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mchalowitz · 4 years

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the woman is the king, part two

summary: a throughline of the matriarchal scullys; be they ethereal, sharp-witted, and ill-omened.

thank you to everyone who enjoyed the first part of this story! writing again has been so great and i’m excited for everyone to read where it goes from here!

part 1: melissa

part 2: dana

———

The exam room is harshly lit, brutally overclean. When the doctor gives the diagnosis, it knocks the breath out of her, and she has the audacity to declare her gratitude. How could she.

The fragility of her age comes to mind on the drive home; her eyes prickle watching her copy of her oncology referral slide across the dashboard.

Dana is only thirty-three. Melissa was only thirty-three. She ponders her mother, Maggie, at thirty-three. Her destiny already decided; along for the military ride. She was carrying the fifth Scully child that year. Their matrarical line is cursed by the thirty-third year.

She simmers with the news for a few days; plotting methods of delivering impending doom. Mulder, the usual harbinger of bad news, is the one she tells first, and she believes using a clinician’s touch might soothe her.

The pronoun that binds them, the “we” travels from his vocal cords to their air between them. When he pauses, she can fill in the blanks of how he wants the sentence to end. We can do something about this or we can fix this. The problem is, there isn’t anything to be done.

Inside her head is a glass and cancer is the water from a faucet turned all the way on. They are merely waiting for the overflow.

Tara is pregnant; she is having a boy. Her brother’s wife is thirty-three. It must be so nice, to be dubbed a Scully, and yet remain so blessed at this foredoomed age.

An appointment to be pumped with poison and Tara’s baby shower fall in the same week. What a scheduling nightmare, she jokes, when she declines the invitation with warm regards. Bill does not laugh and he buys their mother a plane ticket.

The total lack of skeletal structure takes her over, has her melted into the couch. Scully finds the initial nausea passes quickly this time. It is the wave of self-consciousness from Mulder bearing witness to this betrayal of her body that lingers.

“It must be kind of exciting,” Mulder comments. She is watching him wipe down the counter and she doesn’t remember a single time she has seen him willingly clean anything. He is not half-assing any of the responsibilities bestowed upon him by the Mrs. Scully.

“It might be more exciting if it were someone else,” Scully responds, forgoing her usual diplomatic response on the subject.

Mulder pauses, focuses in on her eyes, and in unsaid words, he nods in agreement. He throws the wet rag into the sink with a stomach-churning squelch and falls beside her on the couch.

“You know,” she adds, “Melissa always said she wasn’t going to have kids until she was forty.”

Melissa would goad her into increasingly ridiculous futures; nothing is more ridiculous than futures that will never exist. Neither of them could have predicted such an outcome.

When they were young, one Scully sister was rarely found without the other. It was only the intricacies of adult life that would split them apart. Melissa yearned for adventure; to shed ideals and expectations from their youth in far off places. Their parents envisioned a certain fate for their children, and Dana followed it, until she didn’t.

As she conjures up those conversations about where their lives would go, she realizes she cannot even remember her voice. It rolls over her like a wave, the awareness of fading memories, and it cracks her guise held barely together.

Her glassy eyes brim and she finally crumbles, feeling wholly pathetic. She lacks her usual resiliency that he is accustomed to seeing from her as she weeps, “My sister is gone and I have cancer, Mulder.”

“I know,” he says.

“I’ll miss everything,” she whimpers. The weight of mortality hits her; the decades worth of wasted holidays and the lost memory of her nephew’s birth. Scully will never stand in resolution with her partner after their tireless work for the truth. The loss of an uncomplicated life feels enormous.

She laments what she was never sure of even desiring; the two-story in the suburbs, the babies of her own, the one true love...

“Let’s get married.”

His offer hangs in the air. Scully cries a bout of nausea and bolts for the bathroom. When she emerges, Mulder is there to tuck her into bed.

