The immediate shift in the air that occurs between the two of them as they step foot outside of Evette's house is certainly mutual; the not-so-quiet fury radiating off of Cirice like full moonbeams is matched by the silent anger simmering within Kvasir, the boiling of water around dried leaves, a quiet flame slowly raising the temperature as it blazes on. He takes some comfort in knowing that she's equally upset-- that they share in their anger for this poor woman's suffering, and that they both agree that they're more than willing to fight for her, even if they've hardly known her for a day.

"I agree wholeheartedly, Miss Cirice," he whispers, his voice a knife, quiet but sharp as it cuts through the air. "I've got some choice words for Mikael."

He falls silent as Cirice asks Edith for directions, opting to linger off to the side, not wishing for his anger to manifest against the poor older woman-- he doesn't want her to mistake his anger as being directed toward her when it's reserved for Evette's "ghost" alone.

As soon as Edith points them in the direction, he bolts off ahead toward the house, his aggression barely contained-- he's certain to at least walk at a pace that Cirice can keep up with, but oh, is he seething. Perhaps there's a little too much force behind it when he hammers his knuckles against the green door, but he doesn't really care.

The door swings open to reveal a rather tired looking man; shadows of sleeplessness burrow beneath his eyes, settling in indigo crescents on his pale face, and his hair is dark and unkempt, eyes a deep brown. His brow creases immediately upon glancing over the strangers at his doorstep, displeasure plain to see on his face.

"Can I help you?" he says, tone cool and composed, but there's a distinctly unimpressed edge to it-- an uneasiness lurking beneath it.

"Yes, actually," Kvasir says, equally coolly, expression like steel. "Are you Mikael?"

"...Yes," the man known as Mikael begins almost hesitantly. "May I ask what you need?"

"We just need to talk to you." Cirice's tone is almost sickly-sweet, her smile wide but not meeting her eyes, a twitch wiggling at her left eyebrow. "We're trying to help Miss Evette with her ghost problem. She believes that it's the ghost of your brother so we hoped we could come and ask you some questions." 

She steps forward, leaning in to look at his hand closely, "Hmmmmmm it looks like you have a wound here friend. How did you get hurt? Seems recent, did you do it in the night?" She looks up at him, meeting his eyes with that almost sinister smile, "We could heal you, if you want."

"May we come in?"

There's a flicker of apprehension in Mikael's eyes at the saccharine edge to Cirice's tone, a knife soaked in syrup, each of her words loaded with meaning-- with knowing. It's clear that he's highly unwilling to talk to the two of them, but... it isn't as if he has much choice.

"That's... hardly necessary--"

"Oh, I insist, Mr. Mikael," Kvasir says a little too sharply, his eye glinting with that same spark of fury. For all his softer edges and sweeter inclinations, in this moment, he embodies his lineage-- a smile that shows too much teeth, the look on his face comparable to the predatory stare of a fox that's set its eyes on an idle songbird. "I'm a professional in my field. A doctor. I would be absolutely delighted to offer my aid, free of charge."

The man hesitates a moment longer, taking a step back, closer to the sanctuary of his doorway, but he already seems to know there is no way out-- he knows fury when he sees it, and hellfire burns in the faces of both of these strangers.

"...Fine," he murmurs in reluctant acquiescence. "You... can come in."

He stands aside, shoulders stiff as he opens the door for both Kvasir and Cirice so that they can step inside, waiting to follow after them until they're both within the premises. There's a hard look on his face when he looks at them, next, brows low and lips drawn in a tight line, his whole expression some terrible mix of apprehension and displeasure.

"So--"

"You're related to Miss Evette's dearly departed, are you not?" Kvasir quickly cuts in, wasting absolutely no time.

"...Yes--"

"I thought so. Then, what precisely were you up to last night?"

"I beg your pardon?" Mikael cuts in, brow furrowing further. "What, exactly, does this have to do with my injury?"

Cirice moves to flank Mikael, trapping him between Kvasir and herself. "It has everything to do with your injury. You hurt yourself last night after all. Cut yourself, didn't you? A deep cut but a clean one. Deep enough to bleed freely. I'm sure it hurt like hell..." She plays with the jewel on her necklace, just the slightest hints of shadowy claws forming around her fingertips. The markings up her arms are glowing softly violet. "Probably made the writing painful but easy."

"Tell us why. Why did you decide to do this? What madness drove you to terrorize your sister-in-law? What was the reason for the theatrics? You invaded her home, broke her things and made her life a living hell." Her voice is raising in volume and her tone is hard, dropping any pretense of friendliness. "Is that what your departed brother would have wanted?"

