strength.

[Booker Abbot] This is a trick question, it's like a mexican stand off. If he says the wyrm and they're BSD's he's fucked. If he says Gaians and they're Gaians.. he's fucked.

He decides to stay quiet.

A shrug is what Gwen gets, and a knowing smile. She's a smart one.

[Asha Singh] Sinclair offers no apology, and Asha doesn't ask for one. There's something direct about the girl's eye contact as they draw apart, something firm underneath, whatever bedrock Falcoln has given his crazed children to see them through the waning days of their influence - that solidity bespoke by blood, by age upon age, measure upon measure, by memories that are not and could never be her own, but live in her nonetheless. Maybe there's gratitude there, whatever strength underscores the girl's wildness.

And she sits, Asha, her delicate jaw set firmly, her constants in the chaos her packmates. The conversation moves on around her and someone says Eclipse and Adamidas mentions times, dates, assures them that their enemies must be affected as well. "I saw the moon," says Asha. "In the sky. It's full." As if they might forget; though there's more weight to her emphasis than just reminding them of the phase. That familiar rush of -

- all gone. "And, it's foolish to assume they're cut off like we are. It makes you complacent. Like a - [xxx]." She finishes with another incomprehensible word that sounds like a curse, some dark, foul, foolish thing, and stands, glancing to Lukas (as ever) for direction. "Thomas is outside. He can put the room in his name. We'll get two with a connecting door."

[Kristiana Coleman] The building rage tickles at the back of her neck, and she looks over her shoulder with slightly narrowed eyes as she scans the crowd, seeking out the source.

[Adamidas] [this is my willpower score!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Sinclair] Sinclair nods, and gets up -- without nearly knocking anything over this time -- and grabs Lukas's arm briefly before going anywhere. She stands on her toes to utter something in his ear, then lowers herself down and lets go of him. "My car's outside," she says, but doesn't offer anyone in particular a ride. She hesitates, though, before she heads for the door, and her brows pull together as she looks at Lukas, who drove her alone, and Asha, with her Tomas, and Kate, who probably got here in her own car, too. She can't say what she wants to say to them, not when all that's left of her pack in her mind is an endless silence, but perhaps, after all this time, they can read it on her face.

"I'll ride with you," she says finally to Asha. Her car can just stay the fuck here.

[Bridget Geroux] "How can I help?" Bridget asks without a beat.

She notices the lost, torn, frustrated faces around her. Mostly new ones, all are severely out of their element. She remembers faintly leading the play spirits around with her harmonica and it spreads a small smile to the corner of her pouty lips. The kinfolk isn't about to be left behind, however, since Simon's persistent warnings of the Sept being at war come surfacing up from her subconscious.

Bridget indulges in two mouthfuls of her coffee before raising to her feet.

"I'm not going to bother with introductions. Can I hitch a ride with one of you?" she asks.

[Sinclair] The whisper is quick, and flat-toned, as though to get the bare minimum of information across as quickly and clearly as possible. "Asha's hurt. I don't know how bad, but she was mid-hunt when this happened to us."
to Wyrmbreaker

[Wyrmbreaker] [Folks! We've reached a branch point. Since this scene is moving into STed territory, let's have a headcount on who wants to do what, and most likely we'll be splitting into 2-3 groups. The options are:

1) Roll dice for a oneshot -- i.e. your char gets ambushed on the way to the Travelodge
2) Participate in a cinematic scene figuring out why we've lost our Wolves and how to get it back
3) Keep freeform RPing

There's no pressure to do anything, but if you could let me know in PMs (so as to avoid cluttering up the screen) I'll figure out how to divide us up!]

[Adamidas] [3-2-1 Cinematics!]
to Wyrmbreaker

[Booker Abbot] 2) -- unless you need someone else to ST.
to Wyrmbreaker

[Milo] [cinematic's cool with me!]
to Wyrmbreaker

[Bridget Geroux] 1, because I'm brave.]
to Wyrmbreaker

[Asha Singh] +2 for Sinclair and Asha please!
to Sinclair, Wyrmbreaker

[Wyrmbreaker] As Lukas is moving to stand, Sinclair leans in. A quick whisper. The Shadow Lord's brow furrows; he shoots her a glance, then looks at Asha.

Nods. "Okay. Have Thomas do that." Then he's buttoning his coat, having never even taken it off, bringing up the rear as the group begins to move toward the door. As Asha is passing him, he reaches out and snags her by the arm, pulling her back.

[Wyrmbreaker] A mutter in her ear: "How bad?"
to Asha Singh

[Kristiana Coleman] Hey. I'm a newbie, so if I could get involved with the Garou it would be great, but I totally understand that from a game flow standpoint, there's absolutely no reason why she'd be recognized as kin yet. Whatever you think is best is fine with me.
to Wyrmbreaker

[Wyrmbreaker] heya! glad to see you playing. sorry this is so hectic -- we're doing an event where the Garou have all lost their wolves. check this thread for more details:

http://www.chicagodusk.com/smf/index.php?topic=8005

and -- i'm try to get you hooked into the action in a sec here. do you have a preference on dice or cinematic scene?
to Kristiana Coleman

[Adamidas] She gives Asha a rather pointed look. It's a lot more intense than one would assume that a teenage girl should be able to muster. She does, however, only let the look linger for a second, and she gathers her things. All things gathered up, the Fury counts what she has, and looks at Gwen. She smiles, it's about as reassuring as she can offer.

