i'll back you up.

[Wyrmbreaker] It's scarcely been an hour since Wyrmbreaker met Ewan's Fostern challenge -- and failed him.

Now the Ahroun is back in the abandoned hangar Garou had spontaneously sparred in a week ago, spreading heaped sand over the bare concrete floor with a brush. It's late. The moon, a bare crescent, has long since set. The night is frigidly cold, the lake frozen over for miles and miles -- pristine, pale grey in the darkness.

[Covered Sky] This is the sort of night that's cold enough to kill even the most hardened of warriors if they find themselves unprotected and out in it for too long. Breath is quite literally stolen from the body, spirited away as thick clouds and left to freeze in the air, and there is little that can keep it at bay save for the continuation of movement, of forward progress.

The Philodox has always kept moving, and finds the smack of a January night to be of little consequence. Though there is very little business to be tended to tonight, she nevertheless walks as though she has a purpose for being out here.

Her steps take her to the hangar where a challenge took place tonight, where a Fostern of the Nation is spreading sand across relentlessly frigid concrete with a brush. The woman who Lukas only knows as Covered Sky--he'd introduced her as 'my cousin, Sky' once--appears in the open doorway of the hangar, burgundy barn coat zipped for once, wavy hair hanging loose over her shoulders only to be plucked up by the wind like an aimless lover toying with the ends.

She watches him for a moment, and then asks, "I hear I missed the first meeting of Fight Club."

[Covered Sky] [Er... "then SAYS." I think I'm catching a contact drunk.]

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas has left his overcoat folded up on a crate. He's in a sweater and thermal undershirt, the sleeves of both rolled up, the cords of his forearms taut and flexed against his skin as he pushes

sand

over bloodstained concrete. How fucking zen. The presence at the door does not go unnoticed; it makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, awareness. It's not until Park speaks that Lukas stops brushing sand flat over cement, though, straightening up with a slight grimace. Perhaps Shadow Lords are not accustomed to bending like that.

He leans idly on the brush, though, the handle held like a spear. And laughs -- short, amused. "And Spin Doctor's Fostern challenge besides." He looks at her: curious, smiling. "What brings you here so late?"

[Covered Sky] Thin eyebrows flick upwards, once, at the mention of her having missed a challenge, as well. It's acknowledgement that has them moving, taking the place of a nod or actual speech. She does not lean against the open door, holds herself upright with her hiking boots planted to give the impression of readiness, keeps her hands in her pockets as though someone with her abundance of Rage ever truly needs to be concerned with the temperature of the air around her. Like many of the Half Moons currently attached to this Sept, this young woman carries with her more anger than she was born with.

It's hard to tell if this is merely a coincidence, or if this Caern, with its calls for sacrifice and its history of bloodshed, is a draw for those of them who have already suffered plenty in their lifetimes.

Her ringless left hand pulls itself out of her pocket to push a hunk of black hair behind a small ear as he asks what brings her here so late, and she glances skyward as though that will give her an impression of what time, exactly, it is. The eastern sky hasn't yet begun to brighten with the coming of morning, but the moon has disappeared first behind thick clouds and then beyond the western horizon.

"I keep strange hours," she says, for the second time since they've met. "How long ago was the challenge?"

[Wyrmbreaker] "An hour," replies Lukas. "Maybe two. He'll try again next month."

They're both Shadow Lords here, but only Wyrmbreaker is visibly so. His face is unmistakable: that black hair, those cutting pale eyes. The wide, high cheekbones, the broad brow and angular jaw. Pure eastern europe. Pure slavic breeding, the blood that persisted for hundreds, thousands of years in the Carpathians. Lukas has ancestors that look just like him. The same eyes, clear blue. The same mouth, the same nose. That same look echoed over and over in the face of heroes, kings, warriors, vampire-hunters, vicious brutal warlords.

She's nothing like that, though. Covered Sky -- Gillian Park, though it's questionable whether anyone calls her that now -- looks nothing like the stereotypical Lord. She isn't even Caucasian. Doubtlessly she's been mistaken for Hakken. Maybe some racist fuck once asked her if she could use a katana. Maybe some racist fuck once told her to go back to Japan, though she's not from Japan.

