See they were there when I woke up this morning
I'll be dead before the day is done

@theo

Date: 3rd of April 2017
Location: Krasnoyarsk Krai, Siberia, Russia

In a matter of months, the world had grown too big. That is to say, she'd always known that there was more than her little house and the white expanse around them, but it had never truly been real. There had never been a reason to venture into it, and when she did she had quickly departed again. In that way it had been easy to keep things separate, what was real in daily life and what wasn't. Her whole life, the only real people had been her and her mother, and now it was her and everyone else in the world. Without her mother. It was a strange thought, and she missed Tatiana desperately, but she was different from her mother. The woman had lost herself in necromancy, the white around them filling her head until all she thought about were the two inferi in the attic. Her grandparents. Tatiana had missed them too much, and she had forgotten that death was just death. Something everyone went through sooner or later, which was what made it terrible and commonplace. It came for everyone without discrimination, no matter who one was or what they had achieved. Necromancy wasn't meant to subvert death because death was so terrible, merely because it was another barrier of reality and like all limits it was made to be surpassed. That was why Serafina continued doing what she did. Not because she wanted her mother back, even though she did, but because it was a challenge her grandparents and mother had dedicated their lives to facing. It was a challenge she had been raised to face, and she really couldn't think of a better way to spend her life than that.

Blood magic was only something she'd started meddling with in the last year or so, thought until a few months from now it had mostly been theoretical work. Inferi worked best if the corpses were as close to their natural state as possible, draining them of blood limited their mobility and speed, so mama had never really allowed her to drain anyone. Besides, the victim needed to be alive during the spell for it to work and they needed the person to be dead to change him into an inferius. Now, however, that she was not at home and that she had mastered how to make the reanimated corpses obey her, she had little reason to make more. Other than amusement, of course, but she kept moving around and the inferi needed tending to since the cold made them almost immobile during the night. She had a dozen, making more would be inefficient as long she she didn't have a permanent place to keep them in. Like the basement they'd had. Then again, having a lot of inferi stored somewhere was dangerous, because if she died they would be left without instructions or control. Like what happened with mother.

Her train of thought was cut off by a particularly loud scream beneath her, and she blinked to get her eyes back into focus. Right, the villager. He was still alive, which was good, though he was stuck to the ground and he had lost almost enough blood to be dead. His eyes were stabbed out, because that was necessary. Mortal eyes cannot see what is beyond, mortal eyes cast the light of reality over that which they shouldn't. Particularly muggle eyes, which brought an air of incredulity to anything that had to do with magic. These magic-less folk were more superstitious than others, though that might have something to do with her. This wasn't the first time she'd done this, but the experiment had failed those times. No matter, she had learned, even though most of the grave stones now had bronze stains of dried blood. Those weren't all because of the rituals; the inferi left stains everywhere they touched and she had chained them to the statues around her. They wouldn't touch her, they were created with one purpose only and that was to serve her.

In silence, she tilted her head to study the man. He had to die now, the runes around him had started to fade into the ground and his skin was turning a dark grey. Almost coal black. Ghouls were harmless, mostly. This was not a ghoul, this was between an inferius and a ghoul. Less lethal than an inferius, but less fragile too. Between the runes and the magic and the gasses escaping of the rare magical herbs she was burning, it should work now. It hadn't worked the last five times, but it should work now. So she bent down and pointed her wand at the villager's throat. It ripped apart and the screams were cut off by a disgusting gurgling and bubbling as he drowned. Her eyes had been fixed on the growing black lines that spread from the tips of the man's fingers and she didn't notice the sound of an approaching figure until the inferi behind her started wailing and screeching. Quickly, she whipped around, pointing her wand at a strange man that should not be there.

As a man who had travelled the world and seen many things, Theo could say that this blasted place he found himself at was the worst. Too cold, too white, too desolate. He'd never say he was fond of people in general - he barely could admit to himself that he had friends most of the time - but being so alone for so long was strange. He had gone days without seeing people, already. Now, it was his own fault, in the end. He could have gone straight home from the tomb in the Ural Mountains but the closeness to old Mongolian territories had been too much of a lure to ignore. Served him right, to freeze in this Magic-forsaken tundra. Somewhere, Pansy was laughing at him. He'd make sure to charge her more for this blasted artefact.

