RP:Bring with thee Birds of Heaven or Wolves of Hell
Part of the What Dreams May Come Arc
Summary: Astrid is working up the courage to find the skull that calls to her from the bones of a shipwreck when Hudson stumbles upon her. Feeling chivalrous, he tags along. While he searches the captain's quarters, a giant squid attacks the witch. The squid starts to destroy what was left of the ship around them and Hudson uses the wolf to fight him off as Astrid dives into the water looking for her wand. She finds the skull instead and the sea pushes her to the shore while the giant squid and raging werewolf square off. Having blinded the squid and chased it off into the sea, Hudson is denied the killing blow and turns his rage to Astrid. His humanity locked away by the wolf, he attacks the witch. The power of skull is revealed in time, suspending her in the air as her consciousness floats above the entire scene. Mysterious, ancient forces guide her into using magic to calm the wolf and return Hudson's self control. He leaves ashamed.
Strange Shipwreck
An old ferry, The Seref, has washed up on the shore, forcing Harold to relocate his thriving business. The shipwreck's come to a rest still half-submerged in the water, while the rest of her has run aground and lies wedged between the ever-shifting sand and the craggy rocks. The bowsprit of the skeleton ship has broken in half, and her hull has visibly cracked and split open; yet these are not the sole signs of destruction. The bilge is missing, great sections of its bottommost deck simply torn away to reveal the seafloor below. Inside the wreckage, there are signs of the lives once lived here: a seaweed covered sextant, a telescope rusted and tarnished beyond repair, crates of cargo that have rusted shut, a mariner’s compass, and nautical maps that have been stripped of all color and information tucked away in a watertight cabinet. The aft section of the ship, where the water rushes over the deck during each high tide, holds the perpetually-submerged captain's cabin and crew quarters. As tradition and even vague maritime law dictates, the captain went down with the ship, and his skeleton remains behind even to this day. The once extravagant window of his cabin has been shattered, allowing the water to pour in and fill the space. The wreck appears well-preserved despite the apparent carnage it suffered, as though no one has yet dared to investigate for fear of offending the pervading sense of otherworldliness that clings to the ship like the mist that creeps upon the shore from the sea just before a storm.
The local ghost stories that originated from the untouched wreckage along the beach where Harold had first began his swim insitute had been the reason why Astrid had yet managed to retrieve the crystal skull she sought. She had tried, numerous times in fact, to screw her courage to the sticking place and searched the reportedly haunted ship; the closest she had gotten was almost inside the split hull, but the sounds of unearthly life (likely just the wind) chased her from the local time and again. This time, though- this time, she was determined to retrieve the artifact. However, despite the generous amounts of liquid courage she had imbibed at the Whaler, Astrid had yet taken that first step (of many) that would carry her closer to the ship. Instead, she was crouched down, her forearms resting over her bent knees, and drawing doodles in the sand with the tip of her wand while she watched The Seref for signs of movement, of this world or others.
Hudson is here sometimes. Here meaning the sea. He used to live here, before it all got kind of crazy. With the empire and the money and the wife and kids and the things he won’t talk about. He strolls along the water’s edge, hands in the pockets of his wool coat, and sees a figure crouched in the sand. It’s a small, blond haired woman. He stops to look at her, and recalls another small, blond haired woman whom he met here a long time ago. He presses forward, and as he grows closer he recognizes Astrid, the young witch who’d met with Mayor Abelin, whom he’d walked home. He ambles over to her, lifting a hand in a wave when she notices him. “Astrid, was it?” he greets her in a friendly tone. Up close, he’s struck with both how closely she resembles Valrae - thematically, in stature, hair color, demeanor, even - but how different they are. “The beach is nice in winter,” he ventures. While that’s generally his view - he’s here too, after all - his natural suspicion is that she’s here being pensive because that’s what he’s doing. “But cold,” he adds. “What are you up to?”
