Chaos Precip

It was to be a special night. One of the sacrifice nights, where they all gathered in the caves and came together in order to celebrate the removal of one more demon from the world. Julie hadn't told L what was to happen, she simply fluttered around more cheerfully than usual. All those entering the caves had an air of celebration, of festivity. They trickled in from the surrounding town, the farms, smiling and chatting as though on their way to a party.

Tillden was in the cave above the womb room, standing at the alter and smiling benevolently at his congregation as they filtered in and took their places. Julie hustled L to a spot near the middle, patting his shoulder and arm repeatedly, "I told you that he would like you." she murmured, "You should be honoured, we do not add to the true congregation that often."

The Caves are lonely, dark and deep,
And I have sanity to keep,
And no matter what, I mustn't sleep,
No matter what, I mustn't sleep.

Never once, in any of his eighteen years, had L spent so much unbroken time underground.

Nothing much changed, in the caves, certainly nothing that could be observed in the short life of a human. The centuries that shaped the stones, the gradual dripping erosion of water on minerals... it was beyond all of their comprehension. The air was ever-stagnant, doing little to soothe the musty coughs that occasionally interrupted the stillness that came with night.

At least, they told him it was night. He couldn't know for sure. Wrapped in his affinity, he couldn't have been more in his element, but there weren't shadows without light to offset them, not truly. It was a complicated balance. One didn't rightly exist, without the other, and complete darkness filled him with an almost feverish giddiness. The balance was gone, the reference point was obliterated, there was no perspective, and it was dangerous. He occasionally woke to it, before the candles and lanterns had been lit, nearly drunk on how himself he felt.

The only thing that could have made it better was wind. Lightning. Crackling energy. L had always feared storms, but lately, something pulled at him, a part of him dearly hoped for one. Tension wished for release, and L was most certainly tense.

How could he not be, buried in the heart of a cult, dancing in the palm of a very charismatic man who shared his very same strengths and weaknesses?

He ate his meals, he attended his sermons, he made awkward small-talk with humans who were as ill as he was and blamed it all on the Olia. But mostly, L waited.

The two of them found it both difficult and far too easy to get involved in the fringes of the cult. For L, it was even easier than for Aya. His lack of health, his shy and retiring nature...

Her name was Julie. Julie Maddox. She was a widow of nearly forty years. Childless. Human. Her husband had also been human, and he'd died in a hunting accident. It wasn't the personalities that made her think of her husband, it was the black hair and bruised looking eyes. When she looked at L, she saw someone who might have, in another world, been her child. She saw L, she took him in. Julie wasn't a bad woman, she really wasn't. She went to church, she said her prayers, she was kind to children and her neighbours. She listened to the Word of the Great Mother and Her First Son and she waited for everything to be made right again. To Julie, it would be a sin to let a sweet boy like L try to make his way in the world without help! Especially here, in this place. Humans had to stick together.

So she set the table and smiled at him again, “So, child, tell me more what brought you here? Are you seeking something?”

Aya fanned herself with her sun bleached straw hat and bent down to adjust the strap on her shoes. Shoes; not boots. Ugh. And even better she was walking beside their shaded wagon instead of riding in it because the character she was assuming would have very well broken in shoes and callused feet. She felt almost naked out of her gear (the linen shirt and pants wouldn't stop claws after all) but at least it was relatively cool.

And even worse, in her mind, was that she'd initiated all these changes in wardrobe so she didn't have any right to complain.

She managed to amble up beside the heavily shaded driver's seat and blink wide, blue eyes up at her companion. At least she didn't need help looking like an innocent, small woman? That was all genetics and she usually went to pains to hide it. "We'd been trading in Wae'shan when he got the idea in his head that no Water was going to help me...and where he saw a woman from his last trip with a child.. His, not mine. Law is simple back in our home town, Tant, an infertile couple can annul a marriage just by saying so...an he did, at Spring Faire. Front of everybody no less." There was a flare of hurt and confusion as she told the tale, simple words conveying a lot more to any mind willing to fill in the details.

Yes, she'd been practicing. Almost non-stop in fact. After all, she'd need to be able to lie properly.

The act slid away as she peered up at L though, worry in her voice. "You barely ate earlier, L, and you don't look good now."

Dear Aya,

I hope that this message finds you in good health and fair circumstances. We have not met, but I am aware of your existence, as I'm certain you're aware of mine, for we work towards a common purpose.

Lately there have been reports of odd and violent occurrences in your region of the country. I am writing to confirm them and to offer my assistance as an Org Dark Master, should you require it. Making my way to Eugene in short order is not a problem, and I only await your word before taking action.

Regards,

L Lawliet

Shibuya isn't a big town, and it's not a powerful town. It's not a centre of commerce, because it only has one really saleable item: cloth. The people there make enough to eat, and buy what they can't make. Enough stay that it's a thriving town, enough leave that word of their cloth has spread around.

