The GarouMUSH Log Page of Clemency Haynes

"One solo trumpet, drowning out the rest of the orchestra. It’s ballsy, and heavy, and it kicks a lot of ass. It always reminded me of you…”

2006-06-20T16:35:00.000-07:00

The sun’s barely up, and the world is still cool and quiet and damp, hinting promise at rain later. Thomas Grey, looking dark-eyed, tired, and ten years older, sits crosslegged on the ground, not far from John Smith’s marker — Clemency herself has no marker as of yet. The Silver Fang’s duffel sits open at his side, and in his hands are a collection of the photographs that she left; he’s placing them one by one on the ground, right-side up.

It would seem that Grey wasn’t the only one with the idea to come alone to the burial site. Emma chose to take the long walk in homid, and when she finally nears the area enough to have visual of it, she pauses, somewhat surprised to see the other perhaps. There’s that awkward moment that goes with it; make noise, or turn around and come back later? For the time being, she hovers there indecisively and silent.

Grey pauses a moment, just before setting down the last picture, that of the Fang’s young son; the rest of the pictures are group photos of Clemency with her old pack. The Glass Walker’s head cocks, and then he shifts himself around and squints at Emma. He doesn’t smile, but the tension that had flickered up in him when he sensed a witness fades away. He gives her a nod, then turns back to set down the photo of the little boy.

Emma looks to the grizzled Walker and takes in a deep, quiet breath. “I wasn’t ready to say anything yesterday.” She takes a few steps closer then, eyeing the mound with a heaviness in her spirit.

Grey grunts. “You were there, at least.” Not that he was, though he looks like shit. Reaching into the duffel bag, he takes out a bottle of good black vodka and a shotglass. The shotglass gets set into the dirt in front of the collection of photographs, and then he starts undoing the seal on the unopened bottle.

Emma gives a faint nod, “You’re here now. I think she’d know better than most we don’t exactly follow the exact order of how things go.” She stops a few yards back still, “She’d probably be disappointed if we did.” Though the words may be light, the tone they are spoken is heavy and taut.

Grey grunts. “She did want these buried with her. Or burned with her.” He peels off the seal and works off the top of the bottle of Blavod and expertly pours a couple of fingers of the stuff into the shotglass. “Have to wait until there’s a marker, though, I suppose.” His voice is deep and thick with lack of sleep and repressed grief.

Emma gives a nod from behind the Walker and steps up closer. She squats down to look at the picture of the boy. “I never knew she had a kid.” Her arms fold at her chest, resting on her thighs as she remains squatted down. Her face is pale as she falls into a quiet stare.

Grey nods. “And a sister-in-law. Who will have, hopefully, received the message I sent her.” He sets the open bottle down next to the shotglass and then folds his hands together, with arms resting on his knees.

Emma waits a long moment before speaking again. “I don’t want the rest of us, fighting without eachother. Not if it can be helped.” She swallows, shaking her head, “Even one more of us there and this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Agreed,” says the Walker. He cocks his head, fixing his good eye on her. “How are the others doing? I haven’t seen them recently.”

Emma lifts a shoulder, “KL is she’s dealing with it her way. I owe her a long talk yet; that running off shit isn’t going to happen again. Laura is a rock. At least from my perspective.” She shakes her head as she stands up. “I’m the one that has issues with this shit.”

Grey grunts. “You have issues. I haven’t slept in two days.” This isn’t difficult to believe, looking at him. He grimaces, digging absently at the thick, greying beard. “Too many damned people dead, nearly dead, ruined…” He glances briefly over at Smith’s marker. “…And nothing you can do except to go on. At least, in this case,” he adds, looking back at Emma, “the Dancers died. And she was brought home for a proper funeral.”

Emma looks to him briefly, nodding her head. “Yeah. We owe that to Clem. No one else there would have lasted long enough to give the rest of the Sept time to find them.” She takes in a deep breath and stares at the grave. If there is more to be said, she’s chosen to leave it for another time. “This tire fire… it’s going to kill us Grey.”

Grey’s mouth twists. “We have a chance of winning it, but it will be… ugly. Multiple deaths, multiple battlescars, I imagine, and probably a few other nasty aftereffects from the balefire.” He tugs absently at his beard. “Our best chance is to get some water spirits to help out in the Umbra. The site’s close to a river, so they may be willing to join in. Earth spirits would be useful, too. Anything that will extinguish fire. The rest is brute force. We go in fast, close together, then circle.” Almost unconsciously, he leans forward and drags a finger through the dirt. “Those with a strong spirit-connection and those with that Gift that lets one shake of toxins and poisons at the front. Destroy it as fast as possible, before it kills us. Use a reserve to deal with any additional attackers, or let the spirits handle them.” He eyes her. “Was there more than one balefire spirit?”

Emma looks to the diagrams and listens intently. “Not that I had seen. But there was only three of us there that day- it didn’t need more than one to come show us the way out.” She looks down again, “We’re sadly short on Theurges around here you know. Laura, Olga, Jamethon and a bunch of cubs.” She draws a circle around the main rubble area, “And this circle is all smoke spirits, some are corrupt - but even the normal ones choke the breath out of you fast. The little tainted fuckers cut into you. It’s like running a gauntlet. If we want to attack in force at once, we need a clear path through them.”

Grey frowns thoughtfully, his brows lowered. “Mmnh. Air spirits could blow that shit away, but they could also fan the flames. At worst, we just grit our teeth and barrel through. Everyone stay together as we run the gauntlet, so that no one gets lost or left behind. Then spread out when we’re in view of the main target.”

Emma nods her head. “We need our theurges and whoever else to get out there and start recruiting the help of these spirits. Once we get the umbral fire dealt with, we’re gonna need a way to get the humans back into dousing realm side. Or we’ll be dealing with this again.”

Grey rubs out the crude drawing and brushes his hands together. “Anyone thought of alerting the EPA?”

Emma lifts her brow at that, “You think they’d be more proactive than the SCFD? It’s an idea, but it’ll be impossible for them to do anything until our end is cleared.”

Grey shrugs. “It can’t hurt to try.” He leans over to close shut Clemency’s duffel bag, which now appears empty. “Her sketchbook and other belongings are over at my place, if you or anyone else in the pack wishes to… claim anything. The sketches in particular.”

Emma nods her head, “I’ll look through them later. I’m going to spend some time out here thinking about things.” She moves a little bit away, and lands herself down to sit indian style. “I’ll get in touch with you as soon as I find out what the spirits can do.”

Grey stands up, leaving the empty duffel folded neatly near the other tokens for the dead Silver Fang. “Good. Be seeing you.” Leaving the objects arranged on the ground, the Glass Walker departs the burial mounds.

As the Walker leaves, Emma turns more thoughtfully to the grave site, eyes heavy and fists balled up tightly. “I’m sorry Clemency. I should have been at your side- we should have been fighting together. I won’t let it happen to the others, I swear on your grave.” Tears well up and the young Ahroun bites fiercly at her lip. “I miss you girl. You understood me like few others can.” A hand reaches into her pocket and a small cassette tape is taken out. “Figured, I owed you a trade. It’s Mahler’s Fifth Symphony.” The tape is pressed near one of the pictures. “Relative of mine- anyway, listen to the trumpet part. One solo trumpet, drowning out the rest of the orchestra. It’s ballsy, and heavy, and it kicks a lot of ass. It always reminded me of you…” At this point, the young Get stands up, wiping at her eyes furiously. After only a second more, she is shifted down into lupus, and running hurriedly through the woods.

"Fight on, awesome claw of Gaia."

2006-06-19T16:26:00.000-07:00

Burial Mounds(#3207RJ$)
This wide clearing in the midst of short, dark pines is rough with wild grass and bare stone. The air is a bit cooler up here in the foothills than below, and the majestic peaks of the nearby mountains rear up over the eastern treetops. There is a vine-covered boulder standing under the edge of the somber evergreens to the east. The air here is prenaturally still and the grass waves not at all for there is no breeze that blows through the pines. It is silent, no call of bird thrown from the treetops to dance gaily in the open spaces. Occasionally chill fingers run up your spine.

While the Rite of Heroes Pyre originated with the Get of Fenris and involved the burning of a boat, some of the other Tribes have modified the Rite to serve their own Tribal quirks. Vera's set up differs from the original version in that there is no boat, but a carefully constructed mound of deadfall and timber. The skins from two large animals, most likely deer, provide a bed atop the mound of wood. Clemency's body has been laid out on this bed, pungent herb burn around her form, obscuring the smell of decay and dead. Vera stands a short distance away, tending a small fire and wearing the Glabro form. She does not look up, or appear to show any real interest as Garou begin to appear to send Clemency on her way.

The arrival of Clemency's packmates comes in stark contrast. The Fury comes with a plastic bag, in which the clanking of bottles can be heard. The alpha of Havoc, however, comes with her arms folded across her chest and a serious and somber mood etched across her features. As she spies the pyre and the body lain on it, there is a shock of tension through Emma, but nothing is said.

From the general direction of the farmhouse, Walks-Middle leads her two cubs through the dark pines into the clearing. They shift from Lupus back into their birth form as they arrive.

Dillen comes in on his own, his spiky hair blowing in the breeze. The Get galliard nods to Emma his tribemate and stands before the pyre, chewing his lower lip sadly as he looks at Clemency's body. He seems to have something small clutched in his hand.

Helen arrives shortly after Stacey and her cubs, expression somber as she gazes upon the pyre and then gets about finding a place to stand, far enough away from Clemency's body so those that really knew her could stand a little closer. When Dillen arrives she waves to her packmate, but doesn't make a move to go over to say anything, staying right where she is.

Cries-No-More lopes in from the edge of the forest, padding towards the group gathering at the pyre. His mood would best be described as subdued, and he makes no notice of anyone in particular, nor says any hello's after shifting up and standing, eyes half-lidded and on the pyre, off to the side.

A few more people filter in, Laura arrives with a package in her arms, Reggie, and Blackriver arrive a short time later.

Once a fair number of people have arrived, Vera stands up with a fair amount of difficulty and with the aid of a walking stick. There appears to be something wrong with at least one leg. "We come here today," Vera grates in a heavy Glabro voice. "To honor one who fell in battle against the Wyrm."

Touch Deer watches on without any change in expression.

KL sets her bag of bottles carefully, with a minimal amount of clanking, and folds her arms across her chest, a wide, perhaps slightly forced, grin on her face. "Who died gloriously in battle," she remarks, quietly.

Emma turns her attention on to Vera as the Adren begins to speak, eyes focused there with some effort. At this point, she drops her arms and her hands fall into her pockets, the left one fussing with something buried in the denim hole.

Dillen fidgets a little as Vera begins her speech, but holds silence. His eyes meet Helen's for a few moments.

The two cubs stop a little way back from the pyre, finding a space to stand, and look up at the mound of timber solemn-faced. Beside them, Stacey whispers something quietly, then falls silent as the Rite begins. Kristin and Ruth both nod to their Elder, then turn back again to watch.

Helen is silent, watching Vera, eyes darting from the sept alpha to the pyre.

Vera's glabro face is somewhat pale, as she uses her makeshift cane to aid in her journey toward the pyre. "We come here today, to send Clemency on her way. So that one day she may be reborn and in the meantime, her spirit will continue to fight on in the battlefield. I invite you all to speak up, to say what you will about Clemency, so that she will have your words to carry her into the afterlife."

Touch Deer steps up after a short moment of thought, and says, "I knew Clemency Fire-Burns-Forever, and I was her friend. I was lucky for having known her, and the Sept was lucky to have her at its side. I will miss her." Short and simple, he throws nothing into the fire, and lapses back into silence.

Ethan does not mingle with the others. The stranger remains a stranger, hovering on the outskirts of a gathering. He carries a bottle with him, as well. The flickering light of the pyre illuminates the amber liquid within as well as the black Jack Daniels whiskey label on its side.

Dillen speaks up in a clear voice. "Clemency and me didn't exactly get on when she first came here," he recalls. "She was so touchy... she always was, I suppose. But after a bit we managed to find each others' wavelengths and after that we did okay. Fought alongside each other plenty... and could that Fang fight. She loved it, you can tell. Existed for it. But the thing I'll always remember most is the challenge we got into last summer. I don't even recall what it was about, but I do recall the terms I set her. Whichever of us could stand on one leg the longest, would win. The sight of her standing there like a stork glaring at me... And then she started throwing stones at me. That's how much she always wanted to win everything, even a stupid challenge with crazy terms and no prize for the winner. So, Clemency... I brought you some more rocks," he says, opening his hand to reveal a palm full of pebbles which, stepping up to the dead ahroun, he tucks into her pocket. "When you come back next time, throw some of these at me, and I'll know who it is." With a sad smile he steps back from the body again.

Laura steps forward, looking at her packmates, then at the small bundle she carries in her hands. She centers herself, planting her feet and staring at the pyre. "Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame. Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the heart. Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor's sake. Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame," she recites, clear-voiced and loud enough for the whole gathering to hear. She watches the pyre a few moments more, then tucks the bundle she carries in amongst the wood. Then she closes her eyes and steps away.

Blackriver swells up into hispo and slowly pads forward, raising her head to say her bit. ~Fire-Burns-yuf was a good Garou and a good Silver Fang. She always put the good of the sept and the tribe in front of her own good. Sometimes she was too angry, but she knew she was too angry and always worked hard not to be angry. But she was never afraid or reluctant to do what needed to be done.~ That said, Blackriver pads back to her previous spot and lays down.

KL takes a deep breath and unfolds her arms. "Clemency... When she first came here, she swept in like a gust of air. She'd got into a stack of fights before she'd even finished saying hello." She purses her lips, looking thoughtful. "She thought that she was broken. And I'll admit, she was a mad as a flock of salmon. But she didn't take any shit from anyone. We celebrated the defeat of the smog bane together and..." Her voice gets more confidant. "She was a nightmare to our enemies. Vicious in a fight. Great fun afterwards. She got me drunk...first time ever. I am proud to have had her as a packmate, however briefly. Proud to have been in the same Sept as her. Proud of her dying with the blood of our foes on her claws. Proud and exultant and triumphant. I hope that when it's my turn...when I fall...I fall with half the honour and half the glory." She pulls out a bottle of Coors from her bag, and tosses it towards the pyre. "Fight on, awesome claw of Gaia." With that, she steps back, and looks around as if daring anyone to say anything.

Ethan looks around at the others gathered before he steps up to the pyre, a little reluctantly perhaps, and begins to speak. Unlike some of the others, he speaks directly to the dead, not about her. "I knew you about as well as I know the Queen of England, so I'm not gonna sit here and pretend otherwise. What I did know was...like the rest of your tribe, you're as nutty as a Planters mix-bag. But you had the heart of a Get. Three on one, and you made them pay threefold for every drop of blood they took from you. Saved my life." Here, the ragabash grows quiet, lifts the bottle of whiskey in a salute, and gets ready to take a drink. "And I owe you for that. I hate owing dead people. Anyway, this is for you, Clemency Fire-Burns. Runs-Through-Doors. Cheers." He drinks then throws the bottle on the fire. Knowing that Jack Daniels and fire can be very colorful, the ragabash is quick to back up.

Ruth sniffs, and surreptitiously blows her nose on a tissue. Kristin reaches over with a hand, and the two cubs link fingers. Stacey murmurs something very quietly in the young half-moon's ear, and Ruth shakes her head then murmurs something to Kristin, who also indicates no. The Gaian elder nods and looks back towards the pyre, staying silent and respectful, when Ruth seems to change her mind. Stacey nudges her forwards a bit.

"Um..." Ruth nervously rubs her palms together. "I, uh, didn't know Clemency-rhya very well. I thought she was scary. But I liked her too. She... gave me some good advice. It wasn't very important advice. I mean, not big saving Gaia and fighting the Wyrm advice. But it was..." she twists her hands together, searching for the right words... "something small that had to be learned before trying anything bigger. And I'll miss her. Even if she was scary." She stops, looking down at her sneakers, then glances at her Elder to see if she did okay, giving a tiny smile in response to Stacey's approving look.

Reggie offers the words to the corpse atop a pile of woods, "While her body will turn into ashes and charred bones on this pyre, Clemency Fire-Burns-Forever's spirit will burn forever." He raises his gravelly voice, "She died in glory, with the Wyrm in her claws!" The wolfskin-clad Uktena raises his hands to the skies, "Howl for her bravery, howl for her battle, howl in memory of her sacrifice!"

Voice's howl joins the others. The clear, haunting and sorrowful tone of it may give the garou of the Hidden Walk some clue as to how the ragabash earned his deedname.

Cries-No-More lets loose with a straightforward, dissonant howl into the sky, clear and etched with sorrow for the passing of such a great warrior.

Dillen shifts up to crinos and the song-moon begins a howl that's tuneful and loud, though not a little sad.

KL shifts up into Crinos in a flash, letting out a loud howl of triumph and of sheer happiness. She spreads her arms wide to the sky, head tipped back and jaws wide open. Beside her, Stone-Spirit is slower to shift and her howl is muted, a note of regret clearly audible in her voice.

Helen shifts up into the warform, howling along with everyone else for Clemency.

The three Gaians are late, Walks-Middle having to do a lot of prompting before joining the howl. Fears-Pain's howl rings clear and confident with that of the young Elder. Trips-Over-Paws' voice is rusty and hesitant.

Others join in the howl: Blackriver remains in her current form, while Laura and Vera shift into Crinos, their voices joining the chorus. Once the howling fades and dies down, Culls' begins to speak. ~It is no secret that Grandfathers' children and those under the guidance of Falcon are not always on the best of terms. Both our Tribes have very firm opinions on why this hostility exists, but such traditions of mistrust should not stop us from accomplishing what needs to be done, or admitting to the worth, skill, Honor, and Glory of another Garou. I know for a fact that I was never one of Clemency's favorite people and when she first met me, she saw my Tribe and only later, the the Garou I was beyond that.~ Cull's black-furred face cracks a sharp-toothed grin. ~She called me Thunderbitch behind my back and was absolutely furious when I found out. Aside from my teasing 'that I was certain she could come up with better insults if she tried', which infuriated her further, we slowly came to an understanding. I like to think, that given enough time, we could have overcome the hostility that exists between our two Tribes and become friends. Unfortunately, before that could happen, she died in battle. Tearing out the throats of our most hated enemies in the process. Her Rage was great and so was her warriors spirit. Both of these things drove her forward like a flame, brighter then the sun. But, the flame that burns brightest burns shortest. Now that Clemency's flame has gone out, I ask you all to always remember how brightly it burned.~ Still leaning heavily on her makeshift walking stick, Culls-The-Herd retrieves a burning log from the small fire she had been tended and shoves it into the kindling under the pyre. ~And so we send her on her way, in a fire that burns pale in comparison to the one that Clemency carried within herself.~

The fire starts slowly at first, but soon flames are burning brightly and lick at the furs that Clemency's body is resting on. Then, the fire begins to burn more fiercely and all is consumed.

Cries-No-More can be heard to let out an audible, slow sigh as the flames burn away at Clemency.

Bloods-Bane's howls die slowly away as the fire does, until he is standing silent with head bowed.

Cycle-Breaker watches as the body of Clemency is reduced to ashes, eyes sad. ~Go with Gaia,~ she says, mostly to herself.

As the sounds of Garou mourning fade with the flames, Walks-Middle places a hand on the shoulder of each of the two cubs and turns them away. She takes them back through the pines, leaving space and time for those who knew the Silver Fang better to mourn her alone. Their three lupus forms can be seen for a moment before they vanish among the trees.

Culls-The-Herd returns to the small fire she was tending earlier and sits down with a small amount of difficulty, clearly glad to get off her injured legs.

There's no trace of regret or sorrow in Escapes' stance, as she gazes at the flames licking at her former packmate. Her head is held in a proud lift, her arms folded across her chest.

Cries-No-More looks to Vera, and walks in her direction. ~Alpha, may I speak with you?~

Culls-The-Herd looks up from her seat on the ground, ears laying back for a moment. ~What do you wish to speak with me about?~

Cries-No-More gets right to the point. ~I have to leave the Sept, I'm going to travel to the Pine Hills and visit my old mentor there, Joseph Blackrabbit. I need his guidance. And, I have spoken with my son Circles, and he wishes to join me.~

~He is your son,~ Culls' rumbles. ~You are free to do what you will, but Circles is a Cub and thus under the control of Jacinta. However, I doubt there is much that she could complain of, as he is your son.~

Cries-No-More dips his muzzle respectfully, ~I just wanted you to know I would be leaving, officially. I know I have not been present for some time, around the Sept.~

Culls-The-Herd bobs her crinos head in a simple nod. ~And you have my blessings. Good luck to you on your journey."

Cries-No-More deepens his muzzle-dip into a bow. ~Thankyou.~ And he leaves, without any more words to anyone.

"Spikes! Spikes! You came back... for me..."

2006-06-11T08:49:00.000-07:00

NOTE, please, that contrary to my usual custom I've allowed a number of pages and asides to remain in this log. I don't think they break continuity much, and... well, I wanted to keep them, OK.

Currently the moon is in the waning Full Moon phase (99% full).

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.

Pierces Ice looks no less ready for war. She's wearing a similar belt, knife sheathed at her side. In one hand she carries a longbow, in the other a spear, its head covered with cloth, and a nearly flat piece of arrow-shaped wood. Her breath comes in short bursts until she brings it under control. Coming to rest, she crouches down, placing her belongings to her side before clearing a small area of brush and dead leaves. She does not yet look at the others gathering.

Wildfire comes to the northern part of the bawn from the south. Blackriver is in the lead, with Dillen and Helen right behind. Both the followers are in homid and carrying weapons, Helen a nasty looking bow and Dillen a somewhat familiar razor wire. Blackriver flicks her ears in getting and recognition of the two Guardians, and pads over towards Cole, chuffing a soft greeting to her packmate and looking quite tense.

Walks-Middle arrives from the west, slinking through the trees toward the appointed meeting place. As she comes into view of her packmates, she shifts up into homid, offering them a faint nod before looking around to see who else has arrived, her entire posture tense and ready.

Cole turns in a slow circle to take in the arrivals of the various Garou. Each get a nod, some more reserved than others. He set his pack down, along with his axe. "Looks like everyone is coming loaded for bear. Or Spiral, as the case may be." When Wildfire arrives, he moves to intercept them. "Hi, guys."

Kaz leans against her tree, though this time standing up, and grins at Masao. "Dude."

Circle Keeper stops with his packmate, dropping the satchel and taking out two tightly tied bundles of cloth and setting them aside. Any number of people get an outright hostile reaction, the Uktena clearly not pleased as he puts the satchel back over his shoulder.

"Hell yeah." Dillen notes to Cole, lifting the razor wire 4X4 from his shoulder. "Brought Owen with me." He brandishes the weapon a bit with a grin.

"Hey," Helen says to Cole, looking a bit disoriented from the early hour but at the same time tense and ready to go.

Leaves-None angles towards Kaz as she sees her tribemate, tail wagging a bit as she nears. She seems eager for action as she butts her head against the Fostern's leg in greeting.

Havoc is represented by Laura and Fire-Burns, who arrive together. Both of Wolverine's daughters look focused on the task at hand, giving short nods of acknowledgement to those already present. Laura has a pack slung over her back and an unstrung bow in her hand. Her quiver, full of hand-fletched arrows, knocks and rattles at her hip. The hilt of a knife can just barely be seen protruding from one pocket of her pants. The wolf she walks with seems unencumbered by anything but Full Moon Wrath.

Blackriver shakes herself lightly and looks over her packmates, making sure they're all here and ready to go, before turning her gaze on the the others and eyeing them appraisingly. Unlike her packmate she seems quite functional in the early hour.

Morgan arrives a little late, though at a swift run, as if she already knew she was. She's trying to keep her coat closed as she goes, a losing battle, and in one hand, of all things, she's carrying a well worked steel knife. It looks functional at least. If she's got Touch Deer's knife to compliment that, it's hidden under the coat. Her face is flushed.

Ethan arrives not long after the Havoc contingency, coming up from the same direction. The ragabash has no weapons, other than himself. He finds Jacinta in the gathering force, but remains quiet and watchful as the Hidden Walk warriors get ready.

Fire-Burns is indeed carrying nothing in the way of weapons except what comes attached to her body, and an almost tangible air of attitude and tension. She lets out the most restrained of soft whuffs when she arrives in the midst of the other warriors, and walks around some of them giving sniffs and greetings. The Uktena and Wendigo contingent are notably omitted from her circling.

Kaz levers herself off her tree and drifts toward Morgan, and gives her a cheerful sort of smile. There's an energy underneath her movements, but she's not letting it out yet.

Circle Keeper's hostile reaction settles first on the Wyvern Pack, focusing on the two Galliards from it. Lips peeling up, his ears shove forward, before he catches scent of Laura and Clemency. The latter gets another, even more foul reaction, before he scoops up one of the bundles he just set down, and starts lumbering towards the former. His limp is looking a little more notable this morning.

Laura looks up long enough to give a tense little smile at Helen, then crouches where she is. She pulls her bowstring from her pocket and begins preparing her weapon. She glances up from her task in time to spy Circle Keeper, and lowers her head to acknowledge his advance. "Circle Keeper-rhya."

Morgan gives Kaz a rather tense grimace in response. In the company of so many Garou, not a few of them already in crinos, she abandons the attempt to keep her coat closed. She does indeed have Touch Deer's knife--it's sheathed at her side, on a belt that looks as though it was probably worked by the former Wendigo Alpha as well. "Kaz-rhya."

Pierces Ice still does not pay heed to those who have gathered, scratching with her claws in the soil. She roughs out map with several small squares, a larger square in the center, and a large asterisk to one side. Satisfied with her drawing she draws herself up to her full, though not considerable, height and finally looks about the clearing.

Circle Keeper dumps the cloth bundle at Laura's feet, before grunting at Helen, and pointing at the other with his head. The stranger Get gets his attention after that, and with ears erect, he starts for Ethan.

Cole frowns when he spots Morgan arriving at a run. "You haven't missed anything, Morgan. Take a breath." If his voice is a bit tense, it's easily explained away given the circumstances. "Good luck tonight, if I don't get to say it before it starts." He drops a wink in his Fianna's direction, turning in time to return Fire-Burns' greetings. When he becomes aware of Circle Kepper's hostility, he sniffs at the air. "Good luck tonight, Circle-Keeper-rhya," he responds with a hint of saccherine in his voice.

Leaves-None's restlessness leaves her milling about the gathering Garou, making slow circuits around the packs. Outside of a bit of panting and an infrequent rumbling there is very little outward noise made by the Ragabash.

Dillen sees the glare from Circle Keeper as well. He shakes his head and mutters something under his breath as he looks back to Cole.

Kaz looks around, and then calls, not loudly but certainly audibly, "Anyone able to use guns? I got a few that'd be kinda useful."

Laura glances at Helen, then finishes stringing her bow. She still doesn't speak, first trying to spy her packmate among the other Garou, then turning to catch another look at Helen. She draws her glove from her pocket and pulls it on, fixing the doeskin over her hand. Finally, she takes a look inside the bundle the Uktena left with her.

Morgan wrinkles her nose and squints at Kaz. "Have knives." And so saying, she lifts the knife she's still carrying in one hand.

Ethan remains somewhere near where Jacinta was drawing in the dirt. He studies the crude diagram until the feral Uktena makes a bee-line for him. The Get ragabash simply nods his head to Circle Keeper.

Fire-Burns, having greeted those she wishes to greet, returns for now to the homid form. She walks to a thicket, rummages in it, and pulls out her well-worn duffel bag, from which she removes a pad of paper and pen. Sitting against a tree trunk, she resumes work on what seems an already near-complete sketch of the face of a young, freckled, snub-nosed woman.

Cole shakes his head to Kaz. "Got something better, but thanks anyways." Dillen gets a smirk, dry and humorless. "Yeah."

Stacey remains quiet, in the background, while everyone gathers, only moving to look over as Jacinta stands. She takes a few steps closer, still tense, almost nervous, and also peers down at the diagram.

Reflection comes tearing through the bawn to the group as they gather and prepare. When he gets near he takes on the homid form. He looks agitated and ready for a fight, yet all know he is not going to be able to join the warriors tonight. He starts to take off his fetish jacket after his transformation to homid is complete and walks over to Jacinta.

Blackriver begins to pace restlessly, keeping an eye on her packmates and glancing every once and a while towards Jacinta.

Pierces Ice, standing over her drawing, eyes Dillen and Cole for just a moment before raising her voice. ~You have heard the call. You have answered. Your appearance is appreciated. Now is the time for planning, for battle soon to begin.~ She lets her gaze now pass over all those gathered, resting for just a moment on Jamethon before she continues on.

Culls-The-Herd trots toward the group in lupus, head raised as she sniffs at the air.

Circle Keeper's jaws start to part, and a rumble starts to form in his chest as Ethan nods, but Jacitna's words forstall any conversation he might have wanted to start. Planting his spear butt first into the ground, he leans on the shaft.

Laura waves Helen towards her, resting her hand on the bundle in front of her. "Here, quickly," she says, sparing her voice for whatever reason. "Take these," she murmurs, separating out some arrows and tucking them quickly into her quiver. The rest are wrapped again and offered to her tribesister.

Ethan raises a brow at the Uktena, but the ragabash does not seem all that concerned. His attention is easily diverted to Pierces Ice, as well. He also spots James, and the fellow Get receives a sly grin.

Cole looks up as Pierces starts to speak. He shrugs and gathers his items into his arms. "Well, planning session begins." He makes his way over to the group coalescing slowly but surely around the diagram.

Pierces Ice gestures with one hand, quick and sharp, to Cole, to Dillen, to Morgan. ~Your strength will be needed here. In case this is but a distraction. In case another attack should come while we do battle. Assist the Warder! Do as he commands. Guard the Heart as though you were Guardians, yourselves.~

Clemency's pencil ceases scratching over paper for a moment as Pierces Ice speaks. She looks up, her eyes landing on Helen and Laura for a moment as her packmate gives the ragabash a selection of arrows.

Helen glances over her shoulder upon hearing Laura's voice; she smiles faintly, and bobs her head towards her packmates before she heads in her tribesister's direction. "Thank you," she murmurs, taking the arrows carefully from Laura. Another faint smile and she's gone back to hang out near her packmates.

Jamethon does not appear to be in a grinning mood tonight, though he does answer Ethan with a terse nod. The Warder moves to stand near Jacinta, looking over the group that has gathered to serve Gaia as he rests the jacket over his right arm.

Leaves-None ends her circling about and pads in closer to watch and listen, keeping within easy sight.

Kaz drifts toward the sketched plans.

Dillen gives Pierces-Ice a nod of his head, "With all I have." He says with all the conviction of the world. The 4X4 is lifted to his shoulder again as he listens.

Laura finds her way over to Clemency, planting the butt of her bow in the soil. She watches the diagram intently.

Cole nods as well, a sour expression crossing his fair features. "If they get this far, they won't get any farther." He shares the same zealous tone as his Fenrir packmate, though he glances to Helen and Blackriver.

Circle Keeper's attention is only half there, the Uktena looking like the explanation and drawings are old news for him. Still, he keeps an eye down, and an ear cocked as his packmate talks.

Blackriver gives Cole and Dillen a look of appreciation before turning back to Jacinta.

Finding the two Black Furies, the Wendigo gestures to them. Then does the same toward the Bone Gnawers. ~Child Holder, Cycle Breaker, Leaves None Behind, You will join with me in support of Ears to the Ground. It is her gift that will draw forth the enemy.~ She drops down to point at the asterisk on her rough map, then rises once more. ~From here will will be ready to make ranged attack.~

Laura studies the rest of the map, her only reply to that a short nod. Again she cracks a bit of a smile, this one a little more feral than before.

Helen bobs her head to Jacinta. "Alright," she says, glancing sidelong to Laura.

Leaves-None rumbles in assent and trots over to Kaz' side, settling there for the moment and continuing to listen.

Laura raises an eyebrow to Helen, then nods.

Cole looks to the other three members of his pack gathered, raising a brow. Something unpsoken passes between the pack members.

Culls-The-Herd settles down on her haunches and yawns, looking from one Garou to the next.

Morgan fingers the steel knife nervously, glancing between those gathered. She's rocking slightly, from one foot to the next, and her face gets a little more heated as the orders start to go out.

Pierces Ice gives a satisfied flick of her ears and continues pointing. ~Blackriver, Fire Burns Forever, Voice of the Unspoken. You will join Walks the Middle Road in following Circle Keeper.~ Again she drops down to gesture at her map. ~You will hide in the trees, here,~ she says before rising. ~Wait until the enemy have passed you, then close them off from escape.~

Circle Keeper lifts the shaft of his weapon slightly, before stamping it down on the ground again. He looks through the list of people, from Lupus to the Get, pausing on Clemency before he looks back to Jacinta. His muzzle lifts slightly.

Stacey straightens as her name is called and nods, looking down to note where is pointed before glancing over at the others.

Clemency looks up and over her sketchpad as Pierces Ice speaks again. She remains silent. At the command to wait and hide, the already dead look in her cold grey eyes seems to grow a little deader. When her battle orders have been fully spoken, she gives one tight nod to the Wendigo, and looks away, her eyes landing on Culls-the-Herd and lingering there several seconds before she resumes work on her sketch.

Blackriver tenses and eyes Jacinta and Circle Keeper carefully, before looking to Cole and giving him a brief brush of her nose. When Pierces Ice speaks she listens attentively, not seeming to understand the map but looking between her fellow attackers and flicking her ears in comprehension.

Ethan nods to Jacinta's idea, his eyes once again falling on Circle Keeper. This time the look is more assessing. "The hammer and anvil," he says quietly and then moves to stand among those to whom he's been assigned.

Kaz says, "Love me some pincushion duty," and trails back over to her canvas bag.

Laura touches her packmate's shoulder for a moment, grinding the butt of her bow into the ground. She raises her face to the wind, then looks back to the plan.

Jihgfed pages to the room: 'Evening ladies and germs, girls and boils. You all here for the show?
Kaz pages to the room: Yipes. Hi! Yes!
Cole pages to the room: Evening, Jihg!
Laura pages to the room: Hello Jihg. Yep.
Circle Keeper pages to the room: He's quite the comedian, that one.
Blackriver pages to the room: Hey Jihg.
You paged the room with 'Aye aye.'.
From afar, to the room, Circle Keeper's here for the free food and drink, honestly.
From afar, to the room, Leaves-None is here for her health.
From afar, to the room, Jamethon was told there would be punch and pie?
From afar, to the room, Ethan heard there would be ice cream.
Circle Keeper pages to the room: STACEY. What did you tell them?
Jihgfed pages to the room: There's all the food you can eat just a mile or so north of us.
From afar, to the room, Jihgfed's ready when you are.
From afar, to the room, Blackriver looks around for the sexy men wolves Stacey promised her.

Pierces Ice huffs out a breath and gives Laura a bit of a nod. ~We will have the sun at our backs, and the wind to theirs. If all works to plan, we have the advantage. But it is important to recall - Ears to the Ground's gift will call all of the Horned Serpent's brood that can hear. We may face more than we plan. And the enemy may come from other places.~

Morgan glances toward Kaz, nostrils flaring.

Kaz tells Morgan, ruefully, "It ain't a real predictable gift."

Cole crosses his arms as he listens to the ongoing plans, still looking rather nonplussed about something. He prods his satchel lightly with the toe of his boot. "Try and save something for us, huh," he asks of Blackriver and Helen.

Morgan doesn't seem to consider this terribly reassuring. Her fidgeting increases, and then, as if it just weren't enough to contain her, she slides easily into her birth form, now clutching that steel knife with her two lower hands, the fingers a little thick on the grip and the sheath.

Dillen looks to Blackriver. "Remember the gift." He nods his head, moving over to lean against a tree. "We will be here when you all come back to hear the story."

Culls-The-Herd yawns once again, looking decidedly bored. The wolf's form begins to blur, growing into the warform. Necklace of teeth rattling faintly, the black crinos makes her way over to Clemency.

Clemency adds a last few lines to her sketch, stares at it for a long moment, and mutters something which only the few garou nearest here are likely to hear. Then she shuts the sketchbook with a snap, tucks it back into her duffel bag, and returns the bag to its hiding place in the thicket, then moves to Dillen. "Should I fall in this fight," she says to him in cold but firm tones, "make sure my bag is given to Thomas Grey. He knows what to do with its contents." Then she turns to look at the approaching Culls-the-Herd.

Ethan grins again, muttering half to himself and half to Circle Keeper, "IT's a good day to die, and the day is not yet over." The bad Star Trek impression seems lost on the Uktena, and the Get's smile fades a little. He sighs, and gets serious again.

Blackriver gives her two packmates a blank look, and pokes them reassuringly with her nose before trotting over towards her group, sliding up next to Clemency.

You paged Culls-The-Herd, Helen, Laura, and Kaz with 'She mutters "Spikes... this one's for Julius."'.

Dillen gives Clemency a bow of his head. "I will make sure of it." He then looks to the Fang. "Just come back. Grey is a grumpy SOB to deal with." A slight smirk.

Cole looks over as Clemency makes the odd request, then moves to stand near to the packmate he has been assigned to serve with. "That's putting it politely. I think Cockroach regularly shits in his coffee."

Circle Keeper indeed looks sideways at Ethan, before giving his ruff a sold shake as to dissmiss any thoughts. Pulling off the bag and dumping it on the ground, the Uktena adjusts the weapon belt around him, and then shifts down to Lupus.

Leaves-None gets to her feet and gives herself a thorough shake from nose to tail as if settling more into place than just her fur. Quick looks are given to each face in the cadre she was named into as her muzzle lolls open slightly.

Laura watches Clemency's movement, then shoulders her bow and edges nearer to Kaz. She closes her eyes then, and concentrates on her breathing. The slow inhalation ends soon enough, and the theurge regards her surroundings with clearer vision. She touches the arrows in her quiver, sorting by touch.

Jamethon stands tall, and looks over the gathered rising to the crinos. ~We are Warriors of Gaia. And we have found honorless insects of the Wyrm that decided to play at being Garou.~ He shakes his head roughly, ~Gaia is affronted at their audacity and will not stand for it. They will be stopped this night and know that the Hidden Walk is doom for the Wyrm.~ He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, ~Already the totems knows that they will ride gloriously into battle with the children of their tribes. No matter which you belong to, all are warriors of Gaia. All born to fight and die so that she might live. Go and make true her will. Lay low the Wyrm and do not suffer it to live beyond this night.~ With this he nods to Jacinta and stands stoic, breath heaving and waiting for the Warriors to head out to battle.

Forest North of I-90(#2354RA) The forest is thinner here than it is south of the highway, though it is still difficult to see for far. Signs of human habitation break the stretch of woods every few miles; roads, paths, farms, and the occasional out-of-the-way home remind you that civilization is encroaching, though in this area, the battle is not yet decided. Hardwoods mix with towering firs and smaller trees, still concealing some of nature's hidden places from the nearby humans. The forest spreads north from Interstate 90, which delineates the souther edge of this area. Marked by logging areas, farms, and other signs of human presence in places, the woods are still relatively unoccupied by humans.

The Garou slip beneath the interstate's culverts, their paws wet in the dank water, their heartbeats and steps ringing back against their metal shell, barely audible for the trucks thumping by above. There's an undeniable but undefinable emptiness to their movements, like not the life but rather the spirit has been sucked right out of them, replaced with a twittering energy. It's a dull, metallic sensation, coppery and dirty, a deadness in their lungs and steps and a quickness in their limbs. The trip through the meadows north of the highway is not a pleasant one. The noise of traffic and its light, foul smell rumbles through the air. The moon above replaces the Garou's lost spirit with Rage. They can feel it, with every whip of the tall grass against their faces, with every creep forwards.

Ears, after that speech, manages to pad along with a solid confidence which is only partially assumed. She keeps to cover in any case, because for one thing, her ears are a bit ridiculous.

Jihgfed pages to the room: There's so much silver right now amongst you guys that, so long as you stay together as a pack, you all have an effective Gnosis of 0. You can't use any gifts that require Gnosis (and any that you may have activated before this point are functionless), and you're not even sure if you can step sideways.
Jihgfed pages to the room: Gifts that don't require Gnosis, shapeshifting, any other junk, all that's fine. Can't activate any fetishes, though.

Blackriver bristles with barely controlled Rage, ears flat and head turning to each strange sound and smell she encounters, as if each shadow and might hold a Spiral behind it. The drain on her spirit side makes her uneasy, and she lets out a soft and high pitched whine in mourning to the gnosis she's held and grown so used to all her life.

Circle Keeper leads his group after Jacinta's, moving at such a slow speed as to be almost ridiculous. The Uktena's whole posture is wary, sniffing along and investigating just about every step of the way, an eye out for traps. The lupus gets a sharp look, and a silent command: Quiet.

Clemency , shifting to crinos once the order to move off comes, pauses to scratch each set of claws on a mossy boulder she passes, slowly, deliberately. One, two, three, four.

