Scry Me a River

[Mandy Payne]

 Tucker's progress had taken them to the Hollow (because of course it had, Ash clearly hadn't had enough drama for one decade), but only because after speaking with Lilyana, Tucker was beginning to get tired of having black spots in his memory. It was pretty obvious that it was painful for her to try and process that he couldn't really grasp some of their shared moments (like proposing to her) and it was bothering him that he had strong feelings for her but had a definite lack of knowledge as to why.

Lily had suggested Sophia only because she remembered the episode with the vampire, Alexander - Sophia had literally resurrected his former glory from him. And she'd been fine afterwards, because nobody saw the week sabbatical she took after where Ash was basically helping her not die from massive mystical trauma - whatever that was. But if Sophia could undo something that Iloquil had bid done, then how hard would it be to unravel Niall's handiwork? They put a lot of faith into that little Kirin.

Which was why, when Mandy walked into the bar, Tucker in tow, Sophia took one look at them and said, "NO," as loudly as she could, pointing directly at him. "Not for all of the whiskey in the world, you can fuck off if you think that I'm going to - " and was taken by the arm by Anthony and pulled into the taproom before she could finish whatever she'd been saying.

"Jesus, I hadn't even asked yet," Mandy said, looking from Darren to Tucker. She looked Tucker up and down quickly, and then said, "Do you just have this guy's magical signature all over you or what, dude? That's not a normal reaction for anyone to have."

"It's normal for Sophia," an unfamiliar voice offered. Mandy looked right, then looked slightly down, at where the auburn-haired girl had almost gone totally unnoticed. She was sitting on a stool, tray next to her, fingers lazily tracing across the alphabet on her phone as she texted her boyfriend. The girl took her eyes off of the device and met Mandy's bright blue ones with a smile.

"I'm Seraphine," she said. "What did you need Sophia's talents for? Maybe I can help?"

"Sera," Darren said, his voice low with warning. He looked at Mandy and Tucker warily. "What do you need? Is this the thing Connor mentioned I might be coming across?"

[David Tucker]

No, Ash obviously didn't have enough drama at any given second, so bringing the sorcerer who'd been brainwashed by Midnight and attacked his bar in for help was a fantastic idea.  At least there were no Arelis present, and only Sophia really threw a fit over the group coming in, not to mention the warning he'd gotten from Connor that there may be some strangeness going on, between Tucker possibly needing help and just the general bad stuff that comes from snagging one of Midnight's operatives.  Ash thought he was right to worry about those consequences, considering what had happened the last time the guilds had done anything that pissed Niall off, but it had been quiet thus far.  If Ash had to guess, one of Crimson's hunters just 'yanking Tucker out of a closet like a rabbit out of a hat' was probably the reason why Niall hadn't made a fuss about it yet; nobody in power wanted to admit that they'd been stolen from quite that easily, or when they didn't personally understand how.  Hell, Ash didn't entirely understand how, and he was certainly in-the-know enough with hunters that he thought he should have had more of an idea than he did.

He sure as hell didn't miss the group coming into the bar, but with Mandy practically leading the charge, it was hard not to notice.  The stench of demon practically came off of her in waves, and as he came out of the office to watch the group wander in, it was her who had the majority of his attention from the start.  Demon, for certain, and a taint that wasn't specifically hers.  She was human of some sort, though it was obvious she'd been around and manipulated by one so deeply that she still carried that aura.  It wasn't like Benjamin's, either, which was a puzzle Ash had been working at since meeting the vampire; Benjamin wore the aura of a vampire well, but there was no disguising the demon beneath, however that had happened.  The strangeness to him was that unlike the demonic taint Mandy had practically oozing off of her for those who could sense such things, Benjamin's shone.  It was dark and it was deadly, but it wasn't a thick, suffocating thing.  That actually made it scarier.

Beside Mandy was David Tucker, who Ash hadn't seen in around 5 years, but had once been a regular at the Hollow.  For all of the years that Ash had known him, through Stavros Arun raising the boy and his own son side by side, he wouldn't have immediately realized who he was without seeing his face, and that was startling.  He recognized the magical signature that worked around him, but from the attack on his bar, not the young man he'd once known.  That had been power before, certainly, but this was raw, jagged in places.  Tucker's power had grown, but it had grown practically feral under the harsh treatment, and the look behind the man's eyes, like he was on guard for an attack at any moment, didn't do anything to change Ash's estimation of him as being like a wild animal.  He remembered the man's 'death', and silently wondered if perhaps this had been worse.  The overlay of what had to be Niall and Justinian on top of all that was Tucker now practically screamed all on its own for people to get away, but Justinian's brand of shrieking insanity and Niall's way with nightmares made that all make sense.  Death would have been kinder.

