INT - House of Esher, day
Dorian came to the widow's house with a bunch of local wildflowers in hand, and knocked upon her door. He donned clean clothes, having already gone riding this morning and bathing afterward, he smelled no longer of horse, but instead like his soap and cologne. A faint aroma of vetiver, citrus and pine arose from him, apart from the vague floral scent of the bouquet he bore. His golden hair was a carelessly tossed mop of curls atop his head, and he had a small smile venturing its way to his lips in anticipation of being greeted. His glamour was as solid for most eyes as his true form beyond the veil, even permeated there, given his own conception of himself. But at odd moments he'd be a radiant shining creature with a great wingspan that more than equalled his height.
Supernatural though he was, he spent a lot of time conceptualizing himself as a fairly ordinary human man, such as when dancing or riding or walking and smoking a cigarette. He'd been doing a lot of those things lately, given the turmoil in his own home. So, standing there in his riding boots, clean britches and shirt, with fair clear eyes he'd await potentially being admitted or otherwise just leaving the little gift for someone he long owed correspondence.
Lady Llywellynn Devoreaux Esher: Llywellynn on the other hand was already well into her cups today. A combination of both good and bad news had finally weighted upon her mind too much for anything other than a full bottle of brandy to alleviate. At least for a time. She knew with irrefutable fact by now she was far more resilient, considering what both friend and foe had done, but this meant her vice of choice didn't last nearly as long as it ought for her peace of mind. So a whole bottle would have to do, to start.
So the Lady was not at all presentable when the younger Windgrace brother chose to bring himself well cleaned and groomed to her door with cheery meadow flowers in hand. The knock startled Llyw in fact as she wandered through the foyer, open bottle in hand with only a third of its contents left. She opened one side without thinking it through, peered around the edge to see who called as the world danced merrily around her. Her hair was loose and long flowing free to catch the light almost metallic silver drowning into darkest ruby red, her eerie eyes were wide trying to focus on the handsome unearthly being on her doorstep, a brilliant glory of color against the dreary grey of the fog and the wailing dead.
Llyw was hardly wearing more than some thin red silk around her chest and a loose kimono of the same lightweight fabric around her hips, uncaring in the depths of her fever for propriety in her bid for comfort. Her scent wafted out as sweetly warm as ever, honeysuckle and woodfire mixing with a far stronger note of dark brandy of course. With no other eyes thankfully looking that way, the glamour of the covenant was nowhere to be seen, leaving the Lady in her true state for one she trusted to see, glittering with gems upon her skin and horns upon her head agleam with the ghost of fire.
"O..Oh, Dorian?" Llyw murmured dizzily, clinging to the edge of the door with dark fingers tipped in claws, but her smile beamed like the sun she hardly ever saw, "Oh my stars...It's good to see you...Come in..." She waved vaguely but nearly lost her balance doing so. Apparently she had enough on her mind she had needed to drown in alot of brandy today.
Dorian: || The little bouquet was comprised of pale blue and pale purple and white heads of many-petaled flowers picked on his morning ride. His sister had gotten a bouquet like this today, though she likely would be hours out before she'd seen it, given he left it between her doorknob and the frame of her room door. His face was stubbled with several day's growth, for him that did not comprise a beard so much as it just started to fill in fair cheeks with hair darker than that which sprouted from the top of his head. He held the flowers in hand and his smile intensified upon seeing her unbound. When she, in truer form than he'd ever seen, stumbled, he'd move quickly to stop her descent, slipping an arm around her waist with a dancer's ease and bringing her up to her feet, or his if she wasn't ready. Either way she'd be standing. As for the bottle of booze she was bearing, his bouquet hand reached for that one and given his will prevailing that arm too would be halted in downward motion, stuck out to one side as if they'd come to a certain point of a tango. His laugh erupted from him rich and unrestrained while this all would occur, and when able to stand her up again he'd manage through his mirth, "Dorian Windgrace, at your service. Hahahahaha. May I say, whatever it is you are drinking, it smells paradisial." His smile became a bit of a mischievous grin in punctuation.
Once she was steaded he'd let her go, but not until then.
