Lost in Fog, part 1

One foggy night in the marketplace some weeks ago:

Crispin didn't have a plan. Once he made it out into the chilly darkness of the early morning, a great deal of his discomposure eased. He felt the tension, still, in two knots between his neck and shoulders, hiding under Marks and the collar of his coat. The pace he adopted was neither hurried nor lethargic, it simply was. One foot in front of the other, silent but for the shift of buckles lashing his boots together.

How had Shae found him in that mist and fog? Normally such a dense soup was the stuff of the docks, but the weather had conspired to allow it to seep further inland. Now it blanketed the market in a haze, turning shapes and figures into half-realized versions of themselves. It was one of these that gradually grew closer from behind. The mist parted in her wake, chasing after her heels like a playful spirit. It would be warmth that gave her away, the sphere of her influence chasing away some of the wet chill, but the sound of her steps would be next. A sound that was sudden, as if she had only touched the ground recently rather than approached from afar. Assuming he didn't startle, she would fall in beside him, matching his pace.

There was a difference in the atmosphere when one was alone and when one was not. Cris felt a prickle travel up one arm and down the other, making a home along the nape of his neck and coaxing the fine hairs there to attention. The fog did not bother him, neither did the company, but it was the sound that made him turn, frown already tight on his mouth pulled down further.

This close, the bruising on her jaw and collarbone was evident, but it seemed days old rather than the space of a few hours. His frown was met with resting calm. "Mind the company?" Words pitched for just one listener. "I hear the city is dangerous this time of night."

"No," there was a Mark on the back of his neck, a little off center and closer to his right ear that sharpened every detail night's shadow touched. He recognized her as an acquaintance before she spoke, but once she did, he looked back to the road. "You seem capable enough to hold your own."

"Thank you." It was a pretense, sure, but one that perpetuated the growing habit of their paying witness to eachother's less than stellar moments. Her eyes took in the markings she could see, the contrast more evident from this angle and in this lighting. Symbols, it seemed. Shapes that her eyes would later search out amid books for hopes of definition. The silence that stretched from her was a comfortable thing.

Comfortable yes, but somewhere underneath that comfort, he had the impression that it was not supposed to be. "I did not exactly take the most direct route away from the dueling venue. Would you have me believe our meeting to be coincidence?"

"Not really, no. There's no coincidence in weather like this." And it seemed as if there was no deception intended from her frank response. "Noticing that you were still in the city, and being possessed of a desire to roam, I thought I might offer a distraction. Weak though it may be. When you left, you looked like a bowstring fit to snap."

"You were able to canvass the entire city in such short time?" Nod of his head. "Impressive." Her further observations won a second glance, and four paces later, "It's clear from that statement we've not spent much time in each other's company."

"I had help." Admittance made. And Shae's shoulders shrugged once. "It sounded like a diplomatic way to express the tension, in my head. I'm not always the best with my words. More time watching than talking, I suspect. I welcome correction, if you are so inclined. Or not. Like I said, the intent was to offer distraction."

Cris hadn't taken a left turn in a while. Passing under the halo of a streetlight, they were lanterns in this part of town, he was not frowning as deeply as he had been. "Thank you. You're very kind."

"I suppose, when I want to be." They passed from island of light to island of light before she spoke again. "Would you mind an off topic question?"

"If you're looking to distract me, I'd be a fool to say yes." Looking aside, curious. "What is it?"

"Only a fool if the distraction isn't wanted. In which case, let me know and I'll be gone." She wouldn't linger where it wasn't wanted. "I was wondering if you could tell me what an angel is."

Narrowing at the corners of his eyes. He thought about her question and the possible reasons behind it. "A divine being, winged. Strong, beautiful with an immense capacity for love and protection. But they can also be ferocity personified. Why do you ask?"

"Because it came out of your mouth." More than once, in her observations. "And I had not heard it used in quite that way before." She appeared thoughtful. "Not so different, perhaps, from the beings I've read of."

"Ah," after a moment, he nodded and understood. "The way I use the term, most often, is a substitute for vulgarity. The equivalent to such phrases as For God's sake."

"Precisely. Which had me wondering if perhaps your angels were wholly different than mine. Where I am from they are...distant things. Relegated to the outer planes."

Crispin's gaze rose to the sky overhead. There were moons lingering behind the cloud cover. "They are distant to me as well, though I have met them. I would not trade the experience for anything. Have you?"

"Their presence was not very strong, where I am from." Quieter now. "Demons and devils, I have met. In people and in the truth of form."

"Likewise." A right turn sounded good. "Have you made any progress in your search for a way home?"

Shae was content to let him lead. The streets were less familiar to her. "None, though that is partially because I question the wisdom in trying. Have you? Sought the way back, that is."

Half shake of his head. "No, I haven't. I do have ways of returning, but I enjoy my life here. Regardless of what it seems."

"It seems you have a home here, and friends. So I hardly fault your enjoyment of it." Back to her original volume, just the hint of a smile. "There are certainly...many new experiences to be had. Though, I'd be lying to myself if I suggested my own leanings towards staying were anything other than selfish."

"I do," nodding. "Yes." Fist freed from his pocket, he scratched above his right ear, another curious glance slid to her in the dark.

"What?" She asked with a light chuckle, catching the glance that slid her way.

"Nothing. I suppose I wondered what those selfish leanings were. You're new in town, you already seem to've cultivated relationships, but with individuals that wouldn't exactly judge you on your desire to come or go."

"It has it's faults, as I'm discovering. Corruption, power struggles, things that make my head hurt to contemplate the very existence of. But for all that, it has many of the things that I had forgotten I could do. Like this, for instance." Nodding towards the cobblestones they tread upon. "Wouldn't judge my coming and going? I'm not sure what you mean, exactly."

"I'd challenge you to find a place that did not have any of those things." He hoped that by "this" she did not mean taking a nighttime stroll. "You claimed your leanings were selfish. A great deal of what makes a thing selfish or not is based upon others' perceptions of it. If you've no one to judge, who's to say what you're doing is anything but normal?"

Oh but that's what she meant. "My own guilt, really. The general belief that others would feel the same. I've cultivated quite a few acquaintances now, yes." A bit of a stress on that classification. "Gregarious tendencies. Some might blossom to friendship, in time."

Cris nodded his agreement. "If you like it here, stay. It's really that simple. What sort of place was your home, anyway?"

"That would be the sentiment I am leaning towards. Forward being the direction I prefer to travel." Fingers raked through her hair. "Comparatively? A harsh one. Yours?"

Another tick at one corner of his mouth. Forward. He liked that. "Much the same, actually. The ratio of mundane to supernatural is tipped strongly in the latter's favor. That seems to be the only difference."

"Mundane. Supernatural. These categories are amusing. And, perhaps, relative. I feel rather 'mundane' here." A thoughtful exhalation. "So do you hold with the theory that we all were selected to arrive here?"

He considered that a moment, his mouth knotted together and shifting to the right. "No, not exactly. Were that true, then it would have to be left up to Fate. But I know, my own personal arrival was an accident. I could have just as easily wound up anywhere else."

"I receive so much conflicting testimony on the matter. Is the plane sentient. Is it not. What manner of accident, if you don't mind my asking?" It seemed that without a war to fight Shae was becoming a scholar, anything to keep her mind busy.

"I've heard similar claims. There's a local legend that tells of a wind or phenomenon called the Nexus that sweeps individuals up from where they are and drops them here unawares." He pulled his shoulders back, then relaxed them. "I was sent here, though the destination was not exactly specified. It was an accident that I arrived at all, with all my faculties intact."

"Ah." Empathy in her regard. "Perhaps that wind swept you here in lieu of whatever destination you were bound for. That appears to be the case for me, at any rate. I doubt I was meant for, well, here."

"Perhaps," Cris conceded. Another left turn. "Where do you think you were meant to go?"

Air pushed through her nose in a sigh. "One of a couple options. But I can't recapture the moment in time to give it further study. A place of holding, a place of discomfort, general distance, or maybe something that would kill me."

"So." A thoughtful pause. "Limbo, or an afterlife. Just what sort of unspeakable event did you escape?"

Her lips twist into a frown, eyes finding new purchase in the fog ahead. She chewed on her words before replying. "War."

Pensive glance aside, he nodded after a moment. "You did not seem injured. Or had you arrived earlier and given yourself time to heal up?"

"It took me a few days to find the city." In truth she had spent half of those days in blissful unconsciousness. "I didn't exactly arrive in town."

Fiendish Technology, a Witch's First Call

In the corner of a tucked away book store, Shae stared at the phone in her hand. She'd managed to learn how to unlock it without accidentally dialing for emergency services -- something both parties were appreciative of -- now she stared at the time stamp on the last text she had sent, comparing it to the display in military time at the top corner of her phone screen. Any who looked at her would see the woman's soft frown as she looked at the device, the book whose pages had slipped from her fingers and now idly fanned on the armrest in her breeze. One digit hovered over the contact name. Tapped. Hovered over the call button. Frozen for a long moment. Then she tapped again, lifting the device to her ear to hear the trilling noise of the outgoing call. Texts took too long, a message with her words would be faster.

Three rings later, the phone clicked over. "Hello, Shae," with a measure of surprise in the man's voice. There was a gentle rhythmic rushing in the background. Like wind, but not quite.

So busy had she been framing the thoughts she would put to the message that she didn't quite register the difference in the words that greeted her. Just the sound of his voice as a cue. There was a moment of hesitation, where was the beep? Then she started speaking. "Hello Cris, It's Shae. I found the store you mentioned. It's rather quaint. Quiet. Perhaps a different sort of quiet than I was prepared for. I just wanted to thank you for passing my request along. Perhaps sometime in--" She'd continue if he didn't say anything, much with the air of talking to a recording.

It did sound like she'd rehearsed it. But one would have normally paused by now to let the other person respond. "Shae. Hello."

Shae pulls the phone away from her ear, staring at it. "What..." Muttering to herself in a way that was still audible to the sensitive microphone. "...did I mess up?" She tried pressing at the screen. Likely gifting Cris with the sound of tapping and the tones of pressed numbers.

Murmuring, and then incessant beeping. "Shae. Shae. Angel's---" The call ended.

The phone chimed for the end call, screen going black. "Balls."

He'd be sorry he missed that. Moments later, her phone began to ring.

Just as she was dropping the device with disgust, it started chirping a merry tune at her. She nearly panicked. No one had called her before and the default ringtone was bright, cheerful, and loud. The other patrons of the shop, few though there were, shot her the dirtiest of looks. And no wonder. She'd disturbed the atmosphere with muzak. Quickly turning the phone over she pressed at the screen. By luck, she picked up rather than hanging up. "Fiendish thing..." Her voice got closer as she lifted it to her ear. A sigh from her as she listened to...what? Anything? Nothing? Tentative. "Hello?"

Anything, nothing, for about one second. "What the hell was that?"

There was a flush on her cheeks that she was thankful no one she knew could see. That sounded like a live response. So this was a phone call. She pieced it together, remembering Serah talking into her phone as if having a conversation. "I...have no idea, I was trying to leave a message."

"By the Angel, why? I answered you."

"Yeah I...I may not have realized that. These things are confusing Crispin!" That last a stressed whisper. She was in the store, after all.

A terse exhale. He was not upset at her, he didn't even think he was upset at all. The rushing sound continued. "Well. You have me now. What did you want to tell me?"

"I forg-- Oh. Uhm. I wanted to thank you for the thing with Sal-- what's that noise?"

He almost snorted. "You're welcome." Slight scratching. "What noise?" There were plenty of noises she could mean.

"That...rushing sound." The tone of her voice settled, shifting away from the frazzle that had captured her a moment before. Her faint breathing slowed as she listened. "Water? Wind?"

"Water. The ocean. Canaan's home is on a cliff overlooking a beach. That's where I am now."

"Oh." Heavy pause. "I've interrupted. I'm sorry."

"Stop, please. I would not have picked up otherwise."

"Then I'll use the opportunity to confess my disappointment that I did not find company at the shop you directed me to. What are you doing at Canaan's house if my call isn't an interruption?"

It took him a moment, but she wouldn't see his brief half smile. "I like to sit here, it's relaxing, and I'm alone. On the beach, not in the house."

Shae closed her eyes, listening to the background noise. "I like the sea. I wander the docks sometimes, at night, for that reason. Broke into th--" Whoops. "Nevermind."

He didn't ask. "I'd never much opinion on it one way or another. The first time I saw it was when I was a child. But I'd gone to study somewhere, I was more interested in that than the sludgy looking water filled with fishing boats. But here. Here is rather nice."

"I didn't see the sea until later in life. I'd seen lakes, lots of woods, mountains, rivers. The day I saw the sea it was..." She trails off, coming to a lack of words. "Does it help you? The solitude?"

He nodded like she could see it. "It always does."

Leaning back in the chair she sat still, using the sound of the tinned waves and her closed eyes to picture a beach under the evening's cloudy skies. Perhaps it was the vision in her head, perhaps it was the illusion of solitude she had created for herself. Her questions changed from the ones she had intended to ask. "What are you trying to define?" Quiet question.

Another rush came to meet the mouthpiece. This time it was wind, carried by the tides. Gentle and cold, salt and brine scented. "I don't believe I understand what you mean."

"In the solitude. What are you trying to define? A thought, a feeling, yourself?" In her background the faint chime of a door and the gentle flap of pages.

Half shake of his head. "Nothing. I just like it. It's quiet, and simple."

"And are you complicated with others? Or are others complicated to you?"

Something about the direction of her inquiries made him feel like he needed to pay attention, not lounge with his head resting against a natural formation of rock and sand. "I think it's a combination of both."

She was paying attention with the only sense she currently had. Her breaths quieted when he answered, to better hear his replies. "I think it might be hard for people to be simple with others, genuinely. It takes effort." She continued after a brief pause. "But when it happens, ah, it can be profound. To see the center of someone else. Who they are in the solitude."

"Is that a desire of yours? To see someone else, in that way?"

"I thought it a common one. Perhaps it's just me."

"It's common, yes. But one does not hear it spoken of so openly."

"Another slip, then. I'm not so well versed in these things." Bemusement. Self depreciating smile. Unseen, perhaps heard.

This time, he did snort. "I did not say it was a bad thing. Merely surprising. That topic tends to be one of silent hopes and musings, things others are never meant to hear."

"Even though it is common? Funny that, no? One of the ways we complicate ourselves, maybe. Or maybe I'm overthinking it. Many words are unspoken because they are simply not needed, after all."

"I'm certain that in hindsight, if we were to learn others desired the same things from us that we desired of them, and each of us harbored the same secret thoughts---things would be much easier. But as you said, it is hard to be genuinely simple."

"Something I struggle with, I can admit. I tend to speak in gestures. Fulfilled promises. Unasked favors. Hindsight is always taunting."

"There's a mundane idiom---actions speak louder than words. Communicating in gesture is preferred."

"Learning something new everyday, to quote another." Light humor, warmth in her voice.

Another secret half smile. "You mentioned you'd other things you'd like to discuss with me."

"Ah. Yes, I had almost forgotten. I'd heard something that I found alarming, and hoped you could clarify." The warmth faded and she inhaled, concern taking its place. "Tara, the one who so blatantly threatened you in the Inn. She made claim to being Taneth's mother. Is that true?"

Rush, rush, rush. When he spoke again, it was quietly. "Not biologically. I asked her the same thing with as much concern."

"Adoptive is...not much of a comfort. I know Taneth collects souls to dote upon her with ease, but such a soul...I wonder." Brief pause in which she opened her mouth to speak several times, but closed back the words before they could escape. Finally: "What was her response?"

"Adopted. I rather think that Tara decided that was to be her role to Taneth, and it came to be because arguing with her seems to be most unwise. She's not causing Taneth any harm."

