the soul secured in her existence, smiles.

[amourpropre]

Who: Lucius Malfoy (Sr) and "Vanessza Bernat"
What: It starts with a dragon.
Where: Badside.
When: Misdi sundown.
Warnings: Character death... sort of.

If a woman falls to her death in Badside, when no one is around to see it, does she make a sound?

Probably, but Lucius Malfoy is not street-level when it occurs and wouldn't be able to tell you. He is in some sort of partially incorporeal state of flight, hearing more the pained screeches of the dragon bellowing across the sky in the wake of-- something. Indefinable injury that involves pieces of the beast falling in slower spirals than the rock-drop of the brunette, sword-wielding woman plummeting for the ground. Recognition is quicker, unfortunately, than the ability to act, and by the time he is disapparating completely out of the sky to short cut his own flight path, Vanessza Bernát has dashed herself upon the pavement.

He lets the dragon go. It may well die of its own injury, although dragons are made of sterner stuff than most. The street is not entirely devoid of life, although most are ducking and hiding in their own apartments, brickwalls and high windows and disrepair defining this corner of Baedal. Lucius isn't really observing his surroundings, anyway, when he lands on the street and steps out of the unfurling mass of transformative smoke that seems to meld back into his silhouette, the turn of his coat. The wand is out, silver handle gripped tighter than dueling instructors typically recommend.

Expression openly shocked as if he is not really believing what he just saw, for all the the death of some random Muggle woman would hardly have blinked on his radar some precious few years ago, he approaches, the clip of his pace even but not entirely unhurried.

Comments

[amourpropre]

It isn't beneath him to consider it, for a hot moment.

In the end, however, Lucius simply lays down some similar enchantments he's put upon his own residence, ones that will stand up against brute force both magical and physical. A spoken word from Benevenuta herself or a simple touch will be needed permission. Fixing windows is done with a flick of a wand and a muttered incantation, the courtyard protected from unwanted guests with a flash of silver magic that makes, a moment, a sort of dome between it and the open sky, before vanishing into invisibility. Last but not least, the traditional sort of cloaking that inspires the disinterest in other people, that staple of magic that hid so many things from Muggle view, turned around against the siege of monsters outside.

He takes a drink for himself, of course, available liquor that he may or may not have recommended to her once before. A dash in a low glass, foregoing ice for an enchantment that has frost lacing across crystal. It isn't all spite, or needing a drink after the efforts of the day; it's been quite a week, in general, and drinking a few mouthfuls of someone else's alcohol sounds like the best idea Lucius has had since he invited Severus to execute that one rogue herd of thestrals.

Some of which Benevenuta dispatched herself. It makes for some interesting puzzle pieces.

[asklepios]

Though she has every intention of going back out into the mess, it's practical as well as a relief to take the opportunity to rest and repair; she'll make something to eat, repack her satchel, debate whether or not she needs to risk ruining another coat or if she can just clean this one the best she can and make it last until the end of the crisis, she'll...probably have a drink, too. For now she comes downstairs, barefoot in jeans and clean sweater with damp hair, and only briefly raises an eyebrow at finding him drinking her scotch.

What she thinks is not that's mine but I expect I'll be lucky if that's all I'm expected to pay him. (She doesn't expect that's all he's going to ask of her, no; he doesn't seem like the type to be inclined to leave aside not knowing something that's been set down before him. Thrown down, by a fucking dragon.)

“You can pour another,” she says. “But we should eat, too. I'll do that.”

Is she really going to saunter over to the kitchen like she has absolutely no intention of explaining hers-- yes. Yes she is.

[amourpropre]

In part, the drink acts as something of an anchor and a reason not to be dismissed for all that he is breaking into, uninvited, her liquor; so Lucius doesn't object when she sets about her business for all that he tracks her progress with that same chilly incredulity. Waiting for her to clean up had afforded him time to think, as well, but-- he hasn't settled happily upon a single conclusion.

Death is something of a finality, where he is from. Protection spells, healing potions, these things are well and good, and there is a reason why wizards and witches have their morbidly extended lifespans, but once you're finished--

Well. Look at what Tom Riddle gave to pay the price of return. And there's a reason why all the good fairytales are about cheating death.

Charming though she is, Lucius has also discounted 'made a pact with the Reaper'. He summons a glass, after a second, the clatter and slosh of a drink being poured. He follows her into the generous kitchen once he's done, setting the scotch down and sliding it across the silver surface in her direction. "And your shoulder?" is polite enough inquiry.

[asklepios]

Immortality is something you have or you don't, where she's from. Benevenuta is a have; Lucius is a have-not. She's still not quite accustomed to having to allow for more variety in the dividing lines between individuals in this strange new world she's living in now, for what that means with regard to so many things.

