"Excuse me sir, what are you doing with that belt?" A nearby passing nurse came through a different patient's room, frozen shock of a tall man holding a belt like his going to kidnap someone. This same nurse softly steps back to the inner of the door for a silent alarm. Afriad of it being them to be attacked by a person with no visible common sense in those eyes. It wasn't long for many feet to rush around.
The questions thick and fast. Asking his name and to explain why his here. If he had a brain injury or any history of mental health issues. They had several nurses tackle this guy, as he refused to speak and refused to let the humans bother him. Someone knocked the man out with injection, dragging him away from this area. Plenty looked around confused for what or who he spoke to. Someone had CCTV up with checking. Nothing was visible, she wasn't among the living humans in a stable sense. She suspects this is actually a spirit dead form.
"I would be in my house. The house is existing here. In the mutant zone." She recalls, "The shop down stairs would be gone. My apartment with charms. My candles." She sees herself fading, "I must be waking up." She got up and looking back to the room his in, "I live on the high street. The house by the bus to my work." She shuffles softly forwards, "I was fired and hospitalized though." She crossed her front with a little scuffle of her step, "Moved to a vault care." She thinks deeply in a little pause, striding without doubt of navigating where home is, "I had walked out. I took my grandfather house. Survived for a little while hunting. Came to ocean veiw and got recuited." She clicked fingers, "I joined the British military. Retired. Meeting Curiosity in the pub." She close her eyes with being ready for waking again.
I will be proven wrong about where I thought I am, always do. Everything isnt what I assume when I open my eyes. Are you ok?
She wakes up stood and in chain, hands above head. Her body beaten and burising in all the defensive places. Sheilding her neck and stomach means all these brown black spots are along arms and back. She splattered to get a little blood out of her throat. She flustered eyes in seeing the symbolic circle around her; sand, salt, candles and partly fleshed cow heads. Herbs burning - sage?A forgotten lost language in a throat itching chant.
She stares at the poeple, look average but they all familiar. Family? She eye rolls in seeing what they use as the chant, that book is useless to humans. Demon language from another universe. Displaced as she is. She can't even be happy to hear them butcher to language so many wrong ways. She has nothing on but her clothes, her coat is nearby with all the gear she needs.
"Speak a name." She snaps her left hand in reply and the spell around them turned into powder. The candles spots burn spots. The skulls ash. The herbs brown withered. She gets her baring to steady feet, it is barely enough to unhook her hands down. Chains roll off her once lost of the tension. Proper silver metal, expensive to replace. She barely wipes her face a little which slough slipped the whole feature off. She makes her move, left foot first. The cult members drop scared, peeing themselves. Her skin that was a face bubbled and blackened as a puddle the further she was from it. A brown dried stain remains like how time withered the other parts of the ritual circle.
"Alright folks. Time to stop the stupid." She makes it right over the leader, her left hand takes the book off them, "This isn't even worth a damn." She puts the book into her body, through her hole in her torso. They scream like little girls, she leans blocking a ear. She shook her head away from them and noticed something that looks like it was hers.
She has freedom to pick up her coat, putting it back on. Pats pockets for what she has going on. Found a key to an apartment complex, a little wallet with her current ID - address on it. She steadies herself again, the wounds making her unsteady or her current abnormalities she hasn't paid mind about.
Watching them flee the crime scene. She stares watching them blindly knocking in fight flight response. Some crashed over a stairwell in screaming. Some are clicking a dead elevator. A real crazy guy is climbing a fire exit in a window. She goes back to standing at the chains. The stairwell is really loud.
"Hands up!" Police or military. People that are peace keeping. She poses willingly. Not sure if they see her as a human. They rush around avoiding the remains of the ritual and collar grappled the freak on the fire platform. They tackled cuffed the elevator folks. She lowered with her arms beyond aching from the posture she was in.
"Are you a mutant?" Guns trained at her which she softly returns her hands visible.
"Here is my id. I wasn't here willingly." She pointed to the pocket that matters. She open palms as they send two people to dig her pockets. They got it out, nod confirming it. Tossed back to her which she caught and slips back to pocket, "I don't know how I got here. In fact, I don't remember a lot." She willingly speaks up of her circumstances. Softly the guns are trained with those squished about the floor.