Silence, considering. "Mothering from a demon." What could one have seen to mother in Taneth? It was a question that weighed at her, and her nebulous instincts. "No, I doubt she would dare. Too many defend her."

"I did not ask much more than that. I can do without understanding why she does the things she does, in that regard." Shae's latter observation received nothing.

Faint exhale, the squeak of leather as her shoulders slumped in the chair and then a faint hiss of a wince. "You know Cane much better than I do." A change of subject, her thoughts withheld on the previous matter. "What does the man need?"

His frown came through. "I beg your pardon?"

"It's what the potential meeting with Sal is about. I don't trust that Cane will take me up on the debt I offered him. He said it was fine, but I want to offer a token of repayment for the favor with the phone. Do you have any idea?"

An exhale. "I don't know any more than you do. Anything that he might need, he's the ability to obtain on his own. If he said it was fine, perhaps you could simply leave it at that. Or go with something simple, as it may be to make up for the inconvenience of your request, and not simply the favor itself."

Her sigh was one of weary, suppressed frustration. "I dislike feeling as if I owe a debt." Was that quiet petulance creeping into her tone? Certainly she was pouting."I'll feel better if I do, but I don't want the present to be an inconvenience as well."

"The only way to truly avoid that is to get him nothing."

"You're so helpful." Drawled with no real bite.

"I never said I wouldn't be."

"A woman might be hopeful."

"Then that woman has been terribly misled."

"A common theme in all the interesting stories. Made great by what she does next."

"And that would be?"

"That would be telling. Spoilers, Crispin. Don't read ahead."

"Ah. I thought you meant next as in your immediate, next course of action." A pause. "Was that all you wanted to ask me?"

"That would have been a fantastic place to end the call on you, but I don't know how these things work. Alas, a first draft." Laughter, hidden beneath her voice. "Mm. That's all that seems important at the moment. Perhaps next time I'll pick your brain in person while I disturb your quiet."

"If you know how to turn it off, that would effectively do the same thing." But then she'd be stuck with a dead phone. "Perhaps you will."

"I'll trust you to be a gentleman and end it for me. Or don't. I could listen to the sea for a while. Goodnight Crispin."

He was nothing if not a gentleman. "Good night, Shae." One moment later, CLICK.

Of Voices of Reason, Names, and Dead Gods -- part 2

Though she sometimes acted like she was, it was reassuring to know she was not, in fact, invisible. Her attention shifted onto Shae and she watched, anticipating the woman to make her own departure. But before she might devise a goodbye, the girl asked, "Are you all right?"

Not invisible, no. Shae's attention diverted to the adolescent with a measure of study. Open, not covert. The drink that she had abandoned on the back bar was in her hand then, like it had always been there. Looks like she wasn't going anywhere. Whatever Shae saw in the girl seemed to please her. It was the eyes. She knew those eyes. "Fox likes to poke holes in my ego when I need it. I don't always take it well." Offering more of an answer than she might have to another. "Care to join me while I tinker?" A nod to the bag as yet untouched on the counter of the bar.

"I would like to," she admitted, without shrinking from Shae's gaze. "What will you tinker with?" she wondered, glancing at the bag and then back to the woman.

The glass visited her lips. There was no stage business to her sips. The lurid blue liquid lowered by another finger when she set it aside. "That's a fantastic question. Of the things I can make, I haven't quite decided." Slender fingers for the bag now. The only skin exposed on her were those hands and her face, and in the bar light the faint whorls were dim against the dark of her clothing. "Shift yourself closer, if you like. I'm Shae."

And so closer she came, so invited to it, taking her cup with her though it was presently empty. When she sat again, it was not quite directly in front of Shae but off to the left by a seat, ostensibly so that she would not crowd the woman and her as-yet-undecided project. Though she perhaps seemed not to notice much, she was an attentive girl with keen eyes. Their muddy green hue did not particularly enhance or detract from her own complexion, which tended toward a shade of pale. The introduction gave her pause. Shae was a stranger but they were surrounded by privacy, and so she said, "I do not have a name." Her expression remained inscrutable but a sullen shadow tinted her tone.

"Is that so?" That shadow was noted. Little escaped her ears. Whether she wanted it to or not. From the bag she pulled bits of metal and wood like pieces of the carapace to some large shiny beetle, now disassembled. However these are lumped aside and her fingers find a knotted twist of silvery wire. A shape bent from the spool of the pliable metal that followed, complex as a labyrinth map from above. "Have you no wish to choose one for yourself?"

She watched Shae's hands at work without loosing sight of much else. "Did you name yourself?" she questioned back.

"Partly. It's every beings right to define themselves, I feel. Fox is in the process of doing so, but he's quite indecisive. Hence: Fox." The woman traced a finger over the work she had already completed on the project, the currents of the air in her vicinity picking up enough to call to mind a draft. "So. Lack of desire or lack of choice?"

Her lips thinned fractionally as she considered. "A little of both," she confessed. "It is not so easy. And something in it feels...fraudulent." She looked into the empty depth of her cup. "Can you understand?" It was not a condescending or even a pleading question but exactly what it seemed: did that make sense?

"I generally attempt to understand on a daily basis." And there was calm in her tone, as if the very act of asking questions of the girl provided some medication. "Is there someone you wish would gift you with a name? Or is the someone not important so long as the name is right?" At last she reached the end of her current work, and her fingers applied warmth and pressure to begin the addition she intended to add.

"There is someone," she answered after a silence of such length that it might've seemed she would not answer at all. Her gaze lifted from Shae's hands to her face. "But I would hear suggestions." She added, a little quietly, a little apologetically, "I do not mean to imply that you have one, of course." Her attention fell back to the woman's hands at work.

"That's well! For I'm afraid I do not. We've only just met, after all. To think I could name someone I had just met would be an arrogance of a whole new level." Her smile was disarming, and she seemed capable of working by feel for her eyes were more often than not on her young seeming companion. One final statement on the matter, this one a shade more gentle than her earlier genial toned inquiries. "I hope that sense of fraudulence isn't from a sense of...lacking merit."

Shae's smile softened the girl's own features, though it was a brief thing before discipline reasserted itself, and she gave serious consideration to the question. Serious consideration often required heavy pauses, but it seemed to her that Shae was not impatient with so much silence. "I do not think so. Perhaps it is only my clinging to notions of what is normal by society. By which I mean, it is normal for parents to name their children." Her brows quirked slightly then settled once more into neutrality.

"It is, traditionally. It is also a tradition in some cultures for children to choose a name when they reach adulthood. Others still have a temporary name in childhood to stave of the pain of possible loss and one granted later in ceremony. I was named by the man who adopted me, or rather. His housekeeper who seemed to object to 'the girl'." Silence was indeed something that Shae was comfortable with, especially when it reflected thought. She filled the pauses with a nearly inaudible sound from between her lips emitted when she'd found the right position for the latest bend of mithril.

She listened with interest, though someone less observant might mistake her composure for just the opposite. She hadn't known of these other traditions but was that a surprise? For all her ways, her contemplative nature and reserved manners, she was yet a girl of a tender age. She made a wryly amused sound at Shae's remark of the housekeeper, more breath than substance. "Did you not know your parents, then?"

"I did not." Simple fact with no undue emotion attached. "Family, too, is something I believe a being has the right to select. While not biological, I chose to regard the man who adopted me as father." Pausing, legs cross as she reaches back for the drink she had abandoned, sipping at its ice melt diluted content with the purpose of wetting her throat rather than concerns for taste. "What of your parents, dear?"

"I do not recall them," she said. Her gaze swept low a moment. After the presence of those different couples and their interesting discourse, she felt rather dull by comparison. It was not entirely for this reason that she questioned Shae -- she was genuinely curious about the woman. But partly it was, in truth, deflection. "Is your father yet alive?"

Shae set aside the bend of wire she was working with and reached for the spool itself. From the other end she began to unwrap a length which she trimmed free with the help of a cutting instrument she drew forth from the now completely empty bag. "Unfortunately he is not." Here there was regret, but no search for pity. Her smile was there just after. She measured the stretch of metal and then set her fingers to twisting for this new project. "Are you a ward or do you take care of yourself?"

"I was taking care of myself," she said. It was not boast or false pride. "But I have come into the company of...of friends." A smile of her own touched her lips, as fleet and delicate as a butterfly. "We take care of each other. I had actually intended to kill him at first," she explained without being asked. Perhaps the ale had been more potent than usual. Or maybe she appreciated having someone new to talk to, someone that actually looked at her. "He killed my Master and so revenge seemed appropriate."

Sorry About the Roof

The evening in the Inn had served to fray at nerves already raw. Try as she might to salvage her mood, new irritations cropped forth to push her back across the line. So Shae sought to remove herself from the interior before she was burdened with yet another frustration. The culmination of days of stress was brewing in her eyes as she stepped from the porch and cut down the alley.

When Shae fled, it was natural to follow, at distance enough, and with the silence of a hunter and a curiosity abnormal and perhaps unhealthy. Artsblood stalked the witch, and watched.

The walk to the woods found a detour past the buildings near the Inn. Her passage came with a soft crackling, like white noise. Shae strode with agitation seeping through her spine. Her face, normally warm and soft and friendly now twisted into something like a grit teeth frown. Dust stirred by her passage was flung about with violent abandon in her wake.

There is little of her for the wind to disturb, and she has weathered far fiercer gales, but Arts stays hidden for the nons, her mission to protect but not intrude...unless she must.

Shae's eyes cast about, sweeping from side to side as if hunting. Somewhere north, in that direction lay the stability she sought, but it was too far. Too far and she was unsettled.

When Shae steps, she does, when the witch stops, she freezes. Her great eyes make child's play of the darkened woods. She knows many things, but precious little about witchery, which she secretly suspects is just science we have yet to catch up with.

Here Shae would try to stand still, but fail. Each attempt to stop and calm herself presented a new argument that bade her to motion. About the courtyard the air slowly began to respond to her instinctive rain dance. Drawing in, a slowly building rotation. High above, where few bothered to look, what clouds were there gained slowly in volume and color. The process was gradual, something that might not be noticed until it was too late.

Arts finds little cave where the overhanging limbs of an evergreen prohibit the light. She notices much, as one would expect, but has no plan, other than to watch and to allow rashness room.

Perhaps it was little better than a temper tantrum, a bleeding of agitations from multiple sources. Multiple sour tastes on a tongue that preferred extra honey in her tea. Her eyes flickered north. No words, but silent gestures an argument without a visible opponent. And still the air grew charged with energy. At night, one might not see the way the clouds grew darker. But the whine of breezes down the nearby streets and alley would carry the sensation of anger.

What the hell, the watcher thought. If she loses impulse she has lost humanity. Clumsily pushing her way clear of the evergreen, she stands in the open, the roil of magic around her like the inside of a kaleidoscope, she speaks without intonation. "Shae."

She might have screamed it, for the way Shae's head whipped around. She didn't see Arts. Not at first. Those gold eyes that looked pale and shading towards white in the streetlight saw a figure, certainly, but it took a space of heartbeats to recognize a familiar figure. Color seeped back into her eyes and Arts would feel a brush of pressure just miss her, enough to painfully pop ears. The sensation of being just on the other side of a wall when a tornado passes by. The wind would suck at the ribbons of her dress with threat, but she would not be pulled further. The woman's mouth narrowed to a thin line. "What." A word hissed, arriving as little more than that to breeze besieged ears.

She stands against it, limber as a sapling, a steady buzz of loose ribbons, and when it has passed, remains there, a skinny girl, round-shouldered, too tall, but her great eyes match the fire in Shae's own. "You think I can't take it? Go ahead and hit me."

Above the clouds were dyed in sickening shades against the night sky as the woman stared, incredulous, at Arts. Beneath the shock, guilt warred with raw anger. The air vibrated even before the frustrated growl tore it's way from her throat. "Bloody vampires. Gods damn it Arts, I've hit enough of your kind." The words twisted in a color of confusion and disgust.

She is not impulsive, no. Not even when she suddenly without rationale decides to act contrary to planning and reason. She stalks forward, long leggy steps. Her little voice sweet. "Oh my my, and have I not faced a witchipoo in my time, missy dear? The point is, you haven't hit me. And I guess you're going to have to, hmmm?" Each step brings her a yard closer, and even at this distance you can tell that her great eyes are not set on stun.

The doors of the Outback began to rattle on their hinges, dust swirling in a circle a few feet out from her. Still low enough that the woman hadn't noticed. Eyes faded, flushed gold, faded again. Emotion painted across a face that strove to be lacking of it. Thunder in her voice, her pacing resumed. "No I don't damn well have to. Go home Arts."

Another step closer, another. "Oh my yes, it seems you do, or let me catch you with my eyes and make you do whatever I wish, perhaps even that you avoid, but ripped out of you all unwilling? Dear, dear Shae, have you forgotten that I have teeth too?"

The ambient temperature dropped. Falling by degrees as cool air shifted down from the upper atmosphere. The sudden drop caused a lift and swirl of funneled air. "You want to pick a fight with me now? Right now? This is my payback for good deeds, you threatening to enthrall me?" The last two words crashed, magnified like thunder as above, lightning crawled across the clouds like snakes. The wind carried her words in a hiss. "Do not test me tonight."

She seems to have caught the rhythm of the storm now, and dances through its surges like a spider skimming a web. "Payment, yes dear, because I will drain the blood of what bothers you, if I have to replace it with fury. Do you think you can stop me? Haven't you wondered? I know I have!" And closer and closer, the madness of her great eyes like the urge to leap when on the edge of a cliff.

A bolt of lightning crashes down between them, threatening and meters close to Art's feet. The outward fan of electricity from that point of grounding would spread in an instant, a spiderweb of potential pain for the unwary. Shae's eyes grew pale and now as she looked to Arts it was with a hollow in her stomach. "Foolish of me to think you were any different from her." Faces bled over one another. Mad eyes blurring the line between past and present. And then the swirl from below met the swirl from above. a funnel formed in the courtyard as wind whined with violent promise, gaining speed. Shae stood at the center, black hair torn loose from her bun and wreathing her face like gorgon snakes whipping in frenzy.

The electricity strikes her short hair erect, like a perturbed porcupine. there is a small hint of burn scent over the ozone, and the pale woman claps her hands softly. "Her? Oh now we reach the crux of it! Is it acceptable that I hate her already? " And another step and she is standing in front of the funnel, in front of the mad-haired Shae. Her little dress is only saved by its brevity; there is too little for the winds to grasp. "Go ahead, dear Shae, tell me how I'm like her, and I shall ...prove you wrong at every word."

That close the upsweep of wind would drag at the feet of even the wary, threatening to send them flying into nearby buildings with speed, and the turning, churning motion of the funnel was growing by the second. "This isn't about you, Artsblood. But you are making it so. You were only the smallest of my woes this evening but now you press the line. She tested me. She wanted to test me to see if I had the stomach. I did. I tortured her and her face is there, those damned eyes." Property damage was imminent and Shae, clinging to her tattered control, took a single step away from Arts and the building. "Taking away my freedom, Arts? It would be the last thing you did on this earth. I ripped the eyes from her face and the information from her tongue." A session she saw each time she looked at the mantis blonde. Unbidden in the back of her mind.

She retakes the step, there is almost a weariness, almost a predestination to it. "The smallest of your woes! Imagine my pain! And instead of any trick of eye, instead of any Kindred skill, she steps into the heart of the maelstrom and wraps her skinny arms around Shae, though the buffeting bruises her head to toe, though her short hair descends into knots. As she does she closes her eyes, eliminating any threat, and whispers. "Take them if it will aid you, dear. They grow back in time."