Dorian: *steadied
Lady Llywellynn Devoreaux Esher: As long as those carefree blooms stayed in the deathless one's grip the pale hues would stay fresh and alive, unless boosted by aether as he had done in the past. Those former bouquets still sat on her vanity table as vibrant as the day he had gifted them. The Lady's Cursed perceptions were always at play, ensuring that she Saw Dorian in his full eldritich effulgence. Unless he made an effort to exert an illusion greater than her Sight, Llyw had yet the fortune to see the man as the world saw him. For the moment the world was slowly pivoting on its axis for the seer, the drink softening the edges of her worries enough to not care for much of anything. Dorian however was a ray of sunshine into the darkness she existed in and so she was smiling up at him. She found herself in a dancer's pose in his arms almost, his laughter spurring her own to bubble up as she sought to find her feet again. Hidden tension eased from her brow, a moment of mirth lightening her burdens, thanks to the impromptu arrival of this golden dance partner. Her form was slender and lightweight, her skin blazed with fever that would have killed a mere human by now, and she smelled so very sweet as she gasped abit in surprise. She swayed where she stood once he let her go, but didn't fall, continuing her invite inside for the man bearing flowers and a wicked smile, "O..oh dear, haha...Do come in...Sit and...share a drink..good sir?" She murmured to usher him into the house and presumably into the vicinity of her liquor cabinet, all manner of decorum be damned in her quest for inebriation, now with such delightful company. "How ..have you been, Dorian?" She found wits enough to ask softly in any case.
Dorian gifted her flowers that had Callisto's allotment of aether in them, more than blooms from off-isle. Once she was up again and inviting him in, his grin yet lingered and he'd make certain the flowers as well as the booze made their ways into her firm grasp. Then he'd shut the doors behind himself and then stroll couchward, remarking, "Thank you for having me, Llyw. I am.... I am rather well. In spite of fog or spores. I should not be, but I am...." His grin went to a smirk over unsaid words. Having arrived at the couch he'd plop himself down unceremoniously, doing his level best to change the topic, "And you? You look well." He could not understand her way of seeing, nor all but the dour edges of the curse that lay upon her.
He'd slipped from the well of her warmth as easily as he'd entered it, as easily as he continued, "My horse, bless her, and I have managed to avoid the worst of this weather, despite going out into it. I prefer the air, even if it is something other than free, given the weather."
Lady Llywellynn Devoreaux Esher: Due to the unusual Aether of the isle, and perhaps the fond blessing of the Grandmother of it, the flowers didn't wilt in Llyw's view once she gripped the stems. For the brief moment Dorian's arm and hand was on the narrow span of Llyw's waist, such contact would have brought the sun into her awareness to shine down in golden grandeur upon them both in the doorway....if not for the damnable fog. The stultifying grey maliase of it clogged the atmosphere as far as the eye could see and as far as Dorian's wings had tried to carry him aloft not long ago. As ever, the uncanny nature of the Windgraces danced across the seer's nerves, all the eyes and light from beyond bent through the angles of time like a prism on too many levels of perception for her accursed awareness. Luckily she was too drunk to even flinch, Dorian's warmth nearly a match for her own though the sources of heat were far different in origin. The Lady's nature was somewhat a mystery even to herself as was the Windgrace sibling's state to her.
She had yet to ask him about it, but perhaps enough brandy might loosen her curiosity to inquire. "Good...I'm glad to hear...you are well...Doing far better than most...I think." She sighed, giving him a cheeky smile over her shoulder that she didn't yet seem to notice was bare, bottle and flowers firmly in hand as she made her unsteady way into the private study that lay open off from the sitting room. There between large bookcases lining the walls a fireplace burned at a moderate pace to provide illumination, lacing the Lady's scent with more woodfire ambiance. Despite her fever for some reason she preferred to have the fire burning when she chose to crack open her liquor cabinet in earnest and curl on the overstuffed chair to drink. She called out just about her normal whisper on her languid accent from the bayou, "What poison you prefer, good sir? I've rum and whiskey, if brandy won't do...Even some Absinthe left..." Finally she flushed for some reason before attending to the remainder of this brother's comments, "I..I'm well enough...I suppose...though lots to do..." She was reluctant to dispell the cheery mood with the doom and gloom of her predicament, hence more alcohol was the solution reached for. She finished the last of the bottle in her hand in fact, upending it as she tilted her head back, neck bending swanthin as she swallowed the brandy down. She put the wildflowers in it once she lowered the empty and set it on her messy desk. "The weather is just abominable...I See it on...*hic* on the other side...too, you know..." She hiccuped once or twice, but gave abit a grin to the undying man on her couch, swaying in her study with gems glittering in the light, awaiting his choice.
