Dazmond's seminar had just ended, and so began the castle's rush toward the Great Hall.  It was their dinner hour and her call to go away, a sharp reminder she was only a visitor in the castle that had been her home those seven years.

After her first session last week, she'd hurried out and went back into hiding out in her and Nate's apartment.  It took some getting used to being this social again.  But she knew he was just on the other side of every wall she looked at, or so it felt.  Landis Morgan ran the library on this very floor of the castle, after all. 

Lingering in her class, she slowly packed up the remaining materials from her seminar, waiting for the halls to empty.  It wasn't long before the din had faded into silence and she was left to wander the halls alone.  It helped having some time in between by herself.  It would be an hour before she could find him in his office, presumably.  It was the perfect opportunity to reflect on everything that had happened these last six months, since their last real conversation. 

Things had leveled out some, she considered, the last month or so.  Strangely enough, that was thanks to Malvivicus.  She was finally starting to cope with the fact that Nate was in Azkaban... two hundred fifty nine more days.  She was getting out of her head, teaching children, throwing parties, attending charity events (if that's what you called a rigged Muggle/Werewolf fight), brewing potions that weren't solely for Mister Malvivicus's stock.  It was progress.

She'd been hurting though, in his absence, in Nate's absence, in the absence of her core group in general.  Even given a three day party in celebration of as random a birthday as twenty-seven and Dolly St. James still didn't seem able to look her in the eyes with genuine warmth.  She was scared it'd be the same with Landis.  She thought he was cross with her for bowing down to Malvivicus and discouraging him from fighting against it.  Of course she'd said she couldn't be sure how safe it was to even talk about overthrowing the man in her presence.  She didn't trust a single thing that happened to her to not somehow get back to the source.  He saw everything.

That wasn't so much the case now, where she was she felt safe.  She had come to be alright with it, adjusted to the new normal, as it were.  And now it was finally feasible to start introducing things that really were normal to her new life situation.  She was building her strength back.  It was strange to be thinking of such things in the castle where she and Landis had been walking down the grey halls eleven years ago, hand in hand.  It was mind-boggling to be in the same place at such a different time.  She wouldn't mince words, not with herself.  She was afraid of losing Landis.  Afraid she'd already lost him.  Afraid things would never be the same now it wasn't just them but a giant between them.  They weren't just friends for former lovers but now... what?  Fellow subjects?  Pawns?

She hid out, sitting in a window sill looking out from one of the towers, holding deep silence until the waves coming out from dinner were for the most part out of the halls.  She hopped down then and made her way down to his office in the library, knocking on his door after a brief moment's hesitation.

Back from dinner Landis wandered into his office, propping a hip against his desk and reaching for the short stack of books waiting to be rebound. Idly he ran fingers down the spine of one leather text, examining where the glue had been eaten away. A year ago he'd had no idea how to go about doctoring a book; though he still had to owl the more extreme cases off to a professional bookbinder, now he knew enough to be proficient. It was not a skill he'd ever expected to acquire, but it wasn't as though Landis was going to complain of something that proved useful.

He turned this particular volume over in his hands. It was a shame, really. This was one of the half dozen examples of anthropodermic bibliopegy in the library; there wasn't much precedent for going out and securing a new binding when the old one got ratty.

"Enter," he called, glancing up. His pale gaze snagged on Dazmond's small form, a sight so unexpected in his spartan office as to be completely bizarre. Landis looked at her for a moment, then blinked.

"Dazmond," he said, clearly surprised. He laid aside the book and straightened instinctively, though he did not move from beside his desk to embrace her nor bend to kiss her cheek.  He had heard - somewhere - that she would be around the castle teaching a seminar, but he had not thought to see her or attend one of her sessions. Given their sparse interactions, it seemed little would change whether it was hundreds of kilometers separating them or a corridor.

