Born of Guilt (Closed, Soloing)

[Reva]

(Using this thread to give some IC back story to Reva, flashbacks will be italicized, however a good deal will be internal thoughts of Reva and the npc, and recollections of their past.)

~Early Morning at Lake Valeena~
In the early hours of morning on the banks of the Valeena Lake a man had sat looking out at the water, beside him a small black wolf slept. Neither was as they appeared to be, the man was not a man, but still he sat on the bank of the lake looking out at the water, a smoking cylinder hanging from his lips, scenting the area of the bittersweet herbs. The wolf at his side was not hardly the small creature that curved at his side, nor was it a beast. He knew the outer appearance he had bestowed upon her, mundane like his, to take a quiet reprieve upon the top side.

A hand stroked the animals’ head, feeling the black fur beneath his hand, silky and soft. Brown eyes opened to regard the man but he did not see the beast, he saw her, and that sleepy expression she use to wear, waking or bleeding, her eyes would open, and with recognition her brown eyes would warm, her lips would curve, and her eyes would close and she’d drift away again, or once upon a time, roll over, her body nearing his. The wolfs’ eyes closed under the mans’ touch, opening a crack as his hand paused over her ear looking at the golden band her ear bore. The fine design a wolf running through flames and his personal seal were embossed upon the smooth metal.

She bore his mark yet she was not his, to torment at least, she was still a trusted friend, and that was a concept foreign, even with life spent among the mortals it seemed like a rare gift to the demon. She came at his call, woke at his voice willingly, not because he demanded it. Oddly, because she wanted to. His hand passed down the animals’ side and under his hand the sleeping wolf changed, lengthened, fur giving way to flesh, canine to human and in the grass where a wolf lightly dozed a, woman laid bare slowly opening her eyes.

Skin the color of weak tea and hair as dark as the ravens’ wing, she body was flawless, a life of battle and death left not a single scar upon her body but the pinprick dark spot upon her left hip, or the small, darker patch of skin upon the left half of her ribcage, those were marks she had came into the world she was born unto with. The fringe of black lashes parted and opening her eyes the woman looked up at the sky. He watched her watching the sky, her nakedness had never been a source of awkwardness, and he could imagine it came from most of her life being spent in the state of undress or as a beast. A life in such a manner, with gifts that were celebrated and cherished rather than be viewed as a curse or taint, had to wash away the insecurities that many mortals held in cultures were public nakedness was taboo.

Her face turned, a smile formed upon her lips before her eyes even fell upon the figure, from the feel of grass tickling along her cheek. Her eyes warmed at the familiar form that sat at her side, warmth was fading from her stomach where his hand had rested against her skin. The hand rose to his lips to remove the cigarette, smoke was exhaled through his nose as the man turned to look back at the lake to watch the water, but even that did not erase the image of the fresh smile she gave him, or block the memory of her blood upon his face. The woman at his side evoked feelings he had stopped giving thought to centuries ago.

He never should have killed her.

[Reva]

Monica was a variant of Mary. On the world she came from, it was a holy name; the meaning of it lost in so many meanings such as "wished for child", "beloved", "rebelliousness","sea of bitterness", "love". And in her life she epitomed each of those meanings, he would know as he watched her for most of it.

He didn’t have to look at her to know what she would do; she never cared to look too human anymore, to be blatant with her curiosity or surprise. She would lay there feeling the damp grass beneath her body and the yielding earth beneath that, feel the wind caress her skin and take in the scents, of the earth the grass the forest, the water. She would smile, and then breathe again trying to take in his scent looking for blood, or a hint of his emotion, a habit of old when her senses were beyond human. Smelling nothing but nature and his cigarette, she would roll over or sit up and either speak to him or look around.

The corner of his lips quirked as he looked out the corner of his eyes as the naked woman sat up and looked around, her fingers moving through the soft blades of grass as wind tugged along a few strands of her hair. Looking back at the water he frowned before slipping the butt of the cigarette between his lips and taking a drag. He had saw the lake and he thought of failure, he thought of her and here he had sat. She appeared as if summoned by his thoughts as large as the largest horse, her tail had flicked and he could hear the breath the beast drew scenting for others, but that early it had just been the pair of them, not even the truest fisherman had been out at that time.

