[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/190819/43931bc9ee4fdd5ebef1026dc0b239fb.png[/img][/center] [i]14th Suns Dawn - Evening Jehanna, High Rock[/i] [hr] [indent]From behind the glass of the window she watched the motions of the storm against the seamless sea beyond the stone walls of her home. The rain pooled against the pane as it fell heavy and abundantly from a black sky. The only reprieve from the darkness being the flashes of lightning, striking anywhere they pleased. Rolls of thunder accompanied - like the rumbling growl from the maw of a beast it sang out as warning. The worst storm in over ten years. It had to be. Sullen amber eyes watched out at the scene, and in her worry she began to fear that the relentless wind would bring down all of the stars and drown them. “The house is built strong,” she whispered in an attempt to reassure herself, placing a hand over a pendant on an extravagant golden chain. A chunk of rock, black as obsidian that was forced into a gilded frame in the shape of a heart. In her other hand, a cup of hot tea. Now [i]that[/i] was something she could be thankful for - for a hearthfire and for hot tea. If it was cold outside, she could not feel it in here. The woman took one last longing gaze out towards the port. “Be safe, my love,” she whispered once more before drawing the curtains closed. It did not do to dwell on that which could not be helped. Tonight, Cordelia Cortoran wished that she had a dog, or even a cat just for company. Another soul to hide away behind the walls and curtains with. To climb under the covers with and wait it out. He’d offered to bring her a dog once. She didn’t understand why she had turned it down now. Probably a prideful reason. She moved around the room, sipping from her cup. She felt rather too upskuttled to take a seat alone, or to read or paint or do any such activity. Not while the sky was at war with the land. There was a nervous feeling in her chest and pacing helped. Counting her steps around the room helped. [right][i]One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.[/i][/right] [h3][i]BANG![/i][/h3] It was not the sound of thunder but the slamming of the front door into the wall as it was blown open by an unholy force. It had been enough to shake the floorboards across the entire floor, and it would be a miracle indeed if the handle had not gotten wedged into the stonework. The painful groan of wind that came bellowing after threw open the door to her office in much of the same manner. The parchments from her desk were blown up into the air and the candles were snuffed out. As if by instinct, Cordelia looked first into the glass of a floor length mirror and in a sudden burst of light, she swore that she saw the smiling face of a child behind her. A shriek escaped her lungs and she brought her hand to her mouth, chastising herself for such an outburst. When she turned with the noise, the room was empty, and so was the hall. “Impossible,” she breathed, her hand tilting slowly as she tried to make sense of it. The tea was tipped from her cup and onto the rug beside her. Absent mindedly Cordelia counted again. Fright was the startled lump sitting in her throat. [right][i]One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.[/i][/right] [h3][i]BANG![/i][/h3] That’s when it happened. Everything changed, it was as though everything around her stopped, the house held its breath as a presence swooped down. She felt The Cold enter, and her eyes were drawn to a long shadow in the hallway outside her door. She had heard his two heavy feet booming, and the lighter tapping of something else. [i]A cane[/i]. In only seven slow footsteps he appeared in the doorway, soulless and dressed in a malignant smile. She could only see his mouth. The rest of his face was obscured behind the wide brim of his hat. Water had collected there, and it spilled and dribbled to the floor, splashing his boots. His clothes were soaked too, and he left behind him a trail of water. As if a maid had emptied a bucket in a line to wash down the floors. There was nothing clean about this. He was tilting onto his cane, his weight resting on the brass handle. The man's hands were [i]wrong[/i] and the violent intentions he wore as his shroud became the pestiferous atmosphere that followed him. It was so thick she could practically see it, in waves and swirls of red - the dying embers of a fire. How she wished that she could see his face. She feared what was absent in the shadow cast by the hat. She feared the razor sharp teeth in his mouth that glimmered like a string of broken pearls. It was wrong, and most of all - his posture in the doorway, and the smile he bore told her that he was not leaving. Instinctively she reached out for the iron poker settled in a stand by the hearthfire, her trembling fingers wrapped around the handle and metal scraped metal as she pointed it towards him. “Cordelia…” he wheezed, water pouring from his mouth when his lips parted. The name was squeezed from his throat in a death rattle. “Put it down…” The hand not on the cane raised and motioned to her to drop her makeshift weapon. As if under his spell, she did as she was told. “Come to me Cordelia,” the Drowned Man commanded as his hand turned so that his palm faced upwards. It was blue and the skin was pruned, curling back against his bones. His fingers twitched in a rigid manner to beckon her over. He moved too. Three more heavy steps. His water came with him, and now it trickled through the room and seeped into the rug. He let go of his cane and it remained upright, even when he leaned to take hold of the back of her wooden chair. He pulled it towards him, slowly, slowly. But the sound, the dragging of wood on wood was amplified. As if it was carrying the weight of the world. It became the screech of a dying animal. “Stop fighting me…” The discordant screech grew louder, and the flickering dim red burned brighter, hotter - like crimson, she could feel it scorching her and yet everything was