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The Past Never Stays In The Past. (Bexley + Skylar)

Having travelled the world early on in life, Skylar had been exposed to so much of art and culture. Of course, while serving in Ravencry, none of the fledging---those who had been bought at a young age and raised in the league---were permitted to have any possession, expected to want for nothing. It was only in her time in the Guard that the former-assassin really took time to collect some art pieces, which were all hung tastefully in her apartment. She'd recently moved to a bigger space in the Nephilim territory, and found some of her walls looking a little too bare. A member at her gym suggested a place in the human city. and when they showed her a picture items they'd purchased, Sky was sold.

Dressed in a pair of high-waisted blue denims, a cream high-neck sweater, and her usual black-wool coat, Sky set out from the Nephilim territory and into the Human's. That wasn't common for the angel child, especially since the Ailwards had settled in Evermore. It greatly reduced the risk of bumping into familiar faces, and it'd worked for years. Today, however, Sky was determined to not let her paranoia to haunt, opting instead to expertly blend into the crowds. Gloved hands slipped into the deep pockets of her coat, the mercenary kept her head down as she walked along the pavement, right until she reached the outside of Divine Intervention. The sign propped above the entrance told her that she'd reached her destination, and so she went in without a second thought.

The art pieces caught her attention straight away. Her client was right---this place did have some hidden gems. As if in a trance, Sky found herself walking slowly towards a piece, booted feet silent against the floor as her purple-tinted hues widened in awe. The East-Asian woman was about to turn around and look for a sales assistant, when a familiar presence reached her attention. Sky froze, her body stiff and tense as her feet remained rooted to the ground. As much as she wanted to, she'd never forget that particular dark presence. Her heart quickened, her jaw clenched, and fingers curled into tight fists in her pockets. She tried her hardest to not be noticed, but that was hard given no one was around to blend in with. Still, she hoped that the presence would simply walk by, and leave her be. Deep down, however, she knew it was unlikely, and braced for the anger than coursed through her veins the moment she would rest her eyes on the Diviner's face.

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Ailward GuardPermalink Reply by ✓ Bexley Dumont on January 5, 2021 at 3:09

Shortly after the fall of Skye and the aspects and guards settled themselves into Evermore, Bexley began to look for her own place. It didn’t take long till she was moved out and starting her own shop in Evermore. It was her perfect excuse for her not to be around the group of people that had become a family to her. They had all lost so much in the fall of the Isle, but the pain was something she didn't want to face. She couldn’t be around the others mourning with them, trying to convince one another everything was okay, when it wasn’t.

While she had always been a passionate business woman she never thought it would be a way to escape from people she shouldn’t be escaping from. The thought of losing anyone in their dwindling numbers was far too much emotion for the guard. She turned to self remedies to not focus on the worst in life, she placed herself in a routine and only went outside of it when the aspects called upon her for a mission, or events to keep up appearances the best she could. Though her calls to check in became less.

That morning was like any other, up working out in her home gym, shower, breakfast, covering the scar on her eye with makeup, and off to her shop Diviner Intervention. She unlocked the door walking through the deep green wooden door flipping the sign to open as she placed her bag under the counter, flicking the lights on. Something felt off among the shop as if something was missing. With a sigh, she picked up her phone and looked at the names in her contact list. Something was off about evermore lately. Maybe it was time to return to the Manor.

Though as soon as the thought entered her mind she had to push it aside because the woman who entered her shop pulled her attention from her phone. She placed it back down and moved from around the counter sure she didn’t see who she saw. “Welcome to Diviner intervention, how can I help you?” She gave a big smile, one that was often fake and didn’t touch her eyes. Her eyes were a storm of worry in that moment. Her mind felt far from this place. Yet as she confirmed this was the woman she had brought to the Guard at a younger age she crossed her arms. “Well if it isn’t my long lost daughter.” The joke that never seemed to end, after all Legally she adopted Skyler but she really only did so to bring her to the guard and use her skill to hunt down the Celestials. “I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

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NephilimPermalink Reply by ✓ Skylar Morgan on January 5, 2021 at 3:34

Her eyes clenched shut, lips pressed into a tight line in her breathing stopped. Of course Bexley would have noticed her. How could she not? The two had know each other from the day Sky was brought into the Guard, although to her current knowledge, the Diviner had known about her long before that. Anger coursed through her veins at the woman's greeting, her choice of words causing a stream of unpleasant memories to reel through her mind. Once, this woman was the cause of nothing but happiness to the family-less assassin. But now, all she saw were the lies and manipulation, as well as the reminder that nothing of it was real. She was just a puppet in someone else's game: Bexley's game, to be precise.

