[Marrick] [how is she doing today..?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Marrick] Rhya, I need to talk to you, not like an errant child, not like anything but a matter of importance.
She's been played. She's unaware of this, but she's been played in a way that she had no idea about. It's a dangerous thing to lie to a full moon, and who knows what this could do should she have found out. The problem, of course, was that Marrick had not found out how badly she had been played. She has no idea of motive, but instead finds herself in a situation where she is dealing with the lesser of two evils.
While she wasn't smart, she did know one thing: don't believe everything you hear. Check your facts before you make decisions.
All this aside, she was at the bawn. The moon was absent, and she was well rested. Attire was comfortable, but ultimately unimportant. Woolen coat, holey jeans, and layers upon layers.
For the second time in as many days,s he's about to have a conversation that isn't meant to be stationary.
[Wyrmbreaker] It's dark without the moon, and so is Wyrmbreaker.
He comes from between a pair of crumbled, jutting concrete piles -- once part of the foundation of some hangar or shiphouse, now ancient in the lightless night. He is in his homid shape, but nothing close to human.
No overcoat tonight. Just double-layer jeans and a thermal pullover, a microfleece zip-up over that, the collar turned up and zipped all the way to his chin. He's wearing gloves, but his head is bare. They are not friends; it's debatable whether any respect even remains between them. But he comes with an air of readiness, because this sounded important; like war.
[Marrick] Even a near stranger could tell there was no love lost between them.
"Rhya," she says with half a nod. There's no warmth in her voice, no familiarity to it. Something she'd said again and again: she didn't know him, "is it true y'had alphas before you took control of yer pack?"
She was unaware of what storm this might bring up, but the Fury asked anyway. She regarded him directly, not like a judge but like a seeker of knowledge. No plain curiosity either. Concern was written across her face, brows knit, jaw set, but control was gripped so tightly that it may be crushed.
[Wyrmbreaker] There's an instant flash of irritation. "That's what you called me here to discuss? My pack? What the hell is this about, Bones to Dust? I thought this was a call to arms."
[Marrick] The reply was instant.
"I called you because a Galliard accused you of some pretty nasty shit and I refuse to take his word at face value. I don't like you, but I don't trust Fons."
[Wyrmbreaker] "Fons."
If there's bad blood between Wyrmbreaker and Bones to Dust -- and assuredly there is -- it pales to the sort of disgust and exasperation and irritation that's embodied in that single word, that single syllable, that name spat from his lips like a bad taste. Lukas turns away for a moment, giving Marrick his profile, all sharp cheekbone and angled jaw, controlling his reflexive distaste until it subsumes.
"Well, let's hear it. What's he been saying now?"
[Marrick] This wasn't helping.
She was looking at Wyrmbreaker, and her jaw tensed, and for a second there was something there. In so many people's eyes, she would never be anything but a child. She shoved her hands into her pockets, as that idle hands were never good.
"Said he heard rumors that anyone who's in yer way gets dealt with, and brought up that you've gone through a few alphas... seemed to be real interested in knowin' yer faults. Said you sent one of yer tribemates after his kin."
A pause.
"Said you don't like t'get yer hands dirty."
[Theron Locke] Theron arrived in the Caern apparently in search of someone... or perhaps many people. He needed to find the Child of Gaia Theurge Andrew, though he didn't really welcome the opportunity. The Lord Theurge also wanted to speak to the Septs Theurge Elder, apparently he had plans for himself and his pack sister Warcry.
But at the moment , he was walking into the Sept as his eyes found Lukas in an apparently heated discussion with an unknown blonde.
[Marrick] (be right back, loves, I have to go pick someone up!)
[Wyrmbreaker] "And you believed him?" There's utter incredulity in Lukas's tone. "Marrick, tell me what good it would do me to send one of my tribesmen after Fang kin. Why would I do that? Which grand plan, exactly, would that accomplish -- the one where I breed my way to world conquest? How can you even entertain the thought?"
A beat.
"Let's get something straight, Marrick. I don't owe you any sort of explanation. Just because you're blind enough to fall for that fork-tongued little liar's bullshit doesn't give you any right to make demands of me. The only reason I'm answering your questions now is because I've got nothing to hide -- and because quite frankly, I'm dying to hear what else he spoonfed you."
Another.
"I've had four Alphas between the Unbroken and the Circle. First we followed Ed. He grew distant and uninvolved, disappearing for weeks at a time, so Katherine took over. I helped. The pack supported it. Then Katherine was called off on an Umbral quest. I took control for a time. Two of my packmates challenged, one of whom was totally unsuited to the role. Before the challenge could conclude, I lost my fool head over personal matters. Mrena took Alphaship. About a day later she died in battle against the Wyrm. The Alphaship came back to me.
"As for my tribemate and Fons's kin -- who's actually Katherine's kin, by the way, though that insubordinate little shit seems to ignore rank whenever it suits him -- that was an ill-advised moment of mutual lust. You can ask Theron himself for the details. He's right over there.
"What next?"
[Sinclair] Though after the last moot Sinclair had receive the Rite of the Stone of Scorn, it was not what her pack's Philodox had originally had in mind for her punishment. And though the fact that her failing of will was a repeat performance of an earlier mistake was mentioned several times in the moot as in the punishment rite, Sinclair has been offering contrition to multiple spirits for going on three months now for it. This did not come up. It did not need to, for one thing, and it's quite possible that Sinclair herself is the only Garou who even knows about the connection.
Her contrition to Maelstrom and Cockroach is almost over. Trophies with her name on them will start to go back on the Wyrmpole.
During the rite, Sinclair hadn't seemed too on edge, perhaps surprising for a Galliard with due gibbous-moon rage and a particularly animalistic nature. She did not seem to bristle too much over what was coming down on her name. She sacrificed her name, at least for a time, months before the Cracking of the Bone at the last moot. At least in spirit. At least in her mind.
