2016.02.17 Annalisa Story

Annalisa's Story
Annalisa's Backstory
IC Date	n/a
IC Time	Prior to Grid
Players	n/a
Location	Off Grid
Prp/Tp	n/a
Spheres	Shifter Garou

PROLOGUE: A First Time for Everything

The breeze was gentle and just right to make the golden sunlight feel warm rather than hot, a rare treat in a humid Arkansas summer. The sky was a deep blue with only a few early summer clouds wispily floating high above. The scent of wild flowers sweetly mixed with pine and spruce, and there was birdsong on the wing that chirruped in response to the whirring of grasshoppers.

It was a beautiful day the day Annalisa's twin sister had died, and she could not help but feel like the world... that Gaia did not care.

"It was a glorious battle," the young Ahroun said. He spoke in that way so many Garou often did which was supposed to somehow comfort their human kin for the loss of a loved one that had already grown distant from a shadow war they were only barely allowed to understand. And yet the kin were expected to participate in that same shadowy conflict at the Garou Nation's whims.

Annalisa numbly put down the longbow she had been practicing with and set aside her quiver of arrows. Her last arrow still vibrated in the woven hay target fifty yards away.

"Anastasia could fight like no Ragabash I have ever known! It is hard to believe she was a Child of Gaia... " enthused the Get of Fenris Ahroun, Henry, who was the pack's newest member.

Annalisa, her long blond hair flowing around her, simply stood stoically and placed her hands on her blind mother's shoulders. Her mother felt too-thin, like she would break. Jessica, the pack alpha and Anastasia's best friend finally elbowed Henry out of the way and stared him into submission before taking over.

"She died to save us," said Jessica apologetically, "Gaia preserve, but you look so exactly like her Anna, that same set of jaw, that same determination and will in the face of... "

"But I'm NOT her!" spouted Annalisa, "I didn't breed true! I'm nearly nineteen so you can forget it happening, I'm not Garou! I 'm just one of the ones who waits to hear that my twin, my other half, died fighting when the Warrior," she jerked her chin to Henry, "Lives to see another day! Glorious battle... don't make me laugh! My sister was your SCOUT, yet the FULL MOON walks away unscathed?! Did he run away with his tail between his legs while she took out something he was too wet behind the ears to know he shouldn't mess with?"

"Annalisa!" warned Annalisa's mother fearfully.

So many things happened in the next moment that Annalisa nearly lost track of them all.

Jessica opened her mouth in surprise but turned to Henry immediately upon hearing a snarling growl from him.

Annalisa's words had been barbed just the right way, not that it was hard to do with Henry. She had known it, and she had not cared. She WANTED to join her sister, and the better to dishonor Henry with her death by having his hot head kill a kin like her while she was at it.

In the mean time, she made sure that her mother got clear by pushing her roughly into Jessica's arms. Annalisa was so overwhelmed by grief and absolute rage that she tried to taunt Henry again, but it frustratingly came out as an inarticulate string of guttural animal-like sounds. She had never felt such a fury. Her whole body felt like it was expanding, her bones felt as though they were breaking under the strain, her muscles bulging and elongating as her world became engulfed in crimson.

PART 1: Sisters

It was a chilly autumn day, the trees were turning hues of flame and light in preparation to shed their leaves before a long winter sleep. Frosty though it was, there was still a fragrant scent to the clear Arkansas air and even the threat of coming rain did not deter the birds from singing. Two twelve-year-old-girls, identical in appearance, with waist-length blond hair and tall willowy frames stood at the end of an archery range. The range was barely discernible from the forest around them with its simple wooden artifices and woven straw targets, its most obvious feature simply being that the area was clear of trees and underbrush.

"Now hold it like this, just keep your hand open and rest the grip against the meaty part between your thumb and forefinger and slowly close your fingers around it," said Anastasia gently as she stood close to her twin and use her hips and feet to guide Annalisa into the right stances for archery, "Relax!"

"How can I relax, An!" responded Annalisa, "You're standing too close!"

"But it's cold and my little sister is sooooo WAAAAARM!" responded Anastasia as she suddenly embraced Annalisa from behind, momentarily aborting the archery practice with a fit of giggles.

Despite herself, the more reserved Annalisa couldn't help but to giggle happily, "Little! We're TWINS!"

"Sure, but I was first by a whole thirty minutes!" said Anastasia as she squeezed Annalisa and then started to guide her through drawing the bow again.

"That again," responded Annalisa, "Does that even COUNT?"

