Lola Hawkes
The weather through the last week had
been a constant threat. Lola was in the habit of listening to weather
reports on the radio and comparing them against her own judgment when
she stood outside and looked west toward the mountains. At no point did
any twister cones dip their way to the earth, but a few nights did
bring thunder that rattled window panes and lightning that lit the sky.
This
week, though? It's been warm and it's been beautiful. Today proved no
different. The sky was bright blue and the clouds were few and far
between, thin and white where they did appear. Winds kicked up every so
often to remind of the thunderstorm that was predicted later in the
evening. The temperatures were up in the mid-eighties, and it was the
perfect day for just being outside in general (provided you brought your
sunscreen).
Lola was outside, of course. This was because she
had been feeling heavy and uncomfortable for the past few days.
Occasional pains would spark 'what if' thoughts and 'maybe now?'
questions, but the pains would fade and nothing would happen. The baby
was in no rush to find its way into the world. Fed up with this
pins-and-needles sense of wait, Lola set out to hurry things along.
Of
course, she said that she wanted to stretch her legs, that they were
sore from sitting with feet propped up. Lola didn't outright tell
Hector and Rina that she was hoping a long walk out in the heat would
bring the baby sooner, but she didn't very well need to, did she?
No,
to watch her marching along one of several walking trails cut into the
earth from generations of Uktena patrolling the lands, it was easy to
tell. There was a determined crease to her brow, and when she would
stop to rest and drink water she would press on her belly like she was
gauging progress.
Rina Ghosh
Suffice to say Hector is leaving his mate right the hell alone lately.
Over
the last several weeks the tension at the Homestead has decreased not
because the imminence of the baby's arrival has done anything to ease
anyone's nerves but because the occupants of the house are growing used
to each other. Hector and his mother have been talking. Airing old
guilts and figuring out how to relate to each other again. Rina and Lola
likewise have been tending the garden and discussing Kinfolk roles
within Garou society and swapping stories.
Rina is not a natural
authoritarian like her husband is but she has her moments. Like this one
when Lola rises to walk under the auspices of stretching her legs and
Hector flared his nostrils and sat up straighter as if alarmed and the
voice that followed Lola out the backdoor was not his but his mother's.
Hector, relax.
So
he went one way in his wolf skin and the women went the other. Rina is
keeping her distance but not so much so that she could not hear Lola if
she were in distress.
They aren't within each others' line of sight when Rina is intercepted by a visitor.
Lola Hawkes
[Perception 3 + Alertness 3]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
[hector's lupus/heightened senses perc + alert]
Dice: 5 d10 TN3 (4, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Rina Ghosh
Baklava
Republik has found a way to tie their kinswoman into their totem so
that she can share the gifts and hear the silent speech of the Garou
bound together. It is a new but not obscure ritual and Hector has heard
of it but he has not even considered the possibility of tying Lola into
Fog like that.
She is Kinfolk. She was his friend before she was
his mate. As it stands the worst thing either of them can imagine would
be the death of the other. They're just about all either of them have
left. When they hunt together they hunt as a unit but they cannot call
to each other from across a great distance and share a forewarning.
Lola's
mate and Rina's son is over a kilometer away when something rustles out
of the tree-line in front of the once-lost older woman. He can hear so
much that he has learned to ignore that which is not immediate and
frightening.
His mother taking in a sharp breath and snapping a
twig as she steps back from something that reeks of vomit and despair
and pus is not something he can ignore but neither can he teleport. Her
voice is not so strong that her daughter-in-law can hear what she asks
of the new arrival Lola cannot see.
Lola does not know anything is amiss until she hears Rina scream.
Lola Hawkes
There
was a fight several days ago between Hector and Lola. She'd started
packing a handgun into her hiking bag. His side of the argument was in
favor of the bow and arrows he'd crafted for her, they were less
terrible on ears and less obvious and attention drawing anyways. Lola
argued that she barely scratched whatever she was fighting last time and
that she'd rather have a deaf baby than a dead one. Rina, no doubt
appalled by the fact that they had to be actually fighting anything in
the first place and through hearing it, quieted the both of them and
stamped the argument out before it had the chance to boil over.
