1. IC posts in 15 minutes or less. If they become necessary, dice rolls and declares in 3 or -- if I have your pools -- I will roll for you. If I don't have your pools, you will be skipped.
2. This may lead into a storyline. However, as I have yet to send a relevant e-mail to Damon, all loose ends will be tied up in this scene so no one is left hanging, waiting for an SL that may or may not happen.
3. If your character possesses any traits -- abilities, Gifts, backgrounds, merits, or flaws -- that may give them some kind of extra perception, PM me now. This covers things like Second Sight, Slip Sideways, Cosmology/Garou Astrology, high levels of Ancestors. If you're not sure if something applies, PM it to me anyway.
4. The basic rules apply as always: keep track of your own health and tempers. Pay attention. Be nice. Use your brain. Give me a cookie. And a hug. Etc.
5. You characters are, for one reason or another, in a more industrial area of Cabrini-Green. Think warehouses, construction offices, and the like. It's pretty much deserted. Set yourselves up. Go!]
[Holds the Line] Full moon waning. Gibbeous waxing. The heat of the moon tickles at the neck of the Fenrir No moon as he walks the streets. As far removed from his own moon as it is possible to come, yet it sings to him, with a promise of the hunt and the Blood. It has driven the Norse-man from the shelter of home and pack, to the streets.
Wearing his usual attire of dark jeans, a simple grey tee and a well-worn leather jacket despite the earlier days warmth. Buzzed raven black hair a a slight dark shade on his cheeks. He would not stand out in a crowd if it were not for two very prominent things. The rage in him, and those Glacial blue eyes. They give him an almost zealous appearance. It hardens the lines of his face, lines that carry strong the blood of Fenrir heroes. Normally, people avoid him, muttering to themselves about criminals and scum and worse as they walk wide around him or even cross the street.
Here, in the near abandoned area of Cabrini, he finds a sense of peace. An ability to let himself relax as much as he ever can in the city. No crowds of people to bother with, just dark, dirty empty streets. It suits his mood, his temper on a night like this.
[-balance-] The night is warm. Now that summer is nearly fully upon the city, Chicago seems to have stirred from its long winter slumber and realized it's late for spring. They're far enough inland that they can't smell the lake unless the wind blows a certain way. Out here the streets are narrow and empty, the buildings are low and made of corrugated metal, and the streetlamps serve only one purpose: to give vandals something to see by. It's a great place to do any number of unsavory tasks one wishes to perform without an audience.
Occasionally the police drive a patrol car through here, often enough to keep it mostly unpopulated. A trash can bangs in an alleyway as a homeless man rolls over in his sleep the wrong way. The clang dissolves and fades into nothing, leaving only muttering. That quiets too, after a moment. There are some strays hopping in and out of a dumpster, rifling around for food and then cleaning themselves obsessively on top of the lid. In the distance, far enough that it isn't a worry, there's a gunshot, then another, then tires squealing.
It's an odd sort of peacefulness here, in the streetlight-diffused darkness and the intermittent noises of a city in restless sleep. If you're quiet you can hear all of Chicago, or it seems so. If you look up high enough... you can't see any but the brightest stars. It's that way just about everywhere, now. Even the Garou hardly ever look up, anyway.
Wherever the Garou are, patrolling together or wandering alone or coming away from some dimly-lighted deal of their own, they all feel the same thing, the sort of thing a human being would ignore:
pop!
like a bubble bursting on their skin.
Only something is different about it, this time. It lasts longer. It's like the bubble stretched and malformed and would not break, would not burst until whatever was inside pushed hard enough at the thin, malleable sphere and broke through. That pop! seems to last for seconds on end, til their necks ache and their spines tense and the hair on their arms stands on end.
[Andy Gallo] The grimy street urchin comes rolling along from between two buildings, atop his trusty skateboard. Spidery hands are shoved deep into his pockets in a casual manner as he clacks down the pavement. He flicks his head to toss insubordinate greasy bangs to the side so that he can better see his surroundings.
[Laughs at Death] Even after a year, it's not unusual to find the youngest member of the Sentinels roaming the streets of Chicago, following a thought or a scent or a sound. Joey likes to explore, she likes to see what the world looks like now that all the snow is gone, see the differences between sunny days and rainy days. That, in itself, has been a change for the girl born and raised in the desert. Rain still makes her indescribably happy.
Tonight, though, she's in the area because she's still paying chiminage for aid given. Somewhere in her wake, she's left out food. Bread and cheese and crackers and stuff for Rat to feast on. Now she's just walking, exploring an area she hasn't really been into before. She looks up at the metal skeletons of buildings, rising like the bones of monsters into the night sky, like something out of a horror movie. And that makes her smile.
The smile fades when she feels that pop. Joey rolls her shoulders, twists her head on her neck, trying to work out a kink or stiffness or something that isn't real.
That was weird. She looks around her, looking for the source or the endpoint of that feeling.
[-balance-] [Perception + Primal Urge rolls, please. Andy may roll Perception + Intuition.]
[Laughs at Death] [percept + PU]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 8 (Failure at target 6)
[Holds the Line] [I can know this?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Kleopas Appius Hugh] [Perc+PU]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 6, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Andy Gallo] (dont have any intuition, roll just perc?)
[-balance-] [Yup!]
[Andy Gallo]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Andy Gallo] Andy continues to roll down the pavement, dark eyes shooting across the area to passersby. Keeping an eye on his surroundings, as it were.
[Holds the Line] (pop!)
The feeling washes over him. His eyes narrow as he looks around slowly. He strains as he draws in air through his nose, as if trying to smell whatever it was that just happened, despite the dulled senses of the homid skin. Whatever it was, something just happened to the Gauntlet, or possibly on the other side. The Rotagar is no expert on spirit matters, but that was enough to perk his interest.
His gaze goes to the youth on the board. Watching him for a moment. He has never laid eyes on the man before, but there is recognition of what he is. The lineage in the kinfolk unmistakable. A moment his gaze lingers until he continues searching the immediate area. He does not stop fully, but slows his normally brisk pace down quite a bit, moving to the side of the street where an alley mouth is cast in shadows.
[Laughs at Death] The Rotagar looks around and sees only buildings, dark and empty or half-formed. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that can tell her anything about that odd feeling. She continues on the way she was going, rounding a corner and seeing a familiar tribemate, heading for an alleyway. Cocking her head to the side, Joey heads in that direction. She doesn't speak until she's closer, uttering a low, "Hey," as she nears Karl.
[Kleopas Appius Hugh] Today, he was Appius. Appius the builder. Appius the road maker. Appius, bringer of fortune. Or at least easier trade. Today he had made something, something of value. Something of worth. Even if the massive connection of bike parts and swinging, swirling automated maypoles were only of any use to him, the spirits, and children in housing projects who'd never seen anything so familiar and alien. He was there. He was aware. He was in himself.
Its why he spent the rest of his evening sitting cross legged on the hood of an abandoned car, as still as the bricks that it was mounted on. He spoke only a few times that evening.
