The Barracuda is jam-packed. Decker in the driver’s seat, AnneMarie in the shotgun. And somehow wedged into the narrow backseat of the fastback coupe, Jakob, Evan and Maya.
It’s a long drive. The rage and the cramped quarters make it seem longer. They go about an hour straight north on a highway that was almost a freeway, broad and bland. Then, they hook a left onto a two-lane country road that floats over a few farms, then begins to circle ever more torturously into the bog.
The sun is well down by then. The stars are coming out.
Silence parks the car almost in the same spot he had last time he was up. When the deep rumble of the engine cuts out, and the rush of the wind is gone, and the steady hum of tires on road is gone, the night is so silent they can hear their ears ring. Silence pushes his door open and gets out, and then flips his seat forward to let the backseaters out. The air is noticeably cooler here than in the city, noticeably cleaner. The scents are crisp and bright.
“‘s this way,” he says, and starts into the bog.
[Ruhiger] The road passes beneath them in relative silence. There is no idle chatter, there is only the quiet introspection before a mission, the calm resolve of those in preparation for whatever is to come. They do not come without gifts – they have learned this much. This time, however, it is not Ruhiger that carries the gift, but Evan.
The car pulls to a stop, and she steps from the vehicle a moment after Silence, mirroring him in the pull of the seat forward, before they are all out, and ready to go.
S’this way, he says. AnneMarie looks around, once, and then falls into step a bit behind Silence, on his right. One gets the feeling that if he said ‘let’s bungee jump without a cord’ she’d likely follow with the same calm reserve. Well – depending on the height of the fall.
[Storms Eye] It is a good thing she is smaller than the last Godi to ride in the back-seat of the Barracuda. And even with her modest size, the raven-haired woman is elbowed, kicked and nudged by the two males beside her at various intervals. Their apologies earning them a glance through kohl-rimmed eyes, an under-breath statement in a foreign tongue.
It’s a long drive and by the time they arrive, Maya is cramped, drowsy and resentful of the easy manner in which Jakob slumbers.
She stretches beside the car, the bangles laced around her ankles and wrists clinking together, and lowers herself to her haunches to scoop a handful of dirt, to lift it to her nose and inhale, to rub it and as she raises herself to her feet once again, to allow it to slip between her fingers, embedding grains into the tiny lines of her palm.
S’this way, and the Modi leads on, Ruhiger follows. Jakob and Maya exchange a look, and she starts in the Eagles wake.
[Tibik-itzaniabi] Woods here; and a noticeable silence. For Maya and Jakob, fresh from Winter’s Tooth, it is not silence – the interstate hums five miles away, and even these backroads are criss-crossed by humming utility lines – phone and cable, electricty – to keep everyone hooked into the grid. Still, after a couple of weeks in the noisy city, there is something welcome about the absence of constant sound.
The umbral landscape is familiar to Silence and Ruhiger. The trees are twisted, sickly, slumbering. Unlike their physical world counterparts, most of the glade children here have yet to leaf out, and so the sky is visible through the fingerling traces of black bark, just a sliver of a waxing moon visible through high wisps of cirrus clouds or stirred smoke. There is a peculiar, perhaps clinical, perhaps chemical scent to these grounds, to these lands, one that suggests without revealing the wellspring of corruption less than five miles away, as the crow flies. The view changes constantly – for all that the ground seems flat, immediately beneath the feet, these are rolling hills; vistas open, then close – though only so far as the next ridge, the next flat, the next valley. Eventually, there is a subtle change; they top a ridge, and begin to descend down a gentle slope just beside the deep cut of small stream. The trees are taller here; and healthier – leafed out, humming with the dull passion of life. Their view downslope is occluded by a thick bank of white mist, pale as a dead man’s hand, which rises , drifting through the tops of the trees and obscures their view of the sky.
[Silence] “There it is.” Silence halts at the top of the slope. When he changes, the moonlight catches off the white at his chest and shoulders, glints in his ice-gray eyes. A black claw points at the mist, “Once we’re in that, stay close. If we lose sight of each other for even a second, we’ll be separated.
“Let Evan present his offerings first. No questions until they accept it. And if they tell you to leave, do it. Don’t argue with them — unless you want to spend the rest of your miserable life wandering around in there.”
The great wolf-beast lowers himself to all fours and begins to pick his way down the slope, skirting the ghost-white trees in the black mud. It gets wetter with every step. Not too far in his wake, Evan, with his silver fang’s white coat and his gaian’s aversion to violence, carries the two heads he claimed and cleansed on his back.
[Ruhiger] A shift, then. Not to birthform, though it is what she is most comfortable in – but to lupus, where her weight is slight, her steps light, all the better to keep her footing on the sodden land of the bog. She has slipped and sunk before – and prefers not to repeat the experience.
And thus, with a shake of her head, a flick of an ear, she continues to follow silence, making sure to keep him in sight.
[Storms Eye] Storms Eye shifts before they crest the peak of the slope, in her wolf form she seems smaller still, too delicate to share their blood and yet — she sits for a moment, her attention drawn to the mist that rises and twirls, thick in the trees, coalescing.
Then, shaking out her body, she lifts herself onto all fours and follow close in Ruhiger’s wake, Jakob at her heels.