"Are you able to make your way home or are you needing aid?"
"I dont know." She takes her coat off from the shoulders to show some of the damage, "I am not sure of my body." They see the chain imprint. Someone came up and uses divine energy based magic which has healing capabilities. Hand held over spots, she felt it like an x-ray. Sometimes where the hand hovering is mending. She feels it knitting back. It is enough for the blood to reverse back in on the worst spaces. It isn't perfect but it was better.
"Thank you." softly nods and they back away. That healer is helped by someone as they used a lot of energy to help her.
"You can leave now." Commanded at her. She isnt fussed, they have enough to handle with this bunch. She gives lean to find balance. Her head to nod towards the team, coat back on and she walks herself to the stairs. Swaying drunk like steps. She getting better at each step in term of vertigo. Those teamed at the stairs out of here plastered away from her, letting her past without conflicts.
"One the freaks that lives in the monster block." Spoken matter of fact with a careless shrug, "No wonder this illegal gang thought to try some poor voodoo." the crime scene is deeply inspected in all angles, "I guess she took their book of spells away. Left the chain. Ruined the whole marking enslaving." The expert of the team studies the place, "The very magic used for that cast is empty here. She must be one them, undertakers."
She sheilds herself all the best she can, using spare materials to hood up. It wasn't a long walk. It was not hard to recall the street, the shops and the whole block of flats. She sees echoes of the gang that blocked the front door. There isnt anyone human there now, no normal people down this street. She takes the back entry, exactly the way the maintenance man helped her through. She recalls how code goes at ease. The elevator humming. Her reflection shows the old her laughing at the maintenance man with the replacement sink. The light flickers dimmer and the rough stop. The door partly sticks but she pries it softly open.
It is clean hallways. Scratches on set doors. Runic languages on frames. She shuffles slowly, eyeing the front door numbers of the neighbors. The echo of the sink being carried past her and the local god being whom owns this block. She noticed his here now as he was spirt back then, the same spot. The same smile. The bark like wood skin, the paint like designs of mock tattoos. The deeper carving in hos body have veins tribal hold vivid greens, golds and reds. This was the building owners spirit body.
She softly pauses to her door, looking at her house key. A finger traces it. There was a soft muffle step inside her rooms. She listens her door, the living room is full of undertakers. She smirks. She tries the key, it unlocked. She pauses hearing fighting a few doors down. She locked up again. She hovered with concern, posing in debate of interrupt it. She finds the next door flung up.
"I never should have been a part of this!" That girl walked head first into Leana. Crashing on the floor from the sheer force.
"Wow, you have been through a lot." The building owner shifted into his mock human, the welcomed black uncle. A good soul, as Leana remembers. She pulled the brat girl on her feet, off the floor.
"Don't touch me!" Can't get out of the hold since Leana hands arent human joints. So the girl is soon hissing screaming. Fighting. When the joints finally unlock, the girl hits the wall a little.
"I am sorry, but I tried to warn you about this. You wanted to be my girlfriend. You wanted this, even when we said no." Wolf shifter. The lad is slightly older then university days. So was the girl. Still here.
"Nothing changes." Leana tuts about it all and back to her apartment. Key again, "I wonder who else will be bothering me." Opens the door, gave a little wave at them all about the corridor. They stare stuck to the spot.
"Miss Fallown, have you lost your face again?" The building owner asked with concern.
"That... they were all fake identities. I don't need them anymore." softly plays down, "It be nice for a shower." She gentle steps in and closed door behind. The building owner nods getting that she was done pretending to be human. He pulls the wolf kid back to his place. He picked up the unconscious girl too.
"There isn't anyone that uses that door unless they are a materials world." Rudely nearly poked in the face. She back hands this rudeness away from her. She pushed this fella aside, as easy as it would to move any clay statue. She studies her poor flat. She casts magic, a dust cloud pulling the dust in a sweep, swirling down a trash shoot or down drains. The jar shattered is gone, added to a trash heap in her shadow realm storage. The peeling drawings of half finished landscapes come alive again, vivid and breathing of new sketches. The whole unit that is fridge freezer is shadow swapped. It is replaced entirely, stock filled of fresh recently bought foods.
