not much sympathy.

[Marni] Shockingly, you CAN get in touch with a 'homeless' Gnawer who eats (sometimes) out of garbage cans. It's even easy, because she got her hands on an old cell phone, and made sure he got the number. Anyway - after he calls, after she hangs up, there's a string of curses that flow with astonishing fluidity from her lips.

Now. It has to be now.

And so she untangles herself from whatever predicament she's gotten herself into, and makes her way to the Brotherhood. She slips through the kitchen, snagging a couple apples on the way up, and taking a bite from the smaller one as she moves up the stairs, then more stairs, and finally to the roof of the Brotherhood.

That irrepressible grin as she offers him the larger of the apples. For the teacher, so to speak. Or maybe just the greater share... or maybe she's just starving and needs to eat something and so she gives him one so as not to seem... well. Whatever. Regardless, she offers him the apple. "-Rhya."

[Wyrmbreaker] It's broad daylight -- warm and overcast, the weather almost tropical in its storminess and oppression. Lukas is casually and coolly dressed in thin fabrics, linens and light cottons, short sleeves, slacks. Up on the roof when Marni arrives, the Ahroun is standing near the edge, looking over at the alley below.

He turns as the Ragabash approaches, offers an apple. He takes it with a murmured thanks, crunches into it.

"I realize the notice was short," he says, "but I thought you might rather face me rather than Ezra, should he win. Do you want a Philodox present?"

[Marni] He takes the apple, and bites into it, and she's already halfway done with hers. One of the... uh... benefits of her Totem is that she is even hungrier than ever before, and being knocked up hasn't helped that at all. So much for morning sickness... As far as she knows it's a myth to be replaced with 'eat anything that isn't moving too fast'.

She nods, once. "Yeah." But she doesn't expound on just what she thinks of the idea that anyone would allow any kin to be under Ezra's control. It's not her tribe, it's not her call, but it's certainly got something to do with the determined set of her jaw, the tension in her shoulders.

And there's the question of a Philodox. She's thought this question over long and hard over the past couple months. She wipes apple juice off her chin, and licks her hand, before she shakes her head. "No."

She has her reasons.

[Wyrmbreaker] If Lukas is surprised, it doesn't show in his face. Perhaps he takes it for granted: his name, the weight of his honor. Or maybe he's just a damn Shadow Lord, cards close to his chest.

In any case, he nods.

"All right." Face passive, tone neutral, "Explain to me how you have disrespected the claims and trespassed against the territory of the sons and daughters of Thunder."

And so it begins.

[Marni] And so it begins.

She takes a final bite having eaten all the flesh down to the barest of core while she waited. She crouches then sets the core on the floor to be reclaimed afterwards, then stands. Her hands slide across denim covered thighs, and then tuck into her pockets. Her shoulder's straighten, her spine tenses, and she listens - and takes a breath.

"I took advantage of the generosity of your kin, by sleeping with him, then further trespassed by allowing myself to get knocked up, thus stealing the bloodlines of the ShadowLords."

She had added other things before, she has other things to say, other things that she believes - but this time she holds her tongue.

[Wyrmbreaker] Whether that's the wrong answer or the right answer -- whether such things even exist -- is not reflected in the Ahroun's face. He remains passive.

"And what have you done since to right your wrongs, or to prove yourself worthy of what you seek?"

[Marni] She expects no reaction, and that's exactly what she gets. She gives him nothing in return - he has seen her fire, he has seen her determination, he has seen how far she will go for what she believes to be true. She knows how emotional she is about this - about all of it, and it takes considerable control and desire to keep herself from giving a purely emotional response once again.

...though the effort shows in the way she swallows, in the way she hesitates before she answers. Thought before speech - who would have thunk it?

