[ender of names] The last time the moon was like this, Lukas was a child. Seven years and almost three months old, and of an age where he would describe his age as such: seven and one-quarter years old. His English had progressed rapidly. Better than Anezka's, even, though not for lack of her intelligence or effort. He was just younger, his brain a little more flexible. Always a rambunctious child, noisy, joyful, that March came and on the full moon something started to twist inside of him.
Of course the rage was always there, the Change waiting for him years on the horizon. But perhaps that first perigee -- when the moon was so full, and so close, and when his blood was roaring in his ears -- was when his mother and father noticed that in some fundamental way, their son was different. Not just different from other little boys, or from his sister. But from them. From all Kin.
It was over the course of that year that another Shadow Lord youngster's rage was growing too much for him to restrain any longer. It was over the course of that year that they began to disentangle themselves from the Musils, less because of Vladislav's impending Change and more because it was becoming more and more obvious by the day that Lukas's life was going to go on a very different track than they'd ever expected. They accepted fewer invitations. They saw Miloslav and his two children less. They did it all respectfully, carefully, politely, and perhaps, in hindsight
it was all for the best.
Tonight marks the equinox. Tonight marks the full moon. Lukas knows full well that, as on the night of the eclipse, Danicka's ...'church', for lack of a better word, is meeting. He's never asked and she doesn't talk much about those pagans she spends time worshipping with unless he asks, but he might have some inkling of Danicka's influence on them as far as guiding their devotions goes. The spiritual attention paid to Luna, the real work done for Gaia as opposed to dancing around naked and talking about poetry.
She won't be home til late, she told him on the phone earlier. Past midnight, probably. She'll meet him at the den when it's all over. There's no wariness in her voice when they talk, no fear of him, no concern that he's going to go off and do something truly stupid. But it's there, underneath the surface; tonight is different. He can feel it. She can hear it in his voice. So she won't be home til late. And he won't go to her until he knows it's safe. Sometimes they're overcareful. Sometimes their caution is more than warranted. It isn't that they want to be separated.
But it's for the best.
Stepping out into the moonlight for the first time, Lukas lifts his eyes to his moon in the sky. It's as large-looking as possible now, right at moonrise. Like he could reach out and touch it. Like he could walk down the road and step onto it, cross over the gap of dark sky and vanish into its light. It dazzles his eyes as he looks, seeming somehow bright enough to make his pupils constrict against the brightness. His skin tingles, the hairs on the back of his neck and forearms rising up. His heart starts to pound.
For a moment the world turns upside down. Flips on its end, and if he's not careful he's going to slide down the incline, scrambling up towards that rising moon, clawing at the earth to keep himself from falling into emptiness. The moon doesn't whisper, but she laughs softly, and at the sound of it, this ghostly murmur of amusement he may very well be imagining,
the soul that hasn't known a moon like this since childhood roars in answer. Rage rushes through him like a drug hitting his system, but it's not like the pot he's had, not like the Ecstasy, not anything his physical body has ever endured before.
For a moment, it feels like this much rage could kill him. Split his organs at the seams, crack his bones from within, shatter his skin, leave him nothing but blood and fire and ruin. A walking, soulless personification of fury. Some part of him screams, trying to hold it all together. Some part of him, though
likes it.
Last year around this time, he dug a grave for winter. He watched other Garou try and succeed, not try and fail, trial after trial, gate after gate. He came to his own and was told he could not fail. He could not have this choice made for him. For all he knew, they would have been stuck in the underworld forever had he failed. Had he faced the sacrifice asked of him and been unable to follow through. This time last year, he was shown small ones who called him tatínek!, who had her smile or his bone structure or his eyes or her sharp chin, and all he had to give up, all he had to offer them, was what he'd foresworn years ago:
His life. Having it, living it, as deeply and fully as if he were not a walking dead man. Having not just his mate and not just a den and not just cubs but living with her, in it, with them. Risking everything, risking the worst that could happen, risking becoming like Danicka's horrific brother and terrifying mother, destroying everything he loved
so that he could love it all more. Which is always the risk, really. Even if you aren't, well. A monster.
Lukas lowers his eyes again. And he isn't in Chicago. The smells are different. The street he's on isn't the one he was standing on before. His clothes are the same, the dark uniform he wears when he hunts. The stars overhead tell him it's still springtime, or almost. It's cold, though, as cold as Chicago can be when winter still clings. The rage still thrashes in him, claws at him as though it won't relent til he shifts, til he rips something's head off. But for a moment, it flickers in confusion, then roars back full throttle: he's standing on a narrow street between two seemingly endless walls of row homes. Nice ones. Nice enough that many of them have little yards in back. Gardens. Trees.
It's still moonrise. Luna is full and enormous. The moon is speechless now, as quiet as the street he stands on. Til he hears something behind him, on the other side of the street. It's a bicycle. And on the bicycle is the sort of little girl who would be affronted to be called that, because she's in the fourth grade already.
Her hair is waist-long, even in the two braids it's been put in -- they're fraying. It's too cold for it, but her skinny legs are in a knee-length skirt, her feet in folded-over socks and a pair of old Mary Janes. There's no cutesy thing about it -- these are not patent, shiny shoes some little girl would be proud to wear. They're old, and scuffed, and to a nine year old, embarrassing. She has on a thick sweater that doesn't quite go with the skirt, and though it would all look normal on a larger child, she's so thin. Sharp-chinned. Green-eyed. Fair-haired.
The smell of her is different. She's a child, not a full-grown woman. But he knows her. As instantly and instinctively as he felt that surge of rage when he looked at the moon, he knows her.
She's pedaling like a bat out of hell, and the skittish, observant girl he vaguely remembers who became the hypervigilant, intuitive woman he loves does not even seem to notice him. She reaches some acceptable point of acceleration and suddenly stands up on her pedals, coasting. She's going fast enough that her braids whip out behind her a bit.
[ender of names] [Lukas gains 3 Rage]
[Cold Victory] Since ancient times the moon has been a symbol of change, of cycles, of mutability and capriciousness. Sometimes near. Sometimes far. Sometimes bright, sometimes dark, and sometimes not there at all. And yet as much as the sun, as much as the earth's path around the sun, the moon sets the course of life on earth. Draws the tides. Delineates the pattern of a woman's womb.
Rules the Garou.
Tonight the moon is almost too large for Lukas to handle. He doesn't go near Danicka -- he doesn't explain it, doesn't spell it out, doesn't say I'm afraid I won't be able to control myself -- but perhaps she can feel it all the same. He sounds different on the phone. She tells him she'll be out with her group, those season-worshipping pagans. He tries not to imagine her dressed in colors of the earth, of the spring, her eyes verdant as grass, her body warm, welcoming, his
because imagining it would make it so much harder not to go to her. Here and now, the equinox, the first day of spring.
He hunts instead. He dresses in simple, dark clothes. He carries his talens and he carries his totem. His eyes are keen and his blood is hot, and he waits, he looks, he hunts for something to tear apart and shred, something with which he can quench the fire of his rage.
