the truth is in the gallows

[inferus]

WHO: Wrath and YOU
WHEN: first half of August
WHERE: around Taravast especially Beacon/Necromancy District
WHAT: Learning about new magic, gaining disciples, plus whatever else.
WARNINGS: tbd. potential violence, dark emotions.

Necromancy District

Wrath spends much of the first half of August within the Necromancy District, interested in observing their more extreme methods of healing people, and especially interested in learning how to break a curse through magical methods according to what they know. Information is powerful, and he is well-informed about magic, which makes what he knows a commodity. Throughout the month, he slowly conducts lessons and gains three disciples within the district. Heard of his lessons? Want to join in on one?

If others are exploring the District, they may find him in any of the shops or rooms where healing/experimentation is happening that he has managed to trade his way into. He stays near a back corner, observing. Even with his mask on, he gives an aura of being off (otherworldly, angelically attractive, demonically predatory). He primarily observes, but sometimes asks questions, offers a hand in assisting if he has the chance.

He surveys the illicit potions, inquiring to the effects of each, hoping to find one that might cause incompetence. Emilia has many suitors, most of them hapless save for one. Wrath senses dark emotions that would make his brother Lust grin from ear-to-ear. Not trusting this suitor to know the meaning of a safe word, he is on a mission to find a potion that will take him out of the running and teach him a lesson. It is not murder he is looking to do. Yet.

Miscellaneous

You may find him at any of the following:

- Wrath spends time at the Beacon, visiting it several days, asking about it to locals, collecting information about it. It is warded and locked away like an ancient relic, like an item to be observed but never touched.

- Keeping an eye on Emilia di Carlo, but from an appropriate distance most of the time so as not to raise suspicion. Studying her suitors from afar and then being annoyed by their existence, especially when they are the ones who get to dance with her at the parties. Then being annoyed to find himself annoyed. This is fine, and he doesn't care at all.

- Wrath sometimes teleports into secure rooms within the two academies of magic when he thinks he can do so without being seen. This leaves the clear scent of fire and brimstone behind when he does so though he attempts to do so when no one else is around. Others might be sneaking into rooms that he teleports inside of. For the most part, he uses his influence and lessons of his own magic to study visions at the Attaryl school of magic, sitting in on lectures.

- He attends the parties with the air of someone who has been to many before. With ease, he speaks to the nobles around as if he has always been here, playing his role, performing miracles when asked to. These miracles include changing the temperature of the room, lighting fire with a few magic words, or even healing minor ailments. If he sees anyone struggling, he will assume they are part of the group and offer advice on how to keep up appearances if only so they will not be discovered. You are welcome.

[ ooc: hit me up with wild cards freely or simply contact me through pm/plotting post/plurk and I'd be happy to write something else. reminder there is always the potential for being near Wrath to increase angry feelings your character is having if you want to play with that. :) Wrath does not do this on purpose - it's just a side effect of being angry near him. ]

Comments

[inferus]

Wrath tilts his head to the side as he watches her - the way she does not look away, the way she is aware of where his dark gold eyes falls and remembers and wants. He feels too her resentment (a form of anger, impossible for him to not recognize immediately).

A light smirk crosses the very corner of his mouth, which otherwise remains still.

"Are you implying you do not wish to be?"

Yes, she is difficult. He likes that about her - not that he believes she will take it as a compliment at the moment.

"When first we spoke, you contained me in a circle... and left me there for days."

[valeas]

Emilia needed the reminder, perversely so. He'll deny it, as surely as she will waste breath on denials of her own, but he is far from indifferent. Something stubborn digs its heels inside of her, and it does so in favor of the familiar coil of her anger.

It may be to his surprise that she soon mirrors his smirk, a hint of some mirthful thing on the curve of her lips. Yes, she thinks. She plans to be difficult. Impossible, and vengeful, and bright. She plans for a great deal.

"When we first spoke," she repeats after him, mild. "A generous assessment."

Perhaps he is not as angry with her as she thought, at least in this moment. She wonders if that'll only make him angrier.

[inferus]

Wrath's expression shifts slightly at the sight of her expression, at the feel of her vengeance rooted deep within her heart. His expression is unreadable, considering, quiet. He recognizes that inside of her immediately, drawn to it, drinking in the feel of it within her.

It's sharp. She is planning something (isn't she always?).

He attempts to remind himself of his own anger, but remembering that moment when she trapped him in the circle and attacked him with an impressive feral-ness with a certain fondness.

How damning it is to want her so when he is still angry. "I can be generous," he murmurs in a low voice.

[valeas]

A flicker in her own expression.

This is not something Emilia can refute, either. Not fairly. She bore witness to the evidence, and more than once. Most often, she was the recipient. At her most uncharitable, she convinced herself it was all part of his betrayal. The lulling and false security of it all. But when it comes down to it, Wrath has shown himself capable of granting mercy in a way she is unable to.

