felt the barbs of his pitchfork pressing up against my soul [closed]

[inferus]

WHO: Wrath + Closed logs w/ Emilia and later Five + let me know if you want stuff for traveling times
WHEN: After the beacon + rest of January as needed
WHERE: Taravast/traveling.
WHAT: Returning from canon update into Taravast. Plus travel shenanigans later.
WARNINGS: Talks about Hell most likely along with some Taravast discussion.

Comments

for emilia.

[inferus]

The trip back through the beacon is startlingly uncomfortable for someone who is so rarely affected by magic. He manages to stay standing, but he is unsteady at the strange effects brought on by the beacon - the change from one universe to the next, the utter weakness which follows. His powers are gone. Rage swells inside of him, but there is no decrease in temperature, no rumbling from the ground in expression of it.

In one hand, he clutches a kitchen knife, and in the other, he grips a pomegranate. He straightens, breathing in and then out again. Another moment passes, the reality of this entire world and his current situation returns to him. When he left, he had been under the impression he would be gone for good to face whatever awaited him with the curse and with his brother's machinations against his w-

Emilia.

His chest tightens. Worry thrums through him along with a feeling of helplessness, which is infuriating. If any mortal were passing by, they would be frightened by the way he acts like fear and shadow should be at his command, like he has claws and teeth within ready to tear apart the next being to cross him.

He wants to unleash his full ancient fury against this world for daring to drag him back without her, but there is none of it- nothing, not wings, not weapons, not his army, not ice nor fire are available to him. He cannot command the beacon, and she- she does not choose him, does she? She made that abundantly clear, and he aims to respect her choices always.

It is not as if he does not understand why no one would choose Hell, why no one would choose him even without knowing the reality of who he truly is as much as he wants (and fears) for her to know. To hear her say his name just once with desire, with affection. A foolish wish of the heart, and the devil knows better than that.

[valeas]

A strange tingle settles over her skin, not unlike the sensation she'd encountered when Celestia freed her of Envy's hex. Like invisible threads whipping across her body in rapid succession, except where Celestia had snipped the threads to restore her power in full, the beacon snaps them back into place. The wave of magic that had bubbled up inside of her is wrenched away again.

La Prima, demon princes, this godsdamned beacon.

No one and nothing should be able to take something so vital from her. It's hers.

She'd been so very close. Potentially seconds away from uncovering the truth and learning what really happened to her twin. All of her carefully laid plains. All of her training. The sacrifice that gutted her the most — they were all meant to lead her to the one answer she'd do anything for. The one vow she would not, under any circumstances, forswear.

Had she not unleashed the bulk of her fury on the Sin Corridor mere minutes ago, Emilia di Carlo would be tempted to do so again now. As it is, a growing weakness, and the world dulling around her, gives her pause. Long enough for a barrage of memories to return to her all at once. They're not the memories she had been after, but they belong to her just the same.

The salt mines. A city of masks and deception. Faces that are at once new and familiar. The fire and the rot. Taravast is no match for hell, but the mark it left was indelible. And she forgot, like she's forgotten so much else.

She wants to scream. She wants to laugh. She very nearly does, a hybrid sound both panicked and mad, and the air like fire in her lungs. But Emilia sees him out of the corner of her eye, and she spins around to face him fully, the hood of her cloak falling back.

[inferus]

Their bond is not currently activated. The tattoo lies quiet for the moment in ways which are horrible, achingly unsettling. Wrath had grown accustomed to always knowing where she was wherever she happened to be in Hell. Somehow even without the bond, he senses her before he sees her as if the bond goes beyond magic itself.

Wrath turns toward her. Immediately, struck by the sight of her.

Within her tight grip, she has the Triple Moon Mirror- the divine object he assumed she would one day find if she chose to, the one which can reveal to her secrets (ones he is prevented from divulging himself). Is that where she went when she drugged him to escape his bed chambers? No. He had sensed her at Pride's circle instead - the realization as painful (if not more so) than drinking the poisoned goblet she had offered him, heart shattered in the aftermath. The mirror is not in Pride's circle, however.

Wrath cannot possibly begin to put all the pieces together when he sees the way her fingernails are frozen, her knuckles bloodied, the pain and anger etched into her face even if he cannot feel it currently. Concern etches on his features briefly - no mask for the moment.

