Much like physical injury, emotional injury did not automatically heal in a day, or a week
for that matter and in the end could leave scars that might not ever go away.
Bart and Jenny's guilt over their well meaning but reckless scheme of using the Omegas as
their shadow puppets to prove their worth to the rest of the pack was something they'd
never forget. And for eight cubs, the loss of their mothers was NOT something that a day
off from school and a performance by the Omegas and kindness by a fellow cub could
magically make go away. The truth of the loss had finally hit them. The grieving process
would not be over in a day.
The fact these blows had been struck down on -children- would make the repairs only a
longer process. Yes, this wasn't something that could be just cured in a day.
While Felicity was in no way Elise, nor could be Elise, nor would ever be Elise, Felicity was
still Brian's Prime Mate, and with that came a responsibility to Moja, Mbili, Tatuli, and
Nneli, her Prime Mate's children. She would be there to teach them the things that simply
weren't covered in school.
That left Tano, Sita, Saba, and Nane still without a mother or mother figure. Penny loved
Kirk, and was the only person she'd want for her Prime Mate. But Fox had been Penny's
best friend and it felt wrong to leave her litter out in the cold, true, there was the rest of
the Pride would be more than willing to take care of them, but to teach them to be
lionesses was something only a woman like Penny could do.
Penny admitted to herself that she had little clue on how she could reach a understanding
with the litter's father over this. She had no intention of becoming Gary's Prime Mate nor
was she about to try and steal his own litter from him, she simply wanted to provide his
litter with a positive female role model.
'Maybe he and the litter can just move in with me and Kirk once we get our own place,'
Penny thought, after all, co-habitation between families of the Pride wasn't that strange.
Homes were all joint owned by the Pride as a whole anyway.
++++++++++
Gillie didn't know when she lost track of what she was supposed to be asking, instead she
had asked her grandmother questions any grandchild would of their long lost
grandmother. What were her grandparents like in their youth? What details did the history
books leave out from the historical events they themselves had lived through?
Of course this also ended up giving Gillie a new history lessons on events that had
happened different (again) from how she remembered.
As Mother Glen, as her grandmother, continued to speak about the incredibly long life she
had led giving finer detail about event she had witnessed, Gillie thought, 'They're not
human. Not in the least.' Of course Gillie already knew that just from looking at them. But
it was more than that. Human beings had a limit on how many people they could
empathizes with. How many persons they could comprehend as persons all at once before
needing to shrink them down into categories before going mad at trying to recognize them
all -individually- as fellow sentient beings.
The more Gillie listened, the more it became obvious that Mother Glen saw any person she
spoke of as if she knew them personally, it was as if there was no such thing as
'impersonal' with them.
'I guess it makes sense,' Gillie thought, 'If the conditions of the Transform was for everyone
who was transformed to be civilized, and their children to be civilized, and so forth, you'd
have to have them genetically inclined to empathize with anyone and everyone...' What
honestly scared Gillie was how that DIDN'T make her head hurt like it should have! Even as
Gillie thought about it, she thought of each of her officers, and realized how much each of
them meant to her. Of course they already had before, she wouldn't be much of a police
chief if they hadn't meant anything to her. But something felt different about it.
'I just hope I don't go insane from having software for completely different hardware!' Gillie
thought thinking of her brain structure.
"I think we best head back down." Her grandmother said, "It would be rude for the meat to
go to waste for breakfast."
"I already ate." Gillie said simply.
"It's being there that counts sometimes." Mother Glen explained, and I can escort you
downstairs dear while you visit your pridemates..."
Gillie sighed and nodded wondering precisely what Tabby had become a sister or a
husband for Wanda by now.
+++++++++++++
1682
For the Omega Mary it was just as bad as the wolf pups who had come with the ever loyal
and ever obedient (and picture perfect example of what an Omega SHOULD be) silver twins
had come home with the pups sporting amber colored fur and bizarre mixes of reds and
yellows and various shades of purple.
Was it some new disease? But besides the odd fur color nothing about them had seemed
amiss. And the pups talked about some rainbow colored she-wolves that had given them
all their new fur colors.
"And of course," Glass Marie said, "They never found them. The witches did this trick one
more time adding various other colors to the lupman genome. This of course led to some
nasty rumors back in Europe that lupmans there were mating with felmans, who of course,
are known for their bright and unique fur colors."
Maddex said nothing about Marie saying the obvious since his daughters were present and
to his knowledge hadn't met a felman face to face before.
"And this, of course," Marie continued, "Just added fuel to the fire almost a century later
that drove the chasm between the European and the North American branches of the Big
Bad Wolf pack even further. There was no love lost when the two branches were on
opposing sides during the revolutionary war."
Maddex glared at glass Marie and shut her trap. There were somethings little girls like his
twin daughters DIDN'T need to know about until they hit puberty. And Marie chose to
respect Maddex's decision as a father.
"So Kathrine just kept on trying?" Betty asked, "You think after that incident she'd have
tried to find someone else to be friends with."
"Kathrine was incredibly stubborn, which is how she was able to keep up the pretense of a
happy go lucky personality that was expected for her 'fur caste'. And so through Christ
Masses, Easter Sundays, and Naming Days, was near Marie Cruz... Marie at one such event
punched her after one session of trying too hard on Kathrine's part and Kathrine hid in her
room for a month before coming out looking as perky and determined as ever."
