In Search of Lost Time (originally posted 04/2011-05/2012)

The adventures and misadventures of Jay Capistrano.

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Capistrano
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Rules and Regulations

Post by Capistrano »

April 25, 2012 R.S.C.

Tass had given a challenge grant for a barony to Candy, and Candy had asked Jay for his thoughts on who she should challenge during their Monday training session. It irked him, and he had to yank the leash on his inner Wolf to keep himself from snapping at her. It wasn’t her fault Tass had seen something in Candy that made him want to give her a shot at a barony. It wasn’t her fault that Jay hadn’t been active enough in the rings to have earned the right to challenge a baron himself. No, it was better to turn that anger and loathing inward, to push towards his goal. If she beat him to it, well, luck and friendship would only be part of her success. Ultimately, she would have to earn it, the same way he would have to earn it: fighting and winning against a baron.

And then Jay took a look at the Rules of Rank, more out of boredom than any real reason. And he took a closer look at the Show of Activity requirements. His eyes darted over the relevant section once, twice, thrice. Then, he slapped his forehead and groaned. He had misread the rules. If he was reading them correctly now, he had earned a right to challenge.

Jay couldn’t help but smile when he looked over at the challenge corkboard. Candy had taken his suggestion. True, it complicated things for him, but he didn’t mind. The Wolf might want him to be rash and impulsive, but Jay kept a tight chain on his emotions. He would wait and see what happened with her challenge – if her opponent responded, when the fight might happen. He could wait to see what the final result was, or he could consider another barony. Patience is a virtue, he told himself. This time, he believed it.

((Originally posted April 25, 2012))
I'll play a new part; I'll make a new start
All I was we'll burn it up in effigy
It's such a long war, but what I want more is you and me
The rest can burn in effigy
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Capistrano
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Location: 409 Cardew Road, a Brownstone in New Haven

Attraction, Part 1

Post by Capistrano »

“The heart has its reasons, which Reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things.”
(Blaise Pascal, trans.)


May 1, 2012 R.S.C.

Candy had dropped him off without incident after their impromptu meal at some Irish pub she’d discovered, leaving him with a belly full of beer, fish, fries, and butterflies. As soon as he heard her motorcycle pull away from his apartment complex, he went back outside, taking a walk to work off the rich food and nervous stomach.

***

"Think she likes you."

"Yeah? Light must be bad. Can't see the scars, or something."

"Maybe she goes for the type."


Jay hadn’t really been paying to the red-haired girl who had taken their orders at the pub, until Candy had pointed it out to him. When Candy peeled the scales off of his eyes, he finally saw it. The way the waitress paid more attention to him then to Candy. The way she smiled at him. The wink. And, of course, the name and phone number written on a napkin that accompanied one of Candy’s drinks. Sheila. He paid more attention after it was pointed out, and Sheila had clearly noticed.

It would be so easy. A phone call, a date set-up. Coffee at Java Hell, perhaps, or some RhyDin movie theater. They were apparently advertising a lot more now? He could see himself in khaki cargo pants, a green patterned flannel, and a cleaner haircut. Sheila would wear nice jeans and a blouse, maybe pink or light blue, some shoes with lift that weren’t heels. It’d be quiet but not too awkward, they’d end up holding hands, and they’d make plans for a second date. A punk show, maybe, or some exhibit at an art museum, or a dinner at an actual nice restaurant. He might have to buy real dress clothes, but he wouldn’t mind. More conversation, a touch to his arm, a soft kiss at the end of the night when he dropped her off at her place. He’d have to get a real phone now. He might even have to clean up his apartment.

But he couldn’t see it. He couldn’t see himself calling her. The girl in the pub seemed half-ready to give Jay her heart, when all Jay wanted to do was give his to the girl riding away from his apartment on her motorcycle. The irony was sickening. And the worst part was that he couldn’t picture the future with Candy. It was a black spot in his mind, insult to the injury that he had already dated her, already dumped her, and still wanted her back more than anything. Wanted her back, and was terrified of getting her back. He never really believed she had forgiven him for the break-up. More importantly, though, on the infinitesimal chance she was still interested, he knew he would have to spill the beans. About everything. The angry ex still lurking somewhere in RhyDin’s shadows. His own past as a vigilante. There’d be no more secrets, and those secrets had been his security blanket and barrier since he first became the Dreamwalker. He’d built the walls strong, and they would not come down easily. As much as he hated to admit it, deep in the back of his mind, he knew that eventually, they would come down. The only question was, would they collapse on their own, or could he control the demolition?

