569 CHPT 569: Before the Midnight Sun

Wednesday Night April 7th, 2241. Location, Nile River Border Zone. One Hour until Midnight/Nine Hours until Samuel's Execution...

"I'll change her."

If that wasn't a clear and direct sign of intense character change, then there wasn't a field full of beings incomprehensible to human eyes in a desert placed before Claude. A desert countless miles from Ra Stadium at the foot of a cave that looked almost like a castle formed by natures command. As if the cutting winds guided the sharp sands against a stone mountain for centuries, shaping and shredding it until it could be used for one specific moment.

Rebirth.

It was an earthly womb, for the birth of a god born outside of human belief and support. Something created in spite of man. Something cultivated through its very hatred and stigma of what was different. What was power.

What is power?

Claude found himself questioning that very thing as he looked out across the sands. There were hundreds of them. Holders of power. Power to change the course of events. Power to destroy and create in the blink of an eye. All joined under one roof. All so chaotically different. But the same. Where it counted.

"It's beautiful..." Rupont said seriously as they stood at the foot of the cave, with it's entrance guilded by beautiful baobab and marula tree's that twist and bound into their own unified form. Bats, NightHawks, and Asabonsam Vampires stalked it's peaks and braided branches.

"It's too much." Maris commented.

The "it" in question being the field of Vampires, Silver-Cursed and SkinWalkers standing before them. The backdrop of the gigantic Nile River behind them, splitting them off from the rest of the world only added to the breathtaking imagery.

"How so? This is only the beginning.... a mere fraction of what you could do." Rupont explained, never looking more calm and at peace.

"We're exposed." Maris stated simply. "Change me in secret and allow me to meet these beings somewhere safer."

"The birth of a god cannot be.... compartmentalized. You understand some beings here have waited hundreds of years for you? Can you imagine it? You were a guiding light to some in impossibly dark times. Dark even for a Vampire."

For seemingly the first time in history, Maris gave in. "Then lets get to work. Now."

"Oh you've fit this role since birth, haven't you?" Rupont chuckled.

"Stop buttering me up. It makes me feel weird."

"Of course, my queen."

Maris turned away from Rupont, facing Claude and his Lupines.

She wore something beyond her usual garb of fight gear and laced weaponry. Something simple-- exposed, equally primitive, raunchy, violent and serene. The cloth looked cut and sewn from the midnight sky itself fit with glimmering diamond stars in the fabric and a glowing moon around her neck. It was a dress. Almost transparent. Almost revealing in the wind as it hugged her slender hips and separated around her lean legs. It was backless, showcasing her pale scarred-- tortured, skin. Now detailed with artistry and markings Claude didn't understand. Letterings and words and handprints. Shaped like wings that spilled over her shoulders as if embracing her from behind like a lost lover.

Her hair remained untouched. Cut above her shoulders, now faded even higher at the back by Adjua and Abina to give it style. Jewelry lined her ears entirely. Makeup derived from a thousand beasts blood made her eyes pop. Face paint heightened the shaping and contours of her soft jaw, curled nose and round forehead. She looked as regal as she acted. As predatory as she performed in Tangents and Infested Areas. They'd brought out what stalked within her. 

"You look amazing." Ursula said in Claude's silence. Like the rest of the Lupines, she wore her battle armor, as if they were already within a guarding type role unlike the others.

"Damn straight." Cassidy agreed.

Maris cheeks warmed-- not that they'd be able to see. "I feel like a childs plaything. All this dress up and forced interaction is making my skin itch."

"All part of the process. You're a symbol, Maris."

"Symbol?" Maris turned her head. Frosty copied her as he sat beside Claude, wondering what was to be wondered about like a furbound philosopher.

"Like The Lion and Lioness of The Sunlands."

"Right....." Maris tapped her nails on her thigh before looking to Claude.

"What changed you....."

"What?" 

"Ursula told me you had a mental breakdown when you changed her."

Claude looked at Ursula.

"I did not say that."

"It makes the most sense for you as a person." Maris explained, "You're very..... morally stringent. I learned that word from Conroy and then put your name next to that word in every book i read with it."

Cassidy chuckled.

"But you're changing... every day you do something you wouldn't have done two days ago. You're a ruthless Alpha. You drink blood. You commit heists... and now, you're changing me. What's happening in your mind."

Claude shrugged, "I think it's less about what's happening in my mind and more about what's happening outside of it. I'm embracing.... everything I can. That's my weakness. It's what Romulus found in me."

"What do you think Romulus will find in me?"

"Whatever it is-- whatever happens. We'll work it as a team. Red Queen.....Goblin-Hunter, Maris, at the end of the day you're my friend and responsibility."

"Is that why you're doing this? Guilt?"

"In part.... but I have my reasons." Claude looked to his pack amidst the crowd. "Plus.... you don't know them. You know me."

"I do." Maris smiled faintly.

Rupont suddenly stood beside Maris, "It's time."

They walked towards the edge of the cave entrance, standing high over the crowd of supporters. 

"You better have quite the speech cooked up, playboy." Cassidy commented.

"Always." Rupont held his hands out to the crowd. 

"My brothers and sisters under the stars, we've waited long for this night. This one night to set the tone-- send a message, to the rest. It's a night of Rebirth. Beside me I have the Lupines of Romulus best, back from the shadows! And from those same shadows, our Red Queen is born. A pair, now joined and remade in the earth's womb on this night. THE Night. For those of you that feel slighted--- jealous, for their chance, let us not forget. The Red Queen is where we all stem. The Lupines are merely the key that reopens an old door into a place of unity. A place of prosperity and worship. So, I ask you to hold fast. Great change rides these winds... I know you smell it. I know you feel it on your skin. May we all evolve. May we all, embrace the transformation to end all forms."

