𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐁𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑

The slow drag of her touch along his face was both welcome and unwanted, that chill touch sending shivers rolling down his spine. The weight of her atop him was something he couldn't place, feeling like it was expected and yet unusual. Xal'atath had appeared before him floating every single time, without fail, to think she had physical weight behind her seemed almost wrong. Brows furrowed as she spoke, telling him she had been watching him the entire time, mentioning the brutal fight with Titan as if to prove it, though the shifting of her weight in his lap was a distraction from those words. And the acknowledgement that she had kept her eyes on him even when he couldn't see her.

O' was he so sure about it? So focused on fighting the other dominants and exercising justice over something so small and insignificant, the man had entirely lost sight of the most important detail in this entire story. Her thumb brushed against his lower lip with such gentleness that it could have been easily mistaken for affection - if it was not for the dangerous shimmer lingering in her expression as she looked at the man. She hummed quietly before speaking up again.

" Really? All you have done is pushing the Blight further into the lands. What do you think your fights against your brethren truly accomplish? " Without knowing, Clive had become her favourite puppet to control in this grand scheme against Ultima and his idiotic plan to revive his people on yet another dying planet. The thought made the corners of her mouth twitch upwards in a cruel smile, and she grazed his lip with the side of her sharp, dark painted nail. " Your kind is so predictable, Clive. Ultima truly wasn't the brightest subject of his people if he can't figure this out."

The shift of her image, suddenly appearing on the other side of him, put a mote of panic into his chest. He whirled, cape swinging behind him as he took a step back from her new position, trying to keep space from her. A futile attempt, considering what she had just shown possible, but instinct insisted he do so. Suddenly appearing closer to him was too...unnerving, especially after that recent business with Ultima. Speaking of, she spoke on the strange being as if she knew him, concern bubbling within him as she continued on.

The idea that he was somehow tied to Ultima wasn't all that strange, considering the little information the supposed god had shared with him in attempt to take his body already, but hearing it from another similar being? Well, Clive felt a chill rolling down his spine. To be the target of a god, to some end he could not ascertain? It wasn't exactly his greatest wish. Brows furrowed slightly as the strange woman leaned forward, watching her carefully as she again tried to close distance between them, yet in a less jarring way. And again he couldn't be quite certain that this wasn't as trauma response due to the destruction he was wading through currently.

He was about to question her further on Ultima, when he realized she had yet to answer his initial questions. Was she intentionally dodging him? Or was she meaning to lie to him? He paused for but a moment, closing his eyes and doing his best to center himself before looking on the strange woman yet again, though he sought to avoid staring into those abyssal eyes she possessed. "You haven't answered me. Who are you? How do you know anything about Ultima?" His voice was tight as he spoke, taking a slight step toward her as he posed his questions, as if he were capable of threatening a being that seemed to be on the level of a god he had just encountered.

Her initial response to his questions was a low chuckle that lingered in the air and pierced through the silence reigning at this forsaken place. It echoed from the empty walls of the ruins, nearly creating the image that it had come from anywhere but the strange woman who hovered beside him. She placed her hands together, resting them in the height of her mid-section. " I'm your ally against the broken god you are fighting... for now. Ultima is looking for you and has sent many of his agents in order to lay his hands on you, " the entity explained and turned half to the side to have a better look at the abandoned ruin. " He is quite desperate to find you, you know. "

And he would not cease his hunt for his precious vessel until he would finally hold him in his hands - for that goal, he would force anyone and anything into his servitude. For Mythos, he would commit all sorts of atrocities, though judging from the state his minions had left the hideout in, even Clive should already be certain of much. Her dark eyes scanned the ground for residue aether that would reveal his presence, yet the ruin had been left untouched by him.

@empireblade sent : "Look at you." The wide smile on her face did little to conceal the cruel amusement she felt upon his reaction—his reaction to her having brought him to his feet and straddling the man now that he was practically lying on the room's floor. Her cold fingers brushed with their knuckles against his scorchingly hot cheek. "Are we shy now? You don't have to be."

