the blood circle.

[eden] [Everyone make a hearing-based perception + alertness roll.
Christian: diff +3
Kate: diff +2
Lukas: diff +1
Sinclair: diff +2]

[eden] It's been raining in Chicago. The clouds cover the moon, and the mud squelches underneath their paws as the Unbroken -- some of them, at least -- tread through the woods. In the distance they can smell the smoke from the bonfire, the food. They are not headed that way. They're tracking some beast to bring down in honor of the equinox. Perhaps they mean to drag back the carcass of a deer, or catch several rabbits and haul them back to be roasted and fed upon. Autumn is coming, and the breeze that sifts through their furs is cool, cooler than it was a week ago, two weeks ago.

This is no tense, taut hunt. They are not going after the Wyrm right now, not hunting down Spirals that got it into their heads to attack a gathering of Garou and Kin. They are preparing instead to usher in the season of bountiful harvest, of full tables and full bellies. Overhead the moon is starting to wane from full. All of them feel the curl and whisper of rage inside their skulls, crawling up their spines, longing to take them. Control them.

Quietly they go through the trees, quietly because no wolf packs are known to live in Tekakwitha Woods. Quietly, because people are camping out here in various designated areas, while it's still warm enough. Quietly, because they are a pack, and they have no need to growl or bark to speak to each other beyond the intricacies of physical contact, of body language.

For her part, Sinclair brings up the rear. She's the second-best fighter in ...well, the pack as a whole, as well as the current grouping. She watches their backs as they go ahead, her ears perked, alert.

Overhead, the clouds start to drift past the face of the moon, eased away by the wind.

[eden] [perception + alertness -1 (moon)/ diff +2 (see above), -2 (lupus)]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [Per + Alert, +2 Diff, -2 Lupus]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Christian del Piero] (( Perc + Alert. Difficulty -2, lupus. ))
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 7)

[Wyrmbreaker] At the head of their narrow file, dark fur dull and light-devouring in the light of the full moon, Wyrmbreaker runs with his tongue lolling, feet light. In this day and age of 24 hour supermarkets, the reap and the harvest means little. Still, the ancestral memories of thousands of years of agriculture echo down through the holidays of the humans -- and in their blood, in their bones, memories of an older time still.

This is not the harvest season, their wolf-instinct whispers to them, but the season of the hunt. This is when the leaves fall from the trees, and the prey is still fat from summer and easy to see. This is when the pups have grown old enough to first scamper along on the hunters. This is when they take down the largest, heaviest prey of the year.

Later, winter. When the prey is easy to track for the leafless trees and the snow-covered ground, but thin, too. When the days are cold and the nights colder, and the pack huddles together for warmth.

There's a small stream crossing their paths. Their sharp ears picked it up a quarter-mile away, and now they've come to it. Wyrmbreaker slows from his steady, ground-covering trot. He plants his forepaws apart and lowers his head to lap at the water eagerly, ears panning out of unconscious reflex: taking in whatever there is to take in.

[eden] All of the Unbroken hear something. It's as distant as the voice of the moon herself, a faint whisper that seems to come from miles away, or miles above. Perhaps the stars are whispering to them.

Ev--ing d--s. Di--ny is --nv--ble...
to Christian del Piero, Honor's Compass, Wyrmbreaker

[Honor's Compass] Katherine, a lovely white wolf in this form is padding along with her pack; she is a smallish creature when put beside her Alpha, the black-as-coal son of Thunder, even her paws speak of her nature; so small and precise about where she treads as they come upon the trickling stream that Lukas lowers his head to drink from.

Honor's Compass does not drink, but rather straightens her body and stares; growing very still.

I hear a voice, her thoughts project to her pack-mates, clear as a bell. It says 'everything dies, disharmony is inevitable'. The wolf lowers her nose, scents the ground, paws at it. The ground too changes, the trees do not seem the same as before.

[eden] Slowest by determination, lurking behind because her moon is waning and it makes her wane, Sinclair tenses a moment, then walks forward to meet the others at the water's edge. Katherine speaks to them, and in their minds they all hear an echo, a confirmation that yes, Sinclair heard it too, noticed it, too. She looks up overhead at the moon and the stars, shifting her weight from one side to the other. It's an anxious motion.

