[Sorrow] The night is cool and cloudy, the moon covered over by clouds. Across the flat, dark expanse of the lake the horizon line - sky against water - merges into something soft and murky, where fog coalescing from the surface of the lake rises to meet the dark clouds drifting through the sky.
The Graves of the Hallowed Heroes are close to the lake, the concrete tarmac has been pried away here, leaving an ever-expanding field of raw earth. The flats here - flat earth, flat water, flat gray sky at sunset - feel like the great American interior, the expanse of the prairie laid out under the sky, the grasses that were once like an ocean, moving constantly, waving under the warm, bright sun.
Sorrow is seated, cross-legged, on a berm not a half-dozen feet from the graves. In her humanskin, she is lean and tall, with pale skin and pale blonde hair that would be fine and straight and gleaming if she ever wore it down. Instead, it is pulled back from her face, secured at the back of her neck by a single chopstick and two elastic bands. Her boots are darkened with soil, and her fingers are damp, the knees of her worn jeans dark with wet, smeared with soil.
Her dedicated clothing is simple - the jeans, a black t-shirt that says PIXIES in white letters, well fitted to her narrow shoulders, her torso, Doc Martens, and a handful of bracelets - leather and fiber - on either wrist, a narrow braid of a black leather choker around her neck.
A small notebook is open in her lap, the suggestion of some crabbed script scrawled across the pages inside.
[Night's Reprieve] The water is calm, motionless apart from a few oxygen bubbles creeping up in places if you look closely. It's calm, serene and Sorrow seems to be the only person about. Of course that is not the case, below the surface of the lake Night's Reprieve communes, discusses and places something back in its rightful place. Some cub has taken a habit of pulling things up from the depths and leaving them on the shores of the lake, much to the spirits dismay. It's the second time in a week that the Keeper has had to put things back where they should be, like cleaning up toys after a unruly child's play time.
When he emerges the water ripples and suddenly there comes the sound of sloshing and pooling water while he wades himself to the lakes edge. When he steps completely out he's dripping wet, shirtless and breathing deeply. His body is mostly free of scars, something odd for a Fenrir; but he has one, one ghastly death scar. Its pale line crosses up over his left pectoral muscle almost towards his shoulder. At his back can be seen a spiralling tattoo of a spear running from hip to neck where it curves upwards into a frighteningly realistic spear head ending just below his right ear.
He runs a hand back through his hair and then rubs at it to shake out the water. Once that's complete he picks up his shirt from where it was discarded earlier and heads in Kora's direction. He's not surprised to see her waiting by the graves, and when he appears beside her he's got that look that says I've been expecting you..
He wipes his face with his shirt and then takes a seat next to her on the raised piece of land. He's quiet a moment while he catches his breath and then
"Good to see you Sorrow, its been too long."
[Sorrow] There is a certain stillness about her. The evening is nearly windless, and she herself is a - contained thing, with the notebook open in her lap. In places her jeans have been worn to near insubstantiality, though the raveling cuffs are tucked down inside the shanks of her heavy black boots.
Kora glances up as Night's Reprieve emerges from the lake, water streaming down his body. There is something dark and reflective in her eyes as they flash over him, marking the line of his battlescar in a drifting, casual look. When he is close enough for ordinary speech, he greets her and she tips her chin upward. In contrast to her sharp bone structure, her mouth is wide, generous.
She gives him a sweeping look, woven, sidelong, her expressive mouth quirking into a weaving half-smile, like smoke rising against the horizon. " - yuf," the Skald is not a musician, she is a storyteller, and her voice - rich and low - is not precisely musical, but there is a sort of compelling undertone to it. "I've not yet offered you proper congratulations on winning your challenge."
[Night's Reprieve] His head tips at the formal and respectful language chosen by the Skald and he quirks a brow, smiles, but stays silent until she has finished speaking.
"Thank you Jarl, it is a great honor to receive the position. For me and for our Tribe. Though if I may speak plainly, you did not seem so happy about my winning at the time."
[Sorrow] Kora folds her notebook neatly in her lap. It is a composition book, with one of those fabric bindings, cloth covers, in mottled black and white print. The spine bulges, just, with the bulk of a worn down pencil. Night's Reprieve has a brief view of the script inside - which is a crabbed script in the angular shape of Fenrir runes rather than the ordinary latin alphabet - as she shuts the boot.
The corner of her mouth rises, this quirk of an expression that is made warmer by her open features, by the way light sheens across her dark blue eyes. "You're lucky - " still seated, cross-legged, she shifts her stance, planting back on the rough concrete berm, leaning back the way she would if she wanted to watch the sky.
