She woke in darkness; just the flickering of a yellow light overhead, like the winking of an eye. Something was missing, but she could not fathom what.

It went like that for a while. In and out like moon tides, with no dreaming.

When her consciousness finally returned in full, she realised the thing that was missing was pain.

Ori’s fingers threaded against her neck, but the carcanet of bruises was gone. Her lips twitched into a scowl as she pushed herself up. The walls were bare brick, creaking pipes running along the ceiling, a rusted metal grate slashed across the door leaking light from the tunnel beyond. She knew where she was, then. Idle inspection traced the webbing of new scars on her skin as she fought for the energy to move. Her thigh was twisted where it had burned against the pavement, and still covered with the dried black smear of copious amounts of blood.

Probably Ryker had bequeathed other gifts. She didn’t care enough to look.

The Almaz’s fighting halls were quiet, and she saw no one as she made her stumbling way from the holding cell to the line of showers. The slap of her palm sprayed needled daggers of water against her shoulders, curling her lip against the shock. For a while she watched the dark swirl of water pooling beneath her feet, until her arms braced the wall, head pressed atop.

She needed to get out of here, but she was fucking tired. Bone-chilled, soul-deep tired.

Her hair clung dripping down her back, soaking into a stolen tshirt when she later emerged into the silent club. The tee was tucked into an equally pilfered pair of gym shorts strung about her hips, her feet still bare. The tracery of scars spanned the entire outside length of her left leg, mottled white like they were already years healed. A few other puckers burned pale against her porcelain skin, but nothing else quite like that. The hard won legacy of bruising was gone, though; the swelling of her cheek, the burst fountain of her lips, the slit of an eye. Only shadows clung to the hollows in her face; pale and worn, and very young looking.

Sheets hung across ongoing maintenance work to repair the lights Ivan hauled to ruin, but the place was abandoned. Perhaps it was night; in the bowels of this place, she had no way of knowing. Her gaze searched the shadows for Ilya’s gaunt skull of a face, but he must be down below with the cages. Vaguely she considered seeking for evidence of Kasun, but it was more effort than she was willing to expend right now, and the fact she thought of him at all only reminded her of the ijiraq’s infection spreading through her emotions. 

This was the third strike, and Ilya would want to exact the price for his services soon.

Ori pulled herself up on the bar, intending to slide herself over and snag one of the bottles from the optics, when she finally caught movement. She paused instead, the stems of her pale legs crossed, arms braced either side of her like the claim of a throne. It was not who she expected, though the surprise did not flicker across her expression. They said the Angel of the Undercity smelled misfortune like a shark nosing at blood in the water.

She caught the coin he flicked out to her, but did not look at it. She knew what it was.

“I don’t need another favour.”

Ekeziel’s brow rose, the white slash of his smile a flash then gone as he oozed free of the shadows. Laughter churned like a giggle, just as short lived, as he came closer. His skin was strangely sun-touched for one who called the tunnels home, like the warmth of desert sands. One arm sank to lean his weight on the bar, his other hand boldly cradling over the cap of her knee, its surface inked dark with the curling tendrils of a rose from wrist to knuckles. The palm slid up, brushing up the hem of her shorts. His gaze lit molten fascination as his fingers curled against the burns.

Heat tingled under the tease, flushing upwards, but Ori’s gaze was glittering dark. “Are you asking,” she purred, tone pendulously caught between seduction and bald threat, “to see how far the scars go, Ezekiel?”

His brown eyes flicked up. He offered a jack o'lantern smile. “What would be the point when I’ve heard you scream so sweetly already?” He laughed again, and moved to instead grasp her arm, urging it around and running his thumb over a puncture against the vein inside her forearm. He pressed until dull pain throbbed the wound, like the needle slid in anew, and leaned in close to stir hot breath at her ear. “Even after Ilya’s girls were done, you would not stop, Oriena.”

She turned her face to watch him flatly. If there was a hunger in him, it was not a carnal one. He let her arm go.

