Passing through her gates, Sarita encountered a seven-sided room with a similar experience to Maddox's: a simulacrum that gradually took on her features while apparently mimicking a distorted form of her opinions. Its verbal onslaught was largely centered around Sarita's perceived lack of confidence, though the majority of the attacks fell short. Bolstered by her pack, Sarita defied her mannequin, which reverted to quiescence with a final jab: Disappointing. A door then appeared for Sarita and her pack to continue.
Descending farther into the Realm, the group's journey was interrupted when Maddox abruptly began to vomit a thick black fluid. Gashes, bleeding the same fluid, opened across his body where his simulacrum had been attacked and wounded. Midnight Sun's attempt to Cleanse him apparently only made things worse, leaving Sidewalk's End badly wounded and currently flat in affect in emeanor. Unable to do anything more for him, the group continued on, Wyrmbreaker bearing Maddox on his back.
As they traveled farther into the Realm, the apparently purity of the domain began to peel away to reveal a darker, dilapidated world. The walls were beginning to show stains; the light failed often, though Maddox's Gift provided enough light to see by even when the realm went dark. The next door was Sinclair's; instead of a half-formed simulacrum, they encountered an untattooed, unpierced, corporate-wolf-ish version of Sinclair who lashed out viciously at all the packmates before turning her criticism on Sinclair herself.
Painfully honest, Sinclair agreed with much of the not-Sinclair's assessments, but then added that those assessments did not represent all her packmates and potential packmates were. She then asserted that the not-Sinclair represented part of her as well, but not all of her, and welcomed it back into herself. Though the light failed in the realm then, Maddox's Faerie Light provided enough glow to see by, and the pack observed that the not-Sinclair dissipated to nothingness at the moment of (re?)union with Sinclair.
A door then appeared for Sinclair and her companions, as it had for Sarita.
[-singularity-] [oh and -- in case you missed it! this was kai's post, that the servercrash ate last time -- ]
[Sinclair] When Sinclair turns around and looks at the rest of them, there are tears in her eyes. And, frankly, fear. Some shame of her own.
"I'm sorry, guys," she whispers,
and Lukas rests his chin on her shoulder. She reaches up and -- as though he were a dog, the kind of dog her parents once gave her that could not stand her so it had to be given away -- scritches him behind his ear. Clears her throat a little, and takes a breath, and just nods.
It's doubtful she'll be taking point again right away.
[Midnight Sun] They are what they are. The ragabash continues on and follows where they might be headed next. Whatever blackness was stuck in her hair has half chipped away and streaked her hair dark. It gives her a little more pigment, more natural than dyed eyebrows and slightly more macabre. So, they press forward. The female is tired. Her mind wanders. She gives a brief look over at her companions-
Can't say packmates, that would be premature, but she isn't too shaken. Not yet. She's been defended, she's tried, she's pushed and been complimented and recognized with both her faults and her strengths and all those things in between.
"The rooms went from eight sides... to seven..." she says, "and then to six. What's gonna happen when we're down to two sides? We get a hallway? That's still technically a four sided figure, I think that would mess up the pattern, wouldn't it?"
[-singularity-] "There are six of us," Wyrmbreaker rumbles, the High Speech oddly pure on his tongue. "We'll be down to three sides in the last room. After that, let's hope there are no more, or we might end up in a Star Wars trash compactor."
He just had to think that, didn't he. There's a quick shake of his head, hard enough to make his ears slap against his skull, and then he whuffs.
"Let's just take this one room at a time."
He's the one that takes point this time. The passageway they step into now is getting truly decrepit. The walls look like bare concrete only barely splashed with white paint, which chips and cracks to reveal the dull grey beneath. The lights flicker interminably, buzzing and crackling like dying fluorescents. It's only wide enough now for one Crinos, or perhaps two or three humans side by side, and the ceiling is low enough that a large Crinos's ears would brush the ceiling even without standing at full height.
And still sloping downward, ever downward.
"How are you doing back there?" Wyrmbreaker asks Maddox as he pads onward. Situated on his back, the unfortunate Theurge can feel the strength and warmth of the Hispo beneath him: huge plates of muscle anchored to massive arches of bone, moving beneath a pelt heavy enough to keep a polar bear warm.
[Echoes of Laughter] She steps up next to Sinclair, rests her hand on the Galliard's shoulder. There is no bitterness there. There's...some pain. That did hurt, hearing that. But she doesn't blame her packmate.
When Lukas makes a Star Wars reference, she looks at him and grins. "I've got a bad feeling about this." He squeeezes the Galliard's shoulder and then moves to follow.
[Where the Sidewalk Ends] [*BSHING*]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 5, 8 (Failure at target 6)
[Where the Sidewalk Ends] [OH FUCK YOU!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[Honor's Compass] "Perhaps," Katherine muses after Midnight Sun, before Lukas chimes in, "It will be like Alice in Wonderland, and there will be a door within a door within a door to a degree where it's only as large as an eye."
There's a brief smile, a reflection on a story her mother had read her as a child, somehow entirely suited to the Half Moon. Lost in Wonderland seemed quite fitting for Katherine, she was lost at the best of times, though her lunacy, of late years seemed rather lucid in and of itself.
She was perhaps a very perceptive Silver Fang -- which would make her eventual insanity all the sadder.
At some point, Honor's Compass takes Sinclair's hand and holds it after her room, at another she simply falls away from the others a little and hugs her arms to her elbows. It is requiring a certain concentrated effort on Katherine's behalf to ignore the deterioration of the walls around them.
To forget the black sludge pouring from the Fianna.
[Honor's Compass] [er, 'hugs her HANDS', you can't hug arms to elbows as they're...part of your arms.]
[Echoes of Laughter] Lukas mentions Star Wars and Kate mentions Alice in Wonderland. The Strider grins as she walks. "Oh mi dios maldito. I'm such a bad influence. Awesome."
[Where the Sidewalk Ends] Flattened is a good way to describe Where the Sidewalk Ends. He looks hollowed out, like whatever essence made him a fully fleshed out humanoid figure has been sucked out, and whatever warmth had been in the Theurge has gone with it. The way he lies across Wyrmbreaker's back, someone could make a quip about the Adren being his epic riding mount. The Theurge might even get the reference. But when the rider isn't so much riding as he is being worn, the quip would fall flat.
"How do you think I'm doing?" he snaps, his voice cracked and broken, his tone bitter. "I'm fan-fucking-tastic, mate. Couldn't be better." They talk amongst themselves, and as if to prove his point, Maddox tries to renew the small globe of light. He concentrates, and nothing happens. He grumbles something into Lukas' fur, tries again.
Light bursts into being above them again, lighting the way for them. "I'm surrounded by nerds."
[Honor's Compass] "I am not a nerd," Katherine says back with what sounds like a huff of pride, "I am an aristocrat."
