GoldenCat/GreaTruths00
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Killer in Onyx and Crimson
The Quicksilver Zephyr...
Sailing above the Black Chase, where immaterial spider-lions fight against hungry ghosts for the possession of animated corpses...
Almost a full day ago, the Zephyr left the Spire. For hours, Cael Pattonna has sailed the ship southeastward... leaving the Angels on Amber Post, his Sidereal friends in the first gate to Heaven, not too far away from there. And now, with just young girls and boys aboard, he comes closer to the Great Forks...
... but for now, the ship has gone through storms and daylight, and Calisara flies it on its lonesome. Now, it is time for Cael to relax... or at least, would be, until someone knocked on his door... Millia's voice calling his name. "Lord Pattonna? May I come in...?"
Cael: Cael looks up from the book he was reading, a novel of crime and romance, set in the very city they were flying towards. He stretches himself, consulting the clock on the wall over the small desk in his bedroom before he sits himself up and settles himself into the chair
"Of course Millia, come in."
Millia: She opens the door, her lithe, beautiful, young body framing the door... her black eyes fading in the shadows of the light behind her, her ruby eye seeming to shine... her clear hair shining on the light. Clad only in a light, transparent nightgown, she takes a couple tentative steps towards Cael, the light behind her going through the nightgown and showing her lingerie...
... her voice is as tentative as her steps, "Are you... busy...?"
Cael: Cael's face gives no indication of the he considers her figure through the neatr transparent gown, only showing a pleasant smile for her as he makes a lazy gesture towards the bed.
"Not at all, Millia. Take a seat. What did you wish to speak to me about?"
Millia: The pearly white nightgown shines in the lights closer to Cael, framing the shadow of her lingerie as she comes closer to the bed, sitting, almost falling on it, hands supporting her as she leans toward Cael... "Well, um..." She bites her lip... "I, you know... I was feeling lonely..."
Cael: Cael gives a small nod, that might not even be a nod. If it was though, it was surely an indication that he wished her to continue speaking, that she was most definately being listened too, and that she should relax.
As he does listen though, he wraps two subtle magics around himself, one that will let him see spirits and then the Harmonious Presence Meditation, a subtle refinement of his features, gestures showing.
Millia: She lazes about there, a little disappointed... her eyes, almost feline, gaze at him like a pleading cat's, and it does not take too much imagination to see a tail flickering back and forth... "And..." She comes a little closer... and closer... "You... have I ever told you how beautiful you are, my lord...?" She asks, her hand coming to his chest...
Cael does not see Calisara anywhere around... but he does sense something odd about Millia. Not something he can pinpoint exactly...
Cael: Cael makes no gesture to remove her hand
"I don't think you ever have, Millia... but things such as that are much better discussed over a glass of wine, aren't they?"
The tone of his voice and the slight carress to the side of her face both conspire to give the impression that accepting a drink is somethat Cael would approve of, something that she should do. Now.
Millia: "Of course, my lord." She purrs... "Where would we find some wine?"
Anne: And then he hears footsteps down the corridor... and Anne appears on the door, waving her sketchbook on her hand, "Oh, you are awake? Look, look at what I have drawn, Ca --" Anne stops. Her eyes, wide, still, look at the scene.
The sketchbook falls.
Cael: "Some wine? ... well ... Cal ... some wine please" Cael smiles to the air, and then Anne appears in the door.
"Yes, Anne?" He asks of her, as though he didn't have one of her best friends almost naked and almost in his lap. "Please, come in."
Anne: Anne watches them wide-eyed... "Why is she... why are you..."
Her words are as much to them as to herself. Her lips quiver, her eyes tremble... And then, she sees what she wants to see.
"Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this to me?!?"
Cael: "Anne." Cael says in a stern, though still warm tone, no angry tones present in his voice, though there is a smile on his face for. He beckons her forward.
"We're not doing anything. Millia just wanted someone to talk to, like you did. Won't you join us for some wine?" His voice still warming, calming taking the edge from Anne's hurt and the anger that will surely start to build if not defused soon, his eyes catching hers, conveying the same message.
Anne: "I..." She gulps, but his words... are so nice... so true...
Cael sees her relaxing. He sees as she sees them in a different light... But still, she does not feel comfortable looking at them.