Llywellynn Devoreaux (llywellynndevoreaux): *abit of a grin
Llywellynn Devoreaux (llywellynndevoreaux): *above her normal
Dorian crossed his legs, at home on her couch as he was anywhere. He'd apparently cleaned up his riding boots, his most comfortable shoes, for they showed no trace of traipsing around picking flowers. From his spot on the couch, he'd call, "Brandy, then absinthe, then whiskey, if you will, my lady. I am keen to start with the brandy." The stuff was in short supply across the isle. There was a single bottle left in his room, and the one downstairs and then the stuff would be a memory. Unless the fog lifted soon. She'd spoken of the other side, so craning his neck to try to see her where she stood, he'd inquire, "I have heard the stuff is supernatural. I am glad that you are keeping busy. Boredom is a chief opponent of mine these days."
People stranded on the isle for months needed more largesse, even if they were soldiers happily on leave from the war's front in Europe. He'd be out that night spreading his coin around to purchase what spirits could be found and dancing, rather than walking on eggshells at home. As he peered looking after where she'd been pouring, he'd ask, "You... you still suffer as you have?"
Lady Llywellynn Devoreaux Esher: There was a hint of chill in the Esher house once more, now that Eli was no longer among the missing and unaccounted for. The Pixie however was not in the house at present, nor really anyone else for the moment other than Hiromi lingering in the backyard where Llyw had asked her to keep an eye on the haunted wreck of a house next door. The horrible thing shrieking in its depths only the seer could hear, something truly monstrous trying to claw its way into the living world without cease. Thankfully the cacophany was well blunted by the generous defenses provided by loved ones and the strong buzz she was striving to maintain. The widow grinned at his choice and pulled out another bottle of the good stuff, Armagnac of course, and two whiskey glasses to bring to the Ouiji board coffee table. "Second to last bottle of this, I'm afraid...After that...whiskey it is..." She wasn't sure if Absinthe was the best idea, considering...She sighed, navigating the spinning room with the skill of a long practiced lush, finally coming over to put the bottle and cups in front of Dorian to do the honors, before she was falling back more than sitting on the couch next to her guest. She brought the radiating heat of her fever and sweet fragrance with her, the fire burning in her an inescapable cauldron. Llyw turned to study Dorian, chancing the ache in her eyes from gazing on his perfect brilliant form, "You hadn't heard? Apparently some malevolent summoner... brought all this mess upon us....Your siblings told me..." The seer had to rest her head, leaning it back on the cushions though she kept her gaze steady on his, irises bleached so pale of the blue they once were with pupils hosting ember bright crimson instead of black. "I've...no time left to be bored..." She curled soft lips up wry and bitter, "The Curse....is always trying to take my life....So I have to find a way to break it....very soon I feel..." She sighed grimacing finally closing her eyes to rest from the splendrous light that poured from this man, frowning suddenly, her normally soft sweet tone sharpening like a blade drawn, "....and then there's the matter...of my damned husband...refusing to stay dead...*hic*..hunting for me.."
Today the Lady was entirely forthcoming on whatever Dorian might ask it seems, brandy having lowered most of her inhibitions by all the appearances of her half dressed tipsy state.
Dorian shifted to turn toward her then scooted to the edge of his seat to pour them both a few fingersworth of brandy. He poured with ease and as if it was his own bottle, his own glasses, in his own home with no compunctions. This while he replied, "Oh, yes, I had heard that from them, but I am rather at a loss about what to do about something like that. Such things are beyond my ken unlike--" He'd pick up her cup and reach to hand it her way before he'd use the same hand to palm his own beverage. With some amount of being appalled taking over his expression, drawing down his brows, he inquired, "Your dead husband is the one who has done this to you? What an ungallant bastard... I-- I cannot imagine what it must be like to suffer something such as you do. I reckon I would be howling mad given the same circumstances. And you do not seem mad at all. To you Lady Llyw and your uncommon resilience."
