[𝐒 𝐀 𝐋 𝐄 𝐌]

НЕЗАВИСИМО ОТ СТОИМОСТИ
( потому что что еще остается? )

They call her by many names and epithets. ‘Mother of Demons’. ‘Mother of Beasts’. ‘Matron of Monsters’. But no matter how far she gets from that scared little girl huddled in a tiny, dark cell at the bottom of a middle of nowhere lock-up in a tundra… in some pathetic and tragic way, nothing will ever feel more like home familiar than the inside of a decrepit, abandoned warehouse.

She would have preferred to spend as little time here as possible, but when it comes to business, early is on time, and on time may as well be late. Or so she’s been (lectured, harangued, scolded) told by a particularly opinionated and orderly young man she dares not name, lest the very thought of him prompt a phone call for yet another scolding over something else he’s fretting about.

Rousing her from her thoughts is a bright purple spark with a life of its own, zipping through the air around her head before settling at her shoulder. The little hummingbird squeaks, purple electricity fading away and briefly bouncing into her cheek. It hardly fazes her. Such is the result of years of conditioning; it wouldn’t do for her to recoil and smack him out of the air — the inconvenient flinching reaction that might have ever even lead to the possibility of such a thing has long since been smothered into dirt.

But as typical and endearing as it is of him to be filled with such energy, there is a reason for the caution that brings her to shush him.

“Hush, Nio,” she murmurs. “We are expecting company. Come now.” She unfastens her jacket, just enough to open the small pocket on the inside of the lapel that is cushioned and insulated for his safety. At his size, the closer he is to her and the more well-concealed, the safer he is. Though she could swear the mischievous little thing squints at her (perhaps he can sense the unease of familiarity lingering about her?), he hops into his pocket easily enough. And not a moment too soon-- someone is approaching.

Kushiki Kioko .

by sixsmith.

[googlefont="Roboto"]

[Kushiki Kioko]

I HAVE PROMISES TO KEEP

AND MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP

“They’re here.”

“Yes. I have eyes too, Rhys. You don’t have to be here for this.”

“You’d rather be alone?”

Kioko looked away from her laptop screen connected to a hidden camera she had planted in the warehouse earlier in the day in preparation for a business meeting and over to the man who had posed what he knew to be a complicated question. Abandoned warehouses were a far cry from the boardrooms she had been brought up in during her youth. There was an argument to be made for either being more cutthroat than the other depending on if one meant literal or figurative. Given that the current situation fell underneath the potential for the former, having backup was… not comforting, Kioko found comfort in so little these days, but perhaps steadying was more suitable. Not that pride would never allow her to admit such a thing.

“I’m not alone.”

The Silver Serpent’s golem that embodied the woman’s own moniker lifted its heavy metal head up from the floor. An illusion that it was a sentient creature and not the mercurial manipulations of its mistress’ mind. Rhys knew better, but the black market buyer wouldn’t. The trick had been a useful insurance in Kioko’s many shady dealings since her release from prison. Rhys shook his head but said nothing as Kioko rose from her makeshift throne situated in their hidden lookout higher within the building then proceeded to make her way down into the belly of the beast.

Her steps announced her presence. The telltale mimicry of dulled gunshots arising from sharp heels bearing hefty weight against a concrete floor. Beneath their reports hummed a softer sound of slithering from her undulating companion that was longer than she was tall but only half as thick. Kioko could have silenced their joint approach with a degree of effort, or a different fashion choice on her part, but such stealthy measures were better saved for dealing with prey. Not clients. Though in her line of work, it was a line easily crossed.

Beneath the mask and mantle of Meliora, Kioko gazed down upon the other woman wondering if she would be one of the few that crossed said line. Her pondering wasn’t evident on the exposed portion of her face nor her slitted eyes, as icy as they were indifferent to the other Villain’s presence. Her voice matched her eyes in stoic coolness when she spoke, words loosed from forked tongue past wicked ivory fangs that contrasted against dark lips that were typically the last line of defense for her trademark reticence.

“The code.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a demand. Proof was needed to confirm that the woman was the one who had the necessary connections to arrange such a meeting. Said proof would have been given when the meeting was first arranged through the use of a burner phone long since discarded. Only memory held evidence of what words were now needed to make the desired pact with the monolithic patron that towered before the wanting witch.

