Ornature

[OHMIGOD there are mages in my transcript!]

[Thomas Taylor] Sometimes you meet people in the most unexpected of situations, take this for example.

Kage is driving (and well of course, pox on the person that says otherwise) down in Bronzeville, she is cutting close to the 'badlands' but she has done this route a dozen times before no problem. It was icy, the world has succumbed into the winter and this year it has truly gripped everyone.

Her screen is iced up, she is no doubt ducked by the steering wheel eyes half closed brow furrowed as she fight s the salty ice that has put dirt and filth on that van, making it almost as bad as driving with ice on the screen. Her washes are all iced up, frozen, she was driving by the seat of her pants, nothing can go wrong right. The street lights had gone long ago and due to a blocked road she had to go deeper than usually, the doors were locked not problems right. These streets seemed darker, the shadows seemed to move, homeless, hookers, pimps...Alice had certainly started to fall down the hole. She needed to get out, she sees a left up ahead and makes a sharp turn, this will get her back on track.

Suddenly in her head lights she see's two people, no wait... one picking up another one, a head spins and looks towards the van coming towards him...

Thomas has a chance to say one word, and only one word as he tries to pick up the store mannequin he dropped on the floor, the clothes spread everywhere as he struggles to grip, he takes a drag on his cigarette it barely gets chance to blown out as he says it.

"Bugger..."

[Kage Jakes] There are a lot of Mages in Chicago who have seen the interior of Kage Jakes's big black devil-dark truck (not always, but sometimes, known as 'of doom'). There are a lot of Mages in Chicago who have had the (mis?)fortune of Kage as a driver, on one of her particularly dashing days. Kage doesn't look as if she has dashing days, really, for all there's a certain compressed (understated) style to so much of what she (is) does, but indeed, she is quite a dashing, reckless, rakehell of a driver, capable of taking turns on a dime, or at least attempting to essay such pinpoint turns, and never mind what ice'll do to your tires, and never mind what weather'll do to your odds, because when the odds are longer ...

The point is: Kage isn't known for driving carefully, per se. And she's not driving carefully now, and when Thomas and his doll-dummy bride is suddenly illumined by the wash of her headbeams, is suddenly turned into a film noir exercise of Shadow and Light, of color blanched away, bleached into nothing -

Why, she has a moment to tell the devil truck not to hit Thomas, and it listens, although just barely. Maybe it rolls over a scarf from the mannequin, something fallen, a scrap of paper -- maybe it just rolls over a poster so sodden and beat-down by rain and murder that it's the color of coffee and garbage. The truck stops, then goes into reverse, the window rolled down, and -

"Why, Thomas the Tom Cattiest Thomas Who Ever Thomased Around. Have you been watching A Mom for Christmas again? Or is this more of a classical Pygmalion thing?"

[Thomas Taylor] His eyes half closes in the light, he does not try and move like he knew he would not die this day...

The vehicle stops a dime from his face, as that same face comes slowly into view. Thomas looked rough as fuck. Dark black rings around his eyes, his skin almost blue in the cold. Wearing a long tan coat an eyebrow raises at Kage when he hears her voice. (It had been a while, and he smirks for a moment on a dream he had). He picks the mannequin from the floor and has to tug as indeed Kage's black van has managed to park on his scarf as the head pops off. He grumbles numerous curses under her breath as he gets on the floor, gets under Kages car and gets the head back.

He stands, a head in one hand, the body of the male mannequin in the other, he has a beanie hat on but that looks like it is barely keeping away and the cold and sadly cannot. He is what he consumes, Thomas takes on aspects of that he takes it, the Thomas you meet during the day is different from the one at night, different in summer as he is in winter. In some ways this is the true for mages, already his senses have wandered over her, and started to consume her withering (He was use to that after all) the amorous was like a fine wine, from the few times he met her he enjoyed the sensation but was always left very unsatisfied and horny.

Two traits he cannot do with tonight.

"Evenin' Grimm" cud you by any how turn off yer headlights don't need ever cunt seein' this." He moves past the vans headlight so he is not at least in view again, his face is plunged back into darkness. Only a stubbed chin can be seen by her as even that gets obscured slightly as he pulls up his high collar.

He liked Kage, Thomas could not tell you why as he had met her three times that's it, but already he was fond of her. (He of course blames it on the weakness for red heads).He sniffs the air and breathes a sigh of relief to himself, is thankful really.

No fear.

"You sudn't be down 'ere pet, tis were the wild things are." His face consumes the darkness making it hard for Kage to get a beat on him

[Kage Jakes] A lot of people liked Kage. A lot of people trusted her, in spite of her lack of allegiance, her refusal to play the game. Maybe because of it. Who knows? The point is: a lot of people liked Kage, it seemed. Not everybody, but a lot. Thomas is in company, and we'll leave up to the Judges in the afterlife to determine whether that company's good or not [why weigh the heart against a feather, when here's this ledger of every sin you've ever had?]. And a lot of people liked Thomas, as well. The hollow plague had something. Charm, maybe. Drive, boldness, a winning sort of daredeviltry, something. Kage seems to like Thomas as well as she likes anyone, which isn't something she writes in big letters and pins to her sleeve, isn't something she transforms into a Big Damned Symbol, the better for everyone to know where they stand on the day Big Damn Heroes need to step up (and call themselves Heroes, 'lest they think themselves Villains). Or something.

The point is. Kage likes Thomas, or seems to. Thomas likes Kage, fond. Kage isn't too sure about the mannequin, decapitated, its head lolling between her wheels. The headlights are killed, and the street's plunged into darkness again. It's a preternatural darkness, this -- tonight's a total lunar eclipse, after all, and this is a street (this is a place) where there's a lot of darkness come summertime and day, come noon riding high in the sky. This is a street where the streetlights are out, or they flicker, and maybe there's a rope of half-broken Christmas lights blinking off to the side, but that's hardly something to be proud of.

Sad glories.

"Wish is my command, babe. And I'm just following a fancy," she adds, and maybe he feels it, the faintest kiss of old [not stale-] workings on her hands, on her skin, something burning like a fever, working its way out, something that's fickle and fortune and fate, something that's a whole hellova lot of subtle anda whole hellova lot of we're alive and we change the universe by being alive even when we're hiding, and so. "Think the wild things should rather worry about my taming influence, all told."

"So, ah. You two need a ride?"

[Thomas Taylor] He looks to the head, then the body then to Kage like he was weighing up if she could come where he was going. He nods as he throws the head in the back, the body as well as he walks around the front of the van and goes to open the door, stopping as the heat she had inside gets consumed by him. He grits his teeth a moment as if it hurt him to take in that warmth. But he gets in brushing some snow and ice form him before he does as he takes the door and shuts it, putting out the van light as he does.

There's a moment of silence as he just starts laughing as if this was one big wind up, it is a belly laugh and he just shakes his head as it starts to dispute and they are left in Cage's van, in the middle of street forgotten about the season. It is left in darkness, no more than that like there was an absence of light...

Thomas had consumed it. He sniffs the air again and puts a hand on her shoulder as if he could feel those old workings. Thomas hands are freezing, he might as well be the cold, the frozen the dark and wet.

He takes his hand from her and a grin comes across his face, they were so rare these days, Kage would never know how privileged she was to get one just from her presence. "I got sum bad news, we ain't goin' out, were just gettin' in, am on the job so to speak, yer not a potty mouth are ya Grimm, you'll do me solid if I tells ya." He tilts his head to her, his stubble was nearly a full beard, those blue eyes looked darker, his skin paler but he suited both the hollowness it gave and the rough edges he could pulls off. Eyes that look like ice (He had consumed it after all) regard her as he adds like it was an afterthought.

"Nice to see's ya, thats Brian by the way!" He thumbs through the small window at the back to the actual cargo of the van "He is a touch of a ladies man, but I reckon you got it in the bag, he lost 'is noggin' over you."

[Kage Jakes] They're sitting in the dark now.

And Thomas is a lot (more than usual) like a black hole. That point in the sky where the stars disappear, no longer glitter. That point where the cold gathers, where something waits that devours. Say there are was a legend, say there was a story; it'd be about the man who ate his own shadow, who consumed his own heart, who consumed the hearts've others, who ate their shadows, laughed as he licked the shadowblood from his fingers, and whereever he went the warmth wicked out like a flame blown into memory, guttered, dampened. Kage eyes Thomas, her arms folded over the steering wheel, delicate wrists folded, slouching with characteristic ease, as if posture was just a joke told by way, way too many people, and ain't this just okay? When he laughs, the corner of her mouth ghosts into a smirk, a natural response to Thomas's particular brand of irascible charm. Let's be honest. She's also watchful, is Kage, marking the ascension of that part of his Will over the other, the whither will you wander, darling?

But she half-flinches when the cold from his hand seeps through her shirt. Kage is warm [burning], and she hisses air through her teeth. "Jesus, man," she says, "You've got the devil's heart all over your skin," which is Kage's way of saying, Shit, son, you're cold. "That, or you were making time with the Snow Queen," and she turns the key in the truck's ignition, wakes it on up again, and the heat gutters to life, a wash of stale warmth (manufactured [different]).

Then she chuckles, amused, and the smirk fades into a smile. The sound's half-smoke, half-moonlight - easy, streamwater sort've thing. "That's how it usually goes," she says, wisely, glancing at the back of her truck in her rearview mirror, then briefly over her shoulder. The street sure is dark. And Thomas doesn't see Him, balancing on the edge of the truck's bed, crouched like something that never was human, His chin resting on His thumb and forefinger, the stars in His eyes, the stars in His hair, the burning crown that disappears (flakes, cinders) when He turns his head to give her an animal look, then a smirk. Avatar, divinity. "But between you and I, it's probably the truck that's clean made him lose his head. The truck's a ladykiller, a slayer of hearts." A sigh, a touch wistful, "That's really how it usually goes."

Beat, then, with a brief smile - and a pensive glance: "And, well. I'll do you a solid if I want to, but I certainly won't rat you out to the rats. Not even the cats, see? So wherefore and where to? Meter's not on."

The truck purrs, jumps forward. The head beams are still out, but only for now.

[Thomas Taylor] Thomas was worse than a black hole, he had the ability to wander, he looks to his hand when Kage speaks like that feels the warmth against his palm and once more longs for the cold. "Gets that way pet, I 'am wat I consume, I take it in and it becomes a part of me, besides been out all soddin' day tryin' to sort this out."

Kage...she was all sparkly lights, all hidden meanings and word play (Even more than his cockney), she was also sexy, or gave off a sex vibe; the older wiser would call it amorous but to Thomas (Aged 20 and 3/4) it was sex. She was also part Morgan and Ashley rolled into one and yet also completely different again. She drained away at his cold, not as fast as he could consume, the black hole never stops is never full can never be filled but still he felt it. He was not in tune with her as much as Ashley, how pure hunger and pure consumption came together and became one force, but she had parts of it, like cogs in a clock. Thomas had a theory that if all the awakened were brought together, well there would be a big party and it would all come together and everyone would be at peace.

