The Unmaker Claims the Throne

Chance holds the crooked cafe door open and gestures toward a shadowed table beyond the other patrons. His copper-red hair catches the lamplight as he studies Delfarius’s lowered hood.

The barista sets down two steaming cups and retreats without comment. Around them, four cafe patrons continue their quiet conversations, though one glance lingers on the hood before turning away.

Chance sits opposite Delfarius, listening as the layered resonance still threaded through his voice echoes faintly between the cups. His smile remains easy, but his attention makes concealment difficult.

Delfarius shakes his head beneath the lowered hood, hiding his blackened eyes, and lets a faint smirk touch his mouth. He draws out Chance’s copper coin.

He flips the coin from its favorable face, turns it deliberately to the unfavorable side, and taps that face against the table. The silent message lands cleanly.

Delfarius takes a measured sip of coffee and waits without speaking. The layered resonance in his voice remains quiet, leaving the coin to explain the string of bad luck.

Chance studies the unfavorable face, then looks back toward the shadowed hood. His smile turns sympathetic without becoming pitying, and he leaves the coin untouched.

Delfarius shrugs beneath the hood and gestures broadly toward the four cafe patrons eating and drinking around them. His grin grows in the shadow hiding his black eyes.

Chance glances across the cafe, then returns his attention to Delfarius. The nearby conversations continue undisturbed, giving the gesture exactly the harmless meaning he intended.

Chance lifts his cup in a small salute and leaves Delfarius’s coin untouched between them. His smile turns brighter, accepting the silence as company rather than resistance.

Delfarius shakes his head and rubs his temples beneath the hood, keeping his blackened eyes hidden. Around them, the four cafe patrons continue their quiet conversations.

He draws out parchment and writes that he could speak and reveal his eyes, but the mortals might run and scream. He admits that might entertain him, yet he thought Chance would simply prefer coffee.

Delfarius passes the parchment across the table, then lifts his cup and drinks while Chance reads. The layered resonance remains contained behind the hood.

Chance folds the parchment once and sets it beside the copper coin rather than passing it to anyone else. His amusement stays warm, untouched by fear or theatrical alarm.

He raises his cup toward Delfarius in another quiet salute. The cafe remains ordinary around them, while the note rests safely between their coffee and the coin.

Delfarius chuckles softly, the sound briefly resembling two or five voices at once, then sighs. He writes the explanation onto the parchment, pauses, adds a final amendment, and passes it across the table while drinking his coffee.

Chance reads the amended parchment in silence. The four cafe patrons continue murmuring around them, unaware that the hood conceals a wound in Delfarius’s sight and a chorus that should not be there.

Delfarius finishes his coffee beneath the hood, then writes the suggestion on the parchment. He underlines and circles “could” before sliding the note toward Chance with a small shrug.

Chance reads the circled word again, then glances toward the four nearby patrons. Their cups and murmured conversations remain undisturbed, unaware of the invitation to misfortune.

He taps the parchment beside the copper coin, leaving the decision visible between them. His smile turns conspiratorial, but he makes no sign toward the patrons and reveals nothing.

Chance leans over the parchment, his grin sharpening as he considers the four cafe patrons. He still does not gesture toward them, keeping the proposal safely hypothetical.

The cafe patrons continue drinking and murmuring, unaware that Chance has accepted the invitation to mischief while carefully leaving its execution in Delfarius’s hands.

Chance taps the unfavorable face of the copper coin, then turns it once beneath his fingertip. The coin stops balanced on its edge between their cups.

Delfarius tilts his hood toward the empty cup, then slowly angles his grin toward the counter. He looks back to Chance, holding the question in the gesture: refill and mischief, or silence and coffee.

His perception catches every likely reaction before it happens: the barista would refill the cup without demanding words, while the four patrons would notice the hooded stranger crossing the room and then return to their conversations.

Chance taps the balanced coin between them, his grin sharpening as it remains upright. He gestures toward the counter, then settles back, clearly granting Delfarius the choice to begin the mischief.

The empty cup remains beneath Delfarius’s hand, and the counter waits across the crooked cafe. Chance keeps his attention on him, ready to see what a simple refill becomes.

Delfarius laughs lowly, the chorus of his lifetimes overlapping in one dark cadence. He carries the empty cup to the counter as his hood slips back, exposing his inky eyes.

The barista, a young adult woman with a sturdy build, tawny skin, dark braided hair, and a green apron over a cream blouse, looks directly into the impossible blackness.

