Snippet #2626860

Lena walked in through the corridor, with her shapeless sweater and untidy hair, bag slung over her shoulder and deliberately left open so as to allow the little avian toy to 'see' out. She looked over to catch sight of a few of her "targets" some of the people she was going to reclaim for Otherworld.

She took a very worn out looking book from her bag and turned her attention to that, deciding not to dwell too much on the whole thing right then, not in the least because she felt a tiny little grudge in spite of herself.

The redhead was quite intelligent, but her grades rarely seemed to reflect it. She tended to coast along on passable but not exceptional by any stretch. Creative writing was something she tended to score well in, but her readings were outlandish enough to draw the derision of most of her classmates.

Not that nearly any other aspect of Helena didn't already draw derision.

As she was juggling her books, the girl could hear a few giggles from behind her, as a couple of other students stood against the opposite wall, whispering and making pointed looks in her direction.

And, like always, Helena shrugged it off. You had to make sacrifices, after all. And, soon it was going to change. They would come back. She believed it. She had to.

Lena was walking past the lockers when she caught sight of River, standing there getting out some books. In some awkward effort to appear personable, the young redhead lifted her hand and waved, a little more enthusiastically than perhaps was needed.
---

On an edge of Otherworld where the trees began to die away to rocks and waste and the sky became streaked with oranges and reds, stood the border of the Mechanized Minster, home of the angel Cadriel....or at least whatever that creature might have become.

On the horizon was the cathedral, dark and towering. Before it stood a chaotic sprawl of smokestacks and blast furnaces bathed in a red, demonic glow. The workers, mechanical figures with bird-like heads, guided the molten metal from the base of the furnace into molds, under the grim, sightless gaze of the statues and grotesques now perches precariously amongst the twisted iron.

For all the hellish light and noise outside, within the Cathedral it was dark and cold, the stone walls rising high up into a smoky gloom near the roof. Some light peaked in through the breaks in the stained glass windows, but it seemed to do little to permeate it over all. The place seemed to absorb the light that touched it.

The wing of the owl hung from the frame by some copper wire and hooks. The Angel crouched before it, staring at it and looking between that and the twisted amalgamation hung from the ceiling. It didn't look right. How very frustrating. E hopped down from her perch and walked across the stone flags, watched nervously by the Gargoyles. These creatures, flawed results of her own attempts to craft working wings, were hideous-looking chimeras of flesh and machinery, once Otherworld residents before taken away by Cadriel's mechanical men. Now they stood bound to the Angel's will, and as such were also permanently subject to her unpredictable whims.

"It's wrong. Again." she muttered irritably.

"Madam, you summoned me?"

Her gaze snapped round to the long walkway from the main door, catching sight of the bloom of fiery light of the Sentinel's eyes in her periphery. The strange, spindly, equine thing stood as tall as at least two of her, its pike even greater in height, though upon being certain it had garnered her full attention, it bent forwards in a rather theatrical bow.
"I believe I have an appointment with someone that your....counterpart wanted to arrange."

Her hollow grey eyes regarded the thing was puzzlement for a long moment before something seemed to click.
"Yes. Yes...I..I think I know.."
She scrambled over to the far wall, where an envelope had been deftly pinned straight though the flag by a rusted splinter of metal. Gingerly Cadriel pulled it free, and held it out to the thing, which delicately opened it up, nodded, and strolled back towards the exit.

Cadriel, for her part, had no interest or curiosity in regards to what it said, even if, in a technical sense, she was the one who wrote it. She lost time, and things would happen. The less she had to do with it, the easier things tended to be overall. She wouldn't imagine she would do anything particularly untoward anyway...and she had far too much to do.

The Sentinel meanwhile, walked with purpose along the cracked roadway with the letter in its hand, mulling over the details on e more time.

Horsey

It's time to send a message.
I've made some very special arrangements for you.
When you get this make your way to the Stormtrap Flats as quickly as you can.
You will find someone there that I know you've been very keen to spend some time with.

Love, E.