Laura stays behind Ears, and slightly to the side. One hand grips the arrows in the quiver to keep them still. The other clutches her bow, which she uses to clear her path. Occasionally, she turns to look for the others in her small squad. She's as quiet as she can be on two legs.

Pierces Ice lets Masao lead the way, since she did the original scouting of the area. Like the others, her posture is tense, wary, and alert for the traps she knows exist.

Helen stays close to Laura, tense and anxious, following after the other Fury slowly.

The Get ragabash Guest-of-the-Walk uses the same boulder to sharpen his own claws. Ethan has also shifted up to crinos, taking on the lean, black and grey form of voice of the Unspoken. He falls in behind Circle Keeper as he was instructed.

Leaves-None limits her reactions to body language, her own ears dipping back at the change in energies. She picks her path from memory with her nose low to the ground in unconscious mimicry of another Gnawer Ragabash.

Ears mostly follows Masao; her confidence remains, although a certain amount of bloody-minded rage also enters into things.

Walks-Middle follows Circle Keeper, matching his slow, cautious speed. The Child is also wary, watching out for traps and keeping low, disconcerted by the loss of spiritual connection, not to mention completely on edge.

Blackriver falls silent at Circle Keeper's command, slowing for a moment to call up the inner resolve to push the pain of wounds away.

Laura takes up a position slightly in front of Helen, sharp eyes watching for the traps they were warned of. Her breathing is slow and steady as she tries to ignore the absence of the spirit world. She bares her teeth as they walk, caught somewhere between the past and the present.

Culls-The-Herd scratches under her chin as she contemplates those around her. Her ears slick back for a moment, then she seems to decide what to do and moves closer to Clemency.

Fire-Burns moves to join Blackriver, her tribemate and successor as elder, and the two Silver Fangs move together towards the battlefield and their assigned place in the trees. Seeing Culls approach, Fire-Burns turns her head sideways. ~Soon,~ she says eagerly to the sept alpha, ~soon, soon...~

There's no tranquility in the dawn: the highway buzzes behind them and the morning air is full of insects. The sun makes pale and distant the high moon. Everywhere there's a distant, vexing energy.

Circle Keeper leads his group beyond Jacinta's after a while, still moving at that a snail's pace along the way. Once they arrive at the predetermined location, he silently indicates they are to spread out, before finding himself a tree, shifting to homid and heading up.

Ears heads toward a fairly obvious spot, once they've reached the general predetermined area, and shifts into glabro. She settles her bag down next to her, takes out the rifle, and her other guns, and sets up carefully.

Voice doesn't bother changing forms. He uses his claws and digs into the bark his chosen tree to give him leverage to climb up. A few agile moves and he is soon on the lowest branch. It shudders briefly under his weight, the leaves whispering, but the Get is not the biggest of garou, and he gauges the tree will hold him. Climbing a little further, he crouches and gets into position.

Laura finds a spot near Ears' position, with her back to something fairly solid. She draws the silver arrows and pushes them point-down in the earth next to her, easy to reach, easy to fire.

Blackriver shifts into glabro and hoists herself up a tree, all the more paranoid now that she's in an uncomfortable form.

KATYA/Blackriver, glabro: This creature before you is obviously not human, but something much more monstrous and primal. She, and after a moment of looking it's clear it /is/ a she, towers a bit over 6 feet feet tall, with long tangled blond hair sweeping down to the bottom of her shoulder. Her eyes are a cold, striking blue, with a tinge of yellow to them. Most noticeable is the small patches of hair running down her checks and arms. They're short strands, almost fur-like, and a deep golden blond. Her check bones are quite square and pronounced, and she seems stronger than most humans, alert and predatory.

Walks-Middle also spreads out, finding a decent tree, and shifts to homid before climbing up into its branches, trying to find a spot that will keep her small form hidden enough.

Pierces Ice steps up beside Ears to the Ground, giving room to the metis and room for her throwing arm. She holds the covered spear in one hand, the nuqok in the other, and waits. Tension radiates through her body, the waiting only adding to it.

Fire-Burns looks up at Blackriver in glabro with curiosity, before she shifts too. She, however, goes the opposite way, and adopts lupus. She conceals her white-furred self as best she can in the thick undergrowth at the base of the same tree that Voice has clambered into, and there she waits, tense as a taut string.

Helen moves close enough to Laura and Ears, doing the same thing Laura does with her own arrows, moving carefully. When done, the Fury glances about anxiously. She lets out a heavy breath that sounds somewhat like a sigh, otherwise quiet, waiting like everyone else.

Circle Keeper pages: Clem's supposed to climb a tree.

The Garou dig themselves in - or hoist themselves up - in the spotty patch of forest to the east, where the bright sun dapples warm pictures across the ground, and the moon is invisible in the canopy. Far off, to the northeast, a lonely outhouse can be barely made out through the slats of trees, while to the west, across a high-grassed meadow, is a dense copse of fir trees, where a faint glimpse of brown at the top may indeed by the purported trebuchet, or just a trick of light and shadows at the crests of trees.

Circle Keeper pages: From earlier, when they were laying out the plan. :) You paged Circle Keeper with 'That's not what Jacinta said.'.

Culls-The-Herd locates a reasonably sized tree and shrinks down into Glabro, before hoisting herself into the pine with a few grunts of effort.

Leaves-None trades lupus for glabro and crouches in the grass also in Ears' vicinity. A quick, appraising look is given to the other Gnawer's supply of weaponry as she licks her lips. Eventually her eyes go to the fir trees and her expression goes stony.

Carefully, Kaz makes sure of her rifle and its ammunition. And then she starts belting a rather peculiar not-quite howl. It grates on the nerves, and it's remarkably piercing, for something coming out of a glabro mouth. And she keeps this grating, piercing, almost revolting noise going.

Circle Keeper pages: Yeah she did. `You will hide in the trees.` But if Clem ICly misunderstood, that's alright.
You paged Circle Keeper with 'I read that (OOC and IC) as 'among the trees' not 'up the trees'.'.
From afar, Circle Keeper nods. She meant up. Woops.
You paged Circle Keeper with 'Fog of war!'.

The sound stretches far, the great inhuman lungs swelling and pushing like bellows. It rattles through the trees, sends morning doves from their cooing fawning and flapping off into the murky blue sky. Seconds roll out with only the fingernails-on-blackboard screeching of the Galliard filling the space between - until, after a space of ten seconds, Ears' call is overridden and supplanted by one that seems to almost blow the leaves off trees. It starts fast and choppy and then curdles like milk; it's both command and cringing, pathetic wheedle, like a child being beaten was suddenly given the ability to scream his pain in the ears of all the world. Then it goes sweet, sickly, and grating, before trailing off - after a few seconds no longer is it the call of a wolf but the cry of a mutilated bird, literally a series of hoots and caws, a wild cacophony, and then silence.

Seconds continue to creep by, faster now, with more urgency. Laura steels her will and nocks an arrow, aiming at the area she expects the enemy should emerge from. Her lips peel back from her teeth.

Circle Keeper clings to his perch, the Uktena's shoulders hunching as he looks around beneath him with considerable concern. Veins buldged from the elevated bloodpressure, he's feeling the edge to the situation.

Kaz mutters to Jacinta, ~That's a warnin' howl from some dipshit on their side. Sayin' Gaian Garou is nearby. In case that wasn't obvious.~ That said, she goes back to her perculiar, irritating, urging call.

Fire-Burns remains at the foot of the tree, motionless save for an ear which flicks a couple of times at the cacophony that sounds out around her.

Pierces Ice's ears pin back and she pulls the cover off the spear-head, revealing the reflective silver tip. Hairs rise along her spine and all down her arms. Her teeth clack together in an anticipatory tremor. Kaz's mutter gets a blink of recognition and a momentary lick of the whiskers. She passes the message on to the Black Furies and Masao.

Masao lowers her head slightly, eyes narrowing at both Kaz' howl and the raucous response. Letting her hands rest on the ground, she curls her fingers around some of the grass tightly and scans across the meadow. The relayed message earns a slow nod of her head and a hitch of her shoulders.

Voice's hackles rise as soon as Kaz begins her call, but the ones that answer it truly make the Get a little antsy. His claws flex nervously, and he bares his teeth. Otherwise, he remains crouched and coiled.

Katya tenses and she too bares her teeth, the action looking odd in her hairy glabro form.

Stacey tenses as she clings to the branches, keeping a look out on the scene beneath and around her, waiting.

Vera grips a steadying branch in the tree, sap making the palm of her hand sticky as she squints into the distance.

Helen grimaces, bearing her teeth at the sound of Kaz's call and the response. She digs the fingernails of both hands into her palms, waiting.

Time slips on and a figure, a small blotch of white, slides from the eastern edge of the small copse of woods. It must be moving fast but from the distance its movements are fluid, soft, and slow. Crinos limbs push it nimbly through the high grass, rage-blinded and easy.

Kaz, while continuing her Call, gestures at the motion, just in case none of the others saw it.

Circle Keeper continues to cling to his high perch while watching the ground.

Laura draws slowly, sighting her target. She inhales and holds that breath. Sharp eyes judge the distance, and she looses her arrow when she's certain the loping form is close enough.

Vera's fingers clench as her body goes stiff and she watches the approaching figure with narrowed eyes.

Pierces Ice's lips pull back, and she readies her spear and thrower, waiting for the best shot; waiting for the prey to come in closer. The weapon gives her only one attack, and she will wait to make it count.

Helen remains clutching her bow tightly, watching the Spirals in the distance. She doesn't go in for an attack just yet.

Masao's eyes track the figure as it comes closer as she inches closer to Kaz and the guns. Then she moves back to the copse itself to see if anything else comes out to play.

Katya pages to the room: Guys, I hate to do this to ya, but I have to go. Night y'all.
Katya has disconnected.

Stacey remains as still as she can, watching the approaching figure and continuing to scan the area.

It gets larger as it gets closer, and less fluid. Its movements are blockier, more static, than they'd seemed at a distance. Its legs don't run right, its white coat is covered in purple blotches like polka dots, and its ears, high as highway pylons, are riddled with wholes. It lopes awkwardly through the tall green grass - fifty metres away, then fifteen, tearing up distance and sending ground-nesting birds up in its wake. For a moment, it stumbles, it seems distracted by the flurry of movement and looks up, stunned, as the small patches of white flitter up into the blue sky like ashes leaving a fire pit.

Kaz keeps up her grating Call, but, before Masao moves away, hands her the shotgun.

Laura sweeps up another silver arrow and nocks it, taking aim again. She holds her shot, waiting for the next good opportunity to open itself.

Masao's hand reaches out for the gun, catching the offer on her peripheral vision just as something else catches it. ~Hey! One's going in the opposite direction! Running away from us!~ she snaps out in a voice as unpleasant to hear as the continuing howl, mostly for the squeaky gravelly sound. She points with her other hand towards the copse itself and moves it as she tries to track what she sees.

Circle Keeper's attention goes to the direction Masao indicates, brow narrowed as he seeks out the sight of the fleeing figure.

Kaz can't exactly intensify her Call, but it's clear, from the snarl emanating from her, and the grating, jumping, irritating sounds coming out of her, that she'd like to try.

Pierces Ice's arm snaps forward - shoulder, elbow, wrist, loosing the spear in a blinding flash at the original target, dropping the thrower on the followthrough.

Shortly after Laura gets ready to fire another arrow, Helen follows suit, waiting anxiously to shoot off the arrow, arms tense. Masao's announcement catches her off guard, and she glances in the direction the Gnawer points towards, guiding her bow and arrow in that direction perhaps hoping that she could see something to shoot at.

Vera's lips pull back in a silent snarl, as she attempts to spot the fleeing figure.

Stacey glances in the direction others look to, but keeps her attention moving, keeping the targets in sight, but also looking out for any others that might approach.

Fire-Burns still remains in her place of concealment, though to keep motionless is obviously a greater and greater burden on the rage-driven ahroun.

Voice mirrors Circle Keeper, eyes shifting to seek out the second moving figure.

The distracted creature doesn't even notice its impending death, eyes attached to the flight of birds, chaotic and beautiful against the bright blue sky. The sound that comes from its throat is not so much a howl as a choke: it reers and barely manages to put its front paw down, like a stumbling cow. Its pace quickens, its face, visible now, a mess of bruises and fur, is full of fury. One arrow has gone right through its shoulder, passed out the other side; a harpoon head sticks to that same arm's elbow, and though only seconds have passed that whole side is red with blood. It passes through the edge of trees, searching blindly for its assailants.

Laura's lip twitches. "Hit the scout," she orders Helen, inhaling, exhaling and firing at the now-much-closer crinos.

Kaz bares her teeth at this creature, ears swivelling, and continues her Call, persistent, compelling.

Pierces Ice draws her knife, turning to seek out the second target.

Helen clenches her jaw, nodding, eyes narrowed. Her arrow flies right after Laura's orders.

Masao's gesture tracks the figure towards in a west-southwesterly direction and she clips out a few more words. ~May be heading for the highway.~ Recognition lights her animalistic features as she glances at the first target, slipping out of mother's tongue to whisper, "Not bored now, are you, fucker? Not for long, either."

Circle Keeper shifts to hispo, dropping down out of his perch and onto four legs more on the dirt.

The instant Circle Keeper drops out of his tree, Fire-Burns is on her feet and alongside him, herself shifting to hispo also, poised for action.

Voice follows suit, dropping from his tree to land heavily in a crouched position beside Circle Keeper, opposite Clemency.

Vera drops out of her tree as well, shifting into lupus once she hits the ground.

Kaz, at Masao's comment, falls into Crinos and continues her grating howl, on the theory that a Crinos Call will carry further.

Stacey spots Circle Keeper as he moves, and then she too drops down out of her perch, shifting to hispo as well.

The Dancer beneath seems fanatically grateful to see movement in the sun-speckled woods, to finally have something it can sink its mad claws into. Its body is buckled and bent as it turns to face the first to drop - Circle Keeper - its beaten eyes wide and hungry, fur bristled up like shafts, quickly joined by two more as a pair of arrows move through it. One enters its chest and slides right through unhindered to the ground below, as smoothly and as neatly as if it had passed through tissue paper. Another hits bone and splinters at his back. The thing doesn't even seem to notice; its mind is elsewhere, if it exists at all. It stares at Circle-Keeper with unspeakable anger and misunderstanding, more animal than human. It doesn't make it more than a step forward before it collapses, still staring, though eyes no longer move. The sun continues to play across its purple bruises as the leaves dance above.

Laura's anger surges, and she draws out the third arrow. This one is also readied, aimed yet again in the direction the Black Spiral Dancer emerged from. There's a slight tremor in her hand, and her jaw works as she watches.

Helen quickly picks up another arrow and readies it in her bow, waiting for another chance to fire it.

~Get. Walks-Middle. Get the one to the west. Run fast.~ Ciuraq growls out, to Ethan and Stacey. The deformed thing gets run around quick, as he starts heading northwards towards the camp at a slow pace. ~Fire-Burns follows me.~

Shortly after Kaz's now-Crinos howl, another answers, thin and reedy and creeping from the west. It's a sound of unadulterated rage, blunted by the intervening distance, the trees and space it travels through. It's a call not of wolves but of birds: a slow ululation like the throaty warble of angry turkey. It would be almost comical if it weren't for the utter, dire need that's in it, a starving thirst for blood.

Voice's claws dig into grass and dirt as he tears off after the one to the west--as instructed. For speed, he shifts on the fly to hispo.

Kaz's continuing Call gets an almost gleefully fierce brassy tone to it, briefly. "Come and get it!" is the implicit message.

Fire-Burns lets out a savage cry of satisfaction as the first enemy drops lifeless at Circle Keeper's feet, right alongside her, and, unlike the Uktena, she deliberately runs over it, claws raking at its dead flesh, as she obeys his order to follow her.

Walks-Middle turns and takes off after the Spiral that is fleeing west as soon as Circle Keeper growls, running as fast as possible to catch up to it. She raises her hackles at the new howl, but keeps running toward her target.

Come, Voice-Of-The-Unspoken, Culls-The-Herd says as lupus feet propel her toward the west and she paces the Get of Fenris. Let us hunt!

Masao growls under her breath as her glance back finds the fleeing shape already gone. The bird-like howl elicits a slight duck of her head that's almost a wince. Hand tightening around the shotgun, she takes a moment to scan the area around her group for anyone or anything that could be coming at them from other angles.

Laura shifts her position to offer the Galliard more cover, facing a little more to the west. She lets slack the bowstring, ready to draw and fire the arrow at a moment's notice.

Pierces Ice holds a fist in the air, signaling those with her to hold fire. She waits, eyes seeking further sign for just a moment before turning to those with her. ~Let the Galliard's call ring out. Let the others take down this one. Be ready in case more come. If they do not, we will sweep north, find their holes.~

Kaz's Call does indeed ring out. She carefully puts the gun down, since, after all, it's not as if she can use it in Crinos, and growls under her breath. Clearly, she'd rather be fighting than ululating, but there it is.

Three Garou go off to the west as fast as their paws will carry them. Great funnels of grass spread out behind, like the wake of boats in the sea. Two go more cautiously, north-west, where a clump of fir trees sits awkwardly against the breezy meadow. The forest where the remainder of the Garou stalk is silent excpet for the terrible sound of Kaz's continuing call. Slowly, the smell of the body on the floor begins to wind its way into the winds. It smells of liquor and sweat, and of course the rich meaty smell of blood that's pouring so quickly into the grassy earth.

Jihgfed pages to the room: Ah, splitting up. Every GM's bane.

Jihgfed pages to Fire-Burns and Circle Keeper: This is a grove of evergreens, thick as thistles, the canopy so low it will prick a wolf's ears as it passes. The trees are young but stunted, and the brush is thick, with mad tangles of broken branches and a thick pine needle carpet. Here the greens of spring are already turning to the browns of summer; there's a sense of brittleness and death; despite their youth many of the trees are as cold and bare as bones. Here and there whole trees have been removed from the forest, cut at the root. The closer in you get the more there's the foetid smell of filth growing stronger and stronger, thicker and thicker: faeces and urine, vomit, sex, and blood, like all the sewers of the world have been dredged up and left to sit in the sun a few days. It isn't permeated, yet; it's shallow and hasn't seeped in to the trees and the earth. The fat full moon gleams through the needles of firs and shines off the dozens of bottles, cans, and shiny foil wrappers scattered throughout the undergrowth, thrown haphazardly. A single product predominates, a thin plastic bottle with a tacky old-fashioned label reading, `Newfie Screech`. You hear no signs of life except for the cooing of morningdoves, oblivious to what's below.

Laura holds her fire, despite her seething Rage. She watches intently for any sign of the Enemy, her nose twitching irritably at the reek of the dead one.

Kaz glares at nothing in particular as she grates out further variations on the Call.

As Ciuraq and Clemency slowly and steadily press through the brush, the Uktena seems to take on considerable irritation to his posture. Backing up a distance, he growls out to Jacinta to get her attention, before silently telling her 'nothing'.

Masao turns her attention back towards the copse when her quick search of the area yields nothing outward. She actually stares dead-on at the trees and fidgets in place like she wants to go there.

Jihgfed pages to the room: Those off in groups, please page just to me and to your own group.

Fire-Burns's face shows disgust at the defilement of the area. ~The filthy, filthy, filthy things,~ she snarls to Circle Keeper. ~They die for this, here, now.~ With that threat she presses ahead of the Uktena a little, searching eagerly for further targets.

Kaz mutters something to Jacinta.

Kaz grunts, and heads west, with appropriate care, the grating ululation continuing. For now.

Jihgfed pages to the room: Hold a moment, please. For Clemency and Circle Keeper to fully scout the bush, and return, would take a good five minutes. They do indeed find nothing, so the poses can still hold, I just want to make sure the timeline's straight.

Jihgfed pages to Fire-Burns and Circle Keeper: And here's the centre of the group of trees: The great machine dominates this small clearing carved from the forest itself, a circle of snapped tree trunks and uprooted brush less than ten metres wide. Growing out of it, taller than three Garou, is a mammoth contraption of burnt trees and prefabricated plastic. The clearing seems barely wide enough to berth it; it gapes obscenely out, like a too-large infant scrambling out of its dark womb. The shadow it casts stretches cold out across the trees. Beneath it there's a fire pit where the skewers still hold chunks of unidentifiable meat, burnt to a cinder. There were no bathrooms, no bedrooms here: it looks like a communal cess-pit used for weeks, for all purposes, and with the detritus of its use still fetid and almost eagerly presented, as if purposefully. Hanging from the great machine, from the plastic basket of weight, a girl is bound by the hands; her eyes are sunken, her clothes hang off of her like drapery from a skeleton, and she has been dead for days. Her head hangs limply, a tussle of dirt-blonde hair all that's visible. There are bottles everywhere, but still no signs of life.

Jihgfed pages to Fire-Burns and Circle Keeper: It's not terribly far - that's why heading to the copse, completely scouting it for Dancers, and returning, takes only five minutes.

Laura gathers her arrows, puts them into the quiver, then begins stalking west, watching every step.

Jihgfed pages: From the looks of the body, it's starvation. You're no doctormetician, though.

From afar, to Jihgfed and Fire-Burns, Circle Keeper growls low to the Silver Fang, stamping his foot in the indicated direction: No. Charach says den is this way. Follow, he adds, starting to move at the same, measured pace to the west. With as much compassion as a poptart, he leaves the deceased woman there without comment.

Masao nods sharply and rises from her crouch fluidly, moving cautiously to the west. There's a barely restrained tension in her posture and an expression somewhere between trepidation and curiousity.

Slowly Helen gets her things together and follows the other Garou, jaw set, eyes darting about anxiously.

You paged Jihgfed and Circle Keeper with 'Clemency runs up to the bound girl and places a hand on her cold body. For a moment she doesn't move. Then she whirls round, and the savage look on her face would frighten the Wyrm itself. She doesn't speak to the Uktena or acknowledge his presence; she takes off at a gallop, howling in wordless fury, in the direction he indicated. Unlike his measured pace, she's moving at full tilt, no caution or restraint.'. You paged Jihgfed with 'She's gone. Frenzy :)'.

From afar, to Jihgfed and Fire-Burns, Circle Keeper growls as Clemency passes him, then picks up his pace slightly also.

Circle-Keeper has rendezvoused with the rest, who are now moving west at a brisk pace as they cross the meadow, following, though more slowly and with the reservations of caution, the moon-addled Silver Fang who shot raging westwards from the copse of trees just a few seconds ago.

Circle Keeper keeps up his faster pace, trying to keep up with the Silver Fang to an extent. ~Nothing.~ He pants out to the packmate as he passes. ~Their home.~

Pierces Ice picks up the pace a bit, still cautious, but more hurried.

Fire-Burns has evidently thrown all caution, and possibly all sanity, to the winds. Howling wildly and wordlessly she's running as fast as her legs will carry her, ahead of the rest, arms raised and claws curled ready to strike.

Laura sets her arrow away and slings her bow over her shoulder. She moves to one side, to get a different view of the situation. No orders this time-she watches Jacinta for cues and direction.

Having ceased her calling at the Wendigo's direction, Kaz keeps with the westward heading group and matches pace. Breath for the quick travel comes easier without the howl to keep up.

Masao, on the other hand, seems reluctant to follow for a moment. The Ragabash pauses to give the copse an indescribable look and murmur before she takes off again to catch up with the group.

The Ahroun at the head of the pack leads not with strength or purpose but with blind rage. Her flashing claws mince through the grass and bushes in her way, and her wordless ambition is simply to put distance beneath her paws and sate the bloodlust that drives every action. She quickly outpaces the more cautious Garou behind her, who face the choice of either abandoning caution as the Silver Fang has and beating down the wind, or letting her move off on her own, beyond their immediate succour.

Pierces Ice snarls out an order for Fire Burns to hold back, but does not let her group run heedless of the traps of which they've been warned. Chafing at the need for caution, she maintains as quick a pace as she dares.

Fire-Burns shows no sign whatever of hearing or heeding Pierces-Ice. She maintains both her speed and her menacing wordless howls.

Laura bares her teeth at Fire-Burns' disappearing form. She dithers a moment, then changes course, the better to keep an eye on her packmate.

Two groups converge: out of the western undergrowth, Walks-the-Middle-Road and Voice-of-the-Unspoken smash out of bushes and over tree stumps, as fast as their paws will let though without the urgency of pursuit. Fire-Burns meets them first though she doesn't stop for conversation; the rest of the Garou are not far behind. They meet beneath the morning sun, in the most serene of meadows, still with rage and spiritlessness buzzing about their minds.

Voice skids to a halt, whirling to see Fire-Burns fly past him. He lets out a growl but does not chase her down. Instead, he turns back to find the main group. As he does, he hooks up with his partner--Walks-Middle. Snarling out information in quick, succinct words, he tells Pierces Ice and Circle Keeper what he knows. ~Five, maybe more, due west in a house. Culls stayed to watch. Some went north, one chased us, but went back.~

Circle Keeper keeps up his accelerated pace, giving Stacey a once over as if to make sure alll the parts she left with are still there.

Walks-Middle slows to a stop as she reaches the group, turning around to move west with them as Voice speaks. She growls her agreement to his explanation, but has nothing to add to it herself.

Pierces Ice snarls out frustration. ~Start at the house. Two groups, as before. Circle Keeper to the left, my group right until we meet. We'll catch the runners after.~

Laura and Helen rush along with the others. Traps are checked for, though not as thoroughly as they could be. Both women are intent on whatever is ahead, the theurge a little edgier about her packmate. Rage simmers in both as they once more follow Jacinta's orders, banking to the right when the house comes into view.

Fire-Burns almost collides with Voice and Walks-Middle as she goes barrelling by them, paying them no more heed than she did Pierces-Ice a second ago. She's heading west at full steam ahead, and if her wild face and incoherent snarls are anything to go by, whatever she meets to the west will have cause to regret the meeting.

Masao catches up to Kaz and paces her tribemate as the meadow is traversed. At the brief meet-and-greet with the some of the rest of the morning's party, they exchange quick grins before moving onward. They, too, shift to the right to keep the group together.

Voice, with the word from Jacinta, sets off yet again back west. He moves quicker and with less caution than is probably prudent. Having already been over the ground twice, he moves as though he believes the way he picks is safe.

Through brush and small groups of trees Fire-Burns chases imaginary monsters that look the same as she. Two groups fork around the mad Crinos. The scenery flits by, a succession of blurs, and the cottage is made in no time flat. Fire-Burns goes through the door without opening it, a mess of splinters and fury; the rest of the Garou are behind, converging at the house a good time after - some thirty seconds, an eternity in the bloody-eyed moments of pursuit and combat.

Jihgfed pages: You're out of frenzy. There's a dead girl at your feet, in a house that's full of bottles of liquor and tacky upholstery.

From afar, to the room, Voice renames Fire-Burns Ignores-Doors.
Walks-Middle pages to the room: Yeah, that's the second door this week! Voice pages to the room: Doors-Bane!
Masao pages to the room: Burns-Through-Doors.

Circle Keeper leads his group around to the left side of the house, looking for the first available door on that side of the building to barrel through. Failing that, the hispo promotes a window to the same function.

Voice is looking for Culls the Herd. Not seeing her makes him nervous. He does as Circle Keeper suggests, but he also uses his noae, trying to find the alpha's scent--and the others' scents as well.

Pierces Ice moves to the right as she also seeks entry to the house. But as well, she keeps an eye out for what may be beyond the house.

Laura fights the urge to Change just long enough to take off her bow and secure her arrows-the bow is tossed into the grass, the arrows capped in their quiver. Helen does the same, and both women flank Pierces-Ice in the search for an entrance/enemy.

Fire Burns> The haze of frenzy is beginning to lift from your eyes. Things are beginning to coalesce in shapes and forms that are intelligible to the non-instinctual mind: there's the sofa, it's for sitting on. It's an ugly one, even you know that. Your breath comes quickly. There's beer and bottles on the couch and there's the sound of white fuzz from the television. It's a smooth, cooling sound, that helps you ground yourself and eases the smashing of your heart. The television box - an ancient one, set into its own stand - is knocked to the floor, its whole corner a maelstrom of broken bits of wood and drywall and blood. The flicker of the screen lights everything up in pale colours, the morning sun can't pierce the blinds. Crumpled in the mess of the corner is the barely distinguishable body of a young girl, fifteen or so, well-fed, not exactly pretty, ripped to ribbons.

Walks-Middle follows behind Circle Keeper and Voice, keeping attentive and looking about for any sign of the spirals.

The Gnawer caboose on this little Garou train keeps eyes and ears alert as they bring up the rear. Kaz and Masao turn their senses in opposite directions from each other as they run to look for targets and keep their backtrail clean.

If Circle-Keeper wants a window, he's got it: the whole southern side of the house is one huge window, stretched out in full 50s splendour, from one faux-rock corner of the house to the other. Breaking through it isn't only easy, it's fun. The house inside has thick smells of sweat and plastic, and is in the poorest state of clutter, with pizza boxes and empty bottles all over, like a group of particularly filthy squatters had taken up residence.

Voice's hispo nostrils flare as he catches a rather strong scent. He snarls to get Pierces Ice's attention. ~This way,~ he tells both her and Circle Keeper, padding quickly toward the north. He seems anxious, and the house does not hold his attention at all anymore. ~North.~

Fire-Burns, inside the house, is motionless now at last. Her attention is held firmly by the white-noise buzzing of a television set, pictureless and staticky, on its side on the floor. She's panting as though exhausted, or coming out of a fit.

No sooner is he in, Ciuraq lashes around in a circle, before Voices gets his attention. Departing the way he came, he readly abandons the building for heading north outside.

Walks-Middle turns with a faint growl at Voice's call and heads north, keeping pace with Circle Keeper and the Get.

Pierces Ice turns, nose working to try to catch whatver scent hold's the Get's nose. She hurries after, but snarls an order to Masao to hang back slightly and range out, keeping watch. The others are told to V, letting the Fostern Ragabash take point.

Pierces Ice pages to the room: Masao and Helen, opposite sides.

There is an order, and the Furies obey. They each take their hispo forms. Child-Holder falls in behind the others on the right side of the V, and Helen rushes out a little farther, ready to scout.

Voice eagerly takes the point. Occasionally his nose lowers to make sure he follows the trail left by Culls the Herd, but it seems mostly unnecessary--so strong is the trail. He lopes along as swiftly as he can, tongue out and slavering a little. The chase is making him restless. The Get wants blood.

It is a fairly obvious urine trail that the Garou are following: Vera has marked her way quite clearly. Beneath it, almost blotted out by the acrid smell of intentional marking, is the smell of the Dancers they track, heavy and complex like the smell of old cheese or infection. It's ten minutes before they come on the Adren Shadow Lord herself, loping along as fast as she can while still following the long thick trail of scent.

Masao drops back behind Kaz and to the left, fanning out and dropping down into hispo to stretch her legs out. The Galliard ahead of her does much the same but is on four paws by the time the Ragabash is in position and shifting, senses keen.

She's broken two doors this week. Perhaps three in a week is unlucky or something, for when the door at the back of the cottage opens to let Fire-Burns out it does so in the normal way. The Ahroun looks round a little woozily before seeing and scenting the others, and picking up speed again -- not her previous mad dash, but a more controlled sprint to catch up.

Circle Keeper remains marginally behind the Get Ragabash, trying to keep with the pace the best he can, despite the smells about.

Culls-The-Herd looks up as the others catch up with her, tongue lolling. ~They have pulled ahead and flee in fear, but their trail is still fresh.~

Voice continues forward north, whirls back to make sure that the others still follow, and then continues north.

Pierces Ice urges Voice of the Unspoken forward, her packmates flanking her, those of the Gibbous moon just a bit behind and the cliath ragabash ranging out from there. Catch them, her posture says as she continues on.
Child-Holder and Cycle-Breaker encourage once another with chuffs and posture, the no-moon a little more silent than the theurge. The chase, and Gaia's Vengeance, is everything now.

Voice's dark golden eyes gleam with focused energy at Pierces Ice's order. He moves out with a purpose now.

Fire-Burns picks up speed until she's on the heels of Circle Keeper and Voice. ~What happened? How many more?~ she pants at them as they run.

Walks-Middle follows along behind her packmates and the Get, what anxiety she'd felt has long left her in the midst of running back and forth.
Ears and Leaves-None continue to pound paws to dirt in the race to catch the fleeing foes. The thrill of the chase spurs them on while the newmoon keeps tabs on the surrounding area.

It's easy enough to follow the trail the Dancers leave behind: their unwashed stink is hard to miss. Morning begins to slip towards noon, and the mornindoves are replaced by sparrows and larks which everywhere sing the Garou's passing. It's impossible to tell whether they're catching up or not by scent alone - but it's easy to tell when the trail forks into four.

Voice growls in frustration. He stands at the four point fork to wait for the others to catch up. While they gather, he uses his nose again to gather as much as he can about the various scents--how many, and who went in which direction.

Culls-The-Herd sniffs furiously at the ground, where the scents split off into different directions. ~Their Alpha is female,~ the Shadow Lord notes.

Walks-Middle pages to the room: Damn. I can't hit a woman.
Voice pages to the room: I can! er.
Child-Holder pages to the room: That's like, practically our job!

Circle Keeper sniffs at the ground a few moments, before looking to the Wendigo Fostern, panting. Takes Walks-Middle. Goes this way, he indicates with a question.

Jihgfed pages to the room: There are four different scents, two female, all lupine, all sick.

Fire-Burns runs up behind Circle Keeper, sniffing keenly. ~They scatter.
They fear us,~ she sneers, and without waiting for orders she starts to hare off up the leftmost of the four scent-paths.

Walks-Middle steps a bit closer to Circle Keeper as she is indicated, glancing down the path and then looking over to Pierces Ice expectantly.

Pierces Ice takes in the scents and quickly gestures toward each of the four trails. ~Voice of the Unspoken, Fire Burns Forever,~ she snarls at the first trail. She grunts assent to her packmate and then points to the third. ~Ears to the Ground, Leaves None Behind, Culls the Herd.~ Then she swings her head toward the Black Furies. ~With me,~ and she's off on the fourth trail without a backward look.

Child-Holder watches her packmate run off, then turns back. She and Cycle-Breaker sort themselves out, then both of the glossy black hispo charge after the Wendigo Fostern.

Circle Keeper takes off again once his question is confirmed, jogging down the indicated trail.

The Gnawer pair pause long enough to get directions and fall in with the Shadow Lord before taking off up the third trail.

Voice takes off down the first path with only a cursory glance to see if the Silver Fang has the sense to follow.

The paths are quiet except for the panting of Garou and the call of songbirds which clutter the air, filling it with soft cacophany. They weave around human civilization, catching the backs of chain link fences, breaking through gravel roads. The sun has grown high over the sky and it beats now with a ferocity unlike spring, sapping energy and making madness.

Clemency, Ethan> You travel your path for ten solid minutes, more or less abreast, noses fast against the ground. The smell of the Black Spiral Dancer is infuriatingly close, you can practically taste its stench in your mouth. The distracting noise of starlings is a nuisance, the sun seeps into your pores. Another scent begins to intermingle - upon realizing what it is you look up, almost too late, see bushes shake as hidden wolves burst Crinos. It's all movement and rush and they're on you - three of them? Four? It's impossible to tell: all you see is claws and darkness and the growing well of rage.

Jihgfed pages to Fire-Burns and Voice: Please pose to the room only what they might catch: i.e., howls and sounds. This is the first round of combat. Ethan, you, having a higher wits, _are_ able to tell that there's four of them exactly, all Crinos now, and panting hard. They attack with mad anger but there's fear in them also.

From the direction in which Ethan and Clemency ran come the sounds of garou in battle, snarls and howls. Then there's a sudden silent explosion of light in that same direction.

Voice pages to Jihgfed and Fire-Burns: Before I pose, is this assumption correct: Normal combat sounds they wouldn't hear, but the group (our other PC groups) would hear a howl for help?
Jihgfed pages to Fire-Burns and Voice: Normal sounds they'd barely make out. Howls would be pretty clear.

You paged Jihgfed and Voice with 'Fire-Burns leaps upon the nearest enemy garou, with teeth and claws all flashing. Then as she does so, she seems to explode in a massive ball of blinding white light. (She's activated Lambent Flame)'.

From afar, to Jihgfed and Fire-Burns, Voice is so eager to be in combat at this point, he lunges forward rather than think clearly. He slams into the first garou to come from the bush, teeth sinking into sullen and sickly flesh with some satisfaction. Tearing back and forth violently, the direness of his situation eventually dawns on him. The ragabash tries to elude the attackers, using his speed to dodge and bite where he has the chance. Only then does a rallying call come out. It's clipped and hurried, but clearly a howl for help.

Not long after the flash of light, a howl rises into the otherwise serene sunny afternoon. It's the voice of Voice of the unspoken, a clear call for help.

Jihgfed pages to Fire-Burns and Voice: It's a blind flash of claw and light. Three are on Clemency: it's by luck and surprise that she's not dead. The sudden brightness sends claws this way and that, awry and awkward, dark limbs against the bright sunshine and Falcon's gifts. Voice only has to deal with one, but it's a big one: it stretches in for his legs, teeth against hamstring, but the Ragabash narrowly manages to swing his leg away and use its leverage to come down on the monster like a theatre sandbag. Fire-Burns for her efforts has entrails on her claws.

You paged Jihgfed and Voice with 'Clemency is pretty much biting and clawing whatever's closest and in reach, as before. Aiming for eyes, bellies, and other familiar week spots.'.

From afar, to Jihgfed and Fire-Burns, Voice harries the big monster that's chosen him. He remains in hispo, darting in to bite, only to dash back away, trying to stay clear of the thing's grip while doing as much damage as he can.

Jihgfed pages to Fire-Burns and Voice: Fire-Burns is like a rag doll between a trio of dogs, though her claws sing. One of the beasts goes down but her howl of pain and fury fills the air, scaring off the birds, bristling past the leaves. Her body frantically struggles to knit itself back together and red takes her eyes and her beautiful coat. Voice-of-the-Unspoken is controlling his share of the fight, trading blow for blow, dodge for dodge, though his hit heavier, and move swifter. Clem, you've rage-healed back from -11 to -6. You're also frenzied - fox or berserk, your choice.

You paged Jihgfed with 'Oh, Clemency's keen, she can manage two berserks in one night. She's all yours, pose her away.'.

From afar, to Jihgfed and Fire-Burns, Voice, seeing Clemency's condition, breaks off from the one he's been attacking to leap up on the back of one of the Silver Fang's assailants. It leaves him vulnerable to the one he's been fighting, but he makes the sudden attack count for as much as he can. He goes right for the throat.

It's death and violence beneath the noonday sun. The trees let through enough light to plainly see the bodies and the blood, glistening in dark splatches against bark and fur. After one last wrenching effort Fire-Burns' light has faded: she has died with her claws in the Wyrm. Voice-of-the-Unspoken is alone against the three creatures that still stand, or limp, or hunch: they are on him like dogs, fierce and with no sense left in them, their eyes wild, teeth bloodied, madness in them, while he is on one of them himself, practically riding the thing, smashing claws into its neck with wild urgency. The thing laughs as he does, it crows like a rooster with its throat scraped, it tries to throw back its head but the knives of the Ragabash' hands slice the tendons that hold the head up. It's this, through the slats of trees, that the two groups of Circle-Keeper and Walks-the-Middle, and Pierces-Ice and Child-Holder, see.

Circle Keeper, once he's free of the trees and closer in, surges up to Crinos in a heartspan and flings his silver tipped spear at the one closest to him with all his heft.

No hesitation, no further battle plan. ~Take them out!~ Pierces the Ice howls, rushing forward herself.

Walks-Middle lets out a fierce growl as she flows up into Crinos, rushing forward to leap into the fray, claws ready to sink into what Dancer she can reach.

All of the control that has kept Child-Holder from rushing after her packmate snaps. She rockets to crinos, screaming obscenities that mix every language she knows. She barrels ahead, directly for whoever, whatever carries the sickening stench of the Wyrm.

Cycle-Breaker is slightly less blinded by her Rage. She jinks and weaves, then abruptly rushes one of the Black Spiral Dancers, hispo jaws aiming to close on its leg.

Voice is done with feinting and playing. He strikes out at anything in front of him, digging into flesh, tearing through fur and hide, ignoring the same that's done to him. The ragabash is drenched in their blood as well as his own, and it lends the Get an eerie, obscene aspect.

Culls-The-Herd shifts into crinos as she joins the fray, claws at the ready as she goes to the aid of Voice-Of-The-Unspoken.

The fallen Silver Fang's body blurs for the final time as she returns in her dying to her birthform. She's landed on her back, and her grey eyes are open. As Pierces-Ice comes howling and leaping to fight the Dancers over her fallen form, she looks up at the Wendigo through darkening eyes, and somehow finds the strength to give a cry of joy. "Spikes! Spikes! You came back... for me..." and those are the last words she speaks as she slumps backwards.