Memories scraped the surface, ignored. The agony Ezekiel envisioned had less to do with the bubbling melt of her skin than he clearly supposed, though she remembered it well enough in flashes. Searing pain. The demon leer of a face that was sometimes Ryker’s and sometimes a stranger’s. The Healing was nothing like the sweet rivers of Jensen’s embrace, but something of excruciating cold, cording her muscles like they were cast into a shell of ice. The ache of it hadn’t left yet.

The screaming, though. That was for something else. Grief hurled into the void as it siphoned through her soul like a trespass; scars deeper and uglier than the ones on her skin. She touched her damp neck, tracing a line that should have flared tender pain. There was nothing quite like staring into the promise of the abyss to spark new yearning for the thrill of living, though the rumour was that Jaxen Marveet was dead. Ori had not cared to dig for the truth, but she doubted its veracity anyway; he had every reason to be laying low right now. And she wasn’t going to look for him, even if it was the slide of his hands she was thinking of then.

Ekeziel nodded towards the rows of glittering bottles behind her, smirking. “You’re looking for something to take the edge off?”

A smile finally hooked. She wondered how long she had been down here, and how long he had been loitering around the Almaz, waiting for her to rejoin the world of the living. “No,” she said. “I’m looking for something stronger.”

Awww, I just saw a cast list for a live action Hercules which turns out to be fake and I have never been so disappointed because I need Jeff Goldblum as Hades in my life.

The whole date went sideways.  The mist monsters, the fight.  The searing pain. But it had its good points - or good point.  Nhysa was a great companion.  And after dropping the wounded girl off at Li was certain was a black market doctor.  He'd visited a few of them over the years.  And he felt like he needed one though there was nothing visibly wrong with him - except maybe a little bruising where Nhysa had saved his life.  But a little makeup and a high collar would fix that, And for now, he didn't really care anyway.

It was dark. The quiet of the streets wasn't really quiet but it gave them much time to be alone. The darkness seemed to bring Nhysa out more.  Not that she had been shy or timid before she just seemed to have different energy now than before.  

There was a point after leaving the treacherous one at the hospital and they were alone that Li wanted to take her hand and be the childish giddy fool he was feeling.  It wasn't everyday that an everyday walk with a normal person didn't turn into a gawkfest. Being famous had it's drawbacks.  A few looked, most didn't care.  And it was dark so it could just be the trick of the eye.  Sometimes Li used his power to trick them more, but he didn't dare draw upon the gift the memories still too painful.

The dojo drew near and Li finally took her hand.  "This is me."  He led her down the alley to the side entrance.  When he bought the dojo he also bought the whole building creating his permanent living space in Moscow above the dojo - he could be near and still have the lifestyle he was accustom too.   "You will see me inside? I owe you a drink for saving my life."  He gave her a sly smile.  He was tired.  His head hurt but he enjoyed her company and didn't want the night to end.

Liv compressed her lips in anticipation as she checked herself one last time on her wallet. The butterflies in her stomach were horses now.

But at least she wasn’t in work clothes or reeking of coffee. Her dark hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail. Not one for much makeup, she mostly had touched up her eyes with eyeliner and a bit of coloring to her lips.

A thin black choker wrapped her neck. She wasn't girly. Not much anyway. Getting dolled up only made her uncomfortable. She instead wore a dark floral, baby-doll dress covered with an over-sized, leather biker jacket. The garments clashed, yet complimented each other. Satin maroon tights were layered with high striped socks,  dark purple Doc Martin boots adorning her feet.

   
Dorky. Stupid. Warm enough. Liv felt like herself


She waited at the entrance, the occasional swirl of cold up her dress a welcome distraction. Krutitsky Monestary wasn't a church. That would be the lamest date in the history of lame dates. She would know. 

No, it was just a gorgeous place to explore. Now, anyway.

She wasn't sure why she chose it. It was peaceful. And she felt maybe a bit...stronger here. More sure of herself. She wasn't sure why.

Name: Allan Rykovi

Age: 26

Born in Great Britain to Russian diplomats stationed there before the annexation of Europe to the ASU/CCD.

Occupation: Before he became one of the Nine Rods of Dominion Allan was a secretary at a law firm while he continued at University.