And then of course the end of days would happen...

He looks at the back when she does as if trying to capture what she saw, but he there is only ice and darkness for him. "Can't blame 'im pet yer quite the catch, now before we get this rollin', am gonna take a gamble an say Ash 'as already been up at ya 'bout the Smiths?"

[Kage Jakes] "The hell've you been consuming?" Kage says, and it's easy to pass off as a rhetorical question. Easy, she says it. Not careful, not boisterous, not blustery; Kage had poise. All part of the banter. And, of course, it isn't a rhetorical question. He's not technically an Orphan, Thomas Taylor. He's a Hollow One, and that's different (somehow [a little bit]). This doesn't mean she isn't curious about how he performs his magic tricks, what sort've tricks he drags out've his sleeves. "'Tis the season, I suppose," and that, well - that was rhetorical. That was a softened commentary on the Christmas season, the philosophy of buy, buy, buy, $, $, $.

There has to be some question: whether or not the movie, The Matrix, was a victory for espousing the Virtual Adept paradigm (ascend out've meatspace [there is a better world]) or the Technocratic Paradigm (we're providing you with the better world, the 'real' world when you wake up is a mess, is pain and suffering, a thorn, and you're going to die anyway, and we're very nearly omnipotent, capable of doing anything, especially if you're already awake). There's no question that certain slang, with roots in that movie (maybe [or maybe in old spy novels]), is the easiest slang of all.

"As far as gambles go, that's rather conservative, Tom Cat," Kage says, by which she (probably) means yeah, I've heard a thing or two. Her arms are still folded over the steering wheel, and even though it's very dark, and darkness makes it difficult to read Thomas, she's looking at him, head tilted.

[Thomas Taylor] He is hard to read, if you wear everything on your sleeve then others can shake it loose. It is true Thomas has seen brighter days, it can all be traced back to one instance, when he became a man without fear. All hallows eve. He snorts, Ashley only asked him not to tell Morgan, by all rights Kage was fair game.

"If you show me yer tits I'll tell it all to yas,!" She can tell his eyebrows are waggling "But the basics is, Ashley wants me to make up Urban Legends, we know the power in 'im, an I need Brian back there to do a very modern Star Wars, found this lovely spot, but foundation pillars, gonna turn part of one to jelly or clay, push this guy in, turn it back with his features out and tell folks 'bout the one that never made it to the fishes." He grins. "Criminals are a superstitious lot, give them sum visual proof which they will 'after check out on their todd, and they can do the rest. The man the mob killed too late, they cud never make it to the water, they instead threw 'im in a concrete 'hole, little did they know it was for sum foundations, and guess 'ho paints a pretty picture."

He sighs "If I was better at crafts I'd just sculpt the damn thing but am shit, so hence I need Brian." He thumbs the back, face still in darkness. "So thats wat I need to do, where I need to do it is the middle of sum gang turf, Mob an Chargers, tis Christmas though the Mob is sentimental, likes to call it off lemon to spend with the women an kids so we sud be robin." He smirks, hidden as he is in the shadows and darkness.

"No rest for the wicked pet, an this is just one of the bloody dozen 'ave set in motion." And he is proud of his work. Thomas was a criminal, he never hid it, never denied it but yet when people discovered it they always seem shocked, even though he would tell them before they saw any of this world. He was a rogue, a shadow, he lived the night.

[Wyrmbreaker] Kate's cell phone rings.

[Katherine Bellamonte] Sinclair wasn't the type of Garou one typically ignored.

She wasn't the sort of woman that men were polite to, either. They didn't open doors for her like that, and they sure as hell didn't stare at her figure as she walked past them. They were usually already backing off, eyes elsewhere. Not today, though. Today she's just a pretty blond coming in the Cafe to meet her friend who is also just another pretty face.

It's absurd.
It's unsettling.
I know.

The Silver Fang's expression reads; her eyes drop.

Katherine's cellphone is barking; and Lukas Wyrmbreaker's face appears on the screen; captured mid sentence at some point in their acquaintance. It was not, it should be noted, the most flattering image of Lukas. She picks it up to answer, as a strongly bred Kinswoman is setting foot inside.

The Half Moon's eyes narrow for a moment in speculation, and this is in her voice as she greets her Alpha: "Lukas."

[Wyrmbreaker] "Jesus Christ, I thought you were dead." He doesn't even wait for the Lukas; he just starts talking. "Is Sinclair with you? Have you seen Asha?"

[Adamidas] What do theurges do when they can't play in the umbra?

Well, it's not necessarily play, but Alethea Adamidas has spent the better part of today trying to figure out precisely how she was going to do her job when she can't very well cross the gauntlet. More importantly, she's spent the better part of her day trying to figure out why she can't do this. Because the why was what was important to her. The why would have been easier to find if she would have been able to talk to the spirits but, as it stood, if Alethea was going to chat her head off to the trash spirits or the clouds or the starlight, she'd only be hearing her own voice in reply.

So, instead, she was doing footwork.

Which, sadly, involved her getting food. As that she's under the age of eighteen, Adam seems to think that a meal can involve coffee and rice crispie treats. So, this is where the Theurge elder enters, from stage right. Under her arm, there's a bundle of newspapers. Three to be exact. Various publications. A messenger bag full of random crap and a backpack full of books-on-loan.

[Sinclair] The last man who looked at Sinclair like that for more than the half-second it took his survival instincts to kick in -- and, in kicking, give him a testicle-shriveling roundhouse to the head -- was not only Kinfolk, he was a particularly strongwilled, adamant sort of Kinfolk. No mortal man in his right mind, no human, does what the guy who just left did. Sometimes bikers, tattoo artists, people a few steps outside what's considered normal or sane or even slanted towards one's own survival -- sometimes they look at her.

Nobody holds doors open for her. And Kate knows it. Kate knows it because she deals with the same thing. She knows because even Kinfolk who look at Sinclair like that -- like she's a girl -- are few and far between. Sinclair isn't just a wolf, Sinclair's a predator. She moves like one, even now. She feels like one

but not today.

Her movements are athletic, graceful in their way, but stiff as she walks over to Kate's table and sits down in the chair facing her sister. Sinclair hasn't blinked those wide eyes of hers. Her jeans are skin-tight, tucked into a pair of black boots. Her style has been changing ever since she moved to Chicago, ever since she joined the Unbroken, but it's no shock that those black boots have a couple of hard-looking buckles, are not adorned with little puffballs of fur or gleaming as though freshly polished. Her coat is not Army surplus but leather, over a white hoodie covered in sketched-out feathers stroked with flashes of color.

She doesn't take off any of her jackets as Kate's phone rings. Lukas sounds so intense on the other end she can actually make out the sound of his voice, if not his words. Sinclair just puts her hands in her lap, curled into tight fists.

[Katherine Bellamonte] Katherine blinks; an action of surprise that he cannot hear over the phone, her clear eyes find Sinclair, her brows drawing together in a clear expression of unease. "Sinclair is right here, she's fine." Which is an over-statement, but right now it did not matter so much.

Lukas was too panicked. "Why would you think that? I can still communicate with Sinclair." A beat.

"But now that I think about it, you've been silent all day." The Theurge enters the Cafe; and Katherine's eyes flick to her, and remain. She lifts her chin in greeting, and waves her over. "I have no heard or seen Asha. We're at the Cafe on the corner." She rattles off an address.

[Sinclair] Sinclair just mouths it, not realizing that Lukas -- who she can still feel, still sense tied to her even if he can't feel her there with him, too -- wouldn't hear her anyway if she spoke across their pack bond. I am NOT, she insists, concerning whether or not she's 'fine'. Alive, yes. Fine, no.

Her eyes follow Kate's away from the table. She sees Adamidas, sees Bridget, and gets to her feet, going over to the Black Fury first. "Come to our table," she tells the other Fostern, then goes over to Bridget. "You come sit with us, too," she goes on, and nods her head over towards Kate. "C'mon."

[Bridget Geroux] A steaming mug of coffee retrieved is indeed a goal to be grateful for on a day like this. The Canadian leaves some cash and abandons the counter with her mug, taking it to some corner where she might be able to read and rest her heels.

Bridget's eyes flick over the cafe in idle passing. She spots a familiar blonde beside another who may or may not be familiar. In any case, Sinclair made her feel so damn helpless and uneasy the last time they met that Bridget knows to leave her alone unless she's deliberately flagged down.

It's simply not her business, whatever the Glass Walker is up to. But in the blink of an eye, Sinclair tells an unidentified young woman and Bridget herself to join the table. So she must. The Stag kin picks up her feet and shuffles over to the table with her mug in tow.

Something is different, however... Something is very off. She can feel something missing. Bridget is a daring sort, but she still has keener instincts than some kinfolk.

Without a beat, she raises her eyebrows and asks, "What's wrong?"

[Adamidas] A fair chunk of garou never finish high school. Some of them don't even get to boast a middle school education. This does not mean, however, that they are incapable of doing mundane, claw-your-eyes-out research. The kind college students are prone to devolving into. Adam doesn't put her bag down just yet, as that Sinclair came over. She looks at Sinclair, and blinks. For a second, she doesn't recognize the Galliard.

She does, though, and nods. Things stay over her shoulder, and she toddles over to the table.

The backpack goes down hard, and falls like a ton of bricks. Makes the same sound, too. The messenger bag receives more care. "You guys okay?"

[Sinclair] "Don't know yet, but it's a lot of us and since we don't know, you're better off staying close just in case," Sinclair says, and she's rather brusque about it. She seems two steps from hauling Bridget over by the arm, Fianna or not, and shifts her weight from one foot to the other as though this will stop her from dragging the woman.

Thankfully, she doesn't have to. Bridget takes her coffee and goes. Sinclair isn't making her feel like her skin is crawling off of her bones. Sinclair doesn't feel like anything but ...well, from the look of her, she might be a grad student who thinks she's ever-so-alt. She might be a dropout who is using daddy's credit card to pay a lot of money to look just a few steps above trash. But she doesn't feel like a Galliard on a full moon. She doesn't feel like a predator who is as likely to tear Bridget's throat out as look at her.

"Nope," she tells Adamidas, on the way over. She doesn't comment on the blink, the look of vague surprise or the lack of recognition. When most of the people who know Sinclair can barely see past the feeling she gives off, that viciousness, it's no shock that when it's gone, they hardly know what to do with the young woman left behind.

She grabs two extra chairs, one for each of the two new women, and looks back to Kate, as though waiting to hear more from what's going on with Lukas.

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen trembled at the encroaching full moon. She'd seen on the news that it would be a lunar eclipse, one during the full moon, and that it happened to align with the winter solstice. Now she didn't know the significance of solstices to the Garou culture just yet, but she did know that things tied very heavily to the moon, she felt that one for herself well enough to understand it. Her Rage wasn't near what an Ahroun's was, but it was still relatively new, while she'd grown accustomed to its presence she hadn't learned to ignore it very well at all. It burned and seethed in her chest, but she was used to it, ever aware but no longer uncomfortable. When the moon was full she knew it would be at its hottest, and that she would need to go out and roam and break things with her fists and scream and release, but she had absolutely no idea what an eclipse would do to her.

It scared her a little, truth be told, even if it would never be told aloud.

When the day came and she woke feeling normal, as though the past several months were nothing but a dream, she almost didn't realize it until after she snapped out of her mid-morning haze and realized that she was sitting pleasantly at the counter with her older brother, home for the holidays, chatting about the latest album of some obscure band that had come out lately and talking about how she'd gotten her diploma early, but due to the short notice of deciding to wrap up her high school career it wouldn't be delivered for another couple of weeks. When she realized how mundane the conversation was didn't irritate her, that nothing did to that point, she was confused.

She spent the day with her family, and all was normal. She wound up at a Christmas party with them in a ritzier part of town, family friends with enough money to invest largely in her father's Harley business, she stepped out onto the back deck and stared at the moon full in the face and felt.... nothing.

That was concerning. She glanced left, glanced right, and explored the concept. Her eyes found her reflection and the world behind it in the sliding glass door and she pressed to see if she could feel the world on the other side, hoping she could spring back before the thick, impossible cords that separated the two realities snatched her up and dragged her in. Nothing. She stepped down off the deck and into the back yard, along to the side of the house in the shadows and the snow, and she attempted to shift.

Not a goddamn thing.

Admittedly she should have handled herself better. She should have just let it go and taken a breath and ridden the night out. Rather, though, she panicked. This could very easily be the End of the World that she was always being told about, and she had a responsibility to be there when it happened. So she went back into the house, mentioned to her brother to tell her parents that she was feeling sick and catching a bus home and waving off his offer to drive her back, grabbed her coat and booked it. Literally, with her canvas jacket on and beanie on her head to keep her ears warm, she ran up the street. Ran and ran and ran, hoping that this relentless beating of feet into pavement would bring back the sensation of paws into earth.

Sure enough, it didn't, and by the time she needed to stop to catch her breath she was out of the residentials and in the easing of small, comfortable businesses that bridged the gap between nice city homes and the skyscrapers. She huffed and puffed for air, breath forming clouds in front of her face, and rested with her shoulder against the glass of the cafe that the Garou seemed to be subconsciously drawn to each other in. She gulped her breath, looked desperately at the moon again, then over her shoulder into the light of the cafe.

Adamidas and Her Highness. An honest thought, bald and earnest and relieved that she'd found someone she recognized. Her lungs burned with the frozen air having been breathed so heavily while she ran, but she ignored that and pushed open the door into the rapidly crowding cafe-- one that, oddly enough, people didn't rush out of from the sensation of being strangled by the invisible hands of many hungry murdering defiling beasts.

[Wyrmbreaker] Panicked isn't quite the word for it, but drawn, tense, taut as a bowstring -- these would all be valid. Kate doesn't get half her protest out before Lukas cuts in, "Because I woke up and you were all gone."

He doesn't mean from his presence. They don't sleep all in a pile, wolflike; they sleep in their own separate homes and dens, and one of them, at least, splits his time between three dens. Lukas slept alone last night (this morning). He woke in the darkness, in the unutterable silence of his own, singular presence, which is something he hasn't felt for...

years. Longer than he can easily remember.

"Christ," he says again; Kate can almost imagine him putting thumb and forefinger to brow, closing eyes, frowning hard. It's somewhere between relief and tension. "Okay. Stay put. I'll be there in ten."

Click.

[Katherine Bellamonte] They are appearing now.

Drawn out by the sense of isolation, of, in a strange sense, abandonment. They cannot in some cases hear one another, they none of them can tap into their ancestrally passed Rage, their sense of unity with the umbra is, quite simply, gone. Some feel it worse than others; they are suddenly human. Totally and absolute with only the hint of what they truly are left in their blood; in their very eyes and faces and family ties.

Katherine can still sense her brother and sisters, she can still reach out and feel the shape and form of Sinclair's presence, though it is a strangely empty sense to do so. It was as if whatever red hot substance comprised how Warcry had always been to the Silver Fang's totem-bound sense of her was stripped.

Just taken.

She hangs up from Lukas, and looks around at the growing number gathering at the table. To the humans in here, they are just an odd assortment of people; no better or worse than they are. "He's on his way." She comments first, her voice subdued. "He could not sense us, he believed us gone." Dead, her eyes say it for her, even as they shift to glimpse the Cub dashing toward the Cafe.

Honor's Compass waves her over; and takes a moment to address the Theurge Elder in a low voice: "Have you any idea what might be causing this?"

[Milo] It's been an odd day, but then what day hasn't been for Milo Sweeney? Each mile that takes him further from the west coast leaves him feeling more and more detached, more out of touch with the world. For one thing, the scenery outside the greyhound bus' windows kept changing, and it seemed to be carrying him further and further into an arctic wasteland. Today has been different, though. Worse.

At a stop in Walcott Junction, he got out to find himself a hat and gloves. Though his rage is nearly insignificant compared to other Garou, it's usually still enough to cut a path through a crowd. Today? Not so much. He had to push through a bustle of holiday shoppers, the same as any other human. He couldn't waste any time looking for something nice, or something that suited his taste. As it was, with the crowd fighting against his progress, he barely made it back to the bus in time for it to take off for its next destination. When he got on the bus back in Portland, no one wanted to sit anywhere near him. At the stop in Davenport, Milo suddenly found himself with a travel buddy at last. He'd looked up at the stranger with wide, clear eyes, and three hours later immediately left the bus at its next stop.

Chicago. Strange city. Cold. Utterly foreign. It doesn't matter. Maybe here Milo can find someone who can explain what's happened, why people aren't so afraid of him, or why Gaia feels suddenly so distant. First, though, a cup of something hot to warm him in the absence of the light thrum of Rage in his chest.

And so the Child of Gaia makes his illustrious entrance into the Chicago scene. One might say it was fate that finds him here, literally stumbling over a knot of Garou. It could just as easily be coincidence. He looks absolutely smashing in a long wool coat, a dark blue hoodie beneath that, jeans, a striped knit cap in shades of light green, yellow, red and teal. It makes him stand out, even as he blends in with the humans, as he takes his place in the line.

Ordinarily, the breeding of the Silver Fang and the Fianna would nearly bowl him over, overwhelming his senses and drawing him closer. Today, it's a flicker, a faint tingling, barely enough to catch his attention. It does, though, and he turns his head to look at the table before stepping forward to take the next place in the line leading up to the counter.

[Booker Abbot] Booker is cold. Usually he walks around without much care for the weather, finding himself able to stay warm regardless. Oh a coat is required upon extra chilly days, but today he is freezing. His knee length overcoat is wrapped tightly around him, a scarf protruding from the collar area and his hands are sheathed in woollen gloves. Fingers and all this time. Eve would be proud.

He might be proud too if it weren't for the fact that he walks just like a human today.

Waking up feeling tired isn't the best way to start the day, but it only got worse and by the time work started he was noticing quite a few oddities. They weren't scared of him, and they damn well should be scared of him. The dealers were hesitant to hand over product and money, they were unwilling to part from their merchandise even when threatened with the business end of a twelve gauge.

This doesn't happen to Booker. Cocaine falls from upper storey windows in plastic re-up bags before he even enters a stash house sometimes.

But today? He hears them slingin' them yellow tops, them WMD's and they don't even flinch when they see him coming. Today he takes the day off. And where does a rip 'n' runner go on his day off? Why Lakeview of course, a fancy Cafe. He has enough money to have his own place like this if he wanted to, surely he can afford the coffee here.

So in he strolls, an unfamiliar face without the blood or the rage to mark him as one of theirs, and without the perception to pick up on anyone else's either. Though he isn't aware of it. They are all new faces to him, just a bunch of mortals sippin' down hot drinks.

[Adamidas] She pulls open a newspaper, then another. They're folded in half, and stacked in suck a way that she can look at two of them at once. Her hand idly goes to her messenger bag. The Fury paws around while keeping her eyes on the papers. Eventually, she grabs a yellow highlighter. Adam looks through the pages, and her eyes narrow.

"Mn," is all she says. Grunts. Her eyes focus off the paper and go to the door. Gwen. She takes her third newspaper and shakes it at Gwen, "hey, come help me read stuff."

A beat, and she looks at the people (people, because right now they were people. Because, right now, they were no different than Bridget or the barrista working here today). She knew it was a full moon today, or should have been, at least. She knew what day it is. She knows when the equinox is, when the solstice falls, the phases and position of the moon-

Her attention goes to Kate, and her voice is even. "That's what I'm trying to figure out," she says over the newspaper, "there has to be some information here. It can't be just the solstice, because if it were there would be no reason for this to not occur every winter. Though, admittedly, I think that the solstice has something to do with it. Winter is when the earth rests. So, I'm looking for something that would give us some indication that this solstice is different. Or some occurrence that would make the spirits withhold Luna's blessings, right? Maybe there's historical significance. I don't think this is the first time this has happened, but it's definitely beyond my lifetime, that's for sure."

[Gwen Sullivan] She was waved over by the two faces she recognized. Eyes hopped to Bridget and Sinclair as well, others were people that she didn't know, didn't realize she was supposed to know. Sinclair because she was at the table, Bridget because she was at the table and a strong impulse, stronger and more spiritual than anything else she'd experienced all day today, hit her in the nostrils and sinuses in the way malt vinegar right under your nose does. Revelry and clove. She stared at Bridget a little harder than the others, then finished her approach, flat-soled black boots scuffing and squeaking wetly on the tile floor as she joined the group at the table.

She came in on the butt end of Adamidas's reading and thinking aloud and grasped briefly at the hem of her coat, almost like a child, squeezing as though it would reassure herself before wrapping her arms around her own torso and frowning faintly.

Her cheeks and nose were flushed red from cold and exertion, she was still recovering her breath, and when she spoke her voice rasped a little more than the typical half-sultry sandpaper tone it maintained, throat and lungs both sore from running in such frigid airs.

"Eclipse," she said simply, followed up by an incredibly youthful statement. "I don't like it at all."

[Asha Singh] There are coincidences in the world, and there are confluences - places where the lines of energy dip and pool like snowmelt running down from the mountains, like runoff through a dry wash after the passing flash of a thunderstorm, like Jupiter aligned with Mars, whatever hippies might sing about. Confluence, not coincidence - Katherine and Sinclair are sitting around their table in a coffee shop and people look at them like women, not like wolves, like ordinary creatures - lovely, sure, but safe, more prey than predator, and outside the windows, painted against the early dark between the slatternly mounds of plowed snow already turning dark from the city's rampant pollution where they have not been painted yellow by stray dogs and stray men alike - a black Lexus (hybrid) idles, stuck behind a snowplow whose blade has come loose from its harness against the truck's nose.

