Accidental Crimes [M][DragonSong]

[Lowen Thorn]

He decided move to get up. He assumed the woman was probably ready to strike him down as soon as he tried to do so. "I needed a way to connect with you," he tried to explain. "I very much doubt you would've held my hand or anything more than that, so I brought us together by the form of a fight. Elissa is bound to you now, which means that she's going to protect you. At least that's how I interpret it. When I attacked you, I was attacking her, and she did not take to kindly to it."

He sighed out a shuddering breath. "For the briefest moment I went black, I mean truly black, and I could see her. I could actually see something: her and nothing else. She said help me, and something about.. why do you hate who you are. I don't quite understand it yet, but it might be a start."

[DragonSong]

Maka's legs shook slightly. "Don't—don't ever do that again," she managed to rasp out. Her staff was practically vibrating in her hands her grip was so tight. "This is...it isn't your problem. I don't know what she meant, I don't know what she's talking about, I don't know why she could see what happened—"

She snapped her mouth shut. That was more than she'd intended to reveal.

[Lowen Thorn]

Aspen sat in silence as the necromancer attempted to compose herself. Once the tension settled, he raised his hands in quiet surrender. "I won't," he assured her. "You have my word."

He could still sense the woman's staff hover just above him. "Mind if I get up?"

[DragonSong]

Still breathing heavily, Maka considered that for a very long moment. Slowly, she raised her staff and took a step back.

Her eyes flickered passed him, landed on Elissa. The girl was pale, even for a ghost, and her eyes seemed sunken and tired. "I've helped you. Please. Please, I just want to go home...

Her nerves raw, emotions she'd been suppressing for years reawakened by the possession and now taunted by the current situation stirring in her breast, Maka actually whimpered and took another step back.

"I don't know how," she whispered, staring at her. "Just--just leave me alone, please, why don't any of you ever leave me alone?!"

[Lowen Thorn]

Was she talking to him? The ghost? Both? He couldn't be sure, and he really didn't care. She was allowing him back to his feet so he took the chance.

"So," he began dusting himself off. "What did you mean by 'she could see what happened?' See what exactly?"

[DragonSong]

Eye still on the spirit, Maka answered automatically, unthinking, "She was in my head, she saw when everything went wrong, when I--"

Abruptly coming back to herself, she snapped her mouth closed and set her jaw. "Nothing," she growled, swinging her staff sharply up onto her back again. "Doesn't matter. The possession shocked her as much as me, I think, she was just...confused."

[Lowen Thorn]

Nothing my blind ass.

"Okay," he spun on his heel to walk in the direction in which they had been going. "I won't force you to talk about it if you don't want to."

[DragonSong]

Silent and wary, Maka waited a few moments before following a few steps behind him once again. Her lips pressed tight together as she scowled down at the ground, almost as though she was trying to will the path beneath their feet to quicken.

What little path there was, at any rate. They'd left any main roads behind the day before, and were not essentially taking game trails through the highlands.

[Lowen Thorn]

Aspen let silence fill the air between their strides for a little while. I enjoyed the light breeze on his face, the sounds and smells of the surrounding woods and rustling leaves, and the stillness of the quiet.

He didn't see any point in trying to continue the conversation, at least not right now. Every time he tried to get her to open up even the slightest she quickly shot him down. The conscious in him told him to press, told him to find a way to help her, but the man on the run said just let her be and let her get him somewhere safely so he can figure out his next steps.

"...How bad is it?" he finally asked. "My bounty? How many people know?"

He had been in such a rush and panic to do anything since it happened, he hadn't had time to really sit and think about the gravity of it all.

[DragonSong]

Maka shrugged, remembered he couldn't see it, then huffed and muttered, "I saw the poster for it in that inn. I have no idea if anyone outside your town has any idea."

Another shrug and she added, "I've seen higher. I don't think it was the families of the men you killed asking for a bounty, that usually drives the price up."

[Lowen Thorn]

Abruptly, he stopped walking. He sighed and let his free hand hover just enough for Banksy to find his fingertips with the top of his head. "My life will never be the same," he muttered dishearteningly. "...What have I done?"

There was a hint of panic in his voice, and a sickening twisting in his chest.

[DragonSong]

"Killed three people," Maka replied mercilessly. Well--without any emotion, really. True, she was hardly sympathetic, but her tone didn't exactly hold condemnation anymore either.

"You'll probably be fine." She quickened her pace to nudge him out of the way of a fallen branch, then slowed down to walk behind him again. "Plenty of people are killers and get just far away enough to live a life again. You can never go back, but..." She shrugged. "Better than a noose."

[Lowen Thorn]

"Right. I'll be fine." He didn't seem to agree. His life as a much sought-after professor at the Academy was not built overnight. His close friendships were not bonded in the course of a day and that void couldn't easily be filled.

"Well. This fucking sucks," he said, losing his well-mannered approach to everything in one short statement. "

[DragonSong]

Maka didn't respond to that. She didn't see much point-- it wasn't as though she could tell him he was wrong.

Truthfully, she still didn't hold all that much sympathy for him; as far as she was concerned, this was a perfect example of what happened when mages relied too much on their magic and never mastered any real degree of control.

Which was exactly why she'd been in his classroom in the first place.

Still, while she was hardly the politest person, she at least had enough tact not to say that out loud. So she just kept walking in silence, shifting her grip on her staff slightly so she could grasp more toward the center, where the hidden blades met.

[Lowen Thorn]

His exhale was buried in defeat.

"I can't outrun this," he breath. "Can't explain it. Can't defend it. Can't... Living on the run is no way to live at all."

Almost as if to accept the inevitable immediately, he breathed out the rest of his tension and turned to face her. "Take me somewhere private. Somewhere inside where we can't be heard. I have an idea," he told her. "I'm going to help you if it's the last thing I do before turning myself in."

[DragonSong]

"Wait, what?"

She stopped, turning to face him with wide eyes and an arched brow. "Just like that? You've spent the last twelve hours jabbering about how unfair this is and how you're innocent, now you're just...giving up? And what the hells do you mean you have an idea?!"