[Hatchet] It’s been about a week, a little more, since the moot. Since the Grand Elder and Philodox Elder informed him that he would be bereft of kin for a turning of the moon. He stays in the caern like a newly changed cub, avoids the Brotherhood, patrols the penumbral streets in hispo rather than walking through the physical realm on the two legs he was born with.
He does not sit at the challenge area anymore. He still tends the graves, those of dead Fianna and that of a dead packmate, but he no longer plays his guitar or drinks Wild Turkey beside the latter. Mostly he contemplates the totem itself, when he steps through the gauntlet. And he thinks about sacrifices.
It has not escaped his notice that Soledad is always nearby, hovering, silent, watching. He needs very little. Occasionally he goes to Tekakwitha to hunt for food. Occasionally he comes back to the Caern mauled, but does not let his packmates know about it. He sleeps in lupus, hidden away between hangers and buildings in the shadows, and at sunrises and sunsets, he practices making talens.
He is not doing that right now. It’s well past sunset. He’s just sitting by the water, knees up, arms resting on them, eyes skyward.
[Boy] He didn’t hold a position at this sept, not an official one anyway. To his mind, all packs served the sept, and he served as Alpha of his pack. It just so happened that his Beta was the Ahroun Elder, however. There was nothing holding Boy here, nothing that said he had to come in and help the Warders or the guardians, or tend to the graves. But there was a little voice (not as little as you’d think) that told him he had to stand by Marrick. This was his responsibility.
And so, when she heads out for the Caern that evening, he tags along.
[Marrick] (how is she?)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 4, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Muerte Fria] Soledad has been keeping constant vigil over Buried Hatchet since the day following the Moot. She spared time only when she was certain that he wouldn’t go far, when he was asleep at the Caern or lost in something of a trance staring out into the lake where Maelstrom churned. In the time that she found for herself she returned to the La Familia packhouse, gathered all of her belongings that had been left in the spare room (some clothes and trinkets jammed into a knapsack and her spear) and left without a word to anyone. She had yet to return, and offered no indication that she ever would do so.
Time was also taken to find herself a new place to stay, to sleep, and that wound up being the Caern as well by lack of anywhere else to go. The Stone of Scorn, heavy and inconvenient, was tucked away in a hole she had dug on the small patch of grass against a shed across the stretch of the Caern from Hatchet, not thrown away but kept safe in the place where she slept.
At current she stood vigil over Hatchet, perhaps forty feet away from him, seated on the rail of a dock up the shore from him. She had a small blade out and was cleaning her fingernails with it, gaze focused down on her fingers, flicking up toward Hatchet only on occasion to make sure he hadn’t moved much. She was dressed for the chill in a thin powder blue long-sleeved shirt and a pair of carpenter jeans. Her hair was left unbound to hang over her shoulders and back, serving to keep her ears and neck warm.
Silent, watchful, dutiful.
[Rory O’Bryne]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 5, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 3 at target 4)
to Rory O’Bryne
[Marrick] She had come home a few days prior a bloody mess with a triumphant grin on her face. For now, Marrick was content to get things done and work around the sept. She was walking with him, and for now she was exploring things.
“Boy, we gotta problem,” she said, stated. Matter of fact, but edged. There wasn’t hesitation, just a strange sort of grim determination there. “We gotta define our borders.”
[Rory O’Bryne]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 4)
to Rory O’Bryne
[Rory O’Bryne]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 7 (Failure at target 4)
to Rory O’Bryne
[Rory O’Bryne]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 7 at target 4)
to Rory O’Bryne
[Waco] He was at the moot, though he showed up late, and he didn’t say much. Or anything at all really, besides of course the customary introductions. Besides meeting and greeting a few random garou, and kin who seem to be scattered throughout the city, he hasn’t spent a lot of time playing the getting to know you game. And so it is the evening finds him making his first move in said game. Worn boot heels crunch through gravel, or thud against concrete, or knock against wasted wood as he makes his way through the abandoned docks and mooring toward the caern proper.
Tall and lean, he slips along the waterfront, his hands in the snug pockets of his worn jeans, denim jacket open to reveal the plain black t-shirt beneath. A battered cowboy hat resting on his clean shaven scalp, it’s brim wobbling in the chill night air. His lips pursed, he whistles softly as he walks. Pale blue eyes sweeping his surroundings.
[Charlie] He’d asked his packbrother to let him know before he took off on any trips to Tekakwitha; but the word and request of a metis isn’t exactly worth its weight and the time necessary to listen, and if Hatchet has been going off by himself, coming back mauled, asking for help from the Rites Mistress rather than his packmates, Charlie doesn’t know. One has to suppose that it’s really none of his business what his Alpha has been doing for the last eight days, but that would be ignoring the entire point of a pack, the entire point of this pack. They aren’t bound together because they have known each other for years. They’re bound together because they know that lone wolves are more susceptible to just about every danger that can befall a person in the world they live in.
