[Wyrmbreaker] There's an alley between a CVC pharmacy and a boarded-up diner. Something's going down in there. Even from the street, Caleb can hear muffled grunts, bodies colliding with walls and crates and dumpsters.
This area of town is rough. It's not unusual to see a mugging on any given streetcorner. Most people just walk right by. What's a little more unusual is when the mugging is accompanied by distinctly canine snarls. And not a dog's either. The timbre is much too deep. Whoever's vocal cords were producing those growls, they were big.
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] Bronzeville was ordinarily not a place to find the Silver Fang on any given night, but he was indeed out for a stroll through the city. The entire city, at that. The man certainly had time to kill between tending the caern and tending his wife, as well as dealing with a bratty theurge that liked to pop in whenever she felt like it.
The scuffle would of been largely ignored by the theurge, but for the canine snarls and whines. Indeed, to the Garou it seemed much more than that. Unbuttoning his black suade three-quarters coat, he stepped into the alley away from the streetlamps allowing his eyes to adjust.
[Wyrmbreaker] The alley is narrow and cluttered. Between the industrial-sized dumpsters, the stacked crates, the soggy cardboard boxes and the piled-up trash cans, it's a maze in miniature. Caleb winds his way through several twists and turns, and with each successive one the growls become louder -- and less mundane.
When the Silver Fang slips past one last barrier, this is the scene laid before him:
There are four figures in the alley, caught in a standoff within the six or eight feet of space between the brick walls. Only one is Gaian, and it's Wyrmbreaker. The Ahroun is at bay in Hispo, his back to the blind end of the alley, his eyes sharp and wary, his lips wrinkled back in a terrible snarl, his white teeth bloody.
Of the other three, all of which are almost certainly Spirals, one is already dead: a monstrous thing with patchy fur and lesioned skin. Its throat is torn out, bloody and fresh. It did not go down quietly. Wyrmbreaker's left forepaw has been savaged. He holds it gingerly drawn up, putting weight on it only when he absolutely must. A slow trickle of blood patters down to the dirty asphalt.
The other two spirals are more or less untouched. One is a grotesque hunchback, tumoroid flesh spreading from the spine over one shoulder to nearly engulf its right foreleg. The other carries the breeding and the shining white fur of one of Caleb's own tribe -- but corrupted, befouled.
The hunchback is confident (arrogant?). Despite the death of one of his brothers, he thinks he has the advantage of numbers -- and besides, Wyrmbreaker is already wounded, whereas both he and his white brother are fresh. He snaps and darts and heckles the blackfurred Ahroun, who lifts his lips in a silent snarl at every feint, but otherwise does not take the bait. The Silver Spiral is warier, or perhaps simply smarter: he hangs back, watching, waiting for weakness.
Though Wyrmbreaker's eyes catch on Caleb once, neither Spiral has seen him yet.
[Wyrmbreaker] (i'm still here -- AIM's just being a bitch)
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] Caleb came to an abrupt halt, his soft bootsfalls on the pavement going unheard largely because of the Shadow Lord Ahroun the two living Black Spiral Dancers are facing off with. It has come to a stand-still, something that Caleb could readily see with them feinting at one another. In quick moments, the theurge has two options. Fight, or leave the Ahroun to deal with this on his own.
Perhaps Caleb would of done so - after all, Lukas is just a Shadow Lord. Pale green eyes alighting on the snowy white fur of the Silver Spiral, his Homid teeth showed in a snarl as he narrows his eyebrows. That was the deciding factor for the Silver Fang, as his bones began to snap and pop as he forced his body to shift Crinos.
Perhaps a mirror image of his Silver Spiral counterpart, except that Caleb's war-skin was bedecked for battle. Shoulder plates, held to his body by straps that criss-crossed his upper body and was nearly buried beneath white fur. Steel-backed bracers running from wrist to an inch or two short of elbow.
With a Snarl of Presidence, he lunged for the Silver Spiral's body, as it's back was turned to Caleb.
[Wyrmbreaker] (OK, since they're not technically in combat, i'll let caleb try an ambush. roll dex+stealth vs diff 6, resisted by silver spiral's percep/alert at diff 6
resist roll...)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] Dex+Stealth, WP added.
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]
[Wyrmbreaker] (OK, sorry, was making a cheatsheet for the npcs *LOL* go ahead and roll one free attack. diff -2 because you're behind him.)
[Administrator] sunglasses, welcome to Bronzeville (Southside) (Now)
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] ( No prob)
Action split:
1a. Bite to neck
1b. Bite to neck.
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] Bite 1: -2 dice for split, -2 diff.
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 5 at target 3)
[Wyrmbreaker] (sorry, can't split your one free ambush attack. just take one big bite)
[Wyrmbreaker] (just add another 2 dice to that roll)
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 6 (Failure at target 3)
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] Damage: 7+1+4 for extra suxx.
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (soak)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (okay, gimme a sec to write real fast, then we'll do inits!)
[Administrator] liar, welcome to Bronzeville (Southside) (Now)
[Administrator] liar has left Bronzeville (Southside)
[Wyrmbreaker] They could be brothers, the Silver Fang and the Silver Spiral -- except, of course, that they're not. Not anymore.
Caleb descends on his dark counterpart with a Snarl of Precedence. His teeth clamp shut on the other's neck, biting deep. The Silver Spiral lets out a yelp of surprise and pain. The first splash of red stains his pure white coat.
He wheels around to face his attacker. When he sees who, or rather what it is, the Silver Spiral's maw curls into the worst sort of grin: disconcerting, genuine, wholly unhinged.
"You're fighting on the wrong side, brother," the high tongue is horribly bastardized, but even now, some measure of the Silver Spiral's original breeding shows through. "Come, dance our Dark Father's Dance!"
(inits! this one's for lukas)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (for the silver spiral)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (and for the hunchback)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Failure at target 6)
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] Caleb utters a growl, low and menacing through the High Tongue as he speaks. "I will remove your tainted hide from Gaia's face, and make sure that your presence will no longer stain Falcon's honor further."
Another Snarl of Presidence and Caleb leaps again for his dark counterpart.
(+7 )
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] ( Precedence* )
[Wyrmbreaker] (init order:
lukas (6+3+10) = 19
hunchback (3+2+4+10(spirit of the fray)) = 19
spiral (5+3+8) = 16
caleb = 9
caleb, declare!)
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] First action split twice, one Rage spent.
1a. Claw
1b. Claw
R1. Bite
[Wyrmbreaker] (silver spiral: 1 rage
1. claw caleb
2. claw caleb
hunchback: 2 rage
1. falling touch on lukas
2. claw lukas
3. claw lukas
lukas: 3 rage
1. spur claws on hunchback
2. get back up if necessary
3/4. bite silver spiral until dead, then switch to hunchback if necessary
rollin' spur claws!)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6) [WP]
[Wyrmbreaker] (damage)
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (hunchback soaks)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (hunchback uses falling touch: dex+med = 3, diff = stam+ath = 7)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 5, 8 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Wyrmbreaker] (spiral claws caleb)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (damage)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] Soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 5, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (lukas spends 1 action getting back to his feet.
hunchback claws lukas)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 6, 6 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (shoot, forgot diff mod -- that was, in fact, a botch (diff should be 8 due to spur claws).
hunchback trips and falls, must spend next action getting up.
silver spiral claws caleb.)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (damage)
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (well shit. *LOL* lukas bites silver spiral -- flanking attack)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 4)
[Wyrmbreaker] (damage)
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (silver spiral soaks)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (hunchback gets back up.
lukas bites hunchback -- frontal attack.)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5 (Failure at target 5)
[Wyrmbreaker] (sum up post, one sec!)
