the blood circle.

[eden] [Everyone make a hearing-based perception + alertness roll.
Christian: diff +3
Kate: diff +2
Lukas: diff +1
Sinclair: diff +2]

[eden] It's been raining in Chicago. The clouds cover the moon, and the mud squelches underneath their paws as the Unbroken -- some of them, at least -- tread through the woods. In the distance they can smell the smoke from the bonfire, the food. They are not headed that way. They're tracking some beast to bring down in honor of the equinox. Perhaps they mean to drag back the carcass of a deer, or catch several rabbits and haul them back to be roasted and fed upon. Autumn is coming, and the breeze that sifts through their furs is cool, cooler than it was a week ago, two weeks ago.

This is no tense, taut hunt. They are not going after the Wyrm right now, not hunting down Spirals that got it into their heads to attack a gathering of Garou and Kin. They are preparing instead to usher in the season of bountiful harvest, of full tables and full bellies. Overhead the moon is starting to wane from full. All of them feel the curl and whisper of rage inside their skulls, crawling up their spines, longing to take them. Control them.

Quietly they go through the trees, quietly because no wolf packs are known to live in Tekakwitha Woods. Quietly, because people are camping out here in various designated areas, while it's still warm enough. Quietly, because they are a pack, and they have no need to growl or bark to speak to each other beyond the intricacies of physical contact, of body language.

For her part, Sinclair brings up the rear. She's the second-best fighter in ...well, the pack as a whole, as well as the current grouping. She watches their backs as they go ahead, her ears perked, alert.

Overhead, the clouds start to drift past the face of the moon, eased away by the wind.

[eden] [perception + alertness -1 (moon)/ diff +2 (see above), -2 (lupus)]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Honor's Compass] [Per + Alert, +2 Diff, -2 Lupus]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Christian del Piero] (( Perc + Alert. Difficulty -2, lupus. ))
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 7)

[Wyrmbreaker] At the head of their narrow file, dark fur dull and light-devouring in the light of the full moon, Wyrmbreaker runs with his tongue lolling, feet light. In this day and age of 24 hour supermarkets, the reap and the harvest means little. Still, the ancestral memories of thousands of years of agriculture echo down through the holidays of the humans -- and in their blood, in their bones, memories of an older time still.

This is not the harvest season, their wolf-instinct whispers to them, but the season of the hunt. This is when the leaves fall from the trees, and the prey is still fat from summer and easy to see. This is when the pups have grown old enough to first scamper along on the hunters. This is when they take down the largest, heaviest prey of the year.

Later, winter. When the prey is easy to track for the leafless trees and the snow-covered ground, but thin, too. When the days are cold and the nights colder, and the pack huddles together for warmth.

There's a small stream crossing their paths. Their sharp ears picked it up a quarter-mile away, and now they've come to it. Wyrmbreaker slows from his steady, ground-covering trot. He plants his forepaws apart and lowers his head to lap at the water eagerly, ears panning out of unconscious reflex: taking in whatever there is to take in.

[eden] All of the Unbroken hear something. It's as distant as the voice of the moon herself, a faint whisper that seems to come from miles away, or miles above. Perhaps the stars are whispering to them.

Ev--ing d--s. Di--ny is --nv--ble...
to Christian del Piero, Honor's Compass, Wyrmbreaker

[Honor's Compass] Katherine, a lovely white wolf in this form is padding along with her pack; she is a smallish creature when put beside her Alpha, the black-as-coal son of Thunder, even her paws speak of her nature; so small and precise about where she treads as they come upon the trickling stream that Lukas lowers his head to drink from.

Honor's Compass does not drink, but rather straightens her body and stares; growing very still.

I hear a voice, her thoughts project to her pack-mates, clear as a bell. It says 'everything dies, disharmony is inevitable'. The wolf lowers her nose, scents the ground, paws at it. The ground too changes, the trees do not seem the same as before.

[eden] Slowest by determination, lurking behind because her moon is waning and it makes her wane, Sinclair tenses a moment, then walks forward to meet the others at the water's edge. Katherine speaks to them, and in their minds they all hear an echo, a confirmation that yes, Sinclair heard it too, noticed it, too. She looks up overhead at the moon and the stars, shifting her weight from one side to the other. It's an anxious motion.

[Christian del Piero] He hasn't hunted for the sake of hunting in ages. Christian almost seems confused when he's told that's what they're doing tonight. Like he can't fathom not going after the Wyrm when it's got them surrounded. But he doesn't protest. Any chance to do something besides pretend to be civilised is a good thing. So he walks along with his pack, just as small and pure white as his tribesmate and sister. Something's changed about him. Even though his Rage is still high he isn't half mad with it. It's easier to think and breathe these days. It helps that the full moon is waning.

They come upon a stream. They all hear something. Christian's ears prick. He snaps to attention like a gun shot has gone off. Taps at the ground with his paw. He makes a questioning whining sound...and then Katherine voices the concern he has.

Where did that voice come from?

[Wyrmbreaker] Wyrmbreaker's head comes up as that whispers threads through his mind. His coat, thick and black even in midsummer, is growing ever heavier for the winter. His ruff is wide, his jaws massive; water drops from his upper lip as he stares into the darkness.

The words are indistinct. The memory they spur, so long untouched that it's almost forgotten, is not. That's sudden and vivid as a hallucination; vivid as blood: a memory of a different world from his, a world in balance; a memory of facing another so evenly matched to himself as to be almost indistinguishable; a memory of gathering to leap, to kill, to despoil that balance, to introduce, like original sin, that inevitable disharmony.

I've heard that before, he thinks at his packmates. There's a flash of thought, an entire narrative compressed into a few fleeting impressions. He shows them a slice of his memory: how he and a few others met a strange Garou who spoke of coming from a world where the Triat was in harmony; who spoke of being sent to blood circles; who did not know where she came from or how she might get back. They meditated together in the end. All night. And when the Garou of Chicago opened their eyes, she was gone.

Even as that memory is unspooling into their minds, Wyrmbreaker is moving. He wheels on his hind legs and begins to run, following the sound to its source the best he can.

[eden] In a moment, what Lukas remembers of the night he met that strange sinborn who could scarcely breathe their air passes along to his packmates. Sinclair is quiet, hanging back. If she has thoughts to add she keeps them to herself, til Lukas starts to head off ahead. It takes effort for her not to bark aloud. She takes a few strides forward, into the creek and past it, going with the other wolves, but then holds back again.

Wait, she says into their minds, the words sounding like a struggle for her. It's like Kate said. The woods feel different. Even if what we heard came from somewhere, I'm not sure we can find that place anymore.

She tosses her head once, hackles up. Her tension is high. But then: on nights like this, Sinclair always feels a little off. She might have been looking forward to a raw meal, animal blood steaming in the cooling air. Little chance of that, now.

Whatever they have to say in response, whatever they do, doesn't change what happens next. This time it takes no straining at all to hear it: there's a crash up ahead, the sound of wood splintering and something heavy skidding across the ground. There's a yelp, and even as they listen the sound grows so steadily it's hard to imagine they could be this close to it without noticing it. Dozens of voices: barking, yowling, snarling, teeth chomping together, growls of encouragement, of viciousness, of rejoicing. Claws scraping the ground,

the smell of blood in the air.

[Honor's Compass] The Half Moon is wary, as befit her moon.

She watches her Alpha wheel and begin to run and instinct tenses her muscles and has her fur bristling, has her heart-rate exhilarating with the desire to follow the pack, to run, to jump, to hunt. But something, be it the voice she heard or the strange, unsettling feeling in her belly makes her hesitate for a moment.

She wades through the water, and up the other side of the bank and again stops, tossing her head with a whuff of air. Her wet nose lowering to the ground, head rising only as Sinclair speaks to her. The white wolf turns and regards her sister.

Then there's the splintering of wood, the unmistakable sounds of creatures fighting. The snapping, snarling; the tang of blood in the air. Katherine's teeth are displayed for a moment, two rows of razor sharp incisors before they drop back beneath her gums. She looks after Wyrmbreaker.

Waiting.

[eden] There's a problem, here. The creek they lapped at, stood in, crossed over --

gone.

[Christian del Piero] His father was a Galliard. Like Sinclair...and not like her at all. He tried to teach Christian not how to be an Ahroun but how to control himself. How to go into battle. How to think before he acts. How to do lots of things that Christian has just been ignoring lately. It's coming up on the anniversary of his death. Christian loses track of time easy but he's got a weird memory for dates. Like today was the 25th. Greg died a month ago. He didn't go out and do something stupid trying to absolve himself. If he still blames himself for what happened he didn't tell anyone that. He patrolled. And then he sat by Greg's grave for a spell. And now he's hunting.

Having another's memories in his head startles him. Christian shakes his head like he's trying to get water out of his ears...then he gets used to it. Pays attention. He doesn't just run head long toward the sound when it comes either. His alpha starts to. But Sinclair stops him. Christian's fur stands on end when they hear those sounds nearby. His lips pull back in a snarl he never actually makes. He sneaks forward a bit, but doesn't run ahead of his alpha. He looks around. Paranoid of being surrounded. That's when he notices the creek is gone.

His tail wags a few times. Then it stops. It lowers, along with his ears. He looks at his higher ranked packmates...suddenly uncertain.

[Wyrmbreaker] It was never really joy that spurred that sudden rush, but something much more like urgency. Urge. He wants answers. He wants to chase them down like prey.

When Sinclair barks a warning into his mind -- and certainly when the sounds of an altercation ring out ahead -- Wyrmbreaker halts. He stops so suddenly the ground sheafs beneath his feet. Pale eyes narrowed, the largest and darkest of the gathered lifts his head and scents that air. A moment's indecision, seen in the uplifted forepaw, the tail held at a low angle.

Then he starts forward again, slower this time, belly low to the ground, creeping. Everything around them feels different. Cleaner. Now would be a time to quote the wizard of oz. Wyrmbreaker resists the urge.

[Honor's Compass] The vanishing creek-bed does little to comfort Katherine.

She narrows pale eyes at it the place where it had just been accusingly, as if it were somehow the reasoning behind this entire scenario. The Silver Fang too lifts her nose to the air, scents it, shakes out her fur coat as if she'd just been for a swim in the water and then moves after the others; her posture changing, movements slowing into the crawling prowl of the wolf on the hunt.

