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]

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."

[devildo]

Perhaps all the better for her, that Alastor rejected such faith. He would not, for all his ego, be worshipped by anyone, whether their cause was just, or not. Worship was tantamount to enslavement, this he knew. No god had ever existed, to his knowledge, that wasn't subsurvient to its devotees. With faith and worship came need, reliance. Those were things better not experienced, if your desire was to remain truly free.

And that was his desire. He would rid her of this silly belief in him, one day.

He swallowed his drink fast enough to watch Lotte down hers, and smiled coyly all the way, lips pressed to the rim of his glass.

"Is it not," he chuckled, when she spoke. It was the drink that drove the laughter, more potent now in this form. It didn't scare him to be this way, only because he knew he would be different within a day, something between what he was now, and what he had been. This was only a temporary setback and not one that he feared. He thought of himself as too intelligent to be afraid of that which was assured to end.

But, he set the glass down and waved his hand, not dismissing Lotte, but dismissing the alcohol and perhaps the level of concern. It was silly to be concerned with a creature like him. That, too, was profoundly human.

He reclined on the table, one hand behind him, propping himself up. "I think," he said, "I'd rather watch you work. What else do you have to bring?"

[americanvvitch]

Lotte watched him, eyes following his every move as he waved away her concern and the alcohol, pretending perhaps to be less affected than he clearly was. It was as much to savor seeing Alastor nearer to drunk than she'd ever seen him as it was to make sure he didn't go for another glass of whiskey.

"This and that. Nothing you'd find interesting." She hummed, echoing his earlier sentiment.

Somehow, Lotte felt like she was suddenly back at the crossroads, wrangling Alastor again as he attempted to wriggle and writhe out of her grasp.

He may have been more than a man, taking the shape of something more or less humanoid, but he wasn't impervious to harm nor consequence. The sting of the burns and the deep ache from the struggle of keeping hold of Alastor permeated every inch of her body, and she hadn't been forced into several other forms against her will.

"And nothing you can't see for yourself when I unpack it."

Lotte rested a hand on the table near his, other other still perched on her hips, and closed the space between them as she leaned in closer. Somehow, that odd crackle of energy was still there when they got close, pricking and tickling at the hair on the base of her neck.

"Bed. Your curiosity can wait a few hours."

[devildo]

"What do you know about what I'd find interesting?" Alastor drawled. She was wrong, of course; everything about her was interesting, and he found it the opposite of that, quite boring in fact, that she didn't know that.

Any burn Lotte sustained would find itself healed by morning, too, but Alastor didn't feel the need to betray this information. He sighed and stretched, rolling his shoulders, looking as much as he could the picture of disinterest in the whole tableau before him, this pitiful room full of pitiful belongings. The bed he had no need (in his estimation) to rest in.

"Show me," he insisted, meeting Lotte's lean with one of his own, until their noses were too close and the whole shape of his smile was surely mangled in her vision, askew and impossible to look straight at. The smell of her blood and sweat and heat-ruptured skin bubbled up to him - he inhaled deeply, his eyes fluttering shut for a beat.

She was right that he could wait, but he was choosing not to. "Show me, and I'll go to sleep. I'll be perfectly content."

[americanvvitch]

Lotte didn't give up any ground as he moved in closer, despite the traitorous blush that crept up her neck to her cheeks and spread over them. That... would be a problem. She'd really have to figure out how to get that under control because there was no way he couldn't see it. A thick swallow followed Alastor's inhale and the briefest flutter of his eyes. Could he smell it, too?

She'd really have to deal with this development and soon. Lotte steadfastly reminded herself that Alastor only seemed so interested in order to avoid going to bed. And that just wouldn't do.

But first, there was the more pressing issue of getting a particularly ornery demon into said bed.

"I highly doubt you've ever been content, Alastor."

She leaned back a bit, heaved a long-suffering sigh, "but if you insist and it'll get you to sleep a little, I'll appease you."

Lotte turned and walked away from him, and she could feel her hair catch against the fabric of his shirt at his shoulder as she did. A few steps took her to the center of the room and Lotte grasped at the circular latch that sat atop the door leading to the small cellar underneath the cabin. It took a few pulls to wrench it up, and she descended the stairs, conjuring a bit of flame in her hand to light the way.

From the depths of the cabin appeared half a dozen jars of strawberry jam as Lotte lined them up along the mouth of the basement's opening.

The next item that appeared was a jar about half the size, covered in sigils, and filled three quarters of the way full with Lotte's blood.

She finally appeared herself a moment later, a sharply curved sickle grasped in her hand. Lotte climbed back up the steps and pushed the cellar door closed, setting the sickle on the table.

