'Bleak' was an understatement. A world well-known but long-gone, the rising of The Mists had performed its task well, setting in motion the eventual purge of all sentient life that once called "The Realm" its home. Gone were the incessant squeaks of the ratlings outside Leinster's east gate, and no longer did the ogres tromp through the snowcapped forests south of Usk. It was a world devoid of heroes, absent of villains, possibly even without the gods themselves, given that there was nothing left to lord over. Despite this, the land continued to thrive in its own ways, and even the largest of cities had begun to see the once-docile vegetation of the outside terrain start to reclaim that which had been taken from it, over the span of at least a few centuries prior.

And yet, she still found herself here, from time to time. She never understood why she came back when there was nothing left for her; no rhyme or reason gave any sort of tangible or emotional benefit. If anything, knowing that everyone and everything she ever cared about was a distant memory brought on a nostalgic sort of heartache that didn't exactly pain her in the way that it ought to've, but then, as a siren, sorrow was just as much a lifeforce that flowed through her veins as the blood itself. She thrived on it and made it a part of herself over the last fourteen years, and seeing her old home reduced to an empty shell of itself fed into that necessary emotion without overflow.

Mollianne stood silently among the empty chairs within a small park in the eastern part of Murias, blinking shining aquamarine eyes at the gradual overgrowth that was threatening to reclaim each chair and bench that had been placed there. The flowers still grew sporadically and the grass was heavily-prevalent among all else, and while it wasn't the Bard's Tune that she knew and had become accustomed to in her youth, it was a different sort of familiar that beckoned her presence, as though the reminder of old friends still remained, despite their absence. The wind whistled loosely through the trees and fluttered some of the larger feathers embedded in her oversized wings, as well as the ragged remains of her skirt that hadn't seen a tailor in the entire length of time she owned it, and despite the desolate pictorial laid out in front of her, she couldn't help but smile, however faint, as the familiarity yet remained.

The things that remain with you will eventually call you back, from time to time, after all. And Mollianne was never one to ignore those callings, for better or for worse.

The empty sky, devoid of birds and their song was a special sort of silence that lay over The Realm, complete and heavy. Now that blanket of emptiness was overlaid by a different sort of silence. The sort of silence you -feel- more than hear. Like a fuzzy static that implied a presence rather than the absence of one.

Near the old stone fountain that was now choked with fallen leaves and debris, a faint ripple could be seen in the air. Little more than a barely noticeable distortion at first, like a heat shimmer over the dessert sands. It did not remain that way for long, however. Red-orange energy crackled as an inky black tare yawed open revealing a glimpse of another time and place.

Through that portal loomed roiling dark clouds and clashes of red-orange lightning that cast their ominous light upon an imposing fortress before the view was blocked by that realm's Master. Kaine stepped out through the aperture, energy crackling about him as his magics imposed his will on the world around him, allowing him to pass from his own realm to one that had been abandoned by Existence. Nothing left but plants and dirt, and soon even those would waste away without the creatures that once perpetuated the cycle of death, rot and growth.

Kaine had made a habit of coming to this forsaken place on occasion. A place that reminded him of the times long ago when he had been nothing but a weak child that clawed and struggled every waking breath to rise to the expectations of those creatures that claimed parentage over him. He didn't do it to punish himself, or chide himself for his weakness back then. He did it to remind himself of how he surpassed every one of those challenges and struggles and exceeded anything those parental entities had hoped for. He no longer stood in their shadow and this dead place was testament to that fact.

He had been just about to speak to himself, or perhaps to the memory of what had once been, when he realized that there was indeed something present that, in his opinion, shouldn't be. The sound his boot made on the gravel was deafening in the silence of the dead world as he pivoted toward a peculiarly familiar feeling.

His expression only flickered for a microsecond, barely a twitch of a muscle at the corner of his mouth. It was her. A person that he believed to have been long dead by this point in time. Gone with all the others that used to frequent this forgotten park. But no, there she was, plain as day. He tilted his head ever-so-slightly, his brow furrowing. When he spoke it was low and carried a thread of anger that hid in the silky tone of his voice. He wasn't exactly the biggest fan of surprises, after all. "Why are you here?"

The overt sensation of such a dark portal opening nearby was not new to her, and as the confusion spread over her face at such a thing happening here and now, she brought one hand up to gently withdraw a translucent pendant from the confines of her cleavage, wrapping her fingers around it and bringing more confusion to what was already prevalent when it didn't respond. Right here, in such a location... if it wasn't a Witch or a Yoma, what on earth could possibly have any business in such a place?

She glanced sidelong with her eyes toward the ground as the portal fully manifested and brought forth its orchestrator, seeing first the boots, then the leather pants, and as her eyes scrolled upward, they stopped at his midsection; her confusion swiftly gave way to an arsenal of emotions and thoughts at that time, 'disbelief' resting soundly atop them all. She couldn't find the willpower to raise her head any further, and the sound of Kaine's voice as he addressed her in such a manner brought the sound of her own heartbeat into her ears. This was... there was no way...

"Y-yume da..." she found herself mumbling, the words falling out of her mouth before she even realized they'd formed. Her voice was soft and still wrapped in shock at what she was witnessing. The rapid cardiac drums in her ears didn't help her attempts to try and discern what she should do in such a situation, despite the countless times she'd found herself lost in daydreams of such an incident ever occurring again in her life. What was she supposed to say? How was she supposed to react? And of all those possibilities, which ones wouldn't get her killed on the spot? This was truly an awkward place for her to be, as someone so capable of thinking and acting on her taloned feet, but now rooted to the spot and unable to do so. The shy and demure pretense came crawling back into her as memories of long-ago days washed over her heart, and though he deserved an answer, it was particularly difficult to do so.

It was... the same. He'd always had that power over her. This case wasn't any different. And, yet, as the feathers that made up her wings ruffled and fluffed up to mirror her hesitant anticipation of such a chance encounter...

It had to be a dream. There was no other explanation. It had to be.

She didn't have to be afraid.

With all of these thoughts and feelings ravaging her heart and mind over a span of mere seconds, she forced herself to bring her head up the rest of the way to meet his gaze, letting her hand fall from the charm at her neck and place itself at her side opposite her other arm. She felt sure that he was aware of how fast her heart was beating, but it wasn't exactly under her control at the moment. Like so many other times, so long ago, she couldn't find the words to speak to him; just as often then as it was now, she merely looked upon him with those brilliant, thoughtful eyes, her lips still locked in a battle to determine whether they should smile, or frown, or speak. She did none of those three.

The furrow in his brow increased minutely as the ghost from his past met his gaze in stunned silence. A delicate nightingale turned hummingbird if her heart rate was anything to go by. He reached up and raked a hand back through his shock of dark purple-blue hair, smoothing back the strands that sought to stand on end as a sound of irritation, or perhaps contempt, escaped his throat. Her silence was causing a deep frustration in him that he hadn't felt in quite some time. It was a feeling that was uncomfortably familiar, old and not to be given any rein whatsoever. He composed himself, a slow hiss of air escaping through subtly clenched teeth.

"You realize the irony of a siren that has lost her song." He said in a casual tone, the tension that had been building in his muscles being driven away by force of will. His relaxed body posture did nothing to change the intensity or the ice in his eyes.

"How about we not mimic my sister Rose in this instance. Say something." Those last two words were low, commanding and screamed an unspoken ultimatum that promised unpleasantness if they command was not obeyed.
March 14, 2024

Roselynn... She remembered. Just hearing that name brought a fresh round of memories, not the least of which she recalled with the girl who could make words with her hands and fingers. Her mouth finally took on some other form than the small, straight line it had been frozen into, one corner lowering into a faint frown as the memories unfolded. Mollianne looked back at Kaine's insistent glare, and amidst all the thoughts, all the feelings, all the days lost in the distant past, there was one thing in particular that rose above it all.

Her heart wasn't racing out of fear. She knew this, but her mind had taken its sweet time in connecting the dots elsewhere to allow her the privilege of recognizing it. She hadn't lost her song, she just didn't know which one to sing, until right then and there. And, yet, it was going to be a song he didn't want to hear. But when did that ever stop her before?

And so, as her wings took a few moments to settle their fluff down a few notches, Mollianne clasped her hands together in front of herself, taking on a posture that was likely far too familiar, even if taken from a time so long ago; submissive, yet insistent, as ever she could recall being in his presence on any given night.

And she spoke the words that needed speaking, even if he would likely determine otherwise, with no small amount of genuine or heartfelt amiability. Her voice was yet small, but distinctly clear. "... I missed you, Kaine."

There was a SHING of metal, and Molly's head rolled from her shoulders. Or at least that is what he imagined in the split moment following her words. He had more control than that these days. That impulse was there and a muscle in his arm twitched ever so slightly, but that was the extent of it. Why did she say THOSE words? Of all the words in all the worlds why THAT combination in THAT moment? An "I hate you." or "I am going to kill you." or even something as mundane as a "You're not real." would have been just fine. Expected, at very least.

But no, of course this one would say something as ridiculous as that. Even back then, she was always saying things that made no damn sense. His gaze scanned over her in an analytical manner, from taloned bird toe to the top of her head. She looked about as he would expect her to look, if he had ever expected her to still be breathing. The fact he hadn't been aware of her continued existence irked him for some reason he couldn't quite pin down.

"Why are you always like that?" his voice was as stern as his expression as he took a pair of abrupt steps closer to her, the gravel and leaf litter crunching under his boot heels. Why couldn't she just hate him for what had happened in the past? He'd very nearly killed her and here she was saying...

That was another thing he hated about her. She always, somehow, without fail, got under his skin in the worst ways possible. He shook his head slightly, baffled by the lunacy of it all.

Of that statement, the word 'always' seems to enamor her the most, as if the notion that he, too, still remembered their shared past bolstered her own memories thereof. It does, in fact, instill a bit more courage in her, as if her mind was finally coming around the the notion that, for better or worse, he was still Kaine, despite the age step that had transpired during their absences. It also made her wonder if this was actually a dream, after all, because... well, why didn't he just leave? If she bothered him that much, who was going to stop him from just disappearing in a torrent of dark energy or some other pompous display of self-serving power that she assumed he could use?

She was too young to really realize and understand it at the time, but this song-and-dance routine that they played was well-beyond familiar, now that it was playing out again, right here and now. And, for all the danger she actually could be in as a direct result, it filled her with a warmth that she hadn't felt for a long time. Despite her feelings for Ambience, there was always... something that wouldn't allow her to let go. Not fully. Not entirely. The daydreams still happened, typically from out of nowhere, and he was always there. But at the same time, Kaine wasn't wrong; why was she always like this? What reason did she even have to hold on? Less, now, than she did before, for certain.

Yet, just seeing that scowl on his face... if she was still the child that she had been, her heart would have been aflutter for sure. But for her part, she just stood where she was, allowing him to advance and making no attempt to retreat or show any sort of personal defense against whatever his intent might have been. She should have been terrified, because she knew, firsthand, how dangerous he was. How unpredictable he could be on any given whim.

She found her voice, sometime within those few moments, still keeping her hands held together in front as a show of visual subservience. "Few people change that much as they grow older," she said, her tone light and gentle, but her expression neutral. "If you remember, I was never one to comply with the status quo, either." There is a faint amount of teasing in that last comment, but her expression doesn't even so much as flicker to match it.

"Correction, you were never one to take good advice. There is a difference." His arms folded over his chest as he looked down at the small woman before him. The teasing nature of her words did not escape his notice and it caused a tightness in his chest. A tension that some lizard part of his brain experienced because it was not being taken seriously.

"Well, it would seem you managed to avoid the desolation that claimed this realm. Congratulations. I honestly would have thought you would be one of the first to be swallowed by it. I'll admit to being a little surprised. I suppose that sirens share a bit more with rattlings than I would have initially guessed." Now he was just being deliberately cruel, but in as "kind" a way as his nature would allow. And he wasn't even certain he was doing that much. Perhaps there was a modicum of nostalgic connection that lurked somewhere deep down. Some shredded vestige of feeling that wanted to be felt again. He could have killed her before she spoke. Part of him was chiding himself for not doing so, the other part praised him for not giving into base instinct.

"I'm curious. Who got you out?" The thought that Molly could have saved her own self never even remotely crossing his mind.

The fact that conversation was now free-flowing gave her incentive to relax a bit, and she felt the rampant thudding of her heart diminish just a bit, accordingly. Said relaxation actually causes a corner of her mouth to upturn slightly, not quite a smirk, but not quite a smile, either. In truth, she would have felt like something was off if he wasn't talking down to her. "No," she admitted, "I was not. But I cannot learn from my mistakes if I do not make them in the first place." The unspoken implication was that she actually could learn from her mistakes, which was... speculative, at best. She'd even admitted something similar to someone else, just recently. She looks upon Kaine's face fully, her unabashed refusal to back down either a minute vestige of defiance, or perhaps just inherent knowledge that, if he wanted to end her, it wouldn't matter if she was directly in front of him or two houses down, so the distance didn't really matter at all.

Or... something else, entirely. Despite his demeanor and their shared strain, the closeness felt... comfortingly familiar.

"When you showed up, I suddenly wondered if this was your doing. It is not something anyone could put past you, since you tended to make it pretty obvious when you were done with your toys," she recounts, a heavy implication held in that statement, particularly, but devoid of any malice. It was just a statement. Mollianne spares a glance aside, readdressing the blunt emptiness of Murias around them, and the world beyond. "Something... stole me away. I was running an errand for mom, and a weird gate of some kind opened up from out of nowhere. I thought..." She frowns slightly, remembering. "Honestly, I thought it was you, at first. A portal opened, but nothing came out... and I thought I was being invited in. So I took up that invitation."

She looks back at him again, notably calmer than she was at first meeting. "The best I can assume is that it is an alternate dimension of some kind," she explains, maintaining her pose. "I am not good with describing these sort of oddities, so I am not going to try." This is what she says, but an inkling of doubt made her understand that telling him exactly where she lived, now, was inviting potential disaster for those few friends she still had there, if he even found a way there. Which brought about its own knife-twisting, because as much as she might actually want that for her own selfish reasons, no good would come of it beyond that greed. And if there was one thing she knew pretty well, being selfish already lead to her undoing at least once. Possibly more.

