She stalked along the rooftop of the King Charles inn, her mind a crowd screaming a dozen different things. The little boy she had held, such a beautiful baby boy, her grandson. But how was that possible? Poisyn stopped, the slightly rank breeze from the Thames ruffling her dark hair. She had always been a child of the Master Apocalypse, hadn't she? If that was true, there was no possible way for her to have given birth to a child, much less for that child to have become grown enough to have a baby of his own. Yet there was no denying that the little boy she had held was her grandson and the man who had come in was her son.

None of it made any sense. Standing on the London roofs, she considered what to do. Why was she here, in this dark, sapien-infested city? There had been something calling her, something seeking to draw her from the Master's side. It had succeeded.

No one appeared to notice when she reached ground level, blending into the crowd, just another pale beautiful woman with a strange facial tattoo wearing tailored and tasteful clothing in black. Poisyn knew where she was going, even if she didn't know how.

--

Nathaniel Essex had just returned from his cellar when he was certain that he heard someone above him in his private quarters. The idea that someone would have the gall to steal from him caused a shadow to pass across his scarlet eyes. Humans so rarely seemed to have the good sense to be properly afraid.

He made no attempt to be quiet on the stairs; after all, this was his house.

The culprit was not in his private rooms, but rather across the hall, in his former wife's bedroom. A woman in black stood with her back to him, looking at the things left on the vanity from days long since passed. She didn't notice him at first, standing in the doorway watching her. Picking up a silver brush, she studied it for several long moments. Then she put it back down, seeing him in the mirror for the first time.

Even as composed as Nathaniel typically was, he could not deny his surprise to see his darling wife's eyes and the unmistakable taint of Apocalypse's control covering the right side of her face.

"Lenneth," he said her name aloud as all the pieces fell into place. Her supposed death, her reappearance, his inability to contact her, all made such perfect sense that he kicked himself for not having realized it before.

"That name," she turned toward him, lifting her chin proudly. "Means nothing to me."

"Then who are you?" Unreasonable anger flowed through him, but not at Lenneth, no. She was no more than a pawn in a power struggle between titans.

"I am Poisyn," she answered.

"Poisyn," he knew that name. It was a work name, a name that she used when she didn't want her real name to be known. It was a name bathed in blood. A name she had given up at the birth of their youngest daughters. Children who would have been in their thirties if they had lived. That name had been killed, completely destroyed.

Now it rose; a restless phantom from an unclosed grave, that name and all its connotations.

"You took Storm from Remy," he stepped into the room and shut the door behind him. There was no need, but it was a private conversation, some old habits died hard.

"Famine has been gone from the Master's side too long. She needed to return, even if she did not know it."

"Ah," he sounded like he not only understood but agreed. Was Apocalypse recruiting new horsemen? It made too much logical sense for it not to be the answer. Poisyn as Pestilence, Storm as Famine, that left the roles of War and Death. But who would Nur choose for those positions? "You got to hold your grandson as well I understand," he continued on conversationally.

"I have no children."

The flatness of her denial left him momentarily speechless. Physically, this was the same woman; mentally, worlds apart from the woman she used to be.

"You are deceived," he contradicted her. "Your children, all but one, lie in their graves. As I believed you did," yet his tone remained calm.

She opened her mouth to say something in return, but was interrupted.

Poisyn, the commanding voice of her Master rang through her mind. Return to me!

Distracted, she turned away from the man speaking to her, bringing her hand to her temple. As if she owed him an explanation, she said,

"I must go, he calls for me."

"Wait," Nathan said as she turned to leave.

"You cause my delay," she looked at him over her shoulder, one hand on the window frame.

"Say one thing for me," he half-commanded.

"What," she was willing to indulge him.

"Nathan," he supplied for her.

"Nathan," she said for him and somewhere in those emerald depths, a flicker of recognition moved when she said her husband's name. Then she was gone, leaving Nathaniel standing in what could be considered a museum to a relationship that had seen more resurrections than Christ.

The Chancellor wiped his sweating palms on his robe. The Master had commanded that he go speak with Poisyn following her return. In his mind, Poisyn was a force of nature, stronger than the beat of every heart she had ever stopped, deeper than the depth of blood she had spilled during her lifetime. Were that not enough, she was apparently upset. She had returned and shut herself into her room without speaking to anyone.