Her tail low to the ground; ears flattened against her skull.

[eden] All of them wait for Lukas. Lukas, whose rank is shared by Katherine and Sinclair -- even if everybody knows he should have challenged months ago, should have earned Adren, should have at least started making moves in that direction -- but who leads the pack without Beta, without second. They look to him as they always do, and there's trust in that. There's faith, as well as submission.

The ground is dry. The soil is thick and loamy, and they can feel acres of root networks from grass, trees, bushes, all the plants around them. They are in a different set of woods than Tekakwitha. Still a temperate northwestern forest, but -- different. They can't smell the bonfire. They can't sense humans in the distance, at least not the civilized, camping sort. The moon is in the same phase but now the sky is cloudless.

And there is violence up ahead. Violence and joy.

Sinclair takes up her position in the rear again, following Lukas and Kate's examples. Low to the ground. She waits for her youngest brother to go on up ahead, and they follow Wyrmbreaker slowly towards

a place he knows from vision, if not memory. A place where images and sensations, feelings flew at him without interpretation, without explanation. Everything dies. Disharmony is inevitable. And where he thought: I brought that disharmony. Sank my teeth into the throat of an evenly matched opponent and brought crashing down the death, the disharmony, that was warned about.

The vision did not show him this.

The blood circle is not all that large. This is no gladiator's arena, ringed by bleachers. But there are wolves all around them in the fern and underbrush, circling this clearing. They don't stay still, but they stay out of the small open area. There are no markings on the trees or in the ground to designate this place; they don't even seem to notice the approach of Wyrmbreaker and his pack. In the clearing, though, two wolves are fighting. They fight in hispo, one gray and one more reddish, jaws snapping and claws swiping. Both are bloodied. They are fighting to the death.

[Christian del Piero] Katherine's ears and tail lowering doesn't exactly set him at ease. He doesn't stand there fretting though. They're moving. Lukas hunkers down. The subcliath doesn't hesitate. He also doesn't go as low as he can. Christian is still a young wolf. He eats a lot because he's active and has a high metabolism. But also because he's still growing. He isn't the same height he was a year ago...or 2...or 5. If he survives another year he won't be the same height then either. He's athletic and quick on his feet...but there are times when he has normal teenage awkwardness that comes from not knowing his own body. Like right now. All he really does is duck his head and keep his tail down and he thinks he's smaller.

When they get to the clearing he stops dead. Stares. Seems to forget Sinclair is right behind him.

[eden] Luckily for Christian, Sinclair isn't so distracted by the tension of where they are or even by her moon waxing that she runs smack into him. He stops short and she takes a step to the side, coming up beside him. The anxiety evident in her body language is changing as she views what's going on in the circle. Her body was tense, slightly lowered in submission as well as stealth, her tail lowered a bit, ears turned partially back, but now, the longer she watches the violence in front of them, she's changing. Her ears are up and alert, her body rigid. She's soundless, alert, her eyes wide open and staring, a surreally opaque blue that almost seems white in the starlight.

Sinclair's nostrils flare. She's scenting the air. Scenting the blood. Her mouth is closed, her voice silent. She doesn't even speak in their minds. Her tail is low, straight. She's lowering her body closer to the ground, ready to spring forward.

[Wyrmbreaker] They don't seem to notice him. The fighting wolves. The watching, pacing wolves. Wyrmbreaker wonders if this is a challenge for leadership. It could be that. This world feels so pure, so untouched. They might still go by those fabled old ways here, where the pack watches the challenge; where the challenge is always to the death, and the pack falls upon the vanquished as one.

It doesn't quite feel like that, though. The posture of those watching wolves is wrong. They don't have the look of gamma-wolves and omegas. They don't hold their heads the right way, or move the right way, or ... any of it.

Blood circle, he thinks into their minds. It's not entirely certain; the thought carries a hint of question, of uncertainty. Blood circle?

[eden] There's no answer from the Galliard in their midst. She's staring, ready to lunge, and the rise of her --

no, it's not rage. It's that other part of her, the part that makes even her parents scared of her, the part of her that she's convinced drives away every Kin and human she cares about, drove away the one she --

that predatory, savage part of Sinclair is stirring, waiting for opportunity, waiting for weakness. They all feel it to some extent, it's in the air in this place, but it doesn't threaten to overtake them. She doesn't answer Lukas. She can't, right now.

Many of them are in the shadows but they move around, and the Unbroken see more and more wolves surrounding this circle. Perhaps a dozen, maybe even more. If this is a single pack, it's enormous. If it's two packs or more come together... still large. Still strong. They are right there beside the Unbroken now, briefly sniffing at them but then focusing their attention forward again, barking to spur on the combatants.

The sense of rage is like a tang in the air, as coppery as the blood on the ground and under their claws. Their eyes are wild. They can start to see it; Christian, too: these wolves are frenzied. They will keep fighting til death comes, maybe even past that. The thing is, they're so well-matched it's hard to say who the victor will be. It isn't like so many of the battles they've been in: five seconds, ten, and it's over.

It isn't because they're particularly skilled or mindful, even. They're just tearing at each other again and again, ripping free chunks of fur and flesh on every pass.

Then, suddenly, the gray one leaps and bites down hard on the reddish one's foreleg, tears tendons out. The reddish one stumbles, and his opponent leaps on top of him, gnashing again and again and again on his throat. Blood soaks them both. The gray wolf doesn't eat him, doesn't start to devour him as a Thralled Garou would, but she doesn't stop biting at him, ripping what's left of him apart.

She starts to turn towards the other wolves, her maw opening in a huge roar of challenge.

Christian feels nipping at his heels. More than one wolf is urging him towards the circle. Go, go their excitedly wagging tails are saying. Go. Fight. Fight. Go. say their barking, whining cries.

[Honor's Compass] The smallish white wolf known as Honor's Compass is not happy. Not comfortable around the bloodhaze, the ripping, shredding, frenzied wolves. While her own Rage is nothing to scoff at, while she can feel it, prickling away beneath her fur and flesh, turning her stomach in knots; brightening her pale eyes til they shone an almost unfathomable blue --

she does not enjoyit.

There is something innately primitive in the manner these wolves pace the length of the circle, in the way they nip and bark and snarl in encouragement as the red wolf goes down beneath the onslaught of the gray. Her ears are pinned flat to her skull and there's a near-constant whine growl building in her throat.

When the wolves nip at her tribemate's heels, she snaps her teeth at them.
Defensively.
Protectively.

[Christian del Piero] He glances over when his sister comes up beside him. The youngest of them isn't shy about asking questions when he's confused or doesn't understand something...but a lot of times when he is confused or doesn't understand something you can see it on his face. Christian knows how to hide how he's feelings. It's just that most of the time he chooses not to. Right now he's curious but a little lost. It's not like when Lukas and he went to the Battleground Realm and he was excited until he realised what the place could do. This is weird. It doesn't smell like the woods he's used to.

He keeps staring when he realises he's looking at a pair of wolves in frenzy. It's horrifying to watch. Maybe he's thinking about all the times he's done this. How he blacks out and turns into a rabid monster who's had to be put down more than once. When the victor, as it were, roars at the others the subcliath's Rage flares up to meet it. Then he feels nipping at his heels.

It's like a horror movie moment. It takes him a second to register that it's not Sinclair nipping at him. She's standing right next to him. When it does register he whips around like he's going to attack whatever's behind him. They're trying to get him to fight. The Full Moon starts to snarl, to snap his jaws to get them to back off...then he looks dubious. This is the kid who has no problem pushing and punching a bigger, older wolf for talking to his girlfriend. Clearly he likes fighting. But he's not -stupid-.

[Wyrmbreaker] They're pressing at Christian now. Pushing him forward. Urging him to fight. They can feel Wyrmbreaker's mind connected to theirs -- he's not hiding his thoughts from them. They can feel the questioning, the subconscious not-quite-words: why? why? why him?

It's not the hysteria of one being frightened for the life of another, a brother. The protective instinct Honor's Compass is so quick to bare teeth and show is there in him, too, abiding and deep -- but this is his mind at work, trying to puzzle out answers. They're new here. The wolves do not seem to register that, or else do not care. There are four of them, but Christian is the one the press. They want him to fight. His rage brims so close to the surface already, even if he's learned some control, and they want him to fight.

Watch and see. This time these are actual words, crafted thoughts. See who goes next if Christian doesn't.

[eden] There's no time. There's not even any thought. Sinclair isn't answering her packmates, though they can still feel her presence. She hasn't gone mad, gotten possessed, but that primitive sense all around them is saturating her, consuming her. She's as much a wolf as her shape suggests, nevermind the metal in her ears, nevermind what they know her to truly be.

Really fucking good at MarioKart, for one.

Right now you'd never know, in the shadows and dark, that she isn't one of them. One of the wolves surrounding them, nipping at Christian to get him to jump into the fray against a frenzied werewolf. But there's no time, as he's snapping his jaws to get them off, as Katherine is snarling, as Sinclair is drifting, for anything else.

The frenzied gray, deprived of something to fight, lunges into the trees

and is met in midair by four wolves, moving in such beautiful concert it's undeniable that they are somehow bound together. And then, suddenly, it's like the fights the Unbroken have against their own enemies.

It's over in seconds.

They withdraw, leaving the body of the gray where she fell. She reverts to a lithe human form, bloody and torn apart. Either her rage could not bring her back or she has already died once and returned tonight. She was darkhaired, her skin tan from a great deal of sunlight and from the fading summer. She's wearing brightly colored but roughly made robes --

Lukas saw robes like that once, and all his packmates recognize them because he shared that memory.

The wolves pull themselves out of the circle again. They leave behind a homid female and a metis male, and then begin to come to the Unbroken. They're sniffing. They're curious. They're watching Christian with bright, alert eyes. They are unafraid.

"Smell like blight," says one, chuffing the words out. The word is hard to translate. It has no connotations of Wyrm taint. It does not quite mean 'scab'. Something else.

"Little one should have been in circle." says another, accusingly, as though they are all at fault for Christian holding back.

