Decisions and Choices (Pantera)

[Pantera Tsua]

“I don’t need to, I’ve got enough stuff to exploit you already.” Pantera looked thoroughly amused, and parted his lips into a questionable smile, a flicker cut through his dark hues and he fixed them on Cindra, catching her grin. “Yet?” The male quirked a brow at the woman and tipped his head in silent question before letting that faded smirk flicker back across his feminine features. “ I hope you’re not expecting a tour of my house...Or the Tsua house, rather.” The male almost winced at his slip up, but with a slight shake of his head he smoothed back into other thoughts. “Though, we’re more on the artefact front, rather then rare text.” Frankly Pantera would be half surprised to ever see his Father reading something that wasn’t purebred propaganda or reports concerning the Ministry of Magic.

”Instincts? And what do those instincts pertaining to me, tell you?”

Pantera scoffed slightly when the female insinuated that she didn’t like inflicting pain, of course she didn’t Pantera could tell that just from her mannerisms the first time they’d spoken. “Why would it be an issue for you?” It wasn’t like she was under the pretence that Pantera would flinch or scream, there would be very little for her to feel bad about, but then again… Pantera wasn’t perhaps the most empathetic creature, he simply didn’t understand why she thought inflicting pain on anyone but herself was a problem?

Pantera turned to watch the female retreat to the seats, setting the two books down next to the Konservier case, the male made toward her when that sharp snap resounded through the room and he paused slightly, he didn’t wear much of an expression but his eyes met the creatures gaze before he tipped his head forward with a light sigh and carried on walking. Cindra had failed to mention anything about her discomfort with the Dark Arts, but it was hard to let the subject go when she looked so openly relieved after putting the books down, then proceeded to down a large mouthful of firewisky.

Pantera smirked slightly as he lent over the tray, wincing slightly at the movement before he flicked out his long wand and drew a circle in the air, following the top rim of the glass, making it a couple of centimetres taller before he poured a glass of the brash, burning liquid and downed the whole thing, sighing as he exhaled and allowed that fire to burst down his throat like a rogue Chinese Fireball before it spread through his whole body and sufficed as good temporary relief from his wounds. It was almost spiteful that they hurt and irritated all the more in his human form. Holding the glass by the part of it he’d extended, Pantera lowered it to the table and let his eyes pass over the food.

He didn’t tend to eat much, as one might be able to tell from his terribly lithe form, but even that looked terribly good considering the only thing he’d even tasted in the past three days had been a rather unfortunate spider. The thing had been quite a lot bigger then he was, but had been acting rather strange until it had noticed the oddly curious Panther. The creature lashed out and Pantera had reacted automatically. Though half amused by his own antics, a sick feeling rose from his stomach at the memory and he suddenly wasn’t hungry anymore.

”Is it what the Dark Arts tend to do to people?” It shouldn’t be that, Cindra delt with Slytherin on a daily basis and serpents uninvolved with dark things had definitely been wrongly named. " Is it Dark Power itself?” Reasonable enough, some people worried so much for what the power would do to them they ended up loosing their minds to it anyway, but in the meanwhile they just became rather skittsh, jumpy.
”Or do you just want to avoid it entirely?” That made more sense judging by the way she’d dodged answering earlier, and the fact she could deal with the Dark Arts people, just not the means itself. Well, she was dealing with it pretty well, even if she was rather worked up, Pantera rathered her stress would have transitioned to his own if he hadn’t of turned back into a human earlier.

Pantera didn’t hesitate to reclaim the Kolakivona, and held it to one side of his chest before he took a seat, curling his legs up onto the seat, before he folded them and then shifted so that his back only had a small part of the arm rest to support it. It was too soon to be leaning on anything in a relaxed manner, it only took a slight shift to open up the gash on his back.
”Pft. It’d be rather stupid of me not to be.” Pantera commented with a small, amused smile as he opened the book and looked at the pages with something akin to relaxation. This was typically what Pantera did in his choice time, he could be found somewhere outside usually, reading something he shouldn’t.

Pantera, holding his wand in a strange manner held its end over the page and paused a moment before using an appropriate flourish, smiling questionably at the contents.

”You never answered my question; How do you intend to separate my fathers ‘means of bonding’ from the wounds?”

[Cindra Rourke]

His slip didn’t go unnoticed but then she had already pieced together his relation to the family Patriarch. It was part of the reason she didn’t mind letting him know her station. Cindra pretended she missed it and left him to getting back on more solid footing. She didn’t take him as the sort to commonly slip and that type didn’t always appreciate being caught in one when they did.

“My instincts in regards to you?” she questioned with mock innocence. “Are you sure you want the answer to that?” Quirking an eyebrow she thought a moment, letting her gaze drift over him. They told her he would one day overshadow Portia. That she’d find a different sort of relationship with Pantera, one that, despite current indicators, she’d be far more… comfortable with. Although they also screamed that eventually he wouldn’t underestimate her as others did, which should shake her to the core, she felt an odd sense of relief in that. Unfortunately for him, she knew better than to tell him all that.

“They tell me that unlike with… others… revealing things tonight I haven’t before won't be a mistake.” She absently tucked the offending strand of hair behind an ear, half regretting her own slip, but then the firewhiskey was now producing a lovely intensity of warmth that did it’s job diverting her attention. Portia had known her for about ten years, and even he was never brought there, not that he didn’t try to wiggle it out of her. It was her second time with Pantera and there she sat, probably her greatest repository of knowledge laid bare, with the heir of a house she couldn’t be sure her own associated with or not.

“Do you listen to your instincts?” she countered.

Her glass was quickly brought to her lips and drained. Her eyes closed, her lips resting against the rim as her elbow sat on her knee, the glass clutched tightly in her hand. As the warmth of the drink began to seep through her, making her shirt feel a bit too warm itself, she lowered it and poured more. “As for causing pain being my issue… blame it on my ‘ridiculous sense of empathy’.” Her heritage, and habits, gave her a high tolerance for alcohol, more than one would expect from a witch her size, but it still had one effect- it loosened her tongue. Downing what she had on an empty stomach hastened the effect as she lifted her glass and snorted into it before the liquid hit her lips, “Portia does.” She hid her grimace with the glass.

“Is it what the Dark Arts tend to do to people? Is it Dark Power itself? Or do you just want to avoid it entirely?”

Cindra set her glass down and reached for the Itou book, flipping it back to what would normally be the back cover, her usual reactions to contact with the item blessedly numbed to a faint tickle, like the scratching of a tag in the back of a shirt. Flipping it open, she began the tedious task of translating two facing pages, countering the charm, and starting over. “I don’t necessarily want to avoid it. If I did I wouldn’t be doing this.” More pages were scanned. “It not the magic itself either. After all, I do believe much of what is considered Dark is more the intent of the user not the magic itself. I suppose it’s more that people can be seduced by them.” Looking up, she watched a moment as he scanned through the Kolakivona as if it were a book of poetry, then added, her gaze on him, “It’s the seduction I abhor… it leads to a loss of control… I don’t want to imagine what that would be like.”

Portia had pretty much came to that same realization on his own, but she had never voiced it before. It wasn’t the Dark Arts themselves she reacted to adversely; it was their seductive pull. Control was something she feared losing; she prided herself on her control.

“I take it you rather enjoy them?” she asked, tilting her head slightly. She knew her father did, as well as Portia, but she usually made it a point to not dwelling on it or find out how they indulged in it. Initially it was the influence they could have on her in regards to using it, and as long as she left them to their devises and separated herself from that practice she could dictate when and how she might do so herself. Cindra imagined she’d take a similar path with Pantera. However, her being underestimated played a key role in the others accepting her… avoidance.

“You never answered my question; How do you intend to separate my fathers ‘means of bonding’ from the wounds?”

He was making what seemed to be faster progress than she, but then a translation charm didn’t compensate for script so scanning the readings from right to left was slowing her down. At least if it had been Arabic she wouldn’t have to translate it, as she knew enough to scan for key terms. Flipping yet another page she chuckled. “Did you specifically ask that?” it was rather Slytherin of her, pointing out a matter of semantics, but she quickly followed by answering. “First, I’m going to locate the skin cells he left in your affected wounds when he touched them. It’s a simple charm that won’t disturb the spell or your wounds. It won’t be looking for ‘body parts’ as your father would anticipate and therefore trigger it, but rather it’ll look for the nuclei…” she remembered he seemed lost when she spoke Muggle, and chose her next words with that in mind. “It ties in with the DNA I mentioned. Anyways… once I’ve located them all, I then need to extract them all.” She couldn’t say if that would require opening his wounds or not, but she’d worry about that when the time came.