He had set camp in early evening - or what passed for it in that place, it was forever gloomy and cold - and retreated to the inside of the warm, brightly lit tent. Ah, civilisation at last. A small pocket of it, provided by magic. It was early to retire and Theo slept little anyway but there was some accounting to be done - Pansy liked the papers organised and there would be hell to pay if he brought her messy receipts - and reading he could busy himself with. The tracking of the ruins of an old vampire settlement would also take plenty of his time of the blighted thing even existed, that was. Theo had just finished pouring himself a glass of wine and settled himself in the plush, maroon settee that Genevieve had given him as a gift (or as a prank, he wasn't sure) when he heard it. The screams.

Of course, being a rational wizard, Theo had completely disregarded the wild stories of the local muggle folk about some sort of furry cannibal monster. Superstitious nonsense of inferior mind, he had thought. But confronted with the unearthly shrieks coming from - if he was judging the distance correctly - the local cemetery, he was forced to revise his earlier position. It was little more than a mass grave circled by rickety metal fence, one or two pillars showing that it had once served as a resting place for higher placed muggles. Theo had seen it earlier, in passing, but since it didn't match the description of the place he was looking for, he had moved on. It seemed, however, that he had been hasty in dismissing the place - and the stories - so fast. Grabbing his wand, the former Slytherin made a very, very Gryffindor decision. Blaise would never let him live this down but Theo went to the cemetery, to check the screams.

The scene he arrived to wasn't one that his mind could ever have conjured. In the place of a monster, there was a girl. Dress bloodied and torn, so thin she looked like a corpse herself. And speaking of corpses, there were inferi. A good number of them, tied to broken tombstones and crumbling pillars. All of this, Theo analysed whilst the girl had a wand pointed to him. She couldn't be older than 15, this wraith of a child but anyone who could control this decent amount of inferi shouldn't be underestimated. And yet, Theo was not afraid. Taking his hands out of his pockets where he placed them for warmth, the wizard laced the pale, spidery limbs in front of him. Showing he was no threat. It wasn't, of course, true. But the girl needn't know that.

Keeping his eyes on her and not on the lifeless man on her feat, or on her wailing inferi, Theo smoothed his face into something less stone-like. "Interesting choice, the inferi," his tone was conversational. "How do you deal with the frost slowing them down? Or are they drained? That would have been a solution, I suppose, but they would last less time."

The Russian on the man's tongue was somewhat stilted, which meant it was probably not his first language. The pronunciation was otherwise perfect, as was the grammar and the word choice. None of it made Sera want to answer him, however. Drained? Drained inferi were useless, they had no flexibility, their muscles lost too much strength too fast, it took too much magic to keep them going, and they crumbled under their own weight far too soon. Those were the words of someone who had never truly experimented much with inferi, not making dozens upon dozens in different ways and meticulously noting their differences and efficiency. He had some passing knowledge, however, and he was not afraid. That was the important part. The other people usually screamed when they saw her, they were terrified of things they did not understand. It always left her impassive, on the few occasions she'd run into others. Their terror didn't fade, because usually they didn't escape, which meant that they ended up like the now dead man at her feet. This stranger was different, however, and the curiosity halted the curses that were about to escape her wand. Still, she did not want him to come closer so she curled her wrist and a deep cut appeared on the snow before him, marking a line by his feet. No further.

