The man on the sidewalk was walking wounded. He wasn’t showing it. But she could sense it. A number of cuts and scrapes. Bruised ribs. Bruised most of him. What concerned her most was the concussion.
It was hard, having power and not being able to use it, not being able to walk the streets and heal…everyone. But if she did something too noticeable…sometimes the backlash was worse that good she tried to do. So she resorted to more mundane measures. She walked up next to him, and spoke. Admitting the knowledge was risk enough.
“You have a concussion. You should probably see a doctor.”
“Coms and sensors down?” Crane reached out with his mind. Telepathy was an extraordinarily useful skill for coordinating these kinds of missions. There hadn’t been a sensor yet that could detect it besides other telepaths.
“As far as they’re concerned, the room is empty and all seventy-three cryotubes are untouched,” a soft, male voice answered, one of his co-conspirators who had a knack for manipulating electricity and light.
He let the mental connection drop, and turned to the young woman who was in the medbay with him. Vakna was shifting uncomfortably in her stolen uniform, brows furrowed as she looked at the man still sleeping on the exam table.
“We’re good to go,” said Crane. “How are his vitals?”
She touched the man’s shoulder, and just for a moment, one of her eyes went somewhere far away. It was the only time one could tell her organic eye from the prosthesis, when she did magic like this. “Fine…I mean as best I can tell. His physiology is extraordinary. But he’s stable…are you sure this a good idea?” She let her hands fall, but didn’t take her eyes off the man.
“Am I sure?” Crane’s voice was quiet but incredulous. Not too incredulous. It was one thing to plan something like this, another to carry it out. “This was your idea, remember?” When the Free Council had found out about Khan Noonien Singh and his crewmates, Vakna had seen him as a sort of political prisoner, held in a permanent sleep, not even permitted consciousness. She had space in her heart for that. Crane and the people backing their operation had seen something more pragmatic. He was an augmented human of uncertain power, he’d been woken once, and the damage he’d caused paled before what could have happened if that rogue admiral had succeeding in using him to start a war…it was only a matter of time before they decided to try it again. Sleepers were like that. They forgot the past. He wasn’t safe in their hands.
“Yeah, I know, it’s just…if he’s hostile…” She finally turned to Crane, her brows furrowed with worry.
“Will we be able to stop him? The two of us together…good chance. Don’t know how resistant he’ll be to my spells though. It’s not as if any of us have ever dealt with someone from the Eugenics Wars. But here we are. Can you wake him?”
“Yes, but…”
“Would it reassure you if I admitted I was terrified? And operation on this scale isn’t my average Tuesday, you know. But there are moments when being completely honest about your emotions isn’t the best strategy, and this is one of them,” he sighed. It was true; he has some combat training, but his specialty was in research. Part of him would have rather been in a comfortable chair with a good book. Ideally an antique, made of paper. “So, I think it’s time for him to wake up.”
Vakna nodded, and put her hand on Khan’s shoulder again, let her magic flow inward, keeping watch that there had been no damage bringing him out cryogenic stasis, finally sending a signal to his brain, telling him to wake up. It would feel like waking from a very long sleep.
“What’s he doing?” Irrlicht knew just enough Space magic to open a scrying window, but Vakna couldn’t bring herself to look into it.
“He’s fixing your windows.”
“Does he even know how to do that?”
“He covered them over from the outside, and he’s using some Matter spells. Restoration, that kind of thing.”
The Pure wolves had destroyed nearly everything in Vakna’s shop, though they hadn’t done much damage to the apartment above, realizing she wasn’t there.
“What did he say?”
Irrlicht had been staying with Vakna since the Pure had done their damage and left. She’d answered when Alex had come knocking that morning.
“He said he wanted to see you. He wanted to see that you were okay. I told him to take my word for it.”
It had been too late, when Vakna had gotten back to the city. The Pure had ripped through it like a storm. Wren was okay but he’d lost a member of his cabal. An entire pack of werewolves had been wiped out, along with several other wolves. Two of them had been her patients. She had returned to the destruction in her shop and a quiet sadness.
“Should I talk to him?”
Irrlicht wrinkled her eyebrows. “Eventually, maybe. Let him make his grand gesture. He did promise us, you know. There’s a story about him and Wren, why he left that cabal…he should probably tell you himself, or you should ask Wren. But he promised us, back when it was three of us, Crane and Poirot and me. He promised never to use his magic on us like that.”
“Do you think they would have killed me, if he hadn’t done it?”
“I don’t know. Poirot thinks it was understandable, but she always agrees with him. Muse is too shaken to have an opinion, I think. I never met an Obrimos less suited for a fight. I’m…I’m thrilled you’re alive but he shouldn’t have done that.”
