[Gossamer Wing] As is fitting and proper, Charlie had laid the challenge to Joss, and she – true to form – smiles in a genuine delight to have the opportunity to participate, to hold the challenge for a fellow Theurge, for Charlie. He has advised her well in the past, and she knows of his strengths… and his weaknesses. She had him choose the time and place, advising him to be at full strength, to have all his tempers well in hand. And then she prepared.
When he arrives to the caern, she is there. In honor of the importance of the occasion, gone is the earth tone skirts and sweater, replaced instead by her ceremonial white. He has seen her dressed this way before, at the gatherings of the departed. Her mother once told her that to seem the part, one must look the part. Here, now, with the whirl of Maelstrom swirling behind her, with the Chicago Winds playing about her, tugging the fabric and twisting it about her slender form, fluttering the feathers in her dreads, she looks every bit the Fostern Godi. She is, in her element and is quite simply, savagely beautiful.
When he arrives, she smiles, and settles to sit on the ground, tucking her bare feet beneath her, seemingly unaffected by the winter’s chill in the air. Her skirts settle around her, and she smoothes them over her thighs, her fingers sliding with familiarity over the ridged scars under the light fabric. She gestures for him to sit with her, folds her hands in her lap, and then says, quite simply.
“Let’s talk.”
[Lights Out] He’d come to her after the Moot, exhausted from Wahya’s trial and the Revel and his limping recovery from the month he had had in November. There were a plethora of new battle scars adorning his shirtless frame when he approached her in the waxing daylight of early morning and told her he didn’t know how this worked, he’d never done it before, but he wanted to challenge her for the second rank. When she did not laugh in his face or push him to the ground to dominate him, he had seemed wholly surprised but not too startled to continue the conversation.
She did not laugh or dominate him. She had accepted, had advised him not to come to her drained as he was that night, and he told her he would seek her out in three sunsets.
Three sunsets have passed, and the Black Fury arrives at the Caern dressed as well as someone with few physical possessions can pull off. There is nothing he can do with his hiking boots, so he arrives barefoot, apparently having walked from the Brotherhood without anything on his bony feet; his jeans are recently bleached and washed, and his gray henley has been put through the machine as well. He’s showered, and slept, and eaten, and has not lit his marijuana pipe since yesterday. He stands tall but not proud, never proud, and he stands alone, his pack alerted to his intention but not asked to join him.
He needs to learn how to ask for help, but this is nothing that they can help him with. At least, not that he can imagine. He doesn’t know what Gossamer Wing is going to ask of him, but he shows up promptly after sundown, and when she indicates that he ought to sit and join her, Charlie folds himself into a modified lotus position, holding his arms in his lap rather than splaying them at his sides.
Let’s talk.
“Alright,” he says, his voice clear tonight rather than hoarse as it had been at the Moot.
[Gossamer Wing] He couldn’t have possibly known what to expect – and she would not be anything other than who she is, if it was all pomp and circumstance. But she gets straight to the heart of the matter – if not along the lines he might expect.
“First, Charlie, tell me, what do you consider your greatest weakness?”
Her gaze is startlingly direct, and she simply waits for his reply.
[Lights Out] The Fostern looks directly at him, her gaze unwavering, and though Charlie clearly wants to look away at first, though he has to fight to keep their eyes aligned, he manages. If he’s attempting to prove that he’s got it in him to stand amongst the Nation’s higher-ranked warriors, knowing the difference between deference and cowardice has to be one of the first steps.
Her question clearly makes him think. His brow furrows, and he worries the inside of his lower lip between his teeth, and that is the only time he looks away. It’s to gather his thoughts more than anything else. When he has an answer, he looks back.
“I’m not assertive,” he says. “There are times when I got something to say but I don’t say it because I’d rather not get beat up or have my renown suffer because people think I’m mouthing off.”
[Gossamer Wing] She gives him all the time he needs to come up with his answer, and when he does – she watches him unflinchingly as he states it. She doesn’t give any indication of whether or not she agrees with him, if it’s what she would say as well. Perhaps it is not her place to judge. Perhaps she has decided and judged his reply already. Either way – she’s not letting her thoughts flit across her face as she so often does. She is an expressive being, prone to wearing her emotions, her feelings openly and honestly across her face.
