"...and you know, I feel like this big hypocrite sat there 'cause I believe but I don't like 'im much, after Tanziel and Cassiel and all the others that've been around. I'm sat there in his 'House', but not 'cause I want to be, and I keep expecting him to strike me down when I walk in 'cause of what I do."

Church. It should not have been friendly to him, but there he was in his Sunday best with the scents of chapel dust and incense clinging to him, neck aching from so long spent in false prayer. He'd one arm angled bent so that the elf's could fold neatly into the crook of it, the opposite palm on her forearm as they strolled along the cobblestone street.

The elfess was listening to him complain, her eyes a study in conflicting emotions...the desire to laugh and yet to commiserate vying for each other for dominance in the amethyst depths. Heart-shaped lips twitched, firmed, twitched again, and then she managed a grave nod.

?Well, you know, Don Francesco does need you...one might assume...and then, too, you don't really have to pray, you know. I know you believe...we both do. We have seen them, interacted with them, loved them. Perhaps you should consider it a time for meditation, and not worry so over it.?

"I'm usually too busy looking out for anyone throwing dirty looks his way to meditate. I keep thinking that one day, that big stained glass window's gonna shatter and some other Family he's in competition with'll ruin the service with gunfire. And that it'd be a hell of an improvement to listening to the Bishop lecture us all on being a buncha sinners."

His palm left her arm to reach up and unfasten the top button of his shirt, where the collar felt as if it meant to strangle him despite the tailored cut. Another diversion, and index and thumb tugged loose the leather tie he'd bound his hair with so that it spilled in a great rippling mess of blood and gold across his back.

"Do you meditate? Or have you no need to?" he asked Gem, though his eyes fixed themselves ahead sharply as he spotted Sevier.

?Are you wearing a vest? A?? Her hand fluttered before them in feminine grace, ?what is called...flack..nonono...Kevlar vest? Because if you get yourself mowed down, I am going to come haunt you, you know this, right??

She was about to answer the man when she, too, caught sight of the Unseelie. The tingle that accompanied such as he tickled down her spine and set her skin on edge. Her chin came up and she donned her very best Leave Us Alone Look. That should do the trick...she liked to think it would, anyway.

?I go into reverie as needed, and I have a confusing bundle of beliefs that I am sure would cause a priest to faint in confusion.? Pausing in her words. ?That is, if he was sane in the first place.? Mesteno knew of her history with *priests*.

He gave a soft grunt from somewhere low in his throat as if to say he recognised the cause for the change in her posture, and briefly let his eyes drink in the tent someone'd parked in front of the inn. Strange place for such a structure, but in Rhy'Din, why ask? "I like Dyneema. I've some custom pieces that incorporate the two..."

Another look given to the tent material had a disturbed shiver rippling down her back, before she stepped once more for the porch, her eyes moving back up to Mesteno. ?Dyneema? I have not heard of that. As long as you are taking precautions, I am glad. Else I might have Sam come sniping at thee.? Chuckling softly at the idea of that, she stepped in sprightly manner for the steps of the porch.

"Sam who wears nothing, and wanders about naked at any given opportunity?" he asked her with a wry arch of an eyebrow. He couldn't imagine the desert man insisting on any bulky precautions, so long as he didn't start coming home full of holes.

He escorted Gem up the steps long-striding, and held the door for her when they reached it, to let her inside.

That had her frowning for a moment, for the sadist had rightly bested her in that threat of hers. Drat the man! She gave the sadist a smile for holding the door, and then she slipped through it, her eyes immediately seeking whomever was within...another frown flitting over her face at seeing only the Sidhe. Hopefully more people would arrive soon. She affected to not notice him, moving inside and then turning those amethysts back to the man with her.

?Okay, okay, good point. But you take my meaning, aye?? Squinting at him pointedly. ?I don't want you to expire any time soon. I am rather fond of you.? Understatement.

"Oh I've no intention of expiring," he chuckled, probably at the turn of phrase. He followed her inside, but if he scoured the inns innards the way she did, he was so subtle about that it might pass unobserved. "No more than you have, now than you've found Eze." A golden eyed look her way, so hawkishly sharp in the dark tan of his face that it tended to pin people like bugs under the glass of a display case. "So tell me, has he been keeping you out of trouble?"

