What we can endure

Orin Takekuro · 09-21-2011, 11:19 PM

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Her eyes scanned the slate colored face, narrowing to focus on the woman in the half-light that streamed into the old bookstore. The shutters had been closed for some time, and the only daylight that made it in now only came through a few select slits in the louvers and the small opening of the door that had not closed behind them. Orin felt like the bookstore mucked the sunlight, that not even those sunny rays could penetrate the darkness that still lurked here.

There was another darkness here too, one Orin didn't even know about, didn't even suspect. As she stared into Shiloh's eyes she had no idea that the woman was waging an internal battle against an alter ego that struggled to come out. Orin had her own second personality, but it did not fight with her like Shiloh's. Desdemona had been her protection, her assumed identity when she ran from the devil. Now she didn't need Desdemona anymore... she had become Orin Takekuro once again. At least, that's what she thought... Then again, there could be more to it. After all, her own daughters still went by the Moonsong name, and Orin still hadn't picked up all the shattered pieces of her former self. It was all evident in her appearance, and her lack of love for this place now.

“I...” she looked away, eyes staring blankly at the shadowed bookshelves. “..don't want to talk about it.” She was quiet for a while, then turned back to Shiloh, her face a hard mask. She wanted to focus on the AniWayan's problems, not her own. It was much easier to relate silently than to tell her story.

She was glad that Saxif was well, for a moment she worried that something had happened to the woman that she didn't know about, and it felt like a small stress was lifted from her shoulders. Orin settled onto the floor at Shiloh's feet. She sat Indian-style, facing the tribeswoman.

“A split personality?” she repeated, surprise obvious in her voice. Her eyebrows pinched together and she cocked her head, concerned. “What do you mean? What's it like?” Back when Orin actually did read she had downed many a tale that had a character with multiple personalities, and they were always portrayed as the villain. She chewed on her lip again, concerned – but not so much for herself in Shiloh's presence as she was for Shiloh herself. Then she suddenly remembered... “My friend Mars... He is like that. He is Mars and he is Bartholomew. He used to be a member of this pack.” Her voice was suddenly thick with emotion. Mars Russo was one of her dearest friends, and she had met Bart once as well too before she even knew about the Russo's little problem. But she hadn't seen him since before she fled from Cercatori. Come to think of it, she didn't even know where he was now.

“He's not a monster, and I don't think you are, either,” she couldn't help but feel guilty for thinking Shiloh was ugly. There was nothing she could do about that. At first sight, the woman's extensive scarring was frightening at best. Still, they weren't Shiloh's fault, and it was obvious that if the scars weren't there the woman would have been pretty. Actually, she was. Orin surprised herself when she looked at Shiloh's face, seeing not just the scars but the woman behind them. She was tortured but innocent, and there was a beauty there all her own. She reached out to her, taking her hand.

“You're not a monster, I promise you. And if she thinks so then she doesn't deserve to have you. A monster is somebody like... like the man who would kill an infant. Like the bastard who killed my son.” She nodded slowly, her eyes burning embers as she relived her nightmare. “Took him from this very room while I was trapped up stairs, only days after giving birth. I managed to get out and followed him to the flower fields, and that is where he took his life and then told me that he would kill my daughters, too, if I ever came back. Or like the 'men' who would hold down a woman-” her eyes seemed to say silently 'like us' "and take anything they wanted from them. Even knowing they were already injured, knowing just how helpless and broken they already were.”

It was the first time she had ever come close to telling another living thing about Lucifer. Everyone knew about the rat, Argul, who had killed her son Demetrius. But no one knew about Lucifer, and until know she planned to keep that secret.

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