blessed soul

                    Eyes flitted closed, the fumes of whatever trust which had since been mangled between the duo allowing him to separate her need for such privacy. Magic was an unfamiliar entity to the male, even with such curse that ran rampant through his veins; his attempts to making a breakthrough of understanding next to none. It was fear that drove such course, blind rage at the murky unknown allowing such antipathy to take over until there was a brute separation between his human counterparts and wolfish traits. Said response could only translate over to Corrina’s stretch of magic, witches a new taste of that gray area of the world which Caleb still deemed incomprehensible. The humming emanated around them under a vertiginous bout, eyes squinted shut until such sounds inevitably died off, stumbling as they seemed to make contact with their fresh destination. 

                    “You’re …. going to have to explain that to me later,” banal retort fell out between chapped lips, the lack of blood aiding to an all around disheveled mien and more tender disposition. Drunk off such loss, Caleb could offer a haphazard half smirk at the winsome Tallis, calloused fingertips outstretching to brush flaxen tresses away from her blocked countenance. It was far too simple a gesture, boiled into a sense of regret that Caleb would likely never remember once recovered; exsanguination key to his recherché reaction and vulnerability.

          Her countenance fell, once brazen to grit teeth and unsavory expression. It was hidden from him for all but a moment, as an intimate hand cleared her curtain of hair and exposed her veneer. With a maneuver she could topple him onto a fainting couch, gentle in the brute sense; his mass proved difficult to control while not entirely functional on its own. Though a strand was still clutched between his fingertips, to which she caught sight of after a brief moment of remembrance, Corrina found herself reaching to pin the wrist attached to the cushion below. His eyes were barely there, half opened and sunken in. He resembled a corpse, almost, any more and she wouldn’t dare have laid a hand on him. She took the time to study him, despite the urgency of his condition, the definition of his face she knew so well. A pause too long before she finally placed the back of her free hand on his forehead, the clammy, lukewarm surface was a telltale sign of a deeper problem.

                    “Don’t give me that look,” Caleb shot out in rapid rejoinder, the male never even shooting her a glance to know she had her own simmering sense of wrath in this very moment; a salient rage that bloomed between the duo as more secrets were revealed. A sigh of relief almost escaped him, tension decamping from his form in spite of the tender wound that still remained, the flummoxing reality in which Corrina actually agreed to help him a difficult pill to swallow — surely he’d never let her live it down. “Close my ey —” a streak of protest erupted from the werewolf, pausing to gnaw on his lower lip in tandem finality. There was no arguing with a woman of Corrina’s caliber especially when he had since near pleaded for her assistance, Caleb reluctantly closing his eyes as a scowl subconsciously tumbled from his lips. “Okay.” 

                    “It’s not like you get bitten and everything is fucking — painted out for you,” he lashed out in pure spite, glaring at Corrina despite the fact he had near pleaded for her help mere moments ago. It was old habits that seemed to never wane under time apart; their paragon of bullish pith inherently contentious when it came down to it. “I have had no idea what the hell I’ve been meant to do the past two years,” Caleb scowled, abrasively filling the truculent silence that swarmed them, two obdurate personas never able to compromise. He dared let out an exhale of breath as she stepped forward in compliance, almost half expecting her to have derided him to her heart’s content and then depart, shaking his head in tandem disbelief, “Whatever it takes, just fix this shit, ‘Ri.” 

He hesitated as she held her hand out, knowing that despite his intention to help, connecting any sense of their magic wouldn’t work as it once had. Still entirely possible; the power they both held simply wouldn’t fall together with the ease they’d known growing up. Priorities. Ironic, he thought, that this hadn’t been a priority for him in some time, the very thing that’d put such a distinct drift between he and Corrina beyond their already stringent indifference while she’d been growing up. “Maybe,” he noted, picking up the knife she’d dropped, having no intentions of letting her spill her own blood. “Maybe you’ve just been asking the wrong questions.” Without thought or a moments pause, Hudson enclosed his hand around the blade and sliced deeply into his palm, reopening a wound he’d sealed over and over again throughout the years with little more than a faint crease rising between his eyes, his hand curling to form a catchment of his own blood as he looked back to her. “This is only going to work for a minute or two, and the chance of them working out what we’re doing is…– highly likely.” A warning perhaps, though he remained almost completely uncertain on whether it was a quiet heed to his own misgivings that this would surely lead to resurfacing, or those they sought out. Even still, he didn’t wait before he entangled his hand with his sister and tipped his other just enough for his blood to spill.

