head trauma

Jefferson Soul · 12-02-2010, 03:49 PM

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Alaine.

Set in the cemetery in Halifax, since it's between their two packs.

For some time he had drifted about in a mist, lost beneath a haze of ghosts and memories that seized his whole being. Too many past faces had suddenly resurfaced all at once; several older members of the Valley returned home as quickly as they vanished and eased themselves back in as if a day had not passed. Jefferson was ultimately grateful—they had been longtime members that, though he never showed it, became dear to him. To see them return was a great sigh of relief on his behalf, both in that they were safe and in that they would aid him once more in handling the proud Valley.

But he was distant, clouded. A few days had been spent happily catching up with them, and a few days had been spent alone in the ranch, the creak of the rocking chair inaudible to his busy mind. Too many faces he worried for that were still long gone, and as Jefferson was not the worrisome type, the cyclops was somewhat beside himself with frustration over his own emotions. Such frustration brought him to wandering, and wander he did.

Jefferson had spent little time in Halifax despite its immediacy to Phoenix Valley, but under a slight drizzle due to the mild winter he moved within the territory and meandered about. It was during those lost wanderings he had come across both Phoenix Valley—where he'd collapsed, lived, strengthened and took under his wing—Cercelee, Haku, even Laruku. The latter two were surely gone by now, else he would have heard of his half-brother's tyranny or stumbled across his adopted brother a third time, but Cercelee was nowhere to be found. Iskata was gone. DaVinci was gone.

Even Ryan, he recalled quietly as the brute drifted into a cemetery. During the winter, the headstones stood more solemnly than in the rest of the seasons; he and Ryan had met in a cemetery once, shortly after Jefferson had chosen to stay in Phoenix Valley until his wounds healed and the bones jutting out of his skin vanished. Now like so many else, she was simply another ghost in the back of his mind, one that most likely would never reappear before him again. She and DaVinci were happy, wherever they were. He knew that much.

But even as he stood among the ghosts of the boneyard, he knew nothing but mist and distance in his mind.

Alaine Winters · 12-02-2010, 09:08 PM

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table © Alaine
ooc: :]
wc: 300+

There was something about this day, something tangible in the very air she breathed. For a long time, the woman sat amongst the crumbling skeletons of building as a statue; Her own alabaster and cream fur stilled as if carved into the chaotic concrete that lay, discarded, around her. Halifax was strangely silent. The silence ran deep, deep into the very bone of the place, and Alaine could feel it solidifying in her blood and pooling like decay in her throat.

After a while, she rose, and began to walk. It seemed that the constant and familiar movement, placing one delicate footpaw infront of the other, was enough to lull her wearied mind into a relished numbness. Emerald eyes, though keen, were vague as they carried over the corpses of old buildings with listless energy. Her footsteps seemed to echo on the cobblestone paths, the cracked plates of what had once been a central road. Even here, nature had reclaimed it's lordship - Resilient weeds had crushed the mighty concrete slabs, their tiny tendril roots plaguing every inch of this man-made tomb.

Knowing not where she walked, the Apothecary came upon a strange sloping area of land. In it were a number of stone pillars, like teeth from a giant scattered across the over-grown hillock. A familiar scent piqued her interest, and the slender collie-woman drifted amongst the headstones, pausing only when she saw the tall figure up ahead. The drizzling rain blurred his outline like a faded photograph, and Alaine squinted against the small crystal beads that dropped from her hair so as to get a better glimpse of him.

She wondered if this was a holy place, or perhaps if he had come here seeking solitude. Their previous, and first, meeting had ended amicably, but with all she had experienced since then, Alaine did not fall to the fallacy that it might be the same now. Perhaps her presence was not wanted in this place.

She turned to leave, accidentally bumping into one of the graveyard monoliths as she did. It was a bone-white stone, topped with a figure she recognized to be one of the humans-with-wings. Unfortunately, the bump had pulled her healer's satchel off of her shoulder, and her dagger fell from within, clattering loudly against the stone. Cringing, the woman bent to retrieve it, knowing her presence was now revealed.