[Christian del Piero] He hasn't hunted for the sake of hunting in ages. Christian almost seems confused when he's told that's what they're doing tonight. Like he can't fathom not going after the Wyrm when it's got them surrounded. But he doesn't protest. Any chance to do something besides pretend to be civilised is a good thing. So he walks along with his pack, just as small and pure white as his tribesmate and sister. Something's changed about him. Even though his Rage is still high he isn't half mad with it. It's easier to think and breathe these days. It helps that the full moon is waning.

They come upon a stream. They all hear something. Christian's ears prick. He snaps to attention like a gun shot has gone off. Taps at the ground with his paw. He makes a questioning whining sound...and then Katherine voices the concern he has.

Where did that voice come from?

[Wyrmbreaker] Wyrmbreaker's head comes up as that whispers threads through his mind. His coat, thick and black even in midsummer, is growing ever heavier for the winter. His ruff is wide, his jaws massive; water drops from his upper lip as he stares into the darkness.

The words are indistinct. The memory they spur, so long untouched that it's almost forgotten, is not. That's sudden and vivid as a hallucination; vivid as blood: a memory of a different world from his, a world in balance; a memory of facing another so evenly matched to himself as to be almost indistinguishable; a memory of gathering to leap, to kill, to despoil that balance, to introduce, like original sin, that inevitable disharmony.

I've heard that before, he thinks at his packmates. There's a flash of thought, an entire narrative compressed into a few fleeting impressions. He shows them a slice of his memory: how he and a few others met a strange Garou who spoke of coming from a world where the Triat was in harmony; who spoke of being sent to blood circles; who did not know where she came from or how she might get back. They meditated together in the end. All night. And when the Garou of Chicago opened their eyes, she was gone.

Even as that memory is unspooling into their minds, Wyrmbreaker is moving. He wheels on his hind legs and begins to run, following the sound to its source the best he can.

[eden] In a moment, what Lukas remembers of the night he met that strange sinborn who could scarcely breathe their air passes along to his packmates. Sinclair is quiet, hanging back. If she has thoughts to add she keeps them to herself, til Lukas starts to head off ahead. It takes effort for her not to bark aloud. She takes a few strides forward, into the creek and past it, going with the other wolves, but then holds back again.

Wait, she says into their minds, the words sounding like a struggle for her. It's like Kate said. The woods feel different. Even if what we heard came from somewhere, I'm not sure we can find that place anymore.

She tosses her head once, hackles up. Her tension is high. But then: on nights like this, Sinclair always feels a little off. She might have been looking forward to a raw meal, animal blood steaming in the cooling air. Little chance of that, now.

Whatever they have to say in response, whatever they do, doesn't change what happens next. This time it takes no straining at all to hear it: there's a crash up ahead, the sound of wood splintering and something heavy skidding across the ground. There's a yelp, and even as they listen the sound grows so steadily it's hard to imagine they could be this close to it without noticing it. Dozens of voices: barking, yowling, snarling, teeth chomping together, growls of encouragement, of viciousness, of rejoicing. Claws scraping the ground,

the smell of blood in the air.

[Honor's Compass] The Half Moon is wary, as befit her moon.

She watches her Alpha wheel and begin to run and instinct tenses her muscles and has her fur bristling, has her heart-rate exhilarating with the desire to follow the pack, to run, to jump, to hunt. But something, be it the voice she heard or the strange, unsettling feeling in her belly makes her hesitate for a moment.

She wades through the water, and up the other side of the bank and again stops, tossing her head with a whuff of air. Her wet nose lowering to the ground, head rising only as Sinclair speaks to her. The white wolf turns and regards her sister.

Then there's the splintering of wood, the unmistakable sounds of creatures fighting. The snapping, snarling; the tang of blood in the air. Katherine's teeth are displayed for a moment, two rows of razor sharp incisors before they drop back beneath her gums. She looks after Wyrmbreaker.

Waiting.