The inferi were still screeching, loudly and shrilly into the pitch black night. The corpses were white and rotting around them, but they were the only ones making sound anymore. The villager was quiet, even though the corpse was beginning to twitch. It was black now, a stark contrast with the inferi, and she steadied it by placing a foot on the still blood soaked neck. The being stilled again, though she could feel it quivering with pent up energy. It recognised her magic, however, like the inferi did. It recognised its master. Now, it wasn't as obedient as the inferi, she couldn't give it orders and leave it somewhere to follow it, but it was more aware of its surroundings. While she was there, it would obey. The inferi had been ordered to protect her from harm, it was why they were still making so much noise. So much deafening noise. They still perceived the man as a threat, of course, which was logical. He was obviously a threat; he had a wand, he was a wizard.Mother always said witches and wizards had chased her grandparents all the way to the Krai because of who they served. She said they were always a threat because they were powerful. This man was interesting, though, and if she weren't willing to face threats to quench her curiosity then she would've be dealing with the undead in the first place.

"Runes," was all she said, eyes still fixed on his face. Without outwardly reacting, she once more snapped her wand to the side and the inferi fell silent. Good riddance, such a racket. She hated the noise, it was this man's fault. He was the one interrupting. Now she couldn't see if it had worked or not, because she wasn't about to turn her back on the stranger. Maybe- she pointed to a spot to her side, still at a distance and between two gnashing inferi. Just out of their reach, but still far from her and in an angle in which she could see him as she continued working. "You interrupt."

This corpse was drained, she wasn't using him for the same reason as the inferi. The inferi needed to be quick and strong. This was for curiosity. Once she knew it had worked, she would get rid of it. She had no use for another undead, and one that was a burden at that. She would take notes and move on, as she always did. This village was all drained now anyway. She had used fresh corpses for the tests, she had used some of the skeletons in the graves to practice her fine control over those, and she had made three new inferi that were now tied amongst the total dozen. There was nothing else she could gain here, not even food. Their supplies were running low; she wanted to further her experiments not starve a town to death over winter. She could find game in the forests, there were lots of animals nearby. Now, if only the man would do as he was told so she could finish... or would he want to see the runes? They weren't there anymore. They were temporary heating runes, she placed them on the inferi's limbs and muscles before going to sleep. Kept them warm until the day,during which she would keep them mobile with her own magic. It wasn't that complicated.

The girl was not scared and that, more than anything, assured Theo he had made the right choice in engaging. It wasn't his normal MO, he preferred to watch things unfold from a distance and only subtle nudge here and there so it could take the path he wanted. But in this, his gut told him he should take a leap. Where it would lead, Theo had no idea. The wizard had no use for children, much less one that looked half dead. But by the looks of things, she was no ordinary child. At her age, Theo could - theoretically - have created a dozen or so inferi like this. However, he had always been one of a kind. Nobody truly knew the depths of his mind, not even himself. For a no name girl in the middle of Siberia to be able to do this...it was extraordinary.

And in a world so bland, so full of boredom, extraordinary things were even more precious. She had drawn the line in the sand - quite literally, at that - and Theo would respect it. Even though he could overpower both her and the inferi if he so wished, there was nothing to be gained from it. Maybe the fascination was mutual because she wasn't attacking. Had every reason to - Pansy usually said his stare was terrifying - but she didn't. It wasn't hesitation, Theo was sure of it. From the stories he had heard, he knew she had killed before. The twitching body laid down on her feet was proof of it.

And what interesting creature, that the body had been turned into. Not an inferi but also not a ghoul. Wouldn't likely be very useful - hybrids like this rarely were - but it was curious, from a purely scientific point of view. Was that what the girl was doing? Researching? Well, that he could understand. But what sort of support would she even have here, of all places. Unless this child had a family and a base somewhere - which was doubtful, considering the circumstances -, Theo doubted she would go much farther than experimental dealings in distant locations.

"Clever," he muttered, approving. A simplistic approach to the problem, tackling the external factors instead of trying to refine the creation process of something the like but...smart. Few people would have thought of it. Considering her youth and situation, that her mind worked in this tangent...Theo was very much impressed. "My apologies," he says, a bit of amusement in his tone as he moves to the place the girl indicates. Still far from her but closer to her inferi and within her line of sight. Theo was liking this girl more and more and she had only said three words to him.