And as her arms reach out the woman that they attempt to grasp feels somehow less solid than she should be, as if her clothing and skin threatened to degrade beneath her hands. That invasion leeches pale eyes of all color and the tornado manifests in full. Her shriek of frustration marks her tearing away from arms before they could from a bony cage. The Outback roof creaks and groans as the funnel intersects. Shae turns on her heel away from the source of memory. As much in self preservation as in preservation of life. The tornado lifts, to touch down distant in the woods north of the city and tear a path of destruction through the countryside. In the courtyard the winds would calm. And Arts would be left alone with her bruises.

Alone with her bruises and the beginnings of a smile. The bruises would heal, but something had been learned.

Two nights after the incident near the Outback, 4/25 in the Marketplace

Moira

Shae had meant to take a stroll after dinner and so she did with the aid of a cloak. It kept enough of the light rain off of her and she pulled it tight about her. The shoes she'd worn to dinner had been removed. Now and then a bare foot poked its way past the black hem of her dress. Fox trotted with her, his fur weighed down by the damp by seeming supremely unconcerned by it. Most of the stalls were closed, so she paused outside of a familiar diner and gives it a look of consideration.

Artsblood has followed for some time, hopscotching through shadows when necessary. It is not a pursuit, more like a seed planted. In the end she simply leans beneath a streetlight a few doors down from the diner, all Lili Marlene, and allows herself to be discovered. Limbs like slashes of graffiti against the darkened buildings.

The discovery was simple. A look, not startled, but perhaps carefully neutral. Assessing. Shae nods to the diner, an invitation, and steps inside.

A diner. Certainly. The bell above the door jumps brightly as she enters, earning a stern glance. Her first comment, little breathy bursts of word, is neutral. "I was pleased to see that you and Fox have reunited."

Fox enters and promptly shakes all over the entryway, his fur standing up in triangular wet clumps. Shae shrugs out of her cloak and hangs it up. The dress she had on was far too fancy for a diner. Black and elegant and perhaps more stylish than even she felt comfortable with. She sighs as the words hit her back during that gesture. "I fear he'll be downright clingy for the next week or so. Though I'm sure it's for the best."

Arts sits, waits for whatever initial rush of table-waiting occurs to subside, and then leans her elbows on the table, chin in her hand, shielded eyes open and accessible. "I thought long and hard, trying to think up a scenario under which you owe me information, dear Shae. Unfortunately, I could not come up with such, so I only offer you my naked curiosity."

Shae settles into the seat across from Arts. Fox jumps up and walks wet paws across her lap to settle on the seat beside her. She doesn't seem dismayed by this, her attention is for the figure across from her. Her first response is quiet. "Are you alright?" She hadn't seen the blonde since that night, but she remembered the lightning and knew well how her manifestations could become violent.

One freakish hand drifts to the left side of her neck, where a small rose of a bruise is still dark. "I held off the healing on this one as long as I could, thought it attractive, the rest are long since recovered. Only my curiosity still pains me."

She may have been agitated, and Arts may have pushed her further, but still the woman said: "I'm sorry. I was trying to leave for a reason." Eyes lingering on the bruise there.

Soft. "And I had reasons behind my actions, as well, dear." Mantid cant of head. "Will you tell me about her, then? The not-knowing is a curious pain."

Shae found bemusement in the fact that the single mention of that other vampire was the point that Arts had focused on so intently. When the server came by to deliver water and the menus Shae asked for a pitcher of water and a bowl but nothing to eat for now. The woman moved away and came back. Shae poured water into the bowl for Fox, drank half her glass and refilled it. All before she spoke again. "Where I come from, Arts. There is war there. And it is ugly. She was an enemy. This is not some dispute over land or titles. Nor is it some constructed religious crusade. There are grey areas to most wars. This one was simply life against destruction. And those on that other side often sought an existence of undeath to make themselves immune to the things that they fought with and created. Her choice was vampirism. Though hell if I know how she intended to stay alive when all the sources of blood were dead." Shae sipped at her water as she spoke, her tones the sort of neutral one might expect from a documentary. "She was different when I knew her before. I think that's why he recruited her. But that's not important. There's nothing left of her now."

A little laugh, a wave of her longhand. "Ah but dear, that's why there can never be too many of us, and why we tend to guard our turf more aggressively than alley cats. Before she became your enemy, was she something else to you?" The mooneyes don't blink. drinking in information.

"Maybe. I don't know. We had...an interesting relationship. Half the time I wasn't sure if we liked eachother or hated eachother. We were always in opposition, but somehow we worked together for another."

She shakes her head in the negative without comment, and then reconsiders. "Something you said...I just want to comment. She may have been like me in that one aspect, but I don't think she was like me at all. You should probably know that." Idly draws in the moisture on an untouched glass with a fingertip. A glance around. There is something of the odd aunt in the way Arts carries herself; something of the precocious niece, as well.

A slow sigh and a rub at her face. "That was probably unfair of me. But...in that moment you said the same words that she did. The parallel was too damned uncanny. I almost did attack you."

A little tut-tut sound, a gentle smile. "Oh, but I think you will, dear Shae. Don't you?"

All humor leeched from her then. "What does that mean?"

She lifts her chin, the little smile still in place, the breathless voice brimming with affection. "I mean, dear, that I find it quite likely that you will attack me sooner or later. It seems the most probable of our possible paths."

Shae leaned back in her seat her expression turning to something weary. "Why?"

She studies her companion's face, looking at it with all the intent one might bring to reading a poem aloud. "Why, because we are volatile, Shae, and eventually we will erupt."

"You're the only one at this table who seems to be holding that opinion at the moment." Shae drawls as she crosses her legs beneath the table and reaches for her water. "I'm not here to start another personal war tonight. You'd have to give me a real reason. Not just follow me when my guard is down and insert a knife into a sore spot. So is that what you are saying? That you intend to offer me a reason? Again I ask why."

Arts shakes her head in frustration. "I try so hard to be precise, and yet it is so easy to misunderstand! No no I do not threaten you. I made no mention of my attacking you, did I? And a knife? Please. Forgive me, dear, I cannot think of another way to say what I hoped to."

Her last few days had been filled with conversations that bent her mind into new and interesting shapes. This one was proving to be no less challenging. Shae dips her fingers into her glass and brings the frigid damp to her eyes, rubbing them. "Alright. So you think we are volatile. You have no intention of attacking me. Good. Why. And use small words. Why would I attack you?"

She gives the question time to percolate. "I imagine it would most likely be in response to actions either improper or stupid on my part, but that's just a guess." Finger tapping her thin lips. "But enough about me. What was her name?"

"Alright. I'm with you now. I'd say the possibility of an attack has a lot to do with the circumstance, but that I don't tend to meticulously plan these possibilities if I don't think they are warranted. Which, for the record, I don't currently. Be stupid though, we'll find out." A soft snort as she lifted her glass to her lips for a sip. "Oh so we're back to her again?" Shae's lips thin slightly. "Her name was Moira."

A quick grin, vaguely triumphant. "Thank you for that, surely you must see that she intrigues me." A quick glance, too rapid to read. "I'm sure she was very beautiful."

"Yes, I can see that." Though Shae might be having difficulty with the 'why' of it. "Is that how you imagine her?"

She nods, simply, unquestioning. "Of course it is. She touched you after all."

Shae wasn't even sure what to say to that. Several sips go by. "She wasn't." Finally said. "At least, not in the conventional sense. Her features were plain but she was incredibly vital in everything she did."

A little laugh at her own expense, an aside. "Like I said, like alleycats." She listens and nods. "'Vital,' what an unusual word to choose." And then the information tossed offhandedly. "I had thought she was your lover, you see."

"She was, once upon a time. Until we both decided it was a terrible idea because we were at eachother's throats more than we were in eachother's arms. But that was half a continent away and years before we became the people in that interrogation room." Shae looks over to Fox then, speaking as she kept her eyes on him. "It's just what she was. Everything was a crusade. Like every day required the earth to move for her to be satisfied."

A quick frown willed away, though the statement had been intended to fish, she had begun to hope it would catch nothing. Instead of responding she slips into tangent. "If I'm satisfied, I often say the earth moved. But it doesn't really have to, you know?" Thoughtful. "But if the earth stopped, that would be something to remember."

Shae shifted her eyes from Fox to Arts after a long, quiet moment. She'd missed the frown entirely. "I suppose it would at that." She'd shifted back to calm. "Was that all you wanted to know?"

Hand to her mouth, the giggle is horribly girlish. "All I wanted to know, oh not nearly, dear Shae. But I am a patient thing, as you might see." Standing. "Now, would you prefer to walk together, to follow me, or for me to follow you?"

Shae gestures the woman to the door. The moment her eyes left the sylph at the table, Shae and Fox were gone.

Beltane on the Beach of the Isle?s Lagoon

Air Like Me, Part 1

The duel had been illuminating. Finding anyone who was skilled in manipulating air was always a treat for her, but this one felt different. She half expected to sense something more when her hand shook that of the man called John, but it was just a handshake. As it ended, the inebriated fellow he?d been talking with before approached.

Jon slipped up next to John and nudged him. "Hey buddy." He was carrying a super soaker. In the background, party goers battled with them. Half children, half warriors with the toy guns in their grasp.

John released her hand. "I can offer you a drink, but I think my cousin will spray you." Giving her a fair warning before a two fingered salute was given to Shadow and he turned to Jon. "Yup?"

The tilt of her smile took in the new arrival. Hands held up in surrender. "Wouldn't want to come between family."

Jon shook the soaker. "I'm all out, actually. I can't spray anyone." Smiling.

"Good thing they've got a full bar going. Jon, this is Shae. Shae, Jon." Quick introduction and he was moving on for said full bar. Maybe some of that punch.

"Shae." Jon did his winning wink and growl and then turned to follow John, almost falling over from over spin. "WHAT KIND OF PUNCH IS THERE?"

"John and Jon." No chance of this getting confusing at all. "My luck improves. Dry and a full bar. I'll take it." Her steps vacated the ring without disturbing the sand, joining the cousins on the path to refreshments.

Quite suddenly, John pivoted. "This kind." Reaching out to punch Jon square in his sternum. Not hard, but he was drunk.

Jon promptly fell over and curled up, making a noise kind of like a goat choking on a plastic bottle.

"Oh it says....Lake Water Punch." Managing to read the sign for his cousin on the ground.

She reached for a glass of something colorful, tracing a thumb through the condensation as she looked down at the fellow on the ground. A thoughtful sip. "That can't be sanitary. Lake water."

Jon gasped for air and grabbed onto his cousin, attempting to pull himself up. "What?"

Just then, one of the battling party goers turned her sights on the relatives. She was in a mood. Aaliyah primed the Supersoaker and aimed for John Squared. "Oh Boys!" She opened fired.

John began to answer as he was hit. "Smells like rum, vodka and blue curac---OWWWWW" Surprised by the spray of water from Aaliyah.

Jon was already so wet he didn't even notice. "The people here are animals." He pushed himself away from John and slumped against the bar, seeking more alcohol.

Was that a little side step away from the duo. Yes it was. Was that a snicker against her glass? Likewise an affirmative as Shae took a drink.

John?s grass skirt was all kinds of wet and the coconut bra was very waterlogged.

Another volley of fire in the direction of the cousins. "My." Shae drawled softly. "You two are popular targets."

"I didn't even do anything." A minor lament to Shae as he went to filling up two glasses with punch. One of Jon and one for himself.

"That one is particularly warlike." Pointing a finger at Shy, Jon took his punch and turned around, continuing to simply be so wet that he was unaware of being made more wet. With a look at Shae, "We can't help being so hot everyone wants to put us out." Winkkkkkk.

As Jon started to flirt, John started to drink. More.

"No?" To John's protest of innocence. Her attention then drawn back to Jon with a soft laugh. "Guilty by appearance? Alright. I'll go with that reason, why not."

"Where there's smoke.." Jon tipped his head back at John, "there's fire." And then he smiled big, making it obvious he meant himself.

"......" Staring at the back of Jon's head and then peering over to Shae. "Yeah, ask him how many fires he's started this week. And it's only Tuesday." Peanut gallery then silenced as he picked some roasted pig off the spit to eat while drinking the punch.

Jon turns a bright pink and is really hoping she doesn't ask.

Her glance flickered between the two to settle on the 'smoke'. "Ah I see. You're getting wet because your cousin's a fire fiend. Or maybe it's all the winking and growling. Something in your eyes and throat?" Asked innocently. This last question to Jon. Shae?s dryness came to an end as the event callers Ahni and Shadow both took the opportunity to shoot water at her. Jon just watches Shae get it all over.

"Ah see, you've unintentionally tricked her into the wrong thought." A poke to Jon's ribs before he claimed a spot of beach for himself and then at Shae getting soaked. "Looking all wet there sweetie," almost a sing song ring to the tone of his voice.

"Women. Never understand how to talk to them. I'm telling you, if we just taught C++ as a language in school I could win any girl in the world." John was making faces that suggested he had too much to drink.

From zero to soaked in a short period of time. There comes a soft sigh as she squinted towards the callers. So much for staying dry. The precaution of a one piece bathing suit beneath that light dress had been a wise one. At least she saved her drink from being watered down. " 'Sweetie' ? That's a new one. Sea plus plus. Also a new one. What language is that?" Calmly sipping her drink as if she wasn't soaked through.

To Shae, "Computer language. I'm fluent. Also in Java and Sea Sharp." Turning... green. "Cousin. Do you remember my 12th birthday, when I ate too much cake? And then I rode on all the space rides at the park?"

"......." John leaned back a bit, even though he was sitting on the ground and looking up to Jon. "...Yeah...."

"I think I'm going to go, and find a quiet spot somewhere, and remember that day in detail. Do me a favor and call me tomorrow and make sure I'm alive, please." Turning... greener.

Green was not a healthy color, usually. Shae?s eyes widened as she stepped clear of a possible splash zone.

"Yup. Sure." Hoping Jon turned away before he showed everyone how much he had to drink tonight.

Jon fled to the portal. The last thing anyone heard was, "Oh dear Asimov!"

And suddenly she was left alone with the smoke eyed man. She watched the fire fiend flee with a small shake of her head. "I take it you two were enjoying yourselves before you got here."

"Have to get him a bit drunk to convince him to leave his lab." Admitting easily.

The word brought up memories of an unpleasant variety "Lab?" Asked with curiosity and just a note of wariness. A faint hum against her glass between sips. Slowly, the woman began to dry off in the warm breeze that chased her.

"Lab. Workshop. Home." All in one it seemed. "He makes stuff. Sometimes they misfire and explode a little." Letting out his cousin's secrets.

"Ah, that sort of lab." Relaxation replacing that brief guard. "And what about you?"

"I just like to drink." Momentarily wishing he'd gotten a larger glass of punch now.

"I can leave you to it, if you'd prefer. I don't mean to intrude upon your imbibing." The offer light as she nodded off down the beach away from the sounds of the celebration.

Brief confusion crossed John?s features before shaking his head, "Wha -- oh no. I mean, you're fine. You do a lot of dueling?" Gesturing to the rings as he sat up fully.

Ahni saw the rise and fired another volley of water towards John?s mouth from the caller?s podium. He opened his mouth to argue against the water but --- how does one do that exactly? They fail at it apparently.

"Not so much but--" Shae cuts off at the sound of gargling. "Maybe she heard you liked drinking?" Was it getting shady where Ahni stood? So hard to tell. Shae was getting dryer by the second though. Something was afoot.

"Apparently." A glance cut over Shae before nodding. "You don't seem particularly damp."

"Not anymore." She agreed amiably. Too cheerfully, in fact. "Would you like a drying? I could use the moisture for...plans."

"Plans?" A bit suspicious and curious.

She extended a hand with waggling fingers. Not offering explanation just yet. "Here. I promise it'll be entertaining."

