The Paladin Thief {Jonah}

[Wolffyn]

Winnie popped up from the snow bank with a sneeze. Fully grown now, the pug was still a very small dog and Wolffyn still thought of the playful pup as a puppy. Watching the pug jumping in and out of the snow drifts had made the redhead laugh for the first time in a very long time.

Soon enough, the dog grew weary of her game and the cold. Wolffyn was ready with a towel by the door to the house and dried Winnie off before letting her in. The television was on but the only one watching it was Serenity's cat. There hadn't been anyone else home in weeks. Wolffyn just left it on for the noise, it made her feel a little less alone.

Both of her 'brothers' had places of their own, Colly had been gone for months, and even Serenity hadn't been around in over a month. Wolffyn had become a recluse, sticking to the Lunar Lake estates and avoiding other people as much as possible. The depression she felt after the last betrayal of her scumbag sire had soured her of life.

She carried Winnie inside and walked her to the sofa to set her down, not even bothering to engage with the growling demon dog that growled at her from under the couch.

"I'm going out for a bit, Winnie." Wolffyn said in a quiet tone as she kissed the top of the pug's head, getting a sneeze in the face in the process. She didn't bother with a coat, she didn't care anymore about the masquerade or the city. After working so hard at protecting both for so long only to be killed for being caught feeding one time she had lost any hope for her kind and didn't have any desire to help anyone with anything anymore.

She made her way to the sewers, killing the hunters and paladins that lurked down there was the only thing that she enjoyed doing these days, stashing a change of clothes in the shed along the way. She couldn't remember a time she had ever come out of the sewers after hunting and be clean enough to enter Serenity's house.

She went passed a few faces she knew, even in the darkness, but didn't bother to speak to any of them or even smile or nod. She just followed the sewer tunnels until she was alone and started to sing.

Wolffyn had always been a very good singer but the more she sang, the better she got. It was almost like magic, how her voice seemed to lure the humans to her. And soon enough, a naked young woman covered in tattoos arrived. Without missing a beat, Wolffyn took her head off with one swipe of her sword and kept right on singing. When once she would have worried about getting rid of the body, now she just stepped over it as if it was nothing.

She started walking again, taking her time as she worked though the new song in her head. It was almost done but she was still unhappy with the lyrics, trying them out as she walked to find a combination that felt right to her ears.

I've heard your excuses...
and all your most sincere,
apologies...

I've listened to you tell me...
how you still... care about me.

But you need to take some time, some time...
to get to know me again...

We grew into friends, and everyone knows
that lovers come next.
Wishes to curses... a love that was hexed.
Time was invested, wasted and spent.
And our friendship is now, all broken and bent.

After being pushed away for so long,
I guess you'll just have to excuse me...
If I'm no longer sure if being with you,
is still a place... that I want to be.

But thanks, I think, for the offer of affection.
For me to forget months of your rejections...
Will take more then a single night of your attention.

Just take some time,
take some time
to get to know me again.

You were closer than a brother, closer than any friend.
But you just tossed me away... in the end.
Once you held me close to your heart...
but then you just ripped mine apart.

I hear only the truths,
that you pick and chose
Lies by omission, will hide what you meant
And it's only your own honor you'll lose.

With promises... all broken...
and...
bent.

She paused as the last word of the song echoed down the tunnel, head tilted to one side as she debated how she chose to end it. The acoustics of the sewers were excellent and made the place ideal for practicing new songs as she hunted.

Another hunter, male this time and with clothes on, suddenly rushed at her and was just as quickly dispatched as the first. It was actually a disappointment to the redhead. She longed for something that would put up more of a fight.

She continued on and resumed her singing, eyes shining with excitement as she rounded another curve in the tunnels and spotted two naked male paladins side by side. She rushed towards them eager to take them both on at once only to watch another steal her kills.

At first she was angry and her eyes shifted into those of a Honey Badger but when she looked up at the hulking vampire in front of her, she couldn't help but grin at the sight of the familiar face.

"Not you, again... " She said laughing. "We've got to stop meeting like this..."

[Jonah]

There were sounds bouncing through the corridors. It distracted Jonah for a moment, letting a paladin's strike slip through his guard and land against his thigh. The blade dug in deep and he stumbled forward but he used his momentum to bring his hammer down on the human's skull, caving it in.

The sounds were beautiful and...familiar? The acoustics of the sewers made it difficult for him to identify the source of what he finally realized was a song but he did his best to move towards it. He was never good at tracking though and his memory of the passageways was still rudimentary at best, so he took many missteps. Coming down one hallway, lyrics drifted towards him and for the first time, he could make the words out clearly and the voice that was singing them.

There seemed to be a hint of sadness to them and the killer would have turned to go back the way that he had come to avoid this confrontation but with the ending of the song, two large berserker's ceased to stare down the hallway at what they perceived to be the source of the song and turned to the new arrival. No sooner had they begun to move towards then the song started again and they were distracted, their steps slowing. He tried to capitalize on this and swung hard in the wide passageway, cleaving through both of their necks and attempting to turn without even claiming his loot.

