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Dissonant Hearts (Degusaurusrex x AndrewS)

"Oh." That wasn't at all the admission she had expected from it, and her stunned expression said as much as she nearly dropped her coffee before regaining her composure. She had to admit, it did make her feel a bit better about her own thoughts that were forming in the background, even if it did make the redness in her face increase tenfold as she half stuttered and finally set her coffee on the counter.

"I, uh, I feel the same way." It was hard to force the words out, but if he was going to be honest with her despite his discomfort, he deserved the same from her. She'd dated people in the past, he hadn't, so while they were both in the awkward embarrassment that was the aftermath of her short possession, Isen was entirely left in the wind and unused to anything of that nature.

"When the time is right." They had so many other things to do first, and she wasn't entirely sure she wanted them doing anything like that when they both had unwanted passengers on board. That just made the entire thing a whole lot weirder. "When we don't have obnoxious demons making things more... Interesting." Coffee abandoned, she hesitantly closed the distance between them before standing on her tiptoes to press a light kiss to his mouth.
 
He was prepared to take a second drink from his mug, simply to fill the space between awkward confession and her answer, but her reply caught him off guard as much as his original admittance had to her. "Oh." He repeated her response back to her, feeling that awkward tension grow thicker and thicker. At least they were on the same page. It was something they both wanted, but not until it made more sense and they were freed from their burdens.

"When the time is right." He nodded, accepting that, laughing quietly to himself as she called their situation 'interesting'. "Interesting isn't the word I'd use, but I guess you're not wrong."

He sensed the hesitancy in her actions as she approached to kiss him, so he turned his head, slightly, making it easier for contact to be made between their lips. The hand curled around the mug felt nothing of the warmth from within, but the hand that reached up to touch her back felt everything; the fibers of her shirt, the curve of her back. It was almost like now that the thoughts were in his head, he couldn't help but notice subtle details that he normally didn't...this was bad. Very bad. Even if he had agreed that now wasn't the right time, his mind wandered regardless. It caused his face to tilt a little more, creating a firmer connection between their lips than she had probably intended given her tempered approach.

"I don't like coffee." He told her, laughing again, his lips brushing against hers. He wanted to break that tension, distract himself from where his mind was drifting. "I'm sorry. For being so...awkward about this." His voice continued, growing softer, more uncertain of himself. "Should we try to pretend like nothing happened?"
 
She hadn't expected him to turn into the kiss after the awkwardness of everything, and the surprise on the mage's face was clear as she felt his hand pressing into her back and the firmness of the kiss.

"I know. I was surprised when you asked me to make you some." They were both awkward, so it wasn't like he was the single entity that was unsure of himself and the situation. "We're both awkward. It's not your fault, it's not like you've ever had a relationship before, and this isn't exactly the most convenient timing, let alone situation. It's like a bad movie and we're the main characters." She gave him an amused smile, knowing he probably wouldn't understand much of it. When this was all over, she was introducing him to the good shows and movies he'd missed out on over the years.

"I honestly don't know. I think for now we find out more about the witch's supposed death and investigate. We can deal with our literal demons later." She stepped back and retrieved her coffee cup, finishing off the drink before rinsing the cup and setting it on the counter.
 
Isen wasn't sure whether to offer her what remained in his mug or not once she had finished her own. He sat it down near the sink, leaving it there, leaning back against the edge of the counter, body angled in her direction. "I hope that it's true...that maybe there's something here that we're missing. Do you really think Danica knows more than she's letting on?" It seemed likely. They couldn't exactly trust her, after all.

"Isen."

Takami's voice came from the other room as he walked into the kitchen, looking directly towards him and Adelaide.

"There's something you should see."

Isen looked confused as Takami urged them outside. They past the illusory wall at the front of Samara's shop, led back out into the alleyway outside to see what Takami was so insistent on them seeing. Many of the others were already outside, Nikolai, Lorelei and Isabella included, all looking skyward. The sky was on fire. Not literally, but it looked like it. A pale orange had been cast as far as the eye could see, covering Cresthaven in it's reddish glow. The sun appeared to be in a state of eclipse, but rather than having it's light blocked out, it seemed to be the source of the hue cascading across the skyline. The light seemed to be pulsating outwards, like a signal, a calling.

Almost as quickly as it had appeared, it seemed to have vanished, the sky returning to it's usual blue. What's worse is that nobody seemed to react or remember what they had seen. The others just walked back inside, all except for Takami, leaving Isen confused and concerned, looking towards Adelaide to see if she saw what he did.

"You-you saw that, right?" He asked, his eyes bouncing back and forth between both Adelaide and Takami.

"I saw it. But I don't understand it."

"Adelaide...?" Isen waited for a response from her before hearing Ignas' voice return to him.

"Isen...that...we're out of time."

"What do you mean out of time?" Isen responded, panicked. Ignas didn't reply, only causing further anxiety.
 
"This is Danica we're talking about." Takami appeared before she could say anything else, and the tone of his voice was immediately concerning as Adelaide frowned and then followed along. What was so important that he had reappeared and interrupted them to drag them outside?

"Holy shit." The sight alone was both breathtaking and terrifying simultaneously. It was if someone had lit the sky on fire and she was watching the aftermath of the flames as they illuminated the city and cast eerie, colored shadows on the snow-covered ground. Despite the fact that it wasn't visibly pulsing or shooting out sparks or any bursts of colors, Adelaide could feel a tug in her chest that was unlike anything she had ever experienced before.

The dread was nearly enough to take her to the ground as she trembled and sucked in a shaky breath.