"But..." she continues, "Some time before, mom became worried after what... happened, between us. She bound me to a homing beacon at the tower, which allowed me to return there at will, just by focusing on it. I discovered that the link still works, even between worlds. But, I did not realize it for several years, and when I finally found my way back, it was gone. Everyone was gone." She pauses, lowering her eyes. "There is nothing left for me here. My home lies elsewhere, now. But sometimes I come back, anyway... and really, I do not know why." Her expression lightens somewhat, if with an ounce of wistfulness. "I guess I have a fondness for holding onto things that should have been let go long beforehand."

"The best you can assume is that it is an alternate dimension of some kind." There was a long pause, as if he were deeply contemplating the words. That is, until the silence was broken by a barely contained scoff, then it grew to a bark, then a full on guffaw. He covered his face with one hand, as if trying to contain his amusement. It took several seconds before he was able to bring himself back to composure, the hand that covered his face sliding back to smooth his hair in a sort of habitual tick he'd developed. For a long moment his face remained upturned toward the clear sky of the dead world before finally he took a deep breath and returned his gaze to her.

""The best you can assume." The lack of absolute certainty as to where you went is incredible. Especially for you. What else could it have possibly BEEN?" He knew full well that he was twisting her words to deliberately mock her, and for no other reason. It was simply a desire to be cruel, he just wanted a reaction that wasn't that serene one she always had plastered on her face. A frown, a hurt expression, a glower, anything.

"There are so many dimensions, realms, worlds, whatever you want to call them. Countless of them. You've been to mine. And yet the peak of your knowledge is a "best assumption"?" He shook his head again, that amused smirk spreading across his lips again in a "you poor stupid girl" sort of way.

"if you have a new home, then why in the hells are you here." It was a question, but the downward inflection on the last word implied an observation, not an inquiry.

Trying to describe how the Cleft worked to someone who had never been there was not a task most people would have been up to, much less someone like Mollianne, with her "it is what it is" sort of style. In fact, "It Is What It Is" could very easily have been the place's sales pitch, if it had a travel agency. "The place has a habit of, essentially, abducting people," Mollianne continued, still in conversation mode. Kaine's tone and rhetoric were familiar, and if it had been anyone else, they definitely would have gotten defensive, even pissed off, probably. But for her? It was just... how he worked. She couldn't be mad at him for being who he was. At one point she could have, and probably did, with her bratty teenager tendencies that, she assumed, all girls went through at one point. But she was past that. "I have met a lot of people from a lot of different places who experienced the same thing. And the place does not let people go, once they are there." She paused briefly, considering. "For the greater majority, it is a one-way trip. I am just an exception because of what mom did before I left, once I found out it still worked."

Kaine's last comment actually brought a smile to her face, small but obvious, in which she regarded him for a silent moment before responding. "Maybe for the same reason you are," she admitted. "And maybe not. The memories are important to me; they remind of of who I am and where I came from." She actually turns halfway around, her wings twitching slightly. "Everything is gone... but the solitude is enticing, in its own way. It is like the place is frozen in a moment of time, where I can sit and dwell on things without having to worry about change. And, you know..." Her smile widens, though she doesn't look back at Kaine in doing so. "Like I said, I just have a bad habit of not letting things go. You know this better than a lot of people, Kaine." The last sentence is spoken with a slight drop in volume, the implication pretty obvious.

Why was it that his words always seemed to have the opposite effect on her? Now she was outright smiling. He reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment. He WAS here for the sake of memories, but probably very different kinds than what brought the delicate siren back to the same place.

"There are several places like that, each one slightly different than the next. Some more greedy than others. I've been to one called The Between that would snap people out of fatal situations only to recruit them into some band of merry men to travel amongst realities doing good." His tone when refering to this place was one of disgust. "And others take at random, and never let them leave. Yet others are little more than a purgatory prison for entities that would love nothing more than to be let loose upon worlds to wreak havoc. They are basically living things in their own right. As for you not letting things go..."

He stepped closer to her, closing the distance until he was barely two feet from her. She looked so much smaller from this distance, so fragile. He wanted her uncomfortable. He reached out to trace a fingertip along the leading edge of one of her wings.

"I dare say that makes you more of a masochist than I am. Mollianne."

Still turned partially to one side, Mollianne declined her head slightly to listen almost dutifully as Kaine described his experiences in other planes, and he wasn't wrong in his judgment; her knowledge was distinctly infantile compared to his, though she never intended to imply otherwise. Getting kidnapped from your home by a rogue temporal vortex wasn't exactly on her bucket list, but when you can't change things, you learn to adapt and adjust instead of fighting it. Well, most of the time she adapted, anyway. Her head lifted as he trailed off, hearing the sound of his boots crushing the overgrown grass as his presence drew nearer, but she avoided looking at him at that moment, which ended up costing her a bit, in the emotional department.

Mollianne's wings weren't exactly erogenous zones, strictly-speaking, but they were prone to being sensitive or ticklish in certain spots, and this was heightened drastically if she didn't know it was coming. She would later wonder if she had told Kaine about such a thing in the past to warrant him doing what he did right then. The sensation of his fingertip against the edge of her outer wingspan caused an instantaneous ruffling of most every feather across both wings as she gave a slight jolt, blushing fervently as she craned her head away from his direction to hide the little hearts swimming in front of her eyes for the next second or two as she brought herself back down. It was possible (and part of her maybe hoped, given uncertainty of what his reaction might be if he knew otherwise) he would have just misconstrued her reaction for fright, but beyond that specific sensation, it jarred further memories as she remembered the warmth of his body pressed against hers, those few times he'd allowed her to even be close enough.

She frowned softly, and very firmly shook her head to try and set her thoughts back on track and prevent them from going in the wrong direction; she was lucky that she'd just recently come down from being in heat, because he very well could have invited her to sign her own death warrant (again) with that little stunt, and 'attempted rape of an evil demigod' was not really what she wanted as an epitaph on her headstone.

Her blush hadn't fully receded yet, but she turned slightly to look at him despite the fact, not wanting to turn things out back to square one by going silent again. "I feel like you were not the first person to make that assumption, given how hard it was for mom to keep me away from you," she said, her voice a bit small as she attempted to pull herself together. "Maybe just the first person to say it to my face. I always..." she trails off, wondering if her next comment was out of bounds, but decided that she wouldn't hold back, either, if this is how it was going to play out. "...liked that about you, that nothing was off-limits. You did not hesitate to say what you felt, no matter what it was or what lines were being crossed by doing so. It was..." Mollianne manages a small smile, as if over a fond recollection. "...different."

Kaine clasped his hands at the small of his back and in a lazy walk, started to circle around behind Molly slowly. Almost prowling. As much as he had hated Daemokus and would deny ever being influenced by that man, the truth of the matter was that he had picked up a lot of his pseudo-father figure's mannerisms.

Mollianne's reaction to his touch hadn't been lost on him. Seems some things never changed. Those wings had always been a sensitive spot. The ruffling of the feathers in reply to such a simple thing didn't seem to be a fear reaction, Fear he could smell. When her head came up and she saw the colour in her cheeks he couldn't help but smirk at her flustered state. Finally a button he could work with. It was about time.

"Well, that is not something that has changed about me. I'm direct, unless I'm needing to play the game. In which case you wouldn't be able to trust a single thing I'd say." The delivery of his words was flippant and loose, as he rounded behind her, allowing his arm to brush against her wing again before turning to face her back.

He leaned in and lowered his voice so his breath tickled against her ear. "So, how many little sirens have you got running around in your new home? Four? Five?" It was a question that was very deliberately meant to keep her off balance.

Mollianne kept her head facing forward as Kaine moved around toward her back, her eyes only following him as far as her sockets would allow at that angle, but her smile only grew as she lost sight of him, in spite of herself. He was still Kaine, and she was still the hapless lark, caught in a set of talons much larger than her own. She should have been afraid because of incessant unpredictability, but the fact of the matter was that it thrilled her to find herself back in such familiar, if arguably-disturbing territory. Even as his arm brushed against her wing, she lowered her eyes to the ground, her blush maintaining itself, but not increasing or decreasing in intensity. Her wings twitched once, then a second time, now aware of his presence and at least semi-privy to random exposure where she couldn't physically witness.

So aware of him was she, then, that the proximity of his breath to her ear actually brought out a small giggle from her, and she squirmed loosely with partially-unconcealed delight at the awkward way she was being treated. Maybe she was a masochist, because she was actively enjoying this game. It had been way too long. "I could not tell you, exactly," she responded, open and honestly, one small fang poking out past the bottom edge of her lower lip. "I work with maybe a dozen different girls, but Fa'diel has its own entire race of siren, and they are different than me." The topic was actually a comfortable one for her, and, with the exception of Avarice, not something she had been openly asked about. "They do not need blood for sustenance, for one. And they do not have... other things to deal with, during the spring and summer months, either." This last bit was spoken with a hint of coyness, as if she knew Kaine would know what she was talking about (but whether he actually did, or not, she had no actual idea).

Gods above, she missed this. It was so long since she'd been the prey, she'd almost forgot the thrill of what it felt like. Maybe it would have been a little different if she were actually afraid of Kaine, but, then again, you can't always have everything. Or... anything, really, as it often was in her case.

Or maybe it wasn't about being the prey. No... it was about being his prey. Her smile grew at the thought, but she kept her eyes ahead and away, letting her other senses take prominence between the two of them.

He stood behind her, close enough that his body heat could be felt, but never actually making contact with her. She was enjoying this. Why in the name of all that was holy and unholy was she enjoying it? He took a moment to look around the park, the wooden remnants of stools that had once been used by people they had both known, were laying on the ground amongst the plants and dirt. No, he knew why. They had shared too much, known each other too well. Despite the fact he had very nearly killed her once aiready, he got the impression that if he did kill her now she would probably die happy that it was him that took that final breath.

"Taking after your mother by harbouring stray sirens are you? None of your own? What a pity. All those springs and summers must have been difficult." He said this to confirm to her he knew exactly what she meant.

"You know, I never understood your affection for this place, or the people in it. There was nothing positive to be found here. Every single person that used to frequent this place was just a toy to someone else. Nel, Jak, Kyllik, Alexie, Tai, Jonas, Sino, Seniver, Senran, Toria, Rory, Vree, Jacenn, Matteo, Rose, Alue, my whore of a mother, Daemokus, Rien, Harper, Fenris, Kristal, Nevik, Jace, every last one of them all feeding off each other in some way, or using each other in some way. What about them appeals to your odd sense of nostalgia? Even when this place was populated it was still a hell in it's own right."

Mollianne exercised an extreme amount of restraint in forcing herself not to lean back against him at that proximity between the two, wanting nothing more at that moment, but also believing that he would probably just let her pitch backward onto the ground in order to make some point, or some other sort of denial method. She would just have to accept what she had and be thankful for it (and she was, which was more than clear at this point). Kaine's initial remark only made her smile grow, such that her other fang joined the first. 'Harbouring'? He was going to love this.

"I work at a nightclub in a city that is enchanted with eternal darkness, morning, noon, and night," she explained, allowing her aquamarine eyes to peer off at some random tree along the edge of the park so that she could focus on her story and not so heavily on his nearness. "I put my voice to good use, and I have become something of a celebrity in Fa'diel as a result." Her smile recedes a bit, but only because it forms more of a grin. "I have other charms, as well; I suppose I could summarize my work as being a glorified stripper with a voice that keeps bringing people back, but there is a lot more to it than that. Whether they come to listen to my songs or ogle my tits (yes, she uses that word!), usually both, the fact remains that they leave happy every night and I rest easy knowing this. And..." She refocuses her gaze, still not able to see Kaine from where he is, but glancing of to her side out of the corner of her eye. "I take the money that I earn and open a free health clinic, twice a month, for lesser races and poor families that cannot afford normal medical visits. I told mom that I would take after her in that field, and even worlds apart, I kept my promise."

She pauses for a moment, putting together the two vastly-different concepts of 'work' that she'd taken up for herself, her grin still prevalent. "I bet mom would be so proud of me, huh?" There is at least a small ounce of cynicism. Just a little.

Many of those names didn't ring a bell for her, unfortunately. She was so young when Jak saved her from that hunter who'd slain her biological mother that she didn't have an opportunity to actually get to know him at all. Oddly, she took slight offense [just slight!] at Kaine calling his mother a whore, since Ariyenne had treated her almost like a princess in and of itself, during the few times she'd stayed at Kaine's domain. The memories that spawned from that made her recall a charm Kaine had given her at one point, specifically one that would mark her as 'his property' so that other features of his dark world would not rip her apart on the spot, for being one so wholesome and pure in a world that was blacker than the darkest night. She had long since lost the charm and tried not to think about it too much because it bothered her immensely when she did, having lost the one thing, she felt, that still kept them connected between time, space, and events.

She remembered some of the other names, but her departure into nostalgia prevented her from thinking on the others too much. The place was hell, at times. But it was a hell that had given her not just a second chance at life, but also a third. A thought came to mind, which she vocalized. "If this world did not want me here, it would have let me die along with my real mom, back when I was first orphaned," she said, her grin still there, but her tone a touch-less happy. "If this world really did not want me here, it would have let me die after your blade sank into my heart. But, somehow, I survived twice and continued to live. Perhaps I think of it as a 'debt,' maybe, that even though this world has come and gone, the memories of what it meant to me at a point in time still retain their importance because, somehow or another, I must have been important to them, at one point. Otherwise I, too, would have been long-gone."

"A stripper. In a nightclub in a world of perpetual darkness." His tone was a carefully crafted one, of neutrality and indifference. His expression however, was a mix of surprises and distaste. Thankfully that expression could not be seen in that moment, seeing as how he was standing behind her. Titties. That word had come out of her mouth and it threw him off.

"Well it would seem that I was mistaken. I had assumed that you had not changed at all. Granted most aspects of you seem to be the same. But there are most definitely some that have changed a great deal." He took a step back away from Molly. That ambient heat fading from her back. When his heel found the edge of the old fountain he sat down on it's edge, heedless of the flora that covered most of it.