There was a quick flush to normally pearl pale cheeks at the question from the man. Her chin tilted up again, as she strode for the break in the bar, her intent to slide back there and find them something to drink.

?Out of trouble? As if you are any better at that than I.?

Her lips quirked in a quicksilver half-smile, before she lifted one slim shoulder in a delicate shrug. Nimbly giving a wide berth to the Sidhe, Gem moved to the cooler. ?In point of fact, we got hit by bandits on the way to Quellarin...you know that stretch of forest just before my gates?? Shaking her head. ?Eze got a crossbow quarrel in his side? Another frown, then. ?He is alright, though, healing up quickly. I am still out of bloody healing potions. I cannot seem to find any for even kingly sums!? Frustration laced her voice. She depended on those potions!

"Sounds like he's gone and got himself a matching target painted on him like yours - you got an arrow in you last year while y'were with Sam, if I remember right." Not that he'd found out until some time later, much to his annoyance.

While she drifted away to the opposite side of the bar to find herself a drink, he crumpled inelegantly onto a barstool, careless of whatever image he might make, and briefly tracked the Unseelie to where he settled - better to be aware than potentially surprised.

She chuckled at that, reaching for a pear ale in the cooler. ?Do you want a water or something, while I am back here, 'chev?? Quietly, so he could study the sight he might find, she pulled an ice water from the cooler and set it before him, deciding he needed one. At least it was not cake or donuts! Time enough to tell him of the mission to return the princess.

The narrowing about his eyes was so subtle as to be missed by all but the most shrewd of onlookers. For now he did not seem concerned. Absently, he reached for the water she'd set before him, dark fingers winding around the bottle neck.

?Hmm...come sit down, cara mea. Catch me up." That was what people said these days, right? Some common phrases seemed ill suited to his tongue.

Screaming, sprawling, spreading thin: the smoke, the sparks, it's a shower suitable for a Shadow. The fire spit him out - or did he slither from it, slink his way out into daylight? It didn't matter: all that mattered was him, the way he settled himself against warm stones that were perhaps better suited for a Beast of a completely different nature. Instantly, the Shadow lifted his head, black spilling against the glorious white of his flesh, the way it rippled and rivered, shifted by the maggots, the masses, the roaches and rats beneath all that white.

More than happy to oblige the sadist, she slipped back out from behind the bar and settled on the stool next to him, cradling her pear ale in one hand. The other smoothed in brief caress down the outside of his near arm, while she settled. It was so good to spend time with him.

?Catch you up.? Lips twitching at the way it sounded as he said it. He was meant for Latin phrases, violin strains unequalled, and sotto voce murmurings. Not cant phrases. Her voice lowered to near silent whisper.

?I rescued a princess from the slave pens. I have to return her to her country, but she is unable to assist much, having been...well. Quite thoroughly brutalized. I can barely get her name from her. The folks I usually have to take my freed slaves back to their homes won't touch her with a ten foot pole.? She paused to sip her ale, and then continued. ?Eze is going to help me do it. We are getting men to accompany us.?

A scramble, a spill, silk slithering along the white of him, watered and slick. His hair gets lost in it, as the Shadow rose, jutted, stabbed into the sky, like some tower - exclamation marks of dumb stone. Black eyes wide, he padded silent across the floor - of silent seas, scrambling claws and singing sirens, each to each - towards the door.

He could hear something, a song sung in his ears: the swan's song, last to ever be heard. It sounded like madness and wild ideas, impossible planes and angles that no man could ever quite comprehend, much less explore. One hand that shook more than it should reached out, pulling the door to the inn open.

Mesteno had his suspicions about the cause of the restlessness of her mouth. It wasn't the first time he'd seen a response like that, and he couldn't be offended. Not when he was internally questioning why he'd tried in the first place!

"I gave up trying to rescue slaves a long time ago. Too many of them just went skulking back saying they didn't want to be free. Or they decided I was their new 'Master'," a derisive snort at that! "and wouldn't quit clinging to me. Why won't your usual contacts help with this one? They too worried of repercussions?"

He twisted the cap from his water for a slow sip. Better than alcohol, so early in the day. Briefly, the stirring of shadows prickled at his senses - he was by some small means in tune with them after all - and he craned a look backwards at Fafnir.