Anthony dragged Sophia off into the taproom mid-rant, which Ash approved of wholeheartedly despite the hunters having shown up at a predictably slow time, and he approached instead to Darren's careful warning to Seraphine.  She might actually be able to help, he could agree with that, but given what Sophia had gone through the last time the hunters had come to the Hollow for help of this type, Ash wasn't so sure he was willing to do anything but dissuade the girl.  That didn't even include what would happen to anyone involved should she come to harm.  "It's the thing Connor mentioned," he said without giving Mandy, or anyone else, the chance to respond.  He gave the rest of the bar a glance and then his gaze lingered on Seraphine a moment too long before going back to Mandy. 

Tucker had only agreed to this madness because just talking to Lily was so emotionally painful that he'd do pretty much anything to get it all taken care of.  He couldn't not talk to her because there was some insane drive within him to not only be around her, but to give a shit about how she felt about things, how she reacted, just generally how she was.  For a man who was only just starting to get a feel for having feelings again, that was a seriously heavy blow to suddenly endure, and he didn't know why he felt that way.  All he knew was that there was this deep, tight feeling in his chest when something in her expression broke and showed him anything of what she was actually feeling behind the general hard exterior she was trying to offer.  This was hurting her, and if he'd believed nothing that Mandy had told him, he would now. 

Besides, he'd agreed to let Mandy take a crack at his head when they'd first taken him, so why would he back out now?  It sounded like this process could be unpleasant, but that would be familiar at this point.  The slow, gentle approach of him trying to remember on his own was murder, so he'd take anything to get this train rolling.  Of course, because he was totally game for this Kirin chick to do her thing, they'd walk in and she'd freak out and refuse to even hear what Mandy had to say, let alone what they wanted her to do.  Being blamed for it was fine with him, though he found it amusing enough that he smirked, looking Mandy up and down just the way she'd done to him.  "You're not looking so inviting yourself, you know.  Keep that up and you'll give me the element of surprise," he shot back, mostly just to be an asshole, though it might have been a little bit true.  If this was an attack, she'd have taken the attention first, and he'd have unloaded.

Fortunately, it wasn't an attack, since the triste came out, and while Tucker was pretty damn sure he could take whatever that bastard had to offer, it would have been a messy spot to be in, and then he wouldn't remember what he wanted to remember, anyway.  That would defeat the entire purpose, though the visit was looking like a bust, anyway, and part of him was still pretty damn concerned that Niall or the Midnight Death Squad were going to show up out of a damn shadow at any moment.  It had him on edge, and being on edge made him a little sharper to be around.  That also might have been why he sniped Mandy about her own aura showing off her 'history', but he was still only guessing at some of that, even after the long talks they'd been having.  He got enough of a picture, and she sure as hell knew what little he knew about his captivity, and then some that she'd been telling him they'd figured out.  He wasn't a fan of it.

Having some cute chick just hanging around and suggesting that maybe she could help wasn't quite something he was sure he was into, either, but the bartender with the cat eyes giving her that little 'warning tone' made him wonder if maybe she could help.  Tuck could read enough off of her that he could tell she wasn't 'normal', but not exactly what it was she did.  The triste's attention being on her just upped that estimation.  Fine, he'd bite.

"I'm shopping around for some memories, preferably something nice.  Nothing too goody-goody, ladies seem to like that 'bad boy' thing, but I'm running a little too 'machine assassin' and 'fucking asshole' these days," he said, putting on that facade like it really wasn't bothering him that he had these nagging sensations that there was something there to support the way he was feeling about Lily, the impressions he had of Alice and Zaine, because he wasn't interested in just throwing that weakness around.  That, and there was that whole 'new to emotions' issue going on where his first instinct was to lash out and keep from feeling anything or letting anyone close enough to feel anything.  He'd been holding back with people around the guild and his cell for the most part, definitely holding back around Lily, and the one they'd come to see had just noped out on him.  He wasn't feeling great about playing the nice guy.  "I'm trying to impress this hot blonde, you see, and she knows what she likes."

Yeah, if only it was as simple as that.

