http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=minnesota&ie=UTF8&t=h&om=1&ll=48.564794,-95.093536&spn=0.642521,1.2854&z=10&iwloc=addr
it’d be that big patch of farmless wilderness in the middle there. keep in mind google maps are satellite views that generally ignore snow/ice. this caern is ice-locked for most of the year.)
[Silence] Spring is at last upon the Caern of the Winter’s Tooth. Ice and snow are slowly, unwillingly relinquishing their hold on the hard-packed earth, the barren flatlands, the thousand tiny frosted lakes, the immense tracts of coniferous wildlands. For a few short months, the thaw will leave the earth green and passably fertile. The kin will sow and reap, and the Garou will hunt the plentiful game. Then, by the end of September, the growing season will have drawn to a close again. Ice will come down and the long winter will begin.
This is a hardy, remote Sept, so far removed from civilization that the nearest road is a day’s run away and the nearest town is several. Electricity does not exist. Plumbing is primitive. Here, the Get of Fenris exist as they have for thousands of years, in lodges and longhouses, wearing furs they skinned themselves and cloth they wove themselves, fighting and warring, composing their eddas and their blood-songs. It is one of the last true bastions of the Garou, a caern so strong that the Gauntlet is almost nonexistent in its heart, that they have the luxury of not only defending their home from the Wyrm, but actually actively striking out against it.
In a way, a caern like this is lost in the past. A caern like this would not fall until the Final Days, and there is little sense of urgency here. There is little fear. There is, really, little difference a single pack of young (because here, even Adrens are considered young) garou can make.
—
The moot is a fierce, bloody, traditional thing. The first time Decker was here, years ago, he remembered seeing a cub torn limb from limb for the great crime of laughing out of turn. No one speaks unless they have the Bone, and the Bone goes first to far mightier Garou than the Eagles.
The Grand Elder of the Sept of the Storm Hammer is a true Elder, a deepchested man in his early fifties, hardbodied as a man half his age, with greying black hair braided into more warrior-braids than can be counted. His left eye is a polished stone carven with glyphs that spin and burn. He commands a caern of nearly a hundred Garou and all their kin; a microcosm of Fenrir tradition in the deep wilderness. His pack is arrayed behind him, greying, grizzled old warriors and counselors with their history carved in their scars. He says little, but what he says is heard.
Not far from him is the Warder and Warmaster of the Sept, a Modi in his early forties, ash-blond, blue of eye, with more deednames than a cub could remember. He is Decker’s father. They do not speak much to one another.
The Masters of the Caern — Challenge and Rites and Howl — are Athros and Elders all. Same with all the other officers of the Caern. The lowest rank, and the only of that rank, is an Adren who holds the position of Caller of the Wyld. Their previous Caller died after the last Moot in a ritual challenge over some matter of honor.
Most of these have their turn at the Bone before passing it on to the officeless of the Caern. There, again, the Bone goes from Elder to Athro, and finally to the Adrens. Matters are brought up, discussed, attacked, challenged over, settled. There are still dozens of fosterns and cliaths awaiting their turn when the Bone comes into Silence’s handpaw. The iron-grey Modi stands; his announcement is short.
“The Godi Hyde Three-Fingers and the Forseti Baneslayer have been expelled from my pack, leaving us with two full moons and on half. There is a matter in the Volo Bog which requires expertise in more than war. A great spirit lies in the Bog, possibly with the ability to cleanse even the deepest taint. It is reluctant to show itself. I ask the unbound Garou of the Storm Hammer to lend us their aid — to help us bring this spirit from its slumber. I’ll be waiting after the Revel.”
The Modi hesitates a moment. Then he passes the Bone on. The matter is perhaps soon forgotten by all but a scarce handful.
—
It’s dawn by the time the Revel finishes and the exhausted Septmates stagger back to their lodges. Unshaven, barechested, smeared in blood and mud, pale and drawn beneath it, Silence waits on the grassy hill behind the assembly hall for whoever might show.
[Ruhiger] It has been years since she has attended a Fenrir Moot – a True Moot of might and strength and ferocity few can imagine. It fills her, her blood pounds, her body aches for release – the release that comes in the Revel. They stagger back, and those who live this life daily stagger back to their lodges.