Because Rage isn't the same thing as anger. It's only called Rage because there's no better word for it, and no outlet so harrowing as violence, destruction, anger. But it runs deeper than that. It's a fire in the blood, a sharpening of the senses, until everything, every last little detail, is etched out in more intensity than he can bear. Everything is so sharp tonight. The night air -- fifty, sixty degrees this weekend, a tantalizing hint of the season to come -- cool on his skin, moving across his senses. The sound of cars three blocks away. The sharp smell of gasoline from the station down the street.
The light of the moon, so dazzling, so piercingly brilliant in his eyes
that he can't bear it, he can't hold it, he can't --
Lukas claps his hands to his head as though to hold back some monster, some athena of his own trying to burst from his skull. His jaws open wide but he doesn't scream; there's no room even for screaming, no breath left, nothing in him but that cold white light, flooding his veins with insubstantial silver. Just when he thinks he can't possibly contain it anymore, will surely burst and die from it -- or worse, become something else entirely the way he once became Garou --
it stops. The world rights itself. It's still moonrise, and the moon is still enormous and full as it is every eighteen years, and his rage is still pounding in his ears. But he's not in Chicago. He's on a residential street in the suburbs of another city entirely, a city so large that even here, miles from its heart, the houses are crammed cheek to jowl. The yards are tiny by midwestern standards; enormous by
new york he's in new york
the standards of this area.
The cars on the street look old, but not so old as they should look. Not enough wear and tear for the twenty-odd years their makes and models would suggest. And before Lukas can go toward the nearest to investigate,
Danicka, nine year old Danicka, is pedaling down the street on a bicycle.
For a moment he simply stands there, thunderstruck. Perhaps he's dreaming. Perhaps he's in the underworld again, called here by spirits and forces beyond his ken to fulfill some ritual, to give and to receive, to bring in the season. For another moment he wants to run at her calling, making contact with this one point of familiarity. Then he thinks how that would look, how a skittish nine year old girl might react to a full-grown man, six feet four inches tall, brimming over with rage, running at her on a twilight street, shouting her name. And he thinks, she might not even hear me
and watches her sail by. After another second, he turns to follow her -- walking, mostly, jogging to keep up if she gets too far ahead.
[ender of names] [Oh, my bad: she's ALMOST in fourth grade]
[Cold Victory] [P/A!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[ender of names] You'd think the girl who would jump and run to hide whenever his father raised his voice a notch would notice Lukas tonight even if he weren't running at her, shouting her name. You'd think she'd do something other than coast up on her feet on her bicycle pedals, weaving the bicycle back and forth, baaack and fooorth, hair and skirt flapping behind her as she enjoys the simple act of moving through the wind.
She's a child. And looking back he can almost remember her like this. They were about the same height, for gods' sake. He already knew not to roughhouse too much when they played because she was so much more fragile. She was a girl, of course. But she wasn't even as tough as Anezka, who was her same age, and Anezka could still sit on him sometimes.
Soon enough, Lukas has to start to jog. She stops coasting and starts pedaling again, increasing her speed all over again. It doesn't even seem like she's trying to get anywhere, unless she's trying to get home before bedtime. She's just... riding her bike around the neighborhood, apparently. There's no indication she sees him, or hears him chasing after her.
There's no indication that she sees the other things following her. Shadows, no more substantial than that, are following her from within the gated yards of the row homes she passes. They can move as quickly as she does, keeping never more than a few feet behind her. They lengthen as with late afternoon, shorten suddenly, then reach forward again. His senses give him no scent, only let him pick up on a feeling of patience, a sense that the shadows
are perfectly willing to bide their time a little while.
[Cold Victory] Lukas is so intent on the girl-Danicka that it's not until she's a good distance away and he's not merely jogging but flat-out running to keep up that he even sees the other things. Shadows, patient and foreboding, keeping pace in quick bursts and stretches, crossing gaps from one darkness to the next like thin rubber stretching, thick liquid dripping.
When he sees them, the hairs on the back of his neck come on end. Without a second's hesitation he leaps into his wolf-form, hits the asphalt on all fours. Now he's faster than a third grader on a bicycle, his paws grappling at the rough surface of the road, gaining steadily.
[ender of names] So on they go, the girl and the wolf and the shadows, for another block or so. Then There's a pop. And though he knows that sound, he knows the way the Gauntlet stretches, throbs, then breaks for a moment as someone steps through, but it's possible that the third grader on the bicycle notices before he does. She jams to a stop so fast on that bike that the wheels twist and skid to the side under her and drop her on her right side, scraping her knee and part of her leg on the asphalt.
She doesn't let out more than half a yelp, quickly bitten back behind lips that smack shut against the noise. Lukas smells her blood and there's a spike in that uncontrollable rage riding through him. The shadows gather nearby, hovering but not reaching for her.
And the Garou that just stepped through the Gauntlet stands between him and the girl who will not be his mate for a very, very long time. She's in homid but tall for a woman, dressed in a well-tailored suit of dark blue, a crisp shirt underneath. She wears no jewelry. Her hair is as fair as Danicka's, is in fact almost the same color. Her eyes are the same verdant green. Her face is, god. It's so much like Danicka's as a grown woman that for a moment he might think --
but she's a wolf. Rage is overflowing from her, seeming to fill the entire street, surround her like a corona. In the moonlight he can almost see its aura around her, just as easily as he can sense her authority. Her rank.
She is his equal.
Laura bares her teeth at him, snarling despite her form, a clear warning that needs no words to express itself. Behind her, Danicka is trying to make her shaky breathing as quiet as she can as she untangles herself from her tipped bicycle, fighting back tears with surprising expertise, holding her skirt bunched up in her fists so it doesn't get blood on it. She doesn't stay on the asphalt very long. She works on getting to her feet, bicycle crash or not.
[Cold Victory] Shock more than anything else brings Wyrmbreaker to a sharp halt. His claws skid on the asphalt. His tail swoops in a wide circle to maintain balance. He slams to a stop, sides heaving, eyes ice-pale as he looks at the woman, the wolf, the hero of his tribe that has been dead for more than a decade.
"You can see me." This is not a question, but he's surprised -- amazed -- nonetheless. "I'm ... here."
Wyrmbreaker shakes out his thick fur, rises from the ground in human shape. His heartrate, breathing, are both still ramped up from the run. A few more breaths. Then, "Are you a spirit?" His eyes flick over Laura's shoulder. He points at the shadows. "Can you see those things?"
[ender of names] Laura Dvorak died as an Athro. Her death elevated her to the status of an Elder. She looks very, very real. Real enough, in fact, that Danicka keeps looking over at her, flicking her eyes to where Laura is snarling. It seems like she's looking right at Lukas. But she isn't seeing him. Her eyes go back to her mother as she picks herself up.
"&+1052;&+1072;&+1090;&+1077;&+1088;&+1080;," she says, questioning, wary.
There's a rough growl, a thrash of Laura's head that makes Danicka drop her eyes to the asphalt and shut her mouth again. A split second and the other Ahroun's attention is back on Lukas. She takes his shift to homid as a sign of submission, it seems, because she does not snarl at him again. "&+1048;&+1076;&+1080; &+1076;&+1086;&+1084;&+1086;&+1081;, Danička. &+1048;&+1076;&+1080; &+1076;&+1086;&+1084;&+1086;&+1081; &+1089;&+1077;&+1081;&+1095;&+1072;&+1089;."
