up inside. Oil drums were scattered all around, it wouldn't be wise to open them. News papers, old clothing, trash, the empty space had been used by many. Small things alike scurried into recessed corners and the darkness that lurked there, frightened by the unwanted company. The Dreamwalker had only arrived minutes before the Sadist, but she too was already lost somewhere between the here and now. She told him to keep to himself until he heard voices. Voices, not song. And somewhere coming from deep within the belly of the space, "Smile though your heart is aching Smile even though it's breaking. When there are clouds in the sky you'll get by...

There was a crackle of wood given over to dry rot and stressed beyond bearing, somewhere up in the high ruined towers built long ago to gods of commerce. There was a crunch, and a tumble of boards and splinters and rusted nails come crashing down. And then there was a voice--hark, Mesteno, listen well: "Aoife Duggan," it growled from up within the peaks of abandonment. ?Even I didn't think you were so stupid as this." That voice, it rang and rattled off the jagged windowpanes, resounded off the walls. It was everywhere, and little Aoife was so small, wasn't she? "How dare you?"

Adrenaline spiked, muscles taut with energy just waiting to be expended in violence, but he didn't approach. Instead he made like the small, skulking things which kept to the gloom, using the old oil drums to cover his approach, stepping delicately over splintered crates, rotten and treacherous, eagerly lying in wait to give him away. Softly softly, his approach, breath taken slow and shallow, expression grim and hungry. He wanted to see this man with the growling voice, take his measure before he went charging in to make a mess. Aoife would just have to entertain herself without his charming company for a few moments.

"How dare you?" There was another crunch, and a long gray shadow shifting in the gloom above--a man, straightening up at the top of a wobbling tower of wood. Tall, lean, hands spread to catch his balance--that was all that was visible. "I would have given you anything," the man spat, his accent rolling the vowels in his mouth, "and you destroyed the only thing I had left."

A splinter crack from above cut the song short. She never had to sing but a few lines before he came. And tonight, he came with...purpose. Somewhere else, those boards and nails clattered and landed, disrupting a cloud of dust and sending critters scurrying. His voice was coming from every which way causing the shadows to shift and wither, flicker with uncertainly. She ran her fingers across and through one, around the side of a tower just over there. "I asked you if I could do anything. You said yes." She did have the audacity to throw that in his face, though her game of hide and seek was sure to end shortly.

"I thought you'd meant to change it, walker. Not unmake it." The figure took a step forward. Boards creaked, moaned, and ultimately gave beneath him, coming apart in a shower of pieces and choking dust, the detritus of a business that was important to someone, once. He disappeared from sight, riding the collapse down into the deeper darkness in the corner of the big metal-framed space. There was another crash, a clang, and silence.

The rising dust threatened to choke him, but he held his breath against it, narrowed his eyes so that the airborne motes clung to the darkness of his eyelashes, instead of blinding him in grittiness. Aoife had not told him the full story, he knew that, but there had been no opportunity with Bishop present, and every moment since he'd been too full of bitterness towards her to care what she'd done to earn this man's fury. He began to move again, heading to where he'd last caught Aoife's voice, but he did not trust in sound alone, not in a building so large and echoey, where every murmur seemed to throw back a chorus of sibilant whispers. He touched tentatively outward for energy instead, to taste it on the air like a snake searching for heat, and closed the gap between them, thumb pushing against the edge of the scabbard to loosen the metal housed within it by a fraction of an inch.

Energy Mesteno would find for hers was throbbing with life, a pulse that beat with each flutter of her heart. A deal was a deal, signed with a words and a promise binding them until the twenty-four hours was up. There was precious time left in those hours. "That place was evil. I'm not sorry for it." She ghosted across a narrow passage between rows, circling towards the middle where there was unused space waiting to be filled. "Remember your words carefully."

"My words," Fairweather said from--her left, maybe-- "were that I would not hurt you that night. That time has passed, oh yes, passed and gone." Anguish in the words, a spray of vitriol and fury. "I'll do a damn sight more than hurt you, and he will know who was behind it when he finds what's left of you--perhaps he'll take up the mantle then, won't he--" And he pounced on her, leaping like a cat after a sweet-singing bird, his hands outstretched and murder in his lifeless eyes.

He was too far away to make use of his sword, but he could see them both, and see the tools he needed to intercede. The warehouse, as warehouses tended to be, was full of shadow just waiting to be wielded, and with the barest, unnecessary drift of fingers, he sent them curling up like smoke off the ground, dense and thick, to topple one of the crates towering at the edge of the open space Aoife had wandered into. It didn't just fall though, it came crashing down at an angle as if swatted by some great hand, on target to collide with the pouncing man. Mesteno wasn't far behind, fleet of foot and what little light did creep in through the broken windows, flashing along the notched edge of the aged scimitar he'd unsheathed. He didn't waste energy on senseless battle cries, nor on trying to muffle his footfalls. The noise from the crate should suffice to distract from that!