Lady Llywellynn Devoreaux Esher: As far as Llyw was concerned, Dorian's familiarity was as it should be, as friends and allies and whatever else the future might hold. She was glad for his company, to share a drink or more, and perhaps finally trade some words on the troubles at hand. She took the offered glass with a slender hand that was only slightly unsteady, "To your good fortunes too" she countered with a laugh before downing the serving all in one go, showing her throat again as she tilted back for it. Luckily she was not currently in the company of the vampire in her household, having not yet learned how best to not provoke such predators, but then again her scent was a sweet provocation over which she had no control. For the current gent luckily she just smelled rather nice hopefully. Llyw nodded grim to his assessment once she set the empty cup down for a refill, determined to keep her drunken state afloat, "I've offered...to Drystan to help...with dealing with whoever it is....But I am..still rather unpracticed...unfortunately."
She gestured in frustration, looking over to Dorian, her delicate face flushed with drink, rubies glittering on her cheeks and brow and chin, "I...don't know how...to fight, you see....Magic wise...or regular...I never thought ...I could try...but I've got no choice now..." She lifted her head enough to glance out the window nearest her side, always worried when that bastard might find her here before shaking her head at the golden one. "No...no, he didn't...Curse me himself.....Just made my life so..." English understatement kicked in for her at last at his appalled expression, "...miserable after it happened....The war got him so I could escape here....But he's followed to haunt me now...and hic do me in..." She sought another drink if he didn't pour one first, needing another full cup of the stuff to numb her misery, "Oh...I am mad...I just...ha...hiding it well, I suppose." Llyw really looked at Dorian, lifting her gaze from the liquid succor in the glass to his eyes of silvered gold light, soft lips undecided between a sad smile and a frown, making a quietly whispered offer that only strong brandy might make possible, "I...could show you...what I See...I think..If you are truly...curious, Dorian."
Dorian was dutiful and refilled the widow's cup when she downed it. He only sipped at his own, savouring flavour of it. Upon hearing her explain what she did, he thought for a moment he got it, but he did not. Rather than revealing how much he didn't understand he had another sip and considered, listened. At a certain point he was being gazed at and he returned the favour, staring into her eyes, and simply answered, at the first, "Yes." Setting his glass down in anticipation of what was coming, still just under a fingerfull, he'd shift his weight to face her then clarify, "I would see what you see." He did that with his sister already, sharing thoughts as they did, but a life of that had prepared him for dropping the pretense of words and what they couldn't truly encapsulate. He'd left the bottle on the ouija table as well as his glass, giving her an encouraging look, both brows lofted in the center of his forehead. He didn't know where to put his hands to they got folded into his lap where his legs were crossed.
Lady Llywellynn Devoreaux Esher: Llyw blinked abit surprised, at herself for offering, the words just popping out of her mouth with no filter, and equally surprised Dorian had accepted so readily. Up to this point the two had become somewhat of drinking buddies, but for some insights there was no other way to convey than directly. A drunk unpracticed accursed Psychic might not be the wisest choice to do so however. Llyw wasn't sure how to go about showing Dorian either, this the first time she was going to try to actively traipse into another's mind rather than on accident, the most catastrophic of such when she fell into Calliope's utter chaos of one and nearly lost herself. But with Jericho and Julius' mental bulwarks in place the seer hoped she had the means to control things this time. Brandy made her confident enough to try. She grinned rather wonderingly at him, her own brows rising, exhaling in a rush, "You really do?" Tiny catlike fangs revealed themselves as she set them on her bottom lip, worrying at the soft flesh for a second as she considered, then simply offered out her hands to him, palms open, her skin black as pitch except for deep ruby red whorls on her fingers and the lines of vivdly red rubies somehow growing from her surfaces. The gesture was actually unnecessary but served as the best focus she could think of, her eyes embercored gazing into his, Llyw's mental ability seeking to knock at Dorian's mind in any case much like he had arrived at her door earlier.
