Writings On The Wall (Clarice and Alexander)

[Alexander Crimson]

The unsettling silence was still unnerving, even after all the progress they had made to move away from her PTSD. Kyler felt numb all over in the thick quiet which filled this place she called home for the past year or so, as she stood aimlessly still, stuck in this random spot. The space was void of sound when it was normally bought to life with the sounds of music or something innocent playing on the tv as white noise. Even the coms she spoke with Alex on had gone silent and it had been hours which only fed into her feeling so off and displaced. Deciding air might help she stepped out to get the mail, returning to the very spot she found herself stuck in moments ago. She thumbed through the envelopes but there was nothing of consequence within the bills and ads... Maybe she should check the coms again? She thought as she taped the parcels against her hand to organize them. Tossing them to the side and having them land in their appropriate basket before hitting the hidden button that opened the secret basement below their home. Each light lit as she passed its sensor bringing the cold dark space to life before her monitors woke up in response to her being near. Kyle's fingers gently grace her keyboard and her brows pinch together at the sight of a Munich News headline which reads "Famed Pianist mysteriously saved from a tragic death." hmm she hums knowing something is not right if Alex had not checked in. She put on her headset but hesitated several times with her hand over the com button until she, at last, pressed it. She took a breath to speak but before she could the feedback of the coms being too near one another blared in her ear and she hisses tossing the headset down in response to the obnoxious sound. She spun around quickly to watch her own back and cautiously look around now aware she was not alone but Alex did not answer when she did their secret whistle. Something was very wrong and outside of her technological prowess she was mostly undefended, plus with her past and traumas, fighting was not something she wanted. Kyle crept around the space picking up whatever she could to swing at someone, jumping as she heard a faint sound near the back of the couch. "ALEX!!!" she exclaims as she sees his motionless body sprawled across the floor before she rushes to him and takes him in her arms, checking his pulse, and doing what she could to shake him awake all while trying to keep herself together.

"Alex wake up!"

"Come on breathe!"

"Please!!!" 

20 Hours Before...

I needed to calm down and think rushing into anything on pure emotions was careless and foolish. If I messed this up she would die... If I did nothing she would die... If I was too slow or just a second too late she would die. So I packed as fast as I could my emotions winning this battle against my wits because family would always be what drove me, but would I be good enough this time? In the past, I was a part of this life, at the top of my game with time to blend in and observe the target or my surroundings. All I had now was an old blueprint of the theatre and Intel from an old source who owed me a life debt. I had retired years ago and my day to day was filled with nursing Kyle back to a healthy mental state after being kidnapped and held hostage and looking after those we cared for from afar. I was soon caught with my sniper in hand as Kyle entered the basement and rather than just stand there and stare at her I kept packing. 'oh no! No!' she spat out and closed my suitcase by putting her weight on it and staring right into my eyes. 'You are... We are retired! Remember that? Those words?' she studied my avoiding gaze and I just mushed her out of the way softly to continue and pack which she growled at. 'Do not ignore me!!' she got in my face this time and held my wrist, making me look at her. 'Why?' her soft voice cracks as her eyes fill with tears and that does me in. "Because if I do not go Andrea will be killed." I regret the truth as soon as it is spoken all due to the heartbreak that crosses my cousin's face. She stumbles away from me in disbelief "I promised I would reunite you with your sister when you were ready and I would be dammed if she died before even knowing you were alive!" my tone is a bit harsher than expected but again I am running on emotions. Kyle sits in her computer chair without a word clearly going through something of her own before she spins to face her monitors and starts to type in silence. The sound of her fingers hitting each key fills the space around us as I keep trying to pack as quickly as I can until I am done. 'But you are not.' her voice stops me in my tracks as I look over my shoulder at her realizing I had said I was done out loud and she hesitates from tossing something toward me upon realizing my hands were full. 'You are not alone anymore.' she slips what she wanted me to have, which I could only assume was an earpiece to speak with her through, into my jacket pocket. 'None of us are.' "I will try and remember that from now on." 

