St. Vladimir's Academy | Monday Morning
The aftermath of the attack was as complicated and messy as expected. Buildings declared Strigoi-free contained the remaining novices and Moroi - adults and students alike, allowing the guardians to assess the damage and take out any Strigoi attempting to take refuge indoors now that daylight had come.
Following their assessment, the guardians estimated a group of around fifty Strigoi had laid siege to the campus - twenty-eight of them now lay dead on its lawns. The casualties, while great, were nowhere near what they would have been if Rose hadn't been so quick to warn Stan and send the school into lockdown, or if it hadn't been after the Sunday curfew. The majority of the fifteen Moroi victims had been out in the open when the Strigoi arrived. The thirteen taken...well, they were considered lost. Likely to either replenish the Strigoi ranks or become a meal.
The campus reverted to a daylight schedule to try and keep students from being outside - even to walk between buildings - in the darkness. As temporary guardians arrived to replenish their own ranks, Dimitri and his colleagues planned how to distribute them around the campus. At least, Dimitri worked with them until Rose showed up, obviously ignoring his instructions to rest, and dragged him aside looking like he should still be worried about her. When she was finished explaining her plan to get information from the ghost of a dead novice, he couldn't help being a touch skeptical, but her logic seemed sound and it wouldn't hurt anything to try.
While they were both quiet on the walk to the guardian booth, it was an easy silence that left Dimitri trying to clear his mind and find a way to be open to her ghostly conversations. He'd witnessed one the previous night, after all, and Mason had been helpful then. The guards were surprised when Dimitri insisted they open the front gate just for a moment while he and Rose went to stand outside the boundaries of the magical wards, but they slid the heavy gate open, revealing a space big enough for only one person at a time to walk through. Dimitri went first, still paranoid from the attack.
As Rose followed, she consciously started to let down the shields Emma had helped her build against the onslaught of ghosts. A headache almost immediately started to form, and she winced, shaking her head to try to get them to clear. A mass of indistinct gray forms loomed over her, the faces and bodies materializing just like they had that time at the Clinic.
She didn't have time for this now. She needed Mason. Thankful again for Emma's help in figuring this out, Rose put her full will into her words. "No. Go away now. I don't have time for you." Almost like they were startled, they disappeared again, a faint blur at the edge of her consciousness telling her they were still there. That was no different. In Fandom, they'd always been just at the edge of her focus once she learned to control it. She looked around, trying to summon Mason instead of just letting him appear.
Dimitri was watching her with concern, unsure how this was going to work after her breakdown and the attack.
"Mason," Rose called, trying not to notice the way Dimitri was looking at her. It wasn't so much fun to have him staring like she was in danger of being mentally unhinged. Even if she was more than wondering the same thing. "Mason, I need you, please."
His shape finally appeared before her, the road and trees clearly visible through his translucent body, and Rose couldn't help breaking into a grin. "There you are! I thought you'd gotten lost or something." Her grin faded at Mason's obvious sorrow. "I'm sorry. I need your help. The Strigoi, they took Eddie. We need to find them."
He nodded, and Rose wondered offhandedly if he'd already known that. He must, right? He'd have to if he knew where they were. "Can you show me where they are?" Mason's response was to point towards the back of the campus, and she frowned a little, knowing instantly how they'd gotten in. "They came in through the back," she said, less of a question than a statement, and Mason nodded again.
Rose turned back to Dimitri, trying not to see if he still thought she was insane. "We need a map."
Crazy as Rose looked as she talked to herself, Dimitri nodded and went back to the guard station to retrieve a map. His colleagues had to think they'd both lost their minds by the looks on their faces.
When he returned, Dimitri unfolded the map, showing the layout of the campus as well as the surrounding roads and terrain of their secluded part of Montana.
She smiled at Dimitri and took the map from him, spreading it out on the ground to keep the wind from blowing it about. "Okay, so they came in here, right?" Rose asked Mason, pointing to the spot at the back of campus where Lissa had been tortured. "This is where the wards broke?"
Mason nodded and traced a route from that spot back through the woods and along the side of a small mountain.
Rose frowned. If you took that way far enough, you'd eventually hit a dirt road and then the interstate, but that was hours away. The only real road leading to St. Vlad's was the one they were on. "That can't be right," she said, looking up at Mason. "They'd have to be on foot, and they didn't have enough time to walk from the school to that road. They fled just before sunrise so they'd be caught in the daylight if they headed that way."
He shook his head, apparently disagreeing with Rose and pointed again, this time focusing on a spot that was maybe a few miles away from the edge of campus. Mason looked up at Rose significantly then back at the map, jabbing his finger down.