“Therein lies the tricky part. I want to see if I can learn more about how he might have cast the spell. If he used touch alone, leaving your wounds to heal on their own, albeit slower due to the presence of his bonded cells, then they will be free particles I can remove independently like debris in a wound, which would be easier to do.” Not easy to do, but she would worry about that; limiting her wandless use since entering had been for a reason. “But… if he fused the ‘trail’ of his touch, his cells, to yours...” Cindra lifted her blue-gray eyes from the text. “Then we’ll need a way to remove as little of your own surrounding tissue with them as possible, which will be tricky as they're being fused would mean I'll have to find a way to determine how much of your own flesh is affected by the connection and the spell. If I don't remove enough safely around the fused areas... he'll know.”

Now about half way into the book, she looked down and paused, her fingers tracing a passage, her stomach only giving a mild protest, as it was busy being weighted down by what felt like molten lava. Her lips moved silently as she read the words to herself once, then twice.

“Pantera,” she called excitedly, grabbing the book and flopping it in her lap as she pulled a leg up under her, reading it a third time, the mild wave of nausea ignored. “Describe how it felt when he touched them. And did he heal you afterwards or leave them open?”

[Pantera Tsua]

Pantera was quite sure Cindra knew he was the Tsua heir, and didn’t much mind… it wasn’t really a secret; the male had been paraded quite a lot when he was in line for the succession. The fact he wasn’t anymore… had been the slip up. Though he was still made to frequent the Tsua main house for it’s flirtatious little parties and its intake of other families Pantera didn’t actually live there any more, and he hadn’t for just under a year now. The male was somewhat grateful the female had let it lie, but he suspected she supposed he was trying to keep his heritage a secret; he hadn’t given her a reason to think otherwise after all.

Well, Pantera imagined it wouldn’t be the most pleasing answer, but he stayed his course and met the female’s gaze as she waited for some reply she wasn’t going to get. It was relatively irritating that he couldn’t determine even a starter point for her thoughts in this case, and tipped his head as she offered a safe and carefully inoffensive answer. Of course, Pantera smiled at it and looked flippantly amused for a long moment. Others? Well, there were a few people Pantera knew of who that could be, but he let it lie and focused on the insinuation that she was being looser with her ‘information’ with him then she was with other people. This was their second meeting… those must’ve been some strong instincts to forego all sense. Well maybe not all…

Goddamn it. She was lucky Pantera liked her.

“Well yes, but my instincts pan out more for the Panther’s sake then mine.” Pantera mused, lifting a hand to his bottom lip in mild thought toward the manner. “ I get shivers before it rains and certain kinds of ‘bad’ cause different reactions; my instincts work on a more primal basis… they’re better suited to reacting to the risks I take, rather then the course of action.” A smirk fluttered across the male’s lips. “ Self preservation I suppose… since the rest of me doesn’t have any.” Perhaps he found that more amusing then he should, but it worked for him, those little reactions when the worst-case scenario came round gave him a different insight to other people. For that reason alone he didn’t have to stress his plans, and so he’d let Cindra have hers, she didn’t seem too bothered about those instincts anyway so, even if it pertained to him it didn’t necessarily matter.

Pantera shifted slightly in his seat and slipped a couple of slender fingers into the pocket of his form fitting trousers, before pausing a moment to consider what he was doing. It probably wasn’t a particularly good idea to light up a cigarette over such an old book and the male looked openly disappointed for a moment and scowled before countering his charm, then casting another one on the next few pages. The male’s dark eyes flickered to Cindra and he choked out a laugh despite himself, noting her loose lips now that she’d finished her first glass of firewhisky and he took to a smile after swallowing the rest of the chuckle. “Empathy isn’t an especially bad thing, especially if you’re close to somebody who has none. You’d be surprised how useful it is, actually.” Pantera’s amusement only grew when she scoffed out reference to Portia and Pantera let the black seam of his lips split into a feline grin, moving his eyes back to the translated pages of the book.

”You can keep your ‘ridiculous sense of empathy’; I doubt you’d be so charming without it. Though maybe you should be more careful with the whisky…”

Now Pantera couldn’t believe that, and cast the female a rather sceptical glance through the corner of ones of his narrow eyes and quirked a brow. Most people were forced into things they’d rather avoid and there was pretty much no escape from it, especially considering her… friends. The male’s attention collected as she continued and he tipped his head toward her in a more focused manner. Well, that was sensible and Pantera smirked slightly, before closing his eyes. “ ‘Seduction’ depends on the strength of the person, you should be more worried about that then the magic itself. You said it yourself; Dark is more the intent of the user, not the magic…” The Dark Arts would always retain some sort of control, it was an easy access way to power and because of both muggle and wizard nature… there would always be some pull toward power – no matter what you intended to use it for. There couldn’t be any light without darkness, so really Pantera rathered Cindra was getting worked up over nothing.

A flaw in the mortal design, there was nothing really she could do about it, why worry?

“It’s always an interesting read, but normally its never practical enough to be of much use.” Pantera tipped his head slightly, as if he was letting her have that point and turned a couple of pages. “It depends on the topic, I suppose.”

Pantera chuckled lowly, and quirked a brow at Cindra when she commented on the question and shook his head mildly, not in answer, but that had been a very serpentine comment, he hadn’t really expected it, but it didn’t especially matter because the male knew the answer would follow. Pantera winced slightly when she transitioned back into muggle science and smiled slightly, dipping his head slightly when she reiterated her words into something he could better understand.

Pantera looked rather uncomfortable with the last point she made, though all of it elicited a look of unenthusiasm. “Oh, that will be fun… not that there isn’t a lot of that in the near future anyway.” There was a lot of sourness in that statement and Pantera tipped his head suddenly as a thought or two struck him. “Though, I do wonder what he’d do…” Something in the way he said that made it seem like Pantera was almost set on finding out, but he smirked slightly and fell silent, possibly imagining scenarios.

He attention returned to Cindra after he’d noted her tone and winced slightly at the question, casting out that sharp sourness again. “Painful, I don’t imagine you’ve ever had finger pushed into a deep gash, but you can imagine the lack of details.” Pantera closed his eyes and shook his head slightly in apparent irritation, but he relaxed slightly after a moment and set his dark eyes on the female again. “It felt searing hot, I suppose and no, he didn’t heal them and he made sure I didn’t either. Though I think that was more out of spite then anything.”

[Cindra Rourke]

His instincts correlating more with his animal form made sense. From the start he exuded the traits of a predator. While use to predators, he was unlike any others she knew. Cindra was letting him in closer and faster than she ever planned, even when she sensed he would turn out the greater of them in the hunt. She knew that alone should cause her to be more guarded, but it was a battle she was losing. At least now she knew she wasn’t the only one with a sense of self-preservation. From what she already learned of him, Pantera needed it.

What did surprise her was his reaction to her empathic streak. The laughter she expected, after all, few Slytherins saw much use in, but his reply she didn’t. Useful? Her eyebrows shot up at that. He had a feral grin on his face after her slip about Portia, but that was forgotten in her shock of him finding the positive in her having a sense of empathy. It was the first time he threw her off and she didn’t quite know how to take it. Mocking she anticipated, or a disappointed scowl.

Maybe she was just overreacting; she had thrown back her first glass rather quickly.

“Don’t worry, this will be my last.” Lifting the glass, she gave the liquid a swirl as in salute then took a sip. “Another and I’ll feel like I’m sunbathing.” The back of her neck was on fire, but it made her forget other things she usually felt. A bead of sweat trickled down her nape at that moment and continued down her spine, causing her to shudder and reach back to wipe the damned droplet into the back of her shirt. Transfiguring a toothpick from the tray into a near wand shape, she grabbed her hair, twisted it up and pinned it there with the piece of wood as he answered her question about him and the Dark Arts. She smiled lightly at his response.

He was certainly different than the Slytherins she knew, he didn’t look upon them like a child does gifts at Christmas, and it was yet another reason she liked Pantera. She seemed to be able to draw a fair amount of chuckles from him, and not for amusing him the way she did Portia. The urge to glare at Pantera, or worse, slap him had never occurred, and she doubted it would.

“Oh, that will be fun… not that there isn’t a lot of that in the near future anyway.”

Cindra paused, her wand held between two fingers like a quill. His tone was bitter. Though he wasn’t putting a fight over her pursuing this, she knew he didn’t like her doing so. It pained her a little, knowing she would be inflicting a degree of pain in this process and hearing his words made her feel a pang of guilt at the truth of them. It wasn’t intentional though. Serpents never struck on purpose without making a point of your knowing they had done so… eventually. Pantera’s quick turn to thoughts of his father’s reaction made that much clear.

