Revision [4020]
This is an old revision of ShesuEveLeavingJoesCabin made by KellyToyama on 2009-01-19 21:15:01.
August 21nd, 2007
Somewhere in the mountains of eastern Oregon.
Somewhere in the mountains of eastern Oregon.
Late at night, Shesu is woken by someone shaking him. He opens his eyes to see Jacob standing above him. He awakens slowly, having fallen asleep amongst the others who are lying about the cabin in various borrowed sleeping bags, his sleep having been deepened by the long day and magical healing. Lara and Zack lay passed out to his right, the pair having used their combined powers to heal the various injuries of the group. Behind them lay Sam and James, James still in bandages and taking up the cabin's only bed, Sam having fallen asleep at the foot of the bed still clutching James' hand. Alex has curled up at the foot of the bed, and the cat, Mu, has chosen Alex's sleeping bag as a good place to bed down. Nearby Mu lies Golem who, having been worn out by chasing the cat, appears to have fallen...dormant? asleep? at the foot of the bed.
Eve lies sleeping to Shesu's left, and Joe is snoring peacefully across the room against the far wall. Abdul and Jacob were to Eve's left, but their sleeping bags have been cleaned up, rolled neatly and placed on the table.
Jacob has his shirt off and his wings unfurled. Their gentle blue glow fills the dark cabin with an eerie light. The wing that was "popped" in the final battle glows a little dimmer than the other, but much of its vitality was returned by Lara and Zack's healing power. Jacob smiles his child-like grin when he sees Shesu awake, but his face darkens a bit, tinged with sadness.
"I've come to say goodbye."
"Jacob... so soon?" Shesu pleaded, but his eyes met Jacob's, and he knew that there would be no convincing him.
As if to answer Shesu's unspoken thoughts Jacob said. "Abdul says there is much to do, and that he needs me."
Shesu sighed deeply, as his throat tightened into a lump. "Will I see you again?"
"Of course! I will find a way to contact you. I'll be safe." He pauses, "Abdul wants this a secret but you should know, he is taking much of the cold steel with him. He says he will need it for what comes next. I trust him, but he told me not to tell the others."
Shesu paused, and silently slipped out of his sleeping bag. The cool night air touched his skin, and he shivered gently with the chill. He turned, and followed Jacob and Abdul outside. He and Jacob embraced, each one wordlessly knowing that there was no telling when they would next meet. Suddenly, an idea occurred to Shesu, and his face lit up as he knelt to the ground. He focused his energy, and quickly grew a tightly knotted piece of dark wood. The wood pulled and stretched, growing in places and withering in others, and creaking and cracking against itself, until it had formed the shape he had imagined. He stood, and held his hands out to Jacob. In his palms lay a small, wooden sculpture of a lion. It was not a normal sculpture, which might have been shaved or polished, but rather it appeared as if the wood had actually grown into that shape of its own accord. Shesu, barely concealing a smile, pressed the statue into Jacob's hands. "Be the lion, little brother."
Jacob took the statue into his hands, staring at it. He turned it over in his hands for a moment, before placing it in the satchel slung over his shoulders. "I will have to have something for you next time, big brother," he smiled. He turned to look at Abdul, who quietly nodded, "It's time." The two walked a few paces out into the clearing near the cabin, and Jacob unfurled his wings to their full length. He took a few moments to stretch them before scooping Abdul onto his wings. The two of them rose into the night, did one loop around the cabin, and disappeared over the treetops.
After they had left, Shesu stood alone in the cold night air. He thought back to all those who he had lost before. He remembered his parents, gone in a flash of violence. He struggled to remember his parents' faces, but they had faded too far from his memory. He thought back to his year of silence, the joy of acceptance into the Ashari, and the loss and pain of being banished during his spirit quests. And then his thoughts turned to Jacob, who was as much family as any of them, and who now also was gone. An overwhelming feeling of loneliness flooded over him, and he sunk to the ground, his head in his hands, and wept.
August 22nd, 2007
Somewhere in the mountains of eastern Oregon.
Somewhere in the mountains of eastern Oregon.
Dawn:
ShesuAshari Shesu and Eve are walking in the woods outside JosephCooper's cabin. The day had passed slowly, but neither one had any inclination to do much of anything. The nightmare images from the battle at ZaizensTemple temple were still fresh in their minds, and the events of the past weeks weighed heavily on them. They had left the others back at the cabin, and decided to take a walk to clear their heads. The lofty canopy filtered the sunlight as it fell to the forest floor, and as the gentle breeze rustled the treetops, the dappled shadows danced along the leafy duff. There was no path to follow, but the underbrush was light enough that they could walk where they wished. They wandered slowly up a gently sloping incline, towards the top of a short hill overlooking the cabin, each lost in their own thoughts.
"I need to do something," Eve exclaimed, breaking the silence of the mid-afternoon. "I can still feel all of them, all of the others... Lily, Genevive, and that black thing, I mean. They're still in my head, and I can hear them, and all of this quiet is making it worse. Let's go somewhere, anywhere."
In his deliberate cadence, Shesu replied, "I too have been thinking as much. I have been troubled by what I saw in Zaizen's temple. That place needs someone to heal it, someone to guide it back from his corruption to its natural state. I know that the temple must hold special meaning for you, and... it would mean much to me if you were to come with me, back there, and help me set it right."
"Yes... that place, I don't know what I think about it yet. Parts of me feel like it is home, and parts of me revile it. I want to make it into something new, something better. I was thinking of a refuge, you know, for metahumans. A safe place, where we could go to be amongst our own kind. A place protected from all of the shit in this world." Eve kicked a rock up the hill ahead of her, and every few steps it rolled back to her, and she kicked it again. She continued, "And, we could clean it up... it might be difficult, but if you could get Golem to come with us, I'm sure he could help us unwind all of the runes and magic that's been laid into that cave."
"So you will come?" Shesu turned to her, expectantly.
"Yes. We should leave, now, before resolve fades." She pauses, "What of the blade?"
