The things I do. (Marth)

[Professor Carina Erikson]

Mentally, Carina shook her head. A small bag had just been tucked into the pocket of her plain black robes. It was a bit warm for the robes today, but Carina needed the hood that it supplied. Normally she wouldn't dream of speaking with anyone that her father knew, but there were things that she needed for class that were very hard to find. This, she had found, was the easiest way to obtain them. But, after spending over three months in a Ministry holding cell in Italy, she certainly didn't want to be caught down here.

Pausing at the door to the shop, Cairna pulled the hood of the robe to cover her head. If she kept her head down, no one would really be able to tell it was her under it. As she walked, her mind drifted. It wasn't as though anyone had really noticed that she had been gone in the first place. Her half brother knew only because she had owled him for help. Her oldest friend hadn't noticed her gone. And her two best friends hadn't known either. Marth leaving a while back and Indrick while she was in jail. It hurt to know that neither had said goodbye, nor had they bother to even write her as they usually did.

Shaking her head again, to clear the dark thoughts, Carina slipped into another store to make another borderline illegal transaction. This bag went in the same pocket to join the other as quickly as it could. Leaving the store, several coins lighter and her hood covered head down, Carina never saw the person before her. Hurrying along the stone and dirt covered street, Carina turned the corner and all but slammed into a person there. She just barely managed to catch herself from falling, bracing herself on the wall. "Why don't you watch where your going?"

[Marthallius Mal'Ghanis]

Marth prided himself on the healing arts he'd learned while in the Himalayas, a set of spells and skills known only to the sherpa wizards and those who had earned their trust, and while most of them were simply the same spells, performed with a secret reagent, that reagent made them much more powerful-enough to risk a trip to the dark alley. Marth's mind shuddered at the thought of what these people would do to him if he stepped out of line, a handcuffing which prevented him from intervening against a good two or three muggers that Marth knew he could have taken blindfolded (a feat not much different from simply defeating them, after his bouts of blindness those years ago).

Long aware of the alley's existence-thanks to his rather mysterious informant from back in his days as Hogwarts-Marth had never dreamed he'd actually be shopping here on this kind of regular basis. But even now that he'd determined that growing his own would work better than trying to inconspicuously purchase it this often, he still needed to gather a sufficient stock to make it worth the myriad of chilling and air-thinning charms it would take to nourish it.

So he was here, clad all in black in a-successful-attempt to intimidate any riffraff who would otherwise think of raising hell with a 6'10" adult wizard like Marth. His girth had saved him from unwanted attention in the past, and he wasn't about to stop using his size this way. Unfortunately, size had its disadvantages, and one of them was being a larger target. This is why, just as he recognized the woman only inches from running into him, he was unable--due to a combination of the size and his shock--to evade her lumbering.

After slamming into him, the wandering acquaintance seemed to come very close to toppling, saving Marth from ill-considered sentimentality that would likely have cost him any stealth he'd managed to maintain. Of course, the collision had hardly even shifted his weight, even given his high center of gravity. "Foul whelp, look where you're going," he hissed loudly in a voice dissimilar from his own, ensuring that their interaction would draw minimal attention.

After he was sure that nobody seemed to suspect them, he leaned towards Carina's ear and quietly whispered with his own voice. "Are you insane, or have you just lost your will to live? Or is there some other reason, perhaps, that you're in this Merlin-forsaken place, or do I need to off you myself for this and letting my brother leave?"

[Professor Carina Erikson]

Carina had not paid any attention to name the man had called her, nor to his appearance. It was best that way. It was only when the man leaned down and whispered in her that shock marred her face. Marth? After all this time? Her head jerked up, her hood fell back as her eyes sought his face. Yes, it was him alright. "Bloody hell." Carina cursed and jerked her hood back up. Let his brother leave...Carina snorted at this.

Glancing around she saw what she was looking for. "Follow me." Carina said softly. Carina turned on her heel, certain that Marth would follow her. Walking into the pub she had spotted, Carina walked to the bar and after a short conversation and the exchange of gold coins with the barkeep, Carina had the key to a room upstairs.

Carina turned toward Marth once again. With a jerk of her head for him to follow her once more, Carina headed upstairs and into the room she had just rented. She walked straight to the window and stared out. She heard Marth enter behind her, but she didn't move. His accusation had upset her more than she thought, as she could feel her temper rising. Despite her age, Carina still tended to have a problem with accidental magic when riled.

Once she thought she had calmed herself to speak, she turned and pushed her hood from her head. "Let him leave? Even if I had been here, what makes you think I could have stopped him? Merlin knows I wasn't able to stop you from leaving me?" Tears pricked her eyes as Carina crossed the gap between them and her hand slapped across his face before she could stop herself.

