#819

Italic quotes are from T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land"

With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade.

The roof had come down, all the way down in some parts. She looked around, dismally noticing the wetness of it all. The difference of it all. Emwe stalked the street outside -- if she leaned forward she could see him on the street below. He said she ought not to go up to the second floor, not after how everything was hanging with the weight of debris and broken walls. She was more interested in the view of it all, than her own protection. This was one of the few buildings that even had a second floor now, at least one she had found a way into. Truth be told, she had had a hard time finding a way out of it. The tiny gray female stood observing what had once been Wolfville. Well, it was still Wolfville she supposed. A more accurate name would be the Wolfville ruins. They had been unsafe for a long time, but even more so as the storm had swept across the area, shaking everything and flooding the streets. More cracks had emerged.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish?

Mew had called the place home once. As had Vesle, Hanna, Dexter, Keeleigh -- a lot of her close family. Alexey and Conor had taken them to live in another building. She had not visited it. This one, though... this one was special. And it had proven to her that these old pack lands were not so dead after all. Some would have it that just because no pack lived in them, they were a free-for-all. Well, soon as Vesle turned her back on it, they would be right. There were some moments left here, though, that were still hers.

She held her left elbow with her right hand. It was seething hot, unlike the rest of her. She had refused to take off her soaked dress so she could dry. The dress would have dried quickly had it not been for the fact that she had insisted on exploring the building further. In one spot on the floor, a lake had gathered from the storm, and she had stepped right into it, never even suspecting it, not even looking. Now, she was shivering, but still looking out at Wolfville, taking the time she wanted. It was more broken now that it had ever been. Broken, and still crumbling. The water that seeped through everything had forced its way into every possible nook, helping to widen the cracks of the concrete foundations. She suspected the second floor - the one she was standing on - would likely crumble in not long. Not minutes, but days perhaps. She shivered at the sum of everything; the rain and wetness, the warmth of her elbow, the destruction of her city. Nature could cope with a storm, but this place could not. Perhaps that was why the humans had disappeared in the end; they couldn't build to last.

The nymphs are departed.

They were nowhere to be seen so long as she was in the city. She had stayed here for two weeks now, elf-free. No Vættir followed her here, not even the nix or the hulder. At least, not as long as she was aware. They could have hid throughout the storm. They could hide from the city itself.

Emwe stirred again on the street below, looking up at her restlessly. She clutched her injured elbow again and glanced at the way back down. It'd be the last time she saw this room. Her birth room. It would crumble like everything else around these parts, victims of the storm's fury. Nothing was left after that. There was no point in staying now, with all her remnants and all her efforts destroyed. But there was one problem of leaving; no pack was Dahlia de Mai. Emwe had taken one look at her elbow and suggested the closest packs, and Vesle had laughed. She had stalked their borders when she first arrived, she had picked up the scent of traitors in all of the packs. Dahlia de Mai had scattered and its members had been quick to join a new pack, forgetting the past entirely, Vesle was sure of it. Perhaps their lack of loyalty had been the pack's hamartia. She would not share a home with those traitorous ...individuals. Better to travel far.

Emwe seemed to think that her elbow was important. He paced, snapped at her, but he knew better than to test her. All that was left now was to visit her place one last time. If the mud did not kill them on the way like it had her, at least. She started the slippery climb down the broken stairway, one arm keeping herself steady. The red dress was so heavy that it threatened to aid her descent, weaving its way between her legs. Emwe came and she climbed down onto him before her hind feet found the floor, and they were off.

In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain