[Marni] Marni has become something of a fixture at the Caern some days – not just because it’s a safe place, hallowed ground, but because it is where she can talk to Indira without feeling like a complete idiot. Not out loud, of course, or not loud enough anyone else can hear, but well, it’s something.
And she misses her sister something FIERCE.
So it is that one called Sticky Fingers is on her knees in the dirt at the side of one of the newest Graves. Her knees are dirty, her hands too as she goes about planting some daisy’s in the loose soil, her voice a soft murmur as she tells the remains of her friend, and her sister all about all the things she’s missed…
[Mama Ankle-Biter] The little Gnawer lurks about the edges of the caern, moving in and out, four-legs carrying her to distant places in and around the bawn and the Sept’s heart. She has kept to her duty with the water-spirits, running up and down the shore lines of the lake that border this place, cleaning it, collecting the driftwood and the junk that piles up, tossing it into the fetish gunnysack she keeps with her. Mainly, she has been collecting bottles, used plastic bottles of water and various soft drinks and juice beverages.
The pile she has hidden in the bawn is growing, she lugs back a sack, looking like a miniature skinny Santa Claus in the red and white striped stocking cap pulled low over the frizzy blond curls. Her cherub face burnt with the afternoon’s sun, a shade darker than the hot pink stockings that cover her legs, which peek out from the denim overall dress she wears. She pauses near the Graves, feels the pulsating heartbeat of a thousand little wing flutters thrumming in the back of her thoughts, which become just as fleeting. She stops near, eyes skimming around before they settle on Marni’s hunched over figure mumbling quietly to herself.
[Marni] She laughs softly, at part of a story she’s telling – likely about where she managed to come up with the daisies that she’s replanting there, and the dog that thought about chasing her, but ended up chasing it’s own tail instead. Her fingers work the dirt with confidence, in a manner that is almost soothing. Her legs from the knees down are dirty, the cut-off shorts not fairing much better. The tanktop clings to her curvy form, damp from the heat and the moisture in the air. Curls are in disarray, her thoughts not much better as she chuckles softly, her voice a soft murmur under a thousand other sounds…
“…an i’m hungry all the fuckin time. Karl says his heart races, Mama feels the heartbeating thrum of a thousand lil wings… an’ me? i’m fuckin STARVING all the time. Not sure we thought out this binding a knocked up gnawer to a ravenous totem thing. You’d like Karl, i think. ain’t like most Fenrir I done met. OH! An’ he’s shacked up with Moira. Ain’t that the shit? I dunno. Somedays I find myself thinkin bout ya all the time, an’ others it’s almost like I done forgot an’ then I’m sad all over again. It fuckin’ sucks. Ya ain’t supposed t’go afore me, ya know? Not without me neither. But now, I got this lil coffee bean t’take care of. S’how big it is, now, ya know that? S’what the books say anyway… I’m carryin round somethin the size of a coffee bean an’ it’s turned everything on its head. How fucked up is that…”
She looks up, feeling Mama nearby, and searches the area until she finds her. She lifts a dirt-caked hand to wave, and then reaches back to finish up her planting.
[Holds the Line] Holds the Line can also be found at the caern most days. Even before he joined with Mama and Marni, he spent hours here, helping patrol or just tending the caern. Packing up did not change that, it simply meant a few less hours each week. The Norse Fenrir moves now, easily navigating the seemingly abandoned buildings that litter the caern proper.
He has sensed his packmates presence today, yet he has left them to theirs. They all had their own duties and goals here. So he did not rush, bidding the guardians fare-well for now after the patrol. Stepping out of the gathering area, he looks up at the sun as it setting. A roll of strong shoulders, and he moves, following the sensation of the totems call. His steps near enough without sound. He walks up behind Mama, stopping to look towards the graves, glacial blue eyes on the mother-to-be.
