"Constance --", he recited her name in the same code that was usually twisted on the rusty nail of his tongue. Where baritone meant something more rich, something more volatile when exposed to the right emotion. It drifted within the safety of her own abode, where everything was touched with glamour, the feminine decor of a woman with passionate tastes. This was not his sanctuary. He ruled nothing in this kingdom though seemed completely at ease -- a strong shouldered harbinger, choked at by a rare display of a bowtie. As red as the blood in his veins yet it wasn't as spectacular as the tuxedo he shifted in. Much like the suits he wore, an armor for a modern monster. He tripped his fingers to fix at the noose at his neck, choking at him with a familiar grip as his usual tongue-ties did. "-- we're going to be late. I do not like being late. I also do not like that; somehow, you have convinced me to go to the opera with you." And the rest of his words were mumbled to himself and the Seven which were quiet -- for now. "At least it is not a musical."
"Nonsense," She called out from her bedroom where she was doing a last minute check for snares in her dress, hairs out of place and insuring that her makeup was set and unmarred. Her hair was pulled back into a chignon that was low and off to the side, which left her shoulders bare as her gown was strapless. Shockingly it was not red, but a cream with a silvery shine pattern that made her appear more like a star than a woman in an evening gown. Mindful of the hem, she lifted the floor length gown a touch as she headed down the hallway and for Cardinal as he stood waiting, anxiously. Around her neck was the blood ruby necklace, and on her face was a bright smile. "I've convinced you because I was given box seats at the Yule Ball; we'll be completely alone there so no one will bother you and because you would be livid if I showed up with someone else looking like this --who wasn't Lenore or a blood relative." Drifting closer, the smugness was brief and replaced with fond amusement. "Besides, I don't ask for much. It's only one night, it is not a musical --and I promised I would make it worth your while." Her chin tipped to her shoulder as she turned away then to head for the door and her coat.
She was easy on the eyes for most men, but was a different kind of balm for the endangered host. The illumination a long her dress was a glow that was captured in his eyes, snapshotted away while he was naturally watching her. "Lenore wouldn't go with you?" Majority of the rest of the world didn't have such luck with remaining on a neutral side of an otherworldly skeptic. And a territorial beast, at that. He kept pace behind her, there to help her shift the coat across the bare sculpt of her shoulders. "You are lucky that I love you." Which was truth, in many ways. Half-grin abducted over his mouth; he was clearly trying to play with good spirits this evening. A way to hopefully ease the recent dilemma of her dreams.
"Well, you look a thousand times better in a tux than I'm sure she does. As lovely as she is." A roll of her shoulders to ease on her coat before she was pulling her keys out from a pocket and turning around at his admission. Which, well wasn't a secret anymore, but that didn't mean she had lost any fondness for hearing it over and over again. The bright smile that was present made it all the more obvious. If he was trying to distract her from her dreams and the decision she's made to stay, he was being successful. "I am lucky that I love you." Turning it back around on him of sorts before she was turning around to open the door and let the both of them out. "But in regards to Lenore, I will save the musicals for her. But I would much rather be enclosed in the private box with you. I think Lenore would start to purr if I cuddled up to her. Are you going to purr?" Teasing, but lightly. She wouldn't press too far less his mind change about going!
"No." Obviously his spirits were not high enough to not be dragged back down. He issued it while following suit, letting her take the lead while he edged at her flank. "I would be fine with you cuddling up to Lenore." As if offering her an option rather than just shooting the idea down. Where most other men would be a blend of sex craved fools, he was an insatiable reaper -- one who was very clear that he wished for no one but Constance. Women, and men, were looked at the same way when encountering what he figured belonged to him -- with a stoic glare and an impressive silence. "And if it is a private box, does that mean I can do private things to you?" A rise to one brow, but not both. His hand cut out and arm shifted, letting it be a rope for her to tie herself to once she was ready to be escorted.