A plethora of emotions flash across Mikael's face in one continuous storm, a tempest of guilt and rage and all the ugly little emotions in between, each one of them prominent even as they melt all together. It's easy to see he knows he's been caught; he hasn't the makings of a liar, the tongue of a deceiver, none of the necessary skills he would need to uphold a story once it began to unravel. Even so, he hangs on, trying to maintain what shrapnel of dignity he can.

"You," he starts, those dark eyes fixed on Cirice, unable to focus too long on both targets. "Are making a lot of accusations, lady-- I don't know who you are, or who you think you are, but you and your friend have a lot of nerve walking into my house and tossing around words like these."

Kvasir raises an eyebrow at that, glancing Mikael up and down with a distinctly unimpressed look, shaking his head to himself.

"I hate to tell you this, friend, but you're talking in circles," he says simply, shrugging. "We're already quite aware of your guilt. We don't quite need all of these theatrics, we just need our answers. Make it easier on both of us, please, Mr. Mikael."

"But I--"

"Come on, out with it. Why?"

Mikael freezes, a buck caught by a hunter's warning arrow, wounded and trapped and well aware he's got no way out. He tenses, grimacing, before a sigh leaves him in one long breath.

"...I really can't convince you otherwise, can I?" he says quietly. "Alright. Fine. I... sure. She... Do you have any idea what it's like to watch someone move forward like someone never existed at all, when the wound from losing them is still raw? Do you get that in the slightest?"

"Do we get that?" Cirice seethes, her voice soft and furious like a low flame, "Do you get that you are in the wrong here? She wasn't acting like he never existed before. She was trying to heal. She was trying to move forward. She was dealing with her grief and you punished her for it. You sullied her memories of her husband, the person she loved the most. Now even the good memories are tainted. Did you hate your brother so much to tarnish his memory? Are you so presumptuous to believe you deserve to punish Evette?"

"This. Ends. Now." Her tone is low, final, and deadly serious. "We will reveal what you've done. You will admit what you've done. That is the only way this can be fixed. You could have tried to heal and be better but instead you chose to hurt another. Someone vulnerable and just trying to do their best. That is vile."

The entire time Cirice speaks, Kvasir opts to stay silent, merely nodding along and letting her take the lead; he echoes each of her sentiments, that same fury over this man's easy willingness to go to such lengths to light Evette's last few shreds of old happiness ablaze, as if it was ever his right to pick through her happiness and set the tinderbox to any of it. There's a sick delight in watching the way Mikael shrinks back at Cirice's words, at the fear that flashes in his eyes, the unease, the guilt; Kvasir's usually not one for schadenfreude, but oh, how he revels in this.

"You-- how dare you call my love for my brother into this," Mikael hisses, voice strained around the words. "Do you think I'd have done any of this if I didn't?! I was sick of watching that witch carry on like those years meant nothing to her--! You wouldn't understand! Neither of you understand!"

There's a hysteria there, now, a climbing sense of urgency as he looks for a place to back away from them both and finds no respite, caught between a moon-blessed girl inheriting the sun's incandescence and a boy with an old god's scrambled wisdom. There's no escape from his sins. The room crawls with them.

"You're no god, Mikael," Kvasir says simply, voice distant, strangely commandeering, his eye flickering gold. "I suggest you try not to assume you've the authority to dole out punishment like one."

Mikael falters at that, stammering, uncertain, before he sighs in what might be defeat.

"What are you even going to tell her?" he asks weakly. "What does any of this change?"

"The truth. And so will you. Come on." She takes him by the arm and marches him back to the middle of town. There are a few people milling about that look at them curiously.

Edith comes over to them, concern written across her features, "What are you doing?"

"We're parading a ghost around. Will you please go get Evette?"

Edith looks between her and Kvasir and then to Mikael, frowning but does as she was asked. Soon she returns with a slightly refreshed looking Evette.

"What's going on?"

"He is your ghost Evette. He was mad you'd moved on with your life and wanted to make you suffer for it. Go on, tell her."

"Wh-what? But he's my brother in law... Mikael you wouldn't do that, would you?"

"Look at his hand. thats where he cut himself and smeared the blood on your wall."

"Mikael... Please tell me it isn't true..." A small crowd is forming around them, gawking at the commotion in the early morning sun.

Again, Kvasir's never really been one for schadenfreude, but that sense of amusement builds as Cirice drags Mikael into the square, into the midst of a quickly-forming crowd, all-too-happy to make sure each and every villager within this little town is well aware of who's been haunting it. He folds his arms, lingering just behind them, the tiniest smile pulling at the corner of his lips as he watches Mikael flounder for an answer as he faces down the very woman he's been tormenting, all of that easy vitriol boiled down to cowardice now that he's meeting her gaze.