No words. No need for them, not even across the totembond. He raises his hand just slightly as Marni waves towards them, but soon enough stuffs both hands into the pockets of his jeans. The dark denim and the deep grey of his tee. Together with the buzzed raven black of his hair, he would not stand out in a crowd really. Except for the rage in him, and those cold, hard eyes.
[Sparrow] She came to the graves to glare at Wrath today.
Someone needed to give him a talking to. Someone needed to stare at him, glower, growl and speak. Someone needed to tell him that the man he came to follow was gone, that he left Chicago to do God-knows-what. That Eagle has flown off. That there was a part of history gone and missing.
She wasn’t sure what to tell him; usually, when Sparrow comes and has words with Wrath’s remains, she ends up yelling at him. It feels nice. She usually feels better after she’s yelled at something.
It’s a damned shame she doesn’t do it more often.
So, there she is, and that’s where we start the scene. She’s at the caern, she’s headed to the graves. The moon is waning away, and Sparrow is at peace… in a tee shirt and a denim skirt. Knee length, flowing, and a pair fof boots.
[Roman Turner] “I don’t get it.”
He trailed along behind Sparrow like a shadow, only this shadow wore a straw cowboy hat and snug, crisp Wrangler jeans along with his usual boots. He also wore a blue tee that proclaimed “I” a Heart “Chicago.” like a tourist.
“I mean, to me it’s like church, why ya gotta go sit in a building and call yourself one religion or another in order to talk to God? So why ya got to look at a mound of dirt to talk to some dead guy?”
[Mama Ankle-Biter] More people are starting to appear at the Graves. The little Gnawer stands stock still, the small expanse of her chest rising and falling quietly with each deep, even breath she takes. Nostrils flared out, head tilting at an angle, tossing her face upward to smell at the wind. This human body normally dulls her senses, makes her feel inadequate. It runs and walks on two-legs, upright. It is slow.
She prefers to traveling on four paws in the city, but can only get away with it when she is lurking in the shadows of alleys or traveling by umbra. Even at night, when she sleeps now, which is becoming rarer the longer Marni stays with her, the Gnawer has passed out in her monkey-skin. It feels strange to share the thoughts of others, but now she can feel them. The press of a pack, the whispers of a grieving, growing pot-bellied Gnawer, the quick-steps of a No Moon Norseman.
She is alert to others at the Graves now, turning to focus her attentions on them. The smallest of smiles spreading warmly at the corners of her mouth. She waddles over to Sparrow and to Roman, remember the young No Moon she spoke to once.
“It bring relief is why.” She answers Roman, “Hello, little Roman.”
[Marni] There. I know daisies are one of your favorites. An’ i think this one’s gonna be named Trouble – she’s certainly caused enough already… I’ll be back soon, Indy.
She finishes her [onesided] conversation, and dusts off her hands, before pressing her palms to her thighs, and pushing upwards to stand. Arms lift overhead as she stretches, leaning backwards until her spine pops, and she groans in relief. She slips her flipflops back on, and grabs up her pack before really looking at those joining her in the Graves, lifting a hand to wave to Roman and Sparrow…
…and she pleads hopefully to Karl.. “You got any snacks hidin’ in yer pockets?”
[Roman Turner] “Ma’am.”
He always minded his manners to a certain extent. So the greeting from Mama was returned with a Ma’am and a touch to the brim of his hat. And for just a moment, dark lashes shadowed eyes the shade of faded denim.
Marni got a touch of the brim and another “Ma’am.” Then he addressed the entire grave thing.
“I still don’t get how it brings relief. Once someone is a part of you, he or she is with you always and everywhere. They become what makes you, you. Why restrict them to a hole in the ground?”
[Holds the Line] Karl glances over to Roman and Sparrow as Mama moves towards them. Unfamiliar, yet there is a touch of something in them that reveals their heritage. The Rotagar holds back however, does not join them right away. Instead, his gaze goes back to Marni, watching her plant flowers at the grave.
