Post by Wilhelm Opens-the-Way on May 12, 2010 11:27:08 GMT -8
My name was once Hannibal Moon-Shines-Brightly, Silent Strider Ragabash, and then I died.
You see, this isn't my first life. It isn't even my second anymore.
That moon, the one I told you about, that hung over the airplane where I was born above the Pyramids of Giza... it was black that night. No light touched it. The name, moon shines brightly is a joke. A Ragabash with a name like that... well, if you don't get it already, I ain't gonna explain it to ya. Irony is lost on some.
Not me. I'm fully aware of it, even on my third life.
How did Moon-Shines-Brightly die? Well, there's a Rite that happens when you fall in love with an Enticer Fomori and most of your first pack dies because of it. They strip you of everything, of your deeded name, of your rank, of everything. Not that I cared at the time. Harano is a bitch like that.
Kelly was her name. She was working for a TV studio, an actress. She got a small role on a syndicated show that played for kids. They'd take all of this old Japanese live-action superhero footage where there faces were all covered up in masks and play that, but when the masks came off, they had American actors playing the parts of the teenagers. Megadon owned the studio of course, and the rest of her 'team' were Formori as well. My pack and I died fighting them.
She was the original American pink Power Ranger. I know. Silly. But she was a person, and I loved her, and she loved me. She loved me so much that she was willing to give up her past life and be with me, because I swore that I could protect her. I was wrong. She died in my arms escaping Megadon.
The glass from the explosion got into her heart, got swept into her arteries where they lodged there and wriggled and cut. There was nothing anyone could do, and no-one left who wanted to help. So they cleansed her corpse and burned it while I watched. Then they took my name and everything else from me and exiled me from the Sept. It was a half-moon on the night I was reborn, and my new auspice was Philodox, so that I would know the Law in my bones.
That worked out great.
That was ten years ago now. In my second life as Hannibal Relays-the-Truth, I'd dallied with Kinfolk here or there, occasionally as I travelled my ways across the US in my old rig, but there was never a woman in my life that I would give up everthing for, never a woman I would die again for.
Then I met Holly.
Life is interesting, especially as observed and contemplated while riding atop forty tons on eighteen rolling wheels and I'm one who's been around the block a couple times. It's not the years, it's the mileage, as I always say.
Have you paid your dues Hannibal? Yes sir, the check is in the mail.
While working/driving up to fourteen hours through the night and wee hours of morning, one's circadian rhythm sleep cycle can play havoc on the body and mind. Sometime between 2:00 AM and 6:00 AM - especially before sunrise - the brain tells different senses, such as sight, that the eyelids should be in the "closed" position. Not good for a long-haul trucker.
To combat this natural occurrence while driving, yours truly queues songs on the MP3 player such as Billy Joel's That's Not Her Style. Cranking up The Yellow Brick Road's (back when it was still called that) six speakers and air drumming on the steering wheel at 61 MPH doesn't hurt, either.
"One, two, three, four...!"
And there she was on the side of the road, thumb out, skirts blowing in the cool fall air. Beautiful. Most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life.
When I pulled the rig over and asked her where she was headed, all I could think was that I hoped a tubby guy like me didn't seem like too much of a creep to offer someone like her a ride anywhere. It was that time of night, when dreams were just an eyelid away, and I thought I was still dreaming. That smile when she got up into the rig though, it set my mind at ease. Best dream ever.
We got to talkin', she and I, as you do on a long drive, and talked about everything, our families, our travels, our dreams. She was so easy to talk to, so warm, and she seemed to see into me somehow, see past my gut, and really want to get to know me as a person. And pretty soon, I was seeing past her good looks to the person she was too. It was sorta magic.
She was still with me when I dropped load of Post cereal from Battle Creek, Michigan at the Worley Warehouse in Cedar Rapids, Iowa that morning at 2:38 AM CDT. She kept talking to me while I pulled an empty trailer and deadheaded to CityCarton Recyling in Davenport, Iowa too - stopping en route for fuel in Walcott, Iowa. She kept listining while I travelled to take on recycled paper for delivery early the next morning at a Kimberly-Clark plant in Owensboro, Kentucky.
I finally ran out of work hours at 9:00 AM while driving southeast with the new load. Holly had fallen asleep as I drove, and I needed to wait for a bit, so I parked on DOT break at the nearest safe haven in Woodhull, Illinois, near a sept I'd traded with a lot a few years back.
But we didn't leave that cabin much. We just sat and talked and talked forever. Finally, I had to go pretty bad and there was a line at the porta-john, so I changed to Jackal real quick and darted out into the woodlands near the highway to take care of business. That is when I saw her. The beautiful grey wolf that was Holly's form. We... frolicked, is the best word for it. Nipped at each other, cleaned each other, rolled around... I don't want to get all graphic, but sufficed to say, we found each other there, and nuzzled cheek to cheek with her, I knew that it was my dreams that Holly Walks-with-Dreams was walking with.
I broke the law, I know that. I mated with another Garou. But if you know someone, If you find a true mate in this world, the law don't matter. That might piss you off, and you wouldn't be alone in that. I was pretty pissed off too. Why would this beauty want anything to do with me, and why would Gaia, if she gave a damn about me at all, put her on that road in front of me?
Don't make much sense sometimes, life. And now Hannibal Relays-the-Truth is dead, and I'm just Hannibal Farasad. I'm living my third life as Kinfolk and father to be. I lost my wolf when that Harry Potter sonovabitch ripped it from my body. Maybe he did me a favor. I can be with Holly now without the stigma.
But I can't help thinking... at what cost? Then I see that smile, as she gets back up into that cab with me, and think of the new life growin' inside her belly and I know: Its all worth it. A father does what he has to.
