righteous making money in the name of god
#1
[html]
She wasn't so sure what had drawn her out to the place where Andrezej had died, but it was the place that she had found herself hovering over. Rachias had marked the grave, but Corona had a feeling that she would never forget just where her blue-eyed sibling had buried him. Your orphaned sister, she corrected mentally, not picking up on the fact that she was now no different. But like Corona had Gabriel, Rachias had Arkham. Who was alive. Who she had unknowingly crossed paths with. Everything was still different to process, though time had certainly passed quickly enough. While snow still blanketed and clung tightly to the ground, Corona could feel the dampness in the air that was different from the ocean.



Being cold was about the only thing that spurred emotion out of her and that emotion was displeasure. The girl who had read long and hard about the way things affected man emotionally could stand there to tell herself that hanging onto it all wasn't a good thing, but she couldn't get past it. Easier said than done, that's what it was. Always easier said than done. Easier read than done. She had been a flurry of emotions internally, but so calm outside. He had smoked and so she had picked it up just to do it, but absently. But sometimes it was easier just to light the cigarette, as she had done now, but do nothing with it. Never smoke it, only let it burn.



It would only be when the cherry-hot end of it had burnt down to the end to seer at her fur and skin that she would drop it with a reaction. Any thoughts in the process were halted and dropped, a reaction saying that it was time to move on. So she stood there at the foot of Andrezej's grave, feet wet to the ankles from the earlier high tide with a cigarette burning slow away in one hand, both thinking and not. It wasn't about the brother she had lost that she thought about (because he was a heathen and not even deserving the name he had been given), but rather the things that Ahren had said to her the last time she had seen him.



“The fire is a disease in our blood,” and she dared it to burn her.
[/html]
#2
[html]
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/ ... bycdg1.jpg); background-position:top; background-repeat:no-repeat;">




The coated male sat vigilantly in a tree overlooking the beach and ocean near the borders of the coyote clan. He hadn't returned to this place since his first visit and encounter with the elusive hybrid man. Onus had not been convinced that his motives were as defensive as he seemed to like to believe. That and his unwillingness to provide clear direct answers had only made him more suspicious. He knew he would get no where else talking with that male and so had left the matter alone for a few weeks. Now he had returned to a different spot to watch and observe much as he had before. Hopefully this excursion would yield more information.



The comings and goings of the clan members were less interesting than he had hoped. He could see not overt suspicious behavior from any of them. Just the simple, boring comings and goings of any normal group boundary one might come across. Still, the man could sense something darker beating at the heart of this place. It was there. He just didn't know what it was. Not yet. He would find out what it was one way or another. There appeared to be much more corruption in these lands than he had first thought. Not just from here, but everywhere. Rapists, murderers, madmen. They crawled all over these lands.



Onus' interest was peaked as a blond female walked to the beach and stood by what appeared to be some sort of makeshift grave. Crudely constructed, but it was clear that was what it was. Covered eyes watched as she lit and cigarette and just held it as it burned, never taking any drags off of it. What strange behavior. It was something he had never seen before. In other places he had seen people smoke the human sticks, but never here. And really he wasn't seeing it now either. Intrigued enough to instigate conversation he jumped from his perch and took a few steps towards the woman. "Someone you knew?" he questioned flatly.




[/html]
#3
[html]
Even though she had heard the footsteps of someone approaching, Corona was far too distracted to have totally cared who was coming. Those steps across an equally rocky and sandy ground were ambience to the backwashed ocean around them, as well as the cry of the gulls that were always hanging around. But she was pulled from her thoughts when the strange coyote entered her peripheral vision, accessorized in a complete get-up that made her think of the coyote she had met in Laruku's cabin. Only this one, she couldn't see his eyes. Drawing the cigarette-holding hand to her mouth at point, her reaction was subdued to his question an she shrugged as the smoke curled from her mouth on the exhale.



