Closed Useless and Slightly Insane (Allister)

[Madeira Dusk]

28th of Summer, 517

"For want of a nail, the shoe was lost
For want of a shoe the horse was lost
For want of a horse the rider was lost"

Madeira's voice cracked like a teenage boys as she sang half forgotten nursery rhymes to an abandoned house in the ghost town. It had been a hot day, and the smell of crumbling wood and baking earth rose from the cracks in the floor. Syna's light was filtering through the broken windows at a slant now, and it pooled in the circles under Madeira’s eyes and in the ridges of her collarbones over the tight collar of her dress. Gods, she was tired.

"For want of a rider the battle was lost
For want of a battle the city was lost
And all for a want of a horseshoe nail."

Dimly she wondered why she didn't know any cheerier songs.

Despite her attempt to placate through inept singing and dour songs, the Vantha ghost refused to show himself. The Spiritist had checked for cold spots, sniffed for unusual scents, looked for flickering in the dark corners, and found nothing. She had been chasing the little boy most of the day in a perverse game of hide and seek, having gleaned from more cooperative ghosts that this boy was what was left of Coren Snowsong. He was ten years old, stubborn and petulant, and was showing early signs of veering into 'vengeful spirit' territory.

Madeira stood in the middle of the empty house, hands on her narrow hips and expression stressed underneath a forcibly benign smile.

"Coren? I'm done playing games. Come out. I just want to talk."

Silence.

"For want of a stone," she began again, pressing the heel of her hand against her eye, where a headache was brewing, "the mill was lost,
For want of a mill, the flour was lost
For want of flour, the bread was lost
For want of bread, the people were lost-"

Small hands sunk into Madeira's lower back from behind her, and there was a blinding, indescribable pain at having her soul touched directly by the ghost. Her eyes rolled back, her body spasmed, and the Spiritist crumpled like a broken marionette.

"You're it!"

A childish voice trailed cruel laughter out the door as Madeira rolled to her feet, flushed and gasping.

"Coren!"

She followed the voice out of the house and onto the street. A few living people were making their way through the dilapidated town, their expressions as grim as the broken houses that surrounded them. And behind dirty panes of glass, narrow alleys and shuttered gates the murdered Vantha's watched them go. Madeira let a strangled, frustrated sound crawl up from her throat. Where did he run off too?

"Tag! Tag you're it!", she called, her voice thin and high as she tried to rile the spectre.

She must have looked like quite the loon, turning in pirouettes in the middle of the street with wide, searching eyes as she invited seemingly nobody to play the game. But this was Alvadas, and lunacy was expected. "Tag! We can't play until you tag!"

[Allister]

Allister jerked awake at the sound of a voice. The dog shook his mane and allowed the jitter to carry on down his spine until his slightly bobbed tail and shorter back legs shared in the shimmy. The voice continued and it was a young woman’s though she sounded rough not wholly unlike the kelvic’s call. The only possessions that the young man called his own were in a pile against the wall where he had been sleeping. Instead of turning to his human form and getting dressed, the hyena elected to keep his animal form so that stalking would be easier. With thick pads and a squat stance, the striped dog moved with the shifting shadows through the windows of the rundown home. Whatever guided him to this place had been absolute providence. Allister was free to roam on his own terms, left in peace and comfortable enough to not think about how is stomach was empty and angry.

The scavenger moved slowly as his nostrils picked up the scents of other beings somewhere farther off but his attention was focused on the woman in the street who was reciting curious lines. The dog took one step after another while trying to remain quiet but his big claws kept scratching at the floor despite his best efforts. In a quick scamper, he found his way back to where he had been resting. There was a brief flash of light which flared out through the window. The wall was facing the same direction as the setting sun so the burst was a contrast to the growing shadows. Inside, Allister jumped into his pants and boots and slung his malnourished frame into his jacket. The Kenash native grabbed his pack but lost his only shirt in the process and the dingy white garment fell right in the warm spot left by the canine body.

Not a careful sort nor used to keeping track of things, Allister fled into the house’s inner rooms as the limerick continued from the woman’s lips. A high-pitched giggle escaped his lips as her mentions of food made his stomach growl. A dirty hand clamped over his mouth and the kelvic’s dark eyes went wide wondering if he had been caught. He held his breath. He hugged his jacket tight and he prayed to the shadows to hide him. Allister didn’t know what this woman was up to but he didn’t want to find out because, in his mind, it would likely be some kind of punishment for squatting in a place that wasn’t his.

