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 Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 1:27 pm
They say if you bring her a gift, the witch on the beach can help you.
Sunny, she'd been called, by Lady and Zac.
A little more digging and he'd turned up her unfortunate penchant towards a certain brand of smokes, the likes of which he'd tucked in the breast pocket of his unbuttoned shirt. The beach breeze toyed with his undershirt, mussed his hair he'd left down, but it felt good, that sort of chill that only came from the water. East coast beaches were a far cry from west coast, but there was a familiar scent and feel that came with both. It was almost like coming home.
He approached the lone figure on the beach with a heavy stare, not at all knowing what to expect.
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 1:38 pm
"Hey," said Sunny. She paused a moment to push her stringy-greasy hair behind her ears, then turned her freckled face towards Lucas. It was late May and despite that there was a bright summery warmth if one found a bright spot, and she had. Still, after Blackfriars, many people were staying home. Who knew who else might pose a drug-fueled danger. She shoved her hands deep into her hoodie pockets. "I was waiting for you." She was always waiting for someone. "Had this whole thing planned out. But... Just don't have the energy to be a b***h about it today. Sorry." Sunny sits cross-legged on the damp sand. "What's up?"
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 1:44 pm
"Hey," he said back gently, reading the language of her tiredness in her posture. He could empathize. Lucas offered a faint smile. "I can come back for that if it'll make you feel better," he offered, shrugging a little, "and I come bearing a gift I hope is acceptable." He tugged the smokes out of his pocket and held them out to her. "I don't like visiting people without a gift. It's a little harder when I haven't met them, though." Sitting with her - slower, much slower, his body still hurt from having prosthesis attached to it for five solid days - he looked out over the waves and breathed in the salt air, soothed. "I really just -- wanted to talk, if that's okay." He turned his pale eyes over to her. "I've had a bit of a bad time with getting answers and I'm -- pretty damn tired of it. So if you've the energy, a leisurely chat would be nice."
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 2:17 pm
Sunny plucked the smokes from Lucas's hand, eyeballed the brand and opened it, all in one motion like water over rocks. "You want one," she asked, offering the pack out. At some point the cigarette she'd chosen for herself had been lit, but she seemed to be content to just let it burn. "I can do that," she said. "But it's a pretty hard thing to talk about."
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 2:23 pm
Lucas tapped his tongue against the back of his teeth before extending a hand, accepting the cigarette. He kicked the habit back in the day but one didn't sound bad. "Thanks." He twirled it in his fingers, looking at it blankly. "It's hard to talk about, harder to live through. Assuming we get to live through it all." He exhaled slowly through his teeth, looking to her again. "Do you know what happened, at Blackfriars?"
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 2:41 pm
Sunny snapped her fingers and the business end of his cigarette burst into flame, fizzled out to an ember. "It feels better to have one burning," she said. "And I know." She ground her teeth together, the muscles in her jaw tight, and flicked ash from the end of her cigarette. "It's not the first time." She looked over at Lucas. "I'm twenty-seven thousand years old," she said. "I mean, twenty-six thousand nine-hundred and ninety-two. It's a safe bet to say I've seen at least everything once. "But that wasn't supposed to happen this time."
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 2:45 pm
He flinched visibly when his cigarette lit, looking over at Sunny with slightly wider eyes and consideration. "That's handy," he murmured, tucking the filter against his lips and taking a drag while he listened. Lucas turned his head to cough a little - he was still raw after everything that had happened - and took another to chase it down. "Mm, that again." Unsurprised, tired. "I guess you've got a bit more on me than the fifteen times I've supposedly done this." Lucas exhaled the smoke through the corner of his mouth furthest from Sunny, eyeing the lit piece between his fingers. "There's a lot of 'supposed to' and 'this is how it is' and yet...none of that is true. It seems to be in a state of falling apart or generally surprisingly wrong." Pale eyes closed. "Why is that? What's the variable that's changing all this?" His eyes opened, just barely. "What can I do to keep my kind safe?"
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 3:04 pm
Sunny looked at Lucas out of the corner of her eyes. "Yeah," she said. "It always comes back to that." The scent of cloves hung heavy around the pair of them, and Sunny relaxed into it, the tension bleeding out of her shoulders. Smoke, cigarette or otherwise, was her element. She shed her beat-up Uggs and sighed. "Depends," said Sunny. "What's your kind? Is it moonwalkers? Humans? People who can walk on both sides?" She looked away from the water, towards Lucas. "Someone's messing with this," she said, gesturing with her cigarette. "Michael… the original rogue… Someone put him there. They must have. So my question is who, and why, because all this will accomplish is…" Fear. Everyone would fear the weres. "Maybe it's trying to split you up," she said. "No worries about you beating it again if you don't work together. Eh, mijo?"
