*/ what is angel-like?

Mrs. Finch and her wife Mrs. Shrike had Libitina for the night and as Mars opened his journal to track the stars and note the changes from last month, he realized that he didn't know Finch and Shrike's first names. He only knew they were married, had been married for longer than he was alive, and despite the differences in surnames, they didn't have a first marriage to note, and their maiden names were Castor and Simmons. Where Finch and Shrike came from was a mystery for another day.

The observatory was never busy, despite its open access to the public. So, when he bought a picnic basket with sandwiches, and a bottle of non-alcoholic wine, and lemonade ... it was more for a late-night snack then it was in hope of someone else joining him.

Still, this would have been something he shared with Meredith. He shared everything with her -- and Libitina was too young to be next to him, looking at the stars.

He heard someone coming up the stairs, and he leaned back and away from the telescope, balancing the journal on his middle. "So, you finally took me up on my offer to come out here?" he teased lightly. "You're lucky, Saturn should be visible soon."

He needed to talk about the werewolves and the growing unrest due to Hazel's disappearance. Anything that endangered the wolves poised a threat to his daughter, and the affable man would do anything to protect the wolves, and his daughter. "I bought food, like I said I would. So - join me, won't you? Finch and Shrike have Libitina for the night, so we have time to talk."

"No need to be so charming, Mr. Thatcher." Cordelia spent so much of her life looking up to a sky brightened by the city skyline, drowning out the darkness that settled around and swallowing the sight of stars. It would always be the moon that shone brightest, or shone at all most nights. How many times had she shifted under the sight of that moon, tore herself apart at the seams just to pick her bones from the floor and sew them back into the shape of a body.

"I don't remember the last time Saturn was visible in our skies." She takes the offer of the empty seat besides the man, stretching her hands out behind her and admiring the night above them. It was stars like these out in this isolated town that would make the lone wolf feel less lonely. "What troubles you?"

He almost blurted, to ask if Benji had family. Did this smiling, pleasant, unafraid Benji know what it was like? To have family; then to lose them so quickly it spun his entire world on its end? What would Benji know, with his convivial nature, harmless but oddly ominous (to a Hunter's instincts, at least) at the same time?

The book, the wind, the manifestation of Benji all culminated, twined into Ashed sense of frustration and latent grief.

"Yes! All the time, in fact," Ashed tartly replied at Benji's amused(!!! he found this amusing?!) query. "Among other things, far more unkind." 'High-strung' kept Ashed alive all these years, at least. But then, Ashed had never been in a town like Hexmore.

"I will not relax. Not until I've found my Aunt, safe and alive and well. People - you people in this town. You know her too. And you're hiding her from me, is that it? Was she taken too, like Hazel Mora? I know what sorts of things...live here." Ashed thinned his eyes, peering at Benji. "I've seen it. Hazel Mora's own niece proved it to me."

Benji swayed closer, still in that calming tone as if he was speaking to a spooked racehorse in its stable. Ashed had come prepared. The knife had its own protective sigils carved into the pearl hilt (hypocritical, perhaps; but it was a heritage Hunter knife) and imbued with vervain. A useful repellant against bad magic.

"Don't come closer," Ashed warned, and then decided to lay it all out on the table. "You're a witch too, aren't you. This entire town is infested with bloody witches." A rueful laugh. "Bloody town's name is Hexmore. What was my Aunt thinking, choosing to live here? She must've known! She must known..."

But great-Aunt Aqsa wasn't a Hunter; she was purportedly the black sheep of the Nadirs legacy. So why live amongst these witches? Witches who seemed to cut themselves off at the knee, to forego their power and magic, and live regular, tedious lives like any other human. Secretive and cowardly, the lot of them. Ashed winced, wanting to shut his eyes but too wary of Benji. "I'm so fucking confused."

"Hazel wasn't taken," He tells the stranger like it's the truest statement that could exist, despite having no evidence to the fact. "She's coming back, but if anything like that had happened to your aunt you would have heard about it." Listening to Ashed's words about the town, about things in Hexmore. "People like to tell tall tales, tourists make up things about Hexmore all the time. It's easy to believe in the fantasy when you're here, don't you think? I promise you, your great-aunt, I'm sure you'll find her." Then he mentions Rory, not by name but Benji knows who he's talking about. His lips pursed closed, carefully considering his next words.

