Satis House

[XCandy and LunacyX]

At once, Antha was both delighted and annoyed by what Rynn was beginning. She wasn't quite certain what it was, true, and Cian seemed genuinely concerned, and yet she still chose to pull herself loose of him. And for the second time in a matter of very few hours, Antha brought her spirits against Rynn, gathered them in order to contain him, to counterbalance his own magic. And in the confusion, the whisper of ghosts and the whistle of her own wind as it met his head on, she brought her own personal power---that which belonged solely to her rather than any detached spirits---physically against him, dragged him to the floor with it and then slid over him in another oddly feline movement as if she would pin him, trap him, though she never touched him. "If you do not mind, monsieur Calais," she said to him in a voice that was, for once, truly sweet, if a bit disturbingly cheery given the circumstances, "These books are quite irreplaceable. I see no reason for them to suffer for your anger, do you?" A wry little grin flickered briefly across her face then. She thought---and the spirits agreed wholeheartedly with her---that perhaps she should not turn Rynn's displays of power into a game again. It certainly had not ended well for anyone the last time. And so she sought instead to quiet it before it spun out of control again, damaging her house in the process. Besides, the spirits reminded her, surely none of them wished to wake what lived in the attic.
Antha only smiled. Perhaps so and perhaps not---they were about to see.  

[Okimiyage]

"Then stop ******** with me," Rynn snarled. He was the perfect study of a wet-furred, spitting little cat at the moment. She had irked him. But he saw his brother's disappointment in the face that he made, moments afterwards, and that was what made him hide his own eyes and be grateful for the long and flickering shadows the fire cast. He was reminded that in ordinary families, the younger brothers were generally not ranked at the top of the food chain. Cian was--putting up with him. Would, he supposed, until Cian figured out that he had no longer to be bound by the anchors of the Calais name, and then he would bound off into the world like a dog realizing that it'd been let off it's leash unexpectedly. His hands clenched into the fine plush rug covering the floor, and he bit his lips until they drained of color. He could feel the weight of Antha's stare, and he stood, abruptly, and with him rose the books that he had knocked off the shelves. As he turned on his heel, they slid into back into their places, each one exact in position. The noise that all of them made together was a whump of displaced air. Rynn crossed his arms. "Looks like it's time for me to be off. I need my beauty sleep, after all, unlike you two grotesques." Grinning, he dashed along between the two of them and up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Cian smiled, apogetically--not the fox who had been let into the henhouse, perhaps, but the friend of the fox's who let him in. Rynn could be a perfect monster at times, an utter beast--  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"Well that will never happen," Antha responded sincerely, withdrawing back to sit with her legs folded beneath her, "It's simply not in my nature." She did, however, bother to take his hands, to drag him up to her level again in a very small gesture of kindness. Or perhaps it was more like appeasement, a sort of 'See, I'm playing nice, now calm down' maneuver.
But then he rose on his own and finally left, though not without calling them names first. "'Grotesques' he calls us," she said to Cian, grinning, "He couldn't have called us 'degenerates' could he? I could have forgiven him that, it's true enough after all." Behind her, the fire collapsed upon itself as if something invisible had smothered it out, reduced it to glowing embers, and darkness descended like a veil, a haze over the feeble points of light scattered around them.  

[Okimiyage]

XCandy and LunacyX

"Well that will never happen," Antha responded sincerely, withdrawing back to sit with her legs folded beneath her, "It's simply not in my nature." She did, however, bother to take his hands, to drag him up to her level again in a very small gesture of kindness. Or perhaps it was more like appeasement, a sort of 'See, I'm playing nice, now calm down' maneuver.
But then he rose on his own and finally left, though not without calling them names first. "'Grotesques' he calls us," she said to Cian, grinning, "He couldn't have called us 'degenerates' could he? I could have forgiven him that, it's true enough after all." Behind her, the fire collapsed upon itself as if something invisible had smothered it out, reduced it to glowing embers, and darkness descended like a veil, a haze over the feeble points of light scattered around them.

