the gate of tranquility.

[descent.] There have been rumors around the sept for awhile now, passed almost exclusively amongst Guardians, Adrens, those who run alongside them. Some of the seven who now stand at the Graves of Hallowed Heroes, the air around them thick and curling with the umbra's insinuations, may have even heard them. These things have a way of getting out, after all.

At first they were saying she showed up during the last heavy snowfall, moonlight turning the white ground blue. And they said: her name is Wasted Winter, probably an Elder, white-haired and milky-eyed, maybe she's already lost the Wolf. They said: she's a Theurge, has to be. They argued over her tribe. They said: she's come here to die. Can barely move. Can barely speak. Whispers to herself, under Bleeding Heart's care.

A little while later the rumors changed, as rumors do. They were starting to say her name was actually Harvest's Dread and she was an Athro Ahroun, here to converse with Evens the Odds and Silence. No, she's not that old. Old compared to Evens the Odds and Silence, old even for an Athro, but hardly some wrinkled grandmother needing nurturing. Something's coming, they were saying, something bigger than the Hive -- met with laughter, that -- so get ready. Get ready.

Maybe it was a day, maybe a week, before what was trickling down to the ranks of Fosterns was only hinting at earlier iterations of the rumor. Now they were hearing that an Adren Ragabash by the name of Chuckles in Summer Shadows was causing trouble for the Grand Elder, constantly following him around and asking him about Garou of the sept. No matter. They all have more important things to worry about.

It's possible they never even connected talk of the Ragabash with what they heard last week about the brash Fostern Galliard who had rolled into town, sneaking under the radar and now hanging out at the Graves. They may have even seen her, or talked to someone who's seen her. The elders around the sept don't talk about it, only seem aggravated by her presence. Her name is Birth of Song, and of course she's young, and she's mouthy, and after something like a week in Maelstrom is acting like she knows everything about everybody. Bitch is gonna get smacked.

But a couple of days ago, as the city of Chicago was drinking itself into a false Irish heritage, the seven of them were contacted. Messages sent to phones or by spirit, passed along by Guardians upon a visit to the caern. They saw Bleeding Heart and Balance Without Fault and Evens the Odds leaving one of the hangars as they approached at the time they were told to come, but upon questioning, the elders simply shook their heads and told them to head on in. They all look annoyed and worn out, though to differing degrees.

Inside the hangar was a young girl, with red-gold hair and warm brown eyes. Barely old enough to have changed... if that, even. She was dressed in plain clothes: a warm shirt, a pair of jeans, some sneakers probably from Hill House. And she told them about the Rite of Reawakening, and that she'd chosen them, and she asked -- quietly, with more respect than is usually seen from the very young -- if they would come and help her.

Seasonal rites. Pah. Like spring won't come if they don't go into the underworld. Like the sun won't --

"My name is Naomi," she told them softly, smiling a little, "and I'll protect you."

-- come out tomorrow if they don't howl to the moon before it. Like if they make no sacrifices to spirits, they'll lose --

"I know I look young, and I know you may have heard some weird things about the newcomer to your sept. But I'm a Half Moon, and they call me Youngest Mother, Oldest Friend. I'll lead you, if you will follow."

-- some vital part of themselves. As though, if they don't go with this girl who can't possibly be more than the freshest of Cliaths, if they don't participate in a rite like the one she's described, if they don't find out what the seven trials and the seven sacrifices will take from them and give back to their goddess, then somehow it will be hard to tell themselves in the middle of the night --

She smiled at them. "You don't have to tell me now. The elders here said they'd go with me, make their sacrifices instead, if any of you said no. But at sunset the night before the equinox, if you meet me at the Graves, we'll serve Gaia together."

-- what the fuck they're fighting for.



Nobody's asked them about their reasons. They've seen nobody on their way in but one another, and no one until they see Naomi waiting for them. She's dressed just the same, though if it's possible, she looks even younger. More fragile. More like the child most of them won't ever have. She looks happy to see them. She has a leather bandolier across her narrow, flat torso with seven trapezoidal pockets. Each one has a small ebony stem sticking out of the bottom, like the handle of a bell.

Her eyes go first to Blood Summons, then take them all in. "There is no birth without death," she says, in a voice that takes them into the heart of her name: nurturing, warm, ancient, fond, "and the two meet, like a snake biting its own tail. In the form you were born to, in the form you will take upon your death..."

she nods at the cold earth, empty of stone,

"...dig us a grave for winter."

[Rain of Brass Petals] Seasonal rites.

Because the sun won't come out tomorrow if they don't howl to the moon before it. In her mind, Alethea Adamidas believed, and believed with great fervor, that these were rites that were necessary. More than necessary, they were vital, especially in these times. She remembers being young, she remembers stories of pomegranates and the earth mourning for a lost daughter. Fables of the old Greeks, and she need not think of Persephone, the imagined or any named for her.

To her, this was important. This was a constant, a tie from her old home sept to this new one. Something universal- no matter where Adamidas goes, spring needs to be called forth. This young girl had come to ask for their assistance. And the other female, who for once looked old in comparison to another, agreed.

Her name is Naomi, and she will protect them.

There are trials, there are sacrifices to be made, and there is no hesitation in this. No one asked Adam her reasons, and she certainly wasn't giving them. Attire was comfortable, and whatever she had dedicated to her. Attire was unimportant, something standard and age-appropriate for a young female with limited income. And there are instructions, and as that this is ritual she watches silently and solemnly, and takes them in.

Dig us a grave for winter, Naomi instructs.