The soft snowflakes danced from the sky as the puff of smoke from Alex's heated breath visibly rose to meet them. Munich in winter was gorgeous but with only 8 hours left before Andrea took the stage there was no time to take it all in. Alex lay on the roof across from the theatre scoping out the outside before doing the same from within. "No clear shot from up here. So we can be sure the assassin will be inside with her." his soft words can only be heard through the coms as he quickly dismantles his sniper rifle and begins to move on. "Yeah, the blueprints of theatre you had are from 1893 which burned down in 1903..." "Ah so before my time." "...slightly... Once the theatre was rebuilt and renovated they began uploading the blueprints onto a private server to avoid attacks like this." "Mmm well, that does not seem to be working very well if we are here." "Makes me wonder who the technical genius on their side is... I probably know them. Anyway, there should be a suit and ticket for tonight waiting for you at the dropoff point." They went silent for the next moment after he confirmed hearing her giving Alex time to debate his next steps. Namely, time to decide if he should try and deal with Andy ahead of all this, and give her fair warning. A thought process that was debunked when he saw his ticket was not All Access and he would rather not draw attention to himself as he risked getting backstage to her. Sure he could always have her vouch for him being her cousin but again that would point the spotlight on him and that was the last thing he needed. So taking his suit and the ticket he snuck in, blending in with the usher staff until he changed for the night, as he now scanned the inside of the theatre. Scoping out any possible vantage point this killer could come from, including the backstage, which almost blew up in his face when he found himself near Andy. Quickly taking cover behind one of the instruments and pretending to have dropped his work ID. 

And then it was time and everything was going so smoothly, too smoothly as Andy took the stage before a roaring crowd only to silence them with her music in the turn of a second. Just her and that Grand Piano with which she could calm the rapid tides and sway a wild beast into a trance like state. I wanted to keep my gaze on her but my need to protect her was stronger as I scanned all the open spots I could see from my seat. 'We have suspicious activity near the door of box 5.' Kyle's voice urges me to my feet as gracefully as possible to not disturb the patrons around me as I exit. I pretend to not know my way around, asking the Ushers for the restroom but steadily making my way to box 5. Which had nothing going on by the time I got there but this sudden feeling of despair and panic overloaded my system and quickly slipped into the box. "I am going in and going dark." There he was the nameless assassin who brandished his gun and aimed it at my cousin. Again my emotions took over and I launched forward aiming to grab his arm but found my hand on the barrel of the gun instead. I forced him to aim towards the ceiling. At least if he fired which he did the shot would not hit anyone, but the palm of my hand was sacrificed in the process as the heat of the barrel from the gunshot burned straight through my skin. The fool had no silencer on his gun so when the shot rang out the whole theatre was immediately thrown into panic, and chaos was next. That worked to our advantage because amongst that turmoil we could fight; he barged out of the door and barreled down the hallway and if I had not been right behind him I would have lost him in the crowd. He was fast as hell and if the wild mosh pit of people were not overflowed in the halls I would have lost him and every time I seemed to catch up he would somehow teleport? What the fuck!? We made it to the private staircase for porters who transported larger instruments and the like at the same time and before he could put space between us again I tackled him. We flew down the stairs in a violent escapade and as we land on the small platform between each flight of steps my gun flew out of its holster and skidded across the floor. He had abandoned his gun during our chase leaving us both to fight for mine now. We grabbed it together and two shots zipped out... I was smart enough to have a silencer on mine. We tumbled down the next flight of stairs and my entire body was screaming in pain by now as my head slammed against the concrete floors. Another two shots exist the gun's chamber but we both freeze this time. One of us had been hit but I was too dazed and in pain to know if it was me.