Cian shook his head, shrugged aimlessly; the lights fell and he became a shadowshape, dim-lit by amber sparks. It suited his complexion, the cinnamon streaks in his hair, the gold flecks in his eyes. Reaching out, he near tripped over a loose floorboard, but caught himself in time--although he ended up too close to Antha, intentionally or not, and his smile caught the gleam of candlelight in a style reminiscent of the old Cian, the Cian that drank absinthe all day and feasted upon opium from day to blood-sucking day in his old tower and only spoke in rhyme and went mad, in a merry way, for a time. The Jester of Llyr's Court, his brothers had called him, laughingly, on one of the rare occasions that he ventured out from his tower to speak quizzical remarks and mix poetry with therm over their morning porridge in the kitchen--some days, when Rynn was not at home to speak sharply to the servants, all they had to eat was cold porridge left over from a great filthy pot the servants prepared in isolation, glaring menacingly at all who ventured in. Cian wondered now whether they had survived the fall of the Manor, the burning of the house. No doubt--the old man and his wife lived on quarters outside the home, but there was still the possibility that their feeble old shack had fallen in the shaking of the earth, the burial vault of the Calais ancestors having collapsed upon itself in Antha's fleeing and Rynn's calling of the labyrinth--foliage.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Antha sighed once, softly, shrugging her thin shoulders. "Your brother talks too much to suit him and you do not speak at all, suddenly." And then, from the corner of her eye as she stared after Rynn, she saw in the dimness the strangeness of his movements, as if he might fall, and the next thing she knew she had taken hold of his hand. Never mind that if he went down, he would only take her with him. "Perhaps we should find you some light?" she suggested, and in the dim glow of smoldering wood her eyes flashed with that teasing glimmer and the grin to match, "Or did you want to follow after your brother? To run off to your room and leave me to entertain myself?"  

[Okimiyage]

He stared at her from across their clasped hands, where she had caught at him to prevent him from falling, and suddenly she knew, quite simply, exactly and ecstastically what he wanted of her. It was the cleanest and simplest occasion of telempathy that Antha had ever witnessed, beautifully positioned in her mind for a single, transcendent moment. It'd always been a special little trick of Cian's, one that had made him--quite understandably--very popular with women when he hit puberty and became interested in girls. But then suddenly, he shook his hands free of hers even as Cian kissed her fingertips, ardently, and held his hands back from hers. For the first time, light falling across his cheekbones, one could see how truly beautiful he was--just as beautiful as Rynn, if in a different way. The Calais gene pool was kind to it's children. He looked up at her with steady, brilliant hazel eyes, the glow and flicker of embers catching the tawny streaks in his eyes. He seemed to be asking for--acceptance. Do you want this? It did not matter if Rynn or Nicolae or her family or his--the tattered shreds of the Calais name--what anyone else wanted out of the two of them, if she did not accept this. She smelled like--lavender, ever so faintly, no longer of ash and--death, but Antha would always smell like death, though, wouldn't she?  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

For a moment or two, Antha just watched him, her emerald eyes dark, oddly focused upon his features. And then, quickly and without warning, she brought her lips against his. It was but a moment, fleeting, but there was passion enough---scalding---in that brief press of skin to get her point across. "Death, yes, always," she whispered, infinitely soft, as she brushed his hair back, and for a moment as the first crack of lightning split the sky, signaling a storm that had rolled over the brightening heavens and blackened them too quickly to be noticed, it was possible to see something in her expression, some sense that perhaps she thought from his unvoiced thoughts they shared something. Because maybe if she had to step into the darkness of her room alone, to lay down against her silken sheets and fall asleep alone and cold and awaken when darkness fell as completely alone and shaken, she herself would scream.
It was then that she stepped back, that her eyes became focused again as they pried into Cian's as if she were waiting for something, some sort of reaction. She was not entirely familiar with the Calais boys after all, particularly Cian, and some small part of her wanted to equate him with Rynn, to make them more similar than they were within her head. It was this fragment of her mind that waited for him to sneer at her, yell at her, clench his teeth and glare at her, any of Rynn's erratic and unexplainable reactions. "You are quite terribly beautiful," she sighed at length, like she had only just noticed it, and it made the dark, suggestive glimmer in her eyes all the more intense.
 