He had learned that his new packmate had also been the packmate of Connar. It had surprised him, and had come as a troubling surprise. He knew very little about the Fianna that had claimed his mate before. His curiosity sparked a little, and more so about Marni and her history.Then Marni speaks up and breaks the train of thought that had the Fenrir in its grip.
He chuckles and digs deep into his pocket. Left hand coming up, he tosses a snickers bar, warm and a little soft, but still in its wrapper, over at Marni with a wink.
“Only that, so make it last.”
He had a weakness for chocolate, even if he found the house strangely devoid of it, no matter how much he brought there. He would have to see if Moira ate it herself.
Then he turns his head again, looking to Roman and Sparrow, listening and watching for now.
[Mama Ankle-Biter] “Wolves don’t bury their dead. Lay them out and let the wind and the earth take’em. Let the moon and sun bleach the bones after the insects have eaten away fur and flesh…” She rolls her small shoulders up in a half-shrug, “It’s a human thang to bury ones dead in a box in a hole in the ground. Never understood that, what purpose it serve?”
[Marni] She wrinkles her nose, and rubs at the back of her neck with dirty fingers as she puts together what Roman is talking about and then nods. “It’s like.. ya know when ya doin a rite an’ ya need somethin to focus on – or ya shifting umbral and ya focas on ya reflection? is like that. Ain’t constrictin em anywhere, no more than ya mirror is the only access to shift sideways. It’s jus’ a point of focus. That make more sense? I know Indira ain’t there no more – she’s with me always. But it makes me feel betta t’be here an’ focus on jus her n’me an’ talk to her here. Ya dig?”
Then Karl is tossing her a snickers bar and she moans in delight. “Ohthankgaia…” Before she’s tearing into the wrapper and taking a big ole bite of the warm melty treat – even licking her fingers, uncaring for the dirt under the chocolate.
[and I gotta get to the banquet – Marni’s occupied with her chocolate. bbasap. :) ]
[Roman Turner] “I can get it for keeping things from eating them and so they ain’t laying around stinking and spreading sickness, but….”
He let it drop off when Marni spoke up, not so sure who she was, but she sure was stuffing her face with chocolate. Karl also got a curious look. Sparrow got a nudge in the small of her back.
[Sorrow] “We don’t bury our dead.” This is a newcomer: a tall blond woman who wears her height easily and well, lean and confident, with grace born not of the spirits, but of her flesh and her blood. She approaches Sparrow and Roman, where they stand over the mound of earth that has been mixed with the ashes her wolf-born tribesmate, a cursory glance at Mama Ankle-Biter and Karl. “We burn them.”
Her dark blue eyes fix briefly on Karl, then Mama, before returning to Sparrow and Roman. Sorrow’s voice is a rich thing, well-tuned, and low and rather more quiet than one would expect of a Skald. Her hair is pulled back from her features into a twist at the nape of her neck, and her eyes swim dark with reflected twilight.
There is a glance from Sparrow to the grave over which she stands. ” – you knew Wrath?”
[Holds the Line] ”Speaking only for the way it has been done with my line… We burn our dead. If possible, while on water.”
Karls voice is low, deep. He sends an amused grin at Marni as she digs into the chocolate bar. Telling her to take ti slow was like telling the moon to never rise again. Both things were likely to happen, and both would certainly mean the end of all things. His attention goes back to the others.
“I am Karl, Holds the Line. Fenrir No moon, cliath of the nation and a packmate of these lovely young ladies. And Laughs in the Face of Death knows of the custom I speak of. It is traditional now, I do not know how many still remember the true purpose of it.”
[Sparrow] “It’s not the mound of dirt, it’s the ritual of it. You show up to church because it feels right. God hears ya, no matter where you are,” she says. She shrugs, “I suppose I could yell at the back yard… but it’s not like going to church.”
