All Around Me [Violet]

[William Talbot]

{{{OOC Note: Takes place about a week after Put the Fire Out, and two weeks before any other events (IE Down the Rabbit hole, Judgment call, Prime Biological Evolution ect...) in the time-line/current threads}}}



Will stared up at the moon, it's current waxing towards fullness meant that it was about three quarters full tonight, and it was high in the sky, this view hardly cluttered with the light smog that most of Jump dealt with, the light pollution also reduced noticeably out in this remote northern part of Jump City's larger bay, the effect being that more stars where seen than in the city, not too many more, but plenty enough for the young Angelic Lycan to gaze at as he savored the end of the day and let his thoughts wander about.


This evening he was recalling the trip he and Violet had taken through each others mind, when she had been poisoned at the safe-house, and while it had given him more insight into her, and her past (after a fashion anyways) it also had raised a few more questions, and it had also betrayed a few things he was unsure of how to tell her about, as well as having drug up some rather unpleasant things he had suppressed and in some ways, wished he could forget again...

Still, he wasn't doubting his standing with Violet, in fact he felt that in it's own way, it had cemented their relationship after a fashion, if not at least confirming the trust they had in each other, but it also... Well, it raised a few questions, questions he was sure would need answering, on both sides of the equation, so he was not wholly surprised when he sensed Violet climbing the stairs to the roof, most likely to join him in the view, and to talk to him, something he strangely both welcomed and dreaded...

[Violet Schultz]

It wasn't uncommon for her to have injury or other manner of ill disposition put her out of commission, but she could tell that Will had been shaken up by the ordeal, maybe even moreso than she was. She owed him an explanation for the things he had seen, but she was not sure how to approach the subject, or whether or not the dread she could sense from him had something to do with what he had learned. She was afraid. She had hidden her past for good reason, since it was hardly the upstanding past of a hero, and in many ways it wasn't even a decent past. She had always maintained to herself that she had done what she had to in order to survive, but there was no way of knowing if he would agree.

She opened the door to the roof and paused, her eyes taking in the scene. The moon was nearing it's entirety, and its effect on her powers was growing with each passing night, but it wasn't a problem as of yet. Instead, her attention was on Will's silhouette, black against the dark smoggy sky. He was looking out over the city, even though he had certainly sensed her coming.

"Do you mind if I join you?" she asked, her voice quiet. The stillness of the rooftop made her voice feel loud to her.

Her mental barriers were still in place, as they always were. Even with the link, her thoughts would usually be muffled by the protection she kept around her powers in order to keep them in check. As a consequence, he would probably be able to sense some general emotions, but her thoughts would be obscured unless she actively communicated them to him. She didn't have the powers that he did, but the link seemed to go both ways. Still, she couldn't sense much beyond his unease.

[William Talbot]

Although he was wearing only a thin cotton undershirt and his worn, green baggy cargo shorts, the mildly sea chilled summer breeze didn't effect him, his powers and physiology granting him almost perfect immunity to cold, so he was perfectly comfortable, his feet and legs dangling off the edge of the tower as he looked off over the city, the warmth of Violet's body and mind pressing on him like a gentle touch, a tap on the shoulder, alerting him to her entrance to the roof, even before she spoke to him...

Looking over his shoulder to her, he slowly jerked his head over, in greeting as he replied just as softly as she had queried him; "Grab some tower and have a seat." he said with a faint smile on his lips as his gaze appraised her for a heartbeat then went back to the skyline of Jump.


He could feel the stew of emotions she held in check, his empathy naturally feeling her psyche like a blind man feeling a clay sculpture, every texture, flavor and any other detail he could sense flowing into his mind in a few heartbeats,however it was of course, an imperfect sense, her control over her powers linked to her grip on her emotions, was as always impressive.

She seemed almost distracted in a way, or at least concerned, and while not an expert in any field by any means, William was hardly an idiot, so he could guess why she was so... Evasive in her emotional transmissions over the link, or at the very least, more restrained then she had been before she had been poisoned, and after they had established the nature, and hopeful direction of their relationship...


Feeling the moonlight on his skin, Will could feel the more feral parts of himself bubble with power, a kind of exuberant chatter and shuffling in the back of his mind, stirring deep within his body, way down in his bones and blood, just as he could feel the gentle ebb and flow, surge and pulse of his celestial parts tingle with energy at the contrast of light and dark, this latest sense only just maturing to the point where he could feel it, both sensations telling him, in an intangible way, that he was getting stronger.

Violet of course, now knew of the sources of all of this, even if she didn't know or, or at the least understand it...

"So... How's the great Darkbrand doing this evening?" Will almost teased, the latest news stories lauding the actions of the newest Titans, the current crowd favorite the dark, mysterious, quiet, and hauntingly lovely fire bender with the lavender tint, some people even calling her, the "more personable Raven" since Violet, or rather Darkbrand, was only openly passionate, if one could call it that, about one thing, and that was keeping the people safe.

Never mind that Will had a clue that her past had been less than stellar in that area, but he guessed that they would get to that tid-bit in due time, as well as to a few of his own...

[Violet Schultz]

The wet sea breeze didn't travel high enough to soak them in its spray, but the air was chilly enough to deter most people, especially at night. Still, Will and Violet were never deterred by the cold, considering that their bodies pretty much radiated heat. Even with her usual black cargo pants and black sleeveless shirt, she wasn't bothered by the cold. She sat next to him, staring into the horizon. Her powers were a little unsettled by the fullness of the moon, and it made her feel restless, although the moon wasn't the only thing that made her feel that way. She could sense a little unrest from his wolfish parts from the moon as well, but she didn't say anything.

"Not so great," she admitted, not smiling at his teasing. "It feels so... against the grain to have regular people think I'm a good person."

Her face didn't reveal much, but there was a distant look in her eyes, and it was apparent that she wasn't really seeing what she was looking at, but was instead seeing something from her past. She was used to getting scornful stares from upstanding citizens, who all used to take one look at her grungy clothes and her hard face and think that she was another trashy gangbanger out to endanger their children and ruin their streets. She didn't know what to make of it. She hadn't really changed in between those times, but her situation had improved. Even in St. Louis, she'd never been a hardened criminal. She'd fought to defend herself, her friends, and the resources that allowed them to survive. She'd stolen to feed herself and the other homeless among her ranks.

Sometimes, she'd hated herself for her core, which had always made her tend to do what was right, rather than what would have helped her gang get ahead. It was that core which had guided most of her decisions, including the drug policy which had nearly gotten her killed. It felt so strange to have that side of her praised, rather than despised.

"You know, it really is a different world when you're as well off as the Titans," she commented. "It's like the rules of the world are different."

Her family had been fairly rich, considering that her father was a doctor, but it had been many years since she'd lived that way. She was just now realizing how huge a difference it made in the way that life worked.

[William Talbot]

Will sat there with his feet dangling off the edge of the roof, the over six story drop below not really registering as anything particularly dangerous for him, since he had such great balance and reflexes and if worst came to worst, he could use his powers to cushion the fall, if not to cancel it out totally, so he was enjoying the feel of the cooling steel and chilled glass on his calves as he looked about, the cool salty air teasing his nose with scents from afar, and the mixture of the city, the aroma of people, vehicles, food and other items a strange mix that seemed sharper up here, likely due to the salt in the air, and the coolness of the wind, contrasting with everything else.


Looking over at Violet, Will pondered her comment then shrugged, taking the hint that she wasn't in the most jovial of moods, so he stowed the humor for now as he laid back with his fingers laced between themselves and behind his head as he gazed directly up at the moon at last, the craters and lines, scars and markings as clear to him as a stop sign at midday to a normal person, his steely blue eyes slowly blinking as he traced the shoreline of the sea of tranquility, and listened to Violet speak, her soft, even, lightly accented voice almost as soothing to him as her steady strong heartbeat, a sound that was wholly more pleasant then the other inner workings of both her body, and his own, the soft squelch of his stomach contracting slowly around the jumble of leftovers he'd consumed (a heady mixture of cold week old pizza, cold french fries, reheated leftover Chinese noddles and orange duck, with a tall cold glass of vegetable juice) a sound he let fade away under the soft rhythmic pulse of life from the girl next to him, the ebb and flow of the ocean waves, and the constant thrum of the city that was but a scant mile away...


Furrowing his brow, Will leaned up on one elbow and looked up at Violet, and stared at her long raven locks and how the moon light glanced off of the almost perfectly smooth sheen that followed the slight curve of her upper back down to above her lower back and the graceful inward curve that flowed into her hips and backside, and of course, her legs. moving his gaze back up to her face he blinked at her profile a moment then laid back down and tried to stare a hole through the moon as he spoke softly; "Hmm... I'm still adjusting to average people thinking about me at all... But then, it's all perspective really... The way people look at each other, the way the rules look to a person, the way we follow the rules... It's all based on how we see it, where we are when we look at something, even when we are looking at something..."

He wiggled a hand free and pointed to the moon lazily, and then made a kind of soft glowing blue circle in the air with his light powers flowing from his fingertip like ink from a fountain pen, the soft glow fading away slowly as he kept spinning his finger about and went on; "Just like the moon... Now just at face value, the moon is always on the go, dancing about the sky at night, growing and then shrinking, and even vanishing for a few nights before it starts all over again... But then anyone who's had the time or pleasure of reading about or studying astronomy, knows that the moon, while not constant in the mathematical sense, is most certainly, constant in the logical sense, it's there day and night, going around and around the earth, as the earth goes around and around the sun, always moving and shifting, as so when the sun is where we can see it, we don't think about the moon, cause we can't see it, but it's still there, and when we can't see the sun, then we see the moon, not because it was hiding, but because we didn't bother to look for it or couldn't see it."

After a few more twists of his finger, and another shimmer of soft blue light, he rested his hand on his chest and let the light fade away, before he lifted himself up on his elbows and looked back to Violet, his head tilted slightly as he felt her out again with his powers, this time letting his guard down some, and allowing his questions to dance about between his ears, as he spoke just above a whisper; "People see what they want to see, the masses thrive on group think, but when a person stops flowing along, and starts thinking with their heart and a little logic, then they can see inside, and inside, Violet, you've always been yourself, and only you can judge whether or not you've stayed true to you and who you either are, or want to be..."


He wasn't totally sure where that had all come from, other than the heart, but it had such a heavy motherly ring to it, he was convinced that he had somehow tapped his mothers angelic wisdom she had passed on to him, one way or another, and he was suddenly wishing he could take notes, since he seemed smarter when he just opened his mouth and spoke from the heart rather than thought things out and tried to make some sense of it from over reasoning...
Hmm, something to remember for later perhaps.

