Death Of Solomon Inigo 240902
Nervously, Tabitha makes the accommodations she needs. She paces the floor, hands working about each other as she speaks to herself. What the consequences are of this. What it means for her.
You think; "I can't do this..."
You think; "I should do this..."
You think; "If I don't do this, he will."
You think; "I deserve to live, not him."
You feel guilt
You feel anger
You feel sadness
Tabitha pulls out a needle from her first aid kit and uncaps it. The plunger is pressed to push what air resides within the collection vial out.
With the duct tape, Tabitha begins to wind the material about Solomon's feet, putting him spread eagle on her bed, each foot at each bedpost. Then, she sits on his chest to click a pair of cuffs onto him, and the duct tape is used to stretch his arms over his head. She is careful. She's drugged him, but he's a finicky sort with quick healing. The tape is used as rope, reinforced by twisting it.
You think; "This is something that must be done.... You know this, Tabitha. It is him, or it is you. Hasn't he hurt you enough? Others enough?"
The poor redhead is nervous. Tabitha feels it in her hands. This twitch, and ache. It causes her to rub her hands frequently. Stop pacing. You got this. Does she? How easily he twists his knife and manipulates her. Does she want it? So many people claim it and think it, and even speak it to her. Is there some inkling of herself that wants this for herself? Why can she not just break free of these chains that bind her, that constrict her. Her blood, her curse. Was this idea implanted in her by another? Is it hers?
Tabitha is slowly pacing the floor, back and forth, back, forth. She chew on her thumb nail in a nervous nibble. The nervous nature of her roils off of her.
Solomon stirs in the bed, and then there is some concern in red eyes. "Tabitha," he says, shifting, tugging at bonds that itch against his skin.
Tabitha stiffens at Solomon's voice that now ring in her ears. She doesn't turn to face him right away. She exhales shallowly, closes her eyes, and finally, when she does turn, her heart races, but she tries to put on a smile. It does not reach those oceanic blues of hers. "Solomon," she returns. She is stark naked, her skin flush with whatever emotions stir within her.
"Kinky as this is, my darling," Solomon tells Tabitha. "Still -- I don't mind so much if you tie me up, but perhaps not with the quartz handcuffs?" His tone is light, teasing, but red eyes are searching the room. "Or is it you want me really at your mercy, my dear?"
It should be noted that in her hand, there is her standard athame knife, and Tabitha clenches it rather tight. It should also be noted that he is lying upon a large blue tarp that one normally finds in construction sites to keep wood dry and free of other detrius. There is a scent of gas that filled one's nostrils, though it has been sitting there a while, and is much more faint that it'd been just an hour or more ago.
Eyes scan with rising concern. "Tabitha," Solomon says carefully to Tabitha. "Isn't this a little over the top?"
"It is a little kinky, isn't it?" Tabitha asks Solomon, though in truth, what surrounds the man is anything but kinky, despite that he is handcuffed and duct taped to the pretty woman's bed. There is a shakiness in her tone here, trying to pull things back into her hands, into her own control, as she approaches him and the bed. Her hand tightens around the athame that her knuckles turn white. "You sound concerned..." She sits down on the edge of her bed, the tarp that covers the mattress noisy with her motion.
Solomon pulls, hard, at his bonds, then -- tugging hard at where his legs leave him duct-taped and spread-eagled to the bed. There's a snort of rising concern, nostrils flaring, and then his eyes seek out the redhead. "Tabitha," he repeats to Tabitha. "I'm not, of course," he tells her in a low voice. "You're mine, and of course I am yours," he says to her. "For eternity, my dear."
You feel moderate suffering when you are told she's Solomon's forever, for eternity.
The pretty, starkly naked woman gets up from the bed, the tarp sticking to her skin and peeling off with that sickly sound tarp does and she turns to face Solomon. "Do you think that now is the time to tell me that? Eternity... it is a long time to be with a man who wants a doll." Tabitha may be. A doll. But of her own making. She turns to face Solomon now, a hand resting on one of his ankles that is duct taped to the bedpost. The toys with the tape, but she did ensure that she couldn't just pick at it to loosen it, it's twisted and doubled up to make it impossible without sawing directly into it. Those blue eyes, watery blue focus upon Solomon's red eyes.
"What I want is complicated," Solomon tells Tabitha, his voice low. His eyes track her -- red on blue, his breathing uncertain and uncomfortable. "I want many things of you," he admits to her. "But not just --" He strains, muscles against the duct tape. "I want you to be many things. The thing about destiny, darling? We never really know how it unspools."