"What are you doing?" Some little girl had asked him in passing. "I'm centering myself with the city. I'm letting it know how much I love it." He'd responded.
"What are you doing up there?" An old woman had asked on her way back from the grocery store. "Breathing, Ma'am." He said to her without opening his eyes. "And being. It requires my full concentration."
"Ey, what you doin' up there, man?" Some swaggering thug had barked at him. He'd let him be though, after AK had shouted "MUTHAFUCKA, CAN'T YOU SEE I'M MEDITATIN'!"
Its best to let the crazy ones be. They bite. And so for the rest of the evening he meditated. He was still. Being and breathing. Letting the city know how much he loved it. Wanted to be a part of it, like the buildings and the asphalt and the--
POP!
One eye opened. Then the other. He sniffed at the air in a way that was not entirely inhuman. A moment later he was scrambling off the hood of the car, unused legs limping toward...
"The hell is that?"
[-balance-] For some of those wandering -- or rolling -- down this area, the sensation is passing. It means nothing, touches on no primordial instincts. Caution, then, is all they know. Caution, because their gut tells them they have nothing to fear... yet. For Analog King, it's like a sledgehammer to the back of his meditating skull. Something strange, something familiar, something he knows and does not know, reaching in through his meditations on the city and dragging out the part of him some say the Glass Walkers have lost entirely.
Wraps claws around his heartbeat and says come.
It's quiet enough, under the roll of Andy's skateboard wheels and their own footsteps and breathing and in the fading repercussion of Kleopas's words, that they can all hear the panting coming from the alleyway. Not the one with the homeless dude, already back to dreaming. This sounds young and clear, but choked. Hyperventilating. Panicked.
[Andy Gallo] The boy lets his sneaker scratch the pavement until he comes to a stop. After a moment's hesitation, he turns to look down the alley he's hearing the choking sounds coming from. "Dude.. you alive?" He asks in a quiet, questioning tone
[Holds the Line] Karl glances over at Joey as she approaches, offering her a slight nod in return to her greeting, but says nothing yet. Instead his gaze is drawn towards the alley from where the sound comes. A glance to the kinfolk, and the Rotagar waits, straining to see into the alley.
[Laughs at Death] This close, there's no denying the breeding of the kinfolk. He comes to a halt near the Rotagars, and Joey steps closer to him. She moves her arm to block the man should he decide to try and investigate. She herself isn't about to just waltz right in there, not after the trap she very nearly walked into just a few days ago.
Like Karl, she holds back, squinting into the darkness, trying to see the figure that's breathing too hard.
[Kleopas Appius Hugh] "Course he's alive, man." Kleopas says. He's tall. The basest of frames for that height, but held rigidly tense. It would almost be imposing except for something unfocused in his eyes as he looks to Andy and almost...sort of...smiles.
"Dead people don't choke, man. They dead. They aint gotta worry 'bout that shit no mo'."
And he marches on into the alley.
[Wyrmbreaker] [sorry i'm so late, guys! was working!]
[Andy Gallo] Andy will follow the other guy into the alley, skateboard in hand just in case. He grumbles something under his breath.
[-balance-] What's in the alleyway is clear enough to be seen: the streetlights reach here and cast long shadows, the moon overhead is still heavy enough to shine where lamps can't. Though Joey gets in front of him with a sidestep and a firm block between anything dangerous and the man whose breeding brings to mind the fluttering of Owl's wings, Andy can see past her arm and as they all come together, and as Analog King strides forward, they all see the same thing:
dumpsters. Trash bins. And a young woman on her hands and knees. Her hair is light-colored, silvery in this lighting. It looks like it's drying from being wet. Her skin is pale, and she's small and thin in a way that suggests fragility. She is dressed in a toga-like robe, with the imperfect and inconstant color of hand-dyeing. It's a pale saffron, some easy-to achieve color if they know anything about such things. But do they? Do they have any idea how their black leather got that black, or how their red Cons got that red? Do they know what kind of callouses homespun weaving leaves on the hands?
The girl-woman seems to be choking on the air itself, sucking in oxygen only to cough on it, the way they do when smoke is blown in their faces, right into their nostrils and mouths. She's pale with nausea, and they see only a flicker of this before she's looking up sharply --
and immediately getting herself under control. She reins in whatever gag reflex is causing her to panic at the very scent and context of this air, but she does not bother to get off her hands and knees. Instead, she shifts. To warform. Her coat is that of any Garou without a drop of purity to their blood: mottled of color, with eyes yellow as her human ones are blue.
Though they may ready for battle -- and even if they shift, she does not react -- the werewolf in front of them puts her enormous handpaws together in front of her mouth, breathes into them, then extends her arms in their direction and opens her palms, as though to share their contents.
Her grasp of the High Tongue is better than they have ever heard. Even, as it is, wheezing and struggling.
"I greet you in my first body. What breath I have, I will give for you. I am your ally, and I am in need."
[-balance-] [I'm gonna call a brief (like 5-minute) pause. Feel free to get writing, but I'd like to give Damon a chance to catch up. Grab a drink or a bathroom break if you need it!]
[-balance-] [Also: http://www.chicagodusk.com/index.php?jove=gallery&picture=5906]
[Wyrmbreaker] Farther away from the epicenter of some strange disturbance than the rest, later to the scene, Wyrmbreaker shadows the group into the alleyway. He's beginning to say, "Did you guys feel some sort of -- "
when he stops. The creature in the alley is not of their world. Their world, or their time, or their ... something. The Shadow Lord's pale eyes observe the girl-woman-werewolf for a moment. Then he moves forward, slipping by Andy and Karl, Joey, stopping when he's beside the strange, unstable Theurge he's only barely familiar with.
"Who are you, where are you from, and what is it you need?" These questions, it's worth saying, are not voiced as demands.
[Holds the Line] Karl follows into the alley as he spots the woman. He pulls up short when she takes the war-form however, eyes narrowed. He does not shift himself. Not yet. Instead he glances to the side as Wyrmbreaker moves in, easily letting the man past, and then watches quietly. Not much for him to say or do for now, so the Rotagar watches, listens and waits. A glance cast to Joey, then his attention if fully on the strange woman, the Ahroun elder, and the black man he has not seen before.
Hands at his side, Karl seems relaxed for now, just waiting.
[Kleopas Appius Hugh] There was no effort required for the transformation. He notices this. He knows this. Its familiar to him.
So familiar.
He didn't have any trouble with Modern English. It was everybody else who seemed to. Everyone else who couldn't understand 133t speak or the occasional Cockney Rhyming Slang. Everyone else who got all bent out of shape when he'd inquire 'How's your nut sack, black?' with nothing but the friendliest of intentions. Its after the creature in the alley speaks (creature, just like him) in the high tongue that he shifts as well. (No sense having her be the only person at the party in a toga.) He doesn't speak though. He stares. He watches and listens. He is open.
[Andy Gallo] Andy whistles a little, quietly. Nervous a bit more now. He steps slightly behind the Wyrmbreaker, the only person he'd met before. Watching. Still clutching his skateboard.
