Useless Child | [Solo][Fin] - Elsewhere…

24 Apr 2025, 15:09

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Calming Presence in Effect: Figaro Affected

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19 April, 2025
Easter Break, Northern Europe

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All Dialogue in Italian unless stated otherwise

He had lied to Mathilda when he had said he was going to stay at Hogwarts for Easter Break for the sake of catching up on his studies. He had lied to his brother as well, citing the same reason. To the school he had cited that he had most likely reached the age at which the Trace had finally been lifted from him and that he was no longer fully considered to be under the total wardship of Mathilda Wendigo--that he was, for intents and purposes, relying on his own means that he most certainly had. There was one lie in that claim, of course, but twined in among the others enough to the point that it was only barely permissible.

So return to King's Cross he did, though he did not stay for long in London as he took the cupboard to the Oslo connection instantly and in the guise of his elder form thanks to the help of his reliable Trenchcoat of Sneak--an item he had come to love quite a bit more than some other useless trinkets of the magical variety.

The Jubilant Bazaar was notoriously difficult to track down, but only because it was constantly on the move. On the move to serve the uses of its infamous ringmaster, naturally. That being said, rumors that followed it abounded aplenty, and fliers advertising it as well as the estimated dates and route that it was planning were eventually able to be tracked down.

Bergen, was it? Sounded about right. A large city for a large school break, especially considering that the circus had children in its ranks--even magical children that had attended Durmstrang in the past.

Travel was slow, but steady. Piérre was not accustomed to the bluster of winter weather even as the temperatures were supposed to be getting warmer, but he had his means and methods. He was handy with a hawk and a bribe, and his ability to entertain accompanied by his emphatic pleas through a broken language barrier between himself and natives that had a confident comprehension of English meant that he and his feline were able to find an overnight layover in the form of a youth hostel.

The next day after confirming his travel plan with the maps he left the city, got to a place at which he could safely mount and ride Orabella above the cloud cover, and with Figaro safely packed away in a carrier he took to the skies and began the long flight to Bergen.

It was getting to be twilight by the time he made it, and after touching down and storing away his magical things as well as donning his trenchcoat he entered the city and continued his search for the circus. And he didn't have to look far.

What in the world was he thinking? What was he thinking he would get out of this? Perhaps a few things, perhaps nothing at all. Guidance, maybe. Belonging, perhaps. Purpose... There was a pressure in his head, a small migraine that pulsed lightly in his temples. Faint...

Colors and people that were going about their activities for the night--the last of performances, the last of the pop-up shops and activities--passed by as he made his way for the most familiar tent among them. His footprints left in fresh-fallen snow were mingled among the footfalls of so many others. Simply one of them, among them, lost in them. Unremarkable compared to them. Snow was in his hair, shading it white in little speckles as the fine powder collected on the shoulders of the crimson-inseamed trenchcoat. Yes, the tent was familiar. It was because it was one that he had been in before.

It was the ringmaster's.

It felt strange to enter without any kind of stealth in mind. He simply pushed aside the tentflap and entered into the expandable household, finding that the placement of the things in it were only slightly altered only due to the circus' movements. The wine cupboard, the desk with the potion ingredients smattered across it, bubbling draughts that were simmering without heat or heat source, books scattered across the tables and a desk that had several handwritten notes and notebooks upon it. How he had not noticed the Beauxbatons crests on some of those books earlier Piérre had no idea, but his keen green eyes and sensitive nose observed and inhaled the taste of brandy, of wine, of sea salt and olive fields, of bergamot and of merlot.

Standing there in his trenchcoat after what felt an indeterminate amount of time--with Figaro on his shoulders, Orabella strapped to his back, and the suitcase in his hand--Piérre became aware of the sensation of a presence that simply appeared. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep, slow breath. Of course. Naturally. The pressure in the back of his mind probably should have been a dead giveaway, one that Piérre had wanted to ignore rather than heed. Under different circumstances, such a mistake probably would have been deadly, but considering the thoughts that had been running through his mind leading up to the moment perhaps he had a chance.

There he was. The auroral presence of the Sicilian Pureblood manifested even as soon as the near soundless-paces caught Piérre's ear and the shadow darkened the doorway. "Welcome back, boy." Came the soft, rolling syllables as the man tipped his head with an intrigued gleam in his eye as he looked Piérre up and down. The golden-orange ember of the slightly smoking cigarette glowed as it rolled in his fingers slightly, his stance in disinterested contrapasso. "Missed me, or just couldn't stay away?" The smile curled lightly, leeringly.

Piérre's hand tightened slightly on his satchel strap, his heart beating a bit faster in anticipation of not knowing what was going to come of this second--more proper, if nothing else finally face-to-face--meeting. There was little that he could do to better his situation. The first time he had acted out of boisterous disrespect... the ability to make up for that old grudge was limited, and so there was only a single path forwards due to it. Therefore, only a pair of soft words left his lips as he slowly turned towards the Sicilian with his hands in full view, his chin dipping slightly in a hesitant greeting of respect towards his elder. "Hello, pater."

The silence between them was deafening, and the chill heightened with every passing second during which the fermata rest held.

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Statistics: Stamina 7 | Strength 8 | Evasion 18 | Wisdom 12 | Accuracy 16 | ArcPower 9

Abilities:
Keen Eye • Calming Presence • Beast Master [Cat] • Cat's Grace • Animagus • Muggle Condition

Items:
Wand [Yew & Snallygaster Heartstring] | [Violet] Deck of 52 Playing Cards | Soda
Expandable Satchel | [Sharpened] Locksmith's Knife | Phial of Swooping Evil Venom
Starsweeper XXI | Trenchcoat of Sneak | Much Mustachio Ring

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Last edited by Piérre Marchonné on 30 Nov 2025, 19:44, edited 1 time in total.

Jesters do oft prove prophets. 𓀚
I am the brother account to Romeo Marchonné & Zyva Hel Fae Skógrwight

24 Apr 2025, 15:10

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Calming Presence in Effect: Figaro Affected

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The Sicilian's keen gaze on the crown of his head was a feeling that made Piérre shudder with its intensity, as if he were attempting to appeal to the better graces of one who held the rope of the guillotine above his neck. After a seeming eternity there came a low chuckle of amusement. "After everything, you have the gall to show your face here again and attempt to placate me with your alleged deference?" The inflection was sharp, slitting even with a rolling purr, and Piérre heard the silent steps of boot on carpet. It took everything in his power not to cringe when the leather glove took him under the jaw with fingers digging harshly into the fat of his cheeks so as to raise his head and force him to make eye contact with the brilliant and terrible blue iris.

It was like looking into his own face. The angles of the cheekbones, the familiar curl and shape of the lips that in tandem with the shape of the intact eye produced a visage of trickery and deeply-cloaked suave confidence that bordered on cockiness and total knowledge of how best to play out the situation to one's favor when he smiled. The gaze that seemed to know, that made bare all that attempted to hide themselves in the bravado even as he himself clothed himself fully in its impenetrable wiliness. An expression that crossed the best features of a fox and a falcon, and yet warned that beneath it all lay a terrible and snakish coldness.

There was something terrible in that fathomless eye that Piérre knew all too well.

The hunger.

"I don't blame you for wanting to come crawling back. Besides, I wanted a better look at you as well. It's hard to commit a face to memory when you've been roofied." The hand turned his face from side to side, the eye flicking over his features ravenously. Piérre couldn't look away from the pitch black pinprick in the oceanic blue--Marianic in depth. "Two doses... I'm still impressed your feeble handiwork managed to do as much as it did. I slept for an hour and a half." A predatory sneer formed for a moment and then faded away, reminding the Britalian that he was still being allowed to continue on this thin ice only because it was on his terms.

Nearby, Figaro allowed a small warning sound to permeate the room which conjured the attention of the Sicilian to the animal. Almost immediately the animal's ears flattened and the bengal was relegated to licking his lips as he crouched into a shrunken state under the withering gaze. This human was not like Mathilda, even if it possessed the same hidden ferocity. This human was an apex predator, and even the animal knew it.

Watching the feline back down, Gitano returned to his primary interest: the boy in his hand. "One of my own could likely put you down... permanently, I think." Piérre's breath caught as the lift in the assessing tone echoed in his ears. The glove finally released him. "But what would the fun be in that? A temporary pleasure in exchange for... hah... well, there is a reason you are here, and a reason you played a very dangerous gambit by asserting your affiliation with my blood."

Piérre paused for a moment, trying to calm his racing heart. Trying to think of the next rational step to take now that he was confronted with the direct threat. He had surely faced worse, hadn't he? Equally as lethal creatures, things, monsters... but here was a human. Something that didn't seem to be "only" human. His mouth opened, and then closed, and the ringmaster's eyebrow raised in anticipation as his own face angled in expectation and his arms crossed over his breast. "I'm here to learn."

Gitano's eyebrows raised and then his face followed into an expression of bemused skepticism. He did not rebut, and the boy took it as a signal to continue. "From you. Here. A trade." It was the truth. It was also only a partial truth, and surely Gitano knew that just as much as Piérre did himself. After all, he had been cut from Gitano's own cloth. It would be dangerous to lie, to hold anything back. Eventually, Gitano would know. He would find out. "Something I can take forward with me and be good at."

To the boy's surprise, the elder wizard laughed. It was a musical but harsh sound, condescending and amused. Piérre's brows creased, a look of confused worry spreading willingly across his face as he watched the ringmaster breeze by him and move a few things on the desk before withdrawing a folded newspaper and opening it. The printing company's name was bold on the front page as he read a section of it aloud. Atropia Almanack. "Yes I should have guessed as much. 'The latter contestant went so far as to milk one of the Swooping Evils for its venom, though such boldness earned no additional credit to his overall feeble score due primarily to a failed brewing of Vitamix potion.'" The paper was refolded gingerly, and then tossed carelessly onto the settee, the eye turning flinted and hard as the return of a cold visage manifested. "Here to try to redeem yourself for a pathetic showing. Third place, by a difference of seventy points? And you couldn't even brew a simple Vitamix Potion correctly. You should have been disqualified for that alone."

Piérre's shoulders slumped slightly, and he suddenly felt very small under the impression of the scolding mannerism. "And as for the winners... Pericles, Aly, Dealla... I am truly interested as to which one among them knew how to successfully brew Mopsus. That is something to truly be impressed with." He tipped his head. "I don't suppose you would know which of them are capable of it?"

