[Wahya] In the last several hours, the Uktena held a meeting to figure out the fate of one of their own. Marrick appears after “clean up duty” smelling like chemicals and gas, her face held in a stony expression as the young Black Fury strove to keep her emotions at bay and not break down from what she had to do.
She brings the remains of the Gnawer kinfolk, Maija, in a garbage bag… it was the only thing she could find to carry them. It was hard on her to have to break the bones of the five foot six skeleton just to make sure it all fit…
Now, she presents them to Boy and Wahya, not questioning what they had intended to do. La Familia permits a final request from the accuser… to speak to the Dead. Bai Chou, the Uktena theurge wandering off after he provides a death dust talen to Boy.
[Boy] Boy had the dust.
Bai didn’t explain the ins and outs of creating death dust. He was Uktena and Shaman and well traveled. And with all that, Boy didn’t ask. He was sure that even with the knowledge of it he wouldn’t know what to do. And sometimes that meant he shouldn’t know. Uktena don’t usually accept the possibility that one isn’t always supposed to know. Uktena Half Moons know better.
Marrick had brought the remains. She’d gathered up what she could as Boy had asked. It wasn’t an easy task. Literally, as well as on a deeper level. Boy knew right away, upon seeing the face of the fury, that she wasn’t too happy about bringing the remains of a woman all this way, wrapped in plastic, and missing some of her mass. But she’d done the job, and here they were.
Boy kneels over the half open, heavy duty garbage bag. At first his hand lingers over his face, his nose and mouth, and then he reaches for the pouch of sand Bai had left them with, looking up to the Wolf Born Shaman who was with him before taking a pinch and pouring it over the body.
[Gnosis]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]
[Maija] It’s been less then 24 hours since a phone call, since a mistake, since the girl who survived for years listening to her instincts let passion rule reason, made a gamble and lost.
He didn’t know her.
He didn’t recognize her.
He was hurt and sick and she couldn’t do anything to bring him back.
He was her friend.
It’s been less than 24 hours when she is dusted, and she is wrenched back painfully toward her body, the tether not completely severed, the jerk complete and successful as she appears in a place she doesn’t completely understand, that maybe she never will.
Hovering, near where her body lay in the real world, she looks startled, and frightened as she scrambles back a few feet as best an apparition can. She never dealt well with the unknown – and this? is WAY unknown…. Her eyes are wide, as she tries to piece it all together, trembling…
[Wahya] A buzzing sensation raise about the Caern, invisible eyes are drawn to the newest addition that has suddenly arrived. Silently, a few Guardians gather to watch from the shadows, their interests sparked by the activities of the Uktena. Spirits alarming them that something has breached inside the caern…
The spirit of a young woman brought back from the other side.
Wahya fidgets, rocking back and forth, as he watches Boy move to dust the remains. His nostrils flaring out as he can breathe in the smell of the carnage. It churns his stomach, causing an aftertaste of bile to rise up, which he promptly swallows back.
His head tilts to the side, long brown dreads spilling down around his shoulders like long jungle vines, his voice catches on the air, deep and rough.
“Maija-kin…”
[Boy] His hands don’t go up. He doesn’t make any calming motions. What he makes is a quick hiding motion, closing the mouth of the garbage bag before it can cause any undue shock.
“Please.” Boy says softly. “Stay calm.”
[Maija] Maija-kin
It draws her attention, immediately, and halts her backwards drift. She is skittish even now, here, even after… some lessons learned impossible to shake free. She tips her head, slightly, and studies him…
his eyes are clear.
“….Wahya?”
A beat, and a step closer, drawn to her friend as always, even as she was last night. Then Boy speaks, and she whips her head in his direction… and says perhaps the most simple truth she’s every known.. “I ain’t understand…”
She remembers dying.
[Wahya] The wolf-born in man-skin takes a cautious step towards the transparent image of the kin. A hand lifting up to stretch out at arm’s length, fingers flexing as they simply pass through her arm.
“Maija.”
