The Estate, Sidra, Balmia, Tuesday Evening (Fandom Time)

[glacial_queen]

Karla paced back and forth, trying to absorb some of the calm from her garden, trying not to curse her ungainly figure. Even the land in full bloom, laden with fragrant flowers and early fruits wasn't enough to bleed off her fury. Warren's 'birthday' present had been delivered this morning, a bouquet of witchblood tucked in a grinning skull. Karla

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[not_a_parakeet]

A dark shadow across the sky and then the sound of metal scraping metal heralded Archangel's appearance at the estate. He smiled lazily as he approached Karla, in fact.

"Nothing like visiting home on one's birthday," he noted mildly. "I trust you got your gift, my love?"

[glacial_queen]

"I'm pretty sure I threw you out," Karla said with a pleasantly poisonous smile. "This stopped being your home the same time you stopped being Warren."

[not_a_parakeet]

Archangel's answering smile was sharp as he folded his wings across his shoulders, a nightmarish cloak of blades and poison.

"So quick to bite today," he admonished. "I have a deep fondness for this estate, after all. The memories you and I made here."

The other things they made here. He even gave a pointed look at Karla's belly, his smile twisting into something a little more smug.

"Your Warren is in here somewhere, you know. Screaming and clawing and trying to get free. He's a fun little toy, but so easily broken, so placid for me now, so resigned to nothingness, until I see you."

[glacial_queen]

"I'm older now," Karla said, showing off her teeth. If he was going to mention biting... "Much more crotchety now. You're welcome to the memories, but that's all you'll be getting."

She schooled her expression, pretending that his barb about Warren didn't hurt. He was adamant about keeping her--keeping their child, their combination of Blood and mutation--physically unharmed, but he took every opportunity to hurt her in other ways.

[not_a_parakeet]

"Is it?" Archangel didn't seem terribly convinced as he stepped closer, reached for her hand and leaned in close enough to whisper in her ear as he moved it to rest on her stomach, his own cupped over hers like any doting father-to-be might. "That hardly seems the case to me. You can deny me paternity, my love, but who'll deny me our child if I so choose to claim her?"

He seemed to be doing a good job cutting down any who looked as though they were thinking about it. Didn't he?

[glacial_queen]

The collection of skulls she'd have if she'd kept any of his macabre trophies would certainly suggest so, yes.

There was a moment when Karla almost, almost leaned into him. She still couldn't tell whether that moment came from some kind of subtle influence he exerted over her or just her own weakness. Either way, she loathed it, loathed that there was some way he could still make her react.

"Don't touch me," she said, shoving him away. Once, she would have darted away from him, but he was far more agile than she was, especially now. "She's my daughter, not yours. Her father died--along with her aunt and two of her uncles. You have no claim on her."

[not_a_parakeet]

Her shove did little to move him, but Archangel bowed his head and took a step away all the same.

"You say that now," he replied, "but when you're mine again, you'll be begging me to take her. Doesn't it appeal to you? The thought of the three of us together, a family? My touch is the same. My voice. My scent. If you close your eyes, it's almost as though nothing is different, isn't it?"

[glacial_queen]

"If," she said, stressing the word, "I ever become yours, I'll be a twisted, broken shell. It won't be Karla doing the begging, it'll be the puppet you made of me, the same way Apocalypse made one of you."

She stepped back a pace. "And no, your scent isn't the same. You don't smell like cornchips anymore, just poison and metal and blood."

[not_a_parakeet]

"If you came to me willingly, I wouldn't have any need to break you," Archangel reasoned. "And the poison, you get used to. Even if I were to be him again, that scent would linger, you know. If you were to chase me out or cage me in with all the power your coven can manage, if you were to get him back, you would never be able to rid yourself of that reminder of me."

He fanned his wings, swept them forward, twin veils of death cutting trenches into the flower beds on either side of her.

"It's a shame."

[glacial_queen]

"Notice how you didn't say anything about not twisting me," Karla said, lip curled. "I still wouldn't be me. Funny how you say you love me but can't wait to change everything about who I am."

[not_a_parakeet]

"Change you? Oh, hardly. You'd still have your power, you'd still have your bite. I wouldn't change you any more than you changed him, when you fell for your angel-winged lover. You gave him a backbone to go with those wings, and a growl to go with those claws."

He spread his wings and flexed his own claws as he spoke, and then grinned again.

"Twisting? Hardly. Strengthening? Improving? Evolving? Absolutely."

[glacial_queen]

"Ahh, yes. Evolution. I was wondering when we'd get to that part of the conversation. Don't you ever get tired, giving the same old spiels day after day?"

She had to lash out, stay on the offensive. She didn't hate him enough to be be safe. Didn't hate either of them enough. She tried and tried and tried, but she couldn't seem to excise the parts of her that still loved them both, lover and sister and most of all, friends.

[not_a_parakeet]

"Not so long as there are people willing to listen," Archangel purred easily. "And so many who turn to me willingly, knowing what I can do for them. The Yllestad wounded... Unlike my predecessor, I don't only offer survival to the fittest. I take the weak and make them fit."

She'd met the first of his horsemen, his Famine, the one surviving Blood Healer that had gone as far as the cave with Jonothon.

"Does that sting you, my love? The second chances that I've offered them?"

[glacial_queen]

"No, don't be stupid, of course not!" Karla said, before snapping her mouth shut and glaring. She hated when he tricked her into agreeing with him, when he plied her with poisonous words until it was hard to remember what they'd even been fighting about.

Of course, it was still better than when he tried to seduce her, reminded her body how long it had been and how easily he could make her feel again.

There had been a story she'd read about rabbits once with the line My heart is in the frost. Karla wished hers was the same. The thin rime of ice she encased around it never stayed whole for long.

"Funny how much your second chance looks like slavery from the outside."

[not_a_parakeet]

"Famine would disagree, I think. I hear her singing, sometimes. Did you know she used to enjoy singing? Before the smoke, of course. She would sing for her brothers, before Hobart's treachery saw one dead, and another turned traitor. Now she sings for me, like a little bird. And I haven't even built her a cage. If she wanted to leave... Well, she would be missed."

He would certainly miss her services, after ripping her apart with his wings, of course.

[glacial_queen]

"And how far would she get before you rent her to pieces?" Karla asked, tossing her hair. "I know you. You'd never let go of what was yours, Archangel."