it's the roots that will bind us here

@liamlockhart​

Orion had no illusions about the state of Lethe these days, but he hardly wanted to ask his wife to ferry him to and fro everywhere he went. Some clients had emergencies, sometimes things ran rather late, so it had seemed a fair thing to stay until midnight and walk home alone. Properly alone, Maggie was at the vet until tomorrow morning, but he didn’t mind. Until he heard footsteps behind, felt a hand as cold as his own but stronger, far stronger, whip him around and shove him into a wall. Orion had not thought his ears capable of ringing anymore, but ring they did, enough so that he couldn’t even begin to hear what the woman was saying. Did it really matter? Not as much as the blows she rained down on him, the attempts he made to protect himself as feeble as could be given he had no idea what direction that she was coming from. He couldn’t bleed, couldn’t die, but he could feel pain. That was the nasty part of being a lich. He felt when his shoulder was jammed out of place, when a finger was snapped back as he reached out to cover himself. Fear hadn’t been a huge part of his life, at least not for himself, but it was all he felt by the time someone, some stranger pulled the woman away from him. Orion’s hands were shaking by then. He counted off the seconds to see if maybe she was just feinting, but no. Dimly he heard her being told to leave, to get out of here, and footsteps moving closer to himself. “I hope you aren’t here to give me a second round. Just because I can’t die from it doesn’t mean it’s painless.” Orion said, backing against the wall. “Who are you? Who was that woman? Obviously I can’t see either of you.”

Date: January 20th 2021 Time: 12:23 PM Location: Dr. Faulkner and Dr. Lockhart’s office

@orionfaulkner​

She has no point of reference, really. But if she could make a guess, Fiona would say that this is what looking at a ghost must feel like. Pictures on the desk featuring the face she’s begun to know as her own, surrounded by others, less familiar. Some of which she’s begun to know as family, names and relations jotted on a napkin then into a notebook, but others complete strangers. It’s enough to make her sigh, though her gaze travels. Notes, stuck to computer screen and desk edge, varying colors and all featuring handwriting that is featured on that napkin and in the notebook. Hers. ‘Call Aurélie Tues., resched?’ and ‘Staff mtg friday!!’ Reminders from another life. Important then, mysteries now. Fiona frowns, gaze darting around, searching for meaning. She hadn’t come here simply to observe this sort of shrine, or even to gather the belongings that are supposedly hers, but feel far from it. No, she’d hoped to maybe find one of the doctors she’d apparently worked for. She would hope for a familiar face, maybe, but her hopes on that front have been almost entirely snuffed. Still, she wanders, hesitant, and finds herself bemused by unoccupied offices. The Fiona of the past would’ve known when the doctors took their breaks, it seems, but as for now? Well, she’s lost on that front. She’s just been bold enough to sit in her own computer chair and attempt guessing her own password when a jingling noise at the door makes her jolt to attention, standing upright. “Oh! Sorry. Hi.” A dog is what she notices first, but her greeting is reserved for the man behind, who she takes a moment to squint at. No bells rung, she sighs. “Are you, um… you wouldn’t happen to be…” A brief pause as she checks the names in that same notebook though she’d checked them many times on her trip here. “Dr. Faulkner or Dr. Lockhart, would you? Uh, I’m Fiona.” Necessary introduction? Maybe not. She presses on. “I was told recently that I used to work here, and um, I just have a few questions.”