Tabitha stabs her athame into Solomon's thigh and starts to carve into it, a symbol of some sort. His blood, hot and steaming, seeps from that wound down his leg and onto the tarp where it pools beneath his leg. "Lies!" she claims to him. "If you do not speak the things that you want of me instead of the circles..." Here she carves a circle, rending flesh as her canvas, "you always have, I will force it from your mouth." She is focused on this task, but there is a shake to her hand.
Solomon screams -- how can he not, with a knife in his thigh. "Stop!" he shouts, his voice rising in volume and pitch, roaring in the room. There is a hiss from his blood as she cuts, steam rising, pooling on the tarp, and he thrashes in his bonds. There's an effort, some herculean effort to break free of the duct tape, but with his hands cuffed all he can do it pull in vain. Panic is rising in his eyes, obvious and large.
The knife is pulled out of Solomon's thigh, with a force that it sends a spray of his blood across the room, spattering the floor and the walls in which were not protected by the plastic that Solomon is laying upon. Tabitha's hand continues to shake, and her eyes are filled with a mix of emotions, hate, concern, anger. "Tell me!" She begins to root through her tote for something and pulls out a vial of some deeply concerning red potion.
Red eyes, red potion: worry. "Tabitha," Solomon tells the redhead. Red, again. "Do I want you my queen sometimes?" he says through gritted teeth. "Of course. Do I want you sometimes chained at my feet? That, too," he says. The muscles on his arms are all corded force, pressing hard as he strains against the bonds. "Do we not all contain multitudes?" he asks her. "Really, my dear --" He's bleeding. "You have the same mix of feelings about me."
There. A look is given the potion in Tabitha's hand, yes, red like Solomon's eyes. Deep crimson like his blood, and as vengeful as his blood too. She does not immediately take it, but there is a look in her eyes that Solomon should worry about. She intends to take it. Drown out desires. All but her own. Whatever her own actually are. She's waffling, too. But things like this. They take resolve. She kneels and picks up the bag with the large twisty-abeled handles. And then she is up on the bed, and stradling him. Despite that she is naked, it is not sexy. Here she begins to chant. Dark, gutteral as one can with such a sweet little voice as the would-be doll as her. "There are many things that I think about you, Solomon." There are tears in her blues. "But one succeeds all of the others..."
"Desire," Solomon tells Tabitha with some moment of low confidence. "It fills all of us, Tabitha -- and it's for us, together, to figure out how to guide in." When she begins to chant he tilts his head, tracking her movements. "What magic?" he wonders of her -- he asks of her, plaintive, concerned, as she starts to straddle him, as she comes down on top of him. "We have a future together," he tells her. Is it pleading? Almost.
The redhead, her rear and backs of her legs now coated in Solomon's blood from her carving into his thigh, which, sadly for him, cannot heal as it normally would, ignores Solomon for the spell to hit. Tabitha jams her athame into his chest and begins to carve again, using that broad expanse as her canvas again. Another sigil. She watches this closely, rather than look in his eyes. She finally says, "Desire... I dare say I know what mine are when I am with you. That are not your own." Hers. This convoluted, confusing feeling: Desire. Lust. Need. "You do not own me." Something said there, stirring some emotion and there are tears again that drip from her cheek onto his belly.
As Solomon's joins light on fire, there is a gritted teeth. "Fuck," he breathes. "Tabitha, stop -- please," he tells her. "I don't own you," he says to her. "You know, I know, that if I wanted to I could," he reasons. "That I could have stopped you ever able to do -- this," he says. He'd gesture, but then, of course he can't, can he? "I don't want to own you. I am -- I am lonely," he tells her. "I want a companion in the endless future." Is it truth? A lie?
Once the ritual has been cast, Tabitha does yank her athame out from Solomon's chest, his heated blood, boiling with his bloodline slicing an angry diagonal lash across her face and over her bosom. There is a pause with all that he says to her about loneliness and companionship. She wipes the tears from her eyes, as well as the blood, only to serve in smearing both about. "You --" She sighs, and she begins to relent, her shoulders relaxing some, and there appears to be a moment where Solomon has somehow gotten the upperhand.
