“Ah! Jacob right on time.” Hovel was saying as she came to the side of his desk, and crossed her arms at her back.

“Hovel...” Jacob replied politely, then he yawned flashing his fangs.

“God it feels like I’ve been a sleep for years. That Bane sure hit me hard enough to make me think about sleeping that long. Anyway, I got your summons. So I’m just stopping by to let you know a few things.” Jacob snarled and hoisted a hand. He ticked of a finger. “First of all? Don’t ever fucking summon me again!” He growled. Then the Lion King raised another finger, and continued. “Secondly how many times have I told you....!”

Hovel rolled his eyes and shouted over the Shifters tirade.

“Stop! Whatever this is, can’t it wait Jacob!? GOD’s, here I was wondering how long it was going to take you to return! How on earth you manage to take two days to clean and feed Brandon is beyond me! I had to summon you!” Hovel murmured.

The name of the abomination was weird to her ears possibly because she had never know the unclean child had a name of his own, until two weeks ago. Blue eyes flashed as the Grand Master glanced around as if expecting to see someone else. Then with a sigh and a steely point of his finger the Alchemist’s asked. “Where is the boy Jacob? You said you would return him. Two days ago.”

Jacob yawned again, larger and wider, and with a languid stretch he groaned out loudly. “WEllll, that’s what I came to tell you actually. I meant to come by last night when it happened, but the Fever came upon me and I had to seek out rest.” Jacob concluded his stretch, by shaking his head, and continuing. “As of yesterday the Lil Ones with his Leopard. I placed him back with his Love, I felt it was best considering...”

Ann could see bags of exhaustion under the Lions eyes.

She knew why the Beast was loyal to Hovel. She knew why the Lions had chosen to stand with the Alchemists’ in their war with the Heavens. She knew that his kind wished to be free of sickness, in much the same way that Mana users wished to be free of their mortality.

The Lion looked relaxed and collected, but the exhaustion in his eyes, the pale parlor of his skin and the slight hump that he held in his side, were indications that he was in agony....perhaps the attack by the Bane had exacerbated his condition?

Ann contemplated this information for a moment, but then her brain blipped on something he had said and like a startled parrot she couldn’t help but repeat it.

“His love?” She heard herself softly question in confusion.

“The Reaver...” Jacob snarled as he rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.

Ann started to ask another question. Her mind rocked with the new information.

“The Reaver is none of you concern Ann, be silent!!” Hovel snarled, snapping his head in her direction, then slapping her hand on the desk and pinning Jacob with a snarl. “Jacob this was not our agreement!? Why did you put them back together? For what purpose!?”

Jacob tapped a steely claw to his chin, and sneered at the Alchemists before him. “Do I need a purpose?”

Ann swallowed and glanced at the Master as Hovel slammed a fist on top of his desk, shuffling papers. His drawn face, just managing to flush with a light red of frustration and violence. “Yes Goddamn it! I told you that we needed the boy back here as soon as possible!” Hovel bared his teeth.

“Why would you intentionally delay this process? The Bane grow weary! It is now for the boy to give me the stone! You shouldn’t waste our time like this! You requested that I let you clean the boy up and I allowed you to do so. I never said that you could waste more of my time doing such an idiotic thing as reuniting Brandon with that animal!” Hovel shook his head and stiffly spat. “You will go back and retrieve him this instant.”

Jacob laughed, a deep, merry sound that managed to be genuine and also harsh. “Hovel, you can barely breathe without wanting to topple over.” He pointed out with a derisive glare at the Grand Master.

Hovel went to shout and instead he dissolved into a fit of rasping coughs that both Ann and Jacob frowned at.

“Who cares where the Lil One is right now...? Your damn sure not going to be able to do SHIT to him in your current state, oh Grand Master. So get your fucking panties out of your ass about it!” Jacob turned about the room. “He’s with the leopard and that’s that! It’s not like he’s going anywhere! Besides he needed to be with the Shifter. They needed time.”

Ann, glanced at the Lion, and glimpsed a strange mixture of pain and arrogance in his eyes. The expression forced her to speak even though she knew she was breaking Hovels command. “I don’t understand? Why would he need to be with a Shifter? What would be the point exactly?”

“The Point? Ha! Did you not understand? They are lovers.” Jacob shrugged. Then he quirked an eye at her as she gasped.