Instead, she watches him, her chin lifted, her head tipped aslant, an echo of an animal gesture. There is a low sound in the back of her throat. It isn't anger. Her rage comes, and goes. She masters it. " - if I were judging that challenge, you would have lost the minute you suggested moving the graves. Of course, if I were the judge, the challenge would have been different. Deeds rather than words. Perhaps that's the difference between the judgment of a Fenrir and the judgment of the Fangs."
[Night's Reprieve] He chortles at the difference between the Fenrir and the Fangs and amusement flashes in his eyes, but its gone almost instantly and he seems slightly confused when he raises his eyebrow and speaks.
"I never suggested moving the graves kora, perhaps you misheard me. I simply stated that their current position is a weakness, I have no intention of moving the graves."
[Sorrow] "Or perhaps, -yuf," she returns, " - you misspoke." The generous curve of her mouth hardens minutely. The shifting ofher expression is a subtle thing, winging, a moment of displeasure that settles back into a sort of stillness centered inside the core of her torso, the root of the body, the solar plexus, or the dip in the root-curve of her spine.
"When you said that the graves should not be so close to the water, I took your evaluation to its next, most natural step. That a weakness that should not be so should soon be corrected." There's a frission of lingering irritation, then, this sort of brackish backlash, that she cannot quite smother away.
"I'm glad to know, that I was wrong."
Kora stands quite abuptly. She is 5'10" tall - which is to say, taller than most women and many men, and not so tall as most of her tribesmates. There is a lean, core strength to her that lives in her long legs and her long arms, and a certain animal grace, even in her softest skin. Her hair is a heavy knot at the nape of her neck, that appears haphazard and swings, perilous, when she begins to move. The soil on her boots is from the graves.
There has been no fault with the graves of the Fenrir. Since Silence left, she has tended them all.
"Do you know them?" The questionis abrupt, not bright, but a brisk sort of change. She nods from the Godi to the graves, a sidelong sweep of her head. "More than the names."
Now she's circling through the graves carefully, heading to the oldest of them, the first torn out of the concrete, the first dug into the ground. A flickering look, a ghost of a smile rather older than her 24 years. She is close to her ancestors, their living spirits, and here, where the gauntlet thins, and the worlds begin to whisper to each other again as they did when they were jointed, they are close to her, too.
[Night's Reprieve] He pushes himself up and moves with her, shirt clutched in his right hand as they saunter through the graves. She thinks he misspoke, she thinks that the fault was his. NR can live with that to some degree, it matters not what thoughts were had in the past about such matters, only what actions are to be taken in the present. And with that in mind he has something to add before he answers her question.
"A weakness should be corrected, and can be without moving the graves. There is danger in the future with the graves as they are, danger of desecration that could come all too easily given the lack of defences close to the lake. But even if, Gaia willing, the Caern remains untouched and free from the evil minds of our enemies, there is still the issue of the lake itself. Nature. I don't know how much you know of me, but I come from New Orleans where water is ever a problem. Ground that is near a waters edge does not always remain so solid.
To stop this a concrete retaining wall can be put in place, and it may have to be done. But we shall see."
They continue their walk, he's taller than her but not by much. She is indeed rather tall for a female. Though where her body is lithe and lean, his is chiselled and built yet without hint of fatty waste. Finally he answers her question.
"I know only what the spirits tell me, I know their names and I know some of their deeds. I wouldn't go so far as to say I know them, but I know of them."
[Sorrow] Kora's eyelashes are long, but they are pale as her hair. She wears no make-up, and her features would be washed out, definitionless were it not for the darkness of her blue eyes. Those linger on him as he joins her in her circuit, past the newest graves, the mounded earth still raw, sinking back into itself. Past the grandest graves, past those sunk into ignominy, the names forgotten except by a handful who come here.
There is a moment of acknowledgment, sure and still enough, this brief dip of her pale head, her eyes fixed on him briefly sideways. Used to giants, she has a way of looking up at him that refuses to acknowledge that she must, that he is taller and broader than she is, or will ever be.
"Lexi Johnson." The Fenrir are not buried. They are burned at sunset, and they smolder until morning. There are no bones in their graves, just ashes mixed with earth.
Here the earth has settled into a still shape. The rents in the concrete alongside, the clawmarks in the tarmac ar still visible. "Mate to Eric Johnson. She was kin, not true-born. When the packs of Chicago gathered to raise the Caern, though - she fought with them. She had a shotgun loaded with silver for her by her mate.