He swallows the hard lump forming in his throat, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his neck. “Maija-kin not here anymore. We – Wahya, they bring back to speak to…”
[Boy] “Some things are better not known, Maija. You’re supposed to be…well, I don’t know where you’re supposed to be. But we’ve called you back here. This won’t last forever. This won’t even last very long. We gotta make the best of the time we got right now.”
He stands, folding his arms over his chest.
“Wahya? You have something you wanna say?”
[Maija] He takes a step forward, and she falls completely still, watching Wahya as he moves closer. Her eyes, dark even now, even here, fall to watch as his fingers flow through her arm. She lifts her hand, sliding it alongside his arm, her head tipping curiously.
…he wrapped an arm around her, pulled her into the tub with him. there, he watched their fingers lace, examining the differences even their monkeyskin had as he folded his hand around hers…
She mimics that now, carefully sliding her hand alongside his. “It weren’t no dream, then…” She clenches her fist suddenly, though he feels nothing, and she studies his eyes intently. “Wahya ok, now?”
[Wahya] There is reflection of emotion in his brown eyes, of regret and shame, pain wrinkling around the corners as they narrow slightly. He shakes his at her, disrupting the braids lying against his shoulders, slapping them along his scarred cheek.
“No, Wahya not oh-kay.” He brings his hand back to his bare chest, curling fingers up tightly into a ball and thumps it hard over the breastbone. “Maija is dead because of Wahya. Go to Malfeas because of her, to protect her, trapped for so long… see only pain. See only Maija hurt. See – now see nothing.”
He bows his head low, “Am sorry, Wahya so very sorry. Is not how meant to be – Maija suppose to be here with Wahya, not dead by his own teeth.”
[Maija] She moves closer, slowly as she always has, familiar as she’s always been. She aches to touch him, to make sure he’s real – but can’t, because she is not.
“Shhhh… Wahya… look at me..” She lowers her head, to find his eyes, to lift them to her own as ghostly fingers slide along his face, trying so hard to touch him, to comfort him even now. “It ain’t you that done it… it ain’t. I knew when I saw yer eyes, I knew it weren’t you. Maija’s sorry she wasn’t stronger, wasn’t able to save Wahya…” a beat, and then she sighs softly. “Its not Wahya’s fault. Was bad thing inside Wahya… Maija knows.”
She’s always fallen into his pattern of speech with him, speaking in the third person, and she does so even now.
[Boy] Boy has been standing aside passively all this while, keeping his own counsel and not interfering with the once in a lifetime reunion.
But he was serious about there not being much time. At least he thought he was. He clears his throat, and steps forward slightly, though not getting anywhere as close as the two of them.
“Maija. My name is Boy. I don’t think we ever met and I wish it coulda been under better circumstances. But under these circumstances, I’m afraid I gotta talk to you. See, I gotta know what happened. I gotta know your side of the story.”
He turns to Wahya, still not quite brave enough to meet his eyes.
“You don’t have to listen if you don’t want to.”
[Wahya] His head lifted, brown eyes slowly opening more as to take in the transparent apparition in front of him. A memory to haunt him as long as he breathed, he felt the air constrict in his lungs as his breathing quickens.
Shoulders hunch forward and Wahya drops his head again, to hide his face beneath the curtain of long braids. He grimaces at Boy’s words.
They had so little time.
“Maija, please answer Brother of Lost, he means well, is trying to help us – me.” Without looking up, Wahya waves an arm in the air for Boy to continue, he was staying to listen.
[Maija] She looks at Boy, and wonders at the story behind a boy named Boy, her mind wandering a moment…
Maija is a girl. Wahya is a boy. No, he said, Wahya is a wolf. Maija doesn’t care..
She blinks, and comes back, and nods, slightly, before she returns her gaze to her friend, to the one she cares so deeply for. “Gina called… said Wahya was hurt, bad, but had called m’name. I ain’t never turned away when someone needs me – and Gina said he was hurt. Said it was dangerous bad, but I ain’t care. All I cared was that Wahya was back, an if he was looking for Maija, maybe I could help. She had me bring chickens, said he was hungry, so I did. He ate one, and then stalked closer – called us something.. it wasn’t Wahya though – he ain’t known me, an’ his eyes… it wasn’t Wahya. Somethin’ inside him or some shit… He said somethin… wyrm bringer, or somethin like that, then made a move on Gina, like he was gonna fuck’er willin or not – an I had t’distract him, so’s she could run…”
She shakes her head, and looks over at Boy. “I distracted him too good – an’ wasnt strong ’nuff t’get away. Gina did though… Gina got away?”