"They can't be there now," she asserted. "It's outside in the daylight. Maybe they came in through the back, but they had to leave from the front or they'd be caught by the sun!" She was arguing with a ghost, and he was being stubborn. Rose looked up at Dimitri, obviously frustrated. "Is there a building or something here?" she asked him, pointing to the spot Mason seemed so sure of. "He says they're going back to that road, but they couldn't have walked that far before the sun came up."
Dimitri shrugged. "Not that I know of, but it's possible." But the least he could do was find out from people who hadn't been living elsewhere for the last year. "Let me find out for you." He took the map and returned to speak with the other guardians who were likely to know better.
Rose watched Dimitri go then looked back at Mason, uncertain of his information. "You're sure about this?" she asked finally and was relieved by his nod. "...Have you seen them? The Strigoi and the ones they captured?"
Mason nodded again, and Rose took a nervous breath. "Is - Eddie still alive?"
The third nod gave her some hope. After he'd survived Spokane with them, Rose couldn't believe the terrible luck that had made Eddie a captive of the Strigoi once more. They had to rescue him.
Rose's ghostly source had been right. Dimitri walked back to her, looking a bit floored by confirmation of too many things at once. "Rose," he couldn't believe was he was about to say as he held up the map. "Stephen says there are caves at the base of the mountain here."
She caught her breath, almost stunned at the information. "Are they big enough?" she asked, looking from Dimitri to Mason and back.
"Big enough for the Strigoi to hide out in until nighttime?" Dimitri nodded. "They are. And they're only five miles away."
After sharing what they'd learned from Mason and the map, Rose, Dimitri, and a few of the other guardians had done some digging, finding more detailed maps and information relating to the caves, providing everything the team would need to know about them if they were going in.
Now it was time for the meeting that would decide the next course of action. As they walked toward the building, Dimitri considered the complications of their dilemma. On the one hand, guardians normally acted defensively; writing off those kidnapped by Strigoi because there was usually no way of knowing where to even begin looking. Here, they knew where, they knew when the Strigoi would move out, and they knew the Strigoi were essentially trapped in the caves. They had to make the right decision.
Before they entered, Dimitri paused, holding her back. "Do not interrupt them," he told her quietly. "I know how you feel. I know what you want to do. But ranting at them isn't going to help you get your way."
"Ranting?" Rose exclaimed, forgetting to be quiet in her insult at the term. "I am not!" She was just frustrated and anxious at their news. If the guardians refused to go after the Strigoi when they were trapped in the caves - they had to go. It didn't matter that they 'usually didn't do rescue missions.' They had to.
Dimitri lowered his voice purposefully. "I see it," he said. "That fire's in you again-you want to tear somebody apart. It's what made you so deadly in the fight. But we're not fighting right now. The guardians have all the information. They'll make the right choice. You just have to be patient." And if she couldn't keep herself calm and patient...things were not likely to end well.
He was probably right, but Rose couldn't quite trust the guardians to make the right decision. This was too important. She waited something close to quietly for a few minutes and then left Dimitri's side to go over to talk to Janine. Like always, her mother was in the middle of things, making arrangements and studying the information the guardians had, but for once, she nodded to Rose, waving her over to speak with her.
"Please, we have to do this," Rose said quickly, unsure how long Janine had to speak with her.
Janine looked Rose over. She'd heard of how her daughter had performed, but that didn't remove all worry. "If there's a rescue, it's not going to be a 'we' thing. You aren't going."
"What? Cause our numbers were so great the first time that we didn't lose anyone?" she snarked, glaring at her mom.
She flinched, Rose's harshness was certainly uncalled for.
Maybe it was, but Rose was in no mood to be charitable when it felt like the guardians were going to blow off the whole opportunity. "You know I can help," she argued, dropping the sarcasm. "Yeah, I still have to take my trials, and I don't know everything, but you know what I did. You guys are going to need as much help as possible - overwhelming force, right? Me and the other senior novices are ready. Hell, bring Christian too, and we'll be unstoppable."
"No," Janine said quickly. "Not him. You never should have gotten a Moroi involved, let alone someone as young as the Ozera boy." All their success aside, it had been a big risk for them to take.
Rose ground her teeth. "But you know what he can do," she pointed out. "It's stupid not to use all the resources you have."
The decision to support something so potentially dangerous and completely different from the way they'd ever operated before was a difficult one that Janine didn't take lightly. And yet, she couldn't argue against Rose's statement. She checked the time and sighed, knowing what she would need to do. "Let me check something."
She stared after her mother, almost surprised at the reaction. Maybe she'd actually taken Rose's suggestion seriously. Quieted by the thought, Rose made her way back to Dimitri's side to wait for the meeting to begin.
