Her scent is faint, but it is there. The fleeting imprint of her presence is carried away with every gust of wind that passes over him, unable to grasp onto it long enough to be pointed in the direction she took. To this, he releases a sombre howl throughout the empty wood that no doubt would be to be muffled upon the crashing shores of the coast. Even though her physical form is nowhere near his current station, she does not leave him. He hears her whispering hushedly in the back of his mind. He sees her reflection in the water staring back at him with narrowed eyes. He begins to believe that she had been a figment of his imagination all along, or a phantom manifestation of torturous punishment -- a cruel haunting for all the heinous acts committed at his claw. There would be no rest for a weary heart that seemed to clench at the thought of her absence and burn at the sight of her standing before him. It was a pitiful display of weakness.

Vaati would have to kill her.

She finds him sooner than he finds her, having not even felt her presence before a forepaw was slung over his back and teeth sought his neck. And yet, the attack did not hold aggression strong enough to kill, and so he simply rolls himself over onto her much smaller frame -- sandwiching her between himself and the ground. "Why are you like this?" He bellows towards her, though he cannot see her face. Perhaps it is hypocritical to say, seeing as how not moments ago he decided he would kill her.

Would he have the strength to do it? Not the physical, but the emotional capacity to slaughter someone who was tied to him since youth? Surely it would settle a stinging misery within him, but in the absence of all the things she made him feel, who would occupy his thoughts?

She squirms beneath him, biting and clawing at anything she could whilst leaving tiny scars upon his skin. But it makes no difference, he does not budge until he decides he must. Flipping them so he now rests upon his back and so to wiggle out of her grip on his throat, he stares up at her with narrowed brows. "Do it." Vaati's hard gaze challenges her to do what he knew she would not... not because she was physically incapable of doing so but that if she had truly wanted to, she could have done so long ago. Should he be proved wrong and she makes a move to rip out his throat, he will act accordingly and kill her like he previously believed he should have. The ball is in her court, whether or not she realizes it.

She does it. But he does not fight as she punctures his neck, absorbing the feeling of blood seeping from the wound with an odd serenity. It is not enough to kill him, but enough for him to understand how truly she loathed him -- he could not blame her. As much as he could try to justify his attempt to ruin her and sew together the bones of a new woman, there was no true reason for the crime. It had been done out of selfish curiosity, to test his own limits. However, in the aftermath, Vaati had been foolish to expect her allegiance. He was foolish to assume she wouldn't lunge for his jugular, for had he not once wished to give her the guts to do so? Inside him wages an eternal conflict, unable to decipher if killing her was truly the end to the problem he created. But created her, he had.

Instead, he simply laughs through the slight pain in his neck; wincing ever so often at the tender spot it sits. She did what he would have done. "You did it. You're me now. One half of the other." Perhaps now they are even. But would she accept her new identity, for was that not what she wanted? To ascend to something greater than a faceless denizen without a purpose? She was the last to lay a mark of vengeance upon his neck as Hydra had done so before, rendering him at her mercy in a symbolic sense.

He gets up as she commands, heaving frame facing her with much confusion. "It could be. Tell me what you want from me." In his tone is a slight beg; a will to be done with the perpetual chase across woods and shores alike. If she did not want him dead, nor did she seek to identify herself as an extension of himself, what was it she required from his presence? The concept of simply enjoying each other's company was foreign to him, for he had always found some concrete purpose in the relationships he held. On the contrary, Cassiopeia was one giant question mark in the way of him living an unhaunted life.

You. The word coming from her lips gives him peace of mind, affirming that what he felt was not one-sided. Perhaps this emotion was not a weakness, but something to embrace as a part of life -- something he did not know before now. He walks towards her, pressing his forehead to hers with a searing gaze in his optics. "Do not ruin me." He is taking a chance, placing his trust in the fact that she would not hurt him and he would not hurt her. It was a pledge Vaati would honour, beyond his usual tricks and sleight of hand. This was for real -- and he would not bear it should she be the one to betray him this time.

And just like that, the promise is made. The true meaning behind their shared vow is something they do not discuss but is deep and unwavering, and perhaps it does not need explanation, it simply is. Therefore it is no surprise as to what follows, for the unreleased tension only grows in intensity. He makes the right moves then as she continues to clean the crusted blood from under his chin, aligning himself so that the gap between them closes and the intention is clear. Perhaps this time he will be more gentle, for it will mean much more. Jal then decides to wrap up the post here because she is Lazy and really wants to watch RuPauls Drag Race. 

- fade to black -