'Don't lie, don't lie, don't lie...' "It could be any of them. They're all Ravenclaws." He said quietly, quashing down the instinctively reflexive thought that Pericles sprung to his mind first as being one of the most cunning and ambitious among them--an easy candidate for learning such an advanced, as well as particularly beneficially powerful, potion with his keen eye and knack for the esoteric. He... or Dealla. Dealla was someone that Piérre hadn't entirely worked out, but somehow sensed that there was something inside her that was definitely capable of seeking that kind of power as well.

But the idea of Dealla--even with the unknowns that Piérre had yet to work out about her and her obviously formidable talents amid the uncertain agendas--holding that power was easily more comforting to the Britalian than the idea that Gitano possessed it, as it was likely that he did.

Or that he hungered to possess.

The ringmaster's eye brightened for a second in intrigue before the careful mask replaced itself with disinterest. "I have my own suppositions, of course..." The lazy curl of the words returned as he paced once again around Piérre to interpose himself between the boy and the tent's exit. "Looks, while deceptive, do often tell much about the person they take a liking to. Interesting that an unremarkable girl has such a taste for the apothecial magics, don't you think? One would think it was the boy." He fixed Piérre with that piercing, expectant, divining look. "Especially considering his... pedigree."

"Keep him out of your mouth." Piérre suddenly snapped, despite not fully understanding any of the implications. All he knew was that the way that the ringmaster spoke was not pleasant: those that he took interest in were about as precious to him as a potion ingredient or tradable item themselves. A flash of pearly teeth was the price for the boy's slip, and Piérre immediately realized he had accidentally flashed his cards to the grandmaster. "All of them. Don't you dare talk about them. You don't deserve to know their names."

"Oh-ho... I struck a nerve, did I?" He pulled off one of his gloves, throwing it onto the low coffee table. His hands were broad and large, the fingers long but of medium thickness and the veins of them were pronounced. They looked hard and harsh, no stranger to hand work or handling of chemicals and components that had had their way with the flesh, turning it tough and calloused in some places. "What exactly are they to you, then, I wonder, for you to suddenly spring to defend them." The other glove came off and was thrown onto its partner. "I don't see you smiling in the photograph." The eye flicked to the front-page moving image, which featured the three participants receiving their golden cauldron while Piérre himself stood off to the side with his arm in a sling and bandaged at the elbow. His person's eyes were flicking back and forth focused on the ground with brows harshly furrowed, as if he were trying to read something on the ground. He never raised his gaze to the podium. "Surely if you were a friend of any of them, you would be celebrating alongside them for their victory, or they with you. Good sportsmanship and all." the voice turned teasing in a mocking fashion. "Or perhaps you merely felt embarrassed of your own showing. Performance issues are very serious problems, you have my sympathies."

He had to clench his hands as his heart pounded so as to resist the urge to let his face turn red with rage. He was happy for them. He always had been. It had nothing to do with his own pride, it never had. "They deserved the honor. Like you said, they brewed a powerful potion and proved their skills." It was said through gritted teeth. "I don't need to be a close friend to be happy for them."

He had lied. Worse still, Gitano would know it. "You're jealous. Don't lie to me, boy, it only makes your situation worse. You wanted to be standing there, receiving the grand prize. No..." He pressed the tip of an index finger to his lips thoughtfully with a gleam in azure eye. "No, you wanted to stand with them as they received the prize. To be a part of their victory. A part of their team." A very slinking smile caused his lips to curl away from sharpened canines again. "Oh, how delicious... You are full of surprises. You thought it would have been nice to be one of them."

He began to circle the Britalian slowly, and Piérre started to get the impression that it was akin to a tenacious jackal circling a gazelle. "Intelligent? Admired? A promising young mind destined to rise above the rest of the rabble? And instead you ruined your chances, being relegated to the nosebleeds. Oh! Don't tell me: you ruined your chances with them in particular." He stopped behind Piérre's back with a click of his heels. "But which one...? Hah... probably the one you leapt so quickly to defend. The boy. Yesss..." The hiss whistled through the air with a terrible whittling sound. "That would seem apt. It seems your type."

Piérre could take no more. This had been a mistake: a huge mistake. Wrinkling his nose and brow in disgust and attempting to swallow the bile that was rising in his throat as well as the constriction of his heart and lungs in trying to crush down the choice words and emotional conflicts that came with them, he took a hard step to leave, his scarf and trenchcoat beginning to flutter with the force of his momentum.

A hand snagged him by the shoulder at the nerve by his neck.

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Statistics: Stamina 7 | Strength 8 | Evasion 18 | Wisdom 12 | Accuracy 16 | ArcPower 9

Abilities:
Keen Eye • Calming Presence • Beast Master [Cat] • Cat's Grace • Animagus • Muggle Condition

Items:
Wand [Yew & Snallygaster Heartstring] | [Violet] Deck of 52 Playing Cards | Soda
Expandable Satchel | [Sharpened] Locksmith's Knife | Phial of Swooping Evil Venom
Starsweeper XXI | Trenchcoat of Sneak | Much Mustachio Ring

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Jesters do oft prove prophets. 𓀚
I am the brother account to Romeo Marchonné & Zyva Hel Fae Skógrwight

24 Apr 2025, 15:10

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Calming Presence in Effect: Figaro Affected

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It pinched hard and spun him harshly around before the ringmaster's other hand clapped at his other bicep. Gasping at the pressure of the grip, Piérre instinctively cringed into the neck-hold, his hand fluttering for Gitano's own.

His father's face was hard, and that eye now burned with rage. "You don't get to just walk away, boy." The word was spat as if it were a slur. "And you do not call me 'father'. I am not your 'father'. 'Father' implies the presence of my acknowledgement and a modicum of "love" held due to my siring of you." Piérre was shivering under his hand. "Allow me to make one thing very clear to you, whelp." Green eyes found themselves unable to tear away from cerulean. "You are nothing but a collateral of my pleasures and of your mother's lust. You are not special. You are not worth anything to me, just as you are not worth anything to the eyes of the rest of this pathetic little world. You are a product. A consequence."

The hand that gripped his bicep suddenly released, snatching from the safety of Piérre's throat the golden chain that bore a hollowed out chrysoprase gemstone set in gold that Valentin had gifted to him for Christmas. It was, in reality, a small 'bottle' of sorts, including a hinged top that was sealed with magic and would only release with the right pressure placed in the right spot. It was always around his neck, for in it was a priceless ingredient that glowed in the dark with a blue-silver luminosity, shimmering like unicorn blood but flowing like mercury. The glow it gave off almost seemed to make the chrysoprase emanate a bioluminescent light when hidden under a thin shirt. Swooping Evil venom, raw and harvested directly from the famed creature by his own hand. Green eyes widened. "Don't-!"

"And yet you were the only one who did this." The fingers wrapped the golden chain around and around, tugging slightly at it in emphasis. "You had the nerve to milk a Swooping Evil, of all things." A twitch of a muscle in the corner of his mouth betrayed a gleeful undertone. "And you have the mark to prove it." The soft breath in the whisper tickled Piérre's ear.

The hand released it, letting the stone bump on Piérre's chest once more alongside the still-hidden hag stone. Gradually the pressure at his neck released, turning more and more into an almost massaging one. The change in disposition nearly gave the boy whiplash. Bipolar? Loss of control for a few seconds? Or was it something else, something that only layered upon the impenetrability of the actual design? What was he now? Was he the pawn still, and if so, which color? Black or white? Had he moved, or had he been moved? Was he now on the man's side...

Or was he still opposed and had no way of knowing it yet?

His mind was still trying to stitch together the possibilities, reeling from the verbal poisons that had been administered with the brutal truth and reality of his circumstance still making its rounds in his system. Confusion in his gaze, he tried to will the answers to come, to make Gitano explain himself further--all that came from Piérre was a slow shaking of his head in non-understanding, his mouth slightly open as he blinked quickly to hide away the threat of mist that wanted to obscure his sights. He was trying to say something, but nothing would come out.

The hand released him entirely, and Piérre immediately reached for the spot it abandoned, massaging it himself as if he had been shot. The pressure had felt... friendly.

How?

"That scar will never heal, by the way." The ringmaster said bluntly with a conceited smile. "Swooping Evil venom not only poisons but also corrodes. What happened to you was the equivalent of a Muggle having hydrochloric acid injected into their arm. I'm sure it felt similar as well." It was a musing intonation, a curious lilt as if he were considering an option. "I doubt your psyche will be the same either, regardless of how quickly the antidote was administered. The mind-altering properties of that lovely little venom is quite impressive indeed."

Unconsciously, Piérre squeezed the place at his elbow where the knotted white marking was--hollow on one side where the stinger had entered and the skin with mild marks of former degloving surrounding it down to the subcutaneous length it had managed to reach. It no longer hurt him to do so, but it was an injury that he could still feel as if it had just happened to him. "You know quite a bit about the venom."

The ringmaster let out a short scoff. "I'm an Elixirist, boy." Turning away he travelled to the desk and pushed papers and bits of equipment aside. "I specialize in toxicology, pharmacology, and pharmacognosy." He hesitated. "That means: poisons, drugs, and herbal substances." His head turned so that the eye stared into Piérre again, the voice having reached that threatening low tambor once more.

It was strange, Piérre thought, the fact that in the picture he had seen in Beauxbatons--that potions club from his alma mater years--the single eye had once had a fellow. In the fourth year, the one eye had been covered by the Patch and its remaining companion had taken into itself a terrible intensity. The hunger had taken a breath of new life in that image, scorching through and bypassing resistances it had once had prior to that moment. It seemed... almost natural, now; the eye that had been young then was now hard and terrible--mature in its eternal role as the only path into the soul and the means by which to judge the world. It had done its job well. Perhaps too well.

"What happened to your eye?" Impetuous question. Mistake.

But the eerie smile only appeared with a slow, dripping presence, as Gitano brought himself to his full height--shoulders held back and head raised slightly. He leaned slightly on the table. "What makes you ask?"

Piérre shuddered under its inspection. "I saw a picture of you at Beauxbatons. I was curious."

"I believe there's a saying about curiosity and cats." Figaro growled lightly. Gitano disregarded him. "I recommend that you self-monitor yourself so that you don't end up bagged like one." Warningly soft. "But, to answer for the sake of politeness, there was an accident..." A sting of resentment. "And the damages were irreversible. I preferred this," The finger traced the outline of the black leather eyepatch over his right eye. "as opposed to the repulsive prosthetic machination or a lazy, unflattering glass imitation."