The slight female takes a step forward, and the girl kneels down on both knees. She looks fairly comfortable like that, and reaches her hand into the earth. The ground is... the ground is. There is no need to describe it. The ground is the ground, and with her hands, in the form she was born, the female starts to give winter its resting place. Dirt catches under her fingernails. It smudges on her forearms as she pauses long enough to push up her sleeves. She glances to the others gathered, before she looked back at the ground to continue digging.

[Wyrmbreaker] Truth be told, Wyrmbreaker doesn't even think to connect the stories. Garou come in and out of a rising Sept like this all the time. Elders are few; Elders come to die fewer still, but that's no business of Wyrmbreaker's. If she needs something of him, she'll ask. He'll respond. If not -- he'll give her her space and her final dignity.

A little later, they stop talking about the elder. They talk about an Athro Ahroun instead, and Wyrmbreaker does take notice at that. Perhaps he goes to see her once or twice; always finds her deep in conversation with this elder or that. And he's busy, anyway, and so is she, and...

...then they're talking about an Adren, a Fostern, smaller and smaller ranks, one Garou or many, passing through, passing on.

Then the summons comes. Wyrmbreaker shows up without his pack, faintly puzzled and faintly curious, watchful. The elders don't answer his questions. The girl tells him she'll protect him, which makes his lips quirk quickly and irrepressibly. She asks a favor -- or perhaps issues a request -- and they don't have to tell her immediately, but he does:

"I'll be here."

And so he is, some nights later: in relaxed trousers and a collarless shirt, clothing that suggests spring; a leather jacket for warmth. The jacket is pale under the faint starlight, the crescent moonlight; the rest of his clothing, some dark shade. Dig us a grave, says Naomi, and after a moment of kicking about to find a good spot, Wyrmbreaker shifts flawlessly into his hispo form and digs like a dog does: hindlegs planted, forepaws churning the hard, sandy lakeside soil.

[Blood Summons] What he remembers about life in a Sept, what is easy to forget after so much time away, is the way that rumors move their way from mouth to mouth. Rumors are better passed on than held onto, is the idea, and rumors are what he has been hearing for weeks now, ever since he stumbled into town like a wrinkled newspaper blown down the sidewalk. If he had stopped listening to the rumors after the second or third permutation, he would not be here tonight.

If the rites were not important to him, if he thought that Helios would make an appearance each morning were Luna's children to carry on without singing her praises, he would not be here tonight. If he thought he shed his blood for nothing, he would not be here tonight.

And so he goes. He goes into the hangar heedless of the exasperation of those who have been here with the newcomer this entire time, and he listens to her speak, and he does not disregard her because her rank and age have changed from telling to telling, because she does not meet his expectations. Perhaps by the time she became a Fostern Galliard his expectations had been abandoned; perhaps if anyone can take in what's being presented without judgment, it's a metis spirit-talker.

He stands not in his birth form but in his human skin, hardly the tallest one here but neither the smallest. His hands are plunged into the pockets of his black slacks as he listens to her, wearing short sleeves despite the weather, and his animal-sharp eyes are unflinching as he listens to her speak.

Youngest Mother, Oldest Friend says she will protect them if they will follow, and if he is skeptical, if he doesn't trust her, it doesn't show on his face. She looks at him first, and he looks right back, jaw kinked at an angle, weight on one hip, listening. She bids them dig a grave to bury winter, in the form that they themselves will be buried in, and he draws a breath before complying.

His body explodes outward, muscles and bones and fur growing, fangs unsuited for the task and claws no better off. He cannot retract them, and if they snap off in the soil, if they stain the earth with his blood, he keeps digging anyway.

[Face of Death] The most her packmates know at this point is that Joey is going to the Caern. Someone needs help with a seasonal rite, and her presence specifically has been requested. Hopefully she'll make it to the bonfire before it winds down.

Mostly, Joey listens. She listens to Naomi tell them that she'll protect them, even though she seems young. Younger than Joey, younger even than Adamidas, the Black Fury Theurge. Joey listens to Naomi, and she looks around at the others who were gathered here, who will be gathered her again on the Equinox.

At sunset, she arrives dressed in her dedicated battle gear. Jeans and sneakers, a long-sleeved t-shirt. A jerk of her head flicks her bangs back from her forehead. She's right behind Adam, kneeling beside the Fury Theurge to help claw at the earth with her bare human hands.

[Wyrmbreaker] [sorry, he's in homid! i forgot.]

[Waking Dream] There are Mysteries. There are Mysteries as yet untouched by the womanbodied thing who joins six others at the Graves just as sunset rises up from the west [like silt - disturbed by the sinking of some large weight].

Naomi is a Mystery: young, old, waxing to wane, waning to wax, and the galliard has watched her with eyes wide and dreaming. They didn't have to tell her immediately, but there'd been something in the way she listened, something in the way she canted her head, did not smile with her mouth, which was an answer, a promise, an oath. We'll tryst.

Lila'd joined the others dressed plain: a long-sleeved shirt, jeans patched with (ephemera [bohemia]) fabric and leather (skin), thick boots, soles ready for walking, laces draggled and undone. Maybe she'd bumped against those she knew and liked -- which was all, except for Rain of Brass Petals; she wouldn't leave her out. Maybe she'd glanced up at the sky, once, gauging the cloudcover, wanting the moon to sink its hook into her blood, or maybe she'd just watched the faces of those who came, watched the young/old one.

The others fall one by one by one to digging, and Blood Summons gets, perhaps, a glance of surprise for the form he takes -- and then, once they've chosen their places, Lila finds her own, something to close the border. The earth is cold and hard and it'll draw blood from her one way or another.

