#cain's fc

[thefreelanceangel]

[thefreelanceangel]

Displeased did not adequately sum up his feelings. 

Cain was thoroughly familiar with a wide range of extremely unpleasant emotions. He’d felt all of them throughout a lengthy life and dealt with them, and the situations that created them. Even when they were repetitive—and they always were—Cain handled everything as it came. 

...but this was a level of ironic that was almost physically painful. 

Her hair was dyed, and she was... likely in her mid-twenties by now. Beneath her Priory Explorer gear, he saw glimpses of black leather, and he’d noticed her slipping away from the populated areas more than once, hair pulled back in a hasty ponytail. 

For him, however, there was no mistaking her. Or that face that was so eerily like her mother’s.

Not when he had looked into those eyes as the light faded from them and gone on a nigh-mad search for the newborn child that had been nowhere in sight. 

Cain admitted to himself that he’d been careless. He should’ve hunted for Hamish rather than burying Kamilla. He should have gone searching for any signs of the possibly living newborn rather than assuming that the drakes had gotten to it. 

And that carelessness was now coming back to bite him in the ass. 

...what a surprise. 

There was no simple solution to this. He knew that. And Cain didn’t delude himself with pleasant lies. Although he’d spotted the Leours twins and considered lurking in the area to keep an eye on them, this was something that couldn’t wait. 

And... it was personal. 

For once, he was going to put a personal matter above what he considered business, and find out exactly what Hamish had done to give the girl that look in her eyes. 

[thefreelanceangel]

A rose for any character

🌹… a confession.

“There are many, many times that I consider the wisdom of living the way I do. For as long as I have. And when I come to Idike after a period of absence, I am grateful for her kindness, her companionship and her passion. But I remember the days when my heart belonged wholly to another and miss the sensation of such fire in my veins.”

[thefreelanceangel]

When he’d realized his immediate impulse was to snap Kaethe von Blau’s neck, Cain knew he had to get away from the problems that he was continually cleaning up. 

It wasn’t the girl’s fault and he knew that. But the urge to clean up the entire affair with a single, quick motion had become strong enough that Cain had left Garrenhoff without even pausing to check in with Hesperia. 

...there had been a bit too much stress of late, and he was able to manage it quite well unless something struck a little too close to home. 

And watching Kaethe cry into a shirt while knowing full well that she was mourning something that’d only existed in her imagination was a little too close to home. 

So he left, and quickly. Made his way to Ascalon without pause and didn’t bother to change his coat when he stepped through the asura gate into Ebonhawke. Cain slowed long enough to make a quick purchase of creamy lilies and a few mingling crimson roses before he strode through the city to a door he knew very well.

He had, after all, bought and paid for the door and the house it was set in. 

With a series of firm knocks, the Elonian let out a slow breath and physically shook himself. It was a quick gesture, but one that let him push aside everything that had been and still bothered him. Idike deserved more courtesy than to have a cranky guest arrive at her door, and he would do her that courtesy.

[thefreelanceangel]

They didn’t see him coming.

...but, then again, no one ever did. 

Picture perfect, the twins stood side-by-side on the balcony, silent and motionless. They were mirror images of each other, identical reflections, and their expressions echoed that. It was easy enough, for Cain at least, to tell that it was deliberate. 

And that they were both deeply gleeful about what they thought would take place on the morrow. 

Liesle’s message had indicated haste; Cain had wasted no time in reaching Garrenhoff. Nor in locating the address that Burgess von Blau had owned for many years, empty until recent weeks when he had arrived with his niece, the melancholy Kaethe von Blau. 

Josef Wachenfeld’s fiancée. The former vessel for Jacintha zu Reiter. Last of her family and as dismayed as anyone with sanity would have been at the strange turn of events that Cain had witnessed from the outset. 

He exhaled slowly, drawing no attention to himself, and silently wondered if perhaps Nathan Beaumont hadn’t gotten off very, very lightly. He had quite a bit to answer for, that boy, and whatever fathering Slate Carter was doing to him was more than he deserved. 

...perhaps he’d drop by Claypool after this was handled and see how the new ‘Ethan’ was doing. Exchange pleasantries with Slate and his wife, Gwena. See their sons and avail himself of the simple pleasures of country hospitality. 

