Waking Up With Wolves

[Prelude]

((Solo. This thread takes place before and during Joey's first journey to Althanas))

“Don’t go, Joey!” called out a girl with green highlights in her brown hair.

The girl was dressed in a ripped denim outfit that should have gone out of date a long time ago. She followed another girl through the streets of a city. The second girl was slight, in a loose pair of jeans and a black AFI t-shirt. Joey continued to stride forward. The two continued to walk down the city street in such a fashion until the girl with green hair grabbed Joey and spun her around.

“Joey! You don’t know these people. What if they’re just some sick forty year old guys who can’t get a life.” The girl gave it another go.

“What if they aren’t, Sammy! What if they are the one thing I’ve been waiting for my whole entire life!” Joey’s voice had a desperate tone, one on the verge of breaking into tears. “I’m not crazy, Sam. This could be my only chance to find people like me. Don’t ruin it for me.”

Joey reached into her pocket and withdrew an orange pill bottle. She looked down at it for a moment, and shook her head. She threw it at her friends feet and kept on walking. This time Sammy didn’t follow.

“What about Jeff? What’s he going to do if you get killed, huh?” Sammy called from her stationary position.

Cooper hadn’t thought about Jeff. Jeff was her boyfriend of three years. Yeah that would make it since eighth grade. Damn, she’d been stupid to start a relationship with the likes of him, but she had thought they had something special. Now the only thing special about their relationship was the pair’s unwillingness to let go. It seemed as if the only thing tying them together was the fact they were both too scared to continue alone. The sleeze ball had probably done enough to drive most girls away. But her? Nah, she was just too stupid to walk out on him. For the first time in a while, though, the girl felt utterly repulsed by the thought of him.

“Screw Jeff,” she called back to Sammy, and broke into a run before she lost her nerve.

Sammy was left standing at the road corner. For a moment, it looked as though she was going to pick up the pill bottle. Instead, she just kicked it into the street and swore. Putting her hands in her pockets, she began to walk home.

Joey stopped running at some point, she didn’t know why. Carefully, she unfolded the flier in her hand. It was creased from the constant abuse of folding and unfolding since the week she had gotten it. The page itself seemed to be made of lighter paper then most, as if it were going to dissolve by the mere hint of rain. The girl’s eyes scanned the paper’s address. She looked up to check and make sure she had the right place.

CREDITS: The title comes from a song by The Black Maria

[Prelude]

18 Markson. Joey lifted her blue eyes to scan the building in front of her. It seemed dilapidated. Ivy climbed the walls and entered the complex through cracks in the stone. The color of the walls were a darker grey than most city buildings, adding to its ominous appearance. The windows were boarded up, but the door was ajar.

If the above applies, the door is always open to you. Follow the music.

The girl couldn't hear any music yet. She held her breath for a second, poised on the verge of chickening out. Sammy could have been right about everything. It could be some random killer out to get a bunch of wacko teens who are stupid enough to fall for this, she thought to herself. But she had already made up her mind. Cooper let out her breath and began to walk forward.

Carefully, she pushed the door open. The feel of the wood was oddly damp and fragile, yet it swung open without incident. The girl silently slipped through. The upside of wearing converse every day was the fact that it was easy to walk quietly. Bless the person who had invented thin rubber soles. A puff of wind blew outside, and the door slammed shut. Joey blinked rapidly for a moment, and her heart rate sped up. It took what seemed like forever but eventually her eyes adjusted to the new darkness. She could tell in the small amount of light that the place was bare. Walls filled with cracks left unadorned, no furniture to be seen, no marks of any inhabitors. Completely, and utterly empty. As dissapointment welled up in her chest, her heart rate slowed down.

Yet as her heart's pounding left her ears, she was able to hear a soft string of music.

[Prelude]

The sounds were unearthly and although discordiant, beautiful to her ears. It seemed to wrap her up for a moment, and consume her thoughts. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to be overcome. What could possibly happen, she asked herself, it's music. Her mind's eye was then flooded with images. A dark hallway carpeted by ivy, a set of crooked stairs leading downward, an open courtyard, and to the right a smaller room with red walls. Then it ended. As if in a trance, without a second thought, Joey began to walk forward. She was about to take another step when she felt something crunch underfoot. It was a coil of ivy.

The girl knelt and touched it to make sure she wasn't believing things that weren't real. It wasn't a hallucination. Trembling a little, she began to follow the tendril. She didn't take her eyes off of the plant. It lead her for a couple of turns, and then ended through a crack in the floorboards. Cooper sighed. She wasn't going to be able to fit through such a small hole. Then she looked up. In front of her was a hallway covered in dark ivy from ceiling to floor, no stone visible.

