[-the foretold-] Even as Katherine is taking the boy in hand, even as Danicka is speaking to him, the world is beginning to fade around them. The cheer of the crowd grows distant. The grip of Cristobal's hand grows indistinct, as though the boy were fading to mist.
They have no idea how those around them see their departure. They have no idea if they simply vanish into thin air, or if effigies of themselves persist after their consciousness passes out of that time; if they go through the motions and depart graciously. For all they know, all that see them simply forget they were ever there, or invent stories in their own minds to explain their comings and going.
Nor do they know what, exactly, is bringing them from point to point in the boy Cristobal's life; what directs them, what guides them through their quest.
Because -- and they do know this -- it is assuredly a quest. It's a mission, a task laid mutely and indisputably before them, that they are not permitted to turn from. In the balance hangs, perhaps, their very lives: the wounds Imogen received in the battle at the tower were very real. And in the balance hangs, for certain, the fate of the future itself: whether Cristobal's line rises to greatness, and descends irretrievably into darkness.
Darkness lifting:
the scent of pine, first. An evergreen forest, and a chill in the air. Moonlight on their faces. The smell of woodsmoke, and the crackle of a torch.
They come to awareness at the edge of a cliff, amidst mountains and pine, a glorious full moon overhead. Below, falling away in folds and ridges of terrain, a mountain range spreads down to a highland meadow where distant cottages and fires can be seen.
Nearer to them, perhaps only half a mile or so away, and several hundred feet below, a group of people hike in the hills. They can see them because the one in the lead holds a flaming torch. There are seven of them, and...
no. They're not people after all. The one in the lead is in a hulking, neanderthalic form. The two trailing at the end of the line are in lupine shapes, one lithe, a wolf; the other huge, a monster.
(roll percep/alert for me, folks!)
[Lonna Larson] [wassat?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 3, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [percept + alert]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 7, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 2
[Katherine Bellamonte] [Perc + Alert]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Danicka Musil] [perception + alertness]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) Re-rolls: 2
[-the foretold-] (yeah, you see what's in the post *LOL*)
to Lonna Larson
[-the foretold-] They are not alone on this mountain. There's another group, much closer than the Garou below -- two men in the trees perhaps a hundred yards away, hunkered down and waiting. They're talking to each other in low voices, eyes on the Garou.
to Danicka Musil, Katherine Bellamonte, Liadan Whelan
[-the foretold-] Lee and Kate can make our a stray phrase here and there --
"...Rite of Passage."
"When do we move?"
"Soon. Be patient. Soon."
to Katherine Bellamonte, Liadan Whelan
[-the foretold-] They find themselves garbed differently yet again: all of them in loose pants and tunics, belted at the waist with a wide leather belt. It is neither 12th century attire nor their own clothing, but something more similar to what they saw the kin of the village wearing in their first sojourn.
The clothes are soft, supple leather. They also have furred cloaks, which provides a welcome warmth in the chilly autumnal air.
One more thing. In addition to their personal belongings, which are now stored in hide bags slung across their torsos, they also find short, curving knives strapped to their thighs. Depending on their personal inclinations, some may also find swords at their hips.
They are garbed for action, and for confrontation.
[Katherine Bellamonte] Katherine, still somewhat victorious from her moment in the proverbial sun, knelt before and esteemed above all others, almost seems to glow faintly in the moonlight. Her hair is spun gold and her eyes gleam with unnatural beauty, even in the dark they suddenly find themselves in.
She stills; turning her head to the side and, her eyes on the Garou below them, listens to the whispered conversation of two men who also watch the Garou, seemingly on their Rite of Passage. It strikes some chord in the creature, some flashback to the time of her own, when nothing was set in stone yet, and her Rage beat at her shoulders, thrumming on and on. Before there was control, there was the mindless need to hunt. To seek out violence and shake it loose.
There is a knife strapped to her person, but she is not trained to comprehend human weapons; she was accustomed to using her more ... true-born talents.
The Silver Fang holds up a hand in a gesture for silence, still attuned to the voices of the two men. She holds up two fingers, and points in the general direction of the men, there is a ripple of motion; and the Half Moon's fur hide is a pile on the ground, a silvery wolf now creeping along the underbrush.
[Danicka Musil] The Garou coming up the hill are in various forms. It isn't the wolf that bothers her; the shadows of glabro and hispo striding upward make Danicka close her eyes for a moment, taking a breath. It does not get easier, and there will never be a day when she does not need a moment to compose herself, to tell herself it isn't the same, it isn't the same, they surely aren't frenzied, they won't --
it doesn't really matter what she tells herself. She's afraid anyway, even when she opens her eyes and looks in the direction of the trees, hearing a pair of quiet voices. She looks around at the others, Kin and Garou both, then blinks and jerks away slightly as Kate suddenly shifts and moves away.
This time Danicka doesn't restrain the urge to roll her eyes. She does it in the dark, frowning, and looks back at the group heading up towards them.
[Liadan Whelan] There's a line of creatures, of beast-men hiking down below, but something else grabs Lee's attention. Voices in the trees. She glances around, looking to see if anyone else has heard them, knows that they're there or what they're saying. The tall redhead pulls herself up, though not to her full height. She keeps herself hunkered down. The pants and tunic feel infinitely more comfortable to her than the coarse dress she found herself in minutes or years ago.
Kate gestures for silence, melts into lupus, white coat gleaming in the moonlit patches between the trees. Lee feels along the ground, searching for stones. There is a dagger at her belt, and while she thinks there's a possibility she might be able to wield it without cutting herself, she has more faith in her body.
[Lonna Larson] She takes note of her things, and she sees nothing. She doesn't notice much more than figures in the distance, with torches and what-have-you. Lonna, for her part, had no idea what she was going to do. She had no real clue as to what she was going to do with a knife. She knew what she could think through, though.
Lonna knew how many bullets she had left, though, but she did know that she could handle this quite easily.
She watches Kate move, and looks at the kin that she is left with. The blonde shrugs and watches her companions to see if they notice anything.
[Katherine Bellamonte] [Per + Alert]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 5 at target 4)
[-the foretold-] "...but he's with others." That voice sounds familiar. After a moment, Kate recognizes it: the young nobleman from the market square. He sounds older now.
"He'll leave them soon enough." This voice is older still, but full of a quiet mastery.
"How do we know that?"
"The Sept of the Two Storms has been sending their pups on the same Rite of Passage for the last three hundred years. They will not change even for one such as he. Watch -- "
The two fall silent, watching intently.
to Katherine Bellamonte
[-the foretold-] While Katherine shifts and creeps a little closer to the two figures amongst the trees, the rest of them can see that below, the line of Garou has stopped. The one in the lead holds his torch close to something -- a slab of stone, inscribed with glyphs. The others gather close.