[Midnight Sun] They continue down, down, and downward still. She half hikes down the way, her hair sways as she moves, "between Alice in Wonderland and Star Wars, I'll take the one that doesn't involve a Wookie and a trash compactor."
Someday, she'll think about it, and Katherine's plight will be... all the more daunting. Kate is a perceptive, strong woman, who will no doubt slowly descend into genuine madness. She will fallapart, she
No, she will be more herself than she is now. That's the thing- it's her birth right. She doesn't think about it yet, but she will. The tension doesn't come into her shoulders yet, something insists and keeps her going. Hold it together, keep moving forward.
"She can be an aristocrat. I'm a nerd," she tells Maddox.
[-singularity-] Tell Maddox I said, that just means she reads Victorian literature while the rest of us watch movies, Lukas thinks across the totemlink. Too many words there that had no place in the High Tongue, and even less in the rawer, wilder language of wolves.
"And if we end up with a door without a door without a door, Katherine, I am blaming you."
[Echoes of Laughter] Yeah, well if we end up with some slimy one-eyed buggy thing under the water, I'm blaming you. 'cause there ain't no droids to call on to stop the compactor.
"I'm too cool to be a nerd. I will accept geek, though." She grins, and looks to Maddox. "And Lukas says that it just means Kate reads old-ass books--okay, technically he said Victorian, but same thing--and the rest of us do the sensible thing and wait for the movie to come out."
[-singularity-] [within a door within a door. wtf. how did i typo that TWICE o_O]
[-singularity-] Maddox's bad mood -- and his flatness -- likely don't go unnoticed by any of them. No one really mentions it, though. There's nothing they can do about it, as far as they can tell; on Lukas's part, he keeps it in mind simply by treating Maddox with a little more patience than he would otherwise. And by striking up conversation even when Maddox would probably rather just be left the fuck alone,
just to make sure the Theurge was still. Y'know. Alive.
They come around another bend. It's not some dainty Victorian door after all. It's a plain door, a boring door, a door from some house or apartment somewhere that, really, only Midnight Sun would recognize. But she recognizes it instantly, like a shock of cold water:
it's the door to the home she shared with her mate, their two children. Shared being the operative word.
[Honor's Compass] Honor's Compass hmphs deep in her throat as Lukas' message is relayed aloud. Her disdain is merely for show, though. She no more resents that her pack-mates tease her about her prim and proper ways than she discredits anything Sinclair had told her other self upstairs about the Silver Fang.
Shame had flooded her, but it was underlined by the simple truth: she was afraid of germs and it was ridiculous. Insane.
Which rather made it entirely fitting for one of her tribe. When they come across the normal door, the utterly regular door Katherine seems slightly surprised, perhaps a touch relieved all told. She flits a glance at Lukas, then to Midnight Sun. Her eyes remain there.
The Gaian's turn, then.
[Where the Sidewalk Ends] If things hadn't gone so horribly wrong in that first room, Maddox would be a whole different person. For one thing, he'd be walking with them, not draped like a blanket across Wyrmbreaker's back. He'd be animated, engaged in conversation. On hearing that his potential packmates are nerds, or geeks as the case may be, he would call them that, but there'd be some measure of affection in the tone. At the very least he wouldn't sound so bitter, so put out by being forced to endure their company. Their company wouldn't be anything to endure at all.
But, these things happen. Who knows how Sarita and Sinclair would have reacted to their dopplegangers had their Theurge for the night not somehow failed his own challenge? Would they have been prepared for their trials? Would the bonded packmates have rallied so quickly and so completely within each room? Probably. They're a close little group. They probably would have.
So Maddox doesn't engage Katherine about the "old-ass books" she reads, he doesn't try to compare notes. He doesn't tell Sarita that the Wookie would probably be on their side. Instead he's snide, bitter, callous. But he keeps the lights on. And they, Gaia bless them all, they don't talk about what's wrong with him. They're patient with him.
He has to angle his head just so to see the door that's ahead of them. Narrowing his dark eyes, he asks, "So whose is this, then?"
[Midnight Sun] It's a boring door, but it keeps the cold out. That was its only purpose.
She just looks at it. Her eyes are fixed on it, and she takes a few steps forward. The smile on Margaret's face is sad, but filled with distant memories. Something that's pleasant that isn't here and now. At the end of the day, all Margaret Blanc is composed of is memories. Someone else's. Her own. Whatever it is.
"This is for me," she says, "I'll bet it's still out there, too."
Margaret expects the door to be cold. She knocks anyway.
"This is home," the ragabash elaborates for those who don't know, because no one here knows why this door is significant and what is so important about the fact that it's boring metal and has a well-worn handle, "Dustin had wanted to paint it red, but there really wasn't a point in it."
That door, and probably the house that was attached to it, was never going to be in Better Homes and Gardens.
[Echoes of Laughter] She looks at the door curiously. The plain nature of it certainly throws her off a bit, considering what they've seen so far. It actually makes her a bit more on edge than the rest of the doors...because something like this, you don't know what to expect.
And then Margaret explains that its hers. And she explains what it is. She looks to the other Ragabash, listening.
"Why did it choose this door for you?"
[-singularity-] At the head of their small column, and beneath the currently foultempered Theurge, Wyrmbreaker makes a gruff noise in his throat. Takes a step back and to the side, giving someone else room to squeeze past him.
"I don't recognize it," he says, but by then Midnight Sun is already moving up.
This is for me, she says. Dustin had wanted to paint it red.
"Who's Dustin?" Wyrmbreaker wants to know. Midnight Sun knocks on the door, but no one answers. She already knew no one would.
[Midnight Sun] "Dustin was my mate," she tells them all, and she inhales. Her breath is more shallow than she had intended, "and... it chose this, because he died here. And so did our son. I told them to wait and they did."
She puts her hand on the door knob and she turns it. The ragabash pushes on it.
"It could get really cold," she warns them, "just be aware."
[Where the Sidewalk Ends] [darn you, three suxx! FLAME ON]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 6, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[-singularity-] The door unlatches the instant Midnight Sun's hand touches the handle, as though it had been waiting for her. It unlatches, and then it slams open, impelled by hurricane-force winds, but a cold that cuts right through their fur and clothes, right down to the bone.
It's not her old living room on the other side after all. It's not a five-sided room. It's not a room at all; it's a frigid wild darkness. The sky is terribly clear, blacker than any night in the cities, in lower latitutdes. The stars are ferociously bright, bright enough that even on this moonless night there's enough light -- barely -- to see by.
There are no trees through that door. There are no plants. There are mountains in the distance, dark shadows biting at the sky, visibly only by the lack of stars and horizon. In the nearer distance, the ground is covered with snow, hard with permafrost, grey and featureless in the starlight.
