Set c. 1829, written in response to cluudle‘s question on the last story.

It is possible Regine would never have noticed the woman.

She was a half-breed beggar, sitting in the halls of the mighty because the humans would not have her, or so Regine assumed. She was skinny, wretched, and here, here in the stronghold of the Grigori in America, she was un-Masked, her doggy ears flapping and her doggy tail twitching under her skirt.

Regine dropped her a dollar, because she could spare it, and then another dollar, for Falk, and would have thought nothing else of it, except that the wretched woman tugged at her skirt.

“Lady, there are things you must know.”

“There are many things I must know.” Her father was already walking on ahead. She knelt down to look at the woman, intrigued despite herself. The half-breed reached out and grabbed Regine’s hand with both of her own. She blinked, and her eyes were white, with lightning in them.

“The storm is coming, Lady of the Lake. The waters will rise and all will be flooded out. All will burn, all will die. The storm is coming, Lady, the fathers are coming back. And everything will be destroyed.”

“Regine! Regine, what are you doing? You are going to be late to the meeting.”

“I am sorry, Father.” She was thirty years old. She was married, with a young child of her own. She let her father take her hand as if she were a toddler, the storm in the half-breed’s eyes still flashing in her mind.

“I don’t know why we let those half-breed mutts in here anyway…” her father was muttering.

“Because the storm is coming, Father.” The truth was as clear to her as day, as sudden as lightning. “And we will need them.”

Her father did not listen, of course. But that was all right. She would find those who would.

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