the gate of primacy.

[descent.] It's like the entrance into the underworld at the very beginning. Only this time: less dirt. More rocks. More sand. They fall, clinging to each other, Joey holding onto the stone she grabbed for three times before she got it. The stone that warms her palm and floods her arm with warmth, the stone that pulses like a heartbeat, in time with her own. She curls up around it to protect it. To hold onto it. To keep it.



It's dark, wherever they land. Too dark to see by. Chuckles in Summer Shadows is the first to speak, coughing out dust, groaning. "I think we passed through the gate," she mutters. "Jesus. I hate that guy."

[Face of Death] They fall and fall, into the darkness, the abyss. Joey's arm is warm, warm with the life and love of the living that she cares about. Buried Hatchet and Echo, mom and dad and Bryan, Indira, Kate, everyone. She feels lighter for holding the stone, lighter and freer than she has in months.

They land in darkness. Joey pushes herself to her feet, and she pockets her stone. Pats it to make sure it's safe and secure. Not that it needs to be. What it represents to her will be with her always.

"Guys?" she asks, stretching her hands out into the darkness, reaching for the others, for a shoulder or a hand or the fabric of a shirt.

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas coughs in the dark.

He's still holding on to Lila with one hand, Kate with the other. The way he gripped them, they'll have bruises by morning. If they weren't Garou, that is.

He lets go now, though, and sits up. It's dark and it's rocky and, frankly, his ass hurts from falling. "Some jaro," he groans, and then laughs quietly to himself.

"Who are you, anyway?" he asks their ritemistress suddenly. "Some ancestor-spirit, or...? I mean, do you do this every year? Why?"

[Truth's Meridian] Katherine lands; one hand still contained within Lukas', and squeezes it for a second. "I heard my father, Lukas." She whispers it, her voice reed-thin and full of contained wonder and re-awoken grief. She coughs, half turns, and forces herself upright; her knees feel cut beneath the denim of her jeans. Her hair stiff with dirt.

[Waking Dream] They all fall down. This time, there are stones; this time, there is dirt in her lungs, coughed out, and hardness under her knees, reverbating through her skeleton. It's too dark to see, and that kind of darkness, the absence of all light, begins to swell, begins to take shapes that aren't shapes. In that kind of darkness, you're nothing but what you think, you are not contained by a body, you are unburdened, you are an alphabet made up by wanting, shapeshifted only by thought, swithering, except where you feel.

Again. Lila. A pause. And then, not too loud, but nonetheless -- clear, intent, focused, questing: "Are we all here? Who am I touching? Joey!" And she reaches toward the sound of the Rotager's voice until she finds her. Another pause. And a question for their guide: "Is that guy you hate always here?" Is it always the same, these trials?

[Blood Summons] A feminine hand smacks him in the chest after he gets to his feet, and the Rotagar's voice reaches out to the rest of them. It's too dark to see anything at all, not even one's own hand a few inches from one's own face. Bob doesn't jerk away if Joey winds up clutching the fabric of his t-shirt.

Are we all here?

"I think so," he calls back.

Then: questions for their guide. He does not add to them, but stands still and silent listening for the answer. Listening for that damned bell.

[Sorrow] The needle of it pierces her eye, spits it like a grape, bisects the bundle of the optic nerve, deeper through all the hidden lobes of her brain, the neurons firing like pyrotechnics against the dark dome of her her skull. It punches through the bone, she can feel the narrow hole, pinpoint, the circle of death and memory, the thread pulling through her eye, souring the white matter and the gray matter and the dark matter that lives inside her.

Again - her eyes are closed, mouth open she can feel it, the needle and the thread, silver through her open mouth, she breathes it in, that connection, that contraction, she's breathing, swallowing - this is live a wave, peristalsis in the worm of her throat, the sharp pinpoint, perforates trachea and esophagus, she's choking with it, wheezing out her breath - these are the dead inside her - their stories in her mind's eye and livid on her tongue - not just her own but a hundred and a hundred more, all the memories of them folded inside her, blood in her mouth, blood on her hands, blood in her throat, the stench is rich and clotted - and out and out, as she wheezes, as she snarls - contained and constrained, all this writ into the limitations of her body, which is discrete and which is permeable and which is definite - it goes out through the viscous soft tissue between the vertebrae, out again, around, heart and lungs this time - all the ghosts, her own the closest, the rest - arrayed beyond like a feral Greek chorus, the lives she remembers, the lives she never lead.

Then: fall.

Sorrow falls flat on her back, wakes up choking, feels like she has been sewn into the landscape into which she has fallen, eye and mind, heart and tongue, the fine threat pulling through.

Are we all her? asks Lila.

They answer, each in their own way.

Sorrow says: "Yeah." Her voice is quiet. There's blood in her mouth from where she bit her tongue, but there nothing wrong with throat. She turns sidelong - away from the sensation of heat, from the reverberation of the voices - and spits to clear her mouth, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Or not. She's ready for that, too.

[Wyrmbreaker] It's too dark to see, so of course Katherine cannot see the expression that lances across Lukas's face: a flash of pain and compassion, knowledge, sorrow.

By the time he speaks, there's only the last fading echoes of it in his voice. "I know," he says softly. "I heard you call out."

[descent.] [perception + alertness, no diff]

[Blood Summons] [Alertness+Perception]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9

[Face of Death] [percept + alert]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 7, 8, 9, 10, 10

[Wyrmbreaker]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 7, 8, 9, 9

[Waking Dream]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Sorrow] Alertness + Perception (observant!)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 10

[Rain of Brass Petals] [per+alert, -2 (oww!)]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Truth's Meridian] [Perception + Alert]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Sorrow]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[descent.] After the fall, after the impact, after their guide mutters about the fourth gatekeeper, the questions start coming. They check on each other. Katherine's memories and loss threaten to overwhelm her, Lila tries to figure out whose arm is in her hand, whose hand is on her arm, and she and Lukas begin questioning the Garou currently known as Chuckles in Summer Shadows.

"Garou," she says quietly, because their voices echo, and anything louder isn't necessary. "Born under a Half Moon, though they aren't lying when they call me Ahroun, or Moon Dancer, or Shaman, or Ragabash. I am very old."

She sounds it, for a moment there. Though she sounded old, in a way, even when they saw the youthful face of a girl named Naomi. Most of what they hear is the rustle of clothing, the shuffle of their own feet. It's cool in here. Damp. "And yes. I do this every year. Because it needs to be done."

Moving on now, though a few of them begin to sense something else around them, beyond the darkness, the chill, and the humidity. "Another yes, for the lovely blonde in row five. He's always here. He isn't always the same, but... in a way, they're all always here. They're the Gatekeepers of the Underworld. If we wish to pass through their gates, they must have their sacrifice. The only other option is to turn back."

Those that sense it may not entirely hear her last words. It's getting more noticable.

