-iron tooth-
Bright Spear stares. "But she's -- " -- the penny drops. The Guardian is young, and she's a trifle irreverent and foolish at times, but she's not actually a fool. She's quite smart, actually. "You think she's not," she says, sounding amazed and shocked and delighted at once. "Oh my god."
And, moments later:
"Oh my GOD. It's actually pulling. What. What! Oh my god, my mind is blown. Why wouldn't Iron Tooth have thought of this? He's an Adren Theurge!"
Reverence of Dawn
Avery's eyebrows lift slightly right as Bright Spear's penny is dropping. She flicks her eyes with a small nod towards the bracelet and the necklace. Of course, she thinks to herself, she would end up using jewelry in a sacred rite. God, how comical. The amusement passes, though, as she is infected with the guardian's shock and amazement and delight. Avery cannot help but smile as she pulls the car back, turns, and as the young girl erupts into shock that the 'stone' is pulling, Avery exhales.
She glances at it, and takes off in that direction. She is moving quickly; she has no idea what pacts stand between who. She has no guarantee that they are currently the only ones looking for Midsummer's Shadow.
"Think for a moment on what it would mean for him if she is discovered alive, particularly in light of what Midsummer's alpha said about Iron Tooth's character. He likes to win."
Bright Spear will figure it out. She's certain.
-iron tooth-
"It'd mean someone stole his 'property' out from under his nose," Bright Spear says slowly. "It'd mean he probably couldn't flay someone alive for offending him, since it's not like they killed her. And it'd mean he's still stuck with a mate who he obviously thinks is -- god, what was the word he used? Inferior." Bright Spear shudders. "If I ever turn into him and start talking about other people like that, just shoot me, okay?"
Reverence of Dawn
"More than that, Bright Spear," she says quietly. "It would shame him. Embarrass him. And he may very well flay alive anyone who uncovered such a thing, if he lost his head over it. Including me. Including you."
Avery glances over at her. "My question is not why he hasn't thought of this, but why he gave me the bracelet so easily."
At that, quite suddenly, Avery brakes. She is in the middle of the road, staring ahead. "He's an Adren Theurge, and I do not know if we are being followed somehow." She frowns, eyes shut tight, then opens them and pulls the car over to the shoulder. "We are crossing over before we go any further," she explains. "I would see a stormcrow if one is trailing after me."
-iron tooth-
Bright Spear lets out a squeak of surprise as Avery slams on the brakes, one hand flying out to brace against the dash. Her eyes are wide, mouth slightly ajar, as the Philodox explains her suspicions. Then Bright Spear nods, quickly, three times in a row. And --
they cross.
--
They are still near enough to the Caern that the crossing is easy. Few pattern-spiders range out here, so close to the primordial and unfathomable influence of Earth. A slender moon hangs over the darkened landscape on the other side, where Avery's Juke isn't even a shadow of itself.
The pendant-turned-questing stone appears, though. And -- though no stormcrow follows them -- the bracelet makes it across as well.
"It must have some spiritual resonance," Bright Spear says, "or it wouldn't be here. Right?"
Reverence of Dawn
Avery frowns as she scans the sky, the trees, even the rocks, looking for a beady little pair of eyes. She frowns only more deeply as she turns back to Bright Spear, holding that necklace and bracelet.
"The necklace is dedicated to me," she murmurs. "It's possible that since both are being used in the rite they are carried over for that reason." She isn't sure. She doesn't know. She's not a Theurge, but:
Iron Tooth is. Avery swallows. "The bracelet may very well be enchanted with some sort of trace. So," she says, lifting her eyes from the gold-plated item to Bright Spear's gaze, "we can only let it take us so far. I will have to trust you. As the pull grows stronger, when we feel ourself growing nearer, we must forego the rite and search for Ilyana... the old-fashioned way. I will not take the risk of leading Iron Tooth directly to her."
-iron tooth-
"Okay," Bright Spear says, eyes still a bit wide. "Sure. Yeah. That'd be bad. Do you want to go back across and drive? I think we're still pretty far."
