Sirens Blaring

[Katarina Kane]

While it may have been Ryn's attention to head for the ghost roads, Katarina had tugged her along a different direction -- apparently in an unusual take charge mode; leading for once rather than just following Ryn's lead, which was their more normal pattern. Quickly, she made her way for the Panda, hopping in the driver's seat, and turned the car north -- away from the ocean, away from the canyon, away from downtown in general, avoiding Sepulveda and taking the side streets towards the freeway, the forest, the mountains, and the desert beyond. She very carefully obeyed the traffic laws, sticking exactly to the speed limit, slumped over in her seat to try to avoid as many stares as possible as she made her way towards the San Diego Freeway along the secret roads and paths that made sense to her, not to Ryn.

It was a very, very long five minutes. Katarina shifted in her seat uncomfortably, where the wings were pressing up against the back of her seat and awkwardly compressing them into her back. She gripped the wheel tightly, looking clearly bothered by the new sensation of scales on polyurethane. Just the act of physically existing in space seemed to be a challenge for Katarina at the moment, as she drove towards the freeway and escape.

And through it all, she did not make a sound, nor turn to look at Ryn, as she urged the car forwards.

[Erynies Adrasteia]

Ryn hadn't complained, if anything she'd gladly let Katarina lead the way and closed her eyes. Somewhere between Katarina getting in the car and unlocking the passenger door she'd produced a blindfold made of the same smooth, black material she's bandaged with. She'd collapsed in the seat, rolled the window down a crack and just let Katarina drive. It's rare to see the deva this worn out, not to mention the general state of her. Somewhere along the way her dress-shirt got ripped off, leaving her only with the wrappings that are protecting her ribs and modesty alike. She feels and looks like a bundle of broken twigs.

She doesn't need to see to be painfully aware of just how uncomfortable Katarina is. She hears the shifting and movement of the wings and scales against fabric and seat, can smell how upset the siren is. It makes her feel like a million little ice-shards are pressing into her skin. She's destroyed everything. It is, after all, what she excels at. This is why she shouldn't be allowed near anything nice and good; at least if she's only ever around monsters they are the only thing that can suffer. But even that didn't really work, did it? Because the world has become too complicated for the likes of her.

"I didn't need your help." she uncharacteristically breaks the silence. And promptly fumbles her words. She wants to tell her she didn't want Katarina to sacrifice all she did just for her. That this isn't how she thought it'd be for the siren to embrace what she is. That she feels bad and wishes things were different somehow. Even by rewriting reality she can't escape her unchanging self.

[Katarina Kane]

"No, you were doing just lovely," Katarina said, flatly. "They were helping you get all that nasty blood and...ichor?...out of your body and onto the floor of the mall. And destroying half of the city while doing so."

[Erynies Adrasteia]

"No, you... should have left me. By the time I'd wake once more you would have lived a long, happier life."

She touches the edge of her blindfold and rubs the growing moisture between her fingers. She doesn't remember her eyes bleeding...

[Katarina Kane]

"Passed along for someone else to monitor and dissect, you mean."

Another awkward pause.

"What ARE you, Ryn. And no more half-truths or.... or word games. What in the world are you."

[Erynies Adrasteia]

"A Deva." she says, though she knows that while technically enough of a descriptor it's not the answer Katarina is looking for. "The One who eats monsters. Erynies Adrasteia the Fury."

She takes a heavy breath and slowly begins to sing. It's a low, almost sorrowful sound, no inexplicable instruments accompanying her. It's more incantation than song of the kind quietly sung in temples of old.

♪♫"Hear me, illustrious Erynies, mighty named, of terrific powers, counsel famed.
Holy and pure, from Wind and Shadow born.
Whose piercing sight, with vision unconfined, surveys the deeds of all the impious kind.
On Fate attendant, punishing with wrath severe, of deeds unjust and base.
Darkened queen whose glitt'ring eyes are bright with dreadful, radiant, life-destroying light.
Eternal ruler, terrible and strong, to whom revenge and tortures dire belong.
Fatal and horrid to human sight, with snaky tresses wand'ring the night."♪♫

[Katarina Kane]

"Revenge and tortures dire. And that's why you were assigned to me, yes? To...eat the monster, should it appear?"

