Encounterlogs
Coltons Odd Encounter Sr Peyton 250511
At the quiet dawn on Sidney Beach, Colton encounters a peculiar fortune teller's tent that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Drawn by curiosity and the uncanny accuracy of his surroundings that hinted at a deeper lore, he enters to meet Zahira, a mysterious woman with an alluring presence. She claims to offer truths that Colton suspects but has yet to confront, offering readings for a price not monetary but personal. Despite his initial reservations, influenced partly by a psychic tug at his senses and his own underlying abilities, Colton decides to engage, drawn into Zahira's web of seduction and foretelling. The cards reveal ominous signs: The Tower, The Moon, and Judgement, suggesting upheaval, confusion, and a reckoning, echoing Zahira's cryptic allusions to impending doom and an opportunity for Colton to play a pivotal role in what's yet to come.
The narrative takes a darker turn as Zahira, revealing her affiliation with The Black Flame, attempts to enlist Colton into their cause, promising him a place in the aftermath of the world’s end. Despite her sensual attempts to sway him, Colton's confrontation reveals his disgust and opposition towards the cult's nihilistic agenda. Zahira's dramatic suicide, after dropping the protective wards and summoning fire as her testament, leaves Colton battling to extinguish the ensuing blaze and dealing with the aftermath of her death, pondering the significance of her final prophecy about The Black Flame. The encounter shifts from a seemingly benign interaction into a significant, potentially world-altering revelation, marking a pivotal moment that challenges Colton's beliefs and foreshadows further conflict with the dark cult’s eschatological ambitions.
(Colton's odd encounter(SRPeyton):SRPeyton)
[Sat May 10 2025]
At Sidney Beach
It is morning, about 69F(20C) degrees,
(A member of The Black Flame, disguised as a simple fortune teller, has set up a tent in Haven's local fair. Your target or their allies have a chance encounter with this fortune teller who divines their future. The reading is disturbingly accurate and foretells doom, aligning with the cult's belief in the impending end. The fortune teller subtly tries to convert them to their cause, and if that fails, they may resort to more forceful or manipulative tactics. The characters must discover the fortune teller's true identity and intentions, and ultimately decide how to handle this agent of The Black Flame.)
The tide rolls in slow and steady under a pale sky, the morning sun just beginning to burn off the ocean mist. The beach is nearly empty at this hour, save for the hush of waves and the occasional cry of a gull echoing over the chilled sand. Damp sea air clings to everything, carrying with it the scent of salt and wet dune grass. A light breeze stirs the tufts along the edge of the shore, and the nearby town is still only beginning to stir.
Somewhere between the dunes and the footpath, a striped tent now stands where no structure had been before. It's colors, dull red and sun-faded cream, sag slightly in the early breeze. The canvas walls are staked firmly into the sand, yet there are no tracks, no signs of labor, no disturbed ground. A narrow sign swings above its entrance: 'FORTUNE TELLER,' the lettering ornate, the paint cracked but legible. It is as if it settled into place overnight, unseen, and entirely uninvited.
Colton's nostrils flare as he inhales deeply, savouring the beachside smells; ocean mist, seaweed, the traces of the few fish he'd managed to catch and throw back that morning. The Moore had spend a lot of time here on Sidney Beach, and in his estimation, only a Salte could claim to love it better.
So when he spots the faded tent, his eyebrows lift with faint surprise. The little festival area by the campfire hadn't been used in a year or two! He reels in his empty line - he'd been fishing without bait - and sets the ratty and weathered fishing pole down in the sand as he trudges across the beach to investigate.
"Fortune teller my left nut," he mutters. The only prophecy he'd ever been given with any confidence had spelled out his own death. "Maybe you've got good news for me, though. Let's see." He pushes through the entrance flap, taking a look around.
Inside the tent, the light dims to a warm, filtered glow, cast through layers of gauzy fabric and strands of glass beads that sway ever so slightly with the breeze. The air is fragrant with something heady and unfamiliar, resinous smoke, crushed herbs, and sweet spices clinging to the velvet-lined walls. Furniture that looks like it belongs in an old-world parlor sits arranged in careful clutter: low cushioned stools, tasseled pillows, a side table covered in cards and bones, and the centerpiece, a crystal orb set in a claw-footed stand atop a table draped in shimmering cloth.
Behind it sits a woman with dark golden skin and long black hair coiled into a loose braid. Her body is voluptuous, generously shaped, her full chest framed by the deep plunge of her blouse, the jeweled embroidery drawing the eye to the dramatic curve of her cleavage. The fabric strains across the soft weight of her breasts, as though the garment were doing its best to hold back something far too abundant. It is a distraction difficult to ignore, warring for attention with the magnetic pull of her eyes, which are lined in kohl and glow pale amber, nearly gold, in the strange light. Silver bangles circle both wrists, and her presence is magnetic, poised between sensuality and authority.