The sun sets and it rises again on a new day. She comes out of the bedroom apprehensively. Finding Mulder on one knee in her hallway isn’t an idea she can rule out completely. It wouldn’t even come close to the craziest thing she has seen him do.

Sitting at the kitchen table, Mulder rubs circles into his forehead with his cell phone pressed to his ear. She gets close enough to vaguely hear the caller on the other end, listen to the outrage behind, “I couldn’t even put the kettle on without her standing right behind me. In my own home, Fox,” and making it seem as though this is the only issue in the world that matters. And Scully kind of wishes that was true.

“That’s her job, Mom,” he replies. The tone of his voice almost makes her laugh. A polite but clear get me out of here she knows well that comes out during conversations with authority figures, midwestern cops, and not unsurprisingly, mothers.

Their eyes meet, he looks at her as though she is his unsurpassable savior. He begs off the phone, making the usual adult child promises, and sets his cell phone down on the table.

Scully commends Mulder for trying to be more involved with his family since his mother’s stroke. But what a fate he has, caring for the medically and emotionally broken women in his life. He gives her a tight lipped smile and she asks, “Is everything alright?”

“Jury’s still out,” he declares with a shrug. He stands and starts walking toward the kitchen. “Can I get you anything? Water, toast, a ring?”

A certainly interesting turn of events for them, a question that could develop into an actual conversation about the night before.

“Mulder.”

“We could get married, Scully.”

“This is so like you, Mulder. This is your stream of consciousness decision making,” she counters. Scully flattens her hands on the table, takes a breath, and attempts to change her tone to sound a little more kind. “I know the idea that I’m dying is bleak. But there are implications to getting married. I couldn’t do that to you.”

Scanning Mulder’s eyes, Scully can see he understands what she means by implications. “Don’t think about that,” he tells her finally, “If you really believe this is the end, what do you still want to experience?”

Scully’s eyes flash away, toward the door. Four years ago, she stood in that spot, and assured her sister unequivocally of her absolute disinterest in dating her new partner. Even if he were just a guy.

Selfishness has often forced a wedge between them; a precursor to many experiences they would have as partners. His brilliance and humanity drew her in then, not unlike the way it does now. When the question was posed--just any guy--their debates were thrilling, a little flirtatious even, and now they can absolutely infuriate her, but she respects his ideals, and she knows that sentiment is reciprocated.

On occasion, Scully is even a little selfish, and allows herself to appreciate just a guy with a little flop of hair that falls onto his forehead, and with the most charming smile.

Whether it be guilt or admiration, Mulder wants her to experience everything before it gets taken away. She can admire the altruism.

Mulder doesn’t ask again, he only suggests. And she accepts.

The commencement of their marriage is without fanfare in a government building on a Friday afternoon with grocery store flowers and a safe kiss on the cheek to clinch the deal. There are no rings but he holds her left hand as they bound down the courthouse steps. During their late lunch at a local diner, the waitress notices their attire, and offers them a free slice of pie, any flavor they want, because it is a special occasion.

A few paces ahead of her on the way to the car, Mulder opens her door. “Your getaway car, my bride,” he teases. The smile on her lips quickly fades. His jovial face morphs to confusion.

But it’s the drip. Blood splatters on the clean, clear plastic protecting their chocolate cream. She tries to maneuver for her purse but he quickly procures tissues from the inside pocket of his jacket.

He squats next to the passenger side of the car and holds tissues to the nose of his bride.

Something is weirdly, intangibly incorrect.

It starts with weekend plans. Mulder is already well aware of her singular escape, her monograph for the Penology Review, with its looming deadline coming up.

He normally makes comments about her unwavering professionalism. It is a mutual agreement to keep their marriage to themselves. The federal government has no investment in the inner workings of their lives; they are legally married and they both know that could easily mean reassignment for both of them. It doesn’t stop him from sneaking in a few witticisms for his own amusement.

Mulder knocks. That’s weird.