The windows are tinted smoke gray, nothing clear behind the glass - except that a moment later the brakelights are brilliant crimson-white in the gloom as the driver performs an elegant maneuver, tucking the vehicle neatly between the mounds of fetid snow without disturbing either.

The passenger's door opens then - the back right door - and a girl tumbles out, tugging on a black wool coat perhaps too long for her slight frame, buttoning it furiously, slipping each button into its little noose of a buttonhole, all the way up to the topmost at her neck, like a monk, like some kid's makeshift Matrix costume, the white of her blouse lost beneath the coat before she hits the front door, shoving the café's door open with this economy of motion that bespeaks urgency.

She looks wild, Asha - not in the manner of wolves, but in this furious adolescent way - younger without the rage to buoy her spirit, to make her incandesce. The girl's low heeled black boots are firm on the hardwoods, a counterpointed rhythm - harder, firmer, more martial - against the quiet singer-songwriter's christmas album in the background - and when she reaches the table with the odd assortment of her packmates - the ones she cannot hear - she plants her palms on the edge of the table and leans forward, black eyes snapping from Sinclair to Katherine, Katherine to Sinclair and back again -


"What the hell is going on - " the girl says, only her breeding blazing against the senses now, dark eyes stark with intent - and something deeper. Some fear, some abandoned memory. Some lack. Then, Adamidas rustles her third newspaper and Asha - straightens, wheels about without charging. "I can't do anything and - you're reading newspapers?!"

With a certain adolescent outrage.

[Bridget Geroux] More presumed Garou approach the table, overwhelming Bridget only because she's not used to being surrounded by so many bodies. She has an inkling that most or all of them are Garou, which would make any kin nervous. Bridget shrugs her shoulders like she's shaking off drops of water or a shawl.

"Can't it be both?" the Stag kin chimes in.

"I mean, I read this book about the psychology of fairy tales and the symbolism of everything in them. If you think about it, the Solstice is really the middle of winter as far as the sun is concerned. I would think it has to do with---"

Just then a slip of a woman who looks important barges into the cafe, right up to the table, and seems furiously panicked. Bridget raises her eyebrows and shuts up.

[Sinclair] The only thing left to her is that thin bond. She can feel her packmates, however still and quiet they are. She knows she's still tied to them, she knows they're alive. She knows that Kate is there and she can hear her thoughts. She clings to that, digging in her claws. Being the person in the room everyone is frightened of never mattered too much to her. It made her lonely. It kept her apart from her parents, from those she might have gotten closer to. She feels strange, but it doesn't ache the way it would if she lost that one, last

link.

Katherine is talking to Adamidas, and the cafe is so busy with shoppers and families that they seem to ignore the gathering of young adults at Kate and Sinclair's table. Sinclair, hands curled tight, exhales as her packmate says Lukas is on his way. It'll be okay, once they start to get together. Someone will find Asha and get her here and they'll be together and it will be

okay.

As Kate lowers her voice to address Rain of Brass Petals, Sinclair closes her eyes and leans forward, resting her elbows on the table. She takes a deep breath, and exhales it slowly, and tells herself at least she's not

alone.


But then she flinches, hunched over as she is. She breathes in sharply and flinches again, as though she's being struck. A third time, Sinclair jerks her shoulders up and together, cringing away from something, and lifts her head. Her face has gone pale, her eyes stark in color. She stares at Kate, as though to make sure Kate's still there, still real, and then she covers her face with her hands and breathes very, very slowly.

Asha comes near and Sinclair can't just sense her there. Can't feel her approach. She jerks at Asha's interruption and drops her hands, staring at the girl, then gets to her feet -- nearly knocking her chair back -- and throws both arms around the smaller, even more temperamental female, clutching her tightly in a ferocious sort of hug.

"Mr. Man is on his way," she says, muffled by Asha's shoulder, or hair, or the side of her head. "He --"

Then something occurs to her, something she hadn't noticed because, well, he's not always there as it is, he's not always hiding in her pocket, and she shoves her face into Asha's shoulder. As though Asha, of all people, could be comforting right now. As though Asha, of all people, might have any clue that Sinclair just realized her numen is gone, too.

[Adamidas] Eclipse,

[Adamidas] (close that tag and try again!)

[Adamidas] Eclipse, Gwen says, I don't like it.

Her eyes widen, and the expression on her face is one that is too much like a kid on Christmas. The newspapers hit the table, and what Bridget's saying finally dawns on her.

"It could very well be the combination of both, or the spirits' reaction to both. And, if this is the case, if we have some kind of knowledge of when this has happened before, and what happened then, we'll be able to gauge what we need to do next. Best indication of future behavior is past behavior and, if this has happened before, obviously it wasn't permanent because if it were permanent, we wouldn't all be here, right?"

She flips through the newspaper to find out more information about the eclipse, and her attention falls on Gwen for a second.

"I don't think all eclipses are like this. I met a full moon once that was born on an eclipse. It's like being dual-natured, but not quite."

Asha rages, but then Asha is getting hugged. And Adam highlight a few more things in the paper. Times, specifically. Dates, specifically.

[Angelina] (Mind a lurker?)

[Sinclair] [Feel free!]

[Wyrmbreaker] [join the fun!]

[Wyrmbreaker] Just then the fourth and final member of the Unbroken barges through the doors. Lukas isn't the type to muscle his way around. If anything, he's the opposite: he wears clothes that are cut to diminish his physical presence, to give the illusion of slightness and litheness where he is, in fact, so very broad, so powerfully built. He doesn't slam doors open and shut. He doesn't stomp when he walks,

or he tries not to. Tonight, though, the cafe door flies open fast enough to make bystanders startle. What's different is that that's the only thing that makes them startle. Someone mutters under his breath --

Asshole.

-- which is something they would have never, ever dared before. Lukas barely notices. He goes straight to his pack, straight to the others, casts a single searingly blue glance around the table and sits. Beside Asha, who's getting hugged by Sinclair. Reaching across to clasp Kate's hand briefly. All here now. All together, all alive. Okay.

"So we all feel it, then?" It's confirmation only.

[Gwen Sullivan] "If our knowledge is handed down by tales and words, like I've been told, then good luck finding a story from last time."

Gwen stepped to the side, scowling when Sinclair throws her chair back wobbling to launch herself at the small dark-skinned woman that had slapped her hands on the table throwing a fit about reading newspapers. She stuck her knee out, swathed in denim, and caught the chair to keep it from toppling completely. Her eyes, a murky green-gray, slipped across the establishment and took in the faces that stared openly, unafraid and unabashed, at the scene with all the women crowding the table. She huffed in a breath and held it in her cold-burnt lungs, sensations of Fianna's cloven scent and the frost and silk of the Fangs clashing in the front of her head for a moment before she shook it and finished her thought in an undertoned voice to Adamidas. "The last time this happened was 1554." She'd watched CNN this morning and saw a report on the occurrence. That was all.

"....People are staring." She says this quieter. "Should we all meet somewhere else? Make sure the... totem is still...there?" She wasn't sure if she should be using veiled words or not. It was awkward and uncomfortable, and it had her scowling in a heavy, unattractive way.

Almost as an afterthought, she looked to Kate, then dipped her head in a half-nod half-bow sort of gesture. "Miss Bellamonte. Honored to meet you in person." Because Fire Claws would bust her clavicle if he was here and she didn't greet her elder as appropriately as possible.

[Booker Abbot] To the counter he goes, waiting in line patiently. His eyes flick to the outbursts happening near him and he watches with curiosity. But the words alone don't create the knowledge that would have him suddenly far more interested in their little party. At least not yet. Soon it is his turn to order.

"Coffee." He says, and his accent is bred more from demographics than from geography, at least to the untrained ear. To the trained ear it speaks of somewhere southern.

"In one'a them big cups. Sugar, no milk."
"Anything else?"
"N'a pack'a Newpawts."
"..We don't sell cigarettes here."
"Ya don't?"
"No."
"Oh indeed."

But he gets his coffee and he parts from the counter in time to hear some rather intriguing words. I once knew a Full Moon..Eclipses.. So we all feel it then..

Slowly but surely he edges his way closer until suddenly he is simply standing amongst them, an unfamiliar face without so much as hint of reservation about it.

"Ya'll feelin' like ya ain't quite yourselves today huh? Names Booker. Here I was thinkin' I was just specially cursed."

[Sinclair] No one calls Lukas an asshole for barging around a coffee shop, just like no one brings Kate her latte with a gleaming smile and hopes for a good tip, just like no one gives Sinclair a once-over and a cocky little grin. Not on any normal day. Today's not normal. If it were, Sinclair might be introducing herself to this teenager in their midst, and she might be joining in on a conversation about stories and solstices and history since. That's. Sort of her thing. She would not look like she's on the verge of tears, while Lukas is strangling near-panic and trying to stay in Business Mode.

She probably wouldn't still be clinging to the Silver Fang Ahroun packsister like this, even as Lukas enters. Her head just turns and she nods. As something of an afterthought, she goes ahead and eases Asha out of her arms, straightens, and looks over at Gwen for the first time. Her head tips to the side. "Who're you?"

And then, before the poor Philodox who saved her chair can answer, she's snapping her eyes around to Booker. Any other day and that would wither him, or make his hackles rise. Any other day and the sense of What She Is would permeate the air around her like an aura, like a warning, like the crackle in the air before a storm. Today, though. Not today.

[Asha Singh] Dark stains underneath Asha's fingernails are nearly invisible, hidden by the cuff of her crisp military style coat - newly purchased and therefore imperfectly tailored. The collar of her blouse, too, tucked firmly underneath the collar of her black wool coat is hidden away. But when Sinclair stands up and grabs Asha in a ferocious hug, she can smell the blood underneath, sluggish now, oozing from underneath field-bound injuries minor enough that she can storm through the coffee shop, eyes blazing. Severe enough that the scent is distinctive in Sinclair's nostrils and that the Glass Walker can hear the sharp, stalled intake of breath as Asha digs in and swallows hard against a lancet of pain.

Comfort is not inside her to give; and Asha lacks whatever creative imagination is necessary to shift her perspective and stand in another's shoes, but by instinct worked into her bones by that blood she bears so brightly even, Asha seizes Sinclair by the arms and the back, returns - if not the hug, then the fierceness of the greeting, her fingerpads digging into the Glass Walker's skin, through all the layers.

" --- " Asha expels a breath, not immediately able to speak; but she draws in another one and says something into Sinclair's ear.

[Sinclair] [ack!]

[Asha Singh] "I can't do anything. Thomas had to shoot my prey for me. With a gun. I can't feel anything. Not any of you.." Pause. "[i]Why is she reading the [---here is something harsh, incomprehensible. foreign. Then - ] newspaper. Like a person."
to Sinclair

[Sinclair] [DLP, i'll rewrite]

[Milo] The door to the cafe is thrown open. The quiet young man with the odd hat isn't the only one to turn and look. Twice. Twice the blast of cold air shoves its way into the room. Twice, the Ragabash looks over his shoulder at the entrance of an unsettled Full Moon. Only he doesn't know that they're Full Moons. He doesn't know that they're anything other than angry individuals. Except for that faintest tug against his senses.

