AnneMarie | Final Journey [Eagles]

Taking turns and sometimes all together, the remaining Eagles bear the Metis toward the borders of the Caern. One block after another passes; in the umbra they’re mere shadows, impressions of buildings and avenues silvered in the brilliant moonlight.

Evan has whatever implements he might need for the Rite of Contrition. The rest of them have only the body of their packmate.

At the edge of the Caern, Silence stops. He’s warformed now, massive and grey, white at the chest and shoulders. There’s an imaginary line in front of him, past the gravel shoulder of Lake Shore Drive. He hasn’t crossed it in nearly two years. One might think he were steeling himself, or preparing somehow — but he’s only taking a pause.

Then he steps across, one large footpaw after the other.

When the first Guardian arrives, the Modi’s handpaw flexes closed and then open. He looks the other in the eye for a moment, and then, with an obvious effort, lowers his eyes.

“Our packmate, Ruhiger, sometimes called Bitter-Grace, fell in battle defending the protectorate of the Caern she helped to raise. We’ve come to bury her in the Graveyard of the Hallowed Heroes where she belongs.” A pause. “We are prepared to offer contrition to Maelstrom.”

A couple of blocks before they reached the bawn and the caern, Evan had joined up with the rest of Eagle’s own chosen. He had gathered up a couple of items here and there. It seemed as if he had picked at the bones of fallen wrymlings that they had killed in defense of the protectorate, those that came to disturb the Eagle territory and those around Chicago.

Falling silent, in his own war form, helping to hold AnneMarie as Silence spoke.

Serving as pall-bearer to AnneMarie, James’ eyes shifted to the body across his black-furred shoulders. In the war-skin like Decker, his own furr was black with white here and there, mostly upon his muzzle and chest. Perhaps it was age that whitened his furr, or even genetics. There was also a large band of leather across the Crinos Irishman’s chest, circling his form diagonally from shoulder to hip, a thick loop on the back of it so as it could hold his battle-axe. Around his waist, formal tartan of his family’s lineage. Heavy bracers of leather on his forearms, heavy leather coverings over his shins.

Were it not for the American soil he stood on, the Fianna would look most appropriate back home on the Emerald Island.

“Wait here,” he says after a moment. Silence is a Garou who is oft afforded with respect – and to be sure, the Ragabash does not glare at him, or offer him disrespect. However, in this moment, the Cliath has one up on the Adren – as Guardian of the Caern. There is confidence in his bearing, a small lack of submission that speaks to his role, his awareness of it.

He turns and walks away. Mid-step, the gauntlet shreds, bulges and distorts and he disappears. Only minutes pass before the Eagles see the Grand Elder, walking out from behind one of the out-buildings in the caern, his steps measured and sure.

“Silence-yuf,” Balance Without Fault says, “Judgement of Sterling Silver, Sandman.”

The homid Glass Walker lifts his gaze to the body which Sandman carries, a twitch flickering at the corner of his eye. “Ruhiger.” As if the Modi were still alive and capable of hearing his address. The lined face of the Grand Elder seems almost weary; resigned.

“We won’t deny you the right to bury your dead here,” he says. “You have all earned that, if nothing else.”

There’s a pulse of anger from the Modi, his hackles rising. Instinctively he squares his body to the Grand Elder’s. Then he twists his head to the side, shakes it once — a gesture curiously human and lupine, both.

Then, low: “We come to rejoin the Sept as well.”

He is unbowed, despite this. His shoulders squared, his back straight. When he looks at the grey-furred, steel-eyed Modi, size does not factor into the directness of his gaze.

“Why?”

“Aye,” the Sandman muttered after Decker made their opinions known.

For the moment he would stay silent and somber. Holding onto the Metis as they wait. They will bur Rugiher tonight. The rest would still be up for grabs.

“You do not leave a Sept as you did and then return without explanation. I am waiting for your answer.”

And she was sometimes right. Sometimes it was better to stay silent until called upon, until ask.

After a moment, abruptly, he drops his weight to all fours, facing Balance-without-Fault at closer to eye level. There’s a growl in his chest that resolves into meaning:

“I am nearly an Athro, Balance-yuf.”

Evan’s heart might sink at these words. They seem a boast. It seems Silence is going to boast, posture, piss on the trees and then leave again.

Then he goes on: “I can’t go on playing the games of a Cliath.

“It was unwise for me to leave this Sept over a personal dispute. It’s dishonorable for me to refuse to join another. It’s irrresponsible for me to force my pack to the same ignominy. It took the better part of two years and much counsel from my Philodox,” a flick of an ear toward the Fang-blooded Child, “for me to understand that.

“If you’re asking why return to Maelstrom rather than some other Sept — I could tell you the things my packmates and I have heard and seen. I could kiss your [fucking] ass, but the truth is: this is the first Sept I have ever bound myself to willingly.”

A pause after that.

“I don’t like you much. I rarely agree with you. But this is your Sept, and you are a better Grand Elder than I could ever be. If you allow my pack back into the Sept of the Maelstrom, we will pay contrition to you for our disrespect, and to Maelstrom for our desertion. We will follow you.

