He had just turned 25 when he was sent to Ashbourne Penitentiary. It was the sort of place one cannot explain. But it’s hard to forget it. Constantine’s cell had been cold and empty, with a stone floor and stone walls. The window too high for him to reach, but sometimes he could smell the rain outside, frigid and forbidding. The first week he paced, sometimes waiting for rescue, sometimes determined to escape himself. He found a piece of loose rock and carved the days onto the walls, the floor, anywhere which might receive his rambling occupation. He didn’t know where his sister was, that bond which had been so firm since infancy had suddenly been severed, and she could have been in the cell next to his or a thousand miles away. He counted the stones which made up his imprisonment, getting close to five hundred, and wondering how long it would take him to go mad from sheer boredom. Each day seemed to take an eon, and with his constant pacing he would thought he’d soon wear grooves into the stone floor. There were seven days of that, seven lines carved persistently beneath his window. Then they came, and he lost all awareness of time.
Now that he thought of it, he was not sure why it took them so long to find him, they were the sort of creatures that no one could understand. If they had motives, they were lost upon him. Perhaps they took pity upon him. Or maybe they simply had more souls to torture than they had time for. It is said wraiths feed on someone’s soul until they have drank them all dry, and all that is left is a mind filled with the torment of all their sins. He could not really describe it. But he did remember feeling very cold, his breath would echo in front of him whenever they passed by, and by that he knew that they were coming once again. If they stole his memories he couldn’t tell you but whatever it accomplished it left him muddled and half-mad.
Days bled into one another, and he often slept like a man suddenly put into a coma. No longer felt bored, or if he did, he could not remember it, and it was as if his whole life were placed upon scraps of parchment suddenly thrown the wind. It was so jumbled he hardly knew who he was, or why he was there. Even if he had his magic returned to him, he wouldn’t have known what to do with it. The whole universe was encompassed by that cell, the bland food fed through a door so he never saw any human contact, and the constant visits of the wraiths. The name Constantine Vogel was carved upon his cell wall but at the end of it he wasn’t even sure if that was his name, or somebody else’s.
And now he was out, vomited into the world after spending almost a decade in the bowel of the beast. The mark carved into his wrist as a reminder that he was, by all intents and purposes, castrated. If they thought he would simply continue with his existence as a mere mortal then they had another thing coming. A call to the right person was all he needed. Well, in this case a text message since a one sided conversation would be pretty fucking pointless. Simple request. Marius, it’s Vogel. I’m out. Let’s have a drink. My place.
And that was where he was. In his childhood home. The Vogel estate stood in the outskirts of town like a carcass that had been left to rot. Strangely fitting. Was not long before he heard the knock on the door. No electricity for him to have a doorbell yet. Constantine made his way down the stairs and opened the heavy door coming face to face with Marius, who - to his surprise - wasn’t alone. Maybe he should have specified. “Marius, nice to see you again. Who’s your friend?” @selenebellona @quietmagics
The fact of the matter was this: When Selene put her mind to it, she was quite good at portraying herself as an insolent child. Calling him an old man, pushing fashion choices and technology on him that he had no desire or need for... well. It was an annoyance. She had her good qualities, of course, that was made clear by the fact that he kept her around at all. She was young, not yet settled in to her full abilities, but she would. In time. And in time suffering through the rest of this would be worth it.
Some of her seemingly useless tirades had actually worked out for the better, at least. The phone, for example- he’d resisted for a long time, until she’d taken matters in to her own hand. He’d refused to use it out of pure spite, at first, but begrudgingly he’d come to see it as a useful tool. The texting bit, at least, though he would have just as soon not allowed people any more means of contacting him than strictly necessary. There were still times when he questioned whether or not it was worth it- but this wasn’t one of them.
The Vogel twins were a pair that Marius found quite interesting, indeed. All too often the Seer was apt to look down on his fellow witches, irate while they squandered their abilities. If you were born with a gift, the least you could do was appreciate it. He would always view his own magic and the path he’d taken as being on a level above all the rest, but he’d always had an interest in necromancy, in any of the darker arts. An appreciation for it.
He hadn’t realized they were being released, so recieving a request to meet came as a pleasant surprise. A drink, lovely. He’d go, of course he would. Selene had been with him when he’d recieved the text. He’d considered going alone- had very nearly done so- but what an opportunity this presented. A test. She seemed to cling to the light, most of the time. Kept herself held up to her golden ideals, but Marius didn’t think she was cemented there. He believed she could be guided past that barrier that kept so many of their kind from reaching their true potential, so he’d invited her along. A drink with an old friend, he’d told her. A rather flowery way of putting it, but it had done the trick. She’d followed him along to the Vogel’s old home.
A decade did make a world of difference but Constantine seemed well, all things considered. He supposed etiquette would have dictated sending the man a warning that he wouldn’t be arriving alone, but Marius had possessed little interest both in such a notion and with granting him the opportunity to raise an argument. ‘Hello, Constantine,’ He signed. ‘Good to see you as well. This is Selene. She is a Seer too.’ A pause, and he offered a short smile. ‘Don’t worry. She is bound by oath to keep my secrets.’ Magically, of course. He didn’t expect such a distinction would have to be made aloud in his present company.