"I have obeyed the absolute letter of the law that you set forth - I haven't seen or been with Ray since that night. I challenged for Ragabash Elder, though I did not succeed, I feel I did well for my auspice in it, and made a good showing for my Tribe and my pack. I have stood by my sept and my pack, and fought in the streets, as I always have - while protecting the child in my belly to the best of my ability."

A breath. "To completely right the wrong, I'd have to give up the child. I refuse to do that. I sacrifice now, so that this child - warrior or no - has a chance to fulfill his or her destiny for the nation."

A beat, then softly. "And I miss him so much it aches. I saw it, you know... the heartbeat? Flickering on the screen, and he should have been there. I should have gone to you before, and challenged honorably. As much as this was unplanned, unexpected, it is still something he deserves to be involved in, and no matter your decision today, I hope we find some resolution that will include him to some degree.

[Wyrmbreaker] The wolf who mentored Wyrmbreaker was a Philodox. That influence shows itself in everything Wyrmbreaker does. In his reserve, in his carefulness, in his ability and willingness to use reason when another Ahroun would have long since broken into violence.

Even this challenge has something of the flavor of a Philodox challenge. Two wolves, face to face, with nothing but words between them. Reason. Logic. Accountability and responsibility -- or the lack thereof.

Perhaps a Philodox would probe more deeply, though. Ask question after question on the same subject. Hunt down the truth like quarry: why? how? why not? how not? what next? what before? what if, what else, what, how, why?

Not so, here. Here there are only single questions, and single answers. Single chances. Perhaps that's because he's an Ahroun. There is no room for mistakes, no second chances, in his world.

Another question then:

"What," the word heavy as a stone, level as the great anvil-rock that represents his totem in the caern, "justification do you have to offer for what you ask? How do you justify severing him from his tribe and lineage and heritage permanently and irrevocably?

"What will you tell the spirits of his ancestors when they ask why the spirit of their descendant can no longer enter his homeland? What will you tell the spirits of all his unborn descendants when they ask why they have lost their ancestry and their link to their own past?"

Understand: these questions are not spoken in anger. They are laid out flatly, dispassionately, clinically.

"What do you have to offer that could possibly make up for what he would lose, not merely in this life but in every life henceforth?"

And mercilessly.

"What gives you the right?"

[Marni] Another question? No. A barrage. Each hits as heavy as an anvil, each slaps at her, and proves again that he thinks his ilk better than hers, her tribe below his - a personal view, but not one to be ignore. She flushes, and physically bites her lip so that she stops the instant reaction, the first, visceral response.

A breath, then. And a question of her own...

"How do you justify.." She stops - and then shakes her head, slightly. Breathe, Marni.

"I could say that his blood isn't pure. I could say that he is an untrained kin. I could say that there is a less than 1 in 10 chance that this, or any of his decedents would be born True, which gives a less than 1 in 10 chance of their finding the homeland to begin with. I could insist that you see my Tribe as one worth the same ideals you hold true, even if they are different. Different is not always wrong, Different is not always bad, Different is sometimes exactly what is needed. I could question and fight with words that in the end mean nothing... as I don't believe you think there is anything I could offer that would make up with what he would lose."

A beat. "I am equally certain that you believe I have no right at all, and nothing I say can sway that. But.." and here there's a hint of her grin, briefly there than gone. "...what I believe on those points is somewhat immaterial."

She can't stand still - another side effect of her totem. She starts rocking back and forth on her feet, then finally she's pacing - just a couple steps, back and forth in front of Lukas.

"I don't have much to offer. We both know that. I'm a streetrat, born of streetrats, and destined to raise streetrats. Some would offer the child back to the tribe in payment. I won't. Some would... I don't know. Whatever they would do - they're not me. Ray, though untrained and unused to this life, is a good man. Honorable. Selfishly I could say that I care for him. Selflessly I could say I want him to be with his child."

A beat. "honestly, I do not know that I have any rights, that I have any justification at all but for this simple fact: it happened, and I am busting my ass to make it work, for all parties involved. I came to you immediately - before I even told him. I began this trial eyes opened, knowing that my chances of success are.. well, lower than the slime under the box in my alley. But I agreed, because I believe it is the right thing to do."

