Ornature

The building is flat and strange and glaring, with scrawling neon signs that flash and hum in a language Charlotte is not sure meets the definition of a language, and which she surely cannot read. Once upon a time it was the outpost of a long-vanished fast food chain (DAIRY DUKE, HOME OF THE MASHBURGER). Since then it has been home to, variously, a vaccuum-cleaner repair shop, a strip club, a head shop, and now this combination market / restaurant.

It is not as cold as you might imagine in Denver today and Charlotte stands outside the building with her thumbs hooked through the belt loops of her jeans frowning thoughtfully up at the strange sign, breathing in the peculiar mix of cast exhaust, fast food fumes, and the rather exotic melange of Central and South American and Southeast Asian cuisines to be found in the various mom-and-pop places up and down the Federal corridor.

Charlotte is dressed as she usually is, dedicated jeans, and a new Denver Broncos t-shirt since her Mexican Sprite one was ruined a handful of weeks ago, her winter coat open, her ubiquitous messenger bag, with all her tools and all her talens and all her treasures, slung rather negligently across her body.

"You've been here before?" Charlotte asks Erich, with a mixture of interest and skepticism, her pale blue eyes skimming his profile.

Erich was pretty sad when Mexican Sprite shirt got ruined. That might've been the night she came back healed up but still smelling of blood, which was also the night Erich just would not leave her alone. He kept finding reasons to come down from his loft, to visit her in her room, to bring her a mug of hot chocolate just 'cause he was making some for himself or poking his head in to see if she wanted to go get ice cream tomorrow or or or -- until finally Charlotte, in all her naivete and wisdom, understood that he just wanted to stay near his injured packmate the way all wolves do.

So he slept in her room that night, curled up at the foot of her bed in his wolf-shape. Which is rather large, all things considered -- way bigger than a pet dog, for one -- and pretty much ended up taking up half the bed. So it wasn't like she got very good rest. But still.

He felt better the next day, because she smelled better, and then they got ice cream and soon enough he sort-of-but-not-quite-forgot. Days went by; then this.

Ex-Dairy Duke. Now a buzzing neon-signed generic all-you-can-eat. The food isn't terribly good, but it's plentiful and it's cheap, and Erich seems to have a knack for sussing places like this out. He's locking up his car as Charlotte inspects the building. Bounding up on the curb beside her, he nudges her with a shoulder -- the impact softened through his heavy winter jacket -- and grins.

"Yeah. Once. It's good. C'mon." And he pulls the door open for her.

Charlotte eats the strangest things, sometimes. She also likes caviar and steak tartar and sweetbreads and champagne in teacups and there is no separating her strange and haunting purity from her spare and stark frame, at least not for the wolves, who know her blood and know her lunacy and know her promise and know the legacy of her ancestors as soon as they catch a glimpse of her: a nimbus of as yet untouched promise and divine, dividing madness. So, the lilting glance she sends winging upward in Erich's direction as he bumps her shoulder so familiarly could well seem tinged with a rather arch hauteur to any strange beasts who might happen upon the pair.

There are no strange beasts, however, just these two, and Erich of all people can see the quietly supple bend of light in her her eyes.

"It's weird," Charlotte is saying as she ducks in past Erich tonguing her cheek musingly as they walk into the little foyer and turn to slowly take in the setting. The gumball machines and half-broken crane game, full of dusty stuffed animals and cheap, gold-painted watches. ALL U CAN ATE EAT is written in four different languages on a posterboard sign.

"'Cos it feels all narrow and tangled and stifling but also different too," she continues, with a surprising degree of maturity, waiting for Erich the knower-of-things to show her the way. "Mutable.

"I like it."

"Really?" Erich perks at that. He hadn't really expected her to say that. Maybe she'd like the food or the fact that you could eat until your stomach burst after paying only $9.99, or maybe she'd like being here with him. But he didn't really think she'd like ... it. Whatever it is. This place. Its narrow tangled stifling mutability. "Aw, yay. I'm glad. I like it too. Don't use the bathroom though, if you really gotta go just ask the waitress if you can use the staff toilet. Anyway,"

there are two doors. To keep out the cold, and all. He pushes open the second one and they are inside that strange, flat building. The layout is simple: a bunch of tables and booths, and then -- near the double-swinging double-doors to the kitchen -- a setup of several buffet counters where entrees and sides and soups hang out under heat lamps, bolstered by wilted-looking salads and a softserve machine, which is in turn accompanied by toppings and poundcake and bite-sized cheesecake noms.

"We pay up front," he says. "I got it, don't worry. Then we grab some plates and just load up. And you can go back for seconds as many times as you want."

There are two doors. There were two doors in the Dairy Duke and two doors in Maeir's Sweeper Service and two doors leading into the strip club and everything else that has lived here before Main Home Buffet and Lounge. Where the lounge proper might be located is not precisely clear but -

Really? And, "Yeah," she assures him, an odd solidity in her tone. "It's like one of those lizards that changes its tongue depending on what it eats."

Charlotte ducks and she ducks again. Erich assures her that she needn't worry about paying and Charlotte was not ever worried about paying so she gives him a humming, spinning sort of look and allows him to pay. Even in the near-a-year since the creature ran away with him, she does not and has not worried about money. She receives an allowance. Sometimes she spends it all on caviar and pottery glazes and does not worry about when she will get more because she has never worried about that. And perhaps because there is that magic credit card that her brother gave her and which he pays, month after month, religiously. No matter what the charges, or where they are from.

So, "Okay," she tells him with equanimity, studying the buffet with her alien sort of interest while Erich takes care of the bill. Ahead of time. The clerk behind the counter hands Erich two plates still warm from the dishwasher and unleashes them on the steam tables. There are stranges in the room, but somehow even the hungriest of them find ways to stay at their tables or shift themselves away from the pressure of Erich's rage.

She wrinkles her nose when Erich warns her away from the bathrooms and is still sort-of-wrinkling her nose about that and says nothing more but: Charlotte will take the admonishment to heart.

--

Erich is the Ahroun. So Charlotte cedes pole position to him and follows him into battle, haunting his flank and watching as he fills and then overfills his place and maybe picks up an auxliary plate to go along with the primary plate. She's quiet, a flame of affection kindled in her eyes, animal and close. Pack. If he insists that she try the meatloaf Charlotte tries the meatloaf, but otherwise her choices are chaotic as strangely delicate as one might expect.

"I have never," Erich declares, "heard of lizards that change their tongues. I've heard of lizards that change their colors."

And so they descend on the spread. And Erich indeed fills and then overfills his plate with nothing but meat, meat, meat, meat and more meat. Roast turkey and bbq chicken and something stringy and tough that passes for beef steak. Sausages and bacon and kielbasa and ham. Meatloaf. Buffalo wings. Fried chicken. Fried catfish. Tiny, overcooked shrimp in a casserole, which he spends almost five minutes picking at because he doesn't want any cheese or pasta. There's one table where they serve each guest exactly one so-called lobster mornay, which looks more like large crawfish mornay. By the time Erich swings by, he has two plates already, and he is given his lobster on a third.

Which he then promptly overfills with more meat.

--

He is as laden as a bumblebee returning from the flower-fields by the time he comes back to their table. Three plates thunk down, and then he goes back to get himself a big cup of Sprite. American Sprite, not Mexican Sprite. When he comes back again, he's brought napkins and utensils and also straws, one of which he gives to Charlotte. Her plate, with its strange, chaotic, delicate choices, gets a stink-eye from him. Though in the grand scheme of things -- it's people like her, eating like birds, that make it possible for people like Erich to come here and chow down without bankrupting Main Home Buffet and Lounge.

(He hasn't figured the Lounge part out yet.)

"I heard broccoli is really bad for you," he says. "Like it'll constipate you for sure, 'cause it's too much fiber or something."

