McConn July 15 2038 (fixed)

Serena in small black cat form walk nimbly on a fence, over looking the McConn house she scanned the house for movement. It had only been a few days since she first introduced her self to the McConn family… no doubt her mother would still need a moment to recover.. True her mere presence would at this point put strain on her mother but is wasn’t like they would be talking… or anything.. And she highly doubted her mother would make a fuss over it anyway…

So she decided to explore, and “spy” on the family, gather what info she could through observation…

Through natural ease she jumped up to a ledge on the side of the house and then hopped again onto a window sill peering in for a second she saw Rossa on her bed writing something… Continuing forth she passed Beagans bedroom… He appeared to be drinking a butterbeer while listening to music.. Is was impossible not to note the boys room was very messy…. She walked some for to see Kiara in what appeared to be the master bedroom. Her mother was looking at something… gold necklace it seemed… she saw her mother sigh put the necklace back around her neck and left the room, seemingly going down stairs.

Serena followed going back down to the ground level of the house and looked through windows for any sign of who was in the various rooms…

Her small ears and eyes peaks over the sill of the living room where she saw Kiara enter…

__

Kiara walked down the hall from her and Ciarans bedroom, her locket sparkled in the faint light.. Magic running though it.. An old, nearly dark , dangerous magic…

She sighed, Serena was near by… she could quiet literally feel it..

She went to the living room intending on clearing her head on what to do about Serena… she was having trouble… soul tether charm or not…

She wasn’t sure how to think of her…. In all honesty she didn’t feel like her daughter… truthfully that was what was bothering her… she just didn’t know what to do… She had never felt so lost before... ever. and she didn't know why.

With delicate grace, a white and grey cat made its way along the window ledge, having leapt up from the one below. Its calm grey eyes focused solely on the black cat nestled against the living room windowpane. A soft meow spoke greetings in feline custom as it approached and sat a short distance back. Its sharp eyes turned from the black cat to peer through the window at Kiara's form, almost worried in its gaze, although that may have just been the light reflecting off the pane and into grey eyes.

Serena's ears flatened momantetily at the presence of another cat.. however she sent the cat a glance and twitched her tail looking at her mother again for a moment and seeing woman appeared to be resting on the living room couch, she leapt off the window sill.

Turning her head to the other cat she meowed...

She had the sneaking suspion she had been found out.. and that was no orginary cat either.

The cat began to lick its right forepaw, balancing as its pink tongue removed imaginary soil. It glanced up as the black cat left the sill and soon followed, stretching its sleek body as it approached.

"You are not from here..." The cat whispered, in single meow but in understandable feline. "Yet you do not go to the door." it added, as if curious as to why the unfamiliar cat had not gone begging.

Serena were she human would have rolled her eyes, she let a small growl and lept up the fance... looking at the house.

"I do not use the door because I don't want to go inside, merely look..." she meowed over... sounding slighly annoyed as if stating the obvious.

Then if Serena could smirk she would have...

"I was curious.." she meowed as she licked her paw..

A soft lilting feline laugh in the form of a meow crept from the listening cat and she laid down on her stomach, looking up at the perched fellow.

"Such things have been known to kill..." She whispered, grey eyes twinkling with unabashed amusement.
"But you are unafraid of death, are you not." The words were meant to form a question... but she stated them as a fact and seemed to believe them as such. In a single bound she alighted the fence post and sat closer to the black cat than she had before.

The twinkling vanished as though it had never been and the cat straightened itself into a stately statuesque manner that left little room for levity.
"You watch them... why?" apparently "curious" had not been a good enough answer.

Serena would have laughed... once agian had she been in human form..

"Death and I are old firends, I guess"

Serena turned her head at the other question... and mentaly strugged. "To learn about them without directly interfering at the time.." she meowed jumping down and moving to a different window along the living room.

Kiara was now laying on the couch, with what appeared to be tears in her eyes and holding her locket.

