Field of Quartz

[Trillian]

Sand, shiny and with flecks of gold and white. Wren was well-read enough to know most sand was silicon dioxide. Quartz. The use of rocks and crystals in his spells made beaches and deserts magical places. When he was struggling to make sense of anything, he would flee to a beach, sit and think while looking out over the ocean.

It was a colder day than usual and he shivered, his cotton shirt and pants unable to keep the wind out as it tugged on his clothes and whipped around his hunched form. Other beachgoers had long ago left; only the resolute had stayed to watch the sun go down, tracing orange lines of fire across the sky.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't go to war with Tess. Even before she'd singled him out for that sexy dream he'd been resistant at the idea of fighting her. She was too powerful and he didn't have a circle. Also, he didn't want to go to war. He was no soldier. Nobody had asked him if he wanted to fight. Or if it was right to fight. So he'd just left, taking his things one afternoon when all was quiet and just walking out the door.

Moving down the driveway he'd felt an oppressive sense of shame but once he was farther down the street it lifted. He organised himself a small, cheap apartmnent and then hopped a bus that he'd meant to travel all the way to the boardwalk in but he got off two stops early and walked down to the beach.

The sun was still streaming red across the sky when he saw her silhouette. Black against blood red as his eyes struggled to make out detail. When she moved he understood who he was looking at, and he wasn't surprised to see her here.

She'd come for him. He knew that with a kind of confidence that didn't come from arrogance. He slowly got to his feet, picked up his sandals, and made his way over to her, shivering. He stood before her, the beautiful white-blonde woman named Tess.

[Black Philip]

She decided to wear black, and pulled out something long and flowy. The dress was tied around the middle with a gold belt that gave her a Grecian figure. She'd chosen sandals since she was going to the beach. She hadn't known that's where she'd be going until just a moment ago. She'd felt him leave the parlor. The demon witch's magic could no longer keep him from her. Although her hold on him was far from complete, and so in order to pinpoint him she'd need to do a little magic.

Thesdea Thane pulled out an oversize map of the city and laid it out on her hard wood floor. Riley ran across it, yipping and yapping and wanting pets. She shoved him away for now, but followed it up with a quick, "good boy," before continuing to prepare her magic. Candles were lit, sage burned, and very soon she was swinging a large crystal over the map. It was quartz, with a silver chain attached, and held the shape of a teardrop. It was a fairly standard witch accessory, and one she'd had since childhood. She used the vial of his semen to focus the crystal to him, that and her desire. She needed many things from this long lost lamb, and she hoped by the time Black Philip joined this world that Wren would stand by her, her man and partner in crime. Black Philip had promised to spare a man for her. There wouldn't be many choices in his new world. She felt something was wrong with the scrying.

"Music," she realized, and she pointed at her radio. Black Velvet began to play, and Tess began to dance, swinging the crystal all around the room as she spun. The map lay forgotten. The candles went out, and yet still she twirled. The song was her guide, and she even closed her eyes. She trusted in the magic; her magic. Brael had shaken her confidence, but she was still the most powerful witch in town, or she would be once she gloated over Sabrina's corpse.

She was thinking of that image, and didn't realize Riley was standing in front of her again. She tripped over him, making him yelp and landing face first on the map. "Fuck," she cursed, but quickly rose to check on her dog. Another limb had popped off. No matter. She sent the black necro energies needed into her beloved pet, and once again he was good as new... just not living. "There, all better," she said petting the undead dog. "Mama is sorry," she admitted, and Riley's cold tongue licked her hands. She looked for the crystal and realized it had landed on Glitter Beach. She felt him there, or that he would be there soon. She knew she needed to leave to not miss him, and kissed the top of Riley's head. "Good boy," she said, attributing her tripping over him as what ended up making the spell work. She grabbed the crystal, the bone tusk, and her bag of tricks and left the apartment in a rush. Her hair had been freshly combed from the shower, smelling of pear and jasmine. She knew she looked good, and kept the song playing on her headphones as she took the crosstown bus that would drop her off at the beach.

She reached it without incident, and felt him approaching. This was good. He was coming to her. She danced to the song one more time, using her dress as a prop, throwing the black silk all around as she spun. When his image finally came into view, she laughed brightly.

"I've been waiting so long to talk to you," she said with a pretty smile. "Come closer." 

[Trillian]

After his gaze took in her form - clothes and body and face - he listened as she rewarded him with a statement, opening a line of communication instead of throwing threats his way. It gratified him in the half a second between her statement and her beckoning him to draw nearer. Wren shook his head minutely; from here he could feel her darkness. It was roiling inside her, menacing and beautiful and powerful and sexual and evil. If he touched her, he would burn. Everything good in him would burn. A part of him wanted to touch her anyway, but it was only a small part... for now.

"No," he said, denying her with words as well as action. It shouldn't be so easy. "I'm already too close."

