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The body of Aornis Hades is buried on the mansion grounds, her severed hand picked clean to the bones and placed around her own throat. All residents may rest assured that this fact will never change even if it could change, not with two necromancers in residence.

Ironically, though, her memory persists and remains as organic as a living creature. Conversations with her are wrung through the mind again and again – Did I really say that to her? Did she really say that to me? – one of her words changed here, an intonation altered there. She grows more cruel, more dangerous, more charismatic. The memory is forever changed from the truth of the moment. Fractured pieces of encounters rising to the forefront again when something innocuous is mentioned or seen; a gaming console, a shade of pink, a chandelier. Her smile, in dreams. The sound of a gun firing. The truth of it is, she will never be truly gone. In fact, some might dream about her tonight. The dreams vary in content and not all of them obviously feature her.

In one, a young girl – maybe 4 or 5 – with her long blonde hair in a single braid down her back races through a crowd clutching a white leather purse, laughing. When she clears the crowd she purposefully runs towards a man who catches her in his arms and swings her into the air. There is pride, comfort, belonging.

In another, the back of a young girl, perhaps a teenager this time, standing over a prone body on an operating table. Two other individuals are working on the body and they are all wearing scrubs. It's difficult to hear what they are saying, but she is pointing at something within the body with interest. There is intelligence, calm, and curiosity.

In yet another, a figure that is clearly an adult Aornis Hades (but younger) seated at a dining table. The restaurant is nice. She is dressed well, a flattering black dress. She raises a glass of red wine in cheers, mirrored by the tall, striking man sitting across from her. She is celebrating something. Triumphant, successful, loved.

Finally, a pale face stares back out, framed by a mirror. The room is dark. The hair is short, recently dyed a mousey brown colour. Worry, anger, and a resolute firmness. They pushed her to this. They gave her no choice.

Most of these dreams are immediately forgotten. Only a small percentage of people remember their dreams every single night, after all. And eventually, the memory of these dreams will fade for everyone. What lingers is a sense of unease – as if a perfectly manicured finger has just touched the surface of the water and sent a series of ripples outwards.

When the predetermined day and time for the night hunt comes around, Aornis kits herself out quite reasonably, though she secretly loathes every second of it. Sensible, dark clothes and sensible black shoes with no heels. Flashlight. Notebook and pen. A few other useful and routine tools -- and an odd contraption that she's holding in her hands. The outside of it is a glass bottle that once held a beverage of some sort, washed and cleaned thoroughly. Since she didn't want to appear to be the sort to waste food, she's filled it with different colored plastic beads that she discovered in one of the lounges. The bottle is sealed, with the cap on, as she waits for Claudius and Lan Wangji.

Alternatively, if anyone would like to speak with her while she waits for them, they are also more than welcome to -- though we can't particularly guarantee a scintillating conversation, as she's still masquerading as Thursday Next.

Aornis has some regrets. She doesn't regret antagonizing Luo Binghe to begin with, but she is beginning to regret the frequent memory wipes. There's a lot to keep track of. Additionally, she's discovering that what Claudius said was completely correct. It's all too routine. Too irritatingly banal. There's caution and curiosity at the start of each dream encounter with Luo Binghe – but it inevitably escalates into a repeat of the exact same scene. He begins to annoy her and then she taunts him with the fact that he can't remember anything about her when she clearly knows so much about him. He then uses Thursday Next against her, which unfortunately, is always an easy road to further irritating her. That's when she reveals how much she knows about Shen Yuan – which is almost too easy of an opening. Doesn't he know? Doesn't he realize what she's done to Shen Yuan's memories over the past few months? She asks, with a slight arch of one perfect eyebrow.

That threat is traditionally when it escalates into aggression. Most nights, he's the victor – and that's fine. It's perfectly fine. He's more powerful than her, both in the dream realm and also in reality. She's a mere human woman, after all. It's an empty victory for him and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter, since she wipes his memory of it the moment she wakes up. She – quite literally – gets the last word in.

Then why was she so irritated with him so quickly last night? And why did he say something so out of the ordinary? Is it because they're both starting to feel like a fictional character from her own world, caught in the same narrative over and over again?

They were at that pivotal point, the one where he discovers that the same thing has been happening over many different, separate nights, the point where he is typically the aggressor. "I won't let you get away with this," is what he usually says, or something along those lines. Stereotypical. Heroic. Boring.

"That's pathetic," Luo Binghe said.

