Crows Will Feast

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eve4_icon.gif rue_icon.gif

Scene Title Crows Will Feast
Synopsis Rue goes looking for answers from Eve. She gets more than she bargained for.
Date November 29, 2011

Pollepel Island


After the earlier commotion in the castle, the arguments and the debates about what to do — none of which February Lancaster were invited to offer her opinion at — and the chaos of the raid on the Commonwealth Institute Arcology, deadly premonitions seem to have gotten lost in the shuffle for most people. Not for Rue. The young woman seeks out the catalyst of it all. With a little baggy in the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt, she’s making her way through the hallways on soft soled ballet flats, little more than whispers on the stone. She has to find Eve Mas.

If February was to look hard enough she would find the seeress perched on a little bench not far from the castle. Since her return to the island with Gillian and Lene she has not spoken to many people, hiding off in the shadows. Almost into the forest the woman sways to and fro. Eyes closed and back turned to the woman. In a dress from earlier in the day. Her hair now twisted into a tight braid though that process took a little bit of time. Much swearing so Eve decided to come here to sit and stew. Awaiting Gillian being finished with her business of the day. Her actions during the raid had made relations with some of her group strained. Something Eve knew with time would be healed.
She had long ago learned that her voice wasn't necessarily heard in the meetings of what to do in regards to her own visions. Something she knew stemmed from her often erratic behavior but it was something that bothered her little now.

Something’s moving with the wind
Crawling up under
Wiggling in
Something’s calling out your name
Smothering silence
Inky black all in your veins
Something’s swinging in the trees
Among the leaves your soul set free
Something’s swinging in the trees
It’s not my hair, it isn’t me

Her eyes still closed she raises an arm tilting her head as her fingers pluck an invisible guitar.

Rue spies her through one of the windows of the castle and makes her way hurriedly through the corridors and outside so she can make her cautious approach. She doesn’t want to interrupt the singing, so she stands there for a moment, listening.

When there’s a natural break, Rue reaches a hand out tentatively, like she might tap the woman on the shoulder. Instead, she pauses, holds it in mid-reach and asks in a timid voice, “Miss Mas?”

Just as Eve was reading to go for her Big note she hears the voice of the younger woman behind her. And that's probably a good thing she was interrupted. Today is not a real swell day vocally for the seer. She's been waking up screaming a lot lately.

“Hark! Who goes there?” Whirling around so that her face is inches from Rue’s outstretched hand. Narrowing her eyes to look at the hand right in front of her nose her eyes seem to cross as she speaks, “Were you nervous I would bite your fingers? I promise the one time that happened I was on a serious trip down nightmare lane. Couldn't tell I was awake.” Eve doesn't really have those problems anymore but when first manifesting as a teen it proved difficult to know when she was awake and when she was dreaming.

A gentle breeze plays across the woman’s face ruffling a few loose strands of hair. “You are friends with Quinnie.” It's a statement more than a questions. Her hand comes to rest on her dark green messenger bag as she regards the redhead with a look. A light faint sad smile crosses her lips thrown in the redhead’s direction.

Rue holds perfectly still when Eve whirls on her, like a rabbit trying to escape the notice of a fox. When she finishes explaining Rue isn’t about to have her hand bitten, the younger woman slowly retracts her hand. Her shoulders slouch a bit then, trying to make herself smaller than her nearly six foot height. Maybe she’s trying to seem less threatening (not that she ever seems it), or maybe she’s just trying to be something that can easily fold away and hide. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

The question/statement is confirmed with a nod. “Yeah,” Rue says softly. Something like that. After the other night, when she finally stood up to her ex-girlfriend, she isn’t so sure what she and Robyn Quinn are to one another anymore.

With a light sigh and a twinkle in her eyes the oracle hops to her feet leaning in towards the slightly taller woman Rue would notice that Eve was only an inch or so shorter than her. “Quinnie is a sweet girl. I hadn't seen her in ages.. not since around when Else..” the singer trails off and shakes herself from the thought. Remembering what she heard from Quinn about what had happened to Else still shakes the woman.

The darker haired woman winks at Rue with a twirl of her finger in a loose lock of hair, “And what can I do for you my little Cherry?” Little isn't how Eve would describe the redhead but that never really matters when Eve bestows a nickname upon someone. Her tone suggests that Eve maybe already knows or maybe she was waiting for Cherry herself to come see her. Who is to know with the odd woman.

Little Cherry? Color creeps into Rue’s cheeks, but she’ll swear it’s the chill. She smiles a little, secretly pleased to have a nickname. “I—” But she’s here because of something heavy, and so she takes a deep breath and sort of banishes the satisfaction, seriousness resurfacing. “I wanted to ask you about what you saw.” She hadn’t been able to join the others; she doesn’t have that kind of status in the organization.

Reaching into her pocket, Rue extracts a folded piece of paper. When she carefully untucks and peels back the edges until it’s its full size again, Eve recognizes it instantly. “You dropped this and…” It’s her drawing.

