Joey probably has the easiest. This is her kind of place, after all.
[Face of Death] They walk, and the greenery fades away. The sun intensifies, becomes more...comfortable. It must be unbearable for the others, accustomed as they are to their soupy, watery air and cool shaded glades.
There is no protection from the blistering heat out here, perhaps no water for miles and miles and miles. It should be making the Rotagar happier, to be in a place that's so familiar. That is so much like home. She doesn't smile, though, nor does she appear grim. Just, ready.
This is kind of her place. She looks at Birth of Songs, and she picks up her pace a little, heading toward the forefront. Hoping that she's ready to meet this challenge.
[Wyrmbreaker] "Get up," Lukas says to Adamidas as everything around her begins to fade away. His voice is gentle, but firm: a command. "Let's keep moving."
On they go, then. From springtime in a meadow to a downpour, to a wooded glen, to this: a parched land, a desert, sun and dazzling sand. The color of the sky reflects in Wyrmbreaker's eyes; the brightness of the sun steals any last shred of opacity they might have, leaves them clear and blue as a diamond.
The Ahroun is wary, watchful -- little trace left of good humor now. He watches to see whose turn it will be next.
"Whoever it is who is tested next," he says, to himself or to any of them who would listen, "I think you will have to be true and strong, and overcome what is in yourself, not what is before you."
His eyes cast to Lila, as if seeking the Galliard's opinion or confirmation. Then to Joey as she seems to hear some note in herself that drives her forward.
[Rain of Brass Petals] No?
She shakes her head vigorously, no. She puts her right hand to her chin, and moves it away in an outward motion away from her and down with a cock of her head to one side slightly. Alethea Adamidas knows very, very little sign language, and thank you is one of the few signs she knows. She waves a small goodbye after that and continues along her way.
It's hot. She doesn't say a word. her gait is slow, but she sure as shit isn't complaining. Just like she isn't going to be a liability. Lukas doesn't have to tell her to get up, she's already getting to her feet halfway through his command.
[Waking Dream] Lukas' gaze reels Lila's in, and she smiles, faintly. "Whoever is tested next," Lila says, and although her voice is low -- it is clear, it is steadying, "I think what is before you will be a mirror, a measure of a secret is in your heart. And I think you will do what needs to be done," and this, this last is said with such faith -- such belief, that it is golden. Lila doesn't sound blind and dizzy with this faith: she sounds assured, as if she has reasoned this out in her head -- as weighed these people she is journeying through the (rites of the) underworld with. A pause, she kicks at a stone, watches it skid across baked-earth, scorched and yeller as a bone. Here, this -- fine as wrought-silver, delicate as spidersilk, but also as strong: "And I think this will be a green spring."
The irony is not lost on her: they're walking through a landscape that doesn't often go green.
[descent.] Moods go downhill. Or plateau utterly, as they traverse the desert. Sweat rolls into their eyes, stinging. The air wavers in the distance. The heat is unending, and nigh unto unbearable. Even Birth of Song doesn't talk much. She ages as they move along. Her hair darkens, and then falls out behind her, til its a short bob around her ears. The piercing she was seen with in Chicago isn't there, nor do her clothes change, but she mutters and grouses to herself about the brightness as they go on.
And then: "Oh, shit," whispers their guide.
There's a black spot on the horizon, something on the ground, a dark lump with bright edges. As their vision clears of dust and sunlight and sweat, they can make out the shape of a body, not moving towards them but waiting for them, sitting cross-legged on the ground in a circle made of small, indistinct objects.
Her hand goes to the fourth bell on her bandolier, larger than the others, positioned over her heart. "I won't ring it unless I have to," she says, offering more information than he preceding forms, "but if I have to, I will."
More warily, she leads them on ahead. Behind the figure on the ground, they see the beginning of an enormous chasm, a crack in the world that gets wider and deeper and stretches into endless, bottomless darkness until it seems that when the sun finally sets --
weren't they walking east?
-- it will be swallowed by that canyon.
