Are you familiar with the Exalted RPG? If not, I suggest you become so. It's pretty cool.
Anyway, this is a crossover fan-fiction featuring the Dresden Files and Exalted. You should be able to understand it even if you know jack squat about Exalted.
I didn't write this; I'm reposting it for somebody on the Exalted forums.
Not sure if this is exactly the right board, but this has to do with RPGs and with the Dresden Files so I figure this one is as good as any other.
Here goes:
[WARNING: A little bit of Doctor Who's voice may have slipped into Harry Dresden's while I wasn't looking]
"Mab."
Everything was in place, the neat little circle all drawn. Candles too, a nice little touch.
"Mab."
This is it, this is the end of Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden as you know him. Really, I dunno how long she'll let me stay as myself.
"Ma-"
The words never leave my lips, it's kind of hard to talk when someone's shushing you. I guess it's gotta be human instinct, when someone puts their fingers on your lips you shut the hell up. When we're a bunch of dirty cavemen huddling together in a dank dark hole, you better shut the fuck up or everyone's getting eaten by saber tooth tigers. Those who don't get their throats slit and left to slow down the tigers. Ergo, natural selection.
I thought I must have actually completed the summoning, I thought I summoned Mab. My first guess was this was Mab right in front of me. My second guess was Titania for some reason. Pale as the moon, that's the right word. Not as pale as snow or as the sun on a hot summer day, but the moon. I was getting a ton of moon vibes from this woman. It's one of those things with particularly powerful beings, unless they're trying to be subtle they tend to spell out their nature.
You would give up everything you were.
You would become what you abhor.
You would tear down all the rules you upheld.
And all for the sake of love.
"Oh man, you know me pretty well but I dunno you," I said as my mouth motored, "Are you stalking me on Facebook? Usually, that's my brother, on account of him actually having a Facebook."
And you would mock me. The silver white lady leaned forward, hovering over me. She reached over and she grabbed my staff, leaning up next to my paralyzed guy bed, lifting it up, You have got some vitriol dipped brass balls on you.
"While I love beautiful women admiring by balls and touching my staff, I'm afraid I've got my soul to sell."
Not this day, Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden.
Well, that made me flinch. Not just what she said but how she said it. It wasn't that she used all the right cadences but she used the wrong ones. Like wrong at every point, in every possible way, in the exactly right way. The only way she could have done that is if she knew how to say it the right way and then purposefully decided to turn it upside down. It'd be comparable to her saying it backwards, except not.
Today you change. Today you win.
"A winner is me?" Honestly, I couldn't help myself.
My Shard has not presented you a single test because you passed every one life set before you.
It was kind of like the camera had been focused on her and it panned out to show the audience the scene had changed. I had really been focused on her, almost the same way I'd be focused on Mab. She was just as beautiful except it was kind of hard for me to pin down how. I mean, I'm Harry Dresden, I like the ladies, but every time I tried to cop a feel with my eyes it was like I was looking at something different. Her body was like the Twilight Zone.
When that camera of my confused and wandering gaze panned out, I noticed we weren't in Father Foothill's sickbed any more and most importantly I wasn't in my clothes anymore. Neither was she as she climbed on top of me.
"Okay. I think it's fair to warn you that I might not be functional down-"
Then she reached under me, just above my butt, and unbroke my back with a sharp crack. I could tell because I have never, ever have felt my legs so much until then. All of my little piggies were wiggling with joy.
"Nevermind then."
From there her hand trailed over my body and where her fingers went, silver lines were left behind, scrawled into my skin. She was tattooing me and despite Butters's insistence I got the impression that these weren't gonna go away.
Now you take up new titles although a few you technically already have. Witch. Warden.
"Wizard. Wiiizard. Witches are for girls."
But these ones are new, and I give them to you freely, with no strings attached. Lunar. Exalted. Chosen of the Me, Luna, the Moon.
"So, these titles, do I get to freely tell you 'No'?" I asked the Moon.
Luna smirked at me, reaching up to my forehead. I could feel her scrawling more there, a pair of crescents that formed a circle.
No.
"Oh, alright then."
I looked down over the marks she was scrawling into my body. I couldn't make out what they meant but they seemed to be chronological, they were telling a story on my body. Lost and gain, betrayal, fire, fear, so much fear and then a spot of hope, growth and victory after victory by the skin of my teeth. Hell's Bells, this was my story! This was as good as my Name written all over my skin in abstract scrawl minus the actual words.
