Eigen's presence was so strong, Sieg felt him from the forest.
He was coming at them like an angry bull to a red flag and spiteful as he was, Sieg named himself Matador. Eigen wanted him back to his old, ruthless self? Fine.
But before all that, he turned to Alice. "I've got something for you." and out of his left pocket he pulled out a grey ribbon being held together by a silver little locket stamped with a coat-of-arms lion.
And out his other pocket brought out the four stones. Alice came closer.
"What are these?"
"DEAD."
"Whassit?"
"Dickinsonite for the South." He pointed out the listed. "Eosphorite for the North, Diasphore for the East, and Adderstone for the West."
"Jesus Sieg, what language even is that? Only thing I caught was Adderstone."
Also known as Hagstones.
He dropped each stone into the locket and tiny as they were, they gave no trouble. Once done, he closed the lid over them and attached it to her neck.
"Never take it off." He said this with such authority, his royal blood almost showed. But Alice could feel his hands shaking, feel his fear, and when she begged him to be honest with her, he smiled that close-eyed grin again and moved on. "I hope you like it, made it myself in the smithy. Lions were my sacred animals back in West End and I want you to rem-" he swallowed and blinked away water. "It's detachable, so you can hang it on a chain or wear it as a bracelet. Or even just in your pocket. Just please, please never part with it."
"Why?"
"Those stones belong to each of the world's four houses, Chickadee: North, East, South, and West—" plus, a little bit of his blood. "So long as you wear this thing, nothing from my neck of the woods will ever be able to bring you even a bit of harm. Not even Dad will be able to touch you." Blood, blood, blood! "So, never take it off. Do you understand?"
She nodded. "I love you." And he kissed her again.
BLAW!
It sounded like a bit of firework flying too close to home, but Sieg knew It was Eigen arriving so he kissed her once more for the journey and ran out of the room. He closed the door behind him and descended the stairs...there in the doorway—sans door since Eigen had blown it off— stood he and all the remaining twelve reapers.
"Was that supposed to be fucking funny, that crap you just pulled!?" And in he stomped, Eigen.
Now angry, violent people were always terrifying for sure, but it was always the ones with the quiet fury you had to look out for and Siegen was his father's son.
"Eigen, you better talk to me like you've got some sense."
"Or what?" He gestured and the reapers fanned out to surrounded Sieg. If this was chess, the poor bloke would've been checkmated twice over. "Now I can feel her stupid, little soul pulsing in there so don't make me have to mow you down to get to her—because I will. Step aside."
"Eigen, this is your last warning."
"Pfft." He gestured and a Northen Reaper flew at Sieg, and quick as lightning, he rose a foot kicked him right in the jewels. That sent the poor sod flying back and down the stairs like a ball.
Eigen blinked. "Really?"
"Fucking honest." Smirked Siegen and saying that, he yanked Niles free and out it came to its true form.
"You know what? I'll play with you." Eigen revealed his own scythe and the others followed. "I'll play with you. Then I'll play with her, then I'll kill her—how do you like that?"
A fight ensued; brutal in all accounts. 'Specially the way he carved the other twelve reapers, Sieg made sure to incapacitate each twelve in some way so that it eventually came to be just he and Eigen left. Watching them go at each other, no one would've ever thought them related at all, never thought them once inseparable.
Sieg was sick of taking that into account though, Eigen had a pitiless bloodlust in his personality that made him a danger best taken care of sooner than later and he'd put it off long enough. So soon as the opportunity presented itself, Sieg leaped for it. He swooped down and swiped Eigen's legs out from underneath him.
The younger man fell straight on his back and Sieg swung Niles straight down. It penetrated his chest up so deep, the blade went through the concrete floor—pulling it out, sent Eigen flying into a painting and sliding down.
He left of trail of tar black blood along the wall, but just as it'd opened, the wound begin to close up at light's speed. That made Eigen cocky and even more when he noticed his accomplices getting back up. He ran a sticky tongue over his teeth with a leering grin that nearly disfigured his handsome features. "I...am...oh I'm going to carve you, brother."
They started approaching him, but trapped in a circle of enemies all around, Sieg only looked to him.
"Strike three, Eigen."
"I'm shaking in my dress, brother." The bloody reapers laughed And Eigen was so busy running his mouth the length of the world, he never truly analyzed the situation. He never realized that he'd walked into a trap, never realized that his desired prey had just slipped out of the window.
Sieg did though, he felt the vibration her landing sent through the ground, Felt Vivic using his speed, leaving him to his own grief. She was gone again...Oh that gave him pause. Then he felt Niles warming up in his hand, felt the pulse that it was sending through his body and he nodded as if spoken to.
"Bottoms up, kid." He lifted the scythe and brought it crashing down over his knee like a butcher knife over meat. The wood snapped apart just like so and BOOM.
It all happened so fast, the bit of water that left Sieg's eye never even made it to the ground because from the broken scythe emerged a ball of light and from that light came waves and waves of heat that kept going 'til it took its true form.
Fire.
It consumed the manor in less than a second, pushing at the window panes 'til they burst and licking at doors, and appliances 'til they blew to absolute smithereens under the intense heat.
Now this could've been a dream, it should've been a dream...but when Alice Cullen turned back near the forest about a spit back, it was to see black smoke coming from the top of the trees, she fell into a dash and found her speed returning—it took her right back to the house in a breath's second but she couldn't even get near the gate because the whole plot of land the house sat on, starting from that gate to the smithy? Aye, pure white flames licked away at them all, steadily eating away at the manor's framework.
Eating away at everything she'd found, and lost and found again.
"SIEG!"