Her sudden appearances had always startled him, able to will herself into existence within his presence, or so it seemed. He had yet to understand what she was, how she managed to do the things she did, but he did know she found pleasure in surprising him, as if she could live off the emotions she rattled within him. He was surprised to find himself on the floor this time though, looking up at her as she settled atop him and reached out to brush her knuckles against his cheek, goading him, taunting him. "Xal'atath...?" Her name, spoken shakily, fled his lips, looking into those pools of black that made her eyes. "W-What? Why are you here? N-Now?" His heart was hammering in his chest, that alien beauty of hers creating a strange dissonance in him.

Slowly, her knuckles dragged downward until her fingers caught his chin in a soft pinch. A flame danced behind Clive's eyes, a flicker which seemed to shy away from the darkness within her own gaze - uncertain and doubtful, it was. Delicious. A quiet chuckle rolled over her lips before Xal'atath leaned forward to him and let her raven hair spill over her shoulders. His demeanour delighted her: The race of his heart and the hesitance to push her away, mixed with the uneasiness of his spirit, were so sweet it would have almost touched her heart if there had been one in the first place.

"You will learn to show respect. You are in the presence of my glorious self, I, Neltharion. I am the Earth-Warder."

That chuckle seemed a little too amused for his liking, though it was noticeably more human than anything Ultima had given. Yet this whole situation was noticeably inhuman. The floating voice, the changing pitch and distance despite the fact he was the only one stepping through the ruins, all of it seemed like whatever Ultima was, but in a different flavor. The voice told him that there was no point to drawing his blade, that his enemy was long gone, but that did not get him to relax, even at the assurance that the god-like being had never set foot here.

From the corner of his eye, he finally saw something, turning to face the woman that appeared from the Aether, only to pause when he got a good look at her. Purple eyes stared him down, runes of some sort etched into her cheeks like tears. She was eerily beautiful, his gaze fixated on her for moments before he finally noticed that she was floating above the floor, drifting over the rubble and bodies without ever coming close to touching them. The closer she came, the stiffer Clive became, his hand closing around the hilt of his blade when she was right next to him, turning to give him room to draw if necessarily.

The image shifted once more and reappeared at his other side; further into his personal space than she had been before. Her brows arched as she looked at him, taking in every detail of his face, as if she was searching his face for something hidden. " You truly haven't figured it out yet, " she commented, with a hint of surprise tugging at her voice ever so lightly. It seemed whatever she had been looking for either stayed hidden or was absent altogether.

" Of all people, your ties to him are the strongest. " And how vexing it had to be for the false god to see his vessel so close and yet so far away from him; just outside his very reach. Even if his fingers brushed against the familiar form, he would not be able to grab it in full.

@empireblade sent : So much destruction... An eery tune in his ear, shifting from the right to the left as though someone circled him slowly. Carefully. The chilly breeze blew through the ruins of the Hideaway and tugged at his hair. Not a single soul had remained after the Titan's attack on the mortals' safe haven. ...and so many corpses. You were not here to save them. As it spoke, the voice grew lower as it seemed to retreat, and with it the wind changed. Dancing around the ruined hall and among the dead bodies of Cid's former friends and charges, it continued. But even if you had been... would you be able to match the Titan's might, Clive?

His head lifted immediately at the whisper in his ear, having been too engrossed in surveying the wreckage of the Hideaway to notice anyone come up. Turning about, he looked around...to find no one. Confusion showed across his face, that voice too low to be from so far away. And then it drifted further into the ruined hall, littered with bodies of friend and foe alike. It taunted him, as if telling him this was his fault, that these people were dead because of him. Just like Cid.

The bodiless voice chuckled in response—seemingly amused by his readiness to draw his weapon. Like many before him, he was so quick to threaten the unknown. It's not time for that now. Your enemy is long gone. Or did he truly think the voice was dangerous to him? His demeanour told the voice as much, and perhaps that very fact only added to its mild delight over the situation. And never did set Ultima his feet here once. For the relict of another time and another world feared the blighted, dead lands too greatly to traverse them even in the form he fancied these days. No, this was outside his realm.