Charlie hasn’t gone looking for his packbrother, and he has been silent over the connection the three of them share. He’s been around, though. Ever since the Moot he has been spending his evenings around the Caern, learning which spirits are most pleased with the Sept, which ones need to be worked on, which ones have abandoned them entirely; he’s been spending time frowning at the Wyrmpole, trying to figure out how to clean that mess of a tribute up without sacrificing the trophies that have been there for years; he’s been attempting to learn the duties of the position he’s challenging for when the challengee is supposedly on a spirit quest, and it’s been slow going.
He’s been here for several hours tonight. This is the first time he and Hatchet are seeing each other. Lazy steps are carrying him down the shoreline. About forty feet behind Hatchet lurks the scorned Uktena; Charlie’s eyes light on her for several seconds, as if simply to acknowledge her presence, and then he’s parking himself next to Hatchet, dropping himself onto the sand like a sack of laundry. His hair is a mess, his eyes are tired, but his clothes are clean and he doesn’t look or smell high.
“I thought I saw snow earlier,” is his greeting. “Scared the crap outta me.”
[Boy] “I know our borders.” He said dismissively. You go…down to Oz Park. And then…up to that…Masonic Hospital. Then you go…”
He stopped at some point, and when you stop in the middle of a statement like that there’s a length of time before you go from “I’m trying to remember” and “I never really knew.” Boy had gone over that time limit.
“Alright. Alright, I guess I see your point.”
[Rory O’Bryne] Those who had seen her at the Brotherhood, most often saw her bent over the inner workings of something or another, small tools in hand, bits and pieces and gears and springs and impossibly small things spread about on the pingpong table, or the desk top. She worked silently, with intense concentration, until things finally clicked and it all came together as if it were meant to be. Another day spent etching, buffing, shining, repainting, and she was finally ready.
If only she could find the blasted Elder to present herself – only then would she consider herself finally settling in, despite the fact that she had lain the first of what she hopes to be many trophies at the foot of the Wyrmpole.
So she makes the rounds again – and has found her way into the Caern once more. Subtle inquiries let her know that Buried Hatchet is here, and she almost swallows her tongue in sudden fear. Maybe this isn’t a good idea – maybe she should turn around and go back home, maybe…
Maybe not. Shoulders hunch under the straps of her backpack, she shoves her hands deeper into the pockets of her jacket, and her feet scuff across the ground lightly as she heads toward the beach. No one can miss that shock of red curls, the pale fragility of her skin – nor can they miss the power of breeding beneath it. She doesn’t try to hide (though part of her thinks that might be a fantastic idea) nor overtly bring attention to herself either. She simply walks along the lakes edge, searching for the elder.
[Hatchet] He has not been asking for help from anyone, truth be told. All wounds heal. He was on his own for long enough without talens or healers that he doesn’t mind curling up in a warm ball of fur and waiting for the pain to stop on its own. Just about everything heals, given time.
And no, he hadn’t told Charlie before going out to Tekakwitha. He was hungry, and unable to seek food at the Brotherhood or go to Liadan for a few bucks to buy a steak, and he’d never quite told Charlie that he would let him know, but…
…still.
When Charlie’s been at the Caern, Hatchet has mostly been working on talens. He sits and he crafts them quietly while Charlie works on the long-term challenge against a Keeper of the Land who isn’t really around anymore anyway, and he doesn’t talk about the fact that unless he steps up and fights for the post of Master of the Challenge again, it’s really none of his business whether Charlie takes the spot over or not. He has worked with Keepers of the Land before. He occasionally gives advice.
Hatchet knows the habits of members of many different tribes, of septs from all over the country. He tells stories, sometimes, about tending to the watery beds of sea monsters. He tells stories, sometimes, about fighting those sea monsters upon awakening. He has a good one about jumping into a sea monster’s throat with Soledad and some other Garou. He and Soledad lived. The other Garou is, according to Hatchet, a modern-day Jonah.
He doesn’t start when Charlie approaches. He knows he’s there. In a way, he’s always there, for Hatchet.
“Now what,” Hatchet says slowly, with a laziness that would result in a drawl if he had any accent to speak of, “is frightening about snow?”
[Marrick] “No, I mean… like…” he pauses. the Fury stops and she’s talking with her hands “We gotta define this and we have to be able to protect these because… well… shit.”
Her voice drops and she regards Boy again. She’s his Beta, she’s supposed to back him up, she’s supposed to tell him about problems, and she’s supposed to offer solutions to said problems. The Fury shoved her hands into her hoodie pocket and turns to look at Boy.
“We’ve got a problem because Wyrmbreaker said if we don’t get our shit together he’s challenging for leadership of our pack and for our territory.”
[Boy] He stops abruptly, Chuck Taylors scuffing hard against the pavement, and levels a sudden, hot glare at Marrick.
“What?”
Those eyes don’t wander. They don’t twinkle with a distant thought. Not this time.
“Wyrmbreaker. That slimy bastard.”
[Marrick] “We’ve got this,” she said. A vote of confidence, yes, but it was something solid. She looked at Boy and inhaled slowly- she was calm. She was collected.