Joey stepped with one foot on the ivy floor and put her weight on it. The ivy felt like a springy carpet underfoot, and did not hint in any way that it was covering a giant hole in the floor. So she stepped onwards. The air through the hallway was warm and damp, almost comforting. The girl could almost hear the plants singing. With a laugh she ran forward, brushing one hand against a plant covered wall. Unprepared for the sudden end, Joey almost fell down the stairs. Instead, she teeterd at the edge for a moment, before she was once again balanced. She looked down at the dark, cracked wood. The warm feel seemed to extend down them, too. It couldn't be too bad, she reasoned. I've already come this far.

Cooper walked down the stairs semi-confidently. The dark seemed to ease up a little bit, but she still couldn't see an end coming anytime soon. Her memory of the music-vision was already growing hazy. It was as if it was slowly melting away. Panicking a little, the girl quickened her pace. As soon as her feet hit the stone floor, she felt arms gather her up and pull her away and to the right. She only caught a shredded glimpse of the courtyard before she entered the little red room.

[Prelude]

The small room was filled with a small mass of people. There was a woman in a suit, with a pen and pad of paper. Obviously a reporter of some kind. There were a group of early teen girls in colorful outfits, giggling nervously. Joey would have been willing to bet that they were present for a couple of kicks. A gothic girl with long white-blonde hair stood on the side, off to herself. Being judgmental once again, Cooper assumed she was there to see some spells and rituals. Farther back were two hippies and one drugged out looking hobo. They didn’t really interest her. The one who did was sitting in the center of the room, legs crossed, completely silent.

He/She, it for the sake of saving mental slash marks, was covered in a long black cloak. It’s face was obscured by the hood of the cloak, which dipped to cover the majority of facial features. The clothes of the person were an odd black shade that hinted of grey. The edges of its’ cloak fluttered even though the room had almost no air current. Everyone seemed to purposefully ignore it. There was another person like it, a smaller person in a grey cloak, who was locking the door of the red room. Joey guessed that It Junior was the one who had dragged her in.

Just as she thought this, little It walked over to its bigger counter part and bent to whisper in its’ ear. The one in black rose to its feet and walked over to a large curtain covering the majority of one wall. With out warning, it pulled on the long gold rope dangling from the ceiling, and the expanse of shining red cloth crumpled to the ground. It so happened that the curtain had covered a huge ceiling-floor opening in the wall that gave every one of the room’s occupants an unhindered view of the courtyard.

The courtyard was ablaze with light that seemed to come straight from the sky. If Joey hadn’t known it was the basement, she would have sworn that there was no ceiling. Many figures in black pressed tightly together, surrounding something that she couldn’t see. As they weaved around it in an intricate pattern, she could see a carved stone table of some kind as well as a stretcher with what looked like an unmoving person upon it. The girl gulped silently. She had probably walked right into a satanic cult ritual. Smooth, right? Joey turned to see the gothic girl on her knee’s with arms raised to the sky.

“I see them!” she cried, “The spirits!”

Cooper turned away. The girl was probably more insane than she was. Who in their right mind would look for the dead? The person in the black cloak turned to see the goth as well, but turned back to the courtyard scene almost immediately. Then the chanting began.

The words were oddly fluid like, but not forced sounding. Joey immediately knew she wasn’t hearing English. This was something different. The crowd’s voices soar and fell, as the bodies weaved in and out. Then Joey noticed something happening. From the cracks between the stones, the only shadows there were in the bright room, black tendrils began to emerge. The tendrils were wispy, but solid seeming. Joey knew what they were. They weren’t coming from shadows, it was shadow.

The girl began to get nervous, and began shifting from foot to foot. Her breath began to quicken in fear, and she could feel the hair on the back of her neck rising. She couldn’t feel her finger tips. Panic. And just as if to bring it all crashing down on her, suddenly she could see spirits of the dead. They floated through the walls, attracted by the chanting. They weren’t like the common spirits she had seen before, the ones that had frightened her but nothing more. These were higher level spirits, like the one she had seen the first time. The time when…

A little girl, huddled in the corner of the attic, a blanket wrapped around her face. She gathered her legs underneath her as shadows from underneath the cardboard boxes had begun to flicker towards her feet. She had been singing. Now she whimpered. And then she felt something emerge in front of her. A dead spirit, and it turned its ugly face to her and got closer. She felt it reach out and touch her soul. Utter revulsion. It was going to take her over. She was going to be dead, dead, dead…

Joey came out of the flashback and found that she was on the floor, curled up into a ball, screaming on the top of her lungs. She kept on screaming. She could feel them all around her. The girl saw a face push into her view, hood pulled away. It was pale except for warm brown eyes that seemed to smile.