"Don't call me that," the mercenary growled, finally turning her head to look at her adoptive mother. Sky could sense that the statement amused her; was it all a joke to her? That thought fuelled the rage, but only her years of training to repress her emotions stopped her from pouncing on the older woman and pummel her for everything that had gone wrong. She instead scoffed, her features conveying her disgust at having to communicate with Bexley, hands crossing under her bust. "And still, not long enough," she snapped at the Diviner, and eyebrow raising. "I'd have thought you'd be near your precious Aspects." Her dark brown hues flickered around the store for a moment before looking back at her. "Or perhaps you've found another young, naïve child to be a part of your schemes." Every word spoken was spat out, dripping thickly with the hatred that disguised the hurt the angel-child felt at that very moment.

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Ailward GuardPermalink Reply by ✓ Bexley Dumont on February 1, 2021 at 16:24

Bexley felt the chuckle pass her lips as she moved closer to the girl who she had known some time now. Even if she hadn’t seen her in a long time. Bexley's eyes ran along Skyler evaluating how she looked. She looked relatively healthy. “Oh come now is that anyway to talk to your dear old mom.” Not that she looked like she had age a day from the time she had adopted Skyler. “You look well. It's a shame you never come and visit for the holidays and other events.”

Bexley took a step away from Skyler towards one of the stands that held necklaces with crystals on the ends. “I am close enough to do my job.” She said and then raised a brow for a moment looking at Skyler once again. “You act as if you were the one placed in a cage little bird. While you were trained by the best and given opportunities no others would have. All for what was perceived as the greater good at the time.” Bexley spoke as she picked up one of the necklaces and moved closer.

“While I understand that you may have resentment towards me because let's face it. I was never built to be a mother. I did my best when it came to making sure you had whatever you wanted.”As she moved back, “and the Aspects themselves are far more important to this world even if you don’t view it that way. They are the only reason the world can be held together.” She held the necklace up comparing it to Skyler skin tone. “So tell me what has my favorite little bird been doing since leaving the safety of the guards?”

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NephilimPermalink Reply by ✓ Skylar Morgan on February 12, 2021 at 18:22

As Bexley stepped forward, Skylar instinctively took one back, though she kept her purple-tinted optics trained on the Dark Diviner. She cringed, feeling the woman's gaze sweep across her lithe frame, no doubt visible to the Guard. "Hah," she spat in disgust, "as if you ever saw yourself as my 'dear old mum.'" Sky folded her arms across her bust, her lips pressed into a thin line as she shook her head. "No thanks to you," she couldn't help but snap at Bex's comment at how she looked. "Oh yes, wouldn't that be a thrill?" she then said, her voice dripping thickly with sarcasm and malice. "I would totally walk into a building filled with people who lied to me, who literally bought me, and manipulated me to do their bidding." Another short laugh sounded from the Nephilim, an incredulous look upon her feature. "As if."

Her posture relaxed some once Bexley stepped back, but she made no move to close the distance between them. Pain mixed with anger coursed through her veins, and there was nothing she wanted more than to run out of the shop. However, her pride stopped her---she wouldn't let Bexley even think she was weak for a moment. She rolled her eyes when her adoptive mother spoke of her acting like she was put in a cage. "You bought me from the league, and made me think that joining the Guard was my choice." She scoffed, raising an eyebrow at the woman. "You really don't get it, do you, Bexley? I wasn't put in a cage---you tied me to strings and made me your little puppet. I was trained by the assassins, and the opportunities given to me was just a part of the manipulation you put me through." She huffed, eyes narrowing as she visibly seethed, nails digging into the palms of her hands.