[Tibik-itzaniabi] The ground is damp but not sodden. The heart of the bog lies well ahead of them, at the bottom of the long, gentle hill. Here, the ground is solid, and the trees are tall, with fat roots, thick and wormy and deep. At odd intervals, glacial outcroppings jut out from the land, hard ribs of rock, the bones of the earth beneath the soil.
The forest is a mixture of deciduous trees and peculiar evergreens, the latter a shock of rich and errant dark green in the graybrown world. The leaves on the deciduous trees are still tinged the pale, limey-yellow green of early spring growth. The stream – they can hear it, subtle, somewhere hidden in the narrow declivity – bristles with brush and vines. Beneath their feet, the familiar scent of leaf mast mingles with the strewn musty loam of the damp earth.
The air is hushed; the mist dampens sound as much as it limits eyesight. Thirty yards down the gentle slope, the small stream is interrupted by finger of granite cut into a narrow cliff. The water spills over the outcropping, falls to pool in the damp hollow at the base of the brief cliff, then continues down the slope.
(You can all roll perception plus alertness!)
[Ruhiger]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 7, 8, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Silence]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Storms Eye]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Tibik-itzaniabi] Ruhiger sees a slim woman, dark haired and dark eyed, in white, sitting in the V of a peculiarly forked tree about 10 yards to the west as she passes it.
to Ruhiger
[Silence] “The Raven,” rumbles the wolf-beast, pausing in his descent, three paws on the ground while the fourth, his left handpaw, points at the fork of a tree perhaps a crinos leap to the west of the pool. “Judgment, yer offerin’.”
And the Modi stays where he is, allowing the Philodox to make the first approach, carrying his bag of trophies that had cost much to gain.
[Ruhiger] Lupine head tips, ears twitch, and she studies a particularly forked tree, 10 yards to the west. Across Eagle’s Wings – It is a woman. Slim, dressed in white, dark hair and eyes. bemused, perhaps, that once again they see different things.
A pause in her step before she passes, and she lowers her head in respect, before she lifts her eyes to the woman’s again. Ever silent, an ear flicks again, idly, as she waits for Evan to make his offering.
[Tibik-itzaniabi] Now that she looks, she too sees the raven.
to Ruhiger
[Ruhiger] A beat, and consideration. A Raven, now. Or also. Silence from Ruhiger, however, as she watches.
[Silence] Stop.
And Evan stops —
The long muzzle swings toward Ruhiger. “You see a woman? You are certain?”
[Storms Eye] Maya sees the white raven, she watches it with open interest, her eyes swinging to Evan as he begins to carry his offering toward the tree — stops, and the Godi’s ears flick backwards as she waits — there is interplay happening between the bound pack members she is not privy to.
“I see only the raven.” An offering made toward Jakob, waiting beside her.
[Ruhiger] She studies the tree and the Raven, and then turns her gaze to Silence. As we started to pass, I saw the woman. Of that, yes, I am certain. Now, however, when looking directly at it, it is a Raven, as you see.
There’s the sense of bemusement still there. The Bog has played many tricks on the Modi, she is leery at best, and confused at worst. Right now, she wavers in between. This is Spirit business. Godi business. She still maintains she is unworthy to have received the vision before – but willing to chance it once again, for however many times it takes.
A trick of the Mist, perhaps, or a trick of the Spirit. Either way, it was a woman, and is now a Raven. It was not, however, a trick of her eye. Of that, too, she is certain.
[Silence] It was a woman, Ruhiger says, and is now a raven.
“I suspected that,” the Modi says, his high speech curiously flawless, full of the blood purity that was afforded him by his illustrious ancestors. And a nod to Evan —
— who again approaches the raven-woman in the tree, shucking the bag from the heads as he closes in, holding the two severed heads high: one amorphous, a blob of slackened, rudimentary features that may or may not have once been the rostral end of an enormous slug; the other, skeletal, black, chitinous, lean and mean, very obviously the cephalus of an enormous invertebrate.
“Translate this,” Silence tells Storms-Eye. He speaks from behind Evan and his offerings, raising his voice to carry: “We come again with gifts, Raven, and questions.”
[Storms Eye] Translate this, he tells her.
And the she-wolf rises to her feet, moving forward from her position beside Snowsblood, her paws sinking lightly into the damp earth and — translates, her speech unaffected in high tongue, in the language of the spirits by her heavy accent.
She repeats Silence’s words, and waits.
[Tibik-itzaniabi] “I do not want your rotten meat, Fenrir.” The white raven sings, opening its wings to their widest span, pinfeathers gleaming an irridescent nocolor as the spirit stretches its incarnated body to some attenuated arch. It remains earthbound, for the moment – or treebound, dark claws against dark bark. “What you bring – ” precise; the spirit speaks to Silence through Storm’s Eye, lifting its beak toward the girl before leveling its gaze on Silence. ” – you bring for her, do you know? Put it in the pool, and she will receive it. Perhaps she will show you mercy, and let you run free of this place again. I have another price, entirely, if you are willing to play it.”
[Silence] “It’s not meat we bring you,” and his eyes slide to the pool, “or Her. It’s our best intentions. A show of effort and dedication. It’s the danger our Philodox,” his hand comes down briefly on the white Crinos’ shoulder, “faced; and it’s what it cost him to set aside his tribe’s philosophy of cooperation and mediation, to stand alone on the front line.”
Evan kneels to let the heads, cleansed of their filth but not of their inherent ugliness, slide into the pool.
“Your price for what?”