Silence waits on the Grassy Knoll (is there a second shooter…) and behind him stands the silent one, AnneMarie. Bitter Grace. Ruhiger. She has returned to monkey skin, her coat floating about her ankles, her hands shoved into the pockets. Under her clothing – rumpled by travel and far from the pristine image she often chooses to project – she is as blood and mud smeared as the others, though she holds herself with the bearing of royalty – though she has only the blood of whores and thieves in her veins.
And she stands, as always, silent.
[Jakob Schmidt] In a sept this size, you don’t take much notice of the unbound, or the Cliaths, or the Garou that stand at the edges. The young man coming around the side of the assembly hall towards Silence and Ruhiger didn’t stand out at the moot. His face wouldn’t bring back any memory from the Revel, though his appearance proved his participation. For a Fenrir, he seemed…unimpressive. And yet, there was no doubt whose blood he belonged to.
The man looked to be around twenty, 6’2″ and what you might call ‘athletic’ if you were mortal and didn’t know what you should really expect from the warriors of this tribe. His hair was pale blonde, his eyes bright blue, and the sparse hairs on his chin and upper lip were fair, as well. A livid scar cross-cut his abdomen, from the right side of his ribs to his left hip, ritually cemented into his flesh. He was Fenrir. His blood and his scent whispered it, even if his bare upper body was…less-than-intimidating.
His feet were bare, and black from dried blood, ichor, and mud. His jeans were splattered with it. His hands were dirty. When he got to the two Full Moons waiting, he stopped a few feet in front of them and said, quite simply, “Snowsblood. Skald and Cliath.”
[Courts the Storms-Eye] She had been sitting with her eyes closed, listening to the Cracking of the Bone, the raven-haired woman. Legs crossed beneath her in some pose of perceived meditation, the necklace of tiny bones around her neck clinking together gently when she stirred to open her eyes as the newcomer spoke, watching with the fire dancing against her face.
She sat slightly removed from the others, even dressed as she was in ratted furs, patches worn down, her feet bare for the still freezing climate of the Sept. Around these, too, she wears small trinkets, laced tight with tiny morsels — she did not belong, not quite. She was too somber, and for the most part, the presence of a cliath was ignored by the gathered Elders, her deliberate distancing from the gathering suggesting one who was tolerated, but not welcomed, a curiosity and that is what Maya Nevskaja, daughter of Andrei Nikolaevic, Wyrm-Reaver found in the speaker.
—
“You seek to wake a spirit who sleeps, Son of Njal Bjornsen, Silence-Rhya, bound under Eagle.” She is squatting at the base of the hill, a handful of dust thoughtfully weighed in one palm, as though she would make some measure of him with this alone. Her hair is matted, long and unbound as so many others have become. Her body as dirty and unwashed and smeared with blood as the Fenrir wandering from the Revel, but contained in her eye, in the manner in which she rises to her feet, in her noble features — those of Thunder, those of her father’s brood, the children of storms — is something entirely removed from her clothing, her stature.
She could not pass for a Fenrir on any given day.
Especially with the inflected tones of Russia, staining her voice.
[Silence] The wild Revel had led them out of the heart of the Caern, across the vale and up the low but steep sides of the hills that shelter it. It had filtered through the pines that have stood for a hundred years or more, rushed through Dagger’s Edge Pass, broken through the spirit-barrier that veiled the Caern from human eyes, raced across the great barren expanses of almost-tundra. It had broken across ice-laced ponds and into windsheltered patches where deciduous trees could grow; across salty coal-rich lands that no mining company had ever had much success in mining. Unexplained deaths. Missing persons. Malfunctioning equipment. Capital loss.
The Hunt had cleared the Caern and its expansive bawn of any misguided Wyrmlings (or humans) which had wandered in, and finally brought down the Engling at the apex of a short peninsula into a small, but deep lake. And now, in the cold dawn’s light, they can see the Garou still straggling home in twos and threes, some laughing, some quarreling, some silent and reverent in the morning mist.
The Eagle’s Philodox is not yet back. Packmates had lost track of one another in that furious rush of bloodlust and joy; the sept had melded, briefly, into one heaving organic whole where pack bonds were set aside for caern bonds. Now, as ties reknit, Silence and Ruhiger have found each other atop this hill.
Then Jakob.
Then Maya.
Silence had been briefly dozing, his eyes shut as he swayed lightly on his feet. At the sound of approaching footsteps his eyes open. They are grey, a heavy hue, wholly unlike his father’s. He looks at the unimpressive Skald. If he’s unimpressed, or impressed, or couldn’t give a damn either way, it doesn’t show. The regard goes on for a while. Then the Modi wipes his dirty face with his palm, succeeding only in smearing the grime out more evenly.