[Wyrmbreaker] (fuck. i totally forgot Caleb. let's go back. suspending the last few rolls -- returning to 12:04, right after Caleb's first soak.
Caleb gets his split action there, and we'll go from there.)
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] Claw 1a. 7 dice -2 for split - WP added.
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) [WP]
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] Damage +3 extra suxx.
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (spiral's soak +1)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] Claw 1b. 7 dice, -3 for split. WP added.
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 7, 7, 7 (Success x 4 at target 6) [WP]
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] Same damage.
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (spiral's soak +2)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 5, 7, 8 (Failure at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (Caleb rolled the wrong + of damage -- can only spend WP once a round. But even with 5 succ on damage, silver spiral is dead.)
[Wyrmbreaker] (OK, we're gonna keep the following:
lukas spends 1 action getting back to his feet.
hunchback claws lukas, botches, trips and falls, loses next action.
silver spiral is dead, does not claw caleb. caleb does not take 4 agg, remains up.
lukas bites hunchback instead, same roll, nonflanking attack, 4 succ. rerolling damage and going from there.)
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (hunchback soaks)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 6, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (and we'll go ahead and keep the remainder of the round too:
hunchback gets back up.
lukas bites and fails his bite roll.
sumup coming up!)
[Wyrmbreaker] Combat explodes, fast and furious.
Wyrmbreaker leaps at the hunchback with a short, coughing snarl. His claws rake deep -- break off, impale into the flesh of the hunchback's good shoulder. Now the wyrm-Garou is limping in truth, though not so much that he can't send Wyrmbreaker sprawling back with a touch. As the black Hispo struggles back to his feet, the white Garou go at one another, claws flying with vicious, blinding speed.
It's blow for blow at first. The Silver Spiral takes a chunk out of Caleb's side -- hot blood splashes onto the alley walls. Caleb returns the favor, ripping loose fur and flesh; but where the Silver Spiral had struck only once, the Theurge pulls a fast one-two with his two handpaws.
The second blow literally eviscerates the Silver Spiral. Shock flares in the Wyrm-Garou's eyes. His viscerae hit the alley floor a second before he does, dead.
Meanwhile, the black Hispo has clawed back to his feet. The hunchback bears down on him, but in his overconfidence, his overeagerness to get some fuckin blood, man! he stumbles over his own clumsy paws, the spurclawed shoulder no longer bearing the weight it should. He goes sprawling, and the Shadow Lord is upon him, teeth snapping. The first bite is catastrophic. The second -- not so much.
Suddenly the odds have turned quite sharply against the Wyrmlings. Where once there were three Spirals against one Gaian, now there are two Gaians against one Spiral.
Hunchback remains defiant. Hobbling on three legs, and one of them his bad leg, he snarls at the Gaian, long and low. They should probably be grateful that they do not understand the vast majority of his curses -- what they do understand is blisteringly foul.
[Wyrmbreaker] (okay, let's go ahead and reroll inits! this is for lukas)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (this is for hunchback)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] 7
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3
[Wyrmbreaker] (okay, hunchback-lukas-caleb. caleb declares!)
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] Caleb turned his attention to the remaining Black Spiral Dancer, this one not a fallen tribemate. For the Silver Spiral, he met the Dark Fang on his own terms claw to claw honorably, and for this monstrocity the noble Caleb wouldn't stain his claws with the beast's blood. Out lashed the sword.
Two rage spent, no splits.
N1. Draw-cut, diagonal upward sweep of the blade released from his arm.
R1. Vertical slash.
R2. Sword-thrust.
[Wyrmbreaker] (lukas: 2 rage, bites all.
hunchback: 2 rage
1a. staredown on lukas
1b. claw caleb
2. claw caleb
3. claw lukas
rolling staredown, -2 dice for split)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) [WP]
[Wyrmbreaker] (split action claw to caleb, -3 dice, +2 diff)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Wyrmbreaker] (damage)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] HAIL!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 (Failure at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (oh -- lukas' reflexive stamina to regenerate 1 lethal, forgot.)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (hunchback turns on lukas, whose action 1 defaults to defensive dodge)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 5, 6, 8 (Failure at target 8)
[Wyrmbreaker] (or not.
lukas, rage action +1, biting)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 5, 5, 5, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 6 at target 5)
[Wyrmbreaker] (damage)
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (soak)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (back IC!)
[cricket] (*performs an intermission top hat and cane cricket dance*)
[Administrator] cricket has switched to General Chicago (Now)
[Administrator] Armstrong, welcome to Caern & Surrounding Territories (Now)
[Wyrmbreaker] The hunchback of notre bronzeville is smarter than he looks.
He wheels on the black Ahroun first. His eyes blaze, the left one poison-green, the right milky and unseeing. Whatever Wyrmbreaker sees in his eyes stops him dead: like hitting a wall, or like rigor mortis. The Ahroun slams to a stop, sides heaving, a low, wracked growl twisting out of his throat.
He can only watch, totally unable to will himself into action, as the hunchback then turns on Caleb and, with one brutal swipe of his paw, sends the Theurge sprawling to the ground, torn asunder, barely alive.
Really, the wise thing to do now would be to crush the Theurge utterly and then retreat while the Ahroun is still rooted to the spot. But then, in the end, the creatures of the Wyrm -- particularly the Full-Moons of the Wyrm -- are not known for their wisdom. Their cunning, perhaps. Their bloodlust. The insatiability of their violence.
And the prospect of more blood, more guts, more glory is, in the end, too much for the hunchback to resist.
Spurclawed, badly wounded, he turns again on Wyrmbreaker. His first swipe doesn't even make contact. He's too badly hurt -- his good paw has become his useless paw, and his useless paw is nearly severed. The blow glances off the Ahroun's hide, and then the Ahroun, his trance snapped, lunges forward and down with a sound that's very nearly a roar. He tears the hunchback's throat out.
--
After, the alley is startlingly quiet. They can hear the cars passing on the street, though they can't see them from here. Wyrmbreaker pants, ducking his head to lick at his savaged paw, and then to snuffle at the fallen Theurge.
A moment later the Ahroun goes to Crinos. He grasps the Theurge around the shoulders and lifts him up, shaking him gently but urgently.
"We need to get out of here, yuf. I'm taking you to White-Eyes. She can heal you; I regret that I cannot. I'm going to take you into the Umbra -- ready?"
-- and when Caleb is ready or not, Lukas strains across the Gauntlet.
(reconvene in the caern room!)
[Administrator] Wyrmbreaker, welcome to Caern & Surrounding Territories (Now)
[Administrator] Caleb Delacourt-Alden, welcome to Caern & Surrounding Territories (Now)
[Administrator] liar, welcome to Caern & Surrounding Territories (Now)
[Administrator] Lurk, welcome to Caern & Surrounding Territories (Now)
[Lurk] (Anyone mind?)
to Armstrong, Caleb Delacourt-Alden, liar, Wyrmbreaker
[Wyrmbreaker] It's a long way from Bronzeville. For Caleb, the trip is surreal -- a race through a stark penumbral landscape of barren, lifeless corridors.