[Ruhiger] She stands, nearby, listening. Her gaze slips to Evan as he makes the offering, and then back again to the Raven.
[Storms Eye] Storms Eye translates, her high tongue softer, a gentler rumbling of words. Her attention to the white raven, perched in its tree.
[Tibik-itzaniabi] The pool is a scant half-inch deep, no wider than a cafe table. The surface bubble and burbles constantly as the small waterfall his the surface of the water. Evan can see his distorted reflection in the rippling surface; beneath it, he can see a bed of pine needles leaking tannins into the clear water. A half-inch deep – but the offers sink and sink and sink and [b]sink[/i] as he settles first one ugly head, then the next, into the cool water.
“For answering your questions, Son of Fenris. For offering you guidance. For flapping my wings and keeping away the mists that would separate you from your pack regardless of the offerings you bring Her. For whatever songs I might sing you; for the offense you gave me a half-moon past; for the price of the questions, son-of-fenris.” The bird speaks continuous, its colored language soft as the wind through the trees, and as incomprehesible to all but the Godi. Through the speech, it burrows and nuzzles at the base of one extended wind, grooming itself carefully.
“As you question,” – the spirit’s eyes are fixed on Silence. ” – and I will name my price.”
[Silence] Silence has one eye on Evan until the Philodox turns and nods: the heads, as far as he could tell, had been accepted. Then his attention fixes wholly on the great white raven. When she speaks of offense, the great masseter muscles under the wide ruff framing his lupine face clench and flex. He gives the Philodox a dark glance, remembering what he had said — about he being the one to make the kill, the Silence being the one to bend the knee, and sacrifice — and, after a long grudging deliberation, slowly sinks to one knee in the mud.
“I apologize,” he grits out — pauses to consider; restarts, a lot more sincerely, “I apologize for the offense I have given to you or to Her.
“Can I speak to my pack before I agree to play” the word substitution is not lost on him, “your price?”
[Tibik-itzaniabi] “You may,” – the spirit responds, immediately, with a dramatic flare of its huge wingspan as it pushes off the V in the forked tree and takes wing. No undignified flapping, this – low to the ground though they are, the raven glides as if it had found a thermal, up to fat branch on a squat old maple. The dark-eyes flash; then the bird sweeps one long wing over its eyes, the sharp point of the beak visible through a fan of feathers. ” – I will not even peek.”
[Ruhiger] She can’t help the quirk of her brow, an amused flick of an ear as she watches the Raven’s show. Pale gaze shines briefly, in mirth, before she returns her attention to Silence, and the rest of the pack.
[Storms Eye] “He apologizes,” The young Godi finishes, and turns to look at Silence as he bends to one knee, a snuff of air through her snout signifies approval at the motion and she turns to finish her translation — to hear the melodic song of the spirit in reply as it takes flight.
“She will not peek.” Storms Eye adds, quirking her head to the side, the flicker of an ear.
[Snowsblood] Since they left, since they came here, since they’ve entered, Jakob has been curiously silent. Given his attitude around the house since arriving in Chicago, that’s no surprise, but most tribes would find a speechless Galliard to be a strange thing. Jakob is not just a Galliard, though. He is a Skald. And he is young, whether he looks it or not, and he is…new. He kept on the heels of the other newcomer, not so much out of deference to her as to her auspice. This is more her work than his, whatever he said when he met the Eagles.
He has not spoken, but he is paying attention, and that, at least, proves what he said he could do. His eyes swivel from the Raven to Silence, head canting to one side to wait for the Adren to speak.
[Silence] She will not peek: Silence seems less amused. He barely holds back a snort. His fingerclaws squish in the mud as he pushes off, rising back to his feet, turning to his pack. Truth is, they weren’t a pack in proper yet. And so they would have to speak aloud, and so — if the raven felt like peeking, or eavesdropping, there was little they could do.
Nonetheless: “It sounds like the Raven’s price will go up with every question we ask. So let’s make them count. Remember what we’re here for: to find a way to get the moon-water-woman’s help. Unless you have better ideas, I’m going to ask outright what it’s going to take. She’ll probably give me an obscure, incomprehensible answer — is she eavesdropping yet? I hope she’s amused. — and in that case, I want suggestions for what to ask next. Whatever occurs to you, let me know. But don’t shout questions directly at her or we’ll rack up a debt beyond what we can pay.”
[Ruhiger] She listens – as always, and a dip of her head agrees. Not that she’d be shouting out any questions, herself, of course. A broad question gives at least a starting point for answers that need clarifying. Ever silent, she turns her attention again to the Raven, who need not peek to overhear.
[Storms Eye] “First to know the rules of any game is best. What kind it is will offer different results to an outright question. Play with her obscurity by holding back.” Maya offers, her voice lowered in an effort to deny peeking Raven eyes — and ears.
[Snowsblood] Jakob turns his head towards Storms Eye, then back to Silence. He chuffs once; his agreement with her, via body language, is clear enough that there’s no need to speak.
[Silence] A moment’s pause, as the Modi’s clear pale eyes stare at the Godi. Then he figures her bloody obscure language out. “Fine.” Suggestion accepted, like that. He starts to turn back to the raven. Then, a better idea. The Modi points a claw at the Snowsblood, “You speak for us, Skald. The Godi translates. Ask her what the rules are; what kind, what manner of price we might expect.”