Dorian nodded that yes he really meant it and when she knocked inwardly, he responded that way too, <I am here.> He let his mind be open to her as far as he knew how to. He was accustomed to wordless speech from a time before he knew any sort of communication.
Lady Llywellynn Devoreaux Esher: Llywellynn was not perhaps like anyone he had mentally conversed with before, especially fueled by liquid inspiration. She was a powerful Psychic but one still barely conversant in how to wield such power. Dorian allowing his mind to open to hers let in perhaps more than was expected. Stubborn and strong willed as she was, Llyw brought her own mental landscape with her to some degree, perhaps like two worlds colliding or one shore appearing upon the edge of another. Llyw's inner mindscape appeared empty at first glance, austere in hue and aspect. A flat endless vista of beach, sea and sky disappearing into the distance. But the sky was oppressively thick grey filled with gloomy sourceless light. The land was a beach composed of pure obsidian sand and the sea that lapped it was vast and still, glistening of the blackest ink in a slow tide. Ink that thrummed as if with a life of its own, a feeling more than a sound that slid under every sense to dwell. But even this strange place that so persistently represented Llyw's mind was not as it seemed. The sky was shot through with a lurid red glow in the distance. Once focused upon the horizon revealed a towering monolith there, wreathed in fire a sentinal carved from deep red stone, one that looked like Jericho for those who knew him, bright streams of lava streaming down from his eyes to spill down to the sand and sea below and melt everything into an inferno. The ink of the sea boiled where this fury met even as thick tendrils of it wrapped like snakes up around that tower to form a collar of it around the figure's neck. The sand of the beach was not smooth once looked upon, shambling bodies rising up from it or flopping like fish cast up from the depths. Too many gnarled twisted figures, too many that looked like Llyw. This might be where her madness lay, shattered selves wailing like the dead around the thing that seemed to coil endless now upon this expanse. Writhing slowly under heavy stones of deepest red a serpentine beast withered to endless bony spurs and spines, a horror of a skeletal snake like head with a gaping maw of needle sharp fangs, far too many and a slithering nest of tongues hissing out from it, with empty eyeholes filled with a distant flickering candleflame. From this thing utter soul rending Malice radiated from, every gouging struggle of its spurs into the sand somehow shuddering through the widow to cause her pain, this perhaps the Curse clawing at her lifeforce. Llyw stood on this black shore of her mind on the boundary of Dorian's own, a small figure cloaked only in her long glittering hair and the darkness of her limbs. Her gaze held actual embers in their centers here, reflecting the fiery destruction eating away at her in torrents of lava to the sea. The rich layered sweetness of her scent was all pervasive here, emananting from that dark sea most of all along with lofting from her bare bejeweled skin.
She blinked startled and mortified to find herself in such a direct interface while still awake rather than dreaming, staring up wide eyed at Dorian in whatever state he might find himself in within this mental conduit blown wide open between them.
Dorian closed his eyes as he took in the mental imagery, to fully be there without some strange running together of what eyes saw versus what the mind did. He'd taken a small gasp bodily when he was stricken by the vision, and gritted his teeth against the fearsome things he was seeing. As though there was something he could do about it, his body tensed where he sat, as if coiling back in order to strike. Perhaps here in the mindscape, she'd see him as he saw himself. He was simply Dorian there, the man who'd been much the same since he was truly a young man. One with blond hair and grey eyes. One whose physicality was what he used to solve most problems he encountered. He was dressed much the same as he was back in her sitting room, no wings with their many eyes; he summoned them when he needed them, which made moving about the world and sitting in chairs a sight easier.
He used his inner voice to speak to her there and it sounded much the same as his spoken one, the same genteel accent alight through it, <This... this is hellish, Llyw. Can I--> He nodded his head toward the malicious creature and mimed, drawing one finger across his throat. He didn't think it'd work, nothing was that simple. But what if he could just wrestle the skeletal python and rid her of it like Apollo did for the world with he python. The very next moment he was taking in her form there and comparing it to what he considered her as. The being with him now was a far cry from the wrapped up widow.