“It’s fine, if we’re blaming anyone we’re blaming me,” she told him, “we’re not losing anything.”
[Boy] She might have been calm, but he sure as hell wasn’t. He was glaring at her. And when he wasn’t glaring at her, he was pacing. And sometimes, he was doing both. Like when he spoke.
“You talk to Vaughn yet? You see the mural in the living room lately? Its peeling, Marrick. Fading. If we don’t hurry, it’ll be gone. You know what that means don’t you?”
[Charlie] “Maybe not scared.”
Of the three of them, Charlie is the least capable of putting his thoughts together in an order that makes a great deal of sense. It has little to do with his intelligence, or the fact that he doesn’t hold a station of leadership within the Nation like the two Fianna do. He’s very intelligent, and there have been numerous situations since he came to Chicago where he has been the de facto leader. It has more to do with the fact that he didn’t learn how to speak English until he was eight years old, that no one really wanted to hear what he had to say up until about three months ago. Twelve years is a long time to keep one’s thoughts to oneself.
Reaching up to scratch at the corner of his eye with one painfully blunt fingernail, Charlie looks out over the water as if the blackness and the choppy waves are going to help him figure out what he’s trying to say.
“Surprised, I guess. And I shouldn’t really be surprised. It’s snowed in October in Boston before. We’re not in Boston, though.”
His accent is more noticeable than usual; his vowels are more nasal, October and Boston coming out like Ahct-tobah and Bah-sten. The kid hasn’t been sleeping very well lately, and his Rage is humming beneath the surface like some barely contained electricity.
[Muerte Fria] The Caern usually had Garou passing through like ghosts, in pairs or alone. The Warder and his pack rarely left, it seemed. She’d seen a few of his packmates come strolling back with a pizza, and her eyes had followed them sharply. They gave her a glance at best before refusing to offer further recognition.
After all, people were talking.
Not that she gave a shit. People could bluster and blow all they wanted like winds at her door, but she would not answer them. People stared now, spoke behind their hands, and she simply turned her cheek and let them. …But heaven help the soul that would come calling these rumors to her face…
The Metis packed up with Hatchet appeared for the first time in days, hunkered down beside the Fianna, and spoke. Soledad was too far to hear, so she paid no mind to what conversation they might be having. Instead, her gaze flickered toward Boy and Marrick, a couple dozen yards away, further inland. Dulled amber-brown eyes observed them instead.
Still she remained silent and unreadable, like a long-limbed, brown-skinned gargoyle.
[Rory O’Bryne] She had a description, and there is no turning back once she finds Buried Hatchet at the water’s edge. He’s with another, though, and there’s a distinct hesitation as she comes closer, hovering just outside of unacceptably presumptuous range. Pale green eyes lift to find Muerte Fria nearby, then return to Charlie, then Buried Hatchet, where her gaze remains a beat longer than would be strictly respectful, before dropping down and away.
The toe of her boot scuffs along the ground lightly, as she waits. Patiently.
[Marrick] “Haven’t been able to find him, I’m looking. Tracking down bull, finding out what the appropriate chiminage is to cockroach an’ falcon an’ fenris and… god, I don’t even know how to make things right with Wendy.”
A pause.
“What should I do? You know her better than I do-” she winced. That was a hard one to say out loud.
[Hatchet] “I was fostered in the Adirondacks,” he says abruptly, looking at Charlie, then looking out over the water again. “It was springtime. But it was still cold up in the caern most of the time.”
He’s never talked about this. Not just not to Charlie. Hatchet almost never talks — or talked — about his past. Even the former packmate sitting out of the way doesn’t know what he just told Charlie. Her hearing is good enough to tell what he just said. Hell. He may even be speaking partly for her benefit. Hatchet glances to the side once, catching sight of Rory, catching wind of her breeding, then looks back to his packmate.
“Spent a couple of winters in the sept up in Rocky Mountain National Park. Snow up to my fucking thighs, sometimes.”
[Boy] “Just…TALK to her, Marrick!”
And his hands went up to his head, tangling in his hair, pulling as he sighed abruptly.
“Alright.” Came his voice, lower and growing gradually more steady. “Alright, I’m sorry about that. Look, if there’s one thing that I still believe in its that we’re stronger when we work together. So…I’ll help you look for Bull. We’ll perform contrition together.”
Finally, a touch more steady, his hands fall back to his sides.
“And…We’ve got Doodle on our side. He really wants to help. I don’t think we can ask him to do anything for us, I don’t think that’d be right. But he knows stuff at least. We can ask him.”
A quick breath, and a nod, and Boy starts walking again. Its a casual pace, and all the while his body is partly turned to Marrick.
“As for Wendy…She needs clothes. Nice ones, y’know? And maybe…some stuff for her hair. She’s a girl Marrick. Do girl stuff.”