[Sorrow] This is not where she who offers sorrow expected to be on the night of the equinox, where the world is balanced on a perfect fulcrum between light and darkness. Which is to say – (who, me?) – she may have said the first time the snapping black Hrafn approached her, the remains of his last meal glistening on his yellow beak, confident that they sought another. And you don’t have to play tricks, this is a lie, well she knows – Hrafn must always play tricks - and so the strange, familiar coil of her half-smile, the expression too human to be meaningful to the great black bird, Hrafn, I’ll feed you and yours without them.

--

That was days ago; first contact. This is days later, perhaps the last. They stand among the raw graves. Kora already wears her human skin, in her ordinary clothes, scrubbed clean once again of the stains of her own blood, and others. Except where the seams meet. Except where the faults join. Except in the places where they are stitched together, where, hidden, they cannot be scrubbed clean.

Her mother chose her name blindly, out of a book, thinking of anything but the winter wolves. Kora knows what it means, though.

Dig us a grave. says the girl-thing. for winter.

The barely ranked wolf-woman who dreams dreams of endless winters sinks easily to her haunches beside the rest, and digs – blunt fingers in the cold, half-frozen earth. The soil smells of the dead. Of the bones cracked and burnt, of pyres and ash, the offerings one brings back, for those who have gone before. The dirt lodges beneath her fingernails, dark – black as dried blood.

She digs.

[Wyrmbreaker] They have no shovel. No spade. They dig in their birthforms, and for once in his life, Wyrmbreaker envies a Metis his birth.

Lukas digs uncomplainingly, though. The soil is cold and hard; freezes his fingertips before long, numbs his hands. Dirt gets on his fine coat, on his hands. On his face, when he pauses to wipe his face with the heel of his hand. He keeps digging and little by little he hollows out a space about as long as a body --

his body, to be exact --

and begins to work to deepen it. Handful after handful of earth scooped out, flung aside. As he works he thinks about his own grave: when it would be dug, who would dig it, what they would think of when they moved the earth just like this, handful by handful, preparing a space for his earthly remains to be interred while his spirit goes back to the mountain holds of his forefathers, far far away.

[descent.] They dig a grave that could bear the body of a girl like Naomi.

They dig a grave that could hold Adamidas, slight as she is.

And they dig. And Katherine is there, digging with them, pushing past her struggles with dirt and mud and worms and tthings, sticking close to Wyrmbreaker as they tear handfuls of earth up from the ground. Usually they do this sort of thing in lupus, in hispo, in forms made for digging. Even Blood Summons, doing the vast majority of the work by sheer virtue of size and strength, is not going as fast as any of them would in another form. It takes a very, very long time.

They dig into the ground that holds Mrena, Sampson, and Charlie. Deeper. And they dig a grave that could hold Lila and Joey and Kora and Kate. They dig a grave that could fit Wyrmbreaker. And they keep digging, with small and soft Naomi telling them to smooth out the sides, to make this part longer, wider. No telling which of them is the first to realize just how big it has to be: they have to be able to bury Blood Summons in this grave, at the end of the work.

Night unspools above them. The deeper they go, the more faraway the world seems. Naomi clambers down into the muck with them, digging alongside them, muddy and filthy up to her biceps, up to her knees. The constellations spin overhead if they dare look up, dizzying. The thin crescent moon smiles. And whispers.

They hit dirt so hard and cold it's a fight even for Blood Summons to scratch it. It's been hours. Arms are shaking from exertion already, and the rite's barely begun. Naomi crouches and pushes aside some of the mud, flattens her hand on the surface, and shoves.

The bottom of the grave gives way.

We all fall down.

[Wyrmbreaker] Wyrmbreaker's first instinct is to get out. Jump up, jump out, get clear, pull others to safety, be ready for an attack. He leaps; he's shifting before he can think; his claws scrabble for the hard ground outside the grave

and then he does think, and thinking, lets himself return to his homid form. Lets go.

Down he goes, perhaps last amongst them for his hesitation, perhaps first if they all hesitated, perhaps somewhere in the middle. It doesn't matter. Dirt flies in his face, blinds him, tastes like darkness and things not yet formed, and then there seems to be nothing at all beneath his feet, and he's falling.

[Face of Death] Joey digs and claws at the dirt, following the advice of Naomi, smoothing down that side, digging further in over there. She goes where she's needed, if she's needed elsewhere at all. Her jeans are muddy up to her thighs, imprints of her hands there where she pushed up or eased down. There are smears of it on her face. Streaks in her hair. Joey doesn't seem to mind. She doesn't even seem to notice.

Naomi climbs in among them, pushes, and they tumble. Joey gasps, but she doesn't cry out. And she falls with the others.

[Waking Dream] The work is repetitive and dark and darker. And silent, except for the breathing of the others. There is grave-dirt, winter's-dirt in Lila's golden hair. There is dirt caked under her fingernails, broken now, chipped, where blood has wet it (whet it: earth'll get sharper; tiny stings).

And Lila considers, as she digs, once she is in the grave, scooping earth out, once it has expanded, swollen to encompass even Blood Summons, how cold it is, how hard. How this will be where her bones are laid if they are not lost. How this where Others who have fallen lie, their bones tangled, their bodies dissolving. How this is the place that it really will end. How this quiet (altar) is the quiet just before the quiet that will --

The earth drops out from underneath them. Lila sucks in a breath and

SHOUTS [a last offering
for the sweet air].

Wordless, but it doesn't need words: it's eloquent of the sudden clamor of her heart, the sudden spike of adrenaline, startlement (exhileration).

[Truth's Meridian] Katherine's first instinct is to scream.

There is dirt and grime beneath her fingernails, her beautiful, carefully tended fingernails and embedded deep to boot. She is on her hands and knees, digging in the soil and the longer she remains the paler her skin goes, a slight sheen cast to it in the moonlight; a layer of perspiration. Not from toiling in the dirt -- from being so near to it. From being caged in on either side by it. Her breathing is labored, more than it ought to be. But the Silver Fang focuses and breathesbreathesbreathes as she digs.

