07-05-2013, 11:15 AM
The bird flies faster than the wind through the penumbra, darting around storms, soaring over pits of darkness, diving beneath predators. It is small and bright-eyed and it no longer feels quite like a normal pigeon. Cooing has been turned to adoration. Hunger has been transformed into longing. It is filled with dreams of a goddess and dreams of another winged creature. It is filled with love for a blue-eyed Shadow Lord and a pink-haired Silver Fang, and when it finds them, oh
when it finds them, it circles and circles and lands on their shoulders, nuzzles their skins, fluttering happily and cooing, cooing.
It sees: the whooping boy smashing the bead that the quiet girl made. It sees: its twin fly overhead, circling them until they are ready to go, then darting eastward. Towards the mountains, towards tomorrow's sunrise, towards Melantha. The pigeon is perched on Charlotte's shoulder at that point, watching, feeling curious and delighted. It does not understand anything: it is a bird. But it knows that it aches for reunion, and now that reunion is to be had, it feels a sort of desperation.
--
In Denver, Melantha sleeps on a narrow bed that thankfully is not fashioned after those in Victorian orphanages. She sleeps high above the city, which makes her feel strange indeed after so long spent in the wild. She dreams of birds in flight and dancing wolves. She has no idea they've been surfing. What. She has no idea they are coming with a third.
--
The second pigeon leads them as best it can; they have to interpret how to follow it when it is used to flying, not attending to the roads of humans. Charlotte has to talk to it a few times, tell it to slow down, and the second pigeon does not understand this madness. The first pigeon tucks its head under its wing to sleep whenever Erich or Charlotte sleeps, resting in one of the rafters of the tiny house. A couple of times it peers curiously at Ingrid, but she is not familiar to it.
It goes with Erich when he has to cross the border on the Otherside. He sees it there, cooing and trilling at him, fluttering its wings in hello. It perches on his shoulder and awkwardly tries to groom his hair with its beak as he walks. If he shifts to another form, it sits atop his head, which is quite possibly the most ridiculous thing anyone could see, if anyone were around to see it.
Maybe a Nuwisha does, and takes a mental snapshot of the image to share with their friends. You will not be-LIEVE...
--
They get some looks at Cold Crescent. Curious ones, interested ones, steady long looks as well, but not wariness. The Warder passed them. The elevator drags them upward, swift as flight, and now there is one spirit-bird on Charlotte's hand and one perched on top of the building, considering its next move or maybe just watching over the place, watching over all of them. It considers staying: this is a good roof. Pigeons don't need much more than a decent roof, really.
The other one, though, needs far more. It needs to stay near the two young garou in that elevator, though three now, even if the third is one it doesn't know yet.
There is always some amount of activity on this floor. There's a couple of cubs and there's kin and there's some others and there's people who have other places to stay but stay here most of the time, too. And there's a girl who stopped lifting her head from a book and looking expectantly at the elevator doors whenever they dinged some time ago, because her neck was getting sore.
She's in the lounge, at the apex of the building's triangle and the first wide-open room that one sees when one steps out of the elevator bays. She cannot see the spirit-bird on Charlotte's finger any more than she could see the one that flew towards the windows and then swooped up to land on the roof. She can, at the moment, only see the book in front of her, the one she started reading in D.C. and couldn't finish: the signal and the noise.
Her dark hair is longer, the way that hair is only noticably longer when you haven't seen someone for a few months. It has not been trimmed and the ends are split and it is not glossy and curled but held up in a plain ponytail and she hasn't even showered yet today. She's in pajama pants and a tank top and sitting in the sunlight coming through the windows, her legs tucked up and crossed on one of the lounge couches. She has lost weight, not frighteningly but enough to show that the softness she showed in her physicality in D.C. was as much an illusion as her painted lips, her silky hair. There is firm athleticism and a survivor's stamina in those arms, in that body.
Outside of the elevators, Erich is swinging his head around, looking til he finds her, but all he would need to do is close his eyes and inhale. Even after a short time, this entire floor is suffused with the scent and feel of someone of her breeding, someone of her inexplicable purity. He could find her in the dark; they all could. She doesn't see him, or Charlotte, or Ingrid, until a few moments go by. Then she senses the rage, the danger of a nearby predator rippling through the air, which is not uncommon here but is amplified by Ingrid's presence, and she looks up.