Astrid's expression were fixed into a pensive pout, and she continued to stare at the ship wreck. She hadn't heard any of the tell-tale howling she had on previous attempts to plunder The Seref, but she was 99% certain that she had seen movement. Thankfully, distraction ambled by in the form of Hudson, and she met him with a small smile. "Yeah, Astrid," she confirmed as she rose to her full height and stuck her sand coated wand through her messy blonde bun. Despite the winter chill in the air, she wore loose, white cotton pants, and a three-quarter sleeve, dark blue shirt that couldn't quite be listed as a sweater; her black pea-coat, and sandals had been abandoned near-by. "It's not that cold," she argued simply, but then again, whiskey. "That's where the skull is," she answered, turning from Hudson to face the haunted wreckage again, her pensive pout returning once more.
Hudson cants his head in response to Astrid's saying it's not that cold, amusement filtering into his gaze. He agrees, but he's a werewolf. His wife would be complaining it's cold, but maybe Astrid's one of those women who toughs it out. Or pretends to tough it out. Lithrydel is in abundance of them, somehow, these courageous, bad ass women, who crumple at the slightest danger. He doesn't mind, not really, it fills him with manly purpose. He's shallow, easily manipulated in that way. In any event, right now, Astrid's telling him that a skull is inside the wrecked boat. Ah yes, one of those skulls, the mysterious witch talismans that they need to resurrect Valrae to save Cenril. Brings him back to his earlier fraught line of thought. "Alright, so it's not that cold," he says agreeably. Hudson reaches into the pocket of his coat, retrieving an herbal cigarette, which he lights. He blows a big cloud of smoke out in the direction of the boat and then holds it out to Astrid. "You might cough," he warns her, because she has the look of someone who might. He studies the boat. He feels the knowledge settle within him that he's going to go help her get this dumb thing. He can't not. Manly purpose. "You're too scared to go inside," he observes. "Do you think Valrae even wants to be resurrected?"
Astrid reached to take the offered cigarette, and being no stranger to such, she quickly put it to her lips and drew a long and healthy drag. However, she quickly learned that it was not a regular cigarette, and her breath hitched on the exhale before a hard cough rattled from her chest and throat. Choking on the noxious smoke that escaped her with each cough, she looked at the joint with a skeptical and blurry stare. "What is this?" She breathed, her voice raspy from the assult, as she extended the cigarette back to Hudson. "Gods above. I need water." But, with a quick pat of her pockets, she produced a tarnished, silver flask and took a quick sip. "Look, I'm not scared." She was scared. "But there's something in there. I heard it." Because he had shared with her, she held out her flask to him. "It's whiskey. And, I would want to be resurrected if a crazy Monarchy murdered me." She turned from Hudson then to begin a slow, but determined approach towards the wreckage; there was no other way around it.
Hudson laughs as Astrid starts to cough. She’d gone at it a bit hard. He takes the cigarette from her and savors it a bit while she sorts herself out over there. “The good stuff,” he answers her belatedly, as she drinks from her flask. “It helps with some werewolf issues I have.” He offers it back to her now that she’s recovered from the whole incident. “Not scared now, but it might be spooky in there,” he jokes, about the boat, as a reason for her to inhale. He trades her for her flask and sniffs it before downing some of its contents. He grimaces as he hands it back, possibly trading her for the cigarette. He puts it out for now, since they’re moving on with it. By unspoken agreement it’s been determined between them that he’ll be chaperoning. (That’s how he thinks of it.) He follows Astrid toward the boat. “Valrae had a hard life,” he says. Maybe it’s the onset of that feeling of being outside himself, but he adds, “I knew her pretty well actually. I’m not saying it’s the wrong thing to resurrect her, but it’ll be interesting is what it is.” A beat, while they assess the easiest way to approach this thing without wading too deep in the cold water. “One thing that’s conspicuously weird to me is the fact that nobody’s asked her husband her about it.”