Someone who expects wonders, expects explanations for them is harder to lie to. That doesn't seem to incline her to stop lying, but-- she's been doing this for a long time. When she wants to tell the truth it's hard for her, painful almost in the way of trying to flex an atrophied muscle, her instincts screaming in the other direction, and frankly she doesn't want to tell him anything right now. This would be too much like a concession, like something she was backed into a corner for, and she prefers to be the one holding the cards.

She says, “Better. Better soon. I'll get some rest and let the potions do their work.”

Bless Severus Snape, and Lucius Malfoy's own culture's clever little cures. She can point to each one that'd have her with just a bit of strain by tomorrow.

It isn't as though he's going to demand she open her blouse and show him underneath the bandage.

[amourpropre]

In the same way that Lucius would not deign to root around her house (while she's still in it, anyway), he isn't going to ask her to open her shirt (in this context). Pride demands he be told what he wants to know. It works in her favour, sort of.

"You'll find the wards in place, as requested," he says, first, casting a look away from her that only tosses straw-pale hair a fraction over his shoulder. "It's been some time since I've done such for anyone apart from myself. Now, I wouldn't believe it a stretch of the imagination to guess that those who once knew me, where I am from, would marvel at the notion of me performing magic for those who cannot wield it themselves."

He takes a sip of her scotch. "We all make our little compromises, here. I saw you fall, and the result. Your spine should be shattered, dislodged from viscera turned to liquid beneath your ribcage, to say nothing of your brain matter still a smear on the sidewalk last we left. I looked.

"With these images still quite fresh in my mind's eye, do you believe I should accept that you simply fell in someone else's blood?"

Just curious.

[asklepios]

Benevenuta rests her hands on the bench (something simple to eat - a soup she can just throw together, something simple and filling, and putting it together will ease some of that lingering tension out of her back, where it broke the way he's describing) and lets herself think her way through an answer instead of snapping at him the way she's tempted to.

Her temper, when it gets the better of her, always goes further than she means. It's better to keep a leash on it while she still can.

“It would suit me if you did,” she says, finally, and the wry tone is-- some kind of concession.

[amourpropre]

The sound Lucius makes is one of irritation; a voiceless, monosyllabic scoff even as his attention trips back into the safe retreat of the drink he's served himself. He can hear her tone of voice, at least.

"I have no particular desire to do what doesn't suit you," he says, after a moment; his tone almost disjointed from the rest of him, distanced. "But the deception doesn't hold, I'm afraid, and whatever it is you are attempting to hide is quite out of your hands." Because it's still truth sans explanation, in it's own blunt and brutal way, except he knows full well there is more to it than simply being capable of resurrection.

The sword and the crossbow see to that.

[asklepios]

Movement resumes; she busies herself finding chicken broth, silken tofu, white rice, turmeric, olive oil, here's that pepper and there should be fresh dill...here. All right. It's a soothing occupation, even in a kitchen as alarmingly red-and-black as hers is now, and she lets herself fall into familiar rhythm so she can think more clearly on what to do next.

“I value my privacy as you do,” she says, then, in a frank reminder of all those times she's obliged him in not asking. “Do I lose it, if I wish to help?”

[amourpropre]

His posture stiffens as if he is about to explain in precisely enunciated terms how that circumstance is very different, but Lucius falls quiet instead. Watching as she sets about her mise en place without necessarily being hypnotised by it; just a little derailed. Perhaps she does have a point.

...no, that can't be it.

"I don't regard it as a matter of privacy--" A vague gesture, glass tipping in his hand.

[asklepios]

A saucepan comes out of the cupboard next, and she measures out cups of broth and rice as she inquires, in a deceptively inquisitive tone of voice: “What do you consider it a matter of, Lucius?”

Really.

[amourpropre]

Lucius hesitates again, but not out of conviction; her tone gives him pause, but he answers her question anyway. "My injuries spoke for themselves, to some extent. There is nothing about them or what I haven't told you that changes whatever notions you have of me," still manages to sound prim, if bleak, which is somewhat his usual anyway.

"I knew you to be a healer of good education and manners, with some taste in wine and conversation. The presence of medieval weaponry and the ability to resurrect are rather incongruous with this concept, don't you agree?"

A pause, and pettier; "I've also never lied to you."

[asklepios]

Hasn't he. She supposes he hasn't, at that; she wonders if he would have, if she'd ever asked, or if he'd have told her, or if he'd have got offended at being asked and left. He's a prickly thing, this friend of hers. An observation beautifully borne out by this conversation-- but so is she, sometimes, and the same again.

Benevenuta, the liar, sidesteps his last petty remark entirely. She lies to everybody. Why should Lucius be special?

“Incongruous but not contradictory,” she offers, instead, bringing the saucepan over the heat and glancing up at him over her shoulder. “Neither my manners nor my skills, I think, suffer for these things. I would think experience to be a valuable thing.”

