Blind Fighting [Mrena, Gabriela, Seraphina, James]

1. once we get the combat going, we’re gonna use a modified declare/action system. we will all roll init ONCE, and this will be kept for the duration of the scene.
2. i will always declare for all the baddies first, and at once, regardless of where they fall on the action system. so… please try to keep in mind that your char may not actually know what they’ll do, and don’t metagame it too much ;)
3. to keep the feel of the scene IC rather than dicedicedice, i’ll declare ICly (and then add OOC comments to clarify as necessary)
4. since we have a lotta people, i’ma ask you guys to do one thing for me: please PM me your relevant combat stats. this includes —

str
dex
stam
wits
brawl
dodge
melee (if you’re gonna use weaponry)
firearms (if you’re gonna shoot a gun)

if it’s your turn to roll, and you don’t roll within 2-3 minutes, i will roll for you. AND I WILL NOT HAIL KAHSEENO ON YOUR BEHALF. so keep that in mind, suckers!)

Wits 3
Brawl 4
Dodge 2 (dodging is for PUSSIES.)

Melee 3 – Firearms 1 – but I doubt she’ll use either.

I *think* that was all. *L*

On the seamier side streets, “massage parlors” share space with the shops, the decent ones, that the locals frequent. There are groups of disreputable-looking young men with sharply casual clothes and designer hair sitting on flashy cars, conversing so fluently in Cantonese that when they switch into perfect English it’s a shock.

It’s on one of these streets that you’ll find the Jade Dragon: a tiny eatery that’s little more than a kitchen and a cash counter behind a scroll-up metal grate that serves as its fourth wall. Seating spills out onto the sidewalk. Despite the rather prosaic name and humble appearance, it’s about as authentic a Canton/Taishan cuisine as you’ll get in the Midwest. Even on a Wednesday night, late, past 11pm, it’s doing good business. Conversation is loud. Steam is billowing out of huge woks licked by tongues of brilliant orange and blue flame. The tea is self-serve from big dispensers along the wall. Rail thin waitresses maneuver deftly around noisy, boisterous customers, plunking down dishes with zero flair and little courtesy: luxuries for which the Jade Dragon has neither time nor patience.

Even in this crowd, she tends to have a rather open path around her table – set near the outside edge, close to the Tea station – people take a step toward the street, though the thin waitresses plop down her order with the same speed they do for everyone, stepping away just as quickly so as to keep up with the crowd.

She has been here a while, and is steadily working through her order, enjoying what she assumes to be an authentic meal. All she knows for sure is that it tastes good, the tea is equally good, and her need/desire to people watch is being satisfied. Sometimes, that is enough.

After awhile, a couple moved out of her line of vision, and her eyes hesitated on a familiar face a few tables away. Well now, wasn’t that a coincidence? They hadn’t been introduced, of course, but Serafine remembered AnneMarie from the Brotherhood. (It was a bit hard *not* to remember her.)

Gabbie had insisted on stopping by a tea house some time that night; Mrena had no clue where to find one of these places, so she had let Gabbie lead the way in that regard. They were on their way back, and for their part the girls seemed to be in good spirits. And, for their part, the girls almost seemed normal.

There was a lot of “almost” to be thrown around there, and normal was a relative term, but that really wasn’t the point. The fact of the matter was this: the recently twenty-year-old theurge and the Silver Fang-next-door were making their way out on the twon and were passing by the Jade Dragon.

For her part, Mrena looked like a college kid. Jeans, light sweater, ballet flats. With a messenger bag over her shoulder, she didn’t seem completely out-of-place. Were it not for the fact that she looked just a little too distant, a little too intense sometimes made that thought just a little less believable.

“That… smells… amazing.”

Gabbie had vouched for public transportation tonight because they both had time to kill and parking in Chinatown was perhaps a larger pain in the ass than parking on the Magnificent Mile. So they hoofed it, Mrena in her ballet flats and Gabriella in a pair of knee-tall brown boots loosely modeled after cowboy boots, what with the thick and slightly tapered heel and the bronze buckle added for decoration. A visit was made to the tea shop, Gabbie stocked up on several different flavors that she loved and a couple that were new that had caught her eye, and then they were off again.

Rainclouds loomed in the sky, threatening to begin a downpour at any minute but yet to do anything more than drizzle for a few minutes at a time before stopping again. Gabbie’s umbrella was propped on her shoulder while her other hand held the paper bag that her tea was in. While Mrena looked like a college student, Gabbie could almost pass for some sort of bohemian model. Her long hair was left down in faint waves and curls, and she wore a loose-fitted dress with a thick necklace and bracelet set to make colors stand out and all that.

The Jade Dragon’s smells hit Mrena’s nose, then Gabbie’s soon after, and the girls stopped. Chuckling a little, Gabbie nodded her head toward the shop. “Well, we could see if it tastes as good as it smells?”

In the next second there’s a shriek from the kitchen. There’s no wall between kitchen and dining area; no wall, even, between the eatery and the street, but there are a good number of milling people in the way. It’s not immediately obvious what the screaming is about. For all anyone knows, someone dropped something important. Or saw a rat. Or —

There’s another scream. And another. Louder, shrill, with a note that you simply don’t hear in everyday life: genuine terror. And now, from the back of the restaurant, close to the ordering counter, begins a sudden mass exodus. There are some sixty or so people jammed into a tiny space. The ones closest to the kitchen are trying to get out. The ones outside, on the street — well, some of them are wise enough to pack up and leave, immediately, but most are on their feet and peering curiously in.

There’s notably one fellow who neither cranes and peers, nor pushes to get out. A kid, maybe 17 years old, Eurasian, tall and lean, with stiff dark hair cut short, a tanned olive complexion, an attractive, if rather narrow face, and exotic smoke-grey eyes that bore a tilt so stereotypically ‘asian’ that they were nearly feline.

He stands his ground, frowning into the kitchen. The crowd rushes around him like a river around a stone — they don’t get near him, just like they don’t get near Ruhiger, or Seraphine, or White Eyes.

She does not follow the mass exodus, nor charge inside. Not yet. In fact, she simply steps backwards toward the nearest – and almost only – wall, until she’s touching the tea station, and studying the man who does not move. A swift flick of her pale gaze takes in the location of anyone she recognizes as fast as possible, marking them. Serephine. White-eyes.

And in the mass confusion, there in the shadow of the almost only wall – she tips her head, and activates the bangle that hangs from a chain at her wrist… her gaze narrowed to [silvered] slits and cloaked in shadows, she watches, silent.

They can feel it: waves of malevolence. Even Gabbie feels it. Even the humans feel it, and that’s why they run. And the lights are turning out. No; they’re dimming. No; they’re — being swallowed by an encroaching darkness that is not really darkness at all, but merely a sort of …

blindness. Nothingness.

People are scattering in all directions now. Cars are beeping and roaring off, feet are beating down sidewalks. As the Jade Dragon empties and the darkness increases, the Garou and kin find themselves alone with whatever it is.

And the kid. He’s still there, too.

(PMs of exact results coming)

Picked a good day for dinner in China town, hm?

She wastes no time gathering Eagles Strength around her, either. She is many things. Stupid is not one of them. Blind, apparently, but not stupid.

She tried hard to see what was happening.
She succeeded and got more of an eyefull than she wanted.

“Mrena….” She uttered the Theurge’s name in a tone that was mingled warning of something bad, questioning, and absolute horror. Her hand found the sleeve of the Shadow Lord’s sweater and clung tightly.

Whatever happened to a normal night out?

The kid she noticed immediately. His calm curiosity was…suspicious, to say the least.

And then, she peered into the darkness once more. It was easier to see now that most of the people inside had filed out. What she saw was….unpleasant. It’s shape was difficult to make out at first, but as she focused harder, she could see an outline, and gradually…fuzzy details. Her nostrils flared with a sudden jolt of anger and nervous intensity… but she didn’t immediately run into the restaurant.