Astrid had swapped again for the cigarette, and as she lifted it to her lips, she murmured around the butt, "Spooky is no joke." Her draw this time was small and short, but she still coughed, though not nearly as hard or violently. The mention of his were-issues had been met with a skeptical side-eye, and she handed the cigarette back to Hudson in exchange for her flask once more. "I was attacked by a werewolf once. Mauled the hell out of my arm." She held out her arms then, and scrutinized both as if having forgotten which one it was; the right had a large and nasty burn scar, the flesh mottled, and the left was uneven with an array of keloid scars. It was the left she showed to Hudson. When the conversation switched back to Valrae, Astrid pocketed her hands, and once more began to inspect the ship and its many holes for signs of life. "I didn't know she was married. Has her husband really not been consulted about it?" She allowed her question to linger there while she bent to roll up the loose legs of her pants to avoid wetting them unnecessarily. "I bet it's in the captain's quarters," She hissed on a whisper, as if expecting whatever lie within the ship to wake with her statement. The half of the ship that had run aground held nothing more than barrels and crates of general goods used by the crew while out to sea. "I doubt something like that would have been left where just anyone could get it." She kicked out of her shoes, abandoning them on the sand, to wade hesitantly out into the cold surf. She never made it any deeper than mid shin before a long, low, ghostly howl ripped from the innards of the ship, and immediately, Astrid dashed out of the water once more. "I told you somethings in there," she almost squealed, ducking behind Hudson and using him as a sizable shield.
And so Hudson finds himself looking at this random woman’s scars. They’re pretty nasty. “How are you not a werewolf?” he wants to know, the question laced with certain irritation. Why is it that not everyone turns? That’s some bull. He would have liked to remain a regular guy. He pauses at the water’s edge alongside of Astrid to likewise roll up his pants. “I don’t think he has. And I’m not sure but last I heard he was in jail,” he says, about Irenic. He takes his shoes and socks off, too. The sand is cold and sticky. He snorts at her whispering. Evidently he’s not as easily put off by whatever lies in that ship and is creating the mysterious fog in the place. “You’re probably right,” he agrees, as they start wading toward the vessel. The water is cuttingly cold, generally unbearable. Moments like these, he’s grateful to be part wolf. He has to wonder though just how capable of a witch ye olde Astrid is, though, surely she could cast herself a spell to stop herself from shivering. Or maybe she’s too much of a space cadet to think to do that. Or maybe these sorts of excursions are best handled soberly. “I really shouldn’t be helping you but I believe in the realm,” he starts saying, only to be interrupted by this spooky howl that comes out of the boat. Astrid has dashed behind him, and he does the generic protective man move of holding out an arm in an unnecessary block in case something’s about to come at them. But nothing does. They wait. “Well damn,” he says, at length, after enough time has passed without the noise being made again. He then continues to wade further. “Are you coming?” he calls out behind him. The boat’s easily accessible where he is, and so he hoists himself up on the splintered deck. “C’mon,” he glances behind him, and, seeing nothing but the creeping fog, goes prone to hold out a hand for her to clamber up with him.
