O.D. 10.22.1999 [12:28 p.m.]

(Another scene with Firecracker and Jarl...)

[Jarl Thane]

Fri 00:00 PDT Does the moon, indeed, feel as any woman, goddess or mortal, might? Surely she did, for what better evidence of her love for one of her dearest children, than the play of her light upon the stilled form of the feline man? The catch of moon in his wind-tousled dark hair; the gleam of moon upon back of neck, upon sleek spine, upon curve of shoulder, upon lean arm. And down to the small of back, to the waist of corduroys, old and well-worn, over slim flank, over elegant leg, lithe foot. The kiss of the moon, silver and sweet, upon the cat of a man, svelte and silent beneath the swelling curve of moon, above the lapping coolness of water--upon the feral one, the feline one, a long, lean strip of flesh sprawled, poured bonelessly across his favorite boulder by the lake.

The cool night breeze, dry desert wind moistened with a kiss of water, stirs him not, though it does stir his dark locks, sends them skittering across his gleaming amber eyes. Nor does the gentle lap of water against one lean hand allowed to trail, languid, move him, though his hand sways in time to the pull of the tide, ever so slightly. Indeed, little could sway him, this cat lounging beneath the moon, beautiful and wild and lazy on this cooling autumn night. Though his senses be as sharp his claws; though his ears be alert and his eyes languidly all-seeing, he is...not...going to move from this spot, this rock, still warm from the day's sunlight.

Was he?

Of course he was. What was the purpose of living? Surely not to pose and look pretty. Not that alone, at least, though it can certainly be argued that cats, at times, live for nothing more than the awed, inspired gazes they receive. But no--not that alone. There was more to life. There was life itself, unbridled, wild as the...wind.

Ah, yes. The wind. Does the wind rise tonight? Does the breeze carry whispers, and the hint of a daughter of the west wind, upon its back? Does the wind bring reason to stir from this artfully formless sprawl?

[Firecracker]

Fri 00:16 PDT ~Wind. A simple pleasant breeze.

It comes again... foreshadowing her appearance at the lake, teasing the lake into a madly mild frenzy, casting ripples through the mirror pond and waving through the silvered moon; hanging above in mute testimony, reflecting on her beauty and the stirrings of those below. Viewing her sister Earth - two twins alike in noisesome silence.

Not even silence is silent. Remember that.

And the wind comes, a laughing racing wildly cavorting thing which had its own life... which fingered the cat-mans dark main, wild. Wild to wild, remember? Sings with voices of ages long ago - voices from the future. Listen to the wind, to what it has to say. Beneath the babble there IS a meaning... as there is meaning to everything that happens, as insignificant as it is.

She comes again to this spot, climbing hand over hand gripping the warm chilling rock as Firecracker again pulls herself up to the rocky ledge with perfect wild slump for fitting a casual body against is. Her castle. Carless not today, or at least today is a careless day because the slender girl whose steps are airy as though she were about to take flight is lazy.... lazy as a floating mist.

With her, always, comes the voices on the wind.~

[Jarl Thane]

Fri 00:27 PDT No, indeed, not even silence is silent. Even silence is permeated by the slow draw of breath, by the faintest scratching of taut skin over rough rock, by the silken whisper of wild-tossed hair. And, softer still, the slide of eyelids shut over amber; the flare of aristocratic nostrils, as the scents upon the wind are caught and savored and known.

And, in the not-so-silent silence, a very loud sound indeed: the catch of stone on corduroy, as the cat-man slides to one side and arcs, liquidly, to his feet. Scarcely is the gesture finished before the next, nigh indistinguishable from the first, begins: slow, ritual stretch, head to toe to fingertip, in a ripple of complete, pantherine relaxation.

And then. The seek of eyes across the moonlit shoreline. The prick of ears; the sharpening of every sense, as he turns to the castle where the west wind dwelled, as a faint smile curves his lips.

Wild to wild. Drawn, he crosses the soft sands, as shifting, as ephemeral, as the sands about the Sphinx, half a world and half an eternity away.

[Firecracker]

Fri 00:34 PDT ~Imagine for an instant, take a moment to escape this mundane reality and step into one more alive and humming with vibrant primal power. One whose touch strikes a chord hidden within your deepest instincts and sends it thrumming with half remembrances and half forgotten dreams.