[Evan McCollach] Evan watched the gathering he had been silent the whole time. He did not know much about spirits or how they were to be dealt with, he only offered as best as he could, what he could. He had made a huge sacrifce in getting those heads, the centipede one more so than the other. He could have worked with Decker and Ruhiger, but that would have been simple. The spirit wanted a sacrifice and there was nothing more he could sacrifice in that fight less he actually didn’t succeed to survive the strangle hold put on him.
He knew one thing though and that the spirits words were never straightfoward, they were always wrapped in something cryptic. What did the Raven have to do with teh Water-woman? Was that covered in some story he missed or something.
And when Storms Eye speaks, he nods. It is best to learn the game before playing.
[Snowsblood] Snowsblood stands, then, with another quiet grunt of agreement – or merely obedience. He steps forward, towards the Raven, and looks up. He waits to be acknowledged by the spirit at first. As before, as always, his body language is the real poetry, the real ‘moon dancing’ those of his auspice are supposed to do. His voice is hardly necessary, but if Raven ignores him, he calls out, with striking clarity in his tone: “I have a question for you.”
[Tibik-itzaniabi] The not-peeking Raven turns to look quite directly at them when Snowsblood steps away from the group and marches over the damp, leaf-laden ground, over the gentle down-slope, an angle so subtle here it is hard to see or sense. The fog has closed in on them, on all four sides, isolating the pack in a weltering white world, in a tapestry of white with long, narrow threads of gray and brown drawn through. “I have a price. ” With a shivering sweep, the bird folds its huge white wings neatly onto its back, and glances from Storms Eye to Snowsblood, and back again. “Ask your question.”
[Snowsblood] He bows his head, but it could not be mistaken for a simple nod; his shoulders tip forward slightly as well, inclining towards the spirit. Looking up at it (her?), he wraps his jowls and tongue around the High Tongue, the Old Tongue, their language. It matters that he speaks well, even if it will be translated. Much can be said for tone, for the words chosen. He doesn’t know if they’re the right ones – he found Maya as hard to understand as Silence did. If he’s nervous (oh, he’s nervous), it doesn’t find evidence in his gestures, or his voice.
“What kind of game do you want to play?”
[Tibik-itzaniabi] “The price is – ” the bird replies; in profile, now, as it’s singular black eye fixes on Silence. ” – one mouthful of fur from that one’s pelt. Agree to pay it and I will answer.”
[Silence] Silence gives a snort of outrage — and then whuffs curtly in assent.
[Snowsblood] There’s not much of a reaction from the Skald. He turns his head to look at the Adren, his stare level, waiting for agreement before they go on, then he looks back to the Raven. “We agree.”
[Storms Eye] Maya lowers her head before the Raven-spirit, her paws kneading the dirt beneath her, toiling it gently beneath her large claws. Snowsblood speaks in the Garou high tongue, and the she-wolf weaves his words to a softer, stranger consistency, the speech of the Raven.
Storms Eye listens to the reply, to Snowsblood’s pretty Galliard tongue, and then her attention swings to face Silence — he snorts, Maya’s paw scratches the dirt, draws against it — and then gives the spirit an assent.
[Evan McCollach] Evan watched the pairing, the deal of one mouth full of fur from Decker’s own pelt. That was a strange asking and the thought of giving it up seemed a bit odd. But the Raven probably had something in for Decker after their first contact.
[Tibik-itzaniabi] The bird takes wing; it does not flap or reach for lift. It simply finds it, offerig a single, elegant backwing on descent, and perhaps only for show. Silence can feel the thrum of subtle power when the spirit hovers close to his massive head, long enough to rip the promised mouthful of fur from the modi’s ruff. In a eyeblink, the raven has returned to perch before them – notably, it choses a somewhat higher branch than before. Silence’s fur disappears into his maw (gulp; swallow) and only then does the raven deign to answer.
“These are the rules, son-of-Fenris. You may ask any question you wish; I may ask any price. You may, three times, refuse my price and pay another price, of your own choosing. I may, three times, refuse your question and answer another question of my own choosing. When you refuse to pay a price, and has no more options, the game is ended and you are your pack will turn and leave.
[Silence] Silence looks around at the others. It’s an honest question: “What choice do we have?”
[Ruhiger] A shift of position and a lift of her chin. The gesture simple, the meaning as well – No choice. Time to play.
[Evan McCollach] Be careful what questions we ask out loud. We do not want to be charged a question without paying for it.
His voice came off quickly and through the link. He had been silent until time needed to.
to Ruhiger, Silence
[Snowsblood] Nummy treats. Snowsblood watches the Raven carefully, follows it with his eyes as best he can. He’s forced to whip his head back around when the Raven’s back on the branch. He blinks once, slowly. It gives him a slightly drowsy look for a moment, if it’s possible for a crinos Garou to look drowsy. (It’s a stretch.)
Again, he bows his head and shoulders forward to the Raven, then turns to the others to await their next question. He will speak for them; that has not been repealed. They have a choice, of course: to walk away, turn up their noses at this place, ignore it, let Fate have its way with it, let the Hive… It is not a good choice, but it is a choice. And the fact that they choose to play the game instead means something, because it really is not the only option. Silence’s question is an honest one, but Jakob doesn’t bother to answer it. He
“I want to know why Ruhiger saw a woman.” He says it simply, as a statement rather than a question – just in case.
[Evan McCollach] Evan looked between each of the packmates before turning to look at the Raven as it seemed content on taking a part of Decker’s fur. If that was the starting price, what was to come?