[Okimiyage]

XCandy and LunacyX

For a moment or two, Antha just watched him, her emerald eyes dark, oddly focused upon his features. And then, quickly and without warning, she brought her lips against his. It was but a moment, fleeting, but there was passion enough---scalding---in that brief press of skin to get her point across. "Death, yes, always," she whispered, infinitely soft, as she brushed his hair back, and for a moment as the first crack of lightning split the sky, signaling a storm that had rolled over the brightening heavens and blackened them too quickly to be noticed, it was possible to see something in her expression, some sense that perhaps she thought from his unvoiced thoughts they shared something. Because maybe if she had to step into the darkness of her room alone, to lay down against her silken sheets and fall asleep alone and cold and awaken when darkness fell as completely alone and shaken, she herself would scream.
It was then that she stepped back, that her eyes became focused again as they pried into Cian's as if she were waiting for something, some sort of reaction. She was not entirely familiar with the Calais boys after all, particularly Cian, and some small part of her wanted to equate him with Rynn, to make them more similar than they were within her head. It was this fragment of her mind that waited for him to sneer at her, yell at her, clench his teeth and glare at her, any of Rynn's erratic and unexplainable reactions. "You are quite terribly beautiful," she sighed at length, like she had only just noticed it, and it made the dark, suggestive glimmer in her eyes all the more intense.

Her whisper made him look up, but only for an instant; he should have known that, if anyone, Antha Mayfair would be the one to pluck loose thoughts from his head like loose threads from a tapestry. He wanted, suddenly, to be as close to her as the wet skirt of a sea-salt schoolgirl. There was a wicked light in her eyes that Cian was not unfamiliar with, although it was the first time he had seen it so clearly in any eyes besides his own. One day, he thought, he would very much like to visit the city with Antha. His mind rested briefly on the thought of strolling through misty, gas-lit streets that he had only ever visited alone, now accompanied by a small, red-haired girl in dark ********>. Cian had realized that he was thinking about a date.
He was quite careful to avoid her hands, but Cian linked his wrists around the back of her head and pulled her close and kissed her so that it didn't matter, pulled her into the still and placid pool of his mind--she could see, briefly, that like some magic-users chose to, Cian had created a mental construct, in his case a wooded glen with the thick, smooth grass pock-marked with perfectly round, perfectly still, and apparently randomly-placed pools of water.
His mouth tasted of bourbon, he knew, and Cian tangled his hands in her hair and kissed her, gently but fully, masterfully--he had not been alone all those nights roaming the city, of course. It suddenly occurred to him that he had been told so many times by so many women in smoky, dark bars, their bright faces shiny with too much make-up, smelling of hair-spray and artificial perfumes to cover it all up--told by these women that he was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, in so many different ways--but it was only that when Antha said it that he felt--satisfied, and convinced of it, and touched by the phrase.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

It was very possible, even likely she thought, that as their lips met again and she tasted the bourbon, her arms sliding over his shoulders and eliminating whatever small space existed between them, that he could feel some silent neediness that emanated from her, some dire need to touch and be touched, to feel warm skin and another living heartbeat. It was so easy to forget she was always in the company of vampires, or else the cousins that secretly sickened her sometimes and she was infinitely glad suddenly that Cian had come along. It was an odd realization that she would rather it was him than Nicolae or Courtland or even Vikteren, whom she had thought she did this because of, to make up for the warmth of affection he simply refused to give her, and it made her ravenous suddenly. Starving, like anything short of crushing her would make her cry because suddenly she wanted him so badly she didn't know what to do with herself.
And yet beneath all of that, there was yet another well of desire, some deep, dark part of herself that was more thought than emotion, and that wanted to fold him in her arms, to stroke his hair and whisper lullabies against his ear. As she had said, Mayfairs tended to have some twisted urge to gather lost souls to themselves, living or not. To hold them and soothe them and drive the loneliness away like it was some great beast that spread fire with every breath, to promise them some sweet and selfless love.  