Locking up her apartment and dropping her keys into her coat pocket, she tucked away her amusement at the idea of her and Lenore cuddling in the private box. The offered out arm was accepted as they drifted to the elevator and soon were locked inside on the way down. "You may as I am not wearing anything underneath my dress." Spoken rather matter-of-factly while they were on their way, but this was to avoid her mouth curving into a smirk or a hint of pink to pick up on her cheeks. It was also only said because they were alone for the moment. Otherwise her voice would have been more of a whispered level. "Are you planning on keeping yourself occupied so you're not bored? It's supposed to be a very good show." As though good reviews would encourage him to watch it and keep his hands to himself.
They looked a proper couple when under the guise of their performance art pieces. How she was the dolled up commodity that would break the hearts off savages worldwide, though the black hearted king who ruled an equally tenuous black market of myth was at her side. Guardian, warden to a wandering empath who illuminated the cobalt shore of his eyes. His chuckle came forward, an interestingly rare ingredient that few would be privy to knowing. It quaked at broad shoulders, rumbled as distant thunder would in his chest. "You should hope I don't become bored or else this will be the last time I go to one. No matter how stunning you look." Compliments from a feral host were reserved for her, and her only. The elevator pulled them down and with the cracking of the door did he continue on, leading her through the lobby.
A mock gasp did not last long when she was so quick to issue a bright smile the instant a compliment left his lips. In truth, it was difficult to not laugh along with him, but she managed to reel in a cackle and only let out a light laugh with his chuckle. "Thank you," he could dish out compliments all night and she'd easily forget about going to the Opera completely, she was so quickly subdued and swayed by the prose of his tongue. Suddenly as a realization struck her as they moved through the lobby with her latched on to his arm, she lifted her hand to cage in a louder laugh so it did not echo about them. "And I am not even wearing red tonight." Lips twitching and peeking out from behind her fingertips. "I feel like I am being buttered up and spoiled. And I do not mind in the least." Enjoying it all on the way to the front door of the apartment building. "I will return the favor and do my very best keeping you from getting bored." It helped greatly that he was not a restless child.
"Take notes for next time, then. If I do decide to accompany you to something like this again. If you do not wear red, I will not go." He was making up rules, and stipulations, for his character to be in the company of hers. To do such things as the normal herds would do; he could inspect the screens with her during a movie, could meet her for dinner while still rearranging his items and producing rituals, and would make it his personal war of pretending to be involved -- all while simply admiring her from the toxicity of his stare. A hybrid grin, something akin to a half smirk and a half smile, cut across his mouth when his head tilted towards her. "I will change the rules; you can wear any color except for orange.? He spoke while opening the door to be greeted with a sterile chill of ending winter weather. His eyes glanced outward to the urban landmarks, took note on how the wind was so very fine -- and his mouth collected itself into a tightened expression. There was a severe lack of evolution here, of beating hearts, of moving crowds or shadows.
"You wish for me to be in red all the time now?" Questioning his new requirement before he offered her a smile and then amended his rule to accept all but a single color. Only she was still quick to challenge, question and tease again. "Someday Cardinal, I will convince you on how radiant I can look in orange. I will be a sunburst of color and you have no option but to bask in the warm radiance that the dress will give. It may not be for days, weeks or months to come, but someday...You will see." Winking over to him as she amused herself with the idea of him bowing at her feet over the color of her dress before she caught sight of his expression. Curious then, bright blues were looking about and around to figure out the cause. But she felt and saw nothing.
"Perhaps I will see it," he let that cross from the threshold of lips and teeth, but the murmur was grated with glass. His body seemed at ease while his eyes were sharp, cutting across a valley of strict asphalt, wet with the left over melting of earlier snowfall. The door shut behind them and the world seemed to go on mute. He heard nothing but the silence was heavy enough to be unsettling for him. There was a twitch at his fingertips before they fled to grip against her shoulder, intent on putting himself in front of her rather than her being open to what he swore he could feel. "Something is wr-- !" but before he could say another single word, he had been gripped by a lashing of ropey black, caught in a tangle and plucked away and into the murky clouds above, so thick that they blotted out the moon and stars.