Another of the Dancers goes down, silver slipping over her shoulder and then a fistful of claws coming up in her stomach. She goes down in blood and glory and Voice-of-the-Unspoken goes down right after her, though he at least comes back up shortly afterwards in a groaning exertion of willpower and rage, hurling himself blearily back up to his feet. The Dancers push past him: the gleam of silver puts fear in their mad eyes, and they both turn their attention to Pierces-Ice, to meet her weapon with their own gnarly hands.

Circle Keeper's not going to go for that, however. Seeing Jacinta being cornered by the two, The Uktena puts on speed that seems impossible for him, throwing himself, claws and teeth, at one of them with a roar.

Child-Holder continues her incoherent screaming, managing to center in on one of the still-moving Spirals. She channels her Rage to move fast and sharp at the thing, attacking with claw and fang.

Walks-Middle also rushes forward, throwing herself on the other Spiral that nears Jacinta, drawing on her Rage as she lunges forward, aiming to claw or bite as possible.

Cycle-Breaker fits where she can, nipping at heels, slashing at legs.

The Gnawer Express, perhaps a little off its timetable, come pounding in at the Alpha's heels and spring into Crinos. Ears goes high, Leaves-None goes low, the smaller Ragabash going for legs, forelimbs, anything of the Dancers that come within her reach.

Voice's limbs entangle with the dead Spiral. He struggles to get to his feet, slipping back down in all the blood and gore. Disoriented for a moment, he snarls at the dead abomination he's tangled up with, and then he sees Clemency. The fury and anger drain somewhat as he looks at the lifeless Silver Fang. Once again, he struggles to his feet, determined.

Pierces Ice's rushes forward, knife a blur in her attack. No words, just a growl of nonverbal hatred escapes her throat.

With silver in play, things go quickly, though not smoothly. The fear that enters even the far-gone Dancer's eyes at the soft white metal spurs them to action and they are on Pierces-Ice with claws and fury as she neatly slices the muscles from their bones. They spill like slit wine sacks onto the ground but their claws are still sharp and their eyes are still wild, they batter her about, their teeth catch her neck. Circle-Keeper's interposition takes the claw that may have killed her. Then it's chaos with Garou from all sides on the pair and taking out all their stored rage and hatred and frustration; it seems to take minutes for the flesh to stop flying from their bones, their blood seeping into the dirt, making a thick red soup.

Circle Keeper doesn't stop. He keeps clawing and tearing: Flesh is pulled from flesh, flesh is pulled from bone, bone is pulled from vicsera, and viscera are torn up even finer. He seems intent on butchering the thing until there's nothing left to butcher, and with quite agressive abandon, growling all the way.

The knife is sheathed without thought as Pierces the Ice clamps a hand over the blood-spurting wound in her neck. Unlike her packmate, she steps back from the carnage once the enemies have fallen. She also sinks down to a three limbed crouch, white fur gone a deep red on nearly all of her left side. For too long, blood continues to flow beneath her ham-hand.

Voice manages to get to his feet only to slip in the river of gore and fall back on his ass. A snarl escapes his muzzle, but he has the sense, now that things have calmed, to stay put this time. His breath is ragged and uneven.

It's been years since Child-Holder has unleashed her ferocity so thoroughly. As the Enemy falls, she stops, as though she's not quite sure what to do. Cycle-Breaker scouts the clearing, searching for more trails, more hidden enemies, as the theurge stares at her paws. Then it's as though she's snapped out of it. Child-Holder slips to her human form and raises her chin. Her expression is blank as she rounds on the nearest wounded party.

Circle Keeper finally pulls himself off the dead body, but not before urinating on it first. Covered in gore, he limps over to his weapon and pulls it out of the dead body, eyes searching the ground as he goes.

Culls-The-Herd's claws are red, but its hard to say how much damage she caused the enemy. She looks over those gathered, eyes expressionless. Jacinta's state causes her to lay back her ears, but the Wendigo remains alive and that seems to be enough to satisfy the Adren. Walking over to the fallen Silver Fang's body, Culls-The-Herd picks her up and cradles the limp form in a surprisingly gentle manner. ~There is too much silver here, it saps our spiritual energy,~ she rumbles, mostly to herself. ~Pierces-Ice, the battle is over. Shall we return home?~

Walks-Middle also backs away once the Dancers have fallen, her claws dripping with blood. She lets out a few ragged breaths, then takes a couple steps toward Clemency's body, stopping as Vera picked her up, the Child's expression twisted in grief and rage.

Fury is fury and it does its job well when unleashed. The claws of Ears and Leaves-None do their part, separating and backing off and away from the carnage when there is no more to be done. It takes great effort for Leaves-None to remain quiet, but she does so with some willpower and simply exudes a mixture of sadness and fading anger.

Jihgfed pages to the room: Clean up can be done by +mail. That's six Dancers dead (Clemency killed on in the house before anyone even arrived, which you'd find out if/when you searched the place). Thanks for coming, everyone. Sorry it was so long and so draining.

Pierces Ice's hand is still clamped over her neck, though the flow of blood has lessened. Her eyes narrow at Vera and she scans the area. It takes obvious effort, but she forces herself upright again. ~Take the Silver Fang home. Ears to the Ground, I leave you responsible for the bodies. Leaves None Behind, Cycle Breaker...~ She pauses, looking over to Voice of the Unspoken, ~Are you well enough?~

Circle Keeper pokes at one of the bodies, a homid, stabbing it once or twice more as it to make sure it's still dead. Planting his spear to the side, he straddles the body, only to pull out his knife and start cutting off the head.

Voice actually starts to laugh. It sounds disturbingly similar to the calls of the Spirals from earlier. ~Me? Of course,~ he tells the Wendigo. and though it's a struggle, he manages to get to his feet. Offers of aid are met with a quick, snap-jawed rejection.

~Care to walk back with me?~ Culls-The-Herd asks of the Get of Fenris, as she starts the long walk back toward the Caern.

Leaves-None turns her gaze to Pierces Ice with solemn attentiveness, flexing her hands a few times fitfully. Ears gives a short nod of assent and looks about the scene measuringly.

Pierces Ice nods to the Get, the gesture setting off a fresh flow of blood. She winces, stills her head, and tightens her hand over her neck. ~Their home and camp still needs to be searched. The areas between, Grey said, lay rife with traps. We need to clean it, before we can call ourselves done.~

Laura doesn't get too close to Pierces Ice, apparently functioning on autopilot as she tries to get a look at the injury. Vera moving off draws her attention, she half-opens her mouth, then shuts it again. Instead, she waits.

Cycle-Breaker perks her ears at mention of the traps and the search. She pads nearer and chuffs agreement.

Leaves-None gives a dip of her head to the Wendigo and a brief look of concern for the neck-wound.

Pierces Ice looks from Garou to Garou, her movements slow and unsteady. ~I am honored to have fought beside each of you.~ She dips her head ever so slightly, eyes half-closing. "Quyana" ~for your help.~

Laura's hand shakes a bit as she pulls off her jacket and begins to tear it to pieces. "Stay still," she says, stepping forward, winding the makeshift bandage around her hand. "Let me cover it. I need a needle." Each sentence delivered matter-of-factly.

Leaves-None reluctantly speaks in that squeaky, gravelly grating voice again, tones clipped but deeply respectful. ~The honor is shared, Pierces Ice-rhya.~

Voice watches and listens to the Wendigo's words. Silently he also watches Laura attend to her. Then, he begins moving off in the direction of Vera and Clemency, slowly making his way home.

===============================================

The letter to Grey:

It's in Clemency's bag, which (if Dillen does as he's asked) is delivered to you after the battle.

Dear Thomas,

I know I said I was sorry when I heard I wasn't to fight alongside you today, but I'm afraid that was kind of a lie. I'm glad you aren't there because I have a bad feeling about this one, and if you're reading this letter, you'll know I was right to have that bad feeling, because I'll be dead. (As you know, the duty of a Silver Fang is always to be right.)

I've told Dillen to get my bag back to you if I fall. Apart from clothes and things there's only really three things I possess that are worth a damn either financially or emotionally. My mp3 player, please give to Emma. She was always trying to teach me to control myself and music was the only way that ever worked a damn. I hope she'll play some of the Chopin and Tchaikovsky sometimes. And tell her that if she doesn't make Fostern I'll fucking haunt her.

The sketchbook contains a lot of my work. If any of the garou of the sept want them, they can have them to remember me by. But I want my packmates to have first pick if there's a dispute.

Lastly, there's some photographs. Assuming there's enough left of me to bury, and assuming there's a caern left to bury me in, can you please put them in with me? I know it's a crazy psycho thing to ask but when was I ever about anything but being a crazy psycho, huh. Feel free to look at them. The photos of me in a group are my old pack. You guys might get to be as good as them one day, specially once I'm gone and no longer dragging you down. You kick ass, all of you. It was an honor.

There's also a photo of a little kid. If you're wondering, he's my son. Adam. It wasn't safe to be round him, not after what I did to his father. But, one last favor for you, if you can. Can you get word to Ruth Kye back at the One Bright Star. (Last address I had for her was 228-B Axholme Road, Bluffton, SC 29910. No idea if it's still valid. She didn't seem to want to talk to me any more after I ate my husband, with him being her brother and all.)

Can't think of much more to say, and I never was brilliant with words, so I'll leave it at that. It was a pleasure to know you and get drunk with you, Thom.

C.

We will kill them, yes, kill them all, and you will go on to kill many more.

2006-06-09T16:53:00.000-07:00

Ash Grove(#4024RJh)
Within this dark forest dominated by the canopy of the tenacious, light-hungry pines is a place where a stand of ash has established itself and fought off all competition. The ashes allow the rays of sun and moon alike to lance down through limbs which bear nothing more than clusters of rust-coloured keys, such that undergrowth abounds and the forest floor is even clad with a bright green sward of grass. Bright white bits of bone peep through the green, testament to a history of food offerings in this place.
These habitual offerings have accomplished their purpose and, during daytime, a great number of carrion birds roost in the branches of the trees, predominately the large black bodies of crows and ravens. The grove is deserted at night, the birds having left for other sanctuary.

Dillen looks to Stacey. "He has a right to know I have them and whatever he wishes for them I will do." Then a nod. "I shall. To both of you." And with that, he's headed off towards the farmhouse.

Far-Cry watches his former packmate go, exhaling a little heavier when the galliard is out of range. As Stacey leaves with Dillen, the halfmoon gives himself a quick shake and settles back down where he stands to rest.

A few minutes pass before Fire-Burns returns from her run, cantering into the clearing at an easy lope. Hello, hello, I am back, I ran, she tells Far-Cry as she trots over to him. I ran far, I ran fast.

Far-Cry, head down on his paws, lifts it when he hears the other wolf's approach. The philodox's question next is accompanied with a lick of his muzzle. See anything good to eat?

I was not looking for prey, Fire-Burns tells Far-Cry. I was looking for Dancers. And they are not good to eat, no, no. Taste of the Wyrm, make you sick, make you warped.

Far-Cry splays an ear with an obvious 'well duh' kind of look, making much assumption to the taste of BSD flesh. His head lowers another notch, looking almost like it's going to flop back onto his forepaws, but doesn't quite make it there. I have never seen one. Never fought one. Never bit one.

Fire-Burns walks round Far-Cry thoughtfully, then lies down near him, her head towards his. I have, she informs him. They are fearsome. They are like us. So like us that it can be confusing if many fight on each side. But we will kill them, yes, kill them all, and you will go on to kill many more.

It would take a Garou to kill a Garou properly, the Shadow Lord observes distantly. He looks over to the ahroun. When did you fight them?

Before I came here, Fire-Burns recalls. My pack and another pack fought them on a beach. It was a good fight, we won. Two of the other pack died but none of mine, no, not that time... though many are dead now, she adds with a sad whine.

Far-Cry looks down at his paws, tongue reaching out for swipe over one and clean off a speck of dirt. What do you see here that is different from there? he asks, gazing back over.

Spikes-The-Drinks is not here, Fire-Burns responds with another dejected whine. Her ears lie down flat and she licks at her front paw.

I meant, Far-Cry expands, what can be done to win the fight with these intruders? What says two packs win on a beach, and a whole sept does not lose?

Fire-Burns lies her head on her paws and considers. The beach was open, yes, we could all see each other. Here is the woods, we cannot see well. Perhaps hear, perhaps smell. Also on beach no humans near, no thing-to-throw-heads.

Far-Cry notes he is surprised they haven't thrown big rocks yet. The philodox growls low, himself eager to get up and move, he rises to his paws and paces again. Then after a few caged lion-like turns, he refocuses on the ahroun. Your pack, is it well?

My pack? Fire-Burns enquires, seeming a little lost in thought or memory. My pack now?

Yes, Havoc. The philodox's gold gaze is on the Fang again. Far-Cry's full attention seems to be searching the ahroun, but not in a directly invasive manner.

They are well, yes, yes, Fire-Burns confirms, still seeming distracted. Stone-Spirit is sad because her father died and Escapes-From-Money does not leave her den because of her voice but they are all healthy.

Far-Cry starts his pacing anew, himself quickly distracted with his own thoughts as well. The Shadow Lord completes far too many laps before he then asks, Will they be out here? Defending the caern when the others go to war with the Black Spiral Dancers?

I do not know, is Fire-Burns' answer. I hope they will either fight or guard the caern and cubs but I do not know because I have seen none of them for days, no, not since I broke the way into the farm and shouted at Pierces-Ice-rhya.

Far-Cry looks up at the mention of cubs. Walks-Middle wishes the Glass Walkers to keep her cubs at their safeden. The others, I do not know either. His attention keeps there, upon mention of the broken farm door and shouting at the Wendigo. The halfmoon's ears tilt, asking for him a silent question after it.

She said I did nothing, Fire-Burns answers the unspoken question. And she called me a bad name, I do not know what it meant because it was in her strange tongue, yes, but it was bad, and I could tell because of the way she looked when she said it about me, yes, very bad, because she hates me because of what she says my ancestors did to hers. Fire-Burns delivers that statement in a torrent of angry lupine growls and gestures, then her head flops back down on her paws.

Far-Cry turns a tight circle, but it gives him an opportunity to move a few paces from the ahroun as well. What did you do, then? If not nothing. The Shadow Lord declines making any statement on the subjects of ancestors, sitting his rear end down and eyeing the fullmoon.

Recalls-the-Scars and I found out from the Corax that the Fallen Ones had a thing-that-throws-small-things and that is how the heads got onto the bawn, Fire-Burns responds proudly. And before that I have fought many things, yes, many bad things since I joined this sept. You know that.

Then there must be some other reason that she says you do nothing. Far-Cry quirks his head at an angle, inviting the ahroun to pierce the haze of indignance. It is as Walks-the-Middle-Road has said. Misunderstandings, maybe.

I shall not think of the matter further, Fire-Burns avows resolutely, until she and I have spoken with Walks-the-Middle-Road in attendance to keep us from throating each other. I will not think of her and her foolishness, no, no, I will not.

Far-Cry turns, gazing north with a snort. The Wyrm eats at the border and litters the bawn with its trash while you two fight over the differences of ancestors and deeds done.

Fire-Burns chuffs in a peeved way. I have made it clear that I am ready to fight, that we should fight as soon as we can, she points out. The leader of higher station chooses when the fight starts. Do you too say I do nothing, Shadow Lord?

Far-Cry looks back over his shoulder. Must you find a thorn pricking your pride in everything that is said? No, you have done much already. Leave the war planning to the Wendigo, and you prepare for when things go wrong.

If others would respect me as they should, there would be no thorns, Fire-Burns points out in the lupine equivalent of an angry mutter before rolling over onto one side, all four legs pointing in the same direction, and stretching.

A wry growl passes through the Shadow Lord. As they should, Far-Cry repeats, chewing over a thought. So the Wendigo does, for one who is beneath her in station. The halfmoon's observance is followed with his turn towards the north, looking to head towards the main forest of the bawn again.

I do not think of the Wendigo-rhya, Fire-Burns insists with more than a hint of stress. I do not speak of her. She too turns north once she's finished rolling around, and lifts her head, nose to the wind in the hope that it may bring her some clue to what's going on over there. Alas, the breeze is in the wrong quarter, and her nose learns nothing new.

Far-Cry glances back at the Fang. But you worry over her speaking of you, and so think of her. It's a little hard for the lupus mind to wrap around that one, which eventually gets overridden with the instinctual urges. The philodox notes that he's hungry, and hence, going to go hunt. There is a short pause afterwards, which lingers in a sort of silent invitation as well.

If I hunt too we can find larger prey, Fire-Burns points out. And it will stop me thinking of things I do not want me to think of. And we can pretend that it is the Fallen Ones we hunt. Yes. Yes. Shall we?

Far-Cry licks the side of his muzzle, agreeable to the thought of larger prey and more meat. The Shadow Lord, though, makes a passing comment about how he would rather not think of good deer flesh as that of the Wyrm since the Wyrm tastes bad. Then he turns to trot off, leading the way. I know a good animal path off the bawn. We can start there.

"I insist that I should be allowed to fight these creatures."

2006-06-09T16:40:00.000-07:00

Ash Grove(#4024RJh)
Within this dark forest dominated by the canopy of the tenacious, light-hungry pines is a place where a stand of ash has established itself and fought off all competition. The ashes allow the rays of sun and moon alike to lance down through limbs which bear nothing more than clusters of rust-coloured keys, such that undergrowth abounds and the forest floor is even clad with a bright green sward of grass. Bright white bits of bone peep through the green, testament to a history of food offerings in this place.
These habitual offerings have accomplished their purpose and, during daytime, a great number of carrion birds roost in the branches of the trees, predominately the large black bodies of crows and ravens. The grove is deserted at night, the birds having left for other sanctuary.

Clemency is sitting cross-legged against a tree trunk, huddled up against the rain that's falling steadily, and looking even more grouchy than she normally does, if such be possible. One hand is holding a half-eaten and very battered-looking sandwich from which she occasionally takes a desultory bite.

Far-Cry's black furred form weaves around a trunk of ash, nose working as he scents out the sandwich amongst the scents brought to him by the breeze. The Shadow Lord pauses when he picks out Clemency's scent as well, but picks up his pace to a slightly quicker walk, circling around the full moon until she can see him clearly.

Clemency looks at the black wolf over the sandwich, and gives a shout as she recognises who this is. "Hey, you! Where've you been hiding?" The end of her shout is softer than the beginning, as though she's deliberately turning her own volume down, and there's a wary look on her face.

Far-Cry turns an ear back and then forward, finding a spot to sit. Found Walks-the-Middle-Road first. Saw kin next, he explains simply. The halfmoon glances skyward. Full moon and news of the Enemy brings me back here. Patrolling old pack territory.

"You heard then," Clemency says, still in a low tone as though she fears being overheard. "We're attacking them soon. Guardians are leading. Did you talk to Stacey about plans?"

Far-Cry snorts with a paw scraping the ground. Only that the Alpha Guardian wants select ones to go, others to stay and guard the heart in case it is a distraction. In this form there is no disguising the annoyance in his posture. I would go, if they would have me.

Clemency meets annoyance with annoyance. "They'd better have me along," she snaps, "after that colossal bitch Jacinta accused me of doing nothing just the other day. That was such a false accusation it's not true."

Far-Cry notes that he has been checking this area, should they circle around. The Shadow Lord then gazes off in a random direction and eyes the ahroun from the corner of his eye. When did you return?

Clemency scratches her head. "A week... maybe a little more," she responds, hesitantly. "Ever since I got back, my sense of time has gone kind of crazy."

Far-Cry dips his head, agreeing on that front. Walks-Middle said we were gone for more than a few moon turns. It does not feel that long. His eyes return to the ahroun. Our gift for following Coyote's whims.

Clemency snorts. "Have you tried to get back to the place where we were? Well... where we ahrouns were. I don't know where you and Grey went..."

Far-Cry looks hesitant, but then bolsters himself back up. I only remember the red tree opening up a path, but the path lead to some far away spot of the Shadow. When I stepped sideways to this side, I found myself far away and came back. Where did you and the others go?

"We three," Clemency says, "found ourselves in some strange umbral village. It seemed to be medieval. We were told of a great vampire who lived in a castle nearby and terrorised the people. But when we slept that night in the local inn... we woke up back here. At least I did... in a forest halfway to the Pacific coast, miles from anywhere."

Far-Cry cants his head, facial expression twisting to a curious, but not too interested consideration. The philodox rumbles quietly, and then dips his head. Whatever Coyote wanted us to do, it is not as important as defending here. So he concludes. Have all returned?

"Yeah. All back now. I still can't shake the idea," Clemency says, "that there was something in Coyote sending us there... that it wasn't just a big prank. But a few people I've spoken to think it was, so I should try to stop worrying. I need to spend more time in the Umbra as a whole..." She shrugs, and a piece of bread falls from the sandwich to the grass. "But yeah, caern comes first. Has to. I'm not leaving the bawn till there isn't a single Fallen One near."

Far-Cry roughly growls. Then you would be stuck here forever, as this is the last in this area. The Enemy has us surrounded, ever since its fall and retaking, so said Song-of-Fury.

"You're fucking kidding," Clemency gasps. "I know Seattle is full of the bastards, but the only time any of them have been seen round here since I joined this sept, we chased them away... would have killed them but they had too much of a start. That was last year. Are you seriously telling me they're all over the city and the surrounding countryside, or was Song-of-Fury speaking loosely? Who the hell is Song-of-Fury anyway?"

Storm-Singer, the Shadow Lord replies quite neutrally given the ire he holds for the mentioned, the elder whom Thunder's Forge and I killed. Then he shifts back to the other subject, Maybe not immediately here and eyeing this place like a snake eyes a bird's nest, but similar.

Clemency raises her eyebrows at the mention of an elder done to death, but doesn't pry further once the wolf changes the topic. "Sure, we must always be vigilant," she says, "but there's a difference between knowing they're out there and could launch an attack at any time, and knowing that they have the caern surrounded like a fucking ring of tainted fucking steel, y'know?"

Far-Cry bows his head once with the difference stated. Else we would not have any times of peace to challenge our elders in, he replies with a small, small feeling of black humor. The halfmoon gradually lowers himself down to lie on his belly, sphinx like and facing the ahroun.

Clemency reaches out with a wry smile to ruffle the inky-furred wolf's neckruff. "And I would still be Elder of my tribe," she says meditatively.

Having met up with Dillen earlier and been updated on the Ian situation, Stacey walks along with the Get through the bawn, still chatting about upcoming events. Their steps eventually bring them near the Ash Grove, close to Clemency's position. Upon hearing the Fang's voice, Stacey calls out a, "Hello, there!" and picks up her pace a bit.

Dillen picks up the pace as well and upon seeing the Philodox, Dillen cannot help but grin. "Kenneth..." He says softly, giving his head a nod. It's either that he doesn't quite know what to say or is just damn glad to see his friend.

Far-Cry's fur prickles underneath the touch, having not expected physical contact. He endures it rather calmly though, looking over the Fang. Not Elder anymore? Who is it now? His ears flip back as he ventures with, Not Truthstalker is it? Like he were horrified at the thought of it. His question is partly interrupted by the arrival of the others, and he turns his head to look at them. Dillen gets a familiar chuff of greeting, but it isn't anything by way of jumping up for joy.

"Blackriver claimed it in my absence," Clemency says, "and I could not in all honesty persuade myself that I would do it better than her, so I allowed her to keep it upon my return." At Far-Cry's headturn, Clemency also turns, to see the two new people approach. "Stacey!" she calls out. "What's new? Is it time?"

"Hey, Clemency, Far-Cry," Stacey greets them, grinning broadly. "Things might be tough now, but it is still damn good to see you both here. Anyways, not yet, but real soon. I wouldn't be surprised if we moved against them early tomorrow."

Dillen just takes in the people that are around him. He's glad to see Kenneth and that shows, but more than that, he listens at the moment.

Fighting soon? Far-Cry glances between the newly arrived pair, lingering a little longer on Dillen before turning back to Clemency. The lupus can be considerable. Less talk, more action. She has a different view than those trained here. In a way, the Shadow Lord also adds in the undertone of that view being more welcome.

Clemency jumps to her feet and clenches her fists in eagerness. This has the regrettable consequence that the already battered half-eaten sandwich she's clutching is turned to shreds of bread and cold meat, and she eyes it with a rueful look. "And is your pack alpha leading it?" she asks in tight and cautious tones.

Stacey tenses slightly, then nods to Clemency. "Yes. Jacinta-rhya would be the leader. I believe Jamethon-rhya will be among those guarding... unless things have changed since I last spoke with my packmates."

Dillen snaps out of his stir. "Wildfire will surely jump in in you have need of them." An uncomfortable air can been felt around Dillen speaking of the new pack.

"She spoke ill of me in the farmhouse," Clemency complains bitterly. "I insist that I should be allowed to fight these creatures. Not only because I am a great fighter, but to prove the falsehood in her words when she accused me of doing nothing." She starts to pace back and forth, giving Dillen a small nod at his offer and a tight smile.

Far-Cry takes notice, but says nothing. Rather, he looks to Stacey and adds, The Weaver fire-things can be gotten if the Warder wishes. The halfmoon then directs back to the ahroun. If you are still offended, then challenge her when this is over.

Stacey narrows her eyes slightly, then puts up her hands. "Listen, Clemency, I believe that you have both been offended by each other a couple times... But I also believe that neither intended to offend. Misunderstandings," she adds, her tone picking up a persuasive quality, and she offers a small smile. "After this fight is over, I would like a chance to speak with you both, see if things can't be straightened out. But either way, I will tell my pack you wish to fight."

Clemency gives a small grunt to Stacey, though it sounds less irate and menacing than her previous statements. "I think," she says, "I'm going to go for a lupus-run. I've got scary amounts of surplus energy pent up, waiting for this damn fight." She begins to shift as she finishes the sentence.

The Shadow Lord remains quiet, keeping opinions on the clash between others to himself. A few moments after Clemency's shift, he looks back to Dillen and Stacey. Where will the guards be?

Stacey lets out a slow breath, then nods. "Take care, Clemency. I'll let you know more when I find out." Looking back to Kenneth, she adds, "Some will be at the Caern, a few at the Farmhouse, and perhaps a few others patrolling. But most near the Heart."

Fire-Burns emits a short, sharp bark, runs around Stacey a couple of times in playful mode, then vanishes into the woods like a white blur.

"We are ready when you are, and we shall fight as fiercely as any."

2006-06-05T22:18:00.000-07:00

Clemency doesn't say anything in response to Stacey. Her eyes are looking anywhere but at Jacinta. Only the deep panting breaths coming from her, and the general increasing air of pinkness about her face, betray that she's heard the Child of Gaia's words. Finally she says "I shall go and find Andy, and tell him. We are ready when you are, and we shall fight as fiercely as any." With that last promise her eyes veer dangerously close towards Jacinta, but she forces them away again, and then begins to stomp through the kitchen towards the lounge area. As she passes Ethan, she comes to a halt, and stands in front of him like a soldier on parade. "Clemency Haynes, the-Fire-that-Burns-Forever, Cliath and Ahroun of the First Tribe, Beta of pack Havoc. I know of you, Ethan-rhya. It was you who brought Emma my alpha unwelcome news. I am sorry."

Jacinta doesn't seem to register Ethan's expression, or even his presence. She holds herself steady, still facing away from the others, for several long moments. Breathing slow and controlled, she does eventually turn around. She gives a nod to her packmate and a glance toward Ethan and then heads out, ducking to the side to evade a precarious shard of glass.

Stacey returns Jacinta's nod, then smiles at Clemency before her attention turns to the glass on the floor. "Well... That should keep my cubs busy for a day or two," she says softly.

Ethan's eyes narrow slightly, and he acknowledges Clemency's word with a simple nod. "Me too," he whispers, stepping aside to allow the Silver Fang ahroun to continue out if she wants to. He also nods to Jacinta as she goes. That leaves Stacey. Turning to the Child of Gaia, he asks, "You got a moment?"

Clemency lifts her fists up and looks at them as though surprised to see they're clenched so hard her knuckles are white. She slowly and deliberately straightens her fingers and walks to the door, where a thought seems to strike her and she turns back to Ethan. "I understand that Emma is challenging you, Ethan-rhya," she adds. "Of course you will judge her as you think fit, but my opinion is that she is ready for fostern rank, and more than ready." With which words, and with the briefest of fingerwaves to Stacey, she departs through the lounge door, and a few seconds later the front door may be heard to slam fairly hard.

Stacey lifts a hand in farewell as Clemency leaves, then sighs again, shaking her head before she looks back up at the Get. "Sure, I have a moment. What do you need?"

"If they think we're an easy target, they'll keep coming. More and more and more of them."

2006-06-05T13:00:00.000-07:00

Bawn: Western Forest(#3018RA)
Tall Sitka spruce and sequoia crowd around and above you. Many of the trees are old, their branches twisted into impossible shapes, trunks broad and draped with lichen, mosses and creepers. Tendrils of moss hand down from them like green spiderwebs, snaring the unwary with cold, ghostly fingers. The patches of younger growth are dense and pale, needles tinged with silver. Matted undergrowth huddles sullenly in the occasional small clearings, clutching with thorns and burrs at the legs of those who would pass. Deer seldom venture here, but the forest is full of rustlings, and tiny glints from wary, watchful eyes.
The forest spreads out to the east, bounded on the west by Sunrise Road. From farther to the west, one can occasionally hear the distant sounds of the town of Kent's Crossing.

It's late in the morning, and Walks-Middle is once more tracking through the bawn, seeking out whoever might be around. The Guardian is making no effort to be quiet about her passage, almost as though she were trying to attract attention.

If she is truly trying to attract attention she's succeeded. Clemency, hearing the noise of her passage, goes sprinting between trees with sufficient eagerness to catch a springy branch across one arm which draws blood. She doesn't heed the scratch, though. "Hey!" she shouts... not at the top of her voice, but in an almost restrained way, as though she'd like to shout louder but dares not. "Hey!"

Walks-Middle perks her ears toward the sound, a familiar voice... and then shifts up to homid before she too begins running in the Silver Fang's direction. "Clemency?"

"Stacey! Been looking for you guys," Clemency hisses in a kind of stage-whisper. She bends down to bring her head close to the smaller ahroun's. "Heads," she intones in a doom-laden sotto-voce.

Stacey nods, her tension and worry conflicting with excitement at seeing the Fang. "They told me you were back..." she says with a short-lived grin, then clears her throat. "Yes. I'd found one. And Circle Keeper and Jacinta discovered Dancers. At least six, maybe more. Humans, too, which may or may not be sided with them."

Clemency seems a little crestfallen at that. "Oh, you know already," she says chewing on her lower lip. Then she rallies. "Did you see their tree-bucket?"

Stacey gives a slight smile and reaches out to put a hand on Clemency's arm. "Us Guardians wouldn't let a threat remain a mystery for too long. No, I didn't see it myself. What is a tree-bucket?"

"It's some kind of catapult," Clemency explains. "It's what they've been using to throw those heads onto the bawn. Val saw it. She flew over there and spied it all out. She's somewhere around with Andy, looking for you and your packmates."

Stacey blinks at that. "Andy is around, too? Is... Is Far..." She breaks off and shakes her head. "The reason I was seeking you, Clemency, is to ask you to fight with our pack when the time comes. The Guardians consider this a threat to the bawn and Heart, and we will not wait long for the Sept to gather. We are seeking out those we know are able and willing to fight when called. We are making our battle plans now and will seek to confront these foes hopefully before the week is out. Will you fight with us?"

"Of course they're a f... a goddamn threat," Clemency snaps. "Yes. I'll fight them any damn where, on the bawn or off. Andy just came back, his car's at the farm. He had a bit of an up and down time back east, but he's the galliard so I'll leave him to tell you when he runs into you. Who else is in the fight? All the Guardians? Or not?"

Stacey shakes her head. "Horace will not be fighting. I may be, depending on whether Yi-rhya can be found to take my place as Guardian. Morgan and Helen have agreed to fight, Circle Keeper and Jacinta will of course be fighting. We are also seeking out several others for the fight. Blackriver was mentioned, Grey, Kaz-rhya... And there are others who we will be asking to remain in the bawn and Caern during the conflict to guard. And probably a couple at the Farmhouse with the cubs. Jamethon-rhya was talking about asking the spirits to watch our borders and warn us if anyone gets past our defenses during the attack. We're also looking in to who might have silver that can be used. And if those explosives could be used as a distraction."

"If you want me to get the good word to the rest of Havoc," Clemency offers, "that should be easy enough. That's KL, Grey, Emma and Laura. Laura's an especially good idea, I think, case anyone gets a ding off the Fallen Ones."

Stacey nods, eyes widening. "Oh, of course, Laura, too. I believe Circle Keeper-rhya went to see her out, as well as the Alpha. And if you want to let your pack know, please do. We'll find a place for anyone who might show up to help our pack, whether in guarding or fighting."

"The trouble with Spirals is... Have you ever encountered them?" Clemency asks, cutting herself off short and raising one thin eyebrow to Stacey.

Stacey shakes her head. "No, Clemency. Which might be why it's still up in the air as to whether I guard or fight. Either way, I will do as ordered.

"Well," Clemency resumes. "The thing about fighting Spirals, which most everyone seems to get the first time... I know I did... is that it's like fighting /yourself/. In a warped vicious kind of way, they are you. They think like we do, they know how to fight like we do, you can very rarely outmaneuver them because you can never get that one jump ahead of them." She gives a grim smile. "Just thought I'd give you the warning. But this is why we need to get rid of them just as soon as we can gather forces. They've got their eyes on our caern, you can lay odds, and we need to show them we're strong enough to defend it if they attack full-on, and alert enough to drive them off if they try to sneak in. Otherwise, if they think we're an easy target, they'll keep coming. More and more and more of them."

Stacey listens with a serious expression, then nods. "That's sort of what Jamethon-rhya said. He believes it's probably a trap, thus why we're doing all we can to throw off their scheme. And why many of our warriors will be left behind to guard. We cannot all run off to the fight and leave the Caern open for invasion. But we will show them that we are strong and alert. We have to." The girl grows even more solemn, glancing toward the Farmhouse. "I have two cubs," she says softly. "Both very new. Don't know a thing about fighting."

"I met 'em," Clemency says, "if they're who I think they are. One little bookworm with glasses, one emo kind of girl. Ruth and Kristi? Ruth got spooked when she met me and tried to run off. I had to tackle her down."

Stacey gives a small smile and nods. "That would be them. Sorry if she gave you trouble. They're good girls, just new..." she says, with a mixture of pride and concern. "I just named them. Ruth is Trips-Over-Paws and Kristin is Fears-Pain."

"No trouble at all," Clemency confirms. "Cubs will be cubs, they need to learn. Speaking of which, I showed them a few things about lupus. Nothing controversial, just very basic. I hope you don't see that as failure to respect your territory?"

Stacey shakes her head, waving a hand. "I like and trust you, Clemency. If you saw fit to teach them anything, I wouldn't object to it. It helps, honestly, since my duties often keep me away. Thank you."

"Then I'll fit them in when I can," Clemency promises. "I have a little more time now than I did, since I am no longer Elder of the First Tribe."

Stacey reaches up to rub the back of her neck and frowns. "Things kinda went crazy after you guys disappeared. Just who is the Elder now?"

"Blackriver, the lupus philodox," Clemency says. "She is easily my equal in leadership, and she isn't such a complete psychobitch as me, so she'll hopefully avoid pissing other people off the way I did with... well, with your packmates, for instance."

Stacey wrinkles her nose, then nods. "My packmates... are rather strict in how they view others sometimes." She shrugs a shoulder, then looks up at the Fang with a hopeful look. "Clemency... Far-Cry made it back, too, right? ...Right?"

Clemency looks baffled. "Far-Cry? Who? Back from where?"

Stacey shakes her head. "Kenneth! I mean Kenneth. Sorry. He disappeared with you guys. Is he back, too?"

A look of concern spreads over Clemency's face. "Hasn't he been seen? I know Grey and Reggie are back, and I know Abraxas has been seen... but Kenneth...?"

Stacey slumps, then shakes her head. "I don't know," she says softly. "I just heard last night that you and Grey had returned. You don't always hear news out here. I was hoping you knew."

"Ask Kevin or Dillen? His packmates?" Clemency suggests in a tone which hints that she knows the suggestion is an inadequate one.

Stacey bites her lip, then shrugs. "They... aren't a pack anymore. Kevin confessed rather publicly to being a charach, which we also later discovered had happened with Basil... And they've been punished and all, mostly. Dillen disbanded the pack after that. Kevin and Basil pack with Kaz-rhya now, under Raccoon."

Clemency hears this news with a sort of angry resignation. "Kevin and Basil, huh," she says. "I heard about those two. Didn't realise the pack had gone under as a result, though I guess I ought to've. Surprised Kaz would take those two under her wing. But Bone Gnawers have funny ideas about being able to mend things other people've given up on."

Stacey gives a small smile. "So do Children of Gaia. Generally." She looks pained for a second, then sighs. "I need to get going. I'll let you know more when I can."

"I won't go further than the farmhouse until I know when the balloon goes up," Clemency promises. "In fact, I'll stay right here on the bawn till then. Just in case anything else unpleasant goes down."

Stacey nods. "That would be wise. Thank you. I'll relay what you've said to my pack, and let them know you're willing to help." Then, in a rare moment where she actually acts her age, the little girl reaches out to hug the Fang. "I'm glad you're back."

Clemency gives Stacey a rib-creakingly fierce hug in return. "I'm glad I am back," she confirms. "It's where I belong." And with a slightly lopsided smile, she releases Stacey and turns her path towards the northern reaches of the bawn.

"What the hell is a tree-bucket and why do the Fallen Ones want one?"

2006-06-04T12:55:00.000-07:00

Porch
A lathe-turned wooden railing runs the length of the porch save where the steps are, well-worn with use. To the right of the stairs, a wide swing is suspended from the overhang which shelters this area; to the left, a small table is the centerpiece for several chairs pulled around it, all of which face out to the front yard and the fields and trees beyond. The spring breezes which blow through hold the promise of new growth to come, filling the space with an openness that includes all of the farm. The low shrubs planted in the rich bed of earth beyond the railing hold new leaves and tiny buds which threaten to burst into color at any moment.
An aging screen door newly refurbished stands between the heavy inner door of the house and the outside air. Four steps lead down to the lane, a number of pots with small flower seedling carefully arranged alongside them.

Ah yes, another balmy day in St. Claire, fluffy clouds scudding over the cloud of white smoke pouring from the hood of the car that makes it about halfway up the driveway leading to the scenic country home. The ragged-out, still mostly red 1988 Honda Civic gives a final heave and backfires thunderously as it chugs to a stop some twenty yards short of the building. Out from the sad little car steps a familiar individual, a little taller now, smoking a cigarette and cursing, but with the same sandy blond hair and purple eyes. He kicks the door shut rather vindictively and opens the hood of the car, burning himself on steam in the processing and again cursing the failed automobile. Welcome home, Andrew Davidson.

The noise of the engine expiring has evidently drawn some attention. The front door of the farm opens and a head peeks out, then Clemency emerges, holding a bottle of beer in one hand. When she sees Andy's figure cracking open the hood and peering under, she lets out a yelp of happy surprise and canters down the steps towards him.

With a disgusted look, Andy turns after propping the car's hood open and crushes the cigarette under one foot. It's all quite scenic really, the trees in the horizon, the birds, the gently wafting steam and sound of engine coolant pouring out on the ground, the weary traveler. Ah, yes. He spots an incoming Fang and un-leans from the car, giving it another satisfactory whack with a boot before sauntering up the drive to meet Clemency halfway with chuckle and helpless grin. "Hey lady, my car blew up. Know where I can find any decent Walkers or tech sprites around these parts?" He never was that good at comedy.

Clemency claps Andy on the back. "You came back to us!" she trills. "You know, I never thought you would." Seems tact is still a stranger to the ahroun. "We've got a couple of theurge these days, maybe one of those could have a talk to your engine-spirit. There's Jonathan, he's an older guy, and Mathias, he's just a kid, barely cliath. But they can wait," she suggests. "Come inside and let's swap news. Do your Galliard thing. Wanna beer?"

Andy shakes his head a little. "Don't worry about it, I thought I'd never make it out of that old town alive anyway. We might want to push this thing up next to the house and put a garbage pail cover under it or something so none of the Coggies have a fit about it pissing all over the place. I don't think its going anywhere for a while without a little help. It's a light car, so no changing required to make the heave I think." He strolls back to the car, there's a pack of smokes on the dash and a duffle bag in the back seat. Not much of anything else in plain view at least. "Beer, would be welcome. I've about had it with traveling anyway."

"I think there's a tarp somewhere in the attic," Clemency hazards. She moves round to the back and leans on the trunk ready to push if required, though not shifting, at least not yet. "The Fianna did a supply run so we're not short of the good stuff today. You picked a good day to return."

Andy leans into the car and bops the shifter to get it out of gear. Seating his shoulder against the window pillar, he pushes while using his free arm to keep the car pointed the right way. "Ah whatever, I think thats the eco friendly kind anyway. Just tell the Gnawers not to drink it and we'll be fine." With that he leans into the car, setting the thing into a slow roll with a little help from his fellow Fang. "Sweet. I always have good timing unless I'm fighting something, but we'll not go there."