The wine is truly suspicious. Except for the occasional beer, Mulder was never much for alcohol to begin with, but what is especially bizarre is the sudden lack of concern over her doctor’s recommended meal plan. He had been following it down to the last letter, and while a glass of wine is not exactly forbidden, it is not the first item on their shopping list.

“We never really talk much, do we?”

Admittedly, the shared looks and delicate touches of silent communication is where they excel, but the question is still somewhat puzzling. Since beginning a routine of casual marital cohabitation, she believes they talk quite a bit. The minutiae of everyday life is often a topic of conversation in ways it never has been.

Scully still plays along by agreeing that, no, they don’t talk. She sips wine and tells him true-ish stories of Marcus, the prom date of a Scully, but not herself, and the infamous pumper truck scandal involving her brother Charlie.

Romantic intimacy has not exactly been a component of their marriage and she has found that cancer does not make one feel like the most desirable of specimens. He has never expressed anything to make her believe he feels anything for her beyond friendship, despite the deep affection they share.

He leans in now; his eyes closed and head cocked. Kissing him isn’t a repulsive idea, but it just seems off, because Mulder is acting so strangely out of character.

Scully scrambles off the couch to get away from the man that is so clearly not her partner. Absolutely horrified, she stares at Mulder, and has no reservations when he steps forward to cuff the pathetic and vile man that invades her living room.

Many lines have still not been crossed and she doesn’t think they ever will be. The cancer is still aggressively present with the treatments doing very little.

Scully prepares herself for the eventuality of hospitalization, potentially for good, and it is very tempting to keep that from Mulder, to allow them to remain in their bubble, but she knows that isn’t fair.

Her car idles on the street outside Harold Spuller’s care home and three soft raps sound on her driver’s side window. She sucks in air deeply and wipes the tears from her cheeks before rolling down the window.

“I didn’t mean for things to get so heated back there.”

“Me neither,” she agrees. When her eyes flash up to his, so guilty and fond, her words fall out in a tumble, unable to prolong this evasion of the truth any longer. “I don’t know why I lied to you. I’m not fine. My treatments aren’t working and my doctors don’t think another round will change that.”

“I’m in this with you, Scully.”

“I know you are,” she affirms. She ducks her head down toward the steering wheel, like a little girl caught eating dessert before dinner. “I’m tired, Mulder.”

“I’ll follow you.”

His headlights shine in her rearview mirror, trailing behind all the way back to where they began this night in Georgetown. Arriving in the apartment, she shuts the door behind them, and informs him, “I’m going to take a shower,” and he nods, reaching forward to squeeze her shoulder. He loosens his tie and starts meandering toward the bedroom.

The phantom ghost of his touch remains on her shoulder and it reminds her of his romantic soul that she is only now been introduced to. Mulder is more emotionally open and affection than she is. He treats her like a wife. They are married, after all.

Their marital bliss is of their own design; enjoyably innocent with its lack of certain intimate elements left largely undiscussed. However, there is delight to be found in mere shared company. With a no-work policy now enacted in her home, the opportunity to see funnier, more relaxed, and domestic sides of each other often makes it feel as though their marriage could be real.

An unspoken agreement to live this arrangement without rules creates something representative of authentic matrimony. Ignoring the initial awkwardness when sharing a bed leads to the normalization of pressing into his warm side each night; falling asleep faster and deeper. Leisurely playing with his hair while reading on the couch one evening introduced a few form of relaxation they both enjoy. He even calls her “honey” occasionally, and she must admit, it makes her feel pleasantly warm to hear it.

It wasn’t right to keep him out of the loop.

Sitting on the tile shower floor, Scully washes the last six hours from her skin. In an attempt to prove to herself, to everyone, that she can still do this, she pushes herself too far. The best decision for the case was to take down the nurse. For her fragile body, not as much.

A small box sits on top of her towel. She picks it up, weighing it gently in her palm.

Mulder already lies innocently under the covers and appears deeply enthralled in his nighttime reading. He looks very youthful and sweet in his wire-framed glasses and his large feet poking out at the end of the bed. She presents the box in question and inquires, “Mulder, what’s this?”

