Ichor And Steel

Chapter Seventeen; Stalkers & Stakers

ʙᴜʀɴ ᴏᴜᴛ, ᴊᴏʜɴʏ ɢᴏᴛʜ

The begrudging duty of waking Ethan was not repaid well. The blond was easily startled and, despite it being late into the afternoon, grumbled around the living quarters and lamented all his aches and yellowing bruises.

"Ohhh, I'm so sorry, buttercup," Heisenberg mocked, half-hearted as his day's work had been frozen to allow Ethan some more rest but clearly, no amount of sleep could brighten his sourness. Especially when he hauled him through the rough weather and to the steps of Lady Dimitrescu's castle. He abandoned Ethan quickly, muttering about lordly duties he was not yet accepted in, and the only relieving factor bought to Ethan's mind was that the lady would be out, stalking beside Heisenberg.

Like stone gargoyles, the four lords sought for a perch in the sweeping snowy land deemed home that now foreigners tread on. They appeared gutsier and more well-equipped unlike certain priors Moreau still plucked from between his teeth. A broad hulk of a man led a triangle-formation of a squad and Mother Miranda claimed she saw a young girl among them. She dithered and grinned, proclaiming that might be their target!

Rosemary? Heisenberg thought with a light frown.

"Glad to see you out of your cave," Lady Dimitrescu jeered, her smile like that of a hound about to sink its jaws into a rabbit's neck. "Mother didn't think you'd make it."

Heisenberg rudely shoved past, stabbing the hilt of his hammer into the grass hidden beneath snow. "Well, I guess I'm here."

"I heard you had a little sleepover," she continued as Heisenberg lowered into a steady crouch around a footprint. Donna moved up quickly from behind Moreau and Dimitrescu, slipping up next to Heisenberg, him catching her by the wrists. From over the rim of his glasses, he leered at the lady, ready to pounce but Donna hushed him.

"Just remember who's babysitting your little shits, Dimitrescu," he grumbled, seeming ruffled and agitated; his mood stole the blow from his words. She stepped over him to come shoulder-to-shoulder with Mother Miranda, resting in hag form.

"I wouldn't say Ethan is babysitting," Donna said coolly but with a smile as she got back to her feet. Heisenberg glanced up at her, tilting his head. "I feel like you babysit him—"

"I do not!" Heisenberg defended, the two women ahead glancing back before resuming their glances. He calmed himself. Donna squeezed his arm.

"Kar, you care for him, right?"

Heisenberg thought it was in his nature; Donna would've believed that had she not seen a different, thicker tension between Ethan and him. However, there was no purpose in admitting something that wasn't...true—

—God, the stinging it bought to his chest...his heart, perhaps?

"I should go and check on him," he spoke, contradicting his innermost thoughts. His head spun with how fast he leapt, wondering off before Dimitrescu could call him a coward for retreating or Mother Miranda cawed him back.

Moreau approached Donna and whispered, quietly as his clumsy voice could manage, "they're too close."

"I think they are," she lamented, stroking her veil. I fear it.

***

"You little, puppet piece of shit!" Ethan caterwauled, feet flinging and bashing where they didn't reach comfortably.

He just wanted to play a game of hide n' seek; despite their prior wrongdoings, Ethan figured the sisters were impassable to violence...or that's at least what he forced himself to believe as they lay on the library floor, whinging and clutching at their stomachs because there just wasn't enough blood to go around that evening. A buried fatherly instinct surfaced but Ethan received no thanks. Cassandra ruthlessly stalked the corridors, her feet smacking along the tiles and marble, nails scratching grooves into walls and her voice trickling with a sickly-sweet taunt encroached.