All seven of them look upon the stone, reading. After a moment, they turn to each other and seem to deliberate. It's impossible to hear what they say, but soon enough they split up, each in a different direction -- some turning off the path into the trees, others going ahead, still others turning back, and one of them simply disappearing altogether, pulling across the barrier between worlds without a sound.
The one in the lead goes on alone, his torch a burning spot in the dark. The path he is on will take him directly past the two men in the trees. After a dozen yards or so, he extinguishes his torch.
Blue moonlight is the only light left on this mountain. In it, the young Garou is faceless and dark, striding purposefully onward.
[Katherine Bellamonte] The gathered Kinfolk must wonder for just an instant if one of their Garou helpers has just up and left them to defend themselves while she takes care of her own neck. Any that have witnessed the Silver Fang's more selfish moments might well consider it -- but after a strained few moments -- the white wolf re-appears, belly close to the ground, her eyes strangely pale for a wolf; even a supernatural one.
She shifts her forms; suddenly a semi-nude human woman crouched low down with her palms to the soil; they can read that her expression is one of grim understanding. She gestures them close, urges them down so that she might whisper what she knows. "Two men in the trees, one is our beloved Durand from earlier, the other I do not know. They wait for the Cubs undergoing their Rite of Passage, Christobal is their target. We must not allow them to ambush him."
[Liadan Whelan] [percept + alert]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]
[Danicka Musil] [perception + alertness: CRISTOBAL WHERE ARRRE YOOOU?]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Lonna Larson] [maybe she'll succeed?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[-the foretold-] (*gives you a freebie*)
As Kate's returning, she hears:
"See? They always split here. He'll be an easy catch."
"A more difficult pupil, perhaps. How can you be certain that we can turn him?"
"It doesn't matter. We take him first. If he does not break, he will die. Regardless, Gaia will not have this one."
to Katherine Bellamonte
[-the foretold-] Yes.
to Danicka Musil, Liadan Whelan
[Liadan Whelan] The men in the trees are waiting for Cristobal. There's no point using her camera as a telescope again; in the darkness, nothing would be picked up, except the click and whirr of the zoom lens. One of the group of Garou is headed their way along the path. She has her suspicions, given the location of those who would try to harm the boy they've been sent to aid/protect and the path the lone figure is taking.
She squints into the darkness, and even though time has passed, she recognizes the young man.
Straightening, her burden of rocks cradled in one arm, Lee moves on a path to intercept the boy. If he's Garou -- which, if he's on his Right of Passage, surely he must be -- he will catch her breeding before she even reaches him.
If nothing else, maybe she can block an attack from the men further on.
[Danicka Musil] For what it's worth, Danicka listens to Katherine. She nods her head at the figure still walking this way, his torch extinguished, the other cubs having each gone their own way -- a choice that made her brow furrow tightly.
As though she knows anything about such things.
"Should one of us talk to him?" she whispers back to Kate. She does not say the other thought, the more brutal one, the one that marks her as a Shadow Lord. But then Lee gets up and moves away, and Danicka frowns again, but she does not stop the redhead.
[Lonna Larson] She doesn't notice much. She notices that she is wearing leather, that she likes the scent. She is looking at her companions for cues or something that would be an indication that there is something to do. The blonde waits for some kind of detail. She whispers.
"Where are they?"
[Katherine Bellamonte] The Silver Fang's expression is suddenly blood-thirsty. She is furious, at the two men in the trees. She is all monster at this moment, half-crouched and ferally glorious with her tousled hair about her face. "I am going after the two in the trees, I will aim to kill them before they may reach the boy, but if I fail," if I fall, she doesn't add, "it may well come down to your being able to sway the boy and his Cub-mates that they are all in danger here."
She levels her eyes at Danicka, her Alpha's mate for a long moment, weighing her options before she reaches out and unsheathes the knife, holding it out to one of them to take. "Be cautious, if the boy cannot be saved -- if we are too late, they mean to turn him to the Wyrm and we cannot allow that to come to pass."
She knows Danicka comprehends her.
[-the foretold-] The boy -- not a boy anymore, but a cub, a young Garou -- comes onward swiftly now.
There's a resolve in him that they had not seen before: not from the shrinking boy under the tower, nor from the sullen almost-teenager in the market. His shoulders are back, his head held high. He moves easily, with strength and grace, and after a handful of steps
shifts, quickly, with an ease that Garou far older than he have yet to manage.
Lupus now, he turns off the path and cuts straight up the steep cliff-face, winding around the ancient trees clinging to the bare rock, leaping and bounding from outcropping to outcropping on his way up. He will be there in a matter of seconds, but the men in the trees will intercept him first.
Katherine slips off now, creeping through the undergrowth to ambush those men. She will reach them scarce seconds before Cristobal does.
[Liadan Whelan] Lee pauses, watching in awe as the young man shifts from human to wolf in a heartbeat. It's a sight the once lost kinfolk has yet to get tired of seeing.
With a shake of her head, she continues on. She's not terribly quiet. She has no training at being sneaky, and it's dark. No doubt stones are kicked down the hill, twigs are snapped. Regardless, the tall woman, her skin unearthly pale in the moonlight, moves to place herself directly in front of the wolf.
"Cristobal," she hisses into the darkness, and waits, strangely calm. Being eaten by a wolf in the 12th century is the least that she deserves.
[Lonna Larson] She followed her companions, and instead she found herself looking at those he was going through his Rite of Passage with. She looked over their details, at the points of finer detail. Were they young? Were they old? Were they strong, were they small? Did they know what was coming for them? The blonde crouched; hunting didn't suit her, but... defense, in a sense, did.
She waited to see what would come next, but she stayed with Lee.
[Danicka Musil] For some reason she thinks it must be his moon. She doesn't know if it is, she doesn't remember seeing the sky when they witnessed the immediate aftermath of his birth.
And Danicka remembers seeing that, remembers seeing him as a little boy clinging to his brother, remembers him going from shouting at Katherine to clinging to her hand, and though it has been years for him, the entire span of his life thus far
for her it has been a matter of hours. Less.
Katherine speaks, and Danicka reaches into the bag at her belt. No gun, no cellphone, nothing but a handful of talens, as though these are the one thing that will go with her from time to time, place to place, regardless. As though they -- the spirits in them, the spirit of their maker -- are tied to her somehow, when the rest is not. She wraps her hand around something in the bag, but does not remove it. She takes her hand out again, turning her head --
"Dai, wait," she whispers after the Fianna -- who is already going, and now being followed by Lonna. As is Kate. Danicka does not nod or indicate her agreement in any way, but the fact that she seems so unperturbed by this talk of killing Durand and his partner is telling.