With the force of his will, he changed her form to a less impressive creature. A wolf, smaller than she had been in life, but she did not complain. After a while, she laid at his side and lightly slept In the early morning dark he had sat, the fading dawn chill not even a thought in his mind as he stared at the dark waters.

They had failed her, he wasn't the only one watching. There had been other parties interested, others who had power at stake, who had spies watching the girl. There were two books, one for each side that had the date of life and of death for every creature that lived. It had taken him some time to get his hands upon one of the books after hearing curious whispers and unsettling talk. While her name was in the book, there was no ending. No date of her death was given. She was a 'lycanthrope', a 'werewolf', a 'shifter'' whatever the term they were using in those days. They aged slowly, but they were neither ageless or immortal. She came from a clan of gypsies where magic still ran strong, aside from the fortunes she told, and she healed inhumanly fast. Before the shifter curse fell upon her, she was in her fifties when he had killed her, yet looked hardly in her twenties. By some coincidence, be it her combined traits or a touch of the divine, it seemed as if she could have lived forever, and that held promise, and spread talk of her, his charge, being instrumental to the end of days.

His job had been to keep an eye upon her, and he supposed eventually tempt her. But he watched her for nearly twenty five years, and under his watch her family had been ripped apart. He remembered the night she found the remains of her father in the lake behind their home. She had been,like her father before her, running from hunters and dove to the bottom of the lake, only to rise out of it again. He could not recall her ever crying, even as they buried the ashes. He could only recall once he ever heard her cry out in sorrow.

"Michael." Her voice was soft as she looked at him. Fishermen were starting to come out and some did pause at the sight of the naked woman standing on the lake edge, but she was not looking at them. She had pulled the man from his thoughts of long ago to the present. And in the present she stood before him in ankle deep water. River weeds brushed along her legs, as she looked at him. She wouldn't ask him to swim because she knew he would decline, but she looked like she wanted him to. The arch of her brows, the light of her chocolate eyes, smirk that rode upon her lips.

"Go, have fun." His voice wasn't as grave as he probably would have expected, but then again it wasn't exactly smooth either. But it was his, low and masculine, and seemed to elicit a smile from the woman before him, or a scowl from others who knew of him.

With a shake of her head she turned to walk away. Her hair brushed the center of her back as she walked, and he'd admit it if she asked, that he watched her walk, he liked seeing non-humans walk. There was an elegance to them that even their gymnast, ballerinas, or dancers fell short of. She disappeared beneath the water to raise again, her arms and legs moving her through the waters with sure strokes.

Bringing the cigarette to his lips again for another drag he watched ash fall from the glowing tip and fall to the earth between his legs.

The smoke drifting to the sky aimlessly always reminded him of burning churches.

[Reva]

He smoked on that day, too. The church was on fire and he had his eyes turned up to the sky and he wondered what god thought, how those above could allow a rogue priest to come up against perhaps one of the beings with the greatest potential over petty slights and wayward thinking. If the Priest did not take her here or her heart clean from her body, or anything similar to that, it was very likely she would heal the damage.

Smoke had been heavy in the village for some time now it seemed. A hunter's favorite weapon, fire, he had wondered if she saw the pattern as he did. Every time she came against the Father something of hers was up in flames, her car, her store, her home. Beneath his shoes, charred wood crumbled and cracked under his weight. Odd, he found her first. Amusingly she had the Priest laid out on the floor. He was a bloody ruin of a mess, but she had found a cross to clasp his hands around. She laughed at him when he found her on her stomach, speared to cobbled church floor by a fallen beam. She probably would have laid there until her body was healed, even around the wood before she was able to have the strength to try and remove the crushing weight of the pillar. If luck was on her side, and the fire didn't reach her first.

He looked down at her, had sat down on a pew at her side, his hammer rested upon he stone floor, and his hands upon the handle, before he rested his forehead against them. He could not interfere. The battle was not considered over, even as the priest lay dead, he knew this, she knew this, and she laughed. She had until night-fall until the others would come to search for her. Things continued to fall, and the flames continued to burn and for a while they were there in silence, apart, yet together.

