𝚕𝚞𝚡 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚋𝚛𝚒𝚜 𝚕𝚞𝚌𝚎𝚝 (Shiva x Cyrano)

[Shiva the Cat]

It was a tradition before the start of every fall semester at Miskatonic University for Dr. Francis Morgan and his wife to hold a small get-together for the incoming Archaeology students, along with a few current favorites. The Morgans lived in a lovely brick house on French Hill looking down on the university, and of all the professors' wives Beatrice Morgan had the best reputation as a hostess. Her French cook had concocted all sorts of delightful hors d'oevres for the evening, and while wine was, of course, verboten, she made a punch that was so nice you could hardly taste it when the inevitable freshman gave it a spike later in the evening.

Most of the party guests were young men, however those that had sweethearts were certainly invited to bring along a female companion for the evening, and it wasn't unusual to see one of the girls from the English or History departments, or even the occasional member of the Nursing School on the arm of some bespectacled freshman or another. This year the Archaeology department only had one female student to call their own, the rather mousy and awkward Lucinda Cadwallater having graduated in the spring and gone on to a no doubt illustrious career dusting artifacts at the Smithsonian. Only the nineteen-year-old Rosemary Bishop was left now to represent the fairer sex in the department, and the rumor was it was by this virtue alone she had been invited to the party. Of course, such a rumor had originated with the few foolish lads that had dared to approach her last year with less-than-honorable intent, and those young men who looked at her with more respect (if they looked at her at all) had very little against the fact she had snapped up an invitation, particularly since she was accompanied tonight by the lovely Ophelia Waite.

The two girls lodged together in a boarding house just across the river, and had been close friends even before they had enrolled in the college. While they might have appeared as total opposites—Rosemary was tall and fair, while Ophelia was small and dark—and Miss Waite had come to study biology instead of archaeology, the two really did have more in common than one might have guessed. Both were from old New England families (Rosemary's pedigree could be traced all the way back to days of the Salem witch trials, while Ophelia's was said to be even more ancient) and said to be wealthy as princesses. They were both serious about their studies but not averse to social occasions such as the Morgans' party, and the pair could often be found spending late nights in the university library, poring over books on all subjects until the Head Librarian practically had to throw them out on their skirted behinds.

Of the pair, it was undeniable that Ophelia was much more beautiful--almost intimidatingly so--but Rosemary was known to be much friendlier and more outgoing. She'd grown up in the heart of Boston, with two older brothers and a younger sister to keep her on her toes, not to mention a respectable social circle of peers. Miss Waite on the other hand had spent most of her youth abroad with only her twin brother for company, their parents having died in their youth (under suspicious circumstances, if the Arkham gossips were to be believed). Other than Miss Bishop she didn't appear to have any friends at all, but the idea never seemed to trouble her too much.

Still, Ophelia had her own loose familial ties to Boston, and had crossed paths with Miss Bishop on a few social occasions growing up. During those meetings both girls had always gotten on surprisingly well, and had kept up a strong correspondence for years before they'd decided to enroll in the same university. Indeed, Rosemary had only decided to attend MU after she'd heard Ophelia had been accepted, and once her own place had been secured she had insisted the pair find lodgings together. While there had of course been the occasional disagreements between the girls since then, their first year of cohabitation had gone so well they'd decided to take the same rooms this term, despite the rather long walk it took them to get to class.

It would have been an even longer walk to the Morgans', but thankfully tonight Rosemary had managed to secure a ride in a fellow student's automobile, and the young man looked pleased as punch when he strolled into the Morgans' parlor with a girl on each arm, though both were quick to desert him after the initial greetings were made. Dr. Morgan always left his library and study open during these parties in the hopes of encouraging the guests to look over the strange artifacts he'd accumulated through the years, and never was a party so pleasing to him as when his students were busy conversing with one another about the strange objects. Not being particularly well-acquainted with the hosts, Ophelia had wasted no time in wandering off to look over his collection, but Rosemary at least approached Mrs. Morgan, ready with several polite questions about how her summer had gone.

She made quite a picture as she sat beside the older woman on the antique davenport, the dusky red fascinator in her dark blonde hair reflecting the light of a crackling fire and the electric lamps overhead. While her matching red dress wasn't quite as heavily draped with crystals and beads as the other girls, the stylish pin-straight silhouette still hung beautifully on her tall, stately form. Her makeup was understated (particularly when compared to Ophelia, who was fond of dramatically dark lipstick and eyeshadow) but it highlighted her high cheekbones and long thin nose wonderfully. Every now and then her cognac-colored eyes wandered over to the punch bowl, and her small plush lips curled into an amused smile as she saw the disappointment of the freshmen tasting the beverage. Clearly they had hoped the professor and his wife wouldn't be so fastidious when it came to the law.