“Hmm?” he murmurs. He glances up briefly, taking off his glasses. “Oh. Wedding present.”

Eyebrows drawn together in confusion, she sits down on top of the comforter, and cautiously opens the box. Her eyes fall on a gorgeously dainty bracelet with a small diamond affixed to a silver chain.

“I don’t know what to say,” Scully finally admits. Mulder smiles, wordlessly leaning forward to close the distance between them. His kiss finally comes with soft lips and firm resolve.

A keen ear kept on the exchange occurring in the hallway, Scully hears the malice in “let her die with dignity,” the intense intent to guilt. Since childhood, Bill has been masterful at identifying a scapegoat.

Appearing at her bedside, Scully takes her brother’s hand. It has been quite some time since they were together in person and she is aware she should focus on the grand gesture of his presence. But they have always sparred on injustice and she just witnessed him as the purveyor.

“I don’t want you to talk to him like that,” she tells him.

It takes almost nothing to generate a quarrel between the two of them. “You keep defending him, Dana, and I don’t see what there is about him to protect,” Bill argues. “You wouldn’t even be in this situation if...”

“Fox has been very helpful,” Maggie interrupts. Their mother is well versed in deescalating the disputes of Dana and Bill; the oil and water of the Scully children. “Bill, sit down and be civil.”

Where Mulder pushes, Bill pulls, and Dana is left somewhere in the middle. Something akin to a jealous feud brews between the two men in her life; each vying for the role of ultimate fixer. It is only when Mulder orchestrates the impossible that her brother cannot deny the miracle.

Most conversations were plans for a comfortable end or perhaps a prolonged, managed experience. The concept of remission, a life without the dark cloud of cancer, was a possibility never even considered.

The day of her discharge finally arrives after a final weeklong observation of her progress, and Mulder, as a now regular fixture of the post-critical care ward, shows up to her room early as usual. He drops a bag on her empty hospital bed. “I brought you some clothes from your apartment,” Mulder informs her. “Unfortunately I couldn’t find anything as uniquely versatile as the hospital gown.”

“I appreciate the effort,” she smiles, ripping open the plastic bag.

Scully can feel an awkwardness emanating from him with three feet between them. She is taking stock of the items he provided when he finally speaks, “Listen, I can be out--”

With a week to discuss the topic, neither of them were brave enough to allow it. The last thing Scully wants Mulder to believe is she married him to take advantage of a kindness he extended to her. It was done with such a different outcome in mind; a selfless act with an outcome to be bathed in heartache.

Now, there is no plan on how to approach where things will go from here. Scully didn’t ever think she would be in a position to have to consider it.

At the very least, they deserve time to enjoy a lack of this particular impending doom.

“Should we get dinner tonight?”

If there is anything they deserve more of, it is time.

It is health.

It is stability.

#x files #xf fic #dana scully #fox mulder #msr

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sleepykitykat · 6 years

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Starting to share this story of our Exalted RPG Campaign

My name is Helena Pierce and all I ever wanted was to be free. I never asked for responsibility. I never wanted any of this but I guess there isn’t anything I can do about it now…

I was born to a wealthy family on the Upper East Side. All of my life I knew privilege and luxury. As I grew my life became nothing but a reflection of my mother’s wishes, prestigious schools and debutante balls in conservative WASP society. Ironically enough The Brearley School was everything a young closeted lesbian could hope for complete with the school girl uniforms. Unfortunately for me, none of the girls I dated there were interested in keeping up with it after the thrill of pissing off their rich daddies went away. Despite those very many distractions I managed to graduate high in my class and convince my father that because of the many rumors of my sexuality that permeated our insular upper crust world that I should be allowed to go to a non-ivy league school and stay in a normal dorm, heaven forbid. The day my acceptance letter to NYU arrived was the day I saw hope. For years I’d felt alone and lost but at least relatively out from my parent’s watchful eyes I might find some freedom, some release of myself. I write this now to indicate that that day was different from every other small ray of sunshine because it was at NYU that I found my first real friend. You hear a lot about high society in movies or on TV being fickle and filled with false friendships but I lived that for years. One day you would have steadfast friends and the next they would be gone, booted by the very people who once loved them. I know this because I principally did the booting. I think it was my mechanism for defense, creating pariahs of others. If people are talking about another scandal they cannot be bothered by something I did at a party or who I was seen with after cotillion. I digress, that letter from NYU was a gateway to my very first real friend.

