RP:Dark Side Of The Moon

Part of the Through A Glass, Darkly Arc

Summary: The harvest moon has come and the witch hunters decide to use this vulnerable time to exterminate Cal, Meri, and Fleur.

The Greenhouse (Rochester-Boyce Residence), Kelay-Sage

Meri has felt pretty bad about how things turned out during their attempt to have a nice outing with one another. There is a reason that they can't have nice things...or do nice things...and that night it was definitely Meri's fault. As a result she has been nicer than normal to Callum, trying to do things that she wouldn't normally do in the relationship. Like the laundry. Or the cooking. And today, on the night of the full moon, a night where there is a very high likeliness that the entire family is going to potentially shift into wolves? Well Meri is loading the nice on a little extra. Today she didn't try and cook dinner, she bought it. She also bought Cal's favorite desert. Maybe she does not really need to go out of her way to be extra nice, perhaps Cal has made that clear to Meri, perhaps not...it doesn't matter. Guilt is a stupid thing. Meri might not fully recall everything that happened that night, but that does not make her any less responsible for it all.

Callum || Beyond the pain that ensued from nearly having your entire calf bitten off by his not-so-rabid woman, things had been going relatively okay for Cal. For a little while, he really hadn’t much energy to try to console her and do away with her guilt. Which… probably made things worse for Meri. But, whether by that dryad’s healing or the lycanthropy itself, it healed magickally! (And not just the metaphorical ‘magically’!) He’d been re-cooperating just fine and dandy… until it started edging closer and closer to the full moon. Now, Cal was a little snippy here and there. He apologized for it, of course, but… that hadn’t really stopped him from lashing out a few more times afterward. So, now they both felt bad. Especially because things in the house were a little more statically charged than usual. Tonight was going to be swell, wasn’t it Meri? No. Probably not. Cal had managed, however, to pull himself from the cough, or the bed, or wherever he’d been resting that poor leg of his that was a still a little tender, even if it was healed up on the outside. He’d limped his way to the kitchen, plopped down into his chair without a word in front of his dinner, and literally wolfed it all down.

Meri :: Well. Cal knows how Meri gets when she is put in these tense emotional situations. Communicating becomes more of a challenge for Meri, who is probably struggling with this aspect more than the norm because Cal is a bit snippier than the norm. Their dinner is filled with silence until Cal is done eating....and then the room is filled with the sounds of Meri clearing the table for the family...and then guilt-washing those dishes. It's not that the woman does not care enough to ask if Cal is feeling better, but she's already decided that asking is probably not a smart idea. The same applies for any other inquiry she might have normally made. Were they prepared for tonight? That also seemed like a dumb question for her to ask given how statically charged things have been as of late. The blonde would let Callum take the lead when it came to things. At some point maybe he'd give her a sign that she could stop sucking up. One day. Maybe.

Callum || The silence was deafening. It was too the point of giving him a headache--no, wait, that’s probably the lycanthropy too. Ugh. Cal was definitely not ready for this--there’d been a lot of things lately he’d not been ready for--but he didn’t have a choice in just putting off the full moon until he was ready. Or until Meri was ready. The Catalian sighed and stood up, gave Fleur a smooch on the top of her head (while trying REALLY HARD not to shock her with that magic of his), and stepped away from the table. Ocean-blue eyes stared at the blonde for a few moments, and could almost practically watch the guilt and stress pour off of her like an aura. He wasn’t really sure if it was the curse letting him sense her mood via the different types of body language she was putting off or just the fact that they’ve been through a time like this way too often. Regardless, he limped the short distance from the table to the sink, and hugged her from behind. This wasn’t one of those super mushy hugs. This was much like that hug he gave her in their bathtub in Larket, after Khitti had died. If she managed to get a little shock here and there from his magic, he’d apologize, and hug her a bit harder.

Meri :: If Cal did deliver Meri a little shock, in this instance she would not complain. The hug was enough to at least break the silence from Meri, who placed a hand upon Cal's hugging arm. It was the closest she could get to reciprocating the gesture giving that he was hugging from behind. "I am going to figure out a way to get a handle on my problem," Meri says, alluding to her want for a particular search. A problem that Cal may not end up suffering from too? Meri frowns, as she continues to wash the last few dishes, trying her best to note how the sun keeps falling lower and lower. It was impossible to not make this observation. All it would take was one look out the window and Meri knew full well that closing the shutters would not keep them safe from what they are about to go through. "It's going to be time soon...We should...you know. Do what we need to do. I really don't think the world needs three werewolves running rampant tonight..."

Callum || Even if Cal wasn’t quite going to have the same problem as Meri, something in his gut was telling him he was going to have -some kind of problem-. “I know…” was all he said for the moment, eventually releasing her from the hug, his words meant to answer both of her concerns. Sighing, he moved to the backdoor, and turned the knobs for three locks he’d had installed after the instance with the witch hunters and after Meri had moved out. Their dogs were herded into the bedroom and locked inside, and then the frontdoor’s locks were dealt with as well. The entrance to their “basement” was opened up, the door hidden away underneath the living room rug--Cal’d even went so far as to have the rug tacked down inconspicuously to the door, so that when the door was closed, the rug was covering it again. “Ready when you are.”

