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?”

--------------------------
@"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.

Desc: Ollie is of Irish descent; red-haired and pale-skinned. Her eyes are wide and heavily-lidded, a greyish hazel, one splashed with more green than the other. There is something haughty and aristocratic to her features that harks back to an older time, though ironically she looks much younger than she is (much to her chagrin). The soft lilt of her accent generally encourage others to underestimate her.

Personality: Ollie is wilful and arrogant, as one might expect of a child born to the Di Inferi. She places her cause above all else, quite prepared to sacrifice herself or others in the process. She considers both the Di Inferi and the Remnant a failing, too driven by selfish needs, though she would be unlikely to betray either sect to those she views as mundane.

Her life’s work is to collate and interpret the stirrings of prophecy, spurred by a sense of urgency she cannot quite place her finger to. Her extensive travels document the scraps of learning and sometimes people that glimpse of the future. Of late she searches for those who might be enough to turn the tide, should the worst come to pass.

History: Ollie’s life is a web of fiction and lies; forged ID papers and records.

She drank myths like nectar as a child. Books lined the walls of her father’s home, a cornucopia of the most esoteric trinkets of the ancient world. She grew up bookish, working alongside her father’s translation work. He lectured at the university to dwindling numbers, a throwback to a bygone time. Sometimes they had visitors in her youth, ones with interest in her father's oddest papers. "We are the splinter of a splinter, dear one," he would explain. Prophecy was his speciality, and usually it was scraps of information and artefact they brought to his door in seek of his expertise.

Until the time it was a creature delivered to their door instead.

She had never seen anything like it; skin smoothly scaled, hairless, its nose like slits. At her father's bidding she scribbled down all it said in its rasping voice -- words she recognised, and words she didn't. It was injured and leaking, blood as black as ink, and though it might not have been human she could feel its desperation, and its fear.

Their next visitors did not knock. They bore the mark of the ouroboros. 

The Remnant, she later learned; the splinter from which her father's people had broken away from. They came to kill the creature, and to sweep clean the cell that had fallen from the path. They burned the house. Only Ollie escaped.

Following her father's death she travelled to Moscow in search of her uncle, but a disagreement between them set her back into flight. 

Now she travels onward alone, a ghost.

[[Ollie is an NPC who Soren has an acquaintance with and spoke to here. She's Ephraim's niece and at one time was going to be a PC (she's actually a reborn god too, albeit a learner not a wilder, but unless she ever gets a promotion I've nixed that). Since Ephraim has dusted himself off now, she may show up again, so this is just a reference of who she is]]

[[edited to add the wiki link, with updated info (since the Haarts expanded since this was originally posted), and have changed Ollie from niece to sister (since I clearly misremembered it)]]

Leaving the Ascendancy's office was like a breath of relief.  He'd survived the most dangerous part.  And for the better.  Not only was the Ascendancy providing access to a new arm.  But he was going to get to learn from the man himself.  Fighting alongside someone spoke a lot about who a person was.  And Nox couldn't wait.  It was such a bad thing he had to wait.  He had to wait to heal enough they could actually fit an arm, and then there was the building of the arm.  There were so many options. Nox needed to talk to Sage about it all.

And then there was so much to plan.  So much to learn.  He'd gone to the doctor's lab and sat for scans.  He even insisted on giving blood.  Under strict instructions of never let anyone else touching it.  He'd out over it and his heart was still racing but he'd allowed it.  It wasn't for science, it was for the Atharim when he got her to go see Dr. Weston.  It wasn't what the Ascendancy had asked, but Nox wanted the Atharim to understand it. What if others were doing this too?  Moscow wasn't the only city with nefarious scientists.  It sure didn't hold a monopoly on bad guys.

But Nox was anxious and he sat on a bench in the Red Square and sent a message to Raffe.

@"Raffe"
I made it out of Ascendancy's office with my life.  Going for a very visible walk now and will end up in a park somewhere. I'd ask you to join me, but I don't want them to hurt you. But I wouldn't say no if you found me." 

It was a subtle hint that he wanted Raffe to come, but Raffe had his own life and it didn't revolve around Nox.  He knew that but he also liked his company and otherwise, he might be a little bored.

His plan was to be very visible in front of every camera he knew about from here to Dorian's estate to see Ana and Christian.  And then he'd walk to Sterling's house passing as many cameras as he could, and end up back in Red Square on a bench facing the monument the Ascencandy made out of Lennon's Mausoleum.   He sent the route to Raffe with a tracking program so Raffe would know where he was.  Another of Sage's creations he'd hijacked for his purposes.  But put it in the hands of someone else who might care he was gone.