She's steady now, sitting in front of a shrine to Cockroach, dipping a broken-in-half Snickers bar into a bowl with fresh honey at the bottom. There is a box to put over it when it's done, a dark place for them to come and hide while they eat. One or two skitter around, as they always do, and Sinclair ignores them. She quietly, as she always does, apologizes for the calls to the exterminators her family made when she was younger and they didn't know any better. She apologizes, as she arranges bites of leftover fried potatoes around the entryway to the box, for the calls to the exterminators her parents still probably make when they see roaches, because 'knowing better' is relative.
Her hair is up in a short ponytail, her earrings exposed but not glinting because there is no moonlight for them to shine against. She does not gleam wherever she goes as Katherine does, pale and royal. She does not have the ability to blend with shadows, and Theron and Lukas likely could in their swarthiness or especially their lupus coats. Sinclair is, in a pack of Fangs and Lords with traditionalist mindsets and power-hungry bloodlines and -- for the most part -- long histories together and with this sept...
well.
One of these things is not like the other...
[Marrick] [aaaand a Frenzy check, using a WP to resist if she gets enough successes]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Theron Locke] To the rest of the pack , it had seemed over the past week the Theurge had been keeping mostly to himself. He had moved into Room 3 in the Brotherhood, now sharing with Sinclair. It seemed though that they both had things on their minds, so didn't seem to find much time where they were both together for a significant amount of time.
His ears prick briefly as he hears his name mentioned, but is at a distance where the rest of the conversation remains unheard.
Turning back to inspect the Caern, his eyes soon finding the short blonde hair of Sinclair. The Galliard seemed occupied , so for the present Theron remained at a distance.
[Marrick] "I said I don't trust him. Why would I believe someone I don't trust?" she asked behind gritted teeth. Her jaw was clenched, and for the moment, she was calm.
For the moment.
Her voice was suddenly very tense, and the air was too hot, too bright for the lack of moonlight in the sky. A nerve was raw, bright and agonized. But he keeps talking and the longer it goes, the more she seems to just look, to glower, to feel her heart pound too hard out of her chest.
She is incredibly still
"I ain't fuckin' stupid, rhya."
She snaps.
"I know you don't owe me anything, and I came to you because I thought you might want to know. Someone's trying to fuck with you, and I probably ain't the only person he talked to."
Silence again.
[Wyrmbreaker] "Bullshit," Lukas snarls instantly. "If you came to me simply to pass the word, if you didn't believe him at all, you wouldn't have interrogated me the second you saw me."
A ferocious silence.
Then, with the slightest of relentings, "It does say something, though, that you came to me at all instead of spreading slander behind my back. We're not friends. You have little reason to act in my best interest, and perhaps much to see me fail. It speaks to your honor that you're here right now. You have my respect and gratitude for that, at least.
"Now, what else?"
[Marrick] "He's pretty dead set on provin' you dishonorable. Said you have nothin' of your own to protect since y'all are here an' not out gettin' territory. He thinks yer weak, an' by extension yer pack is weak."
She forced herself into being even. Didn't thank him for thinking her honorable; she doesn't acknowledge much except with a half nod. She is pensive, and trying to pull for what else she heard.
"He said you worked dishonor through others."
[Sinclair] She can sense the nearness of at least two packmates. She has no idea that Lukas is arguing with Marrick, though she does hear a snarl from the Fostern. She can sense Theron, too, and he's closer than the other two. He's waiting, and she doesn't need to be bound to him under a totem to realize that. She finishes though, then gets up, brushing her hands off on the knees of her skinny, faded jeans with the fraying seams and the looping yellow-orange stitching on the back pockets.
Sinclair turns and walks straight to Theron. Her hair, let down, would probably touch her shoulders -- or nearly so. Her eyes are shadowed by makeup, her hands mostly covered by black fingerless gloves. She's got a red hoodie on underneath a denim jacket, sneakers rather than boots on her feet. "Look like you've got something on your mind," she says to the Theurge as she passes him, her steps not pausing at his side. It seems she expects him to start walking with her.
Towards the Ahrouns.
[Indira] The moon was nearly dark when Indira arrived in the city, and tonight it is dark again. And in one moon not much has changed for her, save for a handful of new faces and acquaintances that flit in and out of the Brotherhood now and then and the mix of new voices at the Moot. In two moons she has seen the death of two Garou she met only a few times but liked, both Metis. In three and a half moons she has come to learn that this is Garou life, the laws and the many ways in which she will meet her likely end.
Somehow life manages to be comfortingly familiar and yet completely foreign, all at the same time. If there is one thing she has learned, it's that it's much more difficult to make new friends than it is to stay comfortable with your family.
Perhaps it's what she needed, but it's put her in a decidedly foul temper, stomping and kicking her way down the alley to the door.
The pink-haired Ahroun comes stomping in the door, knocking mud off of boots that once were black but are disguised by a layer of dusky brown filth. The door makes a satisfying slam as it shuts, and as she peels off her somewhat damp outerwear, she tilts an ear toward the sound of raised voices somewhere in the Brotherhood's rooms.
[Wyrmbreaker] Let's be honest: Lukas is not happy right now. But nor does he seem particularly surprised. He listens, and when Marrick finishes, he frowns away over the lake -- a patch of solid darkness in the moonless night.
His packmates approach. He doesn't alter what he says, though his stance does shift unconsciously, drawing strength from their proximity.
"Dirge of the Covenant doesn't think I'm weak, Marrick," he says finally. Even in the dark, his eyes are glitteringly clear when he turns back. "He wants you to think I'm weak, just like he wants you to think I'm honorless and dangerous. He's shaping you into his tool because what he really thinks is that I'm a knife at his throat.