[Mandy Payne]

 Mandy was fully aware that her aura was a choking charcoal ichor of shit, and that was thanks to Samael lording over her for five long years. True, she and Tucker had talked, and Tucker got the distinct impression that Mandy could empathize with him on a whole new level of fucked-up that most of the other Hunters who had Seen Some Shit still couldn't do, but he didn't know exactly what. They didn't ever exchange intimate details of their respective captivities, and that was fine. Mandy found Tucker to be almost therapeutic, and the feeling was oddly mutual in some form or fashion. Both of them had lost a good chunk of time. Mandy lifted no finger to reclaim her memories of those five years, mostly because the memories she did have were in vivid detail and if there were spots missing, that was fucking fine by her.

She had to give Tucker credit for this, because she certainly wasn't knocking on any Kirin's doors for herself. She didn't have anything she loved that much. Not even herself.

Ash knew who Mandy was, even if he didn't know who she was. He would know because the rumours kicked up like they always did about missing persons suddenly re-emerging, and since the guilds tried to keep him informed, a possible demon in the area who liked to chew people up and spit them out would be good knowledge to have. He'd put two and two together eventually if he hadn't already. As it was, Mandy regarded him with empty blue eyes - and that was probably the most bothersome thing about her. Not the aura that so clearly stained her own so badly she was unrecognizable to someone looking on with their second sight, it was the utter lack of anything in her turquoise eyes that would disturb him. He'd seen it before, but it had been a while, and those circumstances had not been some he'd like to repeat.

With her dead eyes came a face that held a variety of expression otherwise - and currently it regarded the newly introduced girl with curiosity. And something else. Because Samael had made Mandy acutely aware of power sources, and so her first instinct was to calculate how and what the ability could be that had been offered to Tucker and how she could use it to benefit herself. Her lips parted slightly as her eyes narrowed just a hair, and it was an accidental brush against her arm by Tucker as he slid next to the redhead that brought her back to the here and now.

"And what do you do, sweetie?" Mandy asked, her head tilting like an owl looking at a mouse. There was a hungry dream-like tone in her voice that made it sound almost hollow; the smile she managed after that was automatic, but delayed as though it were an afterthought, and lacked the warmth of something genuine.

"Don't answer that," said Darren defensively. He turned to the brunette, green eyes narrowed int slits. "Unless you want to make a powerful enemy, I suggest you reel it in." He knew who she was, and he knew that Connor was convinced of her rehabilitation through the hands of Dev, Axel, and Stavros, but if he could have seen what Darren had just seen, he might not be so sure.

Mandy seemed to look through Darren for a second, then blinked rapidly a few times. She said nothing, but sat down on the stool directly in front of her, and put her chin in her hand. Old habits didn't die hard because they hadn't died at all, it seemed. She pinched a few strands of her brown hair and concentrated on finding split ends, trying to occupy herself in order to take the attention off of the prospect a few feet away.

[Seraphine Windsor]

 Seraphine was eager to prove herself, especially now that her abilities were coming into bloom. She'd been told that the entire Thorne bloodline had been bound due to their power becoming too hard to control, but so far she had little issue with it. She hadn't necessarily neglected to inform Ronan of what she had found herself able to do in the last few weeks, but she wanted it to be a surprise. She'd seen Freyja, she knew what she was stacking up against, and she knew that she was just an impoverished gypsy girl where that was all concerned. She felt unworthy of the Fae's dedication, despite having it. She felt weak.

If only she knew how Freyja had struggled, and ultimately destroyed their relationship, based on some of the very same ideas that Seraphine was currently harvesting. If only Ronan knew.

"No, it's fine, really," she said, holding a hand up to stop Darren from going all 'Grr' on them. She didn't know that she could take many more men standing in for her when she was trying to accomplish a task. She gave Ash a glance, then looked back at the man who'd slid up next to her and began talking. He spoke smoothly, but he had a... a way about him. She found it hard to explain. Like looking at him for too long made her feel like a thought was on the tip of her tongue, but she just couldn't remember it.

When he explained his plight, she couldn't help but laugh. Tucker had retained his charm, it seemed - you couldn't beat a personality out of someone, which was probably why Mandy was ever-alarmed at her own actions. When she'd been with Samael they'd been easy to pass off as his will, but now? Not so much. Seraphine pressed her lips together, trying to think of how she could delve into Tucker's memories.

"Well," she began, reaching out to pick up a tall plastic cup that rattled with the telltale sign of "extra ice". She took a sip, using the moment of pause to think about what she wanted to say and how, then set the cup back down on the bar with a click. "If it's memories you want, I can do that, but it won't be exactly like how you would have gotten the with Sophia. She physically pulls them to the surface, and I'm told it's painful. Physically, mentally, spiritually. I think.... I think I have a different method that might help."