"You have walked far to reach a truth you already suspect," she says, her voice lilting with a Syrian accent, smooth and edged with smoky vowels. One hand gestures for him to sit. "But the cards can still speak, if you wish to hear them. For a small offering, I will open the path."
"Good morning," Colton says, puffing out a breath of amusement through his nose. Generally, he isn't one to indulge others without much reason... but in the moment, he decides to indulge himself and his own curiosity, moving to sit across the cloth-draped table. Someone unfamiliar with him might think the way he glances down to her hands is some attempt at courtesy - to avoid staring at her pendulous ta-tas. In truth, it's the silver on his wrists that sears at his attention, the mere presence of the werewolf's bane causing a psychosomatic tingle on his skin.
"Alright," he says, leaning forwards a little. "What's your price, fortune teller? And what should I call you?"
She watches him with a smile that seems to shift as the candlelight flickers, soft and youthful one moment, then touched with a more mature composure the next, as if experience lingers just beneath the surface of her poise. Her hand drifts to the base of the crystal ball, long fingers resting there as though listening to some slow rhythm beneath the glass.
"Names are flexible things," she says, her accent curling around the syllables. "I've been called dove, flame, trouble, blessing... which would you choose for me, I wonder?" Her eyes hold his for a moment, amusement flickering beneath the amber glow. "But for now, Zahira will do. It rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?"
She leans in slightly, the motion subtle but enough to shift the weight of her chest against the straining blouse, a quiet reminder of presence and shape. "And the price? Nothing so dire," she murmurs. "A secret you have never spoken aloud. Just one. You whisper it here, and the cards will listen." Her expression is calm, patient. "Truth for truth. That is fair, is it not?"
Leaning back sharply, Colton grimaces at 'Zahira', his disinclination towards spilling his secrets written naked across his face, unhidden and unamused.
"I don't know if you're just some performer testing the waters with a new audience," he says, his moue as easily heard in his voice as it is seen on his lips. "But this is the wrong damn town to start asking people to spill their secrets, lady. Reconsider this little act, whatever it is." He frowns, and invisible, psychic tendrils begin to stretch out from his mind to hers, laced with anxiety and alarm ready to be implanted right behind the barriers of her rational mind. What he offers is a deeper, more animal agitation than rationale was ready to deal with.
Zahira's eyes flicker, not with surprise, but with a brief ripple of tension behind their amber light. The air stills around her, the gauzy hangings in the tent settling as though holding their breath. Her lips part slightly, her expression seems vulnerable, soft. Then she smiles, slower this time, almost apologetic, though the sultry edge never quite leaves her voice.
"Oh, but you misunderstand me," she says, her tone a murmur, warm and low, brushing against the edges of breath like silk against skin. She leans forward just enough to draw the light down her neckline again, the shift subtle and practiced, the movement graceful without seeming calculated. Her lashes lower for a moment, as though offering him a glimpse of something more earnest beneath the mystery.
"No secrets then," she concedes, her voice softer now. "No payment at all. I would be glad to read for you freely... as a courtesy. A gift." Her fingers brush lightly along the edge of the table, her bracelets catching no light, bare skin gleaming instead. "I did not mean to offend. You have such... strong presence. It unsettled me, just a little. You must forgive a woman alone in a strange place."
She tilts her head just enough to let the candlelight catch on her cheekbone and collarbone alike, her smile returning with a slight, teasing curve. "Let me try again, Colton. No tricks. Just cards. Will you stay?" She strokes her crystal ball coaxingly.
The mention of his name stirs Colton a little, but it's a little paranoid to assume something's amiss just from that - he's wearing a jacket with his full name written right across it, after all.
"I dunno about this lone woman, strange place thing," he grouses, then blows out the rest of his misgivings with a steady exhale. "Fine," he says. "Are we going with the cards or the crystal ball? Does it make any difference?" He glances down at the creases of his hands - maybe she'd want to give him a palm-reading. It was getting close to the full moon, though. He's better attuned than most - he was already feeling twitchy. "I don't suppose you've seen how to save the world from the direction it's headed in yet, have you?"
Zahira watches him in silence for a breath, her expression unreadable. Then, with a slow movement that draws attention to the deep plunge of her blouse, she reaches somewhere unseen beneath the table, and when her hand returns, it carries a small, time-worn deck of cards. There had been no visible pouch, no shelf, no box, only the sudden presence of the deck in her hand, as if drawn from the tent's very shadows.
She begins to shuffle with practiced grace, the cards whispering together in rhythm, each pass of her hands making her chest shift with a soft, hypnotic quiver beneath the jeweled embroidery. The weight of her breasts strains her blouse anew as she leans slightly forward over the table, her voice low and coaxing. "You did ask," she says, her smile curling at one corner, "so let us see what answers the world wants to give."
The first card turns over beneath her fingers. "The Tower," she murmurs. A black spire erupts in flame as figures fall from its shattered top. "Sudden collapse. A violent end to something that never deserved to last. The ground always shakes before the truth rises."
