#putrefactie

         THE STUDY WAS a mess, albeit Adrian having cleaned it a little, setting the picture of his mother upright again, and setting the toppled over chair upright again, but otherwise, the floor was still damaged, books that had fallen out of the bookcase scattered on the floor, some in pieces, and the fireplace, cracked at the force that had been exerted at it previously. None of it was of interest to them though, instead focusing their attention to the shards of a magic mirror that laid upon the floor.

         HECTOR’S WORDS HAD him worried, but when he spoke of Isaac and not knowing of his whereabouts, as no body was found outside or inside the castle, there was one place that Adrian could imagine where Isaac would be “hiding”. The magic mirror inside the Belmont hold reminded him faintly of the mirror in his father’s study, and though he was not certain if it’d allow matter to pass through, it was a worthy guess, although he could not fathom why his father would have saved them by allowing them to escape the battle through it.

         HE INSPECTED THE shards upon the floor, carefully, trying to find a way to make them work to his own will, as he had no previous experience with such a mirror, but resourceful he was. His father had either taught him all along how he’d have to operate it, or it’d be in one of the books in the castle, he was sure. He moved from his crouched position and turned, only to come face-to-face with Hector in doing so. While he’d have loved to move past him and carry on in search of the information to operate the mirror, he couldn’t help but inquire.

         ❛❛  —— Are you nervous, Hector?  ❜❜

         HE COULDN’T BLAME the forgemaster if he was. Although Hector had stated they had never been more than aquintances, to go after someone you know personally, perhaps in need of killing them, Adrian knew the feeling a little to well, but reassure them he could not, as the sensation of it still lingered within himself. How could he tell them it’d pass, if he was still struggling with acceptance himself?

Ask my muse questions about their past || @putrefactie

                “I remember thinking for all my life that the place I lived was beautiful. Time has only made me think fonder of it, now that I have not seen it in so many years. So much of my life was spent entrenched in the earth and wilderness and water, that I could do nothing if not grow to adore it.” Fondness joins the blue of the patriarch’s kindly eyes as a hand curls to his chin–a gesture of thought, though it seems even all this time later, he never needs to think very hard when it comes to imaginings of home (home can only be one place, after all–Leon has never quite found it again.)

                 “I lived very near to the sea, though it was only seldom I visited for pleasure sooner than to journey elsewhere. One of the very last things I did before I bid farewell to France was walk the shore, stride the waves–remember the words I had said there to the few I held dear to me.” We danced on the water, someone else’s words echo back to him from a far more distant time, a far more simple time. The Belmont’s lips quirk a little higher, if not with some note of bittersweet reaching his voice as his nostalgic voice warbles on.

               “My homeland was always to me a place of beauty. Splendour. At least in the quietness found away from people, among the forests and glades and fields. It had a magic all its own, I am sure–so many places felt alive to me. And I always felt in good company, whether I roamed the earth or swam the lakes, or slept beneath the trees with the lavender that grew wild and vast upon what land I once called my own.”

It was what could only be considered as later than late when they’d finally made camp somewhere within Moesia, the northern tip of Bulgaria. The peerless sky overhead spun with dizzying constellations as the Codrii Speakers gathered around a large fire, a spit erected upon which they roasted venison that was already cooking and curing from the oils they’d procured on their travels. The younger among them were gladly recounting tales they’d learned, committing them to memory. But as it would, at some point they’d noticed the logs running low, knowing what needed to be done.

Staying in stride of Arn, one of the Roma in their clan, Sypha held a teasing finger to the man’s cheek.

carry pick them up.