The badly injured Theurge swims in and out of consciousness, and later, his memory will come back to him only in fragments and pieces. He's on Wyrmbreaker's back, slumped over the Hispo's withers like a very drunk man over his horse, the blood on his face drying sticky and cold. Or no; he's thrown over the Crinos' shoulder like a sack of meal, and the world is a confusing whirl of shapes and directions, and he seems to be traveling up, or perhaps down, or perhaps sideways.
Once or twice, he awakens rudely to the Shadow Lord slapping him across the face lightly but persistently, again and again, telling him something --
"...need to stay awake. Do you understand me? You need to stay out of your birthform. You need to..."
-- something terribly important, but it wheels away from him even as the world wheels away, and then the next thing he knows, the ghosts of skyscrapers and tenements are soaring by half-perceived and it's a different part of town from the one he was in before, closer to the lake. He can smell the moisture in the air. There's little spirit life in the city. No plants, no animae. No colors. Few scents, other than erosion, corrosion, corruption.
Only the moon seems real: huge and silver, a crescent so thin it was nearly new. Caleb's moon.
And then suddenly he's dragging across the Gauntlet again, and the sights and sounds of the realm are assaulting him, stark and vivid: the smell of good food, the smell of too many Garou under one roof, the smell of the rug in the common room of the Brotherhood, which is the rug that Caleb has faceplanted on when Lukas sets him down.
Then he's rolled onto his back, and the lights are in his eyes, and he can hear the Shadow Lord speaking -- english now --
"It was a Dancer that did him in. Three of them cornered me in the slums. It would have been rough, if he hadn't happened by." He's not talking to Caleb at all; he's talking to Mrena. "Have you got any healing talens?"
[Administrator] Erick Wujcik, welcome to Caern & Surrounding Territories (Now)
[Erick Wujcik] (( mind another?))
to Armstrong, Caleb Delacourt-Alden, Wyrmbreaker
[Wyrmbreaker] (nope, open scene)
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] Caleb would groan softly every so often, but even he knew in his semi-concious state that he would need to stay out of his birth form. The theurge would of made things easier for the Shadow Lord Ahroun and attempted to shift to a smaller form such as Lupus, but even that strain might be enough to kill the Silver Fang. A shift to any form might be enough to kill him.
White fur stained red with his freely flowing life-blood, his sword was still clutched in his fist in such a deathgrip that one might think that his joints were beginning to go stiff. His breathing was coming raggedly, slow and hoarse through possibly ruined lungs. Indeed, the only lucid moments he had was when he'd feel a sharp jab of pain every now and then. The trip was taking a toll on Caleb.
Coarse material under his furry face - carpet. Caleb seemed to be fighting for conciousness now with a soft grunt.
[Erick Wujcik] *There came the sound of feet on the steps and some one humming as he ascended, a few moments later the tall form of the Spirit Slinger came into view and stopped short. A brow raising* Well frak me....
*He was dressed in sneakers, jeans and a blue shirt with red cobra on it. Over it was his German Flectarn camo jacket. Flight goggles hung around his neck and a mug of root beer was in his hands.
Sniffing the air he moved forward to kneel by the man on the floor* What happened?
*The root beer sat aside. Soft blue eyes flicckered to the sword* Oh.. well shit. I was looking for this guy.
Fang! Can you hear me bro? You want me to hook you up?
*You didn't touch garou with out their permission*
[Administrator] liar has left Caern & Surrounding Territories
[Armstrong] There were times that fate favored them. There were times that the stars seemed to align properly and it worked out. That things... just... worked out. And they did. Because the theurge had been awake, had been reading, actually, when the smell and the sight of her packmate and one that she had grown to become fairly familiar with over time.
There was a crackle, the smell of blood, and she was on her feet. The book was forgotten
She looked from the Silver Fang to her Beta, and she looked. And she listened. A nod, yes, she understood, yes, she knew, and yes, the fates had been kind that night. The fates had been kind that night because Mrena had been quite... quite busy that day.
"Keep him stable," she said. And then looked to regard Erick. She didn't wait for either reply, she went to her room to go get what she had just finished working on.
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas doesn't make the choice for Caleb, though if Caleb were his packmate, he may well have. He looks at Erick for a moment, then back to Caleb -- waits to see what the Theurge will say.
If he says anything.
The Ahroun is bruised and bloody, himself, but it's clear the Caleb's intervention has resulted in the Theurge taking the brunt of the damage. There are entire chunks of flesh missing from his shoulder; his abdomen is ripped apart. The edges of the wounds are ragged, as though torn by dirty, ill-kept claws.
And still, the Silver Fang clutches his sword. Were he human, this would be a deathgrip; they would have to bury the sword with him, which would, of course, be the point.
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] Caleb heard Erick. It was a wonder that he did at all, except that he was caught in a lucid moment. A soft, sharp chuff escaped his Crinos muzzle as one eye barely opened, the handpaw around the sword convulsively closing tighter over it's hilt as if it was his link to life.
Some might describe the cajun was a war-theurge. Himself, he had no asperations of any such. He just did what needed doing, the way he knew how to do it. Whether it was dealing with spirits or killing the Wyrm. First, however, he was a theurge before a war-theurge. Healing was something second nature to him, tending others. The High Tongue came, strained.
Heal... Ahroun... first... just...flesh-wound...
Stubborn, overconfident to a fault, though undeniably tough. Slowly, little by little it could be seen that his form was shrinking. Perhaps not as noticable at first, but if one's eyes kept on the Silver Fang for long they'd notice he was slipping again out of conciousness as well as his war-skin.
[Administrator] Danicka, welcome to Caern & Surrounding Territories (Now)
[Erick Wujcik] I think he'll hold..... *A glance to Lukas to make sure the lord wouldn't get offended then he went to work.
There was a beat and a glimmer and little bits of green seemed to come forth and coalesce into form at Erick's hip. An equipment bag appearing there. It was flipped open and one tattooed hand dipped inside and pulled out a liter bottle, the cap was spun off with one thumb and it was poured over the wounds, rudimentary washing them out*
Holy water... collected from the churches around Chi.....
*Then once he'd washed out what he could, he sorta kinda pushed the bits back into place where they should go. If the bits were there that is.*
Now... lets see if we can do a bit here.
*Gently the hands touched Caleb's main wound in the abdomen. Erick's words coming in the high tongue, a bit distorted because he was in homid and not crinos.* ~HT~ Gaia give me your strength to heal this warrior in your army... Falcon give me speed to heal one of your sons.
*The power of Gaia's life force flowed though one of Rat's children and then into Falcons.*
(( mother's touch. target 4, spennding wp so I don't fuck up and accidentlly kill him))
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 4) [WP]
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas is kneeling behind Caleb, out of the other's immediate sight. When Caleb tells Erick to heal the Ahroun first, Lukas simply meets the Bone Gnawer's eyes over the ruin of the Theurge's body. He shakes his head. Once, but very absolutely.
Erick goes to work on Caleb. Lukas watches, and when the Theurge's wounds begin to close, he rolls his weight back to sit on his heels, exhaling slowly.
Then the edge of his mouth quirks up.
"It's probably as well that Andrea went back to Europe," he comments, wry, "considering how often people have been bleeding all over her common room."
The Bone Gnawer gave Caleb a hand, he informs Mrena over totemphone, but if you can spare it, a talen to patch him up a little more would at least express our appreciation.
