(Lost) Crime, winter, trust (3 words from faerierhona)

[akonken.livejournal.com]

Trust is such a stupid thing.

It pisses me off, actually, when people expect it of me. I don't want people to give it to me or take it from me. Advantage will be taken, not trust. That's the way of the world.

Trust is a crime, and the gullible should be locked away for it, until they're rehabilitated.

Not that I haven't ever slipped up. Red, with her big serious eyes, wormed her way through the teflon and snuggled her way into my heart. I told her my secrets.

I wasn't even surprised when she screwed me over. I'm not even angry. It happens. I deserve it. Hell, maybe that was Winter working through her to remind me of the danger.

Now I'm reminded. I learned my lesson.

And you will too. Just you wait.

Apex Predator: Three Little Words Meme

[rebel-wulf.livejournal.com]

Alone.

Why did it allways end up that he was alone, when it came down to it?

When the first beshilhu came, it came through the window. An acrid smell of anger, piss and rat followed it and the noise that came out of its mouth was like a broken steampipe, a squealing hiss that could peirce the eardrum of any lesser man. A fist stopped it in its tracks, like an action movie as suddenly a muscled arm lashed out and knuckles collided with muzzle with such power that bone splintered under the hand and the faint rat-a-tat-a-tat of a spine smashing behind it caught in his sensitive ears. Time sped up again and he was showered with the glass from the now broken window, turning his head slightly to avoid getting shards in his eyes.
     Then, came the wait. Tension hung in the air so thick that it threatened to suffocate him, his heart a slowly rising tempo in his chest that was the only noise in the room. They'd seen that, then. They'd have had to. He could smell the fear and the panic in the paralysed mess of a monster on the floor that was only capable of trying not to die and voiding its bowels onto the floor. He sneered, not looking at it but cursing it silently in his head for fouling his territory. Dont worry, he told it silently in his own head, there will be plenty more of you on the carpet when i'm done here.
     They came as a swarm, unsuprising considering that they were rats. He'd expected it, and his moon-quickened reflexes didn't let him down. As the first got in reach of his hob-nailed-boots, he swung low and with force that came easily to him. The doglike rat-monster came up off the ground as easy as a rugby ball, which was expected after so many years of playing the damn game. It bounced off the ceiling and when it came back down it staggered to get back up, which was fine by him because he now had another one biting down on his shoulder, filth encrusted claws digging into hishu flesh. He grunted in pain, the only concession he was willing to make to these things and brought a big boot up, and then down again onto the skull of the beshilu that had just regained its balance, grinding grey goop and foul ichor into the cheap DHS carpet of his home.
     More were coming in through the windows now, he noticed whilst he struggled to pull two beshilhu from his body where they had attached themselves like huge, viscious ticks and he allowed his body to swell to Dalu, to help him block the stairway better. One handed, he flung one mass of fur and hatred across the room, straight into the TV which crackled and exploded in a muffled, muted way underneath the thing, which juddered spasmodically and started to burn as it was introduced to just how much power actually goes through your average plug socket. A mass knocked him from where he was standing and latched onto him, claws scrabbling across his skin and leaving deep red gashes behind, teeth so rotten and diseased that when it bit into his side, some were left behind as it pulled away. He roared in pain and fell under the amassed weight of bodies on top of him,
     He came back upright shortly afterwards twice the size he had been before and covered in coarse black and grey fur, savage, terrible and beautiful in form, a true apex predator that would not be felled by lesser creatures like these ridden. In an animalistic, destructive rage he turned the tables of the fight, large and brutish paws grabbing the biggest beshilu and lifting it up, before he howled and then bit down with powerful crushing jaws on the face of the ridden monstrousity. Blood and fouler juices dripped from his maw as his berserk form struck down beshilhu after beshilhu, his claws and forearms as red-slick as his tribes, until nothing more was moving, still fresh corpses stinking up his livingroom with a pestilent stench of sewer, shit and death. His death-rage cooled like the celtic warriors of old, his body warping back to its original form.
     A shotgun's report suddenly sounded from up the stairs, followed by another and now, he was the one who smelled of panic. He bolted up the stairs, grabbing a cricketbat that had fallen from its place mounted on the wall during the fight, his heart filled with fear and hope that he wasnt too late, that he wasnt about to have lost everything, for nothing...
     He was shouting upstairs now, and there was screaming as well. A young boy's pained howls intead of a proud uratha's wolven battlecry. Others were coming into the house now, young men who would one day be forgotten for the young Uratha that they were, but remembered for the renowned Uratha they would grow to be one day. He walked back down the stairs, a young boy with a bloodied mess for a back cradled over one shoulder, silent now. A young girl followed, shotgun in her hand "I can't beleive he just knocked him ou..." She started, but another young man who had been walking down the steps behind her put a hand on her shoulder, shaking his head, knowing that their father did the right thing.
     "Wait, is that my camera? Fuck, i thought i lost it in the fight outside." A voice said, picking up the camera and turning it this way and that. in his hands "... Its recording? John, i think the camera caught that fight..." and then blackness. It was switched off.