It's late spring in Chicago, but it's winter through that door: an arctic winter, and one locked in the grips of a killing-night. It's the sort of weather she learned early to fear. Not a blizzard, not a storm where at least the blanket of clouds would hold some heat close to the earth, where a resourceful wolf could dig a den in the snowdrifts and allow herself to be buried through the worst of it, insulated by snow, warmed by her own heat. Not a night like that at all but a clear night with a terrible wind out of the north -- so cold and dry that it sucks all warmth, all moisture from a body. There are stories of men freezing to death with a smile on their face, sinking peacefully into eternal slumber under the snow, preserved beautiful and pale until spring. They don't tell tales like that about a night like this.
She saw the bodies after they were found: frozen, almost mummified, the cheeks shrunken, the lips peeled back in horrible dry rictuses.
There's a human voice out in that bitter cold. It's not a man's voice, and it's not the wordless bawls of a very young infant. It's a human voice, and it's a child's voice, a little girl's, and it calls,
"Mommy?"
[Honor's Compass] Dustin was my mate
he died here
And so did our son
Katherine closes her eyes a beat, then opens them and steps into that howling abyss after Midnight Sun. The wind flattens her long hair against her face; winds it back around her neck like a blond scarf. Her feet crunch over snow and it is a supernatural light brought by the Fiann that offers the interpretation for their eyes about what they can see.
Mommy?
"We're with you," perhaps Katherine's voice is sawed off by the wind, who knows, but she calls to the Gaian anyway. Simple words, only three.
[Where the Sidewalk Ends] It could get really cold.
Well. No shit. The cold that blasts through that door cuts through Maddox like a knife, threatens to crystallize the breath in his lungs. That cold threatens to kill the waifish skeleton draped on Lukas' back. Maddox lets out a yelp, a yelp that becomes a gasp. There's a moment where he actually thinks about it, where he weighs the pros and cons of shifting and
oh god it's like razor blades are slicing into his skin. Any second now his lungs are going to seize up. The cold will sink into him, will make him drowsy as his heart rate slows and slows. It only takes a second to burn a bit of his meager Rage to shift. If anything, he looks worse in lupus. They can see his ribs through his reddish fur. His head looks even more skull-like, his long, gangly limbs thinner, more fragile and breakable. But at lease now he's got a bit more covering his skin.
Above him, the light of his gift glows steadily, casting a ghostly light over the snow around them. It'll be harder for him to communicate with the rest of them in this form, stuck on Lukas' back, too weak to move. But now, Lukas can feel the twitch of Maddox's tail, swishing now and then with agitation. He growls a bit at that little girl voice.
[Echoes of Laughter] She winces at Margaret's words. Oh, shit. If Sinclair's was any clue that they're not playing around anymore, this is pretty much a neon sign to that effect. She looks around at the others. She looks over her shoulder, sees Maddox shift. The sound of the word--Mommy--chills her.
And amidst all of that, there is no doubt as to what she'll do. She turns back forward and walks along with Margaret and Katherine. "Damn skippy. You ain't alone here."
[Midnight Sun] (trying again!)
[Midnight Sun] It isn't forgiving here. It was easy to live here because Margaret lived a life that was simple- Gaia's might was something beautiful and terrifying. Nature was something to be both respected and feared, and she feared this. Nobody in their right mind lived this far north, not without the blessings of Ice and thousands of years of this.
[She'd seen them and it was the first time she'd frenzied since her first change. She couldn't stop looking at them, fixated-]
"Nothing is more important than this," she tells them. There is intensity there, and her breathing is shallow. The wind cuts to the bone, and she doesn't wrap her arms around herself, she doesnt' curl up or run away, "her name's Jillian. She's about this tall-" she holds her hand up to about her waist "-blue eyes, brown hair, she's wearing-"
You don't know what she's wearing, you never see her- [shut up I'm trying]
"She could panic, she might start trying to take her coat off, she might run, don't let her run-" she says. She doesn't take long to shift to lupus and start trying to track the scent that she knows by heart. "She smells like firewood and wool. She's warm."
[-singularity-] Wyrmbreaker falls into rearguard again as Margaret takes the lead. Before he passes through that strange doorway, from an enclosed tunnel god knows how deep into this vast wilderness, he shrugs Maddox off his back.
"You need to get off and walk, or you'll freeze to death. Hispo would be best, larger for warmth, easier to move on four legs when wounded. I'll stay with you, even if the others have to move ahead. I won't let you be lost."
The Fianna's light, and the blazing cold glow from Katherine, lights the arctic tundra for several yards around them. That circle of light, so potent in the tunnels and the rooms, still seems meagre here. Utterly dwarfed by the size, the coldness, of that bitter night. Midnight Sun is heedless of it. She leaps through that door and she tries to keep it together, tries to hold it together long enough to tell them,
nothing is more important than this.
When they've all stepped through, the door swings shut behind them. The hallway disappears. They're standing on the porch of a small, humble house instead. One of a tiny cluster, a village somewhere in the far, bitter north. Midnight Sun mentioned once that she was from Nunavut, and there were jokes over pastrami sandwiches. Wyrmbreaker doesn't joke now. He had no idea what had happened in Nunavut; none, until now.
There's another man on the porch, though. They don't realize it until he speaks, but when he speaks there's no ignoring him. His voice is silk and thunder, deep and beautiful, unforgettable. He is a Galliard. He is an Elder. He is a Child of Gaia, purest of the pure, tall and straightlimbed, his face reflecting the olive skin and proud bones that hark back to the very dawn of humanity, the cradle of civilization.
This is the Winter's Dirge, the first of his name. He speaks to Midnight Sun, the Winter's Dirge, the last of her name, interrupting her before she can plunge into the night.
"Your path is not in the dark. You are more important than that. Your path is mine."
The child's voice is coming from very far away. "Mommy? Mommy, where are you? It's cold."
[Echoes of Laughter] "When you can't run anymore, you crawl, and when you can't do that, you find someone to carry you."
Yes. She's a TOTAL dork. But that's not in doubt, and the sentiment is accurate, Whedon quote or not. She frowns as she walks along behind the Philodox and the Ragabash, taking in the scene.
[Midnight Sun] And there he is. A man who remembered all the way back to Babylon. A man who existed and was a mediator beyond par. He is the first of their name. Her guide, her rock, her reason. He was respected beyond his time, into the centuries-
Everything she's done, everything worth note and pride worth remembering was done with that name. Except for that one, distant voice.
"I can't leave her," she says, she's trying to keep it together. She doesn't even get down to shifting, "kin are our future. I can't lose her-"
The Child of Gaia tries to go the logical route and she's already trying her damnedest to stay on the porch and converse with the progenitor of their line. She looks at him "-come help me."