She held up her finger as she spoke, gesturing with it to Darren, who had been speaking quietly with the brunette that Seraphine was doing her best to ignore because quite frankly the woman had creeped her out asking her what her talent was, and when Tucker pointed out that she was equally saddled with a murky aura, Seraphine had taken a closer look and recoiled at what she felt.

"Darren, if Ash can supervise, I think all I need is the white room and that ugly mirror that Danielle won't get rid of." At least she'd been smart enough to ask for the white room - Ash had finally gotten smart and also tired of housing magical creatures that reached critical mass and destroyed his property, so he'd had a white room built, and imbued it with every ward he could fathom - from Firestone to a few tricks he remembered from Dash's last visit.

Tucker physically could not roll his eyes any harder when the words "white room" came up, but only because he was mighty sick of them.

[David Tucker]

Darren was about done with both of the two newcomers practically as soon as they showed up.  He'd been a part of Ash's staff long enough to have a very good grip on what constituted a threat, and then there were his own experiences, training he'd received and people who'd been hurt to top it all off.  He didn't like the feel that either of them were putting out, the scent of them as they entered the building, and while Seraphine seemed interested and even eager to talk to the pair, Darren wanted her as far away from them as he could get her.  Ash's presence made him relax the slightest bit, but then Mandy went full creep-mode right in front of him, and that was NOT OKAY.  He said as much, and she backed off without any input out of Ash, though he could feel the witch's eyes on them both.   He would have spoken up regardless of the situation (and may have been knocked on his ass, though he got the distinct impression that if he pissed Mandy off, the man would sit back and watch her either kick his ass or get her ass kicked instead of stepping in), but having Ash there certainly gave him that cushion of support. 

Was he intending to point out to Connor that he had to be on drugs to believe that bitch was safe to have around people?  Abso-fucking-lutely, not that he really thought it would be all it took to change Connor's mind, but anything had to help.  It sure as shit wasn't making him feel any better about any of this that Seraphine seemed to take Tucker's description of his issues as a charming little joke, complete with a laugh and disregard for his concern.  At lease she was being smart about Ash supervising and a white room, though he still didn't think that would help her all that much if Tucker went batshit.  He seemed like the type right about now.

For Tucker's part, he'd take the credit Mandy was offering, but it wasn't like he was doing it out of some sort of nobility.  He wasn't that Tucker, not currently.  He was able to be selfish for the first time he could remember, for the first time in five long years, and it was seriously pissing him off that he was feeling things he didn't understand.  The fact that he thought Niall was going to come blow his brain up at any moment didn't hurt that 'nothing to lose' feeling, or that a Kirin really couldn't fuck his head up worse than it already was, but in the end, the consequences just didn't bother him that much compared with the information he'd be receiving.  Hell, if this Seraphine chick could get his brain ticking in the right direction, it didn't matter how painful it was.  Pain was temporary.

Being warned that Sophia's method was 'painful' with that already in mind just made him smile, and it wasn't entirely a nice expression, but it wasn't exactly terrible, either.  It just didn't have enough behind it, not good, at least.  It was just his own twisted amusement that he'd be warned about that.  Then came the 'white room', and he rolled his so hard that there may have been a fear of going blind over that.

"White room, wonderful, my favorite.  When do we start?"  That was the important part to him, since he really didn't care much about the methods.

"Darren, would you grab the mirror and prep the room, please?" Ash asked, mostly to get his bartender away from Mandy before someone got too pissed off, and while he got an unhappy look, the young man went and did as he asked.  That was when he continued.  "Understand that what Seraphine does is very different from Sophia, and the results may not be quite the same.  That said, as long as Seraphine agrees to do this, your involvement with her ends when her work does."

He looked at Mandy particularly at that last part, just making sure it was painfully clear exactly how he felt about her advances, despite his cool demeanor, and that it wouldn't be tolerated.  Honestly, he wasn't the one anyone had to worry about if any harm came to Sera, but they didn't necessarily know that.

[Seraphine Windsor]

 That Ash wouldn't be who they'd have to worry about if Sera ended up in any sort of trouble was an understatement. He saw how the Fae - the Paladin was - even when it came to his former flames. He'd hate to think about what Ronan would do for someone he was currently with. Mandy merely shrugged and scratched the back of her head, looking rather bored suddenly by the entire ordeal. She didn't have to like anyone in that room, but she'd better at least believe Ash's warning.