Memories and choices were hers forever to keep and perhaps she's crossed the line this time destroying what pieces of his he had left. Somewhere she may have felt regret for that, but that dissolved into mist with his words and scattered with the flash of his angry hands. Then a crate fell from somewhere above them. But she'd already been caught off balance, throwing herself back into the nearest, narrow opening to avoid all of it. On the way she managed to snag the bottom of her shirt on a corner tearing it as she went down on her hands and knees, jarring her teeth to chatter and losing precious seconds.

The crate hit his shoulder and rebounded, tearing a gash in the coat he wore and leaving an angry red weal along his shoulder and back. It knocked him off-balance, sent him plunging through the gap atop her. He had not realized that they were not alone, not yet. He was too busy giving vent to the red rage that filled his head, and he went down swinging at her.

He swore softly beneath his breath - he'd only succeeded in hastening him after Aoife, which hadn't been the intention at all! Bounding past the crumpled remains of the crate he rushed the gap they'd tumbled through, scimitar at the ready, but he couldn't swing. Not when Aoife might well end up run through should he reach too far. As little like as he had for her, he might not have been too appalled at that outcome, but he wouldn't, couldn't intentionally hurt her if he knew it could be avoided. "Get off her!" he ordered as he came within range.

The last thing anyone would want was to be caught on their hands and knees before someone like him. When he came tearing through that space above her, she'd already started to scramble away, clawing for space to find her legs beneath her. But, the floor was layered with grime from ages of neglect and her hands slipped and she went a little splat! when he caught her with an elbow to the small of her back. Immediately she tried to get up again, somewhere far off registering the voice that came from somewhere behind their tangle of body and limb.

Her shirt tore under the weight of his hands and his snarling invective; he clawed at her skin, reaching for her hair, intending to force her down and bite, rip, tear-- then the other voice registered, and he whirled in a half-crouch, his borrowed face--long, scarred, livid with anger--twisting in fresh understanding. "I will suck the marrow from your bones!" he howled at the retreating half-Fae, and flung himself at Mesteno.

An unwise move, to barrel in like that when there was an unhinged looking wolf of a man bearing down on him! The gap left little room to swing effectively, so he thrust instead, the blade's point aimed directly for the snarling man's heart. A moment before the tip should have met flesh, the flat of the battered blade changed subtly. Old runes, time-worn to near invisibility shimmered faintly in the steel. If that point met flesh, an its target susceptible to the spells beaten into the weapon, an ordinary wound was going to end up infected and rot touched, cold and far more painful than it would have been normally.

In those few moments they had together on the dirt layered floor, Fairweather managed to tear her shirt from hem to neck up the center of her back sending the light fabric fluttering over her arms like damaged wings. The claws that curled off the ends of his fingers caused several welt-like scratches to the pale skin that shone like ivory in the moonlight. When his weight lifted, she fell off balance into a crate and used it to find her legs, weak and unsure like a newborn colt. In those shadows that draped down like blankets, she pressed herself against the support and looked towards the narrow opening. Her shadows were not here. They wailed outside, pressing against the walls so that the entire building creaked in reply.

He twisted at the sight of the blade, dodging to evade it in a flicker of motion so fast it could hardly be seen in the ill-lit room; but they were too close to one another, and the space too narrow. The blade buried itself in his shoulder, scraping along his collarbone, exiting his back above his shoulder blade. The edges of the wound shivered back from the force of the spells, turned black and foul at once, and the blood that poured forth was viscous, thickening with ice and horror. It did not stop him. It did not even slow him down appreciably. He forced his way up the length of the blade and swung a fist like a hammer at the side of Mesteno's head.

There was no space to manoeuvre, no space to avoid the fist that came swinging. He'd barely had time to wrench the sword loose, grating from beneath the bone when the fist struck, slamming into his temple and knocking him sideways in an uncontrolled stagger. The blade went grating against the filth coating the concrete floor, sent sparks arcing blue-white, but played prop to his weight, keeping him from an outright tumble. The man hit like a truck, and counted himself lucky he'd been clobbered enough times to avoid being knocked senseless by it. He turned sharply, ready to face down a charge.

Fairweather's left arm rolled with the wrench of the blade and hung inert afterward, wretched and useless. He pivoted as soon as Mesteno caromed away and went after Aoife again as if the thrust and response had not happened, panting out curses as he went in a language that was assuredly not accustomed to a human throat.

