It’s silent, and empty, and for a moment that’s all it is. Then a board upstairs in what was Raylan’s room gives a soft little squeak from overhead.
Athena curses it, knowing someone is downstairs the same way she always knows when a foreign entity has entered her space. Experience. Training. It’s not one of the new residents, she’s confident of that. The spell she set on them will last at least a day, longer for the weaker-willed ones. And they're too quiet. Too careful.
So who? Her handlers? They can’t possibly have gotten here so fast.
Athena takes a deep breath and starts humming softly to herself, her focus on making a sound in the kitchen. A soft movement. A sign of habitation. Something to get this foreign body in a more favorable position. Distracted, so she can start to ease her way down the steps, still humming quieter and quieter as she moves.
She does the same thing she did with the previous residents, reaching out with her Gift to tease the loosest threads of mental energy into her grip, get an idea of who she's dealing with. They have a gun, that's what registers first. The predator readiness, the hand on the familiar grip of the weapon. She's not singing strongly enough or putting enough force behind things to garner much more than that, but she doesn't need to yet.
Athena told Raylan once, a long time ago, that it was hard to impose a spell on an unwilling, living creature. She's learned since then how much easier it can be if they don't know you're trying. Note by note, she endeavors to thread calm into the veins of the person below her. The sense that they're coming home, that this is their house, that there's no reason to be on edge. Calm, relaxation, sleepiness. Reasons to take their hand off the gun.
no subject
Athena curses it, knowing someone is downstairs the same way she always knows when a foreign entity has entered her space. Experience. Training. It’s not one of the new residents, she’s confident of that. The spell she set on them will last at least a day, longer for the weaker-willed ones. And they're too quiet. Too careful.
So who? Her handlers? They can’t possibly have gotten here so fast.
Athena takes a deep breath and starts humming softly to herself, her focus on making a sound in the kitchen. A soft movement. A sign of habitation. Something to get this foreign body in a more favorable position. Distracted, so she can start to ease her way down the steps, still humming quieter and quieter as she moves.
She does the same thing she did with the previous residents, reaching out with her Gift to tease the loosest threads of mental energy into her grip, get an idea of who she's dealing with. They have a gun, that's what registers first. The predator readiness, the hand on the familiar grip of the weapon. She's not singing strongly enough or putting enough force behind things to garner much more than that, but she doesn't need to yet.
Athena told Raylan once, a long time ago, that it was hard to impose a spell on an unwilling, living creature. She's learned since then how much easier it can be if they don't know you're trying. Note by note, she endeavors to thread calm into the veins of the person below her. The sense that they're coming home, that this is their house, that there's no reason to be on edge. Calm, relaxation, sleepiness. Reasons to take their hand off the gun.