The shadowy canopy of evergreens recedes here, opening into a small clearing. The grass underfoot is a vibrant young green, luxurient and seemingly soft to the touch; small flowers, some purple and others blue or yellow, add to the spread of color. Immediately to the east, the ground rises into a small, rocky outcropping, at the base of which stands a large pool of crystal clear water; the barest rivulet of a stream wends its way south and west from the pool across the clearing, losing itself in the forest. This whole area has about it a sense of peace and silence; the air is cool and fresh, the scent of the flowers pleasant, the colors of the forest in seemingly perfect balance. Anything not pristine or natural seems almost a world away to you here.
The half-moon shaped pool lies just to the east. A faint trail seems to follow the little stream southwest into the forest.
In another era, she might have been considered terribly attractive. As it is, she sits just on the prettier side of average. At about 5'6", the girl looks to be carrying around a hundred and sixty pounds, giving her a rather full, hourglass figure unusual for a girl in her mid-teens. She has quite a pretty face; it's a bit plump and tawny freckles are scattered across her nose and cheeks, but otherwise her complexion is unblemished, and her features are well balanced. Full lips frame almost-straight teeth, often revealed in a cheerful grin, and large, almond-shaped eyes, the irises a warm, gold-flecked shade of brown and the lashes thick and dark, peer out brightly through wire-rimmed glasses. Her mass of unruly black curls falls untamed to the middle of her back, stray strands frequently dangling before her face. It looks as though she might be wearing an almost imperceptible bit of makeup, perhaps a light dusting of gold eyeshadow and some sort of very pale peach lipstick; the only thing resembling jewelry, though, is a silvery key hanging about her neck on a dog-tag sort of chain.
Her style of dress is equally unlikely to get her on the cover of Cosmopolitan, but it wouldn't be out of place in the average high school. She's clad in a deep green tanktop of some stretchy, slightly shiny fabric, which clings to her curves, the v-neckline scooping low enough to display quite a bit of cleavage. The shirt does absolutely nothing to disguise her bustiness, in fact playing it up for a change. The hem is tucked into a threadbare pair of baggy dark blue jeans, cinched tightly around her surprisingly small waist by what appears to be a seatbelt -- the buckle even reads "GM". The frayed hems pool around the ankles of her decrepit black Docs, laced with sparkly silver laces which have also seen better days. Atop all this is a huge and ancient black leather motorcycle jacket, the cuffs of which constantly fall down over her hands. Slung over her shoulder is a bulging canvas backpack, probably military surplus, dotted with patches and pins in various colours and states of repair.
This is wire wrapped around a tangle of fol-de-rol, that happens to look like a wolfish dog-- She's small and shades of sand in hue, with lanky limbs and oversized paws and sharp-tipped triangular ears. Her face is framed by a ruff of curly, unruly fur-- her eyes large and yellowy-green. Despite being some sort of adolescent canine jumble, she has the looks of a critter who lands on all fours more often than she does not.
There's little light to illuminate the pool, the moon a slender crescent above. In the dark, overlooking the water, there's a wolf-- Sandy-hued and small, curled up and watching the moon's reflection.
Softly crunching footsteps disturb the air, the sound of boots slowly wandering through the leaf litter. Bernie comes into view, hands in her jacket pockets, and looks a little startled to notice that, as she nears the pool, she isn't alone. "...hey," she ventures softly, in the tone people use to try and get someone's attention without startling them.
Bridge-Mender tenses, a drawing of harder lines along the curve of her body, turns an ear towards the voice. Her breath catches, once-- An odd sound, for a wolf, but a familiar, human one.
"...I was just out walkin'," Bernie says, wandering toward the edge of the pool, "...you mind 'f I sit here?" She gestures toward a rock near the edge of the water.
Bridge-Mender's ears are low, tucked along the side of her head, though not entirely flat. She turns her nose towards the rock. I don't mind.
Bernie sits on the rock, hands still firmly in pockets, peering into the water absently for a few minutes before venturing, "...'swrong?"
Bridge-Mender closes her eyes, tight, ears dipping down against her skull. I killed someone. The lost cub, the one who was eating humans. She's curled up in a tight ball, but somehow manages to curl up even more.
Bernie winces a little. "'m sorry," she murmurs, and then, "....how'd that happen? I mean... what happened?"