"When he says what I do is very different from what Sophia does, I don't feel like you understand fully. She will drag your memories up to the surface, and they can fundamentally change who you are - not as an individual, but as a physical being on this planet," Sera said, tapping her index finger into the palm of her other hand to make a point. It was almost comical to see the girl so serious, because she had such a youthful look that one could never even imagine her angry. She was, however, referencing the whole fiasco of turning a man into a vampire suddenly after a long time of not being one. "I think it's because she pulls more than just memory to the surface, but I don't know. Kirin aren't my lane, as I've been told many, many times," she added flatly. By Ronan, by Murphy, by Cian - by literally every Fae she knew, to be honest. It probably had more to do with Sera's own curiosity about her personal bloodline than anything else, but she didn't really know that.

"At any rate, what I do is basically - spying. I mean, it's called scrying, which anyone who's seen an episode of Supernatural or Charmed is probably familiar with, but it really, basically is spying. It's like being able to watch events of other people's lives like you're a bystander or an audience member and they're a movie. A lot of the things you'll see can be misleading, though. Please bear in mind that what you watch can be out of order, out of context, or just out of synch altogether. It's an imprecise magic. But it involves nothing from you, which means you shouldn't be in any immediate danger of yourself, or of pulling something dangerous to the surface for us."

She paused. "Of course, if you don't like what you see, that's a different story altogether."
 
By then, they had reached the white room, and Darren had brought the mirror. "If you three are going to stay, you need to step back over there," she said, pointing to a spot that was far enough away from the mirror they couldn't interfere with anything, "and be quiet." She turned to Tucker. "Whenever you're ready."

And when he was ready, she asked for the lights in the room to be dimmed, and stood in front of the mirror, directing Tucker to her right. "You need to concentrate on what you want to see. Don't be too specific, it doesn't seem to agree with that. But give it a general scope, or timeline, and we can search from there."

She lowered her head and closed her eyes, holding her hand out and placing her palm flat on the surface of the large glass object. There were a few moments where nothing at all happened, and Mandy turned to say something to Darren, but then out of the corner of her eye, she saw something. Rippling. Like water. The mirror's surface was like water. It looked a lot like the way Irene's mirrors did, actually, although most of them had never seen that.

Slowly, like watching through the other side of a fish tank, things began to appear. The sound was before the picture, and when the images were shown with clarity, they were delayed by the voices significantly. It must have been what she meant when she said out of synch. Seraphine made an audible noise of disdain, and took in a deep breath; she had initially been looking up to ensure the picture was projected, but once again lowered her head, commanding the mirror to show them what Tucker had asked.

[David Tucker]

Sera was being incredibly informative, both about what she did and what the Kirin was capable of, which was almost a shame - the more he heard, the more he'd have preferred having Sophia take a crack at his brain, and a lot of that was morbid curiosity.  Having a goal here didn't change that 'nothing to lose' sense he had, and frankly?  Watching a bunch of memories like he was flipping through channels on a TV didn't sound nearly as effective as literally dragging them all up from wherever he'd lost them, especially when it was described as being so intense that it could change who he was as a physical being.  That sounded more his speed.

Not that 'spying' was below him or anything, because it was still information that he wanted and possibly needed, but she had a point about it potentially being misleading, considering the need for context in many cases.  Not liking what he saw seemed like a given, all things considered, so he just shrugged that part off because watching something that he didn't like and didn't really feel any sort of emotional connection to didn't really strike him as all that damaging.  He wasn't wrong, either.

"Absolutely ready, let's see it."

What Seraphine brought up into the mirror to show him, at his own vague direction, was certainly interesting, but almost in the way that a documentary on something you were actually very interested in could be fascinating.  He wanted to know, and she cycled through showing him a variety of scenes that were apparently from his life and others' that he apparently knew, which certainly helped fill in some blanks and explain a few reactions he'd been getting, but there was something lacking.  There was none of the intimacy of being actually involved there, he was still detached enough from it all that his interest level bounced between curiosity, focused and downright bored, depending on exactly where they landed from jump to jump. 

Points to Seraphine, she didn't falter the way he would have expected when they landed into some Midnight-heavy shit, things he didn't remember and still wasn't at all surprised about, but he honestly wasn't seeing the point in pushing her here when it really wasn't doing anything for him that some intense research couldn't come up with.  Granted, this was quicker, but she seemed like a nice girl, and there was a triste hanging around who obviously felt like protecting her and a jaguar that seemed like he was itching to get blasted into another plane.  Tuck wouldn't feel bad about that, especially considering how brief the cat's stay would end up being - Stavros Arun would want Batten's cousin back, and then Tucker would have to go find the idiot feline and that would probably be more trouble than it was worth at that point, but in the meantime, he could tell himself it would be satisfying.