The Fenrir was already on her way inside. Serafine…was watching the kid.

It was interesting that she could stand stark and straight, despite being as small as she was. As seemingly delicate as she was. The theurge adjusted her stance; she was more in front of Gabriella than beside her, her muscles were tense. her breathing was controlled. She was on edge… no, wait, she was ready.

The theurge turned and looked at Gabriella, tilting her head to the side slightly. The pace and timing was almost more avian than lupine. “What did you see?”

Information was vital. Time was a factor.

He doesn’t wait any longer. He plants one hand on the counter, which is faintly sticky from years of exposure to explosive stir-fry cooking, vaults his narrow body over easily as a gymnast. The darkness swallows him up, but before he’s gone they see him changing.

Shifting.

In a low, somewhat shakey tone of voice, Gabbie explained to the best of her ability.

“Ghost… Or some sort of shadow-monster… Stretched out, missing bones, it can’t hold its face up.”

but all she could focus on was the kid with the exotic features, who seemed to be avoided by the crowd, and (for her part) she saw what she did. Eyes narrowed and she turned her attention away from the door and to the kid.

“Gabbie, run. Don’t look back. Go home.”

And with that? She made a run for the kid with the intent on tackling him.

Serafine had never actually seen a Black Spiral Dancer before. All she new was from stories and sage advice during her cubhood. But logic dictated…that this shadowy creature was….more than likely…exactly that.

She moved. Graceful like a ghost into the shadows. And once the darkness clung to her, she used the burning, boiling tension within her chest to fuel a swift and fluid change. Crinos was a great deal better suited to physical combat than her pathetically frail human body ever could be.

Mrena flew past her, and she would follow in her wake, likewise intent upon reaching the shifting kid.

A few slow steps were taken backwards, but mainly because of the final remnants of the crowd jostling her instead of doing so on her own will. She just couldn’t stop staring.

Practically invisible but for those glowing sliver eyes, she moves to vault over the counter in persuit of him – and the it that was back there first.

1. roll inits.
2. roll wits / alert, diff 8. if you fail, you’re essentially going to be fighting blind until further notice. if you make the roll, you can act without blind penalties, but you won’t see very clearly either — just enough to have a sense of where things are)

thing
kid
gabbie / sera simultaneously
ruhiger
white eyes

Sera and Gabbie can act without blindness mods.
Ruhiger takes a +2 diff blindness mod.
White Eyes takes a +2 diff, PLUS a -2 dice pool blindness mod for being blind AND botchy.)

Which, of course, gives Gabbie a perfect view of something — something long and agile and prehensile — slicing out of the indistinctness at her. A whip? A tentacle? A …tongue?

In the darkness, the kid shouts something:

“&+1044;&+1077;&+1084;&+1086;&+1085;, &+1074;&+1077;&+1088;&+1085;&+1080;&+1090;&+1077;&+1089;&+1100; &+1090;&+1091;&+1076;&+1072;, &+1075;&+1076;&+1077; &+1074;&+1099; &+1087;&+1088;&+1080;&+1096;&+1083;&+1080; &+1089;!”

only his voice is far too deep, far too terrible, to be a boy’s. It ends on a roar. He’s definitely attacking someone.

(Declare for the NPCs:
1. Thing is attempting to entangle Gabbie and drag her into the mess.
2. Kid attacking … something.)

(1 rage, two claw. In the direction of IT. though may end up tagging herself. one never knows when one is a whirling twirl of death!)

(1 rage to skip happily to crinos,
clawing, hopefully, whatever the Hell just tried to get a hold on gabbie)

It’s not really darkness in here — it’s a strange sort of indistinctness, as though they were looking through incorrectly ground lenses. Some of them have some sense of where the enemies are. Some of them have no fucking idea, and are flailing essentially blind.

There’s a ferocious roaring in the dimness. It doesn’t sound like a Garou. At least, not a Gaian Garou. There’s a high, thin, choked screeching too; an unpleasant splattering noise, like rain into a swamp.