Reverence of Dawn
Avery nods. "Yes. We'll go as far as we can," she says, and they
slip back across the gauntlet. She eyes the bracelet now with suspicion, but shakes her head, turning the ignition. They go on driving.
-missing persons-
And so they drive. They drive a long way, even for Avery who regularly commutes between Forgotten Questions and Denver proper; who occasionally drives all the way to almost-Wyoming to roll around in the hay with her cowboy. They drive for hours and hours, switching roads and negotiating with the navigation in the Juke in order to follow the Questing Stone's pull.
Eventually they find themselves in the south of the state, off the main interstates and highways, westbound on a two-lane country road in the shadow of the southern Rockies. Nothing but flatlands and desert scrub out here; an unforgiving blue sky that sucks all moisture and heat from the earth. Winter is weeks away yet, but already nighttime temperatures are dipping below freezing.
--
"Rhya?" Bright Spear palms the questing stone and looks over at Avery. "I think we're getting really close."
There's a tiny town ahead. A humble huddle of low-to-the-ground buildings, some with Spanish-tinged flat roofs, other with the sloping snow-shedding lines of mountain architecture. A gas station, a general store, a single motel, and a freight railroad running alongside the main street; a few hardscrabble farming plots beyond the town itself. That's all there is to Fort Garland, Colorado.
Reverence of Dawn
It's a longer drive than she even expected. Avery pulls them over a few times: a bathroom break, the drive-through of some place that will give them more nourishment (if you can call it that) than some granola bars or jerky. She calls her steward briefly on the way over the car's stereo, the bluetooth, telling her that she should not be expected home for some time, and to pass the message along to her brother and father.
She lets Bright Spear fiddle with the radio, another thing she's sure the girl doesn't get access to very often, if at all. Music. Modern, current, popular music, and Avery is tolerant of most genres as long as the volume is reasonable. They fill up at a gas station and Avery buys Bright Spear a Rice Krispie Treat in its shining blue foil wrapper, buys herself a pair of sunglasses on a whim even though the sun has been down for a long time now. She also buys a hoodie, which is a big too large, for the guardian. It has some of those screen-prints of wolves on it that are so kitschy and yet so oddly repopularized. In fact, she almost starts to buy more snacks, and a puzzle book, and a Colorado magnet, until Bright Spear is saying
uh, Rhya?
and reminding her of the work they are doing. She sets the rest back down. They get back in the car.
--
She is yawning when Bright Spear says they're getting close, and Avery debates internally whether or not to leave the car here with the bracelet inside, toss the bracelet from the window, or go ahead and drive into town. She decides that even if Iron Tooth is right behind them, that town is the nearest and only thing to serve as a landmark. He'll go there anyway. She drives into Fort Garland, finds a reasonable parking spot near the edge, and then gets out of the car.
She's wearing a coat now, a bright blue peacoat pulled from the back. Her hands slip into her pockets, and she thinks for a moment, then nods at Bright Spear. "Leave the bracelet in the car," she says quietly. "We'll figure it out from here." Looking around, she looks for anything that might still be open this late, anyone who might be walking around, and feels very small for a moment in a very enormous world, and finds that she is not actually that uncomfortable with that thought.
-missing persons-
The world is enormous, that is true. With the sliver moon already set, only the stars give light to the barren landscape. To the west and the north, the mountains etch against the sky. In all other directions, though, the desert stretches away to the horizon and beyond. Overhead, the stars are impossibly bright, innumerably many. Bright Spear is craning her neck, tipping her head back, looking for constellations.
The wind is cold. Were they not Garou, did their blood not burn so hot, they would be knifed to the bone with every blast that rakes over the flatlands. They are Garou, though, and the strength and fire of purpose drives them. The world is enormous, but Fort Garland, at least, is not.
--
The grocery store is closed. The museum is closed, and the car wash, and the hair salon, and the hardware store. The collectibles & antique shops are closed. The liquor store is open, though. One of the gas stations is open. And the motel is open.