Lady Llywellynn Devoreaux Esher: "Ah..Th..this isn't what I meant!" Llyw blurted, though whether she spoke mentally or in reality was uncertain, the border between the two states perhaps blurred at the moment. Exerting a greater effort to focus, the inebriated seer swayed on her feet even in her mind, trying to manifest what she had intended to share, rather than the hellish nightmare scape that always haunted her sleep. There was more than one reason the widow always looked so sleepless and weary.
Her concentration was broken momentarily however when she found herself gazing upon Dorian as he intended to be seen at last. A far more normal looking man than the sculpted eldritch wonder she Saw, but perhaps no less dashing of face and figure. She found herself wandering a gaze over his blond tousled locks, skin that was human rather than golden smooth and his eyes showing a man's stormy grey irises rather than the electrum luminance that eternity had granted him. "Oh...I never knew. This is how you look?" She murmured, almost gawking at him.
Lady Llywellynn Devoreaux Esher:
Herself by contrast was in her true form with nothing to hide behind except a thankfully long Lady Godiva style swath of her hair. But even that shimmering river of silver and ruby didn't obscure just how small and slim she was in every respect. Small and fierce she was, burning from within to light her up. The gems that gleamed in curling lines across her body were to be found over all of her. A sparkling warm luster gilded her surfaces. Pale silver etchings in Arabic ran down the center line of her figure all the way down, but she was turning away now. "Oh gods!" She gasped, turning beet red everywhere her pale skin showed, "W..why am I always... like this here?" Like any nightmare, apparently she showed up this way all the time.
Dorian's voice pulled her flaming face back towards his to shake her head desperate and frantic, "NO..No no...Hurting it...hurts me too." She hugged herself tight, huddling under the fall of her hair, sighing, "I...appreciate you wanting to....But I have to find a way...to
Lady Llywellynn Devoreaux Esher: survive killing it..and not myself along with it." She bit her lip again, brows drawn tight as she sought to reach out one tentative hand to him to try to metaphorically pull him out of this inadvertant hellscape she had got them into. "Come on...this isn't it..."
Dorian pulled his inward gaze up to her face after a cursory look up and down her. He was unshy, figuring she'd done it on purpose until she said otherwise and turned. From then on he kept his eyes up on hers and if she averted them, still he'd look at an ear or a horn. He was a man who took his chivalry seriously. He didn't gawp nor dwell on it, only showed her an expression of confusion when she said they were in the wrong place. <Oh. This--> He looked at his arms and legs when she asked about how he looked, then nodded abundantly, beginning to laugh. He couldn't help himself. Where he had agency over how he appeared he looked ordinary. He'd spent so much of his life looking just as she saw him in there. The godling had only emerged on Callisto and he explained, <Yes. This is me. You needn't be embarrassed Llyw, you've nothing to be ashamed of, hn?>
His face showed a gentle smile in both places, one inviting her to be calm and easy, presuming this would aid her on their mental journey. Inside, on their journey, he reached for her offered hand and if she allowed he'd close both his hands around hers. Even though he was not as warm as she was in the material world, in both places he was hot blooded. Vital. Frozen in time at his prime.
Lady Llywellynn Devoreaux Esher: Llyw was profoundly relieved Dorian was acting the gentleman. Many of the other supernaturals in her life would have taken advantage or at least teased her horribly about it. Perhaps in time the young widow might become bold in her pursuits, but she was still too shy and inexperienced to present herself this way apurpose. She peered up into his eyes at his last statement, searchingly, as if it had greater meaning for her than most. His mirth helped her gain some calm rather than distract, although the ghastly environment around them grew more oppressive.
Those blighted figures lurching closer like a horde of zombies, the undead serpent thing of the Curse thrashing raging under the temporary defenses holding it down, and the lava flowed hot and endless, destroying her inner world slowly but surely. And apparently all this was just some of the challenges the Lady Esher faced every day and night. At least this youngest Windgrace brother had at last gazed upon the face of his friend's doom, the huge snake thing that had Cursed her.