The figure is a small boy, dressed in nothing but a pair of dark shorts. His hair is bleached blonde by the sun, but his skin is pale white despite it. His eyes are black. No wind touches the items he's encircled by: a black feather, a green stone, a silver knife, a bundle of red thread, a nautilus shell, a gold masquerade mask, a vial of ocean water, an empty glass bottle, a rusting hook...
and so on. There is something inimical and threatening about each of these, somehow, with him sitting in the middle.
"Which one of you will stay with me?" he whispers, all but whimpering it.
[Blood Summons] Wyrmbreaker doesn't have to tell Rain to get to her feet; she's already halfway there by the time the building disappears from around her, the exam table and the counters and the bins of tongue depressors, all of it, and by the time she's able to get herself down and moving again, Blood Summons and Truth's Meridian are stirring again, the lingering E note leaving their ears and their muscles coming under their own control again. The metis gives a sharp shake of his curly head and starts forward again.
He claps a hand on Rain's shoulder, almost a full foot beneath his own, but does not touch her with healing. Perhaps he doesn't realize how injured she is; perhaps he trusts her to take care of herself. Whatever the case is, that hand is just meant to be steadying, to spur her on, not to sieve away her injury.
And they trek onward. The grass dwindles and then vanishes, the rich dark earth becomes baked orange soil, and the sun is not so much a promise so much as a punishment. The black-clad Godi bears up beneath the heat of it, memories of Mississippi summers rising to the surface, and falls into step beside Waking Dream. He sweats, just the same as the rest of them do, and he's not physically comfortable; but we've already established that there's something of a schism between his body and his mind.
Oh, shit, whispers their guide, and the Fenrir scoffs, as though that just beats all. What winds up beating all is the sight of the pale-skinned boy with the bleached-blond hair standing surrounded by a myriad of items on the scorched earth. There are more than seven objects there. That's something of a comfort.
He asks who will stay with him, and were not for the fact that his test has already come and gone, he would be stepping forward. He does not step forward. He plants his hands on his hips, and he watches.
[Face of Death] Joey stares at the little boy for several heartbeats. Her eyes go to the objects arranged around him, taking in the curve of the silver blade, the thread, the shell, all of it. She looks at the canyon beyond, where the sun will set soon. It's not like the Grand Canyon. It's deeper, darker, more terrifying.
She doesn't look around to the others taking the rites. She doesn't look at their guide, older again, wary, her hand going to her bell as a precaution. Joey's mouth quirks, not quite a smile, and she steps forward.
"I will, guy."
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas does not recognize the desert nor the canyon, but his eyes fall on the black feather a moment longer than the rest of the boy's accoutrements.
When Joey steps forward -- if she does -- she's not alone. Lukas says: "Keeper of the Fourth Gate, I believe that choice is yours, not ours."
[descent.] He ignores Wyrmbreaker. Which is answer enough. And, like the child he is, he holds his arms up and out towards Joey. In welcome. Or in silent plea to be picked up and carried.
[Face of Death] Wyrmbreaker's offer is ignored, Joey's is accepted. She steps closer, her smile broadening a little, stretching tentatively into her eyes.
The boy reaches out for her, and Joey doesn't hesitate. He's a bit big to be carried around like a baby, like a toddler to be placed on her hip, but Joey is strong. Stronger, thanks to totem she's bound to. And she's gentle, reaching out to place her hands beneath the boy's arms and lift him to her.
[Rain of Brass Petals] She looked to Blood Summons, and her lips upturned slightly. It reached her eyes, made some of the color return to her cheeks; she didn't give much indication that she was injured save for a slow gait and a intent movements. She looks from one Fenrir, the male metis, to the blonde Rotagar who had torn her a new one at the moot. Her mouth cocked to the side slightly, up and over to the right- thoughtful. That's a good word for her blood-splattered expression.
[Wyrmbreaker] The proper ritetaker thus indicated, Wyrmbreaker steps back a pace, turns his eyes to the chasm.
Day and night and day again they've traveled, though Wyrmbreaker can't rightly say how many hours it's been. He can't say if hours even have meaning here. Directions wheel; time runs fluid. He looks down into the darkness and wonders what is to come next.
[descent.] The boy is taller than a toddler, older than a baby, but he's light. Seems so at first, anyway. Painfully thin, he wraps his arms around her neck and his legs around her waist, so pale that even his hair looks ghostly compared to Joey's. He nuzzles her face affectionately, eyes closing, a smile blossoming on his face.