"We need to go. We need to pack up and get out of the city."

"Malakai." Danica hissed from her confines, and the dread that Adelaide felt tripled and melted together with the anger and hostility the demon inside her was feeling. "Find him. Kill him."

"No. We need to leave. Pack as quick as you can and we'll deal with looking into the witch along the way. I already dealt with you controlling me twice, I won't let you drag me off toward that bastard right now."
 
"We're just going to leave?" Isen asked, surprised by the sudden desire to leave. After what they just witnessed, he thought it would be something they'd want to investigate, but he could hear the fear in Ignas' voice when he told them that they were out of time, and suddenly, he didn't feel so against the idea of just leaving while they still had a chance. Something was tugging at him, pulling him forward, like he was tied to an invisible thread that was being pulled upon by an unseen force.

"You both clearly know something that we don't. Before we make any decisions, maybe you should tell us what...that even was." Isen wanted answers before they made a rash decision.

"That was a ritual...a demon ritual. It's known as the Calling...and Danica is right, it has to be Malakai."

"The Calling?" Isen repeated, out loud.

Takami turned his head, hearing those words. "I do feel a pull towards something in the city...it's like an urge to move towards it. What was that about a Calling?"

"That's what Ignas called it."

"Because that's what it was. Unless you want to be trapped in a city full of demons, I say we take Adelaide's advice and we get out of here before the pull becomes stronger and we can't."

"A city full of demons. A calling. Did he just summon everybody here?"

"More or less. Any demon still free will have felt it, and anybody tied to one as well."

"And everybody else just forgets?"

"Humans and the other Dissonants can't process this type of magic. The thought is wiped from their mind before it can influence their actions and decisions. We aren't as lucky, and we don't have time for these questions. We need to go."

"But Takami isn't bound to a demon. Why can he remember it?"

"Beats me. He has a Catalyst, I'm sure it's no coincidence. It doesn't matter, though, we need to get away from this city as soon as possible. The effects of a Calling won't last forever, but the longer we stay here, the more under it's influence we'll become. I think it goes without saying but we don't want to have it force us back into Malakai's hands."
 
"Couldn't be anyone other than Malakai unless he's found a successor in our absence. He would not dare to do that, his ego would not allow him to pass his power to another when he seeks to rule us all instead." Despite the fury that was thick in Danica's voice, Adelaide had a feeling that behind all of that fury and disdain, there was the same fear she could hear in Ignas' voice.

"Yes, calling, you idiot. I know you can at least hear me, even if you can't hear that insufferable Ignas." Danica snapped at Takami and Adelaide sighed, trying to shush the demon and allow Ignas and Isen to speak as she edged back toward the shop. They needed to pack up and get the hell out of town, but that meant figuring out where to go when they left. They could go to the last known town the supposedly deceased witch had been in, but that required someone that had been there previously taking them via a spell, as Adelaide doubted she had been there before.

"We can figure out later why Takami can feel it. Probably has something to do with the catalyst." She threw her hands up and ducked back inside the shop with the others, dragging Isabella into the room to help her pack while Lorelei and Nikolai searched for whatever valuable magical items they thought best to bring now. Isabella would relay information to them on what was going on in the city after they left, although Adelaide could see that she wanted to come with the group rather than be left behind, but someone had to watch the shop.

"I'll watch it." Nikolai shrugged from the doorway of the bedroom, watching Adelaide and Isabella talk over their best course of action. "I can teleport out of here, she can't, right? Take her with you, we've got phones to communicate, and if things get that bad I'll just nope out of here and find you. Go to where the witch died and do what you need to."

Well, that made things a lot easier, although Adelaide wasn't sure if Takami would be pleased or annoyed that Isabella would now be coming with them, nor did she have the attention span to care as she continued shoving her things into bags.

"There you are! For fuck's sake, you chose the wrong time to take a nap!" Adelaide scowled and chastised Ember as she scooped the small cat up from the floor, tapping at her nose before setting her on the bed beside one of the bags. "Stay close to me from now on, we've got trouble incoming."
 
"Would that be far enough?" Isen asked, watching the hustle and bustle of everybody packing and trying to get ready before they were teleported out. "To wherever it is you're sending us. Is it far enough to avoid the pull?"

"Should be. The farther away we are, the easier it will be to resist."

Isen sighed. Nikolai wasn't coming with them, neither was Lorelei. Why were they willingly staying behind? It should have been a full evacuation of all of them, including those he wasn't particularly fond of. Roland was nowhere to be found, now, for example, and they didn't have time to sweep the town to find him.

"Isen." Ignas added, sensing something else. "I can already feel them getting closer. This place is going to be swarming with demons soon."

"I don't understand why he'd do this. He's bonded with the head of the DSTF, he's just going to serve up everybody in the city on a platter to the demons?"

"I don't think so. Some may die, but I don't think this is a massacre in the making. He wants something from them."

The plan to attack the city was orchestrated underneath Maximilian's nose, after all. Even the drone attack seemed to be manipulated by Orion, it was possible that Max himself wasn't as intent on causing destruction and death as they thought; how much of that was Malakai's influence, Isen wondered.

There was too much going on in the panic for him to think about it, too many different conversations happening around them to try and continue to speak with the voice inside his head, yet, Ignas didn't really get that hint and continued to speak.

"Are we really going back to her home...?"

"I think so. You wanted closure, right? We'll kill two birds with one stone?"

"I'm all for killing, but why the birds?"

Isen blinked, incredulously. "It's a...nevermind." Isen gave up, defeatedly. He would have laughed had he not been so damn stressed out by this whole ordeal. He could feel the tug and pull of the ritual, now, meaning it was indeed getting stronger. They were running out of time, as Ignas had reminded them earlier.