"We're going to figure this out," she says. She waits to see who is coming with.

[Asha Singh] Some other night, even wild, Asha might look like she belonged here. Might imagine it a game, this place full of people, full of humans, full of sheep to be menaced by the elegant, slinking little wolf in her. Tonight is different. Sinclair is coming with her and her kinsman; Asha nods, a significant glance slipping from Sinclair to the door, looking through the reflections in the windows trying to catch the attention of the kinswoman outside when Lukas draws her back. Her fine little mouth tightens around her teeth, the expression suggests suppressed anger, as if she meant to bare her teeth but swallowed the threat back at the last minute. Tension lingers in her neck, the long slope of her trapezius until it disappears underneath the big collar of that black wool coat.

[Asha Singh] "Not good." Asha says, back, mutters between her teeth. " - but I can walk."
to Wyrmbreaker

[Kristiana Coleman] Cinematic, if there's a choice. Last place I played was largely diceless unless something horrible was about to happen. Thanks, I appreciate it. If it's too much to work me in somewhere, I totally understand. I can be patient and jump in another time.
to Wyrmbreaker

[Wyrmbreaker] [OK - so this seems to be the breakdown:

Oneshot: Booker, Milo, Bridge -- Nomey STing
Cinematic: Adam, Asha, Sinclair, Lukas, Kate, Gwen, Kristiana -- Jacqui STing, unless 7 is too many, upon which it's me and Jacqui STing!

Let's split up into rooms. Oneshotters, go to GC Day; Cinematics, let's head to GC Night and leave this room for latecomers who just wanna RP (or maybe start their own oneshot)]

[Katherine Bellamonte] [Okay! Welcome to the finale of Lunar Eclipse Night, version Cinematic! Bear with me as I get myself sorted and type up a sort of intro to pull everyone together for what I have in mind. This scene is probably going to have at most, some perception dice but nothing combat-driven.

If you have to crash out for whatever reason, feel free and I'll figure something out for your character.

So, off we go! ]

[Wyrmbreaker] [btw, if you have AIM, join the chatroom Chilltank -- it's where a bunch of chicago players tend to hang out while RPing.]
to Kristiana Coleman

[Wyrmbreaker] [or just ping me at TheDamonian and i'll invite you]
to Kristiana Coleman

[Wyrmbreaker] [just a headsup: lukas would have called danicka on way from cafe and picked her up en route to travelodge! just in case that affects your opening post]
to Katherine Bellamonte, Sinclair

[Katherine Bellamonte] "Some say the world will end in a catastrophe so large, nothing will live to tell the tale. I venture not, we'll go out in darkness. Fighting nothing but the memory of our own shadows." - Unknown Galliard, Silver Record

--

They all feel it. As one. Not even the Kinfolk amongst them are spared, though for them, the more their blood sings with breeding, the tougher it is to ignore. It's a tugging from their bellies as if a hook were thread by invisible wire and suddenly; abruptly -

wake up

-- whether or not they sleep; as one the voice is there. It is neither a man's voice distinctly, or a female's. It is simply voice; as wind is wind and rain is rain. Voice is here, and Voice is speaking to them; whether they're showering, sleeping, or scrolling newspaper clippings for details about an Astronomical event. Voice finds them in the street, or in the bathroom; it brings with it for the Garou a flare; a flash in the pan sensation.

It's almost painful; the sound of Voice.
It feels strangely familiar though, almost like -- home.

A definition they cannot quite describe but that it makes them start; turn faces, eyes, ears -- all to the windows, to the sky outside. Come, Voice instructs and brings with it an intense tug. To resist seems unspeakable; and the longer they do, the more blinding the Voice sounds, as it returns.

Not angry; not violent -- but here, but now.

[Anyone who resists the urge to move outside must roll WP against Diff 7.]

[Gwen Sullivan] [Willpower]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 6, 10 (Failure at target 7)

[Sinclair] [Willpower]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Danicka Musil] [Willpower]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 7)

[Wyrmbreaker] It's a short trip from the cafe to the Travelodge, but Lukas is one of the last ones there. He's not alone when he walks in. He has his mate with him, and everyone knows instantly why it took him so long to drive a block and a half.

They've been here a while now. They talked about eclipses, solstices; some grew frustrated; someone threw a pillow across the room. Stripped of their rage, their anger is not so fearsome as it was. The fit of pique was more amusing than frightening.

They've consulted almanacs, newspapers, laptops. They've come up with nothing, and Lukas is sitting on the corner of one of the doublebeds now, one hand on his knee, elbow outturned. He's diminished by that lack of rage. He seems -- younger, perhaps, or perhaps only normal. A young man a few years out of college, good-looking, with crystalline eyes that might smile easily.