The Garou have no idea what’s going on.

They react to what they can. Seraphine snaps at the monstrosity’s prehensile appendage. Her teeth crunch down on something fleshy, boneless, but quite muscular, quite tough. It’s hideously cold and wet. The appendage thrashes in the grip of her jaws but does not bleed.

Ruhiger strikes out at the thing. Her claws scrape skin that has a strange rubbery quality to it … and a looseness, as though it had come undone from the flesh beneath. Though she’s quite certain she doesn’t damage the monster much, an entire sheet of skin sloughs loose onto her claws, chill and clammy.

She feels movement. It’s hard to see. She brings her claws up to her eyes. They’re covered in squirming maggots, pale and turgid.

White Eyes can’t see shit. She strikes out blindly, feels her claws find purchase. She thinks she hit the right thing. She thinks.

Ruhiger doesn’t. Her second swipe misses completely: nothing but air. In the dimness, the creature shrieks in defiance, a rattling, unwholesome, thin noise, like wind whistling through cracks.

—

Gabbie can’t see any of this. All she saw was the appendage whipping at her once, twice — missing the first time, dodged the second — and then she’s turning to run, to get the fuck out of here, when suddenly something leaps out of the indistinctness behind the counter.

It’s huge; it’s bestial. A Crinos? A Hispo? She gets only a glimpse of it, but it’s enough, it’s …

… it’s nothing she’s ever seen before. And then it’s gone, and in its place is a savage creature, the boy from the restaurant, utterly changed: glabro-like, sharp-boned, the pupils of his eyes huge, the irises a pale gold. Without a word he attempts to grab her like an errant cub, by the scruff of the neck, and haul her off.

No, not off. Up. Straight up. Climbing the wall like spiderman.

(creatures’ declare for upcoming round:
1. Monster: 3 actions, a. clawing at Ruhiger
b. clawing at Mrena
c. using tentacle-thing to grab Seraphine by the throat and begin to choke.

2. Kid: 2 rage, a. leap
b. grab gabbie
c. climbing straight up the building.)

It was on the drive over that he called upon Eagle’s Might to better assist him in the battle. The truck was parked a block or two away before he continued on foot, loosening his axe and sidestepping if necessary. A brief pause was given as he did two things: Summon the faerie lights, that magic of the Fae Folk that sang in his tribe’s blood, and Luna’s Armor.

( First, Luna’s Armor in Crinos. 1 Gnosis spent. Stam 3+3 + Survival 2 = 8. Faerie Light to follow directly afterward. )

Go ahead and start declaring/reacting. I’m gonna start writing another blurb for when Jame’s first action takes place.

She had once been chastised for not calling for help when it may have been needed. She did not mak that mistake this time. Though any light on the situation would be welcome anytime…

(2 rage, three claw, SWING BATTAH SWING!)

Then it was trying to choke her, and she squirmed to try and slip free from its grip.

First action: Faerie Light (previously rolled), 3 successes.
R1: Axe-cleave thing going after AM.

Then: light. A slow blooming, phosphorescent glow that slowly peels back the dark to reveal something out of a nightmare.

The creature they are fighting is fully ten feet tall. It’s thin, though, no wider than an average human; thinner, in fact, as though all that extra height had come from being grabbed by some enormous and sadistic pair of hands and stretched like play-doh.

Its skin is sallow, a mottled and decomposing grey, tough as leather in some places, fragile as tissue paper in others. It hangs loosely off a rack of bones that presses visibly through as though it had almost no muscle to speak of, as though its muscle had long since withered or rotted away. But between skin and bone is a writhing movement, as though insects, grubs, were swarming just under the surface.

And they are. They spill out of its wounds. Splatter on the ground, leaving a trail of pestilence.

Its limbs are entirely too long. Its hands dangle bonelessly by its knees. Its nails are putrid grey-green. Its head hangs at a broken-necked angle, lolling on stooped and slouching shoulders. Its hair is long and unkempt, pitch black without highlight, falling down its back in tangles, falling in its face.