He should walk away. He should turn on his heel and walk away and let her do her worst at his back. She was so much more powerful than him; she'd already surrendered herself to a greater power and was channelling it through her body, a conduit waiting to be extorted. Standing in front of her he could feel her aura like electricity. She would kill him if they battled. It was one of the reasons he hadn't wanted to fight in the first place. He ignored what the other reasons were.

[Black Philip]

"We've been closer," she teased, slowly walking towards him. She laughed and examined him. He was as handsome as she remembered, and the conflict inside him was agonizing. She loved it, and it drew her towards him like a moth to a flame. She wanted to see what led to this. What pain lived inside that handsome skull. Her own eyes were large and innocent, but even Wren would no longer be fooled by them.

"I need you," she said. She didn't tell him for what he was needed, and tossed her hair about as she considered how he might infer her words.

[Trillian]

Her teasing elicited an embarrassed blink from him and his cheeks flushed at her knowledge of him - and his knowledge of her. He was still shaken by the goat that took over at the end but his body remembered enough of the sensation of having her that it responded to her now with brief twitches and tingling skin.

Or was that the cold? It continued to bite into him even as she closed the distance between them. Her next statement had him uttering a soft, breathy laugh. He didn't believe she would need him for anything beyond being a compound in one of her spells. The wind pulled at her dress and danced with it while it clawed at his clothes and battered him, howling in his ear and trying to drown the constant wash of the ocean - which it couldn't.

"That's not enough," he said. She was asking him to give himself, to hand over his dignity, his pride, his sanity. He would give her one more chance to say the right words and then he would extract himself from this insane conversation. It was insane of him to even be here talking to her.

[Black Philip]

"Why are you pretending to be afraid of me," she asked, tone a great deal more serious. The temptress was replaced by someone much more matter of fact, although the way the wind blew through her hair she looked even more beautiful this way. She slowly began to walk towards this druid, master of the earth. Black Philip had told her druids were proud, powerful and strong, and that the earth held many secrets worth learning. They made poor servants mostly, as their love of the earth, of nature, of balance and mercy guided them away from the goat's charms. However, this one had less of those things it seemed. He had them for sure, buried in his conflicted soul, but unlike his kin he was curious about the darker things in the world. Yes. That had to be it. She was sure she was reading him correctly.

"Admit it Wren," she said, that same down to earth tone as before. "I'm driving you crazy aren't I?"

Behind her the setting sun was the color of blood, and framed Tess as it's goddess.

[Trillian]

"I'm not afraid of you," he admitted, knowing she would be pleased about this, but he shared why he still balked at her. "I'm afraid of who you serve."

She couldn't promise him that he would be separated from that. She'd pursued him in his dreams and then handed him over to her master. He wouldn't mean anything to her and she couldn't promise him that he would.

He shook his head. No, she wasn't driving him crazy. It was the battlefield with the thing she'd handed her soul to that he refused to participate in. That was driving him crazy. He'd left the safety of the parlour to stay away from this fight, this battle of epic proportion. The corruption inside of him - the one that had tasted power and had sacrificed a life to get more of it - that was the piece of him that responded to her.

But it was too small a part for him to accept her right now. Her beauty was obvious but beauty was everywhere. In the sun itself, as it framed her. In the grains of sand where she stood. But not in her heart.

"I won't fight you," he told her. "But I won't join you, either."

[Black Philip]

Tess was caught off guard about his attack on her patron. However, was fear really an attack? It seemed more like respect, and her startled expression returned back to a sultry one. She should’ve known the babe would put up a fight. That made it more interesting when she finally took him. She kept moving towards him slowly.

“So let’s not fight, and I don’t have his book for you to sign.”

She was looking at his body. Did he know she wanted him too? Could he feel her desire, the heat of her flesh? “All I went for now is to talk.”

She was close now, but finally stopped. He’d need to come the rest of the way.

[Trillian]

Her seductiveness had a two-fold effect. His body remembered having her and wanted more. His mind recognised her histrionics and warned him it was only a ploy. The physical response had an urgency to it that his intelligence couldn't recreate. Apparently knowing that she leant towards the dramatic and the seductive wasn't enough to temper his thirst for her.

He kept his ground, locked in place, observing her movements as she approached him like he was a flighty deer. She stopped within reaching distance, if he extended his arm he imagined his fingers might brush against the material of her dress, the skin of her shoulder, the curve of her breast. He licked his lips and pulled them in momentarily before giving her an opportunity he hadn't intended.

"So talk."

[Black Philip]

Tess prided herself on how in control of a situation she normally was. The cemetery, the semen, even with Brael, she'd never felt like she didn't know how to respond, or how to move or act. Now, she was lost. Her patron wasn't whispering the answer. Wren wanted her to talk, but about what? She'd promised him that it wouldn't be about her patron, and she'd hoped by now they'd be naked on the beach, touching one another's bodies and feeling each other's warmth. What could she say that would make him happy, make him trust her, make him want her? She had no answers! She stuttered through a few "ugh's" and "um's" before sitting on the ground, and gesturing for Wren to do the same.