But not tonight. After a moment, as second question.
“Is renown and what the others think so important that you can justify not speaking up when it is warranted? How can you predict what will come of speaking up at all?”
[Lights Out] A second question comes his way, and Charlie does not answer out of rote memory or knee-jerk response. He does not give her the first answer that comes into his mind, and again he looks away rather than directly at her as he comes up with a response. Whether this is part of the challenge or whether she is simply feeling him out, he gives his answer the same amount of attention.
Again, he looks back up when he has an answer.
“I can’t. I mean, in the past, I could, just because every time I’d speak up it would be the same result, but… since I’ve come here I’ve had to learn who’s going to try and hurt me and who’s going to, like, actually hear me out when I speak up. Renown isn’t so important. I’m still learning when it’s okay for a Cliath metis to tell a Cliath homid that what he’s doing isn’t the best course of action he could take if it isn’t unwise, you know?”
[Gossamer Wing] She nods, slightly, and then the scope of her questions change. Where he’s unsure if she’s simply feeling him out, when the challenge itself had started – when the next question comes it clear that if it hadn’t begun before – it certainly has now.
“You’ve spent a considerable amount of time in the bawn now, learning of the spirits here, to aid in your duties as Keeper of the Land. I’m sure you’ve run into some problems – we all do. Tell me of three spirits that refused to deal with you, and what you were trying to accomplish with them.”
[Lights Out] For someone who is being tested, the Cliath seems relaxed. Not at ease, necessarily, not in repose, but rather confident, as though he is paying more attention to what is right in front of him rather than allowing his sights to drift to the end result of what they’re doing here tonight.
His eyebrows raise slightly as she mentions that he’s spent a considerable amount of time in the bawn, as though he’s just now becoming aware in a shift in tone or scope and has to concentrate to keep up. They lower after a moment, and he nods when she mentions running into problems.
“Three?” he asks, not to stall but to ensure that he heard correctly, and once he has affirmation, he clears his throat and speaks. This response, he does not have to think about quite as hard; it’s recitation from memory rather than composition.
“I do a lot’a healing. Sometimes I do so much of it that I drain my reserves and I don’t have anything else to give, so I like to have talens around in case that happens? Normally when I’m making healing talens I bind Oak, so this wasn’t the first time that I was dealing with it, but this one time after I took over as Keeper of the Land I went to bind it and… I guess this particular gaffling didn’t understand what I wanted from it, and the binding got all screwed up, and Oak got super offended and attacked me. Oak and all the other Naturae wouldn’t deal with me for like, a moon after that. I was just able to get Oak to be around me long enough so I could perform chiminage a few weeks ago. We’re better now.”
He pauses, briefly looking down at his hands though he is not physically counting off the number of answers he’s given.
“Another time… you know how some people put stuff up on the Wyrmpole without treating the parts properly, so there’s stuff up there that’s rotting and nasty? I thought I’d ask Ant for help cleaning up the Wyrmpole, so I started performing the summoning… this was the first time I’d tried to summon Ant, and he took a really long time responding, and he was just totally pissed off the second he showed up. He attacked me, too, and I wasn’t punished the way I was when I screwed up binding Oak but it still took me like, weeks of chiminage before he would stop attacking me whenever I showed up.”
He isn’t certain if he is answering the questions as well as Gossamer Wing was hoping for. He has not been questioned like this since Zenobia was still alive and serving as his mentor, and there is a distinct difference between the daughter of Pegasus’s method of questioning and the daughter of Fenris’s.
“Remember those Moon Glows that I brought when we went to go find Master? That was the first time I’d dealt with a Lune spirit. She didn’t want anything to do with me at first, like wouldn’t answer summonings, wouldn’t answer summonings, wouldn’t answer summonings, and then like, I figured out: it was the full moon. Lunes are totally unpredictable during the full moon. I’d totally forgotten. So I waited a couple’a days and tried again, and when she showed up she wasn’t really willing to work with me until I explained that a group of us were going into the Umbra to end a threat and might need help on the way back, and then she agreed to be bound to the crystals I had. I don’t think she would have agreed to be bound if I were just making them to have.”