It had not been noticed because she was at his side and was latched onto his arm. It was common for the rest of the world to disappear around her when she was in his presence and the white noise silence that originally made her anxious and nervous at their initial meeting was taken to be natural and expected. She had not been on edge until he was moving to act as a shield, though from what Constance had no idea. "What is it--" Speaking on top of each other before the following split second had the harbinger snatched away from her arms outstretched above her. It was unlikely he had much of an expression but the horror was clear on her face as she screamed out his name, "OZ!!" Panic was instantaneous and bubbled up in her blood as her heart started a rapid fire beat in the cage of her chest.
Silence. The dead wave of radio silence with the white noise of brief gusts began to fill the void of where he had been. She was left there to panic. Nothing could be seen from her point of view, but things could be heard -- the explosive work of orange and red, of fire bolts that came from nowhere, lit up the clouds like dragon breath and gave silhouettes to the waving arms of maddening black. It started with a single drop. Red. It bled into the shimmer of her dress, a single mar that turned into thousands when the sky seemed to pour down the still warm texture of ichor. What followed were dull thumps that became louder the more wet the pavement became. Littered with body parts; the fat of skin hanging from torn ligaments, the bulk of tissue that was sawed away from something sinister. The length of a body came next, falling into a crouch against the street to indent the cobblestone and cement, cracking it as if weighing enough to harm steel. The whispering shift of fluttering scales on a figure that should have been a man, but was not. No eyes, no mouth, only the fluttering of onyx and silver with an alienesque expression and features. Movements were so fast that they almost blurred when Adad scooped up the empath over one of its shoulders, just as a tendril of black tried to snatch at her.
She didn't fill the night sky with screams, even though panic and terror began to radiate from her instantly and she blocked out the harrowing sensations coming from the shadows up above her. As if that wasn't enough a touch of red was cast down on her, and then the rain of gore was quick to follow. She'd been warned of this before. She'd be covered in a blood bath of crimson, but she had thought it was not to be taken literally. Her feet felt cemented to the sidewalk, unable to move and with no plan to execute forming in her mind. It wasn't until she was draped over Adad's shoulders that she gave a look around and saw the swirl of black outstretched and miss that her brain started up again. Her expression still bordered on terror, the leftover remains of a body in the street still in view before she was clutching onto the shift of scales and makings of metal serpents underneath her. Silent reassurance that if Adad was there, she had a form of protection, but more importantly --that Oz was there underneath it. Her voice came out cracked, still far from calm. "Are you okay?" Asking a god about how he felt, as though she could heal him.
Their movements, combined, were nothing if not primal grace. The concocted myth of chaos, one of the heralded Seven, twisted about to bound across the asphalt, quick to side step from an onslaught of tethers that tried to ensnare it and her. Any answer from this entity was made with the rattling of metallic skin, how it shifted like waves across a slice of what could be considered a human body. The act was incredibly akin to a predator outrunning a threat, protecting what was his in the middle of it all. Though that was not the only thing that was on their tails; it was a misanthropic looking silhouette from the dark, one that was larger than most of the cars that they were quick to avoid -- still, there was little else moving. The city felt dead, surreal, a realm that was not of the norm. That which came from behind seemed a mash of monster and man, with a parasitic mouth that spread open to roar a glass trembling trumpet of sound before loping forward. It seemed to be coming for them, but just as it was on their heels, it twisted to pound a massive, clawed fist into the ground, rupturing asphalt to fine gravel and hoisting out the high pitched screaming of another abomination, one that writhed in a mass of black tendrils.
It had been years since Constance had felt helpless in the midst of a pending threat and occurring battle, but the sensation washed over her like the rain and like the terror and fear had moments ago. It was the cause of the building bile in her throat that she somehow managed to keep down as Adad began putting distance between them and the curls of black smoke. Her eyes squinted to attempt to see the ...creature that was coming after them, but as to just what it was she couldn't say. Her hold tightened on him, but she didn't ask any more questions. There was only a jerking and tightening of her form at the high pitched screams in the distance.
