Two weeks after Alexa and Jas meet.... the stone arch
Feb 11, 2016 20:33:41 GMT
Post by Admin on Feb 11, 2016 20:33:41 GMT
Feb 1, 2016
Alexa and Jas
The full moon rose high in the sky and lit Alexandra’s silhouette on the balcony as he watched from inside. Her hair was long and loose tonight and her hunting gear formed to her body perfectly. There was a blade in her boot, he knew to look for the slightly imperfection in the line of her leggings. And her sword was on the chair by the balcony doors. She faced the ocean and reached up occasionally to brush the wind-blown tresses from her face.
Jashin stretched in the deepening shadows of the room, arms reaching towards the heavens while his feet pushed and flexed until he was on his toes. Every muscle sang with the energy and strain, pain coruscating through every muscle before a wash of relief pushed it all out through his fingertips. His skin slithered and darkened as he lost himself in the sensation. Short fur bristled along his shape as if poured over him, black as the night in which he stood save for the longer white tangle down his spine. His reaching fingers sharpened into razor talons and bones sighed as they rearranged into a more feral form. Before the change was complete, however, Jashin regained a manner of inner composure and it all melted away. An errant breeze flitted into the room and tugged at his deep grey tunic and breeches.
Smiling as she felt the energy around her shift, Alexa turned in time to see him shudder back into himself. She watched his body flex and smiled. She had a hard time believing he wasn't there to kill her anymore. Walking back into the house, her tangled hair half settling on her back, she reached a hand towards him and whispered into the moonlit room. "Come... you need to hunt. Change if it's needed... It has been too long." Her hand reached for him and beckoned him into the night that spread behind her.
It took him a moment to get the twitch in his right arm to subside. It hadn't mattered how many times he changed his shape--or to what--that old ache never truly went away. Jashin used the time to study Alexandra's hand, her intention. He felt a strange smile climb onto his face at her words. Seasons ago, he would have been hunting her. Truth, it would have been on orders from the Conclave, but a hunt was still a hunt. Left hand dropping to his side without thinking, his fingertips brushed against the hilt of Ascilion. Even in this peaceful time, a part of him was not at peace without his -fali'sara- nearby. Once he came to the realization, he curled his fingers into a loose fist and shrugged at the chiera. "There are times I am not entirely certain why some of the Children do as they do. Yet if you need to feed, then hunt we shall."
Her smile slowly faded and she dropped her hand. "I had not meant a hunt to feed... merely the chase. There is enough wild in the wood, or you could pursue me." She looked at his hand on his hilt and shook her head as a sadness passed over her and she slowly looked back into his eyes. "You have been silent for so long, I thought perhaps forcing you to remain in this state was troubling you. I know your other form feels more like you, sometimes. And I know you keep this face for me because your other face was once my executioner."
She took a step towards him and started to close the gap, wanting her hand to touch his beating heart. She wanted to know if it raced from fear, from rage or from desire. Meeting his eyes and keeping them at her own gaze, she whispered softly. "I want you to be who you are. Do not think to save me from what you are because you think I will fear you...." She silently wished he knew how much she was coming to care for him and would even see him in his half beast form every day if it brought him peace.
Feb 2
He tilted his head at her, arms folding across his chest. It was a common gesture when he was confused, an emulation he had picked up from his time with his master. Jashin's voice was soft and low and his tone almost conveyed the shrug building up in his shoulders. "Not a one has forced me to remain this way since... since -her- death. That hold over me is no more. It is simply for the comfort of others that I remain as I do."
Jashin gestured up and down her form, his face twisting into a focused mask as his mind tried to force his intent through the gaps in his vocabulary. Would that she could simply speak his language, but her mastery of the tongue would take as long as he to master hers. "Skins are as cloth. No, clothes. Our Goddess gave us our skins that we might interact with this world and its peoples, to obey its laws--the laws of creation, not of man. Before I was taken, such skins were natural to me. The chiera took those skins and gave me rags, as you would take comfortable garments and shut them away in a chest. In time, my rag-skins became familiar to me. The skin-chest is no more, but my Goddess' shape is strange to me. Does this touch your mind?"