[Armstrong] She did, after a second, come back. She had her messenger bag over her shoulder. The one that had seen better days, the one that she had dragged through mud and dirt and who knew what else and kept her supplies in. All in all, Mrena had a good little bag on her hands.
She stopped, and for the moment, she held back and she paid close attention to what was going on around her, and what it was that Erick was doing. The look was incredulous, and it was only slightly more critical than it normally would have been. She was observing, yes, but she seemed to be very much aware.
After being placated, deciding that the Bone Gnawer knew what he was doing [even though, in all honesty, she didn't. They were doing something that Mrena had seen done time and time again, but she simply didn't do, that she was not adept at (she wasn't Katerina, that's what she was for, right?)]] And, at that moment, she turned and then looked at Lukas for instructions.
Which she then received, and affirmed with a nod.
"I'll send her a letter, she'll be on a plane so fast our heads will spin if we damage the flooring," she stated with a hint of a grin.
She then headed over to look Caleb over, a slight shake of her head and then she addressed him rather directly, going through and taking out what seemed to be a dried gourd, carved and painted and what-have-you.
It was a miracle that she didn't say anything cheeky to him while in an altered state.
The theurge looked at him briefly, then crushed the dried gourd rather easily in both hands, then tossed the remains into the wounds. Sprinkled over them, and all paid with close reverence for the item and task.
(Yaaay Gaia's Breath!)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 6 (Failure at target 4)
[Armstrong] And... when being nice... and being reverent, and playing by someone else's rules didn't work? Well, the theurge went to playing by the rules that did work. And she tried again, after... well, it seemed the lady had some choice words with the dried gourd bits.
Judging by her tone, it was going to work or they were going to have some problems.
(aaaand again.)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 5) [WP]
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] As Caleb's instructions go ignored, rightfully so considering how stone-stubborn they are, he finds himself being pieced back together by the Gnawer Erick. It seemed he would owe Erick, Lukas, and Mrena a debt in gratitude for helping him.
The armor Caleb was wearing has begun to meld with his body again, the Talisman Dedication still doing it's job even though the theurge himself is and was badly hurt. His grip relaxed on his sword, as he finds his innerds back together again. He's still banged up (3agg now), but not as bad.
returned to his Homid form once more, he groaned once and rolled over in the pool of his own blood before managing to drag himself to a kneeling position, on one knee only. He would not be seen prone on his back amongst two Shadow Lords and a Bone Gnawer. Caleb did however use the sword to keep his body from face-planting again.
"Thank you," he said first to Erick for healing him. Then, his eyes shifted to Lukas. "And thank you, Wyrmbreaker-yuf, for bringing me back here. You didn't manage to collect any trophies, did you?"
Lips curved a touch in a ghost of a smile. Caleb, near death and now on the mend, was worried about whether or not they collected any trophies from their battle. "Suffice to say, I am not an Ahroun." A light shrug. "But allow me to extend my gratitude further, if you will," Caleb said as he raised a hand from the sword's hilt, the point grounded on the carpet, to extend to heal Lukas.
When Mrena returned, he recognized the talen she had. He'd seen them a few times in his past, but never made them. Healing talens weren't very useful to someone that could heal, although he did suspect that if he was going to get into these kinds of fights from now on they might be necessary. As she crunched the gourd over him he felt a wash of... nothing. Just pieces of the gourd in his wounds, which he picked a few out that stung a little.
When Mrena tried again, he felt his wounds mostly healed, and mended. A smile for her as well as a nod. "Thank you." That left one level left. "I will heal the rest on my own."
( Mother's Touch on Lukas. Intell+Medicine, diff 6. WP. )
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]
[Erick Wujcik] *Erick watched as Mrena came over and pulled out a traditional healing talen. Resting back on his haunches he watched the gord be crushed and sprinkled over Caleb and then raised both brows, leaning in closer to look at the remaining wounds* Mmmmmmm hurm...
Hurrrm.... Maybe..... that one um.... huh....
*Erick didn't know what to say there* Flighty spirit maybe... sometimes it happens.
*Before Erick could move, apparently.... Mrena whipped out another and crushed it up too.
A nod was offered to Caleb at his thanks* No problem, Brother.
*Standing he stepped back to give Caleb some breathing room and dipped his hand into the equipment bag at his hip, pulling out a dish towel with little birds on it, wiping his hands off on it, Calebs blood bright red against the gleaming white towel*
Yall forget to tip the waitress at Dennys? She packs a punch.
[Wyrmbreaker] When Mrena's first attempt fails to impress, Lukas cocks an eyebrow at her. An outsider would see it as beratement; Mrena, however, might correctly identify it as amusement.
Nice job, White-Eyes. All sardonicism. Remind me to write Kat and tell her not to bother coming back.
Thank-yous and healing all around. Lukas is grave, however, and he shakes his head when Caleb begins to thank him, and when Erick quips on waitresses. "I was cornered by a trio of Spirals, alone. My odds would have been pretty bad if you hadn't happened by. You should know I've spoken dismissively of you in the past, but I regret that now. You have my gratitude, Darkensky-yuf."
At mention of trophies, Lukas' mouth tilts into a wry sort of smile. "No, I'm afraid I didn't have time to stop for trophies, or even to dispose of the bodies. I need to go back and clean up the mess still."
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] "It was my honor, Wyrmbreaker-yuf. Ridding Gaia's face of the Wyrm is what we do, in our own way." A light roll of his shoulders as he sat back on his heels with the rest of them, the sword returned to Dedication in his flesh after a look around. A silly thing to do, looking to make sure no mortals were around, after a Crinos-form Garou near death bleeding on the carpet was just healed of his injuries, that he would worry over whether or not they would take him putting a sword into his skin amiss. "Many have spoken derisively or dismissively of me, and I take no offense at it. We merely just do not know each other, that is all."
"If you did not notice," he said again, "one of those Spirals was Silver. A good thing I happened by to help you, and rid the world of that... shaming creature."
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] ( Uh whoops. Hit enter by accident. )
[Erick Wujcik] *A low whistle* 3 you say? Good job boys. Good job.
*The dish towel is tossed to Caleb whom has, a good deal more of his own blood on him than Erick had on his hands*
Where'd you get jumped? Hopefully not near my house. I do so hate douchewyrms in my hood.
Silver one? A.... *his face screwed up in clear disgust* Fallen gaian?
*Not that spiralls wern't bad enough, but the one's BORN spiral were bad... purely evil. The one's born gaian and then FELL spiral.. those were worse. It reminded the garou that birth alone didn't keep them on the side of the angels*
[Wyrmbreaker] "There was a fallen Silver Fang," Lukas confirms. Another Shadow Lord might take this moment to rub everyone's faces in that fact; Lukas simply states it and lets it pass. "He may have been their leader; he or the ugly hunchbacked Ahroun.
"They were in Bronzeville. Near the Coin-'n-Clean laundromat, on Baldemar St. Is that Goblin territory?"
Apparently, Lukas hasn't heard the news.
[Armstrong] Oh yeah, she said. To say there was a degree of false bravado would be stating the obvious. I got this down. I should still have some postage stamps, you can get it in the post by morning.
She started to make her way to a more comfortable position to observe those around her. The theurge kept her mouth she for now, looking at Erick with a raised brow. He gave her the proverbial Better luck next time, and... well, she didn't blink. She looked at the two who seemed battle-worn, and raised her brows.
Mention of it being in Goblin territory. She looked atBarcode; neither Shadow Lord seemed to have heard the news.