A dream born of the tempests and the howling of the storm, whose innocence even now is sickening, withering, dying as the skies are flung closer into insanity. Sickly taint appearing in the taut stretched skin over high delicate cheek bones, elfin, and hollowed cheeks. Slender, graceful as she pulls herself into reclining position, resting one elbow on the highest out cropping of the 'castle's' turrets.

Whip-lashed hair so thick, bands of shadowed gold mixed in with strands of leaden brown. So plain seeming until details are looked for - the final draw of a battle. Both sides at a halt, for now. The bird-like cant of a head,quick motion sharp and curious, as she relaxes and spots the other who wears a skin. Another mask, one of many. So many masks, there are. Friendly smile curving those perfectly molded lips into something which brightens the ethereal features of her face

Imagine, for a moment, that the summers first breeze felt the need to linger past it's appointed season. What then? In Autumn would it stay on, and bring with it scented reminders of another time? A time past, and a future time. Why would it stay when in another place summer still reigns. The summer-lands. Imagine. Why?

Change?~

[Jarl Thane]

Fri 00:43 PDT "You do not belong here, you know," he murmurs, as he too climbs the rock with the loose-spined, easy grace of an African leopard, to sit upon a nearby turret of her stony castle. And surely she did know this--surely she knew it as well as he. No, she did not belong, not in this mundane world never meant for one like her--or like he, for that matter. Too wild, were they, for this world of humans, of web--too wild, too pure, too transient, too volatile, and even when the moon hung high in the sky; even when the stars scattered shone bright as diamonds--even then, it was but an illusion, that they might belong. No. They were creatures of another world, another time: of past, of future, of time, of eternity. And this was not their world, and this world could never be their world.

But where he could adapt; where his cat's flexibility allowed to change, to shift, as needed to survive, revealing his nature only in brief flashes, hints, glimpses of secrets hidden on moonlit nights such as these, she was so much more fragile. Fragile as the wind, changeable, too changeable. The flesh-shifter; the soul-shifter. And where this world only changed one's face, its taint of bleak, uncaring mundaneness, of disbelief, changed the other's very being, sickened it, weakened it.

No. She did not belong here. Even less than he, did she--a being more of myth than material, of fantasy than flesh--belong.

[Firecracker]

Fri 01:03 PDT ~Her only reply is not adequate when first the mind begins to turn it over and puzzle over the very simpley spken words. But may'haps he would understand. Then again, may'haps he wouldn't - for foolhardy is the one who thinks he can understand a breeze, a cloud, something intangible who can not be pinned down, who see's most everything but is nothing.~

I did, once. Times change though, and maybe I will too. The rest have. Do you want to change to suit, or stay the same? Is old for the best? Or is new the better course? I'm not sure, never will be, molding things as they are. You know? Belonging is a many faceted gem. It's not always beautiful and is often flaws. Flaws were once said to be tears of the earth. Did you ever hear that story? I don't understand why they are always cut out now but then that isn't too unusual - not understanding, that is.

~No breath between the beautiful fluting words, a singer she could be with a voice such as that. It runs together like the tumble of river rapids. Easily flexible spine curving with sinnuous sinful grace innocence personified, twisting, as she turns lightly on her back, her head tilted back, almost upside down. Watching his steadily sleek progression in all its artistic glory up the rocky glowering - smiling? face of her chosen perch. A moment in time taken, as though this one has all the patience in the world beyond, as though every day did not strike a sense of fervent energy within the heart of all creatures great and small.

As though the sickness was not growing daily, and the veins of blackened-gray smoke were not creeping with lethargic menace through-out her eyes. Through out the skies they seem to be taken from. Polluted, remember? A wasting disease which has yet to be cleaned, and perhaps never will. Secrets. Secrets and illusions. Her kind is known for both, though she is odder then many. Ears not as pointed prickle as the wild stream of her silken hair brushes down against the rock, tousled by a breeze. For all its thickness when it brushes against a surface it is too light, seems to hardly touch down to the ground.~

[Jarl Thane]

Fri 01:18 PDT He shakes his head, swinging first one leg, and then the other, over the rock with deliberate, feline care. Then, extending his bare feet (bare? He had climbed that rock barefoot?) to the window, he responds, "I suppose I have changed to suit. But I have lost a little of myself in that change. So I suppose that is my answer. Is old for the best? The old is a blind alley. Is new the better course? The new strips you of yourself. You more than I, perhaps. But regardless, I have changed. I have changed."

