station72 | [closed] a little less conversation

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ilde vilmaine [original]

[closed] a little less conversation

CHARACTERS: Ilde & Petre; Kusuma Ming & Fahima Hanne
WHERE: Ming's penthouse
WHEN: Day :051
SUMMARY: Turning the screws on Kusuma Ming.
WARNINGS: Violent ideation, torture, cannibalism (GOD DAMMIT PETRE)

Kusuma Ming has a sure stride. It isn't long - no, her mother taught her better than that -, but she moves in a way that's impressively direct. Hesitation is for amateurs or people with time to waste and she is neither. Even here, at the end of what's been a long day with nothing ahead of her but some light last minute work and an evening home, there's no point in lingering. Ming, along with her small fleet of private security personnel, make their way across the building's lobby directly to the private elevator. It opens to her ID chip and three of her security detail slide in after her.

There's no conversation. She instead spends the exceptionally short ride up to the penthouse picking a straw fleck of grit out from under one of her fingernails. When they arrive at the top level foyer, two of the guards hang back wordlessly just at the landing. Only one follows her along to the penthouse proper. Suffice to say, no one works for Ming because she's a pleasant boss. At the very least, she doesn't ask much of them - she knows some people who treat their bodyguards like servants. That's nonsense. She takes off her own coat the moment she's inside. She hangs it up herself, takes her own earrings out and places them in the small bowl inside the door. Better to treat security as if they're not there at all. It makes the whole concept less obtrusive, doesn't it? Who wants to be aware they're being followed or watched? No one, she tells herself (--that's practice for tomorrow; she has a meeting with investors in the afternoon and none of those cheap suits would know what separates good security from the bad).

Kusuma takes her shoes off, then sweeps down the stairs to the penthouse's main level. It's all sleek dark wood, pale grey furniture. There's a broadcast playing quietly on the holoscreen; Fahima must have decided to stay for the evening. It's too late to expect dinner, but--

There are two people on the elegant sofa at the center of the room, the light off the holo feed flickering idly there. Kusuma pauses, one hand still on the steel stair railing. She'd recognize Fahima from the back of her head, but the other one?

Right. She'd been shopping with a friend.

"If I knew you were expecting to entertain, I would've brought a bottle of wine home." It's a little cutting. Fahima might have at least given her the courtesy of leaving a message to warn her she'd be coming home to a guest.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Evidence of the shopping trip lies in a series of white bags dropped haphazardly at the edge of the living room. Shoes, dresses, makeup, it makes a suggestion before the two women even come into sight. The girl with Fahima is young and beautiful, threatening to one who might be jealous, merely pleasing to everyone else. Ilde had begun the excursion in one of the simple white dresses she preferred, but has now been coaxed into something more intricate, a skirt made of some nearly liquid fabric, shimmering gold around her figure, a blouse with billowing sleeves, slit shoulders, tiny shimmering little crystals that are almost invisible until she moves and catches the light.

As Kusuma enters, the two of them are laughing as 'Saffron' regales Fahima with a story about one of her handsome suitors. Over drinks the day before, they had covered her more beautiful ones; all of them loosely based upon something real but the majority of her words false. Falsehood has never been one of Ilde's better virtues. Every word of it burns in her mouth, like an insect sting, but she has stayed the course. She had gotten the editor intrigued with her promise of tales to tell, had kept her intrigued enough to suggest they go shopping together. Giorno's lessons had come in handy once again, flattering the other woman with clever outfits and beautiful colors that suited her, her style. And then at the end of the night, she had easily sealed the deal with Fahima, sitting over drinks she had sipped at her own glass before offering it over, exclaiming how interesting the taste was; here try.

She had suggested they return to the apartment together, and by the time the drug had worn off why would Fahima have thought it was anything other than a pleasant idea?

And now here they are.

As Fahima rises to greet Kusuma, and introduce her new friend, Ilde meets the guards eyes over their shoulder.

