Ornature

[1. There is no post order, but please post only once for each post I make unless I indicate otherwise.

2. Post in 15 minutes or less, and declare/roll in 2 minutes or less. "In 15 minutes" means 15 minutes from my post, not the last player to post before you. If you miss your roll it will be skipped. In character this means it automatically fails. And that kinda sucks. :[

3. You are free to multi-task, so long as you can abide by the above strictures. If you repeatedly miss 'deadlines' or are unresponsive in the scene chat, I will ask you to excuse yourself from this scene (or the other) out of respect for my time and the time of our fellow players.

4. This is a very low-risk scene both psychologically and physically.

5. Please PM me now with personal phobias, triggers, or off-limits themes (if none, no need to tell me 'none'). If you're uncomfortable with anything in the scene, IM me once (outside of the chat). If you become uncomfortable/distressed due to content in the scene and need to immediately leave, please IM or email me as soon as you are able to let me know. I don't actually enjoy upsetting my players. Just their characters.

6. Please PM me now with any relevant merits/flaws/traits I should be aware of. If none, no need to tell me 'none'.

7. Keep track of your own health and tempers. Ain't nobody got time for that. Except you. What I mean is: I do not have time for that.

8. Ask questions in the AIM chat. If I don't answer after 2-3 minutes, ping me once in PMs here. In review: AIM chat for chatter and questions, IMs for personal distress, Jove PMs for questions I have not answered within a few minutes.

9. Don't be a dick.

10. Don't forget to be awesome.]

When the sun set today, it blazed through the freshly renewed boughs of the trees, a baleful red circle both drawing and repelling the eye. Everything in sight was cast in a heavy crimson glow, the edges gilded with flaming orange. There seemed to be no break between the edge of the sun and the lines where branches and leaves should be; the world went silent for this sunset, though it flinched with dread.

When the heat grows too searing to bear, you go north. When the itch of summer's heat makes the skin crawl, you go north. You begin heading that way without quite understanding why or how; you find yourself knowing deep into the journey that you will never make it far enough to escape the heat. It seems that a great deal of time has passed, leaving you in autumn now. The leaves here are enormous: veiny orange and brown things the size of the trees they should have come from, standing tall and straight from yellowed grass, fluttering in wind that should be cold but is only hot, dry, and unforgiving.

You have been walking for -- you do not know how long. From where, you do not know, or why. There are people alongside you: three others. You do not know them, or their names. You realize: you do not know your own name. You think, looking upon the forest ahead, that there was a wall before, a low one, maybe around a portico or veranda. You're not sure. It was stone, you think. You're not sure. The sunset was red and unmerciful; you came north, and now the grass is yellow underfoot, there are leaves the size of trees, and you are with strangers and you do not know how long you have been walking with them, or they with you.

You know this: go north. You know this: you are with strangers. You know this: you are a werewolf, and your skin and bones will change shape around you, but you do not know for what purpose. You know this the way that perhaps an ant knows it is an ant, a dog knows it is a dog, a bird knows it is a bird. There is no need to question it, no need for cumbersome mythology. You are a mammal, and this is the type of mammal you are. You know that leaves are not usually that large, even if you do not know if every sunset is always so red, so disquieting, or just the one you remember.

You know that it is night now, the sky darkened, the stars and moon above. You like the moon. You do not know why, but even as thin as it is, the sight of it fills you at once with hopeful joy and maddening anger that itches at the back of your mind. You like the moon very much.

You think: the moon likes me, too.

When the sun set today this one thought he had plenty of reason to stay where he was. Now the heat sinks into his fur and it can't roll off his tongue fast enough to cool the rest of him but he does not stop. If he had stopped he would not be here.

He accepts the strangers as he accepts the heat and the leaves and the yellow grass. This is nothing more than what it is. He knows that dark speckled through with light means the moon is here.

Part of this one wants to run to catch up with the beckoning north. He has been walking with the others this long. He does not hasten to leave them yet.

He sniffs the grass and when he's done he lifts his muzzle to the night air. Maybe it will tell him something.

Oh, she's a rare thing. A rare rare thing, fine and pale as that slivered moon she loves so well, nothing like that the baleful light of that setting sun, those too-large leaves. The wall and the sun and the wall and the trees had an ancient sort of familiarity, see. She can taste them, somehow, on or beneath her tongue. Belongs in places like this, even if she does not know what this place is or where it might be, or that there are other places like this: any of it. Walls though, walls and grounds that are groomed, with sweeping views, well ordered though not - never - tamed.

Listen: a pale girl, slender and finely made given weight by the many imperatives and attachments of her blood is among the quartet.

She is wearing her girl-skin and this she does not mind. She can feel her wolf-skin beneath her girl-skin and this she does not mind either.

Somehow she is both aware of this mindlessness and aware of it as a relief right? A letting-go. She remembers so little she has forgotten even her madness,

and glances at the stranges who are human-strangers and wolf-strangers and says,

"Hello." Smiles, see? How strange it is to speak.

She likes it, though not so well as the moon. "I want to follow her," the moon, the girl means, with a lilting glance upwards through the too-large leaves to the slivered moon in the darkling sky. " - I wonder where she sleeps."

She is walking along in two legs, because that is how Keisha normally walks. Her staff at her side, her sandals on her feet and a simple green sarong dress covering her. She doesn't know why she's walking this way or who she's walking with, and perhaps that sudden realization when it hits (whyever it hits) troubles her, because she stops and frowns. Her attention turns to the moon, who she likes and who likes her, and then around to the other strangers. Her hands grip the wood of her staff and then she realizes that she has a staff. She looks at it, examines the carvings that she began on it upon making her new one (which she doesn't remember she had an old one).

She looks to the wolf, the woman and the other, and takes a breath. She nods, smiles a little. "Hello. Do any of us know who we are?"

Because it's a valid question. And as she asks, she's walking again, heading northward where they want to go.

Amongst their number is a boy who walks beside the girl. He is very different from her, broad where she is slender, strong where she is fine, golden and ruddy where she is silver and white. Something about them is nonetheless similar, as though they were two shoots off the same root; hybrid stalks grafted to the same stem.

It does not bother him very much that he does not know who he is or where he is or why he is. He is, and this is enough for him. As they walk the heat of the day begins to fall away, layer by layer. He looks at the moon and smiles, because he likes the moon very much, because the moon likes him too.

The silver girl speaks: he turns to look at her, his smile widening. "Me too," he agrees, and then:

the other girl speaks, the one who is not silver and white but amber and brown. There is one other in their quartet, another boy, another who is dusky and dark. The boy looks around at the four of them and he sees that he is the largest, and he thinks this must mean he is strongest, and he thinks this must mean he is to protect the others. Of course. That makes sense.

He turns to the dark girl; he seems puzzled and a little amused.

"What a strange question. We are us and we follow the moon."

They know things about themselves. Or feel them, like a pulse that one doesn't notice until you touch your wrist, your throat: the willingness to go into the unknown, and permit the unknown, and keep the unknown's secrets with it if necessary. The call of kingship, how easy it is to be the first to say this is what I want to do. The urge to protect. They feel themselves, their own humor and their own passion, but they are like half-buried boxes, and you are not sure what is inside.

A small dark spot from the sky grows larger, growing closer, and then grows wings, and alights on Erich's shoulder. It is a bird. You know it is a bird, and even: a pigeon. You are a werewolf and that is a pigeon. It has eyes as bright as gemstones, as smooth as riverstones. It hops a bit, and coos, and flutters its wings, then pushes off and circles, flying to Charlotte, working its beak in her hair. And this pigeon is known to the two of them, and is as much a friend as the moon is, but it has no name. Perhaps it never has.

Perhaps they never have.

Up ahead, dark-furred creature, there is a gate. Only a gate, standing between two stone posts. The gate is wrought, and rusted. The stone posts are covered in signs. You can read them: KEEP OUT. NO TRESSPASSING. and so on. You know what those words mean. And you know how strange they are, because to either side of the stone posts there is no fence, no wall. The gate is chained shut. You know this, now:

THIS IS THE ONLY WAY FORWARD. BUT THE GATE DOESN'T WANT YOU TO GO THROUGH.