Piérre decided to himself not to ask any more deeply personal questions in the current moment.

The ringmaster turned back to his work for a few moments, flipping open a book with the Vero family crest on it and paging through the thin and brittle papyrus carefully before he stopped on a page and began to reorganize the ingredients on the workbench. As a slightly bubbling flask was taken off the heat, he finally spoke again to acknowledge the presence of Piérre. "So you came here to learn a trade, did you?" The voice was disinterested but sharp. Expectant. "What sort of trade?"

"Anything you can teach me." The bottles lowered. Piérre quickly caught himself and walked back his words. "Anything... that... I could learn that would be..." He could see the iris and pupil slide to the corner of Gitano's eye, the Malocchio of distrust. He swallowed. "Useful... to you."

Careful hands put the bottles aside, Gitano leaned forwards on the table. "Something 'useful' to me?" He mused. "I could think of quite a few things I would want you to do at the moment that would be useful." The dark tone implied to Piérre that he would not find those things... particularly healthy for himself. "But I suspect you mean... as in my potentially permitting you to take a job here."

"That... would be nice--"

"Niceties have nothing to do with it." Piérre bit his tongue. "I should throw you out. Getting a job here would be the last thing I should let you do." The boy's attention was attached to the use of the word 'should'. Gitano's fingers rapped lightly on the table. "But we are in need of a new performance." His head finally turned fully to the boy, eye narrowing. "And if you're half as good at juggling, tumbling, or being quick on your feet as you proved last I met you... you may be a quick teach if nothing else."

He should have been feeling hope. His desire had been at least acknowledged.

So why did he feel so afraid?

The ringmaster slid his hands off the table and then prowled closer to Piérre again. The eye flicked up and down the boy's stance, his poise, eyeing up his build. "Hands." He said gruffly. Piérre blinked. The corner of Gitano's lip curled in disgust. "You understand Italian, boy. Hands. Show them to me."

Piérre did as he was instructed, and Gitano turned the boy's hands by the wrist, inspecting them on both sides and seeming to note the length and thinness of the fingers. He took particular note of the palms. "Scars?"

"Sn-Snitch." Came the reply. "Cursed."

An eyebrow raised. "Didn't heal them?"

"Didn't feel there was reason to. Never bothers me."

"Makeup or gloves. You'll pick. Ears?"

"Stahl's."

"Pardon?"

"Birth defect."

"Hah... of course. Teeth? Eyesight? Both good?"

"Yes."

The hand gently turned the boy's head from side to side for a closer inspection this time, and after a few moments the man nodded. "You got my cheekbones and browline. A little of the nose too. Good. Easier for makeup." Piérre was finally released and the hands dusted themselves off. "Well. You better have a class act."

Piérre's eyes widened slightly in awe. "Don't give me that look. And don't expect coddling because of blood relation." Piérre glanced away. "In fact, it's all the more reason for me to disregard you further. I don't like mixing business with familial ties. While you are here, you earn your way through how you perform and how well you're liked by the audience you're trying to entertain. That is the worth of a performer's salt." The ringmaster took off his hat, hanging it on a rack. "It's bad enough you don't have a tent. But... I can be magnanimous every once in a while..."

He indicated to the settee. "This living area can be your place. Use the pillows, blankets. Make yourself comfortable as you can." The outer jacket was shed, hung up alongside the hat. "A few rules. One: you do not amble into my workplace with the potions, ingredients, or my books. Chances are you will either maim, poison, or kill yourself if you do. Two:" A second finger. "You do not let your animal have free reign in here. It stays either on the ground near you or outside. Three: you're going to earn the bread you put in your own mouth while you stay here and while you call my tent your home. You are on my payroll until you leave. I own you. Remember that." The words were chilling. "Four: I don't recommend you go out after dark. Pretty faces like yours are often too great a temptation for some of the likes of those that hang about in some places we get to. And as pretty as your face is, believe me it won't cover all of your prices of living." A smirk came and went. "I won't judge, though. To each their own. And five: Stay out of my quarters. For your sake."

He paused, letting them filter through the air and into Piérre's ears. "Clear and simple enough rules to abide by?"

Piérre clicked his fingers, calling Figaro to himself. The terms and conditions were simple. In fact... it was more than what he had been expecting. There was certainly no kindness, no actual compassion in the words or actions; but he had just been given much more than he had ever expected already. An in. A place. The promise of a purpose and of a chance to observe and live in a way that he had not previously dared to. He had been given a chance to do something new. Something different. Away from everything that he had thought he was or that others thought that he was. A chance to prove them wrong.

"Crystal."

"You are a useless child." Came the low voice. And then there came a smile that even caused the dark, lightless eye to sparkle for just an infinitesimal moment. "But, you are my useless child. And thus, you have worth to me."

Gitano's hand came to rest gently on the boy's shoulder.

And this time, he didn't shiver.

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Statistics: Stamina 7 | Strength 8 | Evasion 18 | Wisdom 12 | Accuracy 16 | ArcPower 9

Abilities:
Keen Eye • Calming Presence • Beast Master [Cat] • Cat's Grace • Animagus • Muggle Condition

Items:
Wand [Yew & Snallygaster Heartstring] | [Violet] Deck of 52 Playing Cards | Soda
Expandable Satchel | [Sharpened] Locksmith's Knife | Phial of Swooping Evil Venom
Starsweeper XXI | Trenchcoat of Sneak | Much Mustachio Ring

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Jesters do oft prove prophets. 𓀚
I am the brother account to Romeo Marchonné & Zyva Hel Fae Skógrwight

24 Apr 2025, 15:10

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Calming Presence in Effect: Figaro Affected

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20 April, 2025

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"You will benefit from bronzer as well when under the lights." Evening was coming on, the last performance for the day would be on in a matter of an hour or so. The face looking back at him in the mirror was still his, true, but strange when foundation a few shades darker than his skin tone layered on it. Gitano had obtained it from another performer, as Piérre's flesh tone was lighter than his own, and Piérre was trying to learn everything he could about the stage makeup as he could. He had already known a little about it, but Gitano seemed to have the practice boiled down to what the boy could only describe as a mastery in the art. "It'll give your highlights just a hair of shimmer and glow. Hairline, high areas of the cheekbones, and just a little bit on the bone near your ears. Anywhere that the stagelights are going to hit your face, otherwise you're going to look like a ghost." The way that the words were spoken were simple, if stern. There was no venom, no ice. Simple. Quiet, even.

He turned to look towards the younger performer, assessing the boy's handiwork. "Blend it a little more here." His brows furrowed lightly as he indicated to the places where the foundation was thinner. "It doesn't look like much now, but the lines will be very visible exposed under direct light. Use your palms a bit, and then use the brush to tone it. Here, hold still. Close your eyes, you need to get your eyelids too." Following instructions, the boy pursed his lips slightly as Gitano evened it, blinking under his eyelids as the brush pressured lightly there. There was a pause, and then a little more work, before Gitano allowed Piérre to open his eyes again.

The blue eye was assessing him narrowly again, seeming to pick out particular features once more. He held up his fingers as he instructed the boy. "First; bronzer. Second; blush on the apples of your cheeks and slightly on the bridge of your nose. Third; eyeliner and eyeshadow. We're giving you artificial freckles."

Piérre frowned. "Why?"

Gitano tipped his head. "Because you'll look endearing." The tone of voice used had no emotional inflection to it. "The androgynous look has always been an enviable one, and you're still young and feminine-looking enough to pull it off." A sly smirk flittered. "And your choices in wardrobe thus far has not successfully convinced me to the contrary. You are, altogether, quite fey."

"I just like dressing colorfully. That's perfectly normal for this profession."

The smile increased slightly and the man shrugged nonchalantly. "You can believe that all you like." Turning the eyeliner gently between his hands, he selected a eyeshadow palette and glanced at the colors while leaning back in the chair easily. "I presume pink and green will be your go-to again?"

Piérre turned back to the mirror, applying the bronzer carefully and blending it into an ombre as he had been directed. The bitter frown didn't vanish. "You're changing that too?"

The ringmaster chuckled. "Come now. Experimentation is part of the process. You can't just be a one-trick pony. Things change, culture shifts, and rosters with their performers have to be readjusted." He began to blend colors on the back of his hand. "It took me a few years to settle on my own personal style. Believe it or not, my first couture included a studded eyepatch and a rather--now that I look back at it--gaudy leather jacket with studs and quite a few rips in select places."

Piérre glanced at him out of the corner of his eye incredulously. Gitano chuckled. "Charcoal and ochre mixed with... oh was it lime highlights? Shade combinations that would make you vomit. It was the eighties, nobody knew what the fuck they were thinking or what they were taking that was left over from the sixties. I even had a mullet. Keep looking at your mirror and blend your bronzer, don't look at me." The colors on the back of his hand were blended into a rich, sunset-dark magenta, and then another patch of skin began to play host to a fantastic and regal blue.

Lowering the brush, Piérre stared at the colors pointedly. "Purple and blue aren't my colors."

"Intellect and forethought aren't your strong suits either, yet here we stand." Came the retort. The thalassic eye flicked to green ones. "You don't get paid for having an opinion here, boy. Now hurry up: less talking and more brushing."

Piérre's face flushed in response. "Yes, that's a nice color on you. Apply your blush just like that." He went back to blending the colors on his hand, and Piérre scowled once before turning back to the mirror so as to complete his work.

When Gitano finally let him look at his own face again after applying the detailing, Piérre blinked once and then scanned what he saw with an intensity. It had been decided to let his hair stay unkempt and almost wild in nature, accentuating the natural slight curl that was further called attention to by a thin spraying of gold and silver on the highlights, and where his hairline ended the elegant patterning of shadow and night sky contour began. While Piérre loathed the fact that the colors were ones that he felt did not fully match his persona... he couldn't argue with the fact that in that diametrically opposed nature the color palette was ethereal, almost divine in its application. One wouldn't have thought it, Piérre most of all, but Gitano certainly knew his way around a brush's artistry upon a flesh canvas.

