Damien Moore's Story

All things have cycles— The moon, civilizations, the growth and shedding of skin from a snake’s back. All things that go around will recur once more, and if they should not, it likely means that you have not waited long enough. The only question, really, is how or when the recurrence will come, and what prompting will occur to make it so.

Rebirth, as it were: A fascinating subject in the lives of men for millennia, for reasons both obvious and obscure. Phoenixes and reincarnation cycles feature regularly in Eastern historical records, and many creatures influencing the rebirth of seasons are revered as deities.

One of the most prominent symbols of rebirth across cultures, however, is the yew tree. Multiple cultures (see following doccumment for specifics regarding Greek vs Celt representation) have viewed this slow-growing tree with reverence, likely drawing the connection to rebirth from the tree's ability to spring new trunks from the original root bole. While it is possible to cut a yew down, failure to remove the full bole from the ground will only result in a later growth of the same tree.

Despite being an incredibly toxic —

The stream of written text was interrupted as by the sound of the intercom filling the library’s archival study sent a rather startled bearded dragon lizard dropping from the writer’s head and onto the page.

The creature scuttled onto its feet after a second or two of struggle, bit the pen previously inscribing the briefing text, and then crawled onto the hand holding it to nuzzle for warmth. She was promptly hissed away by a garden snake, however, who had been hiding up the writer’s coat sleeve. The hissing set a leopard gecko on the sleeve’s outer portion to jumping further up the arm, which displaced a formerly contented ball python who had been draped about the coat’s shoulder.

The python moved to coil around her perch’s neck, only to be intercepted by the hands of Doctor Silas Whitmore as he wound her coils away from his body. “None of that now, Harriet,” the historian chastised, letting her wrap herself around his other wrist, “You know that tickles.”

Harriet flicked her tongue out, but settled into her new place just as well. “Hopeless lot, all of you. Did you know?” Silas proceeded to say, adjusting a lizard clinging to the frame of his thick bottle-bottom glasses so that the animal's foot did not obstruct the view of his strigine blue eyes. He reached up and pressed down his unkempt mop of brown hair, more out of habit than hope that it would stay down, and seemed completely unfazed as yet another small reptile crawled from his sleeve and made itself a nest amongst the strands.

He then moved to lay three different bookmarks in his work, in case someone else should want to open the resources he had been prepared to cite in the briefing note, but fumbled as he stretched across the desk and knocked a globe off of its stand.

Though he did manage to catch it in a haphazard dive to the side.

Even though said dive may have cost him his balance.

Cue a crash onto the floor and a scuttling exodus of the creatures formerly existing on his person.

“Yes, yes— I know. I’m going to be late.” He pulled himself up and dusted himself off, relaxing the globe and grabbing a notepad and pen in the same motion. “If you’re so bothered by it, you ought to help” he quipped as he bounced toward the door— though the bounce was more an effort to recover from stumbling over a corner of the rug than any intentionally graceless motion.

As the Historical research head strode toward the hall (with no further mishaps, for the moment,) he pulled out his phone and shot a quick text message to another member of Harvest Moon, to be sure that Aconite was in attendance.

Conference room in five. Or five minutes ago. Not sure. -Dr. W

And then,

Also, please meet after. Need you to pull the tome on yew wood inscribing. -Dr. W

As he pushed through the door with his worn menagerie and took a seat in the back corner nearest the door (so that no late-coming reptiles would disturb anyone when they entered,) he shot out one more text message, stating,

Also, meet before meeting after. Thinking of ordering lunch. -Dr. W

Dami watched the report being edited, leaning further and further over Montana’s shoulder in the meantime until his boss straightened, the incubus moving fluidly in sync to avoid collisions and yet maintain contact before drawing back on his own terms.

“Not a problem, sir.” He replied quietly, while frowning at his attire. As he followed Montana through the halls, the incubus trailed a bit behind, quickly straightening and smoothing his clothing until he looked as professional as one possibly could in short shorts and any piece of clothing as tight as his shirt was, barely acknowledging Lulu with his short smile. Entering the meeting room, Dami took time to make eyes at the werewolf already in the room, followed by a more subtle look-over of Issac Schofield and the only male higher up. It was through this focus, he caught enough of the man’s conversation with Oren to hear “paid vacation” being mentioned, and the incubus pouted, his cabin fever barely lifted by the mission he had just been on with his team.

And speaking of his team…Dami looked around once more only to see that he had missed his chance to esconce himself on Montana’s lap, and the pout grew as he left his position lingering by the door to hover by his teammates’ shoulders.

I know, right? his expression said back to the blonde vampire- a small amount of jealousy evident in his eyes- before he circled around to take his own seat, briefly raising a hand in greeting to Silas.

The thin pick dragged in a smooth curve over the glass surface, scoring a barely noticeable line against the glass she was working with, and to Christina’s pleasure, some of the tightly coiled energy around the center of the charm was diverting into the new circle, spiraling into the center and stabilizing the hollow creation as intended. Delicately as was necessary, the mage set the tiny weapon onto the tree-like stand she had for storing freshly made charms until their magic settled, stepped back from her table, and blinked furiously, clearing the complex spell that let her “see” magic from her eyes. She then laid down her tools, flexed her hands, and removed the large headphones and cotton in her ears just in time to catch the announcement.