He carefully schooled his expression back to one of cool neutrality and again ran his right hand back through his hair. She still had that smile, no, that GRIN, she was enjoying herself far too much and it irked him. But in a rare moment of introspection he realized that he had been falling into old tendencies. Like being near her was opening some sort of time capsule that dredged up some of his more infantile habits. He'd grown past all this, why was he trying so hard to mess with her? He didn't have that answer in that moment.

"That club sounds like the sort of place my youngest spawn would go to." He shook his head ever so slightly. He still hated that smile, but it was evident that all those old tricks he'd used so long ago had very much somehow become reinforcements of that smile rather than things that might get rid of it. Something different then.

"So, tell me more." He stared at her back, his ice-blue eyes locked on a spot right between her wings.

She hesitates slightly as his absence is felt, but speaks up anyway. "Some of us do not change very much," she repeated, an echo of an earlier statement. "But still, some change is inevitable, and I do not need to be the one to tell you this. I could have been a simple apothecary like mom was, and, perhaps, I might have been, if I had not been stolen away." She considers turning around to face him at that point, but something about the hole he was boring into her back was just as thrilling to her as his nearness had been; the attention, more than anything, was what she craved, and she was getting so much of it. "My world has its dangers, and I had to learn to overcome them." Her eyes trail downward toward the egg-shaped jewel that hangs at the apex of her bosom, remembering; she didn't have to do that, but.. she did. "I had to start over with new people, new faces, and no familiarity. The large population of siren in Fa'diel help with that transition, and they were how I eventually found work." Her eyes glance aside, as if trying to look at him despite physical restrictions disallowing it. "I could have easily reverted to my more-bestial tendencies to survive, but I was far too domesticated for that."

She recalls something then, forcing her to back up a step. "I met people along the way... friends. I stayed with one of them, a man named 'Kyrk'. But he... died." Her tone abruptly shifts, these new memories falling upon her not the pleasant ones she'd been recalling up to this point. "Everyone I met ended up dying. Or disappearing. It is kind of funny in that way, because I always believed I had some sort of curse upon my head that forced me to remain alone. I could not keep any friends, or family; they were always taken from me in some way. I could not keep any family here in The Realm. I could not stay by your side. A lot of my friends perished through various means. Then I was taken entirely, leaving everything behind to start over, and it did, indeed, start over, just so that everyone could die or disappear all over again. Even now, I..." she trails off, her eyes falling to the ground again. She'd probably wrecked what chances she had at happiness with Ambience, too. She wasn't surprised; as much as she wanted to believe otherwise, she was just a beast at heart. A moment passes, and she looks up again. "'Strength' is a strange thing, because it shows differently for different people. But, all the same..." She turns halfway around, so she can look toward Kaine with a side eye. "I am still here. And so are you, thankfully." That last word has an upbeat in her vocal tone, as if infused with a bit of genuine well-meaning behind it.

Kaine leaned forward to rest an elbow on a knee and a chin in his hand in a posture of languid boredom.

"You were never cursed Mollianne. Either through your own choices or their own choices they died. Simple as that. To assume the powers of the cosmos would consider you so important as to focus their malice upon you, is a level of arrogance that doesn't suit you." With her shift to the side his gaze was forced to find a different point to focus on and so he locked his gaze upon hers.

"Fate is a fool's concept. Your action, or inaction determines what will happen to you. If people around you keep dying then maybe you should stop making friends foolish enough to get themselves killed. Seems like a simple enough fix to me. or do you prefer an excuse for self pity?" He watched her expression closely, looking for any twitch or shift in her expression.

His familiar frame of logic only brought a smile to her face, as she found herself once again awash in a long-ago recollection of his manner of scolding her for being a moron, but with an underlying tone (perhaps intended, perhaps not; she hadn't really been able to figure that part out, yet) of 'you're better than that'. It was the closest she could assume he would ever get to any semblance of encouragement toward her, and even if he didn't see it that way, she most certainly did. "I spent plenty of time putting myself out for things I could not prevent, or over things I could, but failed to do effectively," she admitted, turning now to face Kaine in full. A soft breeze runs through the park, tugging loosely on the thinner branches of nearby trees and causing not only the grass at their feet to rustle, but also her bangs to dance about her face, helping to animate that gentle smile positioned in the lower half of her face. "I will not pretend otherwise. Sorrow is inherently second-nature to a siren, and whether I believed in fate or not, there are some things that I am simply drawn to. Not destiny, perhaps, but possibly just nature."

Mollianne's hands find themselves clasping together at her back, at a point between the lower edges of her wings. "You know, there is something I wanted to tell you for a long time. Maybe you already knew it, or maybe not. It is something mom told me, not long after after I nearly died by your hand." She pauses, as if waiting to hear his confirmation on whether he actually wanted to hear it or not.

"I'm certain you will enlighten me whether or not I want it." He said in an overly sardonic tone and continued to watch her closely. The way her feathers stired in the breeze, the single hair that stuck to her face while the rest of it's neighbours continued to wave freely. The glint of the sun's rays in those overly expressive eyes. He couldn't for the life of him remember what it was that had initially drawn him to her. Perhaps it had been the need for some sort of outlet for his frustrations and anger. Or the desire to take something that was, at the time, innocent and pure and taint it in some way. The fact he didn't have an answer to his own question irritated him to no end.

As he sat there contemplating he did however come to one realization. He had had every opportunity to showcase acts of power. Demonstrate some of the things he could now do, even something as teleporting behind her instead of walking would have been a flex, but he had done none of that. No summoning a chair of his own to sit, no casual bottle of wine, nothing as simple and frivolous as that. No, there was nothing stopping him, his powers worked just as well here as they always did, he just didn't do it. Maybe part of him thought it would only entertain the woman that stood before him. It seemed everything else he had done thus far had only served to brighten her mood, she had gone from shocked silence to broadly smiling and he was fairly convinced that he could run her through AGAIN and she would KEEP smiling. Another subtle shake of his head. Memories of better times seemed to fuel her.

True to form, Kaine's blatant cynicism does indeed keep the small running across her face, no small amount of amusement found within. "Mom believed that, in whatever way you could call it, you were protecting me, with what you did," Mollianne said, giving a subtle pause before continuing. "She never came out and said it, but I think she knew that I could not be controlled, that I thought I knew better. I remembered all the times she begged me to stay away from you, and, as well, the number of times you warned me about what I was getting myself into. I did not listen to either of you." Her hands come apart and return to her sides as her smile falters slightly, but yet remains. "Granted, I am not stupid and I do know why you did what you did. But mom thinks that you needed to prove your point somehow, and that it was going to be the only way I would listen." The pun could not have been any more obvious, but her expression doesn't change as she speaks. "She probably believed that you knew she would save me afterward, and that she could use it as a lesson learned in why I needed to keep my distance. And.. I remember coming back to you, one more time. I remember that sneer you gave me, kind of a 'look what the cat dragged in' expression." Her eyes never leave Kaine's, despite her smile growing a bit smaller. "But then I left you alone, because it was obvious that you, or she, or both, were right. I decided to just play the obedient little siren, since it was obvious that was where my place was supposed to be."

She takes a brief moment to brush stray bangs out of her eyes, and then averts her eyes as she steps away from Kaine, turning away from him and making a few paces across the park at random. "I never stopped thinking about you. I may have been severed physically, but I spent the next two years still trying to figure you out. I learned how to be a healer from mom in the meantime and I was a dutiful big sister to Sulendil and Mara. But you rarely left my thoughts, and I think I was just biding my time until I could find a second chance and try again." Mollianne stops, regarding a low-hanging tree branch about a foot away, and reaches up to pluck off a single leaf, peering down at it between her fingertips. "Then the Cleft took me, and I never got that chance. I resituated, and started over. My thoughts of you became less frequent, because I was stuck in a world that was not yours and could not go back."

She flicks the leaf away with a smirk, realizing that her spiel has gone far beyond a simple 'guess what mom said?' admission, but it doesn't stop her from proceeding. "When I found out the binding that my mom had set still worked, my excitement only lasted for as long as it took to realize that it was a dead world that I had come back to. No old friends, no foster family. Even Siren Rock, my birthplace, was completely empty. They did not have the decency to even leave any corpses behind for me to grieve over." Mollianne giggles softly, but there's no tangible emotion within its sound. "But the familiarity was still there... and my thoughts of you started to come back, more prominently. Like I said, I thought maybe this was your doing, or maybe someone from your world, in general. I made a point to come back and visit a couple times a month, just to bask in the memories... and be sad about it." She looks down at where the leaf fell, mingling in with the overgrown grass at her feet. "It is pretty stupid, now that I actually hear myself saying it out loud."

The siren lifts her head, then, and her smile returns, looking aside at Kaine from her placement a bit further away. "Maybe that was my problem the whole time, Kaine," she said, her eyes shimmering against the daylight. "I have always been stuck in a world that is not yours, and I could not find a way inside, no matter how hard I tried. I guess, if I was not supposed to find a way, I must not have gotten the message." Her smile grows slightly. "Or I ignored it. I was always good at that."

"You and your mother thought you knew a lot of things. Everyone, thought they knew a lot of things. About me, about this place, about how things would go. If I've learned anything from this chance encounter it is that I should have destroyed this husk ages ago." He gestured around them with a sweeping motion of his free hand. "The only reason it still exists is because I thought it might be useful one day. In case of an emergency, a place other than my own domain that I could go if I needed to recover in secret."

She had spoken so long he had lost track of all the retorts and sharp remarks he had intended to say when she paused for breath. That woman could talk forever if she was so inclined.

"You do realize taking pride in the fact you were too dense to follow good advice even if it was from your own mind, it's not something to be boasting about, right? I wasn't trying to protect you, I was trying to kill you, and the fact that I failed to do so is an embarrassment I have to live with now. You only THINK you know my motives. I very much doubt that you are even in the same comic neighbourhood to my motives. And stop saying you were taken away, you walked through a hole and got lost. That is all and that is your own doing. And yes, you SHOULD have forgotten about me. It would have been better for you. But here you are. Standing in a place full of memories that keep..." His words trailed off as his own thought process interrupted him.

What if she didn't have those memories anymore? What would she be? What would she do? Would she still keep smiling? Revert back to a savage monster? He doubted she would be the same person. A individual was the sum of their parts after all. His gaze remained locked on her as these questions cycled through his mind.

It would be a simple enough act to simply wipe her memory. Wipe the memory then destroy this place so there was no longer a physical reminder of those memories. He slowly straightened up. Yes, she would have been better off...maybe she still could be.

Mollianne doesn't seem to register Kaine's sudden recession as anything but possible exasperation at arguing against her own rhetoric, and offers only a small giggle at, of course, the fact that she's wrong and mistaken, as usual. "I did say that I knew better," she corrects, tapping one finger lightly against the air. "This was only my mom speculating, and, considering I was twelve, it was merely something to consider. I also know that you are too proud to ever admit anything like that even if it were true, anyway, so I suppose we will never know."

She glances back away from Kaine, turning to face the western majority of Murias from where she stands as another gentle breeze glides on by, which causes her smile to return in full at she feel of her ratty skirt fluttering about her avian legs. "And, as far as my memories, I did admit that it was pretty stupid to be going somewhere only to be sad about it. But, at the risk of repeating myself a third time or better, memories and the sorrow they bring are the lifeblood of a siren; they drive us forward and provide the means to invoke that sorrow in our song, for better or for worse, and in most cases that are not me, maybe even learn from the past and do better from it." She smirks, still glancing westward. "I just have bad personal habits because of some strange aversion to wanting to learn anything from my mistakes, but then..." She trails off, lowering her eyes downward just a trace. "... My mistakes... I consider very fondly, sometimes. They are stories I can share with others, for a laugh, for a smile, for a chuckle. It does not matter if they are at my own expense, really; they are no less important to me. Sorrow is important to all siren because of what we are, but for me, personally, my memories are just as important. Some of them... far more than others."

She lifts her head up again, one corner of her mouth upturning a little more than the other, and she only turns her head slightly enough that she can see Kaine out of the corner of her eye. "I never claimed to know your motives, Kaine," she said, her voice a tad quieter than just a moment ago. "If I did, why would I be spending nearly a decade thinking about them on a regular basis? It is a game, and one that I am sure that, while maybe not as frequently as I, you are still playing as well, right?"

Kaine climbed to his feet, dusting himself off a little, her talk of memories making him all the more curious as to what would happen were she to lose them. Memories are a siren's life blood, maybe without them she would die? Or maybe she would start learning from mistakes, who knew. The only way to find out would be to...

"It is more of a dance than a game at this point. Practiced, memorized, occasionally adapted into something else, taught to a new generation, though I have to admit the next generation is only about fifty percent useful at this point in time. I'd hate to see how well my oldest spawn and you would get along." He shook his head and started to slowly walk over to Molly, The index and middle fingers of his right hand slowly tracing small circles on his thumb. All he would need to do was touch her and he could get some of the answers he was now curious about.

Mollianne's wings twitch slightly at the notion of Kaine's children not turning out to be quite as much like him as he'd like, and can't hide a solid grin from forming as she considers the prospect. "That sounds like something to look forward to, as much I am sure you think otherwise," she said. His rise and approach eventually takes him out of eyesight from where she's standing, but she doesn't turn to try and see him better, instead turning her head back around to gaze elsewhere. "But you are right, I suppose; it is more of a dance than a game, but one I am happy to continue taking part in for however long in which you continue to indulge me." Though he can't see it, her smile is serene and heartfelt. The egg-shaped pendant around her neck sparkles gently in the light, despite being more than half-clouded from lack of attention being given to purging its erstwhile corruption in past incidents.

She gives no indication of fear in any capacity, over or for anything. She seems... happy. Whole and genuinely.

"Unfortunately Salazar turned out to be a lazy ambitionless layabout that cares for nothing more than fishing and basking in the sun. Zayita however, she has promise, drive and ambition. She'd slit your throat without hesitation, I have no doubts. She isn't perfect mind you, I have to keep her away from her sibling because there is something wrong in her head and she would probably try to mate with him if they were in the same room too long." He shook his head slightly, his tone one of exasperation at the notion.