Skill: Expert

Current: 25

Potential: 33

Reborn God: Janus (Roman)

Personality: Allan has a knack for picking things up easily. He hates politics because of his parents. Allan rebelled against everything his parents stood. Allan’s parents were never happy with his choices especially with those men or women he brought home - they were never good enough for him. He hated the fact that they were always right. While in University he studied philosophy where he took up yoga and became a vegan again much to his parents displeasure. In addition to his degree in philosophy Allan was earning degrees in law and economics. Allan is also deathly allergic to hazelnuts and is an alcoholic.

Description: Allan is 5’9” with a toned flexible build. He had dark hair and eyes. He has three tattoos - all meant to piss his parents off. The first one he obtained at 16 after his parents found him lying in bed with another boy he went to school with. They decided to ship him off to boarding school where such fraternization was forbidden. He rebelled by getting the tattoo while in town. The tattoo was a series of three birds in various stages of flight that followed the his hair line flying in the direction of his left ear.

The second was more personal - a small broken red heart above his heart in remembrance of the girl he was about to marry who died in a car accident. Allan doesn’t like to talk about her or the accident.

The last tattoo was random. Allan was drunk with his much younger college friends right before he came to Moscow. On his right shoulder is an orange and blue flaming portal. The image called to him in the tattoo parlor.

History:

Allan was born to Sawa and Tatiana Rykovi, Russian diplomats stationed in Great Britain before the annexation of the country. Allan was born in the country and until recently had never stepped foot in the Mother land though he had heard all about the great city of Moscow from his father. But Sawa did not like the Ascendancy and was moderately vocal about his dislike of the man’s regime. Not to the point of contention or rally, but he was a disgruntled employee so to speak.

Sawa was a strict man. He insisted that his family follow proper etiquette at all times and Allan come to hate the restrictions his father set on him early on. He rebelled at every turn. This included openly expressing praise for the Ascendancy’s actions. Tatiana was much more loving, but she was a busy woman - her job was everything and too precedence ever over her adoring son.

Allan was an only child - an accident to begin with that neither of his parents really wanted and only grudgingly took interest in as he grew into his own person. He was raised by various care takers over the years until he out grew them - or he slept with them and his father found out. Sex didn’t matter his father soon found out.

After having been caught fooling around on the couch with his much older male babysitter his father sent him to a boarding school with even stricter guidelines than Allan had at home. Their no fraternization policy should have been the reason Allan was expelled but who knew getting a tattoo at the tender age of 16 was also a rule breaker.

With less than three months at the boarding school Allan was back home under what his father liked to call house arrest. He wasn’t allowed out - at all. Until Allan was accepted to attend University early. His parents were ecstatic at the prospect of him studying. They allowed him to enroll in as many classes as Allan wanted and it did in the beginning keep Allan from going crazy. School was always too easy, but now that was different.

Ten years later and Allan was still going to school because he couldn’t decide what he should major in. His parents allowed him to continue this way as long as he continued in an appropriate degree program. Allan choose law, and was working as a secretary at a local law firm. His parents were most pleased. Allan however only did that to keep his parents off his back. He was studying economics to appease them, but his passion was philosophy and was the reason he continued his education ad nauseum.

Allan studied every philosophy he could from Buddhism to the Zen philosophy. Allan became a certified Yoga instructor in his spare time, and picked up the Vegan practice along the way.

A year ago (2044, 24/25 years old) Allan met Bethany Foster a British girl in one of his philosophy classes - many of his classes. She was the one who introduced Allan to Veganism. At first it had started with trying to impress her, but as time grew and they grew together it became a natural part of his life. A difficult aspect to be truly Vegan.

The night Allan proposed to Bethany, they walked home. Bethany was gushing over the ring he’d bought her and a mugger wanted to take it. Bethany fought with their attacker and in his anguish and fear Allan was frozen. Terror coursed through his body. A huge gust of wind threw both Bethany and their attacker against building like a bug on a windshield. The sound still echos in Allan’s mind.

The incident was ruled a freak accident as no one knew what had caused the unprecedented weather phenomenon.

Three weeks later Allan feel deathly ill but even in his fever stricken state of delirium his parents thought he was still in anguish over losing Bethany.

