Sigil: The City of Doors

The Dustmen shrug.

"Our Master told us to give you time to recuperate while he... Refurbishes the new apartments."

The skull does not seem to cry out for anything Special. Inside The warmth suffuses Akh. Attuning with the skull might unlock it's secret. Whatever lies within very much eants to reconnect to her.

"I thought..." He looks back at the portal warily. "...well then." He straightens up. "Perhaps a rest then? Or is Skal in a hurry to debrief us?" He directed the last question at the other Dustmen.

She glanced back toward the portal, ever so reluctantly. "It is hardly a reunification if most of its skeleton might still be there. But I don't know if what feels like me can ever return to that place." She explained quietly, shakily, yet comprehensibly.

He plants a soft kiss on the crown of her head after helping her to her feet and seeing her stable. He would then begin transferring as much as he could to his own inventory leaving her the skull.

"There now," he began shakily then cleared his throat, "right as rain. Back to the mortuary? I imagine you wish to reunite skull and bones before we call it a day?" The contours of his smile betray a well of emotion. But otherwise he maintains his typical charming composure.

She nodded. Sluggishly, she managed to pull herself up, leaning into Cyprian's embrace, but it was mostly because of vertigo, not because her body was physically compromised anymore than it had ever been since she died. And because she was clinging to the draconic skull with both arms.

She wanted to reach out to it, to establish a link to whatever was making her warm, to commune with the light that had pulled her out of the abyss of the mind, but she didn't know exactly how.

A weight dances off of Cyprian's shoulders as Akh returns to cognition. He presses his lips to her hand beaming at her while she speaks and reacclimates to her surroundings. [size=85][i]"Thank the gods."[/i][/size] He whispers. "Would you like help getting back to your feet?"

He had to admit that there's a temptation to forget what he saw in that infernal tower. But it's equally likely that such things might become common place. If he was going to have to keep dealing with that terror, and his dustmen, then it's better to rip off the bandage.

"I am..." She admitted weakly, and reluctantly. The filaments between the body and the soul seemed brittle but not yet torn for good. Her lips creased up at recognising Cyprian and flattened seeing fellow Dustmen. It took her a good moment to realise what they were holding. "I... can't afford... disremembering anything."

"Akh?" Cyprian asked as something seemed to shift. His voice is soft and his face is vulnerable. "Are you..." He struggled to find the words. [size=50][i]"Please don't leave me butterfly.[/i]"[/size]

Akh's mind had been squeezed between an encroaching wall of phantasmagoria and the invisible barrier across the darkness that barred her passage into unbeing. In that squeeze, it had contracted into a mote, rattled from wall to wall, finding the middle ground in which she could exist contracting fast, soon to snuff her will out. And then... the flame. She instinctively lurched toward it, just as naive souls follow will-o'-wisp out of confusion and despair. But where would it lead her...?

Faces.

Cyprian had been so distraught he'd completely missed the two Dustmen. "Wha- what?" He takes the vial still cradling Akh and casts identify. [i]"That bastard."[/i] Cyprian whispered under his breath.