[Okimiyage]

Cian could feel the shapes of other men that lay upon her mind. Oddly enough, he did not feel jealous. For a moment, everything that had been in Llyr's Court left him, and he was transfixed by a curious zen of the mind. He did not want more to drink, or smoke or snort through his nose from tiny crushed pills like juice extracted from some strange and fragrant fruit. He felt the shape of other men on her mind in this moment, and he was not envious. He was not ashamed of this fact, only suddenly he was aware that he liked Antha Mayfair enormously; he wanted to draw circles in the dirt and confess his schoolboy crushes to her. But he would settle for kissing her ravenously, as he opened her vest and shirt and his hands skidded up her skirts and the flames around them burned themselves and spent themselves into cinders.

Afterwards, in the dark, Cian sat in one of the great plush chairs and smoked a cigarette. He offered one to Antha--somehow, he'd manage to keep his favorite cigarette-box on him, the silver one with the heraldry of the Calais crest on it. Strangely, he liked it now. It was...proof that the Calais family had existed, that he was not just some strange, erroneous figure from the fantasy of a madman. He wished that his family had been dreamed up by a madman. He could not stop looking at Antha, and the red of her hair that shone, gleamed, through the darkness. He wanted to hold her close to him, even now, and his bandaged lip had--broken open, and started bleeding again, and he laughed at it and pressed his lips against where the bandage had been and looked at Antha, because he could not stop looking at Antha. They had been in the library for some time now, because Cian was nothing if he was not a tender lover, and sensitive to his partner's needs, and he had wanted to hear her cry out, to hear the broken moans of the girl who could bring the entire City of Osiris, should she demand it, to its knees. And also just because (he was damned if he would deny it) he wanted to bring her pleasure as well, in this moment of all moments, amongst grief and Rynn's resentment--he could feel his little brother simmering in the room above, his mind aseeth with--well, CIan could not tell whether it was anger or whether it was--something else. Certainly, some sort of activity set his mind, as he curled in the window-seat of the room above, as clamorous as the snow-globe which whirls about, securely contained within its glass sphere, when shaken.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

The world outside was black, dark with the storm that had chosen to swirl over her city and now pounded the glass windowpanes with cold rain as Antha lay on the floor, picking idly at the threads of the carpet. The fire by her feet had roared back into life some fraction of a moment ago and she liked the way the light flickered on her hair, pooled around her on the floor. But it rose as she did, falling over her shoulders and down her back as she took the cigarette she was offered, putting it to her lips and lighting it before she dropped back to the floor, rather like a broken doll, some hastily abandoned marionette. She felt...cold, oddly enough.
In the quiet, she listened for Rynn. Cian had wanted to hear her and so she had screamed for him, but she would be lying if she said it wasn't also because of Rynn, because she wanted to annoy him or anger him or one of the other dark, hateful emotions she was sure would well up as a result. But now it was silent and she hated the silence, the quiet that begged for her to think more than she ought to.
She didn't want to be alone laying on the floor, staring blankly at the windows and through them the storm outside, and yet she would never admit it aloud. It seemed too great a weakness that she was lonely, that she would have even taken Rynn's embrace if it were offered, and so she laid still, her cheek pressed against the vivid old oriental rug, and sighed in a way that could mean any number of things in the world.  

[Okimiyage]

XCandy and LunacyX

The world outside was black, dark with the storm that had chosen to swirl over her city and now pounded the glass windowpanes with cold rain as Antha lay on the floor, picking idly at the threads of the carpet. The fire by her feet had roared back into life some fraction of a moment ago and she liked the way the light flickered on her hair, pooled around her on the floor. But it rose as she did, falling over her shoulders and down her back as she took the cigarette she was offered, putting it to her lips and lighting it before she dropped back to the floor, rather like a broken doll, some hastily abandoned marionette. She felt...cold, oddly enough.
In the quiet, she listened for Rynn. Cian had wanted to hear her and so she had screamed for him, but she would be lying if she said it wasn't also because of Rynn, because she wanted to annoy him or anger him or one of the other dark, hateful emotions she was sure would well up as a result. But now it was silent and she hated the silence, the quiet that begged for her to think more than she ought to.
She didn't want to be alone laying on the floor, staring blankly at the windows and through them the storm outside, and yet she would never admit it aloud. It seemed too great a weakness that she was lonely, that she would have even taken Rynn's embrace if it were offered, and so she laid still, her cheek pressed against the vivid old oriental rug, and sighed in a way that could mean any number of things in the world.