She takes a second and shrugs. She turns and notices Sorrow. She had been at the Gathering. Sparrow had, probably notably, been one of the few non-Fenrir at the gathering.
“First person that wasn’t Romi that I fought with here,” she tells the female. She looks at those gathered, and shoots a look at her cousin. She clears her throat.
“Sparrow Turner named resistance by the rest of the nation, Child of Gaia, Cliath Ahroun.. and this is my cousin.”
Pride, there.
[Roman Turner] “I am Roman Turner, called Fate. Same moon as you. Same rank, but one of the Children of Gaia for my Tribe. And her I know.”
He grinned tipping his hat towards Sorrow even as he spoke to Karl.
“Cause we fought together. And not sure I know who Laughs in the Face of Death is.”
[Holds the Line] ((Doh! Tiredness LOL Was supposed to be She who offers sorrow, not laughs in the face of death :P))
[Mama Ankle-Biter] Karl is shot a look as a blond eyebrow rose up to greet him. “Who ya calling lovely, that some kinda insult?” She snorts at him, shaking her head. Her attention pulled from the Rotagar as Sorrow makes her way to the Graves. The little Gnawer takes a step away from the bag of collected bottles, setting it down at her feet and then promptly crosses her ankles and falls down on her ass to sit.
She digs her elbows into the knobby joints of pink nylon clad knees and leans over, hands cupping her face as she watches all of them with big, soulful blue eyes. “Laughs in the Face of Death is a Get of Fenris, blond, perky, has an eye battle, loves fight to eagerly.” Her shoulders roll up once more.
[Roman Turner] ((Heh, missed Mindy’s post, sorry))
[Roman Turner] “I think if ya yelled at the backyard it would blend with the neighbors yelling anyway.”
He shrugged and shifted from one foot to the other. Now that they were standing around a bunch of graves, it felt weird.
“So, is this where the party is or what?”
Trying to break the ice a little.
[Holds the Line] Karl nods to Sorrow, then looks to the others.
“Traditions vary, as they will. The words of Resistance rings true. We come to such places because it is comforting. It gives a sense of physical closeness, and makes it perhaps easier to talk to those that are gone.”
One of the guardians move out from the gathering place and gives a short whistle. Karl glances back over his shoulder, nodding to the man, then looks to the others.
“Time for the patrol. Resistance, Fate, I wish you both a good night.” He turns to Kora, offering the other Fenrir a nod. As he turns to leave, he offers Mama a wink.
“Mama.”
And with that, he is off, going to join the patrol.
((Sorry folks! Its 4 am here and I have school in 6 hours! Sleep is a must!))
[Sorrow] Kora cuts a glance from Mama Ankle-Biter to Karl as they banter between themselves. Her own sharp features are seriously, except for the subtle curve that defines her mouth even when her features are markedly neutral, are still. The half-smile is a narrow thing, appreciable more for what it withholds than what it offers. Which is not to say that it hides anything: the lack of response to the pair of packmates is as telling as anything else might be. She glances between them, a direct, dark-eyed look, then offers Roman a faint, approving look when he mentions that he knows her, that they fought together.
Her attention returns to Sparrow, though – Sparrow and the grave she visits. “Tell me the story sometime,” says the Skald, her voice low. ” – of the battle you fought with him. I’d like to hear it. And I can tell you the story of his death, if you’d like to know how he died.” Her chin rises, back to Roman then, ” – she’s right, though. The Graves of the Hallowed Heroes are simply mounds of dirt. This is how we remember who came before us. When you and I are gone, the dead become stories – but here are the monuments we’ve built to them, the spirit with which we have infused them. Here we remember the dead who should not be forgotten. Here we’ll be remembered.
“It isn’t just a graveyard, just as a gathering is not just a funeral. It’s a compact with the dead, and an invocation to the spirits, and a reminder to the living of the sacrifices of those who came before us.”