They had not talked in months, and given how she'd holed herself up Landis saw little reason for her to approach him now. It was an unfortunate thought, but there it was: perhaps this was not a personal visit but one of business, and she had a message for him from Malvivicus.

Dazmond had hesitated for just a hair of a moment longer at the door, hand hovering and lip caught loosely under her teeth.  For all the time she'd taken in getting here, she wasn't sure she was quite prepared.  It was one thing to imagine him behind walls and another to hear his voice, asking her to enter, no clue in the world who it was about to waltz into his office. 

She stepped in, mentally bracing herself as much for the impact of his gaze falling over her, as her own gaze falling over him.  There it was.  Only a moment before he turned and startled at her image, she felt an airy expansion in her chest at the actual sight of him.  They both seemed to straighten, filled with a natural sort of stillness, like deer sensing movement and measuring the threat.  They were already at work, she thought, reading each other.

"Landis," she said simply in return, a certain warmth permeating the word despite their subtle tensions.  "This - isn't a bad time?" she offered, her gaze still held steadily on him, knowing already that whether it was or wasn't he had already dropped whatever it was she'd interrupted.  It was a meaningless courtesy to ask.  So she lightly pressed the door closed behind her without really waiting for a response, looking down at the floor for a second as she considered what this must have looked like.  It wasn't that she felt guilty, but acting out of impulse and keeping others out of the know had been what got them here in the first place. 

She could have written, she supposed, though with the way that things were between them, quietly slipping in had somehow seemed the better option.  What would she have written in a letter?  Where would she have possibly started?  She faced that difficulty in multiple ways - with Nate in jail, who she had barely corresponded with, and Liviana here at Hogwarts begging Dom to get her to write a letter as well.  In response to the depth of feelings she'd been dealing with, silence seemed the clear and diligent response.

"Everything's fine," she said, slowly walking further into his small office toward him, intuiting that he might find her unusual arrival at his work place a cause for alarm.  "I just came to see you.  I'm - teaching a seminar."

"No," he said, exhaling, "No. Of course not." He drew from the corner of his room another chair, the brisk command of his wand sending it gliding forward in silence, no legs scraping on the stone. Dazmond was a tentative figure standing here, heart-shaped face, thin wrists, small bones. There was a question in the hunch of her shoulders and the hesitation of her hands, a wariness in the dart of her eyes as she looked up at him. Once he had thought her fragility deceptive.

He had done so much for this woman; he had cheated, lied, and killed. For her he was doing it still. But there was a disconnect between what he did and what he felt, old habit tangled with fierce vengeance and pride. Now there was wariness in him to match that in her - born not of their possible reconciliation, but of her possible mission. Malvivicus was just enough of a bastard to send her instead. Their mutual employer was a less complicated concern, easy to hate and strive against. When Dazmond revealed this was, for all purposes, a social visit, Landis was left wrong-footed.

It was a relief in a way, not to have to deal with that at the moment, and some of the tension left the lines of his body at the idea he would not be called upon to perform any of his Kronos-given and much despised duties today. Unfortunately Landis was aware that Malvivicus was always between them, a new ghost draped over Dazmond's shoulders. When he looked at her now Malvivicus was the first thing he saw instead of their long history, which was really a terrible shame. Misery plucked at his heart, and resignation - but they were very distant emotions, hardly strong. It had been a long six months, and Landis never felt anything very keenly but anger, pride, and hate. Love and affection, for him, had always taken effort.

"I heard," he said, watching Dazmond carefully as she moved towards him, body stilled and manner light like she was some small animal bound to startle. The corners of his lips turned up. "Modern Potions and the Ancient Arts. Sounds interesting." Abruptly he turned his back on her, moving towards a small set of shelves. There was a pot there, and a biscuit tin which he lifted from a drawer. He looked back at her over his shoulder and quirked a brow. "Tea?" Might as well have one thing normal in this whole bloody mess.