Cian could feel loneliness coming off of Antha like a scent, something that he could only recognize because he'd been so long exposed to it. He took up his shirt from where it lay on the floor, slunk from the chair and lay next to her on the carpet. He gathered her up in his arms and kissed her hair and eventually, taking his pleasure in it, smoked his cigarette and finally lay next to her, the shape of his mind still, his arms warming her cold little porcelain bones. The shirt lay on the floor between them like an offer. Eventually she would have to rise, and leave the dim afternoon sanctuary of the library, and so would he, and he wanted her to know--well, she didn't have to explain herself to anyone. Even if this ended up being a--the words tasted like curdled milk in his mouth, as he swallowed them into the hollow spaces of his throat--one night stand, she and he could go their separate ways and he would not resent her for it.
He rather hoped they wouldn't go their separate ways. Poor Antha. She was developing quite a harem, and the thought of the grim-mouthed girl in such a role made him smile.

Trembling, his hands crept forward to clutch Antha's. He hadn't tried this with anyone yet. He didn't know if it would work. But suddenly, in Antha's mind, there was a glen of tall shady trees all about her, and lush three-inch-thick grass, and pools perfectly round and of all-identical circumference placed at random intervals in the distance. Cian stood in front of her, where a tall birdcage marked the spot in the manner of a street-sign. But instead of any letters on the post, a black-bird clutched the railing inside a cage and peered down at the two of them with rheumy eyes. "Sallow," it croaked, "Mallow, Fallow. Cross-walks, commerce. City-sign, light, life. Brides."
Cian said, "Hello, Antha." and gave her the great broad smile of a delighted cat. The shirt still lay on the grass, and with a chuckle he knelt and picked it up, and offered it to her; in the dream, it shifted in his hands, and melted into a dress that was as fine as silk but not, softer somehow, the lace so delicate that it felt like snowflakes falling upon one's skin.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

It seemed to Antha that she would generally be the sort of person to cling to her loneliness, to wrap herself in it as she might a blanket, to wallow in that self-loathing feeling of wanting to remember the chill of it. It seemed she should be that way, that such was her character, and yet she was not. When Cian came to her she clung to him, wrapped herself in him, around him, and was very suddenly content. Just like flipping a switch, lonely and then simply not.
It was when she was drawn into his mind---or maybe it was her own---into the pretty scenery and odd workings of a dream world that her mind said 'No'. It grounded her, brought her back to the firelight and the sound of rain, because she wanted to be there, wanted to feel the stiff silken brush of the carpet and the warmth of his skin, to kiss his shoulder, his neck, the line of his jaw. She wanted the reality of it all, not to be Alice fallen down the rabbit hole and wandering across some new Wonderland. Or perhaps it was, more simply, a desire not to see his magic, to pretend it did not exist, because if she remembered it did exist then she remembered the Calais vault, the slash across Liesse's throat and the way he had held her, put his hand across it and tried to make it stop. It was something she couldn't bear, not then.
Her eyes glanced up to him, seemed to study him quietly until she finally murmured, "You know, I rather like you." And there was too much sincerity in her eyes, in the gaze that settled upon his own, for it to be any sweet and idle little whisper, something a girl said to a boy because she thought perhaps that was what he wanted to hear or to make it feel less like some common, fleeting thing.  

[Okimiyage]

He let go of her hand, releasing him from his mind as swiftly as he had brought her into it. He had only wanted to speak to her directly, without the--resentful presence of Rynn hovering between them as Cian's mouthpiece. But perhaps this was her way of saying 'man up!' Nothing--physically had happened to his mouth or lips or throat to cause them to be damaged in any way, but now he could not speak, as securely as though his lips had been sewn together by a thread. Doctors would say it was all in his head, which meant--that this his---foolish--self-imposed--punishment. He brushed locks of hair from her forehead and smiled at her. Cian gave one the feeling of talking to a cat, rather. He did not ever reply back, but he looked as though he understood and smiled, laughingly, though a delighted cat's tawny eyes. He did not care if she only liked him because he was mute, like Amadeo, or because he could be the bridge between their households, the father to her child. He supposed that was a good reason to like someone.