[Mama Ankle-Biter] The Gnawer is thoughtful, if quiet, as she watches the two Children of Gaia with the Fenrir. Small lines begin to wrinkle at the corners of her eyes, across the smooth skin of her brow as eyebrows knit together. Lips press together to form a thin line. She is cautious of the Fenrir, careful of what she says in the moonsinger’s presence, less it add more fuel to the fire that burns a bridge between herself and their Jarl. She’s already taken one of their own for her pack.
The frown darkens and she snorts.
[Roman Turner] “Can I hear the story too?”
His attention was on Sorrow because he was a big sucker for hero stories. Hell he was a big sucker for any story. Their history was passed down from generation to generation orally and like any good wolf, he was all ears when stories began.
[Sparrow] “Well, if you want to hear it, I’ll tell it. I’d love to hear how he died,” she is a fan of battle stories. Tales. What-have-you.
It sticks with her. Stays like a good memory. It’s a good enough. she looks from Sorrow to Mama, looking at the female for a moment. She offers a small, upward nod. Hands go behind her back, she stands at ease, plays with her bracelets idly. Always, always bracelets.
[Roman Turner] He saw the tightening of lips and knitting of brows and though he wasn’t very familiar with Lupus born, he spoke to Mama.
“I’m sure she would let you listen too.”
[Sorrow] Mama’s snort draw’s Sorrow’s attention back to her. It’s an edge of a glance, not sly – there is nothing sly about the Fenrir woman – though it is sidelong, aware, and assessing. Her attention is a close thing, closely held, closely observed, attentive even in passing like this, in the shadows of twilight at the edge of a vast freshwater lake amidst graves, too many freshly dug.
“Of course,” Sorrow says to both of them – to all three of them perhaps – and lifts her chin to a concrete berm not far from where Mama Ankle-Biter sits cross-legged on the cracked, weed-ridden concrete that defines the bawn. She circles the Bone Gnawer and sits on a distintegrating concrete piling. “C’mon. Wrath already knows the story. He doesn’t need to hear it again.”
[Mama Ankle-Biter] The Gnawer tilts her head up, swinging her eyes to Roman. She offers him a friendly smile, her features softening a bit. “Mama’s sure she’d listen.” She straightens up, pushing up from her leaned position as legs stretch out in front of her. Her hands fall into her lap, head swaying from side to side, angling until an ear brushes along her shoulder.
[Roman Turner] He wasn’t entirely sure what the head swaying was about, but there was plenty in this world he didn’t get. Instead he returned Mama’s smile and followed suit with Sorrow to take a seat.
[Sparrow] Sparrow comes to listen to the story, and she looks at Roman briefly. She shoots him a quick look, and she can’t help but reach over and mess with his hair. Ruffle it a little and go wherever they needed to go. Once they get to where she needs to go, the Child of Gaia plops down. She fiddles a little with a particular woven bracelet around her left wrist.
[Sorrow] This is the story she tells –
“The Hive,” Sorrow begins, ” – started an abomination farm, planting dark spirits, raising twisted flesh-golems from the ground.” This is the beginning. The very beginning. There were encounters and reconnaisance. Another theurge once pledged to Maelstrom – a Child of Gaia, Sorrow remarks, with a respectful nod to Roman and Sparrow – was enslaved by the one who tended the farm, in the woods to the north, in the forests, some theurge called the Muckwitch, a Bone Gnawer and an Adren once, who fell to the Wyrm. He was chained in place, tied to the taint of it, held there and forced to perform rites to aid the Wyrm until a war party lead by War-Handed, with Going Down and Blood Summons and Wrath – ended him.
They could not end the farm that night, though. And so: the Ritesmistress constructed a talen that would cleanse the area, stop the crop of fallen things from rising from the tainted earth, ruin the work of the fallen theurge. More than one, a half-dozen, fire to burn through the crop of flesh and spirit.