Reverence of Dawn
Standing next to a teenager who is just looking at the stars makes Avery feel a strange pang of hopefulness and optimism, but she's not sure why it aches so. She looks across the town, at the buildings beyond the main strip, and sees the glow of a VACANCY sign. She looks aside and down at Bright Spear, then nods her head that way, and begins walking.
In the lobby, she approaches the night clerk with a smile. "Good evening," she says quietly, even gently, slipping her hands from her pockets. "This is going to sound a little odd, but I'm looking for a runaway."
[Persuasion: Charisma (Charming) + Subterfuge]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1
-missing persons-
The motel, like most other buildings in this town, is a single story. Wood-sided and gravel-lotted, it's rather unimaginatively named The Lodge Motel, and has at best two dozen rooms -- likely less. Nonetheless, the tiny lobby, while aged and cramped, is clean. A family portrait hangs on one wall, FAMILY OWNED AND OPERATED printed proudly beneath the smiling faces. Antler racks and hunting paraphernalia make up the rest of the decor.
The night clerk is a young man bearing a distinct resemblance to some of the faces in that photo. Dozing behind the counter, he jerks upright as the door opens. Gawps, quite frankly, when he sees his unlikely customers.
"Hi," he says. And blinks for a few seconds. "Um, okay. What's his name?"
Reverence of Dawn
"Her name," Avery corrects gently, "is Ilyana."
There's a tense pause, one whose tension she allows to heighten.
"She may be with someone. A man."
-missing persons-
The clerk's brow furrows. "You know," he reaches behind him, grabs a fraying old binder off the shelf and starts leafing through it, "I'm pretty sure I know who you're talking about. Pretty girl, Russian accent? Most guests we get are hunting parties and sometimes families on their way to the national parks. Someone like her tends to stand out.
"Who's she running from? Oh man, is this like a Russian mob thing?" He finds the page he's looking for, consults it, then looks up at Avery. "She's in room 8. She didn't check in with anyone else, though. It was just her."
Reverence of Dawn
She follows him with her eyes as he grabs the binder, then nods. Pretty girl, Russian accent. "That would be her, yes," Avery says with a sigh. She shakes her head. "No, it's nothing to do with criminal activity. Nothing that dramatic."
More dramatic than that, maybe. Definitely. But Avery doesn't tell him I'm afraid her mate is going to hunt her down and kill her. Or worse, take her home and keep her mated to him.
"Thank you so much, sir," Avery tells him, relief coloring her words and her features. "We'll go up ourselves. I'll try not to cause any trouble or noise that might wake your other guests. I only want to talk to her." With an incline of her head, she heads out of the lobby and towards Room 8. She doesn't ask for a key. She won't need one, and
she doesn't intend to force her way in.
-missing persons-
"Okay, well. Glad I could help!"
-- and he is. He is intensely glad he could help, that he met her at all, that she's come to find this poor Russian girl who's a runaway of some sort. He doesn't even question it until Avery's out the door, until she's long gone, until he suddenly thinks to himself:
oh man, did I just violate guest privacy or something?
and discovers he doesn't really care if he did.
--
It is not late by city standards. Nine, ten pm. Most of the rooms are dark, however, either unoccupied or sleeping. The motel's plan is exceedingly simple -- a double row of rooms back-to-back, numbered counterclockwise. Room 8 is all the way at the far end of the motel, second to last. The curtains are closed. The lights are off, but:
Avery can hear a television set quietly playing inside. See the flicker of its glow through the crack in the shades. Smell the faintest tracery of pure Shadow Lord blood within.
Reverence of Dawn
There's not reason at all he should worry about Ilyana. Not with this woman. She's so earnest. So trustworthy. Even if the thought comes to him, there should be no doubt in his mind that this woman has everyone's best interests at heart, even his own. He can trust her. He can believe in her.
And the truth is, gift or no gift: he really can.
--
She can sense Ilyana before she even gets to the door, and it hurts her. She is simultaneously glad she's right and regretting it; this makes things much more difficult, but the kinswoman has not been slaughtered by one of her tribe. So Avery breathes in deep, lifts her hand, and knocks.
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