A strangled cry for ‘tag’ gnawed at the youth’s curiosity. Several times, the shrill voice of the woman mentioned it and each time it brought about a hunger to discover what it –what tag- actually was. A tick went by or maybe a chime but it felt like a bell and Allister was literally itching his chest and arms in an attempt to convince himself to stay hidden. Curiosity; one. Self-preservation; zero.

Slowly and keeping his back against the walls so that his jacket made soft noises, the lanky fellow made one foot follow the other while dark eyes bounced in every direction to see if he would be discovered. Allister set down his pack and lept against the wall which faced the street. He landed with a thud and an ‘ooompft’ but curled up in the fetal position to make his form seem smaller and therefore harder to find. He was too scared to look out the window and trembled slightly. It was this shaking motion that caused his anchor bracelet to slowly slide around his wrist. Feeling the cool metal of the charm brought him ease and a moment’s clarity; he now had a plan.

Allister thought about Madison and her tired but kind eyes. He could feel her touch and remembered the tenderness in her voice. He recalled the lessons she gave about magic and how one can project a part of his body a short distance to perform feats that would normally only be done in person. The key was “slooooooow”. The spoken word caught him off guard again and he clamped his hand over his mouth so fast that it created a slightly painful and audible slap. Several ticks went by and he did nothing for fear of many things.

Once he deemed his life safe, the kelvic focused on his right arm. He stared at it and imagined it floating away. A wide grin crept over his pale face as Allister dreamed of what it would feel like to touch the shouting woman. As these thoughts continued, his right arm went limp without any pain or warning. The kelvic grinned. He slowly extended his neck and chin so that he could see, just barely, over the bottom ledge of the busted window. The dirty glass hid him well but his dark stare could easily see the woman spinning in circles in the middle of the street. Her gaiety made him feel alive; energized. The hyena even forgot that he hadn’t eaten in days…a week? The magic he’d been blessed with allowed him to follow the apparition of his arm across the shadows and to the woman. Allister hesitated for a moment to touch her- his eyes caught in the light of her skin.

Syna’s rays caught the tight collarbones, slender neck and angled face in such a way that it brought out an instinctual response. Allister’s long tongue came out and pushed his lower lip from the inside left to right then he ran it back across the metal upper teeth. His canine receptors caught her scent again and he drooled slightly from the left corner of his mouth. Thoughts began to circulate and speculate as to her flavor but that was secondary to the unseen hand that lingered near her body. On her next turn, his projected index finger would just dip into the pocket over her right collarbone then as she completed the motion several more fingers would trail down the back of her neck. Allister ducked back down behind the window as another high, soft giggle bubbled out of his mouth.
It was followed by the faintest of whispers.

"Smooth skin."

[Madeira Dusk]

All of Madeira's muscles were knotted under her skin, as if that would brace her against the touch of a ghost. Her teeth were gritted and her lips thin and hard as she spun this way and that, trying to catch sight of the child before he could get to her. The anticipation was rattling her bones and souring the air in her lungs.

And the touch did come, as she expected. But she did not expect to be touched like that.

Her hands clapped over her collar as if she might catch an insect crawling over her skin. Only for her to bow and cringe away a tick later in an awkward dance as unmistakable fingers tapped their way down the ridges of her spine. The ticklish sensation shot directly to her overwound brain, and she huffed out an alarmed, breathless laugh.

What's going on?

She was running both hands over her collar and the back of her neck, eyes wide and bumping shoulders with more than one person in her crazy spin. It was the ghost, it had to be. But the ghost had somehow, some way, pressed on her skin. The contact was physical, while her soul was shuddering in relief in the deeper parts of her. What kind of ghost could do that?

And under her own shocked breathing and the babble of people on the street, she heard a soft giggle.

Madeira's eyes snap up to the house closest to her; a two-story affair with peeling shingles, cloudy glass and a missing door. Without pause or deeper thought, the Spiritist ducked inside the premature dusk of the empty house.

"Coren? Coren, is that you?"

The smell of dust and something musty and animal wafted from deeper inside. Like everything in the ghost town, the house radiated neglect and a sinister kind of sadness. She didn't have a sixth sense for ghosts like her relatives, but Madeira's skin prickled as she strained to sense the cold or unsourced breeze that sometimes preceded a spirit. She strode in a couple meters into the empty hall, then spun on her heels to look around her.

"Gah!"