It would be insane for her to go with Kate to try and kill two full grown men. But nor does she get up and move to intercept Cristobal. Yet. She stays where she is, in the dark, cellophane rustling quietly in her bag.
[Katherine Bellamonte] [Ambush! 'RRRRRRR' Stealth + Dex + WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]
[-the foretold-] (resist!)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 7 (Failure at target 6)
[Katherine Bellamonte] [Free Action! Bite Durand! Dex + Brawl + Lupus + Totem +3 extra to hit]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[Katherine Bellamonte] [Damage!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] (no soak!)
[-the foretold-] Liadan looms up out of the dark, but the wolf doesn't startle. He's a wolf. He can hear with greater acuity than she can imagine, and as for his sense of smell --
well. He probably knew they were up here the instant he shifted.
Which means the fact that he hasn't picked up on the other two yet suggests they're cloaked by a force more powerful than mere ability. But nevermind that: the wolf looks at Liadan now, and Lonna behind her, and his eyes are calm.
He sits on his haunches. A moment later he's Cristobal again: a youth now, perhaps fifteen or sixteen. When he stands, he's quite tall, eye to eye with Liadan, and broadening across the shoulders. There's a lean, taut strength to him. The birthmark is still on his face, the 'thumb' in the center of his forehead over his third eye; the fingers fanning over his temple and cheekbone.
"I was wondering when I would see you again," he says. "It's fitting that it is on the night of my Rite of Passage."
His eyes move past the two of them, searchingly, and then come back.
"Where are the others?"
--
Meanwhile, in the dark:
A sudden leap, an abrupt and savage tearing of teeth. A strangled cry comes from the dark: Durand, grievously wounded by a single bite from the Silver Fang.
His companion whirls on Katherine. For an instant, the white wolf can see his face: proud, cruel, hard and lined. His hair is combed straight back from brow and temples, ash-blond, pale and white in the darkness. It falls to his shoulders, and his beard is neatly trimmed along his jawline.
Durand's face is an echo of his own, and his raiment is rich and resplendent. This is, without doubt, the Baron of Rennes.
Katherine's blood stretches back this far. So does Danicka's, for that matter, and Imogen's, and Liadan's, but their ancestors lived in farflung lands. Katherine's, however, hail from a region just east of here, close to the mighty Pyrenees dividing what would become Spain from what would become France, and where the Bellamonte family would arise in later centuries.
Renne's eyes narrow on the wolf. "Navarre," he spits. A second later he is no longer a man but a monster, a war-wolf, Crinos and terrible and
purest white from head to tail.
He attacks.
[-the foretold-] (action order over in RARland:
Kate
Durand
Uncle)
[-the foretold-] (Actions:
Durand: 1a. Draw sword
b. Stab Kate!
Uncle:
1a. Draw sword
b. Apply Wyrm-toxin
R1. Slash!
R2. Gift: Terrify)
[Liadan Whelan] The wolf knows they're there, even almost expects them to be here, on this night of all nights. Even though they, themselves, don't know the rhyme or reason to their time jumps.
Cristobal is grown now, is as tall as Líadan, a man in this day and age.
"There are just four of us this time. Durand was waiting for you, up there," she twists at the waist and points back the way she and Lonna came. "Katherine went after them."
She remembers, belatedly, as if it's taken this long for the sound to penetrate her consciousness, hearing Danicka call out to her. Beckoning to Cristobal, she turns, dropping her burden of stones into her satchel, and heads back toward the Shadow Lod. "Up here."
[Katherine Bellamonte] Her teeth are bared; and they glisten with Durand's blood.
She adds insult to injury and spits it out; then, as her family lineage is hissed and the Crinos rears before her, she follows suit and morphs to her own war form; launching herself at him with a great snapping of powerful teeth.
(Actions: 1a. Bite Uncle
1b. Bite Uncle
R1. Bite Uncle
R2. Bite Uncle some more!)
[Danicka Musil] She can barely hear Lee and Cristobal, as far as they are, and as good as her ears are. She can hear Kate better, the silence before the sudden lunge, the way leaves and twigs shove against the earth under her paws before she tears a hole in whatever warm body incited her wrath. Danicka sees Cristobal shift back into the form he was born in, and she gets to her feet, the hood of her cloak back. The bluish glow of the full moon makes her hair more silver than gold, but her knife is still sheathed.
She starts moving, hurriedly, towards the other two women and the cub, and as soon as she is in earshot -- though she hears the snap of jaws, the sounds of pain -- she looks straight at the young man.
"Why on earth are you alone, Cristobal?" she demands, albeit quietly, sound more worried than aggravated. She bites back more words before she asks in exasperation something along the lines of What did I tell you?
[Lonna Larson] For this day and age, he is quite tall. From their time, Cristobal would be of an average height, maybe a little taller. It's appropriate that they are there at his Rite of Passage. She observed, and was quiet for a second, "it's just the four of us right now."
Giving some indication that the other two were.. somewhere. To be honest, Lonna was a little unsure.
[-the foretold-] Cristobal tenses visibly at the snaps and the growls in the darkness. Though Liadan begins to lead him back to where Danicka is, the young Garou turns instantly in the direction of the fighting, his profile sharp and clean in the dark.
"We must help her!"
Then there's three, and Cristobal turns back. "We must be alone. That is what the stone of the ancients says. It is the way it has always been. This is my Rite of Passage."
He looks at Danicka for a moment then, recognition mingling with amazement in his eyes. "You never age," he says, though this is not the time nor the place for such an observation. "None of you ever do. Every time you return, you look the way you did before, as though all those years, all my life, was but a moment ago in yours.
"What are you? Spirits?" A short, helpless sort of laugh. "Saints, like the Christians preach? Goddesses, like the pagans say?" A breath drawn, released. "No matter." Now there's affirmation, a surprising confidence; a note of assurance that others would follow. "We have to help Katherine."
Then, a flicker of the old doubt --
"Don't we?"
[-the foretold-] Meanwhile, in the trees:
Katherine surges into warform to meet the fallen Garou of her tribe. Two bites has the older Garou snarling and on the defense, red blood staining his white pelt. Meanwhile, his nephew fumbles with his sword, his dexterity and grace lost to the crippling wound Truth's Meridian dealt.
But then --
Then the baron of Renne fixes Katherine with such a stare, such a chillingly regal ... mad stare, that the young Philodox freezes in place.
