continuation for devildo || its terrible potential has begun

[americanvvitch]

[continued from here]

The ending came quickly, as they so often did.

Little fanfare surrounded Alastor's exit... no floating appendages, no jovial crackling of her radio. Only the quiet ringing of piano keys to play him off as he vanished from sight, the last notes of a doleful wake. It seemed an inappropriately sober outtro, in contrast to the tone of the rest of the evening.

With Alastor gone, deep silence settled over the cabin. Save for soft footsteps while the flour and whiskey were tucked away, and the creak and latch of the door. The radio show he had pulled into existence dwindled away by the time she had finished, and then all that was left was the sound of grit and sand as it blew over the horizon and the occasional pop of the fire in her hearth. Little by little each trace of him faded, unsustainable without his magic, but even as his essence seeped out of the world, Lotte felt the creature take root in her mind. The worn mattress beneath her gave no comfort or relief. The red stag and the thrill and terror of it might very well haunt her for the rest of her days.

The feeling that had long plagued her, of feeling somewhere lost between this world and another was only intensified now. Time would flow, dawn would come, nothing in her little home would stretch itself larger than its physical shape ought to have been, and the world would return to its previous state. All would mend itself now.

All but her.

The idea that she could not be the same after what she'd done followed her, like her own gauzy shadow, through the following week. The days rolled in and out, hazy with dust, fragrant loaves of fresh bread and the slow drying of the original, ordinary bottle of whiskey that predated the harvest night. Lotte had never missed anyone, so she couldn't really say for sure that the strange restlessness she couldn't quite shake was covetous. Or that it had anything to do with Alastor in particular. If she had called something else up, would it have been such a distraction? Well, there really wasn't any way to know with Alastor and his like down there and Lotte wasting away up here - and that was just how it would have to stay.

She had no excuse to call Alastor and what good sense she possessed (along with pride, perhaps) prevented her from making another social call. She was stalwart in that, or so she thought.

But Lotte was not any great mountain or a deeply-rooted tree. She was kindling, and a spark of fire and a rush of air was all it ever took to change her course.

∅ ∅ ∅ ∅

Near a week and a half had passed, before the storm hit. It wasn't a surprise - this was probably closing in on the fiftieth storm Lotte had weathered in this place. The static electricity had woken her before dawn and she'd wasted no time tugging on her boots and wrapping the bottom of her face with a double piece of old cotton before she ventured out of the cabin to check that each sigil at the edge of town was intact. The farmers had instructions on how to refresh the sigils placed at the center of their acreage and along the borders - they would be on their own with no car or horse at her disposal to check them.

Surrounding the town itself, there were three. The head of the triangle lay about two miles up the road, just off a crossroads. She'd noticed early on that most of the storms rolled in from that direction, and so she'd created the barrier's tip there with some hope that it would slice through the force of nature and help distribute the power along the sides of where the barrier ran, rather than letting it hit them head on. That one had to be checked first, then she'd double back along the fence line to the other two.

After that, things had happened fast. Dark clouds had rolled in on her way to the last sigil point, and cast a shroud over the land that turned it black in a matter of moments. There'd been no choice but to run for the last sigil and then pray the storm held as she ran harder back through the fields to the shack, sparks of blue flame snapping at her her hair from along the fence line as she went.

There hadn't been enough time to seal up the shutters, plug the cracks in the door with rags and blankets and scribble a sigil on the door as she normally might have. Instead, she'd had to disappear into the basement with little more than a blanket to shield from the dust.

Dust storms came and went quickly, at least.

The cleanup had taken longer. Several hours of sweeping the sand and dirt from surfaces, dragging all the linens out to hang outside and beat the dust from them - because the barrier couldn't keep a storm out entirely. No, it only curbed the force, mitigated the damage.

It was well into the evening by the time she'd finished that, eaten some cold stew, a piece of bread, and settled in at her table with the whiskey Alastor had given her.

She'd earned a bit of celebration hadn't she? She'd managed to get a fire going, all the doors and windows were open to air things out, and she did have a little cough that needed soothing.

Of course, Lotte planned to make the bottle to last, so she hadn't poured too much. Which was.. admittedly hard to do after tasting it for the first time. Little favors allowed her to be alone for the coughing fit that followed her first sip. It was smooth, very smooth, but also by far the strongest thing she'd ever put in her body.

But it was good. Very good, really.

So good that Lotte didn't quite notice the warm, easy slide that took her from pleasantly tipsy to quite drunk all in her first glass.

And how she'd gone from the cheery warmth of sitting by her fire, reading a book by candlelight and listening to the radio to painting a rather large, improvised sigil on the wall of her shack well.... she really didn't know. She felt warm and loose all over, and it seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea to invite Alastor back for a chat and a drink. Why shouldn't she?

He had been more of a friend to her than anyone here! He was clever, had more than a bit of wit, and she missed the particular heat and bite of his magic. Like cinnamon and clove in mulled wine.

Lotte stepped back, wiping the blood on her pale green dress before her eyes fluttered closed and she called. This sigil was not so carefully crafted, but she felt no lack of magic in it, if anything, she felt like she knew how to call for Alastor better. Not at a physical place, so much as a wavelength in the magic, her intuition told her that this sigil was right for what she sought, and it was nothing to funnel her own magic through it to create a proper invitation. A door. All he needed to do was step through, because that was what she wished.

Why don't you come join me for a drink, Mr. Radio Demon?

Comments

[americanvvitch]

Little thought had been spared, to this point, toward the actual execution of the deal. A simple handshake, she expected, or perhaps another exchange of blood? But the moment Alastor's gloved fingers slid between her own, slowly splaying them wider to accommodate the sheer size of his hand, Lotte felt almost dizzy with a rush of warmth altogether more deadly than the heat that enveloped her skin in time with the claws that folded over her knuckles almost down to her wrist. A heady but somehow not unpleasant reminder of just how much space he seemed to occupy...

...more than any living creature ought to. A fact she reluctantly had to admit had always fascinated rather than bothered her.