Adelaide scooped Ember up into her arms as Takami came back into the room, noticing the Isabella seemed to be involved in this discussion too. "She's going with us?" He asked. Isen couldn't get a ready on whether he was saying that in surprise, joy, or frustration. "Fine. It isn't safe here, anyways."

It was definitely joy.

"Do you have everything?" He asked Adelaide as they reconvened with the rest of their travel party. "Nikolai." Isen spoke, turning his attention to the male. They shared a knowing look, a 'you better make it back alive' sort of look without a word being spoken to communicate the gesture. Isen nodded, focusing back on Adelaide and, by extension, Isabella and Takami as well. He didn't know what was going to become of Cresthaven while they were gone, but if they were going to save anybody or stop anything, they couldn't get caught up in it. Not now.
 
"God, it's like listening to you all over again, Isen, not understanding jokes or phrases." Adelaide managed a small laugh at Ignas' obliviousness to what Isen was trying to communicate, but her attention was abruptly pulled away by the smile she saw Isabella trying to hide. Takami was clearly pleased that the vampire was coming with them rather than staying in the path of danger, even if he was trying to hide it from everyone present.

"Yeah, I think I have everything, if not then I'll deal with it later." She had a bag slung over her shoulder and one in her hand, Ember perched carefully over her shoulder before deciding that she was going to tiptoe across her mistress' shoulders and onto Isabella's, draping over her neck and settling her head against the vampire's neck while the men exchanged their silent goodbyes.

Adelaide had to resist rolling her eyes, too on edge with the situation to care about whatever unspoken words they were exchanging. Whatever her uncle and Isen were doing could be dealt with later, and she gave Nikolai a mock salute before muttering a quick goodbye to Lorelei as Nikolai's female witch reappeared in the room.

"I guess it's time for me to take you there. I'm not staying though, I'm telling you that now."

"That's fine." Whatever the hell this woman's problem was wasn't Adelaide's concern, although she noted the look of annoyance Nikolai gave the witch before murmuring something in her ear. This caused the woman to roll her eyes and sigh, twirling her fingers in the air as her magic began to spark and visualize in a winding circle that slowly began to expand.

"Have a ball." Nikolai shot her another look and she quieted down, but not before huffing and making a dramatic gesture as the circle widened again and granted them an image of a property long unkept, grass overgrown and flowers swaying in the breeze with a broken down house far in the background.

"Let's get this over with."
 
Whisked away from Cresthaven, Isen needed a moment to regain his composure. Being teleported in this way seemed different than the way Adelaide did it, but it worked the same in the end. The lot they were in was overgrown and over run by plant life, claimed back by nature from the person who once lived there. A look was cast behind Isen's shoulder, checking on Isabella and Takami, the latter of which was more affected by the teleport than he was. Isabella was at his side, holding his arm to keep him steady; Isen suppressed a smirk before focusing on the house ahead.

"Is this the right place?"

"...yeah."

Isen nodded and began to trudge across the foliage, into the direction of the home a couple hundred meters out from where they arrived.

He could still feel the Calling, even all this way, but it was so faint that it didn't seem to sway his movements or his mind. They were far enough away to be saved from it, but what did that mean for those who were left inside the city? Isen shook his head. This all felt a little selfish. The place they had called home, and all of those innocent people, were caught in the crossfire of a battle they couldn't fight on their own and here they were, chasing a ghost for a chance to heal a demon's damaged feelings.

"I haven't been here in over fifty years...what has become of this place?" Ignas sounded disappointed at the state of what was once the witch's home. "She would have never let this happen if she were..." Ignas cut himself short, not wanting to say anything definitive.

"Maybe she had no choice." Isen argued. "If you have to go into hiding, you don't exactly worry about gardening. If she had a reason to run from her home, she probably had a reason not to go back."
 
"Something about this feels wrong." Adelaide stood still even as Isen began to trudge forward, and she could feel Danica rumbling with something just short of approval inside the ring. "It feels like this place is here but.... It's not." She started slowly after Isen as Isabella and Takami regained their bearings and followed after, but there was something in the air that felt both foreign and familiar to her all at once. A type of magic she'd felt before, but she couldn't place where.

"Witch."

"Yes, Danica, that's who we're here to find, if there's anything left."

"Not Ignas' bitch. Your witch."

Her witch. What was that supposed to mean? Nikolai and Lorelei had been left behind, and she certainly didn't mean the female that had sent them here, so what witch was she referring? Perhaps there was a new witch they were supposed to meet? At that point, it honestly wouldn't have surprised her to meet someone new after everything else that had transpired.

"This magic feels... Very familiar. Warm." Somehow it was both comforting and confrontational at the same time, and the closer they got the stronger the feeling became for Adelaide, who was progressively looking more uncomfortable with the situation. The magic hung heavy in the air, although it didn't seem like the others were affected by it in the same way that she was, almost as if it were in tune with her own and guiding them along without a single spoken word.

"Isen, do you feel it?"
 
"Like it's here, but it's not?" Isen asked, questioning the peculiar statement. "So, some sort of illusion? Like Samara?" She had specialized in that sort of thing, the similarity was uncanny. "Maybe you can control it as well?" It had been a little while, by Adelaide still had the gift of imprinting spells that Samara left with her, maybe even just being near such potentially powerful magic had given her the ability to manipulate it as well, to pull back the veil.

"She couldn't use illusion magic." Ignas interjected. "If that is what this is, this spell would have been performed by somebody else."