“Not really. Just a madman.” Andrezej wasn't even worthy of being called a madman. He had been filth, to use a word used against her in the past. A heathen with a shit-eating grin. “What's with the costume?” she asked, drawing her gaze away from the dark stone that marked the grave to fully focus on the hat-wearing shifter. Maybe he was injured, afflicted with something horrible that he felt he needed to hide. Or maybe he was simply blind, though he did seem to carry himself well enough; regrettably she wished she would have paid attention to the sound of his gait then.
[/html]
#4
[html]
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/ ... bycdg1.jpg); background-position:top; background-repeat:no-repeat;">




He watched as she slowly took an inhale from the cigarette and the smoke curled out into the open air. The scent of the chemical-laced tobacco took him back to one of the first large inhabited cities he had gone to. The streets were always busy and bustling, luperci crowded shoulder to shoulder. Smoking had been common there. It had also been one of the biggest cesspools he had ever set foot in. The masked man had spent a good amount of his life there, preying on the criminals that lurked in the alleyways and dark places. By the time he had decided to move on from there the crime rate had been substantially slashed. They had learned to fear him completely.



"Hrm. Madmen deserve no graves." They only deserved to be killed and forgotten. Either that or strung up for all the other madmen to see and be deterred by. Onus had done such on a few occasions. It worked quite well, depending on the criminals in the area. Depended on how mad they really were. He would fight them all though. A costume? He had heard his clothes referred to as such before, but the word was strange in his ears. To him the coat and hat were as much a part of him as his ears or tail. "It's who I am," was the most direct and simple answer he could give her.




[/html]
#5
[html]
It was who he was; she had heard something like that before. Not once before, but several times. It was a reoccuring theme in the world. And while Corona did agree that madmen did not deserve graves, she didn't say anything more on the subject. A grave was a sacred thing, regardless of who was buried there. Rachias had wanted him to have a grave, so he had a grave. She would not destroy it or otherwise do away with it, if only to honour her wish. Even if Rachias went away like Gabriel had told her to, she would make sure it was left alone. It was about all she could do for the sister who had already lost so much and so young.



But as for who any of them were, she wondered in the brief silence between them as she took another drag from the cigarette if he had something to hide. “Then I suppose you're an interesting man of mystery,” she intoned, eyeing him from toe to head. Jewellery aside, she wore nothing. The only thing that she lacked was the same mark that told Lykoi from Lykoi: the Chaos Star, but other than that she bore everything out in the open. “What brings you here?” Drifter Bay was a kind of dreary place, but it was the place where she had come across some of the more interesting creatures Canada had seen in decades.
[/html]
#6
[html]
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/ ... bycdg1.jpg); background-position:top; background-repeat:no-repeat;">




He had no intention of trying to befoul the grave site. Only making his opinion known. Obviously someone had cared enough for the madman to bury him and mark the place. Sometimes those that cared for the criminal were normal people. Those who had somehow been lucky enough to escape the madness of the person they cared for. He wouldn't do harm to whoever it was by disturbing their work. Simply if it had been up to him he would not have shown such a kindness. Then again, it wasn't really in his nature to show much kindness.



At her response he slightly shrugged his shoulders. Everyone found him so fascinating. They probably thought that he appeared the way he did and acted the way he did for their attention. That was about as far from the truth as it could get though. Onus didn't give a shit what others thought of him. He did it for his own purposes and for what he thought was right. "Watching." His tone was its usual flat tone and pitch. From the female's scent it was clear that she belonged to the clan. "Interested in your clan." He was curious to see what kind of response this would elicit. Would it be the same as the man he had met before?




[/html]
#7
*STABS INTERRUPTIONS WITH A STAKE KNIFE* ;___;
[html]
She flicked the ash off the end of the cigarette. Everyone was interested in Inferni. They had good reason to be. “We're quite popular with watchers,” she replied plainly, not feeling one way or another about it. Corona didn't care if they watched or not. She didn't care if they hated them all by association or actually thought that maybe they weren't so bad. “Where do your interests lie regarding Inferni, though?” Peculiar appearance aside, he was a coyote. Not everyone was tolerant towards them and Dahlia de Mai was certainly one of them. But they were getting better, she supposed, given the last watcher she had met at their door.
[/html]
#8
[html]
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/ ... bycdg1.jpg); background-position:top; background-repeat:no-repeat;">



*pats Ku*



Well, she didn't seem as off-put by that as the hybrid male had. Good. Maybe he could get some more helpful answers from her. Onus still didn't particularly feel one way or another about Inferni. Yet. He was only suspicious. Maybe they were simply the victims in this whole affair like that man had seemed him to want to believe. The air about the lands was ominous though. Perhaps more than was entirely necessary. He still wasn't pleased about the skulls on the pikes. Those were the kinds of actions gangs took, not victims of hate crimes.