[Violet Schultz]

Violet smiled a little, amazed as she often was at the wisdom that he displayed on occasion. It was like there was another personality deep inside of him, and after their excursion into his mind, she knew that it was almost literally another person. There was the impulsive, foolishly reckless teenaged boy, and there was the selfless, wise boy who seemed ageless. They were two sides of the same personality, and she knew that he was convinced that one couldn't be selfless without being reckless, but she worried about where it would lead him in the end. His selfless side often led him to make reckless decisions, and it was reinforced by the benevolent spirit which led him into the path of the fire. Nearly literally.

She stared up at the moon, its silver glare reflecting in her dark blue eyes. The resonance drew her powers nearer to the surface, and a pale lavender gleam lit in her eyes. It was a natural thing for the moon to enhance her powers, and she wasn't worried by it. She lay back next to him, her hands clasped over her stomach. The wisps of cloud blew across the moon, lazily floating across the sky as she watched. She knew that with Will's enhanced senses, he was probably seeing a lot more than she was, and hearing and smelling as well. Her own senses were better than the average person, but only because her training and practice allowed her to pay greater attention.

She could sense his mind only just, through the link which allowed her to sense fluctuations in his powers mostly, but also gave him some insight into his thoughts. He seemed a little surprised at his own insight, and it widened her small smile. With a sigh, her smile faded again. The matter of her past and his opinion of it was weighing upon her heavily. She wouldn't blame him if he was mad that she had never mentioned it before. He probably would've liked to know what he was getting into before they started into a relationship.

"How are you doing?" she asked, still staring at the moon. "We haven't really talked since it happened."

Her voice was quiet and even, almost sad. She wanted so much to know whether or not he regretted what had happened between them, and what he thought about all of it. He had seen her at her weakest, broken down by fear, sadness, and guilt. Did it change anything between them? She wouldn't voice her thoughts.

[William Talbot]

William hummed lightly in thought at her question, the small smile that had been on her face, and the feelings behind it had not been lost on him, nor had some of her more prevalent emotions or feelings, but then it was the same old song wasn't it?

He did what he felt he must to protect those close to him, with little if any thought as to what it might cost him, because to think like that, to his own way of thinking was selfish, and caring about a person, truly valuing them, meant that you could not be greedy or self-centered, and besides, wasn't he selfish enough in wanting a romantic relationship? She made him feel special, in an indefinable way that no one else really had before, at least, not someone who wasn't family or like family to him, and other than Olivia, anyone that had been like that to him was now dead, and it seemed that it was his own fault, somehow…

But of course, Violet, while respected, and in some way he guessed, adored this part of him, it also rankled her to no end, not so much in the reasoning behind it, but the execution of it, and while he would concede that for most others his actions where likened to the extremist actions of a crazy person with a death wish, he felt that she did not understand one key fact, and that was that he could take more punishment that anyone else they knew, and then bounce back from it with ease.
For a moment, the conversation in the Med-Lab came to mind, and it seemed almost ironic that the day they had admitted their feelings for each other, and started down this relationships current path, they had started talking about that very fact, and somehow, he felt that it was germane to the pending exchange between them.

Germane? Where did that word come from?

Ehh, anyways…



It seemed that the subject now at hand was the jaunt they had taken through each others minds, and that was something he had wanted to talk about for the last few days as well.

“Well, no we haven’t, and to be honest… I’m not too sure where to start really, I mean… Despite my unfair advantage, I still have no clue what you think of everything you saw in my head, and to be honest, I’m not one-hundred percent sure either…”


He sighed as he moved his hand back under his head and just gazed up at the moon, pondering some more about all they had seen and heard, most of what was in his head he had known about, although there had been some interesting surprises, not to mention all that had transpired inside Violet’s mind as well… It had shed some light on a few things, but it had really raised up more questions than it had answered, and Will knew that if the relationship between them was to move forward, in any way shape or form, then they must both be willing to talk this out in all honesty and with all the trust they had between them, which thanks to the aforementioned events, was plenty strong…

"What about you? I mean... I guess for all practical purposes we're fresh out of secrets huh?"

The only REAL question in his mind now, was would that trust cover everything?

[Violet Schultz]

"To be honest, I'd guessed some of the things I saw, and it clarified a few things," Violet admitted. "But I'm still confused about other things. Mostly the deal with the angel."

She had always been able to sense the duality within his core, the feral werewolf part and the strange "pure" feeling. However, she had witnessed his transformation into wolf before, so she understood the wolf in his mind. It was the angel that confused her. It probably had something to do with the strange language he had used when she'd woken up and the wisdom that he sometimes surprised himself with. Of course, that would bear some explanation. She turned to look at him, her dark eyes searching his face for the hints that she wasn't skilled enough to read with her powers. Her voice was quiet as she spoke to him.

"I am more concerned about what you think of what you saw," she said.

Her eyes continued to search his face for a reaction, for his feelings, for anything that might shed light on what he was thinking. As useful as the link was, it wasn't as strongly tied to her powers as it was to his. Her fire-sense had always been a passive ability, like hearing. Focusing it wasn't easy, and she had very little practice with it. Reading people's faces, however, was a far simpler task, and she was very good at it. She was glad that Will was so open with his thoughts most of the time, but this time he hadn't been. That worried her. Had something that he'd seen changed things?