As
far as Lola was concerned it was a win in her book, because she was
still carrying the gun around in one of the pockets of her hiking bag
with the bow and arrows left at home. A twinge of guilt reminded her to
get back to practicing once the baby was out and she could more
comfortably operate the bow.
This was a topic that was far from
Lola's mind currently, though. She had been walking up ahead, with Rina
several dozen yards back or so. She was thinking about the sweat
trickling down her neck and back, thinking about dinner options for the
night, thinking about circling back toward the house in case this
actually did kick start labor and she'd have to shuffle her way back
home before the baby fell out.
She certainly wasn't thinking about monsters out here on her fucking land.
This wasn't what she thought when the piercing sound of a scream
stabbed her ears and mind from behind. Eyes went wide, eyebrows shot
up, and her first thought was that Rina had been bitten by a snake or
something closer to those lines.
"Rina??"
Rina Ghosh
[rina +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
[the beast with two backs +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
A lot of the monsters they encounter start out human. Hector is by definition a monster. He was human once.
The
creature that stumbled onto the edge of the Homestead must have been
camping out at Roxborough when it was still two separate people. Lovers
or college friends or something. Sharing a tent. Sharing drugs. Or maybe
only one of them was doing drugs. Maybe it wasn't drugs at all. It
takes constant exposure for some people but for others all it takes is
one hit. Banes prey on the weak.
People like to think they're
stronger than they are but most of them aren't. These two weren't. Now
they're fused together for the rest of their lives.
Given whose land the thing has stumbled upon it won't be long.
---
Rina
hears Lola call her name but she's too terrified to answer. She is a
five-foot-two woman who works in a public middle school in San Jose,
California and she is not a timid soul. Not usually. She is married to a
hard-assed cardiovascular surgeon who is one of the most intelligent
minds of his generation let alone in his field. They raised three
children only one of whom failed to meet their expectations and now
they're just glad he's still alive.
One of the last moments Hector
had with his mother before today he was getting worked up about
something. Lola could see from the window as she was getting ready for
bed. They were not ready for bed. But Rina draped herself over Hector's
shoulders to wrap him up in a hug and stroked his hair and calmed him
even as he threatened to dissolve under the strain of whatever they'd
been discussing.
She is not a strong woman. She was once but that
was before her son disappeared. Now she's a survivor but survivors are
still damaged uncertain people.
And she is stood before what looks
like one distended gray-skinned person who is covered in dried gore.
Old blood and old puke and old shit and who knows what else. It walks on
two legs but fused onto and growing out of its back is another
person-shaped thing with lashing razor-sharp whips where its legs may
have been once. Its mouth has grown wide and filled with teeth and mucus
slavers out of it and down the legs of the creature damned with
carrying both of them until this is over.
"STAY BACK!" Rina says.
Hard to tell if she's talking to the creature who is advancing upon her
or to Lola who is nearly ready to give birth.
It doesn't listen. It whips its appendages at the terrified woman as she grabs up a nearby fallen branch to use as a weapon.
[dex + melee: lash!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (3, 4, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[damage: str +2 (Lashing "Tail") +1]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[rina soak]
Dice: 2 d10 TN8 (5, 8) ( success x 1 )
Lola Hawkes
What
Lola sees turns her stomach. Not for the gore, not for the terrible
display of once-human bodies warped unnaturally, twisted with nothing
but evil and ill intent. No, it turns because of how Rina's face had
gone gray and washed with horror. Lola's first thought wasn't for
herself, wasn't even for the life that rolled and kicked in her stomach,
but was for the once-lost mother of her mate that was staring down
something that Lola was certain she'd never seen before, never faced
before.
She muttered something, breathed it. Spanish that no one
heard, a curse or a prayer or both. Lola thought for a moment to yell
for Hector, but she knew that he would have heard the scream and would
be running their way already.
