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It had been some time now, since she had last seen him. At first she had kept her distance out of confusion over recent events. The vision that she'd had with a crown placed upon her head....it had been bizarre, and ill timed as well, considering she had not a moment to try and ponder over it, to decipher what exactly it had been, and why it had felt so real, and most importantly.

Why it had been him when she'd been forced to choose.

No, no time for that. Many of the fallen horsemen had returned, a reunion that should not have tasted so bitter on the chieftains tongue. She had not even bothered to search for the familiar figures of her parents. She could feel they were there, somewhere in that crowded mass, and she had departed long before they could find her. Since then she had stayed out of the lairs as much as possible, had kept to herself, had provided herself with menial tasks to pass the time, had slept in trees and lived off of the land.

And then she had been bid to do a task for Medea, and hadn't that just been the most peachy and life altering experience?

More time passed, though now things were different. She no longer had as much control over her affliction. Her taint had spread across her body like an infection that could not be held back. The voices had intensified, her emotions were combustible at the best of times, and she found herself more and more often lapsing into strange episodes of pain, fear, and doubt, of paranoia and often times uncontrollable rage. It was her nightmare come to life, and as much as she had joked about it in the past, as much as she had laughed at the idea of what was taking control of her before, now she could no longer find the amusement in it.

Time had passed, and while her appearance had changed, the chieftain found herself desperately clinging to the last shreds of her sense of self. She was hanging on now by what felt like the slightest of threads, balancing on the edge of a razor sharp blade.

It was time. She had decided that it had really been too long. Too much time had passed. She needed to see him, she needed to show him what she had done. She might not know what she meant to him, or what he meant to her, but she knew what she wanted, and that was a small sense of normalcy, something she was sure he could provide. He would not treat her any differently, he would not look at her with pity. He might be busy now, with so many returned he might have found himself reunited with his sister, or his even his mentor, but she had let enough time pass

And so she found herself back in the lairs, in front of a home, an actual home and not the kind that the voices hissed to her about. She wanted no part in that particular home. Not again.

From head to toe she was covered, a long sleeved robe that swept to the ground, it's hood pulled up and drawn down to hide her face. In the back there were of course, slits left for her wings to poke through, and they wrapped around her shoulders now, hugged against her. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she chewed on her bottom lip as she stared from beneath her hood at the door in front of her, just standing there for what seemed like ages before she uncrossed her arms, lifted a hand, and gave a steady and firm rap against the door, once, twice, three times.

She then crossed her arms again and waited.

Noises, laughter. The telltale sounds of family members enjoying each others company that sent a pang stabbing into Shaheen's heart. Was it jealousy? Envy? The fact that she so selfishly wanted all of Shik's attention for herself and would rather not have to share right now? She took a deep breath and stifled the unfamiliar emotion, waiting with something not even close to patience for the Executioner to answer his door. It seemed like he was taking forever, like the laughter was meant to taunt her and grate on her nerves further, before the door was opened.

As soon as she saw him, she stepped forward, left arm, the one still yet unblemished by the grey, lifting out from under her cloak for fingers to wrap around the cloth that hung in front of his chest, pulling it towards her and hopefully him as well as she stared up into his face. And then she continued to stare at him, a look on her face as though she was going to say something, as though she wanted to say something, and could not remember what it was. A hundred scenarios ran through her head, but she knew that his sister was inside, that she could appear behind him at any moment. So what was she to do? What could she even say?

Most importantly, why, after everything she had done and said, was she even here?

"Shut up." There, that was certainly a start, and her words were growled out from under her breath, her usual charming self shining through.

And then, as though finally deciding something, she pulled on the cloth she had wrapped her fingers around again, jerking it harder as she straightened herself up, willing herself to grow the two inches so that she did not need to look up at him.

"You said you wanted me." Words from between clenched teeth. He had said it ages ago now, before spirit week, when she had decided that she had dealt with him long enough and had been ready to cut ties, but the words still haunted her to this day, likely just what he had meant them to do. "Is that still true? Was it ever?" Her words were becoming more heated, angrier by the second.

He pried her hand off of him, but she didn't want to let go. Still, it happened. She was no match for his brute strength, and she knew that enough to know that it would be unwise to reach for him again. Instead, her hand curled into a fist that she held against her chest, her back stiff as she continued to stare up at him, waiting for the answer to her question.

Which, of course, never came.

