[Rory] The moot is over, and she has been dreading this moment ever moment since Lukas gave his speech, and noticed her reaction. Rory is a lot of things – a contradiction, a battle powerhouse, unbearably shy, fiercely protective, completely submissive – but one thing stands above them all, haven been beaten into her since birth.
She is utterly, completely, 100% respectful. Always.
And when she makes a mistake, she owns it. Even as embarrassing as this may be, she has made a mistake and deserves the punishment coming for it. Not even Edwin would be able to convince her otherwise.
And so it is, she arrives here at the brotherhood, silent, and dressed in her oldest tattered jeans and t-shirt that’s been washed so many times the color is but a faint memory. Her pack is on her back, heavy and clanking and clunking in a way that suggests it contains a variety of interesting gizmo’s that only she would find valuable, and on her feet simple flipflops – something easily cast aside – which she does, slipping them off to stand barefoot before the door to room two.
A few breathes, trying to find the courage she fairly bleeds on the battle field. This is no battle, though and she is unable to find it. So she finally lifts a trembling hand and knocks on the door, eyes steadfastly on her bare feet.
[Wyrmbreaker] Some part of Rory must hope for the last-minute reprieve that Wyrmbreaker’s absence would offer. No such luck, though: the Shadow Lord calls through the thin door, “It’s open.”
The hinges are well-oiled, and do not squeak. When the door swings open, Lukas is on his bed, back to the headboard, a leather padholder propped on his knee. He’s writing longhand, a black rollerball pen gliding smoothly over paper.
It’s not until he finishes whatever thought he was setting down that he looks up, recapping his pen with a deft motion of one hand. “Rory,” he says, “what’s on your mind?”
[Rory] It’s open. Of course it’s open. Of course he’s inside. Of course there’s no reprieve, because there has never been, and will never be one for such as Rory. She closes her eyes, briefly, and then reaches with a trembling hand to open the door, slipping inside, silently, quietly. One might think to see the look on her face, the way she trembles, the way she refuses to lift her gaze to his that she has killed one of his, that she has brought a swift justice for some perceived insult and come away with Shadowlord blood and sinew between her teeth.
She doesn’t look up, other than to briefly acknowledge his words in a swift travel up somewhere around his jaw, and a slam back down. She slips free from her pack, and settles to her knees on the floor, keeping herself resolutely below him. There’s the sense that if he demands she crawl to him on her belly, she would do so, without hesitation, in complete and total contrition.
She presses her lips together, her brow furrowing as she tries to find the right words, and prays that they come out right, knowing it’s an impossibility. “I wave hronged you, Wyrmbreaker, rhya.”
[Wyrmbreaker] The thing about Rory’s curious speech pattern is that it is possible to get used to it. It is possible to hear beyond the swapped consonants; to hear the vowels and the end of the word instead. Soon enough the switched sounds don’t even ping on the consciousness anymore.
The Shadow Lord frowns. He slips his pen through a loop on the inside of the padholder and snaps it shut. “How so?”
[Sinclair] The Galliard of the Unbroken doesn’t live here anymore, neither in Room 6 nor 7 nor 3 nor anywhere, really. She passes through, grabbing a bed when she needs one or a shower stall or a run in the washer or dryer. She eats here sometimes, but usually she pays. Tonight she’s just passing through with a bowl of stew, a hunk of bread, and a slice of cheese. And paying her Alpha a visit, since she hasn’t seen any of her packmates for more than a Hi y’all I’m back before flopping facefirst into one of the beds at the Loft.
The door is open behind Rory when Sinclair comes by, balancing two bowls with enormous islands of roll trying not to sink into the thick not-soup food. She doesn’t hear what Rory says, but she sees the frown past the redhaired sinborn’s shoulder.
Her eyebrows quirk.
[Rory] She can’t look up at him – so she doesn’t. She shouldn’t look up at him, which is why she can’t. Instead, she lowers her gaze to her hands, twisted into a knot in her lap, gripped so tightly that her knuckles are white, that the freckles stand out in sharp contrast. And there are a LOT of freckles.
She clears her throat, in attempt to gain courage. It doesn’t help.
“I have slept with kour yinsman, Ray.”
She could add details. She could say that it was her first, that he taught her it was ok, though she knows it was wrong for the sinborn to even think of indulging in matters of the flesh… but she says nothing else, unless prompted.
[Iona McNevin] Iona had spent the last few days since the attack, in her room, going through what little stuff she has there. The walls were covered in some of the forgings she had done in the past. A Shield emblazoned with the Clan McNevin coat of arms, a few different swords, and the like. Otherwise, there was very little else save for clothes and alot of empty whiskey bottles. The door to Room 1 had a “Stay the fuck out” sign on it.