“If you don’t, we’ll find our welcome elsewhere. But we will not grovel.“

His attention is animal, fierce and stark.

“Pay your contrition to Maelstrom first,” he says. “Then bury your dead. You paid your contrition to me two years ago when you fulfilled the tenets the Sept laid upon you at the time. You owe me nothing more now than any other member of this Sept.”

He steps back and aside.

It was then that he registered Kemp’s presence, out of the way (unless Blurred) and watching. His Garou muzzle dipped a bit in the direction of the Rotagar – out of respect for his rank, and for the man himself.

Contrition to Maelstrom was something that James had expected, but without contrition to Balance-Without-Fault? That was something the Galliard hadn’t expected.

“Almost home,” he murmured to AnneMarie’s limp body, the former housing for her soul. He’s going to miss her, that much was certain.

And off from the side of he would take note of the Adren Ragabash, the one once an Eagle, but no longer. One that had joined up with the Sept and became their Wyrmfoe as he had heard it.

“Let us head to Maelstrom. Rugiher will have her last respects.”

He rises to his hind legs again, bending his muzzle briefly to his ruff in silent acquiescence.

Then he passes the Grand Elder, falling in before his packmates to hoist up AnneMarie’s feet, cold now. He catches sight of Kemp, and as they pass — four Eagles, one dead — the Modi’s head turns to follow the Rotagar.

He doesn’t speak. When his gaze passes over his shoulder, he turns forward again, bearing steadily for the heart of the Caern.

As Decker gave that pointed look to Kemp, he gave a soft sigh through clamped teeth and spoke over the totemphone. “I don’t know about the two of you,” James said hesitantly, “but I think Kemp should help with burying her. Or at least stand witness – he was Ruhiger’s packmate too.”

“I think he should be allowed to stand witness, all should. But we must bury her. She is our packmate.”

“Truth-in-Frenzy.” He speaks over the massive line of his shoulder; his profile is stark, heavy-jawed, his fur riffling in the stiff lakeside breeze. “We’ll bury Ruhiger after we pay contrition to Maelstrom.

“Will you stand witness?”

“I will.”

Watching them head to Maelstrom before he went towards the graves of fallen heros. Tonight he would resist the ritual pissing.

Now to go snear at a certain grave marker that was nothing more than a marker, the body it represented and been put in a boat and burned in the lake.

James paused and he in turn paused as well. But once Decker had caught up with them once they were back on their pathway to the heart of the caern, the heart where Maelstrom beat. He mentally prepared himself. A rite of accord wa ssomething that his moon was suppose to know of, not just perform.

If they look deep into the water, it is almost unnaturally clear, unnaturally bottomless. They can see the edges of the earth plummeting down for forever. It is dizzying, disorientating, a tug a pull like they might fall in at any moment, like the earth might shift beneath them and the water will rise to meet them.

It is chaotic, magnificent. It is incomprehensible, beyond their ken, beyond their reach. The water swirls, pulses and rushes. The Totem addresses no one.

It hasn’t changed. He’s changed, he supposes — but the Totem hasn’t. It’s still vast, depthless, clear as a diamond, shot through with filmy, indistinct flickers like lightning in a cloud.

Carefully, Silence lays Ruhiger down at its edge. Then he looks to Evan to take his cues from the Philodox.

“Maelstrom. I am Evan “Judgement~of~Sterling~Silver” McCollach. Fostern Philodox of the Children of Gaia, Beta of Eagle’s Chosen. I stand before you now, supplicant before your glory, before your might. Luna has turned for many moons since we have parted ways. The war has raged onward as we have been apart., but we have never abandoned your protectorate. We have defended this city, this land. We have lost much, but gained in turn. We have gained wisdom, we have gained glory. We come before you to seek to regain our honor. We had disrespected you. For that we wish to make amends. We ask for your blessing once more, so that we may fight the Wyrm in your honor. So that we may protect your lands honorably. Please accept these bones of those that we have fell upon your lands. Please accept my gnosis, so that it may nourish your essence. Please accept our contrition so that we may come before you once more and fight in your stead.”

He lets go of those three bones from the three fimbul wolves that , dropping them in the churning mass, infused with his gnosis. And once those items had fallen into the massive nothingness, gone, he shifts down to his wolf form. Laying himself down on his stomach, crawling before the spirit of the Caern. Crawling towards the churning spirit, eyes downcast so that he may show his pity before the spirit.

(Come on Rituals. Please Help out here.)

Silence takes his homid form instead. He drops to his knees; then to all fours. The umbral ground is pebbly under his palms. Submission comes hard to the Full Moons of Fenris, and perhaps harder than most to Decker. It was hard enough humbling himself before the Grand Elder. This is —

— it’s not worse, actually. There’s a clarity in the moment. Evan’s eloquence, perhaps, or the events of the past, or the death of a packmate. It’s not submission; it’s not dishonor. It’s a form of honor, to reflect on one’s own mistakes, and correct them.

Enough, he thinks. Enough.

Silence bows his head down to the ground; closes his eyes.