"Sure it does!" said Anastasia as she kissed Annalisa's cheek, "I was first, little sister. Now draw it all the way back to your cheek... don't let go. It's not a good idea to dry fire a bow."

"Mmmkay," responded Annalisa as she let her sister's body guide her own. She could feel the differences between herself and Anastasia, her hours painting and working with book bindings had not lent her the long lean muscle that her twin had. The bow was causing her arms to shake.

"It's okay, let it go slowly... we will try it with an arrow next so you can just release it," said Anastasia.

"Why did Daddy teach you this anyway, An?" asked Annalisa.

"Because of what the the Kin Fetch spirit divined when we were born, I bred true... I will first change any day now and become a Garou, Anna," said Anastasia, "Same reason he taught me to track, and to hunt and stuff. I like it actually. But... I want to teach it ALL to you too! You're my other half, I don't care about this 'breeding true' stuff."

Annalisa smiled, listening to her twin. There was a slightly lower octave to Anastasia's voice compared to her own. She was stronger. She truly did seem like a big sister; and Annalisa found herself simply liking it.

"Allright, big sister," said Annalisa.

PART 2: How I met your Mother.

The moon rose high above the trees, full to its brim with silver light that illumed the fog a in a spidery lacework to shroud the maple and spruce predominating the Arkansas forests outside of Hot Springs. There were still faint veins of primrose bleeding into the azure night, just visible between the treetops. It had not been quite sundown when Erik Ekrut, Rite named Shreds-the-Wyrm-Root, warrior born of the Get of Fenris had lost consciousness.

The air was warm, and it thrummed with the chorus of hundreds of summer cicadas. He had lost his war-form in his unconsciousness and dumbly puzzled at how he could feel the prickle of bark and pine needles against his skin when his arm was hanging limp at his side in a compound fracture that flooded his senses with familiar pain. Blearily he looked around himself and realized he was lying in a pool of blood that was not even his own.

The carnage around him was horrific.

Certainly he and his pack had taken their toll on the enemy, the twisted forms of no less than six Black Spiral Dancers lay in ruinous states nearby. They had been shown their entrails before the night was through. However, the army of banes at their beck and call had been an overwhelming combination coupled with the Spirals' surprise attack. What had once been a sacred place had become a pile of Wyrmspawn carcasses that might just as easily poison the ground as they would have when alive.

Erik looked around, and a great despair filled him.

He wanted to end himself as he saw that none of his pack had lived save for he. Gerder Runs-Upon-Three, the warrior bard of his pack whom had never lagged behind despite losing a leg to a great wyrmbeast when she was only a cub just past her firsting, had been the first to die. Her prone human form showed that she had exacted a price upon her killer. A torn throat still lay within her bloody lips.

Tor Hammer Tongue, Roger Cuts the Path, Hansel Laughing Maw, all of them had died fighting. Erik's pack, his family, they were gone. He should have been happy for them to have died fulfilling their duty. They died with claws out, swords in hand, leaping down the throat of the Wyrm to throttle it... but he felt only the emptiness of their loss.

Was he truly Get at all? He had been their leader.

Dragging himself to his feet, Erik stumbled back against a half-splintered tree, he could not even feel his rage anymore. Something black was in him, something that made him want to simply close his eyes and meet the darkness. He walked over and picked up Gerder's klaive, pointing it at his own heart.

A stick snapped nearby, snatching his attention as warrior instincts made him tear away from the self-ruination. He spun with the silver blade in one hand...

And standing before him was a woman whose purity he had never seen the like of. It was not that she was so terribly remarkable in beauty. She was pretty enough, with high Native American cheekbones on a Caucasian complexion and wavy honey blond hair to frame her face but her blind eyes might have been off-putting if not for her sense of both purity and strength.

It was one of the Kinfolk who belonged to the little Child of Gaia Caern, she had ventured out despite the danger and Erik found himself both frustrated and admiring of her strength of will.

"I did not sense any further battle and I came to tend the wounded... is everyone alright?" asked the young woman vaguely in his direction, trying to pinpoint him by the sounds of his movement.

"They are dead," said Erik as he dropped the klaive, simply surrendering to the weariness, exhaustion, pain and grief "They are all dead. The enemy. My pack. All of them save me... "

The young woman caught Erik , holding his battered form to her bosom with a strength that she did not look to posses.