Eye to eye, they glare at each other, the wounded Philodox leaning, his handpaw pressed to the gash in his side.
"What are you trying to accomplish here?" he hisses. "The boy's destiny belongs to us."
[Lonna Larson] Were they spirits?
Something about that made Lonna smile. They never aged. This was not the right time to realize this, but they had been the same through several major junctures in this young male's life. She looks at him, and she nods. He wants to go help Katherine, he needs to do this alone,t hat's the way it's always been written.
There was confidence in his voice, in his posture.
"Let's go," she tells him, "I trust your judgment."
[Liadan Whelan] Lee starts to guide them back to Danicka, but Danicka is on her way to them. They gather together, the sounds of battle behind them. Lee glances to Danicka, then to Lonna.
"No. Whatever brought us here, it's to protect him." She turns back to Cristobal, looks him easily in the eye. "Tonight...I think tonight is the night the Wyrm tries to corrupt you. I don't think it's in your best interest to walk right into its arms."
[Katherine Bellamonte] Her maw is bloody, and her fur bristles with her stifled Rage; the air is thick with it right now. The younger Philodox is frozen by her fallen Elder's mad stare, but the disgust in her throat is a roar, plain and true: "You SHALL NOT HAVE HIM. His destiny belongs to none but himself; wretched foul tainted one! You are a blight upon the earth and I shall cleanse it of you!"
[-the foretold-] The fallen Fang scoffs aloud at that. His nephew crumples to one knee, clutching his savaged underbelly, moaning quietly. The baron of Renne doesn't even look at him.
"Try and stop me," he sneers at Katherine, and arrogantly, utterly confident of his Gift's effect, brushes right past the bristling Fang and heads for the boy.
[Katherine Bellamonte] [Uh, BITCH SAYS WHAT TO ME? Rage Check]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Danicka Musil] Of course a young boy, a preteen, wouldn't really notice if the adults around him never age. They are as they have ever been, taller and older, adults to his childhood. But now he is not a child anymore, not by any standards but that of modern mortals. There are no modern mortals anywhere near them to say that he's just a kid still, he's not even a young man.
But he is Garou. And he finally realizes: they never change. Saints, goddesses, spirits, he wonders -- and then dismisses. They have to help Katherine, he says. That's what's important. Right?
I trust your judgement, says Lonna.
No, says Lee.
Danicka stares at him, crossing her arms over her chest loosely, a stance she rarely takes because it looks... strong. Behind her, Katherine roars in a tongue that she cannot understand, that maybe only the Baron and maybe Cristobal can. She thinks for a moment, which is all she has, and then jerks her head up towards the battle behind them. "You will be tempted by corruption for the rest of your life, Cristobal, both in and out of battle," she says. "That is what the Wyrm is. If you cannot resist it now, knowing that your Fall could destroy the lives of anyone and everyone you care about and may even doom our entire people, then your fate really has been decided already."
Her arms unfold and drop to her sides. She takes a thin dart out of her bag, and draws her dagger -- which she obviously does not have a clue how to wield -- with her other hand. She does not, out loud, tell him
But I'll fight with you. As much as I can.
[Katherine Bellamonte] Katherine is utterly helpless.
She cannot move her limbs, she cannot struggle. She cannot protect the boy.
But she can call to him: "Christobal! You are a Chosen of Gaia! Do not listen to the Fallen One's barbed tongue! Fight with us! Make your stand and earn yourself a place among us!"
[-the foretold-] Cristobal looks from Lonna
to Liadan
to Danicka.
These women have, in a sense, been with him throughout his life. Lonna, the caregiver, the kin, the sweet; Liadan, bold, dangerous with her fists and feet, often harsh, and just a little fearsome. And Danicka: ever a voice of balance, and ever a voice
(ironically enough, some might argue)
for truth.
The young Garou draws a breath, releases it. Then he raises his chin. "I will do as I must," he says, and turns to face the figure stepping from the woods.
Who has reverted to the form of a man, noble and stern. Who is brilliant in his purity of blood, which the kin cannot sense, but Katherine could. Who is bleeding from a grievous wound in his side, one that he does not even attempt to hide. The Baron of Renne lifts his hands from his side, baring the gash, and holds them bloodied out to Cristobal.
"You are the one that was promised!"
His voice is strong, cutting the night.
"You are the one that will change the course of things. Your line will rise strong through the centuries. Your strength and the strength of your descendants will win the war, but not the way these Gaians think. They call themselves protectors, boy, but what have they done?
"Have they saved your father when they sheltered you in your childhood?
"Have they spared you from further pain when they kept you from the knife in your youth?
"Have they done anything but destroy?
"Look at her!" With his bloody hand, he gestures at Katherine, red-mawed amongst the trees. "Look at what she has done to me, to my nephew, when I have done nothing against her! Those are your protectors, the defenders of Gaia! They are corrupt. They must be cleansed!
"Join us."
[Declaration for Baron: 1Gn --> Gaia's (hurr) Breath. Healing for 4.]
[Liadan Whelan] Lee unsheathes her own dagger. She knows that the pointy end goes in the enemy, but beyond that she has almost know idea what to do with it. Holding it up, she relaxes her wrist, bounces it up and down, perhaps testing the balance, or maybe simply readying herself, bracing herself for the danger to come. Holding the dagger in her right hand, she reaches into her bag and pulls out a stone.
Cristobal is Garou. Though tonight is his Right of Passage, the night he gains his first rank, he is a warrior of Gaia. He does not need three kinswomen to protect him, to stand around him like concerned aunts and fight his fights for him.
But, in Lee's mind at least, they are here to protect him from a dark destiny. That's why they're here, in a time and place completely and utterly foreign to them. They can't let Cristobal walk right into the arms of the Wyrm.
So they won't.
"You can't have him!" the tall Fianna woman shouts across the distance, for a moment looking like the barbaric warriors of her ancestors, ancestors who even now are warring on an island far away. She cocks back her arm, and prepares to throw.
[Lonna Larson] She looks at the Garou, the bleeding Baron and she observes him. Her eyes are not hard, though her muscles are tense. There is something there, beautiful and spiteful and as close to rage as kinfolk can get. Your descendents will win the war, but not the way these Gaians think.
She looked at him, and she didn't look away.
"I pity you," she tells the Baron. Knowing pity is a vicious thing, knowing pity is a dishonorable, disgraceful thing, "you've lost your way, and I pity you for it."
She tenses. She is young and vibrant and kinfolk, but she is ready to defend as best she can.