Speak think walk

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Jefferson Soul · 12-03-2010, 12:44 AM

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He jumped, his body as a whole jolting in alarm from the sound. All in one movement, a snarl ripped from his throat and he spun on his heel, claws and jowls alike prying menacingly at the air; blaring green eye fell upon her and time froze as such. Slowly he relaxed, his shoulders falling and brow furrowing. With a deep breath, the Patriarch calmed himself and slipped his bad arm into its sling once more, then reached his second hand to rub forcefully at his temples, grumbling beneath his breath all the while. The monster in his scars was a monster even within, exposed only when needed.

"Alaine," he sighed, arm dropping loosely to his side as he turned away once more. "Sorry, you... You scared the hell out of me." Once lost to his thoughts, breaking the Patriarch back into reality was an easy task, but at high risk. Even despite Phoenix Valley's easygoing, peaceful demeanor, the beast within him had not been tamed. His instincts and reflexed went unchanged since the day he woke with one eye and no memories. What had he even been thinking of, before she'd startled him? The mist in his mind rose; he recalled that he had wandered sometime earlier in the week hoping to see her, but chosen not to dwell in the coincidence.

She had arrived silently and, he guessed, was trying to sneak away unnoticed as well. Was he that intimidating? "Don't let me stop you," the idiot muttered over his shoulder, striding away through the headstones. What was he even looking for here?

Alaine Winters · 12-05-2010, 04:14 AM

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table © Alaine
ooc: i am actually in love with your kiritar.
wc: 300+

His reaction, though terrifying, did not come as a surprise. Alaine had seen it in Jefferson the last time they'd met - His was as much a head-wound as it was a physical one. Soldiers of war never lost the keen edge of battle. Although her pulse had skyrocketed at the snarl, it quickly resumed a more regular pace as her keen jade eyes silently observed the back that had been turned to her.

"Jefferson." Came the melodically replied greeting.

She responded to his apology with a soft Mmhmm, before stooping to gather up the contents of her bag, lastly settling the dagger in its rightful place at the top before swinging the satchel back over her shoulder. This land had become dangerous, and she'd adapted by perfecting her dagger-throwing aim; The small weapon was her only upper hand over the much larger and primed wolven race that inhabited Nova Scotia.

Settling the leather strap more comfortably, Alaine took it upon herself to walk adjacent to him, drifting near silently between the headstones. Were it not for her shock of wild auburn hair, the pale-furred female might have seemed almost ghostly. Floppy mocha ears caught the larger male's grumbled retaliation, but she was not put off by the cold shoulder - His was the most curious psyche she'd met for a while, and the distraction from her current heart-sores was far too good to pass up by being offended. Besides, he wore his prickle nature much as she did her gentle one; Each a facade for the benefit of others.

"How are you, these days?" Her tone was casual, but a sly glance revealed he still wore the sling about his wounded arm. The thought of that limb made her healer's mentality shiver - It was a grievous and horrible wound he had sustained. She'd given him painkillers last time, but doubted that he'd taken them. Some were much too prideful for such things, or worse, had too little faith to attempt them. "You seem troubled."

Speak think walk

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Jefferson Soul · 12-08-2010, 01:22 AM

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What was it about that Cour des Miracles girl that kept her in his memory? Not many, especially those outside his pack, amounted an imprint on his mind in their fleeting meetups, but Alaine had surely been an exception. Perhaps it was her innocence and kindness, perhaps it was that she probably knew well the son of his that wanted nothing to do with him. She probably knew the 'real' Heath, the one that had excelled in his pack, found a place in the world that Jefferson would most likely never be a part of. Perhaps it was just that she and he himself were so terribly opposite—she, the innocent, kindly, emphatic girl with the smarts for herbs and medicine, and he, the idiot gimp covered in scars and plagued with guilt from his past. Perhaps it was because she had reached out to him in a while no one else did, or the fact that he'd allowed her to. Jefferson could hardly begin to pinpoint it, but the floppy-eared woman had somehow remained in his mind.

"'Troubled' doesn't really cover it," he muttered, eye lingering on the headstones as he slowly browsed through them, looking for nothing in particular. Just a bunch of ghouls and bones, rotting and wasting away with never a chance to return. "There's a lot of shit behind these scars. They don't allow for much else."

But he was surely saying too much. A clear of the throat, and, "What are you doing out here? I still say you shouldn't be wandering around on your own." Why did he even care, anyway?