Near the others, Chuckles in Summer Shadows refuses to move. She keeps her hand on that goddamn bell, watching Joey with the gatekeeper as though so frightened her only reaction is tense readiness for the worst.
Lila, Lukas, and Kate remain, seeing that Joey has been chosen. Or was meant for this all along. Three more gates, after this. Three Garou, each of them Fosterns, each of them elder of their tribe and elder of their auspice. All that lies before them now is darkness going down, down, deep into this illusion of the earth in its multitude of seasons.
Whatever is happening between Joey and the gatekeeper is beyond their hearing.
[Truth's Meridian] He is not alone in his wondering. His pack-mate is near him; lost in her own thoughts on the same matter. Her mood has dimmed, dipped and darkened since she saw what took place for Rain of Brass Petals. She is no longer full of excitement, or wonder. But aware of her body in a strangely intense manner; feeling each brush of fabric against her skin; the tickle of hair across her collarbone; the toad that once resided in her chest, croaking up her throat.
A cough threatens; Katherine holds it in as she does so many things.
[descent.] Now I'll never let you go, he whispers, but his lips don't move as he strokes his face over hers. His grip is comfortable, not too tight. He's cold, but that's okay, some part of her says. He's too thin, but that's okay, some part of her says. He's frightening, but that's okay, some part of her says. Because...
I love you so much, whispers the boy. The gatekeeper. The little thing made of nothing but paleness and darkness, clinging to her like the child she'll never have.
And we can stay here forever.
to Face of Death
[Face of Death] "Aw, kid," says Joey, and she holds onto him, holds him to her, lets him rub his face against hers. It's instinctive, the way she shifts, the way she rocks. A mother's instincts, wasted instincts. Joey will never have a child. She'll never have a litter of boys (or girls) to teach the art of sports.
But she moves with the boy as if he could be her own. As if he is her own.
She brings up a hand to press to the back of his head. And for a moment she closes her eyes. "I can't stay, buddy."
[descent.] But you said you would, he says, and she realizes with the lack of reaction from the others that they can't hear him, that they hear nothing at all. They see only his nuzzling, his cuddling of her. And she alone feels his arms tighten, feels his thin thighs dig into her sides. You said you'd stay. You said you loved me.
His voice changes, at the last. And it's familiar. It's too familiar.
to Face of Death
[descent.] Joey strokes the little boy's hair, sways with him in front of the circle of his... what? His tools? His ingredients? His mementos? After a few moments, Chuckles in Summer Shadows relaxes a titch and, though she doesn't remove her hand from the bell she's touching, she doesn't withdraw it from the bandolier to ring it in the air. She does look at the other six Garou and gives a nod towards the chasm. "Come on," she says, "let's go on."
[Face of Death] "I did," she agrees pleasantly. "But I didn't say forever."
And she frowns. Joey pulls back her head to look at the boy's face, even as his grip grows stronger on her.
"When did I say I loved you?"
[Rain of Brass Petals] She stops, and looks at Chuckles in Summer Shadows. The Fury shakes her head again, a definite no.
The dark haired girl looks back at Joey, or rather where Joey went, and points. She's not very good at this speaking-without-words thing. The Fury frowns, and she looks back and points at the ground in front of them.
[descent.] She pulls her head back, and the little boy moves his hands onto her face, clutching at her cheeks, forcing her head back. He's heavier than he was before, though no bigger.
"Is that what this is called?" he asks her, in a voice she knew too well. In a voice that only a few of the others ever heard at moots, when its bearer stood alongside the Sentinels as they were. "Love?"
Meanwhile, their guide is urging them towards the chasm. "This is going to get ugly," she's saying levelly, then harsher: "Come on."
The boy clinging to Joey kisses her on the mouth. Hard.
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas looks into the waiting chasm and, for the first time, feels his first real pulse of unwillingness.
It's not the same as horror, which is what he felt when he saw the doctor reaching his hand down Adamidas's throat. It's not the same as unease when he saw Kora's face reflected in another. It's not uncertainty, either, which is what he felt in the first green meadow, a world and a lifetime away from the darkness that looms.
