![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unforthKathryn attended the freeing of Kiroan Spire, a day full of momentous events, including the uncovering of various people as members of the shadow court (Jedeil, Thangobrind and Deizel!), and repurcussions of many things. She spent much of the day looking after the newly chrysilized Boggan Pinnochio, and she also spent a fair amount of time trying to help Dino, who was greatly distressed because a miscalculation had caused an entire building to explode, killing all the patients (for it was a hospital!). Though she proved largely unable to help with that, a few useful things came from the day, including...
-Architecture - Kathryn decided to learn more about architecture, so that she could potentially be of some help to Dino.
-The Goddess of Magic - an owl pooka, pretending to be the goddess of magic, was helped by Dante to trick Kathryn into finding her a mouse. Kathryn complied, and received the blessing of the goddess of magic.
-SMART - on the recommendation of Tam, Kathryn was asked to join a secret society being run by Artemis (aka Mad Tess). The members of this society were: Chet the Sluagh, Petra Paternoster the Knocker, Liza ap Sharaev the Sidhe, Grendel the Redcap, Tam the Cluricon, Ari the Satyr, Andi ap Scattach, the Sidhe, Shae the Satyr, Amelie the Cluricon, Petros the Eshu, and Kathryn, 11 total. All of these were given starfish that, when worn behind the ear, allowed them to communicate at will - which has proved both very good and very bad, and will surely continue to do so. The purpose of this group was to travel the trods and operate in secret to acocmplish some unknown over all task for Mad Tess, and all agreed to do it to help the future of Fae kind.
The first Smart mission was in Los Angelos. They had but three days to complete this task, though they didn't know why the time limit existed, for Tess didn't know. Their goal was to retrieve the circus tent of Raider Valentine, a hedgehog pooka who died in the forties, for the tent was a freehold, and therefore of immense value. It was difficult to track down, but using a variety of means they were able to do so, and they returned the tent to Tess. (events included the horror that was Disney Land in the Dreaming, the king of the crabs, stars of the screen that never were, the flickering dreams of Hollywood, and more)
In short order, Kathryn felt a fair amount of comraderie for all of her fellow SMART members; she considered them all good friends, and would do a great deal to help them out. Cries of "Abort abort" and "bunnies" were there catch phrases, and they all got along well.
The day after Samhain started awfully. Horrified to discover that she remembered large chunks of the night before, Kathryn briefly contemplated suicide. Fortunately, Pinnochio's presence was a useful buffer, for she would never distress him so, and discovering that he had a clockwork in his back that neither of them could explain gave her something useful to do briefly. After she couldn't help with that, she threw herself whole heartedly into helping a new Eshu who had just chrysalized and was completely lost; it took her mind off of things immensely to be able to try to help. However, this relief was short lived; the sluagh Kanatori approached her, bearing her sword Troy, with a devious offer - he would not return the sword unless she did him a favor.
Promising to do so, Kathryn finished with some basic help for Tiffany the Eshu, and then headed back out to find Kanatori. She wanted to give him something so that it'd be over and done with, but she couldn't think of anything. He wanted to know information, some sort of secret, and though Kathryn knew at least two decent sized secrets - one, about the existance of SMART, and two, about Dino's plans to create a wondrous magical sword - Kathryn didn't feel comfortable telling other people's secrets, and she certainly had none of her own. However, Kanatori too remembered parts of Samhain, and to Kathryn's horror he suggested that he would be content if she would speak of her love; that was a big enough secret for his purposes, and so all that she had to do to no longer be in his debt was tell Dino that she was in love with him.
