polite conversation.

[Wyrmbreaker] After the revel, a cold grey morning. A night's worth of dark-compensation has left their eyes unused to the light. Everything looks brilliant, washed-out, lit with the sort of stark clarity a night without sleep gives.

Wyrmbreaker has returned to the assembly area, idly sifting a handful of cold, sandy earth from one hand to the other. When he catches sight of Covered Sky, he calls out to her. His stripped, raw creak of a voice is unmistakable. Only one wolf currently holds that punishment.

"Philodox." Dirt spills from his hands; he dusts them on his thighs as he rises. "A word with you?"

[Covered Sky] The congregation disperses quickly after the revel has finished. The earth doesn't seem to cry out with the press of Rage coming from so many bodies packed in so small a space, doesn't bristle with the electricity of it anymore. Even the dawn seems to breathe a sigh of relief now that the tricksters and the lawgivers and the warriors have decided to call an end to their gathering and go home to their Kinfolk, to their territory.

One Garou, in her thin homid form, remains at the assembly area. She is not wearing a coat, and her dedicated white thermal is stained from the Run, various streaks of melted snow and frozen earth on her jeans. Her arms are holding her elbows, and she's watching the east, in the direction of the rising sun, her breath leaving her body in visible white plumes.

A creaking cry carries her name on the wind, and the Half Moon looks over sharply, her unrestrained hair whipping off of her shoulders. She is not surprised. By now she has to be used to that voice, to having to strain to make out the phonemes as they rise and fall on the waves of Wyrmbreaker's punishment.

He's taller than her by almost an entire foot, yet she carries herself as though she does not have to tilt her neck to meet his gaze when they come to stand beside each other. Her eyes leave the foggy horizon, and she turns towards the Ahroun Elder.

"Of course," she says.

[Wyrmbreaker] "It's about your packmate," he says -- no attempt to sidestep or deny this. He remains standing until she is near enough that it is polite to sit. "You heard what I said earlier, at the second challenge for Master of the Challenge?"

If she has not, he repeats it, paraphrased, for her benefit.

"The bottom line is," he finishes, "I think your packmate has forgotten his place, or is deliberately trying to rise above it. Put even more bluntly: I think Zeke is the type of 'beta' wolf who will not hesitate to seize what power he can. I think if you're not careful, you'll find that his influence will soon exceed yours. And Host of Traitors is the sort of Shadow Lord who probably shouldn't be allowed too much free rein.

"I mean no disrespect by bringing this before you. Rather, I mean to respect your position as Host of Traitor's alpha. I will keep him in his place if I need to as alpha of the tribe, but he's your responsibility first."

[Covered Sky] When Wyrmbreaker sits in the sand, Covered Sky hefts a breath and drops into a light-footed crouch beside him, balancing on the balls of her feet for now, arms draped across her horizontal thighs rather than tucked in against her body despite the chill.

"I heard," she confirms.

Slim fingers that hardly seem to belong to a warrior of Gaia link together where they hang over the edge of her knees, and her shoulders are back and her neck is straight as she listens to the forecast: her metis packmate is trying to rise above his station in more than one arena.

Anyone looking at Covered Sky during the Cracking of the Bone whereby the Ragabashes were calling upon the newly-named Master of the Challenge or during the actual challenge itself would have noticed that she didn't seem to be paying attention to what was being said beyond ensuring that there was a bone in the hand of the person speaking and that no one around them was whispering amongst themselves. When she was paying attention to the proceedings there was a look of measured patience on her face, a lack of familiarity in her eyes; Host of Traitors' standing up to challenge a Fostern Fiann for his position had come as a surprise to her, but only those with keen senses would have been able to tell.

"He is my responsibility," she says, supinating her forearms as if to feel the dawn's air on her flesh. She isn't shivering. "Wyrmbreaker-rhya, I will speak with him... remind him of his place. We don't have the ability to do so using Ares as a conduit yet, or things might have gone differently tonight."

[Wyrmbreaker] There's a moment when Wyrmbreaker's keen, pale eyes are on the Philodox, searching her face. She might recognize this look. It's a look she herself has worn before, perhaps when she was a cub -- learning to smell deceit or uncertainty before she had the help of gifts.

A moment later, apparently satisfied, the Ahroun nods. "Thank you," he says. "For what it's worth, I think Zeke is doing what he feels is best for the Sept and the war. It's his methods I disagree with. Tradition and law exist for a reason."

The morning is overcast and frigid, but there's still enough light sheening off the lake to make him squint when he looks eastward. When he turns back, his face relaxes suddenly; smiles.

"I guess I don't have to tell a Philodox that."

