First Floor Office

[Silquestnocte]

*Please wait for a few hours so I can edit this response in light of another post*  

[Red Gypsy]

Sebastet was in her office reviewing the paperwork that only she could do. Thankfully, she finally had a secretary that took care of the tedious stuff so she didn't wind up trying to set everything on fire. She really hated paperwork. But there were a few things that she had to see to, though it was all kept to a minimum.

She set aside a residency application that she was turning down then picked up another one to read it over. There were a few that applied to live in the castle or on the island and she assessed their reasons for wantng to move here. Most of them were actually Hunters in disguise, but they always screwed up the paperwork somehow and she saw through them easily. Some just wanted to show up thinking that they could take advantage of the place, easily turned down. But some were genuine and those were the ones she tried to hunt through and approve.

She signed the last one to approve it and set it in a different stack.

Then she had the special order requests to go through. Most of the orders for the island were easily taken care of by her secretary, which she was eternally grateful for. There were a few that she had to approve, though.

At least the office wasn't a mess of paperwork these days, kept neat and tidy by the secretary. Everything was now organized and filed properly. Even the weapons on one wall were kept free of dust...

And she only had to come in here once a week. Unless there was a meeting needed, then she still kept those to a minimum....  

[Red Gypsy]

Dameon Black

Ash led them into the Tower then into the office, causing Sebastet to look up at him with a mildly annoyed look that turned suspicious when he smiled at her, "Visitors for you, Seb," he said simply then stepped aside as Morrigan and Samirra walked inside. Her shock was unavoidable.

She looked over the younger female's face in complete shock, easily recognizing the features, "You have to be Jasker's daughter... I thought he died a hundred years ago..." she said in complete shock, unable to hide that shock even a bit.

At first, she couldn't even move. But thankfully, Jasker had remembered some of the older traditions...

Claiming Sanctuary was an old Hylarr tradition, though claiming a family relationship was something that so many forgot these days. Well, the few that still survived...

Off to the side, Ash gave the girl a nod of encouragement to make the first move. He also gently pulled Morrigan to stand next to him, letting the other two have this moment for now...  

[Dameon Black]

Red Gypsy

Morrigan
Samirra hesitated a bit when she heard Sebastet speak to her and then looked over toward Ash and her aunt. She took a deep breath when she saw Ash's nod of encouragement. "I'm Samirra," she started softly. Her father had tried to teach her a few of the traditions, but it wasn't really easy for a child her age to remember those sorts of things in the best of conditions. She seemed a bit confused by Sebastet's declaration of her father's identity. "My Daddy's name was Jaspar."

Morrigan could see her niece's confusion and decided to cut in a bit to clear up the confusion. "Jasker was being hounded by the Hunters, and they refused to let him be until he was dead," she told Sebastet. "He decided that it would be best to let them think they succeeded, so he put on a show to fake his death and changed his name to Jaspar. It worked pretty well, actually."

Samirra listened to Morrigan's explanation and nodded. "That makes sense." She suddenly started to look a bit sad. "My Daddy died two years ago. It's just been me and my aunt since then. We spent a long time trying to get here." She perked up a bit. "Your garden is really pretty. I got to play in it for a little bit while we were on our way here. It was lots of fun."

 

[Red Gypsy]

Dameon Black

Put the thread up in Sebastet's Tower and fill it in however you want to.

Sebastet lowered her head as she was hit with a wave of emotions but only raised her head when she had them back under control and got to her feet. She was wearing traditional Hylarr fighting leathers: laced haltertop, shorts, kneeboots, and short fingerless gloves. She also had her sword at her back, set for a downward draw; and a few daggers at her thigh and forearm. Her knee-length hair was set into several smaller braids with attachments on those braids that were decorative as well as deadly.

In short, she was dressed as a fighting Hylarr female and made no effort to hide any of it.

She was patterned after a white tiger and her leathers reflected that, expertly designed by the island's leathersmith.