Any colour you like. What sort of sick twist was this, a game played outside of rules and boundaries. He felt more than he heard it, because one can't count the sound shadows made. In the bright of new day, his own shadow couldn't agree with his body, mixing and melting on grass and cushions, skewed and stretched out amongst the lies he'd left in his wake. But that sight filling a doorway made him smile all the more, one game forgotten for another. His mouth in a portal to a plane all its own, he offered it's contents to - "Fafnir," he offered in greeting, save where he was going was not meant for even beasts of that particular burden.

?For some reason, there are those who find the subjugation of the highborne particularly delicious, 'chev. And by the way, I only go after those who are *unwilling* slaves. The others are welcome to their fate. If they want that, more power to them. I only perceive those unwilling as needing aid.?

Pausing to sip again, she gave a little nod. ?Indeed, she was a virginal princess.? Emphasis on *was*. ?She is worth one hell of a lot of money, just in terms of being given back...sold back...to the slaver I purloined her from. As well, she would be worth a king's ransom?literally...to her family, and so travelling with her means risking persistent or intense attack from all sides.?

It was not within Fafnir?s nature to be scared - what did a Shadow have to fear, after all? - but that countenance was enough to send his thoughts reeling, spilling away from him like water through a sieve. A quick twist of his wrist send the front door slamming shut, the sharp clap of sound doing a fine enough job of muffling the sound he made, that, under normal circumstances, might've been a scream. Not even Fafnir's eyes held that many secrets and horrors.

When the Shadow reached the door, Mesteno gave Gem the full measure of his attention once more, listening, and agreeing on her efforts with those unwillingly bound.

"I must've just had bad luck with the ones I helped," he decided with a curl of his upper lip baring a canine. It was the kind of snarl better suited to Rhy'Din denizens with fangs, but somehow his expressions seemed just as sharp. "From what you've said, I'd suggest a diversion. Some of these men you intend to hire might serve better pretending they have something to guard, while you take a smaller, but more skilled party by a more difficult route. It might buy you some time."

What a greeting. An amused little titter rose up in the Pharaoh's throat. This bore investigation - in which 'investigation' meant 'tormenting'.

He abandoned his pavilion, the mutinous riots of colors that did not belong in this world, left it behind as he moved towards the door. Perhaps, were he to open it, the Shadow would be standing right there, waiting and ready. How delightful would that have been? Bare feet found the stairs, took them one at a time. Why rush, when prolonging the inevitable is so much more satisfying? Black eyes that knew no end - and perhaps no beginning - stared at the wooden barrier between himself and a bit of amusement.

?What a clever idea. I like it. We have some plans made, but that would certainly extend the possibility of success, hmm?? Her voice still a mere thread of sound to the sadist. ?I will tell Eze, and I am sure we will incorporate that idea.? Her eyes were full of her affection for the man. A little laugh spilled from her and she shook her head. ?Can you imagine some slave trying to make me his or her mistress?? Chuckling, she sipped her ale.

Mesteno seemed still to sense the shadow, and glanced over a suit clad shoulder at the doorway as if the behaviour were bizarre. But then, who understood a Shadow's actions?

"I can imagine a great many might, actually," he chuckled at Gem's question. "They'd see a beautiful elven woman and think...well sh*t she's got to be vain and used to being pampered, she'll be sooo mean to me I'll be in submissive slave Heaven. They'd probably cream 'emselves if you ever showed up with a whip in hand."

No. No. There were enough monsters in the world without having to deal with this one. Black hair whipped when Fafnir wrenched his head about, black eyes searching for something - anything - in which to get lost in. Bare feet back-pedalled him away from the door. Many thoughts came to mind, mostly involving madness and mania and every little thing in between.

There: his gaze stopped on Mesteno, before he was suddenly stalking for the bar, stride the speed of ground-eating. "Mesteno," he rasped, rattled, damn-near gurgled. "That thing you do-" oh, that voodoo you do so well, "--can you swallow me? Temporarily?"

