The return that nobody wants..
Feb. 21st, 2009 05:13 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
flamma-lupus.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
zg_shadowsBrought about by discussion with st's and the ratkin effects finally coming out.
It’s been a long few weeks, for everybody, I’ve steered clear of everybody who I figured would have more important things to do, which to be honest I’d hope was just about everybody I knew. All I could do was make sure the house stays upright and secure, and keep an eye out for more warped black figures on the heath. Not seen any for the last few days and nobody’s come kicking the door down to kill us so I can only assume the attack was repelled. I went to the chantry once or twice, all on occasions I could be sure not to bump into others, now isn’t the time to be explaining… the new things in my life. It’s important, but not that important.
But today, somethings bugging me. It’s not that niggling “duck” warning as a knife appears at my back, it’s something more visceral, something deeper down inside, and no matter how many trips I make past the one mirror remaining in the house, it just won’t fade. I even try changing outfits, but even that won’t quell the feeling that somethings wrong. I’d go up to the caern and ask but that’s just a reminder of whats gone before, and I know I’ll be put to some pathetic task like stomping back and forth in the cold to make sure nobody comes who shouldn’t, a job not only far beneath me now, but one I couldn’t achieve even if I tried..
It’s quieter now, and the rampage that was London has quelled into a continuous unease, small gangs looting and pillaging, criminals taking advantage of the fact that the emergency services are not only suffering their own terrible losses, but also trying to return order, still trying to dig people out of the wreckages of their homes. But it’s no less dangerous, there’s very little to reign in those who would choose to take advantage, there’s even less to stop those who are organised. I’d swap one pissed off ratkin going down my street gladly for the gang of kids round the corner who’ve systematically worked their way up the road from house to house taking what they want. It’s a darker horror now, not the horror of untamed beasts running wild, but the brutal underlying savagery and opportunism of humanity cut free.
Third change of outfits and still, I can’t settle, my hands shake a little, there’s just that feeling of sickness deep in my stomach. I figure somewhere somebody is up to something stupid, and that always worries me, so having made sure I’ve got the right shoes on I decide to go to my first port of call for “who’s being an idiot this time”, I cover my bases by shuffling my way round the house to the “dolcet tones” of Hilary Duff singing “I am”, but today I just can’t get the right feeling behind it, before stepping through the portal hiding in our linen closet and out of the chantry building making damn sure not to bump into Kreya as I go, because that’s really not a discussion I need when I’m not at 110%.
I make my way to the temporary recording studio, the usual one having suffered a vermin problem that your usual mousetraps just won’t counteract, but she’s not there, nothing new, they’re used to me missing her by 15 minutes or so, I forget she’s not one for always taking the quick route home, determined to try and do a little good out there.
I start to re-trace her steps back to the house, which in all honesty is much harder than it seems when walking through the remenants of a warzone, when she could have felt called off down any one of a thousand side streets, when I haven’t got a nose which knows, in my head I start to prepare a beautifully eloquent explanation of why now really isn’t the time to go wandering.
When one hour has passed, and I’m running out of side streets, my patience is equally lacking and the explanation has become more of a monologue, a firm but caring scolding for being so fluff headed as to be taking a stroll through the british attempt at bosnia.
When two hours have passed, and just in the distance I can see the trees of the heath, black against the indigo sky, I suspect some of the swearwords I plan to unleash on her haven’t been heard in nearly a century, I may even have to raise my voice, how dare she put me through this worry and the strife of having to go trapsing the streets of this damned hellhole to find her, who does she think she is?
The world warps a little, but I’m far too distracted by my righteous indignation and anger at her being so bloody inconsiderate to pay any attention to it at all.
It takes me another twenty five minutes to find her, enough time for me to have run the speech through my head to make sure it’s perfectly grammatically correct and carries exactly enough impact to make my point, I want much more than apologies from her, I want her oath she’ll never be this damn stupid again.
She’d been dead long enough to go cold when I finally find her, but that wasn’t stopping them, some filthy alleyway with five or six of the local youths deciding to while away their night. The weirdness I felt earlier would have made more sense to me then, if anything did, but it was all a blur of anger, hatred, pain, blood and flesh, ripping, burning, warping. A sensation that stays with you forever but that you’ll never truly remember except in dreams. That warm sickly taste running over your tongue, everything slowing down around you to a crawl, but also shooting forward in almost stop motion filming…screams, terror.
When it’s over, there’s nothing else left to do…I stoop down and pick up her limp body, so small and delicate looking now, and running on autopilot I do what seems instinctively right. There are no words now.
**
The moonbridge opens near the heart of the caern, and a large black crinos form, still dripping in the blood of others steps through, lowering the body it carries to the floor almost reverently as its form shrinks and warps its way down to lupus.