She pulled something out of one of the drawers in her desk then moved around to kneel in front of the girl. She gently pushed her hair behind one ear as she looked her face over again, "Jasker was a good male. Stubborn, good hearted, handsome, and sure in our traditions. He also made the best bows I've ever used. You have his eyes, his lips, his pattern, and his heart. I will teach you what I know and guard you as if you were my own blood," she told her softly then looked down at what she'd picked up.

She took in a deep breath and held it out to the girl, "This belonged to my brother... Now, it belongs to you," she said and placed the small dagger in the girl's hand. The piece was barely big enough to slice a steak but perfect for the girl's size. The sheath was very old leather stitched in an odd pattern, "This pattern was made for my family. Your father made this sheath for my brother. It's only right that you should have it," she finished, then moved back and gave the girl a nod of respect that few had ever seen from the older Hylarr.

She then turned to Morrigan, "The two of you are welcome to stay here as long as you live. I will watch over you both as my own. There's a suite on the second floor of the tower here that you're welcome to. The one on the other side of that floor belongs to my godson Dancer. Anything you want to change to the suite, you can do. Anything you want, you can have... I..." she had to swallow here and get herself back under control as she looked back at the girl.

Thankfully, Ash came to her rescue, "Go on Seb. I'll get them settled in," he told her softly then watched as the Hylarr moved to leave, obviously heading up to the top floor where her bedroom was.

He turned to Samirra with a smile, "She'll see you again later. This wasn't easy for her, but she is very excited to meet you. Give her a day, alright?" he hoped that the girl would be able to understand.

For Sebastet, it was another loss to her dying race and a heavy blow. But she honestly didn't know how to handle children on a personal level and it showed...

Ash turned to Morrigan, "Would you two like to see the room? I know you've been traveling a long time..." he offered, knowing that a good meal and a rest would be a good idea. Plus, by the time she got Samirra settled, it would probably be a good idea for her to see Ash's tower for a few hours... And if he knew Sebastet, there were already arrangements made for a servant to watch over Samirra and take care of her every need....  

[Dameon Black]

Red Gypsy

Morrigan
Samirra tilted her head a bit as she looked over Sebastet when the woman stood and approached her. She was in awe of just how strong Sebastet looked. She briefly wondered if this sort of appearance was traditional for the Hylarr and wished that her father had gotten to teach her more about their race.

She was shaken out of her thoughts when Sebastet pushed some of her hair behind one ear. She was definitely surprised when Sebastet started to talk about Jasker, telling her about various traits that her father had possessed. She had known of some of them, of course, but she had never gotten a chance to find out much about him. She hadn't known that he made bows. That was something that he had only mentioned to Bethany. She didn't know that he had actually made a bow for her to use for her training. She didn't know that he had made a bow for her to use when she was grown. Morrigan hadn't been able to bring herself to go through his possessions after his death, so the weapons still hadn't been discovered yet.

She wasn't sure how to respond to Sebastet's declaration that she would teach her and guard her as it she were her own blood. She found herself distracted from trying to figure out what to say when Sebastet placed a dagger in her hands. She examined it with a confused expression until Sebastet said that Jasker had made the sheath for her brother. "My Daddy made it?" she asked softly, a bit surprised. "Thank you. I don't really have anything that my Daddy made."

Morrigan straightened up a bit when Sebastet turned to speak to her. She let out a soft sight of relief when Sebastet said that they would be welcome to stay for as long as they lived. She had expected to be granted permission to stay on the island after talking to Ash, but she hadn't expected to be given a suite in Sebastet's own tower. Being given a place to live and thrive for the foreseeable future took a massive weight off of her shoulders. She couldn't remember ever feeling as light as she did now. "Thank you," she said softly, clearly extremely grateful.

She didn't get to say much before Sebastet started to have clear difficulty and Ash was was offering to get them settled in. She watched Sebastet leave and then turned back to Ash. "Absolutely. We've never really had a consistent place to stay before, so I'm excited to see it. And I think that Samirra could use a meal and some sleep. The journey here was pretty hectic, so we never really got to rest for long." She was clearly still focused on taking care of her niece, allowing Ash to get a pretty good look at how she worked. Between growing up too fast to take care of Bethany and looking after Samirra from the moment the little girl was born, Morrigan had never really gotten to be her own person.