"Emilia." Wrath takes a step toward her. The damned pomegranate and knife are dropped from his hands to the ground at his feet.

[valeas]

A snarl, choked and grievous and thick with frustration, pushes up her throat.

Emilia does not register the pain, not until she follows his gaze down to the mirror she holds. The same mirror she was holding when the world turned over and she found herself in Taravast anew. Her bloodied fingers are wrapped tight around its handle, crafted of moonstone and mother-of-pearl just like the rest of it. He warned her in the only way he could, warned her that some truths do not grant the freedom one seeks. He cautioned her, just as the Crone did, that once she knows she can never go back.

There will be no going forward, or back for that matter, until she grants Vittoria eternal rest and peace. Until she solves the mystery of herself and becomes whole. Actual sweat and blood and tears went into finding her divine objects. She bared her teeth at his realm and clawed her way toward the seven stars. She did as threatened, and removed everything that stood in her way.

She earned this. She deserves this.

Now the beacon is dried up. Now travel efforts are being restarted — again — and the mirror won't work. So what is she to do? Instinct has her lumbering toward him several steps. Her demon. Her mirror. Her regret.

She's been unable to tell him so much. "Samael — "

[inferus]

Wrath stills so suddenly, stiffly like becoming stone when she says his name as if she knows it is his, as if it does not horrify her that it is his given the title which comes with it. He stares, unable to move despite the pain he sees in her face and how much he wishes to erase the distance between them. When he saw the mirror in her hand, he knew she must be from the future, but how far?

Is her curse broken? Does she remember after all this time? Hope flutters terribly up inside of him.

He can feel the curse wrap around his throat like a serpent when he tries to speak certain words, and so his own curse is still firmly in place. If he has not lived it but she has, would she be free.

He is wholly unprepared for this. So accustomed to strategy, to planning out every act before he can commit it, to thinking ahead, he does not know what to do with this. Samael. Moments ago, he had hoped she would one day say his name like this, and then she does. His chest feels as if it might cave in on itself once more, like he cannot breathe through it. The shattered shards of his heart tightening within his ribcage now that it is a reality he did not think could be.

His expression is stricken before he manages to pull some of it back. He steps forward, pulling the handkerchief from his pocket, sliding it over her bloodied knuckles. His hand is so very warm - only the slightest of shakes before it settles over hers.

[valeas]

Emilia does not loosen her hold on the mirror, not even after he's set himself the task of wiping the blood off her knuckles. His silence creates another pause in which she finally pieces certain things together. The knife and the fruit that he dropped to the ground. The way he stared at her as though he was hearing his name for the first time. The slight shake to his own hand.

He was the one who told her to study her enemies closely. To look for any sign of the truth in their mannerisms. He may no longer be her enemy, but the fact she doesn't have to look all that hard is worrisome.

Wrath can make himself unreadable with the snap of a finger. He is meticulous to the point of fault. Very little unsettles him, and if it does, no one will know it unless he wants them to. She looks up at him from this closer vantage point.

"You were in the kitchen?"

After all but handing her the spell book? That doesn't sound right.

[inferus]

Wrath frowns at how tightly she grips hold of the mirror. He is aware of the cost it must have taken in order for her to achieve it - how hard she would have had to fight.

He breathes in and then out within the quiet. With effort, he draws himself back together, understanding the curse has not been broken for her either. It would take more than this mirror and what it might show her. She would be acting differently if she remembered it all. His dark-gold gaze rests on his hand over her knuckles before he attempts to tug the mirror from her hand.

"I will return it to you, Emilia."

His voice is quiet as he indicates the handkerchief so he might gently tie it around her knuckles.

"I was in the kitchen. I went there after I awoke in my bedchamber from your specially prepared champagne and realized you were..." at Pride's. "gone. Clearly, you have experienced more than I have."

[valeas]

Emilia's grip on the mirror finally loosens as she is met with her own realization. She hadn't entertained this possibility — they awoke in the salt mines remembering all the same things. Then again, she hadn't entertained the possibility they'd be back at all, either.