[Katherine Bellamonte] "Filthy mensonges! Vous êtes l'agent de la Wyrm! Vous êtes un lâche et un faible et que vous ne méritent aucune pitié!" The Stifled Silver Fang snarls and snaps in her mother's language, a tirade of angry guttural noises that none can likely comprehend, though the direction of her Rage, the Rage that steams from her being, cannot be disputed.
"I am ashamed that you share my Auspice. Spineless creature of the Enemy! You are all that my tribe loathes." There is some method to the pinned Cliath's mad rebukes, if she can but tempt him to turn his back for a moment ...
"You cannot hope to win this," she wheezes a laugh. "We know, we have seen the future."
[Katherine Bellamonte] [edit: Kate is now in Homid!]
[Danicka Musil] They bore flashing lightning and cracking thunder into Cristobal's childhood. One of them had the earth swallow him whole. The soft woman with the curly hair seemed to drain him of his very emotion in adolescence, removing the stain of anger and pain from his soul, at least for awhile. They can see the future. They do not age.
And then Danicka, as the Baron steps forward and speaks to Cristobal. She exhales through her nostrils, vastly irritated. An arm is cocked to throw a stone. The woman with the healing hands whips him with her pity.
She looks at Cristobal. "I am not leaving you. I promise."
But then she does. Her left hand is in her bag, pulling something else out, quickly. A stopper is yanked out with her teeth and the black water downed in a second. And then, quite simply, Danicka vanishes into the dark.
[-the foretold-] The Baron accuses them of destruction in the place of protection -- and Liadan prepares to throw a dagger. He speaks of their failing to ward Cristobal from pain and abuse -- and Lonna hurtles pity like a blade while Katherine spits invectives from yards away.
Danicka promises with actions that she will fight with him. She promises with words that she will not leave him.
And then she vanishes into the dark.
Cristobal looks around him. His agitation is clear in the rapid rise and fall of his chest, the quick, shallow breaths that flare his nostrils and raise the hairs on his body on end. He looks from face to face, and finally to the Baron.
"I have heard," he says, slowly, as though unwilling, "that the Wyrm is nothing but corruption and taint and evil. What could you possibly have is worthy and good?"
And the Baron smiles: as if he'd already won.
"Hope," he says, soft. "Renewal. An end to this corrupt world, this rotten earth. A new world. Balance through upheaval and change. Life through death."
[Liadan Whelan] [Are you a liar?: percept + subt]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Lonna Larson] per+empathy: where you goin' with this, Mr. Baron man?
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) [WP]
[Danicka Musil] [Danicka's not rolling Empathy. Danicka's getting behind the Baron.]
to -the foretold-
[-the foretold-] He is not lying. At least, not consciously. This one's a true believer.
to Liadan Whelan
[-the foretold-] This one is a true believer; a fanatic and a hierophant of the Wyrm. He believes every word out of his mouth, and he believes it's this boy's fate to give in to the Wyrm, for his descendants to rise to greatness in the Wyrm's army, and perhaps to turn the tide of the Apocalypse. He believes it's his fate to bring the boy to the Wyrm, and in doing so, earn everlasting renown for himself as well.
to Lonna Larson
[Liadan Whelan] He's not lying, or at least, he believes what he says. He believes that through corruption and destruction the world will begin anew.
Lee holds her dagger at the ready, ready to throw if she can. The man before them can shift into a monster at will. The last time, the first the first time Lee encountered a fallen Garou, she was left naked in the streets of Chicago, shaken with the knowledge of what would have happened had the beast not lost its focus. She has no desire to get within reach of an enemy Garou's claws again.
And, even though she knows to the depth of her being that every breath she takes is undeserved, she knows that she does not want to die. Not today, not in a foreign country nearly nine hundred years before she's born. Danicka vanishes into the shadows, leaving her alone with the cub and Lonna.
Poised for attack, Lee says, "He's right, that's one way to bring change. But, is that what you want, Cristobal? To rebuild the world in the ashes of the fallen? To change the world through pain and devastation?"
[Lonna Larson] "... I'm willing to say that you loved Gaia," she told the Spiral. She would never get the chance to say this again, she would never find herself staring down the barrel of insight in this manner ever again. He believes every word coming out of his mouth.
"That... that once, it pained you to see a world out of balance, that you sought change, that you seek to bring things to harmony," she is what she is, though, and she tries to put this into perspective, "that... maybe... you loved Gaia, and you thought this was the way to help Her. You wanted to make a change."
She knows that she can't change him, but it's a harrowing thought. Whether she was imposing her own judgments upon this Philodox or not, she had a thought. Maybe they weren't that different.
That, in and of itself, was terrifying.
"But this, through deeds that are for nothing but destruction does not honor Gaia," she insists, "does not protect Her, does not heal Her. It hurts Her children, makes a mockery of the gifts she gives. I was told that things like hatred and suffering reflect, that it feeds something terrible. There's another way to help Gaia, and it's not through false hope."
She stops.
"It is through sincere devotion. Through a pure love for Gaia- the road to change isn't easy, and it won't be. But war will not be won through wanton destruction."
[Katherine Bellamonte] "He lies."
The Silver Fang seems almost drained now, as if all she had that remained was the beauty that was her words, the beauty that had awed a crowd once in Cristobal's youth to revere and drop to their knees before her. "He does not tell you the truth, Cristobal, he tells you the corrupted falsehoods that the Wyrm has driven through his heart and soul like shards of glass. What he sees as renewal is but the Wyrm's way of describing the end of all things. We have seen what will become of you if you allow this creature to twist you."
For the moment, she is not so much older than he, she is barely twenty one years old, and she is afraid for his soul.
"You will sit perched on a pile of bones, and you will mock the earth with the grinning visage of a monster; devoid of pity, devoid of mercy. No hope left. I do not lie, Cristobal for I have no reason to. I bid you, look at the people around you who have appeared to you each time there was need, question why we should appear such as we do if not because Gaia herself sends us?
Because she loves you.
She needs you.
She sends you creatures of flesh and blood who stand ready to die.
What does the Wyrm send but a visage of his own twisted mayhem."
[-the foretold-] After the Baron speaks, Cristobal closes his eyes for a moment.
There's a chill in the air. It's autumn, though here on the mountain, amidst the evergreens, the signs of the season are sparse and subtle. It's in the temperature, in the birds that remain for the winter; in the lessening of flowering plants, and the gradual quieting of fauna.
The young Garou is dressed much as they are: in soft hides, plain. His tunic leaves his arms bared, and there is muscle to his limbs now, a wiry strength that will, with age, gain mass and might.