He had seen little point in clearing her desk, in hiring someone to fill in for the position. It wasn’t as if they could fill the Fiona shaped hole in the practice, in their daily lives, and frankly, he didn’t even want to try. So he instructed the cleaning crew to only dust, to leave things on that desk as they were. He could handle his own scheduling, Odette could handle hers, and though it seemed like denial of a truth at the time, things had worked out. Hadn’t they? She rose from the river without memory, a mouthpiece for a spirit that claimed to live in its waters, but she was alive. Unharmed, it seemed, except for her memory. He didn’t expect her to remember him, to remember her job, and he certainly didn’t expect she’d want to resume it. So he assumed it was the cleaning person again, dusting away as he walked into the waiting room. At least until he heard the voice behind the desk. He had forgotten how much he missed hearing it in all the time she was gone. Her questions make him smile, but it’s a bittersweet sort of joy. What wouldn’t she know about him? Everything, practically. So they should start anew. Of course. Maggie remembers Fiona’s smell, so she pulls towards her a little and Orion lets her, the better to ease into the situation. “Dr. Faulkner, actually. Dr. Lockhart is my wife. But do call me Orion, won’t you?” He said smoothly, feeling his way around the corner of the desk so that he didn’t bump into her. “Do sit down, Fiona. It’s your chair. But you have questions, yes? So how about I sit, let Maggie sniff at you, and you can ask as many as you like.” He found the chair well enough, sat in it, and then decided to tackle an obvious one. “I’ve got an answer for one though, if you’ll oblige me. I am blind and I was blind when you knew me.”

It’s been quiet for a moment since his introduction, and really, that tends to be enough to make him start to fret. Running with Edmund will lead to such things, people recalling your name with bitterness or outright loathing. So Liam is braced for… something. Some sort of confrontation or questioning about misdeeds done and, more than likely, a life ended. And so the commentary about names, the coincidence of it all, well. That’s disarming to say the least. Hard to swallow, too. It’s not as if he doesn’t know about his mother. Alive, or resembling it, in the same way he is. Having left their family behind and gotten this new husband, to boot. Centuries have passed, so perhaps it should be expected. Doesn’t help the sting of it, though. Time heals all wounds, they claim. Seems like bullshit. “Ah, yes. Something thereabouts. Can’t say I’ve, ah, kept up with tracking it, exactly.” Staggering, isn’t it? This crossing of paths. To be rediscovering his family through this… liaison of sorts. What can he say to this man, who clearly knows about him already? “Certainly seems like once upon a time.” Oh, the bitterness. There it is, like seawater in a wound. Stinging, still. “Well, then. That’s certainly, ah… it’s something. Coincidence, sure.” A beat as he exhales, trying to steady himself against the tumultuous tide of it all. “Have you and your wife been in this town long?” Liam deserves to know, doesn’t he? The history of his mother, this Orion’s wife – has this been her refuge for the entirety of her centuries spent away? It isn’t as if he’d spent years searching for her, but to know her whereabouts makes the situation all the more real. “I can’t say I was aware of where exactly her new life led her.”

How young had Liam been when Odette had died and risen? Orion couldn’t rightly remember, but he thought it was very young indeed. Perhaps a babe in arms, and from what Riley told him, he had become entangled with Edmund Irving somehow. That must have left marks near as deep as the loss of his mother, marks that seemed different than the ones borne by his sister just going by the way that Liam verbally processed what was said. “Odette longer than I, since its founding at the beginning of the nineteenth century. I am but a lowly hundred and forty years old, you see.” Orion explained, well aware of the bitterness in tone that he could not see in gesture. What had Edmund told him? What had his father told him? No one but Liam knew anymore, but Orion dearly wanted to at least try to bridge the gaps here. “Liam, you owe me no kindnesses, no respect even. I recognize that. But I would like to talk with you awhile, if you’re willing. There’s a cafe just down the hall from here, and while neither of us can partake, it’s a solid place to talk.” Orion nodded towards the end of the hall, or at least the direction he hoped was the end of the hall. His smile was wan, not too cheery and not too dismal, but genuine. “If you don’t wish to speak to me at all, I understand. But I think you are wise enough to know better than to believe wholesale what Edmund Irving may have fed you over the years about your mother, your sister, and what happened. At the very least I would hope you are willing to hear the side I have been told, and it may be easier to hear it from me, as a third party. Would you oblige me, sir?”