And then Naomi shoves, and Katherine does scream as they fall.

Just once, a sharp, sudden cry from her throat because it's so familiar to nightmares from her childhood. Enclosed in with dirt; trapped in the dark.

They fall.

[Rain of Brass Petals] There is dirt on her face.
There is dirt in her hair, though it blends in with her hair, brings note to the fact that her eyes are closer to a dark, dark greyblack than brown. She had looked at Joey briefly, shot her half a smile, but dug none the less.

The earth was cold and she doesn't say anything. The theurge inhaled sharply, started beside Joey and ended beside Joey, and then? They fell.

It was her natural reaction to reach out to the person beside her, and unless she was interrupted the Fury held onto the Fenrir's arm while they fell. Don't get separated. Don't go alone.

Just fall. They're all going the same direction, so that was almost comforting.

[Sorrow] And when we fall – she is not thinking anymore. Her body has been wrung to a point of near exhaustion; it is will that moves her as much as it moves the rest of them, this strange cross-section of tribes and auspices, ranks and roles. The earth this deep is compacted from years of pressure, seeping with water from the lakes, damp and cold and hard as the broken concrete tarmac above them. Harder. She looks up to the constants in the sky – the wheel of stars, the three bright points of Orion’s belt, his hunter’s body splayed across the sky.

He is here as he was there, as he always is,
somewhere. She finds him. Three stars across the sky.

There is mud on her face and mud in her hair, mud in her mouth, grit beneath her teeth. Her finger nails are split and splinted, her jeans and torso painted with it. She digs, and thinks that it is her grave. Thinks, perhaps, that this should have been her grave, and looks up to the sky, knowing the number of times she has looked down on this cold earth, reading the names of those below.

The ground opens beneath her.
She closes her eyes.
Heart, not her voice, in her throat, she falls.

[Blood Summons] This hole would likely be much smaller if this were a group of seven homid Garou digging, if there were not a metis in their midst, but nobody gripes or complains even as the minutes stretch themselves out across hours, as muscles begin to ache and then burn and then quiver. They do what needs to be done, digging into the earth that has already swallowed so many of their predecessors, their peers.

He is the largest of them, and Wyrmbreaker is not the only one who hesitates. The war formed Godi must be concerned that he's going to crush someone if he lands wrong, if he doesn't watch where he's falling, and so he jumps out of the hole as the bottom gives way just so that he can melt back down into his human skin. He burns his inner anger to accomplish this immediately, within a few blinks of a human eye, and then he's leaping into the hole after those who have already fallen, his hands stained with earth so dark it looks like blood from a distance.

[descent.] Naomi, breaker of the ground, is the first to fall. Blood Summons, largest of them all, is the last.

It'd be cute to say they fall through a hole in the earth filled with strange sights and beings. That isn't the case. They can barely see anything at all, strange or not. Mud and dirt obscures their vision. Rocks strike them. Roots grasp at them. They fall through the earth, barely open enough for their bodies to pass through, and it seems as though Gaia herself fights to slow their progress. So: at least the initial plummet is over quickly. They do not strike a flat, hard surface fit to break every bone in their bodies.

They tumble out of the dirt like they themselves are specks tumbling from the bottom of an uprooted tree, spilling in their birth forms out onto ground that is...

surprisingly soft. The grass is short and new but green. Plant sprouts poke at their faces. There's no real daylight, no time of day, no indication of anything but season: springtime. Early, early springtime. They see animals rushing away from them towards underbrush. They see a pair of rabbits mating off at the base of a tree. In fact... most of the animals they see are in pairs. Are breeding. The flowers are releasing pollen every few seconds, it seems. Bees are swarming the buds.

Warmth spreads up their inner thighs, tickling and licking. A bone-deep, furious ache twists in their chests, in their groins. They know this feeling, this instinct, as wasted and worthless as it is in Blood Summons' body. They know this time of year well. This may be the point where they're actually grateful there's not a lupus among them; god only knows what a wolfborn would do with this feeling.

Naomi pushes herself to her feet, shakily. She's there. And she's okay. Nobody landed on her. In fact: nobody landed on anybody. She's trembling, though, as she reaches for the smallest bell on her bandolier and with a flick of her fingers unsnaps it from its pouch. "Forgive me," she says to them, and casts the bell in an arc, releasing a brilliant C note.



[Willpower roll, no diff.. Your call if your character may have spent any WP on digging; I trust you guys. I'll PM you with effects.]

[Blood Summons] [WP -1]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7

[Truth's Meridian] [Willpower]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 8

[Waking Dream]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 5, 8

[Face of Death] [WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 6, 6, 8

[Wyrmbreaker]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7, 10

[Sorrow] WP!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Rain of Brass Petals] [Willpower, -1 (digdigdig!)]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 10

[descent.] [3 suxx: No effect.]
to Blood Summons, Sorrow

[descent.] [1 suxx: Extremely drowsy, barely clinging to wakefulness. Mostly incoherent, like someone still half-dreaming.]
to Face of Death, Rain of Brass Petals, Wyrmbreaker

[descent.] [Failure: Instant sleep.]
to Truth's Meridian, Waking Dream

[Truth's Meridian] Katherine lands, limbs akimbo on the surprisingly soft grass. She blinks, raising a dirty palm to push her hair from her eyes and sits up, grimacing at sore muscles. When Naomi says forgive me and dings her little bell -- the Silver Fang's eyelids suddenly become increasingly heavy. She does not even yawn, Kate, but rather lays back down on the soft, almost downy ground and lets her eyes drift shut; a content little smile licking the edges of her lips; the barest sigh escaping.