Charlotte's plate proper is arranged more for aesthetics than for any other reasons. There was no particular reason she chose one small teaspoonful of meatload and arranged it like an island sheltered by an umbrella-of-a-broccoli stalk and ringed by reefs of shrimp-casserole pasta gilded with its strangely orange cheese sauce. Erich did not scoop out all of the shrimp, two or three are sort of swimming in the little lagoon of barbecue sauce between the reef and the beach, and when Erich comes back with his Sprite, Charlotte trades him a straw for those handful of barbequed shrimp. And if her main plate resembles some sort of strange, outsider art diorama, by the time Erich returns with his Sprite Charlotte has returned with her Sundae. Which was created with a capital S. Soft serve fills a large bowl usually reserved for pasta, and is laden with a towering assortment of mismatched toppings, from skittles to candied peanuts, strawberry and peanut butter, hot fudge and pretzels and ever manner of sprinkles.

"Did you hear that from your stomach?" Charlotte is asking him, as she accepts a straw, tears the paper off with her teeth and blows the rest of the wrapper off the other end. "Or a real live person?"

Erich shoots Charlotte a pretend-scowl, which is pretend because, well, he can't really scowl at anyone who'll fish every last tiny shrimp out of a casserole for him. Plus: she is his packmate.

"Maybe," he says, which isn't an answer at all because he doesn't clarify which of the options he's maybe-ing. "Also, that ice cream looks AMAZING. I'm gonna make one after I eat. But I'm gonna do more fudge and no pretzels."

His mouth is already full. He is already eating. A lot.

"Hey," this is so casually casual that Charlotte, having spent near-a-year with him, likely knows at once that he's actually about to break some major news that he doesn't want to make deal about, just pretend it's not a big deal, "so I'm like, about to go challenge. For Fostern."

How do you FEEEEEEL about this Erich? (I can has empathy! WP because this is important.)

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 6, 6, 6) ( success x 5 ) [WP]

[he is excited! and nervous! he's excited because after a very long time of being on the fringes and never quite feeling like he fit in, having a pack has really helped him feel like he has a place where he belongs. and having that grounding has enabled him to go out and commit to things like a city, a sept, etc. and that, in turn! has allowed him to gain the sort of acceptance and respect that he never really thought he'd have. and THAT, in turn, has empowered him to go and try to level up after SEVEN PLUS YEARS as a cliath.

but also: nervous. 'cause he's not sure he'll succeed. and he's not sure he's ready! and he's afraid he'll fail, and if he does fail, he's afraid that'll mean he actually does suck and doesn't belong and doesn't deserve to be respected etc etc etc.]

Charlotte is watching Erich over her meal nd wriggling about in her seat to check out the rest of the dining room. The people tucked away in their corners and the like, before she returns back to him. There is a sort of wary watchfulness written into her face and brow as she eyes the buffet attendants who drift out of the swinging-doors to the kitchen with steaming, stainless steel dishes of something to settle over the buffet.

All that wriggling stops when Erich is so casually casual and the teenager's sharp, pale eyes alight on him once more.

And stay there.

And sharpen.

Something about the intensity of the look feels lupine, wholly animal - the keenness, the committment to discovery - but Charlotte is not studying him with her strangely feral surety, but something else altogether. Human and selfish and selfless and strange.

Her generous little mouth is sealed a bit, the spreading curve of her strange expression pressed together.

Charlotte has a spoonful of sundae scooped out of the bowl but not yet lifted to her mouth and that spoonful lingers and starts to drip, melting from silverware back into the bowl.

"Good. You oughtta." This oddly sane, buoying surety in her eyes and in her voice, a maturity of spirit from which she absents herself so often. "If you don't wanna do it here in Denver I'm gonna go with you wherever you want to go. And I'll be there whether or not you make it.

"Losing a challenge isn't dishonorable, you know.

"Refusing one might be."

Something like relief, subtle but visible, settles over Erich when Charlotte assures him -- before he even asks! -- that she'll go with him. And be there. "Thanks," he says, sincerely and maybe just a bit shyly. "I asked Melantha if she could come along too. And she said yes. So like, I'll have you guys in the bleachers. Which is nice."

He hasn't stopped eating. Even talking about Serious Stuff like this, stuff that is clearly quite important to him even if he'd like very much to pretend it's not, hasn't averted him from his singular goal of stuffing himself like a turkey tonight. He eats turkey, he eats beef, he gnaws on a chicken wing and then he eats those hard-won shrimp by the spoonful.

A furrow-browed glance at her, though, when she points out that losing a challenge isn't dishonorable, but refusing one might be. "I can't tell if you're hinting at something?" he says, a statement that up-curves into a query. "I mean, with the refusing-might-be-dishonorable thing."

"I mean you're ready." Charlotte responds to him, quietly and seriously, with a mild stitch between her own brows. It does not correspondence to the furrow in his. Like the many iterations of All You Can Ate Eat, it is written in an entirely different language.

Charlotte's breath feels strange in her throat but she takes the breath and drops the sundae. The spoonful of sundae, back into its rapidly melting Lake Sundae bowl.

She is Very Serious but there's an alert, wolfish cant to her head as she studies him. "And now you know it. So if you make Fostern it'll be awesome. And if you don't make Fostern it'll be better than you think. It won't mean that you're a failure. Because you challenged and you'll challenge again. You've earned the right, and the only way you could really fail now would be to never try in the first place.

"See?"

"I do see," Erich says, all earnest: because he does. He does see that, he does get it, all that makes sense to him when someone says it to him or when he thinks it to himself. "But. Well. I'm still glad you're coming along. And Melantha. 'Cause if I don't make Fostern, I think maybe I'm gonna need you to tell me that again. Like five hundred times. Okay?"

And he reaches across the table, nudges her sundae at her. "It's melting," he reminds her.

"That's cool," Charlotte returns, with a rather bracketed little grin and a half-shrug of her spare shoulders. Aping someone else's language: perhaps his, perhaps someone long-since dead. "What I really wanted was ice cream soup."

Then, a spare flash of her eyes from behind pale lashes. "And of course we will. We're pack. We'll do it five hundred times plus one."

That flash of her eyes: caught, met, returned with a lopsided grin and, a moment later, a bump of his foot against hers. That's all the acknowledgment he gives, though, and perhaps all the acknowledgment he can give right now. In public. At a cheap buffet, where they've loaded ridiculous heaps of food onto their plates-and-bowls.

"Ice cream soup is totally gross," he says instead, or in lieu of whatever a more eloquent or mature creature might have said. "I bet your sprinkles are gonna get soggy. You should go get one of those lobster thingies. They're pretty good."

Charlotte rolls her eyes a bit. There's nothing gross about ice cream soup. It's the same stuff just no longer frozen. It's like saying that ice is amazing but water is gross. So: a roll of her eyes probably for Erich's denouncement of ice cream soup, of which she slurps a whole giant spoonful just to tell him that she is a rebel or something and does not care whether or not her sprinkles get soggy. They're still sprinkles.

They're still delicious.

But lobster-things, her sharp little chin rises and she glances over Erich's shoulder, following the drift of one of those workers past the steam tables to the lobster-thing-station, where they hand out the lobsters in their sad little glory,

"Maybe I will."

And maybe she does. No: actually she does, slip out of the booth and walk across the cheap little restaurant to take her single-allowed-lobster-plate. Brings it back and sets it down on the table, where she returns to consuming her melting ice cream.

It will not be long until Charlotte will be full, nudging that lobster back toward Erich, sharing the choice part of their odd, all-too-human kill.

Erich is out patrolling or something. Erich is out fighting or something. Erich is somewhere, and it is too cold for Charlotte and Melantha to be lazing out on a rock near a creek; they are closer to town now, even though Melantha can drive herself to work and they don't strictly have to be within walking distance of the saloon. It's winter. You stay near other living creatures. You stay where help can hear you if you howl, even if those helpers may also be terrified of you in the middle of the night.

And Melantha isn't working today, at least not yet, so she's doing chores. She bagged up all the laundry, for all of them, loaded it into her truck, and spent some time at the laundromat in town reading a book and chewing a granola bar. The beds all have freshened sheets and pillowcases and blankets now, which is not a weekly or even bi-weekly occurrence. Everyone has clean underwear and jeans and t-shirts and hoodies. She washed the plastic dishes in their little sink and dried them with a towel and put them away in their little latching cupboards. She even dusted here and there. She wiped out her shrine-bowl. She shook out the black furs that Charlotte brought her back from kills. She tidied and rearranged and spent some time sitting cross-legged on the couch, mending some holes in various items of clothing with needle and thread.