"What was this," he pointed at the thing at her feet with a nod of his head "supposed to be, exactly?" He could take a few guesses but he wanted to see whether the girl would speak to him, if only to explain something she clearly cares about. And he can't keep calling her a girl in his head, it's terribly rude. Theo is sure she will ignore the question, but he asks anyway. "I'm Theodore. And you are...?" Curiously, he walks a bit around whilst still maintaining the distance the girl had set. She would answer or she wouldn't. In the end, it didn't quite mattered as much as the experiments she was running.

The theory behind the creature at her feet wasn't all that complicated. People existed due to two things, their bodies and their souls. Witches and wizards also had their magic, but this man was mundane so that was out for the count. Souls are bound to bodies, and when they die they were gone and so is the person's mind. That was the problem with necromancy, there was no way to get the awareness back so there was no way to truly revive anyone. Of course, she was looking for a way around that but it wasn't what she was contesting now. Horcruxes didn't even bring anyone back to life, they tied the person's awareness to this world so they weren't truly dead. They never departed, so it wasn't actually necromancy. This thing she was making was indeed necromancy, because the man was dead, but the corpse wasn't. Inferi, however, were undead made from already dead corpses. This was an undead made from a corpse whose death she had utilised in making said corpse be undead. It was a whole corkscrew of thought, it was true, but behind it was a rather simple idea. The soul, one's awareness, had energy tied to it. Some level of force. It was that essence that they couldn't bring back, but it was that essence that could be recycled. Wiping away any level of humanity from it, all that remained was pure energy. Using her own magic to repurpose it, the result was the coal black tint to the skin and a cancellation of the mind's limiting of the body's strength. The magic used fortified the body, it would not tear itself apart with its own force, and also bent its semi-awareness to its will. That was to say, it had no sense of self, but it was aware of its surroundings and -most importantly- of her. It would not harm her, it felt her magic feeding it, it felt her control over it. That was all there was to its passive stillness. If she let it go it would likely try to eat the only non familiar living thing alive. That being, the man that had asked her questions. The man that was still moving around her. Could he not stay still?

Her annoyance did not show itself on her face when she looked at him. He asked for names, for the thing's name -it didn't have one, it didn't need one, it just was- and her name -to which she merely blinked at him- and gave his own name. Theodore. Strange name. It wasn't Russian, or Slav or Nordic, wasn't Mongolian or Chineese. It was derived from Greek, which meant he was from further west. Greek and... anglicised, maybe. She didn't speak those languages, only the old ones and only for research purposes. It didn't matter, he was a spectator asking stupid questions. It was an experiment, was she supposed to name it? He ought to have asked what it was for, what it did, how she made it. What it was classified as wasn't important. She wasn't even sure she could consider it a success yet, she had to examine it. She'd gotten to this point a few times before, but they hadn't been what she was looking for. Maybe this one would be?

So she removed her foot from the corpse's throat and raised her wand at it, commanding it. It got to its feet, then she had it kneel. Move its arms to the side, studying its muscular functions carefully. She reached out and opened its eyes wide, the eyeballs were pitch black too, and the mouth was still filled with quickly freezing blood. The teeth were still white, though, once she cleaned them a bit with her thumb, which meant that the skeleton would be unaffected by the durability she had given it. Did that mean its bones broke as easily as before? Pointing her wand to one of its arms, she heard a loud snap. Same amount of pure force necessary, so yes, unaffected. Strange. Maybe her magic hadn't been powerful enough? She didn't think she'd put too little into the spell, maybe it was malnutrition? She had eaten yesterday, but it could be affecting her magic supply. That was bad. Well, now, to test its force. It needed nourishment, but since it was dead she wouldn't waste her own food on it. People should do fine- no, she was not going to make it try to feed on the man. What a waste. Instead, she stepped back and pointed her wand at the thing. She should try to make it more perceptive to her wishes, the inferi were aware enough that they understood her hand signals. In a way, she could almost say they learned. Once they got accustomed to the usual signals. This one had to be given instructions through her magic, but once it got them it immediately sped to the side -faster than an inferi- and punched through one of the stone pillars with its unbroken arm. The inferi screeched but soon fell silent again.

