you die at the hands of the person you love most. maybe there are tears in their eyes as they drive the sword into your chest. maybe there is none. there are certainly tears in yours. your mouth will open to ask 'why' only to spit blood instead. you will die never knowing if they loved you at all. wondering if you could've done something to prevent this. or if it was always going to end this way.
Talon stands quietly in the doorway. Lacking the words, when Marcus notices him he merely holds up a bottle of wine and two glasses in a silent offer.
Blunt nails dig into the blademaster's temple mores than cradling his face, as he pretends that he can still contemplate the work before him. Retiring to his study for the majority of the day, his attempt to keep all distractions at bay to focus on the ever flowing paperwork had been a naรฏve plan. But to retreat from his self-made enclosure now would be forfeit to an enemy he didn't respect.
The few straggling documents left were more trouble than they were worth, and Marcus would bet that, once looked over, they could be discarded and rejected. The light of the sky had completely dissapeared now, leaving an inky view in every window without curtains drawn; ever for such a dry, heated day, this remained few.
To counter this, the doors that created the boundary of his private quarters has been left ajar, although none who skulked the premises thought it wise to test his patience.
Unless they knew exactly what he needed.
"Enter, Talon."
Hoarse from it's lack of use, the master assassin's voice calls out without him looking up from his busywork. How heartwarming those light, cautious steps were. Only once that threshold is passed does Marcus release his hold on his crown, and meet his pupil with green eyes of pride; and relief, at the gift in tow.
"What a keen mind you have." The weight constricted to his shoulders lifted at the wordless proposal, he rises to abandon his desk, and find comfort in the lounging chairs beside one another, performatively offering Talon the other as he passes it. The worn leathers embrace him with a grunt, and absorb the last of his tension. If one knew the difference between a squint and the eyes smiling, the notorious general's could also be understood.
With glasses poured, the Du Couteau patron takes up his glass in a small cheers, before taking in the drink's aroma. Ironwater, in origin. It's coastal soil bringing a salty tinge to it's otherwise sweetness. And far harder to procure with it's growing popularity as an export to Piltover.
Enjoyed in their comfortable silence that Marcus has grown accustomed to, eyelids grow heavy for a moment longer than he would otherwise have around anyone else. Nursing his drink, a fond but choice memory of the urchin he had dragged into his home scampering away from any time more than necessary spent in his presence comes to mind, and brings with it a humourful exhale.
And how glad he his that such times have changed.
"We can have something a little stronger, next we do this." He watches his protรฉgรฉ, for their reaction to his words, for their enjoyment of the drink, and if there was anything troubling their young mind. Always more than simply a glance.
"It will be good for you to grow a taste for more fineries we can indulge in, together."
Taking the opportunity to talk a bit about my post-comic verse marcus since. I haven't yet oops u.u
The cost for the elusive darkness is not one Marcus fully contemplated at the time. He was desperate, and running out of time when he decided to make the deal with the Pale Lady. And he believed this was a one-way mission.
Forged in his heart, the magic itself will not let him rest until his oath is completed. No matter how battered the physical form may get, his spirit is bound to the magic. Banished from death, you could say.
The black ichor that has overtaken his eyes and stained his cheeks channels through the rest of his body too, mixed with what remains of his blood. It obscures him from scrying magic, and specifically demonic vision. And now, not only is Marcus difficult to spot and keep an eye on physically, he will no longer register as living. Forced to stand with the power of the Pale Lady's influence, he carries out whatever is seen fit of him, to close in on fulfilling his oath.
His body is cold to the touch, and he no longer needs to eat or drink.
Talon isn't sure what he expected. Something like what a soldier could look forward to, perhaps โ barracks, a schedule, nutritious yet boring food. Thus far, Marcus has spoken plainly, clearly โ he'd like Talon to live with him, in this impossibly luxurious house, to minimized wasted time. Of course, Talon can understand that. He's spent plenty of time sleeping closer to his target so that he doesn't have to spend so much time travelling. So that he's exactly where he needs to be to take them out.
It doesn't make it any easier to understand.
He feels incongruous. It makes him nervous, standing in the foyer of a building he doesn't know yet. It feels like he's about to be jumped, or tricked. His eyes flicker to Marcus' hand as it reaches out, and it's with a great deal of effort that he holds himself still โ taut as a bowstring waiting to strike. Talon allows himself to touch, even though it makes him feel like there's bugs under his clothes even after Marcus takes his hand away.
He's going to have to get used to that, he thinks.
It shouldn't be a surprise, then, when Marcus goes straight for his throat โ though this time it's only with words. Talon's teeth press together so hard they hurt, and his eyes stare through the mess of his bangs like an animal backed into a corner by a predator. The silence drags, and Talon tracks every click and hiss in the house before he finally says, "A family." It's grated out, like each word pains him, like the words are so rusty they need to be pushed out. "I barely remember them."