With his heart at a normal pace again, Nox started his walk.  He waved at the first camera and started walking to the Vega Estate.  There was no reason to hide today, he had every intention of the Atharim finding him.

Malik stalked the quiet fake streets. The normal lights of the park were off. No ferris wheel spun with piping music, no screams of entertained and terrified children. The cold breeze blew against his ears despite the black hoodie.

His prey was there among the jumbled shadows of building, stands, and rides now deathly quiet. A slow smile formed on his lips, white teeth seeming fangs glistening. Out there, hiding, heart beating in fear. He could smell him.

It had been so long. So very long. The one he sought there, somewhere. Finally.

As if on cue, lights came on, rides came to life, ghostly patrons mingled and ran and laughed. The chaos of music and life, squeals and screams. He was here...somewhere.

The colors alternated, bright and vibrant, sounds loud and clear; light dark and shifting, sound warped and shifting in tempo. Demonic. His hands opened and he felt power at his finger tips. Gore would drip from the heavens when he was done, his prey exposed and eviscerated.

His nostrils flared and eyes flashed red.

Darth Malik had come....

The first thing he noticed was a pounding in his head. It throbbed like the blood was bursting from within, the worst headache of his life. When he tried to move, it was to roll over and choke on the ash washing the air black.
“Elise?” he called out, but no answer was returned. He tried again. “Johan? Karl?” The crackling pops of tinder was the only answer as he crawled from the building.

+++

Squat in a puddle of snowmelt, he stared blankly ahead. Blue and red lights flickered his brow with sickening flashes. The banshee-wail of sirens still hung on the air. He was wrapped in a fire blanket thrust upon him by first responders but was otherwise unhurt. The lodge that he and his friends shared was rendered a charred skeleton by now. The stream of water used to douse the flames made a river pouring down the street. Only the mountain remained untouched.

“I don’t know how it started,” he told the investigator interviewing him. “One moment I was in the kitchen with Elise and Karl. There was a noise. I think one of the appliances? The next thing I knew I woke up in smoke. I looked for them but couldn’t find anyone.” He wasn’t lying, not exactly, but he was self-preserving enough to avoid speaking to unfounded suspicions.

+++

More investigators came the following days. Apparently, the spark of the fire did not align with the story relayed by the sole survivor. Six new graves were dug in his homeland of former Sweden, far from the site of the alpine tragedy that ruined a ski town’s reputation. He attended each and every celebration of life, shared hugs and grieved with fresh tears for each. These were his friends that were buried, and if his suspicions were correct, he was to blame for the accident.  At the conclusion of Johan’s life celebration, he encountered yet another fire investigator of the CCD. Now that the formalities of respecting life were behind him, the heat was intensified. He did not enjoy the interrogations, but he honored the process. Government and families deserved answers, and it panged him to not be able to soothe those gaping holes with rational explanation.

Though still dressed from the funeral, his tie was loosened at the neck. It was while speaking with the investigator in the precinct station when he first felt unwell.
“I think I need some water,” he said at first. They supplied it to him. When the flush took his cheeks, he laid his head on the table. He was sent home to rest, but strongly urged not to leave the city. Some thought his nature to be too delicate to endure so much, but this had nothing to do with an overwrought mind succumbing to shock. He was sick in a way that worried him greatly.

+++

Afterward, his family’s lawyers denied the investigators further access to his person. The truth tempted him to release the guilt that weighed his mind, and it was his mother who finally heard the confession.

“We were laughing, waging bets, and carrying on. They doubted, so, I showed them. I sparked the fire with the snap of my fingers, but without a match and without kindling. It got out of control,” he said. Shame hung his head, but his mother nodded like she understood him better than he did. The next day, the investigations fell dormant. The fire was ruled electrical in nature. Insurance was issued to the families involved. He was absolved of any suspicion. A family friend was introduced a short time later, but one that he had never met before. The gentleman was rather cold in nature, but despite the granite exterior, he issued the kind of teaching that saved lives. It saved his.