Alaine Winters · 12-09-2010, 09:28 PM

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table © Mel
ooc: sexy new table :]
wc: 300+

As she walked, emerald eyes remained pinned on the one-eyed Goliath, not out of wariness but more-so out of an inability to look away. Jefferson had that effect on her - She cared little for his outer scars, as her professional interest would limit her to, but increasingly more for the workings behind his piercing eye. The man was, cliche though it seemed, a mystery; He knew it, too. Why he tolerated her, she doubted either of them knew. But as it stood, Alaine found herself in a rare seat of amiability with the prickly Phoenix Valley Alpha. He could skirt at the corners of her conscious, and reveal himself in her moments of boredom to be a topic worthy of much more mental digestion. An enigma, of both mind and body.

Alaine kept pace with the burly brute, her gaze occasionally drifting about the headstones as if to see for herself what it was he was searching for.

Gravelly voice stole her attention, and the Apothecary's sharp gaze lingered on him again, sensing the torment behind gruff words. There was more to this, more to physical aches and pains, than he was letting on. Alaine decided to let the topic drop, lest her curiosity destroy the fragile and peculiar comradeship they seemed to share. To his latter words, an unexpected smile bloomed on her pixie maw, and the prematurely aged lady seemed to shed her layers for just a moment. "You needn't say it, Jefferson. I'm well equipped to protect myself from dangerous strangers such as yourself." For a moment, the dark memory of the last time she'd been caught unaware blossomed like a bruise in her mind, but the healer briskly shrugged it off. One feminine ivory hand withdrew the plain dagger from her bag and held it up for the older male's inspection. There was still a small distance between them, but no doubt his keen eye could see that the weapon was quite crude and simple, nothing to be overly wary of. She held it high a second more, letting the cold light gild it with silver.

Then, with a surprisingly sharp smile, her hand became a blur; A whiplash of sound as the dagger was released. Its trajectory was clean and direct, and within a heartbeat, the small herbal knife was embedded to the hilt in the perfect center of a rotting wooden cross, 20 feet away. Alaine's hand remained poised for a second after, still pointing directly at the target, her pupils contracted in concentration. For a moment, any innocence left in her seemed claimed by the startling coldness of her expression. Then she relaxed, and a familiarly mild smile colored her pretty face as she looked to the cyclopes for approval. "Save your worry for those who need it."

Jefferson Soul · 12-16-2010, 01:37 AM

Sorry! I forgot this thread. @_@

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She called him dangerous and a darkness hooded his eyes. He was that, was he not? Jefferson knew himself to be so; he did not go out of his way to create formalities, to pretend he was what he wasn't. The brute had jumped at Alaine twice now, both in the same fashion, reacting with the instincts of a rapist and murderer, of a creature who had known only that for a great time in his life. Though he did not hold the bloodlust of Maluki any longer, the instincts and reflexes remained. After all those years, he had retained the instincts of a murderer, perhaps something that would never die within him. He gazed up at the sky, sighed, and glanced down at her knife as she presented it.

He watched, expression entirely unchanging, as she made a rather impressive display of skill with the small weapon. He himself had trained with a knife, though not much—it was the easiest way of fighting one-armed without resorting to his typical kicking techniques. Green eye watched as the dagger darted across his vision, striking bullseye into a wooden cross not far away. Had he more respect for the dead he might have said something, but the Patriarch simply glanced at it with a dulled, quiet gaze. He had simply thought too far into her comment on his dangerousness, and now the thought plagued his mind.

He discerned her words as something he himself as said, at which he scoffed but quickly returned to a scowl. "Good," he said, shrugging, turning away. He didn't need to tell her there were kick maneuvers to unequip small weapons like knives. He wasn't very good at them, anyway, and they were still risky. "Good, but seeing you with a knife isn't what I was expecting. It's a shame you have to equip yourself at all." He paused. "I'm not as dangerous as I used to be."

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Alaine Winters · 12-16-2010, 11:58 PM

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table © Mel
ooc: ... I'll try to be more memorable in future? XD
wc: 300+

If she was hoping for bountiful praise, then she was setting herself up for disappointment. The brute might have sounded more enthusiastic had he been watching grass grow. Ruffled by his lack of approval in spite of her own acceptance of his surly nature, shamrock eyes cast him a disgruntled sideways glance as she strode forward to remove the dagger from its wooden sheath.

