Follow The Water

[Anonymous]

Glad to see you back again. New postage ahoy!
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Wow. Lil looked sick.

Even in black and white and shades of grey, she had streaks of...was that blood? Blood shot right through the iris, the whites of her eyes. Dull skin, muted bronze (or so he guessed) that was darker than he remembered, even seen in the dimness of a poorly-lit room. Nails a fraction longer, teeth a fraction sharper when she opened her mouth to speak.

Anyway. No time.

He nodded his assent to the question. Her voice was...strange, rough. Almost as through she'd closed the door and hurt herself so badly that she had to cry out; had to scream obscenities at the top of her lungs to relieve how much it burned. Screamed herself hoarse, as unlikely as that was. There was...heat, residual heat right the way around her. Maybe she had burned herself somehow.

How to explain? Wolves didn't have the right jaw structure for speech, or the right sort of tongue to make the sounds he needed. How to explain without a voice?

Hmmm...look around. What could he use? Sherene, curled up in bed and deeply asleep. A poker. A mirror...

Perfect!

There was him...and then there was not him. Two mirror images. Two transformed Garou, side by side. He scraped at the surface of the mirror with his foreclaws, growled at it - there was nothing more infuriating than having to mime out a problem!

Please let her understand. If she didn't, they'd have to wait. He flopped down with a snort of frustration.

[Anonymous]

The changes to her, to Lil, seemed miniscule - she had a vague realization they were there, something that they were evident, but she didn't particularly care for or understand that. She had a much more interesting thing in front of her - apparently Stefan was doing... something? A deep frown crossed her lips, her eyebrows drawing over eyes, the red veins glinting menacingly from the normal intense darkness of her eyes.

A mirror. Growling and scratching? Her brows shot upwards, rememember what [normal] animals thought when they came to a mirror - they thought it was another animal and began to attack it [at least some animals did]. Her eyes narrowed to angry slits. If there was another one, what did that specifically mean? Her mind spun with thoughts before she harshly reprimanded herself; she was getting ahead.

"There's another one of you? Where?" She asked, her voice turning even harsher, constricting slightly with her anger. There wasn't much of a reason for her to be angry, except that she had been disturbed when she should be resting, except the fact that there may be an enemy in their midst - one the same species of Stefan. If it was a friend, he wouldn't be growling? Lil didn't know how to interpret the specifics, but she knew enough - she could figure out the rest later on, is what she assumed.

Her eyes flickered down the hall for a moment, thinking about her father. Lexiss was with her mother, undoubtedly. She wondered if he could sense the prescence - she wondered if he was even awake, if he could pinpoint the exact location. But by the time they would discover that, the other loup garou could've already disappeared - could've already done its damage before they even had a chance to fairly react.

She grit her newly-sharpened teeth together, her hand turning to a fist, her new limb mimicking the motion as well. Her body was poised, muscles tight like springs ready to be released; eager almost. She did need to test her limits. Then again, she had to remember, violence didn't solve everything. Of course, it'd solve things temporarily. But what is the other loup garou's reason for being in a place it shouldn't be? Her lips turned into a slash mark across her face, pulled tight as she thought about every possibilty.

Then again, Stefan didn't seem to frantic. Maybe she was overreacting? She didn't want to underestimate anything, however. She was afraid if she did, the result would be nothing short of a disaster.

[i didn't know -exactly- how to respond ^^']

[Anonymous]

She seemed to be getting at least half of it.

Maybe. If the look on her face was any indication, it wasn't a sure thing.

Stefan huffed sharply through his teeth. How did she expect him to answer? Was he supposed to write it down somehow, scrape it into the floorboards with his claws and hope she could read something from the five parallel lines it would take to form every stroke? Mime it? Resort to interpretive dance?!?!

Right. Well, he certainly wasn't about to try that last option unless he absolutely had to. On the other hand (and he'd never thought that Lil might need or want to know this), he couldn't write. Nor read, for that matter.

He cleared his throat roughly, turned his head to check Sherene was still asleep. She twitched as he watched, and frowned to herself, and formed one hand into a tight fist with a grimace, but didn't wake.

The window was open. It faced onto a different part of the garden from where he'd been (this part had a little pool in it, with smooth river stones and overhanging ferns and a tiny, tiny waterfall that flowed in a direction he hadn't known was possible; Lexiss' magic at it's best, and with enough water to keep any of Daruka's toys away) but it would do.

