Lola Hawkes
Earlier that day, Lola had come to Hector
with a suggestion: Let's pay Calden White a visit. Lola wanted to
meet her fellow rural-living Kinfolk, shake his hand, try and convince
him to come down to Forgotten Questions rather than being sequestered up
north.
Hector, by one circumstance or another, was down with this.
So
they drove out. Calden White wasn't available, whatever the reason
was, when they pulled up to the farm on the gravel road. Lola'd left a
message with whoever was there to take it: Lola Hawkes wanted to shake
his hand, and could be contacted at this phone number. Then it was back
in the truck and they were on their way.
Since that day when Lola
had the strong spell of lethargy to span the day, she has been a little
up and a little down. She was still tired, but spoke of it much less
for the two days following. Today, though, she has made up for it. She
had her energy back, her eyes had brightened as well. Hector would
pick up that over the past week or so the girl had been eating
healthier, and looked nicer for it.
Almost like she were truely as
much Wolf as she was Human -- just landing on the more Human side of
the fence for her genetic line after tottering for so long -- she seemed
to be padding out for the colder months to come. It added more curve
to her hip, more padding to other parts to balance.
Garou were
remembering the Hawkes name these days. She'd been mentioned around the
Caern a few times. The word had gotten out that she had been throwing
her weight into patrols when the Spire Sept was downed, and that she
charged into battle along her Cousins fangs and claws, her guns blazing
and always striking true... True Born appreciated this for the ferocity
it showed. She was downright puffed with pride from hearing so earlier
that day.
Hector Ghosh
For
as much as he enjoys being out in the middle of nowhere and lazing
around the Homestead all Lola really had to do is tell him she wants to
head out to the Whites' ranch and introduce herself and he was down for
the ride. Some lingering reluctance what with the misunderstanding born
of Jack and Ingrid's unannounced drop-in over the summer but despite his
aggravatingly sharp memory Hector doesn't like to hold onto the past.
But
Calden wasn't home so Hector stayed near the truck while his kinswoman
dropped off a note and then they're off again. He'd tied back his hair
so he could put down the window and he's got his elbow up where the
plexiglas used to be as they drive off towards home and he's fiddling
with his helix ring instead of talking.
The fields on either side
of them stretch on so far as their eyes will take them and then the
mountains rear up to claim them and the land to the east behind them is a
sea of depthless wild. Beautiful if you're watching it. The land isn't
what makes Hector sit up and stare out the window like a flare just came
up out of the grass.
"Hey," he says and his voice is taut but not sharp. "Slow--no, stop. Stop stop stop pull over."
Lola Hawkes
Today
had been quite warm for the beginning of October-- threatening to hit
the eighties even out here. Lola had dressed accordingly, in a pair of
denim shorts that rode a bit high on the thigh (what, just because you live out in the middle of nowhere you have to be a prude?)
and a plain black tank-top that fit loosely. She'd brought a zip-up
hoodie along for the ride in case it got cold, but that hadn't been
necessary yet, so it sat on the truck bench between the two of them.
She
was reaching down to fiddle with the radio and see if any decent
stations came in yet when Hector spoke up out of nowhere, his voice
suddenly pulled tight like a wire. He's repeating for her to stop,
insisting it in a suddenly tense voice.
Lola doesn't startle hard,
but she is surprised. This causes her to brake a little harder than
she might have desired, but she knew how to drive this big old truck
like a pro. They stopped quickly (Lola tossing a hand out to catch
Hector's chest and keep him from being thrown forward, even though he
certainly [probably] didn't need it), the truck jerking on its
suspension but coming to a safe and neat stop up on the gravel shoulder
of the highway.
She dropped her hand from his chest, threw the
vehicle into park with the stick-shift that sprouted from the floor, and
looked around out the windows with wide (not from fear, though) eyes.
"What? What'd you see?"