The blade stared at her from Fairweather's back, the tip winked in a piece of stowaway light. Enough of a greeting to have her rolling onto a shoulder to disappear around the corner. It would always give her away though, that smell she left behind. Richly sweet and warm, it promised to satiate. The tiniest of beads of crimson had welled and seeped into the wood where she once was and assured that there was more. She went blindly into another narrow passage, nearly missing the coiled pile of rope draped across the path.

Sure of his footing once more, Mesteno darted after Fairweather. He seemed to be no more cautious than before tasting the strength of his arm - if anything it had served as a promise. Challenge. With Aoife's path a winding one allowing no full pelt sprints, he resorted to the shadows again to stall the man he chased, this time stirring around his feet, thick as treacle to keep him from catching the girl, try and force him to deal with the threat from behind. Aoife's blood was too tempting a scent with so little spilled. For there to be more of it might prove to be a monumental disaster.

There was no charge. Fairweather turned and disappeared down a side passage, bounding after Aoife on long legs. "I will have you," he coughed out, and staggered once as his arm caught the edge of a crate with its pointless pendulum swing. "One way or another." He overlaid the trail of her blood with his own, flowing freely down his chest and back from the rent in his shoulder. It didn't smell human, either, even without the rich stink of rot spelled into it. The shadows caught him just as he reached for the flapping edge of her shirt, the beads of blood dancing down her skin; caught him and staggered him, so that he roared out a fresh fury and turned about to deal with this thing, this insect, that was between himself and his goal.

She was no warrior. She didn't know that luring Fairweather deeper into the narrow tunnels and passageways wasn't helping. She'd lost her shoes somewhere, sure that bare feet would hide her retreat deeper into the nest. Though really all she was doing was circling around towards the other side. With one hand clutching her shirt to her chest, she paused near a large opening leading to the open heart of the building. Their sounds were muffled somewhere behind her, shuffling boots and mumbled curses. Maybe they were far enough in that she could dart across that emptiness to the other side. Hesitation always a constant partner, she looked over the curve of a partially covered shoulder before taking a step out.

This time he'd more space, and with Fairweather turned towards him and exposing the broad target of his front, he'd no need to refrain from swinging. Teeth bared in a feral snarl, lips curled back and eyes molten gold in their fury, the blade came arcing down to try and slice him open shoulder to hip. He owed Fairweather for that fist in the face, the result of which was a fast developing, purpled bruise, bone throbbing and the flesh around his eye beginning to swell as if to close up his vision. He'd no idea where Aoife had got to. Could barely taste her, scent her anymore over the stink coming from Fairweather's putrefying wound.

It was a good swing, with the weight of the Sadist's anger behind it, and it did exactly as it was intended to do. Fairweather's puppet was opened up from gizzard to gonads, spilling out a hot rush of befouled bowels and blood before dropping to his knees, eyes and mouth wide with the impossibility of it all.

Of course, at the last possible second she changed her mind and decided to stay just to the inside of that wide opening. There was no rush to her bare footed steps, denim whispered quietly in her wake. She strained to hear, any hint of where they might be, what the outcome was. It was too quiet though, just shuffling some where in the thickness that could have been anything. The welts in her skin had risen, burning angrily, marring the paleness of her back. Deeper shades trickled like sanguine streams.

"F****** piece'a s***," he muttered, back-stepping only to avoid the seep of fluids which tracked towards the toes of his boots - or perhaps to give himself the room he needed to kick out violently with one foot at Fairweather's face where he knelt. Gutting a man wasn't enough. Not when there was a gaping mouthful of teeth just begging to be cracked with a heel, splinter inwards and add to the gore. There was no evident revulsion for it, not even any pleasure in what he'd done. Too quick, too kind. And he'd led him on a merry chase through the stacked crates, though that was as much due to Aoife's fleeing. Speaking of... He flicked a wary look around for the Dreamwalker. Where had the little troublemaker gone trotting off to?

His boot crunched against the man's face, and it was precisely the distraction that the puppetmaster needed. Icily slick, chitinous legs speared downward at Mesteno as the giant spider dropped from somewhere between the ceiling and the no-space between spaces that was the Dreaming, onto him.

Why she never did it on purpose! It always seemed to find her and wanted to keep her as a steady playmate. She hesitated near a pathway where the shifting was closest, surely whatever down there was too large to be one of the critters that haunted the dark. With a hand on the crate, she rounded the corner slowly, squinting into the shadows that swelled between the sides and obstructed her view into hazy shapes that undulated like black flames.