They stumbled away from each other as the gun slammed to the floor between them and in a turn of events they had both taken a bullet, one for each of them. Alex bought his hand up to cover the blood as his body began to numb, and he shook his bleeding head to focus on his foe "Who sent you?" he asks as the man begins to stumble towards the wall to brace himself but he does not answer. Instead, he attempts to ascend the steps with his body mostly slouched on the handrail and his free hand begins digging in his pocket. Alex sighs in frustration as he approaches the man to stop him in his tracks after a split second of hesitation and of course, the man throws his hand off of him. They struggle to the top of those steps and the man at last collapses revealing a jewel desperately clutched in his hand as it exits his pocket. Alex who was right behind hind can not keep himself from tripping over him and grabbing the jewel solely for the fact that it was sharp enough to use as a weapon against him. The man struggled to push and pull himself away from Alex but he has lost too much blood he would not be around much longer. Alex opens his mouth to try and convince the man to stop he could probably get both of them saved if he cooperated but the Jewel began to glow before he could speak. "Do not tell... Clarice... She did not know about this..." the man spits out his words with his blood and closes his eyes in anticipation. Alex forwards his brow in confusion but he can not take his eyes off the mystical glow of this mysterious jewel and in the next second both men were dragged into some sort of primordial plane. It felt like he was being ripped apart and each time they two landed back in the earth plane somewhere he had some new skid mark or torn flesh to show his thoughts of being torn apart were true. Eventually, he lost the man he had chased and now it was just him and the wicked jewel in gods know when or where. He just lay there gripping the jewel with the strength he had when he realized he was alone as he struggled to catch his whistling breath. He did not understand what was happening but he did know that if he let this jewel go he was dead and for the first time he missed when he was cursed if only for the fact that this pain would heal and this jewel would not scare him as it did.  When he jumped again and landed with a violent thud he cried out in pain, spotting suddenly the man he had started all this with back in the staircase. Alex crawled to him with laboured breath and broke down upon seeing the man was dead, he just needed this to end and now he could not get the answers he needed about why his cousin was targeted. He was close to giving up as the ground lightly shook and he knew another jump was coming causing him to whine and brace but of course, that did not help. Again he lands violently but this time he is home which in his near death state can only be told by the sound of Kyle's whistle. He has nothing left in him but a couple of breaths and though she is right there he can not call out to her, he can not even see. It is not until the jewel slips from his weakened grip that the sound of it rolling out of his hand is heard by Kyle. Her warmth is welcome but he has no strength to respond, or to warn her not to touch the jewel or ask her... Who the hell is Clarice? If anyone could hack the planet and find out it would be her but instead, he faded into darkness slowly. 

[Clarice De Biville - Council]

✧ Writings on the wall ✧

The cling came from across her realm causing the Mystic to cock her eyebrow and look around the library she was currently in. “What the hell is going on?” She waved her hand over the crystal orb that was sitting on the table only to watch as her current assassin and a stranger she didn’t know wrap through time before the body landed on the floor as the man who was gripping the jewel was being taken where he needed to be. “Fucking hell?” She growled softly and flipped through her book of contractors, she knew that her time on the mortal plan was vastly limited now that she had been the weaver loom of fate for ages now. It was as if leaving the Timeless plane for too long she would die.

Yet she had had no one to send after the jewel and bring the man to her to figure out what happened. “Very well.” She stood up and opened a portal to the location of where the jewel went. Stepping through she watched as Kyler was over Alexander trying to get him to wake up. “Your efforts are cute.” She spoke to Kyler as she moved closer and with a wave of her hand magic binds formed around Kyler’s hand and pulled her away from Alexander. Not wanting to hurt the girl but needing her out of her way. She picked up the Jewel and looked at it for a moment. “Interesting, how did this end up in your hands, stranger.”

She moved closer to Alexander and pressed her hand to his chest, sending a wave of healing magic through his body that would bring him back from the brink of death. “Your friend here should consider himself lucky, no one ever goes into my realm without my express invitation and lives to tell the tale. Well I guess that also makes sense why he was clinging to life here in your living room?” she questioned looking around the room waiting for the man's eyes to open. A photo caught her attention out of the corner of her eye, the one of Andy. The picture of the woman tickled something in the back of her brain and she felt the thread of her loom breaking.

Her eyes snapped back to Kyler before hearing a groan from the man who had entered her realm. “Hello there, My name is Clarice and I believe we have something serious to talk about. You killed my current errand boy, I would like to know why you killed him along with why you had this?” She raised the jewel. “You see dear little minded one, magic is real, and I am one of its strongest wielders. I am so powerful that my time on the earthen plane has to be limited. So while I would love to stay here and pull out all the answers to my questions. I feel this talk would best be done in my realm.”

Looking at Kyler she gave a small smirk. “He will be back in about five minutes. You never saw me.'' She casted another spell and the portal opened wrapping around Alexander and Clarice, as they appeared in her realm a chair would appear for both of them and she would sit down in one. “Well go on tell me how you ended up in this predicament?” she questioned as she pulled the memory of Andy's photo from her brain and sent it to the library for her magical version of herself to find out info on her.