Answering her question, the bitterness returned and while he did end up smoothing over the edges, possibly for her sake, she didn’t take it to heart, as she knew it wasn’t being directed towards her. The ferocity in him reared its head in his tone; akin to the low grumbles he gave as a panther and marveled at his self-control. Briefly she wondered if he knew how great a power that was, and how much greater it would be without this only true chain being imposed on him.

He drew her thoughts back to the matter at hand with the needed details of his father’s casting. It was clearly not something he wished to relive with words, but they revealed much. What she was hoping for in fact.

“We have it.” Smiling, she set the book on the table between them, leaning over to point at the passage she had been reading from the yellowing page. “While he was casting, his cells were being bound to him at the same time they made contact with you, resulting in the heat. He would have felt it too, if it’s any consolation.” The shared pain was described, however indirectly, in the passage.

A few spells she had found in the book invoked melding flesh, but didn’t fit with several aspects of what Pantera bore. Either they didn’t open wounds, relied on incorporating blood, or required close proximity to be of any effect. This one fit everything previously known as well as what he just told her.

“He didn’t fuse his cells to yours. Your tissue would have fought back. Every binding in there I’ve seen required healing to force the body’s acceptance.” Her smile broadened. “We can tackle it like debris.” It was a damn good spell. Terrifying, in all honesty. The control it possessed over the victim was cruel and precise. The bound cells of his father had a pure potency from being left untainted by fusion with Pantera’s, hence the factor of distance meaning nothing. What neither the spell’s creator and his father expected was his ‘touch’ being capable of being removed.

Ignorance was indeed to their advantage.

Sitting back, she eyed his bandages and fell into silence. It was late, but they still had time to counter it. The sooner the better, she felt. Unlike Hogwarts, they had complete privacy in the study. Until that moment, she hadn’t given much thought to the actual process outside of the necessary spells; having done numerous calculations for those she thought might be useful once she could learn more about how he had been bound. To cast them, they would need to make contact. More intimate than she gave thought to, and though their proximity during apparating would be considered intimate as well, his being in panther form had cast a different color on it.

She couldn’t do this with fur obscuring her view. And she couldn’t do it without lay hands on him.

“I… I need to use my hands,” she nearly tripped on the words, her cheeks warming a bit. “Without the shirt or bandages.” She doubted the warmth was from the whiskey and hopefully the blood rushing to her cheeks didn’t give him the wrong idea. “We can do this now,” she offered. Outside of giving Pantera the choice to come with her, she had been pulling the reins throughout this. Her tone now conveyed she was passing them to him again. Cindra couldn’t push that type of contact on him, he’d need to indicate his willingness to proceed, and she realized her instincts had caused her to so. She had given him the choice for apparating earlier, pushing until it came to his direct comfort and then backing off- her actions going unnoticed until just then.

Her lips formed a soft smile as her eyes remained on him, awaiting his move.

[Pantera Tsua]

Pantera shifted in his seat and leaned to the side when Cindra put the book on the table between them and pointed to the appropriate section. The male read what he could take as necessary and flicked his gaze up toward the female as she transitioned the description into his situation. A chuckle escaped him at her last point and Pantera offered it a small smile, amused by the sentiment, but it didn’t really make him feel any better about it. There wasn’t even a little bit of satisfaction in it although Pantera wished an abhorred amount of pain on the man at this point – though, the young male probably shared that will with plenty of less-deserving teenagers.

The science of it almost sounded perverse and part of Pantera’s mind blanched at the notion that his father had gone out of his way to do this spell. Not only was it surprisingly brutal, but it was a difficult spell, considering the details he’d picked up from ‘bonding’ techniques in both the book he was reading and the passage he’d scanned that Cindra had found. It raised a lot of questions and blew away that rather immature cloud of just general parental hatred… There was no way he’d go this far just out of spite, so what was it?

“Have you ever met a man called Dante Tsua?” Pantera asked and tipped his head slightly, letting his eyes settle on Cindra’s face with a hint of hardness in the glare. Dante Tsua was a master of transactions between families and could hardly ever be found in his house. A sharp man the exuded cold elegance and brilliance at the same time, but there was cruelness to him and the man was stiff with his prudish ideals about wizardry. Now, no one had ever see then current head of the Tsua… and very few people knew that the man wouldn’t ever bee seen to sit in his house all day, getting back mere reports about things, he would rather be out there and so Dante Tsua was always mistaken for the Tsua head’s second in command, rather then the Boss himself.

”I think he’s dealt with your father before.”

Daddy was certainly a man and a half, but depending on her answer, maybe he could draw Cindra in a little.

Pantera looked mildly surprised for a moment when Cindra stated the obvious and then preceded to blush slightly, though the male rathered that was due to the firewhisky more then anything. A grin pulled across the Asian male’s lips and he chuckled lightly; he rather thought she was stating the obvious in saying that but he could also assume that she’d focused more on the calculations and the science in severing the spell, rather then the active parts of it.

There was an underlying rush of discomfort in being touched, but Pantera had dealt with worse and at least in this case he had the added comfort in knowing Cindra wasn’t a malicious person, not in the least. “Well, so long as your hands aren’t cold, there shouldn’t be much of a problem.” Pantera half smiled, keeping his eyes on the female as she gave him an opening like she had in asking him to come with her earlier.

He left a pause between them for a long moment, and let the option hang there for a moment. It wasn’t the touching that was what held him back initially; it was more a reluctance for her to toy with the wounds, that and Pantera’s large array of scars…
A mental sigh disrupted the thought pattern for that and the male’s shook his head slightly before he smoothed one of his hands up the back of his neck and into his hair.

”It would be pointless to stop now, wouldn’t it?”

He mused with a faux lightness, and tipped his head toward her with a sharp song from his large circular earrings. Pantera turned in his seat slowly and slipped his feet onto the floor before moving the edge of his seat. There was always something very wrong, with having magics cast around or on one’s person, it might’ve just been the primal rejection the Panther had for it, that made him feel that way about it…but even so. It was lucky he hadn’t put off changing back into human form earlier…Pantera was quite aware that he probably would have bitten Cindra in his discomfort – not that severing this delicate curse was especially wise when working with so much fur.

Pantera smoothed back his darkest black tresses before he allowed a smirk, of a sort, to shift across his black lips. He closed his eyes and for a moment looked darkly feline before he balled the hem of his shoulder-less top in his hands and eased it up, it wasn’t so much the shirt that cause the pain, but rather the movement itself, bits of muscle shifted and then disturbed the garishly red semi-healed wounds splashed across his back and chest like it had been made by a torrent of liquid fire, or something. The gash itself was deep and would from now on always appear as if part of his had been gauged out, it hadn’t been that thick a cut initially, but after being re-opened every time Pantera’s father felt the need, the wound had gotten considerably worse.

Eventually Pantera got his shirt off and tensed slightly before curling his fingers under the bandaging, pulling it all loose with a single strategic tug. That cloud of hatred for his father returned as the very air felt like it was spitefully burning into the wound but Pantera pushed it away in return for those other thoughts.

Despite all the probably horrifying things that had happened to him, Pantera wore his scars pretty well, they fit the tone of his slight build and didn’t have too stark a contrast with his lightly coloured skin. He was a very lean creature and his body was hard and when he moved even slightly, the detail was on the same level of the panthers but Pantera’s skin was probably a little colder then one might initially expect.

”Heh…Be gentle with me, Cindra.” Pantera half chuckled, a means of easing her tension rather then his own. He hadn’t missed the stumble when she’d said she’d need to use her hands and presumed her discomfort was on the same level as his own. The only difference being, that there was pretty much more strained across her relaxation…

[Cindra Rourke]

Dante Tsua? Cindra was about to shake her head when she blinked and lifted her chin.

Dante.

She knew the name. But was it Dante Tsua?

Her eyes fell on nothing particular as she thought for a moment. A memory tickled her brain and she recalled a time, not that long ago, when she had a rare impromptu audience with Luan in his disguised study, discussing her plans for after her apprenticeship, when her father’s house-elf, Tussel, appeared in the open doorframe, a wizard behind him in the darkened hallway. He had quickly dismissed her with orders to wait in the drawing room as Tussel escorted the man in behind her. She had barely managed a glance at the wizard’s face before the bitter house-elf glared after her to ensure she followed orders quickly. In the hallway, Tussel closed the door behind them, but before he snapped his fingers and set his own, unfortunately difficult to break, wards for his master, she caught her father greeting the wizard by name.