It didn't look like him, even though he could see in his own eyes that his soul was there. He looked like someone else, someone other. Piérre was no longer the face the world saw, instead it was this other. Only in the eyes, but even in looking into those eyes those who did not know would never see. The freckles, in the form of white, pin-pointed stars sprinkles with delicate and slightly larger four-pointed and diamond-shaped ones, bore the constellations he recognized as being Aquarius and Apus, the handsome water-bearer and the bird of paradise. Egyptian style eyeliner in black made the green in his eyes pop, though when surrounded by the cool colors in the eyeshadow they seemed to cool in their hues themselves, evoking teal.

Gitano looked at his handiwork with a lazy interest, smudging the eyeshadow in a spot to blend it out. "Well, I don't think that turned out too badly. We'll modify as we go." So saying, he cleaned the brushes to begin on himself.

"Why did you choose these constellations." He asked bluntly.

A sooty dusting of charcoal color marked the beginnings of the ringmaster's personal work. "I found it apt." Was the reply. "Ganymede and a bird of paradise. I don't need to explain at least one of those reasonings, do I?" The subservient wine bearer... "They simply... go together, methinks." Crimson and gold began to sparkle through the oppressing charcoal, like fire hiding in lingering embers. "Get dressed. Half an hour until curtain."

Ganymede...

The lights of the Big Top were indeed bright, so bright that the boy could not see anything except for the silhouettes of the audience for which he cajoled and pranced for. Under those hot lights he did find himself sweating with anxiety and the energy he put into his part, the role that Gitano and he had arranged as a twofold act. Piérre, who had already established himself as a "mute" cardist and slight-of-hand specialist during the daytime acts outside of the large events, had been introduced to fallen in with the slapstick specialists and tumblers who had been more than delighted to have another 'flier' in their ranks. While he had begun training with them to enforce confidence and trust, he was nowhere near ready to try anything more daring than a simple pyramid lift and fall.

Instead, he and Gitano were the double-act. Piérre played the Auguste, Gitano was the classical Whiteface. Throughout the entire performance, the boy buzzed around the whip-wielding ringmaster with a small prop crop of his own, mimicking the man's movements and caricaturing them as they had arranged and endeavored to improvise at times. In Norwegian, Gitano continued to 'harass' and 'scold' the cheekily grinning Piérre between acts whenever he 'happened' to catch the boy mimicking, a dark gleam in the eye as he did so: occasionally with an accompanying crack of the whip and other times with a brief physical chase that sent the boy fleeing behind the backs of some of the acrobats or the other clowns that would additionally scare him off with spraying water and thrown popcorn.

Like a little, scampering--if clever--critter, he dipped in and out of the performances, causing arranged chaos and spreading choreographed chaos. He had no independent act, he existed to subsidize the others and to add an element of audience participation. Gitano had done this to force him to watch to observe. To participate without flying solo, to interact without allowing him to take center stage. Gitano himself was the center of the stage... Ganymede simply existed to serve and accentuate, to deliver and to call attention to.

Cards fluttered from the tips of his fingers, dancing in the air and fanning brilliantly in colors of violet, cerulean, and gold. Instant, reactionary movements caused him to dance wildly between ducking to avoid hoops and thrown objects and leaping with a slight attunement to his animal side to evade divers and somersaulters as he too someraulted and backflipped with additional tumbles and stumbles either out of accident or on purpose at times.

Never without a desperate smile as he tried his best to please and to keep the steady gasps and laughs of the audience alive, he hounded Gitano relentlessly and always made sure to accidentally mess up the simple demands in Italian that were given to him: wearing the ringmaster's hat when ordered to hand it to him, tripping and falling flat on his face when delivering the firebreathing potions that the man would use for his performance, getting smacked in the back by the springboards and seesaws by a collection of clowns moving around their equipment, and generally messing up everything that he was ordered to put his mind to in a way that he thought would be most amusing.

At the climax of the performance, when all was the most chaotic and the most whirlwind in presentation and ostentatiousness, Piérre swept in on swift feet. Dipping and ducking and then throwing in a side-flip for good measure, he swooped up upon Gitano and leapt up--snatching the phoenix-feathered hat and rolling upon his contact with the ground, coming up with the hat on his head with an enormous and fierce smile combined with a flourish as everyone else flourished in their final showing stance. Breathing heavily, feeling his heart racing in his chest as the audience applauded and clapped their hands in awe of the spectacle, Piérre watched out of the corner of his eye carefully the expression of Gitano in profile from what little he could discern from the fact that the Patch was facing towards him at the moment as opposed to the black body eye.

That had been an unplanned maneuver, and both of them knew it.

Gitano spoke loudly again in Norwegian, likely thanking the crowd for attending the performance, and then slowly turned towards Piérre so that the eye was now able to fix fully upon him. It was, as it always seemed to be, dark and unfathomable. There was a smile still on his face, the familiar and friendly emotion that had no actual depth beyond the upward curve of the lips and the physiological lifting of maxillofacial features. There came a laugh from the audience, Gitano's eye never wavering from Piérre.

A gunshot rang out, and a puff of kicked-up dust sprayed at Piérre's feet. As if a wire had run through him, the boy nearly tripped over himself as he scampered to one side, catching himself as he crouched slightly, eyes darting wildly for the source of the sound. There was another two, a foot away from him on one side, and without further hesitation he took wildly to his heels. Someone was shooting at him. A quick glance towards the ringmaster so as to figure what was happening illuminated the circumstance more as a gleam of silver in the man's hand testified to an antique-looking weapon with a wood handgrip and multiple barrels with their dark points pointed directly at him.

The eye was looking down the sights, head heavily canted as the dominant hand and remaining eye were misaligned, but the same shallow smile continued to grace the ringmaster's face. A barrel burst with fire and Piérre ducked, only for the shot to land directly in front of his feet, causing him to lose his balance backwards and roll on his back before returning to his feet.

Gitano wasn't just shooting at him. He was toying with him. Every shot could hit him, and every time there was--Piérre could only assess in the split-seconds between understanding the purposes of the act and in the moments before finding his way out of the immediate danger--a purposeful miss. It was still a performance. It was still an act of authoritive dominance over him in particular.

'I own you.'

Ganymede...

There was so much more behind the choices of the color and the look selected for him. Gitano had chosen them for a reason. A purpose. To mock. There was a reason his act had been that of mimicry and not of an outright show.

You are not useful when you are your own self.

There were two more shots that followed in his trail before Piérre finally managed to flee behind stage and into cover, much to the further applause and laughter of the audience he had left behind. The ringmaster's hat had flown from his head as he had fled, having landed softly on the sand behind him for Gitano's eventual retrieval.

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Statistics: Stamina 7 | Strength 8 | Evasion 18 | Wisdom 12 | Accuracy 16 | ArcPower 9

Abilities:
Keen Eye • Calming Presence • Beast Master [Cat] • Cat's Grace • Animagus • Muggle Condition

Items:
Wand [Yew & Snallygaster Heartstring] | [Violet] Deck of 52 Playing Cards | Soda
Expandable Satchel | [Sharpened] Locksmith's Knife | Phial of Swooping Evil Venom
Starsweeper XXI | Trenchcoat of Sneak | Much Mustachio Ring

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Jesters do oft prove prophets. 𓀚
I am the brother account to Romeo Marchonné & Zyva Hel Fae Skógrwight

24 Apr 2025, 15:11

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Calming Presence in Effect: Figaro Affected

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After scrubbing off the makeup in a way that made it look only mostly clean (it was indeed smeared, particularly the eyeliner), Piérre barged into Gitano's tent with a vengeance, face red from fury and from the cleaning he had hastily done. His teeth were bared and he pointed a finger accusatorially at the blond who was seated at his own vanity and was gingerly removing his own stage makeup. "You tried to kill me!" He spat, taking three strong steps forward and swiping at a wine-bottle, which toppled to the floor and spattered its contents across an oriental carpet. "I was plying the crowd, ran a gaffe, and you start shooting at me?!" His heart was still beating with the memory of dancing at the gunshots at his feet, the sound of the weapon ringing in his ears.

Chances were that weapon was likely not even legally obtained nor owned, knowing Gitano, and the danger of doing what he had done...?! When they had not planned or spoken over it at all? And the fact that if he had been irritated over the boy having snatched his hat, the overreaction was most certainly uncalled for right at the end of the performance! "If I hadn't been as quick as I was, I could have died right there! This was not discussed or agreed-upon!"

The blue eye sparkled and the head tilted. "My my... well... one could say that perhaps you've just had a dose of your own medicine, hm?" The lips turned up into a very thin, impassive smile as he continued to wipe away the dark charcoal colors. He snapped the cloth once and then continued to work, turning away.

Piérre blushed scarlet red again and then stormed onwards again, snatching Gitano's shoulder and yanking the chair so that it skittered on its legs and slammed as it faced him. "I never did anything to anyone that would have potentially killed them." He snarled, getting up in the Sicilian's face. "Have a traipse about through my head all you like, but you'll never find anything like that!" A part of him wanted to hit the man, to shove his shoulders, to knock him off the chair with that conceited half-grin of his, but with trembling hands the boy resisted and instead turned away to dig his fingers into the softer cushions of the settee. He felt hot under the collar, could feel the sweat on his back.

He had never found himself afraid to die before, nor had he found it in himself fearful of whatever it was that was eventually going to greet him in the darkness, in fire, or in bliss. Why had looking down into the black hole that could at any moment flash with a light and turn his whole world dark suddenly frightened him so? Perhaps there was something about his own mortality that did frighten him after all. It would not be surprising to him, considering his reputation for cowardice both visible and invisible to the point of self-isolation and hermitage in the realm of limiting contact with those that he dared to draw close to.

"No, perhaps not killed anyone, but you do have a particular habit of shooting yourself in the foot. Piérre visibly seethed. "Finding ways to emplace yourself in positions and situations just short of killing yourself seems to be a particularly popular pasttime of yours." The fingers curled into the settee further. "And you wonder... you wonder why you can't seem to build an inner circle. Why nobody wanted you around. And," A short chuckle. "Why you came crawling to me."

Piérre turned sharply. "I can leave anytime I want. I don't need you."

"No. Worse. You want me." Black leather gloves laid themselves pristinely on the desk, rubbing thumb and finger together as he straightened his posture. "And that's why you won't leave. I have no doubts you could live on the streets. That being said... it's a matter of living in a paper bag or having a reserved room that offers warmth, a roof, and a meal every day with no terms besides that of your lent hand." The fingers rapped on the desk. "Much safer as well. Pity if you were found in a sordid alleyway."