[Alexander Crimson]

Sheer panic had already consumed Kyle as she did what she could to keep her cousin conscious but he was losing blood faster than she could stop it. Paranoia spurred deep within her as Clarice appeared and the binds that cuffed her triggered a darkly seeded anxiety attack. Caleb having once been cursed and having grown up in his line of work was not only used to grave pain but the shock of a sudden healing, as his curse once provided for him what Clarice just had. A gasping breath inflated his lungs and brought upon the realization of the pain he still felt as it slowly subsided. Coming back from near death so drastically and suddenly his mind was chaotic and his thoughts made no sense. Caleb sat up and held his head trying to focus on one thing to get his vision to clear and stop spinning and that is when he heard her unfamiliar voice and registered they were not alone. Somehow he managed to get his feet under him as his crystal eyes very quickly locked onto his cousin and the magical binds which held her. 

Our family was filled and surrounded by the supernatural so much that it shrouded us all in a dense mystery. We were not strangers to any sort of being, human or not. So I knew Kyle's hysteria was not due to this mysterious magic wielder but what was keeping her tied up. I am not listening to this strange woman in the room with us because my mind is solely on my cousin. I rush towards her immediately as a wave of panic washes over me but I am thwarted in my efforts when we are teleported elsewhere. My fist hits the wall as I stop short and yet again this woman's voice slithers towards me. I visibly seeth with my back to her "Do you understand what you just did!?" my own hot words come out restrained through clenched teeth and slowly glower at her from over my shoulder. "No. You can not possibly. All those years of hard work and progress gone in sixty careless seconds!" 

Caleb was rarely one to raise his voice but for this, he had as he gripped his head and cursed. Studying Clarice's face through a hot raging gaze. " I do not know if you make it an arrogant habit of tying people but the woman you just nonchalantly left behind is a hostage survivor. " he spat out but soon tossed his hands up realizing what he would now have to do to help his cousin recover from this. No matter if the binds were gone now, they had been there. "I need to get back." he says desperately and mostly to himself before looking for a way out. Until his helpless gaze falls on Clarice and immediately turns into fury "You need to take me back to my cousin. Now! It's the only way I will speak, if I can first begin to undo what you did because magic can not solve everything. All my answers will then be yours." 

[Clarice De Biville - Council]

✧ Writings on the wall ✧

The moment that Clarice and Alex entered the timeless realm the bindings would have been dropped from Kyler. She had no interest in tying up another being, but really had a need to keep herself safe. The amount of times she had been attacked were uncountable. She took in his heated words and raised an eyebrow towards him. “Oh yes I forgot I am the bad guy in every story. Even though you yourself killed someone and dropped them on my floor.” She said pointing to the man that was still on her floor. “I am the one in the wrong, of course. Well from your point of view. Most people can’t seem to understand that all their actions have consequences that often hurt others outside of them. But yes please keep yelling at me in a hot rage in the delusion that I know who you are and what you and your family have been through.”

Clarice's face was stone, frozen. After all no one had ever cared what she had been through and tied her up, bound her against her will, and even attacked her. Shit Hera kept her bound and magicless for a long time just like her first captor Prospero. Yet she was the one in the wrong for the five seconds of magical binds that did no home. “Well maybe if you hadn’t killed my errand boy, and fallen into my realm I wouldn’t have had to come find you. It really is your fault if you think about it. I would have never entered her life for that brief moment if it wasn’t for your actions. Oh but what was it again? I have an arrogant habit?” She made a tsk sound. “Maybe you should self-reflect a bit. We all have shit that has been done to us.” She spat at him.

Clarice rolled her eyes towards the man. “Whatever. You are like everyone else. Blame your selfish actions leading to consequences on the person who was affected the most. Go undo the damage you have done and forget me. I doubt you would even be honest with me, you little prick.” She waved her hand and threw him back into the room with Kyler. She was seething. No one ever cared for her when she was a child taken by a mad man who r/aped her and used her magic. No one cared for her when she gave her body to keep things in line with time. No one fought to free her from Heracles' grasp when he bound her to him. She threw a glass to the ground in her fury and stomped the glass under her heels and moved over to the dead man on the floor.

“Useless hask.” She kicked the body before her realm started to wrap around her and pull her along with Alex.

