There was a lingering static in the back of Lotte's own mind, wondering - like the buzz before a storm siren - whether or not she was about to step off the deep end into something more complicated and bizarre than she really comprehended. Wondering, too, if Alastor hadn't somehow tricked her into it without her knowledge. Lotte thought herself clever, but didn't any old fool think the same, until presented with evidence proving otherwise.
Something in his words, though, that little bit of poetry... felt like scattering another layer of seeds amongst the soft soil that lay beneath their feet. There was a promise in it, a real one, fertile and real as the scent of tomato leaves and strawberries that punctuated every clear breath of air that entered her lungs.
This deal was no trick. Perhaps Alastor had brought it forth into the world simply by the nature of what he was, but he'd no more lit the spark in Lotte's mind than she had in his, she reasoned. If Alastor could have arranged such a deal before now, wouldn't he have?
But he hadn't, of course, because he hadn't had Lotte until now.
Without one another, nothing they'd created on this night or any other would have been possible - and so that was the deal in its most raw, fledgling form:
Their mutual preservation or destruction, more or less.
Lotte could easily forfeit her life in the attempt to wrestle Alastor from the Queen of Hell, and if not that, then any hope of leaving this place whole.
And Alastor? Well, he stood to lose even more. What was life? Fickle, fleeting, fragile. Nothing compared to the nectar of hope, of freedom, of assuming ownership of one's own fate. If they failed, he might never find another witch so uninterested in using him for her own devices. The Queen might never let him out on the ride again, in punishment, or cast him down to a fate worse than whatever he was now. Lotte didn't imagine Alastor coping well with any less agency than he possessed presently. She knew a caged beast when she saw one.
For better or worse, they would sink or swim together, but that suited her just fine.
Her hand stretched out, pushing past the resistance of static that was their fingers coming together, and Lotte touched Alastor for the first time, the willing flame to his match.
[IT'S FINE. SOMETIMES YOUR DAD DIES BUT THEN YOU FIND YOUR MUSE AGAIN AT 6AM A MONTH LATER]
There was a lingering static in the back of Lotte's own mind, wondering - like the buzz before a storm siren - whether or not she was about to step off the deep end into something more complicated and bizarre than she really comprehended. Wondering, too, if Alastor hadn't somehow tricked her into it without her knowledge. Lotte thought herself clever, but didn't any old fool think the same, until presented with evidence proving otherwise.
Something in his words, though, that little bit of poetry... felt like scattering another layer of seeds amongst the soft soil that lay beneath their feet. There was a promise in it, a real one, fertile and real as the scent of tomato leaves and strawberries that punctuated every clear breath of air that entered her lungs.
This deal was no trick. Perhaps Alastor had brought it forth into the world simply by the nature of what he was, but he'd no more lit the spark in Lotte's mind than she had in his, she reasoned. If Alastor could have arranged such a deal before now, wouldn't he have?
But he hadn't, of course, because he hadn't had Lotte until now.
Without one another, nothing they'd created on this night or any other would have been possible - and so that was the deal in its most raw, fledgling form:
Their mutual preservation or destruction, more or less.
Lotte could easily forfeit her life in the attempt to wrestle Alastor from the Queen of Hell, and if not that, then any hope of leaving this place whole.
And Alastor? Well, he stood to lose even more. What was life? Fickle, fleeting, fragile. Nothing compared to the nectar of hope, of freedom, of assuming ownership of one's own fate. If they failed, he might never find another witch so uninterested in using him for her own devices. The Queen might never let him out on the ride again, in punishment, or cast him down to a fate worse than whatever he was now. Lotte didn't imagine Alastor coping well with any less agency than he possessed presently. She knew a caged beast when she saw one.
For better or worse, they would sink or swim together, but that suited her just fine.
Her hand stretched out, pushing past the resistance of static that was their fingers coming together, and Lotte touched Alastor for the first time, the willing flame to his match.
"A deal, then."