But he is still young. They have seen him as a child; as a youth; and now, as what this time -- and what the Garou Nation -- would call an adult. They have seen him clinging to others for strength, because he was sheltered, because he was (over)protected, because he was special.
And dangerous.
There's a flicker of that now, when his eyes open and he looks not at the Baron, not at Lonna or Liadan or Katherine in the woods, but into the dark. He searches. He asks, "Where is the other? Why has she -- "
and he breaks off. Cristobal draws a breath through his nostrils and seems to find a new resolve, a fresh strength in himself. His eyes return to the Baron and remain there
while Liadan speaks, short and flat.
and then Lonna, full of ... well. Hope.
and then Katherine, all certainty. All assurance.
There's a silence after that. They can hear the wind through the trees.
Then:
"Your hope," Cristobal says, quietly, "is poison."
The Baron's face changes. The smile drops off like a mask. The eyes turn dead and cold.
"Your path leads straight to Malfeas."
The Dancer's teeth bare. In an instant he bursts into his warform, white and deadly, lunging with a snarl, going for the throat. The young Garou doesn't flinch; doesn't shy from the attack. He stands his ground, bold against the onslaught, remaining in his homid form long enough to shout:
"My fate is not yours to decide!"
--
[annnnd inits! Durand will be attacking Kate this round, so she is free to move again.]
[Danicka Musil] [+6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1
[Lonna Larson] (5+1d10)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7
[Liadan Whelan] [+6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
[-the foretold-] [Durand: +3 (owww)]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] [Baron +6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5 (Failure at target 6)
[Katherine Bellamonte] [Init! +7
Spending 1 Rage to Instashift to Crinos]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3
[Danicka Musil] [Ambush: Stabbity! Dex + 'Melee' // +1 diff (unskilled) -2 diff (rear attack)]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 3)
[Danicka Musil] [Damage: Strength + 1]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] [Normal init order:
Lonna
Lee and Baron simultaneous
Kate
Durand
Danicka]
[-the foretold-] [Baron: soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Danicka Musil] [1a. Stabbity again!]
[-the foretold-] [init, cristobal! +7]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Failure at target 6)
[-the foretold-] [Init order:
Lonna
Cristobal
Lee and Baron
Kate
Durand
Danicka]
[-the foretold-] Durand:
1. Backstab Kate!
[Katherine Bellamonte] [Declare:
1a. Spin to face Durand!
1b. Bite!
R1. Bite!
R2. Bite!]
[-the foretold-]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] Baron:
1a. Slash at Cristobal with tainted sword!
b. Again!
R1. Slash Danicka
R2. Slash Lonna
[Liadan Whelan] [1a: throw dagger!]
[-the foretold-] Cristobal:
1R - Crinos!
1a. Bite!
b. Bite!
R1. Bite!
[Lonna Larson] action!
1:Dodge. This coggie
[-the foretold-] Cristobal:
a. chomp! -2
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 7, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[-the foretold-] dam+3!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] Baron, soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] b. chomp again! -3
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 5)
[-the foretold-] Self damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] Ow!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [throw at Baron: dex + ath]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Liadan Whelan] [damage: str + 1]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 1, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[-the foretold-] Baron: slashing Cristobal, -2!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] Damage, lethal!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] (soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 7, 7, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Katherine Bellamonte] [1a. Spin to face Durand!
1b. Bite! -3 Split Dice Pool]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5)
[-the foretold-] Baron, slashing again! -3!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 3, 3 (Botch x 1 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] (Self damage!)
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Katherine Bellamonte] [Damage!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] Durand: x_x
[Danicka Musil] [Oh fuck this fighting shit. Changing actions to activate a BB. -1WP.]
[-the foretold-] Cristobal, R1: chomp!!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 5)
[-the foretold-] Damage, +1!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] Baron, Rage 1 - slashing Danicka!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] Dam +2!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Danicka Musil] [Soak. WHIRRWHIRRWHIRR I'M FINE.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] [Kate: running!
Durand: dead!
Danicka: out of actions!
Lonna: get ready to dodge!
Cristobal: out of actions!
Baron: slashing Lonna!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Lonna Larson] Dodgery!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6) [WP]
[Katherine Bellamonte] [R1: RUNRUNRUN
R2: SURPRISE BITCH I CAN STOP YOU! -2 Diff for back attack Bite]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 3)
[Katherine Bellamonte] [Damage!]
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 9 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] (noooo i want to liiiiiive!)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[-the foretold-] Baron: X_X
[-the foretold-] This is the year of the Christian Lord, 1136.
Feminism is nonexistent. Democracy is unheard of, lost to the ruins of Rome. People die a hundred paces from where they were born. Those born into serfdom will stay there, and those born into privilege may fall in the next bloody war.
For all that, the War -- the Great War -- is not yet as dire as it will be in 2009. The Garou are plentiful, their strongholds mighty. Dancers are still a rare thing. This Sept has had a regular stream of Rite of Passaging cubs for the past few millennia; enough that they have a set standard for the Passage, a set series of tasks, a set pattern. This Sept has a village of kin who know their place is to tend the hearth and raise the cubs, just as it's a Garou's place to fight the war.
The idea of a kin traveling far from home is unheard of. The idea of kin fighting -- unthinkable. It is likely that Cristobal will never again see kin such as these:
wielding thunder and lightning.
vanishing in to the shadows, only to burst out and backstab a Crinos with nothing but the flimsy strength of her arm.
throwing daggers. shouting at the wyrm.
dodging the poison blade of a lord of the Dancers.
He will remember them, though, just as he'll remember the incandescent glory of the Silver Fang tearing down the hill to dig her teeth into the Spiral's back and rip out his spine.
Just as he'll remember burn of the Spiral's blade across his body and the salt taste of his enemy's blood; the glory of battle, and the humility of his mistakes and failures. He'll remember, even when he has risen to the greatness that was foretold, how close he came to the darkness, how it took the strength of others to buoy him through his trials, how in the end the choice was his, but how easy it is, really, to slip and fall.
--
In seconds, it is done. The Spiral and his kin lay dead in the dirt. The killing blow was not the cub's, this one that was foretold, this one that was promised. Afterward, his teeth drip with blood, and his limbs quiver with adrenaline.
He shifts down, slowly. It is quite possible the Baron of Rennes is the first Dancer he has ever seen.
[Danicka Musil] The effort it takes Danicka to so much as think of approaching a warformed werewolf is more than Lonna or Lee will ever know, no matter how tired they are, no matter how exhausted their resources. There are times when she is so drained that to imagine what one looks like almost sends her into flashbacks. There are times when she has literally fallen to her knees, sobbing, begging not to be killed, promising anything -- anything -- if they just won't hurt her.
