Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors...

Who: Geo
Where: All around Marquette
When: After dark

Geo Williams was sneaking out of the house.

It felt like forever since the last time he'd done that - since the last time he'd needed to sneak. He hadn't needed to most of the time when his parents were alive. And it hadn't been long enough to learn all the places where the hall creaked, all the places that the stairs shifted if he stepped on them. It was making him paranoid.

Helen thought he had work - thought he'd left already. He was just lucky she wasn't a wereraven, that she couldn't smell he was still here, or hear his heartbeat. He could have just left the house, but where was the fun or practice in that? Besides, he was barefoot and barechested, just wearing a new pair of battle-form customized shorts and his now-sleeveless duster. Part of him wondered why he'd never thought about taking the sleeves off on his own - it made an awesome look, like some kind of freedom fighter or something - but a majority of the other part of him was still sulking about his favorite garment.

...and the last little bit was still terrified that Manhattan might go back on her word.

He pushed the thought from his brain almost violently, shifting his backpack over his shoulder. It wasn't very heavy - just a couple notebooks, a bottle of water, an apple and a small tin of peanuts - but the emptiness was making it unweildy. He didn't want it getting in the way of his wings when he shifted.

The best window out was the bedroom Marek and Helen had given Sammy - Geo finally gave up and shucked the backpack off entirely when he slipped through that door. He checked his duster's pockets as he headed for the open window. The outer pockets were all right - wallet (the real one, not the one with the fake IDs), cell phone, yet another tiny notebook, pens. He stripped off his watch and shoved it into one of the other pockets, making sure not to get it in the same pocket as the lying pendent. He took another second to check the inside pockets. The butcher's knife was there, and his second wallet...everything he'd need if anything bad happened.

Geo heaved a sigh and pulled his eyepatch off, making a face at his reflection. The eye was healing nicely - the reddish scabs at the edges had faded to the smooth pink of new skin. The stark white streak through the parts that were supposed to be color, however, were still disconcerting. Don't think I'll ever get used to that... He tucked the patch into yet another pocket, and cracked his knuckles.

"Right..." He said to himself, feeling ridiculous for talking out loud as he popped the screen and threw his leg over the windowsill. "Lets get this show on the road..."

He dropped the backpack out the window, leaping after it and shifting in midair, powerful wings whumping as they unfurled into existence, heavy talons closing around the backpack's straps before it could hit the ground. Time to actually do something.

The night was warm and windy and clear, and Geo felt another pang of oddly tainted thankfulness at the duster's lack of sleeves. He flapped up above the range of the streetlights, watching the streets below turn into lines of golden light. He circled for a moment to get his bearings, and then took off towards the center of town, mind already tacking ideas to locations he'd seen.

Alright, a place on the streets near the lake...fresh water, and lots of it, just needs boiled.... This was going to be a lot he'd need to remember. If he'd had lips in this form, he'd have been gnawing them already. He wasn't good at remembering things, and it was time - way past time - he started getting good at it. He marked off a couple more spots, fixing them on a mental map before things started to get ugly in his brain.

It didn't take long, locations and ideas whizzing around the edges of his mind like errant satellites, making it feel almost like he'd been cramming for hours and hours for an exam. This wasn't right. None of this was right. Not mom and dad dying. Not Herbert leaving. Not being forced to think up defenses against the Next Big Thing. These thoughts were detouring his goal, and he choked back a beaked form of a whimper.

I want my mom.

He shoved the thoughts off a little longer, veering off course to investigate a tree. Good for a shortwave antenna... The thought brought Fred back to mind, and he found himself almost flying into the trunk. He let out a squawk, catching a branch and coming to a stop before he could actually impact, letting himself shift back to human for a moment.

He sat in the top branches of the tree, chomping on an apple held in shaking hands, his shoulder joints screaming about all the flight, and thought. Or tried to think. All he was getting were song lyrics, replacing his conversations with Isaac. Replacing his plans.

If there's somebody up there, could they throw me down a line?
Just a little helping hand, just a little understanding?
Just a little understanding to the questions that I'm asking you...
If there's somebody up there could they throw me down a line?
Just a little guiding light, to tell wrong from right...
Just some answers to the questions that I'm asking you?

I'll keep a vigil in a wilderness of mirrors...
Where nothing here is ever what it seems.
I'm scared to shout in case I draw attention
From the powers that preside over our minds and our lives....

Yeah, Fish, he growled, mentally, over the clamor of lyrics and the clarion clear ideas of What He Needed To Do. That's real helpful. It was. Kindof. In a horrible why does this singer know what I'm feeling way. He let his mental jukebox continue as he tossed the core over his shoulder, starting on the peanuts. Trying to ignore the way just thinking lyrics from his dad's favorite record, just the words from his old iPod, could bring tears to his eyes.

When they find what I want is the deadliest weapon, that is truth...
Day by day it's getting louder.
And day by day it's getting stronger...
but when I can't scream no more and I need reassurance,
I listen to the crowd.

Geo sat, slump-shouldered and teary-eyed, staring out over the treetops at the light from below. What do I even do, guys? This isn't anything you prepared me for. Only silence. What do I do when friends leave and people die and everything goes to hell in a handbasket? It only seems like things are going to get worse and worse... Nothing answered.

Not that he was expecting it to.

He sat here for a few moments more...then repacked the backpack and jumped out of the tree, leaving only a displacement of air and a handful of feather in his wake. He didn't know what he was going to do, didn't know what the future held, didn't know, really, that they were all guaranteed to live out the next month.

But he knew what he could do.

So that's what he did.

And the boy stood, and stared at the hill, and the hill stared back.