"When we had that ... shouting match in the Moot, I looked into Fons and saw his weaknesses. Above all else Fons is vindictive against those he believes to have wronged him. Obviously, given what happened at and after the moot, I fall into that category. Even more so, my tribe does. In his worldview, we're apparently 'usurpers' with designs on the imaginary Silver Fang throne. I'm not surprised he's doing his best to preemptively bring us down.
"Good thing lies don't fly very far when the first thing a Half Moon learns is to sift truth from falsehood. I'll be taking Fons before the elders to account for these lies and others he's told against me and mine. I may call on you to speak of what he's told you. Will you be there?"
[Wyrmbreaker] (sorry guys, at work and slow!)
[Theron Locke] Theron turned and fell in beside his packmate "Heh these days it doesn't seem that uncommon." a wry smile playing across his lips. "I actually just wanted to catch up with you, and see how you were going.."
He talked as his eyes looked out over the two ahrouns currently in a heated discussion.
"It's been what a week now since the Moot.. and I hope you don't think I'm sticking my nose in. I was just concerned about you and wanted too...I don't know.. offer you my friendship or support. I was listening to all the comments made by the Sept and it seemed a common message was coming through."
He then paused as he turned to you "I wanted to make you an offer of accompanying me on an Umbral Quest of some form. It's not without it's benefits to me either, I get to spend some time with a packmate and I hoped you'd be able to help me become a better hunter. I don't want to be a burden to the pack in a fight."
[Marrick] Marrick Fisher does not know Silver Fangs. To further the point, Marrick Fisher doesn't know Shadow Lords either, doesn't know that there's a feud, that there is centuries of bad blood.
What she does know makes her stomach turn, makes her instead regard Wyrmbreaker's approaching packmates with bitterness on her tongue. The Fury gives them an upward nod in greeting. There was no smile, no warmth, nothing but ever-pervading rage. Neither full moon seemed to be in the best of moods.
"There's ways around that," she says, "an' it's all in words an' intent."
There's silence.
"I'll be there," with grim finality to it.
[Wyrmbreaker] "Ways around what?" Lukas asks.
[Marrick] "Truth of Gaia. If you genuinely believe it's the truth, then you ain't lying when you say it. An' tellin' half the truth ain't tellin' a lie, either. If someone chooses their words right, and he will because he's damn good with words, a philodox might never know they got the wool pulled over their eyes. An', since they have gifts to find lies..."
[Sinclair] It will never be said about Sinclair that she is such a sensitive soul that the idea of causing another person pain or mental discomfort is anathema to her. Though various reactions flicker across her face as Theron is speaking, the most obvious is the heavy roll of her eyes when Theron says that there was a 'common message' at the Stone of Scorn.
But what she chooses to reply to verbally, as they head towards their Alpha, is this: "You're my packmate, Theron. I kind of assumed I had your support without it needing to be offered."
There is some disdain in the way she says this, some irritation from a Garou who is not that hard to irritate. He pauses; Sinclair does not. She glances back at him as he speaks, but keeps walking, jerking her head along for him to follow. It's entirely possible that if they were in another form she would be behind him then, nipping his heels for stopping. It's dominant behavior, subtle in that neither humans nor wolves would notice it consciously, obvious in that she very clearly expects him to follow her lead.
"Along that same line, I'd help you learn to fight better whether there was an equal exchange to it or not." She reaches over and quite firmly shoves him by the shoulder, enough to make him stumble a step. Unlike the eyeroll, however, and unlike the momentary irritation, this physical abuse is almost... affectionate. Or what passes for affection, from Sinclair. "Wake up, Stormface." She waggles her finger at her face, repeats: "Packmate."
And keeps walking, shoving her hands in her pockets. "What kind of quest?"
[Wyrmbreaker] He listens, and now his packmates are drifting farther away again, talking about quests, support, pack. Their voices come and go as the wind shifts; then they're too far for him to make them out.
When she's finished he says, "I don't intend to let him do very much talking at all. He's done plenty of that already. His listeners can tell the tale as well as he can. As for questions directed at him -- a good Philodox knows the limitations of their own Gift and how to avoid the pitfalls. Whatever their personal faults, I don't think the Philodoxes of this Sept are lacking in their auspice duties."
[Sinclair] [Oh, Sinclair and Theron are still heading towards Lukas and Marrick]
[Wyrmbreaker] (oops *LOL*)
[Marrick] She felt dirty.
It came through with the way her jaw was set, not off-center or hard. Younger than she had intended for a second, and pushed aside. Marrick only had several defaults, and the fact that she was so easy to read made her seem simple or uncomplicated.
"I'm not built for politics," she tells him, as though he didn't already know, "an' whatever game he's playing I don't like it. An' I ain't gonna tolerate it, there's bigger crap to deal with."
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas's laugh is rather humorless. "Bones to Dust," he says, "that's the first thing you've said in months that I've agreed with.
"But whether or not you're built for politics, you should have some defense against it. Your disdain for such weaponry doesn't make you immune to them." A pause. "To put it bluntly, Marrick, you can't be so damn gullible. Fons is one hell of a liar and an orator, that much is true. But some of the ones he fed you -- that one about sending my tribesmen to seduce his kin, for one -- didn't even make sense."
[Theron Locke] He is shuffled along, Theron still so new to the pack that it's not that uncommon to see him following his other packmates leads. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he currently was the Runt of the pack. With his recent indiscretions, that probably was more evident than ever.
He blushes faintly in embarassment "Well.. how about I say I would like to offer you some spiritual guidance instead" sensing the irritation in her voice.
He stumbles and has to try his hardest to remain upright "Okay..okay I get it.. packmate." as he tries to bump her back, but nearly falling over himself yet again as he nearly bounces off the Galliard's war-hardened physique.