[-singularity-] The first Winter's Dirge shakes his head slowly. "I cannot help you. Not in this. I'm already dead, and that little girl is only a distraction. She does not carry the blood. She does not carry the name. She is not our future. You are. My promises are. The path I have laid for our lineage: that is our future, the only way to peace and the everlasting glory of Gaia."
"Mommy!" Crying now, wailing in the dark. "Mommy, where are you!"
"Your daughter is a distraction," Winter's Dirge repeats. "Just as your mate was. Just as your son was. Just as this pack is. Mine is the one true path."
[Where the Sidewalk Ends] Maddox slides off Lukas' back to land in a pile in the snow. It crunches beneath his slight weight, and he sinks, just a little. His ears are down, he's annoyed. At the snow. At the cold. At the big Ahroun jerk that just dumped him, how could he do that? Doesn't he know who I am?
Which begs a question: Who are you, Maddox Cartwright? If he were not currently so full of himself, he might take time to consider the answer.
Shakily, he gets up to his feet. He shakes himself out, which sets him off balance, tumbling a little to the side. Before he falls again he catches himself, just barely, head lowered to Lukas. I got this. He takes a moment to grudgingly shift up into a heavier form. Even this is emaciated, weak, sunken and shriveled up. Maddox hurts in ways he can't comprehend. He doesn't have Bear's gift to block it out and soldier on. He has to deal with it.
And because he is the better of everyone who ever lived in the history of ever, he does deal with it. Lifting his head, he takes a step. And another. And another and another, because four legs move differently than two. There are wounds on his forelegs, where his double was attacked, where Sinclair bit him. He rolls his eyes to Lukas, sneezes what should be a huff. Yeah. Four legs is so much easier.
The ubergeek quotes something or other. Maddox limps along, keeping the fae light burning overhead. This isn't a room, it's unlikely the moon will go out. But then, this whole place is the deep Umbra. The moon could go out like a light and the world come fall out from beneath them. He keeps that light going. Kate keeps glowing. Maddox keeps that light up ahead of them, lighting the path before them, keeping closer to the one being challenged than those following in her wake. He's slow now, his fur twitching with agitation and with the cold. But he goes on.
[Honor's Compass] The Silver Fang's skin is riddled with goosebumps. The freezing wind does not let up and rationally, Katherine is aware she should [must] change forms to ensure she doesn't freeze to death but she remains, for a moment at least, her breath puffing out before her face.
"But you did lose her, Midnight Sun," she says with incredible gentleness. "Long ago now." Perhaps ironically, when the first Winter's Dirge speaks, he all but echoes her sentiments. Katherine frowns up at the ghost. "Your path is your own, not his. You built your way way forward.
We all have regrets, though. People we lost, places left behind."
[Honor's Compass] [bah, *own]
[-singularity-] [no moon, btw! just stars. minor detail.]
[Echoes of Laughter] She frowns deeply at the words of Winter's Dirge. Her jaw sets, her eyes hardening, and she sets a hand on the other No-Moon's shoulder. When she looks at the Gaian, her expression is not so hard...it's more curious now. "What do you think, chica? Do our kin lead us off the path? Are they nothing more than distractions?"
[Midnight Sun] Distracted, distraction, and she can't be bothered-
"Wait there, we're coming, don't run-" she yells back. and for once the wind feels cold and it's getting colder and she finally wraps her arms around herself because she knows what she just said, and she knows what happens next and "-I didn't lose her, Katherine, she came with me, she's here, nothing happened I didn't lose her, I can't lose her like this-"
And he's talking, and she's turning and she's going to go... but the Galliard just talks, speaks of lineage as though it is something that truly matters, because it is. Because, when you remember that far back, it does matter. Margaret knows exactly what steps it took to get to his name-
"OUr kin keep us on that path... our kin are why we do those deeds people remember. I am more than-" she looks at her would be packmates and snaps "-we're wasting time."
And she heads off in the direction of the sound. All but pushes past to go to where she's fairly certain her daughter, or whatever is the apparition representing her.
"She's not a distraction. He wasn't a distraction, Julian wasn't a distraction and neither is this pack. All strength, all purpose-" she calls out again.
"It's going to be okay-" just like she'd told Maddox [Look how that turned out.]
[Where the Sidewalk Ends] "Stupid!" he barks after the Ragabash. "If she is here, she is not in Umbra!"
His fur bristles momentarily, then settles again, his tail lowers. He wants to hunker down, to burrow into the snow or try to turn back. That doorway is gone, though. The only way is forward, whichever way that is.
"Distraction is distraction if you let it be," he mutters, as much as one can mutter the high tongue in hispo.
[Honor's Compass] "Midnight Sun, stop, think."
A beat. "Question this. It is not your child you need to find here. It is the reason why you are hearing your child."
[-singularity-] Just like that, as Midnight Sun turns away from the first Winter's Dirge to plunge into that murderously cold night, her forebear lowers his head and steps back into the shadows beneath the overhang. If they look for him, he's gone. Not even a tracery of scent remains.
Midnight Sun doesn't see it. She's racing into the darkness. She can hear her daughter's voice, calling her. Calling not her given name nor her ancestral name but the one name every mother can't help but respond to; the one true name bestowed upon the birth of the child.
Mommy. Mommy, help.
And Midnight Sun responds. She races ahead -- Honor's Compass and Echoes of Laughter keep pace, perhaps, but Sidewalk's End cannot, and Wyrmbreaker is true to his word. He stays with the Theurge, standing in front of him, breaking the vicious wind on his thick fur, large body. He barks to the others, "Stay with her! We'll catch up."
She's closer now. Midnight Sun can hear the voice not so far away after all. Perhaps just over the next swell. The wind is so cold. It freezes the insides of her nostrils, freezes her breath, freezes the saliva on her tongue. How could anyone survive this for long, much less a child?
[-singularity-] [ST note: so far MS is on the right track. If she'd followed Winter's Dirge, she probably still could have triumphed, but it would have been harder. It was important that she saw that blind devotion, even to some great promise/ancestral path, isn't good. Her saying "I am more than -- " was really important, even if she never really finished the thought.]
to -singularity-
[Echoes of Laughter] The Ragabash questions Margaret. The Philodox cuts to the truth. And Magaret runs. Sarita doesn't need to hear Lukas to stay with her...she's already running. She leaps, two legs lifting off the ground and four legs hitting it as she shifts into Hispo to better keep up. She's lost people before, in literal and figurative senses. She's not losing Margaret.
[-singularity-] [However, the next step is likely to be harder. She'll have to realize what the rest of the pack is telling her is true: that's NOT her daughter calling for her. She'll also have to realize that while devotion to family is important and good, it can, when taken to extremes, blind one to what really needs to be done.]
to -singularity-
[Honor's Compass] "Pourquoi font-ils n'écoutent jamais quand il est temps," The Philodox sighs aloud to herself and sets off after Sarita; one step, another, steady, steady and then -- paws, they hit the earth without sound beneath the onslaught of the wind and Honor's Compass is her deedname --
not just this, she is Truth's Meridian now.