“I want to know what connection the Raven has to the water-moon-woman.”
And another question to the bound pack.
And if the Raven will guarentee us truthfulness of every answer.
[Ruhiger] Perhaps insinuating suspicion that the Raven may not be truthful would be an insult. Grandious and misleading, perhaps – untruthful? No – these are untainted spirits protecting an untainted land. Honor them for that. To ask for a guarantee would waste a question.
A glance toward Evan, and then the others, before she simply watches the Raven.
[Storms Eye] Maya is the translator, the interpreter. She turns her head, her eyes flashing forward and backward, her stance submissive before the Raven, perched high above them — Silence’s fur swallowed deep into its gut. She makes some noise of irritation — a Russian’s patience was trifling at best — a sniff-snort at the statement-not-questions bouncing around them.
“Which to begin, you must give me a path.”
[Silence] She ain’t never lied ta me, the Modi’s drawl on the mindvoice is startling after nothing but his accentless high speech. She ain’t never told tha straight truth neither, but she ain’t never lied.
“I want to know if the water-moon-woman can purify even the taint of a Hive. And if so, how we can recruit her help again.”
The Modi sinks to his haunches like an enormous canine, knees drawn up, feet flat on the ground, one handpaw planted for balance. He glances at the Godi.
“But begin with Evan’s question. Ask the Raven’s connection to the water-moon-woman. I suspect it will tell us why Ruhiger saw a woman.”
[Storms Eye] Maya begins with Evan’s question, then.
A glance cast the Skald’s way, in question, anticipation of him phrasing it so — anticipation that builds to naught and the she-wolf Godi steps forward, surpasses with a snuffle and the tongue of the spirits, though lacking for the eloquence of the Galliard, she manages in a slightly more broken manner.
“What is your connection here, to the water-moon-woman?”
[Tibik-itzaniabi] “The price is a hair from your human head, theurge.” The raven’s wings flare in arch question, then settle back around its shimmering lean body, folded together like a drum. Somehow, in the interval, it has secreted the mouthful of Silence’s fur on its person, or swallowed it, entirely.
[Snowsblood] Jakob does not phrase it just so. He steps back. The question is a simple one. He has no idea if Maya manages to mangle even something as basic as what’s your connection to the water-moon-woman, since he doesn’t understand the language of spirits. He doesn’t explain why he doesn’t step forward this time.
[Evan McCollach] Evan watched the Raven and what it asked and then looked over to Storms Eye to get the translation. And once translated he just watched her. It was her choice and maybe she had a reason to offer something else, or not give up her hair. Either way. It was her choice.
And Evan just stood their, watching and waiting for the answer, if it is to come.
[Storms Eye] “She wishes my hair this time.” There is humor perceived in the flick of Maya’s ears back from her head. She backs up, sits up, shifting until it is no longer wolven eyes that watch the Raven — but darkest brown, coated in black. Maya bends forward once more with the flex of her arms, a position of supplication, deep prayer.
She bends the crown of her head — acknowledgment.
“The price is accepted.”
[Tibik-itzaniabi] Again; the bird sweeps dow from its bare branch with a subtle wash of wings that never quite meets the definition of either sweeping or fluttering; it hovers, contained in the air by Storm’s Eyes’ head, and plucks a single, long hair from her head, pulls it hard enough that the hair comes out of the mass root intact. A passing twinge for the Godi. Briefly, the black hair in the bear, as if the spirit-bird had grown two long but disproportionate whiskers – and then the hair disappears before the raven has regained its perch.
“I am one of her servants; I am one who serves her, since I first made my sacrifice. So I have always been; so I remain. You could call me a guardian, if you wished.” The creature seems sober, looking down at the group.
[Silence] (did ur aim die?)
[Silence] “It seems,” Silence says, with a wry flick of his tail-tip, “we’ll have to ask Jakob’s question after all.”
[Snowsblood] Maya loses a hair. Silence loses a tuft of fur. Sure, it stings. But this isn’t exactly the sort of tribute that gives emotional weight to a story. And then the Godi known as Courts the Storm’s Eye had a single hair pulled from her head by the Raven. The pain was brief and insignificant, and then the hair was gone. The Godi was submissive to the spirit; the loss of the hair was the price she had agreed to. She had to accept it. She had to move on.
He tries not to hope for a higher price on the next question. Ravens are misleading. The next supplicant may step forward, expecting to give only a bit of fuzz, and lose…well. I may ask any price.
Jakob turns towards the Raven, lifting his head. “Why did Ruhiger see you as a woman, and not a Raven, when we first came here?”
[Tibik-itzaniabi] “For that I will have – ” a moment’s consideration; the raven’s regard flickers, fickle, and Snowsblood may be forgiven for seeing a woman behind the moment, for all that the spirit remains inert, just the coal black eyes set in the luminously white frame, the feathers sheened a brilliant, deepsome white, a fine match for the mists drifting all around them. ” – the seat of your tears.”
[Silence] “Stop.”
Timeout’s called. Silence reconvenes with the pack:
“We may have harder questions and greater prices yet, and only three substitutions to use. I think it’s worth giving the bird what it asks. But if you’re unwilling,” he levels a direct look at Jakob, “I’ll take your place.”
[Ruhiger] Above pale gaze, a lupine brow quirks upwards, and ears twitch as she watches, and listens.