He scrambled awkwardly onto the sill and stuck his head through the window. For all he knew, he probably looked like one of the farming dogs that lolled their tongues and leant into the breeze over the side of a cart.

Right. The garden. He'd been in the garden.

Sniff the sill and jump down to check the room, nosing every corner and the lock on the door. Searching. Hunting. Careful, careful.

Now was the difficult part. Stefan cleared his throat.

There was a very good reason that transformed Garou never spoke.

"'Rrrrr..." Try again. This had to be right. "Rrrr...ro'er. Ro'er!"

Damn it!

[Anonymous]

The town Liliha had grown up in had thought women should do their utmost to aid their beloved husbands and family - which often meant taking on work that some places considered strictly for 'men'. A small farming community, however, allocated the jobs of their farm to husbands, wives, and eventually the children as well. It was expected of woman that they maintain a supportive and welcoming nature, be strong and wise, know the ways of their small society and be capable of taking over for their husbands in time of need. Patience was also always expected of the women.

Liliha had failed in this aspect unless it dealt with her children and some of the more thick creatures on the farm.

"I do NOT understand. So figure out a better method than this," she growled out, closing the door quietly behind her, the red aglow in the dark.

"If there's something you need to show me; show me. If its not important, get out of my sight," she snapped, thoroughly angered by these children games.

Couldn't he just transform back and tell her? He may be shy, but she'd been married and bathed boys before - she wouldn't take it offensively. But he was sorely grating on her already frayed nerves.

Pain twanged through her limbs, originating from the sore spot on her chest. It circulated outwards visciously, her teeth locking together firecly, the muscle along her cheek bone pulling taut, displayed along her face. Her left hand came up to rub at the place where the faux arm met what was left of her real arm, the nub throbbing. Just as Lexiss said.

[Anonymous]

He really didn't like Changing back when he wasn't supposed to. It was possible, just like any other time, but...well, not quite the same. Sort of jagged and prickly, like tearing canvas. Not at all like the smooth shift it ought to have been. You actually had to fight it this time - the Change was slow and difficult, a whole-body sneeze stretched over five dragging minutes.

It wasn't the sort of thing you did if you could help it. But he had to tell her somehow or she'd kick him into next month. He braced himself, held his breath and waited.

Almost as soon as the fur was gone, he doubled over, trying not to grab at the sharp cramp on the inside of one thigh. That was another thing he didn't like about forced Changes.

"Sorry," he panted roughly, straightening up. "But we've got a problem."

"My brother. My twin brother. He's a tracker, sells out his services to anyone who can afford to pay him. He's here."

He glanced at Sherene again, still sleeping. Elias (he called himself Elias in the world at large) had cubs of his own hidden away somewhere, at least four of them...but someone else's child was another matter altogether. "I think Daruka's hired a little help."

[Anonymous]

She watched with forced patience, feeling a slow crippling pain clutch and claw at her back, piercing through from the spot on her chest. Her lips pulled thin into a slash-line, her jaws still locked together, feeling the pressure in her gums, the muscles bunching. Her fists clenched briefly, her hand tightening around the nub on her left arm. She wanted a drink - anything to numb the pain.

"I think Daruka's hired a little help."

But her pain did numb, and not from an entirely unexpected source. Anger, white-hot, and like a lash it came down on her suddenly, andrenaline pumping through her blood furiously, an almost blinding rage tearing through her with the meanness of the beast that had sliced off her right forearm. Too much was happening at once - anniversaries of deaths, visiting of graves, heavy drinking, her mother dying, and now Stefan and Sherene's lives were in danger? A vague thought occured to her, that maybe that unleashing the demon blood caused a flood of various emotions to overpower her, but suddenly, it did not matter. She just wanted to kill Daruka, she just wanted to end it; snap his neck, tear him from limb to limb, and be as cruel and murderous as she so desired.

Perhaps it even showed on her face, glinting severely in her eyes. The demon blood that flowed so willfully within her was churning like a sea in the midst of a storm; demons were hardly known for their kindness and compassionate natures. Lil shouldn't be quite expected to either. But there were always exceptions. Perhaps Lil was even one, if she wasn't so emotionally overwhelmed.

But it was Stefan's brother. His flesh and blood. She forcibly inhaled a breath through her teeth, drawing it down into her lungs, inflating them till bursting point.

"When we find him, we can make a deal with him. Offer him more than Daruka..." she said, her eyes flickering back to her daughter. She was sleeping so peacefully.

"If he doesn't take it, try to get rid of it. I won't think much of killing him," she told him bluntly the fact that she would kill him if she had too. If possible, she'd rather not too. She didn't want to cause more damage than necessary, but there was only so much someone could do to damage her family before she struck back. And Liliha would not allow Sherene to be injured in anyway. If that happened, Lil really wondered what would happen to herself. Would she go insane? Would she lose it? What would her demon blood make her do?

She abruptly walked to Sherene, peering at her face. Quiet. Still. Sleeping. She glanced around the room. She locked the windows tight, drew the curtains over it, cutting off the silver glow of the moon. She thought about taking Sherene to Lexiss.

"Where's your brother?" She turned to Stefan, shifting uncertainly, before scooping up Sherene in her arms, moving swiftly in great strides to Lexiss and Avarielle's room. She rapped once, opening the door. She glanced at Lexiss who looked up, startled.  

"You're slacking, old man. You're grief's getting the best of you," she snapped harshly, setting down the still-sleeping Sherene and turning on a heel, closing the door behind her.

Her father had said nothing.

[Anonymous]

"It's not a new trail - a few hours old at least - but I noticed him first around the other side of the garden." Stefan scratched his head thoughfully, still fighting down the urge to do it with his foot. "He checked the doors, the windows...everything. If there's any way into this building that isn't magically sealed entrance for your father and no one else, he'll know about it by now."

Elias had always been a brilliant tracker. A bit slow, compared to his other brothers and sisters, but he'd always been thorough. Everything there was to know, he would have already found out.

He studied Lil for a while. White-faced and bloody-eyed, visibly shaking with fury even from across the room. Tread carefully...

"He's found me, at least. He'd know me from twenty miles away and buried in a swamp. But," there was a 'but', and it might just have been something good, "he may not be able to pick you or Sherene. I don't know what Daruka might have told him, but if it's a new trace, he might have difficulty. He has to learn it before he can track it, you see."

He shook his head. Lil wasn't going to like this. She wasn't going to like this at all.

Best to say this quietly, just in case. There was no way of knowing who was listening now. Not after Elias had already searched. He padded closer to stand behind her. Didn't touch her - wouldn't dare touch her, not now, she'd be liable to rip his head off if he so much as tried - but stood near enough to drop words right into her ear and feel the heat, the anger crackling out from her skin like a fever.

"On the other hand, if he does learn you, he'll go for Sherene. He will. She's small, not very strong, not very fast...she's the easiest way of earning his fee, because he'll know there's nowhere he could take her where you wouldn't follow. Is there?"

And, hard as he tried, there were no words for how much that saddened him.

[Anonymous]

"Not a place in the world," she agreed gravely. "But he should be more afraid for when I find him," she spoke harshly, unable to help her selfish thinking. Surely, there would be those that would miss Stefan's brother. If she took him away from those, she'd be no better than Daruka, now would she?

But perhaps she wasn't. People only fought and killed for their own end - and Liliha could not afford to lose Sherene. The mere thought of possibly losing something so precious filled her with a sense of thread, a thick lump twisting in her throat, the pain inside her throbbing. Her eyes burned. She couldn't lose something else. Soon enough, all she'd have left would be Sherene, Lexiss, Taima, and even the eccentric Ilo.

"Sherene will stay with her grandparents. She's safest there, in the heart of it all. The slightest outside disturbance to that room will cause Lexiss to go berserk. His affections and devotion to Avarielle is immense," she mumbled it more to herself, as if trying to think, trying to work logic and practicality back into her brain instead of the irrational, hateful things that had filled it.

Lil searched her things, finding the small bottle and prying out the cork, tilting the liquid to her lips and drinking it down, a heat radiating off her, simmering around her until it dissipated, along with the anger inside her. It dulled the, if only slightly. She sat down for a moment, suddenly registering that she didn't feel or look the same. She glanced at a mirror, a brow twitching upwards and frowning.

"Oh, hell. Sherene will probably go catatonic when she sees me," she spoke dryly with a slightly bemused tone, as if her mind was really somewhere else.