“I can help you. Breath.”

“Help me, please!”

“You see them don’t you? Just promise me you’ll take part…”

“Yes, yes, anything!”

[Prelude]

The face pulled out of view and for a moment everything flashed grey. Suddenly Joey felt the spirits slip away. Chest exploding with breath, she gasped for air. The girl had no time to relax, the hooded one was pulling her into the courtyard. At first, she just stumbled along. Then she remembered where she was and began to resist. Cooper stopped walking and tried to make a move back to the staircase. Up and out, she thought to herself. She could almost hear her captor’s ‘Oh no you won’t’. And in a heartbeat all of the cloaked figured were surrounding her and pushing her into the center of the courtyard.

“Stop it!” she yelped, “I don’t want to be any part of your sick rituals and-“

“You promised,” the kind face seemed to happy to key her in

Hands covered her mouth. Joey tried to bite them, but eventually sheer numbers immobilized her. Eyes searching frantically, she looked towards the body on the stretcher, hoping it would key her in on her fate. Swiftly a white sheet was pulled over the body and the stretcher melted into the crowd, taken out of view and leaving the altar completely clear.

Hands pressed her body down onto the altar, and she felt a wet liquid being poured onto her forehead. She closed her eyes as it dripped across her brows, not wanting the sting of fluid in her eyes. The liquid smelled like some kind of fragrant oil, sweet but not completely so. The flower smell cleverly masked a more tangy one that she really did not want to know about.

The chanting swelled in volume, and the words changed and began to seem more musical. In the distance, the haunting music from before began to play. The one that had lead her down there in the first place. She felt fingers grope around the back of her neck until they reached somewhere near the base of her skull. For a moment there was pressure and then it all went black.

[Prelude]

Joey’s mind surfaced before her eyes opened. She was a little dizzy, so she kept still. Then she remembered what had happened. Yet, it seemed as though she couldn’t move a muscle. Voices swam around her in a tongue that seemed completely foreign, but she could still understand it. Fingers poked at her hair, and touched her clothes. She felt some sort of hard mattress at her back, and the smell wasn’t all that great. Very slowly she began to think clearly and process the voices around her.

“She is like the other one, no? Except her hair is stranger.”

A finger brushed her t-shirt.

“What odd fabric. AFI? Do you think that is her God?”

“It could be where she comes from.”

“Do you know people that wear their homeland on their clothing?”

“No…”

“Then stop talking. It’s probably her name. We can always ask when she wakes up, assuming that she does.”

Ever so eventually, Cooper began to feel strength returning to her body. She groaned, and tried to sit up. The voices keyed her in on the fact that she was no longer in some cult basement, so she willingly accepted the help. Strong hands, handed what felt like a wooden cup. The girl drank the water greedily even though its taste was a bit sour. When she could, she opened her eyes slowly, and was amazed at what she saw.

The room around her was made of wood completely. Everything within it seemed ancient. Peeking down, she realized she was on a straw mattress. The mattress was the only piece of furniture in the room besides a chamber pot, and a basin filled with water. There was something that may or may not have counted as a chair, somewhere in a dark corner. There was a woman in front of her with an aged face, and grey-blond hair that was wrapped into a bun. Her garb was a tattered red dress with a grey shawl. The man next to her was wearing a roughed up leather vest over a white shirt, and breeches. His hair was grey, long, thin, missing at the top of his head, and surrounded a thin wrinkly face. His eyes gave away that he looked older than he was, most likely from hard times. A rat scuttled across the floor and awoke her from her musings. This was very, bad.

“Where am I?” asked Cooper carefully

The girl cupped her hands over her mouth in shock. What she had just said wasn’t in English. Looking down, the girl realized that the hands weren’t hers’ either. Flinging her arms away from her, she looked down at the hands. The fingers were longer, and the skin more smooth than she remembered. Joey gasped, ran her fingers through her hair. She felt their tips bump something. Her ears. Her ears which were way longer than they should have been. They weren’t supposed to be pointed either.

“Oh my gosh,” shrieked Joey

She stumbled out of the bed, tripping over the sheets. The man darted forward to catch her, but she pulled away from his grasp. That only landed with her on the floor, quite unable to adjust to her new body. Cooper just sat there, her eyes wide, not able to comprehend what was happening. The woman pushed the man out of the room and began to give him instructions rapidly, too fast for her to pick understand. He protested for a moment, but than left.