[Boy] Boy nods at the first part, and even he seems pleased at the thought. Wahya was back. But as she continued, his eyes and the corner of his mouth reflected less and less of that pleasant demeanor.
“So…you chose to go to him? Even though you knew the danger? And are you absolutely certain that he didn’t recognize you? That it wasn’t the Wahya you knew?”
[Maija] “Well I ain’t ‘spect t’get et…” It’s said with a little smirk, the same micro expression that rarely lingered in life, yet finds a place here in death. She nods thought. “I thought I could help.. Gina said he was callin for me. I ain’t never turned my back on a friend, not ever.”
Maija should be more careful! Fall on grill?! Wahya don’t like Maija-kin to hurt.
“Maija’s sure. This is my Wahya. Last night, it ain’t him. It ain’t him what did this. Wahya? It wasn’t you. It wasn’t.”
[Boy] He held up a single hand as Maija insisted her correction upon them. It wasn’t.
“Alright. That’s all I needed to know.”
And he turns to Wahya. “Not that I really thought so, y’see. But I wasn’t there. And I had to make sure.”
And then, he takes a single step backward. Its far enough to leave him within earshot, but too far to really interfere.
“The rest of this time should be for you two. I won’t get in your way.”
[Wahya] It had been an endless sleep. A sleep filled with dreams, dreams that were nightmares, nightmares that were more real than he’d ever imagined. She had picked apart every aspect of the wolf’s mind, every logical and illogical idea, memory, thought… emotion.
She had been displeased, misunderstanding the wolf mind, wolves did not dream like humans. They lived in neither the past nor the future, only the present. Yet, she fed on the one thing that had always given the wolf a purpose. The kin-girl he sought to protect.
When the realm shattered, so did his dreams, the nightmares ending; he remembers very little. Waking up, lost in the deepest part of the umbra, speaking to a spirit that offered to take him home, and so he ran and ran and ran, endlessly, until he neither slept nor ate, and only dreamed of returning home.
Maija tells Boy what Wahya did. Wahya wasn’t himself, didn’t recognize Maija, but he is sure he would have. He had tried to attack Gina, possibly do worse things to her if Maija hadn’t stabbed at him with the knife. The Uktena sinks down, his body huddling up as he coils his arms around his knees, drawing them tightly to his chest. He can’t breath, he can only feel pain. A pain that felt like fire burning in his lungs.
“Wahya fell in thrall to Wyrm. Took the risk to play the Master’s games,” he murmurs, “Wahya killed Maija. She cut him with knife, Wahya remembers this, he remembers pretty kin with angel’s voice, kept trying to calm Wahya, to sooth the anger. But, still killed Maija – ate Maija’s flesh. Was so hungry then.”
[Maija] “I did.” He curls up, and she does too, following him down, hovering close, the ache to touch him, to comfort him clearly etched in her face, her eyes. She can still remember his weight at the end of the bed, curled around her feet, the way he’d rest his chin on her shoulder when they spoke to people together, the way he’d snag her in a hug and squeeze the breath from her. It’s been two long months since she felt him, and now she can do nothing but cling to the memories, wrap them around her thoughts, hold them tight.
“Maija was scared, and Maija hurt Wahya first. It wasn’t you. It was what they done to you while you protected Maija. My Wahya, never would have hurt me. I know it. Please know it too. Maija’s not mad – just sad she can’t be with Wahya anymore.”
[Wahya] “No.” he snarls out in a low hum, his voice being guttural in is tone. He shakes his head violently, snapping his face up to stare through the dreads at her, through her, into ghostly eyes.
Her face will become his moon and he will howl to her every night.