Ann wasn’t sure if she gasped at the idea of the abomination and the Shifter being lovers, or because she felt a sudden and unexpected zing of sympathy for the couple that utterly unsettled her.

The abomination was soon to die. And that Leopard would never again see the light if she knew anything about anything. They were going to die and die alone.

“Humph, don’t be so disgusted Alchemist. You ever been in love Sister Ann? Most people who have loved and loss, would give anything to have the chance to say goodbye. Anything...” The Lion balled up his fists and his eyes turned to the side. “I gave them that chance because it needed to be given. Everyone deserves to have that chance simply because death is too final for all of us. Shifter or mortal. So I put them together.”

I never got the chance...

Ann heard herself beginning to lament, then with a sharp painful clench of her hands she let her nails slice into her palms, and snapped with a viscous tone.

“But he’s half an abomination. A lowly creature!” Sister Ann sneered trying to find some foot to stand on. Tried to find strength in her teaching and understandings. “He’s not mortal! He doesn’t love and neither can you or any of the other Shifters! None of you beasts feel love like mortals do! You can’t. You don’t have souls like us...”

Privately she rebuffed him.

You would never understand this emotion that chokes me now.

Jacob smiled softly at her, then he sauntered across the room and put his hands on the desk. “Abomination. Creature. The way you spit our name I spit out the name Mortal.” Jacob snapped. “Let me clue you in on something Sister. I know they’ve been feeding you this bullshit about mortal superiority for years, and there may be some things about your kind that is superior to other races. But little girl, I have lived and walked this earth for a millennia and there is one thing that Shifters can do better than any mortal ever did, and that’s love.” Jacob shook his head.

“WE call it Mating. You Mortals meld bodies and speak pretty words inside a meaningless chapel. You play at love. But when a Shifter Mate’s, it is in the soul, something you don’t think we posse. It happens with everything in them, and the bond is real and cherished by Shifters all over the world. Brandon and that Leopard are Mates and their bonded status is something highly respected in Shifter Culture.”

Jacob glanced away, and put a hand to his breast, before he pointed to the giant tome of writing sitting in the glass beside Hovels desk. The Creed of the Brotherhood gleamed in the pal light. Everything she knew. Everything she had been taught. Everything she believed in about the destiny of the Mana users and the power of their place in the world sat within those ancient glossy pages, but the lion’s words somehow were the only thing she could understand

“Despite what is taught to you Novice? What we beast’s feel is just as real if not more so then a mortals or an Alchemist and that is sad to me.” The Lion sneered as he pinned her with a condescending laugh. “To be SOOO superior, you Alchemists live alone and die alone...every single time. And that will never EVER change. Your very nature as men destroys and corrupts everything you create. That boy, that abomination, that creature? He has something you will never have and can never attain with that Leopard. A love you will never feel or achieve no matter what you do. And from where I’m standing that makes him superior....Don’t you think? Don’t you think that deserves our respect if not our mercy?”

Ann bristled and bit back in anger...and terror that his words made even a little bit of sense to her. This was a beast. His words, his thought’s, his everything was beneath her! And yet why did his words make something in her wither and ache. His words made more sense than the idea of an eternity as a god.

She took a step towards him and said “We are superior! We are going to live forever!” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself and she hated it. “Man over Beast! That is the promise made by the Bane to the Children of the Sun.”

Jacob tilted his head at her. “You foolish woman...You are mistaking hatred and empty promises for strength. Its is not.”

Ann made to slash a hand across her, as if to ward him away. “And you pretend to know the ways of beings better then you. You know nothing Of OUR GOD!”

The Lions response came back quick as a whip and just as painful.

“Better because of words, not by actions.” Jacob softly refuted her. “Well, I have something tangible to fall back on, and so does that boy and that Leopard...What about you? What do you have besides words?”

Nothing tangible...but pain.

Ann shuddered and screamed. “I have the eternal promise and it is not hollow! We have a promise that has carried countless Brothers and Sisters to their destiny! And will exalt us above your kind!”

But the Bane never promised you death by their hand...did they? They said they would lift all their Children to a higher existence free of strife and death...and yet they killed their child. Killed Eric. So what does that say about their promise for eternal life? What does that say about everything?