"As for the quest not sure yet...I was thinking of taking a trip too one of the Umbral Realms. I've heard tales of Pangea and Wolfhome...tales that make me ache to want to see them in this life time. We may not reach there though, but the journey I think will be worth the risk."
[Mickey] Mickey Mickey Mickey, can't you see...
Slowly foot shuffling along, hands in the pockets of his black leather jacket, which hangs open over his bare, narrow chest. Garish, cheap tattoos for all to see, oil stained jeans painted onto his skinny legs. Fabulous arse. Mickey walks with an indifferent step, lower lip stuck out lugubriously, eyes unfocused as he stares at some internal vanishing point all of his own. In his head, endlessly looping, a nonsense fragment from some song he's misremembering:
Mickey Mickey Mickey, can't you see...
[Marrick] "... well, this certainly is a fucked up little learning experience."
She frowns for a second. Strangely enough, her mind wanders to Imogen, and the Fury is silent again. For a second, she laughs, at the sound is every bit as bitter as she felt.
"Only way y'learn from yer weaknesses is when y'get 'em exploited, I guess," she doesn't quiet shrug, instead she shakes her head.
[Sinclair] They're near enough now that she can hear what Lukas says to Marrick now, that unamused laugh, the fact that he calls her gullible. She looks at the Black Fury Ahroun intently as they approach, even as Theron is speaking.
"You're the Theurge -- okay, well one of the Theurges, but Caleb's never around -- of the pack. What do you think one of your big jobs is?" she asks him. She's hardly a wall of stone when he bumps against her. She bends to it, accepts it, but her steps don't falter. It's a small difference, that she neither resists nor retaliates nor falls but shares the moment of contact without pausing to think about it.
"To be honest I'm not sure they'd let me into Wolfhome," Sinclair says wrly, her eyes flickering viciously as her steps slow, bringing them to the two Ahrouns.
But then she addresses Marrick: "A word, Bones to Dust?"
[Wyrmbreaker] "Yeah," quiet.
There's a strange sense of thawing between the Ahrouns. It's nowhere close to a peace, or perhaps even a truce. It's nothing even remotely close to friendship. But for a moment Lukas considers bringing up what else lies between them; her failures, his threats.
He doesn't. Let it lie. It's fine as it is -- unspoken, undefined. His packmates are there anyway. Quietly, Lukas introduces Theron to Marrick, and vice versa. It's a formality. They've seen each other at the moot.
[Wyrmbreaker] Totemic: What are you talking to her about, Sinclair?
to Sinclair, Theron Locke
[Marrick] They could have a lifetime together and still not be friends. Or be at peace. Or even at a standstill. Silence is good enough.
They stand together, and they laugh without humor. She finds people on them, though, and she turns to regard them. Theron gets a nod, a name, formalities and pleasantries that are still somewhat foreign. Theron knows her name,but doesn't know that there hasn't been a moot yet where Marrick wasn't bleeding in the challenge circle.
It just wasn't a moot in Chicago without it.
Sinclair gets her attention, and it is direct and she nods. The Fury adjusts her coat and bridges part of the gap.
"What's up?" unsure if this was a private conversation to be had or not.
[Sinclair] There's a moment when -- not rage, not annoyance -- but defensiveness flickers across their link. Coming from Sinclair, through Perun, it feels like a a rumble of distant thunder. When she does speak, however, it's not quite lightning. It's far from thunder.
What she said at the punishment rite, she answers. For her, simply.
to Theron Locke, Wyrmbreaker
[Mickey] Mickey sees the knot of Garou up ahead. He doesn't quite recognize any of them, so there faces are tabula rasa onto which he can project any number of conjectures, assumptions or biases. As always, the air is redolent with the sour tang that accompanies any gathering of Garou, informal or not, enough that Mickey feels a reflexive frisson of adrenaline course stealthily through his body and set the hairs on the back of his arms to stirring. Still, it's no big thing, so he keeps on rambling on until he reaches a massive, gutted oil drum that stands on its head to one side. With a fluid hip shrug he edges his butt onto the drum's top, and then sits, perched like a vulture, the curvature of his spine angular and seeming to terminate in two permanently hunched shoulders about his lowered head.
He pulls a cigarette and lighter free of his pockets, and cups them both to his face so that one can work its strange alchemy on the other.
[Wyrmbreaker] Okay.
That's it, simple. A moment later he adds, a sort of explanation --
I wasn't sure if you'd overheard our conversation and was about to tear into her for it. I wanted to make sure you weren't.
to Sinclair, Theron Locke
[Theron Locke] He was about to answer the question Sinclair asked of him., but perhaps it was more a statement than anything. He had offered his packmate precisely the thing that he was therefore.
He watched Sinclair , the predator so easily seen beneath her skin. No perhaps Wolfhome wasn't the best choice
But while Sinclair talked to Marrick, he remained silent waiting till Sinclair was finished before speaking to her again.
[Theron Locke] "Well I had heard my name mentioned Lukas. But I trusted you to be able to deal with it... I'm sure you would have called me over if my comment was required."
to Sinclair, Wyrmbreaker
[Sinclair] There's a pause. Outwardly, Sinclair is staring at Marrick, the two of them the same height and with similar coloring. Then: If you needed backing, I'd offer it. But I won't undermine you. Even in front of a moron.
to Theron Locke, Wyrmbreaker
[Sinclair] There's a moment after Marrick asks Sinclair what's up that the Galliard is silent, a span of a few heartbeats -- which is sometimes an eternity, which is life and death in battle -- but then she blinks her pale blue eyes at the Fury.