Blue-gray eyes flicked back to his. “Not directly, but… yes,” she confirmed, wondering how she had forgotten the incident. “He met father here. It was one of the few times he didn’t make introductions; he was so intent on shooing me out. Though I can’t say I felt much like dispensing the usual pleasantries.” They had been arguing, Mychal had recently died, and the strange wizard had her instincts on edge.

Glancing at the book on the table, she frowned.

Did Luan acquire the book through Pantera’s family? She couldn’t imagine he would have parted with his coveted knowledge, but then, he didn’t exactly share his motivations with her. Could there have been something he valued enough as to see it a price he’d be willing to pay? Neither idea sounded good, it would cast a far darker light on her father than she wanted to consider.

“He works for your family?” she risked asking to confirm her thoughts. Part of her didn’t relish hearing the answer, but then some truths were hard to stomach.


Having shifted the decision to proceed to Pantera proved a wise choice. He knew her well enough already to figure she’d not let the matter drop should he wish to postpone and she knew this give and take made it easier for him to concede. Cindra believed she was getting far more cooperation out of him than others would. The best effect it had was that it began lifting the tension from her caused by the nature of what she would be doing next.

Her smile tugged one corner of her mouth a little higher than the other. “They won’t be cold,” she promised, clasping them together and rubbing slowly between knuckles, not to warm them, they were already as warm as the rest of her, but to relax the muscles in her fingers. They always felt the brunt of her wandless focus first. “If anything they’ll be a little too warm.” She continued her ministrations as she moved closer and he removed his shirt and bandages. By the time she had worked her way down to her palms, his angry wounds were plainly visible.

“Heh… Be gentle with me, Cindra.”

Chuckling with him, he finally pulled the last remnant of unease from her. “If I didn’t intend to be gentle, I wouldn’t have given you warning,” she replied cheekily, wondering if he’d catch the note of truth in the latter part. Just because she felt he wouldn’t underestimate her like Portia didn’t mean he would do so already.

The smile was still on her lips when she reached out towards his lowest wound, carefully laying one then the other hand over it with as little pressure as she could, closing her eyes as she concentrated on where their flesh made contact, her lips soon beginning to move with silent words. A moment later a faint sensation wiggled like a feather being pulled out from where her hands met his skin. Opening her eyes, she noted the tiny, hard to distinguish pinpricks of blue beneath the healing layers stretched across the wound. Quickly rubbing the tickling sensation away, she continued to repeat the process, moving in an almost continuous pattern, leaving the worst looking of the wounds for last.

When the worst was left, judged by it being the origin of the pink that had marred his bandaging, Cindra took extra care not to aggravate it with her touch as she cast the tracking spell a final time. Although a few had proved a bit trickier than others, the depth and quantity of Pantera’s father’s cells effecting how long and to what degree she had to work to cast it, this one proved to be the most complicated. She recalled Pantera’s words about him having dug into his wounds and winced as she realized she found which one he had tortured that way. Minutes passed as Cindra ignored the slight shaking of her hands, her eyes squeezing shut as her lips kept muttering the words of the incantation under her breath. By the time she felt the tell tale flutter between them, she was breathing harder.

Pulling her hands back, she shook them a few times and flexed and fisted them to work the tension out of her muscles. It was while she did so that she took stock of all she saw before her. The blue pin picks of color scattered over his wounds looked like a star packed constellation and a flash of anger caused her to ball her fists in her lap. Quickly she closed her eyes, opened her hands and pushed the feeling aside, not wishing to give Pantera a chance to see her upset. Acting on it wasn’t her place, but his. He would soon be free of his father’s cruel grip and if his panther instincts made him snap at his former tormentor, then Mister Tsua deserved what he sowed.

“I’ve found them all,” she reported calmly. Unable to rub together two aching hands, Cindra shook them a few more times as she continued. “I’m going to remove them next.” Leaning, she tried to catch his gaze. It seemed the give and take wasn’t over yet. “I can either do it through your scars, a few at a time, which will most likely feel like hot needles being slowly pulled out but will heal extremely quickly, or…” she bit her bottom hoping he’d take the first option. “I can grab a large amount at once and remove them quickly, in which case I’d have to reopen the wounds myself first but we’ll be done sooner.”

In honesty, there was risk involved she hadn’t given him any indication of. When Cindra chose to keep someone in the dark, she did so very well. Her eyes gave away nothing and her hands stilled in her lap.

[Pantera Tsua]

Pantera allowed a chuckle and a feline smirk to pass across his features and blackened lips. That smile moved to the male’s eyes and a flicker passed through their darkness for a moment as the male dipped his head, just-so.
”Spoken like a true Panther.”

It was an odd sensation, odd, uncomfortable…and the tension in his body made everything all the more troublesome. There were hints of pain here and there, but that was mostly enveloped by the sharp edge that that pain was always so close. All she had to do was press a little harder to send him into agony, and then harder still to make that agony evolve into something crippling. Something his primal self wouldn’t allow without brash retaliation. Cindra was right though, her hands weren’t cold, magic swept through them to bleed a discomforting heat into his wounds, one that whispered pain…but didn’t have enough malice in it to draw it out.

The heat was more intense with the last wound Cindra chose to tackle but Pantera, despite the temperamental lashing of his mind, tolerated the discomfort, with little more then a look. He presumed that one had been tricky and scowled lightly in distaste for possible reasons as to why that might be. Unfortunately he could name every incident that would cause difficulty with that particular wound and the thought irked him. A rage bubbled, but didn’t boil over the sides and black beast under his surface arched its spine and rejected all that calm that threatened to make him leave it.

The male’s eyes followed her when she pulled her hands back and Pantera tipped his head, observing what should be ordinary more closely. She clenched her hands into a fist and Pantera quirked a brow at it and decided to look yet deeper, trying to discern the oddness. She opened her hands and her posture returned and she spoke to him calmly, which in itself was rather suspicious. Unfortunately, the answer to the question he wanted to ask, wouldn’t have pleased him either way and so he decided to let her have her little fault.

It was at that moment, it all hit him.

Itou.

Pantera turned his attention back to the answer she’d given him concerning Dante and took a step toward the table just as she started speaking again. He flipped the large silk covered book with his hands, smoothing his palm over its spine before he opened the back and pulled his wand out from the pocket of his form fitting trousers, he didn’t even need to move it especially close for a black mark to bleed into the inside cover and Pantera flipped it closed again.

”This is from the Tsua family library…” For a moment the male’s expression blanched and he returned his thoughts to what Cindra had said earlier concerning Dante, “Why would someone bother with a bonding curse?” He managed eventually, with a light scowl. “It… wouldn’t really be useful for anything other then suppression, but why is that necessary? …If anything it’s this that’s going to make me react badly.” A mental groan and Pantera turned from the table and looked back a Cindra with a partially irritated tired look.

”Practically begs me to go for option number two, but you don’t look comfortable with it at all.” Pantera pointed out, watching the female bite her lip, which usually was a means of distraction, or discomfort. A mild sense of discomfort then moved through Pantera’s body all of a sudden and he took in just how open he was leaving himself. He didn’t know the process, the spells she was using precisely and there were a bunch of other things he was leaving in her hands too. “Anything wrong?”

It was only then that Pantera let his gaze move across the wound splashed across his chest and inspected the glowing specs amongst the red. There was that perverse feeling again… it was harshly off-putting to know that his father had intentionally left marks on him, it almost made Pantera wonder what else this ‘bond’ could be used for, or how sensitive it was. Hell itself might engulf Pantera if his father found out what was going on… even in the aftermath, Pantera rathered some more rest was in order.

”How much would it take for him to know…?”

[Cindra Rourke]

“Wait… what?” Cindra had watched, curious as to why his attention would suddenly be drawn to the book, flipping it to the back and producing his wand. She hadn’t been able to see what he was doing that well from her angle, but she could have sworn something black appeared before he closed it. As his hand left it, she reached over and slid it towards her, her tense fingers having some difficulty flipping the cover back before she looked and found nothing out of place on the pages facing her. “Your family library?”

Cindra knew two things. First, some of the books lining those walls cost her father more than the rarest trinkets littering the shelves, and not in Galleons. And second, even avid collectors like her father didn’t mark a book lightly. They were so obsessed with keeping them in their original condition, only a very special, or rare, edition could entice them to mar it and claim it as their own as they wouldn’t dare part with it. If that had been a distinguishing mark Pantera found, the book was no mere bauble with which to trade.