"I... no.. later..." She shakes her head, confused, but not crying, and runs away!
Millia: Millia looks at her leaving, sighing... "I did not want that... that foolish little girl..."
She comes closer to him. "Can't she see there is nothing wrong here...?"
Calisara: And Cal appears, leaving the wine close to Cael's bed... "... did I miss anything?"
Cael: "I can see that ... Millia."
Just the slightest, most subtle accent on the name. Nothing Millia herself would pick up on, but Calisara with her long experience of Cael would, as would anyone else who might be ... listening.
He picks up the wine glass and pours her some, the motions of his hands smooth, hynotic, keeping her eyes on the glass as he speaks to Calisara and gives her a look that suggest he wants her to look more closely at Millia.
"Nothing much, my dear."
Calisara: "Aren't you going after Anne? She's..." Calisara begins, but then stops, listening to Cael, eyes moving watch Millia, vanishing her ghostly apparition agan, but clearly still watching, as Cael can see....
Millia: "Yes..." Millia picks the glass, bringing it to her lips... "Anne might need some cheering."
Cael: And you seem remarkably unconcerned by that, my dear
He pours himself a glass of his own and takes a sip.
"Now where were we?" He looks at her, in a way that suggests she should explain herself, or at the very least continue...
Millia: "Taking about things that are just not the same when we have an audience." She plays with the wine on her cup, absent-mindedly, moving it on her hand...
Cael: "The audience went running down the corridoor in confusion, Millia..." Cael says, apparently completely in ignorance of the fact that 'Millia' might realise Calisara is still present within the room.
Millia: "But we still have your spirit here, breathing down our necks!" She nearly hisses... but countains herself, distracting herself with the wine for a moment... "And shouldn't you go after her? Poor Anne, so shocked... and we did not even get to do anything that would make her justified..."
Cael: "Perhaps then, my dear, you should stop hiding within Millia." Cael says, his voice contriving to suggest that he is none to happy with her choice of 'vehicle'.
Millia: "W.. what are you taking about, Ca... el....?" She trembes, looking all confused... dropping her glass...
The claw of shadows going through the glass, towards throat...
And where it was Millia, it is now a feline covered in shadow, with glowing eyes...
Cael: Cael flows backwards from the shadow-cat that was Millia with supreme grace, slipping away along the bed as the claws rake through the space his throat occupied and then standing with a smooth motion, golden kanji coliing around his fingertips as he takes a sip of the wine, still unspilt despite the movement.
"And would you like to explain yourself, Servant of Arian?"
Millia: Nails rake on the bed... as she smiles at him, licking her lips. "No, no, why would I?"
"Suffice to say... I am Virdynn."
Her red eye breaks... and begins to cover her body in ruby shards.... and the cat becomes red. Fully-covered in red, gleaming ruby. "And in this body..." She jumps towards him, claws streaking in the air... "... I have more power than you ever, Solar... much more than this foolish girl imagines!"
- Calisara begins to form a body behind Millia, getting to ready to jump in to protect Cael...
Narrator: Virdynn, the ghost-cats. Virdynn are spiritual entities created by a First Age Solar out of a Behemoth's remains as a gift to Arian - 'vessels' that he placed the souls of those who loved cats within. They had a limited array of the powers of ghosts, but felt things as if they were spirits - thus the pandemonium illusions about them, making them adorable, usually - or threatening, like right now! They also had a very... unique brand of possession!
What is allowing her to move so fast... that is how Gods move.
The Virdynn should not be able to cover herself with the ruby and strike at once... But Millia is a God-Blooded, had clearly always been, and if she was tapping into Millia's heritage...
Cael: Cael takes another sip of his wine.
"That's not how it's supposed to go. You're supposed to say 'My name is (and then you say your name). You killed my father, prepare to die!' or possibly 'So I can claim the increasingly large bountry on your head' or the old chestnut of 'Because I will not suffer an Anathema to live.', but I suppose I will have to give you points for originality."
And with that he ducks back out of the room, still not relinquishing the hold on his wineglass, oh so careful not to spill a drop.
- Calisara aborts her substantialization, yelling his name in the insubstantial plane as she becomes one with the vessel... "Master! Just what is up with that? Running away? You nearly left me alone with a murderous kitty!"