Many tales were sung of the exploits of Erik's pack after that night. They were tales of how a Get of Fenris Pack whom had only just settled in with the tiny Sept had died to all but the last Garou defending the Caern heart when the Children of Gaia Elders had been lured away to rescue their cubs. It had been a tiny Sept back then, all but abandoned by the original Fianna who had named it the Sept of the Drunken Hick Kickers.

The tales of Erik's pack were sung anew nearly a year later when a blind Child of Gaia kinfolk named Marissa gave birth to his twin daughters on a night when the waning crescent moon had just given way to absolute darkness, and to the surprise of all save Erik who had thanked Gaia for his mate whom had pulled him from the depths of harano that night, the Kin Fetch for the first of his twins not only shone a true divination but was not for his own tribe; it was for the bloodline of her mother, The Children of Gaia.

Erik never married Marrisa, the daughters never bore the Ekrut name, but he thanked Gaia each day for his mate and his twins.

PART 3: Loss

At sixteen years old Annalisa was busily working with the binding equipment in the family business, the Time-Bound Bindery. They bound books in much the same way books had been bound for centuries, with loving hand-crafted precision using a wooden press and the right glues, leather, and paper. If any of the Garou Nation questioned the family profession, utilizing paper which came from trees, the Lettercraft family made it known that they painstakingly traced their resources back to those which were renewable and green.

It was satisfying work, the binding, the press, often it involved leather-crafting. The book that Annalisa was working on was one she had tracked down, print of Proust's work which had needed new bindings before it could be resold to a rare book dealer. It was satisfying rescuing the past, keeping knowledge and writing in-tact. Aside from which, it kept her from fidgeting and pacing while waiting for her father and sister to return home for the first time in months.

"Now Anna," she remembered Anastasia saying, "You're my sister, so you've got the knack. Finding information when you're appraising books is just like scouting, so don't slack off on really digging while I'm away with Dad's pack. You know Grandpa can't do it all, and Mom can only run the til! You have to be her eyes and... "

"Allright, allright An!" said Annalisa, "Goddess, you really do get long-winded on goodbyes!" She had hugged her sister close, kissed her cheek, and shooed her out the door, but her heart had never ached so badly in her life.

Annalisa was just getting the book set in its bindings when the door to the shop opened, setting off the bells. She rose to her feet and saw he sister coming through the door, but was already in her sister's arms before the look of despair on Anastasia's face sunk in.

"An... Sis, what's wrong?" asked Annalisa as she shook her head, a sense of dread welling up inside.

"Dad... he... he fought bravely," started Anastasia, before the tears overwhelmed her.

"No... oh, no... no... " said Annalisa, but she couldn't let herself cry.

Their father had always been closer to Anastasia, his daughter who had bred true. It was for Annalisa to comfort her twin, and so she held Anastasia close and stroked her fingers through her hair. She was just glad that their mother was out at the time, because she was going to need her sister to help her when they told their mother that her mate had been killed.

Part 4: Life

A cold wind moaned gently through the tops of trees that were bare of leaves. There were still greens to be found, though the pines and spruces seemed muted by the winter despite being evergreen. Woodsmoke was a faint tang upon the air and frost whitened the heather colored grass though actual snow was no more than a distant dream.

"Annalisa!" called Beverly as Annalisa stepped out of a used book store with a new acquisition clutched close in hand.

"Huh, Beverly?" responded Annalisa as she looked around, blinking at her friend and former schoolmate.

"The one and only," responded Beverly cheerfully, she was a full head shorter than Annalisa and had pixie-cut brown hair, "I only ever see you around since you and your sister started being home-schooled... I never thought Anastasia would end up being the wallflower of the two of you!"

Shoulders back, eyes straight, Annalisa simply put on a fake smile and lied with confidence, "She's just been really buckling in to her studies. She has a lot of catching up to do. "

Even at that, Beverly looked a little dubious, "Well, she always was the more likely one to goof off I suppose. So wha'cha doin'?"

"Oh, I was just getting ahold of a book to re-bind on the the cheap. It should sell well to a rare book dealer because it is a second edition printing... " said Annalisa

"Ohmigawd you are so adorable when you nerd out like that!" said Beverly as she suddenly hugged Annalisa, "I've missed you so much since you and your sister stopped coming to school! You have GOT to come over some time."

"Beverly?" called a voice that Annalisa didn't recognize as a taller teenaged boy stepped up behind her friend.

He had a strong Germanic heritage like she did, with fair skin and hair. He was definitely good looking, though he had a certain cockiness that Annalisa felt was off putting.

"Oh, Henry," said Beverly, "This is my friend Annalisa, she was in our grade until last year but her family started home-schooling her."