( There you are. )

A tinge of approval to the greeting she sends to Petre. Things are going very well indeed. She had had her doubts that they would be able to coordinate seamlessly with Kusuma's guard regiment, but a shapeshifter changed things, didn't it... After establishing the looks of some of Ming's guards, it had not been hard to send the demon ahead in preparation. Although what it says about Ilde Vilmaine that now she uses a shifter as easily as she uses anyone else is still not something she is entirely ready to think about.

( Fahima Hanne has been no trouble thus far. I will take them both away for drinks, please check that their escape routes are secured while I do. )

With that she rises, brushing her hair over her shoulder, smiling.

"Hello, Kusuma, a pleasure to meet you."

Petre would smugly announce that taking the guard's place had been all too easy. There were never just three; Ming would rotate a number of them because she had the good sense to know you needed to be well-rested when your job was an intense, constant stream of making sure nobody killed the person walking in front of you. All he had to do was wait for the young woman to return to her practically-empty apartment, grab her by the neck and turn into her before she could even realize what was happening. Given the nature of her job, her fear was quick to turn into aggressiveness, which he used to order her to remain perfectly still. There was no unless in that order, so, unless Petre returned to free her movements again or someone found her body, it would be safe to assume she'd eventually die from thirst and hunger.

Seeing as nobody would notice she was gone, though, it would be a very safe assumption.

Here and now, Petre steps in behind Ming, hands clasped behind his back, perfect imposture, an expression even the most astute observer would have trouble reading. Emanating the sense of I won't move until you fuck with me would be tricky if he hadn't been able to just snatch it off the source.

( Don't take too long. I've been fucking bored all day. )

It could be an intense job, but a whole lot of nothing happened, too.

There's something familiar about the girl, she thinks - an unsurprising tinge of recognition. That probably makes her someone passing on the edge of being famous; Concordia has plenty of well known personalities and Fahima is well-acquainted with more than a few of them. She dismisses the thought out of hand as she takes the last step and moves across the sleek hardwood to meet them, step soft in her stockings and frown twitching incrementally narrower. It's so slight an irritation that it's likely only Fahima notices it; that said, Kusuma doesn't bother to smile at the girl or to take her hand.

"What did you say your name was?"

She's very pretty, she'll give Fahima that much. All pale and delicate like a cherished old family plate. It's not the usual look for a famous personality. It's probably what she markets herself on.

"Saffron," a soft answer, and she follows up with a suggestion, "We have an open bottle of wine here, come join us."

The tone of voice is airy, as if too pleased with the world at large to be bothered by Kusuma's chilly reception of her. Then again, Kusuma's mood was to be expected, they have been watching her, and know a little something about her manners. It is the easiest thing in the world to let Fahima take her by the arm with a placating little smile. Yes, yes, they should have called but now that everyone is here, why don't they just enjoy themselves? They've ordered up a little food, here, she'll bring your glass of wine, come sit on the couch.

Ilde lingers behind in the kitchen; a large space, meticulously clean, everything in its place. Big enough to allow caterers to take it over, but not so big that a woman couldn't cook for herself if she so chose. Ilde drinks from each of the glasses of wine as she pours them, mixing chemicals in her mouth. It won't hold them for long, but it is just one more little trick to keep them compliant. Mara had expressed to her that it was always good to have one more trick up your sleeve.

( You have done very well, Petre. We are almost through with this, please remain attentive until the end. )

He is, unfortunately, rather central to her own safety. She needs him to keep track of the perimeter, to assure that neither of the women have a chance to alert the other guards and bring a swarm down upon them. It would make all of this pointless.

With one last steeling breath, she takes the glasses out into the living room. She perches on the edge of an arm chair and watches the pair of women with a vague smile. Maybe the kind of vague bemusement at seeing an odd-couple together for the first time. She leaves them alone for a moment, listening as Fahima relates an anecdote about a clumsy shop boy, and Kusuma in turn has a surly little story lacking in details about an idiot she was forced to meet with that afternoon.