[Laughs at Death] When it's clear the woman isn't going to attack them immediately, Joey lowers her arm. She doesn't let the kinsman pass her, though. She doesn't hang back mutely and watch with wide curious eyes.
She steps up so that she's beside the Crinos Glass Walker, and she looks up at the girl. Questions burn her throat, threaten to spill out, but she holds her tongue.
Let her answer Lukas' questions first, they seem important. Most of Joey's are just rude.
[-balance-] A wild, feral animal caught in this alleyway and faced with five people -- most of whom have high, seething levels of rage under a nearly-full moon -- would turn and bolt. An outmatched enemy might very well turn and bolt, or call on reinforcements. The stranger facing them does not seem unnerved, though her ears prick upwards and her head cocks to one side at Lukas's question. Outstretched arms hesitate, then slowly drop back to her sides. She stares at them, as though at a loss as to what to do now.
Analog King shifts to his breed form. Though it is not necessarily intentional, the others remain in their own. The female shifts backward a bit, crouching on the asphalt. Her knees are to her chest and her tail does not touch the ground, but flat-footed she remains, effortlessly balanced nonetheless.
"I am... I. I come from my sacred place, blessed by big-clear-water." That is the best she can come up with, it seems, for Lukas's questions. She coughs again, shuddering. "We must get out of this tainted place. I cannot breathe."
[Laughs at Death] She is she, the strange woman in her strange dress (when she was Homid), who is choking on the tainted air they all breathe so easily. Joey looks up at her, canting her head to the side. Then she looks around Appius to Lukas.
"There's parks nearby. Seward's pretty big. Or the lake isn't too far."
[Holds the Line] ”I am not sure any place in the scab will be clean enough for her...”
His voice low, a thoughtful tone as he watches the strange crinos. He seems unbothered by the fact the strange one or the other (AK) is wearing the war-form.
[Andy Gallo] An annoying ringtone starts chiming out of the boy's pocket. The boy's eyes widen, startled himself. He scrambles to answer his phone, inching away from the group. "Sup?" he mutters into the thing.
[Wyrmbreaker] "If you've been sent here on some sort of quest or mission," Lukas says, "you'll have to adapt to this world's taint sooner rather than later. All the same, I agree with Analog King. If you can't breathe the air here, I doubt moving three miles will help much. Returning to the Umbra and pushing outward until we've left the taint behind might be a better idea. After we've had a chance to talk and understand what this is all about, we'll decide our next move then.
"Analog, can you guide us?"
[Wyrmbreaker] [fuck. he agrees with Karl.]
[-balance-] The crinos's yellow eyes flare when Andy's ringtone sounds off. She does not shuffle backwards in apelike fear, but looks carefully at the kinsman for a moment before turning her attention back to the Garou. She looks at Karl, saying no place here will be clean enough. Even crouching, she is nearly eye-level with the homids, her spine straight and strong. Everything about her is strong. She's a metis, she said so, but there is still strength in her. Health, despite her shaking and her coughing at the taint of this place.
"I was not sent," she wheezes. "I do not know why I am here, or how I came. But I would like to find water. Water blesses us and makes us whole."
[Andy Gallo] "Wait, what? Where's that?" the boy keeps talking into the phone, making his way out of the alley. He flashes a peace sign to the group before meandering off.
[Andy Gallo] (i'm out, sorry guys.)
[-balance-] [Thanks for playing!]
[Kleopas Appius Hugh] Big Clear Water. His lupine head twists at that, ears perking and turning forward as if he might hear more. Big Clear Water. She wants to find water.
The pads at the bases of clawed fingers come together, press, and slide in a dull snap.
"Aight." He barks. Not in the High Tongue. That word didn't exist there, but was quicker than any of the others that did. A massive, chest-billowing breath later, and he was preparing to cross the gauntlet.
[Kleopas Appius Hugh] [int+enigmas]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 4) Re-rolls: 1
[Holds the Line] Karl glances to joey, then wyrmbreaker and then AK. A moment as he digs into a pocket of his jacket, pulling out a small, well polished metal plate. He follows AK’s lead and focuses on the mirror as he prepares to cross the gauntlet
[Laughs at Death] Joey tilts her head back, listening when the cell phone goes off. She doesn't take her eyes off the girl, though. She watches the way she reacts to the sound. As the kinfolk moves away, though, leaving the Garou to deal with this, the Rotagar relaxes a little. One less human to keep track of and protect.
They prepare to follow the Theurge through the Gauntlet. Joey zips up her purple hoody, covering up the shirt that won't follow her through to the other side. Like Karl, she searches for something reflective, a hand mirror kept in a pocket of her bat bag.
[Wyrmbreaker] She wants to find water. As the group begins to cross the Umbra, Lukas suggests to Kleopas -- their unofficial guide now -- "The lakeshore is cleaner away from the city. There's a state park about twenty miles south along the shoreline. Maybe we can take an umbral detour there."
[-balance-] Those who know this place -- who don't struggle to breathe, or cough on every inhale -- say they should cross the line between the worlds. The Umbra may be easier on her. They can run faster that way, to a cleaner place. Maybe there they can get some answers.
They bring out reflective surfaces. Metal, mirrors, glass. She tips her head. She does not reach for anything. She remains crouched, folded in on herself, and closes her eyes.
[Crossing the Gauntlet]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Holds the Line] [Crossing Gauntlet -1 for reflective surface]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 4 (Botch x 3 at target 7)
[Laughs at Death] [crossing! using a mirror (pleasepleaseplease)]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4 (Failure at target 7)
[Kleopas Appius Hugh] [Stepping Sideways]
[Kleopas Appius Hugh]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 7)
[Holds the Line] Holds the Line focuses on the polished metal mirror, turning inward as he searches for the threshhold. It has always been easy for him to cross the gauntlet, and even the thickness here in the scab has not presented much trouble. Now he has bound with a totem who’s strength is prominent in the Umbra. It should be easy still.
The polished metal shatters with an audible crack, tiny glittering shards falling to the ground in the alley, and the Rotagar does something few has ever heard him do.
“Helvete!”
The language is strange, but the meaning is clear enough. Swearing does not come natural to the Fenrir, but sometimes, it is just appropriate.
[Laughs at Death] Lukas tells them about a park twenty miles south. Joey knows about where he's talking about, where they would have to go and not wander into the dilapidated factory city of Gary. It's a good thing he does, too.
The Fenrir pull out hand mirrors to ease their crossing. Seconds later, glass shatters, Karl swears in another language. Joey just utters a low, "Fuck," and snaps her hand mirror closed. She looks over to find she and Karl are in danger of being left behind. She grins at him, jerks her head back the way she'd come.
"C'mon, looks like we're drivin'." And with that, she strides quickly back to where she left her car.
[Wyrmbreaker] [crossing gauntlet!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 7)
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas is instantly across the Gauntlet, plunged from one world to the next so fast that he has to catch a breath. Mere seconds later two others follow .... and then no more.