She nodded to herself. That was what she wanted, she could recreate this. So, leaving the thing standing where it was, she walked to one of the inferi and dug a hand into the bag she had slung around its waist. It remained motionless as she grabbed a small handbook and a quill with unfreezing ink, watching dumbly as she sat down to write her findings. Was the man still there? She looked up to see him, then nodded at the creature. He could go ahead and study it himself if he wanted, as long as he caused no damage without her permission.

The girl, he had started to understand, didn't waste words where none were necessary. Or rather, there were no words at all, even when an answer would be useful. The thing was that he did not think she did it our of a need to irritate or to be rude. It just seemed that she was unaccustomed to forming words, unused to having other people around. As far as Theo could notice, corpses seemed to be her constant companions and the decaying flesh did not speak. Needed no words to heed commands and understood none. Made sense, really, even if it made communication a bit of a trial. Theo was nothing if not persistent, though. Now that his interest had been picked, he'd not let this go if he could help it. Which meant playing along with the girl's wishes and whims until she told him what he wanted to know.

Theo watched, fascinated, as the girl commanded her experiment - that she had not named, not explained and he couldn't even be sure if she herself knew what she was doing - through several actions, the corpse obeying in a halting, tumbling manner. She even broke one of the creature's bones, presumably to test its strength. So she knew what she was looking for, but maybe not how to achieve it. Interesting. Someone had given her some education but stopped it halfway or before that, even. The little witch knew enough to meddle on her own, to analyse and probe at subjects with reasonable skill. But not enough to know certain procedures, it seemed, or to be able to direct her efforts in a clear, objective goal. It was no fault of her own, of course. The girl looked young enough that even with the correct guidance, she'd still be in that awkward fumbling phase of life. He doesn't remember having it but, then, Theo was a certified genius. Uncertainty had never been a thing he did.

With the given permission, Theo approached the experiment with curious eyes, wiping out his wand and murmuring a light spell, so he could see better. There were markings, partially hidden by the dried blood. The cuts that had taken the man's life were precise and sure, an indication that she had done this before - probably many times. The thing was fascinating, twitching slightly as involuntary spams ran through the dead tissue but otherwise not moving without his creator's command. It wouldn't be useful for much, not like Inferi were, but Theo had the inkling that hadn't been her intention at all. Experimentation for the sake of knowledge...with that, he could relate. Few people had understood him, back then. They didn't, even now, though his friends had gotten used to his eccentricities and didn't comment on it anymore.

Necromancy had never been his thing, other than some perfunctory meddling many years ago. Time magic, runes and wards were more his thing, his area of expertise. But he couldn't deny that the witch's achievement was impressive and worthy of note. What could she accomplish, he wondered, with appropriate guidance and access to resources? The wisps of an idea formed in his mind, something so absurd but so right that Theo knew he couldn't dismiss it right away. It needed deeper thought, though. "Interesting. A deeper comparison of this, a ghoul and a Inferius would be very useful - theoretically wise. Help deciding which one would be the best to use in a determined situation," if she wasn't going to talk, he'd do it. Normally, Theo preferred silence but there was a need to know this strange little witch, who played with corpses during the night in the middle of Siberia. Suddenly, a thought struck him. "Where are you parents, girl?"

Sera scribbled down the details of her experiment, eyes focussed in the darkness as she tried to keep the writing neat and legible. The light provided by the torches was barely enough, but she made do with it. The inferi were crowded around her, so she didn't feel the need to look up at the man or watch what he was doing. If he got closer or raised his wand, the creatures would screech and warn her. So she focussed on writing down the small variations of details which she'd made on her previous attempts and what the results were. Runes on a different tendon than before, bit more of this herb, a cut somewhere higher or deeper to accelerate the healing. Less awareness, more physical fortitude, still not the depth necessary to withstand the level of attack that a ghoul could but moving faster than an inferius was capable of. Her hypotheses on the matter, on what caused it, and probably future alterations to the experiment. Also a log entry, stating that she had to move to the next town. There was almost no more food worth stealing and she'd killed enough people from this town. Just move further south, heading towards Mongolia. She had learned the dialects already, better than heading further east and getting closer to China. She didn't speak mandarin.