That...had her blinking at the man and a riotous flush rising to those pale cheeks. ?Gods above and below, Mesteno! Ew! The polar opposite of dominant, the elfess shuddered and then laughed softly, shaking her head. ?Happily, such has not happened, but then, again, I only go after the unwilling ones.? And then the one was approaching, naming the sadist. Gem turned amethysts to him, tension vibrating over her little frame. ?....Swallow.? Gods.

Kitty punches the door out of her way before she strides in with an indifferent expression.

The elven woman is noticed, noted, but not quite notified of what's going on. At that moment, the only thought filling the Shadow's skull is escape - somehow, some way.

Gem noted Kitty from the corner of her eye, and she offered a smile over to the woman, though the most of her attention remained on the man asking Mesteno to swallow him.

The haste of Fafnir's approach had the stool beneath Mesteno scrape noisily as he stood and turned to face the pale creature. In a heartbeat he'd walled Gem off behind the span of his back, as if he feared she might be harmed, but in the end it proved to be a unnecessary caution. The request arched the dark wings of his brows up in surprise. Gideon hadn't told him. It wasn't an attack.

Imagine acoustics, the echoes that fill spaces not seen by man. The shape and lines, the planes that such a room must be made of to make such music. This is what he sounds like: a song that men had forgotten in evolution, having set aside the ritualistic, primal beats of drugs meant to be heard by things that were not even Gods, but worst - so much, much worse.

Teeth clenched and cut the air near his ear, spoke the words that branded themselves into the corridors of the mind, where the hallways do not meet just right, do not match up to all the thoughts they must contain. "That is Entropy's shadow you hold in your hands. Imagine what it has seen eaten. And I, young man, am Nyarlathotep - the Crawling Chaos. Imagine what my hands have made."

This close, Mesteno can smell him - like star dust and ice, the heat of perpetual friction, a wheel forever turning, grinding out the madness and anarchy that made the new worlds, the new words, the new lives from it's unchecked perpetuality.

Two-toned curls trace a path in the floor as Viki moves, a slinking thing, more cat than girl. Knees and elbows knock at the floorboards, careful of the trail of spilled secrets. She rounds the bar, flat teeth on display. Feral thing, too many corners to smooth over. A whisper is pressed against the barback, to a small door, where a tender might shift between the space of a sale. The words are for the Shadow, if he can hear.

Mesteno disliked anyone stealing into his personal space that way, and for a moment he appeared perfectly affronted, the fullness of his mouth wrenched around into the beginnings of a growl, eyes lambent and hands lifting to ward the creature away. They stilled as if something heard in the whisper put to his ear had ripped away the intention though, or rendered him suddenly immobile.

His fingers closed on air, every muscle in him clenching tight as if the thews of him might burst and things beating rupture violently. What he was told might have been a lie. Anyone could have made such claims, but what he heard in those spaces between, and the sudden shock of all else that came with it inflicted on him the most violent of shudders. He couldn't quite comprehend the reaction in him, and might have barged backward between the women had he been a lesser man. Instead, repulsed, he closed his eyes for a moment, a cold sweat on his skin before the sensation passed.

It should be noted...he was going to charge Fafnir highly for this.

Gem tensed yet more as the chaos man bent to whisper to Mesteno, her silver brows furrowing in concern as she noted the sadist's response. Still, it was not time to act...not yet. Hopefully not at all.

"Be careful," the Pharaoh said, "what you offer sanctuary to." He turned then, bare feet carrying him away, back east, to where the desert waited for him, constantly covered by a night sky never covered by stars. Proud of shoulders, straight of spine, gloriously imperfect - for that such as he could never be perfect. Merely changing forever.

Kitty watched the creature leave, then absently spoke toward Gem. ?I wonder if he's related to Anubis.?

A sigh of relief left the elfess as the man left, her body letting go a great deal of the tension she had been harboring. Still, though, her eyes fixed now on Mesteno and the other hidden within. ?Get..out...of him!? Yes, that was to Fafnir, but in a low, low voice that surely did not travel beyond them. A flick of eyes to Kitty with a headtip. ?I ..have no idea. Perhaps??

Withering, wilting, and terribly tired - the Shadow felt as if he had laid on a bed of needles. He did not so much as get out of Mesteno as he sort of melted to the floor - a black smear of shadow without mass.

?Well they're both jerkweeds.. and they dress like they walked out of a pyramid. A badly decorated pyramid.? Kitty remarked.