[NFB, NFI, Warnings for discussions of violence and character death. Shadow Kiss: Post 1 | Post 2 | Post 3 | Post 4 | Post 5 | Post 6 | Post 7 | Post 8 | Post 9 ]
Following their assessment, the guardians estimated a group of around fifty Strigoi had laid siege to the campus - twenty-eight of them now lay dead on its lawns. The casualties, while great, were nowhere near what they would have been if Rose hadn't been so quick to warn Stan and send the school into lockdown, or if it hadn't been after the Sunday curfew. The majority of the fifteen Moroi victims had been out in the open when the Strigoi arrived. The thirteen taken...well, they were considered lost. Likely to either replenish the Strigoi ranks or become a meal.
The campus reverted to a daylight schedule to try and keep students from being outside - even to walk between buildings - in the darkness. As temporary guardians arrived to replenish their own ranks, Dimitri and his colleagues planned how to distribute them around the campus. At least, Dimitri worked with them until Rose showed up, obviously ignoring his instructions to rest, and dragged him aside looking like he should still be worried about her. When she was finished explaining her plan to get information from the ghost of a dead novice, he couldn't help being a touch skeptical, but her logic seemed sound and it wouldn't hurt anything to try.
While they were both quiet on the walk to the guardian booth, it was an easy silence that left Dimitri trying to clear his mind and find a way to be open to her ghostly conversations. He'd witnessed one the previous night, after all, and Mason had been helpful then. The guards were surprised when Dimitri insisted they open the front gate just for a moment while he and Rose went to stand outside the boundaries of the magical wards, but they slid the heavy gate open, revealing a space big enough for only one person at a time to walk through. Dimitri went first, still paranoid from the attack.
As Rose followed, she consciously started to let down the shields Emma had helped her build against the onslaught of ghosts. A headache almost immediately started to form, and she winced, shaking her head to try to get them to clear. A mass of indistinct gray forms loomed over her, the faces and bodies materializing just like they had that time at the Clinic.
She didn't have time for this now. She needed Mason. Thankful again for Emma's help in figuring this out, Rose put her full will into her words. "No. Go away now. I don't have time for you." Almost like they were startled, they disappeared again, a faint blur at the edge of her consciousness telling her they were still there. That was no different. In Fandom, they'd always been just at the edge of her focus once she learned to control it. She looked around, trying to summon Mason instead of just letting him appear.
Dimitri was watching her with concern, unsure how this was going to work after her breakdown and the attack.
"Mason," Rose called, trying not to notice the way Dimitri was looking at her. It wasn't so much fun to have him staring like she was in danger of being mentally unhinged. Even if she was more than wondering the same thing. "Mason, I need you, please."
His shape finally appeared before her, the road and trees clearly visible through his translucent body, and Rose couldn't help breaking into a grin. "There you are! I thought you'd gotten lost or something." Her grin faded at Mason's obvious sorrow. "I'm sorry. I need your help. The Strigoi, they took Eddie. We need to find them."
He nodded, and Rose wondered offhandedly if he'd already known that. He must, right? He'd have to if he knew where they were. "Can you show me where they are?" Mason's response was to point towards the back of the campus, and she frowned a little, knowing instantly how they'd gotten in. "They came in through the back," she said, less of a question than a statement, and Mason nodded again.
Rose turned back to Dimitri, trying not to see if he still thought she was insane. "We need a map."
Crazy as Rose looked as she talked to herself, Dimitri nodded and went back to the guard station to retrieve a map. His colleagues had to think they'd both lost their minds by the looks on their faces.
When he returned, Dimitri unfolded the map, showing the layout of the campus as well as the surrounding roads and terrain of their secluded part of Montana.
She smiled at Dimitri and took the map from him, spreading it out on the ground to keep the wind from blowing it about. "Okay, so they came in here, right?" Rose asked Mason, pointing to the spot at the back of campus where Lissa had been tortured. "This is where the wards broke?"
Mason nodded and traced a route from that spot back through the woods and along the side of a small mountain.
Rose frowned. If you took that way far enough, you'd eventually hit a dirt road and then the interstate, but that was hours away. The only real road leading to St. Vlad's was the one they were on. "That can't be right," she said, looking up at Mason. "They'd have to be on foot, and they didn't have enough time to walk from the school to that road. They fled just before sunrise so they'd be caught in the daylight if they headed that way."
He shook his head, apparently disagreeing with Rose and pointed again, this time focusing on a spot that was maybe a few miles away from the edge of campus. Mason looked up at Rose significantly then back at the map, jabbing his finger down.
"They can't be there now," she asserted. "It's outside in the daylight. Maybe they came in through the back, but they had to leave from the front or they'd be caught by the sun!" She was arguing with a ghost, and he was being stubborn. Rose looked up at Dimitri, obviously frustrated. "Is there a building or something here?" she asked him, pointing to the spot Mason seemed so sure of. "He says they're going back to that road, but they couldn't have walked that far before the sun came up."