Astrid didn't do ghosts. Or ghost ships. It was top number one fear. Second, was swimming through water she couldn't see through. "Hudson, wait!" She hissed loudly, "We don't know what's in there!" When he questioned whether or not she'd follow, she was tempted to refuse, and have him retrieve the skull for her. But then the idea of being alone, near a haunted ship, in the creepy fog spurred her onward, and she whined petulantly. She waded through the cold water after him, and used his extended hand to haul herself up the side of the ship. Unable to claim wolfish abilities to keep her warm, she muttered a quick spell that heated her skin, and attempted to dry the hem of her pants, but the spell for that merely warmed the water that collected in the material. Whatever, she meant to do that. "Okay, so. Problem number one." She pointed toward the door leading toward the Captain's quarters; it was just visible over the undulating water, and clearly indicative that the room beyond was completely filled with water. When the ship crashed, the bow had rode high on the craggy shore, which pitched the deck at an oddly sloping angle. A second, unvoiced problem, which wasn't that much of a problem in Astrid's mind, was the dangerous gaping hole that split the deck horizontally. She just wouldn't go near it. She'd stay here, on this side of the ghost ship, and Hudson could get the skull. Good idea. From their position, the cargo that filled the hull below was visible, and heavily water logged; barrels floated in the water that filled the compartment below, and occassionally knocked against the structure of the ship, or other crates. "I wonder what all they were carrying?" She asked, curiosity slowly creeping into her person. A breeze blew across the ship then, and skipped across the hole that split the deck, producing yet another eery howl. She looked ready to jump ship, but the belated realization that it had been the wind the entire time stilled her fear. Had it been the wind every time? She felt a smidgen silly in the aftermath of the realization, but she lingered near Hudson nevertheless. Meanwhile, her brain fell down a quick rabbit hole: wind, holes, howls, howling, wolves, werewolves, bitten. "My ex was there when I had gotten bitten," she said suddenly, the sudden statement born not from her usual awkwardness, but from the cigarette they had previously shared. "I don't remember exactly what he did to be honest."
Hudson, now having hoisted Astrid on board, gets back to his feet and assesses the mission at hand. He finds that the ship is less spooky now that he’s on it. The howling now seems likely to be wind. Astrid still has the demeanor of his horse, i.e., perpetually on the verge of spazzing at the slightest noise. Perhaps it’s the high-strung nature of his companion that makes him feel very matter-of-fact about investigating the situation, or perhaps it’s that he’s killed a few dudes and fears death less than he should. Or maybe it’s that he just smoked the special cigarette. “I dunno,” he says about the contents of the crates. “Probably textiles and stuff, labor is cheaper elsewhere.” He descends the slanted deck of the ship to approach the flooded part. Astrid is now suddenly rambling to him about her ex boyfriend, and how he’d been present to see her being attacked by a werewolf. Hey, that’s only a little triggering. He eyeballs the waterlogged captain’s quarters. Hudson doubts that wee Astrid is going to want to swim in there. He already regrets spotting the blond witch on the beach. A feeling he’s used to by now. He starts taking off his coat and, upon further reflection, his sweater and the undershirt under that. “My wife was also attacked by werewolves,” he tells her as he does this, in what constitutes a blatant excuse to level set. Reminder: I’m married, this removing of clothes right here is all business. Blond witch or no. Actually, he has Alvina’s name tattooed on one side of his collarbone, covering up the scar left from when he was turned. Otherwise, he’s a strong looking but hairy guy. “This is only a little weird, let’s pretend it’s not,” he tells Astrid. He appears to be stuck on whether he’s diving in there with pants on. He looks at her, lifts an eyebrow. Whatever she’d murmured earlier, spell wise, doesn’t appear to have done crap. “Screw it,” he says. He leaves them on the docks and starts wading into the sunken area in his Cenril Cubbies themed boxers. He’s thinking: this skull better glow or something. The water feels awful. His skin is prickling all over. “Oookay, I’m going in. Hang tight,” he tells Astrid, right before he dives underwater. Famous last words. Of course he misses the curved shadow cast on the deck behind him, over Astrid. Of course he’s already started his search and not paying attention to what’s happening on deck by the time the fleshy tentacle’s wrapped itself around the blond witch. It’s attached to a squid of very large and angry proportions. The squid is just as startled by Astrid as she is of it. It does not release her but immediately squirts her with a rather impressive serving of ink.