"Most of the Garou were on the other side, mind you. They did not know where they were going; they were following the directions of a Bone Gnawer, a theurge, who was following the urging of a powerful fetish that lead him to Maelstrom, and lead the Garou to reawaken the Caern. Not the birth of a new Caern, but the rebirth of one so long sleeping that not even rumors of its existance remained.
"So the kin were alone, except for a pair of Garou. No links to their packmates, without the comfort of that spiritual connection. Taking all of this - " a glance upward around the bawn. The whole of it. The strange, stirring miracle of it all the stranger for what it is - an eruption of wyld energies - the Maelstrom - and sacrifice, hard against the gleam of the modern city.
"Most of them died along the way. A slow, terrible war of attrition. She lived, though - with her shotgun loaded with silver, she made it to the final battle, Maelstrom's rebirth, the packs were beset on all sides by the forces of the Wyrm. She was the first to die in that fight, but she died fighting."
[Night's Reprieve] He listens while she talks, there's not a whole lot to say. She doesn't ask for his input or require it, she is the Jarl, a skald of note. The Godi does spirits and combat, she does history. It is the way of their tribe.
"As a Fenrir should, it is a good death she found. It is a hard thing for a Caern to be so young again, the wolves here have done well."
[Sorrow] There is a flicker of her dark eyes across his face again. This strange, lilting sort of smile curves her mouth. Then she casts a look up and away, over his head to the cloud-clotted sky, the stars lingering hidden somewhere between the stormclouds, this quilted pattern of darks and shadows, grays and blacks, except when the city's light paints the bellies of the clouds that dull, sick orange by way of reflection.
"Her mate," Kora says, quiet, "The Blood Eagle went mad with grief. Disappeared into the umbra from one winter to the next. Sheared his ties with his pack and his Sept and returned, changed - maybe not broken, but close to it."
"Mina." This is a litany, the names of the dead. The Fenrir graves are marked by slabs of concrete, etched with names, deed and rank where known, " - who is your kin. Who died in the Caern-raising."
- as if she were introducing him. "Drunken Bear. Eyes Like Flint. White Oleander, who died with the Shadow Lord, Handful of Dust.
The circuit continues. She is introducing him -
Eyes of Loki. Lars Fierce Hammer. Ruhiger. Joss Gossamer Wing. Wrath. Kemp Truth-in-Frenzy.
- from beginning to end, to the graves of the Fenrir buried in the Caern. Most were cliath, too young to have made a name outside of the Caern. Their only memories are here, buried under the earth. When it is finished, she steps nearly, carefully back onto the tarmac, her hands in her pockets, her turning to look out over the lake again. That half-smile lingering on her curving mouth, still and rather somber for all that.
[Night's Reprieve] His eyes flicker from grave to grave, carefully reading each one and matching it to the words spoken by the Skald. His lips are set in a firm line, many of his tribe died here. Well before their time. But so is the way of the Garou in this day and age, and especially so for the Get of Fenris. Their lives are hard and tough, from the moment of their first change they are conditioned to battle - to be warriors for Gaia as was intended for them. All of the names are familiar on some level, having see the graves before and read them there. But the stories are mostly new, they do not mean as much to the Godi as the Skald.
His eyes linger on her whilst she sombrely smiles afar.
"You speak as if you knew them all like brothers and sisters."
[Sorrow] "No," she says, glancing back at him. Twilight and the light is gray, shifting. The waters of Lake Michigan are still as glass, and dark except when they glittering with shifting reflections of the city's lights. There are tendrils of mist curling over the surface of the lake, but no true fog has formed, not yet. "I arrived this winter last. I knew only Kemp-rhya, who was Jarl, and my Alpha. He had been here since the Caern was raised, and he knew many of them.
"And Wrath, the lupus. I knew him. He died - needlessly. Maybe foolishly, but he died bravely."
Maybe that's enough.
" - but I've spent the time learning their names and their deeds, because they are buried here. Because I am a Skald. Because Fenrir fought to raise the Caern, and Fenrir have died for it ever since. Because they lived here until they died, they kept the troth they pledged to the totem. And because they deserve to be remembered, as something more than names on a slad. As brothers and sisters."
She turns then, fixes her dark eyes on his face, and reaches out as if to shake his hand. The gesture is different, though - she clasps his forearm, firmly, in this firm, direct gesture of greeting.
"Welcome to Maelstrom, Night's Reprieve. I hope you stay."