“Silence. Modi ‘n Adren.” He hasn’t met this one before. Hasn’t spoken to him in his human voice, which is laced with the deepest Deep South; the low-slung loose-jawed vowels of Alabama. Years away from his hometown have lightened the accent some, but it’s still there. Even if he lost it entirely, the South will always be there in the very cadence of his speech, the slow roll of the words. “Ain’t seen you before.”
And the other — the woman, who speaks of the father. His brow knits loosely. It passes. “Who my daddy was don’t matter much to tha Fenrir,” he says, because she’s obviously not. “Maybe they matter to yer people. Hell’s a Shadow Lord doin’ in Winter’s Tooth?”
[Ruhiger] Pale eyes flicker over the Skald, then the Theurge. Her stance does not change, nor her expression. If she is tired, it does not show. If she desires rest, sleep, it does not matter.
Silence was dozing on his feet. She remained alert.
It is her way. It is the only way. She will sleep on the trip home.
The introductions follow, and she says nothing. Silence does not introduce her, and she does not interfere. She simply watches, waits, listens.
[Jakob Schmidt] Jakob sounds like he’s from around here – Minnesota, not the Storm Hammer. He lacks the germanic lingual markers that roughen (and yet glide within) the speech of the others around him. He stands for Silence’s slow regard with a quiet manner that’s either stoic or sullen, depending on your perspective. There’s no backpack over his shoulder or bag in his hand. His chest still moves slightly as his breath and heart rate slow from their frenetic, reveling pace. He came straight to them.
After Silence introduces himself, the man who introduced himself as Snowsblood turns his head to look at the dark-haired woman sitting on the ground. She sat on the ground at the moot, sat on the ground here, one might think she’d sat on the ground during the whole Revel if it weren’t for the blood on her, and then she told the Adren why he was here. Jakob didn’t roll his eyes or shake his head. He knew who she was – she had a certain amount of notoriety just by virtue of being what she was, where she was.
Since neither Ruhiger nor Silence had asked (yet) for any comers to explain how they might be useful in this Volo Bog place, wherever that was, Jakob didn’t talk any further. He crossed his arms over his chest, his feet shoulder-width apart, and settled like that on the grass. It was, at least in present company, a relaxed stance. More than anything, he seemed resolute. All he had left to do was wait – for questions, or for them to leave – and so he waited.
[Courts the Storms-Eye] Maya rises to her feet, pressing a palm to the earth to do so, her other hand retains the earth — it trickles out from her closed palm as she crests the small hill to stand closer to the others. Like this, she is anything but intimidating physically. Petite by comparison, she would barely reach the Skald’s chin and beside his pallor she looks the devil herself.
She knows of Snowsblood, but there has been no conversation between them. There is — point in fact — little conversation between herself and most of the Sept. A transplant from a distant land, she is a stranger among them, and yet seems left to her own devices for the most part, wandering the Umbralscape, communing as she would with the elementals — like some ghost that haunts the steps of the Fenrir.
Seen but not heard.
Heard but not seen.
“Does it matter greatly why I’m here?” Storms-Eye asks, dusting her hand against her fur-clad thigh, bracelets clinking together. It’s a question, but then again it is not. Silence had asked for volunteers, and here were two who had for reasons their own, answered his call. Maya falls into some mirrored stance beside Jakob, though her fingers remain at her side, caressing the fur she wears.
[Silence] Silence’s eye is cold on the Shadow Lord woman for a moment.
Then, something approaching a smirk lifts the corner of his mouth. “Naw. But it matters why ya wanna go down ta Chicago with us.” A glance at Jakob. “Both’a ya. Y’all oughta know right now, this ain’t no gloryhoundin’ cakewalk. We ain’t with a Sept ‘n we ain’t too popular right now. ‘n tha Bog itself — well.” A sniff, and he lapses into quiet. They could give their reasons first.
[Jakob Schmidt] When Silence says that they’re not too popular, not bound to a sept, one corner of Jakob’s mouth twitches slightly to the side. A grimace or a smirk, or a restrained smile, god knows what it was. Maya might have a clue as to why, if she knows of Snowsblood. He was, around here, an Omega wolf if ever there was one. There were a lot of reasons for it. Not being popular? Check. Next?