Symphony of a surreal exposure; there was a crashing of glass, cracking of asphalt, the high pitched whine of fallen street lamps. In the distance there was the epitome of chaos, brewed from the onslaught of surprise tactics the cult had worked hard on. So hard, in fact, that the harbinger and his beloved comrades began to think they had slipped from possibility of being a threat. Such a theory, now, seemed ridiculous. The ever-changing twitching of scales and skin, like water and oil all passing in waves across the humanesque body, made a sort of rustled leaves sound -- maybe an attempt to calm the raging waters of the empath?s soul. Her poor mind might have been on the edge after being splattered in the polka dots of unknown blood. A swift leap had another change morphing within the God of Thunder; the physique twisted into a more primal outline, the bulk of a beast rather than the sinew of a man, and the anatomy was enough to hoist her around, to wrap her arms around the thick neck, before a leap was taken. Quick, far in distance. It clung to the side of brick and crawled up, cracking the shell of the building with the force. At the top, at least fifteen feet up, she was allowed to disengage while the metamorphosis was only half -- half Oz, half Adad. "Are you ok?" asked the mouth of the jackal boned host, with a background echo of thunder, of murmuring storms from the alien odd-half of Adad.
Unraveled from him and standing on the rooftop, Constance looked back in the direction they had come from, bright blues sweeping over the chaos and destruction that was left behind them. She was not intentionally hesitating to answer, but the whirlwind of it all, the terror and the surprise were still washing over her as she stood there safe from harm. "I am fine." Answered without a look over herself to see the new additions to the material of her dress, the scattered drops of blood that had rained down on her earlier. The rattle of her heartbeat in her chest indicated she'd still need a moment to calm down, but her face was quick to show with the concern she had for him when she looked him over. "Are you? What is --How did--?" Cutting off her own questions with a shake of her head. "No, maybe here is not the best place to discuss any of that. I can walk, we should go." Where? She didn't know. She didn't even know where they currently were beyond a rooftop that she'd have to get down from somehow.
The questions just twitching at the tip of her tongue would be understandable, but she was right to shove them back into the abyss. For now. He angled close enough when Adad retreated back within the lining of scarification sigils, the bulk of the symbols there to recall those let out. However, he did not seem to possess a thought to wrestle down the lumbering beast that howled, tore, and maimed at the tendrils of black that still reached up from the jagged cracks of the street and down from the mess of artificial clouds. "I am fine." And he was; there wasn't a scratch on him when he regained the suit, fragment by fragment, and seemingly out from thin air. Tricks of the pedigree he was installed with. A curse, and a blessing, and probably something either better or worse when it came to handling the empath. He reached to touch at her face. Interested in knowing for himself that she wasn't falling apart or unspooling from her confused state. The process of what had happened took a toll on him mentality, and semi-physically, but he didn't dare show a single second of the stress it put on him when in such a dire situation. "Come on.", he grunted, tilting his hand to lock onto her own and pull her towards a door on the roof, where it would lead them down a dark stairwell through the building.
Her smile was a bit strained, not for his touch, but for the ordeal they had slipped away from. Her eyes reading every small piece of him that she could see, looking for cracks that he would let show or signs of a silent confirmation that he was fine and unscathed. Drawn in with his hand, Constance followed after him through the door and down the stairs. In the shadows of the stairwell was where her strained smile dissipated and slipped into a brief frown as realizations and assumptions suddenly spun together in her mind. More questions, more queries and secrets were going to be asked and hopefully shared when they found a private moment. Her free hand collected the hem of her dress and pulled upwards, making it easier for her to move freely and faster to avoid the nonsense of tripping and ripping an already blood spotted and ruined dress.