The chorus makes the polite request sound like several voices sharing one mouth. The barista freezes for a breath, then deliberately sets a fresh cup beneath the waiting pot.

She pours without screaming, though her knuckles whiten around the pot. Two cafe patrons glance over, then abruptly become fascinated by their cups as the barista slides the coffee across.

The barista finishes pouring the black coffee and sets it firmly before Delfarius. Her hands remain steady despite the chorus threaded through his voice, and the four patrons keep pretending not to watch.

Delfarius lifts the fresh cup and laughs, delighted by the barista’s decision to serve her customer first and deal with being unnerved afterward. He turns back toward Chance beneath his slipping hood.

The four cafe patrons stare determinedly into their drinks as Delfarius returns, their strained stillness nearly comic. Chance watches him approach with a widening grin and leaves the balanced coin untouched.

Delfarius sits opposite Chance with his hood still raised, leaving his inky eyes visible. The chorus of his living voices hums beneath the cafe’s ordinary lamplight.

He smirks and takes another sip from the fresh black coffee. The four cafe patrons keep their seats, their alarm easing now that the impossible voice has asked for nothing but a drink.

Chance’s grin turns conspiratorial as the balanced coin finally tips into his palm. He catches it without looking and lowers his voice, offering Delfarius the cafe’s back room whenever the chorus becomes too conspicuous.

The chorus of Delfarius’s lifetimes gives the words layered weight as he grins at Chance with black eyes. Around them, the cafe patrons carefully keep their secrets and their seats.

A tired young adult man enters carrying a worn music case, his narrow shoulders bent beneath a weathered brown coat. Gray threads his dark hair, and ink stains mark his fingers.

The tired pianist pauses at the sight and sound of Delfarius, studying the black eyes, the shared voice, and the untouched possibility of a scene. He looks toward the empty piano.

He sets his case beside the piano, accepts no challenge from the room, and begins a quiet, uncertain melody. The cafe listens without fleeing, while Chance’s grin turns approving.

Delfarius throws his head back and laughs, the chorus of his lifetimes making the sound far more menacing than the cafe requires. He leans closer to Chance, black eyes glittering beneath the lamplight.

The tired pianist lets the melody continue beneath their conversation, glancing over once as the layered laughter fades into the cafe’s ordinary murmur. Chance keeps his attention on Delfarius.

Chance nudges the balanced coin toward Delfarius but does not touch him, his grin inviting an answer rather than demanding one. The pianist’s uncertain tune curls through the room like a private wager.

Delfarius leans closer, black inky eyes fixed on Chance as the chorus of every lifetime threads through his words. The intended amusement lands beneath the threatening resonance, sharpened by his smirk rather than softened by it.

Chance leaves the coin between them without flipping it. His grin widens, but he draws his hand back from the table, accepting the boundary instead of trying to turn the moment into a game.

The tired pianist lets the melody curl around their table. Chance lifts his cup in surrender, eyes bright with mischief but free of any concealed stake, and the coin remains untouched between them.

Delfarius reaches across the table and takes the copper coin back from Chance, turning it once across his knuckles. His smirk sharpens beneath the chorus in his voice.

Chance’s grin disappears for one startled breath. He remembers advising Delfarius to speak with Morghain, and the surprise of being told he succeeded lands more heavily than the announcement itself.

The pianist’s melody continues softly behind them. Chance studies the reclaimed coin, then Delfarius’s dark eyes, realizing this meeting will place him inside a relationship he once only observed from outside.

Delfarius leans closer, his completely black, inky eyes sparkling beneath the layered chorus of every lifetime. His chuckle makes the pianist’s melody falter for one breath.

Delfarius rolls his eyes and sighs, the gesture carrying more amusement than irritation. The copper coin rests between them, untouched, while Chance studies the invitation’s shape rather than searching for a hidden wager.

Chance lifts his cup in agreement, his grin returning without turning the moment into a wager. Around them, the crooked cafe keeps its quiet rhythm as the pianist’s melody steadies again.

Delfarius leans close, his black inky eyes fixed on Chance’s lips before he wets his own and grins wider. The layered chorus makes the flirtation beautifully unsettling.

The pianist’s fingers falter over the keys, producing one crooked note before recovering. He keeps his gaze on the instrument, though his ears angle unmistakably toward their table.

Chance leans nearer, eyes bright with amusement, and lowers his voice to match the intimacy. Across the cafe, the pianist swallows, adjusts his hands, and waits for the chorus.