Heya, peeps

[dainul.livejournal.com]

Partly to add my thanks to what other have been saying, particularly to Sally for running a Garou game that kept me travelling the breadth of the country once a month for a couple of years. It's been fun.

Also, to post a bit of fiction that wouldn't get out of my head until I wrote it down. It's a bit speculative, set as it is a millennium hence. I'm not sure this is quite what Sally had in mind for Alex's Fate, but it amused me enough to write it.


Dech'Sakar stared at the rough-hewn wall of the cell as if it had personally offended him. In his anger he had even managed to largely block out the hulking form of the beastly werewolf sitting, similarly shackled in the opposite corner. A day ago, the bonds would have meant nothing to him, a day ago he would have melted them to slag, them the door, the fur rug about to share his sorry fate and whoever else got in his way. A day ago, but not now. The Lord of the Red Star Hive's curse had stripped Dech'Sakar of all his power, all his soul-bought magic gone in an instant. He had no way of knowing whether the effect was permanent, but he severely doubted he'd live long enough to test its duration. So, with nothing else to do, he brooded on his failure, and drew up a private list of people at who's feet this impending failure could be laid.

The furball, Thrice-Opened-Eye sitting next to him was fairly high on the list, naturally, as were all the incompetent failures who had died too soon into the fight. And Binya, who had so skilfully led him into boasting his plans and moreover that he would need no more than a single cabal of underlings to follow them through. The bitch had probably sold them all out to try and claim the throne for herself. It stung Dech'Sakar's pride the most to know that with him out of the way, she might even succeed. But above even her, another figure, who had manipulated him so well, so subtly. The blonde-haired man Dech'Sakar knew only as Alexander had never suggested the plan, never pushed, just mentioned how easy it could be for someone with the right powers, with the right connections to strike down the reigning king and claim the throne. All it would take would be someone of his strength and guile, with some furball brawn to seal the bastard's fate. So much for the rewards to be claimed by whoever could take down the Lord of this forsaken pit.

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The silver shackles cut and burned into Thrice-Opened-Eye's wrists as he sat in the dark cell, awaiting his fate. He also had begun to think over what had gone so terribly wrong, if only to keep himself from pondering which of the many creative tortures he had personally invented would be used against him over the next few days. And he had come to a single, cold conclusion. It was his fault. Not that he had attempted to usurp his Lord, there was no regret there, or that he had got so many powerful Black Spiral Dancers slaughtered for his own gain. He regretted underestimating his target, something he had not once done since his First Change. The mage had been as true to his word as expected. Lord Pyre-Eye's magical defences had been stripped from him so carefully he'd not even noticed, and from his guardians and the Bitch-Queen Andrasta, too. Of course, the forces he then committed to the actual battle were pathetic and had been killed in seconds, but the scarred Ahroun had expected that.

In his mind, he replayed the fight again, watched as some of Torch-Fire's special explosives had reduced the Lord's servants and concubines to a paste fine enough to whet the pallet of any newborn Spiral pup. The bodyguards and guardians had fallen next, weakened by the explosion, they fell swiftly to the three war-packs Thrice-Opened-Eye had assembled for the task. But Andrasta, she had fought. He had never expected the Adren Theurge to have so much fury and strength in her, and that had cost four of his warriors, nearly an entire pack. By the time she fell, and his packs could turn on their former Lord and Alpha, it was too little, too late. Certainly, Pyre-Eye had fallen, but by then the puny mage was unconscious on the floor, and only two members of Thrice-Opened-Eye's war packs were still standing. They had been short work for the other power-hungry Elders, so keen to 'avenge' their fallen Lord, and claim the throne as their own.

Thrice-Opened-Eye sighs, and shifts, attempting to ease the pain in his wrists, only to find himself looking up into an unpleasantly familiar face.

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Alex steps into the room and smiles warmly to his two condemned traitors to the Wyrm's service. It is the Name-Breaker, Dech'Sakar who reacts first, leaping to his feet and drawing his hands into some occult symbol or other. He then seems to remember himself and his hands drop to his sides. "What the hell are you doing here?" the mage snarls, his hatred and fury threatening to surpass even the most provoked Ahroun.

"Why, I am here to thank you for your service, of course. You have done a great deed by destroying the Lord of this Hive and leaving no clear successor. Something the forces of the new Age would have struggled to do from the outside."

Now it is the Ahroun's turn to rise, his fury and Rage boiling high, and only years of experience keeping him from entering Crinos and removing his own hands. The mage catches him at the last, and keeps him back, preventing him from body slamming the relatively slight young man. Alex simply smiles again.

"I am also here," he continues, apparently not at all perturbed by the Ahroun attempting to writhe out of his shackles two feet away, "to make you aware of a chance. An... angel's deal, perhaps. The world is in need of heroes now more than ever. Were you willing to leave your past behind, you might still have a path to play."

"You lie!" The werewolf speaks this time. "Why would any rebels want us? Leave now before and take your gloating with you before I tear you apart!" He lunges forwards, but the mage, still holding the shackles tightly tugs him back, drawing a snarl of pain from the weathered Ahroun.

"All I can say is that the opportunity to extend your path will present itself if you are willing to accept it. And you would do well to remember three things while dealing with me. Firstly, I am a Theurge. I do not deal with the surface appearances of people or things, but instead I have learned to see what may lurk beneath the surface, what they may yet be. The second is that I have spent an Age walking the lands of the Dead, which has further shifted my attitudes to the world. And finally, every third thing I say is a lie."

Alex continues to smile as the mage finally looses his grip on the Ahroun's chain and the Elder Spiral rises into his Crinos form and lashes out with decades of fury.

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It was with considerable irritation that Dawning Might had pulled his attention away from the young slave he had been enjoying to go and see what the noise coming from the traitors' cell was. He'd already assumed his own war form before throwing open the door and beheld the sight before him. Apparently his former Elder had gone mad, and was attempting to tear his way to freedom through a bare stone wall.

At the same moment the same thought finds a home in three minds, and six eyes turn to look at the floor, and the single unlocked pair of silver shackles lying by the Ahroun's feet.

Comments

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

I like it. Thrice Opened Eye sounds like he was suitably inbred and deranged and the Hive still going just as mad and screwed up a thousand years in the future pleases me.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

And finally, every third thing I say is a lie.

...I love that totem...

[dainul.livejournal.com]

Of course, that statement is in and of itself a lie...

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

...unless it's the truth...