[Wyrmbreaker] There are too many of the others to fight. They're hopelessly outnumbered. These are all awarenesses in Wyrmbreaker's mind; things he keeps track of so quickly, so smoothly, that it's all but subconscious now. He stands at the forefront of his little cadre. He keeps his back to his packmates, his posture asserting dominance, asserting protection. Saying without words: look at me. i'm the leader here. focus on me, not on them. leave them be.

"Only way out of circle is death," he responds. It's a statement, though the pack knows very well he isn't sure. He's testing for response.

Meanwhile, mentally: Look around. Try to find some sign of where or when we are. Look at the stars, look at the trees. Do you recognize them? Look to see how we got here.

[Honor's Compass] "Why fight to death? Where is reason? Where is point?" The Philodox whuffs out, making her auspice as clear as the wet nose that lowers and scents at one of the wolves doing the same to her in return. She moves out from behind Lukas, her movements cautious; respectful as she scouts around the area.

Sniffing.
Staring.

her breeding is as clear as the air around them, breathed into their lungs. No other tribe had such purely white pelts.

[eden] For her part, Sinclair can't really help Lukas figure out what he's puzzling over. She inspects the other wolves as they come near. There is much sniffing, back and forth, as they introduce themselves to one another. Yet there's this, too: they sense in her all the strength she possesses, and they back down a little without her growling at them. They test her a little, nudge past her. She growls and snaps; they retreat, sniff at the others instead.

She has no words left. They've all gone. Been forgotten. Are unnecessary.

"Wise sister," comments one of the wolves, and it doesn't sound like the sense they know of wisdom, the wisdom they are lauded for, the wisdom Sinclair is becoming renowned for. Wise almost sounds like... separate. Different. Close to something else, but not close to them. It is not a negative statement. It is not really positive, either.

There's a chorus of half-snarled agreement to what Lukas says. Only way out of circle is death. Yes, yes. Obviously. So why little brother not in circle?

Then Kate speaks up. She sniffs at their air, at their tradition, she and Christian the only pure white wolves in the gathering.

As Lukas is the only pure black one.

"Balance," comes her answer. "They out of harmony. Little one is out of harmony. Will only get worse."

[Christian del Piero] The wolves that fly out of the woods are unafraid. Christian tries to act unafraid too. He holds his head up high and puffs out his chest and stares back at them. It's not a challenge, really. Just posturing from someone who's not very good at being submissive. He rankles when mentions "blight," says he should have been in the circle. -That- seems like a challenge. He doesn't bark or growl...just lets his alpha and sister handle it.

Until that last answer. He tries not to make any noise. Like he knows reacting is going to be proof that he is out of harmony. But he can't really help it. His eyes flash and he bares his teeth. He's silent, though. They don't even hear him over the totem phone. Still. They know him well enough to know that he thinks attacking people - even if they're twice his size - is a good way to shut them up when he doesn't like what they're saying.

[Wyrmbreaker] "Because he is angry." Again, the statement-that-is-a-question. Christian bristles at his pack. Wyrmbreaker's hackles come up too; he shakes out his fur to make himself calm, or at least hide his aggression in his briefly ruffled fur.

[eden] "You, too," comes the retort, quickly, right back at Lukas's face. "Rage is not disharmony."

One of them has come forward as speaker, if not leader. Nothing special. A lean, small gray wolf with streaks of black down his face. He tosses his muzzle in Kate's direction. "Her, too. Will crushes spirit. Not so bad yet."

He stops, looking at Katherine, then chuffs. "Listen to her, though. Will get worse, too. Will too strong, crushes everything else. Out of balance. She die in circle one day, too."

This doesn't seem aggressive, strangely. So he's talking about all of them ending up fighting to the death in the blood circle. No big deal. Moves along smoothly to what else is on his mind, his curiosity echoed in the perking ears of the others as they hear him asking: "All smell of blight. Cleared ground. Fire. Humans. Why smell of blight?"

[Honor's Compass] Honor's Compass, a wolf that the spirits herald as being quite honorable, quite wise, does not take outright offense at being told she's too full of willfulness, of intellect versus the primal instinct of the hunter. Of the Garou. Rather she cocks her head to one side and lets out a little huff of breath.

It sounds almost amused.
Almost, but not quite.

"Circle may be end for those who cannot control balance in selves. But not end for us, not how we find our harmony. We find ours in other ways." She does not end that with better ways, for how can she be so certain that they are? These primal wolves solved what they perceived as imbalance the way they likely did most things.

Physically.
Bloodily.
Finally.

[Wyrmbreaker] There's a moment's silence from Wyrmbreaker -- a distinct sense of thought, of consideration. Then he whuffs, "We smell of blight because we do not come from your world. We come from other-world, like this but blighted. Many humans.

"One of yours visited us four moon-cycles ago. Female, born of two Garou. Do you know her?"

[eden] There's a communal bristling through the group as Katherine starts talking about how they find their harmony. It grows like a wave moving outward, a ripple of reaction that seems to come back in like a tide when Lukas explains that they come from Somewhere Else.

The black-masked wolf before them glances around at the others. He looks at Christian for a moment, inscrutable. Turns back to them. "Humans killed. Many, many of them. They grow. We cleanse soon. First we cleanse selves."

They are beginning to withdraw. As though they move with one mind, as soon as the black-marked leader starts to turn away, the others begin to drift off, as well. He looks at Kate, though. "Harmony is harmony. If disharmony gets worse, not better: the circle is the only way. Not all go to the blood circle to die. You two -- already so imbalanced. And so young. How will you find your way to balance, if you have not already?

"Your scents mark you -- all of you except for the other sister. Your dams and sires -- not part of the great pack. No wonder you do not understand harmony."

He nods his head off into the woods. "Go. See the blight here, or in your world. Look at little brother's scars, your own coats and how they mark you as separate, outside the great pack. You are out of harmony. That is death, itself. Circle at least gives peace."

There are only a half dozen or so wolves left now, sniffing at Sinclair, scratching their claws on trees, waiting for the one that speaks to come with them.

[Wyrmbreaker] They are departing like the tide, and like the tide, Lukas suspects there's no way to reverse the ebb. He bounds forward a step, following, to bark one more question: "What spirits does the great pack follow?"

[Honor's Compass] When the black-masked wolf speaks of killing humans, it takes a considerable amount of effort on the Silver Fang's behalf not to launch herself at him, not to snarl, or spit horrific accusations at him in a bid to mask the sudden flux of shame she feels about her own tribe's method of handling the humans that they now walked among.

Fought beside.
Protected and shielded.

He looks at Kate, and she straightens, stares back at him with mingled anger and pride.
Perhaps that only makes what he says seem truer, somehow. That she does not understand harmony, this wolf who stares at him as if he does not know what he speaks about. As if she knew better than him.

Pride did go before the fall, after all.

Honor's Compass watches them retreat, fade into the woods. When Lukas bounds forward she watches intently, but she does not speak to the black leader wolf. Perhaps she has nothing to say.

[Christian del Piero] If someone he trusted told him that he was just going to get worse it would hurt. If any of his packmates told him he'd be better off letting some feral wolf tear him to pieces he wouldn't know what to do. They tell him he has potential though. They give him advice and stand by him while he tries to figure out what to do to be a better Garou. Hearing that he's out of harmony and is just going to get worse from a bunch of wolves he's never met before - who don't know him - just pisses him off. It doesn't wound any more than anything else that pisses him off. And his alpha and sisters don't say "Yes you're right here take him."

Christian doesn't calm down exactly but he doesn't launch himself at his accusers either. He stands and watches. He deflates too. Stops trying to appear bigger and tougher than he is. He doesn't pace or paw the dirt. He stares at them until they start to go...and when Lukas asks his question his ears prick up again. He's curious. Still angry...but curious.

[eden] Only the one wolf turns back, as the others slip into shadow, seem to become shadow. He is alone now, against four strong wolves who would fight together against him, but he is unafraid. He seems so calm, just as the wolves who leapt onto the gray and killed her seemed calm. Perhaps the word for that is balance. Maybe he's balanced.

"Mother, and all her children," he says after a moment of consideration, before he turns and leaves.

Sinclair starts rolling in a pile of slightly damp earth, tongue lolling out. She rolls to her feet again and nudges Christian, leaving a streak of mud on his white fur. We no fight, but we find meat, she says happily to him, as this is pretty much the only comfort she has to offer. Meat meat meat meat meat meat meat

and off she goes, as though now that all that business is done it's time to get back to what they were doing. She's hungry, after all, and these woods are thick and filled with prey.


They don't find prey, though. Walking through the trees, perhaps discussing what they just experienced or wondering how they're going to get out of here, the first thing the Unbroken find is a hillside. The trees grow sparse. They look down on

cleared land. They see huts, built into hillocks, carved out of sod. They see a thin trickle of smoke from a fire. Strange, that they would be brave enough to build their homes so close to woods inhabited by Garou. By monsters. But these humans are many: there are several houses, and they can hear the squalling of more than a few infants waking in the night. They are becoming bold: they killed a Garou. They don't need visions to know the truth of what the black-striped wolf in the woods said. Soon, these humans will be cleansed. Purged.

Sinclair, whose tribe was once called the Warders of Men, looks down on the village, and says nothing.


In the end it makes little difference if they go forward, or back into the woods, or try to circle around. The ground underfoot starts to become muddier, more familiar. The trees are not so tall. The air is colder, and the sky is cloudier. In the distance, they can smell the remains of the bonfire.

They can smell humans, camping in the single, small pocket of woodland that they have to run through when the urge to hunt strikes them.

[Wyrmbreaker] There are so many questions that Lukas just lets the little ones slide. Like: why do they all feel so much more feral? Why is Sinclair rolling in the mud?

They move, though, after the wolves are gone. Wyrmbreaker stays behind just long enough to sniff at the blood-circle, to confirm what he already knows: many, many, many, many Garou have died here. Killed by their own. Willingly, it seems, and without great turmoil or strife. Just like hitting a reset button, he thinks. As though the Great War wasn't breathing down their necks. As though another generation, another lifetime, was no big deal to wait for.

They lope through the trees, four in a loose file. Their paws pass over rich, loamy earth. Trees so thick around that their arms will not stretch all the way around even in Crinos. They ascend a hill; they look down on the burgeoning human village. So primitive. Barely out of nomadic hunter-gatherer age.

