A day of eating, drinking, sleeping, and most importantly bathing has Only in a better way in no time.  Nothing but time can be done for the gaping holes where he has lost so much Time or for the unsightly absence of body mass he has. The ribs that stick out from either side of him could wash and rinse all of his favorite Brunello Cucinelli suit shirts in the creek.  Some part of his ego laments not having his material objects;  A glass of perfect Nebbiolo red wine, a well-tailored suit (no tie, he was and still is not a tie man), Victorinox knives, cats (he is a cat man) -- fat and happy ones, and maybe, just maybe the fine mechanical engineering of an .18mm Makarov revolver that this particular incarnation cannot have, alas.  

He lets the thought go as quickly as it comes and continues slowly, carefully - down to Amare Creek from Delumine as if he knows exactly where he is going and what he is going to do when he gets there.  The trip is not far nor too taxing, the terrain is not tough nor rife with bizarre challenges and Only, still trying to make sense out of the last two days, can only hope that he isn't being followed by anyone from the Dawn Court.  The last thing he needs is for them to know anything about him.  The last thing he needs to know is that someone suspects him of something.

He'll give them everything they need to know.

Everything.  

The suit he'll put on will be a tailored fit - a handsome one - and he will make friends (possibly), many of them. Everyone in town will know his name, they'll have nice things to say about him and they'll invite him to birthdays, weddings, Christmas parties.  They'll wonder why a guy like that keeps to himself but they'll never think - for once - that it might be because he's actually afraid of them.  They'll never know why he is afraid either, and perhaps that is the 'game' that Stephan likes to play with others.  

What is he afraid of?

Discovery?  No.  
Not him, of course.  
It is never him.
Or maybe it is?
He can't keep track of the lies anymore.
Perhaps Only is afraid of what he will do to them over the time spent here, there, everywhere.

His thoughts skip-skip-skip like stones over water, drop down deep into the depths of the black murky catfish-filled lake of his mind.

He worries.  Wanders and worries.
Wanders, worries, and waits for something (nothing) that will come (it will never come) to get him.
Two days into Delumine and he is already paranoid that he has done something wrong, something terrible.

Only slides under the guise of night with the grace of a creeping panther.  Black-on-black, it is easy to disappear and to stay that way.  It is easy - too easy - and he believes he is alone as he follows the creek.  What he doesn't know is that Anonymous travels the same path, moving silently, steadily, and with the same careful precision of the stranger who walks his way.  

Snakes in the grass.
Wind over water.
Cats watching mice.

You get the idea.

They grow closer and closer together until they completely pass each other and it only takes a second for them to realize that they are not by themselves.

Only stills like Death and waits.

The silence eats at him until he can not stand it.

The black falls back behind an old tree, gathers his wits, and decides to speak.
"I know you are out there."   He doesn't know who or what.  Maybe it is his paranoia getting the best of him but he chances it.  His eyes squint up the clear line of sight he has of a clearing.  Is it a monster?  A delusion? Or is it -

A spy - Delumine is probably wondering where you are and what you are up to.

Immediately his skin is crawling just thinking about being followed but worse about being perceived.  

"Are you from Delumine? Ulric?"  He asks the silence as he steps into the pale light unveiled by the clouds.  He is deathly-looking with what light the stars shine down on him with, he is inelegant and feral.  The creek glitters around his golden feet as he stands in the water, golden hair shimmering loudly in the dark, it is remarkable how well he can cloak himself but it helps to be...

Well, anonymous.


ooc:  Oi vey, still working the rust off.  It will be better next round, promise!

.only
thief for hire
low-functioning telekinesis

There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
 For many are called but few are chosen.

Ooc:  This may possibly require a TRIGGER WARNING because it opens with violence.  I don't know how to truly label this post specifically so, yep, there's my warning.  D:



***



Margaret Dends had it coming when she upset Stephan after standing him up for a date at the New Mexican.  Her condominium, as he could remember, was on Ninth and Hoyt which was one block from the restaurant - not far from where he was.  He couldn't remember what the number of her address actually was but he knew that she drove an '93 Oldsmobile that was forest green.  It was distinct because he remembered the story she told him about a fender-bender which made her late to work.  It made it that much easier to find her when he found which house belonged to the driveway that had her car in it. That, and the fact that she had also mentioned (once, long ago, and not even to him) that she didn't bother locking her doors.

