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Evangeline stares out from the balcony, a gentle breeze combing through her hair. She closes her eyes and breathes in the crisp, autumn air. And a hint, just a smidge of magic, twines over her skin. Her fingers curl in and she finds him now standing behind her. Those deadly lips tipped into his usual sullen frown, and his eyes a shade bluer than the clearest oceans.
"You shouldn't be here," Jacks says, his tone sharp. Evangeline merely grins, with a careless, reckless abandon, and she takes pride in how the very sight of it unsettles him. Unlike him, she has grown, wiser and craftier, with age. The ball continues in their absence, and she honestly does not miss it -- the rushed fairytale ending, the chaos, and how it felt to be blindfolded by Jacks.
Evangeline leads the game now, the cards in her hands, and none in his.
"I am where I need to be," Evangeline replies airily, She spies past him, a sigh of wistfulness escaping as she catches sight of a familiar marble white dress.
A century has passed for her, yet she recalls this moment; the true beginning.
Evangeline turns to Jacks, and finds him watching her, his jaw tight, something bright and terrible burning in those deceptive eyes of his.
"You could always ask," Evangeline taunts.
"But you will never answer," Jacks says, his voice lowering. Evangeline could feel his inhuman gaze gliding over her, his desire nearly tangible. And once it would have made her blood rush, for such was Jacks' allure as a Fate, too impossible for a mortal to ignore.
But Evangeline was no longer the naïve girl in the ballroom of his design, and neither was she mortal.
"Time is such a tricky thing, Jacks. What should be known, what should not be told -- you, out of all the Fates, should know." Evangeline laughs. With a twist of her wrist, a golden apple appears in her hand, and relish the bite she takes, nonchalant and unbothered, as she mocks him.
His jaw clenches, but refuses to look away as she licks the juices off her fingers. Evangeline wonders, amused, if he would give in to his anger or his desires. She never did tell him, never once confirmed his suspicions -- she evades every question, toys with his curiosity, freely given, but won't ever be fed.
"What happened to you?" Jacks asks, no, demands. He stares at her with such a depraved want; calculative, but overall pure hunger. "What happens tonight? What are you, Evangeline Fox?"
"Time, Jacks, time." Evangeline shakes her head, and taps at the smile on her lips. She glides towards him, and quirks a brow when he takes a step back. "Don't beat yourself up, Jacks," she whispers, as if sharing a secret, flashing her teeth. "Whatever happens tonight, you'll remember it for the rest of your life. I'll make sure of it."
Evangeline grasps him by the shoulders, and slides them over the suit he wore, and adjusts the lapels of his shirt. Jacks didn't push her away. "You will always be a monster, Jacks, even before you were bit. You will never grow old, will never learn. This is your Fated story. It shall end the same way that it began."
He glares at her, but Evangeline knows him too well, and finds the grain of uncertainty, the doubt and insecurities slowly creeping in.
She tips his chin, her thumb caressing over his deceptively soft lips. "Do you think you'll kill me if I kiss you, Jacks?"
Pressing him back against the balcony wall, Evangeline narrows her eyes in amusement, tracking the internal conflict that plays out on his face. "I don't think that's the question you want to ask," he rasps and swallows, a murderous, almost infuriated expression of self-hate taking hold of him.
Evangeline titters. "Oh Jacks," she says, fond yet with great pity. She then releases him. "You'll never know, and I hope you'll grow used to it. You'll never have a moment to yourself ever again." Her gaze finds her past self, self-absorbed in paranoia and fear yet desperately trying to live. "You lost yourself that day, and you will again today, and every single day, so long as you choose this thick, brambly path intertwined with mine."
"Are you then warning me away or encouraging me?" Jacks growls, and attempts to intimidate her by drawing to his full height, but Evangeline merely laughs, brushing his cheek with the back of her hand. Jacks flinches. Her smile grew wolfish, lethal.
"Only time will tell, Jacks."
Without warning, she pulls him in, and kisses him. It was abrupt, heated, and she could feel the desperate desire flares inside of him, after the brief initial confusion that she did not respond to his magic, Jacks deepens the kiss, his fingers digging into her arms, while her nails claws at his nape.
He groans in her mouth, and she pulls away, pushes him onto the ground as she wipes her lips with a napkin. As Jacks recollects himself in a daze-- his memories of her future self wiped clean from his mind, she gazes up at the clock tower in the distance, hearing the tolling of the 12th hour.
It was her cue to take her leave.
"My curse for you, my dear Jacks," Evangeline casts, sees the binding of his Fate to hers. "You will not remember this night until you learn to love again. You will be tormented, you will desire, you will be in agony every day and your only reprieve would be remorse and self-reflection. Time will be your witness." She looks up to the moon. "I will be the judge of your actions, from the beginning till the end."
That night, at the Noctre Neverending, in accordance to his plans, Jacks comes to collect his bargain with Evangeline Fox, unwittingly, further binding their Fates together, from the beginning to the end.