The mage smiled at her good fortune, because a few minutes more on her part or less on the announcement’s and she’d have missed the memo, and paused by her mirror to check her thickly coiled hair, today done up in multiple loops of braid. Seeing it was in place – she didn’t favour these hairstyles completely because of vanity, it was also because they tended to stay in place better than ordinary ones – she carefully locked her door after herself and hurried down the hall. It was good to get a chance to stretch her legs, because when creating charms or doing research, she often had to stay very still.

Some of her research coworkers greatly objected to fidgeting.

Then again, Oren greatly objected to almost everything that wasn't science related.

The young woman came into the room, looking at the assembled teams and scanned for a place to sit. Eventually, she decided on a fellow researcher, and settled beside Silas after waving to Montana, delicately checking to make sure no reptiles were on her intended seat. “Hello!” she said meanwhile. “Found anything interesting recently?”

Always a good bet with Silas, who found most of his research fascinating and often didn’t know when to stop talking about it.

Aconite’s thanks was dismissed with the wave of a hand, as if physically ushered away. “It’s the least I could do,” Madison chirped. “Besides, I pride myself on being a good host.” The vampire did not lie- he was a man that greatly enjoyed his company, and a man that greatly enjoyed conversation. Manners were as important to him as an instrument to a musician, and this was something he knew well enough.

It was only when he saw Aconite exit that Madison beamed brightly and turned to leave, heels clicking nicely against the tiled floor. “Well, considering that I haven’t heard much, either, I’m assuming that it’s the latter.” The bright, cheerful tone never faded as he strolled through the hall, following the various scratches and claw marks that had been left from Kora’s charge. “I do have to agree with you on them being a tad...rowdy at times.”

A true understatement of the year.

At Aconite’s question, the researcher gave a slight roll of the shoulders, then gestured at the markings scattered before them. “I’m not completely sure at the moment, but from the trail Ms. Norrevinter left for us, I’m assuming that she was heading towards the back.” Madison lapsed into silence, then, eyes back on the damage, although it was during this quiet that the announcement sounded out above them. Blinking in surprise, he glanced up at the speaker, glanced back to the hallway, then turned his focus back to Aconite with a slight laugh.

“Well, then.” Madison said, clasping his hands together. “It seems like we won’t have much time to go check up on the others, then.” He wasn’t particularly concerned by the sudden calm, at any rate- transformed cryptids running about was a common enough occurrence that it didn’t warrant too much alarm anymore. Turning on his heel, Madison made his way to the meeting room, purposefully walking in stride with his company.

Upon his arrival, he was quick to see several familiar faces among those who had already arrived. Giving a cheery wave towards his fellow researchers- and a few others- Madison made his way to a chair beside one Mr. Moore and settled himself down with a smile and a muted “hello”. Noting the current argument between Oren and one of the officers, Madison turned a curious look over to his tablemates- and finding with a certain amusement that he was not alone in the gesture.

He supposed he hadn’t missed much, then.

Issac walked along at his own pace and found his way to the office where everybody was waiting.

He felt eyes on him walking in, tho not just from being one of the last to enter the room. He scanned the room for a moment but didn't find who had been eyeing him. Issac moved to a wall a few paces off from Oren and Wyndham as to over hear their conversation. He wasn't attempting to be subtle at it, but figured it was rude to just join their circle of conversation. As his ears picked out bits of conversation his eyes watched the room, with a stony expression. He gave a nod of greeting to anyone who made eye contact with him, but otherwise stood there with his armed folded neatly across his chest. He was interested in seeing what this was all about as much as anyone.

Christina nodded along with Silas’s words, occasionally opening her mouth as if to say something before closing it as he barrelled on talking. Eventually, the mage settled for nodding, listening with genuine interest to the reports. She waved back to Aconite when he appeared, and smiled knowingly as she made the connection between the dryad and the topic of yew trees. Aconite’s unique powers could come in handy with this thread of research.

“Could you?” she asked Silas when he made his offer. “I’ve been running low on new reading material lately and my own library order isn’t here yet. I know in sorcery, yew is used a lot in rituals for transformation. Especially on the tides of the seasons. And funeral rites as well.”

Nothing she said was anything new, likely Silas had found it all already in his own. But it would prompt the conversation along, which was the goal, in the end.


Dami spared no time in snatching one of Madison’s hands into his own, playing with the fingers as he chirped a bright “Hello~” to the vampire as if they hadn’t just spoken not that long ago. His eyes becoming honey brown, Dami stared soulfully at his friend, then sent another cutting glance towards Oren arguing with their superior. The raised eyebrow conveyed his confusion rather clearly, since the incubus had no idea why that researcher would be mad about a paid vacation, of all things, and then shared another significant look with his teammates.

“Sooo, Madison~” he finally voiced, lowering his lashes until his eyes were half lidded, and peeping up through them in a fetching manner. “Did anything manage to change in the short time we suffered apart?”