"When you do what I do," she said with a fair amount of nerves. "Small talk is hard. I just... want to feel normal for a change. I want to talk to a boy, who I like. Can we leave the conflicts alone? Can we forget who I serve, and how we met, just for now?"

She didn't wait for a yes. She barreled right on. "I grew up in Philly. Where did you grow up?"

She laid down on the sand, eyes now looking up at the stars. She wanted to use Wren's chest as a pillow, and shared those thoughts with him mentally in the form of a perfect image of their bodies laying together.

[Trillian]

He sat with her because the wind was cruel and the ground offered a little shelter. Slight as it was, it was better than being battered while standing. Tess' body acted like a windbreak and he could feel he was doing the same for her. Together they protected the other from the elements.

Poetic.

He understood about small talk. He wasn't the most socially adept of people. His upbringing had either seen him following commands or giving them. It had felt good to slice out a little power of his own, for himself, something that wasn't shareable.

He didn't reply to her request that they ignore their opposing positions but did respond to her question about his origin because she'd revealed her own.

"Ireland." He had so little of the accent it was almost indistinguishable from the American, until he was speaking the ancient tongue through his magic - then his hard Rs and rolling vowels would sound. Now that she knew of his home country, he thought she might be able to identify the lilt of his words. He'd done his best to keep it suppressed, not wanting to be reminded of the pain of being banished.

[Black Philip]

She started to relax on the beach, sitting with Wren and just listening to him talk. Ireland wasn't that far from Scotland, and she thought of her Scottish clan that had come to America. She wondered if at some point, far in the past, and as people migrated, they'd come from the same people once. It wasn't impossible. She'd heard Ireland was beautiful, although she'd never been. She'd always been working towards a purpose. She hadn't even chosen this city herself. Black Philip told her to come here. She wondered what it was like to have choices, and so she asked Wren about one of his.

"Why did you leave Ireland and come here," she asked, sounding nothing more than curious. The moon was rising, and the sun was now orange, purple, and reds fading over the horizon. Soon it would be night, and it was getting cold. Tess looked cold. Her skin had goose flesh and her fingers lightly shook. The witch could have simply used her pyrokinesis to keep warm, but she had something else in mind.

[Trillian]

“I didn’t have a choice,” he said softly, mirroring her thoughts on choices and revealing that he wasn’t as free willed as she'd assumed. Of course he did have a choice, as she had, an impossible choice that would mean death. Between death and leaving Ireland, he'd chosen the latter.

He saw her shivering and knew what it meant. She wasn’t the enemy... not his enemy, not now, anyway, and he followed his instinct to keep her warm. He had no extra layer to offer her so he shuffled closer and wrapped his arm around her. His knowledge of intimacy with her made it feel natural.

“I was banished.”

He’d kept his shame a secret but believed she'd understand. At the very least she wouldn’t judge him. She'd been through (and done) far worse.

[Black Philip]

I was banished.

Those three words changed everything for the young witch, as she felt him embrace her. He was warmer than her somehow, and she arranged herself to make the embrace easier. They were spooning now, and she played with his hands as he told her of his banishment. Perhaps that was the conflict she sensed earlier? Oddly enough, he didn't seem very conflicted currently. She wanted to probe deeper, learn the reason why, but she couldn't bring herself to ask him just yet. She decided it was her turn to tell him something he didn't know.

"I left Philly because my parents are both dead," she said, quickly adding, "and no I didn't kill them."

She felt considering everything he knew about her it was prudent to point this out. She was partially lying though. She didn't kill them no, but she felt responsible for both of their deaths. She'd slaughtered innocents to serve her master, and never thought twice about it. These two deaths however weighed heavily on her.

"My clan disowned me, and they're all in Scotland now anyway. I've lost my tribe."

This was something she felt a banished person could understand, even if they had different journeys getting there.

[Trillian]

As they lay on the sand Wren couldn't help but think they would be more comfortable in a bed, but he wasn't about to start leaping their 'let's talk for a bit while in public' to a private setting. There were people around; and while he didn't think that would stop her if she didn't want him to walk away from her, he was also not ready to be going home with her, or taking her to his.

He bent his head so his lips were at her nape. "I'm sorry," he said gently, not wanting the wind to whisk his words away before she heard them. He imagined his breath would warm her frigid skin. She felt so cold against him. Neither of them were dressed appropriately for sundown.

When she told him about her clan disowning her, casting her out, losing her tribe, his arms tightened around her, pulling her closer to him. He closed his eyes and buried his face in her hair, sighing. It was after a moment he gave her more information.

"I belonged to a druid circle in Ireland. They cast me out, too."

Their situations were similar but she'd gone much farther than he had. How easily he could've pursued his course of action and been the villain of his circle's story. He already was - his regret and apology hadn't been enough for them. They'd judged him harshly and stripped him of the only family he'd ever known. Some of them had wanted to take his life but they'd been shouted down. How different it could've been if he'd fought back. Was that what Tess had done? Fought back?

"You're freezing. We should go s-somewhere else." He almost tripped over what he wanted to say.