-Children-. I was never any use with children. I curled a lip and shot a withering glare in -her- direction; to be completely honest, I realised right then and there, if it hadn't been for -her- I would have found myself in -this- situation to begin with. But I still could not tell whether it was my growing interest in the wight, or simply my inescapable desire to immediately undo everything -she- managed to muck up that led me to find myself standing there in the midst of it all, caught up in the sudden fury of untempered emotion that made up the young reaper.

Had I a moment then, to myself, I might have laughed. Laughed at the irony of it all. Laughed as she laughed, as she gave the reaper a condescending stare and – tracing a delicate finger through the air, crystal eyes closing as she followed the imaginary line of the reaper's thin spine -- chided:

“But hell is just where I belong, Sweetest Thing... and do you know? He doesn't know it yet... “Here her voice drops a few notches, lowers to a rasping whisper: “But that is just where our dear Nestor belongs as well”; a girlish twitter follows, the same icy hand now covering her lips as she takes a few hasty steps back whilst intoning “Hell is waiting...! Hell is waiting!... Hell is....”

And then she quite thankfully shut her mouth. Bared her fangs into a wicked kind of snarl and vanished without further comment. 

Blinding light. I growled inwardly. One awkward moment to another. I'd lost the stomach for any verbal fight – the bitter tang of scotch was still on my tongue, and my head swam with unbidden thoughts... angels... nephilim, fallen – reflexes took hold as Nestor's gaze shoots without warning toward the distant archway. Figures. Figures approaching. He tilts his head ever so slightly to one side – as a dog might, almost, surveying some new oddity entering its domain. 

Always unexpected, I could not help but think to myself. Caught off guard. The perfect feint. And there she was, in the distance – though my eyes could scarcely make her out, standing as she did at the end of the great hall... I felt the throbbing hum of her soul all the same. I was not certain. Not certain at all, in that very moment, whether things had gotten better or simply much, much worse. 

“Jerusha Wilde...” the words came unbidden from my tongue. Yet softly, so quiet that perhaps at most the Wight and Reaper might have heard, but none other. My first instinct was to glance toward the nearest exit opposite the approaching pair.. Still, I managed to pick up the mention of my name, and though I could not help but suspect it was some joke of hers... or maybe as much a test... or perhaps only the gods knew what properly... the realisation dawned on me that this latest... pet? Friend? Lover? I gave a mental sort of shrug. Perhaps definitions were better left to time. I nodded absently to the wight (Nestor perhaps, at the time, not even realising that the two of them might very well be on their way to greet the same newcomer), snatched a pair of tumblers... poured a bit of the favoured poison... and steered my steps toward the searing heat of the newly arrived angel.

Nestor makes no commentary to the past. No heralding of the future. Simply, he arrives. Gives a cordial nod to the newest arrival; extends a slender hand in offer while remarking (and in the same moment gesturing expansively toward the so recently poured glass of liquor, resting neatly on a silver platter held in his left hand) 

“Pleasant greetings; I am the one known as Nestor – Nestor Grimsley, to be precise. Will you have a drink?” Should the fallen angel accept the proffered hand of the Demonspawn, he might feel the cold chill of a creeping winter slip between the fingers, up through the arm and into the spine. Less a feeling, and more the memory of a pain and strange sorrow – the crazed laughter of souls in chains; the simple greeting of an ordinary man in rather extraordinary circumstances.