She checked the other rooms in the same motions of hand flicks flowing this cleansing of impurities and she finds old lost tools, mostly human ones. She ignored the undertakers that stare everywhere with all new alertness.
She goes for her shower like she said. Once she all cleaned up and bandaged up of the wounds that still hurt. She clothed up to something suitable, veil black goth dress. She steps gentle exiting the toilet.
"Excuse me, do you..." the person was all stiff in study of her. She sighed it was the new normal. She walks through the ghost and around the kitchen. She makes herself clean a ton of tall flasks thermos. She has a side of experimenting tea tastes. Boiling a four kettles on the stove. She labels up the new clean thermos flasks. Adding the silk pouches of blends accordingly to the labels. She is plenty left to her living habit without disturbance. A new batch of tea brews and path walker tonics.
"Your partner will be here soon. Make sure you have something nice. He needs a bit of love." Munnin whispers her ear, she felt the connection too. She got to work with several different options. From three drink options he knows, a little shiny gift, a new feather and a plate of cookies. Fresh bake. She cork caps the drinks. She pauses feeling a pain, made her pull a pain releif aid to the table. She hasn't made it all neat, but she stands ready. She ignored everyone around her. Her shadow slaps someone stealing the cookies.
"I can't..." he steps from a disc and froze up. She tilts with a soft welcome, "You." He rushed past everyone and shivers at her shoulders. She finds him clingy, smothered in massive hug. He feels terrible, she leans into him. Not sure what he did wrong. She will know soon.
"They took away your faces." He thinks that is his fault?
"I didn't need them anymore." She pats him. He goes to speak and she shoved a cookie there. Peeling apart to study his confused face. She leans to him with having a moment. A breather. Just feeling in the hold. He relaxed plenty. The cookie ate. She poses to the counter with offers. He smiles but hugs her. She used her right hand to turn off the stove and all the storage of the bits back. She even placed the cookies to a cookie jar.
"Beloved lady, there isn't anything left for us to stay here." Her servants bowing.
"Then you can go where your needed or want. You know my rules." She softly told them, then thanked her for her generosity. Leaving through a time rift. She closed the rift by hands, claws pinching the material close. She clicked her hands back to a mock normal. She goes back to Curiosity side.
"That's right, my creepy wife." He snorted like it was the greatest thing, "Did they hurt you?"
"The cultist never stop being idiots." She sighed, "Nothing new." He hugs around her, feeling her presence. His hands dancing her figure.
"Will you two just get a room?" Pride makes himself clear, "sheesh."
"The one that welcomes me." She snickered. The scaling of the uniform doesnt change, hunging body shape and looking right out of a striper club. Seams ready to bust.
"You save me from abyss. You were lacking anyone for the graduation." He spoke gentle at her ear. She tilts trying to think back, clearly her younger years. She remembers her arm joint being dislocated, the benches that she stood for class photo.
"Not the only time I will pull you from the abyss." She pats his head, "in any case, is there business or you just need a nap?"
"I am an undertaker." He spoke like he needed to remind her.
"And I am monarch of a lost crest. Doesn't change what needs are. Sometimes having a break is OK. I can pause time for us." He laughed a little like that was impossible and then there a slow dawning feeling that nags him. That itch of, she could actually.
"You keep disappearing." He pouts, forced her face to his. He stares inside unfazed of her lacking visible one. His eyes still know where her eyes are and lips. He has even managed to thumb trace where her lips are.
"I am a hidden one. I maybe no visible but I am always watching. Just a typical ghost from the abyss. Eating your fears, nightmares and negativity." He was a little flustered. Afriad and happy. She was the one that pulls for a kiss, doing exactly as she said. Removing the cursed energy and unwelcomed. He break the kiss as she was very visible for all to see. From her lacing around his feet to the way her hair can't be tamed under the death god veil. He brushed her back with very much enjoying that kiss.
"We have a mission to do." Pride snarls.
"No rest for those that work the shadows." Leana taunts, "Is it relative to London? The national painting galleries?" The whole lot of them all stiff up that she's in the know. Curiosity can only sigh glad he doesnt have to try to explain the awkward part to her. That he needs her to go with them.
"One of your creatures is clawing up the inside of the works." He looked at her.