She used to wear makeup that made her eyes look rounder, look wider, look rather childish. She doesn't now, and the almond-sharp points at the corners of her eyes are more evident, the ancient wisdom and strength shining through, unhidden now. She looks more herself than either of them have ever seen her, except perhaps in one moment months ago, when she came back from pouring purified water from a vial over her head, praying for cleansing. That was in the dark, though. Now she's in sunlight, and she's widening those young-and-not eyes and her mouth is opening and her book is dropping to the floor.
--
The pigeon darts everywhere inside the building, freaking out. It is freaking out you guys it's freaking out she's here and they're here and they're all together and it just can't anymore it has lost its tiny mind with joy.
--
The truth is, Melantha hardly notices Ingrid. Of course she sees her, she's aware of her, but with the way the woman presses the Door Close button immediately and departs, there is nothing to suggest to Melantha that she even came here with her two friends in the first place.
Her arms and her body feel taut and strong and wild when she collides with Erich, yes, Erich first because Erich came at her like a madman and picked her up, squeezed her til her ribs ached, swinging her around. But when her feet touch cool flooring again she's between the two wolves and she's shaking like a leaf despite all that strength. Melantha is also crying, and it's uncertain if either of them have ever seen her cry except that one night out in the woods where she was a screaming, murderous, sobbing bacchante and Charlotte wasn't there but Charlotte was there in that vial of holy, holiest water, and Charlotte was the reason Melantha was out there to begin with, so if Melantha thinks that Charlotte has seen her weep, she may be right.
But now she is overcome, tears streaming openly down her face, her eyes red-rimmed with them, her body trembling as she is squeezed between boy and girl, storm and falcon. She turns her back to Erich, and this seems natural as anything else: he has long arms and a large body and when Melantha turns to Charlotte, it is like he becomes a shield for both of them. Melantha kisses Charlotte, adoring and tearful, kissing her brow and her temple and her cheek and her mouth and then hugs her, hugs her tight and puts her head down between the Theurge's neck and shoulder. She knows this is okay, even though her teeth are near Charlotte's throat, because if not her, no one.
They bow their heads around her and they breathe her in and Melantha shakes, and cries, and grabs Erich's arm and hugs it between her body and Charlotte's body and doesn't move for a very, very long time.
--
Pigeon finds a perch inside of 1999 Broadway. It looks down on the three of them. It is content. Finally.
when it finds them, it circles and circles and lands on their shoulders, nuzzles their skins, fluttering happily and cooing, cooing.
It sees: the whooping boy smashing the bead that the quiet girl made. It sees: its twin fly overhead, circling them until they are ready to go, then darting eastward. Towards the mountains, towards tomorrow's sunrise, towards Melantha. The pigeon is perched on Charlotte's shoulder at that point, watching, feeling curious and delighted. It does not understand anything: it is a bird. But it knows that it aches for reunion, and now that reunion is to be had, it feels a sort of desperation.
--
In Denver, Melantha sleeps on a narrow bed that thankfully is not fashioned after those in Victorian orphanages. She sleeps high above the city, which makes her feel strange indeed after so long spent in the wild. She dreams of birds in flight and dancing wolves. She has no idea they've been surfing. What. She has no idea they are coming with a third.
--
The second pigeon leads them as best it can; they have to interpret how to follow it when it is used to flying, not attending to the roads of humans. Charlotte has to talk to it a few times, tell it to slow down, and the second pigeon does not understand this madness. The first pigeon tucks its head under its wing to sleep whenever Erich or Charlotte sleeps, resting in one of the rafters of the tiny house. A couple of times it peers curiously at Ingrid, but she is not familiar to it.
It goes with Erich when he has to cross the border on the Otherside. He sees it there, cooing and trilling at him, fluttering its wings in hello. It perches on his shoulder and awkwardly tries to groom his hair with its beak as he walks. If he shifts to another form, it sits atop his head, which is quite possibly the most ridiculous thing anyone could see, if anyone were around to see it.
Maybe a Nuwisha does, and takes a mental snapshot of the image to share with their friends. You will not be-LIEVE...
--
They get some looks at Cold Crescent. Curious ones, interested ones, steady long looks as well, but not wariness. The Warder passed them. The elevator drags them upward, swift as flight, and now there is one spirit-bird on Charlotte's hand and one perched on top of the building, considering its next move or maybe just watching over the place, watching over all of them. It considers staying: this is a good roof. Pigeons don't need much more than a decent roof, really.
