Feb. 3rd, 2009

[identity profile] ksirafai.livejournal.com
The room is untidy and dirty with the ground-in dirt of time and carelessness, but the walls and ceiling are gloriously patterned with spray paint and splatter. There are piles of free CDs with piles of cheap candles lit and burnt out slumping over them. There are bin bags filled with clothes, some of which haven't been ruined yet. But no one's looking at that right now. )

Requiem

Feb. 3rd, 2009 09:19 am
[identity profile] ksirafai.livejournal.com
Summerwolf whimpered, tugging at my sleeve. If I don't follow her, I won't see what she's showing me.

Patchesfeather, Alpha, boy-child, friend, has human arms around me and gives me strength.

Unicorn's Gift wraps around me, keeps me from screaming - just. )
[identity profile] ksirafai.livejournal.com
In the window of Biers. Biers, reputedly, has the best insurance you can buy ('even for acts of God') but no one's entirely sure what this is going to get covered by.

Collateral damage )
[identity profile] kathminchin.livejournal.com
Flames licked the sky. Most of the row was on fire, the residents staring in dull terror as their homes were destroyed. Some had cases by their feet, a hammering on the door and a gabbled explanation from one of their neighbours having come just in enough time to let them grab something and then run from the attack.

The ratkin had vanished now, going on to new targets, and the people had cautiously crept back from the bushes in the heath where they’d hidden; their saviour standing at the entrance shotgun in hand. She’d vanished now, and the huddled group were too busy wondering what the future held to wonder where she’d gone.

In the back garden of one of the houses a great silver wolf stared at the flames, reflecting orange in its eyes. It howled once, a long ululating mournful sound that echoed in the darkness and then, turning its back decisively, padded off alone into the night.
[identity profile] adze.livejournal.com
This had been the first of them. The first place he'd bought when moving into the City. It had been home, for a long time, before he'd settled down and branched out.

And now? Two days ago, the building had been trashed - caught up in an explosion that had damaged the foundations, and the flames had licked up the building, trapping so many inside.

Amid the wreckage, Kieran knelt by a cabinet, and reached behind it. The safe in the wall was fused shut, but looked intact. Not bothering with the key, he wrenched the door off with just brute force.

Old keepsakes and momentoes fell out, and Kieran stuffed them into a bag. Reminders of people he'd known, of things he'd done. Even things left over from when he'd been mortal. Not much. A few letters, scorched from the heat, a set of tools from his first dig, and a ring he’d never given.

Standing, Kieran crossed to where the window had been, and looked out on the view for the last time. If he couldn’t save anything else, at least he still had these.
[identity profile] dainul.livejournal.com
Across the river, the clock begins to chime, and I stop to listen. There's something reassuring about the iconic chimes, something that says "I'm still here, it'll take more than that to wipe out one of the triatic powers." As much as anything, it's reassuring to see that at least some of the landmarks of London's umbra have survived. Below the clock, the fires blaze amid the rubble, as hordes of Wyld- and Wyrm-aligned spirits dance through the flickering light. I'm not surprised to see a lot of rat and crinos ratkin-shaped banes amid the fires. With the destruction they've wrought, their images will live in the collective conscious for a long time. Well, relatively speaking, at any rate, I think, as my gaze is drawn upwards.

Either way, Westminster isn't a safe place in the Umbra any more, so I move on, leaving the chiming clock behind, suspended above the rubble on the strength of billions of postcards, millions of memories. I idly wonder how long it will last, but the answer lies in the chimes. "I will be here," they say "to chime out the final hours. I will be here for as long as there is a London to call to."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Navigation is difficult now. Dangerous, too with all the well-fed Wyrm spirits around, gorged on destruction and chaos. So far they've seemed quite keen to leave me be, and I wonder idly if they know I was there. Either way, I don't take chances, but the real challenge is in the landscape. With the Weaver crippled, the clear, static locations have gone, leaving me trying to navigate by distance and by atmosphere, but even that is a lot harder now. At least it's easier to peek.

Aside from Big Ben (whatever the historians might want to call it, that's what its name is), I've seen almost no Weaver presence in the Umbra at all. This worries me. I can feel Quickrunner's joy at the destruction of the man-hell in the back of my mind, This worries me, too. I find myself hoping, not that the Talons and others can now focus their attentions on the Wyrm, but that we don't loose too many as they revel too much in the Wyrm's work.