But how far was he? How soon could he be here?
Rina
screamed again, this time to tell the thing or herself to stay back.
Lola could pretend to assume she was screaming at the monster and not at
her, but frankly she didn't give a shit. The pack that was carried
against her hip was ripped open and she plunged a hand in to seize her
firearm.
She knew better than to rely on a rescue.
[Init! 5 + ....]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
[rerolling for TBWTB +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
[rerolling for rina +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
Round 1.5
The Beast With Two Backs: 12
Lola: 10
Rina: 6, 1L
Rina Ghosh
Rina
is terrified and has a fresh gash across her collarbones but she isn't
running to hide behind the nearest tree yet. She brandishes the stick
she'd picked up and tries to shoo the creature back into the woods.
[Rina takes defensive action this round.]
Lola Hawkes
Rina
is terrified. The monster is terrible. Lola, given the chance, can be
terrifying. She's done it before, and she aims to do so again.
So,
the pack is flung to the ground, shoved off her shoulder and away from
her, and only the gun remains in her hand when the pack hits the dirt.
Her arm swung up while the pack swung down. Lola's brow hardened,
flexed, her eyes pinned on the monster, and she fired off a shot.
[Splitting actions -- draw weapon, fire gun-- spending WP on shot.]
Rina Ghosh
And
the creature senses if it doesn't see the pregnant woman come up behind
it. It does not have to turn around to attack her. She can see that the
two bodies are fused hips to shoulders. The upside-down Wretched with
tentacles for feet can still jackknife itself towards Lola to bite her.
So that's what it does.
[For
record-keeping purposes: the creature has Extra Speed, which lets it
take an extra action per turn without splitting, and Hector was half a
kilometer away at the start of the scene (I typo'd earlier) so he will
not arrive for another three rounds.
1: Lash Rina.
2: Bite Lola.]
Rina Ghosh
[dex + melee: lash]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (3, 5, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[dmg]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Rina Ghosh
[HAHAHA I FORGOT RINA IS BLOCKING
dex + melee]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Rina Ghosh
The lashing once-legs smash the branch as if it were no more substantial than a toothpick but Rina is unharmed.
[dex + brawl: bite]
Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 5, 8) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[dmg: str + 1 +1]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Lola Hawkes
[Soak!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (5, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Lola Hawkes
[Fire Handgun: Dex 3 + Firearms 3, -3 split, spending WP]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Rina Ghosh
The
creature's slimy teeth graze her elbow and the smell of decay and old
vomit is overwhelming but the bite neither breaks the skin nor throws
off her aim.
Lola Hawkes
[Short Range diff should have applied, actually 4 suxx, for the record]
Lola Hawkes
Lola's
lip curled away from her teeth and her dark eyes flashed with
violence. Her face twisted into a snarl of disgust and battle both, and
the gun aimed to the wall of slimy gray body before her.
BLAM!
[Damage (Lethal): 4 Base + 3 Success Bonus]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 7, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )
Rina Ghosh
[soak!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5) ( fail )
Lola Hawkes
[Init! 5 + ?]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
[TBWTB +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
[rina +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
Round 2
Lola: 9, OK
The Beast With Two Backs: 8, 4L
Rina: 7, 1L
Rina Ghosh
With
the cracked remains of a broken branch in her hands Rina has nothing
left with which to defend herself. She looks around quickly to find
another branch and darts off the path to grab it.
[Arming herself, no proper action this turn.]
Meanwhile
the creature catches a 9-millimeter slug that goes through one's belly
and the other's chest. It looses a dual-throated burbling snarl and
renews its attack.
[1: Lash Rina, attacking from the side bonus in place this time :(
2: Bite Lola]
Lola Hawkes
There's
something satisfying to Lola about the hot spray of blood and ichor
across the bare skin of her hands and arms. It felt like victory. A
therapist would have a field day with her. But then, they would
probably have a field day with any Kinfolk they met.