It was too late though, she was already there. Much of the awkwardness that had left him in recent nights came back as he looked down on the little red head. Balancing his sword in one hand, he drug his claws over his bald head. "I'm sorry. I...didn't know they were yours."

[Wolffyn]

She had to admit, it was good to see Jonah again. Sure, she had been mad at him for a long time. For a lot of reasons. But she had forgiven him and moved on. They used to be very close, once. Wolffyn missed that closeness although she would never trust him enough to be that close again. And it just wasn't because he stole her face and attacked her friend Taranto while he wore it, it was for just vanishing like he had without a single word.

She knew he had changed but still... for months she had fed him every night with her own blood and given him blood heals to help him keep up his strength. At first he was grateful for her help but as time went on he acted more and more distant. Eventually he acted as if he didn't even know who she was. But still Wolffyn had continued to meet with him in her own lair in the mausoleum and let him feed from her. Until one night he just didn't show up. She kept going back for weeks but no Jonah. When she finally gave up that he would ever be back she sold the lair... it had too many memories in it, and tried to forget.

When months later he had shown up again and had no explanations she had refused to talk to him, which was probably was he had stuck out at her friend. He'd gotten found out however, and gotten killed for it. And once he was back, he apologized. And although it took the stubborn redhead awhile, she accepted his apology. But she didn't feel he could be counted on anymore. He had made her and Maddra seem like they were all some kind of small family but then he made these choices that affected all of them without even discussing them first. Then he would just take off and there would be no word. He'd done it twice. No, he wasn't to be relied on. Maybe not even trusted.

She was still glad to see him though, she wasn't even sure why. Just that the sight of him made her smile. She missed how close she had been with him and his childe but there was no going back to that, at least not the way it had been. But that didn't mean that they couldn't all be friends still.

Wolffyn chuckled again when he apologized for the pair of Paladins and shook her head. "Well, why didn't you know they were mine?" She asked in a teasing tone, "Can't you read Paladin tattoo? That's my name clear as day, written on both of them."

She gave him a wink as she laughed and then put her sword away. "So how have you been, Jonah? have you made up with Maddra yet?"

No point in beating around the bush. If Jonah hadn't made an effort at least to get back in his childe's life, Wolffyn wasn't going to waste time talking to him for too long.

[Jonah]

She was smiling at him and being friendly and Jonah was confused. While he knew that they had made amends, their interactions had not been like it once was and he missed that. There was little to be done though, his decisions had caused these issues and they had both moved on as best they could.

The tone of her statement was obvious but he looked between her and the fallen humans with a dead pan expression. "I'll keep a better eye out for that symbol then." A small smile finally broke, hoping that his attempt at a joke back had suitably broken the tension between them.

"I've been...ok." A lot had happened, some bad, a lot good, and he wasn't sure how much she really wanted to know. "Been keeping busy." The question about Maddra should have been expected, they had all been close but he had no idea if the two of them were still in contact. Leaning against the wall, he shrugged, the smile fading from his face. "I've tried a few times. We've...settled a few things, I think. She's still not happy with me. What about you? How have you been?"

[Wolffyn]

Wolffyn rolled her eyes at Jonah's attempt at a joke and chuckled. "Well, ALL the Paladins are mine, just keep that in mind next time. But I'm all done with the Zombies. You can have those." She winked at the killer so he could tell she was teasing. Or was she? These days she couldn't be sure anymore.

"I'm glad you're okay, Jonah. And keeping busy is always a good thing. But I do wish you and Maddra would mend your fences. You can't blame her for being upset with you, you know. Not that I've made much of an effort to stay in touch myself. Been more of a recluse than ever before these days."

She started to walk again, not really paying attention to where she was going or even if Jonah was joining her. Just thinking about how to reply to him about how she had been made her feel the need to keep moving. Less of a target than when one was just standing still.

"I... am okay too I guess. A lot has changed. It's a lot harder for me to trust people now and I'm perfectly fine with that. I stopped opening gates and no longer heal anyone outside my family. Just had to learn the hard way that being a girl scout wasn't the right path for me. Why bother helping the city just for your own sire to help the Owl Turds murder you?"

Wolffyn laughed but it wasn't a friendly laugh; "And to think I actually thought they were the good guys at one time."

[Jonah]

"I don't blame her. We've been trying. It's just...taking time." He did not comment on her lack of staying in touch. He knew that it was his own fault and, the same way he did not blame Maddra, he did not blame her though it did hurt to know that the two of them were not as close as they once had been.

She spoke as she walked and it continued their conversation so he assumed that he was allowed to follow, so matched her pace though kept himself a little apart from her. She seemed...different and he did not want to crowd her and scare her off. That she had been murdered caught him off guard and he did not register the insult that she offered to the group that had done it.

