forgethertoo | [open post: thursday's eve]

[open post: thursday's eve]

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.

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It's a fun sort of cat-and-mouse game they're playing, where Claudius isn't sure who's the cat and who's the mouse. He waits patiently for Lan Wangji to answer.

After a beat precisely long enough for Lan Wangji to realize that Claudius is going to say nothing, he answers, "At first, I sought an exit." They step outside. It is late enough in the spring now that the night is no longer cold at first blush. "Now I look for any abnormalities. Some are expected. The mansion grounds shift. Others are not. Anything malevolent: resentful energy, killing intent, stagnation of qi."

Aornis looks thoughtful as they begin to walk the grounds. "I see. Are there typically many malevolent abnormalities here?"

"We've one or two malevolent normalities," Claudius says, pleasantly casual, perhaps only to have it said. "Some of our residents have something of a sinister bent. But they've stopped short of murder¹, in the past. A bit of a misstep, for our most recent murderer -- she'll have more attention on her than ever. People are fascinated by irregularity."

¹ Manslaughter doesn't count.

"Mn," Lan Wangji says again. He won't belabor the point; Claudius is right. Death was common for him once, if never welcome. The first death in a world that has never seen it before, conversely, can hardly escape notice. He leads them toward the far side of the lake. "Abnormalities are rare." The rest of that sentiment, he leaves implied: they are rare, but not unheard of. Fierce corpses, the sudden appearance of half of the Yin Tiger Tally, the sudden shift in the aura of Galahad's sword.

"I suppose the two of you are also included in those fascinated by irregularity," Aornis says, also pleasantly enough. At this point in the walk, she gives the container of beads a small shake. They stay dispersed randomly inside the container.

"Well, of course. I told you I was a gossip, didn't I?" He hums thoughtfully, making notes in his notebook. "Lately, however, I've begun to wonder my whether fascination with the unusual has lead to me missing something in plain sight. Something hidden, perhaps, within a semblance of regularity. Do you take my meaning? It's the most uncanny feeling," he admits, acknowledging he's talking about something abstract. "Like there's something I've forgotten."

Despite the abrupt sharpening of his attention on Thursday, Lan Wangji makes no external acquiescence to his keen interest in her answer. He only keeps walking at an efficient but unhurried pace, past Nightingale's vacant summer house, skirting Magnus and Alex's camp. This is the side of him Claudius rarely sees now, calm and distant and cold, but it is still easy to access.

"Oh, really?" Aornis asks, tone noncommittal but with a touch of worry. "I'm sure you've discovered that another facet of this individual's abilities is memory manipulation. If not, I... apologize if this is how you're discovering it. That might be what you're sensing."

There's a split second where Claudius considers playing up his shock, really exploring how much he's gotten out of Dionysus's acting classes -- but it's better to be in-character. A slight widening of the eyes, before he folds away his vulnerability like closing up a fan. He fiddles with his pen, keeps his tone deliberately light. "Well," he says. "That does answer one or two questions for me. Memory manipulation?"

Lan Wangji's face stays unreadable, like a bowl of still water. "What are the parameters of this power?" They're coming closer to the edge of the woods, and darkness is encroaching; without comment, he plucks an illumination talisman from his sleeve, lights it with a flare of qi, and passes it to Thursday.

"Oh, it's all quite terrifying," Aornis says with a touch of worry, taking the talisman with a nod of thanks. "The entire Hades family have different abilities and this one somehow landed with one of the worst. Changing memories, erasing memories, and even ...inserting brand new memories that never happened."

Claudius has, to be fair, been avoiding confronting that particular existential terror in the face. Now is as good a time as any to let a shudder pass through him, and wonder how many memories are his own. Treasured memories, and nightmares — traumas that shaped the man he is today.

On the other hand, it’s like any lie. Tell it often enough, and it becomes good as truth. Would learning the lie of a memory change how he truly felt about it? (That picture that struck him so suddenly, that dogged him during Dark, of Sagramore and Luo Binghe together — it could’ve been a memory handed down to him. The whole affair could’ve been an invention, to drive Claudius and Sagramore apart. Yet it didn’t drive them apart, because of a choice Sagramore made. For every memory, there’s a choice, and the choice is what next?)

“I couldn’t find the motive,” he says, the slow way he does when he’s thinking something through out loud. “The only person I’ve known here to make threats would never raise a hand against Shen Yuan. And though he could grate on a man, Shen Yuan was nevertheless well-liked. I knew no one who seriously quarreled with him. Perhaps she’d hidden it well … or perhaps I simply forgot. Perhaps I’ve forgotten her altogether. I’ve never heard the family name Hades.”

Lan Wangji doesn't have to smooth this reaction into nothingness. If the game they are playing posits that this is new information, he can let his jaw clench with the same thrill of fear he felt when first he heard Wangji's strings thrumming with the notes that told him Aornis can create false memories, that Shen Yuan felt it happening to him.