[eden] There's a problem, here. The creek they lapped at, stood in, crossed over --

gone.

[Christian del Piero] His father was a Galliard. Like Sinclair...and not like her at all. He tried to teach Christian not how to be an Ahroun but how to control himself. How to go into battle. How to think before he acts. How to do lots of things that Christian has just been ignoring lately. It's coming up on the anniversary of his death. Christian loses track of time easy but he's got a weird memory for dates. Like today was the 25th. Greg died a month ago. He didn't go out and do something stupid trying to absolve himself. If he still blames himself for what happened he didn't tell anyone that. He patrolled. And then he sat by Greg's grave for a spell. And now he's hunting.

Having another's memories in his head startles him. Christian shakes his head like he's trying to get water out of his ears...then he gets used to it. Pays attention. He doesn't just run head long toward the sound when it comes either. His alpha starts to. But Sinclair stops him. Christian's fur stands on end when they hear those sounds nearby. His lips pull back in a snarl he never actually makes. He sneaks forward a bit, but doesn't run ahead of his alpha. He looks around. Paranoid of being surrounded. That's when he notices the creek is gone.

His tail wags a few times. Then it stops. It lowers, along with his ears. He looks at his higher ranked packmates...suddenly uncertain.

[Wyrmbreaker] It was never really joy that spurred that sudden rush, but something much more like urgency. Urge. He wants answers. He wants to chase them down like prey.

When Sinclair barks a warning into his mind -- and certainly when the sounds of an altercation ring out ahead -- Wyrmbreaker halts. He stops so suddenly the ground sheafs beneath his feet. Pale eyes narrowed, the largest and darkest of the gathered lifts his head and scents that air. A moment's indecision, seen in the uplifted forepaw, the tail held at a low angle.

Then he starts forward again, slower this time, belly low to the ground, creeping. Everything around them feels different. Cleaner. Now would be a time to quote the wizard of oz. Wyrmbreaker resists the urge.

[Honor's Compass] The vanishing creek-bed does little to comfort Katherine.

She narrows pale eyes at it the place where it had just been accusingly, as if it were somehow the reasoning behind this entire scenario. The Silver Fang too lifts her nose to the air, scents it, shakes out her fur coat as if she'd just been for a swim in the water and then moves after the others; her posture changing, movements slowing into the crawling prowl of the wolf on the hunt.

Her tail low to the ground; ears flattened against her skull.

[eden] All of them wait for Lukas. Lukas, whose rank is shared by Katherine and Sinclair -- even if everybody knows he should have challenged months ago, should have earned Adren, should have at least started making moves in that direction -- but who leads the pack without Beta, without second. They look to him as they always do, and there's trust in that. There's faith, as well as submission.

The ground is dry. The soil is thick and loamy, and they can feel acres of root networks from grass, trees, bushes, all the plants around them. They are in a different set of woods than Tekakwitha. Still a temperate northwestern forest, but -- different. They can't smell the bonfire. They can't sense humans in the distance, at least not the civilized, camping sort. The moon is in the same phase but now the sky is cloudless.

And there is violence up ahead. Violence and joy.

Sinclair takes up her position in the rear again, following Lukas and Kate's examples. Low to the ground. She waits for her youngest brother to go on up ahead, and they follow Wyrmbreaker slowly towards

a place he knows from vision, if not memory. A place where images and sensations, feelings flew at him without interpretation, without explanation. Everything dies. Disharmony is inevitable. And where he thought: I brought that disharmony. Sank my teeth into the throat of an evenly matched opponent and brought crashing down the death, the disharmony, that was warned about.

The vision did not show him this.

The blood circle is not all that large. This is no gladiator's arena, ringed by bleachers. But there are wolves all around them in the fern and underbrush, circling this clearing. They don't stay still, but they stay out of the small open area. There are no markings on the trees or in the ground to designate this place; they don't even seem to notice the approach of Wyrmbreaker and his pack. In the clearing, though, two wolves are fighting. They fight in hispo, one gray and one more reddish, jaws snapping and claws swiping. Both are bloodied. They are fighting to the death.

