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[NightShade]

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Wisty stood in Castle Blackrock a very remarkable sight indeed. Most of the mouths of the Cabalists would fall open at the sight of the former Druid in destructions home.

She was oddly different, often giving away to hysterical laughter, her hair a flaming essence of life, her eyes a bright violet. Though her mannerisms, her face they held a bit of the look of her sister. Their mothers mark left lightly on both women.

Is she your daughter Toren? Is Willow the product of you and Nightshade? There is no other explanation for it.

Its improbable...was his reply.

Yet can you assure me that she is not? Wisteria stared at him her hands on her hips and a slight smile on her lips. He was distracted by the placement of her hands and stared at them shaking his head.

That would be uncouth of Nightshade to do...
Wisteria began to laugh hysterically gasping for air, and struggling to get the words out.

This is Nightshade Toren! Her laughter slowly abated, I am surprised you havent asked her yourself. The timing is close Toren, very close. I guess only Nightshade would have these answers...

She couldnt believe Willow could possibly exist any other way beings didnt just pop out of thin air, did they?
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Something is Wrong, I can still feel Existence...

[Toren Smythe]

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All his thoughts traced back to the night they had met, him and Nightshade. And looking into the eyes of dear sister now was like looking into a doppelganger, some spirit of the long since past.

And when he spoke, it took all that was still conscious in him to not call her Shade, every bone aching at with restriction. But he had to be careful, and test each word before he spoke, and if there was anything Toren was worse at, he had yet to try and fail it.

Wisteria had grown quite completely insane, much like he had, and they spent far too much time laughing at one another and nothing in particular. It all spoke volumes though to her inability to control her slips of tongue. At sea, a blaze, rum. Hah-ha!

And as she spoke, it was of fantastical things; each slowly building on the other, all subconsciously. Every word she spoke culminating into one truth: this girl was of horrible useful.

He had already began hashing out the lay work, and how difficult it was with her every movement mirroring her sisters. The way she brushed her hair from her face, the way her hands rested on her hips, the way she scoffed and how she scowled, all a perfect replica, he was ready to pounce now. Yet he forced himself to wait, to play this properly, and after all, to one to lose their mind to isolation and hopelessness, his wooing would go smoothly.

Yet it had been nagging him. What if he had already had a daughter? Could her words have been truth? Everything she spoke of Willow tore at his imagination. He needed answers, and he knew all would be revealed if he sought them, he would have no choice but to tell Shade everything. He was compelled to tell her everything. He needed her… approval.

All, he decided, would be decided the following eve. And so it was conjectured, so it had become.

The following night, a dead quiet hung in the air around Blackrock. It was a silence always to follow battle. Every creature touched by such an atrocity lain helpless and deft to the world. A low fog clung to the sea and poured over their settlement’s peninsula, shrouding their world in premature night.

He sat at his desk storming, and stewing, thoughts dancing idly by, so many unnoticed. If he had learned to pay attention to all of these, he would not be waiting for her to arrive.

He never heard her when she came in, not until the odd book or two came crashing to the ground. Only then he spun quickly from his seat and met her eyes with his. He approached her quickly and kissed her suddenly and somewhat awkwardly. She was shocked and that look made him consider and prepare for the inevitable collision of her palm and his cheek.

The moment of silence was broken quickly as he spoke in the least accusing tone he could mutter.

“Shade, have you a child?” Once again she was caught entirely off guard and could barely muster the word: “Why?”

“Well, a child, of about 11, that looks exactly like you. It makes a man think, no?
Do we have a child?”

“Why would you care anyway?” She was getting aggravated, and thus, defensive. Soon she would take her place on the offence, but he still had more to say.

“It seems only right a father should know his daughter, and his daughter know her father.”

She acquiesced and admitted all.

“No Toren, Willow is not yours or even my child.”

“Mmm.” He nodded slowly, his infamous reaction to anything that struck his fancy seeping out of his throat. It took him not long to admit all of the previous night. He spilled his guts, so to speak, in only so many ways.

The words he wanted to speak, he knew he could not, and the words he should not speak, came all to easily. Her anger flared, and subsided, and in the end, he had gotten exactly what he had wanted. Her blessing, need he only pray it not be worse than the curse.
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[NightShade]

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She had been so sure, she sat pondering the question in her head, the silliness of it all. Willow was just her image right? An image of her when she was 11?

She watched Willow training and she would call out to shade from time to time:
Hey Shade look look what I can do. Willow cast holy light and at the same moment rammed her sword clean thru the brick wall, shattering it as if it was glass...

She smiled indulgently at Willow she was so proud... Impressive, but not my style... shade thought suddenly,and it was as if a light had just dawned on her... and panic broke in.

She rose suddenly and said her voice high and panicked, Willow, come here! Cast blood oath! Cast it! Willow stared at her as if she had gone off her rocker... You know I have no gift of necromancy like you Shade...

The world spinned around her and she remembered the alter, the alter on which Willow was created, the blackrock upon it. And she had dropped her blood upon it. With a sharp intake of breath, she recanted that statement, and realized it was not her blood alone it was...
The Bonded Blood of Nightshade and Toren....
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Something is Wrong, I can still feel Existence...

[Toren Smythe]

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Fallen... she had over taken him. He had made a miscalculation and she saw it at the exact same time he did. And the entire fight, culminating then, the thought picked at him: It was as if he were fighting a mirror.

The uncertainty was placed and Wisteria's commenting made him realise it. Shade had quelled his thoughts slightly, however he was suspicious. And now she came to him again... uncertainty blooming in her now.

"I was watching her today Toren..." She began slowly, cryptically, it was unlike her. "Why isn't she a necromancer?"

She looked to him pleading for the answer she already knew, and she was oddly, if appropriately, frightened.

"She fights just like you Toren, her movements, stance, everything."

He was speechless. She was confirming his doubts, and it was plain as day. They spoke for a time, of them and him. Much had changed, it was apparent, and much was destined to change now.

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Telling Willow was far from easy. Their attitude towards eachother did not bode as well with an eleven year old. They were calm, distanced, and anything but straightforward.

"Willow, I'm not your uncle." Toren's words were lost on her, speaking what she already knew, and she confirmed this.

Shade chimed in "No, Willow, he's much closer..."

The girl was confused, and they were making it no easier. She was frightened, and all her fears emoted in the only way she understood, anger. Such a mess she made.

It took hours to calm her down, to finally speak with her levelheadedly. Obviously still confused, she denied for time unmeasured, but acceptance seeped in, she was coming to terms with new truth, and asked all the more questions. Everything would be different but none of them knew how though they all admited it.

"Who knows?" The girl's little voice peeped at him.

"Just us." And that's how they planned it remain. And regardless the time it would take for him to actually become parent to child, Toren was bizzarely thrilled.
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