"Have a suspicion. Especially about the skulls." Those were the ones displayed. Who knew if there were more bones buried elsewhere behind their borders. "Came here before. Talked to a man. Wouldn't give straight answers." He had been much more keen to talk about the war and the atrocities that had been inflicted on them then than the individual deaths that hadn't been associated with that fighting. Secretive and all too keen to blame it on the dead. It was easy to do that. The dead didn't argue.




[/html]
#9
Happy Valentine's Day! Big Grin
[html]
“A suspicion?” For whatever reason, this struck her as strange. Most had been fascinated with them, if not perhaps morbidly marvelled over how they had gotten them to stay on the pike in the first place. Some of them were run all the way through, others were fixed as crudely as most thought them to be. She remembered that back over the mountain, some of them had been painted. But the fact that this man had already talked to someone who turned him away made her wary. Gabriel was really the only one she knew to be a conversationalist.



Taking another drag from the cigarette, she inquired further as she tucked a stray bang behind her wolfish ears. “Who did you talk to the last time?” There was a tone to it that implied that perhaps he had been asking the wrong person all long and maybe he had been. It really depended on what he wanted to know, but on the off-chance it wasn't Gabriel and say, maybe Hybrid or Ezekiel, then who knew what they had said.
[/html]
#10
[html]
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/ ... bycdg1.jpg); background-position:top; background-repeat:no-repeat;">




"Yes. Want to know if they deserved it." That had seemed to make the woman a bit more wary than she had been up until now. He felt no need to hide what he wanted to find out. If things came to blows or she told him to leave like the other had then so be it. He would just keep coming back until he got his answers. Either that or get them from somewhere else. If they wanted to display the evidence of those they had killed on their borders than they should have realized that it would prompt questions from someone at some point.



At least she was still willing to discuss the matter further for some reason or another. Until things took a turn he was content to keep this as cordial as he could. "Didn't give name. Was a hybrid. Almost looked like a dog." Onus had encountered quite a few of their originally domesticated cousins in the city. They could be odd creatures. Then again, they all were to some degree or another.




[/html]
#11
[html]
Had those heads on those pikes deserved what they had gotten? Corona couldn't really say, but not because she wasn't supposed to. “The skulls up there are older than I am, so I'm not sure I could tell you whether or not they deserved it.” Come to think of it, she wondered inwardly if Gabriel had found them lying around the Waste or had dug them up from somewhere. They could have belonged to anyone, wolf or coyote, even dog. Maybe feline, though the shape and size of the heads were far too consistent for that. “They're bleached from the sun, which only happens over a lot of time and exposure to the elements.” It didn't matter to whether or not he knew those things, but she told him anyway. It was in her nature, if only from the study of medicine that she had learnt it from.



“So who knows where they came from,” she said with a shrug and a shake of her head. “We only put them up there as a warning, anyway. Hybrids and coyotes here are the oppressed people and have been for years. If we stray too far from our home and alone, we get attacked.” But things had been that way for decades and Corona doubted it would have changed. Coyotes were the scavengers who picked up what the wolves threw away. “I hope you don't or haven't gotten the misfortune of meeting anyone who would rather have your head on a plate while you're here.”
[/html]
#12
[html]
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/ ... bycdg1.jpg); background-position:top; background-repeat:no-repeat;">




He had to admit he was a little surprised by her response. From his conversation with the hybrid man it had sounded as if the skulls were not so old. It had almost seemed as if all of them had been placed there by his blood-stained hands. Did he want to be suspected of murder? He couldn't understand why, if they were old and not of his doing, he wouldn't have just said that. "Hrm. Interesting. To me it seemed the man wanted me to think he killed them." Onus liked to think that he was good at reading people and he didn't feel he was wrong in his assessment of the clan member.