[Erynies Adrasteia]

"None assign me. I do as I please." she says with a small smile. "I don't care for the motivations of man. I care for you."

[Katarina Kane]

"You do what you please," Katarina repeated, incredulously. "You stay and work with the Society, covering up their messes and maintaining a Veil which would otherwise be tracking you down because...what? You're bored?"

[Erynies Adrasteia]

"They find things I can't. And by their authority I am free. I was banished from civilized lands a long long time ago and it weakens me to trespass, binds me to law and order. But the Agency has their own rules, allowed me through."

"If they subdue me now and bind me by their rules I'll be no stronger than human. I'd rather die and be reborn than to spend another moment in a cell."

[Katarina Kane]

"Yes, well, when I die, I stay dead, and there's no escaping the cell for me. By their authority, I was caged, and now they'll take me apart for parts if they find us."

[Erynies Adrasteia]

"I will not let them." she simply states as if she was saying the sky is blue or water is wet.

[Katarina Kane]

"You were ready to die not ten minutes ago, Ryn. And even you can't stand up to the whole Agency!" Katarina said, slamming her hands onto the wheel. "That's why we have to run, and have to KEEP running."

[Erynies Adrasteia]

"That was before you came. In the wild there is nothing to hinder me." she says, turning her head slightly to smell the air outside.

"It took a dozen gods to hold me down and--" she bites her own sentence off and pulls her legs up on the seat, wrapping her arms around her knees. "They will not harm you."

[Katarina Kane]

The air was still clogged with smog and human nastyness; even as Katarina continued to drive. The mountains in the distance were getting closer, though, and maybe they could still climb out of it and find something fresh...

"Any more than I've already been harmed, right? I mean, look at me," she said, angrily slamming her fist into the steering wheel. "At least before I had a chance of...a chance of a normal life. Now?

Now I can feel the ocean pulling at me, calling me. It's taking everything I have not to turn this car around and plunge straight into the sea. To...to lose what little left I can call me. Everything came to a head, and I've....I've lost it all, Ryn. I've lost everything."

[Erynies Adrasteia]

"Some things you can't escape. I should know." she says quietly. Inevitable or not, the tone in Katarina's voice forms a lump in her chest, right beneath her neck.

"But you will never not be you. You're Katarina. Your smile shines in your eyes and brightens the world and you do what you think is right, even if it costs you everything." she goes on and why is her jaw hurting so? And her blindfold is still damp. All her other wounds have stopped bleeding...

[Katarina Kane]

"And you think that because you're obsessed with me, because you listened to my god damned single," Katarina swore. "That's why you stay with the agency, despite....despite everything. And that's why you couldn't find a way to let me go. Because you needed to have me, because I made you so."

[Erynies Adrasteia]

"Katarina." she says, letting go of her legs in order to turn and face the siren. As much as she can with the blindfold on anyway. "I do as I please. Never as I'm commanded. I don't understand these feelings, not truly, but they are mine and mine alone. This I swear." she says and holds up the first two fingers of her right hand and draws a diagonal across her heart.

[Katarina Kane]

"You eat monsters. Your....your whole purpose, whatEVER it is you are, wherever you actually come from, is to destroy me. Before I can hurt anyone. Even though I already have hurt people. You...

You don't know what love is
Until you've learned the meaning of the blues
Until you've loved a love you had to lose
You don't know what love is...."

[Erynies Adrasteia]

"The ones I hunt are nothing like you, their souls are fouled by evil hearts. They revel where you fret and worry." she quietly speaks to the music before falling into a more lyrical tone.

♪♫"I don't know how hearts hurt.
Never cared for something that I lost.
Until you flipped my heart and paid the cost.
Still. I don't know what love is."♪♫

♪♫"I may not know what love is
But how your look can make me feel
Is much too strong to not be real.
And maybe that's what love is."♪♫

[Katarina Kane]

"My look. I look like I belong on an all-you-can-eat surf and turf platter. I can...

...I was already having trouble walking to get out here. I'm not done changing. And there won't be anything left of that....that look. I stayed too long; I never found an answer, and now I'm stuck like this. And going to get worse. And I can already feel it happening to my mind, as well.