Raph sat, silently, a cigarette in one hand and the battered old camera that he'd bought from a pawn shop to play the tape with in the other. He survived, of course he had. He'd been healed up with Uratha rituals and the pack berating spirits of health and medicine to follow him around. But watching the recording brought back pains he hadn't felt in years, ghosts of a wound that had haunted him for a decade.
And for the 4th time in his life, Raph missed his Father.

(Hope, Heart, Haunted - From Allison)

Galehaut Underbelly, Delight, epiphany

[thelorax42.livejournal.com]

Things had been simpler, he thought for a moment. Not to say they had been easy, as such. But rescuing the poor and the helpless had had a purity of purpose, a simplicity of design. Maiden held by a dragon. Kill dragon, save maiden, romance sub plot. Nothing complex. Village enslaved by the Saxons. Find Saxons, kill Saxons, restore people to their village, party, done. Everyone pleased, well, except the saxons and the dragon, but they were bit parts and coming back anyway, so whatever. People rescued grateful. Everyone big damn heros, go home and bask in the adulation of the end of another plot, and probably pick up some court plots for a while. I used to like the court plots.

Not like that now days. Simple fight, followed by complex long time helping the people who resent the hell out of you for being male, or having helped them, or because you're an easy target to hate, just because you're there and not going to hurt them, and they need to hate someone. Not that they all do. But it hurt more than a fucking axe when someone you bled for to rescue then called you every name under the sun and told you to fuck off away from her.

Now, back there it had been simpler, but it hadn't been easy. Fighting a dragon, was, and he suspected always will be, a freaking nightmare. Two tonne of flying magic fire breathing lizard with armour a sword can't go through is never a good idea to roll up to with a sword and hope. Oh and a horse. Never forget the stupid fucking horse. That gets killed every time so you walk back. But it gives the dragon something to show how strong it is on. Which is better than it showing it on you. Because being killed, brought back to life, and then killed for failing is no fun at all.

But once you had stabbed that bastard through it's unarmoured underbelly, dodged it slamming into the ground and went to the tied up maiden then the job was done. All a part of knowing which soft spot to hit.

… all a part of knowing which soft spot to hit. He looked up, thinking suddenly. Goddamn he had been an idiot, trying to jam a sword through the dragons armour all over again. Just a different dragon....

Galehaut looked over the city, his city, with a broad smile on his face.

“I'm coming you fucker, and I'm gonna find your weak spot...”

[Awakening] The End/The Beginning (Janos: circle, empty, susceptible from <user site="livejournal.co

[lslaw.livejournal.com]

( 750 words, or thereabouts )

(Requiem) Perspective, distance, energy (3 words from <user site="livejournal.com" user="elizathemek

[akonken.livejournal.com]

All you need to do, Charlotte, is maintain perspective.

