There are places in the world that are dark for a reason - not so that dark things might lurk, but so that men might be shielded from such terrible, maddening sights as that. So there are some places better suited for the wild nature of certain things that walk about in man's flesh, wrapped in trappings meant for simple mortality. It was not meant for men to know of these things, of such wild visions and angles, curves and lines that constructed a geography such as his, but that did not matter.

This place was not Earth, nor did it abide by a particular set of rules, as well he could tell. That suited him fine. The Black Man was content to stir his trouble wherever trouble could be heard and spoken of, where there were ears to listen - and, of course, mouths to scream. She came flying out of the alley like a horse out of the shoot, trumpery trash and slatternly. It was not her state of ill-dress, perhaps, that one might have noticed, no. It was her eyes: eyes that were wide, that had perhaps witnessed a sight so terrifying that they might never quite close shut again, that might stare at a night sky and look not at the stars, but the great yawning blackness between each of them, forever forced to stare at some dimension the rest of the world may never know. And in the used-up harlot's wake was nothing but a laugh of some dired amusement, sardonic and complete. This was the way the world worked. This was how the world ended. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

The French devil is a vision in blue silk, black trim. The gown is fit to flatter, cut across a shoulder, slit along a leg to the point of scandal. To accompany such exquisite ensemble are the jewels she sports, regal splendor, adding glitter piecemeal to pale skin: teardrop diamond, freshwater pearl. She moves without fear, but her feet are quick. We arrive just in time for Act One, the lone, lost woman, overdressed in unfamiliar settings. It is a game she plays with them, every time different, every time enjoyable. This is one of her favorite pastimes, aside from the eternal torment of one small sibling. The twostep with Gideon is becoming somewhat tiresome, and tonight, she seeks new blood, and alone. Gideon, he falls, he rises... Kestrel would have him fall further before lifting him, as mental assaults are always so much more severe. She is still wrapped by the sweet memory of their last rendezvous, when he, finally broken, began to plea. Yet, he does not wonder, he does not ask, why she has come, only assumes the worst. And yet, the worst is sure to come. She does not wear these thoughts upon her powdered face, done up in rogue so as to avoid suspicion. She keeps her expression borderline bewildered. When the rabble appears, that border crumbles. Seconds of silent debate. Does she take this laughing, lost one? Her nose turns north. Clearly, Kestrel is used to finer things.

The whore gibbers of madness and sharp malevolence, of something one cannot pin down or perhaps even properly make words about. It does not matter. The assailant of this act, simple in it's execution, strode from the alley, making the decision for her.

I want you to imagine just what the edge of reason must look like. Is it a cliff's edge, overlooking swirling clouds of endless despair? Is it, perhaps, a line, an angle, a geometry that does not equate to anything the human mind knows? Or is it simply that very space the prostitute's eyes would alway seek, that black darkness between the stars that the feeble human mind has forgot of? Is that madness, a memory that time and evolution has blotted out, only remembered in nightmares and basic bestial instinct? Imagine it: imagine staring madness in it's depthless, cruel black eyes, eyes that endlessly laugh and smile, filled with cruel malignancy, the sort that creeps and crawls, squamous and slippery. The Black Man, for all his terrible, maddening beauty, has these eyes. In them lurks something no man can comprehend anymore - for the human mind limits itself and would not tolerate such things. Minds give way to fraying, spraying, bleating hysteria in the face of such madness, staring at that crawling chaos. Out of place, out of time, out of escape routes: the man seemed like something peeled off a pyramid's wall, with skin as burnt as caramel, hair as black as the ocean's depths, horribly beautiful - perhaps horrible because he was beautiful.

Perhaps beautiful because he was horrible.

A newcomer to this realm with no plans to emigrate, Kestrel does not question the inhuman quality of the stranger before her. She has been here just shy of a month, and if she were to write a compendium of the creatures she's encountered, it was sure to be several volumes thick. Predator recognizes predator, and tonight, the jungle is a street alley, littered with debris and rabble, mortal waste, mortal sorrow. Old eyes catch his, looking forward and back, for already his presence issues an effect. Wars born of wars, labeled numeric, ride the tide of memory. Why should she dwell on these ancient things now, on this chance encounter? She does not retreat, but does not advance. Here, now, two beings occupy one space. Beauty and Horror, they are exact mirrors. No words yet, no flair of French, no tumble of the common tongue in greeting. Somehow, she knows better. Rather, she will tip her head into a nod, creeping midnight curls across a shoulder. I see you, you see me. Let's get this over with. If she had a sword, she might draw it, but there are only her teeth and her prowess. The whore is in her periphery, ignored for the time being. Buzzing insects, all of them. She waits on the wall for a dance.