A glowing form chasing through barren frozen lands.
[Midnight Sun] Say it.
"Because that's my weakest point... and I need her so much more than she needs me-"
She looks at her would be pack and she inhales sharply; it hurts her lungs. "Give us a direction, tell me something."
Let go [I can't] Are you scared [Yes.]
She's stopped, she's shaking, and she is all but pleading with her would-be pack. She half blends in with the white and the starkness of it all. She's almost lost in the sky. Stop and think, Honor's Compass tells her to think, and she finally stops.
And she sniffs at the air, long and hard and it hurts her lungs and nips at her tongue and she tries to pick up that familiar scent-
She pulls her ears back, she looks at Truth's Meridian, at Honor's Compass, and she defers.
She is taking her time to regroup. Logic dictates that there's no real reason kinfolk would be in the umbra, that this is an illusion. All of it is. They are charging headlong into what could be a trap.
"I'm trusting you."
[Where the Sidewalk Ends] She may not see it, but before Katherine runs to join her sister and would-be sister, Maddox gives a shake of his head at her words. One could argue that it's just in people's nature to follow the compass needle inside, regardless of what others tell them, never noticing that needle's pointing south-south-west instead of north until it's too late.
And then Katherine's off, and it's just the cranky Cliath and the tolerant Adren, trudging together through the snow as fast as Maddox's paws will carry him. He makes low growling grumbling sounds, his movements are stiff, disjointed.
So, rather than to the Philodox, Maddox says to the Ahroun, "Everyone's path is confusing to those not on it."
[Echoes of Laughter] She pulls to a stop next to Margaret, skidding just a bit with the speed at which she was moving. She looks up to Margaret, watching her expression, giving her time to catch her breath and regroup.
"We're here. You're not alone."
[-singularity-] Is it their imagination, or has the wind died down a little? It doesn't rake quite so hard now. Doesn't stab icy fingers into their nostrils and down their throats, suffocate them, make it hard, even impossible, to take a breath.
It just makes it easier to hear the child sobbing in the distance, though. Mommy, mommy. Why aren't you here, mommy.
Maddox's wounds haven't scabbed over, but they've frozen over -- his fur matted with black liquid, now crusted into black ice. He speaks to Wyrmbreaker, whose eyes are keen and worried on the figures in the distance. Something about confusing paths. Something that makes the Ahroun flick a glance his way.
"I think they're confusing for those on it too," he says, and then snaps his teeth at Maddox's heels to make him go faster. Faster than he thinks he can. "Come on. Move."
[Honor's Compass] Once Midnight Sun stops moving, and the silvery-white wolf catches up to her, she stops and looks at the Gaian steadily with those pale eyes of hers. Utterly silent as Margaret speaks answers to the unasked questions battling in her head. She already knows the answers to them, which suggests she already knows, subconsciously perhaps, what she must do.
The Silver Fang shifts once again; rising up and bracing a hand on either of the other woman's shoulders. She dips a little to ensure eye contact. The wind is less of a roar, now. Katherine's voice is easier heard; not snagged and dragged away. "It is not weakness to need another person, it is only a weakness if you allow that it is. We are nothing if we are not loved, and return love. We need our Kinfolk, because without them, we lose our anchors to humanity.
I once saw some wondrous spirit who spoke this to myself and others.
They, the children we bear, those we love and take as our mates, our friends, our lovers, they matter. Do not look for the only possible answer to a riddle such as this. Look for the pieces around it. She calls to you, he tells you she does not matter. You have a destiny.
These are the pieces, Midnight Sun."
[Where the Sidewalk Ends] "Only--" he gets cut off by Lukas' teeth snapping at his heels. Maddox hops forward, tries to go faster, but he's already going as fast as he can. His front paws crunch through the snow's crust, sink in. He lets out a startled, pained gaspyelp, and stumbles.
"You don't have to stay with me," he snaps. "Go to your pack. I won't die here." Probably. If he even got to say that much.
[Brutal Revelation] "She's a child," are the first words Sinclair has said since Midnight Sun's challenge began. Her breath is steaming. She misses San Diego, the beach, the sun, the male who is mate-but not, she even misses Chicago's pale attempt at springtime. "You needing her more than she needs you is so fucking... fucked up, Margaret. You needing Katherine to tell you what to do about a voice that may or may not be your child is fucked up, too."
She shudders, and shivers, and shifts down to hispo, clothing herself in charcoal-colored fur, shaking off frost.
[-singularity-] "There you go again," Wyrmbreaker snarls. It's a terrible sound, terrible and sudden after so much patience, so much gentleness. "Trying to fight through it alone without help. You against the world. You alone, strong enough to take on the world.
"That's why you got in this mess in the first place, Sidewalk's End. Because you kept it all to yourself and tried to do it alone. So if you actually want to join this pack -- or if you want to survive, period -- you'll stop thinking of it as 'my' pack and start thinking of it as 'our' pack.
"Now move your ass. If you've got breath to talk, you've got breath to move faster. So move."
[Midnight Sun] She shifts up, up and upward still until she's in her breed form. She looks at Katherine and looks at Sarita, and she looks like she's going to be sick. Her skin is more pale than it normally is, and that's saying something. She looks in the distance, looks like she might just frenzy and run in whatever direction her body will carry itself the fastest.
She closes her eyes, and shudders. The wind is dying down.
"We need to move forward," she says, and she swallows, "and we need to try to protect her. And that's what we're doing."
She doesn't say the rest of it, but there is more. There's a whole lot more there, and the female doesn't try to explore it.
[But she thinks it, because she doesn't need to say this to them. She doesn't need to tell them that things will be different that they need to try, but... they might not make it. They might be too late, and this interlude might have been enough to delay them. She doesn't tell it to them, because she hates to think about it. Hates herself for thinking it-
As much guilt as she has over what happened before, the world will move on if this doesn't go well. She'll be hurt, and she'll wail and gnash her teeth but if she lives, then she lives and they have to move on. They tried, she tried, but what's done is done.
And that horrifies her, enough that she barely notices what Sinclair says, namely because it's the truth. Namely because she already knows it. It will hurt, because loss hurts. But she will survive. And even in that, the loss would be no less of a travesty.]
The running picks up, though, because even though she knows, at her core, that she could move on, she doesn't want to.
[Echoes of Laughter] "It's possibly incorrect. But it's not fucked up." As Sinclair has taken Hispo, the Strider has gone back to Homid. She stays low, kneeled on the barren earth for a moment before she rises. "Sinclair is right. She needs you as much and probably more than you need her. But you're not fucked because you have more pride and love for your daughter than you have for yourself."