Digression. Lukas considers his tribemate for a moment, and then he tosses the broom at her -- sideways, the shaft held crosswise between his hands, hefted over the distance.

"Help me out," he says, and goes to the edge of the hangar to pick up another broom. He's a hard worker, and he gets right back into it, pushing sand down over the floor of the hangar, smoothing it over crevices and cracks, stains and discolorations. All Shadow Lords are hard workers. Some are conniving fucks and some are domineering assholes, but all of them are hard working. None of them, not even a purebred creature like Lukas, were born with a silver spoon in mouth.

"Tell me about yourself," he invites. There's no preamble to this.

[Covered Sky] This woman's greatest asset is her mind, and yet there is a fluid sort of gracefulness in the way she carries herself, in the way she lifts her hands and seems to anticipate the fall of the broom's stick into her palms rather than reaching out into the air to snatch it away from gravity. She does not seem as though she would be much use in a bar fight, perhaps, and Lukas has seen the scars that cut into her neck and shoulder, but neither is she at odds with her body. She has the confidence that seems inherent to a Shadow Lord's nature, that persists despite defeat after defeat after defeat. This woman holds herself like someone of some authority, like someone who has achieved things that the sum total of her deeds do not even begin to hint at. Underneath it, though, is an undercurrent of loss.

All of them have lost. This is the End Times. Even the youngest cub will taste sorrow before the year is out; the oldest among them are just as torn up and etched with scar tissue on the inside as they are in flesh.

That broom comes into her possession without protest or question, and she briefly rests it against the wall of the hangar so that she can take off her barn coat. Beneath the heavy jacket there is nothing more than a form-fitting gray thermal shirt and lean limbs. Sleeves are pushed up, and the hairs on her arms do not immediately stand up in response to the cold; there is protection from the wind, here.

Her coat is tossed over a nearby crate, and long-limbed strides carry her deeper into the building.

As she gets to work alongside her tribesmate, broom stabilized in both calloused hands and slim back bending effortlessly, he speaks again. Her eyes come up, once, as though she has to give genuine thought to the prospect of doing as he's asked. It lasts but a few contractions of a working heart, and then the female begins thoughtfully spreading sand over the splattered concrete.

"I come from the Sept of the Red Rock in California," she says. "My Rite of Passage took place when I was fourteen years old, almost twelve years ago, and for almost twelve years that's where I stayed. I made Fostern when I was seventeen years old, which I lost when I was nineteen. I reattained the rank when I was twenty, and held it and the office of Master of Challenges until about a year ago."

Though she has never officially introduced herself as a Cliath, it's in her body language, confidence present or no. That rank was lost a second time, and she has yet to reclaim it.

[Wyrmbreaker] They work the way their ancestors -- or at least Lukas's ancestors -- possibly never dreamt of doing: with their hands, and bent backs, and a sort of physical, mindless focus. Lukas doesn't look at Park. He looks at what he's doing, shoving heavy, shifting sand from the heap dumped in the middle of the floor to the very corners of the old, shambling hangar.

There's something inherently soothing in repetitive work. In the burn of muscle groups, the ache of joints. In the repetition, like a heartbeat: grasp, lean in, push, straighten. Repeat.

He laughs under his breath when she mentions gaining rank. Twice. And losing it. Twice. The wind is stopped here, but the chill is in the very air itself. Hard work makes sweat break out along his hairline. It lifts away almost as fast, sublimated into the subfreezing air, freezing as a crust on his skin.

"Few regain a lost rank. Most die first. Even fewer regain it only to lose it again. What the hell did you do?"

[Covered Sky] What they are doing hardly qualifies as back-breaking labor. It certainly isn't the sort of work that the typical Eastern European is used to performing on a regular basis, certainly isn't the sort of work that the typical Korean sets herself to task to accomplish every day, yet it is more than most would expect out of a Shadow Lord. These two work as though this is what they were meant to be doing, without complaining or tearing their gaze away from it. Perhaps the fact that they have this, this mindless devotion to a single set purpose, is what is allowing the former Fostern to confess to not only having been knocked down from the second rank and scrambled back to reclaim it once, but losing it a second time.