"...must be a reason for this," he's saying. "We might not be able to reach our Wolves or our spirits, but it doesn't mean we can't look for a reason -- "

and right there, right then, he breaks off. Sits suddenly upright, face taut and alert. Without another word, he gets up and walks to the window, dragging it open, letting the cold pour in. He sticks his head outside.

[not resisting!]

[Kristiana Coleman] She's obedient. No one can deny her that. Without waiting for her specialized coffee, she moves for the door and out of the coffee shop, looking up at the sky as the door swings behind her.

[Katherine Bellamonte] [Kinfolk -- you can roll WP resistance + whatever your PB is. So, PB1, take a +1 Diff.]

[Danicka Musil] [With PB difficulty added: Failure]

[Adamidas] When she hears voices, and when they tell her to move, she listens.

She doesn't really try not to follow along. When one feels the pull of home, the intense urge to go, she goes. It is a voice. It is Voice, just like wind is wind and rain is rain. She pulls her backpack back over her shoulders, and makes sure that her bag is secured.

No one has to say a word. She doesn't say anything, she doesn't explain, she doesn't pretend that this is anything but right. Lukas gets to the word must and she's moving.

Most natural thing in the world.

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen was heading outside initially anyways. Lukas had rapped his authoritive knuckles on the table to announce so, Adamidas had smiled reassuringly, and that was enough. Get the fuck out of dodge.

But then came that voice, that tug, that stomach-wrenching thing that felt more... thrilling than painful, more pleasant than disgusting. She paused at the door and stared out the front window, eyes leaping up into the sky, hunting for the moon, searching, needing like it was the key to taking a deep breath that would let her be at ease. That was a lie, though, and the lure to come outside was strong as a mother telling your five-year-old self to come with the urgency that compelled, like a lover gesturing you into their chest after being apart for far too long.

But one couldn't charge blindly. One had to think. This couldn't... It couldn't just be as simple as that. They weren't made to be blindly obedient, or just plain blind. Her brow creased and her teeth clicked at the piercing in the cleft of her upper lip, muscles rigid, trembling along her shoulders and biceps.

But Lukas brushed by and out the door, and Adamidas followed. Gwen felt her feet drag after, and as though she was leaning backward against an unrelenting force that pushed her forward, she too moved out the door, eyes scanning the sky, the street, the shadows-- anything and everything, with one hand pressed on her upper stomach as though to quell or cut off entirely that urging tug.

She didn't like this. She didn't trust it. But she couldn't ignore it.

[Kristiana Coleman] (Oops) She drives to the Travelodge as if guided by something, looking unsure as she gets out of the car.

[Sinclair] The ride in Asha's car is much, much smoother than it would have been in Sinclair's. One is a Lexus. The other is...

an El Camino. A very nicely restored El Camino, but motherfucker, an El Cam is an El Cam and there's nothing one can do about it.

At the motel, Sinclair is preparing to argue with Asha about getting cleaned up and attended to by a Theurge, or anyone who might be able to help her. She's preparing to argue because... well. It's Asha. If everything with Asha weren't tinted with the scent of battle, she wouldn't be Asha, and Sinclair wouldn't have been quite as overjoyed to welcome the girl into the pack.

She's standing by the window, hand on one of the thick, ugly curtains, staring outside. Some people aren't here. Notably, a purebred kinswoman of another tribe and two total strangers. Her jaw is tight, and she's itching for a fight regardless.

Then Voice starts luring her outside, and she remembers when Voice was a little girl in the umbra and she remembers when Voice was a butler leading a charge and she remembers when Voice was something shadowy seeping into her mind, and Sinclair snarls. Out loud, and full-throated, she growls against the tug, even as her Alpha is getting up and coming over to the window.

"Don't," she says, putting her hand flat on the cold glass. It clouds around her fingers. Adamidas is doing it, too, and Sinclair says again, louder. "Don't." Gwen now, too. "Guys, stop!" she snaps finally, and it says something that even now, lacking rage, lacking the fury that backs her authority, Sinclair has the skill to infuse her voice with something like power.

[Asha Singh] Underneath that fashionable military style wool coat - purchased this evening, to hide the exact wounds the rest of those who make it to the hotel will see on her when they get they - Asha's fine white blouse is stiff with blood. She cannot shift, and wounds that would have once been an annoyance - something she could grit her way through a fight with, and then sleep off in a day or two or three, curled somewhere in lupus - are deeper.

In the hotel, the creature changed shirts - something cheap, something handy. Available for $15 bucks from the miniature gift shop run by the front desk clerk: I HEART CHICAGO - the cheap t-shirt reads, with a poor rendition of the Chicago skyline that looks rather more like the view of Shanghai from one riverbank to the other than anything like the actual city in which these Garou have made their stand against the end of days.

Thomas tore her blouse to strips and rebound the claw marks scoring her ribs, and then the girl paced, watching the windows while the rest researched, a shadow behind the front windows every time pale lights from some passing car skimmed across the icy screen.

That's as much tending as she'll allow. If there's anything left in the theurges, says Asha, they should save it. Who knows how long -


- and here, now, a voice rising in the darkness, an urge deeper than meaning that reminds her so much of the link she shares not just with the spirits of her tribe and house, but with the mad spirits of her ancestors, the voices she always wanted out of her head, whom she misses now like a piece of herself.