She smiled subtly, though Dazmond wasn't exactly sure if she should feel charmed - that he cared enough to know the name of her seminar, or jilted - that he hadn't come to see her.  This ambivalence was quickly drowned out, however, by the thought that both things were equally ridiculous.  It was only the second of her seminars, and they'd had no contact since May.  The truth was he had done her a favour by not showing up at her class, during what had come to be such a performance, making believe that she had reason to be buoyant, to throw parties, to excite children into pontification.  She would have been thrown completely off her center seeing him there, Dazmond knew. 

Social visits like the one she was paying him currently were unexpected, given their sparse communication and the minefield now lying between them.  That was all very new territory in a long line of years and gilded memories, yet it had to be navigated.  At least, if they were going to try to salvage and maintain their friendship, which was of course incredibly important to Dazmond.  She had lost a lot of people this last year.  Losing Landis, though, was simply not acceptable.  She'd fight against the boggart in the closet.

Dazmond stopped in her tracks as he turned away.  She was feeling somewhat skittish, she realized, finding herself caught off-guard when he merely looked back to offer her tea.  Her heart had the feeling of having skipped a beat, sending a shock of anxiety through her chest, a hyper vigilance that was all below the surface, portrayed only through the subtlest of movements.  At the same time she seemed to soften as she gave a brief nod.

"Yes," she agreed, voice crisp and diplomatic even as she fingered the strap of the bag at her shoulder. 

She made her way to the offered chair.  It was terribly awkward not knowing what to say.  Dazmond normally counted not knowing when to shut up as one of her more endearing qualities.  Now she was torn between some trite statement or something soul baring.  There didn't seem to be an in between.  All the justifications for her behaviour, her desire to apologize, it all felt trite.  There would be no reasonable way to introduce something, no reason to sum it up into a single statement that would inevitably unwind itself into an unconscionable litany of heartbreak and desolation.

She busied herself with the act of settling in then, for as much time as that took, setting her shoulder bag off to the side and taking the seat he had slid across to her.  Sitting to her full height and balancing one leg over the other, she watched Landis with a discerning and careful eye.  She felt she would burn a hole through him with the force of her gaze, for everything that rested behind it, the millions of questions that flashed through her mind and then soured before ever reaching her lips.  At last she felt some semblance of comfort emerging as she watched his movements and came to terms with their silence.  Only then could she speak and come across as genuine and unflinching.

"Knockturn's been quiet last few months," she said.  "Terrible to get used to that.  You wouldn't happen to know anyone who needs potions?"

The water in the pot boiled at the touch of his wand. Another gesture and his desk slid to the side, turning perpendicular to their seats to serve as a table. This was awkward enough without him peering at her from behind that wide symbol of authority; awkward already to make the switch from aloof disciplinarian to friend. The odd incongruity of the biscuit tin that he placed next to the owl orders on his desk suggested he was not very good at it. It was a courtesy neither of them was likely to touch - a sad symbol, and a sad little tin. Landis looked at it. Like all things purchased for politeness' sake, it held a rather poor selection.

He turned back to the brewing. He felt the weight of her gaze on his shoulders but, like the silence they held, it became comfortable soon enough.

"Hmmm." His gaze flickered into the distance as he handed over her tea and sat, hands pausing carefully over his own cup, giving her question due consideration. There was a hole in traffic created by the burning of Alistair's shop, but Dazmond would already know of that, the fire having been some months ago. That that hadn't created a stream of alternate business surprised him. Perhaps Alistair, with his prickly nature, had no customers to begin with.

It was tempting to ask her snidely whether she had the time for extracurricular potions. Though he was interested in the answer Landis, having no particular need to hurt her, refrained. He mused with his hands wrapped around his cup, "There is one woman who wants expelling draughts... I made some for her once but it is too much effort to do so again, and I am not overly familiar with the recipe." He'd made it with Juliette, last year; they'd had to work together, it had been more pleasant with company even if the night'd ended in chemical burns. It was a tricky and time-consuming process. Any woman who needed it that many times a year made Landis raise a brow. "She paid well."