His laugh is a far milder reaction than she had to have been expecting. One has to expect that there are places where she will not confess as much to a near-stranger, that there are places where she will claim to have never been a Fostern or a Master of Challenges to begin with. Perhaps there are places where they learn the story and force her to keep moving. She hadn't said where she has been for the last year, but given the way she dresses, the way she eats, it's not hard to imagine that she doesn't stay in one place long enough to get comfortable, to enjoy amenities that many of their tribe have come to take for granted.

Their tribe is also known for their ability to warp the truth so completely that is is mistaken for another brand of reality altogether.

It's her turn to laugh, and there is no humor in it.

"The first time," she says, "I confessed to having broken the first tenet of the Litany and was stripped of my renown. My rank went with it. As for the second time, I was one of the few survivors left after the Caern fell to the Spirals."

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas is ready, of course, to hear something rather awful. Rank isn't stripped easily, especially one as low as Fostern. The Nation doesn't expect all that much from its Fosterns. Some basic skill at whatever it is they're supposed to be doing. Some basic ability to avoid Complete Fuck-Ups.

So the first thing rolls right over him. She's not the first Charach he's met. Not even the first Charach Philodox. Maybe it was something about that moon, charged with seeing two sides of any issue. Maybe it was just coincidence.

The second, though. That makes the Ahroun stand upright, leaning on his broom for a moment. "Huh," he says, quiet.

A moment later he goes back to work. And to finish the thought: no. Lukas's ancestors would not have done this. They were nobles; kings of men, lords of wolves. They would not have bent to manual labor, though they did bend rather easily to deeds of shocking brutality and ruthlessness.

That's in his blood. Lukas tries his best to be a good Garou, a good man, a good wolf, but --

he's a Shadow Lord, after all.

A few moments go by; nothing bu the sussurant sound of brushes over sand, sand over concrete. Then: "Why were you blamed for that?"

[Covered Sky] Based on the amount of time that has passed since her First Change, most other people would be looking at challenging for Athro if not there already in the amount of time it has taken this woman to rise to and fall from Fostern twice. Of all of the ranks within the Nation, the Fosterns are the most plentiful. They have more responsibility than Cliaths, but they are not held to the same level that Adrens are. In many places, in most traditional--older--Septs, Fosterns do not lead packs. They do not hold Sept offices. They do not call themselves elders of anything, be it tribes or auspices. In the grand scheme of things, they are rather expendable.

Based on what Sky has said, it would not be a far cry to deduce that the Sept of the Red Rock was one of those more traditional--older--Septs, one of those Septs where Fosterns are expected to keep their noses clean and prove themselves more adept at their auspice roles than those who are fresh out of their Rites of Passage and little more. Perhaps she was viewed with more scrutiny because she was a female, or perhaps the Sept was not comprised of mostly Shadow Lords. Perhaps her mentor or her pack was viewed with enmity and she bore the brunt of it when she executed a misstep. She isn't saying. There is a lot she isn't saying. What Covered Sky is giving Wyrmbreaker is the boiled-down, bare-bones facts of what happened, either hoping that he will not ask questions or knowing in her heart that that is exactly what he is going to do.

There is no reaction when she states without stating that she has lain with another Garou; when she states that the Caern in California fell and that she was one of the few left behind, he takes notice.

He even stops sweeping, if only for a moment. Sky, too, stops sweeping so that she can look up and meet and read his gaze, and she does not look away until he does so first, turning his attention back to the matter of covering the floor with sand. Her attention appears to be on the distribution of tiny grains of sand in a satisfactory layer. She does not look at him as she speaks.

"There is honor in dying in defense of Gaia, and there's honor in preventing a Caern from falling into the clutches of the Corrupter. Where is the honor in surviving an onslaught that has killed nearly every last one of your comrades? I could not convince the council from the next Sept over that it wasn't cowardice that had me living while my entire Sept was burned to the ground, and so I was punished."

[Wyrmbreaker] When their eyes met briefly, the Ahroun's were even and curious; rather without blame or censure. He turns away first, though he's the elder when it comes to rank, and the one who has longer claim to this Sept. It does not seem to matter overmuch to him.