The blood
also stank to high hell and her stomach twisted again. Adrenaline
flooded her veins and made her hot, made her sweaty. It made her vision
sharpen and her breathing shallow, but it drove her forward.
Two
quick squeezes of the finger. Another sweat-pouring, nerve-fraying zoom
of focus to line the shot, a prayer that it will do what it needs.
[Splitting Actions-- two shots, WP spent on the second.]
[1A. Fire Gun: Dex 3 + Firearms 3, -2 die for split, -2 diff for Close Range]
Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (2, 2, 5, 9) ( success x 2 )
Lola Hawkes
[Damage (Lethal): 4 Base + 1 Success]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
Rina Ghosh
[such soaking]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Lola Hawkes
[1B. FIre Gun: Dex 3 + Firearms 3, -3 die for split, diff 4 for Close Range, plus WP]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (6, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Lola Hawkes
[Damage (Lethal): 4 Base + 3 Successes]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
[so mean]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 7) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
The
bullets don't even faze the gore-armored creature. Whatever argument
Lola had had with her mate about the efficiency of metal versus wood
goes out the window but he will take no joy in having won that argument.
Right now he is sprinting harder than he has ever sprinted in his life.
The silence in the wake of his mother's scream spurring him on.
The
creature whips its unholy appendages at Rina as she rushes for the
nearest thing she can find. Her breaths are coming in ragged terrified
spurts but she still doesn't run.
[dex + melee: lash! -2 dice because damage, -1 diff because flanking.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (6, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[+1]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Rina Ghosh
[rina soak]
Dice: 2 d10 TN8 (2, 6) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
[dex + brawl: bite! -2 dice.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (2, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[+1]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Lola Hawkes
[Soaking!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (4, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
Round 3
Lola: 1L
The Beast With Two Backs: 4L
Rina: 2L
Rina Ghosh
The
second strike catches Rina in the shoulder. She screams with pain and
renewed fear but it doesn't stop her from grabbing up a rock too large
for her hand but not too large that she can't lift it.
Lola
catches the teeth in the ribs this time. It tears her shirt and
scratches her skin but it doesn't do her any slowing damage. The baby is
reacting to the gunshots Hector told Lola could still damage her ears
even within her womb but she's safe. If anyone is going to make it out
of this alive it's the baby.
The creature meanwhile slavers and moans at them. It would be a mercy to put this thing down. Look at how it suffers.
Pain
and not weight keeps Rina from being able to lift the rock over her
head. Feeling the burning makes her cough out a tear-wet breath but she
isn't crying. She's just preparing to throw the rock at the creature in
the hopes of making it go away.
[Rina is throwing a rock at the beast.]
[1: One more Lash on Rina before the big scary wolf gets here.
2: And another Bite on Lola.]
Lola Hawkes
[Split actions! 1 defensive action, and one gunshot-- headshot, with a wp spent!]
[Gunshot: Dex 3 + Firearms 3, diff 4 for Close Range, +2 diff for called shot, -3 for split, plus WP]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Lola Hawkes
[Damage (Lethal): Base 4 + 1 Success]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Rina Ghosh
[soak!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[dex + melee: lash! -2 dice for damage.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (2, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
[+0]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Rina Ghosh
[soak!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN8 (9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[dex + brawl: bite! -2 dice for damage.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (5, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Lola Hawkes
[Evade!: Dexterity 3 + Athletics 3, -2 for split, -1 dexterity dice for being big and pregnant]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
[+1]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Lola Hawkes
[Soak!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 7, 7) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
[just for shits -
dex + athletics: rina throws a rock. -1 die because damage.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
[rock smash!] [B]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (3, 8) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
[soak!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
Both
women are bleeding by the time the underbrush and the low-hanging trees
start to rustle with an oncoming arrival. Rina is hyperventilating and
her dusky skin is growing pale but she chucks the rock at the monster
anyway. The effort has her falling to her knees but she doesn't intend
to stay down for long. Her daughter-in-law is bleeding heavily from a
wound she just took to her shoulder.
