Welcome to Gaia! ::

After the glaring runes and the near-impalement, Lucky had been expecting something a little more, well, nightmarish.

He stood in the doorway for a few seconds too long, regarding the entirely ordinary situation inside. The explanation didn't do much to enlighten him. Frankly, if it meant Caelius would stay cheerful and non-murderous, was there really a problem here? People could keep their stupid weapons and boxes and whatever else. Far be it from him to think he could step in and shift the course of an eternal history of bloodshed.

No, what concerned him more was the wish.

Taking care not to touch anything in the room explicitly, Lucky took a tentative step forward. The others were gone. Shiloh was gone. No one else would ever have to know that he simply couldn't resist the possibility.

"Any vish?" he repeated faintly with a slight tilt of his head, the usual heavy accent obscuring his words. Images of impossible things came to mind, turning back time too far, too radically, to think they would bring about anything but disaster.

His tattooed hand, with its ugly scar that ran along palm and back, brushed against his coat. He had to think a little smaller. A little more personal. Something missing. Something he needed. Something that had been nagging him for months now with its incongruity.

"There is... someone," he began slowly, gradually picking up the pace. It was only after he began to speak that the paranoia set in. That he was making a mistake. Or that this was all too good to be true. The words kept coming regardless, though his voice wavered. "A hunter I knew before. Her name is - vas... Sam. I vish to know vhere she is. Right now," he added hastily.

He realized too late how little that was to go off of. He had never even learned her last name. He knew so little about her that it almost seemed like an insult to her that he was still digging around so many months after her death, trying to prove it was all just another conspiracy.

She could berate him when he joined her. It wouldn't be long now.

Regardless of their question, the answer was the same. The room grew a little wider and then there were five of them. A corner of the floor grew a checkered pattern and while only Death sat at the table, behind him was the shadowed figure of a small girl in a blue and white dress. She hummed abstractly in the background, but seemed faded away, as if looking at her distorted reflection, rather than an actual figure.

"Human sentiments are always interesting," Death started, and in his hands on the table was an old piece of parchment and a quill. He dipped it in the inkwell. "Without distrust, without uncertainty, there would be no Fear, so I certainly can not blame you for asking what is natural. I believe it is as you said, there is always a catch, but it is up to you to decide if you are desperate. I am after all an Ancient, and my servitude is of course to Humans. When the time comes, always have a choice. Just one wish, and you once fulfilled, the repercussions are of your own doing."

As he spoke, he began to write, a hissing noise apparent on the parchment. Black wisps escaped the paper as at the same time, all of them in the room, all human denizens in the room, would feel a brief flash of searing pain on their forearm. A signature was unraveling on their skin, carved in black, and as the pain receded, there was a pattern of a painted black hourglass.

"One wish, any time" the Ancient repeated, folding the parchment way, "and it will always come true, for as long as you desire. Also, I'm sure I do not have to tell you this but I was the ancient of death. That means your wish would indeed, have to revolve around my legacy. Now that business is done, Alice will show you the exit. Farewell."

The little girl stood up, her face still oddly blurry. She curtsied, and smiled, and then skipped towards the door and waited. To Lucky she gave an extra big smile. "Until next time."