[Erick Wujcik] *Erick shook his head* I live in Chinatown.
I don't think the Goblin pack has actually claimed turf, or if they have they didn't tell me before I left. But no that's not close to the parts I know of. Bronzeville is more than a few blocks.
*if they cared to look at Erick they might see he looked a bit haggard. Dark circles under his eyes.* We had..... tactical differences.
I have left the Lords to be Goblin's children. I may walk better in the light, than in the darkness that they seemed to be.... stearing.
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] Lukas' admission raised a scowl on Caleb's face. Not for the man himself, but for the mention of a fallen member of the cajun's tribe. It seemed that the Silver Fangs, some, were more apt to fall than the others with the inbreeding that occurred within the noble tribe to maintain purity of blood. Harano ever ran rampant through-out all of Falcon's brood. "Whether he was the leader or he was not, he is dead." By his words, Caleb made crack-sure of that.
Nodding to Erick as he passed him the towel, he began to wipe his hands and face and grimace at his re-formed bloodstained clothes. Ana Eliza was going to give him grief for nearly dying tonight. The longer they stayed married, the longer he was positive the woman got more protective of him more than he of her.
[Danicka] What is the difference between coming in, walking up one flight of stairs, and driving all the way out here only to ask to be met in the parking lot? Well. We're about to find out, children.
She's been thinking. About cold, fucked up things said, done, thought about, believed in. She's been thinking while sweeping flower off of granite countertops into her palm, brushing them off in the sink and making a phone call for someone to come wash the interiors of the windows, vaccuum, and clean the kitchen and bathrooms since she and her roommate sure as hell aren't going to do any of that business. She's doing good to wash her clothes rather than just buying new underwear.
And now she's back here again, a day later, throwing a hobo-style leather bag that no hobo could afford over her shoulder as she exits her car, strides to the alleyway door, yanks it open, and starts to head up the stairs. She is still wearing the last clean and yet casual thing she found in her closet today: a knee-length dark brown dress with buttons all down the front, gently textured, and champagne-colored heels. Her coat is off-white, wool, and not covered in blood.
The heels click on the stairs.
[Armstrong] And that, ladies and gentlemen, was what kept her attention. She stopped, and she looked at Erick for a moment, because it stopped being a question of curiosity and confirmation as much as it was a question of... security. She looked at Erick and raised a brow slightly, the look in those pale grey eyes was almost expectant.
"How so?" as though this would ask all the question she needed to ask.
Elaborate, please, it said. No, no it did not. Mrena's look didn't say please.
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas regards Erick for a moment after he admits to leaving his pack. Whatever Erick's blitheness in his words, the effect of the split is writ plainly on the Theurge's face. He looks haggard -- exhausted -- spiritually drained.
Which, one supposes, is exactly what he is. Lukas couldn't imagine leaving his pack. He couldn't imagine what that would be like.
There's an odd gentleness in the way he says this: "I'm sorry to hear that things didn't work out with you and the Goblins."
They are a bloody lot, Caleb and Lukas, the former a little more than the latter -- though only a little. Gaians and Spirals both bleed, and they bleed profusely when they die. A Crinos has a lot of blood in its body.
Whatever Caleb's dedicated gear might be, Lukas' is simple and spare: it's his underclothes. A pair of shorts, a t-shirt, fitted. The former used to be grey. The latter used to be white. Currently, both are mostly red-brown.
The air is thick with the smell of blood.
When the footsteps are coming up the stairs (and it's possible that Lukas recognizes the gait already), the Ahroun is getting to his feet. "I'm going to get cleaned up," he's saying, "and then I need to go back and wipe up the mess before the humans find it in the morning."
[Erick Wujcik] *Erick looked to Mrena and one brow raised. It was the theurge moon as 3 in the room could attest. Erick didn't really feel like playing Armstrong's usual game this evening. A deep breath was taken in though his nose* I didn't agree with how the pack was being run.
I'd bested the alpha in physical combat. When he had even cheated in our fight.
In another instance he was bested in combat before me. Even insisting I heal him mid fight.. and still got beat. Twice. I had to step in and save his kinfolk from a known abuser.
He kept making major tactical decisions for the pack that the entire pacck didn't support...
*His voice didn't get louder though it might have been better if it did. It got quieter and frostier*
He insulted my brother, insulting his intelligence when he didn't get his way like a petulant child.
He refused to listen to reason on his own pack brothers.
He then has planned to drag the pack into wyrmtaint. Purposefully and willfully with the thinly vieled disguse of helping when infact it's for selfish reasons. Selfish, greedy reasons.
I said I wouldn't follow him into that darkness. I wouldn't taint my self to build his power, and due to his leadership and unwillingness to listen to reason, I could no longer follow him.
*His eyes still on Mrena* It's hard little one. Very fucking hard to leave your pack. But it was leave or kill him.
Leave....
Or kill him.
*Another deep breath was taken in though his nose* I am not infallible.. his tactics.. might.. might work in the end. They MIGHT... I don't see how.. but I could be wrong. He could swim though a river of shit and some how not have it stick to him... but I would not work with people that deal drugs to children... I would not work with people that kidnap girls off the street and sell them on overseas markets.
I wouldn't do it. So..... I left.. I respectfully told my totem I could not follow THAT Garou in the road he was leading the pack.
That is how so. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do and I pray to Gaia and all the angels in heaven you're never pressed into such a situation... I pray none of you are.
[Danicka] She can smell the blood. It takes a lot of it, more than a pricked finger or a sliced palm, to cause that sort of smell to fill her nostrils, but she knows it and identifies it halfway up the stairs. The almost dancing clip of steps up the stairs hitches like a record skipping, and then resumes, less lyrical, paced more slowly against the aged wooden boards.
Danicka's ears are perked along with her other senses when she gets to the top of the stairs, midway through Erick's rant. Leave or kill him. Leave or kill him. She stops in the doorway, bag over her shoulder, one hand on the wide strap. Her long blonde hair is in a loose, almost shabby braid that rests along one shoulder, and her eyes scan across the room, taking in the Garou present while one of them is speaking. She looks at the blood with something in her eyes that is calm, but not dismissive; if anything she stares at it for a moment, before looking at Caleb and Mrena and the others.
At the end of Erick's words, she looks at Lukas. Her shoulders are still straight. Her cheeks are pale.
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] Rising with Lukas, he glanced down at his bloody garments. "That sounds a fine idea," he said to the Ahroun. "Just how many showers are in this place? I'll go with you to help clean up." Then he would need to find a change of clothes from somewhere. Unlike Erick, Caleb didn't carry a bag that contained half of Walmart.
As Danicka made her entrance onto the scene, Caleb was covered in his own blood and gore but seeming whole and hearty at the moment. Obviously, he was at Death's door only moments ago. That much was evident by the amount of his own blood he sported, only some of it removed by the dish towel the Gnawer supplied. Glancing at Lukas up and down, he appeared to be sizing the Shadow Lord up and down. "I don't suppose you have a pair of pants and a shirt I can borrow for the time being?"
Eyes flicked to Danicka. He had never met the woman, and therefore she was given a bit of a nod. She wasn't running off, and the recognition on the woman's face for some of them... Well, there it was. Erick's rant was noted, but he merely nodded. It was not his business.
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas pauses to listen gravely, on his feet now, not yet moving to leave the room.