Here in the dark, he remembers trying to be reasonable about why she would stand him up and to give Margaret the benefit of the doubt by saying she forgot.  But at gunpoint in her living room she still couldn't lie about the reasons why she failed to show up at seven o' clock at night.

You freak me out!  I hate you!  She managed to snarly behind the duct tape.  She sweated profusely until the binding lost its stick.  That, and she couldn't stop screaming against it - all that breath had done her some good but Stephan had tied her hands down and looped her ankles together.  So now here she sat on the floor of her closet, tied to a chest full of things she had either stolen from her employees or from men she had played long enough to get something expensive out of.  She exuded an air of confidence about her as if she'd escape all of this and, from the fight she had put up trying to resist him breaking in unannounced, Stephan too wasn't sure how successful this would be.

Somehow she knew he'd never shoot her but what she didn't know was how he did intend to finish it.  Locked up in her own walk-in closet - surrounded by all her stupid stuffy outfits which absorbed most of her protests, Stephan did not worry about being discovered with her until he was done.  Even then he would be gone before his quarry would ever be discovered.  Margaret Dends was a bitch and she needed to go - she had spent an entire year embezzling his money and now she would die surrounded by it.   

'You could have had such a lovely dinner before this.  Why did you have to stand me up tonight Margie, eh?  Really, I am a strong believer in business before pleasure, I even brought you flowers.  Did you know that I put them on your dinner table while you were on the phone with your mother?'  Stephan pushed his knife to her neck to scare her - somehow being surrounded by all the luxury of expensive designer clothes his stolen labor hours bought her made him feel calm. To gut Margaret Dends and then throw her own blood around on all of it sounded reasonable to him.  He would have rather have done it on a full stomach but he ended up taking his red chile carne adovada to go and had it waiting in her mailbox just at the end of the drive.

The fight was unfair, this is how much Only remembers when he thinks about how long it took to drive away from Omaha.  He remembers being angry for weeks after that about all the money she took from them.  At some point along the way - he began to agree with Stephan that the bitch had it coming - he was the one to pitch her mangled body into the lake before back leaving with no trace.  They would be back soon, Stephan promised.  

They would be back.

***

Only remembers Margaret Pends in a place like this, the lake setting had been about as intimate as this.  It was raining which was perfect and Margie had been light in his arms - at some point he remembers tripping, falling, and attracting the attention of a man fishing on the edge of the lake across the way.  They looked at each other and that was that, Only was sure that he had been spotted but the man made no move to look further as his pole caught a fish.  If only there was a fish big enough to attract the stranger's attention away from how 'odd' Only appeared to be.  

Underneath the cloaked man's eyes he squirms although he isn't sure what it is that makes him do such a thing.  The whole visual of the larger stallion made it clear to Only that he would be at a serious disadvantage in making rivals out of this stranger.  The only thing he could do possibly do better is run the hell away.  Not much goes through his head as he hears the man's velvety voice other than trying to remember it - it would do him more good than harm to remember how much bigger someone like Anonymous is.

"D-Disappointed?  Me?  Oh no-no."  Relieved is more like it despite the unexpected stutter.  He decides to play off of it as best as he can and sidesteps out of the way of the path the bay came in case the man is moving through rather than towards him.  "I am looking for the river.  Which - which way would that be, do you know?"  Because for some reason Only thinks Margaret will wash up tonight - for some reason he thinks that here, worlds away, somehow her over-processed hair is going to wash up on rocks and the game will be over for him.  It is an unnecessary paranoia - one that will waste more of his time than he could ever imagine - but the guilt is obvious enough on him that he wears it like a second skin.

.only
thief for hire
low-functioning telekinesis

There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
 For many are called but few are chosen.

...


Who are you?

"H-hey now, I'm not looking for any trouble here." He side-steps away from him carefully, eyes trained on the way he came for clearance in case he should just bolt for it.  For all of his nervousness he is good at keeping steady on the surface but the frequency at which the telekinesis trembles through rocks and nearby branches reveals that he is unaware of the odd enhancement Novus brings out of everyone.  Whether Only realizes it or not he is grasping - grasping for something to use against Anonymous even though the situation is hardly that intense.  The situation is in total control on the outside but on the inside Only hears Stephan laughing.  He just laughs and laughs and laughs.