She thought that they were past all of this. After doing lair tasks together and after fighting by his side against the hunters, after attacking the students that had attacked him, she had thought that...well, she didn't really know what to think, and that was always the problem.

Just answer the question!!

She wanted to scream it in his face, to beat her fists against him and demand that he tell her what he meant, if it had meant anything at all. Had he wanted her then? Did he still want her now? Would he still...would anybody...

But no, it was never that simple. He had to side step the question with one's of his own, and she glared up at him from beneath the shadows provided by her hood, that which hid much but not enough from sight.

"It always mattered." She muttered, more like she was speaking her herself then to him. "You have this nasty habit of getting into my head and making yourself at home there." Those words were louder, and more obviously directed at him. "So ya, it matters, because I can't seem to stop thinking about what you said." She raised a finger to jab it into his chest, then stopped just short, restrained herself.

He wanted to know what had happened to her? Her gaze lowered, and she let her other hand, the one that was now a solid grey where the was no grey before, and used both to undo the cloak, which she then slid off of her shoulders, revealing in just that one small motion the grey that was etched in fissures across her skin, down her arm, across her stomach so that they barely touched the ragged, claw like scars that decorated her skin. Scars from Shik's own hand, though she knew he should have a set to match unless he had managed to heal them.

Down her leg...both of her feet...

Her face, her hair.

Even the feathers on her wings were edged in dull grey, making them appear less impressive then before.

Her eyes lifted again, a hard gaze that dared him to make some kind of snide remark about her condition. "I did something I shouldn't have. I made a mistake." Was she talking about the reason why her skin was now so decorated with the sign of her insanity, or something else entirely?

She raised an eyebrow at him, folding the cloak she had been wearing over her arms, holding it beneath her chest, waiting until he had had his eyeful of her new look, then raised her eyebrows further when he called out to his sister that he was going out. So she wasn't allowed in his home? Fine. Her irrational thoughts automatically fleeing towards the worst, not that maybe he just wanted some privacy.

She nearly bit back the retort she wanted to yell out towards the voice of his sister. Nearly, but not quite. A reply of "Me." went ringing through the air, though with Shik's shout of food it was hard to tell if the woman would have even heard her. Still, she glared up at Shik, angry with him for somehow turning the subject on to her, for wanting a conversation about something she didn't really want to talk about. She just wanted to feel normal, like there was nothing wrong with her. Of course, she wanted people to care, not that she'd ever admit it out loud, but she sort of depended on Shik to treat her no differently then he ever had, no matter how bad things became.

Well so far he hadn't done much out of the ordinary. Just looking at her a bit longer then necessary, making her feel mildly uncomfortable and irritated. Just demanding she tell him what happened, as though he somehow ruled over her and she should just do as he said.

She was sorely tempted to turn and walk away from him right then.

She did turn, but she didn't leave. She just didn't want to look at him anymore, as now it rose too many mixed feelings inside of her, so many that it was nauseating.

"I was sent on a task, by Medea, to retrieve something lost for her. The portal she conjured took me to the haunted house. I saw a lot of things I wish I hadn't. I chose a path I shouldn't have chosen, foolishly believing that in doing so I might find myself a cure." She gritted her teeth against the reprimand she was sure she was about to receive, and then continued on, her voice strained.

"I found the lost object, but when I touched it, I became consumed. When I awoke again, near the portal, I was like this. Medea said it was because I did not listen to my own voice, that it was because I followed the others. I didn't even know...." Finally, a break in that tight and controlled voice, the anger revealing what was hidden beneath. Despair.

"I can't even tell the difference anymore." Her voice was more hushed now, and she moved her arms, unfolding the cloak, fiddling the edges between her fingers, the urge to put it back on to hide herself nearly overwhelming as a surge of voices began roaring in her mind, drowning out everything else, feeding on her sudden wave of self pity.

She was beginning to wonder if he left, if over the roaring of voices in her head he had made his way back inside and had left her alone, or as alone as she could get really. Goosebumps broke out along the skin of her shoulders, and she nearly hunched them forward in defeat when she heard movement behind her, and suddenly he was just there, in front of her again, demanding that she look at him even when all she wanted to do was curl up and hide.

"Dramatic?" Her voice indignant, her eyes widening and then narrowing up at him, golden orbs set in darkness that almost seemed to glow in the dim lighting. The cloak in her hands was forgotten as she scowled up at him, thinking that her situation hardly deserved to be met with insult.