[descent.] [Fail: Chuckles is talkin'! We be listenin'!]
to Rain of Brass Petals

[descent.] [1Suxx: There's a noise. It's coming from... kinda... maybe. Y'know. Out there in the dark. Voices?]
to Truth's Meridian

[descent.] [2Suxx: Kora hears voices and can tell what direction they're coming from.]
to Sorrow

[descent.] [3Suxx: The three of you hear voices and can tell what direction they're coming from. There are several, talking. There's a bit of laughter. A yowl. They can hear footsteps shuffling and thumping.]
to Blood Summons, Waking Dream, Wyrmbreaker

[descent.] [5Suxx: Joey hears voices and can tell what direction they're coming from. There are approximately 4 of them, three male and one female. The female voice occasionally dominates. There's laughter every so often (mostly the males) and a yowl once (probably the youngest male). From the vibrations in the ground that she feels, they're probably dancing. Or roughhousing. When she stops to ask herself why she thinks roughhousing, it's because she's already realized that the voices belong to teenagers, and whatever tensions are in their behavior are escalating quickly, and will soon be out of the female's control.]
to Face of Death

[Face of Death] Joey's hand smacks into a solid chest, slides to shoulder, down over muscled arm to grip a hand. She hears Lila, and she's already reaching out toward the Galliard. Trying to join people together in the darkness, so they don't lose each other. Comfort and guidance all at once.

People are whispering, speaking in low hushed voices. Asking questions of their guide, who answers. Words echo off the stone walls.

"Guys, shut the fuck up." Joey stills, and she listens.

"People're...dancing or something. We should go," she adds, a note of urgency in her voice, kept low to keep from echoing. "I think it's gonna get bad."

[Rain of Brass Petals] Chuckles in Summer Shadows was talking. She was straining to listen. Alethea wasn't the most perceptive of creatures, even on a good day. Right now, she was just taking in words and [swallowing hurts, is it always going to hurt? Would her voice come back? Assuming all went well, assuming spring came, Adam found herself thinking of a contingency plan in case it didn't. There was a chance it wouldn't... if it's not given, it must be taken. Later, she will muse on this. Later, it would make sense.]

At any rate, that wasn't what was important. She walks still, and doesn't contribute to the noise. She takes a moment, tilts her head in Joey's direction and purses her lips. The Fury waits, but seems content to follow the female in whatever direction she may want to go.

[Truth's Meridian] Katherine, still gathering her wits about her after the shock of hearing Christopher Bellamonte's voice after almost fifteen years finally gets herself to her feet, blinking automatically in the darkness the way you always did when it first occurred. She turns her head slightly as she hears what sounds like voices, faint, in the distance.

Then Face of Death is calling for quiet and telling them people are -- "Dancing?" The Half Moon repeats, curious; confused. "Bad, how?" She's not sure why she asks, everything here had some ulterior motive, some deeper reason for being there than what it appeared to be on first glimpse.

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas has more questions, but he voices none of them now. Blindly, he turns his head in the dark this way and that, using aural parallax to zero in on the direction the voices are coming from.

Quite by chance, Lukas had grabbed onto the two other Garou whose turn had not yet been had. Now he stands in a loose collective with them, Kate on one side and Lila on the other; himself in the middle. He doesn't think he recognizes this. Any of it, any of what approaches. None of it seems to ring true with something in him, buried deep. He's not sure, though.

"It's gotten bad before," he says quietly. "We weren't supposed to run then. I'm not sure we're supposed to run now, either."

A pause.

"Kate, Lila. Do either of you ... recognize this?"

[Sorrow] "They're dancing?" Blind, still, in the darkness - Sorrow's voice is quiet. She is a Skald. She has control over it, tone, temper, volume. She spits again, her blood swims copper on her tongue. The sense of the thread still runs through her, but the wound is minor, already clotting even in her breedform. Sitting up, not standing, she kneels. The others will hear her joints popping, her bones splitting and reforming as she shifts through the forms, from the least feral to the most. Wet nose twitching in the damp, humid darkness, sleek, searching again for a change in the wind - some suggestion of the path to come.

[Sorrow] [Per (observant!) + Primal-Urge]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9

[descent.] [6Suxx: Kora hears voices and can tell what direction they're coming from. There are approximately 4 of them, three male and one female. The female voice occasionally dominates. There's laughter every so often (mostly the males) and a yowl once (probably the youngest male). From the vibrations in the ground that she feels, they're probably dancing. Or roughhousing. When she stops to ask herself why she thinks roughhousing, it's because she's already realized that the voices belong to teenagers, and whatever tensions are in their behavior are escalating quickly, and will soon be out of the female's control. They smell like they're from the city, but are definitely getting... back to nature. Which is to say: they kinda reek.]
to Sorrow

[Blood Summons] The hand Joey finds in the darkness is roughly calloused despite the fact that the bones in his fingers don't seem all that sturdy; it's warm, and gritty with dirt and sand, but it grips in return, a solid presence in the darkness, a reassurance that she isn't stumbling about alone. It spurs him to grope about in the dark until he finds Adamidas' shoulder, her hand in turn.

She does this every year, because it needs to be done.

He's been listening, even if he hasn't been speaking, if he hasn't been asking questions; a scratchy noise of acquiescence leaves his throat, as though that's sufficient enough reasoning for him, and they keep moving. Dirt and rocks crunch underfoot, and when Joey bids them shut the fuck up, his footfalls slow, quieting so that he can hear better.

"Nobody's running," the Fenrir says, mildly.

And then the sound of changing forms. He squints, attempting to see despite the abject blackness around them, but does not let go of the females to join Sorrow in scouting. Not yet.

[Face of Death] "Bunch'a guys, and a lady in charge. It sounds like dancing, but. I dunno. I don't think she can keep control much longer." This in answer to Katherine.

She turns her head blindly toward the Shadow Lord she can't see. "Everybody grab somebody. It's coming from this way."

Joey adjusts her grip on the hands she's holding, and she starts forward, one cautious foot before the other, in the direction of the voices. The dancing. Whatever.

[Waking Dream] Lila held her breath when their guide answered and then voices murmured up and out of the dark. The sound of feet, shuffling, laughing, a yowl; she tried to gauge what they said, tried to tell what they were doing. It did sound like dancing, a little. Like - " - a procession." This is murmured, barely audible, on the last dregs of that breath she'd held. Lukas asks if either she or Kate recognize this, and it's too dark for him to see the flash of a glance she gives him.

Even when they're in the dark, humanbodied things look with their eyes first. Lukas is holding Lila's hand and Lila's holding Joey's other hand and Joey's holding Blood Summons' hand and Kate's probably holding Adamidas' and Kora is wolfshaped and pressing forward and their guide is somewhere, of course, because she wouldn't abandon them.

[Rain of Brass Petals] One hand goes wherever it was, the other finds a hand on her shoulder, then down over the hand, and finally holding onto Blood Summons. They made a chain... sort of. She tightened her grip, briedly, as though in confirmation that, yes, she was there and, yes, this was who he thought it was and not some stranger. Her hands were small, calloused in the places where she'd drawn back a bow string too many times. Understandable.