He coughs, then, a distracted, reflexive attempt to fix a voice that won't right itself for another week yet. A moment of hesitation; then he adds, "One more thing. A beta can be invaluable, but don't make the mistake of thinking they'll be loyal to you above all. A beta is always loyal to the pack first. His idea of the pack. If he senses weakness -- or if he simply senses you straying from his ideals -- he will not follow you for long.

"You already know this, I'm sure. But it's not something you should forget. I was the beta of my pack once. Edward was the Alpha. Look where we are now."

At the Howl, Edward stood dead last with his pack.

[Covered Sky] Were not for the fact that Wyrmbreaker is her tribal leader, that he already knows more about her than anything else in this city, this conversation would have been truncated at a very early stage. He knows that she used to be the Master of the Challenge at the Sept of the Red Rock, or at least, she's told him this; he knows, or at least was told, that she twice earned and lost the second rank, that she is a Cliath for the third time at an age that is advanced by their society's standards. She's well beyond young adulthood, is well beyond those tumultuous early twenties where one is attempting to find one's identity as a person and a creature of Gaia as well as fight one's way out of the heap to become a warrior of distinction with one's pack, one's tribe, one's Sept.

That said, even if she is not used to people telling her things that she already knows, she has the sense to recognize when someone is attempting to offer her advice, or guidance, or something resembling assistance. He seeks out her face for signs of subterfuge and finds only mild fatigue and wariness; she looks back at him and sees exhaustion, hears squawking reminders of punishment for a crime that her auspice leader believes was due to happen eventually.

Covered Sky releases her fingers to reach up and push a large shock of black hair back behind one small ear. When he smiles, so does she; but faintly.

"It's been some time since I was part of a Sept," she says, "let alone the Alpha of a pack. This pack is very small. In a way, I have to be more vigilant than I would be in a larger pack. We can't afford to be divided, or have conflicts of interest, or we won't have a pack for long."

The wind is tugging at the ends of her hair. In the pale dawning daylight, Wyrmbreaker can see more clearly the scar that was obscured by darkness and shadow at the Moot: her throat was torn out recently. She was killed, but she did not die.

"I appreciate your words, Wyrmbreaker-rhya, and I'll keep them in mind when I speak to Host of Traitors-yuf."

[Wyrmbreaker] The Shadow Lords are not beasts of etiquette like the Silver Fangs, but most of them a sense of decorum nonetheless. It's a more practical sort: an awareness of what to say and what not to say, and of the reactions of their listeners, designed not so much to keep to a thousand and one rules of complex ceremony and courtesy but to, very simply, be effective. Effective leaders, effective warriors, effective advisors.

Things are said which are not spoken. It means something that Covered Sky appreciates his words; it means something that her pack can't afford to be divided. The Ahroun, who looks perhaps a bit tired from the night and the challenge and the hunt, but mostly just seems ... eerily calm, emptied of rage and filled with spirit, mulls this over for a moment and then nods.

"Can I ask you something else?"

And if the answer is yes -- "Why didn't you challenge for Master of the Challenge?"

[Covered Sky] A brief silence passes over them, one sitting and the other lowering her weight onto the flats of her feet rather than continuing to balance on the balls, and then:

Can I ask you something else?

Thus far, the Philodox has answered nearly every question that the higher-ranked Ahroun has asked her. Her answers may have not been the absolute truth, and she may have omitted some details in the responses she has given him, but she has not darted away from the telling. Now, she looks up from where her eyes had rested on the sand and over to him, her eyes searching his face without boring into his eyes.

"Yes," she says.

She wraps her arms around her midsection, her Rage drained enough that she's feeling the cold even if she is not reacting to it; her will is just as strong as it was when she awoke this afternoon. There is a question as to why she didn't challenge for Master of the Challenge, and she folds her lips in on themselves as she considers the question.

"I thought I would be better suited as Truthcatcher," she says, after a moment. "I also didn't want to challenge a Fostern."

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas considers this for a moment. "Fair enough," he says.

Then, standing, he dusts his hands off again; holds the right out. "I should let you get back to your packmate," he says. "Thanks for talking, Covered Sky."

[Covered Sky] Hands on her knees, Park propels herself standing when the Ahroun does likewise. She does not have to cleanse her hands before offering them; in Lukas's, her right is small yet warm despite the chill of the morning around them.

The female squints briefly as she turns into the sun, then bows her head and says, "Any time, Wyrmbreaker-rhya."

With that, she retrieves her coat from where it had been left slung over a crate, and treks not north towards the Brotherhood but south, towards the bus stop.

[Covered Sky] [Wrap!]