She would understand if they had. Her past wasn't stellar, and after all, it was how he had found out that she was the one who accidentally killed her parents. If he blamed her even a fraction as much as she blamed herself for it, it was reason enough to not love her any more. She recognized that it had indeed been an accident, but that didn't change the pain that she still carried for the fact that she'd ended her parents' lives. The battle between her and her guilt hadn't ended in that "dream", vision, hallucination...whatever they called it. That was a daily battle that she had to win in order to function. Her life had changed that day, and not for the better. And that was only one piece of information that had been uncovered.

[William Talbot]

Will held a small smirk back from fully taking over his lips, as he pondered the irony of her reply, although he knew that unless he commented, the small amusement he was enjoying would be lost on her.

"I was thinking the same thing myself... I had supposed a few things, guessed a few others, but I was in the dark about some key points, and I must admit, I still am..."
He paused for a moment and then shifted, at last turning his head over, looking at her, for a moment as she spoke again...


Blinking slowly, Will screwed his face up in thought and looked off into the sky again, a long slow breath sucking in through his nose before he let it whoosh out from his lips, his mind racing, and his emotive state one of careful and caring thought on his response.

Turing his face and eyes back to Violet he leaned up on one elbow and stared at her for a moment before he reached out and brushed a stray lock of her long dark shiny hair back from the edge of her face behind her ear as he mustered the will to speak again; "Look... We've both got our problems... God knows I'm not any closer to perfection than you, and I am painfully aware of my shortcomings, believe it or not, because I know I have them, and I'm also aware and somewhat mystified at what some of my actions do to you... Maybe I'm just bull headed, or not smart enough to understand it, but when I get hurt, and it's because I'm protecting my friends... Knowing that you or Tim is safe because of me, makes it not as bad... Knowing that you're safe..."
He stopped, because he suddenly had an overriding need to cry, the urge having sprung up on him like a steal trap, a unfounded fear gripping him as he tore his gaze from her dark blue eyes and the lavender glow that was behind them, the image burned into his mind as he bit down hard on his lower lip until the pain drove everything out but Violet...

Looking back at her, Will sighed and went on, explaining himself in another way; "Anyway... The angel huh? Well... My mother was a half breed, her mother... Her mother had been her fathers guardian angel, but she broke the rules, and had her mantle removed, and as such she no longer had a place in heaven, so she was cast down to earth, and the first thing she did was find my grandfather... Their daughter was my mom, and she fell in love with my dad, who was a werewolf... And then not long after they married, I showed up..." slowly pulling his gaze away, he unwillingly turned back, and leaned on his elbows and looked over the city, his eyes almost shining as he continued; "All my life, I've seen more than other people, felt more, smelled more, heard more... When I look at a person on the street, I see what you see, but I also see... Colors, I see waves of colors, hear sounds that are attached to memories, smell scents that are the emotions driving that person, and I can taste there feelings like a stick of gum or a chunk of meat shoved in my mouth... All my life... I could hardly stand to leave the house until I was almost ten, it took that long for my mother to both learn how, and then teach me how to control empathy, to harness it, to master it, rather than be mastered by it, and even then, when your just ten years old, people look at you funny when all you do is stare and watch them move about and go through life, and when the question you, you answer with things you couldn't know, shouldn't know..." he snorted softly and then shook his head; "You learn to simply keep your mouth shut and to tune out most of the noise..."


Shifting his weight, Will closed his eyes as he leaned back again, and brought his knees up then rotated away from Violet, and then landed on his knees, pivoting so that he was now sitting on his legs and facing her, his hands on his upper thighs palms up so he could look at them, his eyes now glowing constantly with a soft steely blue light as he looked up at her, his voice slightly deeper and more gruff; "Violet... You know... I know you've been able to sense the conflict in me since we first met, the wild, untamed feral power, and the pure surging light that make up who I am, are always pushing at each other, pushing at me, and the humanity that can barely contain it all, and when they are able to work together, well... Good things happen, but most of the time, I'm just able to contain them..." he licked his lips as he stared at the rooftop between them, then he gazed at her, and felt that wild part of him surge at her beauty and the indescribably intoxicating scent of her body, made even more potent by the increased warmth her powers gave her.

"I love you... Very much but there are times when I'm around you that I'm not sure if I can trust myself... and I wonder how you could ever trust me, if you really knew the conflict that I have in me..."

He wanted to either scoop her up and just hold her, or pin her down and do all kinds of unspeakable things to her, and the more he fought both, the more they fought back, the fire, and the light, the tame and the wild, the angel and the beast and it was rising up as a din of noise in his head, and while it was soft at the moment, he knew that sooner or later, it would reach a level to where he would cave in to either one or the other, and that worried him...


"As to what I saw in you're mind, all I can do is tell you that what I saw hasn't changed my option of you, not at all, however that's partly because I'm still somewhat confused as to the context of some of it all... I guess what I'm saying is that we both have some explaining to do." he shrugged and gave her a slightly lost and sheepish grin, because the truth of the matter was that while he knew that they needed to talk, he was lost as to what exactly needed to be addressed between them.

[Violet Schultz]

"I understand that," she said evenly. "Do you remember the first time we met? And yet I'm still here."

