Nerys' Room

[Nerys]

Continued from: The Hallway

Nerys reached out for the handle of the door to her room awkwardly with her briefcase still looped over her hand. The door clicked and swung open and she went inside. She set her case down, very measured in her movements, she flicked the light switch and the wall lamps flickered to life. She stepped in, leaving her door wide open.

"Oh for goodness sake..." she sighed, her eyes scanned the space, "not again..."

The room was in a state of disarray yet again. The rug at the end of her bed was completely overturned; the Hessian under weave exposed and hitched up in peaks. Her photographs on her bedside table and dresser were all facing the wall or turned face down, the armchair she sat in to play the cello was shoved into a corner and her music was all over the floor.

There was always an air of the supernatural about Nerrie, she was used to it by now; several hundred years of contact with the dead had made it second nature to her. Recently though that activity seemed to be strengthening. This was the second time this month that her room had been in a completely different state than she had left it. She knew none of the pack had done this; for one thing she couldn't smell any scent other than her own, more than that though she simply knew they wouldn't. Some spirit was playing with her.

Part of her wondered if this was a bad sign, the increasing frequency of paranormal activity around her. The other part tried desperately not to think about it at all.

"Honestly," she cried, distracting herself and setting the flowers down on her bed whilst unbuttoning her jacket. She slipped it off and laid it down next to the flowers. As she walked forwards she stepped out of her heeled shoes and was brought down to her petite height once more while she went about lifting the rug and turning it over to its right side.

[Nerys]

With the rug safely righted and put in place, Nerrie went about picking up her photographs and arranging them back in their rightful places. She knew now why her wolf was more restless than usual this full moon, it could sense something around her, the same something that had moved her possessions around and the same one that was sending cold shivers up her spine.

Nerys opened her wardrobe, discovering that her usually remotely organised into work and casual clothes had been rearranged as well, and pulled out a maroon cardigan, blue cotton shirt and a pair of tan trousers. She changed in her en-suite, making a point of pulling her long sleeved cardigan tightly around her and buttoned it up. It showed her curves but more importantly she carried out this action in defiance of the goosebumps puckering her arms.

She returned to her room and continued her task of righting everything.

[Nerys]

"Damn it." Nerys cursed. The words were about the strongest that came out of her mouth on a daily basis but what she lacked in the strength of her words she made up for in the emotion. For a moment tears prickled her eyes but she blinked them back.

Blood bloomed on her index finger and Nerrie sighed, grabbing a tissue from her bed side table and pressing it against the slice. She looked down at the vase on the floor and felt the tears come back. My favourite vase... she thought bitterly. She had just taken it out from the cabinet and lost her grip on it, the clear crystal shattered against the floor and none too quietly either.

Her wolf moaned loudly and Nerrie closed her eyes. You have you stop, calm down right this moment and let me have some peace. She told it, internally. Just stop. The blonde concentrated on breathing in and out rhythmically for a moment, her wolf was on edge and it was transferring to her, she knew it. It happened every four weeks or so and she had a tough juggling act between her latent abilities and the unease they stirred in her wolf.

When she opened her eyes her heart leapt into her throat as she found a young boy standing in the middle of her room, the music papers she had not gotten around to picking up strewn beneath his feet.

"Hello." She said gently.

[Nerys]

"That was my Mother's favourite."

Nerys nodded, chilled to the bone, "It was mine too..." she said.

The boy was dressed in short trousers and a jacket, he had a flat cap perched on a mess of brown hair and the most piercing green eyes she had ever seen. His knees were scratched and bruised and his knuckles were almost black with dirt. The blueness of his lips and skin made Nerrie's heart ache.

"I didn't mean to break it...." she said.

"Then why did you?"

Nerrie blinked, unsure what to say other than a tiny, "I'm sorry," she pressed the tissue against her bleeding finger and looked down at the shattered remnants of the vase. She had rescued it at the end of one of her displays when the owner had decided to sell on a lot of the items, the she-wolf had fallen in love with the gentle curve and blue inlay and brought it home to the hotel.

She looked up and the boy was standing right on her hip, staring up at her with those eyes.

She jumped. Her wolf was quivering with anxiety; a visit from a restless spirit on the second night of the full moon was like a nightmare and a growl curled from its throat to demonstrate its discontentment.

"What's your name?" Nerrie managed, fighting the urge to growl with her wolf.

"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."

Nerys nodded, "Did your mother tell you that?" she asked with a soft smile. He mirrored her nod, and she continued, "She was right, you shouldn't talk to strangers. But... if you're separated from her maybe I can help you..."

"You should fix the vase."

She shook her head slowly, "I don't think I can. It shattered quite badly..."

"You have to."

Her eyes flooded in her wolf's irritation, onyx obliterating the normally green iris' with a feral anger that she couldn't control, "Sometimes when things break they stay broken." She managed, stepping away from the boy warily.

"You need to fix it. Fix it now."

"I can't."

"Fix it now!" the boy's voice reached climax, his jaw seemed to drop lower than any normal persons and Nerrie stumbled backwards with a minute snarl of her own, covering her ears against the high pitch.