When she mentioned it's warmth, and asked if he could feel it, he focused his senses and tried to pick up on the feeling. Ignas helped him, honing in on the feel of the magic that surrounded them. "Yeah, I can feel it. It feels...it feels like something I've felt before." He told her, receiving the same response from it as Adelaide had.

"So, the witch cast an illusion spell and fled her home?" Takami's voice came next, getting back up to speed with them after recovering from the teleportation, Isabella close to his side, watching him like a hawk as if he could topple over again at any moment and she was ready to catch him and keep him steady.

"Seems that way. She was a powerful witch, from a powerful family, right? She'd be a prime target for the DSTF even without her connection to Malakai."

"If he hurt her..."

Isen raised a brow at Ignas' protective response. "To get back at you?"
 
"Then who did it?" Samara was dead, she couldn't possibly have cast the spell. Adelaide had seen her dead, had buried her corpse with the others! The fact that it felt familiar to Isen as well was concerning, and since neither of them had met Ignas' witch (that they were aware of), it made no sense for it to be familiar to the both of them.

"That would make sense, with all of the literal witch hunts and everything with the DSTF going on, why wouldn't she run?" She agreed with Isen readily, nodding her head and bristling slightly at the sudden hostility she could feel emanating from Ignas.

"Now why would Malakai hurt the witch he loved?" Danica's voice intruded on the conversation and stopped Adelaide dead in her tracks, her eyes going wide as she momentarily choked and then sputtered her disbelief.

"Sorry, what?"

"It's far more likely he would have stolen her away and tried to steal her heart again to get back at Ignas, he wouldn't lay a finger on the woman he loved. After all, he went to all the effort of tricking her into sealing Ignas away." The smugness in Danica's voice had Adelaide looking warily at Isen, as if Ignas would take control and come after her again at any given second now that that particular comment had been made.

"You're lying."

"Why would I lie about that? How do you think Ignas got stuck in that stupid sword in the first place? Because he was stupid enough to fall in love with the same bitch that Malakai did, and Malakai had to prove he was better by getting rid of Ignas so he could have the witch."
 
Their slow approach, through a potential illusion, towards the home in the near distance continued, but was halted when Adelaide stopped in her tracks, causing Isen to do the same. Danica dropped a bombshell on them, casually, as she always did, changing the entire tone of the conversation and adding a new, almost unbelievable, perspective to the situation that they hadn't been aware of, but both she and Ignas had. Even now, they continued to keep their secrets.

"Is any of that true?" Isen asked Ignas, directly. "We're trying to help you. Honestly trying, even after everything that has happened...we need the truth."

"...it is." There was a sadness in the demon's voice that confirmed this wasn't a lie. It was an unmistakable acceptance of a fact that brought him great distress and trouble. "We both sought the hand of the same human woman...it played a part in our separation."

They had fallen out over a girl? Even though his sadness seemed sincere, Isen thought it ridiculous that such powerful beings would squabble and hate each other over something neither of them was meant to feel to begin with. The fact that Ignas even loved her, as a demon, had been a difficult thing to wrap his head around already, especially given how strongly Ignas felt about keeping Isen's own emotions suppressed and manipulated. Now, he was to believe that a being as malevolent as Malakai had felt the same?

"He was sealed by the woman he loved?"

"I was sealed by Malakai. It wasn't her fault."

"He says that it wasn't her fault." Isen translated for Takami, who could hear Danica, but not Ignas. "Danica said she was the one who cast the spell..."

"She was, but not of her own sound mind. He...got to her. I don't know what he did, but he convinced her that I was a threat, that she was better off sticking me in a sword than trying to find a future with me."

And that was why Ignas hated Malakai so much. It was making sense, now. It wasn't because of their lost friendship, or even due to Malakai's incredible power, though it clearly gave Ignas a reason to be concerned; it was personal.

Isen remained quiet, for a moment, plotting his response. He could have easily called this whole thing off, but surprisingly, that wasn't the direction he took the conversation in. "...so, we find her, wherever she is, and we set the record straight. If Malakai loved her, she is an asset to us in taking him down."

"You believe she's alive...?" Ignas asked, a glimmer of hope in his voice, though subdued.

"I do." Isen responded in turn, his own optimism showing through. He had come a long way since the graveyard Adelaide had met him in. "She cast this spell to go into hiding, which meant she was running from him. That tells me that she wanted nothing to do with Malakai, maybe she even realized that what she had done was wrong. I don't know what happened between the three of you, how any of this happened, and even though I want to know, it wouldn't change my mind on any of this. We're going to find her and we're going to take that asshole down."

"...Isen..."

"...then why are we waiting here?" Takami added, beginning to walk again, giving Isen a nod as he walked past him and into the direction of the home. "Illusions are meant to be broken. We have a demon to slay, and I still have enough left in me to fight. We aren't getting any closer by standing around here."

"Takami...?" Ignas followed, beginning to realize that the people he had taken fore granted, or had seen as tools, were actually somehow standing behind him on this, even after all of the miserable things he had done and all of the pain he had caused them. "Why?" He asked, bluntly. "Why do you still insist on helping me?"

"Because that's what we do." Isen replied, instantly, his lips finding a half-smirk as he quoted their dearly departed friend; a friend who's memory was ever-present, more now than ever, with the illusory magic that they were surrounded by. He was moving again, matching his stride to Takami's, course sat straight across the overgrown path towards the witch's home, intent on getting to the bottom of what happened here in order to plot where to go next.
 