"...I may have downplayed the level of interesting here, come to think of it," Lotte hummed, looking the sickle, back at the jar of blood and then finally up at him. chuckling a bit.

[devildo]

Oh, he could see it. He didn't need to smell it, though he could do that quite well, too. The thrumming pulse of Lotte's blood was so palpable, quick, where it rose to the surface and coloured her skin. Even so close, her features unfocused and hazy in his sight, Alastor could see that.

When she moved away, the glimpse was all the better. Intense, vibrant, the flush of her cheeks nearly matching the crown of her hair. "Haven't I?" His voice was a purring trill of elation, a thrum that matched the heat of her face. Oh, Alastor had been content. Perhaps never so much (or at least never greater) than now.

He straightened up again, sat at attention with his foot tapping lightly against the floorboards, while Lotte moved to the basement. The basement was a source of curiosity to him; his only real knowledge of it was that his shadow had deemed it Safe, for all the more that meant. With rapt attention and a hearty dose of amusement, he watched Lotte pull her belongings up from the depths underground. He would have loved to go down there himself but, well. That wouldn't be any more polite than rifling through the witch's dresser drawers.

"And how," he said, rising from the table. He took another cigarette from the case inside his vest as he crossed the room and crouched, sharp-kneed and long-limbed by the edge of the hole, looked down into the dark. "Say, what do you use this blood for?" She'd asked him, hadn't she? It was only fair. The flame on his fingertips sparked to life and a white plume of smoke unfurled into the gaping opening to the cellar.

[americanvvitch]

Lotte had asked him, and also remembered quite well that he hadn't answered her. Still, she wasn't likely to get him to bed without a satisfactory response.

"Just when I need to give things a boost." Lotte explained, watching him. "Spells, hexes, sigils for the storms... protection."

She followed him back to the entrance of the cellar and sat heavily at the top of the stairs. "Never worked on plants, though. Not sure why."

The cellar wasn't particularly large or deep, and even in the dark the shallow stone walls were visible. Alastor's head might still have peeked out the opening, were he to stand at the bottom of it. There were a few handmade talismans, crafted with sticks and horse hair, animal bones and herbs that hung, along with a few pelts and half a dozen or so additional jars.

"You know, when I first called you up, I used it to paint a sigil on the ceiling of the cellar, under the floor boards. In case whatever showed up wasn't friendly... I left part of the circle open, so I'd have had to get down there to finish it." She leaned back on her hands, staring down into the darkness. The thrill of the not knowing, that night remained with her, even now.

"Not the most practical solution. I don't rightly know if it would have worked, either, but I figured it was better than nothing. That sickle always scared off any men who came sniffing around well enough, but I didn't know how it'd fare against a demon."

Things would be different now, wouldn't they. No more having to scare drunk men off her land, threatening to gut them with that sickle. Holding up afterward and praying they didn't come and burn the place down around her.

"Figured I'd bring them both. Proof of the past once this place is long behind me."

[devildo]

If these things were his own to touch, Alastor would have gathered them all up, left nothing pertinent of himself behind. But if Lotte wished to do so, that was her business. He preferred this level of mystery to her, this unfathomable bit that he couldn't decipher, this odd lack of pride in her work, even when it was successful.

Perhaps he seemed more complicated, more valuable to her, than the work she'd done to protect this town. Or maybe it was only that she viewed him as the one thing she'd done for herself. A pity. Alastor itched to tell her that she could have done so much more here, if only she'd wanted it.

"Oh, they don't hold with that." The ripples of laughter kept bubbling up from him, fueled by the dizzying combination of frayed nerves, whiskey, and mania. "Plants want your light," he said, more reasonably, smoke curling from his mouth after a drag on his cigarette. "They're tetchy things, can't be reasoned with. Like you!"

His eyes sparkled; they might have spun, if he was in his right form. A wave of static rolled through his shadow, an echo of his own laughter. "I jest," he said quickly, a wave of his hand through the little smoke cloud lingering about him, before she could protest. "I should so love to see you threaten some wanton ne'er-do-well. That's no joke." If she thought he was lively with laughter now, it would be nothing compared to the sound he would make if some fool did chance across them while Lotte was armed.

[americanvvitch]

Her brow quirked, and she opened her mouth very much prepared to protest before he waved it off with a laugh. All the gusto she'd mustered up in an instant, deflated. Lotte huffed out the breath she'd sucked in rather anticlimactically and ran her fingers through her own tousled hair.

"Well that explains it." She hummed, took in a breath of the smoke from his cigarette, thick and a little bitter. "Not sure I have much light to give, they must have known."

