#sheolwalks

William was caught off guard as Shiloh slipped underneath his grasp, only to meet their hands interlacing between one another. “Oh of course.” Just being around her was enough to catch the angel off guard, he wasn’t sure what to expect from the anti-Christ.  “You really are strong aren’t you?” A smile graced his lips as he was lead into going down the creek’s path. 

  “She might, yes. If one were interested in such a position.”

  Blue eyes rested on her face, neither friendly nor disapproving in their weight, but two perfect glaciers that did not betray an ounce of emotion. Luzifer had only conversed with a handful of her kind before, few of them as there were who dared or thought it necessary to approach him. And honestly, why waste his time on them if they didn’t? Most already met their grave after just a year or a few, a statistic that was to blame as much on unfortunate circumstances as it was on basic incompetence and mental derangement. Natural selection usually did the job. Luzifer could barely remember who exactly he had tasked with the thankless honour of monitoring them all.

  But this one? This one was something else. He could see it in her eyes. Beyond the curtains of that youthful fire and supposedly endearing innocence lurked a creature hungry for success - and not the megalomaniac kind. Well. What else was there to expect from an apple that had fallen off such an... unusual tree?

“A PR opportunity.” Shiloh had brazenly hooked her arm through Riley’s and was now guiding her down the muddy paths of the busy tent city. “I’m sorry I dragged you along, really. But there is someone here I have to meet up with for, you know, business reasons, and you were the only person I could get a hold of that’s got blood relations. He’s got like fifty glamours on him. This was the only way I figured I could avoid those. I promise we’ll be in and out in a second, you won’t even have to talk to anyone. But please don’t make me do this on my own. My father is counting on me. I can’t mess this up.”

    “I’m not exactly the golden child’a the family.” The makeshift town wasn’t scary. They never were, even when the news was low on murder and had to go to the old punching bags. Desperate, was the taste in the air, and sad. People shouldn’t have to live like this, but there was little point in offering directions or guidance to a women’s shelter; folks brought to this had their reasons for keeping hackles up. “So I might do more harm than good.”

    And, yes, that was what she was focusing on -- not the thing that the primality deep in her belly knew as Conquest, the thing curled around her elbow like two gal-pals on a shopping trip. While Riley could only guess at what that meant, and even her sire had been a hair tight-lipped on the topic, none of the conclusions spoke to anything good. Sure, the vagueness and sincerity painted her in a kindly light; but the cambion was a fine painter, herself. “Gonna be real, Shy, I’m bailin’ the second this goes south.”

“That… that actually sounds like a pretty big deal. But honestly, I don’t know enough about him, or war, or anything really to make a fair judgement. So I’m just gonna go back to enjoying my wilful ignorance. Ah, bliss.”