Landon Kirby

Tessa swallowed hard, long enough to try and calm down and give a semi-coherent answer. “Someone disappeared right in front of me… I can’t get a hold of some of my friends who I know had come back… They all seem to be gone,” she said sadly, pain evident in her voice. Having people close to her like this and not just in a research way… it didn’t happen often for Tessa. So feeling the pain of the disappearances made it hurt even worse. “I just want to bring them all back.”

“I want to get out of the school. Go into the city.” She wanted to feel normal for just a second. “Well,” she leaned in to whisper. “considering its past curfew, yes I’d say it’s on the DL.” 

Josie was hoping her face wasn’t showing her emotions, but it was evident that wasn’t the case. “Nothing.” Josie ran a hand through her hair. “Can we do something?”

They don’t interrupt their brother as he lashes back, and he can’t even blame him. He brings up his life, about the far from perfect reality he lived for years while he stood by. They’d made a vow never to get too close, never to interfere unless necessary, and all it had earned them was more pain and death than already plagued their existence. It would have been easy to remain silent even after the phoenix throws the last jab, but they can’t help but crack a somber smile.  “Do you know what my job was before watching you?” They don’t wait long enough for their youngest brother to speak before explaining. “When I didn’t turn out like Dad planned, he kept making more of us. One after another, after another,  leaving them for me to raise and take care of until the time was right. When they failed, he just kept the cycle going… they just turned into numbers for him.” He clasps his hands, looking off at nothing in particular as his mind searches through the past, through a life of inadequacy in the eyes of their father, and of a life of hard work that had earned him nothing but the ache in his chest he felt now.  “Dad wasn’t really a dad… and I didn’t know the first thing about raising someone else… but I figured it out. I loved them… all of them… and now they’re all gone. Everyone is gone, but me - ” Looking up from his hands, he looks at the phoenix. “ - and you. If it makes you feel any better, I’m not happy either of us are here. ”

her real answer well.. she couldn’t just quite go around saying she was a witch, not to just anyone without knowing who they were. “your guess is as good as mine, luck?” florence shrugged, glancing over at the male beside her. “though this place also seems so busy i’m sure you could manage one if you tried.”

“Well, you should be the one to write it, don’t you think? Tell your own story instead of letting someone else get it wrong,” she suggested. Not everyone got to tell their stories themselves. Often, other people told it and changed what they wanted. Landon had the chance to use his own words at least. “Well, if we’re talking about the ones we just know about, I was always a fan of vampires, but I guess I’m biased growing up with them. But if we’re talking about ones that maybe existed at some point… Well, I really hope mermaids exist.”

In some ways, it was just a thrill to the golem to see the younger child of Malivore riled up, but it was equally as satisfying to take out years of resentment and mud daddy issues on him.  “Why would I help father’s prodigal son?” It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been assigned to watch over him and Seylah. “You’re his favorite, of course he saw to it that you had a loophole to dying. A good thing considering you can’t keep yourself alive.” He hadn’t even been at the Salvatore School a year before he’d kicked the bucket the first time. “My job to protect you and watch over you was over the instant you found dear old dad and your time to be meat puppet extraordinaire came around. Which, as per usual, you managed to fuck up.”

“Well, we can start anywhere. We could just talk about things you like or if you have any questions about the supernatural world, I could try to solve them. I have lots of books and knowledge about things,” she offered, giving him some examples. “Or if you just feel overwhelmed, I can listen while you talk about that. And I wouldn’t tell anyone what you had to talk about either. I know you just met me, so you don’t trust me yet, but maybe with time,” she suggested. “I know they have. Which is why I wanted to offer you someone to talk to if you needed it.”

His answer, although not unexpected, made Orion frown slightly. She moved closer to him so that their arms were just touching, hoping that her presence would be at least a bit comforting. “It’s good to see you too. Really good, actually.” Landon had been the only shred of familiarity her life had left after the incident, and she had worried so much about him during his… absence that she was pretty sure she was getting gray hairs. “Do you want to talk about it? Or do you want to do something ‘normal’?”