Then a thought struck her. “Pantera,” she nearly whispered, “That wouldn’t be a common first transaction… would it?” Her eyes had widened slightly as they sought out his. Her apprenticeship had put a long distance and few opportunities of having time to herself between her and keeping up with Luan. Vaguely recognizing his name when they met, she didn’t factor the potential risk of there being any connection between their families. Now, should his father realize what they were doing, or did, she risked her father no longer being completely ignorant.

She groaned and reached for her glass intent on draining the last of the remaining firewhiskey in it. “Can you think of a reason for him to suppress you?” she asked and despite the shakiness of her grip, followed it by throwing the amber liquid back so quickly she nearly gagged as it hit the back of her throat. With a cough, she put the glass back on the table haphazardly, her gaze settling on the book. Cindra had known him for all of about a week, she couldn’t offer much by way of theories as to why he would have been bound with this curse.

“And no, nothing’s wrong.” Complicated, but not wrong, she thought. Her smile was a bit forced when she lifted her head, but not for reasons she imagined flitted through his mind. She knew the risks she was taking, all of them now, hopefully. Though never having been comfortable with it, he seemed even more so after examining the progress she had made.

“How much would it take for him to know…?”

Pantera had a right to know and she wouldn’t lie to him. Doing so by omission was to be expected, but a bold faced lie was a different matter. Cindra decided to skirt between the whole truth and things better left unsaid.

“He’ll be alerted if your flesh around them is disturbed in a way that even hints at fighting the curse. That’s why you could never stop the blood flow or aid it healing, he knew and…” she didn’t need to finish as he knew perfectly well how his father took to that. “Even with the quicker route, I could reopen the wounds safely as I can see where to make an incision, so that isn’t the problem.”

She could have bit her tongue in half. Damned firewhiskey. Pantera would surely note the use of ‘the’. Omitting all she wanted to keep to herself would now be impossible without lying. Thankfully, she didn’t have to reveal everything.

A sigh escaped her. “He will also know something is going on if any of his cells lose contact with flesh.” He might put the pieces together, but she wasn’t going to say more.

A laugh wanted to escape as she thought back to him being an influence on her, but instead lightly shook her head as she turned her gaze back on his blue speckled scars, eager to just grab the reigns and go on before he had too much time to think on things said or soon to be said. Pantera had been rather docile in letting her do this for him and Cindra didn't want any potential noble thoughts affecting that.

“If you can tolerate it, I’d prefer the slower first option," she quickly said. "Your pain will be less intense and you should feel a measure of relief immediately upon each being removed.” Then she reached out towards him…

[Pantera Tsua]

“Mmmn.” Pantera turned to catch Cindra’s gaze as surprise drew her into a whisper and regarded her with a strange passiveness, he shared in her surprise but it was more interesting to watch her expression, then to bother with one of his own. “Not if that book was marked… you can imagine how valuable it must’ve been for them to marr its antique value. That certainly puts a different spin on things, doesn’t it?” Though, Pantera looked more amused then shocked and closed his eyes into a flippant smile. “I’ve never heard of any deals with your family though… and for Dante to relinquish such a valued book; a transaction between old friends perhaps? Or something more…” Pantera didn’t feel the need to finish that sentence. It could be finished with anything, really… depending on the mind and reasoning behind it.

It made things more interesting, but precarious at the same time, though Pantera couldn’t hold back a long rich laugh at the turn of events. It took a while for him to stop and by the end of it he’d smoothed down to low chuckle’s, bent forward awkwardly with an arm curled round his side as pain rushed under the skin. It seemed like genuine laughter, to a point and Pantera smiled pleasantly into the air in front of him for a moment, before turning his gaze back to Cindra.

”Kinda spooky, isn’t it?”

There were a lot of new things to incorporate, more things that could go wrong and now he was forced to involved Cindra in these calculations; When his father found out what they were doing, or had done, he would easily be able to trace things back to this book and thus the Rourke’s would be involved. Considering the fact Dante had thought to trade this book at all meant that he and Cindra’s father, Luan… must’ve come to some sort of deal, or were each others trusted colleagues and so… after some interrogation on the Tsua’s part, they were bound to figure out whose involvement that had been. That theory depended on the relationship between the Tsua and the Rourke though, so Pantera was reluctant to think into it more then that.

Pantera tipped his head back in mild thought, as Cindra posed question of a reason for the curse. See, that’ where it all went strange. “Not really…” There was no reason worthy of the curse like that, even if Pantera was a liability and tended to re-design any orders he got from his father. It was more of show of independence rather then impudence and Pantera was aware that sometimes his father had actually rather enjoyed what he’d come up with, it was more what independent planning did to everyone else that sent that man into a brash tizzy. Though, that sort of reaction stopped coming along just under seven years ago…

No, Pantera couldn’t figure a reason.

His dark eyes fixed on Cindra when she answered and he noted her slightly lacking smile but didn’t think much of it, considering what she was doing and the over-use of her hands, there were a lot of reasons as to why her expression might be off. Pantera flexed his fingers, and paused to let an odd shiver move down his spine, causing the hair on the back of his neck to bristle with discomfort, for that reason alone he hesitated slipping his wand back into place.

”’The’? ‘that isn’t the problem’?” Pantera scowled slightly and turned to Cindra properly, narrowing his eyes at her sigh before she decided to explain a little. Did she really think he’d be happy with that explanation? Not only was it too vague, but it raised a lot more questions. If it lost contact with the flesh… so what was she going to do with it? Was it specifically his flesh? Or was she going to do something stupid?

Pantera’s sudden agitation grew and his dark scowl didn’t wane as she told him her preference on the extraction front, speaking quickly and then reached out for him. He curled his slender hand round her wrist and abruptly halted its movement, keeping his gaze on Cindra for a long moment, no longer even a little bit comfortable. “Why would you prefer the slower option?” He asked

”And lets take a couple of steps back here, how are you going to make sure his cells don’t loose contact with the flesh?” The male kept his grip firm and didn’t show any sign that he was going to let go, at least not yet, anyway.

[Cindra Rourke]

“A book like this… it’s value wouldn’t be measured in Galleons, that I know. I’m not even sure I would want to find out what sort of payment he made for it…” she paled slightly. It wasn’t unusual for him to take time; years even, to fulfill an immense payment. What troubled Cindra was that in the course of her experience in his political circles, the name Tsua had never came up. Knowing nothing short of a Demeanor’s Kiss would make him part with his coveted knowledge, hence eliminating the chance of an ‘equal’ trade, besides political power, what else of value would he have to offer? Nothing had left that room by way of his collection that she wasn’t aware of. But then… “If he’s even made payment yet,” she added absently, her thoughts trying to think of anything that might serve that purpose kept coming up blank.

“I don’t know which is spinning more… this,” her hand gestured between them, “Or my head.” Exactly what were the odds they would have ended up working together without family intervention? Add to that neither of them knew how tight, or old, the relationship between Tsua and Rourke was, and the uncertainties multiplied. Were it not for the turn of events that led them there, they may never have had a clue one even existed.

“Honestly, I’m at a loss. I may not be able to track all my father’s dealings, but I’ve never missed a family connection to my knowledge. But spooky? Pantera… I would pray they were old friends if I thought it possible, it would be less worrisome.” When he mentioned the possibility, right away she felt apprehensive. What she was about to reveal probably wouldn’t reassure him any more than it did her.

“All his deals with his old friends are personal, free of middle men and the risks they bring with them. Ironically, they aren’t usually the harder to trace.” For a moment she smirked before she thought of how Luan was prone to entertaining his inner circle and it morphed into a grimace. “I know most of them better than my own uncle. One always insists on sitting as close to me as possible and calls me pet.” A shudder followed with the memory of the old wizard inquiring as to her ‘health’. Needless to say, he was not one the few she made her own connection with.

Turning her attention back to Pantera, she didn’t find his response very helpful. There had to be a reason for his father cursing him. If there was one constant it was cause and effect. A reason there must be, however illogical. But if Pantera had no real idea as to what that could be, and he would know his familial situation better than she ever could, then there was little for it.

As expected, he had caught her slip. Slytherins were apt at reading between the lines and noting matters of semantics. Unfortunately, he was damn quick about it. Too quick, she thought, judging by how he managed to stop her approach by grabbing her wrist. Though normally uncomfortable with such contact, she didn’t pull away or resist him, in fact she relaxed her arm as his grip remained firm. It was his gaze that unsettled her the most. In them she saw he wasn’t pleased and wouldn’t give her an out this time.