"Wow, too bad," said Henry as he openly leered at Annalisa, "Not enough cute girls around as it is."

"Ugh, you JERK!" said Beverly as she swatted Henry's shoulder, "Keep it up and we are NOT dating anymore. Annalisa, this is Henry... basically my boyfriend, but he's pushing his luck!" Annalisa smiled as the couple laughed.

She never saw Beverly again.

When Garou first change, things are often messy. Rage, the Garou say is not something you control the first time. The Get of Fenris had a proud new full moon warrior.

Even the Children of Gaia, Annalisa's own tribe as kin, welcomed Henry, taking pity that he had killed someone he cared about in his firsting.

Beverly's corpse was never found.

Her family would never even know that one of Gaia's supposed defenders had torn apart their daughter.

PART 5: Scars

Jessica, Hand-of-Justice, Fostern Philodox of the Children of Gaia and leader of the Path of Purity pack was too stunned to act for an agonizing space of heartbeats as she tried to process what was happening. She was still steadying Marissa Lettercraft in her arms as she was readying to intervene to keep Henry from getting to the foolish, grief-stricken, Annalisa. Hearing an insult so intentionally crafted to pierce the young warrior's honor out of the mouth of a girl whom had always been as gentle as a flower and yet strong as a mountain had been stunning all on its own.

She had never anticipated the white-furred crinos launching itself at Henry. Time itself seemed to have no meaning besides the flash of claw and gleam of fang launched at speeds no mortal eye could follow. Muscle rippled and teeth gnashed and it was hard to figure out which of the two frenzied garou was coming out on top. Jessica had never considered that Annalisa could breed true when the divination had only fallen on one of the two twins. The fury that claimed Annalisa was so primal that it had made even she pause; it was as though a fuse that had been burning for years had finally reached its end.

Crimson splashed as Henry's fur was lain open by Annalisa's claws. The newly changed Child of Gaia had an edge in surprise and raw fury. Like her sister before her, Annalisa had a superb combat balance that seemed to come naturally even if it was nearly untrained.

"She bred true," whispered the blind Marissa, knowing what was happening despite her unseeing eyes.

"Stay back, Marissa," Jessica said gently but with authority, and the older woman reacted in the way most kin did after a life spent around their garou family. She deferred silently, though tears of despair at the loss of her first daughter still poured down her cheeks.

Taking on the form of war herself, Jessica risked a howl. The archery range behind the Lettercraft home was outside the city limits, but she could not wait for help to arrive. Henry was already going to have a battle scar to show for his fight with Annalisa, but he was an Ahroun with more combat experience. Even in frenzy, he was gaining the upper hand and the two of them were intent to kill.

With all of her might, Jessica kicked Annalisa away from Henry, sending the taller but more willowy crinos tumbling end-over-end. It would not take her long to recover, Annalisa had already dug her claws into the earth to tear up massive divots and landed on her feet in all fours.

She took a claw-swipe full-on from Henry across the face, however she had already uttered a gutteral prayer to Luna and her raven fur shone a brilliant silver light that shimmered with sparks as the young Ahroun's claws struck against it like steel. He was winding back for another furious strike when she used another of her gifts of her rank to calm him, taking his rage away even as it boiled.

Soon Henry was a bleeding teenager on the ground at her feet and she rounded to face the onrushing Annalisa. Only to find her nude and weeping, her fury past.

EPILOGUE: Flame and Shadow

The first time Ywj Pheej saw her was in the twilight of a moonless night. Although he had been in America since he was a baby he had never seen a woman quite so tall, standing well over six feet. Her height did not detract from an easy grace and poise that spoke of someone at peace with their body and whom understood their place in the world. Her hair looked like gold in the light of still-burning fires and her light brown eyes favored those self-same flames like polished amber.

In the interplay of dark and light Ywj Pheej could tell she was naked save for the strap of the quiver that held arrows over her shoulder. Despite the swell of her bosom and flare of her hips being quite alluring, she was far too intimidating with the still quivering bowstring of the longbow in her hands for him to be anything save awestruck.

Annalisa Guida Lettercraft, Rite named Lights the Path, had saved his life. He had only met her once before to know whom she was, when he and his family had first come to the small Arkansas Sept, she had been away up until just a week ago.

With a crash, the bawn's caern lodge collapsed behind Ywj Pheej and he looked away to be sure that none of the other Kinfolk had been inside at the time. The Caern was being overrun, even as the bane the Garou archer had shot still shrieked in pain. By the time he looked back all he saw was the faintest shimmering blur and he wasn't certain of that.

