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[wraithwitch.livejournal.com]

Arizona.

“I need t’talk t’Glory,” Ash told her mother.

The Legend raised an eyebrow. “Hello t’you too, darlin’,” she said wryly. “I hear stories o’what’s been goin’ on with you an’ it sounds a damn mess t’me. Kit’s bitin’ his tail with worry an’ you turn up an’ that’s all you got t’say?” She fished out a bottle of moonshine and a couple of mugs. “Sit y’tail down, sugar,” she commanded with an easy smile that covered some of the steel in her voice.

Ash pulled self consciously at the sleeves of her leather jacket, looking unhappy.

“K’ib t’gansuul haal teret Vadjebak en emdjeret Aneknebet netjeret-ma.”

Silhouette had been unstoppering the bottle; she snapped round in some surprise and then stared at her daughter for a long moment. “You’re right,” she said after a while, her expression closed and troubled. “I think you’d better go talk t’Glory. She’s up in her old spot on the west ridge. An’ when you’re done you can come talk t’me.”

Ash nodded but said nothing, because until she knew which way the future would play out there was nothing more to be said.

Aunt Glory had visions – that was never in dispute. The trouble really came, with the fact that Glory was Qualmi. She believed that everything was a riddle and the world was there for her to solve, but that didn’t mean she believed that she should tell anyone else. Many bastet over the years had sought out the Lynx in the wilderness surrounding the Sept of the Fearless Heart, seeking answers to riddles, begging for prophecy. In all that time, Glory had only answered three of them. Plenty of truth and wisdom had she handed out to Silhouette and the Sept of her own accord – but really, that was the whole point. One was given wisdom by the Qualmi, but one got nothing if one asked.

Ash knew this, but was breaking the cardinal rule anyway. Her need was enough to risk it.

Her venerable and crotchety Aunt regarded her with large eyes mottled with verdigris. “What do you wish to ask?” Glory growled.

“Tjen ma’et se k’haal teret Vadjebak? Tjen ma’et se Ka’nen? Tjen ma’et K’emdjeret Aneknebet netjeret-ma?”

Glory blinked, a long feline stare, slowly veiled and unveiled again. At last she sighed and shifted into crinos – the closest she ever came to human when speaking with the Folk or other shifters. Glory viewed her shapes as some people viewed clothes: there were times when they were appropriate and times when they were not. Being two legged to Glory’s mind was the equivalent of wearing tattered demins for clearing out swill – it was only fit for the pigsty. She concentrated for a moment, and in her hands appeared a bundle of pale deerskin. She set this on the ground and unwrapped it with care, revealing a set of cards.

Something within Ash that had been wound tight enough to break, relaxed as she realised her aunt would give her a reading despite her usual reticence. Ash didn’t know all the meanings of Glory’s deck, but she knew they were divided into four households, each with a creative and destructive side. Treasures could be golden or rusted, cups contain water or poison, blades be sheathed or bare and branches be flowering or stripped into a cudgel. Beyond that were cards that depicted ideas such as Battle or the Sun, Nala or Quests.

The deck was cut and sorted and cut again, not with the grace of a Los Vegas dealer but with the stolid attention of a curator reordering artefacts within their collection. “First question,” she prompted.

“Tjen ma’et se k’abes en veck Vadjebak-Calesh?” Ash whispered.

Glory shifted the cards – or, perhaps it was more accurate to say the cards shifted beneath her paws, three standing out from the deck. They were turned over and the Qualmi regarded them with some surprise. She tipped her whiskers to the first card showing a tired soldier weighed down by his armour, doggedly carrying a tarnished orb from a battle field. “Knight of Rust – reluctant duty, heavy burdens, joyless victory.” The second card showed a youth half in shadow holding a narrow dagger and with a coloured coat half on half off. “Squire of Blades – one who turns his coat and plays both sides, moving between shadow and light.” The last card showed a woman sitting crosslegged, dressed in rags of hide, feathers and bone and with ochre markings on her skin. “Witch – supreme magic. Secrets. One with the power to heal the land.”

Ash felt like tiny silver fishes were swimming in her stomach. “Tjen ma’et se Ka’nen?”

The cards moved again like a grifter’s game in slow motion until three had singled themselves out. The first showed a girl ringed around with swords, unable to move without impaling herself. “Page of Blades. Trapped. Indecision. No clear path or answer.” The second card showed a soldier, wounded and leaning on his shield but still with sword in hand, warding against an unseen enemy. “Knight of Blades. Opposition – a bloody fight, a high price for victory.” The final card showed a giant black cat with gore-drenched paws and madness in its eyes. “Calesh. Destruction. Strife.”

The silver fishes swimming in her gut became an entire shoal, making her feel queasy. “Tjen ma’et K’emdjeret Aneknebet netjeret-ma?”