*Simply for the comfort of other....* She heard him say the words and they pained her. He suffered this for her sake. That thought, of all the others, was like a knife in the heart. She had helped her fight her own inner 'Beast' a few weeks ago because he cared for her comfort. But he remained within his own 'Beast' for her comfort.
She listened to him describe being robbed of what he was. It tore at her empathy, hearing the rage, the pain, the anger... "I do understand, Jas... it touches my mind." She slowly took a couple more steps towards him. If she reached out, now, she could touch him. But she let her hands remain at her side.
"I don't know who 'she' is... but I can tell you, here you are safe. Safe to be whatever form you need to be. We can help find your..." she struggled for the word but then smiled as she realized how to make him understand. "We can find your skin-chest together. Help you find your Goddess’ form once more." She bit her lip, a habit she had when nervous and wondered if he understood. It had been two weeks since he had slain a deer and fed her in her own home. Since then, he had helped her stop feeding in time to keep from losing herself. The conflicts had been brutal, but he was stronger and had simply knocked her out in both cases. She was beginning to realize he no longer wanted to kill her. But even now, she didn't know why.
“Understand," he nodded. "Yes, that is the good word. Hmm, right? Right word?" He shook his head, growling inwardly. So many different words to mean the same thing, or near enough. Then there were those words the Lesser Races used as similar meanings, yet were so vastly different they might as well have no relation. The difference between 'right' and 'good' were chief among those that confused him, and the Conclave used them interchangeably. It was another conflict, another fight, with words as weapons against his own lack of understanding. He would need to learn these new words, then how to use them to the best effect. It did not matter entirely if he understood them or agreed with them, only that they were useful to him. He chuckled softly and shook his head again.
Jashin took a deep breath against the harsh memories then fixed his amber gaze to hers. "The she is Carmine Selimnar. It is chance you know this name, yes? Before Master, she was my Mistress. It does not touch my mind how she had ability to force me out of my own skins and into this--" he gestured to himself "--and yet she did. She is dead; her power is gone. Master killed her. Hunting the chiera has brought me back to my skins, but it is not easy like clothes yet. It is not safe for me to be in my own skins yet. My kin are not welcome in this place anymore, I am thinking. We are... strange. Like chiera, and like Were. Men have done well to make this world their own now that the Elders are gone. It is well, I am thinking. It is good to have a home."
"But I am not able to go home to my people," he stated flatly, as if it simply was. No emotion. "I know not the way, and Conclave has need of me. The balance must not be tipped again."
Jashin gestured to the dilapidated manor. "Why does Alexandra stay in this place? Can you not go to your home? To be with your kin? Are you not one with the Empire?"
She smiled as he grasped her meaning. "Yes, it is a good word... and the right one." She hoped he really did understand. The struggle she saw in him, and being this close, felt in him, made her want to comfort him. But how does one comfort a wolf... a creature of destruction... without being destroyed yourself?
....Selimnar....
Yes, she knew the name. She knew the names of every kin and family and person in her Moroveston history who had inflicted pain, suffering, and death. Of them all, they had been the first. The ones who forced Serenade into what she was now... an empty shell. Selimnar hadn't been the final stone, but it had been the first one.
"I do not know Carmine, but I know the lineage. The bloodline." She heard him speak of not being welcomed here and found herself unable to reassure him he was wrong. She had seen his form, and he was right. The masses would find him as 'wrong' as she was and the Were who resided around them. "You can always consider Serenade your home. It is what my Sire called his place, Serenade. It was originally a place for others to come to who had no place to go."
As he mentioned not knowing how to go home, her eyes finally looked down away from his. She knew not how he had come to be here, to be in the Tavern in the first place. Without that knowledge, she didn't even know where to begin to help him search for a way back.
When he asked about her staying here, in the run down, half boarded up manor, she shook her head and whispered. "I have nowhere else to go." Looking back up into his face, she swallowed hard to keep him from seeing tears. But her eyes glossed over, as they came anyway. "This is home... the Empire wishes me dead. Believes my whole family is dead. I hide here because I cannot be found, cannot go anywhere else... have nowhere else 'to' go."
She turned then and moved back towards the balcony and the sea. A storm was rising, the air turning crisp as it converged on them. Her vampire sight allowed her colors even in the darkest of nights. But the moon was out and she needed no extra focus to see the sea turn to a steel grey as it crested with small silver caps of foam where the storm was already affecting it before the first raindrop was falling on it. "This 'is' home..." was all she whispered.