Through the open door to her left, ducking low under the sill of the dirty window, was a man. A very much alive man. He was a hard, wiry thing with dirty, stripped hair and white skin interrupted by harsh lines of black ink. Even from across the room in the low light she could see a gleam in his eye that spoke of the old Avalad madness. He was the kind of creature that could scare a small child, or a stressed, ghost-hunting adult in an abandoned house. Madeira pushed the heel of her hand over her stuttering heart.

"By the gods, sir. What are you doing? Are you hiding? Did you see the ghost?”

A sudden breath of air pressed the thin fabric of her dress against the jut of her hips, and deeper in the house came a peal of childish laughter.

[Allister]

Allister blinked and inclined his head to one side when the blonde girl reacted the way that she did. The way she struck at her neck made the Kelvic want to paw at her even more but her duck and run maneuver and the attached chuckle –if one could call it that- gave him much more pause. Did she not like it? With his left hand, the pale man drug a finger down his own neck ad bounced at the knob of his collarbone to run along the line it creates towards his shoulder. He made a face. The rough texture of his fingertip felt good against his dry skin so why did the woman leap and twist to get away from it? A thought crossed his mind. Allister was not so much a thinker or a doer; just one of those who reacted to situations as they occurred. So when this mental feat of greatness broke through the muddled and foggy barriers that divided conscious from subconscious, the hyena literally barked in enthusiasm.

Maybe the reason she didn’t like the soft caress of his fingers was that it wasn’t his actual hands that made contact?

The beady eyes revealed a deep sense of pride for this studious connection of dots. Allister recalled his phantom arm and brought it around in front of his body but he did not reattach his wayward limb; not yet. The pale man stared at his own ghastly appendage as he touched his chest with his left hand. Then he repeated the process but with his projected right hand. His brow buried itself above the beady black eyes. To him, it felt the same so why did the blonde girl react in the manner that she had?

The girl! The dark stare cast itself out into the street as she made calls for someone who name did not sound like his. Fear shot up his spine and made him shiver which in turn made his skin tighten and scream to be scratched. Mouth agape in slack-jawed terror of discovery, Allister began to scramble about but knew he had to rejoin his arm before he could run. His boots scuffed on the floor as he pushed himself backwards along the front wall while his mind slowly absorbed the magical essence of his arm back into the whole.

“Gah!”

“Aaahhh!!!” Her cry was one of surprise. His was one of terror. Allister hopped from his rump only to land upon it once more. The blonde girl stood before him and was staring at him in a way that made him feel small. The pale face winced in anticipation of the beating that was sure to follow. His arms –now both attached- and legs continued to try and squeeze the lanky form into a tiny shadow. The Kelvic had been so happy these past few weeks. Life wasn’t perfect and he was lonely but he didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to and nobody bound or beat him. When he was questioned, the frail man resorted to the only thing he could think of; begging.

With a pathetic scamper that was neither four legs nor two, Allister crawled over to the girl in the fancy –yet antiquated- dress. (It’s a well-known fact that wealthy Kenashians are at the top of Mizahar’s fashion pyramid –just ask one.) His hands softly pawed at her dress until he had gathered a bundle in his grip; a trick he had learned long ago which was that people tended not to hit you as hard if you were touching them. His black eyes revealed the true state of fear that he was in and his trembling body re-enforced this position. The man’s words came out fast and in a tone that was almost song-like but not in a good way. It was a haunting melody of flats and minor arpeggios that combined into a lament of epic proportions. “Please! I’msosorry. I didn’t know this was yourhouseI’ll go rightnow 'fyoulemme!” His right hand slipped off of the left as it clutched her dress which sent him forward into her legs. The hand clasped around the small calf through the fabric and sent a shock through his body which made him shiver for an entirely different reason.

The woman’s scent hit him at the same time and Allister became lost, confused and strangely comforted all at the same time. He looked back up, his hand still on her leg. “I’m Useless.” It was a resigned confession that sat in his face as naturally as his nose or the dark eyes which stared at the bright blue eyes of the girl. She looked like Madison! The sudden realization crumpled him against her legs once more. The girl had mentioned something about a ghost. She was a ghost! Madison’s ghost! A huge grin spread over his countenance and revealed the metal teeth. He wrapped himself around her legs bunching her dress in the process and clung to her like a child would its parent. “Madison!! I thought I’d never see you again!!” He kissed what he presumed to be a knee through the fabric near his face. “Oh, Madison, it’s so nice that you came to be with me! I was so lonely!!” The man fawned on the girl’s legs with long stroked and nuzzles not knowing a thing about ghosts other than they are the leftover spirit of one who has died.