Wrath phrases it somewhat more palatably, but there is no dressing up the ugliness of her treachery. She knocked him out with slumber root in a moment of rare vulnerability. She made him a casualty of what she thought she needed to do. In a different life, she would have stayed in his arms and kissed him well into a cursed dawn. Some part of her wanted to, and she coldly set it aside.

Emilia had been certain what peace and trust they rebuilt would be gone when he awoke, and it very well may have, had he not learned about her trip into the Bloodwood Forest. Wrath as he stands before her has not learned this yet, and she can't bring herself to feel the perverse satisfaction she might've in the past: that he should be the one left in the dark.

"Knife work is relaxing. I remember."

She considers their surroundings, and: "Would you like to take this elsewhere?"

[inferus]

Wrath is almost surprised when she relents so easily.

He takes the mirror and sets it gently beneath his arm and side to keep it protected. Then he tears the handkerchief in half to use as a make shift bandage, which he gently wraps around her knuckles at the areas which are bloodied.

After he finishes tying it strong enough to stem the bleeding and keep it protected for the time being, his gaze lifts to meet her own. He pulls the mirror back from his arm and holds it out to her, straightening. So she finds him while he is still there, he does not know how long he ends up spending in the kitchen with knife in hand, cutting one mortal food after the next, finding some measure of comfort by being as close to her as he could be.

Goddess damn him.

"It seems as if no time has passed here." People around them speak of the Beacon as if it happened only moments ago before it closed again. Is that the issue? It did not have enough time to send them back permanently? "I imagine we still have the rooms Macaluso lent to us for the time being." ...if they want to take this somewhere else.

[valeas]

"Thank you."

Her gaze lingers on the makeshift bandage. On the press of his fingers over hers, more gentle than they have any right to be. Emilia swallows past the thickness collecting in her throat, reaching for the mirror with composure she doesn't entirely feel. If she learned anything during her stay in the Seven Circles, it's to not let herself look how she feels if how she feels is tied up in knots.

To be in command of herself, for the moment she slipped the realm would pounce.

Nodding her agreement, she leaves the piazza with him. She doesn't let herself look too closely, lest she be tempted to stop if she spots a familiar face. She'd like to sort through how jarring this all is first. Wrath isn't wrong, after all: this is the day Hatisse activated the beacon after borrowing their energy as fuel for it. Taravast is still in shambles, and they were gone for months.

They're allowed back into the palace of the Doxe — now Macaluso. It's all coming back to her in pieces, and she wonders if this is how it will be when she remembers the rest of what went missing. No, not missing. Stolen.

She conceals the mirror under her cloak, not exactly wanting to advertise she's brought back a divine vestige with her. It occurs to her they no longer have to had their association with each other, that he doesn't have to transvenio into her room after careful maneuvering. A fortunate thing, seeing as he can't do that at the moment. Her room is closest, and Emilia opens the door and invites him in.

[inferus]

Wrath steps inside of her room when she invites him in, and he steps back immediately toward the balcony, staring out into the sunlight. No time at all has passed. Not that months generally feel long to him, but the last few months have felt as if they have stretched out- So much happened in a short amount of time.

He turns back to her, realizing he does not know what she meant about 'this'. It is not as if he wants to talk about what happened that evening when she left in the middle of their intimate tryst when he had let his guard down. She had her reasons, he is certain of that much.

And he does not want to think of her with Pride - the dance alone was more than enough. So instead when he turns back to her, it's to linger on her face. It's hard to read her exactly especially without his connection to her emotions. He can tell there is some confliction but cannot tell what emotions are associated with that. She has started to become good at schooling her features.

"...what did the mirror show you?"

He doesn't know if she will tell him, but how she appeared when she first arrived with it in her hand-

[valeas]

A crack in her composure, then. This failure is so very bitter a swallow.

"Nothing. I hadn't yet activated its magic."

Emilia fights the urge to ball her hands into tight fists, dig what nails are left into the meat of her palms while her frustration simmers. They've suffered enough damage, yet another casualty of her steely resolve.

She steps out into the balcony after him. Tips her head up and exhales softly as the day's warmth settles on her face. She understands, now, why he'd soak in every last ray of Palermo's sun. It leaves her quiet for a long time.

"You knew I would take the Crone's book of spells."