?Oh. ..I see.? Nodding, she turned her eyes down to the mass of shadow that seemed to spill out of nothingness, and then she relaxed, and only then. ?Mesteno....we have some talking to do.? Quietly.

"He's not.." the Shadow slurred, slowly filling and correcting, white hands sliding beneath himself to push himself to his hands and knees, black hair falling in his face.

Her tail snapped in annoyance before Kitty lowered her gaze to the man that came from shadow. ?Who... are you??

Mesteno assisted in it, too. Shrugging the shadow off like a spill of befouled water. The body armour beneath the shirt felt particularly uncomfortable against clammy skin.

"Me oportet propter praeceptum te nocere," he snarled at Fafnir, rolling his shoulders still and trying to rid his head of the whispers the chaos creature had put there. And the he did as he'd said - Fafnir wouldn't like that tearing feeling. "You knew what he was and you came and hid with me!" he accused, snapping.

?What was he?? Gem quietly asked, of the Sadist, of Fafnir, in echo of Kitty.

Fafnir?s head turned, beartrap teeth bared at the tiny thing, tongues writhing in fury before a sharp bark of pain snapped out of him. "And now you see why I hid!" he said, slowly trying to get his feet. It was not working well.

"Better that you don't know.." he murmured, hands white and clammy settling on silk-clad thighs. He felt exhausted. No, no - he was exhausted.

The Black Man gone, the seer springs into view, half-there gaze dancing over those gathered. It is the wake of a war, one not fought with the usual means. The air buzzes a name she does not know how to pronounce. She looks to the Shadow for a moment, questions, endless questions, and then skitters to a barstool. He was the recipient of secrets, not the giver. He wouldn't say.

Kitty she slid to her feet near the Shadow and leaned down to inspect him. ?Who are you?? she repeats ?I'd like to know who was crawling around my friend, and disrupting my perfectly otherwise calm coffee time.?

"He's right, as much a hate to admit it," Mesteno grumbled, finally opening his eyes. "I was hiding him Kitty. As a favour...and one I expect to be repaid." He did not add that, next time, Fafnir was on his own against that one!

Gem caressed a hand over the sadist's arm, her eyes disturbed:

Black hair slithered and pooled, eyes turning on Kitty. "I am Fafnir." His eyes snapped, then, to Mesteno. "You said nothing about owing you!"

?As you should, Mesteno. That thing was about as fun as waxing my bike in the rain.? The ex-Governor agreed.

The knowledge passes over her, through her, settles somewhere other. The seer takes her leave, swallowing some trace of addiction. The Shadow's presence does overwhelm still yet, even an empty vessel. The shell stalks out, plans crushing and crowding all other thought. Miles to go.... Perhaps not. Her feet are silent, quick creatures, with a consciousness of their own. They pull at her body, coax it to follow. There, out the back. She is gone, into the bright of Day.

Kitty looked back to Fafnir. ?When someone hides you from something like that, you should expect to have to repay the favor. It's common sense.? Then her gaze followed the Seer out before snapping back to the Shadow.

Mesteno almost jerked away from the touch. Whatever had taken place during that whispered moment had left him feeling raw and unstable. Small wonder he was even on his feet, though he suspected as soon as he was out of the public eye his bones might turn to water and leave him in an ungainly heap somewhere.

He ignored the Shadow's protests. "Your Gideon," he said the name with distaste, "dislikes me. I'm pretty certain he'd like to take my head off." Maybe it was news, perhaps not. "But you'll stay out of things between he and I. You won't help him if he acts against me," one finger jabbed, pointing angrily at Fafnir. "It's fair."

Gem noted the twitch of his arm and dropped her hand instantly. Then a breath was sucked in at the mention of *that* name. Gideon. Ye Gods. She was shaking her head, now, confused, but approving the way Mesteno was handling this. ?I think...I am going to go for now.?

"I cannot do that." Fafnir says these words with...remarkable calm. A lot calmer than he felt. Hands pressed at knees and he rose to his feet. "I am his Shadow. Do you understand what that means, Mesteno? If you kill him? I will dissolve. And Gideon is protected by Him." There's a weight to that word, a horrible heaviness that settles on shoulders and tends not to move.