Close to the door, Asha is moving before she can think to resist or even begin to say why. It's only with the sharp snap of Sinclair's interjection that she pauses long enough to look at the Galliard.

[WP!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 4, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Danicka Musil] The woman that Lukas brings with him into the little motel room at the Travelodge is a stranger to many of them. Even his packmates don't see her often, though there are perhaps several reasons for that. She's dressed as she was when he picked her up -- not at her apartment, but the place where she was 'safely' surrounded by mortals -- and that means that she's dressed very strangely, compared to the rest of them.

Perhaps strange for a Shadow Lord, Danicka wears black only rarely. Tonight she enters the hotel room in a pair of flat-soled boots underneath the long skirt of a black dress. It's exceedingly simple, more than a little old-fashioned. The collar is off the shoulder, the sleeves are long. It isn't velvet, but the fabric is heavy, draping well. Her hair, often compared to gold in at least one mind, is in a single braid tied with a thin black ribbon without a bow. The strands of it cut across her fair skin, over her clavicles, braid resting on her shoulder. She has a black shawl as well, and she smells faintly of woodsmoke and ash.

Since she got here she's been quiet. She's occupied an armchair near a corner and she's not participated in the conversation about how, and why. She's watchful, alert, seeming as much curious as tense. Her eyes have, at some point, watched all of the Garou in the room with equal closeness. Mostly, though, and by no surprise to anyone, she keeps her eyes on Lukas.

When Voice tells them to come, she rises to her feet with a single smooth lift, her skirt falling around her legs again, and follows Lukas.

[Wyrmbreaker] [oFINE]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Adamidas] [WHY ARE WE STOPPING?! wp]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Wyrmbreaker] Something almost like irritation flickers over his face. Lukas stops at the door, spreading his arms to bar it completely, then turns to look over his shoulder at Sinclair.

They no longer have a totem link, a way to speak into one another's minds. They can still communicate without words, though, and the lift of Lukas's eyebrow says, Why?

[Katherine Bellamonte] For those who move to windows, for the Kinswoman getting out of her car and turning her face to the sky, for the Cub; so uncertain to begin with, still so new to all of this -- they see something. The sky is darkening, the shape of the moon changing as shadow creeps across it. Beneath it; sitting in the middle of the street amongst people; amongst traffic and cars and store-fronts that suddenly feel too bright; too artificial --

they see a Wolf.

To Lukas, it is almost nothing but a pair of red eyes. Its fur blacker even than his, its claws sharp and white even with the dimming moon. It is the largest Wolf he is ever likely to see; more the size of some prehistoric creature than that of any wild mortal cousin of theirs; even their mightiest Ahrouns in war-form would pale beside this Wolf. Its eyes are the red of fire; of unbiased anger and they are fixed on the Ahroun at the window. A pair of moon-watchers step off the curb beside the black wolf and through the black wolf and its form shimmers; like the disturbed surface of a pond.

The wolf feels like that which Lukas has lost.

--

Adamidas sees the same Wolf, but it is purely, starkly white. Its eyes are gold, and as a couple step off the curb; they step right through the giant Wolf as if it were not there at all. A car travels past; and the Wolf does not move an inch. It simply sits in the middle of the road as the moon begins to shrink --

and waits.

--

The Kinfolk see neither Wolves, but a young girl. Her shape is blurred but for the suggestion of a dress; of silver hair that dances over her shoulders. She sits, cross-legged and patient in the midst of a street with a ball in her hands; she's looking at Danicka and Kristina as if she's been expecting them.

She holds the ball out.

--

The Wolves stand as one; whether they see it as a black creature with burning red eyes; or white, with warm, golden eyes.

--

For those that resist; they feel a wave of sudden despair; a high keening that grows inside their skulls and pounds like the waves against the shore; there is rhythm with each keening smash against those rocks inside their heads: come, come, come it repeats over and over.

[Sinclair, Asha, ...okay, EVERYONE resisting soak 1 bashing!]

[When they glimpse the Wolves, Lukas, Sinclair, Asha see it as a black form. Katherine, Gwen, Adam are seeing it as a white form. Danicka and Kristiana, see a little girl.]

[Sinclair] [Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Asha Singh] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 3, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Adamidas] [Oww!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Kristiana Coleman]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Gwen Sullivan] [Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [yelp!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 5, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Gwen Sullivan] Lukas stops at the door, braces an arm within it to prevent others from going out, but he's turned and left his body narrow so he can look back at Sinclair and Asha, demand why he should stop. Adamidas stops short as well, convinced by Sinclair's compelling words to halt her feet and pay mind to what the Glass Walker has to say.

Gwen, though, her resolve is not so great. She wants it, the logic in her mind tells her to stop, had been doing so from the beginning, but it was nothing compared to instinct and what her belly and her heart told her to do. Lukas was easy to look up to, especially for somebody so new to the game, but this Voice, this... this beautiful white wolf with the liquid gold eyes sitting in the middle of the street, waiting so patiently. People pass through it, it is beyond them. It waits exclusively for them. Who was she to keep it waiting?

