Hellfire Hexcavation

[Jade Harley]

There was a booth set up beside the gate, a sign that advertised Dante’s Abyss hanging above it and flashing between colors every few seconds-- red one second, blue the next, the electrical hum tickling Jade's ears with feathery softness. Like clockwork.

Red. Blood red, searing through the light dusting of snowfall and swathing the ground in an infernal neon glow.

Dante’s Abyss.

With a fierce shake of her head, the young Witch raked her fingers through her hair in agitated frustration, knuckles catching on and tearing through a few strands without pause. No. No way. Tearen just couldn’t go there! He might get hurt, maimed, or killed, or… or not come back.

But… he knew that, didn’t he? He knew that he might not come back. He knew it all too well. Every facet of Jade’s being rioted at this point, of course, a thousand protests buzzing against the surface of her skin like prickly white noise, but all she could muster up the will to do was shake her head, stricken voiceless by the fear clamping down on her throat. She looked at him, a man no longer encased by his own shadow, an expression perfectly smooth and solemn on his face as he contemplated certain nonexistence. One thing was for sure, Tearen wouldn't be coming back to them.

One part of her understood that what he was choosing to do was his own decision and therefore his own damn business, but the other part wanted to latch onto him baby opossum-style and never let him go. But, she couldn’t do that. It was pretty obvious which half she needed to listen to, even if she really, really wanted to ignore it 'til the end of time.

She crossed her arms over her chest and stared sightlessly down at the snow-crusted ground, fingers splayed and digging hard into the flesh over her elbows, as if she were desperately trying to hold the two halves that made up her whole together. The wind stirred around them, the sign continued to give off a steady hum, and the person manning the sign-up station looked on with an eerily cheerful grin. Jade's mouth thinned into a firm line.

The sign flickered blue.

Releasing a breath in a huff of hot air, the dog-eared girl flipped her curly mane of hair over one shoulder and fixed Tearen with a narrow-eyed look. “Okay, well… you better do some good out there, buster, on whatever death island they’re sending everyone to this time! I…” her stern look faltered as she fought against a tide of sadness. No, stop! Keep it together, Jade! You don't want to subject Tearen to your dying seal noises!

Searching for a reprieve, Jade lightly clasped Rebecca's shoulder and smiled. There, her decision was made. “We  are going to miss you. A lot.”

[Tearen Wover]

Tearen scoffed and plopped a heavy hand on Jade's crown.

"Slow your tears kiddo, ya barely know me." he said with a quaint smile. Jade blinked up at him with Dewey eyes and a confused frown. That was...sort of true? She supposed? She understood that Tearen was just trying to dull the pain of his departure, but this was a pretty silly way of doing it. Regardless, the eldritch human fluffed his robes and sighed, producing a large stuffed crow from under the heavy brown rags. Rebecca's eyes lit up, despite their persistent glow, as Tearen handed the plush bird to her. She hugged it tight and he wondered just what her perception of this situation was. Would she always be expecting him to come back, or would her memory of him fade with time? The ex-enigma considered, for a fleeting moment, just pulling all memories of him from Rebecca's mind completely, but decided against it. The strings of her psyche has been plucked enough for a while lifetime. Better to retire the pizzicato charades than take the easy road from guilt.

Tearen placed one loving kiss on Rebecca's forehead before standing up and holding a hand out for Jade. The Witcheck tentatively reached out as well, and felt a cold, hard lump placed in her palm. When her pale fingers opened, she found a small, beautiful little black-glass frog sitting there. It had Tearen, or rather Nealaphh's unique eye pattern carved into its unmoving face, and it seemed to shimmer with an inner green light.

"I heard that you had given a frog to my servitors to deliver to me before my banishment. I'm unsurprised that they never delivered it, but, I felt compelled to make this gesture all the same." Tearen said, watching the teenager turn the trinket over in her hands. He felt a bolus of his own emotion rise in his throat, but he steadied himself. When Jade finally looked up from the frog, however, Tearen was gone. She looked around frantically before spotting him a few hundred yards down the slope, trudging towards the Syntech booth.

The Shadow offered a single wave over his shoulder for their benefit, and Jade coughed out a single, incredulous chuckle. After all this, he couldn't muster a proper 'goodbye'! What a wussy.