He'd never thought to look up. Not when his enemy had been clear as day on the ground. Nothing had come lunging down earlier to assist him, nothing had ambushed Aoife as she fled.. it'd seemed so safe! One moment he was upright, already ignoring the corpse as he searched the evening gloom for Aoife, the next he keeled over backwards under the weight of the arachnid descending from, apparently, nowhere! The back of his head struck filth-padded concrete, the impact enough to stun him, vision blurring, blackening. He might have sunk into it had it not been for the tips of those chitinous legs spearing through his upper arms, another through the meat of his right thigh. The pain was bright and fresh and red. It throbbed through him in pulses which stole his voice, tightened his throat against the furious, pained cry he wanted to loose. His sword went skittering away amongst the crates.

It pulsed over him, blue-black, reflecting more light back at the room than the windows had to give; as if unseen suns shed their light upon it. Black jaws clacked together beneath fangs dripping smoking hate. And words spilled out of that maw, words in Common that shouldn't have made sense: "mine," the thing said, "it was mine and you killed it make another out of you wear you like a skin new puppet"

Needless to say, it was not an idea which appealed to him. Even prone beneath it's clacking jaws, pierced and bleeding (he could feel the blood gathering warm beneath him) he refused to just lay there and meekly accept the spider's intentions. His arms were weak, muscles uncooperative where they were skewered, but there was a sleek, black leg close enough to a fumbling hand for him to grasp it. "Not a f*****' chance," he spat, growling the words out. The bug wouldn't like what came then. All the energy he'd bled off the unsuspecting public on his way to the warehouse came flaring out through his fingers, a rush of entropy far more potent than the spells hammered into the blade. If it didn't get loose of him fast, that decay was going to lance right up through the captive limb and into the armoured body, eating it from the inside out.

She'd heard the noise, someone going down, the tell-tale sounds of a head kissing concrete, and metal as it skittered off and thwamped into wood. She had no way of knowing who it was. She took a step into that pathway and leaned, fingers leaving the comfort of the crate she'd been using as cover. And then it spoke, something that clearly wasn't human and wasn't Mesteno. She reached for that crate again and started to retreat to circle back around toward where that other sound had been generated. A sword? A knife? And then someone had to go and throw out magic, causing her to let loose a hiss of breath as her skin started to crawl.

When the thing screamed at him it was louder than any sound should have been, a jet-engine shriek that blasted at eardrums and shivered the glass. The needle points of the other two legs had already been withdrawn, but the last one--the one that had buried itself into the sweet meat of his upper right arm--that one was rotted off in an instant, leaving behind a glistening ragged stump. The horse-sized monster skittered backward, moving with surprising delicacy despite the pendulous bulk of its body.

The pain of having those spearing limbs pull free of him was worse than the initial impalement. Blood spurted where damaged blood vessels abruptly lacked pressure to keep them from flowing, and he raised his own voice in a howl of agony, though it was drowned beneath the spider's screaming, and he couldn't even hear what came spilling from his throat, he was so deafened by the noise. Spiders. Why was there a God damned spider!? His body wouldn't cooperate, too many wounds, too much blood loss. Where was his damn sword? Not nearly close enough. He couldn't even properly fumble for the grip of the knife at his hip, fingers slippery with rot from the thing's leg. He was not retreating though. Too furious. Too fuelled by a need for revenge, he was trying to gather himself up, get his feet beneath him in the slippery mess to go after it.

That scream, that scream was nothing human nor animal but something horrible in-between. It was the kind of sound that that you never forget no matter how many beautiful things you hear afterwards. She slapped her hands over her ears and crouched down against a crate, the tattered shirt slid off her shoulders, lop sided, and half way down her upper arms. She cringed and snatched the fabric back with a hand and started to creep once more towards that area where she'd heard metal sliding. Mesteno may have caught a glimpse of dark hair and pale skin when she passed through an opening and into another.

It danced back from him, all stilt-legged grace, legs tick-tapping like a ballerina's as it moved on the seven remaining. The rotting foreleg twitched and jerked spasmodically as it moved. "eat you" it hissed at him and bent, intending to sink its foot-long fangs into whatever part of Mesteno's body happened to be nearest and available.

Aoife's approach was lost to him. His vision was already skipping, flaring and fading again like poor reception on a staticy old TV. He could see nothing but the horse sized monstrosity. It seemed to fill the world, become it so that there was nothing else. One foot found purchase, unwounded, but the opposite leg was too maimed. The agony buzzed in it like a hornet's nest, and when he dragged it beneath him, his foot turned numbly in the blood slicking the floor. The dagger finally came loose to be wielded inexpertly, but it could not fend off those jaws. Teeth closed over a shoulder, locked beneath bone the way his sword had in the man he'd killed earlier, sinking in one side and out the other. Insubordinate to the end, he drove the dagger upwards, just behind its jaws. Eight inches of steel - not enough to kill, but perhaps to get it to let go with its teeth.

