Random Fits of Fancy

Extra Scene from Chicago Prequel

An extra scene from the Chicago prequel that will be tacked at the end of the story, should people want to read Winter's perspective. Enjoy :)

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The early morning dew coated the grunge concrete roof, making everything moist and wet to the touch. The sun rose slowly, banishing the fog in its wake, the sky a beautiful periwinkle with streaks of light blues and yellows. Chicago's skyscrapers saw the sun first, reflecting the rays down on the rest of the city from their lofty windows. Below, people woke and began their morning, ready for another day of existence, whatever that looked like for all of them. No one was aware of anything amiss.

The woman limping on that grungy, slick concrete roof almost envied their ignorance.

None of the humans below could sense it, any of it. Neither had she two days ago, not until a fateful encounter...and now, she could sense everything. It was too much. There was too much going on. So many noises, feelings, sensations, colors, scents, auras, vibrations, symbols, runes, weaves...it was back. Somehow...somehow, it was back. The ability she had lost what felt like an eon ago...it was back, and it was overwhelming. It threatened to consume her entirely, like a fiery inferno she would spontaneously combust with the immense fortitude of the magic - but pain kept her grounded, if just barely.

Pain snaked up her left side, every hitch in her breath making it worse. Her broken nose was now a dull ache with a large mess on her face. Her still-wrapped right hand throbbed with every little movement but still she limped back and forth on that bird poop covered dewy roof. The whispers in her head never ceased, now a symphony with the whispers in the air around her. The air around her was thick with magic, her magic, a magic she thought was lost forever and now...now it was back and everything was wrong.

Shivers ran up and down her spine, her beloved patchwork jacket doing little to beat back the otherworldly chill that wouldn't leave. Startled blue eyes could barely understand the onslaught of information the weaves were telling them, but she tried anyway, desperate for any single glimpse into how any of this was happening. How is it back? Why is it so loud? What is wrong? What did I do? The questions went round and round in the young woman's exhausted mind, but she couldn't find the answers.

Champion.

Perhaps it was back because she was back? Or, rather, her emotions. Her humaneness, humanity. When the coyote had bit her, that pain had scrubbed back some of the mold growing over her, a numbing fungus that she had willingly accepted but had not known the cost that would be included. A sickening, horrible numbness. A lack of empathy, of caring. To simply exist and do what she was told. They had told her it would be the easiest way to accept her new life, that she might last longer. That it would be less painful to not feel anything, to not care.

She had to agree. It had made it easier in so many ways...but it was also wrong. She had known, deep, deep down that it wasn't right, that it wasn't her, not really. She was trapped in a sticky web, barely able to think in a way that many took for granted. To think with emotion combined with logic, that was how humans worked. It was how most beings functioned, for better or worse. To function with just logic...well, that made things difficult in social settings, in communication, in creativity, in, well, everything.

She had almost been lost entirely to that sticky web of numbness, if a coyote shifter hadn't bit her leg just hard enough to send jolts of pain right through that web. To wake her up just a little, just enough to fight. Just enough to turn it back on, then disable the switch to turn it off again. She never wanted to not feel again.