"It's ironic just how deep you're in this mess," she commented, referring to his brother, studying the nails on her hand that formed a slight point, curved down very slightly. With this hand she felt her teeth, and how they were a hair sharper than what they had been, as if she had filed them. She gingerly touched her hair, feeling its coarser texture. For a moment, she wondered what she would've looked like if she had been fully demon, rather than merely half. She had never seen her father without the seal, but she had heards stories. Stories that he didn't even resemble a human.

Her left hand came back up to rub at the nub of her forearm, wincing slightly. It was throbbing, just as her left ear was along with the last joint of her ring finger.

"Guess I won't be sleeping tonight," she sighed, tilting back her head a moment to stare at the ceiling. It was both familiar and unfamiliar. It reminded her of her childhood, laced with magic, and always changing, but pulsing with magic and warmth. It had always soothed her. She wondered when she had grown out of such things.

"I suppose I should say sorry to you," she spoke after a pause.

[Anonymous]

"Why?" He shifted his weight awkwardly. "I...don't understand."

The thing was, he liked them. Both of them. Sherene was a strange child - even he could see the fractures along the edges of her mind sometimes - and Lil was perfectly capable of being a heinous bitch to anyone and everyone she saw, but...they weren't bad people.

Only broken. That was all.

"If it's for killing Elias..." he spoke slowly, uncertainly, like feeling ice cracking beneath his front paws. "If it's for that, he would understand you trying. He has a family too." He paused. "He might not appreciate it if you ever get the chance, and he will fight you for it, but he'll understand."

That was how they lived - the fight, the mix of life and death. Sometimes that was what happened, and he couldn't find a way to make it right for her to hear. Maybe she'd understand anyway.

Without thinking, he reached out and brushed his fingers lightly over her hair. Much coarser than it looked, this hair...and then he realised who it was, and pulled away.

"Do you want me to stay, or go?"[/i]

[Anonymous]

She felt the dreaded guilt creep up, slow and thick through her chest and throat. Elias had a family too, and they'd surely miss him if she killed him. She thought about Sherene, painfully shifting positions and looking at things the way she did, and looking at things the way herself did. She didn't want to take away anyone's family, but she wouldn't fail again to protect her own. Lil hated the feeling of guilt, and she hated the sudden indesiciveness -she hated how emotional she was being, and she was hating the feel of an empty hand; one without a bottle to drink out of.

However, she wasn't sorry about that. She gave a weak smile. "I didn't mean that. But I suppose I am sorry if it comes to that," she said it slowly, thinking about the circumstances of it all. "I think I'm more sorry that you have to see me like this. That's probably what I hate the most about it all," she muttered it, nearly beneath her breath. She'd fallen fall from the woman she used to be - angry and rougher, a harder edge, always tired and unhappy. She knew she was different. She wondered if she could get things together, maybe if she got herself together a little more, she'd be able to pull Sherene out of this as well. Maybe if she killed Daruka, got her blood re-sealed, she could continue on with something better - perhaps she'd be revived.

But she wasn't looking for a miracle. It'd take hard work. But that was something Lil was quite used too.

Her hand lifted reflexively to bat at his hand, neither hard nor soft, willing him away. Barriers were the only thing she was good at anymore. But she was more preoccupied with what the future would bring than his quirks and garou-touchiness.

"Do whatever you like," she told him after a few long moments where it she wouldn't respond at all.

"Do you and your people believe in anything? Like a god, I mean?" She asked him suddenly, eyes lifting, and her face seemed soft and calm, whether it was the drink from before, or the comfort of the shadows, or perhaps even a figment of imagination, who was to know?

[Anonymous]

"A god?" Stefan thought about it for a moment or two. "Not quite the same as the gods I've heard of in towns, but...yes. I suppose I do."

He studied her face quietly. It seemed...softer now. Gentler. Less pained.

"He doesn't really do anything, not like the human gods usually do. He's not big on the thunderbolts or the brimstone or the killing of infidels, though I'm sure he could if he really wanted to or was hungry enough. He just...knows everyone, because he's a part of everyone's family and you have to recognise your family."

"We don't think he made the world. He made us out of dirt, and ash from his fire, and leaves, and bone and a bit of his blood. But the world was always here, before we were even thought of. He wanted something to fill it properly, that's all. He chose us, and gave us two forms when he couldn't decide which one was more beautiful."

He stopped, and showed her the black design (spiky and angular and swirling all at once, but still recogniseable as a laurel wreath) tattooed across the inside of his left arm, tracing it gently with the fingers of his other hand.