This is a precession. She listens. She waits.

[Wyrmbreaker] Once again they make a line, hand in hand in hand in fur. Two of the three Fenrir are in their wolf shapes. The rest of them, for now at least, remain in their human shapes. Easier for communication in the darkness, when body language is all but lost.

"What do you smell, Sorrow?" Lukas calls into the dark.

[Sorrow] Not dancing! - the wolf-creature yips. There is less control here. Wolves were made to howl and not whisper; they can all hear the correction. Play-fighting. Soon, not-play-fighting. They stink of the scab, but smell too - body odor, not soap, not antiseptic. Three males, one female. She pads forward, picking her way through the darkness, ears pricked and alert, tail sweeping low with cautious, hitting the thigh of whomsoever walks behind her, sweep, sweep, sweep. The question is a faint whine in the back of her throat: to the Fosterns, who have yet to be tested. To their guide perhaps, who lives in her mind with the receding ghosts, now. Whose?

[Truth's Meridian] "No," is the answer Lukas receives in the dark from his pack-mate, as they begin to walk, hand in hand. "I don't believe it is familiar to me." Then Sorrow whuffs out her observations, and Katherine's expression is folding back on itself in the dark to a deep frown.

She would cast looks at Waking Dream, were she capable of seeing her.

[descent.] They move into the dark, and slowly what two of them could feel and hear and smell becomes clearer for all of them. Adamidas begins to hear voices. Katherine begins to pick out how many there are, that they're one female and a male. But then: they all know this now, because of Joey and Kora. They know what they're walking into.

Well. As much as they have at any other point during this rite.

Chuckles in Summer Shadows does not abandon them. She told them from the start that she would protect them, and she has yet to so much as touch the handle of the fifth bell (So)... as far as they know. Kora wants to know whose gate this is, when presumably there are now only three options. "Guess we'll find out, won't we?" is the answer the redhead gives back, tromping along, making quite a bit of noise for a Ragabash.

Maybe she just wants them to know: I'm here. I haven't left you. I won't.

Fresh air begins to hit them, taking away some of the dampness. They smell dying leaves and they smell stagnant water, but they also smell the last hints of harvest. These are the days of the year when the sun still believes in summer though the earth is demurely turning away, yearning towards fall. Everything outside, their memories tell them, will be gold and orange and fiery, clinging to a few last warm days even as the nights become haunted by autumn winds.

Their guide and their hands and their two Fenrir lead them around obstructions, around bends in what reveals itself to be a deep, deep cavern. They're going straight, neither downward nor upward, and when they come around one bend, they see shadows. Another bend, and they see light. Another, and another, getting brighter, until they know that around this last corner will be

sunset. Searing gold casting long, heavy shadows. It comes in through the mouth of the cave, which is where the pack has made their camp. Teenagers, the lot of them. A female and three males, just like Kora said. Not dancing. Definitely not dancing. The three boys are wrestling, beating on each other, laughing and yowling occasionally as they do. The smallest of them, curly-haired and pale, is obviously taking the brunt of it. The oldest, the thin female with the stringy blonde hair, is kicking dirt at them, kicking ash from an empty firepit at them.

"Quit it!" which is an iteration of what they've heard on their way to the unprotected camp. "You guys! Quit it! You're so stupid! God!"

[Wyrmbreaker] So they come out from the darkness into the last light of day, which angles directly into the cave, across the camp, into their eyes. Lukas squints in the sudden light, in which the pack ahead of him is only a collection of nimble shapes and shadows cast across dusty late-summer air. After four seasons, four gates, the Shadow Lord's fashionably distressed jeans are looking well and truly distressed now; his pale leather coat smudged and stained and rain-speckled, mud-spattered, cut where he fell or slid across sharp rocks.

He looks wilder. There are twigs in his hair, dirt on his face. He looks at the cubs(?) with silent, wary curiosity. He does not step forward.

[Blood Summons] Following the ears and nose of Blood Summons' tribeswomen, they make their way through the flat, winding terrain of the underground. Eventually, their eyes begin to return to them. They see shadows. There can be no shadows without light. Light isn't far behind, and when they turn the last corner, the Godi slackens his fragile fingers to release the female on either side of him.

The three Fosterns who have yet to be tested are at the other end of the chain. He watches the teenagers as they attempt to trounce each other, as the female tries to break up the scuffle, with eyes that have to quickly adjust to the sun, setting though it may be.

The Shadow Lord does not step forward. Blood Summons, looking pretty feral with his already-wild hair teased by rain and drying and dirt and falling, dirt smudged across his face and bare arms, casts a glance down the chain of bodies towards Waking Dream, then lowers his head to stifle a dusty cough against his shoulder and falls silent again.

[Waking Dream] How many hours ago did they begin digging a grave for winter? How many hours ago did they sit around a fire and listen to Kora play songs on a guitar, waking human memories in her fingers? How many hours ago did they peer through tiny, dirty windows; did Lukas laugh, when Adamidas walked into a wall? How many hours do they have left? They walk out deep dark, linked, and they walk into summer's dying sunlight, which turns even shadows gold, deepamber, crisped, curling up and inward, and Lila takes a deep, deep breath once they've reached late-summer and open air. The teenage boys remind her of a lot of teenage boys she's seen beat on each other, and she shakes her head slightly at their -- er -- rambunctiousness. Then she glances at the others, hands slipping into her pockets, head canting in a well let's go say hi sort've way.

[Truth's Meridian] The svelte blond raises her arm as setting sunlight breaks right into her face as they step out of the cave's dank interior into the mouth of it where it opens wider. Like the others, she is looking rather the worse for wear. Her white blouse and camisole are stained with dirt and smears, there's a tear in her jeans at one knee; a hint of blood beneath the ragged cut of denim. Her long hair is twisted, and tousled into great knots of formerly groomed perfection.

She's still lovely, Katherine, but distressed as her clothing. Her cheek smeared here; her palm dusty there.

She comes forward with the other remaining three; they are their own small trio now, each awaiting their trial, their test.

[Face of Death] Kora and Joey lead the way, lead by nose and by sound and, at least on Joey's part, by the occasional thump of Kora's tail against her thighs. Joey releases Blood Summons and Lila, or at least relaxes her grip if they hold onto her, as the light brightens. Now they can all see the shapes they pass by, they can see where they're going.

They step out into the sunset together, Joey lifting a hand to shield her eyes. They all look the worse for wear by now. Muddy and rumpled, even the Silver Fang princess. Joey watches the young pack fight and brawl as boys do, watches the girl looking over them, yelling at them. She drops her hand to her side, slips both hands into the pockets of her jeans, and steps aside.

To wait, and to watch. Her trial is finished. A smile plays at the corners of her mouth, and she looks as she did when she first came to Chicago. Like there's a joke in the air that only she can hear, and she's going to burst into laughter at any moment.