[Marthallius Mal'Ghanis]

Marth had been expecting a more immediate retaliation, and so he wasted a moment before beginning to follow Carina. While it was certainly a good thing that Carina recognized him--he'd gotten quite a bit older since the last time they'd had regular interaction, while Carina, being slightly older than the twins, did not seem to have changed as drastically as Marth was sure he had--he wasn't so sure that it would turn out too great for him in the short term. Shaking the temptation to pore over memories of how Carina handled accusation, he bound himself to seeing through the situation at hand.

As usual, the close historic bond between the twins and their honorary triplet led to such correct intuitions. While Indrick certainly would have refused to delve any deeper into such dark caverns as these, Marth--unfettered by the delusion that following laws of morality was anything less than playing by the Queensbury rules in the Roman Coliseum--was very quickly on Carina's heels, owing to his substantially longer legs.

Fear was an alien emotion to Marth--at least, fear for himself. He'd certainly feared for his blood sister at times, and goodness knows he'd feared for Carina's safety in the past. He'd never feared for his brother, of course--doing so would be a waste of time, given that both of them were more than capable of handling themselves, and fearing that his brother would succumb to overwhelming force would simply delay Marth from rushing to Indrick's back--a place very few humans could oust him from once there.

Likewise, as Carina's status as a triplet was ultimately founded on the understanding that she was every bit as much intelligence, ambition, and viciousness as the twins, Marth afforded her the benefit of the doubt, realizing that she probably knew what she was doing better than he did. While that didn't prevent him from being incensed at her presence in such a dark place, it did keep him from breaking rank as they strode through the shady settings.

Marth's eyes shifted to a muddy brown. He was now quite sure he'd offended Carina, judging from her body language. Hopefully, that wouldn't persist--after all, the last thing he wanted to do so soon after returning was drive away his oldest friend. Idiot, chimed Indrick's voice in Marth's head, clearly his imagination but doubtlessly far from what the real voice would have said if it could.

As if driven by the very hand of hawk-boy himself, Marth felt Carina's next words like a slap to the face. I never realized how literally I should have taken the phrase 'the truth hurts,' Marth thought to himself as he puzzled why the diamond-hard truth that it was most likely the case that Indrick had left at the exact same time as Marth--certainly indicating that, even if their departures had been announced, Carina would never have committed such sibling-political suicide as trying to prevent either one from leaving, thus having to let the other go.

Marth, certain that he was hallucinating a red handprint on his cheek as a metaphor to his own ultimate guilt in tying Carina's hands, concluded that it didn't matter whether Carina had known, had tried, or even wanted to try to prevent one of them from leaving. Realizing that he was undoubtedly reaching the point of suspicious lengths of silence, Marth quickly thought of a response.

"I'm sorry. It's not your fault. For Slytherin's sake, it's not like it's the first time the both of us have left, and while I'm not sure why this realization has so forcefully come to me, I think the reason that the only way one of us ever seems to leave is when the other leaves, is that you know, given that you cannot prevent both of us from leaving at the same time, that it is better to let us go than to subject our little sworn family to the fallout inherent in choosing one of us over the other."

"And you're right, you'd certainly not have been able to keep me from leaving. I had to find her--as soon as I had news that my cousin was still alive, Carina, I had to ensure the best possible chance that I would find...Myrrh."

Immediately following his speech, Marth noticed that Carina's arm was still forming the tail end of the necessary motions for a slap--which certainly explained why the 'hallucinatory' handprint on his cheek didn't FEEL very hallucinatory. You are such an ignoramus. 'The truth hurts!?' That's the dumbest thing you've ever allowed yourself to believe, hands down, taunted the imaginary voice of Indrick. Frustrated at his imaginary substitute for Indrick's voice, which was starting to get more maddening than sitting under a Fwooper's nest, Marth inadvertently forgot that he was still dealing inside his mind, and as he felt himself spectator to the words he was uttering, thanked his thousands of dead ancestors that he was with the best possible person to hear what he said.

"Dammit, Indrick, shut up! Get out of my head!"

[Professor Carina Erikson]

The silent pause between them seemed to be hours long, though in fact it couldn't have been more than a few seconds. Within a millisecond of the slap, Carina had managed to rile herself up again, her magic leaking out as the sparse furniture began to shake. As Marth began to speak, Carina closed her eyes and allowed the fact he had finally figured out something she had always known calm her again. They always left at the same time, so even if she had known, she couldn't have chosen one over the other.

He had said he had been trying to find a cousin. Well, on one side she couldn't fault him for that. But on the other, well, look at what had been of her while they were gone. If they had been here, she would have never been allowed to go to Italy alone.

The tears that had started to roll down her cheeks, something she hated but couldn't stop. She had opened her mouth to speak, to explain why she was so upset, what had happened to her with them gone, but the words stopped before she could utter them.

At his bizarre statement, Carina wiped her face dry and raised an eyebrow. She was still completely upset with him, but she couldn't stop the smart comment she was about to make. "Indrick's in your head? Good, tell him to come out so I can slap the bloody hell out of him too."