Tiny threads of orange and black energy were now occasionally dancing between his index and thumb as he continued to trace small circles on the latter with the former. Telling her about his spawn was in a way, another attempt to hurt her. To drive home that he had moved on. Not that she would remember any of it in a moment. Purge her memory then wreak a final destruction on this desolate and devoid realm. A final farewell to all of it. She was making it so easy too, standing there obliviously with her back turned to him.

He reached out toward the back of her head, the tiny arcs of malevolent energy connecting his fingers almost seemed to stretch toward her, reaching hungrily to snatch away the memories that she seemed to hold so dear.

"Say goodbye, one last time."

Mollianne was a lot of things, especially lately. Dense? Arguably. Persistent? Undoubtedly. Masochistic? The seeds were definitely planted, if nothing else. But oblivious? Definitely not. Well, not entirely, anyway.

Being a siren meant that she had a mastery over vocale that few other races could even hope to achieve. As Kaine's tone went from exasperated, to silent, to determined, and then pitched to her an air of finality with his last statement, she would have to be a complete imbecile not to see the end of their meeting upon her. While she didn't know what end he had planned, though, she was determined not to go out until she had played all the cards in her hand, too. Even the one that would undoubtedly bring about her demise, if that wasn't what he was already planning.

She closes her eyes, unmoving and unshaken. Through it, her smile remained as she spoke. "Before I feel that blade once more, grant me a request instead of a farewell. Would you allow me to show you something that might answer a lot of questions that you probably have had, throughout all of this?" Her voice was still upbeat and chipper, the direness of the situation not staining her demeanor one bit.

Kaine's hand paused inches from the back of the siren's head. He could ignore her words and just do it, it would be simple, but despite the fact that he was indeed what most would consider to be a monster, a final request was something that he could tolerate. He might be a monster but he was an honourable one, for the most part.

"I don't have any questions that you could answer, Mollianne. But show me whatever you like, it won't ultimately change anything, so I see no need to deny you this final thing." He lowered his hand back down to his side and the traces of energy winked out of existence. There was a moment of silence that was hushedly interrupted by the rustle of leaves being jostled by another breeze, and he waited, cold gaze trained on the woman that simply would not stop smiling. She knew he was planning something, and still she smiled.

Always with that soft happy expression. Had she been smiling when he had driven a sword through her heart too? He couldn't remember clearly, so much time had passed, but he wouldn't doubt it at all, if someone told him that she had been.

"Show me this thing so we can be done with it." If she was just showing an object then hopefully she would not go off on a verbal tangent again.

Mollianne hesitates only briefly, perhaps steeling herself against the inevitable, and finally turns around to face Kaine. Her right arm lifts from her side and reaches out toward Kaine's left hand, but stops short of actually touching it. Instead, she makes some sort of finger-centric gesture, and the subtle presence of magic is felt for just a moment before it disperses, and her arm lowers back down to her side once more. Nothing obvious appears to have happened, but the siren's eyes lift toward Kaine's face, and when they do, there is no small amount of sadness held within them, and they begin to mist over with the threat of tears.

And yet, her smile remained. A smile for him, not for herself. "Look at the back of your hand, Kaine," she said, fighting to keep her voice from squeaking.

Kaine brought his hand up to examine it, first the palm then the back. While examing the back of his hand he noticed a discoloured spot toward the base of his index and thumb. It was feather shaped, not very noticeable from any sort of distance and his brow furrowed.

"What exactly made you think leaving your mark on me would answer anything? It has done the exact opposite. Questions now where there were none before. What is this for? It's mundane and serve no practical purpose whatsoever. Hoping it will remind me of some sort of guilt you think I am supposed to feel?"

Her big sorrowful eyes and the tears that were threatening to overtake them were completely ignored. Tears were a tool and he had seen that tool employed countless times when dealing with his so-called family. What had his focus was that smile, ever present. He could tell she knew he was intending to do something, and yet she just stood there, talking to him, being cryptic when she should have been fleeing back to The Cleft. If it truly was a place you couldn't escape under normal circumstances it might be worth it to toss his worthless son in that place.

"It has been there since you took me under your wings, Kaine," she suddenly says, her smile abruptly disappearing and being replaced with an adamancy she probably didn't know you had. "You do not have to say the words for me to see the confusion on your face. 'What does she see in me?' 'Why does she not just forget about me and find someone else?' 'What kind of games does she keep playing?'" Her tears are still on the cusp, but not there yet, though her face is tinged a bright pink. "You probably do not remember, but you gave me a charm, back then, that told everyone that I was your property. I was yours! I was so happy, Kaine... and I was also at that age where things were happening that I did not understand. Before I realized it, I had imprinted on you. Beyond something as simple as a necklace, I became yours in a much more literal sense." She's trying extremely hard to hold back the tears, perhaps because she knows they won't do any good, either.

"People keep forgetting that I am as much an animal as I am a person, including you, and that there are things beyond my control. If you really never cared, if you really only ever wanted me dead, if I never meant anything to you, why did you accept me in the first place?"

And with that, the dam breaks, as thin, wet lines begin to stream down her face. She's somewhere between angry and confused, with equal parts both. "I love you, Kaine. I love you with every... fucking... part of my being. And I cannot help it. I cannot just snap my fingers and say 'Okay, next!' like you can. I do not care if the feeling is not mutual, and I learned pretty quickly that it never would be. But I could not just forget about you, even worlds apart. And then... you just..." she stumbles a bit over her words, tears flowing freely. "You just... show up here, all of a sudden, and the dance continues like it never stopped. How am I supposed to feel? How am I supposed to react? I tried really, really hard to be part of your world. You saw the problems I caused with my family just to be with you! But I just... I was not good enough. Even when we were apart, I... I kept..."

She can't go any further than this, and summarily falls to her knees, swiftly broken apart from the inside out and wracked with sobs that have likely been held back for over a decade or better.

His eyebrow rose slightly at the expletive being used by the woman before him but he waited until she was done. There, the smile was gone now. But the wicked glee for achieving such a thing was distinctly lacking. He remained standing over her sobbing figure and looked down at her with a slight glower.

"I tried time and time again to warn you away. Over and over and over add nauseum. I'll end up harming you, Molly. I don't have the good you seem to think I do, Molly. My entire existence was a convergence of four fucking flavours of evil, Molly." Anger seeped into his words more with each passing sentence. That last "Molly" being a curt, harsh word that he bit out sharply.

He stopped and took a deep breath, his hand raking back through his hair again as he put a stop to his anger bubbling out of control.

"I'm going to do you one last kindness. You can't be bonded to something you don't know exists. I'll even be so magnanimous as to let you keep the memories of your mother, but you won't be able to return to this place again. I'm getting rid of it along with any knowledge you have of my existence."

The siren's tears continued to fall as Kaine made his case, all of this rhetoric she'd heard time and time again, and argued against, time and time again. Why did she ever go unheard? What part of her insistence didn't make sense to him? Did she need to scream it into his ear in a way only a siren could, to make him understand? His last offer of kindness broke something in her, and the tears came to a halt. She knelt there in silence, before awkwardly getting to her taloned feet, raising her head and glaring at him through reddened eyes that still shone as magnificently as any other time when she was in brighter spirits. "You think getting rid of my memories will break the imprint of a siren, Kaine?" she asked, fangs bared. "The mind remembers you, but the heart feels your presence, no matter where you go. You may have all the powers of an entire world I know nothing about, but you cannot claim to know about destroying something that you never even tried to understand. Do not even try to make it sound that simple."

"And that..." Mollianne gestures with a dismissive sweep of her hand. "I hate that statement. When have I ever asked you to 'be good'? How many times did I try to see things your way? How many times did I tell you 'I do not care what you do'? I just-short of asked you to corrupt me, just so I could stay by your side! How much more unconditional do I need to be?" She grit her teeth together, her fangs showing much more prominently by proxy. "If you truly want nothing more to do with me, then you do not get to decide what is best for me. You have your own world, your own people, your own business to attend to in whatever it is that you do. But do not take anything more away from me than what I have already lost. My memories are not something I will part with. Ever."

There's... something in Mollianne's expression that screams that she knows something else that has yet gone unspoken. But all she does is stare him down.

The sudden burst of fire in Molly's words and expression seemed on brand, from what he could remember. He leaned forward and down, his forehead making contact with hers and his icey gaze boring into hers.

"I never said you tried to change me. You would have made more sense if you had. Your constant insistence to be part of the world I was in never made sense to me. I didn't even want to be part of it so why in the hells would someone good like you want it?" Why was she so infuriatingly confusing!?

"You have a good nature, you should be drawn to likewise. How did you even end up imprinting on me in the first place? When did it happen exactly, do you even remember?" In the back of his mind he was trying hard to remember if this had been the reason he had run her through with a sword the first time, cause she had said her heart would remember. The fact he didn't recall those details himself...actually he barely remembered anything about that incident. He knew it happened but he didn't remember why or any of the details surrounding it. He'd run a sword through her heart and now it was just a partial memory. He couldn't help but furrow his brow, it still pressed against Molly's meant that hiding the slight shift was pretty impossible.

He considered his mind to be sharp, like a steel trap. He remembered so much more from that past than he cared to, but this...her...Was it him willfully trying to forget on a subconscious level? Or had Ariyenne, or Daemokus done something back then? He wouldn't have put it past them.

"What is it you want?" He asked in an even tone. It was a broadly encompassing question. It could apply to anything. It could apply to their current situation in this exact moment. Or what it was she was hoping for in the future, distant or otherwise. The anger in her eyes was mesmerizing though and he drank it in.

The feeling of Kaine's forehead against her own sent a wave of extinguishing warmth through her body as they made contact, and though her eyes remained hard as she stared back into Kaine's own, the anger she felt began to subside in accord. "I came on to you because you broke the mold that I had been led to believe was implacable, at the time," she tells him, frowning. "It started out as a physical attraction, but the more I started to learn about how whimsically you handled your 'problems', and how nobody else or their views mattered to you, that attraction grew into something else. I was twelve at the time, I am not going to pretend like I knew what I was getting into. It thrilled me more that mom was so dead-set against me being with you, and when you opened your arms to me in spite of her denouncement, that sealed the deal." Mollianne exhales through her nose. "You killed people. You tortured people. You did it for no other reason than entertainment, at least half the time. And, at the same time, Ariyenne and Roselynn were so contrastingly nice to me. It was such a wild notion on how your family did not mesh in the 'traditional' sense that I just had to be part of it."

"I ran away from home one night. Mom knew I had snuck out because she had seen you at the Bard's Tune earlier, and she knew I was planning to go see you. She followed me there, and when you opened a portal and invited me in, she threatened me against going." Mollianne closes her eyes. "I still remember the horrified look on her face when I willingly ignored her and left with you, anyway. And I was thrilled by it, without really understanding why." Her eyes open again, refocusing on Kaine and putting just a smidge of pressure against him, as if afraid he was going to remove his forehead from hers if she didn't. "At my insistence, you took me to your bed that night, but refused my advances. I never found out why, but I could only have assumed that you were worried about harming me on a physical or emotional level. That was when I imprinted on you. That was when I knew I wanted to be yours." Her eyes shimmer radiantly as the memories collect, though they remain slightly-narrowed and her frown does not recede.

"And as for what I want?" she asked, her frown softening. She sighs, closing her eyes again. "This... right here, is actually really, really nice. I do not even care if you have any real feelings for me, or if you already have someone else closer to you. Just being allowed to be close to you, once in awhile, is all I ever asked for. I do not feel like it is asking for a lot, honestly."

Her eyes still closed, Mollianne's tone takes on an ounce of concern as her own brow furrows slightly, but still retains a bit of force in her words. "You really do not remember any of this, Kaine? None of it?"

"I remember broad strokes. Hearing you re-account those events I know they happened, and I have a distant recollection, but the details..." He hook his head slightly, mussing Molly's bangs by the act. "I remember Vree begging you not to go, and I remember a sense of triumph that you shunned her for me..." His sharp clear eyes went a little distant, despite their faces being so close to one another. "But I don't remember much else. And I'm not sure why."

The more he tried to force himself to recall more the less he was able to. "That is unusual for me." his voice carried a note of suspicion, he had his theories as to why but he wasn't ready to explore them just yet. He would need to do that in the security of his fortress, if he was going to unweave some sort of magic that may have been placed on him. Especially if it had been Daemokus' doing.

"Rose was good. A nuisance but one that did actually care. Ariyenne on the other hand. It is safe to say that any kindness she exhibited was an act designed and crafted to manipulate. Don't place her in the same category as Rose."

Mollianne wanted nothing more than to smile right then and there, but she was so scared of losing everything she had going for her at that moment that she retained her slight frown and even disallowed that fear from showing in any sort of physical respect. "I only knew what I was exposed to," she said. "The extreme difference between your nigh-sociopathy and Roselynn having far more in common with me than you just made for a tempting lifestyle that I wanted desperately to be a part of. And before the lifestyle itself, it was you. You tell me now that there was never really anything between us, but you protected me at least as many times as I can count on one hand. If my life was really outside of your concern, you could have just..." She trails off, one other memory still there that she didn't want to speak of, but if Kaine was really trying to understand what happened, she needed to be that bridge. She owed it to him, just for this simple gesture right here and now. Whether he viewed it that way or not was another story, but it was important to her, and that was all that mattered. If she really loved him, she needed to show it.

She opened her eyes, but they are lowered and not meeting Kaine's own as she begins to speak again. "There was a time when I was in heat," she recounts, her frown growing again. "I was still playing the rebel from mom. I told you about it and, again, insisted on being sated. But you refused again, and I do not remember the details, but I think you told me something along the lines of 'you will get over it' or something." She pauses briefly, willing herself to continue despite what may come around from what comes next. "I had a friend named 'Joshua' at the time. He was half-incubus." She lets the thought hang there, without elaboration, as if trusting Kaine to know how the rest of that statement would go.