She had no real way of knowing if it was the same for everyone who made a deal with a creature like Alastor, if this sensation was his doing directly or simply a side effect of offering a piece of herself to him. The prickling that had preceded their touch spread through her, from the very tips of her hair to the deepest reaches within her, setting each nerve aflame as it ripped her asunder. Did they all feel this way? Would it have been different if if weren't Alastor standing before her?

The questions reeled in her mind, and oh... was she short of breath? Or had she simply forgotten to breathe there, for a moment? Alastor had only enveloped her hand, but it felt like much, much more. If someone had asked her what way was up, or down, Lotte couldn't have told them with any certainty, despite feeling like she'd never occupied her body more than this very moment.

It was Alastor that had dragged her to this precarious, electric place and Alastor that called her back to the surface, voice much more steady than Lotte had any faith in her own to be.

She felt his eyes on her, seeking out her gaze. Her own snapped up, surely only a few seconds had passed, but a rush of air flooded through her that made her question just how long she'd been lost in the sensation touching Alastor and being touched by him for the first time.

His final instructions weren't lost on her - Lotte couldn't afford to not pay close attention to any guidance for both their sakes, but the rest of their interaction felt as though she were in a dream, floating through a cloud of dust.


Her sense seemed to return to her once Alastor had taken his leave, with a grand flourish and an energy that she found very flippant for the task that awaited them. Now, their deal and the details of winning Alastor's freedom occupied her every waking thought. There was no time to dwell on that one, lingering touch, and the heat that no spell or fire seemed to quite replicate. All Hallow's Eve was close at hand and Lotte knew precious little about what her task truly entailed.

If she succeeded, there'd be an abundance of time to discover whatever she wished with Alastor, she reasoned. After all, he had offered to live with her as a man. Whatever that meant, for a demon.

From the moment she woke until she slipped into sleep each evening, well after the sun had sunk beyond the horizon, Lotte practiced magic. Without any real knowledge of what Alastor might become, or what she might need for the task, it seemed wiser to simply practice with the intent of increasing her own focus and intention. While a sigil might be able to stall the queen's procession at the crossroads, she doubted she'd have the time or knowledge to craft a sigil in real time if she was to keep her grip on Alastor. Whatever she needed would have to come from herself. She could not, would not fail for lack of will.

But time waned quickly, and without Alastor in front of her to bolster her nerve and challenge her, fear inevitably settled in.

The dark shadows that settled in the deepest corners of her cabin, the whisper of the wind on the tall grasses outside her door whispered in the quiet spaces of her day.

Who was Lotte, after all? Certainly not the most powerful witch here or anywhere. Unstudied, uneducated in the ways of this world or the next, in the ways of magic itself. She'd let herself be swept straight to her own demise by a handsome face and a crooked smile, like so many women before her. What awaited her at that crossroads was nothing more than a fearful, painful end, dressed in a lovely bow. An obvious trap, to a real witch.

The fear crept through her, nipping at her heels as she tended the sigils, blew cold through her dress down to her bones, caused the little garden in her back yard Alastor had so kindly given her to wilt a little more each day.

And as she sat at her little table the evening of Halloween, nursing a dusty glass of the whiskey he'd given her, Lotte finally let her mind wander to Alastor, himself, again. Wondered what he would think of her sitting here, sorry for herself, doubting the abilities he so clearly seemed to perceive in her. He'd laugh, maybe, a little bit mocking, a little bit incredulous. Would he have made a deal so dangerous to himself if he didn't think there was a chance she'd succeed?

Lotte could hear his voice in her head, and it was almost as good as seeing him standing before her... almost, but not quite, and it was that that finally chased away the little whispers and dispelled the shadows.

She wanted Alastor.

Not pulled from the depths of hell by her summoning, not for a brief moment on Halloween. No, she wanted him free to come and go as he pleased. Free to stay, if he pleased, too.

The whiskey was thrown back in one smooth motion, before she stood and walked to her door, pushing it open without ever laying a finger on it. Only one golden, red sliver of light remained on the indigo horizon, and as she stepped off the porch, Lotte soaked it up along with the flames from the fire flickering behind her in her cabin, let the heat burn through her veins. Miles separated her and Alastor, but only for now.

Whatever monster or vicious thing the queen saw fit to transform him into, it didn't matter. She wanted him, and she would have him, even if it killed her.

Lotte was not leaving those crossroads without Alastor, and as her word, so mote it be.

[devildo]

The silence of his own living room encroached deeply on Alastor, grave dirt pressing in around him on all sides. He was both too practical and too prideful to consider his choices mistakes, most of the time. For one, they simply almost never were. He knew what he was doing, and did precisely as he meant to. For another, he was too pragmatic to think he couldn't resolve anything that did go wrong. He always had.

But most of the time, his shadow whispered to him, the things that went wrong were bound to be Alastor's own fault, and there was a mile of difference between that and letting someone else be responsible for his sink or swim.

No, he reasoned, that wasn't true, anyway. Any responsibility Lotte had was only what Alastor gave her. Maybe he'd been remiss in favouring the theatrical over sitting her down properly at her little wooden table and describing to her in more detail the path the host of hell would take, the formation in which they would ride, every trial he could possibly imagine the Queen putting her through. Ultimately, h3 couldn't imagine it would really help. There were rumours this type of plot had both been tried and succeeded in the past, but it was no more than that - rumours. He had no way of knowing what would really happen. It thrilled him to find out.

Time stretched. Alastor could be said to be Lotte's exact opposite in these short and waning days between their last meeting and Halloween night. He plotted nothing, and made no plans. If anyone had been bothering to keep tabs on him, they might have said his behavior was suspiciously lax. With an easy and knowing smile on his face, he spent his days walking the areas of Hell he hated most, to remind himself what he wouldn't miss. Ugly, dingy, steel-beamed streets with no pattern or order to them. Hideous. No green. Revolting.

In the evening, he sat outside a small cafe near to his home, one of the few places here that felt anything like the world he missed. He said nothing, spoke to no one, only watched with sharp eyes over the rim of his teacup as folks passed on the street, memorizing their gaits, their faces, the way they spit and swore and raged at one another. This, too, he would not miss, and the wider his smile grew behind that plume of steam from his tea, the wider berth the denizens of Hell cast around him.

