[Forsaken] - Weighed in the Balance

[lslaw.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly sure that I've been tested tonight. I don't know for sure what the test was, if I passed or failed, or even who exactly was testing me, but I have an unmistakable sense of post-exam malaise.

I'm sitting in a hospital with blood inside my coat. What I want to do is leave, drive to London and find Isabelle, but Isabelle is... away, climbing trees and... ninjing; whatever one does in a Hunters in Darkness initiation. Hunting, probably; somewhere dark. So, instead I stay here, waiting to talk to a girl in a hospital room and to ask her if she remembers what happened, even though I know she doesn't, because I saw the spirit beetle crawl into her brain and eat those memories.

Maybe that was the test; whether I'd stand by and let them do that. Not that I had much of a choice, but then we have so few real choices.

Or maybe it was if I'd let them do the rest; to bring her there, out of her skull and with no idea what she was doing; to screw her and cut her in the name of ritual transgression.

Or perhaps they just wanted to know if I would stand it. If I could be part of an Uratha ritual space without breaking.

I don't know what I was being tested for. I don't know who was testing me; I'm not even sure that anyone meant to test me. I don't know if I passed or failed.

There's a girl in recovery from the sheer quantity of drugs and alcohol she forced down her own throat while we - while I - watched, and there's blood inside my coat. She's alive, but she'll never remember what happened. With the way she treated herself, maybe tonight won't be the only blank in her mind, but this one isn't due to drink or acid, and it will probably be the only one that leaves claw marks on her back.

Maybe I passed their test, or maybe I failed; I don't know. I do know that I failed one of my own, but I passed another. She's alive, she'll recover, and at least I questioned.

And perhaps when it came to it... I was testing them.

Most of them did okay.