[Gossamer Wing] She nods, slightly, and then…
“Now tell me how you could have accomplished the same results, without the aid of the specific Spirits that you originally chose.”
[Lights Out] A bobbing nod of his head, and Charlie confers with his folded hands, tongue pushed into the back of his incisor. It doesn’t take him as long to come up with alternate solutions to the problem as it had to come up with an explanation of what his greatest weakness is.
“Well, with Oak, I could just be more careful about who and what I heal with Mother’s Touch. I mean, I got a lotta Gnosis. There’ve been times when I healed someone who could’a healed himself just by resting for a couple’a days after a fight. I could just save my healing for when it’s gonna take someone outta commission for more than a few days, or if it’s a Kinfolk, but having Gaia’s Breath does help me not have to like, prioritize and do triage every time more than one person’s hurt.
“With Ant, time would take care’a the decaying skulls and arms and stuff. I could’a just left it alone. It’s not like the Wyrmpole is realmside… it’s not attracting physical buzzards and flies and stuff that’s gonna cause a Veil breach, it’s just spirits coming to feed on the leftover bits, but there are some days where there’s a lotta spiritual activity over by the Wyrmpole and not all them scavenger-type spirits get along.
“And with the Lune? Um… we definitely didn’t need those Moon Glows to make it back from the dream realm. They were nice to have just in case, but it’s the same thing with the healing talens. There was five of us, right? Between the five of us there was a good chance we could’a handled anything that we encountered on the way back from Master’s without protection. But at the time I bound her I didn’t know that.”
[Gossamer Wing] Again, the slight nod, then her gaze shifts toward the side, toward the direction of the moonbridge. There’s a flare in the distance, one she seems to expect. She returns her gaze to him then, and continues.
“What other spirits might have the same results as those you originally chose?”
[Lights Out] Gossamer Wing looks towards the Moon Bridge, and the metis looks off out of the corner of his eye but does not remove his attention from the Fostern. There’s another question, one that has him furrowing his brow.
“There’s lots of spirits that could do what I asked Oak to do. I could’a asked Water to be bound into the gourds for Gaia’s Breath, and I have been since I offended Oak.
“There aren’t that many spirits that’ll feed on the flesh of dead Wyrm creatures, even after they’ve been cleansed, but I could’a asked a Scavenger spirit for help, or one’a Rat’s gafflings. Ant’s pretty hostile.
“And… hmm.” He frowns again. “I dunno. I’ve never tried to make Moon Glows with any spirits other than Lunes. Maybe Moonshadows would help.”
[Gossamer Wing] She listens, and while she does, there is a figure that approaches from the Moon Bridge. Joss pays her no attention while Charlie speaks. Once again, she doesn’t give him any indication of what she expects of his answers or if he’s satisfied her with the answers he’s given. She simply nods.
Then she gestures for the figure to come forward. “Perfect timing. Charlie, this is a friend of mine from the Sept of the Stormhammer, Twitch, Cliath Rotegar, and she has a request”
She does not give him any direction with how to deal with Twitch, or even what she expects. Instead, she simply gestures toward her friend from home and falls silent, watching.
Twitch came by her name honestly, as muscles jump and her body moves as if she cannot keep complete control – as if one with Parkinson’s disease. She is small, slender, and despite the way she moves constantly and erratically, her eyes are bright with intelligence. She tips her head slightly, and moves closer to Charlie.
“I need something…” Obviously. She probably needs a good deal of ‘something’s. She works to get her hand in her pocket, and her shoulder jerks, her head wobbling with the movement. She squeezes her eyes shut, and then opens them, bringing their intensity to Charlie once again. “I need I Need I NEED I need something for battle. I move. I make noise. I…” a lopsided grin and shrug that is more of a full body shudder. “Twitch. What do ya got?”