Violet had never been extremely wordy, and in this case, there wasn't much to be said. She had known for a while that his light half and wild half were at odds, since the first time that they had met, she had witnessed the depth of the struggle first-hand. His darker side had tried its utmost to destroy her, and had any of the hits landed, or had he been attacking anyone else, it was likely that he would've succeeded. But she had seen the conflict from the start, and she knew that the good side of him was something as formidable as the feral side. She was willing to take the chance that he might lose control, even while that went against her cautious nature.

"I know I owe you an explanation for the things that you saw as well, but you'll have to bear with me. It's not something that I like to talk about, but I'll try," she said. She pulled her knees to herself and crossed her arms over them, resting her chin on her forearms. Her eyes were distant, filled with memory and some pain. While the memories of her early life were precious to her, they were all tinged with pain because of what came after.

"I was born in 1998 in Mont-de Marsan, France. My father was a doctor, and we were pretty well-off, since my mother worked as a popular landscaper and my father did pretty well monetarily as well. My mother stayed home with me after I was born, and we spent most of our time in our flower garden, tending my mother's irises. When the time came, I went to school like any other kid. In France you can start school when you're three, and I did. I didn't know that I was any different from the other kids, because at the time, I wasn't. My powers didn't emerge until the second year of school, when I was four. I accidentally lit a paper I brought home on fire because I was angry at the grade.

"My parents didn't know what to do, since metas are pretty much unheard of in that area, and no one we knew had any abilities of the kind. They decided just to let things go as they were. What else could they do? My father knew that if anyone found out, I would be sent away to a lab somewhere. He and my mother helped me practice with my abilities so that I would be better able to control them and hopefully keep anyone from finding out on accident. I had them pretty much under control within a few months, and we were able to keep my secret.

"Two years later, I got another power which took me by surprise. I came home that day just like any other day, but on that day, I had gotten a letter in the mail from a special art school that I had applied to. It was a rejection, and I felt so angry and bitter about it. At six, you know, every disappointment feels like the world is ending. My mother tried to comfort me, but I couldn't suppress the flare of power that my anger had stoked. I made my first explosion that day. It was like a bomb went off, with myself as the source. I was in my mother's arms, and it hit her point-blank. There was nothing left of her. My father was in his study upstairs, and the explosion shredded our house, him included."

Violet's voice shook, and her fingernails bit her palms so hard that a drop of blood rolled down onto her knee. Her eyes closed, she fought to keep tears from rolling as she thought of it. Her fault, all of it. She had to carry that for the rest of her life, knowing that her parents would still be alive were it not for her... She relaxed her hands and opened her eyes, though the pain was still there on her face as she resumed speaking.

"I was knocked out for a good two hours, but we lived pretty far in the country. Even the smoke didn't catch anyone's attention for quite some time. By the time that I woke up, no one had come. I knew that I was alone, and that I would be put in the foster care system, if I wasn't discovered for what I was. I was terrified, but I knew I had to get out of there, go somewhere that they would never find me. I made my way to Lorient, which is a port city on the western border of France. From there, I came to America on a cargo ship and landed in New York. That dream about getting off the boat? It wasn't a dream. It was a memory."

She looked over at him in a sidelong glance, not sure what he thought of it so far. She was telling him in greater detail than she had told Robin, but then she knew Blaze more, and he knew things already because of the dreams. She wanted him to understand them, to understand what he had seen.

[William Talbot]

William listened, and listened hard, every sense he possessed was keyed into Violet, and all she had to say, both in the words she spoke, and the words she didn't speak, with her body language and her emotions, the colors dreary and gray, tainting the normally cool and even blues and light purples she normally had surrounding her (it was how he saw her aura in fact) the flavor of rotting fish and dead flesh prodding at him even, but still he listened, and remembered all he had seen that day when he had fallen into her mind and they had journeyed through her thoughts...


"So it was your parents we saw... The older couple in the garden, just before we made proper contact, they seemed unnaturally afraid of you..." He thought hard for a moment, not really looking anyplace, but facing her as he listened some more and at last spoke softly; "I highly doubt you're parents could be ashamed of you, or would hate or fear you Violet..." he reached out to her and gently took her bleeding hand in his own, and with a soft lick of flame, sealed the cut, her skin might not burn like a normal persons but with a enough heat, applied just right, her skin would become pliable enough to knit itself back together, just like his own.
"You are a strong, beautiful, and honorable young woman who has done what she must to survive, and who has never shied from helping others when she could, not even when it put you're own life at risk..." his cheeks tinted lightly at that, but he pressed on, "And if they did love you like you say they did, then while they might be saddened by what happened, I can hardly think they would blame you, you where barely six years old, and still learning... Mistakes are made when we're young, it is the way we learn, the way the world works, you can't blame yourself."


And it now made more sense as to why the emotive icon for Violet's happiness was so young when compared to the other emotions, and in some ways it explained why her guilt had taken the form of her mother, in some ways just like his own.

Will let his thoughts out, allowed his mind to open, and flood the link, all his senses reaching not just out to Violet, but now reaching into her as well, to let her see and feel as he did, if only just barely, in the hopes that the deeper things that evaded words, could be shared between them equally, as they where now both opening themselves and being as vulnerable as ever, old wounds laid bare to the moonlight, and fears exposed to the night air...