She frowns at Hector; no, not even frowns. She scowls a little bit. It's a rebuke, even if light-hearted, and this is not the Keisha who is calm and gentle. That Keisha was gained through certain experiences, and she doesn't have those. She has no knowledge that she's "supposed" (in her own estimation) to act older than she is, and so she gives him a harsh look.

"There's no such thing as a strange question, or a normal one. There are only questions. The answers are what are strange or not."

She watches the pigeon as it circles around Charlotte and Erich, and not her or the other. She wonders about it, but only for a second because there's a gate up ahead. And for this Keisha, "Keep Out" and "No Trepassing" may as well be a big neon sign reading COME THIS WAY.

So that's what she does; she cocks her head to the side and starts walking to the gate itself, intending to try to scale it.

"Hello," says the silver girl quietly to the pigeon and her hello sounds a bit like hello and a bit like a responsive cooing. It is smooth in her throat but there is an edge to it that you cannot quiet comprehend unless you know something of the alient beasts from which such animals descended. She does not know such things and yet:

she does. The sharp and alien eye. The darting directness. The delicate savagery.

No quarter here.

--

That is how she looks at the gate. The gate the gate the gate that bars the way and keeps her from the place where she must go.

The girl does not like the chains and does not like the signs and she walks beside the boy with an unconscious certainty and she smiles at the beast and there is something benevolent about this but also assured and she smiles at the girl and agrees with the golden boy.

Here is a secret: already she knows that she does not miss her name. Feels that secret like something organic in her chest.

She glances at the golden boy, alert see.

She knows he will back her up,

when something comes,

and something always comes,

and the signs do not belong there, and how dare they bar her way.

So, she begins tearing them down. Bare hands.

And the male wolf the only one who left his home on four legs can feel in his bones that he could stand on two if he wanted but why would he want to when the ears he has now catches flapping wings before that dark spot takes on a form. He doesn't. His ears and his eyes and his nose and the moon are all good as they are.

They come to a pause and he stands alongside the other male without knowing why. Scents the airs and sees the gate and chuffs out a low firm noise: there. Not harrying or herding the others.

If he is fast he does not move so fast as to leave them behind. No question in his mind and he voices no question and what voice he has he keeps to himself.

He goes around the gate.

A pigeon comes. And the boy knows the pigeon, even as he knows his own self, his bones, his strength. He is happy to see the pigeon, and the pigeon is happy to see him. It alights on his shoulder. He kisses it on its small, sleek-feathered head. It is a meek, pretty bird, neither ferocious nor even particularly intelligent, but it is adoring and loyal and terribly good with directions.

It goes to play with the silver girl. The boy smiles again to see it go.

He doesn't smile to see the gate, though. It bars their way, even if there is no fence, no wall. The wolf moves to go around it, but the boy hangs back: an eye on the silver girl, ready to defend. An eye on the gate, with its air of forbidding and foreboding both.

"Be careful," he calls to the wolf.

One will climb the gate that says you must stay out, and one will tear down the signs that say you must stay out, and one will go around the gate that you must not go around, and one will hang back, perhaps obeying the gate that says you must obey it.

The pigeon lifts from the pink-haired female's shoulder, rising upward, landing to perch on the stone post.

This is what they get, for their troubles:

The gate should not be hard to climb, and it is not. The gate might be painful to climb, and it is. Her feet get stuck. Her hands sting and cut as she grabs hold of rusted metal. Her feet slip, too. She bangs her chin on the iron. The gate rattles under her weight as though it would collapse, but it does not. It just shakes her loose, shakes her down a few inches.

The paper tears easily, as paper does. The metal signs bend and with enough prying will come loose, but they take chunks of stone with the screws and nails that hold them in place. They do come off. The posts start to stop saying KEEP OUT STAY OUT quite so vehemently, as those messages tatter to the stomped-upon grass.

Around the stone post he finds himself looking from a new direction at the one female climbing, the other female tearing, the other male standing watch. Round and round and round and round, a door that is the same on both sides.

The pigeon looks at the boy hanging back. Cocks its head and flies back, but it does not fly over the gate. It cannot. There are laws here, you see, as efficacious as gravity.

She makes a hissing sound (as you do) as her hands are cut and she slips down off the wall with a frown. Looks at the gate, and the chains that bind it shut to them. She examines the lock, looks at the gate itself, furrows her brow.

"We need to find a key." She looks around at the others, up to the moon. Her friends (because she assumes they are friends, even if she doesn't know them). "Some way to get the lock open and get through, or we won't be able to pass."

When the signs are pulled away, what are left are the chains. The chains that bar it and the doors that they secure that bar the way, properly.

And the pink-haired girl tears away the signs that say GET OUT STAY OUT because how dare they bar her and then she grabs the chains and she looks at the golden boy and she is a BEAST she knows this in her bones and she tells him,

tells them, really:

(and when she tells them she is no longer a pink-haired girl. She is large, larger, she remembers not why or what she is, but that there is a strength in her body that remains untapped.)

tells - perhaps - Keisha most of all:

"You're stronger than you look. Help me tear it down."

The boy is, indeed, hanging back. There is that about him: a sense of shyness, nevermind that he is large and well-muscled and has fists that look as though they might easily bash walls to rubble. He watches the others tackle the gate: climbing it and getting hurt for the trouble (though perhaps the sting to the pride is worse than the sting to the body); ripping the signs down; walking around it

and instantly rounding the other post, as though there is no world to either side of the gate.

The pigeon comes back to him. The boy reaches an absent hand up and scritches it under its small beak. Then he walks up to the gate, behind the silver girl and to one side of her, looking at her handiwork.

"Maybe she's right," he says to the silver girl, meaning the earthen girl. "Maybe we need to find a key. I can try, though,"

and so speaking, the golden boy abruptly bursts fur from skin, grows to an enormous and shaggy thing. He grips the gate in both handpaws and pulls as hard as he can; leans backward to leverage his weight, muscles knotted like ropes under that thick fur.

Only once does the wolf circle the gate before he sniffs the air and goes around the gate again and keeps moving north. He takes with him a warning from the upright male and he gives back a whuff of agreement.

Maybe she's right. Maybe they need to find a key.

As the others work to overcome the gate the wolf trots on ahead. He does not think the gate does or does not mean anything. It is a gate and it wore a sign and it has done nothing yet to keep him from moving around it so he keeps moving past it.

There are many signs. The one with pink hair pauses in the tearing, has to pause, to tell the others what she does. When she changes, grows, becomes the strength and awe-inspiring beauty that is in all of her kind, even the ones who have forgotten it.

you are stronger than you look

They begin to use their bodies, power surging up from the earth through them as they change and tear and pull. The pigeon flies away, and into the sky, and vanishes again for a while, forgetting itself. There is no getting around the gate, for one circles. Going past it, one finds oneself passing another stone post on the other side, coming to discover the three others still standing there.

They look, perhaps, in the grass or the stone, pulling at bricks or looking in the lock itself, but there is no key to be found. The gate cannot be broken, which is a sting to the ego: it is so fragile, so rusted, so old, so brittle. They are so strong.

[wits + engimas time]

[[Wits+Enigmas]]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 5, 7, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

[hokay, so....]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

[derp]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

Wits + enigmas

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )

The gate is infuriating. The gate stands between her and where she was meant to go. She wants to be on the other side of it. She wants to cross. She wants to tear it down. She wants to tear it open; it looks like it should be easily ripped asunder,

and still it remains standing.

So they hunt; for a key instead of prey. Beneath her skin and in the back of her beast-mind she knows that one is not the other but the instinct remains the same: to hunt, to seek, to range. This is right and proper and the itch of it is a fine thing beneath her skin until again,

there is no key.

They cannot climb it and they cannot tear it down and they cannot circle it and still the gate blocks the way and this is the way they were meant to go and she opens her mouth and she snarls her frustration and her tongue lolls in her muzzle as she looks at the moon in the dark-velvet sky and she lowers her great head and she sinks from her beast-form to her girl form and she considers the gate again, and all the others.