"In trade for my win tonight." The trade seemed mildly important, to hash out the deal and make the exchange before she took any water for 'plans.'

Confusion. "I don't under-- you want to give me your win? No, offer something else. I don't have a desire for achievements I haven't earned myself." This too, seemed important.

And then that suddenly-appearing cloud above Ahni's head opened up at the same time Neo shot at the little Keeper. Instead of getting grumpy, Ahni giggled wildly and threw her arms above her head! "MORE DUELS!" Completely soaked and beaming and waving her Super Soakers at everyone in turn.

Confusion was rampant as he wasn't clear on what he meant. He shook his head, but followed with another thought. "I would like to know what you will do regarding your 'plans'. How is that?"

Another sip, another hum against the glass. "It seems it's too late, anyhow." Soft sigh of disappointment as she jerked a thumb back to where a personal rain cloud was dumping all the moisture she had collected right on Ahni's head.

"I.... Oh." He laughed then. "Interesting."

"Guess it got away from me. I really am in bad form this evening." Shrugging with a small smile.

"It's the alcohol and Beltane still in the air." A quick wink her way, not nearly as exaggerated as Jon's had been, nor the same amount of flare. He pushed up to his feet, but only to get more to drink.

"Perhaps." She agreed with a glance down to her drink. The first of the evening that didn't do quite enough to settle the senses that still felt that island in the distance. "Quite a long celebration it's been."

"Yeah, they do festivities for a week here. Home we just have a couple days really. Need another?" To the bar.

Watching him go, she weighed her suspicions against her luck. The flow of conversation had gotten away from her. Shae shook out of her brief daze. "Ah, sorry. Sure. Another wouldn't be amiss." Steps taken towards the bar to deposit her mostly finished drink on an empty tray.

"Going to go another round?" Gesturing to the rings as he fixed her up a refill of whatever she had been drinking.

Eyeing the rings now. "Mm. Probably not tonight. Won't do my record any good at this rate. You?"

"Think I'm spent. Magic takes a different focus out of me than just....being someone's punching bag. And punching back a bit." Passing her a fresh drink and keeping one for himself.

An Orc stepped through the portal and snorted. "Someone face me in this sport of magic."

"But maybe I should let her zap me into the ground. Might make me forget about the hangover to come." Nodding to the new arrival.

The drink was accepted with a nod of understanding attached. "It can be draining. The few physical bouts I've been in have made me feel as tired as they have made me feel alive." Her eyes drifted to Dura as he pointed her out. "You'd forget, but you'd remember in the morning."

"Have trouble remembering how to live?" Posing the question as he gulped down the punch quickly and then gestured to Dura. "I'll fight if you want." There didn't seem to be anyone else who wasn't already fighting.

The Orc crossed her arms and looked unimpressed. "So be it, wizard."

"Not usually, I just find it to be one of those circumstances that force you to be in the moment acutely. Something about blood in your teeth, perhaps." He had a duel to get to, so she cut herself short with a smile and a sip.

"Dura." This said in a proud tone with another snort.

He started to argue, or point out that he wasn't a wizard and decided not to. "Just John really." A nod to Shae and anything he had to say in response to that was singled up in a slightly bemused smirk. And then headed towards the rings.

Air Like Me, Part 3

Moments after John left, another figure stepped onto the Isle. Bodies had filtered out until only Shae, Cris, and Ahni remained. Now this one joined their number. Other work done and over with, the vampire returned to the site not expecting to find a soul left at this hour. He didn't seem pleased or disappointed either way at seeing considerably less people about. That being said, he took the opportunity to grab a drink.

"Everything is over now!" The little half-elf flailed at Shadowsoul. "But! You can have a sunflower and the drinks and your pick of the foods!"

Shae?s eyes closed for the full space of the departure, opening again with a rueful smile on her features and a deep draining of what remained of her drink. A lifetime of planning a perfect moment in her head, and it had all filtered away in the face of reality. She should have known better.

One last sip of beer, then he dug the bottle into the sand by his chair and tilted his head back to observe the never changing sky above.

Lips parted as if she might speak, but his skyward gaze changed her mind. Instead she leaned back in her own seat and sought the same view.

Cris had her covered this time. "You dueled?"

"I did. Though I shouldn't have." The answer was an easy one. "Or maybe I was meant to. That is. I shouldn't have because my heart and mind were not in it, yet it seems I was rewarded for it."

"You shouldn't have?" Surprised. He traded the sky to look at her instead. "What do you mean?" Gaze slid from Shae to the only pair left.

She thought she had explained, but maybe she'd not been clear. Her thoughts were a jumble so her words were likely the same. "I shouldn't have dueled because I can't focus properly on such things, at the moment. It's a needed distraction, but it is good I am not overly remorseful of a poor standing because I am doing myself no favors in that department at the moment." The latter half of her original statement she neglected to expand upon at first. Turning it over in her mind to debate if she turly did feel rewarded.

"Ah." Mathian, he remembered. That was the name of the leech. "Has it anything to do with our last conversation?"

Ahni took her leave for the evening, prompting Shae to send a wave her way. And then there were three. "At present?" Her original need for distraction had been replaced just recently by a new concern. "No. At present I am quite obsessed with another matter." Her eyes darted towards the portal.

Mathian nodded to the little Keeper as she departed and resumed his lazy walk about the area with drink in hand.

"May I ask what it is?" Cris asked as his gaze tracks the leech.

"I have, for the first time in long memory, discovered another who claims the same heritage." The statement comes as a soft whisper, something she isn't even sure she believes. Forcing her gaze away from the portal and to the empty glass in her hand.

That pulled his gaze from Mathian. "Have you?" A swift consideration of her features. "Does that trouble you?"

The sky was more interesting than eavesdropping on the pair, to Mathian. Besides, the boy wasn't causing him a headache like he had the last time he'd run into him. There was no point to after all, his involvement with his childe severed in agreement to their deal. Now the vampire simply roamed about the Isle, pondering what to do now. To take another as his or simply go to sleep.

"I don't know." Words more exhale than sound. Shae had grown quiet. "I knew it was a possibility, here. Logically. And in truth we may not even be the same, just sharing the sound of a racial name. Even still. I always imagined a torrent of questions pouring forth. And I can summon none."

"I shouldn't think it would be that difficult. You're inquisitive, you'll think of something, yes?"

Setting aside the empty drink, she folded her arms. The expression she turns on him is an odd one. Out of place on her usually composed features was that look of being unsure. There mixed with a touch of frustration and self recrimination. "I should be able to, yes." The sigh through her nose could be likened to the exhale of something larger and more bestial. "He has family. It's...different. I have no idea how to approach the matter without coming off like some lost orphan. It bothers me." Her eyes noted Mathian?s departure into the evening.

No, it was not something he was used to. Normally, she maintained total, if not rigid, control. Its absence simultaneously made her seem younger and a shade more relatable. "Then perhaps you don't start there. Perhaps you start by merely introducing yourself. Who is this man?" He hadn't been paying as close attention to the duel as she had.

"I've already introduced myself to a degree. I don't flash around what I am in the same manner that you do not." But he hadn't been shy with it. Another piece of evidence that hammered wider the divide she saw between them. He may have observed, drawn his own conclusions, but he hadn't voiced them. She was reluctant to name him for whatever reason, even though Cris knew well who he was, so she chose descriptive words instead. "The one with the ill fitting bra."

At another time, it would have been amusing. He blinked. "John."

She sat silent, curling her toes deeper into the sands.

"Why does this make you so nervous?"

"Why shouldn't it?" A shade of defensiveness creeping into her voice.

He blinked. "Because it is simply truth. He existed before you were aware of him, and he will continue you afterward, as you will." His frown deepened as he looked between her eyes, back and forth, as if trying to locate script etched on her gold irises. "Have you a poor relationship with your own kind?"

"I have no relationship with my own kind, Crispin." The words full of a lifetime of closed doors, dead ends, and bitter feelings.

He nodded. That explained part of it. "Did you have one, once?"

"No." She licked dry lips, wishing her glass still had liquid, but not daring to risk another drink. "There were never... I never met another." A pause. An explanation. "I was raised by a man who adopted me."

There was the rest of it. He nodded once again, finally let her free from the intent of his gaze to search out the beer he'd stuck in the sand. "I'm sorry."

Those two words hit her like a gut stab. Pity, from him? She swallowed, forcing her face to stillness as she stared off down the beach. "I should go." She said finally, even tones for an even face. She stood and stepped towards the portal. "I'll figure it out eventually." Footsteps that paused. "Please don't tell him."

He wet his mouth with a drink of beer, quietly sucked it through his teeth. He had a tidal wave of things to say waiting their turn for the swallow to pass. "I won't say anything."

"Thank you." Motion resumed, and she made good her escape.

He looked after her. Perhaps it was the alcohol, or the dress, or the way her face looked for those sluggish twenty-seven seconds. But he found his view of her quietly editing itself in his mind as she took her leave.

The Painted Mountain, part 2

"If such things are of no concern, then perhaps you can illuminate the need for secrecy." His casual acceptance of such risks, and the dismissal that followed, set her mind to worrying at another thread. "Lost their parts." The words she chose to echo serving as a prompt for the stream of thoughts that she allowed to flow past her lips. Hint of the paths her mind currently traversed. "Beings whose existence is not confined to a physical form or the limitations thereof in order to sustain their energies. Or ones whose essence, if dispersed, might be recollected in the correct mold." They weren't questions, not exactly. Musings. Fingers that had scratched patterns in a russet pelt now plucked small pieces of roast to deliver to the care of vulpine teeth. The brush tail waving a lazy fan across the seat. "One might picture such possibilities for creatures before or even outside of time. Hence 'primordial'. Which, if I must point out, is what you suggest when you reference times before man and creatures who concern themselves with what is holy or profane."

"While I'm not really concerned of how some might not be supportive of what I'm doing, that isn't to say that there are some who would do a lot to keep me from succeeding." His tongue took a voyage through wanderlust when he still danced around the meat of the topic. She was crafty enough to slither within the conversation without raising any red flags and he was more than humbled by the interest that she displayed. It might have been her open musings that took hold of his features to express the amusement which he so often exuded. "Primordials. That's what they are called. There were a few other names but it seems that is what stuck." A tear of bread became a good decoy that he chewed on rather than delving any deeper for the time being. He had no issue with dragging out this meeting of acquaintances.

He was close enough to be in her air, that animate extension of her heritage, but for all that he had her attention, it did not pry at him. Instead, as they spoke, it seemed to cocoon their table in a sense of conspiratorial warmth. Perhaps resonating with the way the background of her attention faded in favor of that interest he took note of. "And you came here, to this city, in pursuit of this project or for other reasons?" It was a fluke that she had managed to give name to the entities he quested after, but she had noted the way his focus had shifted in reaction and tucked the appellation away in the corner of her mind. "You are certain there is nothing to be concerned about regarding their interests, these Primordials? You are sure they would wish resurrection and judge well their temperament?" These questions came after a generous settling of her eyes upon his and a temporary cessation of her Fox feeding.

If he was aware of the essence then he showed no concern over it, or even paid it much mind. Things that could not be seen were not always things that couldn't be explained. He settled well in the atmosphere while they traded low-lidded glances paired with well flavored smiles. "Actually, I came here to check up on some close friends of mine. I work for their father, but seeing as he doesn't travel much, he sent me out just to keep an eye on them." None of that was fabricated. He had no reason to keep that information in the shadows and the way he shed light on it all came with a benevolent rumble of a laugh. "They've been known for getting in trouble. Seems they aren't really venturing out in any ways that would signal worrisome behavior. Could have gone back by now, but, I think I found a few things to keep me interested." He was artful in his dalliance where other men might have been overwhelming in their amour. Her questioning took a turn into dealing with more personal matters but he sliced past the silence with a roam of his attention to the way the flames of candles danced outward from their station. "The fact of the matter is that I know, with out a doubt, that they would be grateful for what I could perform for them. There are some that I won't be stitching back together. For their safety, and others."

It behaved at times in line with her conscious will, and at others in instinctual reaction to her moods. She was aware of it, but only chose to quell it when she was disinclined to share the subtle indication of her mental state. This moment in time was not a guarded one. The fact that he showed no discomfort in her proximity meant he was either unaware or unperturbed. The bias of her impression of him led her to think it was the latter. "Is that the reason for the heavy correspondence? The family you work for?" She leaned forward now, resting both forearms on the table between them and caging the stem of her wine glass in the steeple of her fingers. His reasons for lingering drew her slow smile out from the thoughtful flow of her features, and she let it bloom in the space of his flicker flame observations. The next words see it shift back beneath the sands of her features, not from a loss of pleasure in his company but from an overabundance of consideration for the phrases he had chosen. "You know." One hand breaks away to snare a bit of bread and meat to give an excuse for the space she took to weigh her inquisition. "Have you met one? You speak as if they are familiar yet you say they are long scarce."

"It's part of the reason. The other reason being what I've been doing on my own time." That was a sliver of a slip and he was positive she would tangle into the truth of it; his actions were not overly known by those he provided service for. Guardians had their place and his history had been written across the slate of his skin but that was not to mean he was entirely with out his secrets from those that knew him best. "Met more than one. Not all of them were forgotten, or wiped out. Some are well and alive, taking their part as being a severely outnumbered species very well." He made his tone into a comedic one but it still carried with it the breath of a savage. He was rugged beneath the smooth delivery of quips or the comfortable heat of benevolence. "There was at least thirty, at one point, but the one's left to survive to this day are a meager nine."

"Mm." Fingers poked meat and bread past her lips to be chased with a sip of wine. As if it were a reminder that she couldn't subsist on questions, the taste of food stirred her hunger for it, and so she began to portion out from the platter. "Are they helping you with this search?" There could be a few 'they's, she realized belatedly, so she clarified. "The family, I mean. For that matter, do the ones you've met assist you?" Her smile had flickered to life again for the attempt at passing jest through primal air, but the curve lit upon sympathy rather than humor. There were not so many of her kind. Decades spaced the encounters with even a mention of them for her. The serving saw her sample as she allocated to her plate and pass a few more gristle filled pieces to the creature at her side. "Are they hunted? Do they fight amongst themselves? Or do they..." She searched for a word as her nails tugged at a bit of crust. "Do they...degrade?"

The light cast on him gave a new epitome for a mind to conjure when watching the flow of sinew beneath thin fabric, under the froth of lapping candle flame. Ink ran like a webbing of veins that colored him a difference in the majority of the population which was summoned in the gut of the Inn. A specimen to be curious about, which Shae had cornered the market for upon their first meeting. Moreso now that he opened up during their visit to this hole where everything he did speak on was encased in secrecy between the two. Witch and painted mountain. "No, not the family. They have more than enough to be worried about and me gathering remnants of a very old past shouldn't be one of them." He watched as she portioned out pieces for herself while openly catering to the possible salivating fox next to her. It was the true reason why half his mouth twitched in a scrap of a grin. "The others ..." Trailing, only for a moment with his fingers dressing a curl across the sharp outline of his jaw. "Some of them are interested in helping, others not so much. Creatures of old imagination, older wants and needs." It was a bit bizarre for him to speak of them like this, in the turn of phrase that he chose in admission. "They were not hunted in the traditional sense. Not by any mere man or beast. Could say that they fought quite a bit between themselves. I imagine it's a bit like family feuds. Discord given how bestial they were. And degrade?" That immediately made him laugh. Not at her, but for the idea of it; he sat there and was impressed with how he did not look at himself. "I don't think so."