She lays the second. "The Moon." A path winds under a swollen, blood-tinged moon, flanked by silent towers. "Confusion. Madness. The moment before revelation. You are already near it, whether you know it or not."
Then the third. Her fingers pause for just a beat before she turns it. "Judgement." A horn echoes above the risen dead, calling them from ash. Her voice softens as she looks up at him. "Not mercy. Not balance. Reckoning. You are not outside it, Colton. You are already within it."
She leans in, her tone growing more intimate, smoky with fear and allure both. "I have seen it. Fire under water. A sky turning red. It comes fast. Not in centuries. Not even years. The world ends in pieces, and they fall quicker than anyone dares say." Her eyes shine with a strange mix of dread and temptation.
"But someone like you," she whispers, her breath brushing the space between them, "could have a place in it. Not as a savior, but as a hand at the wall. Helping pull it all down."
Her finger traces a slow arc along the edge of the final card, the candlelight catching in her amber eyes. "The Tower. The Moon. Judgement. They say what I cannot. But I think you already feel it, don't you?"
Reaching up to scratch at his jaw, Colton stares down at the cards with a mixture of suspicion and intrigue. This wasn't arcanism - it would be burning against his skin if it was. But the woman had managed to worm her way into his head with his voice. He knew about hot reading and cold reading, or at least he thought he did. He had developed an interest in false psychics as he'd experimented with his own paranormal abilities, years ago.
"Maybe there's something to you," he concedes, leaning back, forcing his eyes to scan upwards from the cards to Zahira's face without arresting themselves anywhere they shouldn't. The Wilson Syndicate might have eyes in here, somehow. "Or you're just good at guessing what people want to hear." He honeys his words with psychic influence, curious to hear her response. "Tell me about yourself," he says. "Why are you here? Why set up this tent? Are you working for someone?"
He shivers subtly as the vital energies wean from him in the use of his abilities, but with the closeness of the full moon's rise, he has plenty to share, simmering away in his gut. He just had to keep a lid on it long enough to properly savour it when the time came.
Zahira's breath catches softly in her throat as his influence works through her, loosening whatever restraint she had left. She rises from her stool with deliberate grace, the motion slow and liquid, her hips swaying beneath the curve-hugging fabric of her skirt. As she turns, her backside is put on full display, round and plush, the sway of it exaggerated by the subtle roll of her steps. The candlelight licks along the smooth arcs of her thighs and the taut stretch across her ass as she bends low before the velvet-draped chest tucked in shadow.
She rummages with delicate care, her back arched, her blouse riding up ever so slightly as the hem of her skirt tugs across her curves. The motion is unhurried, seductive, her body speaking in gestures just as much as her voice does when she begins to answer.
"I do not lie to you, Colton," she says, her voice honeyed and low. "I came here because it is already happening. The unraveling. It is not a distant doom waiting in centuries or even years. There are only weeks left. Just weeks." Her tone thickens, as if she can taste the weight of it in the air. "The signs are in everything now. In the oceans, in the silence between birdsong, in the dreams people will not remember when they wake."
She straightens slowly, hips swaying again as she turns. Her hands remain hidden behind her back, wrists crossed neatly, her spine arched just enough to thrust her chest forward and draw his eye back to the straining curve of her breasts. Her lips part, wet and flushed, and when she speaks again, her voice is velvet.
"The Black Flame does not destroy for the sake of it. It reveals. It burns away the lie so something truer can breathe." Her eyes find his, low and wanting. "You are already part of it. You feel it, don't you? That pressure building inside you. That ache just beneath your skin. You could fight it, or you could let it out. You could help pull down the old world and shape the bones of the next."
She steps closer, her body warm with closeness, her chest rising slowly with every breath. Her lips hover near his ear. "Come with me. Be fire instead of ash."
As good as Colton's being, and as faithful as he intends to stay to his partner, he is still a red-blooded man with superhuman perceptive abilities and a bellyful of feral instincts only waiting for the next ray of moonlight to break out. Of course he permits himself a glance or two, sizing up the ample serving of meat and flesh being presented. His lips peel back slowly, threatening to bare hungry teeth - and then she draws close, and he leans back, hesitating to move for a lack of control. Lust and fucking are only ephemeral appeals, easily dismissed - but his stomach rumbles audibly with a perverse, lupine appetite as her proximity lets her scent cut through the incense.
And then she opens her fucking mouth. Colton's not paralysed in place as she whispers her piece, punctuated by breathy sighs and hooded glances. His stiffness has nothing to do with arousal. The tremor in his clenched fingers is not born of anticipation.