The crowd erupted in a conjoined beastial roar that had the massive Nile River's edge behind them shaking into a froth.

Claude's adrenaline spiked.

"Leaders.... Alpha's .... Chieftains. .... Heads of Night, step forth. Join us at the helm of birth."

All over the crowd, beings disappeared in a violent yet soundless shift of winds and rise of sands.

Suddenly, seven members joined them at the hilltop. 

The first Claude noticed were the SkinWalkers. One was a woman-- tan skin and glowing white eyes that looked as empty as the Wolf eyes looked alive on the pelt rested over her head. It's massive body coated her own, giving her a lupine form that looked as real as any, fit with bladed bones jutting from her elbows and fangs on the snout that sat on the sides of her face like side guards. When she moved, he noticed the arms were alive, and separate from her own which were exposed and covered in ornaments and tattoo's. She was massive. Over eight feet tall.

Behind her, a shadowskinned thing followed. Even taller, wearing the skull of a horned creature he didn't recognize. Covered in furs and pelts and tree bark. Wielding massive twin blades made of stone. When they moved a sound followed.

Beside them Sylvia acutely adjusted her hair-- looking as clean as ever. Except for when they attended her castle. She wore a black and purple dress with shoulder guards that gave way to a luxurious cape.

The previous Shifter Alphas also attended.

It was suddenly packed atop the hill.

"As any well-read individual knows, what comes next is the Crowning. A Queen cannot be without her reign, or her tools. And it is only natural that our creator is given her greatest tools from the life she has given us. A token of our appreciation.... a return on investment. A sign of Royalty."

Suddenly everyone dropped to their knees atop the hill.

Claude was motioned over by Rupont to join the other leaders.

"Welcome, Final Lupine." Sylvia said from beside him, "Have you met the Walkers."

Claude looked to the Wolven SkinWalker and nodded.

"Romulus was always full of surprises. This one rivals the rest I feel..." Her voice made his brain shiver.

"Now, may we share our gifts in their purest form."

Everyone shifted. Every Vampire embraced their nightly form. Every Silver Cursed joined by Artifact brought on their beasts. Every SkinWalker's hide liquified and spread across them until a new haunting form stood in the sands. The Lupines followed Claude's Shift Inspiration.

Maris swallowed as Rupont approached her, "Remember our training."

Maris nodded.

Suddenly, the creatures of the night began slashing open their wrists. Hesitantly, Claude followed.

The smell of blood was so strong it felt like a fog clinging to his fur.

"The Crown born from Blood! Born from us and returned ten fold! The Queen's Crown."

Maris took a step forward and held her hands out to the world. Blue brilliance spread across her fingers and up her arms. The blood that once sprinkled the sands began to move against gravity. Rising and morphing into a still line, snaking its way to Maris.

"[It seems this was what the blood manipulation was made for. Birthing the Queen.]"

Claude watched as a massive multicolored stream of blood slowly rode the winds, shaping and morphing a million times a second, seemingly bending it's will to many minds, being synthesized under one.

His own blood formed into a halo joined by the Alphas-- an unshapen crown. One that Maris added more size and power to with the blood stream from the supporters below.

They all watched as Maris moved like the sea, twisting and shaping a crown of blood that swallowed the whole cave. She continued to shape and shrink it, focus written clearly on her face.

Flattening. Shifting. Sharpening. Emboldening its innerworkings at levels unseen by the human eye.

It no longer looked like a crown. Instead, it rested in her hand as a blade. A massive samurai sword with a great swords hilt and a hunting knife's serrated base. The crown he once saw, melded into the handguard.

Before anyone could say anything, she ran her freehand over the blade that was easily as tall as herself. From handle to blade, her hand ran, pulling-- shaping, and expanding the magically infused iron within each cell until a very real and unique sword rested in her grasp.

Rupont watched her with confusion.

"What am I going to do with a crown? I'm a swordsman."

"The Red Queen's Blade is here!" Someone in the crowd yelled.

The others soon joined.

Maris parted the Alphas and faced the crowd, raising her sword.

They all raised their hands and roared.

Rupont laughed, "The Queen's Blade it is....."

"Now for the Queen's Birth." Sylvia added.

Maris casually let go of her sword and turned to face them, blade hovering beside her as naturally as breathing.

Claude stood up. "Midnight only lasts so long."

Maris nodded and headed into the cave with him. The cheers of the shifters in their wake gave the stone castles interior a shaking and bellowing aura. It almost felt.... religious. Like an intense higher power was at work.

"How do you feel?" Claude questioned.

"Scared." Maris replied as she repeatedly looked over at his massive Lupine form.

"That's a first. Why?"

"I..... I have no idea."

"That makes sense. We were both nobodies months ago. I was playing Hero, you were a victim of Goblin Greed. Then we were students. Outcasts. Now I'm an Alpha... and you become a god. I'd have no idea either. Just remember your purpose. It's what got me through my first Full Moons."

"Will I have Full Moons?"

Claude inhaled, "Fuck I hope not."

An opening in the caves ceiling allowed moonlight to spill in. A natural spotlight-- and post birth exit point. The back of Maris' dress wasn't open for no reason.

"Here." Maris said. Her blade halted and sank into the ground.

"Yea, no kidding."

There was an awkward silence for a moment.

"I have a bad feeling about Samuel's Execution." Maris blurted out.

"Me too. Which is why I need you on my side. We're outnumbered Maris. So join me. What's coming won't be kind to us. And I can't lose anymore people.... I won't."

Maris held out her hand. "Come on the--"

CRSHHH!