The First Age

The world moved at such a fast pace, but these moments they felt like forever. The world blurred and moved and things appeared as they should not. The delirium had set in and it was all Katya could do to remain upright. Her body grew hot, and cold at the same time. The air inside her lungs felt thin and weak. Each breath was harder and harder to draw in.

The lights flickered. Katya wasn't sure if it was the lights turning back on or her own consciousness fading. Katya tried to focus on the sounds, on Thalia's hand, on anything, but everything faded away.

The train lurched forward and Katya's lifeless body fell away from Thalia.

Jon turned aside. The direction of his aim enraged Dane all the fiercer. He was going for Thalia. Dane's butterfly. The pitiful leech passed over them earlier. If Dane were one to play by the laws of social engagement, which of course he was not, he would recognize that Jon disobeyed their mandates. A lion on the high plains challenging a seemingly weaker male.

Dane was not weak.

His jaw clenched. His eyes flickered to the coils and barbs building before his eyes, and oblivion for all else took over his mind.

A bump on the arm, and he retracted the limb. A full on slam against his shoulder and he reeled, unable to recover. The corner of his eye caught, hopelessly, the beauty of his fatal designs fray and disappear in mid air. Individuals ran from Jon's side of the train. They crawled over chairs and pushed Dane to the floor. He managed to find safety along the wall, but not before the distraction severed his connection with the Flame of power.

"Sickness! Dead! It'll kill us all!" Wallets were out, the police were being hailed. Emergency buttons were being pressed. Dane imagined there would be a quarantine group waiting for them at the next train stop. These people spewed their fear amid the chaos, and from where Dane crouched on the floor, between legs ever pressing at the forward stump of the car, he realized the blonde wretch was now a body crumpled on the floor.

He smiled to himself.

Far more beautiful now.




<small>((Dane is stuck on the floor again t the wall where the people have nearly trampled him down to get away from Katya. He's also lost his hold on Saidin, since he's Adept only. The chaos distracted him.))</small>


Edited by Dane Gregory, May 16 2014, 07:02 AM.

Jon's heart sank as he saw Nimeda recoil from him. It was what she'd said to him the first time they'd met, though in the Spirit World it'd been with curiosity. I don't know you.How was it she did not remember upon waking? Had her memory dissipated as if it'd been a normal dream?

Awake, or asleep, it seemed Jon had no idea who she was. Perhaps neither did she. Bear's words of warning came back to him then: The wolves have been watching her.It was enough to make the hair on his arms stand on end.

Nimeda was right about one thing. Her friend was sick. Jon wondered if there was something he could do with the power of the Great Spirit. But as he stepped forward he ran against an invisible barrier that pushed back against his shoulder. Slick, solid and smoother than glass, he knew what it was. Dane hadn't created it. No man had made it.

The train started moving with a violent lurch, and to Jon's horror, the young girl slid off the bench and crumpled to the floor with resounding thud. The sound, like a melon rolling from a table, haunted his ears and made him want to vomit.

Then someone screamed.

People started running. Great Spirit! Jon's concentration wavered. Afraid he'd lose it, he clamped onto the threads he'd prepared. He didn't know what else to do. Who in their right mind yells "The Sickness" on a crowded train? The woman sitting next to Nimeda, a pudgy lady in her middle years and elegantly dressed, pushed her shopping bags off her lap and bolted away in a flurry of platform heels, having obviously forgotten about the leash in her hand attached to her Pomeranian. It yipped its indignation as it fell on its back and was dragged across the floor by its collar.

Jon let his surroundings assault his senses. One had to absorb and interpret a multitude of words, mannerisms and tics in the courtroom, and be sure not to trust too much in anything he sensed because everything could be a trick from the opposing side. You had to find the opening where your action would make a difference. So he took it in, alert and lucid with the power of the Great Spirit. Everyone running away from Nimeda, her friend, and Jon. The barking dog. Oranges, rolling across the floor. A man slipped on one and as he toppled forward his jaw connected with a woman's knee. Jon could hear the crack. Dane was buried behind passengers and the surging power winked out, he must have lost control. Jon could hear Nimeda's heart beating, rapid and light. She was afraid.

There was nothing from the other girl.