Millia: Ruby-covered Millia jumps out of the room, a wide feline grin to Cael... "Well, thank you! I try to be ~unique~! And I am suffering you to leave, I just need you tied up and mailed home!" She purrs, as the black eye breaks.... forming six angelic wings of Obsidian, and two red-and-black blades on her hands. "Now, now... see? This girl... is not an ordinary God-Blooded."
"And with her, I am going to catch you, pretty Solar prey..." She runs after him, blades twisting...
Cael: "I'm sorry my darling Calisara but she seems so much more interested in me, and, well I can't very well do anything about her in there, can I? I'd tear the sheets ... more than they already are and then, well, you'd both trying to knock me out."
Cael starts to move down the corridoor towards his lounge that served as his library, watching the ... six golden-winged, two ruby bladed feline terror that had not moments before been making a charmingly inept attempt to seduce him.
Calisara: "Alright! Anything I can do? Anything... at all?"
The wind calls, racing to Cael, a whisper the cat would have a hard time hearing...
Millia: "Here... here windy windy windy!" She purrs as soon as they turn around a corner, jumping on him, the trailed black-and-blood blades trailing dual-colored risks in the air towards the Windwraith.... two at once!
He can feel where the cuts are going.... points of the spirit one uses to cripple. Much like the ones Cael himself uses to cripple the movements and actions of others. She is doing good on her words, wanting to knock, not kill....
Cael: So she wasn't lying about wanting me knocked out. That makes me feel so much better.
Cael sighs. Always it was the people who didn't want to kill him that caused the most trouble, it occurs to him, as the two carmine and obsidean discs hurtled towards him in the small corridoor ... to find he is not there at all, dissolving into a cascade of golden words and essence, flashing away from the cat-ghost along the corridoor and into the library, the words of his body communicating that Calisara should shut the door behind him after he flashed through it.
The door wouldn't stop the cat, he suspected, but it might just slow her.
Millia: That gives Cael precious few seconds.
He can hear her feet's nails as she stops her charge, the sound like nails in a blackboard as she cuts through Calisara's well-tended floors to stop her momentum... and then the lines appear again, in a surreal way. Cael first sees a myriad of red and black lines, like claws and cuts, where the baroque knives went through the door and cut through the air.... but the door still stood.
Only in the moment when the cut's lines begin to fade out, is that the door exploded inward, pieces falling over the books... and in the backdrop of shadows, the feline creature never looked so terrifying, the shadows of her wings and in the ruby blending in, the ruby shining out together with her eryes...
"Got you! "
"Nowhere to hide~!"
Cael: "Silly Kitty. Why do you assume I'm hiding?" He says, now made partly of dream and words, having never bothered to rematerialize fully after the dodge to avoid her last two swipes.
"And later you will be apologising to Calisara for her door and floors..."
"If you will excuse me now..." And he plucks a book from the shelves.
Millia: The knives have their 'paint' move on the blade's surface, forming so many different forms as she moves foward, a whirl and two swipes to the Windwraith... "I can feel your essence being spent. You cannot last forever, Windwraith... and while I am sure her ruby skin could withstand your feeble words, you will not even try, will you?"
She stops during the swirl, and it is Millia, smiling innocently, such sweet cat eyes...
"You won't dare hurting the girl..."
Cael: As she attacks, Cael flows backwards raking his hands along the occult shelf of the bookcase along the walls of the room, his hands passing through the books like they were not there, wrapped as he is in the dream of words and as it passes the letters stick, are dragged along with him as he evades. The books dissolve into a cloud of golden kanji, orbitting around him in seven brilliant streamers of the knowledge of the ages.
And then she speaks to him andCael's eyes flash with a dangerous light.
"Do not make the mistake of confusing a lack of desire to hurt an innocent girl with the lack of ability to do so. And know you this, if she dies, you will too. I know the Ghost-Eating Techniques and you are but a ghost, little kitty."
And then the words flow over the inside of his eyes as he starts to read...
Millia: She hisses, a tail of shadows lashing at the shelt and knocking it to the floor with a thunderous sound, shaking the Zephyr under their feet... and then, she disappears. She is everywhere. Everywhere, moving fast as a zephyr!
"Oh, yes...?"
"Not in this body! Not with my Virdynn carapace!"