It wasn’t until several months later that Allan realized what had truly happened the night Bethany died. Another moment occurred, he was drunk, walking home after a night alone in a bar. He was walking across the street and a drunk driver came barreling down the street while Allan was crossing. With a horn blaring, and the streetlights blinding him in his drunken state Allan quickly sobered to the sound of crushing metal as the car collided into an invisible post. The car wrapped around nothing and Allan stood immobilized in the same terror he’d felt the night Bethany died.

The next morning after speaking with the police who could not explain what had happened anymore than Allan had he realized that he was the only common denominator. He had killed Bethany.

Allan sank into depression and failed the semester of classes entirely. His parents cut off his education funds, and what he made as secretary barely covered his bills. The depression grew until Allan was at his end. He climbed to the top of the tallest building in the middle of the night.

Allan jumped. As the ground hurled towards him the terror came again and so did regret and the desire to live. Allan swore he saw lights and everything came clear as the ground softened and the air thickened. He didn’t really understand as he barreled towards the ground only to land softly.

Sirens were blaring, and a crowd had formed despite the hour. Before Allan knew it he was being taken away from the scene of his attempted suicide in an ambulance.

But Allan didn’t find himself at an ordinary hospital when he woke up the next morning. Yes there were monitors and IVs but the room was locked down and he felt sleepier than he should have.

For three weeks he lay in bed seeing only a handful of people. At least he thought it was three weeks, but there was no sunlight, no way to really tell how much time passed. He would have had the worse hangover of his life except whatever they had him on he felt numb to everything.

Until one day he was walked into a room with a chair that wasn’t a chair. He was attached to leads and machines and he was asked to do what he did. Allan blinked back at the doctor and technicians. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Another man came into the room, “When you jumped, what did you do?”

Allan shook his head. “I…” The terror… The light shone just out of the corner of his eye. It flickered and fluttered. And Allan grabbed at the flickering hope and the world felt clear and right, and it was amazing.

“Fear? Terror?” the man nodded. And that was the last he saw of the man until later when they discussed the reasons for jumping. Therapy. Something he now had to endure for as long as he remained in the Facility and After. Especially after. The Ascendancy could not afford to have any liabilities.

Allan hadn’t had a drink since he got to the facility. Through all of his testing, and all of the training Michael Vellas put them through. Everything came easily once Allan realized what it was he was doing. But it wasn’t as if there was drink available in the Facility anyway.

It came so easily that Allan tried to explain it several times to people but he kept getting tongue tied and wanting to find a bottle. So instead he sat down with pen and paper and started writing it out. After hours and hours of writing and revising over the course of weeks Allan wrote down what he was calling “The Void”. It was a method of various meditative philosophy techniques he had learned in his own studies that allowed him to obtain the power inside to channel with ease. The concept boiled down to pushing all emotion into a flame leaving a void and the power. Once mastering the flame and void seizing the power was just a matter of grabbing the source and use it.

Jullian found the paper and Allan took to the void and had Jullian pinned to the ground before he could escape and ruin the paper he had meticulously worked. The unauthorized use of the power had caused him a few days in solitary as punishment - as well as extra time talking with his therapist for anger management.

But while he was in solitary he had a visitor. Apparently the paper had made it to the desk of the Ascendancy and he came to visit. Meeting the man himself was not something he’d ever thought would happen. He was in the facility to be studied he understood that. And as he grew in strength and power and knowledge the herd thinned. But he never imagined he’d be sitting having one conversation with Nikolai Brandon himself, much less the several he had. He was interested in the paper and talking about philosophy.

Meeting the Ascendancy made Allan a little bit of a target with some of the other guys. He tried not to mention it at all, but when he was called away from the group to talk it was well known. But it was sticking it to his parents he wished he could show. Talking to the Ascendancy like a man would piss his parents off. Allan had told the Ascendancy of his parents in their first meeting - mostly to tell him he did not believe their words. He was not like his father and he hadn’t wanted his parents to get in the way of what was happening here.

The big gala was the first time Allan had any access to any alcohol, the months of training and captivity had done Allan some good. But he had a purpose now. He didn’t talk much to anyone in the facility. He wasn’t there to make friends. And he had been paired of with Im Sueng during the gala. He had no reason to reach for a bottle, and he was honored to protect the Ascendancy and his guests.