"... and preparing"

The cat cocked her head to the side as was a normal feline gesture and leapt down from the fence. She looked back over her shoulder at Serena and blinked. Slowly the white and grey fur rippled to change to cream with stripes of a tabby and the eyes changed from grey to green.

"Serena, what are you preparing for?" The soft human voice asked.

Serena jumped off the window sill and shifted back into a woman..

She looked at Eglantine, " Ah I figured it was you..." she muttered walking away from the house.

" Have you ever had another persons soul inside you? It is hardly a pleasent feeling..... I want it out" she said as there was no other point in lieing to the woman...

"You are different then them.." she said tilting her head to the house meaing kiara and the rest of her family.

Watching Serena carefully, Eglantine finally sighed and stood up on her hind legs. Morphing back into her human form, she cocked her head to the side.
"Yes... I have." she admitted. More than once, she added silently to herself. A soft breeze blew against her and she pulled her dark cloak tighter around her. "I can imagine." she glanced back at the house, a gloved hand pushing a single loose strand of hair back into its bun.

"Perhaps..." she murmured.

Serena's lips were as straight as a line, and her eyes narrowed slightly at Eglantine..

She was a potenail threat to her plan now... she hadn't really counted on her maternal Grandmother to be so different...

" So what do you plan to do now that you know my true motive for being here?" she asked.

A humorless smile curved Eglantine lips. She took a step closer to the younger witch, in an attempt to see just how vigilant Serena was. Would she notice that Eglantine's wand was still in the depths of her pocket or attack her, like some freshly ordained auror. Or maybe it would be neither... she was faintly curious.

"A better question might be what do you plan?" Eglantine countered. After all, Serena was truly in more danger at the moment than she was. Being more experienced; by years, Eglantine held an advantage. Also the house behind them would erupt into chaos if she called for assistance, it would not protect Serena.

Serena folded her arms at the woman making no move to attack, she was not stupid... one Kiara knew she was near by... no doubt just waiting for something to happen and two... she wasn't here for a fight... it would still be pointless...

"What I want has not changed.... I wasn't doing anything here merely observing and planned to leave in a bit..That is why I asked you, what you plan to do. Tell Kiara? Go a head, make my day.... though really I would advise against telling her at the moment her end is still strained. Or fight me? Now that would be interesting I must say.." she said sounding amused at the thought of fighting the woman.

Eglantine took her wand from her pocket and held it out to gaze at it, its smooth wood ironically pale against the dark black of her gloves. With a flick she cast a concealing charm around them, so they were hidden from those within the house.

"Why would I do that?" she murmured, obviously not really desiring an answer. Cane appearing in mid-air, she began to walk down the side-walk, pausing momentarily for Serena to follow. "Kiara is not to be told and you are not to be fought." She closed her eyes as she walked. "You are powerful, despite your youth. Perhaps, more so than you even know."

Serena rolled her eyes as she walked with Eglantine, it annoyed her slighlty that she was talking to her as if she was Rossa's age and knew her well... for some reason it bit at her nerves.

But she wasn't about to debate over the fact she was powerful... she was... but she could be more so if her mothers soul wasn't mixed with hers.

"Since when did youth mean one was weak? and I am hardly a kid thank you very much..." she said.

Eglantine stopped walking and lifted an eyebrow. "Defensive... angry... easily aroused to both." she murmured. "I said despite your youth; due to your limited experience. Often one fresh upon the earth can have twice the strength of one with the world upon his shoulders..."

Wordlessly, she summoned Serena's wand.

"But the first thought of maturity is not what you say... but what you are." She looked down at the wand in her hands. "You are not a child, Serena. But humility has great power as well."

Tossing the wand back to its owner, she cocked her head to the side.
"Silence is greater than any word... The bender does not fall as the oak..."

Serena was finding Eglantine increasingly annoying, and condesanding... yet she didn't know anything..