"Do you," he asks, his already-raspy voice drawn even more hoarse, "Have any fucking idea who you're talking to?" He floats up to his feet away from someone, turning to offer her a baleful stare. "You void-worshipping fucks are who I hate the most. You want to sell our fucking world in the hopes of transformation into some twisted, misshapen pile of meat?" He lunges forwards, his hands snapping out to try and grip Zahira's head between his palms, fingertips digging into the sensitive skin of her face and scalp. "Say the fucking word and you won't need some eldritch being to handle that. I can crush you myself. If you're so in love with your own annihilation, fucking prove it. Drop your sanctuary."
As good as Colton's being, and as faithful as he intends to stay to his partner, he is still a red-blooded man with superhuman perceptive abilities and a bellyful of feral instincts only waiting for the next ray of moonlight to break out. Of course he permits himself a glance or two, sizing up the ample serving of meat and flesh being presented. His lips peel back slowly, threatening to bare hungry teeth - and then she draws close, and he leans back, hesitating to move for a lack of control. Lust and fucking are only ephemeral appeals, easily dismissed - but his stomach rumbles audibly with a perverse, lupine appetite as her proximity lets her scent cut through the incense.
And then she opens her fucking mouth. Colton's not paralysed in place as she whispers her piece, punctuated by breathy sighs and hooded glances. His stiffness has nothing to do with arousal. The tremor in his clenched fingers is not born of anticipation.
"Do you," he asks, his already-raspy voice drawn even more hoarse, "Have any fucking idea who you're talking to?" He floats up to his feet away from the apocalyptic oracle, turning to offer her a baleful stare. "You void-worshipping fucks are who I hate the most. You want to sell our fucking world in the hopes of transformation into some twisted, misshapen pile of meat?" He lunges forwards, his hands snapping out to try and grip Zahira's head between his palms, fingertips digging into the sensitive skin of her face and scalp. "Say the fucking word and you won't need some eldritch being to handle that. I can crush you myself. If you're so in love with your own annihilation, fucking prove it. Drop your sanctuary."
Zahira does not flinch as his hands snap forward, as his fingers press into her scalp and jaw with the strength of something barely caged. Her breath comes faster, not in panic, but in something close to ecstasy, her amber eyes locked onto his with a gleam that borders on rapture. The pressure of his grip deepens the flush across her chest, and her lips curl, not in fear, but in triumph.
"I do know who I'm talking to," she whispers, her voice trembling with pain and pleasure alike. "That's why you're here. That's why it has to be you."
And then she screams, with a voice that rings out unnaturally loud, bursting with something old and sharp and triumphant.
"Revocacionem protectione sanctuarium!"
The air shudders. The wards drop.
Immediately, from somewhere just beyond the canvas, there is the shattering crack of glass and the sudden whoosh of fire catching. A lick of flame curls up one side of the tent wall, red and gold and hungry. Outside, the pounding of feet begins, boots hammering the sand in retreat, and then the roar of motorbike engines tearing away into the distance, the sound Dopplering down the coastline.
Zahira's arms move in a blur.
From behind her back, one hand lashes out, a curved blade clutched tight in her fingers. Its blackened hilt is wrapped in stained cloth, its edge chipped and jagged, but the point is clean, viciously clean.
With a gasp that's almost a moan, she plunges it into her own chest, just beneath the swell of her breast, the blade driving deep to the hilt with no hesitation. Her back arches, head thrown back in a final, ecstatic motion. Blood wells in thick rivulets across the pale curve of her skin, staining her blouse and darkening the embroidered cloth.
Her lips part one last time, the breath behind them broken but euphoric.
"It begins...The Black Flame Rises" she rasps, then crumples, the flame-glow licking across her face as her body folds around the dagger.
Colton's lip curls in disgust as his meal is snatched away from him, and as the false prophet's blood pressure drops and her consciousness goes with it, he drops her dying body with a heavy thump to land on her head. Perhaps the fall even pushes the dagger that much deeper into her chest - he's stopped caring already. Fire is a problem. The uniquely explosive nature of his blood and flesh exacerbates that problem. Thankfully, they're on the beach, and this is only a tent. He could handle a tent. The werewolf throws his hands out to the side, clenching his fingers to grasp at the air, then rips his arms upwards, tearing the tentcloth loose of the sand with a yell of effort. He wasn't nearly as strong when he couldn't apply his physical gifts to a situation, but he's got this, he's got this, he knows he's got this. As the burning fabric lifts high, it crumples into a heavy ball, and he forces it to arc across the sands, landing in the near shore with a heavy slap and a splash. "Fucking hell," he coughs, spitting up some of the grit in the smoke he'd managed to breathe. The furniture's easier - he hunches over to begin digging up sand and throwing it over the fire in massive gouts of loose earth. He'd case for witnesses later. God damn fucking Black Flame...
The smoke thins as the tide rolls in closer, dragging the edges of burned canvas into the water. It's almost noon now, and the sunlight falls flat and unforgiving, bleaching the scene of its earlier mystique. Zahira's body lies sprawled in the sand, one leg twisted beneath her, blood soaked deep into the fabric around the wound and pooling beneath her ribs. Her blouse hangs open where the dagger punched through, the skin around it torn and swollen, dark with bruising. What had once seemed lush and alluring in the flicker of candlelight now looks deflated and raw, her chest slack with death, smeared in grit and congealed blood, the illusion of beauty long since burned away.
