A Good Run of Bad Luck

Humanity wasn’t easy to destroy. There were things out there capable of doing great harm to fragile little human bodies, things that had been trying to stamp them out for thousands of years, but like weeds – or cockroaches, depending on how blunt you wanted the comparison to be – humans had clung on tenaciously. They were brutal at times, cruel, but capable of great love and creativity too. They picked themselves up after tragedies, carried on through the pain. They were, as Athena called herself now, as his family had called him and he’d reluctantly admitted to a time or two, stubborn. Noah knew that if the end came, like every almost every society on earth believed it would one day, people would be fighting to the very end. Punch drunk, bloodied and broken they’d stand shoulder to shoulder against whatever came. Noble, definitely self-sacrificing.

His family had always been the same way. From the very first Jacobsen to set foot in Boston, they’d been the ones rushing straight at the problem. Over the decades they’d gathered part of the supernatural population of the city into the fold. Vampires working to protect werewolves was rare, but not with his family. Noah’s laugh rolled out low, a little bashful, although the colour didn’t work its way too far up his face. ”Because I’m the sort of guy where you get exactly what you see,” he said honestly. ”We do that for each other, even if it means taking a little hot air of the ego from time to time.” Grounded was the right word for it. In that needling, that jabbing, they kept each other from shooting off in dangerous directions, tempering thoughts that could get them all hurt.

There were folks here in Mystic Falls who knew of his family at least. The hunter his dad had sent him to see had her ties, and there had been others. They were a network of sorts that he could rely on when his own family were still hundreds of miles away. Noah made a low sound of agreement in his throat before he nodded at Athena’s question. ”Not here in town, but I do back home. Boston. My family have lived there for a couple hundred years.” He’d been the first to really wander after that. What had been the alternative though? Sitting around in Boston, twiddling his thumbs until that nightmarish day came when his dad passed on the torch – which was only likely to happen if he died and there was no way Noah was letting that image too far into his head when he was this far away from home.

Mystic Falls had its own problems, ones he felt he needed to deal with before he went back home. It had proven to be nearly impossible when the doors were shut time against him. Usually he could talk his way through them, but that had been harder in New Orleans and Mystic Falls than it had ever been anywhere else. Noah tilted his head, his lips pursing for a moment. ”Not at all, which is why I’ve been trying to build bridges instead of tearing them down just to ‘get rid of a problem’.” He air quoted around the words. His sister might have been a hunter but they’d never gone into a situation just looking to eradicate it from the start.

This wolf Athena was tracking didn’t seem to be on the same track of thought. This wasn’t a matter of just talking people around, it had a sharper edge than that. Noah felt it in his chest as they slowed down for just a moment. His breathing was heavy, too heavy if he wanted to avoid the werewolf hearing him coming. ”Something a little more pedestrian huh?” he joked lightly. Noah offered her a half grin as she introduced herself, dipping his chin in a nod. ”It’s been good to meet you, Athena. Noah Jacobsen.” He spread a hand on his chest for a moment as he backed up. He guessed if something went bad now at least she had some way of tracking his family down. Not that it was going to go that way. Breathing lighter now, Noah ducked down the side alleyway, moving what he thought was parallel to Athena, trying to take what he thought was the logical way through town.

Up ahead he heard the scuff of feet, his eyes narrowing to try and make out what was there. Not likely to be their werewolf but you never knew when you were going to be lucky. Noah sidestepped, eyes darting all over the alleyway, looking for ways out, for any sign of movement. For Athena herself, charging in like some sort of angel of vengeance to deal with the problem.

Tagged: ATHENA PETROVA * Word Count: 798 (soz!)