The thin, slitting black exuded it's poisonous lines, curving over her skin. More of a wound than any stain; an undeniable bruise, and Will had pales and slumped over the table, possibly fatigue ruling her fear as it drained her. A stifling tension appeared to follow her now. Yan Lin pursed her lips in the dark thought that Nerissa only wanted her to experience: the consideration that the Oracle might be wrong. He wasn't. Whilst Will half lay, in monotone silence, Yan Lin fiddled through slender remidies for something that might ease the child's pain; there was nothing to remove it. "Tell me..Caleb went for a walk."

"If he did, he can think twice about coming-!" A soft smile drew sadly as Yan Lin stopped herself, cutting the words that weren't unlikely to drift where a capable Will wasn't. Yan Lin's small pupils focussed ahead as the slender frame stood tall, feigning strength from behind her. Yan Lin didn't face much doubt that Caleb was dead.. She hoped that he was dead. Because even if Nerissa bartered, it wasn't as simple as Will giving or not giving a cold stone away. Yan Lin didn't doubt Will would if she could. "I doubt it."

"But- Will didn't say anything about hi-"

"Will hasn't said one word since she got here."

"Can't you at least try to be positive?"

"I am being realistic." Yan Lin spat the words - bitter for Nerissa's sake, rather than Cornelia's - turning to the blonde and finding pity enveloping her. Polluting what had never been a clear mind. Glacier blue swimming desperately with fears as Cornelia shrank. Nodding her head and Yan Lin sighed, "Nerissa doesn't know what she thinks she knows."

"She's a fraud?" Yan Lin shook her head and saw Cornelia's anxiety grow.

"A fraud would claim to be Quintessential. Nerissa merely can't accept that she couldn't hold the power, that Will is better for the job."

"Will isn't better for the job." Yan Lin raised her brows at that, Cornelia's voice shaking in a sudden burst of anger, frustration. "She shouldn't have to do this stuff!"

"We were given great power, Cornelia. You were given great ability." Yan Lin's own voice shook. "Will was born this way...and Nerissa... Nerissa was obsessed."

...

"Obsessed.. In what..context..?" Cornelia said the words in caution, Yan Lin fragiley shaking; the woman's worry failing her in attempts to maintain composure. To hold something back in her words.

"She...killed a friend. Her friend, mine." Cornelia's features hardened in fear of breaking then, the world blurring around her once Yan Lin had gone on with a startling familiarity. "She was withdrawn, angry. Nerissa can control people in more ways than you'll think. It was as though she couldn't see, she couldn't help herself and it got worse because she let herself hate everyone else. Nerissa fell when she blamed the Oracle."

Cornelia swallowed in silence as Yan Lin looked somewhere further than she could see. "She.. Will.."

"Nerissa wants to prove that Will is the same." Solid black shot back to her meaningfully. "So she made Will that way. ..Will already proved herself to me."

Cornelia frowned then, wondering more of why Will needed to, than how Will had proven worthy.

"She tried to give it back."

...

The cool rotting of flesh had long climbed it's sensation from the inside of her wrist, clinging possessive fingers around her lungs and blackening her vision into blurs of poisonous hatred. The corpses of breath rolling over the innards of her throat as her very tongue began to taste of bile.

Bland copper stared, repulsed by the sight of Hay Lin. Who stared at her, contented in her work of watching over. "Are you okay?"

Vapid was the word that came to mind, but the mere idea of opening her mouth send shivers of images, because she didn't want them to know; she feared crumbling into nothing. Instead, Will only sent a twitched move to her fingers, the numb sensation washing over her dejectedly and somehow painfully.

Hay Lin's large eyes had darted to the movement, as Will's glaring eyes stung in defiance of the need to blink. The pale-skinned asian shrugged, and Will felt unease washing through her. "I'll take that as..sorta.."

"Will you..get me some water?" Will cursed the croaky scrap of a voice, but forced herself to sit despite every aching moan of her body. She felt so heavy. Caleb was gone.

And she thanked her decision to speak as in a moment, after a single look of confusion and need, so was Hay Lin.

It was like silence was beckoning her.