Nothing's the same any more. (10/26/00)

Umbra: Arthur Island
The bluffs that shape the island's coast dip slightly, here; scruffy-looking clumps of manzanita and broom cling to windswept rock, holding on to the scant soil. The trees begin some ten or twenty yards from the cliff's edges: tall pines, for the most part, with the undergrowth that commonly struggles up beneath them. Between the pines and the coast there are occasional stretches of barren, scarred dirt, where the brush has been cleared or burned away.
A murder of crows has gathered, not to feast on death, but apparently to stand guard. They perch on the pine boughs, or on the branches of the manzanita bushes--watching the body that lies near the edge of the trees, facedown on a patch of bloodsoaked earth. The tracks of Crinos and Hispo claws have churned and scarred the ground, from the woods to the bluff's edge, and several manzanitas appear to have been shredded--making it clear that a large battle took place here, or perhaps more than one.
Contents:
Brian
Chloe

Large, almond-shaped eyes, of a brown deep enough to glint black in most light, dominate the girl's sculpted features. High cheekbones, delicate structure, a full-lipped and generous mouth prone to wry expressions: the youthful face has its own kind of beauty, strange to some eyes, far from the conventional good looks of this day and age. Skin of a light golden brown adds to the exotic cast of her features. Black hair frames the dark eyes in unruly waves, falling to the small of her back. Though she hardly looks older than nineteen, her expressions and sharp gaze convey a wisdom beyond that age, and a deep intuitive perception that seems to reach beyond the surface of things. Her body, petite and lean, moves with an understated grace: the ease of movement possessed by athletes and hunters.
She wears deersuede, dyed to a dark, earthy shade of brown: a long-sleeved, loose tunic, with fringe at its hem falling nearly to mid-calf. More fringe trims the long seam of the sleeves, hanging from them and rustling with every gesture. Weatherworn moccasin boots of the same dusky color lace tight up to her knees; above them, an occasional flash of brown skin shows through the fringe.

An eerily normal glow of sunlight illuminates the area, with pitch-black shadows beyond. Sepdet is seated crosslegged behind the mangled form of the mage. The Strider is stooped forward with hands resting limply on either side of Chloe's head in her blood-matted hair, as if applying Mother's touch. But the theurge is motionless, head bowed, and silent. The ankh-necklace she has always borne is draped loosely over Chloe's left hand.

The raven arrows after him, screeching a warning. *NO!*

Chloe pages: Two things: what did she do with the little, ah, bit that NF tore out and dropped? And what did she do with the crystal that fell from Chloe's neck?

You paged Chloe with 'Oh. Um. She would've put the crystal over her heart. The chunk out of Chloe's neck is probably still there. Nothing to cover it with.'.

Sepdet stirs at the harsh cry, rises, and starts to back away, but she moves slowly like a person stuck in quicksand.

Chloe lies still, dark hair matted with blood, a section of it cropped cleanly on one side of her face. The ground beneath her is dark in several places, dark and damp. Droplets of rust mark her face, along with a host of tiny, closed cuts, as if she has walked recently through a blizzard of broken glass. At her left side, claws have ripped through the suede tunic and the flesh beneath, blood and gore staining the rent deerskin, ugliness visible through the rips. Despite the faint spray of blood, her features are at rest, if not quite peaceful: her brow is very slightly furrowed, in an expression of mild surprise or perplexed thought she wore quite often in life. The crystal has fallen from her throat.

Brian lances towards the island, towards the pool of radiance spread amid the blackness of the Umbra, on Owl's wings. Perhaps to his credit, he has not yet shed the form of his birth, but as he lands and Owl's gift furls back behind his shoulders, it's clear, even from a distance, that virtually nothing is leashing his Beast. His movements are fluid, predatory, as he approaches the body and its guardian.

Sepdet wraps her arms around herself and halts at the edge of the feeble pocket of light.

The crows rise as one into the air, unsettled by the Garou's arrival; slowly, they trickle into the trees and find new perches there.

The raven arrows after Brian, taking up a perch at the edge of the pines. It watches with its flat black eyes, tense, poised to fly.

The aura of hatred, of fury, of pain around the man is almost palpable as he sinks to his knees beside the corpse, and tears trickle unabated down his already wind-chapped cheeks. He reaches out a hand -- hesitantly at first, as if hoping to dispel a horrible apparitition with a touch -- to caress the dead girl's cold face tenderly with the backs of his fingers. At that, the Irishman simply seems to collapse into himself, quite literally falling onto the body as great sobs course through him.

Sepdet forces herself to turn and walk away, out into the shadows, giving him at least some time alone. The Strider's own tears are silent. She waits staring out at blackness until she no longer hears the sounds of his rage or grief, then pads back warily.

Unsurprisingly, Brian's sobs do not subside for a long while; when the little Strider returns she finds him much as she left him, his body spread over the corpse as if to shield it from further harm. Eventually, a swallow tenses his throat and he pushes himself back to his knees; with tears still coursing down his cheeks, he ever-so-gently closes the girl's sightless eyes. "I love you," he whispers, fighting with himself to speak each word. "I'm sorry I wasn't here, when you needed me most." He pauses there, trembling, searching. "Wait for me," he finally manages. "I'll be with you soon."

