Welcome to Gaia! ::

He should have known that it was more likely to see their only remaining Horseman than it was to see the Time Keeper again. It did not prevent Invictus from frowning internally, however. Death barely ever answered questions in any sense - whether this one or Aisa (who seemed smitten with the return of the Rider) - outside of making his agenda clear. After all, the permanent rider wouldn't always have time for them. In fact, he hardly had any to begin with.

He had other things to do and something about that smugness left a burning anger - or envy perhaps - inside of Conquest's heart. Uncertainty, perhaps just as Eris herself had been stirred by.

We will lead and not be led. The word smoldered there even as Aisa turned into a kitten who had just found her favorite ball of yarn. The others were speaking their approval to follow the Rider. Yet the look on his face was very much like that of his father - steeled and cold even to the other heirs with only the barest knit of his brow.

He remained silent and gave no answer.

A question or a wish? While Ryan didn't have any wish in particular, at least, none that he figured the horseman would grant, Ryan did want some answers. However...

"For what reason does 'that person' owe you a favour? The one you said Mark knows." There were probably many questions he should have asked in stead of this. But ever since Death had said it, Ryan felt curiosity gnawing at him. He wanted to know more about this. Just who did Mark know, that owed 'Death' a favour?

Rep listened to what the figure in front of them had to say, the callous way he seemed able to twist the world. And he was not afraid. Instinctually he should have been, what he was faced with was a creature of neither Halloween or of Humans. The horsemen were strange, unfathomable creatures, and why one would wish to help them in any way at all baffled him deeply. But he couldn't overthink it, the moment he over thought it, he would ask for nothing at all. And he had been given the chocolate simply for asking, and yet here he stood.

"He gave me it." he replied to Harrison, before turning his attention on the horseman before him, there was only really one thing he could ever ask for.

"Strength." he said. "I don't expect you to give me anything. I have to fight your people after all. But you are more than human. I want to be more than human. So I wish for power and strength, however you interpret that."

Folding her arms, Kat thought on it for a minute before shaking her head. "I don't need anything." Sure, she would love a cat, but this guy.. was creepy.

While wishes were tempted, there were always a cost. With Death, it usually didn't end well. Typical, Rep asked for strength, to which Melvin passed him. "You can't even handle what you have now, Rep." He said, pointing that out to him. "Do you think this is going to give you something for free? Not even our own techs do that."

He moved forward, and in true fashion, Melvin was here to ask questions.

"You have no reason to lie, you state all outcomes lead to death but in different ways to one end, and you preserve yourself. If I hold these to be true, and you do not know the outcome aside from us all dying, you must know of a way to make sure we don't die first or ways to die last. Some way to give us a edge over the rest to favor the outcome to our side. See, I'm the self-preserving type too and also like keeping the rest of my group alive, and if you saw these outcomes, you must have thought of ways to preserve yourself if you think everyone dies and you don't want to. So what is it? How do the Hunters turn the outcome in our favor and manage to preserve ourselves to this unavoidable ends that you see? I want that answer."

As unsettling as a smile from Death himself probably should have been, Mimsy felt a sense of comfort, or something very close to it. She didn't try to analyze why for once; she just smiled back, a real smile devoid of sarcasm or bitterness, releasing the hem of her shirt so it could slip back down to better reflect her dignity.

Two options. It should have been so straightforward - and for Dakota, who answered without missing a beat, it clearly had been. She wanted to believe that her questions and desires had significantly more depth than his, so she fought to dredge up something important enough for this moment.

<Oh, OH MIMSY, wish for legcovers of stars that are always in motion! Like TRUALITY MAGICS.>

Or a wish for Svensyl to have no voice for the rest of eternity.

Not that his suggestion of being able to wear a constantly shifting galaxy was unappealing, but there were a thousand more pressing questions, more useful wishes.

<Ask for a kiss! Now is YOUR CHANCE, niddleplum!>

The possibilities were piling up in her head, and something tugged at her over and over from the bottom of the pile, something she'd done her best to forget all about. But it was difficult to forget something that had been so important to her for such a huge portion of her life, especially when it existed within everything she touched.

Her life was on a steady decline, by her standards, bound to land somewhere she never would have wanted to be. She was allowing herself distractions. She was losing focus. She had been hugged and kissed and touched after more than half a lifetime of avoiding any of that. There was a clear point where everything had fallen apart, immediately followed by a week of refusing to eat or move or think. There was a time when she and all of her strength were broken, and it was very, very clear to her that the pieces had not been properly put back together. And at this juncture, she didn't think that they ever could be again.

So logically, she had only one choice. Had her resolve never been damaged, she would have never fallen so far behind in her work, would have rid herself of Clerise by now, would have never grown weaker through companionship, would have never submitted a second time to the tall man and his shadows.

The sickness she'd felt at her discovery of failure churned in her stomach, but this time it turned cold and impassive in lieu of envy.

"I wish..." Her brow twitched, and she held her head a little higher. She couldn't let appearances drop now. "...handsome, that I had been the one to discover the inarguable proof behind the Higgs Boson, so that my name and my name alone would be permanently bound to the particle responsible for the mass of everything. I am certain that this is a simple request for someone of your capabilities."

The tentativeness and flat-out refusal of some of those around her had not gone unnoticed. If she had anything to lose, she might have been among them, but she hated what she had become, and probability dictated that she would most likely never have another chance to request something from an entity who could rework time, destroy the lives of an entire team of scientists, and grant her a passive form of immortality all at once.