As usual, his back was turned to her (she was no threat to the likes of him, nothing to worry about, said an irritable voice in the convulsions of her mind), but Alaine still heard the gruff words as she straightened, hilt in hand. Raising a brow the woman approached him as he spoke, coming to a stop at the Alpha's side as his words concluded. She didn't look towards him, but instead stared ahead, just as he had been; moving to recline slightly against one of the stone eulogies. The writing in it would be foreign to her, so the Apothecary gave it little thought.

He was thoroughly perplexing. One second, warning her for being a vulnerable, weak damsel, the next, morose because she had done something to resolve that old cliche. Alaine's frustration made frown, but she took a deep breath before speaking, considering in point the last of his words. "So this is the reason for your melancholy, is it?" Now, emerald gaze did rise to stare at him pointedly - She would not allow him to hide his face from her, not until she'd reasoned with her own answers to the question that was Jefferson. "You feel yourself growing inadequate?" She had guessed incorrectly, assuming him to be more fretful over his decreasing danger, than the ghosts that might haunt him because of it previous vigor.

Her features softened, gazing at him as she was. His was a terribly complex mind, and the sight of such a clearly troubled persona swept away her lingering crossness. "If it helps at all, I'd still consider you more dangerous than me." It was meant as a joke, and she smiled accordingly.

Jefferson Soul · 12-27-2010, 05:42 PM

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No, he did not fear himself inadequate. The brute looked down upon her, green eye calm and stormless; he feared nothing more than reverting to the very same insanity and bloodthirstiness that had ultimately come to summarize the monster that was Maluki Soul. Jefferson wondered each day how many months, how many hours until his end came to be, the much-deserved, most likely bloody conclusion to the life of a bitter, thankless man living in the shadow of a monstrosity. He envied her, perhaps. He envied her innocence, her wit and generosity. She was much different than any he had stumbled across before, and yet she armed herself with a knife. As the wind brushed his air into motion, he could only hope she would never be forced to draw blood, to stain her own innocence with the taint and taunting of war and death.

He dipped his head. "Inadequate, no. Never." The brute heaved a sigh, then picked his eyes up to gaze into the snowy wasteland that lay before them, marked with frigid tombstones and thousands of frozen bones beneath their feet. "I am not bitter for losing what I used to be," he said into the air. "I'm bitter for having been what I was."

She was trying to console him, he realized, and at that the Patriarch attempted a small, scarred smile down at her. "I'd hate for you to be stronger than me," he said, eye dipping, "it would do nothing but doom you."

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Alaine Winters · 01-01-2011, 03:44 AM

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table © Mel
wc: 3+
SoSuWriMo: 377

He met her questing gaze, and immediately the woman recognized the fallacy of her assumption - No, Jefferson was not troubled by his current lackadaisical lifestyle. She could see within that orb of acid, shamrock green, the tense shadows of fear; an expression that the healer had an empathic connection to, an emotion that she could see within any walls. Alaine knew fear like she knew her own heartbeat.

That seemed to be the only consistency between their fragile lives. Each waiting for an inevitable ending - He, afraid of the shadows within his past, she, afraid of the shadows that hunted her still. Her mind drifted uneasily to a night previous, when, overcome with the power of all things to end her, she succumbed to the sweet allure of his old world, the shadow world. She thought, swiftly, of Gabriel, and felt her body's responsive warmth. Had Gabriel once hunted this man for the shadows in his one eye? The thought was considerable.

Strangely, Alaine didn't want Jefferson to know of that. Of how she had allowed herself to become, however fleetingly, a tainted thing. She wanted him to think of her with the purity she assumed he already did, and so she kept her silence as he spoke.

Her gaze remained avid on his face, attentive to each flinch of scarred muscles, as he clearly relived that feverish fear. Was this why he had endured such mutilation, and not once sought relief? This self-vengeance? She felt torn. On one side, this was a man she wished to heal - Always, the broken found their way to Alaine. But on the other, her imagination conjured heinous ideas of the man he had once been. She could see it still, the slumbering monster within him.

When the Patriarch's gaze returned to her, the healer narrowed her eyes. His words made her feel strangely sick, as though she had started down a path only to be warned of its gruesome ending, too late for redemption. The path was hers now. It would do nothing but doom you.

"Who were you, Jefferson?" Her voice was small, but she held in the fear they both felt. The oppressive graveyard gloom stifled her accented words. "Who are you afraid of becoming?"