Well... After he saw Idike, that was. 

Cain wasn’t worried about letting his mind wander. The twins weren’t Wachenfelds; they were no trouble to track if they chose to meander away from the view of the sea. Both seemed disinclined to move, however, and he wondered how much of that had to do with Hesperia Sigenheim’s presence in the house. 

His grin was nearly visible. That diminutive albino was certainly one of his favorite people. He would have to torment her a bit before leaving. 

First things first. 

Liesle had specified that she wanted it to look ‘natural,’ and that offered a wide range of options. It was a childish impulse, he admitted, to make it dramatic and elaborate, to make a statement of sorts with the disposal of the Kronecker twins. But that would draw unwanted attention to the household, and a single glance in the window at Kaethe had told Cain just how bad of an idea that would be. 

The necromancer nearly laughed to himself, wondering just what would come of that complication.

He shifted his weight a bit and let his grip on his life energy slip long enough to remove a hand from the stone. Clinging like a spider was something he’d learned years prior--many years prior--and it took little effort, but it was something better suited to an elementalist and his hands ached now and then, these days. Cain shook his hand, flexed his fingers and looked up at the matching sets of booted toes above him. 

There was no one on the balcony with the twins, and that was good. 

There was no one on the surrounding balconies, and that was what had kept him motionless for the past half hour. Cain needed people to witness the twins’ abrupt end--a “natural” death was pointless without witnesses--and he was going to be highly irritated if the twins went back into the house just as someone else emerged from a different door. 

One of the minions he’d stationed on the rough cliff wall obeyed his unspoken command, clambering upward towards a jutting balcony. It had no trouble getting over the railing, nor in finding a grip on the table set so tidily for an evening meal in the fresh sea air. With a flailing jerk of its small, bony body, the minion clamped teeth down on the edge of the table and hurled itself to the side, pulling the table over, scattering the dishes across the flagstones with a cacophony of shattering china. 

The noise covered the shriek of the minion imploding as Cain released his hold on the life energy holding it together, and it exploded into a gout of greyish dust that the sea breeze caught and carried away. 

As he’d hoped, the commotion not only brought a maid running from the house, but caught the twins’ attention. They turned as one--he saw the slight hesitation as one waited to read the other’s body movements before mirroring them--and lifted their feet to walk to the other end of the balcony. 

That was all he needed. 

With a single, sudden lunge, Cain rose over the edge of the railing and caught each of them by their tidily knotted cravats. There was only a split second to savor the shock on their faces, the way they lost all composure at being so handled. And then he wrenched them forward, hurling them outward and letting himself fall with them. 

It was dark enough that he would be unseen by the maid whose scream told Cain that she saw what appeared to be the two boys jumping to their deaths. And although he wasn’t looking forward to the impact on the rocks below, it was profoundly satisfying to see how their eyes bulged as the air whipped at their clothing. How they tried to scream and failed due to his hands still maintaining contact, still holding onto their life energy, still keeping their throat muscles locked. 

Pain was not a brief red flare across Cain’s eyes but a burst of white stars that blinded him momentarily, and he couldn’t hear the crash of the waves over the sound of his own bones shattering. 

The necromancer gasped for air, coughed out blood and clamped his jaws against a scream as broken ribs gouged at his lungs. One hand, numb and smeared with blood, fumbled at the pendant hanging around his neck. Cain felt the surf tugging at his body and gratefully let it pull him away from the rocks. 

Fingertips brushed his face as the water rocked him, but there was no life left in the hand that dangled over the jagged edge of the boulder. Wolfric Kronecker’s head was a wreck of bone fragments and brains. Varick Kronecker lay beside his brother, one twisted leg draped over the other, and it was his hand that dangled before Cain’s face. 

He would have laughed if he hadn’t been in so much pain. No dramatics. No fanfare. Nothing elaborate nor complicated. 

A simple end for the cockroaches that had infested the Garrenhoff household, and oh, did Liesle Wachenfeld owe him one hell of a favor now.

[thefreelanceangel]

My past, does not define me.

Cain Beaumont

[thefreelanceangel]