[Alexander Crimson]

Alex had said all he would as of now and remained perfectly silent as she spoke, almost as if she had not spoken at all. No acknowledgement of her words were made and he would certainly rot here until he could do as he said and help his cousin. The very second it was clear he was back with Kyle he moved. "Hey, Kyle... It is me!" his hands went up as he crouched down trying to show he was harmless as all colour and signs of purity and life left her eyes. The pitch black in which they turned was a void and if she lost herself this world would be in very big trouble despite Clarice being right there to help. Curses were funny that way, adaptive at times to avoid being broken and this one was particularly nasty. "Look at me and breathe, look around!" his voice was so desperate, almost distraught, scared even as his hands slightly trembled. "You are home. You are safe! Andria is safe. No one can hurt you. No one here wants to hurt you!" he inched closer to her and she let him but she was terrified. Like a scared animal backing themselves further into the corner as all the light around seemed to begin to get sucked away and all hope began to fade. A heavy suction would be felt in all that were present hearts as whatever hope they held seemed to feel as though it was being ripped from them. 

I reached her then, taking her face in my hands "Kyle!" I made her look at me, focusing on only me. "He does not have you! He is dead. We killed him. He can not hurt you." I knew she heard me, I would not be able to approach her otherwise as I spoke and held her and her breathing slowed and her heartbeat calmed. Light began to enter her eyes again and the darkness quickly taking us eased. "Deep breath." I took them with her "The woman with me is sorry." I lied most likely but Kyle needed to know and hear those words. "She obviously did not know, but we are okay. You, me, Andy. You saved her." tears stream down her face as her Crystal blue eyes are finally back and she weakly collapses into my arms, resting her head on my shoulder. I hold her close and rub her back soothing her gently and soon it is clear she is asleep.  I lift her and lay her on the couch staying close. "Your man shot himself." I keep my eyes on my little cousin as I spoke. "I got a message from an old contact that owed me a favour that my little cousin, her older sister was going to be assassinated." 

He rose with a harsh breath and fixed his clothes, still refusing to take his eyes off his sleeping cousin. "I promised these girls I would keep them safe to the best of my abilities.  So I came out of retirement to do just that, I was met by your man as the assassin when I arrived. I just wanted answers but he ran." he huffed as his eyes scan the room clearly recalling the events that just happened. "He lost his gun in the chase and when I caught up to him we fell down a flight of stairs causing my gun to slide out of its holster. We both fought over the pistol, I did not want to kill him but I knew if he won he would kill me just to get away... And... And then... " his jaw flexed and his hand made a fist, recalling the fresh memories still pissed him off. "He pulled the trigger in our tussle and shot himself, but that is not what killed him. That crystal..." he said as if it haunted him, in all his years and with all his experience with mystics and the like he had never experienced anything like that. He took a step back as he saw it in her hand still clearly scared of it as he shook his head. "He took it out..." he said through a panicked pant "I did not... I could not see it fully... Just the sharp tip and naturally I just did not want him to stab me but..."

The sound of my heart racing flooded my ears as I recalled it all. I could not even explain what happened next because I still did not fully understand. "I just grabbed him to keep him from hurting me and then... " That pain was fresh and I could still feel everything  "ripping... I do not... I can not... I just knew if we let go I would die and... Then I was here." I finally looked at her as I swallowed the pain I felt. Locking eyes with her hoping she would both understand I not only told her the truth from my perspective but also could not explain it better given my lack of understanding.  I dropped my gaze as I hung my head. "You let me save her so as a man of my word I gave you everything you asked." there was no malice behind my words no harsh intent or ulterior motive. My cousin stirred on the couch so I approached and squatted before letting her know I was there. "All that power and yet you are still blind. To the truth but more so to the beauty of connection and that not every person is a little prick, as you called me, or an asshole, or even wants to hurt you. Living as you do will get you killed and no, that is not a threat. Believe it or not, I do not want to fight or hurt you, despite my wondering why you had someone under your control trying to kill my innocent cousin. However, I have seen many Mystics live as you do in a lesser extreme and none of them are around anymore." 

[Clarice De Biville - Council]

✧ Writings on the wall ✧

Clarice had no ounce of sympathy for this woman who was acting in such a way. She was cynical to most when they tried to convince her that she should hold pity towards someone who had options to get help from past traumas especially in this day in age. The fact most mortals chose the path of letting their demons own them when they should rise above them either alone or with the help of a therapist was baffling to her. The tools that people had at their disposal in the modern age was basically at every corner. Yet she kept her lips sealed not caring about the woman or even the man. She wanted to know why her hired hand was dead.

Clarice marked the name Andi in her head though because she was sure this had something to do with why her hired hand was dead. Standing there her arms crossed as she tapped her finger against her upper arm trying to keep the thin vile of patients she was projecting. Yet the swirl inside of her wanted to take Kyan away and handle both of these beings by locking them away in her realm till they did as she pleased.

