Amaretto had found Ammy's shop with little difficulty. It was not difficulty for the mirror twin to find the other half of her soul. Dressed in a simple traveling cloak of deep lavender edged with silver thread. The symbol of Raven and Hour Glass stitched upon the back of her cloak marking her as part of a cult known as Twilight Ravens. Beneath the cloak were simple ash gray silk robes and a belt of twined platinum and gold about her waist ending in a Jet and Onyx buckle in the symbol of Raven and Hour Glass.

Tri-colored eyes fell upon the shop's front and the magical scenes in the frosting of the glass. The darker image of Ammy stood there in the sun contemplating her sisters choice in design and decor. A shard of soul gem glinted in the sunlight embedded in her forehead. Her glowing crimson hair was braided, fell down to her feet and was caught under the cloak. It had been some time since she had seen her lighter side. Not since the arrangement of hostages many moons ago between Ammy and Artisia and many agreements reached.

There were days she could live without thinking about Ammy, but she was linked to Ammy whether she liked it or not. Linked and feeling a terrible taint within her sister. Amaretto gazed down at her right hand and at the new ring open her finger from Aribius, her husband. She was a newly made bride and starting to feel a bit happy for once. She wondered if Ammy felt the bonding with Aribius?

Perhaps she should stop standing out in the sun looking like some addled creature and go inside that shop? So she did. She opened the door to the Alchemist's Fire and the chime made her grimace. She shared many of her sisters memories and the sound of mortar and pestle as well as clinking glass made her feel at home. She could feel her sisters magic humming powerfully in the store.

Amaretto moved to the center of the store and looked about for a moment gazing at all of the items. Soon she called out. "Ammy Spiritor. Are you here? Your sister calls for you. Amaretto."

Amaretto watched Ammy closely. She saw how her sister halted in her words and the flare of the nostrils on that fine nose of her muzzle.

Ah, yes. Leave it to the scent I will never be rid of no matter how many times I am revived or remake my body. It is to my advantage this time.

"I am glad to see you have some recollection starting to form of my, my dear sister. Though I am feeling a bit worried for you. You seem a bit paler for my lighter half than usual."

Amaretto approached Ammy slowly. "I am not here to hurt you, sister. Only to talk and have conversation. Perhaps put behind us a lot of troubled and dark waters if things can be remembered and resolved. May I have a drink?"

She walked over to the coal burner and took a seat without invitation.

"I'm hardly rude Ammy. Just darkly fashionable and sieze what I see that is conquerable." she looked around the quaint shop a bit.

"You play with glass vials, potions, elixirs, star charts and reagents and dabble with things best left in the dark ages and you call me Gothic? Dear you need to get out more and liven up. Maybe ditch that old husband of yours and get a younger man." she grinned showing needle sharp teeth.

Amaretto patted a chair next to her after taking the glass of tea. "Now come sit, dear sister. I want to talk to you about your memories. I am sure it's gnawing away at you. The inability to remember many things. The lack of touching that precious magic that made you the adorable red head most loved. How does it feel to be playing second fiddle now?"

She sipped her tea and raised a furred brow watching Ammy with tri-colored eyes.

Amaretto laughed softly hearing Ammy. "Maybe you have your old husband trained to well?"

She sipped from her own glass of iced tea. "I know about your memory loss sister as it exudes a presence of one I used to work for. You're tainted by the Ebony Knight. I can feel his power in you like a poison trying to squeeze the life out of you, and it concerns me greatly sister. I am just a shard fragment of your soul. You die, I vanish and I rather not die just yet. I'm a newly married bride to a handsome, devil of a Lupe that is rising high in his hopes to be an evil deity."

Amaretto looked squarely at Ammy for a moment. "Though if you were to break our link, sister. Make me a whole soul, much could happen and you could profit from me. Don't you think you owe me that much for all the pain you've caused me when you exiled me from the Den City and your love as a sister?"

Amaretto just grinned at Ammy and raised a sharp talon.