Jon pushed down panic. Noah's words came back to him. He is buried behind my house. Maybe the girl was afflicted with the Sickness. Maybe it wasn't Dane's doing. All this in mere seconds from the moment the girl had collapsed. People were getting hurt in the stampede, and Dane obviously wasn't able to help himself or anyone else. The girl needed help. Right now. And the barrier must have come from Nimeda, since it hadn't disappeared. Why was she so scared of him?

The weaves threatened to slip from Jon's grasp. So he altered and flung out the mind medicine, casting a net across the trailer. If it was the sickness, there was no threat to anyone else here. Nothing heavy, just meant to calm and suggest that Jon was speaking the truth. There should be no lasting or lingering effect, aside from everyone on the train leaving this place believing something to be true that was in fact true.

While maintaining the net, he harnessed the power and sent out threads again, this time to enhance his voice just slightly.

"It's not contagious,"
he said, his voice amplified enough to carry through the train. "There's no reason to panic."


Jon reasoned he could probably use the essence of Spirit to cut through the wall of air, since he knew where the weaves maintaining the wall must be even though he couldn't see it. But he might panic Nimeda even more if he did so. And he was sure to lose control. Both of the other threads had to be maintained. He wasn't even sure how he was managing to do both at the same time, let alone hold back the third weave. As it was he feared letting go of the prepared weave, as if it'd disrupt this delicate balance. Like surfing rapids in a kyak. He started sweating.

"The Sickness can't be contagious. If it was, people of all ages would catch it and not just the youth. It must be genetic or environmental."


His head started to hurt. The power surged through him. He could see the web settling, very, very lightly, just enough to get them to calm down so they all didn't kill each other. It scared him to think he might be showing Dane a valuable tool. He mistrusted the man. But he didn't think Dane was in a position to even see what was going on, and this web was complex.

His head was pounding. Control was slipping through his very fingers. He had to get to the girl! But Jon was riding his kayak down the waterfall, now. He drew in more and struck out with the third weave in an attempt to slice through the barrier.

But that was all he had. In the moment before he crashed into the rocks, Jon summoned one last act of will and deliberately released it all. The weaves winked out of existence along with the power, and the world got fuzzy. The floor rushed up to meet his face.

The people around Dane wavered like blades of grass bending beneath the same breeze. Dane remained in his spot, wedged between a vertical hand pole and a row of seats. Himself included with the blades of grass, they all turned to acknowledge one speaking to them. The priest at the pulpit, Jon, and they the obedient congregation.

He spoke of the Sickness, but he had no need to convince Dane of the dark secret. The Sickness had been a rebirth. Strangely, the experience was the greatest misery of his life, yet ever since, neither infection nor disease had touched him again. How did Jon know it wasn't contagious? And Dane was hardly a youth when the first fever wracked his bones. This man commanded much faith in his flock, and it darkened Dane's expression with a haunted focus. This American was bred from the same stock as any of his boyhood oppressors: domineering, annoying despots.

When Jon fell, limp as the dead Katya beside him, the hush on the train became a collective gasp. Strangers grabbed one another's arms, panic ripped across wide eyes, and while the train slowed to a stop, nobody moved. Until someone uttered these fatal words: "He has it too!" The doors opened but the accompanying chime was drowned out by the ensuing stampede. People screamed environmental! It's on the train! Don't breathe! and all sorts of rubbish.

Dane stood in the aftermath's vacuole. He brushed off his clothes and swept a hand across his hair. It seemed the crowd would not make their intended escape. The red and blue lights of police take-over were already on the platform. Likely summoned by the emergent calls after Katya's demise. Individuals were being harangued off to the side by a line of black-clad, shielded officers.

Dane had little time to make his own investigation. Was it too much to hope the creature had broke under his own strained powers?

He stood over the pair of bodies, investigating. The one that was once Katya had already fallen paler, like a doll. Jon's chest, however, was clearly still inhaling oxygen. What a disappointment. He could kick him in the face, but such would smudge his shoe. He could coil vines around his throat, but the pressure to hurry was too great to bend the Light to his will. Had he a knife, he could carve a mockingbird into the man's forehead; a red sketch down to the bone, and so forever brand him with the promise of eventual return. How sweet that pale, puckered flesh, vulnerable to anything Dane could imagine, would serve as canvas. How rare such an opportunity was! But, Dane was not free to take his time as he would like. He could, however, kneel, with his back to Thalia of course, and seemingly check the man's throat for a pulse.