And then the gate, and oh,

well.

The pink-haired girl, she knocks.

Knock-knock-knock, see? Let me in.

Well, it's almost as though they've switched it right around, isn't it? Now the silver girl is knocking meekly and the golden boy is:

well, he is not a golden boy, for one. He is a shaggy wolf-monster, and he is enormous and his paws are enormous and there's all that fur and the heat that radiates off him feels like a sun in miniature. And for another: he is not meekly watching anymore but tearing at the signs himself, as though falling back on this option now that the others have been exhausted.

Or his arms. At least his arms are exhausted. From pulling.

Your blood sings in your own ears. You are pure. You are bright and strong. Things call to you, yestheydoHAHAHAHA and they are cold and angry and bitter and painful things, scary things, but right here there are others, whose blood is not so bright whose voices are not so pure, but they are with her. The large one sometimes listens.

There is no key on the ground or in the lock. She tore down the signs though. The voice yelling KEEP OUT in those bright glaring letters has quieted. She can make it quieter.

She frowns and walks away from the gate, not having shifted form and instead having just pulled with her own strength. Why? Because that's who Keisha is.

Instead, she looks down at the posters and signs and starts shifting through them. No Trespassing. Keep Out. There's a furrowing of her brow as she starts to look for something between the overt messages.

Something Deeper.

"Let me pass."

Not merely the knock, then.

The knock is an imperial knock, a knock of courtesy. The greeting of one shining thing to whatever abides beyond the gate. The knock is the knock is the knock is what it is.

She knocks. She says, again, "Let me pass."

--

And, then, like the boy, she resumes tearing down the signs.

Let them all fall down.

When the male wolf comes back around the gate the final time he does as his bones bid him do and slips out of a skin made for long distances. Running and howling. The grass is different beneath his feet and the clothes he wears and the metal around his fingers hung around his neck punched through his ear don't mean anything to him.

The wolf was lithe and sharp and tan of fur with brown and red and gray run along its spine but the boy who joins the others is near as tall as the other. Thinner and darker. His hair falls down past his shoulders and he wears all black clothing. A hunting knife on one side of his belt and a medicine bag on the other.

He looks like a shaman maybe but he isn't.

He helps the silver girl and the golden boy take down the last of the signs and when the last of the signs is on the ground he glances to the others. At the girl with the staff in particular.

It is not a large gate. He is not the one to test its compliance. He's watching.

One pulls at the signs. Stupid little signs! They aren't iron or stone. Just aluminum, just paper, just cardboard. Plastic! One tears at them, til his arms are worn out from it. They are stacked and staggered.

One peers at the signs. Stupid little signs! They are thin and their words are shallow. KEEP OUT. STAY OUT. NO TRESPASSING. Variations on a theme. Some in different languages. They, unlike the gate that is meant to be walked through but is locked, do not obfuscate their intentions.

One tears at the signs. Stupid little signs! Don't they know who she is? Nevermind that she doesn't know who she is. She knows what she is. They all know what they are. She rips. The gate, being a gate, does not answer her any other way.

One takes down the signs. Stupid little signs. Stupid signs, man-made, man-lettered. Gates are symbols like walls are symbols, like giant leaves are symbols. Those might be as native as the leaves, the trees. The signs came from something else, had to have, because they have words. You never read in dreams, they say, that's not the part of your brain that works. Maybe that's a lie, to comfort you, a totem like in that movie, right? Something you can count on to assure you that you are only dreaming. Well nevermind: he knows these things, and he knows that gates are made for walking through, and signs are just spells you attempt to cast on the people who read them. He knows: spells only work on you if you believe in their magic.

--

The stone posts have holes in them, screws and nails. Bits of tape. There is a veritable cloud of signage at their feet by the end. And the gate is not rusted, they must have imagined that, and there is no chain and no lock, because the gate just stands there, the wrought iron clean and dark. It looks like it is made of soot; if you breathed on it, the particles would scatter. But touching it, it feels cold.

Iron often does. Even in summer, late summer, after a baleful sunset.

In the distance, wind moves through the trees, the giant leaves. It sounds like a sigh. A waking sigh, or a relieved sigh. The woods shudder.

The first to put their hand on the gate finds it swinging easily inward, as though it was always meant to swing inward, welcoming and unafraid. It doesn't even creak, and the landscape beyond does not change. The world is no different. Only their perception of the barriers within it.

The signs go away. The rust and tarnish goes away. All that's left in the end is a gate, powder-black and perfect, and looking at the gate the boy suddenly understands that gates are meant to be barriers, yes, but they are meant also to be portals. You can go through such things.

And this gate: it opens, as it is meant to do. Now the way is open. There is a forest; there are giant, giant, giant leaves. Maybe they are small. Maybe they have been made small by the innocence of their own minds. Their names, their lives; wiped clean. What remains is who they are, who they really are outside of those artificial and self-imposed walls, strictures, boundaries.

The boy is still a boy. He is still brave and a little shy, bright-souled, ill-considered, sometimes blundering. He looks at the open way and then he glances at the others, three of them. Then he walks through, the first step cautious, the next easier. Presently, he reduces from his monstrous form: becomes a hulking near-boy, then a boy.

"Oh." The pink-haired girl says, after.

"Oh," listen to the note of surprise in her voice. Listen to the way it enfolds itself into something deeper and more feral, girl-surprise giving way to wolf-noise because the gait is open,

the way is open.

There are dark things everywhere.

It is dark.

There are strange dark things inside her but she is around them too, bright as the moon will be when it is full; bright as that sliver that tastes like a sickle and curves like coy lover's smile.

She is a girl and then she is a wolf because she is girl-and-wolf, she is werewolf and she folds down to four legs and she lolls her tongue and looks at the others and barks.

It sounds like an invitation.

The gate is open. Time to run.

The gate swings open. Gates are meant to keep out so much as they are meant to permit entry and maybe it's starting to come back to him. This reflection of lies in the shadows of a life he didn't take in with him. If it does he stands silent anyway. Accepts it same as he accepted the drawing north and the too-large leaves and the red that was so red it bled into everything else.

Now the silver girl goes to her wolf skin and he does not smile. He does not join her. Long distance covered on four legs already and now he is stood back and watching.

"Alright," he says to the wolf-girl. The first word he's spoken since they regained cognizance.

He steps through the gate.

She looks from the signs up to the gate as the last of them are torn down and the gate is swung open. Well. She seems kind of silly now.

She frowns and stands, and follows them through.

The field is not vast. The golden grass is not endless. They are within a few moments, even less, of the trees, which

get smaller as they get closer, running or walking. The leaves are the right size. The trees are not. Things are coming back to them, like a voice that is and is not familiar:

"-- been gone a long time now.""How long is a long time?"

The golden, blue-eyed one hears himself ask. They all hear him ask it, if they remember.

"Almost two years."

There are other voices, their own voices -- protests, questions. Two years! How!

"It was before River died."

Oh, they remember a little there, at that name which is a thing found in nature and so it can be permitted. They remember someone dying. Death is a bad, sad, maddening thing. Death hurts very much. Some of them were not here when it happened. They know there was death. That's what is behind them, very very very very very very far behind them. Other things, too, but lots of death. And River, whoever River was, River died and maybe, maybe everything bad happened after that. Maybe whatever was lost was forgotten, at least temporarily.

"Keep these talismans,"

says someone else entirely, not the deep timbre of the first voice, not one of their own. They don't know what the talismans are. Or what they're for. They don't know what they have on them is familiar and what isn't. Is the staff a talisman? Is the bead, the metal piercing, the pigeon? But someone told them to keep them. Whatever they were.

--

The trees are very small, and the leaves are the right size.

They come upon a clearing, which to them is the size of a boot-heel. Something is in the middle. Something small and shining and curled up and sleeping and thumping its tail in its sleep and with red-gold fur and twitching ears. Very very small, and smelling of autumn, smelling of barley in the wind and smelling -- for here such things have a scent -- of music. Something dreaming.

A little wolf. Tiny enough to fit in the palm of even the pink-haired one's hand.

The moon likes him, too.