Then something caught her attention and she looked around her room.
[Wyrmbreaker] Briefly, Lukas’s eyes flick over Rory’s head to the Glass Walker standing outside. Then they come back to Rory as she drops the news. There’s a pause. Then Lukas snorts quietly.
“I’m starting to wonder if anyone hasn’t. At least you can’t end up impregnated.” The cold blue eyes rest on Rory for another moment. “I didn’t lay the law until the moot. So unless it happened last night, I won’t count you indebted to me or to my tribe.
“You should probably avoid further contact, though. Another Garou has been asking to challenge, and I doubt she’ll appreciate the competition.”
[Rory] “But I…”
It’s out before she stops it, and she flinches back, expecting to be hit for her impertinence, her audacity, for the very fact that she wants to do something, to have something she isn’t allowed to have. Pain there, naked and obvious at the thought of giving him up…
Softly, so much so he may have to strain to hear. “Marni.” She knows. “Te hold me.”
[Wyrmbreaker] “But you what?” There’s a certain mercilessness in the way his eyes pin Rory, stay there. It’s not to say he glares at her. It’s simply: his eyes are so very pale, so very unflinching.
[Sinclair] Sinclair: “Hey,” interrupting and indignant. “Kate and I haven’t boned him. Or Asha. I’m pretty sure.”
She quiets after that though, walking in and squeezing past Rory to take one of the bowls of stew — and the roll — over to Lukas’s bedside table. She glances over at Rory once as she takes her own bowl over to the desk and perches on the edge of it. She’s dressed simply as ever, in jeans that have a hole in one knee and an old Tide t-shirt that she got off a website specializing in fake vintage.
[Iona McNevin] Iona slipped to the door, and opened it. She poked her head out and heard the voices from Lukas’ room. She slipped out and moved to the door to listen, her head canted to the side.
[Rory] She trembles – she dared speak it, but was not able to finish it, and now she can’t possibly hold back. He demands answers, and she provides by telling the truth. Complete honesty, total submission.
“…tant woo.”
And then Sinclair is joining, and then Iona too – and poor Rory is mortified. Completely. She flushes bright red, and keeps her head down, letting the curls hide her face, though nothing can hide the way she trembles, and the way she fears what will come next.
[Victor Oseragighte] Iona is listening at the door. Victor is just exiting his room, having changed freshly into a pair of brown dungarees and a gray shirt with a faded motif in French, so old it’s difficult to read now. He pauses as he spots somebody else in the hall, tilting his head.
[Wyrmbreaker] “That’s unfortunate. But that’s the risk you run when you fraternize with the kin of another tribe. My answer is no, Rory. If and when Marni is allowed to challenge, and if and when she wins, you can take it up with her.”
They’ve developed quite an audience. Lukas looks at Iona, look at Rory, and sits up. His feet swing off the bed. He puts the pad aside and gets up.
“Was there anything else?”
[Iona McNevin] The sound of a door behind her makes Iona turn her head. A light nod was given to Victor, though she had no clue who he was.
[Victor Oseragighte] He smiles as he recognizes her and heads over, thumbs tucked into the pockets of his pants as he approaches. “Good to see you well again,” he ventured in his terse, brief manner.
[Sinclair] Sinclair remains perched on Lukas’s desk, tucking into her stew. She breaks the roll and dips it into the broth, eating with surprisingly good manners for a girl who looks like the wannabe girlfriend of some biker. She stares at Rory for a little while. The Ahroun is, uncomfortable as she is with it, in quite the spotlight right now.
[Iona McNevin] Iona’s attention turns from her Alpha’s doorway to Victor. He is greeted with a smile. “Aye, thank ye.” She thought for a moment. “Ye….were there? When they rescued me?”
[Wyrmbreaker] [DI, Victor was there in the whole scene. I’m pretty sure Iona saw him before she went all rabid!]
[Victor Oseragighte] (( I don’t think she ever saw him in homid, though. ))
[Rory] She closes her eyes, tight, and then nods her acceptance of his word, her lips pressed together to hold back anything else, even as she blindly reaches for her pack, and pulls it into her lap. She fumbles with the zipper, and finally gets it open. The pack is ungainly, the things inside causing it to look misshapen and odd. He knows she works with metal, with small machines, with pieces and parts of things that others find worthless and throw away. She pulls something amazing from things broken… there should be a lesson in that. She doesn’t see it, it – as with everything else about her – simply is.