You may not need to breathe any longer, but take a breath. Focus. You know what the stereotype of your new clan is, but that does not mean you are an unthinking animal. You are stronger than what his blood has made you. You may be a blank slate now, but there is still the powdered ghost left by the chalk of what was there before.

Pull back.

Look at them. Look how hungry they are. You can feel that hunger too, can't you? Feel that energy in the pit of your stomach. It's a good sensation, isn't it? You know you're better than them. Your breeding is more pure. Your soul is stronger. You're cleverer.

Use that. Use them as they use you. Grow stronger. Keep a watchful distance, but make them think you are close. Let them woo you. Be seduced. Be intrigued. Be attentive.

Use it. Get better.

You have power. You have freedom. Make sure you keep it.

George: Future, promise, fear

[thelorax42.livejournal.com]

“you and Red seem pretty settled, George, when are you going to propose?” God damn, there was a question for a man to be asked. But it was one George had thought about anyway. When Rose had come to him, so earnest, asking what he thought about her proposing to Lorica, it had started a train of though that he hadn't been able to stop since. He wondered if she even knew how much that little conversation had been playing around in his head since. But he couldn't ask her.

They'd only been dating since winter, not even a year yet. It's much too early. Madness to even think about it. But he couldn't stop.

“What sort of future could you give her, as you stood there and made your promises to each other?” He asked himself. Only to know one day someone from the court would come back to her door, cap in hand, and tell her that he was gone. Only the life of a soldier's wife. Being gone half the time, scaring the hell out of her by coming back half dead. Worrying in the small hours to try and fight another un-winnable war. Leaving her too damned early because a soldier's life expectancy wasn't that long.

Hell, what had that Russian fucker said? A one in three chance to live for more than eight years? Even Rose agreed he probably wouldn't make it to retire in eight years. Seven years eleven months, actually. But who's counting?

He could think of a thousand reasons he shouldn't ask her. He couldn't give her a future, which she deserved. He couldn't promise to be there for her. He couldn't ask her to live in fear that long. All good, solid reasons. Each one of them dependable. An arsenal or arguments, a cannonade of concerns.

But he knew when she came back from the hollow, he'd be fighting not to ask again.

[Forsaken - Eve] Blood, Redemption, Love (3 words Meme for Allison)

[autumn-skald.livejournal.com]

((Another meme piece. Somewhat inspired by the events of the Hatfield Forsaken game on Saturday.))

Eve: blood, redemption, love

There was still blood on his shirt from where he had been shot. There was no mark left on him really, no way of telling that he had been wounded except that she could still see the blood on the shirt he had been wearing. He seemed fine though; he'd been laughing and joking on the journey back… Amongst other things.

It had been something of a weird evening overall really. Jay actually bothering to talk to her, her telling him that his Mum regretted giving him up, that they had taken her in because it had been asked of them by her parents rather than anything else. She hadn’t told him the reason behind it all though, that wasn’t her story to tell.

While most of the Forsaken had gone off to try and deal with the problem she had stuck around and chatted to people.

"Nel bought me a car." She had said to Rio, grinning.

"Oh, what kind?"

"I am not sure." She had responded, she’d never been good at car types, never really having cared one way or the other about them.

"Well you have to find that out. How else can you tell how much he loves you?" Rio had said, smiling.

Those words had made her smile nervously and try and change the subject. Nel had not said that he loved her, a fact for which she was grateful. She wasn't sure how she felt about him really. She'd known him for years and he was funny and oddly sweet in his own way, but she’d never been good at this whole love thing and a part of her was worried that it was possible that the main reason she was dating him was just as a form of redemption for all the stuff with Bas...

And that was a complication she really didn't want to think about. Her life was complicated enough as it was between University, a relationship and being related to people who could turn into furry killing machines.