Her anger flared through her eyes as Bexley spoke once more. "Did you honestly even try to be a mother?" she questioned spitefully. "I was just another job to you---you saw a weakness in me to exploit, and didn't hesitate to use that. You knew how much I craved a family." She took a deep breath, averting her gaze down to rest on the tops of her boots. That thought alone brought another wave of pain to wash over the angel child, but she was determined to push it aside in the presence of her adoptive mother. "The Aspects just manipulate their way through our lives, convincing us that they're so important that we just have to protect them. We're just a means to an end for them."

She watched as Bex brought a necklace up and held it against her skin, the action making the younger of the two stiffen slightly. Her eyes then met the Diviner's gaze, nails still digging into the palms of her hands before she averted her gaze once more, this time to the side. "I've--" she started, but stopped suddenly. What would she say? That she lost a child? No, Bexley had lost the right to know the private details of her life---even though she doubted Bex even wanted to hear that. "I opened a gym," she finally admitted sourly. "And I still kill people for money." As much as she would deny that Bexley knew her, Sky had to admit even her adoptive mother knew of her clear affinity for being an assassin. "It's been a good five years. And what of you? Can't imagine you've had any free time other than licking the boots of the Aspects."

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Ailward GuardPermalink Reply by ✓ Bexley Dumont on February 24, 2021 at 15:11

Bexley gave an easy smirk on her lips as she gave a roll of her eyes. “Well I was never built to be a mother. I take something to stop that as is. So forgive me if I wasn’t the best mother.” Giving a dismissive wave. Bexley glared at the girl for a moment. “Lied to you? Do you really think we lied to you? You were told what you needed to be told as we believed it. Believe it or not child, we were trying to do what we thought was best for the greater good.”

The annoyance running through the dark diviner as she listened to the girl. Even six years later she was rebelling. “I saved you.” Bexley stated simply as she kept her dark gaze on the nephilim child. “Do you think you would be free as you are if you were still with the league? You are not the only child I took from the league yet you were the most skilled.” She scoffed at Skylar shaking her head. “If you were a puppet you would not be breathing. You would not have been allowed your freedom. Maybe instead of hating the family that you had like an insolent child. Realize how much worse you could have had it. If you were still in the league.”

Her eyes flicked to her hands and back to her. “Don’t you dare get blood on my floor either.” She crossed her arms as she watched Skylar give into her anger. “I did the best I could at the time being. I knew I was not the best to be your mother but I was also not the only one to raise you if you remember.” She crossed her arms in that moment. “You had a family! You chose to focus on your hate and project it on us all because you felt like we were using you. You chose not to accept us.” The dark diviner let her gaze pull from the girl to the window for a moment. “You don’t know what you are talking about Skylar, and I suggest you understand that.” The aspects, Crane, were hot buttons for Bexley but she wouldn’t cave to the anger swirling in her chest. Especially when someone tried to make them out to be the villains.

Which to not focus on the ache in her chest after losing the man she loved, she would never be whole again. So she busied herself looking at charms of protection against the nephilims skin. She paused at the killing people for money. “I took you from the assassin life and you return to it willingly?” She frowned softly as she then landed on the purple charm and moved to box it. “A gym is not something I saw but I have to admit you were always good at the training so it makes sense.” She placed the necklace in the box and let out a sigh. “After Crane died in the fall, I chose to focus on a life in Evermore, opened a shop and did the linguist part of my job for the guard far more heavily then the tracking I used to do.” She paused and wrapped a ribbon around the box. “I suggest you let go of that fruitless hate towards the aspects. You would feel a weight lifted if you did.”

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NephilimPermalink Reply by ✓ Skylar Morgan on April 5, 2021 at 16:04

Sky couldn't believe what she was hearing---did Bexley really believe that the Aspects did not lie to her? She shook her head, a heavy sigh sounding from her. "I believe that what you did, you did because you believe it was right," she admitted after a moment. "But you did lie to achieve those means." Perhaps she was being ungrateful: the Guard gave her the one thing she never had---a family. It gave her a new purpose, however, after all the lies she'd been told, Sky couldn't help but wonder if anything was real to anyone else. "Did you even care for me as a daughter?" she couldn't help but ask. "Or was that not real either?"

