"Last chance," she says.
Culver is pulling the stiletto out of the back of Lilly's neck as Emma comes in; not a moment before there was the sound of shared laughter as he told her back one of her own jokes. "So this isn't to be a wasted trip after all," he greets Emma with. Lilly's head slumps forward as he fastidiously cleans the blade.
A flurry of footsteps preceeds the opening of the door. Emma takes a few steps into the room, then draws up short, her eyes wide as she struggles to make sense of the scene before her. Bright irises flick down to the greyed copper of her mother's hair, then back up to Culver. The only thing she can manage to articulate is, "You."
Culver spreads his hands wide. "Me." He looks great: just as big, but all full of life and seething with energy. His eyes indicate Emma's mother as he says, "Decision time."
Emma's hand immediately moves to the hilt of her rapier, and she hisses out, "Get away from her." The woman takes two decisive steps forward, even as tears rise to her eyes, shimmering there unshed.
Culver takes a couple of steps back to match her; his eyes leap to the tears hungrily. It's not a straightforward smile his face twists in as he warns her: "Too far back and this little window I've made will close. Go on. Ask me what it's a window for."
The redhead freezes in place. Her hand lingers on the hilt of her rapier, her eyes not leaving Culver's face, this time. Her voice low, she echoes, "What is the window for, Culver?"
Culver says, "To reach through and pull her back." He makes a wide gesture. "To realise that rules are just ... suggestions." And, harder in tone, "And commit to that."
It takes but the span of a heartbeat for Emma's eyes to shade from blue to icy grey, as she looks to her mother's corpse through the eyes of Death itself. The faintest hint of air stirs at the woman's hair, the beginnings of a spectral wind; as yet, only a hint of chill and movement accompany it. "Pull her back," his niece by so many removes repeats.
Culver, at Emma's change in countenance, turns the stiletto over in his hand to hold it by the blade as his show of nervousness. "Do it," he says somewhere between the inviting and the imperative.
"It would be easy," Emma muses, her tone curiously flat, as she studies the bedraggled thing that was once her mother. She takes a step closer, hand falling fron the hilt of her rapier. "Why?" Her eyes lift to Culver.
Culver makes a face. "There's no way to say this without it sounding ... off. So I'll pray for a morsel of understanding and say: I need you to."
Emma's lips twist, briefly. "I think you've gone far past a little 'off,' uncle." She squares her shoulders, then, and lifts her chin. "I will not damn her to a half-life spent in a decaying corpse. Let her go."
Culver snarls. "Dig deep and you can do better than that for her. Dig deep and you could be great. Dig deep and you could realise that there are no limits."
Emma's eyes close. "I was in Tir. Princess Deirdre imagined me as Queen at the head of an undead army," she murmurs, just loud enough to be heard.
Culver matches her for softness, "See? It's there. We want our children to be like us, but more so."
Emma's eyes open, and her tears are gone. "If that is greatness," she says, still softly. "Then let me fade into humble dust." With more confidence: "The price of that power is too high. Look at yourself, Culver. Look at where you stand and what you have done."
Culver's gaze narrows. "I am not wrong. I am half of what I should be, that much is true. And this?" He puts his feet wide, to better concentrate on what magic he's holding hsi mind on, "If you won't ..."
High color flares in Emma's cheeks. "Culver!" she snaps out, hand back on her hilt. "Stop this madness!"
Culver stretches his hand forward, and for those with eyes to see, takes a hold of what small thing's just the other side of the doorway to death. "Make me," he spits out. "If you choose to be small, these are the things you suffer."
Emma's reply is the sound of cold steel being slid from its sheath. "Last chance," she says. "Let her go, or I will rend you limb from limb and hold you in your body until you -beg- me to let you go."
Culver drops the stiletto so it sticks into the carpet, its point finding the wood far under the wool. He firms his spectral grip. "Do you really want to see what I can do if I'm not interested in having a happy family any more?"
"Have you learned nothing from the last two times I've left my sword in your gut?" Emma spits, advancing on him. "Gloves off, Culver. This ends, now."
Culver stomps his foot; the breaking glass under his foot sparks something, and a circle of fire races around him, still small for now. "My ground," he says. Lilly's body rises from its seat to block Emma's way at a move of his hand. "And you know I have to pull her back."
The tip of Emma's rapier wavers, not at the fire, but at her mother rising in front of her. Her brows dart together for a moment, and the fire Culver started begins to shade toward blue. "Fire, Culver? How trite," she says.
Culver passes a hand. "I try," he concedes the point with. "Time it wrong and you could kill her too," he says. With a smile, "Fair warning."