She had spoken like a prophet and died like a fanatic, and her final words still lingered, heavy and unwelcome, having taken the place of the pungent smoke.
The narrative takes a darker turn as Zahira, revealing her affiliation with The Black Flame, attempts to enlist Colton into their cause, promising him a place in the aftermath of the world’s end. Despite her sensual attempts to sway him, Colton's confrontation reveals his disgust and opposition towards the cult's nihilistic agenda. Zahira's dramatic suicide, after dropping the protective wards and summoning fire as her testament, leaves Colton battling to extinguish the ensuing blaze and dealing with the aftermath of her death, pondering the significance of her final prophecy about The Black Flame. The encounter shifts from a seemingly benign interaction into a significant, potentially world-altering revelation, marking a pivotal moment that challenges Colton's beliefs and foreshadows further conflict with the dark cult’s eschatological ambitions.
(Colton's odd encounter(SRPeyton):SRPeyton)
[Sat May 10 2025]
At Sidney Beach
It is morning, about 69F(20C) degrees,
(A member of The Black Flame, disguised as a simple fortune teller, has set up a tent in Haven's local fair. Your target or their allies have a chance encounter with this fortune teller who divines their future. The reading is disturbingly accurate and foretells doom, aligning with the cult's belief in the impending end. The fortune teller subtly tries to convert them to their cause, and if that fails, they may resort to more forceful or manipulative tactics. The characters must discover the fortune teller's true identity and intentions, and ultimately decide how to handle this agent of The Black Flame.)
The tide rolls in slow and steady under a pale sky, the morning sun just beginning to burn off the ocean mist. The beach is nearly empty at this hour, save for the hush of waves and the occasional cry of a gull echoing over the chilled sand. Damp sea air clings to everything, carrying with it the scent of salt and wet dune grass. A light breeze stirs the tufts along the edge of the shore, and the nearby town is still only beginning to stir.
Somewhere between the dunes and the footpath, a striped tent now stands where no structure had been before. It's colors, dull red and sun-faded cream, sag slightly in the early breeze. The canvas walls are staked firmly into the sand, yet there are no tracks, no signs of labor, no disturbed ground. A narrow sign swings above its entrance: 'FORTUNE TELLER,' the lettering ornate, the paint cracked but legible. It is as if it settled into place overnight, unseen, and entirely uninvited.
Colton's nostrils flare as he inhales deeply, savouring the beachside smells; ocean mist, seaweed, the traces of the few fish he'd managed to catch and throw back that morning. The Moore had spend a lot of time here on Sidney Beach, and in his estimation, only a Salte could claim to love it better.
So when he spots the faded tent, his eyebrows lift with faint surprise. The little festival area by the campfire hadn't been used in a year or two! He reels in his empty line - he'd been fishing without bait - and sets the ratty and weathered fishing pole down in the sand as he trudges across the beach to investigate.
"Fortune teller my left nut," he mutters. The only prophecy he'd ever been given with any confidence had spelled out his own death. "Maybe you've got good news for me, though. Let's see." He pushes through the entrance flap, taking a look around.
Inside the tent, the light dims to a warm, filtered glow, cast through layers of gauzy fabric and strands of glass beads that sway ever so slightly with the breeze. The air is fragrant with something heady and unfamiliar, resinous smoke, crushed herbs, and sweet spices clinging to the velvet-lined walls. Furniture that looks like it belongs in an old-world parlor sits arranged in careful clutter: low cushioned stools, tasseled pillows, a side table covered in cards and bones, and the centerpiece, a crystal orb set in a claw-footed stand atop a table draped in shimmering cloth.
Behind it sits a woman with dark golden skin and long black hair coiled into a loose braid. Her body is voluptuous, generously shaped, her full chest framed by the deep plunge of her blouse, the jeweled embroidery drawing the eye to the dramatic curve of her cleavage. The fabric strains across the soft weight of her breasts, as though the garment were doing its best to hold back something far too abundant. It is a distraction difficult to ignore, warring for attention with the magnetic pull of her eyes, which are lined in kohl and glow pale amber, nearly gold, in the strange light. Silver bangles circle both wrists, and her presence is magnetic, poised between sensuality and authority.
"You have walked far to reach a truth you already suspect," she says, her voice lilting with a Syrian accent, smooth and edged with smoky vowels. One hand gestures for him to sit. "But the cards can still speak, if you wish to hear them. For a small offering, I will open the path."