Instantly, Danicka drops her skirt and picks up her bike and starts to wheel it away, limping. She's trembling, but there's no But --, no protest, nothing. She's obedient. Perfectly.
Laura has not answered his questions. But she does, as her daughter starts to head home. Her voice is low. "I am no spirit," she says, in the accent of a clipped New Englander. "And yes, I can see you. I can see them. They have bodies in the Umbra, but they move faster there. Too fast," she tells him.
She narrows her eyes. "Who are you? Why are you shocked that I can see you? Why were you after my daughter?"
[Cold Victory] "To protect her."
He answers the last question first because its answer comes most easily, most instinctively to his tongue. A couple more breaths, in and out, slowing and steadying and quieting with each cycle. There's more rage in his body than he knows what to do with. It strains at the seams of his mind; it makes it hard for him to hold Night Warder's eyes -- because the beast in him rises to this provocation, wants to retaliate.
So he closes his for a moment, trying to pull his thoughts together, think.
"I am," he says, "called Wyrmbreaker. Cold Victory. Adren Ahroun of the Shadow Lords ... same as you. Except the you I know, if you are who I think you are, is an Elder, and long dead. And the me you know is still a boy."
He's not making any sense. He opens his eyes, blazingly blue, grasps his words like a man grasps a weapon. When he speaks again, he's level, calm.
"My name is Lukáš Kvasnička. On March 19th, 2011, which is today's date as far as I know, I'm twenty-five years old and mated to a woman named Danička Musil." He draws a breath, points where the girl has gone. "When I was about her age, a little younger," he says, "I was friends with a girl that looked just like her. And a woman, a Shadow Lord Ahroun that looked just like you, was her mother.
"I think you are her mother. I think you're Night Warder. And I think I'm in the past... somehow.
"And I'm shocked you can see me because your daughter couldn't. And because until you saw me, I thought I'd somehow strayed into the Battleground Realm, or some other realm of the Umbra, or that I was dreaming. And because I'm terrified now that if I do something, inadvertently change something, I'll ruin everything that ever happens after this."
[ender of names] The question that came last to Night Warder's voice is the first one he answers, and perhaps the most important one he could have responded to. It doesn't make the female's proverbial hackles go down. It doesn't relax her. She watches him just as warily, but it was a good answer, and not one he had to think about. That may mean something to her. It might very well mean everything.
His names and rank come -- she could smell his blood, see it in his wolf-form and again in his man-shape. Her teeth go on edge, though, as he starts talking nonsensically. In another body, she would bark at him.
An Elder. Long dead. That sticks in her mind. The bit about him still being a boy -- that just doesn't mean anything.
Then he gives his human name, and her brow furrows. He's seen that exact look on Danicka's face before, when she's puzzled and yet curious, never hitting confusion and backing away, only working harder to figure it out. He's twenty-five in the year ...2011. Which means she's dead by then. Long dead. He's mated to --
Laura's jaw flexes. He says her name. He says he's in the past. He says many things besides that, and when he's done, she gives a nod. "This way," is her answer, as she turns and begins to walk in the direction Danicka just wheeled her bicycle. They walk right over the specks of the little girl's blood on the asphalt. The shadows haunting the girl's footsteps have vanished.
"I am Night Warder, Summit's Lightning, Ender of Names," she tells him, by way of confirmation. Daniela Musil is my daughter. I have heard the name Kvasnička." She looks over at him for a moment, considering. "I looked into the family when my mate asked for permission to invite you to my home."
Not our home.
"But they are all Kinfolk." This is unequivocal; it is not a question. "No mystic has ever even tested their children to see if they will Change. It's a good bloodline, but not one that's had many Garou born to it recently." A faint smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. "My son says that Danka should be mated to the boy one day, since she is afraid of Garou. He has much to learn."
They can see Danicka up ahead. Not so fast now, limping along with her bicycle. Laura could overtake her; they both could, even on foot. Easily. They do not. Ten, twelve feet behind her, sometimes more, but always keeping her in sight.
"I do not know if you are real, or if you are from the future. You may be a spirit yourself. You do not smell of the Wyrm." Ultimately, she is simply... practical. "You are a shade, though. You can see the shadows that follow her, though she can't see you and they seemed to take no notice of you. You wish to protect her. For now, you may enter my territory and aid me in my hunt. If you are an honorable wolf, alive or dead, real or spirit, you will submit to my leadership and protect my mate and son as well if necessary. Or you can leave, or you can challenge me."
Her eyes move to him again, cold. "And should you do so, we will discover how corporeal you really are, won't we?"
[Cold Victory] I know who you are, Lukas wants to say when the names come. I know your stories better than you do, even the ones you haven't lived yet. I know all the names you'll earn for the rest of your life, and in your death.
He wonders if he shouldn't have said that now. Elder. Long-dead. He wonders if he's changing the past simply by living it; he thinks of all those books he read as a boy, thinks of the Bradbury story, A Sound of Thunder. He tries to put it out of his mind. Tries to move with the present as an animal does, reacting and acting, tries not to overplan, overthink, freeze.
He quells the jolt of sick fear when she voices the possibility: maybe he's the emanation. The spirit. The dream. Maybe it's all someone else's dream,
waiting to wake.
"I am the boy," he says, quiet and even. "I did not remain Kinfolk.
"This is your territory, Night Warder, your hunt." Your time, he doesn't say. "I will follow you. And if I must challenge, it will be honorable, and it will not endanger your family. You have my word." He turns his eyes to the shadows then, nodding at the nearest. "What are they?"
[ender of names] His submission is formal, and she seems to respect it as such. She is a bit of a formal creature herself, in flat shoes and a well-cut suit rather than something more athletic. The way she walks, though, suggests the same sort of strength and grace he carries in his own form. She's slighter than he is, but more settled in her rank. She's older. Fourteen years ago, still a Cliath, she gave birth to her first child, and in the five years that passed between Vladislav and Daniela she lost others because the War came first. The War always came first. Nine years ago came the girl who is her mirror image. She was a Fostern then.
Laura gained in rank slowly, methodically. Lost little renown but spent long periods lying in wait for those glorious moments that catapulted her forward. The stories he knows of her paint her as not cunning but brilliant, a strategist and Alpha known neither for pride nor humilty but renowned for sheer fury and battle, a child of the storm itself.
He could tell her You will be called Breaks the Sky. The name of the Galliard who gave that name to you when you achieved the rank of Athro is lost, but that name isn't. That name is remembered.
But he shouldn't. And doesn't.
What he tells her is the truth, though. That they were wrong, that he did grow up and Change. Doesn't tell her the future: that soon enough their families will part ways and he won't see her again til he's a Cub, til one of those rare occasions when she deigned to drop into Stark Falls on some rallying mission. One of those speeches about a fight, about everyone going to war together. God, she was a leader, they say. They don't talk about the backbiting and resistance she faced every time. They talk about the glory falling on those who did follow her. They don't talk about the ones who followed her and never came back.