Does she have pink-hair here, too? In this form. She runs and they run through the gate and things change and the horizon comes closer and recedes. The trees are too large and then very small and the leaves are the right size and that is enough. There are scents in the air and they are vibrant as a anything, they are a chord that strikes some note of familiarity in the fibers of the muscle of her heart.

The trees open up and here is a clearing and there is a very, very, very,

very,

small wolf.

It could fit in her hand but she does not have hands.

She has paws.

She lopes closer, closer.

The moon likes him. Her nose is warm. She wuffs and nuzzles the dreaming little wolf. Smells his music.

They all hear and they all remember and they all know death to be a thing that doesn't go away. It's there waiting for all of them just as wakefulness waits at the end of a dream but all dreams end eventually.

This one's hands are heavy with all the jewelry he wears. He walks light on his feet. Even as the echoes come back at him and them he walks through the field and he listens to the voices. Glances over at the other male once. Says nothing.

Talismans?

And here the clearing. Here something small enough to trot upon if attention doesn't come before the step. He sees and he scents the air though he stands on two legs and he stands idle frowning but not confused.

He crouches at the edge of the clearing and does not mean to disturb the sleeping wolf but how is he to know his presence won't be a disturbance.

She doesn't understand what's going on. Memories, some that she may recall, are coming back to her and she is confused. So she goes with the others and she looks at the small wolf. She drops into a crouch, reaches out gently to touch her lightly.

With a wet nose coming close, the tiny wolf's ears flicker. She is enormous, compared to him; her tiny nuzzle rocks his entire body. It makes him open one eye, peering at her drowsily, but without fear. A shadow swoops overhead; the pigeon is the size of an eagle. Maybe they are small. Maybe the light plays tricks, maybe the bird is closer than it seems.

No matter. They remember:

shadows tearing at them in some other wood, a darker wood far from here, more to the south. God, how far have they come? Ripping at their clothes, raking claws into their skins, wounding their souls more than their bodies. How did they survive such an attack? Flashes of light, bursts of water over their flesh from shattered something-somethings. They tore -- they tore something away from all of them, and they wandered on, less hurt and less bloodied but

something was happening to them, as they walked. So gradually they didn't even notice.

It's easy to forget the most important things. You just have to keep going.

--

The wolf thumps his tail as he is woken. He snorts and stretches and rolls up onto his feet, spry. He wags his tail to see them, barks. And they understand:

"HELLO. WE WILL BE A PACK."

The silver girl becomes a silver wolf, and the silver wolf runs ahead. See her go, like a bolt of silk let loose. That swift, that smooth. The boy follows, at first walking, then breaking into a trot, then running outright himself. On two legs instead of four he is not as fast as a wolf, but he is fast: fast and strong and athletic, blessed in raw and physical ways by the moon who likes him.

The trees grow small and small and smaller still. This does not quite seem to make sense to the boy, but then: nothing really makes sense. Things are beginning to come back to him, an existence before this one nudging at the corners of his consciousness. In a way it lifts the simple contentment of ignorance; it makes him, for the first time, begin to wonder

who am i?

where am i?

why am i?

But then they are at the clearing, which is tiny as a palmprint. They gather around and look down and there is a wolf there, a tiny wolf, curled up and dreaming. The silver wolf nuzzles the little wolf; the dark girl touches it. The dark boy does not touch it, and neither does the golden boy.

--

The little wolf wakes. Another piece of the past comes back to them. The boy blinks suddenly, and his brow creases with a frown that looks and feels odd, new, out of place. He rubs his face for a moment. He looks down and the little wolf is wagging his tail up at them now, telling them all that

THEY WILL BE A PACK

and the boy understands this to be a good thing, a happy thing, though he does not quite understand. "Okay?" he says, uncertainty making the word a question. He thinks for a moment. "You're very small. Do you want to ride on my shoulder like my pigeon?"

Speaking of which: where is his pigeon?

Charlotte (she does not know that she is Charlotte, but somehow she knows that she has a name now, a name that belongs to her the way the name River belongs to -

belongs to -

names below to things. So, Charlotte thinks that the small wolf does not want to ride the small wolf wants to run wolves were meant to run not ride.

HELLO. WE WILL BE A PACK.

the small wolf barks and she barks back, and there is a spiraling sort of brightness to her tone that begins to shade itself into a howl, a paean, a ululating song.

It is worldless. It does not have a name.

After all that darkness, some part of her knows, or believes, that this is a better way to be.

Here. Now.

The memories, they flash and they hurt. They pain her, emotionally and spiritually and she flinches as they come to her. But they are just memories. "Just." Right.

More importantly, the wolf awakes, and it is happy to see them. It says they will be a pack. Does it feel like it shouldn't be? Like she has something that fills that? She isn't sure. Maybe. But for now, because it makes the little wolf so happy, she smiles.

She does not say yes though. Just smiles.

They came here for a reason. They came her to find something lost, lost for almost two years. They came with talismans to protect them against something, but those talismans were torn from their very bodies. They are themselves, and they have purpose, and they are in... the spirit world. They are in a place with its own standards that defy both natural law and the inexorable rules of logic. They find a gate made to open and trying to keep them out, and they think

someone made those signs.

They find something that must be lost, look how small he is, look how delighted he is for the company. Look at him wagging his tail, growing foot-sized from palm-sized, now he is up to their knees. He is very excited, his eyes bright gold, the autumnal light gilding the edges of his fur. What a pretty thing he is, and the tall golden one says okay to the pack idea, and tells him he is small.

"I AM GROWING!" he barks back, not in anger but excitement. "SO WE CAN BE PACK."

They all have names. Not easy to find, it's right on the tip of your tongue, but you can remember ... the W... the War... the Warder. The Warder in a cold place, not summery at all, telling them to go north. No, he said to cross over, to find what was lost. They know this. They all have names, and cannot recall their own, but the name of this lost little one is coming back to them, slowly, slowly.

Maybe it starts with a B. There's an N in there somewhere.

He wags. Cocks his head to the side. "WE ARE A PACK. THIS IS OUR DEN. HELLO."

He is waist-high now.

He is growing. He is growing so-fast and he is growing SO WE CAN BE PACK and she barks-back and remembers the W- W- Warder, the places-that-were and the darkness. Here are names too.

She is beginning to remember names too.

She remembers, you see, that she has a name.

That she does not want a name.

--

Nuzzle, nuzzle, nip. This is the rhythm when she returns to the small-wolf. Nuzzle, nuzzle, nip. Familiarity, comfort, challenge. Comfort, affection, challenge.

She barks again. He is growing!

And for now they are a pack.

BARK.

But this is not their den.

When he is done growing, she knows, they have to go.

Wefindyou. she tells him. Comefollowus.

She tells him.

Home.

Though she hardly remembers what that means.

He's right, the little wolf. He is growing. Or maybe they are shrinking. The boy is a little worried about this latter possibility, and he looks often at his hands, his palms, to try and determine if there's any subtle shrinkage going on. Probably not. He looks at the wolf again; now he is knee-high. Now he is waist-high. Is he still getting bigger? Wolves aren't supposed to be much bigger; the boy is quite sure of that.

"We can be a pack," he says slowly, "but ... I don't think this is our den. No. Our den is back that way. Where we came from. And ... and across. I mean, across. Across the curtain."

He looks to the silver girl for help. She has a name. The idea is a thunderclap in the boy's mind. Names: what a novel concept. Her name is ... is ... it starts with a soft sibilant sound, sh he thinks. The entirety escapes him, but that is okay: she seems to share his mind.

He is a werewolf and they are in the spirit world and a body that stays in this world too long will shrug off its body and stay here forever. Not as a punishment but because everything here is a reflection. Reflections have no use for substance. They're born of and beyond real things.

This he knows. Not his name and not his home and not what brought them here. Only echoes these but he knows now this is not a dream.

At least he thinks he knows.

As the little wolf grows he rocks back on his heels to give it space. The wolf-girl tells him. Found and follow. He stays crouching until the little wolf who is no longer so little who smells like someone he can and cannot remember has come up past his waist and then he stands.