"You found out, because of course you did. I remember being appalled at how upset you were, because of how many other girls you would take to your bed but left me behind. I tried to defend myself, but you were having none of it. You told me that I needed to leave before you killed me where I stood." Her eyes raise, looking at Kaine's once more, her expression growing firm. "I did not leave. I did not call your bluff, but I did not leave. Just as mom walked in, you drew your weapon and made sure that my heart was on the receiving end of it. I... I remember..." She shakes her head, brushing her bangs against Kaine's forehead in the process. "I smiled at you as I felt my breath leaving and not coming back. I remember the cold, hard look in your eyes, the lack of remorse, the 'too bad, so sad' expression that was so utterly commonplace for everyone else that had been on the receiving end of what I now was. But I smiled... because I loved you, in spite of it. And I knew that was just who you were. I had no grudge, no hard feelings. You were just... Kaine being Kaine. And even in death, I understood and respected you for that. I was just paying the consequences for messing up when I was not strong enough to be better for you."

That did jostle loose another memory, he remembered that rage he'd felt, even why he had declined her advances. Sex was just a tool that was to be used against others, to manipulate and gain power over them. He had declined her advances because at that time he had been trying his very best not to treat her as he had treated everyone else.

"Joshua...That name I remember vaguely. But I don't remember if I killed him or not..." He straightened, withdrawing his forehead from hers. "He'd trespassed on what I saw as mine, so I must have, right?"

He looked down at Mollianne, the question was an earnest one. Like he was absolutely certain that he had, but was hesitant to actually voice that fact in case he was somehow wrong. The uncertainty was starting to piss him off and the urge to become aggressive to mask that concern was rising.

"Why did you insist on staying? You knew what would happen. You know I'm not one to say something and not follow through. You knew what I would do to you. You could have left and spared yourself that experience of being run through, I would have found a different outlet."

Mollianne's frown deepens, but only for a moment, and she seems to shrug it off. "I never saw him again, so I could only assume you did," she said. Unable to help herself, she allows just the briefest of smirks. "Disposing of people that get on your bad side is what you were good at, so I have every reason to believe he probably did not see the end of the week." She felt a little weird talking about her 'friend' in this way, like she was seeing his demise from Kaine's perspective and believing that it was just 'circumstances' without feeling remorse over it. But, oddly, it didn't bother her as much as maybe it should have. 'Collateral damage', she supposed.

"I stayed because I was devoted to you, even when I realized I had stepped out of line. I was not afraid of you, and I was not afraid of dying." Mollianne looks at Kaine straight-on as he pulls his forehead back but doesn't give any inclination of being put out by it, her expression tight and focused. A bit of hair is stuck to her left temple as a result of the prolonged closeness from earlier, but she ignores it.

"I was an orphan that was trying to adapt to living in a world that was not my own, at the time. I was tossed between four different families that did not want me, until I found company with Vireyda and Corbein. Every day I stepped outside, I was flying by the seat of my pants, wondering what new things there was to experience, and never assuming that I was entitled to the following day. I had nearly been killed by a hunter who slew my mother and branded us monsters simply because I am a bird from the waist down, and then physically and emotionally abused by one of my foster mothers not long after. I had no high prospects for life, Kaine. I met you, I admired your way of living, and I wanted to be part of it. Being part of it meant dealing with the bad times as well as the good. I could not know that you would not have tracked me down and just killed me at a later time, anyway. I came to you and I knew my life was forfeit, as soon as you made your threat. Or..." Mollianne trails off, taking a breath without breaking eye contact. "...if I left, I might not have ever seen you again, and I do not know which of the two sounded worse, at the time. No, I messed up, and I was going to face the music. I did not chase you through hell and back just to be a coward in your presence. I was better than that."

Mollianne takes a moment before Kaine gets a chance to respond, and her expression softens, but only into something of attempted understanding. "I know... we have extremely different ways of living our lives, Kaine," she said. "And I could explain to you what 'love' is until I am blue in the face, and, as a siren, I would be talking for a very long time before I got to that point. But that level of devotion is only reserved for someone that I feel really, honestly, and truly deserves it. And, regardless of what kind of dark entity of apocalyptic proportions you see yourself as, or what kind of shrinking violet you see me as, that devotion from me to you has never wavered, except... you know, the one time." The embarrassment fails to keep away from her tone, but she doesn't look away, needing to ensure Kaine knows that she's speaking to him, and not at him.

"If I said I understood all that you just said, I would be lying. I only lie if there is a good purpose to it, but in this case there isn't any use for it. You already know I don't understand. Love isn't really a thing I feel. Probably due to a lack of some ingredient in my creation. What I can understand is your biological mindless devotion. I could remove that with some modification, if you want. You say it is a feeling in the heart and not the mind, but hearts can be replaced too. It's just trickier to find a compatible match."

He paused and looked at her for a long moment, he could tell the second he said the words that she wouldn't willingly go along with that either. She kept getting offered freedom from her biological bondage but she seemed hell bent on maintaining the shackles.

"Well, since I can already tell you aren't keen on that idea, let me ask you this. In your mind, what is the desired outcome of this chance encounter? You walking away with a fresh charm that will allow you to walk into my domain once again? I very much doubt that your new home would be very pleased if you came back trailing a monster behind you. This place is slowly being devoured by entropy and you don't seem interested in being alleviated of your memories." The whole time his expression was an unreadable mask of neutrality.

A brief flicker slips behind Mollianne's eyes as she takes the slightest of offenses over Kaine using the term 'mindless' in his descriptor for her devotion, but, then again, maybe there was some truth to it. Those same eyes gradually become half-lidded as he suggests the removal and/or modification to remove such, and she only offers him a bland stare as he looks back at her, mutual understanding between them that, yes, she is the furthest away from 'keen' on that idea as she could possibly get.

His next statement, however, froze her in place, and she could scarcely believe the words that follow. Even as he continued to speak, Mollianne's heartrate began to speed up again as the implications of his offered suggestion clicked into place within her little siren brain. Could... could she really be allowed that? Her eyes unfocused and refocused a couple of times over a span of several seconds even after he'd stopped talking, as she tried to discern a number of things that may or may not be happening. Was he being serious? Was he still playing games and trying to get her guard down so he could try and swipe her memories anyway?

...or was this actually still a dream, after all? Was she going to wake up at the end of it with nothing to show for all the subconscious angst she suffered through it all?

Could she... actually go see him again, on his own turf? Just like old times?

She was probably going to give herself an aneurysm before the day was done, at this rate. She didn't consider a desired outcome since she didn't know this chance encounter was going to happen, and at one point, she didn't even figure she was going to see the following day's light. "Is..." she began meekly, but then realized her posture and composed herself, looking back up at him head on. "Is that really something you would allow me to have?" The pounding of her heart gave a crystal-clear indication of her excitement over the notion, but, outwardly, she was trying her best not to let emotion play with her words. The rest of his words caught up to her as her mind still raced alongside her heart with what it would mean to her if she actually were given the opportunity to see him again beyond just this instance, and she frowned internally from the 'monster' remark. As prejudicial as that word was in her history, she didn't favor its use even in lighthearted tones, and despite his pretense, she didn't see Kaine as a 'monster' either (though, to be fair, she might have been a smidge biased). She wished there was an easier way for her to profess to people how not-black-and-white she saw the world as, but there probably wasn't a soapbox anywhere near large enough for her little winged self.

He couldn't help but smirk slightly like a cat that ate a canary. The way she lit up at the prospect of having access to his domain again. It was both sad that she was so eager to go to such a place, and amusing that she didn't seem to consider the strings that would be attached.

He reached into his pocket and there was a faint clink of metal and he raised that hand up between them and allowed the item in his hand to fall loose and dangle from a black chain. A small sword shaped pendant that looked as though it had been through a lot of abuse. The metal of the pedant was relatively simple, the greatest of the detail was put into the gnarly blade that dangled downward. The metal was a baleful burnished black iron of some sort and it looked identical to the one that Mollianne had lost so long ago. It was slightly bent, the chain had a few misshapen links, but it was sound enough to serve it's purpose still.

"You can have this, if...." He let the words hang in the air for a long moment. "...you can fight me and win it back." He gave his hand a jerk, recalling the pendant into his hand and turning his attention to Mollianne, eager to see what sort of reaction she would have to having that particular carrot dangled before her.

Seeing that particular pendant being presented hit Mollianne's eyes like a birthday present that had been brought out as a last-minute surprise after all the other festivities had concluded for the event. It looked exactly like the one she lost so long ago, and just laying her eyes upon it brought in a swath of additional memories of the previous times she'd used it before. She visibly can't seem to believe this is actually happening, and the rapid thudding in her chest provides tangible proof to this disbelief she is experiencing. She waits as Kaine dangles it, not wanting to be eager about anything (she knew how well that backfired, too many times before, already).

And then his ultimatum hit.

It was a simple, solid request, if maybe even slightly cliché. Nothing came for free, and, deep down, it would have been silly of her to even think that Kaine would have just handed over something as important as that without some sort of ulterior condition in place. Combat wasn't... surprising. Something he was good at, and she very much wasn't. Younger Mollianne would've balked and possibly even tried to bargain around something else that she was actually able to do. Younger Mollianne also did not have access to certain things that she now had.

To Kaine's suggestion, Mollianne's face went through a short burst of various emotions as the premise, conditions, reasoning, and knowledge of what was at stake all went through her head in short order. At the end of it all, though, the only thing that was left was...

A smile.

Familiar, blatant, and quite possibly something that was getting on his last nerves by now, but she smiled. She had wondered when she was going to get a chance for something like this, and it came a lot sooner than she expected, since she was not planning to fight back if Kaine had decided to cut her down when she thought he was. But if Kaine was asking her to prove, by force, that she was willing to do what it took to win her prize, she would be more than happy to indulge him. As if on cued response, the egg-shaped jewel at the height of her chest gleamed gently, reflecting the daylight's rays upon its smooth, transparent surface.

"As you wish," she said, calmly. 'Calmly' is subjective, given that her heartrate hasn't exactly gone down much. "Right here?"

Kaine glanced around at the abandoned world they stood on, the park, the little details that were mere echoes of what had once taken place here.

"Right here. It isn't like us damaging things will make much of a difference." There was a slight hint of eagerness hiding somewhere in his words. The fact that she seemed to be ready and willing to fight without trying to find some other means of settling things had him intrigued. He wanted to see just how far she would go, how violent she was willing to be. He wasn't expecting much from her, perhaps a scratch on his arm at best, if that.

"This old pendant won't protect you anymore, so you need to show me that you won't simply add a corpse to my front step. You'll have to be willing to strike a killing blow." The old black pendant vanished from his hand and he spread his arms out invitingly.

"It isn't your devotion I doubt, it's your ability to survive in the places I tread." He took a few step backwards, a good starting distance. No sword materialized, no flashy magics started charging, no claws or spikes or anything of the like. He just stood there and watched with a hungrily eager look in his eyes, it remained contained to his eyes, but it was there, regardless.

Mollianne watches Kaine's expression as he details his expectations of her, and her smile remains the entire time, but at a specific mention of leaving something on his doorstep, that smile gains... something else, that really shouldn't been seen on a face like hers. She waits for a moment after he has concluded, and lifts her head slightly. Her right hand comes up to her chest, and she closes her eyes as her fingers gently wrap around the pendant hanging there. "If I leave a corpse on your front step, it will not be mine," she said, simply. As the words leave her mouth, a brilliant white glow begins to emanate from the gaps between her fingers. She opens her eyes as the glow increases in intensity, her smile remaining in place and she gives Kaine a knowing look right before the light expands immensely and overtakes her winged form, encasing her in a crackling sphere of opaque white energy!

This sphere hums loudly as arcs of violet electricity arc about its ivory surface in various places, the purple lightning contrasting keenly against the white surface, and the grass beneath where she was standing flattens against the earth from a localized gust of wind that takes place around it. At roughly the ten-second mark, a hand reaches out from within the energy orb, encased in a sheer, fingerless glove. This hand abruptly pulls aside and makes a sweeping motion from one side to another, the act of which forces the localized wind to expand outward and banishes the crackling sphere of light entirely, leaving Mollianne behind in its wake. Or, at least, what used to be Mollianne, anyway.

The siren now standing in her place has undergone a serious transformation into something far more sinister than she ever had any right to be. Her already-disheveled hair is considerably moreso, where the remains of a ripped-apart black lace headband is seen still entwined within. Her attire is in tatters, consisting of what could have once been considered an attractive gothic-lolita style ensemble, but is shredded horrifically and leaves barely enough at the bustline to keep her modest, threatening to throw even that into jeopardy at the slightest physical provocation. One ruffled sleeve hangs along the side of her left shoulder, the strap broken and unable to hold itself up, while the other sleeve appears to be missing entirely. What was once a long black-and-white pleated skirt has been torn asunder into what barely passes as a ragged miniskirt, like someone had mindlessly taken a pair of scissors to it. From the elbow down, sheer, fingerless gloves encompass both her forearms, pockmarked with sporadic holes throughout the material.

Her eyes lift as she emerges from the sphere, rising to look upon Kaine's face; no longer does she hold those soft, gentle aquamarine irises, but they have instead become a reflective shade of shadowed silver, bearing a feral sense of aggression that matches the scowl now present upon her lips. Her wings, of all things, seem to have escaped the transformation with the least amount of impact, only harboring a trace of reflective silver dust along the outer edges, perhaps as an accent.

She digs her taloned feet into the earth below, exhaling through her nose as she watches Kaine following her transformation, as currents of purple electricity arc between her fingers on both hands, occasionally jumping from fingertip to fingertip once they reach the top of each digit. Perhaps a bit late to the party, an ornate silver bracelet manifests over her left wrist, encasing the earlier egg-shaped jewel she had once worn at her neck.

She doesn't speak immediately, seemingly waiting on Kaine to see what he thinks, or, maybe, checking to see if he planned to attack first and bracing for it ahead of time. Her expression doesn't really offer a lot as to what she's actually thinking, at the moment.

Kaine watched the display with that slightly lopsided smirk that he so often had. This was different, were he his younger self he likely would have dismissed the transformation as meaningless but experience and time had taught him not to underestimate. It was always better to overestimate, but that didn't mean he wouldn't egg her on.

"A flashy transformation." He said in a louder voice than his conversational volume. "But a flashy trick doesn't mean anything unless you have the skill, tactics and power to back it up." He made no action to summon his sword, he simply stood there and observed Molly with an impassive expression. That charm on her wrist. That would be his focus.