Maybe she's speaking what she truly and honestly believes. Maybe she's being contrary to provide multiple viewpoints to the other Ragabash...make her sort through the questions to find the answer herself. Both are entirely possible...and hell, maybe it's both.
[Where the Sidewalk Ends] "No," he snaps again. "I wasn't alone on purpose." And it's true. He said to the simulacrum that he wanted these wolves, or something like them. He wanted a pack, a reason to stay. When it insisted that he, they, didn't need their protection, Maddox denied it. He leapt behind Sinclair. He let Sarita pull him aside. He's not strong like they are.
But whatever truth had been in that room, when Maddox was talking to himself, talking aloud to a voice only he could hear, it's been twisted, just as his arrogance has been twisted. Exaggerated. That particular balance has been flipped.
"You excluded me, too. You're all quick to stand up and save your sisters, but what about me? You didn't even try."
[-singularity-] So that's what they do.
In the distance, Wyrmbreaker and Sidewalk's End can see the four they've been separated from -- the four females, by some twist of fate -- start running again. Midnight Sun in the lead, plunging forward, forced to an impossible decision that she tried to renounce, tried to hand off to another in the guise of submission,
only to be rebuffed. Your choice, Katherine said, and god, that Philodox can be as hard as justice itself. Wyrmbreaker can't hear them, but he can read it in their body posture. See it in the way they fur lies, their ears and tails.
Maddox's voice, bitter, wrenches his regard away. His eyes blaze for a moment. Something between flaring anger and a starker, shameful recognition. A burden given; a burden not taken. A duty failed.
There's a beat.
Then, "You're right. But I'm trying now. So shut up and move."
That brief respite from the wind is over. It picks up again, unbearably cold. Cutting right through even their thick fur. It's hard to breathe, hard to see. But somehow -- somehow they make it across that distance, over that hill, down that barren, short slope to where a small child, a very small, very cold child huddles.
"Mommy!" She sees Midnight Sun and flings herself at her, no matter the form, no matter who else approaches or doesn't approach. She wraps her arms around Margaret's neck and buries her face against her chest, sobbing. "Mommy, mommy, you're here, you came, you're here."
[Brutal Revelation] There's a snarl from Sinclair to the Ragabash who is already bound to Perun, but it doesn't make its way into words. Margaret's ready to move, and so they move. Lukas and Maddox catch up, Sinclair hanging back as Katherine and Sarita move on ahead with Midnight Sun. She waits for the males, urges them forward, runs alongside them until they are all a pack again, all varied in form and coloration but running together through the cold.
She stays close to the others when they find Midnight Sun's child, sharing body heat as best they can, but nothing seems to cushion against the warmth. She watches the child throw itself at the Ragabash without fear and that, beyond anything else, gets her back up. She stares, a low growl waiting to be unleashed from her throat.
[-singularity-] ["She watches the child throw itself at the Ragabash without fear and that, beyond anything else, gets her back up." -- I love that Kai caught that.]
to -singularity-
[Echoes of Laughter] She follows closely behind Margaret when she plunges ahead, determined once again not to lose her. She keeps alert...watching the Gaian's back. The rules keep changing, the rooms keep learning. There's no indication of what they might expect to face.
As it turns out, when they come to a stop, what they face is a little girl. Sarita's brow furrows and she moves to get closer to the No-Moon. She's slower than the girl somehow, and she pauses, watching. Maybe this is what she needs...to forgive herself. Or maybe this is a trap. If it is, Admiral Ackbar would be proud. She looks at Kate, then back to the other three, watching them as they come closer.
[Midnight Sun] It's her first thought, it's that it's not done. she's small and cold and as much as she wants to hold her, she needs to keep her warm and being in lupus means she has fur and that's a lot warmer than being in homid. She expects the reaction she receives.
The female eventually shifts to homid, because let's face it being in crinos is a terrible idea. She just holds onto her child and stands up. Margaret turns her back against the wind.
"Come on, baby, we're going home," she says. Looks at those gathered with her. She does a quick look for the nearest exit.
[Brutal Revelation] Sinclair moves directly in front of Midnight Sun. She wonders if the child fears her. They all do. Animals. Mortals. Men don't look at her when she walks by in a bikini, and on some level she's aware she's hot, she's athletic, she's got spectacular breasts. But they all fear her. They all think she's going to eat them. She wonders if this child, seeing her there, feeling her instinct in the air, will flinch.
She wonders if Margaret will stop.
"This what you do when child cry? Abandon pack, leave quest, go be milk-giver?" The question, harshly stated, would come across differently in homid. But she's not in homid.
[-singularity-] There's no exit in sight. No door. Even the house is gone. They're alone in the middle of the tundra, and the darkness is immense.
The child holds tight to Margaret. She shifts to homid, and the girl wraps all four limbs around her, clinging. It's so cold; the wind cuts through her clothes. She dressed for a Chicago spring, not for this. It's getting colder by the minute.
"Mommy, stay," the child says, plaintive. "Mommy, please stay, please don't leave this time, please just stay."
[Where the Sidewalk Ends] So Maddox moves. As fast as he can, too, which isn't much faster than he was going before, but somehow, some way, he and Lukas manage to catch up. There is less grumbling, less snarking, the breath in the Theurge's lungs needed more for the run than for any of that nonsense.
When they reach the child, who flings herself at her mother, Maddox has no words. He just stands on shaking legs, trying not to collapse as he pants heavily.
[Honor's Compass] Sinclair gets in her way.
The males are approaching, and the wind is picking back up again. The child is crying mommy please stay don't leave mommy and Katherine is shivering; her hair a wind blown halo around her shoulders. She's pale as death itself and yet she's still glowing with that blue-tinged light that makes her eyes look so icy; so cruel.
That Philodox is as hard as justice herself.
"Midnight Sun. Where does this piece belong? Are you a mother or a Garou, or are you both? What makes this important to you?"
A beat. "We have nowhere to go, there is no place for this apparition of yours here. You must be stronger than this."
[Midnight Sun] "No, baby, we're leaving... we have to leave," she tells the child. They're alone. It's dark, "I can't keep them there, this is for Gaia, this is for us, this is for you and Grandma and Grandpa." She inhales.
There's no exit, and somehow that makes her stomach turn.
"I can't keep them here, Jill, I'm sorry," she says. She means it and she starts to attempt to pry her daughter off. it's a good minute until she gets her off. The wind has picked up again, "it will be okay. I'll come back."
[Midnight Sun] "I can't stay."
[Where the Sidewalk Ends] [oh yeah light *BSHING!*]
That light trails along with Maddox as they run. Even panting, hell, even when he was damn near unconscious on Lukas' back, he kept that little light glowing.
