Geoffrey Brent wrote:
 
> Jeff Huo wrote:
>
> > Christina's eyes remain locked with Julia's. Christina's facial
> > expression clearly indicates that, if Julia wants, Christina
> > could explain; on the other hand, Christina would hardly want to
> > burden someone else with such gloomy stories. Julia's call.
>
> Julia, being economical, simply raises her eyebrows.
   

Christina takes that as a note of interest or at least curiosity. Christina takes a sip of her drink, collects herself, her pink aura intensifying.

"Mount Tamalpais.  Just north of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. On a clear day, you can see the entire Bay unfold beneath you; the native Indians said it was a place of great power, and they were right. Glamour, Prime, all the great magical forces converge on that peak. And it is on that peak that I will die."

"As you know, commoner Kithain are reborn again and again, entwined in the bodies and souls of mortal Dreamers. Only cold Iron may send a Fae to the Final Death and that which lies beyond. In a few, memories from those previous lives can carry through, anything from vague feelings to outright clear memories of events lived a thousand years before. We call it the Rememberance --the ability to see and travel through time by the power of the Dreaming and it's echoes through many lives."

"At it's most profound --at it's strongest, aided by magic one can not only recall clearly memories and events from a succession of lifetimes, one may even be able to see into the future, to what Destiny may have in store. And it is that level of profound Rememberance that I am blessed --or cursed by."

"War comes to Concordia --all know this. The Accordance War had raged between noble and commoner for nearly five years, before High King David was able to end it in 1975. His wisdom and strength brought peace to our land. Now he is gone, victim of forces unknown, and the land he held together now flies apart."

"There are dark forces among our people, who see in the destruction of this world a chance for their own salvation. Many who see all Dreamers-- Garou, Kindred, Mage and Mortal -- as slaves to be conquered, or minds to be Ravaged, or simply blights on the Dreaming that should be eliminated. And with the unfathomable power of the Dreaming behind them, they might yet succeed. While the other supermaturals --like yourselves-- have great power, there are things that a Kithain can do that no other could stop."

"After all, " Christina posits, "if the Antediluvians are sleeping --and dreaming, imagine what would happen to your kind if the Shadow Court were to twist those dreams into a nightmare that convinces said Antediluvian of the need to dialblerize another --or to wipe out his own Childer?"

"Legends say it has happened before. It could happen again."

"But the Unseelie do not stand unopposed. Many forces stand ready to meet them, battle for battle and blade for blade. It was to prepare for that war that my Order sent me to the Kingdom of Pacifica, and it is in that war that I will fall."

"I have seen, with perfect vision, with better clarity than I remember even yesterday, exactly the moment of my death. It will be upon the top of a great chimerical tower of a mighty fortress built on Mt. Tamalpais. Below, the entire city burns with chimerical fire; terrible chimerical beasts will do battle in the air, armies clashing within the walls. Is that battle a last stand? If so, for which side? I know not."

"With perfect vision I see my future, yes, but not with perfect understanding; I see, but I do not comprehend all.  On the roof of that great tower, I stand amid a carpet of the dead and dying, above the twisted forms of many who I love and  cherish, tho I know not exactly who. I mourn for all that has been lost; I know with certainty that almost all that I have held dear --people, places, things-- have been destroyed in the fires of long war, though I cannot draw forth from my vision the details of who and what."

"Then comes the  sound of iron-shod feet grating on  the blood-covered stones of the tower's  floor. I dive, hiding myself amid the  fallen. From up the stairs leading to the roof  strides a tall fell figure with a skin as pale as chalk in a black cloak covered with blood. He wields a blade of cold Iron, bringer of Death eternal; his hood is thrown back, revealing a horribly scarred face covered by an abalaster mask. A titanic hatred wells up in my chest, overpowering the pain of my wounds and the despair of my loss --this man is the center and cause of all my pain, and to end his life would be the fufillment of all the fallen's cries for vengence and justice. I ready myself for one, last strike as he strides, unknowingly, toward me and his own doom."

"Three meters away from me, he halts. He rolls a body over with his foot; it grunts. A grunt? The fallen warrior still lives? My heart both leaps with joy and seizes with fear, for that fallen warrior who has just been singled out is the one whom I know I love the most."

"The dark warrior open's the fallen knight's visor with his sword, and smiles horribly, recognizing the face within. No! Fear tightens in my chest --the dark warrior shifts himself to stand astride that fallen knight, raises his dark blade for a final strike ----and then I am there, charging him head on, with no weapons save my claws, my teeth, and my hatred."

"He looks up suddenly. He sees me, but I have already lept and am flying through the air at him, fangs bared, screaming defiance and challenge at him. He pulls back his dark blade and thrusts it at me; I feel it plunge into my breast even as I tackle him high and our combined momentum carries us over the battlements and into the open air. As we tumble end over end, locked together in death, the last thing I recall before black Oblivion takes me is sinking my incisors into his exposed neck."

"Am I slain? Do I die the Final Death? Who is this hated foe, and does he join me in death? Who is that knight whom I love, and did I save his life? These things I know not. I have been to Tamalpais, and there is yet no chimerical fortress built there to match that of my vision, so I know that what I see lies in my future. When, I know not. But I know that it is a fate unavoidable."

"So that's the whole story --quite small in the great scheme of things, and nothing all that interesting; I hope it wasn't a bore."

Christina looks kind of wistful, kind of resigned, kind of apologetic. She sighs.

"Sic Transit Gloria Mundi," she concludes.

> Julia, Lasombra
 
-Christina, Pooka