"Just when I thought I was beginning to understand demons." Isabella shook her head from behind them and rubbed at her face. "And I thought vampires could get mean.." Adelaide huffed in some bizarre mix of amusement and anxiety, shaking her head as Ignas confirmed Danica's story yet defended the witch who had sealed him away in Onigoshi. Interesting.

"This is insane. I know people do weird things for love, but come on..." Adelaide shook the vampire a look which effectively shut her up, although Ember was making some sort of noise from her shoulder that said she agreed with the vampire wholeheartedly. Damn her familiar.

"I don't want to hear any sass from you, little girl, you and Ignas already barely get along after everything." Granted, they had bonded some in their hatred and desire to eat Priscilla when she had still been alive, but with Samara and her familiar's demise things had gone back to their tentative truce at best, and that was when the cat was even present to begin with. She might as well have been Isabella's familiar with the way she clung to her!

"Yeah, let's find the witch, set this straight." Adelaide nodded firmly, and after a long moment of contemplation and a glance at Takami, Isabella nodded too.

"Fuck it, why not. Unrequited love and all, let's do it. I guess even demons deserve to have happy endings."

Not that it would necessarily be happy, but at least it would be closure if the witch was indeed still alive and Ignas could clear his name. It didn't take away from all the terrible things he had done over the years, but at least he could see his beloved witch one more time and clear the air. It was a chance most humans didn't get, let alone demons, and if she could become an ally in their fight against Malakai, all the better for the lot of them.

"I guess that is what we do." Adelaide laughed as she reached Isen's side again, reaching out to lace her fingers through his and squeeze his hand gently. "Spoken just like Samara, which I suppose is fitting given the circumstances." What she wouldn't give to see the other witch one more time. The short time they had all had together had left a lasting impression, had left a bond that had been broken by death when Samara had been slaughtered, but at least her murderer lay dead now.

"You know, if you and Takami ever have kids, you could name one Samara."

"Yeah, I--WHAT?!"

"Kidding, kidding. Vampires can't have kids, right?"

"That's not the point!"
 
Isen's fingers threaded their way between Adelaide's, completing a seal between them both that showed solidarity in the statement he had made. It was, as always, a comfort to him to feel her touch, it was something he had gotten more and more dependent on the more often it occurred. "Her whole thing about future sight...what she saw for us..." Isen began, shaking his head. "I guess changing that future begins with helping Ignas overcome his past." They had a chance not only to absolve him of his grief, but to also add another powerful ally to their ranks. Maybe this was the turning point they needed to take down Malakai and the DSTF? At the very least, it was a shot.

Isen turned his head away from Isabella and Takami, hiding his amusement at the vampire's response to the teasing. Takami was far enough ahead that he hadn't heard the initial comment, but he turned to look over his shoulder, back at Isabella, when he heard her voice raise in protest. "Of course they can't." He added, unaware of the fact that he was included in this conversation. "What did I miss?"

"Nothing." Isen covered. "Nothing at all."

Isen and Adelaide approached the front door of the house. Peering through the damaged, and open front door, Isen saw the inside of a small home, grass growing through the floor boards and overwhelming the furniture that looked like it hadn't been touched in years. "Adelaide, can you control the illusion?"

It was still so strange hearing her call her by her actual name and not a snide nickname. It was another sign of his growth, even though Ignas himself would never admit that anything about him had changed.

"Maybe you can lower it, let us see what's actually going on here?"
 
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"Nothing, Takami." Adelaide stifled a laugh and looked ahead as they neared the house, examining what she could see through the open doorway. Not only did the place look completely abandoned, it appeared to have been abandoned long enough for grass to grow through the floor!

"Sorry, what was that?" Not only had Ignas used her actual name rather than calling her a witch or a mage, but he'd asked a question she wasn't entirely sure how to answer. Could she control the illusion? Creating or distorting already made illusions hadn't been something she'd had a ton of training in, considering the fact that Samara's spells and charms had done the work of masquerading them as other people physically. She hadn't worked solely with the magic to distort reality, and now the demon was asking if she could control the illusion a witch she knew nothing about had projected?

"I can try, yeah. It's not something I'm really familiar with." There was really no good or proper way to go about it. There was no fancy hand waving, no twirling around and no laying out any charms or written spells in order to pull at the illusion. This was all based on the feel of the magic, the way it had spread and formed to the house itself to ward off any nosy intruders who sought to do its prior occupant harm.

"It's everywhere, though. Even if I can manipulate it and lower some of it, I don't think I can make it all go away right off the bat. There's just too much, and since a certain demon inside my ring isn't cooperating like she should, I can't trust her to help me on this." She wasn't even certain that Danica could help her with something like that, despite the fact that the demon was more or less residing inside of her, she didn't know much about Danica's powers and limits. Ignas was the only one that had seen the extent of the demoness' powers personally, of her apparent ability to create other demons and wreak havoc among humanity.

"Here goes nothing, I guess." Adelaide's fingers tightened over Isen's as she continued to hold his hand, then she took a deep breath and closed her eyes as she reached out toward the magic spread through the house. It had spiderwebbed along everything; the floors; the walls; it was so deep into the ground that she wasn't sure where it ended and the earth began. She wasn't sure what was real and what was simply the illusion meant to keep the long-lost witch safe from those who would do harm.

"What's this?" She could almost see it inside her head; a brilliant orb of condensed magic pulsing and continuously spreading around the property to maintain the illusion. It was so brilliant, so bright and strong that she almost thought she could touch it, her free hand raising to the air before she abruptly dropped it and tugged with her own magic. "There you are, you little bastard. There's always a center to every spell."
 