Traditionally the tribes that snipe most ferociously at the Black Furies are the Get of Fenris, but considering the tribe's devotion to the Wyld, it's not surprising that the Glass Walkers and Black Furies have an awkward relationship at times. The Walkers can help, and do help, extensively with certain projects close to the heart of Pegasus's children: getting permits for shelters for women and children, legal protection for patchets of wilderness, things like that. When they do ally themselves, it is never easy.
Though that can be said of any two tribes trying to work together.
"I wanted to clear up a couple of things," she says finally, without asking for privacy from the two Lords. Sinclair is rarely seen these days without at least one packmate nearby. There's reasons for that. At least one of those reasons is in a grave right now, just a short walk from where they stand. She doesn't look at Lukas for permission, though, or eye Theron for help. She watches Marrick. "It isn't my place to defend myself to what's said at a punishment rite," she begins, without forcing Marrick to ask what couple of things she wants to clear up, which would just be a repetition of the same question, "but I'm a Galliard, and we are more than storytellers and singers. We keep history. And though some of us embellish it, ultimately one of our duties is to teach."
She speaks calmly. As though she's thought this through. And really: when Sinclair says something that matters to her, she always does. "You have a Galliard in your pack, but she wasn't here. Anything she could tell you and teach you would be secondhand at best, pure rumor at worst." There's a faint pause. "I have things to tell you that you do not know, Bones to Dust," she goes on, with an almost ritualistic slowness to the words, "about White Oak, about me, and about yourself. If you respect me as a Galliard of the Nation and yourself as one who learns from her mistakes, who repairs her weaknesses when they are exploited, you will let me teach you. If you savor ignorance as protection to your ego, you will refuse."
She stops there. Doesn't ask the question that is already explicit, but just waits for Marrick's choice.
[Sinclair] [HA! Remove that line about the pack having a Galliard. Since they don't.]
[Marrick] What she remembered of White Oak was tinged with how he left them.
Not in battle, but in its aftermath. Not in glory, but during hardship, before he even made amends to the totem he helped wrong. The beginning of the downward spiral that La Familia was still trying to climb up from.
She had said what she meant, though, and the blonde- with bright blue eyes and a smattering of freckles across her cheeks, regarded Sinclair directly. She had laid her weaknesses out before, owned up to them, but it was questioned shortly thereafter whether or not she would do anything about them.
If Bones to Dust was all talk with a pretty ribbon. Whether she was a running joke to the sept, who seemed to bleed for the amusement of her allies.
"If you're willin' to put up with me, I'd love to learn from you, Warcry."
Because Galliards were teachers as much as they were talesingers. Because she meant what she said about her, that she could be a woman Marrick could respect.
"You name the terms, and I'm there."
[Mickey] Mickey hops off the barrel and wanders away.
[Theron Locke] It seemed both Sinclair and Lukas had issues with the blonde haired female known as Marrick. His eyes flicked from female to female , trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
[Sinclair] "This won't take that long," Sinclair says simply, shaking her head slightly twice. "And I want nothing from you in return. This is a freebie."
She shifts her stance, taking her hands out of her pockets and letting her arms hang at her sides. She blinks once, slowly. Especially with her eyes darkened as they are, lined with black and smudged with gray, it makes their ethereal brightness seem a bit dead, a bit cold, and very distant, as though a part of her is wondering how it would feel to Marrick's throat crushed in her jaws. Not for the sake of vengeance or even rage, but for dominance. For warmth in winter. For the right to territory. For any number of things that are too simple and too brutal for conscious thought.
Sinclair is not the most rage-touched of those hear, the most moon-led. But even standing next to two Ahrouns, one of them a Fostern who is nearly a foot taller than her, there is something about Sinclair -- a goddamned Walker -- that says she is more savage by nature than they. None of them are human. Lukas, Marrick, and Theron are warriors. They are all of them at the top of the food chain, more lethal than any animal or man.
But Sinclair, first and last and always, is a predator.
Her head tips slightly to the right. "You admitted at the Stone of Scorn that for all you know, I tried to tell Dietrich something he needed to know that night I broke our bond to Bull. You admitted that for all you know, I was trying to teach him." She tips it to the left. :But without missing a beat, you then turned around and claimed to know my very motive for walking away: that I didn't get my way. That I did it out of selfishness and pride."
She cocks her head to the right again. "Then you said you couldn't judge me."
To the left. "While joining in a punishment rite with that as your first contribution to what was a judgement." The last two words are flat, as her head slowly straightens back to the anatomical position. "I will teach you about White Oak, and about that night, and about myself: when I refused a drink he poured me in Las Vegas, Dietrich walked away from Joey and I to spend the night alone. When we came to Chicago, he came separately while she and I got here together. When we arrived, he lived on his own while we joined the rest of you in the Brotherhood of Thieves. That night when we encountered the mist, he screamed orders but did not listen to a word his packmates said to him, did not notice anything but the potential for his own glory. He could not lead. He had shown time and time again his separateness from us.
"Would you have listened to him, with your life and the life of your sister at stake?" she asks quietly, almost gently. There's a pause, not long enough for Marrick to reply, and she goes on, her voice raising a bit, back to a normal volume: "I walked away because I could not trust him even as an ally, certainly not an Alpha. I walked away because even when he said he would follow if I led, he didn't. I walked away because going into battle with that particular full moon would have, I believe with everything I have, led to three stupid, avoidable deaths."
Sinclair takes a breath. "He was never a true packmate of mine. I do not regret breaking that bond, though I do regret how it happened. Speaking of which,"
She smiles thinly, tightly, for a moment. It doesn't last. "Judgement of Sterling Silver-rhya oversaw a Challenge of Grievance between White Oak and myself shortly after that. It was an honorable challenge, and before we even entered into it I admitted openly that I had wronged him. My terms were that should I win, the matter would be dropped and not brought up again." A flicker of that vicious smile in her eyes, though her lips don't twitch again. "I won. And that was before he was your packmate, I believe. So either White Oak ignored the terms of the challenge he brought to me and then lost, or he never told you about the Challenge of Grievance that he brought to me and lost, or you knew all this and brought it up at the Stone of Scorn regardless, breaking the terms of the challenge over again.
