Taking to the air, Karli flew towards the door, kicking it shut before landing abruptly. Turning towards Petty, she looked up at him, her silver eyes paling to nothing but tiny black pupils.

"So you're someone's puppet?" she asked sternly, leaning against the door.

Petty looked down at Karli for a few seconds before crossing his arms and answering.

"The answer is no, I am no longer a ‘puppet’ as you put it. You may have called me one about twenty years ago, but slave is the word which is more commonly used for my situation back then...though, I could ask why you are so concerned?…I am currently in full control of my life…"

Is that true? Fate, is it real? Do some courses play out before you tread on the path and you just follow the path along to the end? Do we all truly have control or are we all slaves to fate?

"Good," she replied bluntly. "Cuz I'll have no willing puppets in my presence," she told him opening the door and folding her wings against her back.

"I'm glad you escaped."

Petty regarded Karli for a few seconds with his icy blue eyes.

That’s a quick change in attitude, perhaps she is hiding something to do with slavery or some connection to it? we all have secrets to hide…

Nodding, he started his way out of the door before stopping.

"….I wish to go to the Graveyard, I am not familiar with this place yet so could do with directions," Petty spoke slowly.

"I'll take you," she told Petty, following him out. "We don't need a repeat of the nights events now do we."

With a shrill whistle that echoed down the vacant halls with sonic force, Fatale bounded into view shortly after, alert and ready for action.

"You can ride my dire wolf to take the weight off that leg," she told him, motioning Fatale over.

*****

Petty looked over the graveyard. It had been a longer journey than it should been to get to on account of Petty deciding not to rely on a Dire wolf to help him and was determined to make it under his own power.

Stretching out before him was a large group of tome stones and even more graves without markers. A mist rolled over adding to the gloom, bats still flittered in the moonlit sky, a heavy sadness hung in the air unable to be happy or leave.

Petty shuffled over to the nearest grave and knelt before it. It was a simple grave, dirt and grime covered it, but somehow the engraving on it was still visible.

Year 17. No name, no date no nothing but a year……This place is pretty old going by this grave

"How many graves are here?" Petty asked without turning to Karli.

"I haven't attempted to count," she confessed.

Sticking close to Fatale, she scanned the area about them, keeping careful track of the slight blurs, motions and misses that betrayed the spirits to her once dead eyes. She wasn't concerned about any she saw, it was the ones that had managed to progress beyond the veil of both death and life she worried about most. The ones that weren't confined to any given space and were prone to wonder.

"These are the newest ones from what I've seen. The numbers on them are all different. Some run by year, others by life span and I'm guessing some of them are creation numbers. Attempts and the likes from what I've been inclined to believe..."

Glancing back up at the balcony, her attention was drawn to the wraith like form of a small child. Girl... boy... she hadn't figured that out yet. It had been by the spirits habits that Karli had assumed they were even a child in the first place.

They were a harmless apparition taken to following her around. Some mottled collection of scales and feathers constructed the majority of the child’s complexion. What wasn't covered had been reduced to bare bone. Karli seemed to take some comfort in the fact that most of these dead monstrosities were subject only to the few and nameless.

So curious, so harmless, so lost... And direly afraid to enter the basement as it seemed all the spectral residents were.

Realizing she had let herself get sidetracked, she turned her attention to the ex-slave once more, keeping a close proximity between them. If anything unexpected occurred it was flight before fight.