"Ammy, Ammy, Ammy. Forces are at work to snuff out this Ebony Knight. I am one of those forces that can either help him or hurt him. Yet, I am finding it hard to protect my sister if nothing is in the bargain for me." She said with a little pout.

That talon tapped her lower lip a bit, drawing bright beads of crimson blood to the lip that she licked away with a relish at the taste. A long sip of her iced tea before she spoke again.

"Now if a certain sister would agree to make me a whole soul in payment for helping in the downfall of a certain black knight, I may be more amenable to her. I would leave her family alone, perhaps enjoy her company even. Maybe... just maybe... make her stone paw real again." Needle sharp demon teeth were flashed at Ammy.

"That's right Ammy. That stone paw is my bidding. My curse on you for all you've done to me."

The daemon Lupinossai looked at her mirror twin a bit stunned when that question was asked. Golden light from the coal heater shimmered over her creamy gold fur with crimson highlights as she tried to find a way to answer Ammy. Amaretto stared into the sienna of her iced tea as if the answers lurked in the black tea.

"I don't know how to answer that question Ammy. It seems our paths went very separate ways so I can say I am really being you sister. However..." She rubbed her muzzle for a long moment. "With the memories you imparted on me and this body housing the meager fragment of your soul living 'like you' so to speak has been, frustrating.

I mean, the powers I could wield, the depths of depravity and cruelty you possessed and never employed. I wonder sometimes how your head didn't explode some days? Then there are the emotions. Annoying, nagging troublesome emotions that make feel love and fear and longing. So many plans of mine have slipped from my head as I run along thoughts of worry for those I'll enjoy maiming and killing. Emotions are a nasty, virulent disease that I wish could be cured and removed. But... if I never felt love I wouldn't have met my husband Aribius Nylta'al.

There is one facet about you sister that worms its way into me the most that I can never truly understand. All this power and greatness and yet you lock it away, hide it and soften your edges to love others. Why? Why love others when you can just rule over them. So much power and fame there waiting for you to reach out your hand and snatch it. Yet, here you are, a business woman, playing with potions, teaching and living a life of low value and low wealth."

She took a sip finally and tilted her head staring at Ammy.

Amaretto's ears flicked showing the only sign of her surprise at learning that Ammy was still filled with darkness.

Does this mean that my creation was for nothing? I was given life as a creature filled with darkness and yet... she could not escape her darker side after all? Is this an issue to all mortals? A need for expunging the natural shadows all light casts? And she tires of it all?

She twisted the near empty glass of iced tea in her hands, studying the hand made glass with bubbles frothing within the glass itself. How to answer Ammy's question about her marriage must be bound in one of those trapped bubbles? Sadly no, it was an answer that eluded Amaretto's mind for a moment until she found the tail of the thought she needed.

"Yes, I am married." She lifted a hand covered in familiar white fur with crimson dusting some of the fur tips to show a platinum ring with an emerald on it that pulsed with power beyond belief. She lowered her hand and sipped the remnant of her iced tea.

"It is ... nigh impossible to explain how I feel being wedded to him. How to say the feelings of how he completes me, Ammy. The bonding, the power, the rightness of such darkness together in union of love and a kindness..." She threw her hands up into the air to give life to her frustration at describing something so deep and beautiful in it many ways. "Well... how would you describe the bonding of yourself to that cross dressing, gender fence post sitting husband of yours? Or that female you dote on so much with love?"

Tri-colored eyes narrowed on Ammy for a few moments hearing her describe her husband.

"Here I thought I had snagged a very wild and chaotic husband but it sounds like I was simply following your instincts, yet again. Is there anything I've done that hasn't been inspired by the ghosts of your soul? Speaking of inspired by your ghost of a soul, Aribius and I may be considering children even though he already has a sweet, 100 year old daughter that's a touch dark in the soul and my darling little Mabella. You should meet Mabella, Ammy, you two have many, many things in common."

Amaretto grinned evilly as she sipped from her refilled glass of iced tea.