It isn't fair.  
This shouldn't even be a situation.

Only, that marshmallow.  What does he even know?
That isn't a man, it's just a boy.  A pissing-pants boy.  
He doesn't now anything.  

Stephan surges forward before Only even realizes what has happened, he pulls that stuttering fool straight off his feet and steps on his face as he rises to the light of day.  To the light of...well, consciousness.  Only remains in the proverbial mud that his brains are full of, sticking and sucking it in like a catfish as he struggles to get to his feet but Stephan is too far ahead.  When Only reaches for him he is already too late, it happens so fast his head (their head, Stephan's head is left spinning).  

Going, going, gone.  
The lights go out for Only as Stephan steps through the door and, with one last look down the hallway to his better half, he says he is going outside before closing it behind him.

...

The night feels different to the serpent in the water, it is too cold for him even though moments ago it felt balmy.  He shivers from the chill as he steps out of the creek entirely with some look of disgust at how wet his feet are.  He is unresponsive to the stranger's words about the ocean at first not understanding why the stranger explains which way it is to the river.  Only is somewhere in the back of this invader's mind, floundering under smoke signals that fill the head space he is trapped in.  Stephan watches the pair of eyes that watch him back, his own seemingly more keen than before even though they haven't changed one bit.  

"It would be far better not to know who I am.  These things we ask 'who' about always have a way of coming back to us, don't they?"  Stephan's eyes slide over Anonymous with a creepy clarity unlike Only's shaky, nervous glances.  They narrow, they keen, they remember now so that they can remember later.  The knives are glanced upon, remembered, and left alone even though the idea of them makes Stephan lick his teeth.  He is not so quiet about his interests, not so shy about how he feels about them either.

And then, he really cannot help it because unlike Only, Stephan is impatient.  

"Why would a horse have a need for knives?"  Only is asleep in the dark - being force fed the nightmare of Stephan provoking a perfect stranger in the dark in a place neither he nor Stephan know anything about.  He struggles to sleep soundly on the tides of unconsciousness and worries as he always does.  Especially when Stephan raises his head and side-eyes Anonymous with all the wariness of a chicken facing off with a barnyard cat.  

"How do you use the knives?"  

.only
thief for hire
lesser telekinesis

There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
For many are called but few are chosen.

...


The steel against his throat feels like cool silk and Stephan cannot help the trill of pleasure that moves through him being this close to getting cut.  He should have known better - or perhaps he does - but all that matters is that it both terrifies him and excites him to be at the mercy of a complete stranger.  The idea of moving things without touching them is distracting enough but when Anonymous is close enough to smell the desert smoke on his dark skin Stephan is thinking about what worlds the man has seen to learn such a skill.

"Incredible."  Stephan says, his intrigue lasts long enough to put a little pressure on the blade by leaning into it.  When it digs into the flesh he understands the force behind it must be driven by a strong mind.  Here, he discovers that Anonymous has a firm hold on his weapons with whatever magic it is that he wields - if magic is even what it is - a part of him wonders if Only possesses something similar.  If not that, then what else.

The secrets Only keeps from him are bigger than the secrets Only keeps from total strangers - secrets that, if given over to Stephan could prove to be one of the worst choices he (Only) could ever make.  

Now, if he could just get this information out of a stranger instead - that would solve a lot of problems for Stephan.  Not only that, but it could give him an upper hand at controlling his pesky better half.  The green eyes try to look down to look at the hilt of the knife but he cannot see them.  Instead he returns the expression Anonymous gives him with a rather demure look, he isn't opposed to anything that this encounter may lead to - especially if it gets him something valuable in turn.

Only, of course, would have been miles away by now.  

Meanwhile, Stephan is counting the runes that map their way down Anonymous' neck.  He takes his time to react (even then it is inappropriately foundered).  Stephan remains unafraid of the knife that threatens to cut his jugular wide open.

"If you kill me now you'll only be doing me a favor.  However if you take that knife off of me now know I might take this encounter a little more seriously.  Can you draw blood?  Show me if you can."  He admits, eyes sweeping down across the distance between them.  

Two-thirds of him is rife with complete jealousy and the other one-third is full of intrigue.  The whole of him just want-want-wants until there is nothing left of Anonymous to have.  If he can have Anonymous somehow he'll take that too - but how to do such a thing is beyond him.