"You do have a point there," Sky uttered bitterly, when Bexley brought up that if she was still in the league, she wouldn't be free. "For that, I thank you, I guess. If it weren't for you, I'd never have understood what it was like to make a choice for myself." At Bexley's chiding, she released her grip on her hands, her lips still pursed. "I will never say that my time in the Guard was all bad," she admitted. "But what if I refused to the join the Guard? Would you and Milo have sold me back?" An airy, exasperated laugh sounded from the angel-child. "We'll never know, will we?" She paused for a moment. "And maybe if I understood, maybe I wouldn't hate you all so much."

She rolled her eyes as Bexley commented on her return to the life of an assassin. "I was not forced to do it, like I was in the league. I'm good at it, even you can admit that," she quipped dryly. Her gaze followed the Diviner as the dark-haired woman moved towards a counter, pulling out a box and placing inside the pendant Bexley had just held up against the Nephilim. "No one could have seen me opening a gym," she agreed, a wry smirk toying at her lips. "But I enjoy it."

When Bexley spoke of Crane, Skylar felt her forehead crease and her eyebrow pushed together. "Wait," she spoke, "Crane's dead?" She paused, unsure of what to say. She knew the man from her time in the Guard---he was good to her, and good to Bexley. "I'm...sorry," she said softly, watching as Bexley tied the ribbon around the box. "I'm...glad that you've found something, then," Sky continued, clasping her hands behind her back. "Maybe in time, I will," she confessed to the Diviner. "But right now, you can't understand how I feel, knowing that I was bought and not told about it---not knowing what was real, and what wasn't." She stopped talking then, watching Bexley closely.

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Ailward GuardPermalink Reply by ✓ Bexley Dumont on May 3, 2021 at 2:46

Bexley gave a slightly bored sigh as she stared at the girl in front of her. She definitely had the strong headedness Bexley had even without a drop of the dark diviners tainted blood. “What pray tell do you believe those lies where? If you are asking if I locked up celestials by tricking them with candy? No I just did what was needed to trap them and bring them to the Isle of sky. I did not lie to them, but I did help care for them.” She said simply with a shrug. “I believe the past is in the past. We can not alter everything.” She muttered understanding how fully hypocritical it was of her. After all she had been trying to find a way to go back in time and stop the fall. No one could know that though.

“I took care of you Skyler even if you don’t think I did. I helped you learn, become stronger on your own accords. If I didn’t care do you think you would have this free will to have the mind of your own? I would have placed hex’s on you to make you view the world as I do.” She crossed her arms and stared at her. “I am not a warm woman.” She stated as if she should know that at this point with how long they had known each other. She only had moments of softness. “If you refused to join the guard I would have found a loving family for you. You would have never gone back. It would have been hard to allow you go though. Knowing the talents you could have one day.” She sighed and looked away for a moment. “I know I am hard, and a bitch and the only person who ever made me soft is gone. So I am sorry you hate me, because I am not the soccer mom of your dreams. I can’t change that now.” Would she have if she could? That Bexley truly didn’t know.

“Just because you are good at doing it doesn’t mean you have to do it.” She commented with a shrug. “No one could see me opening a magic shop.” She replied back with a chuckle they both had paths they took that didn’t involve the guard. “Doing something you enjoy makes this long life a little easier. So I am happy you found yourself something that you enjoy doing. Maybe more gym focus and less murder murder.” She said as she sighed knowing that she was a hypocrite.

“Yes he is dead.” She said softly as the sadness over took her face quietly before looking up to Skylar after the pendent was wrapped. “If I had told you that you were not mine from the start, would it have made it easier? Or would it have hurt you making you trust me less? You not only where but you are my daughter Skylar no matter how much you hate me to this day.” She wasn’t sure what to say but then it dawned on her. “Do you want a relationship with me? Or want to leave me in the past? Because we could move forward with a fresher start. Or we could keep the bad between us. Letting it hurt and cause more pain.” She moved back to hold the box to Skylar to take. “I will do as you wish, Skylar.”