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[-singularity-] "Mommy, NO!" Oh, it's not easy peeling Jill off. The girl screams. She flails, she clings on, she grabs a handful of hair, an ear, whatever she can. "Mommy, STAY! Mommy, mommy -- "
she's not strong enough to hold on. Her fingers lose their grip, she's peeled off her, she seems to lose all strength as she slumps to the icy tundra.
"Mommy, I'll die without you. I'll die. Mommy, don't leave me. Mommy, nothing is more important than this. That's what you said. You said nothing's more important than me."
Midnight Sun sees it then. There's a door in the distance, behind Jill. She'll have to walk past her to get there. Walk past her, and then onward a hundred yards or more, into the wind. Away from her child. That's where the door is, and it's waiting for her, standing alone and isolated, the hinges bolted to thin air.
[-singularity-] [belated note to self: it's awesome that Kate didn't let Margaret submit to her decision. if she had, she probably would've led them out of here, but Margaret's success would have been much less complete than this way.]
to -singularity-
[Echoes of Laughter] She frowns, arms folding over her chest to protect against the wind. She looks from Midnight Sun to her daughter, wincing. Jesus fuck, she thinks to herself. I had it easy.
She looks to the Ragabash once more. "I know it's hard. But I don't think this is about who you are. I think it's about letting go of what you had been holding onto."
[Midnight Sun] "I did say that," she insists. And it's difficult. She looks away and she closes her eyes again. They have the same eyes, the same stature. Jill's fingers lose their grip and it's not easy pulling her off. She even takes a fist full of pale, pale hair with her. It makes her wince.
"Jill, baby... baby stop... we need to go," she says. She looks at the door, "I love you, Jillian. I love you."
She looks at her slumped there, and she clenches her fists. The female wipes her eyes quickly with the heel of her hand, because she doesn't want
"I wasn't lying, though, nothing is more important than this," she says. her voice shakes, and her body wants to seize up. It even does. There's a hitch, but she passes on. Past the little girl, the one who was wailing, past the one who would die without her. No, wait, not would. Will. She will die without her.
[-1WP, you have to do this]
[-singularity-] "I know it's hard. But I don't think this is about who you are. I think it's about letting go of what you had been holding onto."
-- that was also epically insightful. the idea i kinda had in mind for this one was "don't hold on TOO tight", but i love these other interpretations that are coming up, too.
to -singularity-
[-singularity-] [nother ST note: if margaret hadn't walked on, she would've gradually frozen in place, and the party would have to continue without her. later on she'd have a chance to GO BACK TO CHICAGO, of course, but that, tbh, would have been really fun too *dies*]
to -singularity-
[Honor's Compass] Honor's Compass does not touch Midnight Sun as she might have another packmate, future or past. She does not touch her because she is aware, acutely, painfully aware that this walk must be one the Gaian does alone. Katherine is equally careful to avoid looking at the child.
She steps beyond its slumped form in the snow and walks after Margaret to one side; her hands clasped at the small of her back like an escorting guard -- which really, is what they are to her in this universe of her imagining. The lesson was for her, but in a way it is also for them. To teach, however corrupted the lessons have become. To unite.
"Yes." She says at some point, and then again, like the comfort she refrains from physically. "Yes."
[-singularity-] That first step is unspeakably hard. She can see her daughter's face. She can see desperation and love and panic and fear and -- perhaps worst of all, incomprehension. A young child's inability to understand why, how, why her mother would leave her like this. Leave her to die.
Margaret takes that step, though. And her daughter's face changes. Blanks of all emotion, all sentience. Becomes simply a mask. A simulacrum.
The next step is easier. And the one after it. And the one after that.
The pack falls in around her, behind her. Perhaps she takes some strength from that, or perhaps it's just a blind, bitter march toward a door no mother should ever have to walk through. Yet there she is, and with every step the door is closer. With every step, the wind dies down a little more. The night becomes a little stiller. It's not so cold anymore after a while. Her feet aren't crunching through snow and ice anymore. The starlight is fading; everything is fading to darkness, then a sort of guttering, unstable light.
The room fades in around her. Five sides. Five stained walls, rusted and riveted metal. Some unidentified fluid seeps from the cracks. There's a buzzing and a crackling in the walls, concurrent with the flickering of the lights, as though some circuit somewhere is badly shorted. The door she saw from afar is set into it, waiting for her, just a few paces away.
When she gets there -- if she looks back, if any of them look back -- the tundra is gone long gone. The house is gone. The child and the Elder are both gone. There's just an empty room, not very large, each smaller than the one that came before.
And the exit is waiting.
[Brutal Revelation] For what it's worth -- and it might not be much at all -- Sinclair, standing in front of Margaret, is one of the first who falls in step with her, paws crunching against the frost-hardened snow. Walks with her, and does not look back, even when Midnight Sun might. Waits for her, and matches every step til they reach the next door.
When they manage to move forward, and they find themselves in nothing more than an empty room, Sinclair turns to the Ragabash, brushes against her, and waits.
[Echoes of Laughter] As quick as Sinclair is to fall in step, Sarita is right there along with. She takes a breath as she moves to walk with her fellow Ragabash, smiling supportively before they head along.
[Where the Sidewalk Ends] Maddox falls into step with them, as well as he's able, that little glowing light bobbing like a balloon near him. Is he walking with Unbroken? Hard to say. He limps along, keeping pace as best he can, and when the tundra vanishes and they find themselves in a room, he looks around him, ears flicking this way and that.
After a moment to thaw, the sludge that mars his reddish fur melting back into sludge as sludge is wont to do, he shifts back into his birth form. Wiping his hands uselessly on filthy jeans, he stands upright, still wobbling slightly. But it's easier to walk on two legs, than two good legs and two injured.
[Midnight Sun] She soldiers forward, eyes to the front and focused ont he goal. She steps forward, doesn't think about destiny or sacrifice or purpose, she thinks of walking. Or pressing forward. By the time she is at what should be their exit. the night becomes more still, it's no longer so cold. They're no longer plodding through tundra and frost-
the room fades in, and she finally looks back. There's something cracking, seeping through the bottoms of everything. There's barely enough space and her hands have stopped shaking. she's regained feeling in her fingertips.
"Hey," she says, Sinclair brushes against her and she doesn't even have words. All she can do is give her a tired, tired smile. It's effort but it's genuine. Hits her eyes and pulls at the corners of her mouth, "thanks."
She looks at the rest of them. Tired, sad, so many other things, but there, "thanks."
And, with that, she's on her way. Through the door and out of the room.
[-singularity-] The door swings open when they get there. The tunnel beyond is very narrow, quite dark, spiraling ever downward. There's really only room for single-file. A Crinos would not fit. A Hispo would brush his sides against the walls.