“Nothin’ keeping me here,” he says, as far as explanations of motivations go. The man doesn’t shrug, but as seconds creep past, he sounds younger, seems more inexperienced. The hair on his chin and the age on his face don’t seem to fit with the way he carries himself, though that very youthfulness is out of place, too. This is how it is: his face is that of a man, his voice is that of a fresh-muscled youth, and his eyes are heavy with years he hasn’t lived yet. He speaks with resolute resignation that verges on fatalism.
If the two Modis turn him back, he loses nothing. Nothing changes, if his reason isn’t…somehow…’good enough’.
[Courts the Storms-Eye] Maya exchanges what may be a glance of shared humor, call it understanding, call it comprehension, one born between two such as they were that did not quite belong. Hers obvious, Snowsblood his own and her dark eyes, something closer to black than brown are heavy, concentrated on the Modi’s face for the time she weighs the question — weighs the woman standing resolute beside him.
“I don’t eat cake, Silence-Rhya.” Perhaps she misunderstood him, his accent is as thick as hers. Perhaps she did, but then again, the way she smiles just so, with the barest of teeth makes it less likely. “I have no ties here, if you want my help, I offer it. But my reasons for leaving–?” She turns her face, briefly, absorbing the Sept in one sweeping, brief glance with her dark eyes.
“There really aren’t any worth giving.”
[Jakob Schmidt] Maya might have shared a glance with Jakob, if he’d looked at her. Mostly, he looked at the silent woman and the man called Silence. He and Maya weren’t packmates or friends. He didn’t understand her, comprehend her. He didn’t much care if she understood him.
[Silence] Silence exhales slowly. There’s a sense of control there; a sense that if it weren’t controlled, he might snort. Or sigh, if he were the type to sigh. Which he isn’t.
The sun is coming up in earnest now. For a moment, the light is absolutely golden through the mist. They are all lit in gold, his skin glowing, the stubble of his hair and beard glinting. His eyes are grey as ever. They do not drink the light at all. He looks toward the sunrise for a while, then back at the two before him, whose only reason to leave was simply to leave.
“Yer Cliath too?” — that, to Maya. And when affirmation comes, “Well, whatever yer lookin’ fer, you’ll prove yerself loyal ‘n trustworthy ‘r I’ll sendja limpin’ back ta Storm Hammer. You’ll pull yer own weight ‘r yer out. Whatever it is you think yer leavin’ behind here — where we’s goin’, it ain’t no easier. Git?”
Provided they git:
“Tell me what yer good at.”
[Evan McCollach] The feel of fresh snow, true snow held his interests for quite some time. He had not feel such pure snow since his time away from his home Sept. Chicago got snow yes, but it was not the same, the woods were light and within the city it was tainted. He could not help himself but enjoy the last touched of such wonderful ice beneath him. He could feel some of the looks cast upon him. He knew why.
He was Child of Gaia wrapped in the fur of silver fang. It was not the first sept he had visited that had looked upon him with suspicion and curiousity. His pure breed hung upon him like an anchor. A weight of the burdens of his lineage, and the albatross of why he was not apart of teh tribe his ancestory followed.
However that mattered little to him at this moment, he reveled in the snow. Enjoying the feel of its cold so late in the season, however it would not last long. There was duty to undertake, business to follow through with. And as Evan moved back from the Revel, one of the last to return. He hunted down his Alpha. The red tinted silvery fur of his lupus form tracking back his alpha and who he was speaking with.
[Evan McCollach] (Just fyi, Evan would have told Ling, Decker and AnneMarie about his kill. However he has no talespinning skill so it might not come off that great.)
to Ruhiger, Silence
[Silence] (note: i think jacqui fell offline)
[Ruhiger] Pale gaze flicks toward Evan as he joins, lifting her chin slightly in greeting before she returns the whole of her attention on the two cliaths that speak with Silence.
[Jakob Schmidt] This is probably exactly what he wants. A Shadow Lord Theurge and a fatalistic Skald. You ask for the unbound, you get the dregs. For one reason or another, they aren’t already in a pack. Probably a lot of reasons. With a handful of hours between the Cracking of the Bone and this meeting, who else would come but those who don’t have to think about why they want to leave, what they might have to leave behind?