If madness is a measure of ocean, then perhaps he is the tides that slam against the rocks, having been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas. When he smiled - and oh, how he smiled - it was like the world cracking open, splintering into some vast, wide chasm. From that, all manner of wild wickedness poured free, monstrous ideas and concepts in a shockwave aftermath. A dance? That is what she wants? He provides, starting towards her on silent bare feet, caught in a Pharaoh's raiments, white cotton that seems so wrong compared to the great darkness that spills forth from him, lapping at the shores of a mental sea, a wide spanning expanse that, from one side, the other could not be seen. He spoke, and in its mellow tones there rippled the wild music of Lethean streams: "You look lost, little one. Is there aught I can help you find?" Perhaps you will find it where you least expect it: in me.

It is not his beauty that threatens to undo her, but the slipstream of madness that rides beneath. She can't know what it is, but she touches it, at first, with only her eyes. It is not unlike some black decision made simply because the logic seemed sound. To step forward, to accept this invitation may not prove... profitable. Kestrel weighs the decision, but is distracted by his voice. One thing is said, another meant. Even as Vampire, she cannot piece it apart. And it is then she tunes into her own powersource, that small gift endowed from father to daughter, lover to the once besotted. Her beauty catches streetlight, highlighting assets encased in silk, swell of woman, curve of hip, runway leg. Her eyes flash wild, wiles. And a suggestion is made to the stranger that he might advance, but only if he means her no harm. It hangs there between them, then catches the sound of her voice. "No, monsieur, I am never lost. Finding is a different matter entirely."

He advances in his own way. He is not woman - and he is not man. His flesh might be that, but everything of that flesh suggests the very opposite, that he is something more than man - something that cannot be tamed. That has never been, nor never could be controlled. Behold: the Crawling Chaos. "Do you desire to be found?" his mouth asks, words laden thick with slithering secrets, slipping along pathways that no man has ever trod - or, at least, has been sane enough to discuss after the fact, had he done so.

"Found by whom? Qui ?tes-vous, monsieur?" One heel clicks back, wary, as her eyes bleed into his encroaching frame. His strangeness is marked, but not alarming. As she has found, there were so many fascinations in the realm, too many to add to her collection. She would rather them be small, fragile things, easily led and warped and twisted. Gideon was not one of these, but easy in his own way because he was such an open book. Their father had seen to that. "I would know the one who would see to my desires." Could that be an acceptance of the invitation? Again, the suggestion is fluttered about, ribbon to a curl. It tears open the atmosphere, until the very air sings of her.

"And who is to say you do not already, my dear?" And I have known them, each to each. Fluttering things are meant to be batted away, to smack helplessly against glass globes, filled with light. His is the black lights, the witch-lights lurking in deep glades and primal swamps, teaming with slithering, squelching life. Stride unslowing, encroaching into spaces perhaps best left personal.

Her spine issues a red alert, a shudder climbing from lumbar to scalp. Questions for questions, and her tricks prove fruitless. She matches her partner, one foot back for one foot forward, until it seems clear that yes, this is retreat. Calculating eyes sift through the scenery, curb and cobble, caddycorner of one unknown building, the flat face of another. She buys time, looking for loopholes. "Do you intend to enlighten me, monsieur? I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage..."

Remember that madness? That damned ocean undamned, spilling it's way across the sands? Its waves begin to break. Black and lightless, he sprawls and spins, reaching with hands too long and too, too capable. These hands are not hands that make, not hands that break. These are hands that rip and tear, peeling sanity away from the brightest mind and bear it away to those dark, starless places. "I have carried too many names," the eyeless black face tells her, with it's wide spanning mouth. The mad, mindless gibbering begins to pour free, crude-oil from Earth's wound. "None of them matter but in answer to your constant demands, you may call me Nyarlathotep."