While they were ignoring the elephant in the room... "Are you in on the werewolf business?" Landis wanted to know, casual and blunt in a manner most unlike himself. Runes for secrecy and silence were writ all over his door, inscribed in the doorframe, burned into the threshold. There was no need for coyness and side-talking in here when the subject seemed so devoid of pitfalls, and it was the noisiest thing happening in Knockturn now.

Daz held her cup of tea between both hands, savouring the warmth of it.  Her hands had been awful cold this week and last while within the wide grey walls of the castle.  She could chalk it up to poor circulation, though really she thought she was simply not used to being away so long from her apartment, which was kept warm by the heat of several flames.  Her hands seemed to crave the hot sides of a cauldron; the hot sides of her cup would have to do.  Of course it was warmer in Landis's office, made all the more warmer still by the increasing comfort of familiar territories and the unspoken decree that here was a safe space, judging by how candid he spoke.  There was no doubt in her mind once he said the things he did that it was safe to say anything.  Landis was nothing if not a careful man.

"Fantastic," she said.  "I'd love to supply her at a new client discount, if you wouldn't mind sending her my way."  Dazmond could have little in the way of moral quandaries when it came to work.  She'd not ask nor would she wonder why a Witch might need a steady stream of such a toxin.  She'd happily brew it without minding the consequences of its administration.

Not that she needed the money.  It was sad, but there it was.  Her own business was reduced to sport, an unnecessary hobby.  Perhaps it was what Malvivicus had wanted, to debilitate her by targeting her where it hurt - in her entrepreneurial spirit.  Her mind briefly went to the money sacks under her floor board.  It was hard to tell why she was being paid so terribly well.  Much of it went back into supplies but after months of sequestering herself she had quite the treasury growing.  Of course, it only seemed to put her in further detriment should it all be found.

Daz blew on her tea and looked across at Landis.  She nodded over the rim of her cup.

"It's brutal," she said.  Her voice, devoid of remorse, portrayed fascination and enjoyment.  "I've never seen something like it, felt something like it for that matter.  I've taken to spending my moons between that and gathering; it doesn't take long for the inevitable to happen, does it.  You should come along some time.  I have a stock of polyjuice."  He'd unstopped her apparently.  The words flowed again.  A certain subtle giddiness ensued as her voice warmed.

"Squiggs was the one told me about it.  Got herself stung by a bleeding billywig in the alley and I had taken her up to the flat.  She had a whole two blasted jars of the things, would have been robbed blind if left floating there daft as a kite.  Poor foreign thing hardly understands the language as it is."  A small trickle of laughter punctuated her words, and she shrugged.  "Next day though we went after a rumour she'd heard - I was surprised it panned out as well as it did.  You know Cinaed Tawse is behind it?  It was bloody good to see him."  A smile surfaced but she hid it halfway behind her cup as she went to drink her tea.  Looking off to the side she felt  odd with how much she'd just said, but it felt so good to say things.

He hummed a little, inclined his head. Of course. He'd owl the woman tomorrow. It would be good to load her off onto someone who could better accommodate her rapid consumption.

Now Dazmond talked, words spilling over her lips. She got this dreamy look as she remembered what she'd never seen or felt before. Landis watched her over the rim of his cup, passively attentive as his default state. The slight bitterness of the tea was welcome. Without milk, it lacked substance; he found it very fitting.

He did not know the depths of what Dazmond had gotten up to in the past. Whether she had seen a death before was not his domain, though he thought - what with the war - the answer was yes. But whether she had ever seen or caused a death for sport, well, that was another question altogether. There was a distance to the ring that a straight kill didn't have. Landis, familiar with that intoxicating heat, knew the rush wasn't quite the same. But it was safer, a good deal safer, with no incentive to linger. Being a part of that hungry crowd was a high he knew Dazmond must love.