He knew that she would need it to activate the goddess magic in the first place, and he'd left it alone anyway.

[inferus]

Wrath notices the crack immediately (the bitterness and anger). Even without his powers, he could recognize it immediately. A part of him is grateful for the crack if only so he might see how she is truly feeling in this moment despite the fact he was the one to lecture her for wearing her emotions so openly. He has always loved her fury and her fire.

He watches her face as she looks to the sun, understanding that emotion too- the ache for warmth after so long. Perhaps he wanted to spare her of the cold for longer. Perhaps he wanted to have her to himself for more time, to keep her away from Pride and the rest of his brothers as much as he could.

It was not his choice to make. It was hers.

"You needed it if you were going to choose, and you know how I value choice - that includes your own, Emilia." He would never do anything to jeopardize hers, to prevent her from going down a path if that is what she wished. "Did I at least warn you?"

for five.

[inferus]

Wrath hates being away from his House, from his place of power that he clawed up on to the throne of so long ago. He has far less control here, fewer choices, less power, fewer resources. However, there are people within this world, within their group that he has come to rely on, and his mind first goes to one individual in particular despite their initial rocky beginning - Five.

Taravast has been in a whirlwind following the upheaval within it. Vannozza did follow through with killing Bonaccarso, but certainly not in the manner he had hoped- public trial and public execution. Few mortals manage to know how to wield their anger without it letting it control them and take away bits of their soul. He wonders if she regrets it. Giving oneself over to vengeance rarely ever leads one to feeling any better than before.

Wrath cannot transvenio (an infuriating thought that this world may have scraped his powers entirely from him, but he refuses to believe it. there is anger here even if there is no Hell, he will have his power one way or another). Ultimately, despite being restricted to mortal movements, it does not take him long to find Five wherever he might be. It gives him the opportunity to survey through the city, watching it be rebuilt - obviously, no time has passed since his attempted trip through the beacon despite much more time passing in Hell. Wrath is accustomed to this with the mortal realm and Hell operating differently in terms of time.

He is aware Five is one of the few who did not want to enter into the Beacon so he could search for his family. Wrath can trust the information Five has is reliable and true, and he has his own information regarding Bonaccarso and the Merchant.

[somebadnews]

Five spent the last few days monitoring the fall of Taravast, which he could have predicted weeks ago with the last invasion, even if it hadn't gone exactly as he'd imagined. The Beacon was one of the surprises. He'd long assumed it didn't work, and everything they did to win favor to access it was for nothing. Just another manipulation tactic. Until he'd watched from a distance as it sputtered to life.

He saw people he knew eagerly enter and disappear. There was no way to tell if they reached their destination, but it still did more than he gave them credit for. If he'd had the time, he would have studied it more closely, and tracked down information on how they work. Or raided Bonaccorso's room for clues now that the man was too dead to answer his questions.

If he felt anything about those who left, he doesn't show it. After the first few pass through, he spent some time going back to his own neglected math, purposely focusing on the equations that he'd worked on since he first came here. Equations scribbled in a notebook that would eventually take him and his family back home with or without assistance.

He's only curious when it shuts down sooner than he expects. Five keeps near the area, listening to those around to pick up any threads of conversation about what happened. — And then he spots Wrath, coming towards him. He furrows his brow as soon as he catches his eye. The last he saw of him, he was eager to go back to where he came from, and he didn't seem like someone who would squander his chances. Which could only mean that it didn't work as well as he thought.

"Did you forget something?"

[inferus]

Wrath slows to a stop in front of Five and then narrows his gaze in answer to the question. The dark of his gaze is sharp. Annoyance builds inside of his ribcage to be returned, to not have access to his immense power.

"The Beacon worked only briefly." He has not had a chance to ask Hatisse why exactly that would be, but speaking to her is usually a matter of witnessing all of her seduction attempts in the process. "We were returned to our worlds and then dragged back into this one, and now it seems the beacon is no longer operational."

It was not as if he was in a hurry to return to his world to drag Emilia to Hell with him when he preferred having more time away from his brothers and the Sin Corridor and the manipulations there, but it is frustrating to have been there so briefly especially knowing Emilia was growing closer to learning the truth.