"Nyarl..." It is almost as though she forgets his name just as soon as he says it. There it is, tip of tongue, ready to drive the word home when it is lost, as if swept by some rogue zephyr. Dark brows dip into a severe frown. She is displeased, unfamiliar to giving away the upperhand. Limbs dart and shy from the intrusion of touch, crush of silk against the swell of bosom. She bristles, and a low growl winds its way through her windpipe. "Leave monsieur. You were not my intended tonight, nor I yours, it seems." Sidelong glance to the still lurking zombie, once a woman. Kestrel suspects, but can prove nothing.

The cup runneth over: in the distance, the city's hounds begin to bark and bay at the moon. Shadows start to slide and slither in unnatural, impossible ways, stirred up in the wake of this dark, cursed thing. Men will speak of nightmares, and babes will be stillborn on this night. The whore starts to shriek where she is - that somewhere being the brick wall now bloodier red, where she has beaten her head, ready to be left for dead, and - "All of you are," the Black Man tells her, a whisper well heard, even over the maddened din. "You are all my intended. All nightmare long."

Kestrel's eyes pry open with a start, in the afterbirth of sundown, just as streaks of red die quiet deaths on the curve of the horizon. Her hands sink into her head, finger curls, then apply pressure to confirm the real from the imagined. She glances to her right and spies the sleeping, fetal figure, still waxing and waning through his fledgling years. He will likely sleep for two more hours, at least. Strange how her body now presses to him, sinking into a spoon, frame for a frame. The nightmare left her with the strangest appetite: comfort. The lady commands rest, not sleep, and will wait upon the waking of the other. Something about this dream has unnerved her, but she will play it like a poolshark. Just a dream, nothing more. This is what she will tell herself the next night, and the next, when sleep calls and tugs and wraps like a lover, with black skin, and those eyes... The moan is quick, swallowed by a patch of dark hair as her mouth sinks into a sleeping head.

She hides the moment of weakness with a kiss, waiting like one outside of time.

Forever and a day, held in sway, a little line of lines. Cocaine perfection, he strut the length and width of the worlds, watching the way they sizzled, swore, cursed his name again and again. The night was singing, screaming it's song, the stars in the sky seizing their day. Carpe diem, baby. Silk and smooth skin, white in the night, a backdrop of long-lost treasure: the Beast came prowling proud, leaving in his wake the summer's touch on grass, withering it all away. It all seems small and sad, a story between the soil and the sun, heat and rot, a carcass left for the crows.

Smoke curled, coiled, caressed the unforgiving white of his face: smoke screens meant for privacy, perpetually put upon, always keeping doors tightly shut. Nothing - no ideas of emotion touch his features, blank and indfferent. Behold: the perfect pantheon of absence, endlessly bare. The sole of his foot made wooden slats sing, hissing and spitting. Porch stairs perused, plotting a trajectory for the door. Business before pleasure, the latter of which he knew too little about. Flesh forever fluid flowed forwards, the endless white of fingers coiling around the door. It pushed open. Thus, the Beast had arrived.

Princes, paupers, pipers and prophets: they all had one thing right. Sooner or later, one has to pay the piper. It was that simple and in the end, every dog had their day. Solitary destination, the long length of him cut a path, a swath, a predetermined point in which he desired, leaving behind the smudges of black of burnt wood, quick to repair itself, rapid regeneration. Silk slithered, watered rough, the black of his mane following as silent as ghostly lovers. There are stones here, meant to be warmed, to carry the heat of endless furnaces: this is what he wants. Not a good say, not a good lay, not a good girl to sooth his troubles away. Not tonight.

Perhaps he had not always been this way; once, when the sky was still filled with the wilds of the world, cares had been his last concern. Now, he collapsed, house of cards blown over, all long lines and unkind angles, ankles, knees, toes, how does that little song go? Behind the beartrap, the mouth of endless rivers, little babbling brooks, burbling, gurgling, like endless madness; his tongues shoved sparks out from between teeth. Stones sunk upon, weighted down mass: his back looked like new whitewash, save Tom Sawyer had little say in it.