The stars tell the tale, though. The stars and the moon: they match the ones over Chicago, tonight, September of 2010. The date is the same. The world is entirely different.


And then -- with no more warning than when they slipped into that other-world -- they're out again. The air smells stale and flat and familiar. They can hear human revelers in the woods. Campers with their composite-material tents and their hydrocarbon lighters, their 40-degree summer sleeping bags, their cars. Wyrmbreaker slows his pace to a walk.

He speaks into their minds: I don't know if that was an umbral realm, or a different timeline, or ... what. But the Garou I met in the spring was from that world. It seems like their entire world is 'in balance'. The Wyrm isn't out of control. The Garou are sent to the blood circle -- to die -- if they drift out of balance. Not just rage, but will and gnosis as well.

The Garou I met spoke of a purging too. I think she meant a culling. Like the Impergium. Maybe that's why their humans are so primitive: they've never allowed them to grow out of control.

[Wyrmbreaker] [nix the line about many garou dying there!]

[Wyrmbreaker] [let's just make it "Wyrmbreaker stays behind just long enough to sniff at the blood-circle, where Garou were killed by their own. Willingly..."]

[Wyrmbreaker] I don't know how we got there, he goes on, or even if that world is 'real' as we understand it. But I think if we're brought back there again, we'll have to make a choice: to support their cull and keep their balance, or to oppose it.

Nothing more than that. No indication of what he feels the right choice to be. He picks up the pace until they're trotting again, rangy legs covering ground.

bearing witness.

[Wyrmbreaker] It's just past dusk when Wyrmbreaker and the yet-deedname-less Cliath meet in the Caern. Red still stains the western sky, each sunset one step closer to a fast-approaching winter. Even in summer, Chicago is frequently stormwrought, but as the days cool the nature of those storms change. The winter coming off the lake is stiff now, and distinctly cooler than it has been the last few months.

Wyrmbreaker does not look dressed for a long journey. He's in sturdy clothes, perhaps a cut more utilitarian than his usual subtly fine gear: thick, durable jeans, a comfortable long-sleeve cotton tee, no logo, no name. His bag of talens is at his hip. Other than that, no visible provisions or preparations.

"Ready?" he asks when Christian joins him, and when the Fang indicates he is, the Lord lays his hand on the other's shoulder and finds his reflection in a small mirror he pulls from his pocket.


Lukas's spirit is startlingly strong for an Ahroun. He's a well-rounded beast, strong in mind and body and spirit: one supposes a Shadow Lord who's made it as far as he has wouldn't be anything but. The crossing is breathtakingly quick; the otherside bathed in the uncertain light of a sickle moon.

Storm clouds rumble in the sky. Their patron, never far.

"It's a bit of a run," Lukas says. "Sometimes farther, sometimes closer. It helps if you try to think of battle. Let's go."

The Ahroun drops forward, as though he'd tripped; as though he has no intention of keeping his balance. Before his hands hit the ground, they're paws. He lopes forward, a steady, ground-eating pace, a fast smooth trot that seems to lead northward.

[Christian del Piero] The subcliath Ahroun comes to the Caern when his alpha said he'd meet him. Like usual he's wearing clothes that were meant to get dirty. Work boots and jeans - both dedicated - and a t-shirt that will probably shred at some point. He goes through t-shirts like bath tissue. The chill in the air doesn't seem to bother him. His Rage is heavy even though the moon is thin. He'd said it's like his skin is on fire all the time. You can see it in his eyes when he's like this. Christian looks uncertain when asked if he's ready. He's never gone to an actual realm before. Just the Penumbra. But he stands up straight and nods that he is. Then they shoot across the Gauntlet. It stuns him for a few seconds. Like he's just been thrown into a cold lake. Christian takes a deep breath and blinks. His alpha's voice comes to him. They're going to run. It helps if they think of battle. That's all he ever seems to think about. Christian says "Okay." A moment later he too shifts into a form made for travel. He lacks self control but he's an athlete's build and stamina. It isn't hard to keep up with the larger wolf.

[Wyrmbreaker] So they run.

Northward, first. They run out from the center of the caern, passing the ghostly images of those rusting hulks they've grown to know so well. Past other things, too, echoes of a bygone age. A collapsing hangar realmside is still in good repair here. They can hear the distant sound of saws and pneumatic drills, machinery, industry. Here and there, a spray of sparks fly in memory of some long-gone welding station. And even farther back, even longer ago: the memories of the prairies this city is built on. The plains and the fields of the north american continent.

They pass all that. They pass the borders of the caern, and all at once the world is a colder, deader place, the ground dull beneath the dim moonlight, flashing away beneath their strong paws.

For the first few minutes -- or perhaps it's hours -- Wyrmbreaker says very little. He runs, sometimes slowing to put his nose to the ground; sometimes dashing straight ahead as though he knows where he's going. Once or twice he stops altogether and looks around. He's no Theurge. He has no intuition for these things. Travel in the Umbra for him is a learned thing, and like a musician with no talent but much dedication, he's gotten passably good at it. He'll never, ever be as good as even the lowliest Theurge.

Eventually Christian realizes he doesn't recognize the landscape around them anymore. Somehow the lake has fallen away from their right. The flatness to their left has wrinkled up into foothills. The ground beneath their feet begins to slope, then, and they're climbing a mountain. There's no mountain in Chicagoland. Not like this, anyway: soaring, jagged, like a section of the Rockies transplanted.

Running is more of a labor now. Wyrmbreaker presses doggedly on, his pace slowing a notch, his tongue lolling as he falls back to run shoulder-to-shoulder with his packmate.

"Looks like Luna wants us to take the long road tonight. Ever been this far in the Umbra before?"

[Christian del Piero] He misses a lot lately. It's like when he first changed. When he was young and alone and frightened. He's not frightened or alone anymore. He's still young though. And there are days when he can't hear anything but his blood roaring in his ears. It means he misses things like music or other people talking. When his vision is red he doesn't pay attention to what's right in front of him. It gets easier when he's doing something demanding. Like playing sports or tearing up concrete. That's when he notices what colour the leaves are or whether it's cold out. After a while Christian starts to look around as they run. And he's struck by what he sees. A few times he trails behind Lukas...not because he's getting tired but because he's staring at something. Then he has to race to catch up.

When Lukas falls back he can see wariness in Christian's eyes. He's not afraid. But it answers Lukas' question before he even asks it. The Fang digs in his claws and starts the hard climb up the mountain.

"Never."

[Wyrmbreaker] "I remember my first time in the True Umbra. My mentor was a Philodox, so of course he didn't take me to the Battleground Realm first. We went to the Shadow Lord homelands to learn the true laws of the tribe. We must have run for weeks. Moonpath after moonpath, so far away that I started feeling like my life on earth was the dream and this was the reality. I don't think I've ever felt more out of place than I did on that journey."

Even this slower pace is strenuous, the way they're climbing now. Wyrmbreaker pants between words, unashamed. It's a natural reaction. Not a weakness but a sign of strength: indication of his body's ability to adapt, adjust, ramp itself up in response to stress. The stones beneath their paws are hard and dry, but not cold. There's no snow on this mountain.

"It gets easier, though. We're Ahroun, so this sort of thing doesn't come easily to us. Some Ahrouns think it means we're not meant for the Umbra at all, but that's not true. We're half-spirit just like any other Garou. We belong here as much as any Theurge, and we need it just as much. Because there are wonders out here, Christian. Things that we can't see in the Realm, that remind us of why we're even fighting this endless war.

"I've met Garou who have walked on the face of the sun itself. Met him in his shining citadel. I've met Garou who have faced the spirit of their own weakness, doubt or fear in the Deep Umbra and conquered it. You go out far enough and almost anything becomes possible.[/i]"

The black werewolf's tongue lolls as he laughs, "But we'll just start with the Battleground Realm today."

[Christian del Piero] He keeps quiet a lot of the time. It isn't because he doesn't have anything to say...or that he doesn't trust his packmates. He's the youngest person in the pack. He's the lowest ranked. He didn't even make it to high school. His wardrobe is an affront to Falcon. Katherine has to nag him to clip his finger nails or trim his hair...if she doesn't do it herself. There are a lot of things that makes him feel separate. He's opened up to Lukas and Katherine and Sinclair before. About different things. Mostly he just listens. Like right now.

Still. If he's going to be in a pack he can't just listen all the time. He does that now too...but when Lukas is done talking he's quiet. Thoughtful. Trying to put his thoughts together. He too breathes heavy. "My father told me stories about the Umbra. Took me a few times after my Rite of Passage...but we never went far. He was always busy."

[Wyrmbreaker] [oh look, i totally forgot an italics in the last post *LOL*] The pale-eyed wolf's head swings toward his packmate, ears up, curious. "Tell me about your father," he says simply.

The path grows ever steeper. The cloud layer is far above; nevertheless, they can hear the rumbling of distant thunder at the mountain's peak, as though a storm of epic proportions awaits them there. Wyrmbreaker's pace doesn't flag, though. He leads them upward. After what, what did they have to fear from a storm? They are the storm.

[Christian del Piero] This question doesn't get asked a lot. Probably because he doesn't mention his father a lot. When he does all the Silver Fang Galliards are keen to hear more about him. But they know more than Christian does. He looks over their heads for a second. His Rage doesn't show itself as much in this form. It's there in his eyes...but it belongs there. It's part of him. He couldn't shift before he knew his Rage. Now it doesn't fit the body he was born with.

"His name was Endless Strike, Voice of the Dead. He was the Grand Elder of the Sept of the Painted Sky outside of LA. Met my mother in Arkansas when they were both young but didn't stay. Said he was really young and stupid back then. After my First Change he found me. Said there were stories all over about me. I kept running away any time someone from the tribe would find me and try to take me in. I didn't run away from him though. He took me back to the Sept and helped me for a while." He pauses. "He was murdered last autumn."

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas might ask, is that why you're angry all the time? -- except he knows things like anger, like rage, can't be neatly pinned down to one single cause. Except he heard Christian when he said he ran away all the time, even before his father died. Even before he knew he had a father at all.

