Over~

[MissMurderPaws]

Over.

[MissMurderPaws]

Over!

[AidenFaoladh]

Spoiler

Lyra wandered the viciously cold streets, alone. He parents were killed when she was young. No looking where she was going, she bumped into a man. Lyra gasped. He starred down at her with intense golden eyes. He had black unruly hair, open rimmed glasses, and he wore a tail coat.
"I-I'm sorry", she said bowing. He said nothing, he just starred. She looked around, then realization hit her. "Its the tail isn't it?" She absentmindedly twitched her ears. He still said nothing. She was starting to feel uncomfortable.
"M-my name's Lyra Bell. What's yours?" She held out her hand. He grinned, in an evil way, bowed before her, grabbed her hand, brushed his lips against it, and spoke. "Claude Faustus, my lady". She blushed. It started to rain. Claude took out an umbrella, and held it over her.
"You look half starved. Why don't you come with me? we can get you out of the rain, and into some nice dry clothes", she had no choice, she felt, then to go. He led her through town, and to a large manor, with golden gates. They opened without any indication that he touched, or signaled in anyway.
She was led inside, and into a washroom. Claude told her she should enjoy herself, and take a nice hot bath. Gladly, she waited till he left, and stripped off her old, wet clothes. She soaked in a hot, bubbly tub, for what could have been an hour.
"Having fun?" Lyra's eyes snapped open, and she nearly jumped out. He was standing over her. She pulled the bubbles tighter around her exposed body. He handed her a towel, and turned around. She wrapped it around herself, taking the clothes he'd offered.
She changed quickly, and was more or less, dragged to a large dinning hall. Claude set a plate of food down in front of her, which she happily wolfed, getting in the occasional "thank you", between mouthfuls.
"why not stay the night?", He had the chilling smile again. In any other situation, she would have refused, but she was tired, full, and warmer then she'd been in a very long time. she followed him to a large bedroom, that seemed as if it hadn't been occupied in years.
he pulled back the covers for her, she couldn't stop thanking him, though now a pit of unease rested in her stomach. Claude was holding a candle stick, which was quite uncommon nowadays. He blew out the lights, while retreating through the door he bade a very scary 'good night'.
Lyra woke up to a bright light. She opened her eyes, Claude was pulling the curtains open. She felt odd, like a spider web was wrapped around her, though she, nor Claude, could see anything.
Lyra couldn't thank him enough as she started to walk out the door.
"Wait", he called. "How would you like a job? It pays fairly, you'd get a room, and three meals a day", she stopped and turned around.
"That would be wonderful", she smiled, tears streaming down her face.

[MissMurderPaws]

Beautiful.

[Feathers]

*bookmarks thread* Fun characters. c: I'll come back and post an entry later, but I must away to bed now, ha ha.

[MissMurderPaws]

bump

[Feathers]

*pokes her nose back into the thread* CX

Spoiler

"The Deal"

Claude couldn't remember what he'd done last night, but it must have been fun. Only a good night of revelry and merriment left you with a headache like the one he was experiencing now. And did that feel like cobblestone or a curb under his head?

He opened his left eye just a slit, then hissed and shut it again at the bright sunlight. Still, he'd caught a glimpse of the outside world and he was right: he was lying sprawled on a sidewalk. What in hells had he done last night?

"Hey, are you all right?"

Who was shouting at him? Claude tried to prop himself up into a sitting position without opening his eyes, but his elbows slipped and he ended up just sort of lounging on the ground, leaning his head back. Very, very slowly, he cracked his eyes open again and this time, there was a person in the way of the blinding midmorning sun. He bravely opened his eyes a bit further in order to peer more closely at the person blessedly blocking the light.

The girl looked down at him with her left eyebrow tilted up at the end just slightly, like someone trying to be kind but inwardly feeling a bit skeptical. Her mouth quirked up at the corners when he made eye contact with you, clearly her attempt at a polite smile. "Are you all right?" she repeated, her slit green eyes darting to take in his dress and face quickly.

Claude blinked up at her with bleary interest; clearly, she thought him entirely incapacitated, which was a perception he didn't mind perpetuating. As he woke up bit by bit more, he felt less and less hungover as his magic began to absorb and kill the excess toxin in his system, but it wouldn't hurt for the girl to keep feeling sympathy for him. She was a pretty thing, blonde hair swept in fetching waves over her shoulder, alert cat ears tilted forward at him. A long, foxish tail the color of her hair waved softly back and forth behind her. Claude didn't miss her nails and teeth in his evaluation, longer than humans would have and likely sharper, as well.

He half hoped kitty liked to scratch.

"Hello, lovely girl," he drawled, purposefully slurring his words together a bit. The girl flushed a delectable shade of pinkish red. "Whassyour name?" Okay, now he was overdoing it a bit; in recompense, he sat up fully and crossed his ankles over each other, putting his elbows on his knees and propping his chin on his fists to look up at the girl.

The skeptical incline of her eyebrow increased and she rolled her eyes as if to cover her obvious embarrassment. But she wasn't fooling Claude. "Whatever," she scoffed under her breath, turning to continue walking down the sidewalk, as she'd apparently been doing before she stopped and woke Claude.

Well, that wouldn't do at all, would it? Claude leapt to his feet lightly, only to accidentally stagger forward, crashing into the girl's retreating back. Oops. Maybe he wasn't as sober now as he thought.

The girl squealed and whirled around underneath him, trying to squirm out from under his taller height, but Claude, pretending he couldn't help it, merely wrapped his arms around her shoulders as if for balance. Tensing, the girl froze, unmoving, clearly waiting for Claude to steady himself and let go. Which he did, a few moments after he should have, though his knees remained a little weak.

"My apologies, my girl," he said with an uneven nod, wobbling a bit on his own two feet. The girl blinked at him, tilted her head, seeming unsure of whether he was really incapacitated or not. Claude had to admit, he didn't really make it easy.

"Um, 's'okay," she said slowly, rubbing the tip of her left ear in what appeared to be a nervous gesture. "Well. Um. Goodbye." She made to turn again, but Claude leaned closer, catching the tip of her chin in his thumb and forefinger. Again she froze as they stared into each other's eyes.

Claude smiled softly, genuinely for the first time in a while. He didn't know what it was, maybe the doubting, nervous glint of her eyes or the fact that she had saved his eyes from the sunlight for a moment, but he liked this girl, and she interested him. And he was used to being bored, especially by people. "My name is Claude Faustus," he told the girl quietly, his voice just above a whisper. In the early morning, people of the town passed by on their various errands and journeys. Rustlerush was a 'tweentown, one that straddled the borders of the mortal realm and the magic one; a girl with cat ears and a boy with darkly gleaming eyes were no strange sight. In fact, Claude was sometimes happy and sometimes sad to note, his particular favorite coat, the tail coat he'd picked up some two hundred years ago and gone to great lengths to keep nice, had come into a sort of fashion here. He was no longer out-of-place in his open-rimmed glasses and his tail coat; he was in vogue. It annoyed him.

The girl stared back at him half-defiantly, half in fear. "Okay, nice to meet you, let go of my chin," she hissed, all in one breath. Her fingers twitched in Claude's peripherals, at her sides.

Claude had to hold back a chuckle. The girl had really hissed.

"What's your name?" he asked again, more clearly this time. "I'd like to exchange it for mine." He grinned widely.

The girl sighed and jerked her face away, but she didn't turn away again. "I'm Lyra," she told him, looking away. "Lyra Bell."

"Lyra Bell," he repeated the name, rolling it around in his mouth. "Lyra, Lyra, Bell Bell Bell. Quite a lovely name." The girl blushed again, and the corner of Claude's mouth twitched as if wanting to smile. "Lyra Bell, may I ask you why your name sounds so familiar?"

Lyra blinked at him, shrugged uncomfortably and began visibly looking for an escape route. "No. I mean, I don't know. Um. I have to go." She turned away and walked quickly down the sidewalk, but Claude followed beside her, matching her pace, his balance restored in the few moments of banter. Lyra looked sideways at Claude, her ears pressed lightly to her skull. "Leave me alone."

Shaking his head as if chastizing, Claude kept next to her. "Bell, now, that's an uncommon last name. Surely you're not the Bell girl who was questioned in the death of those wizards, the, what was it, the Darkling brothers?" Claude had to repress a snarl of his lips at saying those names. He hated those brothers with a surprising amount of passion for people he barely knew. They were seven brothers, humans from a long line of magic practitioners, but unlike their respectful ancestors, several of whom had been Claude's acquaintances, the current Darkling family consisted of a lot of loud, brutish young men who thought it silly that magical beings like Claude weren't doing more to serve their human side of the veil. A week ago, two of the brothers had been found dead, George and Raven, and the whole town was in an uproar. The Darkling brothers swore revenge on the parties involved, and with their various connections to the seedy underbelly of the 'tweentown, the vengeance they had in mind wasn't likely to be kind, swift, or honorable.

And Claude had agreed to meet the eldest brother, Jack, for a drink last night, just one, to discuss whether Claude would become their brother. Claude had flatly refused...

...and that was the last thing he remembered.

Oh, yes. He hated the Darklings.

At the words, Lyra stopped, whirled, stared at Claude. "No!" she cried a little too loudly, attracting some looks from the passersby. "No," she repeated more quietly, looking at her feet. "I'm not."

Claude's mouth twitched again. "Now, that wasn't very convincing at all, dear," he told her, patting her shoulder. "Luckily for you, I am no friend of the Darklings myself." At his dark tone, Lyra looked up to meet his eyes, and she jumped slightly, as if startled by the venom there.

It seemed to convince her that he was in earnest, because she shrugged again. "Even if I was the girl questioned in their deaths, I would have had a good reason. Like they tried to...attack me." Claude raised his eyebrows, and she said quickly, "But I'm not her. Because it'd be stupid of her to hang around Rustlerush with accusations like that going around, even if they weren't true."

"Of course," Claude murmured. An idea was beginning to grow in his mind, just a small sprout, but it had promise. He'd love dearly to get rid of the Darklings for good, but he had no way to draw them into physical combat; their fights were all dirty, performed in secret back rooms and far-reaching spells. But if this girl had really killed two of them, by herself...she'd be a valuable ally.

Not to mention bait.

Having reached a conclusion, Claude said aloud, "You know, if you were involved in their deaths--" she opened her mouth, but he spoke faster, raising a white-gloved hand, "--which you weren't, you'd have sympathizers. Such as myself, for example." She listened with her ears creeping slowly forward, her eyes getting sharper and sharper. She was interested. "You'd have in me an ally, someone to keep you safe and even help you after the deaths of all the Darklings." He fingered the sleeve of her battered shirt, clearly worn after years of use. "You could use some new things, probably some food, a place to stay...and I could offer those things. Totally innocently, of course. Only in your best interests." She raised her eyebrow again at this, but said nothing. "If you were her, of course. Alas. You're not." He shrugged, mimicking her, and sighed melodramatically. "I'd best away, then, miss Lyra Be--"

"Wait." Now it was her hand on his shoulder and Claude who was freezing in place. "Say I was involved in that whole mess. Which I'm not. Are you serious? Would you seriously offer a...partnership to this girl?"

Claude turned to look down at Lyra, her serious, anxious, desperate green eyes, the pupils nearly gone with stress, her ears flat against her head. She looked like a half-starved kitten in the rain, forlorn and lonely and heartbreakingly hopeful.

Claude smiled at her and offered her his hand. "Of course I would, my pet."

Lyra looked at his hand, back at him, and, very slowly, she put her hand in his and gave it a quick shake. "It's a deal, then," she said softly.

Claude nodded. "A deal," he repeated. A deal, indeed.

[MissMurderPaws]

LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!! YOU GOT HIS PERSONALITY PERFECTLY!!!!!

[Feathers]

LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!! YOU GOT HIS PERSONALITY PERFECTLY!!!!!

Ha ha, I'm glad you liked it. It was fun to write! =]

[MissMurderPaws]

BUMPEH