Hector Ghosh
Without a
seatbelt he runs the risk of going through the windshield every time he
gets in the truck but even if they hit a tree going sixty miles an hour
he'd survive. He'd probably buckle the seatbelt next time for the
discomfort come from splattering against an object otherwise disinclined
to move but it wouldn't kill him but he does not wear a seatbelt and he
doesn't know how to drive either so Lola's hard braking nearly slides
him right off the bench seat.
Not that Lola's hand across his
chest does much more than give her the same flimsy peace of mind the
action gave 1950s housewives with their brood. She can feel his ribs
move with the heft of his breathing but she can't feel his heart
hammering because he's still calm. That has to count for something.
Once
her hand falls from his chest he goes for the door handle. Shakes his
head against the phrasing of the question because he didn't see
anything.
(Yesterday evening after going up to the city to busk
with Tamsin he fell off the radar and came back to the Homestead in the
dead space between night and morning rambling about Gaia's eyes and the
darkness She's let him see but he didn't sound scared. A lucid
translation came later. Between leaving the city and coming home he
learned how to sense the presence of corruption. It's still a new thing
and unwieldy.)
"I don't know yet," he says and lets himself out of
the cab. Slides down the embankment and starts off into the shin-high
unreal-green grass serves as a welcome mat for the forest. He stops to
give her a chance to grab her gun and whatever else she needs out of the
car and starts to backtrack.
It's either fortunate or unfortunate
that they do not have to travel far. Fortunate because the truck is
still right there but unfortunate because they haven't got the
quarter-mile to prepare for whatever it is they can't see. Hector tromps
along for maybe two minutes silent but for the sound of his boots
slapping against the grass and then he crashes to his knees like
something hit him in the back of the head.
Lola Hawkes
Hector
let himself out of the truck cab, and Lola wasn't far behind. She
yanked the keys out of the ignition and jammed them into her pocket when
her legs were straightened out the now-open truck door. Ankle-high
hiking boots hit the ground and she started to close the door, but
stopped and decided last minute that she should just bring the rifle
along with her, just in case. So she reached under the bench of the
truck, grabbed the rifle that she wouldn't drive anywhere without, and
made to follow after Hector.
The grass scratched at her knees, but
she didn't complain or swat it away. She would've preferred to wear
jeans for a trek through the landscape like this, but this wasn't the
first time and certainly wouldn't be the last time that she'd be out in
grass and trees and bugs with her legs left bare. She did live on the
outskirts of a National Park, after all.
Last night, somewhere in
the wee hours of the morning, Hector had awoken Lola when he got home.
He came into the bedroom wild-eyed and slightly dazed, chattering about
being shown some new kind of depth by Gaia. She'd awkwardly soothed him
(she wasn't good at that kind of thing) and explained that she was
tired and going back to bed after he'd stopped merging his sentences
into one. In the morning she was yielded a better explanation.
Now, though, when he said he didn't quite know, she had a feeling that she should know what to expect.
She
wasn't quite prepared for Hector suddenly crashing onto his knees once
they're a solid 400 meters into the treeline, shoulders dipping into the
tips of tall grass and head falling in one direction. She had been
carrying the rifle propped up on her shoulder, but she tossed it down
into a ready hold, safety switched off immediately after.
"Hector!" she said sharply, but not loudly, and skimmed the trees around them to locate a target.
Hector Ghosh
He
digs the heel of one hand into his eye like that's going to fix
whatever the problem is and then he makes a sharp angry noise deep in
his throat. When he tries to get up it becomes obvious that he can't. He
isn't going to scream in front of her but in refusing to scream he ends
up making this godawful noise that would suggest something's burrowing
its way out of his skull before the heel of his other hand goes into the
other eye.
As distracted as she is by the lapping tide of his
Rage rising Lola can still hear something low in the grass. Hector's
path had taken them over a hundred yards back from the highway where the
foothills roll out trees to meet the grassland and anyone flying past
will not notice her.
Her, because she is the only one standing
right now. Try as he does to find his feet Hector is useless right now.