It doesn’t walk. It doesn’t shamble.

It hops, stiff as a board, as though its feet had been bound together and its joints welded shut by the rigor of death. The effect is macabre. Every jerking hop scatters maggots from its wounds, shreds skin from its bones, shakes a little more of itself loose. It comes mindlessly on at the Garou, and when it reaches them, the hands that had hung so ineffectually at its side suddenly become rigid tearing claws.

But worse than all that, worst of all, is the face. Or rather: that it has no face. In place of a face, it has a gaping hole for a mouth, an endless cartilage-ringed tunnel of red that seems to go on forever before becoming a throat, a gullet.

Hanging out of the mouth is the appendage that had tried to entangle Gabriella, and that Serafine had bitten. It was the thing’s tongue, grotesquely elongated, congested black with congealed and rotting blood.

She had bitten its filthy, purulent tongue.

this is clawing at Ruhiger.)

BTW, all blind effects are now gone.)

kid is making a climbing roll outside…)

gabbie’s just hanging on. sera’s first action was a dodge.

on to ruhiger!)

Claw three!

—

The Garou tear at the creature from all angles with their claws. The creature shrieks in its thin, choked voice. It lashes out with its clawlike hands. Maggots and pus splatter back at the Garou with every strike. The larvae wriggle in the Garou’s fur, and though they don’t notice it at first — they’re wriggling to get deeper. To get to the skin. To pierce into the skin, and into the flesh.

By the end of it, it’s riddled with gashes and lacerations, its tongue writhing out of its hole of a mouth —

— and then Sandman, late upon the scene, brings his axe down on the creature’s head.

The blow is devastating. It cleaves half the head off. One arm. One shoulder. A good portion of the chest. Pestilence explodes out in a great shower of filth, covering Sandman from head to toe.

Before it can recover, Ruhiger strikes from the other side. She digs her claws into its side. Pulls. Bones snap. Flesh tears with a consistency like old and oft-washed sackcloth. Half its ribcage comes away in her handpaw.

The creature does not bleed. It totters, but it does not fall … yet.

Its head arches back, back, back until the back of its head slumps between its shoulderblades. Its mouth opens impossibly wide and…

—

(Before declares, everyone needs to roll a soak against splatter damage and bugs crawling into you. This is for Serafine and Mrena — )

(1 rage, 2 claw)

Then, out of nowhere, a very large shimmering Crinos with an axe and a ball of glowing light. And she got to see what was going on in the tangable shadows.

She will no doubt forever curse the fact that someone showed up with a ball of light.

The monster was worse now than when she saw it in the first place. Everything was illuminated in gruesome detail, even from the distance she stood away from it. No face, just a mouth, stretched out even more exaggeratedly now, and hopping in sharp, jerking movements so unnatural that it made her nauseas just to see.

But before the light flashed, she saw something else. She stared just as slack-jawed at the now-Glabroesque young man racing toward her, but did not move to dodge for one reason or another. Of all the idiot things she could do, when she realized that he was moving to grab her (which was about the time that his hand was flying for the back of her neck), she actually grabbed onto him. They scaled the wall straight up, and she twisted to wrap her arms and legs around his body for support, clinging for security and so that her weight wasn’t hanging off the back of her dress while he took them straight. up. a wall.

1a. Axe cleave – finish loppin’ off critter’s head
1b. Axe-cleave – cut critter in half!

R1. Axe-cleave – Chop critter up summore!

And there had been a fifth. There had been a fifth and he wasn’t here now. And, once more, something had grabbed Gabbie and she was nowhere to be found. And in her relatively smaller frame. The theurge growled a sound that sounded downright infuriated.

“This isn’t over, there was a second… Gabriella isn’t here,” she said. High tongue and all, she wasn’t elegant by any means. The statement, however, was clear: I’m going to go get Gabbie. The tone, however, was clear. For those who didn’t know her, or either of them, one could have sworn that Mrena considered Gabriella as one of her’s.

(Rage: shift to lupus.
action: GO FIND GABBIE!)