Cheryl Rose-Cross, born first daughter in a family of five was the first of her family to go to college. Her father, Miguel Rose, was once part of a successful modern dance company that fell on hard times after a car wreck gutted the team. Miguel, like the mythic phoenix sprang from the ashes and now runs a successful dance studio in Brooklyn. His wife, the incomparable Sylvia Cross, is a feisty woman who works all day and night sweating her ass off in a little corner bodega café which outputs a staggering amount of delicious tamales. Working to afford an apartment in New York took all it could from their family time and as a result Cheryl raised her other sisters and little brother and held down a part time job all the way through high school to afford her art obsession. She is a saint. After graduating high school she applied to NYU partly to prove she could do it to doubters and partly in the hopes that she too could escape her role as den mother of her four younger siblings. Her dreams were crushed, however, the moment she met me. In that moment, she tells me to this day, she knew I would need her mother hen treatment far more than any of her siblings.

Truthfully it would have been better for Cheryl to never have met me but then I would have never been me and never been a danger to her so we shan’t know. You read in places where people say that things and people changed them and up to that moment I never believed them but Cheryl changed me. For years I had fought my baser nature, fought my feelings for other women, and used my own doubts to crush my dreams but with Cher by my side I felt I could conquer the world, money or not and with her urging I came out to my parents. It was a swift blow struck at them in anger across the Easter dinner table sophomore year in college. This is not to say that there hadn’t been rumors before hushed away for me or little glances and careful controlling of my associations up till then so they definitely should have known. This coming out was the ugly glaring truth staring them in the face across the table surrounded by aunts and uncles just as excited to see the ensuing drama as if it were the main event in a boxing arena. Amid the fighting and witty banter my Grandmother, the family patron, stood up for me. It was one of those moments that you swear never happen except in the movies where someone says the exact right thing at the exact right time and it shuts down all other conversation in the room. Even now, some three years after my grandmother’s death, some of my aunts giggle at my mother behind their concerned expressions as they talk about me, or so I hear. As a result of the, now too obvious and public to hide, scandal my parents were booted by their wealthy friends like so many before them and moved to upstate New York to live among the normal classes. I sometimes think of the life I could have had as an unhappily married WASP woman and laugh. There would be no room for rainbow hair and my retro punk studded leather slouch boots in that life and I would be miserable. Because of my Grandmother’s generosity I was able to stay on at NYU and pursue my dreams to become a researcher in medieval literature landing a job at the prestigious Cloisters and that’s where all the trouble begins.

It was a normal shift. I was piecing something in Latin together that was badly written in an illumination in the margin of some tome gifted to us from a museum in Italy. It was really a hopeless attempt to find something important because I had been doing drudge work for weeks when all of a sudden I heard a loud clatter in the stacks. It was never very dark there for security reasons but the shadows were foreboding enough for me to be cautious when I investigated. What I found was a giant beast hovering over the bodies of some security guards. Don’t ask me to describe it because I couldn’t except it made me run. I ran and ran holding desperately on to the book I had but the beast caught me just as I entered a small reading room. It slung me to and fro finally letting me fly into a wall. There crumpled on the floor I struggled to get up, dying, but I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live, survival was what I was good at mentally, physicality should not hinder that and that thing wasn't going to stop me from living my life. Then as I staggered to my feet dropping the book onto a table within reach a white light came upon me and something else. It felt like purpose but suddenly I was knocked out and remember nothing else until the hospital.

