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Albite didn’t knock, cause he was practicing things now. Was working on homing in on all that was his and making it work in ways that didn’t leave him standing in halls, foyers, and on ******** street corners like a donkey with its a** out.

Loathed in some ways how right Faustite was, because if he couldn’t lock onto a location? He just ‘stayed’, and finding ways to trick his mind into tricking his body - willing all of that into doing more than staying!? s**t was proving to be a right treat. Not that there weren’t ways, but he didn't want to rely on them forever. On sense memory feelings, and touch, on smells…

Like some knight who needed a kerchief and hand-warmers to remember his fair lady by. Figured if he was going to kick the habit of it? No better place to start than with the one place he was most familiar with. How for him, it tripped the memory wires and neurons laden in his brain that said ‘this is go + green lights for spacewalking’ - how he swore he knew Faustites Office better than the back of his hand at this point. For all the ways that it checked every box he had - for all that he’d turned it to an ashencinder ruin of a room.

It forever felt like the only office worth walking into - despite how much he abhorred them, still.

If he could just --- slowly bang his head against the rough hewn stone on the other side of the ******** wall and dredge up some form of <********…” he had a stupid rift cinder thing, couldnt’ ascertain it’s use outside of the fact that holding it seemed to do the trick nine times outta ten --- and clutched that hard enough to whiten his knuckles before he backed up and clipped full tilt at the wall -- stepped through void and into Faustites space, grinned around the s**t feeling that came with it, wondered when he’d get over that.

One beat - another - a third - and shallow little in and out breaths helped him remember that the floor wasn’t coming up to drag him down; that he wasn’t going down to meet it on the way up. However gravity worked these days. How he thought the view from where he was standing would’ve been so much better without the touch of vertigo that made him pause long enough to find a fixed unmoving point to bore holes into.

Long enough to hear the question parsed ever so carefully, and there was intrigue in there - a good thing - a…

“The new glass looks good.” where his gaze twitched to the slightly reflective glare that cast flickers of Faustite’s flames out, that held his sweet orbies in. Lively little glow bugs and how good they looked framed up again. More free now than they were before - more -

“Oh, uh..” and explaining himself was something he could do without getting side tracked for five whole minutes. Like he’d wandered into the kitchen with a plan in mind and forgotten it immediately upon entering. Couldn’t walk out again, because that would require using doors and he was determined to avoid using doors for as long as his insides would allow it - voidshit be damned - didn’t kill him to suck it up a little and swallow down all the bile n pride that he’d have to give up to make the teleportation trick work.

“I wanna take you out, but as you. Like, you as you are right now?” let the emphasis sit heavy on the concept of Faustite as he was. Not Eion, not the man he wore to bank the flames - just - him. “N’ since I owe an assload of quota to the talking head in the sky.” heaved a flustered huff of air, low whistle for how little of an explanation that was and he found it far easier to just - procure a flyer from subspace and present that instead.

“Tis the season for being scary, yeah? N’ there’s all these beach festivals popping up - kinda ‘off the grid’ stuff - near enough to the water so people can put out the flames….and also skip out on jet-skis if the cops roll up.'' The thing was half torn and crumpled to hell; dirty where it’d peeled from the brickwork, for all the glue and grit that stuck to its backing. On the face of it an advertisement for fire dancers, lava rock walks, demons n’ dragons galore.

Spirit of the season buried somewhere beneath scantily clad pyros and women draped in boas of the constrictor variety.

“It’s some real ‘bolas de fuego’ s**t, or as close as Destiny City can get to it. It could be fun.” all the hope he held close. Tightly wadded knot that sat dead center in his soul, flint and kindling for his grin - and all he needed was a spark - the spark - his whole teams ******** spark, becaus? ******** hell, did he want to take Faustite out.

Thought if he could give him this thing, a place to blend where people wouldn’t look twice because they were already seeing double and enthralled with everything else; even if it was just for a minute? Tentative outreach at weaving things back together where he’d shattered them, because he hoped that if he poured gold back in between the cracks it’d make things better. Didn’t need it new and shiny, or replaced, or refurbished. He just needed it to be something like whole again. Would drip something pretty into the pitfalls and chips, fill it up whatever he was afraid of that way.

Not a direct ‘No’, not even a half hearted <******** the hell off’, so it must’ve been a ‘yes’? Possibly a hell yes!? Good enough for him and the tiny little Albite that lived on inside his head, how he cheered, threw up ten thousand fists and a chorus of excited expletives - mini mental party because he was getting all his Christmas wishes come early, in October no less?!