She squeezed her eyes shut; her wolf was baying in the forefront of her mind and even as her back reached the wall Nerys was fully concentrated on not letting it take over. After a minute, maybe two she opened her eyes, green once more and looked around the room.

The boy was gone for now.

She covered her mouth and leant back against the wall. Tonight was not a night she wanted to be dealing with this. Despite her age her wolf was wrestling with her to transform, its unease at the intrusion of yet another spirit into her personal space setting it pacing around restlessly. She knew she was in control but it didn't stop her hands from quivering just a little.

She had no choice but to fulfil that one urge and hope that it set the wolf in her at ease, so Nerrie began to pace back and forth, attempting to get her racing heart under control.

[Cole]

Continued from: Hallway.


“Nerys?” Cole stood at the door, having knocked on it lightly, but now, he stood, head slightly bowed over, waiting to see if she would open her room to him without his having to hint again. Now that he was closer, the animal instincts inside of him rebelled again at the feelings from within. The noises had quieted, but it still didn’t feel right. And with Nerys’ unique trait, he wanted to ensure she was okay.

If she didn’t answer him, he would have no choice but to let himself in. Cole knew she was inside, and if she didn’t reply, he would have to test and see if the door was locked. If it was… well, they could always replace whatever he broke from forcing entry. He just hoped that wouldn’t be necessary.

[Nerys]

Nerys heard her name coming from the other side of the door and stopped in her pacing. She looked over her shoulder at the vase that was shattered across the floor and then around the room again, her eyes searching every corner. The boy was still there, she knew it, she felt it, but he either didn't want to be seen or had exhausted his ability to make himself seen. In either case the room was in a severe state of disarray.

She smoothed the palms of her hands over her face and hair and went to the door, her wolf was highly discontent with her and paced furiously around even as she reached out for the door handle and pulled the wooden door free from its frame. Cole was standing on the other side. Of course Nerrie had known it was Cole by smell easily.

She managed a wan smile, "Cole," she stated.

[Cole]

After a few more moments of waiting, Cole’s hopes paid off. Nerys stood there on the other side of the open door, facing him, and looking a little… unsettled. He could sense her agitation, and it made the wolf within him pace protectively, wanting to make everything safe and right, even though he wasn’t sure what the extent of the problem was, or the exact reason for it. Not yet, anyway.

He offered her a soft smile of his own, then let his eyes wander behind the blonde female to take in the state of her room. “Everything okay?” Of course, the question was somewhat pointless, now that he saw her, and her room. Obviously something had happened. He just had to make sure she could handle it, and still get a decent night’s rest. He knew he couldn’t take the problem away for her, no matter how much he might have liked to, but he could at least check she had everything under control.

[Nerys]

A sigh was Nerys' initial response, she followed Cole's eyes over her shoulder, catching the vase, the paper and the various pictures as yet not righted. Her stomach flip flopped as she thought about the boy and his voice, reaching a scream in her ears, ricocheting of the inside of her skull.

"I've had a few visitors." She responded wryly, gesturing to her room with her tissue-bound hand and stepping aside, "They decided to move my things around, rearrange my clothes, my music... photographs. It's nothing; really."

She hated to be a burden; she hated her 'gift' for making her one at times. Her personality made her inclined to pass off the strength of the supernatural happenings around her even to her Alphas and especially to her friends in the pack. She shrugged her slender shoulders nonchalantly.

[Cole]

“I can see that,” he said gently, acknowledging the problem, and considering it. His eyes were thoughtful and concerned as they met Nerys’ again, and he discreetly studied her. “There’s no way to make them leave you alone during the moon?” he asked her, already knowing the answer. It wasn’t the first time he’d asked the question, and it likely wouldn’t be the last either.

He sighed slightly. “Who was it this time?” he decided to inquire. He supposed there was a small part of him that wondered if the spirits of members they had lost would ever show themselves. Honestly, Cole hoped they wouldn’t. If they were people Nerys had known, it would pain her to see their spirits. He doubted anyone he or the other leaders knew would show themselves… at least not in the way of family, or close loved ones. Or he hoped not, anyway. “Did they tell you what they wanted?”

[Nerys]

Nerys shook her head heavily at the first question, "I wish there was..." she said.

The full moon in particular was hard in that she felt the uncontrollable pull of the moon and her wolf, already discontent with her supernatural abilities, was forced to come closer to spirits than it liked. In truth though, if there was a way to get rid of the spectres full stop she couldn't say in all honesty that she would do it. Some days she would have answered a qualified yes to the option, some not, it all depended on the spirit, on the situation and their desires. But their desires left little room for any of her own and that was what she had come to detest.

"It was a boy," she continued, frowning as she recalled the boy's appearance, "he looked about six, maybe seven. He had clothes from the late 1940's or early 50s. I think... it's possibly he was tethered to that vase in some way... he didn't appear until after I broke it and I didn't sense him until then either. He wanted me to fix it. That was all he said really, 'Fix it'. "

She glanced over her shoulder, the feeling that she was being watched causing the fine hairs on the back of her neck to stand up, "He's still here..." she said, her voice taking on a sort of soft melancholy to it tone.