[Madeira Dusk]

Something feminine in Madeira's head snarled in warning when the skittish man crawled his way across the room and clutched at the skirt of her dress. Half of her wanted to kick him away and force some distance between herself and this crazed stranger. The other half, the logical half that wrestled with her gut reaction, told her not to agitate him further. Suck between the two, Madeira stopped breathing and froze with her hands extended for balance as the man babbled incoherently and nuzzled against her knees.

"Madison", he was saying. "I thought I'd never see you again."

He was quaking in fright, and the shiver travelled up her legs and rattled her ribs. A glint of silver showed through the seam in his cracked lips, and the skin showing through his open jacket was the kind of deathly white you'd see on something that had never seen the sun. Madeira's heart began to slow as she realized that the man wasn't going to attack or assault her. Despite being physically bigger than herself, she was beginning to suspect he wasn't able to be violent. He was clinging to her like a lost child.

"Hello", she said slowly, gingerly, like she expected him to detonate under the feather light weight of her words. "Please let go of me.” She levered a hand between his cheek and her leg and pushed him gently but firmly away. "I'm sorry you were lonely."

She did not deny that she was Madison. She didn't seek to confirm it, either. Frankly, she had spent too much time being other people for the benefit of the dead. At that point the impulse to preserve the ruse was engrained into her very bones. Besides, she did not miss the way the man dissolved like spun sugar when he mistook her for this 'Madison'.

Now, with at least some distance between them, Madeira knelt on the dusty floor and let her skirt pool around her. The muted light sliding in through the warped window and missing door softened the sharp lines of the man's bones, but she could see the hunger that nestled in the shadow of his ribs and hollows of his cheeks. Everything about him, from his unwashed clothes to his tangled hair, screamed of neglect. Either his madness was such that he couldn't take care of himself, or he was a slave, and he wasn't allowed to take care of himself. Madeira wasn't so naive as to think the slave trade didn’t operate in Alvadas, much as the upper residents liked to pretend it didn't exist.

The Craven wasn't in the business of charity, but something that felt an awful lot like pity twisted like a sword in her gut, and she knew she wouldn't be able to leave him there. Damn it all. Coren would have to wait.

She sighed through her nose, and her lip caught between her teeth as she looked him up and down. "Are you hungry? Do you want to go get something to eat?"

At that moment there was a flickering behind him, like a sudden concentration of light. Madeira’s eyes widened and she had barely opened her mouth to shout a warning before two small, misty hands shoved at the man’s shoulder and sunk into his flesh.

“Go away!” a childish shriek of temper issued from the condensing soulmist. “We’re not playing with you!”

[Allister]

Allister was so tense, his lanky form condensed into a single nerve ending that reacted with tremors which seemed to come in waves. Each time the girl spoke, the kelvic would go still then he would quake once more in her pauses as if he feared a sudden retaliation. With a modicum of resilience and courage, the straggler that vaguely resembled a man lifted his inky gaze to the heavily-burdened stare of the young woman. Shattered like ancient glass on the tundra of the Frozen Wastes, the newly freed slave’s hope for a reunion tumbled around him like the fabric of the girl’s long skirts; this was not Madison. He started to fall away from the thin pair of legs to which he had so desperately clung but was saved by her gentle hand on his face. Warm like the rare kiss from Syna’s face, the very soft and intimate brush of skin seemed to freeze the bum in his seat. The contact was so amazing that his flesh curled up in a million tiny bumps and the kelvic pressed his cheek into her palm until his lips brushed the very soft skin on the inside of her wrist. His chapped petals created enough friction to lift a spark between them and he pulled away into himself.

The woman’s words were of concern and inquiry as to Allister’s wellbeing. It felt like a trick or how a trick might sound but there was no malice in the sparkling blue eyes- just deep contemplation. The black eyes stared back for a moment then the kelvic quickly looked down. His expression was flabbergast and pensive albeit fleeting. Only one person had ever been nice to him and she was killed for it. On cue, his stomach gargled at the prospect of substance and this caused a brief flicker of his eyes back up to the face which was worthy of a portrait in some lofty estate. The high neckline of her dress presented Allister with the impression that this young porcelain creature was someone of importance. This send a chill up his spine but he didn’t want to risk too much fear being shown as that could cause his meal ticket to vanish. His former mistress was fond of playing games that caused her pets to second guess themselves and this left Allister in a holding pattern for some time.

