[PRP] lost pride (jamie & jeremiah & pridey)

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah was nearly in the same amount of dark that Jamie was. Only his loose understanding what he had at the moment, besides what was pieced together and without absolute clarity he was worried about spreading inaccurate information.

Realizing that Pridey was covering himself, Jeremiah shrugged off his coat and held it forward. A moment later, with a flick of his fingers, it was moving towards Pridey to put on. Jamie had asked the right questions, if it truly was because of the Principals and if it could be stopped. "It's a new sigil with new Principals, so that has to be part of it ..."

He glanced towards Jamie and back to Pride once more. The mention of being older than Noeh, the fact that she was human looking compared to the others ... There was a reason for that surely. "Is the atrophy responsible for what you cannot control?"

saedusk

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Pridey scoffed. It was a wet and horrible sound, like he was crying. He coughed, then, thin shoulders shaking. "As if humans could affect beings like us," he grated out. "We're not nobles and we're not principals and we're not human. We're closer to the witch than we are to you. Side-effects of the original lock."

He said, "You know how Noeh got her name? Chenoeh!" The word came out like a curse. "It was a curse from that b***h Adoelle. She realized what it was Pax and I were. She got a human girl to change the sigil and didn't tell her she'd get swallowed up too." He pulled Jeremiah's coat on, sat back on his heels. "Couldn't have us being who we were. Adoelle told the girl we were why monsters patrolled the crossroads and corpses rose up after three days. Said if she tied us down we'd be more controllable. All it was was a security feature! No sigil, we go."

There was something like horror on his face, as if he couldn't stop vomiting out those words. "They needed a third to stabilize us and stop us, and they picked that one. Little lawyer girl. ******** Hermione Granger. You ever seen someone unmade? They took my gift and made it into you!" He pointed a shaking finger at Jamie. "It was a gift, not a curse! The spirit-bond was never meant to harm any of you. They split it into two forms and cursed you and cursed us."

Pridey took a deep breath. "I wish I'd ******** died in the seal."

saedusk

azuredreams

 

[saedusk]

"Adoelle did...?" Jamie asked slowly, pressing his hands together nervously. It was a lie to say he knew her or anything about her, really, but he'd thought her a good person. Like Michael, like Heliodora—had they been involved, too?

The finger pointed sharply at him was what struck him the worst, made his stomach churn. "Into me..." he whispered, then spoke up, "a moonwalker?" He recalled what he'd learned from Eve through Ollie. What Pridey said about splitting the gift into two made him wonder.

"Wait, do you mean moonwalkers and wargs?"

The questions felt thick in his throat and tasted of guilt. It was obvious Pridey wasn't well and yet his own curiosity won out in the end, beating out even his empathy. Though not completely as he ducked his head and said, "I'm sorry... I'm sorry this happened." Even if there was apparently nothing he could do about it.

azuredreams

shibrogane

 

[azuredreams]

Something curled in his gut, nameless and dark, but Jeremiah pushed it away. He wanted to correct, wanted to go - Minerva Mercer, not Hermione Granger - but it was not productive. Not at the moment ...

Still- Jamie had the right questions. Were moonwalkers and wargs two sides of one gift?

"What seal? Do you mean the original creation of the cage or what Adoelle did you? What was even wrong with allow you to exist?" There was a beat and he looked to Jamie, who said sorry, and then to Pride once more. "More importantly, can we undo it? Fix it? Help you and Pax?"

saedusk

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"Yes," said Pridey, "I was... a long time ago, I was..." He dipped his head, a remarkably cervine gesture. "My name was Jennifer," he said, and that hoarse, loathing sound in his voice made more sense. "I died making the first seal. When they brought me back..." He shrugged. "I'd always liked animals. I could do anything, anything in the world, so... To help Renard, I made the spirit bond. Humans bonded to animals that could take a shape like that animal. They could be in two places at once, track things better, see things humans couldn't. Pax took the normal ones, the ones who couldn't bond."

He said, "I dunno. I only know what Hermione Granger girl's seal did to me. I don't know what it was meant to do beyond that. I know Pax wanted it..." He shook his head like he was trying to free something from a set of antlers he didn't have. "...But I can't tell you the motivations of a dead girl. Either one."

azuredreams

saedusk

 

[saedusk]

So it was true, moonwalkers and wargs had been the same once. They'd been given both gifts. Gifts... Jamie felt guilty for ever considering his transformations a curse. They were inconvenient at times, and he'd certainly never asked for this, but he was starting to understand that most of the people he'd met so far hadn't asked for a thing that had happened to them. It was just the hands they were dealt.

Though he'd said he'd stay back, he finally started to approach, slowly and non-threateningly. He didn't know what else to ask, he didn't know enough about the original fashioners of the seal or what they'd been through. It was hard to decipher anyone's true motivations and all he could really do was stand by his own convictions.

"What will you do now?" he asked Pridey, stooping to kneel nearby. "I want to make things better. I think a lot of us do in our own way," his hands played anxiously in his lap as he looked to Jer. They were all doing their best. "I don't really know what that means anymore, but I've gotta try something. I don't... wanna force anyone into anything, but if I could help give the other moonwalkers more direction, I think we could really make a difference..."