"You know as well as I do," she says to the question. "My son came home and told me about them. He, apparently, can see them, but he will soon be a Cub, and he is a Theurge. My daughter was out, so I went to find her and bring her home. My pack tells me there are others, following their Kin. No one has been able to engage them yet. Here they are not physical and can only be seen by a few; on the other side, they move too quickly. My Theurge is working on it."
Up ahead he sees Danicka turn her bike on the sidewalk, holding it with one hand and opening a gate with the other. She glances back and again it feels like she's looking right at him. No, she's looking at Laura. Then away again, wheeling her bicycle into the yard and around to the side of the yard, chaining it to a pipe next to another bicycle, a larger one. Neither bike is very new, but they're in okay shape. By the time Laura and Lukas reach the gate where he stood and waited for Danicka to come outside after he challenged Vladik for her, the little girl is walking up the concrete steps to the front door. She grabs the knob and heaves it open. He hears voices from inside. Someone, young, snapping at Danicka,
"What did you do to yourself!"
Her response, if there is one, is too quiet for Lukas to hear.
Laura pauses at the gate and turns to him. "Should you challenge me while standing in the center of my territory, the spirit guardians of my house will attack you with as much fury as I will." She seems to have no doubt he will accept the warning -- perhaps even appreciate the honesty -- and proceeds to walk through the gate, up the path towards the still-ajar door.
The house is much the same. Younger, and not as bleak-seeming as it was that October when he came here as an adult. Bicycles around the side. A couple of pieces of furniture that are growing old, aren't the same as they will be eighteen years from now. Danicka's shoes are by the door, next to a pair of sneakers that surely belong to her teenaged brother. Vladislav is in the living room, jeans and a brown button-down shirt, tall and skinny and lean and utterly awkward with adolescence, his head looking a little misshappen and his haircut awful. He's frowning, but this young it's not hard to see through his aggravation to something approaching panic.
He is reaming Danicka out. First for being out so late -- it's barely past seven -- and then for being out alone, then for crashing her bike and getting hurt. Miloslav is there, but quiet, silent as he helps Danicka over to the rocking chair, handing her a wet cloth. She starts to clean the blood up herself, wiping carefully from ankle upward. Miloslav lets her do it. She is very calm, and tries very hard to be attentive to her brother's scolding.
Laura enters, and the only person talking whips his head around. "Mother!" He does not look at Lukas. Neither does anyone else.
Laura exhales, looking vaguely annoyed, but does not explain to her son that Danicka only fell because she was startled by Laura's appearance. The rage in the room is oppressive with her standing there. Her annoyance is something like lightning striking the carpet. Danicka's hands are shaking, and Lukas can see her jaw go a little tight as she ducks her head and gently brushes crumbs of asphalt out of her scraped leg.
"There is something hunting Kin tonight," she says flatly, laying it out. "None of you are to leave the house until the threat has been resolved." Her eyes move to her son. She doesn't say it, but it's easy enough to understand the glance: Not even you.
The teenager is affronted, but holds his tongue. Laura watches them all a moment, but not a single one of them has glanced at the stranger she's brought with her. Without a word, she turns and walks back outside with Lukas, shutting the door behind her.
"Interesting."
[Cold Victory] Lukas doesn't know what he imagined when Danicka told him about her mother. Pieces cobbled together from her stories, the stories he heard, the few memories he had from childhood -- a beast of war, an unrelenting foe, an iron monster, a creature that threw her mate through walls, terrorized her daughter as much as she tried to protect her.
He did not expect the honesty; the hard honor. He doesn't know why he didn't expect it when he knew she became an Elder in death, and that rank is not attained by honorless Ahrouns -- but he didn't.
Inside the house, Lukas stands there. The animal that is his rage -- the animal that is his own self -- roars to see the brother shouting at the sister. It takes real effort not to break his promise to Night Warder, then and there. He remains where he is, though, closer to the door than to the kin and the young Theurge-to-be. Laura gives orders.
Lukas puts his hand on the wall of the house. On the credenza by the door. He tries to see if they're solid, if he can touch them. In that moment of silence, he picks keys up off that little cabinet -- if he can -- and drops them deliberately on the floor.
And Lukas watches to see if the others notice.
[ender of names] The wall is as real as the asphalt under his feet was. The keys, when he touches them, jingle and crash as they fall to the ground. Danicka is the first to look up, a split second before her father and brother do. Laura just sighs, deliberately not looking at him, then looks pointedly at the door before walking through it. She doesn't bend to pick up the keys. Miloslav, eventually, does that.
[Cold Victory] "They don't see me at all." This, after the door has closed behind them. "None of them, not even your son."
A pause.
"What do you see when you look at me?"
[ender of names] Laura gives him a Look. Maybe it was the bit with the keys. Maybe she's just agitated. He knows that feeling. Being outside it's stronger; he doesn't have a heartbeat, he has rage pulsing in him. He doesn't have a body, he has a weapon he isn't using. He isn't standing on the porch of the house where he first met his mate, he's standing in the middle of a war he's not fighting. It makes no sense to him, on some physical, spiritual level, that he isn't shedding blood right now.
From the look of things, Laura's close to ripping his head off, too. Just because he's there. Just because they both want to try. God, even some part of his mind is wondering if he could take her. They're both Adren Ahrouns. He knows there are other Adren Ahrouns he could tear apart, Perun at his back and this much rage riding him. Some vicious little predator inside of him wants to know who'd win. Just wants to --
Laura doesn't go after him, though. Lukas doesn't go after her. They keep themselves in check. Creatures of honor. Of restraint. Of control.
"Male, early to mid twenties, between six-four and six-six. Short black hair, blue eyes. Slight growth of facial hair, also black. Caucasian, but not pale." A beat. "Your nose is a bit pointy. Black clothes, muscular. Wearing a black ring on the third finger of your left hand. No visible scars, tattoos, piercings or other adornment. Why?"
[Cold Victory] Lukas realizes how absurd this sounds even as he's saying it, and that absurdity scrapes against his pride even as that vicious little predator in him eggs it on: "And I'm not ... translucent, or incorporeal-seeming in any way?"
[Cold Victory] [er. "eggs that same pride on." -- I CAN USE PRONOUNS.]
[ender of names] "Not at all," she says. "If you really have come from the future, I can't imagine why you are anything but visible. I do not know why I alone can see you."
She heads down the front steps. "For now I must trust --"
Stops, glances back. There's a curtain falling back into place in one of the front windows. For a moment, Laura's face and eyes soften in a way no picture of her, no mental image of her, ever has. She looks, for a flicker of time, a little amused. A little tender.
It's gone when she looks back to Lukas, continues her sentence: "-- that the spirit guardians of my house will be enough. Come. We'll cross over and run to meet my packmates, see what my Theurge has learned."
[Cold Victory] There was a time when Lukas was a very good Beta. The truth is he was never a Beta, not at heart; there was always dominance in him, and beyond that, the sheer vision and desire to lead of an Alpha. But nonetheless: he was a good Beta, and he was a good Beta for many, many years.