The mystic huffed out as she turned her attention towards him. “Was going to be assassinated or had been assassinated.” The need for clarification was clear as her eyes stayed on his, something about what he was telling her felt like it wasn’t the full truth.. She wondered why her male hired hand was trying to kill a woman, that was something she would have to research once she was back in her realm, she would remove his head and sort through his memories. She cocked a brow as the man seemed to fear the crystal in her hand. “The crystal is not what killed him, it is a simple charmed crystal to teleport him into my realm without getting sick. Which is probably why you where fine falling in with him or at least why you didn’t die immediately.”

She slid the crystal into her pocket just then and gave a heavy sigh. “I will have to figure out why he was there to assassinate someone though, that was not an order of mine.” She mumbled to herself. She gave a nod of her head for a moment as she felt the lightheaded wave crossing her brain which was an indicator to her that she had been on the mortal plane too long that day. Pain twinged on her face for a split second. A dark twisted chuckle left Clarice's lips, “Far more people want to hurt or kill me than you will ever understand.” She simply said, her head was wanted by many. “That is because you have never met a Mystic like me.” She said simply.

She opened the portal to her home land once again. “Tomorrow you will be ripped from your family to do my bidding. Say your goodbyes.” Blood started to drip from Clarice's noses just before she stepped back into her realm. “Asshole.” She muttered as the portal closed and she looked to the body of the man that killed himself according to this Alexander. She reached down, and with her magic cut his head clean from his body and moved towards her hall of memories. The blood trail leading through the ever shifting castle would cause confusion if it wasn’t for the fact the floors magically cleaned themselves.

She entered the room, shelves lined with different brains in jars as she moved the man's head to a table. She made quick work of cracking the skull open and slipping the brain from it. Placing needles into the brain before placing it in the jar and setting it on a contraption she invented some time ago. Moving to let the memories play over the screen. Yet to Clarice's promise Alex was ripped into her realm once again but beside her as she sat watching the man's memories running over the TV. “So interesting that everything a being is, is connected to this gray matter sack huh?” She said as she rolled her head to look towards him. “Seems my hired man had an obsession when it comes to your cousin.”

[Alexander Crimson]

A lack of understanding is the worst curse one can bear, for understanding can be too much hard work, or they are selfish and refuse to understand. These people do not make it far in life which is why Alex worked and lived the way he did. The number of people he had lost since birth was countless but the number of lives he had taken for half his life seemed to trump everything.  It was not until he realized what his choices and decisions did to the people in his life, though there be few. He sighed at her response for she was not listening which was quite perplexing since she was the one here demanding answers, Why ask and not listen? That was just as foolish and selfish as the lack of understanding.  

"I never said the crystal is what killed him. " i never looked her way. "Though the stress of what that crystal did to us did not help his case." When she spoke I was silent and just gave her a curt nod to let it be known she was heard. She was arrogant... To the point, it could get her killed but it was nowhere near my place to say anything.  I turned as the slight scent of blood hit my enhanced senses just in time to see her nose before she returned to the portal where she had come. What a lonely woman I let out a sigh at my thoughts as I reminisced of all the Hannah's like her that we had lost. My thoughts drift as Kyle stirs and I know I don't have long with her before I get pulled away. So I rushed out and set Kyle as admin for the operating system of our high tech home. I then began to pack a bag assuming anything on me would travel with me. 'You're not really going to go... You can't.' Kyle's raspy voice teetered into the room at me as she leaned on the canister of my room door. "I do not have a choice." 'But you do!' "That is not a choice." My whole body had grown tense in that one second and Kyle immediately dropped the subject.

"Well, I love you, you big jerk," she said with a chuckle albeit sad as he could sense the pull to her realm and he assumed Kyle could see him begin to go. He placed his bag on his back and braced for the harsh travel. He let out a slight as he appeared beside Clarice and his body adjusted to this realm and the way he traveled here. He was again silent as she spoke and did not even flinch with what was going on around him and what brought him here. Anyone else would be throwing, crying, and screaming. "In the end that is what we are all made of. Even the eternals." he handed her a handkerchief without glancing her way. "For your nose." his voice is incredibly soft before he begins to look around the room. "You are wrong mind you. I have met a mystic or two like you." he watches the shifting walls beyond the room they are standing in.