[descent.] The biggest of the males, his hair reddish and his nose large, jumps on top of the obvious omega and puts his hand on his face, laughing, rubbing it back and forth as the curly haired kid's head scrapes on the dirt. The girl shrieks in frustration and lunges onto him, scratching at the back of his neck. The impact only clocks the omega's head harder on the rocky earth.

"Geddoff!" he snarls at her, whipping his head around to snap his jaws. The darkest one, his skin a warm brown and his hair matted to his skull, rolls around giggling nearby.

"Stoppit!" she snaps right back, and scratches at his eyes.

They are, the lot of them, ignoring the Garou.

[Truth's Meridian] Truth's Meridian, exchanging vaguely amused glances with those she's standing beside; lifts her slender shoulders in a shrug and fits her fingers between her lips, then, utilizing an old trick she'd developed when trying to distract her elder brother as a child; she whistles -- sharply.

[Sorrow] Sorrow pads through the dark canyon, circling obstructions, barking out caution when and where necessary. The earth feels warm and rich - not lush, but louche with the overabundance of harvest. There is a bite in the air, a chill to the shadows through which they pass - and then the sky opens, the sun blazes. The wolf sneezes once to clear her senses; to take it all in again and then - shifts - in the light, ending at the last crouched forward, one knee on the ground, the other bent fully, steepled fingers of her right hand braced against the sunwarmed earth, her pale hair loose, bathed in the clashing brilliance of the sunset, in the first of the deep blue shadows that will come after - dusk, gloaming.

Her hair is wild, tangled, her old clothes filthy - blood smeared along the thighs of her jeans, dried mud flaking from the calves, t-shirt and thermal rucked up over the waistband of her worn, low-slung jeans to reveal the angry-red ridges of her new battlescar. She pulls the hem down, absently, watching the interplay, intent, nostrils flared, dark eyes still sparking, feral, her expressive mouth curling - just revealing teeth - in response to the play-not-play.

Sorrow turns, shifts, pivoting in place, still balanced on her left foot and right knee, surveying the rest.

Wyrmbreaker.
Honor's Compass.
Waking Dream.

Her dark eyes cut to their Guide, then - sharply - back again to Kate as she whistles.

[descent.] A sharp, shrill whistle cuts through the air, and four young faces pull in sudden winces. And then four little heads snap to attention.

No: not attention. Rage.

"FUCK OFF!" the three of them shout at Kate, in unison. Their voices seem to make the cavern walls tremble.

[Waking Dream] "Hey," Lila says, having circled the unprotected little camp, when Rage defines the four teenagers, shapes their voice. Her own voice is clear, is strong -- carrying, will shape echoes, a galliard's voice, and easy. She isn't wondering whether or not this is her trial. She isn't wondering if this is her gate. She's wondering, all right, but not about that, and she tilts her head, regarding the teenagers pensively, dreamingly. "Don't talk to her like that. Who are you?"

[Blood Summons] Truth's Meridian's sharp whistle makes the Godi briefly wince, but it has the intended effect even if only just for a few moments: the four teenagers quit their roughhousing, three of them joining together to bark an invective that is shot through with primal anger. Bob reaches up to scratch at the nape of his neck, then follows Waking Dream down to the camp, coming up on her right flank.

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas reaches out to Kate as she whistles, as the kids shout at her -- touches his packmate's arm to get her attention. Shakes his head at her. It's not you, he mouths.

Lila steps forward, then. Lukas watches.

[Face of Death] Joey watches the fighting, just a step or two beyond play. I think it's gonna get bad, she'd said. It's familiar, that kind of tussling. It reminds the Rotagar of youth, of time spent with her brother and his friends. Joey used to play like that, except she wasn't the girl, crying for obedience, shouting to get them to stop. Joey, youngest, the girl, was always in the position of the little curly haired boy. At least until she learned to fight back, to be as brutal as the boys.

Kate whistles sharply to them, and they stop for a moment. And they glare at the Philodox, and they shout to tremble the cavern walls. Joey watches Kate, to see if she'll step forward. And she watches Lukas, and she watches Lila, who seems to want to go say hello. Who circles the camp and scolds.

She follows after Blood Summons, not to intervene, but to better observe the outcome.

[Truth's Meridian] "Better," she says when the four of them stop fighting to curse at her, a smile blossoming over her lips in direct opposition of the intention of their wall-trembling yell, most likely. She watches as Lila approaches then, and frowns down at Lukas' hand on her arm, she draws back a step; and like the others, becomes an observer.

[descent.] It isn't the Hey that gets their attention, nor the order, which they snarl at. It's the question. It's the opportunity to do their most favorite-est thing in the entire whole wide world.

Talk about themselves.

"We're the Amoeba!" yells the one with the matted hair, giggling. The redhead cuffs him upside the head, and he grabs his arm, growling.

"Mickey Mouse Club," smirks the Omega, his hair matted with blood in back.

"Your mother!" crows the stringy-haired redhead, and laughs at his own rather poor attempt at a joke.

The only one who doesn't look amused is the female, glaring at Lila like an intruder, coming at her from behind, coming out of the dark. "Who wants to know?" she says, wary. There's blood under her fingernails. There's blood on the back of the redhaired kid's neck.

[Waking Dream] "You don't look like any episode of the Mickey Mouse club I ever watched," Lila says, mouth quirking, briefly. Humor that doesn't quite dispell a certain watchfulness. "What are you, 'behind the scenes'?" See, she is still calm, Lila is, still sounds calm and perhaps a touch perplexed. She has to know that Lukas and Kate have both stayed back, and she has to know that that means, probably means, that this is it, this is, somehow, a gate, but trepidation is not what she feels.

Who wants to know, the female -- oldest -- asks, wary, and Lila says, simply, "I do. Me. Don't you want to be known? Can't really do that if you're busy beating each other into the sand."

[Sorrow] Sorrow stands at last, body opening to her full height, shoulders squaring beneath her dark tee, her once-white thermal, now spattered with blood and stiff with dried mud. Arms loose, hair wild, she reaches up, pulls back against the length to tame it, to tie it up with itself, weight against weight. Her face is still, body and breath are still, dark eyes flicking from one boy to the other.

Then: movement. Lila circles the camp in one direction. Sorrow circles in another direction. Call it - perspective. Her long, lean figure ends in big black boots, gloved in mud. She's not silent. She's not a scount. She just walks, loose-jointed, watchful - intent.

[descent.] "God, she's weird," mutters one male to the other, who nods in agreement.

The female just stares. "You're in my camp. MINE." It's a snap of her jaws, that word, a roar from such a young, thin voice. "You tell me who the fuck you are."

[Waking Dream] A moment, quiet, considering, still watchful. It would be easy to relax and to think that just because they look like kids, act like cubs, they are. Her eyes stay on the female's. And then: "I'm called Lila. I'm called Waking Dream and Breaking Heart. I'm on a quest to bring spring back to the world and to lay winter into its grave. They're all -- " a tilt of her head, to draw the girl's attention to the other garou who've crept up on her camp, who're standing back, playing the part of observers. " -- on this quest. Now you know. Who are you?"