Melantha knows how to darn a sock. Melantha knows how to make things last, and use them again and again, just like how she knows how to build a fire and scavenge for food in the wilderness.

Charlotte is there, sometime later in the day, and Melantha has been ever so productive and the tinyhouse still smells like all of them but it's missing the sour tang of not-clean smells. Melantha is pretty picky about how she cleans; there's no reason for most of those chemicals, and it irritates her nose and her packmates' noses, so she uses things with witch hazel and tea tree oil and so forth; she scrubs the shower with half a grapefruit and some kosher salt because really, she doesn't think you even need baking soda. The bathroom smells clean and the beds all smell clean and some t-shirts with armpit holes have been restored to their spots in the rotation and occasionally, there is a quiet drip of the still-damp dish sponge in its holder by the sink.

"Hey."

Says Melantha, seeing Charlotte, smiling gently at her.

"I was just about to have some lunch. You want a sandwich?"

Charlotte is there, later. Charlotte, like Erich, like Melantha, comes and goes. Unlike Erich and Melantha, she usually comes and goes through those secondary doors known as mirrors, finding her reflection and slipping through it, easy as water through a sieve. Perhaps these passings leave behind the subtlest and strangest of scents, which is impossible to character or compare because it is not precisely physical, because it is not physical at all, because it is made of a substance that is begins to change as soon as it hits the fractured and structured immediacy of the world they inhabit, all these physical things.

So here is Charlotte in the freshly cleaned tinyhouse, with the scent of grapefruit and salt bright as summer in the air, while outside the sun shines, or it does not, and the wind blows cold, and the temperature drifts as it does, and the evergreens around Evergreen shiver in the passing winds.

In from the other side, Charlotte always seems both bright-eyed and far away, as if she has only just awoken, and brought part of her dream-world with her. She crawls out of her bunk and strips off her worn and rather ubiquitous dedicated messenger bag, full of tidbits and tchotkes, wattle and clay and bone, feathers and carcases and found things and formed things, and then her hoodie, leaving her in her dedicated t-shirt and jeans. A week ago she came home wounded. Not badly - Charlotte needed a day or two of furious sleep to recover, really, and ot much more, but her things were ruined and Mexican Sprite has given way to the Denver Broncos. Charlotte does not know what the Denver Broncos are, though. She liked Mexican Sprite better.

"It smells good," Charlotte says, inhaling deeply. "Like breakfast." With a smile. "I would like a sandwich. Do we have peanut butter and bananas? And Reese's Peanut Butter Puffs?"

Melantha uses natural products, no chemicals, when she clean. Charlotte, for all her dedication to Cold Crescent, feels sometimes screamingly ill at ease in cities. But she still eats garbage like whoa, and there's always some sort of childish cereal in the little latching cabinets of the tinyhouse.

When Charlotte came in wounded but not bad, Melantha still was worried. She still came and slept inside Charlotte's bed that night as though simply being nearby would finish off the healing, help it somehow, and maybe it did. Maybe the ancestors that sing their memories so powerfully in her blood watched over the Silver Fang as she slept, as she recovered, and this meant as much as the closeness of a friend nearby. People do better when they're at home. People do better when they're with the ones they love.

"Citric acid and salt are better than scouring powder," is Melantha's answer to things smelling like breakfast. She smiles. "We have some roast beef, and I think we have peanut butter. We have one banana left but it's pretty brown. No cereal. Well, some Fruity Pebbles."

She sniffs. "We need groceries." Which is true. She leans back a bit, tipping her head. "Now that you're better and all... could you tell me what happened the other night?"

"I like brown bananas," says Our Charlotte with a supple curve of her narrow shoulders. She does like brown bananas. Sometimes it is astonishing how brown she likes them. They turn to mush and taste like banana candy, though since the weather has turned there is always the option of freezing bananas that have hung around the tiny kitchen too long, then mashing them up like soft serve ice cream. "I'll have a brown banana and Frooty Pebbles sandwich. But no peanut butter."

And Charlotte makes a face.

Brown banana and Frooty Pebbles sandwich sounds delicous.

Brown banana and Frooty Pebbles and peanut butter sandwich sounds awful, apparently.

Charlotte pads through the tinyhouse and settles down on the couch, bending over to unlace and then toe off her boots before curling up with her legs beneath her. Her hair is getting longer and blonder and just the ragged tips are pink right now, and the static electricity from the dry heat in the tinyhouse makes it stand out like a vaguely startled halo all around her head. She watches Melantha with that wolfish look she always seems to have when they see each other after some time - any time - apart, which is keen and intent and perhaps a bit mesmerized, then gives another one of her rather shy half-shrugs by way of response.

Which is not a dismissal of the question. Charlotte never dismisses anything Melantha says to her. "Uhm, I don't know," is how Charlotte begins the little story. Erich is better at this sort of thing, and Charlotte's cheeks tinge a bit uncomfortably pink as if she had more eyes than just Melantha's on her. "I was in the city and on the other side and all these things were running from this spot and I went and looked and Looked and looked and there was a bit ugly Thing on the other side and that Uktena kin who argued with Erich - and these other two wolves fighting it. So I went through to help them.

"And we killed it but it exploded and I saw it was gonna explode and that girl was there so I jumped in front of her and it exploded and I got hurt and that other girl healed me and I healed her and that's what happen."

There's really no telling with Charlotte: what will sound good. Bubblegum ice cream with M&Ms may be fine, but peanut butter and Fruity Pebbles is a no-go. Okay. Melantha rolls with it. She rolls with a lot that Charlotte does or says, odd as it may be. Which is strange, since she argues constantly with Erich, even fondly, even while they're hugging or saying nice things about each other. They disagree and it more often than not makes the other smile. But with Charlotte, Melantha just accepts.

She smiles, too.

Reaching over, she touches her fingertips to the pink ends of Charlotte's hair, like stroking her fingers over the strings of a harp. It's an idle gesture, a thoughtless one, and intimate in that thoughtlessness. She is watching her fingertips in Charlotte's hair when she notices the way Charlotte is looking at her. For a moment, her pupils constrict a tiny bit, but it passes. She listens, her hand returning to herself as Charlotte tumbles out The Story, which isn't much of a tale but then Charlotte isn't a Galliard.

"Lola," she feeds Charlotte, being the Uktena kin that argued with Erich. And it exploded and Charlotte jumped in front of Lola and Melantha takes a measured breath. Her eyes flicker with something uncanny and savage, but it doesn't find expression in words.

She's quiet a moment. She can't exactly tell Charlotte she did the wrong thing by protecting a kinswoman. And she isn't quite sure how to tell Charlotte how Not Really Okay she is with close calls, with her two closest friends and some of the only people who still matter to her coming home still wounded and maybe dying and all of that. She swallows, and leans over to press her forehead to Charlotte's temple, and sighs. Then, after a very long moment, she gets up, swings her legs under her, and proceeds two steps to the kitchen to start making her friend a sandwich.

And then she changes the subject like a motherfucking hero.

"I was thinking about us building another tinyhouse," she says. It is out of the blue.

Charlotte looks so terribly young. Those wide and widely set eyes, the lie that is their strange and startling clarity, the tapered jaw, the finely jointed, nimble little fingers. Those eyes stay fixed on Melantha when they are in the room together, when Melantha is farther away and when Melantha comes closer and when Melantha begins to stroke the pink tips of Charlotte's fine hair, Charlotte leans thoughtlessly closer, her pale eyes half-closed, her expression briefly and finely drawn.

Lola, Melantha supplies, and Lola, Charlotte agrees wordlessly. Nodding her head all, yes, her. That girl. That one. Charlotte is still watching Melantha even as the kinswoman leans over to press her forehead to Charlotte's temple, but with the closeness of that contact, the wolf-girl closes her eyes - screws them shut - and leans so damn firmly into the contact. Human, with all the heaviness of a lupine greeting. She wants to say I'm sorry but she does not know why. The words curl in the back of her throat so present she can taste them, but cannot begin to fathom their origin. They all live with the promise of their death, bright beneath their skins, shadowing each breath they take. Even their priests are made for war.