"I've been," he said, smiling now too. Her enthusiasm was touching. "I enjoyed it. I'll be coming to the next one, I'll tap on your shoulder there." It was kind of Dazmond to take Squiggs up, the sort of kindness to have Landis nod when he'd much rather rolled his eyes. Those two jars would have been much lovelier in his pocket (or Dazmond's) rather than her own. The little addict had probably gotten herself stung on purpose. Dazmond had weird ideas about Knockturn protection, generous with some people - then stingy about her trust. "And yes, I did know, but I haven't seen him. He's well?"

Landis did not tell her he'd considered taking Schlagenweit as part of the boy's alternative education. The fight he'd seen was too brutal for Schlagenweit, who loved muggles in equal part as he hated weres. Dazmond didn't much like Kronos' heir even before they'd learned of the connection, so he kept off the unsavory topic.

Landis seemed to absorb every little detail as per his usual mode of being.  He didn't ever miss a beat.  Calm, collected, attentive Landis Morgan was a gods' send.  Even given the current strain in their relationship she could feel and see his usual effort to understand, to dig beneath the surface of understanding and to know.  Hiding half way behind her cup she savoured the feeling of comradeship as much as the taste of the bitter tea.  There were many times she'd willingly take sugar and milk, such as when in the company of her mum, but sweet flavours and Landis never quite seemed to mix.  The dark strength of her tea was welcome and grounding in this instant and in this particular environment.

She knew of course what the next Full Moon was.  New Year's Eve.  Grinning suddenly, she balanced her tea again upon her knee and made no move to hide her enthusiasm.  For someone who had been so down on their luck, the power of an impending New Year was quite welcome.  Of course the Moon would fall before the actual celebrations of the turning over of the year, which would occur something short of twenty four hours later, but Dazmond could still appreciate the symbolism.  Not to mention Landis's willingness to join her there. 

"I can't wait," she blurted out all of a sudden with bright avidity, her hands curled around her tea with eagerness.  She'd been too alone these last six months.  It was no good.  Dazmond thrived on attention and companionship, which was partially why she was so wont to adopt miscreants even when all in her life was 'normal'. 

"Yes... well, he seemed in good spirits," she said of Cin Tawse.  "I'm not exactly sure, only because we didn't have that much time together... not nearly as much as I'd like.  Obviously, with his circumstances, it's difficult to linger longer than any single event might last.  I have to say even though I spent the entire time with him I still awfully miss the bloke.  I miss him dearly.  I've no way of knowing how he's really holding up." 

Something more somber visited her then.  It was born of all the questionables in her life at the given moment.  Cinaed Tawse and his untouchableness.  Landis Morgan and his indebtedness.  Kronos Malvivicus and his insurmountableness.  Nathan Briggs and his... absence.  She gazed at the floor for a moment, considering everything.

"How've you been?" she asked, looking up, her question posed rather blatantly, eyes straight forward.  It wasn't a simple question. 

"Fine," he said gently, a certain emphasis on the word that negated the urgency in her question. There was no need to pursue the topic of Cináed or the fights when it had led them back to this, undoubtedly Daz' original purpose for visiting. He felt a little pity for her now, seeing how happy she was to be with company again. She must have been lonely.

He could have grimaced to feel the creak and crack of thaw that the thought produced. He knew it well in regards to Dazmond; it had happened many times before. She had a peculiar way of making him forgive her for anything, no matter what he intended, planned, or thought. The whole of her bit deep like a sharp blade in soft chalk, and six months wasn't enough to break this routine. More's the pity, Landis thought, watching his little bit of distance go with some regret. Anyone else, he could have dismissed. How the fates liked their little jokes.

