OOC

Backtagging: yes
Threadhopping: yes
Fourthwalling: not at this time
Offensive subjects: yes

IC

Hugging this character: yes though he'll be baffled
Kissing this character: yes
Flirting with this character: yes. again, baffled
Fighting with this character: yes
Injuring this character: yes
Killing this character: n...no
Using telepathy/mind reading abilities on this character: with notice
Anything else: no

Warnings: Kell is a blood magician and will often cut himself to use his powers. his arms are scarred due to this.

When it takes Kell more than one try to paint the correct symbol for the Bower, he knows he's had too much.

It was meant to be one drink to calm his nerves before going to Sirius. One drink became two, and after two became three it'd been difficult to stop. Now, swaying before the bathroom wall in Semele's, Kell scrunches his nose and tries again.

"One long line," he says as he paints it in red, "Two short, one circle." Apparently the symbol means peace, but Kell chose it for the simple reason that Sirius had once enchanted him to wear a giant medallion with the same symbol, and ever after it's made him smile. And he is smiling as he tumbles through the sudden door in the wall, leaving behind the darkness of Semele's for the twilight of the countryside. It's just that every few moments, the joy in his heart reverts to fear and then back again, until Kell's so giddy and so nervous that he almost wishes he'd never left the bar at all.

It's only when he reaches the Bower's door that he realizes Sirius might be busy. "Saints," Kell mutters, but there's nothing for it now, so he scrubs a hand over his pink face and knocks.

He doesn't know how much time has passed, only that it's dark again, and the brown bottle he'd magicked from the pub below his rooms is dwindling. Kell throws an arm over his eyes and tries to drift, to stay half asleep where he can't remember why his eyes burn or his chest aches, but the memories of the wedding rise up to claim him all the same.

Just go, Kell, his mind helpfully supplies in Lila's voice, and Kell makes a brief, miserable sound, too worn now to weep anymore. He rolls over and examines his whiskey. After another sleep, he'll have to get more. He takes a gulp of it and puts it down, taking up the ornament Sirius had bought him and nearly been robbed of instead. Kell runs his thumb down its strange edges, holding it loosely as he closes his eyes to chase more oblivion.

Kell almost expects it when they come.

He keeps to himself in Darrow, but even he's heard murmurs of people disappearing, and every name he recognizes is someone from whom he's felt power. Now, woundless yet bleeding in an alley, Kell thinks he ought to have been better prepared.

He doesn't fear fighting another being with magic, but this is something else, some perversion of science or birth, something more than simple human or magician. The first person to attempt to grab him had been able to summon storms in the air, not the individual elements of air and fire and wind as Kell can, but the very tempest itself. The next had seeming skin of solid metal, a material Kell is more than capable of manipulating, but the third seems to have power over blood itself, drawing it from Kell without a wound, as neatly as Holland ever had with the stone.

His own fault, no doubt. Kell doesn't hide that his power is best used when channeled by his own spilled blood, but his enemies now know it, too. It's clever of them to attempt to drain him, though Kell has no intention of letting them. He could place his bloody hand on the wall and travel safely home, but they might be waiting for him there, and regardless - Kell wants to fight.

Thankfully, his attacker's power seems to require that they meet eyes, and hidden as he is, the seep of blood from Kell's palms and mouth has slowed. He places a red hand on the ground and murmurs, "As Osoro," Darken, filling the air with an unnatural shadow that grows to fill the alley. "As Athera," he continues, Grow, standing as the darkness fills the alley's opening and beyond. "As Enose," Kell snarls, and steps into the growing black.

Find.

He dearly hopes this bloodletter isn't wise enough to run.

[this is an open post but i felt weird putting it in the comm, tag if you like. i don't know why i'm like this either 8D]

Kell sags against the thick stone wall of the Basin. Overhead, the ruby waters of the Isle slip endlessly by, and around him, the unnatural dark Kell had summoned begins to shiver.

"As Anasae," Kell says into the darkness. Dispel. The smoke twists into nothing as if it was never there, and Kell draws a deep breath.

"Did you kill them all?" Rhy would ask if he were here, and Kell would nod and step back to reveal the ruined remains of his training dummies. But Rhy has yet to find him today, and Kell takes another breath, closing his eyes for a moment to listen for his brother's heartbeat. Beneath the brand on his chest, the magic that binds them rises and flares, and beneath Kell's heartbeat he feels another, its thump steady and even. It means Rhy is calm, at least for now. He would feel excitement in his breast if Rhy were coming to drag him off again, back into the bowels of Red London to chase another adventure.

Kell grimaces. As if provoking Red London's criminal element could be called adventure. His ribs still ache with the hits Rhy had taken only the day before, his head foggy with Rhy's hangover. Where Kell would fight the memories that haunt them both with magic and blood, Rhy would do it with his princely fists and copious wine, and the bond that binds their lives together means that Rhy's pain is Kell's. Reaching up, Kell tugs on his own hair hard enough to sting, smirking faintly when he feels Rhy's heart skip in response.

"Sorry," he whispers into the dark, even if he isn't, and begins to clean his hands of blood. He's used a lot of magic today, and Kell's head swims as he tucks his silver blade back against his wrist. He needs food. He needs...

Kell closes his eyes.

Something more than this palace that feels so much like a prison.

You could still run. The thought echoes between his ears with a voice that sounds like Lila's, and Kell shakes his head to dispel it. Lila escaped, and Kell stayed. For Rhy, he'll stay forever.

Mostly clean now, save for the sheen of sweat on his skin, Kell raises his right hand, the cut across his palm still wet from training, and presses it to an X drawn in blood on the wall. "As tascen," he says, transfer, but when the door opens up and Kell steps through it to the other side, it's not the lavish chambers of the prince he walks into.

It's onto the wooden gangway of a port, and before him looms a gray and wintry sea. Kell turns a circle, but the palace has disappeared, without blood or command to see it gone. Kell’s heart stutters and begins to pound.

This is no London, Red, Grey or White.

This is a different world entirely.