She's asleep instantly.

[Waking Dream] Forgive me, she says, and these are not the words one wants to hear from ones guide into (the underworld [spring]) Mystery. Or anywhere, really. Forgive me, she says to them all, and there is a question on Lila's lips, and a sound she makes, something touched with husk, sensuousness (why, hello), and it never gets shaped into a word or a question because --

The bell rings, and there's a phrase. Asleep before you hit the ground.
And Lila is.

On the ground she: shifts [fast asleep], archs her back [sleep is good], settles, curls, twists, one arm flung out around her head, lips parted, breathe deep and deeper.

[Face of Death] Rain of Brass Petals, the small young Theurge Joey ripped into at the moot, clings to the Get's arm as they fall. Joey doesn't shove her away, doesn't pry her slim fingers from her arm. Nor does she reach out to her, to anyone. They tumble together, Fenrir Rotagar and Fury Theurge. The others fall around them.

When they land, somehow, Joey and Adam manage not to land on each other. Joey sits up, and she looks around. Her brow is heavy, her eyes itch with the need to sleep. She grins, lets out a little chuckle at the sight of the breeding wildlife. Her head drops back and rolls to the side, too tired to move in a more natural manner. Dark eyes blink blearily at the others, but she doesn't take stock of where they are, whether there are injuries.

She's so, so tired. Why fight it when one is so tired? Joey eases onto her back, one arm coming up to drape over her forehead. A dreamy sort of smile curls at the corners of her mouth.

[Blood Summons] They fall, all of them, as if through untouched earth unhindered by gravity's tug; they fall, and when they hit flatness they don't explode into masses of splattered viscera and shattered bones but land on their feet on grass that doesn't seem to have ever been touched by humanity. It's that new, that verdant.

The Godi lands in a crouch, shakes dirt out of his hair, out of his eyes and ears, before looking up to take in the world around them. Tonight is the cusp between winter and spring, the moon overhead their guide's moon, and all around them are animals celebrating the renewal of the season as Gaia intended: by mating. Even the cursed metis can feel the warmth pulling at one of the basest urges in a living creature's body, and he takes a deep breath as it laps at him. He does not act on it. He refocuses his attention on Naomi and he, too, pushes himself standing. His muscles are like gelatin after all of that digging, but he does not cave or crumple.

Their guide asks for forgiveness, and Blood Summons watches as she reaches into her belt and pulls loose a bell. Nostrils flare once, twice, and he wipes his filthy hands on his dark slacks as the Silver Fang elder wilts on the grass. His head snaps towards her, and then Waking Dream, too, succumbs to the lull of sleep.

He huffs out a breath as he realizes what is happening, but he is not among those who fall asleep. He's still standing.

[Rain of Brass Petals] And those yees, the ones that were dark, dark grey bordering on black, started to fade out of focus. When she blinked, it was slow, and later she would be embarrassed that this felt so undignified.

No one liked being so tired. The digging seemed to have taken a lot out of her, and Adam was almost certain that she had done too much, or had exerted herselt too much. She wasn't sure. There's a feeling in the entirety of her body, her heart starting to beat a little faster, and her body insisting that she make the jump from maiden to mother pretty. damned. quick.

Forgive me, Naomi says, and the theurge fights off a yawn. Her eyes narrow and she cocks her head to the side, but the world seems to go in slow motion. Those are the only words she has managed to make out. Her grip on the female Fenrir is dropped, as though she had almost forgotten the other was there, only to seem halfway surprised when she looks around to realize she isn't alone.

The theurge looks at the bell, and her brows knit forward.

Forgive me, Naomi said.
"Why?" she asked. What's wrong? She meant to say.

She fights off a yawn, and like a defiant child, the Fury fights to keep her eyes open. It's barely working.

[Wyrmbreaker] Spring comes slow to Chicago. Even with the equinox less than 24 hours away, there's still a chill in the air; the threat of frost every night.

Not here, though. Here, the air is heavy with warmth; fragrant with flowers. No sunlight, but the insinuation of springtime sunshine nonetheless: golden, rich, soft. Everything about this place feels familiar. The stirring in his loins feels familiar, too,

as does the warm drowsiness that settles over him. Alarm and alertness flee his mind. The Shadow Lord sinks to his knees, then spreads his hands in the soft grass.

He doesn't have to sleep if he doesn't want to. He has enough control for that. But Lukas bends forward, almost as though he were genuflecting to -- what? their guide? the season? -- and lays his brow to the green earth.

"Where are we?" His question is muffled: the grass, the earth, his drowsiness.

[Sorrow] What you see at the bottom, is spring. Kora closes her eyes and feels the warmth, the slow-drone certainty of a warming earth, the growing things pushing blindly from absence to presence, from nothing to being. She has dug a grave from winter to spring, and is covered in feeling, the warm amber urge from another time – remember.

The creature’s jaw is set, but her breathing is as heavy as the warmth inside her (mudlucious – she thinks, and smiles a smile to herself, her mouth just open, her eyes half-closed and then, something – Katherine sinking to the ground, or Lila, some awareness of others in the space she claims for herself, the dark eyes open.

Kora reactions, her spine like a coiled spring, dark eyes flashing at Naomi. Forgive me – the child-woman says, ringing her clear-C bell, and Sorrow looks up, sharply, light flashing across the surface of her dark eyes. Her heart is hammering wanton in her chest – and her body is framed, wire-taut.

She looks at those sleeping; she circles then, steps neatly, carefully over Katherine’s frame to stop beside Lila, sinks to a crouch beside her fellow Galliard and elder, touches the back of her hand to the Gaian’s cheek.

“What have you done to them?” Tense, her voice cuts sharply through the drowsy scene. "What is going on here?"