Wanna hear it? Here it goes: spilling, thrilling, spiraling out of control. That's the way the world works. It's not neat, it's not a beat, a drum that we all march to. It's madness and mayhem, chaos colliding with control, a plane pinwheeling right back to Earth. That's a world that'll end with a bang, a boom, a snare drum's crash. It's amazing what a little but of nothing can do: fingertips drummed against couch's arm, desert-dark skin a wild contrast against white cotton. His eternally smiling eyes settled on the one soaking up the something - and what he didn't care - a few feet away. "You look," he commented, lips curving to the heavens, "like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs."

"You have kept me waiting." Such is the sound of the mausoleum's doors, slamming shut: unquestionably final. His head turned, slow the way the sun crosses the sky, the proud whorl of ram's horns shredding up the air. One eye, baleful and unkind, settled on the Pharaoh. This is a night of cruel truths, the distinct lact of giving anything, taking everything - grave robber intent. The Beast was in no mood for games or antics - especially not by the likes of the Pharaoh.

A dark hand waved - to, fro, aimless and without merit. None of him had merit or worth, perhaps. "You're forever waiting, and you're everywhere. If it was so important, you should've found me sooner." Speaking with Bylah is like prodding a rabid dog with a stick, just to watch it snarl and snap. That is, immensely amusing. He stretched, sprawled: one knee shoved to the sky, the other leg lazily draped off the couch, foot to the floor. "What did you need to talk about that simply could not wait?"

"You know damn well what." When his tongues turn out the words, they sound like cold curses, spat out of the mouths of scorned women. Role reversal, played backwards: he pushed to his feet, tower tall, a sliver of dumb stone, stabbing into the sky. "Do you think this some game that you can take at your leisure? Mine patience wanes. You are on thin ice - and I shall be beneath it when it breaks. Do I make myself clear?"

He's not like the Beast: he doesn't have three tongues that wag about in his mouth. He just has one - but that one is terribly talented. He does not, let it be said, take well to threats - though he knows that Bylah is not the sort to 'threaten'. The rise of pale mass didn't seem to phase him in the least. No, he just turned the black of his eyes what seemed like forever upwards. "Don't worry - I know what my part in all of this is. You just make sure you've got your ducks in a row, as the saying goes."

Skulls are best suited for smiling; in the grand game of expressions, it's what they're made for. But, with great suddenness? Bylah frowned. The worlds, perpetually spinning on their axes, slowed, ground to a halt. Or, perhaps, held their breath, waiting for the end to come. It would be sudden and swift. It would be both horrible and beautiful. He took a step forward, bowing his glorious head. Black hair spilled, thrilled, created a curtain smelling of offal and rot, smoke and topsoil, around the Pharaoh's head, as he hissed something in the loathesome creature's ear.

The Egyptian did not quite care about the end of the worlds. He would just make new ones. His head tilted to the side, listening intently...before he shook his head. "I will not. You know I will not. Have a little faith; have I ever failed before?" Of course not. Perhaps he'd taken his time, planning out the plots, putting them all on paper - but he'd never failed. "Ye of little faith, hm?"

The worlds let out a sign of relief, got back to their seemingly endless marches: the frown smoothed away from white features. He straightened, looking forever downwards. "Fine. I will be waiting." A turn, a twist, a shift of body: the whole of him sank into the soot, the grate, the gate of something destroyed.

His head turned, watching the Beast depart. The strict, sensual line of his mouth turned dowards a bit - perhaps sensual because of it's strictness - before he shook his head. Who would have thought the Beast would've ever had a reason to rush? So many shocks, secrets, stories unraveled. This was not, however, one he was part of.

Simple pleasures and easy ideals: few things in the world are quite so wonderful as a stroll in the day, while aimlessly looking for something, the kind of object you're truly in no rush to find. Why would one rush, if there was no need, after all? He took his pace leisurely, white cotton and black hair fluttering in his wake, the dim sunlight peeking between the clouds occasionally catching light off the wideset collar hanging from long throat, resting across clavicles. Bare feet transferred of of sidewalk and onto grass, making litte lines of ants go scurrying willy-nilly across concrete and cobblestones.

He watches the events unfold out front with all the care of a man who's just found the love of his life - nothing, at that moment, could have stirred him. While the insects go scurrying away from him, he moved for the porch's steps, climbing them so simply. It is not as if he had to perform such mundane functions, but sometimes, there's joy in mingling with the small things. One hand reached out, catching the door before it could shut completely, and inside he went.