A crimson streak moves all around Cael appearing to strike... twice with each one of her strange claw-blades, feathers of Obsidian covering her strikes before they come...
Cael: "I cut the life away from the Celebrant of Blood and she was a far mightier being that you will ever be, kitten. I could cut you if I wished to and then I would Eat you and then you would be no more."
Cael says as she becomes visible once more, the dismissive gesture he makes parting the cloud of words around him as he dodges sideways, watching them part like a shoal of fish around the clawstrikes of the Virdynn, the motions confusing and distracting to the feline ghost. His eyes still have words flowing across them ... until they too dissolve to words, the claws passing through them like air.
And then the attacks stop, the words coaelese into Cael once more, holding in his hands the razor edged words he is so famous for and hurling them.
Not at the cat, but around her, words searing themselves through the carpet onto the floor of the Zephyr, each one plucked straight from the texts, each one making part of a ward against the Virdynn and all her kind...
Millia: She strikes, strikes, strikes, then stops, hissing, frustrated.
"Damn Solars. I hate you. I hate hate hate HATE you! Just give up and let me knock you out!"
"Otherwise I will just go ahead and make an 'accident'!"
Narrator: As the book disappears in Cael's hands, its words race down the binds, and into his mind... flooding Cael's mind... too much, would take too long to read, but he findsthe piece he is looking for. The symbols of how to stop Millia - the wheel of reincarnation, the symbol of life, the lantern of Saresh, responsible for the destruction of the behemoth that gives existence to the dead ghost. All those can hold the Virdynn in any form. Now, proper exorcism requires the use of something that he does not have on the Zephyr.
The spirit of a dog!
Cael: "Little kitty lost her temper?" Cael says with a smug, infuriating grin, words flowing from his fingertips with increasing speed.
He copies the symbols now off the pages in his mind, sketching out the sevenfold spokes of the wheel of reincarnation, casting them about the Virdynn wearing Millia's body. Around this, at the points the spokes reach the wheel, he castes forth representations of the lantern, that had become the symbol of the city of Saresh.
Seven spokes.
Seven laterns.
Sevenfold wards enforced with Solar Essence against the power of the dead primordial.
Millia: She hisses, striking at Cael again... and stopping at the air. The light of the Solar essence begun to hold her down as she hissed and thrashed, letting go of the knives, angry... and then held down, very tightly. Her eyes are pure anger and irritation and fear, not in the least bit calm. "Screw the mission! I am going to kill you! KILL!"
Cael: "Won't he be angry at you?"
Cael asks, as he starts to write effigies of the lantern into reality, setting them into the positions of the ward occupied by the symbols, filling them with the seven fragranced oils that take you around the wheel, starting with Oduh for birth and going around to Myrrh for death, reinforcing the ward with more reality, more power.
Millia: "I don't care!!" She calls, nails trying to scratch at the ground... "Bastard! Cheater!"
Cael: "Me a cheater? Says you, using a godblooded's power and essence to rise far above your station." Cael shakes his head, continueing to work on the lanterns.
Millia: "And she made me powerful! Unbeatable! And you... you.... cheated! Cheater! Bastard! Undo this ward and let me out, and you will see what I'll do to you!!" She raves, raising her arm just enough to scratch at the air, not able to get out of the ward...
Cael: Cael touches the golden sketchwork on the floor of his library, pushing more essence into it, making the lines of the ward glow.
"I really don't think I shall." says Cael, as he idly seats himself on the table, watching the trapped cat.
"You've caused quite enough mess for today."
- Millia answers him with incoehrent rambles about his intestines, and continues to rage against the ward for quite some time.
Cael: Cael goes to find her a saucer of milk.
"Calisara my dear, just watch her for a moment."
He says, as he walks from the room.
Calisara: "Will do!" He hears the wind calling as he walks out of the room...
Cael: Cael wanders through to the kitchen, finding a saucer in one of the cupboards, taking some milk from the from the blue-jade encrusted cold cupboard and pouring it carefully into the saucer, before carrying it back to the library, carefully giving it a small push through the wards.
"Some milk for you." He says to the now hopefully slightly calmer kitty.
Millia: She looks up at Cael, grumbling. "I hate you." She pouts.
And then, kneels down, and begins to lick it.