But with Petre's presence at her back, it becomes time to move this along.

"Please make yourselves comfortable and don't get up unless I ask you to," Ilde says interrupting their conversation. With the pheromone liquid in their systems it doesn't seem as rude of a commandment as it is. "I am here to talk to you about H+H1."

( They should remain calm for a few minutes, but after that... we will have to keep control of them. Please wait for my signal, and remain in character. We do not wish to expose what you can do. )

There's no point in being paranoid. This is her home, these are her people; if Fahima trusts the girl, that's good enough (and if it isn't, she has back up for a reason). Kusuma doesn't bother to question the wine, just like she barely lifts an eyebrow at the little starlet's presence. She drinks easily. It's a respectable bottle: low and structured, deep notes of something like cigar ash chased by nutmeg and something sweeter. Chocolate? No. Something like it though. It hangs heavy on the back of her tongue, a lasting tingling awareness that passes from her mouth to her throat to her skin and fingertips.

It's been a long day. It's been a while since she's eaten. And she's frustrated; maybe all of those are good excuses for why the wine finds her a little more quickly than usual. Beside her, Fahima draws her legs up on the sofa. Her knees settle against the edge of Kusuma's thigh and there's a sense, for a moment, of relaxation: of muscles unwinding, of letting go of a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

She places the half consumed glass on the table before the couch and sweeps a hand back through her hair. It's an easy movement, the silky black strands glittering under the stroke of her own fingers. "Of course you are."

There's a smirk spreading steadily on Petre's lips as Ilde finally moves things along. To any outsider it would most likely seem that this was a natural progression of things, even if it would be unexpected of the power couple to simply accept the stranger's requests. But the outsider wouldn't know what the stranger had placed in their drinks, just as they wouldn't know that the individual meant to protect them was only waiting for a reason to satisfy what he did best.

The conversation in his head has him looking at Ilde again, smile less obvious, but without any real irritation in his eyes.

( Just get it over with, fuck. )

"I will tell you now, I will receive a truthful answer to every question I ask of you," there's an unnerving calm about the way Ilde addresses them. She is assuredly threatening them, but it is a threat that comes without any pleasure, but also without any reluctance. She will attend to them as they make it necessary for her to do so. She has been run around enough of this planet, but she has learned her lesson and there are no moralizers here to hold her back from any action she deems fit.

"Have you been aiding the anti-android movement, Kusuma?"

Fifteen minutes ago, she wouldn't have said she knew this girl from the dozens of other unremarkable pretty faces Fahima has known. But with the pheromone eking its way through her system, Kusuma's mind scrabbles to make sense of the pieces. Haven't they been here for longer than that? A few hours, maybe. Fahima hadn't brought the girl here for a silly little diversion, she'd brought her along because she could be helpful to Kusuma.

When had she told Fahima about her involvement? She opens her mouth, grappling with that point of logic. The iron cold in Saffron's tone penetrates. She means to frown, but instead what she says is: "Aiding it? I'm part of it." Like she's impatient with how stupid the girl is.

Ilde nods, while they are peaceful she will remain so. Good behavior gets softness, politeness. Bad behavior will be an experience neither of the women has ever encountered before.

"Thank you," she says, utter patience in the face of Kusuma's vehemence. "Tell me, who has been arranging the bombings? Who gives the word."

There's an urge to spit something, something lurking under her skin that she can't quite put a finger on - a suspicion, but one she can't quite parse the details of. There's a sweet taste on her tongue and Kusuma rolls her eyes at the question.

"No one gives the word. It's a board. We all have different controlling percentages and vote accordingly, isn't that right?" The question is directed to Fahima. Kusuma tips her face to give her a glance and finds her fiance looking completely bewildered.

"What's your percentage?" Fahima asks and the question peels back some layer of-- something. It feels like trying to penetrate through a fog.