How much did the hunter know?

Benji doesn't heed his warning as the accusation bites between them, his dark eyes fixated on Ashed. "And you're a hunter," a softly spoken tone, making another gentle movement closer, carefully resting his hand atop the one that held the knife. His mind races to how easily it would be for the hunter to drive the knife through him, to slice him as a warning or a threat to other witches. Had he already done it to others? But Benji showed no fear in his movements, no desperate reach for power. Just a gentle plea to take a deep breath like approaching a scared deer. He'd never been this close to a hunter before, it made the hairs on his arm stick up. He didn't know what Ashed was capable of, or what he was hoping to do to the witches of Hexmore- let alone the others. "I'm not hiding anything, but why do you want to find her?"

I couldn't come up with anything. For someone like Tej whose entire world was narrated by a never-ending soundtrack, it was difficult to comprehend how finding a song would be a challenge, a chore. Or even why the other was sat there at the piano in the first place. However, it was all made clear enough with Benji's next remark.

Ah. Leave it to the gossipy witches of the council to contaminate their own investigation (and nevermind Tej flashed the ring to a total stranger himself). Even so, he paused with a thoughtful solemness. Reverence, even. The kind one might show on driving by the aftermath of a car crash in which the wreckage insinuated no one walked away.

"Mm. I did find it, yeah." Hazel's disappearance brought a delicious rolling boil of fear through the city. Tej kept the excitement over it to himself. An arm folded on top of the upright piano to lean into as he looked at Benji. "I hope it helps in finding her too." In a trash bin where a supreme bwitch belonged.

"Are you alright, Benji?" Suddenly the perfect song came to mind, a celebratory tune about a dead witch from The Wizard of Oz. It gleefully played in the background of Tej's imagination as his expression continued seriously. "We can always reschedule," he said sympathetically.

He should have known just how transparent the question was, how easily Tej would have seen straight through his poorly planned prompt as he lazily flicked through the pages of sheet music. "You don't need to look at me like that you know," Still he tries to act too casual, like the conversation wasn't any different to any other. Thumb on the pages, turning through to read titles and briefly glance at the music below it. "Just a rumour I heard was all, I'm fine."

Pity felt laced in the other's tone, which wasn't what he was hoping for. There weren't even answers offered, and the question so quickly felt like it slipped from his grasp. Rescheduling was the last thing he wanted, let alone have someone concerned for him. "Can't you at least tell me what you were doing there? Or where her ring was?" Looking up at Tej from across the piano, "I promise it won't go further than me. I just want to know is all."

He watched at the other looked over it. “Have you seen anything like this before?” He gave a slight laugh. “Believe it or not, this is the second one I have come across. “Do you think it was meant for me? I don’t even know what it is.”

Dexter nodded. “And you, I am friends with Rory. Used to hang out with her a lot before she went to the Academy,” he told him. “You know how to do that stuff, huh? Okay, yeah. It’s not normally my thing. Use that brief experience, read my future,” he laughed.

Benji wasn't sure what to confess in the moment he stood before Dexter, looking at the rock grasped in his hand. "A second one?" He asks semi surprised, trying to avoid the initial question. He'd never been the best at interacting with those humans who didn't know much of anything, let alone where to draw the line on what he was supposed to know. "I bet you'd be hard pressed to find these anywhere. They must be seeking you out at this point."

Accepting the rock, he shifts it around in his hand musing over the engravings. Under the light of moon it wasn't as difficult as one might assume to read such things on stone, perhaps though it was just the hours of practice. "No way, Rory! She's a gem. You know I bet she'd know a thing or two about this."