No: this is true unease, true unwillingness to go on, to go into the dark so that light can return to the world. This is the Rite of Reawakening. This is the calling of the spring. He remembers history books now, pagan rituals: he remembers that so very often, what brings the spring is sacrifice.
He does not want to be the sacrificial bull. Not yet; not for this. As though somehow the war were a more important sacrifice than spring, than the wheel of seasons itself ...
when it's not.
It is for the spring, the Ahroun thinks to himself. And he follows Summer Shadows into the chasm.
[Face of Death] Joey's breath catches in her throat. She knows that voice. She never thought she'd hear it again. It's owner's body is rotting in the ground now, resting with several months' decomposition.
She remembers that question. Asked on the rooftop of The Brotherhood, where so many other memories took place. The day before he died.
Joey frowns. "No, you're--" and he's grabbing her face, pressing his mouth against hers. She gasps, and she wonders if this is part of the challenge. If she's supposed to let this happen or if she's supposed to fight. If she's supposed to let go of the boy.
She reaches up a free hand, and pushes against his face, tries to push him away from her.
[Waking Dream] Lila isn't wondering what's still ahead. Her thoughts aren't on the near future. They're on right now. They're on (her friend) the no moon (dark moon) standing with the boy in her arms, dandled on her hip, an overgrown toddler, and what she can hear Joey say. They are on Chuckles in Summer Shadows, Aggravation of Balance Without Fault, and how afraid she seems (is it real?), how near to terrified, how tense.
But mostly -- oh, mostly, they are on right now. "Why?" Lila asks their guide, wide-eyed, her heart a hook that wants to snag on her throat. Why is it going to get ugly? Y is it going to get: Y, the most useless letter, sometimes, the most friendless. Even though she asked, Lila doesn't stay stillness. Not now. Their guardian urges them toward the dark [gash in the world], and she begins to drift. Her hair is plastered to the nape of her neck, twisted with sweat (salt [sea (tears: rips)]) and soft.
She doesn't know that voice.
[Rain of Brass Petals] They're moving onward, and she follows with hesitation. The Fury looks to Blood Summons, she looks to Waking Dream, she looks to Wyrmbreaker and Sorrow and Truth's Meridian, and she tries not to shudder. She does not know the voice that Joey hears.
She just... doesn't... know. And she has yet to figure out how to find out. But, they drift, so she follows. They will be protected, it will be okay...
[descent.] The child lets out an unholy shriek as Joey tries to push him away. His eyes change color. His skin changes color. His limbs elongate, his hair turns dark, he flickers between his own appearance and another's, still clinging to the Rotagar. "No! NO!"
The screams go on as he fights her, clawing for purchase to keep her holding him, to stay against her body. The voice shudders with its similarity to Charlie's, but the others are not spared.
The dead come back to haunt them in that voice. The beloved dead, the long-lost, the angry, the forgotten. They scream along with the gatekeeper
"You can't let me go! You can't!"
in their heads, and even the ritemistress twitches suddenly as she's assaulted with memories and flashes of ghosts in her mind.
"That's why," she answers between gritted teeth to Lila, grabbing the Child of Gaia's hand. "Come on. Run. He won't stop. He never stops." She jerks forward, calling back over her shoulder: "Tell him no! Tell him why!"
The boy -- and he's not a boy anymore, he's a gangly adolescent, nipping at her neck, her cheeks, trying to kiss her again and again -- is still sobbing at her, screaming: "You LOVE ME! You've never loved anything but me!"
[descent.] [Roll me perception + alertness, diff 8 for gatekeeper-on-face.]
to Face of Death
[descent.] [Reflexive, no WP spending.]
to Face of Death
[Face of Death] [percept + alert]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 8 (Failure at target 8)
[Wyrmbreaker] [WP not to go back!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Face of Death] [what the hell, i like tempting fate]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 6, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 9)
[Truth's Meridian] [WP, oh god.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 8, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[descent.] [Now! Wits + Enigmas, diff 8.]
to Face of Death
[Face of Death] [wits + enigmas]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Wyrmbreaker] The voice Lukas hears
is that of Mrena, is that of Sampson, is Sam's, is Dylan's, is Katerina's; is Edward's even, so recently turned from the pack. Is his sister's, and his mother's, and his father's, shrieking at him that he can't just let them go like this, can't turn them aside and mark them all under the damning title:
Past. Done. Gone. Not worth it anymore.