"I am imperfect," Solomon tells Tabitha smoothly. "I am a figure full of vice and virtue, my dear." He'd reach up and touch her face, now, but of course he can't -- he's bound. "I hurt you. I hurt others," he admits. "But I am also not just some island of villainy, Tabitha. I need you. The world tomorrow is not like yesterday, and if we're going to find some way forward?"
"You have always had a way with your words," Tabitha says to Solomon in some form of compliment. "But you have many years to perfect those words and make it sound sweet." She pops the cork from the vial she had picked from her things earlier. "But I have always and will always, refuse you --" There. This look. That uncertainty in her feelings for the man she is straddling and slowly bleeding out. "You are not some island of villainy but you refuse to get off that island, too. I told you once before, twice perhaps even. You could be so much more than what Legion has offered you. And now..." Then she drinks. She can't. Won't. "I can't let you hurt me or anyone else anymore."
"Tabitha," Solomon tells Tabitha. "I existed before Legion. I will exist after him -- and my honeyed words have purpose," he tells her. "We are all of us trying to make our way in the world." Then she drinks, and his eyes widen with fear. "What is that?"
Once that liquid touches Tabitha's lips, her gaze falls onto Solomon and there is a slight and crooked smile that forms on them --- those plump lips that he's wanted in so many ways. Painted pink. Glossy. "You look afraid, Solomon." She pulls her athame up near his face, near his lips, leaning on in in a way that would, were she not seeking to carve him again, might very well be misconstrued as anything else. She pinches his cheeks and oh so rugged and beautiful jawline in an attempt to get him to open his mouth and stick his tongue out. "I should split it in half and make it the serpent's tongue that you carry anyway."
Solomon's body fills with sudden tension, uncomfortable and full of threat -- and despite himself, his mouth opens at Tabitha's urging. "Tabitha," he breathes, but it's hard with his tongue stuck out, and the sort of thing that leaves a man very, very careful. His eyes on her, afraid.
Pale and slender fingers continue to try to force Solomon's jaw to part, and that athame lingers so close to the tongue that speaks honeyed words, full of vileness and lies, and hate beneath them. Tabitha's face gets very close to his as she shifts her weight on him, lips so near to his that the hot breath coming from her can be felt. She whispers to him, filled with wrath and lust and desire. Everything mangled together in a confusing explosion of feelings, "I hate you." And while it looks like she could kiss him, and while that statement should bring Solomon such joy --- She shoves the arthritic man back from her face, though it is not as if he has much of a place to go. And that athame? It does not slice through his tongue, but it does cut along his cheek up toward a brow.
When the knife cuts, Solomon grunts with a little pain. His eyes are on Tabitha, and he breathes in. "Tabitha," he tells her. "I know you hate me -- but you love me, too," he says to her. "You do, my dear. Love and hate are twins, each strangling and embracing each other in the womb of our hearts."
It should be noted that not only does blood only come from him. Someone, Tabitha, seems to be on her period, and the mention of wombs only seems to anger her more.
Wombs. Love. This has Tabitha sitting upright on Solomon's hips, only to grab the bag that she had picked up, along the way to the bed. Her eyes can't turn red, they are still that sink-into blue, but there is a heat there, wrathful and vengeful. The bag goes around Solomon's head and she starts to twist those long handles to tighten the bag around his neck. She may not be as strong as Solomon, but she's putting in effort. "You know nothing of love. It is all just games to you. Manipulation. The only reason you want a child in the first place is to manipulate that as well. Heaven forbid that I ever give you a son!"
Now Solomon pulls as hard as he can with all his strength -- except his strength is less than it once was. Magic put the goat's strength in his sinews, and now? He's strong, definitely -- inhumanly strong -- but he's not the thing he once was. As the bag goes over his face his breath is sucked in, dimpling it against the demand for air as Tabitha becomes a hazy figure through the bag.
Tabitha holds that bag over Solomon's head until he struggles more under her body, this shiver coursing down her spine in some wrathful delight at how he squirms beneath her. She continues to tighten the bag straps until they start to break. And just when that breathing and struggling starts to wane, the pretty little thing, this doll -- this porcelain thing -- leans over him, and presses her lips to the bag where his mouth is and kisses him. Is there a hint of guilt? Just a hint? Perhaps. Because ultimately, she dots up and though it is with her athame jamming down into the open mouth like it were some phallic thing he should suck on and breaking the plastic open for him to do something else -- suck in air.