[descent.] Wasted Winter looked like an Elder, talked like a Theurge, but that doesn't mean she was the same Garou that came to Chicago not that long ago and told the Grand Elder and the Ritesmistress and the Warder that she had come to Maelstrom to die, with little more explanation than that.

Kora looked like she who offers sorrow at the campfire on the muddy field, playing her guitar and seething with repressed, maddening rage. But that doesn't mean she was the same Garou who is still in their midst, who played songs for them all night.

Dr. Warren looked like a doctor. Doctors don't do what he did to Adamidas, though.

And that little boy... wasn't. He wasn't a child, and he wasn't Charlie, or Grey Claws, or Mrena, or any of the honored or near-forgotten dead. He was something else.

So: these can't be just cubs, this quartet of obviously feral children. Their eyes are wary or amused or simply bitter. Their filthy hair and clothes stink of sweat and woodsmoke and fear. Waking Dream, Breaking Heart she tells them, and a flash of pain -- or something -- goes through the girl's eyes.

"Beta," she mutters quietly, as though the name shames her. "Gamma. Delta. Omega," she goes on, indicating the redhead, the laughing dark one, the curly-haired stripling. A beat. "That's all."

[Waking Dream] [omg, are you guys, like, in pain or something? WP 'COS YOU'RE PRIMAL SPIRITS OF THE UNDERWORLD. or are you? HOW DO I REACT.]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6) [WP]

[descent.] [That flash of pain across Beta's face was shame. They're all pretty afraid and uncertain right now, and every drop of it is getting sublimated into their rage. They're hungry, they're tired, and while they're aware of how alone and vulnerable they are, every last one of them is wary of showing it to the others lest they get shoved into the omega's spot as a result. This is Lord of the Flies waiting to happen.]
to Waking Dream

[Waking Dream] "Beta. Gamma. Delta. Omega." Echoed. As if to re-name them -- as if to touch each where they stand and give them some solidity, if not solidarity (each to each [together]). Lila's eyes flick to each as they are named but, ultimately, return to the girlbodied thing whose voiced just went all smirched with shame. Then: "Is that all? What happened to your alpha? What brought you four together, here?"

[Wyrmbreaker] As Lila and the kids interact, the rest of them watch -- tense, perhaps, uncertain of just how and when this scenario might suddenly take a screeching left turn into something hideous.

Lukas pulls his eyes from the small group to speak quietly to Kate, though: "What do you think your test will be?"

[descent.] "Don't have one," says Beta, frowning deeply at Lila for bringing it up. That much is obvious: the betrayed look, the anger, turned on she who poked the wound.

"His dad ran off without saying anything," she tells Lila, pointing at Gamma. "His brother's an arrogant loudmouth," at Omega, "and he doesn't quite know where he goes yet," Delta.

"They found me and told me to be in charge of them. So I'm in charge of them."

Beta picks her nose. Looks at it. Flings it on the ground, wipes her finger on her pants. She looks uncomfortable. Flicks her eyes at Lukas as he speaks up, then at Chuckles in Summer Shadows, whose hair has gotten longer, is turning paler in the dying sunlight.

"It's almost dark," Beta says, turning back to Lila. "So we have to go find food now. Cuz if we don't eat we'll die." She says this matter-of-factly, almost as though that's exactly what she expects to happen: that the hunt will fail. That they will go hungry. That they will die.

[Truth's Meridian] Katherine, whose gaze had been so clear and steady on the four youth clustered around their fire, conversing with Lila, peels her attention away from them to her own Alpha as he addresses her quietly, asks what she believes her test will be. How can she know, her expression; her drawn in brows suggest, while her mouth dips to a frown of thought.

"I can't say with any surety," she begins softly, her eyes searching Lukas' now. "But perhaps - " a tremor, the toad in her throat croaks her voice a touch. "Something to do with my fear, or, to do with the times when," she hesitates, her fingers clench and unclench at her sides. "When control is hard to relinquish." She studies Lukas. "And you, what do you think they will ask of you?"

[Waking Dream] Lila's mouth curves, again. This time -- and she's glass-creatured enough, glass-skinned enough -- it's obvious for any who look closely, just why: sympathy, then. As if she knows, too well, how that goes. That's a fleeting emotion, though; chased away by a perplexed frown when the girl's explanation recycles through her thoughts and hooks, snag. That's not how it works, she wants to tell the girl. There's always an alpha. Just good alphas, bad alphas. But always an alpha, and always an omega. She doesn't say that, though. Instead:

"I'll take you on a hunt. The air's sweet for it." I'll teach you how to hunt.

[Sorrow] Sorrow's eyes are fast on Lila's face now, swerving only to follow the arc of Beta's gestures toward the rest of her pack. She walks a slow circuit, illuminated by the slanting rays of the failing sun. Her hands are in the back pockets of her jeans, buried up to the second knuckle, the palms angled back away from her rump, her elbows bent, arms out, akimbo, the knot tied in her thick hair swinging with every step.

Lila will take the pack on a hunt. Sorrow, watching, cants her head like an animal. Smiles.

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas thinks for a while, brow furrowing. Then the Shadow Lord shakes his head. "I don't know."

What he means is: I don't want to think about it.

His chest expands: an inhale. Then he too slides his hands into his back pockets, an unconscious mirroring of the Skald. His weight shifts to one foot; he kicks idly at the dirt, raising a small puff of dust that glimmers and settles and smokes in the setting sunlight.

"I think it'll be winter soon," he adds to no one in particular.

[descent.] "Alpha, then?" asks Delta, of Beta.

Beta frowns at him, frowns at Lila, frowns at the boys.

"She's big," says Omega, putting his hand several inches above his head. He nods.

Beta's frown eases a bit. She glances at Lila, at the wolves behind her, then directly at Gamma, who simply shrugs. Beta looks back at Lila. "If we don't get food, it'll be your fault," she says. "We'll come back here hungry," she says, and her voice takes on the sort of gravity that seems to bring down twilight itself behind her. The air thickens a bit with her words. "We'll fight until we forget how hungry we are, til we're too exhausted to care about the gnawing in our bellies."

As though it was there forever, the firepit comes back to life with the coming darkness, flickering upwards until it casts even harsher shadows than the sunset.

"The hungriest will wake first," she mutters. Those near her can see Chuckles in Summer Shadows put her fingertips on the end of the fifth bell's handle. "Don't know who it will be. They'll go after the weakest, though. Deepest sleeper, thinnest arms. Probably him," she says, jerking her head at Omega, who simply stares at Lila, his hair turned brassy and his blood coppery by the firelight. "If he can't fight the hungriest off, he'll die first. And we'll eat him, because we don't have another choice.

"Won't hunt that night. Bellies full of blood and meat."

Beta doesn't move towards them. She doesn't need to. "Even if we don't starve, don't cannibalize, we might not get enough. Omega might stumble and Delta will get hurt and it'll be your fault, if you don't deal with him, make him better. Gamma likes to push, likes to challenge, wants to fight all the time. One of these days he's gonna take over and beat us all til we piss ourselves. Your fault, if you don't control him."