--

So. That moment: quiet, fierce, to all too many different reasons, and then it is over, and Melantha changes the subject like a motherfucking hero.

Melantha is thinking about building us another tinyhouse. Charlotte looks a bit startled though Melantha is making a Frooty Pebbles and brown banana sandwich so she might miss the way that startlement chases across the young theurge's features, before ending in a quiet oh, which turns into a beetle-browed and thoroughly thoughtful look, before it at last resolves itself into a question:

"Do you think your Jeep is sad that Erich's truck has a tinyhouse to pull and it doesn't?"

[OH MY GOD. DENVER STOP BAKING ME. holy shit. i have seriously gotten that same hello msg like 3000x now.]

[I didn't tell you that Errin coded that in and attached it to your user account? yeesh, sorry, I guess I forgot!]

They all look young. They all are young. Erich is so fair haired, so pale eyed, so much like a farmboy that he used to be. Charlotte is elfin, ethereal, ageless in her purity. Melantha can so easily look the coquette; her cheeks are round when she grins a certain way, giving her a childlike seeming.

And Erich is a savage berserker, and Charlotte sees things no one else can comprehend, and Melantha is a priestess of dark, ancient rites. They are all young. They are all from another, older world, too.

--

There is nothing to hold the sandwich together. No mayo, no peanut butter, no jelly, nothing. So she mushes the bananas quite a bit so the Pebbles will stick. She puts it on a plate when she's done, licking a bit of banana from her thumb as she carries it over to her friend and sits back down next to her. Charlotte's question makes her smile.

"No. It's just a truck, unless you woke it up when I wasn't looking. I don't think it knows enough to feel sad or jealous." She leans back against a pillow, watching the Theurge, hands on her knees. She takes a breath. "I was thinking... then I could kind of have... my own house, sort of. And obviously you guys could come and go and sleep there and eat there and go back and forth and stuff. But we'd have more room. And... I'd..."

Her voice is getting a little smaller, which is not usual for her. She shrugs tightly. "I'd have a place of my own."

Which, one may not realize til just now, she's never really had. She takes a breath and holds it, waiting for a reaction.

Charlotte: exercise that empathy you are trying to develop. or just developing.

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

[She's nervous about this making Charlotte (immediately) and Erich (indirectly, at the moment) feel rejected. She doesn't want them to think she does not love them! Also she's never had a place that was just hers. And under the surface there's also this motivation of being able to be with Erich sometimes without messing with Charlotte, but she doesn't want Charlotte to feel pushed out or pushed away or anything.]

The plate rests on one knee. If they bought that cheap and mushy white bread the sandwich would stick together better just by smashing up the slices with the banana but they don't. They buy bread from a bakery in Evergreen. Sometimes sliced and sometimes not-sliced. It has seeds in it. It looks like it was made from something that grew out of the ground, and flowered and went to seed and shed those seeds and started all over again. That germinated. That woke up fighting in the cold dark earth, long before the sun had reached its zenith.

Charlotte balances the plate on her left knee. She balances it there but not for long when Melantha brings it back, and takes up one of the triangles of sandwich (Charlotte likes them to be diagonally cut. There are reasons. She does not know why.) and lifts it to her mouth. Some Pebbles fall out. Three red ones and one half-smushed grape one. That's okay. There are more inside.

So one bite and it is a rather big bite because Charlotte is a wolf and wolves are hungry animals and her blood burns bright and her body needs fuel. And Charlotte is chewing while Melantha explains that no she does not think the Jeep is sad unless it has been awakened (Charlotte disagrees; just because something is asleep does not mean it cannot be sad. Sometimes sleep is the saddest piece of her life) and does that smiling then she takes a breath and another breath and her voice is getting smaller and Charlotte, our Charlotte, does not notice many things, at least not many human things because she is deeply and markedly and remarkably in human but she notices these, the very first tells.

Notices them and her eyes sharpen on Melantha and her mad little head is cocked thoughtfully and she is watching Melantha and listening to her with a bright and sharpened attention and then Melantha finishes, and she's holding her breath now, waiting for a reaction and this is the reaction she receives:

Charlotte half-rises quite abruptly, upending the plastic plate with its new made sandwich and its quarter of stray Frooty Pebbles and shifts to one knee on the little couch, half-rising, and wraps her arms firmly and quite fiercely around her kinswoman. Face buried in Melantha's lustrous dark hair, her pale eyes half-closed, breathing in all that mystery, exhaling sense. In this moment Charlotte, on her knee, is a bit taller than Melantha and her mouth is near the kinswoman's temple and her breath is warm and her cheek is cool and her eyes are closed.

"If you want a place of your own I think you should have it. I know you'll never be far from me."

Charlotte and Melantha get to pick the bread, because Erich can't digest it. And they both like this kind, with the seeds and the feeling of growth and a bit of crunch to it, a bit of life even after it has come from the oven. In summer they tore pieces off of an unsliced loaf, eating it with a hunk of mozzarella while they sat in the sunlight on the grass. They fell asleep in the grass, stomachs full. It's winter now, and winter seems to ignite hunger even deeper than war during the warm months. Melantha puts on a few pounds; Charlotte and Erich eat even more voraciously. They buy the same bread.

She feels herself being looked at intently. She is used to this, and the difference between Erich glance-staring at her through his rearview mirror and then turning just to Look At Her and the way the Charlotte sometimes just arrests on her, lost for a moment. She is used to the difference between the way Erich and Charlotte watch her and the way that humans watch her, male or female. She is not upset at being looked at so closely, because Charlotte is her best friend, and if anyone can look deeply at her and still love her without reservation or hesitation or judgement or even concern, it is probably Charlotte.

The sandwich goes. Melantha frowns a little, hey, she made that, she cleaned up, but she doesn't want to yell at Charlotte, especially when Charlotte is just hugging her, very tight, all bony arms and surprising strength.

Her shoulders relax at what Charlotte says. She exhales softly, slowly, and a lot. She tips her head toward Charlotte, and into that embrace, silent for a little while. She won't ever be far, and Charlotte is not upset at all. Charlotte does not feel stung. Charlotte does not feel hurt. So Melantha mumbles into her arm, quietlike:

"So I should tell Erich, too?"

Erich. Who they both know will probably be more twisted up over the idea of the three of them not being all smooshed together anymore. But Charlotte tells Melantha what she already knows: yes. Yes she should tell him that she wants this, that she's thinking about this. Even if he's stung and hurt and howling and worried. But at least now she'll know that Charlotte won't be. She will only have to face one sad face. And maybe, to be fair, not even that.

She closes her eyes. Until Charlotte feels her relax. Until she can slip her arms away, and maybe pick up the sandwich, cuz the floor is pretty clean right now, and if not then well. Well. They can make something else that Charlotte will eat. Eat bowls of Fruity Pebbles on the couch, talking about, perhaps, what kind of house Melantha might like.

brickFaster than they could have blinked their eyes the two incongruous Garou take down the oil-skinned creature.

The first attack catches it upside the head and while it does not stun it the creature does look momentarily confused. As if it cannot comprehend a creature as large as the one before it using a staff to bean it so soundly. The blow does more damage than she could bring herself to do with her claws. The second strike from the staff misses entirely but it does distract the creature long enough for Pokes the Mind's Eye to get behind it.

And shoot it in the back of the head at point-blank range.

Ballistics being what they are the bullet ricochets against the inside of the creature's skull and goes veering up and off rather than going straight through and lodging itself in Still Waters' stomach. She is however covered in a fine spray of blood and brains despite not being the one to deal the killing blow.

Close as he was stood to the creature the spark from the weapon catches the fumes come off its skin. They cannot smell anything rank but as it falls the headless body goes up in flames. If they had not taken it down when they did they can assume and rightly so that it would have immolated of its own accord.

That takes care of that.

KeishaShe has no idea that Milton is there. And thus she has no idea that there will be wounds popping up anywhere on the creature that she did not inflict.

This means that she is completely surprised by the spray of living being that spatters her and blinks as if falls down. Moments later, she's back down into homid form, still shocked and bloody.