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NephilimPermalink Reply by ✓ Skylar Morgan on August 5, 2021 at 15:31

She stood there, her feet rotted to the floor. Though her heart screamed at her to not forgive the woman that stood before her. Yet her mind somehow understood the logic behind the actions of her adoptive mother's. She knew that Bex wasn't a warm mother, but their personalities matched in a weird sort of way. Sky liked it all those years ago, she had to admit. She pressed her lips together, silent as Bexley spoke, and for a moment after. "I will always be grateful for the time you spent with me, and how you shaped me," she said slowly. "If it weren't for your teachings, I wouldn't have learnt to think for myself."

She scoffed at Bexley's words, a hint of a smirk playing at her lips. "That's rich, coming from you," she commented with a sly glint in her eye. "I'll consider giving up being a merc if you consider giving up killing too." There was confidence in her words, for she knew Bexley couldn't have changed so much in the time they spent away that she would have put a stop that. "It's a good balance--stops me from killing the men who come into the gym trying to show off," she admitted only half-jokingly with a short laugh.

Sky stayed quiet for a bit at the mention of Crane's death--she didn't know the man well, but only that he brought out a side to Bex even she couldn't. "I knew I wasn't your kid," she said with a smirk. "It only hurt me knowing that the first choice I ever made for myself was never really a choice. Maybe if you told me you bought me... Maybe I wouldn't have been mad, and possibly even thanked you for my freedom--for my ability to choose my own life. But we'll never know." The Nephilim eyed the box for a moment as Bexley held it out, weighing the two choices in her mind. In her head, she knew she had to let go of the hate. Yet the pain was raw, and her ability to trust the Diviner yet again was weak.

She sighed, her longer, lither fingers moving to take the box, her purple-tinted eyes staying on the box and not looking up at Bexley. "We'll move forward," she said slowly. "I don't know what I want with you yet, but I don't want my hate to fester." The Nephilim hesitated before looking back up at her adoptive mother. "But I won't join the Guard. I hope that's not a deal-breaker." Her gaze then moved down to examine the box once more. "You didn't use any of your juju on this, did you? Any hexes that would give me bad luck or control my mind?" she jested as a small smile pulled at her lips.

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Ailward GuardPermalink Reply by ✓ Bexley Dumont on January 7, 2022 at 16:14

Bexley had spent so much of her life just stating facts and having people hate her for the way she was. So when Skyler admitted that she actually was grateful for the way that Bex had shaped the young hardened child. It caused her brow to quirk in confusion, that took over her face in that moment before clearing her throat and returning to her stoic natural look. “Well I have to admit I spend so much of my time having to defend my actions that it throws me off when you so easily admit you were grateful for something when it comes to me.”

With a roll of her eyes so exaggerated she huffed out, “You do realize it's been a very very long time since I took a life. My approach has always been one to take out my target in a way I can bring them back for the Ailwards to get answers from. Though I have spent far much more time since the fall creating a shop of my own. Finding lost magical items then hurting people.” She looked at her nails rather bored at that moment with accusations she just took life for no reason. She may have been a dark diviner, but her actions always had reasons behind them. “Well look at little you learning to curb the killing.” She said in a teasing tone.

She felt her eyes soften at the thoughts of Crane before she sighed and gave a shrug of her shoulder to Skylar. “You know many wouldn’t care how they got their freedom, as long as they got their freedom. But if you wish to hate me for being able to give you freedom you are free to do so. I won’t dare try and convince you otherwise.” She said with a gentle sigh as she held the book out to the young Nephilim that she would always consider her real child. “And if you care. You were my child in the end.”

As the box was taken from her fingers she let her hand move to fold together as she watched the young girl stare at it for a long moment before she felt the gentle half smile take her features. Well maybe they could take steps towards a civil relationship. Though her next statement caused an unladylike snort took over. “The guard isn’t all it's cracked up to be. I rather you have your life and enjoy it, with less blood. You don’t need the pain.” She muttered softly before smiling at her joke on the contents of the box being hex or juju on it. “No, I didn't do any voodoo on it. It's just meant to help keep your spirit up on tough days.”