The scream hits the Ahroun like a whip, making him turn around. He's already fifty feet down the chasm. How did he get so far, so fast? His teeth are bared, a gleam in the darkness; his eyes, flashing. I have to go back! he thinks, a blaze in his mind, is turning to do just that when, when,
when his control locks down like a vault, forces his head to turn and his feet to move. And then faster. He reaches out, grabs Lila's other hand in his, reaches for Kate's.
"Move!" he shouts, roaring at Kate, leaning into her, bellowing right in her ear. "Grab someone. Everyone grab someone and MOVE IT."
[Truth's Meridian] [Again! it's not Gabbie, Kate.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 7)
[descent.] Red thread. It was so familiar.
Red thread like the stitching on a baseball.
to Face of Death
[Waking Dream] [fine! WP TOO! being hauled, anyway!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Truth's Meridian] Katherine's body tenses. She shudders; and her pale eyes open wide. She freezes where she stands, and balls her fingers into fists. "Daddy," she murmurs, and grits her teeth, turning her face downwards. There are tears threatening to slip from the corners of her eyes and she almost turns; half-twists, uncurling one fist as if to reach for him.
She knows he's long dead.
She knows.
But it's his voice!
Move!, thundered in her ears and she snaps back to the present, rocking on her heels, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands furiously, reaching for someone's -- Blood Summons', Brass Petals -- hand, jerking them along with her and all the while she is hearing rattling around her head:
Don't let me go, Katie
[Face of Death] Joey barely hears the ritemistress over that shriek. He wails, and he clings, and he doesn't want to be let go.
And Joey fights. She pushes the boy, the teen, who looks so much like her friend. Who sounds like him. Tears well up in her dark eyes, and her face turns red. From effort, maybe, from fending him off. From distress and from tears, more than likely.
"You fuckin' died!" she cries, shoving him away from her. "You're dead and -- stop it, asshole!" She presses her palm against his cheek, shoving his face away from her, trying to at least get him to stop trying to kiss her.
Her eyes fall on the objects that were arranged around the Charlie-thing. The feather, the shell, the knife, the
red thread. Like a baseball. In some cultures, it's the string of fate, binding two people together.
Joey struggles for the thread.
[descent.] [another engimas roll! diff 7]
to Face of Death
[Face of Death] [wits + enigmas]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[Rain of Brass Petals] There's a whole sept of people these others don't know. She thinks of her mother, she thinks of a Talesinger who had died a few days before her Rite of Passage, she heard the woman who gave her a bow and told her how to use it, she heard the social worker who had helped her out, she heard women, she heard children, she heard voices she had forgotten-
Those were the worst.
She heard septmates she'd met in passing. She heard a grandmother who existed only in stories, heard a hand full of times. She heard a father that existed in love letters, whose voice she assumed was a baritone. It was the gaps in her mind, the ones that filled up slowly, that hurt the worst. That screamed the loudest.
One of her hands went to Katherine's. The other reached for Blood Summons if she could reach him.
She ran, like it was important.
[-1 WP, hauling ass]
[descent.] The items don't seem threatening anymore, without the boy at their center. Red thread like a baseball's stitching. A vial of ocean water: the ocean deep and full of life and so different at each coast, has she ever even seen it? A black feather, which somehow makes her think of storms, of the kind that used to fill the entire sky over the desert, which aren't anything like the thunderstorms in Chicago, but are lightning and black clouds and thick, cold rain pelting the earth from above. An empty glass bottle: beer! Good beer. Reuben's beer, maybe. With a plate of roast and potatoes or even just a nice greasy pizza. The green stone, which for some reasons says
family
to her. Mom. Dad. Bro. And Daniel, though he's gone now. And Echo in her bed. Hatchet in his room, or sitting with her in silence, reading aloud to her while she couldn't speak herself. Or playing guitar to her. Family. Pack. The living heart, that stone is, and it pulses across the desert sand as she goes for the red thread. Pulses like a heartbeat.
to Face of Death
[Waking Dream] Their guide grabs Lila's hand and jerks her forward. Sheer surprise has the galliard's fingers closing, in answer, even as she half-turns (why did you turn [why did you glance back?] why did you bend your face caught with the flame of the upper earth above my --?) to look over her shoulder at what the ragabash is facing.