[Cole]

We all do, he thought when she gave him the expected answer to his question about making them leave her alone. He’d known she would say it, but it still disappointed him each time she responded in that way. It made him feel as if he was letting her down somehow, even though he knew she’d been born with it, and there was absolutely no way to make it all stop. He couldn’t imagine how much strain it put on her though, and for that, deep down, he was thankful in his own way. Still, he wished there was some way to help her.

He listened as she answered his questions, eyes narrowed slightly as if trying to think of a way to make the spirit leave her alone. Simply asking it to wouldn’t work, as he had figured out not long after Nerys had joined the pack; spirits didn’t have to obey anyone, he knew, and he couldn’t see them himself, so it wasn’t as if he could try personally. He doubted it would work, even if he could try.

“Do you think getting rid of the pieces would help?” he asked her, one hand resting against the frame of her doorway. It wasn’t much of a suggestion, but short of mentioning an exorcism, he didn’t have much else to offer, which only made that lingering sense of uselessness flare again.

[Nerys]

"Yes, maybe," Nerys replied, nodding now and bringing her eyes back to meet Cole's. She could tell that the Alpha felt sympathetic towards her in this situation and unease twisted her stomach, yet she forged on, "I would like to keep the pieces together at least. The idea of the vase just being broken seemed to make him very angry, but I doubt it holds any power over him anymore. If he really was released when it shattered then it's served its purpose; he has no use for it now."

She brought a hand up and smoothed the hair from her temple through her index finger and thumb, twirling it absently. This was a sure sign that she was deep in thought, "Perhaps cleansing the pieces would help him pass on though... burning them with some rock salt maybe, just to be safe. I have photographs of the vase; I can research it and see what I come up with..."

It was a natural train of thought. Nerys wanted to cover all the bases with this ghost and helped him to move on, selfishly more for her own sake than his; the screaming he had emitted was not natural at all and she knew something more was behind his presence. Her room being rearranged was a normal occurrence; spirits moved in and out of her life almost constantly but for one to speak to her and make such an impact in this way was less common.

[Cole]

Cole listened to her thoughts on the matter, knowing that no one in the pack would ever surpass Nerys for expertise on this topic. All he could do was listen, nod his head in an acknowledging fashion, and consider her ideas. It wasn’t likely that he would ever shoot down one of her ideas, mainly because he had to trust to her knowledge on this matter. As old as he was, this wasn’t a specialty of his in any sense of the word, and Nerys was their expert.

“Sounds like a plan,” he said to her with a soft, reassuring smile. He knew how she felt about the spirits that showed themselves to her, and he admired her strength for putting up with them, and their unannounced visits. There were many in the pack, he knew, who would not be so patient and unforgiving. Then again, he’d never met another werewolf with the ability, and he actually doubted he would ever meet another one.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” he asked her again, meeting her gaze once more, frowning slightly. It wasn’t unusual for Nerys to be unsettled, but he didn’t feel like this was the same. This was worse than usual, and she was pack… therefore, his responsibility. If he could help her, he would, but first, he had to know if there was actually something he needed to help with.

[Nerys]

"A basic one, but yes, a plan," Nerys nodded. Yes, it was a plan, a plan that she rather wished she didn't have to contend with tonight. However, she was finished with the Museum so she had time to recuperate if she didn't get much rest tonight, and whether she did or not she would be sleepy tomorrow what with the lunar cycle. Tonight she would clean up, collect the shards of crystal and burn them tonight with some of her rock salt and hopefully be able to get at least a few hours of sleep without another visit.

She looked to Cole once more. His support was unwavering and she was more glad of that than she could ever articulate. The years she had spent alone, trying to cope with everything she saw and heard and felt had been nothing short of hell. Back then she never could have imagined being where she was today, part of a pack, surrounded by people she cared for and who she knew cared back if only out of pack duty.

She released a much calmer sigh, accompanied by a stronger smile, "I'm fine, honestly. It's just been rather a long day, but I'll pull through," she said, "Thank you for checking up on me,"

[Cole]

He nodded slowly. He had to take her word for it, of course, and he trusted her not to put herself under unnecessary stress. Cole had considered, more than once, telling her to stop working on the days of the moon. It was their pack policy to stay in the Hyperion during the days of its peak, but something had made him grant her permission to continue her work. He couldn’t remember what exactly that was, but looking at her now, he reminded himself that she was mature, and her work wasn’t dangerous. Still, it made him increasingly uncomfortable, especially when the spirits made her so much worse on the moon than she would have been anyway, without her ‘gift’. He would have to speak with Dia about it, he supposed. Though he was the dominant leader, he liked to confer with his mate before he made most decisions, unless they had to be spur of the moment.

“Don’t mention it.” He smiled. “You know me.” Cole was the kind of Alpha he knew his father would have been, if he hadn’t died so many years ago… the kind of Alpha Gareth had been, before his mind fractured and his sanity slipped. Pushing such dark memories from his mind, he focused on Nerys once again. “Do you want any help?” he offered, motioning slightly to the pieces behind her, inside the room. He had several other floors to ‘patrol’, but the night was still young. He had time.