He doesn't turn fully to watch the progress of the one called Wyrmbreaker, instead looks ahead when it's his turn to order up a hot beverage. Canting his head up at the board, those clear eyes find the barrista. Apologies are muttered, and the youth instead makes his way toward the table full of people.

For a second, he hovers. Not because he's afraid, but because a young woman just threw her arms around another young woman and looks like she's crushing her. He doesn't want to interrupt, but he has to know.

"Excuse me," he says, his quiet voice almost lost in the crowd. It's said to the table at large, but whatever might have come next is interrupted by the tall rangy black man. "Me, too," is all he says at first. Then, "I'm Milo. Sweeney. Uh." He reaches up and removes that ridiculous hat, revealing brown hair that can only be described as shaggy, runs his fingers through it and makes it more so. There are too many people for a proper greeting, so he just says, "What's going on?"

[Kristiana Coleman] The slip of a girl makes her way into the coffee shop more out of seeing warmth and escaping the isolation of her motel room than for any real urge toward coffee. Standing back near the door after it closes behind her, she studies the menu while more or less trying to stay out of the way.

[Wyrmbreaker] "I can't even feel the Umbra, much less sidestep," Lukas replies to the girl-cub. Unfamiliar faces around the table; he doesn't even bother with introductions. "There's no way to check if the totem is still there, and at any rate, we're not going to go running to the caern at our weakest. Any wyrmspawn could follow us there and devastate everything.

"The caern has its own defenses. Spirits and subterfuge. The best thing we can do for it right now is leave it be. There's a Travelodge up the street though. I'll go book us a room. We'll take turns standing on the street to catch our septmates if we see them. And our kin."

[Sinclair] No one calls Lukas an asshole for barging around a coffee shop, just like no one brings Kate her latte with a gleaming smile and hopes for a good tip, just like no one gives Sinclair a once-over and a cocky little grin. Not on any normal day. Today's not normal. If it were, Sinclair might be introducing herself to this teenager in their midst, and she might be joining in on a conversation about stories and solstices and history since. That's. Sort of her thing. She would not look like she's on the verge of tears, while Lukas is strangling near-panic and trying to stay in Business Mode.

She probably wouldn't still be clinging to the Silver Fang Ahroun packsister like this, even as Lukas enters. She's breathing in deeply, deeply enough to smell something that makes her only hold tighter to the other girl -- for a moment. For a moment, before she relents a little, easing Asha out of her arms a bit. No apology is given. No apology is, she seems to think, needed. Asha is still an Ahroun.

Asha grabs hold of her, though, and mutters in her ear. Sinclair's pale eyes flicker, and then an expression of aching, saddened humor flies across her face at something Asha mentions. It goes away quickly, and then is just... ache. "I could," she says quietly back. "At first. Feel you. But not anymore." Those last three words are blunt, spoken hard and quick like ripping off a bandage.

She glances at Booker as she saunters up, then Milo, and then jerks her head at the table. "Sit," she says to Asha, and does so herself again, adding: "Flipping out on her isn't going to help."

[Katherine Bellamonte] It could have been overwhelming; it should have been with this many bodies that possessed the capacity for anger; for supernatural energy. But it's strangely ... okay. Or not okay, as was the case for many of them. They were at a loss, and reaching to cling to whatever was left that bound them together.

Sinclair was falling apart, and Katherine looks sharply at her as she feels a strange silencing; she can see Sinclair, but she cannot feel her. Asha, too, her tribes-mate who rushes in and slams hands on the table in a gesture that cries I'm scared without my powers, fix this, is there but not. Katherine senses them, but there is a snapped point to their connection; as if a phone line had been cut.

Lukas is the last to enter, and to him the Half Moon's eyes shift; when he presses her hand; she lifts her other and sets it atop his for a moment. Reassurance, tactile sensation. "The eclipse." Katherine is considering, for all of what occurs, she is strangely calm amidst it; her center is still there but she seems -- better, somehow. In mind. There is no madness dancing behind the blue eyes, lingering in her throat like a rasp.

"Yes, perhaps." They are swarming the table, and Honor's Compass is looking at the stack of newspapers; then canting a vague smile Gwen's way. "Under any other circumstances, we'd be discussing how you have been, Gwen." Katherine's fingers brush her coffee and she realizes its almost stone cold. She picks it up, anyway, and drinks from it.

"How long does the eclipse last?" She asks the table, her eyes moving, restless. People are reacting; approaching, trying to throw their anger, but it is useless; nothing but looks and empty air.

[Adamidas] So we all feel it, then?
"Yeah," is her only reply.

Excuse me, Milo says.
Ya'll feelin' like ya ain't quite yourselves today huh, Booker says. The Fury folds up her newspapers and inhales. She regards the people that are here, and she exhales. She's a theurge, damnit. She's cut off from the part of herself that makes her feel at home, literally half of herself. All that leaves is will and resolve.

"Okay," she says, "I know this is pretty fucked up, but we can get through this. I have a feeling that if we're this impacted, so are our enemies. To a certain extent."

How long does the eclipse last? Kate asks.
"Gimme a minute," she replies, and goes back to her newspapers.

[Booker Abbot] "And who be our enemies?" He asks, raising an eyebrow. Just to make sure.

[Adamidas] She reads, "the lunar eclipse December twenty-ten will last for seventy-two minutes... it says in here, too, that the eclipse will occur in the middle of the night for most people in the US. Eastern time, it should start between one-twenty-nine and five in the morning."

She rolls her eyes and puts the paper down, "ugh, so precise."

[Gwen Sullivan] Sinclair looks at her sharply, though Gwen gets the feeling she doesn't mean anything personal by it-- it's just how she is, and without the Rage there to proverbially cut the flesh before setting the poison into it. She asks who she is, and Gwen answers simply with a shrug of one shoulder clothed in the thick canvas of an olive green jacket. "Gwen." That's all she would give in public.

A black man and a young white man came to join them, and Gwen seemed to grow more and more anxious as their group became larger. They were becoming more and more obvious, and she felt anxiety bunching up tight in her chest, spasming like a starving stomach that clenches in the absence of food, though rather than missing food she was missing her Rage, her furnace. She took a deep breath and looked to Kate when she smiled and greeted her, then nodded simply. The nod was compliant, 'another time' it agreed.

Lukas glanced to her and reassured her that the Caern would do fine, and went on to agree that they should go elsewhere. He would book them a room at a motel, and she nodded in agreement with that.

How long would the eclipse last? Well, Admidas was on it, and though Gwen had two answers she could give she was starting to feel like she was becoming too know-it-all for a cub amongst Cliaths and Fosterns. So, rather, she rubbed her throat and looked to Booker, quirking one eyebrow at him. "...Who do you think?"

The crowd was bothering her, the eyes that stared. With Rage people would be calling the police, certain they were up to no good. Right now they just looked suspicious, and rather than having already phoned the cops someone would probably do so in a few minutes. So Gwen tugged her hat on her head snugly and took a few steps toward the door, then stopped to look back at the group, then rolled her shoulders and switched her weight between her feet.

Anxious to go, anxious to lead them out, but well aware of her place on the totem pole.

[Kristiana Coleman] Finally having reached some sort of a decision, she makes her way to the counter and waits to order.

"Tall half caf skim latte, light foam, with half a shot of peppermint and half a shot of vanilla. Half a shot of each only, I don't want a full of both. And don't try to give me old milk either, or whole. I want fresh skim"

Either oblivious to or uncaring of the annoyed expression on the barista's face, she digs her card out of the large bag on her shoulder and hands it over.

[Wyrmbreaker] "We can't assume," Lukas interjects, "that this will end with the eclipse. And I'm not sitting on my ass to find out if it will or won't."

He raps his knuckles on the table twice, sharply, attention-catching.

"Let's move to the Travelodge. We'll talk more there. Figure out a plan of action."

[Booker Abbot] This is a trick question, it's like a mexican stand off. If he says the wyrm and they're BSD's he's fucked. If he says Gaians and they're Gaians.. he's fucked.

He decides to stay quiet.

A shrug is what Gwen gets, and a knowing smile. She's a smart one.

[Asha Singh] Sinclair offers no apology, and Asha doesn't ask for one. There's something direct about the girl's eye contact as they draw apart, something firm underneath, whatever bedrock Falcoln has given his crazed children to see them through the waning days of their influence - that solidity bespoke by blood, by age upon age, measure upon measure, by memories that are not and could never be her own, but live in her nonetheless. Maybe there's gratitude there, whatever strength underscores the girl's wildness.

And she sits, Asha, her delicate jaw set firmly, her constants in the chaos her packmates. The conversation moves on around her and someone says Eclipse and Adamidas mentions times, dates, assures them that their enemies must be affected as well. "I saw the moon," says Asha. "In the sky. It's full." As if they might forget; though there's more weight to her emphasis than just reminding them of the phase. That familiar rush of -

- all gone. "And, it's foolish to assume they're cut off like we are. It makes you complacent. Like a - [xxx]." She finishes with another incomprehensible word that sounds like a curse, some dark, foul, foolish thing, and stands, glancing to Lukas (as ever) for direction. "Thomas is outside. He can put the room in his name. We'll get two with a connecting door."

[Kristiana Coleman] The building rage tickles at the back of her neck, and she looks over her shoulder with slightly narrowed eyes as she scans the crowd, seeking out the source.

[Adamidas] [this is my willpower score!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Sinclair] Sinclair nods, and gets up -- without nearly knocking anything over this time -- and grabs Lukas's arm briefly before going anywhere. She stands on her toes to utter something in his ear, then lowers herself down and lets go of him. "My car's outside," she says, but doesn't offer anyone in particular a ride. She hesitates, though, before she heads for the door, and her brows pull together as she looks at Lukas, who drove her alone, and Asha, with her Tomas, and Kate, who probably got here in her own car, too. She can't say what she wants to say to them, not when all that's left of her pack in her mind is an endless silence, but perhaps, after all this time, they can read it on her face.

"I'll ride with you," she says finally to Asha. Her car can just stay the fuck here.

[Bridget Geroux] "How can I help?" Bridget asks without a beat.

She notices the lost, torn, frustrated faces around her. Mostly new ones, all are severely out of their element. She remembers faintly leading the play spirits around with her harmonica and it spreads a small smile to the corner of her pouty lips. The kinfolk isn't about to be left behind, however, since Simon's persistent warnings of the Sept being at war come surfacing up from her subconscious.

Bridget indulges in two mouthfuls of her coffee before raising to her feet.

"I'm not going to bother with introductions. Can I hitch a ride with one of you?" she asks.