"My Maker stitched me to Gideon - and He does feel somewhat responsible for me. I may not help him...but He will. I know you don't like Gideon - and that's none of my business, to a degree. But...I can't control Him anymore than I can control Gideon." Those black eyes slit at the corners. "It would be best if you just ignored Gideon."

Gem cast her particular Squint of Doom to Fafnir, and then a worried look to Mesteno. A caress to Kitty's arm, and then she was heading for the door. ?Stay away from the cannibal.? Gem advice. Good advice.

Kitty slid to sit back on the bartop, then she pulled her feet up so she was sitting cross legged. ?I swear. I stay away too long and my friends get themselves into all sorts of tangles.?

Mesteno?s gaze trailed Gem, the affection in his eyes clear. "Vale," he called after her wearily, and a murmur. Something about not being concerned.

Fafnir's news contorted all weariness into a scowl however, bitter and heated. It didn't matter how little he liked it though, he couldn't argue with the Shadow's logic. "Fine," he bit out, teeth bared. "I won't ask you to stand aside and let me have at him if you're there, but if you are, you can guard me against him like I did your friend there. He wouldn't hurt you." And it would annoy Gideon. Which would be funny as hell. Mesteno wasn't particularly worried about Gideon getting the better of him, but why not make use of the Shadow if he was around?

"I don't want you to fight at all!" The Shadow snapped sharply - perhaps harder than he meant to, for he took a long, deep breath afterwards.

"Have you ever loved something so much that everything else around it seemed...paltry? Pale? He is my anchor, Mesteno. If you must hate someone, hate me. If you're going to want to hit someone, hit me. He has enough problems right now -" here, he cast a finger towards the door, "-and that thing, as well as my Maker - and myself, let us be honest - are trying to get rid of it. I can't - won't - apologize for whatever it is that Gideon has done to anger you. I don't know what that something is and to be entirely honest? I don't care. But damn me if I like you, and I don't want you or him bickering over something that's probably little more than a pissing contest. But if you're going to be furious at someone, be furious at me. I can take it. In mine body," he rasped, tongues rattling in his mouth, "I can take whatever anger you have. He's already falling apart, Mesteno. And I get to sit aside and do nothing. I do not think I need to tell you what helplessness feels like, do I?" Those pit-black eyes narrowed. "So hate me. Leave him alone."

Now love was a tricky subject, wasn't it? It was not subject matter for grown men (nor shadows) to discuss out in public, and so Mesteno found himself suddenly at a loss for admonition.

His expression betrayed none of this however, in fact it seemed like to remain immutable, still full of undiffused rage at the refusal. Somehow, he found it in him to speak without raising his voice however, and the fire in him dwindled, a simmer, not a boil.

"Y'got poor taste. I'm not going to hurt you, Fafnir. It wouldn't be nearly satisfying enough. Commiserations though." That it was Gideon he'd fallen in love with. Though the Shadow would have to figure that part out alone.

Mesteno was still quite near Kitty and she was fighting the urge to play with his hair to make herself feel better. Her fingers twitched in that direction before she balled up her hands and put them in her lap.

"I knew I had poor taste the moment I considered you worth being a friend," Fafnir said, loftily, gathering himself together....but not totally. There was still one chink left in his armor. "Thank you for protecting me, Mesteno," the Shadow rasped, quietly. Had the Sadist not been there, Fafnir was not quite sure just what the Pharaoh would've done to him, truth be told. Nor did he have any interest in finding out.

The Sadist reached for his water, the chill of it helping to banish the otherworldly feeling that the chaos creature had left him prickling with. Fafnir's comment left him chuckling wryly. "Te desideravi tantum," you're welcome. "But yeah, that's pretty bad taste." He offered Kitty a faded smile, a thank you for guarding his back so to speak, before he made for the alley door.

Fafnir watched him for a moment..and, after casting a glance towards the front door - complete with shudder - he moved towards the hearth. There were things to be done, secrets to be stolen.

Fafnir was not the only one avoiding that front door...and with good reason. The red head slipped out, and waited until he was out of sight in the alley gloom to wilt, a forearm braced against the wall and take a long, quiet moment to adjust, to breathe deep, before heading home to Sanctuary.