Worse than useless. He's helpless.
The thing that took him down
was human once. Then Fomor. Then shorn in half. For as much attention as
Lola pays the scraggly-haired dumb-eyed bleeding-to-death Wretched in
the grass she knows for the time being all she has to do is level her
gun and put a round through its head.
At the same time:
Something
inside the forest draw a sharp breath with the knowledge it isn't
alone. A female ring to its inhalation but wet as it breathes out. Human
in body but not in spirit. A twig snaps and leaves rustle.
Lola
raises her weapon to end the thing and puts the stock to her shoulder
and clicks off the safety. But when she goes to fire the weapon the
trigger doesn't catch. Her rifle is as much use as her mate right now.
Lola Hawkes
These
were precisely the types of situations that Lola was trained for. When
she was younger, teenaged enough to know what combat was going to be
(kind of, the reality of it was far from settled) but not nearly old
enough to engage in anything beyond roughhousing, Lola would pretend
battle scenarios in her head while out on her patroling walks of The
Homestead and Bawn.
Many a time when she was young she would
pretend she'd been snuck up on, tighten her reflexes in reacting.
Practice breathing and keeping calm and desensitizing against fear and
pity. That had all been in her head, of course, but then she turned
seventeen and started joining in with her revolvers.
Hector was
making a terrible sound and pressing his palms into his eyes like he's
trying hard to keep them from popping out from whatever pressure may be
building behind. There's a sharp spasm in Lola's heart and stomach
alike. Something was doing this from the inside, something that she
couldn't see or shoot or stop, and Hector couldn't do anything about it
either. She closed the distance between the Galliard and herself in
four fast, long-legged strides and stood beside the man, over him,
scanning the area in all directions.
Something shuffled, and Lola
twisted about quickly, found the twain-looking monster in her line, and
pulled the trigger before she could register details beyond 'this is
where the head is'.
Click-click.
But no boom.
Lola's
eyes went wide, startled and worried, and she checked the safety,
pulled the hammer, and tried again. Still nothing. Her teeth bared
viciously to the night and she slung the rifle back over her shoulder by
the strap. Hector was still digging his hands into his eyes, snarling
and making that wretched noise of pain, but she couldn't help or soothe
that. That's not why she was here.
She knew he kept a knife, and that's what she was searching him for.
Hector Ghosh
Later
when Hector comes back to his senses he'll think for half a second that
her hands were clapping over his ribs and hips because she was trying
to calm him down or get him back into his own head enough that he could
help her with either the dying Fomor or the wild one coming out of the
woods towards her. Even in the midst of his agony he can hear the
betrayal of the gun but it doesn't mean anything because all he can do
is wait for this to stop.
She finds his medicine bag on one hip
and the sheath of the hunting knife on the other. The knife is in its
sheath. All he uses it for is skinning rabbits and preparing traps and
whittling wood and he cleans it between tasks and hones it when he can
find a whetstone. The blade is long and sharp and the handle is heavy
and it feels like a promise in her hand. Doesn't mean she knows what
she's doing with it.
Doesn't much matter when the second creature comes out of the woods.
Hair
matted with blood and vomit and Gaia knows what else. Eyes gone faraway
from the smallness of her once-human mind. No room for the power of
Gifts meant for Garou or strong Kinfolk. A nature-lover's build with
infected track marks eaten into the crooks of her elbows. The thing
cocks her head as she breaches the clearing and breathes out in a hiss
at the sight of Lola. Slithering in the grass behind her. The bitch has a
tail.
In the grass the Fomor that took down Hector gurgles and stops trying to drag itself towards the light.
Lola Hawkes
[Init: die suxx + 3 Dex + 3 Wits]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 1 )
Hector Ghosh
[homegirl's inits! +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )
Lola Hawkes
[On the defense! Evasive Action!]