---
The other stories will wait for another night. She lingers another five minutes, ten, then excuses herself to go find her pack, or her mate.
The Graves of the Hallowed Heroes are close to the lake, the concrete tarmac has been pried away here, leaving an ever-expanding field of raw earth. The flats here - flat earth, flat water, flat gray sky at sunset - feel like the great American interior, the expanse of the prairie laid out under the sky, the grasses that were once like an ocean, moving constantly, waving under the warm, bright sun.
Sorrow is seated, cross-legged, on a berm not a half-dozen feet from the graves. In her humanskin, she is lean and tall, with pale skin and pale blonde hair that would be fine and straight and gleaming if she ever wore it down. Instead, it is pulled back from her face, secured at the back of her neck by a single chopstick and two elastic bands. Her boots are darkened with soil, and her fingers are damp, the knees of her worn jeans dark with wet, smeared with soil.
Her dedicated clothing is simple - the jeans, a black t-shirt that says PIXIES in white letters, well fitted to her narrow shoulders, her torso, Doc Martens, and a handful of bracelets - leather and fiber - on either wrist, a narrow braid of a black leather choker around her neck.
A small notebook is open in her lap, the suggestion of some crabbed script scrawled across the pages inside.
[Night's Reprieve] The water is calm, motionless apart from a few oxygen bubbles creeping up in places if you look closely. It's calm, serene and Sorrow seems to be the only person about. Of course that is not the case, below the surface of the lake Night's Reprieve communes, discusses and places something back in its rightful place. Some cub has taken a habit of pulling things up from the depths and leaving them on the shores of the lake, much to the spirits dismay. It's the second time in a week that the Keeper has had to put things back where they should be, like cleaning up toys after a unruly child's play time.
When he emerges the water ripples and suddenly there comes the sound of sloshing and pooling water while he wades himself to the lakes edge. When he steps completely out he's dripping wet, shirtless and breathing deeply. His body is mostly free of scars, something odd for a Fenrir; but he has one, one ghastly death scar. Its pale line crosses up over his left pectoral muscle almost towards his shoulder. At his back can be seen a spiralling tattoo of a spear running from hip to neck where it curves upwards into a frighteningly realistic spear head ending just below his right ear.
He runs a hand back through his hair and then rubs at it to shake out the water. Once that's complete he picks up his shirt from where it was discarded earlier and heads in Kora's direction. He's not surprised to see her waiting by the graves, and when he appears beside her he's got that look that says I've been expecting you..
He wipes his face with his shirt and then takes a seat next to her on the raised piece of land. He's quiet a moment while he catches his breath and then
"Good to see you Sorrow, its been too long."
[Sorrow] There is a certain stillness about her. The evening is nearly windless, and she herself is a - contained thing, with the notebook open in her lap. In places her jeans have been worn to near insubstantiality, though the raveling cuffs are tucked down inside the shanks of her heavy black boots.
Kora glances up as Night's Reprieve emerges from the lake, water streaming down his body. There is something dark and reflective in her eyes as they flash over him, marking the line of his battlescar in a drifting, casual look. When he is close enough for ordinary speech, he greets her and she tips her chin upward. In contrast to her sharp bone structure, her mouth is wide, generous.
She gives him a sweeping look, woven, sidelong, her expressive mouth quirking into a weaving half-smile, like smoke rising against the horizon. " - yuf," the Skald is not a musician, she is a storyteller, and her voice - rich and low - is not precisely musical, but there is a sort of compelling undertone to it. "I've not yet offered you proper congratulations on winning your challenge."
[Night's Reprieve] His head tips at the formal and respectful language chosen by the Skald and he quirks a brow, smiles, but stays silent until she has finished speaking.
"Thank you Jarl, it is a great honor to receive the position. For me and for our Tribe. Though if I may speak plainly, you did not seem so happy about my winning at the time."
[Sorrow] Kora folds her notebook neatly in her lap. It is a composition book, with one of those fabric bindings, cloth covers, in mottled black and white print. The spine bulges, just, with the bulk of a worn down pencil. Night's Reprieve has a brief view of the script inside - which is a crabbed script in the angular shape of Fenrir runes rather than the ordinary latin alphabet - as she shuts the boot.
The corner of her mouth rises, this quirk of an expression that is made warmer by her open features, by the way light sheens across her dark blue eyes. "You're lucky - " still seated, cross-legged, she shifts her stance, planting back on the rough concrete berm, leaning back the way she would if she wanted to watch the sky.