The sudden inhale is a ragged thing, full of need as Solomon's lungs scream with the pain of the redhead cutting off the red-eyed devil's air. She's still just a fuzzy blob through the bag, but he can breathe, his breaths uneven. "Let me go," he tells her -- he pleads with her, really, straining against his bonds. "Let's make this up."
"No," Tabitha says to Solomon, plainly, her voice a harsh little breath, herself. "How does it feel, Solomander, to be on this side of it?" She pulls out a very large syringe from her kit. "I should make you feel humble and humiliated..." she says, catching her bottom lip with her teeth as she repositions herself on Solomon's bloody form. "I could make your body do all sorts of things, hm? How are your bones?" There is little care in how she asks this. The shake in her hands having left the second the potion entered her system. "Maybe I should weaken you more so that you cannot struggle when --" And then, there is a pause. And what seems to be a personal struggle. She inhales. Holds her breath. When. When what? Not only that, but why is there some hesitation all the sudden?
"I --" Solomon's voice is caught, and through the bag's haze red eyes look for Tabitha. "You could," he tells her. "You are my partner," he says. "My Queen. It's --" It's a hard admission. "And I am in your power, darling. Turn about is fair play, isn't it?"
That horrible syringe's cap is popped off and it clatters to the floor, where a little of Solomon's blood has started to drop off the tarp at least protecting Tabitha's bed. Because Solomon's arms are stretched up above his head and his mouth is freed from the bag she'd just used to take his breath away, she finds something to shove deep into his mouth. It matters not what. Probably some particular clothing bit left strewn after some evening. She stretches over him and that needle is carelessly jabbed into his arm, and again, and again, in attempt to find the vein. "Turn about is fair play," she agrees as she pulls back on the plunger to capture his steaming blood. "I have a lot to make up for," she then adds, voice softening, then hardening with these two statements.
Would Solomon scream? Perhaps, but with Tabitha's panties shoved in his mouth between his teeth it's muffled, more a low grunt than a yell. His body tenses again as the syringe dips down, filling with blood, and he pulls as hard as he can against the bonds, red eyes on her. He tries to respond, but it's just noise, muffled through the gag between his teeth.
The clothing article is pulled from Solomon's mouth and tossed aside, next to the gas can that is sat on the floor. Probably to burn along with whatever else it is that she intends to burn. Her heart? Perhaps. "What was that?" Tabitha asks. The syringe is set into her kit, and that white tin is spattered with his blood. It a slippery thing, blood. It gets everywhere. And while this was planned, some things just can not be planned for. "You would want this for eternity?"
"Tabitha," Solomon tells Tabitha, his voice returned to him. There's pain in his words; his joints ache, and he can't quite find her eyes with his own. "You are to be my Queen," he tells her. "Is it so wrong to enjoy things? I don't mind that you are -- having fun," he says, his breath full of discomfort. "But we are both of us joined together in the future," he tells her. "This is part of eternity, too."
Solomon is not quite using the right words here. Where she started to wane, now she waxes, as her potion continues to guide her. But her hands shake, just as desires flood her brain. Those words, honeyed, yet wrong. Tabitha holds her athame now in both hands, bloodied from resting on his chest. "No!" she says, in a shriek. She starts to stab the athame down into Solomon's chest. "No!" There is no fun in what she has decided to do. No amusement. There is fear there. And her heart races. Shame that Solomon, in his situation can not hear nor feel it, neutralized as he is. She stabs, and stabs, and her hand slips along her blade, cutting herself in the process. She screams, and then she starts to sob. But even as she does both these things, she continues to stab.
You feel strong suffering when you weaken in your resolve.
Now Solomon screams -- there's nothing to stop his screams, and also, he's being stabbed multiple times in the chest. In ordinary course, perhaps he'd heal -- but with his powers locked away all he can do is have his blood flow, wounds weeping incardanine tears as Tabitha stabs him.
You feel moderately negatively preoccupied with the prospect of her resolve weakening in her unsurity of what her own desires are or whether they are his, that this is love, and she has succumb to his own evils.
Those screams, in the ears of the woman entranced and ensorcelled by wrath itself, brings Tabitha to stop stabbing into Solomon's chest. In all that rage, blood has splattered everywhere. Her hands are slippery with it, her breasts covered, it streams down he belly. It speckles her face with a few more gruesome freckles. She says, to Solomon, still clenching that athame with both hands as if she would stab again. "I loathe that I might grow to love you." She does not say that she does love him, no. She does not. Because /he/ does not love her. The tears turn the blood a thinner viscosity and it slides down her cheek and drops into his mouth when she leans over him to pull the bag from his head, letting him see her in all this gory and horrific glory.