Truth be told, it didn't occur to him much during these brisk autumn days to wonder what Lotte was doing or feeling. This was not to say that he didn't think of her. He thought of her quite often, glowing bright in his mind's eye, he imagined her picking through the snapshots of the ugly world around him, as he committed them to memory. When he dressed on Halloween night, all in plain black to match the rest of the riding host, he thought of the witch with every button he fastened, but not about her private state of mind. He only wondered if she would succeed, or not. If she didn't, he had no plan, but then again, he barely had one if she did. It would be a great adventure, either way.

***

The night was cool and sharp like pine needles digging into bare feet, the spectral horse beneath Alastor colder still, if that was even possible. Or perhaps he, himself, was burning up. Surely he looked suspicious in some way, eyes too bright, smile too smug, and the others were only afraid to question it. That was often enough the case, as surely as it was now, as the Queen's host marched over deserts, over moors, through dense forests, and finally plodded through the dusty crossroads where Lotte made her home.

Clods of dirt kicked up under each horse's hooves, strange marks that would mostly fade by morning, leaving just enough impression in the road to confuse and unsettle the farmers. And this was always so, and would always be so, but with any luck, Alastor would never be here to see it, again.


It was only in that crossroads that he finally felt the smallest flinch of nerves, like an ancient, human wound cracking to life inside him. Lotte was here, somewhere, hidden in the brush or just down the road or cleverly concealed by some doing of her own, waiting for him. And he was suddenly, vividly aware that he had no idea when the moment of her strike would land. His fingers loosened on the reins in his hands, let him lay as loose as he could. His entire body loosened from its posture - when she came, he would be ready to fall.

[americanvvitch]

Darkness lay heavy across the land by the time Lotte reached the crossroads, in full possession of wit and will, and with every intention of succeeding this night. The only light for miles around was the bright rays of the moon, dipping their fingers into the sparse, dried grasses, threading through the shadows of crooked fence posts that separated the roads from the wilds. She'd brought with her a long wooden staff, mostly useless for the task at hand except for the sigils she placed at each corner of the crossroad.

The idea had come to her earlier that evening, when she'd considered the logistics of pulling Alastor away from the procession and off of a moving beast. Nothing she could craft would have much hope of tricking the Queen of Hell or a demon of Alastor's ilk, but tricking a beast was a simpler task. The sigils were simple in design, just illusion really, and she had utilized them before to catch game on the rare occasions it wandered close to her little shack. The magic's only trick was to confuse the object's sense of direction, making them feel as though they'd been turned around. In the case of her hare's, attempting to correct the spell meant they usually ran directly into a waiting trap.

When she saw Alastor, she would activate it, and with any luck whatever creature he rode would pause long enough to try and correct its direction, giving her an opportunity to grab hold of it. She'd considered, instead, startling the whole procession, but it ran the risk of alarming the queen and having them all run off. This... this was her best bet. Unsophisticated magic that wouldn't even affect a creature more complex than a horse, unlikely to be noticed by anyone.

Once the sigils had been drawn, off the road, hidden from plain sight, all that was left to wait.

And wait she did, the desire in her burning hot and bright enough that she almost missed the chill that settled in the air as the temperature dropped.

The darkness seemed darker, the quiet of the night quieter, before finally there came the soft dusting of hooves against the dirt road.

Lotte peeked out from her hiding place, behind a mangled patch of tumbleweed caught onto several half bent fence posts. She'd chosen her dress wisely, once a pretty marigold color, it had been sun-drenched and so washed out by dust that it blended into the pale sand and dirt.

Her fingers, already tinged black from the magic rippling through her along with her own adrenaline, sunk into the dirt, readying herself for the moment the procession came into view.

The prickling at her neck told her well enough that she was witnessing something humans were not meant to see, but it didn't take much lingering to find Alastor, not quite at the Queen's side but lingering just behind. He was dressed in all black, but it did nothing to disguise the subtle, ruddy glow that always seemed to cling to his form. Seeing him again, more solid and present in this world than she ever had, steeled her nerve and when the moment came, and the large, spectral horse he rode stepped into the crossroads, she activated the sigils.

As expected, it balked, whipping its massive head around as it tried to regain its bearings. Lotte sprung from her little den and as the horse righted itself, and grabbed hold of the reins. She yanked its head down with all her strength, eyes meeting Alastor's over its mane only a moment before she reached up and grasped his arm. He came unseated easily, though she couldn't be sure if it was his own subtle assistance or if the horse had made him unstable, but it mattered not. She made enough of a show of grabbing his arm, and then his other wrist and dragging him from the horse so fiercely that they both toppled into the dirt harder than even she'd expected.

But never once did she release him from her grasp, as she scrambled up to kneel on the road, fingers clamped as tightly as she could manage around Alastor's wrists, she peered up at the Queen, who had turned to them now, and sucked in a breath before asserting her claim.

"Your majesty, I have come to claim Alastor for my own." She exhaled, pushing her shoulders back and sticking her chin up. "I will not leave these crossroads without him."

[devildo]

What happened was, simply put, nothing but a blur. It was nothing like Alastor envisioned it. He'd thought it would be so clear, and it caught him by surprise, in that it was nothing but.

One moment, a surge of motion beneath him as his horse balked at the deception, the fight to dig his knees in tight enough to his side that he wouldn't be thrown prematurely, but neither would he be too entangled for Lotte to pull him down. A flash of the witch's swirling skirt in the dark like a pale flag waving.

One moment, a sharp and outraged cry from Queen Lilith, the flash of her hand reaching towards him, miles too far to touch, before Alastor's body was tumbled from his mount in a tangle of limbs, both his own and Lotte's that mixed too closely for him to tell quite which was which. They struck together, sharp and ungainly, his shoulder and his hip hit the dirt hard and he was surprised to note that he felt it.

And then there was one more moment of awful eye contact with Lotte, before his shape twisted and his consciousness was dragged away from him on the back of another scream from the Queen.

That was the true blur, the impossible and improbable twisting of his body, forced to become the stag it so often was, but outside his own control, ripped too fast from the shape he'd been holding, so it spun his stomach and his mind into knots and left him panting and worthless, bucking in Lotte's arms while she - he guessed, he supposed - grasped at his antlers.