Before granted an answer, Marcus wonders if he had made a mistake at all. If someone in the slums of Prime was wondering where their little boy had wandered off to now, and if he was ever going to come back home to their squalor.
Even so, it would be a simple explanation of taking the boy in as a student of his craft, and all would be understood.
But Talon's curt explanation lets his shoulders relax, and the blademaster nods definitively.
"This will be a fresh start, then."
He moves once more, with gloves removed Marcus brings them together and places them with his abandoned coat.
"The water takes time to heat, let alone fill the entire tub. Lets have a brief tour of the estate. I'll show you the general rooms, tell you where you can and cannot go, if we have time then the training ground outside. Along with other rules for your own safety." Knowing full well he would be watching the boy like a hawk means his smile does not falter for a moment. Marcus means to let him wander on his own accord later, once he believes there will be no escape attempts, destructive episodes, or armoury ransacking.
Stops at the urchin's side again (making sure not to touch him again, now his skin was exposed) Marcus gestures vaguely to the hallways and staircases that lead further into the home.
"With all going well, I want you to consider this your home from now on, Talon. For resting, training, and security."
The explosion of a Wolf's Maw was extravagant. A formidable foe to all; from the most armoured of bodies to the most fortified structure. And from his research, should just as easily destroy a human puppet to a demon, as it would any other being of flesh and blood.
Battered and bruised, he had to arm the explosive early. He would never admit that his daughter had gotten the better of him, no matter the facts facing him down with hatred and validated confidence. When had she gotten to sure of heart without him? When had she gotten those blasted blades bonded to her blood? When had he dropped....
The Maw had detonated. It was so powerful, but it was also stifled by... by a demonic power. Descending from the skies the monster had appeared despite his cloaking magic. The explosion wasn't stopped, it had just been... redirected.
Marcus remembers now. How could he have forgotten? The pain was a thousand teeth ripping through him and a blaze curling his skin. It had been too much, too unbearable. He had been engulfed by the Wolf.
He had died.
Black-stained eyes roll open, the expected nothingness not being met with. Dull candlelight casts long shadows over the brick walls surrounding him, and the cloaked figures that stumble back from him are cast in darkness even without his sight still adjusting. Muffled, rushed voices speak above him as the assassin tries to reach for a weapon to face these strangers, only to feel nothing when he tries to move an arm. Or when he attempts to sit up. Gasping for breath was a rasp that lead to no reception.
Marcus' rising panic is not slow to take root, and the gallons of blood suddenly showered over him only grows it exponentially. But with it his head fully rises from its placement on the stone floor, rasping breaths choking down more blood than he would ever want to ingest. Worse still, he feels no need to cough it back up to clear his lungs. Strands dripping wet splay across his face as he looks about him with sudden clarity.
Before him was the charred remains of a body supposedly his own, seeing that it lay below his neck. Now covered in red lifeforce as it dripped over him and pooled between the glowing pattern he lay upon, it was clearly the aftermath of what he has a faint memory of... Some kind of explosion? Square in his chest with less radius damage the further down one went. Something black jittered in the remains of his ribs with false life, held in place with branching tendrils.
As the blood seeped into his remains, crude flesh and bone knits together. It encases the blood that coagulates together into shapes he has seen from diagrams, and falling out of particularly cruel slashings he had personally caused. Frozen in unbelieving horror watching this unfold, it takes several panicked breaths before he musters the will to tear attention away, up toward those working on him.
Weathered features watch Marcus intently from behind crimson spectacles, his splayed fingers guiding the bubbling, glowing fluid surrounding the body, sometimes reaching in or on the regrowing body with little concern for his patient's thoughts.
On the blademaster's other side was a finely aged woman, features tightly knitted and matching her high collared attire beneath her voluminous hood. Content with the book in her hands it is closed as she approaches the two men again.
Glasses catch a glint of candlelight as the Hemomancer looks to her with amazement, lips parting beneath his white beard.
"Did you see that just now?! How is he conscious before we-" His questioning is silenced with a raised hand with long, pointed nails, before her rich voice warns him,
"Now is not the time, Doctor."
Eyes framed with a deep layer of makeup are cast down as she kneels beside Marcus. The hand raised before now grabs firmly onto what is left of his jawline, burned flakes crunching beneath her grasp as she makes sure the corpse's attention is on her.
"if you can understand me you must remain still. You are not ready to move-"
A hand more bone than flesh clumsily grabs at the neckline of her cloak. halting her words with an offended scoff. More specks of charred flesh fall away with each movement of the limb as it tries bringing her closer to the former General to little avail. A garble of noise seeps out of where his mouth once was. The cold eyes that meet his hold no fear, only surprise at his agility even in this half-made state.