[Violet Schultz]

"I'm not finished, Will. It gets more complicated," she whispered, turning back to stare into space. "I managed to survive the next few years by scavenging, but I was getting almost to the age when the gangs started to pay more attention to you. Before that, they chase you away, sometimes they get their hits in, but for the most part you're insignificant. Fortunately, I was learning how to defend myself from Loretta, who lived out of the same park I did. She was a former Navy SEAL, but she was homeless in New York, like me. But while learning to defend myself was useful sometimes, it also made me more of a target. It got so dangerous for me that Loretta told me to leave the city.

"She got in touch with her sister and got me a ride part of the way, as far as Columbus, but I had to leave her when she started asking for some sort of compensation. Apparently Loretta had tricked her into helping me by saying that I would pay for gas, though how anyone would be stupid enough to actually believe that an eleven-year-old kid could pay for gas, I still don't know. Anyway, I found another sensei there in Columbus, but the situation got just as bad but faster. He helped me to get further, and I managed to get as far as St. Louis."

Like anyone who had lived there for any length of time, she pronounced it "Saint Loo-is" rather than the traditional French way that one would pronounce it. It sounded a bit unnatural with her retained accent.

"St. Louis is far more dangerous than Columbus, but there are a lot more places for a homeless person to live and a lot more food to go around. I was thirteen, and I was sick of running, so I stayed, although I tried my best to stay under the radar of the local gangs. Unfortunately, there are way more gangs in St. Louis than in most of the other places I've stayed, and it didn't last for long. I knew that the only way to survive was to pick a gang and stick with it, so I chose the one that owned the neighborhood that I stayed in most of the time. They were called the Red Shadows, since their M.O. was to strike at night and their specialty was stealth.

"To get into the Shadows, you have to win a fight with a current member, and you take their place in the gang. Since I was thirteen, no one really took me seriously until I won my first fight. You have to understand, I'd been winning fights on the streets since I was eight, though not with anyone who was much bigger than me. Most of these guys were the same way, and they learned to fight that way. I was the only one with any real training, and so it was really an easy fight. I got in, but I wasn't the youngest, by a long shot. The Shadows had this policy of recruiting homeless kids and teaching them to... well, they called it 'butch up and learn how to survive'. I was the youngest to beat a full fledged member, which I did within the week.

"It was a really violent few years that followed. The Shadows were at war with the Thycins, since both of them were trying to claim a pretty important square of turf. It had a jewelry store, a pawn shop, and a grocery store, so neither of us could afford to lose it. I'm not exaggerating when I say that more than half of the scars that I have are from that war. Guns, chains, knives, barefists, it didn't matter. If anyone walked alone, they were jumped. Lots of people from both sides died. When our leader was shot down, there was someone else who was his second who should have taken over, but I knew that if he did, it was all over for us. He was wild and reckless, and he never knew when it was time to back down. We would all have died if I hadn't stepped up to challenge him."

Her eyes were hard as she thought of the boy. He had been six two, and she had barely broken 5'5" at the time, and like so many of them, he thought of her only as the little chick who wouldn't put out and who could be helpful in a fight. Toby was the typical burnt-out crackhead who had only gotten to his position within the gang because of his policy to follow orders blindly and his tendency to kick the everloving crap out of anyone who crossed him. She had never liked him, but neither had she ever seen the point of fighting him before their leader died.

"As you can imagine, it's pretty rare for a fifteen year old girl to challenge a guy who was nearly twenty, but while he was big, he was a moron. I had to beat him to a bloody pulp before he would concede and step down. I'm not exaggerating when I say that his friends and supporters nearly rioted. One person stood up for me, and his friends and supporters numbered about as much as Toby's. It was Elias, and he had been one of my only friends throughout all of my time in St. Louis. I took over the Shadows that day, and nothing would ever be the same."

She had changed personally in because of that leadership. A leader had to never look unsure, to always have the answers. Otherwise, their lack of confidence would be noted and would encourage dissent. In a gang, dissent meant fights and sometimes deaths. She'd seen more than one death as a direct result of the leadership exchange.

"You know, they don't call it a war for nothing. I had to lead the Shadows in the war and eventually, we won, but the casualties were significant. My friends, some of them died and others went rogue, but for the most part, the Shadows pulled through and the square that we had earned made it a lot easier to feed the homeless among us, and to keep what we had. But there were things going on that I hated, and with the war over, I was free to change things a bit. I stopped the drug selling, and the grafters weren't very happy about that. Still, I did other things that were a bit more popular. I gave the younger kids some of the training that I'd received.

"Still, the drug trade was an issue that stirred up a lot of trouble. More than once, people from within the gang tried to take me on to get the leadership spot, but I'm not exactly a slouch in a fight. No one ever got anywhere with it. Besides, we were on the verge of another war with a gang that called themselves the 105's, and I had my mind on other things. Elias took care of most of the infighting, since he was my second, and it was his job to take care of that anyway. In any case, I wasn't worried about it because I thought that if things got too bad, he would tell me. I trusted him explicitly, and we'd fought side by side for years, so what did I have to fear?"

Violet paused, closing her eyes again. She didn't want Will to know how much she had loved Elias, but she knew that he would probably guess. She couldn't bring herself to say it out loud. She could barely bear to think of his face,...his touch... She knew that at some point, maybe all along, she had completely misjudged him, and it had cost her a great deal.