And then he was smaller, a fox or a cat, something biting and sharp and gnashing at Lotte's pale arms.

And then he was hot and sharp, something thoughtless and inanimate, a poker or a shapeless knot of iron, a piece of charcoal, he wasn't sure.

And then, then, he was pain, nothing else, and he was solid and whole in Lotte's arms, and there was a scream from the hellish host that seemed to blister his eardrums, but he was laughing now, bright and high and breathless while his fingers (shorter, darker, human) dug into Lotte's pale forearms, and he knew it had worked. His head tossed back. The laugh streamed out of him. Tears streamed out of him, wet and exhausted on his cheeks. It worked. They had done it.

And he was collapsing.

[americanvvitch]

It had begun in silence, and ended that way too.

In the middle there had been a great deal of commotion, banshee screams that threatened to rip her ear drums clean through, and all sorts of scuffling that had drudged up dust for many yards around them as Lotte had had to keep hold of each new form Alastor took at the Queen's command. Each had felt both like a lifetime and as though it had come and gone in a flash. No sooner had she wrestled the stag's head to the ground, clutching to antlers that could have gored her at any moment, had he changed. Tearing at her flesh with claws and teeth as he wriggled and hissed, and then searing her very skin as a hot poker, almost too heavy to hold.

But she refused to let it go, no matter how the pain stabbed through her hands, no matter the smell of burning flesh. The blackness on her fingers crept up her hands until her wrists were all but engulfed by it.

How long that last trial was, she didn't have any inkling, but just when she felt as though she might faint from the pain, the weight in her hands became less and more all at once.

Where she'd once gripped a hot poker, now she gripped Alastor's arms - human arms. Solid and flesh as she gripped him with as much force as she had the stag's antlers.

The Queen had screamed her defeat for the whole prairie to hear, and then the procession had disappeared into the distance, chased off by the echo of Alastor's laughter. Had they truly done it, after all? Something hummed deep in her chest, told he it was true. They had. She had.

And then silence, as Alastor grew heavy against her. Lotte's arms came around him as she too toppled back onto the dusty road, adrenaline seeping out of her body.

She stayed like that, long enough to catch her breath, but somewhere in the back of her mind she knew better than to linger here too long. The Queen might return, the nearest farmer's family might have heard, and Lotte felt something like protectiveness for Alastor in this moment. A beast might emerge from her, too, if anything tried to tear him from her arms here and now.

The trek back to her cabin felt longer than it ever had, dragging a maybe half conscious and very heavy Alastor along with her. Her boots sank heavy into the dirt, her magic giving enough push back to keep her upright, his pointed shoes half dragging and half limping along with her. Those tracks wouldn't fade by morning, she'd have to go and deal with them herself. Later, though.

For now, she focused all her energy on dragging Alastor up the few steps of her cabin to the porch and into the still open door. Warmth from the fire in her little stove engulfed them and only now did she realize she felt chilled to the bone. Alastor might too, now that he was flesh. As gently as she could, which perhaps was not as gentle as she wished to be, she let him roll heavy off her shoulder and onto the small bed in the corner of the room, before sinking down to sit on the floor next to it with a groan.

It was only now that she dared to actually look at him. The same, but not. He occupied the space differently, in his physical body, and the light seemed to cast shadows on his skin in a new way. Her hands ached, her arms were covered in bites and gashes, smeared with blood both fresh and dried, but all of it, even the dull ache creeping into her muscles, seemed to quiet itself as long as she looked at Alastor.

"You weren't all that hard to hold, after all." Her voice came out as a dry laugh, but there was satisfaction swelling there under it. Pride. Relief, too. Lotte's hand found his and she laced their fingers again, savoring the way it felt as they slid together slow and heavy.

[devildo]

Alastor's shadow pulled itself over him like a shroud; not external, not visible, but in his mind, sliding itself between the forefront of his mind and his eyes, blanking him gently out. He couldn't think too much, now. That pain was fresh and wet, a sticky feeling under his skin, an unyielding awareness of the density of his own body. He couldn't walk straight. Every movement hurt, and it was everything like being alive, and nothing at all like it, at the same time.

And that was accurate, and his shadow, the static that still hummed all around him, whispered gently that it was fine, that it would let him go again when it was safe to, but for now he would simply have to stumble forward and know that it was carrying him. It was, because it was a part of himself, and for that reason, he trusted it, and it was that, the black energy of his shadow, that helped carry him where Lotte's grip fell just slightly too short.

The walk back down the street was a swirl of panting nothingness, a desperate blindness like intoxication, even though Alastor was, technically, seeing everything around him: the tufts of dry grasses along the side of the road, the dust scuffing up under their boots, Lotte's frizz of wild hair from the corner of his eye, his shadow bouncing about underfoot, feeling out the space ahead of him to keep him steady, then licking back around to press at the small of his back and push him upright.

It was more than a small relief, when he found himself dumped onto Lotte's thin mattress, staring, reeling, at the rafters of her roof. They revolved slowly around him. How long would it be like this? He told himself that he could breathe properly now, and he did, and it steadied him. This was, indeed, like being too drunk, just a little too far past the realm of maintaining control over his body, but this, like drunkenness, would end. Alastor only needed to hold onto himself, until it did.

His head dropped to the side and took her in, scraped and flecked with her own blood. Pride swelled in his stomach, a smile spread lazy and slow across his face, his heavy eyelids lifting as he looked at her. "You did it," he said, this incredulous hint in his voice betraying that a part of him really hadn't believed she could. "That was aces, my dear, if I do say so." His arms splayed wide on the bed, one hand butting up against the wall and bending at the wrist, the other dangling loose over the side, near Lotte. He, too, could tell that he was somehow smaller now than he had been, but it didn't quite feel that way. If anything, he felt larger, smashing up against more of what was physically there in the room than before. "Now, I should think you owe me some of that whiskey I left you."

[americanvvitch]

Her eyes slowly lifted when his head fell heavy to the side, and their eyes met once more. His were brown now, deep and warm in color and expression... in a way that settled too deep and too warm in her chest.