The power within was controlled after that. He could summon it at will most of the time and create interesting outcomes, but the experimentation was conducted in safer circumstances. He left Sweden to pursue purpose to this existence under the guise of family interests. They were connected to a tapestry of mysterious figures throughout all of Europe. When one inquired of the right knots within the pattern, more channels opened, but with them poured more questions. He read the runes as they were taught to him, though he did not prefer to call them that. He was no librarian, though sometimes his queries forced him into such fortresses of knowledge. He preferred active investigation and at times, risky experimentation. He never angled to use his worldly status in the CCD to progress in his ambitions, calling instead into the void of that spindly network laced throughout the world. He found he had a way of findings things unseen to the naked eye. After he halted the sale of royal jewels that were supposedly claimed to once belong to the fallen dynasties of eastern Europe, he earned some recognition for himself in the field. He used his powers of course, delving beneath surface grime to delineate the old from new at a spectral level undetected by scans and expert eyes. The network placed him in institutions aligned with acquisition of antiquities, for either the purchase or selling of various heirlooms to identify the forgeries or counterfeit masterpieces. He found the work amusing and did so more for curiosity and connection than payment. He owed a debt to the network that reached out to save him. He gave back without hesitation, and thoroughly enjoyed himself doing so.

By twenty-eight years old, nine-years following the tragedy that sparked this strange life, he found himself called to a new sort of endeavor. This institution was different from the others. Paragon was steeped in the modern cut of a foreboding future, but he was cautiously optimistic. It was his first time in Moscow, although he’d frequented the great cities of many regions these past few years. Rumor said that many interesting persons possessing a great number of unusual artifacts infiltrated the populace. He would fit in well.

He approached a desk where a young lady looked up with a glint in her eye upon seeing him. She studied the fine suit he wore, the shine of his tie, an expensive timepiece on his wrist, and the family ring on his hand.
“Yes, sir?”
“I have an appointment with Mister Ephriam Haart,” he said, hands clasped patiently before him.
The young woman nodded, checking her systems. “And your name?”

“Seven,” he said.

She looked up, puzzled, but Seven was patient. “Like the number?” she asked.

He nodded. “That’s right. Like the number,” he said with a reassuring smile.

The Holy See issued a generic announcement after the press noticed the departure of the Papal transports. The Pope was to visit some churches in eastern Europe, nestled deep into the heart of the Custody darkness. Standing in the fuselage, he paused several steps from the plane exit. A cool air stretched into the cabin, carrying winds of freshness absent from Roman humidity. Before emerging, he lowered a veil to cover his face, and made quick passage from the stairs to a vehicle. A handful of delegates stood in attention for his arrival, but he didn’t bother skimming their faces. If anyone was important, they would surely find their way to an audience eventually. The windows were blacked out, so he was able to shove aside the veil while in private. As he glanced at his present company, a bishop, a Vatican staff member, and the driver, he casually studied the countryside as they passed into town.

The apartments of a priest were either within the grounds of the church or buried deep in the building itself. They were abdicated in favor of the Holy Father, who did not declare the duration of his visit to the otherwise sleepy town. The hills rolled with sylvan undulations. It was nothing like the fantastical landscape of prophetic dream, but he had to ponder at the scope of creation. Did such a place exist in the waking world? Was it hidden in these very woods? 

Upon arrival in town, the car toured him through notable places of significance to the townspeople. He listened vaguely, but primarily communed with his god rather than listen to the story of a union depot rebuilt after the second world war. The old town center was fixated on university grounds, a site of quite some prestige apparently. They rounded an ornate fountain and headed toward the church, but he noticed one odd statue placed new and shining among the old and historic. It was a monument to Nikolai Brandon. Waving on the air above fluttered a CCD flag of the district. Patricus’ study was wan derision. It was a good reminder of his current whereabouts.

Staff and clergy lined themselves upon the steps to the church. When Patricus emerged, it was without the veil. He cut a resplendent figure as a scarlet cape edged with fine gold filigree stitching along the hem. A time-honored Capello hat kept the sun from his eyes but was made of the same scarlet sheen as the cape. The white attire beneath was his casual day dress, but the sun reflected pink hues as he ascended the steps. He offered his hand, gloved in white and adorned by the ring of the fisherman, for an elderly priest that approached to kiss it reverently. The aged, stooped fellow he assumed to be Revane Ando, the priest in residence for some sixty-five years in Tartu. He seemed ready to meet his maker. Patricus assumed it was stubborn will that defied the tempting call homeward. If only all priests were so stubborn at the end.

There would be a time to inquire after the girl, but before he delved into gothic depths, he turned to scan the street behind. Several were watching the entourage. Many were on tip-toes, stretching themselves to catch a glimpse of the Holy Father’s passage. His jaw tensed as the scan passed. He did not recognize the girl he took to be Nimeda, but she would come. Without a doubt. She would come.