Then, she hears it. They all hear it. They all hear some(one)thing different and Lila's breath catches and stops for a moment. They've all lost people, here, packmates, family. Whoever it is that Lila hears calling her, begging her back, is someone whose voice she has never thought to hear again, someone whose voice was forgotten, as if a voice was smoke, and it could dissipate, once the fire that made it were gone, as if --
As if she wouldn't do anything in her power, anything, to hear them speak, to say something in a tone that wasn't last sentence tone, that wasn't --
But no. They're dead. They're gone. They have their place, and Lila knows this, knows this story, oh, she knows, and she flashes a sidelong smile, something closer to her second deedname: Breaking Heart. And lifts her voice, lifts it, to call over her shoulder to Joey: "Strong and true, Laughs in the Face of Death! Laughs in the Face of Death!"
And then: they're running. Hand in hand.
[descent.] Move! roars the Ahroun, grabbing a hold of Lila. Daddy, whispers Kate, but she takes Adamidas in hand and runs down into the chasm. The going is easy, the path doesn't try to trip them up. They are meant to go down
down,
down.
The dead call to them, though, scream their names, beg for them to help. It is worst for Joey, with the lost holding her, trying to love her, trying to keep her. You died, you died, she shouts, and finally shoves him away from her, flings him onto the sand. He screams at her,
but the dead are dead, and the dead are gone.
"No!" he snaps at her, as she goes for the red thread, as the green stone begins to throb with something like a heartbeat as her hands grasp for purchase over the thick, hot sand, burning her palms. All of them in the chasm feel the shudder of that pulse, over and over, shaking the walls on either side of them. Rocks start to fall. Sand pours down on their heads. The entirety of the world seems to tremble.
"No, you don't!" he hisses. "You love me!"
[Face of Death] Tears spill down her face, down past freckles, past tiny scars like pock marks. They drip down her chin and trickle into the scars on her throat. Because he sounds like Charlie, but he can't be Charlie. Charlie is gone, buried in the earth, forever lost.
She shoves him away, breaks free, and dives for the belongings, ignoring the pain searing her flesh when she touches the sand. Joey scrambles for the thread, or for the bottle, or the vial of liquid from an ocean she's never seen. Before her fingers can close on anything, she turns. She looks up at the dead, tears streaming down her face.
"You're dead, Charlie," she whispers. And she reaches for the green stone. For her family. For her pack. For the living.
[descent.] Inexplicably, unfairly,
the stone darts out of her reach, scooting across the sand like a living thing. And the ground shakes.
The not-a-boy, not-Charlie gatekeeper crawls after her, lithe and spry on the desert. He grins, and shakes his head. "Doesn't matter. You still love me best."
[Wyrmbreaker] The earth is shaking. Lukas wonders if the chasm will close, if the earth will swallow them --
what is not given must be taken
-- if Joey should fail. He doesn't bring up his hands to shield his head, though he bows it, ducks away from the larger chunks of stone, from the sand pouring down on his head, salt-white, aging him prematurely. He holds on to Waking Dream with one hand, Kate with the other, and Kate holds to Adamidas, who holds to Blood Summons, and so on and so forth --
"Let go!" Wyrmbreaker is shouting: rough and guttural, an animal's sound more than a man's. He could be shouting back at Joey, now perhaps too far to hear him. He could be shouting at Kate. He could be shouting at himself, to remind himself: "Let go of the lost. Hold to what matters. Hold to the living!"
[Face of Death] He's crawling after her, grinning at her the way he used to so rarely when he was alive. And she remembers.
Standing at his grave, over his scarred Crinos body, trying to say goodbye.
Visiting his grave to read, or sing, or work on a magazine full of puzzles, or just talk to him. Like he was still there, like he could still hear her.
Standing over the stone slab of a marker as she got ready to find Buried Hatchet, to tell him she was ready to let go.
It was time to stop being such a pussy, and let him go.
"No." And she dives for the green stone again.
