RP: The day after the end of the world. Who: Maria Warrington, mention of Natasha Vladmyre and an NPC muggle Where: Maria's at her family home in South Hams When: October 4, 2024, morning Warnings: Description of violence/npc death Summary: Maria contemplates the night before - her first real run on the Full, among other firsts.
Maria sat on the swing in the back of her house, on the edge of the woods. She stared, her eyes wide, a slight drizzle dampening her wild hair against her forehead. Her breathes were slow, which, somewhere in the back of her mind, surprised her. Her whole being felt still in a way that didn't ever remember feeling.
She'd been lucky, her father Campbell wasn't home, surely at the hospital answering dozens of questions and trying to figure out where she might have disappeared to. It'd only been about thirteen hours since she'd 'disappeared', it was hardly 6am when the sun came up, surely they were still repairing the damage. This thought made a rueful chuckle bubble out of her chest, hardly making a sound. The spell that the witch had taught her, to escape, had caused a beautiful gaping hole in the wall of St. Mungo's. She'd had only a moment to see it - witches and wizards, inept security guards, all running blindly confused and scared. If they had known it was only her! A little 6th year, with power none of them had dreamed possible, thanks to the witch.
She turned from the scene of her escape - where she'd taken her potion and waited for the moment they turned their back on her, the sun not even close to setting yet, and she'd blown a whole in the most vulnerable wall in the building, in the healers' room. From there, she'd ducked into an alley and run until she came to a crowded, autumnal, London street. The muggle clothes she'd worn to the hospital - a day off from school, after all - fit in just fine. Turning down a motor lane, she kept to the side and walked for a while, until she came to a small suburb not far from the city, and moved into the woods. Waiting, she took stock and breathed deep - what had she done? The fear nearly crept up on her, but then there was the witch, her teacher, and Maria's confidence returned. It was then that the women described what they were to do that night. Maria stepping back in fear and repulsion when the woman described a man that needed to be killed, how the wolf in her could just take over and take him out. He was a criminal, an awful man who plied young girls - children - with wine and then did awful things to them. The thought made Maria's skin crawled, that someone like that was out there, abusive and sadistic. She recoiled at the thought of killing, and why did the woman want Maria to do it instead of herself? But then she described it more, the feeling of the power, the justice in it. And by the time the moon was rising, Maria had a taste she couldn't shake on the tip of her tongue.
Soon she'd turned, the transition feeling somehow different to Maria, more under her control without the watchful medical staff everywhere. The woman followed closely, guiding Maria as if she could see in the dark just as well as the wolf. Maria had taken a full breath, her muscles rippling under her long unruly fur, and she barked - something she thought would be a laugh any other night.
They ran hard, fast, through woods, suburbs, Maria couldn't contain her wolf-like whooping and hollaring. Slowing when the woman did, she caught the dirty scent of a bad muggle. Her mouth watered, this was vengence, this was necessary, she had the power, why not take it?
Maria caught the man as he was moving through his back yard - a dingy area of broken furniture and dibbets in the patchy grass - bowling him over from a run. At first he seemed shocked, then relieved to see it was only a large dog. Noticing that look on his face set Maria on edge, her weight keeping him pinned and her ears flattening back in anger. She growled, pushing down on him harder, and then bit. He didn't even have a chance to scream - she'd gone for his throat, ripping it apart, tearing him apart until he'd stopped stuggling. Maria let out a howl, it tore from her like she'd been a wolf all her life.
Maria shook her head, looking around her yard in South Hams. She could hear the water hitting the cliffs on the other side of the property, wondered absently where her father might be. What would she tell him? Would he lock her up permenantly? Would they put her in prison? She didn't injure anyone at the hospital, surely they wouldn't find out about the scumbag she'd killed - the woman had even burn the body, no one had seen them.
Maria stood, the rain getting harder now but feeling good even with the cold. Cocking her head to listen for any signs of life in the house, she moved through the tall grass of the back yard and went up to her room to sleep. She'd deal with her father when the time came, ask him to understand she simply disappeared in the chaos as a chance to run free. He'd understand, and she wouldn't be pinned with any of it. Until then, she'd revel in the first true calm she'd ever felt in her life.