Then, as Silence makes the offer, AM steps forward – words unheard but for her pack. It was a question concerning my vision. I offer mine instead.
[Evan McCollach] When the translation comes back, he is a bit taken back.
“Your….”
He holds himself from even thinking of turning the statement into a question, but that was a grave demand. What would the raven demand next… And what of when the Raven does not wish to answer the question? What then?
“This is starting to get excessively serious. I think we should start focusing on questions and what we want to know exactly, focus our goals again. What we are here for. We should focus our questions again, back to the main issue. We want to know how we can get the Moon-water-moon to aid us once more, we should question to that affect.”
[Snowsblood] Snowsblood does not nod or offer his face to the Raven. He turns his head over his shoulder and looks at the gathered Garou. Silence calls a time out, but Jakob doesn’t turn fully around. He blinks once, and it makes him wonder briefly if on another day he might only be able to wink. There’s a weird quirk of his mouth, at that. It fades after a flash. He can’t hear AnneMarie’s offer. His eyes, both of them for now, go to Silence.
Some of what comes out of his mouth is in English, and it mangles the High Tongue: “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He shakes his head a little and turns back to the Raven. His arms are crossed tightly over his chest, the only indication of the tension in his chest. He addresses Maya, not the Raven, because right now – he doesn’t want to direct any of his words at the spirit. So, to the Godi: “The left, please.”
[Ruhiger] She narrows her gaze at Snowsblood, but, of course, says nothing further.
[Silence] To Evan: “The question’s already asked. We can’t take it back. But next question, we’ll ask about the moon water woman. Enough of this bush-beating.”
[Storms Eye] Courts the Storms Eye suffers a twinge, the bearest pain that the Godi is more than willing to endure and she raises her head — and raises her snout — slipping back through forms to that of her wolf, the inner beast and wraps her tongue around her maw, licking it and turning to wait on the pack — the offers of whom should sacrifice the seat of their tears.
The left, please.
Maya’s left eye twitches, her ears flatten back.
She translates.
[Tibik-itzaniabi] The spirit takes wing again; it is magnificent, a solid white against the shifting mists, illuminated for all that light, like sound, is dampened and despoiled of all its power by the constantly moving banks of fog, the great feathers arching in sensational display. For the first time, it lands on one of them – claws against Snowsblood’s chest; the razor probe of its beak against the socket in which his eye is sunk, before it settles neatly on his left shoulder, folding its great wings together like an accordian. An eye they thought; or the heart maybe; and indeed the spirit goes probing around the hole in Snowsblood’s crinos skull where his eye is housed; instead of digging in and popping out that neat little grape, however, it stops just above the outter left corner, both eyes closed, operating blind, and slices raggedly through Snowsblood’s skin – above and at the outside; then below and at the inside, pulling away the lacrimal glands, the lacrimal sac and ducts, tearing the flesh at the teder, inner corner of his eye. When the Skald looks back to the group, his face is a mask of blood, the eyeball gruesomely exposed where the spirit when seeking the ltieral seat of his tears, but the eyeball remains instact.
The spirit swallows all the little organs, devours them, then turns to the remaining group, to give them the answer they have purchased. “I was born of woman. I was born a woman. Sometimes I still wear that skin.”
[Silence] A thousand follow-up questions swarm the Modi: how? how did you change? were you a woman… or a Garou? are you a daughter of kanekuk, as in the legend? what are you now? how does flesh become spirit, wholly, without remnant? how, what, why, when…
But he holds his tongue. He looks at Snowsblood without flinching; he owed the Skald, who was not of his pack but had paid for his pack, that much. He looks at the rest of them, too — to see if they had any other pressing questions to voice before they came to that which they were here for.
If the moon water woman could purify; if she would help; how they might buy her help. He doesn’t want to consider that price.
[Ruhiger] She does not flinch. She watches, and studies the precision with which the price had been exacted. Then, again, she watches the Raven. Silent. Time for the big questions.
[Snowsblood] The Skald doesn’t look back to the group just yet. He makes a sound when the Raven hits his chest – not a grunt or a snarl, but a small, somewhat surprised-sounding intake of air. It should hurt, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Not til it starts digging around. Then his jaws clench, his body tenses, and he fights crying out against it while the beak of the bird seeks what it wants from him. Not his eye. That would have at least gone faster.
The seat of his tears was not his eye. Of course not. It made perfect sense.
Jakob does not react like a good Get. Something comes over him as the Raven tears away, devouring the duct. He lifts up a massive gray paw and covers the left side of his face as blood streaks down to mat the fur, but then his shoulders hunch forward. His spine curls. It is only a little time, a blink, three moons. It’s no time at all. He seems to sink in on himself, shaking. Maybe it’s pain. (Oh, it’s definitely pain.) But a good Get, a strong Skald, would not shrink like this at something so small. It won’t really even scar, though he’ll only ever cry from one eye again.
Get don’t cry, though.
He makes a choking sound, however, as if he might. A low, keening, tight sound as his knees buckle. At least – to his credit – he fights it, and drops his hand to the ground. Jakob pushes back to his feet, straightens, but he does not look back at any of them. They’ll have to infer what’s on his face right now. He has to remember how to breathe, all over again. It took him two moons to remember how to breathe, another moon to remember how to breathe without thinking constantly. He has to remind himself right now.