The whole thing ended in a shit show, but Allan had learned a few new tricks - as had all of the Nine if they cared to pay any attention at all to what the Ascendancy, the consul and the other man had done to dissuade the mist creature.

There was a whole world of things he didn’t know about. He had another purpose - his need to learn more in both the power and of other things grew. He was grateful he hadn’t been assigned the Africa tour. He didn’t want to be a military man. He wasn’t cut out for it. And war probably was not good for his mental state either.

The arse end of Russia was not where she had imagined herself ending up. 

Early-hour guard duty wore her patience to ground-up dust, though only because it gave her too much time to think in the fucking silence, when the only movement in the shadows was the puff of her own frigid breath. The Custody’s offer hadn’t been any kind of choice at all, given the ruin Marcil made of her career, but it didn’t stop her thinking about what she’d left behind. The patients in Moscow’s shitty Guardian complex she was not there to treat. The lives she did not save. Her contemporaries had always questioned her dedication to such a dirt-poor institution when she could have been making real money from her god-given talents. But for Morven it had always been about justice.

She hated Marcil for that.

Hated, too, not knowing what had happened to Sage Parker. Though the kid had a fucking computer lodged in his brain, and it wasn’t like he couldn’t have found her if he’d needed her. She knew he wasn’t dead at least. That would have to be enough.

Beyond that she had discovered she enjoyed the training. She’d always been athletic, spending most of her summers hiking with her sister in the Cairngorms, and even when her studies robbed most of her leisure time Morven had taken care of herself. She took to the physical training like a duck to water, and revelled in the challenge of it. She was competitive and ambitious; driven to excel by consistently performing to the very edge of her limits. This was the sort of discipline she had been made for; one in which she was not required to show tact around gentler feeling. The camaraderie discovered amongst the others in her troop was not something she had ever thought to look for, or had ever felt missing from her life, but it proved a powerful euphoria.

Not that the path was smooth by any means; she had a temper, and blood that ran hot, and sometimes a pride easily injured. Weapons handling seemed particularly pointless at first, given that a bare twist of her mind gave a far more potent result. But there weren’t any channelers here, nor anyone to teach her. She was instructed to show one careful demonstration of her abilities one night, and that with ranking government officials she did not even know the name of at the time, but it was made quite clear that she was not to use her edge for the duration, nor to allow others to know of it -- which admittedly didn’t always stop her pressing against the boundaries. Caught wrong, though, Morven accepted the punishment with equanimity. Justice was justice, after all, and once she ken the reason it made sense. The military couldn’t be seen to be training fucking channelers after all. Not for violence, anyway.

Officers training followed as Spring rolled around. She’d been originally trained for the ER, and working in the chaos of the moment was wired into her psyche; it was the rote tasks she found more challenging, particularly after the adrenaline of military basics. Caring for the more mundane aspects of her comrades at the medical centre that was now her temporary base seemed a startling reevaluation at first, skills she did not lack but did not always exactly favour. She was a good doctor, but she was not one known for her empathy. Least not if you did not deserve it.

She expected deployment after that; Africa was a fucking mess, and they said even America was about to carve itself up in the south. But when the summons came it was not to service at all, it was back to Moscow before she’d even passed out. That ground her teeth, to begin with. It seemed that now she had proved her soul to be signed in blood to the Custody’s cause, the real specificity of her training was to begin; the reason the agents had made the offer in the first place, following her forced registration. She was an asset, she got that; a rare commodity, if not so rare a gem as Jensen James. But first that skill must be honed.

It wasn’t the first time she’d been studied, though the cavernous halls of the Facility far outstripped even the Network’s breadth of resources.

