#convo:winter

A small clipping of hair, a bundle of sticks, an altar in the forest, and a witch set at the center of a runic circle fetched from worn stones Markus had pulled out of the river. Candles flickered and offered smoke and fire, a basin of salt and water from the Aegean sea - and a grimoire left open to a curse. The age of its pages was evident by the delicacy of the paper, the wearing of the words. It had been one from his former life, one of many things that Markus had collected from his time as Medrault. Words of power fell from his lips as the animals in the area were drawn to his magic, twin ravens circled overhead, large yellow eyes watched him from the shadows, and in the trees and grass all the lesser creatures seemed to hold their breath. “You shouldn’t be here,” Markus warned as he glanced over his shoulder, Winter’s presence was a familiar one, he didn’t need to see her to know it was her, but dark eyes looked upon the pale witch as he wondered what might have drawn her here. “but neither do you have to leave.” 

Dinner had gone well, minus the fact that Kyon had chased Honkus around the kitchen for most of the time. Naturally Atlas and Xander had bickered as usual, and when the fury suggested putting Kyon in the other room so feathers would stop flying everywhere things had really gotten heated. Xander was out walking Kyon now and Atlas set twin slices of cake down on the table next to the coffee, one for him and one for Winter. “Well that was exciting,” Atlas looked more seriously at Honkus who was presently looking very displeased, “I’m sorry you almost got eaten.”

“I like where the author was going with this,” Kore pointed out as she recited one particularly spicy passage. “MLW clearly has a gift for writing erotica without getting too... Self gratifying.” That was maybe a good term for it. The werewolf set the book down before she looked about the club, she’d joined this group because it was made up of a collective of women who sat around discussing works by female authors and while the first assignment had been a surprisingly colourful read, Kore was looking forward to what else the author had put out. “Hard to believe they started on AO3.” She added simply, “What do you think?”

The apartment was small, and cozy. The modest space was one that the witch had really made her own, it was much nicer then the place he shared with Aydin. Neither of them were much for decorating, or talking for that matter. Were it not for the fact that Bastien had looked the man up then he wouldn’t have known that he was not only a Lykos, but a shifter too. “Your place is nice.” the witch offered as he looked about the room, he knew her address of course, but he played it off like he’d needed directions. As if he hadn’t spent his first week here staked out across the street waiting to see who came and went. “Are you happy here?” There was something off about her, about the room, some magic lingered but what it was exactly he could not say.

“Hey,” Diodoros greeted, the witch at the front counter wasn’t really familiar, but Tranquilitea was closed today, so the healer had no choice but to place his regular order at the rival tea shop across the street. If Roman found out this would probably be a scandal, so in true conspiratorial fashion, Diodoros had arrived in a trench coat and bowler hat. He glanced nervously over his shoulder, then brought his gaze back to the woman. He recognized her - vaguely - from his mother’s party, which made this sufficiently awkward. “I called ahead, do you have an order for Diodoros?” 

The early morning was his favourite time of day to go for a jog, there were few things that he liked about the mortal world, it had changed so much. Each night Myles closed his eyes and remembered that he was alone here, but every morning, for a few perfect moments, he forgot that he had been taken from Elysium, he expected to find Apollo in the space next to him. Then, all at once that blissful delirium was wiped away by reality, he was alone, so he went running. 

The rift’s thoughts were pulled from the rhythmic sound of his shoes hitting the pavement when he heard a young woman scream in the distance. Absently he thought of Apollo’s sister, Artemis, she was the protector of young women, and silently Myles knew he would be remiss if he let the sound pass without investigating. What he found instead was comical. A young woman and her - goose - ? had also gone for a jog, only for her to trip and fall over herself. “I -,” Myles offered her his hand to help her to her feet “are you alright?”

Keeping tabs on his siblings had been easy, Beverly could change her name but her habits were more or less the same. Sebastien had been meaning to make contact, but he simply didn’t, he wasn’t sure if he could or if he had any right to. So instead the witch had kept his distance, and kept his eyes on his kid sister from a safe distance. He sat in the small shop now, an untouched bagel in front of the paper he held up to cover his face. Every so often he peered around the edge of it and caught a glimpse of Bev- Winter. The paper was reporting on yet another animal attack and Sebastien had to keep himself from sighing too loudly. When he peeked around the edge of his paper again, Winter was gone. He unfurled the paper a bit, confused until she was stood there smack in front of him. Sebastien was at a loss of words and just smiled weakly and mouthed a “Hey.”

Woven had taken quite the beating, and while he wanted to make Rae help him, he knew she was processing her grief in her own way and it was better to keep his distance until she was good and ready. Despite the tragedy of the veil, Atlas knew that he’d see Jax again, he wanted his best friend to see him be productive, to see him smile, to be happy, even if all of these things were hard. Atlas was alive, Jax wasn’t. He owed it to his best friend to make something of the rubble that Jax’s death had left. There was no more vengeance in his blood, and he was tired of hate. For the first time in ages, Atlas’s soul felt... At ease. He dragged a broom across glass shards that littered the floor, the window would need to be replaced, a long with just about all the materials within. Thank the Gods for insurance. “Do you think Xander is going to propose?” Atlas asked, Winter was quiet, and he thought they both needed a distraction. “I mean, Saf proposed to Rae after they’d been together for like -a month- and Elias was going to marry an incubus before-” Atlas didn’t finish the thought and instead moved on. “I keep waiting for him to make some romantic gesture and get down on one knee, but the most romantic thing he does is rinsing his plate before leaving it in the sink.” That wasn’t exactly true, and truthfully Atlas had always dismissed the idea of marriage. It didn’t mean anything but a secured bloodline back home, and for Xander it was a means of ensuring wealth continued to grow and prosper. It was a stupid government piece of paper, but Atlas wanted what everyone else had.