[attr="class","mouths1"]On the northern end of the city of Setek, hidden among a strip of small chain stores, there was a bar. Just looking at it, one would not be able to easily tell that the squat, narrow section of developed shopping mall-esque storefront was indeed such an establishment, it would only be by stepping close to the door and peering in through the tinted glass of the store’s old, dusty windows that they would be able to see inside, to the small collection of carved wooden chairs and tables, and the pristine oaken bar top with a large collection of various colorful bottles stacked on a glass shelf behind it. A tv blared in the background, muffled by the thick door, sound only barely escaping through the cracks between it and the frame. It drew little attention, and so, few people knew of it, which made it an ideal spot for those less inclined towards crowds, but still craving something to wash down their tears with, or something to just allow them to relax for a rare moment in their busy lives.

As it neared midnight, a woman stepped through the door, the small golden bell tied to the inside handle with a length of twine clinking softly as a news broadcast echoed in the background. the woman was tall, mature, and moved with an air of purpose and direction. Her features were solid and worn, a single, wide scar tracing up from the base of her nose to beyond her right eye, which was hidden beneath the cascade of long, golden locks that framed her face. She was dressed in what might have been a Legion military uniform, if not for the Navy blue and gold colors that noticeably differed from their trademark whites and grays, complete with a black jacket lined with gray fur and trimmed with a similar shade along the collar and cuffs, and pair of simple white gloves with squared fingertips. The woman held a gaze that could bore a hole through a mountain, a cold, calculating glare that seemed to burn into whatever her eyes roved over. At her side, held in place by a two-strap leather harness that fit over her uniform, was a thin sword, a simple hilt and guard that were a dull, gunmetal gray, and a faded black hard leather sheath with a tarnished silver locket. No part of the sword seemed to be special in any way, in fact, it held no decoration whatsoever, but it was unquestionably the kind of simple, reliable blade that a true warrior wore.

She climbed up onto a barstool without a word, the hard heels of her combat boots thunking heavily against the metal footrest of the chair. She gave the barkeep a glance, and he nodded, and turned away towards the door to a room that lead further into the store, presumably a storage area or kitchen of some kind. The woman was alone, with only the news broadcast echoing in the background - but she was not perturbed, this was why she had come here. For the silence. For the peace. The bell jingled again, and she did not look up. She didn’t need to. She already knew who it was. She rested her hands on top of the bar, folding them idly.

“Sorry I’m late,” the deep, brassy voice of a man echoed in from her side as he closed the door, “Something came up.”

The woman’s uncovered eye softened as she turned to him, gracing him with a wry smile rarely seen by others. “Something more important than me?”

The man gave out a tired chuckle, climbing up onto a barstool beside her and letting his feet rest against the floor. The man was immense, easily seven feet tall, if not more. And burly, with a barrel chest and thick, muscular arms that were barely hidden beneath his thin, navy blue cloak. He was deeply tanned, and just as the woman was, he was scarred - though his were not so hidden. He had a black eyepatch on his face, over own right eye, with a white and gray “X” imprinted on it, rounded edges that tapered to a pointed tip, a symbol he wore and called his own. Beneath the patch were scars, fading white lines that crisscrossed beneath in the same type of pattern the patch depicted. His hair was a mop of off-white, wild strands that fell just above his shoulders in slightly uneven lengths, as though he didn’t often comb it and perhaps cut it himself. He was dressed in an old grey t-shirt with a longsleeve black undershirt, and worn-out jeans that might have been black at some point, but were now a washed-out shade of hole-filled grey. His boots were heavy leather hunting boots that fit him snugly, the laces replaced by a set of heavy buckles and straps that ran across the front.

He relaxed himself, resting one massive hand on the bartop and allowing his other to sit against his leg. “You could say that.” He responded playfully. The woman let out a quiet chuckle in response, shaking her head as the man leaned back in his chair. “Not drinking tonight?”

“Just because I haven’t started doesn’t mean I don’t plan to.” She gestured to the door to the back room, and the man nodded. Hard to order a drink with no bartender. “Besides, as much as I’d love to right now…”

The man chuckled darkly, tilting his head down and closing his eyes. “Business before pleasure.”

-------

It was quiet in Rift tonight.

Celia was thankful for it. The weather was mild, the sky was starry and free of clouds, and it was far past time when most businesses had closed. Luckily, she had gotten to the store just in time to get a few last-minute things on her way out. It wasn’t every day that she got to come home and visit her mother, nor had she ever really come into the city proper, and so she had made sure to spend some time looking around after her flight had landed. She had misjudged how long it would take, and ended up leaving a bit later than she expected, but she had been able to get exactly what her mother had asked.

