Duality [10% Complete]

[Rigel Scott]

Prompt List

• Smile
• Family
• Hot
• Treasure
• Snow
• Beloved
• Dangerous
• Illusion
• Words
• Hay

[Rigel Scott]

S M I L E

  Rigel sighed, closing the thick grimoire that lay on the table before him with a loud thump. To his left, in front of the fireplace, his sister shifted back into the beanbag chair, loudly flipping a few pages of the newer book he'd had her searching through.

"Nothing?" she asked him, glancing up with her dark brown eyes.

He shook his head slightly. "Nothing at all," he said, his voice holding some irritation to it. He leaned back in his chair and ran his hands through his short hair, exhaling through his mouth as his eyes searched the ceiling, as though they were trying to find an answer in the wood.

"I still don't see why we can't just take our own side in the matter," she said bitterly. "Grancourt is staying neutral," she added, dropping the name of the only other necromancer that they knew. The two families had probably been one long, long before, but now they couldn't be more related than lizards and cats, and so the notorious Ethan and the rather secretive Rigel did not often cross paths.

"Because, Adara, I don't know how to go against Queen Artemesia. Do you?" he said angrily, jerking around in his chair. Ever since they'd found out that the dark fae had been another one of the individuals enlisted with the likes of the man who summoned the Old Ones, things had gotten... complicated. Anyone who had magical ability of any kind was being solicited by other beings, choosing sides, placing their bets. Up until now, Rigel had avoided it. "Why couldn't she stay neutral?" he muttered to himself. All he'd found so far was that iron would be the quickest way to piss her off, but beyond that?

She frowned at him. "Don't get mad at me because you agreed to help," she snapped. "I'm just here to keep you alive, that's all." When he made a face and apologized, she shook it off with a visible roll of her eyes. "And anyways, what I think we'd really need are some Seelie-based texts. Aren't the two like, black and white, basically? They should be able to cancel eachother out, at least."

Rigel shook his head. "The Seelie court seems to have totally washed their fucking hands of it, because otherwise I'd expected to have seen action from them. It isn't like I can just call them up. Well, I suppose I could summon one, but I don't think I'd get much out of them, secretive little shits," he muttered.

Footsteps roused both of their attention and they looked up as a muscular black man came into the room. His eyes were still tinged with gold, betraying that he wasn't human, but neither Necromancer nor Ward reacted, so the lion didn't see a need to taunt them. "He wants to know if you found anything," the man said. His voice was accented with French, just as the others, but his accent was much less Island. He wondered how long the man had been in the US.

"Nothing," Rigel said, honestly as he pushed the pile of books away from him. "I don't think there will be anything in these, either. She's essentially god-tier on the Fae level. I'm still just a necromancer, at the end of the day. To fight a god, I'd need another god."

"How about a devil?" Adara joked, sitting up on the beanbag and tossing her own book into the stack she had scattered around her.

"How about the devil, sweetheart?" a smooth voice said. Adara and Rigel both whipped around in time to see the puppeteered body of Trevor stride in from the darkness. Had he been there the whole time? They didn't know. He passed by Adara without so much as a glance, dropping a hand down to pat her dark hair, which earned him a look of annoyance but no further comment - which was wise. He sat down in a chair next to Rigel, taking a rather relaxed position.

"Baptiste, I'm sure you have more important... errands to run," he said, not taking his eyes off of the necromancer for a second. "I want to have a little word with my very learned student." And with a wave of his hand, closed the door behind Baptiste, the slam shaking the walls enough to knock a painting down.

"I think it's time we had a little face-to-face," he said, pausing for effect. "Son." And he smiled a broad slasher smile at the hunter whose family had long, long ago pledged their allegiance in return for the power they wielded.