Bane

November 20, 1993

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Bane paced the wooden floor of his ruins.

Of course, he was not worried for the witch, and her infant spawn.

Of course, he cared nothing of them.

He was after all little more than a beast wandering in the flesh of a man, and so he did naturally what beasts would do, rutting with any fair mate that should cross them.

(Liar.)

Bane glared into the empty space of his ruins, the piles of pine needles, and dead leaves piled in their corners, and strew across the floor.  He clenched his teeth. "You are dead. Be silent, already."

He was thankful when he heard only silence in his head.

She was supposed to be back. Leave. Hide the child. Return. Destroy their enemies.

Bane paced.

He did not care. Of course, he did not care. She was the enemy. She was prey. The hunted.

Bane woke out of his loathing, the sense of movement in the cold air around him sending a tight chill down his back. Bane flexed, and shuddered, staring out the crumbling hole in the side of his ruins.

Her unfamiliar silhouette stood just outside his ruins, scant in ragged clothing, staring in with dull eyes, and a vacant expression.

Bane reached for his pistols, but no sooner did he move, she turned and ran.

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The path was too familiar, and Bane felt the memories of lacerations, and raw flesh on stone, and piney earth. Not one of these memories, his, after all, but the trail was in his head, the path as fresh in his mind as it was the day he lost Nadjia.

...not me. I've lost nothing. I've lost no one. Jonathan Walker is dead.

Bane kept pace, but she was fast, faster even than he... and worse, she knew the trails, the trees, the woods, and forest as well as he. Who was she?

No... no. He knew who she was. She belonged to the disfigured man that ran him through that night, at the place Jonathan and Nadjia would go. She ducked, and dipped below fallen trees, and darting around them as she sped forward.

Within moments, Bane was clear of the trees, and they were in a clearing. He watched her silhouette as she continued at full speed for houses on a long street past that familiar place (Gallows Road...).

Bane ignored the frustrating echo of the Jonathan's memory in his head. The name of the street made no difference.

She continued to the first house at the end of Gallows Road, and there she rushed up over the iron gated fence with too much grace, crossed the courtyard, up the small stairs and turned for a moment.

Bane stopped at the perimeter and watched her watching him. After only a moment longer, she turned and entered the house through the front door.

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Laurelynn dropped to the floor of Simon Bellar's keep, the trap door closing over her on the way, and ignored the ladder on the way down. She landed with nimble precision, and hurried to his feet, kneeling down at the concrete block foundation beneath his baroque high backed seat.

Simon Bellar stared down at her, admiring the scar on her cheek - a hard learned lesson for her early attempts to escape - as he passed a cattle prod back and forth between his hands.

Chained to the foundation beside him, Suheila glared at Laurelynn, and Laurelynn ignored the fury in her young face; she would understand in time, shed her old life, and get her new name soon enough.