Giving light to something else probably would have required someone who hadn't spent the past five years stubbornly, angrily, bitterly keeping this town alive. It wasn't that she'd withered away here, exactly. No, she'd simply become something else. Something other than the girl that had been dragged her against her will but that still had hope. Anger, too, but hope that the sheriffs would understand she'd been kidnapped. That they wouldn't bring her back. Then, that if she was successful at working with the land, she could get away without having to run. That the men who dropped off her measly bag of potatoes or what have you wouldn't try to force the door open and overstay his welcome.

"You laugh, but what else could I do?!" Lotte protested, looking over at him and choking down her own creeping laughter. "I'm all alone out here! You think anyone would have cared if some man forced his way in here and did whatever he liked to me?"

She watched his eyes sparkle, with mirth and magic and more than a little bit of intoxication, found it hard to look away.

"The stupid ones don't understand magic, so it doesn't always scare them. But flying out of that door, swinging that thing around? That's a universal language!" Lotte scoffed, "Maybe I should have brought it along when I took you from the Queen. Could have saved us some time."

[devildo]

One day, Alastor thought, Lotte would hold onto that breath of fire and light into him. When it came, it would be delightful - and the more time passed without it, the more delicious when it came. He could spend years wondering when the moment would come, when her voice would truly raise, when her ire would stay in her voice instead of blowing itself out on a sharp release of breath.

Still crouched, he folded himself forward to peer as far into the cellar as he could, one last time, before standing. Could she have really gotten down there before he smote her, if he'd posed any threat that first night? He wondered. It would have amused him to see her try.

Unfurling himself from the ground, he crossed back to the bed and sat on its end, without showing any signs of the intent to rest. "No joke, didn't I say?" His palms spread in an exaggerated show of honesty. "I'm sure you were fearsome. I'd love to see you cut one down. Say, maybe we can arrange that."

Unlikely, of course, and a joke. He smiled at her and peeled his glasses from his face with his free hand, to rub the glass on the bedspread and clear some of the lingering dust from the road. "Not against the queen, of course. Just someone looking to make trouble. You wouldn't believe the types out there."

[americanvvitch]

Lotte didn't move, but her gaze and chin followed after him as he moved back to the bed and sat down on it, looking more animated than ever.

"Don't tease me. I might have cut a man down for less. You don't really know, do you?" Lotte hummed, looking back down at the cellar.

Had Alastor ever actually asked her if she'd killed someone? She couldn't rightly remember, at this late hour after all the excitement of the evening and the several shots of whiskey they'd shared this evening. Maybe he had. Either way, the answer was the same.

She hadn't, but not for lack of wanting.

The only thing that had stopped her was the knowledge that she wasn't likely to escape retribution out here. If Alastor hadn't come, if she'd failed to pull up anything at all... in a few years, who knows what lengths she'd have gone to, to take back some of her power. Lotte wasn't sure she had many limits, if pushed to the brink. She certainly wouldn't spare a single crumb of pity for the type of people she'd been subject to here.

"Wouldn't I?" Finally, she pushed herself up and closed the cellar up, scooping the jars of preserves and her blood into her arms and carrying them over to the table. She wrapped each in some old newspaper she had stashed in a drawer before tucking them into her bag.... her eyes wandered to the sickle, but she left it out.

Just in case anyone came a'knocking for Alastor during the night.

"Sickles are very messy, though, you know. Would be an awful lot of cleanup to worry about in a city. Out here, the animals or the storms handle that for you. If you even find the body." Lotte sat herself in a chair and took hold of the dress Alastor had fixed once again, laying it out in her lap and brushing her fingers over it.

"Do you plan on killing people, once we're there? Making more deals?" She thought about how the red hadn't fully seeped out of his eyes when they'd been up close, how clear it was that this just a skin stretched over the thing that was Alastor, still nearly bursting at the seams. Lotte didn't rightly care if he did either, particularly, but she was curious what plans he had for himself now that he was free.

[devildo]

"Would you?" he echoed back, rhetorically. There were unsavory people everywhere, a curse of humanity, but there just weren't many at all, out here, so Alastor had a hard time imagining Lotte knew the full width and breadth of humanity's indecency. There were no cities here, no strong-armed criminals, no folks who made a career out of maiming any weaker thing they could get their hands on. Not to the scale one saw in cities, anyway. The victims were too far and between, out here. Pain was inflicted on those closest to these mundane criminals, their wives and children, mostly. Sometimes witches who roused their ire.