Jefferson Soul · 01-19-2011, 06:21 PM

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"A madman," he started, his tone a near-whisper; his eye glowed, like burning flame, its fire a last remnant of what he had been. Oh, how that eye must have glowed then, when he'd known no control over it! Surely it had haunted dreams, that color piercing through any walls just as Maluki had done, and surely it had continued glow on through the terrible acts he had committed, doubled in strength! Perhaps that had been its punishment, the loss of its twin, marked forever with the long, twisted scar and the milky, bluish tone that glowing green had receded into in the onset of blindness. With its vision lost, so did its color; with its color lost, so did Maluki.

He bowed his head, turning his gaze to her once more, dual eyes opened. A stray, scarred claw raised to alert her to the eye, to the sickliness it possessed, the milky color and death of life that lingered within its being. It was no more than a dead muscle, like his handicapped limb, sucked dry with the loss of vision. Surely, he looked as a monster; a glowing, acidic eye for one—the same piercing gaze he had come to be known for—matched with the sickly, weak, shaded bluish pupil that shadowed more than glowed. It moved like its twin, but revealed nothing to him in his mind, devoid of any and all capabilities. "I woke up like this," he said. No shame, no fear. Nothing to hide. Slowly he turned his eye away from her once more, dual eyes still apart, even the visionless gazing into the death of the boneyard. "This one-eyed thing, this is Jefferson. He's who I woke up as. Everything before then, before all these scars and this arm and this eye, that was Maluki. Raping, slaughtering, madman Maluki."

A long pause. "But I don't remember him. I don't remember anything of what he used to be, what I used to be. I don't remember raping those people, killing them, killing anyone. He was insane. I was insane. That is what I am bitter for having been. That... is what I fear becoming again."

Alaine Winters · 01-20-2011, 11:38 PM

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The whispered words were enough to conjure a shiver from within her delicate form. Eyes of shamrock green widened in momentarily horror; an emotion she could not hide from him. But quickly, the woman did conceal it, back within the luminous folds of emerald, till pupils could gaze on him in false calm once more. A madman. This was what she had seen, on that first day of meeting him - That flinty spark in the cyclops' good eye. It had been within him all along, and she, foolish girl, had wanted to cure him of it.

But there was no cure for insanity.

He turned to return her questioning gaze now, and Alaine was struck afresh by the severity of his face; The hard, weathered lines, the puckered scar-tracks, the foreboding intensity of that one-eyed stare. If he was anything, Jefferson was a severe persona to gaze upon. Cold fingers waltzed down her spine. The man manipulated his mauled facade with purpose, to reveal to her that stale milky orb, the one that possessed no life. Even if Alaine had been able to see him directly after this gruesome wound was infected, she knew that there would have been no hope for that eye. It's fate had been determined the instant that a wicked claw had damaged it so. However, the woman was not the Apothecary for nothing - She did not quail at that unseeing stare, and her eyes remained focused on his face. She would show no such weakness as to pull away from him in disgust.

When finally he relinquished her from that demanding interlocking of gazes, a small shudder of relief passed through her, barely noticeable to the reminiscent brute. But she could not look away from him; his words spilled forth, poisoning the air between them. Verbal ink dripped black in her ears.

He was - had been, she told herself sternly, had been - a rapist, and a murderer. The creature that she despised greater than all other life on this earth; one who would take a woman's hope from her, before finally taking her life. There was no greater sin that what he professed to having commit, and Alaine knew of the victim's hatred, for she was a victim. It had not been he who had taken her innocence away, but they were all the same at heart - black souls, condemned - and so it very well could have been he, and made little difference.

She experienced a stifling bought of severe claustrophobia, as old feelings battled their way up a throat closed-over with unexpected fear. The four neat claw-marks engraved deep into the delicious flesh of her upper right arm itched vigorously.

Could she forgive him this admission? Was Jefferson Souls still Maluki, deep in the pit of his festering existence? "I was stolen, when I was young," The words slipped out, but they were deadpan hollow - Words of a memory she kept buried deep. "He took my innocence, traded it with my life - with this," she moved to show him the four deep lacerations, emerald eyes never leaving the face of the man. "He took everything away from me. He tried to take my son. And I killed him for it." There - an admission she had never before made. The words tasted sublime on her tongue. Perhaps he would see her as an innocent no longer, but she found she didn't care. A small smile curved about her maw, but it did not reach her eyes. "I will never forgive him. But one day, I will forget him." She had made peace with the thought now, just as she made peace with him, and in a surprising gesture of warmth, she moved to rest her hand lightly on his good bicep, if the man would allow it. "One day, Maluki will be forgotten, too." The wicked never lasted forever..

