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 Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 3:52 am
He was so full of questions and so very interested in her work, yet she failed to see how anything constructive might come of it. She was used to working alone, used to wandering alone and she had no doubt that he would soon be on his merry way. He'd return home to wherever flutters came from and she... she would continue on her quest to dispose of her zealous and murderous mother. To her it was all very simple, but she supposed that to him it was a foreign concept and in such circumstances questions were warranted.
"I work in tandem with another," she explained quietly, clearing her throat as she moved away from the victim and took a moment to survey the entire scene. It was a rush job, the 'symbols' were muddy and otherwise untidy, but it wasn't a copycat killer this time. "My job is simple, I watch for quirks and signs of shifting methods - in doing so I read my mother's current mental condition," she continued.
"Is she getting braver, is she reckless, is she injured or growing stronger? If so, can I see where those injuries are, can they be focused on? As you can see there are many questions," she tilted her head to the side and regarded Fragment, affording a small smile as she noted he had now grown accustom to the stench.
"It is my job to find the weaknesses, it is Tempest's job to exploit them," she clarified.
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Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2013 1:17 pm
Fragment listened closely, quietly, only the occasional open and close of his wings really betraying anything that he thought about what the mare was saying.
'So you're learning everything you can about what she is doing, and in what state she is in, so that someone else can take action on what you've learned?' he asked, merely for clarification, he was fairly sure he had managed to understand everything she had just said.
'Pardon me for asking, but is it hard to do all this? I mean..' his brow wrinkled, as he tried to imagine doing what she was in order to stop one of his family members.
'She is your mother.'
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Posted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 8:33 am
"She is my blood," she corrected Fragment in a firm tone, though it was clear she meant no offence in doing so. "She is not my mother," she continued and pursed her lips. She supposed that in a way the concept might be foreign to one who had come from a loving family, but she had not... Instead she had been saved by her adoptive mother, one who had sought anonymity and in doing so had accidentally attracted the attention of her blood-father. Suffice it to say that had it not been for her, Catalyst and her siblings would have been dead before they could walk.
"I was raised by an entirely different family, had it not been for Equinox and the trolls I would be dead," she allowed a sigh to escape from her lips, a mild hiss as they barely parted. "Skinwalkers are not maternal, their sole purpose in life is to cause misery." A wry smile touched her lips as she regarded Fragment and then she shook her head.
"There is no love between my blood mother and I, I suppose in that respect it makes things easy. I would be prey to her, just as she is to me and my fellow hunters. Perhaps it would be different if she had been capable of forming a lasting relationship, but no Skinwalker has the mental capacity for one."
She paused.
"I hope that makes sense."
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Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 6:19 am
Fragment understood everything that the mare said; intellectually at any rate. He nodded as she spoke, quietly interjecting when he felt it was appropiate to do so.
'And they can create more misery if they reproduce?' he asked, trying to work out why they would have children in the first place if they felt nothing for them.
'Obviously I'm not including you in that.' he added hastily, offering her a smile, hoping she wouldn't take offence.
He nodded at her question.
'It does make sense, though it is very alien to what I knew in my small sphere of things.' he admitted. He really had not seen a fraction of what the world had to offer in the way of learning and experiences, but he was determined to learn and discover.
As she mentioned another name, it came to him that he not yet learned her own, nor had he given his.
'Pardon me, my manners are terrible. I never introduced myself..I guess seeing a body for the first time throws you off balance. I'm Fragment.'
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Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 8:52 am
Lys hesitated at his question and shook her head; while she had initially assumed that herself, she had quickly discovered that there were more exceptions to the rule than there were those that followed it. Over the course of her investigation she could only conclude that at this time, it required further investigation before she could give an accurate response - so why did they reproduce? She couldn't even hope to answer that accurately at this moment in time.
"That might be the case for some, I'm not certain about the others though," she confessed and released a sigh. If she'd possessed hands she would have raked her fingers through her hair at that moment, alas, she didn't have that option. "For others it simply seems to be a primal instinct, much like an animal in heat...for others, there seems to be a deeper meaning or purpose to it. The only way to get a proper answer is through further research," she explained.
"Regardless of their reasoning it is guaranteed to cause more chaos though," she mused with a wry smile.
However when he made reference to his name she pursed her lips briefly and then nodded; there would be no harm in introducing herself properly. It was unlikely to come back and haunt him as she had never really met anyone else...
"Catalyst, though I'm usually called Lys," she offered and tilted her head to the side. "And to be fair you're responding to your first encounter with a body very well, most just faint or run off."
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Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 7:45 am
'Don't think either didn't cross my mind.' Fragment replied with a chuckle. Truthfully he'd gotten so absorbed in everything that Catalyst had told him that he'd forgotten for a while that they were standing next to a slowly decaying body.