There's a quiet, interrupted only by their steady panting, the sound of their claws scrabbling over stone, over loose rock. "I'm sorry. My parents are kin. I've always thought I was lucky in that regard. My mate's mother was a mighty Ahroun of my Tribe. She died when Dani&+269;ka was a teenager. I can't imagine what that's like. For her or for you.

"I saw your father once," Wyrmbreaker adds. He doesn't say met; that wouldn't be true. "When my sister moved out to L.A. for law school, I went to the Sept of the Painted Sky to present her to the Shadow Lord elder there. And to demonstrate that she was cared for and that I would hold anyone who hurt her accountable, I suppose." He's laughing at himself now. "Because of course anyone would fear a Cliath barely past his Rite of Passage.

"I didn't meet him though. I just glimpsed him from afar. He looked like an honorable wolf."

A few more paces, and then there's a shoulder of rock that Wyrmbreaker clambers onto. They're closer to the summit now, and the rumble of thunder is louder. The larger wolf sits there on the ledge a moment, his body language indicating a break.

"Why did you run from your tribe before your father came for you?"

[Christian del Piero] Saying what happened doesn't hurt. He doesn't really think about his father when he just recites. He doesn't say things like "He taught me how to play chess even though sometimes I'd get mad and flip the table over" or "He taught me how to drive when I got old enough". He doesn't tell Lukas that his father was respected and hated just about equally. That he looked up to him once he got over being angry at him. Still...when Lukas says he looked honourable that does hurt. Because he stops and thinks about it. The answer Lukas gets is thought...not spoken. He was.

Then they're resting. Christian doesn't sit though. He gets his breath back quickly...but he keeps pacing. Then Lukas is asking more questions. His eyes flash. He looks away once. Then back. "Didn't do it on purpose. Things happen...I get upset...I black out. Wake up a long way away from where I started. Most of the time I don't go back."

[Wyrmbreaker] Wyrmbreaker tilts his head as his eyes -- so pale a blue they're the colorless brilliance of stars and ice in this form -- study Christian another moment. Then his tongue laps out, flashes across his black muzzle.

They are both such paragons of their tribe in this form. One black as pitch, heavy through the shoulders and chest, not so much as a dash of grey or white or red or brown on him. The other smaller, sleeker, pure white like his father before him.

"Fair enough," Wyrmbreaker says, and then turns his muzzle summit-ward. "Do you hear that? We're close." His head swings back. "That's not thunder, but battle. All the battles ever fought." There's an undeniable edge of anticipation in his tone; the excitement of blood and carnage. "It can be overwhelming at first. Stay close to me and keep to the paths. If we get separated, look to the signposts -- they'll point you out. Or you can just let yourself die. That'll throw you right out of the realm."

He stands again. This is a bark, short and -- yes, joyous: "Come on! Race you to the top!"

[Christian del Piero] His ears perk at the sounds of battle. Lukas' anticipation makes Christian stop pacing and move to stand beside him. Like he's getting ready to charge to the summit. He listens. Or tries to. Hearing that it can be overwhelming isn't the same as knowing that it will be. He nods his understanding. Looks displeased at the idea of letting himself die to get home. Which is probably surprising seeing as he has quite the collection of death scars on his body.

Lukas challenges him to race. And Christian - who looks older than 18 some days - actually grins. Wags his tail. Yips the Garou equivalent of "You're on!" A second later he's in a dead sprint.

[Wyrmbreaker] And they're off, the two wolves sprinting for the summit, large paws scattering pebbles, straining for every stride. For a while they're shoulder to shoulder, and then Wyrmbreaker missteps and skids down a few yards with a yelp, but it's not pain, only surprise, and a moment later he's laughing and letting out a high bark, scrabbling upward again.

It's Christian that crests the ridge first. It's like no summit he's ever seen before. All at once the world shifts around him -- an endless plain under a sky the color of iron. Look behind him, and the cliff that should be there is gone. There's only more flatland behind him. Here and there fires rage, smoke sifting up toward the skies, the clouds lit from below in orange and red.

The barrier of the mountainside is gone. Noise washes over him. Every boom of what sounded like thunder turns out to be artillery: from the primitive rumble of cavemen rolling rocks down slopes to the postmodern deep concusses of nuclear detonations. Below that, he can hear the rest now -- the screaming of horses and men, the clashing of weaponry, the howling of werewolves, the rattling of tanks over rubble, the roaring of bear-men, lion-men, dragons, beasts that have no name.

The landscape is populated, but his eyes can't seem to focus. Then he realizes it's not his eyes after all. It's the scene before him, shifting second by second. Look once and he sees Romans in Gaul, tight regiments against screaming barbarians. Look again and the same spot is occupied now by half-grown wolf pups razzling each other, play that somehow turned serious, that became a burgeoning struggle of dominance. Look again and those wolves are back, older now. Brothers and bitter rivals, they die on each other's klaives.

There's no sense of taint, though. There's chaos, there's warfare, there's noise and violence, but even the Wyrm creatures here don't feel dark. It doesn't feel as though any given battle must be won or lost, or some terrible outcome would occur. It simply feels ...

like battle. The very essence thereof. The pounding blood, the sounds, the smells, the jarring impact of combatant to combatant.

Wyrmbreaker is beside him then. He's in Hispo now. There's a path beneath their feet, hardpacked earth trod by who knows how many pairs of feet. He bumps shoulders with Christian encouragingly, then leads the way forward.

[Christian del Piero] He wants to remember this. So when Christian flies ahead of his alpha and emerges at the top of the mountain...he keeps his eyes open. There's too much to take in all at once. He tries. His eyes move quickly. His muscles ache to join in. Unlike when he encounters a Wyrmling there is no sharp stink of decay driving him to frenzy. A few times he looks back to see where Lukas is. His tail is wagging. Come on come on come on it seems to say. But his excitement is coloured with nervousness. He doesn't know what to expect. Christian was distracted. He hasn't shifted from lupus when Lukas bumps him. The huge Shadow Lord nearly knocks the Fang over. He recovers fast...shifting to his larger form as he trots after his alpha.

[Wyrmbreaker] This might be the first time Lukas has actually seen Christian excited, or happy. It's unexpected. It's infectious, and after a few paces Wyrmbreaker starts running again -- heavier in this form and slower, bounding along at a loose canter.

They pass the Siege of Jerusalem, Balian commanding from the walls. They pass the Battle of Britain, the people going to ground, their animal instincts resurfacing, primitive and ancient and so very useful. They pass a challenge circle in some wintry Sept somewhere, and Wyrmbreaker whuffs for Christian's attention, and when he looks he sees

a younger Wyrmbreaker, very young, maybe as young as Christian is now, grim and resolute and full of his own determined stoicism, standing alongside three other Shadow Lord pups.

"My Rite of Passage," Wyrmbreaker chuffs. "Don't worry. Totally uninteresting," and they're past it.

They come to a signpost. A stake driven into the earth, as high as the sky. It's moving, constantly shuffling, the signs rustling and flapping like so many wings. Every time they rearrange there's an instant when the carvings make no sense, and then they resolve. English, or Garou glyphs -- it depends on which is more familiar to Christian, closer to his spirit. Great battles, famous or infamous, seem to recur again and again; their signs are easier to find. Others, obscure, minor, take effort.

Wyrmbreaker sits before the signpost, eyes flickering to keep up.

"Any of them look interesting to you?"

[Christian del Piero] Lukas says his Rite of Passage is uninteresting. The way Christian stares at it a few seconds longer than his alpha does says otherwise. It's like he wants to know if Lukas was like he was. If he was wild and half insane or if he was brave and strong. If they have anything in common besides their moon. If they do he doesn't see it in the few seconds he watches the Shadow Lords. He looks away. They continue on.

When they reach the sign post Christian focuses. There are too many options. And there's a question in his heart. There's a doubt. It's going to be hard to find. It didn't happen long ago...but he has no memory of it. And the only other person who was there won't talk about it. He's quiet for a long time. Then he asks "Can we watch what happened the last time I raged back? In the park?"

[Wyrmbreaker] At that, Wyrmbreaker grows quiet. His grin fades; his mouth closes. He turns from the rippling, shuffling signpost and faces Christian.

"The truth is," he says, "I brought you here because I wanted to eventually show you what happened that night, if and when you felt ready. I'll tell you now, Christian: it won't be easy to watch. And ... it might make you lose time again.

"But if you want to watch, I'll go with you. And if you black out and wake up somewhere new, this pack will come find you."

[Christian del Piero] The Fang got less excited when the nature of this place sank in. Any battle...even a Rite of Passage that you think doesn't matter...it's got to matter if it's still here playing out. So what happened to Greg has to be out here somewhere. And he knows himself. He knows that what happened was so bad he blacked out. But no one can tell him what exactly happened. It's pretty selfish. There are millions of other battles he could be watching.

But Lukas says that's why he brought him here. Christian looks over at him. Sharp. His nostrils flare. There is little human in his eyes even when he -looks- human. But there's no suspicion or wariness in them. Not directed at Lukas anyway. He looks at his alpha for several seconds. Like he's about to change his mind. But then he woofs. "I need to see."

[Wyrmbreaker] "Okay."

With that, Wyrmbreaker turns back to the signpost. For a long time he sits there, staring at the signs, focusing. Thinking. Trying to bring to mind the battle he wants, the one Christian wants --

no, needs to see.

"It's like coming here," he whuffs softly, almost absently. "When you find a signpost, you put your mind to what you mind. You think about it as hard as you can, and then..."

The signs flashing and whirling about the post begin to take on a certain pattern. Over and over, Christian del Piero appears on it. Or perhaps simply a string of glyphs that seems to represent him: glyphs like youth and rage and uncertainty and strength and guilt and fear. Most of the battles there make no sense to Wyrmbreaker. Christian would recognize them, though. His own Rite of Passage. The night his father died. And a dozen others, a hundred others, minor scuffles that he's almost forgotten, deadly combat that nearly took his life.

All of a sudden the black direwolf rears up on his hind legs. He slams his forepaws onto one of the signs whirling its way down the post -- pins it with both paws, joints stiff, the way a wolf might pin a wounded bird or an insect or a rodent.