The man couldn't take what she said at face value. He had no doubt that they were unjustifiably oppressed to some degree, but he had never been outright attacked by anyone around here. Not even that monster Haku had, and he had been the one to bring the war to a boiling point. Maybe it was because he didn't carry the clan's scent, but he highly doubted it. "No. Haven't been attacked." At least not without provocation. So far he had fought both a wolf and a coyote. They had both deserved it and he had made the first move on both occasions.




[/html]
#13
This post is rather blah, sorry. :\
[html]
“That's our thing. You'd be surprised how well fear works to keep them away,” but she had the uncanny feeling that he was well aware of this himself. A confident man would only walk around hiding his face and his body, she surmised, though not to say that all confident men or women or creatures alike would all act the same. “And it's nice to know that our neighbours aren't jumping on every traveller that comes through here.” Maybe Daliha de Mai was only set on attacking anything that came out of Inferni. She had never known them to get into a tangle with the coyote-run band of travellers than had settled during the autumn, but then again they hadn't lasted long enough for her to find out.



Then there was the whole other problem with some of them being sick, which she nonchalantly passed by in thought. Except for Jasper, who stuck out. “Did you come here alone, or with others?” she decided to ask, wondering if there was some method to the madness in attacking or if it was all purely random. Whether it were grudges or just someone having a bad day, she could never really decide what it was that founded the hatred between Inferni wherever it went. They only wanted to live their lives like anyone else, even if they took in those who had been wronged by their more-social cousin.
[/html]
#14
[html]
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/ ... bycdg1.jpg); background-position:top; background-repeat:no-repeat;">



Nah



If only she knew how well he understood fear. He understood it better than almost any other emotion on the spectrum. He had never known love. Never really had a friend. His only loyalty was to his cause. He understood hate and angry, but also knew how to control them and harness their power for good. But fear, that he knew. He had been nursed on it. His own mother had feared him, hated him. He knew how to use fear to his advantage. How to turn it against people. Nothing in his stance or demeanor changed however while all of this went through his mind. Stoic and quiet as usual.



Onus breathed in deep, tasting the salt of the sea on his tongue. It mixed oddly with the tobacco from the idly burning cigarette. "Alone. Have always been alone." Maybe it had something to do with his upbringing (or lack thereof), but even after being salvaged from his mother he had kept mostly to himself. Never seeking out companionship. It was something he had never experienced and so had never come to understand or crave.




[/html]
#15
[html]
“What a life to live,” she mused, wondering herself what things would be like if no one ever had to be alone. If families stayed together and there were no underlying thoughts of bellicose nature. She even wondered if there was such a way to fight the fire that supposedly flowed in their veins—they being her family—only to wonder why it was that she had not been afflicted in the way that her father had. Or the way that her aunt had. She may have even been in a class of her own, having possessed the mystical and rare blue of the de le Poers. Eyes of the hue that she shared with Mab, who as far as she knew was still even with the world.



But she cast her troubles and thoughts aside, saving them for a better time. “So have you had a chance to scout out the areas much? If you're looking to stay a while, I might be able to point you in the direction of somewhere nice and secluded.” Asking him to stay in Inferni was out of the question; that much she had gathered from his demeanour and what he had already said. If he had always been alone, then he was much more than just a true coyote; he yielded to no one but himself. So the least she could do was impart some knowledge to him, knowing good and well that a little help went a long way. Something many travellers had imparted to her, whatever their reasoning.
[/html]
#16
[html]
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/ ... bycdg1.jpg); background-position:top; background-repeat:no-repeat;">




The man shrugged at her comment. His life suited him perfectly well. If he was one to believe in God, he might have thought that he had been specifically chosen for this task. However he did not believe there was a God. Or if there was they didn't give a shit about the creatures here. No God who cared would let people do the awful things that they did. He wouldn't allow children to be brutally murdered or molested. The "free will" argument was bullshit to him. It was just something those that wanted to believe in a benevolent higher power told themselves to make themselves feel better about the horrors that surrounded them. Onus knew better.



