World of Darkness World of Darkness: Attrition - Only the Lonely [Fin]

[Sarah Dead-Wolf]

[Late night, 2 Feb 2010]

Only the lonely

Know the way I feel tonight

Only the lonely

Know this feelin ain't right

Six more weeks of winter. So, at any rate, had declared Punxsutawney Phil in the furry rodent's annual prognostication some fifteen hours earlier and three thousand miles away; Sarah had read such in a discarded newspaper blowing across Holmby Park. Looking around, she pondered for a moment the green surroundings and 60-degree temperatures, and missed the northeastern clime that Phil and her own furry ilk called home.

She could go there, if she really wanted. Sprout wings, pull the sky and the miles beneath her, and soar back to the snow-covered hills and mountains of home. But it would be no different there, no real escape from the loneliness that consumed her.

Over two months had gone by since she and Lucien had parted ways. It had been anything but a pleasant parting, and for the hundredth time, the Dead Wolf regretted having given herself over to the even deader and darker thing that dwelt within her soul. But what was done was done, and she would never forget the look and words that her former friend and lover had said. "What we were, we are no longer." There was no way to go back.

There goes my baby

There goes my heart

They're gone forever

So far apart

Matters were only marginally better with the werewolves, now a pack very conspicuously absent herself. Either because of Declan or Ariel or both, they'd not kicked Sarah's pale white ass out of her territory, even with the locus that she nominally held. Of course, there was every chance that they were scouting and using "her" territory in the shadowy otherworld only they could reach, and - despite the lack of any scent indicating such - it was altogether possible that they were holding picnics right on top of her during the day; she'd never know, after all.

But cordiality wasn't comaraderie. They were a pack, forged as a family. Sarah wasn't a part of that, and - at least as long as Amber lived and breathed - never would be. Sarah kept away from them for the most part, dealing when need be on mutual threats but always parting ways as soon as possible afterward. It was simply too painful to keep watching something as an eternal outsider.

Adrian was still missing. Probably in torpor somewhere, Sarah knew. Oneca did as Oneca did, but Sarah barely knew her and was frankly a bit frightened by someone who could conjure an inferno at will. Jeremy minded his club; while Sarah did drop in on occasion, it had quickly become apparent that - with the exception of not being human - the two really had nothing in common.

In recent nights, Sarah had even taken to loping up north into the hills, on chance of sighting one of the Topangas. In all likelihood such an encounter would result in disparaging words and a broken bone or three, but at least it would be someone with whom the Dead Wolf had something in common... and who didn't make her dead heart ache on sight.

But only the lonely

Know why

I cry

Only the lonely

~ "Only the Lonely", Roy Orbison