Instead, she watches him, her chin lifted, her head tipped aslant, an echo of an animal gesture. There is a low sound in the back of her throat. It isn't anger. Her rage comes, and goes. She masters it. " - if I were judging that challenge, you would have lost the minute you suggested moving the graves. Of course, if I were the judge, the challenge would have been different. Deeds rather than words. Perhaps that's the difference between the judgment of a Fenrir and the judgment of the Fangs."
[Night's Reprieve] He chortles at the difference between the Fenrir and the Fangs and amusement flashes in his eyes, but its gone almost instantly and he seems slightly confused when he raises his eyebrow and speaks.
"I never suggested moving the graves kora, perhaps you misheard me. I simply stated that their current position is a weakness, I have no intention of moving the graves."
[Sorrow] "Or perhaps, -yuf," she returns, " - you misspoke." The generous curve of her mouth hardens minutely. The shifting ofher expression is a subtle thing, winging, a moment of displeasure that settles back into a sort of stillness centered inside the core of her torso, the root of the body, the solar plexus, or the dip in the root-curve of her spine.
"When you said that the graves should not be so close to the water, I took your evaluation to its next, most natural step. That a weakness that should not be so should soon be corrected." There's a frission of lingering irritation, then, this sort of brackish backlash, that she cannot quite smother away.
"I'm glad to know, that I was wrong."
Kora stands quite abuptly. She is 5'10" tall - which is to say, taller than most women and many men, and not so tall as most of her tribesmates. There is a lean, core strength to her that lives in her long legs and her long arms, and a certain animal grace, even in her softest skin. Her hair is a heavy knot at the nape of her neck, that appears haphazard and swings, perilous, when she begins to move. The soil on her boots is from the graves.
There has been no fault with the graves of the Fenrir. Since Silence left, she has tended them all.
"Do you know them?" The questionis abrupt, not bright, but a brisk sort of change. She nods from the Godi to the graves, a sidelong sweep of her head. "More than the names."
Now she's circling through the graves carefully, heading to the oldest of them, the first torn out of the concrete, the first dug into the ground. A flickering look, a ghost of a smile rather older than her 24 years. She is close to her ancestors, their living spirits, and here, where the gauntlet thins, and the worlds begin to whisper to each other again as they did when they were jointed, they are close to her, too.
[Night's Reprieve] He pushes himself up and moves with her, shirt clutched in his right hand as they saunter through the graves. She thinks he misspoke, she thinks that the fault was his. NR can live with that to some degree, it matters not what thoughts were had in the past about such matters, only what actions are to be taken in the present. And with that in mind he has something to add before he answers her question.
"A weakness should be corrected, and can be without moving the graves. There is danger in the future with the graves as they are, danger of desecration that could come all too easily given the lack of defences close to the lake. But even if, Gaia willing, the Caern remains untouched and free from the evil minds of our enemies, there is still the issue of the lake itself. Nature. I don't know how much you know of me, but I come from New Orleans where water is ever a problem. Ground that is near a waters edge does not always remain so solid.
To stop this a concrete retaining wall can be put in place, and it may have to be done. But we shall see."
They continue their walk, he's taller than her but not by much. She is indeed rather tall for a female. Though where her body is lithe and lean, his is chiselled and built yet without hint of fatty waste. Finally he answers her question.
"I know only what the spirits tell me, I know their names and I know some of their deeds. I wouldn't go so far as to say I know them, but I know of them."
[Sorrow] Kora's eyelashes are long, but they are pale as her hair. She wears no make-up, and her features would be washed out, definitionless were it not for the darkness of her blue eyes. Those linger on him as he joins her in her circuit, past the newest graves, the mounded earth still raw, sinking back into itself. Past the grandest graves, past those sunk into ignominy, the names forgotten except by a handful who come here.
There is a moment of acknowledgment, sure and still enough, this brief dip of her pale head, her eyes fixed on him briefly sideways. Used to giants, she has a way of looking up at him that refuses to acknowledge that she must, that he is taller and broader than she is, or will ever be.
"Lexi Johnson." The Fenrir are not buried. They are burned at sunset, and they smolder until morning. There are no bones in their graves, just ashes mixed with earth.
Here the earth has settled into a still shape. The rents in the concrete alongside, the clawmarks in the tarmac ar still visible. "Mate to Eric Johnson. She was kin, not true-born. When the packs of Chicago gathered to raise the Caern, though - she fought with them. She had a shotgun loaded with silver for her by her mate.