And right now it's completely under siege. There are about two hundred people boarded up in the mayor's house-slash-offices, with all the food they could grab and all the weapons they could find. The post-office is in the same building, so that's where they've got cleared out for people who are coming in to help.

There is nothing so sad as a highly fashionable person in disarray, and Kitanji Megumi is one of those poor souls. Four days ago he was perfectly coiffed from the smooth long hair to the points of his shirts down to spit-shined shoes. Now? The coat has been passed off to a little girl who ran to safety wearing nothing but a nightshirt, his shirt to someone else, his trousers are stained with blood and spilled food, and his hair is in the sloppiest ponytail it's ever been in, and crackling with electricity. His voice, however, is still even and calming as he talks to his people.

Outside the infected people stagger around feeding and attempting to get in, stymied by the lightning rods surrounding the mayoral house, and static hops between them, arcing white and violent whenever something gets too close. That's what has kept Kitangji's people safe, and that's what has him worn to a gaunt shadow. He's a Master, not an Adept, and four days of continual working has drained him.

"Thank you for coming." he said to each person, "I am not a fighter, I have to trust you each to know how you can best help."

She'd decided the best way to spread the word about the situation in Shibuya was to hold an open meeting, and that had been her first mistake. The whole floor was an open room, full of tables and chairs and people. Very few of those people wore the black coat signaling an adept, but that wasn't the problem. No, the problem lay in the fact that some people simply couldn't seem to understand why they were going to help the beleaguered town.

"I understand you're new here Griz," Larxene sighed. She could feel the sparks gathering along her skin and only the firm, earth aligned hand on her shoulder kept her from truly losing her temper, "But that is not how the Organization works. We help and we enforce when some places are intolerably cruel, but we do not annex or demand people align themselves with us. We are NOT taking over Shibuya and if you continue to insist upon it you will be removed from this room and from employment here. Do I make myself clear?" The truly startling thing was that Griz's opinion was not alone in it's avarice...just the loudest.

Some of the people in the room wanted to control the cloth trade out of the infested town. Some just wanted more resources and taking from a town with so few high powered people seemed just fine to them. Some saw themselves as nobles in a growing kingdom and it was only right that others should serve them. Larxene, well, she was contemplating spot frying the people annoying her but it set a bad precedent and there were far more good and worried people in the crowd than bad. It was simply the nature of people to be greedy upon occasion.

She took a few deep breathes to get the sparking under control and nodded. "Now, thank you Annias for the idea on a medical team. I'd like you to assemble a group for transport as soon as you're able. Tannim will be tracking down the town nearest to Shibuya for setting up triage units and getting the transport sketches to our Space teams. Stores will be sending materials for tents and food supplies for away teams and evacuees." They had stores set aside for emergencies like these, as it wasn't fair to ask a town to suddenly host an unknown number of refugees and rescue workers.

"I'd also like at least one volunteer, preferably more, to interview and study the survivors. This is the second time this particular kind of critter has shown up and it seems to always strike isolated towns with little to no high powered individuals. I'll need a report on the patterns this critter exhibits and the relative intelligence these patterns show." Because field reports from hunters tended to explain how to kill things very well, but they didn't always cover the other aspects that might prevent or contain further problems.

The shadows were what woke L up; they always were, playing against the walls and flickering in smooth, familiar contrasts against his closed eyelids. No two were alike, but they were something he knew, something that had passed from an alignment to a mastered subject. At eighteen years of age, he had accomplished much, had learned everything his Olia master had had to teach him as an apprentice.

Not that L was young, by any means. As an 18 year-old human, his life was dwindling quickly; healthy humans could expect to live to be maybe 50, if they were lucky, and L had never been robust. He was a wispy, insubstantial thing; ironically, for a master of shadows, he didn't cast much of one. Even less so, now that his caretaker of 13 years was gone. The winter had been harsh so far, in the northern climates, and even though the Olia had been stronger than L in his youth, his years had been many and the last blizzard had left the comparatively fragile human alive and the very old Olia dead.

He'd been on his own for an entire week, for the first time in his entire life. He'd started out as Watari's tool and become his partner as his mind aged and sharpened, and though L's brain was the superior one, the Olia had actually been the mastermind, the link to the world, the one who organized and arranged and initiated. Understandably, the human was a touch adrift after he'd walked away from the body that would never warm up again, no matter how much he'd wanted it to. As things stood, he needed to eat, he needed to be warm, and it was getting difficult.

Currently, he was at a Duty Town, uneasily avoiding the expectations that came with his arrival. He didn't want to breed, and spent much time brushing aside his hair to prove that he did, indeed, have a daughter. He had replaced himself, bred with someone stronger, and produced a valuable female who would outlive him by half a century or more. They had no right to ask more of him. He hovered near a food stand, debating whether he should try to barter or try to steal. He had a satchel containing Watari's valuable possessions: a gold watch, a pair of spectacles, a pair of sturdy shoes and a set of silk handkerchiefs. There had been food, a week ago, but L had long since run out.