[Clarice De Biville - Council]

✧ Writings on the wall ✧

Clarice focused on what she was doing, as she began to dive deeper into her handymans brain. “Eternals are fun to poke at, their brains are not like this though. The way time rolls over an Eternal’s brain is fascinating.” she spoke out more so of her own need to fill the space with some kind of noise since him being here upset her realm. He first came in uninvited with blood on his hands, her realm sometimes couldn’t see gray when it came to its own safety. “Though yes they are just a bunch of nerves in the same way we all are.

“Hmm?” Her gaze moved to the handkerchief for a moment she took it, clearing the blood that came from her nose before the handkerchief burst into flames. She could never be too sure on who would want to obtain her blood. “Thank you.” She then placed the brain into a container with liquid in it. “I can assure you, I am not wrong. But you can believe that others compare to me in magic.” She said as she looked to her nails for a moment picking the bits of brains out from under them.

“Most people would be sickened by the sight before them. In fact most people would have been sickened to have killed man even if they feel it just. Yet there is one question that plagues my mind as I think of your cousin. Andy? Was it?” Clarice tapped her nails on the table which bounced around the room like an echo. “How did a human manage to mess with time to seek for a killer once unknown? You see there is a fray in your plan.” She said as she pointed over and the wall shifted behind him, turning into another room where sat a loom. Along with tapestries handing, folded, floating all around. One floated over between them.

“You believe your actions just yes? But this was Andy tapestry, and now it's a mess.” Clarice trailed over the start where the colors were mixed beautifully making a photo of Andy in it. Yet where her lips should be was a black hole, “I am not sure the problems just yet you have caused saving your dear cousin. I do know one thing though.” Her eyes locked with his, there was a touch of distance in them, maybe even madness painting along her gaze. “I need a new errand boy, and you are going to be it. After all I am sure you are going to have plenty of messes to clean up after messing with time. I know better than anyone what a mess that can make.”

Her mind drifts to Isolde and Tristan and how she interfered so many times to correct what went wrong. She had caused more than one catastrophic event in her attempts to hold the world together. She had ruined her own body with the amount of time she had been in. Timeless poisoning is what she called it. The reason she had to stay in her realm vs the mortal realm.

[Alexander Crimson]

He hummed, musing over her response without a further word because her arrogance was blinding her. In the end, it would get her and catch up to her at some point But far be it for him to mention it. It was not his place and her well being was no concern of his so there was no need to continue this conversation when she would not see past her hubris and it was not his job to make her. He crossed his arms over his chest “I am not human, nor am I new to any form of vileness and violence.” He said simply with a shrug but the moment his cousin was mentioned in the manner Clarice had mentioned her his cool demeanour burned with his fury which blazed at the back of his gaze and his entire went taught as he maintained his composer.

“If you had kept a closer eye on your errand boy her tapestry would not be a mess.” My molten tone seeps through my clenched teeth as I stare at the god awful weaving clearly, at least to me, disturbed and destroyed by outside influence. Influence that could not have been me or her sister. “Andrea is not the one to blame or look into when your Little errand boy has been following and harassing her for years.” I reached into my bag as I spoke and tossed the stack of photos showing his escapades involving my cousin down upon the table before. Allowing them to slide and fan out. “I have been a retired killer for nearly a decade and yet one of my contacts crawled out from the dark to let me know of this going on. But by all means, blame the oblivious victim and her family trying to save her.” I never looked her way because I knew she would spin this into her narrative. She would somehow make me out to be the bad guy just as she had done when I was lying on the ground confused and fighting for my life. I clicked my tongue before turning away to explore the room. 

He waited for it, for her to turn this story around and make herself seem not as negligent regarding her lackey. Instead what she dared to utter ticked him off far more than he expected and now it was his place to say something. “Mess. With. Time.” He chided through his teeth. “You say that as if she was aware of any of this. Or as if she knew your pig had what was needed to manipulate time.” He stared her in the face searching for how she would reply to his molten words. “I bet you did not even know. That that pig in a jar over there was stalking her.” He had spun to stare at the jarred brain with spite when his words came towards her. “Just like I did not even know what that jewel your pig had on him could do until he was dragging me through time with him.” His hands clenched when he realized he was growing too close to the jar, wanting to destroy what was left of this bastard. Instead, he stepped away and spun on his heels to stare her down with a piercing gaze, unwavering to let her know did not fear her. “You want me fine, but I have terms that can not be negotiated.”