"What...the..." She blinks twice, spits the nasty shit out of her mouth. "Oh. Oh, HELL no. You did NOT just make me swallow brains. Do you KNOW the last time I had anything remotely close to living being in my stomach?"

She doesn't quite realize what she just left herself wide open for. And bless her for it, but she's in angry attitude mode. Patent pending, her mother.

Pokes-the-Mind's-EyeHe gets a smile on his face, proud little thing that he was, and he takes the time to put the weapon away. This was, well... It was Milton's first real Kill since he came to this place, and it was a rather impressive one, at least that's how he saw it.

Once the firearm was away he approached Keisha curiously, she was bloody, he wanted to be sure she was alright, wasn't dying. "You alright?" He asks her calmly as he looks down at the thing with a sigh. There was a frown as he looks at the thing.

"You see that?" He asks as he kneels by the burning shit. "That was some pretty gangsta shit if I say so myself!' He says with just a little hint of pride and just as much teasing in his voice. No he might not be a gangsta, he was a middle class white boy but he was Garou, and Garou deal with some shit that would make your average gangsta, your average soldier, piss his pants!

He sighs. "Shit, we gotta get you cleaned up." He says to Kiesha. "Hopefully... That was the only one!"

brickTO BE CONTINUED!~

Pokes-the-Mind's-Eye"We all break the litany a little now and again! It's cool! So you ate a little human! I won't tell if you don't tell!" He says back, a charming little wink is even presented to the Child-of-Gaia.

In the silence punctuated only by the crackling of weak fire and Keisha and Milton's bickering they cannot hear the infant-voice winding itself up again. Fallen silent as it had moments earlier they have not heard it during the last several minutes. Aside from the weak spot in the wall and the hole torn in the Gauntlet they have found no way to the other side of the dirty brick wall through which they heard the noise.

Lola has managed to return to the sidewalk with the intent to swing around the block to try and find the source of the noise. She has reached the corner and turned north by the time the fight has ended. She may have registered the subsonic boom that came from Milton's weapon discharging. She may not have. She is listening intently for the crying to come again.

Navigating in a city is not the same as orienteering through the woods but the principles are the same. Use the sky and ambient landmarks. Keep track of your cardinal directions. Listen for water and other animals.

While the Garou decide what their next move is going to be Lola comes upon what appears to be a pawn shop. Or was a pawn shop. Its display windows have been reinforced with boards and no wares or hours of operation grace them. A metal security door is drawn and padlocked in front of the glass front door.

Nearly three minutes after the Wretched pushed through the Gauntlet to attack them they hear the crying again. Low and mournful in its insistence. Like it knows they're still there and can't sort out why they haven't rescued it yet.

The Kinswoman had taken off running just before the beast, whatever it may be, ripped its way through the space between worlds to hurl itself at Keisha. Lola would have felt a little guilty leaving the Child of Gaia Theurge there to fight for herself, but she was a Garou and could turn to claws and teeth to save her life if she needed to. Plus, Lola had seen her in action with her staff and found her to be capable enough.

There's also the fact that Lola was pretty sure that wherever Milton had gone off to, it couldn't be far. He was a Ragabash, they got lost track of all the time. That was their job, after all.

She goes out the way they came and back onto the sidewalk, then out and around on the sidewalk to find the other walls to the building that she and Keisha were positive they'd heard the squalling of an infant coming from. She'd heard the gunshot and figured that Milton must have been lurking nearby after all. So much for her plan not to draw attention. But, at least they were Garou. They could sidestep if they had to. Lola kept on, around the corner, until she found the front of the building.

The mewling sounds of a miserable infant had started up again, now a sound in her ears like a radio in the distance after being lost in the woods -- soft, consistent, and honed in upon. It didn't tear her up inside or drive her mad like some may expect would be the reaction from a woman carrying life-- that whe would be rendered particularly wounded by the sound of an infant in distress thanks to the hormones adjusting and fluxuating through her bloodstream.

Rather than rattling at the security door and padlock, Lola instead just put her hands on her hips and stepped back from the front of the pawn shop to look the front of the building over. Maybe she could climb in through a window if she got decent leverage standing on something, like that security gate?

Three minutes from Milton's jokes, they'll be hearing crying again. There's still three minutes to go, and the pacifist vegetarian who was essentially used as bait and them sprayed with blood from someone who is joking about her eating human flesh is not pleased. Which is to say that her Rage, weak as it is, spikes considerably as she bristles at the Ragabash.

"You know what, Milton? Fuck you. You can deal with this clean-up. You killed it, it isn't my fucking problem. And if you even joke that I ate human again, I'm going to beat you into god-damned coma. That's not against my vow, you wannabe wigger."

And yes, she was in the process of walking off and leaving him there when the sound of the infant wailing pops up again. Which makes her stop, set her jaw.

"Goddess. Dammit."

"Victory has been achieved! Gaia's champions stood against the darkness and once more emerged... Uhm... Victorious! If not for the quick thinking of the handsome, charming, and brilliant new moon known to the nation as Pokes-the-Mind's-Eye this victory could have just as easily been a crushing defeat, but our hero refuses to allow the Wyrm even one single victory, not so long as blood still flows in his veins!" Milton says as he stands proudly over the corpse, his cape wasn't flowing but it was clearly pushed out for emphasis as he shows off his best side.

Yes ladies and... Ladies, this right here is what it's all about for Milton Kegler, saving a damsel in distress, waiting patiently for her to admit her undying love for him. Of course, he will have to turn her down, because he knows in his heart of hearts that it can never truly be! Keisha and Milton's children would be abominations, pariah's among the garou whose only saving grace was knowing they were the children of the nation's most important and powerful ragabash!

"Besides, his heart already belongs to another! That sassy uktena kin just doesn't realize what her heart is really feeling. Clearly it's conflicted, this is why she lashes out at him, he understands quite well, she insults him because deep down inside she is afraid to admit what she truly feels but one..." He breaks his pose and looks around with a confused look on his face. "Wait... Was I just saying that last part out loud?"

He fumbles around for his ear buds, slipping one into his ear, and getting a glowing smile on his face as his head begins bobbing.

Keisha begins yelling and he looks back at her and nods his head as he listens to her. He didn't understand what the problem was, the battle was won... Blood was everywhere. This was, and always has been, the life of the Garou.

However, the best part of his song comes up so he gives a little grin. "Wait up wait up... This is the best part!" He says as he slides the other earbud into place.

♫ The rythm of love,

keeps me dancing on the road,

the rythm of love,

got the groove that hits the bone,

the rythm of love,

Is the something something oooh,

the rythm of love,

It's the heartbeat of my soul! ♫

He notices, however, that Kiesha is looking annoyed about something else, and he pulls the buds out of his ear. "What now?" He pauses to look around. Goddamn it, he's missing the song!

[How was his performance? Cha+Performance!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )

[Dexterity 3 + Larceny 0: +1 diff for lack of ability]

Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (2, 2, 9) ( success x 1 )

"Go home, Milton. Let the adults do their job. Call someone who has value to me if you really want."

It's about all she can say without getting in a physical fight with him. And she starts walking around.

Her hopes to locate a window that she could easily open on the second story were scattered, but to be fair they weren't up too high in the first place. After her brief survey of the building front, Lola stepped back up to the building's front and peered at the set up with the security gate and the padlock that kept it in place.

She had to break the padlock to get in, and Lola's first thought was to find a tool to do this with. Unfortunately, all she had for a tool that could pass was her revolver, and she took too good care of her weapons to mistreat them in such a way.

So, she stepped back again and cast her gaze up and down the sidewalk.

When she was sure it was clear enough, she squared her balance, lifted a foot, and stomped her foot against the padlock hard as she could, throwing her weight into the kick and angling it to try and snap the latch itself.

Her foot smarted and her ankle stung a little from the maneuver, but she didn't break anything and the padlock was damaged enough that she could finish the job unhooking it with her fingers. The padlock itself was tucked into her coat pocket, so not to be left obvious on the sidewalk, and she pushed the security gate open just enough for her to get through and test the door behind it.