A slight change in texture underfoot catches my eye, and I withdraw my foot where it was about to crush a small spider spirit. A weaver drone, hiding, lost without instructions. I bend down and give it a small offering of Gnosis, and it looks at me, confused for a moment before retreating deeper into the rubble. The world will need some spiders in the months ahead.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Camden. For all the chaos of the day, I know this ground well. It's my territory, and as such the Weaver has never held too strong a sway here. Perhaps that will need to change. I shall see how things look once the immediate firestorm has settled down. I've already checked the Umbra, so I slip across in an alley I know quite well. I smile as the spirit world slides out of focus but does not disappear, the Gift still a novelty I remain to get used to. I shift up, loosing my fur, and step out into the street.

Firstly, I notice the shops, many of them smashed in as panic swept the city. I continue onward, and something else occurs to me as the people around shy back from me and the Rage quietly burning within. There are people. It seems like the rats were trying to wipe out the Weaver, but as there was so little of it here, those who could see the difference had gone elsewhere. A fire was burning, still, and there were shattered buildings and bodies around, but less so than some of the other parts of the city.

I see a couple of men, blood-stained suits trying to lay out the bodies and I walk on past. I see a group of people, refugees really, huddling within the shell of a looted store, sheltering from the rain, and overhear a young woman trying to explain to some children who clearly aren't hers where Mummy's gone, and I walk on past. I see four industrious homeless residents setting up a makeshift kitchen to cook some of the looted food over the rubble-fires while a fifth starts to take some of their offerings to share with those huddled around, and I walk on past.

I stop, in the middle of a crossroads, and listen. Amidst the sobs and cries, the crackling fires and occasional rumbles as another building succumbs there are other sounds. People are beginning to pick up the pieces, the spirits are beginning to calm down.
[identity profile] lanfykins.livejournal.com
But you have to try. )

(Still a bit of a work in progress, so comments/ suggestions welcome)
[identity profile] lapinenoireuk.livejournal.com
"and this is a full report of the creatures involved with descriptions and details of any weird abilities that they displayed, Maam".

Archie passed the report to his superior's Secretary - ignoring the sub-conscious voice that was taunting him "Why Doctor Muir, what a terrible liar you are - took an oath to hold back the monsters, didn't you, swore to prevent another slaughter and what do you do ... you help cause one. So much for your Hippocratic Oath, so much for your great principles - one sniff of life and you snatch at it like the lowest opium fiend. Such great ethics and worth naught in the end".

Archie shook his head and tried to block out his shadow's gloating voice.
"I'm sorry Maam, I was distracted for a moment, my apologies".

She looked across at him, and, with a sigh, repeated herself "And what is your recommendation, Dr Muir. What do I take to my superiors as a plan of action?”

He coughed - thinking in passing that some habits lasted longer than others.
"Yes Maam - as you'll see I've listed the ones that might be innocent of this atrocity but the others, ... I believe that we should weather the storm then hunt them down and ..... deal with them".

She gave him another quizzical look and a pregnant pause that just needed to be filled.

He blurted out "We should find them and ..... then …. we should kill them ALL“.

With that he stood waiting for her response and tried to ignore the hateful hissing voice in his head as it laughed maniacally ""Well bravo! Archie, my boy, I always knew we had some common ground after all."
[identity profile] nadriel.livejournal.com
Si was wondering exactly which deities he'd pissed off in some incarnation or other. First up, he'd died. Which he'd previosuly figured was the end of things. But he comes to a form of consciousness to discover a zombie in a top hat explaining to him that things hadn't ended, for him at least.

Eventually, he finds a bunch of like-minded dead types and moves on elsewhere, and tries to make a living (if that's even the right word) in his new world. And then one day, as he's making his way, suddenly everything goes to hell in a handbasket- suddenly he can see dozens of new enfants, and before he can even react to that, there's this wind like a hurricane only nasty, and he's lucky to find shelter before he gets torn apart like several of the other poor buggers he sees out the windows.