[Christian del Piero] Katherine's ears and tail lowering doesn't exactly set him at ease. He doesn't stand there fretting though. They're moving. Lukas hunkers down. The subcliath doesn't hesitate. He also doesn't go as low as he can. Christian is still a young wolf. He eats a lot because he's active and has a high metabolism. But also because he's still growing. He isn't the same height he was a year ago...or 2...or 5. If he survives another year he won't be the same height then either. He's athletic and quick on his feet...but there are times when he has normal teenage awkwardness that comes from not knowing his own body. Like right now. All he really does is duck his head and keep his tail down and he thinks he's smaller.

When they get to the clearing he stops dead. Stares. Seems to forget Sinclair is right behind him.

[eden] Luckily for Christian, Sinclair isn't so distracted by the tension of where they are or even by her moon waxing that she runs smack into him. He stops short and she takes a step to the side, coming up beside him. The anxiety evident in her body language is changing as she views what's going on in the circle. Her body was tense, slightly lowered in submission as well as stealth, her tail lowered a bit, ears turned partially back, but now, the longer she watches the violence in front of them, she's changing. Her ears are up and alert, her body rigid. She's soundless, alert, her eyes wide open and staring, a surreally opaque blue that almost seems white in the starlight.

Sinclair's nostrils flare. She's scenting the air. Scenting the blood. Her mouth is closed, her voice silent. She doesn't even speak in their minds. Her tail is low, straight. She's lowering her body closer to the ground, ready to spring forward.

[Wyrmbreaker] They don't seem to notice him. The fighting wolves. The watching, pacing wolves. Wyrmbreaker wonders if this is a challenge for leadership. It could be that. This world feels so pure, so untouched. They might still go by those fabled old ways here, where the pack watches the challenge; where the challenge is always to the death, and the pack falls upon the vanquished as one.

It doesn't quite feel like that, though. The posture of those watching wolves is wrong. They don't have the look of gamma-wolves and omegas. They don't hold their heads the right way, or move the right way, or ... any of it.

Blood circle, he thinks into their minds. It's not entirely certain; the thought carries a hint of question, of uncertainty. Blood circle?

[eden] There's no answer from the Galliard in their midst. She's staring, ready to lunge, and the rise of her --

no, it's not rage. It's that other part of her, the part that makes even her parents scared of her, the part of her that she's convinced drives away every Kin and human she cares about, drove away the one she --

that predatory, savage part of Sinclair is stirring, waiting for opportunity, waiting for weakness. They all feel it to some extent, it's in the air in this place, but it doesn't threaten to overtake them. She doesn't answer Lukas. She can't, right now.

Many of them are in the shadows but they move around, and the Unbroken see more and more wolves surrounding this circle. Perhaps a dozen, maybe even more. If this is a single pack, it's enormous. If it's two packs or more come together... still large. Still strong. They are right there beside the Unbroken now, briefly sniffing at them but then focusing their attention forward again, barking to spur on the combatants.

The sense of rage is like a tang in the air, as coppery as the blood on the ground and under their claws. Their eyes are wild. They can start to see it; Christian, too: these wolves are frenzied. They will keep fighting til death comes, maybe even past that. The thing is, they're so well-matched it's hard to say who the victor will be. It isn't like so many of the battles they've been in: five seconds, ten, and it's over.

It isn't because they're particularly skilled or mindful, even. They're just tearing at each other again and again, ripping free chunks of fur and flesh on every pass.

Then, suddenly, the gray one leaps and bites down hard on the reddish one's foreleg, tears tendons out. The reddish one stumbles, and his opponent leaps on top of him, gnashing again and again and again on his throat. Blood soaks them both. The gray wolf doesn't eat him, doesn't start to devour him as a Thralled Garou would, but she doesn't stop biting at him, ripping what's left of him apart.

She starts to turn towards the other wolves, her maw opening in a huge roar of challenge.

Christian feels nipping at his heels. More than one wolf is urging him towards the circle. Go, go their excitedly wagging tails are saying. Go. Fight. Fight. Go. say their barking, whining cries.