[Evan McCollach] He watched as the Raven takes flight, or whatever it was doing. And then the Get seems to go down from the accepted assualt. He wasn’t sure what the Raven had taken, but it must have been horrible, something that would bring a Get down, even for a moment.
And Evan looks over at Decker and AnneMarie, they seem solid, steadfast as they watch. Get breeding and training seem to hone them in without a second thought. He does not wonder about The Raven’s being anymore. She was secondary right now… the Moon-water-moon was the main concern this outing.
[Storms Eye] It is the way things are.
To exact a price, to serve that cost. To endure the pain and allow the spirit to witness the cost in blood dripping, in keening, pained noises from the Godi’s side. To heal would be a great offense, Maya does not suffer the urge by giving Jakob her attention — though her nostrils flare the second blood rises. Rather she addresses the Spirit in her slightly halting, un-poetic tongue.
“What is the cost to buy your help, to purify?”
[Storms Eye] (ahem, correction: To buy the moon water woman’s help. Yar. Ha. Cuz I’m half dopey.)
[Snowsblood] The lost duct is one thing. The flesh around his eyes will heal. That’s fine. It’s…the other…
Maya could lay her hands on him as many times as she wanted and it wouldn’t take the keening edge out of that small, struggled-with sound he made before standing. It’s pointless to think on it, though, a waste of time and energy. He stands, that’s good enough, and Maya speaks to the spirit while he recovers from the price of the last questionm, waiting to hear what the Raven will ask for next.
[Tibik-itzaniabi] “I will take – ” the spirit shifts its weight from clawed foot to clawed foot; briefly, it squints narrowly at Ruhiger, just over Storm’s Eye’s right shoulder. The spirit’s feathers fluff so that it seems two or three times its normal size, then settle again, at last, slicked against its body. ” – the brand of her shame.”
[Ruhiger] Her head cocks to the side, studying the Raven a long moment. Maybe she is unsure what it is asking. Maybe she is considering the price. Maybe she is simply admiring the fluff of the feathers.
Regardless, she steps forward, and lifts a chin. There is no real hesitation.
There is acceptance of the price for the answers they seek.
[Evan McCollach] He looks toward Ruhiger, the asking of her brand of shame? Was there something in her passed that branded her in shame or was it something of her weakness of being a Metis.
He just watches as the price is asked and the condition accepted. 4 down, 1 left.
[Silence] Silence looks to Ruhiger — then to Maya. He nods.
(There’s something ruthless about all this. The bird requests; they sacrifice; the Modi, their Alpha, allows it. He nods, and nods, and nods.)
Wonder what they’ll give next.
[Tibik-itzaniabi] The display is gruesome and brutalized; brutalizing – the raven commands her to shift (“two-legs” it demands), then lands on Ruhiger’s chest. She has a sensation of warm hands, not the cold claws curled into her tough hide. There is only a moment to recogniz the disconnect between expectation and reality before the bird rears back, and stabs up through the chin, in the middle of the hard definition of the jaw, piercing soft palate and widening the wound until the bird has access to Ruhiger’s mouth from below – it snares the tongue,severs it at the root, and pulls it back down and out.
“It has been many moons since she deigned to offer such aid; but were you to bring the cursed items here – along with appropriate tribute – you might persuade her to offer you the aid you seek. I cannot tell you the full price, it depends on the taint.”
Ruhiger is covered in blood; her jaw is a ruin, the gaping wound in her chin grotesque. The raven, however, remains inveterately pristine; it shakes off the spray of blood without a drop staining its luminous coat as it settles back against the tree to answer.
[Evan McCollach] Evan moves towards Ruhiger when the blood sprays outward, her jaw is mangled from the sacrifice. Her tongue gone now, even if she did not use it to speak. But that was her choice. And he waits, she would need to be healed, he would offer his abilities if she would take it.
But not now. And he does not move any further to aid her. She probably wouldn’t accept it right now anyway.
[Tibik-itzaniabi] (It is dark; and cold. There is a fire somewhere – spitting and coughing, the wood is too green for good flame. She is giving birth; she learned too late, the price of an unwieldly sin, and now it is buried in her, shaped in her flesh, monstrous – and birth – the cabin is dark. There’s a full moon and the Sept is at moot, driving through the bawn, scouring the wyrm from their lands and here she is, full of shame, the bloodied sheets and a silver knife to end it, in the end. This foul thing born of her body; this foul thing, killing her. The connection with her pack is shattered; there’s just an old kinwoman in the corner, the only comfort spared a Garou giving birth to a monster – but by god, maybe she can stop it, still.
(Her mother’s death; the foul, sick roots of her life; the scent of shame hot in the room. Her grip around the knife is failing. The only reason she doesn’t strike whe the monster finally claws its way free of her is that it is silent, and therefore stillborn, sparing her the last, grotesque duty before her death.)
to Ruhiger
[Storms Eye] Maya flinches, or makes some tiny, insubstantial yip of imagined pain at Ruhiger’s offering to the spirit — it is great indeed, and the Godi turns her eye on Silence. “Should we ask, risk the cost to know the fitting tribute for the moon water woman’s aid.” She scrapes a paw along the giving earth, waits on the Modi’s reigning choice.
[Silence] The Modi’s lips curl back involuntarily at the scent of blood, and so much of it, heady and rich. His long fangs bared, he sniffs delicately at the air for a moment. Then he lowers his chin into his starkly white ruff again, the point of his muzzle just over the white blaze down his chest. He considers a moment; not just the next question, but the increasing cost of these answers. He and the Godi got off easy. The rest of them paid in blood and flesh.