Jashin let her go. Untangling the twisting roots of human emotions was like grasping for a river eel. She was upset, and that was enough for him. There was a sliver of pain deep inside her, a festering thing that poisoned her in ways that echoed with his own sorrows. He thought to ask what she had done to incur the Empire's wrath, but he wasn't overly concerned why chierans did as they did. All he needed to know was that she was not his enemy. It was a strange thought, considering each being what they were. Droa's Betrayal was the reason the divarians had been pulled from the heavens and confined to their immortal skins. Jashin had been born long after the War of Children, only knew of the whys from the teachings of his elders. He had no idea how old Alexandra was, but he doubted she knew any more than he. To him, she acted as if she was not entirely comfortable with her chieran nature. It was that conflict that convinced him to spare her the death he had been ordered to give her kind--the death it was in his nature to give her…To return her to.
Carefully and quietly he buckled his armor back into its proper place. He could smell the rain that was to come, could nigh taste the subtle shift in the salt on the breeze. Jashin grudgingly reminded himself that he would need to make contact with Conclave at some point soon, but the weather would make missives by falcon almost impossible. He was a five-day hard ride from the nearest chapterhouse, which meant weeks on foot. It had only been a few days since his sources pointed him in the direction of a remote castle where a flamboyant count was holding court, often entertaining outlanders and dignitaries. It was very unlikely that it was the home of some vampiric enclave, but orders were orders. Nothing could be discounted. The emissary was to be recovered, one way or the other.
"Rain will come soon," he murmured, sheathing his blade on his hip and throwing his cloak over his shoulders. "We will need wood for fire and meat. The forest at the feet of the mountain has both."
She listened to him put the armor on behind her and sighed. She wanted to help him, like he had helped her. But she didn't know how.
She raised her arms up to twist her hair into a hunter's knot. "There is firewood stacked in the old greenhouse on the side of the manor. I keep it stocked up because I am horrible with the axe, so it takes me a long time to make a pile." When he spoke of meat, she nodded. She wouldn't need it, not for a while, but he needed to eat. "There is a clearing nearby. We can find game there. Don't have to go as far as the mountain." She nodded towards the woods beside the house. "Follow me..."
A moment later, she grabbed up her blade, slung it over her back and with a final glance over her shoulder, took off down the stairs and across the lawn heading for the woods.
If he followed her, after about ten minutes at a steady lope, they would come to a clearing in a circle of tall trees. In the middle was a stone arch. The stones covered in strange runes, half faded from the elements.
Feb 3
His face twitched as she buckled a sword across her back. The weapon was not the cause; he had hoped to gauge her reaction moving through the lone keep's environs. To perhaps sniff out clues whether or not the lands belonged to the Empire. She had not seemed wary at his proposal that Jashin could fathom. Alexandra was likely being practical. If this place was her home, she would know where to hunt and gather resources. He could not say one way or the other whether it was wise to only range within these borders--animals would eventually learn where they were safe, and where they were food--but it was likely a moot point. Though she was clad in human skins, Alexandra was chiera and therefore followed different rules than the average mortal. She would not need the warmth of the fire, nor the meat of the hunt. The blood of the kill, perhaps, but he had learned such things were a battle unto themselves. Arranging his cloak into a more comfortable position about his shoulders, he padded after her outside.
When her trot became a run, he gritted his teeth and followed. Jashin drowned his thoughts in the movement of his body, leaning into the breeze and letting his arms hang easily at his side. The -ibliha- fluttered lazily in the air in his wake, the grass hushing against his boots. As the second mile passed the hum of exertion sang in his skin. He breathed through the pain, and away from it. Amber eyes scanned the horizon for danger, resting only momentarily on the chiera ahead before returning to their vigil. Fatigue would not touch her even were she to push herself to mortal potential, not unless she was very young. Alexandra was too controlled for a chiera inside her first century, which suited him just fine. Growling to himself, Jashin shoved the bitter memories of Carmine and her House down as far as they would go. It was easier now; the memories clung to his consciousness only briefly before retreating.