The pain from the wound is
enough to distract Lola from the baby's protestations but she hasn't got
much longer before a different distraction will come along.
The
creature is wheeling on Lola to finish off what it started when a wolf
near as tall as Rina bursts out of the greenery and sets upon the
monster. Moving so fast it doesn't see the state the women are in. He
can smell though. His woman's blood and his mother's blood hit his
nostrils at once.
[frenzy check just for shits]
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 4, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[hector +9]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
[TBWTB +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
[Two lashes on the hispo thing holy shit we're gonna die.]
Lola Hawkes
Lola
learned how to be a quiet fighter, don't blame her teachers for what
she does. She was a Uktena learning how to be an Ahroun, and the Uktena
peddle in secrets and fight in the shadows. Their relationship with
the dark and with the warfare that waged within it was so close that one
of the very first gifts they taught their young was to manipulate the
dark into an inky blackness to aid their causes. To make the best use
of that, you had to be quiet.
Lola, though? She snarled, she
growled, she yelled. She gnashed her teeth and grated out her
frustration in half-clipped words, mingled in English and Spanish both,
while unloading her gun into a monster who seemed to absorb much of the
force of the rounds with the dense layer of snot and slime all over its
body.
Rina was on one side, lobbing a rock after she'd lost her
stick, taking lashing after lashing from the flailing once-legs on the
creature's back. Lola tried to jam her gun into the thing's teeth while
it was biting at her, but her bullet just clipped its scalp and those
teeth didn't break but instead buried into her shoulder and tore a nasty
gash in its front and back. Pain flashed white hot and seared down her
arm, up into her neck and hot into her chest. The baby kicked and her
stomach clenched. She pressed her wrist and forearm into the wound,
which pumped blood down her arm and into her shirt.
The Kinswoman
grated out a low roar of pain. Then came the crashing sound of a beast
the size of a horse breaking its way through the underbrush. A camper
would weep despair that another had come to kill it, but Lola saw
nothing but cavalry written into the bristling gray fur of the Galliard.
Thank Gaia. She was running out of bullets.
Rina Ghosh
[Yes you are gonna die.
1 + 2R: biting. You piece of shit.]
Rina Ghosh
[dex + brawl: CHOMP.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Rina Ghosh
[And it's dead.]
Rina Ghosh
Hector
is one of the first people who will stand up in mixed company and
proclaim Kinfolk to be just as strong and capable as any Garou fighting
in his human skin. No reason why they shouldn't be allowed to hone their
skills and fight if that's what they want to do. Lola Hawkes was a
stronger fighter than he was in the beginning. Back when he was still
clinging to his humanity.
But she's the mother of his child now.
Feminism and equal rights have nothing to do with the fact that if he
hadn't shown up this Wretched would have torn his mother to ribbons.
Would have bitten pieces out of his mate until there was nothing left.
At
least that's what his imagination will tell him later. For all he knows
Lola would have come back firing and it would have fallen this time.
That doesn't stop him from biting the thing clean in half at its
midsection. Doesn't stop there. Faster than Rina's eyes can follow he
rips the lashes from the thing's trunk and wishbones the mobile half's
legs.
By the time it's done and he's melted back into his man-form
Hector's face is dripping with blood. It's in his hair and pouring down
his neck and chest. He's not so wild-eyed as he was a moment ago. Only
three seconds have passed since Rina fell to her knees and Lola clamped
her hand down to her shoulder.
"'RELAX?!'" he asks his mother. "How am I supposed to relax when you guys are wrestling with fucking FOMORI!"
He's
not panicking. The moon is too thin and his Rage is halved. He's not
exactly calm but he isn't going to lose his shit either. He looks at his
mother and determines her to be stable before rushing over to his mate.
His hunting knife thwaps against one thigh while his medicine bag
clunks against the other hip.
"Move your hand, baby."