Another bane shrieked, another arrow vibrating in its twisted nightmarish skull as it writhed half in and half out of the physical world only a few feet from a couple of the children who were hugging one another in uncertainty and outright fear. The banes were semi-corporeal things that were vaguely humanoid and the rest was either teeth or shadow.

"Get them out of here!" called a clarion contralto. It was melodic and yet commanding, and Ywj Pheej could only imagine it belonging to their stealthy protector.

He did not have to be told twice as he gathered up the children and fled from the Sept, hoping their shadowy protector was not the only Garou left to defend the Kin's retreat.

Flames were everywhere as Annalisa moved like mercury through the shadows, uncaring that her body was exposed. She had been lucky that only her dress had burned since she had favored the gift to smell like a human in order to slip by domesticated animals when she was traveling through Asia.

She had not even had time to greet Jessica since returning, and the Caern had been completely breached. Even with those Kin she had been covering for, the carnage was awful. There had been a recent influx of Laotian kinfolk who were spending a lot of time on the bawn and too few Garou to protect them. Stopping, Annalisa drew her bow. A shadowy, ape-like, thing was tearing into a fallen body, and though she knew it might reform later Annalisa intended to rob the bane of all its power and make it leave the physical world shrieking for what it had done.

Combat the Wyrm wherever it dwelled, and whenever it bred.

Her loosed arrow would have severed the spine of a human at the Atlas vertebrae, but the bane was not human. The bane arrow talen, however, pinned the wretched thing to the ground and caused it to shriek horrifically.

"Annalisa... " choked out a familiar voice, "By Gaia, you are a sight for sore eyes... "

"Jessica!" exclaimed Annalisa as she knelt beside the smaller woman.

"I'm sorry... I couldn't... " choked Jessica.

"Shh," responded Annalisa, walling off her emotions, "I already saw them. Henry went after my family first. The bindery is in flames."

"The coward... " coughed Jessica, and Annalisa cursed inwardly.

Jessica had been eviscerated, she was in her human form so she wasn't regenerating, and the wounds looked to have been made by a blade rather than claws.

"Yeah," said Jessica as though confirming Annalisa's fears, "He took Shimmersong from me... he gutted me with my own klaive. I don't have long sweetie. Just leave me and go after him."

"No," said Annalisa, "You may outrank me, but I'm not in your pack. I'm not Anastasia. Let's find Fred, I am not leaving you to die."

The smells and foot prints and paw prints were all a mess, but with Jessica carried carefully on a makeshift litter Annalisa gave up tracking the traitor Henry and found the rest of Jessica's pack. Or what was left of them.

"Jessica... don't look," Annalisa warned as she saw where Jessica's pack mates had fallen. They had been torn limb from limb. Fred was barely recognizable, mostly because his glasses remained intact.

"They are all dead... " said Jessica.

"Don't you give up on me," said Annalisa as she searched Fred's bloody corpse. As she suspected, Henry had not recognized the metal whiskey flask as a fetish. It was something that Fred had mentioned working on. "Fred didn't need it himself," explained Annalisa, "But he was happy to point out that not even every Child of Gaia has Mother's Touch and they certainly can't use it on themselves. This is his flask of purifying waters... it should heal you."

Praying over the flask softly, Annalisa tried to summon up her miniscule spiritual connection, "Please, I beseech you, cleanse my friend of her wounds," and as she did so she poured the water over Jessica's wound and gave it to her to drink. It flowed from the flask as though endlessly and Jessica's wounds began to heal.

As though being washed away, the horrible evisceration seemed to slowly vanish, the flesh became miraculously whole.

"Fred never even mentioned this to me," panted Jessica as breath became easier.

"What can I say, I have a knack for finding things out," said Annalisa, "And I might have done the leatherwork for the holder it's in."

"But the Caern is truly dead this time, they desecrated the heart. Henry led them in, ambushed us, and now he's gotten away... " said Jessica.

"For now maybe," said Annalisa as she offered the flask to Jessica.

"No," said Jessica, "You keep it. Fred would have wanted it that way. You may need it. If nothing else, offer it as Chiminage where you are going."

"Where I am going?" repeated Annalisa as she got Jessica to her feet.

"You mean I managed to surprise YOU?" intoned Jessica with a weak, mirthless, laugh "The elders were going to assign you to head to Prospect California since you never joined a pack here. It might even work out for your hunt... I think Henry knew they were sending you there. So be careful."