"Don't sound so surprised." If she weren't so tired, she might have been offended... but really, she hadn't believed it earlier today either, so she'd let him off easy this time. Lotte watched as his arms splayed out wide, fingers slipping through her own. It seemed he was getting used to the new limitations himself, and Lotte wondered what it felt like for him, to be this now. How much of this was another assumed form? Could this have been more like what he was as a man? His hair, slightly more reddish brown than crimson, his skin, a little more ruddy and flushed... his fingers, less clawed and a somewhat more reasonable length.

If she could have, she'd have spent more time comparing the differences.

"I should think you owe me, mister." There was no bite in her voice, just a gentle teasing, and she pushed herself up as she said it, walking to the kitchen to fetch the bottle. "But we both could use a stiff drink after that."

Two glasses were quickly snatched from the cupboard, and as she walked back with them and the bottle of whiskey, the door to the cabin swung closed on its own at her command. They were safe here. No one else would touch him, not tonight, not ever if they so chose.

Lotte returned to the bed, sinking down next to it and setting the glasses down to fill them before sliding one gently into his hand, her fingers brushing his as she did.

Her own was thrown back in one smooth motion, followed by a hard exhale... "... How do you feel?"

[devildo]

If Alastor laid as much thought behind his intent as it deserved, he might have thought to anticipate this moment, and in doing so, had some guess as to whether it would feel more like being alive, or more like he always had in Hell. In either case, he would be wrong - It was neither, and all the more disorienting for it.

While Alastor remembered the loose and leeching darkness of dying, he couldn't say there was ever a time when he was dead. He was human, dying, and then himself. And this was something else, a mysterious stage in between the two. He wanted to feel it all, if only his muscles weren't too stiff.

Slowly, deliberately, in spite of the aching that ripped through him and threatened to seize up every tendon in his body, he sat up on the bed and took the glass from Lotte, downed in as swiftly as she did. His hand struck back out towards her. "Another, if you please," he said. She would notice, when she looked, that the bottle was no emptier than it had been, before she poured them each a drought.

And that may be answer enough, regarding how he felt, but really he simply had no way of describing it. His eyes, only the slightest hint of red left ringing his pupils, remained fixed on the burning fire across the room, its shape reflected there in his irises. They glimmered and shifted in that light, but didn't spin. His shadow curled quietly around his ankles; one of his pants legs was rucked up, exposing his ankle above the black of his sock, a sliver of untowardly human looking skin between it and his trousers.

Alastor forewent answering the question, and beamed down at Lotte, instead. "Truly, you were splendid. They won't be back for me until tomorrow, and we'll be long gone by then."

[americanvvitch]

There was still something magic in Alastor's eyes. Perhaps they didn't spin, like this, but they glittered in a way she was sure hers never could. There was a shifting in them that she found quite mesmerizing, and she didn't stop until his gaze turned to her again, beaming.

It sent a thrill up her spine, the idea that Alastor might apply such a word to her. Was hunger considered a sin these days? Well, if it was, Alastor likely wasn't one to mind.

"The queen did seem unhappy with us." She poured him another drink as requested, noting that the bottle didn't seem any emptier than it had before she'd left this evening. "Though I assumed that winning you from her meant I'd get to keep you given the amount of effort I put into it."

Lotte poured herself another splash of whiskey and swallowed it down before pushing herself to her feet, going back to the kitchen.

"You need to rest before you think about taking us anywhere." She wet a cloth under the faucet and grabbed a glass of water, walking to him. This time, she sat on the edge of the bed. Something about this form emboldened her, made it easier to approach him in ways she might not have before. Her hands reached out and brushed the forelock of his hair back a bit, pressing the cloth to his forehead.

"I'll put sigils up... I don't plan on letting anyone drag you out of here without my say so," she hummed.

[devildo]

Alastor laughed, a light peal of sound that rippled through the air. Even to his own ears, it sounded different now, just shy of otherworldly. He noted, his shadow slithering across the floor to follow Lotte's movements around the room like an interested cat, that his connection to his power felt no different than it ever had. Fortunate. That wasn't really something that had concerned him, but it would have been an unpleasant discover to make, to be sure. What could hurt him now, he wondered?

The second burning swallow slid down his throat, flecked his lips, a damp glimmer he brushed away before Lotte turned back to him with the damp washcloth. Quietly, in the corner, is shadow pulsated silently. It was laughing at him - not mean in spirit, but amused.

His eyes fell shut, the briefest moment of indulgence. While he wouldn't normally hold with unsolicited touches, this was... Different. Unexpected. So bizarrely soothing now that he suddenly found himself with a body that could experience such things, it didn't occur to him to protest.

"Clever," he said behind that slow smile, a soft clicking sound in his throat, eyes shut and head tipped back under Lotte's ministrations. "But it's nothing to concern yourself with. "We'll be leaving here tomorrow, too. I don't intend to keep you here in this cesspit any longer than necessary - that wasn't our deal, now, was it?"

[americanvvitch]

Lotte allowed herself a moment to consider this new form fully, as she dabbed the cloth gently across his forehead. Still tall, lean and long... he was handsome this way. Whether it was more or less than his usual form, she hadn't decided, though she thought she rather missed the antlers.

Still, he seemed too pale, and not in the way he had before, with color drained from his skin permanently. Pale like a man in need of a meal and a good night of sleep. Sadly, she didn't have anything prepared, having not known whether she'd ever be back to her cabin to need it after this evening. He'd have to be satisfied with a bit of care and a good sleep.

"It is our deal, but I'd prefer you be in good enough shape to carry it out without killing one or both of us. You still look like you might drop again at any moment."

The cloth pressed gently over his cheeks and chin, cool and feather light against his skin, and for the first time it dawned on Lotte that Alastor wouldn't be leaving tonight. He would stay here... sleep here, under the same roof as her. It was an odd sensation, to not be alone, but not unwelcome. There was something soothing in the thought that he would be here tonight, that they weren't navigating such unknown territory on their own.