"Milo is a Bringer of Light, Erick. It's his job, his very life, to wade through shit and come out clean." A pause. Then he adds, "It is true that perhaps he should not have expected those untrained in the ways of his camp to follow him into the dark. I don't blame or berate you for leaving. But whatever your personal and tactical grievances against Fell Prayer-rhya, it is neither honorable nor wise to accuse him of taint.
"Particularly when you do not fully understand the way of his camp. Particularly when he is not here to defend himself. And most particularly when you do not yet have the proof."
Lukas is absolute; not angry, not scathing, but merely calm and absolute. At the end of it he pauses a moment. A light rain has begun to fall outside -- the first rain this city has seen for months and months. It patters softly against the windows, diffracts the light coming through the panes. Lukas draws a brief breath, looking out the window a moment. Then he looks at Danicka. A beat.
To Erick and Caleb: "Thank you for the healing." And, to Caleb, "I do. The showers are that way," he points, "and if you give me a moment, I'll leave a set of clothes outside your stall."
Unless further detained, Lukas starts out of the common area, heading for his own room.
[Danicka] What her eyes see are four Garou. Two of them she knows. Two of them are her Tribe. The others are strangers, and she does not know who -- or what -- they are. She could assume, but you never know. What see sees are two of them, one known and the other not, talking. What she sees are two of them, one known and the other not, absolutely saturated in blood yet seeming fine enough to walk around, talk, stand without swaying. She does not know whose blood, or what's blood, or what this place looked like five or ten minutes ago.
She also does not ask. The color has drained from her face, a natural, visible, and involuntary reaction to not only the smell of blood but to a veritable shockwave of memories that ripples through every layer of her thoughts. She isn't wet, except for the bottoms of her shoes; maybe she had an umbrella and left it downstairs. It does say something about her that she doesn't scream, or fall down the stairs, or burst into tears. It says something entirely different that she continues to look at Lukas.
There is a flicker of understanding in her eyes at Milo, at Bringer of Light.
Without a word, she steps around the blood on the floor and follows Lukas. Of course. She is pretty, and good, and obedient, and it was obvious from the second she got into the room who she is...linked...to. So she can be dismissed, head ducking and steps quick but not rushing to keep pace. Just enough to keep up.
[Erick Wujcik] *His voice still quiet, for it had not raised during his words but had gone lower, came forth* Keeper, you've had a rather eventful night, but I was looking for you.
Perhaps sometime soon we might get together and talk? *Clearly not meaning now or tonight, but once Caleb was healed up and had time*
I could drop by the Caern tomorrow while you're doing your rounds if you like.
*he glanced to Lukas* I didn't say he was tainted now. I said to get to where he was going he would have to be.
He's not talking about taking out a few guys here or there. He wants to get in and run things. *Ericks soft blue eyes met Luckas, not in challenge but to speak to the man before him* I know of his camp.. but I saw his eyes in that room. How they glittered and sparkeled as he spoke aboout the easy money..... *His voice chilly* The easy renoun... of working with the slime that deal poision on our streets. I saw how he all but salivated at the thought.
*A shake of his head* Maybe I'm wrong. But I don't think so. And I wouldn't be a part of it. Maybe he'll prove me wrong. *A slight shrug* Don't know. But I don't think so.
As for him being here to defend himself. *Another shrug* Your sister demanded, how so. So I told her.
I'm sure if he were here, he'd spin you a tale of my low breeding and stupidity. At how he was doing it all to tear it down from the inside.. about how he'd hook and kill hundreads now... How hundreds would be shipped overseas as fuckslaves.. so that he could save some in the future...
*A long pause and his voice firm now* You didn't see his eyes man... how they sparkeled as he spoke of his money and power. Of how easy it would be to ride that wave to where he wanted to be.
I did.
I hope you're right and I'm wrong. I really do. But I couldn't be a part of it.
[Wyrmbreaker] Given their shared blood, and the fact that Lukas outranks Mrena in this room, their pack, and their tribe, it's only reasonable to assume Danicka's primary connection, allegiance, whatever, is to the Ahroun. And with the Shadow Lords' reputation for keeping their kin -- shall we say -- in line, it's perhaps no surprise that she doesn't speak; only follows.
Still. There's this to consider, too: Lukas does not merely walk ahead of Danicka. He does not jerk his head at the door or otherwise command her to follow. He looks at her, and when he follows, he slows to wait for her.
And then he slows, to turn and answer Erick.
"You have my word, Barcode-rhya, that if proof should surface that Fell-Prayer-rhya has tainted himself, my tribemates and I will deal with him accordingly. But until then, I will trust him to know what he's doing, and to do what is right." A faint turn of his mouth, wry; he shrugs. "And I suspect in the end, Barcode-yuf, no matter your hurt and disgust over his ways, you'll have the honor and the foresight to do the same."
Lukas waits to see if Erick will reply this time. If nothing else, he's not the type to march out of the room in an attempt to get the last word.
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] "Thank you," he said to Lukas. Perhaps his standing amongst the Circle's packmembers wouldn't take Caleb so lightly any more now that he had come to the aid of one of their own. Mrena surely respected him, if grudgingly. What the rest of the Circle aside from Lukas knew currently was what that damned mongrel Uktena had to say at the moot of him.
There were some commoners that this Royalist could tolerate, even respect, and there were those that Caleb simply could and would not give even acknowledgement. And yet, here he was - a Silver Fang amongst several Shadow Lords. No wonder he was looking cross-wise at everything, even with tonight's events. Turning his pale green-eyed gaze to Erick, he arched a brow. Why would this man, whom spoke up against him at the moot, wish to speak with him?
"Of course," Caleb said curiously. "When Wyrmbreaker-yuf and I return, I will be at the caern." The cajun had a bit of spiritual energy to replenish. Peeling the bloodsoaked, formerly crisp white shirt over his head, he balled it up and looked for a trashcan up here. Finding one, he tossed it in and ran a hand through his hair.
Caleb would head for the showers then.
[Wyrmbreaker] (first one should be a barcode-yuf too. it's late. *LOL*)
[Erick Wujcik] *Erick looked at Lukas for a long time. Not staring him down. Actually quite the oppisite. He looked at the other man with something like respect. Honor* May it never come to that. I pray it never comes to it. But it's good to hear that if... by the machinations of the wyrm.... it does... you'll be there to clean it up. It'd break my heart to have to kill him.
*A sigh and a shake of his head* I hope you're right man. I honestly do.... *It was extremly clear on Ericks face though, that he thinks sooner or later, it WOULD come to that. And it tears him up that he thinks that way.
A nod to Caleb and he waved with one of those tattooed hands* I'll catch you guys later... I gotta go Meditate.... I feel like fucking shit.... I.....
*He jjust trails off. it's clear that leaving the pack was NOT an easy thing for him, and he's just sick about it all.
A soft nod and he heads for the stairs.. The 6'5" man some how seeming smaller in his greif..*
[Armstrong] And... she just looked at him. She stood straight, with shoulders back and head high and focused on listening. Actually listening, and actively listening. Erick addressed Mrena, but... for a moment... she seemed a little incredulous. She was nothing if not critical. The theurge adjusted her bag over her shoulder, then nodded.
And, with that, she turned to go to her room to... well, go to sleep. It was late.
[Danicka] The woman who walked up into the common is so vividly Kinfolk, so starkly Shadow Lord that it's unmistakable. So many of them are as Lukas and Mrena are: dark haired, light eyed, with a certain intensity to their features. Danicka, on the other hand, has hair so fair in color it's almost white in the right lighting. Her eyes are, at the moment, vivid green, the pupils rather dilated, but her body language is...soft. Demure. She doesn't smile, she doesn't have much expression on her face at all before she turns to follow Lukas, waiting in the hall when he turns back to speak to Erick.