The signpost points west. It reads:

Christian del Piero
Thirty Second Silence
v.
Skull Pigs

[Christian del Piero] He's not sure about this. He's not sure about a lot of things. The night they met Lukas got in his face...asked him if he was always so confused. It had pissed him off. But there was part of him that seemed to know what he was trying to do. Just like there's part of him that knows something happened that day. People have told him what happened. It's not the same as seeing it. And he's smart enough that he knows he can't accept it until he sees it. Just being told something...that's not how he learns. He isn't fluent in the Garou glyph language. All he sees is English. It keeps him from knowing what the universe thinks of him.

After a while Lukas pins down the location. Christian's ears flick. He tries to stop the low whine before it leaves his throat. He can't. Once he makes it he seems to get his fear out of his system. Or else just ignores it. He raises his head and starts off through the roaring realm. Sticks close to Lukas. It's easy to get distracted here.

[Wyrmbreaker] Kindness is not something often attributed to Shadow Lords. But there is a certain kindness in Wyrmbreaker, and it was kindness that he wanted to bring Christian here; to show him a place where he could release his rage without endangering himself pointlessly. A place where he could train. A place where an Ahroun could have fun, and steep himself in the glory and chaos and noise of battle.

It's not all glory and chaos and noise, though. Coming in, they saw brothers killing each other. They saw nuclear bombs dropping on Hiroshima. That's war, too.

And Lukas is not all kindness. He is a Shadow Lord in the end. He can be stern. He can be unrelenting. He can be utterly ruthless, and maybe they'll pass that battle, which wasn't even really a battle, where he held a Silver Fang kinsman's head underwater for daring to sully himself with drug addiction, for daring to try to bring that into Katherine's bed. Maybe they'll pass that other not-battle where Lukas, who Christian seems to think is all honor and nobility and the High Road, clamped his hand over his own kinsman's mouth and nose, choked off his air, asphyxiated him until he was nearly dead. For daring to spread slander. For daring to insinuate that Wyrmbreaker had killed his way to the top.

Or maybe they'll pass that battle between Wyrmbreaker and Christian's own tribesman. Dirge of the Covenant; shining-blooded Galliard. That one had lied, too. That one had spread slander, too. That one is stone cold and six feet under now.

A Philodox would argue there was just cause, each time. But that does not change that every time, retribution was swift and utterly brutal.


So: there's no hesitation in him now. The action is committed, and he'll see it through. Wyrmbreaker paces firmly in the direction the signpost indicated, and he stays to the path now. Doesn't look left, doesn't look right. Doesn't look at all the war raging around him, the mortar shells exploding inches away, the arrows flying, the blood splattering. Somehow none of that affects them. None of it, even when it seems impossible that they should avoid it, ever touches them.

Ahead, now, the chaos is thinning. The noise is falling away little by little. The skies are darkening, and the hardpacked dirt path beneath their feet is changing to grass and concrete: a winding path through greenery. Grant Park on the night of August 25th, 2010: mimicked so perfectly that Christian might think he's gone back in time.

Then he sees himself. And Gregory. Or emanations, gathered spirit energies that have assumed their forms.

Evenin', stranger, the Gregory-shade says to the Christian-shade.

Beside the real Christian, Wyrmbreaker sits on his haunches. "If you've come only to see what happened," the Shadow Lord tells him, "then you must only watch. If you act, the emanations that echo your battle will react to you. And then you will change the course of things."

[Christian del Piero] The wonder is gone from his eyes. He isn't looking around like this realm is just one big fight waiting to happen. It's like he's going to his execution. Or he knows what he's going to find once they get to the 25th of August. He doesn't shake or whine again. Christian keeps his head up.

Once they get there he stands beside Lukas. Even when he sits. He listens. And he nods. He understands. He's been able to control himself before. And other times he hasn't. The Fang shifts to his birth form. Like that will make him think before he throws himself at whatever hurts Greg...whether it's himself or a BSD or whatever else the Wyrm throws at him. Lukas in hispo is bigger than Christian in homid. His shirt is gone. He's not sweaty even though they ran all that time. His eyes flash. All the tension that was hidden by fur is visible now. Christian grits his teeth. He's breathing heavy. He rubs his chest - the spot where his first battle scar is - like his shade did seconds ago. He remembers this conversation. He doesn't remember why he let the Wyrm in. He gulps as he tries to swallow the lump out of his throat. Something rustles in the bushes. The shades of the Fang and the Gnawer both miss it. Greg-shade says "Yeah, I'm alright" and Christian squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn't open them again until he hears his shade shifting. He's never seen what he looks like when this happens. It makes his blood run cold. "Cazzo," he curses.

[Wyrmbreaker] Wyrmbreaker sits silently now, pale eyes fixed on the scene before them.

They don't have to move. The world moves around them. They follow the shades of Christian and Gregory on the last night of Gregory's life. Crown Fountain floats by in the distance. They're leaving the path, straying into the darkness.

From their point of view, omniscient as gods, the Garou can see the skull pigs this time. Christian can see where they came from, how stealthily they crept up: all that bulk, all that fell muscle and tainted blood, moving on shockingly dainty hooves.

Beside Christian, the Shadow Lord's breathing is deep and even. Warmth emanates from him, and the faint, feral, musky scent of his fur. He doesn't move closer, nor try to offer his younger packmate some sort of physical contact, some sort of physical reassurance. He stays, though, and he bears witness.

[Christian del Piero] He didn't say he wanted to watch this. And anyone with a few of their senses left can tell he doesn't. There are lots of things he doesn't want to do that he does anyway. It would be easier to just stay in the dark. Or run away every time someone shines light on him. He's not here by himself. He tries to match his breathing to Lukas'. It works for about 2 seconds. And then his shade is attacking Greg's. The huge beasts - Christian has never seen one before - abandon their breakfast and charge at them. He knocks his friend to the ground to attack them. The ground thunders as the pigs run at them. Greg's shade shifts. The Fang pales.

"Why is he - " He knows why. Because he's his friend. Friends don't abandon their friends.

It happens almost too fast for Christian to follow. One of the monsters tears Greg-shade open in one hit. It takes 2 hits for the same thing to happen to Christian-shade. Only Christian-shade isn't stunned. He winces seeing all the blood and guts that were spilled in a few seconds. Crosses his arms over his chest. Lukas can feel the heat of his Rage burn higher as he forces himself to stay where he is. The subcliath growls.

(( WP -1 ))

[Wyrmbreaker] The truth is, they had a chance at the beginning. Numbers were even when they walked into combat. Gregory was weak, but he was a cunning wolf and a good healer. Christian was strong, but out of his mind. The skull pigs were brutal and stupid. The balance could have swung either way. It wouldn't have been easy, but there was a chance for victory.

That chance was gone seconds into the battle. Maybe it was sheer bad luck. Maybe it was lack of skill, or, on Christian's part, lack of wits. The skullpigs gut them both in an eyeblink, have them both nearly on the ground, guts spilling.

Christian's shade isn't stunned. He's beyond stun, beyond emotion, beyond anything except the need to feast on flesh. No cleansing fire in this Frenzy. No redemption of glory. Just endless, tainted hunger, raw and black. It is not the first time Christian has fallen prey to this kind of Frenzy. But the young Ahroun must know that he cannot make this a habit. Death after death, Thrall after Thrall -- it'll carve him up, core him out, leave him nothing but a savage, mindless husk of himself, wyrmridden.

Wyrmbreaker doesn't say it, though. And he doesn't turn away in disgust. He watches:

watches as Gregory's shade struggles to heal himself and his friend. Watches as the both of them survive blow after blow, impossibly, escaping the clutches of death time and again. It's a miracle Christian survived at all. It's a miracle Greg survived even as long as he did. But watching, it's clear to Lukas -- would perhaps be clear to Christian, too, if only he weren't so intimately involved, so deeply entangled -- that three seconds into the battle, they had already lost.

The rest is just sheer tenacity and refusal to die easily.

[Christian del Piero] His suspicions are confirmed. He didn't touch Greg after he knocked him to the ground. But he got him hurt. He wasn't there. Greg didn't run from battle even though it was basically him vs 2 hungry skull pigs vs an Ahroun in the thrall of the Wyrm. There was no teamwork. They couldn't communicate. When Greg healed him he had to be careful not to get in the way of his friend's claws. Christian-shade goes down first but he flies back to his feet snarling seconds later. Greg-shade isn't so lucky. And then he isn't just hurt. No one could survive the injury that killed 30 Second Silence. Christian looks as though he's just suffered the same blow. There is no expression on his face. It's all in his eyes. He's got to know that if he lets his derangement pull him under it's going to be the same thing over and over. He takes a shuddering breath. He can't believe he's still alive.

It isn't because he was the better Garou...or stronger...or smarter. It's because of the dark eyed man who comes out of nowhere and stops the skull pigs from eating both of them. If Christian attacks him now he'll be torn into pieces in seconds. He bristles with the need to attack the things that were responsible for this. But stopping himself leaves him no room to maintain his composure. He doesn't fall on his knees or sob. But he does cry...silent for a few seconds except for his breathing. Greg has been dead for almost 3 weeks and it's like it just happened.

"Vado a ucciderlo," he says. He wipes his face. It doesn't help. He shakes as the BSD and his pets walk off. His anguish is on his face now. He sounds like he's in physical pain. Pain in general makes him angry. He can't just ignore it like other people can. "Vado a fottuto ucciderlo! Siamo usciti di quello fottuto prigione insieme ed questo è come si muore?"

Christian's shade wakes up. His hand is in what's left of Greg's abdominal cavity. His eyes are dead as he uses his Rage to ignore his own spilled guts...his deflated ribs and ravaged arm...to drag his friend's body into the trees where they won't be found.

[Wyrmbreaker] If he were honest, Lukas would admit that he expected Christian to fly into a fugue again. To go dead-eyed and distant, or worse, run off into the chaos. Run through this battle and into the next, and the next, and the next, until somewhere some spirit-emanation puts a battle-axe in his head and launches him unceremoniously out of the Battleground Realm.

Christian doesn't, though. He stands there, silent and stonefaced, wet-cheeked, watching. He bears witness.

Lukas thinks that's a sort of strength.

Then Christian is cursing, and it's incomprehensible to him. Wyrmbreaker turns his head. He lowers it, bumps his crown into his packmate's arm -- the breadth of his skull enormous in this form, easily two outstretched handspans from ear to ear.