[Wyrmbreaker] [Folks! We've reached a branch point. Since this scene is moving into STed territory, let's have a headcount on who wants to do what, and most likely we'll be splitting into 2-3 groups. The options are:

1) Roll dice for a oneshot -- i.e. your char gets ambushed on the way to the Travelodge
2) Participate in a cinematic scene figuring out why we've lost our Wolves and how to get it back
3) Keep freeform RPing

There's no pressure to do anything, but if you could let me know in PMs (so as to avoid cluttering up the screen) I'll figure out how to divide us up!]

[Asha Singh] +2 for Sinclair and Asha please!
to Sinclair, Wyrmbreaker

[Wyrmbreaker] As Lukas is moving to stand, Sinclair leans in. A quick whisper. The Shadow Lord's brow furrows; he shoots her a glance, then looks at Asha.

Nods. "Okay. Have Thomas do that." Then he's buttoning his coat, having never even taken it off, bringing up the rear as the group begins to move toward the door. As Asha is passing him, he reaches out and snags her by the arm, pulling her back.

[Wyrmbreaker] A mutter in her ear: "How bad?"
to Asha Singh

[Adamidas] She gives Asha a rather pointed look. It's a lot more intense than one would assume that a teenage girl should be able to muster. She does, however, only let the look linger for a second, and she gathers her things. All things gathered up, the Fury counts what she has, and looks at Gwen. She smiles, it's about as reassuring as she can offer.

"We're going to figure this out," she says. She waits to see who is coming with.

[Asha Singh] Some other night, even wild, Asha might look like she belonged here. Might imagine it a game, this place full of people, full of humans, full of sheep to be menaced by the elegant, slinking little wolf in her. Tonight is different. Sinclair is coming with her and her kinsman; Asha nods, a significant glance slipping from Sinclair to the door, looking through the reflections in the windows trying to catch the attention of the kinswoman outside when Lukas draws her back. Her fine little mouth tightens around her teeth, the expression suggests suppressed anger, as if she meant to bare her teeth but swallowed the threat back at the last minute. Tension lingers in her neck, the long slope of her trapezius until it disappears underneath the big collar of that black wool coat.

[Asha Singh] "Not good." Asha says, back, mutters between her teeth. " - but I can walk."
to Wyrmbreaker

[Wyrmbreaker] [OK - so this seems to be the breakdown:

Oneshot: Booker, Milo, Bridge -- Nomey STing
Cinematic: Adam, Asha, Sinclair, Lukas, Kate, Gwen, Kristiana -- Jacqui STing, unless 7 is too many, upon which it's me and Jacqui STing!

Let's split up into rooms. Oneshotters, go to GC Day; Cinematics, let's head to GC Night and leave this room for latecomers who just wanna RP (or maybe start their own oneshot)]

[Katherine Bellamonte] [Okay! Welcome to the finale of Lunar Eclipse Night, version Cinematic! Bear with me as I get myself sorted and type up a sort of intro to pull everyone together for what I have in mind. This scene is probably going to have at most, some perception dice but nothing combat-driven.

If you have to crash out for whatever reason, feel free and I'll figure something out for your character.

So, off we go! ]

[Katherine Bellamonte] "Some say the world will end in a catastrophe so large, nothing will live to tell the tale. I venture not, we'll go out in darkness. Fighting nothing but the memory of our own shadows." - Unknown Galliard, Silver Record

--

They all feel it. As one. Not even the Kinfolk amongst them are spared, though for them, the more their blood sings with breeding, the tougher it is to ignore. It's a tugging from their bellies as if a hook were thread by invisible wire and suddenly; abruptly -

wake up

-- whether or not they sleep; as one the voice is there. It is neither a man's voice distinctly, or a female's. It is simply voice; as wind is wind and rain is rain. Voice is here, and Voice is speaking to them; whether they're showering, sleeping, or scrolling newspaper clippings for details about an Astronomical event. Voice finds them in the street, or in the bathroom; it brings with it for the Garou a flare; a flash in the pan sensation.

It's almost painful; the sound of Voice.
It feels strangely familiar though, almost like -- home.

A definition they cannot quite describe but that it makes them start; turn faces, eyes, ears -- all to the windows, to the sky outside. Come, Voice instructs and brings with it an intense tug. To resist seems unspeakable; and the longer they do, the more blinding the Voice sounds, as it returns.

Not angry; not violent -- but here, but now.

[Anyone who resists the urge to move outside must roll WP against Diff 7.]

[Gwen Sullivan] [Willpower]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 6, 10 (Failure at target 7)

[Sinclair] [Willpower]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Danicka Musil] [Willpower]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 7)

[Wyrmbreaker] It's a short trip from the cafe to the Travelodge, but Lukas is one of the last ones there. He's not alone when he walks in. He has his mate with him, and everyone knows instantly why it took him so long to drive a block and a half.

They've been here a while now. They talked about eclipses, solstices; some grew frustrated; someone threw a pillow across the room. Stripped of their rage, their anger is not so fearsome as it was. The fit of pique was more amusing than frightening.

They've consulted almanacs, newspapers, laptops. They've come up with nothing, and Lukas is sitting on the corner of one of the doublebeds now, one hand on his knee, elbow outturned. He's diminished by that lack of rage. He seems -- younger, perhaps, or perhaps only normal. A young man a few years out of college, good-looking, with crystalline eyes that might smile easily.

"...must be a reason for this," he's saying. "We might not be able to reach our Wolves or our spirits, but it doesn't mean we can't look for a reason -- "

and right there, right then, he breaks off. Sits suddenly upright, face taut and alert. Without another word, he gets up and walks to the window, dragging it open, letting the cold pour in. He sticks his head outside.

[not resisting!]

[Kristiana Coleman] She's obedient. No one can deny her that. Without waiting for her specialized coffee, she moves for the door and out of the coffee shop, looking up at the sky as the door swings behind her.

[Katherine Bellamonte] [Kinfolk -- you can roll WP resistance + whatever your PB is. So, PB1, take a +1 Diff.]

[Danicka Musil] [With PB difficulty added: Failure]

[Adamidas] When she hears voices, and when they tell her to move, she listens.

She doesn't really try not to follow along. When one feels the pull of home, the intense urge to go, she goes. It is a voice. It is Voice, just like wind is wind and rain is rain. She pulls her backpack back over her shoulders, and makes sure that her bag is secured.

No one has to say a word. She doesn't say anything, she doesn't explain, she doesn't pretend that this is anything but right. Lukas gets to the word must and she's moving.

Most natural thing in the world.

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen was heading outside initially anyways. Lukas had rapped his authoritive knuckles on the table to announce so, Adamidas had smiled reassuringly, and that was enough. Get the fuck out of dodge.

But then came that voice, that tug, that stomach-wrenching thing that felt more... thrilling than painful, more pleasant than disgusting. She paused at the door and stared out the front window, eyes leaping up into the sky, hunting for the moon, searching, needing like it was the key to taking a deep breath that would let her be at ease. That was a lie, though, and the lure to come outside was strong as a mother telling your five-year-old self to come with the urgency that compelled, like a lover gesturing you into their chest after being apart for far too long.

But one couldn't charge blindly. One had to think. This couldn't... It couldn't just be as simple as that. They weren't made to be blindly obedient, or just plain blind. Her brow creased and her teeth clicked at the piercing in the cleft of her upper lip, muscles rigid, trembling along her shoulders and biceps.

But Lukas brushed by and out the door, and Adamidas followed. Gwen felt her feet drag after, and as though she was leaning backward against an unrelenting force that pushed her forward, she too moved out the door, eyes scanning the sky, the street, the shadows-- anything and everything, with one hand pressed on her upper stomach as though to quell or cut off entirely that urging tug.

She didn't like this. She didn't trust it. But she couldn't ignore it.

[Kristiana Coleman] (Oops) She drives to the Travelodge as if guided by something, looking unsure as she gets out of the car.

[Sinclair] The ride in Asha's car is much, much smoother than it would have been in Sinclair's. One is a Lexus. The other is...

an El Camino. A very nicely restored El Camino, but motherfucker, an El Cam is an El Cam and there's nothing one can do about it.

At the motel, Sinclair is preparing to argue with Asha about getting cleaned up and attended to by a Theurge, or anyone who might be able to help her. She's preparing to argue because... well. It's Asha. If everything with Asha weren't tinted with the scent of battle, she wouldn't be Asha, and Sinclair wouldn't have been quite as overjoyed to welcome the girl into the pack.

She's standing by the window, hand on one of the thick, ugly curtains, staring outside. Some people aren't here. Notably, a purebred kinswoman of another tribe and two total strangers. Her jaw is tight, and she's itching for a fight regardless.

Then Voice starts luring her outside, and she remembers when Voice was a little girl in the umbra and she remembers when Voice was a butler leading a charge and she remembers when Voice was something shadowy seeping into her mind, and Sinclair snarls. Out loud, and full-throated, she growls against the tug, even as her Alpha is getting up and coming over to the window.

"Don't," she says, putting her hand flat on the cold glass. It clouds around her fingers. Adamidas is doing it, too, and Sinclair says again, louder. "Don't." Gwen now, too. "Guys, stop!" she snaps finally, and it says something that even now, lacking rage, lacking the fury that backs her authority, Sinclair has the skill to infuse her voice with something like power.

[Asha Singh] Underneath that fashionable military style wool coat - purchased this evening, to hide the exact wounds the rest of those who make it to the hotel will see on her when they get they - Asha's fine white blouse is stiff with blood. She cannot shift, and wounds that would have once been an annoyance - something she could grit her way through a fight with, and then sleep off in a day or two or three, curled somewhere in lupus - are deeper.

In the hotel, the creature changed shirts - something cheap, something handy. Available for $15 bucks from the miniature gift shop run by the front desk clerk: I HEART CHICAGO - the cheap t-shirt reads, with a poor rendition of the Chicago skyline that looks rather more like the view of Shanghai from one riverbank to the other than anything like the actual city in which these Garou have made their stand against the end of days.

Thomas tore her blouse to strips and rebound the claw marks scoring her ribs, and then the girl paced, watching the windows while the rest researched, a shadow behind the front windows every time pale lights from some passing car skimmed across the icy screen.

That's as much tending as she'll allow. If there's anything left in the theurges, says Asha, they should save it. Who knows how long -


- and here, now, a voice rising in the darkness, an urge deeper than meaning that reminds her so much of the link she shares not just with the spirits of her tribe and house, but with the mad spirits of her ancestors, the voices she always wanted out of her head, whom she misses now like a piece of herself.

Close to the door, Asha is moving before she can think to resist or even begin to say why. It's only with the sharp snap of Sinclair's interjection that she pauses long enough to look at the Galliard.

[WP!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 4, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Danicka Musil] The woman that Lukas brings with him into the little motel room at the Travelodge is a stranger to many of them. Even his packmates don't see her often, though there are perhaps several reasons for that. She's dressed as she was when he picked her up -- not at her apartment, but the place where she was 'safely' surrounded by mortals -- and that means that she's dressed very strangely, compared to the rest of them.