[descent.] Kora and Blood Summons feel almost nothing as the note from that pealing bell resounds across the field. All around them, paired-off animals fall into the same slumber as Kate and Lila, curling up with one another and dropping off until even the bees are silent.

"Shh," Naomi says to Lukas and Adam as they question why she's asking forgiveness, where they are. "The first gate," she whispers to the Ahroun, in a tone like one uses to soothe a child waking from nightmares. "Shh, it's alright."

Those still awake still feel the groaning, ever-increasing urge to breed, but they can control it. After all: they have to. It's itchy, and it's distracting, but it's controllable. And there's nothing here for them to breed with. No comely kinfolk. Nothing. And for Blood Summons, this particular sensation is only a reminder of what his body isn't even capable of doing.

Naomi glances at Kora, still standing and looking unaffected, and lifts an eyebrow as she goes over to Lila and demands to know what's going on. Her deep brown eyes tell her very little. "Shh," she says softly, a little more firmly. "They're sleeping. And they've worked hard. Why not let them rest, while they can?

"Why not rest, while you still can?"

Another voice, then, cutting in. She appears out of nowhere, dressed in a very, very pale blue and looking both a bit distracted and a bit cranky. "Yes, why not?" says Wasted Winter, standing beside Blood Summons. "All things sleep." She points at the tree. "Even he goes dormant in winter."

[Blood Summons] The edge in she who offers sorrow's voice has a tremor of Rage rattling up Blood Summons' spine, but he does not rankle or rustle as he stands wiping off his hands. It's futile: the earth has gotten under his nails, into the cracks in his knuckles, and the smell of it fills his nostrils just as the smell of spring wafts up from the grass, from the trees.

Question after question leaves the mouths of those still awake, but the Godi does not demand anything of their guide. He crosses his arms over his chest, inquiry writing itself onto his face at mention of the first gate but not finding its way into words, and then from seemingly out of thin air comes the rumored Elder Theurge. His bleached blue eyes briefly widen, then latch onto her as she takes up a stance beside him.

"Is now really the time to sleep?" he asks, his voice rasping but not harsh, not demanding.

[Rain of Brass Petals] Yes, why not? All things sleep. Even he goes dormant in winter.

The other theurge replies, and the Fury looks to the metis. His voice rasps, while hers comes out hazy but intent. Thoughts were grasped onto, flickering and floating away. Disoriented.

"Because it's not time for winter," she replies; she muses, "it's time for things to wake up. They can sleep when it's time."

This was said as though this were simple. It was spring, everything around them budding, blooming, coming into being and she was just... so... sleepy. Adam didn't want to go to sleep, and it was taking all she had to focus. Words slipped in and out, and she was unsure where Wasted Winter came from, or what would come next.

[Sorrow] "We're not here to sleep." Kora crouches over Lila, leaning one knee forward toward the ground. Her dark gaze guts from Naomi to Wasted Winter to Blood Summons then, brows drawn close over her dark eyes, her jaw set as she swallows against the heat blooming in the center of her body, the want it pricks to life in mud-covered skin. When she stands, she is aware of the movement of her hips, the way the spattered denim molds to her skin, the way she breathes, the way the mud begins to dry on her skin, slowly, cracking at the edges, the raw bruise of her un-kissed mouth.

There is confidence in her voice, always, but no certainty. Let her remember the dead and harry the living to war - in these mysteries, she bows to the wisdom of the crescent moons. Still, dark eyes cutting from Blood-Summons to Wasted Winter, her heart beating, her blood hot. "Right?" Her hands are on her hips now, as she stands, fingers splayed wide. "Winter's supposed to be over. We're not meant to hibernate. Blood Summons-rhya, I think we should wake them."

[Wyrmbreaker] But he can't sleep. He can't sleep because Sorrow is tense and snapping, and the metis is talking, and -- there's a new voice.

Lukas turns on his back. Now he's flat on his back in the warmth and the grass, and it feels like there should be a sun washing gently down on him but there isn't. He turns his head without lifting it; looks up at the old woman.

"It's not winter anymore, though," he says, right as Sorrow is echoing this same thought. "It's spring."

[Face of Death] Sleepiness weighs on Joey, dragging her down and down and down. There's a warmth in her groin, in her thighs, a sensation that she hates. It doesn't matter that there are no handsome kinsmen here, no one to sate her sudden lust. After all, what good is it to feel a desire to breed when life will never spark within her belly?

There are people talking, and the continued noise makes Joey frown. She rolls over onto her side, pillowing her head on her hands.

Shhh soothes Naomi.

Joey groans, curls in on herself. "Shhh...sleeping."

[descent.] Wasted Winter takes a look around. She turns back to Blood Summons. Naomi, careful with her bell, puts it away and says not a word. They're the same, aren't they? Same eyes. Similar bone structure. Wasted Winter came to their sept to die. Became Naomi. Who brought them here and is standing over there and yet...

"You tell me," she says, her eyes clear and intelligent rather than blurry with age, as they were so rumored to be. Her gnarled hand points at the two Fosterns who have fallen asleep, the Cliaths and the Ahroun who are so drowsy and comforted here there seems to be almost no point beyond curiosity in staying awake. "They seem alright with it."

Her hand retracts. She looks up at the sky, which is neither night nor day but a diffident blue of indeterminate hour. She gives a sage nod. "Yup," she says, nudging a dandelion with her toe that bends and then springs back, "real dangerous here. Lots of threats. No guardian or guide to watch over you, after all."

Drawing her head down, she peers over at Kora and Lukas. "No, it's not winter anymore. But you aren't trees, are you? Got different clocks inside you. No no, though. Don't let me stop you." She waves her hand as though to say goodbye, or hello, or don't-mind-me. "You want to stay awake when your body tells you to sleep, that's your choice."