She quickly discovered, to some disappointment, that the Ascendancy only surrounded himself with male channelers, and she already knew from Soren that she could neither learn from them nor teach them her own tricks. The Dominions, the Consul, Alric. Ironically enough the most prominent scientists in here were actually women, though Morven had little in common with either of them -- even Danika, who resonated the self-same gift. She didn’t think the woman’s feet even touched the ground when she walked, her head was so high up in the fucking clouds. So what time Morven did not spend accepting the tests of her power and wondering what the fuck they actually intended for her future, she spent in the Dominion’s gym, whether she was welcome there or not. It seemed a general consensus to them that she was to be an auxiliary to their work -- the nice little woman who’d patch them up when they fucked up. Well, at least until she bust Taichechski’s nose so she could show him just how she could put it back together for him. Seemed their opinion on her changed after that.

Some time passed before Andre drudged up the nerve to find his brother. The day he intended to walk into the Kremlin, flash his name, and hope for the best, something unexpected happened.

He was riding the subway to the central district, surrounded by mid-level wealth and mid-rung levels of power. It was the same in Chicago, kind of. Back home, he rode the subway toward the downtown district, where two stops ahead of his own would pour out money, power, ambition and corruption that would climb the steel skyscrapers and rule the rest of them.

Andre was never among that class. Though he was dressed suitably today in a purple button-down, black slacks, sensible shoes and a casual jacket. It was the kind of thing he wore on duty as a detective working cases: professional, but he knew he was sexy as fuck in purple.

Such was why he noticed an out of place poor dude stumble into his train. He was tall, brown-skinned, and wore a long trench-coat, stained and tattered around the lower hem and the hood drawn up. Others sneered and stepped aside. One actually pinched their nose and squeezed their way up the train.  Andre frowned. The guy was clearly homeless, or close to it in a city of golden bricks. For all he knew, the guy worked a 60-hour week and brought home barely nothing to live on. Regardless, he obviously didn’t shower. He did stink some strong ass.

Andre frowned and offered him his seat.

The guy didn’t look up beyond a passing nod and deposited himself into the plastic molding. Andre swayed as the car moved onward, creeping closer to the Kremlin, but along the way he checked on the guy. Just in case something unexpected happened. Nothing did. He assumed the fellow slept. Maybe he worked nights. It was the morning commute after all.

They were close to downtown when the guy suddenly got off. The hood fell back briefly, and Andre caught a glimpse of a bald scalp that seemed to shine oddly in the light.

Just as the doors closed, Andre thrust an arm to stop their full sealing, and squeezed onto the platform. The man in the trench coat had his hands thrust in his pockets, shoulders curled downward with the weight of a burden upon them, hurrying toward the stairs to the surface. Andre glanced over his shoulder as the train sped onward toward a destination that he was okay with procrastinating one more day. Besides, he wanted to make sure the poor man was okay. He could offer to buy him breakfast and hear his story. Just to learn about the life of people living in the city his brother practically ruled.

He followed him from a casual distance. The streets were busy with morning workers, but they weren’t quite at the Kremlin district. The blocks changed after a few minutes. The river crossed by an ornate pedestrian bridge.  They came to a park that Andre didn’t recognize the name, but it was mostly green space. On the other side, the scenery changed, and Andre assumed the neighborhood was transitioning into a poorer, more obscure one that the distant high-rises ignored.

He was about to give up and go elsewhere when the man suddenly, and quite energetically, hopped a short fence, traversed flower beds, and slithered into a water-run off system. Naturally surprised, Andre looked around as though wondering if this was normal behavior for the area, then followed carefully. When he arrived to the edge of the run-off, the man was gone. The only thing to be seen was a culvert that plunged into darkness. The safety bars crossing the hole were mangled to an opening.

“The hell?” He said to himself as he jumped down, entering a whole new world as the shadows swallowed him up.

Perrin is and has always been my favourite character in the books, not just because he is wolfkin (haha), but because of his ethos and character conflict. The war between the man he is with the man he must be.

Tor published this article yesterday on pacifism and Perrin's inner conflicts and justifications with it in the series. Aram was an influence for my old Tinker Asha'man Araya (although unlike Aram, Araya did not take the decision upon himself, it was instead thrust upon him). It's a theme I've always found compelling. 

The things we are willing to defend, and how, is obviously a pretty hot topic right now. I don't intend to open a political debate (we should never be silent, but that's not what any of us come here for). However, this resonated with me this morning, so I wanted to share it. Aside from a snippet at the end, it is just about the books.