Perhaps strange for a Shadow Lord, Danicka wears black only rarely. Tonight she enters the hotel room in a pair of flat-soled boots underneath the long skirt of a black dress. It's exceedingly simple, more than a little old-fashioned. The collar is off the shoulder, the sleeves are long. It isn't velvet, but the fabric is heavy, draping well. Her hair, often compared to gold in at least one mind, is in a single braid tied with a thin black ribbon without a bow. The strands of it cut across her fair skin, over her clavicles, braid resting on her shoulder. She has a black shawl as well, and she smells faintly of woodsmoke and ash.

Since she got here she's been quiet. She's occupied an armchair near a corner and she's not participated in the conversation about how, and why. She's watchful, alert, seeming as much curious as tense. Her eyes have, at some point, watched all of the Garou in the room with equal closeness. Mostly, though, and by no surprise to anyone, she keeps her eyes on Lukas.

When Voice tells them to come, she rises to her feet with a single smooth lift, her skirt falling around her legs again, and follows Lukas.

[Wyrmbreaker] [oFINE]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Adamidas] [WHY ARE WE STOPPING?! wp]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Wyrmbreaker] Something almost like irritation flickers over his face. Lukas stops at the door, spreading his arms to bar it completely, then turns to look over his shoulder at Sinclair.

They no longer have a totem link, a way to speak into one another's minds. They can still communicate without words, though, and the lift of Lukas's eyebrow says, Why?

[Katherine Bellamonte] For those who move to windows, for the Kinswoman getting out of her car and turning her face to the sky, for the Cub; so uncertain to begin with, still so new to all of this -- they see something. The sky is darkening, the shape of the moon changing as shadow creeps across it. Beneath it; sitting in the middle of the street amongst people; amongst traffic and cars and store-fronts that suddenly feel too bright; too artificial --

they see a Wolf.

To Lukas, it is almost nothing but a pair of red eyes. Its fur blacker even than his, its claws sharp and white even with the dimming moon. It is the largest Wolf he is ever likely to see; more the size of some prehistoric creature than that of any wild mortal cousin of theirs; even their mightiest Ahrouns in war-form would pale beside this Wolf. Its eyes are the red of fire; of unbiased anger and they are fixed on the Ahroun at the window. A pair of moon-watchers step off the curb beside the black wolf and through the black wolf and its form shimmers; like the disturbed surface of a pond.

The wolf feels like that which Lukas has lost.

--

Adamidas sees the same Wolf, but it is purely, starkly white. Its eyes are gold, and as a couple step off the curb; they step right through the giant Wolf as if it were not there at all. A car travels past; and the Wolf does not move an inch. It simply sits in the middle of the road as the moon begins to shrink --

and waits.

--

The Kinfolk see neither Wolves, but a young girl. Her shape is blurred but for the suggestion of a dress; of silver hair that dances over her shoulders. She sits, cross-legged and patient in the midst of a street with a ball in her hands; she's looking at Danicka and Kristina as if she's been expecting them.

She holds the ball out.

--

The Wolves stand as one; whether they see it as a black creature with burning red eyes; or white, with warm, golden eyes.

--

For those that resist; they feel a wave of sudden despair; a high keening that grows inside their skulls and pounds like the waves against the shore; there is rhythm with each keening smash against those rocks inside their heads: come, come, come it repeats over and over.

[Sinclair, Asha, ...okay, EVERYONE resisting soak 1 bashing!]

[When they glimpse the Wolves, Lukas, Sinclair, Asha see it as a black form. Katherine, Gwen, Adam are seeing it as a white form. Danicka and Kristiana, see a little girl.]

[Sinclair] [Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Asha Singh] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 3, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Adamidas] [Oww!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Kristiana Coleman]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Gwen Sullivan] [Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [yelp!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 5, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Gwen Sullivan] Lukas stops at the door, braces an arm within it to prevent others from going out, but he's turned and left his body narrow so he can look back at Sinclair and Asha, demand why he should stop. Adamidas stops short as well, convinced by Sinclair's compelling words to halt her feet and pay mind to what the Glass Walker has to say.

Gwen, though, her resolve is not so great. She wants it, the logic in her mind tells her to stop, had been doing so from the beginning, but it was nothing compared to instinct and what her belly and her heart told her to do. Lukas was easy to look up to, especially for somebody so new to the game, but this Voice, this... this beautiful white wolf with the liquid gold eyes sitting in the middle of the street, waiting so patiently. People pass through it, it is beyond them. It waits exclusively for them. Who was she to keep it waiting?

She felt something thump!. It didn't phase her an inch, it felt like little more than a second cramping, strange and unsure but not quite painful enough to dissuade her yet. She put one hand at the crook of Lukas's elbow and ducked her head some to pass under it, walking out onto the street with limbs and back stiff, expression grim and hard like granite. She needed to be out there, it was going to be too late before long.

[Wyrmbreaker] -- and then that eyebrow lowers; the Shadow Lord's ice-blue eyes squeeze shut. He flinches at exactly the same instant as everyone else in the room, everyone but the very few who are not resisting the call of ...

whatever that is. The Wolf. The girl. Something.

It passes. Lukas opens his eyes, lowers his hands from the frame and turns to face Sinclair steadily. "I think we should follow," he says, quiet but steady. "It feels like ... "

me, he wants to say. He gives his head a quick shake.

"It feels right to follow," he amends.

[Adamidas] Gwen's still moving, she thinks, and the female takes a few steps to catch up to the cub. She sees a wolf, and her hesitance hurts, aches, drones. She doesn't ignore the feeling anymore, and the Fury takes her steps outside, She looks at the wolf, and her head cocks to the side. Its eyes are gold, and it stands purely, starkly white.

"Come on," she insists to the group. She doesn't look back for long, just long enough to catch up to Gwen and just long enough to follow the white wolf. It's waiting for them. Both of them. Her eyes travel up to the moon- it shrinks some and wanes away. If Lukas is still in the door, she squeezes through, or at least tries to. Wyrmbreaker's a big guy, as such he can take up a fair chunk of a doorway.

The sound Alethea makes isn't human, not exactly. A close approximation of a whine of discomfort, though given their state it's more anxious-teen-at-the-dentist than animalistic. The balance is offset. She goes with what her instinct had told her.

The Wind is the Wind.
The Rain is the Rain.
The Voice is the Voice, and who was she to deny it?

[Sinclair] She wants to tell him don't you remember --

but she can't. Something hits Sinclair like a hammer to the chest and her hand clutches at the curtain. That black wolf outside takes her eyes off of her Alpha, and she doesn't try to tell him he can't listen to things that summon him when he's at his weakest, when he doesn't want to resist and isn't sure he can. She looks through the window again, the imprint of her hand vanishing from the glass, and closes her eyes.

They burn.

The loneliness that's been with her for almost as long as she can remember, growing stronger every year, is crushing her now. It was teachers and kids at school first. The boys who freaked out and couldn't stand to stay near her, the friends who drifted away rather than keep her in their lives. It was her parents, distanced by their own inability to understand what was happening to her. It was the Glass Walkers who took her at the beginning, who she couldn't bear to look at because they were the ones who locked her away.

It was Regina, who she could never quite reach. It was Colfax, who she ran away from. And every wolf she knew, every wolf she packed with. Something about what she is keeps her apart even from other Garou, and she's never understood why. She's never understood how it could be like this, and she's questioned a thousand times if this was really how she was supposed to be born.

Lukas is, perhaps, more connected to his nature than any of the other Unbroken. She could hear panic edging his words even when Kate was the one on the phone with him. Sinclair's never been that tied to being a Garou. A part of her has been asking since she woke up if what she really feels is relief. A part of her has been asking if she really wants to go back to being all the many things that separate her from her family, from humanity, from the one who her heart called mate even if she never even managed to say the word love out loud.

It was starting to feel less like living in solitary, with the Unbroken. With Tripoli. There was a world she could reach into that felt like home, but even there the spirits were wary of her.

Sinclair is closing her eyes so tightly there at the window, like she doesn't even hear Lukas anymore, like she isn't aware of him or Gwen or Adamidas or any of them heading out the door. Whatever it was that Sinclair had to say, she isn't saying it now. She's got one hand pressed flat against her breastbone as though applying pressure to a wound.

Gwen goes out. And Lukas speaks but isn't going without them. Adam goes. And Sinclair just shakes her head, slowly, twice, though it's unclear if it's in resistance. Tears come, without explanation or warning, seeping out from under her dark, soot-colored lashes. Right now there's no rage in her, no violence, none of the wrath that changed her so utterly when it began to appear in childhood. There's just a dreadful sense of loss. Of refusal.

She shakes her head again, and turns her head to look at Lukas. Her eyeliner is running, leaving black trails down her cheeks. "I can't be this anymore. I don't --"

Sinclair closes her mouth again, refusing to say the rest. Pain in her chest and her skull or no, she puts her hands on the windowsill and lets her head drop, and does not move.

[Asha Singh] Asha does not articulate what feels right about leaving this cheap motel room, with its scratchy comforters and its faux modernist prints on the walls, swirls of color so indistinct that they could not offend anyone anymore than they might inspire. Someone turned the television on and CNN is in the background, reporting on the weather. Correspondents are parked outside, peering up at the sky, in some cases through thick cloudcover while banal anchors beam white-toothed smiles back to the camera.

- the Silver Fang is still, shoots Adamidas a glance as she urges them onward, making noise in the back of her throat. The cheap cotton of her t-shirt is damp again as the tenuous balance of clotting and bandaging is broken again, and the wounds begin to seep, but by now she has the coat back on, which makes her look larger than she should, which diminishes the strangeness of seeing someone so well-bred in such cheap fabrics.

When Sinclair bends forward, Asha shoots Lukas a look, still and simmering and dark. She feels the urge as well as anyone else; trusts it and mistrusts it in equal measure. If she were going to -

- she says nothing. Stands there, watching her Alpha, edging forward to brush her flank against Sinclair's - a physical promise of presence - utterly animal, that, for all that she has lost her wolf and everything that came with it.

[Danicka Musil] The little girl outside looks nothing like the daughters Lukas saw once in a vision, in a rite, in the underworld. She doesn't feel like a daughter to Danicka. She feels like someone else, someone Danicka knows, though she's never spoken to her except in the recesses of her own mind or in the presence of humans who barely understand what they're trying to acknowledge.

Danicka has lost nothing tonight. She's been sitting here with Ahrouns, with a Philodox who may as well be one in terms of rage, with a young woman who would normally terrify her. She's been watching them all act like... well. Young adults. Lukas isn't even twenty-five yet. They're just people, for once. And they're unnerved and vulnerable and it's so strange to her.

On some level she feels sickened. This isn't right. She knows it isn't right. She worries about the whys, she worries about what's being planned for them. On another level, though, she is comfortable with ambiguity in a way few are, in a way few can tolerate. There are things she has done that even Lukas doesn't and probably shouldn't know about just because he would wonder what kind of sane creature would do that sort of thing. He would be terrified by how at ease Danicka is with some of the most profound risks, and he would hate himself if he understood that very little that the mortal world has to offer frightens a woman who has lived so close to death by frenzy since she was a toddler.