“So you’re anxious when you’re high? Gotit - no weed for Faustite — “ thought of how many things lived in food, drinks, wax and vapors. How maybe he’d keep off and they’d get work done, find other ways to have fun.

Could get him drunk enough to walk through the flames, put the fear of something like a god into people. Wanted that. To loose an inferno on them wholesale and watch them all drop, quota had and good times gained in spades.

“All the pretty little corpses, s’ah shame..but like…yeah, feel free to take hearts n’ names if they ******** with you firebrand. It’s a come as you are kinda party - no dresses, no gimmicks, no Eion unless you wan’ him. If the pyros n tweakers wanna take their chances?” a far more confident shrug and smile that gave off the impression of lazy nonchalance. He knew he’d help if it came down to it, would sigh for the loss and laugh his a** off for anyone who got close enough to touch. Who would learn that the presented parlor trick of a man on fire was real enough to burn.

Wondered how many people he could find who’d be into that exact thing—

Not the burning, no, but the package that held possibilities? The image of his Firebrand as a stand-in for something like a ‘sinferno’ - someone’s fantasy, surely.

The pendant got popped into subspace along with the paper, had the real thing now, didn’t need a cheap imitation of youma and rift when he had the blazing pyre of Agni’s heat and narrowed ember eyes standing before him.

“If you’re down for it — I’m driving?” He stepped close enough to feel warm, loomed a little with open arms and hands held palm side up. Ready.

“Good” - hot to the touch, and so he was careful with it. Had learned how to hold and feel the heat without searing his fingerprints off. Might beg his firebrand to don his cincher for a bit —

A fleeting thought that fluttered softly along the lines of ‘might’. Lightning quick thing that faded where his breath bled open over a laugh for having his generals trust in this. His favor, his — fevered skin that could’ve blackened, but didn’t.

So he grabbed and tugged. Turned the motion into something that resembled leading someone into a waltz. More like a dance, and less like he was trying to yank someone out of traffic or off of a collapsing rooftop. He wouldn’t say, even on a good day, that he had finesse, but? He was learning.

To step out of Faustites office - onto sands that met shorelines with little room to spare between the wet shiff of heavy minerals. Where his heels sank, gritty crunch to the twist of them. How the scope of it all butted up against lapping waves wrapped over black set pebbles. The spray cast up scents, cold deep lake, algae — clear, crisp air.

Motorboats in the distance - their lights as reflective as the moon until they cut dead— pyres backdropped by shadows that swam in circles — heavy drum beats and howls.

Bodies. Painted, half clothed, alive! ‘Ours for the taking - every drop of what they have to give.’

That they’d give freely to them with only a little coaxing.

“C’mon— let’s go hunting.” the gravel swagger tone of confidence turned up to ten, and he relinquished his hold even as he kept close enough to be heard. He wanted to play, wanted to snarl for having the chance to get his boy out. To see the way his body lit aflame against the others - and burned brighter -—

And the sound of something like a molotov going off —where it lit a blaze far down the beach in an arc before it struck ground and spit out orange-blue smoke that billowed up to obscure the cheerful bodies skipping through it.

Albite was more grateful for outings

Where he felt Faustite (an ever intelligent boy) must’ve divined the motions of the heavens from tea leaves, in order to so masterfully interweave the fateful strings of other people's lives; wound them between finebone fingers and ichor painted claws.

Albite? Ooh, he spoke bodies, knew their language in sinew and blood, by touch, by sight, by sound. He’d made speaking to the feelings of others his mother tongue; and he sung the songs of youthful camaraderie in deep tones. Knew the language of ‘being alive’ even better than he knew English.

So when people approached? Spied an eager curiosity in the pair of them and spoke out for it — he met them.

Clasped hands where they were offered, brushed shoulders, spoke quick patterned pace over one's half drunken slurs and another’s high tittered coos.

Didn’t hardly care if a dark woman touched over the bound ends of his tied hair — if they marveled at his tats — so much to touch — a pile of fresh voiced surprise that he answered, eagerly —“This is my boy. Heh, my man on fire! For real, so no ******** with h— oh — oh we are absolutely gonna put on a ******** *show*.”

Felt like iit answered twenty questions in one. Asked as many after; because he hoped they had the stage up — had a driftwood effigy ready to set alight — like burning man, but with more fire. Set lakeside and inner city, for the poor, downtrodden and weary. Easily accessible to the strange masses who would’ve marveled at it, instead of those who could afford to be thirsty in the middle of a damned desert.

“Actually — lookit this s**t!” Made it look like fireflies, like a magic trick. Snapped his fingers and formed an orb of stolen goods — sucked the life of the trio who gathered to stare like awe struck sheeple. Gentle tidbits — secret sparks of their essence that would leave them standing; if only a little more tired from watching the show.