Sandman swings his axe again. The blade shears right through the thing’s neck. With a last spray of maggots and ichor, the creature —

— doesn’t so much fall as it disintegrates. Comes apart into bones and scraps of skin, writhing invertebrates that wriggle and twitch across the kitchen floor looking for darkness, looking for wet warmth, looking to slither back to whatever hell birthed their host.

The street is very quiet. The panicked crowds are long gone, and above the street, in the residences, all the shades are drawn. Far away, a siren moans, but it’s impossible to tell if it’s headed this way.

James had come late, but he had at least came and helped these Gaians deliver a crushing blow to their Enemy. Are you injured, Ruhiger? he asked pleasantly enough, as he turned to see which direction the others had ran off in search of the Kinfolk. Why in the blazes they let her get carried off is beyond him.

The Faerie Lights were about to extinguish, and so with a flex of his spiritual being he forced them to remain until dismissed; they came in handy before, and might again. ( 1 Gnosis. )

Across Eagles wings her voice is far smoother, far more silken than one would expect of the Silent Modi. A scratch. I’ll go help them find the kin of White Eyes.

A scratch. He should know better. He should also remember that she wouldn’t care if it is worse – she is not dead. It is a scratch.

Since bonding to Eagle, it’s amazing how much the Sandman has changed. Before he would of grunted and sighed, and now he was all but giddy at the prospects of battle. He blamed it on the Fenrir he was packed with, and after all… the Norse and Celts did in fact share some cultural points in history.

James, on AnneMarie’s heels, would trot after the group to rescue the damsel in distress.

She was a lot of things; Mrena was worried beyond worried, and for all that she was, she was letting her mind race into places that she had no desire for it to travel. She was thinking through all the horrible things that could be happening to Gabriella at that moment-

There was no trotting on her part. There was running.

Her call was loud and urgent, an attempt to gather the attention of those following her. Quickly, she looked around for a way up…and spotted the fire escape. Rushing over, she leaped off the ground in an attempt to grab the ladder and pull it down.

The tone is amused, though it slips quickly into all business once again. She doesn’t tell him he has done better than she remembers – though it is true. Eagles have been good for him.

Instead, she starts out and more than a trot to follow Mrena and Sera – she’s at a full run, showering dead maggots and gross things from her fur as she moves toward the fire escape.

When she sees the ladder is up, and Mrena hell bent on not stopping, she puts on a burst of speed to go past her, jump, and catch that rung to pull it down, GENTLY, while hoping to not slow Mrena’s progress at all. It is, after all, her Kin they are after.

Not the best place to have one.

His luminescant armor was enough light for anyone, in any case. With a dubious look for the fire escape, he glanced down at his body and realized that this form would be fool-hardy to use to climb the damnable thing. There was a belt around his Crinos waist, with a thick leather loop that he then slid his axe in. Slipping the haft of his weapon through it, he shifted down to Glabro after pausing for a moment and then began to climb after the others made it up, staying below for the moment to make sure their tracks were covered.

They pound up the rattling fire escape — Serafine in the lead, a black lupus that flies up the stairs. Just behind, Mrena and James in Glabro, though the benefit of four swift legs soon reveals itself when the wolf outstrips them by far.

Ruhiger brings up the rear. By the time she’s actually on the first story landing, Serafine is already breaching the roof.

And … she’ll find Gabriella there, on the ground, perhaps a little tousled, but unharmed. And there’s no sign of the boy.

No way is she not searching for the kid when she arrives, either. She’s just pissed off enough, she might see something.

All Gabbie could do was blink.

How does something with four legs climb a ladder?

Eagle, it seemed, would not be denied. If he let this creature get away, it may come back.

I have him in my sights, he said to AnneMarie.

Shifting to lupus, the battle-axe blends with his body as he takes off running at top speed to catch the would-be-kidnapper.

And Mrena didn’t say a word, didn’t say that she was glad that Gabbie was okay or had been worried or any of those terrible thoughts. Instead, she spent her time looking over Gabriella for injuries and flaws and what-have-you.