cold. Her jaw trembled, but her mouth remained shut. Her heels were trying to dig into the ground, but the water had travelled and there was nothing to stop her, no grip could be found, her throat too dry to scream and mouth locked shut. All that came was a pathetic moan. Her eyebrows raised and the lines on her forehead were harsh, the mask of her youthful beauty slipped away as she faced her fear in the form of the demon in the room. Pulled by his otherworldly presence, she moved. The soft shuffle of her slippers was contrast to the heavy breathing and constant dripping of the Drowned Man. Outside, lightning flashed again - several times. It was an angered flickering strobe, and in that harsh and sudden light, small and dirty hands appeared around the door frame. Several heads peaked around. Bright eyes blackened with coal. Hair slick and oily. The children watched in silence with their mouths hung open and they didn’t blink. Their complexions were grey like statues and their cheeks were gaunt. They appeared in the light and were gone again in the dark. “What do you want?” She asked quietly through pursed lips. Her face was red with strain and she continued struggling against his grip - blinking fast. The gaunt children at the forefront of her mind, innocent spectators of her walking nightmare. She held onto the hope that she would soon wake up. Like this she looked as innocent as a prey animal, eyes wide with nowhere to go but to the darkness and to the Drowned Man, wherever he wanted to send her. Whatever he wanted to do... Her warm chocolate hair fell in waves to the middle of her back, brushing against the silk of her floor length gown. The buttons exquisite, she clutched at them, fingers tugging with nerves. Twisting at the embroidery as she tried as best as she could to resist. The hand of the Drowned Man balled into a fist, his bones creaked and his teeth began to grind together. The air was being sucked from the room, she could feel it. Like a heavy weight pressing against her chest - the thrumming of something against her, something chewing at her insides. Pure dread. Where was the beast in the clouds to use its roar to threaten her spectral intruder? “I’ve come for what’s mine, Cordelia,” he answered, as more water fell. The closer she got, the more her senses were aggravated by everything he was doing. Now, amongst everything else, she could smell salt as if it were a perfume. A finger pointed to her chest, to the heart shaped pendant around her neck. The bone of that finger was dark and rotted. When the distance between them was closed, and there was only the chair between them, his sheer force of will had her climb onto it, and from a beam above a rope fell. She looked up and whimpered again. From behind her teeth she pleaded, her hands tightened around her chest. “Your time is over, [i]Miss Cortoran[/i].” If it was possible for a creature full of water to purr, he had achieved it. It was an uncomfortable gargle that seemed to even stop Cordelia’s breath, and yet... The way that he said her name - if only the water had not been filling his throat she might have recognised the voice. He let the rope drop over her head until it touched her shoulders and he smiled at her helplessness. How could she have not noticed it there, all this time? His gnarled, cold hand cloyed at the fabric of her nightgown until he prized apart her hands to find the pendant. Her last defence was broken with his unyielding strength. Her wrists cracked but she did not make a sound. His deathly touch had frozen her, and when his fingers touched the stone his crooked mouth upturned into an eerie grin again. His lips parted to speak, and there was nothing but darkness in his mouth. “The Heart of Jehanna…” he rasped, a happy sigh that lingered on a long breath. His fingers grew tighter around it. Whatever it was, the sensation of joy that he felt began to fill the room. But it was a numb happiness, the kind of happiness that shouldn’t be found in the walls of a pretty stone house built of love. It was a harsh laugh of complete despair - a mockery of happiness and his jaw fell slack as he did it. “Oh beautiful Cordelia… [i]Now[/i] do you believe me?” He asked, letting the stone fall into the sodden pocket of his overcoat before he ran his skeletal fingers through her hair, in a way that was derisive of affection. It was meaningless and as cold as he was. It served only to make the woman uncomfortable in the moments before her end. Behind him, each of the phantom children laughed in an unsettling harmony that married innocence with corruption. “When he finds me,” Cordelia whimpered finally, trying to find strength in her words and fight back against him as a thread of sanity and memory came to her in his happy weakness. It was the tiny sliver of hope she had held onto, the love that had built the home. “When he finds out what you’ve done to me he’s going to come for you,” she croaked- swallowing back what little she could. Her jaw was clenched and eyes red with stinging tears. Every part of her body had betrayed her on this night. And still the ghoulish children watched from behind the door, unflinching. [i]“Not if I come for him first…”[/i] The sudden and unexpected inflection of malice in his whisper was the knife that cut through his spell, the poison that pushed the mirage back to the corners and so Cordelia saw his face… All that was not there, and all that [i]was[/i]. Her eyes widened with realisation and her mouth opened to scream… “Y-“ Too late. The chair was kicked from beneath her and when the rope became taut, she choked and was gone. The structural beam above her head splintered as a long crack ran through it but it was not enough to break. After all, the house was built strong. He left. Pendant in his pocket and boots thudding across the wet floorboards. The bare feet of the children behind him made no sound and left no trace. Then there was only the gentle swaying from above and the wind catching in the silk of a white nightgown. [/indent]