"True enough," Alastor agreed with a nod and a shake of his foot, dangling where it was crossed over his opposite knee. "But I know plenty of places to hide a body. It isn't only this grave of a place that's good for that." In fact, though he didn't doubt her estimation of the place, he imagined it only got by on its sheer vastness, unchartedness. Everything here was so flat and featureless, there weren't exactly many intentional dumping grounds, that he could tell.

But then, as he'd observed to himself so many times before, he didn't know much about this place. He was glad, in a way, not to know it.

At her question, his foot bounced again, and he sucked at his bottom lip, sliding his glasses back onto his nose. They were hardly necessary, anymore, but he didn't feel quite himself without them. "I don't suppose I have any need of that," he mused. Not to strike up any new bargains, anyway. And that wasn't to say that he wouldn't, only that if he did, it would be purely by his own devising. There would be no more calling him up from Hell against his will. He simply wasn't there. "But if a man wants killing, I suppose I'll have to oblige."

[americanvvitch]

Lotte couldn't know the true depths of depravity that could exist in a place like New Orleans, she supposed, having never been there. Having never been much of anywhere. She knew cruel men, callous women, corrupt lawmen. The desperation that came with hunger and scarcity and the fear of an uncaring god. People out here killed each other, stole each other for anything that might help them survive. But in the end, that was part of why she hadn't just burned this place to the ground.

Humans were no better than animals, most of the time, when they were fighting for survival. The closest she'd come to malicious, intentional ne'er do wellers had been sad, angry, drunk men who thought they might take advantage of an unprotected girl. The witch hunters, too, but Lotte'd managed to avoid a skirmish with them. Each was a form of evil, to be sure, but if there were men that made careers out of evildoings, Lotte hadn't come across them.

The way Alastor said it, Lotte thought was rather like her asking about the houses in New Orleans. She'd simply have to see it, to believe it.

"An act of public service, hm? How very considerate of you. It appears I've done New Orleans a favor, unleashing you upon it once more."

Lotte draped the dress over the back of the chair again, before sliding around to face him.

"After that cigarette's out, I'm putting you to bed, just so you know. Consider this your fair warning."

[devildo]

Alastor leveled a challenging look on Lotte. Did the prospect of sleep bother him? Not really, he was more interested in the degree to which she meant to keep good on her threat. He was on the bed, technically near to position, but he wondered what she thought she could do to make him relent and take the rest his body was clamoring for.

"You have," he agreed, ignoring her second comment in reply, though not at all in mind.

"They were better off in my clutches." She might think it posturing, but it wasn't. This was his true belief, and he smiled around the cigarette between his lips, blowing out another puff of smoke that intensified the haze in the air. "You must think I'm evil," he said. "Demon does imply it, doesn't it?" That it did, but only to those who didn't know any better, those who were still alive. "I should say you're wrong, but I won't. You're free to think it. I've been nothing but rational and reasonable, in life or otherwise."

And if humans were not so intent on maligning one another, there would have been no need for him. Maybe that would have been better, on the whole. Maybe he would still be home and alive, or maybe he would have gone on to be with his mother, if he chanced to die. But they were, and he didn't. He longed to tell Lotte the whole story, it bubbled in his gut and he wondered if this was a true desire, or some whim of the fleshiness of his body.

[americanvvitch]

Lotte stared back at him, unblinking, in answer to his challenge. He was limited in what he could do right now. How much, she couldn't say, but she was fairly certain between his more physical form and pure exhaustion she could wrangle him into that bed and keep him there if need be. Alastor liked games and technicalities - so she'd humor him for a bit longer - but seeing him so vulnerable at that crossroads... there was a gnawing instinct to care for him still.

Lotte perched an elbow on her knee and rested her chin in her palm, listening.

"I don't know that I think you're evil, no."

Perhaps she should have. A good girl would have, but a good girl Lotte was not. Of course she knew precious few details of Alastor's life when he was alive, so perhaps she was wrong, but murdering bad people didn't seem particularly heinous to her. That wasn't to say she could have done it herself. Killing a man in self-preservation or protection did feel different to her than killing someone who didn't pose a direct threat to her... but for every instance Lotte had escaped violence, certainly there were girls who had not. She thought it quite reasonable indeed, that such people be punished. Was that evil?

When the lawmen were complicit, or at best indifferent, who did people have to turn to but someone like Alastor?

"Then again, maybe you are. Maybe I am, too. The law usually falls woefully short of delivering justice to those who need it most. If murder creates a net good.." Lotte shrugged, "I can't find much fault in that."

"I actually like the idea I got to play a small part in it." What positive impact had she had on the world so far? What had she done, really, other than protect a few hundred people from storms for a few years? People no one knew, who wouldn't be remembered. What Alastor would do, though? That was something that could make a better, if bloodier, mark on the world.