I've been drugged. Just the realization is enough to sharpen her, to send a bolt of something very near to fear coursing through her. Maybe some flicker of it shows in the iron wrought lines of her face, but Kusuma doesn't hesitate before she reaches for the heavy bangle on her wrist. Good, her hands are still deft enough. She touches one of the single knots on the side of the bracelet with her thumb. It depresses, a small needle breaching the opposite edge of the metal via the loaded spring inside the bracelet. She pricks her forefinger on it.

"Eelis," this toward the bodyguard at the door. "Call up the team, would you?"

Edited 2016-11-30 02:30 (UTC)

( Nod. Let her think you are going to fetch them. )

It spills from Ilde's thoughts as soon as Kusuma speaks, better to make her think things are still going here way. However, noticing that Kusuma has done something... untoward, Ilde rises to her feet. She comes to stand before the two women. She is not the most imposing, but with the pair of them sitting and her standing she looms. She pushes with her symbiote.

It is different from when she had tried to manipulate an entire room of Bout It Out spectators, there is just the two of them and they are easy to hold on to. She is great and terrible with the weight of fear behind her, pulsating with a power that cannot be denied. She has never tried this in conjunction with the drug before, although she has contemplated what might happen if she prepared a target for vulnerability to her...

"Name your board, Kusuma," a timbre dark and fearful in her tone, promising something terrible, something beyond imagination, if she is not heeded.

For a moment, she enjoys that renewed confidence stitching through her as the cleansing agent courses into her blood stream. It'll take a few minutes to fully decontaminate her system, but even just the knowledge that it's doing its work is enough to seemingly clear her wits. Eelis will bring the guards up. They'll apprehend the girl and have Public Security take it from there. Find a crime to charge her with. Fahima-- well, Fahima would understand. She always did.

Didn't she? It's not the question to be asking herself in the moment, but there's something about Saffron's presence that has the thought ballooning to fill the room. Kusuma stills where she sits in the shadow of her. She breathes in short, the small hairs at the back of her neck crawling. In the demand what she hears is everything being stripped away from her, being exposed, ruined - someone taking everything she's worked for and dashing it like something delicate and young on a stone. Violence doesn't occur to her. There are bigger things to be concerned about than being made to bleed.

Kusuma croaks out a low noise. She can't refuse, but she can-- "If I give you names, you have to swear to not implicate me." Delay. Not for long. Her people will be here soon. Mother, give her a few hours and none of this matters. Bigger plans are in motion; she just has to keep her head down until they go off and no one in the city will think to look in her direction.

Ilde Vilmaine bares her teeth like a monster when she smiles, vibrating with an energy that stings. When she speaks, there is something there just below the surface... Something deep and rhythmic; the intonations of a cataclysmic destiny. Something powerful and inhuman, her symbiote filtering Ilde's own horrifying memories of a mad king who called himself god into her victim's understanding of the situation. Channels him. Channels terror. Channels power. It is not just the two women she evokes upon, no, Ilde has never been able to use this power without also effecting herself. It is dizzying, but familiar. Toxic, but enthralling.

Her symbiote breathes in her greatest weakness, and breathes power back out. As if they were made for each other.

"You will be spared," she agrees, low and condescending, a suggestion of how little Kusuma Ming impresses her in this moment. Pathetic, sniveling wretch. She is not so certain Kusuma Ming will make it out of this encounter alive if she continues in such a manner. "Now you will tell me: their names, their stations, and where to find them."

Her people are coming, she tells herself and manages to not shrink under the dread that pervades through her now. Her stomach twists, bile in her throat as nausea rises. Universe, her heart is racing. Maybe the decontaminate isn't working. Maybe she's dying. Maybe--

"I don't know any of those things." She can't talk in circles like this forever, she realizes. Her pulse rabbits in her throat. "We operate with code names and disguises. We all only know the identity of one other member. Except for one. I know one name. Erastos Loke." She bares her teeth around the name, grinning manically against the strain of her body twitching with some primordial fear. "He's old money. Fingers in lots of companies. He lives in a townhouse in Beta Block. 2205 Piccola." What else? That doesn't sound like an answer the girl will like, does it? Maybe she should supplement it. Just to be safe. "Doesn't say much. Quiet. But he has the highest percentage on the board."