Squeezing his hand around the stone, Benji makes some show of closing his eyes and musing over the possibilities of everything. "I think it's trying to tell you something, it's holding it's tongue though." Truth was, Benji was never a seer, and divination was never something that came all that naturally to him. Not most days at least. But artefacts and history, that was something he knew well. Holding the stone, he knew exactly what it was. Created by witches near two hundred years ago, "Someone whispered a message to it, but I think it's begging to be heard. You'll have to take it home and listen to it real close."

She sat down on the bench at the park and looked out over the man-made pond at the ducks that swam around lazily. Over the quiet quacking as they sought places to sleep for the night, Wisteria heard the beginning sounds of frogs and crickets. Or were they toads? On her lap, resting on the bag, was a human skull that stared over the lake with her. It felt lighter than it had in days passed, she figured it was because she had released the soul she had needed for the job. Now, Xena was simply... empty. Waiting.

"I should have brought peas..." she sighed, sensing a presence behind her. A living presence -- the dead had a different aura. Well... ghosts. Spirits. Vampires were simply empty. Strange. But no, Behind her was either a living being or an unlife... but not a ghost. "I always thought I'd become the lady with pigeons ... but I suppose ducks are just as good." She opened the bag and slid Xena inside, not everyone liked to talk to a woman holding a skull. "You're welcome to sit. I have ten minutes or ten years until my next meeting. Ghosts don't have a concept of time."

She had no guests at her bed and breakfast at the moment, which no one she needed to return to tend to. There were often days like this, where she would get to enjoy the evenings alone and watch the stars dawn the sky until the air grew thick with chill. "I'm afraid I didn't bring anything for them either, they may have to settle for tadpoles tonight." She replies to the stranger softly, approaching the bench before taking a seat besides her. "Is it a specific ghost you have a meeting with, or just waiting for any to stop by?"

She leant into the bar, picking up the beer. She was glad for a drink and for half an hour away from her own thoughts. Even if she knew that her aunt was bound to be the topic of conversation. She half smiled as he mocked, did he really believe that? Or was he just trying to make her and himself feel better? “You think she lost her finger with it?” Rory quipped, raising her brow. She let out a breath, after speaking to Tej… she wasn’t so sure anymore. Everything felt more serious. “Do you really think that?” She asked, rubbing her lips together.

But then she paused. She could kiss him. He was right. This wasn’t like the other disappearances. She couldn’t have done it. Because of the other disappearances. She let out a breath, the realisation having taken a weight off of her shoulders. “Do you… remember the other disappearances?” She asked, curious. She had never known anybody personally who had gone missing. But the rumours had gone around for generations.

“I… think you’re right.” She paused. “What if… she left it on purpose. Like a trail?”

He's quiet for a moment, looking back to Rory. At first he laughs at the question. A finger. It was absurd, and something he initially mistook for a joke. But the longer he looked at the witch, the longer the sentence settled, and realisation dawned on him. A finger. "Her finger was found with the ring?" The words almost choke out of his mouth, disbelief across his features. "Rory, what the fuck. Her finger?"

Running his hands through his hair, the man takes a minute before taking a sip of the drink that was sat before him. Would Hazel have gone as far as to leave her own finger behind? Or was this something so much more. "I remember some of them, and I've heard about most. Everyone talks about everything in my house. They weren't like this though," Now he's not so sure if that sentiment brings him as much comfort as it did previously. "Do you think she left it behind hoping we'd keep looking for her? Or do you think it was more in hopes we'd assume the worst and stop searching? She has to still be out there."

"Hazel would be able to answer this," he muttered as he dug his cellphone out of his pocket, flipped it open, pressed the down arrow repeatedly so he could select her name and was a second away from hitting the call button when he remembered -- while Hazel would be able to figure out the answer to his problem, she wasn't here.

He hit call anyway. As if that was going to make it so he would get through to her this time.

It rang and rang and rang.

and rang.

Unlike his phone which was currently nearly full with voicemails he didn't bother deleting, Hazel Mora's phone seemed to have a limitless amount of storage capacity.

(it'd have to -- he called her at least twice a day).