"I can't understand you, Christian," he says gently.

[Christian del Piero] When he's like this he doesn't want to be touched. It's like pouring petrol on the fire under his skin. At the same time...he's still a pack animal. It reminds him he's not alone. Greg said the same thing Lukas does when they woke up in captivity. That doesn't make him cry harder. He chokes on his tears though...coughs a few times. The war drums are back. His blood is boiling. And Lukas can't understand him.

"I said..." He wipes his nose. Coughs again. "I said I'm gonna kill that guy. This was stupid! What...what...we didn't save anyone or...or stop anything. We weren't even looking for anything! We were just talking and now he's dead and that's bull shit!"

[Wyrmbreaker] "Dying in combat against the Wyrm itself, risen from Malfeas, wouldn't make him any less dead," Wyrmbreaker replies, and for what it's worth this, too, is spoken as gently as a monster out of nightmare could possibly speak, "and it wouldn't make you feel any better. It'd still feel like a pity and a waste. And you'd still be this angry.

"Hate the ones that killed him if you must. Hate that he's dead. But don't hate the manner of his death because you don't think it was glorious or meaningful. That just insults the courage Thirty-Second-Silence showed at the end."

The direwolf stands, then, and paces to the fading bloodstain where Gregory's shade lay. Everything's fading now. The scene's almost played out. It'll fade away soon -- and then start again, repeating over and over until the end of time itself. A record. A mute testament.

"But come here," Wyrmbreaker says. "Look at this."

He puts his paw under the shaky letters scratched into the earth: effectively Gregory's last words.

[Christian del Piero] He wants to argue with him. Try to make himself clearer. But he's too angry. He doesn't know why he speaks Italian when he gets upset. Maybe because that's all they spoke in his house when he was growing up. He doesn't have an accent though. Not usually. Lukas might have noticed a southern drawl when he started speaking English again. It's hard to tell with him crying. The Fang keeps wiping his face. He nods that he understands. Don't hate how he died. Greg was brave.

Christian stands still as Lukas walks to the spot where Greg died. The grass is turning green again. He's given an order. He sniffs and follows. There's a message. It says "Not U." If he saw it before he can't remember it. The Fang covers his mouth. It's hard to tell if he laughs or sobs. He swallows again. Coughs. Takes his hand away.

"This really sucks," he says. Christian ducks down to touch the message before it disappears. He stays there. He's shaking. "I don't...I didn't..." He coughs. If he starts crying again his head is ducked to hide it. "Why can't you...stop...yourself...from going into a Thrall? Like you can a regular frenzy? I could have...I know he was brave. He was. I just..." He's going to work himself into a frenzy. He can feel his vision going red. His grief is turning away from anger and towards Rage.

[Wyrmbreaker] "Because our Rage comes from the Wyrm, just as our will comes from the Weaver, our Gnosis from the Wyld. Usually the Rage comes from the Wyrm-as-he-was. The rightful Destroyer. But sometimes, from the Wyrm-as-he-is. And Gaia herself hasn't been able to stop the Wyrm as he is."

Christian says Gregory was brave, and he knows that. He's on the verge of frenzy again, his anger building, his rage and outrage at ... everything building toward some point of no return.

Wyrmbreaker stamps his heavy paw on the dirt again. The grass, which is turning green again, the blood fading like it never was.

"No. That's not what I wanted you to see. Read what he wrote. Not you. That's the last thing he had to say to you, or anyone. This was not your fault. This didn't happen because you didn't control yourself. Or because you turned on your friend. Or because you threw yourself into danger.

"It happened because you got unlucky. They hit too hard, too fast. Even if you had your wits about you, I don't know that Thirty Second Silence would have survived. Maybe if you were both stronger, you would have both survived. But he's not dead because you did something wrong."

Wyrmbreaker's eyes are glittering at the end of that, his words low snarls and growls in his chest. When he's finished, there's a silence.

Then, quieter:

"Now, you can either accept that knowledge and move on from it. Learn from it. Or you can let yourself get angry over it again and spin off into another Frenzy where you don't have to think. I know which choice is easier. I also know which choice is right. Do you?"

[Wyrmbreaker] [and pause!]

[Christian del Piero] (( Now would be a good time to fail, del Piero... ))
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 7)

[Christian del Piero] Fresh from battle Christian is easier to talk to. His Rage is gone then. He's no more rational than any other 18 year old...but at least he hears you when you're talking. He can see what's right in front of him. On some level he understands what Lukas is saying. And he knows. The Gnawer Theurge never lied to him. Or said things just to make him feel better. Most of the times he said things that pissed him off.

Christian didn't fight tonight. His Rage is so hot he can't breathe. He seems to be hearing him toward the end...and then who knows what the teenager - with no rank and no deed name and no family outside of his pack - actually hears. Something touches a nerve. He gasps for air. He almost frenzies.

That would have been easier. Letting himself fall into a fugue would have been easier. He would have been blacked out...numb. He's not. He's angry but he didn't fly into a frenzy. He didn't Thrall. Christian wraps his arms around his scarred torso. It's not as bad as the night he'd worn himself out following Lukas' instructions in the fight against the malakhim. When all he could do at the end was pace and whine. Wait for further instructions. He still has a sliver of control left. Words fail him. The young Ahroun makes a furious - inhuman - noise and stands up.

[Wyrmbreaker] [empathy!: do you want to kill the shades, or just get outta here? +WP, let's not botch.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) [WP]

[Christian del Piero] (( He wants to kill the actual monsters/BSD that did this. It's a combination of hating them and being Rage 6/WP 2 atm. He's crazy enough to think that he can go after them back in the realm. He's also likely to attack anything that moves before they can return. He'd be keen on the suggestion to stick around and fight the shades. ))
to Wyrmbreaker

[Wyrmbreaker] Wyrmbreaker remains as he is, sitting on his haunches, as the rage in Christian threatens to boil over. He doesn't stand. He doesn't face his packmate. He doesn't make overt gesture of preparation -- for war, for combat, for what may be necessary.

Still. When Christian bites back his rage and keeps ahold of himself, there's a sense that Wyrmbreaker's tension abates a notch. Not much; but enough.

The younger Ahroun surges to his feet. Wyrmbreaker stands too. For a long moment the direwolf regards his packmate. Looks at him, listens to the cadence of his breathing, reads his posture and his scent. Everything, every last clue he could possibly pick up, trying to get a sense of what the Silver Fang wants.

A few seconds go by. Then he turns back to the scene. Wyrmbreaker says nothing; he does nothing. He just waits.

And it begins again.


"Evenin', stranger," Gregory says.
"Fuck. Don't do that!" Christian says.

There's a wet snuffling in the undergrowth. Moving fast as wolves, light on hoofed feet, the two skull pigs loping ahead of the Dancer: converging on the shades of the two Cliaths.

They don't get there this time. As the Christian-shade and the Gregory-shade are turning to face their unexpected visitors, Wyrmbreaker lunges forward with a savage roar. All at once the world snaps into sharp reality around Christian. He can feel the wetness of the grass beneath his feet. He can smell the air, and it smells the same it did that night, two, three weeks ago -- august, heat and humidity in the air.

Christian's own shade vanishes. He's suddenly standing in its places. He's committed to this scene now. And the skull pig nearest him is turning on its slender hooves, snorting as it lowers its head to charge.

[let's get a reaction post and then roll some dice!]

[Christian del Piero] When this massacre happened Christian was not connected to Perun. He was a worse fighter than he is tonight. He was more in control of himself at the start of the battle...yet he had flown into a Thrall. There are a few things different. His face is still damp from crying. He's so wrathful he can't breathe. He isn't thinking about how this is going to help. Like there isn't anything that can really -help-. He's not thinking at all. The only difference in how he fights when he's furious and when he's frenzied is that he feels pain. It slows him down. And he doesn't attack people he cares about. Christian flows into his white hispo form again as they run toward the skull pigs. It doesn't feel like September anymore. It's August. And he hadn't roared then like he does now.

[Wyrmbreaker] [sorry about delay -- phone call!]

[Wyrmbreaker] [Damon! +7]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Failure at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [Stefan! +7]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3 (Failure at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [Greg-shade! +7]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Failure at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [Lukas! +20]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [BSD! +20]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5 (Failure at target 6)

[Christian del Piero] (( +8 ))
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6

[Wyrmbreaker] [Greg
1a Bite Damon
1b Bite Damon

Damon
1a. Body Slam Greg
1b. Tusk him
R1. Bite him, mm, tangy
R2. Again

Stefan
1a. Tusk Christian
1b. Tusk Christian
R1. Bite
R2. Bite]

[Christian del Piero] (( 1a: get behind Damon
1b:
2 Rage: all bites on Damon. Switching to Stefan if he goes down! ))

[Wyrmbreaker] [BSD
1a. hamstring Lukas!
b. flank!
R1.
R2.
R3. - bites on Lukas!]

[Wyrmbreaker] [actually swap 1a/b there. doesn't make sense otherwise.]

[Wyrmbreaker] [Lukas
1a. spur claws BSD!
b.
R1.
R2.
R3. - bites on Damon, switching to Stefan.]

[Wyrmbreaker] 1a. -2 dice! -1R!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [dam +1]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [2A on BSD, plus +2 diff on actions.

b. chomp Damon! -3]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Wyrmbreaker] [+3]
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] BSD
1a. hamstring! +2 diff
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 6, 6, 6, 8, 9 (Failure at target 10)

[Wyrmbreaker] b. mvmt.

[Christian del Piero] (( 1a: get behind Damon.
1b: Dex + Brawl, bite. Brawl +3, Perun. Difficulty -2, behind. -3 pool, 2nd split. ))
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 4 at target 3)

[Christian del Piero] (( Str +3 hispo +2 bite +3 staging - Dmg ))
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [Greg shade! Bite Damon -2]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 5, 5 (Success x 2 at target 5)

[Wyrmbreaker] [dam+1]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 5, 5, 6, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] b. again!
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 8 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Wyrmbreaker] [dam!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 7, 7, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [piggy soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] Damon: x_x

[Wyrmbreaker] There's some poetic justice in this. Not in the real world, no, but here: this glorification of battle, this entire umbral realm devoted to War -- there is justice here.