One card flicked itself out with a swiftness that bordered on contempt. “The Broken Riddle – don’t ask questions you already have the answer to,” Glory translated shortly. There was silence for several moments, the only sound being that of the land as the wind and creatures moved across it beneath an endless blue sky. Glory’s tail twitched and the tips of her ears flicked in what might have been impatience. “You have a final question. So ask it, little one.”

Ash lowered her eyes, glancing blankly at her own lap as she knelt on the earth. She did have one final question which was as important to her as the first three. However it was a selfish question, and so she had held her tongue. But Glory was Bastet and had known Ash from the moment she and Kit were born, she had no issue with her niece asking questions of a more personal nature.

“K’An idre Hejdu’at? Y’know, picket fence an’ all?”

Glory’s eyes showed a flicker of warmth and understanding as she allowed the cards to arrange themselves beneath her claws. The first picture showed a feral blood-soaked woman prowling in the shadows, hunting prey. “Vengeance: blood and madness.”

Ash winced, her mouth narrowing into an unhappy pale line.

The second card was dealt beside the first. A regal man dressed in gold and emerald sat in state. “The Lord. Leadership and stability.”

There was a certain smug unshakability to the Lord that Ash found all too familiar; some of her unhappiness faded into sardonic amusement.

The third card landed across the other two, it showed a smiling young girl holding out a silver chalice filled with water. “Child of Spring Water. The beginning of all that is good.”

Ash let out a long shakey breath, trying not to grin. She still didn’t like her path – not a damn inch of it – but she’d walk barefoot through hell if she knew paradise was on the other side and would do so twice if she knew she could drag the world with her. She bowed her head low to her aunt. “Thank you.”

Glory tidied her cards, wrapping them carefully back in their deerskin cloth. “What are you going to do now, daughter of Legends?”

Ash’s mood dipped once more as she though of all she planned to do and all it would mean. “I’m gonna go talk t’mama. An’ Kit. Tell ‘em what I mean t’do an’ why. So maybe someone’ll understand an’ not hate me for it.”

Glory stretched and curled down into her Lynx form. “You know as well as I that to the Folk, what matters in the end is if you win and can swear the battle was worth it. So choose your battle, Ashnemain of the Silver Cord, and we shall keep your story true.”

Ash’s head tipped to the side, quizzical and amused. “What did you call me?”

Glory smiled, wide and sharp enough to shame the Cheshire Cat. “Oh, I heard you had some name given you by some crazy types who sing t’Calesh an’ live under a lake.” She made an odd snarling noise, an old woman tut-tutting at other’s foolishness. “Ain’t how the Folk see you, ain’t who you really are neither.”

Ash’s lips twisted as she tried not to laugh; the fingers of her left hand played with the end of the finely wrought silver coils that looped many times around her wrist. She had been away too long – she’d forgotten that wonderful and irritating Bastet habit her Aunt excelled at so well, that ‘you may think you know, but really, I know better’. No wonder the wolves snarled so much. “Aunt Glory,” she said with some amusement and complete sincerity, “I really do love you very much.”

The lynx swished its tail and huffed, playing at being the unswayed and grumpy old crone. “Go talk to your mama, girl, and that no good brother too. You give words like that to them, if it’s in your heart.”

Ash bowed her head again - “Meri-et-ej,” – before scrambling to her feet, shifting to her sabretooth form and bounding back towards the Sept of the Fearless Heart.

=======
Japan.

Ash did not introduce herself at the gate as was fitting, nor did she send word to any of the Gi’an. She drifted as air through the umbra like a thief, her only greeting to the kami who guarded the wards. She didn’t do it to be rude or to provoke; she did it because the House had not been her home since Yuki died, and considering this was probably the last time she would visit she had no intention of letting it become so again.

At the Ancestor’s shrine she lit incense and gave offerings of sake and rice for Yuki, for the Venerable-Dead-Guy who’d taught her about Kitsune and the East, and now for the Old Fox of the West. She said prayers for their souls and wished them strength, trying not to think of Jamie strutting his way through the spirit realms. Then she unbound her hair and kowtowed in front of the newest memorial stone as a flurry of snowflakes fell – although in disdain or greeting was impossible to tell.

Ash didn’t suppose anyone else could see those flecks of ice crystal, nor feel them burn cold on skin: tiny specks of frozen nothing. With numb fingers she undid the jade token at her belt. She spoke quietly in Kitsune-go at the memorial for some time, her words unpolished but true, and when at last she stood, her jade token adorned Yuki’s grave.

“Ashi-chan?”

Ash looked at the old woman with iron-grey hair and dark fox-bright eyes. She bowed in greeting.

“Ashi-chan,” Yee Lin asked quietly. “What are you doing?”

“Leaving.”

“And will you return?”

“No.”