"She is already gone," Emma grits out, through clenched teeth. "Let her go." Without warning, she ducks down, and launches herself not at Culver, but at the corpse, aiming one shoulder at it, intent on slamming the body itself into Culver.
Culver's busy with masterwork, undoing with his talents what he did with a knife not a few minutes ago. He can hold that concentration through being knocked back through the fire taking grip of the carpet. "If I do, then I really have done a terrible thing. Just a little longer."
Emma stumbles a few steps, then rights herself, mindless of the flames licking at her boots. She might regret that in a few minutes, but for now, all of her focus is on Culver and her mother's soul. A lunge, not of the rapier, but rather with her free hand, reaching to snatch the thing from Culver's hands.
Culver goes to trap her hand so they're both holding it. "Together works," he says. He's on fire too, but distracted from it.
Emma's protest is immediate: "No, no, no, no." It's almost babbled out, and there's sheer panic in the woman's eyes. The only other thing she holds is her rapier, but she tries, first, to jerk her hand and her mother's spirit from Culver's clutches.
Culver, if anything, is strong, in this world and the next. "You said it yourself," he says soothingly. "It'll be easy." He shapes what he's going to put back; she'd hardly be dead at all, and the clock of her mind wound back. "And ... look!"
The only response from Emma is an agonized whimper, when yet another yank of her hand doesn't succeed in freeing her or the spirit. This time, when tears spring to her eyes, they spill forth, streaming down cheeks that are increasingly flushed with the heat of the fire springing up around them. Then, her features harden, and she swings her rapier around toward Culver's neck. It's clumsy, but the blade is sharp.
Culver's hand claps to his neck to try and hold the blood in. He pushes what's Lilly towards, not her body now, but the blade that's killed him. There's no force in it. "Be free," he says with the last air out of his lungs to both of them.
It's hard to tell if Emma's response is a sob or a cough; it might be both, for smoke is thickening around them. She's unaware of Culver's lifeblood spattering her, reaching with every bit of her strength for the soul that wafts toward her sword. A flare of the flames causes her to stumble back, though, and the spirit settles into the sword.
Culver's eyelids droop; it looks like he's dropping off to sleep on a bed of flames. His hand moves, and in burst Lilly's recently deceased attendants, come to drag Emma to safety.
Emma clings to the sword, struggling weakly against the animated dead. It's futile, though, for there are more of them than her, and so she lets herself be dragged, gasping out, "Give Cordelia." Another cough. "My love."
Culver can't help but smile at that as he closes his eyes, all wreathed in smoke and blackening clothes.
A flurry of footsteps preceeds the opening of the door. Emma takes a few steps into the room, then draws up short, her eyes wide as she struggles to make sense of the scene before her. Bright irises flick down to the greyed copper of her mother's hair, then back up to Culver. The only thing she can manage to articulate is, "You."
Culver spreads his hands wide. "Me." He looks great: just as big, but all full of life and seething with energy. His eyes indicate Emma's mother as he says, "Decision time."
Emma's hand immediately moves to the hilt of her rapier, and she hisses out, "Get away from her." The woman takes two decisive steps forward, even as tears rise to her eyes, shimmering there unshed.
Culver takes a couple of steps back to match her; his eyes leap to the tears hungrily. It's not a straightforward smile his face twists in as he warns her: "Too far back and this little window I've made will close. Go on. Ask me what it's a window for."
The redhead freezes in place. Her hand lingers on the hilt of her rapier, her eyes not leaving Culver's face, this time. Her voice low, she echoes, "What is the window for, Culver?"
Culver says, "To reach through and pull her back." He makes a wide gesture. "To realise that rules are just ... suggestions." And, harder in tone, "And commit to that."
It takes but the span of a heartbeat for Emma's eyes to shade from blue to icy grey, as she looks to her mother's corpse through the eyes of Death itself. The faintest hint of air stirs at the woman's hair, the beginnings of a spectral wind; as yet, only a hint of chill and movement accompany it. "Pull her back," his niece by so many removes repeats.
Culver, at Emma's change in countenance, turns the stiletto over in his hand to hold it by the blade as his show of nervousness. "Do it," he says somewhere between the inviting and the imperative.
"It would be easy," Emma muses, her tone curiously flat, as she studies the bedraggled thing that was once her mother. She takes a step closer, hand falling fron the hilt of her rapier. "Why?" Her eyes lift to Culver.
Culver makes a face. "There's no way to say this without it sounding ... off. So I'll pray for a morsel of understanding and say: I need you to."
Emma's lips twist, briefly. "I think you've gone far past a little 'off,' uncle." She squares her shoulders, then, and lifts her chin. "I will not damn her to a half-life spent in a decaying corpse. Let her go."