"They must not have made it," the Shadow Lord says to Kleopas. "We should get our guest out of the Scab first. The others will know to meet us at the state park. Let's worry about finding them when we get there."
[Holds the Line] He looks to the others as they cross, then to Joey, giving a nod to her.
“Seems like.”
He follows the other Rotagar. If they happen to pass by another car on the way with an intact side view mirror, he grabs it and simply rips it from the door. He will spend the car ride getting himself another mirror.
[Kleopas Appius Hugh] It was as if turning his head. Albeit, slowly and laboriously. One minute he was facing the space between them, eyes closed, breathing. The next he was looking at Lukas, eyes open, in the realm of spirit and concepts. So common was it for the Theurge. For the metis.
"Aight." He says again. Says with his mouth and his breath. Or whatever he had that was like breath on this side. He doesn't move off right away, however. Instead he turns to their companion, speaking in the High Tongue finally.
"Are you well? Well enough to run with us. Is this any easier for you?"
[-balance-] Two of them don't make it. Glass shatters, nearly cutting Karl. He has to shut his eyes fast, or turn his head, to keep from getting hit by shrapnel. Joey's mirror goes black, as though trying to tell her something. Something like: today... is not your day. For the Glass Walker and the Shadow Lord, though, the cross is simple enough.
Lukas arrives first. Instantly. A moment of sharp cold piercing his flesh and seeping into his bones, and then he's there. He's on the other side, the place that is home to his soul more than his body. Despite the degradation of the place, the darkness and slickness of it that tells them even in the penumbra that Cabrini-Green is drenched with taint of both Weaver and Wyrm... the shadow of the alleyway is swarming with Epiphlings.
They're incomprehensible to the Ahroun, all shapes and colors. Some light up. Some seem full of emotion. Others are numbers. One looks like a floating, unfurling ball of string, for fuck's sake. They're all slamming into each other, crowding the area.
Twenty-nine seconds later, the Walker and the stranger appear. Analog King steps through in his breed form, and the stranger shimmers into being on this side, still crouched. She opens her eyes, and the spirits surround her as she rises to her feet. Some of them are repelled. Some settle into her fur. She doesn't pay them any mind.
Her eyes darken when she sees that Karl and Joey have not come across the line. At Kleopas's question she turns her head, looking around. This place is little better than its reflection. Instead of the reality of dirt and homelessness and despair and industrialization, it contains the spirits of those things. Filth. Star-obliterating unnatural light. Hunger, that of people and of strays. She looks back at him and chuffs.
"You honor me with your aid," she says, which... is sort of an answer. She inclines her head, clearly still struggling.
But she goes with them easily enough. She keeps pace as they run, lagging only a little bit behind. Realmside, the two Fenrir begin to drive. In the penumbra, the stranger drops to all fours in crinos and runs alongside Wyrmbreaker and Analog King. If she senses Lukas's rank -- the sort of unspoken authority that is missing from her presence, notably, like breeding -- she does not appear to react to it.
"How is it," she asks -- them both, it seems -- as they head south, "you have not been sent to the blood circle yet?"
There's hesitation in the question, as though wary of offending.
[Kleopas Appius Hugh] They put the Glasswalker as their guide. Logic would dictate a straight path toward the park, but they put this Glasswalker as their guide. His logic has them hopping from one spot to another. Not all parks, but all a bit less messy than the round-abouts and three-lanes and parking lots and underneath over-passes. Appius, the road builder, sacrifices direct speed for ease of movement. At least, what he thought would be easier on their companion.
The blood circle. He doesn't speak of it. He lopes, still in his breed form, on all fours, keeping his eyes on his goal and his ears on his companions. The blood circle? He growls at it, as if the question might be bothersome. As if it might trip his stride.
But as much as he's confident in the things he knows, he's also used to not knowing a lot. And so, that growl is his only reply.
[Wyrmbreaker] Epiphlings. Epiphlings everywhere, more perhaps than Lukas has seen since ...
Maybe since ever. Maybe when he was a cub, his mentor appropriated the services of a Theurge once and led him out into the Deep Umbra to explore the stranger aspects of the unseen world. Maybe his education, like that of most full-moons, was nothing but war and strife and the raw physicality of his being. He knows enough, though, to know that this is almost unheard of. This number, this variety, this population of concept-spirits in the heart of the scab.
He presses himself to the wall, eyes wide, dodging instinctively as some veer too close to him. When the stranger appears and they swarm to her, his head cocks to one side, an animal gesture in his most human skin.
They begin to run, Analog King taking the lead here in the Umbra. Wyrmbreaker, direwolf-formed now, catches up after a moment and whuffs to him, "Have you ever seen anything like that? So many epiphlings so close to the realm?"
Whatever the Theurge's answer, they run on: the Shadow Lord shadowing the Glass Walker, the stranger just a pace behind, running unflaggingly despite the taint that was literally choking her a moment ago. When she asks her nearly incomprehensible question, Wyrmbreaker makes a faint, confused noise in the back of his throat, allowing his pace to slacken enough that he runs alongside the stranger instead.
"What is the blood circle?"
[-balance-] The Analog King just growls, without replying. He leads them to places where the humans have planted grass, where they have allowed trees to live for a few years. He leads them to places that are still in a chokehold by the Weaver, places where you can't see the stars and you don't know what you're missing because this is the best it's going to get. This isn't about the city being the city being the city. In this world, there is no such thing as harmony between concrete and earth, glass and water, steel and wood.
Wyrmbreaker asks her what the blood circle is and -- like Analog King a moment ago -- all the stranger does is look at him, and make a noise, and go on running. She seems troubled. She does not speak of it again.
It takes time to drive twenty miles, and longer still to run. Realmside, Joey and Karl pull up to the agreed-upon part in about half an hour. This time of night there isn't much traffic. They wait for the others, and the others
run.
By the time they get there, the stranger has slowed them down considerably. She is wheezing again, even here, though at least she has lost that initial panic to her gasps. They have to keep stopping entirely to let her recover. It takes a long time to get to the park, and by then, Joey's mirror has cleared. By then, the stranger waits only until they inform her that she can stop
and she lets herself collapse, tiny spirits lifting from her fur like dust from a shaken rug. One of them skitters away from her and hits Lukas's feet. It is mostly eyes, big and blue and watery and lost. It has a body, but it's impossible to tell what sort of body it's supposed to be. It has hair in weird places. It smells like puberty. It stares at him for a moment, reflecting momentarily his own confusion, and then vanishes as though it was never there.
The stranger's sides are heaving.
[Wyrmbreaker] Wyrmbreaker has other questions, but he doesn't ask them. It's taking enough out of the one he termed 'their guest' to simply keep up with them, running through this city choked in its own waste and pollution. Strange what adaptation and compensation will do. Strange that Lukas feels strong here, whole and hale, because he was born in one of the oldest cities on the planet and grew up in one of the largest. He's grown used to this: the weaver, the wyrm, the decay, the rigidity of modern life. In a sense, he doesn't know what he's missing.