[Muerte Fria] Occasional words drifted on the silent air to reach Soledad’s ears, when Maelstrom was done belching its idle half-slumbering rage to the sky. Hatchet explained where he was fostered, and the Uktena’s eyebrows lifted some in what might be curiosity, and her eyes flicked away from Marrick and Boy to settle upon Hatchet and Charlie again.
But she didn’t move from her post.
The most activity she offered within the last twenty minutes was to put her knife down, folding the blade away to stick it in her pocket, then placing a hand on the railing for support while she leaned back and adjusted the awkward makeshift band created to make her pants fit without squeezing the life out of her or falling down. She’d looped a hair elastic through the button hole to give herself more space for breathing and, inevitably, growing.
[Charlie] Hatchet knows more about Charlie than Charlie knows about Hatchet. The first night the two of them made each others’ acquaintance, he had told the Fiann several things that he hadn’t realized he’d known already, had tried to explain what it was he was doing in Chicago and where he had come from, and that was about as much autobiographical information as the older man has gotten about of the metis.
The kid pulls his gaze back off the horizon and looks at Hatchet when he speaks, though, as if on some level he appreciates what he’s being told, as if he understands the weight of it. He hauls his legs into a folded lotus position, idly toying with the lace of his hiking boot with one set of spindly fingers. He’s not paying much attention to Muerte Fría now that he’s sat down, but he knows she’s still there.
“I ain’t been that far west yet. Not since I was born, anyway. Was up in the Adirondacks when I was still looking for my father, though. The lakes are way cleaner up there then they are here. The water spirits aren’t all angry all the time.”
[Marrick] Just… TALK to her, Marrick!
“It’s not that fucking easy, Boy!”
she snapped right back, but calmed down. the Fury stopped and looked at him apologetically. Alright. She inhaled slowly and nodded. The Fury ran a hand through her blonde hair and stopped her fidgeting.
“You got a point… there’s no need to do this alone, that’s part of the problem,” she admits, “I can ask him how to do… I dunno, how to summon stuff. If I can get a spirit there, you can talk to it.”
[Boy] “Alright then.”
He nods his approval.
“Thats a start. Aside from that, I’m thinking Patrols. There’s too much for just the two of us, so we gotta split up for now. You and Doodle take the North and East side. Me and Callie can handle the West and the South. We’ll try it out for a while, and we’ll switch. Oh! And I need you to test them too. If they’re gonna be a part of us, we both have to approve.”
[Rory O’Bryne] He looks her way, and looks back to his companion again, and she is left with her decision. It takes her a moment or two to make it. She is never this hesitant in battle, but people and public relations is a different story. She takes a breath, and the moves closer.
Finally, still far enough away not to really be a bother, made for quick retreat or approach, either way, and she clears her throat. “Excuse me… Huried Batchet-rhya?”
And she looks for all the world like she doesn’t know she messed that up – hearing what she means, rather than what she says. Her eyes don’t quite lift all the way to his, glancing at Charlie, then back to Buried Hatchet and hovering respectfully lowered.
[Hatchet] To be fair, there’s more to know about Hatchet simply because he’s been around longer. He’s gotten out quite a bit more than Charlie. And yet ultimately, Charlie’s memories don’t go back much farther than Hatchet’s own. They don’t talk much about their pasts, or about Curata’s. They talk about the present. They don’t discuss the future in the Sentinels, really. They are where they are.
He quirks a brow at Charlie. “West?”
It drops. “Yeah, well. There’s a lot of things cleaner up there. I got more used to seeing blood all over the snow, though.”
Hatchet tosses a glance in the direction that Marrick’s shout comes from, his jaw tensing for a moment, and then he looks back to his own pack. That’s La Familia’s business. This is his. He’s turning towards Charlie again when he sees a flare of bright red hair out of the corner of his eye and turns his head again to look over and up at Rory. He blinks; assumes he misheard her.
“Yeah?”
[Charlie] It’s the aiming of Hatchet’s eyes away and up that has Charlie abandoning that train of thought and looking up at the stranger who’s come looking for Buried Hatchet. If he makes anything of the spoonerism, it doesn’t show on his face, and he doesn’t say anything. He and the redhead are both Cliaths, but if the way that the gangly kid with the bruises under his eyes is sitting is any indication, he’s about as far down on the totem pole as a person can get and not be dead.
Hatchet acknowledges her presence, and Charlie turns his attention back out over the water, chewing on his thumbnail.
[Rory O’Bryne] Step one – say something. Step two – don’t trip. Step three…
…she’s forgotten step three. Panic starts to set in, but she swallows it back, and shakes her pack off her back. She digs around in the front pocket, and then steps within arms (…claw…) reach. She sinks to a crouch – she can’t do this while he sits and she stands.
“They fold me to tind you.” there it is again. “Rory O’Bryne. Tongue-Twister. Cliath Mull Foon.” She opens her hand, and offers what’s in it to him, palm up. “I found… and fixed this, for you.” respect, though part of her expects him to scoff at the offering. Sitting in her hand is a pocket watch, clearly old, yet painstakenly rebuilt from the inside out. It’s buffed to a high shine, and etched in the back is a Fianna Glyph.