When they exchange words again, Lukas stops sweeping a second time. He's facing Covered Sky fully now when he asks -- clearly, unflinchingly, levelly -- "Was it?"

A moment later he clarifies: "Cowardice. That led you to live."

[Covered Sky] Whether or not the clarification was needed, the response is the same: Covered Sky stops sweeping, and she holds the broom upright and still in her curled left hand, and she looks at Lukas with purposefully blank brown eyes and a leveled jaw. She has not yet broken a sweat, but then, she has not been working for as long as the Fostern has been. Her hair is reacting to the humidity in the air, though, chunks of it curling and frizzing. She reaches up her free right hand to gather the curtain of black in two sweeps before banishing it behind her back.

She is silent for several seconds, the weight of her refusal to speak right away bearing down on what words have yet to emerge, and then she reaches up her hand again to cross over her body and tug the neck of her thermal shirt away from her shoulder. Even in this wan light the stark ivory of scar tissue is visible, standing out against the tan that persists on her skin. Something bit through her neck and shoulder once, and their kind do not scar unless they had to claw their way back from the brink of death.

"I was one of the first ones to respond to the call," she says, letting go of the cotton to cover the battle scar, "and one of the last to go down. I took down two Spirals before I was killed. My Rage revived me, but just barely. The Spirals mistook me for dead and left me where I'd fallen. When I regained consciousness, everyone else was dead. The glorious and honorable thing to do would have been to fight until I was cut down permanently, but I dragged myself twenty-six miles to get to the next Sept instead."

[Wyrmbreaker] There's a space between them, some twenty or so feet of brushed sand, dull grey in the moonless night. It's pure night vision that allows them to see in here -- the blessings of their race; the acuity of their senses even in their most mundane shapes.

That, and the fact that it doesn't take much perception to brush sand evenly over a floor.

He's not looking at the floor, though, the Fostern with the rolled-up sleeves. He's looking at the Philodox, once-Fostern, now Cliath again. Third time around. Third time's the charm, maybe; they'll see, he supposes. She doesn't fly into a rage, though perhaps, the way he turned to face her square on, he expected her to. She shows him a scar, which is only barely visible in this light. She tells him a story, as level as he ever was, and when she's finished he nods.

"Thank you for telling me that. It couldn't have been an easy tale to share. Or to live." Lukas bends to the broom and the sand again, pushing. "If anyone in this Sept insinuates otherwise," he adds, "I'll back you up."

[Covered Sky] He doesn't ask her why it is she tells him all of this. The reasons might be easy enough to suss out without having to dig too deeply: they share a tribe. He is higher ranked than she is. She knows very few people in this city despite having been here for several weeks already.

He doesn't ask her why it is she tells him all of this, and she does not rankle when he turns to face her, nor does her voice quaver or shake as she tells her story. On the contrary: she seems to recite rather than tell, reading from a mental cue card without becoming emotionally invested, as though that is the only way that she is going to survive having to relive that evening all over again.

The remembrance of pain alone is enough to send some of Wyrmbreaker's moon flying into frenzies. Some of the Ahrouns in this Sept are so young and so full of Rage that they have not had the time or the tempering necessary to learn how to control themselves. Some of the Ahrouns in this Sept are so easily angered that it is a wonder they are able to go out in public without being arrested or winding up on the evening news. Covered Sky's Rage matches some of those Ahrouns', but Covered Sky's Rage does not overwhelm her ability to control herself, even when the moon is swollen and heavy overhead.

So when she speaks of what happened, it is with purposeful detachment, an adherence to facts rather than an impassioned push for someone, anyone, to believe that she is innocent. The conclusion that Lukas comes to after hearing her speak doesn't make itself obvious until the last four words that come out of his mouth; long after he has turned away to continue brushing granules across the hangar floor, the Philodox remains watching him, reading him, as though there is some hidden truth to be found in the veins in his forearms or the racks of muscle beneath his shirt, the sweat on his brow.

Ultimately, she finds nothing but belief. And it's enough for her. She folds her lips in on themselves, once, and says, the first traces of feeling returning to her voice, "Thank you."

She looks away, then, and covers up a spot of blood on the floor.

[Covered Sky] [WRAP]