The two Fangs roll the disabled car along the side of the house where it's as far out of the way as possible. Clemency puffs a little. "OK, beer time," she says, and makes for the back door of the house.

Andy reaches into the car and jerks up on the parking brake handle, locking the car in place. He leaves the hood open for now and pockets his cigarettes on the way by. With a quiet sigh of relief he follows Clemency into the building, once looking over his shoulder at the car and down the drive before stepping out of sight from the road. "I am SO glad to see this place again. So what kind of beer do we have, and what did I miss?"

Farmhouse: Kitchen and Dining Room
Homey is the first word to come to mind when looking at the farmhouse's kitchen. Dark, wood-paneled wainscoting covers the walls to about waist height, dark beige wallpaper continuing to the ceiling. Twin refrigerators occupy the north wall, facing the large six-burner stove on the south. The kitchen counter runs the length of the eastern wall, broken only by the double-basin sink. Cabinets run above and below the counter and a twin-pane window is set in the wall above the sink. A small pantry is set into an alcove alongside the refrigerators, presumably holding the deep freezer as well as shelves of dry goods.
Some twelve feet above the floor, a large chandelier hangs from the ceiling, lighting the dining room and casting long shadows over the bar to the kitchen. A long table occupies the center of the dining room, three chairs setting along each side, and one on each end. On the west wall, a large window looks out on the trees alongside the western pasture. Set into the north wall is a large cabinet, its glass doors closed on shelves containing a full compliment of fine china and glassware as well as a few decorative nicknacks. On the east, a wide bar separates the dining room from the kitchen.
An opening in the southern wall allows passage to the front entryway of the house, while a sliding glass door in the kitchen opens to a clearing behind the house.

Clemency opens the fridge in the kitchen. "Sol," she offers. "Guinness. Bud, if you must... I think there's a couple of Anchors someplace, though I'm not sure if they're some Fianna's private stash. What's your poison, Andy-yuf?"

Andy collapses into a kitchen chair and leans into the back of it. "Guinness it is then, always a win with that stuff." He sheds his jacket across the backrest of the chair and stretches a little before leaning slightly against the table and waiting for Clemency to sit. "Man, I've missed this old place."

Clemency realises she's left her half-bottle of Sol outside, but rather than go get it she opens up a fresh one and also cracks a Guinness for Andy. "We muddle along," she says, passing him the bottle and a glass. "Though I'm no longer leader of the tribe... nor is Touch Deer sept alpha."

Andy sips it straight out of the bottle, no need for wasting warmth on glasses. "Well sum-bitch. Amazing how times change isn't it. So is the new alpha any good? This new tribal Elder must be good if they managed to get you out of the position so I'm not worried about that. You don't back down for anyone." He swirls his beer a moment and has another sip off the tip, taking it slow. "Touch Deer is still with the Sept though right? It'd be a great loss to see him go."

Clemency seems to be avoiding Andy's gaze. "Touch Deer has left for an indeterminate time," she clarifies. "On some quest, I believe. The new alpha outranks him in any case; Vera-rhya of the Shadow Lords. As for our new elder, Swims-the-Black-River will lead as well as I could, and without falling into the pitfalls I tumbled into."

Andy doesn't seem to be seeking Clemency's gaze either, perhaps they've both had a rough time. "Shadow Lord. In... the woods. Right then, this should be interesting. Though I think I met her once before she was even granted admission to the Sept." There is a deliberate pause for a moment. "Swims-the-Black-River. Sounds.. noble I guess. I'll have to meet this person too. Oh, I have a deal for you. I won't ask about your pitfalls, and you don't ask why my uncle is in a jar in the trunk the Honda." A slight smile is given, tough to tell if he's being serious.

"You should," Clemency agrees. "We still have no other singer-moons but you, so if as I hope Blackriver continues the campaign of returning us to our rightful position in the eyes of other garou, you will have to liaise with her when it comes to making known the great deeds of our tribe. Vera-rhya... she is a Shadow Lord," Clemency goes on, evidently picking her words carefully, "but a noble garou of adren rank, and her devotion to the sept is not in question." There's perhaps the slightest hint that other things about Vera may be. "So if your uncle is in your trunk... best not to mention it in public. Vera's ears are keen."

"Don't worry about it, it's a tight seal anyway." Andy smirks. "Still on the charge to clean the local view of the First Tribe I see. I ended up doing a bit of that myself, in Iowa. Either way. I'll be sure to mind my tongue lest I... offend, this new Alpha of ours." He nods knowingly at the repeat mention of Vera's Shadow Lord-ness. "Is that all interesting that has come to pass in my absence?"

"Tip of the iceberg," Clemency says bitterly, "but I missed a great deal of it. I stepped sideways in March at the request of a coyote spirit, to attempt to save a fetish from corruption, or so I was told. Next thing I know, it's the end of May, and all kinds of things have gone down. New cubs, new packs, people convicted of charaching, you name it, it happened while my back was turned." She takes a long drink of beer.

Andy pauses at that. "Why can it never, ever be anything simple?" He shakes his head again, pondering his alcohol and having another long drink off the bottle. "Well if it makes you feel any better, I got a message via Owl and beat ass to DesMoines, took a wooden spear through the chest, got in a brawl with a dunken Fianna, watched my uncle get puree'd at the hands of a Silver Fang judgement council, interrupted the local chain of inheritance out there, and paid a Bone Gnawer to bribe a trash truck driver to park a dumpster on the local Shadow Lord elder's car for interfering with First Tribe internal affairs."

Clemency listens to this list, her eyes growing narrower and her face uglier as the string of events is unrolled. "Then you weren't jesting about your uncle," she comments. "Who shoved a spear through you? The local equivalent of Circle Keeper?" She fingers a spot on her torso which it doesn't take too much imagination to surmise is where the Uktena's spear pierced her when they fought.

Andy nods slightly, burned out on what went on down there anyway. "If by local Circle Keeper you mean random crunchy Uktena living on the edges of the bawn and surviving on squirrels and berries. Yes. He's not the guardian of the bawn, however he is apparently the self appointed welcoming commitee and checker of newcomers for wyrm taint. I think some of those berries went to his brain. I wasn't kidding about mad uncle Charles either, though when we get somewhere less likely to be full of listening ears I can tell you all about messing up their whole little game down there."

Clemency nods slowly. "It'd be interesting to learn," she says. "I am not myself without experience of what our tribe can do to those who those who transgress its laws, written or unwritten, or who get in the way. Indeed that's largely why I'm here."

Andy finishes probably half his beer in one solid hit from the bottle, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling for a moment. "Your secrets are yours to bear, I alone am no-one to ask my tribemate of her skeletons. I will say that right now if they knew what has been done, they would be angry with me, but when the anger passes I will be thanked. Or killed, but I did was was necessary to preserve my family's heritage. Though I must know, what ever posessed you to take a coyote spirit at its word?"

Clemency shrugs. "That's what a couple of other people have said. If it was a hoax, it was a convincing enough one to take in four other garou, two of them older and more experienced than me. I still want to go back to the place in the umbra that we were transported to, just to check that there is no fetish there."

Andy leans on the table, slightly towards Clemency. "So the place was actually there, and it had the ability to distort time. Perhaps the fetish isn't an object there, but the location itself within the umbra. Surely there can't be that many places of such power to bend time so easily. It didn't seem then, that you were there long at all?"

Clemency shakes her head. "We arrived around sunset. We went to sleep that night. I awoke soaking wet with dew in the depths of a forest which looked like nobody had been there since Gaia made it. I swear, I thought it was Siberia, but it turned out to be a few hours east of the caern."

Andy hmms and nods. "Transported, frozen, or the victim of some kind of illusion maybe. One way or the other it seems as though there has to be more to it than that. Unless it just truly was a playful, mischevious spirit. Still, very strange. Now you have me wishing I could see the place as well."

"I can't get back," Clemency sighs. "I've tried. I want to make sure it's not just me being clueless, but I have a nasty feeling it's been barred to me... to us." She rolls her beer between her palms. "So, Andy. Basically, you're back for the foreseeable future?"

A pause is let to stand for a few moments while Andy processes the information. "Interesting, perhaps it is just all luck of the draw. I'll make a point to venture out to that area though, and see. You've piqued my curiousity." He looks one-eyed down the neck of his bottle a moment. "As far as I know, yes. There may be unscheduled visits that draw me away briefly, but I have no intentions upon departng permanently or for any drastic amount of tme."

"Okay," Clemency says. "Where are you gonna be living? Because we're homeless. Again. I suppose it's no longer my job as elder to ask you this, but do you have any financial resources or backing that would enable the tribe to get a roof over its head?"

Andy gets that grin. You know, that.. Silver Fang evil world domination plan grin. The one that makes Shadow Lords hide behind the furniture. Yes, that grin. "Let's just say... I have a plan. Not so sure if it'll work per se, but I have a plan. We will have to take a walk to discuss it, and Jervis if the old bastard is around, can know nothing about it lest his prying fingers interfere."

Clemency shakes her head. "Jervis hasn't been seen for months. I... worry that he died of a broken heart or something." The ahroun looks quite lugubrious. "I hate myself for killing Kasia so much. I see her face in dreams, often."

Andy says "Jervis.. the cantankerous old fart. One man I never held any love for, to be truthful. I've suspected him quietly of misdeeds beyond measure. I do miss Kasia as well, she was a pleasant person and a sweetheart to everyone that ever met her. Though she was going steadily further off the deep end, and you were only doing what was necessary to protect the integrity of the Tribe. Maybe there can be a way to find a spirit-speaker and find her, make atonement for what had to be done. The fate of Jervis though, is something that I will leave to be known whenever the time comes for us to know it."

Clemency looks at Andy over her beer, as though uncertain how to respond. "And when will that time be?" she asks. "This year, next year, sometime, never... One thing that recent events has taught me, is that time is not as inflexible as it seems."

Andy almost misses the look over swigging his drink, quite the thirsty one today. "Like it or not he is still of the First Tribe, and as you know like any of us we are harder to get rid of than fruitcakes in southern California. We haven't seen the last of him, and I suspect we can be certain of that. I wouldn't worry myself over his fate, he can take care of himself." He pauses, setting his bottle down on the the table with a hollow clunk. "Time is a river complete with eddies and backflow, that much I can agree with. We should agree at some point, on a time and place that is not here and now to review in depth Tribal business we need to catch up on."

Clemency nods in agreement. "And Blackriver should be there," she adds. "Which means a non-homid meeting, since she speaks no English worth mentioning. For now," she says, "I'm tempted to just keep cracking beers till we're both mellow."

A rather small and slim woman makes her way toward the patio door and squints as she peers inside, hand lifting to rap on the glass.

Andy seems a bit caught off guard at that, stumbling over a response when the sliding door is knocked upon. "Even the forest has more ears than you can count," he remarks "but remind me about finding new dwelling for our Tribe when we next meet. Who is this at the door? Do you know her?"

Clemency looks up with a frown. "I know her... who is she... hell, it's that bird," she remembers with a little effort. Rising, she opens the door. "Can we help you, Val?" she asks cautiously.

Val wriggles her fingers at Clemency and smiles just a touch nervously. "Well, yes, sort off. Been passing around some information, but I've noticed you lot are fairly poor at telling others what I tell you. You know about the heads, right? Shaved bald, showing up on the northern bawn?"

Andy raises an eyebrow, holding comment on the nature of bringers of news. "I roll into town, and there are heads on pikes on the bawn. They are on pikes right? That's the way the nasties usually do it, oh so creative. And you would be?"

"Nobody mentioned they were shaved," Clemency frowns. "I heard their eyes were stapled shut, which sounds a little gross. They've been dropping out of the clear blue sky, yes? Or so I heard. Not on pikes, Andy, unless I misheard. Andy's only just gotten back from a long trip," she explains in an aside to Val.

Andy sighs a little and shakes his head. "I suppose I'll end up investigating this after I alert the Alpha that I'm back in town. What're Galliards for, right? So who do these heads belong to? Locals?"

"Nobody seemed to have recognised any, last I heard," Clemency recalls. "I haven't seen any myself. One landed right on the Black Fury cub Alesia, though, scared the poor girl half to death."

Val clears her throat. "Well, Jamethon asked for my help with the issue. So, I asked one of the dead fellows. Well, his head, anyway. About all he really remembered was big bat-like ears and knives. There was also this large thing made out of logs and rope. Abraxas got rather upset at the mention of ears, saying that it sounded like Black Spiral Dancers. Which I've heard off, if only that they're really nuts. Abaraxas also figured that they were coming from over the highway, so I went and had a look. Found a big ol'trebeuchet. Oh, I'm Val. Most here just call me the bird-lady."

Andy sighs quietly and nods. "A child of Corvus then? Just call me Andy, and thank you for the information. I'll see that it is put to good use. Though do yourself a favor, if you do find what that.. head described to you. Do yourself a favor and flee it, let someone here know of its location so that something may be done about it."

"A tree-bucket?" Clemency is plainly unfamiliar with the word. "What the hell is a tree-bucket and why do the Fallen Ones want one?" She glares at Val ungratefully. "If this is another of your silly bird jokes I'll push your beak in so hard it comes out your ass."

Andy about bites his tongue, and enunciates the word. "Tre-bu-chay, a French term I believe. Its a type of catapault, and quiet compared to most catapaults. You have disembodied heads falling out of the sky, the undead telling Corvids about bat ears and knives, and a catapault in the woods on the other side of the highway. If we can find the operators of this thing, we have out culprits." He finishes his beer in one final gulp. "Mystery solved, Scooby-Doo."

Val blinks a few times at Clemency, eyes going wide and backing up several steps. "Now-now, I've only every played one joke on you and its not as if it did you any harm."

Clemency glares at Val. "You made me believe a woman was being murdered. That's not my idea of a harmless prank." She snorts, but relents. "Andy, if you're on the right track, this needs urgent action. Like, yesterday. If the Fallen Ones are throwing heads onto the bawn with a catapult, they could just as easily lob bombs at us, or balefire, or worse... Gaia only knows what else they could put in as a payload." Her fist tightens round her bottle of Sol.

Andy holds a breath for half a moment. "I'm.. not asking about pretend dead people. So we do actually have heads falling from the sky, right? This isn't some prank the guy coming back from amazing adventures across the countryside." Comedy aside he reads Clemency's expression like a book. "Right.. shit. I have awesome timing. I love it. I suppose we're going to have to formulate some kind of plan of attack then."

Val awws. "It was just a few sound effects from a bad movie," the bird-woman responds, sulking a little. "And yes, the head I was shown was quite real. Can't really Drink the Eyes of a fake head. Not like they would respond when you asked for permission, either. Well, there was also a family of campers that disappeared a little-while back. Four of them, according to the paper. Camp was mostly undisturbed, aside from blood in the middle. Cops were all wandering around the place, no real clue about what to do with themselves."

Clemency's own eyes wander to Val at the mention of drinking those organs, and she looks faintly nauseated. "Family of four," she muses. "I heard three heads landed on the bawn so far. Leaves one, unless they've killed any more innocents since. We should tell the guardians first," she decides, taking a long pull at her beer and setting the bottle down with a clink on the table. "The bawn is their turf and these evil bastards are threatening it."

Andy agrees wholeheartedly. "You're not kidding. This is going to need to be spread around. We'll have to start finding people, but I don't want to just step outside and howl, because whoever is doing this will hear it too. We need to grapevine it, coordinate and so forth. Though if it was a family of four and we've only had three touchdowns, I'm willing to bet that the last one alive is probably one of the children. Either being held hostage, or made to dance the spiral. Speculation mind you, but look at who we're probably dealing with here. Stoned teenagers don't behead people and fire their skulls into the woods."

Val shrugs. "Well, I might be able to help you with that. A bit. They're not likely to pay much attention to a raven, if I go in to have a closer look. S'not as if they're not plenty of ravens in the area all ready and they're probably making use of the bodies, if they haven't been buried."

As the conversation progresses Clemency's nauseated expression becomes more pronounced. "The filthy bastards," she grunts in heartfelt tones. "Point taken about no howling, Andy, but we still need to get onto this now. Shall we go and play hunt the guardian? And hope," she adds in a jaundiced way, "that if it's Jacinta or Circle Keeper we find first, they let us speak before poking spears at us or hurling abuse."

Andy can't help but raise one point in the direction of Val. "Actually, you might not want to be eating anything they've killed. Its likely tainted by the wyrm, and thus anything that has been eating it will end up tainted too." A brief turn to Clemency, "At least this time they'll have something legit to hurl their spears at this time." Terrible, terrible inside joke. "I'm guessing we'll have to split up and look for guardians and elders, see who we can find and set up some kind of rendezvous, I would guess at the caern."
Val umms. "Wasn't saying that I'd be eating anything they'd killed, just that others probably are and one more raven in the area isn't likely to be noticed. Umm. Is there anything in particular you'd like me to do. Could head out that way and take another look for you? And I'm allowed on the Bawn these days, so flashing a mirror or the like will probably get my attention."

Clemency stands up with the air of one who is about to commence some great enterprise, and drains the dregs of her beer. Then, less heroically, she grabs another from the fridge and opens it up quickly, and holding the full bottle says "Okay. Let's get out there right now and start looking. I suggest we split up, the more different places we look, the better chance we have of finding a guardian. If we find other garou who aren't in the guardian pack, we tell them too. Get that news out, galliard boy," she says to Andy with a crooked grin.

Andy nods to Val and stands, already out of beer himself. "Just checking. If I were you, I'd keep an eye on them from a distance. Watch if you can, but don't get their attention. No need for more senseless deaths." He hook-shots his beer bottle into a disposal bin and stretches, picking up his jacket off the chair. "Right, just try not to piss anyone off, ahroun girl" is shot back at Clemency with a chuckle. "Would help if we backtrace their routine patrols as well. Either way, we're not getting anywhere standing here."

"Alright. I'll go and take another look around." That said, Val makes her way into the field and disappears into the long grass. A few moments later, a raven bursts into view.

Do you think you have done well as alpha-of-alphas?

2006-06-03T12:49:00.000-07:00

Bawn: Central Forest(#2876RA)
The forest is dark and quiet. No, not quiet. Listening. The ancient firs rear up all around, branches interwoven in a dense roof of dark green. Fallen needles lie in a thick carpet on the ground, heaped up around the drifts of undergrowth clinging to the scarce patches of light reaching the forest floor. Every sound seems muffled, and the sharp scent of pine hangs in the air like the clouds of midges that swarm ceaselessly beneath the branches. Even the many deer who roam here seem to step more quietly than usual, and the songbirds seldom sing.
The forest spreads out around you in all directions.

It's around noon, the sun blazing down from overhead, and Blackriver is out in the forest, sniffing around the undergrowth, her ears turning around and listening to the sounds of the woods. Her wandering seems a bit more focused than usual today, and it wouldn't be far off to say that it looks like she's looking for something, or someone.

Promises-Kept could be found in the forest around here. The white wolf off in his own little world as he happily scents the air, listens to the forest, and in general does his fangly duty. His white fur is almost perfectly clean, as if he takes time to groom himself, or at least get groomed.

The sound of branches being moved aside heralds the arrival of Lune-Calmer. The Metis is in his breed form, but moves along on all fours to avoid the worstof the underbrush. He doesn't look overly surprised when he comes upon other Silver Fangs, and simply drops his gaze to the ground. ~Greetings.~

By chance or by design, this seems to be Silver Fang day in the woods of the bawn. Fire-Burns comes sniffing along not far behind Lune-Calmer, nose to the ground as though on his scent-trail, and moving quickly enough to be catching him up, which she does just as he himself reaches the other two tribe members. She emits ne sharp bark of greeting, and then stands there, upright, tail waving gently in the breeze like a banner, her attention moving back and forth between the other three. She doesn't say anything, not yet. Or not verbally.

Blackriver's posture instinctually shifts around to display her dominance as the other arrive. Her head turns as she calmly surveys the other three, ears flicking back and forth with barely hidden agitation, the half-moon weighing visibly on the Philodox. When her gaze finds Fire-Burns she pauses for a moment, tail wagging gently, and pads over to sniff at the Ahroun. You are back. She tells her. I was looking for you. And now you are here.

Promises-Kept hears Fire-Burns, and sees Blackriver, as he keeps himself quiet and tail low. He's submissive right now, as this isn't his fight. Instead, the white wolf with the blue ear just waits and listens.

Lune-Calmer does, however, look surprised when someone arrives shortly behind him. He spins enough to keep the two groups in sight and drops so his muzzle rests somewhere just above the loam. ~Welcome back, Fire-Burns-Forever-rhya.~

I am back, yes, back. I am glad to be back, Fire-Burns confirms, walking slowly towards Blackriver. Her statements are simple and straightforward, yet there's an obvious air of tension in her posture, and like Blackriver, her ears, tail and teeth all display dominance.

Blackriver seems more annoyed than anything by the Ahroun's display of dominance, and her right ears cocks to the side. There are two new Silver Fangs here. She tells Fire-Burns, motioning to Promises-Kept and Lune-Calmer. Knife-moons both, not yet sept members. Truth-Stalker has run off to the forest somewhere to whine. Do you want to be elder again?

Promises-Kept just watches Blackriver, though he dosn't comment and keeps his place, sitting down on his haunchs where he was. His tail curls tight to his side, as he just waits.

Lune-Calmer, like his fellow knife-moon, remains silent. He settles onto his haunches (an awkward sight in Crinos) and simply looks at the two dominant Fangs' shins.

I know them both, Fire-Burns states, glancing at the two theurges for a moment before focusing once more on Blackriver. As for what you ask. I am Elder. I was never challenged for the position. Therefore I hold it still. She presents this in a brusque matter-of-fact way and cocks her head at Blackriver as she awaits a response.

Blackriver snorts and tilts her head slightly to the side. You left. You left and when you did you left Elder. So you are not Elder still. She states back in the same matter-of-fact way the Ahroun did. Do you want to be Elder? She asks again.

Promises-Kept looks over at Lune-Calmer for a moment, checking to see if he is in good health before looks at the other two females. His tail swishes behind him, but he offers no comment.

Lune-Calmer acknowledges Promises' glances and indicates that he is alright with a look. He goes back to watching the tableau before them, his expression twisted with tension.

I did not leave, insists Fire-Burns. Do you accuse me of abandoning this place? She's plainly becoming angrier, though she's also not answering the query Blackriver has posed.

Blackriver lets out a little lupus sigh of frustration. You left. You followed a coyote spirit. We did not know where you were. We did not know if you would return. We did not know if you would die. I do not accuse you of abandoning this place, I say that you left. And you left. I held elder while you were gone. Now you are back. Do you want to be elder again? Promises-Kept said you do not.

Promises-Kept dosn't respond to this part, instead he just sits there and waits. No need for his voice to join in, it might only serve to induce frenzy in one of the pair.

Lune-Calmer drops into Lupus then, laying down on all fours. A soft whine escapes him.

Fire-Burns slowly turns her head on one side to look at Promises-Kept with unblinking golden eyes. The gaze lasts for several seconds before she turns back to Blackriver. Do you wish to be elder? she asks the lupus, again not answering the question asked of her.

Blackriver settles down onto her haunches and stares back at Fire-Burns. What I want is not important. I took elder because it was my duty to. I will continue to be elder if you do not want it, because it is my duty to. Because I am a Siver Fang, and because I am a Philodox, and because I do the things I must, even when I do not want to.

Promises-Kept lowers his head slightly when he is looked at by Fire-Burns, his own blue eyes keeping away from the stares. He does lay down now, his head on his front paws, and his tail tight against his body.

Those were the reasons why I took Eldership in the first place, recalls Fire-Burns. She ducks her head for a moment. You have found, as I did, that to lead our people is a heavy weight around the neck?

Of course it is. Blackriver replies, We are the alpha tribe, alphas do not like to be ruled. She continues to stare at Fire-Burns with her honey gold eyes, the two Theurge ignored, they might as well be in Siberia for all that she notices them.

Promises-Kept is doing the submissive watch and wait, go him!

Lune-Calmer snifs at the air, tail tucking downward. He looks increasingly uncomfortable at the discussion going on.

Do you think you have done well as alpha-of-alphas? Fire-Burns asks Blackriver. The question comes across as a ltitle curt, but not outright menacing or demanding, and while the Ahroun is looking at the Philodox, it isn't a staredown-type gaze as much as a general paying of attention.

Blackriver cants her head to the side and thinks for a moment. I am not sure. She replies, having obviously not thought about this before. I think I have done fairly well. Better than Truth-Stalker. The others submit to me, and I have heard no complaints from them or the other tribes.

Promises-Kept continues to be quiet. Doin' the submission tango! Cha cha cha.

Fire-Burns seems to be thinking out loud. If lupus communication can be described as 'out loud'. If I thought I could do better than you, then I should claim eldership, she muses.

Yes. Blackriver agrees, head tilting to the other side now. She looks back at Fire-Burns expectantly.

Slowly, but surely, Fire-Burns' tail descends from its high position to a lower one, and her ears also display submission. If others submit to you, and other tribes respect you, then I cannot do better, she notes. I will obey you as elder of the First Tribe. May Falcon's wisdom guide you.

Lune-Calmer looks up suddenly, surprise evident even on his lupine features. He remains silent, even as the tension starts to leak out of him.

Promises-Kept sees the tail drop and submission. He pauses a second before he gives a simple woof. So it is done. And with that, turns around and begins to leave the other 3.

Blackriver is completely still for a moment, looking like surprise had just been made into a drink and poured all over her. Gradually, she raises her tail up a bit higher and wags it tentatively. I will be a good elder. She assures the Ahroun. Welcome home Fire-Burns-Forever.

Fire-Burns turns away from the Elder in a matter-of-fact way and walks over to Lune-Calmer. Greetings, greetings, she tells the metis. I am sorry that I could not oversee you more when you arrived. I was in the Shadow for what was one day for me, yet for you was more than two turns of the moon. Will you soon be a member of the sept?

Promises-Kept dosn't seem to wait, and is soon gone from the group.

Lune-Calmer looks up, meeting the Ahroun's gaze for a moment in acknowledgement. Soon, he states. I was given Chiminage to clean garbage from the Bawn, and to create Talens for the upcoming battles. The second part I still need to do. Welcome home, Fire-Burns-Forever.

Blackriver cants her head to the side and listens to the answer of Fire-Burn's question, before turning around and heading off herself, silver grey form soon fading into the forest.

This creature is in most ways a perfect example of canis lupus, commonly known as the wolf. A bulky male, he stands at roughly three feet at the shoulder. He's covered in a thick pelt of grey fur, with a very nearly metallic gleam to it. His eyes are a dark blue, a very unusual shade for a wolf, and gleam with an even more unusual intelligence. Were it not for the presence of a third eye, centered above the first two, the wolf might pass for a normal member of his breed. Despite this deformity, however, there's a distinctive air of dignity and even pride about the creature. He carries himself well, moving with an easy stride.

Fire-Burns lets her tongue loll out for a moment once Blackriver has departed and tension has eased. It is good to be back, good, good, she agrees. What Talens will you be creating?

Lune-Calmer makes a sound that indicates he's not sure. Talens for fighting fire, I think. They are going against a tire fire Bane, they say. Water elementals? Earth, maybe. I will do as they tell me, and I will make this place my new home. What happened while you were gone? No one has told me.

Fire-Burns lies down and relaxes in a casual sprawl. Coyote took us to a place in the umbra where things were strange, she recounts. There was an evil being, a vampire, but not as we know vampires. And a powerful fetish that was at risk of corruption. But when we slept on our first night, we awoke back in the Realm, to find that more time had passed here. And I cannot get back to save the fetish, she goes on, ears lying flat with shame. I did badly. I failed.

Lune-Calmer's ears perk upright with interest. By the time the tale has conclused, he's nearly enthralled. He sits back on his haunches with its conclusion. It was nothing you could fight, it sounds. You slept. Coyote is wise, but unpredictable. He may simply have wanted a laugh.

I need to find the others who were with me, Fire-Burns goes on. Perhaps they will know how we can get back and save the fetish. If I can get back I will. She turns to look at the other wolf more directly. You see, if I can get back, and if I am gone for months again, it is best if Blackriver leads. She would not have slept, she would have slain the evil and saved the fetish that night.

Lune-Calmer huffs a breath. You would know better than I, the Theurge demures. He shuts his third eye as he rises into Homid form, clothes settling about him as if blown by an unfelt breeze. "I will follow whoever leads."

It is best that she does, Fire-Burns repeats, as though trying to persuade both Lune-Calmer and herself of that.

Lune-Calmer considers the former Elder for a moment. "She will lead us in peace as only a half-moon can. When war comes, though, you will lead us. It is what Luna and Gaia wanted for us."

Then let us hope war does not come, is all Fire-Burns has as response to that. She rests her head on her front paws dejectedly.

There's caution in the Theurge's tone as he responds. "We always hope that, I think. But it will. I only met you once, but I have heard your name spoken since. You did not shame Falcon."

If I fight and get myself killed, Fire-Burns explains, I die with honor. If I fight and get us all killed, the consequences are dire.

Jonathan frowns as he answers. "They are," he agrees, simply. "But we can't avoid the fight because we fear the consequences. You are of the full moon. It is what you do."

Fire-Burns returns to homid herself. "I have no fears for myself," she clarifies, evidently feeling the 'language' of lupus has not put her point across. "I am not afraid to die for Gaia."

Jonathan twitches minutely before he answers. "That is good. Do you think any of our tribe is any more afraid than you are?"

Clemency scarcely has to think for a moment before answering "No. Some are young and have yet to undergo a true test in battle, like Justin. But I don't think any of our people are cowards. You aren't scared, are you, Jonathan?"

"Dying in battle is the last and best thing I can offer Gaia, Luna and Falcon. There will be no children of my blood." There's a moment of quiet as Jonathan considers. "No, I am not scared. I just wish to leave behind any sort of legacy before I go to Gaia."

"A garou who dies with honor," Clemency points out in what's plainly meant to be a cheering tone, "leaves behind a good example for all those who are left behind him."

Jonathan doesn't smile, despite the tone. "That's what I've been told. I would rather teach what I know of the spirits than teach the value of sacrifice, though."

"Well," Clemency asks, "what do you know of the spirits? You implied that you knew something of Coyote. Said he might just have been hoaxing us all?"

Jonathan nods. He settles down, kneeling. "I know of the various spirit courts, who some spirits call father, mother or master. Coyote..we do not have Coyote in the courts of my home. We only hear of his exploits. He might just have done it for a laugh, or to teach a lesson he thought we needed."

"I don't know half as much about spirits as I should," Clemency confesses. "For someone who's half one herself, that's shameful. Spirit courts, yes. Julius Green-Leaves my former packmate talked of those sometimes... though he never talked of anything very often, being a Silent Strider."

Jonathan shakes his head. "He did you a disservice, then. A Theurge's duty is to teach. To pack, tribe and Sept." There's no real judgement in his voice, though. "If there is time, I will teach you what I may."

"That would be very kind of you," Clemency says graciously. "If there is any way you can figure that will get us, or even just me, back to that place in the Umbra... it would be highly appreciated."

Jonathan nods. "Certainly, Clemency. I may have less time than I would prefer, though. A few days past, I was approached about joining a pack." At this, then, there is a genuine smile, tinged with a little surprise.

Clemency doesn't express any visible surprise. "Do you plan to accept? Or will it need to wait till your chiminage is done? Who would your packmates be?"

Jonathan shakes his head. "I have already accepted. I was told never to expect to be part of a pack at my previous home. It wouldn't do to hesitate and perhaps lose the chance. I would be packmates with Wrong Way, a Lupus of the Bone Gnawers." If there's any distaste, he hides it well. "Speaking of which, there is something I did not mention when I arrived and talked to you. It is a shame to me, and I'm afraid to compound it by remaining silent."

Clemency seems about to congratulate the metis, but as he passes on to what seems to be on the verge of a confession, a frown replaces her smile. "Speak by all means," she invites politely, but the temperature of her voice must have dropped five degrees.

Jonathan clears his throat, looking down to the ground. "I told you that I left my home at the Riven Shell in England to look for my cousin, young miss Decik, yes? She was the reason I chose here. I left my Sept because I was forced. I was exiled."

Clemency's voice remains at the same temperature, though at least it doesn't drop any lower. "And why were you forced to leave, Jonathan?"

Jonathan's gaze rises, and he looks Clemency in the eyes. Not in a challenging sense, so much as a simple seeking of contact. "I killed another member of the Sept. The only other Cliath we had. Yuri." His lip curls up in remembrance. "It was in a Challenge. He wanted a family heirloom and challenged me for it. The Elders supported his challenge."

Clemency's hand rises to her chin and she looks pensive. "Including the Master of the Challenge? Who was told of the challenge and its terms beforehand?"

Jonathan nods. His eyes are distant as he recalls. "He knew of it. They all believed Yuri would take it easily. A Philodox, he was, and of achingly pure blood. It was assumed he would...what was the term? 'Kick my ass'?" He reaches into the neck of his shirt and pulls out what appears to be a small whistle carved from ivory on a thong around his neck. "The terms were to fight until one yielded or fell unconscious."

Clemency's eyes flicker to the whistle, but she doesn't mention it, only nodding and saying "But you proved yourself the better fighter?"

Jonathan's mouth opens, about to form the word 'yes'. He shuts it again, and simply shrugs. "I frenzied when he started to pull it from my neck. He knocked me down and had me prone, and assumed it was his already. I tore his heart out of his chest before they stopped me." The words are stated matter of fact, without inflection.

"Then that's the heirloom?" Clemency leans forward to get a closer view of the item, not trying to touch it uninvited. "So small a thing to lose a life over. But a lesson learnt: never assume a fight is won until it is won."

Jonathan nods. "Yes. That is Shriek. A whistle to compel spirits to obedience." He says the name like it's a person, and much beloved beside. "It is a shame. He would have sired strong children and proved wiser if he had time to learn. I do regret it." And it sounds as if he's trying to convince himself, much as Clemency was before. "In the end, it was judged I would not be killed for my crime, but I would be shunned among my Sept. The only placed I had ever known. Miss Decik was my only surviving family that I knew of, and so I managed to barter for passage on a ship."

"A long slow journey," Clemency comments. "Well, let me say, Jonathan-yuf," and the 'yuf' bears a faint emphasis, "that you won't by any means be the only garou, or the only garou of this tribe, who came here seeking a fresh start. And who found one," she adds.

"Thank you, Clemency-yuf." There's a slight hesitance before the application of the honorific. "I have already come to care for this place. It beautiful in the Shadow, you know. My home was not. It was sad, and the spirits who frequented there took on that mournfulness. This place is alive, and there are those here who do not seem to care what my hat hides. I am content." He nods his head decisively.

"I can't claim that I don't care," Clemency corrects, "but when I look at you, I don't see an evil, I see a warrior in the good fight. I suppose that being who and what I am, that's only to be expected..."

Jonathan shakes his head. "I was not including you in that statement. I wouldn't expect a member of my tribe not to care. It is only natural." He inclines himself at the waist in an abbreviated bow. "But your observations as to what I am are refreshing, in truth. At the Riven Shell, I was one of two children they'd had in a decade breed true, and I was a mule. I think they saw it as a nail in the Sept's coffin, and Yuri's loss even more so."

Clemency seems troubled by this statement. "The Riven Shell was very small, then?" she asks cautiously. "Is it sufficiently guarded against evil?"

Jonathan shakes his head. "No, it is large. Larger than this place, from what I have heard tell. There are forty Garou, when last I was there. All of Fostern or higher rank, and we boast an Elder in our ranks. It simply seems that no child born of the Sept will experience the change. There was talk of a curse on the land. Perhaps it is true."

"I hope that's not so," Clemency says with a frown. "But it seems to be pushing coincidence, otherwise. Still, they have washed their hands of you... and you are our sept's defender now. I appreciate you can't stop caring about your birthsept, any more than I can about the One Bright Star, but..."

"This is my home now," he states firmly. "And I will defend it as such." Another smile. "I should not take any more of your time, Clemency-yuf. But I thank you, and am glad you have returned to your people."

Clemency gives a somewhat unexpected smile. "I'm glad, too. This place is special in its own unique way, like every sept. I only hope that Blackriver continues what I began, and maintains the struggle to return our standing in the eyes of the other tribes to its rightful status."

Jonathan gives a solemn nod. "I have heard that there was a time when we were thought of as little more than another tribe here. With Gaia's grace, that will not be so any longer."

"I like to think it's already not so," Clemency says. "Perhaps as a metis you are not best placed to see our true standing." Those words could have been delivered cruelly, but Clemency presents them, once more, as a simple matter of fact. "Well, I think I shall go for a run, to see how it feels to gallop the bawn in lupus without the weight of eldership dragging my paws backwards..."

Jonathan doesn't seem to take the words as anything other than a statement of fact, for what it's worth. He nods. "Falcon ward you from harm, Clemency-yuf. I think I shall sojourn in the Shadow."

Clemency gives Jonathan a gentle pat on the shoulder (well, gentle for an ahroun; it's still firm enough) before shrinking back to her lupus form, emitting two sharp barks in the same way a golfer might shout 'Fore!' or an artilleryman 'Incoming!', and dashes off at a creditable speed, a white blur between the trees.

"If I don't get a battlescar out of this one, you can call me the Wyrm's Great-Aunt Jemima."

2006-06-02T15:00:00.000-07:00

Brownstone -- Basement Apt.(#3328RJ)
The basement of the brownstone has been split into two sections. The stairwell leads down into the northwest corner section, which contains the boiler room, furnace, and the elevator shaft. The rest has been converted into another apartment, and Signe's made it into a rather fortified one at that. The only entrance is through a re-enforced steel door with no less than three dead-bolts. There are absolutely no windows at all in any of the four concrete and brick walls. It's a rather stark but functional space. Overhead, the air ducts and plumbing pipes are exposed, while the cement floor is covered by a ragged dark wine and gold Oriental throw rug. A makeshift shelving unit of two-by-fours and cinder block has been erected along the length of the wall with the door, and it houses a stereo, tv and old vcr. Directly opposite this is a beat-up leather couch and two mismatched recliners. The kitchen is small but functional, with a round wooden table and four chairs. Half of the back end of the building has been walled off for a private bedroom, while the rest is open to the living area. This space has been converted into a home gym--complete with wrestling mats, weights, and a full weight boxing bag.

Emma is taking the day to tidy up the basement apartment of the Brownstone. She's got the vaccum going, not that it can be heard from outside, and the music on and pumping.

Thud, thud, comes the sound of a heavy hand knocking at the basement door.

Emma shuts down the vroom of the machine and moves to the door. When she peeks out, a clear excitement shows on her features and the door is flung open. "Clemency!!!" She pulls the Fang in and forces her into a tight embrace. "My god, I am glad to have you back."

Clemency gasps as Emma yanks her inside and hugs her. "Steady, steady!" she exclaims as the breath is almost forced from her body. "This feels so weird. As far as I'm concerned, I saw you earlier this week!"

Emma laughs, "Well, deal with the weirdness then, because this has been a long time coming from my end." She squeezes again and backs off, looking her over. "You well? I mean, your head, your stomach? Hungry? All's good?"

Clemency feels at her own head curiously. "I'm perfectly well," she insists. "Not best pleased about some shit that's gone down while my back was turned, but never mind that. Laura tells me your Challenge for fostern hit the rocks?"

Emma tenses her lips at this, shrugging a shoulder. "Touch Deer is gone. Ethan Schiller is in town though, a Fostern from my fathers pack. I've challenged him." She sighs, taking in a deep breath to follow. "What do you need catching up on? You want the short or long version?"

"I'm two months behind on most of the news," Clemency says, "despite the eagerness of some little theurge brat of my tribe who blew into town in my absence to tell me about all the bad shit I missed. Make it as long as you like, leader."

Emma takes in a deep breath. "Ya got Kevin and Basil found to have been charachs. They've been punished, the last of which is to serve on the tire fire mission. Kev's already helped scout, and got blasted in the ass with balefire for the effort. Five tails. All nasty and fucked up.. we're working on that. Bas actually has been.. half decent since then. Maybe it'll be for the best. Touch Deer vanished, challenge got dropped, Havoc has until next moot to deal with the tire fire or someone else will. KL's run off to the mountains in guilt, and I've learned that my dad's been killed. Mitch took the job in Chicago, Dillen's forming a new pack, so are the charachs... go figure. I've sent the Get cub off to my dad's sept to get more looking after."

"KL is back," Clemency corrects Emma. "After I got dumped out of the Umbra, I found myself in this huge thick wood, no clue where I was. I honestly thought it was Siberia or somewhere until I ran into KL's scent. She --" And then she pauses as something else Emma said belatedly hits her. "Your dad's been killed?"

Emma gives a faint nod, "It's why Ethan's here at all. Was a mission in Vancouver, I don't know how it happened. Fucker won't tell me." She swallows visibly and shakes her head, "So if KL is back, why is she not here?"