And she? Should she change, she would lose all of herself. She will change? No. Impossibility. She could not change and retain herself--and yet she was changing, nonetheless. That was the beauty, and the tragedy, of it: the beauty and the tragedy, of a sunset made breathtaking by pollution.

Eyes, eyes are golden as the sun through a carven block of amber, artistically flawed, turn upon her. "No. Not understanding is all too common. But who is to say it is a bad thing? I do not understand you. I do not think I ever will. As I may be beyond the understanding of some, so too are you beyond mine."

He leans back, then, moon-kissed, and gazes across the lake, rippled by tiny breaths of wind, teased and taunted by western breeze.

[Firecracker]

Fri 01:39 PDT ~Upside down, viewing the world as turned topsy turvy. The way things are going it perhaps seems as though that image - with the sky as the floor beneath their feet, and endless vaulted drop to which they hang over, suspended like fragmented strands in the tapestry woven out of the songs the elements once were able to sing alloud.... arching her back as though she were herself an instrument, a pliant sappling stretched to its limits or a cat - a cat as he was doing what was natural she lifts her arms up and over her head, smiling at him.

A smile to remember... as all her smiles are. Sunshine taken directly from the skies - sparkling from the stars, unbroken by the endless miasma of smog which enfolds the city scape and the 'wild' parks like a thick blanket dipped in icy water. Delicate long fingers, calloused - mundanity - at the finger tips and used to work it seems stretch out as well... spidery in their dance as weaving through the air they do. Literally, molding air, it almost seems. Waving... and her head turns to the side, eyelashes dipping closed. Quickly like a tornado she's resting on her stomach right side up again.... Almost too quickly, pointed chin cupped in one hand, head still canted softly to the side.

A study.

Studying.

Each movement accompanied by whispers, voices, soft. The jingle jangle of coins and windchimes shoved carelessly in the worn ragged baggy pockets of her faded jeans, the same jeans as yesterday...dredged up from the very bottom of the salvation armies reject pile.~

What do you think you search for in riddles? It's understanding, isn't it? Or is it just the simple exercise of searching for riddles. Secrets, mysteries, what is the attraction? Change is good. Change is very bad. It's the dual nature of all that I love most, and hate with the greatest passion. Do you understand that comment? If you don't I do not hold it against you Jhak'thal, Jarl Thane. The new does not strip me of myself, it only takes what was. You understand? Look up there, and see. It's plain as the nose on your face... though its rare one can see their own nose. Ever think of that fact when someone's tossing that saying in your face all haughty and thinking they made the best of points? I do, and sometimes I mention it and they get all huffy for some reason so I have to huff back. Somtimes I stop and think that change is only leading everyone back to the very beginning, it's just a circle. No point other then the fact that it must be traveled or else. Or else what? I couldn't tell you. Only fools talk in riddled circles, and all the world are fools. That leaves for some very wise men. And only wise men are fools, because only they can answer the riddles.

~A deep slanted dimple marks her right cheek, as sky eyes twinkle like a diamond, caught in the velvet black webs - the vault of the night sky. A cathedral the holy pray too. Each was an angel, but angels weren't real. Were they? What was real? It was all real... but how could that be since one's reality denies the other? Is co-existance possible. Take him - The travesty is only that which he can name. Lost in his change, layered down by meat, by skin, by the flesh blood and sinew and earthy natures. Torn apart by his spirit - a spirit whose outlet and creator is the moons brother and husband the firey passionate Sun, the sunlight which births glorious dreams in those lazing wide-watchful cat eyes. Torn apart. They all changed, and the past is a blind alley.... so they run to the other dead end with open eyes.

Which way is better?~

[Jarl Thane]

Fri 01:55 PDT He is finally beginning to understand that to attempt to listen to everything she said was impossible. Hear, don't listen. Hear the rush of sound, flute-light, wind-delicate; hear the words beyond words, even if he could not comprehend them. A riddle, she was; an enigma to puzzle even a cat. She speaks of dual natures? Who better to exhibit that, than herself?