Callum || Elsewhere in the woods, humanoid-like figures moved quickly in the growing shadows, keeping to the bushes. They spotted Cal through the house’s glass, watching him as Cal locked the door and then opened the trapdoor to their panic room. Inaudible whispers were shared between the four figures before two of them went to the sides of the house, waiting until the three werewolves went down into the basement, while the other two figures flanked the front and back of the house.

Meri is completely oblivious to the presence of the witch hunters, but this would not have been the first time that they have managed to get the drop on them. Sneaking up on the family, even when there was a werewolf in their midst, has never been a problem for any of the witch hunters. Eliminating the problem has proven to be a much more challenging task. Very least one would think the hunters would have made a note that Meri might eat their face off, and perhaps might avoid the full moon...but hey. Their problem if they did not have the common sense to relay this observation to the others...The blonde migrates down to the basement designed for nights just like tonight, making sure to sweep Fleur up and out of her high chair as they move down stairs into their 'safe' room. Not much would be safe about it tonight.

Callum || That attack at the Mage’s Guild fair had not gone unnoticed, sadly. Callum was already being watched due to the fact that he’d come out of hiding and joined the guild. He really only had himself to blame for wanting to learn new things and he’d eventually be the one apologizing and guilting his way around the house. But, for now, they’d go down into that very unsafe room, and the two way lock on the trapdoor clicked shut behind them. “Should we even bother with chaining ourselves up? Would it even matter?” There was a little bit of panic in Cal’s voice, but he tried to hide it as he looked from Meri, to Fleur, and then back again. They might not be able to see the moon anymore but, Cal was definitely starting to feel a little weird. And kind of itchy. Especially that injury of his. All the while as things were being discussed before “the end”, the witch hunters on all four sides began to cut through the glass. The two on the east and west sides were positioned to help from the outside with magic, while the two at the front and back doors would let themselves in once they’d cut a large enough hole to open the locks.

Meri :: The closer the witch hunters get to actually making into the home, the higher the probability it will be that Meri might hear them. Or smell them. So far she is sufficiently distracted with the situation at hand, namely trying to keep Cal from freaking out his first time shifting. Meri has gone through this a few times already, not enough that she is entirely comfortable with it yet...but enough to know how uncomfortable the first time shifting is. The only one who really seems completely at ease and within her own skin is Fleur. Because she is not in freakout mode like her mother and her father, she is also the only one of the werewolves that is actually aware that someone unwanted is in their home. It's too bad that she is far too young to actually vocalize any of this. She tries, in her own way, but to her parents it probably seems like Fleur is having one of her little toddler meltdowns....perhaps as a result of being weirded out by the impending full moon, versus being weirded out by the scents of strangers in their home.

Callum, unfortunately, wasn’t really in tune with anything yet. Everything just felt weird and he couldn’t describe it. He hadn’t needed to though because Meri understood at least. He eventually decided that maybe they -should- all be shackled, just on the off chance that they got bitey -with each other-. But, Cal wasn’t going to make it that far. Soft thudding from bootfalls could be heard from above, stopping just near the door. As Cal went to go deal with Fleur’s chains, her tantrum worsened… right about the time that the door was unlocked, cracked open, and several large vials of vampire blood was thrown down into the room, functioning as a makeshift poison bomb to start off the attack. If Meri hadn’t picked up on the footfalls and the door crack open, she’d certainly hear the clicking of crossbows being loaded with bolts.

Meri could hear the bolts being loaded into their crossbows, but it did not really matter. There was only one reasonable action to take in response to the assault, and that is to fight back. Or at least try and fight back, at time when it was really hard to control one's self. The psion would really prefer to not be feeling that itchy feeling right now. It would make it easier for her to concentrate, to focus her telekinetic energies and dispose of the problem at hand. Starting with the bomb that is attempting to poison them with vampire's blood. To handle this problem, the psionic werewolf manages to concentrate enough to throw up an unseen shield, keeping the family of three safe from any smattering of vampire's blood that might have been sent their way when the bomb exploded. After that, Meri is quick to try and race up those stairs despite the fact that they are armed and she is not. The psion as managed to stop a few bolts in the air before...but she has never been fighting the pull of a full moon while doing so. In this case, she'll fail and she's going to end up shot up...by however many bolts, while going up those stairs. And if those bolts are silver? Well, it's really going to hurt, enough to stop her ascent up the stairs...and cause her to go rolling down them in a bloodied mess. Sorry you may have to see this Fleur.