It's noticed, the way crows in snow-fields are. Long fingers, dark like desert-sands, they settled atop the bar. "You're rather lucky," the Pharoah mused, "that you've such loyal friends to protect you." Head inclining, the collar of gold and colored beads shifted against his clavicles.

She opened her eyes and turned around quickly, staring in surprise for a moment, the utter fear obvious on her face for a split second before her features slid into bland neutrality. "Yes," she answered, darting a look at Liv and then down at the bar in front of her. "I am." Then she turned back and finished pouring the coffee, adding cream and sugar. She glaned at Ailis, opened her mouth to thank her, but decided better of it. It was probably in everyone's best interest if she just kept her yap shut and stayed out of everyone's way. She'd wrought enough havoc for the day, after all.

There is a certain manner in which he effects the world - makes it tilt on it's axis in all the wrong ways. There, atop the bar, his hands look huge and unending, fingers stretching out forever, into spaces and places, planes and angles of a geometry no simple mind could quite comprehend. The air around him seems to hum, the sound of vibrations and madness that make the air thick with it. Crawling, creeping, seeping--"What's your name?" that horrible mouth asks, his eyes dark and slitted on her.

______________________

Certain voices were hard to miss. Any mild amusement over Ailis' sharp tongue dwindled swiftly as he recalled its owner. Fly under the radar...thankfully the Pharoah seemed preoccupied, and Mesteno slithered down off the table to use the distraction to his advantage. Not even the barest susurration of fabric to betray him, he went slinking off to a booth where he could park himself inconspicuously.

The kettle on the proverbial hob was the whistling type and it was just working itself up to a good shriek when she pulled it off and went to pour it into the pot. The fragrance from the leaves in the infuser was pleasant, herbaceous and a little citrusy. The spout of the kettle rattled on the china rim as something down the bar set the fine hairs at the nape of her neck to prickling.

She turned back around to face the strange creature lurking on the bar in front of her. "My name?" she asked before taking a sip of her coffee, eyes slipping sideways to watch Liv with Ed and Jon. She studied Jon carefully, noting the tell-tale signs of a night of over-indulgence and sighed softly. She did not want to have That Talk with him so early in the filming.

He looks like man. His face is that of a man - and a handsome one, no less, dark-skinned and regal...but there is something horribly, terribly wrong, as well. Not something one might be capable of putting a finger on, no, but...His mouth curled, curved into a smile. "You tell me your name, and I will tell you mine."

Her eyes narrowed at Jon in the 'You're not fooling me' sort of way and then she looked back at the thing on the bar. "Lelah Rivka," she answered. When she spotted Daniel, her whole face lit up, her shoulders slumped with relief and she catapulted herself into his arms, hugging the ever-living crap out of him and burying her face in his shoulder.

His head turned, watching the woman launch herself towards the other man, that smile of his growing. Hands pushed and eased and he slipped away from the bar. Bare feet took him across the room. lazy and in no rush. There is a booth, you see, that looks terribly inviting to the Pharaoh.

Movement across the Commons had her watching the path of an uneasy presence and set her to humming softly.

Ailis didn't stop humming to answer Jon's question. He would have to taste it and see for himself. She did walk to the sink to wash her hands. That didn't require speaking.

He'd kept watch - he was good at that. Give him a rifle and he might settle still, belly down and unmoving for hours, days if need be, just waiting for the moment when some cowering fool put their head about the corner and into the lazer sighting. He was composed in this kind of muscle locked stillness now, waiting with shrewd eyes narrowed to flinty hardness.

He smiled and smiled - one may be a villian - and glanced over his shoulder, mouth stretched too wide to be normal, too wide to be human.

She was a grim and determined and strangely serene little thing, leaning against the back bar and casting her melody out over the inn, scarcely loud enough to be heard in proximity.

Suddenly, the booth is not quite so interesting. He stops, deadcenter of the room; a turn puts his face towards the bar. He is tall and proud, Egyptian glory in a tall, lean mass. Dark hair about dusky featues, framing eyes as black as the Pits. Instead of shying back, he extended the dark of a hand, siren's song so compelling, a dark brow arching. A spider to a fly, an earnest invitation all the same. One doesn't always need to eat.