The man brushes off his reassurances but it does little to ease the furrow in Liam’s brow. He himself would argue that he’s not the best person, but running into a blind man isn’t something he’s proud of. Still, he gives a smile to the dog, and a small nod to boot, though they don’t contribute much to the conversation. “Ah, well. Sorry all the same. To Maggie, too.” A hand is offered then and Liam blinks in surprise. Not many polite greetings around here thus far. Still, he shakes it after only a beat of hesitation, not wanting to startle the man even if it’d been he who extended the offer. “Nice to make your acquaintance, Dr. Faulkner. Even if I could’ve done a better job at a first impression.” The second name rings no bells. Not yet, anyway. “Name’s Liam. Ah, Liam Lockhart, if we’re being specific. Can’t say I’ve got any sort of practice, just matters to tend to at the blood bank.” His gesture towards his cooler proves useless, too. Right. “Have you been in business long, then?

Orion had a bone to pick with the universe as a whole, but specifically with Lethe and how ‘dead’ didn’t seem to be dead for the vast majority. Sure, he didn’t have much room to talk given what he was, but when precisely were relatives and friends going to stop popping out of the woodwork like undead daisies? That was the real question here. Liam Lockhart the man says, as if it’s a commonplace name, as if he hasn’t heard it from his wife’s lips in conjunction with tears. Matters to attend to indeed. So a vampire, like dear Riley. There was no other reason someone born human would live this long and be setting out for a blood pickup. He realized belatedly that he had lapsed into a semi-rude silence and he dragged himself mentally to the point. “Quite a fine name, Liam Lockhart. My wife’s prior name was Lockhart, my stepdaughter’s name is Lockhart.” Orion said, deciding to call a duck and duck and get it over with. Either the man would bolt or he was the right Liam, but it was a chance worth taking. “She had a son named Liam, once upon a time. So tell me, Mr. Lockhart, precisely how old are you? A tad over two hundred? I mean not to scare you off, sir, but the coincidences are past the pale. And if you are the Liam I suspect, I would dearly love to make your acquaintance.”

She had forgotten in the time he was gone what it was like to have someone who trusted her so completely that he didn’t question her reasons. It was Edmund, sure, a subject so thoroughly spoken about to bring a headache to someone who didn’t feel them anymore, but Odette knew it was also just Orion, and his faith in her. Her faith in him. She nodded against him, silent, rolling over things in her head, knowing without asking that he did the same with every stroke of her hair. “No, we have too many books in the basement. We should invest in a fireplace, I think, we only have the one in the living room and it is small.” Did she plan on needing to incinerate anymore bodies? No, but Odette wouldn’t mind being prepared for the possibility, it seemed necessary with a family like theirs. “Perhaps we can toss Maksim in it, and be done with that problem, too,” she murmured, only slightly joking, given he was the thorn bothering her most now that Edmund was gone. Gone, how the thought made her hands still on his chest with surprise, and then continue their mindless tracing. “Even if there is no body, people will have questions eventually. Delilah already has a fair few, I believe Riley spoke with her.” She hid her hurt fairly well, a part of her knowing why Riley had gone to her and other feeling a tinge betrayed by it. “I assume you have an idea? We will need someone to tell the story, and a million other things, I am not sure how to contain this properly without someone getting hurt.”

“My darling, you have warned me off going near the fireplace many a time so I haven’t the slightest idea how large it is. If you want one, get one, but I think perhaps disposing of bodies in it shouldn’t be the goal.” Orion said, then paused to consider the addition of Maksim Kozlov. A worthy one, for sure, but alas not possible. Well, yet. No, that was a dangerous line of thought by any means at all. Mustn’t get one’s hopes up. “My idea is that you cannot present a united front without a united story. You need to reach out to Riley’s men, in secret. They could both easily meet us at work, under the guise of an appointment.” The reaction to Riley having gone to Delilah was something they would have to work on and work through, not something for now. Riley was...well, she was Riley. Unstable in some ways, still broken in others, and no one thought smoothly after an attack of that nature. “We’ll start there, then think forward after that’s set. If worst comes to worst, we’ll handle it, but something tells me our biggest liability is not the press or the townsfolk, but the hidden ace. But for now, rest.”