"Heya Babes, it's me -" he paused, waiting to see if she'd pick up. He sighed and finished with "ya boy" as he had done forever. It had started as a joke and then ... stayed. "So, believe it or not -- Hank got out. There's no hole in the fence, or under the fence and unless he climbed a tree ... Scout's honor - I didn't leave the gate unlocked or nothin' - and he's a big dog, ya know? Like 130lbs of muscle. I'd see him if he was out running around--" the tell-tale beep as the limit was reached for the message. He hung-up, redialed and continued. "So now, this cane corso is runnin' around. Any ideas? Love you, bye."

Now, he hung up for real.

Eavesdropping wasn't something he tried to make a habit of, but the park was quiet on the walk around, and it was hard not to overhear the man explaining himself over the phone in a tone that would give himself away all too quickly. Benji would know it from leaving a hundred similar voice messages time and time again, pretending like she was just out of town for the night-or the weekend. As if any minute now she would waltz back into town and roll her eyes at everyone for ever thinking something as absurd as the possibility that something horrible could happen to her.

He just wishes she'd told him something. Told him where she was going, what she was doing. Didn't she know Benji would have done anything to help her.

"You look like you've had better days," he says making his way closer to Bellamy, "And by that I mean you look like shit. Is there anything I can do to help?"

Without the ability to feel hot or cold, he lost his best defense against explain why his hands - even as a vampire - shake as they tended to do. A lingering effect of life, he had quipped once while sipping from a glass of water - since water was equivalent to popcorn. One tasted like wet nothing, the other tasted like air. Still, the vampire (who was now halfway to his second century birthday) clasped his hands together to stop the tremors. He wandered the aisles looking at the hobby crafts, filling his basket with color pencils, oil pastels, new brushes ... all to paint, draw and sketch.

"It's amazing..." he picked up a snowglobe from the clearance section. He turned it over in his hands, looking at the fake, idyllic scenery captured within. "Give it seventy years and this might actually be something that someone wants..." He set it back down. He bent down to pick up the basket of items he had decided he was going to buy. He had an idea of what to paint, and when he got an idea into his head, he couldn't get it out unless he created.

Now, with that inane bit of sidetalk out of the way, the vampire shifted his weight and looked to the person who came to stand next to him. He had been shaped by witches, turned by a vampire who lacked a name, and werewolves -- well. Time would tell. "I am guessing you don't want this brush - but what we could have to talk about ..." he tsked. "I'm not the sort that people seek out. Not even for charity donations or scout cookie sales."

The way everyone insisted him and his powers were two seperate entities, and he was only worth as much as this thing they all wanted him to rely so much on. He would give it all up if he could, he'd dream of such things. To live without power, without responsibility and without expectations. Hazel was one of the few people who let him feel like that, like he didn't have to be anyone but himself. But now she's disappeared into the middle of the night, and Benji has made it his own personal mission to find where she took off to.

"No, it's not the brush I'm after today. I was hoping to catch you, if that's alright." He couldn't help but wonder if he'd offended the other by seeking him out, he couldn't blame him for wanting to live a life of reclusiveness. "I was hoping to talk about the Hazel, did you know her? I just- she got her hands on some antiques the other week, she was so excited showing them off. The history in them. I just assumed she got them from you?"

Pete's Bar seemed as good a place as any, to get lost in one's brooding thoughts, and down a bottle. Ashed wasn't much of a drinker; but Hexmore certainly warranted it. After his random, public argument with that Connie - an oh-so sweetheart of a schoolteacher, whom within a few minutes conversation Ashed had pushed her into a threatening iconoclast - Ashed had a lot to mull over.

Supernaturals. Secretly living in a town. Presumably for decades. Living like normal everyday boring humans, amongst plain everyday humans. Hiding in plain bloody sight. Civilised, educated, devoid of any of the monstrosity or beastliness of the supernatural creatures that the Nadirs had hunted, all of Ashed's life.

What could it mean? What did any of it mean? Why did his parents, his Hunter relatives, never tell him that supernaturals could be...normal people? Cowardly and manipulative, yes; but still just normal.