"Either killed by you or killed out there. You're much too close." Piérre breathed, stubbornly choosing to ignore the very rational argument placed before him. Gitano was right, Piérre simply benefitted more if he stuck with the blond devil. He was safer, even if only slightly. Gitano didn't seem ready to bump him off yet, even if the weapon had been real, but the threat was simply too close. It was simply too tasteable. Too real. "I would have the wit to not fall in with the wrong people. I've already worked streets before."

The ringmaster laughed full-throatedly. "You certainly don't lack in pride!" He finally turned to face Piérre. "Your little peddling escapades have placed you only on the very outer fringe of the depravities that this world's peoples are capable of. Leap headfirst into something much too deep and you just might find yourself somewhere you shouldn't be and finding it too late to slip away." The eye was stern and dark. "An escort, a deterrent, would do you good."

Piérre's turn to scoff. "Tch. You, I presume?"

The eyebrow raised and the eye glanced away, swirling a phial's contents lazily. "I am not entirely opposed. Nor should you be, at the opportunity."

"Forget it." He turned away again. "I'd rather die."

There was a gunshot.

Piérre buckled both from the sound and the impact in his lower ribs that stung and incurred a slight cracking that immediately started to throb. With a sudden shout, he crumpled to his knees as his hand flew to his side, checking for blood. Figaro yowled and then turned on Gitano, hissing, but stopped short when the ringmaster's eye flicked to it with a vengeance. There was nothing there, even as he collapsed entirely to the ground, but before his eyes a small item rolled away from his reaching fingertips: a round rubber pellet crimson in hue. Green eyes widened.

Gitano stared down at him, the seventh barrel of the pepperbox flintlock slightly smoking in his hand and still pointed at the prone boy despite--unless having been reloaded--being fully expended. Piérre wheezed slightly with a choked whimper, hand pressed to the place he had been struck. "Rubber." Was the single word.

There was a curling smile, a smile that frightened Piérre more than any hag slug or doll. The low laugh that accompanied it only made him turn his face into the ground, just to escape having to look the man in the eye. "What! You think I'd kill you after your first performance regardless of how horrid?" He laughed a little louder, the sound of the weapon being cleared and then set aside with the accompanying receding footsteps only slightly making themselves known in the back of the boy's mind. "That would be terrible for business, and besides you actually did quite well. The fact of the matter is that everyone knows I carry it--mostly--for show. It's good for breaking sugar-glass for accuracy events and making a nice, loud noise for the purposes of quieting people down." Piérre furrowed his brow into the carpet, still willing himself to recoup and come to terms with the fact that he wasn't dying and that his body no longer had a reason to be in its state of shock. He was curled up, willing himself to relax.

The sounds of clinking bottles and glass in Gitano's work area. "It's less than lethal. Sit up." More clinking. "It'll leave a nasty bruise. Fortunately, I have some... aha, here we are... bruise removal paste. It'll alleviate the worst of it and manage any accidental damages." The steps returned before the man swooped down to his level. Piérre turned his head towards him, to observe that the black-gloved hand was holding out a wide jar filled with thick, yellow substance. The blue eye was staring him down intensely, a small smile gracing the man's face. He held it there before shaking it slightly, inviting the boy to take it. "The boons of magic, hm?" The eyepatch's brow arced inquisitively, and the bruise healing paste was shook lightly in the Britalian's face again. "Take it. It's my own brew with some modifications for... effectiveness."

The pain was starting to wear off, turning instead into a heavy throb indicative of inflammation setting in for the bruising process to start. Figaro ambled over and started to make biscuits on his lower back. Hissing through his teeth, Piérre finally reached for the item and swiped it out of the man's hand with venom. "Don't touch my hat again." Came the low, crooning tambor as Gitano grinned, tipping his head and 'winking' with that one eye before standing and dusting off his hands as he walked away to leave Piérre to lick his own wounds and make ready for bedding down for the evening.

He laid awake in the low-lit tent with the blankets pulled around him and his entire body cushioned by the plethora of ornate throw pillows that he had arranged around himself in a sort of comfortable little rat's nest of feathers and stuffing. Gitano had scoffed at it that morning, noting how uncouth it was to sleep directly on the ground, but Piérre liked it anyhow and wasn't willing to sit on the settee where he was sure to get a crick in the neck or a sore back from sleeping at the wrong angle upon it.

He stared into the blackness with Figaro held tightly in his arms, the bengal compassionate enough to let his master squeeze him a bit tighter than he would normally like only because he could smell fear and remnants of pain on the boy. The bruise healing paste was, as Gitano had promised, indeed very effective: there was only a slight tingling where he had been shot by the rubber bullet by now.

He wondered where his friends were at the moment.

He wondered what his brother was doing at the moment, as well as what his friends were doing--today, on Easter Day... that he had missed the liturgical celebration of due to being here and working... Unacceptable for many reasons...

He was, most certainly, homesick.

But he couldn't go home. Not yet. He was learning very important things here directly from his own father. Very important life lessons that he hadn't had beaten into him in all his years of living. Very specific rules of life, very particular means by which one clawed their way through the rabble and sat themselves above all of it. Means by which to simply laugh away the pain, or to laugh at others in the midst of their own. Gitano was clever. Too clever. More clever than Piérre.

So... Piérre had much to learn from the master still, indeed.

Much to learn, much to master.

And much to remain ever-constantly cautious of.

Withhold all, and reveal only when challenged.

"Kindnesses" inspire reciprocated loyalty most when "magnanimously" given in moments of remarkable desperation.

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Statistics: Stamina 7 | Strength 8 | Evasion 18 | Wisdom 12 | Accuracy 16 | ArcPower 9

Abilities:
Keen Eye • Calming Presence • Beast Master [Cat] • Cat's Grace • Animagus • Muggle Condition

Items:
Wand [Yew & Snallygaster Heartstring] | [Violet] Deck of 52 Playing Cards | Soda
Expandable Satchel | [Sharpened] Locksmith's Knife | Phial of Swooping Evil Venom
Starsweeper XXI | Trenchcoat of Sneak | Much Mustachio Ring

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Jesters do oft prove prophets. 𓀚
I am the brother account to Romeo Marchonné & Zyva Hel Fae Skógrwight

8 May 2025, 01:13

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Calming Presence in Effect: Figaro Affected

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23 April, 2025

It was stifling, as if something was laid on his chest: as if air was a fluid solid that could catch and slip as opposed to flow and slither through his lungs and fill his chest as it should. He couldn't move, not easily anyhow, but he sensed that he was--decidedly--on his stomach. Fingers that had no touch tried to push into the plane below him, sinking slightly before feeling resistance, and thus could he raise his upper body ever so slightly to work his other hand to the same place.

Glassy darkness was on all sides, a sense of gleaming and absorption though nothing moved. Nothing breathed. Nothing made a sound nor caused a wind to blow. High above, there was a pale simulacrum of light, or something pretending to be light: pale grey as gosling feathers, feeble and weak. Whatever this place was, not even light wished to be found here. Yet what was under his hand was still unknown; it gave but did not shift, was sturdy but did not have texture.

But this was not an unfamiliar place to him. On the contrary, Piérre felt that for some reason he had been here before or perhaps several times before. Not here, exactly, but in this place. The Chasm. But never inside. How was it that he had come here?

A leaden head lolled back, trying to look up, to find a silhouette standing over him. Different from the shades, this one had features that were unfamiliar to the other denizens. Cool, feathery blue light wreathed half of its head on the right, silhouetting all but its own luminosity. But he knew the shape.

Pushing himself up further, the plane beneath him seemed to suddenly determine its intentions: his hands fell through it and he 'sank' up to his elbows. Pressing in on all side like mire, its purpose seemed to hold and enrapture in its own dark glee. He never tried to speak in this place, it was too difficult to do so, but he had to try. "Gitano...?" The voice was ripped from his throat, did not come from his lips but instead from all sides.

The silhouette seemed to shift for a moment, seemed to look down at him for only a moment, but there was no further motion, no further shift, no further interest. Piérre felt the pull from below becoming stronger, sinking further and further--his shoulder now, chin barely above the darkness he could no longer observe the rest of his body through. His chest was being crushed. "Please..." The blue halo faded to emerald green. The plane was meeting his lips.

No help would come. He realized that, now. Perhaps it should have been realized sooner

On all sides, great mountains suddenly softly began to leap from the nothing below, four before, one behind, two beside. A great and tall one with a broad slope gentle but treacherous was one beside, with the other at his side gleaming white and appearing to bear a light of its own making with spatters of black shadow in its trail. Among the ones in front and behind the silhouette the centered ones were black and gleamed like obsidian, one was jagged with many points and the other white-topped and gleaming rosy in the feeble light. There was a white mountain with a black river that coursed down its sides like an artery beside them. The last was a great and sheer creature with cliffs possessing many ridges and peaks like a great multitude.

Behind, a small and darkened mountain, split in half, a feeble glow in the middle of its gash: the Watcher.

The silhouette beheld these, even as Piérre himself could no longer breathe, finally consumed by the dark, then turned in an attempt to flee. The seven mountains suddenly converged, crumbled, and collapsed upon it.

And then the darkness was complete.

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And the darkness that he came to in was unfamiliar for a moment until the impressions of pillows and the feeling of them on all sides. He laid there, frozen for a moment and feeling his heart pound slightly, before inhaling deeply and closing his eyes. Dream.

Always those dreams. Different this time in content, perhaps, but never pleasant. Always intended, it seemed, to torment.

Turning over, he startled to find that Gitano was sitting on the settee, staring at him with a narrowed eye that glowed in the dark with only the moon to cast light in a thin line across his single iris. He was reclined casually, unmoving, expression as unreadable and as unamused as it always was in passing. "Bad dream?" Came the almost noiseless words, soft and rumbling in its familiar non-query.

Piérre's brows furrowed and he turned over again, pulling the blankets around him. He wasn't in the mood to entertain this sort of conversation with the man. They were going to travel to Italy tomorrow, and then on the weekend he was to be delivered back to King's Cross to return to Hogwarts for schooling. It had been a few difficult if moderately rewarding days of performing: they had butted heads, but at least his fellow performers were taking kindly to him. Never close with any, but friendly enough.

Wasn't that always simply the way it was... close but never close enough...

"Well... try to get some sleep. Busy day tomorrow, as you know." The sounds of shifting indicated that the ringmaster had gotten to his feet, moving away. There was a pause, a moment of rich anticipation. "I wouldn't want you to sink into a stupor when we're seeing the sights." A curl to the end of his words, and then the beads crackled to signify his exit.