[Honor's Compass] The smallish white wolf known as Honor's Compass is not happy. Not comfortable around the bloodhaze, the ripping, shredding, frenzied wolves. While her own Rage is nothing to scoff at, while she can feel it, prickling away beneath her fur and flesh, turning her stomach in knots; brightening her pale eyes til they shone an almost unfathomable blue --

she does not enjoyit.

There is something innately primitive in the manner these wolves pace the length of the circle, in the way they nip and bark and snarl in encouragement as the red wolf goes down beneath the onslaught of the gray. Her ears are pinned flat to her skull and there's a near-constant whine growl building in her throat.

When the wolves nip at her tribemate's heels, she snaps her teeth at them.
Defensively.
Protectively.

[Christian del Piero] He glances over when his sister comes up beside him. The youngest of them isn't shy about asking questions when he's confused or doesn't understand something...but a lot of times when he is confused or doesn't understand something you can see it on his face. Christian knows how to hide how he's feelings. It's just that most of the time he chooses not to. Right now he's curious but a little lost. It's not like when Lukas and he went to the Battleground Realm and he was excited until he realised what the place could do. This is weird. It doesn't smell like the woods he's used to.

He keeps staring when he realises he's looking at a pair of wolves in frenzy. It's horrifying to watch. Maybe he's thinking about all the times he's done this. How he blacks out and turns into a rabid monster who's had to be put down more than once. When the victor, as it were, roars at the others the subcliath's Rage flares up to meet it. Then he feels nipping at his heels.

It's like a horror movie moment. It takes him a second to register that it's not Sinclair nipping at him. She's standing right next to him. When it does register he whips around like he's going to attack whatever's behind him. They're trying to get him to fight. The Full Moon starts to snarl, to snap his jaws to get them to back off...then he looks dubious. This is the kid who has no problem pushing and punching a bigger, older wolf for talking to his girlfriend. Clearly he likes fighting. But he's not -stupid-.

[Wyrmbreaker] They're pressing at Christian now. Pushing him forward. Urging him to fight. They can feel Wyrmbreaker's mind connected to theirs -- he's not hiding his thoughts from them. They can feel the questioning, the subconscious not-quite-words: why? why? why him?

It's not the hysteria of one being frightened for the life of another, a brother. The protective instinct Honor's Compass is so quick to bare teeth and show is there in him, too, abiding and deep -- but this is his mind at work, trying to puzzle out answers. They're new here. The wolves do not seem to register that, or else do not care. There are four of them, but Christian is the one the press. They want him to fight. His rage brims so close to the surface already, even if he's learned some control, and they want him to fight.

Watch and see. This time these are actual words, crafted thoughts. See who goes next if Christian doesn't.

[eden] There's no time. There's not even any thought. Sinclair isn't answering her packmates, though they can still feel her presence. She hasn't gone mad, gotten possessed, but that primitive sense all around them is saturating her, consuming her. She's as much a wolf as her shape suggests, nevermind the metal in her ears, nevermind what they know her to truly be.

Really fucking good at MarioKart, for one.

Right now you'd never know, in the shadows and dark, that she isn't one of them. One of the wolves surrounding them, nipping at Christian to get him to jump into the fray against a frenzied werewolf. But there's no time, as he's snapping his jaws to get them off, as Katherine is snarling, as Sinclair is drifting, for anything else.

The frenzied gray, deprived of something to fight, lunges into the trees

and is met in midair by four wolves, moving in such beautiful concert it's undeniable that they are somehow bound together. And then, suddenly, it's like the fights the Unbroken have against their own enemies.

It's over in seconds.

They withdraw, leaving the body of the gray where she fell. She reverts to a lithe human form, bloody and torn apart. Either her rage could not bring her back or she has already died once and returned tonight. She was darkhaired, her skin tan from a great deal of sunlight and from the fading summer. She's wearing brightly colored but roughly made robes --

Lukas saw robes like that once, and all his packmates recognize them because he shared that memory.

The wolves pull themselves out of the circle again. They leave behind a homid female and a metis male, and then begin to come to the Unbroken. They're sniffing. They're curious. They're watching Christian with bright, alert eyes. They are unafraid.