Callum || Hoo boy. This was gonna be a doozy. Cal had been way more focused on Fleur and trying to calm her as Meri reacted to the blood bomb. He hadn’t even had time to process it all before Meri went charging up the stairs. Those were definitely silver bolts. And they absolutely hurt. And Meri was definitely going to be in a hell of a lot of pain if they managed to make it out of this. Cal could only watch in shock as Meri rolled down the stairs and then… something in his head just sort of snapped. That Catalian rage was only the beginning, for it coincided with the dual moons’ pull on him. The typical bone-cracking and shifting happened, a painful yell let out by Cal that soon changed to that signature echo-less howl that all werewolves had. The witch hunters stormed their way downstairs in the meantime, having needed to reload their crossbows before going in. While the thicker bolts were definitely better at doing damage, the reload time itself would be their downfall. Callum was already in wolf form, jet black fur crackling with lightning, and already leaping at the first hunter down the stairs. The two outside heard the telltale snarls and howls of a werewolf, assumed it was just Meri, and headed inside to back them up. They were very much wrong on this part--Cal was even less of himself than Meri was when she bit him, and his lightning magic went unchecked.

Meri was pretty much down and out for the count after those bolts hit her. I mean, they were silver. If there was any hope of Meri getting up and moving again, she would have to remove those silver bolts from her person. Which was hard to do...after she rolled backward down the stairs. Smacked her head pretty good in the process and knocked herself out. The witch hunters are now left to deal with Callum raging and running rampant during his first shift. And then there is Fleur. It has not yet been made clear if the child would take more after mother or father in terms of abilities. She definitely looked more like her father, in terms of being dark haired. She obviously got the werewolf trait from her mother. But would she be a psion? Or would she follow a more arcane path like her father? In this moment it would finally become clear. Fleur has not stopped crying since all of those has gone down and soon Cal would not be the only one filling the immediate area with that electric charge. The more emotional Fleur gets, the more she seems to contribute to filling the environment with bolts of electricity. On the upside, at least this meant that Cal would not accidentally electrocute his own daughter in all of this madness. And at least if the witch hunters did get close to Fleur, they would have a hard time picking the child up. If they did not manage to shoot her from a distance. Fleur's crying would soon be replaced by howling as she too succumbs to the pull of the moon and shifts into a cute little wolf pup. Only Meri is left in her human form, for obvious reasons.

Callum || The witch hunters wouldn’t get the luxury of the lycanthropy curse to heal their wounds, because their wounds wouldn’t heal at all. What’s worse than a brand new werewolf with emotion-based magickal abilities? One that’s caged in his own home. Cal took his own fair share of hits, crossbow bolt stick up out of his fur as if he’d been hit by a porcupine. Throats were ripped out, and fireballs thrown at the poor Catalian. But there was no “poor Catalian” right now. It was nothing but wolf brain and that wolf brain only had two instructions: kill and defend.” While Meri hadn’t been able to get a good read on Cal’s scent in the beginning, since they were out in the woods, Cal’s turn with his first shifting was a little different. The entire room smelled like Meri and Fleur something inside said that this was his pack and his people were being attacked. Fleur’s cries and soon howls only fueled his rage further--Cal felt nothing but the thrill of killing his enemies. Unfortunately for the four witch hunters, those bites were more pain than they should’ve been. Each one was laced with lightning magic, so they all truly got the final shock of their lives before ultimately succumbing to the void. Soon they’d be dead… and soon that pain started to kick in from the damage Cal took. He tried his best to head down the stairs to check on his family, but stumbled and tumbled down to the floor next to Meri. Still, he kept going though. Wolf-Cal dragged himself across the floor to where Meri was, whined sadly, and pushed at her face with his nose.

Meri :: Cal's whining and nudging at the fallen Meri did not sir the woman at first. After a couple of attempts, they finally caused the woman to slowly find her way back to consciousness, but even though her eyes were open it took her time to process things. Like why did she hurt so darn bad right now. Flashes of witch hunters entering their home entered her mind and she soon regains the memory of what happens. Tonight, Meri would be the only werewolf that does not shift. The silver bolts that she took to her body was enough to suppress the need to shift on this full moon, mixed with the fact that she lost quite a bit of blood. Having pieced the events together, the still dazed woman manages to rip the silver bolts from her body. Next her sights go to Fleur, the one person in the room who is thankfully unharmed. At least physically. It is wolf-Callum that gets her attention next. The blonde is surprised to see that he has managed to maintain this current form despite also having been shot by several of the silver bolts. Meri is quick to remove those from his own body. "So much for a safe room..." Meri murmurs. At some point, she is really going to need to get up and fight her way up those stairs so that she can locate bandages for herself. As well as Cal. How does one bandage a wolf who will not be a wolf for longer than the night? A puzzle Meri is going to struggle to solve.

Callum really hadn’t much fight left in him anymore, and as Meri woke up and was debating on how to take care of him, his will just kinda went kaput and he not only passed out from the pain, but reverted back to his human form. If he were awake, he’d probably make a joke about sending Fleur to go fetch the bandages for her mother. But it’s one thing to make a hypothetical joke about it and another to wonder if Fleur would actually understand the command. Well, at the very least, two positive things came out of this: they were still -mostly- alive and Cal was no longer an electrified doggo. His unconscious would really last for too long--everything hurt way too damn much.