She reaches over and pats Blood Summons on the elbow. Even then, she's reaching over her head. "He can tell you all about how that will go for you."

[Blood Summons] Eyes narrow when the crone reaches up to touch his elbow. She can feel the hard bone beneath tense muscles: Rage is not threatening to overtake his senses but neither is his body at ease. It's as though he needs to keep moving, and standing still is a chore, is taking more out of him than pushing himself to dig a hole had been. He had been quiet during the digging, focused on the task at hand. Those who have fought alongside him, seen him at work healing or summoning, performing the tasks of his auspice, have to have noticed how his vision tunnels, how he throws himself into whatever it is he's doing and keeps at it until he's done.

Or until he collapses from exhaustion.

There's some distance left to go before he'll fall down and fall asleep, though, and his eyes narrow when Wasted Winter makes her pointed comment, but he does not dispute what she's said. Maybe if she were a Cliath, maybe if it were Naomi saying this, he would have had words for her; this is an Elder of his moon, though, and he does not snap at her.

He turns his head towards Sorrow, though, and says, "Let 'em sleep for now."

[Wyrmbreaker] [wits/PU!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 9, 10, 10

[Blood Summons] [Primal-Urge+Wits: Oh What The Hell.]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Sorrow] Wits + Primal Urge!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 5, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10

[Rain of Brass Petals] [Oh oh? Wits+primal urge]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7) Re-rolls: 1

[Rain of Brass Petals] She cocked her head to the side, brows knitting again and she felt tension ride up through her... but....

Was it okay to sleep?

She looked at the oldest female, at Wasted Winter and somehow wondered... if... She was laying back now, and trying to fight to keep her eyes open but by now her head was nodding ever so often when she tried to keep her eyes open. She started to lay down, and she wanted to go to sleep, but there was trepidation there.

But the grass was just... so warm... and so nice.. and so soft...

[Sorrow] The cliath looks from each to each, the young woman to the old, each echoed in the other but still and hale and whole. She circles the sleeping lovelies and the drowsing girls, swaying unconsciously at the hip. Her body is all angles, all straight lines, all spare muscle - except just there, where her hips curve, slender but sure. - a figure eight, black boots on the green grass, hands outstretched, fingers splayed. She wipes them on her thighs, acutely aware of her thighs - cleans off the palms carefully, then the backs of her hands, still walking a circuit around the sleeping/drowsing Garou.

Blood Summons looks back to her, then and she stops - still, her shoulders framed with tension beneath her black tee-shirt, her head canted slantwise, the body language both feral and somehow intimate. In that moment, her assent is evident. For now.

[descent.] [This best place evar. Ground so soft. All animals around are prey animals more intent on breeding than anything else. It's either nearly night. Or almost day. Hard to tell. Kate and Lila look so warm and comfy. Definitely a good sleepytime. And they worked so hard. Mmm. Sleeeeep.]
to Blood Summons, Rain of Brass Petals, Sorrow, Wyrmbreaker

[descent.] [Also:

Naomi's there. And she said she'd protect them. Instinct says: Naomi will. Doesn't say if Naomi CAN.]
to Rain of Brass Petals, Sorrow, Wyrmbreaker

[Wyrmbreaker] "Ritetakers," Lukas murmurs, "I think it's all right. It's safe to ... "

-- and he's asleep, eyes closed, hands folded over his stomach -- dirt on his fine clothes, on his face, in his hair stirring softly in the vernal breeze.

[Rain of Brass Petals] Instinct doesn't lie to her. Instinct doesn't tell someone the things that Reason does.

Reason tells her lies, tells her that she shouldn't trust, that there was work to be done. Instinct says- nourish yourself. Take what you need, and rise when you are ready. Like that protesting child, she finally does close her eyes. Finally, the protesting ceases and she starts to fall asleep. Adam is covered in dirt and sweat and her hair is tangled. She smells like grass and wind and leaves and earth and...

And she is happy. When she sleeps, she isn't alone.

[descent.] For her part, their Ritemistress is silent now. She is standing off to the side with her bells and her youth as some of her only weapons, because they have yet to see her bear claws or fangs and it's hard to imagine someone that small and young being the kind of monster they all are. She has her hands folded in front of her, and she does not interfere with them.

Lila and Kate sleep on. Joey drowses until she, too, slips off. Adamidas curls up and closes her eyes, and lets go of her fear. Even the warmaster of the sept succumbs to instinct and the sheer physical pleasure of sleep.

Wasted Winter, however, watches the two who resisted the bell's call most strongly. She waits, eyebrows up, looking partly amused, partly interested.

[Sorrow] As she paces, the figure eight opens into a widening circle, a circuit. She is no longer looking at the sleeping Garou, but at their surroundings - and some of the tension - some, not all. Wyrmbreaker sleeps. She is quiet; she looks to Adamidas.

Adamidas sleeps. Kora looks to Blood Summons, a slant-wise look, and ends her circuit of the land beneath the tree, sinking to a crouch and folding her legs beneath her, cross-wise. Her pale cheeks are flushed with just a touch of fever. It is not the creeping red of embarrassment. "I'm not sure that I can sleep, Blood Summons-rhya. But I can wait."

Seated there at the base of the tree that slumbers in the winter, and wakens in the spring, the Skald closes her eyes.

[Blood Summons] Ever since Wasted Winter appeared out of thin air, his awareness of Naomi has withered somewhat. Peripherally, like he knows it's nighttime and he knows it's spring and he knows his muscles ache, he knows she's still there, but she isn't the one who has his attention. That is reserved for the Ritemistress, who is looking at the two standing Fenrir with her white eyebrows elevated.