"Narly likely." She nods at this, "That kitten is way to much energy and loves curtain dancing. It wafted the wavelengths out of synchronization and thus things hidden become visible." She crossed her arms at her front, holding her old scar like always. She was going into a neck breaking tilt, "That stripe demon cat." He holds his hands at her neck to pose her to a natural pose. Very gingery soft like he fears her breaking more.
"And how exactly do we get ourselves invited to a gallery that even the rich and famous are shunned?" The team he works with all snarls at him for answers. But there is this slow dawning look about Pride, he had triple checked her outfit and overheard the words of conversation.
"My wife is one the exclusive members." Curiosity pulled her sensitive areas to himself in being possessive. She is blushed about this extra breach of her personal bubble. The team stare skeptical and in doubt of her being a real undertaker. The lacking parts means she should be a dusted one. The face maybe not important but the hole in her lower torso is very clear to see.
"Are we going as undertakers or mock humans?" She asked them since she needed to consider this, "You will have to cross over a few rivers to get there, like the Thames. London bridge and all." She was pulled very tightly; to be plastered on him.
'Avoiding some annoying folks.' He commented through their link.
'There is a small set of the red hands that has to go or come from there. So no avoiding someone like my mother, grandfather or a young apprentice to death in the form of my former brother.'
She rolls into playing the situation, buries herself in his embrace without questioning it. There a long stand off of shuffling, passing people in deep glaring. She does get comfortable with just accepting the hug. It was just as comfortable to return the hug as it was to be held in one. She plenty aware of deeper connections, background memory of past times as partners and that there isnt complete trust of this Curiosity not about to do something unexplainable.
"Are you even Eliza?" Heard like a dark judgemental gruff, dripping with human emotions and tingling of a concerned undertone, "You find that man, that killed you, safe?"
"Depends on you veiw of what is around you. Are you safe as you are now?" She was gentle tone at first and playing to this fragile girl she was to them returned back, "Or you strong enough to be a background wallflower?" She dug a deep tone at the last part.
She doesn't look at anyone of these people. The words hung empty and no echo of life's breath. Monotone in meaning it as it sounded. This person moves back to his crowd, looking to the two god ravens seated in witness.
"See you underground." Pride added while those folks in the walk away. Leana stays at the embrace long after steps silenced. He pats her shoulder when it was clear, "I have few questions. Being how or what do you mean wife? You married a total stranger? With bad blood. All the cult ties. Does disappearing acts. Clearly gets into more trouble then its worth keeping her about." Pride stares, "What this whole killed her thing about? That's a heavy sin for a person to carry."
"Well actually depends on what you judgemental doubts, justification or justice you scribe for? Perspective." She softly breaks lean but only to face toward Pride to make this answer, "Screwed up is not wrong. Confusing, yes. Does there need to be a reason, we lost track? I do know when I am in a realm but not at his side - there is big problems. I have yet to document a proving point." The look of mulling over the brain rot, "Most times it is my pets and owners. Things without labels. Things lost from languages or laws. Some arent things by definition." The slide to Curiosity for translation.
"She uses a lot of human languages and from across many tomes. You should watch her greeting at full length. She does however get lazy and not use all of her greetings. Not unless it meant soul threats." Curiosity has one arm always hugging her, "Her being her means bad things but it also means she is the solution of this." He tilts at her, "Black hole project?"
"It was the unethical decision of the upper collective community that keeps tomes. Those Seer folks whom owned tomes from beyond the grasp of gods and wanted to enslave these things beyond gods. I of course warned them that we going to need open communication to these beyond dwellers and a method of translating beyond languages. They had me slaughtered by the time any progress to speak to the dead had any result. Because starting with talking to dead people could have warned us of failures. But its whatever man. One tome beached page of its ink later in a pile of goo that once resembles paper content. Its whatever." She crossed arms again, "Those same idiots killed very important gods, God eaters and very important cognitive beings of realm laws. Enough to have death set for vengeance." Tighter more with the sense of outcome, "When bad happens, worse follows." She clicked her tongue in dismay.
"You should get some rest." Curiosity tips her along to getting her back in more her flat then the undertaker realm. Leaving those stood around bewildered and confused. He went so far as to help her with wound care and tucking into bed. Sitting her bed side as she drifted to dreamless recovering rest. Deep body locked sleeping.