Smoke Never Returns to the Fire

[Sonnie Wu]

Night shrouded Sacramento. It was cool out, but not cold, and the moon was pregnant and growing in the sky.

Upon an apartment building's rooftop, someone lurked in the shadows. The light fixture over the stairway door was out, the bulb unscrewed. The hidden figure sat cross-legged on the roof, and had remained still and silent for about an hour now. This was not easy, especially when the one attempting stillness was Sonnie Wu. The energetic Monkey strained against the urge to get up and walk about. Doing nothing but mentally counting the minutes had been torturous. Somehow, she had managed. Her self-allotted time limit should just about be up, however.

Slowly, she checked the time on her phone, only very briefly allowing the screen's light to fall upon her. Yes, just over an hour had passed. The demonstration of good faith, a symbolic gesture, was finished.

There was a secondary source of light. A metal bucket sat before Sonnie, and in it, a small fire burned.

It was a low flame that shed little light, one that smoldered on a small feast of pine wood chips. The result was a fire that did not burn hot, and produced quite lot of smoke. This is what she needed. A conduit.

The sacrifice of stillness and shadows had been made, and the smoke was here to play witness. Now it was time to seal the deal.

"Secretive Smoke. I am Sonja Wu, Beast and Claviger of the Spring Court. By right of my fae blood, I call upon you to forge a pact with me," she whispered, tossing a couple more pine chips into the bucket. The smoke plumed.

"Show me your ways," she implored, "Give me your advantages. Smoke is dark, smoke is silent, smoke is elusive. Smoke always gets away."

"In accordance with the old ways, the agreement you made with faerie kind. I feed you, and you shield me from prying eyes."

There was a pause in the air, as if something unseen waited a few beats for dramatic effect. Perhaps something did. Then the smoke pouring from the old steel bucket reacted. There was no sudden breeze, no change to the air, yet the smoke briefly changed direction. It wafted out to blast Sonnie in the face.

She coughed and sat back, away from the tiny fire, waving a hand in the air by reflex. Through watery eyes, the Steepscrambler thought she saw a face in the cloud of smoke, one that smiled coyly at her. Or maybe it was her imagination.

Either way, she knew the Contract had been signed.

[Sonnie Wu]

Sure, disguising one's footprints might be useful... in certain situations. There may be advantages to making your trail look like that of a mouse, or the smell of a gas leak. However, it was still a trail. It could still be followed.

Sonnie didn't put it past the Huntsman to stay on task. It wouldn't give up so easily. That's why she needed more from Smoke.

Here she was this night, in a back alley behind her apartment building, looking to prove herself. There had been a fresh spring rain earlier in the day, and the alley was muddy. Easy to leave tracks.

The goal, in the Beast's mind, was to show Smoke she didn't need it's help to avoid leaving a trail. Then the Contract would be more likely to give her help!

Or something like that. It made sense to her, anyway.

Make it from one end of the alley to the other, as quietly as possible, without making signs of her passage. Difficult, but not impossible for a Steepscrambler as athletic as she. Harder, perhaps, because she was restricting herself from going too high off the ground. No simply scaling a wall. She had to remain relatively close to the ground.

After some stretches to limber up, Sonnie eyed the terrain, calling upon her parkour skills to find the proper route. Touching the mud was a no go. She'd have to make use of the garbage cans, dumpsters, old crates and random trash in the alley. She couldn't knock anything over, or make noise. Thankfully she could go slowly. This wasn't a race.

Regardless, she was off.

She stepped lightly on an old, flat cardboard box, moving from there to on top of a trash dumpster. The lids were mercifully down. Creeping over the obstacle, it was a short jump to a small stack of wooden crates.

Sonnie hissed in a fast breath as the stack wobbled, threatening to fall over and toss her directly into the mud. Her luck and balance held! She resisted the urge to go 'Whew!'

She eased herself over to a metal trash can. Again, thankfully, the lid was on... but it was slightly askew. Pause! Carefully, the Monkey reached out with her foot, grasping the lid's edge in her toes. She pulled it gently into position and pushed it slowly down to make sure it stayed in place. Then she transferred herself to atop the can. She kept her weight, however light she might be, on the edges. It wouldn't do for the lid to buckle at the center. Only a slight metallic groan made any objection to her presence.

Then came a door frame. The door itself was shut and locked, an entrance to a storeroom. The frame was handy for the Steepscrambler to use as hand- and foot-holds. Not that she normally needed any, but Sonnie wanted to keep playing by her own made-up rules to appease Smoke.

A pile of discarded wet cardboard, another dumpster, and then the fire escape! She reached the raised ladder easily enough, but the whole thing rattled briefly. Clenching her teeth, the Beast held her breath and waited. No one in the building, or anywhere nearby, seemed to notice. Or didn't care enough to look, perhaps.

Either way, score! She'd made it to the far end of the alley! No mud tracks, no signs of disturbance, no one alerted!

Was the Wyrd watching? Of course it was. It was always watching. To check, Sonnie took out a packet of matches from her pocket. Still clinging to the fire escape ladder, she lit one and set the whole packet ablaze. She held onto it for as long as she could, and observed the small amount of smoke that emanated. For just a second, the puff seemed to take the shape of a hand giving her a thumbs up!

She could have imagined that, but it didn't matter. She'd done what she had promised, and Smoke had given her access to a new clause!

Then Sonnie singed her fingertips, as she'd forgotten for a second that she was holding burning matches. "ACK!"

Throwing the tiny flame away, the Beast flailed and lost her balance. She fell backwards. Luckily her dexterous toes clung to the bottom rung of the ladder, and she merely swung down into an upside down position! The commotion caused the old latch on the ladder to give way, and it slid down several feet closer to the alley floor. The sudden motion and jarring stop caused Sonnie to lose her grip, and she fell the last couple feet into the mud with a wet squelch. She laid there, unhurt but filthy, and watched as the last cinders of the match pack also fell into the mud and were extinguished.

Hopefully, Smoke didn't see that bit...