When she goes outside to meet the little girl, she puts her hand on Lukas's side briefly in passing, her palm against his ribcage, but says nothing. The threat of dying tonight inside this room, torn to shreds by the very wolves that are supposed to protect her kind, is gone. There is nothing outside on that street that she finds too horrifying to accept.

Danicka goes towards the girl with the ball, and holds out her hands as though to catch it, once thrown.

[Danicka Musil] [Ofine. "Lukas is only twenty-five."]

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas has a lot on his mind right now. He has his mate to protect. Wolfless and toothless as he is, he brought her here to be with him, so he could protect her. He has younger wolves to guide and watch over. A cub, even. He has another kin he's never met before quietly idling nearby, and he has his packmates, one wounded, all wolfless.

But a constant undercurrent in his mind through all this, all of it, is simply: end this. make this stop. bring my Wolf back. complete me. It was never: I'm happier this way. It's easier this way.

Even if his car wasn't choked with rage when Danicka climbed in. Even if he could feel the difference when he reached to embrace her then; feel how there was no tension in her when he wrapped his arms around her, even when he squeezed her tighter than she would normally be able to bear. Even if humans didn't dart out of his way. Even if people weren't afraid to call him an asshole now when he was being one -- never, not once, did he wish this to be permanent.

So there's something like shock, and incomprehension, when Sinclair collapses in on herself the way she does. When she says what she does. He stares. He startles when Danicka passes him, her hand against his side: warm against warm. He looks at her with wide eyes, catches her hand as she's leaving; lets her go.

Looks past her to the great Wolf. Meets its eyes unflinchingly, unchallengingly.

"I'll come soon," he says: a promise. "And whatever you want to show me, or give me, or take from me... I'll accept it then. But I need some time right now."

A pause. He puts his hand on Sinclair's shoulder, his eyes still on the Wolf.

"Please."

[Katherine Bellamonte] When Danicka reaches out to catch the ball from the little girl; there's a silent gurgle of laughter from the child and even as the Shadow Lord Kinswoman feels the reality of the toy hit her palms; both of them fade. Like the flash burn after a picture is taken; they are at once there; and then not.

Kristiana, too, passes from sight.

--

yes, they hear as this happens, and Voice is happy.

--

The moon vanishes a little more; and one of their fold unravels. She cannot, she will not, she does not want.

--

Please.

The black Wolf only stares at Lukas; and its voice is steel and blood; anger and decay, there inevitability in its voice. It is the rumble of the battlecry; the nature of his heart and soul. There's no pity to Wolf. There's only what is. What shall be.

If you do not come you will not know

--

The Theurge elder is edging toward the white Wolf; and it rises and speaks in tandem suddenly, with the black.

This is transcendent, it cannot be stopped

--

Voice is back, and it wraps around Sinclair where she's fallen like a shroud; at once comforting and insistent.

It is who you are, it cannot be changed

--

Black Wolf speaks again; a rumbling growl.

If you do not come by the time the moon is gone; you will never understand

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen doesn't come close enough to be stricken by the wolf, though she does not believe it will lunge and use teeth on her.

She stops at the curb, aware despite the need to be with this wolf that it was still in the middle of the street, that she was still in the physical realm (she knew that because she tried to pass to the other earlier and she physically, spiritually could not make it happen). She could get hit by a car, and if she couldn't shift, hell, maybe she couldn't heal? She would not go out on somebody's windshield, or worse yet left broken and bleeding out in the middle of the street where her comrades couldn't heal her, while they couldn't put on the strength and swiftness needed to catch the vehicle when it sped away, fearing legal repercussions.

She stood in front of the Travel Lodge, out of the way of traffic, of claws and fangs of this gold-and-white wolf, and waited for it to lead.

[Wyrmbreaker] There's only a single nod, unwavering.

"I understand."

--

Then he's turning away from the black wolf, the embodiment of -- what? Rage, certainly. His own rage? Everything he is? For a moment, Lukas wonders if he will lose himself forever if he doesn't follow. Now. By the moment of totality. He wonders this and he feels a surge of panic, but he bites that back, too, like all the others, and his hand firms on Sinclair's shoulder.

"Listen to me," he says, quiet and low. "Listen to me. No one can force this on you. Not even Perun, or Cockroach, or Luna, or Gaia herself. If you don't want it anymore, there are ways for you to renounce all that you are. To let this cup pass from you.

"But Sinclair, listen to me: that is not what Gaia asked of you. She asked you to stand up and sacrifice yourself, sacrifice everything in the end, so that she can live. So that everything good that you love can live. And she didn't ask this of you to hurt you, or to crush you. She asked this of you because you are strong enough."

[Katherine Bellamonte] Every step brings Gwen closer.

She feels that little pulse again, little surges like electricity at her fingertips; setting her hair on end. It's the same kind of sensation that comes from stepping into the Umbral realm. White Wolf turns its massive head and stares into the Cub's eyes. It has no real mannerisms to suggest its form; it does not wag its tail, nor flick an ear. Its eyes are solid; absolute.

The warmth it radiates is intoxicating.

--

When Lukas speaks; the Voice rushes around him like a blast of wind, rustling the leaves on a wintry day.

[Adamidas] She should be panicking.

She should be clawing at the walls, pacing, screaming, railing, wanting this all to go away. She should want it all back. She should be outraged at the mere idea that someone could take this from her. Take away a very vital, very pivotal piece of her being. Alethea should feel naked, she should feel concerned, she should feel lost. The fact of the matter is, though, that she isn't. She doesn't. The Fury isn't lost or confused or anything.

The path is different, the dance is the same. Some part of her was afraid that some vital, valuable part of herself could be taken away. Her throat hurts, it aches to swallow right now just from memory. But she isn't afraid, instead she moves with the confidence and the insistence that she is used to. It's a strength of purpose that drives her, and without her connection to Gaia pulling her in one direction, without her rage silently clawing at whatever it can get its hands on, all she has is her will.

Resolute.

And right now, it's all she is, and the fact that her connection to that hasn't waned keeps her going. She steps forward and stays with the cub. She is not afraid or nervous because her will is strong, and they will figure out what is going on.

"Lead," she tells the white wolf, "and we will follow."

[Gwen Sullivan] Adamidas is at her side. Lukas and Asha, Sinclair and Kate, they all stay inside the lodge room, stuck for some reason that Gwen isn't paying a lot of attention to. Someone was reluctant, someone was missing themselves. She'd be soaking up every detail in a typical situation, but right now it was impossible to pay mind to the world outside of her immediate proximity and the Wolf. The Kinfolk across the way? All but invisible, lost in the glow of the Wolf.

The warmth is beautiful. It was golden, it smelled heady like wine, beautiful like a bouquet, and tasted sweet and thick like honey. She spoke to Adamidas, and it was lucky she was near otherwise her words would have been lost-- Gwen breathes them more than she speaks them. "Is that Luna?"

From the mouths of babes, they say.

Adam tells the Wolf to lead, and Gwen steps forward after a brief glance left and right for incoming vehicles (some small semblance of sense remained) before stepping out and approaching the apparition.

[Sinclair] Sinclair's shoulder tenses under Lukas's hand, against the way Asha brushes against her. She doesn't jerk away from either of them, but the contact doesn't seem to ease whatever pain comes with being torn in half and choosing which half to let go of. Lukas tells her, twice, to listen to him, and she bristles, looking away.

He gives her a really great speech. A very Ahroun speech, a very leaderly speech, about Gaia and sacrifice and being strong, and Sinclair shakes her head. She shakes him off. She gives him a Look. "Fuck Gaia, Lukas," she says, those tears and that makeup drying on her face.

"Gaia never asked. She made me this, and it took away everything else. If what she wants are willing soldiers, then this is my answer: no. My mandatory tour's over. I'm done," she says, her voice cracking on the last two words. "But you know what? That fucker out there just told me that this is who I am. That it can't be changed. So my thinking is, when all this is over I'm going to wake up a wolf again, whether I understand or not, whether I want it or not. Whether I'm 'strong enough' or not."

Her eyes go back to the window, staring out at that Wolf.

"Go," she tells Lukas. "It's not going to wait forever."

[Asha Singh] "I know what those things feel like. But sometimes things trick you, make you think they're right when they're wrong. And if they're wrong those two are going to get eaten up, -rhya." There's an urgency in Asha's voice; she doesn't have Lukas voice and doesn't repeat his assurance that Sinclair is strong enough. It feels almost - insulting, to reassure a werewolf of her strength, and she cannot bring her throat to make whatever words might be suggested by the idea - renunciation, surrender. Give this up.

"We're stronger together than apart, and we can't leave them alone out there." With an urgent roll of Asha's eyes, suggesting - something of her opinion. "Come - on." With that, a brief, direct look at Lukas. "We need you. Let's go.."

[Sinclair] "To be honest, Asha," Sinclair says quietly, her voice steadier now than it was a moment ago, "you guys are stronger without me right now."

She always tells the truth. No matter how brutal. No matter how shameful.

[Katherine Bellamonte] When Gwen and Adamidas approach the great white Wolf and tell it to lead; it gets to its massive feet; it's chest at the tops of their heads; its paws the size of craters. It looks down on them, and while it cannot be a smile; the feel of one is suddenly around them, they can hear the distant sound of laughter; and intense warmth floods them.

They begin to emit a glow; it becomes blinding in short order.

Standing amongst her pack-mates; Katherine makes a noise, it is a short soft oh; her lips shaping surprise, her mouth rounding around the words. "Sinclair, it's --" she fades before she can conclude her thought. So too, does Gwen and Adamidas.

--

The moon continues to darken.

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas doesn't look away from Sinclair, except for a single slice of his eyes toward Asha. He shakes his head.

"We're stronger together than apart," he repeats, affirms, "and that's why we're going together, as a pack, or not at all. Sinclair, you've always told me the truth, even when it wasn't pretty or nice or pleasant. So I'm going to do the same for you right now and tell you:

"You're being selfish.

"You might have spent your whole life so far giving and giving and never asking a thing for yourself, but that doesn't negate that you're being selfish right now. It doesn't make it all right for you to say, fine, I'm done, I've given enough. I quit.

"I'm sorry I'm saying this, but I have to. To give is why you exist. It's why we all exist. Gaia doesn't want willing soldiers. She wants sacrifices. That's why she made us."

A beat.

"But that doesn't mean we can't find good things along the way. That doesn't mean we shouldn't hold on to what good we have. And -- Christ, I know right now it feels like it'll be easier if you just give it all up, throw it all in Gaia's face and go be a ... a human or something, but Sinclair, you have a pack. You have brothers and sisters that love you and need you. You have a family that you need, too. And I promise you, if you turn your back now, you will regret it. Not because of Gaia, or because of fate, but because you'll be severing the last real bond you have.

"You heard the Wolf. You are what you are. You can deny it, but it won't change what you were made to be. And it won't change what your spirit will always long to be."