And there it was, a dull glimmer of silver and black, half hidden by the crate which it had partially slid under. She reached for it with her hands, abandoning the dignity of her shirt, and slid it out. The darkness of the energy that lived in that metal travelled up her arms and centered itself in the heart of her chest, stole her breath, and set her back a step when she stood. She was a waifish thing, but it was light enough for her to lift up and straight out once she remembered to breathe. She saw it's legs then, a skitter-patter of sharp points and several joints. Where ever it came from, confidence pushed her forward with the point of that weapon as her guide. Not a sound yet from our little Dreamwalker but surely a sight to be seen, black eyes rimmed with silver at the edges, torn shirt hanging off one shoulder and lopsided on the other and the quiet hiss of the blade as it sliced through the air and into however many arachnid legs were available.

Its chelicerae jerked backward when the knife struck home, pulling free of Mesteno's flesh to spring wide and trembling, revealing that endless gullet. There was a glint of ichor-coated steel, and its scream was half gargled. And then Aoife chopped into its back half. Its abdomen shuddered, and it tried to back away from them; but its jaws were pinned by the knife stuck through them, and it couldn't get free.

He fell from its mouth limply, almost as boneless as a rag doll with legs tucked beneath him and spine curled to leave him hunched over his thighs. "In tartaro ardebis," he hissed, spittle blood tinged where it flecked his lips. "Paratus sum." Latin, a sure sign he was slipping when he forgot to use the common tongue. He bled so heavily that it matted his hair in a wet curtain to his back, left him light headed and reeling, unable to...no, that wasn't the blood loss. He felt panic shudder through him a moment before things began to numb. He stared up into the blade locked maw, incredulous, and just in time to see Aoife hack into the arachnid with his blade. He tried to rise. He tried to move to do anything, but couldn't. Instead his limbs became leaden as the toxin crawled through him, turned his muscles to water. Then, he tumbled over backwards in a filthy heap.

The blade sagged slightly, but she hefted it up again, inching around to put herself between Mesteno and the thing, Maybe it was her sensitivity to the energy that pulsed in her hands, maybe some sort of door was opened on their last lucid trip into the Dreaming. No matter, she didn't stutter, didn't shake, didn't curl into a ball and hide, not even when she stepped into the warm pool of blood and braced a foot on either side of Mesteno's hips when she turned to face it. She didn't lunge at it though, but waited for it to look.

When Mesteno finally fell over he released the blade; weaving and bobbing on its damaged legs, Fairweather turned to face Aoife. It said something, but the knife was still in its throat, rendering the words indecipherable.

There wasn't a great deal of dignity in being sprawled out there, unable to move with a slip of a girl standing over his hips with his sword in her hands, ready to defend him. In fact it was downright shameful! God was having mercy though, because he could barely make out what was happening. Too close to just passing out from blood loss.

Well, maybe he'll feel better knowing that she was an almost half naked slip of a thing welding a blade that was probably half her size at a giant spider, teetering on only a few remaining legs. She waited until he looked at her and she looked back. Time and space stood still, recognition between the two confused the sands and had them blocked before they started their fall once again. And with that, she shifted her feet, the position of her hips, her hands on the hilt, and lifted the sword, lunging at the thing and throwing all of her weight behind it. Her aim, right between those black, black eyes. Not a sound from her. Not at all.

There was no time to get away, even if it had had the balance it needed to shift aside and attack her. The spelled blade broke through chitin and buried itself deep between the biggest pair of eyes--eyes that glared absolute and utter hatred at her, eyes that flared with a last apoplectic flare of power before going dull and dark. As the bomb went off in Aoife's head, a swiftly dissolving heap of rot and ruination squelched onto the floor.

Pleasant. Dead man's innards, Sadist's blood and rotting spider. All in one, pretty little lake on the warehouse floor. And Mesteno was lying in the stuff, very much unaware of anything but encroaching blackness and the inability to do more than breathe in and out. Breathe. Just keep breathing. This was torment!

Mesteno didn't have to worry about her dropping his blade carelessly onto the filth of the floor because when she let it go it remained in the thing's head. The force had her stumbling back a few steps, careful not to trip on a Sadist lying in that pool of whatnot underneath her. And right before those black eyes faded out, something traced the inside of her forehead, like a finger nail, from the inside out. Then, her head exploded, thousands of those fingers with claws scraped from all sides, inside, everything was inside. Down and down, she screamed, a high pitched wail of pain and grabbed her head, falling to her knees putting her in a very compromising position on Mesteno's hips. Her spine curled in and down with her, fingers sinking into her hair and pulling it into tight fists.