[William Talbot]

Will nodded softly and listened as she went on, his eyes still glowing softly, and much like her own it was due to the moon affecting his powers, but it was also because he was letting his powers have more freedom at this point then he had in some time, and while the distant din of the city grew louder, Violet was the closest source, and as such he was dialed into her emotive state like a car radio to a music station, only the music he was hearing was of a vastly different sort...


When she at last paused for more than a few quick beats, he whispered back at her; "Elias was the one who hurt you isn't he? I've heard the name and seen the face echo in your thoughts more than once, and it never was attached to anything good feeling..." he looked to her again, and continued; "When a friend hurts us its... No... This wasn't just a hurt, it was... He betrayed you didn't he? And..."


Will suddenly felt it all, and without any more words being spoke, he knew, Elias had been her first love, he had taken her affection, and in the end, betrayed her for it, for who she was, and suddenly silent tears gushed from Will's eyes, not only from Violet's sadness, which pressed in on him like a steady wind, but from his own at the realization of just how deeply she had been hurt, but also, deep down, it angered him, angered him in a way he knew wasn't quite logical, not quite normal, not quite civilized...

If William ever crossed paths with Elias, he would end him in no uncertain terms, and with no remorse.



"Violet... I..." Will had no clue what to say, other than what was in his heart; "I don't care about the past... Yes, it's a part of you, but it's not what defines you, it's not who you are at heart, not at all... I've seen glimpses of you at you're best, and that is always who we truly are, who we can be, who we should strive to be... I've seen who you can really be, and I'm proud to know you, and lucky to love you because of that." He gave her a small smile as he gazed at the almost tragic dark beauty he now saw sitting next to him in the moon light. And he wasn't ashamed of what happened next, when he leaned over and gently kissed her cheek, not so much in a romantic gesture, but as a sign of friendship and of caring, his hands gently holding on of hers now as he waited for whatever might be left of her story...

[Violet Schultz]

"Yes," Violet said quietly. "Yes, he did. I found out later that he had been aligning himself with the sect that wanted a piece of the drug money. Before I did, though, he caught me when my back was turned."

She pulled the back of her shirt up to reveal a thin but ugly scar just below the kidney on her right side. The skin was barely upraised beyond the rest of the skin around it, and just a shade darker. It was one of many scars she had, but it was the one with the worst memories attached.

"If it wasn't for my base of supporters, I wouldn't be here right now. He just missed my kidney, but it nearly bled me out. I had a couple of close friends who were several years younger than me, and they considered me their sensei because I was teaching them how to defend themselves. They were the ones who saved my life. The others kept Elias back to keep him from 'finishing the job'. In a couple of weeks, after I recovered, he was chased out of the Shadows. A lot of my friends wanted me to have him killed or at the very least beaten down, but...I couldn't bring myself to give the order. He left, and some of his supporters left with him.

"We went a couple of months without hearing from him, but eventually, I heard that he had joined up with the 105's, and someone asked me whether or not we should just hunt him down and make it clearer that he was welcome in St. Louis any more. It was a full-moon that night, and I accidentally let a flame slip because I was angry and sad, and generally overwhelmed with the rush of emotions that I felt at that question. Needless to say, everyone was shocked that I was meta. For the entire time that I'd been in the Shadows, I'd kept it a secret, since I knew that if they found out, I would be driven out. I'd thought that all that time that I'd been with them would challenge their hatred of our kind, but I was wrong.

"The war with the 105's started the very next week, and during one of the fights, their leader pulled a gun on me, when it had been accepted that the fight would be skin on skin. He got me twice; once in the shoulder and the other just above my hip. I went down, and I was expecting one of my friends to help me, to get me out of there since the police were sure to show because of the gunshots. I was a bit delirious, though. I didn't realize at the time how much blood I was losing. They all ran. Not just the 105's, but the Shadows, too. My friends. They all abandoned me to die. I was lucky enough that the owner of the store found me in time."

Violet unconsciously rubbed her left shoulder, where the gunshot scar was. She still occasionally had trouble with that shoulder, which was less flexible than the other by just a tad. She'd learned to compensate, but it was a constant reminder of her violent past.

"When I woke up in the hospital, I was hand-cuffed to the rail. Being a gang leader tends to put you on a few 'Wanted' lists, it turns out. Fortunately for me, I'm pretty adept at slipping hand-cuffs. Not so fortunately for me, I had two holes in my torso which made it a bit challenging to move. I had to time it well so that I could be recovered enough to escape, but not recovered enough to be moved to Camp. It was lucky for me that no one knew about my healing factor. Still, it was a few days before I reached that point. When I escaped, I made my way west, and I ended up in Topeka, and that's where the lab apparently found me. Robin got me out after they transferred me to Jump. I've been here ever since."

[William Talbot]

In the back of his mind, a part of Will was stunned and proud of the fact that he had stayed so focused on her, for the simple reasons that her voice was rather pleasant, what with its gentle throaty rasp, and the enchanting inflection that crept up more and more as she spoke and her accent gently asserted itself, and that normally soothed him to a point that he sometimes felt that if she just read the newspaper aloud he could doze off happily, the fact that this had taken longer than he had hoped for, but not as long as he had feared (yet) and that as such his chronic ADD had yet to rear its head and knock him off topic just yet.

That and every now and again a shiver would work its way down his spine and end someplace deep in his shorts when a more primal part of his brain sat up and took a good hard look at Violet and noticed something it liked about her...