But this stalemate is short lived; the red light brightens and takes ahold of the corpse, freezing him in place. Released from his grasp, the woman makes space rising to her feet as Marcus's arm and head are forced by the magic to lower again, dusting his ash off of her ruby velvet,
"You will have to wait for your tongue to return to you. Now lay still." She finishes with grey brows furrowing.
The regrowing offal encased in the charred skin was nearly complete, squirming into place. Even without the sense of feeling, watching it happen for too long spins the blademaster's mind. A thoughtful sigh escapes the doctor as his work continues, talking again over Marcus to his companion.
"I do wish you had let me bring him to the apothecary, Lady Noradi. For study, full examination, and all my equipment." She pauses in her busywork, eyes turning skyward in brief thought before returning to the makeshift work table of boxes and barrels on the other side of the room.
"It was an emergency."
The doctor is sent away with promises of giving him the body for later examinations, and a quickly closed door encouraging his exit with his books and equipment bundled beneath arms. Lady Noradi is still at the door a moment, Marcus strewn over the drying sigil, his regenerated chest heaving. What was left scarred and burned was originally his, but the patches of skin that was completely eviscerated and now replaced is fresh, smooth and sickly pale.
Focusing on his breathing - now that he had whole lungs again - hadn't been helping as he expected. For one, no matter the speed he inhaled, the beating in his 'heart' did not change in tempo. Even when he held his breath, it was concerning how long it was until he thought to start up again in case he fell out of consciousness. Secondly, he cannot push aside the feeling of remembering how this all exactly occurred. He had been there, seen it with his own eyes, and he knew what happened to him. Knew who had been present.
So why couldn't he remember the moment of his death?!
And thirdly, the sense of smell had been recovered. The stink of smoke and burning flesh filled his nose and mouth.
The other person in the room lurks back into his view from on the ground, but from beneath the hood he is no longer met with that aged face and her white, tied up hair. Dark strands cut to a fine edge framing elegant features face down at him now, marveling at him with a humourful smirk.
"Well, aren't you looking a sight better now than when they brought you in. Almost as handsome as you were alive." Barely keeping laughter down at her own 'joke', a pallid hand beneath Lady Noradi's robes rises to hide her dark lips pulled into a grin.
He recognises the voice as it chills his veins. The blademaster struggles to rise to a seat, palms of new and charred flesh alike meeting the floor tentatively as he supports his weight. Harboured breaths draw Marcus' gaze downward, his new attempt to speak with lips and tongue to assist each word exhaled is legible, if coarse.
"What's.... happened... Why-"
Eyes stained black meet the face of the illusionist now directly in front of him. The realisation almost sends him back to the ground as he meets her dark eyes staring directly through him.
"You have an oath to keep, Marcus. Death will not deliver you from your promise to me."
The thing in his chest reacts to her words; yearning to complete its purpose. The curse had worked, to its credit. Only his incompetence and underestimation of Katarina had led to all of this. But anger sparked in Marcus' throat, realising he had agreed to terms he never knew existed.
The Pale Lady straightens her posture, a waggling finger presented.
".. Getting yourself torn to shreds isn't going to be helpful, either. It's rather troublesome to bring down reliable Hemomancers just to rebuild you. Try not to make a habit out of it just because you defy death itself for now. I might not bother patching you up next time." A dismissive wave announces her back being turned. Frustration clamps his teeth tightly as Marcus strains to raise a leg, and an arm struggles to land on the knee of his pants.
"You... tricked-"
A thoughtful finger taps against pressed lips as she hums in his ear. She appears again, a double-take revealing she had vanished from being directly in front of the assassin. Something definitely cracks as Marcus turns to face her.
"You always see your jobs through, don't you? But we'll have to scheme a little longer before you go embarrassing yourself again. Don't worry, we'll find something for you to do in the meantime." A sickly sweet smile is offered, and it the most terrifying expression Marcus has ever seen. Lips upturned and pulled wide as the rest of her expression is perfectly still; the lack of folding skin or even a wrinkle makes her look unreal.
Her attention is drawn to the door as if she heard a knock, and instinctively Marcus follows, seeing her by the door with an entirely different look than what she had been wearing a mere blink ago. A hand donned in a lace, black glove is raised to her hear, listening through the door theatrically. As if only remembering the thought now, a soft gasp leaves The Pale Lady as she turns her gaze upon the corpse struggling still to stand, hand placed against the handle.
"Your wife is worried sick over your condition, you know. Let's make you at least partially presentable to her. For her sake."
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