Had he been physically able, he'd have sat up and relocated his hip straddler but he was in no fit state to be doing anything but sprawling there flat in the filth. Somehow in the deepest recesses of his mind, he was aware that the threat was gone, destroyed, but he would never remember Aoife swinging the blade, striking the killing blow. Her scream might echo dimly in his recollection, but he'd never envisage her there squatting over his narrow hips. Put lightly, he was going to be furious with himself later. But for now...he passed out.

And then it just, went away. Gone, just like that, taking with it a part of her that she wouldn't even be aware existed until it was too late. But how would she know? She remained curled over his legs after it was all said and done, waiting. And when the waiting lead into more waiting, she slowly straightened, fingers releasing those fistfuls of black and she looked down. Oh. OH! Look how she slung a leg from one side of those narrow hips to the other and turned on knees, to finally recognize a passed out Sadist sprawled out on a filthy floor in a pool of....everything.

The stench was terrific, and God only knew what filth was crawling its way into the wounds the spider had left him. Right then, he looked none too pretty. In fact he was starting to look rather dead.

May 21st, 2011. 5.00am.

The sun had started its rise from? the open mouth of the sea leaving behind fiery trails of fading crimson that reflected across the water's surface.? One moon had yet to descend, holding on to what piece of night was left.? The clouds that seemed to move in every evening started to burn away with the heat from the rising temperature.? The waterfront had risen just before down.? Merchants were unloading their cargo into carts for transport to the Marketplace.?

No one really noticed the dark haired waif moving through stacks of crates and piles of rope.? She'd seen him here before, never noticing until she actually looked.? We all know how distracted she can get.? Delicate fingers passed over the back pocket of her jeans, one lingering to trace the circle of the ring that hid there.

Compared to the rest of Rhy'Din, still slumbering peacefully, the docks were a hive of activity. The men and women who worked there hadn't the time nor inclination to waste the daylight, and nor had he.

He ran with the scents of rust and salt flooding his nose on every inhalation, the stark outlines of his ribs brought into sharp relief each time it hit his lungs. Two miles from Sanctuary and he'd yet to break a sweat, but the rubber-band elasticity of his limbs had him loping at a pace few could maintain?for any great length of time, and which he adopted with unconscious ease.

These streets were only the beginnings of his daily dose of masochism, and he was still vibrant with energy, great, coltish legs propelling him along the water front road, weaving him in and out and between and clear of anything that happened in front of him. Here and there he offered smiles to familiar faces, but they were flicker-flash things, mouth too busy with the necessity of breathing to carve the usual flashy grins.

He'd never seen Aoife out there. Only when she'd demanded they meet at the warehouse for Fairweather. How was he to know that routine was about to come to a grinding halt?

Indeed it was, Sadist.? Lets hope he wasn't concentrating too much on keeping a rhythm and cadence with steps and breathing.? Remember distractions?? She almost missed him passing between two towers of shipping crates because she'd been busy trying to distract a kitten from leaping to its death after a suicidal mouse.? A chance aversion of her attention caught a flash of autumn red in the sun, and she nearly drew a blank in regards to her purpose.?

When he smiled, even though it was fleeting, she forgot that on him, it could soften the sharp angles and the steely glare in his eyes.? She'd never been gifted with one, and why that mattered made her own curl of lips disappear.? There was only one narrow space for him to pass through to continue.? She left the kitten to its own demise, stepped in front of it, and waited.? Surely a thin shirt the whitest of whites would catch his attention before he plowed her over.

It was a near thing. He travelled at speed and she'd given him little time to put on the proverbial brakes. He braced himself for impact with the smile twisting into a grimace, spread his arms wide to clutch at the towering crates, splinters worming under the flesh of his fingertips and his knees protesting the sudden stiff-legged halt.

A foot further and they'd both have been in a tangle on the ground, to the likely amusement of sailors and fishwives, but instead he stood there with sinewy arms locked to?either side as if he'd been crucified that way, golden eyes wide and indignant. He took no more than a moment to identify the dark haired waif, and when he did he sagged, head tipped back and the groan issuing raw from his scar-lined throat,

"Scerlerosis nulla requies," he muttered, straightening to face her, stepping out from between the crates. This he knew, could not be coincidence. "Really, Aoife? Quid agis!?" What're you thinking? Not that she'd a hope in Hell of translating the words he spat with so?much ire.

She had this way of looking at people sometimes when they spoke to her as if she hadn't heard a word they'd said.? Like they just dissipated into fragments of nothing and drifted by pulling a few dark strands of hair from it's loose plait.? She didn't flinch at his timbre because she'd become so used to it.? The day he said something to her that carried a tone so light it might follow with a smile, she might actually faint.? Her expression held in her eyes as she looked at him, "You lost your smile."