She manages, just barely, to crane her attention around to Eelis who is-- who should have her gun drawn by now, shouldn't she? Why haven't the elevator doors opened yet? Where is everyone? Her skin crawls and she clamps her mouth shut tight. There's more she could say, but no. Head down, she tells herself. Just keep your mouth shut.

Edited 2016-12-02 01:01 (UTC)

She tilts her head. Watches Kusuma grind her teeth, trying to fight what little of the potion remains, trying to resist the layers of horror that Ilde pushes on her and Fahima. She pushes harder, her face feeling feverish and her eyes dilating, but her sudden paleness and enormously black eyes do nothing but make her more terrifying. She would know. She has seen it, seen the ugly things that come out from behind a pretty face. She has so much fear to use, to twist, to place into the back of their minds.

"Do not resist me," she snaps, thunderously furious. The room pulsates with it, with her. "Do I need to demonstrate to you how dire this situation is for you, and for Fahima? Both your lives depend on your answers."

And oh does Ilde know there are things worse than death.

Edited 2016-12-02 02:12 (UTC)

Sweat prickles at the back of her neck, across her temple and the pad of her thumb - the one she'd pricked just moments ago - stings. There's blood there, she thinks. Just a drop. Not enough to be squeamish about, and yet here she is - nauseous. Anxiety jerking at the edge of focus. Her breath curdles in her chest and the closeness of Fahima beside means nothing.

"There's five others. I don't know their names. I swear." It doesn't matter. The girl doesn't have to know she knows anything more. She doesn't know what to press. She's clearly firing blind here, isn't she? Grasping after straws. The girl Saffron has nothing, and Kusuma will be damned if she gives her more than exactly what she asks for.

"Kusuma," she sighs, the swing back from her anger down to this exasperation is not exactly comforting, it just comes across as wild. The more emotions she can display in the shortest amount of time is part of the act, though if she tried to stop now she might not be able to. Is that an act, at all? "You will instruct me on how to find them, I know what your group has been doing, to avoid notice, meeting in person, moving little papers around."

She reaches into one of the shopping bags discarded at the edge of the seating area. Idly pulling on the pair of taser gloves that had been given to the group when this all began.

"Do not fret," now her voice is very sweet. "I will begin very slowly, to give you time to consider your answers."

She thinks about all the women she has seen tortured. About Camille. Her weeping face, her defiance. They could always be broken. It was just a matter of patience.

She can hear breath quickening. It might be hers. Or maybe it's Fahima's. She chooses to ignore it, to ignore the stickiness of her tongue in her own mouth. Instead she bares her teeth at Saffron. It's close enough to a grin that she hopes it counts.

"Of course you will. Without what I know, you can't do anything - can you? Whatever you want will go right down a drain if you ruin me before you can get it, won't it?"

She wishes she had a gun under this sofa cushion. There's one in the seat of the chair across from them, but it's so far out of reach that it might as well not even exist. But Mother, wouldn't it be pleasant to put a slug in the girl's head?

Ilde scoffs at her, reaching out and laying one of her gloved hands onto Fahima's bare knee. While she said she would start slow.... The taser gloves have no particular intensity settings on them. Fahima jerks with a choked off scream that her vocal chords are too tight to fully actuate. Ilde leaves her hand there a long time, letting the woman jerk long after she is no longer entirely conscious. When she lifts her hand Fahima slumps, limbs still twitching from the overload, eyes rolled back in her head. But breathing.

"I was giving you an opportunity," and now her tone is so terribly disappointed. "Now, tell me."

Edited 2016-12-02 03:47 (UTC)

Fahima's scream sizzles between them, hissing like an electrical crackle. Her company's done research on damage caused by exposure to electrical currents. They utilize it in much of their non-lethal personal suppression equipment. Kusuma doesn't flinch, not even when Fahima's weight slumps against her shoulder and side. Instead, she carefully shifts the woman away from her. Breaks their points of contact. If Saffron chooses to shock her-- she doesn't want the current to transfer to Fahima.