It's possible, and in fact likely, that no one here can understand what it takes for Danicka to sneak up on a crinos Spiral and shove a flimsy, peasant-forged dagger into his back enough to bite past the furred flesh but not enough to really hurt him.
Which she knew it wouldn't.
Cristobal has known since he met her that the woman who introduced herself as Dani&+269;ka is a magician and possibly a madwoman. Beads that open the earth. Smacking young boys across the face, speaking to them as though she's their better. Vanishing into shadow. There's even a pulsing blue glow over her heart after she reappears behind the Baron, as she presses something dark and stiff against her chest. And then there's the fact that as the Dancer's tainted blade cuts across her midsection, opening her tunic and bloodying her belly, Danicka gasps --
-- and the wound instantly closes, before more than a cupped handful of blood has dripped from it, leaving her skin intact and her organs untouched. But it does take something from her. She lets out a shriek as the battle continues, hands flying up to cover her face, dagger dropping to the ground. Her knees buckle and she just barely keeps herself from crashing rather than gradually sinking downward, hiding her face so insistently that she does not see what Katherine does, what any of them do after that.
When it's over, and things have gone quiet, Danicka is kneeling on the ground, palms to her face, shaking with fear. It's only after a few deep, sucking breaths that she dares to lower her hands and look past them
and see the Baron and Durand dead
and see that Cristobal has shifted down to his birth form.
She's on her feet in a shot, running over to him and throwing her arms around the cub's midsection. There are tears on her face. "I am so proud of you," she lets out, the sort of sincere endearment that no adult here has before -- or may likely ever again -- seen from her.
[Katherine Bellamonte] It had taken the Wyrm how long to plan this entire thing? Days, weeks, months. Years.
And yet it had taken but mere hours perhaps in their own lives for them to end it; these few chosen Kinfolk and Two Garou. They are not many, in the history of battles. They are barely anything at all and yet; with hand and voice, fist and fang, courage and determination they managed to sway the course of one Garou's future from one of utter destruction to one of pure glory. This, indeed, is something for them all to look back on with total pride.
Truth's Meridian, after savaging the mortal body that tried to stab her in the back, was upon the fallen Half Moon in seconds; her Rage was impossible, her white fur a beacon for Gaia in the moonlight as she leaped upon his back, her claws sinking deep into flesh as she leaned in to whisper the last words this one would ever hear:
Watch me stop you.
Blood and gore sprayed her, as her jaws sank deep, sank so deep they ground around bone and tore it straight from his body; the strength went out of the beast she clawed at, and it collapsed beneath her. She snuffed at the ground, spat out the remains in her mouth and turned her face to the sky to issue a howl of triumph that even in her warform could not be mistaken for anything but.
They had won.
Cristobal had won.
The bloodied Silver Fang lowers her face from her howl, and shifts down. She looks to the boy -- and smiles, nods.
Well done.
[Liadan Whelan] It's over.
In the end, there was painfully little the kinfolk could do. When it comes to battle, they are simply not designed for it. Not like their cousins, the were-beasts of myth and legend. Líadan and Dani&+269;ka and Lonna are little more than humans. And yet they raised their voices and their fists against the Wyrm as fiercely and with as much determination as any of their warrior brethren.
There is silence for a moment, as they all wait with bated breath in the aftermath of destruction, wondering if there will be more bloodshed tonight. There is not, and the sound of joints popping and shifting, of bones and muscle and sinew reshaping from snarling beast of war to human teen. The sight of the Baron's bloodied form on the ground should sicken Lee, and yet she's oddly calm. She always has been. It's not normal, the way this woman leaps into battle. She sees a torn out spine, blood saturating the ground, but when she looks away it is not in disgust. She just...looks away.
To the other women, assessing damage as calmly as she would prepare a photo shoot. Then she looks at her hands, half expecting to see herself fading out of existence. But not yet, they still have time left in this era.
Danicka runs to Cristobal, throws her arms around him. Lee stays to the side, grinning a little, feeling awkward and out of place. She rests her hand on the young man's shoulder, gives it a little squeeze before her hand drops away.
[Lonna Larson] They were not the kin he was used to.
As far as Cristobel may have been concerned, they might not have been kin at all. They were, instead, visages of something that may not yet be, or something to come. They were there are portions of his life, and they may not be there much sooner, or at all, or ever again. She would remember this story, she would remember this moment, because this was a first for herself. A lot of it, a fair portion of it.
She looked at them, a small smile on her face. She is calm, she is serene, she is drained in a way that she is unaccustomed to.
She goes to inspect Cristobal, to look over damages and see to it that he was well. The blonde smiled.
This would be one of many battles in his life, but they all lived through it.
[-the foretold-] It's over.
(...for now.)
And Cristobal is still staring at the body of the tainted Garou, reverted in death now to the form of the regal man that had preached seductive blasphemies with every breath. He raises a hand to wipe his bloodied mouth. He looks at the Garou, his elder; the kin, some standing, one huddled on the ground hiding her face. The young Garou's eyebrows flicker together, but then she looks up, and
runs to him, slamming into him with enough force to make him puff an exhale out. Everyone watching can see an echo of Felipe in the way Cristobal -- after an uncertain hesitation -- wraps a comforting, protective arm around Danicka.
After a moment he pats her lightly on the back. When they draw apart his hand falls to his side. He looks at her and nods once, solemnly. His eyes rise -- to Truth's Meridian, savage and victorious, nodding her approval. To Liadan, silently squeezing his shoulder. To Lonna, smiling as she inspects his fresh wounds, the first of his life as a full-fledged Garou.
"There will be other temptations, won't there?" There's no fear in his voice; only a certain acceptance, as though this were already given to him as fact. "Other tests when the Wyrm will try to sway me to its side. Other times when I will have to make the right choice when it is not clear to me."
He thinks for a moment, brow furrowed, eyes lowered. When he looks at them again, though, his eyes are clear and calm.
"Will I see you all again?"
[Katherine Bellamonte] Katherine must look a sight.
Yet in some alien, totally Garou manner, she has never looked so beautiful, bloodied from battle; the victorious warrior. She stands now, before Cristobal and places her hands on his shoulders in a manner that is totally theirs.
"Brave warrior for the cause. He who stands before the Wyrm and heralds what shall be. You will forever be faced henceforth with challenges to your courage and to your conviction. This is what a Gaian faces, every single day. But if you remember us, and this night, if you recall the way the Wyrm addressed you as if it knew you before you knew yourself and tried to judge you before it was time -- you will never again suffer doubt in your duty."
Katherine rubs a palm over his face, a vaguely tender motion.