"But I don't think you knew," Sinclair says lowly, levelly. "Which brings me to the first thing I have to teach you about yourself: you are ignorant, and that is a sin just as dangerous as anything you could lay at my doorstep. I sometimes speak without thinking, Bones to Dust, and I know that. But you speak without knowing. Worse, you admit even as you run your mouth that you don't know what you're talking about, and yet you keep going. It is as though you don't even hear yourself. You are, from everything I have ever seen, like the man who looks at the mirror and forgets what he looks like as soon as he turns away."
She lets that hang for a few moments in the air, familiar because she did not write it, familiar because it is older than this very city. "Now would you like me to go on? I have something else to teach you, and it is probably even more vital that you know this."
[Sinclair] [There is a : in there that is actually a ". Swearsies.]
[Marrick] [Manip+subterfugre: act like this doesn't bother you!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5 (Success x 1 at target 7) [WP]
[Rory] She doesn't make waves, she doesn't stride through the Caern with the power of an Ahroun that is confident and sure. No, not Rory. Rory keeps to herself, moves with a stealth of one used to not trying to draw attention to herself, one who's used to being berated for being where she should not be - despite the fact that she's every right to be here, just as everyone else born True.
She's dressed in just about everything she owns, doubled up and tripled up under a coat that's too light for the season. She's not bred for living on the streets, though she learns quickly from her packmates and does her best. Her [wasted] breeding sings through her veins, though she oddly has no scent herself, aside from that of her clothing. In some ways, it's impossible to miss her. In others, it's hard notice her at all.
Whatever the case, she slips past the meeting of a group of Garou, hitching her pack higher on her shoulder.
[Marrick] She is impassive, because she wishes to be impassive. It is a visual lie that doesn't matter.
As though hearing one's faults does not, on some level, make a person uncomfortable, she endures because it is for her own betterment. The Fury glances at Lukas- a man she holds no love for, and Theron- a man she doesn't even know, and back at Sinclair. She pretends this doesn't bother her, and it is because she wants it to be.
If nothing, Marrick's will urged her through a lot of things.
There is silence. Long, uncomfortable silence as it all sinks in.
"That's fair," she tells her, after long moments of musing over the words. These things don't come easy to her, and she knows it. It's been pointed out to her, and used time and time again. Enough that it leaves the Fury wondering, at times, if she's nothing more than a meat shield. If she does little in her pack in regards to outside dealings if it is because she is so lacking or if it is a reason entirely.
"And that sounds like him."
More silence. More thought. More choices of words that were alien to her, she looks back at Sinclair's packmates and her stomach turns, and she pretends this doesn't bother her because, yet again, she is in an instance where Sinclair is pointing out her faults and someone could very well be watching.
And she is unshaken, if for no other reason than her will.
"And that sounds like me, too," she replies, "go on."
[Wyrmbreaker] As Sinclair speaks to Marrick, Lukas turns away. He draws a little closer to his other packmate.
"Wolfhome, did I hear?"
[Theron Locke] Theron nods at Lukas "Yeah it was just an idea.. I don't know how successful I'd be in getting us there. From what I've heard though I thought it would be a way to simplify things and gain some perspective. The other option was Pangea...but that may be just as unlikely. I don't know, just interested in exploring some mysteries that doesn't involve the normal horrors we see on a daily basis. Recharge the batteries, refocus and gain some clarity."
[Rory] She finds a place to sit, and settles to the ground. She's not far from Marrick - which is good as that's who she'd like to speak with, but she wouldn't dare interrupt. Instead, only occasionally glancing that way, she pulls her pack off and sets it on the ground between her thighs, digging inside for some project or another to keep her hands busy.
Soon enough, she's got a pile of parts, and her tools, and she's systematically taking it apart, putting it back together.
[Sinclair] Marrick accepts. She hides her discomfort, her issue with it, the way that a child learns as they grow older not to cry when they are scolded, the way they learn not to lash out when everyone in the class sees that they did the problem on the board wrong. Sinclair, for what it's worth, doesn't look that deeply, and probably wouldn't notice if it bothered Marrick even if the Ahroun didn't try to hide it. There's no telling whether or not she'd care, though, if she could tell.
"Your other sin is insecurity," Sinclair says simply, this time offering the label before the lesson, the conclusion before the explanation, a flip of her previous speech. "You used my punishment rite to stand before those gathered and make sure they all knew that you didn't attack me because you didn't get your way, you didn't attack me because I wouldn't let you challenge for a kinsman, oh no... you did it as well-thought-out and deliberate discipline for my disrespect, just like an honorable Ahroun."
The Galliard's sarcasm, lightly intoned as it was, drops completely. "I called you pathetic, Marrick. I said you had no self-respect and to this day you haven't proven to me that you do. I did not disrespect you as an Ahroun, I did not ignore your word in battle. I was trying to teach you even then, and you hated hearing what you think about yourself flung at you from the mouth of another."
Sinclair's eyebrows tug together. Her tone becomes oddly... gentle. "'Pathetic'," she repeats, as though to see what the word does to Marrick now, if anything. Or rather: as though she is testing someone who has been cured of a phobia to see if exposure to the terrifying stimulus is something they can handle now. "Insecure," she says again, more firmly, and then slowly shakes her head. "Because I never thought, and I never said to anyone else, that you nearly killed me over a guy. I knew the moment you came at me it was because I provoked you.
"And you let me."
