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((I need to start RPing in here more often... I miss Feimurgan...))

The Other merely lowered his head at Lucind's words, and began chuckling.

"Yesterday... life was such an easy game to plaay..." The Other merely smiled at Lucind, even as he took several steps back, his body cracking.

"...Now I've found a place to hide a-waay...' His eerily sing song voice drifted through the air even as his body shattered into fine powdered ice.

Right behind where Vahn and Owle were, the voice picked up, lines forming as if out of thin air. ""...Oh-oh I be-leeve in yesterdaay..." Yellowed eyes narrowed even as that lopsided grin appeared. "...suddenly..."

Vahn turned his head, glancing behind him in surprise.

"...I'm not half the man I used to be--"

"--You!" He whirled at the manifestation that was now staring him dead in the eyes.

"Hello, buddy. Heard you missed your boyfriend. 'Boom boom in the room.' and all."

"I'm not here for your entertainment, a*****e. I think its time to put you under lock and key."

"For the moment, no your not. But I'm working on that, pal. Rest assured." The Other grinned, matching Vahn's gestures and looks.

"Don't mimic me, you b*****d!"

"Mimic you? Mimic you?" Pale yellowed eyes narrowed. "I would never mimic you, pal. That's not what I'm doing at all. I am you."

"You're not me. You want to be me-- that's what this childish little game is all about."

"And you secretly want to be me. You didn't end up here by accident. You came here yourself."

"Don't flatter yourself, you're just a rogue aspect of my personality. You're something else that grew out of control, and before long you won't exist anymore because of these two women."

"Mm. Did you ever consider the notion that you're a rogue aspect of my personality? Maybe it's you who are the imposter."

"Shut up."

"You're out of your mind... Getting lost in your own head and talking to yourself like this. What am I really? I'm your dark conscience, your grubby little secret."

"Shut up!"

"Do you ever tell your friends about the scabby little part of your brain that you can't itch? Have you told them what we both know-- that eventually I'll get out of here and then its curtains for humanity?"

The Other grinned towards Owle.

"And that includes the new wifey. I can't wait to scratch her a little more. Rraowrr."

"Simmer down, children."

The remark seemed to be addressed more to the Other than to Vahn...but they were both bickering like five year olds, getting absolutely nowhere. She stepped forward, positioning herself to the side of the two Vahns, where she could see and address them both. She wasn't afraid of the Other, for all his posturing and threats. If he'd wanted to make good on them he'd have started already.

"You shouldn't think of yourself as something overly special. There've been others like you....or at least with the same threatening potential. -

"She's right, you know..." Owle spoke up, quietly as Lucind finished talking. She seemed to be looking not at them, but at a single golden snake that rose from the ground to slide up her arm, carressing her even as she carressed it. Finally she looked up at them all, grinning. "You're not the only one. Why, once upon a time..."

Story time for the bickering five year olds.

"These guys were black as night, and almost always threatening to rage out of my control."

Again, she gestured to the snakes around her, and around Lucind.

"I hated them, pushed them away. They embodied everything I hated about myself...my anger, my greed and lust for power...every aspect I found somehow unsavory found its way in them. And so I refused to even consider they might be a part of me, and they came to take on a consciousness of their own.

"For their part, they always acknowledged I was a part of them...but all they wanted from me was the freedom to act on their desires, or rather I should say our desires...

"I reined them in, time and time again, stopping them just before they hacked someone's mind, or hurt someone...until one night."

She paused, glancing a moment at her feet.

"They came in contact with an artifact that boosted their power, and got the better of me...they wanted the artifact, and hacked a friend of mine, forcing him to almost kill himself as they strove to take it from him...

"He never looked me in the eyes again. To his dying day he never forgave me. And even then, I thought all I could do was try to bind this power up inside me...

"It took...torture, and falling in love with a madman who wanted my entire species dead before I was finally able to figure out what the hell was going on. I more or less had two choices...I could face it. I could acknowledge they were a part of me, become one with them so to speak, and become a little bit more of everything I hated...or I could not. I could let things remain as they are, and constantly be worried that they would break loose again, kill someone..."

Owle sighed, watching the serpents slither around her.

"For their part...well, they wanted freedom, one way or the other. If I acknowledged them, they'd get it sooner...we'd be whole, and they'd have as much freedom as I. If I didn't, well, they'd keep on doing what they did...breaking down my barriers, one at a time, waiting for the moment when they'd be free again."

Finally she looked up, and shrugged.

"I chose the way that meant I wasn't going to destroy my friends unintentionally. At least this way, if I rape someone's mind out of greed it's me doing it, not some entity outside of my control, without my better qualities to help keep it in check.

"Sooner or later, the two of you are going to have to accept you're two parts of the same whole and start acting like it. Or else..."

She turned to Vahn fully, trying to convey with a glance that she didn't doubt his strength, his ability to keep the Other in check, despite her next words.

"...you're always going to have to worry about him taking over, and wreaking havoc in your body, like Lucind said."

She looked at the Other, then, pity in her eyes.