A soupcon of bravery mixed with a hearty dash of foolishness allowed Allister to raise his chin so that he was staring at Madeira. She had been kind so far and in return, he would be brave. This was, after all, a new lift for the hyena and he had but to choose the path he wished to take. Unfortunately, Allister only knew one way of life. He spoke but his words were simple shells of his actual voice so he paused and cleared his throat which resulted in a high-pitched chuckle followed by an involuntary spasm which served to scratch an itch between his shoulder blades. His eyes never left her face except when they closed in the momentary bliss which was found when he nailed the source of his skin’s agitation.

“I’m starv-“ The man collapsed forward as if the life had been stolen out of him in an instant. The ghastly appendages went through fabric, skin and bone until they touched his soul. Allister didn’t make a sound. He had been beaten up one side and down the other so many times that pain was simply a trigger for his body to shut down despite having never experienced any sensations quite like this. The hyena shuddered and shivered at the frozen fire that flashed through his being but he did not move. Rather, he remained a crumpled heap before the woman while his mind roamed amidst recent memories foe that wondrous warmth that she had given him; that soft push on his cheek became his solace until the normalcy of his awkward and lanky self returned. Allister slowly looked to Madeira with a look of blatant incomprehension. His mouth parted to reveal his metal teeth which whistled slightly against his whispered words. “Did I do something wrong?” A cough seized him and doubled over the skinny frame but he showed his toughness and rose up onto his hands and knees but kept his head lower than hers to show a submissive state. Allister looked up at her from the corner of his eye awaiting an answer…or more punishment.

Hi...Sorry for the delay. Please excuse the rust...

[Madeira Dusk]

"Useless!" Madeira gasped, reaching forward and catching his head in her boney arms as he crumpled to the floor. The man did not make a sound; no moan or shout of distress. Air whistled through his shining teeth as he shivered on the dusty floor, kicking up a flurry of dust that shimmered frostily in the air.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked, his dark eyes looking up at her with a blank, confused look that she instantly recognized. Memories of the years of living under the heel of her powerful family came rushing back. And she understood in that moment that she had power over him. It was a strange sensation that she would later be unable to articulate, a kind of tingling effervescence that shot through her gums and down her spine. The knowledge that she was somehow more than him, and that he looked to her to make it alright, amazed the young Spiritist.

The man pulled away and pushed himself to his hands and knees, his head down with the weight of his submission. Damaged was written below his hairline in a pretty, curling font. There was a warped reflection of her hands in the curve of his metal teeth. Who was he? Why was he here? Not for the last time Madeira felt crushed under the weight of questions and a spark of something hot and angry. Who would do this?

Coren stood behind him, his fists clenched and his feet soundlessly stomping in childish rage. She had seen this kind of tantrum before, from dead children who didn't understand the shift in their power. She told Useless to stay down by the pressure of her hand on the back of his tawny head.

"Calm down Coren, sweetheart." she smiled a tired, broken smile as she got to her feet, brushing dirt off of her skirt. "I'm coming back to play later. But you've been very bad today, haven't you? You've hurt a lot of people-"

"Tell him to go away!" He screamed, and his cruel voice didn't seen to come from his flickering form anymore. It bounced around the room, a warbling, whiny wail.

Suddenly the cry was cut off as he blinked out of existence. Madeira knew what would happen next, but as always the invasion of the alien soul in her body made her want to scratch at her bones. Coren ripped into her body and his soulmist coalesced through her jaw and throat, trying to make her say the words he wanted.

In a practise born from a thousand possessions Madeira turned inward and shut her body down. Her teeth clicked together and muscles stood hard against the pulsing of her neck. Capillaries exploded in her eyes as they rolled back into her head. Her body became a statue as she imagined every joint erased and every bone turned to stone. And like this she stopped breathing and waited, feeling the invading soul scrabbling uselessly against this new fortress of a body.

Finally exhausted, the boy gave up. A silvery incandescence poured from her teeth and tongue as Coren exited her body.

Snapping out of her paralysis, Madeira pulled back the sleeve of her dress, lifted her bracer crossbow through the swiftly condensing form of Coren Snowsong in front of her, and fired.

The willow bolt shot unimpeded through the ghost and lodged itself into the drywall behind it. Though not a souldart, the imbueded arrow seemed to drag something out him, and the still unformed child started to cry. His form shivered, trying to materialize, but the effort of the recent materializations, possession and now the arrow proved to be too much, and he vanished.

"That is not how good boys behave!" Madeira barked at the empty air. "Now think about what you've done."