Horrified, but unsure of any alternatives, Kathryn agreed too, feeling sick to her stomach. She spent several moments afterwards steeling herself. Dale Derring leant her a coat that belonged to Elijah Stark, and Eleanor Elise lent her a shawl, and combined she was a bit more modestly dressed (for she had awoken in naught but a shirt)...finally, as confident as she could be, she approached Dino, and stuttered out..."Um, Dino, I...I'm supposed...no...I mean...That is...I love you." At which point she spun around and almost ran away, going to find a corner to cry in. As she sat, terribly upset, trembling (wondering how Dino had reacted, for she hadn't been able to bear to watch) she was approached by Ray, a sweet Sluagh who had always been kind to her, and who now helped her to feel better about things; then, Liza took a turn at helping her feel better, pointing out that Dino was a good man who wouldn't be unkind to her, though Kathryn feared he would hate her now.
However, once more fate intervened to help take her mind of things. The TV, which had been on quietly in the background, chimed in with a horrifying news report: Los Angelos had been captured by someone claiming to be Lucifer. Horrified, Kathryn pushed her way through the crowd who had been drawn to the TV to ask Tam if he thought this was there fault, for they had on the SMART mission conspired to cause a shield that had been protecting the city to drop. Soon other concerned Smart members had gathered and, terrified, they tried to figure out if this had all been there fault. However, finally, they concluded that it couldn't be, for there had been no certainty that they would drop the shield, and yet they had been told that they had to be away from the city before three days - before the day that Lucifer invaded. Vaguely reassured, Kathryn was left alone again, and soon her mind was full of dark thoughts once more.
Determined not to sink to horrible new lows (despite her inability to ignore Dino, and her tendency to watch him where ever he went) she tracked down Tiffany the Eshu and went back to trying to help her. However, her depression kept seeping through, and she felt bad, for she knew she musn't be good company.
Time passed, and, later, she and Amelie were catching up - Amelie too seemed depressed, though she denied remembering aught of Samhain night. Kathryn denied nothing - though as the day went on, it occured to her that silence might be wise, and she started to be more guarded, despite her normally open nature. However, as they were talking, they received a horrified cry over the starfish network. It was from Liza, and she screamed, "You have to help him! They are going to kill him!" Instantly aroused, Kathryn and Amelie demanded to know where they were needed, and when told that it was outside of Willowgrove, they set off at a run, soon joined by Grendel and Andi, though none of the others seemed to have heard. There, they saw Jedeil being attacked by the count's lions, while Count Leander and Gawyn stood watch, and Liza looked horrified. Jedeil fell and, alarmed, the four dove in to rescue him.
Kathryn and Andi beat the lions back, while Amelie tried to haul Jedeil into her dream boat. However, she couldn't alone, so Kathryn switched to the defensive and went to help her. Grendel tried to shoot the Count in the head, but was stopped by Gawyn, and the lions ripped one of his arms off. Andi attacked the lions ferociously, while the Count ordered them all to stand down, but they didn't; he then ordered Liza to attack Andi, which she did. Thoroughly upset, Kathryn managed to get Jedeil into the Dreamboat, despite taking a lion bite to the arm, and then she and Grendel hopscotched off; Kathryn didn't realize until later that Andi had no way to escape, and, though she wanted to go back, there was no way.
Things got very messy then, complicated, as conflicting reports came in. Word came that JEdeil had been healed, only to be followed by news that he was dead; then word came that Andi had died, and Kathryn felt sick - if only she had stayed, Andi might have survived! Full of guilt, as misfortunates heaped on each other, her only strength was the knowledge that Amelie felt even worse; this gave her the strength to face the challenges ahead, for the Count was furious and called them into his presence. He demanded to know why they had interefered, how they had known what was going on, and more. Grendel almost got them all killed when he said that he had only attacked because the count was a sidhe; however, Kathryn and Amelie said it was to protect Jedeil, for they didn't know what was going on. When asked how they'd known, Amelie was terrified, but somehow Kathryn found the courage to lie (as Liza whispered in her mind that she must do so!) and say that she and Amelie had been returning to Willowgrove when they had chanced upon the encounter. Somehow, the Count believed her; the Baron Vladimir stepped forward to speak in there defence, though not in Grendel's, and a date was set for a trial, for they had committed high treason. It was so hard, because Smart was a complete secret, and she couldn't tell.