That special cigarette hadn’t endued Astrid with bravery, or a sense of calm. It had the reverse effect, and she was on edge, and paranoid. Every single creak or groan from the ship coaxed a heart attack ever closer. Hudson’s need to level set and remind her that he was married would have drawn a smirk from her, had it not been about Alvina’s own attack suffered. “It’s only weird because you’re making it weird.” She retorted as he removed his clothing, but looked away to provide him a modicum of privacy, suddenly interested in the crates and barrels floating below them. Her attention only returned once she heard him dive beneath the water; she didn’t envy him for a second. The door of the captain’s quarters had been broken, either by the crash, or whatever had caused the ship to run ashore; while the top half had remained jammed tight within its frame, the lower half had been destroyed and provided an easy passage to the room. Inside, a small pocket of air trapped in the corner of the wall and ceiling provided breath in case, but the rest was submerged completely. A sizable desk was hammered to half the floor, while the other half had opened up to the crew cabins below. A trunk had lodged itself within this hole, however, making it difficult to swim through to the next floor. Nothing but marine life had floated within the water prior to Hudson’s arrival, but the fish had darted to safety within the near pitch black waters. Nothing glowed, nothing shimmered, nothing called out to him. There were many places to search within the room, but no light to see by. This would be difficult.
Astrid, like Hudson, had missed the silhouette of the angry squid that rose from the water. When the tentacle latched around her, she squawked out in fear before her noises were drowned by a sudden helping of ink. Momentarily stunned by the absurdity of the situation, it took her precious moments to retrieve her wand from her hair (which was now dyed a deep black on one side, giving her an odd resemblance to a crazy fashionista who might be obsessed with spotted dog coats). There wasn’t an ordered spell, but she pointed the tip of her wand toward the tentacle that had wrapped around the trunk of her legs and a bolt of electricity blew a sizeable gash within the thick stock of the arm. Blood and squid pieces flew into the air, peppering the deck and her person with more egregious material. The tentacle hadn’t been severed, but severely wounded, and it flailed angrily about- so much so that when it smacked into Astrid, it sent her tumbling over the deck, and through the hole into the water-filled cargo hold below. She landed in the water, much to her luck, and avoided injury from the crates and barrels that bobbed around her. Unhappy that trespassers had come aboard it’s ship, the Squid began wrapping its arms about the wreckage, whether in an attempt to crush the boat, or climb aboard itself, was unknown, but the tentacles dove through every crevice, including that of the captain’s quarters, to hunt down Astrid.
The tentacle that slid into the room with Hudson did nothing more than disturb the water, and dislodge the skeletal body of the captain. Due to the salt water, many places of his body had been preserved, and hadn’t yet been picked clean by the marine life; in some places, tendons, muscles and skin still held him together. That allowed half of his body (the upper half) to float, propelled around by the sudden disturbance in the water. That also allowed for, somehow, the Captain snagging himself thoroughly on Hudson’s lucky boxers; how exactly the body had been caught on the material was unknown, it was really dark in there.
This is a royal pain. It’s dark and everything’s covered in seaweed and the air bubble could be larger, frankly. Hudson has to move some things to get around. There’s nothing of value here, some rum bottles, disintegrated ledgers, floating skeletons. He pokes around, gulps down air, resumes poking around. At some point, however, he becomes aware that a very large tentacle has entered the particular room he’s searching. Is this an actual joke, he thinks, coming to the unfortunate conclusion, that at that moment that a very large tentacle monster is attacking the ship and possibly them. Help, they’re trapped in the plot of an erotic magazine. Naturally, he feels suddenly concerned for Astrid, he should check on her. His movement’s limited, though, because a waterlogged body has latched onto what little clothing he’s wearing. Please, what is HAPPENING. He repeatedly kicks the bloated captain until the corpse is dislodged and goes floating off in another direction. Hudson wastes little time in swimming back to the deck, but Astrid’s nowhere to be found. There’s just a lot of blood, some (what appears to be) tentacle flesh, and some very large, intact tentacles wrapped around the hull of the ship. Hudson doesn’t see the thing’s eyes, it must be looking for Astrid. He sprints up the incline of the deck and calls out her name. The squid reacts to his moving about and making a racket, and Hudson weaponizes a loose plank, taking swings at a tentacle that gets the wrong idea of getting too close. The creature makes a terrible sound when struck but recoils. This is ridiculous but, actually, apparently quite dangerous. Hudson, now raining down four letter words, starts calling for her again. He scales the ship to where it had snapped in two and looks down in the maw of the wreckage. There she is. “Astrid!” he jumps down in there with her, his fall likewise broken. His skin is ablaze with the itch to turn, his own personal fight or flight dial, which always goes toward FIGHT for the record, is going crazy. “Do some witch thing!” he shouts at her. “Make it friendly and go away or something!! Can’t you guys make friends with animals!?” The hull of the ship sighs; it wants to cleave in two under all this pressure. Not good. OK, maybe they don’t have time for Astrid’s ‘friends with animals’ spell that Hudson just made up. He curses. “I am going to turn, it is NOT safe,” he shouts at her. He shoves her away. “HIDE!” is his final bit of advice before he gives himself over to the wolf.