The quiet afterwards seemed to fill every corner of the crumbling house. She could suddenly hear the people outside again, and Useless’s wheezing breaths. She folded up the silver wings of her crossbow and slotted it back into her sleeve, and stepped around the pale man to retrieve her bolt from the far wall. Leaving poor Coren unexorcised like that felt like a weight dropped into her stomach. She would have to come back later to sort him out properly, but right now she promised the man with metal teeth a meal.

"Useless." she called softly as she turned to leave. "Useless, look at me. Go get your belongings and come with me." she stated clearly, and for the first time, with authority. "We are going to go get you some food."

[Allister]

Allister felt her hand on his head like a fly feels the frog’s tongue just before the elastic retraction lures it into the oversized mouth as a delicacy not large enough to satisfy the reptilian hunger. There was something about her touch; when she cradled his head and now with the oppressive palm… Something deep inside the hyena moved.

The kelvic had never felt such a strong desire to be near another person. Lightning rippled up and down his spine while ice coursed through his veins and fire thumped in the chambers of his heart. Alive. Fearful. Hopeful. There was no way the uneducated man could ever describe the sensations that toyed with his soul and thoughts but he smiled just the same. The presence of this woman invading his spirit had completely distracted the hyena from everything else that was taking place.

What happened next did not seem to fit into what was taking place. Madeira absorbed…no, she ate that thing! While it looked like a man, it didn’t. Allister could feel her focus and flinched every time she locked down a piece of her body. The more she became like stone, the closer the kelvic dared. He inched once, twice and then a third time before he froze. The black eyes roamed over a face plastered in effort. The woman had sharp features and the vagabond found himself more than a little bit attracted to her but the feelings that he had felt were far more appealing. ‘Where did they go?’ He wondered in silence. Cautiously, a bony finger extended and briefly touched Madeira’s shoulder.

Nothing.

Allister took the same finger and began to slowly trace it along her deltoid with enough pressure to feel her muscles clenched beneath the fabric of her dress. Thin arms were not weak in her case but there was something about Madeira that gave the kelvic a sense of frailty. It was akin to holding something of great value. Down her arm, his finger traveled until he traced the lacy cuff onto the back of her hand. His eyes had remained on her face and hair throughout the entire ordeal. Time had come to a halt and the ghastly man slipped his fingers through around her tiny hand and held it like they were childhood friends. The black eyes came to rest upon the grip and color flooded the man’s cheeks as a wave of euphoria crashed against him. The emotion was enough to cause the lanky man to pitch forward ever so slightly but it nearly caused them to collide. Thinking quickly, Allister twisted his hips and arched his back then allowed his head to fall behind him.

It was an awkward pose but the shift in momentum prevented the two people from ending up in a heap upon the ground. Music filled Allister and his mouth instantly began to hum a tune. Still holding the young woman’s hand, he began to dance around her in a very comical and overly dramatic way. His face showed random emotions that were emphasized with the rough skill of one who had done a few performances. Just as the humming had switched to ‘de-dums’ and ‘la-das’, Allister moved in to take madeira by the waist and dip her in a graceful slide. Such was the game of a man with his manikin. It was at this moment when the woman exploded with some kind of mist.

Allister tumbled in fear. His body shrank down onto his bottom then he used his arms and legs to roll away while tucking his head. The backwards summersault put a good six feet between them and gave Allister just enough room to watch Madeira work. A hurricane of Madeira –her thoughts and emotions- pummeled the poor kelvic. He was drawn to her power but terrified of the control she held. Such precise movements gave him chills and he felt privileged to bear witness but the efficiency was so calculated that it left the hyena cold. For such a small person, Madeira was fierce in her dealings and this sent a whole new barrage of questions into a mind already bursting at the seams.

Madeira was done. The boy thing was gone. Allister was frozen in place and wheezing but he was still drawn to the magnetism of this young thing. She used his name. Memories tore at the hyena as if he’d been tossed into the swamp with the granadiles but the swirling monsoon of teeth and pain only seemed to heighten the man’s awareness of Madeira. Her decisiveness plucked at his spine like a gamba string and Allister stood to his full height. He marched over and recovered his shirt and pack then stood to face the small blonde once more.

Allister sucked in his breath so hard that it made his throat hurt. Madeira was standing in her fierce magnificence but she wasn’t alone. The shadow of Madison lingered next to the Alvad. The hyena bit his bottom lip to keep from crying out as tremors racked his bones. He suppressed a cough and used a finger to twist his anchor bracelet as a means of distracting himself but it didn’t work. The illuminated figure of Madison was smiling and nodding to the hyena as if she approved. An explosion of Allister’s fears, doubts, questions and emotions ripped from within his ribcage. The essence of Madison had stripped him of his hesitancy and the kelvic shot across the gap between them in two long strides.