"You don't have to keep going here.  I don't know what else is there, but you don't want to see it," he warned.

[Mandy Payne]

 Mandy, to her credit, stayed back in the background and didn't interfere at all. However, as interesting as Seraphine's ability was, she knew pretty much right away that it wouldn't be what Tucker was looking for. If it were her? Well, shit. She had a lot of memories that were gone, stolen from her or otherwise, and she'd probably need more than just a looking glass to know what she should be feeling about them. Even if it hurt.

Seraphine drew her hand back from the mirror at Tucker's command, and the lights came back up in the room at the direction of Darren, who had decided to pop in and see what was going on. "Sorry, I know it's a little strange when you aren't used to it. It's imprecise at times, but - " she trailed off, shrugging. She was disappointed, because for once she had wanted to be useful and had the opportunity but yet again, fell short. How did she ever compare to the stack-up of Ronan in this world? She felt powerless, and useless.

"Hey kid, it's okay," Mandy said gently. "You showed us a lot we didn't know," she added, glancing to Tucker. She knew Lilyana had been to Midnight, they all knew. But seeing Lilyana in a pre-Doll state was weird. Unnatural somehow.

"I can try again," Sera offered.

"I think that's enough for today," Ash interjected, much to the irritation of Mandy. She got it, he was trying to be the responsible adult, but for fuck sake, it was either this or Sophia, and Mandy was desperately trying not to go that route with the Kirin. Why was he being such a cockblock? Of course, once again, Mandy didn't know that Sera's significant other was a Paladin-type Fae who made even the strongest of them (Ash included) look pretty small. She'd missed a lot when it came to the Fae, and catching up was a task she hadn't really been studying. Probably not good for her.

There was a knock at the door, and Darren opened it to expose a blonde woman on the other side. Mandy didn't recognize her at all, but that came as no surprise. "Ash, I think you need to come out here," she said. "Amanda just arrived and she's asking for you."

"Amanda?" Ash asked, narrowing his eyes. Amanda, Amy, Mandy - there were too many damn Amanda's running around now.

"Lance and Laura's mother," the blonde prompted him. "Yeah, that's what I thought," she said, watching his expression change. She turned to the group. "Sorry I have to steal him from you. Ash, I'm sure they'll be fine without you looming over them," she said, practically ushering him out of the room by his arm. Truth be told, Danielle was nervous that Amanda had flown in. This Areli/Vida business was getting worse by the day, and she had a feeling the woman showing up out of the blue after her kids had a nuclear meltdown (ALL of them, Andrew was straight MIA and Capri was in hiding) was not a good sign.

After Darren reluctantly followed them out of the room, Mandy looked back at Seraphine. "Do you want to try again?" she asked her, arching her eyebrow at the girl.

Tucker held his hands up in protest. "Really, it's fine. It was helpful, it really was, it just isn't what I specifically needed," he said, bowing apologetically to Seraphine. He could be charming when he wanted to be, at least.

"No, Tucker. What I mean is, if Seraphine wants to try again, I can help her a little, maybe," Mandy said, trailing off.

Seraphine brightened up, no idea, of course, what that entailed. "That would be great," she said, accepting the offer without first reading any terms and conditions. "If you can just give me a little boost?"

Mandy stared at her, her big crystalline eyes blank for a half-second. Then she smiled sweetly. "Sure I can. Tucker? Go back over to the mirror. When she puts her hand on it, I want you to put yours on it, too. I think I know what to do."

Poor Seraphine was about to get a crash course in her own ability.

[David Tucker]

Mandy and Tucker were frighteningly similar in some regards, and their memories were one of them, apparently.  She gathered probably as soon as he did that it wasn't going to do the trick, not the way he wanted, but that didn't make any of it a disappointment.  It just wasn't enough push to get his neurons firing, or something, he wasn't sure.  Frankly, he was still far too used to the 'blunt instrument' approach for all of this gentle poking and prodding.  Pictures, chit-chats, nice little could-be-home-videos of picnics and dates and even Midnight for both him and Lilyana...it was too 'kid gloves' for him.  His brain was conditioned for memory stimulation under pain and extreme duress, and it didn't seem willing to get down to business for anything less.  He was probably lucky to have remembered what little he had.

Why the girl's obvious disappointment and quick offer to try again bothered him, he wasn't sure, but he shared that glance from Mandy, probably thinking about some of the same shit; they'd obviously known about his time in Midnight, and he'd been told that Lily had a stint herself, but seeing it all, seeing things he hadn't remembered and some that he hadn't likely known about to begin with, was a very different story.  They'd absolutely learned things they hadn't known, and that was good, in its own way.  He was ready for the whole get-together to be over, especially when Leone said it was enough for the day.