A lift of her chin was the first answer she gave, while the tune to Calon La^n wove its mysteries up from the good earth, life and health and strength growing up like reeds, like papyrus shoots, invisible to the eye be restoring to the soul. The ankh glimmered back at the Egyptian, out of place yet perfectly at home where it rested.

The breath eased out of him where it'd been locked tight in his ribs. Momentary relief that something, or someone had diverted the path of chaos' feet. At least until he realised that the Egyptian's back had him unquestionably facing the dynes ddoeth. Then he cursed. Spat the word out on a hiss.

Not even this deters him. Forms and figures are nothing but that - a body that holds something more. The song, the symbol, they mean nothing in the grand scheme of that which he is - that which he does. Instead, he takes it for what it is: scorn and rejection. His hand lowers to his side, the smile he'd been wearing withering, dying, laying back into the earth.

Men were too quick to assume rejection in the face of delayed gratification, even when they were more than men. She braced herself for the logical aftermath of his withering smile and offered up a silent entreaty to the Lady of the Night Sky.

It doesn't come. With this one, it rarely does. He is not as most men - perhaps is not a man at all. Instead, he turned, attention focusing on where it once was - but let that not fool one into complacency. There may be no action, no reprocussions, but that does not mean he will forget. He forgets nothing. This time, he takes great pains to be silent towards the booth, but it means nothing. Silence may be golden, but that does not mean that the sensation of madness and chaos that rolls from him can be stifled. It cannot, will not.

He'd cursed too soon. Eyes widened, he glanced at Ailis' a quick, scrutinising sweep to make sure she was as steadfast and sure of herself as always. He supposed it better that he hadn't had to abandon his seat to go spoil the Pharoah's fun again. He'd a distinct feeling it might be held against him.

Her shoulders rose and fell in the relief of the moment while the refrain rolled on as well, wave after wave of health and wholeness lapping at his ankles. She was, as Mesteno could probably attest, tenacious as a terrier about some things.

There are times where it is within his nature to be more than simply cruel. Sometimes, he takes it upon himself to be downright spiteful. Like some phantom out of an Abyss, a dark hand settles atop the table belonging to that booth, endless fingers, with more joints that can be comprehended, much less counted. When he leaned in, black hair went spilling over his shoulders. It pooled, piled, poured into a mass of that which was not hair - nor did the simple words most spoke create sounds that befit what his hair looked like. Confined spaces, small places, it's a horrible spot to be in when he leaned and leaned, drew too near - close enough that Mesteno could smell him, a collaboration of odors that no mere man could ever be composed of. He drew just close enough to murmur something there in the man's ear, lost in the din of the room.

It's but one word that he states - a word Mesteno had already heard once, that sunk into the cracks, the crevices in the mind, filled up all the grey matter like good mortar. Rhy'din was a place of many creatures, many creations, but there are so few such as this. Gods and devils, to be sure, but there are little in the way of forces beyond the means of men. Chaos likes to spill itself out, like ink on a clean white page, sinking into fibers and never quite going away, no matter what you do. "Nyarlathotep."

Hymns that lauded purity of heart were all but unheard of in Rhydin, let alone the taproom of an inn. Yet this is the song that rose up in her when need demanded it and this was the song that swelled a little louder, a little surer, as madness o'erset a booth in the back of the room.

One word is good enough - and then the song sounds louder and he does nothing but laugh at it's simple, pitiful attempt at driving him away: it sounds like rabbits screaming, the sound of children realizing they are orphans, and wives now widowed. And oh, how that laugh was right in Mesteno's ear.

To his credit, the lithely muscled young scrapper was indomitable. He didn't flinch away when the dark skinned man bedecked in precious metal came leaning into the privacy of his booth. Showed no outward revulsion at the impossible scent which came spilling in off the curtain of rich, black hair. However it was not nice to be trapped, rendered almost immobile by the memory of what had come before, and when the b*stard leaned to whisper at his ear (and he'd known it was coming, damn it all) which perhaps explained why his sudden reaction at the first syllable snapped through his muscles like a lightning bolt, had his hand moving with the bottle before he was even aware that his synapses had fired in reflex to have him swinging the Grand Marnier right at the Pharoah's head. Those stout little bottles were quite thick. Chaos inspired funny reactions. Especially when it was remembered, feared. The other hand was snatching out at his regal throat even as his mind swam in the mess of confusion.