Upon rising, he slipped a wad of black hair ripped by Dane's own hand into the pocket along with his other memento. A pleasing patch of red welled among the forest of remaining strands that covered his scalp. When he turned, his expression softened as it found sweet Thalia's fearful gaze. Like the true gentleman, he offered his hand to coax the sweet butterfly to her feet. He said nothing, but his arms and grim smile promised comfort. She could see the official tormentors were near to boarding the train. He spoke softly, innocent as the sweet she'd accepted earlier. "I won't let them hurt you. I swear on my life."


Dane looked over his shoulder. If she accepted within the next few moments, they could make it off the train before the chaos descended around the bodies on the floor.

He stepped forward but stopped suddenly, as though something prevented him coming closer. Thalia's eyes were unblinking, wary; she leaned back further in her seat, though she was already crushed right back. Then the train lurched, and Katya tipped forward. Her hand slipped right out from Thalia's grasp; she didn't hold on, just let go of it naturally, staring as the girl landed lifeless. Was she-? The chaos washed over her; everyone was shoving themselves away, shouting, screaming. Her heart fluttered high and fast, but she didn't run with them. There were oranges skidding across the floor, and she didn't know why she noticed but she did, as she numbly tried to piece together how someone's life could snuff out as quickly as fingers pinching the flame from a candle.

The panic never touched her; at least, the panic rippling manically through fear of the Sickness. And she was more surprised than grieved at the sudden intrusion of death into ordinary life. She thought of Rune's ouroboros, the cyclic snake. Enevitability had never been bothersome to her, if the proximity of it now sent a disturbed shiver along her spine. What had killed her? The fever, or something else? The crowd's conclusion was clear and shrill, but Thalia wondered. The Light had burned so very strong in her chest, had in fact drifted out into the air as a beautiful weave of pattern, but she didn't know what it had done. Deep in a dusty recess of her mind, though, she knew what it could do.

The man called Jon fell.

Dane was there before she could much react (though all she had been doing was staring wide-eyed), and he bent deftly to check the man's pulse. Thalia didn't ask to hear what he discovered, but the question lingered in her mind. It never occurred to her to scrutinise Dane's sudden interest; he'd not been so attentive the first time Kat had collapsed, but the detail of her focus - and her fear - was still on Jon. His body was cast under Dane's shadow by the time the man stood, obscured from view. She tried not to look at it, but that face was carved in memory. She would not forget, no matter how many times she tried to blink away the features scorched on the back of her eyelids. She knew he existed now, but she couldn't bear to check if he lived or died. Even knowing his name was too much.

The need to escape swelled great and urgent, burning virulent in her mind. Though Kat was gone the urge to seek out her sister also remained strong, to confess the strangeness of the day and then banish it from memory. She was desperate to get off the train, had been since the moment she'd laid proper eyes on Jon, and it only keened itself to an edge now that they began decelerating to a halt. Her body was tensed with the need to bolt; her eyes flickered to the doors, but she couldn't find them beyond the jostling bodies. Instead she found Dane's offered palm, gloved in black.

His monstrous anger smoothed itself so that she almost forgot how furious he had been. Hurt me? Though the other passengers had run in fear away from where Thalia had been sitting, and though she had been huddled up right next to the girl who had died, she'd not registered the connection. The kindness made little difference; he misinterpreted the source of her fear and she was not afraid of whatever waited at the station, nor of catching the Sickness. The escape, though; the escape was so blessed. She took his hand without hesitation, the guileless trust and relief unfeigned, and pushed up off her seat, ready to follow.

The fifteen police officers on scene quickly swelled to thirty. The train car harboring the suspected bout of Sickness was cordoned off, and the individuals that had been on the train were detained in a blocked corridor nearby. The officers made aware that none were under arrest at this time, but while the WHO maintained heightened security measures for eminent pandemic, they could not depart until clearance by chemical and hazardous material specialists. Meanwhile, identification of every passenger, twelve in total, either in the form of Custody Identification Number or Custody approved passport was demanded.