He wasn't a mind reader but it was easy to slip into the role of one when you had fallen in the grip of a person to watch, to care for, to adore with the four letter word that a harbinger rarely spoke. If ever. He paused their descending, the red glow of an emergency exit showcasing them in a type of horrific light; a texture of neon sanguine did little to make either of them appear less concerned over the things that had transpired. Outside, even in the far distance, the tremors of the beasts that wrestled could be felt in their bones, vibrating in the walls. "Just ask -- just ask now. We will talk as we move." A tactic of someone who was fluent in war, a man made into a monster that still knew tricks to calm the soul, to hush the violent twitching of confusion or fear. Hand tightened in a solid grip to her own hand, gently pulling her down the stairwell again but encouraging her to speak as he became the leader. "You're wondering what that is. You're wondering if it is one of the Seven. Come on, Constance, just talk."
Was there a switching of roles? He wasn't encouraging her silence, but instead a conversation? When he paused and encouraged her to speak up, she blinked her surprise. So talk she did and he'd get a quiet ear full as she kept her voice low as they continued down the stairs. "I'm wondering a lot of things right now. Hoping for others and yet still trying to silence it all so I don't trip into an unexpected hysteria." It was unlikely to happen, unless she was caught up and surrounded by it, but a clear head would have helped her most in a situation like this. "I'm wondering what that is. I'm wondering which way we're running. I'm wondering why we are running. I'm wondering who we are running from and what is running after us. You were just sucked away from me with no warning and then ----" She didn't have words yet for the scene that immediately followed, or she was playing it over in her mind and it caused her to move that much faster with him to avoid leaving his side. "But most of all, I'm wondering that if it is all who I think it is, then -how- is it that they found me? Found you? And if I can ever go back there again if it is not safe for either one of us." Hopefully she gave him enough to talk about.
She had given him plenty to think about, to process the responses he would make long enough to not come off as gruff or demeaning as he sometimes could. It was an allotted amount of time when he let the silence reach deafening heights aside from the clicking of her heels or the soft thuds of his own feet. Tongue to his teeth. The wolf inside twitched but he remained stoic for the most part. "That is who you think it is. I am not sure how they found us, but it doesn't surprise me. We're not the only crafty minds in this equation. Being safe will come at a price, and one that I hope you can understand and deal with when the time comes." It was his own anecdote to reference a certain black-blood witch that had set the empath on edge, yet one that could be a saving grace in the pandemonium they faced. "I have some ideas on a way that will allow you to still frequent places, still go out, still be yourself. Much like the mark I first gave you, the protection of Adad -- something more, though. And that thing is one of the Seven in its primordial form. Under dire circumstances, I am able to control more than one at a time." A glance was given back to her when they paused in the stairwell again, this time so he could gauge the mask that was beginning to peel around her features. "I told you I would keep you safe. Do you believe me?"
The long periods of silence that followed her continuous follow of words was not surprising, but she didn't press for him to speak. And when he finally did, she heard every word and the underlying meanings, the hidden phrases and implications that he did not voice and it was what caused her to pull her hand from his, but to grab at the opposite side of the gown she held in one hand so she could move faster. "You sound as though I won't be given a choice to be locked in a figurative cage." Her frown had faded and her smile was nowhere to be seen either in the half light of the stairwell. A vacant expression was offered back at him as he paused and thus stopped her from moving down the steps further. "I do not doubt your desire to, nor your capability." Her tone held no anger, but a defeated type of sadness and instead of saying anything further, her steps picked up again to escape down the stairs the rest of the way.
It was a switch of the phrasing, the decoy of words that held bitter hints of her emotion that swayed him to reach back out and grasp at her elbow. The hold wasn't harsh, but it was demanding, for the moment. "Why do you always make it seem like I am trying to lock you up, to hide you away, to keep you from who you are or what you are?" A feral snap within his tongue had arranged itself beneath the shadowing of austerity. He let go to as not to engage fully in the bout of aggression which slipped from his pores. Teeth set askew to clamp his jaw shut when he watched her. "You have whatever option you want. I am offering you a choice! If I was holding you hostage, would I give you that? If you don't want my help, fine. Then say it." Bold cobalt narrowed down to infiltrate the bright wayside of oceanic blues, such a contrast to the darkening of his own tenuous stare. "I. Am not. Leon." He felt it needed to be said, right there, in that stairwell that would act as a bunker to all their secrets, to their confessions, a place that heralded no other ears but their own. "Tell me you know that!"