I don’t want this hurt I’m feeling. I don’t want all this regret.
They say forgiveness leads to healing, but all I want is to forget.
They say nightmares make you stronger if they’re fought and if they’re faced,
but I can’t fight them any longer. Why can’t they just be erased?

I'm always reminded of the life I left behind,
It’s still trying to find me everywhere I go.
What happens next? What can I expect?
What comes next when I can no longer say no?

I want my old life back again!
I dream of stages in the night;
Far from seas that claim my soul,
Need my heart to feel the light

I've earned the right to not be daunted by sordid mythology
And I'm so tired of being haunted by the thing I'm meant to be
You want me to live inside your world, be unlike I was before
But every step slides me into darkness and I can't take it anymore

I keep reaching for my past, but it's fading far too fast
And it somehow still casts it's shadow on my heart
There's nothing more that I can do; bury everything I knew
Everything's brand new, so where is my fresh start?

What I'd give to return to the life that I knew lately
But I know that I can't solve my problems going back!
Don't want this sadness and anger, and I don't want sympathy
I just want to live life looking backwards...
Why won't this curse just let me be...

I'm going to wander every desert, I'm gonna sail 'cross every sea
And until I find an answer, there could not be you and me
This impossible romance?
It would never stand a chance...

Tears fall down like salty rain
Will this tide release me?
A familiar refrain; never-ending pain
It would be insane to see a you and me....

[Erynies Adrasteia]

♪♫"I'll keep you out of your cages
but I can't promise stages.
To start a journey through a strange new world,
means nothing if you're seeking to be cured.

I am a god, the true divine,
Shunned from your world, by cruel design.
But still I claim what once I held,
The power that saw Titans felled.

I cannot cure what ails your soul,
Destruction all I ever preach.
The only cure within my reach,
I cannot grant and keep you whole."♪♫

Her voice doesn't waver, despite the feeling in her chest choking her with it's weight. Why does it hurt so much? Why won't her eyes stop bleeding?
The droplets falling from her blindfold onto her hands feel like water and what perplexes the Deva is plainly obvious to Katarina. Tears are snaking out from the dark fabric and down her cheeks

♪♫"But if you're desperate, truly lost,
and if you can endure the cost,
I've driven spirits from the flesh,
No matter how deep they enmeshed.

I'll do it, if you say the word, break my oath and see you hurt,
To flense and cut down to your soul.
But if the Siren is your nature,
the truth inside you fully wagered,
Not even ashes will be left,
it only works if you're possessed."♪♫

[Katarina Kane]

"...You would break an oath for me?" Katarina said, quietly, after a moment.

[Erynies Adrasteia]

Ryn seems almost as surprised by that as Katarina and sits quietly for a moment. It's unthinkable. She can't break her word any more than a human could swallow their own head. She has no idea what were to happen if she tried. Few of her kind have gone against their nature and the results are never the same. She herself has slain some who did. Very few rose from such a fall and fewer still who were as old, as absolute and unchanging as her. It's true sacrilege.

But since when has Ryn ever cared about the rules in pursuit of what's right?

"I would." she nods.

[Katarina Kane]

"Well. That would be..." Katarina said, still looking straight ahead and trying to stay focused.

"Well, first we need to get away," she said, trying to stick in prioritizing mode. "You know the ghostroads, but so do they -- but that means you also know where the ghost roads aren't, and that's where we need to go."

[Erynies Adrasteia]

"They move, but most are where there's people. Boughs and caves and waterfalls used to hold most of them but not any more." she says, though unlike other things she's talked about that have changed, this doesn't seem to bother her too much.

"North, into the wilderness. The woods, or further still to the deadlands."

[Katarina Kane]

"I figured as much. There are enough abandoned places thatways that we can go dark for while," Katarina said. "I...know of a place."

[Erynies Adrasteia]

Ryn nods and settles into the seat more. "I'll have to sleep soon. Just for a little while. Do not worry if you can't wake me, I need to heal."

[Katarina Kane]

"I bet. You took quite the beating back there. You can't take on the world, you know."

[Erynies Adrasteia]

"Have to." she mumbles. "The world protects the wicked." she adds, already half-asleep.

[Katarina Kane]

"And you protect me," Katarina said, quietly, as she took the exit towards a smaller, less-used highway up and out...