Maxwell rapped his fist on the table. "I will not shh. Everyone should know I have a beautiful wife. They have eyes with which to see, do they not?" He stood up, swaying slightly. "My wife is beautiful!" he announced.

The game she's playing is a dangerous one. Every poke at Killian's nerves is a nudge down the tightrope of control he struggled to walk. But Lulu didn't care. A fact Killian might respect if control wasn't the very thing he needed the most.

Let's tell him again, she thinks. Let's tell him again, but this time, say it with your axe. They're in the sort of business where violence is how you speak and sympathy is not a thing you show —

yet, all she says is:

"Rosey," in a tone dry as death.

But then he pleads, and Marguerite Reiner always did prefer it when men beg.

After all, present a person with power, and they'll eventually long to weaponize it. It's simply the way of the world, and it's why we have history books.

He knew she meant no harm. Truthfully, Killian hardly cared either way. But he's a petty man, even if he doesn't act it on the surface. He'll be taking every opportunity to ruffle her prim and proper feathers. The fact it might make its way back to Martín del Mar is a bonus.

Then Camille Moreau takes her hand, and it has an equivalent effect on her train of thought as does dropping a concrete wall across a motorway.

“What?”

The first response comes rather instinctual. A fleeting thought, from an era bygone, attributing the statement to some kind of a misunderstanding.

The second response comes after Atlas remembers she hasn't misheard a damn thing in her life.

“What?”

Blink and a challenge metamorphosizes⁠—a father; a door (locked); a gunshot; a voicemail; a cell; a dagger; a mother⁠—until it holds her upright and says it is past formalities.

Jacki thinks her version of Little Red Riding Hood has officially gone off the fucking rails.

“I don’t know – anyway… he did some bullshit and blood rained from his mask and --- you know what... never mind. This sounds crazy.” She offered him a helpless shrug of her shoulders, “Its okay, you can think I just stabbed someone.”

Ame led the way, bringing them through Koge's compound and towards the courtyard where the ethereal sat, tea on a table before him. Ame bowed politely. "Might I present, my lordship Koge'adahl. And to him, I present kami-sama Kyou, and his champion, Kaelis." Kaelis practically vibrated in excitement here, but Kyou seemed rather hesitant, defiant.

"We've met, thanks." Kyou muttered, taking the few steps down and to the low table, sitting on a cushion. "Out with it, what the hell do you want?"

Kaelis shook his head and moved to sit beside Kyou. "Ya got the manners of a fuckin' brick, ya know."

It brings a question that he wants more time to ponder: something simultaneously as large and as simple as how far is the son of saints willing to go to promise deliverance and salvation?

Being a figure—everything he wanted in the shape of a hero with purpose—never lets you have something of your own, ultimately. However small it might be.

Lucas takes a deep breath then, and the fact he's thinking so damn hard about letting go of the past to get the security of if God, fate, whatever gave a damn, he thinks, says enough about the choice he chooses.

“Is there a problem⁠—”

Her momentum stops dead when it collides with an arm across her chest.

“There will be one if you do not stand down,” the good doctor orders.

“I assume your pride is not the first thing in life your illiteracy has cost you, but the sign in the window clearly states that attacks on patients within the walls of this building will be prosecuted, and I do not intend to involve this colony’s paltry attempt at government to determine justice. Understood?”

His eyes jump between her, Santoro, and the television set. He nods.

“Tubular, my dear. Right this way.”

He wasted very little time putting the skirt on. It was a little long on him, so he rolled the top a few times to make it shorter and tucked his shirt in. It looked pretty weird with his combat boots, because fxxk school appropriate shoes. He also had to shift the knife in them down a bit so that it wasn't quite visible. "What? Am I supposed to not be clothed?" He asked, looking at Rei again. "Heh. Ya ever wanna get in my pants again, all ya gotta do is ask~"

The bell rang and he waved a bit before hopping off down the hall, happily swinging his butterfly blade in his hand again. "See ya later, jus' Rei."