“I…” Vakna’s eyes flicked to the scrying window, and then away again. “I was asking him to let me die, wasn’t I? It didn’t seem that way at the time, but…how can I say he should have let me die?”
“It’s not that,” said Irrlicht. “It’s that you have free will, you have your own agency, and he should have let you fight, if that’s what you wanted to do. People die all the time. People die fighting monsters and people die falling down the stairs and people die in their sleep…you can’t keep a person from dying. Crane…he…before we formed the cabal, he lost…everyone, a whole cabal in a fight…”
Vakna nodded and sighed. “He told me about it.”
“He’s not…he’s led us into danger, you included, more than once, but he’s always been the one to decide when it’s something we can handle and when it’s out of our league,” Irrlicht seemed deep in thought. “I’ve always trusted his judgment, but he’s never…he’s never forced anyone…”
“What’s he doing now?”
“He was working on the desk, now…I think he’s running out of things he can fix, he…” her voice trailed off. Vakna finally came around to look through the window. “Wait, don’t…” Irrlicht protested, but didn’t try to stop her. Alex was sitting down, back leaning against the desk, twirling a piece of driftwood from one of the broken sculptures in his hand. He looked…
She started walking for the door.
“Vakna…” Irrlicht said with concern in her voice.
“I’ll be okay,” she replied, and she walked down the stairs.
When she walked into the gallery, came around the corner of the desk, he stood, and just…just looked, like he was at a loss, for a moment, of what to say.
“I…hi…” was all she could come up with.
After a long pause, he finally reached out, holding the piece of driftwood out to her. “I fixed everything I could, but these…” His eyes were wide, red-rimmed.
She took it and set it on the counter. “I can make more. That’s what artists do.”
“April, I…I was so scared…” he moved forward as if to embrace her, and then stopped, looked into her eyes, asking permission.
She closed the distance and put her arms around him. “I’m here. It’s okay. I’m still here.”
He hugged her tight, as if he still wanted to reassure himself of the fact. “I…I just wanted to keep you safe. Just to keep you safe.”
“I know,” she sighed, breathing against him. “I know.”
And then something happened that she didn’t expect. His body shook against her, a silent sob. She held him tighter.
“I just wanted you to be safe. I was so scared.”
“Come on,” she guided him back to sitting, leaning against the desk again. Bits of her sculptures were still scattered across the floor. She took his hand in hers. “Do you want to hear them sing?”
Three OCs from the New World of Darkness Universe. 7+ years roleplay experience. Muses all 21+. Mun 30+. Multi-muse, multi-verse, multi-ship. OC and Canon character friendly. Let’s play with magic.
“Did you really like the Klimt, or were you just being nice?” April was smiling.
“I did like it. I’ve said, I don’t lie when I don’t have to,” so was Alex. “I like the way…the way the lines moved…I don’t know. I’ve never learned much about modern art.”
“But you’re not…some people are just like…’modern art,’ you know?” She made a face when she said “modern art,” imitating people she heard talking sometimes.
“They’re skeptical. If awakening did one thing for me, I’ve never been able to stop believing in possibilities since then. Like the possibility I might enjoy the MoMA. You thought I’d be much more excited about those boxes…what was the artist called?”
“Mondrian. I dunno. Space, and stuff?”
He grinned. “Vakna…April, you’re not thinking with portals.”
She looked at him, confused, “what do you mean?”
“Oh…do you play video games? It was a reference. I meant…space, when you understand it…well it’s not precisely real. It’s real to some degree, obviously, we’re sitting on something.” They were sitting across from each other on the couches in April’s back room. “But, it’s not solid, the way it seems. It flows. It bends. Like the other painting…it started with K…anyhow…it’s quite beautiful.”
She watched him. It wasn’t that hard to tell when his mask was on, not once you got to know him. She imagined it worked better for the people he dealt with, higher ups in the Consilium, other supernatural factions, for whom he wore it all the time. He hadn’t put it on all day.
“Would you be offended if I interrupted the magical discussion to ask…you play video games?”
He nodded. “Does that surprise you? I think you’re confusing me with television psychiatrists again. I got an Atari when I was seven…do you know what an Atari is? Anyhow I got a console when I was seven and I haven’t stopped.”
“I know what an Atari is,” she laughed.
“So,” he was still smiling, “am I even on secrets, yet?”
“I don’t know. I’ve lost track.”
“I want to put myself back into debt, I think. I want to ask you for a story,” his expression stayed happy, amiable, but took on the looking of piercing interest he was capable of when he was curious.