Her hand stilled when the man started speaking, but she didn't raise her eyes. That was the only indication to the fact that she was listening. Deciding for a specific situation? Maybe. Making these creatures in advance for a guarding job, to send them to do something. The ghouls didn't have enough individuality for it, despite their greater physical prowess. Still, they had their uses. He was thinking on what could be done with them, she was merely investigating the effects on the human body. Wasn't interested in using ghouls or hybrids, she had her inferi and they were enough. What he said had merit, but not merit in an area she was overly interested in. It did reveal him to be an intelligent person, not just someone who'd crossed her paths and had seen enough necromancy to not be afraid. Those people did not necessarily know what they were talking about, they were just familiar with all of it. This man was no stranger to academic research. If maybe with a different purpose than Serafina and Tatiana's research had had. Still, mama's research had had a very different purpose in the end as well.

The second part of his words did illicit a response. Her eyes snapped up to look at him. A pale man, tall, grown, not like any she'd seen before. Studying her shrewdly, but not with ill intentions it seemed. He'd done something to her creature, but she didn't look away from him in order to see what. Her parents? She didn't know where her father was, or who he was. Might have starved to death sometime after mama left him in that hut, or maybe he died of exposure, or maybe he was one of the corpses mama eventually came home with, which meant she'd burned him when mama died. His answer was simple. "Death comes for all."

Then she looked down again and continued writing, her cyrillic script and ancient runes emerging from her pencil fluidly. No pen or ink, it was too cold for that. Too much work to unfreeze it every time so she'd just decided to use pencils whenever she found one. There'd been some coloured pencils in a hut some time ago, as well as children's drawings, but the hut had been free of living people. Living. There was a frozen corpse in the yard, and a few graves which had been painfully dug into the frozen ground. Male corpse. There had been no food in the hut.

The girl spoke the truth, of course. It was an inescapable thing, that only the idiot tried to flee from. And yes, he was including the deceased Dark Lord in that because, truly. Making one Horcrux wasn't the stupidest thing one could do but it got close. Doing however many that madman had dared to...it was simple not done. Anyone with half a brain would have been able to understand that. Well, half a brain and a working knowledge of Maths. Which that halfblood with delusions of grandeur clearly lacked.

Sometimes Theo allowed himself to feel smug about the fact he had never had to grovel and kneel for that ill-bred wizard. Not like his Father, not like Draco, not like Nando. So many better people to kneel to and people chose some no name halfblood just because his mother had been some inbred Gaunt witch. By the time that line died down, they had been pathetic excuses for magical beings, their magic pitiful and their wealth nonexistent. Only their Parselmouth abilities had counted for anything and Theo thought speaking to snakes wasn't worth the bad blood. Or the ugly, misshapen features.

And yet, it was curious, to say the least, that she could say such thing with calm when people thrice her age trembled and sweated at the mere mention of death. Even necromancers feared the Lady Death, forever pursuing ways to evade the inevitable. But here it was, a child who could be no older than fourteen, calmly informing him her parents were dead whilst playing with corpses. Something went either fundamentally right or wrong in the girl's life. Theo wouldn't be inclined to be sympathetic either way but this...it have him opportunity. As it was, a few ideas were battling each other in his mind, all of them having their particular merits. He pushed them to the back of his mind, to process without intervening with his main train of thought. Namely, cracking the mystery that he stumbled with with this child.

"That it does," he murmurs, eyes flitting between her and the hybrid monstrosity by his feet. His wand shoots a few diagnostic spells, the results being both interesting and puzzling. He'll need to examine them more deeply later. "It's tragic that it has left you all alone. This place...it is desolate. Few would last long." He doesn't doubt the girl will succumb sooner or later. From hunger, exhaustion, cold or madness. The Krai wasn't made for people to live in alone. Even families and small towns fared poorly. An underfed witch with decaying flesh for company was doomed to die in the white vastness.