Then, she began to talk. At first it was light stuff, old faces, old battles, people who had come and gone, people who had come and died. There had been many, who had died, and oddly she remembered more names than him, and then she brought up the truth. That she might never die, that she might never have peace. That she would have to live on watching others, even the others of her kind, age, fade, and die. And she would remain, young and untouched by time, fighting hunters throughout the ages, all in the attempt to live a life of peace.

They had taken everything from her, her sister, her parents, her friends and allies, her child, even him, and now they did the cruelest thing and deny her the peace of death she so richly deserved.

He listened, to the silence that fell, and waited, and eventually she did it. She spoke his name as softly as a child, afraid the monsters might hear, and asked him if he remembered their promise. The promise he gave that he would never leave her. And he had promised, not even death would separate them. She asked for peace and he promised it. She asked to sleep, and he assured it. He had quietly whispered, so very long ago, a promise of his own. "When ever you're ready to move on, tell me. I will release you.

"I promise."

Her eyes had been closed that day in the church, as if she had known his decision before he was sure himself, as he rose from the pew and stood over the fallen woman. Upon the ground, she looked so peaceful, as if she was already dead, or merely asleep, before he hefted the hammer in his hands and brought it down upon her head.

He didn't remember the number of times he had done it. Just the bloody mass as her skull was destroyed, and the smell of her blood above the smoke and flames, the feel of the hot crimson droplets that rolled like tears down his skin.

[Reva]

Water was the source of life; it sustained the body and fed the plants. It was worth more than gold and jewels in lands in which it was scarce, and life could not be, where there was none. It gave both the sense of peace, as well as awe, as mortals stood before its still body or watched it rage and roil. Its depths, so hidden from the naked eye, and the life it held not many saw with their own eyes had given birth to as many legends as there were fish in the sea.

She had never loved the water. She realized it was of great importance, she respected it, but it was not her favorite past time. You could not run, in the water. Nor could you feel the wind race across your skin, or have the scents of the trees and the earth invade your lungs. But she respected it, and it had never occurred to her that short of death or discomfort would she miss it.

Arms stroked through the cool waters, and legs kicked to propel the form through it, her muscles burned from use and her lungs called for more breath, and she relished it. The taste, the smell, the feel of water. She swallowed mouthfuls when she should have breathed and her chest called out in dismay until she stopped. She stopped kicking; she stopped moving her hands, stopped trying to drink the air as greedily as she tried to drink the life restoring fluid, and sank into the water's cold embrace.

Beneath the waters that she swam, not far from the lake banks, where a lone man sat lost in thought, smoke drifting towards the sky above, the woman's body fell slowly through the waters. Brown eyes watched the fish that swam by and darted away, and river weeds growing at the lake floor reached upward towards her, and beyond to the sun and sky above. Her body screamed for breath, demanded it, and still she sank.

"Mona."

He didn't speak her name, and even if he did she would not have heard it. But it was an awareness that did not fade. Sometimes, they spoke in a sense, or he seemed aware of what she had to say with no words spoken at all. For her, it was more of an awareness that did not fade, like how one knew which way the light came from in a dark room. She could find her way to him blind.

With a gasp, the calm lake surface broke as the woman came up for air in a great rush of exhaled breath. Swimming until she could touch the silt floor with the tips of her toes, the woman paused to push the wet strands of hair that clung to her face back. A grin parted her lips and her heaving chest still covered by the chilled waters, she looked towards the man upon the bank and his expression was something that perhaps only she would see as amusement. She knew that face, and there were times he showed another, but mostly this human appearance she knew, from the scent of cloves, the unshaven jaw, the dark circles that enclosed his eyes, the calloused hands, even the chapped lips. He had shown her wings once; they had smelled of smoke and were the color of pitch.

At the time she had given them a curious glance and went back to the topic at hand, ignoring his temper at her denouncement of there being a great creator. She had been baiting him, to reveal his true form, but instead...other things had happened.

It had never seemed odd, way back then when they finally met. She knew his scent before they had ever had a face to put with it. First it was but a scent she would come across. Then it was a figure she would spy out of the corner of her eye. And then, he simply was there, sitting on a rock smoking like he was. Watching her and not. Eventually they spoke, they had coffee, they shared meals, and a casual friendship until that priest came to town...