Date: November 7th 2020 Time: 12:05 pm Location: Lethe General Hospital

It’s the equivalent of being told to go handle the grocery shopping, but Daniel had looked frustrated enough to quell Liam’s arguments. He’d assumed the troubles came from their recent news on Edmund, but Daniel had insisted there was another problem entirely before slamming a door. At any rate, getting away from his present company is preferable. This town does have its merits, even with the Bissets within its limits, and the ease with which he can acquire a cooler of blood proves as much. Perhaps it’s the impression of this discovery that has Liam so distracted. The reasoning doesn’t matter, anyhow, not when he runs into another man with enough force to bring on some embarrassment. “Jesus – sorry.” His studying palm on the stranger’s arm is quickly removed, and Liam has only just raised a brow at the dog that accompanies him when the connection is made. Oh, that’s even worse. “You alright? My fault, really. So much for enhanced reflexes.”

Walking the halls of the hospital at noon was a bit dicey for a blind man, even with Maggie along, but he felt restless. He worried about dear Fiona, who was punctual almost to a fault and so gentle hearted, and he was frustrated too by his own uselessness when it came to a search. Her family he had reached out to, offered whatever help he could give them, free sessions and the like, but what good was that when she was still missing? Not much, he thought. He was so wrapped up in that thought that he ignored the signals Maggie was giving him to stop and smacked right into another person. A man, by the sound of his voice. “Oh, I’m quite alright. Far more solid than I seem. I do believe it’s really my fault, dear Maggie here was trying to warn me by tugging at the lead, but I was...well, thinking too hard.” Directly in front of him, just to the left if he could judge correctly. Orion flashed the man a smile and offered him a hand to shake. An olive branch, truly. “Dr. Orion Faulkner, at your service. I have a psychiatry practice on the first floor with my wife Odette. And your name, sir?”

Her eyes lit up, a hum of acknowledgement escaping her throat. “I have read about liches. They are more skeletal in literature than you are,” she remarked, waiting and listening. If Andreas was like a blazing fire barely constrained, this man was an undersea current: unnoticeable, untraceable, but no less deadly. Briar made herself comfortable, hands in her lap and her shoulders tense, not replying to his earlier remarks on his psychiatric approach. In truth, she tried to read up on it, and yet there were never any concrete answers. His question made her snort. “Have you been to the Otherlands? Have you read about the Otherlands? It would be easier to ask someone why they would stay, but… I do not think that was the question you are asking. I was there for three hundred years, why leave now?” she questioned, a grim smile on her lips. Crafty and smart, that was her, and even though it had only ever been said by Morrigan, this man saying it brought a small wave of relief through her. Like the Otherlands hadn’t made her the monster she thought. Her fingers twitched, tapping against each other in an erratic rhythm, a pale imitation of the clicking Andreas did in his – their – native tongue. “Stories from this land always trickled in there. In the literature here, they think of the Otherlands as a fairy tale, but that realm? Your realm is the real fairy tale, almost too good to be real. A place you can be safe, and free, and not have to fight. I wanted it to be true. Is it?”

Ah, there she had caught him short. He had read little of the Otherlands, as so few Otherlander Fae lived in town that he had not thought to do so. And those who did, who came to his practice? They did not care to talk about the place from whence they came. Maybe that was an indicator all its own, really. A harsh place, thankless and cruel in ways less common in this world these days. “So you came for freedom? Noble. Understandable. The honest answer to your first question is as complicated as the answer to the second, I think.” Orion said after a long pause. Feral, yes. Strange, but not stupid. Andreas knew that when he called, but this was confirmation all its own. “I was human until I died and the Fae in town that remember the Otherlands, they speak of it very little. Which says quite a lot about their experiences there. As for safety, this world is as complex as you are yourself. Lethe is to be a safe haven for the inhuman, the strange. But I would not lie to you and say it does not have its own dangers. And outside?” Orion gestured to his left, hoping that it was at least close to a window for best effect, but at the very least, understandable by the young selkie. “Whether or not it is safer than the world out there, well, that is a matter for debate. Some will tell you that it could be safer with better government, with a stronger hand that includes all, not just those who are one species or the other. But here’s my question to you, Briar? What do you think of Lethe yourself?”

“Mom!” Riley shouts out as she enters the Faulkner home, hand pushing- or rather, slamming the back door shut behind her. “What made you think you could…where the hell are you, I’m trying to yell at you!” The vampire’s words reverberate through the entire household, alerting anyone who may be home of her presence. She’s not quiet about it, nor does she hide the anger boiling inside her. Odette overstepped this time, she couldn’t…why did she even think to include Arthur and Isaac? To blatantly go behind her back like that again… “I talked to Isaac,” she shouts into Odette and Orion’s bedroom, finding no one inside. Another sigh and she’s off stomping towards the living room.  “This isn’t protecting me- oh.” Not only is her mother most certainly not home, but her stepfather is instead. Ah. Well, this isn’t what she expected. However, the smile that tugs at the corners of her lips welcomes him regardless. “Hey, I uh, I didn’t realize you got back! I’m sorry I just…barged in. The yelling…” Riley trails off, hands flailing around as she talks despite the fact he can’t actually see the exuberant motion. It helps her think. 

“Sure,” she nods, moving slowly to sit beside her stepfather. After a moment of fiddling with her hands, Riley finally breaks the silence. “So you know about everything then? Or most of it at least?” She lets out a short laugh, leaning over to poke Orion. “See what happens when you leave? Chaos. A parade goes haywire, an auto shop explodes, I nearly died, and your wife killed Edmund Irving, so, you know, it’s been…shitty. It’s been shitty and Odette’s not making it any better,” Riley says, continuing to plow through. “She’s actually making it worse. A lot worse. And for what? To protect me? To protect me? Really? Because of her, my boyfriend just brought a murderer into Lethe and helped dispose of his body. Because of her Arthur is now involved and has also helped dispose of the body. Because she…because she brought him here, those fucking monsters came after me and they left me in a field to die. And I’m pissed the fuck off about it, Orion.” She pauses for a moment then, looking down at her hands with a deep frown etched into her brow. “But I’m also sad. I’m sad because I miss when things were okay. They were okay for a minute there, I thought things were good. Weren’t they?” 

It was akin to taking a rollercoaster ride through someone else’s emotions, listening to Riley rant, but at least she was ranting. She could have just buried things six feet under in her mind, refused to dig them out. It spoke volumes that she was even comfortable enough with him to do so. He’d take it, even if it just gave him a clearer window into a fraught state of mind that he couldn’t entirely fix, no matter how hard he might try. “It does seem ominous, doesn’t it? That was the first time I’ve left Lethe without your mother since I died. I would have preferred puppies and rainbows and the like instead of murder and mayhem, but there you are.” He said dryly, trying to insert a little levity into the situation before he came crashing in with something that Odette had discovered during Edmund’ stay in their home. Something that put a hole in everything that she had said, which she was sure to dislike, but her relationship with Odette was so fraught that it needed it. “Edmund ordered the attack on you before he was taken. She got that out of him just before he died. Before she sent Isaac out to capture him, before Arthur was recruited by Isaac so he wouldn’t run the risk of it being a suicide mission.” His tone was gentle, but firm. Matter of fact, but not without empathy. He could not look her in the eyes, but he could turn towards her voice, take her hand gently, as best he could. She wasn’t going to like the explanation, he knew that, so he opened his mouth before he could feel her shifting in her seat again. “Now, Isaac and Arthur I think we need to let off the hook here. They both love you enough that they wanted to take this on. To take down someone who so badly hurt you, hurt your family. But I am not so foolish as to think you will accept that behind other motives given, all of these people including your mother did this because they love you. Because they want to protect you. But that’s a problem to you too, isn’t it?” He paused, but only briefly. If she was going to rant, he could pay back some of the same before she got too angry to listen. “People do foolish things to protect people they love. They just do, Riley. Your anger towards your mother has less to do with what she did and more with the why, with the fact that you think you don’t need protecting. Not by her. And you don’t want the price of the love that Arthur and Isaac feel towards you to be something that puts them in danger. But Riley, you don’t get to make that choice for them. They do, and they did.” He squeezed her hand, then said one last thing that had come to mind as he sat with her. “You didn’t ask, but it bears saying: if it had been my daughter in your place, and I in Odette’s...well. I would have killed him too. Should she have asked you first? Perhaps. But he would still be alive then. Lurking, waiting for the next time he feels like lashing out. It wasn’t wrong.”

“But not the best choice either,” she supplied with an arched brow, leaning up on her elbow to gently trace over his face. Neither were cold, temperate held no meaning for people who couldn’t feel it unless it were extreme, and yet she still dragged the blanket higher over them like it were a security against the outside world. She hadn’t needed it in a while, but she hadn’t killed someone in several centuries either. “I had no other choice– No, that’s not it, I had one. I could have… let him go somewhere, turned him in, but that? That was not a good enough option.” Let him go, the very idea of it made her want to scoff, and she settled back down, head on his chest and feeling some of the frustration ebb just from Orion’s presence. The stake had long since been out of her hand, but the phantom feel of it had haunted her for days, like Edmund’s last laugh was the strange echo of the events replaying in her head. Not regret, no, but something akin to anxiousness. “I didn’t intend to involve anyone in the latter half, Riley’s boys are a stubborn lot and they love her dearly. I couldn’t keep them away even if I tried, but I can’t say I wanted to light his body on fire in our basement,” she confessed, reaching a hand out blindly to seek out his and twining their fingers together on his chest, too. Ah, he knew her well enough to predict the frown in the same moment it crossed her face, and she shook her head, clearing it with a quiet laugh. One that ended quickly in light of what they had to discuss. “He hurt my kids, that is reason enough, no? I could not bear knowing he was out there, forever a shadow over us.”

“There are no best choices where Edmund Irving is concerned, my darling. That’s what you’re missing here. You leave him go, he kills again, he attacks your daughter again, and what? We give him a spanking? Lock him in the basement again for a few weeks?” Orion didn’t expect an answer to these questions, but they needed to be voiced to bolster her past actions and her argument. So he said them, stroking her hair as he did so, and he let silence fall between them for a long moment. A comfortable silence, made even more so by the number of duvets and pillows that they were nestled in right now. An excellent way to spend an afternoon, he thought, and needed given her state of mind. “Katherine has made that choice before, letting him go. And where did that take us? Here, now, after he’s caused more pain in the world than he has ever felt himself. No, he deserved to die. End of story.” Light it on fire in the basement? His hand paused on her hair and he sighed loudly, shaking his head. “Well, regardless of how Riley feels about it, I think burning a body in the basement would not have gone as smoothly as letting them handle it.” The real hurdle was one he had been thinking about since she told him the full story of what had happened. He had been prodding at it, working all the angles, and none of them were going as he would have liked. It would be messy, this whole thing once it got out. Messy, dangerous, but possibly useful in the long run. Time would tell, and they had that on their side. “But my love, we cannot work under the assumption that this will stay under wraps. This is Lethe. It won’t, we know it won’t, so we best prepare now before it explodes. Guide the story ourselves.”