She shrugged, “Okay? Any particular story?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “I want to ask you the question that everyone wants to ask you but no one has the courage to. I want to know why you have that scar.”
“Oh,” she paused for a moment.
“I’m sorry…if it makes you uncomfortable…I’m sure it’s not a happy story…”
“No,” she stopped him. “I don’t mind. I’m really not…I’m not embarrassed about it. People are usually more uncomfortable about it than I am. Hell, I’ll take the eye out and put it back if someone asks…but the story.”
“So far, I’ve guessed it involves your awakening, and a bear. That is what it says on your sign.”
“Yeah…you really want to know? That’s the basics, I mean.”
“I do, if you’ll tell me.”
“It was the summer after I graduated college. You might have noticed…I shoot landscapes mostly. At that point I thought I was going to be a National Geographic photographer, and I was on vacation in the Adirondacks. And…I did an incredibly stupid thing. I saw a bear cub. You know what they say about mother bears and their cubs. But I thought…just one picture. I can take just one picture…I don’t know if I would have been okay, even if I hadn’t waited but…I should have gotten out of there, obviously, because the mother was there, and…”
“You don’t have to…you don’t have to go into detail, if you don’t want.”
“Oh, I wasn’t conscious long. And then, well…Primal Wild. I saw my place in things. I saw my death, and how natural it would be. And I would have died, but…there was a spirit. Mother Black Bear. She…spoke to the bear. Told it that I was just another cub. She said I was her cub, and she took me to the Stone Book, and I went to write my name, but…”
“April didn’t feel right.” He looked…many things. Pained. She thought, even though he had asked, that he didn’t really want to hear about her being hurt
“I wrote ‘The Awakened Bear.’ And then I woke up in a hospital, three days later. Some tourists had found me at the edge of the road. They had to take me by helicopter to the nearest hospital. I almost didn’t survive, anyway.”
“But you did…I’m glad.”
“It didn’t take long for the local Consilium to find me, explain things. I stayed there for a while, I had a teacher. But I needed…something more. My teacher wasn’t very supportive of the direction I wanted to take with my magic. So…I came here.”
“And that’s your story.”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Can I ask you…can I ask you something more?”
“Go for it.” She shrugged. She wasn’t sure what other detail he wanted, unless he really wanted to see her take the eye out and put it back in.”
“That’s how you got the scar. But…I have some idea of what a bear attack would be like, you said you nearly died, and…you don’t have any other scars, no visible ones. The Consilium healed your scars. So…why do you have that scar? That’s a great sacrifice. I’m sure they had people who could have healed it. Wren could heal it.”
“I…well you know I stay in touch with my family, some of my friends from school? The other scars, a really good plastic surgeon, maybe that could explain it, but the eye…kinda wouldn’t work there.” She shrugged.
“The consilium upstate must have had a good Mastigos. I do that kind of work all the time. Tweak a few things for people who still have mundane connections.”
Her brow furrowed as she looked at him. “So you just…what, change memories?”
He looked like he wanted to say something more, but finally simply said, “Yes. It’s a service I provide to the consilium. Does that make you uncomfortable?”
“…a little…” Every Arcanum, even Death, had uses that were light and dark, and somewhere in between.
“Well…I guess you should think about that. That’s not why, anyway. If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to…”
“It’s part of why. I…I don’t want to forget.”
“I doubt you could if you wanted to. Everyone makes mistakes, April, sometimes grave ones. I’m glad yours turned out okay.”
“I know, I mean…it’s for the bear, you know, is the thing.”
“The spirit?”
“No, the bear. I’m not ‘The Awakened Bear,’—I figure you translated that, seems like something you’d do.”
“Yes,” he nodded.
“The mother bear. That’s the awakened bear. And she woke me up. And I’m different. So I want to be…different.”
He nodded. “I guess…I think I understand. Lucky for the spirit though.”
“She still checks up on me every once in a while.”
“Checks up on you?” He raised a brow. “She’s an Adirondack bear spirit. You’ve moved to New York.”
“She stops in. Every once in a while. I guess she was serious about the cub thing.”
“That’s…that should be impossible.”
“Well…” and if her expression was a little smug, then… “What did you say about working with the human spirit?”
He smiled, slowly, the kind of smile that started with a little half-smile, became a smirk, then a grin. “You’re an impossible girl, April. A doctor and an impossible girl. I like that.”
“Is that another video game reference?”
He laughed. “No, television. And you’re better than the one on television, anyway. You’re not just in there to advance the doctor’s plot.”
“I’m not?” she replied, joking.
“I certainly hope not.” She hadn’t smiled this much in a while. She didn’t know it, but neither had Crane.