And what had that to do with anything, he wondered. Yet somehow it dulled the flare of his temper. Here he needed composure to handle the half-fae, because the men and women busy at work might still notice if he raised his voice and started berating the wretched girl.

"Smilin's for when you're given reason to. What's wrong with you, stepping out in front of a man like that? Why're you here?" There was a reason, he just knew it - she'd never intercept him for nothing. So he stood and he loomed and he made damn sure that she could see how little he approved of her tactics, expression storm-cloud ominous.

"And you would have stopped if I asked you to?"? This statement was followed with a small arch of a dark brow.? Her lips ate the smile that wanted to show itself.? Had she actually given him one though?? One of her's?? Not the other's, that side was a darker version and meant nothing but need and want.? "You remind me constantly that I have no reason."

He considered the question, but ultimately gave her no answer. Perhaps by omitting it, he'd unwillingly provided it anyway. He dragged back the hair that'd come tumbling around his face during the emergency stop, turned to put his back to the brightening light. It meant he didn't have to squint at her. Meant that he wasn't half blinded, should she try and seek some petty vengeance for the way he'd torn her pretty, white throat. Were there marks there still? Or had the blue-black bruising faded with time?

"Don't blame your misery on me," he countered darkly, "I keep away from you, I haven't--," he paused to lower his voice until it was little more than a hiss of a whisper, "I haven't hunted you down for what you do. You let that damn spider jump me, never even mentioned it. How the Hell do you forget something like that?"

If he looked close enough he may spot the faded yellow-brown tint of healing vessels and the pink glow of new skin.? She'd made no move to hide.? It was yet to be known if that bite was to remain a permanent reminder.?

"I have no misery to speak of when it comes to you."? She stepped aside to allow a woman passage, even offered her a smile of apology and a dip of her head despite the dark glower.? The silver of her eyes fixed once again back on Mesteno.? "I told you I didn't know what he was.? He never showed himself to me as anything but a man."? Even though she shoved the sword through his belly herself, watched the blackness of life from his beady eyes, a shoulder twitched and she passed a quick glance around their busy meeting ground.? "I do what I am.? I have no choice."

He'd sharp eyes, and to miss a mark of his own making would have been particularly slack on his part. If it scarred, she wouldn't be the only one wearing the mark of his teeth. Rhy'Din was full of throats willing and less so, and he was something of a connoisseur.

Her answers might not have been particularly satisfying to him, but they were nothing he could argue with. No matter how much he'd have liked to. "Aye, I figured that out after a while. So I guess I'm stuck with you visiting upstairs every now 'n then," he murmured, with something in his tone which might have been grudging acceptance. "What'd you want today, Aoife? Don't give me any bad news. I could do without it."

"I gave you my word that I'd keep away if I could."? He should know about the Fae kind and their binding words, and she only carried half of that just like Salvador.? "But you--" And no bad news, right?? Perhaps her reason would give her with a smile, or something like it.? "You left something behind.? On the floor."? You know, on the floor.? She reached for the something in her pocket and held out her hand between them, palmer side up and fingers cupped and curled in.?

Look, a ring.

"Yeah, you did," he agreed, this time less grudging, but still with a tendency to be laconic whenever he found it difficult that she'd anything truthful to say. He didn't like thinking about that room in the dingy hotel. Too full of memories of weakness. It showed in the narrowing of golden eyes and the way his lips tightened against a scowl. What could he have forgotten? He'd collected up both blades, and there had been no other weapons. He'd left fully clad, albeit with a few holes in places there ought?not be. So when she presented him with the ring, he stared at it dully to begin with and then with something more like alarm.

It was somewhat delicate for a man, the band thin and silver, the stone set in it a tiny scrap the colour of amethyst. Anyone might have supposed it some memento of a woman, or perhaps something he'd thieved, but when he reached to pinch it up from her palm between thumb and forefinger, the shock had ebbed and recognition, fondness even, was obvious. Aoife, being half-fae might have detected that it's origins had been magic made. The Linewalker's work.

"Didn't think I was going to see this again," he admitted.

It would have explained the slight tickle of an itch she felt every time she'd tried to study it.? It had been a fleeting thing that she'd even noticed it there.? There'd been little light in that room and she'd been in a struggle to try and stand after he'd taken his fill and had started at her pitiful barricade against the door.? It'd been nothing to pluck it up and slip it into her pocket.? Then it'd been forgotten until it fell out and tinked on the tiled floor of the bathroom.?