As high as his rage flares, it's not impossible for him to control his instincts; submit to Night Warder's leadership. It helps that he doesn't know what the fuck is going on right now. It also helps that he knows of her; he knows what she'll become. It's hard for him not to think of her, even now, even standing on level footing with her, as Night-Warder-rhya, nobly deceased warrior of the Tribe.
"I have the Gift to summon stormcrows," he mentions. "With your permission, I'll leave one as a sentry at your home. It's not very strong, but it can come find us if your home is attacked."
[ender of names] Laura gives a nod. "Thank you." A beat. "Stormcrows can be... unsavory," she says, with respect to the offer, and to the spirit that will soon be watching her home. "It will leave them alone?"
[Cold Victory] "I'll leave it with orders to watch for Wyrm and report to us at the first sign of danger. Nothing more or less. Generally, the stormcrows have been obedient."
So it's decided, and that's what they do. They cross into the Umbra, where Cold Victory expends a little of his -- plentiful, for an Ahroun -- Gnosis to call to him one of Thunder's crows. It's a bit of a surprise that one shows up at all; some part of him thought it might not work. Not here, not now.
The black bird-spirit cocks its head, attentive, listening, as its task is explained. It croaks in disappointment as extracurricular mischief is forbidden. Then, taking wing, it circles overhead once, twice, caw!ing, before taking a perch at the highest point on the roof, watchful.
Wyrmbreaker shifts back into his wolf-form, looking to Night Warder to lead him toward the rest of her pack. When she runs, he follows, half-a-length behind and to the right.
[Cold Victory] [in case you want it!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 6, 7 (Failure at target 6)
[ender of names] Laura stares down the Stormcrow as it is summoned. Her glare is baleful as the Wyrm's own fire, arms crossed over her chest. No one on this street is out tonight. No house parties, no walking couples. It's always been a quiet neighborhood, but perhaps they sense the wolves out tonight, sense the danger of the moon being so close. Nobody is looking out their windows.
The house is not new construction by any means but as far as the spirit world is concerned, all of these houses are young. It's less saturated in color than it is in the realm. He can hear the oak creaking in the back yard. He can see the glass spirits in the windows glistening, glinting. Laura is an Adren and she has -- or she has had her Theurge -- awaken many spirits here. It is well guarded. It is watched. There are dark clouds overhead in the umbra.
They shift, and as they run away from the house that both of them long to protect, Laura leads the way. They run for a distance that may seem shorter than expected, but it may only feel that way because of how the rage burns in him. Suddenly there's another wolf, coming out of the shadows -- seemingly appearing out of nowhere -- and starting to run alongside Laura, nipping at her side. She snarls at it but doesn't turn on the smaller, younger male. He falls back a bit and gives a tongue-lolling grin to Lukas, barks a hello. Then they are three sleek black wolves, all charging up towards an old factory.
Jesus. How far did they run?
In the umbra, he can see its guardians, too. He can see shrines to various spirits the pack has made deals with, to their totem, to Grandfather Thunder. He can see runes and glyphs painted and carved into the walls of the factory, drawn in polished stones on the ground outside. The new wolf with them howls as they approach:
Alpha comes with a new wolf, Adren Full Moon. His name is Cold Victory. He has submitted to Alpha. Says he is from the future. Is not wearing red vest. Does not have car or crazy old man with him.
They head towards a loading bay door, large and square and metal, and Laura doesn't pause. They run right through it, as though it's nothing more than mist.
[Cold Victory] When the third wolf joins them, Wyrmbreaker turns his head toward it with a sort of wary uncertainty half expecting it not to see him either. But he does. He lolls his tongue out in greeting. Wyrmbreaker's ears swivel forward at the bark, which he returns in a low chuff.
Then they run on. On and on and on - across half the city, perhaps, until that factory rears up out of the umbral landscape. Lukas holds pace with the others even as he cranes his head up to look at the spirits crouched watchful on the eaves, on the lightposts.
Funny, he retorts at the other male -- and then they plunge through a steel door in a sudden burst of cold, of metallic taste on the tongue. On the other side, Lukas slows to a trot, then a walk, turning a slow circle before snapping back to his homid form.
[ender of names] Laura does not seem startled, but it's obvious when she glances back at Lukas for a moment that she is surprised -- or at least she noticed -- that her packmate had no trouble seeing Lukas. Did not hesitate to ask her about him.
They run through the bay door, or the place where the bay door is in reality, and Laura slows as well. Inside it is mostly concrete. Urban spirits litter the place, mostly quiet and benign, a few Awakened as guards. There, as Lukas shifts to his birth form, Laura does as well. The other wolf pauses a moment before following. He's got grunge-era long black hair and a flannel on over a ratty t-shirt and jeans, his boots unlaced, but he holds himself with the bearing of a Fostern. He's in his mid-twenties, just like Lukas. He has sharp blue eyes, just like Lukas. He's got tattoos on his forearms, bared by rolled-up sleeves. He's got a lightning bolt charm on a cord around his neck. His breeding far outstrips Laura's, but then, so does Lukas's.
However irreverent. Holding up a hand in greeting, he says: "Call of Thunder, Fostern Galliard. Name's Shelby." Drops his hand, shoving them in his pockets. "So if Alpha's mate and cubs can't see you, how come I can?" he asks, the question curious, light, his manner cheerful. Laura, for her part, has walked a few feet from them and given a sharp whistle. The ether that swirls around the packhouse like thin fog brushes aside at the sound, and a crinos-formed monster begins to move slowly on all fours towards them from the surrounding darkness.
As Lukas answers -- if indeed he does -- that crinos comes near Laura and sits on its haunches. Black-furred, of course. One half of his face is scarred, a bulging white orb where a sighted eye once was. The other eye is gray and intelligent, placid as the surface of a sea that holds sleeping monsters of legend. There are metal bands around his upper arms, inscribed with glyphs. There is a sash from shoulder to waist across his chest, as black as his fur, fingerbones and other bone bits sewn into the fabric. From the way he walks it's evident enough that he has either the rank of his Alpha, or at least the renown to challenge for it. He makes no sound as he walks. He makes no sound as he speaks to Laura.
[Cold Victory] Back in homid, Lukas looks exactly the way he had earlier: black fleece pullover with a zip-collar; black athletic pants. He looks tall; he looks muscular; he looks like an ex-college athlete now playing for the pros. A goddamn dumb jock. A small, absurd part of him wishes he'd dressed better. Worn something that befits an Adren with three Alphaships. Worn something more appropriate to meet the mother of his mate.
Ridiculous.
His attention swings down from the rafters as the Galliard introduces himself. Lukas would have guessed as much: Fostern, Dancing Moon. He nods to the name.
"Lukáš," he says, the one piece of his introduction not yet given. "I don't know why you can see me. Maybe it's because you're Garou; maybe it's because you're supposed to see me the same way I'm supposed to be here. Or maybe -- well. I've never seen a record of this night. I've never heard about it -- not from the Galliards of the tribe, not from Danička. So if I really am in my own past, then maybe whatever's brought me here is protecting ... time, or something, by blinding those who shouldn't see me to my presence. Keeping me from affecting what I shouldn't be able to. At least I hope that's the case, because otherwise I'm changing my world right now with every breath I take.