Such a pity, truly. Theo could see talent in the girl, so much potential. That this magic-forsaken land would consume it was...a waste. And whilst he wouldn't mourn a stranger, he would the idea of what she could have been. Well, that wouldn't do, at all. "Do you have a name?" Theo asked, not sure he would receive an answer. The girl had resumed her writing, likely recording her experiment and its results. Her focus was on her writing and his on the thing by his boots.

Fascinating. It wasn't rabid, not without instructions, which made it easier, in a way, to control than Inferi. His own particular creations reacted madly to anyone that wasn't him, even if Theo stopped feeding them magic. It was a neat trick he had figured out with a shadow-binder in Persia. Iran, if you asked the muggles. A binding ritual, when inserted in the creation ritual, could make creatures with no thought actually loyal. Sure, it severely cut down their life, of sorts, but Theo could work on it. Try another solution. Maybe the girl would like to know that. It certainly would save her a lot of energy where the Inferi were concerned.

The only reason she was sure she was not hallucinating this man was because she never imagined new people when she did that. She saw her mother, her grandparents, occasionally any of the villagers she stole from their beds, but never a new face. The silence and the whiteness around her was all consuming when she left these towns, these settlements, but she could never stay. They had no magic, and mama had said that she should never spend more time with these people than necessary. Said they were fine to steal, fine to experiment on, but she should avoid them for anything else. Getting food away from these places was complicated, because she had to catch some living thing and skin it and cook it. Mama had always done that and she had watched, never thinking the time would come so soon for her to have to do it herself. Yet here she was. Wether the hallucinations were merely from the dizzying surroundings, or from the cold, or the lonesomeness, or the hunger, she didn't know. Didn't care to know either. If death was close then it was close, and if it chose to take her then there was nothing she could do about it. That was how things were. This man was not a figment of her imagination, was not proof of her impending doom. He was a variation, a glitch in her surroundings, and she wasn't quite sure how to receive him. So all she did was carry on as she had before, not ignoring him but also not fixating. There were things she had to do, and he truly was interrupting, trying to draw her attention away from her work. Wether he did it intentionally or not didn't matter, it was something his mere existence did without him consciously making the effort.

Does she have a name? "Do you?" Stupid question. Who went around asking for answers and not providing any? Nobody had ever asked her her name. Her mother had told her her name, and these people asked her what she was. She knew, however, that people usually had names, which meant that he would have one too. It wasn't his place in this conversation to ask for personal information he was not willing to provide first. He was the one out of place, after all, and she was busy. She had even gone as far as to allow him access to her experiment. Of course, it was useless now. She had to find another human to do it all over again, with a minor variation. Something which she carefully underlined in her noteboook before rising to her feet. He seemed to be done with the thing, and she was done with this whole place. There were only so many people she could steal, and mama used to say that she had to know the limits of each settlement. She had met this one's limit, so she had to move on. There would be more people and more food further west. Or maybe south. No, better west. Mama said her grandmother was from some country west of here. Poland, had it been? She'd never seen a map. She should take one from a hut, if she found one. So, time to carry on.

Sera pointed her wand at the standing creature, now useless, and cast a fiendfyre on it. The red blazed suddenly, shooting from her wand, and it burned merrily and hotly for several seconds. The inferi screeched in fright and moved backwards, but did not otherwise react or attack. They wouldn't, not without her instructions. The heat flooded her bones and the light blinded her, but shortly later she cut the magic off and the fire disappeared, leaving behind a small patch of melted snow and some ashes. For a moment she studied the man before waving her wand again and watching as her strewn belongings flew from the floor into her satchel bag. All she had to do was untie the inferi and drag them away by their chains, but before doing that she turned to face the stranger again, silently watching him.