Dane and Thalia, being identified by their peers as having been the closest to the now verified dead woman, Katya, were taken to a separate location for holding and strict guard. If they were cleared of contaminants themselves, they were likely to be taken to a local CDPS station to be interviewed by a Chief Inspector.

The final individual, Jon, was verified as unconscious and unresponsive, but yet alive. Emergency medical personnel taking all precautions to potential case of Sickness, evaluated him while still on the train. Once deemed safe to move, a special Haz-Mat ambulance vehicle certified to transport quarantine victims, wheeled him to the surface.

Were he any other individual, he would be put into a chemical induced state of anesthesia, the standard of care for individuals actively symptomatic for the Sickness - as such patients routinely become incredibly hostile and psychotic. Then after a series of tests at a Sickness quarantine unit outside the city, it would become clear that his body temperature and brain wave activity exhibited no commonalities of Sickness symptoms. The anesthesia would be discontinued, and he would be allowed to be medically discharged once he awoke and passed medical clearance.

But this was the American Jon Little Bird who brought a lawsuit against the CCD. This was the man responsible for the "suicide" of the Custody's Prosecutor General, Anatoly Kant. His identity quickly pulled red flags by the CDPS investigators at the scene, and they informed the paramedics to halt their transport of Mr. Bird pending prior approval from their superiors.




Within minutes, CDPS communication climbed the steep slopes of bureaucracy until Nikolai himself was alerted with the news.

He touched the screen, arms crossed, and studied Mr. Bird's limp face on the ambulance gurney. At the time Mr. Bird's case appeared in Custody Court, Nikolai had been unaware of others of his disposition. Had he discovered Alric's presence in the Facility sooner, he might have given this particular lawsuit more than the passing glance he'd thought at the time. He hadn't cared about the political party in America. He hadn't cared about the Natives of that continent. He didn't worry over the damage they could inflict upon the empire in his custody. That lawsuit had been a fleeting blip in his daily briefings, there one day, and gone the next.

But everything was different now. Nikolai was not alone in the world as he had long-believed. He, like so many others, knew exactly what the Sickness was, and it marveled him to grasp how wide it stretched over the globe. He was aware others could do things he had not considered before, and with some trial and error, he should duplicate some of their intricate manifestations of power.

His eyes glazed to the accompanying report. Witnesses said Mr. Bird turned on another man who was subsequently and unnaturally flung far down the train. Nikolai smiled to himself; such a report was more than enough evidence for him as he curled a strand of Ether around a glass of water to pull it to his hand.

The Facility? Nik asked himself. The opportunity was tempting, but he quickly dismissed it. The Facility was for anonymous brothers that Nikolai could rescue from hell. He could train them as he had Alric. It was a carefully crafted sequence of events that convinced people they were being rescued rather than imprisoned. And they were being rescued. Nikolai bore not a shred of doubt of such a thing. Little Bird was his enemy, not a comrade. He did not belong there.

He transmitted his decision, Standard practice. Do not transfer to Facility. Monitor as needed.

A casual swipe dissolved the connection.

He took a drink of water.

For Thalia and Dane, the next few hours were full of hustle and bustle. They were scanned and cleared of infection at the station long before being passed onto the police, but in light of everything that had happened that day, processing them turned out to be a slow process.

Every person on the train was screened and questioned, but in the end only a handful were held for further interrogation. Eventually even those were slimmed down to just a handful. They moved from the station to a nearby police station on close watch; less out of suspicion and more out of concern. The witnesses had had a trying day; trapped on the train, the reports of the attack on the central control station, and watching a woman die was not something most people would simply shake off.

But it was the death of that one woman that had caused most of the concern. Reports of an altercation between Dane and the American were simple enough to set aside; it had been a stressful environment they had been trapped in, after all. And as for the reports of Dane being thrown across the train car, well...the train had come to a sudden stop. Perhaps the witnesses had simply gotten the order of events confused in their minds.

Eventually, Thalia and Dane and a few others found themselves seated in individual rooms of a CDPS station. The rooms were openly and discreetly monitored, and came with a table bolted to the floor, and two chairs on either side. Seated on the tables were plastic decanters of water and dixie cups, but little else to entertain those waiting within.