As they exited the interrogation room, a hoard of people were curious to know what had happened, but Kathryn wouldn't answer anything. Instead, she continued to reassure Amelie, telling her that they had done nothing wrong and everything would be okay; the two of them were remanded to the care of Careg, told to not leave Willowgrove, and given tokens to summon Careg if they needed to. Kathryn was terrified the whole time, gripping her sword so hard her knuckles were white, but she found the strength to manage, and slowly the crowd dispersed. Kathryn fancied that there was concern on Dino's face, but she was never sure, and convinced herself it was in her head.
Not long after, Azraphael, who had always terrified her, approached and explained that if she tried to run away he'd have to hunt her down and kill her, which he really didn't want to do, and he was so kindly about it that she never felt uncomfortable around him again, which was something of a boon. Then the Baron approached, and attempted to figure out what her roll had been. It quickly became clear that Kathryn was completely ignorant of Fae law, incapable of defending herself in any meaningful capacity, and the Baron was very kind as he explained things to her, and made sure she knew he'd help her and Amelie to come away from this safely.
Terrified, then, Kathryn realized that all of them were still wearing there Starfish, and if they were found out it'd be big trouble. She quickly gathered them all on wet rocks and passed them off to Ari; only to be given them back soon after as Mad Tess scrambled to fix the situation; an emergency meeting was called, and it became clear that Liza was really the one seen as being at fault, and the rest of them should be okay, that Tess would speak to the Count. Kathryn felt terrible, though, for she had endangered them all and there mission.
Word filtered out that Jedeil had violated his parole and that his punishment had been just; however, Kathryn knew that she'd do what she did again given half a chance, and told that to Amelie, who agreed. Kaye soon approached, wanting to know what had happened, and Kathryn explained as best she could - omitting Smart, of course - and said she would also try to help.
Feeling a bit better about things - refusing to let herself think about how much could possibly go wrong in one day - Kathryn joined a group talking about the shape of the future; she was brought low again, despite the tenor of the conversation, by Dino's reaction to her, for when he saw her he jerked away and didn't look that way. Despondent, Kathryn knew she had messed everything up royally.
And so the day came to an end, miserably, as Kathryn had by far the worst day of her life.
In our next installment, we'll cover the Trial and Yule! :)
-Architecture - Kathryn decided to learn more about architecture, so that she could potentially be of some help to Dino.
-The Goddess of Magic - an owl pooka, pretending to be the goddess of magic, was helped by Dante to trick Kathryn into finding her a mouse. Kathryn complied, and received the blessing of the goddess of magic.
-SMART - on the recommendation of Tam, Kathryn was asked to join a secret society being run by Artemis (aka Mad Tess). The members of this society were: Chet the Sluagh, Petra Paternoster the Knocker, Liza ap Sharaev the Sidhe, Grendel the Redcap, Tam the Cluricon, Ari the Satyr, Andi ap Scattach, the Sidhe, Shae the Satyr, Amelie the Cluricon, Petros the Eshu, and Kathryn, 11 total. All of these were given starfish that, when worn behind the ear, allowed them to communicate at will - which has proved both very good and very bad, and will surely continue to do so. The purpose of this group was to travel the trods and operate in secret to acocmplish some unknown over all task for Mad Tess, and all agreed to do it to help the future of Fae kind.
The first Smart mission was in Los Angelos. They had but three days to complete this task, though they didn't know why the time limit existed, for Tess didn't know. Their goal was to retrieve the circus tent of Raider Valentine, a hedgehog pooka who died in the forties, for the tent was a freehold, and therefore of immense value. It was difficult to track down, but using a variety of means they were able to do so, and they returned the tent to Tess. (events included the horror that was Disney Land in the Dreaming, the king of the crabs, stars of the screen that never were, the flickering dreams of Hollywood, and more)
In short order, Kathryn felt a fair amount of comraderie for all of her fellow SMART members; she considered them all good friends, and would do a great deal to help them out. Cries of "Abort abort" and "bunnies" were there catch phrases, and they all got along well.