That brings the Strider's head up, and a measure of awareness back into her eyes. She returns in silence and sinks down by the man stiffly. There's some fear in her shaky movements, but she's too numb to heed caution in the presence of the dangerously distraught ahroun. A thin brown hand falls lightly on his shoulder in a futile gesture of comfort or apology. ~She wants you to live,~ the Strider says with no emotion at all. ~Our dead will wait for us.~

He does not shrug the hand away, but merely shakes his head helplessly. After a moment, more whispered words struggle from his mouth. "I don't know how. I fight -- not for the caern, not for the sept, not for packmates or friends or some higher purpose -- but so that I can see her smile for a little longer. So that I can hear her laughter for a little longer. So that I can smell her hair one for a little longer. So that I can feel her lips when she kisses me, for a little longer. This is why she was a better Garou than I am, why I loved her so much, and why I bled so much to keep her safe. It was her, and her faith, that held up my faith." Another shake of his head, this time more jerky. "They took it from me. They knew who she was, they knew what she meant to me, and they took her from me anyways -- even when you tried to stop them. So now there's only one reason left to fight, to live at all: to send the three of them screaming down to hell."

He doesn't wait to let the Strider interrupt; instead, he cranes his blood- and tear-streaked face back to stare at her. "You told me I should inspire Garou to follow me. I tried. I trusted. And this is where it's brought me."

*Destruction is the Wyrm calling out.* The raven's cry is long, harsh. *Vengeance is useless. She fought for life. For Gaia. NOT FOR DEATH.*

Sepdet's eyes flash, but the anger of Wolverine is all but gone, and all that's left is a bitter emptiness in her gaze. ~Sometimes Hope forgot how blind they are,~ she replies, gaze dropping. ~But more blood shed without mercy...that's Wolverine's way. Not hers. Don't be like them.~

He draws a shuddering breath, his gaze returning to the girl's corpse; he lets one hand stray, to hide the terrible injury at the back of her neck, perhaps to let himself see her asleep, in his mind's eye. "So what do I do?" he finally asks. "What do *we* do? You, me, Joe, all of us who loved her -- do we put on a happy face? Smile at the ones who killed her? Let them go unpunished for putting out this light, for casually killing an innocent who was only trying to help, to heal?" Another swallow tenses his throat. "How is it just to let this go unavenged?"

Sepdet goes still and her lips tighten. She has no answer to that.

The raven hisses, launching himself from his perch, gliding down to the body and backwinging to a landing beside her. It does not look to the Garou, but watches the unmoving face of the mage. The beady black eyes glitter, lit from within. *Life is not just. Death is not just. There is no JUSTICE. The old wolf dies alone. The prey suffers pain as it is rent. The cycles pass through again and again. This is the way. Creatures live."

Long distance to Lysander: Sepdet -tries- to steer Brian out of the downward spiral. Even though Sepdet wants to just let him do it.

Lysander pages: See, this is the damnable thing of this. I'm certainly broken up about Chloe... but this has implications for my character that I cannot even begin to put into words. No matter how he reacts, he's fucked.

Long distance to Lysander: Sepdet is trying to help a little here maybe, but yeah. I see that.

Once again, Brian shakes his head minutely. "She was no prey. The deer doesn't help the wolf hunt, or heal him when he's sick or hurt." He seems poised to say more, but falls silent for a few long moments.

Sepdet looks down at Chloe's face again, following Brian's hand, and a spasm of fury twists her features briefly out of the flat, numb mask that has settled on her pinched face. ~Owl tells me: don't destroy to avenge a healer. But my hands want to set fire to their corpses when you've killed them. I want them -gone- and ash. I want to scream to the sky and break every Garou's ears, make all the world know what a piece of Gaia she... she is. Let every last one hear how a Child of -Gaia- served the Wyrm. So maybe... so maybe the rest will finally understand what she really was. Honor her.~

Winter hisses uneasily. *They will not understand,* the bird hisses. *Not those who believed her an enemy.* He launches himself into the air, angrily, wings beating hard to bear him upward. *Return. Circles return. Ended, infinite.*

Brian tilts his head back and reopens his eyes to look at the pitch-dark Umbral sky, above. "I need your help," he says after a moment. "I need your help taking her from here, to someplace where she can rest, where she'll never be disturbed again. Someplace where she can listen to the wind, to the trees, to the rain as it falls. Someplace beautiful, like she was -- someplace where the ones who loved her can go, to remember."

Sepdet's eyes begin to tear up again, frustration bringing on another onslaught. ~Where?~ she says helplessly. Then she reaches for Chloe's empty hand, covering it and pressing it against the ground. ~Here? Throw the Children of Gaia of the island forever. She loved this place. She came trying to help its cleansing.~

Brian nods once, very slowly. "You'll guard this place," he says softly. "You'll build a pack, a strong one, that will watch over it." He opens his fist, glances down at the blood-covered engagement band in his palm. "And I pray to God Almighty that I find the strength not to bury three Garou alongside her."

Sepdet stares down at the cold white fingers under her dark ones, sealing a vow. ~I will wash clean every rock and stone, tend every tree and pool and root and twig. I'll bring the purity-spirits back to this place to guard it. Joseph will help.~ She bites her lip at his last prayer, but has no will to second it.

*Live.* The raven's voice is hard, harsh in the silence. *The cycle turns.*

"As will I," says the ahroun. He takes the ring from his palm, and ever so gently fits it back onto the dead girl's hand. He leans forward, then, and presses a light kiss to the cold cheek, and whispers, fiercely, "I will always love you. Wait for me, mah inion, mah searc. Wait for us."