Clemency shrugs. "I think she went off to her house with Laura when we got back to the bawn. I was too busy trying to hunt down that feral bitch who had the presumption to step into my shoes as elder just because I was out of contact for a little while, and managed, in between then and now, to lose the tribe its house and try to condemn two same-sex teenage charachs to death... I mean, I'm not excusing those boys, but you know and I know for the best of reasons that charach isn't the end of a garou's useful life, don't we, or we wouldn't pack with Grey."

Emma looks to Clemency, curiously. "If you mean that I think she had any right to tell me where they would serve in the tire fire. Then... rest assured, I took my concerns to her, and I am putting Kevin and Basil where I think they will be the most useful. Not where I think they have the best chance of dying. Though Kevin walked a thin line with me at first, I believe he has the intention to make as right by Gaia as he can now." She waves a hand, "Come sit, I'll grab us a few beers. We can catch up. The pack felt empty. I really need the time to feel like you guys are back.

Clemency perks up visibly at the mention of alcohol. "Far as I know, we're all back," she says. "Apart from Kenneth... and I'm hoping I just haven't seen him, rather than him being stuck in the umbra somewhere." She sits and stretches her legs out in front of her. "We all got thrown out in different places. Crazy, it was."

Emma nods her head, "So.. how'd it all happen anyway?" She comes back with two beers and a growl on her face, "Fucking Ethan is drinking the shit like crazy and not putting any in to replace it."

"Coyote spirit came and begged help to prevent a powerful fetish being turned Wyrmy," Clemency replies, snagging a beer before Ethan can appear and commandeer it. "Got ahold of me, Grey, Reggie, Peter and Kenneth, and yanked us off to this weird village in the Umbra that was like an early Hollywood movie with a big castle looming over it. Vampire shit, only not leeches like we know them, the movie version."

Emma looks to her with a confused look. "What. The fuck. Okay man, you guys probably caught too many opium fumes or something. Heh, glad you're back though. We're gonna get fucked in that tire fire Clem. I scouted it out..."

"Really?" Clemency asks darkly. She takes a chug of beer. "Tell me all about it, and let me know what your plans are?"

Emma leans forward after slamming another slug of beer. She points a circle on the table. "Ring of smoke spirits, which we've found are not all corrupt. But the ones that are, cut like knives.. it's like running the gambit, trying to get past them. Inside, the molten heap of fire.. and the elemental beast.. looks almost bull like. It's fast, and .. yeah, balefire. We need enough people to handle the realm fire and the spiritual one. Jamethon is working on an idea for a talen that will harness the mountain air, and I want to see if we can't get our theurges to convince some of the earth spirits to help us out. Basil is taking folks to scout the guards and note their schedules. This is a theurge' fight.. claws.. are going to hurt to use. Can't breathe, and attacking the thing is gonna burn us."

"I heard about Kevin's brush with the balefire," Clemency confirms with a savage grin. "Oh, this is gonna be a good fight. And you get to lead it, you fucking lucky bitch. If I don't get a battlescar out of this one, you can call me the Wyrm's Great-Aunt Jemima." She holds up her beer and examines it thoughtfully. "Sounds like I'm in that overdue-a-good-fight mood again," she adds more pensively.

Emma laughs a bit at that, "Yeah, we'll you get your chance with this fight. I'm thinking about asking Dillen if he wants to lead his back on the realm side and take care of that. Gonna get the Gnawers in realm side too, they'll be better prepared to handle human shit. I want Havoc together. Wish this sept had more knife moons."

"That new kid of ours seems pretty keen," Clemency says, "though he got on my last nerve within seconds, I admit. I'd like to see how he handles himself in a fight. You met him yet? Got a blue streak in his hair, homid and lupe both."

Emma blinks, "Wha? Blue streak, who is this? I haven't kept up on the cubs much lately. Been preoccupied."

"He claims cliath rank," Clemency corrects, "though if he's been one for as much as a year I'll eat this bottle." She takes a drink from it instead. "Mathias Promises-that-are-Kept," she goes on, pronouncing his name in the way he does himself, Ma-chees. "And he's a theurge. He's also the only member of our tribe with any financial backing at all. When I spoke to him earlier today he was full of plans to move the Silver Fangs into a commuter estate in Kent Crossing." The snort she gives suggests that she doesn't think much of that plan.

Emma huhs. "Oh. Yeah I met him on the bawn when the Fury cub had a head lobbed at her. Dunno him much, but he did what I told him to do so, I was cool with that." She grins a little and takes another swig. "Get need a new place. This basement is alright as a city stop over, but.."

"A head?" Clemency looks at Emma as though she can't believe her ears.

Emma nods. "Laura said it's not the first. Severed head, as if sawed off. Eyes stapled open. No blood trails, no scent, no body. Cub said it dropped outta the sky, nearly hit her."

"Ewwww," is Clemency's comment to that. "Human? Anyone that anyone recognised? And stapled open, you say?"

Emma nods her head, "Stapled open, no recognition. We got no clue."

"Heads don't drop out of the sky without someone to drop them," Clemency frowns. "Was there anything overhead? Plane, 'copter, glider, microlite?"

Emma shakes her head, "I wasn't there, I just came after the fact. Left Mathias to guard the head and told the guardians about it. James is aware. I took the cub home and came back to the city. Yeah it's fucked up, but I am spread too thin already."

"But why would anyone throw a head onto the bawn?" Clemency puzzles. "It was still... recognisable? Not some long dead skull someone dug up?"

"Hell no, it was like fresh, seemed like it anyway, just like I said, no blood everywhere. Ask Laura or Cole about it. I dunno what to think -it's messed up." She sips the beer again and lets out a sigh, "Clemency, I.." she frowns, looking away for a second.

"OK, I will." Clemency is silent, then, and waits politely for Emma to finish her sentence, beer bottle dangling from her hand.

Emma looks up faintly. "I.. don't know how this is gonna sound." She sighs, pinching the bottle to her lips to gain her momentum. When it comes down, she spits it out. "I think I need to get laid. And Mitch is.. thousands of miles away, and.. and lately I feel like I don't care."

Clemency looks at Emma over the top of the beer bottle. She doesn't answer straight away. "Got ya," she says at last. "Okay, if Mitch is out of the picture, then who? Or does that not matter much right now?"

Emma shrugs, "I dunno. I feel like it should matter. Like I should care that I am thinking ... that.. anyone will do."

Clemency is still looking pensive. "I'm assuming that you aren't aiming for a child," she muses, "so it's not as if you need to find the purest-blooded kin on the market. You aren't as scary-looking as me, you could pick up a guy... if that's what you really do want."

Emma huffs, "I want Mitch- but I can't have him, and so I've told myself any guy will do. But then I get to thinking that makes me an awful bitch. And what would Mitch think? I didn't think being Garou gave me the right to fuck around... it shouldn't."

The corner of Clemency's mouth twitches. "Call me a bitch for saying this," she says, "but I am hardly gonna tell him."

Emma runs a hand over her head, sighing. "And why am I thinking about this when I have all this other shit to do? It's not right."

Clemency shrugs. "Personally I find that getting knotted up about sex is a majorly bad idea," she says, "though that didn't stop me and Cristofer... not that I wanted to... gah." She looks away from Emma, then back to her. "Do what you need to optimize yourself for battle," she says in a brusque, businesslike way, "and if that means boffing some toyboy tonight, then boff him for Gaia."

Emma nods her head, "You do it?" She seems unsure about all of this really.

Clemency shakes her head. "Not more often than I can help," she says. "Last time before Cris was Glyn..."

Emma nods her head, 'Maybe we ought to go out and beat up some thugs instead... I'd feel less guilty about that." She offers.

Clemency smiles. "Let's go hit the streets, see if there's any garbage needs sweeping away?" She puts down the empty bottle and rises to her feet.

Emma smiles and nods, putting her bottle next to the Fangs.

"Would Justin and Blackriver be as fast to leap into my grave as they would to take eldership from me?"

2006-06-02T13:59:00.000-07:00

"Most of the Pure Ones I have come across seem interested only in cursing at me and my people for the alleged sins of my grandfather's grandfathers."

2006-05-31T13:56:00.000-07:00

Ash Grove(#4024RJh)
Within this dark forest dominated by the canopy of the tenacious, light-hungry pines is a place where a stand of ash has established itself and fought off all competition. The ashes allow the rays of sun and moon alike to lance down through limbs which bear nothing more than clusters of rust-coloured keys, such that undergrowth abounds and the forest floor is even clad with a bright green sward of grass. Bright white bits of bone peep through the green, testament to a history of food offerings in this place.
These habitual offerings have accomplished their purpose and, during daytime, a great number of carrion birds roost in the branches of the trees, predominately the large black bodies of crows and ravens. The grove is deserted at night, the birds having left for other sanctuary.

Cricket is sitting under a tree in the grove. The Uktena is half-asleep with her bag possessions snug against her chest which her arms are hugging around.

Clemency comes stomping through the woods with her usual lack of subtlety, twigs snapping and branches bending as she progresses. When she spots the snoozing Cricket she raises one eyebrow. "Well, that's not Blackriver," she says to nobody in particular.

Cricket opens her eyes and looks up at Clemency, expression looking cross. "Huh?" she asks as she quickly rises to her feet.

"I was looking for someone who's often around here," Clemency explains coolly. "But you're not her. I'm sorry if I woke you."

"Who are you?" Cricket asks, not in a demanding tone but one of curiousity. This girl, Clemency soon notices, is Native American and African; there is not an easy noticeable pinch of European in her physical definition.

This teenager's face is soft, showing her Native American and African heritage that has been funneled through generations of blending and perfecting of the two into the beauty of this young woman. A small portion of her Dutch heritage is also seen with careful inspection, giving her skin tone that golden brown luster. Her nose is beveled, peeking from the gentle crest between her almond-shaped eyes. Tresses spill around her shoulders in waves of silky, thick black hair. She stands at 5'3" and is athletically fit, passable as a model if it were not for her weathered hands that prove that she has connection with the earth. Soil has gathered and stained her fingernails. Her body flows like the softness of her face, with gentle peaks where necessary.
A few adornments are shown upon her. She has the left side of her nose pierced and her ears are triple pierced. A few feathers, beads, and other accessories are found within her hair. She also wears a necklace that is a black agate disk with leather looped around it and tied around her neck. Her clothes are otherwise non-descriptive. She wears a black fitted-tee with white lettering that says 'Native Pride' which is generally hidden underneath a dark gray, large man's sized sweater that has seen better days. She wears a pair of worn jeans on her lower torso with a pair of moccasins on her feet.

"Clemency Haynes is the name," responds the Silver Fang. "This is probably a stupid question, but you do know these woods are, like, off limits to the general public?" She cocks her head on one side and gives Cricket what's probably meant to be a meaningful look.

Cricket doesn't appear to register the name. "I am not sure what your relation is to those who are currently patroling these grounds, but I can assure you that I have permission." the thirteen-year-old responds.

Clemency grins. "Okay, okay, okay, I had to ask. I never quite know how good the guardians are. Yes... Clemency Haynes, daughter of Gavin Haynes, granddaughter of Peter Haynes, descendant of the Tchigorins of Garbistan, elder of the Silver Fangs for Sept and State, and wild woman ahroun." She waves a carefree hand at Cricket.

Cricket shifts her shoulder bag on her shoulder while looking Clemency with a puzzled expression throughout most of her introduction. "I am Ayita Youngblood, known as Cricket by my people of my homesept, Cliath Songkeeper of the Uktena. In lupus, I am named Long-Suffering, which is a shortened version of One Who Suffers The Pain Of Her Ancestors In Visions . I come from the Sept of Two Stumps of Howe, Idaho on a request from an ex-member of the Sept of Hidden Walk. My father is Fostern Shaman, a well respected man, of Two Stumps Sept."

Clemency listens to all this with evident interest. "My family and I have since leaving Garbistan lived in the Sept of One Bright Star in South Carolina," she reminisces. My lupus name is The-Fire-that-Burns-Forever, for when I was younger it was foretold that my spirit could never be extinguished or die down for long. Which is still pretty much the case," she says with a grin. "So what request, Long-Suffering-One, brought you here from Idaho?"

"To be able to follow not in the footsteps of my father but to make a new path on my own. To seek reown in a Sept that is known for its variety of tribes for which mine has very few. And, above all, to learn patience of people who do not understand the ways of the Pure Ones." replies the Uktena.

Clemency's lips go thin for a little moment there, but she nods. "Would that more of your brothers and sisters were willing to seek such learning," she comments with a hint of acid. "Most of the Pure Ones I have come across seem interested only in cursing at me and my people for the alleged sins of my grandfather's grandfathers."

"Perhaps if you saw it through our eyes, then you would come to understand why we have such bitterness." Cricket says calmly, for which she has learned her tranquility through her patient father. "I come from two nationalities that have suffered unimagionable pain and suffering, but I did not come here to make enemies. I came for a purpose, which I am going to fulfill. I will try not to carry sterotypes, but I cannot help if I do."

"Nobody can ask you to do more than to try to overcome the past," Clemency says restrainedly. "The past has a powerful grip on us, creatures of tradition as we are. My people, as well as yours, very often find themselves retreading old paths, and at a loss how to break out of the deeply trodden ruts they find themselves in. I... like to think that in my own way, I have broken out of the rut," she says with a slightly distracted smile.

"Did you say that you run with a pack?" asks Cricket, changing the subject for a moment to talk of less debatable topic.

"I did not say it," Clemency corrects, "but I have the honor to run under the protection of Wolverine in the pack of Havoc, in which I claim the position of Beta."

Cricket wrinkles up her nose a little. "Yes, yes." she replies. "Wolverine is a very rageful spirit. It takes members with much skill to be able to have control of their rage to pack under the wolverine."

"Don't I know it!" exclaims Clemency. "Even at this theurge moon I feel the pull of it... But I am a fighter, and Wolverine is a fighter. We understand each other, he and I."

Cricket nods her head slowly. "My father is shaman, I spend some time in the shadow speaking to spirits when I was a cub."

Clemency ahhs. "No theurges in my immediate family," she says, "and I confess I don't pay as much attention to spirits as I should, apart from Vex of course... that's Havoc's totem. I like straightforwardness, and spirits rarely possess much of that."

"They can be tricky," the Uktena replies. Her eyes look over the wood around her before her attention returns to the Silver Fang.

"So, Ayita," Clemency says, shifting from one foot to another, "do you like it here? Has Vera-rhya admitted you as a member of the sept? I have been... rather out of the loop lately, you see. Still trying to catch up on events."

Cricket shakes her head slowly and frowns. "I need to find her and to have a chiminage approved. The Wendigo elder, Jancita-rhya, had assisted me with an idea all I need to do is bring it before the alpha of the sept."

Clemency's face becomes rather wooden at the mention of the Wendigo elder. "Vera-rhya has the good of this sept truly at heart, and if your idea benefits us, you may be sure she will approve it."

"I will not let this sept down." Cricket replies. "I just hope that it will take less time to find the Alpha then it has to find anyone else."

"I saw her only yesterday," Clemency says. "At the farmhouse. She maintains a room there, where she can keep an eye on the cubs of the sept."

Cricket scowls a little as she hears the word 'farmhouse'. "I suppose that is the best place to find her," the girl replies.

"It is. Although," Clemency says, "I too seek another garou who is hard to find, for she was lupus-born and tends to lurk deep in the woods when she has no reason to mix with we two-leggers. Perhaps each of us should look for the other's target as well as our own? That must increase the chances of them being found?"

Cricket smiles but shakes her head. "I am afraid that I would make your traveling slow, since I must go around the caern to the other side of the bawn." replies the Uktena.

"Very well," Clemency says. "Perhaps we'll meet again shortly. I must search out Blackriver myself, then."

"All I said was hello, and she ran like a startled bunny."

2006-05-30T13:44:00.000-07:00

Farmhouse: Kitchen and Dining Room
Homey is the first word to come to mind when looking at the farmhouse's
kitchen. Dark, wood-paneled wainscoting covers the walls to about waist
height, dark beige wallpaper continuing to the ceiling. Twin refrigerators
occupy the north wall, facing the large six-burner stove on the south. The
kitchen counter runs the length of the eastern wall, broken only by the
double-basin sink. Cabinets run above and below the counter and a twin-pane window is set in the wall above the sink. A small pantry is set into an alcove alongside the refrigerators, presumably holding the deep freezer as well as shelves of dry goods.
Some twelve feet above the floor, a large chandelier hangs from the
ceiling, lighting the dining room and casting long shadows over the bar to
the kitchen. A long table occupies the center of the dining room, three
chairs setting along each side, and one on each end. On the west wall, a
large window looks out on the trees alongside the western pasture. Set into
the north wall is a large cabinet, its glass doors closed on shelves
containing a full compliment of fine china and glassware as well as a few
decorative nicknacks. On the east, a wide bar separates the dining room
from the kitchen.
An opening in the southern wall allows passage to the front entryway of the house, while a sliding glass door in the kitchen opens to a clearing behind the house.

Ruth sits all along in the kitchen, with a glass of water in one hand and a sandwich in the other, head turned towards the sliding doors with a puzzled sort of expression on her face.

The girl isn't destined to be along for long; the back door opens to admit a thin white woman with braided hair and a scowl, who bangs it behind her. When she sees the girl sitting there looking stunned, she blinks suspiciously at her and barks out "Whassup?"

Ruth looks blankly at the stranger for a second. Then her eyes widen suddenly, her expression scared. The glass and sandwich drop to the floor, the glass bouncing once then breaking, water going everywhere. Slipping a
bit on the water, Ruth scuttles towards the hallway.

The woman spits out a four-letter expletive. Heedless of the smashed glass and discarded sandwich, she pushes her way round the kitchen table in pursuit of the fleeing and evidently terrified girl.

Graceful and gazelle-like the teenager is not, but she manages to scramble through the door before the older woman can make it around the table.

Farmhouse: Hallway and Living Room
All doorways in the front part of the house lead to the front hallway, a J-shaped area with the short tail starting at the stairs, the front door hitting the bottom curve, the doorless opening to the living room halfway up the long side, and the also doorless opening to the kitchen and dining room at the very top. The hall has a simple wooden floor, and decorated with a generic print of soft-colored flowers hanging on the wall to the right of the front door, and a tall table sitting under the print which serves as a place to toss keys. A closet under the stairs serves as a place to hang coats or to toss shoes.
The doorless opening to the living room is halfway up the side of the hall's J, and the word cozy might spring to mind when looking into is, as it seems to radiate comforting vibrations. A long couch sits against the south wall beneath a large bay window curtained only by sheers that manages to obscure the view in but only filters the day's light. A variety of out-of-date magazines are strewn atop a low coffee table; more neatly presented are the plethora of books filling the small bookshelves which line the eastern wall. Three chairs sit about the room, focused inward, to allow group conversations. Large floor pillows are stacked in one corner of the room, except one, which lies carelessly in the middle of the floor, apparently left out the last time it was used.
An opening in the northern end of the hallway allows access to the kitchen and dining room at the back of the house, while carpeted stairs twist up at the other end of the hall, leading to the second floor. A door at the base of the J lets out to the front porch.

Ruth ignores the other doorways, and heads towards the stairs.

Clemency somehow manages to get tangled up in the table leg, and knocks another plate off the table to smash on the floor before she comes chasing through to the lounge area. "HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!" she commands in ringing tones.

The shout has something of the desired effect. Ruth stops, at any rate, at the foot of the stairs. rocking to a halt and turning in a way that risks seriously straining an ankle. Her expression is almost, but not quite, pure terror. The tiny part that isn't is possibly the part that prompts her to lift her hands in fists. She looks, quite frankly, ridiculous.

When the girl pauses, the woman does not. In fact, she launches herself right at the unfortunate teenager. Seeing her fists rise, the woman goes underneath them, and grabs her round the waist in something that's a cross between a bear hug and a football tackle.

Sound travels fairly well in this old farmhouse and Vera tilts her head to one side, at the sound of shuffling feet beneath her and sets aside her current project. Opening up her front door, she starts to make her way downstairs.

Ruth is knocked back, hitting the ground hard and all the breath knocked out of her.

Clemency lands pretty awkwardly too, and for a few seconds the foot of the stairs seems to be nothing but a tangle of arms and legs. Then her head jerks up, braids bobbling around her face, and she snaps "You ain't going nowhere, girl."

"Ah, Clemency, good to see you have returned as well," Vera states with a touch of amusement in her voice, leaning against the railing of the stairs. "Still giving people enthusiastic greetings, I see."

Ruth gulps for breath, trying to struggle but not really in a position to do so.

Clemency rolls off Ruth, looking up the staircase at Vera. "All I said was hello," she grumbles, not strictly accurately, "and she ran like a startled bunny."

Ruth scrambles backwards, her eyes darting between the two women. Slowly, she edges her way up the wall to her feet. "Uh... you're... uh... do you know Stacey?"

Vera chuckles dryly. "Of course. You do have a rather intimidating appearance." The Shadow Lord flashes a rather pleasant smile at the cub. "Yes, we do. Actually, I am Vera Culls-The-Herd. Adren Ragabash of the Shadow Lords and Alpha of this Sept. This charming woman," she indicates the Fang. "Is Clemency. Ahroun Cliath of the Silver Fangs."

"Of course I know Stacey," Clemency snaps, "and --" Then she shuts up, not without a visible effort, as her elder speaks. Only when Vera falls silent once more does she resume by saying "...and if you know Stacey, what the hell were you running for?"

Ruth tries to straighten herself up, but she's still gasping from the fall. "Ru... Ruth Carpenter... uh... Children of Gaia Cub, Philodox. Um. There was a howl, and someone said it was urgent, amd they all ran out, and Basil said stay here and if I saw anyone I didn't know to hide, and to defend from upstairs..."

Vera smirks and lightly shakes her head. "Ahh. Charach give such prudent advice... It is quite alright Ruth. You will become accustomed to the way things work here."

At the mention of the name of Basil, Clemency gives a barely suppressed snort. Not just a grunt, either, but a real snort, the sort that sounds like someone blowing their nose without a handkerchief. "I didn't hear no howl," she says suspiciously, "Vera-rhya? Did you hear a howl?"

Ruth bites her lip, then speaks up, a bit cautiously. "Um... am I supposed to call you Vera-rhya and Clemency-rhya? And what's a charach? And what's Adren, and Shadow Lords, and Silver Fang?"

Vera shakes her head. "I'm afraid not. However, I was in the shower recently and would not have heard one."

"Yes, yes you are," Clemency responds, a fraction less angrily, to Ruth. "Because both Vera-rhya and myself are greater in station than you, and it is your sign of respect to us. Just politeness, that's all." She stands up and straightens her clothes some, though she still looks dishevelled as though her normal state of being is a crumpled one. "Shadow Lords and Silver Fangs are tribes like yours, the Children of Gaia. An adren is a very senior garou," she goes on with a glance at Vera, "at least in this part of the world. And a charach... is a lawbreaking mouthy little piece of shit, or at least, that's what Basil is." She folds her arms in a gesture of contempt.

Vera rubs at her jaw. "Have you been taught the Litany, cub?"

Ruth looks down at her sneakers (rather grubby). "I'm sorry, Clemency-rhya. I wouldn't have run away if I'd know you weren't the bad sort of stranger." She lifts her head again at Vera's question, her expression still a bit doleful and slightly scared, but brightening somewhat. "Yes! I mean, yes, Vera-rhya. At least, I've had one lesson. I can tell you if you want?"

Clemency gives Ruth a very thin smile, but it is at least a smile. "Your apology is accepted. I shall have a little word with Basil when I see him about instructing cubs to act appropriately." She falls silent, then, as though listening keenly -- perhaps to Ruth's promised recital of the litany, perhaps to something else.

Vera hmms-hmms. "If you could. I would like to know how your teaching is progressing."

Ruth grasps her hands behind her back, and fixes her gaze on a point in the distance. "Garou shall not mate with Garou, Combat the Wyrm where it dwells and whenever it breeds, respect the territory of another, accept an honorable surrender, submit to those of a higher station, first share of the kill for the greatest in station... um...don't eat humans- I mean, ye shall not eat of the flesh of humans..." She pauses for throught and breath.

"Hot damn, she's a quick learner," Clemency comments. She's still looking very thoughtful and semi-focused elsewhere as she listens, and then she says "Vera-rhya? If there was a howl, and if it meant an attack, you and the cub should make an escape. I'll go for a quick run round the outside of the house and see if there's anything to worry over?"

"There would be more alarms and howling if there was an attack," Vera states mildly. "But please, go and see what the fuss is about."

Vera looks down at the cub. "A Charach is a Garou that has broken the first law. Do you know why we have the first law?"

Clemency flashes Ruth another brief, thin smile as she makes a quick beeline for the front door and slips through it to scout around outside.

"Thank you, Clemency-rhya," Ruth says hastily; what for is debatable. Possibly for the Fang's comment about learning fast. "Because it makes weak babies that can't breed, Vera-rhya," she then says, in answer to the question.

Vera nods. "It makes metis. Not only are they weak, they are deformed in mind or body. Sometimes both. AND, they return to the form of their birth when they die. Which makes then a veil risk, even in death. Because they are born in the war form, it is not unknown for them to kill the mother on the way out. Then, it is many years before they can shift. Before that time, they are a veil risk and a burden to the Garou nation."

The Shadow Lord has Ruth's full attention for that explanation. "They're born all claw-y and furry? I can see that would be a problem..."

Vera nods. "And those claws can tear open the mother from the inside. Many die. If you'll excuse me for a moment, I need to attend to something. Clemency'll return shortly."

As predicted, Clemency does return shortly. "No sign of anything wrong out there," she reports tersely. "I think there's some garou on the bawn, but it doesn't sound like a fight."

Ruth is sitting beside the bookshelf in the living-room, encircled by several heaps of books. She looks up at the sound of Clemency's voice. "That's good, yes?"

"Definitely," confirms Clemency. "If the Enemy intruded on our bawn, we would be in serious trouble. Do you know why?" she asks, arching one thin eyebrow.

Ruth skews around to look towards the Fang. "Uh... I'm sorry, but I don;t know what a bawn is?"

"The bawn is the area of land immediately surrounding the caern. Like, hmm..." Clemency pauses to think of a simile. "Like a parking lot around a Wal-Mart."

"And..." Ruth gets a distant look for a moment. "A caern is a sacred place. 'Ye must not allow a Caern to be violated or, through inaction, allow it to some to harm'?"

"You said it," Clemency agrees. "So to push that analogy... you're a security guard at the Wal-Mart and you know your job is to protect it from armed robbers. Now, if a big truck drives into the lot and guys with shotguns and stocking masks start jumping out... you know there's trouble. And that's why news of a fight on the bawn would be unwelcome... even if nine times out of ten it'd just be some punkass garou kids throwing down with one another," she mutters.

Ruth's forehead wrinkles slightly at the phrasing, but she doesn't question the explanation so she probably understood the meaning. "How did the others know the howl was important, Clemency-rhya?"

"A howl isn't just a howl," Clemency explains, "even when a wolf makes it. Before long you'll be chatting away... or the equivalent, since a lot of it is non-verbal... while wearing the wolf body, just as natural as all get out." She grins as though this is something for Ruth to look forward to.

Ruth frowns properly now, in thought. "But... how will I learn? Someone in wo... er, lupus, and someone else to say what they're saying?" She shakes her head, dismissing the idea for the moment. "I'm sorry, Clemency-rhya. I expect Stacey-rhya will teach me somehow. There's just so much to learn though!"

"You'd be surprised how much of it comes naturally to you," Clemency assures Ruth. "This isn't like learning dumb shit about Christopher Columbus and John Quincy Squincy in school. This is... learning to be yourself." She grins a rather feral grin. "Hey, Ruth, have you even been in lupus yet?"

Ruth nods. "Crinos and Lupus."

"What was lupus like?" Clemency fires back.

Ruth looks uncertain. "A bit weird. I bit my tail," she admits, sheepishly. "And Kris was bouncing around, but I just kept wobbling."

Clemency shrugs. "Four legs feels weird for a bit. But next time, never mind walking. Just stand still, or flop down in a heap if you like, and concentrate on the other differences. What you can smell. How things look different from down there, and with wolf eyes. How much better your hearing is, and how you can move your ears back and forth. Hell," she offers, "if you like, we can run out to the barn and try it now."

"Ooh, yes, the smells were good!" Ruth says, eyes sparkling with the memory. "Although I wished I had my glasses. I think... I think I ought to practice. I'm not very good at, well, sporty stuff."

"I don't think Stacey will mind if we hit the barn together and do some mild lupus stuff," Clemency says affably. She's all relaxed grace, now, the tense, taut woman whom Ruth first saw sunk below the surface.

Ruth gives Clemency a sudden grin. "Maybe I can surprise Stacey-rhya with being good at something next time."

"Sure you can," Clemency smiles. "If you can pick up the Litany verbatim in like two days, I'm sure you can master juggling eight balls in lupus in a week... Shall we?" She indicates the door to the kitchen beyond which lies the barnyard.

Ruth nods happily, clambers to her feet and makes a vague attempt to shove the two widest piles of books in closer to the bookshelf as she passes them. "The Litany was mostly kind of obvious, and much easier than latin verbs. But me and sport have this hate-hate relationship."

Big Red Barn(#3420RA)
The barn is built in the old style, a vast three level structure that is greater in height than a mere three stories, actually closer to five. Great wooden posts support the weight of the upper levels and roof, sunk into the hard-packed dirt floor of the first level like a sparse forest of regularly spaced, naked trees. The stalls and flagstones which once were here have been torn out to leave a rather open area where even crinos Garou may roam freely without fear of running into anything but the supports or the walls or the ladder at the back which allows access to the other two levels.
The first two levels are relatively open to each other, the second being only little wider than a catwalk going around all the walls but the front one, which has massive, twenty foot tall doors set into it. The third level is a true second floor except for a place cut out that allowed hay to be tossed down to the ground floor when the farm was actually worked. Now, it is a hayloft where Garou can sleep outside of the house.

Clemency and Ruth walk through to the barn, with a brief pause for Clemency to clean up broken crocks in the kitchen with a rueful smile to the cub. She sits down on a haybale and points a thin finger at Ruth. "Okay," she invites, "want to take lupus?"

Ruth takes a deep breath and concentrates, pulling a few odd faces- frowns, and snarls- before there's any sign of a change. Eventually, though she slips up into Crinos, whereupon she promtly sits down on her rump, probably to stop herself falling over. She closes her eyes, still concentrating furiously, and several long seconds later makes it into Lupus.

A grey wolf bitch, probably in her second year. She is not large for a wolf, lightly built and just a little over two feet at the shoulder. She has the thin, long-legged, uncertain gawkiness of a young animal. Her summer coat is short and fine, a soft smoky grey in colour, with no particularly distinctive markings. There is a dusting of ruddy hair along her flanks, and somewhat darker fur blending in along her topline and around her ears and forehead.

Clemency watches Ruth's efforts keenly, without interfering, until she finally makes it to a sprawled-on-the-floor crinos and thence to lupus. "That's the one," she then says. "Now don't try to get up. Focus. Close your eyes if it helps, and concentrate on your ears instead. Wolves' ears are keener than their eyes, y'know. What do you hear? Apart from me."

Rrr obediently closes her eyes. Her ears, for the moment, remain immobile as she turns her head this way and that. Her nose, on the other hand, twitches furiously. Her nose points back towards Clemency, and her eyes open again. She makes a sound that is not quite a growl, looking nonplussed.

Clemency digs into one inside pocket of her tatty denim jacket and comes out holding a Hershey bar, itself far from pristine, but still wrapped. She peels back the silver paper (which makes a crinkly noise), breaks off one end of hthe chocolate, and reaches out to the wolf, the candy in the palm of her hand under the lupus nose.

Oh, was that an ear-twitch? The grey wolf-shaped Ruth suddenly shakes her head, which seems to leave her a little dizzy. She refocusses on the other Garou, and sniffs, carefully. Then she pulls back, body language managing to indicate 'bad'.

Clemency pops the candy in her own mouth and returns the rest of the bar to her inside pocket. "Not keen, huh?" she says conversationally to the grey wolf.

Sleeping, or rather rest, the young wolf-shaped Garou stretches, it's a long stretch one that comes from many hours sleeping, not a quick cat-in this case wolf-nap. Standing on all fours Kris, eyes the others. She barks playfully at Ruth... though she notes her by scent alone, her nose twitching.

Rrr rrfs. Her ears pull back, and her tongue licks at her teeth in an expression of distaste. This seems to give the young Garou pause for thought. Her ears pop forwards again, producing another head-shake. She looks up at Clemency, quizzically, then turns her head to the back. Her tail thumps in recognition of the other cub, and she quickly twists around, trying to watch it. How'd it do that?

Clemency goes from relaxed to tense once again in an eyeblink at the bark from the second wolf, and she springs up from the haybale on which she's seated. "Hold it right there, wolf," she orders sternly, and then she too takes the lupus form, the third garou in the barn to do so, trotting over with dominance in her posture to examine this stranger.

Kris blinks. She takes a few leary steps back, wimpering actually afraid for a long moment. The white furred wolf, crouches cringing, tail between her hind legs, submissive and scared-apparent the cub knows all the right things to do.

If a wolf can be said to watch with academic interest, then that would in fact describe quite well Ruth's reaction to the other two Garou. Oh yes, that's what wolves do.

Fire-Burns acts somewhat mollified by the other garou's cringing submission. Who are you, who? she demands, still placing herself squarely in the alpha position of the three wolves.

Kris takes another step back still cringing, a whimper is the only reply, having no name to go by in this form the she-wolf just cringes.

Rrr's ears once more follow the action, seemingly without effort. They freeze as Ruth attempts to work out how to make them do that.

Fire-Burns snarls for a moment, menacingly, but then shifts back up to homid; an irate-looking homid. "Back on two legs, now," she demands coldly.

Kris swallows and shifts, the command was clear enough to wolf-ears.

Just in case the command applied to her as well, Ruth also slips back into her birth form.

Seemingly it did. Clemency stares at the two girls. "How many more cubs have sprung up while I was off in the umbra?" she demands, then goes on without waiting for an answer. Once introductions are straightened out, she relaxes sufficiently to allow the two cubs back to lupus for further practice -- some of it directed by her in homid, some shown by example in her own lupus form. It doesn't seem long before she calls a halt, though. "I'm getting tired," she explains, "and when I'm tired I get short tempered... and when I'm in a short temper I shouldn't be near new cubs." She doesn't explain that cryptic remark further, merely stating "Remember, homid only beyond the barn doors," as she slips out.

I am elder! Not Blackriver! Not Stalks-Truth-With-Honor! I am! Me! Me!

2006-05-28T13:37:00.000-07:00

Bawn: Foothills of the Mountains(#2986RA)
The hills that rise here are roughened by the frequent rains, and rocky places show through the grasses and shrubs that grown in the clearings. Trees grow as often from shallow soil on rocky hillocks as from real loam. Occassional boulders show through like the bones of ancient creatures, covered with spreading patches of moss and lichen. The land is rough, and the weight of the ancient hills gives the place a chilling quality. The stones seem to resent intrusion.
No visible delimiter marks the eastern edge of the Bawn, only scent-marks and occasional scratches on trees. To the west, the hills become softer and the covering forest thicker, while to the east, the rocky slopes of the foothills become mountainous in truth, and the tree cover thins. I-90 to the north and the railroad to the south provide the remaining edges to this region.

Promises-Kept is out here, near the eastern edge of the bawn. The white wolf with the faded blue ear has been following up on something. Could be a gut instinct, something just out of sight, that tugs on him, yet, here he is. Nose in the air, and looking about for any sign of the wyrm.

As the last few days have gone, Child-Holder has been walking the bawn in search of herbs for her newest project. She's carrying a cloth pouch around her neck on a long loop of sinew. Her tail is mid-height, her nose low to the ground.

Despite her recent transgressions, it's unlikely that Escapes-From-Money qualifies as "the Wyrm", and nobody calls Fire-Burns that. Except very quietly, and a long way behind her back. The two Ahrouns come bounding onto the edge of the bawn, in the kind of manner that suggests that friendly exercise has morphed into a cut-throat-competitive, but still friendly, race. At this exact instant, the Fury is winning, but only by a nose, her paws throwing up scuffs of mud, her mouth open and tongue lolling as she pants. The one thing it isn't, however, is particularly stealthy. Alert sentries may hear the pair coming for some distance.

If any of the aforementioned alert sentries sees Fire-Burns-Forever approach, they might be forgiven for failing to recognise the Silver Fang; her white pelt is as muddy as if she's been rolling in puddles for the entire two months of her mysterious absence. That apart, she looks well and cheerful enough as she chases after her packmate.

Promises-Kept kicks out of the wyrm looking mode, and into the using your five senses mode. The white wolf perks his ears and raises his tail to assaume a more dominant stance. He focuses towards the direction of the two running, though he dosn't give himself away yet. He still wants the element of surprise. His fur is groomed and clean, the pure white as he just watches, no doubt near the path the two are currently taking.

Child-Holder abandons her hunt for the mainly motionless flora in favor of the racous noise up ahead of her. She sprints towards the incoming noise, her ears higher now, her tail flying behind her. She's in no mood, for whatever reason, to stay hidden or quiet. Who? she howls ahead of herself, her path angling to intersect with the interlopers.

Escapes slams on the brakes, at the sound of the howl, her paws scrabbling as she works to keep her balance. Without thought, she lifts her muzzle and howls in response. The howl, however, is barely decipherable, a horrible mass of squeaks and crackles. "Escapes, of the Black..." her voice trailing off into silence as she realises quite how dreadful it sounds.

And Fire-burns-Forever, adds the Silver Fang in a more normal voice. I have returned, yes, I am back.

Promises-Kept lopes on after the other three when he hears the howl. As he gets closer, he gives a howl of his own, controlled. It's one of greeting, announcing his name and rank, tribe and auspice. His tail still holds the dominant position, but he's none too concerned with stealth now ethier.

There's a moment of pause. Just a fraction of a second, really. Then Child-Holder redoubles her efforts. Her nostrils flare and her tail whips about-in wolf form there's just no hiding how happy she is to hear those names. Child-Holder, Black Fury, pack! she howls back to the pair, finally crashing through the underbrush. The loop around her neck catches on a branch, cutting off the howl and the charge at the same time and sending the small black wolf twisting off of her feet and onto her back.

The Fury Ahroun bounds forwards towards her tribemate, coming to a stop over her. Are you hurt? She enquires, with only a light squeak, peering down at Child-Holder. This isn't a form of greeting I've seen before. She looks over her shoulder at Fire-Burns, tail raised enquiringly.

Fire-Burns is mere moments behind Escapes, her attention divided between her packmate and the fourth wolf whose howl proclaimed him to be a tribemate of hers. She lets a series of excited, staccato barks out at Laura and Mathias indiscriminately. Yes! Back! Who? Good! Yes! Wonderful!

Promises-Kept starts to run back and forth with excitement for a moment before he runs on over to Fire-Burns and gives a few quick barks. Who are you? He seems happy enough, two wolves he didn't know! New friends! His tail is still in a dominant stance though, as is the rest of his posture.

Child-Holder fights her way free of the 'necklace' that's become a noose. She coughs and wheezes a few times, her tail still waving weakly back and forth. Fine. Fine. Good. Yes. Good. When she's caught her breath, she rears up a bit and play-bats at Escapes-From-Money with her front paws. You! You! she chuffs happily. Have seen Grey and now you and Fire-Burns! The theurge rambles, not likely making much sense between trying to catch her breath and communicate how happy she is to see her packmates again.

Escapes bats back at Child-Holder, then breaks away to round on Promises-Kept, her demeanour changing to one of wariness. Escapes. Ahroun of the Black Furies. The bark that emphasizes this is a crackling squeal, and she prowls towards him, her tail lifted aggressively.

It's becoming a regular tail-lifting festival. Fire-Burns too adopts a dominant pose as she greets Promises-Kept. I am Fire-Burns-Forever, ahroun of the First Tribe, their elder in this sept, she advises him in a manner that comes close to, but just falls short of, being overbearing. These wolves are my packmates. Grey is also my packmate, do you say he is back, Child-Holder, is he, is he?

Promises-Kept gets rebuked as he realizes who Fire-Burns actually is. Is adopts a much more submissive stance, before he replies simply. You have been gone awhile Fire-Burns-Forever-Yuf...Blackriver-Rhya is now elder, having taken it from Stalks-The-Truth-With-Honor-Yuf. He's much much much more submissive now.

Child-Holder's cubby demeanour slowly starts to fade, allowing her to regain a bit of her decorum. Her tongue lolls and her tail irks to a comfortable mid-height, lower than Fire-Burns', higher than her tribesmate. Grey is back, she chuffs to the Silver Fang. Her posture is respectful, and a little submissive as she pads in closer to Fire-Burns. I found a cub with him yesterday, on the south edge. He is well. She stretches out her neck to inspect Fire-Burns for injuries.

The Fury Ahroun drops her tail a trifle as Child-Holder lifts hers, making the pecking order very clear. She gives a twisted little yelp of surprise at Promises-Kept's revelation, and sidles close to Fire-Burns, just slightly behind her, pushing a flank against the other ahroun in a gesture of support.