Their friendly and warm exchange is cut short by the mention of Eve’s visions and the drawing that she traded to Rue what seems like ages ago. Her eyelids flutter as her smile becomes an impish grin. Her gaze lowers to the drawing and she tilts her head. The symbol, the door… bleached white bones.. the images cause the woman to scratch her head roughly.

“Cherry is a curious cat yes. A seeker of information. You can handle.. The hard truths.” A dark look crosses the woman’s face as she holds her hand out. “I believe we had a deal of trade Miss.” Her fingers individually beckon the redhead forward to get what she is due. “An old trade finally finished.” The prospect excites her.

“This island.. it's not safe for you guys I don't believe. Not for long.” Eve sighs. Nothing seems to stay safe for Long she muses.

Has it ever been? Rue wants to ask, but keeps her silence. There isn’t likely a place in all of New York that they would be truly safe. Maybe not anywhere in the country. But they had been safe here. She’d started to embrace it as such, and now…

She lowers the artwork, but doesn’t fold it again just yet, falling in step alongside the seer. She reaches into her sweatshirt again and withdraws the plastic bag, retrieving a rolled joint and a Bic from within, decorated with the twin fish of Pieces. A deal is a deal. Rue passes the jay and light over to Eve. “I want to know how I can help people,” she insists firmly.

The darker haired woman claps her hands and nods as Rue extends the joint and lighter. Closing her hand around it her hand lays on the woman’s wrist for a moment.

“It always starts like that. First you catch wind of something horrible something that just should not be able to come to past. So you make it go away.” Her voice trails off as she stares at the younger woman. Taking a moment to lean against a nearby tree and light the joint she takes two healthy pulls blowing the smoke out of the corner of her mouth and upward.

Tendrils of smoke hang around her face as she passes the joint to her newfound friend. “My visions are not always the most clear. Sometimes I get a play by play of an actual event, often times I'm offered the answers in a series of metaphors..” She rarely gets to explain her ability to anyone. Most people just want the end resulting in the product that are her drawings and paintings.

“The infection can mean many things. The door can mean many things. Young Falcon as fierce as she is, does not want to see it. I cannot make her see. They always do in the end. She threw the rest of the sketches into the flames. How rude right?” an eyebrow quirks as she addresses Cherry.

“She… She what?” Rue’s face falls. Eileen Ruskin has been one of the ones she admires most here. The woman is fierce and nearly fearless, in Rue’s eyes, so many things that Rue just isn’t, but wishes she could be. How could the councilwoman disregard this warning so callously? Especially after what happened to them in Cambridge.

Concern etches itself into her features. “We’re all trying to stop something horrible from happening, right? That’s… that’s why they’re all here.” She means Noa, Benji, Hannah, and the others. “We can do it, right?”

Yes.

The darker haired woman takes another drag from the joint and frowns. “Yes.. I suppose you're right Cherry. Though sometimes I wonder if I should stop telling people about my dreams. Maybe things must be as they be.” To this day it is something Eve struggles with. “But,” continuing as she sees the look of concern on the younger woman. “I have high hopes for this,” giving a grin up at the trees around her. More smoke wafts around the two women and it just hangs around them caught in nothing but space.

The woman's eerie gray eyes peek at the woman through the smoke. “It's not as if I can't redraw them but that's just not the point.” Is said absently.

“No,” Rue agrees, “it isn’t.” The point isn’t whether the warnings can be repeated, it’s whether or not they’re heeded. And therein lies her concern. “So, you have dreams? Do they ever become more… specific?” Because metaphor is great, but it doesn’t tell them how they’re all going to wind up dead.
Maybe she’d rather not know.

“Sometimes it's like someone has thrown a bunch of vivid buckets of paint on a painting, covering it up in some places.. the drip drip drip is all you can hear.” Eve's gaze flicks up to the sky. “Other times it's so crystal clear and transparent you can almost see yourself on the other side.”

A look leveled at Rue from the corner of one eye the raven haired woman her face bathed in thick smoke she grins at the redhead. “It's all up here though.” Tapping her forehead, “All in here. Mumbled jumbled and stirred three times. I can't control what I don’t know I know until I know it.”

She tosses the end of the joint into the ground stomping it out. Eve flexes her fingers before sliding them into her bag and rummaging around in it.

“It must be a terrible burden,” Rue says quietly. As much as she’s in awe of what Eve can do, it’s not a gift she’d want for herself. She’s certain Eve is made up of sterner stuff than she is, and she can see how all this knowing affects her.

The hood of her sweatshirt is pulled up around her ginger head, a few curls sticking out bushy and haphazard. She used to care so much about her outward appearance. For a long time after she came here, she wouldn’t leave her room without a full face of make-up on. Now? What does it matter if she has as many freckles on her face as there are stars in the late evening sky? What does it matter if her eyes are lined with kohl or her lips painted pink? — Well, on that last count, her lips are still painted a shade of mauve. It’s her signature, and it’s easy enough to carry a tube in her pocket. Some vanity can be permitted, if it only takes a second.