Silence says it ain’t no easier, and secretly, Jakob doubts it. He gives a small nod, yeah, it says, I git. As for the what-yer-good-at question…he could do better if he were supposed to be talking about someone else. Telling an Adren he’s only heard of what he’s good at is difficult. What is he going to do? Praise himself, chat himself up, sell himself and his deeds so that he’ll be judged worthy of going with the unpopular, Septless pack into some crazy swamp? He pauses, and in that pause, Evan walked over.
Jakob looked over at the redhaired Philodox, then turned his eyes back to Silence. “I have a strong will and I’m as close to the spirit world as any Theurge, though -” he glances down at Maya, briefly, “not as knowledgeable.” As those words leave him, his eyes scroll back over to the Modi facing him. “I’m still learning the history of the Fenrir and the Garou, but I pay attention, I get my hands dirty, and I can tell the stories I see better’n anyone here knows.” After that glance at Evan, he speaks with confidence that couldn’t be seen before, pride that doesn’t puff out its chest to assert itself. “I’m not the strongest fighter you’ll ever see, but I don’t quit and I don’t run.”
There’s a beat. A Rotagar might follow that beat with a That good enough for ya, buddy?, but Jakob is a Skald. And even if the Philodox that just joined them isn’t gauging him with a gift, every word he said was true.
[Jakob Schmidt] (Sorry, folks, had to think of what Jakob might actually say about himself.)
to Evan McCollach, Ruhiger, Silence
[Silence] (no problem *grin* i’ve gone to multitask to avoid yelling at y’all to post in 5 minute intervals)
to Evan McCollach, Jakob Schmidt, Ruhiger
[Jakob Schmidt] (Don’t ask crazy hard questions and they’ll come faster, ya big punk.)
to Evan McCollach, Ruhiger, Silence
[Silence] (he should really pull the job interview list out and ask him “What’s your greatest weakness?” next. and. like. “Why should we NOT hire you?”)
to Evan McCollach, Jakob Schmidt, Ruhiger
[Evan McCollach] Evan returns the nod to AnneMarie, his attention drawn to the pair that Decker was interviewing. He for the time being, moved to sit there, the child of gaia wanna be silver fang just watching.
[Silence] Evan joins them. That white fur had stood out amongst all the black and brown and grey; the tribe made it even worse. A few of the younger Get had outright mocked him to his face, calling him treehugger and pussyboy and worse. After Silence stood up in the Songs and Tales and told, in brief, brutal strokes, the story of Evan and the slug/centipede, the insults were somewhat fewer.
Silence doesn’t look at the Philodox as he approaches, though. His eyes are on the Skald, his dirty arms folded across his dirty chest, his dirty face grim and impassive in the clean morning light. When he’s finished, the totemlink opens briefly —
What do y’all think?
[Ruhiger] Her gaze does not stray from Jakob, though she answers Silence via the Totem.
He is confident, but not too arrogant. He does not run, he does not quit. Already that puts him ahead of many.
A slight curl of her lips in a smirk betray the thought, though it fades, quickly.
[Evan McCollach] Evan did not need to be there for the whole discussion with the new cliaths that stepped up to join the Eagles when they returned to Chicago. But it was obvious what was going to come of it. They were a septless pack, in the heart of a scab close to a Sept of young garou, their eldest an Adren. Those willing to come along were not going to be knocking out the windows on the barracuda to join up.
We will need a cresent moon to deal with the water-woman spirit, there is no way around it. However I cannot say for certain, but we will not be getting the cream of the crop.
[Silence] Tha woman is a crescent moon. Decker nods vaguely at Maya. If it isn’t already obvious that the packmates were having a mental conversation, it is now. She’s also a Shadow Lord.
[Ruhiger] She flicks a glance toward Evan, her gaze unreadable. The Skald claims to be at ease with the Spirits as well. That increases the odds. We cannot always rely on the mute, after all. A twist of a smirk, again. Amused, however briefly.
I do not trust Shadow Lords. Of course, she doesn’t trust many people. Though she is already an improvement over those in Chicago in speaking plain.
[Evan McCollach] There is something to be said for a Shadow lord that has not gotten herself killed in this Sept already.
It was a mental tick. A small comment made, if vocal, off-hand. Maybe the shadowlord only recently arrived as they have. Maybe she was more cunning then worth the trouble. Who knew? He did not hear Decker question them.
Maybe we should pit them against each other? Test their skills in battle, spiritual lore and riddles. See which one stands out between the two to your opinion. That is if you believe they will go for it.