 

[Red Gypsy]

Dameon Black

Exit to their room

Ash gave them both a smile and moved over to simply pick Samirra up so that she could ride his back, "Why don't we get you ladies settled in then? I think a bath, a meal, and a nap are called for," he said simply as he headed out the door with Morrigan following him and Samirra's laughter in his ear.  

[Wolfe Garm]

After having recieved everything from the front desk of requests, as well as anything else she walked into Sebastet's tower and over to the office that Sebastet used, and casually walked through the door and over to a second door which was for book keeping and simply waved her hand across the lock which opened immediately and simply walked in and looked around noting that Ashigaera was there working on something "Ashigaera i thought you were going to the armory to sort things out" Ashigaera glanced over her shoulder and replied "was going to until Bane asked me to make sure he got the raw silk sheets, no one could seem to remember where they were being stored so came over here to check the books" Lidia nodded and replied "well that log won't have it that information, check log four, section ten" Ashigaera closed the log she had and grabbed log four and went to the section in question and scanned the contents there and smiled "found them i'll make sure that one of the staff knows where to go" close the book after making a note of where it was being stored she hopped down from the chair she was sitting at and walked over to the desk where Lidia had sat down by and handed her a note "Bane also mentioned these" Lidia took the note and examined the contents before looking at Ashigaera and sighed "very well make sure that the appropiate people are aware of the clothes sizes also." she grabbed a list and handed it to her "do make sure you get everything done when light is up, we've got quite a few new residence, Sebastet left me a note bringing my attention of two who are staying in a room in the tower upstairs" Ashigaera looked up and replied "i see well one less resident we have to get a room for" Lidia nodded in agreement "that is true but she's a special case if i understand it, but reqardless a few things need to be addressed for them so do make sure you go see them when you can preferrably with a seamstress so that we can see about making sure clothes are readily available" Ashigaera nodded and replied "alright i'll make sure that's taken care of. anything else?" Lidia shrugged "no more than usual, we've got an armory to get sorted and i've got a list of things to sort out from the front desk, so i'll be in the office a while, so i'll be here a while" Ashigaera nodded and simply put the list away as she made her way to the door pausing when Lidia spoke up again "have you seen Sebastet?" Ahsigaera nodded "last i saw she was taking a run into the forest with a hylarr on her tail" Lidia looked confused "Lio?" Ashigaera shook her head "no, a different one, there's a note on your desk about Lio" she looked surprised and looked at her desk grabbing the note and read it, and quickly looking up from the note "when did this happen?" Ashigaera sighed and replied "you don't pay attention much, he was caught in the attack at the armory, is the only reason we've got damage weapons and armor and stuff we don't normally keep" Lidia sighed and nodded "very well, when you see Venessa make sure that she heads up there and has that stored away with the others, also have Farrow collect a couple of men to collect the damaged gear and have it shipped to the village, make sure you they have a full list of what was lost so that we can have it replaced" Ashigaera nodded and took off out of the office leaving Lidia to handle paperwork that had come in as well as get everything taken care of for the new residence, and make sure everything that was requested by the staff was approved, obvious there were times when Sebastet had to take the paperwork, but she found that there were few instances where she would hand the paperwork off to her, she knew what needed doing and how to handle most cases so she rarely ever needed to bother Sebastet with paperwork, obvious there was still some that would have to be handled by her but every since she became her aide her workload had drastically been reduced which did give her some time to focus on other things while Lidia handled it.  

[Wolfe Garm]

After having received the information necessary for her to requisition the clothes for the ladies above Ashigaera walked into the office and into Lidia’s office and hopped up on a chair by a desk, papers and forms scattered about from work that Lidia had been working on prior to returning to her quarters and sleeping, Ashigaera could sleep but there wasn’t much reason for that since her energy was fueled by Lidia’s lifeforce which made her the perfect person to work on things that needed doing while she slept.