Astrid, while in the hull of the ship, was pillaging the cargo in hopes for a weapon more reliable than her spell casting. Along with textiles, and usually dry foodstuffs, there had been a shipment of forged swords. She equipped herself with a rapier and began searching for a hole in which to escape the ship, while actively trying to avoid being touched by both squid and seaweed. When she at last heard Hudson call out her name, she shouted in return her location. Now reunited, but trapped, Astrid looked up toward the hole through which she had fallen to ensure that a tentacle hadn’t yet descended after the werewolf. The demand to do ‘some witch thing’ was met with a rude hand gesture, “I lost my wand.” She explained as she lifted the rusted sword in the air. “This is all I have.” Pause. “I’m not some fracking druid, Hudson!” She shouted back. The groaning protest of the ship stole her annoyed attention from him, and the realization that time wasn’t on their side spurred her into action. She needed to find her wand. Hudson’s shouted plan of shifting only concreted her intentions, and the shove helped in forcefully propelling her through the deeper waters of the ship, where otherwise she might have taken her sweet time. She grasped hold of a bobbing barrel, took in a lungful of breath and dropped beneath the surface of the water. The light supplied from the hole above helped little in the murky waters, and her hands blindly searched the sea floor where bottom of the ship once was. Shells, sea weed, sand, and rocks were found. She kicked up, sucked in another breath, and went down again. Rocks, weeds, a crab… She paused in her frantic searching when her hand brushed across a smooth, round surface. It wasn’t the texture or shape that had stilled her fevered need for her wand, but the sudden wash of power that shot through her like a jolt of electricity. Words and worlds filled her mind. Understanding ebbed and waned. She felt herself grasping for knowledge, for light, for breath. She heard pleas and cries, and joyous laughter. And then nothing. It was gone, she felt bereft. Where had it all gone? She unearthed the object from the sand, and cradled it to her chest, stroking the smooth curvature for the sensations to return. But nothing other than the tight burning of her lungs had registered in her mind, and she kicked off the floor once again. She had dove deeper than she had expected, and in her blind search, she had somehow slipped from a hole in the bottom of the ship. Now outside of The Seref, and away from the two dangerous things aboard it, Astrid crawled from the waters, soaked thoroughly and coughing. But she had found the skull.
