Dressed in the ragged remains of what had been the finest velvet and silks, Hessiod the Deceiver rose before her, a phantom of an ugly history. A man who was not just a simple brute of a pimp from under whose wing she has liberated one of many brothels - no, he was hers. He was personal. He was the very beast of a man who had been the first to unceremoniously wrestle her to the lucious fleece rug when she was but fourteen and -

But that was over now. Surely. He was one of the few breaths she had specifically chosen when she had begun her personal emancipation to strike from the world. Indeed, she could even remember the thundering of her heart in her ears as her hand flashed that steel dagger across his throat, and watched his body twitch like a flag in a dying breeze. So certain had she been of his death. So sure. Yet here ...

Here he was, pale and gaunt: a haunt from history she had never wanted to relive. Horrific eyes sucken into shadowy sockets. Thin limbs barely clinging to the torso with stringy flesh. Stinking. Wretched. Evil. Pure evil, that made her blood begin to boil once more, as it woodshed from the cathedral towards her, hovering above her path.

"Fffuuuuucck-"

Philomel! Veridian screamed inside her mind as he felt her panic, fear and anxiety. Nostalgia, and not the good kind, flooded her as she suddenly froze, her sword Nameless hallway drawn from it's sheath.

Her grey eyes were as wide as saucers, her brows high into her chestnut locks.

"Hnnnhh ..." She managed.

Dammit, beloved, Veridian hissed. He chattered, irritated to himself, and took a breath in. Rearing quickly onto his back legs he began to belong, his muzzle reaching into the air, his torso twisting unsubtly into a more upright form. The russet fur, the brush tail, the paws and unmistakable head still remained, but he moved from four legs up to two, and grew from two feet long to six feet tall in a single, defined and glorious step.

"Veridian ..." Philomel whispered, caught in astounded emotion.

The humanoid fox looked unamused. Coming in directly behind her on the stoney, fallen tower of a bridge, he plucked the sword known as the Rabbit from her other side. Yawning a wicked toothy expression of boredom the earth-spirit stepped lightly around his companion, and entirely ignored the spectre that had made her rigid so.

His eyes pierced the low-lit gloom, watching for the bell steeple, where he could now see the long-armed beast had disappeared from. A fluttering wings though told of a flock of ravens and their ilk flying across the rooftops. No other movement, besides an abandoned battle standard.

"Snap out of it, Philomel," he barked as he rose the white sword, prepared to defend her until she could be herself once more. "He's not real. He's a ghost. We are at war."