The boy continued to lay awake, phantasms dancing in his mind's eye. The replaying of the dream like so many others that seemed to recur. This one was new. Different. It could eventually add itself to the menagerie as it saw fit. What was more concerning was the sheer presence of Gitano only moments after. Certainly the man had no ability to influence dreams besides that of imprinting upon Piérre's mind the notable traits and characteristics that could be divulged upon in the subconscious state, but there was always an untouchable eerieness that never seemed to fully depart in the tendon-taut shared understanding they had at the moment.

Gitano knew something. Something that was not being shared, that if Piérre dared to ask about would likely be replied to with either danger or spite. There was something going on, something that he wasn't privy to.

He was tired of being left out and in the cold on these sorts of things.

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Statistics: Stamina 7 | Strength 8 | Evasion 18 | Wisdom 12 | Accuracy 16 | ArcPower 9

Abilities:
Keen Eye • Calming Presence • Beast Master [Cat] • Cat's Grace • Animagus • Muggle Condition

Items:
Wand [Yew & Snallygaster Heartstring] | [Violet] Deck of 52 Playing Cards | Soda
Expandable Satchel | [Sharpened] Locksmith's Knife | Phial of Swooping Evil Venom
Starsweeper XXI | Trenchcoat of Sneak | Much Mustachio Ring

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Jesters do oft prove prophets. 𓀚
I am the brother account to Romeo Marchonné & Zyva Hel Fae Skógrwight

24 Sep 2025, 04:14

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Calming Presence in Effect: Figaro Affected

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25 April, 2025

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The boy had traveled alongside a man with dark brown hair and two blue eyes with a distinctively Nordic appearance about him. The disguised ringmaster was wearing plainclothes for once, jeans and white wool pullover with a black fedora. Piérre himself wore something similar in the form of black slacks and a bohemian-style shirt with a black and yellow striped scarf that he often used as part of a Hufflepuff disguise. Both of them had a single suitcase, though admittedly both of them knew the secret that those suitcases were much larger on the inside and carried their essentials (and for Piérre himself was all that he had packed to begin with).

The connection from Oslo to Rome was punctuated only by the ease of Gitano's false face that was casual and innocuous as they traveled; pleasant, mundane, completely with a lack of the bravado and narcissism that Piérre had always been able to detect even during his short time in the vicinity of the Sicilian.

He looked almost human.

Upon arrival to Italy, they quickly settled in their temporary residence in Florence after a venture through the Floo system: a muggle rental house that was affordable enough for the duration. It was, Gitano put bluntly, somewhere he wouldn't usually have stayed if Piérre hadn't been traveling alongside. Having a fellow traveler, he had said, meant that slight adjustments had had to be made.

The first day was mostly unremarkable: it was a matter of establishing themselves and walking a bit around Florence to familiarize themselves with the area (which Piérre had some spotty recollections of due to his childhood upbringing in the city, but had changed dramatically since last he had set foot there as a young boy). The atmosphere between the two of them had been somewhat cool, almost chilly, and there was a distinctive nonreal smell of steel that could cut the tension like a knife would a cord. The chilling way that Gitano acted like a human at times was something that froze the boy to the core--knowing full well that behind silk and smile there was the eerie blonde who possessed a missing eye and a burning self-interest that had no qualms with decaying anything that it touched in the process. Their discussions were milquetoast, but the idle chatter was an unfamiliar sensation; they were two faces in a crowd that knew nothing of what they really were beneath the surface. Who they were. Where they had actually come from. They were, by external appearances as they spoke naturally in shared mother tongue--Gitano's soft melodic Sicilian bit with hard double consonants though Piérre's aspirations of the often emphasized cs and ks and softened ts seemed to illustrate only the slightly unusual regional dialects between them--simply another pair of humans standing at the bar while taking their espresso: a Florentine and a Sicilian.

No, it was instead the next day when their unusual mutual treaty continued that it seemed work would be done. Gitano seemed to have a few old contacts in the city that he needed to connect with to do business. Piérre was relegated to the sidelines during these, often ignored except by the curious eye of the other party that Gitano easily averted the gaze of. Piérre watched but did not really hear, or rather understand, much of what was happening during those times. It seemed it was less of a run for goods and materials, more for the obtaining of information, of the atmosphere of the area and the lay of the land, that Gitano had come. He eventually, it seemed, received what he had come for, and the two of them continued to spend much of the rest of the day skirting from place to place with Gitano allowing Piérre to enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of his old stomping grounds... watching with the disinterested blue eye with nary a twitch to indicate any particular feelings on the matter himself.

So many of these places were painful to the boy. Yet, so many of them carried little fragments of his memories--things he used to be. It seemed that the stones themselves carried little slivers of the past that still existed if only preserved in inanimate latticework of mineral and mote. He felt, strangely enough, that if he let his mind wander and silenced the world for just a moment, perhaps he would hear the sound of his own feet dashing past him--the feel of the breeze he produced with his alacrity, the sound of a child without fear of consequences that snapped at the heels.

The sound of a mother calling his name, urging him to return.

Evening came on, and over a sullen dinner where Piérre poked at his portion, Gitano--no longer cowed enough to bear false faces, it seemed--struck the conversation in a different direction. "We have one more place to go, still."

Spaghetti fell off of Piérre's fork. "Oh?" He said, raising an eyebrow but not looking up as he allowed his voice to lilt with attempted intrigue. "I was under the assumption it was going to be back to London tonight."

"We have enough time to return you to King's Cross, if you really are that impatient to return back to your studies." The ringmaster replied sharply. "I have a feeling that this endeavor will be one that intrigues you more than merely being an errand boy."

The boy's tired green eyes flicked up again, cheek still pressed up by his hand and elbow on the table. Eyebrows were still raised, incredulously.

Gitano nodded towards Piérre's plate. "Finish it or leave it. Don't play with your food."

Despite himself, Piérre snorted softly and rolled his eyes. Irony of ironies. Still he did as he was told. It did no good to starve himself in any situation.

The two of them traveled in the early twilight, the sun having just slipped behind the buildings and intending to hide behind the mountains as they slipped through the streets that were clearing themselves of people that could distract or disrupt them. Lamps began to light up now that there was no sunlight to keep them extinguished. Muggle lighting contraptions, little non-magical things that flickered for only a moment when the two magic-wielders brushed past and left them otherwise untouched.

After walking for a few minutes in silence, glancing up and down the streets and the familiar houses on both sides, Piérre spoke up. "Where are we going?" Figaro trotted behind him, sniffing all the way. His suspicions were starting to heighten. "You're vague at the best of times and tend to gaslight at your worst." Calling him out on his own bluff.

Gitano scoffed. "Learning quickly, aren't we?" His pace did not slow or falter. It seemed that this was a familiar trail for him, walked several times to the point of committing its route to memory. "Then it'll perhaps not be best for me to tell you any sort of truth." Piérre's eyes darkened. "So, instead, I will give you information."

They had come to a stop in front of a warmly lit apartment-style tenement with several windows on the bottom story and a few stories high for its troubles, trapped between two other buildings itself so that it was thin and skinny in nature. Gitano took up a position under the streetlamp, leaning against it and seeming to take interest in looking attentively at the building--one of the windows of the bottom floor. Piérre joined, crossing his arms and looking up crossly at him.

The ringmaster nodded to the window. "Your interest lay on the other side of those panes." Eye did not look away. "Because I know what you really wanted out of the trouble you've put yourself through while harassing me." He tipped his head to one side. "And I want to watch, to see in your eyes if you think it was well-worth it."

The boy's expression changed from suspicion to curious suspicion. A thought whittled its way through his mind before he suddenly glanced to the window as the realization slowly began to take hold entirely there. He glanced back to Gitano, who was now looking down at him with furrowed brow and emotionless expressiveness. The window captured green eyes again. "You're not serious."

He only jutted his chin towards it. "I am a liar. If to see is to believe, go and satiate your curiosities."

Although at one time he would not have thought twice about such a thing, the boy found himself hesitating on the heels of his feet: caught between going and staying, to discover the condition of the cat in the box and to allow it to remain a perpetual mystery consigned to the dark of consideration and theoretics. But the desire outstripped the hesitations, and he did cross to the window; a shade that lurked to one side, out of the way of the golden illumination from within.

He looked in on a cozy interior--a simple living room with a love seat, ottoman, and another pair of cushioned armchairs--mantle on the far side, a small hallway off to the side that likely led to a few branching rooms, front door to the right. Fingers traced the windowsill as he leaned in a little bit, watching as a woman--perhaps only a little older than his own adoptive mother would have been if she were still alive today--worked intently on a laptop in one of the chairs.

With a surge of sudden self-consciousness, he slipped away from the pane and ventured closer to Gitano, brows furrowed darkly. "What is your game here?" He demanded. "What is this?"

"No games. Business errand. For me, anyways." He said calmly, watching on. "I'm very careful about these sorts of things."

Despite himself, Piérre felt his blood starting to boil as his face flushed. He had put together the pieces long ago by now and was now ignited with a newfound spite for the man that had caused much of his life to be doomed to unfold the way that it had. "Business errand?!"

Gitano's scowl slowly deepened. The eye turned hard and lightless. "Careful now." He warned. "I do not do this for pleasure." Piérre continued to glare, and the ringmaster continued. "Daniela Bartolini. Part-time worker as a barista. Mundane life, no known magical roots." Piérre's gaze slowly turned back, and he drifted back to the window, watching her again with an intent expression. "Met at the Vinòforum's... concurrent activities."

The boy's fingers dared to trace the windowsill once again, his brows creasing in wonder and curiosity. "A very bold woman." The ringmaster continued, voice indicating no particular interest. "Had nerve enough to track me down as well when she found out that she was positive." Was it the warmth of the room that caused the glass to seem to swirl and magnify slightly? "Perhaps it was because of her youth, that certain possession of incredible conviction in tandem with foolish bravery. Perhaps I was amused." The blond seemed to be considering the memory with a curious roll of his words, as if he could taste the thoughts. "But she would hear nothing else other than to keep them, even if she could not raise them." Something in the way that he said those words chilled the Britalian to the quick. "It was one of few occasions in which I found myself.. blackmailed... in a way. Pressed into a service, if you would. The only time I got my hands... dirty in a matter of this kind. But... as you can suppose... I aim to please."