Stories had more value to the woman than gold. While she was sure that the images infused in his skin had their own stories to tell, she had to pick and choose her battles of inquiry. One question, or subject of question, at a time. It provided an excuse for future interaction, especially since he seemed receptive to her interest. Secret, soul deep delight was like a drug summoned to her bloodstream when her yearning to understand others found a measure of satisfaction. Transient, easily moved, a creature of air with a secret longing for the landscape her attentions often vainly attempted to hold. She carved at the mountain with care and persistence. His words gave her a chance to eat while feeding that other. "From what well springs your love for their vitality? What motivates this quest?" There was something about the man that didn't call to mind the role of service that he confessed to filling for the other family. Something that made such a version of him feel fraudulent. Not that he was lying, for she was taking his words as sincere in spite of her native desire to analyze. But that the suit was ill fitting in some odd way.

That, right there, was the golden ticket of questions. It would puncture holes in the limelight he spilled himself in and cast a miniscule amount of dark across his features. Eyes crept into a role of staring but didn't seem to see past the point of where his head was craned. "Let's just say I'm as curious as you sometimes." Which was not completely a lie by omission but he was careful in how he resumed the role of her petridish, with her dissecting at him piece by piece via the verbal favoritism he display with her. Their rapport wasn't so spit shined that he did not turn the tables, edge the company he sat with to begin unraveling just as he had done. "What about you? I feel like I've let you ask a million questions when in reality, the agreement was that I get to buy you a drink if I told you about what was in the box, not about my means to find said things. Does this mean we have been playing the game for a while and I've let you cheat by asking me a mountain of inquiries while I sat here, dumb like, and answering?" The affinity for his smile was not needed to be vouched on by her; he could track the good will of what his grins brought to her by tracing the starlit patterns in her eyes.

There was always an end. A point where her curiosity tripped over invisible lines of caution to return native senses of self-discretion to more appropriate levels. His gentle avoidance drew a rueful smile upon her features that stopped just shy of being apologetic. For she wasn't. "Sometimes, eh? Such a curse." The line of her nose wrinkles once to put tease into her words. "Cheat? Me? Come now Ezra, you could have neglected to answer any one of those extra questions had you chosen to. You've been more than a gentleman to wait until now to attempt to turn the tables on my prying. But if you find fault with the outcome I am more than happy to level the debt. What about me? Is there something you would know?" She'd managed to consume what might pass for a small meal in the intervals between listening and speech, now sliding the plate to her left where fuzzy ears crested above the edge of the table. A nose followed, then the rest of the muzzle. Fox sat up to indulge in her leftovers while casting his sights directly on Ezra for the first time that evening. Between bites, a raise of his chin. One male acknowledging another. The familiar's eyes were the same hue as the pair that had been gazing upon him with ill disguised fascination for most of the evening.

He had no qualms with the animal and was more than humored by the acknowledgement, more so due to his reigning title of a man who did well with most species. Bipedal things that resembled more of the human display were often hard to understand while the nature of primal instincts were simple and spelled out. "What brought you to Rhy'Din?" He started off with a question that was usually manifested in the beginning of the trials and tribulations of getting to know someone. Entirely uncomplicated which was a bad term to use for either man or woman at the table given that it was plainly obvious there was more to the story than what was given via view alone. His ale had been emptied which caught the interest of the server. During his unspoken request for another he also dipped his chin near the glass that Shae had been sipping from, prompting the waiter to be keen on what the brawn bound man was suggesting.

The reynard's relaxation in the room bespoke a set of instincts that had been tempered by intelligence, and the patient glance of the server who refrained from lamenting the animal eating off the plate suggested there might have been more to the conversation he had arrived to than her drink order. The level of her wine, a crisp white, was likewise in peril but the thoughtful gesture of her company would see it soon refilled. As the server retreated to refresh the respective vessels, she answered his first volley. "A spell that I can only assume went awry, for what I recognized it to be should not have delivered me here. I was banished." Distaste slipping into her tone as her tongue pushed forth the word, quickly subdued under the weight of geniality. "In truth, a fortuitous outcome considering the possible intended destinations."

"Banished?" The recital of that word burns like arsenic across his tongue that issues lush scenery of rolling thunder and the damp desert air. What lingers across his expression comes off as confused before winding down behind the sharp shift of his jawline or the slow roam of his eye brows to puncture up in a display of disbelief. "I can't really imagine that, but then again I don't know you as well as I sometimes wish." To help rotate the tension of the phrase she used, he laughs. A hearty sound that quivers the heart strings and weakens soft knees. Lambs would coil at this lions feet and be unknowingly fit through his uncanny glamour. But she seemed less a sheep and more a rogue phantom that kept company with wolves and lions, possibly bears. "So you've taken to being more comfortable in this strange land even if it wasn't your choice to end up here? Better than me, I assure you."

"Perhaps I should elaborate. It was no edict of law, though I'm sure I've earned the sentence at least once or twice over in my lifetime for deeds unsung. We were in conflict with a large force at the time. And when outflanked, the enemy chose to see me removed." Her sip of wine is done with casual acceptance of events that was perhaps too casual. The lift of her lips an armor against her own lingering confusion over the progression. "I departed in summer and arrived in winter." The man's laughter came like the spring that was rapidly turning into summer, returning some warmth to the bones that were chilled with memory. "You often wish to know me better? Well you have your chance at the moment to ask what you would. I don't know if I would go so far as to say I find comfort here. Perhaps in time. It has, after all, only been a short two months. Yet...better than you, you say. Lingering here, is it uncomfortable for you?"

"That helps to clarify." And for him, it was enough. While she was fattening up her sense of him by engorging on his free will to tell her stories or white lies, he was less inclined to dig past any layers she might have cast on herself to hide secrets. It was a slow process for him to be less frugal with his questioning but if chipped at then there would be no shortage of prying from his own side. With her statement washing clean his theory that she may have been some mass murdering epicurean with Circe's magic at her fingers and let him roll his shoulders forward while weighing her new forecast of what he considered teasing. "I think you're a genuinely interesting woman, so of course I have tried to piece you together in my own head with out asking a single thing about you." Cruel and unusual punishment, the way the umber in his eyes could eclipse through gold and then ochre in this light and draw a certain fascination to how they watched her -- not exactly the physique which he could appreciate but the lining of her own sights. The sharp curve of her chin or the delicate slope of her nose. "No, it's not uncomfortable, but if I happened on this place without meaning to come to it? Things probably would have been different. My temper may have been a little less curbed and my intrigue would have spiked into confusion, like an animal being relocated."

What relief he may have felt at the situational reassurance that she was not the outcast tyrant or far flung assassin was met with her sheepish smile. "I often forget how that sounds from the outside of things. I warn you, I have been accused by more than one person of being less than capable in the telling of stories." Misunderstandings were on the table as a possible side effect. "I thank you for the compliment. I spent many a day attempting to work out the contents of your post prior to the opportunity to pick at your thoughts for clues." Unabashed in her observations, he watched and she drank in. "You yourself are another fascination altogether." With his picture book skin, those mutable eyes, and his laugh that hid his secrets. "Would you think poorly of me if I said it wasn't the first time I found myself in a new city without much warning? Watching serves me better than hurting myself or others in confusion. Thankfully Fox is...resilient."

"Knew it." And he baited into the song and dance of gentle teasing by announcing how he had caught her red handed in her curiosity. He imagined she sifted through his mail but it was typically done out of humor. "Poorly? No. It takes more than that for me to think poorly of anyone. I find giving everyone a straight, honest chance is the best case to settling who to keep company with and who not to." His second ale had been drained during their repartee and he was shameless in the signaling for another one for himself, just as unabashed as she might be that he would do the same for her wine if it had been running a little on the low. The painted mountain (a very well described metaphor for the beast who sat in front of her) shifted once more beneath the tides of his simple fashion before realigning their sights together. "And -- these --", a meaty hand waved near his own face for emphasis that he spoke of her own features. "-- they're not something you see everyday. I've seen you with and seemingly with out them, but I'm prone to believe it wasn't a trick of lighting." The markings which were like glyphs of gossamer beneath her skin were just another thing for him to be curious over but his tone kept a cool timbre, rocky and thick, showing he wasn't concerned over them. "I could make an ass out of myself and try to claim to know what they are, or what they make you, but I'd just look like an idiot, so we'll skip that and go straight to the core." Another wayward chuckle that could have been a soothsayers language.

She laughs then, the sound rarer than his, playful and warm. With just an edge to it. Just a hint that the abandon of deep throated cackling was not beyond her given the right motivation. Hands held forth in a small shrug, an admission of guilt. She'd only ever touched the once, when the sensation of that one parcel had overwhelmed her sense of social propriety, but she didn't clarify. Rather, she was inclined to let him think her as guilty or as innocent as he wished. When the server drew near to ascertain his desires she nodded to the unspoken offer of more wine. The glass was not so imperiled as it had been before, but she saw no reason to be conservative tonight. "These." Her assumption was that he indicated the faint whorls that made a home in her skin. She touched the back of her hand, where the swirl of one peeked forth from the end of her sleeve, an ephemeral shimmer in the candlelight. "Aren't like your artful additions. They've been with me since childhood. Some factor of biology, I can only assume. Incidentally, they make acquiring any inking of my own damned impossible." Here she allowed disappointment to creep onto her face, rubbing at the back of her hand with the thumb of the other. Out, damned spot, she might have said in jest were she familiar with a certain bard. "The core, though. Sylph, I've been called."

The Painted Mountain, part 4

"Have you?" Her fingers steeple around the stem of her wine glass, her tone becoming that of an instructor. "It's a very simple arrangement, the game. You can ask whatever you wish, provided you be willing to answer the question for your own part. Should the question not apply to you, you must answer another. Extremely simplified example now, for clarity. I would ask your favorite color, and must answer with my own once I hear your reply. It would then be your turn to ask. However. If I you should ask me a question about Fox, you would not be able to answer it in regards to yourself. Thus giving me the opportunity to ask you any question that I might not want to answer but was still curious about. Do you follow?" Fox, finished his meal, retreated beneath the edge of the table to resume his position curled against her thigh. Watchful of those coming and going from the underground tavern. "Usually a natural point of conclusion comes to light, but the game also ends when anyone neglects to answer an alternative question."

The way she bled her words together in clarifying the chosen game came in a rhythm for him to nod his head to. Clear on the rules, as juvenile as the scheme was. "Got it. No questions about Fox." A point for which his grin lured out a gale force of laughter which was muffled behind his teeth. It was a jest, obviously. "Lady's first." Fingers drifted to chip against some of the splinters in the table they sat at while his eyes crept beneath the scattered bits of darkness that survived around the savage glow the candle's brought. They didn't stray far from this vantage point of being an observer to her own features. There was enough inveiglement there to continue on keeping his rapt attention even when it detoured behind a lax look of hung eye lids.

His jesting summoned her grin as quick as a whip. "Ask if you wish, I just felt it fair to warn you." The game was meant to be a quicker exchange. Yet that too could vary with the weight of the questions posed. Most of her more pressing queries had already been answered, but there were always more. Thoughts shuffled through the possibilities in the watching of him. For a woman surrounded by motion, she could be still. At last, she asked, "Do you have any living family other than those you work for?"

Silence was not an uncomfortable atmosphere for him to be present in. He could tell stories or be the backdrop to them; idol he might have been but his eyes never ceased fire in counting the elegant paths her lips took when she spoke, or smiled. Her question brought a small flare to his nostrils when he broke from the laconism of a voyeur to readjust his posture and take a breath in. Mulling over an answer that teetered on being candor with out breaking certain codes of confidentiality. "I do. The family that I work for is not typical family; there is no blood relation, but more of a partnership that was struck up long ago. Since then, we have worked together and so it in turn becomes a family. Those that are actually born from the same ilk? There are a few. Three brothers, two sisters. Six all together when including myself." A brief pause to chuckle to himself in finding imagery of his kin flashing through his memory. "But none of us are the same." The truth was hushed and rippled beneath the quilted pieces of what he said, which was no lie in all reality. They had been all born together from the same parenting of belief and olde evolution. "What about you?" It was easy to fall in line behind the web of her questioning as he was equally curious.

Such a study, were it not being reciprocated, might have made her wary. The interest was shared and her guard was relaxed as a result. Sips of wine taken slow. Eyes drinking in his mannerisms as her ears absorbed the words of his carefully framed answer. The degree of detail was left to his discretion. Not shy, she would be sure to speak up if she found fault with any degree of omission. As it was, she was silent until his lips volleyed the question back to her. "Not in some time. If I have any relations by blood I am not at present aware of them. I was adopted at a young age, and from that relationship I developed a strongly held opinion that family can also be chosen. There are some here I might choose, in time, but for now..." Her head nods down towards the Fox reclined at her hip. "It is just we two." Fox's attention only broke from his heavy eyed observation to tilt an ear towards Shae's voice and give a toss of his tail. Otherwise, he remained unmoved.

"I agree with that." Was his steadfast reply in complete submission to understanding what she meant. He had chosen a certain family when he made that oath eons ago and had no qualms with his decision. They were as much a part of him as his own ancestry. "You happened on Rhy'Din, like most do, it seems but where did you come from? Does it have a name?" Curiosity was easily sated but quickly became ravenous as their game went on. He wasn't challenging with his inquiry though and allowed her room to breathe when his eyes exited their intense watch on her to roam about the very few others that made this place their sanctuary for the time being.

She was one who was used to holding opinions with varying degrees of controversy to them. Still, the implication of understanding in his voice, backed by that elusive, vital quality he gave to the air leaving his lungs, warmed her expression. "If there is a name, it was locked into the more esoteric texts and kept on dusty shelves above the lives of those who lived upon it. There were countries, cities, but the whole of things was only ever referred to as The Material Plane. The Material. The Plane. This Plane. The World. Sure. There were writings of other worlds. But they were such far away things to most people. Almost myth. Other planes were closer. Tangible, even. People did not sail through the void between the stars. They stepped through Gates. The last city I was in before I came here was called Ravenhold." Slow roll of her neck to stretch the muscles there. "And you...some variant of Earth? That's the most common response I have heard."

He was content in living vicariously through the admission of her once upon a life that now seemed distant. In truth there was a hint of a different type of nostalgia while he soaked in the essence of her explanation, harboring the details as if he might need to count on it some day down the road. "Ravenhold.", he repeated it just to sample the texture of it when it rolled off the spine of his tongue. "And Earth, the most basic of places given how interstellar most of those are that come to Rhy'Din. I've done only a little traveling, never really finding it aligned in the stars to take a direction anywhere else. It's my home." In more ways than one, really. His smile slid into a majestic setting across his mouth with the barest slideshow of teeth. Always genuine and never a farce. "Grew up all over, though. Never really settled long in one place. Maybe I'm a bit of a wanderer in that sense."

His echo of the name came with her nod of confirmation that he had the shape of it. "I confess that I find the place fascinating. So many different shades of just one place. Makes me wonder. I've seen those deeply other and those clearly mundane who claim it as origin. Many more of the former than the latter. And yet...all the stories I hear seem to leave no space for those others. And the normal folk are surprised beyond reason to see the collection which gathers here. Especially so to learn that they share an origin." A culture of hiding. Multiples of it, across multiple Earths. "But I do ramble now. Would you tell me of a favorite place? Here or there."

"It's a big place, with a lot of unchartered territory still. People are still learning about new things and finding themselves faced with the unknown. It's interesting to be a witness to it all, whether it is otherworldly or not." From the first peek of dawn he had arisen and been one of the greats to titan over the mountains but it had long since been a dead languge of mythology. He made no mistake in being semi-vague to the things he said as was needed when swearing to a certain scripture. A laugh was prompted when she fell aware to her rambling but it didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. "Favorite place." Mumbling just before a large drink was taken from the pint, wetting at his lips. "There? A place in the low lands of Peru known as the Manu Wilderness. It's practically untouched by human kind, still, and has a certain aura to it. One that speaks of a world before man. There is also the Suriname jungle which is just the same if not more uninhabited. Here, though? I'm not sure, yet. I haven't done much sight seeing while being here. I think this place ranks about number one on my list so far, though."