[Lights Out] Out of the Moon Bridge comes a Rotagar who apparently knows Gossamer Wing. Charlie turns to look at her, taking in her muscular spasms and jerky movements. He does not appear put off by her spastic appearance, and might not have even if he had not seen some intelligence in her eyes. This young man was born with a laughable deformity of his own, and has had to work harder to prove himself as a spirit-talker because of it.
He gets to his feet rather than remaining seated so that he can properly talk to Twitch.
She needs something.
“How much time you got?” he asks.
[Gossamer Wing] Twitch grins and tosses her pack to the ground next to Joss, without taking her gaze away from Charlie. “Whatever ya need.”
A beat. And then… “Long as it ain’t like, days or something, I gotta get back. Duty” Something they all understand.
[Lights Out] “Well… I got some awakened weed that might help mellow you out, but that ain’t gonna help you fight.”
He reaches up to scratch the back of his head, breath curling away from his body in the sharp cold of the evening, and rolls his shoulders with a crackle of vertebrae before responding.
“Got a couple different talens I could make you, depending on what you’d rather do. You ever use Nightshade?”
[Gossamer Wing] Twitch laughs and rubs her hands together at the thought of weed. “Man after m’own heart!” But the nod agrees it’s not exactly what she’s looking for.
She tries to scratch her shoulder, and overshoots it with the sudden muscle spasm, though after a moment she succeeds. “Never. What is it?”
[Lights Out] “You drink it, and it turns your body into shadow. If you’re in the dark, you’re like, almost invisible. It lasts for about an hour, and the only people who are gonna have a chance’a seeing you are the ones who are like, actually trying to. It won’t help your muscle twitching, but it’ll keep enemies from seeing or hearing you until it’s too late.”
[Lights Out] [DLP]
[Lights Out] “You drink it, and it turns your body into shadow. If you’re in the dark, you’re like, almost invisible. It lasts for about an hour, and the only people who are gonna have a chance’a seeing you are the ones who are like, actually trying to. It won’t help your muscle twitching, but it’ll keep enemies from seeing or hearing you until it’s too late. That I can make right now.”
He squints in thought, then offers up another suggestion.
“I’ve never made one’a these before, but I’ve heard about them. Booster Patches? They like, make you stronger or faster or more resilient. It might be enough to make you stop twitching in battle, but I hear they’re like, super addictive, and I think I’d have to go to the CyberRealm to make you some.
[Gossamer Wing] Twitch thinks about it a moment, and then nods. “The first, I think. Last thing I need is to be an addict on top of.. well. This.” It’s said with a nod.
Twitch doesn’t look at Joss for any opinion, just deals with Charlie as she would a Godi back home. One on one. Joss may as well not exist.
[Lights Out] Twitch doesn’t look to Joss, and until he gets the Rotagar’s opinion on what is going to work best for her, neither does Charlie. He listens to her when she speaks, he offers up two suggestions, and when she states a preference for the first rather than the second, he gives a small smile and nods.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” He turns to Joss now, and asks, “It okay if I make those for her now?”
[Gossamer Wing] Joss just gestures a ‘go ahead’ but remains quiet and continues to watch.
[Lights Out] Joss gestures, and Charlie turns back to Twitch.
“I gotta go grab some vials outta my room, and then it’ll take me a little while to summon a Night spirit. Not that long, though, ’cause it’s dark out already. Hang here, I’ll be right back.”
Rather than running back to the Brotherhood on two legs, the Cliath Theurge shifts down to his wolf skin and takes off running that way. He is not gone long, maybe a quarter of an hour, before he comes trotting back the same way he left, only carrying a lavender Jansport book bag between his teeth. When he returns to the two girls, he climbs back into his human skin, somewhat out of breath but still composed and prepared.
As he unzips his book bag and produces several small glass vials, he begins chanting. It is not in a language that the Rotagar will likely understand, but the Godi recognizes that it isn’t a chant at all, it isn’t just a mantra meant to bring him into a state of focus or relaxation but a call, a hope, a request for Night to come down out of the heavens and into his presence.
[Rituals+Wits: Summon Night Jaggling.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[Lights Out] [Gnosis: How Happy Is Night?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Gossamer Wing] While Charlie is gone, Joss and Twitch use the time to catch up and chat. Not about the challenge, or anything happening now, but about how things are at home. Joss is as eager for every little second, every choice bit of news from her family.