Cael: Cael gives a small shake of his head, and goes to find Anne, picking up her sketchpad from the doorway to his room as he does, flicking through to the last page, to see what she wanted to show him.
Narrator: It is there, on the last page, a picture of Cael holding a grown-up Anne, with the sun blazing on her forehead, and clad in a dress of golden butterfliies of dark-blue wings... a warm, warm embrace.
Cael: Ah, Anne ... if only things were as easy as a drawing
Cael lets out a small sigh, and then knocks on her door.
It is a good drawing though.
"Anne, may I come in?"
Anne: "... no. I.. oh, yes. Just come in." She says, her voice weak, from her bed, certainly...
Cael: Cael carefully pushes the door to the side, slipping inside her room and smiling at her on the bed, handing her sketch book back to her, eyes sparkling.
Anne: Anne is on the bed, under the blankets, her face slightly angry, frustrated, or lost, and she sits down a bit as she picks the sketchbook, holding it tightly against her chest. "Thank you... I am... I am sorry I misunderstood."
Cael: Cael sits on the edge of the bed, leaning over to kiss Anne's forehead, stroking her hair softly.
"That was a beautiful sketch that you drew Anne. Your drawings really have come along."
Cael makes no mention of the incident from before for the moment.
"Now, why don't you come out from under the covers? We can go to the kitchen, get you some hot chocolate."
Anne: "I... don't know if I am feeling much like it." She hangs her head low, opening the sketchbook and going through the pages to the last one... seeing the drawing and sighing. "And thanks... I really liked it..."
Cael: Cael strokes her hair as she lies there, calming, comforting gestures.
"I'm sure you'll feel much better with some inside you ... but if you don't then ... well, I guess you can lie there."
He grins down at her.
Anne: She smiles up at him, warmed. "Alright... I do want some chocolate. I need to be warmed!" She jumps out of the bed, leaving the sketchbook there... "So, what were you talking with Millia? I just heard some screams, too..."
Cael: "That." says Cael sternly, though without any power to his words. "I will tell you when you have your hot chocolate. Now..."
Cael gently puts a hand on her shoulder, leading her to the kitchen, starting to warm the milk in a pan on the fireplates.
Anne: They come to the kitchen, and she sits down, watching him.... "I keep thinking of you..."
"And thinking even if I was wrong, that will happen so much while I am gone..."
Cael: Cael stirs the milk as he warms it gently over the red jade.
"It probably will, yes." Cael agrees quietly.
Anne: "I don't want it to... or I don't wnat to think of it..." She crosser her arms on the table, hiding her face.
Cael: Cael pours the warmed milk into a glass, adding the chocolate too, stirring it to melt the chocolate and then brings it over to Anne.
"There."
"I'm sure you will be quite too busy, with your studies and with boys or girls of your own to worry overmuch about me, Anne."
Anne: "I doubt I'll have any of my own..." She says as she picks the hot chocolate, bringing it to her lips... hmmm, warm.
Cael: "And why do you think that?" He says, perching on the table.
Anne: "Because I am already in love with someone else..."
"And I will wait for him, keep myself pure for him..."
Cael: "Ah ... romance." He says with a smile.
"Before you set your heart on him, promise your body to him and to him alone ... are you sure it is he who you want? Are you sure he wants you? It a most terrible thing, to wilt for lack of love..."
Anne: "I am sure! I love him! I am sure! And..." She grimaces. "He does not love me like that. But he will."
"Sooner or later, he will."
Cael: Cael pours the warmed milk into a glass, adding the chocolate too, stirring it to melt the chocolate and then brings it over to Anne.
"There."
"I'm sure you will be quite too busy, with your studies and with boys or girls of your own to worry overmuch about me, Anne."
Anne: "I doubt I'll have any of my own..." She says as she picks the hot chocolate, bringing it to her lips... hmmm, warm.
Cael: "And why do you think that?" He says, perching on the table.
Anne: "Because I am already in love with someone else..."
"And I will wait for him, keep myself pure for him..."
Cael: "Ah ... romance." He says with a smile.
"Before you set your heart on him, promise your body to him and to him alone ... are you sure it is he who you want? Are you sure he wants you? It a most terrible thing, to wilt for lack of love..."
Anne: "I am sure! I love him! I am sure! And..." She grimaces. "He does not love me like that. But he will."