"Smell like blight," says one, chuffing the words out. The word is hard to translate. It has no connotations of Wyrm taint. It does not quite mean 'scab'. Something else.

"Little one should have been in circle." says another, accusingly, as though they are all at fault for Christian holding back.

[Wyrmbreaker] There are too many of the others to fight. They're hopelessly outnumbered. These are all awarenesses in Wyrmbreaker's mind; things he keeps track of so quickly, so smoothly, that it's all but subconscious now. He stands at the forefront of his little cadre. He keeps his back to his packmates, his posture asserting dominance, asserting protection. Saying without words: look at me. i'm the leader here. focus on me, not on them. leave them be.

"Only way out of circle is death," he responds. It's a statement, though the pack knows very well he isn't sure. He's testing for response.

Meanwhile, mentally: Look around. Try to find some sign of where or when we are. Look at the stars, look at the trees. Do you recognize them? Look to see how we got here.

[Honor's Compass] "Why fight to death? Where is reason? Where is point?" The Philodox whuffs out, making her auspice as clear as the wet nose that lowers and scents at one of the wolves doing the same to her in return. She moves out from behind Lukas, her movements cautious; respectful as she scouts around the area.

Sniffing.
Staring.

her breeding is as clear as the air around them, breathed into their lungs. No other tribe had such purely white pelts.

[eden] For her part, Sinclair can't really help Lukas figure out what he's puzzling over. She inspects the other wolves as they come near. There is much sniffing, back and forth, as they introduce themselves to one another. Yet there's this, too: they sense in her all the strength she possesses, and they back down a little without her growling at them. They test her a little, nudge past her. She growls and snaps; they retreat, sniff at the others instead.

She has no words left. They've all gone. Been forgotten. Are unnecessary.

"Wise sister," comments one of the wolves, and it doesn't sound like the sense they know of wisdom, the wisdom they are lauded for, the wisdom Sinclair is becoming renowned for. Wise almost sounds like... separate. Different. Close to something else, but not close to them. It is not a negative statement. It is not really positive, either.

There's a chorus of half-snarled agreement to what Lukas says. Only way out of circle is death. Yes, yes. Obviously. So why little brother not in circle?

Then Kate speaks up. She sniffs at their air, at their tradition, she and Christian the only pure white wolves in the gathering.

As Lukas is the only pure black one.

"Balance," comes her answer. "They out of harmony. Little one is out of harmony. Will only get worse."

[Christian del Piero] The wolves that fly out of the woods are unafraid. Christian tries to act unafraid too. He holds his head up high and puffs out his chest and stares back at them. It's not a challenge, really. Just posturing from someone who's not very good at being submissive. He rankles when mentions "blight," says he should have been in the circle. -That- seems like a challenge. He doesn't bark or growl...just lets his alpha and sister handle it.

Until that last answer. He tries not to make any noise. Like he knows reacting is going to be proof that he is out of harmony. But he can't really help it. His eyes flash and he bares his teeth. He's silent, though. They don't even hear him over the totem phone. Still. They know him well enough to know that he thinks attacking people - even if they're twice his size - is a good way to shut them up when he doesn't like what they're saying.

[Wyrmbreaker] "Because he is angry." Again, the statement-that-is-a-question. Christian bristles at his pack. Wyrmbreaker's hackles come up too; he shakes out his fur to make himself calm, or at least hide his aggression in his briefly ruffled fur.

[eden] "You, too," comes the retort, quickly, right back at Lukas's face. "Rage is not disharmony."

One of them has come forward as speaker, if not leader. Nothing special. A lean, small gray wolf with streaks of black down his face. He tosses his muzzle in Kate's direction. "Her, too. Will crushes spirit. Not so bad yet."

He stops, looking at Katherine, then chuffs. "Listen to her, though. Will get worse, too. Will too strong, crushes everything else. Out of balance. She die in circle one day, too."

This doesn't seem aggressive, strangely. So he's talking about all of them ending up fighting to the death in the blood circle. No big deal. Moves along smoothly to what else is on his mind, his curiosity echoed in the perking ears of the others as they hear him asking: "All smell of blight. Cleared ground. Fire. Humans. Why smell of blight?"