The day after Samhain started awfully. Horrified to discover that she remembered large chunks of the night before, Kathryn briefly contemplated suicide. Fortunately, Pinnochio's presence was a useful buffer, for she would never distress him so, and discovering that he had a clockwork in his back that neither of them could explain gave her something useful to do briefly. After she couldn't help with that, she threw herself whole heartedly into helping a new Eshu who had just chrysalized and was completely lost; it took her mind off of things immensely to be able to try to help. However, this relief was short lived; the sluagh Kanatori approached her, bearing her sword Troy, with a devious offer - he would not return the sword unless she did him a favor.
Promising to do so, Kathryn finished with some basic help for Tiffany the Eshu, and then headed back out to find Kanatori. She wanted to give him something so that it'd be over and done with, but she couldn't think of anything. He wanted to know information, some sort of secret, and though Kathryn knew at least two decent sized secrets - one, about the existance of SMART, and two, about Dino's plans to create a wondrous magical sword - Kathryn didn't feel comfortable telling other people's secrets, and she certainly had none of her own. However, Kanatori too remembered parts of Samhain, and to Kathryn's horror he suggested that he would be content if she would speak of her love; that was a big enough secret for his purposes, and so all that she had to do to no longer be in his debt was tell Dino that she was in love with him.
Horrified, but unsure of any alternatives, Kathryn agreed too, feeling sick to her stomach. She spent several moments afterwards steeling herself. Dale Derring leant her a coat that belonged to Elijah Stark, and Eleanor Elise lent her a shawl, and combined she was a bit more modestly dressed (for she had awoken in naught but a shirt)...finally, as confident as she could be, she approached Dino, and stuttered out..."Um, Dino, I...I'm supposed...no...I mean...That is...I love you." At which point she spun around and almost ran away, going to find a corner to cry in. As she sat, terribly upset, trembling (wondering how Dino had reacted, for she hadn't been able to bear to watch) she was approached by Ray, a sweet Sluagh who had always been kind to her, and who now helped her to feel better about things; then, Liza took a turn at helping her feel better, pointing out that Dino was a good man who wouldn't be unkind to her, though Kathryn feared he would hate her now.
However, once more fate intervened to help take her mind of things. The TV, which had been on quietly in the background, chimed in with a horrifying news report: Los Angelos had been captured by someone claiming to be Lucifer. Horrified, Kathryn pushed her way through the crowd who had been drawn to the TV to ask Tam if he thought this was there fault, for they had on the SMART mission conspired to cause a shield that had been protecting the city to drop. Soon other concerned Smart members had gathered and, terrified, they tried to figure out if this had all been there fault. However, finally, they concluded that it couldn't be, for there had been no certainty that they would drop the shield, and yet they had been told that they had to be away from the city before three days - before the day that Lucifer invaded. Vaguely reassured, Kathryn was left alone again, and soon her mind was full of dark thoughts once more.
Determined not to sink to horrible new lows (despite her inability to ignore Dino, and her tendency to watch him where ever he went) she tracked down Tiffany the Eshu and went back to trying to help her. However, her depression kept seeping through, and she felt bad, for she knew she musn't be good company.
Time passed, and, later, she and Amelie were catching up - Amelie too seemed depressed, though she denied remembering aught of Samhain night. Kathryn denied nothing - though as the day went on, it occured to her that silence might be wise, and she started to be more guarded, despite her normally open nature. However, as they were talking, they received a horrified cry over the starfish network. It was from Liza, and she screamed, "You have to help him! They are going to kill him!" Instantly aroused, Kathryn and Amelie demanded to know where they were needed, and when told that it was outside of Willowgrove, they set off at a run, soon joined by Grendel and Andi, though none of the others seemed to have heard. There, they saw Jedeil being attacked by the count's lions, while Count Leander and Gawyn stood watch, and Liza looked horrified. Jedeil fell and, alarmed, the four dove in to rescue him.