She felt something thump!. It didn't phase her an inch, it felt like little more than a second cramping, strange and unsure but not quite painful enough to dissuade her yet. She put one hand at the crook of Lukas's elbow and ducked her head some to pass under it, walking out onto the street with limbs and back stiff, expression grim and hard like granite. She needed to be out there, it was going to be too late before long.

[Wyrmbreaker] -- and then that eyebrow lowers; the Shadow Lord's ice-blue eyes squeeze shut. He flinches at exactly the same instant as everyone else in the room, everyone but the very few who are not resisting the call of ...

whatever that is. The Wolf. The girl. Something.

It passes. Lukas opens his eyes, lowers his hands from the frame and turns to face Sinclair steadily. "I think we should follow," he says, quiet but steady. "It feels like ... "

me, he wants to say. He gives his head a quick shake.

"It feels right to follow," he amends.

[Adamidas] Gwen's still moving, she thinks, and the female takes a few steps to catch up to the cub. She sees a wolf, and her hesitance hurts, aches, drones. She doesn't ignore the feeling anymore, and the Fury takes her steps outside, She looks at the wolf, and her head cocks to the side. Its eyes are gold, and it stands purely, starkly white.

"Come on," she insists to the group. She doesn't look back for long, just long enough to catch up to Gwen and just long enough to follow the white wolf. It's waiting for them. Both of them. Her eyes travel up to the moon- it shrinks some and wanes away. If Lukas is still in the door, she squeezes through, or at least tries to. Wyrmbreaker's a big guy, as such he can take up a fair chunk of a doorway.

The sound Alethea makes isn't human, not exactly. A close approximation of a whine of discomfort, though given their state it's more anxious-teen-at-the-dentist than animalistic. The balance is offset. She goes with what her instinct had told her.

The Wind is the Wind.
The Rain is the Rain.
The Voice is the Voice, and who was she to deny it?

[Sinclair] She wants to tell him don't you remember --

but she can't. Something hits Sinclair like a hammer to the chest and her hand clutches at the curtain. That black wolf outside takes her eyes off of her Alpha, and she doesn't try to tell him he can't listen to things that summon him when he's at his weakest, when he doesn't want to resist and isn't sure he can. She looks through the window again, the imprint of her hand vanishing from the glass, and closes her eyes.

They burn.

The loneliness that's been with her for almost as long as she can remember, growing stronger every year, is crushing her now. It was teachers and kids at school first. The boys who freaked out and couldn't stand to stay near her, the friends who drifted away rather than keep her in their lives. It was her parents, distanced by their own inability to understand what was happening to her. It was the Glass Walkers who took her at the beginning, who she couldn't bear to look at because they were the ones who locked her away.

It was Regina, who she could never quite reach. It was Colfax, who she ran away from. And every wolf she knew, every wolf she packed with. Something about what she is keeps her apart even from other Garou, and she's never understood why. She's never understood how it could be like this, and she's questioned a thousand times if this was really how she was supposed to be born.

Lukas is, perhaps, more connected to his nature than any of the other Unbroken. She could hear panic edging his words even when Kate was the one on the phone with him. Sinclair's never been that tied to being a Garou. A part of her has been asking since she woke up if what she really feels is relief. A part of her has been asking if she really wants to go back to being all the many things that separate her from her family, from humanity, from the one who her heart called mate even if she never even managed to say the word love out loud.

It was starting to feel less like living in solitary, with the Unbroken. With Tripoli. There was a world she could reach into that felt like home, but even there the spirits were wary of her.

Sinclair is closing her eyes so tightly there at the window, like she doesn't even hear Lukas anymore, like she isn't aware of him or Gwen or Adamidas or any of them heading out the door. Whatever it was that Sinclair had to say, she isn't saying it now. She's got one hand pressed flat against her breastbone as though applying pressure to a wound.

Gwen goes out. And Lukas speaks but isn't going without them. Adam goes. And Sinclair just shakes her head, slowly, twice, though it's unclear if it's in resistance. Tears come, without explanation or warning, seeping out from under her dark, soot-colored lashes. Right now there's no rage in her, no violence, none of the wrath that changed her so utterly when it began to appear in childhood. There's just a dreadful sense of loss. Of refusal.

She shakes her head again, and turns her head to look at Lukas. Her eyeliner is running, leaving black trails down her cheeks. "I can't be this anymore. I don't --"

Sinclair closes her mouth again, refusing to say the rest. Pain in her chest and her skull or no, she puts her hands on the windowsill and lets her head drop, and does not move.

[Asha Singh] Asha does not articulate what feels right about leaving this cheap motel room, with its scratchy comforters and its faux modernist prints on the walls, swirls of color so indistinct that they could not offend anyone anymore than they might inspire. Someone turned the television on and CNN is in the background, reporting on the weather. Correspondents are parked outside, peering up at the sky, in some cases through thick cloudcover while banal anchors beam white-toothed smiles back to the camera.

- the Silver Fang is still, shoots Adamidas a glance as she urges them onward, making noise in the back of her throat. The cheap cotton of her t-shirt is damp again as the tenuous balance of clotting and bandaging is broken again, and the wounds begin to seep, but by now she has the coat back on, which makes her look larger than she should, which diminishes the strangeness of seeing someone so well-bred in such cheap fabrics.