Notes & Tags: 𝐒 𝐀 𝐋 𝐄 𝐌 | Outfit + Mask | The code can be whatever you want it to be but it must contain whatever alias Salem used to arrange the meeting.

[𝐒 𝐀 𝐋 𝐄 𝐌]

НЕЗАВИСИМО ОТ СТОИМОСТИ
( потому что что еще остается? )

As the newcomer steps into the dim light, Salem stands to greet her when, tucked safe against her breast, there is a sudden movement in Nio’s pocket.

(He must have noticed the snake.) 

Perhaps he is made uneasy by the serpent’s presence, or perhaps he is simply restless. Either way, he attempts to poke his head out of his hidey-hole, only for the lapel’s hem to remain steadfastly secured beyond the gap left for him to breathe. Threaded and lined as it is with the strands of her own hair, there is no inch of her body not clothed in that which she can manipulate with but a thought. (And she can’t take the chance of that serpent being… untrained.)

But for her own part, her head tilts, slowly. Perhaps one might have expected her to react like the hummingbird nervously tittering at her chest. To quail or cower, maybe, or go tense and fraught with fear.

Not so. 

“A beautiful beast,” she says instead — in Latin. The language in which the first step was taken, the first invitation offered. It had not been her own idea, but Ksyusha’s, at his realization of the root meaning behind the moniker Meliora; tongue in cheek, perhaps, but the suggestion of her brother (in cause, though not blood) had been taken nonetheless. “Might it have a name?” Following that, her eyes are trained on the serpent only momentarily - as much as she might love to spend her time admiring such a darling creature, this is business. Not pleasure. She sizes up the other woman, and though the glance is subtle, she makes no real secret of it. (What good would that do?)

Though it is amusing, a the very least, to note the similarities between the two. Both are dressed all in black. Both of them wear masks, though Salem’s own mask covers the lower half of her face, rather than the upper. And while her own hair is white as the driven snow, the silver sheen of the other woman’s is hardly far off in color. (Coincidence, or funny twist of fate?)

—Ah, yes. The code.

“Though I’m woefully empty handed for the most part, I do hope that you won’t mind if we bring a gift or two along for future occasions. As a gesture of friendship.” All in Latin. Amicitia: friendship, the word Ksyusha had suggested as an alias prior to their first reaching out. She does hope none of this falls upon ignorant ears. (Ksyusha would be so disappointed.)

Kushiki Kioko .

by sixsmith.

[googlefont="Roboto"]

[Kushiki Kioko]

I HAVE PROMISES TO KEEP

AND MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP

Anxiety sheathed in even sharper irritation radiated from Kioko’s mind at the words spoken in a language known to few. She had asked for a code and was given saccharine pleasantries instead. The paranoia of her mind twisted its heightened analytical lens around the response to view it from every angle. Her immediate concern was the small talk being a stalling tactic because the woman didn’t have the code in question. A hallmark of a trap.

Silver eyes shifted to look past the shorter figure, scanning for potential backup waiting in the wings before returning to the guest of dishonor for the evening. The only thing tempering her mental control from unleashing a veritable bullet hell by exploding the praised pet in question was an earpiece veiled by tresses cascading over the shoulder on the same side and the man on the other end of the device who had remained behind to watch the security camera from afar. Kioko hated that his presence did exactly what she had avoided confirming it might do to his face, but she could not deny its hand in preventing a bloodbath.

Still, Kioko offered no reply to the question. Not only did she demand compliance of her orders for such an exchange, Latin was a dead tongue best left to clinically scientific designations and other dead things—like herself and what the name had once represented. That another flaunted their knowledge beyond the given code of speaking a language lost to all but the dedicated to her of all people showed Kioko that they knew nothing of her.

Then again, almost no one did.

Her stony reticence allowed space for the code to finally be given. Though it dulled wary ire, Kioko was hardly the type to not remain on edge. Nothing about her monolithic stature and the mental guard erected beyond it relaxed in spite of hints of dropped like breadcrumbs—Villains were notorious liars and scoundrels. Maintaining both of her defenses, and more, were necessary attributes of the role she performed among the underground, a role she was all business about. Anything less than her frigidly enigmatic aura and unyielding caution and she would have been dead more times than Sebastian could count. When the code was completed, Kioko finally replied. Albeit in Japanese except where the alias required otherwise.

“Present your request, Amicitia.”

Notes & Tags: 𝐒 𝐀 𝐋 𝐄 𝐌