The GarouMUSH Log Page of Clemency Haynes

Bawn: Northern Forest(#3012RA)
Dark and forboding woods stretch in all directions but the north, the trees close together as if they were soldiers closing ranks against the enemy of Man. The trees here are tall, and close off all light from above, like they were pillars in some vast cathedral to Nature. Songbirds flit between the branches and the snuffling of small animals comes from the brush if one listens close enough. The busy interstate highway to the north, though, drowns out most of the subtler sounds in that direction.
The northern edge of the bawn is marked here by the unavoidable length of Interstate 90. Near it, the sounds of traffic drown out the more natural sounds of water and wildlife. In all other directions, the traffic noise recedes into the background.

Saturday night, one song once said, is alright for fighting. Clemency, as she strides imperiously across the bawn, certainly looks as though this Saturday night, she'd be glad to fight anyone or anything that looked, breathed, or sounded wrong that had the misfortune to cross her path.

That stride is unmistakable, as unique to Clemency as her scent, and so, after a period of time, the Fang may notice the low sounds of someone approaching. Someone with way too many foot-treads to be human, and someone that isn't taking any care to be quiet herself, as she's moving rather quickly, on a direct line towards Clemency.

Clemency isn't unaware of the sound. She comes to a halt, indeed, and turns to face the source of the approaching steps, a half-smile forming on her face as she detects the steps which she recognises just as the other has recognised her.

Fire-Eyes fairly bounds out of the undergrowth, with all the exuberance one might expect from a far younger (and for that matter, smaller) puppy. Fat as the moon is, she seems to be in a considerably good mood. Fire-Burns-rhya! Hello.

Clemency's dark mood seems to abate as the sight of the extra-limbed metis brings her usual caring mood out of cold storage. "Morgan! Hello there, my child. Haven't seen you for a good long while." She squats down as the wolf comes springing towards her, and greets her with a good hard neck-rub and a fuzzle behind the ears.

Fire-Eyes seems a little taken off guard by the sudden physical touch, and she stiffens beneath Clemency's hands--a thing which abates, if slowly, and if only a little. Still, that's done nothing to her general mood. This one has been here for a while. And Culls-Herd-rhya says no cubs are to go to the two-leg place. Has Fire-Burns-rhya heard?

"Fire-Burns-Rhya has been busy trying to stop the Veil get torn apart in the city," Clemency says. "Fire-Burns-Rhya had to hit some little bastard with a baseball bat because he stabbed Stone-Spirit-Rhya with a blade, the punk. So you're marooned out here again? Hell."

Fire-Eyes licks her muzzle. Yes, she replies to the last question. But she has gathered all her stories except one, so maybe she will not have to stay out here for very much longer. One ear tips back, and then she settles onto her haunches. Wyrm things came to the two-leg cub place. They were killed, but Culls-Herd-rhya has said cubs have to stay here for now, and elders should bring them food. And Circle Keeper-rhya killed many Wyrm things, and he killed a Wyrm thing in the scab, and Bloods-Bane-rhya is going to tell his story, and now he's Fostern because he passed Fights-For-Hope-rhya's challenge. The metis seems terribly pleased over this.

For a moment, Clemency seems confused. "I didn't know Bloods-Bane had..." she begins, evidently thrown off the track by the speed with which Fire-Eyes delivers this news. Lupus "speech" is never all that easy for a homid eye to read. Then the true meaning of the news comes to her, and for a moment she looks very, very ugly indeed, and even more willing to fight the first thing she sees that looks at her wrong.

Never let it be said that Fire-Eyes isn't sensitive to mood shifts--her own change is abrupt and dramatic. Her ears slick back, her tail tucks as tightly as it can, and she shuffles instantly out of immediate arm reach. Her body language turns thick with confusion and un-directed guilt. Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry!

"Not your fault if a lumber-headed Get is fool enough to agree that a cockeyed fool of an Uktena is worthy of fostern," Clemency replies ungraciously. She picks up a fallen twig and snaps it viciously in half. "What's this about gathering stories?"

There's a twist in the visual signals coming from the metis cub. She doesn't seem to consider flattened ears and tucked tail to be good enough, so she flattens herself entirely against the ground, as low as she can get. Still, what she says is unmistakable, and only one word. No. No, no.

Clemency gives a long deep sigh, and then shifts. Up through the forms to crinos, down again the other way, until she's a white wolf standing over the cowering Fianna wolf. She ducks her head and gives Fire-Eyes' flattened ear a very gentle nip. I am not angry with you, she tells the cub.

Fire-Eyes closes her eyes, and states, with an apology and a flinch already threading into the words, that Circle Keeper-rhya is not...is not that. He is not what Fire-Burns-rhya has said.

Fire-Burns stands there a moment, muzzle still against the cub's ear, while digesting that nervy but defiant statement. No, she agrees then. No, he is not, and neither is Reflection, and my words were bad.

Fire-Eyes's utter stillness at having uttered those words gives way to relieved trembling, and she turns her muzzle to lick at the underside of Fire-Burns' chin.