Then she sits up as Charlie returns, Twitch takes her place again, and the challenge resumes.
Night arrives.
Night. Is. Pissed.
WHAT DO YOU WANT, MULE? IT IS NIGHT. I AM BUSY!
[Lights Out] It seems as though Lights Out had far more luck with spirits before he took over as Keeper of the Land than he has in the time since then. He had had little trouble coming up with stories of his having had difficulties with spirits at the bawn, and this might potentially be a fourth scenario he can recount in the future.
Night is pissed, but the Theurge does not quaver or quail beneath the might of the Jaggling before him. He shores up his shoulders, he looks at the normally calm spirit directly, and he speaks in the ethereal, otherworldly tongue of the spirits. It is nothing like English, and he is far more eloquent in this language than he is in the language of humans.
I might have waited until Helios was above, but I have need of you now. Take of my energy and forgive me for taking your time.
[-1 Gnosis to appease Night.]
[Gossamer Wing] Night glares, and it is the chill of nightmares alone the skin, of terror in the spine, of desperation clawing at the locked door to freedom.
Charlie offers of himself, and Night takes the offering, and though the glare remains, it is not so intense, not so all encompassing.
“What do you want.”
[Lights Out] The Jaggling glares at him, and the Theurge visibly shivers, his eyes briefly dropping as if he fears that his offering has offended Night just as he had offended Oak and Ant. When he looks back up, the glare does not make him want to flee, does not make him want to shrink into himself so that he becomes smaller in the eyes of one so mighty. He regains his previous straight-spined stature.
A friend of Gossamer Wing-rhya has asked for aid in battle. She is a New Moon with a twitch. I wish to help her become invisible to her enemies, but I need your help for this. I only ask for a few weeks of servitude from you. I will come when you call on me for aid at any time if you do this for me.
[Gossamer Wing] Gossamer Wing is mentioned, as is the other, and the spirit levels a gaze on them briefly, before returning his attention to Charlie. He considers the request, and the offer to come to his aid.
“Anytime I call.”
Clarification. If given, after a moment, he nods. “Done.”
[Lights Out] Anytime.
With Night’s permission granted and his temperament softened, Lights Out bows his head.
Thank you.
Another expenditure of his spiritual energy, and he readies the vials he had removed from his bag, preparing to bind the previously hostile spirit into servitude for the sake of a Garou he had never met before tonight.
[-1 Gnosis.
WP: Nightshade!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 4)
[Gossamer Wing] Joss continues to watch the negotiation with the spirit, itching to speak with the NightShade herself, if only to say she had. But this is not her conversation, this is not her talen making, this is not her challenge. The incorrigible Godi manages to maintain her role as observer.
Twitch grins, her head rolling about her neck a moment, uncontrolled, her shoulder jerking backwards, before she steadies herself. “Dude.. I thought he was gonna kick yer ASS…”
[Lights Out] When it’s over, when the Jaggling has created five vials filled with a dark yet vaguely glowing fluid, Lights Out releases a huffing breath that indicates he has been holding it this entire time, then steps back from the water and turns to face Twitch and Joss. The Rotagar expresses something akin to amazement, and the Theurge restrains his laughter so that he will not spill onto the sand. What comes out is quiet and almost shell-shocked, with a brief flicker of a grin tugging at his lips.
He takes several steps forward, then reaches out to hand the vials over to Twitch.
“All you gotta do is drink one,” he says, “and it’ll last you an hour. Don’t keep them longer than a couple’a weeks, though, I promised Night that he wouldn’t be stuck in there longer than that. I hope they help.”
[Gossamer Wing] Twitch grins, takes the talens, and nods. “Thanks, man. Later, G.” And after a quick hug for Joss, she grabs her pack and is on her way, returning to the Moon Bridge, and home.