He wasn't present that night she unleashed herself in full. She thought him dead when making all of her moves, if not permanently incapacitated. But she thinks he could have gotten drunk on the sheer potency of her hate and her fury, the trembling violence, and she sets aside the notion before doubt further nestles in —

Her gaze remains steady, studious. She will not be the one to reel back.

"Is that how you've been gaining your following? Through generosity?"

He isn't he only one paying attention.

[inferus]

Wrath tilts his head to the side, seeing the challenge in her gaze and in her stance. She has yet to back away and neither has he despite how often his gaze lingers back upon her mouth. He does take interest in her question - the gold black of his eyes flicking to life with interest at the question.

Because she can't trust him? Because she doesn't want to stay away from him?

It is difficult to say the reasons why. He doubts she would admit to the truth of it. There's still the animosity between them - their recent fight still stings within his chest should he recall it as does the memory of what it felt like to know she'd sold her soul to Pride.

He leans in, meeting her refusal to move with a challenge of his own: voice warm against her ear. Being so near to her is near maddening in the way his desire beats at the cage within his chest, but he keeps it carefully locked away.

"...keeping tabs on me?"

[valeas]

He'll delight in it later, she's sure. How impossible it is to remain unaffected by him. The hitch to her breath and the shudder that lands between their ribs. And still, she doesn't move. Let him see it. Let him be sick with it.

One hand lifts to smooth the shirt sleeve under his doublet as she considers his own question. She studies the rich brocade pattern of the latter, unsurprised he's dressed himself so well, even when the fashion itself is not his norm.

"No closer than you've been keeping tabs on me. Is that not what you advised?"

To study her opponents. To know who they are, what they want, and watch them closely. To make herself difficult to read, though she doesn't know how successful she's being in this last respect, here and now. But she'll learn.

[inferus]

Wrath does see it, ache for it, want it, want her, horribly angered at how stuck he is in this very place. Returning to their own world means facing it one day after another: this wanting, this desire, her soul sold to Pride. His shoulders tighten, square away at her words, understanding their meaning. In so many ways, they are back to square one, aren't they?

He is the enemy. He is in his own House, and- and she will be with Pride. At this reminder, he hardens. He grows cold.

"I advised a great deal of things to you. I was under the impression you rarely listened to it."

She certainly never ran when he told her to, insisted upon facing the viperidae after he spoke of how deadly it would be (and it was), certainly refused to take his hand when he wished to take them away from danger (could not sign on to his House for that, but could for his brother).

[valeas]

No, it isn't her inclination to listen to what others may want of her any longer. But neither is it in her nature to forget. Some piece of Emilia tortures itself and wonders what might be different, if only he'd answered her call.

The frost of him will soon set. The razor sharp precision. She senses it in the temperature drop around her, in the shuttering of his gaze. Emilia steps closer still, setting both hands on the low of his chest. His power responds to her touch, her own threatening to waken at her palms where they meet — and beyond it, some terrible longing. She'll marry his brother and let it go unnamed.

"Tell me," she whispers. The sound of her voice would undo her, if she weren't damned already. "Tell me you keep no other secrets. That there isn't anything else of your nature and the curse you hide."

She wants to believe it wasn't all a lie.

[inferus]

Wrath stills impossibly more like he has become stone, like he is a statue when she steps closer to him. Her hands are at his chest, and he misses her touches. He yearns for it in much the same way he yearns for her despite all that crashed and broke between them before they wound up in this strange, mysterious place. Her hands rest against his chest, and something tightens in his throat as she whispers to him.

The sound of her voice will undo him, the look in her eyes like she yearns for him as deeply as he yearns for her, like the aching of want is shared. For a brief, horrifying moment, he nearly feels his own resolve crumble. The walls he keeps so carefully placed trembling in his effort to keep them up and to continue hiding.

"Emilia-"

Her name is a strangled thing. He could not tell her then, and he especially cannot tell her now. His hands drop to his side as he takes a forcible step back. As much as the rest of him remains stone, his eyes give him away if only for a moment. Cold surrounds them now. His body is still and quiet, but his feelings (anger and betrayal and need) threaten to release his magic in a quake beneath their feet. He clamps it down with all his ancient willpower.

Then he turns and walks away, hand flexing at his side as he attempts to rein these emotions back in once more.

[valeas]

It's the horror that stills her in turn.

So fleeting on him that she almost misses it, but it's what lowers her own hands back to her sides like she may have burned him. Emilia is taken back to the night he saved her from the viperidae, to the short-lived moment she swears they shared both breath and mind. More intimate than anything else they've ever shared. The fear that beat in his heart when she thought him so fearless.

Fear of death, the death of all he is and all he's chosen to be. Fear she'd burrowed into his immortal skin, and that she might travel deeper still. The palpable intensity of it so at odds with the disdain with which he'd come to collect her soul.

Her mouth opens to say something, say anything, but she ultimately lets him go.

Watches him go. ♪

The chill of him lingers. When she exhales, heavy and uncertain, a cloud of mist forms for it. She won. In the end, she won and he was the one to retreat. And yet the victory is hollow.