"I didn't say I was the most powerful witch ever to walk the earth, nor have I told you of any of the things I have done and learned. So you disarmed me of a wand I rearly use... Congrats... what is that to prove? That you are more powerful and wiser then I? Perhaps that is true, perhaps it is not... but it proves nothing... You know nothing about me or my life. So before you start preaching to me about humility, get off your thrown and get to know me first rather then act on what you foolishly believe is true" Serena said in a quiet but icey tone, she was sorely tempted to return the favor and spell her dagger at Eglantines throat.

Eglantine laughed, a hollow sound that lilted from her inner being.

"Excellent." she murmured, having been waiting for the very words Serena had just spoken. She had not been impressed by the young woman's impatience or her any other deed, but the sudden icy return to her statements showed promise... of a darker deeper power.
"I plan to learn about you; and after that, with your permission assist you in untethering yourself." The former patronizing tone was replaced with steel, despite the quiet volume and gentle rise.

Serena tilted her head up and muttered something like... "I need a smoke..." before sighing and turning her grey eyes to Eglantine..

"Clever" she muttered as she rolled her eyes.

"I assume by you mean asist with untethering you mean a way that would result in Kiara still living? If if works.. sure" she said.. because truthfully the only reason she wished her mother dead was for the tether to be broken. If there was an other option... she didn't object, and it was more knowlege she could obtain.

"Naturally." Eglantine nodded, tapping her cane rather loudly against the stone of the side-walk. "She is my daughter after all; blood is thicker than water." she murmured, sounding indifferent, despite her deep affection for Kiara.

She looked down the walk and sighed softly. "Shall we begin? Or would you rather write to me?"

Serena raised an eye brow... much like Kiara did. " I am sure it is...* She sent a glance in the direction of Kiara in the house. She hightly doubted she and Kiara would ever have a mother daughter relationship. If Kiara lived past the breaking of the tether.. it remaind the be seen.

"When it wishes to be..."

"I will write you, if you wish to write me.... send it to Sabrina Ranger" she said. "My alias..."

"Very well." Eglantine agreed, wondering briefly what sort of things Serena would write to her about... No doubt they wouldn't be the normal letters most young women sent to their grandmothers. The thought amused her, but she kept that fact to herself. "And here is the password to the McKevin wards." she handed Serena a small nearly transparent card with an incantation printed on it. "Else your owl or bird will meet a... unwelcome end."

Serena nodded not seeming surprised, " Ah poor bird.." she muttered not that she sounded to concerned with it.

" Hmm here you may need this to read my letter then, got the feeling should it be read by you "charming" husband he might blow a gasket... " she said as she handed Eglantine a vial of potion that would enable her to read her writing.. with a muttered spell it was charmed only to open for Eglantine...

Although a slight smirk on her face at the idea of the old mans head going all red and blowing up. She found it humorous...

She took the potion without really looking at it, slipping it into the pocket. Choosing to ignore the statement about Horatio, Eglantine looked again at the house. Obviously she had no plans to reveal the current nor any future conversations with Kiara; only a slight thrum of guilt weaving through her mind at the thought. After all, it was to protect Kiara, more so than anything else that she had come to where she stood now. Of course there was also the well hidden other thoughts and plans she had for her newestly discovered granddaughter... possibilities that lay closed with her own children and other grandchildren... darker potential.

As she thought about Horatio; despite her best effort, she grimaced. A gasket instead; at her moreso than Serena. He would expect this sort of thing from the young woman; but the discovery that she instigated the communication would bring about a righteous rage that Eglantine had no desire to face... yes, the potion was a lovely idea.
"I will be in town next week at Chaotic Tavern; if you would like to join me." She murmured. She in fact only dropped by the establishment to check in with her daughter; within shadow... but Serena did not need to know that.

Serena nodded as she turned to leave, " Very well, sounds like my kinda place" she said with a chuckle.

Then she morphed back in to her cat form and gracefully leapt on to the fence and off to the other side.

_

Back inside the house Kiara sighed, feeling Serena's presence leave... Whatever Serena wanted.. she either got it or gave up to try again later...

Little did Serena know was that her mother.. was just the person to break the spell.... hidden in Kiara's private libary was the exact counter spell to the tethering spell....