He nods his head. "Anger management would really help." He says as he moves to follow the Theurge, and he pulls out his iPhone to begin looking up a number. "You might also wanna think carefully about using the w word here in Colorado! Lot of hate associated with that word, well... Hate's not the right word. Lot of entitled white people who don't know the difference between racism and not being happy with their lives! But still! I'd be careful throwin' w-bombs around like that! Could get you sued by a pack of rich white boys!"

He does his best to keep up with her, wondering, quite curiously, where they are going and precisely why. Though he wasn't too worried about it at the moment. Wherever they were going it would be fun!

This side of the block has significantly less foot traffic than the other side but that doesn't mean Lola can't feel the eyes of the world upon her as she starts fiddling with the padlock and then decides to use brute force instead of patience to get the thing to relinquish its grasp over the rusted metal door.

Keisha's voice lifts up out of the alleyway but the phonemes are lost to distance and architecture. Muffled by the impatient wailing of an infant. If she is heading towards the opposite side of the block with Milton in tow the Uktena kinswoman can hear him talking a mile a minute behind her. Refusing to do as Keisha suggests and leave them to finish this.

No one else seems concerned by the wailing. Kids cry. That's just a thing that they do. It's annoying but it's not their kid. They can turn up their stereos and drink more and it will stop being annoying.

Someone in the distance turns up their stereo. Some blue-eyed soul song comes wafting down the street as Lola pockets the padlock and hauls aside a metal security door that shrieks its rusted discontent.

The crying morphs into a surprised hiccough.

"If you want to stay within ten feet of me and not get assaulted, shut the fuck up. I'm not telling you again, I'll just start attacking you."

And that is literally all she says as she is hopefully going in the same direction as Lola is going. Her tone suggests that she isn't joking. Seeing the kinfolk ahead she picks up the pace to catch up with her.

Lola can hear a stereo turn up somewhere else on the street. She vaguely recognizes the tune that's playing but pays it no mind. She also feels the suspicious eyes on the back of her neck and shoulders. She can hear Keisha and Milton's voices around the corner, but Lola doesn't wait up for them.

Time could be of the essence, for all she knew.

Or, at least, that was the excuse she'd give if anyone tried to set her down and lecture her about charging off into the unknown on her own. So she didn't wait for the voices to catch up, but instead was quick about opening the door that existed behind the security gate. The gate itself was slid back shut, but with no lock to secure it the Garou could follow after her with ease. Hopefully they'd figure out that they should close the gate behind them so as not to draw so much attention, too.

Inside, Lola pulled her revolver from her holster once more. She was only worried about people out on the street seeing her running about with a gun in her hand. In here, anyone that would see her she figured would be too young to remember or old enough to understand how not to get a bullet in their head.

His eyes light up. "Right!" He says, counting the steps between Kiesha and himself. Each stride should be at least a foot, so he uses that as a measurement and once she is ten strides away he continues moving with her.

The sight of Lola makes him tilt his head, he wasn't sure what all was going on, so he uses his iPhone to start taking pictures. Memories are important and one day they would all look back at this day and laugh and laugh and laugh! Because...

He caught sight of Lola pulling her weapon, and this is when he took the time to look around to see precisely what was going on. Was there danger around? He was pretty sure he already saved everyone!

[a little present for lola

-1WP and rolling WP]

Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (4, 4, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

She hears that digital Click-Click-Click once she gets inside and turns around, blinking at Milton with a dumbfounded expression.

"Are...are you taking pictures of me soaked in blood as we go to investigate a mysterious baby crying that went silent when the Wyrm attacked, then started back up again? Like, seriously? Unbelievable. Delete all of those. Can't wait for the next moot."

And with that, she is moving to pull the gate open and follow Lola.

He smiles when he hears what she says. "Yes Sir! Right away!" He says with a Salute, waiting until Keisha is inside and moving to follow her, putting his iPhone away for the moment!

Keisha steps over the threshold and Milton puts away the fucking iPhone and steps over the threshold and slides the metal gate shut behind them. These things happen shortly after Lola steps inside the darkened and emptied commercial building and takes a look around.

Anyone whose eyes were not cloaked behind the Veil would see a toddler sat in its diaper on the floor. Smeared in god knows what and left here to fend for itself. A healthy toddler with cornsilk-blond hair and ocean-blue eyes just so cute and helpless and coughing and crying away because no one is coming to pick it up. All babies look the same before their parents get ahold of them. Hard to tell its sex with Pampers maintaining its modesty.

As soon as they're inside and can see what it is they're dealing with those the Garou realize it isn't a human baby sitting on the floor. It isn't a tiny cute drooling infant that needs to be picked up and consoled and taken to a Safe Place so the police can start finding its parents.

Keisha and Milton and Charlotte when she pops out of the Umbra because the spirits are careening out of there fast as they can to find someone who can come do something about this abomination parked inside the store see something entirely different. It doesn't serve as an immediate affront to their mental stability but no one would blame them if they have to take a moment to absorb what it is they're looking at.

The building's ceiling is only ten feet high and the creature's head is nearly smashed up against it. Its arms and legs are disproportionately short and it does not appear to be able to walk with its swollen and glistening feet stuck straight out in front of it. It is grotesque in its mass. Covered in boils and blisters. A sideways mouth cut into its midsection flaps as it babbles in a language they can't understand. That they don't want to understand.

As they stand there the auditory distortion disappears along with the visual. The creature is making an ululating and guttural noise that rides the line between agony and ecstasy.

Lola, meanwhile. She doesn't fear much. No one has ever known her to scream or cry or exhibit anything other than determination or annoyance. But she saw something in the seconds between pulling her revolver and Keisha coming in behind her.

[Willpower Check]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 3, 4, 4, 6, 9) ( success x 1 )

The gauntlet thins and then separates and then bulges, and how of the remarkable immediacy of the half-broken world comes a girl with eyes nearly the color of the toddler that the sightless would see, and flaxen hair tipped in pin. The familiar pop of the gauntlet distended and then rearranging itself into something whole, the barrier returned.

Breathing sharp and deep, already reaching into a the messenger bag slung across her narrowing frame, the creature takes a half-second to orient and then reorient herself to their immediate surroundings.

The other Garou can scent her breeding in the air; it is as sharp and pungent as the promise of her madness behind it.

Whatever it was that Lola saw inside the building, it was hard to say.

Well, of course she saw the giant mockery of a baby, with its grotesque head smashed up against the ceiling, with it's swollen feet and useless little arms and filthing, rotting boils. She saw the gash in the stomach that made a second mouth, and she heard the terrible noises that came from it, cadenced and structured like language but nothing that she could know of.

But when the Garou came into the room Lola was standing still and stiff with her eyes wide and half-focused on the wailing infant abomination in front of her. Her nostrils were flared, her cheeks were flushing red, and tears had gone from forming in her eyes to rolling down her cheeks, down her neck and into the collar of her coat.

She didn't seem to notice or care about the Garou that came in along with her. She didn't say a word to them, or to the thing before her as she raised her revolver. Instead, she choked out a horrible sobbing noise, bared teeth that clenched hard enough to hurt, and lined up a shot.

He looks at the monster with a puzzled look on his face and a slow grin takes shape. "Weeping woods..." Is all he says as he looks towards Kiesha and then moves his attention towards the creature. Something told him that this problem was best solved in another form! Something told him this was only the beginning!

She looks at the thing. And then suddenly Charlotte is there. And Milton is grinning and taking another form.

And so she grips her staff and changes into Crinos, holding her staff.

gerbie

+6

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )

[[Init +7]]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )

+6

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )

Init +8 (homid)

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )

[3+3+2=+8]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )

Sense Wyrm

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

SPOILER ALERT: IT IS IN FACT OF THE WYRM

ROUND ONE - FIGHT

milton: 13

keisha: 11

gerbie: 11

charlotte: 10

lola: 10

declare in reverse order, you maniacs

[Splitting Actions1A. Shoot1B. Shoot again!]

Charlotte: Reflexive: rageshift. 1a. Bite. 1b. Bite. Rage 1. Claw.

gerbie

1: HAZARDOUS HEAVE @ charlotte

[[Rage spent]]

1a. Push Charlotte out of way of the Heave

1b: That double staff-whack thing I don't remember the name of right now from Iskakku

2: Staff thrust.

