Somewhere, a Clock is Ticking…

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The figure cuts a sheepish shadow as he walks across the dark courtyard of the Fort. Now that he is here a hesitation clouds his thoughts. The interest to see if a familial bond can be built without magic hanging over their heads is what brought Kurtz back. Freedom, the ability to choose to be here feels strange. This has been the most unshackled he has been in a long, long time.

His daughter steps out of the glow of the fighting pit, the sheen of sweat and the oddly grey ichor that is her flesh and blood now, stains her upper leg. Delilah doesn’t limp though, which means she had been healed. She is about to step into the shadows, and he knows he will miss his chance to speak to her if she does, so he uses his own shadows to appear in front of her, blocking her path.

A silence rings across the gulf of space between them.

“Daughter,” Kurtz starts, then hesitates. He glances down and notices Delilah’s hands are tightly balled fists by her side. “If you will permit me, I would return and set up once more in the Fort. To remain close. To… try and work out what was real and what was magic.”

A handful of shadows coalesce into the shape of a cat, Beastie. They wind between the Pale Daughter’s legs, tail flicking, face turned to him the whole time. He knows they are speaking to each other, and so waits patiently as he can.

Looking at her now, he sees something is… off. Yes, Delilah has always been cool and deadly, a state any natural predator has. But this is something else. He stands stock still waiting for her answer.

As Beastie steps into one shadow and appears on her shoulders she finally speaks.

“The usual, then?” she asks, brushing past him, not waiting to see if he follows, just heading straight for the Great Hall. Kurtz quickly catches up and matches her pace.

“You haven’t missed much,” she comments, dismissively. There’s a beat and Kurtz wonders if there’s more. “Oh, except Ankaa is alive.” She stops. “And has sworn to end me along with everyone and everything I hold dear.” Delilah looks over her shoulder, the half of her face turned towards him cast entirely in shadow.

“Being close could be hazardous to your health. Are you willing to risk yourself for such uncertainty?”

Was there a slight hesitancy in her voice?

“Alive? Will we never be rid of Demona’s influence?” A scowl descends on a normally difficult to read face, but one that now no longer bears the scar over his eye. “She is powerful, but so are you daughter, and I am not without my strengths. Together we stand a better chance of survival. Together I would not fear standing against that young lady, no matter how talented a mage she seems to be.”

Beastie is a black outline against the soft light coming from the building. Their tail flicks as Delilah turns back to face forward and enter the Hall, Kurtz following her.

As they sit to drink, Kurtz still seems at an odd end, like he is experiencing déjà vu and that everything is both new and old all at once.

“Can I assume you have a blade with her name upon it?” he asks.

“I have several,” Delilah growls, not at him but at the situation at large.

She pours Kurtz’s drink and then her own, knocking back the first shot with practised ease before tipping the bottle to refill what was just consumed. Pitch black eyes stare deep into the goldwine, falling into the depths they offer as she sets the bottle down. Tongue thick in her throat she swallows hard, trying to clear away some treacherous lump that has decided to lodge itself there.

“When we get through this, and we will get through it… what then? Are you still interested in being free of the shadows?”

Kurtz, also drinking a touch more heavily than usual, clears his throat. “Yes, I still long to be free from the shadows. To return to my truer self. Before that though, I sense they will be of use to our… your cause. I will delay seeking a solution until I am sure you no longer need my assistance with Ankaa.”

He shifts uncomfortably in his chair. Beastie tilts their head slightly, watching him do so.

“I was thinking of your concern for my resolve in this task,” he continues. “I would understand paranoia on your part, and perhaps I have heard of a solution.”

Delilah appears focused on pouring another glass. He takes her silence as assent to continue.

“There is a place in Sigil called the Halls of Concordance,” Krutz begins to explain. “Within it, contracts of the most binding nature are written in pure gold and installed into powerful constructs whose only purpose is to enforce such deals. If you asked it of me, I would be willing to enter into such an arrangement. Of my own free will and knowingly. If this gave you greater trust that I would help whatever follows.”

The tumbler in her hand slams down onto the wooden table. Delilah is still, her piercing gaze fixed on the empty glass. Her form ripples, blackish-green scales rising briefly, as shadows drip from her hair like oil.

“Oziah would say I should. She doesn’t trust you as far as she can throw you and I know she wants to have you as far away from me as the Realms would allow.”

Slowly, as if scraping against glass, Delilah’s dark eyes lift up. They are hollow, flat, two small openings to a void that would swallow the world if they could and still be hungry for more.

“But after everything I’ve done to free you, after every chance I have given, every hand I have extended to you, every word I have said in your defence, you come to me and say you’ll help but still with doubt in your heart enough to know you’d betray me? Leave me? Abandon me? And so you offer this option to become… just like her?” Her lips peel back into a snarl. “You clearly don’t know me at all, father.”

She says the word as if it could cut him, as if she holds not the bottle in her hand, but a knife.

Delilah stands in one smooth, fluid motion. “Stay. Go. Help. Don’t. It matters not to me. Any chains you don will be by your choice, not by my doing.” She begins to turn away.

Kurtz has stood up too, though less gracefully, more awkwardly, his hands raised in a gesture of peace. “I had no intention of comparing you to your mother Delilah, my offer was given in love and intended to help with any mis-trust. Which honestly I doubt anyone would judge you for having.”

And that’s the rub, isn’t it. Their whole relationship before his freedom has been built on a magic charm woven around his heart that twisted and squeezed to the point that neither of them could know what was truth and what was a lie.

He sits down, a worn hand resting on worn wood. A small shadow comes over to carefully sniff at him before sitting back and down just out of reach, tail swishing.

“I intend to stay, to help,” he says quietly. “Despite it all, my sordid past, my horrible deeds against my other family members; You are one I do not intend to betray or hurt.” He attempts a rare smile. “Sit? Stay and drink with me?” A sparkle appears in his eyes. “Tell me more about your loved ones’ disdain for me?”

Carefully, with precise movements, Delilah uncorks the bottle and pours another glass, this one double what she gave before, to first herself and then Kurtz.

“One time Jaezred turned into a version of you and we both took a turn at taking him on. Suffice to say Oziah threw herself into it with abandon. Jaezred came very close to losing the form.” She sits, picking up the glass and swirling it. Spots of colour have appeared high on her cheekbones and her eyes don’t seem as flat as they were. They swim with a kind of ruthless merriment. “She might have taken it a little too seriously,” Delilah adds, smirking, before taking a generous sip.

The dragon gives a hearty chuckle at that, raising his glass in a salute. That elicits a smirk from her, the first sign of warmth, if he could even call it that, he had been given since approaching her. It was more than he could have hoped though, and he accepted it.