Allister smiled as tears rolled from the corners of his eyes though he wasn’t entirely aware. His voice cracked as he spoke and the words were rushed. “After you eat…” The whisper was deeper than his normal tone and his breathing was shallow so the pitch rose as he continued. “Can you take me with you?” The strength he felt inside Madeira was something he tried to mirror. It was because of this that he didn’t give her a chance to answer before he pressed onward. “I can do things…like…I…sing and I can help you relieve your anger. Hit me!” He grabbed her arm then snatched his hand away. “If you want…” Allister dropped his head and mumbled to himself. “I think I should stay with you…for a… while.” While trying to fidget with his bracelet, the hyena began to dig at his arm.

[Madeira Dusk]

The pale man did as he was told, and began gathering his belongings. Madeira watched him with an unreadable expression, her eyes roaming over the sharp bones under his jacket, and the unhealthy jut of his hips through the fabric of his trousers. Something was changing. There was a stirring in her bones, a tiny shift in her perception. He was a drawing made of ink in a world outlined in charcoal, and she wasn’t sure why.

Eventually he stood in front of her, all skittering hands and twitching eyes, his meagre possessions bundled in his arms. He was twisting a piece of jewellery in his dirty fingers, and she could feel some welling of emotion in him. He trembled there as she watched, until the dam burst, and she was hit with something she wasn't expecting.

Her mind was suddenly too big to fill with just her thoughts, and something else rushed to fill the empty space. A tumble of emotions that did not belong to the Craven began to drown her, and her selfish sense of self was thrown into chaos. 'Me' turned into 'us' and ‘mine' turned into 'ours'. She was bigger than her body and smaller than her expanding mind, and through it all there was him. Standing there with tears cutting salty tracks down his cheeks, he asked if he could stay.

She was quiet for a long moment, just standing in the doorway. A hot summer wind was blowing through the open door, pressing her skirt to her legs and whistling jauntily through the cracks in the walls. Outside people were going about their business, and a few houses down her cousins were on their own exorcism. Yet the two of them were removed from it all. The house they were in could be in another dimension for all Madeira was aware.

She brought her hand up to his face, and curled her palm over his cheek. She anticipated his flinch, and simply followed the movement until she was touching his feverish skin. She wasn't sure what expression was on her face. Bafflement, surely. Maybe even something close to peace. Her defences had crumbled and she couldn't seem to pull back that cool propriety that she could always count on to hide behind.

She studied his eyes. She couldn't guess what colour they were; something dark and blown and broken. His dirty hair was a stripped, tawny mess. A scent, something dusty and animal, lifted off his skin. She put it all together, with his obvious slave background and his hunched, skittish movement.

"By the gods", she whispered in amazement, squinting at him. “you're Kelvic."

She let go of his face and smoothed down her skirt. And in the act of looking away from him she found the privacy she needed to gather herself.

"Yes... Once we eat, once we get you bathed... Let's go home. You can stay as long as you'd like. I'll- I'll take good care of you." She smiled then, a rare, genuine smile showing perfect teeth. "But if you are coming with me, I refuse to call you 'Useless". What else are you called?" On his wrist a silver chain with an anchor bounced with his scratching. It was the only decoration he was wearing. And a slave owning anything extraneous was rare in itself. It was a gift, it had to be. A gift from someone important.

"Whoever gave you that", she indicated the jewellery with a nod of her head. "What did they call you?"

[Allister]

Allister did flinch at her hand. He had touched her without permission and was prepared to take the repercussions with a clenched jaw. The resulting touch was so gentle it frightened him for a moment. Her hand was soft and dainty like a butterfly coming to land upon an ugly stone. The dark eyes snapped up to her pale blue gaze and found her to be analyzing him in a way he couldn’t recognize. The kelvic was used to scrutiny, being judged, being hated and even being pitied but Madeira’s stare was something different. She spoke his race then looked away to fiddle with her dress, a pause that allowed the bewildered hyena a chance to acknowledge her statement with a very soft muttering of “I am.”

Allister admired the way she cared for herself. The high-collared blouse, the long skirt and the time she took to smooth it out amidst such a desolate set of walls was clearly not for his benefit. The woman wasn’t doing these things to put on airs, the kelvic could sense it. This tiny thing who so fearlessly stood tall before spirits had a standard caliber that would rival the dynasty brats back in Kenash. The main difference was that the hyena could feel no superiority through his new connection to the blonde. The young woman wasn’t out to appear better than the insects around her – she simply was better.