And then Joss studies Charlie for a long silent moment. She pushes her dreads back from her face, pushing them back over her shoulder, and stands, the wind tugging at her skirts, twisting the feathers in her hair, teasing her senses. There is the distinct scent of snow in the air, though she seems unaffected by the chill that has wrapped around her during this challenge. She is Godi. She is of Storm Hammer. She is Eagle. She burns with the warmth of the rage of the ages.
She nods, finally. “Lights-Out, you have done well. This has been a challenge in three parts, each building on the last. You show insight in your own weaknesses, with a willingness to work on it, despite what it can do to your reputation. You have given me wise council before, Charlie. Do not be afraid to speak up when you have something to say. It is your duty to share your knowledge, your opinion. You cannot control what others think, or how they react. You can only control yourself.”
A beat, and she continues. “You know the spirits well, almost as well as I do. You think through your dealings, and your alternatives. You recognize when you fucked up, and you pay contrition when it is due. This is a good.”
“But…” There it is.
And here it comes.
“You are bound by contract now to Night for a Garou you don’t know. Anytime they call for your aid, you must give it. That is the contract you signed by oath in return for the talen for a Garou you know only on my word. How many spirits can call on you at any point in time now? How are you to appease them should they all call at once?
“In the mechanics, you negotiate well, but tell me something… What as Twitch learned? That there is a Theruge here at Maelstrom that will do anything to aid one in need, including binding himself completely to a spirit’s whim, just for the asking. She knows nothing of the price that was paid, or the negotiations that were done. She hasn’t a clue what to do once those talens are gone, and she needs more. She has learned nothing in this exchange. How many talens have you made for the Garou here the same way? They come to you and ask for something, you do it on you own, providing it for them. They learn nothing but the fact that you will exhaust yourself completely to please them.”
A sigh, and a nod. “To be my equal, Charlie, you must learn that you are more, and do more for the sept than run yourself into the ground for them. To be my equal, you must know that you are a teacher as well, a negotiator, the go between – BETWEEN, Charlie – for Sept members and the spirits. The chimiage for Night should have been offered, paid by Twitch herself, because the talens were for her aid. Your job was not to simply make them for her – I’ve seen you make talens, I know that you can – but to negotiate the contract between Spirit and Garou, so that she learned the importance of the binding, and not treat you as her talen making machine, without payment needed. It makes you a doormat, Charlie. Time to rise above that.”
She smiles, softly, and squares her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Lights Out. I cannot pass you in this challenge. Come see me again on the next Full, if you feel you are ready then.”
[Lights Out] The first thing she had asked him when they sat down this evening was what his greatest weakness was, and he had not been too terribly far off the mark.
As he stands in front of Gossamer Wing with the disappearance of the strange Rotagar from Minnesota, he has to know on some level that he failed. He has to know that though he successfully answered the questions that were posed to him, that though he managed to complete the Rite of Summoning and Rite of Binding without hitch, he had only managed to prove his previous assessment of his own character correctly. At this moment in time, standing barefoot on the sand with the echoes of an angry spirit ringing in his head, he has to know that he isn’t going to pass this challenge.
She has more to say about what he did wrong than what he did right, but that is where most of his acquired wisdom is coming from: what he did wrong. And what he did wrong is precisely what he said that he has done wrong in previous dealings with Garou in the past. He did not assert himself. He took full responsibility for his dealings with Night rather than having Twitch stand accountable for her request and pay chiminage for something that was being done for her. Now he is in debt to a spirit from whom he has asked nothing in the past, from whom he will likely ask nothing again in the future, for someone who he has never seen before and will likely never see again.
His shoulders slump when that ‘but’ leaves her throat, and it’s clear that there was more riding on this challenge than a simple advancement in rank. It has been twelve years since his First Change, ten since his Rite of Passage. That is a long time to remain a Cliath, but another twenty eight days is not going to kill him.
There are plenty of other things that might kill him in the meantime, but disappointment and the staggering realization that he needs to stand up for himself are not going to be it.
Gossamer Wing squares up her shoulders to deliver her verdict, and Lights Out gives a tired, closed-lipped smile.
“Thank you for your time, -rhya,” he says, and, when dismissed, picks up his bag and heads back to the Brotherhood. This time, he does not run. He walks.
[Lights Out] [Wrap!]