All of that however was buried someplace at the back of his brain as the rest was rather occupied with listening and digesting all of the information, the story itself, the emotions in the air and the feelings attached to key parts of the tail and the players therein.

Biting his upper lip some, and exposing that his canines where longer than normal at the moment, again due to the fullness of the moon as the back of her shirt came up and he again sat the nicely defined grove of her back and the way her ribs and the muscles fit together, the scar she indicated standing out more than what looked like a barely there, narrow and light road burn just above that, not unlike one he had on his left shoulder from taking a tumble from a moving truck, and bouncing off the street, her skin otherwise perfect, smooth and pale.

Looking up at her he nodded when she got to the end of her personal history, since he knew all the details from there on, himself being a pretty large part of it he suddenly realized.


Well now, everything seemed to either fall into place, or at least get close to it, and he gave her a small smile in thanks as he settled back onto his bottom for a moment before he sighed; "Wow... Well, it explains a lot, not everything of course, but there are things that now make more sense and there are at last some labels for stuff I was at a loss for." shifting again, Will suddenly felt as if he would burst if he couldn't move, his body fidgeting as if he was itching all over but wouldn't or couldn't scratch the itch.

After a moment Will blushed violently before he stood up and all but ripped his shirt off and dropped it to the rooftop, the white tank top piling upon itself directly next to Violet as Will hugged himself a bit then stretched his arms up over his head before reaching down and adjusting his belt, and with his face still dark with embarrassment he croaked out; "Uhh... one moment please..." His voice cracking and dropping a full octave before the air was filled with cracks like small gun shots, and a wet ripping cloth like noise as he transformed in front of her, his frame growing a good three plus feet in stature as over six hundred pounds of flesh and bone added themselves to his mass quite suddenly, his lightly tanned ruddy skin going slate gray and sprouting a thick coat of silver, navy and gun metal tinted fur that shone like liquid steel in the moonlight, the texture stiff like a soft bristled brush, yet strong like armor in an otherworldly contrast, like the bottomless black of his irises and the impossibly brightness of the steel blue in his eyes as he blinked some, then thanked the powers that be that his still blistering hot cheeks where covered with fur now, as he gingerly checked his shorts and made sure they stayed on his wider, but still narrow hips and kept all the important but private stuff covered as it should be.


He at last sat down and gave a sheepish shrug before clearing his throat and laughing in a deep rumbling bass; "Sorry, this is kinda my dad's fault, on the apogee of the full moon, I can't maintain my human form much during the twelve hours it lasts..." he reached up and scratched the back of his head a bit then looked back to her, and smiled softly, his wolf like face was impossibly expressive, he knew, it was almost like a cartoon wolf face, but it wasn't it was as real as the warmth that pulsed from the core of his very being.

"So then... My turn huh?" he said softly as he gazed out over the water to the city again, then sighed; "As you know there's still a lot I don't remember, but I get a tiny bit more back each day, most of it is really pretty boring, everyday stuff, some of it you would find rather comical, such as my dad trying to teach me how to read body language better, or my mom trying to explain to me how I can channel my empathy better so as not to get overwhelmed... I guess that over all my life was pretty straightforward and in its own way, normal..."

He smiled to himself then his eyes got glazed as he went on; "Then I at last got to go to school, and when I got there I was pretty excited but still nervous enough to manage melting my lunch-box shut before lunch, and that is how I met Destiny, she saw that I was having trouble opening my lunch I'd brought, so she offered to share some of hers with me, and I was so grateful, it was almost pathetic, but she put up with my overly thankful gestures, better than most other fourteen year old's likely could or would have, but even so, it wasn't perfect easy and clean, we where just a pair of goofy loners who ended up friends, and then... Well, we realized that we where closer than just friends, that we really understood each other with little effort, and we just... well we just fit..." Will let his mental image of her broadcast loud and clear to Violet, knowing she would pick it up with a touch of effort, the incident at the Library currently not entering into his thoughts for other reasons.

Will gazed off even further, not at a place, but at a memory, dear and important to him; "She was a tad on the smaller side, and had some health issues, asthma and low blood pressure, I had little so social experience, that despite my politeness, I still had a talent for stepping on toes and offending in the royally screwed up fashion, but we countered the bad in each other, I protected her, and she protected me, each in our own way... I... I loved her, and I guess in a small way, I still do..." a tear slipped down out of his eye and along his furry cheek as he cleared his throat again and looked down; "Then one day, some people in suits came around and asked my parents a lot of questions, where they where from, where all they had lived, how old I was, if I was in school, and if so was I well adjusted... My Parents where hiding in plain sight, no one knew they weren't human but us, and Destiny, and Destiny lived with just her mom, who worked fourteen hours a day, and I was her only real friend... But the men and woman worried my mother, she could sense something wrong, and my father was planing to move us to a new house in the city, but then..."


Will stopped and just closed his eyes, he wasn't sure if he could go on, partly because everything got incredibly distorted and fuzzy in his own mind, and on top of that, everything was painful, both clear and fuzzy, and he currently doubted he could keep himself composed, despite the fact that he felt that if he just opened his mouth and let Violet in on this, it would help him both remember the rest, and heal from the whole ordeal as well, but something he couldn't name currently gripped him in an iron clad grip of silence...

Only Violet could break that hold and open his mouth now.