[somebadnews]

He pockets his notebook when he gets closer, and watches the shift in his expression with growing concern. Wrath manages to satisfy his curiosity only to bring up a multitude of other questions. So it not only shut off, but it somehow was able to pull them back here. What would cause that? Even a malfunctioning briefcase would simply strand them in time. Like the one he used had.

Not knowing how it works is immediately frustrating. He can't blame him for being angry. Five would have killed whoever yanked him back if he'd finally managed to get his family to the right timeline.

"Shit." He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. Apparently his instincts were right. The Beacon had seemed too easy to be trusted. Now that he's aware of what it can do, he'll be more leery the next time they find one. "They only said it would take you back, but not for how long."

A part of him still wants to hunt down Macaluso and demand answers. He nearly suggests it when he looks back at Wrath with rare sympathy in his gaze. "...I'm sorry. Both of you?"

[inferus]

"I do not know if everyone was unceremoniously returned." It is possible others actually managed to remain in their own world once the beacon was activated. It is possible they will be deposited later. Wrath's hand slides back behind his own neck as he releases a breath, shoving the rest of his frustration back into a shelf where it is carefully controlled.

Then his gaze is drawn to Five at the apology- the sympathy in his gaze is something Wrath recognizes, and he can feel. It is genuine. Wrath, also, knows it is rare for Five. He takes a moment with it (unaccustomed to sympathy being aimed at him) before he nods in appreciation that Five should ask.

"Yes." Emilia has returned as well or else this world might have to fear Wrath fully unleashed upon it. "But from different points in time within our world." Within Hell. Emilia had been taken to Hell.

[somebadnews]

That gets an immediate reaction. Five looks briefly shocked before his expression hardens at the revelation that the Beacon is as faulty as his own inherent powers. Or maybe it's something to do with this place interfering? The briefcase that sent them here shouldn't have scattered his siblings through time, but it did, and he hasn't come up with a good theory as to why.

He needs to find out why. The thought that he could finally find the rest of his family, only to separate them again over the span of several years, makes him ill. The equations have to be perfect. He can't — won't — do that to them this time. Which may mean that the Beacons are completely off the table.

Wrath must have found her eventually. They obviously have a connection, so he would have been actively looking. Now that he's brought her up, it seems strange that he left Emilia to speak to him, but he was always more preceptive than most. Maybe he knows that Five is an authority on the subject of time. He's right, so he's not about to complain.

"How long did you have to wait?" It pains him to pose the question, but he needs to know what he has to factor. He'd prefer it if Wrath answer with the exact number of years, days, and hours, but given the circumstances he'll allow for a ballpark.

[inferus]

Wrath is not entirely certain what the question is, and so he decides to back up for the moment - to explain the situation in full to give the entire context. Five is an expert on this subject, and Wrath trusts his opinion when it comes to this. Time travel is not anything the devil has experience with- the very thought of it is unnatural to him. Still. If it were possible, he could go back in time and change the curse- change something to prevent the current situation he is in. It might be too much power for any one individual to wield so freely.

"I will start at the beginning. When the beacon was activated, we were returned to the very moment we left our world. Neither of us remembered this place throughout our time there." More memories stolen from them, but this time by the beacon itself. "Time works differently in Hell than it does in mortal realms, but we spent the equivalent of several mortal months there."

He breathes out. A great deal happened within that time, but it was ultimately so brief.

"When I arrived back in Taravast, it was mere moments after the beacon shut down and mere moments before she arrived near me. She had experienced a day or two, which I had not."

[somebadnews]

There are several things to take in, and Five makes a list of them to follow up on the more he reveals. They were in Hell. Ignoring the fact that he's only recently acknowledged that it exists, that's something he has a particularly hard time accounting for. During his years in the Commission he traveled to every place on Earth, every relevant time period to keep the timeline on the correct track, but he has no idea how it works in the afterlife. Or if his ability to time travel would still work the same there. But Wrath doesn't seem to have the same issue with traveling between realms. It'd be easy to get distracted by that thought, but he keeps to the most relevant information.

They weren't separated as far as he feared. While not precise, Five can appreciate that Wrath thought to find out immediately upon arriving back. For all he knows, that could be within the margin of error if the Beacon wasn't calibrated exactly.