Lola Hawkes
The
pain in Lola's shoulder wasn't debilitating, but it was quite bad all
the same. She didn't sink to her knees from it, but her feet did plant
heavier in the ground and the weight of her body seemed to sag lower as
well. Hunkering down was the best way to describe what Lola was doing.
She kept her head up, watched as the twisted once-campers were fell by the teeth of the most primal representation of Wolf and War-- a
Hispo.
It was only while that mighty head shook to worry and
wishbone legs in twain that Lola's head tucked and eyes fell away. Her
breath hissed through clenched teeth, and she focused on that and
keeping pressure on a wound that still oozed blood with each pump of her
heart.
Hector asked her to move her hand and she looked up at
him, into his face for a moment first. Her face was sprinkled with
blood, his was coated in it-- particularly around the mouth. The part
of her that love him and war both wanted to smear it clear from his
mouth to kiss it, but a heaping combination of circumstances stayed that
urge. Instead she complied, but wincingly, and lowered her
gun-wielding hand to her side.
Her brow creased and her eyes moved
past Hector's shoulder to Rina instead. She was in worse state, but
her very Nature still had her evaluating the condition of the smaller,
less physically sturdy Kinswoman instead.
Rina Ghosh
He
isn't even out of breath. The women are both breathing heavier for the
pain and the exertion but Hector who ran clear from one end of the
property to the other is barely showing signs of adrenaline or exertion
as he coaxes Lola into peeling the pressing palm away from the gaping
bite wound in her neck.
The sight of it makes him sigh but Hector
doesn't fly into a rage. Something has him trying to stay calm now. It's
calmer than he has been in months. As if he's been presented with a
task and that task must be completed and if he fails in this task more
than just his reputation is at stake.
When he reaches into his bag
he draws out a small clay gourd etched with glyphs. She's seen one
before. This time he isn't breaking it over her leg and abducting her
from the hospital. He's breaking it over her shoulder and smoothing away
the blood after to make sure the wound is healed.
Better than any
medicine humans could provide so far as he's concerned. Once she's sure
she's better Hector lowers his fouled face to her hair and scents her
before drawing away from her.
"Ma," he says, "it's okay."
"What was that?" she asks in a keen.
"Remember how I was telling you about spirits?" he asks as he kneels beside her. She hasn't lifted herself out of the dirt.
"Uh huh...?"
"Sometimes spirits get corrupted. They want to hurt people because pain is all they know."
"Banes," says Rina. She eyes the gourd her son produces. "Lola told me."
"Okay."
"My ears are ringing."
"That's from the gun, Ma."
He
breaks the gourd over his mother's throat and lets the water wash over
her wounds. The water spirit takes away the scratches and the
lacerations and leaves her tattered and stained but whole.
Lola Hawkes
Those
gourds are perhaps why Lola wasn't so worried for the wound in her
shoulder, not as she had been for the wound in her leg when she was out
snooping with one of Cockroach's Ragabashes. She didn't seek to do
anything but keep pressure on the thing until the cooling mend of
Water's touch could re-knit what she had so carelessly ruined.
Hector
brushed her hair away from her neck and Lola tipped her head to the
side to give him clearance. She could see the bright and angry red
where skin had split on Rina's chest and collarbone, but the woman
wasn't in dire condition. Very shaken, remaining on the ground on her
knees, but that was to be expected. She would be fine as well, Lola was
sure. She had to be.
Lola's eyes closed when the gourd's water
rinsed away some but not close to all of the blood and left renewed skin
in its wake. Hector leaned in to breathe her hair and Lola lifted a
hand to cup the back of his neck when he did, but he was soon to leave
and she was okay to let him go.
She needed to go lean on that tree
anyways. Her back muscles had begun to cramp and ache in a slow and
radiating way, no doubt a delayed reaction from the stress of the fight.
Lola Hawkes
[Oh Lola, how long are you going to be miserable with this?]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
[AND WE'RE FADING THERE NOBODY WANTS TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT]
Lola Hawkes
[Yeah, it's icky.]
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