"We meet after each bombing. In the city's underground." Her tongue darts across her lips, attention flicking to the glove them back to the girl's face.

Ilde sneers at her, her anger returning and her hand curls into a fist. It threatens that she will continue to use the gloves, but she won't. There are other things to be done now, tasering Fahima Hanne was just a way to start big, to start loud.

"Yes, Kusuma, many of us meet in the underground when we wish our meetings to be more private. Where is the next meeting. When is the next bombing. Do not pretend you are so stupid as to think I would not want to know."

She makes a raw, breathless noise. It might be a laugh.

"What time is it?"

There is only a brief pause, but then Ilde understands.

"Good. Where is the meeting, when are they expecting you?"

She smiles. It's all teeth.

"Six hours from now. It'd probably be easier to draw you a map, my dear."

"Enough stalling," she brushes that off entirely. The sooner she hears the location, the sooner it can be transmitted to the others. "Speak, Kusuma, I grow weary of you."

"There's an old factory on the edge of Subspace that used to manufacture power shields. If you go the basement level, you'll find a tunnel leading into the undercity. It leads directly to the room where we meet." It's the easiest answer in the world to give her. She almost laughs with relief. How funny.

"It's hilarious that you think it'll matter. Give us four hours and there won't be anything left for you to salvage."

"Oh?" The nonchalance of a snake, Ilde reaches out and curls her hand around Fahima's neck. The electric shock of the gloves are turned off, but she squeezes and watches the unconscious woman begin to gag. Ilde is no Iota, but she knows very well that she is stronger than she was before the symbiote, that she could crush this woman's windpipe. That would be too quick... maybe she will dislocate one of her arms instead, but the gesture if it all is effective enough.

"Then perhaps you had best tell me about your bomb, as well."

Kusuma is bare foot, which is good because it might have far greater potential to hurt if she was still wearing her heels when she tries to kick Ilde in the side.

"Don't touch her--!"

She takes it. There's a time and place for simply allowing a strike, and she is not going to react too wildly to what Kusuma does. She has control of this situation, and that is the end of it. She lets go of Fahima's throat, turning instead to take hold of Kusuma's ankle as it recedes from her.

"I will kill her." The drum of her threats is utterly infernal, like a thousand furious hearts all struggling to function. "I will break every one of her bones, one by one, before I slit her open and remove her organs with the same meticulous care."

Her grip on the other woman's foot is very tight, a suggestion of what had begun to press down on Fahima's windpipe. She contemplates the merits of simply snapping that ankle now, just to make herself very clear.

"Or, you may continue to answer my questions."

A moment ago, she hadn't felt anything but certainty that she could make the girl regret. Now, the fear of the threat swallows her. It's choking. She stills, pulse hammering high in her throat.

"The Omega Memory Bank." She hears herself say it more that she knows that she does. That's her voice, shaping those sounds into words. "But if the bomb goes wrong, we'll go underground. You'll never find us again. I'll be the only person you ever see. Loke and everyone like him will disappear."

In a way, it is good she did not have to hurt either of them too severely. She knows Steve would have been disappointed in her... but she would have. She is glad Kusuma chose to care for her partner over keeping her secrets. That earns her back a little bit of the respect she had utterly lost from Ilde. But only a little.

She fiddles the electricity back on in her gloves without a word, holding on tight as the woman spasms from the shock. The problems as Ming has presented them can be solved.

( I have finished. Please come assist me in moving them... I think we will restrain them in the bedroom, and you will be needing Kusuma Ming's appearance as we leave. )

Petre steps back into the room not long after that. He'd had the sense of what Ilde had been doing, how she was using all her cards, delighted with how the two women succumbed in the end. The one executing the torture might have done it for her own reasons, but Petre latched on to every inch of power greedily. He wants the same. He wants to do it next time.