"I've been very busy with work, expanding my interests. A little here, a little there..." He waved a hand vaguely, trying to think of what to say. He intended to ask her the same question, and would demand the same amount of honesty; this give-and-take was not one he was entirely comfortable with but it was the price to receive her answer in kind. "There are other jobs besides those which the law recognizes and those which have been forced upon me, and I've taken a few. I'm working for Prideaux now. Enforcement, a little theft - some brewing, some research." Since Dazmond's warning the last time they met, he did not consider anything they said might stay only between them. If Kronos did sniff out the content of their conversation, he'd see this little gem as well. Vedir's protection was protection, however scant. Even Malvivicus, Landis assumed, had to play diplomatic with his neighbors.

"Juliette and I have gotten back together, and that's going well. " Though, he realized, Dazmond probably didn't know Landis had broken things off with her to begin with. She had missed the whole thing, which was certainly for the best. "And I've been looking into becoming an animagus. For a while now. But, I am close to my first transformation. And what of you?" He raised his cups to his lips, raised his eyebrows too. "Same old, same old?" Are you still hiding in your flat, Briggs gone, brewing incessantly in that madman's name? Something must have sparked her to get out and come see him, but Landis knew not what.

Somehow the way he quickly halted her worry response right out of the gate was physically reassuring.  In the word 'fine' she felt a thousand questions answered in intonation and brevity alone.  It said, whatever the details, there was no immediate, dire threat.  It said that, despite overarching problems like Kronos, Landis had a handle on his situation.  It instantly negated the fears and worries that had been building in her heart and mind - over Landis for one and over everything else to a lesser degree.

She very subtly eased back into her chair, fingers clinging less to her tea as she waited for him to continue.  She could see him working out some kinks in that measured, sapient manner of his.  She watched him keenly, pleased that he was sharing the details about what he'd been up to, especially as it was in the place of things that could have been going wrong.  The shadow of Kronos Malvivicus she kept pushed to the back of her brain space momentarily, allowing herself to think of his pursuits separately from that obvious lurking issue.  Dazmond focused now on what other jobs he was involved in, and not the phrase forced upon me that he used, which threatened to block out everything else through the shock value alone of naming the white elephant in the room, even if just in passing.

Prideaux - it was a name Dazmond was vaguely aware of, though she had never met the man.  It was the sort of name you heard now and again when you worked on the Black Market, and Nate had talked about him just before his arrest if she was remembering correctly.  Daz nodded slowly to show her comprehension and took a thoughtful sip of her tea. 

"Oh," she said once he'd come to Juliette, her sudden processing of this unexpected information fairly transparent, though neutral.  She hadn't known that they had broken up but she hadn't thought they might still be together, either.  Perhaps she was selfishly minded but she hadn't given much thought to his budding relationship with Juliette in the eight months since they'd been introduced.  "That's good," said Dazmond, very genuine though much less exuberant than when he said --

"ANIMAGUS?!"  She would have bounced in her seat were it not for her full cuppa.  As it was she perked up, hand flying to her mouth before quickly trailing off as she immediately remembered everything was muffled.  Rightly so with her loud mouth in the building.  "That's brilliant," she said, eyes bright.  She looked visibly proud.  "That's no light feat mate!  Good on you, we'll have to celebrate." 

She shook her head, grinning as her gaze turned absently to the things on his desk.  She only knew a few animagi - and most were guarded about revealing their form all willy nilly.  Daz could understand that.  She always thought about trying to become an animagus herself, though she was always stopped by the thought of the long uninterrupted hours of practicing, which didn't appeal to her humours exactly.

"I...," Dazmond's smile faded slowly as she thought of how to begin.  It was hardly subtle to state the truth.  She hadn't been well.  Since Nate had been in Azkaban she'd felt the full weight of others' prejudice against him - how they hardly thought it might have affected her.  Her closest were fast to connect to the distress of working against your will for a strange Wizard of the dark persuasion, but incredibly daft when it came to Nate's incarceration and the effect it was having on her.  It was difficult for Dazmond to talk about her emotions, but she felt she really owed it to Landis to try to open up in full honesty now.

