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[img]http://i.imgur.com/6zu3eLl.png[/img]
[h1]Exiting a café for tourists, overpaying for the meal he was already overcharged for[/h1][/center][hr][hr]

"[color=f26522][i]Au revoir.[/i][/color]"

He offered weakly as his companion left, hoping she hadn't noticed the color drain from his face. Her envelope could have been a coincidence, so he chose not to remark on it during their conversation. Surely two people could buy the same type of envelope and send a letter in it- although increasingly uncommon in the modern age. The young man who had just wandered in though [i]also[/i] carried one. On top of that, he had come to know all too well by now who the [i]Methuselah of Paris[/i] was since he had begun his stay in the city. Lucifer Van Bonaparte. This woman, of all the Tea Houses in Paris, was going to be working for him. On top of that, no less than three of his guests had stumbled their way into this exact location.

I reeked too much of fate for him, and the thought made him sick.

Not caring that he was overpaying, he slipped some bills on the table before stumbling out of the café and tried to fill his lungs with some fresh Parisian air. It wasn't helping. Oh sure, it was entering his lungs just fine, too fine. He was on the edge of hyperventilating but he felt like he was suffocating. Two other letterbearers, a woman who worked for Bonaparte, and the contents of his own letter. In one tiny shop in such a large city! Could it all be coincidence? Could it be orchestrated? The thought both baffled and enraged him. It meant either the God he abandoned was real, or this [i]Methuselah[/i] had just as much power. Either reality was one which Conrad wanted nothing to do with.

And yet.

Yet.

If this [i]was[/i] Orchestrated in some way. [i]Was[/i] the result of this man who was beginning to fill Conrad with unease the more he thought about him- then was it not more proof? His wish. Surely a man would need to have at least as much power to grant that- more power than Conrad had managed to muster certainly.

As he wandered in the opposite direction from where his brief companion was heading slowly his breathing began to normalize. No, it didn't matter if what he was experiencing today was natural or [i]super[/i]natural. The thought of being... [i]manipulated[/i] by some greater force annoyed him, but he would at least force it to work hard to entrap him with coincidence. It was not yet time for him to meet with Bonaparte, and he would be damned if his last few hours of freedom were to be tainted by the man.

So he walked away from the place, with the longest strides that his legs could muster. He tried to forget, for at least a short time, the faces of the people he knew he would see again. Tried to lose them as surely as he lost himself in the streets of Paris, with no rhyme or reason to his wandering. Still, forgetting was not a skill Conrad could ever master. So instead he walked, keeping his pace until he breath ran ragged and he was finally forced to stop and regret his sedentary life style. It only took a quick look at his surroundings to realize that he had no idea where he was at this point, and smiled at the realization. Leaning against the side of a building, he closed his eyes and tried to relax.

[i][color=f26522]Your move God, let's see you work for your amusement.[/color][/i]