Fire-Burns rolls over and lands on her flank, golden-green eyes looking at the metis. Even if Circle Keeper were very very very bad I would still not be angry at you, galliard. You tell news, you do not make news.

Fire-Eyes rests her head on her forepaws, and though she's still trembling slightly, her tail untucks and begins to wave gently from side to side. She knows Fire-Burns-rhya would not. She forgot.

Fire-Burns rolls over a little so she's pressed half against Fire-Eyes. You are a good cub and soon will be a good cliath and then we will be able to fight together, yes, fight Wyrm and fomori and bad things.

Fire-Eyes's tail waving ups slightly in speed. Yes, she agrees. Maybe soon. Fire-Burns-rhya? This one has gathered many, many stories now. She has every one that she needs except for one from Falcon's children. Can she ask again for one?

Fire-Burns's flank rises and falls as she breathes. Of course, she tells the cub. Of course you may. I shall tell you a tale of a hero of our tribe so that it will inspire you and you can remember it. Would you like that, beetle-cub?

Thump, thump, thump goes the waving tail against the ground. Yes, Fire-Burns-rhya. Yes, I would like that very much.

Fire-Burns rolls away from Fire-Eyes a little once more, in order to be able to shift back up as far as crinos without squashing her under her increased bulk. ~Then listen and attend,~ she says as she settles down into a seated position, ~to the tale of Snow-in-Summer, Ragabash of the First Tribe, and how she came to be recognised as an adult garou and to take that name. For she was not always so called. She was a pup once and they called her Sticky-Fur because when she, wolf-born pup that she was, was newly changed and taken into care of the tribe, she found a treacle barrel at the farm, and fell in and all but drowned herself.~ The crinos's tongue lolls out in a moment of amusement.

Fire-Eyes licks her muzzle and settles in, much as she usually does, going quite still as Fire-Burns begins. Her ears lift high, nearly straining to get higher, but other than that she's completely immobile.

~Then as now,~ Fire-Burns goes on, ~those born of wolves did not find it easy to make their way among humans, yet then as now, they needed to learn to. So when her time was ready, the elders set her a task. There was a village nearby, where some of the villagers had caught sight, somehow, of Garou. Her test for adulthood was to mend the veil in that village, to convince the villagers that nothing they had seen was anything but normal. So she took on the two-legged form and dressed appropriately, and to the village she went. She used all her new-moon cunning, and when she got there, she went straight to the village elder and said she had an important message for him.~

Fire-Burns continues. ~She told him that the word had spread of how villagers had seen strange things, and she asked him to fetch the witnesses. They came, and so did other villagers. Sticky-Fur stood up in front of them all, and... she spoke, in her halting Russian. She said she knew that some had mocked the witnesses for claiming to have seen terrible beasts, and some had said they were drunk on vodka, or making the story up to make them seem important. But she was here to show them all that the men were right all along, that there were werewolves! Yes, the ragabash cub said that... as though she cared nothing for the Veil. And when some people laughed and asked her how she knew, she said brazenly that she was one herself! And would show them! She fell to the ground, and started to roll around, and her homid throat made noises that were meant to sound like barking... but,~ Fire-Burns says, fixing her gaze on the metis, ~she did not shift. She remained in her homid form. And the noises she made,~ she goes on, ~were a signal to another of the tribe, Three-Apple-Pips, who she had planned all this with. Three-Pips came running in, dressed in the style of a doctor, and called for silence... and by his gift of Persuasion, silence there was, from all save Sticky-Fur who kept rolling around and dribbling and trying to bark with her homid throat. Three-Pips told the villagers that he was a doctor from a home for the insane many miles away, and that one of the patients had escaped and made her way to this village. He had tracked her down and found her, and would now take her away where she could be looked after and not hurt herself or bite people any more because the poor, deluded, crazy girl thought she was a werewolf, and of course, such things do not exist. So the villagers helped Three-Pips tie up the cub and take her away from the village, and the villagers were so amused by the events on the day that the mad girl came to them, that nobody could ever talk about werewolves in that village again without being laughed at. So it was that by breaking the Veil apart, Sticky-Fur actually mended it and made it stronger, in the true way of a Silver Fang ragabash. And so it was that she was accepted as cliath of the Garou Nation, the first rise in rank she gained, but not the last.~ She relaxes as the tale ends.

Fire-Eyes wriggles as the tale comes to a close, as if she felt the need to get rid of her excess squirminess. That was a very good story, Fire-Burns-rhya! I will remember it, and tell it to Howls-for-Glory-rhya.

Fire-Burns folds her huge hands into each other, and stretches her fingers. ~She was a great hero of the garou. Our galliards still sing of her. Is your task now completed, then? Do you need any more?~

It is done, Fire-Eyes confirms as she lets her tongue loll to one side. She thinks there are other things, maybe, that Howls-for-Glory-rhya wants her to do, but she has all of the stories now, even his.

Fire-Burns finishes stretching her fingers and reaches out to scritch the metis's neck with her big clawed crinos hand -- carefully. ~Then run and tell Howls that your collection of tales is complete. For my part, I shall go to my old pack's territory. I no longer claim it, but none guard it now, and I like to visit sometimes to make sure all is well nonetheless.~