“So..how are your potion brewing skills?”

The steady hum like anticipation that hung in the air with the precipice of magic itself could have held the breath in his lungs still if he’d truly considered nothing but it. A difficult feat within the presence of any single one of his family members. It was always a questionable thing, being drawn to the magic of others, even more so someone who’d willingly stripped skeletons bare just to have it. But this was his sister — Corrina, fierce and almost devastatingly vulnerable when given the opportunity. “I’m never too busy for this.” He said pointedly, offering somewhat a softened look as he closed the door gently behind him. “Figured you’d at least know that by now.” Given, she’d never know the extent — Hudson would drop just about anything for the potential of magic and it’s use. Picking up the knife, he toyed it between his fingers slowly, flicking the sharpened edge with the pad of his thumb, “You said you were going to ask me.” Still, the blade turned over without the provocation of his fingers, “I’m here now, so are we going to make this work or not?”

There was something in silence that made him unsteady, and in the Tallis household, any amount of it was never truly a good thing. Between the five kids and the coming and going of Coven members, the Vales and their parents. It was eerie enough to find the kitchen and living room empty, let alone the rest of the house a bleak pit of white noise. Lucian wasn’t in his room or the library, but the flickering light as movement broke it’s stream beyond the door to the study drew him. The door swinging gently back as he waited, as if almost expecting the worst on the other side; something of a damning habit now he supposed. The knife in his sisters hand drew his attention before all else, the glint of silver unmistakable before he understood what she was doing. “The bones.” The most basic of tracking spells not quite enough to find the stolen bones of their ancestors, something the ouroboros had found use of, the dead much less easy to pinpoint. The scattering of dirt and heirlooms left within the graves; jewelry, journals, even a grimoire, and the spilled blood of a Tallis might have given a little more reach. “You’re not going to find much on your own.”

“They have Tinder in Paris too, ma cherie. It’s the city of love after all and everything that word encompasses.” Margo told her with amusement coating her words. She reached over to loop arms with her younger cousin, taking in the sounds of the city and the cool air of the night. “I think I’m a masochist or something. The normal ones always seem to be the most boring and predictable.”

“To all of the above then.” He agreed, he brought the cup to his lips as she added to it. Putting the saki cup down, his finger tapped it for a moment before he looked at the witch and teased, “Well, you see, I was feeling rather good about myself so I decided to invite you to dinner since I enjoy your attempts to eviscerate my ego.” He refilled their glasses and his tone shifted to something more true, “I asked because I find you rather fascinating.” He paused for a beat then lifted his glass back to his mouth asking with amusement, “Any special reason why you said yes?”

“Oh absolutely nothing,” Levi jokingly answered. “Unless you want to know anything about art, where to find the best Polish food, and the best tailor in the city then I’m your guy. So not a lot of useful skills in the traditional way but useful in some other capacities,” he laughed. Levi would classify himself as a well adjusted adult who maybe tended to focus on work more than his personal life and maybe needed to work on how he processed his emotions at time. He ran after his sister’s death when he couldn’t deal with her being gone and so many reminders around the city. Then avoided Addison when he felt guilty for attacking her during the contagion that had forced him shift. Something he was actively trying to fix about himself. “I have a bit,” he nodded. “I think I may head to Paris for a holiday this summer. Work is going to be busy till May so I may pop over there after that calms down. Do you think I can convince her to visit a different art museum with me everyday?” Levi asked her as he sipped his own glass. There were many different art museums in Paris but he knew already he would spent most of his time in the Louvre if he were to visit. “I’ll have to practice my French with you if I do end up going. I think I maxed out what I knew since I’ve been here,” he joked. 

