It’s not the suffocating feeling of imminent danger that bothers her the most. Nor the growing pressure of so many eyes burning holes on the back of her head wherever she goes. She is at the top of all of her classes - college or otherwise - and as her twenty first birthday approaches, the fact that she is unquestionably the best candidate to be the next head of the family goes from a novelty to be mocked to a pressing concern.
None of that troubles her anymore than they always have. What is grating on her nerves is the fact that she performed the ritual perfectly and nothing happened. She reviewed the circle, the spells, the chant dozens of times and found absolutely no flaws in them. She does not need to be doubting herself on top of everyone being out for her blood.
Most of her classmates have made their first contracts already, some of them with several spirits. She has until the end of the semester to prove herself, but that’s not what is important for her. The full extent of her powers are restrained until she comes of age, and she can only see herself surviving until then if she finds a powerful enough ally. Instead of wasting her time seeking out spirits, she summoned a demon.
Only she’d failed. Or so she thought. Three days later, she walks into her apartment with a heavy head, still trying to figure out what she’d done wrong, and immediately notices she’s not alone. Setting her things aside, she follows the dark energy to her room and finds a purely black hound sitting atop her bed, watching her with blank eyes that seem to pierce right through her.
❛ Hey there fella, is the seat taken? ❜ he asks the man sitting at the bar with the only stool available next to him. It was kind of unusual for the bar to be so packed up, on a night where there were no special offers or karaoke night. It was good news though, to have the bar up and running after so many years... Larry had done a great job with it. Haze seems to be the same, although the people who has worked in it for long now isn’t. At least he isn’t.
“T-that’s enough!” She finally cries out. The rope around her wrists cut into her as her body instinctively lunges forward, shaking the chair. Please, please, please- they’re dead, they’re dead! Her mind screams. Halia had seen her share of brutality, but what she had seen him do (and the knowledge of what he could do) sent a chill down her spine and made her guts churn.
“Stop!” She repeats the word almost like a mantra until he hears her. “It’s over. Just come here. Just come here and untie me.”
Why him? Why was he the one who was sent to retrieve her?
@vvhippoorwill it’s ur own fault don’t @ me (only do @ me. @ me in all the things. ily)
[ this cold won’t go away and tea isn’t doing anything, what should i do? ]
If there would ever be something that could have alarmed her more than Rapha asking for health advice, Alice couldn’t tell. The message had her bolting straight up and immediately darting all across her house, gathering her medical bag, blankets of all varieties, any and everything she might need.
She kept badgering him about his location and when he wouldn’t tell her, she called him endlessly until he finally picked up. By the time he admitted that he didn’t know where he was, Alice was already in her car and swallowed down the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach so she would keep sounding calm.
“Okay, just keep talking to me. What’s around you?” It took her longer than she would have liked to find him, wandering the streets without aim while feverish. Alice was expecting having to argue with him, badger him into getting in the car, maybe even physically urging him inside - the very last resort considering how averse to touch he was. When he got in without so much as a snarky comment, her concerns grew tenfold.
“Here. Blanket. Tea.” Once he was warmly half cocooned on the seat, she offered him the thermos with ginger green tea. “Where are you staying?” All she wanted was to bring him to her apartment. It was fully equipped to deal with anything. Hell, she might even get away with doing surgery on it. But it would be much better for him to come back to his senses in a place he felt safe in, or wherever was most familiar to him at least.
She acquired the information... easily. And it felt so wrong. Alice couldn’t even be glad that he was following instructions with how wrong it felt. Bringing him to the address, she made sure he was warm enough and guided him out of the car and into the flat, locking the door behind them and assessing the place, which didn’t have much to offer. It was more barren than practical, but it’d do.
“Couch.” Setting her things down on the table, she brought out an infrared digital thermometer, confirming that he was indeed running a high fever as he sat down. He needed medication, but that might be a problem. Besides, he was most likely on an empty stomach. Taking in a tight breath, she made sure he was comfortable and figured she might as well take a look around and start planning from there.
Raphael’s addition to her household was unexpected, but not at all unpleasant. She’d soon grown comfortable with his wintery presence - so refreshing amidst a village of summery souls - and appreciative of his company. Of course, it was good to have another set of working hands at the farm, his in particular worth perhaps triple that number. But more than that, she enjoyed his quiet, earnest nature. Alice still couldn’t understand what had brought the man to their quaint little village in the first place, but everything he did was with a singular - albeit secret - focus, devoid of any ulterior reasons.
And above even that, Raphael made her feel safe. Which was strange, because she’d never truly felt unsafe before for his presence to have changed it so. Not in the village where she knew everyone, nor in the forest where everything knew her. Even the strangers who passed by knew - if not by courtesy, by self preservation instincts - that she should not be made an enemy. Yet, with him around, she felt unnecessary to keep herself on guard at all times. With the now familiar chill of his aura within the reach of her senses, Alice felt like no harm would ever befall her.
It was her own carelessness that led her to carry that sense of invulnerability along with her beyond her own territory and his immediate range. The forest was just as much home as the farmhouse, and her newfound guardian was right there. However, by virtue of her habit of traversing that path every day, its exact distance slipped her mind. The discovery of a fresh sapling perfect for replanting closer to home had her distracted enough to not notice the warnings of the forest itself as the two men ambushed her.