Wyrmbreaker returns to his homid form. He does not offer to carry Maddox again; the Theurge is moving of his own power, and Lukas lets him. If you can't run, crawl. If you can't crawl, be carried.
Can't. Not won't.
Wyrmbreaker comes up beside Katherine instead. He smiles at her, quiet, more rueful than mirthful. "Just you and me left," he says quietly. "This feels familiar."
[Honor's Compass] She has not smiled since before Midnight Sun's door; she offers one now, a match for the ruefulness of his own and leans against him a little; takes his arm and loops her own through it in a gesture at once affectionate and comforting. "Let's hope this time I do not vanish in space and time."
She murmurs, and looks onward, toward the door.
She has no idea of what is coming, but her spine straightens the closer they come. Onward and upward, Katerina! All hail Queen Katherine! her brother's voice in her thoughts; memories of childhood. Grandly ornate sitting rooms and overdone portraits. A crown on her head; a painter stroking out the lines of her face.
[Echoes of Laughter] She looks at the walls as she walks down the hallway, brow raising. The Strider is no claustrophobic, but anyone would consider such an oppressive journey a little bit unnerving. She alert as she walks along, looking ahead.
There's a faint smile when she hears Lukas and Katherine. She doesn't know the reference, it's simply the camaraderie that she finds welcome.
[Brutal Revelation] "Tell us that story, Kate," Sinclair says, and when they look at her, she's in homid again, no longer needing her fur to protect against the harsh winter chill, returning to her vocal birth form.
[-singularity-] Lukas laughs a little. "So sure you'll be next, are you?" he quips, but doesn't dispute it. They've all seemed to have a certain sense of it. Known when they were next, if only in their heart of hearts. Lukas doesn't feel it upon him yet. Katherine seems to.
So they go arm in arm, these two Garou that could not be more different. There's something warm and familial in their interactions; like siblings. Perhaps that's what makes Sarita smile. She understands that sort of bond.
"Yeah," Lukas says. "Tell them the story." Something to pass time with, perhaps, as the passage winds deeper and deeper. Darker and darker.
[Honor's Compass] Katherine seems thoughtful about telling that story here, as if some magic will rub off, and create havoc as they walk down down down the spiral, down the passage way into the bowels of this place. Then, the Silver Fang does begin to re-tell it; her voice strangely comforting with its quaint phrasing, its just so manner about it.
She had always spoken with a certain polish, Katherine. Even as a spoiled rotten Cliath; she'd been able to talk circles around others not always because she was right but because she sounded as if she ought know. "We were all taking part in the Rite of Reawakening, do you all know what this is about? Well, it is to renew the earth once again, to banish as it were the spirits of winter back to their slumber and give rise to those of the new season.
There were seven gates, one for each of us, and we had to, much as we are now, face our own Gatekeeper, pass our own test. Some were easier than others, but then, to each their own degree of difficulty depending on what they needed to understand about themselves.
Needed to face."
A moment, her voice echoes, bouncing ahead and behind their progress.
"My gate came toward the end of our quest, and rather than facing it with the others as we had before, I slipped away." She slides her fingers to her Alpha's, squeezes them briefly. "I was in a forest and there was a man before me. He began to undress, and I thought, with quite lunatic belief that my challenge was to mate with some stranger in the middle of the woods."
There's laughter curling in her throat. She breathes out, shakes it away.
"Then the rain began. A fierce storm, and when I reached for the man; the Gatekeeper, he vanished. I was alone, and wet. Thunder and lightening raged over my head and I began to walk; then to run, growing progressively wetter, and dirtier until I could not go on any longer.
I raged and fought and panicked, and eventually ... let go.
I sat down by a tree and allowed myself to be wet, and dirty and alone." She reflects, as much as she re-tells. "Some things are fading about that time but I remember the moment when I let go. Control was not mine to have and so I lost it.
And found my way out."
[Echoes of Laughter] She grins a little when Lukas suggests that Katherine tell the story. She does so love storytime, after all. Not just because it passes the time; she likes learning more about her packmates, finding out things she never knew before. So when Katherine starts in she listens, staying quiet as Katherine recounts the whole thing.
Of course, the reason for the story being references is obvious, since as Kate said, this crucible seems to have similarities to the one they went through some time back. Sarita looks back at Katherine and Lukas for a moment, amused when Katherine mentions what she thought the challenge would be and then sobering up when she says what it actually was. She lets Katherine finish the story, then looks back once more to smile.
"Nicely told." That's all the Strider says. No quips, no jokes. Just two simple words.
[-singularity-] Tell them the story, Lukas says, as though he knew it all.
Listening, he realizes he doesn't. He just knows it from his perspective. His packmate there one moment; gone the next. Unfindable. Lost somewhere. Gone.
I won't lose her, he remembers Midnight Sun saying. She's here, I won't lose her -- right before she ripped the thing that looked like her daughter away from her body, left her to die in the cold. He turns to look over his shoulder then. He catches Margaret's eye; offers her a wan little smile. Not quite encourage. More just:
That was tough. I know.
"It was a lot like this," he reflects aloud, then. "The Rite of Reawakening. Only this feels ... darker. The Rite of Reawakening tried to teach us. This place -- I think it'd be happier crushing us.
"Still. Maybe treating it the same way isn't a bad idea. Trying to ... learn something, push past some boundary in ourselves. Let go or move on or move above, or ... "
Lukas trails off. He's just thinking aloud anyway, and they've come around another bend; seen the next door. Out of place in this claustrophobic, dark, corroded environment, it's straight out of some storybook palace. A pair of double doors, very tall, graceful and slender rather than imposing, with intricate panels and gilt edging. French rococo style, if any of them know the difference. The wood is blindingly white, the gilding brilliantly gold even in the guttering light, the eerie fae glow of Maddox's gift.
There's no question whose door this is. But only Kate would recognize it the way she does: the doors to the Grand Hall of Calvin de Provence; the court at which she, still a child then, scarcely older than the girl Margaret left behind, was presented.
Lukas squeezes Kate's hand once, then lets go for her to walk ahead. "Guess you were right," he murmurs.
[-singularity-] [let's change that to "Lukas echoes"!]
[Honor's Compass] She expected much.
Anything, really. But seeing those doors that she's walked through all of twice in pomp and ceremony -- once as a child of barely five years old, full of wonderment and energy and the second --
the King has a message for you, Katherine of the Bellamonte House
Silver, polished and cold as death sinking through her skin, deep into her.
-- to be presented as a lamb to slaughter. "Ah," she murmurs with the slightest catch in her throat; calling to her pack-mates as she walks ahead of them. "You were always curious about the palaces, Lukas. Welcome to the door of Calvin de Provence; King of House Gleaming Eye."
She gives them a moment; and then pushes both open with slow deliberation.
[Brutal Revelation] [eeeeeeeeeeeee]