[Wyrmbreaker] "Why don't you crash here, yuf?" Lukas calls this as the other is heading down the stairs. "There's a spare room next to mine, and several more down the hall. The company of your own kind might do you good."
Either way, the Ahroun -- still bloodsoaked -- heads out of the room again in the direction of his own. If Erick returns, he'll find Lukas unlocking his room door with a key on a lanyard, college-style. The Ahroun offers him a faint smile if he's there to see it, then pushes the door open, holding it for Danicka until she catches up.
His room is typically neat, and the window is open a crack. They can hear the rain in here. He goes to the dresser, carefully picking out two changes of clothes -- one for himself, one for Caleb -- holding them at arm's length to keep them from staining.
[Armstrong] He has a silver tongue, Lukas, which I pray he uses wisely, lest he reveals himself to be armed, she said. Though, realistically, he serves as quite the Devil's advocate.
Now, what the Hell Mrena just said to him could have been debated. Could have been argued about, come down to the letter of the statement or the spirit of it. Either way, it was the truth. However, a theurge's truth and a philodox's truth were quite, quite different.
to Wyrmbreaker
[Erick Wujcik] No thank you... I'll be at the caern... maybe in my meditations I'll find peace. But thank you for the offer.
*Then he was on down the stairs and heading quietly out the back door*
[Danicka] This is not the only time that Lukas has held a door for Danicka. This is one of the only times she walks into a room in front of him, with him at her back. Lukas goes to get clothes, holding them away from his own bloodied self, and she walks forward, reaching for them.
Her eyes are on the clothes when she speaks up, a light-sounding question leaving her mouth: "Vzal si ukrást vaše koláče?"
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden] ( Well guys, it's been fun, but I need to catch some sleep or I'll never kick this sickness. Thanks for playing, it was fun! Caleb will shower, get changed and head out with Lukas and then go to the caern. )
[Wyrmbreaker] (night, everyone who's leaving! thanks for the RP!)
[Danicka] [Thanks for playing guys!]
[Erick Wujcik] (( thanks!))
[Armstrong] (mindy is going to bed! Goooood night!)
[Wyrmbreaker] The clothes he's taken out are not up to his usual caliber: track pants with zipper-vents up the sides, plain pullover sweatshirts, all of it dark-colored. It maybe a surprise that he has clothes like these, at least until you considered how often an Ahroun must have to return to the scene of a massacre to clean up the remnants.
He shoots her a sidelong glance, his mouth not moving in humor. They hadn't parted on the best of terms. Lukas is not pouting, or brooding, or sulking -- but he is wary.
Also, drained of rage. Also, distracted. His primary concern is getting back to the alley before someone else finds the mess. She reaches for the clothes and after a beat he lets her have them. He hadn't bothered to close his room door; heads back out now, starting toward the bathroom.
"No. Three Dancers in an alley." He's told the story often enough that he doesn't bother with the details now. Anyway: "What are you doing here?"
[Danicka] No one is, at the moment, walking down the hallway. Caleb has hit the showers, Mrena has gone to hit the sack, and Erick has gone to hit the meditating. It doesn't seem that anyone else is around at the moment. He walked behind her into this room and she didn't tense up, shoulders or neck or face, but then...he's drained. It isn't a full moon, and he is sapped of what usually makes him so terrifying.
Well. Most of what usually makes him so terrifying.
Danicka does not take off her coat or set down her purse as she walks behind him out of the bedroom and towards the bathrooms. He doesn't tell her the whole story, and she doesn't need to know more than she gets. "Seeing you," she answers simply.
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas stops by the laundry room on the way to the bathrooms -- grabs a clean towel. Leaves a smudge of red on the white. Seeing you, she says, and he looks at her over his shoulder, a brief glance before he continues where he's going.
What she sees is a bit of a horror, really. The Ahroun's painted in red. Even in homid, it's clear that he's been using his teeth for most of his blood-work. His mouth is bloody; there are sheets of red down his neck, over his chest. His right hand is bloody too, and there's dark crescents under his nails -- dried blood, caught flesh, one or the other.
His dedicated underclothes did not suffer the initial arterial splashes and spurts, but the blood has since soaked through in patches and smears. The effect is grotesque: tie-dye from hell.
"I didn't expect to see you upstairs," he says, which is fact. "I wasn't sure I expected to see you again at all."
When he gets to the bathroom, he takes the clothes from her, leaves Caleb a set, throws the other over the door of the stall he takes as his own. She follows him past the door. He latches it, then begins to undress. Beneath his clothes, she can see that the gouts of blood that had run down his chin smear over his upper chest, run down the midline of his body to the middle of his breastbone. It does not make much sense in homid, but in hispo, that would be the lowest point of his chest, where blood would drip off his fur onto the ground. His right arm is red to the elbow, red again in smears at the shoulder. His left has a patch of fresh skin on it, clean and baby-pink, no scars, no blood even: a healed wound.
He tosses his bloody clothes into the corner, flicks back the shower curtain, turns on the blast. It runs cold at first, making him flinch, but he doesn't bother stepping out. He shuts the curtain again. It's not modesty; it's pragmatism. Keeps the water from splashing everywhere. In the shower, red runs to pink, to clear. He scrubs himself clean, leaving rusty smears on the bar of soap he finds in the shower. By then the water's warm, and steaming.
[Danicka] Right now, she would not kiss him, or want to touch him, or so much as reach out to him. He looks like a cannibal. If his eyes were dead and not bright, if his presence weren't so...vital...he would look like a well-fed zombie. Danicka is still pale, but the color is returning to her cheeks and her eyes -- so incredibly beautiful when she is agitated beyond baseline -- are calming back down to the amber-flecked color they usually are.
Danicka may as well be a handmaid, ferrying the clean clothes for the two Garou, following Lukas even into the showers just in case...what? He should need a towel? Surely she can't want to be with him in there for any reason other than duty.
She stands in the small area while he gets into the shower, still in her coat. And she watches the blood run down the drain around his feet, barely visible at the bottom. A thought occurs to her, her head tilts, and she hangs her bag up on a hook next to the one where his towel is waiting. Her coat follows, and she steps out of her shoes. Danicka doesn't get out of her dress. She opens the curtain, and gets into the shower.
The bloody, bloody shower.
[Wyrmbreaker] "What -- " the shower curtain whisks open; Lukas is soaping up, there's lather on him, and it's not white, it's pink. It's red close to the skin, close to the blood, and what people don't realize is that blood is not merely liquid, it's cells, it's proteins. When it dries it has a thickness, a consistency. It literally cakes to a porous surface, and you have to scrub to get it off.
She steps into the shower, and she doesn't say a word. He stares, soap forgotten, lather forgotten. Danicka is a collection of contradictions, when you get to the bottom of it. She plays one part when others are around to see; she plays another when they aren't; and somewhere between, or beneath the two is who she really is, which is something he cannot see.
The building is old, and the plumbing is too. It takes a long time for the water to warm up, but when it does, the water pressure is second to none. It soaks through her dress in seconds. He puts the soap aside. The water is beating down his back and over his shoulder, and onto her. He's breathing marginally faster.
"What the fuck, Danička," he says.