When Sinclair bends forward, Asha shoots Lukas a look, still and simmering and dark. She feels the urge as well as anyone else; trusts it and mistrusts it in equal measure. If she were going to -

- she says nothing. Stands there, watching her Alpha, edging forward to brush her flank against Sinclair's - a physical promise of presence - utterly animal, that, for all that she has lost her wolf and everything that came with it.

[Danicka Musil] The little girl outside looks nothing like the daughters Lukas saw once in a vision, in a rite, in the underworld. She doesn't feel like a daughter to Danicka. She feels like someone else, someone Danicka knows, though she's never spoken to her except in the recesses of her own mind or in the presence of humans who barely understand what they're trying to acknowledge.

Danicka has lost nothing tonight. She's been sitting here with Ahrouns, with a Philodox who may as well be one in terms of rage, with a young woman who would normally terrify her. She's been watching them all act like... well. Young adults. Lukas isn't even twenty-five yet. They're just people, for once. And they're unnerved and vulnerable and it's so strange to her.

On some level she feels sickened. This isn't right. She knows it isn't right. She worries about the whys, she worries about what's being planned for them. On another level, though, she is comfortable with ambiguity in a way few are, in a way few can tolerate. There are things she has done that even Lukas doesn't and probably shouldn't know about just because he would wonder what kind of sane creature would do that sort of thing. He would be terrified by how at ease Danicka is with some of the most profound risks, and he would hate himself if he understood that very little that the mortal world has to offer frightens a woman who has lived so close to death by frenzy since she was a toddler.

When she goes outside to meet the little girl, she puts her hand on Lukas's side briefly in passing, her palm against his ribcage, but says nothing. The threat of dying tonight inside this room, torn to shreds by the very wolves that are supposed to protect her kind, is gone. There is nothing outside on that street that she finds too horrifying to accept.

Danicka goes towards the girl with the ball, and holds out her hands as though to catch it, once thrown.

[Danicka Musil] [Ofine. "Lukas is only twenty-five."]

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas has a lot on his mind right now. He has his mate to protect. Wolfless and toothless as he is, he brought her here to be with him, so he could protect her. He has younger wolves to guide and watch over. A cub, even. He has another kin he's never met before quietly idling nearby, and he has his packmates, one wounded, all wolfless.

But a constant undercurrent in his mind through all this, all of it, is simply: end this. make this stop. bring my Wolf back. complete me. It was never: I'm happier this way. It's easier this way.

Even if his car wasn't choked with rage when Danicka climbed in. Even if he could feel the difference when he reached to embrace her then; feel how there was no tension in her when he wrapped his arms around her, even when he squeezed her tighter than she would normally be able to bear. Even if humans didn't dart out of his way. Even if people weren't afraid to call him an asshole now when he was being one -- never, not once, did he wish this to be permanent.

So there's something like shock, and incomprehension, when Sinclair collapses in on herself the way she does. When she says what she does. He stares. He startles when Danicka passes him, her hand against his side: warm against warm. He looks at her with wide eyes, catches her hand as she's leaving; lets her go.

Looks past her to the great Wolf. Meets its eyes unflinchingly, unchallengingly.

"I'll come soon," he says: a promise. "And whatever you want to show me, or give me, or take from me... I'll accept it then. But I need some time right now."

A pause. He puts his hand on Sinclair's shoulder, his eyes still on the Wolf.

"Please."

[Katherine Bellamonte] When Danicka reaches out to catch the ball from the little girl; there's a silent gurgle of laughter from the child and even as the Shadow Lord Kinswoman feels the reality of the toy hit her palms; both of them fade. Like the flash burn after a picture is taken; they are at once there; and then not.

Kristiana, too, passes from sight.

--

yes, they hear as this happens, and Voice is happy.

--

The moon vanishes a little more; and one of their fold unravels. She cannot, she will not, she does not want.

--

Please.

The black Wolf only stares at Lukas; and its voice is steel and blood; anger and decay, there inevitability in its voice. It is the rumble of the battlecry; the nature of his heart and soul. There's no pity to Wolf. There's only what is. What shall be.

If you do not come you will not know

--

The Theurge elder is edging toward the white Wolf; and it rises and speaks in tandem suddenly, with the black.

This is transcendent, it cannot be stopped

--

Voice is back, and it wraps around Sinclair where she's fallen like a shroud; at once comforting and insistent.

It is who you are, it cannot be changed

--

Black Wolf speaks again; a rumbling growl.

If you do not come by the time the moon is gone; you will never understand

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen doesn't come close enough to be stricken by the wolf, though she does not believe it will lunge and use teeth on her.

She stops at the curb, aware despite the need to be with this wolf that it was still in the middle of the street, that she was still in the physical realm (she knew that because she tried to pass to the other earlier and she physically, spiritually could not make it happen). She could get hit by a car, and if she couldn't shift, hell, maybe she couldn't heal? She would not go out on somebody's windshield, or worse yet left broken and bleeding out in the middle of the street where her comrades couldn't heal her, while they couldn't put on the strength and swiftness needed to catch the vehicle when it sped away, fearing legal repercussions.