She reaches inside, and find the right piece, and slowly pulls it from her bag, her fingers nimble and strong as she adjusts the copper pieces that are designed to catch the rain, formed into little tulip like cups, and let the water flow from one to the next and finally to the ground. It’s… surprisingly delicate, and pretty.
She offers it to him, her voice soft… “For you. And mour yate.”
For him, acknowledgment of what she can never, ever, dream to have. Once he takes it, baring anything else, she clutches her pack to her chest, and rises, intending on making a quick escape.
[Victor Oseragighte] He was not terribly surprised when she did not recognize him; he’d left before she’d awoken, after it was certain she’d been cured and healed, and he’d come in behind the other Garou, in Crinos by the time they probably saw him. He just nods and chuckles softly. “Was there the whole time. You probably remember me better with fur, though.”
[Iona McNevin] She frowned and looked away. “I dinnah remember any o’ et. Juss whah I ‘ave been tohl thah happened.” She sighed softly and leaned back on the wall.
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas holds his hand out for the delicate sculpture, his set expression clearing into a genuine appreciation as he see it.
“This is lovely, Rory. Thank you.”
And as she’s heading for the door, “Sinclair told me about your leadership the other night. You did all right. But I want you to come along when I take a few of your auspicemates and the other Alphas into the Battleground Realm for training.”
[Wyrmbreaker] [BURN THE WITCH!]
[Wyrmbreaker] […awww, too slow.]
[Victor Oseragighte] Understanding dawns on him now; he knew of such rages, so terrible they wiped away portions of your life it seemed. He nodded and removed a hand to stroke his beard. “Not sure what to tell you. Saw you and those other two on the run. Caught my eye. Then suddenly we have kin running from a Spiral and a manifested spirit of Rabies. It got to you. We… managed to contain you.”
Not the time, he thought, to bring up the viciousness of the one who’d really dropped her. Not the place. “Called in your pack. Friends of mine. Just lucky they could cure you.”
He waits another beat before he adds. “Jacket wrapped around your wounds was mine.”
[Rory] She stops as he continues, as he speaks of the leadership she never should have taken. She has stepped beyond her boundaries too often, too clearly lately, and since they have not punished her…
…well. She is confused. Completely confused.
But this she understands. He commands her to join in training, and she nods, her curls bouncing, though she does not attempt to answer. she holds her pack tightly, and makes her way to the door, her slender frame quaking. She holds control only by the thinnest of threads, and needs. to. get. out.
And they are there, blocking the door. She tightens her hold, and murmurs an achingly soft “‘scuse..”
[Iona McNevin] She listened and nodded. That much she knew already. Then she smiled. “Och, so thah’s who. I am ‘avin’ it cleaned. ” She let Rory slip out by her if that’s ok with her Alpha. But her attention was to Victor at the moment. “Et is more than thah though. I felt like I had been trapped there fo’ years, when everah one has tohl me et was only minutes. And I fo’got a great many things. Buh I am trying hard tah ‘member.”
[Sinclair] Watching Rory go, Sinclair adds no further comment concerning what she told Lukas about Rory’s leadership. It was basically as Lukas said: she did all right. Sinclair has one flip-flopped foot on the seat of Lukas’s desk chair, twisting it back and forth, her body always in motion as though keeping still takes more effort than fidgeting a little. She gnaws on a bite of steak from the stew, and when Rory is gone and she’s swallowed, she turns and looks at Lukas.
“Okay, seriously, I hope whatever that guy does to these women, you do to your mate. Because. Jesus.”
[Wyrmbreaker] “Goodnight,” he calls after Rory, who was already shrinking her way out. In her wake, the Shadow Lord carefully sets the beaten-copper raincatcher on his desk. Then he picks up the other bowl Sinclair had brought and, without ado, tucks into it.
And laughs. “I don’t kiss and tell,” he says, mock-mysterious — though one might note he does, in fact, change the subject thereafter. “Good trip home?”
[Victor Oseragighte] He moved smoothly aside himself, not one to keep somebody obviously agitated trapped when Luna’s face was showing full in the sky. “How much have you forgotten?” He knew that rabies was a deadly disease, and that awakened it must have been far more dangerous still. He could only imagine the full effects it must have had on her.
[Rory] She’s let by, and she swoops to grab her flipflops, and soon is nothing but a memory, her bare feet near silent as she makes her escape – before she breaks down, before she loses what little control she clutches tight too.
She does not stop until she is outside, in the darkness of the alley, where even her hair – flaming read and so very noticiable – is hidden by shadows. Only once there, once she’s alone, once she’s completely hidden does allow herself to react, to let the intensity of her fear and longing and loss overwhelm her…
Edwin threatened to feed Ray his heart if he broke hers. Perhaps it is good then, that Lukas has done the job instead.