"I've been better," she started, smile still warm on her lips though mellowed now as she looked at him with tenderness.  "World's better - like I've probably not ever been worse," she laughed. 

"So - not at all the 'same old', unfortunately.  I er, I'd been brewing a lot for... the boss man," she didn't dare use his name after what happened last time she said it, though she did roll her eyes ever so slightly at the acknowledgment, not out of flippancy but impatience with herself for bearing with it.  "Brewing more than what was ordered, taking it over the top, just making a full time job of it... you know, turning Nate's flat into a brewery... to cope, I guess.  And shut the bloody stinking world out.  But he actually wanted me to knock it off, you know, in case any sodding Aurors came sniffing round and wondering just where Knockturn's black market brewess was hiding out.  So I've been slowly trying to get back into my own business, working clients, being social," she waved a free hand around to indicate their little meeting now. 

"I'm working on it.  I've been hurting and coping as best as I can, to tell the truth Landis.  Distractions are proving useful  - parties, children, brewing, holidays... but to be honest at the end of the day I just feel awful."

There it was.  She looked into her tea, not feeling sorry for herself but feeling strange for having bared herself.   

He grinned at her response, ducking his head like a boy to hide it. "Yes." He was pretty pleased with it too. It'd only taken him the better part of three years, less if he'd had access to Hogwarts library the whole time, and Dazmond was the first person he'd told. He couldn't be so demonstrative about it, but he liked seeing her be. And the idea of celebrating when he was done... well. Left to his own devices, Landis seldom saw any achievement worth celebrating. There was, after all, always so much more work to be done. But this, being dragged out by his few old friends, was an acceptable excuse.

Any pleasure, hers or his, died as she kept talking.

He looked down, eyes tracing the fragrant curls of steam dissipating from his cup. There wasn't anything in her expression he couldn't hear in her words, and he thought she might be more comfortable speaking if he wasn't watching every shift of the muscles in her face. Instead he breathed in, heat and bitter black spice overriding the lingering mustiness of thousand-year stone.

Landis was not good with emotions, expressing or comforting, "the language of the heart." He either cared - or he didn't - and his own soft emotions were thin grey things which didn't, on the whole, move about very much. He did care about Dazmond, so he devoted to her his whole attention. He would try very hard to understand. But much of it, such as the way she might feel in the absence of her husband, he understand only intellectually. He did not like Briggs the man.

Still, it was inevitable to assume Nate's absence was part of why she was hurting so. She was coping better under Malvivicus' rule than Landis was, with less clawing and snapping at the bit. It was a human urge to want life to be normal again, and she wilted when left alone. And if there was more - some unnameable impetus, some sickening of her soul - he did not know how to define nor address it. The only thing of value he'd ever been able to give in situations like this was a steady, grounding presence, so he just wrapped pale fingers carefully around his tea and listened.

Eventually she revealed that this came back to Malvivicus, the new He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. He was the reason behind her party for Dolly and behind her coming to see him now. Repairing her business, repairing her friendships, acting on orders to be normal again. Old steps to an old play, retracing her past familiar steps. Now he knew why she'd come to visit him.

He accepted this reason easier than he had her independent motivations; it made sense to him in a way spontaneity hadn't. His resignation returned to settle on his shoulders with an old familiar weight. Pursuing her motives any further led to dark mental paths, black bitterness and too many repetitions of Malvivicus' name. He didn't want to do that here, with her, and saved his thoughts for later once he was alone.

After a moment of brief internal difficulty he reached out and took her hand. It was about all he had to offer, so his touch was solid and sure. "Daz, there's nothing for it but time," he said which, though comfortless, was true.

"Have you been to see... Nate?" His use of the man's first name was a concession to Dazmond, not an indicator of familiarity or respect for Briggs himself. "And Dolly?" He knew already she'd thrown a party for Dolly, but perhaps she'd tell him in her own words how that had gone. During his own conversation with Dolly months ago, she had not seemed willing to forgive.