Young, younger than an instant, and twice as capricious. Young and naive and innocent and wide-eyed--and yet ancient. Older than time, perhaps; as old as his heritage, stretching back in a chain of cat-spirit until the beginning of time, the beginning of the wild. Or Wyld. Whichever you preferred. Ancient, and fragile, and wise--wisdom disguised in babbling, in riddles, in nonsense.

Hear. Don't listen; hear. Beyond the words, amidst the silence, lies the truth.

Madness? Of course. She was madder than the birds--but it takes a blind man to know the meaning of light, and a madwoman to know the patterns of the world, even if it was a world never meant for her. Insight and madness, age and youth, folly and wisdom. Duality. Contrasts. Two sides of the same coin.

Cat and man. Two sides of the same sleek coin, melded. Accept. Hear, don't listen. The words will only confuse you; the meaning is that which will enlighten.

Angels. Angels of their own worlds, fallen, changed, unchanged at heart? Angels, wild beings, creatures of the primal spirit and the untamed wind; riddles, mysteries, a study of contrasts. Who learns from who? Who is to say who is the teacher, and who the pupil? Mere hear. Do not listen. Hear, and hear the voice of wild calling to wild, beyond word, beyond reason. Her reason was not his reason; his was not hers. But the tone, the breath of wind, the rush of wild--that, that, was the same.

Sleek, velvet-skinned cat-man leans again rough stone. Svelte, golden-eyed cat-man smiles, and the words are simple, and the words are meaningless. But oh, do not listen--hear.

"Talk my mind into a knot, you could, trying to unravel the knots already there."

Do not listen. Hear.

[Firecracker]

Fri 02:03 PDT ~Try to hear... Try to see....~

And another thing ~Dangerously, impishly, delighted and amused in the way a creature can only be when doing what is most natural to it, gently amused at his confusion. At his efforts. Not malicious, only amused as she oozes over the gap from her turret to his, slung between the tiny chism formed by the two different heights on two sides of a dip on the Castle. Firm sneakered feet holding her firm as she knows how to be.~

Have you ever thought to reach up there? You do realize I'm only trying to open your eyes when I don't know how, I find it a very very fascinating process and I realize that it's sort of weird, strange, odd, I don't know. I wish that I did though so I could explain - and here I am going to talk alot, but I do that well..... alot. It's all right, cloaks the truth up in meaningless babble. That isn't good, so I'm told, but why wouldn't it be good, can you answer me that? It just is. No, I don't think you'll ever understand yourself or I as I am but maybe you will at least know I as you make me when you walk through a door or ride on the road?

~Drawing her fingers over the rock in slow circles, finger the sharp scizzor like edges, razor sharp. Drawing blood - too delicate for her own good. Pain is unknown, however, so it doesn't matter much at all. Crimson like the dying blood-red haze of the last sun.

Dying sun, dying soul, dying light in those 'windows to the soul'... Except, except they are still too bright - the sunset. The end of the world comes at Dawn, however. It comes with the east. Earnest is her expression as eyes meet eyes.

Poor boy had no one, and she had less.

It was an impossible world, on the brink of the final death. Finally making an effort to be more serious than frivolous, and finding it easy enough as now positioned beside the cat-man she tucks one strand of flowing hair back behind one sharply pointed ear. Leaving a trail of blood, crimson dawn.~ Pay no attention to half of what I say, though it will hurt my feelings because even the most inconsequential things long to be said and have their own stories. ~Very softly~ I mean no harm.... and by the feel of your expression I pray you never have to meet one of my tainted cousins.

~Indeed, she is a pure one still. The disease is only a lingering shadow, now.~

[Jarl Thane]

Fri 02:24 PDT Eyes, eyes like the morning sun, golden after the apocalypse, follow the trace of finger over knife's-edge rock, the trace of blood over elfin, too-delicate cheek.

"Speak," he replies, sliding-sea-sigh of word, "and don't think for a moment that I pay no heed. My attention is yours. Though I may not listen to each word, it is only because I am trying to hear the sounds in your silence."