"I don't know why I'm here, though, or where 'here' is. All I know is this. I read that it's the perigee of the moon tonight. Its closest pass to the earth. And it's a full moon. It's like that in your world and it was like that in mine. All I can surmise is that somehow that linked our worlds -- my future to your past, or maybe my parallel universe to yours, or my Gaia-realm to yours. And I'm linked to your Alpha because eighteen years from now, I am -- or will be -- mated to her daughter. When I ... got here, there were shadows following her, and your Alpha speaks of things hunting kin. As far as I can tell, maybe I was brought here to help."
[ender of names] It's hard to say what Laura is thinking of him now. If he's anything more than an Adren Ahroun here to aid her pack. If she's pondering the fact that he says she's dead in his time, that he's mated to her daughter, that skittish, terrified thing that ducks her head every time she enters the room. If she wonders what sort of a mate he is, eighteen years from the curly-haired boy who only submits to a bath and nice clothes and nice shoes so that he can go play in Mr. Musil's yard and mostly likes Danicka because she speaks Czech and has some neat toys to play with.
It's hard to say if it would matter at all if he'd worn something nicer. He's a goddamn Ahroun. He's mated to a woman named Danicka Musil, and it's not like saying he's mated to Jennifer Smith. He's mated to the daughter of Night Warder. This is her cub's mate, filled to the brim with rage. She must wonder if he beats her. How hard. How often. If they're even proper mates or if he just comes over to impregnate her every so often. She must wonder if she has grandchildren.
Not that it matters. She's dead anyway.
Though if Laura is wondering any of it, thinking any of it, it doesn't show. She rarely looks at Lukas. She talks to her Theurge as Call of Thunder introduces himself, as Lukas answers the Galliard's curiosity with possibilities.
In the end, Shelby just nods. "So...here's a question. Not to ignore the very important topic of the shadow-things hunting Kin, but have you and I ever met? Like, in your past. My future."
[Cold Victory] Whatever Laura is pondering right now, Lukas is already regretting -- bitterly -- the things that burst out of his mouth the first time he laid on the woman that was so utterly the image of his mate that she could only be Night Warder. He shouldn't have, he thinks to himself. He shouldn't have told her she would be an Elder. He shouldn't have told her she would be dead.
So when Shelby asks, he shakes his head. "I can't tell you that," he says gently. "If I tell you yes, you might want to know what rank you are, where you're at, what you've done. If I tell you no, you'll probably wonder if it's because you're dead already. And for all I know I'm not even really from your future. Maybe it's alternate realities or something. Maybe I really am just a spiritual emanation who's dreamt up a whole life for himself.
"I think maybe it's best that we talk about where I'm from or what's going on in my world as little as possible. Not at all, if possible."
[Cold Victory] [LAID. EYES. ON.]
[ender of names] "No, that's not why I'm aski--" Shelby begins, as Lukas is saying you might want to know. But before he explains why he was asking, his head turns abruptly towards the Theurge and the Alpha.
Laura is staring at them. Shelby gives a shrug. She looks at Lukas then. "Shrieking Sky-yuf tells me that his sister is heading our way. My Ragabash is following her, and says that the shadows are gathering around her. She will lead them to us. Shrieking Sky-yuf believes he has a way to entrap them once they enter, but we will not know for sure until they arrive. It will be moments only. Prepare yourself," she tells Lukas, specifically. Shelby and Shrieking Sky, it seems, already are.
[Cold Victory] Lukas pauses when Shelby cuts in, and then Shelby pauses too, and into that silence comes Laura's voice. A plan. A strategy, from the mouth of Night Warder herself. There are Shadow Lords that would kill for the chance to stand in Lukas's shoes.
"Understood," is all he says. And he prepares, pulling to himself the talens and totems and gifts at his disposal.
[Cold Victory] [Shift: Hispo
Autoactive: Spirit of the Fray, Perun boons
-1 WP Resist Pain
-1 Gn Soak Talen +3
-1 Gn Bloody Bandage +6
-1 Gn Luna's Armor -- rolling!
-- and popping a gnosis battery!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 7) [WP] Re-rolls: 1
[ender of names] Around him, the other Garou begin to shift. Shrieking Sky remains in his war form, and begins a summoning ritual, his long limbs moving gracefully through the sweeping gestures to call spirits of wind. If they cannot help the Garou move faster, fast enough to fight the shadows, maybe they can at least herd them into one place.
Laura shifts into hispo as well, the Gifts of the auspice she shares with Lukas falling down around her. A couple of others besides. Talens are crushed, broken, swallowed around him. Call of Thunder seems to waffle a bit, then shifts into hispo along with his Alpha and the newcomer Ahroun. He tilts his head back and howls. It's like he's drawing down the moon with the sound of it, all that light and fury. Night Warder, Summit's Lightning, Ender of Names -- she shudders from ears to tail at the sound of it.
It hits Lukas much the same way. That overpowering Rage, that madness, threatens to break him open from within again. For a moment it feels like he might split apart if he doesn't fight something now, if he doesn't attack that very howl and rend it apart.
A rush of wind rifles through his fur. There is a hissing, rushing noise as Shrieking Sky speaks to the zephyr. It is a powerful spirit. Shrieking Sky is a powerful Adren. It pulses with the light of the moon, itself, as though everything is given greater power tonight. The wind skirls around their ankles, making them all dance momentarily, as though lifted off a bit from the ground.
When it settles, Laura snarls -- it is beyond her now to do anything else. "Our kin nears the building. The shadows are behind her. Shrieking Sky is lowering the guard of the spirits outside."
And then, sure as she says it, the shadows do seep into the pack house. She wasn't kidding before. They move fast. Very fast, streaks of black lightning across the ground, taking shape as they rise. Almost humanoid, as large as a crinos but man-shaped, faceless, giant men dipped in ink. Giant men with long, wicked claws where their fingers should be.
They ignore the Garou, as though they don't see them. All of the Garou, who are snarling and gleaming and ready to defend their Kin -- the shadows don't take any mind of them.
One spots Lukas, though. And hisses like a cat arching its back, warning off a predator. The shadows whip around the packhouse, flying onto the walls, stretching over the ground, wheeling as though to face the only attacker they can see. At the same time, the pack of Garou can all see them. Laura thrashes her head, snarling, rushing towards one
and right through it. It doesn't move, it doesn't speed out of her way. She just can't touch it.
[ender of names] [Forgot to mention:
Garou gain 1 extra action for the first round. This action can not be split but does not impact your regular, splittable action.
+1 Rage. This one goes to 11.]
[Cold Victory] That howl loosed by the Galliard hits Cold Victory like sparks to tinder. Strains his rage until he arches his back and lifts his head, bares his teeth,
only this time he does scream, but when he screams it comes out a howl, it comes out the anthem of war, rawthroated and savage.
Spirits come, spirits go. The guard is lowered. The trap is opened. Wyrmbreaker stands amidst his tribesmen, his allies; he feels his heart pounding in his chest, fast, filling his veins with blood and oxygen, sharpening his senses, dilating his pupils. He sees the first of them, those fast, fast, lightning-fast shadows whipping into Night Warder's packhouse, and the space between breaths, between heartbeats, begins to dilate. Expand. Stretch limitlessly -- faster than he's ever moved before.