As Hudson unstoppers the need to shift, he feels the lycan seize his consciousness, and his body likewise begin to expand to take on lupine features. Hair sprouts everywhere and his chest and shoulders grow broader, his body curving to accommodate them. He’s got a strong athletic build normally but the transformation makes him unpleasantly hulking. His face elongates, his teeth taking on the sharp predator’s maw. His hands and feet likewise elongate, sprouting claws. Not turning into a fluffy magic dog today: he’s a bipedal wolf monster. The gigantic squid has resumed its tentacle assault, and Hudson slaps the first appendage that has the misfortune of approaching him with his wolf paw, breaking it on contact. Blood splatters his muzzle, and his lips pull back in a predator’s smile. He growls. So, now this is happening. He moves very quickly, on four legs, jumping facilely from crate to floating barrel to crate, to find the openings in the hull. He finds the body of the squid, and with a feral roar, rakes his claws through the creature’s eyes. The squid naturally doesn’t like this development and flails its tentacles in what proves to be an ineffectual attempt to pry him loose. Hudson’s teeth and claws are more than capable at shredding the soft flesh, so the squid very soon realizes its best course of action is to release the ship to take flight, even if blindly. Hudson at first clambers up and down the hull in frantic movements, his frustration coming out in a series of snarls. But then he yields to his impatience and takes to the water, (somewhat hilariously) doggie paddling in the direction of the squid, now long gone (and probably not long for this world). The tide bears down on him though, and the waves overpower him back to shore, where he finds a weak looking blond woman covered in squid ink. How quickly the desire to kill the squid is replaced by the desire to tear this woman apart. Hudson, the real Hudson, presently imprisoned by the wolf’s rage, tries to rattle the bars: No! But the wolf doesn’t care or listen. He smells her fear and gets on all fours, making his body low. He may smell like wet dog but there’s nothing puppyish about the man-wolf creature. He looses a growl, and then springs.
Astrid sat on the beach, too absorbed with the skull shaped amethyst in her lap, to care about the black ink that ran in rivulets down the sides of her face, and dripped from her jaw onto her white pants- which had turned nearly transparent. She stroked the crown of the skull over and over, trying to recreate the sensation and draw the wealth of knowledge that it held once more. She had heard, and understood languages that she had never heard spoke before. She saw the connections that tied together people, and animals, and plants, and molecules. There were colors that existed beyond her scope of realization, and she -craved- the return of it all. The need for the knowledge had outweighed the desperate pleas for help, and the distant sounds of baleful crying. So engrossed with the crystal in her possession, she had almost realized Hudson’s presence too late. Truthfully, she had completely forgotten he had even been there with her. It was the growl that drew a minute sliver of awareness from the skull- it was a primal, instinctual awareness that registered the sound came not from the skull, but from an outside threat that stood too close. She hadn’t even time to look up before Hudson lunged at her. And in the space of seconds, everything changed.
Immediately, the flood gates opened, and she was endued with power that the skull possessed. She was present in means of body alone- her mind had drifted among the crashing waves of information. That instinctual need of self-preservation swam to the surface of this sea of knowledge, and despite the magic and understanding that tempted her further adrift, she waded back to the present. She wasn’t quite capable of regaining control, but watched from a point within and without herself. Astrid saw, in slow motion, the bipedal wolf lunging at her, and from him ran threads made of impossible colors that reached out in all directions. Some flared out and reconnected to himself, some reached out and burrowed into the sand around them, to the water behind him, and connected with herself. Many more shot off in the direction of the city, fanning out in a blanket that stretched for miles. And then, she noticed from her position outside herself, that cords bound her body in a similar fashion, to things around them, and things far off. These were the threads that bound them to this earth. “We are the spider-women,” a crone’s voice echoed around her. “We weave life and death. You are snared, little bird. What will do you?” Another voice, softer and melodic answered, “We are the bird-weavers, Sparow. Do not linger here. Fly.” She felt the incessant tug that drew her back to the wealth of knowledge within the skull, but she couldn’t leave herself there. She couldn’t leave Hudson there.
