Nevin stretched out his arms and sighed, deeply. He had just finished up with another ornerous delivery - he’d had a few customers lately who wanted their orders delivered to them, instead of coming to pick it up in the store. Normally, he would have flat out ignored these requests, as he had far more than enough to deal with just handling purchases inside of the store; but the few who had kept insisting, had all ended up paying a rather hefty charge in order to have them brought to them. So, he had grinned and born it. But - he definitely needed an assistant, one who could take these deliveries out while he stayed at the shop to work. He would have loved to have Eteri help him - but he had a deep rooted belief that if he asked her to deliver anything but the most dense, durable objects, they would reach the delivery point in a rather battered condition. So, he had her stay and watch the store while he made the deliveries.
Things had smoothed out between them after he had gotten his head out of his ass and admitted what was causing him problems - his fear of what he was becoming, and of losing her. He was still afraid of that - still searching for a way to save her, to keep her alive. His frantic, desperate search had eased, a little, not because his desire to keep her with him had lessened any, but more because by sharing the concern with her, he knew Eteri would actually be looking into ways herself. Their minds worked in wildly different ways, and with any luck, his girlfriend might be able to come up with an idea that he would have overlooked. His determination to keep her with him had only firmed up recently. He.. could not really think of a life without her in it. The alchemist hummed in thought as he reflected on that, drumming his fingers against his leg as he paused on the corner of a street.
He.. really couldn’t think of his life without her in it. Nevin tilted his head to the side, shifting out of the way as someone hurried across the street. He’d known her for a few months - but it felt like she had been with him for a lot longer than that. They’d been through - a fair amount together, from things as simple and mundane as meals and just being together, to things like that madman who had kidnapped her and tried to make her into ‘art’. The pain Nevin had felt when he thought she had just left him, the fear and anger when he had begun to realize what Stefan had wanted to do - to his terror and raw fury, when she had nearly strode into the fire… Nevin’s hand curled into a fist as he suppressed the dark tremor of anger that shot through him at that memory. Leaping into the flames had been, instinctive, automatic. The drive to protect her had been overwhelming.
So had the urge to rip Stefan apart after that. And Nevin hadn’t resisted that urge, either. The alchemist took a deep breath and shook his head sharply, pulling himself out of the memories, out of the past and into the present. He wasn’t there in the Gallery anymore. But - as he stood outside of his shop, having walked there while lost in his memories - he could feel his magic singing, a soft crescendo of magic. Someone had bled, and bled profusely, nearby. His heartrate began to pick up - and he quickly unlocked the shop door, and threw himself inside. A few paces in, his heart beats slowed. The resonant magic, without the wall in the way, had cleared up. It wasn’t Eteri, but a stranger’s blood, an unknown. He let out a deep, deep breath, and locked the door behind him, then headed towards the back of the store, looking for where his girlfriend was, to get her to expl-
Well. He had found Eteri. The blue-haired catgirl was currently kneeling in the kitchen, with a body slumped on top of the table, and was devotedly scrubbing at blood stains on the floor. She was humming, singing to herself softly in Akashiman, and hadn’t noticed him enter. The redhead concentrated, and the blood seeping into the floor was pulled up, and out, congealing into tiny little ‘rocks’ that hit the ground and began to roll together as he focused. He turned his dark gaze to his lover, and raised an eyebrow.
“Eteri, my love. Why is there a corpse on our table?†At least, Nevin thought he was a corpse.
