The night following the encounter with the Oak King was spent in the dueling chamber, fighting with imaginary opponents and then with words which were all too real. Walls seemed too solid, air too open - but to go and actually speak to the erstwhile Breaker?
Impossible...
The next night was spent in contemplation of it all, the cards spread in front of her without very much success at all. Class was ... remarkably difficult to attend, seeing intent blue eyes where there normally would be none ... and suspicious glowers from Gryffindors didn't help, though she held herself with all the arrogant indifference and icy disdain of the true Slytherin.
And now it's the third night - one night before they're to meet with the self-proclaimed King of Summer - and she's found herself at more than a loss. What can she do?
Well ... she's still a gypsy, after all...
She's slipped out of the dungeons and out of the castle, avoiding the patrol of Prefects, making her way out of the school and to a thicket of decorative hedges below and outside of the wall from which Bill's office windows face. The wand she holds is not her usual Ollivander's wand, but an older one, one used by witches of her particular - kind...
Willow, black, supple ...
Sabine holds it aloft in one hand, a tarot card in the other - the Knight of Cups. Quietly, very quietly, she whispers words, an incantation of divination and summoning combined.
"Come to me
Whether waking or sleeping
Truth will find
The hours are fleeting
Come and find
If you dare seek me
Future's calling
If it will be, it will be..."
She settles back, not quite relaxing, wary as ever. She's not convinced that it's Bill who the spell will end up summoning - or if the spell ends up triggering some of the alarms on the school, though it shouldn't...
The grounds are silent for a long while, as if perhaps the summoning did not work. Perhaps no one save the owl hooting in the bushes will answer the Ruthven princess' call.
But then, just as the minutes have seemed to stretch on interminably, a faint crunch of boots on gravel betrays the presence of another somewhere nearby. Even silver moonlight cannot completely eliminate the copper-red hue of the young professor's hair, though he's made it a good portion of the way down the path in near silence. Those damnable Breaker instincts and reflexes, no doubt!
If Bill is aware of Sabine's presence, he does not yet show any sign; he simply continues down the pathway along the school's wall as if out for a walk, or perhaps checking the wards outside his office window.
Just as she was about to bless Baxt and go to bed, too. It's almost a mournful moment - except for the accusatory scowl she turns on first the card, then the wand. Both are done away with within the folds of her robes, and she crouches down for a moment, warily, watching Bill.
After all, if the summoning worked or didn't, she still wants to see how much control of the situation she can muster...
Her hair's worn back in its usual cascading ponytail, but with painted black steel rings that reflect no light. Her school robes are worn over one of her gypsy-gymnast outfits - they'll pass as pajamas to anyone not in the know. She counts to ten, silently, in Romanes...
Slowly, then, Sabine straightens, trying to catch sight of Bill again. The spell is supposed to unite divided futures, in some ways. But in other ways...
Well... there's a reason why the spell isn't cast often...
Bill comes to a stop outside his office window, glancing upwards with his wand in hand. He certainly appears to be checking the wards on his window, seemingly unaware of Sabine's presence. Yet as the wards appear for a moment, glowing into life, Bill tucks his wand into his pocket and begins to survey the area as if looking for something.
There's an odd look to Bill's face, something that seems very... well, not-Bill, in some way, but which is very hard to describe or define at first glance.
It's that shadow of something else which is both provocative and yet almost frightening to the girl. She remains with her face in shadow, peering through the newly sprung green leaves of spring, watching the Gryffindor graduate.
Finally, with a small breath taken and held pensively upon her tongue, Sabine rises from her crouch, stepping out of the shelter of half-darkness. It is still night-time, after all, but ...
"Kaski san, Your Highness?" Whose are you ... a question indeed. Of whose people, whose tribe, of what spirit ... The Romanes is richly layered, the answer to which she seems to wait for most intently - and not without an element of wariness. If he is possessed...
"Marshall," Bill replies simply, looking at Sabine with an oddly distant expression, as if his mind -- his self -- were somehow removed from this place, this time, this moment.
"You are the one. The reason," he adds. Somehow, it's not really a question, as he tilts his head slightly to one side and regards Sabine.
That makes her a bit taken aback. The one? The reason? In a world of magic and prophecies which are ruled by and from shadows, this can NOT be a good thing.