The forest melted into view moments after the last traces of the manor fell away, closing slowly around them like the embracing arms of nature. Alexandra's path became more practiced and less linear, as if she knew these lands well. Lush limbs stretched overhead to form a haphazard lattice to blot out much of the waning moonlight, and he found himself slowing despite himself. A pulsing sensation built within his chest, much like a second heartbeat. A distinct, almost painful twinge that tickled at the back of his senses like a distant memory. When a darker shape melted out of the pitch night, he stopped warily. His hand dropped to brush the hilt of his blade and Jashin squinted at the stones.
"What in the name of Belzha is that?" he breathed.
As they ran, Alexa had been sniffing the wind. She knew she could go at least another night or two without feeding, if she didn't overly exert herself. But the Hunter needed to eat. He wouldn't last. She wove through the woods keeping them downwind of the creatures they would fell this night. She glanced back, nearly to the clearing, and saw the man behind her struggling. Was he weak from hunger? Or was he weak from his shifting earlier? It was definitely worth keeping in mind if he turned on her again.
When they got to the clearing, she looked around for signs of disturbance from anything other than the inhabitants of the forest. This was far from the areas the local humans roamed, but one never could underestimate those with inquisitive minds. Satisfied there had been nothing here that didn't belong, she turned as Jas came near the clearing. Her brow furrowed and she moved slowly towards him, her fingers absently caressing the tip of the sword casing on her back. He looked... haunted.
Silvery blue eyes looked at the stone archway. Her hand caressed just over it without touching the stone. Just over the surface, a hair's height above the ashen colored hardness. She had touched it before, and had been disoriented for long enough that she had had to run to reach the safety of the Manor before the sun kissed her skin. She had been grateful for clouds that morning. "It's just an arch. Devon said it had always been here. It is in the middle of the one place considered safety for meeting the loca...." She bit her lip and dropped her hand. He didn't need to know anything else about her. Certainly not about the local Werewolf pack they had a tentative peace accord with. Well, not they more like her. No one else was at Serenade, so there was no real reason for a meeting in decades.
She frowned as she saw him stare at the stone sculpture. "Why do you want to know?" She felt that something was happening, and her skin prickled with the fact she couldn't figure it out... but should understand, none the less.
Alexa and Jas
The full moon rose high in the sky and lit Alexandra’s silhouette on the balcony as he watched from inside. Her hair was long and loose tonight and her hunting gear formed to her body perfectly. There was a blade in her boot, he knew to look for the slightly imperfection in the line of her leggings. And her sword was on the chair by the balcony doors. She faced the ocean and reached up occasionally to brush the wind-blown tresses from her face.
Jashin stretched in the deepening shadows of the room, arms reaching towards the heavens while his feet pushed and flexed until he was on his toes. Every muscle sang with the energy and strain, pain coruscating through every muscle before a wash of relief pushed it all out through his fingertips. His skin slithered and darkened as he lost himself in the sensation. Short fur bristled along his shape as if poured over him, black as the night in which he stood save for the longer white tangle down his spine. His reaching fingers sharpened into razor talons and bones sighed as they rearranged into a more feral form. Before the change was complete, however, Jashin regained a manner of inner composure and it all melted away. An errant breeze flitted into the room and tugged at his deep grey tunic and breeches.
Smiling as she felt the energy around her shift, Alexa turned in time to see him shudder back into himself. She watched his body flex and smiled. She had a hard time believing he wasn't there to kill her anymore. Walking back into the house, her tangled hair half settling on her back, she reached a hand towards him and whispered into the moonlit room. "Come... you need to hunt. Change if it's needed... It has been too long." Her hand reached for him and beckoned him into the night that spread behind her.
It took him a moment to get the twitch in his right arm to subside. It hadn't mattered how many times he changed his shape--or to what--that old ache never truly went away. Jashin used the time to study Alexandra's hand, her intention. He felt a strange smile climb onto his face at her words. Seasons ago, he would have been hunting her. Truth, it would have been on orders from the Conclave, but a hunt was still a hunt. Left hand dropping to his side without thinking, his fingertips brushed against the hilt of Ascilion. Even in this peaceful time, a part of him was not at peace without his -fali'sara- nearby. Once he came to the realization, he curled his fingers into a loose fist and shrugged at the chiera. "There are times I am not entirely certain why some of the Children do as they do. Yet if you need to feed, then hunt we shall."
Her smile slowly faded and she dropped her hand. "I had not meant a hunt to feed... merely the chase. There is enough wild in the wood, or you could pursue me." She looked at his hand on his hilt and shook her head as a sadness passed over her and she slowly looked back into his eyes. "You have been silent for so long, I thought perhaps forcing you to remain in this state was troubling you. I know your other form feels more like you, sometimes. And I know you keep this face for me because your other face was once my executioner."
She took a step towards him and started to close the gap, wanting her hand to touch his beating heart. She wanted to know if it raced from fear, from rage or from desire. Meeting his eyes and keeping them at her own gaze, she whispered softly. "I want you to be who you are. Do not think to save me from what you are because you think I will fear you...." She silently wished he knew how much she was coming to care for him and would even see him in his half beast form every day if it brought him peace.
Feb 2
He tilted his head at her, arms folding across his chest. It was a common gesture when he was confused, an emulation he had picked up from his time with his master. Jashin's voice was soft and low and his tone almost conveyed the shrug building up in his shoulders. "Not a one has forced me to remain this way since... since -her- death. That hold over me is no more. It is simply for the comfort of others that I remain as I do."
Jashin gestured up and down her form, his face twisting into a focused mask as his mind tried to force his intent through the gaps in his vocabulary. Would that she could simply speak his language, but her mastery of the tongue would take as long as he to master hers. "Skins are as cloth. No, clothes. Our Goddess gave us our skins that we might interact with this world and its peoples, to obey its laws--the laws of creation, not of man. Before I was taken, such skins were natural to me. The chiera took those skins and gave me rags, as you would take comfortable garments and shut them away in a chest. In time, my rag-skins became familiar to me. The skin-chest is no more, but my Goddess' shape is strange to me. Does this touch your mind?"
*Simply for the comfort of other....* She heard him say the words and they pained her. He suffered this for her sake. That thought, of all the others, was like a knife in the heart. She had helped her fight her own inner 'Beast' a few weeks ago because he cared for her comfort. But he remained within his own 'Beast' for her comfort.
She listened to him describe being robbed of what he was. It tore at her empathy, hearing the rage, the pain, the anger... "I do understand, Jas... it touches my mind." She slowly took a couple more steps towards him. If she reached out, now, she could touch him. But she let her hands remain at her side.
"I don't know who 'she' is... but I can tell you, here you are safe. Safe to be whatever form you need to be. We can help find your..." she struggled for the word but then smiled as she realized how to make him understand. "We can find your skin-chest together. Help you find your Goddess’ form once more." She bit her lip, a habit she had when nervous and wondered if he understood. It had been two weeks since he had slain a deer and fed her in her own home. Since then, he had helped her stop feeding in time to keep from losing herself. The conflicts had been brutal, but he was stronger and had simply knocked her out in both cases. She was beginning to realize he no longer wanted to kill her. But even now, she didn't know why.
“Understand," he nodded. "Yes, that is the good word. Hmm, right? Right word?" He shook his head, growling inwardly. So many different words to mean the same thing, or near enough. Then there were those words the Lesser Races used as similar meanings, yet were so vastly different they might as well have no relation. The difference between 'right' and 'good' were chief among those that confused him, and the Conclave used them interchangeably. It was another conflict, another fight, with words as weapons against his own lack of understanding. He would need to learn these new words, then how to use them to the best effect. It did not matter entirely if he understood them or agreed with them, only that they were useful to him. He chuckled softly and shook his head again.
Jashin took a deep breath against the harsh memories then fixed his amber gaze to hers. "The she is Carmine Selimnar. It is chance you know this name, yes? Before Master, she was my Mistress. It does not touch my mind how she had ability to force me out of my own skins and into this--" he gestured to himself "--and yet she did. She is dead; her power is gone. Master killed her. Hunting the chiera has brought me back to my skins, but it is not easy like clothes yet. It is not safe for me to be in my own skins yet. My kin are not welcome in this place anymore, I am thinking. We are... strange. Like chiera, and like Were. Men have done well to make this world their own now that the Elders are gone. It is well, I am thinking. It is good to have a home."
"But I am not able to go home to my people," he stated flatly, as if it simply was. No emotion. "I know not the way, and Conclave has need of me. The balance must not be tipped again."
Jashin gestured to the dilapidated manor. "Why does Alexandra stay in this place? Can you not go to your home? To be with your kin? Are you not one with the Empire?"
She smiled as he grasped her meaning. "Yes, it is a good word... and the right one." She hoped he really did understand. The struggle she saw in him, and being this close, felt in him, made her want to comfort him. But how does one comfort a wolf... a creature of destruction... without being destroyed yourself?
....Selimnar....
Yes, she knew the name. She knew the names of every kin and family and person in her Moroveston history who had inflicted pain, suffering, and death. Of them all, they had been the first. The ones who forced Serenade into what she was now... an empty shell. Selimnar hadn't been the final stone, but it had been the first one.
"I do not know Carmine, but I know the lineage. The bloodline." She heard him speak of not being welcomed here and found herself unable to reassure him he was wrong. She had seen his form, and he was right. The masses would find him as 'wrong' as she was and the Were who resided around them. "You can always consider Serenade your home. It is what my Sire called his place, Serenade. It was originally a place for others to come to who had no place to go."
As he mentioned not knowing how to go home, her eyes finally looked down away from his. She knew not how he had come to be here, to be in the Tavern in the first place. Without that knowledge, she didn't even know where to begin to help him search for a way back.
When he asked about her staying here, in the run down, half boarded up manor, she shook her head and whispered. "I have nowhere else to go." Looking back up into his face, she swallowed hard to keep him from seeing tears. But her eyes glossed over, as they came anyway. "This is home... the Empire wishes me dead. Believes my whole family is dead. I hide here because I cannot be found, cannot go anywhere else... have nowhere else 'to' go."
She turned then and moved back towards the balcony and the sea. A storm was rising, the air turning crisp as it converged on them. Her vampire sight allowed her colors even in the darkest of nights. But the moon was out and she needed no extra focus to see the sea turn to a steel grey as it crested with small silver caps of foam where the storm was already affecting it before the first raindrop was falling on it. "This 'is' home..." was all she whispered.
Jashin let her go. Untangling the twisting roots of human emotions was like grasping for a river eel. She was upset, and that was enough for him. There was a sliver of pain deep inside her, a festering thing that poisoned her in ways that echoed with his own sorrows. He thought to ask what she had done to incur the Empire's wrath, but he wasn't overly concerned why chierans did as they did. All he needed to know was that she was not his enemy. It was a strange thought, considering each being what they were. Droa's Betrayal was the reason the divarians had been pulled from the heavens and confined to their immortal skins. Jashin had been born long after the War of Children, only knew of the whys from the teachings of his elders. He had no idea how old Alexandra was, but he doubted she knew any more than he. To him, she acted as if she was not entirely comfortable with her chieran nature. It was that conflict that convinced him to spare her the death he had been ordered to give her kind--the death it was in his nature to give her…To return her to.
Carefully and quietly he buckled his armor back into its proper place. He could smell the rain that was to come, could nigh taste the subtle shift in the salt on the breeze. Jashin grudgingly reminded himself that he would need to make contact with Conclave at some point soon, but the weather would make missives by falcon almost impossible. He was a five-day hard ride from the nearest chapterhouse, which meant weeks on foot. It had only been a few days since his sources pointed him in the direction of a remote castle where a flamboyant count was holding court, often entertaining outlanders and dignitaries. It was very unlikely that it was the home of some vampiric enclave, but orders were orders. Nothing could be discounted. The emissary was to be recovered, one way or the other.
"Rain will come soon," he murmured, sheathing his blade on his hip and throwing his cloak over his shoulders. "We will need wood for fire and meat. The forest at the feet of the mountain has both."
She listened to him put the armor on behind her and sighed. She wanted to help him, like he had helped her. But she didn't know how.
She raised her arms up to twist her hair into a hunter's knot. "There is firewood stacked in the old greenhouse on the side of the manor. I keep it stocked up because I am horrible with the axe, so it takes me a long time to make a pile." When he spoke of meat, she nodded. She wouldn't need it, not for a while, but he needed to eat. "There is a clearing nearby. We can find game there. Don't have to go as far as the mountain." She nodded towards the woods beside the house. "Follow me..."