She stood in front of the Travel Lodge, out of the way of traffic, of claws and fangs of this gold-and-white wolf, and waited for it to lead.

[Wyrmbreaker] There's only a single nod, unwavering.

"I understand."

--

Then he's turning away from the black wolf, the embodiment of -- what? Rage, certainly. His own rage? Everything he is? For a moment, Lukas wonders if he will lose himself forever if he doesn't follow. Now. By the moment of totality. He wonders this and he feels a surge of panic, but he bites that back, too, like all the others, and his hand firms on Sinclair's shoulder.

"Listen to me," he says, quiet and low. "Listen to me. No one can force this on you. Not even Perun, or Cockroach, or Luna, or Gaia herself. If you don't want it anymore, there are ways for you to renounce all that you are. To let this cup pass from you.

"But Sinclair, listen to me: that is not what Gaia asked of you. She asked you to stand up and sacrifice yourself, sacrifice everything in the end, so that she can live. So that everything good that you love can live. And she didn't ask this of you to hurt you, or to crush you. She asked this of you because you are strong enough."

[Katherine Bellamonte] Every step brings Gwen closer.

She feels that little pulse again, little surges like electricity at her fingertips; setting her hair on end. It's the same kind of sensation that comes from stepping into the Umbral realm. White Wolf turns its massive head and stares into the Cub's eyes. It has no real mannerisms to suggest its form; it does not wag its tail, nor flick an ear. Its eyes are solid; absolute.

The warmth it radiates is intoxicating.

--

When Lukas speaks; the Voice rushes around him like a blast of wind, rustling the leaves on a wintry day.

[Adamidas] She should be panicking.

She should be clawing at the walls, pacing, screaming, railing, wanting this all to go away. She should want it all back. She should be outraged at the mere idea that someone could take this from her. Take away a very vital, very pivotal piece of her being. Alethea should feel naked, she should feel concerned, she should feel lost. The fact of the matter is, though, that she isn't. She doesn't. The Fury isn't lost or confused or anything.

The path is different, the dance is the same. Some part of her was afraid that some vital, valuable part of herself could be taken away. Her throat hurts, it aches to swallow right now just from memory. But she isn't afraid, instead she moves with the confidence and the insistence that she is used to. It's a strength of purpose that drives her, and without her connection to Gaia pulling her in one direction, without her rage silently clawing at whatever it can get its hands on, all she has is her will.

Resolute.

And right now, it's all she is, and the fact that her connection to that hasn't waned keeps her going. She steps forward and stays with the cub. She is not afraid or nervous because her will is strong, and they will figure out what is going on.

"Lead," she tells the white wolf, "and we will follow."

[Gwen Sullivan] Adamidas is at her side. Lukas and Asha, Sinclair and Kate, they all stay inside the lodge room, stuck for some reason that Gwen isn't paying a lot of attention to. Someone was reluctant, someone was missing themselves. She'd be soaking up every detail in a typical situation, but right now it was impossible to pay mind to the world outside of her immediate proximity and the Wolf. The Kinfolk across the way? All but invisible, lost in the glow of the Wolf.

The warmth is beautiful. It was golden, it smelled heady like wine, beautiful like a bouquet, and tasted sweet and thick like honey. She spoke to Adamidas, and it was lucky she was near otherwise her words would have been lost-- Gwen breathes them more than she speaks them. "Is that Luna?"

From the mouths of babes, they say.

Adam tells the Wolf to lead, and Gwen steps forward after a brief glance left and right for incoming vehicles (some small semblance of sense remained) before stepping out and approaching the apparition.

[Sinclair] Sinclair's shoulder tenses under Lukas's hand, against the way Asha brushes against her. She doesn't jerk away from either of them, but the contact doesn't seem to ease whatever pain comes with being torn in half and choosing which half to let go of. Lukas tells her, twice, to listen to him, and she bristles, looking away.

He gives her a really great speech. A very Ahroun speech, a very leaderly speech, about Gaia and sacrifice and being strong, and Sinclair shakes her head. She shakes him off. She gives him a Look. "Fuck Gaia, Lukas," she says, those tears and that makeup drying on her face.

"Gaia never asked. She made me this, and it took away everything else. If what she wants are willing soldiers, then this is my answer: no. My mandatory tour's over. I'm done," she says, her voice cracking on the last two words. "But you know what? That fucker out there just told me that this is who I am. That it can't be changed. So my thinking is, when all this is over I'm going to wake up a wolf again, whether I understand or not, whether I want it or not. Whether I'm 'strong enough' or not."

Her eyes go back to the window, staring out at that Wolf.

"Go," she tells Lukas. "It's not going to wait forever."

[Asha Singh] "I know what those things feel like. But sometimes things trick you, make you think they're right when they're wrong. And if they're wrong those two are going to get eaten up, -rhya." There's an urgency in Asha's voice; she doesn't have Lukas voice and doesn't repeat his assurance that Sinclair is strong enough. It feels almost - insulting, to reassure a werewolf of her strength, and she cannot bring her throat to make whatever words might be suggested by the idea - renunciation, surrender. Give this up.