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 3:12 pm
"I don't really know," he replied honestly. "We aren't told a damn thing. I think the uh -- " He waved his hand up high, trying to indicate antlers. "The uh, Prideful One? He said Moonwalkers. Berated us for not doing our job. But, get this!" Lucas splayed both his hands next to his face with a fake grin. "No one told us our job. Hurray!" The mocking expression fell, and his brows with it, glowering out over the water. "I'm a werewolf, and I've met three other weres like me. I don't know any Michael, though." Lucas shrugged. "What I need is to learn some way to get there -- the other place, without help. I have to protect them because, god help them, they don't ask questions. They just...follow Lady and believe she's right." His tone suggested he did not fall in line with that school of thought. His eyes turned back to her, tucking the cigarette between his lips. "I don't even know what it is, soalheiro. Whatever it is, it's already better off than we are."
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 3:46 pm
"Then let me tell you," said Sunny. "I don't know all of it, because Pridey is… Pridey. The triplets get their names honestly, I tell you what." She bit her thumbnail, chewed it for a long moment. "So I might ******** up, but here's what I know." She settled in, getting comfortable on the sand. "Moonwalkers, shapeshifters, whatever, are half of a very old talent. It used to be that anyone who had the power could change their shape, which I guess is probably where the mythology comes from. That changed after the first time the Enemy was locked away, because… before that, there were no rules. The magic came to you as it came to you and you could do almost anything." She sighed. "Anything except bring back the dead, which was… its own problem. But I'm getting off topic, so. Moonwalkers. "When the very first moonwalkers realized what happened to them during the full moons, they knew they couldn't just let that be. People got hurt. They died. Worse, people got changed, and it spread like a disease. People were afraid of that change, and to defend their own lives, the moonwalkers became… something of a police force. Protectors." She looked away from the water, a ghost of a smile on her face. "Your job, as best I understand it, is to keep the otherworld from encroaching on this world. The real one. To limit the effects that people who aren't ready can feel." Sunny cussed as the flame of her cigarette burnt the back of her knuckles, dropping the stub with a hissed <********> That didn't stop her from lighting another one, and this time she took a long drag. "When the moonwalkers were open about what they were, they did it to change their image. From ravening monsters to protectors. Now that it's become a secret again…" She shrugged. "It's got to be your choice," she said. "Safety? Or freedom? Do you want to protect, and risk choking everything you love to death? Or do you want to let the ones you love grow, knowing that they could die anyway?" A cloud had passed over the sun, turning the weather chilly again. Sunny shivered, and zipped her hoodie up as far as it would go. "His name was Michael Mitchell," she said. "You were right, to not want them to go back to the otherworld. It didn't help them. Now he's dead." She pointed out to the breakers, where white foam caps left shadows on the dark sand. "They'll find him there," she said. "A week. Maybe two. His parents will scream when they see the body. They'll want answers, and they'll never have them." She said, "I can teach you to see the way I do. To find the paths to other places. But I'd have to have something from you, first."
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 4:17 pm
"Triplets," he mused out loud around the cigarette. "Pride, Peace and what -- Prejudice?" Lucas snorted at his own joke, dragging from the cigarette deeply, taking it to the halfway point. Magic, of course. Here we go, he thought bitterly, but he listened. Sunny was the first person to actually give him something he could hold onto, some goddamn sense in the chaos, and with each breath she took to continue her tale, he turned to look at her a bit more. His pale eyes were sharp and attentive, brows lifting and furrowing subtly as things began to click into place. "So we're -- wardens of that place?" The man's tone was tinged with shock and understanding. Suddenly, his mistrust towards it all felt like it was in place. Like maybe he'd done this before. He did not like that feeling. He shook his head at the question, pulling the cigarette from between his lips. "Their decisions on their own," he replied simply, "those who can touch that place have to make their own mind up about what it means and what they want from it. I just don't want people who aren't involved - who can't save their own asses, to be involved. I've seen enough innocents die in my time. But if you know the risks and you make the active decision to do it anyway -- that's being a soldier. I'm not the type of guy to deny anyone that, even if it tears me up inside." Lucas thought of of Thorne, of Aleksy, of Lily and Jamie, of Eve -- those he would protect if they asked. Of Zac, of Rylan, Autumn, Avery, the ones he'd forcefully keep out, if he could. Of everyone else he'd met that was tied to that place, the ones that accepted it -- and the ones who hadn't. All he wanted was a fair chance -- His back went rigid, sitting up suddenly and staring at her, lips parted with open shock - and horror. "He's dead?" Disbelief riddled the two words, crashing into the barely held thread of anger. "They -- the portals? ********. Do they know?" Lucas looked out towards the breaker and swallowed hard, the smoke clinging to his throat, a blanket of false calm to his frayed nerves. "********. Oh my <********>" He ran his fingers, real and metallic alike, over his temples, eyes wide and processing. This was so much. Too much. What could any of them do -- ? He swallowed hard again and took another long drag, rolling the smoke around his tongue and exhaling it slowly through his nose. "If he -- if he died there, his body just -- returns? I ... I don't have to go get it or anything, do I? Because he -- he deserves better than rotting there." s**t. This was his fault. If they were protectors -- they had literally just murdered a guy. Rubbing his good hand over his face, he turned his eyes to Sunny, his gaze heavy. One thing at a time. His Pack. He had to make sure this didn't happen again. "What would you need from me?"