A slow inhale and an slower exhale marked her agreement with his statement on the size of the place they found themselves in. Made larger by the stories of those who inhabited it an the echoes of the places they came from. Like open doors leading back to the rest of the cosmos, her curiosity let her peak at the true size of things. The curtailing of her own rambling held no true embarrassment. Questions boiled. And they couldn't be answered by her theorizing. The lids of her eyes lowered as he described the distant lands. Letting his words pull connected images to her mind and paint the landscape to her imagining. It was vague, probably inaccurate, but she enjoyed it all the same. "It sounds...deeply relaxing. Those places there." Slow smile for the place described here. "I'm glad you like it. I'm flattered you feel comfortable here." Although she had asked the question, Shae took time with defining her own choices. One was easier. She started with that. "As for me, here, a favorite place has been the lighthouse. Specifically, the railing at the top and the office just before the trapdoor to the light itself. This place is proving to be a strong contender to the list, so far. Other than that..." Here her thoughts caught up to her. "There." Pause. "There is harder to say. Most of the places I used to love don't really exist anymore. I think." Soft frown. "I think if I had to choose one it would be the southern beaches. Just off where the river delta met the ocean. One of the smaller oasis pools. The sky was so big there."

They excelled at the give and take aspects of this game. He answered with the crisp truth, places that were sacred to his lifetime. And he was glad to have shared it with a species that was so peculiar with interest to what might be considered boring tales from a stranger. Her segway through her own answers gave him reason to crack out the barest hint of a familiar grin, going a long with her down the description with a slow nodding to accentuate how he was fantastic at following a long but it's the downward tip of her brows into the barest of a frown that get him to really focus on what she is confessing to him. "Funny, that. There are many places that I used to love but have fallen due to -- well. Many things." He didn't go into the fine detail of what he meant but it was goaded from him to help ease any minor distress she might have felt from having to remember. Remember that things were not there anymore. The desolation of nostalgic haunts could be worse than any heartbreak. "Are you fond of water?" Forgetting about the game for an instant when he asked. His smile growing by the seconds of quiet that evolved between them; they seemed perfectly at ease with just watching one another.

The vivid forests of her memories were easy to get lost in when she was given a push through their spider webbed branches. Each leaf touching others, on and on. So she was grateful that he did not lapse into silence after her reply. The smile she favors him with for his sympathy is gently bittersweet. No detail needed. She had no desire to prod him down similar paths when the questions were meant to be lighthearted. It was his turn in the game, and the question he posed was odd enough that she had to ask. "Is that you're next turn? Whether or not I am fond of water?" Wine, she was fond of. Enough to take a sip before she replied. "I am, as it happens. I enjoy the sea, though Fox is less enthused by it."

Laughter could be used as a scapegoat but that wasn't the intended purpose of his at this point. The free flow of it was a rocky road of depth, of the distant coiling of summer monsoons over the dry earth. It brought a promise of rain and sought after elements of life. "Sure, it can be my question." Engraving invisible artwork to the pint of ale when he skimmed his fingers across the outside of it, preening at it before connecting their sights on one another again. "I'm partial to water myself. I do bathe quite often." Shift of his grin which worked as it should; he proposed humor in the tone and across the imagery of his mouth. "And I've been known to frequent beaches, lakes, rivers." A sly bit of admittance there but it was troubling as it didn't describe much of anything than his fondness for natural habitats.

Her glass paused on the descent back to the table, resuming as she laughed at his confessed patterns of hygiene. "Good. Good." Feigning serious relief that he bathed, as if it were a mystery or a matter of doubt. "Beaches are another matter entirely. Fox tolerates beaches. Any place with solid ground, really. Am I to be concerned that I might stumble upon you bathing in the bay or some other body of water during my explorations?" Brow arching with a wicked smile that suggested such an accidental encounter wouldn't be entirely objectionable to her from an aesthetic standpoint. "That's not my question, by the way. My question is: which of your tattoos is your favorite, and why?" This, of course, would open her up to a double inquiry from him. One of which he wouldn't have to answer.

"Maybe." Which was not a no, and not a yes, but a play on the amusement that spiked from his earlier statement. She ran with it which was enough for him to tremble his shoulders in the barest of chuckles. Her question that proceeded her non-game related question was the first time he seemed to stall out during the entire scheme of their innocent probing. Not a state of emergency to where he could not convey some kind of body language, the well spoken lines of his sinew adjusting beneath the simple cast of a t-shirt. "That -- is a hard question." And there was a reason why it was so hard but his dedication to playing by the rules was fierce enough to push past such a thing. "It's a hard question because many of them are not out of a joyous occasion. Many people, in this age, seem interested in decorating their bodies for pure pleasure. For the peacock effect. It's completely understandable but that is not why I get them. These? Every inch of color? They are stories. Most are not to be told."

"Then I'll maybe be on the lookout for such a thing." Letting the matter go in favor of the new interest that was now before her. Ezra. Smooth spoken Ezra, at a brief loss for a ready answer. She schooled her smile as curiosity took over. He'd mentioned before, in not so many words, that the tattoos were more complex than average decoration. Stories. Ah, but if he had sought to discourage her interest in them at all that might have been the worst word to use in their description. "Not to be told because of painful memories or because it is something forbidden?" Not joyous, he had said. And this admittance had her looking at the canvas of his skin in a new light. "Do you get them as insurance of memory?" But then, he'd only said 'many'. Which meant there might be a few. "Is there a story you can tell, one...not joyous, but happier? Neutral?"

She was persistent. It was a quality to find appealing when used at the right time. He was not one to back down beneath a challenge of a question or the heavy weight of low lidded eyes that she fixed him with when roaming the map of ink across his skin. "This one." Settling on opening up enough to describe a certain section of design; it was thick lined and built as a tree, old enough to carry the shocking elements of glyphs, of sigils, hanging like fruit or leaves in the wind. The roots gnarled into the cushion of the inside of his elbow before eating away at a large fastening of his outer arm. Other collections were there, too, almost blending into the scenery of the one he helped angle her focus at when rolling up the t-shirts sleeve. "It is the family tree of the family I work for." And he tapped a finger across one of the drawn glyphs. "Each one since the beginning of their lineage."

Shae belatedly realized she was breaking the rules of the game, but the draw of interest his ink infused skin presented was too great for her to feel shame for the revival of her persistent questions. And so, when his words indicated a specific section of that living mural, she now drank in the details of that particular sigil bearing tree. The markings were names perhaps? Not just symbols. Her mind sought to decipher them, if she even could do such a thing. "That's..." The word breathed in hushed fascination. "An impressive lineage, I'm sure. You must hold them in some esteem to adopt such knowledge of their line onto your own flesh. Or...was it required again?" There her lips tugged ever so slightly south. There were more questions, but she had already pushed. "I'm sorry. It's not my turn to ask. But thank you for indulging me."

"Not required. Of my own doing." It spoke highly of his level of admiration for the Oath taken towards his chosen wards. The descendants of the first, he had known them all. His hand smothered over the well stitched ink where the sleeve of the t-shirt soon followed, covering half the art work to conceal it as if it should have never been spoken of. "Indulging you is an easy feat, it seems. I'm happy to do it." He admitted with no real warp to his grin though the earlier settlement of wayward decisions seemed to bring about a certain fatigue across his eyes. "I'll let you break the rules of this game, just once, though." An empty threat that held no real substance. "You know, it is getting late and as much as I would enjoy staying to indulge you, I think it is probably a good time to call it a night. For both parties." A sliver of a questioning look was lancing past the encampment of mud and gold in his eyes.

Naturally, Shae was not fully aware of the depth of his connection to the family he worked for, but the very fact that he had chosen such a tribute to them spoke of more than just a simple work arrangement. There was regret to see the artwork concealed, but she respected his desire to move on from it. Her attention shifted back to his face with the admittance. First a motion of her eyes and then the turn of her head followed with a smile. "You're too kind to grant me pardon." In truth she had become wrapped up in their exchange. The platter of food in front of them, what remained, had long ago gone cold. The candles near their table remained at only a fraction of their original height. "Ah." That fatigue was framed in the context of the hour as she realized that her nocturnal habits may be stretching overlong for his comfort. "Then perhaps we may finish our game at a later date." Two fingers held up, and wiggled. "You have two questions coming to you."

"Two?" He looked as skeptical as one could convey in the throes of humor, the cracking of movement that sprang from bones and the wood beneath him when he countered to his feet. "And now I'm tempted to stay longer just to hear what they are. Something to look forward to, I'm sure." As he took to his feet came the brief covering of a minor wince to hook through his brows but it was a glimmer if anything in the candle light. "I'm sure you already know this, being the watcher of my very important mail, but room one-thirteen is where I stay." An open invitation, it seemed, for her to visit if her curiosity just was too much to swallow. He made no promise of being actively within the small walls of the rented room but it was a daring suggestion no matter, complete with the handsomely provoking grin supplied there for her to bare witness to. "Have a good night, Shae." There was no need for a good bye; they would see one another again.

"No, no." She holds up a hand with a grin. Just two questions? Shae had far more than that, but that wasn't what she had meant. She clarifies. "Not from me, Ezra. By the rules you are allowed to ask two things of me on our next meeting. One of which you have to answer, the other you do not." His invitation closed her lips into an expression more sly in variety. "I had known, but a verbal welcome is always less damaging in the eyes of the law." Surely she was jesting. Surely just indulging the unspoken dare with an empty threat of her own. "Be safe, Ezra." Leaning back in her seat. Silver to be deposited on the table in payment for drink and meal for the two of them. She would amuse herself with later teasing of his violation of their agreement. Time taken to finish her wine and observe his departure before she would collect her companion and make her own exit into the night.

Texts with Lucy, 7:12 PM, 6/30

Text to Lucy: Hey, just thought I would let you know that Antonia is awake. Eva says she can have visitors one at a time for now.

There was a good ten minute delay before Lucy responded.
Text to Shae: Did something happen to her?

Text to Lucy: Fin didn't tell you? Antonia has been in a coma. She was badly beaten and dumped at the Inn almost a month ago.

Text to Shae: I've been out of town. Is she going to be okay?

Text to Lucy: It was touch and go for a while, because she was bleeding on the brain. But the fact that she's awake is a good sign. She's still intubated, but she's communicating with a board and a marker.

Text to Shae: I'm sorry I didn't hear. Is there anything I can do?
Text to Shae: I'm sure she's well taken-care-of. What can I do for you? For Cianan?

Text to Lucy: There's always someone rotating in to keep her company. If you want to help them out you could bring something to eat or drink to Eva's clinic for her visitors.
Text to Lucy: That's the only thing that comes to mind, at the moment. Unless you can think of something to bring her that she would like that she couldn't use to hold a nurse hostage and escape.
Text to Lucy: I'm not serious about the hostage part. Nothing sharp, though, just in case.

Text to Shae: I'll send over fruit and chocolate for the visitors.
Text to Shae: Are you getting breaks? Can I take you out? A cup of tea? A nice meal? You need to take care of yourself too. We don't even have to talk.

Text to Lucy: With Jacob, Cianan, and Ketch there are breaks. I'm doing better now that I've gotten some sleep. I'll never say no to a cup of tea though!

Text to Shae: Where would you like to go? We can go anywhere. My treat.

Text to Lucy: Somewhere new that you like? Doesn't even have to be for tea.
Text to Lucy: New for me is what I meant, which isn't hard to find. I've only seen a fraction of the city and always appreciate recommendations.

Text to Shae: Sending you the address for a place in Old Market. It's a restaurant in a courtyard garden. I promise, you'll like it. Meet me there in an hour?

Text to Lucy: I'll call you if I can't find it, but yes. I'll meet you there.

Investments, part 2

The woman wasn't expecting that, and it showed in the delay while she tried to process the expression on Cris' face.

"I probably would too." Well, not the human part. Humans have always been at least a little awful, haven't they? Even to themselves. "Sucks." Oz agreed with Shae's assessment.

He did not smile like that often, even when he was in a good mood. Slow to grow, and remarkably bright for how black his frowns could be. He had the teeth for smiling. White and even. "Thank you. I appreciate that. Both of you."

"You're welcome." Managing to dredge up her manners at the very least and venturing a proper smile in return.

Oz smiled back in return, his were easily earned and freely given, because sometimes people just needed a smile.

He could kiss her for a sentiment like that. But that was the champagne, the cigarette, and the bourbon thinking. One last sip from his cup, he took it to the sink and rinsed the dregs down. "I think I'll enjoy what is left of this morning in solitude."

Oz was taking slow drinks of his tea, watching him. He wouldn't oppose what had just been put out, instead he smiled again, and leaned over to nudge Shae more.

"I..." Train of thought momentarily derailed as she noticed what Kai was doing behind the bar. The drawing forth of a book was suspicious to Shae, only because she'd seen another, less friendly figure do just that on another day. One that had kidnapped a friend of hers. Puzzled frown for Kai's back lingered. Oz's nudge brought her around again. "What was I...? Oh, yes. Be safe, Cris."

"You do the same." A nod for both of them, he escaped into the muggy darkness of early morning.

What remained of her tea was carried around the bar for a proper sit down next to her friend. More of a slump until a bit of pain in her side corrected her posture. "So. How's life for Oz?"

Oz followed Cris out, and then turned back towards Shae, looking back at her, and focusing a bit as she spoke. Then, he beeped her nose, "Life is good. So far. I mean, not perfect. I have a small office. A room in an Inn, and one in a Hotel. Sometimes free food. I'm starting to get a wad of money together. Something that I can use to buy a nice place, again."

Gold eyes went crossways at the nose beepings. "And the carpentry business we talked about?"

"Getting a wad started out for that too. For one of my own, at least. I found a guy, who doesn't mind me using his shop, every now and again. I can start building up a reputation for stuff, while I still work to make money for it."

"Remind me. Did you tell me how much money you needed from me yet?" Gradually uncrossing her eyes before she got dizzy. Out from the kitchen, Fox trotted a full belly over towards the hearth.

"Mm. I did not. I think we were leaving numbers out of it, because. Asking, or putting a money denomination on it." Well, that made it awkward, "Donate, whatever you feel is right. I'll still make you that desk you wanted."

Shy was in deep reverie; so many thoughts, so far back in time. She snaps out of it when she hears one word in particular. A word that cut through all of her musings, and she tuned in to the conversation between Shae and Oswald. When the fox nears the hearth area she just watches it. More sipping of wine.

"It's not about what feels right, Oz. I'm investing in your business. I need a figure to work with so I don't give too little. I want you to have what you need." Almost shaking her teacup at him, she decides drinking from it is the better option. Fox didn't aim to disturb the Viking, but he did edge his way onto the hearthstones nearby to settle down on the warm surface. When he noticed Shy looking his way, Fox bared his teeth to her in what translated as a grin.

Eyebrows raise when the animal 'smiles' at her. That is ... different. Most foxes tend to avoid her, especially ones with great looking fur. Her gaze travels over its coat as she sips more red wine. Nei, she will not harm the animal. Unless, of course, it decides to try and hurt her. Then all bets are off.

"Mm. Alright. Let me go back and re?look into stuff. I can get a harder, firmer figure for you." He chewed on his bottom lip a bit, and frowned, "It'll work out nice. I'll use you for all my shop advertisements." He gave a snort. He knew it wouldn't ever happen.

For a fox, the creature seemed tame. All he sought appeared to be a stretch of real estate before the hearth, which he claimed with all the languid air of an emperor. At the bar, Shae nodded once to Oz's capitulation. "Thank you. I'll decline on the publicity, but I'm happy to be an investor. I'm looking forward to seeing what you can produce."