'But, well I mean, if I'd run away I wouldn't have learned all I have..and if I had fainted, what would you have done?' he chuckled again at that thought, and after a moment spoke once more.
'I think it must be hard trying to work out why they do anything, given what you've said of them. They are..chaotic creatures?' he offered, forming it as a question but also trying to show that he was really taking in and thinking about all that she had said.
'So where do you go from here when you have all that can get from this poor corpse?' he asked, trying to work out in his own mind if he was asking out of politeness or if there was some motive of his own that was gradually forming.
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Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2013 8:28 am
"I would have deposited you to one side and continued with my investigation," she replied without hesitation. As an individual who had very little time to spare, she couldn't provide more than an immediate first thought to the stallion. If he had lost his senses, she only needed to ensure that he stayed out of the way. If he expected more than that then he was going to be sorely disappointed!
"As for the walkers," she released a sigh and stepped away from the corpse, turning her gaze towards Fragment. "Which they all seem to be designed to sow chaos, each of them has a unique 'signature'," she explained and motioned to the body. "For example, my mother is the only one who hunts in this manner. She is the only one who performs rituals to this degree," she grimaced and shook her head. "There are others who have their own practices and methods - regardless of the underlying goal, they all achieve it in very specific ways."
"Even those who kill outright tend to have a weakness embedded in their behaviour," she confessed.
Clearing her throat the mare then stepped further away from the body and began to kick the dirt back into the ditches that had been dug by the walker. Dried blood caked the surfaces underneath, yet with each kick they were hidden from view as she systematically destroyed the ritual circle and the evidence surrounding it.
"Once I've ensured that the evidence is gone and will not cause fear to others, I move on to the next victim... If there is not a new victim, I warn of the impending threat. I must always be moving."
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Posted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 2:17 am
'I'm glad I didn't do either then.' Fragment replied, his mouth twisting up into a smile. He liked this mare, but he couldn't say why. She wasn't really warm, she was incredibly clinical, but she'd also been honest, and seemed patient enough to put up with his questions, she could have just as easily told him to take a hike.
'The weakness being that you could track them by finding and following the leavings of their kills.' he nodded at that and then asked;
'Would they see it as a weakness? Or are they secure in the thought that few would dare to confront them..' the end of that question tailed off. Did they fear anything?
He watched the mare as she worked, admiring the fact that she had such purpose. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing in her life. It was with that thought that his next question burst from his lips.
'Could I come with you when you move on?'
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Posted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 5:03 am
She'd never had company before, save for the rare time when she had wandered with Tempest. When leads grew cold she had always wandered with him until the next one revealed itself. As her methods had improved dramatically over the months, the necessity to catch up with the stallion had dwindled. She would either catch the victim before it was too late, or she would find them shortly after. For all intents and purposes it left her as a bit of a loner and while that suited her... Well, even she had want to hear a voice other than her own now and then.
"You are correct, or I simply triangulate the next location they will show up in," she replied, indicating that she wasn't just there to hunt corpses. "For the most part they are egotistical beings, they deny that their weakness has been sighted for quite some time...and then they change it at a hunch," she furrowed her brow as she struggled to explain what she had long since grown accustomed to.
"Then if they have made the smallest change they deem this to be enough," she sighed and shook her head. "It is this confidence that makes them so terrifying, yet so weak in certain respects; all you truly need is one extremely intelligent Angeni who is able to exploit these weaknesses and they would make quick progress at silencing this threat," she rolled her shoulders.
"But Angeni are more focused on sprouting bloodlines and aiding in trivial matters, the vast majority give little care for walkers," she was scathing in her rhetoric and gave a bitter shrug. "Leaving it to mutated and beastial blood to do the work they were charged with, hence why it has taken so much longer to progress," she finished.
"If you wish to come then you may, but I cannot and never will be able to guarantee your safety," she offered after a few moments of silence and glanced over her shoulder. "If my mother finds us then there is no guarantee either of us will come out in one piece."
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Posted: Sat Jul 20, 2013 3:09 am
Fragment was still wondering at his, well, what his thought of as, boldness in coming right out and asking to join her in her..quest? Task, or duty. However you described it, he knew he wanted in, he was a butterfly with butterflies in his stomach right then.
He knew most definately that he wanted to assist in anyway he could, she was doing a good thing. It was a dangerous thing though, and that was causing his nerves. He would master those. He was hopeful of that at any rate.
'Angeni are the ones with the pairs of feathered wings?' he had heard of those, only because his parents thought they were good enough to speak of.
'So they could do something, but most won't?'
Surely if you could do something about the, the 'walkers', wasn't it in everyone's interested to so? The more he learned, the more questions the world seemed to throw up.
'I understand. I don't want to be a burden at all. I just think..' he paused and then continued.