She eyed the plastic grocery bag in her left hand, shifting the weight to get a glance inside. Two spools of dust thread each sealed in a glass canister - one an emerald green, the other an almost translucent shade of white - the same kind her mother used when she made her hunting cloak. Air and Glass dust for weatherproofing the insulating, warm fabric of the leather-brown hunter’s cloak. She had worn it herself once, it had tingled where it touched her skin, and it kept her warm without overheating her. How her mother had made such a thing, or even really understood how dust thread could be used was beyond her. Then again, she knew little about her mother’s past. Had she perhaps been trained as a dust mage at some point? It certainly wasn’t out of the question.

Like her daughter, Marcie lacked raw physical strength, or any sort of powerful semblance - instead, she was a being of skill and talent. She was agile, observant, and patient, all skills which led to her great prowess with animal tracking and hunting. She always admired the quiet, graceful strength her mother had held, as if the calm solidarity and unchallenged might of the forest had been rolled up into a ball and pressed into the shape of a woman. It would be nice to see her again after so long.

Her path took her by a small park, on the way to the easternmost wall in the Kingdom proper, and on the path she had been taught to go to and from home and the airport when she had first left home for Vytal. It wasn’t particularly sizeable or modern, nor was there any sort of unique sight or construct to it, which had caused her to mostly ignore it on her trips by during the day.

This time, however, something gave her pause. Down the stone steps of the brick path that led from the sidewalk down to a more parallel path to that of the park, a woman made her way up towards Celia. Her eyes weren’t set on Celia in particular, but for some reason, Celia felt she should stop. She was strangely familiar. Her frame was small, lithe, but she held an air of maturity within her gait. Her eyes were ice-blue, and just as cold, and she had hair the color of polished silver, short, save for the twin braids that framed her face, and the green bows they were tied with. Her choice in dress was not uncommon, a dark coat, buttoned at the midsection, with a white shirt underneath, a pair of jeans that accentuated her legs quite well, and a pair of simple brown boots that reached up to about mid-shin. She was properly dressed for the light cold that hung around the air now, but it was...odd. If not for some minor details, this woman could have been a complete double of her mother. Without meaning to, Celia stared.

The woman took notice, a small smirk gracing her features as she made it up to the top step. She nodded her head and spoke softly. “Hello there,” She called, “Lovely weather tonight, isn’t it?” Celia’s face flushed as she realized what she had just done. She scrambled to apologize, but the women let out a quiet giggle and continued. “It’s alright. I figured I might draw your attention, at least a bit.” The statement gave Celia pause. The woman had expected to draw the attention of someone passing by...in the middle of the night? That seemed awfully dangerous, not to mention unlikely to happen in the first place. It was an odd thing to say.

“S-sorry." She stammered out quickly, her hand planted firmly in front of her as she slid into a small, apologetic bow. The woman raised an eyebrow quizzically and took a step forward. Celia tilted her head back up, and blinked. Even up close, the woman looked like Marcie - save for her ice-blue eyes. The same thin lines of age, the same polished silver hair, the same soft tan, the woman’s voice even sounded like her. “It’s just...you…” She looked away, somewhat embarrassed as she stopped her train of thought. ‘You look like my mom’ was certainly not the sort of thing you say to a stranger, especially not after you were just staring at them in the middle of the night.

“I look like Marcie.”

It caught her completely off guard. Somehow, this woman had known what Celia was thinking. Instinctively, Celia took a step back, her body tensing in preparation for...whatever this woman was going to try. Instead, the woman smiled passively. “Don’t worry,” She chided in a singsong voice, “I know Marcie. She’s my sister.” Celia gawked openly now, and the woman simply circled around, casually stepping closer to Celia with her hands held behind her back, in a motion that could have been seen as cute if not for the woman’s rather obvious maturity and former graceful stride. It felt out of place to Celia, but...many things struck her as odd here. Primarily, she wasn’t even aware her mother had siblings - much less a twin. That, paired with the fact that her mother would have kept this fact from her own daughter, while also keeping in contact with her sister, led Celia to believe this woman was not worth trusting. Knowing her mother’s name was not much proof, a lot of people knew her mother. Game hunting tended to attract a lot of customers.

Even if she was telling the truth, there had to be a good reason why Celia’s mother kept that information from her. She wasn’t the kind of woman to do anything thoughtlessly. Celia took a step back, and the woman let out a sigh. “I’m not surprised you don’t believe me. She wouldn’t have told you about me.” The woman’s tone was subdued, and her eyes seemed distant, but her smile didn’t falter. It seemed painful for her to talk any more. “Our last meeting ended on a poor note.” Celia was still uncertain, and her expression betrayed her distrust. The woman shook her head. “Has Marcie told you that your semblance is genetic?” The woman took a step back as well, to the edge of the stairs. Celia wasn’t following. “If I recall, you and I aren’t so different. On that level, anyhow. Would you like to see?”