[devildo]

With a wave of his fingers, Alastor brushed the concern off. "Tsk," he enunciated, and wagged his finger at Lotte, nails still long but neither particularly sharp nor claw-like, as they had been the last she saw him. "Don't you know it's this attitude that gets girls in trouble? Caring for strange men?"

That, in itself, might have sounded like a veiled threat, coming from someone else. Alastor just sounded like he was stating a fact - chiding her, teasing, but making the sort of observation one might to young cousin who didn't know any better. Nothing salacious, and he was neither particularly strange nor particularly ready to cause trouble. Least of all that kind.

The wave of his fingers turned inwards and reached into his breast pocket from which he produced a silver cigarette case that hadn't been there before. But now it was, and that was the way things were - even easier, in some ways, than the business with the garden. He didn't need so much permission from a living soul, anymore.

"Do you mind?" he asked, waving the case towards Lotte, but this proved to be a rhetorical question as he followed it up with, "I don't," and withdrew a cigarette from the case, sparking a flame to life at the ends of his fingers.

"If there's anything here worth taking -" he paused, fixing Lotte's eyes with a long stare while he took a drag, "get it together while the getting's good. Surely you don't want to lose everything here."

[americanvvitch]

A threat it might have been from anyone other than Alastor, but part of their deal had been to deposit her safely in New Orleans, and even if it had not, Lotte felt less threatened by him than ever in this form.

"Color me troubled, then, but I'd say I've done stranger things than this and come out relatively unscathed, tonight alone."

Alastor didn't need her permission, to use magic or to smoke, and she didn't bother protesting, since it wouldn't have stopped him and she didn't rightly care.

"Not at all." She'd breathed in much worse over the past five years.

Lotte rose from the bed to wring out the rag over the sink, draping it over the edge to dry out. Her hands were still red with burns, but the blackness that had stretched out over her wrists during the ordeal seemed to have protected them from the physical worst of it, if not the feeling.

She rummaged in another cabinet before pulling out a little vial of water, pouring it over her hands to help them heal, glancing over her shoulder to find Alastor staring at her as he took a long drag from the cigarette. His words sunk in like the water into her skin, and she scanned the little cabin.... stuffed to the brim with everything she'd ever scraped together to make her so-called home.

Oh, but she wouldn't miss it. The closer the idea of New Orleans became, the more restless she was to get out of here... while the getting was good, so to speak.

"Feels strange, to imagine living somewhere else... not that I'd ever miss this place."

There was a bit of rustling around as she rummaged through cabinets to find the sole duffel bag she'd come here with, setting it on the table and moving around to the hutch that contained most of her books and ingredients for spells, picking and choosing what she couldn't replace. Her hands came upon another of the little browns vials that she'd given Alastor blood in, during their first meeting, and she plucked it up and turned, wriggling it in her fingers in his line of sight.

"Will you be needing any more blood as a pick me up?" Lotte grinned. "What did you ever use it for, anyway?"

[devildo]

This might have still been Lotte's house (and so it would remain - it was unlikely they would ever come back here, and even if they did, it would be as hers as it ever had, not a place Alastor ever lived), but Alastor felt himself spreading throughout the place, the thrum of the magic he left behind in the garden entwining with hers, the long-limbed reach of his shadow settling its way back into the comfortable spaces in the grain of the wood again to hold the shape of the place in its grasp, his own feet solid on the floor, and the recline of his body back against the bed. He propped himself casually on one elbow, looking as comfortable as all the world would allow, like he belonged here.

He didn't. His long thumbnail flicked the cigarette between his fingers, a little cascade of ash falling onto the bedspread and then vanishing as he willed it away almost unconsciously. Lotte moved throughout the room like a dancer caught in some interpretive choreography; Alastor's leg folded over the other, his foot tapped some unheard tune in the air, the music of her movements.

He shrugged at the mention of the blood, as if it was nothing, but it leapt crystal clear into his mind. He could still see it shining there by his fireplace. "This and that," he answered ambiguously. "Nothing you'd notice. Nothing that would hurt."

Pushing himself back up, he leaned towards her, elbow on his bent knee. "I suspect," he said, because it really didn't matter that this was pure speculation, she could doubt him all she wanted to, and he really didn't think she would bother at this point, "rest will be the ticket. How do you suppose we'll travel, hm? What do you envision when you think about it? I know you have."

[americanvvitch]

As Alastor spread himself into the space of the little cabin, looking by all accounts that he'd always belonged in that exact spot, Lotte wondered if she'd ever looked as at ease as he seemed to wherever he was. She'd felt possessive of this place, as her one bastion of safety from the world outside, but that was different than being comfortable. A state of mind, perhaps, but she wasn't entirely sure it was something that could be learned.

She'd asked about the blood more out of curiosity. What kinds of spells could use blood, what type of uses it could have in magic... whether it was things to do with her or not mattered less. At this point, she didn't think Alastor was likely to harm her.... though she did wonder about the reaction he'd had to her blood.

"Rather a boring answer, for how eager you were to get it." There wasn't any need to say more than that, she figured. A simple reminder that she knew the affect it had had on him was enough.

Lotte set a few journals, bursting at the seams with papers tucked into them and crude bookmarks, into the duffel bag as she considered his question. She had thought about it, not too much - she hadn't wanted to jinx herself, get her own hopes up.

"I suppose I imagined it to be something rather like how you get around. A portal of some kind? Opening up a door here, stepping through it there. That sort of thing. Though with you looking like that, I suppose we could go the old fashioned way. Straightforward, if not a bit disappointing."

She glanced back to him again, "I do have a broom if you'd prefer to fly," she joked.

[devildo]

Alastor hummed in consideration and approval. It was nothing less than the truth and the truth nothing less than he expected from Lotte's discernment, but it was still nice to hear it, to hear the power of himself flowing from the lips of another.

They whispered about him, in hell. In veiled threats and vague statements, because they didn't really know. It was all speculation. Lotte saw him act (not kill, but act), and lived to tell the tale. She could surmise.

He shrugged, letting the matter of the blood roll off him. That vial in his living room would continue on, glowing in the reverb of the neverending flame that stoked the fire. A piece of her would stay there, down in hell, cold and untouched, waiting. The rest of her would be up here, with him, for as long as they both willed it, and what need did he have for some small piece of her held close to the vest like a prize, then?