He shrugged, still unsure what to say.

azuredreams

shibrogane

 

[azuredreams]

Jennifer.

Jennifer and Ming, wasn't it? The other two that had been part of things years ago. The ones that had been murdered in that one era everyone went to? Did that mean that Pax was Ming? There were thoughts forming in his mind: those that could not bond went to Pax, those that could (wargs and weres) went to Pride, and that meant the Court was Noe- Mina's (he'd never call her Noeh again, not in private; or he would ask, that seemed more reasonable)

His steps echoed Jamie's, next to him, and then crouching down once they were closer to look at Pridey. "The moonwalkers do need direction, so do the wargs ... They're without guidance." His fingers tapped against his knee, looking to Jamie and back to Pridey. "Can you do that? ... and let us know what the seal was? How we might be able to fix it? Pax is dying."

shibrogane

saedusk

 

[shibrogane]

"If my magic does something untoward and blows you up, I'm not going to cry," said Pridey to Jamie, but that was all the remonstration he apparently had in him. He shifted positions, concealing himself almost entirely inside Jeremiah's coat--Pridey was small--and glowering at the pair of them. "There must have been a dead-man switch. Something to end the seal if the original trio died. The first seal was anchored on Heliodora, Adoelle, and Michael. The second one... I think that Hermione Granger girl gave it to just one person. Another girl."

He scowled about that. "Like being femme predisposes you to being used as a lock."

Pridey thought about it. "It was one of those Court nobles. Could be anyone, at this point, the old guard's mostly gone--killed themselves, or disappeared--" His scowl lightened into a little frown. "It wouldn't be one of the fetches."

saedusk

azuredreams

 

[saedusk]

"Fair enough." That warning made Jamie laugh. It reminded him of something Shiloh might say. Fine, no worries, if he blew up it would be his own fault for ignoring good judgement.

"One of the nobles..." he muttered, turning to look at Jeremiah. "Of everyone Shiloh's mentioned to me, how many girls are there?" Thinking, he picked at the knees of his jeans. "I only know about Melany and Lady." Though he had no idea if either of them had actually carried their status over to this new world. "Do you think one of them might hold the seal?"

He looked back to Pridey and asked, "Do you... do you know if this new person, um, knows what they've had done to them?"

azuredreams

shibrogane

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah simply nodded, though if Pridey's magic went awry he would do his best to throw a shield up around Jamie. He was not, in most cases, truly worried about himself getting hurt (though a few bits of icy scales creeped up his collar along his neck).

"I know of two more but their status is questionable ..." His lips pressed to a thin line. "Melany is more likely than Krasnya- Lady, I mean. If only because Lady was not always at the Court. Melany, so far as I know, has been ..." His notebook was tugged out, the one he brought with him for other ashdown, and he wrote down notes.

"Not only do the they know- what happens if it's unlocked? If they know, perhaps they would be able to unseal it?" But then- what was the true purpose of it? Jeremiah would have to find Noeh, potentially talk with her again beyond just the matters of the Court.

saedusk

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Pridey scoffed. "I doubt it," he said. "I remember she was new when Hermione Granger did it. She wasn't a noble yet. But the weight of such a thing would be... smothering. Pax and I became deer. Who knows what she became?"

saedusk

azuredreams

 

[saedusk]

If Melany, then maybe she became a monster, Jamie thought. What he'd heard from Shiloh had made him sick and he hated to give her any benefits of the doubt, but perhaps there was more at work than he understood. He'd talk to Shiloh about it, even if he wished they could simply stay away from her new incarnation entirely.

"I see," he said and that was it.

azuredreams

shibrogane

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah's lips pressed to a thin line before he finally let it go.

"It would," he remembered the words from the ball, "twist her up inside." Was it why she became a Noble? Why she was so fixated on Noeh and potentially killing her? What was clear now, however, was that he needed to speak with her again- for more than once reason.

"Is there anything we can do for you now? Is it best to keep a distance? There's others that would like to speak with you ..." Jeremiah looked to Jamie, knowing the moonwalker would look to Pride for guidance. Not just him but Eve and all the other moonwalkers. Perhaps the wargs as well.

shibrogane

saedusk

 

[shibrogane]

"I want you to stay away from me," said Pridey. "But if others want to talk to me, I doubt I'll go far." He looked around the library. "I ******** this place up enough already. Just because I haven't had any backlash during this conversation doesn't mean I won't later."

He sighed. "Be careful. This is a strange new world we're in, and none of us who could've protected you have that kind of power anymore."

azuredreams

saedusk

 

[saedusk]

At that, Jamie stood up and moved closer to Jeremiah. While he wasn't sure they'd overstayed their welcome, he felt a bit uneasy. Just because Pride had asked them to stay away didn't mean he'd listen—Shiloh had taught him how to be a rebel, after all—but for now his head was swimming and he needed to gather his thoughts. He might be back, he wanted to help.

"Thanks for talking to us," he said, brows furrowed and face sad at what they'd learned. "I don't think it's possible to avoid conflict now, but... I'll try to be careful." Then he looked to Jer and his eyes said everything else. Whenever he was ready to go, Jamie would be ready, as well.

azuredreams

shibrogane