[amourpropre]

"The Glory Shada sees a lot of swordplay, does it?"

This is so frank and so wry that it's probably not even worth responding to, which is a thing Lucius recognises enough as he loosens the righteousness out of his own posture enough to find a lean against the counter. The argument is dwindling from him, but not yet gone; the prospect that he might leave without answers is presenting itself as an option, but a far less palatable one.

For now, Lucius rhetorics; "Then answer me this; does the truth put you in danger, or is it a matter of principle? Never mind privacy. You left some of that behind among the skull fragments."

[asklepios]

The reminder of her own head cracked open on the street like an egg (yolk running--) is not a welcome one and Benevenuta's knuckles clench, tellingly, around the handle of the saucepan. She doesn't actually entertain flicking the contents at the front of him, but it's worth noting that in a higher temper, well. It wouldn't be the most alarming thing she's ever thrown at a man.

“I am accustomed to my privacy,” she says, reframing the question (and its limitations) to better suit the way she wishes to answer it. “For which I have my reasons. And, if I am not wrong in believing that you can be trusted with it,” or in thinking that it's not out of the question he can be maneuvered into keeping her secrets by the suggestion that she already believes he will, “then I wonder what does it matter? You have seen. What more do you want me to say?”

And why?

(The list of people digging into her business, whose curiosity she's obliged to tolerate, is getting irritatingly long for the length of time she's been here - yes, at all of two - and she's not entirely sure if she's getting sloppy or Baedal has a higher count of the type.)

[amourpropre]

There are two chinks to the chain of Lucius' argument. The first being that he is loathe to beg, and his vocabulary for demanding is a well running dry. The second is that but are you human or not flags far too close to the prejudice that he has, honesty or not, been keeping guard from her. The prejudice that is obsolete but shaped so much of his existence. Muggles are not worse than xenians.

Of which he is nowhere close to Candlelighter levels of disdain, but he feel he ought to know what he's permitting anymore.

So it's a good thing she doesn't ask why.

He clams up into sullen silence again, and finishes his drink without claiming another. Lucius moves instead to set the glass beside the sink. "Simply what it means."

[asklepios]

By many standards in Baedal, Benevenuta would be considered xenian. It's not something that she's come to think of herself as; she thinks of herself as something both separate from humanity and deeply, meaningfully connected to it. She has always known the divide between mortal and immortal and rarely thought of it in terms of species. She thinks of it in terms of purpose, of responsibility, of guardianship even--

She loves humanity, she rises to her obligation to it, but she is not beholden to the individual. The individual, in fact, is where she's always had trouble. Relating to them on their own terms is something she's tried to do and something that has eluded her for centuries; their experience and expectations are too unlike her own. She's never known the urgency of a life with an endgame in sight.

That's what it means. Her proud distance, here, the glimpses of just how arrogantly willful she truly is down at bone - this is what it means.

But she says: “It means that I am older than I appear,” in the tone of someone who thinks he should be grateful for conceding even that much. “And that I know what I'm doing. And that I would be very grateful if you would get the crystal power-source down from the cupboard above me here for my blender.”

Well, since he's standing right there, being taller than she is.

[amourpropre]

The sharper glance past his shoulder that she gets is probably indicative of Lucius catching concession, focused first on the act of information giving in a small, petty moment of satisfaction, before processing the content itself, which-- oh. He had meant it, when he'd sneered about how easy it seemed to be for her, to lie on automatic. 'Old hat'.

He blinks at this last thing, jaw setting. Gratitude, however much she thinks he should have, is not written into his expression, and he is making sure it doesn't. But he does shut up, which might be better, and he does move to the cupboard, which is just a bonus.

Taking the crystal off the shelf, it's held out for her to take.

[asklepios]

Benevenuta attaches the blender's charged crystals to settle in - it's always best to plug them and give it a bit of a warm up, she finds, or it chokes like an unprepared public speaker - and lets that silence settle in between them, slink into each space and crevice as she sets her attention on...dinner, probably, she's not clear on what time it is right now. Eventually the only sound is the broth boiling, and she lowers the temperature, lets it simmer, not unlike what Lucius is doing right now.

She rests a hand against the counter and permits herself to look tired.

[amourpropre]

Maybe that's an act too. Maybe she doesn't get tired. Lucius allows himself this small, petty, suspicious observation before he dismisses it. In a past life, he used to be rather good at negotiation, knowing when to apply pressure and when to leave it for another day, assuming that that's a luxury either of them will afford the other. Presumably, Vanessza has quite a few to spare, at least.

"Perhaps I ought leave you to your thoughts," he says, partially over a shoulder as he wanders away a little to concede some space. His tone, for once, is not overly transparent, and doesn't signify code for his own desire to leave... but assuming that this meeting is fit to continue much longer seems assumptive.