“It was a knife, in case you ended up being a security risk,” she said, a little cheerfully for the casualness with which Orion responded to the possibility. Her footsteps retreated from the area they were meeting long enough for her to shove it back into the block, ignoring the weight of Andreas’ eyes on her back before her… Well, before he treated from the room to give them a semblance of privacy. Not far, in case she went ballistic, though the longer she squinted at the man, the less she wanted to stab him. A rare feat, and the reward was that she settled on the arm of a nearby chair. “Did someone not kill you properly then? Dead people aren’t supposed to walk and talk again, trust me.” A younger Briar would flinch at the casual discussion of death, but the younger her was shriveled and fading, if not gone already. “I don’t know what you hope to accomplish here, you know, I think I’m fairly well off. I’d show you how long I can do a handstand, but you wouldn’t be able to see it anyhow so I won’t waste my breath, so you should just assume I’m in peak physical health.” She stared him down, and then just as quickly stopped with a huff. It did little good against those unseeing eyes of his, and she shifted on the arm, ignoring the creak of the chair. “I cannot intimidate you if you cannot see me, so much of it is in body shape and facial expressions. Did he plan this?”

His wife, if she had been here, would likely have chastised him for toying with this young woman. But they had always had different methods, hadn’t they? Briar, for all the assurances that Andreas had given as to her age and maturity, was still a child in some ways. A damaged child who poked and prodded at anything or anyone new to see how it reacted, the better to gauge her own reactions. She wanted him to flinch, so he wasn’t going to. That would get more out of her than following the stereotype, which was one bonus of his blindness, he supposed. “Aren’t they? You’ll find many such people here. We call them liches. I am one, my wife another. But I was blinded by the trauma that killed me before I rose, so alas...” Orion gave an extravagant shrug, listening for the sound of her feet to see if she had moved closer to sitting down. The accusation against poor Andreas made Orion laugh, but lightly. He could tell already that Briar would not appreciate mockery and might retaliate. “Andreas? No, not really. My wife has one psychiatric approach, I have another, and you aren’t in need of a grief counselor, so you get me.” A creaking noise came to his ears and he smiled. Not willing to sit down at all, it seemed. Or follow the orders of strangers. A child left to fend for itself, taught to meet its own needs and never trust, not once and not anyone. But the arm of the chair was a compromise, in its way. So that was interesting. “You escaped the Otherlands, from what I’ve been told. That’s quite a feat. Proves you’re smart, crafty, but you aren’t Fae. Always an outsider there. So you tell me something here, Briar: what made you leave?” 

@arthur-talbot​

“You know what I find most interesting about you, Arthur?” Orion said, several minutes after being alerted to the visitor by his smart watch and two seconds after hearing him slip out into the back garden where Orion had been reading on his braille tablet. Many things of course, such as how he simply pulled up a patio chair and didn’t bother to answer right away, as if he knew Orion was an incurable lecturer at times. Well, he probably did. Riley seemed to have acquired two fathers, one talkative and one not, but that was alright. “You walk like a tiger, but one that knows where all the creaky floorboards are. It must have made you excellent at your work, but I assume you aren’t here for pleasantries.” He sat his tablet on the table and sighed, turning his face towards the noises that indicated just where the other man had taken his seat. “I heard what happened to your wife. What happened to Riley. Cora I believe has started seeing Odette again, which is very brave of her. But Riley...I worry about Riley. And I have a feeling there are things my wife doesn’t know that you do.” Orion paused, then tapped his fingers lightly on the glass tabletop. “So lets talk about them. About anything else you’d like too, of course, but I think she’s uniquely fragile right now. And I want to help you help her in any way that I can manage. Is that alright with you?”

@miralowell​

Grief, of all the things that he helped people wrangle, was the strangest beast of all. Mutable, deeply personal, and yet universal all the same to those who had felt similar losses. He had not known Clark, not truly, but he knew Mira Lowell and he knew the loss of a partner by accident. Still, you went slow. She appreciated bluntness, but he would gage her state of mind first, then prod. Her footsteps always surprised him, they were decisive but soft and not in the slightest like a wolf, which he had heard of most other werewolves. Then again, she was a surprising sort of person. “My dear Mira, it is lovely that you were willing to come in this afternoon. I know you’re terribly busy.” He said as she entered the room, rounding the desk to greet her properly. The wingback chair he turned her way and he flashed her a warm smile as he stepped back so she could take her seat. “I suppose the expected psychiatrist thing to say would be ‘But one can always make time for mental health’, but I think you and I know better than most how sometimes the needs of others come first. How are you, my dear? How is dear Lionel? He asked me some excellent questions, I recall.”