Her queries were a bit unexpected. Most would not be so nice as to point someone such as himself in the direction of shelter. Much less when he was suspicious of their clan and home. "Good deal of it. Not all though." His attention was being pulled in so many directions that it was hard to decide where he should focus on. Of course there were still his suspicions about this place, but there was also a mass murderer on the loose. "Been sleeping in the city. It serves well enough." He was contemplating whether he should tell this woman about what he had seen in the lighthouse to the south and west. It was a tricky situation to deal with. He didn't want to be talking about it with the wrong people.




[/html]
#17
[html]
http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj31 ... rp/t36.png); background-position: bottom center; background-repeat: no-repeat;">

_____So he was well-travelled. Good for him; proved he had more brains than the aimless wanderers that beelined for the first pack they could get their feet to take them to. “The city is good for many things,” she commented idly, despite having mixed feelings about it. Corona hadn't gone back since Ahren had died and more and more, she doubted she would entirely stray from Inferni. What was the point? She had everything she needed right there. “And I guess you know from others to probably be careful around Dahlia de Mai to our southwest? They don't take so well to coyotes, travellers or not.” She was certain he could handle himself, but it was something she told anyone that wasn't a wolf. In fact, that didn't even matter: she was more wolf than anything and she had still crossed a pair or two of unfortunate paths with the creatures of the bay side pack.


_____“Actually, sometimes I feel like all anyone would have to do is look at them wrong to upset them.”

[/html]
#18
[html]
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/ ... bycdg1.jpg); background-position:top; background-repeat:no-repeat;">




Onus nodded his head in response to her comment about the city. Yes, it was good for many things. Not only that but it was his comfort zone. The luperci had never really lived outside of the man-made towns and cities. As backwards as it was, nature was something he was familiar with. So even though Halifax was deserted it at least gave him some place to collect his thoughts and to rest when his body needed it. "Heard about the war. Not much else. But thank you for the tip." The man knew that she was only trying to give him information that she thought was vital to surviving here. At least for someone of his species. He could muster common courtesy when he thought it would be appropriate.



"Usually no reason for it. Some just are that way. Wolves as well as coyotes." He wasn't blind. There were just as many coyotes that hated wolves for no particular reason as there were wolves that hated coyotes. No matter who wanted to play the victim or the oppressed, it was a two way road. Always had been and always would be.




[/html]
#19
Sorry this post sucks... and I hope you don't mind me picking this place to draw it to a close. Just seemed fitting, imo. c_c;
[html]
As much as Corona would have liked things to change, it never would. She knew this without really having to think about it because it was something that ran deep in her veins. Something she had ignored for the longest time because she saw quite a skewed world. Her parents were purely mad in their own right, but she had never seen it. It didn't exist as far as she was concerned. Perspective, opinion, anything that could have changed their views gave them depth and in turn, another shade to play with. Didn't matter the colour or if it was in black and white, not everyone saw it.



“I should be getting back,” she announced, flinging the end of the cigarette into the waters behind them. “Perhaps we'll cross paths again sometime, but if we don't, then I hope things go well for you and your travels.” She didn't expect that he would stay long, because no one ever did. Some were bound to the place by some unseen chain but it seemed more and more had the ability to get out and stay out. Turning away from both the grave and the coyote, she started back to Inferni much in the leisure way she had left it.
[/html]
#20
[html]
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/ ... bycdg1.jpg); background-position:top; background-repeat:no-repeat;">


Works for me Smile



Hidden eyes watched as the cigarette was flung into the all-accepting tide. Maybe this conversation hadn't been as helpful as he would have hoped, but it hadn't been a bad one either. All he did was nod at her words and she turned to return to the borders of her clan and home. The man was far from being done there. There were still too many unanswered questions and suspicions running through his mind to let Inferni off the hook. There was much more to them than their members were letting on. Maybe some truly didn't know. Maybe only a select few were the ones hiding things. But things were being hidden, of that much he was sure. Few people hid things without having a reason to hide them. In his experience that reason was usually because they were wrong.



Propping the collar of his coat up to protect his neck from the wind he turned back in the direction of the city. He would learn nothing more here today.




[/html]


Forum Jump: