Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine
It was a dark and stormy morning as Caylor Holtstedder was driving her VW bug home after a gruelling night working the emergency room at the hospital in Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald, where Caylor was a nurse. Caylor was dead tired at a twelve hour shift and this was her first chance to get away. She had inheired a small cabin on the outskirts of the Black Forest from her parents. It was simple, but Caylor called it home. The rain and the wind competed trying to knock Caylor off the road, but the German woman kept it the car stead. Caylor was momentarily blinded by a flash of lightning, and didn't see the figure rush out in front of her. There was a loud thump, and Caylor momentarily lost control of the car. She smacked her head on the steeringwheel before ending up in the ditch. Groggily Caylor relized what had happened. She just knew what she had hit must have been a person. The door of her car was practically ripped off when she opened it to get out. Rain pelted her without mercy and quickly Caylor was soaked to the bone. However, Caylor didn't notice.
Rushing back up the road Caylor saw a body laying on the side of the road. Her nursing training quickly kicked in and Caylor rushed to the aid of the person she hit. However, when Caylor bent to examine the person, she was taken aback. It was definately a woman, but her skin was dark as coal and her hair was the color of snow. She was also dressed in the most outlandish clothes Caylor had ever seen. It looked almost like the woman was wearing some kind of armor. Bending closer, Caylor was in for another shock. The womans' ears were pointed. Now Caylor was really scared. She didn't know what she had found. Caylor was tempted to run back to her car and get the Hell out of there.
However, when the woman let out a low moan, Caylor quickly changed her mind. A quck exam didn't show any major trama, but Caylor knew she couldn't take the woman to her hospital. Her only other option was to take this strange woman hope. The woman was suprisingly light and Caylor lifted her without much effort. Walking back to the bug, Caylor didn't notice with six pairs of glowing volpine eyes watching from the woods. Nor did she her the hunting horn as she put the VW in gear and sped away. The eyes quickly faded into the forest.
Back home, Caylor laid the strange woman on her couch and proceeded to remove her clothes that turned out to be some kind of lightweight armor. Caylor was mystified. Caylor deed a further exam of the woman and discovered a large bump of her head, and possibly some broken ribs. Nothing too challenging for Caylor. After she got the womans' ribs tightly bound, Caylor set about to get the fire going. She didn't realize that she was freezing as well. She changed into her robe and put her Grandmothers' quilt over the unconscious woman. Exhausted Caylor sat down in her fathers' overstuffed chair near the fire in exhaustion.
Caylor was awoken with a knife at her throat. The woman stood over her glaring at Caylor knife in hand.
"Do you serve him?" the woman growled in oddly accented German, "Do you serve the Jäger?"
"The Jäger?" asked Caylor.
The woman looked confused herself and stood back. The knife went with her. The woman stood in the middle of the living room a pained look on her face.
"The Jäger?" she said as if trying to remember herself. One hand went to her head as if thinking was painful. With a sob the strange woman crumpled to the floor, the knife forgotten. She sobbed "I don't know, I don't know."
Caylor was quickly out of her chair and comforted the woman. Finally Caylor was able to get her to lay back down on the the coach.
It was later that Caylor came to the conclusion that the woman was suffering from amnesia. She didn't know who she was, nor where she came from. Nor who the Jäger was. However, Caylor knew that the woman who Caylor called Alva wouldn't be welcomed in town, but also knew she was in no shape for traveling. Alva would need to stay here.
Alva has lived Caylor for the past three years. In all that time, she hasn't recovered her memories. However, Alva has taken to the woods, where she has helped people who've become lost or hurt. Those who've been lucky to encounter Alva have come to call her the Schwarzer Förster. Occasionally volpine eyes watch her and Caylor in their small cabin on the outskirts of the Black Forest in the darkest of night only to fade into the dark at the sound of a hunting horn.
Schwarzer Förster
