flicker once, flicker twice {fiora, angel}

As The World culminates into one cacophonous BANG, the tower falls. The shock ricochets through the mansion before quieting, smothered in its own fear. The air is heavy; an innate desire to stay still nearly petrifies her right there: it is as if the moment a single floorboard creaks, everything will erupt.

But Fiora does not hesitate. She moves, quickly but quietly across the foyer. No traps are sprung, no shadows leap out of the pitch. Her footsteps are deliberate and practiced; it's been months now, spent in this universe--she knows these rooms like the lifeline etched across her palm, like the familiar tang of raspberry candy, like the chime of bells when the market doors swing open, like the resistance of her flashlight when she twists it loose just so-- creating her own leyline--opening a gate to the ephemeral. The omniscient.

Tonight there is nothing of the sort. She clicks the button once, flooding the bar with the impersonal coldness of an LED.

"Adrien," she can barely breathe.

Adrien's face is pale--so pale--and for a moment she thinks he will join Harvey, whose body lies at his feet. The parquet floor glistens, ichor reaching outwards, dragging itself away.

And then there is too much air in her lungs, screaming, wanting to escape. "What the hell have you done."

"I had to," he sputters. "I—"

"God dammit." She rushes forward, half-listening, calculating eyes noting the lack of a weapon in Adrien's hands, the bullet wound that perforates through Harvey's frame, the scent of gunpowder that wafts tauntingly in the air. She grabs Harvey's arm, wrenching it out straight, feeling for a pulse. Her heart races but her breathing stays focused, calm, strong. They may ask her why, after this, is her shock so minuscule. The true answer is that it is quiet with history.

"He said he did it. He said he did it. For her. That’s what he said. I had to, Fiora. I had to end it."

"You've ended nothing." Yet, for the pulse is faint but assuredly present. Fiora wonders where Adrien got the gun, where it is now. Whether there will be enough time to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. She calculates that as a firm no. The mysteries of this manor are vast and never-ending, labyrinthine and serpentine. And She resides deep in the caverns of Fiora's thoughts, but it is not time to bring her forth.

She shrugs off her jacket, pelting the denim at Adrien's face. "You want a confession? Then he needs to be alive to say it. Wrap this 'round the wound, tight." She pushes herself to her feet, grabbing the flashlight from where she'd left it, spinning precariously next to Harvey's frame, and points it, watching as he begins to follow her direction. Adrien's hands are smeared in blood, and she knows that there's something he's not telling her. But his reaction, his shock, only adds to what she once hypothesized.

She heads for the door--she has to find something, anything, to stop the blood from flowing. To keep Harvey's heart beating, to keep shock at bay. "And if you're not here when I get back, you'll wish Harvey had shot you."

"It would’ve only been a matter of time."

She exhales, harsh as she runs.