[sup][i]Featuring [@Dark Jack][/i][/sup][color=#1A1A3B][b][u][h1][sub][sub][sub]Farren[/sub][/sub][/sub][/h1][/u][/b][/color]		    just stared at the limp, lifeless body of the Doll. It didn’t look like her somehow. Where before there had been a semblance, an aspect at the least, of life therein…of consciousness, despite her artificial frame…now there was nothing. Truly like a puppet with its strings cut. The Shopkeeper did in fact have to shove past his shoulder to fully enter, and the act had his already uncharacteristically loose grip on his pistol utterly fail.

The recently loaded gun clattered to the wooden ground and the sound barely stirred Farren. However, the blow had rocked him to the side slightly, and he only steadied himself by instinct alone—and even then he seemed to stagger. They’d not thought things through… [i]he[/i] hadn’t thought it through, in truth. [i]Of course[/i] bringing so much of Ego’s False Paleblood into the Dream would have consequences…. Just what ran through his and Torquil’s veins had been enough to cause tremors, shifts in weather…and manifestations of various phenomena—the Bloodwraiths…Torquil’s transformation, the strange shifts in his own capacities.

Farren gritted his teeth. He was better than this, but he’d been in too much of a rush. Too motivated by spite to consider the potential consequences of their intentions.

Yet, traitorously…even as guilt and shame roiled through him…they were swiftly overpowered by a stronger, fiercer, far more violent emotion.

Or rather, it would have been. It had been before.

This time, that familiar rage burned cold in his veins, like he’d been filled with choking ice.

[color=#1A1A3B][b]“This only [i]just[/i] happened…didn’t it?”[/b][/color]

Farren said, his affect completely flat, his expression somehow frighteningly blank. But his eyes [i]burned[/i] with a frigid cold and not just metaphorically either. They actually seemed unnaturally luminescent, if the Hunter deigned to look.

The Moonborn Hunter merely nodded and Farren gritted his teeth.

[color=#1A1A3B][b]“...I’m Sorry,”[/b][/color] he managed, his voice strained

Still without looking up, the Shopkeeper raised a hand and pointed at Farren.

He frowned, not understanding. [color=#1A1A3B][b]“...I don't...can you write?”[/b][/color] He asked suddenly, remembering the notebook he could retrieve.

The Shopkeeper shook their head, then finally turned away from the inanimate doll and stood up, walked over to and around Farren and pointed at the bag on his back.

[i]'Damn,'[/i] Farren thought. Though...he wondered if the Messengers might help. Then again...he didn't fancy interacting with them right then. When the man circled him, Farren's head turned, following the motion, but not turning around. He noted what the Hunter was pointing at and his features darkened. 

[color=#1A1A3B][b]“Ah, I see. Yes, I'd presume it's related. False Paleblood and proper Old Blood,”[/b][/color] Farren noted, turning so the pack was behind him once more. Some small part of him felt like the Moonborn Hunter might attempt to destroy both if he let him. [color=#1A1A3B][b]“We didn't...think it would have an effect such as this without already being within a body, I suppose....”[/b][/color] He added, frowning, clearly upset as well. There was still a stiff coldness to every motion he made and every word he managed.

The Shopkeeper just stood there for a moment, arms hanging down their sides, seemingly at a loss for what to do. Then they turned from Farren to walk back to and then past the doll, into the corner of the room where the wheelchair they had been sitting in on the party's first arrival in the Dream. They pulled it out of the corner and over to the doll, only to allow themselves to fall and slump into it.

[color=#1A1A3B][b]“We'll...find a better place for it, once the others return,”[/b][/color] Farren offered, his tone more hollow than he'd like. Farren didn't sit, even though he wanted to. He did slowly remove the pack and set it just outside the door of the workshop, before he leaned against one edge of the threshold...waiting for the others to arrive.