She huffs a mirthless little laugh. "Marrick," she says, calling her by her human name for the first time in this discussion, "the worst part of that night was that when you 'punished' me for being 'disrespectful', you only made yourself look worse. I wasn't the one who made it seem to anyone like you lost your shit over a kinsman. I told you the truth. I told you how your behavior reflected on you, and you hated it because it was true. Not because it was disrespectful."
The Galliard has not once glanced at either Shadow Lord she's with. She focuses on the Fury, the Ahroun Elder, the over-lectured Cliath. "I am very, very good at goading other Garou to action, Marrick. It isn't much of a skill, to get a race of people already frothing at the mouth with rage to snap, and it's not always wise, but if I was trying to do anything at the bonfire, I was trying to get you to stop and look at how insane you were acting, how ridiculous your request was, how blind you were making yourself. It sure as fuck wasn't to get the 'last word' in. I'm a Galliard, Bones to Dust. For fuck's sake, who knows better that there's no such thing as the last word on any subject?"
She clears her throat. She's been talking a lot. A lot. "I am not your enemy. I never was. But everything I've ever said against you has been based on what I knew of you. Not what I'd heard. Not what I suspected. What I'd seen myself." She exhales. "Nothing you said at the Stone of Scorn had any meaning, Marrick, because you did not know what you were talking about. You called me out on sins I had not committed, motives I never held in my heart. And worse, you did it because of your own prejudices.
"You put on bright display your ignorance, you did it because of your insecurity."
She ends there. She does not tell Marrick she's a good Ahroun, or a good Elder. It's because she really doesn't know. It's because she's not, herself, a member of that auspice, nor a Fostern, nor in possession of all of Marrick's history. She does not offer Marrick help, does not tell her what to do or how to fix it, what she should have done instead. She concludes the lesson about White Oak, Warcry, and Bones to Dust.
And waits.
[Wyrmbreaker] "Surface similarities aside, Pangaea and Wolfhome are pretty drastically different," Lukas comments. "What are you trying to teach her, exactly? Because that might affect your choice of one over the other."
[Marrick] [frenzy check, again! using WP to resist if necessary]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[Theron Locke] "I guess I wanted to help her strengthen her spirit, her mind. Help her better defend herself from mental attack. I don't not think it was because she was weak, it's because she made such a viable target. I just want to help her balance that out...ensure that she never attacks one of us or another of our kind again. She is a fierce warrior, but we are more than that."
[Marrick] This time, she doesn't bother to hide it.
She does look wounded. Genuinely, in the way that only youth can. She looks at Sinclair in the way that was really hard to place, and in a way that was hard to really understand. She felt horribly small at that moment. It was written across fairly attractive features. I provoked you, Sinclair said. And you let me. She clenches her fists tightly in her pockets, tightly enough that it makes her knuckles pop, that if her nails were just a little longer, it might break the skin.
She is reminded, briefly, of something Wyrmbreaker said. About her being gullible. About her being easily manipulated by the right sources.
Something about that aches.
"It's really that obvious, isn't it? My strings are so easy to pull," she says, "I'm just gullible enough to take whatever someone tells me as truth. Even if it doesn't make sense."
She tries, dear lord she tries not to let something bitter and pained creep into her speech. It doesn't work, and her words hold passion and vitriol for that moment that didn't belong to her moon. She is insecure, and she does not refute.
She looks at Sinclair.
She grits her teeth, and she looks at her with a look that it at once harsh and injured. It is not what she said, it is not that the words came, but because of the explanation Sinclair offers. She is seething, bright and furious if the need be. And it is not because of the fact that Sinclair is refuting what she has said at the Stone of Scorn, but rather, one simple point:
Marrick Fisher had been played. She'd been played for a long, long time, and she had no idea.
"If you ever toy with me like that again-" she snaps, her voice is rough and harsh, but mostly it's just... there. Marrick would come down later.
"I'm not a fucking TOY Sinclair! I'm not here to be laughed at, I'm not here to be humiliated or USED!"
She yells it at her. She all but roars it, and she can't put into words why or how this made her so angry, but every other point faded into the background, the points of Sinclair refuting whatever came from the Stone of Scorn were lost.
"I'm SICK of it!"
And she doesn't care who hears.
[Rory] Her fingers are nimble, and quick, and work to pry apart parts that the manufacturer likely didn't intend to do so unless by a "certified technician" - which she certainly is not. She simply has a way with simple machines, seeing how they work, how they go together and come apart, how to replace it, fix it, make it better. It's not always pretty, but it's nearly always functional.
Today's project? An old drill that had been tossed as useless. It freezes, and the cord is frayed, and she's determined to make it work. They need it for the house, and that's enough for her.
[dex+crafts - spec mech. tinkering]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 4, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Rory] And Marrick yells - and her hands falls till, for just a moment, as her head snaps up and she watches, quickly gauging the distance, as if she expects such sudden anger to be turned on her, for no reason other than she's there. She exists, and she's there.
A few aching moments later... and she looks back to her project, taking solace in the familiar.
[Sinclair] Sinclair doesn't rise. Her temper doesn't go up, her packmates don't feel her prepare to launch at the Fury. She looks at Marrick as the other girl screams, roars, yells, and the simple fact that she doesn't seem phased by it could very well be as much of a point being made as anything she said aloud.
When Marrick's shout has faded, Sinclair slowly says: "It's interesting... that I said I was trying to teach you a lesson, and you're the one saying you were toyed with, humiliated, and used."
That hangs a moment. She watches Marrick, waiting to see if that's going to cause the full moon to go for her throat again, then glances at Lukas and Theron if Marrick doesn't. Her eyes go back after a second. "You're gullible because you believe what you want to believe. So be more careful about deciding what you want to believe."
[Sinclair] In that moment when she looks at them, Sinclair's voice is eerily, pre-storm calm over their link: I'm about done here.