“What a mess” Ashigaera sighed as she tidied up the desk and then went about getting the necessary documentation taken care of as well as any other things that are necessary, only to pause when she got down from the chair and went over to a shelf that had ledgers and books alike and pulled out a couple of ledgers that would be needed for the tasks that she needed to take care of, most of all the clothes for the Morrigan and Samirra and walked back to the desk and hopped back up on the chair and simply opened them up and started flipping through pages before stopping and checking records of inventory they had in storage, and grinned as she found quite a bit that would be perfect for Samirra and Morrigan, granted there wasn’t a lot there but they would fit and most of all would look wonderful on both of them, so she scored in a short term goal, ultimately she would have to send the measurements off to the village and have clothes made as their stock was surprisingly lacking in their sizes and paused what she was doing when someone knocked on the door and one of the maids showed up “Ashigaera!” “Rose, perfect timing have clothes that need to be pulled out of storage and brought up to the two upstairs” She stepped over to the desk and replied “really?” Ashigaera nodded and wrote down which sets of clothes needed pulled out of storage and handed the note to Rose “yup! We’ll need to send for additional clothing as there wasn’t much available for them, but these should suffice until that can be arranged” Rose took the note and looked at the contents of it and nodded “of course I’ll make sure these are brought up to them, also we need a new table in the kitchen” Ashigaera seemed confused and replied “why what happened?” “a stranger appeared out of nowhere and landed on top of a table breaking it” was all she said, Ashigaera nodded and made a note for a replacement table to be requisitioned and continued “alright that’ll be done, also has the raw silk been taken out of storage for Bane?” Rose nodded “of course, they were delivered to the cave as instructed” Ashigaera smiled and continued “alright that’s good least won’t have to hear him belly aching about those sheets not being there” she chuckled and watched as Rose left without any further delay and went to work making sure that the clothes were brought up to the room for Morrigan and Samirra. With that out of the way Ashigaera pulled out her pipe and simply lit it keeping it in her mouth as she worked on things that were left from when Lidia was there since there wasn’t any reason to leave them there for when she woke up this evening.  

[Wolfe Garm]

Red Gypsy

As Khajhan and Sebastet made their way downstairs to the ground floor to head out of the tower Ashigaera had been waiting for them by the office door, but she didn’t have her usual smile which was concerning in of itself “Sebastet, I hate to interrupt but a situation came to light not to long ago, we were notified that Wind has turned up missing in the castle, but worse still, he may have been captured in the forest. Before you say it we spoke with Cain and his new friend and they left not to long after the sun went down to save wind” the door to the tower opened up Ashigaera had been somewhat aware of her problem but preferred to leave that one for her to voice as Lidia came in looking like she had seen a ghost and to a point she had but it was just the fact that this wolf had those marking and had a history that was infamous for her. Khajhan saw Lidia and spoke up “what’s wrong?” Lidia looked at Khajhan a moment and then turned her attention to Sebastet and spoke “an additional problem has come up within the castle, I wasn’t made aware of it until I saw him with Cain” Khajhan looked at Sebastet somewhat confused but lidia Continued “there is a Verestail Wolf on the island, and I saw his markings, he's Feral” Ashigaera sighed as she opened the office door and just went inside. Khajhan was confused not having heard of a Verestail Wolf and spoke "i'm unfamiliar with them who are they?" Lidia responded first "they're supposed to be extinct, they were killed off centuries ago, or at least that's what i thought, they were wolves of a particular bloodline that had been shattered" "and the markings, how is he a Feral" Lidia just shook her head and offered Sebastet the opportunity to explain that.  

[Red Gypsy]

Wolfe Garm

Sebastet shook her head as she moved to sit in the chair behind the desk, doing her best to maintain a calm outward appearance. But this one might have been a bit too much for her... Wind was... Wind was special... He was sweet and all heart... For this to happen to him again...

She knew Khajhan would help her keep the appearance for everyone else and let her have her breakdown later with him.

Then Lydia came in and dropped her bombshell on everyone else and Sebastet shook her head again, "Falmon, right?" she waited for the nod and gave a shrug of one shoulder, "He isn't a problem. He's likely the last of the line. I approved his application to come to the island. And yes, I approved it knowing what he is," she said simply, knowing that he was hunting the organization that used to rule the island before Sebastet came here.