It was an idea. Maybe not the best, but still an idea. He watched the pair while they spoke across the totem. Which one flinched, which one seemed bored, anything their body language gave away. Eyeing them, smelling their essences. This was no minor decision.
[Jakob Schmidt] It was clear that this wasn’t the first time Jakob had stood by while a pack chatted non-verbally with one another. He remained in the semi-relaxed stance he’d adopted after his approach, arms over his chest, feet braced, shoulders rounded. Mostly, he just looked around the sept. Maybe he was drinking in last glances of the buildings and the lands, as though his leaving was a foregone conclusion. Maybe he wasn’t even seeing the things his eyes were scanning. His Rage was spent from the Revel, the blood and sweat and mud were drying on his skin.
It was not the first time his worth had been deliberated in front of him. Maybe he was looking around while silently trying to decide if it was better to hear the critiques and comments aloud or just be aware that they were being made in silent council.
[Silence] How kin ya git worse’n Chicago Lords? It’s the same sort of wry, hard humor. There’ll be ‘nough testin’ if they come ‘long. I’d pit ’em ‘gainst each other if it was one’r the other. But we might take both. We might take neither.
Keep yer eye on tha Shadow Lord. We ain’t had much in common in tha past.
Which was putting it mildly, given Silence’s track record.
His arms unfold. There’s a livid scratch across his torso. It’s new, but the bleeding has already stopped. By tomorrow it’ll be gone. “There’s a Hive near Chicago,” he says, abrupt. “Five miles away from tha Hive, there’s a Bog. It’s cleaner’n anythin’ I done ever seen. Not a speck’a Wyrm.
“But anyone goes in, they don’t tend ta come out. Wyrm, Gaia, don’t matter. There’s spirits in there. Wyld, maybe. Stronger’n anythin’ I seen outside Caern totems. They serve some ‘moon water woman’ who use ta be worshipped a hundred years ago by some Garou-blooded Injuns in the area, ‘long with some fire-god. They was pro’lly Uktena, maybe Wendies. We figger tha fire-god might just mean Garou blood.
“The Injuns left under some Kanekuk guy.” A glance at Ruhiger: did he get the name right? “He had three sons, they took tha fire-god ‘n his … Sept, maybe, ‘n split it up in three directions. He had three daughters too. They stayed ta take care’a the moon water woman, but tha fire is gone ‘n the line is ended. This moon water woman ain’t never made no more contact with Garou since that we know ’bout. We’re tryin’ ta change that. Ta git her help ‘gainst tha Hive.”
As abruptly as it had begun, the briefing ends. Silence eyes the Skald. And it’s another open-ended tough question:
“What d’ya think ’bout all that?”
[Jakob Schmidt] Blue eyes snap back to grey when Silence’s arms unfold. The movement of Jakob’s eyes is faster than the turn of his head, like his body has to catch up with his attention. He listens, without meaningless nods of his head at random intervals, perhaps proving at least one of the talents he said he possesses: he pays attention. If the attention of the three Garou before him was not so intent, it might be hard to notice the gears turning behind the Skald’s gaze. He reaches into the Modi’s explanation of the Volo Bog Problem, takes bits that might seem important, and secures them in his memory like index cards stuck to a bulletin board.
When Silence stops speaking, Jakob steps back, looks at the pieces he’s taken from the information given, and considers them. The actual question is not What Should We Do or What Would You Do or anything quite as tough or irrational as that. The actual question is, frankly, kind of simple. The answer to this one comes easier. Jakob doesn’t shrug before speaking. That would be a non-verbal disclaimer in his body language, an unspoken apology for what he’s about to say, an ‘Ida know, maybe’ from his shoulders.
Nah. He just talks. For a Skald, he’s pretty plainspoken, but not all Fenrir songs are flourishes of metaphor. In fact, most of them aren’t. They are a straightforward tribe, whatever else can be said about them. “I think I’m less surprised that you came all the way up here to look for help, now.” Humour? He doesn’t smirk at them, saying it. “I also wonder about where you’ve gotten most of this information – people, spirits, visions – because it affects what can actually be gleaned from the telling.” Consider the source, he means, though he doesn’t put it so flippantly. “I start to think some obvious things, like women-water-moon and men-fire-sun, Garou and Kin blood…I start to wonder about a lot of it.”
Jakob stops, doesn’t want to begin rambling about every tangential thought that comes to his head. “That whatcha mean?”