'I think what you are doing is to be admired. I just want to help. If I can.'
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Posted: Sat Jul 20, 2013 3:22 am
"I don't understand the behaviour exhibited by Angeni, it has not been an area I have studied," she confessed and shook her head a touch. "Why they choose to ignore this threat for the most part is something that I do not comprehend," she murmured. In truth, it gave her an urge to be disgruntled and unimpressed which was most unlike her. She was a creature guided by duty and purpose and she hadn't been born into a specific duty, yet to find others who ignored their birthright...
"But yes, they are the ones with feathered, double wings," she confirmed and rolled her shoulders. It was for the best that she didn't dwell, less her temper be irked. Instead she focused on cleaning up the rest of the 'mess' her mother had left and lapsed into silence. Only when she was satisfied that the victim had been given a decent send off (and didn't look like a carnival show), did she step back again.
"At this point, I think any help that can be given should be gratefully received," she murmured softly. She glanced over her shoulder towards Fragment, noting that he wasn't entirely comfortable, but she gave credit where it was due...he'd stepped up. "I'm sure there's something you can do... although I doubt it will be cleaning up crime scenes," she mused, a rare hint of humour in her voice.
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Posted: Sat Jul 20, 2013 6:33 am
'I guess it would be nice to know at some point, but would it change anything?' Fragment mused out loud. Maybe there was a reason, maybe there wasn't. He supposed it didn't help to dwell on it either way.
'Well, I'm not entirely sure exactly how much help I can. I mean, I can do this.' he concentrated for a moment, and the air shimmered around him as he shrunk down to his butterfly size, taking to the wing as he did so.
'So, I could scout ahead relatively unnoticed?' he suggested, his voice quieter in his miniature form. Again he concentrated and landed in his regular size.
'It's a thought. So if you want..' he offered, his face showing a faintly puppyish, eager to please look.
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Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2013 3:18 pm
"At this point, I don't think that it would change anything," she replied, though she wasn't entirely sure if his question was rhetoric or not. Her lips pursed though as she considered his musings and after a few moments she gave her head an abrupt shake. "Then again, if we found out, it could just lead to more resentment or anger," she murmured and released a sigh. "It is for the best that we remain in the dark about some things, if not others," she concluded.
Nevertheless she soon turned her attention back towards his offer of assistance, and when he transformed into a being no more than a fraction of his size, she did have to lift a brow. That was a rather pretty trick indeed, and he even had a valid point as to how it might be of use to both herself and Tempest. Admittedly if Syntyche found Fragment in that form then it would be game over, but that was generally the case regardless of what form anyone found her in!
"I think you might have something," she confirmed with a slow nod, her lips pursing as he returned to his normal size. "For the most part there isn't much scouting in my line of work but Tempest might need it, I can certainly introduce you to him."
Ah, but how amusing it would be to find that Tempest's major allies were vastly becoming dominated by the flutter species!
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Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 11:18 am
Fragment nodded, accepting the wisdom of her words. If they found out it was for some selfish reason that the Angeni were doing nothing, then he was sure there would be only resentment, possibly recriminatory anger. Which was just a waste of energy.
'I mean, it's possible that I may just turn myself into an easily swallowable mouthful.' Fragment said, quirking a brow at that. Was he really joking about that? That was possibly a thread of his nervous side slipping out. He gave a cough, trying to gloss over the moment.
'Of course, however I can be of use, I'll be..well I won't say happy as I'm not sure that's the right emotion, but I'll be willing to do what I can. So as long as I'm not going to be in the way...' he smiled at Catalyst. This was turning out to be a most unusual day, but he was sure that he was more glad than anything about having met her.
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Posted: Sun Aug 04, 2013 11:18 am
"If we are not careful we will all turn ourselves into easily swallowed mouthfuls," Catalyst pointed out and shook her head; she had a suspicion he had said it in humour but she wasn't the best at detecting it. When it came to dry wit she definitely had a hard time spotting it and as such, she wasn't sure. It was better to be safe than sorry and in this case, she preferred to be 'safe' - if he wanted to come with her then he was welcome, but she also needed to make sure that he was going to into it with a clear head. He could certainly become much smaller than her, but in the grand scheme of things...size was largely irrelevant to her mother.
If she could kill it and sacrifice it,then she would.
"Unfortunately my mother is not inclined to eat those she finds unique," she pursed her lips and raised both of her brows as she examined Fragment. "If she catches you and finds you to be exactly what 'Divinity' wants, then you are in for a slow death," she warned and then promptly shook her head. She returned her attention to the fallen body and began to systematically clear it up until she was satisfied it had been laid to rest as honourably as possible.
"But if you are certain this is a risk you want to take, then I shall see to it that we rendezvous with Tempest." She was of course giving him one final warning, better to be safe than sorry, especially if things began to get rough!
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