The war-pack crept through the words, cautious and wary, expecting ambush, certain that the cursed ones knew of their approach. Wrath disdained their caution, demanded action as was he wont –
– and when the Muckwitch spoke to them, taunted them in a disembodied voice, Wrath surged to action, charged over the broken fencing, down the blood-boiled land, through the muck and taint and filth, singing with the joy of battle, ready to rend the enemy, bring him down.
The war-pack followed. War-Handed, Blood Summons, Laughs in the Face of Death, Harrowing Winds. The war-pack followed, they charged over the hill. “WE STICK TOGETHER!” Face of Death shouted to Wrath, to call him back, demanding that he stay with the pack, that they fight together – but Wrath had blood in his mouth and blood in his heart and rage behind his eyes. He was ready to fight and ready to die – ready to dive into the mouth of a Wyrmhole if called to do so.
– and so they fought. They fought a Fostern Ahroun, though the only Fostenr among them as a Theurge – and they fought the Rssh, the abominations grown by the bane-farm. Wrath fought and died and returned and fought and died again, never to return. He fought with fury, and fearlessness, without a care for himself or his pack, so saturated with rage that he could do no less. This is what the world made of him. The war-pack destroyed the Spiral and his minions, burned the farm and returned, carrying his body, the memory of his sacrifice stark in their minds –
– but the Muckwitch, the Muckwitch was not found. If she was there in anything but spirit, she escaped into the darkness of the north, and lives still.
[Sorrow] (Sorry! This is what I get for offering to tell a story IC. Ack! Apologies for slowing down the scene for that.)
to Mama Ankle-Biter, Marni, Roman Turner, Sparrow
[Roman Turner] “Stoppit Rowe!”
He gave his most fierce frown while trying to mash his hat down over the messed up hair. Then the story started and he was drawn in.
[Sparrow] (PSH! Shut yo face, Liz! It was worth the wait!)
to Mama Ankle-Biter, Marni, Roman Turner, Sorrow
[Roman Turner] “So this Muckwitch is still running around somewhere? Probably growing a new crop? How come ain’t no body gone hunting her again?”
[Sorrow] Sorrow lifts a glance direct back to Roman as asks his question. Her eyes are dark; the dusk has fallen to night. “The farm was destroyed,” she assures him. ” – the land cleansed, as much as it could be cleansed. As for the Muckwitch,” a neat, narrow shrug, a passing look away from them, ” – the cursed one lives. I suppose hunting it would be the purview of the No-Moon Elder,” a hook-curve half-smile, at this. It isn’t bitter, though it is perhaps prescient, the criticism of the Master of the Challenge implicit in the angle of the response, ” – in a time of war, had we one. Joey might’ve tried. Maybe it went to ground in the Hive. Maybe the name we have isn’t enough of a true name to track it.”
[Roman Turner] “So in other words, because of politics and not rank, we don’t have an Elder. And we seem to lack someone with the relevant skills to do heavy duty tracking.”
He filtered through it quickly.
“We suck.”
[Marni] (back!)
[Sparrow] “Well,” she says. She inhales and tastes the air. It feels nice enough, “why don’t we track her down? Someone has to owe people some favors. Maybe she’s headed to another town, and another sept’s heard. We can pool our resources.”
She stopped for a second.
A beat.
“What are our resources here?”
[Sorrow] “Call a moot of your auspice,” Sorrow advises Roman, quietly. “Bring them together. See who knows how to track, who knows how to infiltrate a place. Even if Buried-Hatchet-rhya‘s judgment leaves you without official voice on the counsel, you can still join together and provide the leadership he denies you officially on your own, amongst yourselves.
“If he refuses to aknowledge a winner of an honorable challenge at the next moot, call the challenge amongst yourselves, and present the winner to the Grand Elder and the council to be recognized as leader of the scouts and spies.”
[Mama Ankle-Biter] She’s been silent for quite awhile, listening, still. Her heart hammers in her breast wildly, thrumming in her ears. “A fostern of the New Moon could easily track the Muckwitch, if he or she, knew the true name…”
A pause.