"Excuse me?" Aornis asked, affronted and mildly taken aback.

"Repeating the same thing every single night. Taking the coward's way out by wiping your opponent's memory." His smile was cold, haughty. "Perhaps it's familial. No wonder you're on a mission of vengeance."

She looked at him for a long moment. Her tone of voice matched his smile, cold and sharp. "What the hell do you mean?"

"If your brother was as pathetic as you, then he deserved to die," he told her.

That time, out of rage, she was the victorious one – but when she woke up, it felt like an empty victory. Even now, finishing her perfectly flawless pink manicure, she feels the rage simmering under the surface. Nobody insults her dearest older brother.

It's time to change the narrative (again).

After her unlucky surprise with Shen Yuan and the cables, Aornis had laid low for a bit to reassess the situation at hand. A polite nod here, some chat chat with assorted residents there. That's it. Slow and steady. The situation in the mansion is a bit like her entropy manipulation. Chaos creates more chaos until it all snowballs out of control. The more "fun" she has, the more she endangers herself. They key is to find balance. Fortunately, nobody outright suspects her of anything in particular quite yet, aside from what's associated with her lie of a cover story. Merely an air of general unease with some of the residents. Good. Just the way she likes it.

Today, she's lingering near the bar, deliberating what sort of cocktail she'd like to make for herself. A nightcap, if you will.

After the cocktail, she's looking forward to heading to bed.

Following her meeting with Acheron, Aornis has taken his advice to heart and had some fun. Lately, her fun has been a bit more relaxed compared to her usual standards. No shop-lifting. No petty crimes. No murder. It almost feels like a vacation. During the day, she mostly keeps to herself, having the occasional pleasant but neutral conversation when she sees someone in the kitchen or the hallways. She makes sure to be seen around. She works out daily to stay in shape, suntans when the weather is nice, tries on new outfits, and practices at the firing range she she's certain that nobody else is around. Her aim is deadly. At night, she drifts through some dreams, sifting here and there for their worst memories and greatest fears. She keeps stock of those and erases her tracks behind her.

Today, she's tackling an issue head on. She almost doesn't want to leave now; it's so relaxing when nobody else has a clue. No pesky SpecOps around. But if she did get bored and wanted to leave -- and if she wants to continue the charade of her promises to Tress, she needs to at least start following a lead. Good thing she has one.

She's in the library with a fresh manicure and some books on the table in front of her, most notably Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short stories and novels.

[[Open post will be open for a while! Come and chat. :) Disclaimer: Please note that anyone who approaches Aornis may or may not be subject to memory manipulation.]]

Aornis eventually discovers a room she deems suitable for herself and it's unexpectedly cozy. Wide windows, a large bed, mostly white decor, and a few pink-colored accents. She kicks off her shoes and lets her Gucci shopping bag slip to the ground, falling back into an armchair, immediately in thought.

She taps her fingers on her chin. What an interesting day. What an interesting place. She hadn't realized that she had started a mental checklist, but it turns out that almost everything she wants to initially accomplish has been checked off. Confirm that Thursday Next is not present - check. Test that her mnemenomorph abilities are still intact - check. Spread a cover story - check. Even she doesn’t know the ins and outs of what a jurisfiction agent really does. Who cares? Make a few sympathetic friends - check. Test that her mnemenomorph abilities work on someone who is already dead - a surprise check. Have her name spread around - check. A few times. What next? She doesn’t know. Without revenge, it all feels a little flat. Boring. Acheron would know what to do if he was still alive.

In any case, there are still two more things to knock off her checklist. One, she’ll do one of these nights. The second, she'll accomplish right now.

There are a few random items lying around her room. Without any obvious intent or focus, she picks up the water glass that’s on her bedside table and it immediately fractures, the cracks forming a beautiful fractal pattern when they should have formed a random one. She sets it down. She must have been a little sloppy with her hand because she knocks a velvet bag with a dozen or so ten-sided die onto the ground. They all spill out and roll across the floor - all eventually landing with the number six facing up. The water glass suddenly explodes. A few of the shards fly through the air and sharply slice through the cords holding up the curtain rod closest to Aornis. The entire set-up suddenly falls. What are the chances? Aornis neatly side-steps the falling curtains, which would have landed heavily on her head, potentially harming her but also causing her to step on the slippery, pointed die on the floor – and then who knows what would have happened? She laughs, just a little.

Well, that works as well. Only one more item on the checklist left to go.