The tall Godi glances over at his tribeswoman as if to ascertain that she is not going to drift off like the rest of them, then unlatches his left arm from his right and reaches up to scratch at his brow with the pads of his two middle fingers. He smears warm dirt on his sweaty skin as he does so, but he does not lower himself to the ground to join the other five.

Sorrow isn't sure she can sleep. But she can wait.

As he addresses the Elder, hesitant laughter stains his voice.

"I'm not sleeping yet."

[descent.] "And why's that?" Wasted Winter asks, mild.

[Blood Summons] The question is mild as an early spring afternoon, and it smoothes out the vague uneasiness that could be plucked out of the metis's rough voice by those who were listening closely enough. When he speaks to Wasted Winter, his eyes are on her chin rather than her eyes. He has to look down quite a ways to accomplish this.

"Because," he says, "-rhya, I'm not tired."

[Sorrow] This pricks her attention. The Skald opens her eyes, they flash - intent - from Blood Summons to Wasted Winter. Back again. This is what she does now: watches, wets her dry lips, tastes mud, grave dust, the death above and the one that lingers in her.

Between the question and the response she holds her breath, feels her heart beating in her chest, the ache between her thighs and the ache in her lungs, breathes out, but not in - not in until she is forced to breathe in, like a game you play as a child, holding your breath past a graveyard so you will not breathe in the ghosts.

[descent.] [perception + subterfuge]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 5, 6, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Blood Summons] [Blood Summons' eyes are too wild for him to be lying. His body is fatigued but his mind is wired.]
to descent.

[descent.] Wasted Winter looks at Kora, then back to Blood Summons. She reaches up to him, putting her hand on his hand and whispering.

[descent.] "Your body and your mind are one," she murmurs, her touch bravely close to his bloodied claws, "and the suffering of one is the suffering of the other. The starvation of one is the hunger of the other. The failure of one is the weakness of both. There is no separation, son of Fenris, no Gauntlet within you."
to Blood Summons

[descent.] She removes her hand from Blood Summon's arm and steps back, looking at Naomi, who gives her a pained expression. Wasted Winter shakes her head.

"What is not given must be taken. These are the rites of the underworld," she says, and turns to walk away.

Naomi's brow furrows, and she turns to Blood Summons. She reaches into her bandolier and removes the smallest bell once more. "These are the rites of the underworld," she repeats, and rings that vibrant C once more.

[descent.] [WP again, for Kora and Blood Summons. No diff.]

[Sorrow] WP
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7

[descent.] [Annnd Kora's out.]

[Sorrow] She is already seated. Exhaustion lurks in her - but she fights it, remains alert, watching, watching - and then the bell rings, clear and vibrant and this time - this time - she slumps sidelong, relaxes, her frame sagging finally loose as a ragdoll, sleeps.

[Blood Summons] [WP -1]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 7, 7, 9, 10

[descent.]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[descent.] The bell echoes off of nothing, dissipates into thin air. Wasted Winter has gone, has faded, and it's just Naomi and Blood Summons now. He stands. His eyes are drowsy now, his body all but swaying the way that Joey and Lukas and Adam's were before they gave in.

Naomi looks at the sleepers, then back to the metis. "These are the rites of the underworld," she whispers, as though in apology.



[WP again for Blood Summons. All others, soak 4B.]

[Blood Summons] [WP -1]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8

[Face of Death] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Waking Dream] [ow!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 4, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Sorrow] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Rain of Brass Petals] (Oww!)
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Truth's Meridian] [:( ]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[descent.] For a third time, the bell called the Sleeper chimes out, this time becoming tinny, becoming sharp. Naomi winces at the sound. So, too, do the sleeping Garou who have heard its call twice already. Blood Summons feels the lash, too, but he's metis: he heals in moments regardless of form. The others, though, will wake with sore necks, with wrenched arms and shoulders, with bruises where they slept on the warm, soft earth. They will wake with headaches. Some of them gasp in their sleep, or twist, or stir only to sleep more deeply, breathe more slowly.

One has to wonder what happens if that bell is rung more than three times.

Seven times?

The desire to sleep is overpowering. Blood Summons staggers. His mind shrieks nonononononono not okay no okay not fucking okay at him, screaming for consciousness.



[Joey 2B
Adam 3B
Kora 3B
Kate 3B
Lila 3B
Lukas 2B
Bob 4B, already regenerating

Blood Summons may spend WP to stay awake.]

[Blood Summons] He has to bow his head in order to bring his ear closer to the Elder's thin lips, to hear the breeze-thin words coming out of her mouth. So he does, frowning to catch what's being said, fingers twitching as she comes close to touching where his claws pulled away from their beds and loosed blood onto his flesh.

Whatever she says makes him rumble low in his chest, and he does not pull away from either her palm or her words. He's listening to her, but whether he's really hearing her is hard to tell. When she'd looked at him to parse the truth from his words, she'd seen the wild look in his eyes, the fact that he wants to keep going despite the fact that his body yearns for rest.

After a moment's pause to consider what she's said, he glances back at Sorrow to see if she's still awake before looking back at Wasted Winter's chin. She shakes her head, and he takes a step back, moving towards where Sorrow had sat herself down before sleep overtook her.

These are the rites of the underworld.

He feels like he's stepped in front of a speeding car when that bell sounds a third time, actually takes a step back as if he's been struck, and he has to stop and wonder if this is going to keep happening if he doesn't succumb to the sudden drowsiness that comes over him. Behind him at least one of the sleeping Garou makes a noise that lets him know that he isn't the only one being hit, and he growls low in his throat as he makes a decision.

Blood Summons sits down by Sorrow, and closes his damned eyes.