[2 Rage! Ima Tank this bitch! You all kill it! Shit... Don't let me die!

1a. Bite!

1R Bite!

2R Bite!]

[Biteybite!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 6 )

[Str+Hispo+2+5=12!]

Dice: 12 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )

[SOAK]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 3, 6, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 1 )

[[Attack #1: -3 for second action and then halved]]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (5, 9) ( success x 1 )

[[Damage: +1 staff, -1 maneuver]]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

[OW]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

[[Attack #2, -3 for second action, halved]]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

[[Damage: +1 staff, -1 maneuver, +1 succ]]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

[OWWW]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

[changing actions

dex + brawl: hazard breath @ MILTON +1 diff thanks a lot keisha you're so mean]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 1 )

[Soak!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 5, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )

1a. Bite. -2

Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

1a. Damanananananange

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )

[that is adorable]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 1 )

1b. Bite

Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 6, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

dAMAMNANANANANANANGE

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 6 )

[OWWWW]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (3, 3, 6, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 1 )

[Shot 1: Dexterity 3 + Firearms 3, -2 dice for split, -2 diff for point blank range rules due to opponent's size]

Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (1, 4, 4, 10) ( success x 3 )

[Damage: 5 Base + 2 Suxx]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

[OWWWWW]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )

[Shot 2: Dex 3 + Firearms 3, -3 dice for split, -2 diff for point blank range / massive opponent]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

[Damage: 5 Base + 1 Suxx]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 7, 7, 7, 7) ( success x 4 )

[OWWWW]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

[Ima bite again!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7) ( success x 3 )

[Damage! 2+3+2+2=9]

Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )

[did a window fly open?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )

Per + ze enigmas.

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5) ( fail )

[[Thrust attack! Dex+Iskakku, normal diff]]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 5 )

Oer + enigmas + ancestors

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

this bitch is gonna explode when it dies

[[Damage +1 Staff, +2 maneuver, +4 successes]]

Dice: 13 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

[AIIIYEEE]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

[EVERYBODY SOAK THIS]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )

Rage: shielding Lola

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

[[Soak]]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

[Actually fuck it. Everybody soak 8A.]

Soak.

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )

[Soak!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 3, 10) ( success x 1 )

DAMAGE TALLY

milton: 7A, incapped

keisha: 5A

gerbie: 10A/2L/3B, dead and exploded

charlotte: 5A

lola: OK, freaking out

Around her the world erupted into violence. All at once three Garou-- two Wolf Beasts and a Wolf-Man beast with its staff all attacking the squalling, babbling, tongue-twisting abomination before them. Lola didn't cringe or flinch back with the sudden furious movement of her Cousins, nor did she recoil from any sort of ichor or blood that would spray from the carnage before her.

She pulled her trigger and shot two bullets into the massive body in the center of the room. They landed, but were like stones thrown from a sling against a creature of this size and endurance.

For Lola, the world was in slow motion and clouded. Tears still ran hot down the trails the first few had made on her cheeks, and before she had the chance to fire another shot the circumstances changed. When there were enough tears and rends in the flesh of the grotesque mutant baby it started to bulge and distend and make a terrible noise. The Garou knew what was coming, and it took Lola a half a second more to register that the thing was about to explode.

She was slow to defend herself, but fortunately for her the valiant Silver Fang dashed in front of her and gave her something to hunker down behind. So Lola ducked her head and shoulders and wrapped her arms over her head and waited for the terrible ringing in her ears to stop and the world to stop its flurry around her.

There was injury. She smelled the burnt fur and the blood and the cooked meat flesh, but Lola didn't unfurl to check the damage around her. Instead, slowly, she sank down into a crouch with her knees apart and her arms still over her head.

She's still, quiet save for the muffled sobs coming from behind the shield her arms and elbows made.

"Tell my family... I... Hate... Them... So... Much..." and with that Milton is dead, with a little grin on his face. Well, not really dead, just laying, lingering on the brink of death. Helpless. A pile of cheeseburger on the floor. Delicious cheeseburger.

She begins the process of healing people.

[Starting with Milton. Mother's Touch. -2 for Wound Penalties]]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 6) ( success x 1 )

The world peels itsef apart and reforms. What happens happens to them in seconds; in fractional seconds, in secondary splits and the wolves are in the midst of it, torn apart and stitched together again. The Thing is a Thing is a monstrous Thing and the taste in the back of her throat is sharp and foul and oleaginous and the remnant sulferous promise of what is to come. One wolf - monstrous, massive, prehistory - throws itself in front of the human-with-the-guns and the blast takes her off her feet, massive whitefurred body shielding the softers, slighter body beneath.

The world is still ringing.

The first few moments after the explosion, she can do nothing more than begin to find her feet.

Milton's eyes open and he looks around slowly and then he lets out a sharp. "Ow!" He says sharply as he begins patting himself down and checking out his wounds. "You're supposed to warn me before you blow shit up!" He says to the other trueborns.

The sound of sobs brought his attention towards Lola and he blinked several times. What the fuck? Lola doesn't Cry! This is backwards, HE is supposed to be crying! Lola doesn't cry over anything!

This must be a dream! Er... He'd pinch himself, but he doesn't need to, simply breathing sends pain shooting through his body. Yep, hes awake.

"Shit... You alright?" He asks, even managing to partly forget his pain as his eyes wander in Lola's direction. This is supposed to be a happy time, so he didn't quite understand what had the woman responding like this.

When Milton is at least conscious, the Theurge moves on over to Charlotte. She's in agony of course herself; she's dropped back into Homid and is using her staff to support herself as she moves along, wincing along the way. But other people need her healing, and so she offers it.

Milton's initial comment draws a narrowing of the eyes, but it goes away when he realizes something is wrong and actually acts like a person for once. She lowers herself very carefully (luckily it doesn't have to be very far), enough that she can reach out and rest a hand on Charlotte.

[[Mother's Touch on Charlotte. Going for Diff 2 'cause there's no such thing as Diff 1]]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (3, 5, 6) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Milton inquired after Lola's well-being.

He meant well, truely, bless his heart he did. But Lola must not have heard him. She stayed crouched down like she was and adjusted only a little, enough that her elbows were on her elevated knees and her hands were clasped to the back and sides of her head, so her face was pressed into her forearms and tucked under her elbows into the progressively shrinking space between her legs and abdomen in this position.

She continued quietly to cry, shoulders and ribs jerking under her coat a little with the shuddering breaths that accompanied the act.

The Silver Fang - shining, astonishing, even in extremis - is breathing deeply, sides heaving, skin sloughing off her frame, singed fur sharp in the noise. Keisha heals her - hands on - and quite abruptly the beast is improved. the injuries are knit over and closed, the suppurating wounds reknit.

The gesture is returned.

- then the hispo starts sniffing through the pawn shop for additional threads, ready, stark, alert.

Mother's touch: [Keisha's current rage]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 5) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Sense Wyrm

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Milton struggled still. He was fucked up to all hell and back, but he could move. So he began towards the woman with a curious look on his face. "Hey... Hey... Lola... You alright?" He asks as he moves to hands and feet and wanders closer, crawling the best he can. Walking would be difficult in his state, would take a little more work, so he simply crawled up to her, and reached out his hand to touch her shoulder.

"It's alright... We won... It's cool, really." He says softly to her, he didn't deal with emotions like this all that well. Normally he'd try to cheer her up, but he wasn't sure exactly what was wrong. "We killed it! We won..." He sighs. "Shit... Uhm... Here..." He says as he pulls his iPod (yeah he has an iEVERYTHING! Fuck off!), and tried to switch it around to find something cheerful for her to listen to. Some J-pop oughta do the trick!

"Milton, even though you haven't listened to me all night, listen to me now. Shut up right now and turn that shit off."

She doesn't wrap her arms around Lola, doesn't talk to her. She doesn't try to tell Lola it's okay. She's just staying there, and Lola can draw comfort from her and lean on her and talk or she can not. The point is, she is only there to provide what Lola needs, and if the kin tells her to go then she'll do that too. (Albeit stay nearby.)