“Maija-kin sacrificed herself to protect Gina-kin from Wahya. Was only way, brave way… Both two-legs would be dead and eaten if Maija not interfere.” His head turns to regard Boy, speaking loud enough to make sure his Half-moon wolf-brother heard him.
His voice falls soft again as he looks back to her, “Now you are fading, Maija.” He says, angling his head to the right as he blinks a few times, “Know that if Gaia kind, Mother may let Wahya see Maija again… teached this wolf a lesson Mother has.”
He sucks in a deep breath and then releases it, “Maija must go… but Wahya tell her secret.” He leans closer to the apparition, murmuring in a whisper-soft voice that would make Boy strain to his own ears to listen, speaking in the tongue of the Spirits that Maija would understand.
“Maija would have been good mother to Wahya’s pups…”
[Boy] Boy does indeed strain to hear, despite himself. Immediately he wishes he hadn’t. His crossed arms droop and sag, as do his shoulders. His head. He lets out a single ragged breath before correcting himself, and standing tall once again.
Boy glanced over at Maija. She was so much…less there now. Time was short. But it was their time.
[Maija] He says she must go, and she shakes hr head, violently – she doesn’t want too… even as she feels the fade… She reaches for him, and slides her hands along his face, his words to her etching the pain of leaving across her eyes, even if she is thrilled in some part of her soul to know he truly believes that… if only… if only…
“No, it’s too soon…” she chokes it off, and her chest moves in an attempt for breath she doesn’t need any longer..
She turns to Boy, the pain in her eyes clear, the desperation clear too – but she has one more thing.. “Tell John I’m sorry. Tell him not t’drink again – that I’ll be watching and care for him. You tell him. Tell him…” she pauses, and then shakes her head. “Tell him… I’m ok now.”
She turns back to her Wayha, her wolf, and swallows hard as she traces the line of his jaw with fading fingers… trying to etch them into a memory she doesn’t even know if she can take with her – but she’ll try. She’ll try. “I’ll wait for you. Gaia will let us be together again – she has too. Maija will make it so. Maija will wait for Wahya… keep Maija’s journals – pictures Maija made of us together. By the bed.”
And then, as he says the words, her voice is so soft, achingly so and filled with a longing she never had time to realize in life… “Maija would have been proud to have Wahya’s pups. Be strong for me. Maija loves Wayha.”
and always will.
[Wahya] John… tell John… The name clicks in his head, the male two-legs that always left Maija money, looked out for her in some way. Wahya says nothing to this, rolling up on his feet with a grunt as he straightens his body.
There is a sudden snap of bones and muscle, what little rage fueling his shape-shift as the homid-formed Wahya grew tall and fast. Human shape gives way to his war form, tall and lean, dark fur sleek over thin cords of wiry muscle.
The Uktena called Many Tongues, lays his ears back along his skull, tail flicking against his legs as he takes a bipedal step towards the apparition. His arms dangle at his sides, begin to tense up, spreading out away from his body as claws clench tightly into the soft pads of his palms. He throws his lupine head back, closing his eyes and just releases a long, gut-wrenching howl to the sky above.
[Boy] Boy nods, still not brave enough to look up. He would pass the message along. But as Wahya shifts, and lets out his howl.
His howl.
Boy does not join him. There was no way he could match the sincerity in the wolf-born’s cry. There was no way he could even try.
[Maija] He shifts, her Wahya. She was always scared before. She is not scared now. She’ll never be scared again. He steps toward her, and she matches his step, moving toward him, letting him tower over her as she presses as close as she can without falling through him, as she aches with everything in her soul to be able to touch him – just once more, just once, and she does the very best she can, as his howl rockets through her, around her.
It aches.
It aches.
And she lets the sound surround her, her body gone, and her spirit soon to follow. She doesn’t know what will happen next, where she will go, what comes next. All she knows is that she is borne there on the power of his howl, on the strength of his remorse, his pain, his feelings for her.
She quits fighting.
She lets go.
And she lets his howl show her the way home.
Maija will wait for Wayha.
[Wahya] [wrap!]