Always present yourself to a higher station with a gift that shows your talent. “I tinker and stix fuff.” And kill the enemy, but that goes without saying.
(OOC: the watch was a complete trashed mess – it’s now 4 days and 12 suxx worth of awesome.)
[Hatchet] The Fury at Hatchet’s side is a metis. He is deformed internally and permanently, he is useless in terms of reproducing more warriors for Gaia, and Hatchet usually only gets angry with him for acting like he’s useless, or that his opinion is, or that he does not deserve or should not ask for protection, aid, or comfort from his packmates.
The Fianna approaching has more breeding than he does. He doesn’t have any. He has the blood of more tribes in his veins than is really fair to contemplate: he is a mutt. He has enough of the Look of a Fiann to combine with his attitude to make his tribe unmistakable, but he doesn’t smell like any particular line of heroes. He doesn’t look like one. He’s good-looking, and he’s strong, but not a trace of it comes from a spiritually augmented lineage.
He is a Fostern, and though he is no longer the Master of the Challenge, he’s still a Fostern and the Alpha of his pack. His eyes follow Rory down as she crouches, and he cocks his head to one side. His throat is not cleanshaven as it usually is. His beard could use a trim.
His eyebrows go up at what she says, not because she mixes up some syllables. He actually can puzzle out what she says, almost as if he, too, hears what she means and not what she says. Hatchet looks at what she has for him, eyebrows pulling together now, and takes the pocketwatch from her with a look of mingled consternation and interest.
“Huh,” he says thoughtfully, turning it over in his hand and then looking back at her. “Thank you.” He wraps his large hand around it and pulls it back towards himself, but doesn’t pocket it anywhere. “Do you have a pack, Tongue Twister?”
[Charlie] Neither one of the men sitting on the sand have any purity to their blood, have any lingering connection to the heroes of myth, yet it only takes a glimpse at the dark-haired Theurge at Hatchet’s side to determine what his lot in life is. He isn’t cowering, and he isn’t simpering, and he isn’t talking to Hatchet as if he’s afraid of being beaten or throated for daring to speak up, but he looks as though there is something wrong with him. He’s gaunt, and worn out, and beyond that he has the look of someone who’s been beaten too many times. His spine is still straight, and his shoulders are held back, but there is no simmering pride in his person.
The danger in not thinking he’s useless is that very few other people share his packmates’ appraisal of his worth. He’d tried to explain this to one of the women for whom he is currently acting as guardian: it doesn’t matter how much worth he believes himself to have, or how good a Theurge he thinks he is, or how high his self-esteem is. The rest of the Nation, or at least the vast majority of the rest of the Nation, looks at him and can’t see further than the sum of his parents’ sin. He could make Fostern–and to listen to the deeds that he has accomplished since arriving in Chicago, that isn’t that far off–and the rank would mean absolutely nothing to the vast majority of them.
He’s been a Cliath since he was ten years old. He’s been through more in the last five years than most people see or experience before they die. By this point, he’s got to be thinking his headstone is going to have nothing on it, even if he does make Fostern.
That’s neither here nor there. The stranger approaches his packbrother, and he’s only peripherally aware of the exchange between the two of them. He’s not watching them. Anyone who didn’t know him would think he’s trying to make himself invisible; anyone who’s seen him in groups where he is outnumbered by females or homid-born simply know that he’s just waiting.
[Rory O’Bryne] His hand dwarf’s hers. Her fingers are thin, pail, and fragile looking – yet obviously nimble, and talented. He poses his question, and she shakes her head slightly.
“No.” Single words are easier.
She slides her pack back on, then wraps her arms around her knees hugging them tight to her chest. Where he has no distinct breeding, what she has is entirely wasted when considered by the nation. She doesn’t mention it, but inevitably, eventually, someone will.
[Hatchet] “Then until I leave the city, you’re my responsibility. If you need help, come to me or my packmates. If you get in trouble, it’ll come to my doorstep. Even though I, uh…”
A beat. A blink. “Don’t have a door right now.”
He takes a breath. “After I leave the city, Fianna eldership will be in my packmate Curata’s hands until I return. He lives in Room 3 at the Brotherhood along with Charlie here.”
[Charlie] At the utterance of his name, Charlie jerkily turns his gaze away from the water as if he’s been yanked out of some zoned-out daydream and looks first to Hatchet, then to the Fiann crouching beside them. He unfolds his legs so that they are sprawled out on the ground in front of him, and lifts his left hand in a motionless wave.
[Wyrmbreaker] At night, with the precipitous drop of summer into winter, the lakewater is actually a few degrees warmer than the air. For all that, water is far more effective a heatsink than air, and when Lukas sloshes out of the lake —
Because that is what the Shadow Lord is doing. Sloshing out of the lake in great stomping strides, dragging something long and slithering and dead behind him.
