[PRP] A conclusion (Siddie, Barth)

[prolixity]

Siddie removed the necklace with the ring from around her neck, holding it in her palm instead. "I'm being disowned anyway at this point," she said, and she sounded almost happy about it. "I have contingency plans in place. Please allow me to relieve you of this particular obligation."

She turned her face up to the irritable gargoyle shape perched on the bannister. "He is a good friend, and has been quite patient with my request, even when it has caused personal problems," she said. "I shall have to owe him a favor for it."

Baneful

Toshihiko Two

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"Not your scarelings?" Rasputher repeated, becoming altogether more severe. A patch of flowers began to grow along the wall under Zar, and the salty, floral smell became stronger...along with a general sense of gloom.

Siddie might even begin to think this all wasn't a very good idea, and how would she live without her parents, how did she think all her plans could possibly work?

"Oh, disowned," The demon said as if it was the worst thing that could happen to a person. "There's nothing more important than your family. Nothing can replace blood. Nobody could replace it."

The feeling was growing damper, and heavier, and the weight of those sorrows made everyone in the room like they might want to sit down and cry about it a while.

He added, "You're looking for my nephew. But if he's separating you from the Fear you were sown from, he has made a grave mistake."  

[Baneful]

Zar's posture entirely changed as he realized the gravity of his mistake, shrinking down to what was less a hostile loom and more an anxious skulk. He had forgotten the implications of Ras being present, finding it too easy to assume that the other demon was as passive and indifferent to abuse as his lookalike.

"Oh no." he said. "Oh no I mean. I meant. They are yes - I had some say in their creation."

The flowers had their usual effect, always potent against a creature as emotionally absorbent as the Incubus, weighty enough in their sadness that he slumped from the banister and fell an entire floor to land with a thump amongst the flowers.

"Grandfatherrrr." he crooned. "I don't want her in MY family, she hasss a mate."

Unfortunately for Siddie's privacy and ease of dealing with what should have been a straightforward scenario, another figure made her way into the entrance hall, tall and elegant with a tree of elaborate antlers and a helmet which covered her face, long reptillian tail flared with feathers warningly darting at her heels. Everything about her was golden and positively prehistoric, dripping with predatory and warlike malice.

"Is there a problem?" she asked, inhaling audibly of the scent which lingered on the air. "Because it smells like there is a problem."

 

[prolixity]

Siddie suddenly wasn't sure about this plan. She'd been so certain a moment ago. She loved Sammy and didn't actually want to marry anyone else, but ... did she really want to cut herself off? But she'd already cut herself off, her letter had been quite unambiguous in its defiance. But perhaps she should go back and apologize, but certainly that would have been the last straw in her parents' disapproval of her, but Barth really wasn't so bad and Calder and Zar wouldn't ever not be unhappy with her even if she did this. Her mind warred with itself, her firm resolve and certainty fighting with the damp, heavy, anxious sorrow pressing down on it. Her free hand found the hem of her overskirt, and her fingers twined anxiously into the lacy trim, gripping and holding tight, her claws lengthening and threatening to punch holes in the fabric. Her other hand closed tightly over the ring, claws digging into shadowflesh and scenting the air faintly with ichorous blood.

"O-oh, oh dear, I've -- do excuse me, I mistook -- oh badness, I don't know how I could have done such a thing, oh, please do forgive me," she fretted. "Sir, it's not -- Bartholomew hasn't separated me from my family, sir, my parents have -- I've other family, I'm not alone."

She fell silent as the tall, lovely figure made her way into the hall. Siddie felt confused and anxious and she wanted very much to cry. But she absolutely refused to let herself give in to that treacherous urge; she would not show strangers and predators that dangerous weakness. She could collapse and cry later.

Baneful

Toshihiko Two

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"No, my heart," Ras said, spinning on his heel to take Gilda's hand reverantly and kiss her wrist.

"I was only correcting some terrible mistakes."

The flowers were in full, thick, accusing bloom right over Zar's head.

"A true mate has worth above any price."  

[Baneful]

Gilda's core shifted a shade of warm red it expressed only when doted on by Ras but her [removed](at least what was visible of it) did not seem to change at all.

"There have been quite a few of those in recent times, I am glad you are being vigilant."