Eventually, she did say something. “What happened?”

Disregarding Mrena for the moment, sorry White-Eyes, Gabriella twists and starts to clambor to her feet, yelling after James.

“WAIT! Don’t!”

She snaps her head to his Sandman’s direction, her gaze flickering to the distance beyond him, yet seeing nothing. Still, when he shifts down, she follows his lead to shifts again. Once in lupus, she takes off, hot on his heels.

Right behind you.

And within moments a graceful black shadow was sprinting towards Gabriella on the rooftop. She was sniffing the woman, whining very softly with concern. Once it became clear that no physical harm had been caused, she stepped back to scent the air…trying to figure out where the kid had gotten to. She tried…and tried…and tried. But failed.

Two of the others were taking off… and she turned to follow on their heels, assuming that they’d caught wind of where the stranger had gone…when Gabbie shouted at them to stop. The force of it sent a pulsing throb of pain through her ears, and she flicked them back in irritation, but halted, looking back at the girl questioningly.

Hopefully Ruhiger would have the sense not to plow into him, and in turning from the ledge (whew!) he turned to regard the others. If a wolf could look a bit disgruntled, he would be one now. Snapshifting back to Homid, the Irishman went over to where the others had congregated. “An’ why’n th’ fook should I be stoppin’? That… whate’er’n th’ fook t’was tried makin’ off wit’ ye.”

A pause, then, as he shook his head. James words were not heated with anger, merely the flush of battle. The sense that he should continue the fight to defend and protect. His tone was pleasant enough, his cussing merely a… spice to his way of talking. A glance around, and a light shrug and a grin as his hand rested on the head of his axe resting in the belt loop.

“Nae met some o’ ye,” he said. A nod to Mrena – that one he knew. “M’ name ‘s James Wagner. Fostern Fianna Galliard, o’ Eagle’s Chosen.”

Se doesn’t shift at first, taking a moment to catch her breath. The totemphone, however, is alive with a string of curses and mutters that really don’t need to be repeated. She shakes vigoriously – blood and dead maggots and all manner of nasties not her own (…the blood though, that is her own..) flying. Then she turns and shifts to homid, to join the others on the roof.

Pretty much all eyes were on her, waiting, expectant, so she climbed slowly to her feet, touching a hand to Mrena’s upper arm for support. Her knees still felt like putty, an aftershock of seeing that terrifying monster that they had battled. And she wasn’t even focused on that just yet. Tonight, when she was in the Brotherhood and safe, things would be different.

For now, though, she was wobbly but calm enough. “He was a Stargazer, he said.” Her gaze cut to James when he shifted to his human skin and spoke his garbled Isles talk, and her brow furrowed just slightly. “He did not try making off with me, he rescued me. Moved me away from the danger.” She sounded a little indignant, as though there was insult in what James had said. “Watches-Leaves-Fall, he said his name was. Ahroun.”

She pauses, then gestures to the street that the Jade Dragon restaurant sat on, sweeping her arm to indicate its entirety. “He said that this street belonged to the Eastern Courts, or something like that, and that you guys aren’t supposed to come here anymore.”

She shifted slowly this time… from lupus all the way back to homid. Then she stood straight, her exposed skin bleeding in a thousand tiny places from the maggot bites. Her clothes? They were in tatters back down in the restaurant.

“Serafine Marceau, L’ange Noire, Cliath Galliard of the Black Furies.” And to her credit… she held her head high and did not seem particularly embarrassed.

“Stargazers were once ‘part o’ th’ Garou Nation,” he said as if recounting a story. “For simplicity’s sake, they joined their brethren ‘n th’ Orient – Th’ Beast Courts, ye’d call ’em. I dinnae know much more. Though if’n th’ Beast Courts ‘re claimin’ terr’tory ‘n Chicago…”

We need to tell Decker this, my friend, he said over Eagle’s wings to his packmate.