A woman entered the bar, and Ashed barely looked up at first, deep into his third soda and whiskey. The bartender seemed to know the woman, chatting began; and Ashed habitually fell into eavesdropping. The woman was gorgeous - big black curls, an oddly earnest face coupled with a wry tone, a confidence that seemed to come from life experience. At least, Ashed thought glumly, she had a voice that would be very nice to listen in on.

Still she finds herself at the same bar, owned by the same pack of werewolves she'd refused to join with since day one, ordering the same gin and tonic as she does most nights. The conversation is easy, "You wouldn't believe the mess of a night I had the other night, don't tell the big man though." Cordelia prepped to tell a story to the bartender, one mostly superficial as she leans across the bar to divulge her with the tale of her awry transformation. Not using as many words of course, and not daring to mention the amount of pain she found herself in after the fact. "It's been a rough few months, the nights- well you know how they get. Don't get me wrong, the tourists are great for business but sometimes I just wonder if they know what they're walking into."

She takes a moment to look around the bar, taking in the faces around them as she sips her drink. Some familiar, others fleeting in the crowd. "Business is alright though, but your lot have to stay away from my cabin. The one of the guests the other day came in for breakfast telling stories."

"Have you not heard about everything going on at the academy? A woman's finger turning up. Chilling."

It was hard to be a part of Hexmore and not hear every ounce of gossip that spread through the town, let alone a woman's finger being found. She couldn't help but wonder if it was a message left for some. "This sounds like the start of a bad ghost story, you know? Next you're going to tell me you can still hear her screams at night when you're in the academy alone."

This fellow seemed utterly confident, completely unabashed at their mutual discovery this late at night in a library. Ashed guessed he'd been here before Ashed broke in - which meant he either had easy access, or he was the one who put the hex on the front doors, after closing.

"I've been coming here day and day again, trying to find entrance, but it's always been shut. Closed for the day. Every day," Ashed said. Not realizing the lockout was his great-Aunt's doing. From her own secret hideaway, whenever she realized her great-Nephew was sneaking about, trying to get one step closer to her, she'd find some way to detract him. Keeping the Library 'closed' - for him, anyway, not for the rest of the public - had seemed to work. Until Ashed took things into his own hands. And now she relied on warnings to her star pupil, her precocious protegee Benji, to help and old woman out.

"If you're not the janitor, then I'd imagine you're here for a reason too, yeah?" Ashed tilted his head, studying the other. Wary but exuding fearlessness. Look guilty and you were guilty - his mum taught him that. "Burning the midnight oil on some research project? You don't strike me as an academic, but what do I know..." Ashed slowly moved out of his semi-defensive stance, standing tall. "My name's Ashed, by the way."

The sudden gust of chilly air tipped Ashed back into suspicion again. He growled when the other man seemed to dismiss it as an open window - bollocks! The stranger was just too casual, too easy-breezy and it started to irritate Ashed. His impatience was one of his personal failings, fed by suspicion and dread.

Through grit teeth, Ashed made one more try at civility. "I'm looking for my great-Aunt, Aqsa Rahman. Seems a lot of people know who she is, but not her home address or contact information. Nothing. Just that she's a nice old lady who stays to herself. But I'm her blood. I want to find her." Ashed looked at the door. "She works at this Library, or so I've been told."

A book toppled off a shelf suddenly, landing between them, at Benji's feet. The book fell open and a line of ants crept out from under a reading table, marched onto the book, and circled words on the page, for Benji to read: 'PLEASE', 'DON'T' and 'LET'.

"What's that?!" Ashed yelped, pulled out his knife. He pointed at the book with his hunting knife. "Where is my great-Aunt! Did you hurt her, did someone here hurt her? Is she disappeared like that Hazel Mora woman?"

Still his grin remains, eyes taking in the man before him trying to work out what it was he was missing. What could have made him so dangerous that Aqsa would be sending such warnings. Still he has to laugh at the way Ashed claims he doesn't appear to be an academic, the truth was it was just the thing he said to Hazel when she got him the job at the academy. Still she insisted, after all there was always something Hazel saw in Benji that he never quite understood. "I promise you, my reasons for being here aren't nearly as interesting as yours seem to be." Perhaps that's just because Benji knew one and not the other, and he was always one for mysteries. "I'm Benji," he offered rather surprised that Ashed offered him a name. Reaching out his hand to offer a handshake, was when the other gust of wind caught him. Sharp and shocking in the moment.