It's amazing what flesh can do - the bottle explodes, alright - into a cloud of locusts and a pool of blood that had once been liquor. Both go flying in their own way. The booth now looks like a bloodbath, a hand and a handsome face covered in red. In the simple privacy provided, Mesteno sees something no man should - mouths and masses, baleful black eyes and too many tongues. And still, still, the Pharaoh coos at him, a hundred voices buzzing like a insects, burying stingers into soft grey matter. "Now why," he sings like cicadas in deep summer, "did you go and do that..?"

Gray eyes went wide as a pair of moons in a cloudless sky as plagues and madness erupted in one little corner of the room. How everything else managed to go unscathed and unaffected was a matter for consideration, but maybe the magic in the singing did something besides provoke.

He'd been prepared for the bite of glassy splinters, not locusts, and though he was flinching - an uncontrolled twitch really as a result of the word which he'd still heard, even whispered - he still recognised the stink of blood instead of the citrus sweet liquor, the locusts hopping over table, bench and lap. His hand still latched at the Egyptian's throat clenched and relaxed, clenched and relaxed spasmodically, the vision he was presented with in that privacy terrible, engrossing, making him want to recoil when there was no room to. If he had any balance it left him, vision swimming so that things seemed even more distorted. Was he expected to answer when his voice could not form coherent sentences? Only the locked hand seemed to insinuate his wants - to choke the life out of him.

Cruel, spiteful, these are things he has in spades. And yet, when it comes into his mind, he can be the very opposite. Amongst it all, is a rapid swing of mood, coming and going, barely able to decide. At once, all of the horror is mostly gone. Save, of course, the handful of locust guts Mesteno has grasped in his hand. He lifted a hand, slicked blood from a once-more handsome face, smoothed it back through black hair, nothing more than slick, silk-smooth strands. "Mesteno," he says, utterly calm and relaxed. "Stop." Certain words are not the type to be ignored, especially in a voice that was carried on lazy, lilting streams.

The energies of the song flowed silently around them, loosed from her tongue and grown sufficient, chicks flown from the nest. She moved from behind the bar to drift on their currents toward the pair in the booth, one foot in front of another.

Not all of the locusts between his fingers were dead. Some still squirmed, half-crushed (and ridiculously he'd have felt bad for that were he sane) but he seemed not to be aware. He shuddered once, violently, eyes like a mad dog's, until Chaos spoke his name and suddenly he could breathe without feeling as if he were about to drown. Stop? The hand clutchng the Pharoah's throat fell away. Sanity came crawling back. Quiet and shocked, he sat staring at the blood and filth in the booth, then up at the Egyptian.

His eyes slit on the man, black and terribly, direly amused - and for the love of all things holy, he smiled. He smiled like he meant it, like there was no horrors lurking in black eyes, but nothing but fierce pride, fathers to sons. "You are absolutely magnificent.." he murmured, perhaps more to himself, than Mesteno, but it's meaning was clear either way. He didn't think twice - nor care to ask if it were alright - but a hand lilted forward, smoothing dark hair that was not his own away. It was coated in blood. "You're alright," he said, in that same seeming tone - save this time, it was not pride, but reassurance, to let something small know that the nightmare, the bad dreams, they were all over. Done with.

The insects that still lived chirred and rustled and struggled to escape. Breath in the lungs sounded too loud in her ears. Mesteno was all right. The world was mad. And the dynes ddoeth stood on the brink of the end of everything. "Rwy'n gweld eich wyneb," she said evenly to the Egyptian's back, making the simple statement sound like an accusation. I see your face.

He felt nauseous, though his gut was empty of all but bile and liquor (and that was a burn coming back up, in no small way!) and every muscle in him was taut with horror, with outrage at the Egyptian's game. Still, he couldn't move when that hand came sweeping over his tangled hair, streaking the violent red of it with blood which barely showed, but clumped it. The Pharoah's frame kept Ailis from his view, but he heard her voice. For some reason it seemed to remind him he had a tongue, a voice, and he snarled furiously, shaking his hand free of bug-pulp and lurching upright. One hand wrapped tight over the back of the bench, and where he clenched his grip, the fabric rotted away, dust left behind. "Never again. Never." He wouldn't sit placidly next time.