Though inwardly she knew, this was what she had wanted, to be treated just the same as he had ever treated her, and insults between them had become standard practice. If he had met her with pity in his eyes or kind words, she likely would have thrown a fist at his face and stormed away. As it was now, she stood there to face him, jaw set, shoulders squared, an intensity in her gaze that had all but faded over the last few weeks as her condition became worse, as sleep alluded her and her emotions roiled through her like a tropical storm. She needed somebody who wouldn't let her give up.

She had, apparently, come to the right place.

It was hard to fight off the smile that threatened to melt the hard features of her face. He had said "we", which meant that he was offering to help! It meant that despite everything, he still valued some part of whatever they had, their friendship, their companionship...whatever, it didn't need a name.

Instead she just shook her head, and rolled her eyes skyward and muttered something underneath her breath that sounded suspiciously like "jackass", her arms folding under her chest again as she stared up at him, as though trying to decide something.

"I can't...really explain it, Shik. It wasn't so much a physical path like it was...a mental one. There was a pull to go one way, and I went another. The path I took still led to the object, but it was my doubt that made the difference." Or at least, that was what Medea had said. "The insanity consumed me the moment I touched it. The object, was this." And with those last few words, she dug into the waistband of her skirt and pulled it out. Her crystal shard, a murky yellow now swirling with grey and cracked around the edges.

"Don't ask me how it got there. She sent me to retrieve an object, and this was what I found."

She closed her fingers around the crystal into a fist, and held it back down at her side, glaring up at him again. "Now. When were you going to answer my question, exactly?"

Because that was obviously far more important right now.

Her lips pursed into a firm line when he denied her an answer once again, eyes burning into his. Defying her, which was not exactly new and something she should probably have been used to by now. Her fingers not wrapped around the crystal twitched at her side, a yearning to summon her dagger and spill his blood upon the ground. After all, it was during the heat of one of their many battles that he had turned the now questioned phrase to begin with. Perhaps if they began again, he might be a little freer with some answers.

With great restraint, she somehow managed to keep her temper under control. Despite the chastising, the lecturing, the completely belittling tone. She took long, slow and even breaths, but even despite that she could feel her proverbial hackles rising. She just couldn't stand their silently beneath his verbal assault.

"If I wanted to be told off for my life's choices, I'd have let my parents find me by now." Her voice was hushed, and so cold the executioner was likely to get frostbite. Any fleeting feelings of small victory at his mention of 'we' or even at him offering the opinion that she should have never left vanished. He was behaving as though she were a part of his property, lent out and returned damaged. Not as her own person that had made her own decisions and who was now obviously seeking help to deal with them, and finding nothing but more pain and anger and doubt to fill in cracks left by the insanity that coursed through her.

As for him keeping her sane, that was a joke, right? So she gave a bitter laugh and shook her head, tawny curls streaked with grey bouncing around her shoulders. And for the rest of it, she should have never have left where? His side? The sanctuary? On the task set by Medea, as though she had the choice to just say no?

And then it was like a switch got flicked on in her head, a realization, or at least, what she thought might be one. He was angry, but was he angry at her, or just at the situation she had wrought? At how her condition had worsened, at how things were going to s**t and that that was something he couldn't control, he who would like to control everything?

"Then why did you let me go?" Her voice was still quiet, but not as cold. "Don't blame me because you gave up the fight too easily, Shikoba." A smirk now, a sudden knowing look glinting in her eyes, the cockiness that had been so absent for so long returning for just that instant, until despite the grey she looked just like her old self.

But at the mention of Medea her eyes tightened, the smirk faltered a little as a frown creased her features. "I asked, but we were interrupted before she could answer. And then before I could seek her out again, many of the horsemen fell into a coma and I was asked to help to bring them back. And then the human world excursions..." Excuses, all of it. If she was honest she would just say that she was scared, frightened of what the answer would be, that she would be told that there was no help for her now and that the end was rapidly approaching. An end that despite all of her joking, she was not at all ready for.

"Ah, right you did not let me go, then. So I guess I just proved to be too much woman for you to handle after all, considering you never fought to pay me back for that little incident. And before you even mention that I told you to stay away from me, since when do you ever listen?" Oh yes, her smirk and her usual attitude was making a comeback. Shik always had brought out the best and worst in her, after all. And it was probably for the best if she didn't mention her silently stalking him from afar for much of the time after she had told him she didn't want anything to do with him anymore. Stalking. She was getting so good at that lately.