There was a slight smirk to his lips as she said that the Garou here were not to come to Chinatown any more. As far as he was concerned, the Stargazers could have it. Not many of the Garou here made their homes in this section of town. There was Bai Chou, those years ago, but not since the Uktena left.

The Fury spoke, then, and James alighted her with a bit of a smile. “Welcome tae Chicago, Lange Noire. Good tae see ‘nother o’ th’ Gibbous.” With his Irish brogue, likely he butchered her deedname, but there was very little he could do about it. “I’ve got s’ spare clothes ‘n m’ truck a few blocks down, lass.” James’ clothes, for lack of a better term, were untattered. Glory be to the Rite of Talisman Dedication.

The theurge put weight with Gabriella’s words, brows knit, expression somewhere between thoughtful and confused and frustrated with herself. She was going through the details, going through the things she had heard and seen and felt and yet? Maybe Gabbie was taken offguard, maybe he lied. Maybe he played her for all she was worth…

but if someone wanted to kidnap Gabriella, they would have done it. If something was going to take her off and carry her away, they would have done it by now.

“Mrena Armstrong, White Eyes to the Nation. Cliath, Shadow Lord. Theurge of the Unbroken Circle,” a pause and then? “Pop through to the other side, Lange Noire. Meet up at the brotherhood, we’re about the same size. “

And don’t think she had not noticed L’ange Noire’s state either. She has, though she gives no outward sign of such, no inward commentary either, though Sandman would like as not enjoy it.

He tells her the obvious and she quirks a brow upwards and replies simply. Introduce me, if you would. I am temporarily without my board.

But she wasn’t really thinking about whether or not she was getting any stares. Instead, she just listened, and nodded to Mrena and James both with a soft smile of gratitude. Technically, she could just go home through the penumbra…but… somehow she was loathe to leave the others after everything that had just happened. It was the pack instinct kicking in.

He motioned to her, a slight dip of his head to the longer-standing Eagle packmate than he himself. It was obvious that James respected her greatly, for that very same silent Modi had saved his life once. A debt he had yet to repay.

“Th’ Stargazers’ ‘ll pr’tect Chinatown,” the Fianna said after a moment’s thought. “Aye, they well, but if’n they’re needin’ ‘elp? Then they’ll ‘ave it.”

There was a slight pause as he considered Mrena’s words about respecting their territory. There may be no inward or outward commentary, but wolves are able to tell a person’s body language, and damn it all if James hasn’t seen that look on AnneMarie’s face before.

Ye may want tae pick yer tongue off th’ ground an’ put yer eyes back’n yer sockets, he said with a mental laugh.

She slips her hands in her pockets, and lifts a chin toward the others in simple greeting.

She looked at the sky for a minute, and then looked at what was left of her sweater. Silently, she was thankful that she was wearing the right bra today, or else this could have been awkward. At any rate, she started to lead Gabriella down to the fire escape.

“Keep safe, keep warm, and keep dry.”

And, with that, she was off.

Then she was padding off after Mrena and Gabbie, disappearing from view as she slipped into the penumbra.

It had been a rather…interesting…evening.

Och. May’ap I’m tae be tellin’ her tae put her eyes back ‘n her head. Mental, raucous laughter as he then spoke verbally.

“Well met,” he said to those he didn’t know. “C’mon, AnneMarie. We’ve tae report tae Silence an’ then go from there. ‘Sides, ye’re needin’ a new shirt. One o’ mine’ll work. An’ fer th’ record? I saved yer arse back there.” Amusement twinkled in the older man’s eyes.

Muttering under his breath: “I’m getting t’ fookin’ old fer this.”

A little notice goes a long way.

She turns to follow him to the fire escape, and to the street once more, and lips curl into a smirk. Perhaps. Years ago she would have denied she even needed help. Before she left she would have bristled at his assumption that she truly couldn’t have done it without him. That was then. Two years has done much for her. Though she does poke a little. But it was only one. As I recall, I saved you from 4.

Not that she’s keeping score, or anything.

James responded to all of it, but then there was a soft mental chuckle.

[exeunt]