The sleek young man unfolds his arms, then, from across his chest--lush flesh where she is all air, all breeze, all wind. "And worry not so much of me," he adds, as something approaching a gentle smile touches the curving lips. "Though you might confound me thoroughly, it will pass, for better or for worse. I will likely remember but little of what has been said when the moon sets, and her magic ends, and I return to a world never made for the likes of you and I. No; trouble yourself not over me. Think more of yourself. This is but one hour out of twenty-four, one moment out of a lifetime, in which I stand exposed before the turnings of the stars and the eyes of the universe."

The drift of lean hand, catching again the slender wrist, touching the untouchable wind, catching a bead, a line, a trail of crimson upon the smoothness of fingertip. And slowly, slowly, fingers, limber, deft fingers, as light as a kitten's paw, curl about bird-delicate hand--and even a kitten, one must remember, can be inadvertently lethal.

"Think more of yourself," he repeats, suddenly, inexplicably sorrowful. Ancient or young, wise or naive, insightful or mad, she was a fragile thing still, fragile as glass on the western zephyr. Though her words may be spells, and her breath the essence of the wind itself, the world had changed, and it was flesh and blood that mattered, rather than dream and hope. Flesh and blood, of which she was too, too delicate. "Time has gone on without you, and you are no longer as strong as you, or I, would like to think."

He hardly dared squeeze the hand in his, for fear that it should simply shatter and blow away on the wind--like fairydust, like the wonder, the belief, of a child as the years wear on. He offers something approaching a smile, pierced through and through with bone-deep sorrow, brilliant joy, as he turns and, without another word, slides down from her castle.

He walks away along the shoreline, his footsteps hushing across sand. Silence, but sound. He walks away, and the night is sliding past already, and the dawn, beautiful and fatal, fast approaches.

[Firecracker]

Fri 02:45 PDT ~A quiet moment of reflection, here, beneath the taut stretched thinning sky. Taut like the paper thin stretch of satin porcelain skin. Older looking then she was two hours ago, still young, but ah the curse of these modern times and how it wears thin. Small, curving of lips again in a smile - a prayer in and of itself~ Almost you hear and listen at once, wonders.

~The amused twitch of her lips again, too soft and full to be real, too perfect. So much perfection in such a flawed being. For a moment the age is almost visible, wrapped as it is within a layer of sweet child-like wonder and innocence. She has been awake far shorter a time that any would guess, and asleep longer then most people have thoughts in a life time. Another tilt-tip of her head to the side as intently she watches. Tapping on the rock face - because she can never not make noise. Would be to deny her nature,and she is nothing like that.~

Was I worrying? That is good then, it means maybe I'll learn. It will never pass, nothing ever does, it only changes and comes back. Donchaknow yet? ~Another silently intent moment in which the airy one - light epheremal and grace beyond measure, a dancer upon the tips of the tree's who sends the worlds singing if she wished - one of few, once one of many, and Firecracker speaks again after a careful trailing glance down the sleekly confident, unsure cats arm to the lean fingers.~ You stand exposed. ~A lighter squeeze, belying the stength below the fragile spun flesh of her hands. Too easily snappable, it seems~ One hour is as an eternity, take it from one whose seen almost both.

~The world has changed. . . and how he understands, all too well. The world has spun on, leaving behind those which once made it spin. The world is crying for those times - as a child newly born cries for the safety of its mothers womb. A sudden piercing sharper glance as though she saw right through him - as though she blew right past the shell and into the depths of what he hides. What he doesn't. Straight to the core, then quick as light she slides on her stomach - scraping a taut belly across the greedy boring rock - to the edge, brushing lips feather light across his fore head before cheerfully petting his head once-twice. A response to the smile, a response to the dreams.

To the belief.

Then he leaves, and sliding back she cups her chin in her hand once more, still watching. Bright-eyed, sadness. She was once such a care-free creature, and now...~ Have fun today Jhak'thal, Jarl Thane.

~And he's gone, with the faint parting words whispered to his back and blown like a thought to brush teasingly against sensitive ears. In the east the horizon lightens, not a natural color... seen through a filter. Deadly, beautiful.

Dawn is when the world ends.~