Llyw let Dorian clasp her hand in both of his, hers almost birdlike small between his palms, the sharing of mutual high body temperatures ensuring a steady source of warmth whilst holding hands. He was an embodied snapshot in time, of a gallant era long past perhaps or else he would continue to be the vanguard to carry such convictions into the future, his form fated to retain prime shape perhaps forever. She blushed abit brighter at his smile, but leaned into the calm he was trying to exude, bending her mouth slightly in apology, warning softly, "Let me try again...Though it won't be any more pleasant.." Her voice sounded the same whether she spoke inwardly or outwardly, still hardly speaking above a whisper most times.
The reason why might rapidly become apparent when the scenery shifted from her will's force. Her innerscape fell away, the Psychic trying to align his and her mental signatures just enough to rather allow for him to See with her eyes. Something she hadn't tried before deliberately though she had done it once before with the chaotic colorful Fae. For a brief dizzy moment perhaps Dorian might experience what Llyw did, if he allowed her influence to take the reins of his senses in a fleeting mental simulacrum.
If so, they were sitting on the couch in her home once more. But it was hell in another way. The building was in ruins, creaking and broken and filled with the rigors of decay upon every beam and surface. The world beyond was cold and dry as bone, a lightless gloom that still held a sepluchural light upon a dessicated wasteland littered with the dregs of every living soul's death and the detritus of what awaited after on this isle where all these spirits were trapped and unable to pass beyond.
The fog was perhaps the only saving grace to spare the brother from the mindbending soulsearing vistas that haunted the horizon beyond the black river of the dead.
But in the local range there were still a milling swarm of the restless dead, unmanifested ghosts that no normal person had to have any awareness of, a constant wailing and gnashing in various states of death and despair of ghastly distorted apparitions. Some of these spooks were crawling over the walls like bloated wispy spiders with limbs that didn't bend in the right ways. One eyeless spectre was drifting closer towards Llyw as she spoke so quietly, the feel of the harsh deathly air on her skin, the sound of the dead in her ears and worse, all beating upon her awareness in ways she couldn't stop.
Drinking helped alittle to fuzz her perceptions enough to view all of this horror through a softer lens, the version Dorian recieved in that brief glimpse perhaps. There was more, other things she grappled with daily; the agony of fire in her marrow that somehow didn't kill her, the chatter of all the minds within her range if she wasn't concentrating on shielding herself...and a faint but unmistakable scream of the universe, of everything, running along her nerves at all times.
Between one blink and the next, all this Dorian might experience as Llyw had originally but inexpertly intended. Then she was falling back on the couch gasping from the effort, a splitting headache putting a stop to this soused mental misadventure.
Dorian: || In that moment when he saw, felt, beheld as she did he gritted his teeth, clenched his jaw against that gray world teeming with death in places where life reigned in the material plane. When she fell back on the couch and he was freed from the vision he'd open his eyes like he was waking, but quickly. With a sharp gasp. He'd reach over intending to take her real hand much the same as he'd done in the mindscape, between both of his. "Llyw?! That was much worse than-- I am so sorry. Are you-- are you alright?" There was a furrow in his brow that had been there since he'd seen the first vision she showed him. She may have been inexpert, but she was working with a person who spoke with his wordless inner voice for years before he ever used his throaty one. His innate telepathy helped him to help her show him what she saw.
Lady Llywellynn Devoreaux Esher: Perhaps between the two of them, this mental exercise became possible. Showing what the seer's accursed life was like and perhaps illustrated just how strong her will must be to power through her days this way. Such insight might give rise to yet further questions or perhaps the younger brother had seen enough to deal with for the exchange of some brandy with the Lady. She clasped his hands as if a lifeline for a second before she blinked back to herself, wincing at the pain in her head. "I...I'm ok...I'm...sorry for all that...I just couldn't how to explain..." She was mumbling abit, her limited energy expended to leave her laying exhausted on the couch now.
Dorian took a liberty and would hug her. He'd pull her close, for a moment put his arms around her, and then almost as soon as he was there, he'd spring up to leave the couch to her so that she could stretch out. "Llyw, you rest. You just rest now. You have naught to apologize for. I will come check on you again soon."
That said he was backing away to the door, thinking about what he'd seen. He'd close the doors behind himself and if possible lock them too.
Lady Llywellynn Devoreaux Esher: Llyw was feverish and soft in Dorian's embrace, she murmured incoherent, falling delirious into a nap as her guest let himself out with those visions dancing through his mind.