“I’d rather not have to open your scars,” she began, a bit defeated. “The exit points will be microscopic and heal within a day if you would prefer I not do so myself. Once gone, healing charms will work again.” Her hand was still limp in his when she took a deep breath and sighed slowly.

“I said lose contact with flesh, not the flesh.” Silence hung over them a moment, Cindra half hoping she could stop there, but by now he would have figured it out. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to say it outright.

From the moment she realized that crucial part of the binding, she was willing to do what was required. He had been through enough; it was time it was easier for him.

“He won’t be alerted because they won’t be losing contact.” Blue-gray eyes dropped long enough to look meaningfully at their clasped hands before lifting up again, a desire to not argue the point dancing in them. They had learned too much, revealed too much, and risked too much to back out now.

[Pantera Tsua]

“Well, that’s more often the case with the Tsua, they don’t tend to ask for Galleons anymore…” This meant he’d have to incorporate the Rourke family into things and then, to contrast he’d have to recalculate parts of his own family. Irritating really, but that feeling was overwhelmed with intrigue and suspicion. Pantera paused a moment to pass Cindra an absently amused look, lifting his brow as if he was just humouring her comment. “ Well, really, ‘this’ is more of a downward spiral, its you and all that whiskey you drank that’s making things spin… most likely.” There were so many questions and even more arose as Cindra continued to speak.

Pantera knew exactly where his father was right now, what he was doing, who he was talking to, though there had never really been any need to look too deeply into Tsua dealings, not unless they had Pantera’s father riled, he liked to make sure he knew the basics of all there was going on. He didn’t tend to miss new transactions between families but even so a lot of relationships were claimed before Pantera was born or in the years he was a toddler. There could be something he missed, but the archives had never said anything about the Rourke’s either… in fact, the Rourke family had never come up. That was suspicious in itself, the Rourke family were capable from what Pantera knew and the head of the family was a respectable guy, powerful and stiff enough to be set in the league of true players, rather then those serpents who sold their venom in large batches.

Surely the Tsua and they should have met somewhere along the line.

“My father’s the same, anyone he likes… in a manner of speaking, would be obliged to come to one of the Tsua’s regular parties.” Pantera chocked out a laugh when Cindra drifted off the point a little and the male tilted his head and shot her an amused look, lifting a hand to his head before the seam of his lips split to let loose a silent laugh, before it was incorporated into a grin. “Oh, I know some of those sorts… Old perverts that spend their time drooling over my shoulder. The Tsua have an annoying amount of those people.” He scoffed slightly, and decided against continuing. Though he didn’t imagine Cindra would sink so low, Pantera had humoured the advances of their at one time or another, sometimes for a good reason, sometimes just the see how far he could go with it.

The male shivered through a couple of memories before pushing them to the side harshly. Best to let those sorts of things lie.

It was probably best that she’d folded, but she hadn’t said it… Though his suspicions seemed to be on the right track, she hadn’t said it with her own lips. Thusfore, she didn’t know how stupid she was being; if indeed she was trying to do what he thought she was. He hand was limp in his grip and Pantera retained some wariness for it, she didn’t need to use a wand for magic, so grabbing her wrist hadn’t been the best idea… though, it had been more of an automatic reaction, rather then a planned motion.

With flesh, not the flesh.

She still hadn’t said it, but his initial suspicion had been correct then. Pantera’s scowl grew and a flash of rage flicked through his body, he let go of her hand before his grip increased in response and clenched his fist. He turned on his heel, turning his back to her before he lifted a couple of fingers to his brow and growled lightly, before smoothing his hair back from his face.
”You’re being irrational, Cindra. You’ve known me…under a week…” He drifted off into a sigh, suppressing that biting chill in his words before he half turned his head, letting a sharp flash move across the curved surface of his earring before it transitioned through his eyes, revealing a beast-worthy flash of ghostly silver hue.

”No.” Just plain stupid. There would be plenty of other ways round it… Self-sacrificing… Another flush of rage but it quickly turned into a sharp irritation. “You can’t use a summoning spell to transport it onto the Konserveir Case?” He’d thought of another option, because part of him knew that wouldn’t work, but he didn’t think Cindra would do it, if she was so against opening his wounds to get this done quickly, then she wouldn’t want to hear any of the options he had.

”There’s no point doing anything like that, Cindra! It’s not even justified, it’s just recklessly stupid!” Goddamn it. What was going through her head? She seemed to have thrown all rational thought out the window and had decided to replace it with …[I[this

[/I]. Only a certain kind of person could do stuff like that without issue and they were the sort that would have done it without letting something loose. The fact she couldn’t say it; meant she wasn’t sure and that was even more stupid then the whole idea in the first place.

It wasn’t even the fact she was sacrificing her well-being for him, as he wasn’t nearly moralistic enough to resist taking advantage of that on its own. Pantera wouldn’t pretend to be noble, but she was disappointing him. Her sentimentality was getting in the way of her prior brilliance, she was clever, sharp and more then capable… so why this option? Could she really think of no other way?

”We can use other flesh; apparently it’s not specific, so I’ll go hunt down a deer or something. It can be shifted that way…”[/center][/size][/font]

[Cindra Rourke]

She chuckled at his lifted brow and following comment. “Downward spiral, indeed, though only one place to land comes to mind. Speaking of which… it would take far more whiskey than that to make it spin. You take me for a light weight.” Which she wasn’t planning on partaking in anyways. She wasn’t fool enough to drink to her limit, especially with Pantera present; she’d spill far too much. As it was, he was years ahead of Portia in information.

Unfortunately, the humor was short lived as he confirmed her suspicions that their families were connected with old ties. Being the Rourke heir, and the only witch of the house, Cindra recalled every social event she had been dragged to since taking her mother’s place on her father’s arm and being ‘presented’ to pureblood society as a lady of age. Again, the name Tsua didn’t come up. Her lips did twitch up into a grin as he spoke of the lecherous types he too had endured. At least she wasn’t the only one that felt like an object at times. His shudder might have indicated reliving such a moment and she sympathized with him.

Those thoughts were dashed when she had tried to proceed and was now seeing Pantera’s scowl deepen. Even with only the limited contact between his hand and her wrist she could see as well as feel the tension of anger rush through him. She had sat by when he circled around her as a panther, embraced him in the same form, and injured no less, to apparate, and it was only now she felt a flutter of fear. Her instincts had told her he was the greater of the predators surrounding her life and yet she hadn’t reacted to the notion until she saw how incredibly close he truly came to his animal form in that moment. No sooner she sensed it, he released her and her fear tapered off though her heart took slower to calm. Him lashing out at her wasn’t what she feared, but how much control he would lose, and though he appeared as upset as ever, distancing himself had reassured her he was as disciplined as ever.

His growl, barely registering over the sound of her own pulse in her ears, kept her from looking away, now would not be the time she turned from him. “Irrational?” she blurted out before getting a grip of herself and holding back the temper that wanted to flare back in response. It never bode well for her to give in to it. “Whether it’s been a week or a year, it’s irrational to continue being held like… well, like a slave any moment longer than you have to when we can counter that damned curse.” The temper managed to slip out in a few clipped words, but her tone remained relatively soft. Practice helped her keep it in check.

When he turned back, his gaze reminded her why it would be prudent to grab a tighter reign on her temper. But he wasn’t making it easy for her.

“No?” Her eyes flashed before she could stop it. Cindra meant to do this and hadn’t risked and revealed all she had that night for it to go to pot. “I can’t summon it, Pantera. The moment they would register the loss of contact, however small, he would know. We’re still risking him figuring it out regardless, but that’s tantamount to suicide.” Why don’t they just owl him first and give him a heads up? He had been though Gods only knew what and yet he wouldn’t let her take a risk she was willing to take to help him. Pantera never came off much as the noble type, and she was beginning to wonder if she had overlooked something but the notion didn’t last long. His next words would have slammed her into the seat if she weren’t there already. He’d never raised his voice before and it shocked her into a momentary silence, long enough for him to give voice to an option she had already considered.

Though still a little stiff, her hands came up to rub her forehead as Cindra lowered her head into them. She hadn’t been very forthcoming with all she had figured out of the curse, his reluctance made her want to keep as many of the details to herself as she could as the more he knew, the more likely it was he would contest her. The time for concealment was past, especially if she wanted back on better footing with him.

