A desperate shout echoed through the ruins, stone and broken walls framing a moment where history and impermanence met, otherwise unheard. Time appeared suspended then, for even The Rain stilled.

It had all stopped mattering such a long time ago.

For any Lizanąn couple unlucky enough to bring a mortal child into this world, a choice had to be made between keeping the child—for them to waste away watching their siblings live lives they would never be worthy of—or surrendering to a home for lost souls where they would at least be cared for, to live a life among mortals—where they belonged.

Of course, on paper, Lizaną no longer practiced such backwards traditions, even if habit was quite the nut to crack. Forbidding the practice could only curb impulses so much, and while mortal offspring would be conspicuously absent from the upper crust of society, you would be hard pressed to find anyone sending their children off someplace and admitting it.

…Some likely remained that would not admit it.

But that left the homes that once harbored such children officially as ruins, for none would dare be caught running such a place out in the open. They became monuments to dark times that everyone liked to pretend were long past.

One such home—a sprawling villa surrounded by numerous other structures—sat atop the hill that bordered Grēdôcava, dilapidated and devoid of life and movement alike, save for the shimmering reflections as The Rain peppered the whole of it. Nature had reclaimed many a wall, and amid shards of glass, several obits laid scattered, wisps of living shadows dancing around them.

There would be no use in chipping away at them—time would do that on its own, for it had long since resumed.

This home had not served its purpose in centuries, but that had not kept a certain pair away. Shameful history or not, it was not unheard of for certain places to hold a special place in a long-lived heart. The guards had simply been in the way as well—though those should not have been there.

They should not have been there. Whoever had placed them there would come to regret it, if they dared show their face.

The final guard dropped like a stone, puddled water splashing as he hit the ground—black and violet crawled under his skin as the last of his silent screams faltered, and his form began to dissolve. His end had been swift, despite the theatrics of it.

A nonchalant smile adorned the face that watched the obit form, but there was no joy behind it. A second figure glanced at the first through narrowed eyes, and The Rain appeared to bother neither.

"You swore up and down to me, that you would behave."

"And you believed me? My, my."

A practiced sigh followed, astoundingly neutral despite the subject. "You are incorrigible." A pause. "Let us dally no further—I wish to see what you have done with the place."

"I make no promises that these officials did not ruin anything," replied the other figure, with a scoff, as the pair started walking towards the dreadful ruins. "I'm thinking, next time I leave for an extended period, I shall lay a curse on all who intrude upon this place, so that their shadows may reprimand them with every step they take."

"…Are you aware a simple set of wards would do to keep people away?"

"Naturally, but where would the fun in that be?" Another scoff. "Now, now. I took the liberty to move just the thing into the greenhouse, and I suspect you shall love it."

Delilah did not, in fact, love it. That left her poor lifelong friend in quite the bind. How was she supposed to make it up to her, when few things mattered to people like them?

It struck her then, that she'd known the answer all alone. They could always play a game, of course.

A game of truth and lies.

What would she say in earnest, and what would be said only be in jest?

"Zoé Dreit de Sċeadu," Zoé uttered as she drew lazy circles in the air before her, floating within the circular pool, her drenched hair weighed down as she moved. Each time a strand slipped free, it tickled her back. "This shall be my name, from this day forward. Do you like it, dearest?"

Of all her recent musings, this was what broke Delilah out of her reading-induced daze. Her gaze slowly shifted to the floating Zoé, though she made no effort to rise from the stone bench she was perched on, or even to straighten—perhaps she could not, for she had been hunched over that book for hours. It was a gargantuan tome, thicker than the width of both her forearms pressed together.

"I am not calling you that," was all Delilah said, nonetheless.

Zoé rolled her eyes and submerged herself once more. Lilypads and other forms of plantlife had been plucked off… somewhere, suspended in time, and scattered around the pool. It was all meant to match the aesthetic of some painting by an otherworlder, or so the man who sold her this tub—ahem, pool—claimed. It made for quite the dramatic scene, but if something scraped her scalp one more time, she would have no choice but to procure a net and start fishing them out.

