#efigeniastarter

The dead had never really bothered him, maybe when he was a kid, but even then his reaction hadn’t been what it was meant to be. Most children would have shrieked in horror at the sight of a deceased relative, but they had looked... Peaceful, in a way. Somehow Raffaele thought that there was something comforting about a finite end, and he liked being there for people when they needed it. With restorative magic the blood witch had reconstructed a smashed in face, rebuilt the ocular bones, mended the slashes across his chest that the police had called an animal attack. A bear. Rome didn’t have bears, but they did have lycans. 

“Sorry, I’m almost done.” Raffaele apologized as he looked over at Efigenia, he’d asked her out for lunch and then proceeded to run late, that she was waiting for him at all felt like a mercy. The viewing was tonight, he needed to make sure the deceased was perfect before then. “Have you ever lost anyone?”

There was this creed that this mortal realm’s senate peddled: all loss of supernatural life was a tragedy. The drow had a very different mentality, the weak were chewed up and spat out, there was only a crime if there were any left to testify to it. Lloth’s edicts seemed harsh to the denizens of this realm, but to someone like Felandaris, he’d embraced them at the dawning of drow society - proudly and without shame. He picked up on the sounds of struggle and wandered towards the sounds of it, if only to witness it firsthand. Felandaris’ eyes fixed on the fey as its blood and life force were pulled from them, torn into the air and entrenched into the witch who’d bested them. Felandaris turned his bangle and let the magic that Severon had crafted for him dissipate, revealing his presence as the drow’s leather wings unfurled, stretched, and folded behind his back once more. “Extending your lifespan?” Felandaris observed, complicated magic, he wasn’t impressed easily: he certainly didn’t think one of these witches capable of as much. 

A black suit was always appropriate for a funeral, Raffaele adjusted his tie in the entry hallway to the estate as he considered Kaan. Jian didn't want to stay for the memorial, too painful, apparently. The vampire had asked Raffaele to go with him, but the witch's home was always going to be here with the Narcissus. The Relic had stepped up in Kaan's place, though truthfully Raffaele was surprised that Efigenia hadn't been tapped for the role. She was strong enough, that much was obvious.

"Hey, I don't know if this is the right time or anything but," Raffaele had been thinking about this for a while; Efigenia had alluded to it and among the coven her power wasn't much of a secret. "we're both watchers now, but you're worlds ahead of me. I was hoping you'd teach me, you know, take me under your wing. I want to learn, everything."

There was a naturalism to Raffaele’s magic, and something innately rewarding that came with acts of service or hard work. A simple spell would have tilled the soil, another would have planted the seed and brought it to sprout and then bud. His practice was more concentrated, love for the act bloomed at his fingertips and ingrained itself into the soil, nestled within the seed as he wordlessly but effectively planted flowers for the Spring in the soft earth. The habit reminded him distantly of home, made him feel... Connected, in a way to the coven when he looked out at the beds in the morning over the months and saw firsthand what he’d grown. “It’s not so bad, you know.” Raffaele offered, he’d never seen Efigenia dirty her hands, she just sort of appeared and half the time the blood witch expected a plume of smoke to precede her arrival. Despite all that had happened over the last year, somehow Raffaele remained optimistic. Their coven was strong, stronger than ever maybe, that had to be a good sign. “You could help.”

Normally, this would be the time when Raffaele's shirt would be off, his chest covered exclusively by the cross he always wore around his neck, but times changed, and a lot could happen over the course of a year. He'd met someone interesting, Prospero was a demigod, but he could perform magic, even though it came with a cost. Witches had always observed the world around them and interpreted it into different forms of spellcasting - to this end, there was something to be learned everywhere. But someone like that could teach him a lot, and Efigenia who had refined the art that he gravitated towards so keenly, not just blood magic but destruction as well, Raffaele wanted to procure everything he could from her.

There was a time when Raffaele felt safest within the halls of the Narcissus Coven, but Jian was gone, and so was Kaan; in the place of family, he now just saw a series of people who would always put themselves first. Raffaele knew what the outside world thought about their coven, that the magic they contended with was dangerous, and that they were little more than murderous criminals. Maybe they were right.

"Sorry, it took a while, but," He held up the vial of the regent that Efigenia had sent him out to retrieve. "I got it, you ready to tell me what we're doing here now?"