Great-Aunt Aqsa Rahman. The words dawn a realisation on Benji, listening to the other speak against the quiet of night. Not only did he know exactly who she was, but with those words he knew exactly who the man before him was as well. A human. A hunter. Aqsa had warned Benji of him before, told stories incase he was ever in town, and now here he was. Face to face with such a dangerous man.

The book falling to his feet made him jump, perhaps it was the sudden tension knowing just how close he was to someone so threatening. The word circling on the page all but confirmed what he'd already come to realise, he'd kick it closed with his foot as quickly as he read the words on the page. Not knowing what Aqsa would crucify him for more, standing here talking to Ashed, or touching a book with his shoe of all things.

His eyes focused on the knife in the other's hand for a moment, glinting in the dim moonlight that streamed through the windows, before carefully drawing back to Ashed's eyes. "Has anyone told you that you come across as high-strung," Benji tries to make it light again despite the way his eyes keep dancing to the knife- wondering if he knows that he's stood here before a witch. That his great-aunt is one as well. "It's just a book, must have knocked the shelf or something. Relax, okay. Is that what you came here for? Concern for your great-aunt?" He can't help the way he inches a little closer to Ashed, he's not sure if he's trying to put the man as ease or if curiosity was leading him to find just how close he could get to the other's knife. Just how close to danger he could step. "I don't think there's anyone else here tonight if that's what you're worried about."

"I don't know if i can endorse you drinking anywhere but in my joint." He joked, helping him to the door. "but fine, you can have one more round. On the house." he flopped the witch onto a bar stool. "But... i want a little something in return. How are you witches doing... really?"

Benji takes a moment looking over Killian, considering his words before the slight quirk of his eyebrow. "You think we're in shambles without her?" His tone was more curious than anything, wondering what Killian was considering. "The Court has existed for too long, they're not as worried about a missing Supreme as they are of replacing her."

She chuckled at his words. "Oh go on then, one drink." She knew this wasn't a good idea, right now the last thing she needed to do was get drunk with anyone who worked closely with the court. Let alod him... she didn't think anybody quite knew what the man was capable of. "What about you? I'm assuming our reason for sorrow is the same..." She nodded towards a paper that was sat across the bar. "The person who... found it. He came to see me." She spoke of her aunt's ring, although it was a little bit more then a ring... but right now she wasn't sure how much she could confess to him. Could she trust anyone?

"Sorrow?" He said in a mock tone, "Come now Rory, you don't think I'm sad about her ring being found do you? She could have left it, or lost the thing god knows how long ago now." He tried to shrug it off, it's all he keeps doing with everything new that plagues him. Because she was right, it does. His heart could have dropped when he found out about that ring being found, and all he wanted to know was why it was there. Like some grand secret begging to be discovered. "You know, she's going to be okay, right? She's not like the other disappearances." His tone softening with the words, he doesn't know if he's trying to comfort himself or Rory, "She's different. Her ring- she probably just misplaced it."

Who: Alden & ???

It seemed like the only thing the academy and the court couldn't touch in Hexmore was the skies. With the gallery closed and the academy restricted in visitors Alden was spending his evenings at the observatory. It seemed like the last place in town he could truly think in peace. Still, the bustle of the town hadn't settled since the ring had been found in the academy. The people of Hexmore were not at ease and it was starting to unnerve Alden. He rarely acted erratically or impulsively, but he could feel the fear beginning to set in. He was frighted. For himself, for his progenies, for his family.

He hard the crunch of footsteps behind him and he turned, raising a brow. "It's a dangerous time to be taken a midnight stroll my friend." He said calmly to the stranger, a chill to his voice.

"Is that a warning, or a threat?" She asked as calmly as the other spoke, voice so easy on the night's air. Unfazed by either possibility. "I'd love to know what you think is so dangerous out here tonight?"