[Honor's Compass] Honor's Compass, a wolf that the spirits herald as being quite honorable, quite wise, does not take outright offense at being told she's too full of willfulness, of intellect versus the primal instinct of the hunter. Of the Garou. Rather she cocks her head to one side and lets out a little huff of breath.

It sounds almost amused.
Almost, but not quite.

"Circle may be end for those who cannot control balance in selves. But not end for us, not how we find our harmony. We find ours in other ways." She does not end that with better ways, for how can she be so certain that they are? These primal wolves solved what they perceived as imbalance the way they likely did most things.

Physically.
Bloodily.
Finally.

[Wyrmbreaker] There's a moment's silence from Wyrmbreaker -- a distinct sense of thought, of consideration. Then he whuffs, "We smell of blight because we do not come from your world. We come from other-world, like this but blighted. Many humans.

"One of yours visited us four moon-cycles ago. Female, born of two Garou. Do you know her?"

[eden] There's a communal bristling through the group as Katherine starts talking about how they find their harmony. It grows like a wave moving outward, a ripple of reaction that seems to come back in like a tide when Lukas explains that they come from Somewhere Else.

The black-masked wolf before them glances around at the others. He looks at Christian for a moment, inscrutable. Turns back to them. "Humans killed. Many, many of them. They grow. We cleanse soon. First we cleanse selves."

They are beginning to withdraw. As though they move with one mind, as soon as the black-marked leader starts to turn away, the others begin to drift off, as well. He looks at Kate, though. "Harmony is harmony. If disharmony gets worse, not better: the circle is the only way. Not all go to the blood circle to die. You two -- already so imbalanced. And so young. How will you find your way to balance, if you have not already?

"Your scents mark you -- all of you except for the other sister. Your dams and sires -- not part of the great pack. No wonder you do not understand harmony."

He nods his head off into the woods. "Go. See the blight here, or in your world. Look at little brother's scars, your own coats and how they mark you as separate, outside the great pack. You are out of harmony. That is death, itself. Circle at least gives peace."

There are only a half dozen or so wolves left now, sniffing at Sinclair, scratching their claws on trees, waiting for the one that speaks to come with them.

[Wyrmbreaker] They are departing like the tide, and like the tide, Lukas suspects there's no way to reverse the ebb. He bounds forward a step, following, to bark one more question: "What spirits does the great pack follow?"

[Honor's Compass] When the black-masked wolf speaks of killing humans, it takes a considerable amount of effort on the Silver Fang's behalf not to launch herself at him, not to snarl, or spit horrific accusations at him in a bid to mask the sudden flux of shame she feels about her own tribe's method of handling the humans that they now walked among.

Fought beside.
Protected and shielded.

He looks at Kate, and she straightens, stares back at him with mingled anger and pride.
Perhaps that only makes what he says seem truer, somehow. That she does not understand harmony, this wolf who stares at him as if he does not know what he speaks about. As if she knew better than him.

Pride did go before the fall, after all.

Honor's Compass watches them retreat, fade into the woods. When Lukas bounds forward she watches intently, but she does not speak to the black leader wolf. Perhaps she has nothing to say.

[Christian del Piero] If someone he trusted told him that he was just going to get worse it would hurt. If any of his packmates told him he'd be better off letting some feral wolf tear him to pieces he wouldn't know what to do. They tell him he has potential though. They give him advice and stand by him while he tries to figure out what to do to be a better Garou. Hearing that he's out of harmony and is just going to get worse from a bunch of wolves he's never met before - who don't know him - just pisses him off. It doesn't wound any more than anything else that pisses him off. And his alpha and sisters don't say "Yes you're right here take him."

Christian doesn't calm down exactly but he doesn't launch himself at his accusers either. He stands and watches. He deflates too. Stops trying to appear bigger and tougher than he is. He doesn't pace or paw the dirt. He stares at them until they start to go...and when Lukas asks his question his ears prick up again. He's curious. Still angry...but curious.