He had no reason to be irritated the way Mandy was, since he didn't see Leone as being a cockblock at all - if there was nothing the girl could do from here, that was it.  What did it matter?  When the man was called away (Tucker thought he may have heard a 'for fuck's sake' under his breath, and instantly wondered what a day in that man's life must be like lately to get that kind of reaction) to deal with what was probably some new dumpster fire in his life and/or business, Tucker was pretty ready to call it quits.  Mandy asking Sera if she really wanted to try again got exactly that reaction from him, too.

"Really, it's fine. It was helpful, it really was, it just isn't what I specifically needed," he said, first putting his hands up like that might get the 'listen, I'm good' point across, and then bowing apologetically to Seraphine.  He probably should have been the responsible adult in the room with Leone and the cat gone, since that was actually the first thought that he had when he saw that naivete out of Seraphine and that sweet smile to go with Mandy's offer - this girl needed an adult.  Problem was, he was definitely not 'responsible adult' material, so he narrowed his eyes at Mandy, aware that she was absolutely running something here that he was fairly certain was going to get them kicked out of the Hollow, but he was too intrigued not to let it run its course.  See?  Totally not a responsible adult.

He stepped back up to the mirror at her instruction so that, once Seraphine's hand was in place, he could lay his own there, flicking his eyes back up from the mirror to the two women, and okay, so he couldn't help the lack of trust there right then, but Mandy had him feeling strangely suspicious.  What was she doing?  If she could 'boost' Seraphine into doing something that would work for Tucker here, it would mean her power doing a hell of a lot more beyond just 'make people do what I want,' which was what she'd told him.  Well, here went nothing.

The jolt was probably less harsh for him than it was for Seraphine, but it was still almost like getting the wind knocked out of him, if that was possible in a metaphysical sense (and he had long ago deemed that it was).  He gasped and blinked, looking around a room that was no longer at the Hollow, and Jesus Christ was it hot.  It was that dead-of-summer muggy night-time heat, where you knew that the day that had spawned this evening had to have been killer, so the sun going down was still a reprieve from the oven you'd been in, but it just brought on more of that humidity.  Add on the fact that the storm raging outside had to have cooled off the air at least somewhat, and it felt like a miserable couple of fucking days.  It hadn't been that hot in New York lately, that much Tucker knew.  He was wearing a damn coat, if that said anything.

Naturally, that thing was the first to go, yanked off and draped over a chair in the home office he seemed to have shown up in.  A man worked here, that much he figured immediately based on the fact that anything that seemed remotely 'decorative' was also something he could immediately determine had a use, as well, but that might have just been him making assumptions based on the norm - he'd often been sent after men with painfully normal, boring wives who liked useless things.  The man's space was usually easy to pick out.  The difference here, of course, was the nature of the items; they were all either weaponry, with magical origins, or both.  Some could even be dangerous, and those were behind glass, with locks.  He could assume that the boxes held other things, not visible but likely even more dangerous.  Interesting.  A quick glance at the paperwork strewn across the desk revealed them to be bills and then also estimates for what looked like heating and air (that'd explain the temperature in the house, which damn), but his thought processes were interrupted by a photo.

He recognized himself, though it didn't look like anyone he'd seen staring back at him from the mirror since he could remember, Lily and Alice, and not one of the photos he'd seen so far.  This one had obviously not been a part of the collection Mandy had access to, showing the three of them apparently at an amusement park - all of them were laughing, and it looked as though whoever had taken the photo had caught them just at a moment where he'd grabbed both and put his back to an enormous wave from a log flume in some vain attempt to shield them, probably a park employee paid to catch ridiculous shots, but it still said everything about them that had probably made him pay for it to begin with.  There were others with only two of them in it, obviously one of the adults being behind the camera so that it was either Lily or him with Alice, but the collage of family photos framed and haphazardly set across the top shelves of the desk had certainly taken him off-guard.  This was his house, except Lily's names were all over the bills.  With a new sense of alarm and curiosity, he started digging through the papers, searching, and found the bank statements, the mortgage, the 'condolences' from companies who still wanted their money, and of course, the estimates that Lily obviously did not have the money to pay.  Shit.

