Shadows Over Camp Darkness

Lines in the Sand

Gideon looked over the new intake she was expected to take care of and knew right off the bat that there was going to be a whole heaping pile of trouble to deal with this Fall. For one, she had a pair of addicts and a lot of ways for them to relapse. Add in a split personality and a goblin with a hoarding problem and there was going to be a lot of interesting fights in the intake House this year. But it was the two females with violent, suicidal tendencies that had her wondering what the Dragon was thinking, putting them in her care. The High Elf would be difficult to bring around to stopping the self harm, but at least her issue was straightforward. But it was the suicide case that had the Fury frowning in concern. She had the strangest sense that she should recognize the girl. And yet it wasn’t there, the name didn’t invoke memory and so the Councillor was left letting it slide until her subconscious could chew on it and spit out the information at a later time. Probably at three in the morning when she wasn’t sleeping anyways.

Pushing all her own concerns away for a moment, Gideon simply waited and stayed silent, knowing that this would garner their attention faster than any hooting or hollering for attention. When their babbling noises and emotional vacillations started to quiet down, Gideon dusted off her usual speech, feeling almost rusty after an entire year away from all of this.

“Welcome to Camp Darkness Intake One and Families. I am your Intake Councillor, Gideon. Parents, I need you to say goodbye now, you have five minutes.” Gideon announced, her words bringing surprise to the eyes of only one, and she left without further ado. Inside there would be screaming and crying, begging and cursing and a whole host of guilt and shame flooding the room. But out here in the cool air, it was just pleasant and Gideon closed her eyes, lifting her face upwards in the shaft of sunlight to enjoy the last seconds of her freedom.

Hearing one of the other doors nearby close, Gideon opened her eyes to see her friend Xavier, the golem, standing outside his own Intake room and grinning at her. He mimed drinking heavily from a nonexistent bottle and offering it too her over the distance. Gideon grinned and gave him a rather poor imitation of a courtly curtsey, making both the golem and the man who walked around the corner at the right time start to laugh. Gideon felt her eyebrow try to arch upwards as Virgil shamelessly laughed mockingly at her. The man was a Loki, a convict, not a House Councillor and her significant other. Or as close to significant other as a Fury could ever have. Her heritage was a mixed bag of dangerous and weird and his wasn’t even any better, considering that he was a descendant from a Trickster god of luck. Still, they managed to not kill each other yet and he was working in the Camp now too. He’d been one of those kids inside in the past though, just like she had. The Dragon, Doctor Cyr was using Virgil as a Watcher to help keep the Camp safe but he wasn’t in charge of any Intake.

A year ago on of the kid’s had been forced by his parents to do some seriously messed up Magics to turn the protective shield around the Camp, affectionately known as the Punt, into a Maelstrom. A monstrous being that would have slaughtered everything inside and then gone rampaging about in the civilian world for kicks. Gideon had surprisingly enough survived her battle with it, had even managed to kill the damn thing before she was going to die herself. Only Virgil had managed to save her life in a way that only someone who could re-arrange Luck could manage.

Gideon jerked herself out of memory lane as the door on the other side of her portable started to slam shut and she heard the rapidly fleeing footsteps of the parents bolting away from their children and guilt. Her five minutes were up. With a wink to Virgil and a grin at Xavier, Gideon headed back inside to see what kind of fun her kids would offer this year.

There were tears, anger, angst and an amusingly high amount of apathetic boredom floating around the room when she returned. The tears told her that the vampire hadn’t realized where he was yet, and the harsh reality of his situation was only JUST starting to sink in. It would be hard for the addict to handle, his feelings of abandonment from his family, especially once the withdrawal kicked in, but she’d keep him in line. The Nephilim looked confused, which was her clue that the Angelspawn side was dominant and he had no clue why he was here. The goblin, Hantu was looking miserable and crestfallen, knotted body hunted against his emotional burdens of shame.