Bridge-Mender uncurls, shifting as she does so. She ends up perched on the stone, her hands set on either side of her legs, her eyes still fixed on the water. "John and Roger found him-- He was in th'city, he killed someone, kin--" She curls inward a bit, stares hard at the moon reflected in the pool. "Ellie, that was her name."
Bernie looks at the water as well, pushing a curl back behind her ear. "Met her once, I think. Baney's kin. I mean, she wasn't, but she was as far as he was concerned, I guess. When'd that happen?" She sighs, and kicks a handy pebble into the water, rippling the surface. "I gotta cut back on school an' work, I feel all outta everythin'. So what happened then?"
"I didn't know how to help her, how to--" The girl shakes her head. "We sat with her, until she died-- Me an' John. Then we took him out here, to the--" She looks back towards the compound-- It isn't very far away. "He was tainted, he said he'd been turnin' into a wolf for five years, he--"
Anneka takes a breath. "--He didn't think it was bad, what he was doin', he--" She reaches up to cover her face, then lets her hands drop down into her lap. "That wasn't his fault-- He didn't know, he didn't really know what he was, what he was supposed to be."
Bernie runs that through her mind a couple times, sorts it out quickly enough, and nods. "Oh," she says, softly. "...man, five years. I guess that'd taint you, yeah. And... so..." She trails off, tilting her head. "...so then what? He di'n' wanna learn things right an' not be alone?"
Anneka pulls her legs up, wraps her arms around them. "I don't know. He said he'd leave if we let him, that he'd never come back. Maybe he would have said he wanted to learn, too, but he didn't. John didn't want to kill him-- He said that he'd been like that, changing without knowing why, that he did bad things. But John wasn't-- It wasn't in him."
Anneka starts to slip down towards the water, then holds herself still. "Jarred wanted t'kill him, John said that I was thinkin' too much about humans, that I was-- Wasn't really bein' true to what I am." She looks down at the water. "It's not like that."
"...We can't be havin' anyone out eatin' people," Bernie opines, shaking her head a little. "Get people huntin' us down, for one thing. Plus, maybe Walkers don't care, but the kinda people who're gonna get eaten, they're the ones =we= take care of, right? I mean, is it gonna be some rich guy or that homeless kid in the park? Can't... I mean... I don't think it'd be right to just leave tainted beings out killing people." Her voice gets gradually quieter as she goes through that. "I dunno."
Anneka is taking sharp breaths now, trying to keep herself still. "He tried to run," she says, her words starting to jumble together. "Andrea did something so he couldn't, so he could see Her, an--" She swallows. "I kept thinkin' about what John said, how what he said has sides-- How y'can be--" Another, longer pause. She shuts her eyes, tight. "We're part of everythin' she made-- like deer, like humans, like rabbits. She made us to protect her, but she didn't make us better'n everythin'. If we forget that, then we're-- We won't know when there's somethin' wrong in us, when we're hurtin' her more than--" She curls up tight again, buries her face against her knees.
Bernie slips over, off her rock, and tentatively wraps her arms around the younger girl, trying to be comforting. It comes naturally, but not at all confidently. She takes a breath as if about to speak, and pauses, unsure of what to say. The breath comes out again, silent.
"Maybe," she says, muffled, "you can forget that part of th'law is knowin when it has t'stop, when y'hafta let go, even if it hurts. He was tainted, he liked killin' humans. He even left, but he-- came back." She shudders. "I said it had to stop, that after everythin' he had to--" She leans against Bernie, looks up again towards the pool. "And I killed him."
"You're a 'dox," Bernie says, after several moment's silence. "You gotta make those decisions. I mean, sometimes we all gotta, but mostly you. 's prolly the right thing. An'... 's prolly good that you're unhappy 'bout it, too. 'cause it means you know th'... magnitude of it. That it's important. Matters. Otherwise... otherwise you'd get t' be like other people here, who just do it for... convenience. But 'm sorry it has t' hurt."
"It hurts," the girl says. "Sometimes I think they're all gonna hurt, that it's always gonna be like like that." She looks ashen. "I-- " Then she's standing, quick, scrabbling to keep from slipping down towards the pool. "I hafta think. 'Bout stuff." She looks off towards the woods. "Just--" Then her form's blurring again, down to lupus, claws scrabbling against stone as she races off into the woods. She left her coat behind, bundled up near the pool.