@briarbishop​

In general, he didn’t do house calls. It was a hassle to find his way there, to then learn the interiors of a strange home by sound and touch and smell. If Andreas hadn’t explained the nuances of the situation he would have insisted on a regular appointment. A woman of his people who had attacked Riley’s foster father’s wife, one who had professed to have been raised in the Otherlands by the Fae and from what Andreas could tell, was in some sort of fighting ring for the entertainment of elder Fae. That had caused Orion to go quiet on the phone long enough for the councilman to ask if he was still there, and he had agreed immediately to come. There would be no miracles, he had explained, but Andreas seemed pleased enough that he was willing, even though the man lived in the middle of nowhere with some fairly treacherous steps. By the time he heard footsteps he had been settled in the living room with his Braille tablet in hand and Maggie on the floor beside him, snoot on his foot. "Well, this is a waste now, he didn't say you were blind.” was the first thing he heard, only to be followed by a gentle chastisement from Andreas that she rebuffed. “Ah, you must be Briar. I assume that’s a weapon, but as you say, I am blind. Head trauma isn’t very kind that way. You are welcome to try to kill me, but I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed to find I’m already dead. Have a seat when you’d like to.”

@odettelockhart​

“Well, I don’t think it was a wrong choice, per say. Not from a moral standpoint or a safety related one.” Orion said finally, once Odette had gone through the grim details of the Edmund Irving situation. It was an odd thought, that the man had been in their basement a time before being staked, but Orion hardly went into the basement anyway. Once home and his carry on bag put away they had retired to their bedroom and to what could only be compared to a nest made of soft, fluffy blankets on top of their mattress. An excellent place to talk, to hold each other, and to kiss, but there had been far less of the last than he would have preferred. It didn’t matter. They had matters of more import to discuss, and now that he had the details he felt as if his mind was whirring at high speed as he held Odette in his arms. “Lethe, unfortunately, is small and clannish. Certainly you picked solid people to trust. That young man of Riley’s seems like he would do anything for her and for you. But there are eyes in the streets, my love.” Not his, but that was self explanatory. His ears did the job for him, as people tended to assume that the blind man must be deaf as well. “If and when this gets out, we need solid reasoning. Something to back us up. Ah, don’t make that face. Us. I didn’t take vows in the courthouse for naught, Odette. I stand with you.”

@riley-voss​

It was decided long ago that Orion should be home before dark, for his own safety and that of any motorist so unlucky as to accidentally hit him. It had only happened the once, but the once had been enough. So by the time the sun was waning in the autumn sky he was home, playing the piano in the living room and biding his time until Odette came home. His notes were already dictated for the few starter appointments he had taken since returning home, the housekeeper had been in this morning, so it was just him and Maggie, curled nearby. At least until he heard the back door slam open, then shut again, in a manner that was very unlike his wife. Pat had a key, as did Katherine, but Selene was out of state, so that left...ah. Not a threat then, though by the way she was yelling and carrying on as she headed down the hall looking for her mother. She paused at the door, he heard, and he turned a soft smile towards the sound of her voice. “I am afraid she isn’t here yet, my dear Riley. But I would be happy to talk with you a while, if you’re willing.” He paused, his hands resting on the keys as he turned his face towards her voice. Once home he had been filled in on the details of what Odette had done, but he wasn’t sure how wise it was to meddle. Then again, if he could sort out her head a little before she did something rash it was worth it. Orion stood, then slid away from the piano, feeling his way to the sofa. “Let’s be comfortable, shall we? I’m not her, but I know what happened.”