"You don't need her help." Isen told her, a definitive nod of his head following as he squeezed her hand in reassurance. "You can do this."

Isen and Ignas both watched as Adelaide manipulated the magic that was all around them, focusing on the illusion that had been crafted in all directions around the room. The orb at the center of the spell revealed itself and attempted to dance away from her, fluttering back and forth around the radius of the illusion it was trying to uphold. It felt playful in nature, fitting given the one who presumably had created it, almost like it was playing a game with her to annoy her.

With each tug Adelaide gave to the pesky sphere, the illusion seemed to falter, phasing in and out. From what Isen could tell, there was no home here at all; nothing remained of what was once the witch's place of residence. The plant life that had grown through the floorboards wasn't part of the illusion, but the home itself it had weaved itself around was entirely a fabrication. Whatever happened here had razed the place to the ground, likely to cinders or ash long since scattered by wind and the passage of time. It was difficult to get a full grasp on what they were looking at while the sphere remained active, but it was pretty clear to them all that the witch and her illusion was trying to hide what had happened here originally before she had fled.

"Isen..." Ignas spoke up, seeing this as well, through Isen's eyes but with a conscience full of regret all to himself.

"Hm?" He asked, eyes moving back and forth across the unraveling illusion, expecting it to fall completely at any moment now once Adelaide was done playing cat-and-mouse with the 'center' of the spell.

"Her home is gone. But why would she hide it?"
 
"Why does anyone hide anything? Safety. Privacy. Sheer spite. Take your pick of the litter." Adelaide grunted as she opened her eyes and caught sight of the illusion being pulled apart as it warred with her magic, sweat beading on her brow as she tried to keep her focus on dismantling the rest of the lie left behind. "Something still feels really weird." How could this illusion feel so much like Samara, yet at the same time feel entirely different? Was it a trick of the mind, just wishful thinking that somehow there would be a piece of the deceased witch left in this world?

Because that's what we do.

She was hallucinating, or her mind was taking wishful thinking to an extreme level and projecting Samara's voice into the nearly faded illusion. It sounded all too real though, as the last of the illusion fizzled away to make way for the barely existent property, overgrown with grass but missing the actual house itself.

It's what we do, Adelaide.

"Isen, either I'm going crazy, or I'm hearing Samara now, so which... Holy shit." Hadn't they had enough novel worthy drama just in the last couple of weeks? Now she was being treated to the sight of a pair of familiar, unearthly eyes gazing back at her from above, and her hand reached toward the shape of Samara's face that was manifesting out of nowhere.

"You're dead. What kind of a sick joke is this?" Who would be so cruel as to set an illusion that would show their deceased friend to them? Hell, could anyone else see it, or was it just her? "I'm sorry, Samara. I'm sorry we couldn't save you."
 
Samara's voice sounded off, somehow, hitting Isen's ears at the same time that it did Adelaide's. It was an impossible occurrence, a trick of the illusion, no doubt. But, it tugged on his heart just the same as it would had it were real. But it couldn't be. She was gone. They had watched her bleed out, they had seen the light leave her eyes and they had gotten revenge on the one who had snuffed out her light and they had laid her to rest within the Earth. Resurrections weren't possible, even with the strongest of magic. Confusion and sadness gave way to an initial expression of anger that matched Adelaide, but it was Ignas who sought to be the voice of reason against that outburst, not allowing Isen to embrace his initial, frustrated instinct to lash out.

"Isen, wait. Look..."

An illusion of Samara was appearing before them, clear as day, as real as any thing they had ever seen before. Her eyes shimmered the same, her smile equal parts playful and serious. He knew it wasn't real. He repeated it over and over in his head, but there was the slightest part of him, deep down, that hoped somehow he was wrong and that every law they had come to know about their world, and the arcane that inhabited it, was wrong and that this was somehow a real possibility.

"I hope you're not about to start crying or anything". Samara's voice sounded just as real as the illusion had looked. The first time he had heard it, he thought it an hallucination but now, there was no question. Illusion, or not, some form of their fallen friend was here, but it didn't appear to be a cruel trick or a joke. "It's nice to see you again, my beautiful protégé."

"Samara...?"

"Isen. You've been taking good care of her, right? You promised me that you would! What am I saying? Of course you are. Have the two of you finally made it official, yet?" The illusion swooned. Same old Samara, there was certainly no faking that.

"Stop. How are you...how is any of this?"

"How am I here? Well, I'm not, really. This entire spell is one of mine and the second she tried to get involved with it, it latched onto your memories and voila, here I am, one last encore for the road. Ahh, I have missed you both so dearly, even that wretched demon of yours. Hm, there's another among you now, isn't there? Adelaide! You went and got yourself your very own Ignas? Whatever made you think that was a good idea? And where's Ember?"

The illusion looked past Isen and Adelaide and to Isabella and Takami next, moving towards them, almost ethereally, like she was gliding rather than walking.

"Isabella! My favorite, cutest little vampire. You look positively glowing! Ora! You're still alive. And standing awfully close. Wait a minute, do my eyes deceive me? Another hopeless romance? My heart! It's bursting!"

"This is...strange." Takami responded, looking towards Isabella, checking to see how she was responding to that comment. "Romance?"

"Oh, right, right. You're still in your 'Isen-and-Adelaide-sitting-in-a-tree' phase, got'cha." Samara's illusion added, practically sing-songing her way through that statement. "Why do none of you seem as happy to see me as I am to see you?"

"Because you're dead." Isen told her, bluntly. "We watched you die. We grieved you. We buried you. And now you're just back...but not really. The moment we leave this place, you're gone again and we have to feel that grief all over again. What is there to be happy about?"

