there are things she must ask him. she lies awake at night, slender fingers fisted in her satin sheets, surrounded by pillows. she breathes hard, heavily, touching the no-longer-there marks upon her neck, reliving the bath like she's snapping at a dream. like if she can bring her back to her peak, she'll remember. 

but she ends up panting and frustrated and oh, so very alone. he's busy and it doesn't bother her, but it does, but it shouldn't, but why not? the secrets are in that haze, in that mist she can't collect. only consume. 

it's at a wan hour of the morn, where she's bare in front of her mirror, washing the nightmares from her skin, as though that will let her rest. normally, she would give up, reach for her pack of cigarettes and don her robe, make her way to her terrace and watch the sky lighten and the sun come up. 

except her phone buzzes on her nightstand. she touches her lips; she pulls on stockings and boots, an overcoat, keeping the silk robe the only true thing covering her bodice (and that, barely). 

it doesn't take long for her to arrive. her key card works. she's thought of trying it when he's not here, but the drive, the thought slips away before - he needs me. 

it carries her through his threshold. she shrugs off the coat and recognizes the look on his face. her breath hitches, eyes narrow, going to the spot on his arm. 

not her spawn - not the hungry, mewling thing that beats against its cage. but part of it. irrevocably part of it, part of him. part of her. she shivers. 

"you called for me, my love?" she says, voice hushed.

FERNANDO SILPH

☉

his fury is a collar around her neck. her windpipe strains and she reaches up as though to touch her throat, but the movement shifts partway through; she strokes one of her curls away from her cheek. she exhales, wills her nerves to steady themselves as anger flickers over his features. 

she wants to snap at him, to tell him that this is his fault. he won't let her run her tests. he won't let her poke and prod and crack open his skull to see what's inside. he doesn't like the attention she gives to the organism in his arm. 

an animalistic sense of self-preservation is what drove her in his arms that first time, but ever since that bath, her fear for him has a root. a scientist's curiosity, needing answers. 

who is she? that girl? 

but it's still not more powerful than his magnetism, than his insatiable hold over her. so she stalks forward like the fox she is and reaches out for his hand - his, not the monster's. 

"will you allow me to study you, then? to see if i can ease whatever is ailing you?" she raises a brow. 

FERNANDO SILPH

☉

he is not his own. she startles, but does not dare jerk away from him. blue eyes, normally awash with a detached apathy, show a flicker of alarm. not just at his movements, but at the exasperation in his voice, at the unraveling spool that's become the god she's come to love. 

there she remembers the visage of a mortal man, nothing more than a puppet, a plaything for the creature that threatened to rip her apart from the inside with the sheer force of its willpower. 

drawn against him, she tucks her chin, looks down at the sd card he offers her. she does not take it, just nods towards it. she is, after all, in his domain of technology - all she'd brought were her silks and her coat. 

"show me," she says, and then, because she is not enthralled in his mists, because she's still a woman of intellect: "and release me if you can. i think some distance, while you're like this, will do you some good. don't want to lose an asset to negligence, do you?"

FERNANDO SILPH

☉

anya fowl is not a scientist that seeks to undo the ties she's stitched together. the shadow project, the parasite, all her extensive work regarding evolution - all of it has a line that, once crossed, cannot be passed again. but fernando seeks to trespass this hallowed principle. like a child, upset with his outcome, with the consequences of his actions, he seeks to do the impossible and rectify them. 

the paper is a work of blaspheme. it's a madman's notes, lacking in the succinct language of a practiced researcher. she peruses and the more she reads, the more she recognizes the extent of his desperation. 

i offered you a choice. your faculties remain, nerves intact, but your arm would have been such a small price to pay to save you from this. 

perhaps i shouldn't have given you the option. 

but this is far more interesting. for a brief second, she sees him behind the glass cages alongside the rest of her menagerie, poipole looming above him, guarding him for her. 

"you said in the baths, after i mentioned the strength your mists have gained, that so too has your connection to tapu fini." she crosses her arms, chilly in his sleek apartment. "i've little doubt the wish tag grows to contest this."

she frowns. "these hypotheses from your peers are all fine and dandy," she says with a wave towards the screen, "but i'm a scientist. not a philosopher. i need to see what's inside."

she steps back, gives him room, as she says, "allow me to take you to our lab and run some tests."

FERNANDO SILPH

☉

something to keep in mind going forward. his hubris is nothing short of frustrating. she wants her demands met. she wants answers. she wants the confident man who strode into that bar, who was just out of step in body, but waltzing in mind. 

however, her annoyances fall to the wayside as he brings up their creation. her mind's eye still doesn't go so far as to call it her child, but the sentiment is there. she looks down at his arm, thinks of the turmoil this thing has caused him. 

but it will be uncontested by the avatar. it will become its own and i shall care for it, far more than i do him. 

the thought causes a headache to gather at her temples. she craves a cigarette fernando. her fingers twitch. 

"how soon? it's stable, yes, but i fear its current form may be unable to house the tag for much longer." she wrings her hands. "i've been studying its cells. while evolution is unprecedented for ditto, i believe we can continue the grafting process. expand it, so to speak." she licks her lips. "with others of its kind."

her eyes shine with a thirst not unknown to fernando. 

FERNANDO SILPH

☉

she combs through the notes while they continue their discussion. as much as it is a madman's project, she knows better than anyone that any information, no matter how inconsequential it may seem, can prove itself key to scientific discovery. 

the computer screen loses her interest after she's combed through the lengthy document twice. she'll read over it again before she makes any decisions about grafting whatever remains in fernando's arm into their creature. 

their creature, of which she's taken to calling prime, first of its kind and the name of a god, has enough documents and notes surrounding it now that anya could publish several books if she so desired. and yet its desires remain a mystery to her. 

it hungers, yes. there are times where her nature gets the better of her and she nears its cage. its shape is still amorphous, but has shifted upon her approach, has formed mouth and tongue and throat enough to cry for her, enough to screech at her. 

it wants. 

"whatever grows in your arm is not the same as the tag. it is more you. extracting it now, after all this time, may result in more damages than before. you may very well lose the arm." 

she tilts her head. "take us to the lab. i'll run the tests i've been planning and if all goes according to plan, we can perform extraction in the next couple of days."

FERNANDO SILPH

☉

then we wait. such is the hubris of a man with too much at stake. this behavior is what cost him his peace of mind these last few months. if she'd extracted all of it, as she'd suggested, and not gone soft, he'd have lost his arm and... they may have lost their creation. and besides, she's a futurist. there's no sense dallying on the past, even as he comes back to haunt them. 

"if all goes according to plan, we won't need to wait much longer," she says with a sniff. 

she gathers her robe around her, still feeling a bit spurned, and flips his laptop closed. her mind is still categorizing all of the accounts she'd skimmed; she'd taken more stock into the information than she'd let on. 

and it's shortly thereafter that they're walking into her lab together. her lions rear their heads from their plush pillows, but yawn and nuzzle back to sleep when they see their master and her plaything. 

machines whirr to life. she fusses with her computer screen. 

the amorphous blob rolls to the edge of its glass cage and presses against it, forming a single blue eye to watch anya and fernando. 

"charming, isn't it?" she says.

FERNANDO SILPH

☉