— he’s shivering all over, so violently that the larger muscle masses of his back and his chest, his thighs, are nearly vibrating. He’s unashamed of this, his body’s natural defense against cold. He doesn’t try to suppress it, or hide it.
And, he’s grinning. Wyrmbreaker is in a great mood. Victorious and happy with his victory. The water drops to his waist, then his knees. The thing he’s dragging comes out of the water: what appears to be an enormous sea-snake at first glance is, in fact, something closer to a centipede, horribly mutated. Dozens of tiny, humanoid arms run down the slick sides of the creature. The head is very nearly human, though the eyes are set to either side of the head. A fish’s eyes, empty and dead.
“Hey!” he calls to the Garou on land. “Can any of you help me out with a Rite of Cleansing?”
[Muerte Fria] The night had been almost drab… until some crazy Shadow Lord dragged his water logged ass out of the lake, pulling a mangled massive centipede along with him, with human arms, a human face, a beast of nightmares torn asunder and made nothing but dead, tainted flesh.
He requested a Rite of Cleansing, and Soledad huffed and slid down from her perch on the dock railing to land her sneakered feet on the planks below. A sweater had been wrapped about her waist, knotted under the still very mild swell of her midsection, and she was undoing the knot as she approached Wyrmbreaker. When she reached him, she held out the plain black sweater to him to use either as a towel or to pull onto himself. It was ridiculously massive, probably drowned her when she put it on, an XL in men’s. When she spoke, her voice was low and quiet, like she’d forgotten how to use it in the past week.
“Dry,” was the first word, left alone as its own sentence. Her head bobbed toward the Sentinels. “Taggart can cleanse. I am unsure of his Theurge.”
[Boy] His eyes snap from Marrick finally, to the figure of the man climbing out of frigid water. Boy’s shoulders curl. His ‘Hackles’ raise, and as his eyes scan over the features of the thing he was hauling out of the water, his lips curl.
“That slimy bastard…”
[Hatchet] “Oh look,” Hatchet says mildly, as Lukas sloshes out of the lake, “Wyrmbreaker found a wee sea monster.”
A moment later. “Shut the fuck up, Sol,” he snaps, suddenly and viciously, without looking at her. “You do not and have never spoken for me.”
[Rory O’Bryne] (OOC: I’m sorry, I had to pick up my SO. )
[Charlie] Hey!
The metis cranes his neck towards the distant shore where the Alpha of the Unbroken is sloshing out of the ink-black waters with a strange trophy in hand. As if it had been his name called and not a general request for cleansing, the skinny Greek kid gets his hiking boots under himself and is working on standing up when Hatchet snaps at Sol without looking in her direction. That gives him brief pause, and he remains hunkered down as he hollers back, “I can do it!”
[Rory O’Bryne] He lays down the law, and who she will answer to. Him, or his packmate Curata. Her brows knit together briefly as she commits the name to memory, as well as where they live. The Brotherhood.
She nods. “I am in noom rine, for now.”
She pauses, and might be about to take her leave, before someone drags a… sea monster? from the lake. Rory just stares – then remembers herself and drops her gaze, respectfully.
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas looks at the proffered sweater curiously, peering at it through the gloom. Then he shakes his head and presses it gently back.
“No thanks. I’ll be all right.”
There’s a rather sharp exchange between Hatchet and Soledad. Lukas, who has more than an inkling of the story behind them, looks from one to the other and says absolutely nothing. Then Charlie pipes up. Wyrmbreaker heaves the thing up higher, slinging it over his shoulder to drag onto the stony lakeshore.
“Actually,” he remarks, “I think it’s a wee lake monster.” He grabs it by one of its plump little arms, heaves the rest of its length ashore. The arm snaps in his hand with an audible crack and henceforth flops emptily. “What do Stag’s Galliards say, anyway, Hatchet? Does Nessie actually exist?”
And he throws the thing down. Twenty, thirty feet of slick, thin sea(lake)monster flops to the ground. Wyrmbreaker shakes slime off his hands.
“Thank you,” he says to Charlie as the Theurge approaches.
[Muerte Fria] Soledad’s sweater is pressed back, and she rolled slim shoulders in dismissal and tossed it behind her again to catch an arm and knot it at her front once more.
But Hatchet just has to go and open his big. fat. mouth.
Rage snaps and sizzles like water hitting a pan full of hot oil, and the Ahroun turned her head, teeth bared, to snap back at Hatchet.
“Wasn’t speaking for you, was I? Stating a fact.”
The words are bland, void of swear words and insults, but her voice was pure venom, her expression contorted with Rage and Hate. What love might have been there was long evaporated and gone now, it seemed.
[Hatchet] He could cleanse. He could have offered. Gaia knows he has enough respect for Wyrmbreaker, even if he would love to throw Katherine into Maelstrom. But Charlie is a Theurge, and Hatchet only ever learned the rite out of necessity. Charlie is the one who is supposed to do this sort of thing, and so Charlie — who aims for Keeper of the Land, and this is the Land he would Keep — hops up to go help the Alpha of the Unbroken.