His eyes narrow at Keisha, and for the first time... Ever, the others see the flash of rage within the Ragabashe's eyes. Ever...

He simply stands and turns his back, and leaves saying nothing more to the Theurge.

Thankfully, two of the three present were Theurges, and knew how to heal. So, they laid hands on one another and on the Ragabash as well, enough to keep him from slipping over the brink into death's waiting arms. Though he wasn't quite well enough to comfortably walk on his own, Milton kept vested interest in the condition of the Kinfolk. He'd seen her hold a belt around her own thigh to prevent herself from bleeding out while keeping a cool head. He'd watched her shoot twisted monsters to their deaths with teeth bared and no flinches for the blood that sprayed her face. That this strange and quick-to-die monster reduced her to tears was a curiosity indeed.

He'd pulled himself across the floor and braced a hand on her shoulder. Keisha hovered nearby, available without pressing her presence onto anyone. Charlotte had gone off to investigate the rest of the scene.

Lola moved her arm down from her face to look at Milton when he'd touched her, and the Ragabash will see her eyes are red and puffy and her face tear streaked. She looked at him for a second with her lips pressed closed and trembling with efforts to be kept still, but it didn't hold up very well. "It... It showed Hector," she'd started to explain, but Keisha warned the Ragabash to keep his mouth shut and iPod silence, and the Glass Walker rewarded her by forcing himself up to his feet and limp his proud way out the door-- all in the name of the cold shoulder.

So Lola stayed with Keisha for another minute instead while struggling to compose herself. She didn't lean on the Child of Gaia for support, but any hands that might have found her back, arm, shoulder, or what-have-you were accepted and covered briefly with her own hand before nodding and swallowing. It didn't take more than another 90 seconds or so after Milton left for Lola to pull herself together enough that she managed to get the tears to stop rolling down her face and her breathing level enough to stop shuddering like it was.

Beyond explaining that she saw Hector, she didn't say anything more from there. The ordinarily stoic Kinfolk needed to process on her own, apparently.

Oh, sure, she would stay behind for any clean-up or hiding that needed to be done. But her time spent behind was quiet with clenched jaws and occasional solitary tears being angrily, hastily swiped away from her cheeks. When there wasn't anything left for her to do, she'd leave without much beyond a solemn thank-you to Charlotte for shielding her from the blast that nearly tore three Garou apart.

Sunday after sundown; the lozenge of a moon in the sky. It is crescent and tastes like the memory of a soap bubble popped in the mouth: sweet, with an aftertaste of lye. The building curves around the Holy Ghost Church, which is illuminated by spotlights throwing up stark cones of light against its frame. In the plaza between 1999 Broadway and the church itself, the dark marble plinth of the Veteran is quiet and stark and still.

There is a girl seated on a bench beneath the Veteran, facing toward him rather than away. She is eating rather carefully and precisely from a plastic container of sushi.

Her hair is pink.

Her breeding verges on the intoxicating, she is so pure.

There was another girl, perhaps not so well bred-

No, not perhaps. There was no perhaps with her. There was just a fact. The difference between them were as clear as the glass Hazel had spent the last few days thinking of how to please. Because, you see, this was a city. Glass was everywhere, and someone had to think of how to keep it happy. There were city spirits, and the smell of this place was on her like a second skin. Like a birthright.

But, there were similarities. They didn't know what they were just yet, but there were similarities, like the choice in food… just of very, very different qualities. Hazel looked at monolith, the statue of the Veteran all quiet and stark and still. There was the scent of chicken flavored ramen in a microwavable container.

"Can I sit here?" she asks, not like it's high school- Hazel didn't remember things like that. Hazel did, however, know that feeling of nervousness, the familiar feeling of being told that the seat was, in fact, taken and that she wasn't welcome.

She was overcome with awe- somewhere between the statue and the purest of blood.

Hazel wasn't much in comparison, but there was something glorious and humbling in feeling so small.

Charlotte is spare, is pale-skin and fine-boned and rather small for a wolf-girl but is also: growing. There is something birdlike about the upward lilt of her chin, the way her hair - which is natively platinum, just the tips dyed pink - frames the wide-open eyes as she gives a rather startled turn of her head to find Hazel watching her. Ramen in hand.

A moment where the pink-haired Silver Fang glances around to confirm for herself that the strange is indeed speaking to her, before she turns around at last, and says, "Uhm, sure?"

Eloquent.

Shy.

Her pale eyes just graze Hazel's face, drop to the noodle cup in hand, and skitter away. Back to the solid Veteran, whom she is contemplating rather solemnly. Hazel has time to chose and take her seat and Charlotte does not make smalltalk but she does steal another sideglance at Hazel, mostly the noodles, and then nudge her plastic tray of sushi a bit towards Hazel.

"You can have one if you want."

Hazel is unimpressive. She would probably be prettier, more impressive or more inherently awe-inspiring save for the fact that she could probably stand to put on about fifteen pounds. Her skin is olive, though it is hard to tell if it is because she needs a bath or if it is because she is naturally tan. Her hair is a dark mess of tangled curls. Her teeth are white and the canines are just a tad too sharp.

She smiled, and it was genuine. The girl took a seat next to the Silver Fang, feeling almost daring to sit beside her instead of behind her. Her expression was one of delight.

Hazel took a bite of ramen and her eyes went back to the Veteran. Though, she could smell food- Bone Gnawers had a sense for food. Her eyes went down, then back to the pink-haired one. She can have some if she wants. Just one, though.

"Okay," she replies, and very carefully she takes a piece of sushi from the end- one of the smaller pieces- and pops it into her mouth. She looked at her noodles, and then carefully held them out to her current companion.

"Hmmn?"

It wasn't much, but clearly she was more-than-willing to share.

Charlotte says you can have one if you want and Hazel hears one as just one and Charlotte does not mean for the words to take that shape but they do. She has never been hungry; never wondered where her next meal was going to come from or what it was going to bed, not even when she was on the road with her packmate.

And Charlotte does not particularly want any of the noodles but see there is a ritual here that she must somehow sense, because she flashes Hazel another rather wary little glance, then a rather wary little smile, then dips her chopsticks into the Bone Gnawer's ramen. Twirling a few noodles rather inexpertly up and slurping them into her mouth.

"You should try one of those," Charlotte replies, when she has chewed-and-swallowed, pointing out another piece with her chopsticks, rather closer to the middle, a slab of raw tuna over an oblong half-cylinder of rice. "I'm Charlotte."

It tastes…

Actually, it tastes like instant ramen is supposed to taste. Cheap, available, and not offensive to one's senses. Overall, it's not a bad gig. It's just… eh. That is the nature of instant ramen in the United States. Hazel smiled, though the mild bit of wary discomfort from Charlotte is met with absolute delight from the Gnawer, a joy that she got to share.

"Ooh, that does look good," she said as she took the little piece of tuna-and-rice. She took her time to observe it. To take it in as a full sensory experience. The look of it, the smell of it, finally the taste and the texture. One would think that Hazel would demolish food instead of sit in quiet contemplation of it.

There was chewing.

There was swallowing. There was an introduction, "I'm Hazel. It's nice to meet you."

She then smiled, embarrassed, the girl ducked her head, "sorry, I just.. i've never met someone like you. Well, like, I've seen people similar to you, we just never talked."

A beat.

"I'm new in Denver."

The Silver Fang's pale brows rise in a sort of query as Hazel informs her that she's seen people like Charlotte but never met someone like Charlotte. Charlotte's eyes are all inquiry and she does not quite understand why Hazel is embarrassed or abashed or even precisely what Hazel means by someone like her because Charlotte interprets that phrase rather differently than Hazel does.

There is a kind of cloudy film over Charlotte's eyes as she processes this and thinks and considers and then figures it out her mouth an "O" of surprise that she swallows neatly into her body a moment later.

Another tentative smile. "You don't mean someone with pink hair, do you." The creature lifts her pale eyes then, past the statue she herself was observing, to the office building that looms over the both of them.

"New, huh. Have you been up there?" She indicates with a short little gesture of her chopsticks. "Or to the place in the country?"