"You see this?" He tapped it. "They did this when I was fourteen in human time. Before I left, so he would know me if he saw me away from my home. My name as well - we don't have names until we go far enough to need his protection. If he's going to follow us to the ends of the earth, we've got to be distinctive. All adult Garou have at least one tattoo somewhere to make sure we are - Elias included. He has the sun on his wrist, in the same place as mine."

Stefan smiled, struck by a particularly pleasant thought.

"You know Lil, he might even recognise you now. If he's been watching, he might."

[Anonymous]

For some reason, the thought that some strange god might recognize her made her smile. She looked down at the floor and then her eyes swept upwards to the ceiling, for no particular purpose or reason. Gods and devils had always been an interesting thought, but she hadn't given it much thought. When she was younger, she had. She had been raised in a surprisingly religious atmosphere, and when she had met Turner, he had said he didn't quite believe in something he couldn't really say was there. He believed in the people around him, and in his family. Because he said that's all he needed to get through it all, in this life. And then he said, perhaps a little jokingly, if there was god who could hear him, he asked for mercy and forgiveness that he couldn't truly believe in them.

"Maybe... I kind of hope so," she spoke softly, thinking about it all. Whatever it was, she felt that the thing she lost, the piece of her that had disappeared, was revisiting her. Meaning, really, the part of her character that had shifted aside and hid.

Lil stood up slowly, pulling off the false arm and laying it aside, touching a lap, her fingers tracing unseen characters along the surface as its top began to slowly turn, a soft lilting tune quietly murmuring from the object as a gentle, violet and indigo light twirled inside, shapes and designs made of light twirling along the walls of the room.

"I completely forgot it was here," she shook her head, speaking to herself. "If I forget, and if you remember, remind me to give this to Sherene, okay?" She asked him in a voice she had never used with him - soothing and genuinely warm to the quick, kind and perhaps a little sliver of what she was hiding.

She cleared her throat. "If you want to go to bed, you can. Or finish your run or," she gave a shrug and waved her hand at him. "Don't stay if you don't want too," she told him, running her hand through the soft lights.

[Anonymous]

He stared at the swirling lights, fascinated. He couldn't see the colours - around the Change his usual red-green colour blindness went downhill into the world having no colours at all - though he knew there had to be colours, but the lights...

The lights were beautiful and strange and he couldn't stop looking at them. Every time he turned his head, there would be another soft swirl that gleamed like flames in water, and...no, it wasn't working. He couldn't help but look when there were thousands of shades of grey.

Whatever she was doing - and he was damned if he knew what it was, some strange demonic thing she'd neglected to tell him about - it was something special. Very special.

His head felt like it was made of glass. Clear as glass, it was, clear as water. "Right," he told her quietly. "I'll remind you." He liked how her voice sounded now, warmer and happier and somehow more alive than he'd ever heard it.

He sat down, twining his thumbs around each other as he thought. If Elias came back - and he would come back; the first trail bore all the marks of a quick search, nowhere near as careful as he was usually paid to be - Lexiss might stop him, knowing all the signs of a trespass in his little kingdom...or he might not. He had no idea what Lexiss might do.

"No point running," he informed her. "You can only change twice on a moon night, one for wolf and one for man, and I've used them both. I'm stuck like this until the morning." He shivered as a particularly chilly breeze from the window hit the back of his neck, and hunched over awkwardly to keep himself a bit warmer. "No clothes either...dammit!"

He was cold now. And no, despite how much warmer Lil had become in the last few minutes - she might even remember how to laugh now! - even if she laughed herself stupid at his expense, it STILL wasn't funny.

No. No, it definitely wasn't. Not funny at all. Not in the slightest. Not even a little bit.

Stefan cleared his thought nervously.

"If I were to walk out of your room now, just like this, stark naked and all as I am...would your father kill me?"

[Anonymous]

She had to hand it to him - he was interesting and, although she'd never admit this aloud, his prescence was relieving, maybe even a little comforting. He added a balance between herself and Sherene and just about everything else was going on. He seemed, more or less, a voice of reason. Lil almost smiled - a voice of reason she may never listen too. Then again, she had always been like that. Stubborn and strong-willed to a fault. Her way or the highway; or something like that.

Lil nodded in understanding. A brow lifted as he shivered and hunched over, an amused smirk quirking her lips, but not quite ready to laugh. She brushed her hand through her hair and rested it on her hip, chin raising slightly.