In the present, in the waters of Lake Valeena, a naked woman moved toward the shore. The water gradually fell away from her form as her steps became more sure, and the water more shallow. Her nakedness was of no importance until the light of recognition came to Michael's eyes. Whatever thoughts that had drew the man away, seemed to have returned him to her and the easy grace of her walk changed. The animal grace became seductive until she stood before him, her arms crossed beneath her breasts. She leaned forward, her face lowering to level with his. Her hand raised and upon the air above his skin, her fingers stroked along his jaw, his face rising without a touch to look to her as her finger tips moved through the air along the flesh near his eye. He could feel the warmth of her, the beat of her heart, smell the scent of her skin, her lips neared to press against his, and nothing.

The form of the woman passed through the man, from his front to his back. The faint outline she had became solidified behind the sitting Michael, sitting upon the grass behind him, carefully not touching her form to his. Monica looked to the sky, and her fingers touched the grass beneath her. The water from the lake still dampened her hair and droplets clung to her flesh. The wind blew, and she shivered. She could touch it all, feel it all, take it all in, and only dream of the man behind her.

That was wrong. If he was a man, this would not be their punishment. If he had been but a man, his promise would have meant nothing. Demon, devil, fallen angel. Whatever it was, he might have told her long ago, but, to Monica, he was simply Michael.

[Reva]

‘I swallowed all your pain,
Couldn’t carry on much longer
I let you run away from me,
But I still hope you that recognize
My face through all this madness
Life suicide machine

I know everything’s got an ending
But what’s that mean for me?

I don’t wanna know anything about your life
Well I guess that’s all a lie
Cause I love to hear you peaceful
Though it tears me up inside’


Nights fell upon her, and even alone, she was never so as it seemed so often. There were the spirits of her ancestors that guided her fortunes. There were her followers. Her family. Her friends. All weights and links in oppressive chains that weighed upon her, heavily. That made each dawning day, long, and every setting of the sun, a feel of disappointment. She still breathed and lived, and still remained cut adrift from others, and burdened by them. Only thing that seemed to go with her, age with her, strengthen with her, were her enemies. But never were they able to deal the death giving blow.

Perhaps it was more because aside her mortal enemies, she had more otherworldly allies. Not that the forces at work were allies, they spoke of being unable to interfere, them and their agents, yet they could stir the pot and then watch the ripples grow and fade. They gave her a life, like any other, and slowly stripped away from her all her mortal comforts and ties. Their betrayal, for that was all it could be to the woman. They had left her in a world where she never saw the sun, long before her life grew long. They left her in a world of desolation, where everyone she knew and cared for, left her far too soon, and took from her even the comfort of knowing she was dying. For that was what mortals did.

They lived. To die.

For all their meddling, that slowly stripped away her sanity and soul, they gave her one unlikely gift perhaps. One that she was not to have. A fruit she could not taste. An angel who had lost his wings long before perhaps eyes turned to bear upon her name. Michael.

He questioned his path. His decision. His life. Yet did not put an end to his existence. He continued, he lived, ageless and seamless from era to era. What were lifetimes to Mona’s human born heart, were mere heartbeats to the demon. He had been the epitome of what she had strived to convey since she was a child and they finally met. Face to face. There was no pity upon his face when they met, and the girl saw young saw her first demon. Close to tears already, she looked up at the familiar scent, to see an unfamiliar face, which held, understanding. Never pity.

Even when her heart was breaking. Even when he had been the one to do it. Even when her world was shaking. Or even on the day it ended.

‘As I pick up all these pieces
I’m crossing all my fingers love

Cause nothing is ever the same
And it’s so hard just to fit it all
I’d give anything for another chance
On another day and another time
But for now I pray for rain
Said for now I pray for rain

And I hope these walls between us
Come tumbling down
Gonna tear these walls between us
Gonna tear them down’

Mona sat nude on the grass, water still upon her skin, tiny rivers running down her back to be swallowed by the earth again. She could feel the presence of the demon at her back, hear his heart beating in his chest, the air fill his lungs as he took a drag from his cigarette. She could feel the warmth of this blood beneath his skin. But could not touch him, could not seek or give comfort. Could not know him again in any sense, but as a beast knows its master.



‘I can’t imagine what it’s like
To imagine you with anyone
Do you go to sleep? Do you dream out loud? Do you cry at night and say

That I need a better day’