"Good morning," Colton says, puffing out a breath of amusement through his nose. Generally, he isn't one to indulge others without much reason... but in the moment, he decides to indulge himself and his own curiosity, moving to sit across the cloth-draped table. Someone unfamiliar with him might think the way he glances down to her hands is some attempt at courtesy - to avoid staring at her pendulous ta-tas. In truth, it's the silver on his wrists that sears at his attention, the mere presence of the werewolf's bane causing a psychosomatic tingle on his skin.
"Alright," he says, leaning forwards a little. "What's your price, fortune teller? And what should I call you?"
She watches him with a smile that seems to shift as the candlelight flickers, soft and youthful one moment, then touched with a more mature composure the next, as if experience lingers just beneath the surface of her poise. Her hand drifts to the base of the crystal ball, long fingers resting there as though listening to some slow rhythm beneath the glass.
"Names are flexible things," she says, her accent curling around the syllables. "I've been called dove, flame, trouble, blessing... which would you choose for me, I wonder?" Her eyes hold his for a moment, amusement flickering beneath the amber glow. "But for now, Zahira will do. It rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?"
She leans in slightly, the motion subtle but enough to shift the weight of her chest against the straining blouse, a quiet reminder of presence and shape. "And the price? Nothing so dire," she murmurs. "A secret you have never spoken aloud. Just one. You whisper it here, and the cards will listen." Her expression is calm, patient. "Truth for truth. That is fair, is it not?"
Leaning back sharply, Colton grimaces at 'Zahira', his disinclination towards spilling his secrets written naked across his face, unhidden and unamused.
"I don't know if you're just some performer testing the waters with a new audience," he says, his moue as easily heard in his voice as it is seen on his lips. "But this is the wrong damn town to start asking people to spill their secrets, lady. Reconsider this little act, whatever it is." He frowns, and invisible, psychic tendrils begin to stretch out from his mind to hers, laced with anxiety and alarm ready to be implanted right behind the barriers of her rational mind. What he offers is a deeper, more animal agitation than rationale was ready to deal with.
Zahira's eyes flicker, not with surprise, but with a brief ripple of tension behind their amber light. The air stills around her, the gauzy hangings in the tent settling as though holding their breath. Her lips part slightly, her expression seems vulnerable, soft. Then she smiles, slower this time, almost apologetic, though the sultry edge never quite leaves her voice.
"Oh, but you misunderstand me," she says, her tone a murmur, warm and low, brushing against the edges of breath like silk against skin. She leans forward just enough to draw the light down her neckline again, the shift subtle and practiced, the movement graceful without seeming calculated. Her lashes lower for a moment, as though offering him a glimpse of something more earnest beneath the mystery.
"No secrets then," she concedes, her voice softer now. "No payment at all. I would be glad to read for you freely... as a courtesy. A gift." Her fingers brush lightly along the edge of the table, her bracelets catching no light, bare skin gleaming instead. "I did not mean to offend. You have such... strong presence. It unsettled me, just a little. You must forgive a woman alone in a strange place."
She tilts her head just enough to let the candlelight catch on her cheekbone and collarbone alike, her smile returning with a slight, teasing curve. "Let me try again, Colton. No tricks. Just cards. Will you stay?" She strokes her crystal ball coaxingly.
The mention of his name stirs Colton a little, but it's a little paranoid to assume something's amiss just from that - he's wearing a jacket with his full name written right across it, after all.
"I dunno about this lone woman, strange place thing," he grouses, then blows out the rest of his misgivings with a steady exhale. "Fine," he says. "Are we going with the cards or the crystal ball? Does it make any difference?" He glances down at the creases of his hands - maybe she'd want to give him a palm-reading. It was getting close to the full moon, though. He's better attuned than most - he was already feeling twitchy. "I don't suppose you've seen how to save the world from the direction it's headed in yet, have you?"
Zahira watches him in silence for a breath, her expression unreadable. Then, with a slow movement that draws attention to the deep plunge of her blouse, she reaches somewhere unseen beneath the table, and when her hand returns, it carries a small, time-worn deck of cards. There had been no visible pouch, no shelf, no box, only the sudden presence of the deck in her hand, as if drawn from the tent's very shadows.
She begins to shuffle with practiced grace, the cards whispering together in rhythm, each pass of her hands making her chest shift with a soft, hypnotic quiver beneath the jeweled embroidery. The weight of her breasts strains her blouse anew as she leans slightly forward over the table, her voice low and coaxing. "You did ask," she says, her smile curling at one corner, "so let us see what answers the world wants to give."
The first card turns over beneath her fingers. "The Tower," she murmurs. A black spire erupts in flame as figures fall from its shattered top. "Sudden collapse. A violent end to something that never deserved to last. The ground always shakes before the truth rises."
She lays the second. "The Moon." A path winds under a swollen, blood-tinged moon, flanked by silent towers. "Confusion. Madness. The moment before revelation. You are already near it, whether you know it or not."
Then the third. Her fingers pause for just a beat before she turns it. "Judgement." A horn echoes above the risen dead, calling them from ash. Her voice softens as she looks up at him. "Not mercy. Not balance. Reckoning. You are not outside it, Colton. You are already within it."
She leans in, her tone growing more intimate, smoky with fear and allure both. "I have seen it. Fire under water. A sky turning red. It comes fast. Not in centuries. Not even years. The world ends in pieces, and they fall quicker than anyone dares say." Her eyes shine with a strange mix of dread and temptation.
"But someone like you," she whispers, her breath brushing the space between them, "could have a place in it. Not as a savior, but as a hand at the wall. Helping pull it all down."
Her finger traces a slow arc along the edge of the final card, the candlelight catching in her amber eyes. "The Tower. The Moon. Judgement. They say what I cannot. But I think you already feel it, don't you?"
Reaching up to scratch at his jaw, Colton stares down at the cards with a mixture of suspicion and intrigue. This wasn't arcanism - it would be burning against his skin if it was. But the woman had managed to worm her way into his head with his voice. He knew about hot reading and cold reading, or at least he thought he did. He had developed an interest in false psychics as he'd experimented with his own paranormal abilities, years ago.
"Maybe there's something to you," he concedes, leaning back, forcing his eyes to scan upwards from the cards to Zahira's face without arresting themselves anywhere they shouldn't. The Wilson Syndicate might have eyes in here, somehow. "Or you're just good at guessing what people want to hear." He honeys his words with psychic influence, curious to hear her response. "Tell me about yourself," he says. "Why are you here? Why set up this tent? Are you working for someone?"
He shivers subtly as the vital energies wean from him in the use of his abilities, but with the closeness of the full moon's rise, he has plenty to share, simmering away in his gut. He just had to keep a lid on it long enough to properly savour it when the time came.
Zahira's breath catches softly in her throat as his influence works through her, loosening whatever restraint she had left. She rises from her stool with deliberate grace, the motion slow and liquid, her hips swaying beneath the curve-hugging fabric of her skirt. As she turns, her backside is put on full display, round and plush, the sway of it exaggerated by the subtle roll of her steps. The candlelight licks along the smooth arcs of her thighs and the taut stretch across her ass as she bends low before the velvet-draped chest tucked in shadow.
She rummages with delicate care, her back arched, her blouse riding up ever so slightly as the hem of her skirt tugs across her curves. The motion is unhurried, seductive, her body speaking in gestures just as much as her voice does when she begins to answer.
"I do not lie to you, Colton," she says, her voice honeyed and low. "I came here because it is already happening. The unraveling. It is not a distant doom waiting in centuries or even years. There are only weeks left. Just weeks." Her tone thickens, as if she can taste the weight of it in the air. "The signs are in everything now. In the oceans, in the silence between birdsong, in the dreams people will not remember when they wake."
She straightens slowly, hips swaying again as she turns. Her hands remain hidden behind her back, wrists crossed neatly, her spine arched just enough to thrust her chest forward and draw his eye back to the straining curve of her breasts. Her lips part, wet and flushed, and when she speaks again, her voice is velvet.
"The Black Flame does not destroy for the sake of it. It reveals. It burns away the lie so something truer can breathe." Her eyes find his, low and wanting. "You are already part of it. You feel it, don't you? That pressure building inside you. That ache just beneath your skin. You could fight it, or you could let it out. You could help pull down the old world and shape the bones of the next."
She steps closer, her body warm with closeness, her chest rising slowly with every breath. Her lips hover near his ear. "Come with me. Be fire instead of ash."
As good as Colton's being, and as faithful as he intends to stay to his partner, he is still a red-blooded man with superhuman perceptive abilities and a bellyful of feral instincts only waiting for the next ray of moonlight to break out. Of course he permits himself a glance or two, sizing up the ample serving of meat and flesh being presented. His lips peel back slowly, threatening to bare hungry teeth - and then she draws close, and he leans back, hesitating to move for a lack of control. Lust and fucking are only ephemeral appeals, easily dismissed - but his stomach rumbles audibly with a perverse, lupine appetite as her proximity lets her scent cut through the incense.
And then she opens her fucking mouth. Colton's not paralysed in place as she whispers her piece, punctuated by breathy sighs and hooded glances. His stiffness has nothing to do with arousal. The tremor in his clenched fingers is not born of anticipation.
"Do you," he asks, his already-raspy voice drawn even more hoarse, "Have any fucking idea who you're talking to?" He floats up to his feet away from someone, turning to offer her a baleful stare. "You void-worshipping fucks are who I hate the most. You want to sell our fucking world in the hopes of transformation into some twisted, misshapen pile of meat?" He lunges forwards, his hands snapping out to try and grip Zahira's head between his palms, fingertips digging into the sensitive skin of her face and scalp. "Say the fucking word and you won't need some eldritch being to handle that. I can crush you myself. If you're so in love with your own annihilation, fucking prove it. Drop your sanctuary."
As good as Colton's being, and as faithful as he intends to stay to his partner, he is still a red-blooded man with superhuman perceptive abilities and a bellyful of feral instincts only waiting for the next ray of moonlight to break out. Of course he permits himself a glance or two, sizing up the ample serving of meat and flesh being presented. His lips peel back slowly, threatening to bare hungry teeth - and then she draws close, and he leans back, hesitating to move for a lack of control. Lust and fucking are only ephemeral appeals, easily dismissed - but his stomach rumbles audibly with a perverse, lupine appetite as her proximity lets her scent cut through the incense.
And then she opens her fucking mouth. Colton's not paralysed in place as she whispers her piece, punctuated by breathy sighs and hooded glances. His stiffness has nothing to do with arousal. The tremor in his clenched fingers is not born of anticipation.
"Do you," he asks, his already-raspy voice drawn even more hoarse, "Have any fucking idea who you're talking to?" He floats up to his feet away from the apocalyptic oracle, turning to offer her a baleful stare. "You void-worshipping fucks are who I hate the most. You want to sell our fucking world in the hopes of transformation into some twisted, misshapen pile of meat?" He lunges forwards, his hands snapping out to try and grip Zahira's head between his palms, fingertips digging into the sensitive skin of her face and scalp. "Say the fucking word and you won't need some eldritch being to handle that. I can crush you myself. If you're so in love with your own annihilation, fucking prove it. Drop your sanctuary."
Zahira does not flinch as his hands snap forward, as his fingers press into her scalp and jaw with the strength of something barely caged. Her breath comes faster, not in panic, but in something close to ecstasy, her amber eyes locked onto his with a gleam that borders on rapture. The pressure of his grip deepens the flush across her chest, and her lips curl, not in fear, but in triumph.
"I do know who I'm talking to," she whispers, her voice trembling with pain and pleasure alike. "That's why you're here. That's why it has to be you."
And then she screams, with a voice that rings out unnaturally loud, bursting with something old and sharp and triumphant.
"Revocacionem protectione sanctuarium!"
The air shudders. The wards drop.
Immediately, from somewhere just beyond the canvas, there is the shattering crack of glass and the sudden whoosh of fire catching. A lick of flame curls up one side of the tent wall, red and gold and hungry. Outside, the pounding of feet begins, boots hammering the sand in retreat, and then the roar of motorbike engines tearing away into the distance, the sound Dopplering down the coastline.
Zahira's arms move in a blur.
From behind her back, one hand lashes out, a curved blade clutched tight in her fingers. Its blackened hilt is wrapped in stained cloth, its edge chipped and jagged, but the point is clean, viciously clean.
With a gasp that's almost a moan, she plunges it into her own chest, just beneath the swell of her breast, the blade driving deep to the hilt with no hesitation. Her back arches, head thrown back in a final, ecstatic motion. Blood wells in thick rivulets across the pale curve of her skin, staining her blouse and darkening the embroidered cloth.
Her lips part one last time, the breath behind them broken but euphoric.
"It begins...The Black Flame Rises" she rasps, then crumples, the flame-glow licking across her face as her body folds around the dagger.
Colton's lip curls in disgust as his meal is snatched away from him, and as the false prophet's blood pressure drops and her consciousness goes with it, he drops her dying body with a heavy thump to land on her head. Perhaps the fall even pushes the dagger that much deeper into her chest - he's stopped caring already. Fire is a problem. The uniquely explosive nature of his blood and flesh exacerbates that problem. Thankfully, they're on the beach, and this is only a tent. He could handle a tent. The werewolf throws his hands out to the side, clenching his fingers to grasp at the air, then rips his arms upwards, tearing the tentcloth loose of the sand with a yell of effort. He wasn't nearly as strong when he couldn't apply his physical gifts to a situation, but he's got this, he's got this, he knows he's got this. As the burning fabric lifts high, it crumples into a heavy ball, and he forces it to arc across the sands, landing in the near shore with a heavy slap and a splash. "Fucking hell," he coughs, spitting up some of the grit in the smoke he'd managed to breathe. The furniture's easier - he hunches over to begin digging up sand and throwing it over the fire in massive gouts of loose earth. He'd case for witnesses later. God damn fucking Black Flame...
The smoke thins as the tide rolls in closer, dragging the edges of burned canvas into the water. It's almost noon now, and the sunlight falls flat and unforgiving, bleaching the scene of its earlier mystique. Zahira's body lies sprawled in the sand, one leg twisted beneath her, blood soaked deep into the fabric around the wound and pooling beneath her ribs. Her blouse hangs open where the dagger punched through, the skin around it torn and swollen, dark with bruising. What had once seemed lush and alluring in the flicker of candlelight now looks deflated and raw, her chest slack with death, smeared in grit and congealed blood, the illusion of beauty long since burned away.
She had spoken like a prophet and died like a fanatic, and her final words still lingered, heavy and unwelcome, having taken the place of the pungent smoke.