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 4:29 pm
"Sorrow," said Sunny. "Pride, Peace, Sorrow." She smiled, a little vaguely. "Yeah. Sort of." The waves washed up over the breakers, the tide turning in for the night. "You hold back the dark. If Michael had lived… he could've taught you, but… he's dead." Sunny rolled her shoulders back, hands digging into the wet sand. "They don't know. I don't… go to people. That's… I've tried, you know, to derail things by going straight to people and telling them everything, but they get so caught up in it. In… relationships that fail. In magic they may not even live to see." With a shake of her head, she reached out to press a spread-fingered hand to Lucas's arm, flesh to flesh. "You don't have to go get it," she said. "He won't rot in that world." But now they were talking an exchange. She changed position, sitting forward on her knees. "I think from you, I'd want…" She looked at her own left hand. "Usually I deal in… promises. Metaphysical stuff. Will you take responsibility for your actions. Will you bring them home. But you?" She held out her hand, and in it there was a stone knife, one that hadn't been there before. It's stained by old blood. "I'll teach you to walk between the realms in exchange for this: my blood and yours. Surely you've heard of it. We're alike, you and I. Kin, but not kind. I propose we make that in blood and in bond."
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 4:45 pm
You hold back the dark. Lucas closed his eyes and rubbed them with his prosthetic hand. The one that could have taught them everything...was dead. By their own actions. This was some special sort of ******** up that he wasn't sure he'd be able to wrap his head around fully. "People -- human beings, by nature -- aren't objective. They can't see past their own little bubble in the world. Hell, I had a hard time accepting this and I had a psychic cat and Pax in my face." He scoffed at himself, shaking his head. "It's some cruel twist that the fate of anything should rely on us." He paused, cringing before correcting himself, "Them." He wasn't human. Not really. Not anymore. "Who can teach us, then? Lady?" His eyes flickered briefly to her hand on his skin, and subtly, he turned towards her a little more. Pale eyes watched her face as she spoke, though his gaze lowered to the procured knife that looked like it belonged in a history museum. "...Lady said that," he confirmed slowly, "but I don't get Pack from her. And I'm not getting Pack from you." Lucas leveled his gaze at her again, considering. It wasn't just for him, or else he'd refuse - Zac had warned him about deals - but it was for his Pack. His Pack.Tucking the cigarette against his lips, he turned in the sand to completely face her, carefully picking up the knife with his metal fingers. "If you can tell me what the hell that means, I'll listen. Forgive me, I can't -- put anyone else in danger around me because I didn't ask questions." That hadn't gotten any of them anywhere worth being, so far. His gaze was heavy. "Give me the nitty gritty, and you'll have a deal." Forgive me, he thought outwardly to his friends, his loved ones. To himself.
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 4:58 pm
"Lady is a child," said Sunny. "Forced to be something she doesn't understand. They want her to be, but she can't be, and... That's more of a cruelty than I can explain." She took a deep breath. "You know Aleksy? He sees things as they are. He looks at you and he sees you as a moonwalker even when you wear a human skin. It's the same for me--this isn't really me. I'm not human and every single person I meet knows it. If only on a subconscious level." Sunny made eye contact then, unsettlingly violet eyes meeting Lucas' pale gray. "What I want is the ability to blend. I want to be able to live a more human life, I want to--be hungry and tired and grumpy--I want sensitives like Aleksy to be able to look at me and see family. Not because I care about him. But because he won't always be the only one who can See. "If we do this, you'll take on a little bit of my abilities. The world-sight. And I'll be a little more human. That's my only offer."
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 5:03 pm
Dark brows furrowed at the explanation of Lady. Something about it didn't make sense...and yet something settled as true to him. He'd have to get in touch with her again, but...later. "He saw me as an upright wolf, nearly scared the piss out of him," he agreed with a solemn expression, watching Sunny carefully, trying to think where there might be hidden pitfalls or issues. What she was asking for seemed small by comparison of what was offered, and yet...she was so old. What could he possibly give her that she couldn't learn? "I will not lose myself?" he asked, the blade turning between his metallic fingers with a soft sound. "I will not be diminished or a danger to those around me?" Lucas had his mind made, if the answer was favorable.
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