Hector Ghosh
1: tail-lash the Rage-beast lying on the ground being useless
Hector Ghosh
[dex + melee: WAPOW. should be diff 8 but i think it's -2 for the target being immobile.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Hector Ghosh
[dmg: str + 2]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Hector Ghosh
[WHAT THE FUCK diff 8 soak because in homid]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (1, 5, 7) ( fail )
Hector Ghosh
[jesus christ frenzy check +1 rage because this whole thing sucks]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Lola Hawkes
[Switching to Offense -- +1 Diff || Slashy with knife! Dex 3 + Melee 1, blowing WP]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 4, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )
Lola Hawkes
[That's actually 2 suxx, forgot to click the WP button.]
Lola Hawkes
[Damage: Str 3 + 1 Suxx]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Hector Ghosh
[Guess who can't soak Lethal! Homegirl is at 3L.]
Hector Ghosh
REROLLING INITS
Lola Hawkes
[Init Round 2: Suxx + 3 Dex + 3 Wits]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
Hector Ghosh
[+6 :( ]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( fail )
Hector Ghosh
1: tail-lash lola!
Lola Hawkes
[Evasive Action Go! Wits 3 + Athletics 3]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Lola Hawkes
[Oh hey, knives are +1 damage in W20. Rolling another die for damage tally per ST suggestion.]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Hector Ghosh
1: WAPOW regular diff because lola isn't useless, -1 die because hurt
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Hector Ghosh
[dmg: str +1]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )
Lola Hawkes
[Soak!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Hector Ghosh
Lola knows how fast fights move but before she can even think to blink:
the
wild-eyed woman comes out of the forest and goes not for her
knife-wielding equal but for the beacon of Rage already dropped to his
knees in the dirt and the razor-sharp edge of her python-thick caudal
appendage snaps out and catches him under one of his arms. Catches him
and then slams him onto his back and it rips open his chest as it goes
and Lola can hear the bone-crack and the squelch of blood and feel the
air threaten to rend with a frenzy staved off before Hector's lungs and
throat start to fill with blood the rest of him too stunned to move.
The
kinswoman stabs the knife between the wildwoman's ribs not quite
matching where the wildwoman stuck her mate but close enough and the
tables turn but so does her blind-to-anything-else ire and the tail
cracks at Lola. Skims off of her arm. For now she's still alive but
seconds after the fight began Hector coughs a wet cough and the Fomor's
parting gift still clenches his head and he's more angry than he's ever
been in his life but he still can't move.
If she doesn't kill this thing fast they're both in trouble.
homegirl's declare:
1: more lashing!
Lola Hawkes
Lola
wasn't the type to shout out or scream her concern. The split-in-twain
Fomor that had come struggling through the grass had tipped over,
having wheezed it out it's final breath. The wild-eyed thing caked in
all types of bodily fluids, with the crooks of her elbows rotted away
and an impossibly long, thick, wicked tail had come forward through the
trees.
Lola had turned to face it, grasping the knife that she'd
pulled from Hector's side in her hand, holding it forward like she was
more prepared to stab than slice. She moved like she was going to dodge
out of the way of the tail rather than charging forward first, but the
thing didn't attack her-- even though she was posing the most immediate
threat. Instead there was a splash of hot blood against her bare leg,
and after the flurry of movement had ended Hector was on the ground by
her feet, flesh laid open deep to the bone, snarling and seizing in pain
and helplessness.
A sound like a wet snarl ripped raw from Lola's
throat and she charged forward and sunk the knife into her ribs. More
blood splashed, and Lola snapped her teeth in the air near the
disgusting creature's face before jumping back away from her. The tail
caught her arm but only caused it to sting-- there would be a raised
mark there, but the skin didn't split at least.
No more dicking
around, though. She needed to keep the thing focused on her and away
from Hector. So she grasped the knife tight and spat out: "Come on!"