"Chilly?" She asked him, her voice holding a strong undercurrent of amusement. The lights continued their slow spin, crawling over her and him, lighting them up dramatically before causing them fall into a brief darkness before a new light filled shape crawled over them again.

"Kill you?" Lil tilted her head, brows raised. Probably not. But Lexiss had hardly ever been known for his predictability. Sealed or unsealed, he was full-blooded demon, and on the verge of shattering, considering the woman he had devoted his life too was dying right before him. He was struggling with the fact that he wasn't all-powerful - that even he couldn't cure a terminal illness. In a way, it served him right. In another way, it was the horrible cruelty of reality. But she didn't dare think of something like that. She more or less thought that Avarielle would die, her father would fall apart, and Liliha? Liliha wouldn't look back. She'd keep on moving until this was all over.

The moment she let herself think about would be the moment it'd all crumble around her.

"I wouldn't take the chance. He isn't very stable," she muttered the last half of her comment, shifting around towards a door beside the heavy wooden framed bed - her father had been unrestrained in his crafting, the designs elaborate and extravagant.

Lil opened the door and reached in, pulling out a robe. With a light flick of her wrist she shook it out. It was of a soft green fabric, she  walked over to him and draped it over him, raising her hand in a 'hold on' gesture before returning with a thin, long sash to tie around himself to hold the robe together.

"Wear that," she told him, closing the door and reclining onto her back in her bed. That seemed to be the end of that, right?

[Anonymous]

I feel sorry for Stefan, poor bugger - he's well out of his depth now! You do realise that Lil's the only one who knows what's going on here?
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"You're laughing at me." He tried to sound stern. He knew it wasn't working, knew sternness would never work on someone like Lil,  but he tried. "I go to all this trouble for your sake, and you - yes, Lil, you! - laugh at me when I get stuck in your room with no trousers on."

He leant one elbow on his knee, and perched on the windowsill. He quirked one eyebrow.

"You know what this means, of course." The other arm reached up and brushed hair lazily from his face. "The next time something embarrassing happens to you, I'll have no choice but to stand there and enjoy it." He closed his eyes.

Hmmm. This really was a very nice robe. No idea what the colour was, of course - dark and rich and the shade of grey he'd always seen as green without, as he well knew, it actually being green at all - but it didn't itch like the clothes he usually wore. The clothes he'd been given before, the ones he couldn't get at in case someone jumped to conclusions, didn't itch either. Smoothly woven, maybe even with something magical worked in...

Everything he'd seen here was completely and utterly different to the way it ought to have been. Everything here...well, he had a sneaking suspicion that it was all a show of Lexiss' power. Interesting power, that - he could build a house and grow a garden and shape the whole world if he ever decided he wanted to, just by snapping his fingers...but at the same time, he didn't have a chance against whatever it was that was slowly killing his wife.

It'd be enough to drive any normal man (or Garou, for that matter) mad. Maybe even a demon, too.

Stefan didn't think Lil had meant for him to hear this, but she'd said herself that her father 'wasn't very stable'. Under her breath, it was true, but she'd said it, and she must have known how well he could hear...

Speaking of which, Stefan opened his eyes again...and nearly fell out of the window in surprise. He tried not to look as though the whole 'falling out-the-window-backwards' thing had never happened, but that didn't seem to be working either.

[Anonymous]

ooc: of course! Lil doesn't even realize that she's the only who kows [actually, she probably wouldn't care either way] and weird shit? i shall TRY.


And she laughed. She actually laughed at his comment. And it was sweet, warm, and so unused. "I suppose I shouldn't give you that pleasure. I'll have to have be mindful of what I do and say now," she told him with a dismissive wave of her hand.

People had to remember that whenever one set foot in Lexiss' home, things never stayed the same. They also must remember it'd be elaborate and extravangt, and if bought, the smell of opulence would've lingered. Instead, a sweet magic smell was deeply embedded in everything. But this house was strictly Lexiss power - and powers often fluctuated on the basis of one's emotion. And Lexiss hardly seemed to have true control over his emotions now.

Ilo suddenly walked in. From the door that had been her closet no less. He looked as confused as anyone could possibly be in this situation. Lil, for a brief moment, looked confused, her head having lifted up wearily. Then she sat up and studied him, the door which now led to Ilo's room - surely, he had thought his door was his closet.