This is the best it's going to get.
They've stopped, twenty or thirty or sixty minutes later. Lukas's tongue is lolling and flat and his blood is up, his vital rhythms cruising on a higher setpoint on which he could have run for miles, for days. He lowers his head and whuffs questioningly at the epiphling that bumps his feet, but even as he's sniffing at it it's vanishing, gone, like a dream upon waking.
The direwolf sits on his haunches. He scratches at his ruff with a hindpaw while he waits for the stranger to catch her breath. When she's regained her strength -- or when she looks like she's not going to regain any more strength -- he asks, "Tell me about where you come from. Are there many epiphling-spirits there?"
[Kleopas Appius Hugh] He stops finally, and turns to the stranger. He watches her sides heave. He watches the tiny spirits fall from her like dust in her fur. He sits. Long arms reaching down to the ground. A rump resting some feet behind that. The War Form isn't supposed to look like that. The War Form isn't supposed to scratch contemplatively at his Crinos jaw with its hind feet. And if so, its not supposed to wag its tail while it does.
"No. They don't belong here. But then, neither does she."
He lounges now, like a man. Like a thing that walks and runs on two legs and relaxes on none. He isn't thinking of the others across the gauntlet. He's watching the stranger regain her breath. Or try to.
"It may be that we will have to carry her into the water."
[Holds the Line] Karl is quiet during the car ride. Joey is one hell of a driver and the two Rotagar reach the park easily enough. He gets out of the car, then looks to Joey, waiting for her to come out.
“Try again together?”
He bounces the stripped down side view mirror in his hand. He had picked it out of its cover during the car ride, leaving only the mirror. The black printed text on it half scratched away. ‘May appear closer’ is what remains of it now.
[Laughs at Death] Joey's a great driver. She learned how to drive in the desert, was able to learn how a car responds better than most because there were such long stretches of nothing in which she could do anything. In Las Vegas, she earned her keep racing occasionally. Lately, she's taken the sport up again. Sometimes she wins. Sometimes she doesn't. She's getting there.
That said, she takes her time getting to the park. She doesn't jet down the road, weaving through traffic like a rocket. It means she has time to chat with Karl about the little things in life. The things that matter.
Like why you shouldn't go around ripping the side mirrors off people's cars.
By the time they reach the park, Karl has no doubt had enough of Joey's lecturing, on the cost of that repair, how most people in that area can't afford it so now some poor schmoe is stuck without their mirror. And about how hand mirrors can be purchased at the dollar store for as little as (gasp!) a dollar.
She finds a place to park. By now her mirror is clear, but before she crosses she reaches behind her to the rear seat to grab a more Umbral friendly shirt. It's a black and grey raglan, the one she wears for hunts and patrols. She also grabs the strap of her bat bag. When she's changed her shirt, heedless of the fact that Karl may or may not still be in the car, she looks in her own rearview mirror.
[Laughs at Death] [crossing for realz! -1 for mirror]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 5, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 5)
[Holds the Line] (Crossing over -1 diff)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 5)
[-balance-] They are near the shoreline here, nearer than they were in Chicago. There is big clear water nearby, and sand dunes in the middle of an area where yo would never expect to see sand dunes. This isn't Vegas, after all. Joey and Karl wait until her mirror clears and his mirror is ready for use, and then they cross over. It takes some wandering and some call-and-answer, but soon they're coming upon the others.
The female stranger is lying on her left side, still in warform, sides heaving. Analog King is lounging, and Wyrmbreaker is asking her questions and she is closing her eyes. Even here it is a struggle, but that may just be from exertion. Perhaps she will get better with a little more time to rest.
Even now, the sound of her speaking the High Tongue is like speaking to one's ancestors. "Where I come from," she says slowly, "the big clear water feeds us, heals us, gives us drink. Careful fire takes the dead. The deep earth hides the beasts. The rageless weep outside the blood circle, weep during the purges, and weep for their children and mates when the sacred place takes them. Still they are brave enough to live in the outer circles, watching for Wyld things."
She seems to be talking to herself a little there, as though for comfort. Or meditation. There's that quality to her voice, slow and measured and undulating.
Her eyes open. She looks out at the line of the water. "There are many things there. Spirits.are there. They warn us of those whose names have become too strong." There's a long pause, while she fights to breathe. "This place is like the place where the dead are burned. How can you see with all this light, breathe without any air, heal or drink when the water itself is sick?"
She moves, rolling onto all fours, regarding them with eyes that are heavy with sorrow. "What happened here to break Gaia's harmony so? What hell came?"
[Holds the Line] Reaching the umbra, Karl takes to lupus, following his senses as they search out the others. Midnight black fur letting the Rotagar slip in and out fo the strange blue shadows of the penumbra. Coming on the others, he stops, scenting the air, head slowly turning to the sides, gaze on the multitude of spirits gathered.
He huffs and then sits back on his haunches to watch. Guarded, but curious.
[Laughs at Death] When Joey crosses, she exits the reflection of her car and prepares herself. Her bag is slung across her torso. She looks at Karl before she shift, up and up, down and down, into her small stocky wolf form. Better for moving quickly, and for tracking down the others.
She finds them, finds the stranger on her side, the Glass Walker lounging, Lukas asking questions, and she stops up short. A small groan, Whoa, her ears flicking back. So many spirits! Then, her ears pricked forward again, she trots toward them.
The stranger, 'their guest,' talks almost to herself, sort of meditatively, about the place she's come from. Joey remains standing a moment, looking her over, checking her from a small distance to see if she needs healing. The girl looks tired, though, which is unsurprising given the state they found her in. Satisfied that her gifts, her talens, she herself isn't needed right this second, Joey sits on her haunches. Head canted to the side, tail aimlessly swishing in the sand, she listens.
"Harmony?" she asks, looking to Lukas, then back to the girl. "Are Weaver, Wyrm, and Wyld in balance there?"
[Wyrmbreaker] As the stranger speaks, Wyrmbreaker alternates between watching her and watching the Theurge for any sign that he might know what was going on. Who this stranger was. Where she came from, or when, or how.
"This is the world we were born into," he replies. "This is how it has been since long before we were born.
"Tell me about the blood circle. Is it a place? Or a ... a state of being?"
[Holds the Line] Holds the Line listens, watches, seeming for all the world to be frozen in his posture. Only the rare twitch of his tail, and flick of an ear reveals he is actually there and not just some image.
At least until something else draws his attention. Whatever it is, it manages to make the Rotagar look away from the stranger and the other Garou, away from the flock of spirits, back towards Chicago.
“Pack calling.”
It is all the explanation he offers as he stands. A last glance to the Strange Garou, and then a look to the others before he turns and starts running back towards the city. Moments later he is gone, whisked away by hummingbirds gift.
[Too late for this swede! Thanks for the play!]