There's a crystal clarity to his vision now. Every gleam of light off the shadowmen's claws. Every strand of fur on Call of Thunder's back. The sounds of the world muffle, fall away, until all that remains are the ones that matter:
the snap of Night Warder's teeth at the nearest. The near-soundless hush as her jaws pass right through, through and through. The hiss of air through his own nostrils, the swift inhale, as he sees that she can't touch it
and understands why he's here.
Wyrmbreaker lunges forward. Moving in the space between seconds, the silence between heartbeats, rage crackles off him like lightning. Sheds from him like molten plasma. He follows Night Warder's lead: his paws plant right where hers had. He leaps the same way, the same vicious jaws-first twist into the air, but when he meets the shadow,
he knows he won't pass through it.
[ender of names] [INIT THAT SHIT]
[ender of names] [Zeus +11]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Thor +11]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Failure at target 6)
[ender of names] [Indira +11]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] +20!
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Failure at target 6)
[ender of names] [Lei Gong +11]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Set +11]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3 (Failure at target 6)
[ender of names] [Order:
Lukas 24
Indira 20
Zeus 19
Lei Gong 19
Thor 15
Set 14]
[ender of names] [Set
1. Shadowstep behind Lukas
R1. Pierce kidney (wound penalties despite Resist Pain)
R2. Claw]
[Thor
1a. Flank Lukas
1b.
R1.
R2. -- all Claw attacks on Lukas]
[Lei Gong
1. Hanging back. Doing evil.]
[Zeus
1a. Flank Lukas
1b. Claw across Lukas's eyes (+3 diff for teeny tiny target. Damage after soak blinds Lukas for X rounds where X = damage after soak)
R1.
R2. -- Claws on Lukas]
[Indira
1a. Dodge
1b. Dodge
R1. Claw
R2. Claw]
[Cold Victory] Free action: Bite Set
1a. true fear on thor!
b. spur claws on zeus!
c. turn around
R1. Bite Set!
R2. nomf!
[Cold Victory] [com bak, frend! i'ma NOMF you!]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 7 at target 5)
[Cold Victory] [dam +6]
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] [WHAT THE ASS, KAHSEENO.]
[ender of names] [Set Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 5, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] [AT LEAST SET SUCKED TOO.]
[ender of names] [Awww]
[Cold Victory] [1a. True Fear -2, vs WP. Take heed, Kahseeno: Uma Thurman hates 1's!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8
[Cold Victory] b. -3, spur claws on Zeus! -1R for this gift.
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 10 at target 6) Re-rolls: 4
[Cold Victory] [dam +9 and UMA THURMAN IS SPLITTING THIS ROLL UP >______o]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] [o__________
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] [ack! uma thurman's face is wonky.]
[ender of names] [Zeus Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 7, 7, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Zeus is x_x]
[Cold Victory] c. holding til after Indira's 1a/1b!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] [ignore dice!]
[ender of names] [Indira
1a. changing to Claw Lukas, +1diff for change, -2 for split]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[ender of names] [Damage +0]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[Cold Victory] [HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE.]
[ender of names] [Indira
1b. changing to Claw Lukas, +1 diff for change, -3 for split]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[Cold Victory] [FUCKING KAHSEENO *THROWS A STAPLER*]
[ender of names] [Damage +2]
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] [*throws a sacrificial chicken also*]
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[ender of names] They are filled -- the Full Moons, at least -- with Rage beyond reckoning. Even Laura has never felt herself pressed this hard against her own fury. With the help of the wind spirits at their heels they all move faster than fast, but the shadows don't flee from them as they do in the material realm. They don't even seem to see the Garou on this side. But they can see Lukas. And they can sure as hell feel him.
Around him, his mate's mother's pack surge forward to attack the shadows, but go right through them. There is another wolf with them now, a Ragabash -- if they have a Philodox, she is not present tonight -- but they have no luck. It does not mean they stop trying. Shrieking Sky is beginning a new summoning, a spirit of Night. Lukas roars and one of the shadows flies to the other side of the room, plastered against the wall.
The Galliard -- the same Galliard who will one day stand in front of the house where Danicka lives and, finding Laura's younger cub as she's picking up the mail, tell her how gloriously her mother died -- is barking to his packmates, telling them what he sees. That Lukas can and is attacking, that his bites are landing. They begin to howl as one voice as one of the shadows dissipates, torn by Lukas's claws. It screams, sibilant and hissing, as he tears it in half. It feels like running his claws through water. There is no hot rush of blood across his arm, no satisfying crunch of bone. But the rage in him eases at bit. As soon as the battle began, he started to feel better. More normal. More himself.
Laura's pack -- the Theurge excepted -- gathers around Lukas. They see the shadows battle the timelost Ahroun. Laura tears something from her fur, tosses it to the Ragabash, who gets to Lukas first and activates it. Leech spirits erupt from the bloody bandage, a few attaching themselves to the No Moon to take a little of his spirit in payment for activating the bandage. More of them wriggle into Lukas's body, healing the gash across his side, strengthening his flesh.
He can't hear half of what the packmates are saying to each other. They work in fluid concert around him, unseen by the shadows, unheard by the Shadow Lord.
Shrieking Sky lets out a roar. One of the shadows, the one hanging back and not attacking Lukas, abruptly vanishes. Another one, standing before Lukas, lets out a hissing laugh as it drops into the ground.
"Behind you!" shout not one, but two of Night Warder's pack.
[ender of names] [Lukas gains +5 HP]
[Cold Victory] The instant Cold Victory barrels into the first shadow, he knows he's right. Collision is absolute and incontrovertible: a slam of hot fur and flesh against --
well. whatever it is those things are made of. There's nothing dreamlike about this now; no space between the seconds, no fever-clarity. Just vicious, snarling violence, the Ahroun's jaws clapping shut only to catch a bare rag off the first. He doesn't have time to be frustrated; he's already moving on, snarling a threat at the second, whipping around to the third. His claws slice clean through that shadow, spilling filth and oily death on the ground, before clattering down on the ground themselves.
"I can touch them." This growl is low and soft, almost more to himself than to the pack around him. "This is why I'm here."
The two blows from the fourth carve him open. Once -- that wound reknitting as soon as it opens -- and again, spilling hot blood steaming into the air. Wyrmbreaker staggers back a step, shakes his head clear, feels that second wound closing as well as someone else's blood, Night Warder's blood, seals his flesh. Perhaps it says something that he has never felt another Ahroun's blood strengthen him -- always the other way around. Perhaps it says something about the Garou, the Ahrouns, he's fought beside thus far. It sure as hell says something about these Garou. This Ahroun.
Then he's whipping around as much on instinct as by the guidance of the packmates as the first shadow, the one he snagged but barely harmed, drops straight out of existence
and blinks back in to meet his teeth.
[Cold Victory] R1 - continue nomming on Set!