Fire-Burns is muddy as all hell, and here and there on her coat are bits of grass and twig, but there's no sign of any injury to the Fang... other than to her pride. At Promises-Kept's words she lets rip with an involuntary snarl loud enough to stir echoes in the wood. I am elder! Not Blackriver! Not Stalks-Truth-With-Honor! I am! Me! Me! She pounces forward as though about to bite her tribemate, but at the last moment regains enough control to turn it into a head-butt that lands around the place where his front leg leaves his body.

Promises-Kept slides back and onto his side when he's hit, though he dosn't move to deflect it. He lays on the ground for a few moments. It gets worse Fire-Burns-Yuf...the alpha tribe no longer has a place to call home. It is gone. He gives a soft whine, and curls his tail around one leg. Submissive, yup.

Child-Holder paces around behind Fire-Burns and Escapes, to provide a similar dark-wolf of moral support on the Fang's other side. As she passes Escapes, she gives her tribesmate a similar sniffing inspection of health.

Escapes is in good physical health, for sure. Apart from a strange throat condition, obviously. She keeps her place as Fire-Burns bounds forward, and flicks a glance at Child-Holder. Silver Fang internal politics, she chuffs quietly.

They take my position, Fire-Burns growls in an icily calm way that is somehow as fearsome, or more, than heated rage. They lose our den. What else have they done in my absence? Speak, Promises-Kept. Speak to me, she commands, teeth bared as she stands flanked by her packmates and glaring at the unfortunate theurge.

Promises-Kept gives a soft whine for a moment, almost like an apology, still laying on the ground. I am scouting this bawn for the next ten full changes of Luna's face. The two philodox judged on Power-Up and Kills-the-Cries as Charach. It is bad, but one is getting money from kinfolk to get a new den, though one is still guest.

Child-Holder's comment on Escapes' is little more than an agreeing twitch of her tail. She stands a little straighter when she reaches her packmate's side, nose working. She watches Promises-Kept almost as keenly as Fire-Burns does, as though she's making sure he reports everything accurately.

Escapes waits, staring once again at Promises-Kept, somehow reminiscent of the guy who hangs around with the school bully.

Fire-Burns growls again. Get out of my SIGHT, she commands the other Fang furiously, and turns her back.

Promises-Kept yelps, the rebuke more then enough as the fang picks himself up and just runs off into the forest towards the farmhouse direction, tail kept low as he does.

Child-Holder backs away to make room for Fire-Burns' turnaround, glaring at Promises-Kept's escaping tail. She snaps her teeth once, then huffs and turns towards her packmates. Many things have happened. You have been away for a long time, she says, fairly simply.

The Fury Ahroun skulks away a little, tail dropping. I have been hiding, she confesses, not fighting heroically like Fire-Burns. She turns away from the other two, her body barely two inches above the ground.

A lupus comes bounding in on the trail of a scent. He stops at the feet of Clemency and looks up, almost too into the finding of the scent to realize he found the source. Immediately he steps backward and shifts into his homid form. "Another is back! I found Abraxas last night, filled him in on what has been going on. You have been missing for two months..."

You did not tell me that, Fire-Burns begins to chide Escapes, when her attention is drawn by the sudden and loud arrival of Bloods-Bane. Then Bitter-Harvest has returned too? What of Rags and of Dagger's-Edge? she asks the Get. I understand that much has passed in a time that to me, was less than a day.

Child-Holder's ears cup forward. Grey has also returned, she informs Dillen. We found a new cub of Unicorn yesterday. She paces nearer to Escapes, sniffing at the Ahroun's ears and neck. Should not hide, she chides gently. There is glory and honor for us against fire and smoke spirits, and our cub comes very close to her Rite. Her posture regains some of its dominance, though her movements and gestures still submit to the Silver Fangs.

Oh good, Escapes replies flatly, not turning to acknowledge Child-Holder at all. I'm so pleased. She slinks further away from Child-Holder, a picture of gloom and despondency. Bloods-Bane gets not the slightest attention in the least.

Dillen moves and sits down. "There is much to tell you..." He says quietly, looking between Clemency and KL. "Been looking for others to let them know. Glad to know that Grey is back as well. Those are the only ones that I know for sure and have word of or have seen. Abraxas, you.." He indicates Clemency, "...And now Grey. It seems that all of the ones that the coyote spirit pulled into the umbra." Most of his attention is on Clemency but he does look to the others, his head is somewhat raised as he speaks. "Where to begin..."

Fire-Burns bumps her head into KL's flank; not the furious shoulder-charge that she inflicted on Promises-Kept a moment ago, but a much more gentle contact. Be of strong heart, packmate, she urges her fellow ahroun. Your packmates are here and together we are fearsome. My tribal matters will... be resolved in their own time. Turning, she looks expectantly, head cocked, at Bloods-Bane.

Child-Holder's lips twitch back at Escapes' behaviour, but her ears swivel back to Dillen at news of a spirit. She whines softly, then walks towards Escapes, nose still twitching. We are pack again, whole again, all of us returned, she adds to Fire-Burns' words. She turns to look at Dillen, then back to Escapes. Come back, hear the singer's words.

Escapes' ears drop in submission, and she stalks back towards the homid Galliard, still low to the forest floor. She stalks in a circle, before sitting on the floor, her tail wrapping around her paws and her nose laying flat onto the ground.

"Your tribal matters... Justin took elder. He assigned Mathias to sweep the bawn and clean it up. During all of this, Justin was also called on with the other philodox to judge a situation. I will say more on that in a moment. Seems as of recently, Blackriver challenged Justin to alpha. He just gave it to her with no fight. Blackriver still holds alpha..." His words drift off, almost unsure of what to say about the rest of that. Then he takes a quick breath and starts on the big one. "Requiem is no more. I have disbanded the pack. At the last moot it was found, when Kevin confessed *insert a sort of growl here* that he was a charach. Soon, it was found that he charached with Basil of the bone gnawers. They were brought into the sept compound and after deliberation of all the philodox were given a sentence. They have been branded charachs, castrated, and will serve as decoys in a fight at the tire fire." He pauses there and looks to the formally missing garou.

Fire-Burns walks after Escapes and lies down slowly and deliberately next to her, close enough to be within reach if the Fury wishes, not close enough to invade a wolf's personal space. She looks up at Dillen with cold, angry eyes as he tells the news that has broken in her absence. It seems that all is doom and dismay, she comments with the lupus equivalent of a glare. Is there no good news?

Child-Holder chuffs. They will not be decoys. They will fight where Stone-Spirit says they will. She is speaking to the half-moons about this, and I have as well. We have scouted and seen the spirits, and we are making a plan. She looks at her packmates, who may notice that she's added a few scars to her collection in their absence. Havoc is still strong. We fight, we scout the tire fire. Stone-Spirit is healthy, still in the Scab.

The Fury Ahroun, still curled on the floor, closes her eyes and lets out a tiny self-pitying whine, which breaks in the middle with an unpleasant squeak, and shivers.

"Emma is indeed pulling in the ranks to go after the tire fire. It is good that havoc is still on the fight. I have already pulled together a new pack. We hope to form under Wyvern and bring the fight as well. We soon go to find out totem as we hope Wyvern will bless us. Leslie, Blackriver, Helen, Cole, and I will be formidable." Dillen says with pride in his posture and voice. He then goes on to speak of new arrivals and cubs. "It will be good to have more strong garou back into the sept for the tire fire. We have been missing the strength of the ones that the coyote tricked."

Child-Holder settles alongside Escapes, giving her a little more space. There have been dreams, she adds. I will go chasing them in a few days. The Lady warns us of something coming soon. Something of the Wyrm, I think. I know the metis with many arms has had one. The spirits still favor us. She sniffs at her packmates again, as though she still can't quite believe they're there.

Fire-Eyes? queries Fire-Burns. Is she well? Is her Rite to come soon? And what of Stone-Spirit's challenge for the fostern rank, did she succeed? Are there other newcomers as well as your cub and... the one I just met? I have missed so much.

Escapes' ears perk up at Child-Holders' news about oncoming Wyrm-threat, but she doesn't make any other movement, or open her eyes or anything that might imply that she's alive.

Dillen nods to Child-Holder. "Yes. The dreams. Cole and I have been working on them ourselves. Seems if someone is in the city or away from the bawn or caern, horrible nightmares haunt them. Each of us who has had the dreams has to confront a wolf with mirrored eyes. Cole and I suspect that it can only be ourselves that we fight. That something in the city affects us to fight our fears and doubts. As with me, before the pack was disbanded, I would dream of Kenneth dying and Kevin being torn asunder without being able to fight for his death." He continues on with the answers as he can. "Emma is to challenge again as Touch Deer has left the sept. Morgan and Sophie have passed their rites. Sophie left the sept soon after. My child grows and has been found to be kin." He goes on to describe the new cubs as best he can with what he has heard. A slight glance is given to Escapes.

Child-Holder doesn't add her own commentary this time. She listens attentively, dividing her attention between Dillen and her packmates. Her tail's no longer wagging as it was.

Fire-Burns seems to be still diverted from giving Dillen her full attention; she keeps twisting round to peer at the lugubrious Escapes. But she is listening with at least one ear to the galliard.

Escapes opens her eyes at the mention of Emma and lifts her head. She should be Fostern by now, she says with a flick of her ears. It's only her mind that stops her.

Dillen runs a hand through his hair. "I think that is mostly it. The fight still rages and it is good to have you back. Your claws will strike soon enough a wound to the wyrm." He grins wide at those words.

Child-Holder chuffs at Escapes' words. Yes. She has been strong, but she needs her pack. We will all be much stronger together now, than we were apart. Havoc needs all claws, all eyes, all ears, all fangs we can get.

We are together, repeats Fire-Burns, again dipping her head to give Escapes a nudge with her nose. Tell us of what you saw when you scouted, Child-Holder. Was it then that you gained those scars?

Escapes chuffs good-humouredly at Fire-Burns, the blackness of her mood lifting slightly. She lifts her head to peer at Child-Holder. Scars?

Child-Holder stretches out, showing them a few thin, wispy scrapes that have persisted along her ribs. Yes. From smoke spirits on the way to corruption. I think there are ways around most, but not all of them. Power-Up, Stone-Spirit and I ran into the middle of the fire. The spirits inside were of balefire, big as bulls. They are more worriesome than the smoke spirits. If they touch, they leave...mutations. No taint, but twisted bodies. Power-Up-charach had... She snarls. Tails.

Fire-Burns gives a small sneeze expressive of both distaste and disbelief. Tails? More than one? she queries.

Dillen raises a brow. "I hadn't heard about this."

I have been healing him, to remove the tails. They were wrong. Very wrong. But no taint. One rotted, one without fur or skin, one with fingers and one that was... Child-Holder snaps her jaws in inarticulate disgust. It was like a tail-sized penis. Another snap of her jaws. They are burned away and gone. Silver, fire and herbs have been used on them. It was the balefire's work.

The sooner this filth is cleansed, Fire-Burns comments acidly, the better. I am glad that I returned when I did. It must be destroyed. Totally, yes, totally.

Dillen nods total agreement with Clemency. "It shall be. The warriors have returned!" He thrusts a hand into the air.

Child-Holder bumps her shoulder against Escapes and Fire-Burns. Yes. We have returned, Havoc is whole. We will wipe the blight out.

"What are you talking about, you crazy Greek bitch? I saw you earlier this week and you were talking normally then!"

2006-05-27T13:32:00.000-07:00

Blue Mountains, Northern Extreme(#2521RAJ)
The tops of the mountain peaks are shrouded clouds, and snow dusts them until late in the spring. Though still thick in places, the treecover thins as one climbs in elevation. Still, some few evergreens clump together in isolated copses even near the rocky summits. Streams run through this area in abundance, cutting deep gullies in the mountainside and rushing down to feed the thick forest below.
To the east, the mountainous terrain continues, eventually merging with the Rockies many miles from here. To the north, things smooth somewhat into the collection of foothills and rough land that makes up the highlands of the Columbia basin. Nothing of interest is visible in either direction. To the south lies the main branch of the north range of the Blue Mountains, while to the west the trees thicken and a forest spreads out over the feet of the peaks.

Stomp, stomp, crash, stomp, crack. With a breaking of dead branches, a scuffling of heavy boots, and a firm tread on the ground, somebody is making their way through the woods -- fighting their way, almost, for the trees and foliage are very thick in this utterly remote spot -- to an accompaniment of grunts, pants, and the occasional cussword obbligato. The heavy DM boots are Clemency's, and so is the unconcern about noise and subtletly.

KL, ranging far from home, is in the kind of state where one could set off a nuclear bomb next to her and she wouldn't notice - she's meandering along, randomly kicking at inoffensive bits of foliage. However, as Clemency is probably making more noise than a herd of elephants line-dancing, she does notice the oncoming sound. And immediately hides behind a tree, crouching down behind some scrub and peeking around to see who, or even what, it is.

Every now and again Clemency shoves her hands into her pockets angrily, but they rarely stay there very long, because she has to keep pulling them out again to help clear her passage through the forest. "Fucking bastard trees," she swears at one point. "Why the fuck did Gaia have to make so many of you pricks?" And she kicks angrily at a hapless fir, scuffing its bark, before recommencing her slow progress.

KL straightens up, eyebrows arching in surprise, and steps out from behind the tree. Thoughtlessly, she calls out. "Clemency?" It comes out in a grotesque squeak, as if she's a thirteen-year-old choir boy who has just had his voice break in the middle of the biggest concert of his life.

Clemency hears that peculiar voice in mid-stride and is taken completely aback. So much so that she catches her foot in some briers, as she twists round to look for the caller of her name, loses her balance, and tumbles over in an ungainly heap. "Jesus fucking christ," she swears, as she sits up and looks at KL. "Where the hell is this place, KL, and what are you doing here?"

The Fury stares at the floor, and waves a hand around in a dismissive gesture. She wanders forward to where Clemency is, her feet almost dragging on the floor. Once close, she looks around. "Woods," she whispers. "And walking."

Clemency uses one of the trees she was so lately cursing and kicking to support her as she climbs back to her feet. "Speak up," she snaps to KL. "What are you whispering for? There's nobody else round here for miles, I have no doubt."

KL doesn't reply. She looks down and away, gives a little shake of her head, and then closes her eyes, turning from the other Ahroun with her head bowed.

Clemency sighs heavily. "KL. I have just failed in a vital mission to save a fetish from corruption. I've been dumped in a fucking virgin forest in the middle of nowhere -- I thought till I saw you I was in Siberia or someplace. Somehow, don't ask me how, I've lost a huge chunk of my Rage. So just don't piss about with me, okay. I am so not in the mood."

The Fury's nose wrinkles, and she folds her arms over her chest. She looks back, her eyes flashing rage. "Well then," she says, her voice a mass of squeaks and crackles. "We're about four hours walk from the bawn. And where have you been for the last Gaia-knows-how-long?"

Upon Clemency's face comes the look of astonishment followed by dismay that signifies the dropping of a penny behind that face. "KL," she gasps, ignoring the Fury's question utterly. "You've been jackaled? When the fuck did they do that?"

KL holds up a spread hand, and returns to whispering. "Five weeks, or so, I think. Not much longer to go." Rage gone, she's almost in tears, talking about the subject. "I...did screw up, Clemency. But they threw the book at me. I guess because I'm the only criminal they've actually managed to catch." A frown crosses her face, and she looks very sad.

If the Silver Fang looked shocked before she looks utterly blown away now. "FIVE WEEKS!" she roars in a voice loud enough to make several birds launch themselves out of nearby trees for fear of their safety. "What are you talking about, you crazy Greek bitch? I saw you earlier this week and you were talking normally then!"

The Fury looks very confused at this. "I didn't see you this week. Not seen anyone," she whispers. "You've been missing for two months? Maybe three? Where have you been?" She peers at Clemency as if the other Ahroun is a lunatic.

The look on KL's face is mirrored on Clemency's own. "A spirit summoned us to the Umbra on a quest yesterday," she says, slowly as though she realises something isn't right but has yet to fathom what. "We found ourselves in a strange realm. We slept in the inn... and then I woke up without the other two lying freezing my tits off in the middle of this wood. I don't know how the hell I got back from the Shadow. Till I saw you I was wondering if this was still some weird corner of the Umbra."

"So, you've been asleep for two months?" KL asks. "Weird. I don't know much about the Umbra, but I guess it can do that to you." She leans back against a tree, trying to look nonchalant but largely failing.

Clemency blinks a few times, silently, then speaks. "KL. What moon is it at the moment? It's Galliard, isn't it. Tell me there's a gibbous moon up there." She points one thin finger menacingly at the bleak grey sky above.

"Ragabash." KL replies, with a shake of her head. "It's about as new as it can be at the moment. Which is why I didn't leap at you when you made me speak." She tempers this with a quick grin, but her general air is one of concern.

"Gaia's blood and guts," Clemency says in a low voice of utter dismay. "The trees, the plants... I thought they were wrong... my rage... no wonder I feel as though someone suddenly stole it away." Her hand goes to her mouth and she chews on one knuckle. "Two or three months, you say? It's the... start of June?"

"End of May," The Fury says, with a little wave of her hand. "But close enough." She peels her backside off the tree, and takes a couple of steps forwards. She twists her lips into a wry grin. "Welcome home."

"So what happened to you?" Clemency asks, more concern and less angry amazement in her voice now. "What did you do that merited that? Did Emma challenge for Fostern like she said? Are the others in the pack okay?... oh shit," she adds after a moment. "Grey. Have you seen Grey -- has anyone?"

KL shrugs. "Been keeping myself to myself. I... didn't check that Alesia had been checked for wyrm-taint before I took her to the caern." She purses her lips. "She was tainted. Not much, but..." A tip of her palms. "Mea culpa."

"The caern? Oh fuck, KL. Is the caern safe?" Clemency exclaims. "It must be, or they'd have given you worse than a Jackalling..."

"Of course it's safe." KL says, with a sigh. "It's been in far worse trouble than one lightly tainted cub visiting it in the past. No damage. No violation."

"Right, right," Clemency says, seeming a little annoyed at herself for overreacting. "What about Grey, now? He was with me when we went into the Umbra. But he and Kenneth didn't arrive at the tavern when the ahrouns did. I don't know what the hell happened to the philodoxes."

"He's around, I think. I haven't been into town." KL shrugs. "I've barely got out of bed since...it happened." She hugs her stomach tightly. "You could go and ask him?"

"Long as he and Kenneth are safe," Clemency says. "And Reggie? And Abraxas? They were with me in the Tavern. Brax took first watch," she recalls. "Hell, there's too much to ask!" A thought seems to strike her. "My tribe. The First Tribe. Are they all well? ... not that you probably know or care," she adds, bitterly and rather unfairly.

KL waves her hands noncommittally. "Not heard anything that says they aren't." She sighs again. "I guess I should pay more attention."

There's silence for a moment as Clemency looks at KL. "How much longer are they making you talk like that?" she asks finally, in what for Clemency is an unusually kind manner.

"Two weeks?" KL replies. "Full moon, anyway." It's as if the clouds above her have suddenly parted. "I didn't realise it was so soon!" she exclaims, her voice squeaking. She clamps her hands over her mouth. "Oops."

Clemency raises both hands in a 'ssh' motion. "Keep calm," she urges KL. "Everything's gonna be okay now. I'm back." She allows herself a dark smile. "I suppose I ought to get back as soon as I can and let people know I'm okay before I turn up like that guy in the fantasy book just in time to find them auctioning off my belongings... such as they are."

KL nods, her lips pressed firmly together. She points in the vague direction of the bawn, and raises an eyebrow enquiringly.

Clemency makes no move to leave. "Are you planning to freeze your Fury ass off out here through till the next full moon?" she asks KL, with perhaps the faintest touch of chiding in her voice.

"No." KL whispers back. "I'm just walking. I was intending to come back with you." She grins. "Unless you're afraid to be associated with my dishonourable Fury ass."

"Don't be such a candy-ass whiner," Clemency says with a beaming smile of rather disconcerting strength. "Jackal or not, you're my packmate, and anyone who gives you grief will have a Silver Fang ahroun to reckon with. If it's really four hours walk back to the bawn," she adds, "you can tell me everything else that's gone on since you last saw me."

"If we're lucky, the townsfolk are being terrorised by Bela Lugosi in a silly cape and false teeth."

2006-03-18T23:47:00.000-08:00

The three 'visitors' are shown to an upstairs room after some further conversation. The room contains bunk beds that don't look particularly comfortable or well-made. Clemency pokes at one of them thoughtfully and examines her finger for splinters. "This is a fucking freaky place," she comments to Reggie and Abraxas once they're left alone in the room.

Reggie bullies past Clemency to check the other exit from the room: the window. His thick fingers pull back the plain-woven curtain and he stares out into the night. "There're no streetlights. It's black out there." He turns back into the room. "And there's no orchestra to play suspenseful music. Should be one if we're on a movie set."

Abraxas's lip curls slightly. He gives the leg of one bed a light, experimental kick with the toe of his run-down sneaker, and shakes his head. "A movie what?"

Clemency looks at Reggie hopelessly. "Are you going to explain Hollywood to our metis friend or do I have to?" she sighs. Then without waiting for an answer she turns back to Abraxas. "Are you familiar with the concept of fiction?" she asks.

Reggie jerks his head towards Clemency, nostrils flaring in a snort. "You'd take that risk?", he asks, appalled, "That he might get star-struck and run off to Hollywood to be the next undiscovered star?" He brings his hands up to frame Abraxas in a picture, and squints one eye at the Lord.

Said metis' patience is apparently wearing even thinner than usual. Abraxas turns narrowed eyes on Clemency, his lip still lifting slightly away from his teeth. "Yes," he says, as though she'd just asked him if he knew what a toilet was. Any ire that might have been directed at her, however, is instantly focused on Reggie as he speaks. He looks affronted, in the way that people look when they're sure they're being insulted but aren't quite sure how or in what way.

"I had to ask," Clemency fires back to Abraxas. "Some tribes keep their metis locked up in a cellar and fed on raw meat. Well. Movies. You know. I think -- and from his reaction I guess Reggie thinks -- that somehow we've fallen into one."

The heavyset Uktena drops his hands with a spasmatic twitch and sweeps his arms about the room. "Everything's all--greys, whites, blacks, no colours, not even the people downstairs. And these names they were talking about--wolfman might be one of ours, gone bad, and Dracula, well, could be the real thing or some uppity motherfucker thinking to make himself sound a badass by taking that as his name, it all could be", he makes a vague wave, "But it feels more like I fell asleep in front of the television and somehow stepped into one of these b-movie late night things."

"Some don't?" Abraxas snaps. He takes a deep breath, lips twitching, and glances between Clemency and Reggie. "...I know what a movie is..." Said in such a way as to suggest he probably doesn't really. "Dracula, like the vampire?"

"Yeah. If we're lucky," Clemency says grimly, "the townsfolk are being terrorised by Bela Lugosi in a silly cape and false teeth. Knowing our luck, though, this is some nightmare terrain in the umbra where the wildest dreams of film directors come alive, and in that castle out there --" she jabs a long thin finger at the window -- "is the biggest baddest leech you ever saw."

Reggie pauses a long moment, hands frozen mid-gesture, as his mouth works soundless, then he pinches, hard, his own arm with his hand, and grimaces. "Okay. I'm awake." He shakes away disbelief and addresses the other two, with a short look at Abraxas, "Vampire. Yes. And a Mummy. There's a Mummy. Why couldn't it be a Pam Anderson home video?"

Abraxas's expression only grows tighter at 'Pam Anderson' and 'home video'. He says nothing to that, however, instead turning to look out the same window Reggie was looking out. "Coyotes..." comes the irritated mutter.

"This isn't an occasion for stupid jokes, Rags," Clemency snaps icily. "We have decisions to make." She holds her hand out and starts noting points on her fingers. "For instance, what the hell has happened to the philodoxes? I don't know about you two clowns but I'd feel a lot easier if Kenneth and Thomas were here as well. Do we try to find them? If so, how? And the vampire. Do we owe the people of this village any obligation to defend them from it, to try to get rid of it even? If this were a movie," she goes on, a troubled expression on her face, "we'd be noble heroes and say 'Leave it to us!'."

Reggie recoils from the snap, and starts to turn towards the window, only to find Abraxas taking up the view, and he turns the other way, towards the door, and opens it a crack, peeking out, then closes the door. "No one's listening on us", he informs the room, then impatiently clenches and unclenches his grip on the doorknob. "I don't know where the fuck they are, where the fuck we are. Or who that wolfman is. Maybe they're with him and the vampire, being told the people here are the real villains, because that's how a movie can go. Set people off against each other through 'misunderstandings'."

"It's not a movie," Abraxas points out, stating the obvious. "We're here to find a fetish before a Wyrm-tainted spirit gets to it, not play heroes." He listens to Reggie's remarks, scowling all the more. "Wouldn't that be just like things."

"And don't you suppose that the way to the fetish is going to require us to fight our way past all the bad guys one after another?" Clemency retorts. "That'd be good cinema, that would."

Reggie lifts his hand off the doorknob adruptedly, raising his hand like a kid in grade school. "Oooh! Oooh! That Dracula dude and his castle--he's got to have the fetish right in that castle! Bet you when he goes out doing his thing--uh, terrorizing the countryside and scaring the cattle, he brings back the best of what he finds right back to that castle, so if there's any fetish anywhere, it'll be there."

Abraxas scowls. "I don't know about good cinema, but it sounds fucking irritating to me." He leans against the wall next to the window, now and then casting a suspicious look outside. "So what do we do?"

"This may sound a crazy suggestion," Clemency replies, "but we're in a room with beds late at night, in a building that's probably the safest place for miles around. Sleep might be an idea."

Reggie casts a skeptical look at the beds. "I call lower bunk.", he grunts, as he tests if it takes his weight, sitting on it. "Hey, do these places, they have latrines or--", he bends, with some difficulty, to look under the bed, then he starts laughing. "Chamberpots!"

Abraxas crosses his arms, looking all the more sour as Reggie starts to laugh. "We shouldn't all sleep at once," he hisses. "We don't know anything about these humans, and they don't know anything about us."

Clemency bends over and examines the mattress on one bed. "Might have known it. No springs for us. Stuffed with straw." She turns round and her fist is clutching three pieces of straw from the mattress. "Come on, then. Shortest straw takes first watch."

Reggie, reluctant to struggle back to his feet, remains sitting on the bed, which has not yet collapsed, as he reaches out to pull a straw from Clemency's fist.

Abraxas also steps forward, reaching out to take one of the straws. He's rather careful not to touch Reggie's fingers as he does so.

Clemency keeps a grip on the final straw and opens her palm. Reggie's straw is longer than hers, but Abraxas's is shorter. "Bad luck," she says to the metis. "You first, then you wake me. Reggie gets to snore a while."

Reggie tosses the straw lightly into the air, and pulls his feet up onto the bed without unbooting them. His weight jiggles as he unbuckles his belt, freeing some of his girth, then he lies down. He stares at the ceiling a while. "I don't suppose either if you wants to tell a bedtime story--", he begins, apparently begging for an aid to get to sleep, then, "--but how did these movies end? Always with a happy ending?"

Abraxas grunts. "Fine." He turns and makes his way back to the window, where he takes up a post leaning against the wall, where he can peer out without much danger of anyone seeing him do so. Reggie's question receives only a snort in reply.

Clemency climbs into the bunk above Reggie. "Usually with an angry mob of villagers burning down the castle and spearing all its inhabitants on pitchforks," she recalls as she lies down. "Night, guys. Wake me when it's my turn, Peter."

It takes a long while for Reggie to get to sleep, what with one thing and another, but eventually the chainsaw buzzing of his snores fills the room, making it difficult for others to get their sleep.

"Guys. If I said Hollywood, would you laugh at me?"

2006-03-18T23:25:00.000-08:00

It feels like only a half a second since you entered the umbral portal that the Coyote spirit 'fortold' you would find. Clemency, Reggie, and Abraxas find themselves without the rest of the group standing in the middle of what looks like a very old hamlet town. And by old, we are talking the dark ages. But something isn't quite normal here, about the world itself aside from the fact that you are standing where, and apparently when, you are... everything is in black and white. Various tones and shades of greys make up all the color one would expect to see around them. The three Garou themselves however, are still in color, looking rather vibrant against the starkness of realm. It is late at night, the moon a day or two before being 'full' hangs heavily and low in the sky, looking much larger than one would expect on the average night. The streets are dirt, plenty of strawthatch and wood houses and and a few shops seem placed haphazardly around, but there is still plenty of room to move and it is wide open enough to see it all. Right next to where you stand is a classic cobblestone well.

Clemency's first action is to spin once around on her axis quickly, taking in a panorama of her surroundings, as though to check that no enemy is about to spring on her and her colleagues from behind. This, apart from anything else, immediately informs her that the other two ahrouns are with her, but the two philodoxes are nowhere to be seen. "We're two down," she warns Reggie and Abraxas curtly as she stares around.

The presence of human dwellings is enough for Abraxas's fists to clench, even as he slides immediately from birthform down to homid. His teeth are clearly gritting as well, and he eyes their surroundings with deep suspicion.

Queasy from his St. Patrick's Day binge and from the sudden relocation, Reggie staggers as he gets his legs in the new locale, struggling not to decorate the locale with vomit. His eyes bulge as he stares wildly about, noting the lack of people, stating in a sharp tone, "Where the fuck are they?" He looks behind other two ahrouns, as though suspecting them of hiding a fully-grown Garou behind them, and after finding nobody behind them, turns his attention to the locale, staring like any tourist. His jaw clamps shut after his question, and he listens for sounds.

At Reggie's question a light in what looks like a tavern goes on, seen through a dirty and nearly opaque window next to the door. The door opens and a young girl, mid to late teens perhaps and very very pretty with long braided hair, peeks out and sees the three standing there. She calls out in a loud whisper. "Hey! Get over here! You shouldn't be outside!" Strangely, she speaks perfect English but has what sounds like a Russian or Ukranian accent.

Clemency can't resist Reggie's straight line, it seems. "Where the hell are we?" she fires back at the unsteady Uktena as the alien nature of this monochrome place begins to dawn on her. She rubs one hand over the stone surface of the well, then peers down it as though the answer is to be found down its shaft. Then comes the call from the door of the tavern, and Clemency's head snaps back up to look at the pretty girl. "Why not?" she responds eagerly, taking long strides across the cobbled streets to where she stands in the doorway.

Abraxas regards the girl with deep suspicion. He doesn't look as though he's about to move himself, but with Clemency moving, that leaves him with the option of following, or staying closer to Reggie than the Silver Fang--his choice is obvious. He moves after her, glowering.

Reggie sudddenly stares at the well, his attention brought to it by Clemency's motion, and he steps over to stare down into it, when the girl's call interrupts his study, and he jerks his head up. He stands by the well a long moment, as the Lord and Fang cross the streets, then with a muttered curse, "Motherfuckers likely already got here first and are in there", he jolts off after them.

Down the well is murky watery darkness, it doesn't look like a safe and warm place down there with the sample of moonlight that happens to reflect down and catch the water's surface just enough to cause shadows of unease to form. When Clem responds to her the girl crings and whispers harshly, "Quiet! They'll hear you!" She waves the three eagerly towards the tavern and it's another 15 feet till they are inside. Stepping into the tavern one first realizes how cold it was outside by how much warmer and safer it feels inside. There is a low fire in a fireplace on the far wall, and there are alot of people inside. About thirty in all, including the girl. Various ages and sexes are represented though there is only one person who looks like they might be older than 35, and that one person is old. Sitting in a rocking chair is an old woman, and guessing from the milky color of her wide open eyes, she is blind. She sits rocking gently in the quiet murmuring of the tavern. When all three Garou step inside and the door is closed and barred, all becomes quiet as the grave for a moment. The old woman speaks up, a voice surprisingly strong. Again English, again with the accent. "Welcome travelers. You come a long way to a land unfamiliar to you. It is not safe for you to walk about outside at night with the moon so close to being full. You are very lucky you happened upon our village." One of the men, a balding man of around 30 whispers out harshly, "They're up to no good! Cast them out into the night from which they came!" "Hush!" the old woman responds, "Ruskin, quiet your tongue. These poor souls are our guests, and we will give them safe harbor till morning light comes." To this the man apparently called Ruskin answers, "If we ever see the daylight again." The girl that led you inside has moved towards the splinted wooden bar along the left wall.

Clemency bears down on the girl with a distinct air of 'nobody tells me what to do' emanating from her, and barges into the tavern, whereupon she scans the collection of huddled, downtrodden-looking types inside with a mixed air of pity and scorn. "We have travelled very far," she says, then, a little less confrontationally, and looks the balding man in the eye. "Why is it not safe outside at night? Do monsters walk the countryside here?"

Abraxas's eyes narrow at the mention of the moon, and he all but unconsciously draws himself a little closer, with gloved hands folded over his chest, and his shoulders slightly hunched. He hasn't stopped glowering, and it focuses on Ruskin for a moment before moving on to the old woman.

Reggie scuttles through the door just behind Clemency and Abraxas, putting on a little sprint towards the end, and already short of breath from the slight effort, wheezes on Abraxas' neck, then, with a jolt of alarm at finding himself that close, moves decisively apart from the Lord. He studies the gathering, as he recovers his breath while Clem talks.

Reggie looks for sight of the missing Philodox among the people.

The three garou hear various snorts of sad humor at the question of monsters. Ruskin answers the question, "Of course there are... I pity the soul that came from a land without them to this God forsaken place." The missing Philodoxes are not among those huddled inside. The sound of pattering on the roof and walls shows that it has begun to rain, a sudden bolt of lightning across the sky and not all that distant thunder. Many of the woman and a few men inside gasp and shiver, huddling closer to whomever they sit or stand by. The old woman says, "It is good you came in when you did. The moon is nearly full and the wolfman comes out in the rain to catch unsuspecting prey." Then the woman that led the three in returns holding three wooden mugs, lined with pitch, filled with room temperature ale. "Here you are, something to help pass the time." As she holds the mugs out towards the Garou she looks to the old woman and says, "Perhaps these...?"

Clemency takes one of the mugs and holds it, though she doesn't drink. She turns to look at Reggie and Abraxas, giving each of them a long look full of significance, though quite what she's trying to communicate is harder to tell. "Then we should thank you for your hospitality and shelter," she says, glancing upwards. "You have a good solid building here. The roof is pretty impergious to the rain."

Abraxas doesn't look as though he wants to take the ale...in fact, he doesn't make a single move to do so until Clemency gives him that look, and then he takes it reluctantly, his countenance darkening even further. He doesn't drink either, rather, simply holds it in his hand.

Reggie's quick to accept the ale. He weighs the mug in his fist, sticks a finger in to test the pitch lining, pulls his finger back out and tastes the ale from his finger, then lifts the mug in the server's direction as he grins and nods. He pauses momentarily at the long look from Clemency, and lowers the mug,and nods uncertainly.

The old woman sits in silence for a time and many look to her expectantly. After a pronounced silence she speaks out with a sureness. "There is no way to know for sure, young Alyssa. But perhaps..." The servant girl, Alyssa turns her head to look back to the three and sighs, "Even if it were true, no one who goes to his castle comes back... alive."

"Oh," Clemency says casually, as though she was talking of a trip down the road to the corner store, "we've been through a few tight places and come out with our skins safe. We travelling types are very hard to kill. Tell us more about this castle?"

Abraxas gives Clemency a quick scowl of her own, and mutters, leaning closer to the Fang, "...Don't start volunteering us for things..." His voice, even that low, comes out more as a sibilant hiss than anything else, even though he barely moves his lips at all, and certainly not his jaw.

Reggie shifts his mug to his weaker, mangled hand, and scratches his wolfskin garment as he looks oddly at the Fang at her mention of 'skins', then at the Lord at his mutter, and feels impelled to add his own mutter towards Clemency. "Maybe the others have been here already and gone there?", he asks, leaning past Abraxas towards Clemency.

"Others?" Alyssa asks and then continues, "There have been no others through here... and surely you have heard of Dracula's Castle?" Ruskin barks out a laugh and says, "If they had, I doubt the sad lot of 'em would have come here at all." Alyssa waves Ruskin off with a look of annoyance that is actually quite cute on the girl and turns back towards the three, "Dracula, the Nosferatu and his fiends come from Dracula's Castle to terrorize the countryside. We are but cattle to them." One of the mid-twenties women says in a miserable tone, "The Mummy took my husband just this last week."

Clemency frowns. "We have two friends. We became separated from them, and from what you were saying, I fear for their safety. This Dracula," she asks with a glint in her eye. "How long has he been terrorising you? Have you never thought of striking back, of going up to his castle with torches and pitchforks to teach him a lesson?"

Abraxas groans, quietly enough that those closest might have problems hearing it. However, he doesn't seem at all inclined to interrupt the conversation, or to make anymore murmured remarks. His grip on the tankard, still untouched, tightens.

Reggie brightens with interest as he listens to Alyssa's story, then attempts to put on a posture of regret and concern at the tale of the missing husband, his queasiness helping him. He raises his mug at Clemency's suggestion, "Yes! Strike back!"

Ruskin gives a look to Clemency and seems a little perplexed at her question then answers after shaking his head to Reggie, "Once. We were set upon by his fiends and half of us did not return alive. Much of the other half returned... the living dead with a hunger for brains."

The old woman cuts Ruskin off from continuing to speak. "Be careful, travlers. The wolfman is ferocious and hungry... but he is far from the worst of his fiends."

Clemency shakes her head slowly, in the manner of one who feels that something, somehow, is not right, and that if they can but put their finger on a missing piece of key information, all the pieces will fall into place. "Living dead. Dracula. Mummy, did someone say...?" She runs a distracted hand through her braids and addresses Brax and Reggie. "Guys. If I said Hollywood, would you laugh at me?"

Abraxas looks at Clemency blankly. Clearly, no laughter is about to spark from that direction. In fact, it's a full twenty seconds or so before he mutters, in that same, lip-motionless way, "...Are you talking about movies or something?"

Reggie looks between Ruskin and Alyssa, his brow furrowed as he tries to work out how many tragedies have beset this place. He gives a double take at Clemency's question, and slowly turns from her to look anew at the odd black and white tones of the place. "Holy--I need a drink", and he chugs down the ale from the mug in his hand.

"Put it this way," Clemency says darkly, "I wouldn't be surprised to meet Bela Lugosi somewhere around here. Which I suppose is slightly preferable to it being Jean Claude van fucking Damme." Her gaze flickers round the villagers. "The question is whether these good people appreciate the unusual position they find themselves in, isn't it?"

The tavern folk look confused and uneased about Clemency's words and Ruskin asks, "Who is this Jean Claude you speak of? Another among the damned?"

Abraxas's blank, uncomprehending look returns, along with a certain measure of even more pissiness. "I have no fucking idea what you're talking about," he grates, eyeing the tavern people warily.

Reggie belches as he puts down the empty mug, and he nods to Clemency and Abraxas. "Yeah. Fucking weird. Who the hell are thse people, Jean and Bela?"

"...never mind," Clemency says after a moment's consideration. "I'll tell you what I think in a bit. Hell, I wish I had more idea about all this..." She takes a drink of her ale thoughtfully.

"Just like a damn coyote to make you turn every word he uses upside down and shake the sense out of it."

2006-03-18T23:15:00.000-08:00

NOTE: in subjective time, this log and all those that follow took place on the evening of 18 March 2006, until 27 May 2006 when Clemency and companions return from the Umbra to find that two months have passed for those they left behind.

Forest North of Kent Crossing(#3819RJ)
A large expanse of second-growth forest grows about you. Douglas Fir and Western Hemlock are the dominant trees, with more deciduous species present closer to the west. The woods are light, with sunlight or moonlight trickling to the floor of the forest on the occasions when the skies are clear. While some large houses and the sporadic older farmstead dot the few small roads that wind their way through the wilderness, most of it has returned to the natural state. The remnants of human inhabitations past can be seen in the rectangular shaped meadows that were once farms. A few abandoned buildings and the rusted remains of farm machinery lay in some of these grassy areas.
To the west of this area, the Columbia River pushes through the land, with the city of St. Claire on the opposite bank. Interstate 90 crosses the Columbia to the north, following it north-south for a few miles on this side, but generally maintaining its east-west path. To the east is Sunrise Road; one of the more inhabited country roads in the area and to the south is the sleepy town of Kent Crossing.

The day after St. Patrick's Day finds Reggie rather green about the gills. His walk is more of a stagger, as he stumbles through the woods. To judge from his sour expression, the fresh air isn't doing much for his hangover.

The big ahroun's progress is noted by another of the same auspice. She's sitting cross-legged by a tree, looking thoughtful, but when Reggie's approach is heard she stands up and takes on a pose that suggests she's about to spring into some kind of action. Only when Reggie is actually seen does she relax again, a little. "Reg. You look like shit. You okay?"