After that night I had changed again. I was not mortal, that I knew. I had always known that I was a bit cooler than everyone else being damn mysterious and gifted with impeccable taste and style but now I really was singular. I had been chosen for something amazing or horrible… or perhaps both. My powers were straightforward and almost intoxicating. I could transform into an owl or in turn a hybrid owl woman. The transformation was beautiful that first time though the novelty has somewhat lessened since. It was all I could do those first few nights to not stay out all night flying across the city but I knew I needed rest. Flying was all I ever wanted it to be. Insulated by the walls of an airplane flying as a human is nothing like the same thing. Also, I was noticing things I never had before. I felt the need to hunt and claim other forms. Rat was my first additional form and as an owl it was fairly easy to gain. About 4 nights after I first turned I became obsessed with watching this singular rat I saw scampering down an alley in Chinatown. It was as if my owl totem wished me to take another form so I followed it until I was able to swoop upon it and rip it apart. Eating it was more than pleasure. It was like a prayer for the uninitiated and in that prayer I became the rat. In human form I also noticed that my eyes had mutated. They were no longer the brilliant blue of the standard WASP but instead were golden and giant as a Barn Owl. Though no one seemed to notice, during the day I began to wear round sunglasses just in case someone should freak out. After the attack at the museum I had a hard time returning to my work. The authorities chalked it up to an escaped tiger or some shit thanks to my new friends. Oh, I didn’t mention those friends? Well that’s when things become a bit complicated. You see, I’m not the only one with powers…

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Helena's eyes adjusted to the muted lighting in the large briefing room. It had been a few months since her 'exaltation' had changed her life and she was still getting used to the idea that she was some sort of chosen of the gods but that's what this council organization was telling her. She adjusted her shades up her nose and surveyed the group around her. There were a few scientists, several soldiers dressed in fatigues bearing markedly not US patches on their uniforms, a singular young asian man who seemed to have stepped right out from an old kung-fu movie full white robe and everything, and sitting up in the front row was a man that looked remarkably like the movie star Donovan Hawke. Shaking her head at the idea that Donovan Hawk, star of films such as Knife Gentleman and other action films, might be here she checked her phone. Sighing in frustration there was no signal in the ominously secret underground base but the phone did seem to indicate that whoever had called this meeting was already seven minutes late and that would just not do. Clearing her throat she looked to the woman on her left who appeared to be a relatively attractive scientist pouring over her notes.

"Hello, I’m Helena Pierce, you wouldn't happen to know when the briefing should start do you?”

Looking up from her notes the woman seemed to jump a bit then, “Oh, um… It can’t be long now.”

And right on cue a large muscular man in fatigues entered followed by another female scientist and several other soldiers filled in the room. The briefing was just that, brief. It was simple, the team was to be deployed to a point several hundred miles south of Denver where a portion of the city had been displaced in order to minimize civilian casualties from an apparent outbreak of ‘aberrations’. No, hold on. They moved the rest of the city. Apparently that was easier? There was a tower with some sort of device used to disrupt this sort of activity but it had been attacked. Their mission was to capture the tower and put down any aberrations that appeared until the disrupter could be put back in place. Just as the meeting wrapped everyone began going out the door to the right so Helena stood up to follow.

“Hey, where are you going?” the woman at her elbow asked.

“I was just going to follow. I mean we’re supposed to right?”

She laughed behind her hand, “I mean you could if you don’t want any armor or weapons. Come on”. Gathering up her clipboard and several files she also looked over at the Donovan Hawke impersonator and the kung-fu extra. “You two too, you’ve got to suit up.”