Alice knew better than to try and fight back or run. Her abilities were not combative in nature, so she would bide her time. They seemed particularly taken with her eyes, greed flourishing in their auras and dulling their awareness to the growing inhospitality all around them.
Being brought to a wagon full of other women had her changing tactics, quietly accepting the binds that would restrain her voice and her hands. Her entrance in the cage shifted the mood inside it, perhaps because of her unwavering belief in their captor’s failure. One way or another, they’d all be once again free. That she had no doubt of.
As the light from the slavers’ torches were dimmed by the pulled fabric that hid their stolen goods from view, Alice began collecting her energy. Without her voice, the power of her suggestion would be halved, but for this sort of cowardly soul, her gaze alone would be more than enough.
The vivid shades of green in her eyes seemed to blend and darken, and she was about to begin weaving her silent spells together when something else caught her attention and broke her focus. The fears and pains of the women around her made it difficult to sense anything else, but the sound of that peculiar howl pierced through her senses. Lifting her head, Alice angled herself towards the way she’d come from. There were two winter presences, deeply connected between themselves, both heading toward them.
Her heart began racing inside her chest, a small smile tipping her lips despite the rag crudely tied across her mouth. She reached out to them as best she could, hoping it would help guide them, but knowing in her heart that he would find her regardless.
Even without words, she reassured the other women that everything would be okay and moved closer to the locked door of the large cage, watching as one of the men secured it further within the wagon. Given enough time, she could have probably unlocked it as well, but with Raphael on his way, she channeled her energies to the ropes tightly binding her hands. She was only half listening to the slavers while degrading her restraints, and dismissed their ramblings as nonsense for the time being, having better things to worry about.
She felt her savior’s arrival due to the marked change in his presence. There was a fire burning within the ice of him. Growing hotter and hotter the closer he got. The sounds of combat startled her companions, but they remained quiet in the face of her calm. Raphael’s quiet voice had happiness and relief washing over her, and it fueled the last of her spell, the ropes crumbling away from her wrists.
Undoing the rag on her mouth, she began freeing the other women as well, but the sound of the key opening the lock had her looking back in time to see their savior - her guardian - and her body moved before she could think better upon it.
Stepping out of the wagon, Alice buried her face in Raphael’s chest and wrapped her arms around him tightly. You came, her heart seemed to cry out with its thundering, and it took her a second to both find her voice again and make sure her magic would not seep through it. “Thank you...” She whispered to his heart, only then remembering herself and abruptly pulling away with color across her cheeks.
Turning her attention back to the women, she helped them out, guiding them away from the slavers on the ground and making sure they weren’t in immediate need of medical aid. She left it up to Raphael to search the wagon itself for any clues as to where the men had come from and where they were heading while she tended to their victims, learning their names and memorizing their auras.
“Are you able to return to your homes yourselves?” She asked gently, suggesting that they take the horse and the wagon for that purpose, to be kept along with whatever valuables they found within. Day had broken across the skies and the forest no longer felt threatening around them. Alice further instructed that they could find aid in her own village if they asked for it by using her name, quietly blessing them with protections as she saw them off. “This will only make you stronger.” The young witch promised with a smile. “Take care.”
Once they were on their way, she took a deep breath, letting the soothing and comforting nature of her aura fall away. Alice had noticed the blood and the accompanying wounds on the fallen slavers and did not wish for any of the women to be around for what would happen to them next. As she walked up to Raphael’s side, her eyes seemed to take the dark colors of the leaves not yet touched by sunlight. She wanted answers too.
“How painful is it..?” She asked quietly of the measure he’d taken to keep the slavers from running away. “Should I wake them fully?”
@vvhippoorwill asked: 'Looks like we missed each other.' the note stuck to the flat package left on top of her coffee table says. No more and no less –– there's no need. They'll probably see each other around, their paths will cross sooner or later. Birthdays aren't much in their world, anyway, and neither is this present, really: A french newspaper used as gift wrap, underneath a thin, plain folder –– inside, hand-painted watercolours of flowers he picked up in an antiquarian book shop, all of them poisonous.
She knows he’s been there the moment she steps inside, his presence having grown beyond familiar and well into something she misses whenever she can afford to think of such things. Putting her suitcase down, Alice takes off her shoes and walks further into her sanctum while sorting through the mail that had collected over the days she was away, eyes absently searching for any clues as to the reason for Rapha’s visit. The answer is in plain sight. The package atop her coffee table stops her in her tracks and has her changing lanes, setting the letters aside in favor of whatever it is he’s left for her.
The note makes her chuckle. Of course, it couldn’t be from anyone else, but even if it could, the straightforwardness of it acts as a signature in and of itself. Carefully, she unsticks it from the newspaper - taking note of the city and the date out of pure habit - and opens the gift, only to openly gasp into her living room. An entirely genuine smile blooms across her lips despite herself, fingertips gingerly caressing the paper. These are without a doubt the loveliest flowers she’s ever gotten, her favorite birthday gift by far.
Her first instinct is to call him and thank him, but he’s probably at work right about now, so she decides against it. Phone in hand, she goes with her next instinct and makes a few necessary purchases. There’s no rush, really. They’ll see each other soon enough anyways. And next time he comes around, he’ll see her beautiful flowers adorning the walls.