He was never more glad for his time spent out with Aqua, with Sylvite; malling around, hitting up bars enough to where he felt he’d gained a firm grasp on snatching energy hands free.

“It’s good tricks, huh firebrand?” smooth as smoked glass and whisky, albite leveled his boy with a smirk. Like he’d just offered the whole of the world up like well aged wine ready to be savored. The way their life forces flowed with different flavors before he snapped again and sent them off to subspace beyond.

“We should find — who’s running this again? Starts with an A—Whatever, we could do a mass version of this? Yeah! Fireflies for the people, it’d look good floating in over the lake, n then if everything goes up after?”

And his eyes reflected the catch of Faustites flames, flickered with them, as he peeled out of some redhead’s grip — stepped back enough to beckon Faustite in. It was cold enough, the people could hover for the heat - could cozy up against the crisp air between one bonfire and the next.

All the man made things that littered the shores, his own, personal, man-made fire.

“Showoff…” murmured softly over the subsequent ‘ooh’s’ that rose in the air like embers for the lightshow. He could practically taste their interest in his boy; in tense bits of quiet breathing that rose and eased rapid pace. Any lingering worries seemed smothered by the sameness of the act. A trick repeated twice over was a truer trick for sure.

Especially when every bit of energy siphoned off them made them more lax as a whole. Trackable by the rise and fall of glitter dusted skin, soft clinks of layered metal and shiffed cloth that rustled over slowed breathing. He liked the idea that all of that s**t would cling to them; iridescent speckles shed by others, bits of sand caught in heel treads.

He would bring Faustite home a mess. One way or another.

Though he knew he couldn’t mock them all too much. Hell, at one point - that’d been him. Some, none-the-wiser happy in his ignorance, boy; blind to the magical mystery of it all. He might’ve stayed like them, too. If anything had gone even a hair different, because who the hell followed the gas-leak driven, drug-induced-fantasy idea that DC - no - that all of the localized solar system and beyond?

Was double fisted ******** full of Magic.

People crazier than a pack of pyro-loving partygoers, that was for ******** sure. How those in attendance were probably just taking one night to burn it all before returning to the mundanity of their day jobs. Though, in that moment, a deep part of him thought it might’ve been better if some of them simply – didn’t. Not for any great wrong they’d committed, just because…

People who were looking to get burned needed lessons n’ fire safety, and the way that girl hovered around what was ‘his’ with eyes that said ‘hers’. How she dared to reach with long delicate fingers that traced a little too close to metal grating; nearly touched the fine furled bolts that held his boss’s core together.

She was clearly fascinated. He encouraged it.

Slid free of cloying hands to hiss in ‘Miss Eden’s’ ear. The most eager of serpents offering bushels of apples and sweet nothings. He’d show her a trick, it’d be lit as ********, absolute fire. Got in turn a narrow smirk that said ‘I’ve had better’. Thrilled for that, and the way her eyes stayed on the obvious prize – lingered on the heat of Faustite to her right while he tucked her into the crux of one arm, dipped her back; like it was something practiced.

Moves to a familiar dance, instead of an impromptu show.

All other jewels that adorned her, and none shone nearly as bright as the one he pulled from within her center.

Mini-supernova pulsing in the palm of his hand, and the surrounding ******** cheered; missed the flash of worried pain on her features, because he could be fast at this. Could make it seem far more sensual than it was - toyed with his own often enough that toying with hers was childsplay.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Except he wasn’t talking about the starseed. Wasn’t even looking at it -- because he was watching Faustite instead. Searched his features for that tightly wound something – that blink and you missed it clench of hunger— like catching the moment a shark scented blood in the water. Old, dangerous, youma.

‘Hello, Agni.’

The machinations of that under the thinly veiled stretch of a human's flesh. <********, but he liked that look. He really — really — just…

Tucked her lifeforce back between a deep valley of finebone framework and listened to her gasp back into being. Dead weight gone lively, easily foisted back onto her friends. The ‘how dare’ look she shot him as her eyes fluttered open went ********, ignored, because he’d warned her.

“C’mon Firebrand – “ two steps closer, to eat the space - fill it. Gentle touch of blunt tipped nails -taptaptap- over the gold ruby clasped collar round his boss’s throat. Layers that hid the boy’s pulse, buttoned down his breathing. A right ******** shame, for those were all things he would’ve liked to see “---we’ve got a whole world to burn.”

Let the warm words lie as he turned heel and swayed past the group, angling his steps towards where fires flared and impromptu structures gained form and stature in the distance.