[Danicka] Her hair will be wet within seconds, the braid tight and dark where it hangs on her shoulder. Her dress will be soaked in moments, clinging to her from collarbone to knees, and it will pick up stains from the blood, there'll be almost no stopping that. At least it's a deep, chocolate brown already: it won't be ruined. It's a nice dress, of some thin fabric better suited for summer, and while it doesn't become translucent when it does become saturated, it won't hide much.
For now she's only being hit by splatter, droplets of water that pick up bits of his blood and the soap he's using and flick it at her. Danicka is not completely wet from head to toe, yet. Her toes are painted with the same clear gloss as her fingers, as always, the soles of her feet lost in the pink-and-red-and-lathered runoff.
She reaches out and lays the palm of her hand on his chest, lets the water and the blood run over her hand and between her fingers while her palm picks up the heat and texture that is solely his. Danicka looks at her hand, fingers splayed, then at him. "Moon's not full yet," she says, going back to what he said before stepping into the shower: he didn't expect to see her again at all, "and I'm yours til then, at least."
Which does not explain what the fuck she is doing right now.
Her fingertips draw a smiley face in the blood still stuck on him. She smiles.
[Wyrmbreaker] She puts a timer back on it. Lukas' jaw clenches, and with his hair wet and plastered back, his skin slick and gleaming with water, she can see it clear as day. She starts to draw a smiley face in the blood and he grabs her wrist, pushes her hand away.
"I'm filthy," he says, "and I need to clean up three dead Spirals in an alley, two of them metises. I don't have time for this." He picks up the soap again. And, scrubbing, "And I told you already. I won't play your games of deadlines and moon phases." That's not the wording of it, true, but that was undoubtedly the sentiment behind it. "When you're done with me, you'll tell me to my face."
[Danicka] His hand closes on her wrist and her smile weakens, but doesn't die completely. Danicka looks up at him and there's something raw in her eyes that he won't understand -- or even see --unless he looks closer, and right now it's unlikely he will. Her wrist is returned, and he starts scrubbing again. "I'm not asking you to play," she says.
About ten seconds pass. "I will tell you when I'm done with you. But it's easier for me to decide in advance for how long...two weeks or a month or however long...and then I don't have to think about it again til that point comes." A beat. She's getting more and more wet the longer she stands here. There's flecks of his blood in her hair. On her neck and her hands.
"I don't expect you to understand it or agree with it but if I don't do it this way I'll go crazy."
[Wyrmbreaker]
[Wyrmbreaker] Only: he does look.
Only: he doesn't let go of her wrist, even after he's pushed her hand from him. Only: he looks, and deeply, while holding her wrist, in the shower, under the water, and for a long time.
It's seconds, moments, he does not have. Lukas isn't, as he says, putting a timer on this. He isn't using the dead metises as an excuse. It's truth; it's necessity. Two dead metises were a screaming veil breach waiting to happen.
Even so. He looks at her. And it's the light in here, fluorescent, or the way it comes through the shower curtain and reflects off the tile, or the water flattening his hair and making the shape of his jaw, his skull, more prominent, or --
His eyes are vivid. Shockingly blue.
And then he lets her go, just like that. He turns his back to her to duck his head under the spray, breathing through his mouth while he scrubs his head clean, then his face, then his torso and arms, his legs last. It doesn't take him long; a minute on the outside. When he's clean, or as near to it as he'll get in these few seconds, he wrenches the tap off.
"Fine." Lukas is just a little more vivid than your average human. His movements crackle with some subdermal electricity. Even this, pushing back and shower curtain and stepping out to whip a white towel off the door, seems imbued with some energy, some significance, some je ne sais quoi that makes it hard to look away from him. He turns back to her while he towels off, starting with his hair. "Do what you have to." His face disappears behind the towel, reappears when he moves on to his chest, his arms. He adds, abruptly: "But I do understand self-preservation."
[Danicka] As near to clean is as much as he has time for. Danicka makes no gestures towards helping him, just as she didn't wash him the last time they took a shower together. Nor does she reach out and touch him until he damn near forgets where he is, or try to pull him closer til he makes her forget her own name, like she did the last time. Danicka watches, and she wiggles her toes in the bloody water that never runs clear, not quite, even when he shuts off the water. She's still quite a mess, but as he gets out and starts to towel off his naked body, she stands there in the shower stall unbraiding her hair.
Fine.
She's looking at the tile walls and thinking of how she should turn the shower back on in a bit to wash the rest of the blood off. No. She won't. Someone will come later and bleach it all anyway; she'll wash herself, though. So her braid is undone as he dries his hair, and she starts unbuttoning her dress from the top as he goes to his arms and tells her he understands...survival.
"I know you do, Lukáš," she says. The bra she's wearing looks to be green, from the flicker of it he sees against her skin; but she is still unbuttoning.
[Wyrmbreaker] "But I don't understand you at all." He follows this up so quickly that it must've been on his mind all along; not merely tonight, but every fucking night.
And it's a curious reversal of roles. He's dressing; she's undressing. He gets his shorts on, his track pants. The sweatshirt after that and he's done.
He pauses a moment before he leaves. There should be something else to say, but he can think of nothing at the moment.
[Danicka] The dress has little pearl buttons and she undoes every one, collar to hem, before she shrugs out of it and drops it right on the floor of the shower stall. Her hair tie is wrapped around her wrist now, hair loose. Her bra is indeed green, incredibly simple compared to his other two experiences with her lingerie, but the forest-colored garment is mostly made of something that looks like satin, as are the --
There's nothing else below that. Which is interesting.
Danicka reaches back and unhooks the bra, looking at him as he tells her that he doesn't understand her. The straps of her bra slip down her shoulders as he is pulling on shorts and pants. She smiles at him gently, which is odd for a woman who has a spot of watery blood on her right cheek. "It's sort of nice that you try to," she admits.
He gets on his sweatshirt and seems about to go; Danicka has one hand on the knob for the shower, the other gripping the edge of the curtain. She looks at him, her brows pull together for a second, and then her expression smooths. "I'll be in your room when you get back?"
It's an offering, or an agreement, or a request: it's all of these, and something else entirely.
[Wyrmbreaker] It's nice that he tries. He looks at her for a moment after this, and she's beginning to recognize this expression: not the searching, intent stare when he's trying to figure her out, but something a little milder, and perhaps a little more dangerous.
It's the way he looks at her when he's trying to figure out if she's mocking him. It's a wary, inquisitive, superficially mild sort of regard: a storm that could easily brew out of a teacup.
But then it too passes. She's naked by now, and he's completely dressed. She has flecks of blood and bloody water on her; he's as clean as he's like to get. He wonders if he should take some symbolism away from all this, and decides it's not worth the effort.
Lukas looks different like this, hair wet, in sweatshirt and track pants. Like an athlete, heading out to practice. Like a runner, ready for an early morning (very early morning) run. Not so well put together; not so careful about his appearance, his first impressions. It's not that he's vain. It's not vanity that makes him dress well, and dress carefully, and dress in colors that suit his dark hair, his swarthy skin; in cuts and materials that showcase his physique without making an ogre of him. It's not vanity, but a sort of control, even in this.
She can see his reaction to her offer, or agreement, or request, or reminder, in the very fact that he betrays absolutely no reaction. He only looks at her for a moment.
Then: "Uvidím vás tedy." And he leaves his room key hanging on its lanyard from the hook on the door.
celebration.
9 years ago