Transition's our profession and we don't work nine to five...

[asliceofchaos]

The night of the full moon is unusually warm after the recent winter weather, and those who follow the sound of music floating through the woods, the path lined by fairy lights, will find that it only grows warmer the further they go. By the time they reach the Carnival, there's no snow on the ground at all - only lush, newly-grown grass and

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[The Gambling Hall]

[asliceofchaos]

Kitsune's lair, although she may not be there now. Take your chips at the door and press your luck - any game you can imagine is here, so whatever your poison is, you can be sure to find it.

Just remember you're playing for luck and if you play to lose, things can get very ugly, very fast.

[The Gambling Hall]

[itchafes]

Neal is here looking for someone. Anyone who knows him should be able to guess who. This was where he first met Kitsune - it's the only place he can think of that she'd be now, and he has a better chance of finding her and staying away from everyone who would stop him at the carnival than he would just calling her name in the middle of the woods.

He hopes, anyway.

[thesakurasmile]

Kitsune passes through her own domain, draped in a cloak that conceals her face- not that she doesn't wear any face she chooses. Tonight, she chooses to be featureless. A lost girl like so many. The recoil of Tempest's Gala has left her vulnerable, twisted, hurt. She needs to wait until that's only a memory before she puts herself in the spotlight again.

And yet she still brushes past Neal when she sees him, a cloaked woman with a distinctive, alluring perfume that beckons him to draw closer and follow her to a back room. Caffrey, Caffrey, Caffrey- what a puzzle, what an absolute delight. Not even her desires to stay undercover can stand up to someone actually seeking her out.

[itchafes]

Neal follows. He doesn't even realize he's doing it until they're off the floor and the sounds of the gambling hall are quiet background noise. Even then, it takes a few dizzy seconds for him to realize where they are - smokey, kitschy, a room that looks vaguely like what most people imagine a fortune teller's tent should be.

"...Kitsune, I presume."

[thesakurasmile]

Kitsune removes her hood, her back to Neal, red hair trailing down her back, when she turns, her emerald eyes are almost covered by long flowing bangs. She's still featureless, even up close. Hair framing eyes, framing everything and nothing. It's like her two permanent features are staying put, while the rest of her sways between facades.

"You would be correct," she says, collapsing into the chair that would be reserved for the fortune teller if this room were really what it looked like. Like Kitsune, herself, at this moment, it's everything and nothing. On a whim, it could change. It doesn't, however, although she throws a cursory glance around the room once as if wondering if it's the best atmosphere for this chat before finally deciding that... Yes, it is.

That settled, she traces her fingers across the swirling mist inside her crystal ball. "There are many who wish to seek me out tonight. You're the one I chose to see. Does that flatter you or terrify you?"

[itchafes]

He eases himself into the chair opposite, focusing on those very green eyes and trying not to focus on warp and bloom of a half-dozen faces around them. "Does it have to be one or the other?"

The part of him that sounds like Peter demands to know what the hell he's thinking. Not sure, he answers, honestly enough. Maybe he wants to talk to someone dangerous. Maybe he wants to talk to someone safe - safely distant from the barracks and Peter and everyone who knows what happened. Maybe talking with her is the closest he's felt to home since the Gala.

Or it could be all of the above. "If I have to pick, I'd say the former. Have you done something with your hair?"

[thesakurasmile]

She shifts, so that more of her hair covers her face, sniffing slightly as if she can smell something on him. "Don't hide behind that silver tongue, boy. I appreciate it. Others not so much. The Woods are crying for blood, but you've noticed that, haven't you?"

She finally flips her hair back, her features settling into her features- the one of the woman The Kitsune Girl chooses to be- tall, fierce, beautiful, but so very young. "Your story was ended. How kind of your friend to change the rules. Did he tell you the price he paid?"

She crosses her legs, the dress she's wearing shows a fair bit of skin. "Or is that not what you want to talk about? You were hoping for a less uncomfortable topic? More about me? Answer mine and perhaps we'll see."

[itchafes]

His face goes briefly blank with tension before he forces himself to relax. He lifts his shoulders in a prolonged shrug. "He told me enough."

Neal settles back in his chair, watching her eyes just like she's a an ordinary, if dangerous, woman. "I did come to talk to you. And yes, I was hoping for something a little less personal. Do you enjoy disturbing people or is that just a side effect of not having many regulars?"

[thesakurasmile]

Kitsune cracks her neck in a way that's sickeningly unnatural, head tilted at an eerie angle, teeth flashing. The sure sign of a being in a body that's not their own. She also might be intentionally trying to scare him. "Do I disturb you?" She rolls her shoulders and stares at him from a less awkward angle. "I thought you were fond of me. But that's the game, isn't it?"

She flicks over a chess piece that wasn't on the table a minute ago. The room shifts until it looks like an endless checkerboard surrounded by endless whitewashed walls- only the table and their chairs remained. "The rules don't stay the same here. And hoooow," she drawls the word out, sing-songing it and almost relishing it on her tongue, "long until they figure it out. What will become of Peter then?"

[itchafes]

He resettles in the chair, hiding how much her attempts to scare him are working. Well, hiding them the way he would from a regular person. Maybe not so much from her.

"Sometimes you do," he says, since he's not sure honesty is what she's expecting. "Sometimes you try to. I like it better when you don't."

He tenses again as the room changes, and stays tense at her question. "What do you mean?"

[thesakurasmile]

Kitsune rolls her shoulders and tilts her head up at him, just smirking, choosing not to react. Obviously, she'll scare, intimidate, or otherwise do whatever the hell she wants with him, because she can. It doesn't warrant a response.

"Peter's intentions were noble, but... In the end, someone always has to die. Was it really his right to end another's story to continue yours?" The words sound so bitter, spat out through gritted teeth. Selflessness always comes with a cost in Babylon Wood. No one sacrifices themselves. Life is cheap if it's given freely. The prices you pay are high here.

[itchafes]

Something cold hits Neal between gut and breastbone and spreads like frost up to his throat.

"No," he says, not answering the question - just denying it. Do the right thing, let the chips fall where they fall. That was Peter. He would never kill someone to bring another back. To save a life, maybe, but he'd never pick one person over another without adrenaline and the force of an irreparable situation. "That's..."

Ridiculous? Impossible?

The post Peter made to the journal network rings uncomfortably in Neal's ears. Dr. Meredith Gray is dead.

[thesakurasmile]

Kitsune crosses and uncrosses her legs, smiling as Neal's realization hits. "Too convenient? And there were witnesses. She was speaking to someone and then..." Kitsune snaps her fingers and the scenery shifts. Now they're in a room of darkness, the area they're sitting in illuminated by huge tiered candles.

"Peter did what he had to do. All for you." A candle died. And then another. "How many more would he still kill?"

The lights all go out at once, plunging the entire room into complete darkness. When the lights come back up, there's the sound of Carnival music and Neal's back in the gambling hall. Alone.