It's the shade of the scrawny Theurge that tears the first skullpig's throat out. The very one that killed him in life: going down in a tangle of hooves and torn flesh, a last shrieking squeal tapering to nothing.

The other one wheels. With a bellow of rage -- not at all the sort of noise a pig would make, or anything of this world -- it charges Gregory instead.

[Stefan action change:
1a. charge Greg!
b. tusk Greg!
R1/R2 unchanged.]

[Wyrmbreaker] [1a. -2 dice.]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [base dam +4 (charging tusks!) +4 (suxx)]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] b. tusk! -3
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 4, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] base dam +3(normal tusks) +1(succ)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 5, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [Lukas, R1 - biting Stefan now]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 5) Re-rolls: 2

[Wyrmbreaker] [dam +7]
Dice Rolled:[ 16 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] BSD, R1 - biting lukas!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 6 at target 4)

[Wyrmbreaker] dam +5
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [lukas soaks!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Christian del Piero] (( R1, switching to Stefan ))
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 3, 5, 6, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Christian del Piero] (( +3 ))
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] Greg - done with actions.

Stefan - attacking christian!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Wyrmbreaker] [base dam +2 (bite) +3 (succ)]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Christian del Piero] (( Soak! ))
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas, R2 - biting Stef!
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 8 at target 5)

[Wyrmbreaker] [dam+7]
Dice Rolled:[ 16 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [oh come on, Kahseenothulhu!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] BSD R2 - biting Lukas!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 6 at target 4)

[Wyrmbreaker] [dam+5!]
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [well at least kahseeno is an equal opportunity pwinker.]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 7, 7, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Christian del Piero] (( R2 ))
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 5)

[Christian del Piero] (( +4 ))
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] Stefan, R2 - Bite Christian! with my dying snortbreath!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Wyrmbreaker] [dam+2]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Christian del Piero] (( Soak! ))
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 6, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] lukas: biting stef!
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 5)

[Wyrmbreaker] dam+6
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 5, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] x_x

BSD - R3, bite lukas!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 4)

[Wyrmbreaker] [dam+5]
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 4, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [end of round. tally in action order:

Lukas - OK
BSD - 2A
Christian - 4A
Greg - 2A
Damon - x_x, 4 overkill
Stefan - x_x, 2 overkill]

[Wyrmbreaker] Always a bittersweet thing to relive a battle you fought. Always hard to see how things could have gone. If that pig hadn't gored him so terribly in the first instants. If it hadn't opened Greg up navel to neck. If he hadn't been out of his mind; if Greg's attacks hadn't been so futile.

If, if, if.

Some part of Wyrmbreaker wonders if this is really helping. If killing these shades that killed his friend is really helpful for Christian, a sort of catharsis -- or if it'll become another point of shame, later. Some part of him had hoped they would fail as terribly as Christian and Greg had that night. Then he could look at his packmate and say,

See. It wasn't you. Anyone would have died.

A different outcome this time, though. Their luck is far better. They're both much, much stronger than Greg and Christian were that night. Even with a third opponent, a Dancer Ahroun striking at them, the balance is squarely tipped in their favor.

A second is all it takes to bring the first skull pig down. Two more, and the second joins it, half a ton of fetid weight dropping heavily to the bloodstained grass. Now there's three of them against one Dancer.

[Wyrmbreaker] [Greg
1a. GB on self
b. GB on Christian
c. soak talen
d. gnosis battery!]

[Christian del Piero] He's as useless now as he was when the battle first took place. And he's not out of his mind. He's actually here. Fighting. Greg is still up. He'd be proud of the scrawny Gnawer for taking one of them down if it meant that they would both walk out of here when it was over. When it's over he'll think about what it means that Lukas was faster than he is. That Christian himself may as well not have been there. The bastard who left him alive is still up. That's who he goes for next.

(( 1a/b
2 Rage: bites on BSD. ))

[Wyrmbreaker] [Lukas
1
R1
R2 - biting bsd!

BSD
1a. Mind Blast Lukas!
b. Bite Christian!
R1. again!
R2. one more time!]

[Wyrmbreaker] [lukas - chomp bsd!]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Wyrmbreaker] [...fine, i'll say it! IA IA KAHSEENO FHTAGN.]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [you vindictive bitch.]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] BSD
1a. Mind Blast! -1WP. Wits + Alert, resisted by WP roll!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [wp resist roll!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] ...guess no mind blast. b changed to: try again!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 7, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[Christian del Piero] (( 1a: Dex + Brawl, bite! Dex +2, hispo. Brawl +3, Perun. -4 pool, 1st split/wound penalties. ))
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Christian del Piero] (( +3 ))
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Christian del Piero] (( 1b: -5 ))
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 5)

[Christian del Piero] (( +5 ))
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] -_-!

[Wyrmbreaker] The creatures here don't know they're emanations. They behave like the ones they mimic. They think like them, move like them, plan like them, act like them.

The Dancer, outnumbered and cornered, draws on his darker powers. He locks eyes with Wyrmbreaker. He shreds his own will to subjugate the Shadow Lord to the Wyrm's, but Lukas's reputation for control, for a steely will, is no idle rumor. Twice the Dancer tries to blast him into quiescence. Twice, he fails.

There's no third time. The angry young Fang comes in snapping. The first bite catches only fur.

The second tears out the side of the Dancer's throat. There's a hot splash of blood, salty on his tongue, so vivid and real he forgets this is not. The Dancer drops, breathing shallowly. It would be utterly trivial to kill him. But if he does, this scene will end. And the Greg-shade, who looks and smells and feels alive, will be gone.

Wyrmbreaker stands with his forepaws apart, his jaws wet with blood. His sides move with every breath. He watches to see what the Fang will do.

[Christian del Piero] Really...he wants that bastard dead. But Christian isn't stupid. He acts stupid. But there is a brain in his head. And once his Rage is drained...it helps. He isn't thinking clearly. But his Rage overpowers his ability to control himself about as much as it does on a normal day. And it's not as hot. But he's not as strong. What he wants to do is keep tearing into this thing until it vanishes. Then go find its realm counterpart. Now he knows what he looks like. What he's capable of. He knows that if he goes after him alone he -might- survive. If his luck holds up.

He also knows that he didn't get to say good bye to Greg that day. The last thing he said to him wasn't even words. It was a vicious snarl right before he attacked him. Greg is just a shade of himself here. It's not even his spirit. His spirit's gone back to his homelands. But it's something. Christian's eyes may as well be beacons of insanity. They illuminate just how cracked he is. It's worse in his human form. At least in this form you know he's a monster. Not a human or an animal but a monster. You just sense it when he looks like a scarred troubled young man.

A growl dies in Christian's throat when the BSD falls. His teeth are bared. His face and neck are red. He looks toward the Gnawer who kept him alive more than once. For a second Christian looks like he hates him too. It's just pain. This hurts. And what happened tonight doesn't change a thing. He's still dead. The kid shifts back to his birth form. Wipes at his face. It's blood and sweat now...not tears.

"You should have fucking run," he says to Greg's shade... almost whimpers. Wipes his nose. Sniffs. He looks down for a second. Grinds his teeth. Looks back up. "Thank you."

[Wyrmbreaker] Wyrmbreaker is somehow reminded of his journey through the Underworld in the rite of reawakening. He's reminded of the seventh gate, his own, and the dreadful task that awaited him there. He remembers asking the shade of his mate

a question she would not answer. She is not here, the spirit that wore Danicka's face said instead.

Some part of Lukas wants to say the same to Christian. He's not really here. He doesn't, though. Maybe that's mercy, too. Maybe it's just that he knows Christian already knows that. And this is something.


"What," the Gregory-shade is saying now, "and leave you there? You’re my best friend Christian, well ... you might have to duke it out with Penny for that... She’s tough too! Way tougher than than a stinky skull pig.

"Anyway, run away? What you think I am? Some kind of low-born cowardly Gnawer?" Gregory grins, that wolfish carefree grin and he licks his tongue over his teeth, but then it fades and he dips his muzzle. "You wouldn’t have left me."

[thanks to nomey for the greg-text!]

[Christian del Piero] He knows it's not him. It looks like him. It sounds like him. It kind of smells like him. But it's not him. It doesn't mean anything less to Christian. When they get back to Chicago...if he lives long enough...he'll talk to Greg's grave like he's actually there. Only Greg won't answer. Christian's eyes are shining in the dark. He keeps swallowing and sniffing to stop from breaking down. It would be easy to wallow. Beat himself up. Say "Yeah but I did leave you" or "Then why did I frenzy" or anything else that Lukas covered already. Maybe he does anyway. But he keeps it to himself. When he speaks he's barely audible. "Yeah," he croaks. Sniffs again. "I'll...I'll see you on the other side, you jerk."

He turns away before he can see Greg's shade fade into nothing. Wraps his arms around his ribs. And walks.

[Wyrmbreaker] Christian turns away too quickly to see what expression Greg's shade might have had on his face. It doesn't matter anyway. That's not Greg. Whatever those expressions are, they're drawn from ... god knows what. Their memories, maybe. What the universe thinks of Greg. Greg's spirit itself, far away now, somewhere in Rat's homelands.

That last option is the best. It might be the one Christian hopes for, or holds on to somehow. That even though Greg isn't here, maybe this place echoes Greg in some way. Echoes his essence. Echoes who he was. If nothing else, he knows this: the real Greg wouldn't have left him, either. Didn't.

He turns away. Behind him, there's a muffled crunch: his Alpha ending the life of the Dancer and with it, this iteration of the battle. The world begins to change around him. The blood on the grass has a different smell now, purer. His own, and Gregory's. The bodies on the floor do not belong to the Wyrm. Everything he's done tonight, everything he's changed sweeps away, fading from the center out, like a piece of paper held too long over flame.

Before long, even that vanishes. The battle resets, or perhaps simply goes away until someone comes looking for it again. Grant Park fades around him, and his wounds fade with it. He's back on the hardpacked dirt path, the din of a million battles raging around him. His rage is still spent. He feels hollowed out, burned clean.

He doesn't say anything. Neither does Wyrmbreaker, pacing beside him; otherwise giving him space, time, room to sort his own grief out. There's no discussion between them, but they're heading for the border of the Realm now.

Time to go home.