He had all of her.

What did that mean?

Surely not much, not to someone like him, not in a thousand senses. But there it was.

Alastor regarded her with narrow eyes, shrouded in smoke and sharp speculation. "Do you, now?" he asked with a laugh. If she really had a broom, he would be hard pressed to deny her the flight. "No, I think we'll go more quickly than that. I have a place ready for you, did you know? How do you imagine that? I should be sure it stacks up to your...anticipations."

[americanvvitch]

Lotte found as she looked around, that there was really very little she thought of here as irreplaceable. Once, perhaps, she wouldn't felt differently... when she had nothing else in her life to look forward to, no other options available. Until now, scarcity had been her life, the idea of abundance on the horizon... still felt surreal, but then again, she only had one duffel bag to take with her wherever she was headed. The rest of whatever she'd need well...

Her eyes strayed over to Alastor, wrapped in a thick, curling smoke.

It wasn't much, in the grand scheme of things, was it?

Surely they could manage that.

"I do, but I think it only fair I gave it a rest. It's done a good job keeping the dust out of here."

She scanned the room again, moving over to another wall where sat a crooked and beat up dresser, tugging open the top drawer. Out came a few vials and supplies, more random pieces of paper with scribbled sigils and spells, and a few half-burned candles, pausing only when Alastor mentioned the house.

"It's already ready?"

Lotte turned to him, brow quirked. "I feel like there might be a compliment hidden in there."

Another dresser opened, and she crouched down to pull out the well-worn dresses tucked inside, few and far between. A green and dull, blue plaid Alastor had seen before, and one additional that might once have been red. Each had been mended by hand in spots more than once, nearly threadbare in places. As each was pulled out and folded gently into her arms, she considered Alastor's question.

"You've got little to worry about there. I don't have much in the way of expectations, after this place."

There was a pause, and then she glanced over at him, peek through her lashes.

"... Can I reserve the right to request changes once we arrive?"

[devildo]

The clothing Lotte withdrew from the dresser looked a sad picture of the whole affair. Alastor didn't take much note of the other things, the paraphernalia and artifacts of her magical practice. Those looked the same no matter where you went, really - the same bundles of herbs and globs of wax and well-worn sheets of notes. That is, when you were speaking to someone who had half an ounce of serious intent in them. It wasn't anything new.

But the dresses, pale as her arms and thin as her frame, were a different story. Those painted the picture of someone hard done by and under appreciated, someone who had never had much and made what she could of what she had. It was the picture of someone who cared more for her work than for her vanity, someone who prioritized survival over the sort of artifice that, ironically, might have enabled her to do more than survive - to thrive.

How unlike Alastor himself, in life. It amused him.

He took another long drag from the cigarette, poured himself another shot of whiskey, and gulped it down. This, alone, was doing a heavy part to make him feel more himself. Still, something like hunger burned at the bottom of his being. He stood, a slow and steady motion, and crossed the floor to Lotte, ran his fingers over the weave of the fabric in her arms. "It's hard to imagine you want these," he mused, the cigarette burning near its end. He snapped his fingers and it vanished in the air between them. "But of course you can. Your wish is my command, isn't it? The house is yours."

[americanvvitch]

If Lotte had focused more on appearances, it was true she might have been able to get... more out of her surroundings. Bend the men around her to her will, maybe, but she'd never cared much for the company of men. Certainly never trusted them enough to let them close... as strange as it was, Alastor was without a doubt the man she'd been the most intimate with in her life. Before him, not one felt worthy of her faith or effort.

She turned her attention toward him when he approached, watched him run oddly human fingers over the fabric and then snap the cigarette out of existence with no more effort than the flame that lit it.

"There's a fine line between want and need when it comes to clothes." Her brow quirked at him. "I'm fairly certain I will need more than one dress when we first arrive. Even if they do look like... this. Regrettably."

Lotte huffed at them, just an unimpressed as Alastor was, really, but it wasn't like she could run out to the corner store and buy one whenever she pleased, and fabric was hard to come by.

Still, she'd have time once they arrived, wouldn't she? To figure out money and clothes and things like that.

"It's probably not worth it to ask since we're leaving soon, but what do the houses in New Orleans look like? I've only seen places like... this," she gestured around the room, dresses still balanced in her arm, "and farmhouses. Corner stores, pharmacies... places like that."

Her eyes met his, burning with excitement. "Though I figure you're stylish enough, deferring to your taste is probably my best bet. And I do like to be surprised."

[devildo]

"Always ask questions," Alastor admonished like he was scolding a child. Deftly, he plucked one of the dresses from the pile in her arms, the faded red, and held it up in front of him. Sound hummed and clicked from his throat, the same static reverb that was nearly always there, no matter what form he took.

He shook the fabric once, and it made a sharp whump of sound in the air, like a flag or a tablecloth unfurling. "Not like this," he said, colour seeping from his fingertips on the shoulders of the dress, and back into its fabric. It slowly traveled down the length of the garment, and where the colour spread, the seams tightened, the buttons shone. "They're quite different, you'll have to see it."

Truly, how could he describe it? It would be like describing a forest to someone who had only ever seen a smattering of trees littered in independent copses across the prairie. "Tall, grand, by all accounts. The colour may frighten you."

He snapped the dress in the air again, and passed it back to Lotte with a smug smile. "There's one for the road."

[americanvvitch]

Lotte was not accustomed to being scolded and if Alastor hadn't immediately snatched the dress from her arms, she would have said something about it... but she had said it wasn't worth asking, in his defense. Now she knew better.

Alastor went on to try and explain, but she was too absorbed in watching the color seep from Alastor's long fingers down through the threads and lines of the dress, each seam tightening, each button gleaming as it slid down, rather like blood. It was simple magic, perhaps, but no less striking in its simplicity. She wondered how dull this place looked to him, devoid of color, the sky melding with the ground and the buildings, half devoured by the earth. What would a world the opposite of hers even be like? Alastor couldn't seem to describe it, and Lotte couldn't imagine it, at least not yet. This would have to be preview enough.