They have to go across the curtain. He knows this would be an easy journey for him. Like stepping through an unlocked gate. This side calls to him more than the realm does but he knows.

He takes a step back but he doesn't leave without them.

Brandon. Possibly Brian. But he is accommodating to Charlotte's nuzzling and nipping and he is playful, wagging happily at the attention. He bumps his head on hers. He wants a pack so badly. He needs a pack he has been so long without a pack, his pack, he could use a pack.

BARK.

His eyes fly wide as Charlotte barks that they found him, and so now he should follow. He looks around, and his crest falls, his tail drooping. "not here?" he whines at her, and at Erich, who is also telling him that not-here is their den, he and his new 'pack'. He goes over to the other one, long-haired male one, and bumps up against him. "tell them here, here is good."

It is unlikely that Hector will tell him any such thing. The wolf droops, saddened.

No, Brian is his name-name, only one of his names. There's another N, another R, a gleaming red glow from the horizon, but it is the wrong direction, it is a name that means the very bright and the very cold.

--

A thunderclap: that is what it is in their minds. His name is Northern Sun. He has a name and it is Northern Sun. His name is also Brian, and he has been lost in the spirit world for almost two years. They came to find him, the four of them, to bring him back to his pack, to help him find his way. Theurges go missing often enough; maybe they each, for one reason or another, felt a measure of pity for his packmates left behind

HIS PACKMATES WHO ARE ALIVE AND WAITING FOR HIM, OH GOD.

They have packmates. They all have packmates behind them, waiting for them. Oh. God. And Northern Sun has been without his for almost two years, they without him, barely feeling him alive, not knowing why he had not returned from beyond the veil.

Because he forgot.

Because he didn't have a talisman.

Or because his was torn from him, too.

--

One of them feels his name returning like a whisper, a breath before a poem: Hhh, hhh.

Another feels it encroaching, coming closer, unwanted, fearful.

Their names are returning to them. The world will return to them. Like all gates, this gate is meant to be opened, meant to be walked through. If you can just remember that it is there. If you can just remember that the barriers between are nothing more than an illusion held in place by spells that you only choose to believe in.

Names are spells. Those spells, if believed in, call them back to their lives. And their truths. And their packmates.

Northern Sun.

That is his name. This tiny-wolf, this small-wolf, this medium-wolf, this full-size-wolf who is now their packmate. Only not. He is not their packmate but he is a packmate, his pack is out there, they are waiting for him,

his name is Northern Sun.

The boy looks thunderstruck. He is wide-eyed and stunned and sucking a breath to give the news, which he thinks is good news, it must be good news, but then: what comes out is --

"Charlotte!"

And he rounds on her, his silver sister. He laughs aloud.

"Charlotte. You're Charlotte!"

He gives her a name. He pins her in place. She is whining. It is an animal whine. It is in the back of her throat, this whine, not precisely of protest but of something else that remains nameless as she is for another three -

- two

- none seconds.

--

And she remembers two. Her name and his name and their names and Northern Sun. Erich says,

You're Charlotte, and the wolf becomes a girl again and she is a different sort of girl now that she is laden with a name. She knows the things behind him; the dark things she can fee scritch-scritch-scratching against the recurve of her mouth.

She swallows them.

She is a girl named Charlotte and she is not laughing but she looks at Erich with a familiar affection,

and names him.

"And you're Erich."

With an odd little smile.

Then looks to Northern Sun. And says,

" - and you're Northern Sun. Come back with us. Your pack is waiting."

Before he remembers his own name he knows he has a pack on the other side unassured of his presence. That he has a mate far from here and they will have a baby any day now and if he never came home his mother is there with her. Not their names but their faces and the tethers they offer him. He knows.

And he knows these two before him. Knows they fight together though they are not pack. Stands while they remember and he waits and then he reaches out to shuck aside the velvet curtain. Maybe they can pass through with him. If not they're strong enough to do it on their own.

He does not will not promise not to leave before Northern Sun does but he stands while the wandering wolf decides whether or not to follow.

No one names Hector, but no one needs to. Hector knows things they are not meant to know. Hector knows his name. He knows the name of his mate and the considered names of his child. He knows he has a child coming. He knows the names of his packmates, current and former. He knows Erich and Charlotte, and knows Keisha. It comes back. It starts to come back.

They came to get Northern Sun because no one should be lost for so long. They came, instead of his pack, because of what this place is: memory-stealer, name-stealer. They would remain here, a whole pack of Garou, and stay with their packmate.

That is why they wanted wolves from disparate packs, with at least one of their number staying behind. It's the only way they could make sure they'd hold it together and get home again.

Home again, home again,

something-ity something.

--

Northern Sun wags slowly. They are not his pack. But his pack -- he remembers. He wuffs at them, and looks at Hector, who is drawing apart the laces of the veil to move through it. They cannot be carried on his strength of spirit. They will have to use their own. They will have to use their own, and hope that the prodigal will go with them.

He sniffs, and chuffs, and his tail does not wag. He shakes his furry head.

"My pack."

The veil is parting. On the other side is Northern Colorado, the outskirts of Fort Collins. It'll be a long run back. But their packmates will be waiting for them.

All of them.

Elsewhere in the country, tornados are touching down and ripping houses from their foundations, and terrible thunderstorms that turn the sky black are accompanied by winds that snap branches from trees and send them crashing down on rooftops and powerlines. Here in Denver, though? The weather is downright balmy. There isn't a single cloud in the sky, and the sun is bright and warm. Many people are out in the park today, having picnics and riding bicycles and playing games of frisbee and what-have-you. Merriment is abound here at the City Park, because it could very well be the last day that the citizens of Denver get to be out without a hat and scarf for many weeks to come.

There is one part of the park where this merriment doesn't quite bleed over, though, and that would be at the edge of one of many flat sprawling fields of well-groomed grass. Here Lola Hawkes was laying on the ground with her back in the grass, looking up at the chipper blue sky and listening to the squall of ducks and geese in the pond not too far away.

She looks like she might be sleeping here because she has nowhere else to go. She's dressed in a pair of jeans that are getting worn out at the knees and thighs, frayed at the cuffs. The sneakers on her feet have seen better days, but are still intact at least. She has a plain gray hooded sweatshirt wadded up to make a pillow under her head, and there's a loose black T-shirt that she's wearing under that-- cut almost provocatively low at the neckline, with a hem long enough to fall past her hips and rear end while standing.

For now, though, she laid and soaked up the sun and stared at the sky with an expression that was somewhere between neutral and gravely worried, given the fact that her eyebrows had somehow found their resting spot knitted together into a pseudo-frown.

Somewhere nearby a child pointed and asked their mother if she was okay. The mother, a woman with expensively dyed hair in a sharp A-line haircut, gathered her child's hand up and advised him not to bother those less fortunate. Lola managed to overhear some comment that the mother made to the friend she was walking with about how the woman on the grass was 'probably sleeping it off'.

In other circumstances, Lola may have stood up, chased the woman down, and dared her to say that again to her face. Today, though, she just scowled a little harder but stayed still and quiet in the grass.

Hector's sitting not too far away from her underneath a tree. His skinny legs are crossed at the ankle and he's hunched over a paperback novel that he's reading. An elbow on a knee and his chin propped against the heel of that hand.

His eyes lift from the page when he hears the little girl's high voice pointing out the downed woman in the grass. As the mother drags her child away from the woman his eyes follow her.

At least he has the decency to wait until she's out of earshot before he starts to laugh.

"Oh, man," he says before he turns back to his novel. "That'll give 'em something to talk about at yoga tonight."

To some, this weather would be considered balmy and warm. Certainly it is warm for the season, particularly in a mountainous region like Denver. And that brings out the people who want to enjoy a pleasant day for picnics and exercise and taking their dogs for a walk. However to Javed Anubis-Sight, for whom the average November day is in the mid-80s, the high 50s is downright frigid. He may just never get used to the idea of Denver weather for as long as he lives here.