Oh, how veneers do so much for mortal minds-- tear them down and all that's left is brittle, raw emotion, shivering in exposure, unable to do anything but tremble beneath the gazes of the ones it stands before. Anger burns so passionately until you realize it can't keep you warm six feet under.

"...Evette," Mikael begins, that strain in his voice omnipresent. "I assure you, I..."

"Ahem," Kvasir clears his throat behind him, his gaze razor sharp, still flashing that ominous gold. His ears are perked, tail swishing back and forth in slow movements-- not with pensiveness, not with amusement, but with alertness, with the stance of a predator, one ready to pounce if there's a sudden move. "Platitudes will do little for you, Mr. Mikael."

There it is again, that cruel delight in the way Mikael audibly swallows. Ugh, Kvasir's not usually quite like this-- it feels so foreign, wrong, and fulfilling all at once, a delicate mix of good and bad, wretched and wonderful.

"...I... assure you I would love to tell you it isn't true," he manages. "But that would be a lie. I... yes, I was... responsible for the 'haunting' because of my own anger. I'm... sorry."

As if sorry alone would cut it. Tsk, tsk. Strange, strange humans.

Evette's eyes widen, her entire body trembling.

"Are you serious?" Edith says, furious. "What the hell were you do-"

But before Edith can finish her question theres a loud SMACK as Evette slaps the taste out of Mikael's mouth. "Y-You vile, monstrous man!" Her words are laced with hatred. "You tortured me for MONTHS, making me think the love of my life, the man I married and wanted to spend my life with, was haunting me. YOUR BROTHER!" Her voice is loud enough for the whole village to hear. 

Cirice is standing there, nodding, proud of Evette and her getting justice.

A rather loud and inelegant snort escapes Kvasir as the crack of Evette's palm connecting with Mikael's cheek pierces through the air, his amusement very poorly concealed; that's three points for amusement at this man's misfortune, though he still feels it's rather justified. For someone who'd tormented this poor woman and taken advantage of her grief for over a month, a mere slap feels rather like a mercy, in his opinion; hell, he'd say Evette is being awfully kind in her reaction. He's not quite sure how he'd react if he stood in her shoes.

He glances over at Cirice as she watches her nod along, wandering over to her side and settling beside her, folding his arms as he stands in place a moment longer.

"Well, Miss Cirice," Kvasir whispers, leaning in beside her as he watches the chaos spring to life, ears twitching from equal parts amusement over Mikael's misfortune and overstimulation from the yelling. Such sharp, vibrant noise can be a bit much on such delicate ears, truth be told. "We're more impressive ghost hunters than I thought we might be. Still... I think the rest of this may be a bit out of our hands. Should we... go...?"

There's an uncertainty to his voice; some part of him wants to linger, to ensure Evette gets settled properly, to ensure that all winds up alright in the end, but the other can't help but feel he's overstayed his welcome, that he's seeing something he really shouldn't be seeing. He figures they probably should stick around for some kind of resolution, but...

He looks once more at the fire in Evette's eyes, angry tears burning like flame-forged crystals against her eyelids, and...

"...I don't think justice is ours to enact, is all."

Cirice smiles at him, feeling really good about their actions. She links arms with Kvasir, happy to head off with him into parts unknown. "Absolutely. We made a great team! Where shall we go from here?" She lays her head on his shoulder. "You'll keep traveling with me, won't you?" She looks up at him with big, excited eyes.

A look of relief flashes across Kvasir's face as Cirice eagerly links her arm with his-- he's quick to gently pull her a little closer against his side as the two of them start off across the village, leaving the heightened voices of the townsfolk to dwindle behind them. They can always visit again, sometime, to check in with Evette and Edith, but in this moment, it feels... right to just allow justice to fall into the hands of those more deserving-- to not feed into that deep recess of his mind that wishes to watch.

"Well, after all of this mess, I'd merely like to get out of the Marsh Flats," he says with a grimace, his tail twitching behind him as if in agreement. "Can't say I'm much of a swamp enjoyer, myself. What say you to a trip to the Moonglade, then, my friend?"

"You know... I haven't been to Moonglade yet. Growing up on the Crescent Isle I've always wanted to see the Mainland but never have. Let's go explore, Kvasir!" Cirice smiles at him. "I'm not a fan much of swamps either. Let's get out of here."

Together the pair turn away and head down the road, leaving the village perhaps not better than they found it, but certainly more transparent.