Drayson was tired, but the pain in his arm was more then enough to keep him awake. He had been given pain killers of course, and they sat tucked away in his coat pocket, which hung on a coat hanger in the station Chief's office at the moment. He refused to take them; while drugs did wonders to numb the pain, they would also numb his mind. Perhaps if he had had time for a good night's sleep, rather then the endless paperwork and interesting conversation with Alric, but as it stood at the moment, the cup of coffee in his good hand would simply have to do.

He wore the same suit as he had the day before, all grays of various depths, and it showed a few wrinkles for it, but he was freshly showered and cleaned up. Breakfast had been...he couldn't recall at the moment, actually. Something. A bagel, perhaps, some hours ago, and a coffee of course. A good night's sleep would simply have to wait.

He had perused the reports on the incident on the train already. Warning flags had leapt to the fore as soon as he saw the many eye-witness accounts of Dane being thrown. The American seemed the most likely culprit in that regard, but he had been cleared by someone even higher then Drayson, so that was to be left addressed for the moment. Of course, it also rose some suspicions about the death of a certain lawyer some months back.

But again, that was for another day.

His left arm was held close to his torso in a simple grey sling, likely something he would not wear for long even with the stern instructions of the nurse that had set his arm there. He had follow up appointments and even physiotherapy treatment to assure the shoulder healed properly and he strengthened the muscles such to prevent future injury. Follow ups and appointments he wasn't likely to attend.

He walked up to the interrogation rooms, carefully balancing a collection of files, reports, and forms under his good arm and his cup of coffee in the same hand, making sure not to spill any onto the paperwork. These people had been forced to wait on him for hours, and had lives they most assuredly wished to return to, and he had no intentions of keeping them longer then needed.

A quick perusal of the files had shown that there was still some lab reports they were waiting on. Apparently, Mr Dane Gregory had been found with locks of human hair in his pocket, belonging to two different people. He had his suspicions on to whom that hair belonged, and had ordered the lab work to be seen to with priority. The answers he expected would arrive within the hour.

That, and proper manners, saw him to the room which housed Miss Thalia Milton. It was curious that both were of such auspicious origins; Mr Gregory seemed to come of a well off family, attended a prestigious religious school. British, of French education. And Miss Milton, a well off family, and apparently a known artist.

He paused at the junction of halls that led to the interrogation rooms, and quietly chastised himself for not thinking of it sooner. He moved to the nearest break room, and with some help of an officer there, set his cup of coffee atop a cheap plastic plate of vatrushkas and Tula gingerbread. Not the best meal for someone that likely hadn't eaten in many long hours, but it was certainly better then nothing.

The door to Thalia's interrogation room opened after a simple three-count knock, giving her a moment to compose herself. She'd been in there most ignored for over an hour already; there simply were not enough officers to tend to them more regularly.

"Good morning, Miss Milton. I am Chief Inspector Drayson McCullough."
He crossed to the table, offering her a comforting smile before carefully setting the plate with cup of coffee and pastries down; he was too tall, and with the papers under his arm, he was forced to squat and lean precariously forwards to deliver it intact, "I am sorry to have had to keep you so long. Hopefully, we can have this all sorted out and you will be free to go soon."


His tone was apologetic; he honestly would have preferred the two had been processed and released hours ago; after his conversation with Alric, he had been informed of the incident on the train and that there were people of interest awaiting his assessment, and so had done all he could to get away from the hospital. The staff hadn't much cared about what responsibilities he had, especially if they conflicted with those of the hospital staff.

The cup of black coffee remained with the plate; he wouldn't fault her if she chose to take it for herself; it was offered with the plate after all. A warm drink would likely do the woman some good.

Incarcerated in a room at a CDPS station, Thalia folded over the desk. Her forehead rested on her crossed arms, frizzed hair -- matted one side with red paint -- fanned out like a bloody halo. She had wanted desperately off the train, and it had been granted. The details didn't much matter to her, and if she only traded one captivity for another she was too glad to be rid of the first to care. The barage of tests at the station had been met with mild curiosity, and she had answered every question truthfully. She'd recovered quite quickly from the horrors, burying them in the deepest depths of secrets she kept from herself, so that everything blurred a little in her mind and reanimated in a way that made a better sense. Fear was a distant memory. A bitter one.