Winter soon, Lukas says behind Lila, and cool air whispers into the cavern, murmurs at the coming harvest, the richness waiting in the earth, the dark nights with their howling winds.

"Delta wanders off a lot. Gets lost and can't find his way back. Something bigger than him will snatch him up," she says, the words gaining fervor, her hands turning into claws, grabbing at the air and yanking backwards as though she herself is the predator threatening her packmate, "and he'll be lost forever. Your fault, if you don't look for him. If you don't bring him back, keep an eye on him."

Animals rustle and cry out in the woods outside. Plentiful prey for the cubs.

"When you die, I'll take over. And it will go back to the way it was, the way it is, if you don't show me what to do."

There's a long pause, as night comes on entire, too quickly for reality. Leaves are falling outside, blown down by the wind.

"Will you still be our Alpha?"

[Blood Summons] When he stops walking, he's halfway between Waking Dream and the two members of the Unbroken, observing the proceedings without interjecting or assisting. As if suddenly aware of the disarray of his clothing, he tucks in his shirt without paying close attention to what he's doing, the rucked-up ends disappearing into the waist of his jeans. It does little to make him appear less filthy, less wild, but he does it anyway. It gives him something to do with his hands.

After several moments of quiet watching, he pushes his hands into the hip pockets of his jeans and turns his head towards the conversing Fosterns. He listens to them with one ear, listens to Waking Dream and the cubs with the other; Wyrmbreaker thinks it'll be winter soon.

The Godi contemplates this, then makes a rasping noise of agreement and scratches at his chin. He looks around for their guide as though to make sure that she's still present, for the silent females in a head count. They're all still here.

[Rain of Brass Petals] She folds her hands in front of her, right over left and fingers cupping inward so that she held the inside of her hand. Alethea Adamidas waited, watched carefully while the scene played out in front of her, while she looked for hidden meanings that she didn't quite understand. She's standing next to Blood Summons, and the younger theurge turns her head and looks up at him for a second before looking back at Beta, Delta, Omega, Lila...

[Face of Death] "I think so, too," says Joey, standing somewhere near, near enough to be counted among the watchers, near enough to watch Lila interact with the cubs. She looks over at Wyrmbreaker. "Full cycle o' seasons."

Her face scrunches up in thought, and she stares up at the sky. It could be days or hours or seconds since they started the rite. Since they started at the Caern.

"Whoever's last's got the toughest one, I bet. I mean," and she shrugs, mouth quirked, "we dug a grave to bury winter."

[Waking Dream] This is the kind've gold that she was named for, first, when she was first cliathed; when she was shucking off the name Doomsday. This kind've gold that is brilliant and so lovely it's hard to keep, won't stay, can't stay, fleets off into some impossible dark. This kind've gold, when the firepit leaps to life as Beta speaks, and Lila half-turns her head toward it, and the harvest-gold, hunger-gold of the fire limn Lila's features, give her a necklace of shadow. Her hair is draggled, tangled, and her shoulders tense, tension coils, viper-quick, at the base of her neck, and she's frowning with -- ready for it -- compassion. And something else, because she's gone still that way she does, when stillness is just an answer, just a moment before.

"I'll take you on a hunt," she repeats. "And you won't eat him. You won't eat each other. If you're hungry, you'll tighten your belts, and you won't cram your throats with poisonflesh, just because it's flesh. You'll eat dirt, first. You'll eat fire, first, or you'll eat your hair, but you won't eat each other -- I don't care what season it is; you can be stronger than that." A beat. "Matters, that. But not relevant: we're going to bring down prey, and it's going to be delicious.

"C'mon. Change." Gamma gets a long look, unblinking, and the firelight's bronzing her eyelashes. They each get a long look. "And stick close, Beta. Watch."

-- and she shifts. Melts from womanthing to wolfthing.

[Wyrmbreaker] Whoever's last's got the toughest one, Joey says, and we dug a grave.

Lukas's jaw clenches -- an irrational, unreasonable rush of spite and resentment flushing through his veins faster than he can control it. Easy for you to say, he wants to spit at her. You're done.

But -- he doesn't. Because that's not fair. She did not have it easy. His eyes lower to the earth for a moment, then up to squint into the setting sun.

"I hope I'm last, then," he says quietly. Then he turns to the others and smiles suddenly, disarmingly, briefly.

"Lila," he calls. "Should we help, or should we stay?"

[descent.] You won't, she says, again and again, irrepressibly hopeful. Or maybe just laying down the law, the boundaries, the rules. You will not come back here and destroy yourselves and each other. You will not do this thing. She shifts to lupus, instructing them to change and to watch, but they don't move yet. They shift on their feet, they look at one another and they look at Beta, who is looking at Lila with an ache in her unfathomably blue eyes.

"Alpha?"

[Truth's Meridian] we dug a grave

-- and she remembers it, too. Briefly spans out the fingers on one hand to glimpse her chipped and broken nails; the varnish nearly eradicated and says quietly, to the air: "I think I'm winter." She notes it simply, and then falls quiet, watching Lila shift to her wolf form.

we dug a grave to bury winter

[Waking Dream] This isn't a shape for words. This is a shape for body-language, for presence, for suble things to shape out an answer -- yes, yes, yes, and yes -- to the question. Questions. Lukas asks, and Lila flicks an ear at him. Lila: wolf-shaped, gray-ghost dawn-dappled, harvest-moon eyes, tarnishedsilverthings, steady, focused.

The wolf howls. Howls her intentions, and howls to begin one've summer's last hunts. Then she nips any of the kids who haven't shifted yet. Do it.

[descent.] "Try not to think about it too much," Chuckles says quietly to the others, discussing winter, discussing gates. Her hand is off the bell again. She looks at Kate and Lukas. "I mean it. The more you try to prepare yourself, the more gets stripped from you."

[Sorrow] "You won't know it," Sorrow speaks up; her low voice carries when she wishes it. The echo of the Guide's caution is unconscious, but confident. The creature is not looking toward the pair of Fosterns, pair of packmates, pair of light and dark. " - until you see it. And when you see it, you'll know it." See this - circular - the thing that becomes a thing that dissolves into the thing that rots and dissolves and is eaten and remade into a thing, anew.

"Consider," she says, voice deepening, Glabro - hulking, primal, brutish - " - now instead." Then: to the Gatekeeper, a statement of intent. "I won't interfere. But I want to shadow them."

Crinos/Hispo/Lupus, because the dissonance of Lila's howl - the surety, the call - shivers up her human spine, calls out to the wolf in her - and wolf she becomes, the rest of it melting away into a gray-furred shadow-thing bathed in the light of the failing sun, pacing, alert, intent - ready to run again, and run and run.

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas looks at Chuckles; then to Kate.

Then, wordlessly, he reaches out to his packmate, linking his fingers to hers, twining them together, clasping hands.

[Truth's Meridian] When you see it, you'll know.
You can't prepare for it.
The more you try the more they strip away.