A sound from the hallway drew him cautiously to the door, where he found Lily herself coming out of what he was assuming was Alice's room (he wasn't sure if that was a memory or just him making educated guesses based on training and experience in modern, normal houses), and frankly?  She looked like shit.  She obviously hadn't been sleeping, the temperature had to be taking it out of her, and a cool shower probably would have done her a world of good.  "Shit, Lily, sorry.  Something..."

Except there was no reaction out of her to his words, and a CRACK! of lightning threw the whole house into darkness with a following rumble that made everything vibrate around them.   "Fucking kidding me," she said, looking through the darkness around them, and that somehow made her seem more desperate, more on-the-verge than he'd originally even thought.  She hadn't looked or sounded like this when he'd seen her last.

"Fuck.  Fuck, fuck fuckfuckfuck."  'Fuck' was right, she honestly sounded like she was about to burst into tears, which was not something he wanted to stand there and watch, but she pulled it together and started heading off toward...the kitchen?  Likely, if she was after a flashlight or something.  She never made it, since the sound of a car door hit both of their ears, and he cursed under his breath as she rushed for the door. 

"For fuck's sake, Lily, don't open that."  She may have had a blunt instrument in hand, but running out into the surprisingly cold rain would not have been his first thought for a good idea, had anyone asked him.  Getting drenched for Zaine, of all people, even less, but it was about to give him a damn good idea as to what was going on, what he was seeing and when.

"Zaine?" she called, her voice betraying her weariness and confusion.  "What do you want? Why are you here?"

"Come back, Lily. Please."

"Is that a joke?"  Now she was actually off of the porch, approaching that asshole and instantly looked like she'd dove into a lake.  "What do you mean 'come back'? To hunting? You know I can't do that. You know why I left." She paused. "It hurts too much."

"Not to hunting."

"Oh, you motherfucker..." Tucker hissed, also stepping off of the porch like he might do something about it, even though he'd already sussed that he probably couldn't.  This had already happened, and he hadn't been here.

"Zaine," she sighed. "I'm tired. I'm cold. I'm wet. I have a sick child who just went to sleep for the first time in the last few days without choking from coughing so much. The power is out, the A/C is broken, and I pretty much want to die every second of every day, except I can't, because David already did." Her voice cracked a little at the end, and Tucker jolted just at hearing it spoken so plainly.  Fuck. "So say whatever you came to say. Or don't. It doesn't matter anymore. Nobody saves me anymore. Just me."

"Come back to me, Lilyana," he said, just as she turned to walk away. He saw her freeze in place, and the ka-bar slipped from her grip and buried itself into the mud beneath her feet. "Not just to the guild. To me. Nobody saves you anymore? That's not true. I'm here. I came here. For you. And Alice," he added. "I know it's a package deal. I don't care. Just - come back to me."

Somehow, the fact that Lily had finally started crying made him want to murder Zaine in the face even more, but Lily's sudden twist to shove her finger into Zaine's chest was aggressive enough that he was going to have to take it.  "That's not FAIR, Zaine," she screamed. "You can't just come here and say these things and think that I'm just going to -"

And then that motherfucker kissed her, and the sound Tucker made as he started forward would have surprised even him if he hadn't been riding the force of some very strong, very unexpected emotions.  If he'd been literally there, fucking killing Zaine at that moment wouldn't have been out of the question, except that his attempt to grab Lily accomplished nothing.  His hand went through her like she wasn't there, or more appropriately, like he wasn't.

"Zaine, I don't love you," she said softly, once he'd broken the kiss. She placed her hands atop his own, closing her eyes. "I'm sorry, I just - it's too soon."

"It's fine," he said, raising his eyebrows. "I'll wait." With that, he let go of her, then gestured to the apartment. "Come on, I'll help you pack for the night. We can have Olivia or Victor look at Alice when we get to Onyx." He saw her hesitation, and put a hand on her shoulder. "Lily, it's fine," he pressed. "We have all the time in the world."

That was when the rain around them started to fuzz everything up, like a fog rolling in and blurring the edges, but Tucker got up into the face of past-Zaine, staring him hard in the eyes like he could take his measure right there, burn it into his being right then in that past moment that this was where he'd doomed himself.  All of this, and then to have done what he had to Lily?  "You and I have business, my friend.  Whether she'll ever love me again or not, you are fucking done."

When he was blasted back into that white room in the Hollow, sucking in a breath like he'd been holding his for too long, the anger rode with him.  He locked eyes with Mandy briefly, letting go of the mirror and taking a step back, refusing eye contact again lest anyone understand exactly what was going on.  He couldn't honestly say for sure if he was remembering anything, but he was feeling, and that was...difficult.