Kathryn and Andi beat the lions back, while Amelie tried to haul Jedeil into her dream boat. However, she couldn't alone, so Kathryn switched to the defensive and went to help her. Grendel tried to shoot the Count in the head, but was stopped by Gawyn, and the lions ripped one of his arms off. Andi attacked the lions ferociously, while the Count ordered them all to stand down, but they didn't; he then ordered Liza to attack Andi, which she did. Thoroughly upset, Kathryn managed to get Jedeil into the Dreamboat, despite taking a lion bite to the arm, and then she and Grendel hopscotched off; Kathryn didn't realize until later that Andi had no way to escape, and, though she wanted to go back, there was no way.
Things got very messy then, complicated, as conflicting reports came in. Word came that JEdeil had been healed, only to be followed by news that he was dead; then word came that Andi had died, and Kathryn felt sick - if only she had stayed, Andi might have survived! Full of guilt, as misfortunates heaped on each other, her only strength was the knowledge that Amelie felt even worse; this gave her the strength to face the challenges ahead, for the Count was furious and called them into his presence. He demanded to know why they had interefered, how they had known what was going on, and more. Grendel almost got them all killed when he said that he had only attacked because the count was a sidhe; however, Kathryn and Amelie said it was to protect Jedeil, for they didn't know what was going on. When asked how they'd known, Amelie was terrified, but somehow Kathryn found the courage to lie (as Liza whispered in her mind that she must do so!) and say that she and Amelie had been returning to Willowgrove when they had chanced upon the encounter. Somehow, the Count believed her; the Baron Vladimir stepped forward to speak in there defence, though not in Grendel's, and a date was set for a trial, for they had committed high treason. It was so hard, because Smart was a complete secret, and she couldn't tell.
As they exited the interrogation room, a hoard of people were curious to know what had happened, but Kathryn wouldn't answer anything. Instead, she continued to reassure Amelie, telling her that they had done nothing wrong and everything would be okay; the two of them were remanded to the care of Careg, told to not leave Willowgrove, and given tokens to summon Careg if they needed to. Kathryn was terrified the whole time, gripping her sword so hard her knuckles were white, but she found the strength to manage, and slowly the crowd dispersed. Kathryn fancied that there was concern on Dino's face, but she was never sure, and convinced herself it was in her head.
Not long after, Azraphael, who had always terrified her, approached and explained that if she tried to run away he'd have to hunt her down and kill her, which he really didn't want to do, and he was so kindly about it that she never felt uncomfortable around him again, which was something of a boon. Then the Baron approached, and attempted to figure out what her roll had been. It quickly became clear that Kathryn was completely ignorant of Fae law, incapable of defending herself in any meaningful capacity, and the Baron was very kind as he explained things to her, and made sure she knew he'd help her and Amelie to come away from this safely.
Terrified, then, Kathryn realized that all of them were still wearing there Starfish, and if they were found out it'd be big trouble. She quickly gathered them all on wet rocks and passed them off to Ari; only to be given them back soon after as Mad Tess scrambled to fix the situation; an emergency meeting was called, and it became clear that Liza was really the one seen as being at fault, and the rest of them should be okay, that Tess would speak to the Count. Kathryn felt terrible, though, for she had endangered them all and there mission.
Word filtered out that Jedeil had violated his parole and that his punishment had been just; however, Kathryn knew that she'd do what she did again given half a chance, and told that to Amelie, who agreed. Kaye soon approached, wanting to know what had happened, and Kathryn explained as best she could - omitting Smart, of course - and said she would also try to help.
Feeling a bit better about things - refusing to let herself think about how much could possibly go wrong in one day - Kathryn joined a group talking about the shape of the future; she was brought low again, despite the tenor of the conversation, by Dino's reaction to her, for when he saw her he jerked away and didn't look that way. Despondent, Kathryn knew she had messed everything up royally.
And so the day came to an end, miserably, as Kathryn had by far the worst day of her life.
In our next installment, we'll cover the Trial and Yule! :)
