Ezekiel 16:39

[trickster_mk2]

[Private audio message to Elizabeth]

I just thought I should let you know, because you probably already do, that I took some of the things I left from Hatfield already. But if there is anything that I've forgotten, then I've got a place that you can send things on to. If you wanted to. You don't have to. I mean, it'd be nice.

[He's rambling, he

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[risegloriana]

video;

[She hadn't been expecting the message. She hadn't expecting anything at all. To her it was plain he wanted nothing to do with her, at least as far as that went. But she'd pitched a absolute fit when she saw his things gone. Screamed and then wept again. Curled up in the tigers -- all she felt she had left of him -- and cried until she fell asleep there, listening to the rumbling purr in their chest that wasn't half as soothing as his heartbeat that she'd learned. He was leaving her. Perhaps her fault, maybe not, but he was slipping out of her fingers, and in the back of her mind was that terrible, terrible realization. That there was no child. There was nothing to make him come back to her even to talk. But she could put that off for as long as it took to tell him the truth

[trickster_mk2]

[Oh. Well. He's expected maybe something... friendly. A smile, even if it was one of those tiny ones from before, the sort that didn't state that she loved him, but maybe that she found him at least a little amusing. But no. She wasn't going to give him any such courtesy and he probably deserved it. The stuff about her mother probably had been too much. Everyone had said so. He was just too stubborn to see it before.

It'd wondered if he could go back. Just unwind the roll of time a little, a few days, and step back into himself and keep his mouth firmly shut. But he didn't have the power, and he didn't think it would help. She wasn't happy, not in her soul, and they would have fought over something else, and it would all have come pouring out again. You can live through a lot of deaths, but there's only so much heart break one existence can take. Pick up, move on.

He should have chosen a shop further away. Too late now.]

Yeah, I guess he could. Yeah. That's for the best. [He hangs his head slightly, his hands are out of shot, but

[risegloriana]

[She had no smiles or laughter not to spare. Not when her heart felt so utterly broken. Better to just show nothing. To be removed. Not happiness, but not sorrow either. She could feel nothing. Nothing. She would be touched by nothing and she couldn't be dragged down and made to feel such a fool.

And a fool she did feel.

Her breath taken evenly, measured to give no effect other than calm. If she said this didn't hurt, than it wouldn't. She was a Queen, she could will it so with enough time.]

That's settled then. Should I find anything. [She doubted she would. She figured he already knew that. Which led her to question why he was calling? To what, remind her that he'd taken himself out of her life again? That was too bitter to think of without stinging.] I am sure it will help. [she looks unsettled a moment at him being so close again. But it isn't her city. It is everyone and he can't help where these places are.] Well. Perhaps my girls will visit your shop. They do love sweets.

[She means she does. Loves sweets, loved when

[trickster_mk2]

I took the books. I just... didn't want... [Why is he still talking? She's clearly burnt or thrown away anything he'd left and not rescued. He's not seen her with the tigers, not that he's been scouring the network for any trace of her. He knew she'd kept them, he'd seen them when he'd gone to Hatfield in the middle of the night but... but did she even love them any more? He couldn't bring himself to ask, no now he couldn't feel them anymore. That link was severed, like all the others.]

I was thinking they might. I mean, it can't hurt business, can it? Having a school so close. And I thought that way... [He stops. She's probably made it very, very clear over the last few conversations that she doesn't want to know. But he's by nature someone who doesn't like the word no, and so maybe that's why he keeps pushing.

Maybe that's why he's not taken off the ring.]

I thought maybe on high-days and holidays I might send some over for the teachers too.

[He means her. Of course he means her, she probably knows it. There's not really anyone