Piérre was allowed to continue to observe in a momentary silence. "So, you can deduce the rest. We parted ways after that, neither of us wanting anything to do with the other, as can be imagined."

The boy averted his eyes again, still suspicious. "Then why are you here."

"I have... reason... to keep track of old embers."

Movement caught Piérre's eye and he slipped back into the shadow as he watched two young children--young boys perhaps no older than four and six--rush into the room, the older one chasing the younger. Green eyes peered out of the shadows as he watched them gallivant and eventually tumble harshly across the rug in a tangle of limbs and bodies. Almost immediately Daniela was on her feet, rushing to their side and helping them, speaking comfortingly in Italian that was garbled through the glass. Piérre watched.

"Married in '15. She has three older ones, a girl and another two boys. They're in boarding school, thanks to their father's work and influence."

Piérre was frozen there, watching the heartwarming scene unfold while he felt his chest grow heavy in turn. Fingertips pressed on the glass, as if he could part it like the veil of a silver waterfall. A full family. No magic, no separations.

Normalcy.

"She does not remember you."

A knife sunk into the boy's heart. He turned, an expression of pain and confusion unable to be concealed any longer. Words were not needed; he knew that Gitano knew what he thought.

"Do not misunderstand me, she remembers the incident... but she would not remember you, nor would it be in her best interests to." He shrugged. "And, for once, it was not because of a tampering by my hand. She has chosen to forget."

Every heartbeat felt to him to be a ponderous moment, a pain that ached to be put away and boxed up--as he had with so many other moments not unlike this one--but instead chose to compound with so many other sensations of shame and ineptitude that swirled and coalesced into a numbness that spread through the mind and limb. Defeat and lime were well-known and bitter tastes in the Britalian's mouth, but there was something foul about this particular variant that tasted of the salt of hopelessness. "How. Why?" Two questions that came in tandem, two questions that sought clarifying means but so often came up with few or foggy retorts.

"Life has moved on, as it so often does." The cool response as Piérre watched the children play once more. "Chapters end. Fantasies crumble into the chasms of reality. Consequences become real after play. Some have a feeble desire to 'make them right', and thus produce a more knotted and tangled creation than if--simply--they had taken a much more convenient way out."

"Like you."

"I have found that it behooves me to look out for myself first. There's a saying something along the lines of helping yourself before helping others if I'm not mistaken."

"And you hurt anyone in the way of ensuring that?"

"'Hurt' is a strong word. I believe that 'decisively address' much more closely aligns with the sentiment. I spent a few weeks looking for the 'right' place to leave you two that satiated her demands."

Piérre whipped around again. "You?" His mouth dried.

The ringmaster's eye narrowed. "Me."

He agonized a moment, glancing between the window and the light-bathed ringmaster a few meters away. "So what if I wanted to..."

"Talk to her? I wouldn't." A small smile formed on the snakish ringmaster's face. "You could, but I wouldn't if I were you. It could get quite messy quite quickly." The boy's eyes darkened.

"How would you explain such a thing in a situation like hers? A stable life, a family, reconciliation with the choices she made that led to this moment... all to shatter to pieces when the past comes to haunt her again?" Piérre heard condescension thick and heavy in the man's tongue. "I know you quite well, boy, whether you like it or not. You are not that kind of person. Not that breed of bastard."

"I don't think you can begin to imagine how badly I want this." He said softly, hand inches from the window. "You had a family." Brows furrowed. "And you decided how you would love them." Fingers curled into a knock, shivering there in indecision. "I knew my family so little... knowing that I didn't even belong to them." The delicate outpouring of his inner dialogue, he was sure, was landing on deaf ears. Still, he spoke. "But maybe... maybe you'd be wrong. Maybe I would be wrong." His other hand tightened on the windowsill. "What if..."

"Is it a risk you're willing to take?"

Behind him, Gitano leaned against a lamppost with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, haloed in brushed gold that struggled against the shadows of the cobble. He watched Piérre with a leery eye, the brim of his hat shading cerulean and intensifying the darknesses of his face beneath it. "Go ahead. I won't stop you." Came the soft remark. Piérre wasn't sure if he could detect the smallest modicum of... pity in it. "But; be content with the consequences of your actions." With a tilt of his head the brim lowered, and the man's face became entirely shrouded in shadow.

His hand continued to shiver there, his mind emptied of all thought except for the consideration of what might come if he acted once more upon an irrational impulse, impulse that had harmed him so gravely in the past due to his lack of foresight and the unforeseen consequences that came with such deeds. How he hated the uncertainty, the self-doubt. Perhaps another with a different temperament than he would have been able to make the best of this situation, would be able to somehow dictate the outcome of the event with little or no difficulty whatsoever. There were several he could have named that would have--in his situation--knocked without hesitation, would have summoned the woman, their mother, to themselves and introduced themselves as the lost child who had in themselves so much joy in meeting her...

Valentin would have acted without thinking, would have been able to do so without any difficulty. The savior that he was of humanity itself, the pure balm in the form of fractured light and glimmering hope. Perhaps if he were here the boy would have more courage in himself to act upon his desire...

But this devil on his shoulder... the man who knew the darker recesses of the mind and the mire...

His hand shook a while longer, the window shimmering as he fought for control of his own mind again. He could make this choice. He could. It could be a new start for all he knew, somewhere to begin again. Somewhere to start over. Family...

And what of if it came to the crushing conclusion that it would be realized that he was nothing but a child of insignificance? To be so unremarkable in academics, in accomplishment? That he had nothing to offer to this family that he wanted to be a part of? To suddenly crash into a joyful place that he truly had no right in belonging to?

Was it better to be a known failure, whose identity was known and would be remembered or was it better to simply have never been known and to continue onwards in perpetual anonymity to those that he would have otherwise disappointed?

Hand resolved itself, stilled itself. Paused. Opened...

And traced fingers down the window as if it could caress the light and warmth that linger within... before they drifted away and came to rest at his side once more... the shade left to observe from the darkness before nimble feet carried him swiftly away and brushed past the ringmaster who lifted the brim of his hat in wordless response.

His steps were fast and swift, resolute and incapable of being turned despite the scream buried somewhere deep and wounded within. He had made his choice.

He would not destroy another home.

He would not destroy those children's impression of their loving home that they had been fortunate enough to have been born into. They had been lucky. He had not. He had to make do with the life that had been given to him, just as they would with their own.

Gitano lit a cigarette, snuffed the lighter, and watched the home for a while longer as a trail of smoke crept sullenly into the night sky. The boy would return back to their temporary housing. They would return back to London tomorrow. He blinked slowly, his hand tracing under his coat near his breast the impression of a well-worn journal.

Yes... the bastard was ready now, he was certain. The boy had learned something valuable today.

Rolling the cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other, he blew a last gout of the carcinogen into the air from both mouth and nose and then crushed the butt beneath a heel before turning and following after his young protégé. His little experiment was producing intriguing results indeed.

To kill the heart's enfeebling desires is to kill the weakness preventing one from acquiring the keys to unlock true power.

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Statistics: Stamina 7 | Strength 8 | Evasion 18 | Wisdom 12 | Accuracy 16 | ArcPower 9

Abilities:
Keen Eye • Calming Presence • Beast Master [Cat] • Cat's Grace • Animagus • Muggle Condition

Items:
Wand [Yew & Snallygaster Heartstring] | [Violet] Deck of 52 Playing Cards | Soda
Expandable Satchel | [Sharpened] Locksmith's Knife | Phial of Swooping Evil Venom
Starsweeper XXI | Trenchcoat of Sneak | Much Mustachio Ring

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Jesters do oft prove prophets. 𓀚
I am the brother account to Romeo Marchonné & Zyva Hel Fae Skógrwight

11 Nov 2025, 03:06

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Calming Presence in Effect: Figaro Affected

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26 April, 2025
Witching Hour

General Trigger Warning, this is Very Heavy

The angle of the moon placed the glow of silver light outside of the windows of the rental flat, leaving a majority of the rooms dark and navigable only by the faint and dark greenish-teal silhouettes of objects that were barely discernable by green eyes that had grown entirely adjusted to the dark as he drifted spectre-like from the room in which he had been entirely restless and towards the other room where his elder reposed. Fingers wrapped lightly around the doorframe as he leaned soundlessly against it, his cheek pressed to the knuckles on the back of his hand as he made out the window on the far side, the dresser that only had a few bits and bobs on it, the suitcase on the far side of the dresser, the empty closet, and the master bed. He stared at that last item in particular, knowing that though he could not see exactly what lay there, he knew enough to presume. His left hand's thumb tested the mechanism of the fold-blade Damascus steel knife that he had come to use so well, feeling how when he pressed it how the resistance gave slightly--the blade unfolding--before his fingers wrapped around the back of it and closed it once more.

He was certain that there were night creatures outside, though all that he could hear was the hum of muggle devices in the flat itself--and even those were dull and dampened by the pulse and beating of blood in his ears. His eyes were raw, sore. Probably puffy and red if he had any courage to turn on the light and face himself in the mirror of the hallway half-bath. He had, however, no desire to do such a thing. It was a prompt that would likely evoke a nauseous reaction, a violent disgust with himself that would lay him out into a state of self-purging. It was a feeling that went deeper than the disgust of seeing something vile, at least that was a repulsion towards something that was at first glance surface-deep. But when he looked himself in the eye, as Gitano did, there was something more foul than a thing as innocuous and mundane as a dead rabbit's remnants laying torn to shreds by vehicles and animals on the side of the road. The rot, as he had known--as he had always known--was simply engrained in his person. If not because of the root from which he had been grown, then because of the branches he had blossomed. Beautiful they were, perhaps, those grand and twisting bravados that produced fantastic flower and voluminous leaves green as spring; but poisonous were they all. Leaf, branch, root...

Fruit.

Allowing himself to spiral so deeply into pits of the pendulum's despair had left him with a violent headache, one that left him struggling to corral his own thoughts for longer than a microcosm before they were dashed to pieces with an errant flicker of truth that reminded him that such loathing was something that was correct for him to feel. He was not worthy of reconciliation: he had proven such a thing in his inability to so much as set foot into reality and the historic presentations of his episodic expressions of psychosis that isolated himself from any kind of human nicety. He was, upon the face of his own species, the leprosy.