Reggie swings around in a slow motion to squint at the questioner. His jaw works with spastic muscles, as he continues squinting, the day apparently being much too bright even with the forest filtering the light. "Looking for a tree", he replies, as his attention turns from Clemency to the tree she's besides, then his attention moves to the next tree over, and he waddles over to the second tree.

Clemency gives a rather wild smile. "A tree," she repeats. "Here's a tree. Here's another tree. And look, another one too. And another and another and... Reggie. This is a forest. There are trees everywhere."

Reggie grunts to Clemency's observaation about the forest, and gives the selected tree a light thump with his foot, then unzips and empties his bladder against the tree.

Clemency glares at Reggie as though she's not at all happy to see this. "This land used to be my territory, you know," she points out.

Reggie inhales to force the zipper back together, his pants straining against his girth, his breath hissing in and out like a steam boiler at full boil. "Fair enough. Where's the key to the public washroom?", he asks Clemency.

And as if weren't indication enough that this were a forest, it harbors at least one wolf. Dagger's-Edge makes his way passingly, nose to ground on the trail of some old scent. Hearing the human voices of others though, he looks up and in that direction, ears pushed forward.

"You should've gone peepee before you left Skull Island," Clemency rejoinders drily. "I can tell you were celebrating the saint yesterday, I can smell the beer still on you. Just don't throw any cans around, I suppose."

A badly-scarred dark wolf comes into view behind Reggie, within sight of Clemency; he's easily recognizable as Thomas Grey in lupus shape, tongue hanging out from a long, hard run.

The quiet crunching of sticks and dead leaves announces Abraxas' arrival. The metis is shoulder hunched, with both hands balled into fists and stuffed into his jacket pockets--the usual, really. And, as usual, he doesn't look to be in a particularly good mood, though there's more caution to his expression than outright hostility.

Reggie throws out his hands. "Sometimes nature calls". He walks up to the tree Clemency's by, peering at the new spring leaves, then selects a clump of the earliest ones, rubbing his hands on them. "There're many mysteries about--it was green going down, but it's not green coming out. Wonder what happens to that green." He waggles his fingers, now stained green, at Clemency. "You still patrolling here? I thought you'd found new territory."

Dagger's-Edge, rather than join the group, conceals himself as best he can at a distance. He senses out the others in the vicinity, sniffing, listening.

Clemency gives Reggie a silent, expressive look, but seems to take a little heart in Grey's arrival. "Hey, packie," she says as other garou start to fade out of the trees and into sight. "There a party going on that nobody told me about?"

Grey sneezes once, notes only that he came upon Clemency's scent, and offers the Silver Fang a reserved but amiable greeting as he moves over to join her.

A Coyote's howling sounds so faintly that the mind isn't sure it was actually heard after all as it has completely faded but a few seconds later. Again it repeats after a pause.

Abraxas comes to a slow stop, eyeing those Garou that he can seem, most especially Reggie and Grey. If he intended to say anything, however, he is interrupted by the howling. Frowning, he turns his head.

Reggie's finger waggling stops as he notices the other arrivals, and he turns apprehensively to look around, counting those that've snuck up. Grey, being the closest, gets a reluctant nod from him, as he tries to keep an eye on the others.

Clemency reaches down to rub Grey's neck, and then freezes in the very act of doing so as the howl sounds out.

Grey's ears perk up at the coyote howl, looking in the direction of the howl.

Dagger's-Edge lifts his head at the 'yote's howl, ears flicking back up and twisting around in search of a point of origin as well.

Grey's ears go askew as looks one way and then another, actually. Then he snorts, irritable-like.

The Coyote sounds again, and then it simply... appears. A translucent Coyote pops into existance right in the middle of the group of Garou. It looks around for a moment then offers, "There you are." It sounds hurried and worried.

Reggie's expression draws tight as he regards Abraxas, combining with his hangover to make him look not only green, but constipated. He jerks his attention off the Lord at the sudden appearance of the coyote, eyes widening as he takes in the apparition. "Coyote?", he asks, in a small voice.
Abraxas takes a step back and pulls his lips briefly away from his teeth. The Coyote spirit receives a darkly suspicious look, which slides toward Reggie as he catches the tail end of the Uktena's look toward him.

"Never used to be 'yotes here when I..." And Clemency again comes to an abrupt halt as the spirit materialises right among the crowd, and greets them comprehensibly. "Here we are," she snaps back, "who are you and what are you looking for, spirit?" An ungracious greeting, perhaps, but it's all she says.

Dagger's-Edge eyewidens and takes not more than a couple halfsteps back, fur puffing and then slickening. What urge to turn and leave is countered only by the motley gathering and this sudden turn of events.

Grey, at the Fang's side, says nothing; his raised hackles and tensed, wary body language say it all.

The spirit yips once and then curls up and lays upon the ground. "Called you before, I did." it offers and yet none of you remember hearing any howling aside from what you just heard a moment before. "I want to do you a favor!" It stands and speaks all this in a pleasing clear-toned higher pitched voice.

Reggie glances uneasily at Abraxas, suspicion tense in his body before turning back towards Coyote. With a cautious nod towards Coyote, "Ah--I am glad you have found us--ah--what favor do you speak of?", he asks in hesitant fits and starts.

Abraxas looks as though he's about to ask a question of his own, but Reggie speaks first, and the metis only grunts instead, his attention now fully on the spirit.

Clemency eyes the spirit with something less than trust, but she extends one hand in a gesture which humans at least will recognise as an invitation to elucidate further.

Dagger's-Edge, though unable to hide his morbid curiosity, still looks dubiously at the coyote.

Grey's distrust is a mirror to Clemency's, but the spirit has his full attention. The Walker's nose works busily, taking in scent.

The spirit looks over towards a stagnant pool of cold water in the dirt a few meters away. One that the attentive could swear was not there a moment before. "Well, see. There's this little problem. It's gonna be your problem too, so uh. I figured you wanted to know about it now rather than later."

Reggie follows the look over towards the water, and studies it for a few moments, with brow furrowed, before dismissing the problem of determining if the water had always been there, with a head shake. "A--ah--problem? What is this problem?", he asks.

"Our problem?" echoes Clemency. "Little problem?"

Dagger's-Edge looks over at the puddle of water, though not without any particular surprise. The Shadow Lord then looks back at the spirit, and moves position a little closer towards the puddle.

Grey remains silent.

Abraxas's suspicion is clearly growing, but once more he seems content to let Reggie ask the questions--or at least, content not to ask questions to which the Uktena has already asked.

Coyote looks over to the pool once more and then up towards the sky. "When the dark comes. When the moon peaks in the sky. When the five stand around the red tree... the path will be opened. Through the path lies the fetish." The coyote yips powerfully as if making sure attention is being paid, it then looks around the Garou, " Another hunts it though, my brother. My fallen brother, a tool of the Wyrm. He seeks the fetish for his masters. This is quite serious, wolves. You need to get it before he does. Some things need to remain secrets. Some knowledge is best to remain forgotten. Find it before he does..." the Coyote pauses and bows its head, "Find it first and you can have it. Heed the warnings. The five must stand around the red tree when Luna is at her highest in the sky."

All annoyance fades out of Clemency's face and posture and is replaced by a keen focus on the words of the spirit, as though she's writing them all down on the tablets of her memory. "Highest in the sky..." she murmurs as it finishes.

Abraxas glances toward Clemency. He's frowning, but it's not the suspicious frown of a few moments before. Oh, the suspicion is still there, certainly, but it's been shunted aside by caution and uncertainty.

"Fetish?", is Reggie's immediate, eager response, and he manages not to waste time eying Abraxas as he looks about at the trees. "Red, red--it's not fall. Red maple?" He glares at an innocent green leaf for not being red.

Grey's hackles bristle; he mutters a disgruntled remark about prophecy, the dislike of same. Then he shakes himself and takes a step forward, his manner dour and dutiful.

The spirit looks around at the wolves and yips humourously. "Not here!" it cackles the looks back towards the pool, "There!" And with that it runs and leaps into the pool, body disappearing into the water without disturbing the surface.

Grey notes sourly that he doesn't much like coyote spirits either. Not that it matters much.

Dagger's-Edge turns, shaking out his coat in stalling on any sort of reaction. Eyeing the others rather than the spirit, he seems now to be more in doubt of the named five. Should get a spirit-moon, he chuffs in short evaluation. His gaze interrupts as it tracks the spirit back to the pool, and watches it disappear.

Clemency spits out a cuss-word as the spirit vanishes from view. "Get after it!" she commands the other garou, her Silver Fang training no doubt putting her in a frame of mind where to give orders is almost instinctive, and she strides to the pool herself, aiming to use its surface to follow the spirit through to the Umbra.

The pool is large enough for a human to see almost their entire body in the reflection. It is still and clear.

"A tree, red and torn in spirit", Reggie quotes with hand splayed on his chest in a dramatic pose, but doesn't get to continue before Clemency's sprint. He waddles over to the pool, crowding her to get to peer into the pool to cross over, following the trail of the Coyote.

Grey, his personal dislikes aside, stalks toward the pool on Clemency's heels.

Abraxas mutters something dark and inaudible under his breath, but he follows the two other Ahrouns. His gloved hands have slipped out of his jacket pockets now, and lay clenched at either side.

Dagger's-Edge curls his lips back, watching the others head towards the water pool. Though he's moved close, he doesn't actually make any approach towards the pool until almost all of them have actually crossed. Then, with a snort of annoyance, he steps up to the pool warily and stares also into his reflection, piercing the Gauntlet to step sideways.

Clemency bursts through the Gauntlet with the speed of one who was expecting the passage between worlds to be rather more arduous than proves to be the case, and stumbles as she lands in the Umbra. As she regains her balance she shifts up to glabro, and does a quick 360-degree turn to check around her.

Grey, right on Clemency's heels, gives himself a good hard shake as he comes through and then, like her, takes stock of his surroundings.

Abraxas slides instantly to crinos the moment he is through, with the sort of ease only a metis can truly enjoy. He's on full alert, and it's not just his surroundings that he gives a swift, suspicious looking over, it's the other Garou as well. His ears are as high as they can get on his head, straining for any unusual sound, though oddly, his nose doesn't move at all.

Reggie erupts through the Gauntlet, looking about, catching sight of the others following through, face tightening at the Lords, before he looks around at the surroundings.

Dagger's-Edge comes in last, at least a full half minute after the slowest of the others. His head is head rather high but stiffly, like he doesn't really want any part of this, but if he's going to be, he's going in with as much grace as he can muster.

The umbra here is much as people would expect. Woods and more woods. The small pool of water here is strangly ephemeral, even more so than most in the water. It almost seems to undulate and move on it's own volition. Then once all have crossed over, a face appears in the water with an eye that winks before it fades into the umbral airts. The coyote is seen standing before a smaller tree, older than a sappling here in the umbra, but not much. It places a paw to what looks like a rough human handprint of red-tinged wood on the small tree. With that it leaps up and over the tree and runs off past it fading into the umbral woods.

Clemency strides up to the tree and examines the handprint. "Here we go," she says in her deeper, growlier glabrous voice. "Red tree?"

Reggie performs a double take at the water, and rubs the new crick in his neck as he walks over to the tree, holding his hand, splayed out, over the handprint. "Human. And the tree's red", he lists what's obvious to Clemency.

Grey steps warily over toward the tree to examine it, sniffing around at its base.

Dagger's-Edge finally voices his concern aloud, himself sniffing at the tree from a few lengths' distance. How can you trust that spirit? It's Coyote. A trickster.

Bitter-Harvest starts to hang back himself, but finding Kenneth there is enough for his neckfur to ripple, and he stalks forward, as if to hold the middle space for himself, and keep a medium of distance between both the group by the tree, and the other Shadow Lord.

"Did I say I trusted it?" Clemency snaps back to Kenneth.

Reggie studies the tree with as much concentration as he can muster, given his post-'celebration' state and the debate of Fang and Lord.

Dagger's-Edge growls out, You're following its words aren't you?

"What'd you have done?" Clemency growls. "Sat on your duff and ignored it? Pretty fool you'd have looked then if it was telling the truth."

Dagger's-Edge snaps his teeth together, hackles raising. I'm here, aren't I? On your order.

Bitter-Harvest gives a low, irritable growl. ~You can still leave, Daggers-Edge, if you think we're all so stupid as to take a Coyote spirit's words at face value. Or you both can stop your fucking bickering and keep your eyes peeled for real threats.~

Clemency's propensity to shout down one Shadow Lord contrasts markedly with her reaction to the other one. "Point taken, 'Brax," she says almost meekly. "Well, I guess, if it spoke truly, this is where we come next full moon, and some kind of... path will appear for us?"

Reggie jerks his hand from the tree, and walks around the tree, crossing between the tree and Clemency as he does so, looking askance at the latest Lord to join the group as he passes by Clemency, and studying the tree otherwise, with puzzlement evident.

Grey's ears go flat at the bickering, which he refrains from taking part in. As Reggie approaches, he gives the Uktena a sour look.

Dagger's-Edge snarls at Bitter-Harvest something to the effect of 'go jump in a silver river', but it only makes it so far as 'go jump in' and is interrupted with Reggie's look at him. Snorting a huff, he gouges a paw down on the ground beneath him, and circles wide to a different area where he can observe the tree alone.

Bitter-Harvest bares his teeth briefly at Dagger's-Edge, and seems to take this response from Clemency as leave to get closer to the tree, which he attempts to do while staying as distant from Grey and Reggie as possible. He murmurs to the Fang in a low hiss, his closest thing to a whisper in this form, "It said highest, but I don't think it mentioned fullest."

Clemency frowns as she ponders the metis's point regarding the moon. "Just like a damn coyote to make you turn every word he uses upside down and shake the sense out of it."

Reggie glances sharply at the sound of the hiss, and barks out, "Have something to share? We're all in this." At the sound of himself saying that last statement, he glances uncertainly about at the Lords, including Grey in his sweeping glance.

Bitter-Harvest doesn't seem ignorant of that glance, as his eyes narrow, and he fairly spits his next words. "Are we? I'm glad to see that fact has come to your attention. I was only pointing out that the spirit said highest, but didn't mention fullest."

As the night moves on, the moon gradually lifts higher in the sky. There is a sense of anticipation in the very texture of the umbral air.

"Yes, we are," Clemency states flatly. "I would certainly hope you were, Reggie. I thought mysteries and puzzles were right on the button for you Uktena."

Reggie forms a grimace, appearing as though he'd just bitten through a very sour lemon, but at Abraxas's words, his eyes snap up to the moon. "The apogee."

Dagger's-Edge only lashes his tail behind him, having nothing he cares to add, insult or contribution wise. The halfmoon waits out through the night in silence, observing the other Garou, observing the red tree.

Bitter-Harvest crosses his arms and settles near the base of the tree. He can't keep his eyes on all four Garou and the tree and the surrounding woodland at the same time, so he settles for doing it in fits of a minute or so each, while his ears swivel to try and catch anything his eyes might miss.

Clemency gives Reggie a look which plainly suggests that she thinks he's made that word up, but she doesn't seem quite sure enough of herself to say it out loud.

Grey gives himself a thorough shake, nose to tail, and sits down. His gaze slips upwards toward the moon.

Reggie turns towards Clemency, voice hissing in an urgent, lowered tone, "The moon is rising now, see it move", he offers visual illustration by raising his hand in an arc, as he points at the moon. "It could be tonight. We have no time."

Luna raises up in the sky as the night passes. Eventually, as the moon nears it's height above the world, it appears as if a single dull silver ray of light shoots down to rest on the handprint of the tree. It remains only slightly brighter than the general umbral night and there is a moment where it seems as if time it self has stopped and the feeling of a key placed in a lock spreads over everyone... it waits to be turned but won't wait long.

Clemency grunts as Reggie explains things to her in 'science made simple' terms, and settles down to wait with thinly disguised impatience.

Reggie tires out from his audiovisual demonstration and lets his arm drop, and stands, just watching the moon move. When the handprint lights up from the moon's rays, he alerts with "Now! It is now!", his gravelly voice turning squeaky.

Bitter-Harvest's nostrils flare, and he turns his full attention on the handprint itself, even moving a little closer to the tree. He lifts his own clawed hand and holds it out, though he doesn't touch the tree or the handprint yet. ~Now,~ he agrees. ~What should we do?~

A light like that of the moon itself seems to come on behind Clemency's eyes and she springs up to her feet once more when Reggie makes that announcement. "Five of us," she says. "Around the red tree! Now! Come on! Come on!" Her voice is full of urgency.

Grey rears up onto two legs, shifting quickly into his birth form. His mouth twisted into a dubious frown, he mutters something in irritable Serbian and reaches a hand out for the tree.

Dagger's-Edge lifts his head a level, still eyeing the others from a distance with a hard look. Fur bristled out, the halfmoon remains standing out of the circle around the tree. The philodox remains there, teeth bared. Time slips on, running out, and just as it seems like the key is going to fall out, he surges forth, up to his birth form, and slaps a hand on the tree bark.

When Kenneth moves forward to touch the tree the light lifts from the hand and floats in the air shimmering suddenly brightly. It expands into a large oval disk of moonlight seemingly only two dimensions, height and width, it can not be seen from the side. A Coyote's howl is heard in the distance.

"Not your fault if a lumber-headed Get is fool enough to agree that a cockeyed fool of an Uktena is worthy of fostern."

2006-03-18T13:08:00.000-08:00

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.~

"He always hated me. He knew I would one day take eldership from him, and I did."

2006-03-14T21:00:00.000-08:00

Farmhouse: Hallway and Living Room
All doorways in the front part of the house lead to the front hallway, a J-shaped area with the short tail starting at the stairs, the front door hitting the bottom curve, the doorless opening to the living room halfway up the long side, and the also doorless opening to the kitchen and dining room at the very top. The hall has a simple wooden floor, and decorated with a generic print of soft-colored flowers hanging on the wall to the right of the front door, and a tall table sitting under the print which serves as a place to toss keys. A closet under the stairs serves as a place to hang coats or to toss shoes.
The doorless opening to the living room is halfway up the side of the hall's J, and the word cozy might spring to mind when looking into is, as it seems to radiate comforting vibrations. A long couch sits against the south wall beneath a large bay window curtained only by sheers that manages to obscure the view in but only filters the day's light. A variety of out-of-date magazines are strewn atop a low coffee table; more neatly presented are the plethora of books filling the small bookshelves which line the eastern wall. Three chairs sit about the room, focused inward, to allow group conversations. Large floor pillows are stacked in one corner of the room, except one, which lies carelessly in the middle of the floor, apparently left out the last time it was used.
An opening in the northern end of the hallway allows access to the kitchen and dining room at the back of the house, while carpeted stairs twist up at the other end of the hall, leading to the second floor. A door at the base of the J lets out to the front porch.

For only the third time in as many days, Jonathan ventures down the stairwell to the main moons of the farmhouse. He casts his gaze about, finding it empty. A frown tugs on his thin lips and he makes his way to the kitchen. He pours himself a glass of water and sits down at the table. Apparently doing nothing exciting. Even indoors on this sunny day, he wears his duster and his broad-brimmed hat.

A quick glance at this man might lead one to think that he's well into adulthood. Indeed, the salt and pepper coloration of his hair points to an elder man. Someone taking a closer look, though might well realize that his face and bearing are that of a much younger soul. Forgiving that hair, he looks like he might be approaching his twentieth year. His blue eyes are alert, constantly moving back and forth to take in his surroundings.
He is possessed of fair features. While not especially attractive, he nonetheless has a nobility of face and form that stands out. He's of middling height, perhaps five foot nine, with a solid build. He wears clothing that is worn, but nonetheless of good quality. A duster normally falls over a button down shirt and a pair of designer slacks. He habitually wears a broad-brimmed hat angled low, to shade his eyes. Holy Western movie knockoff, Batman!

A sunny day indeed it is, and though it's still a little cold it's showing signs of being Spring at last. Gaia renews herself afresh, birds twitter as they think of building nests, green shoots may be detected on trees and shrubs. And there among all this positive energy and life-affirming force walks the little black cloud of discontent that is Clemency, the Silver Fang elder trudging up the lane with a scowl that suggests the full moon is pressing down on her as though she were carrying its entire physical weight on her back like some garou version of Atlas. She stamps her way up the stairs and into the farm, glancing around the inside, dark compared to the sunny day outside. Seeing the hat-clad figure at the kitchen table she grunts "G'day, Dwight."

Jonathan looks up as he's greeted. And when he spots the person given the greeting, he stands up. A little too quickly, as it turns out, because the chair falls on its back behind him. He doesn't seem to notice. Rather, he's looking at Clemency, and there's a tightening of his features. "Clemency," he ventures in a cautious tone. "I mean. Are you Clemency?"

Clemency's eyes adjust to the dimmer light inside the building and she realises that the hat's owner is not the laconic Shadow Lord but another man, one unknown to her. "That's me," she says, staring at the man. "You look... sort of familiar... has the drink finally killed my memory? Do I know you?" The question isn't full-out threatening but there's certainly a restrained, unspoken menace in its undertone.

Jonathan's shoulders slump slightly, through he still maintains an upright posture. "No, we've never met, unless it was perhaps in another life. My name is Jonathan Black, to people not amongst the family. We're cousins, you might say. Though I doubt we're any closer than that, from what I've heard. I'm rambling again, I see."

Clemency takes on a businesslike air. "And to those in the family, which you obviously know I am, and which I can tell by looking at you that you are too?" she asks brusquely.

Jonathan clears his throat and takes in a breath, obviously ready to launch into a listings of his lineage. "Lune-Calmer, Theurge and Cliath of the First Tribe, of House Gleaming Eye and candidate for Lodge of the Moon. Child of Eric Red-Sky-at-Dawn and Elena Winter's-Child. Grandson of Simon Half-Tail and great nephew of Tanya Winding-Road. And metis."

Clemency listens to the long introduction with evident approval and a slowly forming smile until the last word, at which the smile takes on rather a fixed, plastic quality. But nothing loth she holds out a hand. "Well met, Jonathan Lune-Calmer. What brings one of your family out here to the western fringes?"

Jonathan takes the offered hand and shakes it firmly. Though he does seem eager to let it drop the first moment politely possible. "Likewise, a pleasure." His expression has slid to one of careful, dour neutrality. I was actually looking for a cousin of mine, one Kasia Decik. But I recieved the news that she has passed to Gaia recently after a sickness."

The smile has been clinging valiantly to Clemency's face, but at the mention of Kasia it gives up the unequal struggle and vanishes like a Cheshire cat. "She is gone back to Gaia," Clemency confirms. "Just at the end of last year. It was unwelcome but... in some ways, for the best." Her eyes glaze over a little and she stands there sunk in thought.

Jonathan lowers his gaze, showing respect for the departed. "If I may ask, what claimed her? I never met her, but she was one of the reasons I came out this way." His accent, if it can be placed, would mark him as one hailing from England. He also has the formal, precise speech of someone who's been trained or simply lived among others who spoke the same way.

"You can ask," Clemency fires back in response to that question. Then she seems to realise belatedly that that response was unhelpful. "I'm sorry. Metis or not you deserve the truth. Kasia was betrothed to one Jervis Michaels, a ragabash of this sept. As time passed, his madness seemed to infect her, until she became... dangerously insane. Prone to blurting out things that would rip apart the Veil. And so," she says, looking anywhere but at the metis, "and so, when drugs and other methods failed, I took her life. I would not have done so had any other solution presented itself."

Raising one eyebrow would seem to be the sum total of Jonathan's emotional reaction at hearing of the Kasia's death. Or maybe his already pale complexion grows paler yet. "I see. I am sure it was the only option. She is at peace now, then. Thank you for the truth, Clemency-rhya. I appreciate knowing, at the least. And the Ragbash, this Jervis Michaels? Is he still amongst the tribe?"

Clemency looks back at Jonathan at last when it becomes clear he isn't going to react violently to the news. "I believe so," she says. "He avoids me, now. I cannot blame him. He always hated me. He knew I would one day take eldership from him, and I did. So I have not seen him for a turn of the moon or more."

Jonathan nods again. He bends down enough to right the chair he knocked over. "Understandable, I suppose. Well. I suppose I should make clear my other intention. I would like to become a member of the Sept of the Hidden Walk. As the Elder of our tribe, I felt that I should inform you before any other." He looks from beneath the brim of his hat at her, tensing at the same time he leans back.

"Another metis," Clemency says thoughtfully. "If you join the sept, you will be the second mule in the First Tribe. The other is also theurge. I do not want the lesser tribes to be able to sneer at us and make jokes about how we're so desperate to keep our select breeding scheme up that we resort to charaching. Then again," she muses, "a garou is a garou, and no sept can afford to turn down a volunteer without good reason. What are your skills, theurge?"

Jonathan's expression is unguarded for only a moment as he listens to Clemency's thought process. But for that moment, there's a spark of resentment, buried deep. When he's addressed, he responds in a crisp voice. "I know more than a few rituals, including two that belong to our tribe alone. I can speak to the spirits and detect the taint of the Enemy upon others. I have certain other means of compelling obedience in unruly spirits or sending hostile spirits on the run. Most of all, I bring knowledge of the Riven Shell in Cornwall, a Sept almost solely composed of the First Tribe."

"Interesting," Clemency muses. "If you bring such knowledge and can teach it, perhaps it would be suitable chiminage. Let me show you how to find me." She grabs a piece of paper from the kitchen notepad and scribbles on it in tight angular letters. "Here is my house. Come to me soon and I will talk to you more. This farm can sometimes be busy and for matters like this I would prefer no interruptions." She eyes him once more. "Before you go. I do not see any visible sign of your parents' shame upon your body. Is it such that you can hide it, or is it your mind and not your body that carries the stigma of the metis?"

Jonathan clears his throat and wrinkles his nose, almost as if he'd just smelled something bad. "It can be hidden. And I was instructed that it might be wise to do so around strangers. But, as there are none around..." He trails off and removes his hat. Centered in his brow is a third eye, squinted because of the sudden change in light. "Such is Gaia's displeasure."

Clemency looks at that third eye with her own two eyes. "Noted," she says crisply. "You may replace your headpiece. And I quite agree. No point in inviting needless criticism. By all means keep it on. I don't suppose we could say you... no, no, that would be seen as dishonor," she says to herself, shaking her head. "Very well, I shall see you again shortly in the place I mentioned?"

Jonathan looks down at the piece of paper, scanning the writing. He nods, settling the hat once more on his head. "Certainly, Clemency-rhya. I await your pleasure. Perhaps when Luna's call is less..pressing?" He looks back up to her briefly, and then studies some middle distance behind her left shoulder.

"A good idea, that. She weighs so heavily..." Clemency sighs and makes her exit. "May Falcon's wings carry you safely, Jonathan."

Jonathan lifts his hand in farewell. "And may his talons strike deeply at your enemies, Clemency." He looks back down to his water and puts the slip of paper into his pocket.

"If you lay one finger more on her, I will take you, tie you up, and beat you like a pinata. On the testicles."

2006-03-14T12:54:00.000-08:00

Industrial Sector, Southwest Side
Several blocks encompassing the southern ends of 13th, 14th and 15th Streets extend in an area poor and abandoned, with but a few businesses struggling to survive. Along the northern edge of the district is a junk yard filled with old washers, dryers, tires, and the myriad other elements of human-created unrecycled waste. Smoke pours from a few factories, and the more productive factories to the east combine with it to lay a thin film of dark ash across much of the streets. Other factories, and warehouses between them, lie abandoned or are home to the poor; at night, from some of those with windows, the orange glow of oil drums used for heating and light shine dully through the grime. Small shops serve the few factory workers who remain in the area beyond the end of the working day, or during the lunch hours grudgingly allowed. In the northeastern corner there is slightly more activity in bars offering drinking and even some gambling in dark corners. Along this stretch of street, the alleyways have stairways to second-floor rooms, with the occasional alley entrance occupied evening and night by painted women making blatant offers to the male passersby. Southwards, on the southern side of Grym Broders Avenue, the train station falls into disrepair similar to the rest of the area.

The full moon in the sky is invisible at this time of day, but it's there all right, and from the scowl on her face every ton of the satellite is weighing heavily on Clemency as she stalks through the grimy downtown sector of her pack's territory, trying to look as though she's just out for a walk, and not succeeding very well. The few other people on the streets round here tend to scuttle out of the ahroun's way as soon as they clap eyes on her.

This part of the city is prone to long bouts of depression, and the lasting winter does not help dissuade such a heaviness from the air. The sounds of trucks and forklifts ring through the area as people go about their low income jobs, and the quieter, deserted area of warehouses is more or less left alone. The lowlife and unmentionables of the city use this area as a place to congregate, where the upper class don't come and the police have less reason to patrol. Coming from one filth covered alley is a pair of hispanic youth, one carrying a baseball bat, the other nearly dragging his pants on the ground from low riding them so much. They turn back curiously, as if watching something in the alley as the move.

Clemency's eyes narrow as she catches sight of the duo. Her swift pace is turned down a notch, as she aims to arrive at the entry to the alley after the two have had chance to move away from it a little, without making it obvious that she's taking an interest.

The two youth stop just at the edge of the alley, posting guard there. The one with the droopy pants takes notice of the approaching Ahroun and nods his head towards her to alert his companion. The other gives out a fair warning, "Yo' - ain' no place for a bitch like you down here. Why don' ya get yerself turned around and go back t' town."

Clemency's nostrils flare. "I go where I like, you little turd," she sneers at the youth, "and if you think you can scare me off the street you've picked the wrong woman to threaten this time."

That earns a scowl from both of them, and the one with a bat lets out a loud tsk, "Damn yo. Wha's with these bitches lately." The pant-sloucher steps forward, stopping only when he gets a wave of that rage that the Silver Fang radiates. "Listen bitch, get th' fuck outta here, ya don' wanna be messing on our turf." The other seems to be giving some kind of signal down the alley as well.

Clemency's sneer broadens into a cruel scoffing look. "What's the matter, little boys? I know you like beating up on girls 'cos other men are too big for you - what's stopping you now? Am I too scary too?" She plants herself in front of them, hands on hips, confrontational, and takes a very quick sideways glance into the alley.

That glance catches her a quick glimpse of what they were standing sentry to. Down the alley, four or five others are in the midst of a brawl. Fists flying, makeshift weapons glinting in the daylight. The target, nearly invisible behind the mass of man flesh, is caught only a brief moment. A wild look in her eye, the short form is recognizable as Emma.

Clemency doesn't waste a single breath on speech once she sees what's going on; she springs forward and, hoping to take the two teens standing guard outside the alley by surprise, attempts to grab their heads, one in each hand, and crack them together nice and hard.

As the woman bolts at them, the two teens are introduced to fight or flight syndrome. They promptly choose the latter. The baseball clatters to the alley, and they both turn to run. They are snatched just on their about face, and the motion intended to drive them together, yanks them back and onto their asses. The one manages to give a frightened yelp to his colleagues before scrambling to get away. "Lookout man, ya got a crazy! A fuckin' crazy at ya!" The other group doesn't seem dissuaded though, bent on the sick rush of physical adrenaline and their own human rage, they continue their assault on the short Ahroun. Not to say that the Get isn't getting her own shots in, but outnumbered as she is, and being so much smaller is not a winning combination, even for a Get, when they are limited to the homid form. And that look she has is clouding red quickly, her whole body shaking as she works to counter their attacks. One lands on his ass for apparently no reason at all, other than being touched by the Ahroun, and another squeals as a knee catches him in the groin.

Clemency doesn't waste further time on the two youths whom she's just dumped on their asses. What she does do, though, is snatch up the baseball bat as it bounces and rolls on the ground, and then, with speed that seems almost unatural, she advances on Emma and her assailants, with a battle cry of "You little fucks! Let her alone!", the bat waving in the air before her like a scythe.

The assailants continue their barrage of hate filled attacks upon the Get even as the Fang charges in. There are still four in commission, and ready to rumble with the approaching Ahroun, and as the bat is wielded, so too is a knife gathered from the belt of the tallest one there. The one that had fallen is back up and charging angrily toward Emma with a heavy fist landing right in her nose, sending a spray of blood everywhere. The knife wielder turns on Clemency then, and instead of threatening her with his knife, reaches out to grab Emma and pull her snug up against his chest, the knife pressed to her throat. "Hold it bitch... or your friend here gets a new neck tie." Emma gives Clemency an odd look - one bordering on both complete frenzy and a frantic uncertainty.

Clemency's nostrils flare as she hefts the bat. But she does come to a halt in front of the group of youths. Her eyes fix on the knife. "If you lay one finger more on her," she says in a voice that, rather than the expected shout, is soft and cold and chilling, "I will take you, tie you up, and beat you like a pinata. On the testicles." Then her eyes move from the knife and fix on Emma's, giving the other ahroun a significant look, though she has to trust that her packmate will divine whatever meaning she's trying to convey.

The look returned by the young Ahroun is vacant, almost stupored in feel. She is breathing heavily, and looks like hell, but for the moment does not even offer a struggle against her captor. The knife wielding hispanic just sneers. "You are gonna beat us huh bitch? Now you listen here. You two are on my turf, and I don' much like how you stick your noses in. This here is a lesson - ya come back, and we'll make sure its the last trip ya make. As for you, I don't much like your threatening. And I don't much trust you for walking out of here." His eyes narrow and the knife lowers from Emma's throat. He nods to his companions and they start slipping back. "So.. we're gonna keep you busy so you have an easier choice." Grabbing the Get by the back of her shoulder length hair, he brings the knife back and thrusts it with a sick slish into her gut. Just as quick its pulled out and the girl is shoved away from him so that he might turn and disappear off into the alleys. Emma's face contorts at this as she takes in a deep hissing gasp, letting out a groaning growl as she falls forward to her hands and knees. Fingers trying to drive into the pavement below as she shakes viciously with her own rage.

Clemency's knuckles whiten on her bat as Emma is stabbed. "Bad move, shithead," she growls, and without so much as stopping to check upon her fallen packmate, she springs forward towards the stabber, the bat whirling back in a preparatory move to swinging it right on his head.

"Crazy fuckin' bitch" he growls out as he sees the attack is still coming at him. He is no match for her Gaia given speed, and the bat comes into contact with a loud thud against his head, instantly knocking him out and to the ground in a pool of bloody mess as his ears bleed from the rupture. And from the alleyways, where the others had already fled, comes three shots. Bang bang bang! One whizzes clear past the bat wielding Ahroun; all three missing the target and ricocheting into the brickwork of the nearby buildings. None of them however, move to fetch their fallen leader from his spot.

Clemency doesn't seem to care an jot about the flying bullets. She stands over the fallen gang member and, quite deliberately and unhurriedly, draws back her booted foot, and kicks his unconscious body hard between the legs. Only then does she turn to the alley from which the shots were fired. "You're next, you fucks!" And still wielding the bat she strides into the opening.

The other members have become quite roach like now, disappearing quickly into secret passage ways and doorways into long abandoned buildings. There are no more shots, and the only thing that breaks the now heavy silence of the industrial sector, is the groan of Emma and the far distant siren.

"Shit. Shit." curses Clemency, and whirls round to check on Emma at last, squatting over her fallen comrade. "The rest got away," she says as she kneels down. "Shift up. Quick. Glabro."

There is an evident struggle with the Ahroun. The rage is there, the trembling, hot fire of her moon is visible on her from head to toe. Despite that, there is no shift. Her color fades despite the fury in her veins, and she remains stooped over on hands and knees as the Fang squats over her.

"Quick," repeats Clemency. "Before the cops get here... oh shit, that knife wasn't silver, was it?" she exclaims in a sudden horrid realisation.

Emma finally looks up, staring at Clemency as if she weren't wholly there. A hand moves down to her gut, and she looks at it in horror as the sticky warmth clings to her cold fingers. Her eyes roll upward, and all at once, the Get passes out.

"Ahhh, no," Clemency snaps in frustration. She clamps one hand over the stab-wound in Emma's gut, and uses the other to slap her, none too gently, about the cheeks. "Wake up, Emma. Wake up."

The sirens grow louder as they near the scene of the fired shots. Emma remains completely out, despite the intentions of the heavy handed Fang.

"You stupid fucking Get," Clemency hisses at Emma. She looks nervously at the street at the end of the alley, from which the sound of sirens is loudening, and then slides her arm under Emma's limp body, hoisting her up in a fireman's lift, and taking a few steps with her dead weight. This brings her up to the guy she hit with the bat, who gets another kick from Clemency's boot. The bat itself lies abandoned by the pool of Emma's blood.

The two Garou are able to make it clean away from the scene, Clemency quickly growing covered with the others blood. Throughout the whole thing, the young Ahroun doesn't let out a word.

Clemency hauls Emma through the back alleys of Havoc's turf, eventually slipping into a dead-end containing a graffiti-covered steel fire door and a bunch of neglected garbage cans, behind the latter of which she lies Emma down, relying on their cover to conceal them. Her long thin fingers pull up her unconscious packmate's top to examine the knife wound.

There seems to be nothing physically amiss with the wound, despite it not being able to heal that fast in this form. As the fingers gently prod, a gasp is taken, sharp and with an inward whistle. Eyes flash open as she stares out in front of her.

Clemency looks distinctly relieved as Emma's eyes snap open. "Emma," she says in clipped low tones. "Anyone in there?"

Emma winces as she moves to sit up, glaring horrifically at the Fang. As a puff of air comes out there is a stench on her breath that is both earthy and musky. "W-what the hell?"

"You tell me," suggests Clemency acerbically. "I just had to save your ass from a bunch of punks. One of them stuck a knife in you."

Emma looks down and winces again, "Geezus.." She puts a hand to the wound and looks around, shifting up into Glabro to get the pain under control. "I dunno," she mutters uncertainly.

Clemency seems relieved when Emma shifts up. "I brained one of them with his own bat, but the rest got away... least five of them," she recalls. "And that guy and his bat I had to leave to get you out of here, so the police are probably all over them by now..."

Emma looks up with concern, "No claws? No fur?" she asks worriedly.

"Not from me, or from you that I saw," is Clemency's reply.

Emma nods her head, "Good.." she swallows a little, then coughs, "My mouth tastes like shit..." she confesses before bringing a hand up to her head.

"What made them go for you?" Clemency presses the other ahroun, still concerned.

Emma looks up with an unsure gaze upon her face, shaking her head. "I .. was in their territory?"

That gets an incredulous look out of Clemency. "No way! This is our territory." She puffs out her chest. "And no way am I standing for gangs of pimply-ass punks terrorising our part of the city. Not to mention hurting you."

Emma nods her head, "I..." she shakes her head then, her mood turning instantly sour. She stands up then, and looking to her healing wound, shifts back to homid. "I'm going back to the brownstone." And she turns then, looking completely unruffled and upset.

"I don't enjoy killing... except when it's the Enemy. I don't revel in it indiscriminately as some garou round here seem to think."

2006-03-13T12:05:00.000-08:00

Vera left around seven in the morning, after being unable to locate Clemency. It is now early afternoon and the Shadow Lord has returned to the Silver Fang house.

Vera rings the door bell and waits for a reply.

Did she go out early or did she perhaps drink herself into oblivion after last night's conversation? Either is quite possible with Clemency. In any event, Vera has more luck this time: after the doorbell is rung, the door creaks open and there stands the ahroun.

Vera inclines her head politely and smiles at the Ahroun. "Good afternoon Clemency. Do you have a moment?"

Clemency inclines her head in regal assent and opens the door wider to invite the sept elder inside. "How can I assist today?" she asks, only the slight extra tension in her posture easily missed to the casual glance revealing how much the full moon is pulling at her.

Vera's jacket pockets must be fairly deep, as the Ragabash pulls out a bottle of 'Kettle' Vodka and offers it to Clemency, as she moves into the house. "I do not know if you have any taste for Vodka, but I think that you will find this brand quite good."

Clemency's eyes go to the vodka and she gives a slow appreciative smile. "Haven't seen any of that quality since Nikolai got yanked back home," she comments. "Is that what you were gonna drink in our challenge?"

Vera smirks. "If one is going to drink, one should drink the good stuff. I had an interesting talk with Cristofer last night. I believe there are some things we should talk about as a result."

Clemency sighs as she plonks herself down on a couch from which the stuffing is escaping in several places. "And what did the boy wonder say this time?" she asks resignedly, still eyeing the vodka as though she thinks it's more fun to look at than Vera.

"Feel free to have some if you wish," Vera says with a smile. "It is for you."

Clemency takes the bottle and unscrews the cap, sniffing it, then pouring herself out a little into the cap itself, which she tosses back. "Mmm mmm," she says as the fiery liquid hits home. "Care for a tot yourself?"

Vera shrugs her shoulder, then grins. "Why not. Shall I fetch glasses from your kitchen?"

"No, no, let me, I'm host," Clemency demurs, and runs off to get them. The glasses are at least proper little shotglasses and don't bear any advertising slogans for garages or otherwise. Once returned she pours out two tots and sits back with hers. "Now... weasel-boy. What's the position with him now?"

Vera picks up her shot glass and sips from it carefully. "Well, he said that he would accept the current arrangement, under certain conditions. It seems that he wants the opportunity to actually 'be a father' to the children he sires. Which isn't terribly unreasonable, considering his history."