"You will not need us again."
[Liadan Whelan] Lee is reaching into her bag, not for the camera which may or may not be there, but to remove rocks and dump them on the ground.
"There will always be temptations," says the red-haired tramp of Chicago. When the bag is no longer weighed with rock, she looks back up to Cristobal, watching him through spectacles that have not even been invented yet. No one has noticed, has cared about the differences between these women, these strange visitors from another time and place. Maybe it's added to the sense of otherwordliness that they are so tall and so clean and so beautiful.
Katherine tells him he will not need them again, and Lee nods. "Just...when those choices come, use your best judgement. Do what you know is right." It feels weird, sounds weird, to hear those words come from her mouth. Maybe in this time and place, they aren't cliched yet.
[Danicka Musil] Lonna, beautiful in the way that warm, familiar, but unattainable things are beautiful, is so exhausted at the moment that she's leaning against a tree, looking like she's about to fall over. She has taken hatred and negativity from another soul into her own, then in an eyeblink turned around and been attacked by the flash of a sword in battle with a Dancer. To say that the Child of Gaia is tired is putting it mildy, is understating the reality of the situation by a degree that could be called negligent.
Lee is and will remain a severe giantess in all of Cristobal's memories, coming out of dark and daylight at turns and attacking what might harm her -- or him -- with anything she could, whether fists or feet or rocks or knives. She tells him things that in a few centuries will fall on deaf ears when spoken to a teenager, whether that teenager is Garou or Kinfolk or otherwise. They can all only hope that it means anything to him.
Katherine. Beast of war in his childhood. Shining, imperious princess in his adolescence. A flash of silver poetry underwritten with royal savagery in battle, in his own Rite of Passage. It is perhaps her words that have the greatest impact, coming as they do from one of his own kind, and one so laden with purity of blood and nobility of visage. The first time he is strong enough to take an enemy down with the sheer brutality and speed that Katherine showed tonight, he will remember her, and her hand on his cheek.
Danicka's midsection is exposed. She's smiling at Cristobal when he lets her go, her eyes a surprisingly bright green in the dark, her shining hair pulled back off her face. The smile fades in due time, and in part because he knows there will be other temptations, there will be other opportunities to fall, to slide, to lose everything. This was just a fact he was protected from all his life, a fact that was warped into destiny rather than the simple reality that all the Garou face.
And their Kin, truth be told.
But the truth isn't what Danicka tells now, though that is all she's given Cristobal since the moment she met him on a hill with a tower. She reaches down and squeezes his hand, smiles, and tells him,
"Be good, Cristobal."
[-the foretold-] Cristobal hold still for Katherine's hand on his face. He nods to Lee's words. And faintly, he returns Danicka's smile.
But above all that, he listens. He listens intently to all that they have to say, these women from another age that must seem to him surreally beautiful, surreally perfect, surreally ageless. He listens, but not the way a man listens to a saint or a god, nor even the way a Garou listens to a spirit.
There's awareness in his eyes. Respect, but intelligence as well. They have had a hand in shaping him, this young Garou, this one that was foretold, but he is grown now, and his own person.
"I'll remember," he says in the end. It's all he says.
--
A few more seconds go by. Then they can hear voices: the other cubs, hiking up the trail, calling into the night for their wayward brother. Cristobal smiles again: a small, oddly wise curl of his mouth. He makes an amorphous gesture in the direction of the others.
"I must go," he says. Another small pause. Then, "Thank you. Wherever you've come from, wherever you're going ... Gaia be with you."
The young Garou turns away. Back straight, self-composed, he walks from them. At the edge of the dropoff he turns and raises a hand in farewell. The last they see of him is the last they see of the 12th century: a snapshift to lupus, and then the deft, quick, surefooted way he leaps past the brink and races down to join his fellow cubs.
--
Darkness.
They dream:
The shape of things to come.
The sky is blood. Sullen red from horizon to horizon, wreathed into whorls and fissures, ripples, turbulences. The scent of smoke and death is in the air, and the ground is littered with corpses. Some are days, weeks old, spongy with rot. The smell is overpowering. Some are freshly slain, their wounds still seeping blood, their flesh firm like so much meat on the slaughterhouse floor.
All around, buildings have toppled. The ground has split open. Asphalt upended; entire tracts of architecture lain to waste. Stormclouds unlike any they've seen before crowd the horizons, black and angry atop, their bellies glowing with the light of distant fires, but the sky above is open.
But not clear.
A red star hangs directly overhead, burning out the constellations and the moon. This is nighttime, or perhaps daytime, or perhaps it is all the same now. That red star is not the sun, but its light is enough to see by, and it touches everything.
A creature, a mighty warlord of the wyrm, stands triumphant atop a shattered concrete pylon. It is hulking, massive, roughly bipedal, roughly lupine. Its fur is rich, white as snow. A cloak of skins hangs from its shoulders, woven with trophies of a thousand horrors: jawbones, ears, fingers, feet. As they watch, its ears suddenly prick upright. Swivel.
It turns --
-- and the swift, vicious swipe of another Garou's handpaw takes its lower jaw off in a single blow. Blood splatters. The bastard of the Wyrm howls, an open vowel sound, tongue hanging from the ruins of its jaw. Another blow nearly tears its head off, dropping it to the ground.
The Garou turns, and they can see her face. There's a mark on her face, which is a mark of glory and of honor: the simulacrum of a Crinos handprint across the brow, the temple, the cheek, the eye.
She raises her dark muzzle to the sky and howls. One by one, other Garou, other Gaian emerge from the ruins, stride from the desolation. They gather. They howl. The sound is not triumph, but something more urgent, more aware than that: defiance, strength, and the courage to fight on.
--
They wake:
Wind through leaves. The chill of winter again. A crescent moon through the trees. The darkness of the night before the shortest day, the solstice of the year.
For a moment, they're not sure what time it is, what year, which when.
Then they hear it. The rumble of a faraway diesel engine. A truck passing on a road. And they see the glare of electric lights; the glow off the clouds above. They smell the city, the asphalt and the concrete, the smog, the glass, the thousand artificial scents that crowd every day.
They're in Grant Park. They're wearing what they were wearing when they first entered the past. They have nothing to remind them of what has happened --
-- except, of course, the blood on Katherine's face. The blood on Danicka's stomach, under her shirt, where the sword had cut and the wound had healed. The mud on their coats where they had lain briefly in the rain. The soreness in their bodies.
And, if they choose to remember, if they choose not to dismiss it all as a dream, a fantasy, a night out on the town gone terribly wrong:
their memories. They remember.
celebration.
9 years ago