Now she was just grievously bored, because they had left her in this room a very long time. She rocked on the edges of falling asleep -- maybe she had fallen asleep -- but the three rap knock roused her from stupor. Probably her face was a little crumpled where she'd laid on it, but her eyes were bright enough. If there was ever a time to regret the eccentricities of her appearance, though, it was now. The scarlet and orange paint hardly made a favourable impression; she was the epitome of scatty artist. Not to mention that in the middle of Moscow's winter she'd left without a coat, and with bare arms besides.

Being kept so long at the metro station had settled a chill into her bones, though it was pleasantly warm in here she supposed; either way, the prolonged discomfort didn't seem to have predisposed any enmity towards the man who finally broke her solitude. She offered a smile, and watched him enter with open curiosity. He was grey. A wash of grey, nuanced in light and dark and shade, but very very grey. There were wrinkles in his suit; she noticed those details before the sling that held his arm close to his chest. He seemed harried, a little frayed at his outer edges, but he was also immensely solid. Perhaps that was just because he was so tall and broad, but that was her impression.

It's morning, then. She must have been painting most the night, and it explained why the metro had been so empty in the first hour or so she'd ridden it in circles. Plus Kat had been on her way to work. "Did someone ring my sister? I asked a couple of times. But everyone seems so busy." Her shoulders inclined a shrug, but if Aylin didn't come to meet her after she was released she was going to be pretty stuck. She could get home, of course, but she'd have to bank on a neighbour letting her in -- because although some loose change and Dane's card sat in a pocket, her keys and Wallet were back at the studio. Which she was not ready to face yet. "And it's okay, Chief Inspector. I'm glad to be off the train."

Her eyes dipped to the offerings. "Pastries and coffee, huh? I'm glad I'm not the only stereotype." An impish grin quirked her lips. She slid the coffee a little way across the table; he looked like he could use it more than her, then helped herself to a tile of the gingerbread. Perhaps she'd watched too many bad cop movies, but she didn't think they usually provided the suspects with sweet treats during interrogation. Though she supposed she wasn't a suspect. She wasn't sure what she was, only knew that apparently the CDPS had a lot of questions.
Edited by Thalia, Jun 4 2014, 09:11 AM.

Drayson set his files on the opposite side of the table and took the remaining seat, looking at the plate of pastries with a tired smile. There was no indication in the reports that her sister had been called, but that was easy to address. He made a note on a pad of paper to his side to see the shortcoming addressed. Worst case scenario, he could assign one of his men to see her home safely, if that was her concern.

Her request had slipped through the cracks under the barrage of work that had sprung up around attack on the metro central control station. Dozens of trains had been left stranded, hundreds of people, and incidents had cropped up on many. Panic was the common theme; people did not like being trapped in the dark tunnels, and without power, in most cases there had been no reception for phones or Wallets. Disconnected from the world at large, people could feel isolated, alone, lost.

He pulled the coffee the rest of the way towards himself when she relinquished it, "I want to assure you that you are not under arrest, Miss Milton. I need to better understand what happened on the metro, and what happened to Katya Chadova. What happened between the American, Jon Little Bird, and Mr Gregory. And what people think they saw outside that train."


It was an odd question; that last one. Easily written off as reflections against the glass, or of panicked minds. Surely what the witnesses had described had been something fueled by fear and tricks of the mind, and not worth further investigation. But if there were indeed...things...prowling the metro lines, he needed to know.

He had some hope that she, as an artist, would remember the details most clearly. It was a slim hope; after all, artists remembered the physical details of things, not necessarily the order of events, of things they heard, or the social nuances that were in play.

Through the ensuing questioning, Drayson was calm, attentive, and understanding. He understood well that Thalia's experiences on the train were sure to still be a point of great stress, and would carefully guide the ensuing conversation both to get the most detail he could glean from her, and to assist her in coming to grips with what might still trouble her.

What observations did she have of Katya? What did she remember of how the woman's phone had been destroyed? Symptoms leading up to her collapse, things she spoke of? Had she been given anything, or touched anything that someone offered her? Had she and Jon shared any sort of contact? What of Jon and Dane? Her impressions of both men, of what sparked their disagreement, of what she could remember of Dane's fall, of Jon's collapse? Did he display symptoms similar to Katya, or could it have been stress related? Had he simply fainted? And of course, of what sparked the original panic; the woman's scream of something outside the train, something in the tunnel.