[Iona McNevin] Again, a frown appears on her features. “Mo’ than I care tah admit. Names, dates, things thah ‘ave happened tah me o’ tah mah friends. An’ the things I do ‘member, they dinnah feel right. Everah thing feels like a nightmare. Et’s strange. I mean, I ‘member being locked away. An’ being tortured ova and ova. He….et messed up everah thing in mah head.” She shook her head.
[Victor Oseragighte] “Give it time. Some of it might come back. Human ability to recover can be amazing. And ours… well.” He stepped forward again to offer his hand. “You never knew me to forget. Victor Oseragighte. Philodox of the Wendigo.”
[Iona McNevin] His comment made her smile a touch. She gave him her hand to shake. “Iona.” Then she huffed, and called over her shoulder. “Och, Luke. Whah tribe am I again?”
[Sinclair] One shoulder shrugs up, then rolls back and down. It’s a smooth motion, fluid enough to disguise the strength inherent in her deceptively slender frame. She and he eat, and her ears pick up slightly on Victor and Iona’s voices outside the door, but she doesn’t call either of them in. It isn’t her room. And for now, she’s perfectly content to just eat with her Alpha.
“That’s really pretty,” she comments, on the …thingydoowhopper, her head says… on the table. “And yeah. We took like four days and went to this place called Arapahoe Basin, in Colorado. Apparently they’ve been going there like, every year since I went to college. So we caught the veryveryvery end of the season and I took a snowboarding class which was awesome, by the way.”
Another bite of stew, and bread.
Iona calls into the room. Sinclair rolls her eyes.
[Wyrmbreaker] “My name is Lukáš,” the Shadow Lord replies evenly, “and if you’ve genuinely forgotten your own tribe, then I’d suggest you not suffer your people to tend your obviously great sickness.”
Maybe he’s joking. He’s calm, dipping bread into stew, eating soft, fork-tender steak.
“I,” he replies to Sinclair with exaggerated arrogance, “ski. I do not snowboard.”
[Sinclair] “Oh,” Sinclair says slowly, with dawning comprehension that may or may not be feigned. She nods gently, her eyes growing tender. “I understand. It’d be really hard for you to have me show you up. I get that.”
[Iona McNevin] She looks back to Victor and shrugs. “Et’ll come back. Buh I kin stihl fight, an’ I ‘member how tah shift. So I’m nah totally helpless.” A smile given to Victor.
[Victor Oseragighte] Not remembering her tribe. Oh boy. That was… a big one. He sighs and shakes his head ruefully, his hand moving to rub at his eyes a moment before he lowered it again. “Well… you might be Fianna. Just a guess.” His mind is already working, thinking about methods to help Iona best regain her memory. It would help if he knew her better, but he figures there are people he can talk to for that, right? He had been there. He was surely partially responsible for her state, and that was not something he took lightly.
[Mama Ankle-Biter] *POP*
She shimmies through the bathroom mirror, crouching down in one of the sinks as she looks around, hands grip the edge of the bowl as she snorts. Her head tilting over a shoulder to cast a glance at her reflection. Blue eyes stay focused on her image for a few minutes, entranced by whatever it is she sees. Another snort erupts with a heavy expulsion of air from her lungs, and the small Gnawer climbs out of the sink.
She brushes her hands over the denim overalls she wears, the pant legs chopped off high on the thigh to make them easier to move around in. Bright pink stockings encase her legs, tucked into rainbow knee high socks and black scuffed up boots. Three layers of tank tops of various garish colors flatten across her torso under the bib. Bleach blond curls stick out at all ends in a frizzy halo around her cherub face. Nose and cheeks smudged with either dirt or chocolate, hard to tell…
She wanders out of the bathroom, adjusting the gunnysack slung across her shoulder, head cocking to one side as she listens for voices and follows her nose to seek out the conversation.
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas shoots Sinclair a dirty look. Then he bumps her with his shoulder. “Ass.” He tilts his head at the door, indicating Victor and Iona just outside. “You meet him yet? He’s a Wendigo half-moon.”
[Iona McNevin] She nodded. “Li’l things ahr comin’ back. So I know this wihl nah last fo’evah. Buh like I said, whah I could ‘member was…tainted.” She reached out and touch his arm as she went on. “Like…there was a fight. An’ I killed anotha garou. That’s how I ‘member it. Buh that’s nah how et feels. I -know- I dinnah do et, buh I ‘member doin’ et. Do ye undahstand?”