[Marni] Speaking of those of Roman’s auspice…
Marni, who had wandered off at some point, and just now wanders back, the chocolate bar having been replaced with a handful of beef jerky sticks. If she’s surprised to see Kora has joined them, it doesn’t show. If she’s surprised to see them sit and listen to a story, that doesn’t show either. What does show is the little Gnawer herself, flopping down next to Mama.
She’s quiet.
[…that cant be good…]
[Roman Turner] From his limited experience, he’d not been impressed with Hatchet nor the GE. “I’ve heard tales some can track with little more than a description, but ain’t met one of them yet. As for gathering those of my moon together, I am sure I would end up walking funny for a long time if I dared stepping on toes to bring something like that together. This place seems right rigid with rules and narrow mindedness. Though I for one will keep it in mind.”
He rose brushing the seat of his jeans off and plunking his hat on his head.
“Gotta go. Thanks for the Ghosts in a Grave Yard stories. I hope to see ya again soon.”
[Marni] She grins at Roman. “I’d come. An I wouldn’t step on ya toes, either. Less we was dancin – I’m not very good at that…”
So much for being quiet.
[Roman Turner] He saluted them with a touch to the brim of his hat and if Sparrow rose to go with him, he offered her his arm.
((must sleep))
[Mama Ankle-Biter] “Lost Dogs-spirits are helpful when attempting to track things down,” she murmurs quietly, head tilting from side to side as she focused on the remaining Garou. Shoulders slumping forward lazily as the Gnawer grunts out in a small sigh. She appears restless, contemplative. Her thoughts churning a thousand heartbeats of second too fast in the back of her mind.
[Roman Turner] “Then maybe if you know some, ya could ask them?” And put some of that jittery energy to use before it made him climb the curtains with a Barbie Doll and beat his chest, bellowing like King Kong.
“Later folk.”
[Sorrow] “‘Night – ” she has to swallow back the “kid” she wants to add to the farewell she gives Roman, whose youth is so apparent – in his young face, in his slightness, in his mannerisms. There follows a brief look toward Mama and Marni, then Sparrow if she remains behind. “Someone should call the no-moons to a moot. The Sept shouldn’t be without a lead scout when going to war.”
Then, she slips to her feet, sliding her hands back into her front pockets, easy and casual. “I gotta go, too.”
Territory to claim. Something like that.
[Sorrow] [ – and out for me here, too! :) ]
[Marni] She snorts, and starts to say something, perhaps. Maybe that the last time she tried to claim anything, she was called an honorless thief. Or perhaps that the last battle that was to be a scouting mission, she was riddled with accusations that she let the ball drop, when she was not in charge. Perhaps it’s just a snort, and there’s nothing else there.
Nah.
“Won’t they just shit when I step up for elder next time, an’ the fuckers still can’t get their shit together.”
And as people vacate quickly, she actually smells her pits, and arches a brow at Mama. “I stink, or was it somethin I said?”
[Sparrow] (skip me, mom’s still talking)
[Mama Ankle-Biter] (Getting late here and need to bail to sleep)
“Ya stink.” It is spoken with affection as the Gnawer starts to stand up, her hands pushing down on her knees as she propels herself forward and sways back and forth until she is upright. She looks down at Marni, grinning at her quietly and leans down to tousle her curls.
“Mama’s off to make spirit brew.”
She turns then, walking back over to the sack full of plastic bottles, picking it up to sling it over her shoulder. She tips her head to Marni and Sparrow, starting to head off. “Night all.”
[Marni] “Aw man. But i took a shower YESTERDAY…” She grumbles, goodnaturedly, and with as much fondness and affection as Mama shows her. She wrinkles her nose at the mussed up curls, and tries – without success – to smooth the unruley locks once more.
“Later, Mama.”