Pulled back and caught by her arm, her eyes narrowing while her features cracked with sadness. "Because it is what I am afraid of the most! Forget horrible nightmares; forget witches, warlocks and voodoo kings. What I am most afraid of is being locked in a cage and discovering that I went there willingly. Again. To be used as a tool and with no one to blame but myself. But fear is reasoning without logic." He released his hold and her eyes briefly closed before they reopened and she tried to clear the air around her, to push aside the heavy tone of their words, but all she had was the makings of an apology. "I know you are not him Oz. Please, you asked me what I thought, what I believed and felt. I have never said that I did not want your help. I am simply afraid of what is to follow."
Breathing was rough within his lungs. There was the reflection of the Seven in his blood, in his eyes, though the man still resided there, bestial as much as he was understanding. "Yes. Afraid because of what happened in your past. Afraid because you went through trauma. But all you are doing is running away from solutions because you think, somewhere, deep down, that I, or someone else, is going to try to use you. To keep you condemned, to keep you pacified." The words were harsh yet it was a needed ushering of his thoughts, his own views, while in the state of clamor they were in. Further down the rabbit hole they seemed to go while the outside ruled with the clashing of gods and creatures. "You make your own choices, Constance. I do not make them for you, nor will I ever. You said you loved me; this is what our love will be like. There is no fairy tale right now. There is only survival, survival from the people, the things that want to use us -- both of us. Not just you. This is a two way street, and I will go down whichever way you choose, but -- stop. Stop imagining that I am the next locked ******* cell for you to waste away in.I am not." At the bottom of the well came another door, one he shoved open and held there for her to escape out of as well. The dying sounds of withering black in the distance clued him into just who had become the victor, and the mighty bellow that followed was a reasonable voice of the winner. "I love you, Constance, but I cannot do this without your trust. Without the entire outline of it. Not pieces, not shards. The entire thing." Cobalt watched the rising patterns of crystal blue in her own eyes, the breeze of a dying winter and the smell of blood in the air.
Listening to his every word, her expression growing more solemn with every step until she reached the final stair. One thing in particular he said made her heart ache before her attention was sent out the opened door. Her expression tightened, worrisome at the bellowing sounds in the distance and the blood in the air, the fading sounds of anguish that dropped to silence. "Isn't it funny? When we first met you were telling me that I should never trust you. And now you," turning to look up at him with a silent sigh. "You are asking for all of it. You should consider yourself lucky that I failed to listen to you the first time. I've trusted you for months. I wouldn't be standing here if I didn't."
"You shouldn't have trusted me.", was the first bout of words that came crawling from the heat of his mouth, all while his eyes took to glance at the skyline where debris of dust and smoke wavered about from dying phantasms. "You wouldn't be here, now, in this." The door shut when he moved away, once she had come clear from the outline of it. Hands dedicated themselves to fixing at the reckless state of that blood red tie, at the wrinkling to the lapel of his suit coat, all before it hit him hard enough to stall any more of his ridiculous need to be an unscathed specimen and to turn to wrap her features up within the cups of his palms. "This is your choice; where do we go from here?"
"Don't be foolish." Commenting as she headed out the door and onto the sidewalk to cast a look down the street to the fading memory of destruction and chaos. "If I did not trust you, then I suspect that I would have just been snatched up and taken away." Turning back to look at him as he pawed at his tie and ironed out the wrinkles with his hands. "Whether I trust you or not does not take away the fact that I am who I am. I was never under the impression that they merely wanted me because I am fond and close to you." A soft smile was given as he held her head in his hands, the tenderness of the touch being the cause for her sigh. "For now, I would like to get out of these clothes," as if that would wash away the events of the evening itself. "And discuss the options and ideas that you spoke of earlier. I do not know that my home is safe anymore."
( Taken from live play between Ghost Notes and Constant Smile. )