"Mm. If you insist." Oz laughed a bit, "You'd be great, as an advertisement? What about Fox then?" Oz peeked over to him, "Good mascot."

Gold eyes met as Shae glanced over her shoulder towards the hearth. Fox flipped his tail once and licked his muzzle. "He wants to be paid for it."

The base of the wineglass is eased down onto the chair arm, the stem still held by leather ?encased fingers. Light blue eyes steadily remain on the bushy ?tailed animal as it makes itself comfortable nearby. Every movement the fox makes is intently observed.

Oz glanced over to Fox, "Mmhmm." His lips twisted, and he narrowed his eyes on Fox, "I think we could work a little something out. What did you think of the hot dogs?"

Another moment of quiet conference between Shae and Fox. The reynard's expression thoughtful. "He's not as picky as I am, he likes the fake sausages. But you'd have to do better than hot dogs."

Ugh. Oz scratched at his jaw, shifting on his barstool to lean against the bar as he studied Fox, "Mm. They do come in packs of ten." He smeared his hand across his jaw, "Or, we can do a steak every time we need some advertisement."

Steak. Shy licks her lips before lifting the crystal wineglass for another sip of the delicious alcoholic beverage made from fermented grapes. A slow blink of eyes.

At the mention of steak, the furry glutton brought out a wide grin. Brush tail wagging. "I think you've sold him. A good cut of steak per advertisement, and he will allow you to use his likeness to sell your furniture." Shae was offering Oz her hand.

Oz stretched his hand over, and gave Shae's a firm shake. "We have a deal then. Just be glad I don't make you spit into your hand first." He laughed, "I'll make sure to shake his paw later. I know you're his mouth piece and all, but it's only right." Oz tilted his tea cup back, finishing off what was in it and setting it aside.

Slide of gaze over to the bar for a minute or two, giving Oswald a good 'once over' before her gaze swings back to the fox. Envisions what the logo might look like, but she is having difficulty relating a fox to furniture. Foxy furnishings? Hmm. That sounds very sly?like in her mind. Sip.

Odd face given at that notion. "Why would you make me spit into my hand? That's...is that some custom where you come from?" It wasn't until she brought the mug to her lips that Shae realized it was empty. She stood and took the empty cups over to the sink for a rinse. There was still a sway to her walk, but it was a little less pronounced compared to earlier. Fox was busy preening, don't mind him.

"That's how real deals are made. Body fluid, added in. Creates a tighter bond, like magic, but more ties of honor. Personal." He watched the sway, and then smiled when he saw she had his cup. "Thank you. By the way. Just for offering. And for the tea cups."

"I'm aware of contracts based on blood." The mention of such reminded her of the stained shirt she wore. Dried blood had died her shoulder a darker color and added an accent of red to the exposed padding on the side of her vest. "They're quite common where I am from. I've never encountered one based upon spit before. Unless you count the 'undying love' of two young fools swapping saliva." Her tone suggested she didn't. "You're quite welcome."

Oz snorted, "I think, undying love is a thing that doesn't exist. Love is something that needs to be renewed, and worked on. It's something that waxes and wanes. It's like the ocean, sometimes it's there, over flowing on your shores, and sometimes the tide pulls it way far out. Because.. people." That was his best explanation for it.

The remainder of her wine is downed. As is her norm after taking a drink, Shy licks her lips. Eases off the comfortable wingback chair in order to bring her empty glass into the kitchen. It will be set on the counter next to the sink. That way it should not get broken if someone else decides to dump dirty dishes into the basin without a care. While in the other room she searches for a cookie. Mayhap she will luck out and find one that is not stale.

With a single, quick shake, Shae air dried her hands. "On that note of truth, I think I should be heading to bed before the booze wears off completely and I get too tired to spread some salve on my wounds." Fox yawned once and began to extract himself from his perch at the hearth. "Thank you for the company, Oz." A nod for the quiet Viking as she passes into the kitchen. "Be safe."

"Oh. I think this is the part, where I give you a cheesy grin, and offer to help you with the salve." Oz stood up slowly, and offered Shae a hug, giving a small smile down towards Fox.Mindful of said complaints, Shae accepted the hug with one arm. "Goodnight Oz." Chuckling gently and heading towards the stairs with Fox. Up she went towards her room and a long stretch of sleep.

Wait, wait! Oz was stopping Fox, so he could drop to a knee and offer him a shake for their deal!

The paw?handshake was a serious affair, to be certain. Fox met the man's eyes for the gesture and nodded his head when it was done.

Oz gave a nod of his head, making sure to catch Fox's eyes, and then he stood up afterwards. "Thank you."

There went the Fox up the stairs. A few moments later a door above opened and closed.

Barriers to Entry, Part 2

"What if I don't have a side?" The simple fact was, if she even counted, Shae wasn't of their families and so had drawn no party lines. Her bloodline belonged to another world entirely and she suspected her pedigree, whatever it was, held little weight. "You don't have the markings." Here she gestured to him and then rolled up a sleeve to bare an arm to the intermittent light. There the faint whorls were like an afterimage in her skin. "Does your mother?"

"I ask that regularly and get shot down." His smirk was a slight and creeping thing across the length of his mouth as he looked her way between hits and he shook his head to confirm that he did not have similar markings. "No, neither one of us do. We don't have the same natural form either. I'm....smoke. She is a much more destructive force of nature."

"I'll try not to make you terribly jealous of my free agent latitude." Offered with gentle humor, a suppressed drawl, and a smile that was politely trying not to be a smirk in return. His confirmation took care of that. Frowning softly, a thumb rubbed at one marking as if the friction might erase it. "They appeared when I was younger. Became more prominent before each incident where I lost my composure. More of them manifested over time." A glance spared down to the beach where her vulpine companion was napping in the sand. "How unhealthy is it to suppress that outlet? Your smoke? Your mother's nature?"

"The longer you get to know me Shae, you'll see I don't have much regard for any of the rules in play. More after the final outcome usually." The shrug he gave was faint and his fingers were pinching off the end of the joint in hand to save the rest for another time. "So they are a physical warning that you're....stressed?" He made a quiet sound like a low whistle at her last question. "Suppressed for too long is usually detrimental. And to be fair that's with anyone in my family or -- like us." Gesturing to her and himself as he spoke. "Sylph or not. Any of the elementals, the shifters, psychokinesis." His hand waved to indicate the numerous types both in his family and not. "Sometimes, if you're unable to get things under control, or cannot find a consistent and safe outlet, they'll bind you. Or try to."

"Mm. I never was one for many rules, either." Expressions volatile to match the shifts in their conversation, she'd gone lax in her desire to censor her reactions once she'd passed the ones she cared to keep hidden. "Yes and no. It wasn't always stress so much as it was...emotion? Each incident became more powerful. I think I lean towards your mother's flavor of representation. Weather, nature's fury." The woman tugged her sleeve down. "I found a way to bleed it off, but it's not perfect. Far from perfect." At the mention of binding, her spine stiffened and her eyes narrowed. Inflection sharp with veiled threat. "They could try. I don't much like the sound of that. I have never tolerated well any manner of confinement that wasn't of my own choosing."

"Thus why my family starts teaching the new children control at the time their ability manifests. For us the binding is done for overall protection and safety. And certain ...talents in the wrong hands create larger problems. There's a lot of politics and power plays too, but I do my best to avoid it when I can." Pushing against the railing then and straightening up to his full though average height. "Yes. My mother is ...well -- wind. Cyclones, tornadoes. She can get wound up." Pun not intended.

One more glance down at the beach, a thoughtful frown stewing on her face. Her agitation cooled in the space of half a minute of quiet, until Shae pulled her attention back to the man nearby. "What do they teach, exactly? Why did you learn as a child?" The cigarette was nearly expended, but the woman eked out another draw before scraping the butt out against the railing.

"Well, traditionally you just learn whenever your ability manifests which could be at any time. I have a cousin where it manifested hours after his birth, but his sisters were ...you know, children. I was young enough that I don't even remember how it happened for me. My family focuses on balance because of who we are." Hands slid into his pockets as he shifted his torso and focus on her while continuing. "My best guess is to start them young. More practice and experience that way. We're taught our family history, the dangers to look out for, how to get stronger, control. Things like that."

His answer was received with pensive consideration. Another stretch of silence passed. Small sigh exhaled through her nose, accompanied by a bemused sort of smile. "Would they teach those sort of things to an outsider? The methods of control? The dangers?" Extinguished butt tucked into a pocket rather than tossed into the space beyond the sweeping light. "Your mother, perhaps, since you profess that you are not the sort to teach. Or, given what you've mentioned of the politics, would that be a nest of trouble I should just avoid?"

"We're not known for it," a partial answer and not a refusal by indication of his tone. He squinted at her as though the expression would suddenly give him the ability to see within her when it didn't. That wasn't in his bag of tricks. "My mother is not here, so unless you'd want to leave this place on a hunch that she could possibly offer assistance...." Shaking his head then, the tables were soon turned and a question was posed on her. "Do you know what your weaknesses are? --No wait, scratch that, because it is possible that we don't have the same kind. It's an odd question to ask a stranger, I know, so perhaps you need not answer it."

"Let me...try to rephrase this entire conversation in the context of that question: I don't know." Hands delve into her pockets to keep from fidgeting. "My nature has been restrained for a long time. Hidden for the safety of others and to circumvent the temptation it might present to those who might seek to exploit it." Pause. "Channeled. That might be a better word. I found a way to channel the energy that might have fed into my heritage into something else. It's imperfect. A flawed system that occasionally fails. The outlets are like pressure breaks. Violent, consuming, destructive. Some small abilities persist. My breeze, my voice, the..." Here she hesitated before taking a separate track. "That channeling could be compensating for weaknesses I don't know I have. Or I'm headed for trouble. This is why, when I found out about you, your family, after the deficit of such resources where I come from...it's why I'm asking."

"You channel your energy into an object? If so, I can see issues or consequences for that but..." He trailed off, unsure of how to answer her and his hands lifted themselves from his pockets. "I can do my best to help you Shae, but I make no promises. There are so many various offshoots of Fae, of our kind, there is nothing certain. --Are we talking in circles here? Did I already say that?" His chuckle was low and for his own suspected confusion. "Let's start with a simple test to see how similar we are if you're interested. How are you around iron?"

Hesitation continued, but eventually she answered. "Not an object...a creature. He, subsequently, returns it to me in another form. This arrangement has persisted for the majority of my life." John's idea of a test sparked recognition in her eyes. "My control becomes a bit tenuous in the presence of cold iron, in particular. Meteoric iron, that is."

He noted her hesitation and once she answered his head nodded in response to it. "If I ask anything that you'd rather not answer, that's fine because I'm aware more than most that this is a very personal conversation. But we won't get anywhere if we're both too guarded with information. Because I don't think Ezra would suggest that we should talk if he didn't trust you I'm inclined to give you what personal answers I can of myself. And I'm also aware that some of us speak in riddles, but never in lies... so getting information can be a bit of a mind ***." His throat was suddenly dry with the realization that he was not known for ever talking this much. "Oh good to know then. Sounds like the same reaction as I have." Recalling that she used the word creature, his gaze drifted to the fox on the beach.

"I'm not trying to be obtuse. Really I'm not. I'm not used to talking about these things with others and my tendency to be circumspect is warring heavily with the craving for information." One hand made the escape from the confines of her pockets to sketch through her hair. "It's much as you say. I am trusting you because two people I know believe you to be trustworthy and I value their opinions. I am also partial to the truth. Stories, I love stories, but real ones most of all." Her gaze followed his to the beach. "He's more than he seems."

"Aren't we all here?" Rhetoric as he watched the animal on the sands a moment longer. Red veined eyes, bloodshot and still white, turned back to her. "It's all right. I imagine that it must be hard to talk about when you're not used to it. I'm just often accused of revealing trade secrets, but it's just in my nature to be.... translucent." John's mouth curved into a slow smirk, briefly catching the edge of one of his eyes.

"Touche." Her smile shaded towards affectionate as she watched the fox amble across the sand. Then a soft laugh at the somewhat groan-worthy play on words. "Tell me. Are you a curious man, John?"

"In what meaning of the word?" Responding with a question even as his head bobbed slightly from side to side as though he was physically weighing the options as to if he was or not. "No more than most I suppose."

"Among the sparse references to first hand accounts of Sylph from my home plane, one document suggested that my own curiosity might be a racial attribute, but..." Shrug. His account suggested otherwise. As he said, however, there were many varieties. Such things went unspoken with that gesture. Something he had said before prompted another question. "Will this conversation cause you trouble with your family?"

"I do like to see what's behind locked doors," another wry expression worn briefly as he spoke. "But I've also already mastered the lesson of: The less I know, the better I feel. But drinking and smoking also helps that too." He offered a shrug in return for her last question. "I don't think you're deemed a threat so I'd imagine no."

"Locked things are a temptation." Agreed with ease as she stood on the balcony of a building she broke into within the first week of her residence in the city."I assume if I was, Ezra might be asked to handle it." The thought would have made her look askance at the recent gift the Primordial had given her, if she were more paranoid. "I remember seeing you in the bar a while ago. That night you seemed like you were trying to numb something."

"Though I don't completely know the extent of your powers, Ezra is only usually asked to get involved if something very big is happening. He does seem to know you best, though it would be up to the Head of our Family what would happen. Still think you're in the clear." A non-flirtatious wink given before his features fell at her words. "Yes, well now you caught me in what I do to control things and seek out balance." Evasive, his stance turned more towards the railing in front of him than her.

"Interesting." A single word to encompass the totality of his response. Quiet and sincere, somehow empathetic. The woman had lived her share of, to borrow his phrasing, unbalanced events. Enough to not judge him for his method of coping. Noting his withdraw, she veered back to the topic she had sought his counsel for in the first place."If you were me, would you pursue this? Do you think your family would consider sharing knowledge with me?"

"I think you should know how to handle and control yourself. Being lost or incoherent in what you are and what you can do is....not something I'd wish upon someone. Still, secrets carry great worth, so I would tread carefully. You said that you were of a particularly curious nature. Do you mean that you are just highly inquisitive or that few locked doors can keep you out?" He gave a glance to the lighthouse and then back to her.

"Mm." A sound of agreement before she replied to his inquiry. "I meant the former, but I believe it feeds into the latter. Which, in the interest of honesty, is also applicable." Thumb over her shoulder to the glass paned hatch that led to the inner light casing and the trap door to the interior therein. "Did you want to go inside?"

Amused, his mouth lingered shut in a smirk for a second as his response to her question. "I'd suggest that would be breaking and entering, but I think I've been clear as to where I stand on that. We can go inside if you'd like."

Pushing away from the railing she moved towards the hatch. If he were expecting a demonstration of her skills, he might be disappointed. What appeared to be secure was only that, an appearance. Often was her visitation to the lighthouse. Often enough that she had jury-rigged the illusion of a latched fastening. Salt rusted hinges protested as it opened. "They don't usually lock the trap door to the office."

"It did not seem locked on my way up here." The confession was given to her spine as she opened the door of the lighthouse while his hands secured themselves once again inside his pockets.

The Quarry, Part 2

Just past the last flat, or at the end of the peak, depending on the route taken, another roof could be seen some eight feet below, flat and gravel covered. Shae was waiting there.

Oh, it was just a wee drop. Fin gauged it with a squint a moment and then sighed. Crouching, he set a hand to the edge and then vaulted himself down, making sure to land on the balls of his feet and roll with the momentum so as not to hurt himself. Not everyone had fancy powers here.

Ketch's brow wrinkled calculatingly at the drop and then with a shrug, he followed. No rolling, he just landed in a spiderman-type crouch, gravitational reverb running a shock up his calves into his knees. "This is more like exercise than a walk."