She turned her head to look over at Zar who was laying in a puddle of sheer despair, wishing that he had never been born at all and feeling that he should have stayed gone on the occasions he had dissipated in the past. He ruined everything and he had ruined even a polite social call from a friend.

The only sound he managed to make was a low tragic one in his throat.

Only with this established did she finally turn her attention to Siddie, making clear her priorities from the outset. "Who is this?" she asked haughtily.

Zar, after tremendous effort managed to get one word together through the sadness, hissing "Barthhh" In an attempt to call the other sloth demon before he sunk what felt like forever into a tragic mire of sadness.

This at least caught Gilda's attention. "I should have known." she said. "Where is he?"
 

[prolixity]

A true mate has worth above any price. Siddie seized onto that statement like a lifeline, like a drowning person gasping for fresh air. She had a true mate, and it was not Barth. Her true mate was back at school, at home, at the home she'd made instead of been trapped in. The weighty drowning doubt and sadness held her down and made her wonder, but she had a true mate, and she had a family. She hurt, but she could do what she'd come to do. She wasn't throwing everything away. She wasn't.

"I'm," she said, and swallowed hard to make the lump in her throat go away. It didn't go away. She forced words past it. "I'm Barth's friend." Her knees trembled, and she pressed them together under her skirt to keep from collapsing onto the floor under the weight of despair. "He's, he's -- " she swallowed a sob and made herself keep going, " -- he's been helping me. I came to tell him I have, I have taken care of what I need to."

Her claws dug into her palm, and she hoped that blood on the ring wouldn't make any difference. She hoped that she wouldn't fold slowly to the floor. She was only upright because she needed, needed, not to be visibly weak in front of Barth's relatives.

Baneful

Toshihiko Two

 

[Toshihiko Two]

"Here, here, sorry to keep you waiting, I was-" Barth halted at the end of the hallway after a very painstaking walk. "Um."

Barth looked, in spite of himself, slightly irritated. A small thread of thorns skittered up the wall, brushing aside the knot of flowers and turning it into scattered petals.

"Siddie!" Barth said with bright affection, "Did nobody offer you a place to sit? You've had a long drive. Perhaps we should ah, try the parlor... Did you or my ah, Uncle need anything, Lady Gilda?"

He did not immediately acknowledge Zar, but Zar would find another bundle of thorns by his claw that were available to help him up. Not that Barth didn't enjoy him languishing on the floor.  

[Baneful]

Gilda glanced to Barth and her core shifted a cool blue colour, glancing obviously to the thorns which brushed aside the flowers before it flared a vivid gold instead. She reached out an arm and pulled Ras close to her, tightly pressing him against her breasts as she restrained herself from doing what her pride dictated she should in response to a slight, a gesture which was possibly familiar to Ras who had seen what sort of things happened when she did not redirect the urges. "Nothing." she replied to Barth, "I simply noted that Ras was distressed for one reason or another, your guests should be a little more careful what they say."

One of her four hands did however move to her helmet, as if considering lifting it anyway.

Zar took the thorns help even despite the oppressive feeling that he did not deserve it at all, standing up and dragging his tail around himself.

"Parlor ssssounds good." he said, the irritation creeping back into his voice at the prospect of Barth being deliberately helpful to anyone who wasn't him. He shot the sloth demon an irritated glare as he dragged himself in the direction of said parlor. "I forgot thisss whole thing was ssstill in place. Good thing I didn't agree to an engagement, I would have been part of a line."


 

[prolixity]

"The, the parlor would be lovely," Siddie said, and despite her best efforts, her voice trembled slightly. She inclined her head to the older demons politely; she should really curtsey, she knew, but she was afraid that her knees would fail her if she tried, made wobbly by the intense pressure of sorrow. It was making her heart flutter in an alarming way, and she had to hold tightly to her resolution to keep from just mumbling an excuse and shuffling back out. She'd come here just to do this, she reminded herself. "A, a pleasure to meet you," she wavered, not quite able to look either of them in the eye.

She made herself take one step in the direction Barth indicated, then another. At Zar's irritable comment, she bit her lip hard. She would not be seen quarreling with him, not now, and his irritation at her was deserved. She was, after all, in the way, and not family, and that thought made her sadder than she could explain.