((Originally posted May 4, 2012))
I'll play a new part; I'll make a new start
All I was we'll burn it up in effigy
It's such a long war, but what I want more is you and me
The rest can burn in effigy
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Capistrano
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Posts: 288
Joined: Tue Feb 12, 2008 8:31 pm
Location: 409 Cardew Road, a Brownstone in New Haven

Battle Couple

Post by Capistrano »

Dwight: My warrior woman. My Valkyrie. You'll always be mine, always and never. Never. The Fire, baby. It'll burn us both. It'll kill us both. There's no place in this world for our kind of fire. Always and never. If I have to die for you tonight, I will.
(“Sin City”)


May 4, 2012 R.S.C.
The Brawler
Pre-Fight


Jay sat on the bench in the main locker room for the Brawler, smoking a cigarette and stewing. Candy was somewhere else in the room, but he didn’t care at the moment. Somewhere else in the building, four demi-humans – a vampire, a half-orc, some sort of demon, and a were-panther – were waiting to tear them new assholes. But not if Jay had his way. Jay had the Wolf, and the Wolf wouldn’t let him forget it.

Still, Jay was distracted, in a way the Wolf couldn’t fully fight through. When Candy had arrived at the Brawler, and Jay had greeted her, she’d let him know that Doc had dropped in on her at the Dead Cow, and let her know that Jay had given him the idea. Jay could tell by her tone of voice and sour expression she wasn’t entirely happy with the development, and Jay had just gritted his teeth and said nothing else about it.

There was nothing to be done about it now. In a few minutes, they would march out into the arena, side-by-side, to face off against a quartet of heavy-hitting Brawler demi-humans. Jay tossed the cigarette aside, and then folded his feet beneath his knees on the wooden seat. Pressing his thumbs against his middle and ring fingers, he closed his eyes and began a low, humming chant. Clear the mind, and the body would follow suit.

The Fight

Jay and Candy’s opponents were strong, fast, agile, and vicious. The were-panther fought in a form that split the difference between human and animal – she was the same humanoid size, but with black fur, a tail, and sharp claws on her hands and feet that kept slashing forward at the two of them. The demon had reddish skin that radiated heat across the ring, with a pair of sharped horns on its head nearly half as long as Jay’s arm and a black metal sword that radiated malevolence. The vampire was short and malnourished-looking, freshly turned and desperate for a meal. The Brawler handlers had given her a pair of curved knives, but she didn’t seem all that keen on using them, intent on using her supernatural speed to drain their blood before they had a chance to react. The half-orc was a full half-foot taller than Jay, with grey-green skin and tusks. He had a great club that he smacked into the palm of his hand periodically.

They may have been stronger, faster, more agile, more vicious, but Candy and Jay had an advantage they didn’t. The two of them had trained together, fought together, sweat and bled together, while their opponents had been thrown together more or less at random among what was available of the Brawler’s demi-human roster. At first, though, they didn’t take advantage of their teamwork. The early-going of the battle was an uneasy stalemate, with neither side able to get a real advantage or land a blow. Their opponents were unable to team up to take advantage of their numbers, and Jay and Candy couldn’t get on the same page to press their advantage as better-trained fighters. The crowd, expecting a bloody slobberknocker and getting a messy, discordant symphony of swinging weapons and cautious defense, began murmuring and booing.

Jay had been trying to fend off a sloppy two-pronged attack from the demon and were-panther when he saw the half-orc rumbling towards Candy out of the corner of his eye. He tried to shout a warning, but Candy was preoccupied with fighting off the vampire with bursts of fire. All Candy had time to do was turn in the direction of Jay’s shout, and the charging half-orc, before the bull-rush knocked her back several feet. With a feral roar, Jay drove the meat of his mace into the demon’s belly while swinging the buckler in a sweeping horizontal arc towards the were-panther. The demon doubled up, groaning softly, while the were-panther was driven backwards, hissing, and that was all the opportunity Jay needed. Howling a primal howl, lips curled back in a snarl, Jay leaped towards the half-orc, who was busy admiring his handiwork, and cracked him in the back of the head with the mace. The half-orc was dizzied for a second, giving Jay the opportunity to shield-bash the half-orc and knock him out cold. Jay ran over to Candy to lend her a hand to stand up, but the vampire had other thoughts. She flung the dagger in their direction, and Jay swore he could hear the blade turning end-over-end. He lifted his shield to try and block the knife, but he mis-timed raising his arm and the dagger buried itself in his right forearm.

It didn’t matter. He left the dagger there, ignoring the rising pain and the blood dripping down his hand to his fingers. He’d learned his lesson long ago, and had lashed the buckler to his hand. The only way he was losing that shield was if someone sliced his hand off at the wrist. He watched his three remaining foes shuffle in a wary half-circle in the ring, while Jay held out his shield in defense, snarling at them. He would buy Candy time to recover, and then, they would attack. He took a split-second to smile fiercely over his shoulder, once he saw that she had recovered, and turned back to face their opponents. There was no gratitude on her face, only anger and bloodlust, and Jay didn’t care. He knew then that they would win this fight, and that he loved her.