"Don't hold back. Because if you do..." He leaves the threat hanging in the air, waiting for Molly to make her first move. He had a feeling that the act of not being the one to initiate the fight might throw her off a little. He was happy to go against her expectations of his fighting style. He may still be him, but he had grown as a warrior through hard won battles.

She doesn't hesitate. As soon as the goading words about her potential lack of skill escape Kaine's lips, Mollianne's own twist into a snarl as she pushes herself off the ground and careens toward him, her wings opening slightly as she effectively glides like an arrow just above the ground, her right hand pulling back as she prepares to attack once in range; purple electricity alights between her fingers more prominently, and become threads of light that extend slightly from her fingernails. She doesn't say a word, putting all of her focus into her personal-projectile launch directly at his form. Her eyes are harsh yet focused, and she doesn't seem to be targeting any specific part of Kaine, just a full-on body blow.

It was too soon to make a play for the bracelet, instead Kaine focused on evasion. As she came at him with the speed of an arrow, he took a step forward, as if intending to tank the savage blow with his chest. When her strike was but a hair's breath away he shifted aside with a slight chuckle, his hands clasped lazily at the small of his back as he danced aside, allowing her momentum to carry her past. It actually took a great deal of self control to not strike, her side was right there as she passed by. But no, she needed to be angrier.

"I think you need a new wardrobe, this look seems a little thread bare to me." He shifted to reorient himself, expecting a follow-up attack, likely one that would come as swift as possible after the first, already he was leaning in anticipation of it, his weight shifting ever so slightly onto his back foot.

"Does your new home not have a tailor or seamstress?"

These remarks don't seem to phase Mollianne whatsoever, her expression still locked tight on what she's doing. Even the anger Mollianne has shown in the past doesn't hold a candle to the sheer sense of aggression that is currently portrayed in those silver eyes of hers, almost like she'd reverted to a bestial version of her normally-docile self.

Of course, Mollianne didn't expect Kaine to just stand there and take the attack, either. She wasn't exactly a battleworn warrior by a long shot, but she'd been hunting Witches and Yoma for long enough to have picked up a few acknowledgements from some of the smarter ones that wouldn't just allow her to bore a hole through their midsection in one strike. She sails past Kaine as he dodges, but in so doing, the threads of purple light whip outward and elongate from the fingertips of her readied hand, snapping behind her as she zips past Kaine and attempting to wrap around him like a series of energy-based wired threads, seeking to snare him and bring him along for the ride as she continues on past and keeps going. She doesn't even so much as look back.

Instead of something flashy to avoid the approaching threads of energy he actually fell backward into a roll, causing the threads to pass just over him as he fell. He came out of the back-roll in a low crouch, tucking his hands into his pockets, a few leaves stubbornly clinging to his back as he straightened back up. This side of her, he liked.

"I suppose it is too much to expect a rousing conversation while fighting at the same time. That's fine. I can speak for the both of us if need be." He shifted again, his foot subtly sliding under what looked to be the rotted remains of a stool leg. A nice little diversion for her when she attacked again.

He had to admit this primal version of her had him curious. Could she actually maintain it for a reasonable amount of time? How much did it take out of her? Was it entirely reliant on that bauble on her wrist?

"Do try a little harder, please." The adding of the polite "please" was more in mockery than actual politeness.

Mollianne abruptly throws open her wings when she doesn't feel the tug of someone being dragged along in her threads, which has the effect of high-inertia air brakes as she jerks into an upright standing position, her taloned feet clenching the dirt for stability from such a rigid halt. Her state of dress is doing her no favors for certain other parts of her, but she seems completely unaware of anything outside of her attempts to get at Kaine. The threads from earlier have since extinguished themselves, returning her fingers to a mere minor lightshow of purple electricity once more.

Mollianne stays where she is for a moment, her face hidden as she stands with her back to him from some distance away, and her wings tuck and refold themselves against her back. Eventually she turns around, her expression having changed into a hateful glare as she stares Kaine down, her silvery eyes reflecting the daylight in a different sort of radiance than her erstwhile self.

All of a sudden, a voice cuts through the atmosphere, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. It echoes with a resonating vibrato, but is otherwise clear, that of a familiar young male with a slight arrogance to the edge of his voice.

'This will mark you as my property. If anyone lays a hand on you, they'll have to answer to me for it.'

This is immediately followed by Mollianne's voice, cutting in through the air in much the same way and to the same effect, and as her voice plays overhead, she releases her talons from the ground and begins walking back toward Kaine with purposeful strides, her glare never faltering.

'What kind of bird willingly chooses a cage over freedom?'

The last word is overlapped by a third voice, a happy-sounding younger girl whose fondness for whomever she is referencing is way too obvious in her tone.

'I know you will protect me. Nobody can beat you, right?'

"Nobody can beat me, yet." He amended the words of his younger self. "No mater how powerful you are, you'll always eventually come across someone who is more so. And then, you have to overcome that obstacle. Right now, I am your obstacle."

That glare was delicious, he could practically feel the heat of it, a feral rage. She might be in a state to miss the absence of that bracelet now, or at very least be reckless enough for him to snatch it in the first place.

"A siren's echoes of the past, but what you should be focusing on is the here and now. You are the one who assumed I would protect you. I never agreed to that sentiment. I have better things to do with my time than act like a bodyguard to a guest in my home. Perhaps expecting you to be able to strike me was a bit too ambitious. Perhaps I should summon a stand in more to your level."

He watched that jeweled bracelet without actually turning his gaze toward it, tracking it with the edge of his focus.

The voices continue to play out around them, echoes of other people in other times, other places, as Mollianne continues to advance on Kaine at a steady-yet-unhurried pace. The violet flickers erupt loosely around her right hand, encasing her forming fist in a small ring of crackling purple energy as she draws nearer, her eyes unwaveringly focused on him and him alone.

A very young girl's voice speaks up, echoing in a child's curiosity.

'Why do you like Kaine, sissy? He's so mean to people.'

The happy-sounding younger girl's voice picks up from there, a respondent to the earlier child's.

'His eyes are... different, when he looks at me. I see something that nobody else does.'

Mollianne launches herself again once she is within range, pouncing on Kaine and bringing her fist around as the electric charge crackles around her knuckles in a wild haymaker, teeth clenched and her fangs gleaming. It isn't obvious if his words are getting to her or not on any level, as her eyes offer no indication of any perceptive change outside her single-minded attempts to bring him down. As she swings, a third voice speaks up, someone different, a woman with a gentle but firm tone, chastising but concerned for her charge's well-being.

'He's manipulating you, Molly. He's going to end up hurting you.'

This voice is again overlapped by one more voice toward the end, her own voice, echoing solidly through the park's atmosphere, a resounding lack of personal consideration amidst heavy resolve with more than an ounce of confusion mixed in.

'Maybe I deserve to be hurt. Maybe I deserve pain. Why can I not just be who I am? Stop telling me what is best for me! Let me decide!'

She may not have been listening, but he was. The voices from a time long past seemed to match up with what he assumed she had been hounded about so long ago. They had been right, he had hurt her, that last bit however, that one seemed to catch his attention more than the others. Had she decided? Or was she just following along with a biological fate she didn't even know she could resist? It felt suspiciously to him like she was just letting nature dictate...

The haymaker landed solidly, right on his jaw and he was sent sprawling onto the ground with enough force to create a bit of a furrow, the explosion of purple energy from her fist providing the necessary umph to make up for the lack of mass behind the blow. He reached up and rubbed at his jaw a little, stretching his neck with a subtle popping sound as he climbed back to his feet and dusted himself off.

"A little crude." He said in reference to her attack. He seemed to be unharmed, if a bit dirty now, but that had never bothered him before. A moment later a small bit of rotted wood fell from the sky to bop Molly directly on the crown of her head before falling to the ground harmlessly.

"Your focus is too narrow. You aren't paying attention to anything else around you. That will get you killed." He said in a cool and collected tone as he holds something up for inspection. It was Molly's egg-shaped charm. "What would happen if I crushed this, I wonder." His gaze went from the charm to Mollianne, that roguish smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth.

Mollianne drags her talons across the ground to stop her momentum following the successful assault, her fist's energy evaporating as Kaine recomposed himself. Her glare remains in place, but is offset slightly when the old plank bonks her on the noggin, glancing down where the piece of wood then rests on the ground. She doesn't seem amused.

A breeze picks up as she resettled her gaze upon him, causing her clothes to flutter with blatant lewdness at the lack of coverage they already afforded, but she ignores this, too; some fashion statements just weren't meant to be understood, seemingly. Strangely, though, she doesn't look at the charm as he gloats about her lack of overt perception, keeping her eyes trained on him. She stands there in silence regarding his threat, the obvious indication that he probably knew what would happen if he damaged it. He did know, right?

And then, something familiar happens.

Mollianne smiles. It is an empty, cold, hollow gesture, containing no warmth of any kind within. Her silvery eyes shimmer as she opens her mouth to speak for the first time since their engagement, her voice laced with that erstwhile vibratory echo. "If we were talking about my better half, I'd agree. She's not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I'm offended, though, that you think -I'm- fucking stupid enough to leave such a blatant weakness on my wrist of all places." The implications these statements afford might be pretty obvious, but the fact that she's suddenly using contractions is an eyebrow-raiser in itself.

As if that wasn't enough, at the end of this last word, there is a faint snikt! as at least a dozen tiny needles suddenly spring from the perimeter of her bracelet, attempting to inject some sort of paralytic toxin into any wound they manage to inflict.

"You think she learned nothing from you during the time you two spent together? Her mom would be rolling over in her grave if she discovered some of the things she learned and kept hidden from everyone." Her tone is harsh and critical, and her smile drops pretty quickly back into a scowl, eyes narrowing slightly.

On the interim, the breeze that rustles her clothes also gives an extremely brief glance at something silver that glints just beneath the fabric of her ripped sleeve, just below her shoulder. An armband of some kind, possibly.

Kaine stared at her with a slightly quirked eyebrow as she spoke, then, a moment later he felt a stinging in his hand where he held the bracelet, seemed she -had- learned a thing or two. A pleasing little surprise. He didn't get those often.

"Well, I suppose this one is a fake then. Clever." There was the ghostly thread of pride in that final word as he closed his fist down on the bracelet, the spikes sinking into his hand further as he applied pressure to it and the jewel. thin rivulets of blood started to trail their way down his forearm. It looked like the spreading of black veins, but the light of day revealed the hue to simply be a very dark red. He needed more of that toxin in his system if he was going to puzzle out a way to counter act it.

"Darkpyre, you know what to do." He sounded a bit distracted, like he had something else on his mind as he studied his perforated hand. Analyzing the toxin that was starting to spread from his hand was his priority now, though he remained calm, no point in speeding up whatever countdown had started. Yes the increased dose was technically going to speed things up, but it was a trade off, time for knowledge.

With zero fanfare an inky black streak darted from the shadows cast by the nearby trees like a bullet. A tiny draconic looking creature making a strike at the area of the armband that it's master suspected might be the real target. The smaller creature was fast though it's size implied that it may not be much of a threat.
March 19, 2024

Amusingly, Mollianne could count on one hand the number of people who were more interested in a piece of jewelry than they were her chest, especially when both were on display, but she knew that she could count on Kaine being in that minority. Not wanting to lose her momentum, the siren prepares to re-engage as Kaine attempts to salvage the situation she'd left him in, but the corner of her eye caught a dark shape moving at too hasty a speed to be ignored or redirected. She started to opt for some sort of defensive maneuver, but when it quickly became obvious where the little creature was beelining, it was all she could do not to turn her scowl into a smirk. A flicker of concern crossed through her mind that Kaine was either going easy on her or throwing the fight on purpose, neither of which she really wanted, but this was dismissed all-but immediately. It didn't matter that much, because the end result needed to remain the same, no matter how she got there.

In a steady but rapid one-two-three setup, Mollianne braces for impact as 'Darkpyre' veers toward her shoulder, and as soon as she feels the strike, she acts. The small beast connects with the silver bangle wrapped around her upper arm, which, as the sleeve moves slightly, does appear to be a rendition of the same sort of ornate charm that holds a translucent egg-shaped jewel in the center. Unfortunately for this beast, the wind that she'd conjured earlier to prompt her exposure also served as a goad toward the wrong target once more, and that flicker of earlier concern for Kaine came back on the idea that he'd fallen for the same trick twice in a row, but again, it was easily abolished. As soon as physical contact is made, the armband shatters into tiny little silver fragments, and from those fragments, thin lines of violet light spontaneously lash out and wrap tightly around the darkly-draconic creature, binding it in place (and probably causing it to fall to the ground, by proxy).

Without wasting even a second's time thereafter, Mollianne gestures with two splayed fingers at a spot directly to her side, while her other hand gestures back toward Kaine with the same two-finger indication in his direction, and she mumbles something incoherently. Simultaneously, two small rifts open themselves up, one of them directly at her first hand's fingers, and the other one right behind Kaine's head. Smoothly, Mollianne reaches one hand into her rift, which extends out from the one behind Kaine, and attempts to roughly grasp a handful of hair on Kaine's head and yank his cranium back through the portal behind him, and into the one at her side, which would leave his neck hanging in the balance between the two temporal gates.

Darkpyre, the tiny little shadow dragon chirped and squeaked as it struggled around on the ground coiled helplessly in the threads, but his master paid the poor creature no heed. It was almost comical in it's struggles, almost cute even. Certainly not the sort of creature that Kaine would normally utilize. The little creature continued to struggle and flop about on the ground at Molly's feet.

He sensed the white noise static of a portal opening behind him, and saw Molly reaching into one at her own side and his eyes darken. His mangled hand temporarily forgotten, he stared at her, a contemptuous sneer crawling across his expression. As her fingers were about to make contact with his hair a black and orange portal snapped open like a hungry maw of a starved animal and SNAPPED at her hand, bulging outward to try and take her hand off at the wrist. Threads of orange and red arcs looked almost like teeth, but the other side of the portal lead to nothing but a black void. A very keen eye could perhaps spot what looked to be severed body parts, heads, hands, whole torsos and lower halves. All in various states of decay, drifting in nothingness.