"As a matter of fact," Theodore said, watching as the girl inscribed something on that little notebook of hers - and what a fascinating reading material that would make, if he ever ended up getting his hands on it - and standing up, amusement faint on his features. "I do. It's Theodore Ambrose Nott. Quite the mouthful." What had his his mother even been thinking, honestly? At least he had not earned himself a star themed name or such nonsense. His uncle had been named Batermius and passed the disgrace down to Theo's unfortunate cousin. Aunt Bianca named her children properly with the exception of cousin Amora, who seemingly drew the short straw in the naming pool for their generation. They told much about people, names did. Not literally, as some people would think. But the way they embodied them or not, the way they reacted to it. Take Pansy, for example. Named after a flower, like her mother, and not even one that was pretty. And yet, whilst the girl she had been had been the very definition of the flower without trying to the otherwise, the woman she was today could not, in any way, be related to the name she got. Draco was another classic. His blonde friend was anything but a bloody dragon. Not that Theo ever saw fit to tell him about it, of course. It had been amusing to let the blonde prat run about, strutting like one his father's prized peacocks, pretending to be a dragon when he had been, at best, a toothless garden lizard.

Otis, Theo's own father, had also been aptly named - though in a less amusing and ironic fashion. Whilst Theo's sweet, lovely mother had been literally the bringer of joy, his father had been named after a giant whose greatest feat had been trying to kidnap and dishonour a virgin goddess and dying by the hands of his own twin brother - and becoming a kinslayer in the process. Such a spot on description of the man who sired him. Theo often wondered if his grandparents knew what sort of monster they had spawned. Less frequently, he wondered the same about himself. Did his mother know that the child she had loved so would grow up to become him?

Since he had never gathered the courage to actually summon her spirit to attempt to talk to her - Theo was under no illusion that he wouldn't be able to, of course he would -, he'd never know. Her portrait, in possession of his aunt Bianca as far as he knew, could tell him much but Theodore was never one to seek the truth when he knew it would not be to his tastes. No, his mother was dead and dead she'd stay. Her opinion of the man he was today was pointless. He was what he was and felt no particular urge to change. Tilting his head, Theo watched as the unnamed girl apparently finished her annotations and stood up, clearly done with whatever experiment she had conducted here. It was obvious from the practised movements that she was not, in fact, new to this. So young, she was. What had brought her to this, started her on this path? Theodore was very rarely curious about anything other than theory, than magic, than chaos and its intricacies. To be so enthralled by a person - and not one who had anything to actually entice him, at that - was alien and he was not yet sure he liked the feeling.

The Fiendfyre, Theo had to admit, was a surprise. He had mastered it close to twelve and nearly burnt himself and the house along with it. Otis had taken a hard look at him and both punished and rewarded young Theo. Punished, for he had dared to attempt such dark, dangerous magic without supervision, in a way that could have very well tipped the Ministry. And rewarded, for this particular spell was not one many could perform once, much less master it. As always when it had come to his father, praise and pain came hand in had. That this child had learnt it... Theodore was, by the second, even more certain about the harebrained idea that was forming in his mind. Maybe it was not such a terrible one, as he had feared in the beginning. Though he had had all the intention to let the fire consume her and her creatures if it became out of control - one should not play with what they couldn't dominate, after all -, Theo had also discreetly palmed his wand, ready to protect himself if it came to it.

Thankfully, his amusement would not be cut short, since the girl had dealt with the fire remarkably and remained pleasantly in one piece. Theo clapped twice, slowly, before taking a step forward. "Impressive. Both in power and knowledge. But there's only so far you can go without a teacher, if you don't succumb to the madness of the cold and whiteness of the Krai first," he pointed out, reasonably, words honeyed even though his expression was as frozen as their surroundings. Theodore was not prone to faked kindness and had never, in his life, meant it when he did go out of his way to be kind to someone. This? It was pure self interest and, smart as this girl was, he'd get what he wanted more easily if he did not attempt to trick her. "Come with me. You'll live and I shall teach you all I know. What I don't, I'll give you means to acquire for yourself."