[eden] Only the one wolf turns back, as the others slip into shadow, seem to become shadow. He is alone now, against four strong wolves who would fight together against him, but he is unafraid. He seems so calm, just as the wolves who leapt onto the gray and killed her seemed calm. Perhaps the word for that is balance. Maybe he's balanced.

"Mother, and all her children," he says after a moment of consideration, before he turns and leaves.

Sinclair starts rolling in a pile of slightly damp earth, tongue lolling out. She rolls to her feet again and nudges Christian, leaving a streak of mud on his white fur. We no fight, but we find meat, she says happily to him, as this is pretty much the only comfort she has to offer. Meat meat meat meat meat meat meat

and off she goes, as though now that all that business is done it's time to get back to what they were doing. She's hungry, after all, and these woods are thick and filled with prey.


They don't find prey, though. Walking through the trees, perhaps discussing what they just experienced or wondering how they're going to get out of here, the first thing the Unbroken find is a hillside. The trees grow sparse. They look down on

cleared land. They see huts, built into hillocks, carved out of sod. They see a thin trickle of smoke from a fire. Strange, that they would be brave enough to build their homes so close to woods inhabited by Garou. By monsters. But these humans are many: there are several houses, and they can hear the squalling of more than a few infants waking in the night. They are becoming bold: they killed a Garou. They don't need visions to know the truth of what the black-striped wolf in the woods said. Soon, these humans will be cleansed. Purged.

Sinclair, whose tribe was once called the Warders of Men, looks down on the village, and says nothing.


In the end it makes little difference if they go forward, or back into the woods, or try to circle around. The ground underfoot starts to become muddier, more familiar. The trees are not so tall. The air is colder, and the sky is cloudier. In the distance, they can smell the remains of the bonfire.

They can smell humans, camping in the single, small pocket of woodland that they have to run through when the urge to hunt strikes them.

[Wyrmbreaker] There are so many questions that Lukas just lets the little ones slide. Like: why do they all feel so much more feral? Why is Sinclair rolling in the mud?

They move, though, after the wolves are gone. Wyrmbreaker stays behind just long enough to sniff at the blood-circle, to confirm what he already knows: many, many, many, many Garou have died here. Killed by their own. Willingly, it seems, and without great turmoil or strife. Just like hitting a reset button, he thinks. As though the Great War wasn't breathing down their necks. As though another generation, another lifetime, was no big deal to wait for.

They lope through the trees, four in a loose file. Their paws pass over rich, loamy earth. Trees so thick around that their arms will not stretch all the way around even in Crinos. They ascend a hill; they look down on the burgeoning human village. So primitive. Barely out of nomadic hunter-gatherer age.

The stars tell the tale, though. The stars and the moon: they match the ones over Chicago, tonight, September of 2010. The date is the same. The world is entirely different.


And then -- with no more warning than when they slipped into that other-world -- they're out again. The air smells stale and flat and familiar. They can hear human revelers in the woods. Campers with their composite-material tents and their hydrocarbon lighters, their 40-degree summer sleeping bags, their cars. Wyrmbreaker slows his pace to a walk.

He speaks into their minds: I don't know if that was an umbral realm, or a different timeline, or ... what. But the Garou I met in the spring was from that world. It seems like their entire world is 'in balance'. The Wyrm isn't out of control. The Garou are sent to the blood circle -- to die -- if they drift out of balance. Not just rage, but will and gnosis as well.

The Garou I met spoke of a purging too. I think she meant a culling. Like the Impergium. Maybe that's why their humans are so primitive: they've never allowed them to grow out of control.

[Wyrmbreaker] [nix the line about many garou dying there!]

[Wyrmbreaker] [let's just make it "Wyrmbreaker stays behind just long enough to sniff at the blood-circle, where Garou were killed by their own. Willingly..."]

[Wyrmbreaker] I don't know how we got there, he goes on, or even if that world is 'real' as we understand it. But I think if we're brought back there again, we'll have to make a choice: to support their cull and keep their balance, or to oppose it.

Nothing more than that. No indication of what he feels the right choice to be. He picks up the pace until they're trotting again, rangy legs covering ground.