"Is it a tool you have acquired?  Or is it inside of you?"  Somehow the questions sound like they are coming from the wrong parts of his thought processes- as if Stephan is trying to decide what part of Anonymous he needs to remove whether It is a stone, a cloak, or hell, maybe even a body part.  What he doesn't realize is that he already has It - much to Only's despair Stephan has now been made aware that it exists.

.only
thief for hire
lesser telekinesis

There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
For many are called but few are chosen.

...

Anonymous takes more distance away from them and, well, Stephan is far more receptive to these types of situations while Only would consider himself to be intolerant of them.  He welcomes it - there is something to be wary of even a rail-thin creature like the akal teke even if he appears even tempered and too weak to even eat.  It doesn't matter, Stephan is learning, it doesn't matter what condition his body is in so long as he can do what Anonymous does with his mind.  Not even Only could stop him then.  He'll say what he can say and he will do what he can do if it means he will get the answers he is looking for.

They play a dangerous game with each other - Anonymous has no idea what kinds of doors he unlocks for Stephan and - in turn - Stephan doubts that Anonymous is bluffing with his knives - he hopes he isn't.  Do it, his indulgent nature beckons Anonymous to finish him off with the way he leans into the knife.  His eyes are as alive as they are dead and, quite toxic - terribly toxic. Inside of the absinthe green of them there are so many souls lost to Stephan, they live with him always.  The way he plays with the mercenary's blades suggest he is keen to join them.

He isn't even sorry he killed them.
He'll remember their names forever.

Francine Gormley.  Keven Willows.  Mr. Kirschenbaum down at Duke's (not his son, of course).  

A totem here,
A totem there,
Eye, tooth, ear ... ...  quietly in this limited distance he scrutinizes what he can of Anonymous and considers what part of him he'd take for himself.  

What will he keep?  What will he have of him so that Anonymous too will be swimming around in Stephan's eyes the way his precious collection of souls do.

Rebecca Chyu.  Donna Rice. There are so many he could spend all night remembering them all.

Perhaps a lock of hair?  
A claw off of his wings, even.

He looks up at it to consider it and that is all it takes -  the knife flashes bright against his sight like sudden lightning, quick, and true in the night.  It is a quick, effortless move.   It stings but he welcomes it because his attention is drawn to the blade dancing effortlessly through the air as Anonymous manipulates it back into its sheath after cleaning it.  His cheek throbs as the blood rushes to fill the even cut, it drips and drips and drips without ever stopping but Stephan can get past the constant nagging sensation of severed nerves.  It isn't nearly as gruesome as it could get but there is no need to get completely ugly if he can drive it all into a different direction.

He must learn this skill of Anon's.  
He simply must.

The have collected at his feet unbeknownst to him, grass slither-slaps at his ankles in an uncanny way.  He has cracked stalks of iris plants twisting them so hard in an invisible grip he didn't know he had but it is all for nothing - he remains unaware.  Stephan and his desires to learn have manifested some level of potential but not enough.  That, and he has nothing because that fool he travels with lives like a monk.  Damn him, Stephan wants to say out loud but doesn't - he isn't as stupid as he can be.

Anonymous draws even nearer and Stephan being as catty as he can be lifts his chin and tilts his own dainty face to the side so the man can get a better look at what he has done.  It stings, Only won't be too happy when he discovers the fresh wound (yet another scar acquired while Stephan plays - what on earth does he do? Only will wonder) - and Anonymous does not seem to be finished with him just yet.  

Blood isn't enough - has it ever been?


Anonymous asks again, Who are you?

"Who am I?"  Stephan wants to laugh - he does laugh - and it is a sooty, cold chuckle that rattles in his lungs.  He keeps laughing long before he intends to stop -

"Only.  

It is Only, and you?  Will you tell me yours?" - and he laughs some more after it has become inappropriate.  He gives up his ghost (Only) because much later from now the joke will be on that bumbling idiot who thinks he can control both of their lives.  His laughter is convincingly healthy as it dissolves behind a rather boyish grin, he's oddly comfortable after being assaulted.  Maybe it is because he knows he'll most certainly return the favor when Anonymous least expects it. 

For now he is positively foalish over the idea of magic, still standing in Anonymous' moonstruck shadow waiting to see something else incredulous happen.

.only
thief for hire
lesser telekinesis

There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
For many are called but few are chosen.