Besides, she had no one around to paint her as she floated, so none save the pair's memory would immortalize this moment.

She resurfaced, taking a moment to run her fingers through her hair to ensure nothing got caught up on it. It had gone uncut for years, yet never truly became unmanageable. After a deep breath that shifted into a yawn, Zoé once again faced her companion. "I'm bored. Should I start a war?"

Delilah still refused to look away from her book, her dark eyes moving furiously as she turned yet another page. "Against who?"

"To be determined, but it'd be for a good reason."

"Let me stop you right there—no."

"I haven't even told you the reason yet, though. I promise it is quite the good reason."

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"And it would not change a thing," Delilah shot her a glance, her singleminded focus on her book momentarily broken.

Success. At last, she had gotten the cantankerous gentlewoman to give her the side-eye. It was not much, but Zoé had been trying to get her attention ever since the woman had sat down with the book, unprompted.

Then again, Zoé had been here, lounging in the pool, long before Delilah's decision to start reading… "Can you not take your reading elsewhere?"

"No. No area but the greenhouse has sufficient lighting, and I am not straining my eyes just because you wish to take up space."

"Pfft. This thing," Zoé gestured at the oversized tub she floated in, "would not fit anywhere else. Not anywhere with privacy, in any case."

Walls were quite scarce here, after all—intact ones, even more so. It said a lot about the home's current state that the greenhouse boasted the highest privacy in here.

Delilah scowled, looking up from her precious reading material. "And I have told you, 'that thing' is a priceless artifact that should not be in use!"

Zoé squinted. Had the man who sold it to her mentioned anything like that? Probably not. "Really? It looks like nothing but an overpriced tub to me."

Suppressing a smile, she dove underwater again, before Delilah could retort again—she did not wait to watch her friend's reaction, but she didn't need to. It wasn't that hard to guess.

That would be enough for now.

'Hiding' once more, Zoé could look inwards. She did have much to consider, and no better environment existed for deep introspection than the bottom of a pool.

In truth, Zoé had practically come here to mull over the dire news she had received over the past months. Delilah tagging along had only impacted the manner of her entrance.

The first report had been vague, but latter mentions of trouble brewing in Grēdôcava had gotten more and more detailed. Only, the reason was unexpected. It seemed the Executor of {Avaritia} had misplaced one of his offspring.

A disgraceful showing, truly. Zoé made certain to always have at least a general idea of where her children were—not that she legally had any. It wasn't that hard to not neglect them, so she held no sympathy for the man.

If that were not dire enough, rumors of his potential fall were circulating. They were nascent things, spoken of only in hushed whispers, for long had it been since the last time an Executor fell. They normally had the presence of mind to abdicate before the Devil ruined them. But {Avaritia} did not take kindly to losing that which belonged to it, and if the man was as weak-willed as Zoé suspected him to be, this situation could be quite taxing to his psyche. Neither it nor its Executor would be doing well.

And nothing better to exacerbate a fall than a good old panic attack of his own making.

Can Grēdôcava survive a demonic fall? I would think not.

Zoé grinned underwater, her grit teeth a paltry barrier that did nothing to prevent her from getting a mouthful. She rushed to surface so abruptly that the tub shook, rocking back and forth, and water spilled over the edges, mingling with the puddles from all The Rain that had gotten in during their absence.

"What did you do now?" Delilah questioned, sitting slightly straighter now. Her tone hitched ever so slightly, but she had not struggled to keep any drops from reaching her precious book.

"Nothing yet," Zoé assured her as she regained her bearings, panting despite the invulnerability of her body. She was at no actual risk of drowning—this had simply caught her off-guard. That was all. "My thoughts wander to Grēdôcava, and I am curious. They have so few interesting people down there. How would I fare against their Foremost, I wonder?"

"Can you at least wait until I've finished this before picking a fight?"

"I'm not picking a fight," Zoé scoffed as she worked her hair to remove the petals that had found a temporary home within it. The 'yet' went unspoken. "It was merely an unrelated question. I do often wonder where I stand in the hierarchy of the world."