"As for you...yeah, you might get free." She shrugged. "But you'll always be empty, no matter what you do. Besides..." And here she smiled. "If you do take over, I'll be there to slap you back down. I may not always be Owle, but I'm the type who gets reborn over and over, no matter how many times I'm destroyed...my soul is immortal, and I can arrange it so that in every life I come to make sure you haven't busted loose, and fix it if you have."

Lucind just waited now, but wouldn't relax until the Other had vanished completely.

Deep inside she wished for a double espresso...

Someone was dancing about on the roof of Feimurgen in delight, much to the avid attention of most of the male staff.

Jeans bum swung to the left, her chest went to the right, bum to the right, chest the opposite way. Jean could bounce when she wanted to. And right now. She wanted to.


"~Hot stuff!" Oh. And she was singing, at the top of her lungs, wings flapping wildly and probably half off key.

She was winning the game. Knights was half asleep, on the table, ignoring the the board avidly. It was only when she sat down again, and moved a piece, giggling hysterically, did he open an eye, blink and promptly rolled over onto the whole thing, devistating everything.

Jeans jaw dropped. "You b*****d...HOW THE HELL DO YOU WIN?!" There was a splat and a few sympathetic groans as the dragon was thrown into the wall.

A sigh.

Amber eyes focussed on the body lying next to her on the stretcher, then wandered up to Owle's form.

"You okay?"

The Half-Siren's voice still wore the cool and neutral tone like it had had in Vahn's mind - and now, back in reality and in combination with the semi-darkness and warmth of the room it maybe sounded a bit cold and reserved.

Right when Owle would react, the storing room's door opened and Larhien, Lucind's twin brother came in, exchanging a few looks, a few calm words in Seireneia - then, with a flick of his hand, the tall man produced a single pearl out of a leather-wristband, which directly started changing its form and turned into Larhien's own Siren weapon: a staff, around four feet long with a broad blade of additional one and a half feet on each side.

Within this small room he was to act carefully, nevertheless he skillfully swirled his weapon around two times, doing diagonal slashes and mumbled something - whereupon a strong but pleasant wind found its way in through the small windows and brushed over everyone and everything before vanishing and leaving a feeling of freshness, clearing one's head.

The weapon shrinked back and Larhien left the room - together with Lucind who didn't look back.
But Kara came back to take care of Owle and ask her, if she now wanted to eat something.





"What's wrong, hun?" Gently rubbing his sisters shoulder, Larhien felt the woman tensing up and thus pulled back. Everytime Lucind came back from such a 'mental trip' she was like that: searching some distance, reacting reserved or depressed, slightly aggressive even, just like her fullblood relatives - only that he was watching with some worry that this behaviour had become more extreme lately.

Drawing some power from the lhor aven, the Half-Siren stood next to the pond in her shop's garden, its water floating up to wrap itself around her outstretched hand.

She finally turned around to smile at her brother. "I'm fine....s'just that, well...men, you know. Always the same with them."

"...I see." He smiled back but knew it wasn't wise to ask what exactly she'd meant with that right now.





In the evening Lucind finished her shift and for the first time after leaving Vahn and Owle was able to have a word with him and not just quickly peek into the room.
Vahn had been brought into Lucind's room on the second floor, next to the library section. There he had direct access to a bathroom and a spiral staircase lead into the office and kitchen.

It was all so fast.

At first, there were the two strange people playing their odd game, much like they always did, at the top of Feimurgen, and then they were silent. Both had jerked their heads up in responce to something.

There may have been barriers in the way, distance, a magical shield...but there were some things in a beings life that were so deeply rooted in the conscious and subconscious that it was hard for any sort of block to avoid. Things like hope...love...and absolute terror could translate along all sorts of lines of reality, Knights and Jean were no exception to this.

"We're running out of time..."


"I don't think that really applies anymore, do you?"

The shock had actually made Knights change back to his full form, unfortunately of which was completely nude, but that didn't seem to bother him for now, though a lot of the waitresses were staring in shock, and wicked admiration. Jean absentmindedly just handed him his overcoat, which only made the nudity slightly more inconspicuous.

"Well we've got to do something, the rules..."

"Are being followed. We're the ones breaking them, remember?"

Jean bit her lip and clutched her chest. "We shouldn't leave it much longer though."

"He wouldn't want to come back to nothing, now would he?"

"I suppose you're right, as usual."

She didn't bother to switch on the light after walking up the spiral staircase and pushing a button at the wall which opened a hatch right where the stairs broke through the floor of her room. It which was constructed like an aperture - one of those special constructions which had been on Lucind's wishlist during the renovation of the building. There was a second one between her room and the roof since those stairs went on upwards: those 'irises' mainly served as normal doors to block any noise or simply provide intimacy, but if needed they were also able to even keep someone with meta-human powers occupied for some time.

Closing that fine hatch behind her she saw her bed being empty and only the small form of a black cat standing in the middle of the room, sniffing at the carpet and raising its head to look up at the woman coming in.

"Hey Owle...," she greeted quietly and knelt down. "You alright?" Peeking over to the bathroom, her warm smile became quite thin.

She stood up and silently started to change the bedding, taking a new set out of the cupboard next to the door from where the sounds of Vahn taking a shower could be heard.