“Alright,” she began, the proverbial white flag in her tone, her hands falling to her lap with a sigh. A reluctant look was on her face as she looked back at him. “I already thought of that.” He might doubt her, but she sighed and soldiered on anyways. “The chances of it working are slim. Magical creatures inherently resist this sort of binding, their magic being, frankly, more powerful than ours. Non-magical creatures are just that, void of magic. The moment your father’s cells hit flesh with no magical presence, we’ll be found out.”

Cindra waited a moment, hoping he might settle down and realize she wasn’t holding back on him any longer. While her temper was now firmly buried again, she still hoped his rage towards her would dissipate. For him to do so, she knew she had to explain the risks and her reasoning fully.

“I knew days ago I’d have to do this. I’ll admit I didn’t exactly spell it out for you, I’d be lying if I said I was looking forward to it, but that doesn’t mean I’m afraid to.” She leaned a little forward, a habit of closing the distance when trying to get someone to see things from her point of view presenting itself, though she didn’t risk getting close enough to set him off again. “Look… I don’t have to do anything to my hands, not even a small cut. With the slower option you will heal faster and it’ll be easier for you. You’ve been through hell enough as is,” the anger she felt at that slipped into her tone at the end. “Granted, I’ll be in contact longer that way, but it will be nothing compared to what you have… I’m not porcelain, Pantera.” If it was noble chivalry getting in his way, she hoped that would put a kink in it.

“And while I certainly would prefer not cutting into you, more because, well… I just don’t like making others bleed when it’s not in defense, I will have less time in contact with them.” Her gaze sought his, hoping her argument wasn’t falling on deaf ears. “The only real risk is if he decides to summon you again while I’m transferring it. There’s honestly no telling what it would cause, but with you still on the mend, I doubt there being a high risk of that, don’t you?” Behind the hint of pleading was her strong determination. If she had to debate the next few hours to get his agreement, she’d do so.

“We’ve both taken risks, ones neither of us knows about. Why my instincts drive me to bring you into my confidences faster than anyone or why they compel me to do what I can to help you, I don’t know. I’d explain it if I could, but it sounds crazy enough already. Just… please… don’t underestimate me now.” Cindra shook her head lightly. “ I know the risk and I accept it. I’ll do whichever method you want, no arguments. If you can put your comfort aside for this, I can too.”

She almost reached out to him, but stopped herself short, her slim hand hovering a moment before her fingers curled into her palm and lowered back to her lap where she covered it with her other hand as if to hold it down. Pantera held all the cards now, and she didn’t want to rattle him when she hoped he would consent.

[Pantera Tsua]

A slave? Pantera bristled stiffly. So he was a victim was he? Someone who needed to be saved? The male tipped his head back and pressed three fingers to his temple, closing his eyes as he tried to swallow the snarl that threatened to curl up his throat. It was important to stay in control, to bare it. He’d sat through worse… many, many times before and he hadn’t lost it yet. Though, he couldn’t say going wild wouldn’t be a relief when it finally happened; he had so much swallowed rage to unleash and he doubted it would be sated until the world burnt or he was put to trial against the killing curse.

The main point was, that it wasn’t her problem. She was getting involved, too involved for someone who knew very little, she didn’t know the circumstances, the Tsua… she might’ve been good with figuring him out to some degree, but that didn’t make the presumption any less infuriating.

Yeah, he knew that. Summoning wouldn’t work but it had been more of point then an actual suggestion. suicide? Now she was underestimating both him and his father. Death was a release, not a punishment in the eyes of the Tsua and she was being naïve if she thought that him being released on this curse wouldn’t turn round and snap at him. When his father found out, no matter how much Pantera calculated and designed, he didn’t and couldn’t fathom what the man would do, or better yet…what he would do in response.
”He’d figure it out anyway, postponing the inevitable won’t help either.”

He already figured she’d argue that and so switched tactics, lettings his eyes fix on her, still with that thin line a brash silver pinned on her, the rest was dark, but that primordial bit of colour, or rather lack of, was enough, it was cold and sharp at the same time and retained very little humanity. Even his Panther form had hints of the world in it, but this searching glare he’d fixed her with had risen from pure instinct, from rage and irritation, smoothed out only by Pantera’s adamant control.
”Why go to this length? …You can’t really think that something won’t come up again? That there won’t be other chains? It’s a waste. It’s a bad habit… will you keep doing it? Will you keep doing stuff like this?”

He managed to keep his voice low, but there was a harsh edge to it and he let out a long sigh, deciding to throw that sourness away as he slipped out his wand, flicked it and summoned a small pack a cigarettes into the air next to his left hand, it took a less then a flick of his wrist to claim them and Pantera flicked the lid open. He should thank the muggles for these really, their creation, untouched by magic, thought of only through primitive wiles and means, so many people frowned upon him using them and even more didn’t know what they were.

Pantera placed one between his lips and pressed the tip of his wand to its end, igniting it with a sharp snap before he drew in a breath and scowled as that sickly ashen taste seared down his throat to his lungs. Relief moved through some dwelling part of him and he let the pale cylinder burn between his lips before exhaling an ashen torrent. So the animals wouldn’t work, Pantera forced himself to calm down a little more, but he was still stiff and had he been a Panther at that moment, his fur would still be bristled sharply down the back of his neck.

She was filling in the gaps slowly, pressing more into the issue and lent forward to attempt bridging the step back he’d taken, she didn’t try particularly hard with it, but Pantera didn’t regard it as a particularly good idea anyway. His patience had thinned quite severely and he was almost tempted transform into a Panther and leave, the curse wasn’t a pressing matter… not matter how close they were to getting rid of it. He noted the way her tone slipped back into anger at the end of her sentence and Pantera narrowed his dark eyes, slipping the cigarette between two fingers before he slipped it from his lips and scrutinized her for a moment. “ I can handle hell, I’ve lived there long enough.” He scoffed slightly and went to turn his attention from her with renewed irritation at being regarded as a victim again but paused when she bitingly told him she wasn’t made of porcelain.

”Neither am I.” He countered with a light shake of his head before throwing his cigarette to the ground to stand on it promptly with a bare heel. So she suspected it was nobility that had gotten him angry? That he didn’t want her getting hurt for his sake? It would probably have made things a lot simpler if that were true. The male outstretched his left arm and tensed it, balling the hand into a fist as he drew his wand down his arm a little, muttering something under his breath as he cut a short streak of skin off and used apparated it into the Konservier box before returning his gaze to Cindra.

”Do them all at once. Then transport it into that.” He pointed his wand at the small case again and shook his head before stepping back up to her, He still wasn’t happy, but he seemed to have delved into a temperament bordering on tolerable. Though he had the added discomfort of wide cut and the warm crimson running down his arm.

”…I knew you were going to be bad for buisness.”

[Cindra Rourke]

Pantera was controlled, but only just. Her own temper, trying to get past years of repressive barriers, wasn’t helping her handle the situation as well as she could. It was very much like the rocky ground she traversed with Portia in the beginning; only the tension was of a different sort. While there was a measure of understanding, of truce lines drawn, that kept her from going utterly mad with the older wizard, Pantera was a different story altogether. Like before, she felt at a lost following instincts alone, yet at the moment, nothing else grounded her well enough to give her a sane course of action. If neither of them found a way to placate the other soon, it wasn’t going to be pretty.

“Postponing buys you time.” Cindra purposely didn’t dare use ‘us’ as he was already quite angry with her. He’d certainly deal with matters himself. If it weren’t for the fact she recognized he hadn’t been able to deal with the curse on his own she wouldn’t have felt the need to involve herself. “Time could mean the difference between just accepting his wrath and having a plan in place to divert it.”

She could see he was itching to transform. Though she hoped not to disturb him to the point his instincts reared up on him, she apparently did so anyways. It was evident in his tense muscles, his tone, and especially his gaze. In his eyes she could already see more of the panther than the wizard. Yet he got under her skin so maddeningly quickly! How much longer could she hold her tongue in check at his pace? She felt like a damned weakened prey being tossed about before the final kill.

“Pantera,” she sighed, temper crying out as it was shoved down. “There will always be something. Life in this arena is one thing after another… it never stops. Will I keep doing stuff like this? Please,” she scoffed and slammed the book shut, sick of seeing it there open and mocking them. “Portia would have seen to me long ago had I out lived my usefulness.” With a shove, it slid across to the far end of the table. Her gaze remained on the edge closest to her, a need to separate herself from his own. “Of course I will. You’ve figured that much out about me. I offer my help when needed, what other use have I?” It was weariness that leaked out with her words. Weariness over the decision, the push and pull of associations she could not escape, and weariness over the fact she’d accept the hand given her all the same because there was nothing else she could do about it. Only a fool wouldn’t recognize her being just a piece on greater players boards.