It appears that Claudius has this well in hand. They've stepped into the woods, now. Here, if he had not already done so, he would -- on any given morning -- sling Bichen into the air and step onto the blade. Since he can't do that tonight, he winds his way through the woods, keeping a brisk clip as he walks and trusting they will both keep up. The illumination talisman in Thursday's hand casts a steady, warm glow around all three of them, casting long shadows that flicker from tree to tree.

Who knows how much of this game Aornis is aware of; who knows if she's digging herself deeper into this lie because it's cruel, because it's fun, or because she's bored -- or all of the above. Her face is easily impassive as Thursday as they walk along, trained by many years of simply not being remembered. She's never had to show emotion to anyone.

"Most of the members of the Hades family don't need a reason or a motive. They're evil for the sake of being evil. I recently faced Acheron, the oldest brother. Then there's Styx, Cocytus, Phlegethon, and -- well. She's the only sister and the youngest." Her tone is professional, detached. "Lethe is considered the white sheep of the family."

"An intriguing family portrait," Claudius murmurs as they walk, eyes fixed ahead to follow the gleaming light of Bichen through the darkening woods. "Is there more you could tell me? I tend to look for the motive, in cases like these -- it makes it easier to guess what a person will do next. With your work in search and containment, I'm sure you understand. But in the absence of a motive, it helps to know where someone is from -- what her family life was like, and how these brothers influenced her."

Claudius might or might not realize it, but this is not quite Lan Wangji's usual route. He avoided several of the places he usually momentarily stops for the sake of putting eyes on them: Magnus and Alex's camp, Sagramore and Laertes' house, Mothwing's den. He won't take them to the part of the woods that houses the clearing where Claudius watched him bleed his anger out through his sword. If this was ever anything but an intricate excuse to tease out more information under several half-transparent layers of pretense, it is no longer. Evil for the sake of being evil. He still balks at accepting that. Even Wen Ruohan wanted something.

Between the warm light of the talisman and Bichen's naked blade with its cold sword glare, the woods are as easy to navigate as they are during broad daylight. It could almost be a true night-hunt, one of the hundreds he has behind him, but there is no resentful energy here. He might, on any other hunt, expect to glimpse the tattered edges of a ghost's incorporeal robes or the luminous flash of a monster's eyes in the dark. He might listen for distant laughter or scratching claws. Here, he hears only their footfalls and he sees only the flitter of wings as bats embark on their own shorter hunts.

Aornis pauses for a moment, as if in thought. "There's a large dossier on Acheron Hades. He wants to be known. He's charismatic, flashy, and the third most wanted man in the world for a reason — well, he was. There's barely any information on her, just a few shoplifting videos or credit card fraud receipts. I would say she's a petty thief who accidentally ended up in a difficult situation, except…" Here she pauses again, either for effect or for a moment of hesitation.

Claudius gives the natural response to her call. "Except?"

Uncharitably and unfairly, Lan Wangji, who would play along with and enjoy the dramatic pause perfectly well from Wei Ying or Claudius or Sagramore, finds himself irritated by it, not that it shows. In fact, it's impossible to tell whether he is listening at all. He is, of course.

"Except every single agent assigned to her case has died or disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The most recent were Agents Kannon and Fodder. Good agents, too."

Claudius, for his part, can appreciate the craft here. If Thursday and Aornis are unfortunate twins -- even more unfortunate given that family history -- and not one in the same, then her warning sounds direly earnest. But for Aornis herself, it doubles as a boast and a threat. Claudius puts a hand to his chest. "My condolences," he says seriously. "I hope you understand we're committed enough to accept the risk of likewise disappearing. One of our own has died, after all."

One of their own has died, and they don't intend to rest until they've found some modicum of justice -- but they are already making that evident, cutting a path through the woods in the dark with a near-stranger. Lan Wangji also has no intention of allowing anyone else to disappear, but there's no need to boast or declare his own power. If this is Aornis, she already knows and likely considers him a trifling threat in comparison with Luo Binghe. If not, it would be a misplaced show of force.

They've come to a felled tree that blocks their path, a remnant of the storm that descended on the mansion at the end of Dark. Lan Wangji clears it in one neat little jump, then offers a hand to Thursday and Claudius in turn to help them over it. A slow-trickling stream winds through the woods from here. "Follow the water to your right," he instructs Thursday. It puts him at the rear, as he intended: his back is no longer to her, and he can watch Claudius' back, too.

Aornis crosses the felled tree easily. Though she lacks any preternatural strength that some of her siblings may have, she has kept herself in shape.

"Yes, I was very sorry to hear that," she says earnestly. "Hopefully it can all be put to right soon."

Claudius flashes Lan Wangji a quick smile, grateful for the hand up and for that clever bit of maneuvering. His heart speeds, understandably, at the thought of what threats Lan Wangji might have to guard him against -- but at least he'll be guarded through it. That knowledge keeps his mind sharp and clear. "I'm sure it will," he says, serene, "one way or another. I only wish to assuage any guilt you might be feeling about involving us. On the contrary, I'm grateful for your trust. Had things gone differently, she might've been one of our own, and we might have taken you here to lead you astray. Does she truly have no motive other than evil?"

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