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1
[Cold Victory] dam+5
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Set Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 5, 6, 6, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] R2 - NOMF
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5) Re-rolls: 2
[Cold Victory] dam +3
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Set Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 6, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Indira
R1. Claw! -2 diff, back attack]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 8, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 4)
[ender of names] [Damage +3]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] [KAHSEENO FHTAGN!]
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Indira
R2. Second verse, same as the first!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 7 at target 4)
[ender of names] [Damage +6]
Dice Rolled:[ 16 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] [Kahseeno fhtagn moar!]
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Set
R1. Changing to blinding attack]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 9)
[ender of names] [Damage +2. Damage after soak blinds Lukas for X rounds where X = damage after soak.]
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] [EAT THIS MOTHERFUCKER]
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Set
R2. CLAW]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Damage +5]
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] [EAT THIS TOO]
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] [okay, kahseeno, that's it. I FORSAKE YOU.]
[ender of names] [*WAILS*]
[Cold Victory] There's more rage in Wyrmbreaker now than he knows what to do with, and it mounts and mounts with every fucking blow that fails to crush the enemy. Every fucking hit he takes. He roars defiance at the disappearing-appearing shadow; roars something else altogether, somewhere between fury and frustration, as it slices him open. His fur is wet with blood. His extremities feel cold from its loss; the ground beneath him feels hot, hot with his body's heat, but
he feels no pain at all. Just fury.
It takes effort to keep his wits about him. It takes effort not to descend into killing madness. It takes effort to think straight, to do what he does: twist his bag of talens from his fur and fling it with a snap of his head toward Night Warder. Their eyes meet for a second. It's jarring, utterly jarring, to see eyes so like Danicka's looking at him from the face of a direwolf.
"Help me," he chuffs. "Bandages inside. Heal me!"
And he goes at the laughing shadow again, teeth snapping, rage a livid burn in the air.
[will probably be declaring talens-toss as 1c or so!]
[ender of names] [You know, that first paragraph makes a good point. Lukas gains +2R for pain and frustration. :D ]
[ender of names] Chaos has erupted. Shrieking Sky has given up on -- or lost the focus to finish -- summoning that spirit of Night that would have been so helpful. From the look of things he wants nothing more than to bolt, get out of here, step across the gauntlet. One of the shadows has dissipated, one has simply vanished altogether. Three remain, one flickering as though it is thrown by candlelight. Still they ignore the other Garou, seeing only that the one attacking them will not seem to die.
Is calling out to allies, telling them to heal him. The shadows begin to hiss, begin to writhe.
[ender of names] [Order:
Lukas
Indira
Lei Gong - vanished!
Thor
Set]
[ender of names] [Set
1. Blind!
R1.
R2. -- Claw attacks on Lukas]
[Thor
1. Shadowstep back to the fray, flanking Lukas
R1. Kidney strike
R2. Claw]
[Indira
1. Something evil]
[Laura
1. Slapping another of her BBs on Lukas]
[Cold Victory] 1a. bite set!
b. moar!
c. True Fear on Thor again! SRSLY, GO 'WAY.
d. toss talenbag!
R1. chomp set!
If Set dies, then Indira, then Thor.
[Cold Victory] 1a. -4 CHOMP!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 1, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8 (Failure at target 6)
[Cold Victory] [DIFF 5. HA.]
[Cold Victory] [I DIDN'T MEAN IT KAHSEENO!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Set Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] b. that's it, just DIE ALREADY.
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[Cold Victory] [dam +3]
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[ender of names] [sET: I JUST CAN'T QUIT YOU]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] c. TF -6! +WP for this one, cuz i'm runnin outta dice!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 6, 6, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10 [WP] Re-rolls: 3
[ender of names] [Thor is TF'd for 5 Rounds]
[Cold Victory] d. toss!
[ender of names] That bastard shadow that leapt behind him right away just. Won't. Die. He tosses his talen bag towards Laura but she's already bolting towards him, strengthening him with her own blood again. The talens go into the jaws of the Ragabash, who gets out one of Lukas's own, stronger bandages, ready for him to need it. Meanwhile, Shrieking Sky is shaking off his fury -- perhaps while his packmates tell him in his mind to calm down, to focus -- and the Galliard
vanishes across the gauntlet.
Laura's blood has no sooner reknit the fibers of Lukas's being once more when another of the shadows rushes at her blindly, swirling around. It goes at her right as she lays the bandage on Lukas. They were watching. They were looking for the one healing him. They don't know who it is. They just know he has help.
[+5 HP to Lukas
Laura's WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[ender of names] The shadow tries to wrap around Laura. It expands around her, clings to her, and if she could see it she would be choking on it. It begins to seep into her ears, into her eyes, dive through her mouth,
but with a roar she expels it, shakes it off, veritably shakes the foundations of the packhouse with her growling. The shadow recoils from her, flickering.
[Set
1. Blind! -2 (ow)]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 5, 5, 7, 10 (Failure at target 9)
[Cold Victory] The Garou here can see the shadows. They can't touch them. And now Cold Victory knows: the shadows can't see the Garou. But they can certainly touch -- affect -- infect them.
This time, not even words. Just a rough bark of warning, careful!, more instinct than reason
before he's tearing at the bastard that won't die. Again.
[R1!]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1
[Cold Victory] [STOP BEING A DOUCHE, KAHSEENO.]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Set Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Set is x_x]
[Cold Victory] Two dead. One gone. One cowed into submission -- waiting to die, a savage part of his mind snarls -- one lined up and ready to go.
The Ahroun's head swings in a low, mean arc. Toward his auspicemate. Toward his tribemate. Toward his fellow Adren, and the mother of his mate. "Where's the other one?" Every word is a growl; he has too much rage for anything but. "Other side?"
He doesn't wait for an answer. Shadows are dripping from his jaws like slaver, like blood. He whips around, snarling terribly, and goes after the creature that had tried to infect Night Warder.
[ender of names] She has had no chance to expend her rage. None. Night Warder is an inferno of fury right now, shaking with it, eyes poisonous with it. She snarls at Lukas when he speaks to her. It simply means: I don't know. There's no room in her for mercy. There's nothing in her of the tenderness she showed for half a moment as she noticed her younger cub, her kinfolk daughter, watching her from the window.
Lukas is already bolting away, towards one of the shadows who is not in retreat, who is stretching tall and thin with preparation. The only one left to fight. The only one who is here and now, to face him.
[Indira
1a.
1b.
R1. -- all claws on Lukas]
[Cold Victory] 1a. JUST
b. FUCKING
c. DIE
R1. ALREADY
R2. (biting.)
[Cold Victory] 1a. -3
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 6, 8, 8, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 5) Re-rolls: 4
[Cold Victory] [dam +5]
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Indira Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] b. -4!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1
[Cold Victory] [dam +1, i don't even care anymore, kahseeno!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Indira Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Cold Victory] c. i surrender to your fucking will!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 6 at target 5)
[Cold Victory] [dam +5, KAHSEENO FHTAGN! *bows down*]
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Indira: GAK! x_x]
[Cold Victory] R1. run!
R2. chomp thor!
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 12 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1
[Cold Victory] [dam +11]
Dice Rolled:[ 20 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)
[ender of names] [Thor: I'M SO SCARED]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
celebration.
9 years ago