"We're stronger together than apart, and we can't leave them alone out there." With an urgent roll of Asha's eyes, suggesting - something of her opinion. "Come - on." With that, a brief, direct look at Lukas. "We need you. Let's go.."

[Sinclair] "To be honest, Asha," Sinclair says quietly, her voice steadier now than it was a moment ago, "you guys are stronger without me right now."

She always tells the truth. No matter how brutal. No matter how shameful.

[Katherine Bellamonte] When Gwen and Adamidas approach the great white Wolf and tell it to lead; it gets to its massive feet; it's chest at the tops of their heads; its paws the size of craters. It looks down on them, and while it cannot be a smile; the feel of one is suddenly around them, they can hear the distant sound of laughter; and intense warmth floods them.

They begin to emit a glow; it becomes blinding in short order.

Standing amongst her pack-mates; Katherine makes a noise, it is a short soft oh; her lips shaping surprise, her mouth rounding around the words. "Sinclair, it's --" she fades before she can conclude her thought. So too, does Gwen and Adamidas.

--

The moon continues to darken.

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas doesn't look away from Sinclair, except for a single slice of his eyes toward Asha. He shakes his head.

"We're stronger together than apart," he repeats, affirms, "and that's why we're going together, as a pack, or not at all. Sinclair, you've always told me the truth, even when it wasn't pretty or nice or pleasant. So I'm going to do the same for you right now and tell you:

"You're being selfish.

"You might have spent your whole life so far giving and giving and never asking a thing for yourself, but that doesn't negate that you're being selfish right now. It doesn't make it all right for you to say, fine, I'm done, I've given enough. I quit.

"I'm sorry I'm saying this, but I have to. To give is why you exist. It's why we all exist. Gaia doesn't want willing soldiers. She wants sacrifices. That's why she made us."

A beat.

"But that doesn't mean we can't find good things along the way. That doesn't mean we shouldn't hold on to what good we have. And -- Christ, I know right now it feels like it'll be easier if you just give it all up, throw it all in Gaia's face and go be a ... a human or something, but Sinclair, you have a pack. You have brothers and sisters that love you and need you. You have a family that you need, too. And I promise you, if you turn your back now, you will regret it. Not because of Gaia, or because of fate, but because you'll be severing the last real bond you have.

"You heard the Wolf. You are what you are. You can deny it, but it won't change what you were made to be. And it won't change what your spirit will always long to be."

[Sinclair] "Stop," Sinclair says, like a plea, when she looks at Lukas again. "For fuck's sake, you're not helping me right now.

"We don't know if what's out there is good or bad. Our wolves are gone and whatever this thing is, it's hurting us if we try to resist listening to it. I know that right now you feel like the right thing to do is listen, and go. I know that you don't want to go without me and I know you believe every word about duty and being chosen and sacrifice. I've given you the same sort of speech, Wyrmbreaker. And when I did, you said 'okay'. Every time it feels like a choice presents itself to you, you've made it, and you've done it with all your heart.

"Listen to me," Sinclair says. "Every good thing I've had, every good thing I've found, has gone away because of what I am." She points outside. "If whatever is out there is Gaia or Luna or some spirit thereof, then all I want to say to them is that I am sick of being jerked around. If being what I am means slowly getting so angry and so embittered that I hate the very thing I'm supposed to save, then let me pretend for tonight that I have a choice. Don't tell me what I am or what my spirit wants, and don't be one more shard of Gaia reminding me of how alone I really am."

There's a pause there. He may think that wasn't what he was saying, how could she feel that he's just reminding her of that? And Sinclair, reading it on his face or imagining the question being seeded, shakes her head. "I love you and Kate and Asha, Lukas, but lately I feel just as alone around all of you as I do otherwise.

"So look: maybe when this is over I'll still be Garou. And I'll take my shame with my head up like I always do and I'll live with the consequences like I always have. But I didn't choose to be this. I would never have chosen this life. And I won't choose it now. If the wolf comes back to me, let it come the way it did the first time I Changed. And if it doesn't, then okay: then I'm done. I'll live with the consequences of that, too."

A beat. This is a plea, too, as aching as the one for him to just let be, only it isn't selfishness -- or whatever it is that makes her cling to the windowsill like she does -- but something else. The truth of what she said a moment ago: she does, in fact, love him. "Now go, for fuck's sake, before you lose your soul forever or some shit. Please."

[Wyrmbreaker] There's a twist of pain on Lukas's face, and something else, too: incomprehension; an utterly inability to understand how or why someone could do as Sinclair does. Choose otherwise. Choose to deny ... what? Gaia; fate; herself. The Wolf.

Then she says: I feel just as alone around all of you. And that, he understands. Because he doesn't everything else -- he understands this.

It doesn't wipe the frown from his face entirely. It does quell it a little, though. Lukas reaches out -- wolf or no wolf, his hands are as warm as ever, and he takes Sinclair's face in his palms. Kisses her forehead, firmly, like a blessing or a brand or a goodbye or a see-you-later or --

kisses her forehead, and then draws away.

"Okay," he says. And then he looks at Asha, and he nods as though in affirmation. "Okay. Let's go."