Her hands didn’t protest as much this time when she lowered her head into her hands. While they argued they had the time to recuperate and were returning to normal. Her hands lightly pressed over her closed eyes as she heard his subtle movements and caught a whiff of smoke in the air. Remembering Mychal’s penchant for cigars she figured it was either the same or something similar he was indulging in, most likely for his nerves as Mychal always had. The memory wasn’t welcome and she thrust it aside as she sighed and began running her fingers up into her long hair as far as she could before becoming encumbered by the twist that now hung loosely above the nape of her neck. Taking the opportunity for distraction while Pantera puffed away, she pulled out the hair stick, untangling her long red tresses before twisting them up again and jabbing the thin wood back in place to secure it.

Glancing up, she found he hadn’t been smoking a cigar at all, but indeed something close to it and dropped her gaze again. “Perhaps I didn’t word it right,” she amended, wishing her instincts could lead her to the right choice of words when her temper garbled them up so spectacularly. “I never meant to imply you couldn’t handle it, I know you’re not fragile either… far from it. My point was you shouldn’t have to. Whatever his reasoning may be, I can’t imagine it warranting you being treated like this. You’re his son. No matter how we cross them it should amount for something.” The latter two sentences didn’t have the same conviction in them as the first. Cindra wasn’t even entirely sure what her being Luan’s daughter amounted to, except perhaps another valuable piece in his set with which to move about his board. He had played his hand with her numerous times, and despite it never being anything remotely as horrible as what Pantera was being subjected to, she couldn’t quite convince herself he wasn’t capable of other, darker, deeds.

Wanting a clearer head, she reached for the tea service, caffeine being just the thing, when he drew his wand and her attention. As if to prove his point he set about removing a thin strip of skin from his arm and placed it in the case. She had an easier way in mind to do it, but she bit her tongue. He was agreeing to go on finally and she’d take the offer, no questions or rebuttals, as she promised.

As she pulled out her own wand and settled back into place behind him, she sighed again, whispering, “You can leave me out of it in the future then, if that’s your wish.” It shouldn’t have, but it hurt. She should have been thrilled with one, just one opening out of this blasted business and it’s dangers. But she wasn’t. For once, she felt different around one of them, had blow caution to the wind, and liked him in spite of herself.

She began with the worst of them, the one she needn’t cut, lightly pressing her left palm over the concentration of blue specks. As she closed her eyes she thought of how she started out thinking she was helping, and now wondered what other damage she was causing.

Reaching out with her magic, she found each cell in the incompletely healed wound, tightly hooking to its ones core, and when she had them all took a deep breath and yanked back with her energy while her hand stayed against him. It was a good thing she did because on impact it was only through releasing the breath slowly that she kept from screaming. She could have reached into the fire and grabbed a red hot ember and it would have felt the same. Her right wand gripped her wand in a grip nearly strong enough to snap it in half as she summoned the case over into her lap where she lowered her left hand over the opening and with her wand, lifted the skin to remove it from her hand so as not to lose contact between them.

Taking a moment, as it was more of a jolt than she expected, Cindra took her wand and began healing the wound now free of the curse, beginning deep within his muscles and working up to the surface, knitting them together carefully until the skin covering it was more normal looking than the rest. “I’m sorry but I can only do so many at a time.” She hoped the relief he would feel after being healed would counter any retaliation he might be entertaining.

With the rest she had to begin by carefully cutting around the blue cells, only going as deep as needed before repeating the process, cleaning the blood from him as she healed each. With the last one, she lowered her left hand a final time, a loud relieved breath escaping her in a rush as she closed the case and sat back, her hand feeling like it should be covered in blisters large enough to hinder her movement, but they weren’t, only a faint redness lingered, just as it had in his wounds.

Still grimacing, she dropped her wand in her lap, next to her aching hand and picked up the case, holding it out to him. Cindra couldn’t quite meet his gaze yet, though she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was guilt.

[Pantera Tsua]

“Time is relative… and no matter what, there’s little chance of knowing what my father will do before he does it, it wouldn’t help, being prepared.” It was just another thing that was to be based on the precarious rule of reaction; instinct. It was for that reason that Pantera was so good with it, he’d been set in its jaws ever since he was little, until reactions became complex, protective. Thinking on his feet became second nature, it was from this, Pantera liked to think he earned his Animagi talent. “ And you know perfectly well the only way to divert anyones wrath is to get them before they get you, reasoning might be an option if he were someone else, but no plan – however brilliant – will remove that end.”

A shiver flooded down his spine when she said his name and for a moment, it was almost like he didn’t recognise it, but the moment past too quickly for him to get any sort of lead toward why that might’ve been. The male listened to her, letting his sharp gaze move to the book as she slammed it shut, after using it to distract herself from him. Just hearing her confirm what he already knew irritated him, but he had no real reason to be angry about it. It was troublesome, but apparently the female didn’t mean any harm by it, even she could do a lot of damage with that kind of supposedly ‘helpful’ intention. It was those sorts that you had to look out for, but even then Cindra balanced a lot of redeeming features and she wasn’t entirely smothered in that concept. She could handle herself…

If you couldn’t command… you must obey, right?


“You know as well as anyone that it doesn’t really matter, when you’re connected to these sorts of families; you’re to be seen, never heard. You’re to be paraded round, made to be comfortable around your fathers closest no matter what kind of dribbling pervert they are. You’re to be exceptional at everything, or else you’re a disappointment and are deemed unworthy. We’re not so much sons or daughters, rather an omen that the family is going to continue.” Pantera felt sure she could understand that much, but it became apparent it was only his father that decided to go all the way with some random scorn, or something that amounted to a reason. He noted her use of ‘we’ and ‘them’ and looked upon her was an odd calm for a moment, was calm? Or was it just nothing?

A smirk broke through all that contorted and twisted darkly under his skin and some his tension left him, he shook his head slightly as if reluctant to let it go and tipped his head toward the female, letting a slowly growing smirk flutter across his blackened lips. “You’re telling me you’d stay out of it if I told you to? Pfft. I don’t believe that for a second.”

Pain fluttered through the wound she touched, as if to spite his attempt to let that rage go. It felt like he was aware of every part of her hand, the light lines drawn across the palm, the segmented inside of her fingers and the heat of her palm spilt searing warmth into the wound which them spread and irritated in response. It built and built until a chill informed Pantera that it was coming and he steeled himself to it, tensed lightly under her hand, enough so that his muscles shifted slightly. Agonising pain burst from the wound, like serpent constructed of white fire was wriggling out of the open wound, snapping its jaws spitefully, biting as what it could until it was released. Pantera clenched his teeth, as the pain dulled a little but not enough to cause much relief, the pain lingered but Pantera didn’t make a sound he closed his eyes for a moment, but didn’t give the pain even a scowl, though his eyes had glazed a little.

There wasn’t much thought that could push its way in front of that pain, so he didn’t grumble what he wanted to when she spoke, stitching the wound together with her irritatingly warm magic. The pain faded, and Pantera relaxed into it, as a means of making sure he didn’t get stuck that stiff, rather then him genuinely feeling a renewal of comfort. He was still irritated with the female but there was no harm done really – it wasn’t like she’d vowed to carry round the curse or anything. Even if it was usually just fate’s way of spiting him that his father would find some way to make everything ten times worse from wherever he was…

After suffering through that another few times Pantera’s legs gave out on him much to his irritation and he let out a couple of laboured breaths, glad for the cold floor under his hands, he basked in the chill it bounced toward his face and kept his eyes closed for a moment or two before sitting upright, he was almost willing to turn a couple of words to some gods if they’d allow him even just a couple of hours undisturbed rest later. His wounds were stiff where they’d been healed and they still irritated him, but the male suspected that was just the residue of magic rather then anything.

Pantera let his eyes flicker to the case and took it from Cindra, slipping his hand round his wand he flicked it toward the case and the object snapped out of existence, where it went, no one but Pantera would know. Getting up, slowly , the male curled his hand round the lid of the firewhiskey bottle and lifted it to his lips with a look of near relief as the fire hot liquid felt like it was scarring his throat all the way down until it hit his stomach and flushed a thick fuzzy heat through his body. Pantera was too slight a male to be able to hold his drink, so he had to spend a moment dealing with the head rush as he put down the bottle and let out a sigh.

His eyes moved back to Cindra and he stepped up to where she sat and rested a hand on her shoulder as a mild show of forgiveness, in a manner of speaking. He was still irritated, but there was no use keeping it now.

”Do you have… a lake in the grounds, by any chance?”