[-balance-] One's pack calls him and he goes, without hesitation or grief. Instantly, he rises and leaves, taken by the swiftness of a spirit. It leaves the stranger with the Theurge of the city, the Ahroun of the mountains, and the Ragabash of the desert. She slowly pushes herself up to sitting, watching Karl as he leaves. Something bristles. She ducks her head, waits a moment, and then looks at Lukas.
As before, she remains in what she called her first body. She does not leave crinos. Her muzzle is long and she has black markings on her face and throat. There's gray and white on her paws and tail. Reddish brown across her back. She is a mongrel of colors, and yet pleasing enough to look at. Graceful. Strong. Tainted, though, cursed. She must be. They all are, the sinborn.
"The blood circle is... the blood circle," she says, with some confusion as to why Lukas doesn't understand. But it is becoming more and more clear that she is not from this place and time, and they have never known hers. May never be able to. "It is a place I will not speak of to you." They are outsiders, now, it feels like. She has drawn that line: they don't understand. They were born to this world, and this world is a graveyard. A literal pit of death and decay.
"We were in meditation," she says, resting in a crouch on her haunches. "And I looked too long at the stars. When I do this, I am sometimes... moved. It is the --" the word here is jarring to their ears, mashed together, and they do not know it. They hear two combatting concepts at once in the High Tongue, negative and positive, beneficial and detrimental, but no clear meaning. "-- that marks me as a cub from two Garou.
"I believe that is how I came to be here."
[Wyrmbreaker] There's a brief clench of frustration in the Shadow Lord, which passes not because he is serene or tranquil but because he controls himself. He rises out of his Hispo form. There is no need for it now. They are not running; they are not fighting.
"I understand that some things are sacred and private," he says evenly, "so I won't pry unless I need to. But you asked for our aid. And we will need some information, first.
"Tell me your name. Tell me what it is you want, or need. To get home? To adapt? To purify this place? Tell me, and I'll tell you what we can do to help you. If we can help you."
[-balance-] [Sorry for the delay! Since Dre has vanished offline, we'll assume AK is lounging around observing for now.]
[-balance-] Her reaction to Lukas's flash of irritation seems like steady acceptance. She does not look at him with either approbation or disapproval, fear or even growing respect. After he is done, she lifts her handpaw, palm to the sky, in a gesture that bespeaks being at a loss. His annoyance is his own; it remains so. She seems, even, to be expecting it.
"You have given me the aid I asked for," she reminds him: "You have brought me to a place where it is easier to breathe." Not by much. But it's something, and it's the best they could do. She seems to recognize that, and repeats what she said to Analog King en route: "You have honored me with your help."
But they are still here, and so is she, and if one thing is clear, it is that she doesn't belong in this world. Won't live long in it, if being here for a mere hour is making her so ill. In any case, there is a tit-for-tat seeming to what she says now, as though in return for their aid and guidance to this state park she will answer questions. "My name..." this strikes her pause, though. "Some are beginning to say I have a name. Maybe they are right, and that is why I have been moved to this place, away from my own. Not all names die in the blood circle. Some are taken in other ways."
This is musing. Troubling, from the sound of it, but if she has a great deal of grief over this idea of having a name and being taken away from her home for it, she hides it well enough. It is certainly nothing to be proud of. Nor even, truthfully, ashamed of.
"I needed to breathe, so that was my greatest want. Eventually I will need to sleep, and to eat, and I will want those things very badly when the need comes." A beat, and then some bare honesty: "I want to leave this place. I want to be somewhere else that is not dying slow. But I do not know if there is a way."
She looks around, then at the Garou once more. "Other times I have been displaced, it has helped to meditate. Will you join me?"
[Laughs at Death] [Curiosity]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 5, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Laughs at Death] Joey, watching and listening silently all this time, is brimming with questions. The biggest question, the one the girl keeps avoiding and hinting at, is her name. But she mentioned names that were too strong, people who needed to be warned about. She wonders other things, but those things she keeps to herself. It's unlikely she'll get an answer, anyway, the girl's health is already suffering the longer she stays here.
Still. She lets one go through.
"You've been displaced before?" She looks to Lukas after she asks, already rising to her four feet, shifting as she goes to her two-legged birth form. Clearly she means to help with the meditation if she can, but she looks to Lukas, alpha tonight, before she takes a step.
[Laughs at Death] [dlp!]
[Laughs at Death] Joey, watching and listening silently all this time, is brimming with questions. The biggest question, the one the girl keeps avoiding and hinting at, is her name. But she mentioned names that were too strong, people who needed to be warned about. She wonders other things, but those things she keeps to herself. It's unlikely she'll get an answer, anyway, the girl's health is already suffering the longer she stays here.
She looks to Lukas, already rising to her four feet, shifting as she goes to her two-legged birth form. Clearly she means to help with the meditation if she can, but she looks to Lukas, alpha tonight, before she takes a step.
[Wyrmbreaker] "I'll join you in a moment," Lukas replies. "I want to discuss this -- and you -- with my Septmates. Don't be insulted."
He makes no move to walk away out of her hearing range, or even to lower or change his tone at all. He simply turns to the others and -- as promised -- starts talking about their guest.
"I don't know what's going on here," he says, "or where she came from. But I don't think she's from our world at all. Maybe she's from the past. She spoke of how the rageless weep during the purges. Maybe she's talking about the Impergium and the culls. Or maybe she's from ... I don't know. A different Realm altogether. Pangaea, maybe. Something like it. A world before the Weaver grew out of control.
"She talks about blood circles and outer circles. I thought at first that she was being metaphorical, that the blood circle was her way of referring to those who had passed their Rites of Passage. But then it sounds like it's an actual separation, a different place or plane of existence altogether.
"And then there's this business about names. In a lot of mythology, Naming is the process by which something is created, or defined, or solidified. Made immutable and permanent. Sometimes it's also associated with a fall from perfect grace. A Weaver-like process, in any case. She talks about the rageless ones -- her kin, perhaps -- that warn them of those whose names are too strong. Those who are too touched by the Weaver? And she says she may be acquiring a name, and perhaps that's why she's been brought to our world. Maybe that refers to physical form. Or maturity. Or ... "
Lukas falls silent, frowning.
"There's a lot here I don't understand, and haven't even begun to understand. I'm just throwing my thoughts out so they can percolate. But for now, we should probably do as she asks and meditate with her."
[-balance-] The Theurge is silent. The Rotagar is curious. The Ahroun is... confused. No wonder that one epiphling meandered over to him before poofing out of existence.
Speaking of those epiphlings, they're still hovering around the stranger who will not give her name -- or has none to give, which seems to be the case, as she doesn't seem to be trying to be all that enigmatic. They simply aren't speaking the same language. They have the High Tongue. She seems to understand them when they speak to her, regardless of whether it's English or otherwise. But when they say 'name' and when she says 'name', it's becoming more and more clear they are not talking about the same things.