“Might we know your reasons?”

“The Old Fox of the West is Dead. In six months, this Age ends. Soon I will become the Akuma whose mask I wear, and I will not dishonour this House.”

Yee Lin opened her mouth and then closed it again, a frown deepening the wrinkles on her forehead. She gave a little sigh, an unhappy old lady huff of air. “Are there any words you wish me to pass on to Yeshi or the other Gi’an of the House?”

She had meant to say nothing more, but under Yee Lin’s gaze her voice betrayed her. “Please tell them... please tell them that I love them for all the kindness they have done me, the lessons they taught me and the home they gave me. Tell them also that what I do, I do for the love of Gaia and the prayer of a Seventh Age. And if, in the times to come they could remember those two things, I would be infinitely grateful.”

=======
Sri Lanka.

The wiry old man in the tan and ivory robes bowed to the restless ghost before him. “I have given your message,” he said precisely in strangely accented English. “Regretfully, your invitation has been declined. It is not fitting for the living to meet with the dead.”

Ash wondered if she was physically vibrating her rage was so great. But better anger, better burning rage than despair. “You tell my brother,” she snarled, “to get his tail down here to meet me in a timely fuckin’ fashion. Because if he does not, I will come fetch him, even if I have to war with all of Sri Lanka to do it.”

In his time of serving the Warlord the man had heard many threats from many people. It was very rare that he believed the individual capable of carrying them out. This pale young woman with the henna-red hair was an exception however. She had been the Lantern of the Jade Sentai when the Warlord was called to fight for the Emperor of Heaven. Even as a ghost, her threats were not to be dismissed lightly. He bowed again. “I will deliver your words,” he promised, and hurried away on feet as brown and leathery as his sandals.

Kit turned up ten minutes later, his expression somewhere between pleased and painfully awkward, his white mourning clothes ill-fitting his usual disposition.

“I am NOT fuckin’ dead!” she all but screamed at him as soon as he came within six foot of her.

“I know,” he agreed.

“Then unless you mourn another take that damn white rag off and quit mockin’ me,” she spat, and burst into tears.

Kit looked deeply unhappy and struggled out of his shirt and robe as he closed the distance between them. “Senet – bradoar,” he soothed, hugging her. “I’m sorry, really I am. It wasn’t my choosing. The Warlord has proclaimed you dead – so I must be in mourning...”

“Why?” she demanded, sniffing, although in truth Tolly had told her.

Kit hugged her tighter. “Because... because he feels you’ve betrayed us with your choice of allies.”

She pulled away from him, fresh anger burning up her tears. “I never stopped following the Mandates – and according to the House it was the will of Heaven I marry Rkliesh – who the hell am I betraying?”

“I don’t know,” Kit admitted. “He’s in a temper. It’s impossible to argue anything with him when he gets like that.”

“If he don’t like my husband he can go take it up with Helios an’ Luna. Selene especially,” Ash added with some venom. “She damn well knew who I’d end up with the moment she gave me my tattoos – bitch.”

Kit frowned, suddenly still and greatly surprised at the strength of feeling in his twin’s voice. Was she so miserable? “He – he makes you unhappy?”

She closed her eyes and shook her head as if trying to shake off her bitterness. “No.” A half smile, almost a laugh despite herself. “No, he don’t.” A tired shrug. “I am just so damn sick of having to explain myself, my choices: defend them over and over to so many people who don’t want to listen anyway.”

Kit stepped forward and hugged her again. “I always listen,” he reminded her, kissing the crown of her head. “Meri-et ej – even when you’re grumpy as hell.” She made a half-hearted growling noise and hugged him back; and Kit smiled, knowing that things were healed between them. He nuzzled at her, poking his nose at the side of her head and mussing her hair. “Hey. You. Did you really travel all those miles just to tell me white ain’t my colour?”

She smiled crookedly against his shoulder – white really wasn’t his colour – even only wearing the loose linen trousers it made him look like some stupid manga character. “No, that just brought me here faster. I had other things to talk about.” She sighed, not liking a single piece of the news she bore. She told them both together in the hope he’d ignore whichever was least worrying, although she wasn’t sure which that should be. “The Old Fox of the West is dead... And I release you from your vow.”

Kit’s brow furrowed in sorrow. “Perima en Hejdu’at,” he murmured, a Bastet blessing on the soul’s journey. “I will inform the Warlord if he doesn’t already know.” Although if he did already know that might explain some of his epically bad temper... He paused. “What vow?” And then his eyes widened in remembrance. Kashaen: se k’Ashura ti meh ipshen veck. Then, being Kit, and an eternal optimist, he grinned. “Good. It was a damn stupid vow anyways.” It was only then that his smile faltered and it occurred to him to ask, “Why?”

"T’gansuul haal teret Vadjebak."