Marcus lifts his head to the stars, and starts to howl.
It’s been a long few weeks, for everybody, I’ve steered clear of everybody who I figured would have more important things to do, which to be honest I’d hope was just about everybody I knew. All I could do was make sure the house stays upright and secure, and keep an eye out for more warped black figures on the heath. Not seen any for the last few days and nobody’s come kicking the door down to kill us so I can only assume the attack was repelled. I went to the chantry once or twice, all on occasions I could be sure not to bump into others, now isn’t the time to be explaining… the new things in my life. It’s important, but not that important.
But today, somethings bugging me. It’s not that niggling “duck” warning as a knife appears at my back, it’s something more visceral, something deeper down inside, and no matter how many trips I make past the one mirror remaining in the house, it just won’t fade. I even try changing outfits, but even that won’t quell the feeling that somethings wrong. I’d go up to the caern and ask but that’s just a reminder of whats gone before, and I know I’ll be put to some pathetic task like stomping back and forth in the cold to make sure nobody comes who shouldn’t, a job not only far beneath me now, but one I couldn’t achieve even if I tried..
It’s quieter now, and the rampage that was London has quelled into a continuous unease, small gangs looting and pillaging, criminals taking advantage of the fact that the emergency services are not only suffering their own terrible losses, but also trying to return order, still trying to dig people out of the wreckages of their homes. But it’s no less dangerous, there’s very little to reign in those who would choose to take advantage, there’s even less to stop those who are organised. I’d swap one pissed off ratkin going down my street gladly for the gang of kids round the corner who’ve systematically worked their way up the road from house to house taking what they want. It’s a darker horror now, not the horror of untamed beasts running wild, but the brutal underlying savagery and opportunism of humanity cut free.
Third change of outfits and still, I can’t settle, my hands shake a little, there’s just that feeling of sickness deep in my stomach. I figure somewhere somebody is up to something stupid, and that always worries me, so having made sure I’ve got the right shoes on I decide to go to my first port of call for “who’s being an idiot this time”, I cover my bases by shuffling my way round the house to the “dolcet tones” of Hilary Duff singing “I am”, but today I just can’t get the right feeling behind it, before stepping through the portal hiding in our linen closet and out of the chantry building making damn sure not to bump into Kreya as I go, because that’s really not a discussion I need when I’m not at 110%.
I make my way to the temporary recording studio, the usual one having suffered a vermin problem that your usual mousetraps just won’t counteract, but she’s not there, nothing new, they’re used to me missing her by 15 minutes or so, I forget she’s not one for always taking the quick route home, determined to try and do a little good out there.
I start to re-trace her steps back to the house, which in all honesty is much harder than it seems when walking through the remenants of a warzone, when she could have felt called off down any one of a thousand side streets, when I haven’t got a nose which knows, in my head I start to prepare a beautifully eloquent explanation of why now really isn’t the time to go wandering.
When one hour has passed, and I’m running out of side streets, my patience is equally lacking and the explanation has become more of a monologue, a firm but caring scolding for being so fluff headed as to be taking a stroll through the british attempt at bosnia.
When two hours have passed, and just in the distance I can see the trees of the heath, black against the indigo sky, I suspect some of the swearwords I plan to unleash on her haven’t been heard in nearly a century, I may even have to raise my voice, how dare she put me through this worry and the strife of having to go trapsing the streets of this damned hellhole to find her, who does she think she is?
The world warps a little, but I’m far too distracted by my righteous indignation and anger at her being so bloody inconsiderate to pay any attention to it at all.
It takes me another twenty five minutes to find her, enough time for me to have run the speech through my head to make sure it’s perfectly grammatically correct and carries exactly enough impact to make my point, I want much more than apologies from her, I want her oath she’ll never be this damn stupid again.
She’d been dead long enough to go cold when I finally find her, but that wasn’t stopping them, some filthy alleyway with five or six of the local youths deciding to while away their night. The weirdness I felt earlier would have made more sense to me then, if anything did, but it was all a blur of anger, hatred, pain, blood and flesh, ripping, burning, warping. A sensation that stays with you forever but that you’ll never truly remember except in dreams. That warm sickly taste running over your tongue, everything slowing down around you to a crawl, but also shooting forward in almost stop motion filming…screams, terror.
When it’s over, there’s nothing else left to do…I stoop down and pick up her limp body, so small and delicate looking now, and running on autopilot I do what seems instinctively right. There are no words now.
**
The moonbridge opens near the heart of the caern, and a large black crinos form, still dripping in the blood of others steps through, lowering the body it carries to the floor almost reverently as its form shrinks and warps its way down to lupus.
Marcus lifts his head to the stars, and starts to howl.
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