[Silence] “We got most’a tha history from tapes my mate dug up. They was transcripts’a another kin’s interviews with some… hundred-year-old Injun out in Mexico, a descendant’a Kanekuk.” Decker bows his head briefly, frowning down at himself as he scratches some drying mud off his stomach where it had begun to itch. “That kin was lookin’ inta the Bog ’cause she was a scientist ‘r somethin’. The Bog was owned by tha Hive Elder’s woman then, though. They had tha kin killt.
“After we killt tha Hive Elder we tracked his son ‘n woman down. We kin transfer tha Bog inta Garou hands now. Think Imogen’s takin’ care’a that.” He doesn’t bother to elaborate on who Imogen is — maybe he forgets — but something about the way he speaks the name, brief as it is, impassive as it is, tells Jakob all he needs to know.
He goes on: “Tha rest we found out wadin’ inta the Bog ourselves. In tha legend the followers’a this moon water woman brought in gifts’a great value ‘n sacrifice. So we brought in gifts. Ruhiger,” a nod to the mute, “brought silver in her bare claws. ‘n they gave her a vision.”
Somehow, they’ve slipped from interview to earnest discussion. The sunlight is bright now, rising above the golden glow of dawn, fading into the parched white glare of a night without sleep. And Silence falls silent, letting Ruhiger tell her portion of the tale.
[Jakob Schmidt] Later, if there was a later here, he might ask for names. Put them on real index cards on a real bulletin board, connect them with strings, stare at the pieces until they came together, give himself a timeline, show himself the intertwining threads. For now, all the things Silence told him were bits that might need to be repeated before he’d remember them or understand them fully. This Kin was killt and this someone’s woman owned that and someone’s son did this other thing and –
Etcetera.
Jakob is attentive, however, taking what he can even though he knows he’ll forget a great deal of it and need to be told again, or shown himself. If there is a later, he’ll listen to the tapes or read the transcripts. He won’t need to ask who Silence’s mate is, or why an obviously Fianna Kinfolk is around the Eagles. It was the way he said her name. It stopped his heart in his chest for a minute, twisted, but when it started up again Silence was still talking and it hardly mattered that something had knifed through Jakob in that moment.
His eyes move to Ruhiger when Silence stops talking.
[Ruhiger] She quirks a brow at Silence. Bemused, it would seem.
And silent.
Wait a beat. two. She considers doing it in ASL, briefly. She spent her rage in the Revel and it is times such as these that her humor – mostly hidden, mostly ignored, perhaps the existence of it doubted completely – appears. She pulls her hands from her pocket, and with it a small whiteboard, and a pen. And a resolve to beat any resulting hand cramp out of Silence’s hide while he sleeps.
The tale is shortened, sharp and plain, as the board is not large, and though her printing. is small and neat, it is still much more then the board would allow in a single showing. It takes time, but in the end she hands the board to Jakob. All without a sound, though perhaps a gesture or two toward her packmates under the guise of flexing her hand. Yes. Exactly those.
~The spirits appear to any who arrive from what I have seen. They usually lead one around in circles, before spitting them out, or swallowing them whole. My second excursion in I brought the silver sacrifice. I asked that the Fox that appeared take me to the Water Walker Woman, That I had a gift. He barked a warning, then led me to the Tamarack where a pool of clear water rested at the base. The legends tell of open water being the source – it was the closest I had seen yet. I knelt, and held the silver in my hands. Soon I felt the urge to throw them to the water. I then became two – I was there, but not, I was lost in the vision:
I was walking with my twin brother, behind the Elder woman that I had seen before, the night we were initiated in the church of the whiteman. They were worried for we had not changed yet, but the caged doves in my hands reacted to rage buried deep within. I looked past my brother, but do not know what was seen, it moved too fast. The elder said we must honor both, and our twin hearts, and could I feel them beating? I laughed, gleeful, that I could feel it, and held the cage above the water. My brother jumped, claiming them half his – and we fell. I tried to keep the cage above the water, but we were sucked under. The old man with us explodes in blood, a spear through his eye…
…I am myself again, but still within the world of vision. There is a womans face in the water, that speaks to me without words, as I can with her. She says that I am not her child – that she would remember. I told her we had come to aid, come to honor them and bring sacrifice. She said that I remind her of… and then there was nothing but a memory of a limb severed, a heart torn in half and broken, nothing then a terrible rage that burnt enough that I could feel it, breathe it, and feel the fire in my lungs. She said that no, I was not her child, that she remembered them, and began to fade away. I tried one more time, asking for her children’s names, if we should find them, how we could help – but there was nothing left but a distinct feeling of power I could feel wrapped around me.