This was freaking me out. Okay, this was freaking me out MORE. I dunno who this Moon Goddess was, I never heard of her. Oh, I've heard of Moon Goddesses named 'Luna', I have heard of a dozen of them, but I never heard of any wanting a piece of Harry Dresden. Also this Shard business, had she tagged before? I wonder if I could still call up Mab, devil you know and all.
It would be useless here, not in the sanctum of your own soul.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fu-
"So how can I trust you?"
You can't. She laughed. I heard a chorus of laughter, females, males, things. Like I said before, when they aren't trying to hide it, powerful beings tend to reveal their nature. Most of the time, they're a little subtle, it's considered bad decorum and bad sense to flash your nature bits all over the place or people go figuring out your weaknesses. Luna, I could tell, was an amalgam of many beings and the fact that she didn't give two wits about showing it worried me.
But if you're curious, I can tell you my story. You're not obligated to believe me.
Alright, I'll bite, I was curious. It not like it looks like I've got a choice and hey, she unbroke my back, so maybe she gets a few words in edgewise.
My sisters and my brother wanted to rebel against our masters and creators, but they had designed us to be unable to raise a hand against them. So we broke off Shards of ourselves and made them choose mortals that would please us to have our power. We made it so we could not order our Chosen, or our masters would make them turn away. We made it so we could not take back our power, or our masters would order us to do so. So even after our Chosen defeated our masters, these Shards of our power kept choosing mortals who would use our power according to their own free will.
Alright, so in a sense, I got this free ride because she and her siblings had to give it to me so they could take advantage of a loop hole in their in-built geas. Actually, sounded a helluvalot like the Knights, in that they could do what the Queens couldn't. Sounds like Luna had to be even more hands off than the Queens. I still had questions though.
Ask away. I'm not done yet.
Hell's Bells! That's creepy.
"Okay, um, first off, how come I never heard of...?"
The Exalted. My sisters' Chosen have always been more subtle and much more... controlling. In fear, my sisters' Chosen locked away my brother's and my own Shards in a succesful coup, although one by one my own Shards have wormed their way out of their prison and back upon the Emerald Mother, this has only been recently.
Relatively, I imagined.
Around the 1500's, by your reckoning.
Yep.
"So, if these Shard things operate on their own, how come you're here?"
Just because they don't need me doesn't mean I can't help. I do enjoy this personal touch. And your Spirit Guide has been unnaturally quiet, so I think you deserve a few pointers while I'm here.
"Alright, um... damn, now I have another question."
Your questions about what a Spirit Guide means will answer itself.
Oh, well, that's convenient.
"Okay, how long have I had this Shard?"
Since you defeated the Hetakonchire called He Who Walks Behind.
That.... that's a long time. I would have repeated that sentiment out loud, but I'd figured out that that wasn't necessary.
Had my brother's Shards not been locked away, I am sure one of them would have chose you. But they were still locked away in a prison powered by their own perfection at the time.
Well that just raised some easily read implications.
They broke out a few years ago, She clarified. She let her eye wander down my chest and smiled a smile that made me flush as I realized she was doing more then checking her work, although she was doing that too. This Moon Goddess actually intimidated me a little, intimidated me a lot, and getting checked by her was a little- was very worrying. She seemed satisfied though.
One more thing.
She hefted my staff and tossed it behind me. Before I could turn around and see where it went, and wonder why it existed in my soulscape when my clothes didn't, she grabbed my arms and forced them apart, keeping me from turning. I was also standing up, don't know when that happened.
Your Guide. I may take part in the Tatooing by choice but your Guide must take part in it.
"And if there is one thing about your life's story, Harry Dresden, is that it is one written in pain."
Before my brain could fully realize who's voice that was behind, I felt a sharp searing pain drive horizontally across my back. I realized my staff was being used as a cane to lash into me. It happened again, four more times at oblique angles and somehow I could feel the pattern it made, a pentagram. Luna dropped me and I fell to my knees on the blank black soulscape, turning around to see her, a woman that haunted my mind for a very long time.
"I've only now made this Spirit Shape, Harry Dresden, but I pulled it from your higher soul, from your memories," She said, "You may like the name that comes with it."
Luna knelt down behind me and whispered in my ear, a name that I knew was this apparition's as well as my own, since she was as much part of me as she was part of her.
Five Wings And Five Lashes.
But I knew what else to call her.
"Lash."