Hatchet watches. And his brows tug together fiercely, as though in pain, as he watches the Fury jog over.
He turns to Rory. “The Kinfolk who run the Brotherhood are of our tribe. We don’t make a fuss about that. They take care of themselves. We take care of the Brotherhood. As long as they’re treated with respect, that is. So… try to keep bloodshed on their second floor to a minimum.”
He looks back to Lukas and smirks. “They say that she’s a tease and a fattie, more fae than mortal, more Wyld than Wyrm. I haven’t met her myself, but I’m inclined to agr– shut the FUCK up, Sol!” he roars, this time snapping his head around to scowl at her.
[Rory O’Bryne] Muerte Fria says something, Buried Hatchets snaps back, and the hatred between them has Rory flinching – visibly. But he’s telling her things, and she listens carefully.
Minimal Bloodshed on the second floor. “Yessir.”
She hides a grin at the way he talks of Nessie, dipping her chin so that her hair slides forward from the confines of her hood, her expression lost beneath it. He snaps at Sol again, and there’s another flinch, try as she might to hold it back. She hugs her knees tighter to her chest, and keeps her gaze firmly lowered, until she shifts her position slightly to watch Charlie instead as he moves to Wyrmbreaker and his lake monster.
[Boy] Boy’s scowl at Lukas and his prize monster turns to a scowl aimed at Soledad, and then Even at Hatchet as the poisonous exchange continues.
“C’mon, lets get out of here.” He says to Marrick, and the two move off to leave.
“If I ever talk to you like that, just stick my head up my own ass, alright?”
[Charlie] Once his offer of assistance has been accepted–and for all anyone could tell, all it was was an offer: Theurge or not, challenging for Keeper of the Land or not, there are certain Fosterns, even certain Cliaths, who would not accept help from a mule, and Charlie had to have been mentally preparing himself for the Lord to turn him down in favor of someone else–Charlie springs to his feet and starts off down the shore, his hiking boots sinking into the sand and his gait loose. He’s all loose limbs and bony joints, tall and doomed to die with a teenager’s build, and he doesn’t do so much as blink as his packbrother roars at the Uktena behind him.
Charlie cants his head to the side as he comes upon the long trophy, and he rolls his skinny shoulders with a crackle of vertebrae as he crams his hands into his pockets.
“That thing’s huge,” he says, as if Wyrmbreaker has no inkling of the size of the creature he’d just slaughtered. “If you help me get it across the Gauntlet I’ll do the cleansing on the other side.”
[Wyrmbreaker] Wyrmbreaker’s pale eyes flick between Hatchet and his once-packmate. And he leaves them be.
His hands free now, Wyrmbreaker pushes his hair back from his forehead, wipes his face on his forearm. The Ahroun is still shivering so hard droplets of water flick off his skin. He paces away a few steps as Charlie examines the carcass, going to wash himself off in the lake. When he’s finished, he sloshes ashore again, wringing his clothes — what remains of them, which is to say, his dedicated underclothes — out the best he can.
Then he shifts to his wolf shape. And plants his paws wide, shakes, water flying off his thick fur in all directions, the sodden and plastered strands bursting upright in short, damp spikes.
Seconds later he’s back beside the creature and the Theurge. He whuffs an affirmative, lowering his head to grip the thing between his jaws. A moment later the Ahroun’s shape becomes indistinct, translucent, gone.
Umbralside, the Caern is a place of purity and power. This close to the Caern’s heart, they can almost feel the spirit energy humming in the air. Charlie, Theurge that he is, can feel it.
Wyrmbreaker’s fur seems darker still on this side: a deep night-black, solid and pure. His eyes burn with rage like lightning. He drops the dead thing, licking his tongue in and out a few times to rid himself of the taste. And then he sinks to his haunches beside it, apparently deciding to include himself in Charlie’s cleansing ritual.
[Muerte Fria] Hatchet roars at Soledad again.
Soledad keeps a hard, searing, almost quivering glare on Hatchet.
A few tense seconds slide by, and the Ahroun’s muscles shake almost as Wyrmbreaker’s do, except for a very different reason. But rather than ratchet herself into Hispo and make the charge, rather than pour the Philodox’s blood on the Caern ground or die trying, the Uktena snapped her teeth at air, turned, and walked inland.
Away.
[Ewan Selwyn] *Ewan strolled though the umbral reflection of the caern. He’d been patroling the outter edges of the bawn, checked in with the guardians and was now heading back towards the middle. Seeing other garou ahead he turned and moved that way.*
[Rory O’Bryne] (time check, because christ almighty.)
to Rory O’Bryne
[Rory O’Bryne] Wyrmbreaker and his kill disappear, and Charlie presumably follows. She has yet to be dismissed by her Elder, and as such remains where she is – crouched with her arms wrapped tight around her knees, waiting for Hatchet and Muerte Fria to erupt into combat, despite the fact the later walked away.
She says nothing, which is hardly surprising now that they have heard how she speaks. She simply waits, quietly, instead, for anything else Buried Hatchet might have to tell her.
