#kc_necropolis

He swings his boot over to stand, sauntering closer to her*

She nods. "I remember, yes." Her dark eyes shift to watch him, thoughts flickering in their inky depths.

"Started thinking about things. That Fiona, Leonora. Tanner. That Balor, she had that look, kinda." He circles her slowly, keeping his eyes on hers as he strolls around the side of her* "Tink. The girls at the clubs. Even Emerson and CC had something to say about it." He stops behind her, and she can feel his fingers at her hair, pulling it back, almost a gentle stroke away from her ear* "A fluke, right?"

She closes her eyes, leaning in slightly towards the touch. "That look..."

His lips close to her ear; the sweet scent of the cologne mingling with the smell of decomposition, turning it to something entirely different; not unlike the way indoles can create the close, almost obscene smell of jasmine. A cold finger on her neck, a shocking difference from the heat of the summer afternoon, like a shiver of ice down one's shirt* "All the things about us, Ghost, I thought were most repellent...."

"But see, there is something....exciting about death, even....maybe especially...for sidhe."

"They want to push it away. They want to embrace it."

His rasp low, intimate, near her ear*

Her shoulders shift slightly at the touch, the cold running down her spine. "...aye. Like how Earl... shadows and scarecrows and darkness..."

"But sidhe, when the void is always there - the void, not the cycle? ...Aye."

"Mmn," He agrees, a darkly amused sound. He lets her hair down, smoothing it with his hand* "And sidhe want control. I think there's something, Ghost...in a lot of people's minds. They want to feel like they can control death. Or if they can hold it in their arms, and make it love them, that it will be less frightening." *A grin in his voice* "And other people, they want the thrill of knowing it can come at any time."

"It's useful." Circling back around in front of her now*

She gums on her lower lip, and nods slowly.

*His eyes on her, intent. Finally just tall enough to have to look down, even if slightly*

"I didn't know this a year ago. Did you?"

"A year ago, I knew only my books."

"I dreamed and watched, like.. like a pupa wrapped in silk. Safe, but...."

A grin* "But safe is dull to you, Ghost. I know that much."

She nods. "Safe feels... it feels like a cage, sometimes."

"There's... something missing, when everything is safe."

"We're different there." He shrugs, taking a step back away from her; the heady scent of him withdrawing from her consciousness as much, as he turns to head back to his seat beneath the anguished concrete angel, turning to sit and draw up a leg again* "But the troll's safe. Isn't he?"

She doesn't answer, save a shift in her weight and a bit on her lower lip.

A hard smile, as if he knows the answer already. But instead of following that path, he lifts chin, eyes narrowing* "Tell me what else has been going on, Ghost. Why are you Rapunzel now?"

"You get a car, and then say you have to break out to leave? What gives?"

"There... my birthday... there was a problem."

"I agreed to.. ah.. lay low, and he Uncles won't go to the Count."

"What did you get caught doing, this time, Ghost?"

"Stealing the Duke's scribe's best quill?"

"Nothing! I didn't do anything. But... you understand... " a pause, and a flicker of a grin. "That would be a prize..."

"But no. When I went to bed on Thursday, I found... in my bed, there was a box of Hirim's make. Truth, I thought the present was from him, I know his work..."

A grin back at her. He has to agree*

Then he leans on his updrawn leg, eyes on her, listening*

"Inside the box was a gift beneath a blank card. A jeweled spinning wheel, pure gold I think.. small enough to hold in my palm, perfectly functional."

Rapunzel indeed. His eyes narrow, nodding* "You said you thought it was from your Uncle."

"Aye. And work that fine..." She shrugs. "But it was a trap. The spindle was poisoned."

"And the card... invisible ink, nu? Someone who knew me well enough, I think. 'Happy Birthday, love Daddy.' " Her nose wrinkles in distaste.

A shift from his white tee shirt, and something dark and gleaming can be seen sliding around his shoulder, watching her dark-eyed* "You're not dead." *Observes*

"It was a paralytic." Her mouth tightens, hands closing up. "My own body just... it would not obey me..."

"I think... I know not it if it was just to scare me, or if I discovered the poison at the wrong time - too late or too early for anything else to happen..."

"No other note? No way to contact whoever it was?" His eyes narrowed, thinking* "Knowing you, you probably Woowoo'ed it."

She nods. "Yes, and yes."

"I used the card and my blood to build the casting... it is.. it is difficult, to soothsay someone you do not know. That is why I caution you to be mindful of your hair, nu? For a piece of the self is a powerful tie."

"Yeah. I know. It's how Thirteen found me, and I found Firnost. She was aiming for HIM." Eyes narrowed, listening* "I'll keep my hair to myself. Go on."

"Aye. If there is too much, burn it to ash. But.. but what I saw? I do not think his intentions are kindly."

"I saw conflicting images - a gauntleted arm with a hammer, yet the arm was also a snake... and the armor was chased with serpents, but driven by cog wheels..."

"And a weapons-forge, bright and searing hot... where.. where a figure was being tempered by the hammer, beaten and screaming... but the scream had no sound, all I could hear were the hammer's blows..."

"Was it you?" bluntly* "Being hammered?"

"I don't know. Mayhaps. For.. what was left at the end, were... the figure left naught but a web of strings. I... lace? Was it lace?" She looks up, searching his face as if it has an answer.

*No answer in that pale marble face, just cold calculation* "You make lace. Doileys."

She nods. "I do."