While Lukas excuses himself, asking her not to be offended, the stranger just shakes her head: of course not, she seems to say, as she lifts her muzzle moonward, remaining crouched just as she is. Any moment now, it seems like she's going to release a howl to Luna. Not yet, though. Her body is perfectly still, her eyes unblinking as she looks at the brilliant face of the waning gibbous moon in the penumbra. Here, at least, they can see stars. They have names for them, and all the faraway planets, and everything they see and touch.
maybe she's from the past
maybe she's from... a different realm altogether
the Weaver grew out of control
Her head whips towards the two Garou at that point, away from her meditations. She stares at them while Lukas goes on, but does not interrupt. She does not speak at all. Many of the epiphlings have scattered by now, unable to maintain themselves in this place. They return to their homes, their Epiph Realms, those incomprehensible places most Garou have no reason to travel to anyway.
Lukas's thoughts unravel as he goes on. He hits wall after wall built by bricks of a simple lack of understanding. He does not know, and the questions he asks are not ones she has the answers to. Her ears flick and her tail swishes on the dirt, and then she speaks:
"The Weaver grew out of control?" she echoes the Ahroun, watching them steadily. "Is that what happened here?"
[Wyrmbreaker] "That's what I was taught," Lukas replies, because that's the truth. He doesn't know for sure. He wasn't alive to see it, and neither was his mentor, nor his mentor's mentor, all the way back to the dawn of the tribes.
"A very long time ago, the Triat was in balance. The Wyld created, the Weaver maintained, the Wyrm destroyed. It was a cycle, none more powerful than the others. But at some point the Weaver grew too strong, or was made strong by those it maintained, or ... long story short, it started trying to keep everything just as it was. It tried to keep destruction from occurring, and so it trapped the Wyrm, and the Wyrm went mad trying to escape. In its madness it began to destroy everything it could reach.
"Fast forward a few dozen millennia, and here we are. Sometimes the Wyrm and the Weaver war with one another. Other times they mutate together into atrocities, abominations, scabs. Both of them wage war on the Wyld."
A pause. "That's not how it is where you came from?"
[-balance-] None of them were alive to know if this is what really happened. Truth be told, it could be something else: the Wyld created too much, which made the Weaver hurry to catch up, which made the Wyrm do the same, a game with ever-raising stakes until everywhere you looked the members of the Triat were one-upping each other.
Or perhaps it was the Wyrm's fault all along. Maybe it was always twisted and dark and jealous. Maybe it was always corrupted and insane, just biding a little time before it unleashed hell on this earth.
Then it might be just as Lukas was taught, just as most Garou are taught. After all, creation is a constantly renewing fountain. It conceives and it births and it lets go. Death, too, does not try to hang on to that which it touches. But stasis is all about hanging on. Stasis is all about preventing both new changes as well as inevitable decay. In some ways, it makes sense that the Weaver dug its claws in and tried to repress the Wyld and restrain the Wyrm.
The Wyld didn't really have to go far to snap. Neither did the Wyrm. And so.
And so.
The stranger is quite still now, watching them, hearing this. If a wolf's face, mutated as it is in war form, could frown? That is what she would be doing. As it is, what they see is mostly in her eyes, darkening with growing understanding. She looks down at the ground, at the sand between her claws, and exhales a long, slow breath of air.
"That is not how it is where I came from," she confirms, with grief. Her head lifts slowly, looking at the two of them again. It has been some time since the Theurge wandered off, possibly running down some epiphling he thought might have the answers. "Our cycle is intact."
She says.
"The Wyld is powerful, where I come from. It has no allies. It needs none. So it is with the Wyrm. Death and destruction come and are only fought against when the will is weak or when it goes too far."
The stranger breathes deeply, as though still meditating. Every breath whistles slightly, thin and difficult for her. "The rageless build, and name, and ...I can understand how in another world, they would make the Weaver very strong. But as I said."
Her ears fold back, and her tail flicks once. "They weep during the purges, as the things they build and the things they have named are taken by the Wyrm. But they build again, and birth new things, and name them. They try to understand. They have to."
She is silent for a long moment, then barks once. "If I am taken back there, I will tell them about this world. About a Weaver out of control and a Wyrm gone mad, a Wyld under siege. They will prepare for another purge."
[Wyrmbreaker] "Another purge?" The word is unpleasant, and traces an icy finger down his back. "What good will purging your world do for ours?"
There is another possibility, of course. He doesn't mention it.
[-balance-] Her head cocks to the side. "You keep thinking I am here for some purpose, on some quest." A beat, a slow and staring pause. "The purges must happen. As they always have. They are not for the sake of your world."
[Wyrmbreaker] "But what you said implied a connection. You will tell them about this world. And they will prepare for another purge. Am I misunderstanding, or is there a link?"
[-balance-] She doesn't say anything for a minute, honestly considering the question for awhile. Then, she nods. "You misunderstood."
The nameless Garou, because it seems she is not just a spirit from another realm or an ancestor coming to haunt them, rocks back a bit and regards them. "I do not know why I am here. I do not know if I will be going back. I have said these things. You spoke to her," this must mean Joey, though the stranger doesn't nod to indicate the Rotagar or anything, "with questions, with possibilities. All I have are possibilities. One may be that I am here because my name was becoming too strong. One may be that this is a vision to me, to take back to my people so they will remember the reason why we purge."
She lifts that handpaw again, palm up, as she did before. It is the same meaning: at a loss. Accepting, nonetheless. It drops once more.
"That is all I have."
[Laughs at Death] "Wait," says Joey, silent until now as she struggled to understand. "You said your cycle's intact. Is it even time for another purge where you come from?"
[-balance-] Her eyes go from one to the other, and back again. "You are like the rageless," she says observationally. "The purges frighten you. Sadden you."
[Laughs at Death] "No," she says, then, "Well, maybe. I mean, if they're part of the cycle, they're part of the cycle. But, if it's not time for one, and you go back to tell your people about us and they purge outside the schedule...too close to the last one 'r too close to the next one, whatever. Aon't that make the Wyrm stronger?" She looks at Lukas, then back to the girl.
[Wyrmbreaker] "I don't care about the purges where you came from," Lukas replies levelly. "That's your world and your business. I was concerned when you mentioned purging right after you mentioned telling your people our story. I thought perhaps you meant to bring your people to this world and 'purge' here. Since that wasn't your intention, I have no complaints."
There it is, then: laid out plainly. Lukas may be overcautious, prone to overstrategizing, but he's honest about these things.
"I'd like to know more about your world, though, and how you got here. I understand if there are some things too sacred to be spoken of. But if there's anything else you can tell me about your world, your people, or how you came here -- anything you haven't already said -- I'd like to hear it.
"Otherwise, I'd like to join your meditation. Perhaps I'll understand better then."
[-balance-] The stranger chuffs at Joey, something like laughter. "We have been doing this for a very long time," she says, with certainty. With confidence. She doesn't explain further, as though that is all that needs to be said on the matter. After all, as Lukas says: it is her world. Not theirs.
He does get an odd look from the female, though, when he says that for a moment he thought she meant to bring her people here -- somehow -- to purge this place. She just shakes her head, but does not respond to it otherwise. He lets that concern drop. Whatever prompted the odd look, she drops it, too.