Samara's features softened, downtrodden, as she frowned. "Well, it's certainly pleasant to know you all cared about little old me that much...but I suppose you do have a point. But, may I add, I wasn't intending to be here in this form. Adelaide's subconscious brought me here, don't blame me for being so unforgettable!"

"Samara." Isen replied, again, his voice harsher and more serious.

"Fiiiine." She relented, sighing. "Spoil sport. Well, since you've got me here, maybe there's something I can help with. Come to think of it, why are you all here in the first place? What interest do you have in the forgotten home of an old witch?"
 
"Ignas can see it too?" If the demon could see it then this was definitely something magic based, but why in the shape of Samara? The more that it formed over the next several seconds the more real it looked, and Adelaide had to look back at the others to make certain they were all seeing what she was seeing.

"Not crying." She was sniffling though, rubbing at her nose with an irritated noise and crossing her arms over her chest. Even the illusion of Samara had the exact mannerisms of the deceased witch and knew how to push her buttons. "We're taking care of each other, thank you." Why was she even arguing with an illusion of the witch? Even dead, the woman could still embarrass her by teasing them about their budding relationship!

"Onto my memories?" Okay, that made sense... Sort of. She wasn't familiar enough with illusion magic and how it worked to argue the concept with the actual illusion itself, much less sort out her head from the many places it was going. "Well I didn't get my own demon because I wanted to, Samara." Adelaide gave the illusion an exasperated sigh and looked around, waving a hand at where Ember had woven herself around Isabella and Takami investigating the situation.

Adelaide couldn't help but to snort when Samara called out the budding romance between the vampire and dying man, keeping her lips pressed together firmly and choosing not to incur either of their wrath and instead allowing something untouchable to do the teasing for her. Illusion from her memories or not, she wasn't wrong about what was beginning to grow between those two. Isabella, on the other hand, had red cheeks as she avoided Takami's eyes, instead leaning down to pick Ember up and snuggle the kitten against her chest as a way to busy herself.

"Hey now, don't blame me. You didn't teach me much about illusion magic, so I'm doing most of this on my own!" Adelaide scowled slightly, although the expression deteriorated in the wake of Samara's sad expression. "We want to know where the witch went. I don't think she's dead, and I want to know where she's at."
 
"Well, of course she isn't dead!" Samara told them, bluntly, as though it were an obvious fact that they had missed. "We wouldn't have went through all the effort of setting up this spell if she was, would we? I've got better things to do."

"Wait." Isen stopped Samara's illusion before it went into another rant. "She's alive?"

"...yes? I just said that. Did something happen to your weird super hearing? Adelaide, what did you do?"

"She's alive." Ignas' voice sounded off in Isen's head, a mixture of both hopeful relief, and shock. "Where is she? Ask her where she is."

"Where is she now?"

Samara shrugged, whimsically, her illusion having gotten closer towards Isabella. Her hand lifted outwards, towards Ember, as if to pet her, only for the illusion to pass straight through the familiar's body like a ghost trying to interact with a corporeal object. She was, in the end, just bits and pieces of magic interwoven with a memory, there was nothing real here other than the knowledge this illusion imparted onto them.

Isen still liked to think that at least a little bit of Samara was still here with them, though. Even though she aggravated him beyond belief, hearing her teasing again felt comfortable. It reminded him of how far he'd come and how lucky he was to have found both her and Adelaide when he did.

"The whole point of the spell was so she could go into hiding. I wouldn't be able to tell you where she went, just that she went somewhere, and that she was still alive. That girl had the entire DSTF breathing down her neck before they were even the DSTF that you know and love-to-hate. She never told me why she was hiding, just that she needed to hide."

"But now, we know she's still out there." Takami added, eyeing Samara carefully as she continued to stay close to them, observing the awkward way he and Isabella acted around each other with a gleeful smile, the same kind of smirk she'd given to Adelaide and Isen while teasing them relentlessly about the feelings they had been avoiding. "We can help the demon."

"The demon? Wait, you mean Ignas?" Samara asked, before breaking into a laugh. "Love truly was, and is, in the air, isn't it?" Samara's hand lifted to her forehead, mimicking a faint the way she often did. "She was the first person I ever used my magic to help, led me to setting up shop and helping all of the others in Cresthaven. I guess I owe her a lot for setting me down the right path, even if she was only doing it to run away from her problems. I'm not particularly looking to help a demon find true love, but I'd do anything for my darling protégé and her brood-ful boyfriend. I may only be an illusion, but I'm still me."

Samara seemed certain, while Isen groaned, again. How was she somehow managing to tease three different pairs of people so effortlessly? Samara's eyes sparkled and she went quiet for a moment before speaking again, a solemn look across her face, forcing her lips into a downtrodden disposition.

"Oh. That's...sad." Samara began.

"Isen..." Ignas was, understandably, impatient. Isen, non-verbally, told him to be patient.

"She's dying. Not because of the DSTF, or anything...but I see her in a hospital bed. Envale, a cute little town in the country, can't have more than a thousand people in it. She's there, she's always been there. Laying low, living life...alone. Oh, dear."

"She's...how can she know for sure...?"

"He's asking how you can know for sure. You're just an illusion, after all."

"And none of the location spells they tried have worked."

"I know things. It's what I d-"

"Of course it is." Isen laughed, underneath his breath, something which seemed to annoy an ansty Ignas. He should have known. "You always find a way to help us, even when it isn't really you."