The other one, though, needs far more. It needs to stay near the two young garou in that elevator, though three now, even if the third is one it doesn't know yet.
There is always some amount of activity on this floor. There's a couple of cubs and there's kin and there's some others and there's people who have other places to stay but stay here most of the time, too. And there's a girl who stopped lifting her head from a book and looking expectantly at the elevator doors whenever they dinged some time ago, because her neck was getting sore.
She's in the lounge, at the apex of the building's triangle and the first wide-open room that one sees when one steps out of the elevator bays. She cannot see the spirit-bird on Charlotte's finger any more than she could see the one that flew towards the windows and then swooped up to land on the roof. She can, at the moment, only see the book in front of her, the one she started reading in D.C. and couldn't finish: the signal and the noise.
Her dark hair is longer, the way that hair is only noticably longer when you haven't seen someone for a few months. It has not been trimmed and the ends are split and it is not glossy and curled but held up in a plain ponytail and she hasn't even showered yet today. She's in pajama pants and a tank top and sitting in the sunlight coming through the windows, her legs tucked up and crossed on one of the lounge couches. She has lost weight, not frighteningly but enough to show that the softness she showed in her physicality in D.C. was as much an illusion as her painted lips, her silky hair. There is firm athleticism and a survivor's stamina in those arms, in that body.
Outside of the elevators, Erich is swinging his head around, looking til he finds her, but all he would need to do is close his eyes and inhale. Even after a short time, this entire floor is suffused with the scent and feel of someone of her breeding, someone of her inexplicable purity. He could find her in the dark; they all could. She doesn't see him, or Charlotte, or Ingrid, until a few moments go by. Then she senses the rage, the danger of a nearby predator rippling through the air, which is not uncommon here but is amplified by Ingrid's presence, and she looks up.
She used to wear makeup that made her eyes look rounder, look wider, look rather childish. She doesn't now, and the almond-sharp points at the corners of her eyes are more evident, the ancient wisdom and strength shining through, unhidden now. She looks more herself than either of them have ever seen her, except perhaps in one moment months ago, when she came back from pouring purified water from a vial over her head, praying for cleansing. That was in the dark, though. Now she's in sunlight, and she's widening those young-and-not eyes and her mouth is opening and her book is dropping to the floor.
--
The pigeon darts everywhere inside the building, freaking out. It is freaking out you guys it's freaking out she's here and they're here and they're all together and it just can't anymore it has lost its tiny mind with joy.
--
The truth is, Melantha hardly notices Ingrid. Of course she sees her, she's aware of her, but with the way the woman presses the Door Close button immediately and departs, there is nothing to suggest to Melantha that she even came here with her two friends in the first place.
Her arms and her body feel taut and strong and wild when she collides with Erich, yes, Erich first because Erich came at her like a madman and picked her up, squeezed her til her ribs ached, swinging her around. But when her feet touch cool flooring again she's between the two wolves and she's shaking like a leaf despite all that strength. Melantha is also crying, and it's uncertain if either of them have ever seen her cry except that one night out in the woods where she was a screaming, murderous, sobbing bacchante and Charlotte wasn't there but Charlotte was there in that vial of holy, holiest water, and Charlotte was the reason Melantha was out there to begin with, so if Melantha thinks that Charlotte has seen her weep, she may be right.
But now she is overcome, tears streaming openly down her face, her eyes red-rimmed with them, her body trembling as she is squeezed between boy and girl, storm and falcon. She turns her back to Erich, and this seems natural as anything else: he has long arms and a large body and when Melantha turns to Charlotte, it is like he becomes a shield for both of them. Melantha kisses Charlotte, adoring and tearful, kissing her brow and her temple and her cheek and her mouth and then hugs her, hugs her tight and puts her head down between the Theurge's neck and shoulder. She knows this is okay, even though her teeth are near Charlotte's throat, because if not her, no one.
They bow their heads around her and they breathe her in and Melantha shakes, and cries, and grabs Erich's arm and hugs it between her body and Charlotte's body and doesn't move for a very, very long time.
--
Pigeon finds a perch inside of 1999 Broadway. It looks down on the three of them. It is content. Finally.
my whole life is thunder.