That being said, you'll see and hear no complaints to him. Complaining really isn't Javed's thing, and no matter what the weather he always appreciates the ability to get his feet under him and do some wandering. Sure, these days his wandering is kept within the very general environs of the Denver area but it still counts as wandering. His people has wandered since they were cut out of their ancestral homeland, their connection to their ancestors denied. It's very possible that they will wander until the end. And Javed is no different in that.

Generally, he does try to keep at least somewhat away from people when he wanders. Not that he avoids populated areas, but he doesn't go out of his way to march directly through the crowds. In America, the last thing you want to be is a dark-skinned man of Middle Eastern descent with one good eye and a general ambience of "psychotically angry." And the fact that he gives off that ambience through his calm demeanor just makes it worse. So he tends to keep to the sidelines when he moves through parts.

And this is how he ends up coming across the edge of the field where Lola and Hector sit. He has his hands in the pockets of that military jacket he picked up not so long ago, his eyes up and around, keeping alert. This is how he registers the two sitting there; though he doesn't recognize them, Lola's breeding draws his attention. He throws a quick glance around before he approaches.

Their purpose for coming into the city was some errand or another for Anthony. They'd met up with him at one of his tattoo parlors that was set up in prime real-estate in Downtown Denver, and after Hector had effectively terrified one of the clients who was getting his throat tattooed and after Lola had her brief conversation with Anthony in the back room, the errand was finished and they were on their way.

Hell, they were already in the city, why not spend some time in the park keeping an eye on things? It'd been a while since they'd run any kind of patrol on these streets, so they decided to spend some time resting in the park, watching the things that happened around them and keeping an eye out for hiccups in the peace while simultaneously soaking up the sun. Hector had his book, and Lola said she had plans for a cat-nap but instead was left with her thoughts.

The quiet had been mutual and comfortable, interrupted only just now by the two women and child and Hector's chuckle in answer. Lola turned her head to glance over at the long-haired Uktena man, then jerked one shoulder so it rubbed in the grass-- this this closest she was getting to a shrug for the moment. "If that's what they find to talk about, then their lives are pittyingly boring."

When she'd turned her head to look at Hector, another familiar figure caught her attention. Well, her attention was caught first because of the fact that the tall masculine figure with the army jacket was approaching them directly. Lola had hooked her elbows to the ground beneath her and pushed herself up into a half-lounging lean instead. Her chin jerked in Javed's direction, calling Hector's attention to his approach, and only after another moment and a squint did she recognize the man.

She liked Javed enough that the semi-stormy mood that had been peeking in and out of her day was cleared when she realized who he was. It had been a while since she had words with the Metis Warrior. So, one hand lifted and waved over her head, hailing the Silent Strider and showing friendly recognition. She didn't say anything, though. That she tended to leave to Hector when he was about.

"Are you kidding? If I saw you lying passed-out on the grass in the park I'd tell everyone I knew. You were drooling a little, it was kind of funny."

When Lola sits up from her supine position in the grass Hector lifts his eyes again not because he picks up on the Fostern's presence but because he isn't entirely convinced the kinswoman isn't rising to slap him upside the head. He's about to laugh again when she stays reclined on the ground and indicates a spot in the distance with her chin.

They've had a relatively wide circle of solitude today owing to the energy jangling in Hector's nerves. It isn't his moon that will be calling to them tonight but it's just as easy for him to snap and succumb to frenzy on a full moon as it is on a gibbous. Most people don't find being around him particularly pleasant any time of month.

It's that whole "psychotically angry" thing Javed understands so well.

It isn't Lola's voice but Hector's that comes across the field. By now he's starting to pick up on the fact that Javed doesn't recognize faces but he's slower to pick up on the fact that voices aren't much more help to him. Hector rests the book facedown on the grass and cups his hands around his mouth to project his voice further.

"HI JAVED!"

Javed isn't as good at recognizing voices until there has been a hell of a lot of association between it and the identity, this is true. Even then it sometimes takes a lot of focus for the Strider to sort through the various hints and clues that he has to keep in mind as associations to people's identities. But behavior is always an easier thing to put together. And the clues here coalesce, combine into a singular identifier: Lola's breeding, Hector's full-on shout, their presence in each other's company. These combine with several little clues to broadcast who the couple are, and while there's always a chance he could be wrong Javed would consider this an educated guess.

The Iranian takes his hands out of his pocket as he comes up to the couple, folding them together as he offers kin and Garou a nod of greeting. "Good afternoon, Echoes of the Lost. Miss Hawkes. It is most pleasant to come across you both in my daily travel, as always." Ever polite, that Strider. "How does this day find you?"

It's like it's spring and the daffodils are popping up! Except it's not spring, it's almost winter. And instead of daffodils, it's Erichs popping up out of the grass. Or well: one Erich, lurching up kinda rumpled, a book tumbling off his face where he'd set it down to shield his eyes from the sun while he took just a tiny nap.

Which went on for a couple hours. But anyway.

"I said I'll return it tomorrow, it's not due until Tuesday!" Pause. Blink. Wait. Dreaming. Right. Erich rubs his face in both hands, then looks around. Oh look! People he recognizes. He grabs his book, dusts some blades of grass off. Gets up and ambles over.

"Javeeeeed." Erich sticks out a fist for fist-bumping. "Hectoooooor. Person I don't knoooooow."

Hector's cupped hands assured that his shout would travel, although one can rest assured that Hector would have been able to shout across the park without needing the help of his hands to megaphone the sound further. Between the eager shouting and the water-snake-god heritage in Lola's face and bones, Javed's able to figure out who it is that he's walking toward, that had summoned his attention unintentionally at first, but eagerly soon enough.

When the Silent Strider was near enough to greet them, Lola relaxed back on to both elbows again, but did not resume her full on sprawling pose in the grass. Her hair was down in a heavy mass of black that fell past her shoulders, making its way toward the center of her back in length. There was a dead leaf and a few grass clippings caught in her hair from where she was laying on it, but she didn't notice, and probably wouldn't much care even if she did.

His greeting is formal and polite, as are most of his mannerisms. Lola nods her head to him, dips it really more than anything else, to mirror the respect that he showed the both of them to begin with.

"Warm and pleasant enough. Even here, I suppose." Her nose wrinkled up a little as she glanced back toward the walking path nearest to where she and Hector had set themselves up, and watched a forty-something year old man in a windbreaker jogging suit plod his way along. He was prompted to move faster than a leisurely stroll for the first time in forty minutes when he got too near to the growing cluster of high-Raged Garou in the park. Lola's undeserved disdain for this average human man was cut short, switched when another voice joined the fray.

Her eyes were dark always, thanks to her heritage and ethnicity, but they were cool and hardened when they fell upon Erich. She looked him over, from shoulder to knee and back up to face, but said nothing to greet him in return. Rather, she pressed her lips together and situated herself so that she could sit up straight and not lounge leisurely any longer. It seemed that Erich's presence meant she was no longer comfortable enough for that kind of relaxed pose.

The Strider joins the Uktena and bows and gives them as formal a greeting as one would expect in an urban park in the middle of a warm November afternoon. As he approaches the Galliard picks up his novel and dog-ears his page and tucks the book into the back pocket of his jeans. He's wearing the pin-striped blazer instead of the army jacket today. That's enough of an admission of the weather not being that shitty as they're going to get out of him.

And then a Shadow Lord emerges from dreams and the long grass like a mythological creature rising up out of Loch Ness. Hector pushes wild shocks of hair back behind his ears and returns the greeting:

"Eriiiiiiiich." He waits to see how Javed is going to fare with the bump before holding out his own ring-covered fist. In the meantime his mouth runs. "Erich, meet Lola Hawkes. She's my handler. Lola, this is Erich Storm's-Teeth."

Erich's sudden appearance of course draws the metis' attention; anything with a Rage higher than his own had better Gaia-damned well catch Javed's one eye, or he can hand in his Ahroun badge right now. He snaps his attention over, eyes narrowing slightly by default when he can't recognize the man off a few quick hints. Erich and Javed have had some interaction but not as many as he has had with Lola and Hector, and thus it is a little harder for him to figure it out.