Post-Fight

Their enemies lay before them in crumpled heaps, being tended to by Doc and a half-dozen other medics and healers. Tone himself had set foot in the ring, stepping between Candy and Jay to lift their arms up in victory. They had won, but Jay had paid dearly for the win. In addition to the knife still sticking out of his right arm, there was a stab wound in his left thigh, a slash across the small of his back, a shallower cut across his stomach, and another stab wound on the right side of his abdomen. He couldn’t feel any of them, lost in adrenaline and lust. He wanted to push Tone out of the way, kiss Candy hard on the mouth in front of the sold-out crowd of adoring fans, but he felt his resolve waver in the sea of eyes watching, the presence of their boss, and the quiet murmurs of the doctors on the ground. Once the losers had been tended to – the were-panther, demon, and half-orc walked off more or less under their own power, while the vampire was strapped onto a stretcher and carried away – the healers came for Candy and Jay. Doc, of course, went straight for Candy, though she’d taken less damage than Jay. Still, he could see that she was having difficulty breathing, and once the cheers had subsided some, Tone stepped out of the spotlight and let Doc take her back to his office. Jay seemed to make a move to stop them from leaving, but it looked more like an awkward stumble towards the back. A pair of medics rushed forward to support him, and then coaxed him to the ground to examine his injuries. The adrenaline faded, and blood loss left him feeling weak and anxious. As the medical staff started removing and cutting away his clothing to further diagnose his wounds, Jay turned to watch as Doc and Candy headed off. Candy held her head up high and didn’t look back, but Doc did. There was an unreadable expression on his face – or maybe it was the red that still swam at the corner of Jay’s vision, even after the fight had ended, that made things murky – and then Doc turned back around, his attention solely on his patient.

((Originally posted May 8, 2012))
I'll play a new part; I'll make a new start
All I was we'll burn it up in effigy
It's such a long war, but what I want more is you and me
The rest can burn in effigy
User avatar
Capistrano
Proven Adventurer
Proven Adventurer
Wolf Like Me

Posts: 288
Joined: Tue Feb 12, 2008 8:31 pm
Location: 409 Cardew Road, a Brownstone in New Haven

How to Be a Werewolf

Post by Capistrano »

May 6, 2012, R.S.C.

Nearly four years ago, Jay Capistrano had been infected with lycanthropy. For nearly four years, he had fought it. Forty-eight full moons had come and gone, and Jay had not turned, as hard as the Wolf had tried. Tonight, though, was different. Tonight, on May 6, 2012, the beast broke through.

***

North? No. Too many people, and I’m hurt too bad to kill. West? No. Nothing but the Badside and the Docks and the water. Water means trapped. East? No. South, then east. Less distance. Less walls, less buildings, quicker to the gate. Through the gate, to the farms, hide. Eat. Maybe.

Jay ran, wheezing through a broken nose and ignoring the pain of reopened stitches and a newly broken wrist. The Wolf was trying to heal the wounds, but Jay was still fighting against him, desperate to regain full control of his body. The transformation had bulked Jay up with supernatural strength, made his face more lupine, and added an extra inch or two to his height, though his crouching posture made him seem about as tall as usual. More dramatically, his skin was now covered in gray fur, his clothes hanging off of his body in tatters from the increase in muscles. The Wolf wasn’t fully used to bipedal motion, and his gait was long and loping at first, but he adjusted quickly and soon found himself running faster than he ever had before. He was darting from alleyway to alleyway, avoiding the streets, but eventually he was going to run out of alleys. He was going to have to go vertical. He skidded to a stop near a tall concrete wall blocking off further process through an alley. There were no hand-holds, no foot-holds, and he knew it would be impossible to climb one-handed. The fire escape on the building next to him, however…

He was lucky; this building’s owner had built the escape all the way down to the ground, instead of including a metal ladder on the side of the escape that Jay would have had to reach up to pull down. He climbed the metal steps, nearly crouching on all fours as he did so, until he was at the top of the escape. Still, the roof was above him. It was risky, but he had no other choice. He climbed the railing that was anchored into the brick beside the escape, and leaped for the edge of the roof. He grabbed it with his uninjured hand and, in a feat of strength that would have been impossible before, pulled himself up one-handed. The roofs here were close together, easy to hop across from building to building. He could make it to the walls, the gates, to safety.

There was time to think in that lonely moonlit journey, even though the Wolf didn’t want Jay to think. Reason fought with instinct, and while Jay couldn’t turn back the transformation, he could communicate with the beast now in control of his body.

You killed her.

And if we did?

We were supposed to bring her to justice, not do it ourselves!

Such a hypocrite. You’ve killed before. You’ll kill again.

I killed evil things. Candy’s not evil.

By what definition? She said she killed someone because she wanted to. You were trying to escape to tell the guard. She was going to kill you to stop you. She would have, if I wasn’t here.

I would rather have died.

You don’t have a choice in the matter. Instinct. You chose this.

No! You did!

Fine. Split the difference. We did.

That shut Jay up, and the Wolf took full control again. He caught a glimpse of the moon from the corner of his eye, and paused on the edge of a rooftop, head tilted to the sky. He howled, and both of them were in that howl. The Wolf gave it triumph and rage. Jay gave it anguish and defeat.

((Originally posted May 9, 2012))
I'll play a new part; I'll make a new start
All I was we'll burn it up in effigy
It's such a long war, but what I want more is you and me
The rest can burn in effigy
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