But she smiles. And in this form it's a leering sort of grin, all teeth and glowing eyes, the sort of thing that would tell prey she is coming for them, that tells other Garou that she is simply... pleased. Her tail wags once. "I would like that. For all I know, I will be here til I give my last breath. It would be good to not be alone."
Such simplistic, animal comfort in that. At least that's familiar to them. Understandable: the longing for pack, for others of their kind. She waits for them to come back, as her own eyes turn back to the moon and the stars.
Together, they meditate. She in her birth form, they -- perhaps -- in theirs. At first it is a long silence, a staring upward that eventually hurts the neck and makes the eyes long to blink. She does not seem to fall to these aches and discomforts, at least not so much that they can tell. But after awhile, their awareness of her drops away. Their awareness of each other. The sand under their feet, the distance to the stars. Everything slowly becomes breath, and light, and doors and windows in their souls begin to unlock.
Such it is, every time they meditate. This is why it must be done in caerns or in packs, because they open themselves so utterly to Gaia. It is dangerous to be so vulnerable. To lose track of time, of place. To become nothing but heartbeat and respiration. Then not even that: rhythm and air, even more abstracted. Their skins seem to dissolve, and though they are unaware of it, the epiphlings that gathered around the stranger come to linger around them, too.
Here, an epiphling of Sand.
There, an epiphling of Neon.
And an epiphling of Taste.
And one of Down.
One of Irritation.
One of Orange (the color), and Orange (the flavor) is nowhere to be seen.
That one is String Theory.
They settle on the shoulders of the Garou, on their noses, on their heads, unseen and unfelt the longer the meditation goes on. The stars overhead blur, whispering to them. They hear the voice of Luna like a warcry, like a laugh, like a lullabye, like a scream, like their mother, like a goddess, like Rage itself, like... nothing at all, after awhile. All those things are names, and feelings, and in time, they pass away, too. They meditate for a very long time, seeming to be drawn further and further into it the longer they sit, and watch the sky, and become breath.
A vision is granted to each of them. Startling, jarring, momentary... and bloody.
When they open their eyes, shaken from meditation by those visions, the stranger is gone. And so are the spirits. Dawn is on the horizon.
[-balance-] More than most Ahrouns, Lukas is in touch with his spiritual side. But it is the weakest part of his soul, shadowed by his rage, held in check by his will. Still, when he meditates, he begins to understand this namelessness that seems to come so easily to the stranger. No renown. No rank. It is a simplicity of being that he knows -- he knows -- cannot be, cannot be tolerated, the strong must dominate and the weak must submit and
in time, his will quiets as his mind unspools into the meditation itself, touching the very stars.
And then claws rip across his face, followed by a snarl. He is not on the dunes. He is not anyplace he knows. The ground is hardpacked and unforgiving. He hears nothing but the slavering and growling of an opponent, even as he looks into the face of another Garou. One who he senses on instinct is as strong as him, as equally matched as he has ever met.
Balanced.
They are both wounded, both covered in blood, and he goes instantly from meditation to the heart-pounding, adrenaline-pumping midst of a battle for his life. He barely even has control over his maw opening, his legs readying to leap at the other, already knowing how he is going to bite into the other's neck to end their life, when he hears a whisper behind his ear:
"Disharmony is inevitable."
to Wyrmbreaker
[Laughs at Death] That's it, then. Joey doesn't question further, her concern for this stranger and her world where the Triat is balanced laid to rest. She does stay in her birth form when she joins the Crinos formed metis and the Ahroun to meditate. Hopefully this will work, and the girl will go home to the place where each breath isn't a wheeze.
Her consciousness, her sense of self, it all drifts away over time. Until the vision comes. She inhales sharply, eyes widening, and then it's gone. She's back in her skin again, and dawn is coming. Blinking, she looks at Lukas.
"Did you see?"
[Wyrmbreaker] Dawn in the sky. The east touched with pink and gold. The sky overhead as deeply, richly blue as anything they've seen before.
Some of that blue is reflected in the Ahroun's eyes as they open. He's frowning across the dunes and the lake. Slowly, his eyes shift to Joey.
"I saw... something. Another Garou. We were fighting. We were equal, and we were killing each other."
A pause.
"I think she's from the very distant past. Or else somehow from a different world, where things stayed as they were before the Garou were as we know ourselves. Or maybe just a representation of what how we were." Another. "Before any of it. Before the Impergium ended. Before the Tribes formed. Before rank and challenge and ..."
Disharmony is inevitable. He doesn't say it aloud; it is somehow too private, too sacred, to give breath to just now.
"Before disharmony," he finishes instead. And then, wry, "Before the world came out of balance in a way so fundamental that we don't even recognize most of the signs, because they're in ourselves."
[Laughs at Death] She draws up her knees, leaning forward to rest her forearms across them, hands clasping. And she listens, mouth drawn in a line instead of a smile. Her vision still lingers in her dark eyes, making the usually jovial Rotagar more serious. Or maybe it's all of it. Or this is just Joey with her thinking face on.
She looks at the place where the girl was. The girl with no name. Who came from a place where people who earned names were separated, or sent to world's like theirs.
"I'd kinda like to see a world like that. Balanced. Where the Wyrm and Weaver aren't jumpin' down your throat every two seconds. Might be..." she doesn't say nice. A world like that might be nice, but she doesn't know, can't even really imagine it clearly. When she tries, she envisions not a utopia, a place of peace or balance. She sees the funeral pyre. Instead of finishing the thought, though, Joey just shrugs and rolls herself up to her feet as easily as she can while standing in soft shifting sand.
She offers Lukas a hand up.
[Wyrmbreaker] Who wouldn't like to see a world like that? It's the Garou ideal. Their holy grail. A world at harmony once more. Balanced. Wyrm and Weaver and Wyld, all in accord. Discord ended. Strife ended. All disharmony ended; all competition, all war.
"The proverbial garden of eden?" Lukas sounds thoughtful, a little rueful. "I don't know. I don't think there's ever any going back to that. And even if there were, I'm not sure it would be for the best. Competition is the impetus for evolution. Without it, we wouldn't be nearly as strong or fast or clever as we are."
He reaches up, then. Grasps Joey's forearm and, exerting only a little pull on the smaller Rotagar, gets to his feet.
"Give me a lift back to Chicago? We should get in touch with the Crescent Moons and see what they make of all this."
[Laughs at Death] "Might be," she says, mouth quirked. "In a garden of eden, we prob'ly wouldn't need to be as strong or fast or clever, though. It'd be weird." Weird, because she's just so damned athletic. Competition, hard work, striving to be the best at something have all shaped Joey into the Garou that she is today.
She helps him to his feet even if he doesn't really need it, then she dusts off the seat of her pants. Then he asks for a lift, even though he doesn't really need to do that, either. "'Course," she says, as if that was the plan all along. And she leads the way, back across the Gauntlet and back to where her car is parked.