"Sooner or later, he will."
Cael: "What if he never does? What if he does, and then does not?" Cael asks softly, stroking her hair.
"What if he will accept your love, whether you are pure or no, that your love is enough for him?"
Anne: After she said what she did, her ice-blue eyes stared into emptyness of dreams, looking at an idealized version of her love... only to be reigned back by Cael's words, looking at him, not thiking before saying her answers, sure. "He will. I will make sure he will. And after I do, I will hold to him forever... and we will be happy, side by side, for ever after!"
Cael: And what if he doesn't believe in forever?
Had you heaven's embroidered cloth, you would spread them beneath my feet.
But you, being poor, have only your dreams;
You have spread your dreams under my feet;
I will tread softly because I tread on yours dreams...
Cael thinks of the old poem, wondering at how well it fit, with but a twist.
I will tread softly.
"Who knows ... perhaps you will? Or perhaps your own heart will change? Who can truely speak on matters of the heart?" He smiles down at her.
Anne: His smile kind of takes her back... part of her looks at it, blushes, and sees that, yes, that is the man she loves. The man of her dreams. The most beautiful, smooth, the greatest chosen there is... and another part of her wonders, if he is all that, does he know? Is he right? She blushes with those doubts in mind, taking her time gulping down much of the hot chocolate, before speaking, eyes looking only at the remains of the steaming chocolate... "I hope it does not... I will try to keep it true. I will try."
Cael: Cael leans down and kisses her forehead.
"Just remember that you can be true to your heart without being pure. Pure and simple love is wonderful in the stories, but if he's going to truely love you, he will accept you however you are."
"Now we'd best get you back to bed ... I need to find a blanket for Millia...."
Anne: Butterflies flutter on her stomach and blood burns on her cheek as he kisses her forehead. For a moment, she knows what a caste mark must feel like, to have sun of purity and glory glowing on one's forehead... and she looks up to him, eyes shining on their own... well, on the Zephyr lights, at least. "I want to accept myself. To be perfect for it, for him..." She finishes the chocolate, and as he speaks of the blanke, Cael sees a pang of heavy jealously come over her mien...
Cael: "Is he really the sort of person to consider purity perfection though?" Cael asks of the young girl.
"She needs the blanket as she'll be sleeping in the library tonight." Cael says seriously. "She's been possessed by some kind of cat spirit, called a Virdynn. Which was what the screaming you heard was. I can free her from it, but not for the moment. And when she is freed, she is going to need your help."
- Anne blinks. Several times. "She... she will be freed? Is she alright? Is she hurt?!?" she asks in a rapidfire, the hesitation she felt at Cael's first question forgotten... until the time Anne gets around asking Calisara that.
Cael: "She isn't hurt, so far as I can tell. Not by me, certainly." Cael says seriously. "She will be freed as soon as we land ... I need certain things not on here for the ritual."
"She's alright, though, and probably will be until I can free her. Just be careful in the library not to knock any of the things in there. I really don't want the Virdynn free on the Zephyr again."
Anne: "I will stay away." She nods, getting up... "You will her safe. You will save her."
You are the hero. You will always save everyone...
Cael: Cael kisses her forehead again, and then gives her a hug.
"Good girl."
"Now, I should go and find her a blanket, and some catnip..."
And that's just what he wanders off to do, before walking into the library once more...
Millia: As Cael walks into the library, the cat is there, just staring at him now, done with clawing.
And really, really mad.
Cael: Cael sighs softly.
"I'm sorry, but you know I can't let you out." He carefully drops the catnip laced blanket within the wards, so that she can curl up and at least get some sleep.
Millia: She pushes the blankets to her, nestles on them, and, tail swaying back and forth, just turns her face away.
Still mad, but with a smug face, now. And happy about the blanket, pawing, chewing and licking the catnip.
Cael: Silly, silly kitten
"Goodnight." He tilts his head. "I never did find out your name...."
Millia: She rolls with the catnip, before looking up at him, cat-ears flicking and eyes burning.
She looks away, and says it disdainfully, like giving gold to the proles. "Shara."
Cael: "Ah, a pretty name." Cael smiles at her turned back and then walks from the room.
"Good night Shara and Millia."
- And outside the Zephyr, the lights of Great Foks can be seen on the Horizon, not too far away...
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