And when she finishes speaking to Marrick: I heard what you said, Theron... that you don't think I was weak.
Thanks.
to Theron Locke, Wyrmbreaker
[Marrick] "You have me enough rope to hang myself with," she remarks, "lesson learned."
She pursed her lips, and she looks at her, like she really is looking for an answer. Galliards are teachers. Galliards are more than this, and she's looking at someone who is, essentially, a stranger, and she's looking for something, "how the Hell am I supposed to know if you're trying to teach me something or if you're just fucking with me? How do I know that it ain't your ego that's telling me all of this because you're hurt about something?"
She didn't mean it, she didn't mean to seem distraught, but at this moment, she was. The lesson was learned: trust no one.
After a long, long moment, she calms enough to carry on a decent conversation.
"This has been insightful. Thank you."
[Wyrmbreaker] "You're the Theurge," Lukas replies, "and your understanding of the realms is better than mine will ever be. But I was always taught that Pangaea is a place of healing, of unity, of harmony. A reminder of what we're fighting for. A place to replenish, not strengthen, the spirit. If Sinclair were languishing on the verge of Harano, then yeah. I'd take her to Pangaea. But she's not.
"Wolfhome will probably push Sinclair harder. I think it might teach her something about the value of the pack -- and maybe also something about herself, her own strength divorced from the Gifts and Rites and talens and power that comes with shapeshifting." The Ahroun shrugs. "If it were up to me, that's the one I'd choose. But," and he smiles a little, lopsidedly, "it's not up to me."
And then there's shouting. And Lukas looks around -- doesn't snap his head around, doesn't startle. Sinclair can take care of herself. Here's the irony: if Sinclair had bristled, he would've reacted far more swiftly.
"For fuck's sake," he says mildly.
[Sinclair] She cocks her head to the side. "Do you really think you ever got to know me well enough to assume I'd ever just be fucking with you, or that I'd risk inviting the wrath of a full moon because of my ego?"
Sinclair's temper does, finally, show a little in a flash of lightning through those alien, opaq
[Sinclair] [WTF Jove.]
[Theron Locke] "Your welcome Warcry, it's why I didn't take the stone at the moot. I just think many of the Sept missed the point..the lesson to be learned. But that's just me."
"Hmm thanks for your advice Lukas, I shall take it on board and see what decision I reach. Although watching Warcry tonight, I fear for the hunted in the realm of Wolfhome with a predator like she is on the loose." he chuckles as he shakes his head.
to Sinclair, Wyrmbreaker
[Sinclair] She cocks her head to the side. "Do you really think you ever got to know me well enough to assume I'd just be fucking with you, or that I'd risk inviting the wrath of a full moon because of my ego?"
Sinclair's temper does, finally, show a little in a flash of lightning through those alien, opaque eyes. "Ignorance," she pronounces again, then takes a small breath.
"I'm done talking to you," she says flatly. "You go from screaming at the top of your lungs to thanking me for my insight; I can't fucking keep up. The lesson's over, and I apparently have an umbral quest to Wolfhome to prepare for, and you're harshing my wolfy vibe or some shit now."
She throws up her partially-gloved hands slightly. "Later," and turns to go, because -- as Lukas and Theron and the rest of the Unbroken can likely tell -- it is the way she is keeping herself from attacking.
[Theron Locke] He turns to Lukas and speaks "Well you've both given me some things to think about tonight. I think I need to depart and begin making preparations"
"Or perhaps it is time for the Unbroken to depart." he doesn't need to look at Sinclair to sense her desire to remove herself from this place. As he turns to leave, waiting for the rest of his pack to make the move before he follows.
[Marrick] I'm done talking to you-
She is interrupted.
"We're in agreement, then," she says, "keep warm."
The Fury is content to turn her back and walk away. Unafraid to do so, unashamed to do so. Either she had baited the female or Marrick simply was unafraid to walk away from the Galliard on her own terms instead of the ones that she set forth. Whatever else Sinclair said to her, whether she kept talking or not, fell on deaf ears as she walked away.
[Sinclair] [I have got to get to bed! Thank you for the RP, all! That was surprisingly intense. *L*]
[Rory] The group breaks up, and she glances up to see Marrick headed her way - she glances past her, to where Sinclair stalks off, Theron following - and likely Lukas as well. Then she looks back to the Ahroun Elder, and lifts a hand slightly to wave. She doesn't scramble to stand - sometimes it's the small things that show the gradual improvement of people skills in the small Fianna.
"Hi." A beat, as she rubs the side of her nose with the hand that holds her screwdriver, leaving a smudge of grime across her skin. "Tan I calk to you a minute?"
Hesitant, as always.
[Wyrmbreaker] The Shadow Lords of the Unbroken wait for the Glass Walker to catch up. As she comes abreast of them, they turn, including her in their immediate space seamlessly. Three together, mismatched for height and build and just about everything except the storm-intensity of their presence and their pale, cutting eyes, they walk away.
Lukas can be heard asking, "What was that all about?" And then they're past earshot.
to Sinclair, Theron Locke
[Wyrmbreaker] The Shadow Lords of the Unbroken wait for the Glass Walker to catch up. As she comes abreast of them, they turn, including her in their immediate space seamlessly. Three together, mismatched for height and build and just about everything except the storm-intensity of their presence and their pale, cutting eyes, they walk away.
Lukas can be heard asking, "What was that all about?" And then they're past earshot.
[Wyrmbreaker] (thanks for the play, guys!)
[Marrick] "What's up?" she asked Rory.
The Fury was starting to feel wound up, like she needed a purpose. Needed an outlet, needed something quick to get her mind off of growing ire and an unintended lesson. (Trust no one.) She regarded Rory, let the Unbroken pass for the time being.
celebration.
11 years ago