The good news is that there's only one person who's ever fist-bumped with him, and that would be Erich. Combine that with the Fenrir blood and once again, the Iranian has an identity confirmed. The first time they did this, he was uncomfortable with the gesture as he didn't understand it. This time...well, he still doesn't understand a single iota of it, other than It's like a handshake, only with fists. But that is enough that he doesn't seem exactly uncomfortable, instead only giving the amount of pause needed to associate fist bumb with Shadow Lord. And then he holds out his hand to accept the greeting.

"Good afternoon, Storm's Teeth. I hope we did not interrupt your rest." He gestures to indicate where Erich came from, as if to indicate the nap from which he awoke.

"It was time for me to get up anyway," Erich says affably. The fistbumps are completed: one is awkward and a little unnatural, the other actually sort of normal. He raises that bump-happy hand to Lola: "Hey, Lola."

And then this sort of curious tilt-headed look at Hector, and the worst attempt at a subtle sort of confirmation-of-relationships ever: "Handler as in .... like .... girlfriend?"

The introduction between Lola and Erich is brief and simple. Hector refers to her as his handler, and in most conditions that would have earned him a grin or chuckle or smirk or something good-humored along those lines. In this moment, though, the humor seems lost on her. Erich gives her a 'hey', and Lola just hops her chin up in return.

The question that followed, clarifying what Hector meant by 'handler', had Lola making a scoffing sound and deciding that sitting was no longer acceptable. She left her hoodie in the grass for the time being and pushed herself up onto her feet. Thoughtlessly, she seizes the waistband of her jeans through the loose fabric of her shirt and tugs, adjusting the way her pants sat about her waist and hips-- pushing down rather than pulling up, of all things.

"Don't worry about it," Lola says to Erich, answering the clarifying question in Hector's stead. She looked a little stiff and on edge, but who can blame her? She was swimming in a pool of Rage standing here between the three Wolves that had come together in the park this afternoon, brought by chance or Fate or some other form of magnetism.

"I know Storm's-Teeth," Lola provided for Hector, addressing the introduction that he'd given. She looked at the Shadow Lord for a moment, like she was teetering on the edge of what to say next. Her expression sets at a light frown and after a second she figures out what she wants to follow it up with. "We've seen each other at the War Moots."

Remembering the moon above and feeling the strong, seizing swell of Erich's Rage was what kept her from immediately spitting out some venomous comment about the scene he made at the punishment ceremony. That didn't mean that the electricity and desire to confront didn't keep thrumming under her skin, though.

The Galliard looks as if he's about to laugh at the question and supply his own answer but then Lola is getting to her feet and telling Erich not to worry about it. That almost-laugh turns into an uncomfortable smile and a silent bobbing of his head.

Yup. That's my girlfriend.

The conversation carries on and Hector rubs the sort-of beard he's got growing. Poor bastard can't grow a full beard even though he hasn't shaved his face in months. Points for trying.

"Oh, right, the warmoots."

His eyes go distracted as he listens to something the rest of them can't hear. One of his packmates is probably yammering at him right now. Or incoming. Or incoming because he's been yammering at them.

"Oh yeah." Erich gets this awkward look on his face that tells everyone he doesn't remember Lola in the slightest. "I remember you now. Cool."

His hands go into his pockets. Jeans, t-shirt. Summer gear. Or just year-round gear, maybe, if you were born in the upper midwest right smack in the middle of the snow belt, and also your ancestors were viking barbarian wolves. The storms of Thunder are a little different. Thunderstorms, hurricanes, typhoons. Hot and oppressive and destructive. Likely the comparison doesn't occur to Erich at the moment, though, because he's kinda nodding-up at Hector and saying,

"Happy for ya, man."

Re: having a girlfriend, one imagines. Even if said girlfriend is like let's not discuss it.

Thomas comes toward them with the lack of ambling that suggests that he's probably been in some kind of contact with Hector - and at least most of those gathered have seen him calm enough that they could easily imagine yammering.

Javed gets a nod in greeting as Thomas approaches, but then a warm smile. "Javed." And then, because maybe that wasn't enough of his voice yet for Javed to recognize him. "I haven't seen you by the house for awhile." It's the best clue he can think of so that Javed can guess without any overt prompting. They really need to get a code phrase or something.

Then Hector gets a nod and a similarly warm smile. "Hey." It's a somewhat cautious hey, like he is trying really hard not to say something ridiculous and formal like good evening instead because...reasons.

Erich gets a nod and no real verbal greeting as Thomas moves closer to Hector and Lola.

Lola doesn't get as much in the way of the nodding, but Lola is the only one he reaches out to touch, that same featherlight graze of fingertips over her shoulder. She gets a smile too. Apparently it's smiles for everyone day.

There are many things that Javed is good at. He can rip off heads with the best of them, for example (it is his favorite combat tactic). But the concept of relationship dynamics is one that completely eludes him. Yes, its completely understandable--what use will he have for them, after all--but it still makes for times where he's in the dark or at least not elucidated on why someone would have to invent so many different terms for mate, and why someone might be coy about their status in such respects. And thus, when those exact things unfold he simply stands there, attention shifting from one person to the other and not quite getting the full context.

Javed, of course, has his own thoughts about what went down during the judgment of the Elders, but that is not his place to offer an opinion. The matter is past them as far as he is concerned; he is more interested in the present, after all. He nods a little bit to Erich when he says it was time to get up anyway, accepting it without question.

And then Thomas is there. He looks over at the other Shadow Lord and offers another nod; the mention of the house is indeed a sufficient clue. "Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea. I have not been, this is true. Most of my time is spent in patrols, working with my new student or at the Cold Crescent building as of late."

Lola doesn't look insulted that Erich clearly doesn't recognize who she is. There's no hurt or anger or anything like that. She does look about a coin toss away from rolling her eyes at him, though. Again, the Full Moon that was waiting its turn to dominate the sky kept her actions in check. With how clear and brilliantly blue the sky was today, it was a sure thing that the light of the moon would be vibrant enough tonight to cast shadows and show clear paths through the landscape.

Hector nods to confirm Erich's question anyways, and though Lola's moderate frown doesn't budge any she doesn't shoot any sharp glares at her Tribemate or try to negate the fact when Erich expresses happiness for the man that he fought beside in taking down Beloved Horror. Rather, Lola contents herself to bite her tongue and fold her arms under her bust and cast her gaze about.

It's in this casting about that she notices Thomas's approach. She doesn't smile or wave, that gloom that's been following after her all day has settled a cloud over her head once more, but she does at least nod to him when they initially make eye contact. When he gets nearer and reaches out to touch fingertips to her shoulder, she manages to break through that surly attitude if only for a moment, if only for the newest member of Celduin. For him, she unfolds her arms just long enough to reach out and pat a hand against the side of Thomas's neck, a clear gesture of comraderie and oddly martial affection, before her arms stitch together across her chest once more.

Javed says something about a new student and the Cold Crescent building, and Lola's attention snaps to him like a rubber band sailing across a high school classroom.

"You're bringing a student into the Spire Sept?"

Erich is happy for him. Hector keeps that uncomfortable expression on his face but it's an act. He's trying to get some sort of a laugh out of Lola, stood across from him and awash in all this Rage as she is.

"Thanks," he says. "I can't believe she went for it, either."

Then Thomas tries to go around the circle and appropriately greet everyone. He ought to know what's coming by now. Neither the content nor the volume of Hector's speech has been appropriate since the day they first met and even then that was only because he was trying to decide if Thomas was a friendly or one of Grandfather Serpent's.

Now he tucks his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt as he waits for Thomas to work his way around the circle. Once he gets to Lola and Javed returns the greeting it's all over though.

"There's my boy!" He reaches out to ruffle Thomas's hair and then he puts him into a headlock for good measure. Not a side-hug but a proper headlock. "Aw, son, you're getting so tall. I'm not going to be able to do this in a couple years, you'll be big enough to kick my ass."

As Hector makes his greeting to Thomas, Javed turns his attention to Lola. The Ahroun regards the kinfolk calmly for a moment before shaking his head. "You misheard me, Miss Hawkes. I am working with the student, a lost cub of my Tribe and auspice. And separately, I am spending time as the Cold Crescent. Although I do intend to bring her there at some point, now would most certainly not be an appropriate time. It would be more appropriate when she has gained more footing within the Nation, preferably after her Rite of Passage, or when we get the Sept fully re-opened."