Culver snarls. "Dig deep and you can do better than that for her. Dig deep and you could be great. Dig deep and you could realise that there are no limits."
Emma's eyes close. "I was in Tir. Princess Deirdre imagined me as Queen at the head of an undead army," she murmurs, just loud enough to be heard.
Culver matches her for softness, "See? It's there. We want our children to be like us, but more so."
Emma's eyes open, and her tears are gone. "If that is greatness," she says, still softly. "Then let me fade into humble dust." With more confidence: "The price of that power is too high. Look at yourself, Culver. Look at where you stand and what you have done."
Culver's gaze narrows. "I am not wrong. I am half of what I should be, that much is true. And this?" He puts his feet wide, to better concentrate on what magic he's holding hsi mind on, "If you won't ..."
High color flares in Emma's cheeks. "Culver!" she snaps out, hand back on her hilt. "Stop this madness!"
Culver stretches his hand forward, and for those with eyes to see, takes a hold of what small thing's just the other side of the doorway to death. "Make me," he spits out. "If you choose to be small, these are the things you suffer."
Emma's reply is the sound of cold steel being slid from its sheath. "Last chance," she says. "Let her go, or I will rend you limb from limb and hold you in your body until you -beg- me to let you go."
Culver drops the stiletto so it sticks into the carpet, its point finding the wood far under the wool. He firms his spectral grip. "Do you really want to see what I can do if I'm not interested in having a happy family any more?"
"Have you learned nothing from the last two times I've left my sword in your gut?" Emma spits, advancing on him. "Gloves off, Culver. This ends, now."
Culver stomps his foot; the breaking glass under his foot sparks something, and a circle of fire races around him, still small for now. "My ground," he says. Lilly's body rises from its seat to block Emma's way at a move of his hand. "And you know I have to pull her back."
The tip of Emma's rapier wavers, not at the fire, but at her mother rising in front of her. Her brows dart together for a moment, and the fire Culver started begins to shade toward blue. "Fire, Culver? How trite," she says.
Culver passes a hand. "I try," he concedes the point with. "Time it wrong and you could kill her too," he says. With a smile, "Fair warning."
"She is already gone," Emma grits out, through clenched teeth. "Let her go." Without warning, she ducks down, and launches herself not at Culver, but at the corpse, aiming one shoulder at it, intent on slamming the body itself into Culver.
Culver's busy with masterwork, undoing with his talents what he did with a knife not a few minutes ago. He can hold that concentration through being knocked back through the fire taking grip of the carpet. "If I do, then I really have done a terrible thing. Just a little longer."
Emma stumbles a few steps, then rights herself, mindless of the flames licking at her boots. She might regret that in a few minutes, but for now, all of her focus is on Culver and her mother's soul. A lunge, not of the rapier, but rather with her free hand, reaching to snatch the thing from Culver's hands.
Culver goes to trap her hand so they're both holding it. "Together works," he says. He's on fire too, but distracted from it.
Emma's protest is immediate: "No, no, no, no." It's almost babbled out, and there's sheer panic in the woman's eyes. The only other thing she holds is her rapier, but she tries, first, to jerk her hand and her mother's spirit from Culver's clutches.
Culver, if anything, is strong, in this world and the next. "You said it yourself," he says soothingly. "It'll be easy." He shapes what he's going to put back; she'd hardly be dead at all, and the clock of her mind wound back. "And ... look!"
The only response from Emma is an agonized whimper, when yet another yank of her hand doesn't succeed in freeing her or the spirit. This time, when tears spring to her eyes, they spill forth, streaming down cheeks that are increasingly flushed with the heat of the fire springing up around them. Then, her features harden, and she swings her rapier around toward Culver's neck. It's clumsy, but the blade is sharp.
Culver's hand claps to his neck to try and hold the blood in. He pushes what's Lilly towards, not her body now, but the blade that's killed him. There's no force in it. "Be free," he says with the last air out of his lungs to both of them.
It's hard to tell if Emma's response is a sob or a cough; it might be both, for smoke is thickening around them. She's unaware of Culver's lifeblood spattering her, reaching with every bit of her strength for the soul that wafts toward her sword. A flare of the flames causes her to stumble back, though, and the spirit settles into the sword.
Culver's eyelids droop; it looks like he's dropping off to sleep on a bed of flames. His hand moves, and in burst Lilly's recently deceased attendants, come to drag Emma to safety.
Emma clings to the sword, struggling weakly against the animated dead. It's futile, though, for there are more of them than her, and so she lets herself be dragged, gasping out, "Give Cordelia." Another cough. "My love."
Culver can't help but smile at that as he closes his eyes, all wreathed in smoke and blackening clothes.