"Frightening things can turn out to be quite thrilling, in my recent experience." She said as he snapped the now vibrant, crimson dress in the air and offered it back to her.

The other dresses were set aside on the top of the dresser, and Lotte took the red dress from Alastor gingerly, like it might break or disappear from her grasp if she were too rough for it. This dress hadn't hardly been new even when it was new to her, but even then she had never seen it like this.

Lotte's eyes devoured it. There was no denying she loved it. The color, the fabric - thick and soft between her fingers as she rubbed it against her skin, not a speck of dust in sight... and just for a moment she let herself muse on what it might feel like to wear something Alastor had picked out for her. To be wrapped in something entirely his design... and this was oh so close to that, she could nearly taste it. But would she have the chance to?

"Well, I'm definitely not used to anything quite that snazzy..." she said, about the dress and the idea of New Orleans. It was hard to imagine either would hold their color without Alastor around, though.

He had just told her to ask questions... there was no getting what she wanted without asking, either, so Lotte draped the dress over her arm, poured herself a shot and threw it back before her next question.

"But you'll stay there with me, won't you? Show me the ropes?"

[devildo]

Pride swelled in Alastor, watching Lotte with the dress. Temptation lingered in him, the urge to snatch the other dresses from their discarded place and mend them, too, but he wouldn't. Now was not the time for a big show. That was coming. Temptation could wait... And even if it couldn't, he would have to force it to; the night was too draining to attempt much more than parlor tricks.

So he physically separated himself from the faded cotton objects of his desire, picking up the bottle of whiskey again and both glasses, his and Lotte's, which he placed on the table and filled, before perching himself on the edge of the table itself.

"Of course." He didn't need to tell her that he wouldn't miss it for the world, couldn't seem over-eager. Not that it was entirely to do with Lotte herself. She was a measure of it, the idea of impressing and astonishing her, of seeing the world through the freshness of her gaze, enticed him. But no, it wasn't really that. The idea of going home tugged at his gut, stole any promise of rest from him. He wouldn't be wholly satisfied again until he was there.

This he played close to the vest. Lotte couldn't know how much of a favor she'd done for him by accepting this transaction. If she did, it would leave him beholden in some way, he was sure, even though the deal they struck was all but done. Would be done, in the morning.

"Have I been anything less than honorable, dear Lotte? No, you'll know the place when I'm done." He gestured to the full glasses seated by him. "Proper toast?"

[americanvvitch]

It was something - the promise that Alastor wasn't about to just drop her off in some grand house of his creation and leave her to figure out the rest.

She could, of course, if need be. Lotte had figured out how to scrape together something resembling a life out here, there was no doubt she could do it again anywhere she happened to land. It was only that... for the first time, she actually didn't want to do it alone.

"Looks like my faith was rewarded after all, then." If she'd really suspected he weren't a man of honor, she wouldn't have made that deal, but it still felt good to be proven right.

"Yes, I think we deserve it." Lotte scooped up the glass of whiskey he'd poured for her and held it out toward him.

The whiskey in her glass swirled as she mulled over just what to toast to. Toasting herself was too boastful - she hadn't done it all alone after all, wouldn't have done it at all if not for Alastor, and what was there to toast about a city she'd never seen and could hardly imagine.

"To.. a new life." She hummed, eyes slipping up to meet Alastor's finally, a smirk creeping over her lips. "One we can shape for ourselves."

[devildo]

This, all, was a mistake. If Alastor could properly have read Lotte's mind, this much he would have said. What he felt, instead, was waves of wanting rolling off her and into the long lines of his shadow bleeding through the cracks in the floor, reaching up into the cracks in the soles of her shoes, winding its way around the room. She longed, and wanted, and perhaps she never had with such focus, before. It could tell, without reading her mind.

Alastor chuckled. "Faith?" His eyes narrowed to a point that surpassed the realms of human ability, a harkening back to the strange physics his form possessed mere hours ago, a reminder that he was not what he appeared to be, no matter what shape currently cloaked him.

It was a rhetorical question, merely commentary. That Lotte should have faith in him was as laughable to Alastor as the idea that she should have faith in anything else beyond herself, religious or otherwise. It was silly, it was human. He loved it. His fingers curled possessively around his glass.

And he extended it to her while she spoke, waiting for her speech to end before he clinked his glass to hers. "To shaping," he agreed. "To unfettered wildness." He fixed her eyes with his and said, "So, drink!" And knocked back his own glass.

[americanvvitch]

Lotte had had faith in Alastor, whatever that narrowing of his dark eyes and equally dark chuckle might have suggested. Faith in herself, ultimately, but she'd believed in him all the same, and she didn't regret it - even under his sharp scrutiny. Her eyes met his straight on, chin tipped up. Alastor could think what he liked.

They'd bet on each other and won.

"To us." She threw back the whiskey in one, smooth motion and swallowed it down, reveled in the burn at her throat. Their deal had been made already, but it still felt like the sealing of something - some promise yet unknown to her. Unfettered wildness certainly sounded like something meant more for him than for her, but with little idea of what awaited her in New Orleans she'd couldn't rightly say what her future held.

It did occur to her to wonder if Alastor untethered might be too much to handle, but Lotte reasoned that she had no real reason to handle him either. Didn't have much convincing evidence that she actually could if he really tried to do as he pleased.

Once he had his feet under him fully, again, which at present he really did not.

Even standing like this now, she could see the dark circles under his eyes, the sluggishness of his body compared to the quick pops of movement he normally displayed. It wasn't this assumed form entirely, but the toll the night had taken on him.

Lotte set her glass down, forced herself to part with the red dress as she draped it delicately over the back of the chair and then turned back to Alastor, hands on her hips.

"Now, I'll make sure I'm all packed up and ready to go by morning. In the meantime, you ought to be getting some rest. Whiskey's not a substitute for sleep, you know."

She made her way back over to him and grabbed the cork, popping it back in the bottle pointedly before looking back up at him. This version of Alastor wasn't quite as tall as the real thing, didn't loom over her the same way but still, she had to tip her chin up a good deal to meet his gaze this close.

"Go on, back into that bed with you."