Lukas reaches out, and Katherine meets him half way; their fingers twining together in wordless, almost thoughtless unison in the moment. She is comforted by it, as she knows he is her presence at his side through-out.

Then; they hunt.

[descent.] Her tail and her ears and the posture of her tail tell the cubs: yes. Alpha. Going to teach. Going to make strong. And Omega shifts in an instant -- less than, more than, as though time can be broken down into things like minutes and moments -- because the strength of the cry is greater than his own will, it seems. He is just barely past the age of changing, his legs still skinny and uncertain. Delta is next, filled with boundless energy, his fur dark and thick, eager to hunt, to eat, to follow, to run.

Beta's change is gradual. She bends and bows and becomes a wolf, a lean and strong female coming of age. She changes without reservation, though, falling into place to Lila's right, ready to hunt as Delta and Omega tussle behind the Gaian. Gamma is the one who resists, who fights -- just like Beta told her he would -- and then he is the one who gets nipped, sharp lupine teeth catching at him with that firm

Do it.

He jerks away and shudders down into lupus, all tawny-red fur and gold eyes, snapping at Delta and Omega as though to reassert his dominance over them, if he cannot dominate Lila. Which he can't. She is the largest wolf in their midst now, oldest, and urging them out of the cavern's mouth. But then she isn't the largest, or the oldest, or the strongest: behind her come more, shifting down to follow the cubs out. Chuckles in Summer Shadows breathes in deep and laughs as Lila leads the cubs out of the cave, down a rocky path towards the ground floor of a thick forest. She shifts, and she holds the others back before they run.

Give the kids some room. She doesn't have to tell them: you're following Lila, too. They know it by instinct, by the cry of the moon and the posture of the Galliard. Alpha. And then, when they hear the distance between themselves and the smaller, younger pack, they pour out of the cavern, white and black and gray and brown coats lustrous under a nearly-full moon's light, leaving the fire behind them.


It is not an easy hunt. The ground is covered in freshly fallen leaves, but those leaves are still dry. More than once, Delta tries to go off on his own. More than once, Gamma bumps up against Beta, or disobeys Lila. More than once, Beta hangs back, uncertain when she should lunge, hesitant when she should bite. Omega's an utter mess. He can't be quiet to save his life, and several times over he ruins their stalking. They hunt all night. Prey isn't scarce, the cubs are just... well.

They suck at it. And though they obviously need all the help they can get, the other Garou aren't permitted. Chuckles guides them towards prey that isn't being tracked. She has them circle. They keep the prey inward, harry it towards the cubs and Lila, flush it out. And they bring down some of their own, instructed by the ritemistress to eat it, share it among themselves. They will be leaving the cubs, after this. They all know it. Hopefully the cubs learn a thing or two from Lila.

Which they do. The first time Lila has to bring Gamma back into line it's gentle. She nudges him, howls at him, nips. The second, the third, the fourth... and he doesn't stop until she knocks him down and plants a heavy paw on his neck. Done. Stop. By then her own nerves are frayed, her rage high, her hunger augmented by the gate's own energies until it makes the idea of digging her claws in very, very tempting.

Gamma looks up at her and learns to submit.

The first time Lila has to herd Delta back to the group he seems to laugh it off. It's fun. It's a game. So he does it again. And again. And he keeps doing it, herded back every time, warned every time, until the warning becomes: if you want to be on your own, you will be on your own. We howl. You listen.

Delta worms back into the pack, and the next time he gets lost, and they howl for him, he comes back without being chased.

The first time Omega steps on the wrong twig and the deer they're stalking bolts away, the entire pack turns on him. Lila stops them. The second time he stumbles over his own feet, there isn't much to do. It takes time. She has to teach Beta. She can't leave the lead in that tiny female's hands yet, to stop and deal with Omega. So he keeps screwing up. And Delta, since for once Delta is there, hangs back. And teaches him to shoosh.

Omega sticks close to Delta. And Delta teaches him what he knows.

Beta is hardest. When they've been hunting for hours and hours though, when they're all getting tired, when the Garou waiting their turn are hitting the point of exhaustion, they finally come in close to their kill, they close around just like Lila taught them, and

Beta waits one second too long, and the beast runs away. Gamma and Delta and even Omega howl with rage at her. The others hear the snapping of jaws and the struggle for dominance, the anger of thwarted hunger. It's getting exhausting at this point, stepping in between the cubs to keep them in line. At least Delta isn't wandering off. At least Gamma backs down when she barks. Beta puts her tail between her legs, though.

And that's not okay.


The next time, it's nearly dawn, coming up cold and clear and dewy. They've cornered the damn thing again. The other Garou are sated somewhere, bellies full. Might be snoozing in patches of the woods. Might be watching Lila and the pack from a safe distance. Chuckles in Summer Shadows is following them, at least. Keeping an eye on them. Keeping herself ready, in case she has to ring one of those damnable bells.

This time, Lila sees Beta's wary eyes begin to hesitate, and swats her forward. Yelping, Beta lunges at the stag, teeth going for its throat in something like a panic guided only by instinct. Yowling excitedly, the rest of the pack follows in time, leaping on the deer and tearing it down with the female. Lila, a few steps back, sees Gamma go for a bite of fresh meat from the animal's side

and sees Beta plant her paw on the ribs and just stare at him.

Those who are near Chuckles see her tongue loll out with amusement.

Those who are near see Gamma back down from Beta. Who turns and looks at Lila, chuffs, and jerks her head at the deer. Alpha eat. We strong. We wait.

[Wyrmbreaker] They do not hunt all-together after all.

They stream out of the cave in one pack, two parts -- and then in two packs altogether. Lila and the cubs hunt, and hunt and hunt. The rest of them: they are older, wiser, experienced, strong. Nearly all of them are strong in their primal instincts, which are -- not matter what Garou like to think, and how much they might like to revile their human cousins -- not only the instincts of the wolf but those of their own primitive human halves, the ape-men that came out of the forest and learned tools, learned fire, bent their creativity to task and compensated, through sheer brain power, for everything else they lacked.

Many animals have a drive for survival. Many animals know altruism, know cooperativity. Many animals, even, know organized warfare and the usage of tools. But true ingenuity, true creativity, the process of thought for thought's sake, the ability to consider the abstract as well as the concrete: that alone is a human trait. That is a human trait, alone,

and a Garou trait as well.

That's what Lukas muses on, later, after they've taken down their prey easily. After they've gorged themselves in one form or another. Wyrmbreaker hunted, in fact, in the same shape he's maintained all night: his homid form, the shape he was born into. And along the way his clothing got ripped and muddied, started looking more like rags and skins than fine-stitched leather and denim and fabric. Wyrmbreaker ate in his homid form, too, masticating meat raw between his teeth, tearing it from bone with his fingers.

And now, full, the Ahroun lounges on his back beneath a harvest moon with his face bloody and his hands bloody, his tongue still rich with the freshest of meats, inhaling air cooling from summer and tilting into winter.