"Just like that?" Betty asked.
"Oh she cried to herself a lot in those following weeks, but eventually she decided she had
already set course and left port and was going to see the voyager through to the end. And
Kathrine did prove useful at last to Marie in taking care of Mutt. The dog spent most of his
time sleeping now and Marie didn't have the time to spend anymore to look after her
beloved dog. What stunned her more than anything was how Mutt -didn't- freak out at
being around Kathrine... after all.. to Mutt, Kathrine was part of the same group as Marie,
so there was no logical reason to be hostile towards her in the old dog's mind."
"He thought Kathrine was a dog too?" Lilly HAD to ask.
"Close enough. Dogs are like that. Chester is also much the same."
"HOW do you know about Chester-?!" She exclaimed.
"I have more knowledge and more power right now than ANY person has a right to have
mostly from Kurse being inside all your heads when she was destroyed. Gita finally turned
eighteen. Of course it was celebrated. But of course the three girls had their own
celebration. And Gita felt inspired.
She came to the logical conclusion that the power the witch and the two witchlings had
simply wasn't enough, couldn't be enough, to completely topple order in their lifetime and
they were worried that their experiments for eternal childhood were finally being noticed
by their father and by those even with only a passing element of the gift.
Their patience was running out, as they entered the world of adults themselves they were
growing increasing desperate. They were TERRIFIED of becoming 'evil adults' and loathed
the idea of being 'one of them' astoundingly. Their familiars of course were saying how
they needed more time, more practice, and that the power they had already dwarfed a
typical witch twice their age already! Truly, the power they had already -was- greatly
unbalance and unreal when considering how naturally it all came to them. In short, they
had gained great power, WITHOUT EVER having to really WORKED FOR IT."
Marie shuddered, 'Like me.' Sadly this power was ingrained into her, she couldn't wish it
away than she could her own blood stream.
Glass Marie continued, "But it STILL wasn't enough. They wanted to be able to turn the
entire world on it's head, not just Glendale, which I suppose was a blessing in disguise
because well before they faced Marie Cruz, Kathrine, Fire, and Vadican and his companion,
they had more enough power to turn Glendale into their own little kingdom, but they were
not interested in just one town..."
"How could Marie and the others POSSIBLY of stood against THAT? And force them to face
due process to be hung as well-?!" Lawrence asked the perfectly logical question.
"You'll see soon enough..." Glass Marie said simply. "And the two witchlings and the witch
however as I said were still angry, hurt, and immature children at heart who refused to
accept the death of their loved ones. In their hearts, they never grew up. In that way at
least they succeeded in cheating the world of adults... They began drawing plans for
basically a town sized rune that would cause all the world's magic to be drawn towards
them, basically stealing power from the rest of the world to feed theirs... but none would
realize the cause, save Marie Cruz. And once they put this plan into motion, their power
would grow beyond what a human brain was capable of handling and they'd become the
maniacs that Marie Cruz and her companions would have to put down. Their familiars
convinced them to wait until all three had reached adulthood. Which would be two more
years. And it would take them a year to draw a rune the size of a town ..."
"Does that rune still exist?" Beth asked.
"No... the curse became self sustaining once it was placed, it stopped at Glendale simply
because that was the mold it was cast from for lack of a better term."
"So how did Kathrine and Marie finally become friends?" Casandra asked.
"A Turk spy infiltrated the Vatican and was popular with all, including Marie, Patricia, and
the rest. He was with them for a year and a half building up trust before putting his real
mission into action. He needed three virgins of three different species of man to sacrifice to
summon a demon of Hell to destroy the heart of the enemy. Marie and Vatican were both
involved in stopping this scene from ever getting near step two. It was this encounter that
would be the final lesson Marie needed to see her 'friendship' with the witches for what it
was. When Marie managed to bring him back alive, she personally saw to his interrogation
since he technically no longer existed anymore according to formal records, than she
officially didn't exist so it was a practical match."
"You mean his torture." Betty said earning a very harsh glare for Maddex and a confused
look from Samantha, Lilly and Casandra.
"She was an Inquisitor, she knew her trade. And he is not the sort of man you'd have felt
sorry for. To her credit, she tried her absolute hardest NOT to enjoy her task and NOT use
methods that were illegal. And torture was at the time considered by some to be an act of
compassion, punishing a person in life so they wouldn't be punished in the afterlife.
And of course there was one other thing, Marie realized that night felmans' personalities -
weren't- slave genetically and Kathrine acted the way she did because of her family's
expectations and her own choices, not cause her DNA told her so. She very much didn't
want Kathrine involved in her world because she'd be hurt, but at that time she also
realized a kinship she had with Kathrine, both had worn masks because they had to, not
because they had chosen to."
"That sounds like one big ugly chaotic MESS." Samantha said at last reminding everyone she
was there.
"It was... Marie vanished from the scene for a year after that incident... by the time she
came back, she was through pushing away Kathrine, or Vatican... who had continued to
watch over her silently even though they had rarely spoken, Gargoyles aren't known for
going back on their word after all... "