Solomon's eyes now see Tabitha clearly -- see her in her glory, blood-soaked, and there is some attempt to hide his pride. For all of this, for all that he is restrained, that he is at her mercy, that he is full of agony and pain, this is the woman he has been trying to create: this, red-headed and bloody-handed. "You -are- worthy of me," he declares.
There is some humiliation in that statement given Tabitha about worthiness of being Solomon's. His what, exactly? Whatever it is, it scares her. It does more than scare. That humiliation, and what it tends to do to her is heavy in her chest. It heaves with her breathing, her sobs. Her bloodied lips press and slide against Solomon's in a crimson streak that travels along from his mouth to his cheek, giving him a joker's grin without her cutting it wide. Her mouth stays at his cheek, but then her fingers start to dig into all those various stab wounds, seeking to pick and pull at the serrated skin, and torn muscle.
"Tabitha," Solomon tells Tabitha. "Come now -- there is a way out," he promises her. "What is it you desire? What power? What promise?" he asks her. "You know --" His breath catches from pain. "You know I can give it to you," he says, even as strained, exhausted muscles pull more against his bonds.
Tabitha places her blood-coated hands, knife barely contained with how slippery it is, at each side of Solomon's face. "There is nothing that you can give me that I can not get myself. And as much as I want to mute you right now. I want to hear you scream my name. Your eyes wide and staring at me..." Such vile words from the woman known not to be so violent, except in words when they stir her enough. She leans into his ear and whispers, then, a testament to her nature, "I'm sorry." Her lips linger there, at his ear in some kiss. When she sits back up, body dripping in his blood, that knife nick across his neck. Not deep, but it is a warning. The fates may very well have rewritten Solomon's destiny as much as he has tried to rewrite the pretty, wild, redhead.
"This is enough," Solomon tells Tabitha, as fear recedes for some power. "I know you are sorry -- release me," he tells her. "Release me, or else there will never be an end." Is it a threat? It's a threat, with age somewhere deep behind his tongue. "It is time, Tabitha -- undo my bonds."
The threat given Tabitha by Solomon, of no end, does give Tabitha pause. Her breath stills like ice in her chest. There is a quivering of her form, a shudder, as that breath leaves her, its shaking fear exposed. Her fingers cannot remain still. "And if I do? What end will there be, in the first place?" She is sorry, of course. Maybe that she had not done this sooner? Maybe because of the entire reason why she opted to date the demonblooded man who could so easily snap her neck should she actually release him. "I --- I can't." She shakes her head, hair clumped with his blood as it coagulates and starts to dry. "I --" And then there begins the incantation. Latin. Not perfect. But it is understandable enough. There is a command there within. "I will release you," she assures.
"Thank you, my dear," Solomon tells Tabitha with some self-assuredness. Covered in blood, wounded -- all the same, he is a man of power. Power and pride; it is the latter which seeps from his veins. "Untie me, and I will shower, and we will go to dinner," he says to her. "And we will be together, Tabitha: you will have what you desire. No one will be able to tell you what to do." As she chants, he watches her -- he listens. "Untie me," he bids. "All will be well."
Covered from head to toe in Solomon's blood, Tabitha moves her legs so that she no longer straddles the man. Her hands shake again as she tries to keep hold of the knife, and not slip on the blood that Solomon has lost through her stabbing his torso and the carving of his thigh. She sees red, and it is not simply the blood, but that is in her eyes and clings in her lashes. She turns and starts to cut into the duct tape, leaving his wrists within the cuffs that keep her safe. Safe. Perhaps that is a misnomer. But her tongue spilled a spell, afterall. She relies on this. "Wiggle your toe," she says, simply.
There's a motion when the bonds are cut -- Solomon moves, or rather, he attempts to move. There's some effort, his brow furrowing, and then he looks at Tabitha. There is fear in his eyes. "You ensorcelled me," he tells her, and of course she did. How else? What else. He's frozen in place, looking at her. "Break it," he tells her, he implores her, worried.