The woman leaned back, and made to step again. Celia’s eyes widened as the woman began to fall back. She made to call out, to reach out her hand, but before she could, the woman stopped cold mid-fall. “Normally, I don’t like showing people like this.” The voice came, but the woman’s lips did not move. “I don’t mind making an exception for you, though.” From behind the woman, another stepped into view - a mirror image of herself, but her eyes and her hair ties were a bright crimson. From here, Celia could smell woodsmoke and see tiny embers dancing off the second woman. The real one stepped forward and clasped her hands together. “So, does that answer any questions?”

It was Refract, without a doubt. She could even feel the aura it had and the dust it was infused with, just like she could with her own clones. Her mother had indeed told her that Refract and Reflect both ran in her own family, but Celia hadn’t really given much thought to what that meant to her. To have found someone else with the same semblance, someone who probably knew far more about it than she did, it was...strangely exciting, on some level. On the surface, she was still uncertain. Not that the woman was family, of that she had no doubt. Family or not, the issue was trust.

“There is also someone else I’d like you to meet, Celia.” The way her name was pronounced gave her pause. The accent and pronunciation were even the same as her mother’s, flawlessly polished and ringing out almost like a whistle. “It won’t take long, she just has something to tell you. Apparently it’s quite important, but I’m not one to pry on details that don’t concern me.” The woman let out a soft chuckle and turned herself around, back towards the stone steps she had come up. “She’s been waiting for a while now, though. You’re quite hard to find.” The clone smiled at Celia and gestured towards the stairs, before following closely after it’s master. This was all...very suspicious.

She followed, hesitant and cautious, but her fears were unfounded. The two almost identical women walked in front the entire time, leading her to the front of a wide pagoda that stood on an offshoot of the cement pathway, fixed between four lamp posts that cast an eerie blue light across it, but did not entirely illuminate the inside. The woman cleared her throat as they approached, and stood at attention off to the side. Within the shadows of the structure, something moved. It was slow, deliberate, and smooth, and soon enough footsteps echoed outwards from it. Out into the moonlight stepped another woman, much younger than the silver-haired one that had found her. The woman’s height was average, as was her form, but she was odd in many other respects. Her hair, Celia could see even in the dim lighting, was a strange shade of turquoise that leaned a bit more towards green than it did to blue, and vibrant, judging eyes of similar coloration. Her loose but elegant clothing fluttered in the light breeze of the cool night, and concealed much of her form. She strode forth with purpose, with grace, like a predator. There was something about her smile that made Celia incredibly uneasy.

“Ah,” The woman spoke, in a voice as smooth and rich as silk, “You must be Celia.” She moved forward still, settling just before Celia. She gestured to the silver-haired woman, who stood off to the side, watching passively with a small smile on her face. “Giselle has told me much about you. It’s nice to finally have a chance to meet in person.” The woman held out her hand, and Celia took it, shaking politely. It was smooth, and soft - but cold. It felt almost artificial in a way.

"Um," Celia blurted out as a silence filled the span of their handshake. The woman tilted her head quizzically, before her eyes widened in realization.

"Oh goodness, how rude of me." She released Celia's hand and took a step back, placing a hand over her heart and bowing her head. "My name is Alice. I'm a hunter - an old friend of William's." Celia's breath caught in her throat. The woman came up from her bow with a forlorn look on her face, as if apologetic for mentioning such a topic. "It's a shame I was never able to tell him goodbye. But, at the very least..."

She reached a hand into the wide cuff of her sleeve and extracted a small black gift box, resting it gently between her hands and looking at it, a wistful smile painted across her face. Celia didn't know what to make of any of this. The silver-haired woman - Giselle - was one thing, but this...Alice, as well. How did all these people know her when she had never even heard of them in passing from her parents, the people they had both supposedly known? That small box held in the stranger's hands...it felt odd to look at. Like it held something she was better off not seeing or knowing about.

"This is an item that I would like to pass on to you, in his memory. I know he used it many times himself, and you...seem eager to honor his heritage." Celia nodded, without so much as a thought. That was her reason for becoming a hunter. Alice held the box out to her, bowing her head once again. "Then please accept this."

The miniscule weight of the box shifted from Alice's hands into Celia's as she took the small black box. It wasn't special, in fact it looked somewhat beat-up from the trip, just a standard box of studry card stock. She lifted the lid off, and inside was a small drawstring pouch made of red velvet. She lifted it in her hands, and immediately she was hit with a wave of anxiety and dread. She dropped it back into the box, but the sensation lessened only slightly. Her hand clenched at her side, and she swallowed hard. What was in this bag?

Alice approached her again, slowly and calmly, resting a hand on her shoulder. Celia looked up to the woman, who smiled tenderly down at her.

"Use it wisely."

And then, the strangers headed away without so much as a word. Celia's mind chugged along, unable to make heads or tails of anything that had just happened to her, the cardstock box holding the drawstring bag still clasped in one hand, the other resting at her side. For a while, she stared at it. It felt...unsafe. But at the same time, it made her curious. Buit it clicked, and she knew what the drawstring bag held. It was familiar to her. She had felt it before, many, many times.

Void dust.