There was no slamming of doors or screams of frustration, only a complete silence coming from the rooms where she slept alone. The Chancellor walked down the hall toward her door, weaving his fingers together over and over again. How would she react to his intrusion?

The door was firmly shut again him when he reached it. Were it not for the Master's directive that he speak with Poisyn, the closed door would have turned him back. Then it cracked, and her voice floated toward him.

"Why are you here?"

"The Master sends his regards."

"Empty words," came her reply. He could see just a slice of her face through the crack in the doorway. Her single visible eye, a poisonous green, sent a chill down his spine. He gripped the edges of his sleeves in shaking fingers.

"He wishes to know what ails you," he tried to continue the conversation.

"Chancellor," she said quietly, stepping up close enough to press her lips through the crack in the door. "Go away if you value your life. If the Master wishes to inquire after me, he may do so." The door slammed immediately after.

He refused to breath until he reached the other end of the hallway, certain that she had poisoned the air around her door. The Chancellor needed to speak with the Master immediately. Even through his fear, he had felt the unsettled nature of Poisyn. Something needed to be done, now or she stood to become an opponent to the Master's wishes.

--

Sinister laid in the darkness, aware that he was shocked. He had not been expecting to see her again; despite the fact that he had known she was not dead. All too aware since he had studied the corpse buried in her crypt.

She had looked good to his eye, despite time and that atrocious tattoo. The touch of Apocalypse. It showed on those who had given their lives over to the self-proclaimed ruler/liberator of the world. He had lost her to the creature he had tried, on more than one occasion, to destroy. The memory of Nur entering their life was still clear, crystal clear, even for the years that had passed since the occurrence. Lenneth, then still his new bride, had been opposed to allowing him into their lives. At least until Nur had shown her something that had silenced her opposition, even now Sinister did not know what Nur had shown his wife. If he were the kind of man to believe in regret, Nathaniel might have thought about how much he should have listened to his wife. Regret, fortunately, was not something he wasted his time with.

He picked up the wedding band she had given him and turned it over in his hand. It was the right size, even if it was only his because she had slaughtered the original owner and given it to him.

"Lenneth Elizabeth Ascher-Essex," he said her full name into the surrounding darkness. "You promised yourself to me and I will insure that you keep that promise."

--

Poisyn stopped in the middle of the page, her mind stuck on the word 'devotion' when her door opened to reveal the gray form of her Master. Tossing her book aside, she rose from where she had been lounging to bow hastily before him.

"You honor me, Master," she said quickly. "May I offer you a seat?"

He only continued to regard her with cold eyes for long seconds. Then his tone was deceptively mild.

"You upset my Chancellor. He sees reason to doubt you."

"Your Chancellor," she began, her voice taking on a slight sneer. "I mean no disrespect to you, Master, spooks at his own shadow." Her eyes were sharp if empty, life only barely appearing in their depths. "His counsel is only useful to the paranoid."

"Poisyn," he said fondly. "You speak so disparagingly of him. Tell me why I sensed you in London."

"I was drawn there," she said sitting back down on her bed. "I don't know why and all I found were more questions."

Apocalypse covered the distance between them until he was standing over her. She leaned back to get away from him.

"What questions," he inquired, his voice still almost light. He could hear her swallow as he leaned over her.

"I was hearing someone speaking to me, Master," she admitted, turning away from him, guilt in her posture. "He was in London, he calls me by another name. A name that isn't mine, yet somehow feels as if it should be."

The gray man took a hold of her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes.

"His name?"

Poisyn sat silent, her eyes caught with his. The only sound that passed between them was her slightly hurried breathing.

"His name," he repeated, suppressed violence in his touch.

"He asked me to say the name Nathan."

Apocalypse released her, taking a step back. Then he turned to leave.

"Perhaps the Chancellor is correct, I do have reason to question your loyalty to me."

"No, Master," she disagreed hurriedly. "Never."

"Then prove that to me, my dear Poisyn. Why don't you go kill Nathan for me?"