Second Impressions

[wolfs_daughter]

Cian's note had caused Echo to shake off the vestiges of the weird mood she'd been in since the night she'd seen the meteor, and she put the stone he'd left for her where he'd directed her to. Just knowing it was there made her feel more secure.

She'd gotten up at her usual early hour, then had breakfast and did her exercises in the front yard. Sometimes she wondered if her nearest neighbors, the Snyders, ever saw her out there, and if so what they thought of it. Then again, if they thought she was weird, they'd never mentioned anything. That was strangely comforting.

After she did some tidying up, she picked up the keys to the van and locked the trailer up behind her. She wanted to go up the highway to Vegas and catch the Strip before it got crowded. If it was ugly without all the neon, that would make her drawings better, more realistic. She was always looking for ways to expand on her talent, and urban landscapes were good for that in her opinion.

The roads were deserted because of the early hour, and when the hybrid reached the city she parked her vehicle in a metered spot. Dropping coins into the slot, she studied the street. Where was the best vantage point to start from?

Comments

[primordial_visitation]

There was an honest to goodness growl from Sabra, low in the throat. Not overly aggressive and only just audible, like a vampire's, but it was there. Albeit, momentary. The woman's facial expression, though, was remarkably stoic - right up until what looked like a snarl of disdain and sudden looking away, gesturing to the Vegas crowd.

"No... And that I must be, that I must learn their ways... It frustrates me. But you..." Sabra turned back. "You don't have to. And you have strength... Why lower yourself? Why live as they do?"

[wolfs_daughter]

"Because the other half of me isn't all there is."

She'd thought about it while she was growing up, especially when the teasing at school got really bad. Before she got out of the habit, shifting had been easy, and she could have changed into the Wolf and dealt with her tormentors for good and all if she'd wanted to. It would have been really easy.

But she didn't want to live like an animal. She'd been a half-breed since the day she was born, but that wasn't the same thing as being a monster. Papa had learned to live among humans long before he fell in love with Mama, and she'd learned by his example. Even when it sucked.

"Who were you? Before." She gestured at the new day's sun, then at the other woman. "You're not a vampire, because you'd be a pile of ashes by now if you were. How did you get here?"

[primordial_visitation]

"Half..."

Sabra looked at her with a renewed perspective now. Things made more sense, even if they were not to her liking. There was a logical foundation.

But the new question directed her way gave the elder brunette reason to pause. To think. To try and remember, even if she could not.

"Different," she supposed. "In the dark... Another realm. There was a... Lure. I was pulled through. This body... It became my home, but it isn't mine."

She was looking down at her hands when she said it. Forearms. Considering them. The mortal whose life experiences must have shaped them.

"The ones who did this... Who summoned... They did not expect me. They had the minds of children, to try what they did," she observed with distaste. "And now I am trapped."

A slow shake of head.

"I remember... Little of the time before. But I know I am different. That the dark things in this world are tainted in ways I am not... That I have a purity of blackness they do not. That this body houses me - it does not become me."

[wolfs_daughter]

Echo didn't know what 'purity of blackness' meant, but what the older woman was describing sounded like an experiment gone wrong. She shuffled her feet, watched a random sheet of newspaper blow past her. Her expression was troubled.

"I didn't know places like that were real," she said, gesturing with the hand not holding her bag. "Laboratories where they do...things...to people. That's part of why I'm so careful. I don't want to end up on a dissection table."

She looked down at the toes of her shoes, which were dusty. If she felt like an alien no matter how human she looked, how must the other woman feel? Especially if she'd been dragged from another plane of existence to occupy a form she considered lesser?

"Are they after you?"

[primordial_visitation]

"No. They won't be doing that."

The way Sabra looked at the girl as she said those words... There was something ominous about the way she phrased it. The self-assured confidence which which she felt safe enough to make that declaration. Either those responsible had been scared off or Sabra had ended their curiosity in a more permanent way.

"I appointed myself a guide. Slayer of the undead... She calls herself a Valerie. She advised me... Said I should learn more of these mortals' ways before making this place my kingdom. It was wise... But I am unsure what further lessons there are."

[wolfs_daughter]

Echo smiled, but the expression was a little grim. There were always lessons to be learned when your nature wouldn't allow you to fit in. If the other woman's dim memories were true, she came from an otherworldly combat zone. No wonder she was having such difficulty adjusting.

"I'm sorry that I hurt you before. You were in my space, and I thought you were going to bite me or something. When strangers get too close, it makes me get weird. Bit I shouldn't have done what I did."

The words were difficult for the hybrid to say. This woman was clearly Other, and she wasn't a known Other. For all Echo knew, she'd been a god of some sort, at least until some fool had yanked her through a keyhole in the universe. Some things were better left undisturbed.

[primordial_visitation]

"I hadn't decided," the primordial visitor openly declared in what could almost have been a purr of contemplation. "Things are different here... Confusing. Light, like... Hissing feathers. The heaviness is gone."

Had she been of a more scientific mind, there would have been an allusion to a lower frequency of atomic vibrations. The eighties brought with them increased use of microchips and other technologies in medical hardware and near-death experiences were being more commonly reported to researchers. Not all of them, however, were positive. Those which spoke of darker places infested with horrifying entities, often also gave testimony to a much heavier atmospheric pressure and of loneliness being a horridly tangible sensation - save for the things which could be sensed stirring in the darkness or screams of sheer agony from... Other places.

For those who had truly visited hell, it was a genuinely terrifying place and those lost souls who found themselves there were to be pitied.

And this was a denizen of it. A creature used to thriving in a climate of the damned, than the streets of Vegas.

What kind of mentality could be homesick for a place like that?

"But the undead and others of your world are nutritious enough."