The Low Places

[Nil]

Tragedies always left echoes that lingered. Places where the Dragon had been drawn to roost. Where the cycle of life spun askew, gestated malformed, out of a seed of destruction too toxic to gestate a healthy birth.

Anasztaz stood in front of the memorial plaque in the corner of Freeport Boulevard. The very same place where the private-owned fighter jet had barged through the wall of a Little League meeting in an ice cream parlor, bringing with it death in a conflagration that had spared none.

The names. Entire families engraved on the stone for remembrance. For some the blows were too heavy to ever recover from, for others the cuts were so deep that deadened the nerves. The wounds might have been, then, merciful. But the scars lingered for all and everyone involved, like spokes of a wheel spreading from this point in every direction.

He raises his gaze and closed his eyes, inhaling the air laden with the smell of jet fuel from the airport runway still nearby. Traces that time and nature wouldn't wipe. Yes, there were places where the honesty of death and rebirth could be questioned.

With his suspicions somewhat confirmed, Anasztaz turns to the corner where there was a pay phone and dials the number Amelita had given him.

"Yes, I think it is here. Come?" he looked back over his shoulders, through the spray painted glass.

"Bring Initiate Green with you too. Please." he adds after a pause.

He wasn't sure just why he had asked for her to come just yet, but it had felt appropriately necessary.

"Thank you."

[Dean]

Amelita slunk out of a hack cab about block away. The Shadow walked with her head down towards the meeting place, engrossed in her phone. She'd dressed practically, in weathered jeans and the same hooded top she'd worn when she'd attended the Dragon meeting.

Her eyes fell on Anasztaz. Her Beast didn't act quite so fearful around the Haunt anymore. Just a wary twitch of acknowledgement and a brief tingle in her shrunken stomach as she crept up on him.

"Boo..." she whispered, with a quick grin. She eyed the payphone with a perplexed frown.

"Again? Seriously? Damn. We need to get you a phone of your very own. I got no idea how you survived without one."

[Nil]

"Yes, I'll get right on it. Don't worry." Anasztaz says with a hint of weariness, sighing nasally and shaking his head.

He crossed his arms and smiled, he couldn't fault her. He had been resisting change, and that was anathema for a Dragon.

"Now... I think I found an important lesson, perhaps, I am not certain yet. Did you get in contact with Miss Green as I asked?"

Assessing the newcomers insight and capacity was something that he had wished to do since he saw her arrive, and this was a perfect opportunity.

[Dean]

"See that you do," Amelita replied mock-haughtily.

"And yeah, I texted Little Miss Mengele, but if you're gonna keep talking to me like I'm your secretary there better be some kind of salary to it." There's still levity in her voice. She grabs Anasztaz' arm and leads him away from the payphone into a darkened alley, out of the streetlights and the passing headlights.

"Let's get away from this relic so's you can talk to me about tonight. We're lit up like a Christmas tree anyhow."

[Nil]

"I wasn't meaning to be demeaning." Anasztaz explains, raising his palm defensively. "However, these are Ordo matters and assertive direction is paramount. I hope you understand."

As they walked towards the safety of the darkness he thought of how Amelita's temper was fiery, but collected when it really mattered. Both were useful traits that complemented his own social toolcase, but he'd do well to approach it with caution nonetheless.

"Now, I will give you a brief explanation of why I thought you'd benefit from coming tonight. This place was the epicenter of a tragedy, you see. Places such as these have more than a symbolic significance. They reverberate."

[Dean]

"We're cool. It was a joke. Kind of," Amelita smirked. "Far as Ordo titles go, there's worse than Secretary."

She listened closely to Anasztaz' explanation, furrowing her brow as she tried to wrap her mind around the new idea.

"Ok, so what happened here? And what does symbolic significance matter to us?"

[Nil]

"Around twenty children died, some along with their families, as a plane from there..." Anasztaz indicates with a nod towards the fence of the runway, peering out of the alley.

"Ran into there." he nods to the place of the memorial. "Which back then used to be an ice cream parlor."

He assesses her reaction momentarily before moving on with the explanation. Open mindedness was important, and he wanted to see whether her natural skepticism would get in the way of her own progress.

"It all centers here. All that agony, pain, grief, mourning, death... Things of the such leave a mark in the ground that not even time and layers of concrete can wipe. These places have power, and we have the means to harness it for our own advancement. They are known by many names, but we call them Wyrm's Nests."

[Dean]

Amelita wrinkled her nose, looking over at the runway. She led Anasztaz further into the mouth of the alley, to the darkest part.

"That's a little morbid," she muttered. "How would someone go about harnessing that power?"

[Nil]

"Not all are as morbid, but for those as... sensory impaired as myself, these are the easiest to find. For one such as you, it may be much easier." Anasztaz says, walking next to her further inside the alley.

"However, using them is not a straightforward affair. The uses depends on the kind of Nest, and I am not even certain yet this is a Nest at all. Which leads to you and why I wanted you to come."

[Dean]

"Secretary slash bloodhound, that's what you're describing, Annie. It's like your charm ran out once you got me initiated," Amelita joked, smiling wryly in the dark.