"You would dare to even think of using my own means against me in such a laughable manner?" His voice had dipped into a growling baritone, not a voice that surfaced often. He abruptly whipped his hand aside, discarding the shattered and blood covered bracelet with a violent gesture that sent blackish blood spraying across the nearby ground. The plants touched by it shriveled and blackened from the contact with the seemingly caustic fluid.

"You actually have the nerve to mock me." His glance flicked toward the struggling little shadow dragonling and seemingly with but a thought, the poor little creature burst like a balloon filled with ink, spraying the lower part of Molly's leg with brackish caustic liquid.

"I'm not impressed." He growled and the blood dripping from his fingers seemed to hang in the air as if their fall to the ground had been arrested by lack of gravity. It didn't fully manifest, but the vague shape of a blade could be seen formed by the droplets.

It wasn't until Mollianne saw the additional gate opening and threaten her reaching arm with separation that she remembered one of Kaine's MO's, and she swiftly yanked her arm back as her own gates collapsed and dematerialized. There wasn't intent to mock, she was just trying to end this quickly in the event that Kaine had been going easy on her, because as much as she hadn't wanted that in the first place, depending on how easy he was going, she knew she'd have no chance if there was much more beyond his current output. She didn't want to draw this out too long for a certain other reason, too, but the less said about that one, the better. Pissing him off was never her intent, and she was actually a little surprised that his patience had run out as quickly as it had, given all the incessant mocking he'd done to her up to this point. All give and no take, obviously.

She didn't want to say anything because talking was a distraction that she didn't need right now, which was why she'd been mostly silent up until recently, anyway. The toxin hadn't worked (Vireyda would have been so angry with her if she'd known the siren had been using her learned alchemy knowledge to make poisons instead of remedies, but that was neither here nor there), both her fallbacks were gone, and she wasn't exactly flush with ideas. A mote of panic tickled the fore of her mind as she tried to determine how to proceed from here, because on the one hand, she couldn't lose her momentum if she wanted any chance of coming out of this successfully (or alive, at this rate), but the part of her she'd locked away with her transformation was still needling her not to do any long-term damage to him.

Outside of brute force, she didn't have a plan. And when she didn't have a plan, she fell back into childhood habits. And childhood habits hurt people she cared about. But she had to do something. So she did.

Mollianne took a deep breath, inhaling deeply as her eyes kept locked on Kaine's and his unimpressed glare. She didn't want to do this because it was a fear trigger, and she wasn't supposed to be scared right now. That was the last thing she wanted to be. It was also going to have unpredictable results because of her increased power output, but she couldn't think of anything else. And she had to win, no matter what.

She screamed.

Drawing on all the inherent power given to her as a member of the siren race, Mollianne let all the air out of her considerable lungs in a shattering, reality-rending vocal shockwave screech that all-but-instantly uprooted the tree nearest her and sent it flying into the side of a nearby abandoned establishment, the sound of which was muffled into muteness in the wake of her destructive cry. The earth at her taloned feet grew bare as all blades of grass were shredded and blown away into the sky, accompanied by small amounts of dirt follicles that had been kicked up with them. Resonating vibrations echoed across the immediate area as windows and existing glass shattered across all existing buildings within the town of Murias. The water within the nearby fountain kicked up in a small outward wave and deposited itself wetly across the ground several feet away, and the cobblestone spout within the fountain's center began to crack and break apart from the sheer force being applied to it. Mollianne's hands balled into fists as her voice exploded outward in an echomantic detonation, her eyes narrowing from the force involved but keeping them open to ensure that she wasn't left exposed in case, somehow, in some unfortunate way, it yielded no results.

Desperation was a strange thing, but it was a strange thing she was, sadly, far-too-familiar with. She regretted that Kaine's arsenal wasn't more magic-reliant, which would have given her the upper hand, but she had to work with what she had.

He could feel the pressure of the shockwave as she screamed but eventually the sound faded and trickles of blood could be seen coming from his ears as he started to walk forward against the force of the siren's unbridled vocal power. He could still feel the tingling numbness that was slowly crawling up his right arm, though it had slowed due to the amount of bleeding his hand was doing. The droplets of blackish-red that had been hovering near his hand were blasted away by the force of Molly's voice, but if he noticed, he didn't show it.

Yes, he had lost a bit of his temper when Molly had tried to use portals to get the upper hand on him. It had been insulting, laughable even, though in that moment he hadn't found it amusing at all. For some reason Mollianne seemed to have a knack for pissing him off. Kaine had always been inclined to toy with his prey, anyway.

From Molly's perspective Kaine abruptly vanished, only to appear directly to her left from one of those same black portals that had tried to take her hand, his bloody hand moving to grab her by the lower jaw, his mangled palm clamping over her mouth and he continues forward toward the wall of the small building nearby, slamming the back of her head into the structure with enough force to put her head through it. He knew she could take a beating, and she likely didn't dislike the taste of his blood in her mouth either. She needed punishment however. For some reason the attempted stunt of hers with the portals had really gotten under his skin. He leaned in close, his breath falling on her ear.

"You really should have known better." he spoke the words, but for the time being couldn't hear them, his acoustic assault having ruptured his eardrums.

He applied a little more pressure, bits of wall falling loose and tumbling to the ground as he practically forced her to be subjected to his blood, keeping his hand clamped tightly over her mouth, the blood itself laced with the paralyzing agent from the bracelet, though he suspected she would have made a point of developing an immunity to whatever it was.

He was in striking range of those talons of hers, but he didn't care. He didn't even care if she dismembered him and earned back that old battered pendant. In that exact moment, he just wanted to see that fiery primal animal in her show fear.

As soon as she saw Kaine walking forward against the force of her voice, she knew she was done. She continued to scream anyway, hoping against hope and wishing against wish that some vestige of remaining power was enough to bring him to his knees and force him to concede, but she knew better. Maybe she'd known better all along. Why was she trying so hard? What did she actually have to gain out of this? Was all this effort going to be worth it? These questions danced in her head for the few moments she had before Kaine's bloodied palm clamped over her mouth, his presence suddenly nearby. Her shout drowned out pitifully as she gasped for breath in the wake of her vocal assault, drawing in small bits of air around the tiny amounts of space still left between her lips and the edges of Kaine's hand, and the taste of his blood was... wonderful. Invigorating, even. It reminded her of those few times he had allowed her to feed on him when they were younger, and in her immediate peril, those memories returned some fondness to her senses that threatened to crack through the feral carapace she'd shielded herself with in her transformation, but she held on for everything she had, dismissing those memories as a weakness she didn't need right now. She was extremely lucky that she had built a tolerance to the toxin she had attempted to inject him with, as while she hadn't expected this specific scenario to play out, she had learned from a fellow herbalist that it was important for an apothecary to build tolerance to the plants they utilized, for personal safety reasons among other things. As a siren, her immune system was already pretty top-tier as long as she continued to ingest blood on a regular basis, anyway.

The force of her head being slammed through the wall of the building sent a white shockwave through her senses, tinging the edge of her vision with a faint orange hue as she fought against the sharp pain shooting through the back of her head. The act of this actually caused her to bite down on Kaine's hand, her small fangs piercing through the flesh of his hand as she drew in more of his blood.

She did know better. Why had she bothered? Why did she think this was worth it? A barrage of 'Why' assaulted her thoughts as Kaine looked down at her, putting more pressure on her face against the shattered hole that he'd created with her skull. She knew that look. She knew that look. And she knew what he wanted.

But she refused. She absolutely would not give him what he wanted, because she wasn't afraid of him. She never had been. And, at that moment, she wondered why. He was going to kill her, probably in the most gruesome way possible. She had every single reason to be afraid of him. He didn't love her. He didn't care about her. She was a piece of slime on the bottom of his boot that kept finding a way to hold on. Why wasn't she afraid? Why did she keep crawling back? Why couldn't she just let him go? She stared up into his eyes with her own, the harsh ferality of those silver irises boasting an ardent refusal to give him anything except fierce defiance as her fangs pierced deeper into his hand. It didn't matter what he did to her. Her feelings wouldn't change. Maybe they couldn't, as far as she knew. But it didn't change anything.

I am not scared of Kaine, sissy. He likes me.

You worry too much, mama. Kaine will not let anything happen to me.

Do not call him that! He is not a monster!

What hope was she holding onto? And where was it coming from? Did she think that if she just held her resolve long enough, he'd just give in and develop on appreciation for her, from out of the blue? She never gave up on anything, which was the reason she was even still alive. Even things that probably deserved to be given up on, she just couldn't. He'd be better without her. She'd be better without him. This fact was so painfully obvious and she was so abhorrently dense for not understanding and grasping such a core concept.

But she just... couldn't. She couldn't let him go. And it may not have even been the biological adherence. Something else, something much deeper, just refused to let him go. And she couldn't understand why.

She loved him. True, open, and honest, and she could not, for the (literal) life of her, figure out why.

And that love would be taken with her to the grave.

The pressure he was applying to keep her pinned against the crumbling wall lessened ever so slightly, the tingling numbness in his arm coupled with the fact she was just flat out feeding on him now was actually enough to weaken his grip on her face ever so slightly.

As abruptly as his temper had flared, it was gone. The veil of rage slipped from his gaze and the mask of indifference returned and he let out a sigh, it was hard to determine if it was a sigh of disappointment or resignation.

"Let go, you are going to make yourself sick." He said evenly, referring to the grip her teeth had on his hand. The world was still muted, it would likely be so for at least the next few minutes, but he didn't need his hearing. Lip reading, sign language, all tools he had in his box even if they were long discarded to the very bottom long ago.

Why he was trying to keep her from getting sick on his blood wasn't entirely clear, not even to him, but she had proven to have a modicum of wits, raw force and no small amount of determination. There was never a chance for her to have defeated him. if he had put forth even a little serious effort it would have been over before it had begun. It was a simple fact of what the were, physically speaking. By fortune of his creation he was powerful, more so than her, by orders of magnitude. And yet she had tried. The sheer stubbornness was both her most irritating and endearing quality. He wasn't even certain she had heard his first order to release his hand, so he repeated.

"Molianne, let go. Or you can forget about this." His left hand raised, the old black pendant and chain hanging from his fingers.

And then... what? His eyes changed. In them, she no longer saw her imminent demise. She felt the strength of his grip weakening, just a little bit, and her eyes widened slightly from the shock, and as more air was drawn into her lungs. His blood still flowed into her mouth and she swallowed roughly as that flow lessened along with his grip. She felt so utterly warm right now, and came to the realization that she hadn't actually fed over the last several days. She'd fled from Viorar after what she almost did to Ambience, and starved herself in the process as the guilt consumed her from the inside out. Kaine's blood was... what she needed, even more than it was what she wanted.

And it was unfortunate that he demanded that she remove herself, because she could have drained him dry and not thought twice about it.

As his hand gradually relaxed and he repeated his demand, she felt her fangs retrieve themselves from his flesh, the entire lower half of her face painted with his blood. With the siren's head half-stuck in the side of the building, a face full of dark blood, and silver eyes that struggled to figure out what was actually happening right now, it was a grotesquely-macabre depiction that event the creepiest stage effects couldn't hope to replicate. The feeling of warmth passed through her entire body as she came down from her battle-high and air began to circulate normally through her lungs once more, and she stumbled slightly as she pulled herself from from the building's wreckage, a drop of the erstwhile blood escaping from the bottom of her chin and splattering against the dirt below.

The pain in the back of her head had become a dull ache, and she gingerly reached behind to see if she was bleeding from there, as well. The lack of blood on her fingers was a relief as she looked upon them, and the fact that she was even able to stand right now meant that her Soul Gem had not been damaged either, where it was still embedded in the back of her neck, right at her hairline. She had put so much risk into all of this, and all without a second thought to her own well-being. Truly, 'reckless' did not even come close to being appropriate.

When her head stopped swimming long enough to regain some sense of focus, she found herself looking into his eyes once more. The angry, feral premise within her own was still prominent, but it was plainly obvious that her strength of will had weakened significantly by this time, else she would have had no reason not to pounce on him right then and there for another round. The fight was over, and whether she had won or lost, she had survived. And, sometimes, that could be considered a victory all of its own.

Still not looking away from his face, and as a thin trail of his blood still leaked from the corner of her mouth, she reached for her prize, her outside not matching the expression inside. Though her heartbeat quickened from the knowledge of her own survival, had she been whole, she would have been shaking and bursting with pride and excitement at having at least met his expectations enough to be worthy of this. This form, unfortunately, was not big on either words or emotional acknowledgment outside of the heat of battle, and that was all her better half had ordained for it in the first place. But at the moment, she was every bit a wreck outside as she felt inside, and she was pretty sure that he also knew she hadn't had much left, if anything at all.

Why did he not kill me? Why will he not kill me? Does he actually see me as useful, in some way, after all? The traces of hope still lingered somewhere, deep inside, fighting against the hordes of pessimism that encroached upon it from all other sides. Or is that just how pitiful I have become?

She didn't know the answers to these questions any more than she knew the answers to her previous ones, or any that lay far beyond them. But as her fingers latched around the amulet he was offering her, she realized that they didn't matter a whole lot, anyway.

Maybe. Probably.

Even before Molly had closed her fingers around the token, he had already released the chain from which it dangled, granting the siren the prize she had been so desperate for. He cared little for it, it may hold some small vestige of his power but not enough to do anything with, aside from opening the way to his domain. Even if by some turn of circumstance an enemy somehow gained possession of it it would bring a little excitement to his door.

He rolled his right shoulder and stretched out that arm as if shaking off the effects of the paralytic. He'd isolated it, assimilated it, incorporated it. He reached up out of habit and ran his bloodied hand back through his hair without a care for the dark streaks it left.

"You've got your prize now. Do try not to lose it again." He gave a sharp whistle and the black smear on the ground that had been the little shadow dragon seemed to pull itself back together and it hurried to it's master's shoulder and perched there. He eyeballed the little creature disdainfully. "And you, you are an idiot, go back and keep an eye on him and stop trying to keep an eye on me."

He had been aware the little creature had been following which was why he had called upon it, regardless of how much of a waste of time that act had been. The little shadow hung it's head in shame and swooped off into the shadow of a barren bush. Kaine returned his attention back toward Molly as the blood that was still on his hand slowly seeped back into his flesh, reclaimed.