I'll leave you with a Tolkien quote from the Two Towers. 

“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, 
nor the arrow for its swiftness, 
nor the warrior for his glory. 
I love only that which they defend.”

[[Following on from Caerus and Interlude, and connected to the creature in Paradise of Pleasure]]

She trailed her feet through the frigid water, murmuring the beats of a song that haunted unknown words to her tongue. Rocks slipped underfoot, making a game of balance, arms outstretched as she tumbled into a strange sort of dance. Water sprayed and speckled her skirts until its arms captured her laughing, down into freezing depths. When next her shining head surfaced the fjord rolled out in unnatural waves, beholden to her playful whim. She spun with it, hair fanning out, the frozen petals tucked into her braids slipping free to bob in the currents.

A lonely game.

If she squinted she could see the shine of a red-painted door in the distance, but she did not often traipse the path to the cottage and basalt stone above, lest the great wolf chase her off. She did not know if Tristan kept his promises, or even if he could.

With a sigh she sank, letting herself unravel.

Down and down and down

Her eyes opened curiously when she suddenly felt the presence of another; a shadowy brush dripping against the shell of her foot, and the agile curve of something slithering along her shoulder. The ancient one’s body flickered as she circled, the beautiful colours of her scaling gleaming in the watery light. Human enough to dream. Wonder followed her swift trail. How many of the old things were beginning to stir! But when Nim’s lips parted to smile, bubbles zipping joyous from her mouth, it was blood she tasted; bright and sharp in the water. For something was very wrong.

Nimeda’s hand outstretched into the cold, unsure what had drawn her. Then her insides shuddered with a deluge of memory; old and indistinct. The trembling tiptoe of sneaking mischief, a realm beyond her own, yet she usually found welcome even so. Wide-eyed rapture. The rippling scythe of fins.

The vengeful sea.

A snag at her ankle jerked her down. A frenzy of bubbles clouded her vision.

He will not find you! she said. An echo of another dream pierced the mirk, stinking of death and the horror she had hurled at the grimnir for his callousness. They did not deserve to die!

But the creature could not hear, caught in the mania of her dreaming, phasing in and out in the murky light. The cold edge of a spear nudged against the skin at Nim’s side and she squirmed, falling deeper. Distress churned. Nim tangled for a moment in the squeezing rush of tentacles, caught a sliver of the female’s expression; lip curled and sharp teeth bared. Then she passed around again. Circling.

Rage. Oh the rage.

And fear.

Nim finally looked down to the pull of a heartbeat below. Her eyes widened. Oh no no no no. She dare not drift closer, and with a push and a flicker her head burst from the surface of the lake. 

She was no longer in Ice Land though. Sorrow weighed the heart in her chest like an anchor, and waves lapped at her neck as she stared at her new surroundings; tried desperately to emblazon the curving basin to memory. A wet palm brushed tears from her eyes. The dream rearranged to deliver her to the shoreline, feet already running. Sodden skirts tangled her legs, and she tripped her way a few stumblings steps, grappled forward again in desperate need -- and found her hands flat against red-painted wood. Vánagandr. The name beat a steady rhythm in her skull, her head presently pressed against the door to catch her breath. Water rolled great droplets down the planes of her face, or maybe tears. Her mind sought outwards, to discover if the kin of wolves ran in the dream this night. “Tristan?”

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@"Tristan" @"Sierra"

Mercurial in nature, Ezekiel can be kind or malevolent, spirited or brooding, affectionate or cold. He appreciates flattery and enjoys being liked by others, relying heavily on his natural charisma and charm, and tending to be both perplexed and vindictive when it does not win him friends. Usually he is generous, though such favours come with a price often only discovered much later. He chafes under the thumb of authority but does not (appear to) seek power for his own ends; rather he does as he pleases when he pleases. He is prone to addiction, vices he sometimes embraces and sometimes fights against. Men and women earn equal flirtatious attention when it suits him, though in reality he usually has little interest in either. He enjoys both cultivating and observing fear in others, but not being the object of that fear; in fact he prefers the opposite, to be the one looked to for protection.