"I'm dreaming, right? Because.." he looked at Stefan and Liliha, startled. He was in a robe and she was on her bed.

"Liliha, you're not doing anything questionable are you? With... him," Ilo's voice turned to a slightly higher pitch as he said 'him'.

"I'm a widow," she told him, as if that explained everything.

"Remember that widow you told me from your village? Who slept with every man within sight? And how you got so jealous---" he was abruptly cut off with Lil's voice.

"Are you calling me a whore?" She asked firmly - but the undertone of amusement was highly evident.

"Ah? Eh! N-no, I-I jus---" He hadn't recognized the amusement in her voice, and he got so incredibly flustered, clearly forgetting about Stefan, his arms waving in wild animation, as if trying to grab for something to say which would erase his blunder.

And then, amazingly enough, she started laughing again. Her hand came up, intercepting it as she flung herself back onto her bed.

"...You horrible person," he said as he sank onto the floor, not sure if he should laugh or cry - and he couldn't help being so confused.

"Why am I here?" He asked in a whiney voice.

"Lexiss is being emotional, so the house and things are bound to change according to his emotions," Lil informed them both lightly.

[Anonymous]

This just kept getting better and better, didn't it?

Lil the widow and Lil the whore and Crazy Ilo (the words went together now, regardless of whether he wanted them to or not) sprouting up from nowhere like a weed and the robe which he'd only just realised probably would have been long and sort of trailing around Lil's feet if she'd been the one to wear it but was lucky to get much lower than the kneecaps on his long legs and Lexiss was losing his mind instead of keeping them safe and she was...almost giggling about it?!?!

Good grief.

"Er...Lil?" Coaxing voice, like stableboys used when they spoke to their master's best horse and didn't want to be kicked in the important bits. "It's really not that funny, you know..." Speak slowly and gently, that was the way to do it. Horses and small children responded to that voice. Mad people seemed to like it, too. "Maybe if you go to sleep..."

A thought suddenly struck him. "Actually, if I'm staying here, and it looks as though I am...."

Ilo looked faintly ill when he heard that. Stefan smiled at him pleasantly, very calmly and deliberately showing his teeth, and kept going as though nothing had happened. It was a perfectly innocent question - it wasn't as though sleeping in a stable (and he'd done that with her before) was the same thing as staying in someone's room!

"If I stay with you...how are we doing this?"

Ilo actually turned a delicate shade of grey at the words. He probably would have bolted if he'd been able to remember which door went where.

[Anonymous]

Lil watched a dismissive hand at him - she didn't really like his tone, but she couldn't very well tell him to never use the tone with her again. Well, she could've, but there was a limit to how controlling Liliha really wanted to be [or cared too, it really was too much to remember when the sun came back up again].

"I was laughing at the irony, not the situation," she told him bluntly. "It's how must of them are, these demons. They go absolutely insane whenever one of their lovers die. I wouldn't be surprised if he died from a broken heart," she spoke matter-of-factly, as if his passing wouldn't bother her at all.

Ilo was getting various chills trailing up his spine, from both Stefan and Lil. Even he couldn't place whether she was covering up her true feelings to the thoughts of her father dying, or if she really was as cold-hearted as she sounded. He vigorously scratched his head, squirming as he glanced between the two nervously.

"...Stay? Why should you stay? She isn't a little kid," Ilo spoke up, looking up at Stefan with a frown. "I'm sure if you just go through that door and keep walking you'll eventually turn up somewhere." He added in a soothing tone.

Ilo didn't care where Stefan wound up. But he certainly didn't want him staying with Liliha.

Lil looked passive about the entire day - as if she couldn't care either way. Which was, truthfully. Most nights she couldn't sleep, being the horrible insomniac she was. Sleep was rare on regular, calm nights, and got exceedingly rare the more stress she was under. She rubbed her face with a hand wearily, as if maybe both of them were wearing her out.

"I'm staying." Ilo abruptly spoke, causing Lil to merely raise an eyebrow at him. Ilo pouted and childishly crawled onto the bed, curling under Lil's blankets and resting his head on her pillow. He didn't look like he was moving.

Lil, at first, looked like she wanted to say something. Or maybe punch him in the face, it wasn't quite clear at first. Then her hand raised and then fell, exasperated. "I don't even care anymore," she mumbled, sliding off the bed and glancing at Stefan and around the room, impassive.