There is some reward for Solomon, some part of Tabitha who listens, and who obeys. She cuts through the duct tape entirely, and then does so to his arms, the cuffs left in place still, and his wrists frozen in the straining position she'd put him in when the man slept so surely, unaware, and peacefully. Thinking that he had her. He does. In some small way still. The rage is there in her heart, but then there are other feelings to fill whatever spot is left. "I bind thee, Solomon, from doing harm to others, and yourself." There is shifting in her features as she looks the handsome, bleeding devil over. She shakes her head and sucks in a breath filled with pain, "I bind thee, Solomon..." From harming her. She grabs an ankle and pushes his legs together so that he no longer lays there on her bed in a spread eagle. Then she grabs a corner of the tarp he's stuck upon.
"Whatever this is," Solomon tells Tabitha. "Whatever you plan -- it is not what you imagine," he says to her. "The end you see is a false end," he tells her. "Release me. There is some terrible path you tread upon," he says to her, his wrists still bound. He's wooden, some dead weight -- a corpse that speaks. "Whatever you do now, it is unwise. Break this enchantment," he tells her. "Release me, Tabitha -- please. Please, I beg of you."
Thunk! Solomon's frozen body is dropped to the floor unceremoniously when Tabitha tugs and tugs at the tarp to get him there. She leaves him in whatever position he lands. Left there to watch her as she goes to pick up the plastic canister of gasoline. Those red eyes filled with fear as he begs her. "I bind thee..." she whispers. With her things in tote, she grabs the tarp again and starts to drag it. "Think of me, Solomon, wherever you end. I could have been more than you made me to be. It took you to this point to realize my worth... And know that you have an eternity to think of your crimes. To think of what you've lost in your ego, your pride..." Judge, jury and executioner. She drags him through her home to the patio and out onto the beach.
"What do you think is false?" Tabitha asks.
"Think of you?" Solomon asks Tabitha as he is dragged. "Of course I will," he tells her. "We are bound together, Tabitha -- bound together for some eternity." He can't turn his head to see, but he can hear, he can listen, and he can watch what he can as he is dragged. "Please," he tells her. "This course you are on -- it will lead to some end you do not want."
Tabitha leaves trails of Solomon's blood through the bathroom, foyer, and along the porch as she strains to pull him down the porch stairs to the beach and to the ritual circle.
There's a strange double-take in the dark; the silver bracelets mean that for a moment, Solomon cannot see, until Tabitha lights up the world.
Tabitha drops the tarp and positions Solomon so that he may watch her start to build a fire, slowly building up some drift wood into a pyramid. In the dimness, it may be hard when her flashlight is facing elsewhere. A match is struck and she waits for one little piece of driftwood to catch fire
"Tabitha," Solomon repeats. "The world needs you -- it needs us, together," he tells her. "What plan do you have?" he asks. "To burn me at the stake? What do you think that means, to a thing as old as I?" he asks. "What end, truly -- what angry end do you see to this? You could join me, and instead, what?"
Walking back over to Solomon once a small bonfire is started and continues to grow in size as the wind helps catch the flames, the sand and other debris sticks to Tabitha's bloody feet and tracks onto the tarp where he lay. She kneels over him again. "I want my life back. I don't think I am destined to be at your side, it is just that you are lonely and want someone who you feel you can change to be your personal porcelain doll. Your Barbie girl. But I have a brain, and skill, and knowledge that you don't anymore. Humanity is worth saving, and all you wish to do it save yourself." There is sadness in her voice again. And grief. And pity. For him? For her? "I'm sorry," she repeats again, leaning in and giving Solomon a kiss that has far too much affection for what she is about to do. When she starts to rise, the athame is grasped again and she says to the devilish druid, once again, "I bind thee Solomon, from harming yourself and others." Then, the serrated blade is sliced through Solomon's neck. It is ironic, in a way. How this has happened, and who can say what will come of the redhead from this action, if she'll ever be free. Here she sits, staring down at the man as blood begins to spurt anew.
Solomon screams -- but of course he can't. It's a gurgle, some low thing that results in the awful, terrible bubble of blood welling from his neck. This is the sort of thing he could heal from, were he in possessing of all his power, but he is not, is he? He tries to chant something -- tries to chant some curse at Tabitha, perhaps -- but it is lost to the wash of waves and the bubble of blood from his lips.
Tabitha sits atop of the corpse, tears streaming down her face in some manic expression of loss and pain. But there is release? Is there? If there was, other than the spirit of Solomon, she doesn't feel it. She grieves for what he was, perhaps, so many years ago. She grieves for what he became.