The sharpened intake of breath that barely filled his lungs merely constructed to hold together some long winding attempt at holding anger, annoyance and a festering frustration that he could hardly get a single conversation in with his sister before she tried to stuff words and intent down his throat. He should have been used to it, rightly so — nothing ever really changed, but there was truly only so much patience he held within him. “I’m aware, but I don’t give a shit about those million different things. If i wanted to talk about Luc or Remi – I’d have gone to them, so how about you bite your god damn tongue for two seconds.” Strangely enough, the timbre of his voice never shifted, it leveled out, as if he might have been reading every word from a book, reciting something he’d spoken a thousand times before. “I’m talking about you — just you. Forget everything else, and talk to me.” That was all he wanted, to discern his own concern and morph it into something helpful, of which he could truly only do if he knew what went on inside his sisters head before she twisted and contorted it to portray some vicious brand of projection. “You’re right, but I’m here anyway — but I won’t always be, so do us both a favor and use my wanting to help while you can, Corrina. There’s only so much I can take being kicked in the teeth whenever I try to talk to you so..—”

“Okay but are you counting it as new if you have like five of the same pair of earrings? I swear you have similar ones,” Addison laughed, flopping onto the bed as well, “I think the shoes are a keeper, bag too–– sweater is cute but,” she reached over and took Corra’s sleeve between her fingers, feeling the material, “is it warm?”

“And then the poor man says, “How are we sure that Margaret Keane actually painted her work? What if it really was her husband?” Of course, I started to explain the nuances of sexism in art and generational expectations of women in her time and he had the nerve to suggest that I should probably read a bit more about art and then I wouldn’t make it so political and emotional.” She scoffed as she regaled the story, her eyebrows pulled together in an irritated frown. She quickly swiped through her phone as she strolled aimlessly down the surprisingly sparse New York street. “That is the last time I let an app tell me who I’m compatible with. I mean, really, “read a bit more about art”? He was a computer engineer who showed up wearing a stained Pokemon shirt and khakis. I’ll just take my art degree and put it to good use by decorating the kitchen he doesn’t want me to leave.” Margo let her head tilt to the side slightly in thought, her curls bouncing to one side as she did. “You know, it’s kind of funny when you think about it.”

                    “Ah, don’t negate Rome’s own share of shoe box apartments,” he grinned, shaking his head in slight mirth; moving all the way to the hectic realms of New York already proving to be taxing for the male. No amount of preparation could ever verse him well enough to deal with such monumental chaos that loomed, a near grief embellished smile panning across the mien, as if overcome with a sense of second hand remorse for the city his cousins had called their home since birth. Corrina never encapsulated any regard for tacit succinctness, a blunt nature Elliot could appreciate even if he never adhered to himself. “I don’t want to think about the end result if they can’t,” a vague and fragile nod of agreement, the male bowing his head.

Elise took a deep breath. She was ready, ready to put an end to the hauntings. But the damage had already been done. She didn’t let herself think about this. She didn’t want to think about how her life had changed again as she could feel herself slowly reverting back to the way she’d been right after the death of her family. She’d lost her drive, her passion. This was a step in the right direction though. If she didn’t have to worry about seeing her sister or her mother or her father then maybe she could focus on recovering. Elise focused on the words, repeating them after Corrina. For a moment, she forgot everything bad had ever happened to her. While the circumstances were not ideal, it was comforting to be doing magic with her best friend. “Thanks again for doing this, Cori. You’re such a good friend.” 

Teddy couldn’t help but snicker as Corrina interjected herself into his conversation with the stranger. “Yeah, that’s exactly what we’re talking about, Corrina,” he rolled his eyes good-naturedly, “and I don’t know– thirty minute meals are fucking efficient. I think Rachel would get the job done. Who cares about presentation. If you’re knocking someone out, you’re knocking someone out.”