"I said it was good exercise, didn't I?" Shae also told him it probably wasn't what he imagined.

He must have assumed they'd just be wandering aimlessly around drinking, even in spite of Shae's warning. He'd learn.

Cris had adopted an easy pace, and when he reached the ledge, he simply took another step and plummeted. Such a drop, with the hard soles of his boots, should have made a sound, but the gravel only whispered when he touched down, the sound hidden under their voices.

Brushing himself off, Fin rotated an ankle to get rid of the brief ache there and then followed along.

Shae and Cris were sherpas for this little adventure. She led on, sadist, to the edge of the roof adjoined with the threatened construction zone. There beams jutted into space. Some attached, some not. The woman navigated these steel arms and the scaffolding they connected to, her goal a ladder that led to a higher level of the skeletal structure.

The construction zone was eyed with a smile from Fin, enjoying the obstacle challenge - balancing along beams, climbing through the steel bones of the building that was still being built.

Ketch paused to take in the change in obstacles, watching how Shae navigated carefully before following suit. He moved at a much slower pace this time.

Footholds were few and precarious. Some require small leaps to secure. Shae went slowly to illustrate her course to those that followed.

"Shae, you should bring Lirssa on a "walk" like this, sometime." He had the feeling the little acrobat would enjoy it.

"Aye, this would be good for stealth," Fin murmured ahead to Cris.

Ketch was too busy concentrating on translating the motion of his body to the proper foot and handholds to contribute to conversation at the moment.

The impulsive Scot was following in the single file line but wasn't terribly careful, his arm wheeling to grasp wildly at some rebar at least twice with an adrenaline-driven laugh bubbling up.

Cris didn't mind the slower pace Ketch forced on the latter half of their train. Shae's protective air bubble was a marvelous safety measure if one was able to see its presence. He wasn?t, but he assumed it was there. She?d assured them, after all. There was a deceptive looseness to the way his hands rested in his pockets.

"You're right. She might like it." Shae had gained the ladder and was now climbing up. Set halfway across the space, it led to the more challenging second level, another ladder, and finally another solid roof. "The good news is, it's not too far past this place. Where we're going, that is."

Fin sang under his breath while they traversed the more difficult second level, wondering at the final destination but he wasn't asking anymore questions since Shae insisted upon mystery.

"Tell me there's a zipline to get down wherever we're going." Plugging along. Ketch was probably behind Fin now, but in front of Cris. Cris would be the stopgap there.

"You'll have to trust me." Sing-song from the sylph up ahead, who stopped every so often to gauge the progress of her ducklings.

"You know that's my weakness," it was a truth Ketch spoke with a smile to make light of it. He was progressing, and with increasing assurance the longer he did not in fact fall and shatter himself.

"She would no' let ye fall else she would lose her rooftop perch," Fin said with a teasing smile shot at the witch.

Cris leaped and climbed in Ketch's wake, quiet grunts of movement and effort as he affirmed grips and found each subsequent foothold as they moved along.

"Listen to Fin. If anything else, trust that I will be self-serving enough to make sure I can still loiter on your roof." Grinning as she lingered by the second ladder.

"Aye, listen to me," a pompous undertone puffing up the words.

"Good point." That to Fin. Except that it wasn't the point exactly, not in his mind. Inner grumbling aside, he grinned.

"You know, she could also knock you off, were she so inclined," the amused Nephilim called around Ketch.

Snort. "She would no' dare."

"Well, not if I couldn't make it look like an accident, Fin." Deadpan from Shae.

"I'm only reminding you she's the ability to." Like one hundred or so feet off the ground, that wasn't obvious. Murderous mama duck.

What a bunch of ducklings to have following after her. Probably equally murderous ducklings. One of them, at least.

Seeing the trio bobbing closer, Shae climbed the second ladder. It was a short walk from there to the solidity of a roof, just one turn around a support pillar and a bit of balancing to do it.

Second ladder, alright, Ketch was on it, still trailing behind Fin but at least it was a ladder, and there was solid roof underfoot once he'd gained the top. "This place we're going, did you discover it from the ground, or just roaming around like this?" Perhaps he'd underestimated what she meant when she said she liked to walk roofs.

That would be a fair assumption. There was only a pillar now, between them and salvation.

Most people did. "Roaming around. You can't really see it from the street level, which is what makes it so interesting." Don't speak too soon Crispin.

Fin skirted the support pillar right behind Shae, still humming to himself until they reached the solid roofline. Then he paused to take another look around.

A thoughtful murmur of sound and then Ketch was busy with playing the balancing game as he moved around the pillar. He was glad he'd not had the amount of tequila tonight that he'd had last night. He'd have been left behind on the first series of roofs, probably.

Cris took decidedly less time sidestepping his way around the pillar to join them on the solid roof beyond.

Fin would see that they had come a good ways southwest from their starting point and were nearing the shore from the sound of the water. Ahead a jut of cliff extended from inland towards the water. The roof ended into empty space, a street far below that wound down and west towards the beach houses. Across the street that cliff loomed with what looked like a path. "That's where we're going." Pointing across the distance. "It follows the rocks around to the south and there's our goal."

The Scot moved to the edge of the space where he could get a better vantage point over the snaking shoreline and its cliffs. "Did ye bring us up here so we could see tha'? Could we no' have gotten to the water faster on the ground?" looking curiously to Shae.

The night had worn on, and the sky had the telltale grey hue at the edges that promised the sun would soon have it's way. "We're not going down to the water. We're going across to the top of the cliff there." Pointing again. The rocky path was across the gap made by the road at the height of the roof they currently stood upon.

Ketch pulled up alongside Shae and Fin, looking between the empty space a foot beyond the tips of his boots and the cliff across from them. He looked aside at Shae, back to the gap. "How?" He might be missing something here.

Shae hopped up onto the roof ledge and took a look down. "We're going to walk."

She Turns It Up To Eleven, Part 1
The Bench, 02/13/16

The alley that guarded the rustic underground restaurant's entrance was always in shadow. All the better for strung lights and distressed signs to point the way to the candlelit door and winding stone steps. Beneath the streets a mead hall that glowed with warmth from white brick arch ceiling to the reflection of the fireplace in the use polished wood of the tables and fur covered benches. Shae had claimed real estate at one of the tables and was already picking at a hearty but simplistic looking lunch spread served family style.

With some additional direction from some old street contacts, Lirssa found the underground restaurant. She already loved it. How she had not come across it before, well, she'd chastise herself for that later. At the moment, she was drawing off an ash covered coat as she stood in the doorway, searching for Shae. Sighted not long after she was free of the coat, Lirssa gave an upnod and made her way over. "Hello, Ms Shae."

Gold eyes glanced up over a mouthful of fruit. "Mm!" Hello! Waving half an apple slice as she gestured for Lirssa to sit. One sip of tea to clear her throat and she was welcoming with words. "Please, help yourself," nodding to the food she had already ordered. Fox could just be seen on Shae's bench, dozing on a full belly. He, apparently, hadn't deemed it necessary to wait before eating his fill. "I'm glad you found the place."

"I really need to explore the city again. I used to know it so well, but things are always changing and moving." Backwards way of saying she was glad she found the place, too. Taking a seat, she grinned seeing Fox in his Dionysian contentment. Bread always a favorite starter. She takes up a piece says her, "Thank you," followed with a hearty bite of the bread.

"To kill any notion of suspense, this conversation isn't intended to be of dire importance. More a matter of curiosity, if you'd be willing to enlighten me." Shae's posture spoke of a woman looking for an excuse to relax, though now and then her attention slid to the phone lying screen down and silent off to the side. "If you find you'd rather not, we can just have lunch as the food here is uncomplicated but quality."

"Thank you for the honesty, and I'll give it right back. Most likely, I'm willin? to answer. But, some things I might not even know, depending on what is we're gonna be talkin? about. I reckon it's my gift." The last word was forced out. She still had trouble thinking of it that way at times.

"It is." Easy admittance of her curiosity, though she didn't rush her questions. "The very fact that I have waited this long to have a conversation with you in regards to it is something of a personal record for me." The curl of her lips hinted at the self-mockery beneath that statement. "But, your...ability is fascinating." Perhaps reading the lack of familiar comfort with the forced descriptor prompted her to choose another. "You were willing to use it to help Cris, something I find admirable."

"Thank you." Spoken softly, because admiration in any measure from Shae was of great value. "And I would like to use it to help my friends more." A deep breath, she looked down at the bread. "Crispin is the only one who has ever asked." But something Shae said at the beginning brings up a half grin and a shrug. "It's a bit of a mystery to me, too," though Shae had said fascinating, "Cane has been helping me learn some."

When Lirssa mentioned a desire to help others with what she could do, the witch smiled warmly. There was a lingering concern that detracted from the expression. The mention of Cris seemed to relax it somewhat, but it was still present in her next words. "You must know that to be an amplifier is something others might seek to exploit. Your willingness to lend yourself to others is, again, a positive reflection on your character, but I can't help but worry. Cane has been helping you learn to draw this out, control it?"

She gave a nod that then turned into a sideways wobble. "He has taught me how to control it. I can separate it out now, to feed to more than one person -- or object -- at a time. How to try and understand the user's intent, but I'm still far from really being able to do that." Another bite of bread, she looked to Fox a moment. She remembered how it felt to talk with him and also feel there was someone else there, too. "I'm careful in who I tell about it. My parents know. Cane, Cris, Fox, you. There is another man who I helped and helped me discover it, his name is Elliott. And some members of my father's family, but they are far away now."

Gold eyes widened and then relaxed as dark brows furrowed in thought. There was new perspective to be gained in Lirssa's words regarding the extent of her talent and Shae quite literally chewed it over with the rest of the apple slice. As Lirssa's gaze drifted towards the canid, she would find him looking at her from one cracked eye. At the meeting of sight lines, his tail twitched. "Do you know if it's some racial ability, hereditary?"

She took a deep breath and nodded. "My uncle and grandmother found me last year." Had it been so long ago? She brushed fingertips across her brow trying to settle those memories in their proper place. "My father's -- not Ali, but my birth father -- the people can amplify magic, but usually just one person or one type of magic." She had to say it all factually, because it was still new to her, as if she read about the people in a book. There was no emotional connection to them other than loss. "My mother's people can change themselves. Somehow it came in me that I can amplify almost any magic at all. It also sorta explains my bendy nature." She threw that in for herself, to bring back the grin, to lighten her thoughts.

"Flexible in body and spirit." Picking up the lighthearted air along with a slice of cheese and bread. "So a shifter and a specialized mage tribe, if I'm following correctly. And did they enlighten you as to the source of this power well you seem to be able to provide? I've been wondering if you had learned that since you mentioned you are a conduit rather than the source." Here a side look towards her familiar who seemed to be ignoring her in favor of his sloth.

Shae's words brightened the smile, and she nodded. Yes, she did try to be so. "My Uncle did not say exactly. Elliott once told me that power comes from two places, externally from all that is around us, or internally from the person. I'm sure there are other explanations. I doubt it is the same everywhere, and I suppose that's why I can't always amplify everyone, but other than I can touch that other source that is everywhere, the heart of it, I suppose." It was one of the areas of her gift that she had no certain answer.

"And this doesn't cause you harm? The flow of power? What if the draw or need is greater?" Short questions came rapid fire, ended at a trio with a bite of the food in her hands. Slow chewing, a private effort to curtail her inquisitiveness. A soft snort near her thigh was Fox's judgmental humor given sound.

Her mouth twisted sideways, trying to find words that could accurately describe it. "It's like...like I step aside. I don't know if you believe in souls or spirits or what. I'm not sure I do, but I guess that's the closest I can say to it. It's like what makes my brain me, gets out of the way of what makes my spirit me." She frowned and looked quizzically at Shae. "It never hurts, but early on, when I couldn?t control it, if it got too much, I could get pushed really far away. Hard to find my way back. Almost didn't once."

"Hmm." Thoughtful chewing with narrowed eyes. There was a short silence that might have waxed into discomfort had she not begun a carefully worded question at the last moment. "Does the intent of the caster or object that you are amplifying have any effect on your ability once you take that step to the side?"

The bread finished, she found something to drink. Not Shae's thankfully, but something of her own. "It did not before. Before, I was oblivious to it. Then, well, I could sense a little bit of emotion, but not clarity. Now, there can sometimes be struggles. Objects not at all, at least not so far. I set them off and there's nothing back. But with people, sometimes they can pull or push, and..." she hesitated, "and I can do the same." It took a moment when she realized that might not have been Shae's meaning. "Did that answer the question?"

"It did." There were servers floating around the room refiling cups. One of them would fill the void of a glass for Lirssa during the break of Shae's contemplation, certainly. "At least I believe so. Where I come from, objects of high magic can manifest their own sort of intelligence. Occasionally with the strength to overcome a user's will to further the purpose of their design. Between such dangers and the risk that someone might mislead you in their own intentions, I wanted to be sure that you weren't entirely without your means of aborting such a transfer."

"I can, well, so far I can. I am getting better at it. I do always worry that I will come across someone who I won't be able to break free from. My Uncle almost tried, but then I learned that I do not only give power." It was there. The idea just floating between them. Cris was the only other one that knew. Well, Cris, her Uncle, and others of her kind.

"That's..." Here Shae leaned back with a funny sort of smile on her face, reminiscent of pleasant surprise mixed with wicked approval. "Good." Satisfaction, blatant and merciless. Then she was leaning forward again, weight resting on a forearm atop the table. "When you think of the ideal use of your ability, what do you envision? You mentioned helping people, but what does that mean to you?"

She searched Shae's eyes and then looked over the table as if it had an image of what she meant. It did not, naturally, and still it was as if she searched between plates and glasses the hint. "Like how I helped you help Cris." That was one image. "Like how I try to help children get off the street and into homes. I want to do good." And even using the word was too ambiguous. "I mean, good means different things to different people." She was still searching to define it, but failing.

"Would it be really bad of me if I said, I know it when I see it?" A lopsided grin to Shae.

A Test of the Emergency Broadcast System

02/29/2016 -- Raging storms hit the bay, exacerbated by a Sylph losing control. Her left behind phone falls into other hands. Several people are made victim of prank texts, including:


Text to Shae: Have you loaned your coat to someone?

Text to Cris from Shae's phone: Loan is such a strong word.

Text to Shae: I hardly see you losing track of it.

Text to Cris from Shae's phone: I left my phone too. Caged lightning and water are bad combinations.

Text to Shae: Is that you?
Text to Shae: The weather. Is it you?

Text to Cris from Shae's phone: Me? No. I'm getting drunk with the Drow. He's perceptive. Might steal the phone though.
Text to Cris from Shae's phone: I figure if I get wasted she might do me a favor and fall off the lighthouse.

Text to Shae: What's happened to her?

No response, the phone changes hands again:

Text to Cris from Shae's phone: You have the cutest butt. You should wiggle it more.


The next day, once irritation fades, a fire message makes its way to the tempest at the lighthouse:

I've deduced by now that you do not have your phone. Fox does, or whoever the man was last night who was wearing your coat.

Are you all right? I'd thought to ask about this strange weather and if it was your doing. That would be an answer to the first question, at least.

I find that I can't stop myself from asking.

I haven't forgotten I owe you an explanation.

----Cris


Some time later Cris would feel a voice tickle at his ear outside amidst a bluster of wind. 'No, but hopefully everyone else is. I didn't have time. I'll come ashore when it's under control. Pl-- ' And that was all.


Another fire message:

As far as I've seen, you've only inconvenienced commuters.

Take care, Shae.


An hour later, the breeze catches him again:

'Thank you' Though from the relief, the impression given was that she wasn't thanking him for the well wishes.