Toshihiko Two

Baneful

 

[Toshihiko Two]

Moving to parlors was not exactly Barth's specialty either, but he couldn't have everyone go on hanging about in the entryway. Barth smiled apologetically at both of his relatives. "He's um- he's usually...isn't he? Oh, you said distressed, yes, no, I want both of you to have a relaxing stay- I'll be with you in a moment, I'm sorry, I've been very rude to my guest, she's here on my invitation..."

Grimhold, who had also been here the whole time, was not his usual stoic self. Leaned heavily against the wall, streaks of tears made his cheeks and nose wet. He was pale and shaking.

Had he done the right thing? His brother...

Ras suddenly looked over at Zar. "You are part of a line." He softened slightly, sighting a small blue ball of feathers huddled into Barth's hair and clutching his shoulder.

"Superbia, have you been spending time with your father? Did you want to visit with your grandfather a while?" He breathed against Gilda's wrist, shutting his eyes. "Will you join us?"  

[Baneful]

Gilda kept hold of Ras and seemed to consider everyone present again, seemingly unmoved by the aura the other demon had generated but simply far more controlled and practiced than anyone else in dealing with him. She nodded haughtily. "I might bless you both with my presence."

Superbia had eagerly turned his small head to look at Ras when addressed and pausing, still holding a small pipe he was screwing into another object in his tiny claws as he fluffed his feathers. "Yes!" he said. "Departing expedient!" he peeped at Barth and nuzzled his ear in a feathered headbutt. "Synergy!"

And then he hopped off the demon's shoulder in a flutter of feathers and flapping wings which slowed his descent to the floor. He paused to examine Siddie with three strange blinking eyes before he ran to Ras and pecked at his toes to be picked up. He seemed to be almost completely untouched by sadness. Gilda permitted this mistreatment of what was hers only because Superbia was afforded special privileges due to his lineage and species.

Zar had somehow made his way over to Barth and passed him by in the direction of the parlour, uncurling a coil in a silent offering of something to lean on to get there but not looking around. "I know grandfather." he said. "A line but not a queue."


 

[prolixity]

The urge to apologize was almost overwhelming, and Siddie's teeth worried at her lip. She didn't even know what exactly she'd done; everything, whispered that heavy guilty sadness, and it was easy to remember things she'd done wrong, and she'd upset Barth's uncle with her mistake, or with her suggestion that the arrangement should be terminated, and she'd upset Zar with the arrangement existing in the first place, and really it was inevitable that she'd upset them and she would keep doing so, she didn't belong here, she wasn't a demon, maybe being married would solve that, but it would upset so many other people ...

She was distracted, a little, by the realization that the child had accompanied Barth, and the child was absolutely adorable. She managed to unclench her hand from the lace of her overskirt, and wiggled her fingers at him in a small, tentative wave. She was distracted a little more by the realization that Zar had addressed the elder demon as grandfather; but that she put aside to try and figure out later, because she had plenty to think about and plenty to try and deal with and in the scheme of things that was a very minor one.

She followed Barth and Zar toward the parlor, not speaking because she didn't trust her voice just now, concentrating on keeping her shaky legs from buckling under her and her little shivery breaths from turning into sobs. She still had a task to complete, and she would complete it.

Toshihiko Two

Baneful

 

[Toshihiko Two]

Barth accepted the help, mostly because otherwise it was going to take him another 30 minutes.

"Yes, um, have a good time," he said, seeing Superbia off with some worry.

Ras didn't seem to mind the pecking either, and knelt to scoop the small bird up and hold it close to his chest. "The family line, Zaram. Where's your brother?" he asked.

"Very sorry," Barth hissed again to Siddie once they were close enough. "Family, you know. Um, Grimhold, if you could put the carriage up..."

Grimhold nodded hastily and slunk from the room.  

[Baneful]

Zar slunk his tail around Barth's waist and as always effortly moved with him, following where he sought to go rather than doing anything so undignified as dragging him. The contact with the other demon gave him emotions to latch onto which were not steeped in hopeless sadness.

Superbia was delighted to be picked up and switched to a number of affectionate avian chirrups as he fluffed up to something like twice his size in sheer puffed up feathers and nuzzled against the other demon. He only switched to actual words to say "With Father." which given a process of elimination clarified where the other scareling likely was.

Gilda watched them go with complete stillness and attention, but said nothing further, her core shifting a rainbow of colours in tune with her thoughts.