He doesn't know what would have happened to this place without the fact that a legion patrol had had to shelter here too- they've fought off six spectre incursions since they all got here, but several are showing signs of damage, and there'd already been one of the defenders who's descended into a Harrowing. And he can see the Spectres massing outside again for another attempt. How long would this go on for? How many more attacks could they stand off? It was growing harder to ignore that voice within him, the voice of his Shadow, urging him to just give up, since it was so pointless...

And then he saw him, through the storm outside. Despite the fact that every wraith he'd seen try and brave the storm had been torn apart, either by the winds or the spectres that clustered in the air, there was someone out there.

Now he looked at him, he was odd. And this was coming from someone who was used to seeing people who tied objects of value to their dangling intestines.

Whoever it was, he was wearing robes of a white so bright it almost glowed in a silver light. Added to that, he seemed to have a bizarrely darkened skin, and, a more notable point, what looked like four wings coming from his back, all folded in repose.

As he approached, he seemed to be struggling against the storm, yet where other wraiths had been torn asunder, he appaeared to, at most, take some wounds that almost immediately healed. Of course, Si wasn;t the only entity to notice this, and the spectres that had been massing for attack now headed towards this newcomer. Si moaned involuntarily as he waited to see this person torn apart like the others, yet stopped in shock.

As the spectres approached him, the figure appeared to start shining with a golden light that seemed to pierce even the darkness of the Shadowlands, and spread out around him. As the charging spectres touched it, most of them recoiled in something like terror and turned to flee. Two were braver or more powerful than the others, and continued on with malice etched on their features. The figure raised a hand, and pointed at the first as it approached. In a voice heard even over the screams of the storm, he said simply, "Begone!", and the spectre, manifestly against its will, turned and fled. The second rushed to attack, yet its claws seemed to inflict no noticeable harm, and then the figure for the first time reacted with something that might be called haste. With a strike right out of one of those silly martial arts films they showed in various places from time to time, the figure appeared to punch right through the chest of the spectre. And to Si's surprise, the spectre looked briefly agonized before fading to nothingness.

The figure approached the entrance to the building they'd holed up in, and, despite the fact he could see occasional wounds opening up as the winds buffeted him, paused and spoke, "May I come in?".

After a brief discussion, those within agreed, and the figure stepped inside. Despite his somewhat fearsome appearance, Si felt comforted by his presence, and it seemed almost as if his Shadow had retreated in fear- certainly it was far quieter than it had ever been.

"I am of the Shemsu-heru. I have, to my shame, neglected my responsibilities to the Lands of the Dead here, but I now offer my aid and succor, if you will accept it, and my protection upon this place."

One of the legionnairies looked like he wanted to argue, but having seen what had been done to the spectres outside the rest of us shouted him down and agreed. At that, the figured gestured at the most injured of us, and said a word that no-one seemed to recognise, and we watched as our companion's Corpus seemed to knit itself together, until there was no sign he had ever been injured. This Shemsu-heru laid his hand on another who was wounded, and the same thing happened. Then, without a word, he stepped back out into the storm and paced around the building we were in, despite the obvious harm it was doing him, chanting as he went. After he had gone a full circle, he walked inside and knelt, praying in some language we didn't know- the only word we recognised was "Ra", as it cropped up frequently. He remained like this for maybe half an hour, then stopped and bowed, to something we couldn't see. And suddenly, the winds outside that had been ever-present, seemed dimninished as they approached the building. Whilst they were obviously still as bad as ever, it looked like they were no longer eating into the walls as they had been.

The figure climbed to his feet, looking more tired than he had been.

"Under normal circumstances, that would hold for a month or so. I do not know if it will last that long now. But I will return, and I ask only this of you. Do not give up hope- despair is the ally of Oblivion, and its servants would have you believe there is no-one who cares for your existence. This is not true. This storm, like the others before it, shall pass, and there will be need for those to rebuild in the aftermath. I cannot remain, but I will return again before this protection expires. There are others who also need my help, and I go to seek them now. Rest here, and know that you will not be abandoned."

Normally, that speech would have seemed trite or cliched, but the sincerity overlaying everything he said seemed to make it more than that. And so, as the figure stepped out again to face the storms, Si plucked up the courage to ask a question of this Shemsu-heru; "Who are you?"

"My name is Mark", replied the figure, and then strode out again into the Maelstrom.

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