"Someone sent you to the Shadow Realm? Who? Why?" He remembered when she had first found out about his affiliation with the Masquerade Office and her fear and confusion. She had been attacked for violations before and it had been hard for her to understand why he would do it, though they eventually came to an understanding. He knew she feared that place and he could not understand what she might have done to deserve to be sent there.

[Wolffyn]

"Yup." Wolffyn answered Jonah with a toss of her hair. "A bunch of someones. Some jackass I never even met teleported me out of a bank while I was writing out a deposit slip and into a crowd of vampires who then proceeded to gang up on me before I had a chance to even move. One of the first to take a hit at me was my own sire." She gave a short bark of laughter." He missed. But I didn't. I got him good."

Wolffyn smirked. "Took 15 of them to take me down, almost half of them missed me and I got was able to wound 8 of them. As to why?"

She stopped walking and really tried to figure it out, maybe for the first time.

"Well, you know how Crow used to be looking out for us but then she just seemed to stop?" Not caring about the filth on the tunnel walls, Wolffyn leaned her shoulder against one of them and pursed her lips for a moment, collecting her thoughts. "It was right after that, when we started keeping up the list of violations our selves."

"I was always able to feed in my brother Odin's mall without a problem. I would summon spirits for those in need and go there to feed because it was a safe place for me, and for the humans. I used to worry able feeding outside because those humans..." She sighed and shook her head.

"They just go wandering off in a daze after you bite them, you know? It's a miracle we don't have more humans in hospital from getting hit by cars. At least in the mall they are in a safe place and there is very little trouble they could get into. But someone, and I am pretty sure who... Kira spotted them in an area of the mall they should not have been in, had installed one of those cameras without getting Odin's permission. He didn't even know about it until a friend of his found it and told him. No one know it was there. And I got caught on film, feeding. And the person who had set up that camera reported me after they saw the footage. And yes, the person that we all suspect did it, IS in the same group that murdered me. The owl turds."

"They hadn't been hunting down violators in I don't even know how long. But they decided to start again, and to start with me. The worst part wasn't the being ganged up on without even given a shot at a fair fight. Or even being in the shadow realm. Or even seeing my own sire there trying to help kill me. The worst part is reading the crap he says on Crownet about how he wants to help teach new vampires. When he never once taught me a damn thing. If he had taken the time to try and talk to me about my being on the list, I'd have tried to make things right. But no, instead he helped ambush me and then complains about me on Crownet."

[Jonah]

He nodded as she spoke, unable to help a small smile from forming on his face. She was tough and always had been and a part of him was glad to hear that she hadn't gone down without a fight. Still, that it had happened that way and to her...it bothered him to some degree.

As she described the tactics used and thought on the name she had called the group, it finally clicked on who had hunted her, the same group that he was now a part of. Not saying anything yet, he continued to simply listen to what had happened.

Her story was similar to his own, things had changed when Crow stopped monitoring and given their kind the responsibility and many things that had always been ok or "safe" now simply weren't. For a moment, he zoned out, thinking on this fact and what could be done about it, to shift the focus of hunting everyone to simply hunting those that truly deserved it but shook his head, bringing his focus back on her.

"I'm...sorry." He didn't know what else to say. Sure, he hadn't been one of the ones to attack her but he still felt some responsibility being in the same organization and having hunted others that could have been in a very similar position.

[Wolffyn]

Wolffyn counted to one hundred after her rant, it wasn't Jonah's fault so why was she dumping on him? Feeling self conscious after her bitching and moaning, she pulled out her sword and made a show of cleaning off the blade as a means to avoid eye contact.

She stopped abruptly when Jonah offered an apology and looked up and him startled. Her confused eyes met his but then she grinned and shook her head."I appreciate the sympathy Jonah." She said softly, after realizing that must have been what her old friend meant. After all, he had nothing to apologize for. He hadn't had anything to do with what happened to her and would never gang up on someone like that. It went against everything he had always said regarding education and reeducation.

Replacing her sword in it's scabbard, Wolffyn undid the leather tie that had held her hair back from her face and shook it loose. "I'm done hunting for the night. At least down here. I'm heading topside. Maybe I'll take Winnie for another walk or go hunt fae. Want to come?"

[Jonah]

"It's not sympathy..." he trailed off, unsure of how to explain it. "I hate that you got hurt. That anyone has to get hurt." He left unsaid that sometimes it was necessary, not wanting to derail the conversation further in to less than happy emotions.

Her sudden demeanor change surprised him, as did the invitation to join her for a walk. "Sure. Not doing anything else. Long as I'm not gonna be a bother." He wouldn't mind simply walking with her and re-establishing their friendship but he was also intrigued by the idea of hunting fae. The killer had hunted many things in the city but had always been under the impression that the fae were too powerful to tangle with.