Lil stood and peeked carefully into her 'closet'. She closed the door quietly and quickly, finding that it was her mother's room. She wondered where her front door led too, and out of curiousity she went over and peered out. Opening it she almost immediately closed it, the strong, pungent, sharp, and sweet scent of magic infiltrating her room. She muttered something about a world and resumed looking around her room. It was well kept, elegant and very much a young lady's, but had a simpleness, and clean-cut air to it that made it Lil's.

Ilo wriggled in the bed determinedly, gripping the covers.

The turning of the little lamp finished, and so did its quiet music. It shut off by itself and left the room in relative darkness. No one really seemed to mind it. Lil knew by memory where everything was in her room [besides outside her door and in her closet] because she knew this wouldn't change. It had her own magic laced in it, what little her father had allowed her when she was a child.

Lifting up a blanket, she pryed open a chest, pulling out blankets of rich, deep colors, varying in textures - some velvets, satins, and silks. She scattered them onto the floor carelessly, as if such fine things were wasted on her. She walked to her bed and tossed her pillow to the floor, leaving Ilo one.

"There. Make yourself a bed," she said to Stefan flippantly before sitting on the edge of her own bed. Ilo was so annoying. When they had been children they had done this, along with Taima. With a frustrated sigh she laid back for a moment before sitting up. She was restless. Great.

"Sleep," Ilo muttered, eyeing them all suspiciously.

[Anonymous]

Crazy Ilo snored. Loudly. With an odd little whistle that started somewhere in the back of his nose.

Stefan just watched him.

Even in his sleep, he couldn't seem to be still - he wriggled and kicked the blankets away and punched his pillow, and occasionally muttered something meaningless. This was usually about ducks, though he had mentioned at least one 'good little fishie.'

He turned around quietly, barely even letting his own blankets rustle.

Lil wasn't asleep. People relaxed when they slept; they breathed more slowly, their muscles loosened up. Essentially, they got to the stage where carrying them was easier than trying to lead them, just because they were so floppy. He'd imagined that, in sleep, demons were much the same as anyone else...but here was Lil, lying as straight and as stiff as a plank of wood. Besides, he could see her eyes were open.

"Lil?" he whispered. "I'm sorry about what I said before. I'm just...no, there's no excuse. I was incredibly rude, and I'm sorry."

With that, he turned his attention back to the window. Somebody had to keep watch.

[Anonymous]

That was Lil, for you. While her body demanded sleep, her mind wouldn't let her rest. There were alot of things that wouldn't let her rest, and her mind demanded that each had to take priority over the other. Her mind was so preoccupied, as it often was. Lil was a person who'd suffer so quietly, you may not know. Or you'd know, but you'd never say. She'd suffer until she was sick, and she'd suffer some more, never speaking a word of it, and if you dare say something, she'd dismiss you sharply. Lil was ever the one to sacrifice and blame everything on herself. In her mind, she was the one who was supposed to protect her children and her husband - she had failed to do such a thing. The thing she had promised when they had wed, she had failed. Now she was struggling to protect the child she had now, and that child was so damaged. Then there was the only person in the world she could speak of it too, and she was dying. Never in any world, never under any circumstances, would Lil make her mother worry before her death.

It was enough that her mother worried without reason. Because Avarielle was dying so slowly, she told Lexiss all the time how much she loved him - she knew he loved her back. Avarielle knew her daughter was suffering, but Avarielle didn't want to leave something unfinished, either. And Liliha didn't want her mother going to the next world, worrying over her grown daughter. Lil had figured that this was best kept a secret. As most of everything she felt was nowadays.

A quiet voice broke the loud silence in her ears - she blinked, her head turning slowly to look at him. Her brows lifted - really, what was he apologizing for? She didn't hesitate to ask, either.

"Stefan, what in the world are you apologizing for?" Lil murmured it quietly, mindful not to wake Ilo, although she doubted he could hear over his own loud ruckus. Gently, she sat up, careful not to move the bed as she turned Ilo over, making him face the wall. The idiot had been latched to her arm, and his one leg had been swung over her own.

She sighed with relief as his snoring subsided, becoming much softer. Her eyes flickered to the ceiling. She went to rub the back of her neck, abruptly halting the motion when she realized she was using the wrong arm. She stared at the stub for a time before dropping it back down, using her good hand, her hysterical smile drifting into a common frown.

Lil's eyes flickered over to Stefan curiously.