Then: “I want to know if she can leave the bog.” He raises his chin and looks to the others to see if they had anything to add, or change.
[Ruhiger] She shifts as told. Homid. She resists nothing- and it is brutal the searing pain that accompanies the warmth of hands – hands, not claws – then there is nothing but the pain – the agony of the attack that she refuses to blunt, refuses to ignore. She exerts no will to keep the cacophony of torture that dances over nerve endings at bay. She trembles, and fists clench until nails dig into her palms, the scent of blood overpowering as it pours from the wound – open, fresh brutal.
[but it is not that, not that alone that causes the greatest torture, not that at all. Knees buckle, and she almost falls, but she holds – clings- true to one (of many) meaning of her deed name, she remains steadfast as pale gaze sees something, something else… few know the heart of true shame…it is that, at the end, which brings her too her knees. It is that, that finally causes her to fall.]
She is quaking, but the time the bird is done, the Spirit unmarked by her blood, by her sacrifice. Evan takes a step toward her, and her hand shoots out – muscles trembling, palms marked by her own nails. Stop it says, in no uncertain terms… She will accept no healing.
It takes a moment. It takes too. But she regains her feet – her wound grotesque and awful to look at – her chin lifted once more, her pale gaze clouded with the agony as she carefully folds her arms behind her, hands clasped together tightly.
And listens. Forever, listening.
[Storms Eye] Maya turns back to the Raven spirit, perched back in its tree, and straightens herself, composes and then — translates the Modi’s words, careful now. There is too great a cost.
“Can the moon water woman leave the bog?”
[Tibik-itzaniabi] “The price.” The spirit says, its black eye now on Evan. ” – is him.”
[Silence] Silence sees the raven’s black eye on Evan long before Maya translates. When she does, it’s only a confirmation, and his response takes half a heartbeat.
“No.”
Another beat. He thinks; he thinks of what he might offer in exchange that was as good as what the raven asked for, that was not his packmate. One of the kin, perhaps? Moira? Tristan? One of the other garou. Someone he didn’t like, conveniently — but no; it’s unacceptable, to switch one for another, to play with people like one plays cards.
“What would you want a Garou for?”
[Evan McCollach] When Storms Eye translate the price even’s eyes go wide. He figured he was next on the list, he figured it would be his left arm at most… maybe the knowledge of one of his gifts. But this. This was too vague, too extreme.
He looks over at Decker and AnneMarie, he did not know exactly what that price meant, but it was not good.
[Ruhiger] There is a reaction from the metis, silent as always, in the flick of her gaze toward Evan, to Silence, then back again. Decker asks another question (…damn) and she simply watches. If she were to reply, it is swallowed away again.
[Tibik-itzaniabi] “The price for that question,” the spirit says, quiet, alert and watchful, so still that any movement they might see in it is a trick of their own perception; the beat of a pained heart, the heat of sublingual rage. “is another mouthful of your fur.”
Presuming Silence agrees, the spirit alights and takes the mouthful of fur, then backwings well out of Silence’s reach. “We do not want a Garou. We want a sacrifice. We want to see what you are willing to sacrifice, son of fenris, for knowledge to which you have no right, and which you do not otherwise deserve.”
[Silence] The Fenrir bristles at this, literally. The fur on his ruff — which is looking a mite mottled after two big beakfuls yanked out — stands on end. His hackles are up all along his spine. He is angry, his tail moving back and forth, his ears back.
At last, in the blink of an eye, he draws his greataxe out of nothing; but not to wage war. It crackles with power in the Umbra, hums with an insidious black energy. There is no way it can be mistaken for anything but a fetish weapon.
The Modi lays it carefully flat on the ground and backs away from it.
“I will give you the Relentless, the greataxe forged and bound by Alarich Rohl, my grandfather, Adren Godi of the line of Handal Cold-Night-Falling. It is the last and only memento I carry of the Garou whose name I bear. It is more than I like to give, but less than a packmate.
“If it is not enough,” a pause; a consideration, careful — why don’t you come by when you’re done, she’d said; I will, he’d said — “I will go in the Philodox’s place. But you will tell us how we can bring the moon water woman from the bog, and to the corrupted lands in the west where the twisted ones fester.”
[Evan McCollach] Evan pondered over that question and the answer that insued. There was a hundred possible interpretations for the asking price of Evan. His breeding, his memory, his wolf, his very service for all eternity. He continued to puzzle it all, and what it would mean if he did not agree. The rest agreed to their costs, giving up a great deal. Evan looks to Decker for the moment and across the link they share through Eagle, he questions his alpha. He wanted clarification of that price.
And when Decker speaks he turns to Maya and directly.
“Do not translate that.”
He turns to Decker looking to speak.
[Evan McCollach] Evan was openly violating the word of his Alpha, he knew it dishonorable and probably suicidal. But he was not going to stand aside and let Decker do something… so foolish.
“Offer your fetish axe if you wish, but I will not allow you to stand in my place. A life for a life is not an equal trade ever.”
If Decker didn’t strike him down, he turns to Maya.
“I wish to know exactly what the Raven wants of me, exactly?”
[Silence] (ok, looks like we pause! thanks for the RP, all!)
[Evan McCollach] (Thanks for the sceneage)