"Most of the Garou were on the other side, mind you. They did not know where they were going; they were following the directions of a Bone Gnawer, a theurge, who was following the urging of a powerful fetish that lead him to Maelstrom, and lead the Garou to reawaken the Caern. Not the birth of a new Caern, but the rebirth of one so long sleeping that not even rumors of its existance remained.
"So the kin were alone, except for a pair of Garou. No links to their packmates, without the comfort of that spiritual connection. Taking all of this - " a glance upward around the bawn. The whole of it. The strange, stirring miracle of it all the stranger for what it is - an eruption of wyld energies - the Maelstrom - and sacrifice, hard against the gleam of the modern city.
"Most of them died along the way. A slow, terrible war of attrition. She lived, though - with her shotgun loaded with silver, she made it to the final battle, Maelstrom's rebirth, the packs were beset on all sides by the forces of the Wyrm. She was the first to die in that fight, but she died fighting."
[Night's Reprieve] He listens while she talks, there's not a whole lot to say. She doesn't ask for his input or require it, she is the Jarl, a skald of note. The Godi does spirits and combat, she does history. It is the way of their tribe.
"As a Fenrir should, it is a good death she found. It is a hard thing for a Caern to be so young again, the wolves here have done well."
[Sorrow] There is a flicker of her dark eyes across his face again. This strange, lilting sort of smile curves her mouth. Then she casts a look up and away, over his head to the cloud-clotted sky, the stars lingering hidden somewhere between the stormclouds, this quilted pattern of darks and shadows, grays and blacks, except when the city's light paints the bellies of the clouds that dull, sick orange by way of reflection.
"Her mate," Kora says, quiet, "The Blood Eagle went mad with grief. Disappeared into the umbra from one winter to the next. Sheared his ties with his pack and his Sept and returned, changed - maybe not broken, but close to it."
"Mina." This is a litany, the names of the dead. The Fenrir graves are marked by slabs of concrete, etched with names, deed and rank where known, " - who is your kin. Who died in the Caern-raising."
- as if she were introducing him. "Drunken Bear. Eyes Like Flint. White Oleander, who died with the Shadow Lord, Handful of Dust.
The circuit continues. She is introducing him -
Eyes of Loki. Lars Fierce Hammer. Ruhiger. Joss Gossamer Wing. Wrath. Kemp Truth-in-Frenzy.
- from beginning to end, to the graves of the Fenrir buried in the Caern. Most were cliath, too young to have made a name outside of the Caern. Their only memories are here, buried under the earth. When it is finished, she steps nearly, carefully back onto the tarmac, her hands in her pockets, her turning to look out over the lake again. That half-smile lingering on her curving mouth, still and rather somber for all that.
[Night's Reprieve] His eyes flicker from grave to grave, carefully reading each one and matching it to the words spoken by the Skald. His lips are set in a firm line, many of his tribe died here. Well before their time. But so is the way of the Garou in this day and age, and especially so for the Get of Fenris. Their lives are hard and tough, from the moment of their first change they are conditioned to battle - to be warriors for Gaia as was intended for them. All of the names are familiar on some level, having see the graves before and read them there. But the stories are mostly new, they do not mean as much to the Godi as the Skald.
His eyes linger on her whilst she sombrely smiles afar.
"You speak as if you knew them all like brothers and sisters."
[Sorrow] "No," she says, glancing back at him. Twilight and the light is gray, shifting. The waters of Lake Michigan are still as glass, and dark except when they glittering with shifting reflections of the city's lights. There are tendrils of mist curling over the surface of the lake, but no true fog has formed, not yet. "I arrived this winter last. I knew only Kemp-rhya, who was Jarl, and my Alpha. He had been here since the Caern was raised, and he knew many of them.
"And Wrath, the lupus. I knew him. He died - needlessly. Maybe foolishly, but he died bravely."
Maybe that's enough.
" - but I've spent the time learning their names and their deeds, because they are buried here. Because I am a Skald. Because Fenrir fought to raise the Caern, and Fenrir have died for it ever since. Because they lived here until they died, they kept the troth they pledged to the totem. And because they deserve to be remembered, as something more than names on a slad. As brothers and sisters."
She turns then, fixes her dark eyes on his face, and reaches out as if to shake his hand. The gesture is different, though - she clasps his forearm, firmly, in this firm, direct gesture of greeting.
"Welcome to Maelstrom, Night's Reprieve. I hope you stay."
---
The other stories will wait for another night. She lingers another five minutes, ten, then excuses herself to go find her pack, or her mate.
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