“Is your name AFI?” the woman asked

Joey shook her head, and felt tears beginning to fill her eyes. Everything that had happened lately was just too much. She didn’t even know where to begin trying to understand it all.

“Come here,” the woman said, and pulled the girl into a motherly embrace.

Gently, she maneuvered her charge towards the basin. Cooper grasped the edges of the basin and looked down at herself. Her reflection in the water still looked kind of like her and for that she was grateful. Everything was the same for the most part, but just a small bit different. Slightly pointed ears, longer limbs, a slimmer build, a hint of a new angles to her face. So it was her, just ellfy? Her brother was going to love this. Joey noticed how her eyeliner had smudged down her cheeks, and a bruise on the side of her jaw. She giggled for a moment. So not Tolkein. Weren’t elves supposed to be graceful beauties or something?

“That’s right, honey. Wash up and I’ll come back in a moment with some food. Then I’ll get Smith to explain it all.”

Joey waited until the woman had left the room before lifting a handful of water to her face. What was her mother going to think? A depressing thought: she might never see her mother again.

[Prelude]

Joey shook the thought from her mind, and scrubbed the ruined make up from her face. Somehow the normal action was calming. By the time she was done, the woman had arrived back in the room with a bowl of soup. The woman motioned for Cooper to sit down, and handed her the bowl once she did so.

“Eat up. My name is Maura. What is yours?”

“Joey,” the girl managed to get out between ravenous slurps of the soup, which actually wasn’t as bad as it looked.

“So what is this AFI from your shirt?” Maura’s voice was curious

“A band,” Joey took her time before answering, she was so hungry.

Apparently her explanation didn’t translate, because Maura shook gave her a confused look. She opened her mouth to try and explain again, but the woman just patted her on the back.

“Just eat. You look hungry. I’ll go get Smith.”

Joey nodded, and continued to sip the soup. It had an odd taste. She was almost sure that it was meat, but not quite. There was an odd texture to it that made her think it might have been fish. The concoction had a sour taste that she couldn’t place. The girl guessed it was native to the area because she had never really tasted anything like it. When she was done, she took a look at the side of the bowl. Cooper had felt the carvings, but wanted to take a peek. The sides were carved with little fish jumping in and out of the water. Cooper traced the line of the waves with a finger. A cough startled her from her musings.

Smithy stood in the door way, slowly he came into the room and dragged the chair to a position across from her. Then, he sat down. In his hands was a bound leather book. Joey could tell from the cover that it was old, but of high quality. The material was probably water proof. Joey could tell from the way that random golden sparkles reflected onto the walls and ceiling that there was most likely a form of gold engraving on the cover. However the man kept it from her view, face down in his lap.

“Joey, isn’t it?”

The girl nodded carefully.

“You look much better now. I imagine you were quite hungry and now you’re washed up and… Well you probably just want me to answer your questions.”

“Yes please, sir?”

“No, Smithy is fine sweetheart.”

The man smiled at her fondly for a moment, creeping her out.

“I didn’t know if they would find a replacement in my life time. It was such a sudden death after all. You would be the second in my lifetime. Gods above you look just like him, staring at me with such confusion. Ignore my babbling I’ll just start explaining-“

Second what? She wanted to ask, but Smithy continued speaking and didn’t give her an opportunity to ask.

“You have most likely guessed you are no longer in your home world, yes? Well the light ones have sent you. See, the light ones live in your home world. They keep contact with each world by linking it with a representative. Humans that can become such representatives are few and far in between. Mainly because they aren’t completely normal but you probably know that too. Strange things happened to you child. These things alerted the light ones of your presence. They chose you to be the link to this world. You should be proud.”

Joey’s head began to swim. Representative of the cult? Hell no. Why were they called ‘the light ones’ if they wore all black? Why did they even want links to other worlds? What was the point of it all? Was she going to be forced into some sort of boring diplomatic duty? More importantly she wanted to know what had happened to the other one.

“You’re probably very confused right now. I’ll just leave you with the book then. See, before the deceased one passed, he knew he was going to die. He spent weeks scrying for the future trying to find you and learn about you. He wanted to guide you. So he put this together,” Smithy tapped the book, “It’s powered by the light ones’ magic. Its highly powerful and interactive. He was a powerful man if I ever saw one. I would recommend reading it, highly. I’ll just leave it with you…”

The man placed the book in Joey’s lap and limped off, whistling happily. The girl looked down at the book in her lap. It was a lot lighter than it looked. She ran her fingers over its old looking cover, daring herself to open it. Although she wouldn’t admit it, she was afraid of what she might find in there. Cautiously she flipped the book face up. There was one line of small golden engraved runes on the cover. She couldn’t read them. With painstaking slowness she opened the cover to see what was in side.