Lola Hawkes
[Split actions: Evasive Action first, Stab second (WP spent on stab)]
Lola Hawkes
[Splitting the other way around, actually, but still spending WP on the stab! Dexterity 3 + Melee 1, -2 dice for split]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (6, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Lola Hawkes
[Damage: Weapon Base 1 + 3 Strength + 2 Suxx]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
Hector Ghosh
[Bitchface is now at 6L.]
Hector Ghosh
1: lash! -5 dice because damn.
Dice: 1 d10 TN8 (10) ( success x 1 )
Hector Ghosh
dmg: str + 2 + the 2 i forgot last round because kenna is a masochist
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
Lola Hawkes
[Soak!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (8, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Hector Ghosh
1: jesus christ LAST-DITCH LASH
Lola Hawkes
[Splitting again! Stab 1, then Stab 2. Spending WP on Stab 2.]
Lola Hawkes
[Stab 1: Dexterity 3 + Melee 1, -2 dice]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Lola Hawkes
[Damage: Knife Base 1 + 3 Strength + 1 Suxx]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
Hector Ghosh
[INCAPPED]
Lola Hawkes
It
has been argued before that Lola was perfectly capable of holding her
own. This is why she was allowed to walk the patrols with the Wolves.
They didn't need to worry about her being captured, or getting in the
way, or even being that heavy of a liability. You see, she was
combat-thirsty and trained for just that reason. She kept her guns
clean and shot straight and never flinched in the face of danger.
Even tonight, when her mate (mate? do we call him that? yes, I think it works)
was on the ground, unable to lend his claws to the fray and bellow his
Rage at the she-beast that greeted them, she was prepared.
Even
when her rifle jammed and she was left with a knife, which was not
something she was very well trained to use (only very basic things-- how
to hold it and not to cut herself), she didn't back down or flinch away
from the fight. In fact when she saw Hector laid out she surged into
it, faster and harder and anger renewed. The knife found purchase in
skin over and over, dancing away from a lash one time, then simply
taking the next that slapped across her front. The angle of the attack
should've cut her open, but Lola was just. too. tough.
The
she-beast was no match for the Woman of Wolves, and Lola stood over the
fallen, gasping, wheezing, gurgling woman and seized her by her
filth-riddled hair and jerked her head to the side. The knife plunged
into the monster's throat and carved across roughly, ensuring that the
thing would never rise again. Lola then spat directly on the body.
Immediately
next, while the body still steamed and spurted blood from the neck,
Lola spun about, ripping grass with the bottoms of her boots, and
rejoined Hector's side. She stooped down, knees out, and grasped his
face, pulled his eyes from his hands and half-yelled at him:
"Change, Hector! Do it!"
Hector Ghosh
For
a moment his fury goes beyond anything he's ever felt before. He
seethes the way he used to seethe when he was 18, 19 years old and
couldn't keep his shit together. When Lola turns towards him she sees
the result of that single hit: he's been split open along a line born
not of anatomy but violence and one of his lungs is punctured and he's
bleeding onto the ground and into the hollow organ and every time he
exhales more blood comes into his airway and he's coughing and every
time he coughs it hurts and she knows he can't think straight not
because of the lingering influence of that thing that dropped him but
because all he can think about is the apocalypse-red Rage thrusting into
his vision.
If he doesn't stay calm he's going to frenzy and if
he frenzies he runs the risk of letting the Eater-of-Souls in. She won't
be able to run fast enough to get away from him and he can't even think
to go for a talen because this all happened so fast and he's shaking
not from his injuries but from the Rage.
Lola doesn't run. She
grabs his wrists and pulls them back from his face and half-yells at him
to change. He makes that godawful deep-in-the-throat screaming noise
again but this isn't some stranger barking orders at him. He hears her.
Gunfire-fast
he bursts into his near-man form for he can walk on two legs at least
and keep pressure off of his chest. Ends up big and ugly and hairier
than usual. Buries his face in her knees while his body heals the damage
done by that tail. Stays there until the canyon in his chest is reduced
to a scratch.