Delilah did not dignify that with a response, quite rudely. She simply kept her eyes on the other woman. Had Zoé been the type to fold under such a judgmental stare, she might have reconsidered her next words.

But Zoé would not be stopped.

"Keeping up with the times is damaging my mental health. And now, I've heard Grēdôcava is going through dark times—"

"Zoé. Whatever you're thinking of doing, don't do it."

"—so maybe I should go lend them a hand. Should I not?"

Impossibly, the leather-bound tome was slammed shut just as a bookmark materialized between two pages, and Delilah stood, her expression one of incredulity. The book vanished into her inventory. "What?"

"That is what it takes for you to take a break?" Zoé was similarly surprised—of all her barbs, she had not quite meant for this one to be a shock, merely another offhand suggestion of something she was unlikely to actually do.

"Not once had I heard you come close to implying you would do something helpful for that Principality. Not even in jest!"

"Well, you have now," Zoé shrugged—internally, she was scrambling to recall just which of her previous actions or statements might have given the other woman that impression. Certainly, she'd be showing up to dance upon the ruins of the Principality when its time to fall came, but she didn't think she'd ever presented herself as hating Grēdôcava. "They are weak and backwards, but I am not without a heart."

The same description could be applied to Lizaną, but the pair had plotted their escape to various nations through the centuries, and there truly was no place like home. It was easier to ignore the flaws when they knew when and how to act freely. Other locations were harder to adapt to, and they'd never found themselves staying elsewhere for long.

"You offed their ambassador the one time we came close to an alliance!"

That was a wild accusation, but she had destabilized a country or ten in her time. Consequences were often fleeting, however, and nothing she broke had ever stayed broken—least of all Lizaną. And not for lack of trying.

But this particular claim did not ring a bell.

Zoé squinted as she considered it. I did what? "Can you give me more details to work with? I don't remember that."

Delilah exhaled slowly, her fists clenched. She appeared outraged, but not angry—not in the slightest. "The year was 5003, I have forgotten the month. I believe it was some form of trade negotiations that started it. You caught wind of the plans for a Grēdôcavan ambassador to be sent here, and you started sending letters about how setting foot in Lizaną would spell disaster for the man, to everyone even remotely related to the matter."

Though her eyes narrowed further, at last, Zoé had an inkling as to what this was about. "I vaguely recall that. Our environment is so different, and not once have I met a Grēdôcavan who likes being here. I am convinced it's bad for their health."

"The ambassador in question died."

Sounds about right. "That is precisely why I advised against them sending anyone. Their finer constitution simply does not fare well at these altitudes. They should have taken my words to heart. Failing to heed my warnings then succumbing to what I warned them about doesn't suddenly make their death my fault."

"Having a finer constitution did not do him in. He fell off a cliff."

"I said what I said," Zoé tipped her head back, locking eyes with Delilah. Her friend stared back at her for the longest moment, then exhaled slowly. "But genuinely, Delilah—I had nothing to do with it."

"Yes, you spend months warning everyone of how this man going on a perfectly safe journey might die if he comes here, and he just so happens to have an 'accident' in one of the few locations where an obit would be irretrievable?"

"You have no idea how many people I regularly send warning letters to—it really was a coincidence."

The claim did little to ease the tension visible in Delilah's features. Her eyes narrowed. "If that is your idea of helping… do not 'aid' Grēdôcava."

Zoé pouted, still in the water. "Would that not make me a terrible person, however? To know there is a child in need out there, and sit idly by?"

"Our time has passed," Delilah all but hissed out, a crack in her demeanor. "Not to mention, this is not a responsibility of ours. Neither mine nor yours."

"I suppose you are correct," Zoé sighed, lowering herself. One Executor's family troubles are not my business, anyway.

But she still stewed in frustration. There was trouble brewing, just across the border.

And under such circumstances, there was nothing more frustrating for an Immortal than to have nothing to do with it.

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