He laughed at her, his twin so pale and serious. Wasn’t it just like her? Like when Khara had gone to kill Mithras – or the Leviathan – or the demon - or... “Wait – haal? Nen veck?” She shook her head, and Kit felt his joy turn cold within him. “You spoken to mama about this?”

“Yeah. And Glory. She said it would save the world.”

“Selene have mercy,” he swore.

Her smile twitched as if pulled by an invisible thread. There were a lot of people in this world she was willing to give up; Kit was not one of them, but soon she would have to. “Don’t worry,” she said, her voice brusque, trying to fool herself. “I’m seein’ if I can give the Folk a present before I go. Kinda like an exchange. It’ll be fine,” she brazened.

Kit hugged her fiercely. “Inenqed!” he scolded. “What gift could possibly replace you?”

She blinked, her eyes stinging again. Given the example shown by the Warlord of Sri Lanka, she had a feeling most of the Folk would consider it a very good trade.

=======
Scotland.

She had been minding the Alabama metis and kin again. There was something wonderfully simple about their behaviour; it was almost soothing to know that Marybeth Blue Grass would – without fail – chew on the end of Ash’s hair if she sat down for longer than ten minutes. Dillon would require a sharp slap at least once a night as he forgot Ash was the only thing she allowed him to set fire to. And Caleb would jump Tammy on the hour every hour like some demented clockwork given even half a chance.

It was crazy, but it was the blind crazy of a week-old kitten, not the willing crazy of a sept-full of Garou, and for that reason she found it relaxing.

It was well past midnight when the Tannasg Rhi appeared looking like a harried chemistry professor whose tailor had been a nineteenth centaury grave-robber. His ivory tweed suit was rumpled and one sleeve had virulently green ichor staining it. He peered over his spectacles at the boy trying to set fire to Ash’s foot and the young wolf drooling and chomping on her hair. His beloved paid little attention to either of these and was instead remonstrating with another metis child and calling out that if he wanted to kill something he could damn well get his tail over here and try to kill her.

“Good lord, do you wash your hair in some sort of lupine equivalent of catnip?” he enquired as soon as the shouting and snarling had stopped. He didn’t give her time to answer, but asked a different question. “Are you expecting a visitor?”

“No?” She reached over and tried to untangle the wolf cub from her hair. “Marybeth – will you quit that now – you won’t have room for super...”

“Well apparently they’re hanging around the lake and asking the night sky after you. Some of the boys are discussing going to eat them.”

Still untangling an uncooperative cub that was now trying to nest, Ash was barely listening. “Meet...?”

“No – eat, honestly, what d’you take them for?”

“Where’s...?”

“The popcorn?” he said brightly. “I haven’t got it yet. Are you more of a salt or a sugar girl?”

Her tone was incredulous and mildly harassed above the quiet whining sob of an aggrieved cub. “Why would...”

“Quite right – too prosaic - something else then. Wormwood? Bloodstock? Marshmallow? Raspberry compote?” The view of his wife’s legs and the mention of raspberry compote briefly derailed his train of thought. (Everybody died. But they died happy.)

In the ensuing lull, Ash was able to intercede at last. “Who is at the lake and why are they askin’ after me?”

The Tannasg Rhi waved his hand. “Oh, some peculiar girl. How should I know? You do seem to attract the most extraordinary sort of people,” he complained airily.

From her lowly yet imperious station, Ash raised an eyebrow and gave him a look, half amused and wholly incredulous at the blatant effrontery of the man.

Dillon had at last succeeded in setting Ash’s foot on fire. He clapped, delighted.

The Dian Rua Callieach spared him a smile and a pat on the head before standing up; her hair in disarray, her right foot on fire and her arms full of squirming cub. “Fine, I'll go see what the hell they want. Would you ensure this lot behave ‘til I get back?”

The Tannasg Rhi tried to appear scandalised but the expression kept slipping at the edges. He grinned. “Of course. It always pays to check on the younger generation.” Dillon was looking at him. The Ghost King of Mile Deep looked back with eyes as old as the land, and, like the sort of conjurer you would never wish to meet at a party, pulled a handful of green fire from his pocket.

Still with a wolf cub in her arms Ash walked away down the tunnel, the fire on her foot burning redder for a while and then smouldering out as she walked.

“If you happen to find any raspberry compote on your travels...” he called after her.

Ash’s expression skewed into bemusement. “I’m bettin’ that’s for sex, whimsy, or a ritual of unspeakable horror,” she whispered to Marybeth. “Or maybe cookin’. Probably sex though.” The cub blinked and continued to gnaw a fistful of her hair, making contented growling sighs. Ash rolled her eyes. She wasn’t even entirely certain what compote was (jam? pie? sauce?) let alone why it was required, but she had no doubt she’d find out later that night.