Madeira’s statement of affairs and resulting question crashed into one another in the uneducated brain of the Kelvic. Allister had to simply stare blankly as he process all that she had said. The emotions swam in his body then flowed out again like a tide pool; swirling with each new wave then barely becoming still before one crashed in and stirred the sediment. For his simple mind, the homeless wanderer took one word at a time.

Food. She had promised to help him find something to eat earlier and it seemed the lady intended to do so still. Allister’s stomach rumbled with the thoughts of banquets that he had seen through partially opened doors back in the swamp city. Dozens of people gathered around long tables stuffing themselves, spilling wine and dropping scraps in such a way that allowed the vermin to eat better than the slaves. On cue, a dull pain ripped through the hyena’s jaw which was akin to a cold sensation but this was from his metal teeth. His face showed a smile but his mind lingered near a doubt that he would even be able to eat tonight if his mouth ached. He started to wonder if that would offend his new matron.

Bathe. Allister had recalled the word but was unsure if he was willing to accept such an offer. She either meant the very lavish kind of baths where men like Allister were never allowed to go or the sharp blonde was referring to the painful process of being half drown in a river and then scrubbed clean of everything even a layer or two of skin by strong men with stiff brushes. A pull in the back of his mind that seemed to come from the young woman indicated no such inclination towards either. Allister wanted to take a step back but he was frozen in place by the desire to be near the intense girl; this was further crippled by a thousand fearful thoughts which chased each other around the inside of his skull.

Care. Madeira said she would take care of him and her smile had shown truth like the moonlight. The silvery bands which cascaded down every night could do no more to soothe the man’s inner conflict but something in the woman’s bright grin warmed the canine instincts. Allister wrested the fears and doubts which hung only in his end of the space that they seemed to share and cast them down into oblivion one by one. The black eyes glassed over and his face became void of expression while her radiance blessed him. Knees trembled and his back straightened with muscle spasms as his body tried to cope with the overwhelming flood of her, the young woman, within his being.

Allister was going to answer, his jaw dropping open but achieving nothing. Her attention was drawn to the bracelet on his wrist and the man’s eyes followed. He began to fidget with the charm and spun it around idly, his body relaxing some so that his shoulders hunched and his stance widened. His eyes failed to meet Madeira’s as he talked about the trinket. “I found this on my way here to- to the city. I…” He coughed slightly but fought it down with a loud grunt-like clearing of his throat. “The ship that carried me sank in a storm. I woke up on the beach and just started walking.” The man tugged at the sleeves of his jacket. “It’s where I got this, too…and…” Allister stopped and looked away from her, his chin burying itself down against his chest as one hand shifted to a jingling pouch inside his pack. It was never an issue before but having to confess that he had taken all he possessed off of dead men suddenly felt like a very heinous crime.

Quivering lips were ignored as the Kelvic forced more of his story out. “I stole it from them.” His voice failed him halfway through the statement. Shame and guilt flooded his body and a queasy sensation made him swoon slightly. “They died and I took their things.” He started to hand over his pack while fidgeting to get out of his coat. He still could not bring himself to look up at the kindly woman. “You can take it. I don’t deserve nice things. It’s why my old mistress called me Useless and not Allister.” Tears welled up but never fell as the hyena fought tooth and nail to prevent him from unleashing a typhoon of self-pity. Laughter bubbled up in his throat as he thought about how this woman had made him feel and how undeserving he was of such things. A hot meal? A warm bath? Someone to look after him? No, these were not the luxuries of a broken man. Allister was free of his bondage and that would have to be enough.

Still, despite knowing the truth, he could not move away from her not even an inch. He felt attached to her and began to push at her invasion of his thoughts and heart. The nice woman didn’t need his kind of trouble. Allister felt things for the small woman that reminded him of Madison but that had to be just another illusion of the city. He had never met this girl before and yet he felt compelled to serve her, to protect her and to care for her. She had promised him these things and he could not wrap his tiny mind around the concept of being worthy of such gifts. The more he pushed, the more he felt the connection between them. She was strong, rigid and wonderful. She had shown bravery, kindness and compassion to a wretch without any hesitation other than to his unwarranted touching. Why was this so hard? The hyena was itching to run away but had finally come to a standstill. Exhaustion settled over the man and his face was nothing more than pure resignation. Tired, hungry and confused- he finally lifted his gaze to meet the crisp blue eyes and whatever judgement they held. It would be over soon.