---
When he can breathe again Hector snaps
back into his birth form again just as fast as he'd left it. Burns off
the extra Rage and then some and pushes himself upright fast like he's
waking out of a nightmare. Grabs her by the shoulders and he's even
bloodier than she is but this is what he always does after a fight. He
checks her for cuts or worse.
Lola Hawkes
It's a
dangerous route that Lola took, coming to Hector while he virtually
writhed with the amount of Rage that was burnt into him. It was like
housing an inferno, she was sure, and she could almost physicall feel it
lashing the air. Like Corey would feel on a Full Moon and she knew to
just let him be.
But this is a part of being a Kinfolk, and it was
a part that Lola did well. She braved the chance that he may snap,
because she'd be fucked if he snapped one way or the other. It was
better to give it a full shot at bringing him back, at healing him, at
stopping that bleeding. So she'd grabbed him, forced physical touch to
bring him back and draw him in and make him hear.
He hears, and he
changes. His body becomes bulky, heavy with muscle and rock-like
shoulders. The black scruff of hair on his face grew down his jaws, his
brows grew together, the hair on his head was shaggier and coarser, his
jaw was heavier and stronger. He made such terrible noises, but he
leaned forward and pushed his brow into her knees, and she held her
weight and balance to accept this contact and keep it. Her hands held
his head, stroked his hair, and she leaned forward and touched her brow
to the back of his head and waited.
Soon enough his breathing
steadies, and in a violent flurry his body snaps back to normal. Lola
leaned back to accomodate this change. Before she could say anything or
look him over he sprang to his feet, dragged her up by her shoulders,
and looked her over. He would find that under all of the blood that
splashed her face, ran heavily down her right forearm from where she
slaughtered the heroin-beast, and covered her legs... Beneath all of
that, there were no open wounds. It was the blood of her comrade and
her enemy that she wore instead.
The most he would find is the
raised whiplash across her left forearm, which didn't even bother her.
Though he was the one frantically searching her, Lola's eyes were big
and stern and concerned and set on Hector's face, all while she stood
still and let him examine her.
"What happened? What was going on in your head there?"
Hector Ghosh
She's okay. She's okay.
Anxiety
has his brows cinched and his blood-rank breath caught in his throat.
His color is not sapped because Garou cannot die of blood loss but he
was in very real physical pain for what felt like a very long time and
he's soaked in sweat where he is not soaked in blood.
Before he
answers he throws his arms around her and holds her and as the last of
the helplessness drains away he exhales. It sounds like a sob but she's
never heard him cry so it could just be him getting his wind and his
wits back. His hand finds the back of her neck and he presses his brow
to the corner of her jaw.
"Felt like someone was flossing the inside of my skull with a chainsaw..."
No
point apologizing. Wasn't anything he could have done about it. He
sucks in air and brings her scent with it and then lifts his face from
her skin to glimpse the carnage behind her.
"... please tell me you didn't slice that dude in half with my nail-cleaning knife."
Lola Hawkes
When
he's assured that she's okay, he foregoes answering her question at
first and instead throws his arms around her and holds her close. His
head came near hers, and he exhaled with such a wrench that it sounded
quite like a sob near her ear. Lola seemed only slightly taken aback,
and only for a moment before she held onto him in return and rested her
head against his. His forehead and brow rested near her jaw, and he
finally answered by explaining the pain that he'd felt.
She
breathed deeply of him, just as he did of her. Each reassured that
neither was lost or greviously damaged that night. Lola, for she saw
Hector split open. Hector, for Lola was more delicate despite how hard
she was. She couldn't just change and heal, after all, and there was
some damage that could overwhelm her easily.
It was a miracle, and a testament to Lola's own prowess that she went unharmed tonight.
Hector
finally registered the two fallen bodies around him, and asked about
how the one cleaved in twain had gone down. Lola laughed a little, the
sound breathless and a tiny bit giddy in that way she tends to get while
still reveling in victory. "No, I think the she-bitch did that." This
is with a jerk of her thumb toward the woman with the carved-open neck
and multiple stab-and-slice wounds.