"I know you weren't." She commented, belatedly realizing she might be giving away her little penchant for spying on him, but then continued on easily as though it was nothing. "You weren't there, in the other world. The..dream world I guess it was."

Aw hell, had he really changed the subject on her again? Were they seriously going to stand out here all night while he interrogated her on what she'd been doing for the last month or two?

"It was nothing. We went in knowing what we needed to do, and it got done. Everyone is back now. Victory to the mighty lost clans." She pursed her lips and leveled a dark stare at him for a time, and then sighed, raising a hand to her forehead even as she let her shoulders sag in what might have been considered defeat. He wasn't talking, at least, not about what she had wanted to talk about initially. An explanation, something to help sort out these mixed feelings, this tangle of insecurities and questions in her mind.

"I am tired, Shikoba. I didn't sleep before Medea put us into a coma, and I haven't slept since. I have a headache, and I'm just going to say it now before I decide to impale you on my dagger instead."

And then, from between gritted teeth, forced words that were barely even audible.

"I've missed you."

She had said it, and she instantly regretted it, wishing she could just take it all back. Sure she had screamed at him things that she had felt in the past, but that was purely out of annoyance that she found herself attracted to him at all, considering she had managed to spend a lifetime without even the faintest interest in the aggravating man that stood before her now. Or maybe she had, and it was just such an unfamiliar sensation she had kicked it to the curb as she had done with all of her other emotions, throwing herself into more important things.

Still, despite their difference and bickering and all out brawling, he had been the one that was always there for her, even if it was just as a punching bag to vent her frustrations. Was it really so unreasonable that she might like him a little more then just as a friend?

Her eyes had closed when she had said it, but they slowly peeked back open now, her own hand still pressed against her forehead as the whispers continued to slither their way through, taunting her, tormenting her, making her shoulders want to curve inward, trying to make her cringe away from him now and maybe just...run. Yes, running away might be for the best. Blame her affliction for things that would have been best left unsaid the next time they met, or just pretend it had not happened at all. That would be better then this, seeing him give no reaction at all, her free hand clenching into a fist at her side as something painful seemed to stab into her chest, something icy cold that made her feel like she literally might just die on the spot. What was this feeling? Another symptom of her insanity?

The silence stretched out for an eternity, but despite the desperation that urged her to leave, despite the fact that everything inside of her now felt numb, spreading out from that first initial pain until it felt like it had enveloped her completely, she stayed and she waited, counting the seconds as they past in her head, resolutely ignoring the murmurings that insisted this was not where she belonged, not with him. No, she belonged at home.

And then he spoke, and while it might not have been the answer she was seeking, it was at least an answer, and finally whatever numbness that held her seemed to melt away, warming ever so slightly, and she was able to breathe again, not even realizing she had been holding her breath until now.

"Even with your sister here? She must be losing her edge." She laughed, and it sounded so forced, so nervous, not at all like her usual scoff.

And then he continued on, about how he had known she had been there, and her own face went carefully blank as well. "I have no idea what you are talking about." She replied, feigning complete innocence to that which he accused her of.

"My...parents..." He believed that they were what drove her here? That was, confusing, really, and she frowned at him, that blank mask slipping away completely once more.

"I haven't seen them nor spoken to them, Shikoba." She admitted with a shake of her head.

"Now, when are you going to be polite and invite me in?" She was tired of standing outside in the open. She wanted to be indoors. She felt so exposed out here, like eyes were looking at her from every possible angle. It made her skin crawl. She just needed to get somewhere safer, somewhere enclosed. She needed to.....Oh, no, no there was still something else important that she had apparently forgotten about completely.

"Wait..no, there was just one more thing." Jumping from subject to subject, her thoughts obviously scattered. But her tone of voice was different now. It was obviously not bad news by the hint of excitement that had crept it's way in. After so much bad, it was hard for her to even remember that there was some good still left to be thankful for.

Without any pause at all, she took a deep breath, concentrated her Fear, felt it gathering around her in a whirl of yellow and red, though even that was tinted by streaks of grey, and she began to fall forward towards the ground....

...Only to be replaced by an incredibly large, brawny, and grey streaked lioness that stared up at him with golden eyes, mouth open slightly to show a wicked set of teeth.

If I lioness could smirk, she was totally doing it right now. Oh wait, was she smirking with her eyes somehow? Or was that more of a hungry look she was giving him right now?