True to her word the woman led them in the opposite direction of where the soldiers were going and into a small room filled with yet more scientists all carrying clipboards. On the tables and racks around the room were various weapons both modern and ancient in design with different properties. Helena found herself drawn to the rack of spears. During her weeks of training before calling her into action she found that the exalted soul she now shared with generations of other chosen of Luna favored polearms, spears and javelins to be exact. One particular moonsilver spear a head taller than her own six foot two frame caught her eye and she did a few small moves with it to adjust the balance to her liking. The moonsilver in her hands adjusted its heft to her will as she knew it would and she smiled to herself. Across the room she saw the muscular man put on a heavy golden metal breastplate. Looking at his face she was almost sure it must be Donovan Hawk but.. no it couldn’t be. Her own breastplate was easily strapped onto her petite chest and because of the fluid nature of moonsilver it fit like a glove despite her willowy build. To her pleasure the metal even formed a decorative pattern of wings and filigree. She waved off the matching pauldrons when they were offered to her. She needed to be extremely fluid in her movements and though the moonsilver would give to her will she felt it would be too much. Now ready, she found that the others had started out and down the hall. Jogging to catch up Helena found that the hallway opened up to a large airplane hanger. Catching up to the group Helena climbed into the vaguely stealth fighter shaped transport sure to duck her head and will her spear to be a little shorter in the small space. She took a seat across from the other two who seemed to be looking for a place to strap in.

“Well, Hello there, I’m Donovan Hawke,” The larger man said extending his hand across the aircraft. “You might have heard of me. I’m kind of a celebrity”. On his hands were heavy metal gauntlets that when paired with his freshly pressed khakis, dress shirt, and breast plate seemed a bit heavily armored and out of place.

She took his hand “Well, that answers most of my questions. I’m Helena Pierce.”

“You must be a lunar. I’ve heard a bit about you guys.”

“Yeah, well I guess that makes you a solar then.”

“Yep!” He proclaimed smiling ear to ear.

Quietly the other man piped up, “I’m Mr. Agi, and I’m a little different from you. It’s complicated. I’d tell you but you probably won’t remember anyway.”

Both Helena and Donovan made puzzled looks at this comment but any questions they had were cut off when their pilot walked through them.

“Hey, we’re getting on the road, people, look alive. I’m your captain and I’m hoping to get us there in one piece. Buckle up,” he said tucking a wash of blond hair into his helmet. With that the back of the plane closed up and the engine roar was audibly in the way of any conversation.

An hour later and much more bored than she should have been flying Helena got up to look out the window to see a storm front seemingly approaching their trajectory.

“Uh.. Mr. Captain man, I... do you….?” She shouted above the now almost static engine sounds.

“I see it. That’s gotta be part of the aberration.”

Behind her Donovan asked, “How many of us are there? Do you know?”

“Just a few of you glow sticks and some soldiers. I don’t know much more.”

“Glow sticks?” Helena asked almost knowing what his answer was.

“Yeah, you guys. You glow when you’re fighting. That’s not for me though I just do the flying, speaking of which we’re getting close. You might want to get ready. It looks like the action is starting away from the main site.”

“Ah, well I’ve used one of these before,” Donovan said pulling off one of the parachutes from the wall.

The back was opening and by now they were in the storm cloud. It was dark but Helena knew how far up they were. She had plenty of flight clearance. “Well, I don’t know how to use one of those but I think I’m good.” Her transformation was smooth as she blasted out the doors. She didn’t wait to hear comments on her warform. She knew what they saw. Her body was covered in light brown feathers and large wings had sprouted from her back. Her face had flattened somewhat and softer lighter colored feathers framed her gigantic golden eyes, plumage she imagined as her hair had flared out and was helping to insulate her hearing from the high wind at her altitude. Her hands were somewhat clawed as were her feet and she seemed taller and more robust than before. She was a monster but combined with her armour and spear she was fearsome. Righting herself looking to the west, she caught the wind and made her way in the direction of the city. Breaking through the clouds, static tickled her feathers and she looked up to see a gigantic dragon sheathed in lighting flanked by what appeared to be mythical thunderbirds.

“Well, fuck.”

#exalted rpg #oc #my ocs #oc rp #lunar exalted #exalted #exalted modern

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