"That's the one I downed. That bitch gotcha good."
Hector Ghosh
A
miracle would imply that a deity or some other supernatural entity was
looking out for them. Maybe one is. They have no idea what they could
have lost tonight and all either of them is thinking of in the aftermath
is that they could have lost each other. Hector lay split open like a
butcher had just had at him and if Lola had not thrown herself in
between the Wretched and him the she-bitch could have killed him off
without a moment's hesitation.
So they kneel like this in the dirt
and the blood and he doesn't let go of her. Absorbs her laughter like
he would have the water and dust and spirit of a released talen and
tightens his arms around her ribs and twines his fingers into her hair.
"My
hero," he says and it's meant to be funny but for as much as he's been
going on about how awesome she is since the first fight they survived
together it isn't a joke.
Isn't like he hasn't saved her neck before. That was a different fight.
He
holds onto her where her head meets her neck and pulls back to kiss her
between the eyes. A blessing maybe. They still have work to do. They
have to throw those bodies into the back of the truck and take them back
to the Caern and cleanse and dismember them.
After he releases
her Hector holds out a hand to help her out of the crouch and keeps an
arm around her shoulder. Doesn't want to let her go even though they
both turned out just fine in the end. The grass is dented and
dark-stained where he'd landed.
"Alright. If anyone asks, I did not roll around on the ground like a newborn kitten while you killed everything."
Lola Hawkes
They're
there in the dusk of a sun setting behind mountains to the West, Hector
squeezing Lola close to him, and Lola with her arms wrapped around
him. They held this moment as though they weren't coated in blood and
sweat respectively. As though they wouldn't rise to move ravaged bodies
into the bed of a truck, cover them with tarp, and drive the back roads
to Lola's house without cutting through Detroit because nothing is more
suspicious than a leaky truck bed.
Her body is a bit softer with
this change of seasons shift in weight, more womanly held up against him
like this, but that's not on their minds in this moment. They're
pleased that they're both intact.
When he breaks away and stands,
he takes her hand and pulls her up to her feet to join him. She rises
without strain or fatigue, and leans into his side with his shoulder
looped about his shoulders. There's another laugh, this one more a
throaty chuckle, when he tells her to leave details out of the story.
"Kittens
don't kick out vibes and warnings that they'll tear you to shreds if
you'll touch them. You weren't a kitten. Besides," she started walking
toward the Fomori that fell only after he'd immobilzed Hector, and
leaned down to heft the body up, waiting for Hector to lift another side
of the body before actually pulling upward. "I didn't even touch this
guy, he just kinda fell down dead. I think the she-bitch over there
might have been the cause of death. Maybe we interrupted their fight?"
Hector Ghosh
Now
they start the task of cleaning up the scene. A rain is threatening to
bear down on them and after the rains that brought the flooding the land
and the people within the land are weary but these two are of the
Nation and they are just doing the job they cannot quit and would not
even if they had the choice.
Easier to move a body when it's
already in two pieces. He finds the pelvis and the legs and stacks them
atop the thing's trunk. Lets Lola take the head not because it's heavier
but because it's easier to grip underneath the arms than by the laden
cavity. He doesn't even exhale hard as they take the thing from
gravity's grasp. Joke though he may but no one will ever mistake him for
anything other than a werewolf.
"I didn't know Fomori had lovers' spats. That's heartening."
Hector
will have time to appreciate the padding laid across her muscles later.
After they've gone back home and reduced the bodies to their pieces and
he's burnt the willow branch and chased away the spirits with the
loathsome force within his inhuman chanting. Other Garou speak in human
language when they perform the cleansing rite but Hector speaks in
spirit-speech and it sounds as if his voice is wavering across the
Gauntlet when he does that but it works. After they've eliminated the
soulless remains.
After all of that then he can take her into his
arms and take her to the nearest flat surface and love her like they are
going to live forever and not like they could have died tonight.
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