A thumb rubbed against the spot where it had rested after he took it.? "You have now.? Where does it--" a pause, a hesitant slip "--were does it come from?"

Rather than risk losing it again, he slipped it onto a finger, easing it over the knuckle. It seemed an ill fit, but sat comfortably enough once it was over the joint.

He was hesitant in answering, eyes fastened on the returned jewellery while he decided whether to trust her with anything, but in the end it was nothing she could do harm with. "My mother gave it to me. Not my mother by blood, I don't know who she is." So flippantly! "I mean Faye. She made it for me when I was eighteen. Supposed to give me?clarity of mind, you know? I tend to take it with me when I'm facing something with abilities I don't know, just in case it tries any mind control crap." Once upon a time he'd worn it always, and not to protect himself from outside influences, but to keep other people safe from him. That much, he kept to himself.

"Faye."? She'd heard that name before.? Salvador mentioned it one time during her little stay with him.? They hadn't spent much time talking though, the silence they shared though spoke volumes.? So she asked the question whose answer she'd be surprised if she received.? "If it gives you clarity, why don't you wear it all the time?"? You know, to help with decisions.? Because sometimes certain ones have consequences.

Mesteno hadn't known whether to expect her to have familiarity with it or not, but he heard it there in the repetition of the name. Absently, as if the ring felt alien on his finger with such a long span of time without it, he twisted the band back and forth. Some outward expression of his discomfort.

"I--" don't expect you to understand, he might have said. But that sounded juvenile. He righted his words, and abruptly shoved his fists into the pockets of the unadorned, grey sweat pants he wore. "Used to do that, actually. But after a while I needed to know I could cope without it through the every day shit. I don't want a crutch. I want to rely on myself as often as I can, because in this city, you never know when you might have to. When you might lose things, and then what, if you're dependent?"

Still he kept secret the worst of it. Though she already knew he could be a monster, was there really any point in hiding things? He fixed her with a look, sharp and penetrating, as if he expected her to mock him.
"Perfect clarity benefits the intellect but damages the will.? I understand why you don't."? She'd been dependent herself once, needy with greed and willing to do anything to get what she'd been promised.? Again, she moved aside for a line of three carrying a heavy, braided rope.? She was obvious in her step back, careful not to be jostled or even touched.? "Something lost is hard to find."

"No kidding," he muttered, as if her words had struck a cord. That was nothing to trouble her ears with however. The more she moved, the more space was opened up to him for escape. The gap yawned invitingly.

"It was good of you to bring it back to me," he told her finally and without guile. There was no bitter slant to his words and there was no ill-restrained scowl to accompany them. "I know you coulda just kept it, or thrown it away to spite me. It means a lot that you didn't." Deep breath, Sadist. Deep?breath! "So...multas gratias ago." A thank you! Who'd have thought he'd get one of those out without choking on it?

It was as if she could sense his relief with the distance she put between them.? Her reasoning was another she wasn't about to share and it didn't have to do with the growing crowd of merchants, sailors, and vagabonds milling about.? "You--" shouldn't be so quick to judge.? Sometime what was there was between the lines, as twisted and confusing as the words may be.? Change of phrase, of choices and words "I thought you'd like it back."? She looked away, giving him her profile.? She may have even been staring into the sun.

When she looked away, he took it for dismissal. Not rudely, but a dismissal none the less. She'd done what she'd come to, a chore over and done with. "Hmm, you should never lose a gift from your mother," he agreed, and stepped around and past, careful not to put his back to her, yet.

He felt an odd compulsion to reach and squeeze her shoulder to emphasise how grateful he was, and had even lifted a hand to do just that, before alarm bells began to ring. Maybe it was the ring offering a little mental?clarity. He did not particularly want to see her flinch away. "Vale, Aoife," he bid her farewell, and then turned to resume his run.

Sometimes even clarity could be confusing.? She looked at him then, no shift of color in her eyes to give way to her thoughts.??He wouldn't want to be there right now.? "I hope you find your smile again, Mesteno.? It's something you wouldn't want to lose."? And she was stuck there, between a pile of rope and a short stack of crates with a stone wall at her back waiting for him to pass so she could to the same.? She needed to work on not backing herself into spaces that made it hard to disappear.

He'd yet to break into a run, indeed only a few strides from her by then, but her words carried something like a threat to them. He frowned, stopped and turned to glance back at her over his shoulder. No, not a threat. A warning.

"Perhaps you should start searching for where you left yours behind, Aoife." His smile would come back before long, be it at a random thought, or in savagery. Mesteno sans a smile would have been a sorry creature indeed. This time, he set off at a lope, and the rising sun and the thickening crowds swallowed him up.

A passage through towering crates and swelling business did the same to her.? She didn't look back.