"What can I say? I'm just that good." She cooed, sing-song in tone. "If you want to find her, that's where she is. You're welcome. Now, I really should be going. It's not easy being this helpful of an illusion, you know, and I'm just going to cause you all more pain the longer I stay."

Isen looked like he wanted to say something, but he was hesitating. He looked towards Adelaide for strength, for composure, to see if she felt the same.
 
"Don't look at me, I heard you just fine." So the witch was alive, that was a good start to dealing with the disaster at hand, albeit a complicated one that was going to cut into everything else they needed to get done. Still, getting Ignas the closure he needed would make him more steady, more concentrated in the upcoming fight, and despite all the things she hated about the demon, something tugged at Adelaide and made her want to give him closure. What had she become, sympathizing and helping a demon after everything they'd done?

Ember perked up and sniffed at Samara's illusion before giving it a confused look upon realizing she couldn't rub on the witch's hand. The cat turned to give Adelaide a strange look as if to say 'what gives?' before huddling back on Isabella and sniffing at the air. She seemed just as confused as the rest of them, the poor thing wasn't even a year old and already she had been bound to a mage as a familiar and was learning how humans moved through life, not to mention all of the complicated magical and demonic issues at hand.

"What's sad?" Adelaide didn't like the way that Samara's expression changed so suddenly. If she was going to tell them that the witch was dead after all, all of their efforts would have been for naught. "Dying?" Dying was better than dead. Not by much, but just enough that it gave them a chance to get Ignas there to say his goodbyes through Isen. If the witch had once spoken to Ignas when he was in his own demon body, would she be able to hear him now? If not, could she pull together her magic to replicate the spell Danica had tricked her into speaking so that everyone could hear her? Even if the latter became the necessity, that would make things a lot more complicated if she couldn't reverse it down the line. Having everyone able to hear Ignas... Well, that was a concern for a later time, first they needed to find the town called Envale.

"You always were that good, Samara. Somehow you just were." It was starting to get hard to talk over the way her throat constricted at the memories, over knowing that at any second the illusion that perfectly mimicked their friend was going to disappear. "This isn't goodbye." Whether or not she believed in an afterlife was uncertain but considering all of the strange things she had discovered over the last couple of weeks it was entirely possible. If demons could hide among humans and possess artifacts and people alike, why couldn't there be an afterlife where they could see their friend again?

She was sniffling by the time she realized Isen was looking at her, rubbing at her face with an embarrassed expression before she shifted closer and reached for his hand. There'd been enough crying as of late, but what was one supposed to do when confronted with the illusion of someone they had lost so recently?

"It's not goodbye. It's just until next time."
 
"This isn't goodbye."

"It isn't?" She asked, her expression changing slightly into a look of acceptance. The illusion nodded her head in agreement. "Ahhh, yes, I suppose you're right. It isn't." Samara looked back towards Takami and Isabella, then down to Ember, addressing each with a warm smile, fighting back her own emotions as they prepared to part once more. "Until next time." She told them all, her eyes fixating back on Isen and Adelaide. She gave them one last, trademark smirk, then faded away into the illusion around them, reconcealing the home they were standing inside of within the illusion that they had found there.

"Samara, wait. I..." Isen spoke up, but his hesitation made it much too late. She was gone and things were back to how they were just a few minutes ago. Silence fell around them, for a moment. Isen felt awkward, so he changed the subject quickly thereafter for his own sanity's sake. "...let's go to Envale."

"Isen?" Ignas' voice asked, but Isen brushed it off. He could almost feel a hint of concern in the way the demon spoke to him, but surely it was just his jumbled up emotional state toying with him. He cast a look in Adelaide's direction, one that couldn't hide the hurt in his eyes, but made it clear that he also wasn't looking to feel any of this, or to talk about it.

"Tell us more about her." Isen requested, continuing to change the topic, to get Ignas talking about something, anything that wasn't the emotion he was probably feeling Isen experience. "Your witch. We don't even know her name." Idle conversation while Adelaide prepared a teleportation spell made it easier than them all wallowing in silence, after all.

"Oh." Ignas retorted. "Her name is Clara. She was...kind. The exact opposite of what a demon like me would deserve."

"How did you two meet?"

"I told you about the war. Demons were being used by witches to fight."

"She was fighting in that war?"

"...no. She wanted it to end. She hated what her people were doing and that the different clans were separated and fighting each other. Similar to how Samara's family found themselves outside of the conflict, so too did Clara's, for a while. But, she and her family had the ability to seal demons into catalysts, so they became a hot commodity when the demons started to bite back."
 
The look in Isen's eyes was enough to make Adelaide wince and she squeezed his hand in response. There was nothing any of them could do to mitigate the pain they felt from the unexpected appearance of their departed friend. All they could do now was move forward and work on dismantling and destroying the organization that had taken so much from all of them.

"I've never even been to Envale, this is going to be a pain in the ass." She was forced to release Isen's hand and step back as she tried to determine how best to set up the spell, but found that she was promptly saved by the fact that Isabella had been there before.

"'Wait, her family could seal them into catalysts too?" Right, she was clearly losing her mind now that there were so many factors both past and present involved. It was hard keeping track of who could do what, who was even still alive, and what she could do thanks to Samara's imprinting spell! Hell, she'd gotten herself distracted while preparing the teleportation spell. She cursed and turned back to that, half listening to Ignas in the background while Isabella and Takami stood there waiting for her to be ready. Considering they couldn't hear Ignas, it probably felt like standing in awkward silence while she toyed with her magic and smacked it into submission.

"There we go. Looks pretty, I'll give it that much. Shall we, Isen?"
 
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