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Werewolves (RP15) The Waking Dawn

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"The story of the Hunter and the Healer has a sad ending." Tammy said as she led Levi and Theo home. "I will tell it to you when I see you again."

Morning broke through the sky with a stream of golden light.  The storms of yesterday now past. Water filled the brink of the pond to overflowing. The deep rushing streams carried loads of mountain debris down to the Monvac River. The unharvested crop fields were leveled. Old structures that once dotted the landscape now lay in heaps on the earth. Among them, was the old barn wherein the Founders had found refuge on the first night so many moons ago.

Kratos leaned on the fence of Ziet's front pasture. A soft wind blew across the fields up from Reknab Bend. Some few miles away, the town was as busy as a hive of bees...

The sun scalded, bringing fire on the inside of her eyelids.  Around her blankets and hair lay in a tangled mess - soaked in sweat and the sweet perfumes of the previous night's bath.  Half-dreaming, half-awake, Jackie remained between the worlds. As though she had something important to do, but had forgotten what, and simultaneously felt as though the task itself a foolish thing altogether.

When she awoke fully, it was with a start. Her surroundings were initially perceived unfamiliar, foreign. It was the aroma of old mud, settled wood, lavender, and her own sweat that returned her to the here-and-now - and thus she settled into their harmony with an uneasy sigh.

Groggily she surmised the lone bedroom, listening for sounds elsewhere in the cabin.  There was a temptation to remain dormant and hide away in the bed, yet by chance her fingers brushed across an unhappy clump of copper hair.  It became a strange obsession, pulling her fingers through her hair, in a failing attempt to find a single place where it passed through easily.

Jackie stood abruptly and found the pair of scissors in her backpack right where she had left it the day before.  She exited the room, walking along the floor as silently as a cat, and made her way to the mirror of the bathroom.  Starring upon her own features, the savage, tired woman seemed to her a stranger. Then brought the silver scissors to the woman's hair...

Snip snip snip

It was amazing anyone was asleep. The sound of chopping and thunks had filled the air since four in the morning.

Logan had assembled a stretching rack for her deer hide, which needed more time to dry with all of the storms. She had stacked cut wood nearly to the second story windows of the cabins over the last week. There were felled trees to spare along the pathway that brought them from the depths of the woods into civilization.

Had their been cows to milk and hay to be tossed, that would have been done. But alas, there was not. Logan filled the spaces of time with busy work such as this. The kind that tightened and made deep the sinews of the muscles on her arms and back and drew her complexion into darker and darker shades, until her violet eyes were of stark contrast against it.

More importantly, it was the kind of busy work that kept everyone else away. Nobody bothered the six foot something woman with an axe slung over a shoulder, a knife in the mouth and splitting wedge in the free hand. The longer she could avoid talking about bison people and mysterious mountain tunnels and lake gods, the better.

The sun came up and now that it was time for everyone else to wake up, she decided to quit throwing logs against the homes and shower. Powerful didn't mean one lacked the decorum to shower and avoid assaulting others with your odor at first dawn.

She came into the cabin and stepped into the door of the bathroom. To see Jackie holding a pair of scissors to her fiery locks was  hardly a surprise. Logan did pause, for a moment, then stepped into the bathroom behind the redhead and slammed the door closed.

"What is it you are doing.." she grumbled, setting a stack of fresh clothes on the toilet lid before stepping into the shower and sliding the curtain shut. Differently articles of clothing were tossed out in all of their sweaty glory, barely missing Jackie.

Jackie acknowledged Logan only with a small tilt of her head and a momentary cease to the assault of her hair.  She continued to watch Logan only in a side-glance, one more like a savage wolverine than a woman, and seemed unable to offer explanation to her task.

As Logan stepped into the shower, there was an inward shrug. Without missing a beat, she returned to the task at hand, and the scissors flashed in renewed vigor.  Her hair lay in an uneven, jagged edge just above her collar bone, more cut than was not. Discarded, matted clumps of copper hair lay besides her like a horrible 70s throw-rug.

"I can just shave it with a knife if you hate it so much. You do not know how to brush anyway, did nobody teach you?" Logan mumbled from the shower, peeking out from behind the curtain at the hair hitting the ground. "Divoké diet'a.."

--

Meanwhile, the smell of warm pancakes and soup wafted up through the cabin. Bianca was downstairs in her sweats and tee shirt with her blonde hair up in a messy bun, making a smorgasbord of food, some leftover and some fresh. A wire ran from her pocket to her ear, and she would occasionally hum or sing a lyric. "... at a diner on the corner, I am waiting at the counter for the man to pour the coffee... hmhmhm.. and he fills it only half way and before I even argue, he is looking out the window at somebody coming in, da da daa, da da da da da..."

Saber had only managed to slip in and out of sleep briefly throughout the night. Coming to from yet another short spell of sleep, his dark eyes groggily opened. His body felt sore and stiff, and he still couldn't move much without pain. He looked over the dark room he was becoming familiar with before his eyes settled on the door, and there they stayed, tiredly keeping watch.

Snip... snip...

Jackie didn't deviate from her objective, taking another lop of hair with every flash of the silver blades.  In short order, she had managed to take the length off in an even-line. In some places, the hair hang above her shoulders and in others below.

Jackie starred up at Logan - uncharacteristically silent. It were as though words waited for her at the threshold of her tongue, but couldn't get past her lips. There was a strange, uneasy air about the woman, like a small child lost all alone in the woods.

Then she took another snip at a knot in her hair.

Logan stared back. “Well, enjoy looking as if you were half eaten by a bear, at least you will not have a rats nest.” She sighed, closing the curtain. The heat was turned up and soon the bathroom would be a fog of steam.

Jackie watched the vapor from the hot shower cloud the mirror, beginning to obscure her own haphazard attempts.  Reluctantly, she set the scissors down and swept up the largest chunks of cut hair to the waist bin.  She starred at the mirror until it had turned entirely opaque.

"You're in a good mood," she said, her tongue stiff in her mouth. Had her voice always sounded that way, so rough and flat?

She picked up the scissors, then she stood and turned towards the door.

Ulric stretched his fingers and toes as he turned over and opened his eyes. The light outside the window was bright - brighter than any day recently. For the first time since his injury, he could see clearly again.

Ulric lay on the couch, wondering at the singularity of the scene as his thoughts trailed back over the last few days.  The air still smelled like rain. Mixed with the smell of pancakes, the mood of the morning was quite welcoming. Ulric could vaguely recall Kratos entering last night. There was still mud by the door. Whose blanket was on him? Ulric sat up. It was a wool blanket. It smelled like Ziet's cabin. Bianca was humming in the kitchen. Who else was awake?

Ulric stood up and left the blanket where it lay. He walked barefoot up the stairs on the east side of the house and came into the hallway. The stranger was still here. Ulric recalled with some regret his meeting of him. His thoughts carried him quietly to lurk outside Saber's door, when...

****

Timothy closed Ulric's bedroom door behind him. His eyes met Ulric. There was silence. A silent wariness prevailed between them. Then, Timothy went down the west staircase.

****

Ulric stayed quiet a moment more. He listened down the stairs for Timothy's passing. Then he gently tapped Saber's door with the tip of his knuckle.

****

Timothy ventured into the main room with his eyes and ears open. The smell and song from the kitchen drew him. He went into the kitchen softly, without a sound, and watched Bianca from behind.

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