And, of course, so was Gitano. In his own corrupt and underworldly way, of course. They differed in presentation, for indeed the elder was the unseen cancer in the blood, but they were both simply made for each other in their mutually shared inability to integrate with the genteel presentations of the masquerade of ties and suits. They were the unmasqued pariahs of the mad Venetian presentation, the ones who externally displayed the befouled inner faces of those who expressionlessly sneered behind porcelain intended to disguise their slathering teeth and tongues. At some point, both of their masques had broken. When it was that Gitano's had been removed or shattered Piérre knew he would likely never know, but as he had reflected more and more... he realized that his had been cracked and chipped for a while before its eventual erosion and destined crumbling had finally come to entirely pass.

And yet, he wondered why it was that despite his best attempts to piece it back together again--to take those largest pieces and to neatly and put a concerted effort towards veneering the missing inner scraps--it was always the cracks that were noticed first, that were sneered at once more, and that immediately judged him worthy of being relegated to irredeemability, rumor, scandal. Unworthy of second chance. Societal cancer to be cut out and disposed of.

So, perhaps they were correct after all.

It had started out as a strange little knack of his, how quietly he was capable of moving on his feet, a slight and slim shadow as soundless as ink in the act of diluting water with brilliantly dark swirls and curves as it settled throughout with a finality and a greyness that loomed and lurked, miring the transparency--the clarity. Now he had found that it was a talent, a subconscious skill that transformed into an active ability; one that had taken him to the far side of the room, to the head of the bed so that he looked down at the probable man that lay there. The knife in his hand had now somehow found its blade inexplicably open.

Leprosy. Cancer. Both of them defacing, both of them foul. The impression in his mind's eye, the imprint of the sight of their faces seared into memory only heightened the tightness in his throat somewhere at the jugular, an untastable, flavorless something caught there refusing to make its way up or permit itself to be swallowed down due in part to the heavy feeling of the rest of his body from the shoulders down. He had walked away. But had he walked away?

Lightless and moonless meant that the way that the dappled blade hung in the air produced neither glow nor gleam as a coldness flooded his chest, a rush of energy mingled with the thrill of horrors beyond his own comprehension. Was this where he stood? This place and this time and in such a position of confused assuredness that made trembling hand shiver upon the tang. Invisible edge visible only in the mind's eye of his own ability to comprehend his spatial awareness flickered with wavering bravery. Here he was. Here He was.

Ora lasciami trafiggerlo con un solo colpo di lancia; non lo colpirò una seconda volta.
Now let me pierce him with a single blow of the spear; I will not strike him a second time.

Sightlessly, he stared into the darkness, knowing only where his hand was and where its mark would lay. It would be instant, as the moment flashed behind his eyes--his mind capturing his thoughts and carrying his wits upon them all caught up in an instant. How many? How many people had he hurt?

How many people had He hurt?

How many would be revenged? How many would revel in the unknown justice that would be delivered? What horrors would linger in the mind, or what collective and unified sigh of relief would be breathed from the rest of the entourage as the final breath's moment passed at last? The taste of blood tainted his tongue as his teeth pierced his own lower lip, holding back the scream that had reignited its terrible passions ever since he had left from his mother's home. Deep, cutting, only by the will of the pain was there no further injury to be made. The back of his throat had closed up out of disgust and out of a need to prevent the outcry from manifesting in aural aspect--lest he disturb the delicate operation.

Non sappia la tua sinistra ciò che fa la tua destra.
Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.

Right hand clapped itself against the fingers of his left, steadying the shaking hover as his brows creased and his face twisted into a deep grimace. His chest was aching, burning, heart racing. Cheeks were cold, the warm tears having cut their way victoriously down His cheekbones to drip from his chin. Bravery. Reckless bravery.

Wasn't that what he was supposed to be? Wasn't that what he had been told that he was supposed to be? Was this brave? Was this bold enough? Was this heroic enough? Enough to earn an epitaph? Enough to be remembered in glory, or at least for his folly? Was it enough to ensure his name was recalled in the horrors of imagination, of memory? The time to act? The moment in which to strike while the iron, the metal taste in his mouth, burned hot? His heart quivered in him, his hands tightened about themselves and the tang as his legs lost all feeling.

Such disappointment in their eyes. No hatred: only cold resentment. As far as it was concerned, he was dead to them. He no longer was physical in their own realm, relegated to a fate worse than geisthood. To see and be unseen--to feel and be untouchable, unregardable. Unworthy. Worthless as they rose ever higher above the rabble while he sank into the quags. A Hell of his own making was all the punishment that had been needed to be laid upon him--he would destroy himself for want of the love, for the misplaced passions of his blind trust, affections, friendship... all on his own. A clean execution. Pure hands, guiltless heart. Poetic. Brilliant. Fitting.

Why had he not thought of it for himself?

Biceps fought triceps, right denied left. The scene when the light came in the cool brilliance of fantastic dawn? Nothing out of the ordinary despite that of intermittent tragedy that would be spoken of for a few weeks, looked into, and then disposed of. Lack of names, identification, would lead enforcement nowhere. A freak case; a hit, perhaps. Why? It would likely be theorized and filed away--tied up in a neat bow and then shuffled off. Nothing left to be done.

A beautiful death.

Noé's sketch, with his carefully gentle voice, whispered as a feather-blade, slicing thoughts to ribbons. The image, the prophetic guess--the gut instinct manifesting into the physical. Was this what he had guessed at? What he had seen? Two forces locked in perpetual combat, neither one able to defeat the other--not fully. Each would loathe the other, each would seek to destroy the other, not because of how dissimilar their natures were in comparison but instead because of how alike they were--how much one saw themselves in the other. Ouroboros of malice, perpetuus of victorless triumph.

So, then, if one was destroyed--then the other simply had to follow. Thus did the matter make sense of itself.

Was the price worth the outcome? The cost in blood, in vanished life. Chapters ended, storied closed, feuds choked out by steel and silence. In the kaleidoscope of potentials, of half-moments, half-lives, there he stood in the middle of it all--refracted and broken as like a thousand shards of glass. Peace in the sudden end, but so many frayed strings left hanging, abandoned, troubled. Unable to be healed evermore. So few of them he had, but still... Those few, the remaining, the thought that in the impulsive moment...

Like a bolt of lightning, he staggered back and released the blade--it landed with a dull sound on the carpet, missing the laquered wood flooring, soundlessly gasping for breath as he shrank against the window and clung to the windowsill as if the blade by an invisible tether would force his hand back upon its handle and compel him to complete the work he had been moment from executing. Misty eyes forced themselves to gaze outside the window as silver stones illuminated the white trick of light that was alabaster skin--downy snow hair and shards of amethyst that looked upon him with nothing but warmth and the deepness of the universe itself. There was no void, no coldness of nothingness unfiltered and raw--no matter how much this phantom had told him that he was manifest of. On the contrary, if he thought himself a manifest of antimatter, the tormented spirit in the survivor in the window knew that he was instead matter most extreme--he was the everything that was touchable, incredible and untouchable by nature of its intensity.

He squeezed his eyes closed as he slid down the wall to the ground, and there was fire red--brilliant fire and blue eyes. Athenian grey eyes. Blue eyes lined with amber, altered by a curse. Loved. Beloved all. How quickly would he have thrown arms around all if he would not have been condemned for it, how quickly he would have held them to his chest and begged them to never slip away, to let him stay. To stay...

Stay...

Oh God, he wanted to stay. His face was buried in his hands, tears smeared across his face, trying to find the thin silver thread so that he could tangle his fingers about it. This could not be the answer, and if it was one it was not the right one. To kill a devil he could not become a devil, and in weakness of his action there came relief and shame. Never brave enough. Never bold enough. Cowardly, hopeless.

Too much a coward to take even the coward's way out.

Exhausted, his eyes opened again, mind spinning with the faces and the memories that he clung to as lifeline. They fell upon the trunk. There was a pause. Consideration.

Wordless, soundless, the knife re-entered his hand and he slunk to it. The lock was tried with the bladetip--magic imbued in the item caused the mundane work to open, to allow the boy access to the contents. He knew there was something in here as well. Something precious as well, something that he had wanted: something he had wondered at. A book.

Moving aside shirts, one in his hand was heavier than the others, and with a rapidity, he removed and unfolded it, feeling leather under his fingertips as sight could not confirm what it was that he believed he had in his hands. He had, however, seen it in the daylight before, and knew what the texture was supposed to feel like under his hands despite having never touched it. The book was leather, slightly unremarkable besides the fact that its cover was hand-crafted. It was a thick tome, but not obnoxiously so--able to be fit in an inner pocket with ease even without the assistance of something like the shrinking charm.

The knife was tucked back into his pocket, the humming resonance of the moments before still clinging to him thick and heavy as spectral chains that had hellish intent to pin and bind. These would drag behind him, perhaps, but it was at least his ability to bear them. Sniffling softly, he took a shivering and shaking breath, and then got to his feet so as to flicker to the doorway, curl the fingernails of his right hand into the doorframe lightly with the knowledge of the opportunity and tragedy that he had chosen to pass up, and hugged the book closer to his chest.

His hand left the doorframe, and his feet carried him swiftly back to the safety of his own room, where Figaro had been scratching with anxious paws (out of being well-trained enough to not reveal claws to the door) until he had returned. The book was hidden in his own trunk, buried at the very bottom where retrieving it by both magical and mundane means would prove at least remarkably difficult, and he would be left laying sleepless in his bed and staring at the ceiling.

While he believed that he would not be able to sleep, it seemed that emotional exhaustion had other plans, and with raw eyes and weary heart... a troubled sleep that dropped him into blissful dreamlessness would overtake him at last.

Dawn was coming--the sun. Light.
And it was through the Darkness that he had passed, a trial of fire never to depart from him fully.

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Statistics: Stamina 7 | Strength 8 | Evasion 18 | Wisdom 12 | Accuracy 16 | ArcPower 9

Abilities:
Keen Eye • Calming Presence • Beast Master [Cat] • Cat's Grace • Animagus • Muggle Condition

Items:
Wand [Yew & Snallygaster Heartstring] | [Violet] Deck of 52 Playing Cards | Soda
Expandable Satchel | [Sharpened] Locksmith's Knife | Phial of Swooping Evil Venom
Starsweeper XXI | Trenchcoat of Sneak | Much Mustachio Ring

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Jesters do oft prove prophets. 𓀚
I am the brother account to Romeo Marchonné & Zyva Hel Fae Skógrwight