spooky stuff.

[unabatedly]

The late autumn might not be an ideal time for travel, this time it cannot be helped. Crossing the mountains and down into the heartlands, their destination rests in the lush forests of the Dales, and even the promise of warmer winds does little to push her feet forward when the cold has set in at night while they've journeyed. Alistair vacillates between quiet and contemplative to a strange sort of cheerful, though it's of little comfort when the missive had initially seemed so dire. The port city is still a few days' journey away and while they've mostly clung to the well-trodden roads, the two of them decide to cut through the forests nearby to shave off a day's worth of walking in the hopes of encountering one of the villages to the west before they'll need to take a sharp turn north to return to the highway. Discretion has always been their intention, the both of them dressed more like travelers or hunters than anything more, and they've just finished discussing how much further they're content to keep walking before giving up and pitching camp when the spires of what looks to be a castle come into view, and the both of them are filled with enough wide-eyed wonder to give it a look.

From a distance, it seems old and abandoned, covered in moss and ivy up the one side. The gate is locked and barred, walls high enough to be imposing, a clear deterrent for all who might come close. But drawing closer, it still seems a better sight than initially believed, and while it still seems empty and barren of life, it's shelter and that's all that matters.

They could keep going. She even suggests it, if only because something gnawing in her stomach says it's unkind to walk across the threshold of those who came before and who may have died unduly, but the sky looks unwelcome and Alistair encourages her to at least consider giving it a look over. Staying in the inner halls and perhaps finding an old fireplace to use would at least keep them out of the cold and away from prying eyes, and if it rains they'll stay dry. The climb over the gate is easy enough and Neria goes to look for a way in while Alistair looks for sticks or wood around to make use of even if they can't access the interior. A stable will do, if nothing else, and they might at least find a place out of the wind to huddle up. The stable won't be much for living in, she's quick to find, but around the back she swears she sees a little light in the upper windows of one tower, a sight she starts to walk towards.

And that's when Alistair starts shouting.

She's quick to follow the sound and scramble her way over a low fence that's blocked off access to an old garden full of gnarled roots and browning plant life to where Alistair looks to be barely holding something at bay, sword flung far from him and only his shield keeping him safe.

"Stop, stop!" she cries out, already moving her hands to summon a barrier in the hopes of getting it between Alistair and his assailant.

Comments

[unabatedly]

A shade, then. Or...perhaps a reflection is the better word. And not just a reflection but one that lives and breathes (for lack of a better word) while also being used as the binding that keeps the real body in a kind of stasis. She could think herself into knots trying to find the logic in it or to understand what he is but the end result is the same. He exists as the curse, as man and creature and something in between both, while he watches what he is and is not sleep eternity away.

There are few creatures in this world that she could even hope to name that would have the power to do something like this. She could rationalize there was fickleness to the decision but equally, he could be right; the man in the coffin might be just as dangerous as the magic that keeps him ensorcelled.

Neria lifts a hand to scrub at her forehead. "If I knew his name, I know where I could go to possibly get that answer and that would likely settle the matter." Possibly. The man is young. It's equally likely he'd done nothing to warrant mention in any tome she could think of. "There might be books here, even, or notes or journals to give some indication..." She sighs. "But that is neither here nor there. That sort of endeavor would take a great deal of time." Her pressing questions will have to go unanswered. For another moment, her eyes drift to the sleeping man, then they return to the horned man in front of her.

"You brought me here to repay a debt of blood. What would you have me do?"

[notcharming]

He reaches out and, if she does not flinch away, he will trace a knuckle, surprisingly softly, just under one of her eyes, across the top of a cheekbone,

"What does any curse wish save to be broken?" his voice is quiet, "Would but that I knew how." He has just admitted he does not know if it's actually a good idea to do that, but she has encountered a system and the system rarely cares for the well-being of those it interacts with. "It has been so long... I have waited..." he lets his hand fall away, whether it ever touched her or not, and he turns to look at the door,

"We should leave this place. I will show you the library and somewhere you can rest. Perhaps you will be able to see something I cannot."

[unabatedly]

She doesn't flinch somehow, holds perfectly still, and comes to find that brief touch astoundingly gentle in the same way she'd been surprised that there'd been sinuous texture at all to the bony arm he'd offered before for her to take. For all that he still seems to carry this air of stillness, something bordering on wistful, she's no closer to understanding any of it - or the crux of how to fix what's here, or even if there's something to be done. She only just stops herself from asking, What are you waiting for, and decides not to when he pulls back, turns elsewhere, and she can school her features somewhat to quash down that inquiry but not the next.

"Leave? But I thought--" No, if he doesn't know what to do about the curse, then remaining here doesn't seem necessary...even if she wonders if there isn't more that can be done. He'd said before not to wander here and now she's curious, again, if there is more to this than she can see.

With a single glance spared once more for the young man in the coffin, she finally concedes the moment, and dips her head into a nod. Her feet carry her carefully from the flowerbed that is the floor and across the threshold with him. Without the mana weighing down upon her, it's almost easier to breathe, though the inner core inside of her almost aches from its sudden absence. Her gaze roams the hall, then back to him. "While I can't say I'll find anything you haven't...I'll certainly try." Even if the curse shouldn't be broken, she'd still like to understand why it's in place.

[notcharming]

There is a tension to him that say that he is waiting for something. But then, it's entirely possibly he doesn't know the answer to what that is either. The biggest piece of information that she has so far, at least in terms of something with concrete, definable facts, is that he's clearly pulling himself together from something bestial and barely capable of speech, to an unsettling but elegant host, just with a few minutes in her presence. He seems to come to define himself further based on her-- the things she does and the things she asks, and while it doesn't seem like he's lied about anything, it's possible that he's slowly remembering.

It's unlikely that there's something here that will bear swift fruit-- if nothing else, the physical changes seem much faster than the mental ones-- but it's something, a place to start that isn't just floundering about.

He offers his arm as they exit and he stays unsettlingly human as they do, as he leads her down the hallway and back down the stairs, showing her towards the library.

"I am not certain that I would be able to find anything," he comments and it has the air of being conversational, something to say while they walk, "I imagine it would be a poor curse that would be able to break itself."

[unabatedly]

Her hand settles on his arm as she slowly becomes accustomed more and more to him. Neria's brow furrows in thought, choosing to consider his words rather than become too wrapped up in wondering about him and these changes with every step they take through the hall and then down the stairs. "If a curse is designed to test someone or to teach a lesson, perhaps..." But so rarely would a curse do such a thing. "You are likely correct that something or someone else would need to do so." Which requires too many factors here when it comes to his present state.

Someone would need to have approached the abandoned castle. To try to converse with the creature within and not try to kill it. It would require someone to even remain in its company long enough to understand. The cruelty is the point, even if there is likely a lesson here somewhere. Whether it is a lesson for others to learn about the man in the coffin, that the cure was only a warning and a reflection of that which he is, or if the lesson is for the man himself... That's for her to uncover.

"Have you ever seen writings? Journals, notes, anything he might have left behind? Or something a family member or a member of the house might've imparted before all of this happened?" She could likely ask one of the specters of the halls to simply bring them if she might encounter one but carrying conversation seems...best, she thinks, if it means creating a tether between them. The longer they speak, the more reflective he seems, and the more she can understand. "Likely there's something stored in the library but perhaps also in whatever chambers he used to call his own?"