tampered | Log; ongoing

When; August 10th
Rating; G
Characters; Seth Nightlord (

marsanes) & Lilith Sahl (

holymadonna)
Summary; Confirmation of Lilith's existence! And. Reunion. Maybe.
Log;

Xanadu. According to Rayne (and with just the description of 'a big garden') that was where she already was. Or where she shouldn't be, rather. This was not her place to be, the city with its curses and unusualities. There were many things to be thought over, logically, most of them taking physical precedence over her psychological worries. But it was the latter of the two which weighed heavier in her mind.

Hundreds of years. Unlike Abel she was someone who could move on. She had been willing, for some time, to forget -- or pretend she could forget, anyways. Instead this happened, in the oddest of times and places. Seth raised a finger to her lips and found herself wanting to chew her nails, a habit she had never indulged in before. Perhaps it was because she insisted on holding herself still and straight, proper as ever.

As if to meet my executioner, she thought with some wry humor. The step she took to the entrance was paced slowly. She held herself regally because there wasn't much else to do. Empresses could deal with these things from a distance. She needed the distance of Augusta Vladika, for just a moment at least.

Then what? If the shadow was confirmed real ... it sat ill with her that she would find it easier to deal with a liar and destroy them than an honest reminder of the past. Seth took a breath to compose herself and headed for the entrance of Xanadu.

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Out all of them, Lilith was more apprehensive to meet Seth the most. The twins, Cain and Abel, were easier to talk with, to connect with for better or good; but with Seth, it appeared they were one of the same kind who belonged to opposites worlds. Neither of them was too keen in quitting or change their already built world view. While Cain and Abel fluctuated from an extreme to another.

However, she wanted to see Seth, speak to her, notice if the young genius who enjoyed spending her days in laboratories and regarding their people as specimens had grown out that stage and became a woman inside. Outside, she would tragically remain forever a young girl.

Lilith walked with a slow pace, holding her head up but her gaze down, dressed in her saree that provided the woman an exotic contrast in a City filled with eccentric quirks. She arrived shortly after Seth to the entrance of Xanadu holding her hands in front of her body, offering no violence for the moment.

Lilith came from a timeline they were still in opposites sides of one of the cruelest wars.

She caught the sight of the girl and stopped her tracks; she was breathing and alive. After a moment, Lilith spoke and greeted Seth with a polite nod:

“Hello, Seth.”

She had meant to turn with force, pivot on her heel and deliver a distanced, polite comment. However, just catching the sight of Lilith in the corner of her eye dissolved those intentions. She turned with a half-smile, trying to organize her thoughts again.

"Hi," seemed like a good place to start. What to say? She recalled, just barely, a request not to know the future -- what future was there for Lilith to learn of, anyway? -- but then there was no way to phrase her surprise either. Seth tilted her head, slowly, the posturing to hide her own nervousness. "You look well."

Somehow she was pleased that her voice was what she had imagined, polite and distanced. She felt somewhat small, dressed in dark, and young, which should have really been impossible considering how old she actually was. And yet, part of her longed for this to be an illusion, and she was prepared for it to all end.

Lilith was as always, statuesque despite not being too tall, unmoving and patient like she was portrayed by the Church frescos and the angel memorials in graveyards. She caught the sight of Seth’s smile and gave a small tug of her lips to smile on her own. There was no hostility in the “younger” girl anymore. So unlike what she recalled when she decided to leave them to side the Terrans.

“You look nervous,” Lilith pointed out gently with a note of weariness in her voice. “There is no army behind me or surrounding us. It’s only me, Seth.” She reached out, lifting her right hand, the one whose palm had a tattooed butterfly extending over the dark skin. She lifted her head and motioned Seth to the garden in front of them.

Lilith advanced, moved to her, passing the girl and waiting for her to join in the stroll. “There is no reason to be anxious for a walk in a sunny day. Come with me.”

She hesitated -- debating. If Seth stood next to Lilith, she would diminish. Not just in control, but in presence and in poise. Lilith was, in many ways, the only person she strove to imitate. The reason why Seth could hold her shoulders back, stand tall (even at her short stature) and be mother to her 'children'. In some ways, it was a simple dilution of Lilith, and in others a complicated history. A few steps and it would all dissolve, because there was no way that she could maintain the Augusta Vladika so close.

"Apprehensive, maybe. I don't know if nervous is the right word," she talked around her anxiety. Even now, and after the talk with Abel (if it was Abel, paranoia was one of the few traits she tried not to indulge in but rarely left her) it would be easier to think it all an illusion. Easier, more direct, understandable. This was beyond her current comprehension. The dead did not walk. "I haven't seen you in... a very long time."

Which was better, she supposed, than saying 'last time I saw you, you were dead'.

Lilith gave a pause to watch her. Seth’s posture, her way of walking, the manner of how she spoke was different to what she remembered. She recalled a hot tempered, childish but very bright girl with a lot of energy who was outspoken in her beliefs and opinions. There was a degree of mischief in the Seth she knew that wasn’t present in this one.

Disregarding their prior conversations, Lilith whirled and stared down at her former superior and enemy. Puzzled by her change, by her age, it was her turn to question if this girl was who she claimed to be. In the network she had recognized Seth - one very different to the one standing in front of her.

“Who are you?” inquired Lilith when she should have questioned: when did you become an adult?

And she had no immediate answer. Did she say 'Seth, as always,' with a smile or did she delve into something closer to the truth. She was not 'Seth, as always' and despite her oft used phrase 'just a pretty girl' she could not be that simple. Augustra Vladika, Empress, 03, Seth, Seth Nightlord, each fragment had a story and a personality to itself. She was forever dividing herself.

"...Who you see," the cryptic reply slipped out of her lips before she had a chance to censor it. Who you see, was just as unhelpful as not answering at all. Seth twisted her fingers, slowly. "I've changed, you know. Grown up, in a way..." confessions had never been easy to her, and relating life to what should have been a ghost was even harder.

Her eyes closed tightly, shaking her head and turning her back again. She felt the burden over her shoulders weighting more and more; the duty to return to set them all become this change take place. Somehow, somewhere in time.

"All did, even if some pretend to be the same," she started to say, fixing her gaze on the horizon, lifting from her deceptive submissive castdown gaze. Lilith was a visionary who liked to be helpful. "You have come to corroborate if I am real, but I am starting to doubt if I am. For you. For Abel or for Cain. Just like the three of you are surreal to me as well."

Log; ongoing

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