Everything faded, and I came back into myself, and the bog around us. The water was bubbling, the heat steaming and then the Silver disks were gone. Thanks were offered to the Raven spirit who had also lead us in, and he was told we would return with further sacrifice. First to the water, then to the fire. He replied that there was no longer any fire, that it was gone, there was no more flame, and then left.
We walked out without incident, and returned here.~
[Ruhiger] (Ahem. delete the last three words. *L* I forgot too.)
[Jakob Schmidt] Seeing the whiteboard, a light comes on over Jakob’s head. He lowers his arms to his sides and pads over to her, bare feet on cool grass, until he’s standing about a foot from Ruhiger. His forehead furrows and his eyes squint slightly as he reads. It takes time, all of it spent silently. Her pen squeaks on the surface, she hands it to him, he reads it, hands it back, she erases it all and starts again. Over and over. It’s not easy to describe a vision, especially when you’re writing fast.
The last time, he sighs as he hands the whiteboard back. The frown is still on his face, but it eases away as he turns to look at Silence again. Perhaps he’s waiting for the next question.
[Silence] But it’s not a question, this time. While the mute and the newcomer trade a whiteboard back and forth — these things take time — Silence looks away into the sunrise, yawning. The mist has begun to lift, revealing a landscape parched by winter, revealing greenery pushing through hardpacked winter earth, revealing the Fenrir kin village already stirring to life, the nordic-blooded peoples of this Caern rising to go about their daily business as the Garou stumble into their beds to sleep. For an hour or three, anyway.
When they finish, he turns back. “We’re goin’ back inta tha Bog soon’as we git back down ta Chicago. Bring more offerin’s, ‘n more questions fer tha spirits. If yer with us, we’re leavin’ tomorrow mornin’ first thing.”
He doesn’t speak of pack. These things take time.
[Jakob Schmidt] There are animals to tend to, and the work of Spring to do. They do not have the luxury of time found in lands further south. Every chore is about surviving or not surviving, and if it is not done now, everyone suffers, and you are responsible for it. In this sept, responsibility of that kind is measured in lashes, or bruises, or –
Worse. There’s always worse. As hard as life is here, there is always worse. As much as you can suffer, as much as you can lose, there is always worse.
Snowsblood looks to Silence, Silence looks to Snowsblood, and Silence speaks. He doesn’t hesitate; he just nods once, and then turns to leave.
[Silence] Snowsblood — someday, maybe, he’ll ask him how he got the name; someday, maybe, he’ll ask him a lot of things — walks away, and Silence watches him go as far as the bottom of the hill. The assembly hall is quiet now, the fire burnt out, a thin gray wisp of smoke drifting from its central chimney to mark the mootfire. The Modi turns to the Modi, thoughtful: “Seen if my old man’s back from tha Revel?”
[Ruhiger] She slides her whiteboard and the pen away into her pockets again, her hand flexing once more to ease the rest of the cramp from the muscles. Silence Yawns. She does not give herself that release, not yet. She is known for being one of the more tireless of the Eagles – or perhaps, the most annoyingly determined to rest only after the others have, taking her turn last, as is proper an omega, a cliath cub, a mule.
Snowsblood turns and walks away after he agrees. The Philodox has fallen asleep nearby and snores. Modi turns to Modi.
There is a nod, slight, before she lifts her chin towards the left. He passed by there. Not long before I began writing my dissertation. A slight smirk, amusement tinging the warm tones of her mental voice.
[Silence] “Hnh,” the sound is next door to a grunt, a sound in his throat. A faint quirk of a smirk — dissertation. He didn’t know what the word meant, quite, but it sounded big, and it sounded like it fit.
Without further comment, nor any visible intent to go find that matchless modi of a father he had, Silence turns to start down the hill, something about the pivot of his body including his packmates, inviting or at least allowing them to follow. “Gonna git some shut-eye,” he says, kicking Evan lightly on the leg as he passes. “Bull’s Rush ‘vited us ta hunt with ’em today. They’s leavin’ at dusk…” the rest of the conversation sifts into indistinctness amidst the clash and clatter of the waking sept.
(and fade to black! thanks for the RP!)
[Jakob Schmidt] (Thank you, indeed. *G*)