He rose, he straightened, stabbed into the sky and stared down at Mesteno. It is hard to read his features, especially when simply staring at him too long tended to make one want to run, gibbering, into the night. "We'll see about that," he said, with a smile that went on forever. "But never so cruelly. I offer to you my apologies. I didn't mean to make it so bad - but you did hit me. I overreacted. Next time," he suggested, drawing strange sigils atop the bloody table, shapes that might make one want to claw their eyes out, "I will at least have the decency to ask first." His eyes had watched what his hand ha ddone and, perhaps, in a moment of graciousness, he smoothed the runes away. "Will you at least tell me your name, now? I have given you mine twice," he pointed out, regardless of the fact that, perhaps, Mesteno could not - would not - remember it. Let it be said that the woman behind him had not gone unnoticed. She saw his face? She wished. He had no face - not really.

Part of him wanted to barge past him, mow him down en route to the nearest exit in his haste to get away, but his pride was a powerful thing, and he stood there rigidly, shoulders squared and his outrage bleeding off him like a chill, like something licking under the surface of his skin. Being apologised to was something he'd never expected though, and he was rendered mute again (for a few short seconds). Don't look at the runes! He closed his eyes against them, even the lids blood spattered. "I'll save you the effort. Never speak it again. And yes, have my name damn it, I'll not hide behind false ones with beings like you," though Gem had tried for him, bless her. "Mesteno. You'd have found out eventually anyway." They all did.

Words had many meanings, flavors, weights. From where she stood, she saw only the Egyptian's back and, past his right arm, half of Mesteno's scowling and blood-spattered face.

He tastes it on his tongue, like one might a fine wine - or, for a name, perhaps like the smoke of a good cigar. His sloe eyes slit, drifted to the side a bit, thinking. Never a fine thing to let one of his nature do. "It is a pleasure, Mesteno. You really, really should relax, hm? It was but a game - far better what I did to you, than that other woman." Not, mind you, that said woman wasn't getting exactly what she deserved, but that was neither here nor there. He turned though - just to jut a long finger in Ailis' direction. "And you, good woman, had best be careful. There are some who are not so forgiving as I, when being sung strange songs to." Even blood-slicked - or, perhaps because of it - the Pharaoh seemed far taller, far more than most, even as he looked back to Mesteno, one corner of his mouth jerking upwards. "Please, give Fafnir my regards." And with that, he turned, striding silently towards the front door.

A pleasure was the last way in the world Mesteno might have described it. It was the kind of nightmare he couldn't fight with his fists, and public places were not the place to go trying to kill people...even beings like the Pharoah, unless a man had a mind to make it into the pages of the Rhy'din Post. It took a moment for the words to sink in past his jittery defenses, but when they did, his golden eyes went wide again. They pinned Ailis for a heartbeat, before his hand went snatching at the Pharoah's wrist. "WAIT!" Touching him was probably a bad idea. But he hadn't thought. He looked like a mad mad, unhinged grasping at his own tormentor. "Woman? What woman? Who're you talking about?" He thought he was speaking of Gem, naturally.

Nevermind Kestrel!

Her lips thinned, but she had hte sense to bite her tongue for now. She'd done what she'd intended, and she'd do it again. As he strode off, all sinew and golden skin and wrongness, she watched silently. Until Mesteno launched himself after and a small sound of dismay choked in her throat.

It was not a sensation left for children, certainly. His flesh roiled and melted, writhed and squirmed with all manner of things beneath. But the Pharaoh seemed not to care, laughed a little song of lunacy in his throat. But he drew back, ducking his head once more - that action along might've made Mesteno think twice, but...

"A woman by the name of Kestrel. She torments Fafnir's anchor, and I have been asked to drive her to madness, to weaken her before Fafnir and the Beast have their way with her pathetic mass."

Damn him and his whispers. It was not becoming to flinch away though, and he held still as another was offered. His fingers were quick to let go however, recoiling in revulsion at what they felt. Relief again, when it was not the elf, but the blood drinker he named. Some soft mumble of Latin in relief, and he stagger-stepped backwards. Still, the 'job' was something to think about. Chaos doing a favour for them?

Of course. Absolutely - and why not? What better thing to be asked of something like him? That smile went wild, wide once more, and then? He finished what he started: he didn't even make it to the door before he was gone.