Occams Razor

Alice was standing right on the edge of the water. Her hands were in her pockets and her long coat was flapping around her knees in a faint breeze. Her bat leaned against her thigh, and her hair had gotten long when she wasn't paying it attention and now she wore it around her shoulders loose and down. It seemed unlikely that Alice had maintained the blue streaks in her hair herself, but when a Faerie Princess dyes your hair the colors of her court maybe the dye sticks around of its own accord.

Two years ago she'd come to this place a feral angry mockery of a person. Her clothes had been bloodied and singed. She'd barely spoken to anyone, and found being in a crowded room unbearable. She'd glared at anyone with a medical bag and even just brushing against her brought a corona of uncomfortable energy bleeding out of her.

Now the only blood she carried was the blood of a tribal council member on her scarf, used as a tourniquet to save the woman's life.

When they told her she was coming here, they'd said it was so she could get help. At the time she'd thought they meant new chants and forbidden knowledge. And then Ashmore said she would learn compassion and mercy. She had been incensed. Looking back on it now she felt ashamed. Especially knowing...

She shuddered and turned her mind away from that thought. Not here. Not now. Another time. Another place.

Sunday she had not been able to wrap her mind around the fact that he wasn't giving mass. He was dead. Gone. She'd kicked over a trash can and joined a war between some Fae and a Spirit. She'd spoken with a Reverend about what to do next and lied to someone who might even respect her. She'd wept in her girlfriend's arms and told people who didn't know what had happened. Some of them wept with her.

Shellshock. That was the word for it. Someone had said it. Not that that was very comforting. Not when she was suddenly cast adrift and she and a few others struggled to keep this whole place from being thrown into holy fire.

And, once again, a good man was dead. Someone she loved. Someone she trusted. Someone she adored. He had been the closest thing she'd ever known as a father and she had never trusted anyone the way she trusted him. He had risked everything for her and she'd only begun to understand just before...

Tears were rolling down her cheeks. Once again a good man had died and she, somehow, against all odds, was still here. And that seemed wrong, somehow. If she could trade, she would have. She wanted to. They needed him. He was a guiding light against the dark. She was a foot soldier. A dime a dozen.

He was a good man.

She looked out over the water, lost in her own thoughts as the tears rolled down her cheeks.

Chloe's boots slapped against the wet sand, eyes downcast and squinting as she hunched against the frigid wind. Stooping without breaking stride, she picked up a small rock and tossed it from hand to hand while she marched along the beach. Anything to keep her hands from freezing.

Looking up while remembering to breathe, she spotted Alice and paused, rolling the stone in her cupped hand. Every time she laid eyes upon that girl it was an effort to look away, to do anything but want to be near her - but she knew Alice needed her space often. The last few days had been obviously hard on Alice, and maybe this time she didn't need her girlfriend who didn't or couldn't know what she was going through.

She was crying. She was crying and Chloe's instincts were all screaming at her to do something, *anything* to soothe that pain, the predator protecting her mate. But there was nothing to hunt and kill that would fix this. No way to fix this at all.

The stone popped into the air and back into Chloe's palm with a slight smack.

Alice's head quirked, as if listening to something right on the edge of her hearing as her eyes continued gazing out over the water and not seeing it. Her focus is somewhere in between. Maybe in the past, maybe in the future or somewhere in between. Both but neither. It would find with one so broken.

"Chloe," it was a statement not a question as her neck relaxed and her head went straight as she looked out over the water. She looked down at her hand, where there was some scabs on her knuckles and then used them to absently wipe at her cheeks.

"Je suis desol-," she frowned deeply and then shook her head as if to clear it. "I'm sorry," she murmured, distractedly. She rubbed her temple and winced a touch, shaking her head again. She sniffled and rubbed at her eyes.

She still didn't look over, instead keeping her eyes frozen to the horizon.