"Are you content now? That silver in your eyes tells me there may still be some fight in you, shall I accommodate? I could do this for a very long time." But something in his tone implied he knew full well taht she could not.

That potential taunt from Kaine caused her wings to twitch, threatening to rekindle a flame that was already on its way out. Fortunately, her common sense at least still remained to a large degree despite closing out everything except the desire for blood. Her first thought was to tell him that she wasn't feeling that suicidal, but after what she'd just put herself through, that was such a bold-faced lie that she was briefly appalled to even have considered it. Suicidal or masochistic in varying amounts, by this time. She didn't have enough cognitive function to notice that Kaine was chastising the pet that had attacked her earlier, and as she took the pendant from him, her wings went limp and slumped down on either side of her back, and she, herself, went to her knees along with them. In a brief moment, her visage cracked and split apart like a shattered mirror, the pieces of which fell away into sparkling motes of light and revealed her prior self behind them, taking away the feral aggressiveness and leaving only a small, winged siren with brilliant aquamarine eyes once more. A small flash of blue light announced the return of the Soul Gem around her neck, which was extremely clouded at this point and possessed very little translucency left to it. Much more exertion definitely would have been the end for her, whether by Kaine's hand or otherwise, and she was at least thankful enough that he had refrained from harming her any further.

It took a moment for her to find her voice, and she was sure that her posture was not the most noble of poses to be in at the moment, but it was the least of her concerns right then and there. "I know it probably does not mean a lot to you," she said, her voice calm but decidedly worn-out, "but I want you to know that I do appreciate both this and the fight you put me through to get it." She looked up toward his face, hers now clean and free of blood that had apparently been swept away with her reversion. "I have never had to push myself that hard before for anything, and most fights I get in are over long before I get the chance to..." She paused for just a second, with a small exhale. "...enjoy it." She struggled for a moment, but couldn't seem to find either the strength or the willpower to get to her feet, so she just remained kneeling, both wings splayed out on the ground at either side of her back. "It is a reminder that I still need to get stronger, even after all this time. And I will."

She spared a glance down at her jeweled adornment, holding it up slightly in her free hand that wasn't holding the other trinket. She frowned softly, just now realizing how close she actually had come to corruption. She was going to need to go hunting, and very soon.
March 21, 2024

Kaine's attention returned to the knelt siren, he looked somewhat disappointed when she reverted to her usual self. The brief scuffled had raised his hackles a little, he was still miffed at the fact she had tried to use portals against him in such a basic way, he would most certainly need to blow off some actual steam when he got back to his fortress.

"We all can get stronger, the goal is to continue to do so. The second you think you have reached your peak, that is when you truly fail. When your struggle to climb higher stalls that is when you slide backwards. For all my power and ability, skill, technique, talent, whatever you want to call it, I will never stop climbing. There will always be at least ONE out there, that is greater. In your case, it is more like one billion, but the point is, you shouldn't need a reminder. Every day should be that climb. When you do it every day reminders are not needed."

He finally sat down on the broken remains of the fountain that had suffered Molly's wrath, it wasn't nearly as effective of a seat anymore and he got back up almost immediately.

"And also, your paralytic isn't potent enough, it needs to be stronger if you want that sort of parlour trick to be effective. A vapour would be more effective, something that can absorb through the skin in case your target doesn't have the need to breath."

His attention slipped to the clouded gem in Molly's hand. "Still using that as a crutch?" His gaze fall on the gem with a level of distain. "You really should learn to stand on your own two feet."

Kaine's verbal lesson was something she didn't really need to be told, but the attention he was giving her was good enough that she listened intently, regardless. He had the same tone of a teacher that was telling his student that there was always going to be another mountain to climb, and for all the variants of the same story that existed, this was just another one. Except that, with Kaine as the instructor, he didn't hesitate to remind her just how far back behind the pack she actually was. She watched him briefly as he spoke, but then her eyes listed off elsewhere, eventually coming to rest on a bare spot of earth somewhere between her knees and his boots. She still listened, but closed her eyes in doing so, letting the sound of his words and the feel of the ground on her legs and taloned feet take precedence over her sight. She probably could have gotten up if she'd put a little bit of effort into it, but she just didn't really want to, right then. This was a good spot.

"Poisons are not my specialty," she eventually responded, once he'd finished his rhetoric. "It was not even my idea, but I felt like it was a good backup plan just in case I found myself cornered." She didn't know if it was something she was actually going to want to focus on, so she specifically omitted what would have been an otherwise-obligatory 'I will try and get better at it.'

His last comment kind of offended her a little bit, but not enough to where it showed in her expression. Her eyes did open, though, as she refocused on the bare earth nearby. "I think you forget that mortals are only capable of so much, Kaine," she said, with just a hint of chastising. "I can stand on my own two feet as well as can be expected, for someone of my size and stature, but without some other form of power, I am just a four-foot-ten-inch girl with wings, a knack for singing, and a penchant for not following good advice." She smirked somewhat, her tired expression following through into the way one corner of her mouth slightly turned upward. "We can overcome a lot of obstacles. We can rise to some pretty great heights. But in standard terms, you are an outlier. Very few people will ever reach the level that you have attained, or will attain." She waited for the rebuttal, because of course there was going to be one. She didn't know what she was talking about. That was why she was kneeling in the dirt, and he was perfectly fine after the injuries she had managed to make him sustain.

Gods above, she missed this. Kaine really hadn't changed at all, and it was great.

"That is where you are wrong. There is always a path, you just need to find it." He leaned his back against the now partly crumbled building he had put Molly's head through, a chunk of the building falling back into the building.

"I'll never understand why people seem to insist on putting limits on themselves. Your size and current talents are not a cap to your potential. They only become that if you allow them to." He watched her coolly and folded his arms over his chest. "If you like I can provide you with a more effective toxin. I have a fairly large selection in one of my labs."

As much as he didn't want to admit it, Daemokus had had a heavy impact on his array of skills, he was probably a bit more like the man than Kaine would ever care to admit.

"Refresh my memory. Why do you have that?" He gestured lackadaisically toward the egg shaped gem. "What is it's purpose? It's function. What would happen if you didn't have it?"

Mollianne was... really hoping she wouldn't have to explain the Soul Gem to Kaine. Besides the embarrassment behind how she caved in and acquired it in the first place, letting him know that it was what decided whether she lived or died was not another thing she wanted him to be able to lord over her. This winds up being pretty obvious when she frowns as he references it. It bothered her enough that she didn't even give him a reply about the offer to invest more in the wrong direction of herbology.

But, he would have also found out sooner or later, anyway. He always did. So, it might as well be her that tells him up front. "I made a pact for power," she said, raising her eyes with a sigh, setting them upon his face once more. "And it cost me quite a bit. This gem is the source of that power, but is also my lifeline. It anything happens to it, I die." She refrained from embarking on a descriptive rant about some of the finer details, since her becoming a Witch wouldn't really impact him at all, anyway, and it wouldn't matter, at that point, what happened to anyone else. "There are specific creatures in my world that I need to hunt and retrieve artifacts from, because this gem is continually depleting itself, much faster when I am injured or using those powers. Those artifacts 'cleanse' the gem and allow me to prolong my own life, as a result. If I fail to do this, I die."

She pauses for a moment, her eyes going half-lidded. "The only thing I ask is that you don't condemn me for it too harshly. Some mistakes are only realized after they are incurred, and also cannot be redacted. My only choice is to continue forward and make the most out of it, and that is exactly what I have been doing for the last six years. I have been getting stronger, but it is a gradual pace. There were many others alongside me who also made this pact. But they have all since disappeared or perished. I am, however, still here."

"A pact." He said in a tone that was very flat and unemotive, his expression likewise. "If it's just a pact, the solution is fairly obvious. Who is the pact with? Destroy them, you destroy the contact. Have you even considered going after the holder of your contract? Or have you simply gone along with the terms?" He shook his head and ran his hand back through his hair again, it was starting to become evident that the tick seemed to be triggered by frustration.

There was always a way, a loop hole, an alternative, at least in his experience. If he had a contact to look over he was fairly certain that he could pick it apart, find the gaps in the wordage.

"What sort of artifacts? Specific ones? Or anything with a significant amount of magical power?" For his own sanity he hoped that she had at least searched for a loop hole. If she hadn't....No he didn't want to think of that just yet because he would only get frustrated all over again. His mercurial nature was starting to wear on even him at this point. He couldn't figure out why this pathetic little creature caused him SO much frustration. Back then, now, probably in the future if she lived much longer.

"Please tell me you've at least made some sort of effort to escape it."

"I have," she states, almost immediately, the tone of her voice implying very clearly that she made solid attempts to do just that. She grit her teeth slightly, realizing that this was going to turn into a much bigger thing than she wanted it to be. "Kyuubei cannot be destroyed. His form is something beyond material composition. I do not... know all of the finer details, because he is very evasive. He can be 'slain,' but returns almost immediately afterwards as if nothing happened, with only a small complaint based on the minor inconvenience such a thing caused him."

She squirmed around briefly, moving herself from a kneel into a crosslegged sitting position, smoothing out her skirt across her feathered legs. "The creatures I fight are what remains of others who have taken up this pact and perished. But instead of becoming a corpse, they transform into darker monstrosities that wreak havoc on other people from the shadows." She lifts her own Soul Gem. "If I slay these creatures, I can claim their corrupted gem and then use it to replenish my own. It is... a cycle. Nobody has ever been able to figure out how to break it, and from what I understand, it has been ongoing for millennia, at least."

She lets her Soul Gem drop back to her chest, exhaling through her nose. "More or less, I have just accepted it to be as it is. If we are being honest, without it, there would have been no way I could have pushed you enough to win this, either." She holds up the other pendant that he has relinquished to her.

Mollianne suddenly gets a look on her face, like she just thought of something, but then just as quickly looks frightened of whatever she thought of, and retains her silence.

Torr — Today at 4:33 AM
"Someone that cannot be killed, hm?" There was a gleam in his icey eyes, like a gauntlet had just been thrown down and a challenge made. "I see." His voice carried a note of thoughtfulness and he peered off at the whisps of cloud that hung in the vacant sky above.

Already his mind started to churn, things to look into, methods to try, perhaps this would be his real next challenge. Absorption, seemed like a promising candidate as a solution. As he considered the possibilities, a grin slowly crawled across his face.

He would need to research the entity in question, find out as much as he could about them, their origins, their powers, their influences, their creators. As much as he loved the thrill of violence and combat, he loved an intellectual challenge as well.

"I see..." He said again, more to himself and in a much more distant manner. Ideas for incantations and tactics to deal with one that could regenerate from nothingness that quickly. The more he thought about it, the more interested he was in trying to hunt down this being.

"That...sounds...like...fun." He purred in a smooth dulcet voice as he continued to lean against the ruins of the building.

And, just like that, he was off in the direction she figured he'd take. Kaine was never one to leave well enough alone over something that very obviously didn't concern him even the slightest bit, just for a slight vestige of personal interest it could afford him. It was things like this that made him truly frightening, but then, she also kind of admired it. And that grin of his, when it wasn't so full of malice and directed at her, was kind of cute, too. She was fond of him for other reasons, but there was no denying that his physical charm was still very much in play for her, and that had kind of been the ember that sparked this whole thing, from the start.

Unfortunately, she knew next to nothing about Kyuubei, such that she couldn't really offer Kaine any advice in his potential endeavors. A thought briefly crossed her mind, too, on what might actually happen to her or any of the other Wishborn, if something happened that did remove Kyuubei from the picture. Would they be free? Would they perish all at once? Her soul was technically outside her body and only linked through whatever manner of power Kyuubei had used to create it in the first place. If Kyuubei was that link, and then was gone, what would happen?

And then there was her thought. She bit her lip, watching Kaine as he considered what his plot would be. Kaine was the most powerful being she knew, outside of the Mana Goddess and.. possibly Ambience, without his limiter (though that was questionable at this point, as broken as he was). What if he could extract her soul from its prison and reinfuse it into her body? Did it even work like that? The idea of willingly asking Kaine to siphon her soul was not the most comfortable feeling, especially since she had no guarantee what he might do with it, once and if he did claim it. That was probably going a little too far even for her, and she'd already made no small indication of just how far she'd go for him.

And so, she continued to sit there, lost in her own thoughts as much as Kaine was with his. Though unfocused, she smiled faintly as her eyes laid themselves up on him, subconsciously glad just to be near him again after all these years.

"It should only take perhaps two defeats to puzzle out a solution." He said to himself as he pushed off of the crumbling building and started to walk away, one of his orange-black portals yawing open. Instead of the gore filled void however, the roiling clouds and chaotic flashes of lightning crackled across the sky. And there, some distance away, across a barren and tumultuous landscape stood the imposing figure of his fortress, looming tall against the angry sky.

The crackling could be heard as he started to step over the threshold, Molly seemingly forgotten as the portal began to close behind him.

"At very most, three..." He mused to himself.

Her attention was taken at the now-unmistakable sound of that portal opening, and her thoughts dispersed as she watched him depart without even so much as a glance back. She blinked only once in the sum of time it took the portal to swallow his form and then remove itself, and continued to gaze at where it had been, for at least a solid minute after it was gone. The reality of this chance encounter, she felt, still hadn't completely sunk in, not even taking into account what she'd come out of it with, both physically and not.

Mollianne eventually glanced aside at the partial wreckage of the building behind her, and the crumbling hole her head had been shoved through, just a short time prior. She recalled, again, the taste of his blood being fed to her so forcefully, and she shivered. Things.. changed. They changed suddenly, and they changed drastically. And she didn't know what was going to happen, going forward. She needed to hunt and fix her corruption before it was too late, as a first and obvious priority.

And... she probably needed to find a way to apologize to Ambience. Assuming he even wanted to look at her again. She sighed, holding up her Soul Gem in one hand, and Kaine's pendant in the other.

Why did she always do this to herself?

The old black pendant, bent and damaged as it was, reflected the soft glow of the Soul Gem, the surface almost looking like liquid as it dangled from the chain it had been hung on. The only thing that could readily reunite Molly and Kaine again.