"A day or two in Hell. What would that be in the mortal realm?" A few seconds? The matter of time not seeming to pass while they were here makes more sense. Time wasn't frozen, they simply returned to the same point they originated, which is ideal in most cases. But these things need to be carefully calculated. A device used to travel between dimensions shouldn't just work without someone operating it who knew what they were doing.

Someone that made a conscious decision to pull them back.

"Did it feel any differently? Or did you notice anyone around you before it happened?" He doesn't care that he hasn't given him time to answer the first question before he carries on, exasperated by the whole ordeal they went through to get access to the Beacon. Then there's the matter of not remembering this place until he returned. That doesn't just happen for no reason.

"You were lucky it got you there at all. Anyone I talked to didn't seem to have any answers about how it worked. Whoever was running it could have sabotaged it before you entered without even knowing."

[inferus]

Wrath assumes these questions are a vital part in understanding the time travel portion of the beacon. He is aware of Five's briefcases and expertise on the subject, but it appears travel through entirely different worlds may have its own rules to it. Perhaps Five is attempting to learn these new rules as a means of finding a way to return, finding his family first- always first.

"It is never a direct nor exact translation, but generally, time passes much faster in the mortal realm."

Time does not have the same meaning in Hell when it is eternal, when there is no sun and no moon, when there are not seasons - simply ice and snow without any end in sight. A day in Hell could mean a month or a year or a decade in the mortal realm, and it always varies as if each realm exists on its own timetable.

Wrath has never had to think of time before except in terms of the limits of his own curse (months to get his House in order). He has never aged.

"It felt same as when I left." Wrath did not appreciate the feeling in the slightest. He is unaccustomed to feeling anything at all like what he felt - a weakness of the body, a straining. He remains guarded and unaffected in most circumstances, but this world has a habit of changing that on many aspects.

"Hatissee harming anyone within the group purposefully is not possible." A pause as his gaze is drawn across the street. He does not know who may be listening.

[somebadnews]

He scowls at his answer, however honest it might be. Though it shouldn't bother him as much as it does that he can't get a precise correlation. Ridiculous that it would even matter to him how time passes in Hell. But it pulls at something he doesn't care to think about. Like what would happen to his family if he dies before he gets them back.

Which he won't. Thanks to his infamous miscalculation, he's got another sixty or seventy years to ensure that they're living long and healthy lives in the proper timeline. It's only been a few months, he can figure this out.

"That was Hatissee?" Whatever thoughts he was having are derailed by that statement. Apparently they have more to catch up on. "...What do you mean it's not possible?"

[inferus]

Wrath raises an eyebrow at the scowl on Five's face, wondering why it does appear to bother him that there is no correlation. Hell works differently as does Heaven. They are not bound by mortal expectations or exactness. They are both malleable other than certain stringent rules in place - ones that frequently make little sense to the few mortals who go far enough within Hell to learn of them.

The question brings him pause, and again, he takes a moment to be certain they are not being listened to or watched. It is difficult to say, however. The Merchant has eyes and ears everywhere so he feels fairly confident the man already knows.

"I would prefer not to speak in the open."

[somebadnews]

The look he gets doesn't prompt him to explain. It could just be any time-related matter is liable to trigger something in him. His intimate knowledge of how time works get thrown off when he has to consider how it moves in other realms of existence. That's all it is. Anything more... and he'll revisit it when it's more relevant to the situation at hand.

He looks around when Wrath does, noting a few people milling about but nobody stopping long enough to worry about. But he understands caution.

"Fair enough." That's easy to fix. He gives it a second, long enough for a slow passerby to round a corner, then grabs Wrath's arm and blinks them away.

They land in a building not far off that he knew would be empty. What he didn't account for is the state he finds it in, and he nearly trips over an overturned piece of furniture until he blinks a second time to the opposite side of the room. It's not as bad as what they did to the farmhouse when they left Sa-Hareth, but they definitely left their mark on Taravast.

He adjusts his clothing and looks up to see the sun shining directly overhead. Well, that would explain the mess inside.

"I remember there being a roof." Oh well. He shrugs and turns back to Wrath. "You were saying about the dead woman operating the Beacon. I seem to have missed a few things."