Dimitri shrugged. "Not that I know of, but it's possible." But the least he could do was find out from people who hadn't been living elsewhere for the last year. "Let me find out for you." He took the map and returned to speak with the other guardians who were likely to know better.
Rose watched Dimitri go then looked back at Mason, uncertain of his information. "You're sure about this?" she asked finally and was relieved by his nod. "...Have you seen them? The Strigoi and the ones they captured?"
Mason nodded again, and Rose took a nervous breath. "Is - Eddie still alive?"
The third nod gave her some hope. After he'd survived Spokane with them, Rose couldn't believe the terrible luck that had made Eddie a captive of the Strigoi once more. They had to rescue him.
Rose's ghostly source had been right. Dimitri walked back to her, looking a bit floored by confirmation of too many things at once. "Rose," he couldn't believe was he was about to say as he held up the map. "Stephen says there are caves at the base of the mountain here."
She caught her breath, almost stunned at the information. "Are they big enough?" she asked, looking from Dimitri to Mason and back.
"Big enough for the Strigoi to hide out in until nighttime?" Dimitri nodded. "They are. And they're only five miles away."
After sharing what they'd learned from Mason and the map, Rose, Dimitri, and a few of the other guardians had done some digging, finding more detailed maps and information relating to the caves, providing everything the team would need to know about them if they were going in.
Now it was time for the meeting that would decide the next course of action. As they walked toward the building, Dimitri considered the complications of their dilemma. On the one hand, guardians normally acted defensively; writing off those kidnapped by Strigoi because there was usually no way of knowing where to even begin looking. Here, they knew where, they knew when the Strigoi would move out, and they knew the Strigoi were essentially trapped in the caves. They had to make the right decision.
Before they entered, Dimitri paused, holding her back. "Do not interrupt them," he told her quietly. "I know how you feel. I know what you want to do. But ranting at them isn't going to help you get your way."
"Ranting?" Rose exclaimed, forgetting to be quiet in her insult at the term. "I am not!" She was just frustrated and anxious at their news. If the guardians refused to go after the Strigoi when they were trapped in the caves - they had to go. It didn't matter that they 'usually didn't do rescue missions.' They had to.
Dimitri lowered his voice purposefully. "I see it," he said. "That fire's in you again-you want to tear somebody apart. It's what made you so deadly in the fight. But we're not fighting right now. The guardians have all the information. They'll make the right choice. You just have to be patient." And if she couldn't keep herself calm and patient...things were not likely to end well.
He was probably right, but Rose couldn't quite trust the guardians to make the right decision. This was too important. She waited something close to quietly for a few minutes and then left Dimitri's side to go over to talk to Janine. Like always, her mother was in the middle of things, making arrangements and studying the information the guardians had, but for once, she nodded to Rose, waving her over to speak with her.
"Please, we have to do this," Rose said quickly, unsure how long Janine had to speak with her.
Janine looked Rose over. She'd heard of how her daughter had performed, but that didn't remove all worry. "If there's a rescue, it's not going to be a 'we' thing. You aren't going."
"What? Cause our numbers were so great the first time that we didn't lose anyone?" she snarked, glaring at her mom.
She flinched, Rose's harshness was certainly uncalled for.
Maybe it was, but Rose was in no mood to be charitable when it felt like the guardians were going to blow off the whole opportunity. "You know I can help," she argued, dropping the sarcasm. "Yeah, I still have to take my trials, and I don't know everything, but you know what I did. You guys are going to need as much help as possible - overwhelming force, right? Me and the other senior novices are ready. Hell, bring Christian too, and we'll be unstoppable."
"No," Janine said quickly. "Not him. You never should have gotten a Moroi involved, let alone someone as young as the Ozera boy." All their success aside, it had been a big risk for them to take.
Rose ground her teeth. "But you know what he can do," she pointed out. "It's stupid not to use all the resources you have."
The decision to support something so potentially dangerous and completely different from the way they'd ever operated before was a difficult one that Janine didn't take lightly. And yet, she couldn't argue against Rose's statement. She checked the time and sighed, knowing what she would need to do. "Let me check something."
She stared after her mother, almost surprised at the reaction. Maybe she'd actually taken Rose's suggestion seriously. Quieted by the thought, Rose made her way back to Dimitri's side to wait for the meeting to begin.
[NFB, NFI, Warnings for discussions of violence and character death. Shadow Kiss: Post 1 | Post 2 | Post 3 | Post 4 | Post 5 | Post 6 | Post 7 | Post 8 | Post 9 ]