She drags her hands through her curls, and then lets them fall again - a frustrated sound at the back of her throat. "And I haven't a fuckin' clue what you want from me."

[Wyrmbreaker] Only once in all that does Lukas's composure waver, and it's when Marni says there's a fractional chance that any of Ray's descendants will find their way back to the Homeland, because they are not trueborn.

His brows furrows sharply at that. His expression is not anger, but something closer to alarm.

Then he's Wyrmbreaker again, level, even. He listens while she speaks: when she tells him what she believes; what she thinks he believes; what little she has to offer. As she goes on anger is leaving her voice and her words, shifting to something more like frustration, or resignment, or -- in truth -- a certain sense of her own inferiority. A core of that, beneath all the swagger and all the street-rat's pride.

Wyrmbreaker never once drew the relationship between their tribes as greater and lesser. He only ever divided one sharply from the other: these are of Thunder. Those are of Rat. No intersection. What is one is lost to the other. To that is attached all his outrage, all his worry. Whatever judgment of worth Marni may hear is, ultimately, in her own mind.

Which is perhaps why at the end he looks at her with something akin to sympathy in his cold, clear eyes. Why there's a long pause before he speaks again.

"Marni, I believe you mean well. And I believe you are genuinely trying to make the best of a bad situation, and to right wrongs as you can. But what you are effectively asking me to do is to exile my own kin from my tribe. His spirit, all his descendants, everything -- severed from Thunder forever.

"You may have been taught that the spirits of kin do not make it to the Homelands, but everything I have seen and everything I was taught tells me differently. Because if the spirits of kin do not contain some spark of the Changing Spirit, then we would not recognize the heroes of our race in them. Because if Garou can be reborn as kin, then kin can be reborn as Garou. And because if Gaia is a goddess who would welcome only her fullblooded children into their homelands but bar their brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters and mates -- then that is a goddess utterly without mercy, and I cannot believe she is so."

Strange, for a Shadow Lord to speak of mercy. To speak of love.

"What I'm saying is this. You're asking me to exile Ray's spirit, and all the spirits of his descendants henceforth, from their homeland and their ancestry. You're asking me to do something that will weigh as heavily on my conscience as it will on yours in all the years to come. And ... "

he trails off there; frowns, folding his arms across his chest; bowing his head for a moment in thought.

"I need to think on this more," he says then, level again. "Come back tomorrow. I will give you an answer by noon."

[Marni] He says he needs to think on it - and she makes a frustrated noise, and then...

"Answer me this - Who are we to say that the homelands are different to begin with? We could argue whether or not we all come or go - many believe one way some others... I tend to question all things. It is my job, my duty, and simply who I am. who's to say that being a part of one homeland, bars you from another. Fact is - all we know is legend, and what we believe. I think it very well could be what we make it, when we get there."

She shakes her head, and sighs. "To bar him from his child because of what may or may not be - legends and stories and traditions I am born to question... Just."

She stops, and sighs. " Just, put yourself in his shoes. In mine. In the child's. And remember that we only have a brief time here - some of us briefer than others. The child deserves to know his father, and his mother, for however brief it may be. You'd never give up one of your own kids - Please don't ask us to do what you wouldn't do yourself..."

[Wyrmbreaker] "Believe me," Lukas says, "I understand your side of this. But ultimately, my sympathy for that is tempered by the fact that you, frankly, got yourselves in this mess."

There's a harder edge on his words now. A beat.

"I'll have your answer by tomorrow."

[Marni] Her jaw clenches, and something sparks in her gaze, but she - shockingly - says nothing further. A slight nod, and she swoops down to grab the apple core, and turns on a heel, and makes her way back to the door.

She's quite certain there will be no surprises tomorrow.