Jefferson Soul · 02-13-2011, 03:54 PM

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That was a beautifully written post!

She did not wince beneath the gaze of even his sightless eye, though Jefferson had never made for that intimidating intention. It was an expression of hopelessness, of defeat; the lost of his eye was the greatest, most permanent scar that marked Maluki and the death of that persona. Perhaps in time, his old body would heal over the scars on his body, the tattoos of wounds and sin etched into his flesh. Perhaps his winter coat would someday grow long enough to cover them, but sight would never be returned to his milky left eye. He had never known sight in it, thanks to his amnesia, and would forever remain the cyclops he was now.

She admitted to rape as she was younger, and at first the brute showed absolute concern and fear in a yellow tint of his green eye. Had he done it? Was he the criminal that had taken such a girl's innocence, and that was why she now looked up to him so? Was she plotting revenge, just as his children had done?

Panic fluttered in his chest, but as she continued it faded away. No, it had not been he; she'd slaughtered that rapist, and rightly so. Jefferson deserved that same punishment, but it was too late. He could not die with Phoenix Valley beneath his leadership, else they might follow the same fate estranged. "I'm sorry," he said, almost hollowly; thoughts invaded instead. How many innocent girls like Alaine, so pleasant and sweet, had he corrupted without even the faintest memory?

His ears flicked back, eye wandering away once more. "Maluki is forgotten," he replied grimly. "I'm an amnesiac. I don't remember a thing." A pause. "The crimes he committed are scratched into my skin. They're a reminder. I can never forget completely, not until the day I die."

Alaine Winters · 02-26-2011, 02:55 AM

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She could see his train of thought evolve at each new revolution to leave her maw - Had he been the one to steal away her innocence, to plant the cracked and craved seed within her that had soon blossomed to become the instability that was her son? No, relief - It had not been he. But the guilt remained, for Jefferson had been one of them, one of the shadows-that-walk, those with cold steel in their eyes and a stake in their brittle hearts that stole all ability to feel the mortality that was empathy.

She pitied him, for no doubt that guilt would always linger. For the deeds his previous self had committed, the cyclopes would suffer eternal mental torment. Did unknown faces haunt his dreams - Memories resurfacing to punish him, again and again, in the voices of those Maluki had torn down? Emerald eyes felt only the absence of tears. She felt no remorse at this pain, but only the wish to ease him of it. Jefferson was not a shadow-that-walked; there was love in his one eye, buried deep, and a true heart beat warm blood in his veins, Alaine knew. Was it too late then for him to be purified of his sins?

He apologized, but it was obsolete. There was no need for apology. The collie woman remained steadily watching, milking his emotions with her deep gaze, sensing each shift in the scars that split his face. There was deep deep pain there, hidden beneath his cracked and craven mask, just as there was within herself. The deep pain, the heartsickness. It was a dangerous disease, if one allowed the infection to seep too far.

The man was not done revealing surprises to her yet. An amnesiac; She had suspected, of course. Apart from bipolarism, there was little that could have produced two such separate identities from the one body. A wave of sympathy rushed through her; How horrible it must be, to know of the things your hands have done, without having seen them do it. He was cursed.

The graveyard chilled her bones, and time had slid by. The woman's duty called her - Back in the packlands, there were people who would need her help, and she would need to be prepared. But she lingered a moment longer, fingers still resting lightly on his arm, gaze still embedded in the face that had turned away from her once more. "I can't fix you," It was a sad realisation, but with it came epiphany, "Only you can do such a thing. Maluki had the darkness to demolish the world - May Jefferson have the strength to rebuild it." The hint of a small, grim smile curved the corner of her lips, and the woman turned from him and began to stride back towards the misty buildings. After taking a few steps, she paused, and without looking over her shoulder spoke: "If you need me, call for me. I will come to your aid." One ivory hand resettled the leather strap of her satchel more comfortably over her shoulder, and the woman then disappeared back into the gloom of Halifax.

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