InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Phone number sammich with mayo"

All the words that leave my tongue Feel like they came from someone else

"Why are you haunting me," Julian asked Maya as he came to kneel next to her as he had once before when he came seeking answers. Then it had been for someone else but this time it was for himself. He doubted he was going to get them though as she sat there despondent and disconnected from the world.

He knew that's how he himself had to look when he slipped into a trace or was catatonic and it was a wonder to him that Micah dealt with him the way that he did when it happened.

Maya though had no such person to help her. But then she was past the point of helping. It was obvious her ghouls or the other Malkavians were looking after her but it was clear it was pointless by now. She was but a shadow now. No, no even that. She was a shell of what remained. And yet Julian had come here seeking answers.

"Was that really you I saw in my trance, maybe some bit of you left in the web, tied forever to the vision that drove you to begin what you did by reaching out to Dorian? Or was that just the thoughts of you that conjured you there into what I saw?"

No answer. Not that he had been expecting one. Two things bothered Julian about it all. The first was what had been so bad about a building blowing up that it scared her enough to move against Lucian?

The second was why Dorian? Julian had dug through what remained of Dorian's memories in his mind but they were already fading and most of the ones he had bothered to look at had been so he'd better understand the things that had happened between Dorian and himself from Dorian's side of things so that he could make his own choices about things going forward. It had occurred to him too late to try and figure out the relationship between Dorian and Maya before everything that happened that would cause her to bring him into it all.

To be perfectly honest, it had been such a relief to be rid of Dorian, to have it all over with, and make his own choices of what he wanted in his unlife for once that what had the rest of it mattered? And really, who could blame him.

Well, three things bothered him. "If you are haunting me, Maya, was it you that caused me to wake up before I should have?" Or was it some weird after-effect of having committed diablerie not once, but twice while still being so young?

Would that be Maya's fate? Tossed to the eldest of the eldest among them to be wasted not now that her mind was completely gone? Perhaps. Or perhaps they just lock her away in some room like they basically had now. Julian couldn't say for sure but he had to wonder if there was anything left of the Primogen and so he slipped into her mind to see if any of the answers he sought after might linger there. Or if any small part of her did.

The moment he did, Maya's hand shot out and wrapped around his wrist, as if he might pull away if she didn't. She looked right into his blue eyes as she spoke. "They will come because of the choices he has made. They will gather to pass judgment. Then they will all die for it. The prince of fools will be the death of them. Even him, Julian Blake Prescott. Beware the Justicar."

There was something about the way that she said him while using his own name against him that made Julian have a sinking suspicion of who she meant. Micah. The rest of it, well, just because one was a Malkavian themselves didn't mean they automatically understood each other. It made as much sense to him as it would anyone else.

Then just as quickly as the strong grip on his wrist had come, it loosened and the other Malkavian was lost in her own empty void of a mind once more. A disturbing reminder of what his own future could be one day. Standing up, he rubbed at his wrist as if her touch burned but it wasn't her touch at all but her words.

Julian left her. There were no more answers here. Just more tangled threads as was the way of their clan.