[Charlie] Anyone who says he’s more comfortable in the Umbra than on the other side of the Gauntlet is a few steps closer to madness than the average person. The Umbra is a place of wonder, sure, it’s more vibrant and alive than the realm where most of the life the Garou know happens, but it’s also mostly uncharted, patently dangerous, and more likely to take the lives of those who do not treat it with respect than it is to simply teach a valuable lesson before spitting the defeated back across the Gauntlet.
The Fostern and the metis step across to the Penumbra in different forms, Wyrmbreaker in his wolf skin and Lights Out in homid, and once there they find that the moon overhead is that much brighter, the stars are that much more luminescent, the air is crisper and what grass and sand and stones there are to be found that much more colorful. The Theurge takes a deep breath once they’re across, shakes his head as if to clear water out of his ears, and strides off to retrieve the items that he needs for a successful cleansing as Wyrmbreaker attempts to get the taste of the many-armed fish monster out of his maw.
Lights Out doesn’t go far, just ducks around the side of one of the hangars for a few moments to collect the accoutrements necessary for the rite, the willow branch and the lighter, and as he comes back, his dark eyes take in the approaching form of Obsidian Data’s Alpha, of Wyrmbreaker perched beside his trophy.
There are no more words from the metis as he sparks the willow branch alight. His eyes go faraway, as if he’s simultaneously reaching out and in to tap that part of himself born for this, and then he starts to walk a circle around the monster and its captor.
[-1 Gnosis.
Rituals+Charisma: Cleansiiiing!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 4, 5, 8 (Failure at target 7)
[Charlie] [I’m rerolling. This is bullshit.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 5 (Botch x 3 at target 8)
[Ewan Selwyn] (( oh god))
[Charlie] [Stamina]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 3 (Botch x 1 at target 8)
[Ewan Selwyn] (( Oh god!!))
[Charlie] [I quit.]
[Ewan Selwyn] *Ewan pauses a respectful distance back. He grew up in garou society. He knew a rite when one was going on. A flicker of his lupine ear and the black wolf sniffed the air. Watching the Fury Theurge perform the rite.
He was silent and respectful as the rite started. Watching and listening*
[Charlie] [The ground is hard.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Charlie] [Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 4, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Hatchet] The Alpha of the Unbroken and the supposed Omega of cross the Gauntlet together to cleanse the centipede-like lake monster that Lukas just killed, and rather than snapping her jaws or not Shutting the Fuck Up, Soledad turns and walks away. Hatchet shakes his head in something like disgust, or disappointment, and turns back to contemplating the water. Rory is still beside him, and after awhile he takes a breath.
“Welcome to Chicago.”
[Rory O’Bryne] He takes a breath, and welcome’s her to Chicago. She tips her head, rolling her chin along her kneecap to look at him, meeting his gaze only briefly before her own drops to somewhere around his chin. She looks back out over the water.
“Thanks.”
Curiosity is almost visibly rushing through her, questions threatening to spill over into the silence. She holds back. It is not her place.
[Charlie] [Alright, apparently Damon’s touchpad crapped the bed and he’s getting on a plane in 20 minutes, so I’m out here. Thanks for the RP, y’all!]
[Hatchet] [Hey folks: Damon’s touchpad went kerfuzzle, Charlie’s uncon– HEY DORN I WAS TALKING]
[Charlie] [*cackles*]
[Ewan Selwyn] (( Aww Ewan doesn’t get to see what that botch broughht about? ))
[Charlie] [Charlie passed out like a baws.]
[Hatchet] [I actually really like that as a close for Hatchet and Rory and I gotta go to bed soon. Hatchet would dismiss Rory after awhile so he could go get some sleep, but wouldn’t talk much. I’m really glad I finally got to RP with you!]
to Rory O’Bryne
[Rory O’Bryne] (OOC: Thanks! Me too! I’ve been waiting to see you in a room, and nearly tripped over myself to get her there in time!)
to Hatchet
[Ewan Selwyn] (( Guess I’m out too. *waves*))
[Hatchet] [Daww…*Grins* I’m going to be mothballing Hatchet for awhile soon, but he’ll be back, so intros = good!]
to Rory O’Bryne
[Rory O’Bryne] (OOC: and everyone ditches the Mule again. This is becoming a habit!)
[Rory O’Bryne] (OOC: very good! Now if I could just manage to get her into scenes more often where people don’t flee. I swear that I shower regularly and everything!)
to Hatchet
[Charlie] [You’ll get used to it.]
[Hatchet] [Eh, it isn’t personal. Some scenes last longer than other. I’ma close this window, though! Take it easy!]
to Rory O’Bryne
[Charlie] [Mules have it rough.]
[Hatchet] [LATER, PEEPS.]
[Rory O’Bryne] (OOC: We do. We should form a support group!)
[Charlie] [LATER!]
[Rory O’Bryne] (OOC: or not.)
[Ewan Selwyn] (( lol I’ll join.))