[descent.] Chuckles in Summer Shadows cups her hands around her mouth to yell up out of the canyon at Joey. "Tell him wh--shit! Shitmonkeys! FUCKBALLS!"
She scrambles to grab the handle of her bell again, slipping from its pouch.
A brief, quickly muffled trill of an F note tinkles in the air, and holds... and holds...
[Everyone roll WP diff 7, diff 8 for Joey.]
[Rain of Brass Petals] [WP - 1 (because running was rough)]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 2, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Truth's Meridian] [WP!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 7)
[Face of Death] [WP!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Waking Dream]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 7)
[Wyrmbreaker]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[descent.] [4Suxx: no effect.]
[descent.] [1Suxx: An overwhelming urge to speak (or, in Adam's case, communicate somehow) one's love. Whatever that is, whatever it's for. You can control what you say, or stop yourself, but the urge is incredibly powerful.]
to Face of Death, Rain of Brass Petals, Wyrmbreaker
[Face of Death] The bell sounds, and it washes over Joey, scrambling across scorched earth toward a stone that pulses like family.
Tell him why.
"I love my," she pauses, stretching, straining for the stone, to get to it first, before the thing that looks like Charlie can reach her, "family. And I love 'em better'n you, 'cause they're alive an' I'm alive you died."
[Rain of Brass Petals] Hold onto the living.
Hold onto the present. The Future.
It was something she hadn't thought of before, and something she hadn't really invested much on. My holding onto the dead, it's almost like living in the past. And the differences between honoring someone and keeping them for your own sake were so blurred, it was hard to articulate.
Without words, she couldn't say what she felt.
She couldn't find a way to find words, she simply turned to Katherine, the Silver Fang, the Philodox, the Fostern daughter of Falcon, and hugged her. Arms wrapped around her, not as though she were clinging for dear life, but holding her because there was life there. If she wasn't intercepted, she hugged the fostern, and it was a platonic but ultimately passionate thing, if a hug could be that way. And it was hard to say whether or not it was a symbolic gesture, or that she loved a certain type of camaraderie.
These people were
They were taking part in a ritual with her.
They had all given some kind of sacrifice to serve Maelstrom, so they all knew loss, they all knew what it was like to give up something important, just as they were all moving past something tonight... some more successfully than others.
Alethea hugged Katherine like she was a sister, a friend, a woman, a person.
She hugged her, because they shared a common bond, and they shared a common love unvoiced.
[Wyrmbreaker] In the chasm, the collapsing, groundshaking chasm, Lukas is suddenly overcome with love. Sheer, overwhelming love -- love for things great and small, profound and silly.
He wants to speak of it. He wants to open his mouth and tell them all, tell anyone who would listen, that he loves ... lamb. Rack of lamb. Herbed rack of lamb, to be exact, oven-roasted until pink in the center, with red potatoes and a good red wine to go with it. He loves his goddamn iPhone, more than any Garou should love a weavertoy. He loves his car, loves the exhilaration of speed that even his lupus form could not dream of, and he loves the way the lake looks in the morning when the sun skims off the surface just right; he loves the way it looks on a rainy day from Danicka's living room, when the rain shatters the surface and makes it gleam like mirror-silver.
He wants to tell them he loves the sound of the ocean, and the way it smells, and his father's house in New York City, and the oak behind the Musil's house, and his own house and the fountain and the spirits and, and
he loves his pack, and his family, his sister even though she's the bane of his existence, and
he loves Danicka, his mate, with every fiber of his being.
What he says instead, holding on to the Garou around him:
"Jaro."
As though that said it all. And though dirt is raining down on his head, as though the grave they dug earlier was closing on them now: he thinks of this, and smiles. And laughs aloud in the darkness.
"Jaro!"
[descent.] The gatekeeper grabs her ankle.
The Rotagar grabs the stone.
He screams,
and the world falls apart.
The sky shatters like a pool with a rock tossed into it. Light dances as the sun flares and breaks into pieces. The chasm begins to crack, begins to groan as it tears itself from end to end, stretching across the desert, swallowing red thread, nautilus, black feather,
green stone,
Rotagar,
and the dozens of ghosts in all of their hearts,
all fall down.