“What the f***?” she murmured to herself.

[Prelude]

Hello, Joey

The words appeared at the center of the page in wispy grey text that looked like it might blow off the page.

“No way”, said Joey in disbelief, “Come out Kutcher I’m being punk’d.”

Still, she turned to the next page.

Yes way, Joey. And I happen to know you don’t even like that show.

“You stalker!” the girl muttered to herself and turned the page.

No, I’m no stalker Joey. I’m just a piece of a link’s soul bound into the pages of a book spelled to guide you. I know you want to believe. I know you want to see magic, to know for sure that it’s all real. Turn the page, if you want to believe and learn what I have to teach you. If you want all of this to go away, slit your wrists and you’ll wake up at home, unable to return to this world.

Joey stared at the page for a long time. She wanted to believe so badly it ached, but she didn’t want to fall for some stupid trick. More than anything didn’t want to be let down, disappointed again. It couldn’t be another dead end. With trembling hands, she turned the page.

I knew you would do it! You won’t be disappointed. There are things you can learn that you’ve never dreamed of, places no fantasy book author could imagine to visit, adventures to have that no human on earth could have. Lets start small and make our way up there. I imagine you have some questions…

Hell yeah, she thought to herself and turned the page. Her heart was pumping and a smile growing on her face. Suddenly everything that had happened to her in the past evening(s) paled in comparison.

You’re have to going to be more specific than that, Joey.

It read my mind! She thought to herself. That was handy. Okay then. Can you tell me about the book’s creator? The girl turned the page.

You might as well refer to me as the creator. After all, the creator embedded a piece of his soul within this book. Therefore, I am a piece of him.

My name is Constantine.

I grew up seeing strange things. I kept them to myself for fear that someone would lock me up. I know that you have not been as fortunate as I in the freedom department.

After a time of hiding under a mask of normality I began to believe that I was insane. I did some research and found a place that seemed as pleasant as it could get for an institution. At 17, with my life before me, I decided to turn myself in.

As I walked out the door to mail my query to the institution, a flyer brushed by my feet. If you’re reading this you have probably already figured out what happened next.

I was offered a position at within the body of the light ones as a link. After a lengthy career, I passed away in an accident.

Oh…Joey thought, I’m sorry. Am I a link? What does that mean? Who are the light ones? She turned the page.

I think I’ll answer them in reverse order for the sake of more easily understanding the concept.

The light ones are an organization of sorts, one of many secrets that not many people uncover. All members have some innate abilities for the supernatural. Some are different that others, but the basic concept is the same. We’re different, Joey.

The light ones found a way to walk into other worlds. However the realized that each world only has room for one of their kind. Also, if another person tried to join them it would be unbelievably challenging for anyone to walk into the world again for some time. It was almost like a light one bonded with one world. When the person dies, the light ones learned they must find a replacement or otherwise the world will become hard to find once more. So to say this simply for the lay person, finders keepers. No one else gets to come, and once the world is lost it is difficult to recover.

The light ones realized that they wanted to have contact with every world possible. In order to maintain such contact they assigned one person to each world discovered to act as a link from that world to the light ones. Hence the term “link”.

Humans with the supernatural abilities are hard to find. Most of them are deemed insane for the things they claimed they can do or see, and are locked away. Joey the light ones found you and you have become a link to Althanas.

I wish I could say congratulations, but it is no easy path. You must gain control over your skills and carry out the tasks assigned to you by the light ones.

The girl’s head swam. Who was what where and when but why? It was a lot of information to take in at one time. She reread the page over a couple of times until she thought she had it down. The only part that bothered her was the “gain control over your skills” part. Constantine made it sound like she had a gift or something. If gaining control over her skills meant facing them, she wanted nothing to do with it.

A part of Joey’s mind informed her that if Constantine had been scrying for her, he must have known about her fear and would have designed some way to force her into service. Blackmail, perhaps, on a time release? Joey’s head snapped up when she heard a knock on the door frame.

Looking up, she saw Smithy standing.

“Constantine told me to bring you some where when you were done reading,” he held out a hand with an aged note in it, “and he told me to give you this…”

[Taskmienster]

This thread has been sitting for a full year. Since no response has been made to create activity I am going to be moving this. If you would like it to be reopened please feel free to PM myself or another admin and they will be able to move it for you back to Scara Brae.