Clemency looks thoughtful. "And does this apply," she asks, "equally to those he sires on you to those he sires on me?"

Vera lifts and lowers her shoulders in a shrug, watching the Ahroun carefully. "I am uncertain. He seems to have a certain desperation for a normal family. Or as normal as one can expect considering what we are. While he has no intention to deny you any children you would want, he stated that he wanted to be officially declared my Mate."

Clemency's eyes slowly narrow. She reaches out slowly and deliberately for the shotglass and tosses it back in one gulp. She says nothing, nor does she react otherwise, for a long, long moment.

Vera smiles nervously, which isn't surprising considering who she is sitting across from. Adren she might be, but Clemency could still tear her apart. "I explained that was not possible, considering his current situation. While I could do my best to provide him with a life as close to normalcy as possible, even attempt to live with him, he could not be my official Mate. Not when he is a Silver Fang."

Clemency drops the glass on the table from an inch or two above it, making a clatter. "And I was just bracing myself," she says, "for you to tell me the challenge for him was back on."

Vera sighs. "Frankly, that is what he asked me to do. However, I really don't see any reason too. I don't gain anything from doing so and while it would make him happy, I stand to loose all access to him. Unlike Gypsy, I do not make use of what is not mine without permission, even if the offer has been given."

Vera sips at her vodka and continues to watch the Ahroun warily.

Clemency's nostrils flare at the mention of Gypsy. "A word of warning, Vera-rhya," she says. "Cristofer has a very skilful tongue." She delivers this thumping double-entendre with no sign of being in the least aware of it. "When I was with him, he made me feel quite well disposed towards him... a little carried away even. But then I remembered that this was the same man who not a few days ago was swearing eternal love for that Strider whore."

Vera rubs at her jawline. "Something that I have taken note of. Did you ever actually hear him say that he loved the Strider?"

Clemency has to think about that one. "Now that you mention it," she muses, reaching for the vodka, "I don't. Do you suppose he was pulling her strings the way he tried to pull mine?"

"I don't think he ever loved her. Cared for her, but never loved," Vera continues. "Allow me to describe a conversation I had with him?"

Clemency finishes refilling her glass and places the bottle within easy reach of the Shadow Lord, nodding to invite her to continue reporting the conversation she refers to.

"As I told you before, I discovered that he was involved with someone, but that I felt badly for him and gave him the opportunity to fix the issue," Vera begins. "Then of course, he went to you in hopes of setting us against each other and distracting us from his activities. Some time later, he admitted to me that he did not love the one he was involved with, but that he felt obligated to protect her because he had bedded her. Why that came about, I have no idea."

Clemency sips at the vodka as she listens. "He is, after all, a Silver Fang," the elder of that tribe says, slightly pointedly. "We tend to be very aware of issues around honor. Maybe he genuinely did feel obligated to her after he took her to bed. Maybe his sense of what is honorable is sufficiently twisted to think it was better to scorn his own tribe and the Nation as a whole, just for the sake of one anruth cliath." She gives a coarse barking laugh. "You know, Vera-rhya, this whole damned business is just one person after another yanking one another's strings. It's like a fucking puppet theater."

Vera chuckles softly. "You should visit some of the Old World Septs, Clemency. What is happening here is mild, if annoying. But yes, that was my point. I think that he acted as he did from a sense of Honor, knowing full well that Gypsy would come to harm if she were discovered. An admiral trait, in an of itself."

Vera says "Speaking of his Honor, I have discovered that is how one can deal with him. Everything I have seen indicates that he will keep his promises, to the letter of what is said, but not the spirit."

Vera sets down her shot glass and re-fills it.

"Well," Clemency says taking another drink, "Gypsy's gone... she is gone, isn't she?... and our challenge is dealt with, and Cristofer is still alive despite his own best efforts... we could have come out of this a sight worse." She too refills her glass once Vera sets down the bottle. "There were times during this I was longing to rip your throat out, Vera-rhya... probably there will be again... but right now I'm glad I didn't. And not just because you brought me vodka."

Vera smirks. "Well, yes, that would have been messy for you and rather permanent for me. As far as I know, the Strider is gone. Hopefully she will stay gone and learn from her experience here." The Adren lifts and lowers her shoulders in a shrug. "Would you object if Cristofer moved out of here? Possibly purchased his own house? He is true to his word and he will not run, if one can extract the right promises out of him."

Clemency shakes her head. "If he has the financial backing to do so it would probably be very good for his continued health to move out. Don't forget, Vera-rhya, I've killed one kin in this very house already," she says solemnly, her eyes drifting over to the door leading to the music room in which Kasia's piano still sits, dust on its keys. "And strange though it may seem I don't enjoy killing... except when it's the Enemy. I don't revel in it indiscriminately as some garou round here seem to think."

Vera blinks, clearly a little taken aback. "I was unaware of that. A true shame and a tragedy." The Adren pauses for a time, after those sad words. "I believe that Cristofer actually receives money from the old country and is quite wealthy as a result. He actually attempted to convince me that he was undesirable and that I should drop my challenge for him, as he would lose much of his wealth if he became a Shadow Lord."

"In her case it was necessary," Clemency says, mouth twisting downwards. She empties another tot of vodka straight down her throat. "She had become a menace to the Veil. Her mate was the former elder, Jervis Iron-Eyes, and his response to my challenge for eldership was to deal with her appropriately. I found no other solution but what one man once called 'the final solution'."

"That was pathetic," Vera sneers, looking as if she wants to spit on the floor. "It was something he should have dealt with himself. Cowardly." the Ragabash shakes her head. "MY apologies. It is not my place to speak poorly of your Tribemate."

"Quite right," Clemency snaps back, "it is not." For a moment her glare towards Vera is icy, but then she relaxes it. "Though truth to tell you're right. He became elder only because when poor Tobin died there were no others to do so, and the stress of it nearly broke him. I haven't seen him for weeks now. He's probably hiding somewhere trying to come to terms with the fact that I had the guts to do what he didn't, even though... even though," she says, a quaver entering her voice, "I cared about Kasia a very great deal myself. Far more than I ever did Jervis."

Vera sighs, looking down into her glass and finally decides to down it. "You have my deepest sympathies."

"You should have heard her play piano..." Clemency continues as though she hasn't heard Vera's kind words. "Like a dream. Fingers up and down all over those keys... it was a crime to destroy such talent..." She stares into her glass. Can she really have forgotten that Vera is even there? She's no longer paying her any heed, and seems to be talking to herself.

Vera simply reaches across the table and re-fills the Ahroun's glass.

That shrewd action does bring Clemency back to the present, as no doubt it was intended to. "Dear me," she says in a choked tone, "I'm sorry, Vera-rhya. As you surely know... part of the duty of leadership among garou is to do unpleasant things." Her hand closes round the glass again.

Vera is actually surprisingly gentle as she reaches over and lightly pats the Fang's hand. "It is understandable. We have all lots those close to us, or been forced to do things we shall always regret. It is part if the burden we carry, for being what we are."

Clemency's chin comes up resolutely. "I can carry it," she insists, though nobody has suggested she can't. Then she sighs. "Usually," she qualifies.

"It is not an easy burden to bear," Vera murmurs and slowly begins to stand. "I will take Cristofer from here, help him find a home in the area, and make certain that he is bound by enough promises that we do not have to fear him running away."

"I think," Clemency says, slurring a little, "I think the longer he's here without anyone attacking him 'r killing him, he may figure he's not so badly off after all..."

Vera simply nods her head. "Hmm-hmm. And I will do what I can to give him what he wants, within limits. I promised him that I would do what I could to fulfill his requests and I have. I will leave you to consider what he has said will make him happy. I suspect Cristofer will wish to talk about it with you as well. Good day Clemency. Enjoy your vodka."

"Oh, I will, I will," Clemency promises with a smile that suggests she means it. "Always at your service and Gaia's, Vera-rhya."

Vera smiles in return and tips an invisible hat with a flourish. "I'll just collect Cristofer and let myself out. Gaia watch you, Clemency." And off the Adren goes to get the kinsman out of his room.

"When I see a spade I call it a fucking shovel. It's an ahroun thing."

2006-03-12T11:56:00.000-08:00

It's late at night, or early morning, depending on how one looks at things. Cristofer's Car has pulled up to the Silver Fang residence and the Kinsman is angrily stomping his way toward the building. Vera follows a short distance behind, calm compared to the kinsman.

Clemency seems to have been watching from a window, for the door opens before Vera and the kin can even knock to make their presence known. A blazing-eyed Clemency invites them inside with the barest of courtesy, looking daggers at Cristofer in particular.

Vera clears her throat to catch the Ahroun's attention. "I believe that Cristofer needs a room for the night and I should really take a moment to speak with you."

Clemency jerks a thumb. "He can have as much room as he wants. This is still his tribe's house." That remark is so pointed it's a miracle it doesn't poke Vera's eye out.

Vera sighs heavily. "Please Clemency, I have come here to have a civil conversation with you. Do you have a moment?"

Clemency looks down at her hands, clenches them, and unclenches them slowly. "Of course, Vera-rhya. Must he be present also?"

Vera shakes her head. "No, he does not."

Clemency jerks her thumb again. "Git," she instructs Cristofer.

Vera watches as Cristofer leaves and sighs heavily, giving her head a light shake. "Shall we sit down and have a talk over a cup of tea?"

Clemency doesn't respond until Cristofer has scuttled upstairs. Then she also sighs. "Tea it is," she agrees and majestically walks through to the kitchen to make some.

Vera follows, hands shoved into her leather jacket.

"So have you come to fix a date for the challenge?" Clemency asks. One might expect a Silver Fang house to boast ornate teapots and fresh, expensive loose-leaf tea, but it seems Vera will have to be content with a chipped mug advertising Greasy George's Gorgeous Garage and a Wal-Mart tea bag.

"Not quite," Vera responds, pulling out a chair and sitting down. "Due to recent events, I have come to the conclusion that there may be an alternative that will satisfy both our needs."

Both Clemency's eyebrows rise like thin crescent moons over the sky that is her face. "You intrigue me," she says, leaning forward over the mugs. "If you have found a way around this unfortunate situation that is the best for all concerned, I shall call you Elder indeed."

Vera smirks. "First off, let me explain why I brought Cristofer here. It seems you greatly upset him, something about being treated like a whore. His intention was to leave town."

Clemency pours boiling water into the two mugs. "Milk? Sugar?" she asks, before addressing Vera's statement. "What exactly did he tell you, eh? I'll wager it wasn't the full story."

Vera shrugs. "I can't say I really care, to be honest with you. He spoke of thinking you were human under the exterior of a monster, but quickly discovered he was wrong come morning. What does concern me, is that he was intending to flee. Just as he fled his Grandfather, when he came here. I can see him running from Sept to Sept, eventually being eaten by the bitterness that he clearly carries. If this is permitted to continue, how long until his anger and bitterness drives him into the arms of the Wyrm?"

Vera says "Both milk and sugar, please."

Clemency shakes her head. "If you ask me, he has a death-wish. It was only by Falcon's good grace that I didn't kill him last night... instead I found myself so frustrated and helpless that.... oh, well... never mind. What is your solution?" she says, in the manner of one cutting through the undergrowth to get to the point.

Vera drums her fingers against the table. "He does not wish to be a Shadow Lord. It is not my desire to make him so miserable, that he eventually turns to the enemy. However, he is the only Male kinfolk anywhere near this Sept that carries good Shadow Lord blood in his veins. I cannot ignore that and I can't just let him go, not when he is my only chance here. His anger and bitterness are dangerous things and he is not even eating at this point. My suggestion is this: I am requesting permission to make use of your kinfolk to father children. In return, I will leave you in peace and forfeit my Challenge to you. I would strongly suggest that we keep a close watch on him to make certain he doesn't flee and that if his mental state does not improve, return him to his Grandfather."

Clemency nods slowly a few times. "So my joke about the time-share is actually the solution," she says with obvious amusement as well as a slight hint that her part in recognising the possibility should be noted. "I have no problem with that. As long as he is here and in good physical and mental health, the urgency for mating with him is a great deal less, and so no doubt is the pressure upon him. I would not swiftly put myself or him through another night like the last..."

Vera scowls. "Did you not offer to him a less... physical option?"

Clemency frowns. "Yes, I did. I had everything set up... made arrangements with Laura of the Furies to insist... and then..." She takes a deep breath and thinks before her next words. "Things took an unexpected turn."

Vera shakes her head. "That is dangerous. Less so on smaller moons, but Luna weighs heavily on you Clemency."

"Do you think I don't know it?" Clemency snaps back. "You have my word as a Silver Fang that I did not plan or intend it, and that I do not intend to repeat it."

Vera lifts up her hand defensively. "I only speak the truth out of concern, not with the intention of offending you. As you may have noticed, I have been trying to work with you."

Clemency places both hands on the table, palm down, and takes a few deep breaths. "I appreciate it, Vera-rhya," she replies. "At this moon and on this subject, my rage is not far from the surface. Tea, tea," she adds, and takes a drink as though hoping it will soothe her inner fires.

Vera sighs softly. "I made my announcement at the Sept and have officially banned Gypsy."

Clemency purses her lips. "Did she go quietly? Or did she kick up a fuss?"

Vera shrugs. "I do not know. She has not been seen. I can only assume that she has fled. I attempted to locate her with a Gift, but was unsuccessful. I plan to try again come morning. Yi objected rather strongly. Something that I need to speak with her about. She is a Questioner and I can respect that, but she should have waited until I had finished speaking first."

Clemency's lips remain pursed. "As long as the bitch is gone, I don't care. I only hope her... predatory treatment of Cristofer hasn't driven him into permanent despair."

Vera sighs, clearly frustrated. "Yi ranted a fair bit, about how we do not have the right to dictate who our Kin Mate with. Yet, she is a Bone Gnawer and admitted that she does not know what we do to maintain our bloodlines, or our Traditions."

Clemency makes a 'pfft' noise. "Bone Gnawers have always yapped away about our formality. If they want to live like dogs, let them. For all our tribes' differences at least we appreciate the importance of such matters to ourselves and to each other."

Vera smirks faintly. "Our Tribes have been tied together since the beginning. We are closer to each other, than many are willing to admit."

"As the Stargazers would have put it," Clemency smiles thinly, "every yang needs its yin. So. Cristofer is to remain with us, but by arrangement, to be... loaned out to you?"

Vera shrugs. "Or I may come here, or we make take the less physical route. My main concern is the possibility of children."

"Understood." Clemency gives Vera a second small smile. "Sadly for me I think it was too late in my month for last night to have any effect in that department."

Vera smirks. "Well, I was planning to speak with your packmate. They are skilled in dealing with fertility spirits to insure conception and possibly, if we offer enough, a multiple birth."

"So she told me," Clemency notes. "Laura Child-Holder is not so called for nothing, or so I'd guess."

Vera smiles, perhaps a little sadly. "I need to speak with her, anyway. While I do not believe that I am impaired, I have lost more then one child over the years. It is something that needs to be addressed."

Clemency's face clouds over a little at that, and she looks very thoughtful. "Then it is agreed," she says. "Perhaps you had better tell Mr Dragomir. I do not think he is well disposed towards me at the moment."

"Or me," Vera admits. "He told me that he wanted his freedom and to remain a Silver Fang. I told him that the later was a possibility, but not the former. He wished to make a deal, to agree not run away is I would not make him a Shadow Lord. I told him that there was no deal available to him and he grew very angry with me. I had to physically carry him to the car, before coming here."

"There is no freedom for him," Clemency says gravely. "Or for any of us. Quite how he has failed to comprehend that is beyond me. Why, he's older than me."

Vera shrugs. "I believe that it is little more then wishful thinking on his part, of what it would mean to simply be human."

"The sooner we knock that out of him the better," Clemency says severely. "Otherwise he'll always be making plans to escape from us, like some episode of Hogan's Heroes, and I for one don't fancy being cast as Colonel Klink."

Vera smirks. "I tried offering it to him, honestly. To the best of my ability. I told him that if I won our Challenge, I would allow him to have his normal human life. So long as he agreed to do his duty when requested. He did not seem fond of the idea, saying it would make him what you believe him to be."

"All I believe of him," Clemency snorts, "is that he's a fucked up mess same as most kin, and that he's too fucking weak to stand up to us so he tries to weasel his way round behind us, and then whines when he gets caught at it. I wouldn't hate him quite so much if he didn't remind me so much of that bastard Glyn Meredith who I was married to, rot his soul."

Vera's upper eyebrow twitches. "I see. I wondered who you were speaking of before. I actually respect him to a certain extent, as he has shown a certain amount of intelligence. At the same time, he is far to focused on his own wants and it causes him to overplay his hand."

"You know me, Vera-rhya," Clemency says, pushing her empty mug of tea away. "I'm blunt. When I see a spade I call it a fucking shovel. It's an ahroun thing. I haven't got time for subterfuge, and people who resort to it as a first choice tend to annoy me."

Vera shrugs. "Sometimes, polite words works better then direct bluntness. But, we are all good at what we are meant to be skilled at. Cristofer does not have your physical strength, because he is kin, so he uses what is available to him."

"True, true. If I was in his shoes I'd probably be climbing the walls too," murmurs Clemency. "Okay, let's go break it to him, and then I think I need a good run in lupus to clear the cobwebs from my head."

"Of course I'm right. I lead the First Tribe. It is my job to be right."

2006-03-11T17:47:00.000-08:00

Some people are blessed with the ability to sleep soundly in any circumstances. Others are cursed with restlessness, nightmares and tension. Anyone who knows Clemency at all can probably take a shrewd guess which category the ahroun falls into. And this may explain why it is that she awakes when the sun is barely in the sky, jerking out of a troubled dream of running and screaming, moves her arm to relieve a cramp from sleeping on it... and the arm touches another body in the bed with her. She's awake in an instant and taut with tension, and her body shifts up to Glabro by instinct before she catches herself and forces the frenzy back into its bottle and herself back down to homid. The wordless snarl she emits and the jerky motions she goes through would be enough to wake all but the heaviest of sleepers.

Cristofer is awoken abruptly, as his mind first begins to register the sorenss encompassing much of his body. A few bruises perhaps, is the price he has paid for last night. A kalideoscope of blured light and colors is all that registers within his sleepy vision, he reaches out to the presence that disturbed his slumber, touching warm skin he pauses for a moment, as his mind begins to put last nights events together. Hesitantly he finally speak. "Mistress Haynes?" he asks nerviously.

Mistress Haynes snatches up a pillow and wraps her head in it as though she can't, or won't, look at Cristofer. "Shit. Shit. Shit. No." comes a very muffled voice from the depths of the bolster.

Cristofer recoils his hand frowning deeply, unsure as to what to do he sighs, and climbs out of bed slowly wrapping a bed sheet around himself.

Clemency forms her hand into a fist and starts thumping the mattress angrily, her head still coccooned in the pillow she's wrapped tightly round her face.

Cristofer frowns again with growing concern. "Clemency?" he asks nerviously, as he etches his way to the otherside of the bed.

"WHAT?" snarls the ahroun from the depths of the pillow.

Cristofer jumps with a start, and backs away from her into a corner of the room quite frightened now.

Clemency stops pounding at the mattress and releases the tightly gripped pillow with her other hand, letting the pillow flop back onto the bed and her face flop back into the pillow, still lying there on her belly. "Oh, stop cowering," she demands in a tone that's still exasperated but seems a little less prone to snap into frenzy at a moment's notice.

Cristofer nods reluctantly and approaches the bed nerviously once more, and sits down upon it. "Did I do something wrong?" he asks cautiously.

Clemency pulls her face just far enough out of the pillow to look at Cristofer with one red-lined grey eye. "No," she concedes. "No, no you didn't. In fact," she says thoughtfully, what Cris can see of her brow furrowing as though she's recalling the recent past, "I guess you could say you did well." Which is probably as strong a compliment as the kin is ever going to hear from the ahroun.

Cristofer smiles a little, and relaxes a bit. "Not what I expected to hear from you. But thank you regardless mi'lady." he says, laying back down upon the bed snuggling up against Clemency's back.

Clemency remains face down. "Don't push your luck," she says darkly. "You don't want to know how I feel right now, and the temptation to take it out of your hide is a strong one which I am having to resist. You might," she goes on thoughtfully, "run downstairs and make some coffee... and splash a tot of rum in mine."

Cristofer frowns a bit, and slowly lifts himself from the bed. He then heads downstairs wrapped in a blanket to brew some coffee.

By the time Cristofer returns, Clemency is dressed, if still dishevelled and scowling. But, assuming he has indeed brought her a coffee, she accepts it with a "Thank you, Cristofer," and sits on the bed with both hands wrapped round the warm mug, staring at it sunk in thought.

Cristofer nods a little as he hands her over the coffee with a touch of rum as she asked, and sits down upon the bed about a foot away from her. He looks down at his own coffee a little nerviously, before taking a few small sips of it.

Clemency finally drinks some of the coffee, and seems to relax fractionally at the double impact on her system of caffeine and alcohol. "Well, now we're in Falcon's hands... claws," she corrects herself. "We've done our part, eh?" And she looks across at Cristofer.

Cristofer looks up at Clemency, and nods it a little. "I suppose you are right..." he says reluctantly, as his gaze turns back to his coffee mug. He subconsciously, begins to pull the blanket tighter around his person trying to cover himself more.

Clemency gives Cristofer a grim smile. "Of course I'm right. I lead the First Tribe. It is my job to be right." One hand comes off the coffee mug to scratch her braided head. She sighs. "Look, Cris. I don't want you to think I'm not grateful or anything. Or even that I didn't enjoy it in its own way... but I know that given your druthers you wouldn't have come within a mile or me, same as any other guy."

Cristofer frowns a little. "Forgive me for correcting you mi'lady... but I didn't invite you to join me in my bed because I felt like I had to under some sort of tribal obligation, I did it because I wanted to." he finally says looking up at her. "Last night I didn't see you as a frightful garou that causes me to recoil in her presence, but a frightened and confused woman I wanted to comfort in my arms, and perhaps..." he stops and looks down at his coffee mug once more.

That makes Clemency turn round and stare at the kin piercingly. There's a long, uncomfortable silence before she speaks. "I don't suppose there's a man in a thousand among our kin who would have said that," she says in a rather stunned manner. "Even in the state I worked myself up into last night, most of you would still just see the snarling crinos hiding below the homid skin..."

Cristofer looks up reluctantly. "Perhaps it's my own past, that let's me look beyond the nightmare..." he replies. "It doesn't matter what sort of monster you might think you are beneath the flesh, as long as you still where the skin of the woman I see before me, you'll be subject to my compassion."

Clemency looks into space and speaks in a strange sing-song voice. Perhaps she's quoting something. "...But don't be sorry, cos I don't want your pity, baby..." Then she shakes her head. "Dragomir? How can you have compassion towards someone who has a fairly decent chance of killing you every time she so much as has a conversation with you... never mind how much more chance there is of me flipping out if I'm actually in bed with you?"

Cristofer frowns a little. "Because the alternative is to hate you, and that is not something I wish to do. Hate will consume the soul and poison the heart." he sighs and shakes his head. "Cryptic wouldn't you say?" he chuckles a little.

Clemency's lips compress into a thin bloodless smile. "Personally," she says quietly, "I've always found that negative emotions work far better than positive ones at keeping me going. My hatred for the Wyrm and all its doings is a far better spur to me than my love for Gaia. And my guilt at my own misdeeds drives me on more than my pride in my honorable actions. Maybe that just means my soul is burnt up and my heart is poisoned already." She shrugs and takes another hit of coffee. "I wouldn't be surprised."

Cristofer frowns again, and moves closer to her and places his hand gently on her shoulder. "If that were the case, then I'd be a fool to waste my compassion on an empty husk." he says quietly. "If you want me to leave, please say so."

"If I kill you... don't complain," Clemency says deadpan, and lets her head roll to one side fractionally against his hand. "I... will not order you away. I could command you, but how long would it be before you resented me then?"

Cristofer sighs a bit. "I wouldn't resent you for it, your reasoning would be for as much my own benefit as your's... you fear you might harm me or worse." he replies.

"So far in my career," Clemency says in a voice whose softness belies the steel underlying it, "I have killed two kin who allowed themselves to get close to me. One I despised and I killed him for it. The other... I loved... after a fashion... and I killed that one too. Draw your own conclusions."

Cristofer frowns again. "Yet you still haven't asked for me to leave. You might wish to draw your own conclusions about that." he says, as he slowly withdraws his hand.

"Luna is getting fatter. Her rage throbs within me. If you dare to stay, you must be crazy. But of course, you are. Same as I am. Same as we all are. The taint... the taint hits us all." Clemency takes her coffee and drinks the remainder of it down in one long gulp.

Cristofer shrugs a little. "Perhaps I'm a little bit of a fatalist, no one can't blame me for it with what has recently transpired." he replies placing his still half full mug on the bed stand, then letting his gaze turn to the garou beside him. "I have a question to ask of you though."

"Ask me anything," Clemency invites, "though if it's liable to set me off you might want to do it from the doorway."

Cristofer nods a little. "Was last night nothing more than a chore of duty for you?" he inquires.

"That was definitely a question you should have asked from the doorway," Clemency chides the kin, though she doesn't seem particularly irate. "If you had to ask it at all. But I'm surprised you can't answer it yourself."

Cristofer frowns deeply and slumps his shoulders a little at her reply. "Perhaps it's because I thought those tears you shed were real..." he mutters.

Clemency seems a little surprised. "Okay. I'm assuming too much. I... thought it was obvious that it was more than a chore." She looks over at the kin. "You really thought it was all mechanical?"

Cristofer looks at her, smiling a little as he wraps his arms around her. "Oh... I was obvious enough to know that it was more than just a chore." he chuckles a bit. "I just wanted to hear you say it."

Clemency lets Cristofer hold her again with no more than a very slight tensing up. "Okay," she says after several seconds of this. "Now I have to ask, did you say stuff like this to that Strider woman?"

Cristofer frowns a bit at the reminder, and slowly moves away from her. "Are you asking me whether I'm speaking from the heart or my loins?" he asks sharply, his tone implying that he has been offended.

"I don't fucking know," Clemency snaps. "It's all very well you being loveydovey but you can't expect me to forget that a week ago you were prepared to throw up the whole tribe for her, Dragomir."

Cristofer stands up, fetching his clothes. "I've been through alot the last few weeks... and now you are accusing me of being a man whore!?" he grits his teeth. "I've done my best to try and rationalize out what I did with Mia was foolish, and that I should look for companionship within the tribe. For a moment, I thought that I might be able to look beyond what frightens me, and learn to care about the person inside. But clearly I was wrong!" he says donning his clothes quickly, and then sharply exiting the room.

Clemency's eyes narrow as the kin throws his clothes on and departs in a huff. She doesn't speak as he does so, nor does she react in any other way visible to the kin.

"I may be a... a psychotic menace... but... I have enough... honor... to be honest."

2006-03-10T04:20:00.000-08:00

Cristofer stares vacantly out the window of the bedroom he now finds himself a prisoner in. While the estate is far less uncomfortable than the farmhouse, there is nonetheless a forboding that turns the kin's stomach. He hasn't made any attempt to escape his incarsaration, after all where would he go? With Gypsy having disappeared and presumed dead, and her appartment ransacked there isn't really anything for him to go back to. The accomidations are otherwise pleasant, despite the circumstances although he has left what food has been offered to him untouched where it was left.

A rattle from the door, and the click of a lock sliding back. Clemency stands in the doorway. She notes his untouched food. "Hunger strike, Dragomir?" she asks with a weary kind of anger. "You're doing nobody any good here. Not you, not me, and certainly not her."

Cristofer frowns a little and shrugs. "I'm really not that hungry Mistress Haynes." he says, while his gaze remains transfixed on staring out the window.

"Everybody needs to eat," Clemency suggests, soothingly. "How long is it since you ate or drank, Cristofer?"

Cristofer frowns a bit. "I had something to drink this morning, Mistress Laura made me some tea to soothe my nerves. As for food... I haven't been very hungry lately." he replies.

"I appreciate," Clemency says with a bitter expression, "that you don't trust me... that's fair enough. But you can trust Laura. She is a guardian of the oppressed... and not just women, either, before you say anything. She is my packmate, and I am proud to call her sister."

Cristofer nods a little. "She's a bright girl, just wrapped up in the wrong circumstances that's all." he says casually, as he finally turns around to look at the menacing garou.

"And what do you mean by that?" Clemency says, not in a threatening way but in a genuine-sounding concerned and puzzled one.

Cristofer says "She carries a heavy burden of loss upon her shoulders as well, caused by circumstances out of her control." with a sigh. "If that's too cryptic for you, might I suggest you ask her yourself? I don't mean to offend you, but if she hasn't told you yet then she might not be ready for you to know her pain yet."

"I see," Clemency says thoughtfully. Then she delivers herself of a long, heartfelt sigh. "Cristofer," she says, then pauses, then "Cristofer," again. "I am... sorry."

Cristofer shrugs a little. "Sorry for what? Things that neither of us truly have any control over? I a kinfolk, no matter how hard I try to reject it, the fact remains I'll never truly be a part of garou society, and yet garou society will prevent me from ever becoming fully part of the human world. If I were just an ordinary human, none of the this would have ever happened in the first place, but for whatever cruel twisted hand of fate, I'm not and there is nothing more to it. Just like you can't all of a sudden stop being a garou, no matter how badly you might want to, no matter how hard you try to suppress it the inevitability of it all is we both are swallowed up in circumstances we have no control over."

"I know... all of that is true. But it doesn't stop me regretting it." Clemency's usual unbending posture slumps a little. "For the last three nights, since I decided I must try to bear your child, I have had nothing but nightmares and visions of gibbering horrors. And if I am reacting in such a way, I can only speculate on what your own mind is being filled with."

Cristofer looks towards the window. "Dread, fear, perhaps revulsion? I'm not saying you aren't attractive... it's just there is a underlying fear in the pit of my stomach. It's the same sort of feeling I get up at the farm, like something predatorial is stalking me, although rather then looking in shadowy corners I just have to look at you to realize where the feelings are coming from. I'm afraid that you are going to hurt me or worse."

Clemency gives a startled twitch at the word 'attractive' and a look of horror comes over her face. "Don't think of me that way," she suddenly blurts. "Don't ever think of me that way." She walks as far away from Cristofer as she can get and still be in the same room. "I am a predator. A killer. A being of instinct and rage. I do not want to hurt you or anyone undeserving, but I cannot ever give that undertaking."

Cristofer looks back at her and furrows his brow. "Why? What causes you to suddenly react with such fear over a simple word like attractive?" he slowly rises to his feet and approaches her cautiously. "What happened? What makes you so afraid Mistress Haynes?" he inquires. "You are afraid of losing control? Isn't that right? Well perhaps I might be able to lift some of that burden?" he says quietly.

It would, if it weren't so tense, almost be a ludicrous situation -- Cristofer walking slowly towards Clemency, who lurks in a corner licking her lips as though in fear. A watcher who knew what lurks behind the Veil, at this moment, could easily conclude that Cristofer was the garou and Clemency the kin. "What the hell are you talking about?" Clemency raps out the question nervously, in tones that suggest she has at least a clue.

Cristofer moves right up to her silently standing not more than a hair's breath away from the garou whom he is normally so afraid of, but it appears he is no longer the one who is afraid. He looks at her for a moment, expressionless recent events having left him jaded to all but most powerful emotions. He lifts his chin up, exposing his throat to her, his eyes watching her reaction carefully.

Clemency doesn't respond with anger or with cruel words. She slowly reaches up and touches Cris's head, then gently encourages it forwards so that his throat, if he lets her move his head, returns to its normal position of being hidden under his chin. "Don't show throat to me," she says sadly. "Wolves and garou show throat."

Cristofer nods a little, as he moves closer to her. He rests his head gently upon her shoulder, and closes his eyes a little, letting his arms slowly encircle her. "I know..." he says with a faint whisper.

Clemency twitches a little tiny bit. She doesn't pull away, and indeed there's not really anywhere she could pull to, tucked in a corner as she is. Her eyes close and she speaks in a whisper no louder than Cris's last words. "He's dead... I killed him..."

Cristofer frowns a little, and presses a finger to her lips. "Shh... you can tell me afterwards..." he says quietly, and then takes her by the hand and begins to lead her towards the bed.

"...dead..." Clemency repeats, shuffling towards the bed as the kin's hand prompts her. Her eyes are still closed and somehow the impression is that even if they were open, they wouldn't see, not just now.

Cristofer frowns deeply, and nods a little, sitting her down upon the bed. "I understand your pain Mistress Haynes, such a pain cannot be lifted easily." he sits down beside her, taking her hand in his and squeezing it a little. "Tell me the tale if you wish and perhaps it may not seem as heavy?"

Clemency's hand is as cold as ever as the kin squeezes it. "The last kin... I took... to bed..." She speaks excruciatingly slowly, squeezing the words out of herself like a man trying to get the last toothpaste from the bottom of the tube. "...he died... to my rage."

Cristofer nods a little. "Did it go beyond simple duty? Did you care for this kin who died?" he enquires hesitantly.

"Care for him?" Clemency repeats as though she doesn't understand the question. "Care for... no. No, I hated him. For what he was and for what he made me."

Cristofer frowns deeply. "And do you hate me? For what I am?" he asks.

Clemency doesn't stop to think about it. "Yes. You are weak like him," she says, eyes still closed, "and unlike him you could not even perform your duty to the tribe, or try to. You allowed a Silent Strider to trick you into bed... for all his faults Glyn never did that." A spark of energy seems to be returning to Clemency as she speaks, just a tiny one.

Cristofer frowns again. "Weak..." he repeats the word softly, and unbuttons his silken shirt and shrugs it from his shoulders revealing several thin white lined scars across his faintly tanned skin, upon his back and shoulders. "Weak is hurting someone who can't fight back agains't the power that a mother goddess decided to give you. Weak is not realizing the true fault does not lay within another but rather within yourself. I admit joining Mia in her bed was wrong and foolish, but I am just as much to blame as her and I won't shrug my responsibility in it any longer. You are my tribal elder, my fate for my actions is your's to decide."

Clemency looks at Cristofer's scarred body as though her eyes are simultaneously taking in its marks, and gazing right through him. "Did I ever say that I was faultless?" she asks him. "Have I ever denied hurting those close to me? No. Never." A tear trickles down her face. "I may be a... a psychotic menace... but... I have enough... honor... to be honest." And her shoulders start to shake as she begins crying in earnest.

Cristofer shakes his head, having not intended to cause her to break down in tears. He reaches over and pulls her near into a tender embrace and begins to rock her gently, stroking her hair like he might a child's.

"I hate you... I hated Glyn... I hate... everyone... everything..." Clemency stammers through the sobs. "And... most of all... myself... I hate myself..."

Cristofer furrows his brow in confusion, unsure as to how to handle her now. He tries to hold her nearer, and then lifts up her chin with his hand slightly. "Mistress Hayness... Clemency, look at me." he says firmly but not forcefully.

Clemency finally opens her eyes again, the pale grey pupils moist with tears. It's peculiar how the tribe's elder seems to be almost docile at the moment, deferring to a mere kin.

Cristofer smiles faintly, caressing the side of her cheek, using his thumb to wipe away her tears, he leans forward and kisses her briefly on the lips. "I don't hate you." he says.

Clemency freezes for a moment as the kin's lips find hers. Unlike her hands, and unlike (metaphorically) her eyes, they're actually warm. After the kiss ends she speaks again. "You... you Silver Fang," she says in rueful tones. "You crazy, fearless, Silver Fang." And almost as though the action is despite herself, her arms reach up and slide around him.

"Damn, I don't believe I fell for her sweet little innocent girl act."

2006-03-08T13:55:00.000-08:00

Alley behind Martinello's
Relatively clean as far as alleys go, this short north/south passage is only wide enough for 2 small cars -- if the drivers don't breathe too heavy. A few dumpsters for the adjoining businesses are here, and occasionally a sleeping bum can be spotted.
To the north, the alley meets Regan Street; it ends to the south against the back of a record store. To the east is a small delivery landing for Martinello's Deli; Antonio Martinello's small Porsche is often found parked beside it.

The quiet alleyway is relatively peaceful today, the rain perhaps driving pedestrians not on essential errands inside the buildings. The woman walking slowly along the alley doesn't seem to even notice the rain on her face, though, much less care about it; she moves in a way that can only be likened to prowling, head moving a little as she glances side to side. This is Clemency, and this is how she likes to patrol the city turf that her new pack calls its own.

A dark figure makes its way toward Clemency at a brisk pack, hood pulled up to protect against the rain. "Clemency, hold a moment," Vera calls out, as she lifts a hand in greeting.

The echo of Clemency's boots on the alley walls dies away as the ahroun comes to a halt when the ragabash hails her. She stands with hands on hips, peering at Vera through rain-moistened glasses for a moment before taking them off for a moment and wiping the lenses thoughtfully. "Didn't expect to see you here," she greets the sept elder. "You looking for me? Because there's fuck all else down this alley except garbage."

Vera grunts, booted feet carrying her toward the Fang. "Yes, I was looking for you. That fucking Strider did something to Cristofer."

Any lingering nonchalance vanishes from Clemency's posture. "She fucking what? She dared to lay a fucking FINGER on him AGAIN?" She wheels round and kicks the nearest dumpster hard enough for the 'clang' of resonating metal to reverberate in the cramped space of the alley. "I'm going to fucking kill her. I am. Slowly. I'll rip her eyes out first... and shove them up her fucking jackal ass till she can see out of her mouth." Clemency takes a few (slightly limping, now) steps up to Vera and speaks in a low, venomous voice. "What did she do? Tell. Me. What. She. Did."

Vera's jaw works, teeth grinding together. "I don't know exactly. I got a spirit to keep an eye on Cristofer after you talked to me about the Strider. It reported back last night, saying he left the Striders' place crying and that Gypsy was stalking him through the streets." Vera grumbles. "I tracked him down and found him at the pier, drunk out of his gourd. Dragged him back to the farmhouse and stuck him in my room, where he promptly passed out. All I know is that he was crying and I couldn't get him to talk. I left him in Laura's care, before I came looking for you."

Clemency doesn't fail to note Vera's mention of spirit spies, as a glint in her eye reveals, but she doesn't enquire about that further, not at present. "What about the fucking jackalbitch?" she demands, still in the low angry voice. "Did you find her?"

Vera shakes her head. "I've been running around like a chicken with its head cut off, just collecting the kinsman and then getting a hold of you. I haven't had a chance to go looking for her yet."

"Do you still want to be present when I find her?" Clemency asks, looking Vera in the eye. "Because the way I feel right now... I will kill her, or be killed..."

Vera snorts. "Please. That skinny bitch doesn't stand a chance against you. What you do to her is your business. I'll be keeping the kinsman under watch in my room, until you decide to take him elsewhere."

"That's a yes, then?" Clemency says, as though uncertain whether Vera's 'please' was meant affirmatively or sardonically.

"She is Anruth," Vera growls. "She is not a Sept member and I am not going to protect her."

"Then I have a free rein?" Clemency sounds almost, for one second, like a little girl who's been given the biggest and cutest doll in the toy store for her birthday. A blissful smile comes over her face. "Vera-rhya, thank you. I am going to enjoy this." She sighs, then, and her happiness dissipates some. "Meantime... without disrespect, perhaps I should take Dragomir to my tribe's house rather than the farm. He's not the staunchest of kin when it comes to being round multiple garou, and the farmhouse stinks of our rage."

Vera nods. "As you wish. He has not regained consciousness and I cannot vouch for his current mental state. He was crying like a child when I found him."

Clemency's nostrils flare. "Weak as piss," she dismisses Cristofer. "Just like Glyn was." She doesn't explain this cryptic reference. "Just alcohol, you think, that's knocked him out? Don't the Fianna know some gift that burns it out of someone?"

Vera's jaw clenches and her chin lifts. "Just kinfolk, but still family. I do not know if it is just alcohol, or I would not be as concerned as I am."

"Anyone who's got so little regard for honor as that Strider," Clemency declares, "would poison the farm's water supply for all I know. Damn, I don't believe I fell for her sweet little innocent girl act. She's bad news, Vera-rhya."

Vera purses her lips. "I would be inclined to agree with you. Will you be coming to the Farmhouse to collect your kinsman, or shall I help watch over him until you do?"

"Um." Clemency pauses, undecided. "Looking after Cris is important... but so is catching Mia before she causes any more mayhem..."

Vera shrugs and turns to leave. "If you care to tell me where you house is, I can deliver him tonight."

Clemency rattles off the address of the partly-renovated property that the Silver Fangs now call home. "Have you any clue where Mia-ikthya might me?" she asks then, still with that nasty look of anticipation.

Vera shakes her head. "Not at this very moment, but she lives in a complex not far from here." The Shadow Lord rattles off an address.

Clemency listens and notes it down mentally. "I shall look for her now," she promises. "And be back home in a few hours, ready for you to bring Dragomir over."

Vera nods and then walks out of the alley.