After perhaps an hour or so of mingling, Rosemary had wandered into the library in search of her missing friend, but found the place deserted. She was about to leave again when she noticed a strange bit of pottery under glass that she didn't recall being there the last time she was in the Morgan house. She was so enthralled with examining it she hardly noticed the sound of another person entering the door behind her.

 

[CyranoDeBergerac]

"They're over the wire!" "BAR's light 'em up!" "Steady fire, steady fire!" " Riflemen pick your shots!" "AAAAAGH!"

They kept coming, on and on the army of the damned kept coming. Over the line and into the pocket the enemy charge, flares filled the sky, providing the only light to see by save muzzle flashes and and grenade explosions. Private Anthony Parks stands in his foxhole loading another .30-06 five round clip into the M1917 of his rifle. He pies a silhouette moving through the night and fires. The round takes the body in the chest. The body drops. Parks swears he saw the body get back up again. A rake of Grimm's BAR clears the way in front of them.

Anthony Park was not a soldier any more, he was a student again, a junior year student at Miskatonic University, studying archaeology, his passion. He was a boarder at the Lewiston House, at 181 E. College Street. $1.75 a day and keeping regular hours.

A mid-afternoon attack. Ammo was low. No relief. "Liquid fire!" someone screamed. "Liquid Hell! Get back where you belong!" came the answer from the Major. The Germans led their attack with flamethrowers, McNalley was roaring. Mason was crying. They fell back, Kaplan tripped and the fire engulfed him. Filling the air with his screams.

Parks had just gotten out of the shower, which was fortunate because he had broken out in a cold sweat as he leaned against the sink looking at his reflection in the mirror, his eyes scanned himself in the mirror. Scrawny, thin, boyish face aged too soon, brown eyes, once filled with idealism now dilated at the memories of the horrors they had seen and inflicted. He did not look like a soldier, save for the scars on his body, few men of the 308th Infantry Regiment came out of the Argonne Forest without some scars to carry with them. his hands white knuckled the side of the sink as the contents of his stomach threatened to rise up.

Chanting in the dark. Caves beneath the forest. Grimm blazes away on the machine gun, McNalley firing away with his rifle. Mason and Parks wailing in a dead language as the sound of grenades and gunfire deafens them. Martin wrestling a man in a robe to his knees as some thing fills the room. Dark deeds done in the dark. The smell of Ryan's blood, the sight of his brain's painting the grass.

Parks fought back the bile and slammed his fist into the wall, the pain of the blow banishing the pain of the blow. He stood there, breathing heavily and looking into his own unfamiliar eyes for a moment before regaining control. He was already late as it is, but he refused to miss the Morgan's party. He would finish his degree at M.U. and return to a normal life, his 'grand adventure' was completed and it was time for him to tend to the 'crops' like Diocletian. Taking a towel and wiping himself down he stepped into the second room of his one bedroom and bath apartment, the room littered with boxes of books and other effects that he had not unpacked just yet.

Anthony had been part of the original group of people that had begun the tradition of a get together at the Morgan's too mark the start of the semester. This was back in 1914 when Francis Morgan was still a graduate student working on his dissertation, but in the time since Anthony had gone to war Professor Morgan had become Dr. Morgan and a whole knew crop of students had come up now to fill the places of those who had graduated or passed on. Parks slid into his best suit, but since he had still not regained the weight he had lost in the Argonne and then at the hospital his brown suit coat was a little large on his frame. The rest of his attire fit him well, pants held up by suspenders and shirt buttoned tight.

It was not a long walk to the Morgan's house and he was greeted at the door by Mrs. Morgan who hugged him and said how happy Dr. Morgan would be to see him, though she was not quite certain where her husband had gone off to at the moment, probably off somewhere facilitating a discussion about Dura-Europos or Ashkelon or another such site currently being explored and worked on in the Middle East. No doubt they would want a 'soldier's opinion' on how the changing political dynamics in the former Ottoman empire might influence study in Mesopotamia. Anthony had smiled at that, even though he didn't think he could provide much of an opinion on modern geopolitics at the moment, then said that he would certainly find his way there eventually. Which he had been entirely honest about when he said it. However, he soon found that the prospect of being introduced, thanked for his service and then interrogated did not seem as appealing as he had originally imagined.

Remembering where the library was, Parks ventured up the steps and came to the place that he knew would be relatively quiet at this time in the party, many people were more focused on the social aspect of this get together to realize the caliber of knowledge that Morgan had left almost literally at their fingertips. Perhaps a moment spent int he peaceful library would calm his nerves enough for the rest of the night. Unfortunately, he found the library already had an occupant. A pretty young woman. 1920's M.U. was still much of a men's club, but they had recently opened up the instittuion more broadly to women as well. Anthony stepped into the doorway and cleared his throat to announce his presence. Then when he looked up at her to say something, he found himself lost for words.

 

[Shiva the Cat]

Rosemary was fascinated by the design on the side of the small clay pot. At first glance she would have guessed the vessel to be an incense burner of some kind, judging by the char marks around the top, and while the writing seemed reminiscent of the ancient Ardati tribes of central Asia, a few of the symbols seemed so warped they couldn't possibly have been letters of that language. And while it might have been a trick of the warm, green-shaded lights of the room, the girl could have sworn the delicate spiral etched on the edge of the pot was actually moving, and at the very center she could have sworn she kept seeing the face of an owl-like creature staring back at her.

As she circled around the piece, fighting the temptation to lift up the glass box protecting it and examine the artifact with her hands, Rosemary finally noticed she wasn't alone on the room. "Oh! Hello there. Didn't hear you come in," she said with a smile, straightening herself and trying not to look guilty. The young man who had entered the room was unfamiliar to her, which wasn't unusual considering the number of freshmen that had been invited to the party, but the more she looked at him she realized the guest was much too old to be just another incoming student at the university. Her dark blonde brows tilted slightly in confusion as she tried to place the rather gaunt (but not un-handsome) face. Had she met him at some other department social even last year? Was he another professor? Perhaps a distant relation of the Morgans' come for a visit?

"I'm sorry," Rosemary said finally with a sheepish smile and and awkward laugh. One long-gloved hand reached out to him in greeting as she approached the stranger, tilting her head up only slightly to look him in the eyes. "I don't believe we've met before, although if we have please don't think too poorly of me. It was a long summer, and I spent most of it up to my ears in so many books that I can barely remember my own name, let alone anyone else's," she laughed again. "I do remember it though: Rosemary Bishop. And you are...?"

Once the polite introductions were out of the way, a thought occurred to her and the young woman turned back towards the strange pot. "Say, you must know a thing or two about archaeology, right?" she asked, gesturing for him to follow her over to the podium. "Take a look at that. Ever see anything like that before? Judging by the look of the clay I'd say it was maybe Turkic? Doesn't look old enough to be Scythian, though I'd guess it's maybe from about that area geographically. I wonder where Dr. Morgan got it from? It wasn't here the last time I came to visit. Gosh but I'd love to get a closer look at it...oh! But don't tell him I said that." A soft pink blush bloomed on Rosemary's cheeks. "I almost broke an Incan death mask during my first lab last year. Boy, but I thought he was going to throw me out of the department then for sure!"

She had returned her gaze to the pot, but the artifact now needed to vie for her attention against the strange new gentleman. Rosemary had enough male friends that she could recognize that strange, shadowy look in the stranger's dark eyes; most of the boys she'd known that had gone overseas came back with it, if they came back at all. The Bishop family had been lucky; their sons had been assigned to the medical and engineering corps. John had spent his short time overseas working at a hospital in London, and George stayed in the US, helping Curtiss perfect aeroplanes. And the girls of course had all remained at home to knit socks and roll bandages, although for a time Rosemary had seriously considered switching her area of study from archaeology to medicine with the hopes of becoming a Red Cross nurse. Of course by the time she finally finished high school it was all over and the choice was practically made for her, but sometimes when she looked at some of the other students that had seen the horrors, she couldn't help but think it had all been for the best in her own case.

"Have you been in Arkham long?" she asked finally, deciding that was the most delicate way to open the subject. "I don't recall ever having seen you around campus before. Of course this is only my second year, but you know how people do tend to socialize." Especially when there were ten boys for every girl enrolled at the college, and most were tripping over each other to introduce themselves to the Miss Bishops and Miss Waites of the college.