Little can console Tabitha as she starts to remove valuables from the corpse. She wipes at her blood shot eyes. The whisper is almost unheard. And perhaps she wishes that it had been. "Now is ... not the time, Lilith." The name spoke so easily on her tongue, coated with the man's blood, and leaving that bitter taste there. That salt. That will always be in her wounds.
Tabitha tugs on the tarp, an ache in her chest and heaved out then as vomit. She drops the tarp and puts her hands on her knees and doubles over as whatever she's eaten for the day spills from her lips.
You text dean I need your help...
Your phone says, with bassy timbre, ''ey, who's this?'
You say, in a choked, sobbing voice that sounds like it is possibly Tabitha, given the softness and the drawl, (phone) 'Novel.... I... I need your help.'
Your phone says, there's a heartbeat of silence, and then a slow, 'huh' noise, 'You know what my help usually fragging is, right? Where you at?'
You say, still emotionally charged and following through with sniffles, (phone) 'I don't know what it is, but you were the only person I could reach...'
Your phone says, with bassy timbre, 'Usually, hitting things. This a towel and tea sorta situation or should I show up with a sword?'
You say, in a soft plea, (phone) 'No, just... you. Come. Please. My home. Seventy two Sandy Point.'
Your phone says, with bassy timbre, 'Yeh, awright.'
You say, quietly, (phone) 'Okay...'
Tabitha stands stark naked, her entire body just covered with blood. Some still wet, but much of it dry. It is in her hair, matting it. It smears her face, and is spattered about her body like gruesome freckles. Her eyes are locked onto a bonfire where a corpse of a man, a possible man, has been put to blaze, along with a tarp that must have been used to drag the body out to the sand.
Novel steps in, his presence heralded by the sweep of a headlamp's beam as he slides his way around the porch. Hunting, as he is, the scent of blood and the crackle of fire. Far from being disgusted he takes in a deep breath, drawing it in as if it was any other delicious BBQ. It's strange, almost, as he pauses to survey the scene - the click and clack of electronics as he deals with and shuts them off. The headlamp, first, so he's not blinding Tabitha with the sudden shine. The pocketing of his phone. And his gaze wandering over the body as he steps over towards the mostly-naked woman.
"Seems like you were having flipping fun without me, Tabi," He notes, wryly, and he reaches down - peeling off his own hoodie as he nears.
Novel offers the warm, fluffy thing, smelling of a different kind of burnt and his own scents to Tabitha, the strange glow illuminated in the same way as the fire.
Tabitha doesn't exactly turn to Novel, not quite realizing that he is there. Her gaze is still on the blaze, as the smell of burnt flesh fills the night sky. She is startled when that piece of clothing is passed over to her. She doesn't even seem to comprehend that she is still quite naked, despite the handover of a hoodie. She wipes at her eyes, her hand, sliced open and still seeping. The body on the pyre, it looks like, despite it has begun to char, has multiple stab wounds in its chest, likely too many to count. She holds the hoodie to her front, her blood and probably the blood of whomever is on the flames, collecting into the fabric.
Tabitha slowly offers the now bloody item back to Novel, and instead picks up some dress that she doesn't seem to be familiar with. Go figure. Whomever that corpse was had a dress that wasn't hers, carried on him. She slips catatonically into it. "Solomon..." is what she answers.
Novel notes, more to himself, as it seems Tabitha doesn't really seem to hear him as he crouches to study things. "Good thing you live all the way out here. 'specially on th' beach." Why that's relevant in this case is not for wholesome reasons. He accepts the hoodie back, stained with blood. And he starts picking things up. Weapons, the note - that gets a glance over - using the hoodie as a bindle to gather it all up in a neat bundle. Let it not be said he is an untidy man.
Or perhaps, more presently, someone who's quite willing and used to hiding bodies.
"Hah. Good job." He says, with firm warmth in his voice. "Let's get you inside and washed up, Tabi. Not like this dude's going anywhere." An arm, heavy, not holding the goods, moves to settle 'pon her shoulder.
Tabitha nods lightly to Novel, her steps a fair bit uneven as she takes them on toes that sink into the sand and flake off blood. "I --- I don't know what to do with him. Or ..." She leads the man, in a stupor. "Can you take him to the morgue?" Her blues look far more blue with all the deep crimson that covers her face. "Please?" She looks back at the corpse, now steaming as the pyre dies with the lack of driftwood to keep it alive. She whispers, "What have I done?"