World of Darkness World of Darkness: Attrition - A Date With Huck Finn

[Swara-Ann]

On campus the Hisil was pretty much the same as it was in the physical world: boring. The halls of the facility appeared more like one would expect from an old horror movie than that of modern architecture. Step by step her the pads of her bare feet seemed to echo despite he near silent movement. Swara-Ann Osbourne pulled back her shiny blond hair with her hands and sighed, holding it in a pony tail while she considered her next move.

Royce Hall was dead this time around, which was a shame because her last tussle with the Stress Spirits was good practice, and man were those guys wound up tight. Powell Library seemed rather quiet this time around through as well, but she never came here looking for a scrap. The Library was filled with spirits that, if you knew the right questions to ask were a wealth of knowledge. None however knew how to cure her of her curse though so she resigned to instead ask for their help when it came to difficult assignments. The lack of people was a bit unnerving at times, but here in the library she'd grown used to the quiet anyway.

Softly she padded her way to the window and leaned against the frame, taking a moment to look out over the campus. Barefoot and wearing nothing more that a large white t-shirt two sizes to large for her made it easy to maneuver in the hisil. She'd made the mistake of coming in her everyday clothes and at the first time she changed forms it was new wardrobe time. With crossed arms and a bored expression the campus looked like nothing more than a reflection of it's form in the physical world albiet with a few differences.

The architecture on a few nearby building declared them as having a stronger presence in the hisil than others, even to the point where some of the newer construction (within the past few years) had no spiritual presence at all and she could walk across the site of the building as if it wasn't there at all. The moon shone down upon her as best it could. Here in the hisil clouds always seemed to obscure Luna and Helios, which was a shame since they were even more vibrant here in the Shadow.

"I don't get it." She said through the glass to the pearl in the sky far above her. The young woman's voice echoed in the hollow halls. "You give all this power, make us great and wonderful and beautiful... and then you just leave us to figure it all out. Thanks though, y'know, for making me one of them and everything. It was pretty cool of ya and I have to admit it's kinda fun. The healing fast thing is pretty cool but I'd like to put in a request if I could? The pain thing is a real downer. Just throwing that out there..."

She sighed and closed her eyes. "I guess someone screwed up really bad a long time ago for you to hate us so much, huh? S'okay, I kinda get that a lot lately myself." She tightened her arms around herself a bit fighting of a chill that reminded her that fur was warmer than skin. She looked back up at the moon and managed a polite half smile. "Anyway, I gotta go, nice talking to ya again."

She walked away from the window but barely made it three steps before another though popped into her head. Like an excited child she spun about and ran back to the window looking up once again to her Mother Luna. "Oh, and maybe you could throw in some really cool transformer sound effects when he take other forms, please? I just think that would kick so much butt to head off after some bad guy and let em' hear our really cool shifting sound effects. Kay, bye."

Pleased at how well her chat with Luna went off she scampered into the library's main hall.

One would think she stepped into the scene from a movie with how active the room was. Here in the main hall several spirits gathered and she smiled brightly as they continued to carry on despite her presence. Some would argue spirits were unintelligent, and incapable of thought or communication being limited only to range of emotions or circumstances that sparked their creation, and they'd be partially correct. What of those spirits who were formed out the delightful imagination of literature whose goal and purpose was to continue to inspire and foster kinship between the mind and the written word? It was like a bazaar of merchants peddling their wares as she entered, each spirit of literature trying to convince or cajole its fellow spirits into reading the pages that gave birth to it's existence.

Small spirits in the form of books fluttered about like butterflies quoting passages from within their pages. It looked like Disney exploded in this room. As she walked past the reading tables the books upon them threw themselves open. One one side a large ship rose up from the pages as water and waves smashed against the hull while on the opposite side a massive white whale rose up from the writing splashing her a bit as she strode past. "Hey!" She giggled to the spirit book and continued on her way.

She felt safe here for the most part. There were many dangerous places within the hisil but not all were bad. Some, like this library, were touched with the positive emotions of humanity, inspiration, love, hope, adventure, anticipation, excitement. Even among all the literature that was penned to be scary and frightening it's core purpose was to entangle the readers heart and make them want to read more. To immerse them into a world, that even for all it's eerie and creepiness was still beautiful and inspiring.

"And how is Homer this evening?" She ask as she passed the fluttering Iliad.

"With them went Athena, holding her goatskin-tippet, precious, unfading, incorruptible, with a hundred dangling tassels of solid gold, neatly braided, worth each a hundred oxen. Through the host she passed, dazzling them with the vision, and filling each heart with courage to wage war implacable and unceasing. In a moment war became sweeter to them than to sail back safely to their own native land!" Cried a thunderous voice from within its pages.

"Riiiight..." She replied, leaning back a bit as the voice tossed her hair about like a gust of wind. "Well, hold that thought. I've got a date with Huck Finn tonight, but relax, we're almost done."

"Short is my date," cried the Iliad as it fluttered off away from her. "But deathless my renown!"

Rolling her eyes she continued on her way to one of the shelves. "Note to self: Homer needs decaff." There her petite fingers pulled a book from the shelf and she sat right where she drew it from and opened its pages. "Now, where were we?"

"...I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it." A young mans voice softly narrated the words on the pages as she smiled and read the passages having spent a few moments remembering where in chapter thirty she'd left off. "I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: 'All right, then, I'll GO to hell.'"

The sounds of the harmless spirits about her dimmed as Swara-Ann drowned them out to the world of imagination and immersive story telling as done by one of the finest authors. Sure it was fun to be a werewolf. They got claws and regenerating flesh and mystical powers and to Swara-Ann that was all cool, but really when it came to being on decent terms with the spirits world, despite all its evil and dark corners if one really knew where to look there were troves of treasure to be found just like this one.