A moment later, she grabbed up her blade, slung it over her back and with a final glance over her shoulder, took off down the stairs and across the lawn heading for the woods.
If he followed her, after about ten minutes at a steady lope, they would come to a clearing in a circle of tall trees. In the middle was a stone arch. The stones covered in strange runes, half faded from the elements.
Feb 3
His face twitched as she buckled a sword across her back. The weapon was not the cause; he had hoped to gauge her reaction moving through the lone keep's environs. To perhaps sniff out clues whether or not the lands belonged to the Empire. She had not seemed wary at his proposal that Jashin could fathom. Alexandra was likely being practical. If this place was her home, she would know where to hunt and gather resources. He could not say one way or the other whether it was wise to only range within these borders--animals would eventually learn where they were safe, and where they were food--but it was likely a moot point. Though she was clad in human skins, Alexandra was chiera and therefore followed different rules than the average mortal. She would not need the warmth of the fire, nor the meat of the hunt. The blood of the kill, perhaps, but he had learned such things were a battle unto themselves. Arranging his cloak into a more comfortable position about his shoulders, he padded after her outside.
When her trot became a run, he gritted his teeth and followed. Jashin drowned his thoughts in the movement of his body, leaning into the breeze and letting his arms hang easily at his side. The -ibliha- fluttered lazily in the air in his wake, the grass hushing against his boots. As the second mile passed the hum of exertion sang in his skin. He breathed through the pain, and away from it. Amber eyes scanned the horizon for danger, resting only momentarily on the chiera ahead before returning to their vigil. Fatigue would not touch her even were she to push herself to mortal potential, not unless she was very young. Alexandra was too controlled for a chiera inside her first century, which suited him just fine. Growling to himself, Jashin shoved the bitter memories of Carmine and her House down as far as they would go. It was easier now; the memories clung to his consciousness only briefly before retreating.
The forest melted into view moments after the last traces of the manor fell away, closing slowly around them like the embracing arms of nature. Alexandra's path became more practiced and less linear, as if she knew these lands well. Lush limbs stretched overhead to form a haphazard lattice to blot out much of the waning moonlight, and he found himself slowing despite himself. A pulsing sensation built within his chest, much like a second heartbeat. A distinct, almost painful twinge that tickled at the back of his senses like a distant memory. When a darker shape melted out of the pitch night, he stopped warily. His hand dropped to brush the hilt of his blade and Jashin squinted at the stones.
"What in the name of Belzha is that?" he breathed.
As they ran, Alexa had been sniffing the wind. She knew she could go at least another night or two without feeding, if she didn't overly exert herself. But the Hunter needed to eat. He wouldn't last. She wove through the woods keeping them downwind of the creatures they would fell this night. She glanced back, nearly to the clearing, and saw the man behind her struggling. Was he weak from hunger? Or was he weak from his shifting earlier? It was definitely worth keeping in mind if he turned on her again.
When they got to the clearing, she looked around for signs of disturbance from anything other than the inhabitants of the forest. This was far from the areas the local humans roamed, but one never could underestimate those with inquisitive minds. Satisfied there had been nothing here that didn't belong, she turned as Jas came near the clearing. Her brow furrowed and she moved slowly towards him, her fingers absently caressing the tip of the sword casing on her back. He looked... haunted.
Silvery blue eyes looked at the stone archway. Her hand caressed just over it without touching the stone. Just over the surface, a hair's height above the ashen colored hardness. She had touched it before, and had been disoriented for long enough that she had had to run to reach the safety of the Manor before the sun kissed her skin. She had been grateful for clouds that morning. "It's just an arch. Devon said it had always been here. It is in the middle of the one place considered safety for meeting the loca...." She bit her lip and dropped her hand. He didn't need to know anything else about her. Certainly not about the local Werewolf pack they had a tentative peace accord with. Well, not they more like her. No one else was at Serenade, so there was no real reason for a meeting in decades.
She frowned as she saw him stare at the stone sculpture. "Why do you want to know?" She felt that something was happening, and her skin prickled with the fact she couldn't figure it out... but should understand, none the less.