"You should not stand so long in the light," Sabine responds, voice carefully kept neutral. She's a little suspicious despite it all - after all, this is the eldest brother of the infamous Weasley twins... "Are you here because of me?"
Because of my summons, the spell I cast to draw the future king, the one who could master me, the uniter or divider of kingdoms, of souls...
She glances up and down the path carefully. It'd hardly be the done thing to get caught by a security patrol - not when standing there with a Rom artifact and a maybe-possessed professor.
"Step if you will away from the path, Your Highness, and perhaps we might speak more." Sabine gestures to the concealment of the shrubbery. "Unless, of course," there is that familiar, mocking Ruthven smile, aimed glacially both inwards and outwards at once, "you distrust me?"
"I am here because of you; though your will and your heart be at war, I come nonetheless. I trust you with my soul, my life, my destiny," Bill intones in that not-quite-Bill voice. "It is the smaller things where I doubt."
Still, regardless of whatever that response meant, Bill does nonetheless step from the path as indicated, and wait for Sabine to join him.
The Slytherin girl blanches at the words from Bill, even as she makes her way towards him, arms folded over her chest almost defensively. "You are foolish to trust so very much to someone of youth and inexperience - the moreso when her motivations may not be to your advantage."
Sabine falls silent for a moment, regarding him with narrowed eyes. Red hair - how Weasley. A Gryffindor colour in and of itself ...
"What is it that you doubt, then? Do educate me, if you would. I do not comprehend your meaning - nor why you speak as you do." She isn't entirely keen on the answers, either. From the confines of her cloak, she draws the black willow wand, prepared to end the enchantment upon a moment's notice.
"I come because you called," Bill replies. "You draw on that which once was, and that which will be, and so I come. Across time, across worlds, across lives, I answer your call. Look within yourself for the answers you seek, ves'tacha; they are not mine to give you. And I doubt because, as you say, you are young and inexperienced; I trust you with my soul and life because of who you are, or I would not answer the call, but I mistrust the smaller things because of who you are no longer, and not yet."
Thank you, mister cryptic.
Nothing which makes her flinch any less, no. And the expression on her face undoubtedly mirrors that, unguarded for a moment - oh, thanks a lot, bloody Fates.
Irritably, Sabine tosses her ponytail over her shoulder. "There is only one world - this one. There is only the Game, and either you play or you do not, and if you do not, then you are the pawn of any who choose to make you thus. I do not look inside of myself without very good reason indeed."
Perhaps she's afraid of what she might see...
She quiets a moment later, voice growing softer, smaller. "You should not trust so readily, and you should not use that word. There is no love in this matter." Or so she stubbornly maintains. The wand is lowered, almost until the point is aimed straight at the ground, but retains a slight angle to the last.
"I will give you gold," Sabine says finally. "The main question which I asked of this night has been answered. Perhaps I was foolish to have asked it at all - but I do not ... I find I cannot ask you all that I would have." That frustrates her; a moment's anxiety and exasperation is visible in the green-limned gaze.
"However, having so bound you - if indeed you are bound - you are entitled to claim a boon of me," Sabine adds grudgingly. "Tell me the nature of the boon you would require, Marshall."
A long silence. "The boon I ask in return for your having summoned me, Ruthven," not-Bill replies, "is to do what you say you will not without good reason; to look inside yourself for the answers you would seek from me. The truth lies there for the finding."
Now the young professor turns away, looking up at the wards on the window once more as he was just before this strange spell came over him, leaving him not quite himself, but something -- or someone -- else, summoned by Sabine's call.
It's entirely possible that if she were the sort to swear, right now Sabine would be saying something like 'well, shit'. As it is, she does not permit herself so crass an outlet for her emotions, glowering sullenly at Bill/not-Bill. "The debt," the Ruthven princess answers in a voice that is slightly harsh, "shall be discharged."
There is a flicker of the willow wand, and Sabine steps back, onto the path after another quick glance around. "I release you," she says in a formal voice. "You may fly, Marshall, to wherever it is you best find yourself." And she turns to move down the path towards the school entrance, trying not to be spotted - either by Breaker-turned-professor or any other roaming figures of the night.
And Bill blinks, looking up at his window in surprise, before looking around the path as if searching for something. He's certain that only a moment before, he was standing on the path, closer to the window... and why does he have such a strong impression that he was just talking to someone very important to him?
Posted by rowan at March 24, 2004 02:38 PM