At the mention of terrible burdens Eve barks out a sharp laugh still rummaging in her bag she sneaks a glance up at the woman. “When I first began to dream I saw a priest. It was so long before the Evolved were known worldwide. The priest thought I was blessed by God!” she chuckles and shakes her head. “I dreamt the death of his son. He called me an envoy of the Dark One himself after that.” she shakes her head as she finally stops and pulls out a golden metallic case. Popping it open reveals a series of already rolled joints. Though Rue did just trade her one, Eve is always prepared. Lighting it swiftly with Rue’s lighter she takes a moment before patting the earth next to her. “You’re going to want to sit Cherry.”

The oracle says this softly but everything shifts in that moment for Eve from her body language to her expression. Sadness. Thick smoke curls around Eve’s hand as she leaves it extended, pointed at where Rue should sit.

Rue’s brows furrow slightly, but she’s not suspicious as Eve tells her to take a seat. Maybe she always suggests it. Maybe it’s a long story. Maybe she just wants to sit down? But there’s that shift in the seer’s demeanor and though the girl can’t explain it, some fear grips icy fingers in her chest.

“What is it?” She’s concerned. For Eve. For everyone on the island. For everyone except herself.

As the redhead gives her that look of concern Eve sucks her teeth a cloud of smoke wafting towards Rue, “I wish I wasn’t the messenger, I wish I always told good things.. Things in the light..” As she pulls from her messenger bag a single page, the charcoal marks fresh on the page. “But darkness reigns supreme.. On days like this.” She lays the page on the ground in the space between them and as Rue’s eyes would find the page, a rather dark image indeed awaits her.

There depicted in black and white with vivid splashes of finger painted greens is a graveyard. One that looks scarily like the one here on the island. A thick, tall tree stands in the center of the page branches lush with blossoming and full green leaves the colors stark on the page. A long vine hangs near something.. A foot dangling free in the air followed by a leg and a body with thick red…hair. The long limbed body of Rue Lancaster hanging from the tree stares up from the page at the real alive Rue. Blue eyes wide with a face just as blue, arms hang limply at her sides.. She’s already dead. Face stuck in that expression of shock and horror permanently. Perched on either shoulder are crows the beaks pecking at her face and arm. A few others sit perched on the branches pecking away at the body, half a finger already gone. The wings of a crow flying by the scene draw the eyes to a fresh unmarked grave, simple but for one final detail. A hanging rosary over the grave.

“They must be fed or they get angry. I’m sorry Cherry but for reason you’re dinner.” Tears well at the brim and she takes a ragged pull from her joint. “I’m just so sorry dear..”

There’s stunned silence that follow the unveiling of Eve’s latest work of art. Rue stares numbly down at the image; the image of her. Her breath starts coming faster and faster as the little details start to register in her mind. Surely the idea that she might be among the dead on the island in Eve’s original premonition had been on her mind. But this is something else entirely.

This is all about her. “Wh- What?!” Rue begins to scramble away from the painting, until her back hits one of the trees nearby. Fear on her face in life mirrors the fear on her face in her portrait. “What? Why me? Why is it just me?”

“It would seem this is one of the times that we’re going more metaphorical.” A sigh escapes the woman along with another burst of smoke. The smell of cannabis filling the air intermingling with the stench of dread that preceded it. Eve leans back against her tree and props one knee up the arm holding the joint hangs limply. Limply like Rue’s own arm in the drawing. “You don’t have much time. There is something after you.” she scrambles forward snatching the page off the ground and coming to crouch closer to Rue, the page is folded and held in Eve’s palm.

“The crows will eat. The crows will feast.

She says each word slowly dragging out the last syllables. Eerie light gray eyes bore into Rue’s blue ones. “You should tell Quinnie. Tell all your friends, there is strength in the numbers of friends. People you can trust. Maybe take the bullet, maybe they pull the trigger. That can be confusing.” She leans forward and grips the redhead’s arm tight. Pressing the page and a boot knife into her hand she forces the woman to take it, accept it. Smoke blows into the model’s face.

“Run Cherry, run.

Rue shrieks when the drawing is thrust her way the first time, shrinking back from it like it could burn her. She doesn’t want to hold that terrible omen in her hands. Doesn’t want to ever look at it again. No one should have to stare their own death in the face like that, should they? Has Eve done it before, she wonders? Does a seer see their own death and avoid it? Or do they only see it when it cannot be avoided?

The question ultimately doesn’t matter. It won’t find a voice in Rue. When Eve grabs her arm, she’s shaking like leaves kicked up by the wind - they aren’t in the trees anymore. Not now. They’re dead and decaying, like she is in the drawing Eve is forcing her to take.

Then, she’s scrambling to her feet, hands clutched around the paper unbidden, and the handle of the weapon, running for the castle without looking back.

A light cry can be heard from the seer in her wake, the faint trails of smoke following briefly as Rue runs through them.

“Run Cherry, run.


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