She didn’t walk, or float. She was just there suddenly, before herself. A blue thread that grew from the center of her forehead blazed briefly with a flare of magic, and in the moment she lived, on the plane of existence her mind, her soul, seemed to occupy, she watched her body lift into the air. Real time, it would be a swift, sudden jerk that threw her into the air, high above Hudson’s current reach. Turning to Hudson, she explored the threads that that danced wildly about him, severed but slowly reaching for one another. Deft fingers reached out to bind the cords together again with simple knots. There was knowledge enough to know that -something- would happen once these severed binds were renewed, but what exactly evaded her. Would this provide him control enough over his monster? Would if force a shift back into his human form? Would these threads simply fix a broken, unknown part of his body or soul that hadn’t repaired itself from whatever damaged had severed these possibly minute connections. She didn’t know, but she fixed them regardless, albiet shoddily. Despite the warning cries of the bird-weavers that still echoed around her, that mingled with the threats of spiders, she lingered to insure her body was safe. Once it was safe, then she could return to that tempestuous sea of knowledge.
Plainly not himself, Hudson skids forward, intent on ripping the throat out of the woman in front of him, but all he catches is air. She's floating above him, and he throws his head back and begins to snarl a series of guttural complaints. But his rage only lasts an instant. Something else is happening, the wolf can smell the tendrils of magic that Astrid is handling. Something ancient and of note is happening. He stops frothing at the mouth and begins to slowly back away from the blond woman, issuing a sustained growl. He's afraid. But the attack isn't coming at him, it's coming from inside of him: Hudson the man asserts himself in the wolf's consciousness and forces a shift. The lupine features recede as quickly as they'd appeared, and Hudson falls to his knees in the sand before looking at his hands, which are shaking and clenched into fists. He can't look at Astrid yet. The wolf/he had almost killed her. And how badly he'd wanted to kill Astrid too. He can still feel how badly he'd wanted to do it. It's one thing to channel that feeling against his enemies, which he does, with great efficacy and satisfaction. But this - this is too close to his literal worst fear - that he'd hurt an innocent person, or worse yet, his wife or children. He holds out a hand in case Astrid feels like talking to him. Ugh, no. He is too embarrassed. Astrid is a nice person. It had been a bad call to give in to the shift, he'd bet on his own self-control and bet wrong. He wants to cry out of frustration, like his kids do. He's not messed up this badly in years, and now he feels all his efforts, his careful attendance of werewolf therapy classes, his self-medicating, turn to dust. He hasn't been getting better, it's been lying in wait inside of him all this time. To backslide in front of Alvina is of course frightening, but she loves him. To backslide in front of a virtual stranger is humiliating. He wants to be gone. He gets to his feet and looks at Astrid, who's come down. He can see the skull cradled in her hand. "Astrid I'm so sorry," he says the words and feels them break him. He shakes his head, because he's not going to try to say anything else, he's too choked up. He's not going to pick his clothes up either. He shifts into a wolf, this time, a proper wolf, with a russet coat and dark eyes. He lopes away, picking up speed and kicking sand behind him as he cuts through the beach.
Astrid’s body had gone limp within the air, her back bowed as if a rope was tied around her waist and was the single thing holding her aloft. The crystal skull remained clasped firmly within her hands however; even in her current physical state, she was unwilling to part with the magical artifact. Her astral self watched with mild satisfaction as Hudson reclaimed control, and left to return to her vast sea of knowledged. However, something that shared her current plane of existence barred her entrance, and threw her forcefully back into the confines of her body, leaving her with a resonating bird’s song that whispered through her mind. With a sudden gasp, the spell broke, and she thudded back to the ground with a hard groan as her lungs worked to suck down a breath to still her spasming diaphragm. She struggled to regain a sense of awareness whilst Hudson struggled with his guilt, and without his help, she pushed into a seated position, a hand pressed against the side of her head as if that would calm her pounding headache. His apology was heard, and Astrid lifted a blurred gaze onto Hudson in time to watch a full shift into his wolf. “Hudson wait,” She croaked, staring after his quickly fading figure. Alone on the beach once more, she looked around the area, and then back to the skull in her lap. She lost herself in the polished sheen of the smooth crystal, despite the soft pattering as droplets of blood fell from her nose and splattered their existence into an empty eye socket.