Maybe if he just grabs Ilde's wrist and turns into her.

Right now, there's someone else in his grip. One of Kusuma's other guards, with the third lying down behind him. To surveillance, it will just look like they attacked the woman called Eelis, who in turn took care of everything. When they see her walk back in, and Kusuma walking back out, they will likely suspect that their boss was actually saved.

Petre drops the body heavily. A curious gaze drifts over to where the women lie, cat-like stillness to his moves.

His thoughts, if unintentionally, are transmitted to Ilde easily enough: he wants to eat them.

She inhales deeply. She is all iron right now, utter control, cold as ice. All emotion has been turned off, it is a comfortable, familiar state of being that she has almost missed since coming to the Hive. She has been inundated with so many new experiences, feelings, forced to process the ebb and flow of all those around her. To have it turned off, to feel in control again... It is empty, callous but glorious. She retains that in the face of Petre's hunger.

( The guards are unimportant. Ming must be preserved to answer for what she's done. )

It is not exactly permission, but if he is going to do it one way or another, her only real care is that Kusuma Ming survives to suffer for her choices.

"... Yeah, whatever."

He says so to shed off the mental link, too bored with silence anymore. Petre simply walks over to take a good look at Kusuma, her features, shape and clothes blossoming from his previous disguise. It isn't a very gruesome process; it's like shedding a layer of liquid to reveal what's underneath.

He looks at Ilde with the same consideration Kusuma would have given a pretty face with no other interesting qualities.

"Can I eat the girlfriend."

She purses her lips. This is not something she wants to be a party to. She has already warped herself into a precarious position as it is, and the only thing holding her together is the utter chill in her heart. That chill wants nothing more than to shrug and tell Petre to do as he pleases. If not Fahima Hanne, then someone else. There is no controlling Petre's demon hunger, Ilde knows that much, there is only... guiding it. Will he think more sweetly on her if she tells him yes? Would he be easier to control later?

She peels off her taser gloves, tucking them back into her shopping bags. It will look best if she leaves with the things she came in with, so she gathers them by the door.

"Don't take long."

Not a yes, not a no.

He watches Ilde with some expectation, though he's almost certain she will say no. For all the coldness she tries to emanate, there will always be a part of the demon who knows that emotions, and the sins that come attached to them, are a part of every human. With or without the symbiote's powers, that's all Ilde is.

Petre's surprise is concealed. He might even be a little impressed; he will be more so if she actually sticks around while he does it.

The boy reverts back to his original form, teeth growing out like a hundred jaws trying to fit inside one. Black eyes, wide mouth and claws, he rips Fahima's body apart. A young demon would never be careful, but he is particularly gruesome and hasty with how he devours his way through the woman's most tender parts. Once he's done, all the blood and gore are hidden underneath that sticky liquid that takes form and allows him to look like someone else.

Two fingers wipe at the corner of his mouth; his other hand runs through the facsimile of Kusuma's impeccable hair, and he places her heels back on. Her jacket, her bag. He's ready.

"Shall we, Miss Vilmaine."

She does not watch with any particular interest, but neither can she simply turn away from what she has allowed. She is complicit. Maybe it is not the first time she has watched someone die so that she may carry on in her goals. She has assuredly seen this ugly display before, the improbable teeth that defy all biology, the black eyes. The pop-crack of bones coming apart, the wet mushing sounds of human flesh being torn apart, consumed. She absorbs all of it, as she has so many times before, but she feels nothing. Stores it away in the polluted well that is her heart, where she carries her horrors, pumps them into her veins.

She meets Petre's eyes calmly as he turns back towards her. Should she be grateful, that this ugly little monster has helped to bring her back to this part of herself which is familiar? She is in control once more, or that is at least how it feels. With her emotions so carefully boxed away, it is hard to decide. Should she be disgusted with the both of them? Or did their ends justify their means. Why had she done it if it hadn't.

"Let's go," she agrees without another thought or glance at Fahima Hanne's remains.

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