She knew that Khajhan would pick up on that one but knew that he'd wait to bring it up until later.

For now, she leaned back in the chair, "Ashigaera, please notify Arqden that she'll be needed for healing when they bring Wind back. No, there's no choice on it. We don't have another healer on the island. Amir went to Sasha's with Dancer," she started, knowing that it would be better to have that one ready for it.

Then she looked at Lydia, "Why don't you explain the Feral to Khajhan? And why you're so afraid of them..." she told her, knowing that this one was Lydia's story to tell, not Sebastet's...  

[Wolfe Garm]

Red Gypsy

Lydia sighed heavily as she listened to Sebastet and simply sat down in a chair before she spoke. “the Feral are the branded warriors of the Verestail Wolves, more specifically the Wind cutter pack, the Verestail Wolves committed genocide slaughtering one of the Ruling Clans of the Vampire, one who had no quarrel with them, and I am the sole survivor of that bloody piece of history. After that the clans united and hunted them to extinction, most of them falling by my blade. The Ferals were bloody Berserkers… Fanatics one and all, the mark is unique to the Feral Verestail, every one earns their mark upon their wolf upon completing a trial by fire so to speak, I can’t say what Falmon may have gone through to earn his mark but his is unmistakable” she finished speaking and just sat there khajhan was picking up on Sebastet’s need to breakdown but reassured her through their bond that she would have her opportunity when time allows. Looking at Lydia he spoke up “a familiar tale of our own past” Lydia looked at him confused for a moment before she realized what he was talking about and referred to the slaughter of their own race and just lowered her head a moment. Khajhan continued “the past sadly is always repeated in some fashion, our kin were slaughtered simply because we existed, coexistence wasn’t possible by those who hate us still, and I imagine a chance for most who weren’t involved weren’t given the option to coexist either, I won’t say that my own hands aren’t bloody from the blood of those who likely didn’t deserve to die, we’re all guilty of that at some point but to hold onto that hatred is likely to do no one any good now” Khajhan looked at Sebastet a slight nod of acknowledgement and leaned up against the wall to leave the rest for Sebastet to address. Ashigaera had already taken off, since Arqden’s expertise as a healer was going to be needed she felt it best she speak to her while Lydia had her conversation with Khajhan and Sebastet.  

[Red Gypsy]

Wolfe Garm

Sebastet raised one eyebrow at Lydia and waited in silence for a moment then spoke softly, "Even I killed innocents at one point in my life... As did you, Lydia... Falmon's story is his to tell... But hatred has no place here. Especially blind hatred. Find a way to make peace with your past. Allow him the peace of his own," she said softly then got to her feet, one hand on the desk as she paused for a moment, looking down at her hand before revealing something to the vampire.

"I was chased by Hunters since they were created by the Church. I witnessed slaughters by them that were the stuff of nightmares. I could have continued to hate for the rest of my life. Yes, they are my preferred choice of prey. But I always give them a chance. I let them fight back. I also give them the chance to change. And do keep in mind that my very first love was a Hunter when he came after my head..." she said softly, revealing something that very few remembered these days.

Julius had come to Hunt her. She'd known what he was when he came here. She'd known that he'd intended to get close to her with the intention of killing her. She'd deliberately set out to change his mind, to show him that his hatred of vampires was wrong. She had never intended to fall in love with him. It had simply happened. Then she'd given him the choice. And he chose her that night...

"If a Hunter can change... So can a Feral Verestail... So can a Vampire... So can a Hylarr... We can all change, Lydia... For what we've seen and survived, Khajhan and I, Bast... And even little Samirra... For what we've survived... If we can let the hate go... So can you..." she finished then left Lydia to make her decision.

She stepped out of the office with Khajhan behind her, closing her eyes as he put his arms around her waist and pulled her into him, "I can feel it... They found him... I don't know how he's going to survive this one mentally... But he's on the way home now..." she whispered softly, a silent tear moving through the fur on her face as she leaned back into him, "Take me away for a little bit... Take me away from it all..." she softly begged him, finding that she needed to rely on his strength until she could stand on her own again.