He thinks of spring, which is what they quest for. He thinks of his strengths drawn from man and wolf. He thinks of his own secret fears and doubts, loose ends and unfulfilled promises, ignominious ends for no grand purpose at all. He thinks of what he will doubtlessly have to face soon or very soon, and his stomach twists uneasily, and then he thinks:

Okay. It's okay.

In the distance, a chorus of howls: the cubs, triumphant at last. Bloodymouthed, ice-eyed, the Shadow Lord smiles quietly to himself, and sits up.

"Maybe we should go find Lila now," he suggests.

[Waking Dream] Lila-wolf snorts. The hunt was long, wearying and her muscles ache again. Her temper doesn't often burn so's you'd notice, she's so much in control of herself, so careful with the fury Gaia's given them to use for killing, to teach them to kill, that it doesn't often flare; still, her patience frayed, during all of that, came close to snapping, once, threads-askew, torn-draggled. Now, though, now she is pleased, pleased with them, pleased that the hunt's over, pleased with the weary ache in her own muscles, pleased with Beta. When the younger female offers first bite of the kill to Lila-wolf, Lila-wolf stalks forward, silent, ghost, whisper-of-owl-shadow, which is to say, nothing, murmur-of-fog, rising from leaf-fall at the end of summer, beginning of fall. And, ears back, listening, she takes the first of the meat, tearing into its haunches.

But she's not just a wolf, Lila. She's woman-Lila, too, garou-Lila also, and she doesn't take very much, because even though she's hungry now, she doesn't need very much. Tighten her belt, indeed. Doesn't need the food as bad as the kids, so once she's taken just enough to say, Why yes, yes indeed, I was your Alpha then, she steps back, and while the others eat, takes her woman-shape again, wiping the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand.

[Truth's Meridian] Honor's Compass had adopted her wolf-skin for the hunt. Loping with a careless; ingrained grace along beside the others; a snowy-white furred creature with impossibly pale eyes for a true wolf, one would imagine. When she goes for a kill, springs into action there is articulation even in this -- its not a speech, but there's a preciseness about how she secures her jaw around an elk, around a deer, around a piece of meat and devours it whole with sharp, sharp little teeth.

Blood stains her white muzzle.
It stains her paws where she holds a bone between them and rips the flesh from it.

When the triumphant howl of the Cubs goes up, she's idling with her head on her paws, trying to rest herself before her own gate; her ears prick, she lifts her head and turns it to listen to Lukas' suggestion. With a whuff, she rises, and stretches herself out quite like a drowsy creature might; front paws out, back end tucked under.

She shakes her coat off; and surges back into her human form. "Success at last," she murmurs, throat husky.

[Sorrow] Sorrow is sprawled in the shadows on a bed of dried leaves, dew in the air, her gray fur damp with it, the air clean and clear - fog curdling in the hollows of the land, hovering over the streams, the soft still pools - paws forward, muzzle resting on her paws, content but not yet sleeping - drowsing sensate, replete with warmth, belly bulging when the sounds of the hunt come again, and she leaps after them once more, a gray shadow in the gray morning, running for the pleasure of it, the ground blurred beneath her feet, darting among the shadows as the chorus of calls grows.

So, witness, four-paws planted, tail waving-low, eyes gleaming in the dim blue shadows of a cool clear dawn, Sorrow watches and watches and watches until Lila-wolf becomes Lila-woman, brushes the Galliard with her flanks, tail thumping the small woman's calves and thighs.

When the rest arrive - drawn by the howls of victory echoing over the still, quiet land - Sorrow is human-skinned too, crouched a handful of feet away from her auspice-mate, forearms braced on her thighs.

"Hey," is the first thing the Fenrir says to the Gaian when she changes, watching Beta-become-Alpha. Her hair is loose again, filthy now, dark with how-many-days grace of oil. Musing, her voice, as if she were sucking on a dark stone placed on the center of her tongue. And this (spoken not as a compliment, but as a statement of fact) is the second: " - you did well."

[Rain of Brass Petals] She hunted however she could, and whatever was most effective. She waited to eat, took her turn and didn't take more than was necessary. Then again, she didn't eat much, found that swallowing was horrific and stopped after a couple bites. Other food was declined with a hand up and a polite shake of the head. She would be fine; she wasn't that hungry anyway.

When Lila came into view, the Fury perked up. Her lips upturned and her eyes lit up briefly. She smiled for her, at her, with her, whatever preposition was necessary. Dark eyes stayed with her for a second, and she stays, appreciative, but content to watch those gathered.

[Blood Summons] Despite the acuity of his lupine senses and the ease with which he inhabits forms other than the one he was born in, the group's metis was, at one point, just as inept and untrained as those cubs are now. He was born prepared to fight, prepared to lose his claws and have his blood spilled upon the earth, but hunting is not an innate skill. It has to be learned, has to be practiced, has to be honed, and like the rest of them, he had to be taught.

What separates him from the rest of the ritetakers is the fact that he did not have to learn to accept his monstrous side. He did not have to knit into his psyche the acceptance of his Garou identity. What he had to learn to accept is the shape of his human skin, the awkwardness of social navigation, how to operate in a pack comprised of beings not at all like him. He hunts as though he has been doing it all his life--he hunts as though he has been doing it since some of the other ritetakers were still in diapers, still attached to their mothers' hips in some form or another--and when they take down their prey, it is not as a discordant group of strangers but as a pack. Even if they never hunt together again after tonight, even if they never speak to each again, tonight they hunt as though they are bound together, and they are victorious.

They are also separate from Waking Dream and her cubs, for now. After they fill their bellies with raw meat, the Godi eating as though he has not done so for days, they are left to lounge in the grass and digest, to wait for the child-pack to come back.

He also does what he had not wanted to do at his gate, which he would have fought against were not for the fact that his fighting would have further injured his fellow ritetakers. Back in his human skin, face and hands gory and stained, he stretches out at the base of a tree, and he drowses. He does not stir again until he hears the cubs; his eyes do not open until Wyrmbreaker speaks.

Maybe they should go find Lila.

He rumbles, and for the fourth time tonight, pushes himself to his feet.

[descent.] The meat is hot and good. The stag is well-fed from a long summer. And Lila's hungry. Hard not to be, after everything they've been through. She eats, if only a little bit, and when she sinks her fangs in, the rest of the pack comes forward and begins to sup as well. They jostle a bit, but mostly they're just so glad to have hot blood on their mouths and down their throats that they focus intently on eating, not scuffling. In the meantime, while they gorge themselves, she pulls back.

Kora sees this. She hears their yips and howls of victory subsume quickly into snarls and chewing. And she sees the cubs begin to become transparent against the rising sun, become as invisible as dew. She hears the silence descending on the woods. Sees the wind blow away piles of dead leaves til all that is left is the hard, cold ground. Sees the trees barren. Sees late fall arriving, distant and empty, long past harvest. Those who have stored up food will be okay. Those who have not... will starve.

You did well, she says to Lila then, stating a fact. And it's true.