And of course, there's nothing in there suggesting that he feels the need to defend the decision. The explanation is because he respects the kinswoman and feels that she merits one.

She'd misheard him, and Javed clarifies what he'd said. He says that he isn't bringing a Cub to the Broadway building, and Lola's posture relaxes just a touch with that reassurance. He might not be able to recognize faces, but he can probably understand her body language well enough to pick up on the fact that that matter was settled, as far as the Kinswoman was concerned.

She probably would have stayed more relaxed, reached down to grab her hoodie and dig around in its pockets for a pack of gum that she bummed off her cousin (it helps my stomach, be a friend), but for Javed's last couple of words.

Her eyes sharpen, pupils constricting a little, and her expression sets itself like stone. Suddenly her words were sharp and difficult to navigate, much like the earth that took Curved Sky's life away last month. All at once she was a yawning bear trap waiting to be sprung.

"Why the fuck would you reopen that hellhole? After everything that just happened?"

"You're welcome an-" Thomas starts to Javed, and then his hair is being ruffled and he's in a headlock. Which, beyond the initial half second where he tenses a little, doesn't seem to bother him at all. And really, he should have expected that the second he got close enough for Hector to reach him. He's grinning by the time Hector is done talking, and tries, rather ineffectually, to shake his head. Less like he's trying to get away. More like in response to what he's saying. "I would think it might still be slightly impolite, regardless," is all he says, but the tone is less about formality and more about amusement.

He does make an effort to get away then, but it's not really serious. Hector will let go when he lets go. Thomas isn't so much attempting to escape as seeing if he's about to get released. He doesn't continue with whatever he was about to say to Javed whether or not he is released, less because of Hector's interruption and more because he's interested in the answer to Lola's question.

And everyone's response. Especially everyone's response.

The weather lately has been spectacular. It nearly feels like the last few days of September, not the middle of November. But that's this part of the country, this part of the state: seventy degrees and sunny on Black Friday, snow flurries on Father's Day. It's happened. And those who have been here a few years, or all their lives -- including the assholes with the 'Native' bumper stickers -- know it, and just shake their heads over it.

Melantha has been here only a matter of months, and she is still bewildered by the fact that the seasons here don't give a fig about your expectations. She overdressed this morning, because it's colder in Evergreen than in Denver, and the only reason she knows to dress in layers is because of much travel and living in the middle of nowhere the rest of the time. So now in the seat of the truck there's her big long warm coat -- the new one, the one that isn't bloodstained -- and a hoodie and Melantha herself is just wearing a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up over a t-shirt. The flannel is blue and green and black. The t-shirt is grey. Her jeans mostly fit, but that's what belts are for.

She's walking towards them because she can sense where Erich is. She can always find Erich, and he can always find her. Even if he couldn't track her by that overwhelming breeding. They are bound by spirit, after all. They're pack. Even if she can't always fight alongside him. This isn't a fight... she's pretty sure. After all, Javed seems okay, and she recognizes the others for the most part.

everything that just happened? Lola is saying, and angrily, in voice and in expression. Melantha looks at her, because she's speaking, then at Erich, then at Javed. "Hi again. If you can't tell who I am it's Melantha, Erich's packmate."

And that is as far as she goes, in terms of interrupting. After all: people are talking.

Well, that gets Erich serious in a hurry. Mention of Cold Crescent. Memories of everything, everything happening in the last few weeks. His affability evaporates. His face slams into a scowl.

"The hellhole never closed. Wolves sitting in the Cold Crescent building twenty-four seven might be the only thing keeping a lid on the whole pot. Abandoning post is like, the worst idea ever. But then this is an idea coming from the same Elders that think torturing someone to death with FUCKING SILVER IS DECENT JUSTICE."

Oh. He's yelling. Erich bites his lip, reining it in.

"Sorry. Still mad." And: Melantha! His eyebrows come up a bit out of their scowl. He sort of sways sideways to nudge her. "Heya."

[Willpower!]

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

"Slightly impolite?"

Because roughhousing with a cohort every time you see him is the height of propriety. He feels the wriggling as Thomas tries to escape and claps him on the gut with his free hand before releasing him. Reaches up with the hand that just released him to pick a piece of fuzz off the collar of Thomas's shirt.

His eyes move sidelong when the other kinswoman arrives and he nods his chin up at her. He hasn't ever shaken her hand and though she didn't speak the entire time they were both at the alpha meeting Phoebe called before the subterranean fight. At least he remembers his name. It's kind of his job to remember people's names.

"Hey, Melantha."

This is just a sidebar. He goes back to paying attention to the Ahrouns and Lola after he's greeted her. A tension stretches his spine taut like he's expecting this to come to blows. It doesn't resolve when Erich raises his voice. If anything an expression of oh, shit comes across his face.

Erich isn't the one whose reaction he's worried about.

At the one warmoot she went to, it's true: Melantha did not say a word. She stood off to one side, she looked distinctly uncomfortable, and she tensed whenever eyes glanced her way. She seems less retreating now, but it wasn't exactly fear that had her so uncertain at the warmoot. She wasn't at the second one. She didn't see Erich and Phoebe, a Theurge of her blood-tribe, get all up in each other's faces. Frankly, she barely knows anyone beyond Charlotte and Erich. That may be the source of her silence.

Well, Erich gets mad. And Melantha knows him well enough to know the difference between getting mad and losing his temper and RUN, but it's still worth noting that she doesn't flinch when his voice raises. She looks at him, her brows tugging together, head tipping to the side. He stops yelling, and he nudges her. Her mouth, turned down, lightens a little with familarity and affection, but she doesn't bump him back. No reason, really. He's just pretty solid, and bumping against him usually ends in her stumbling backward.

Hector says hi, and she looks over at him, startled to hear her name from a voice she mostly finds unknown. "H- hi," she says, politely enough. That uncertainty: it's not fear. Not even with Erich and Javed near her. Not even with Lola scowling. Not even with two Galliards standing right there. She breathes in deep, and drops her hand to hold Erich's. Not for solidarity or comfort. Just cuz, y'know. Handholding.

Lola had harshly questioned Javed's motives on why he would want to re-open the Sept, and Erich answered for him. The Shadow Lord spoke his piece, and come the end of his piece he was shouting. This pulled the attention of a young attractive couple that were walking their border collie-- the dog whined and yelped and started barking, and the young couple startled. The man put his arm around the woman's shoulders while she seized his shirt by the stomach and back. They hurried along quickly, but Lola didn't notice them at all.

She barely noticed that another Kinfolk that she only vaguely recognized had arrived (Melantha got a brief flicker-glance and not much else), for the Uktena Kinfolk was too busy glaring into Erich's face.

Tread lightly, was a piece of advice provided to her once upon a time ago, when she was still reeling from the news that she would never Change, to help teach her how to interact with Garou now that she would never be one herself. Today the words rang solid enough in her head, and the fact that Hector and Thomas were watching to see what she did, that she pulled in a full deep breath through her nose that filled her lungs and pushed her chest out.

Astonishingly even to her, Lola's voice is even when she speaks:

"Bane Tenders keep watch over portals and Slumbering Great Ones. You don't see our tribe building Septs overtop to keep that shit on lock, do you? Living where the Wyrm shits is the worst fucking idea I've ever heard.

"And I'd call death a fine 'bout of justice for someone who's responsible for the death of so many. That rite is an old thing, a piece of tradition, laid down upon those that've committed the worst crimes. The fact that that woman chose to strong-arm what she thought was the best idea despite what everyone around her advised, to threat of their very fucking lives? She had it coming."

[[Hey guys, can we keep to some kind of pretend post order please? My entire post is being made irrelevant because everyone's talking over each other.]]

[[The one I'm trying to type, I mean. =) ]]

[[ Hazards of being in a group scene, friendship. To have a solid post order with this many people would put us at like one post per person every hour. I'm sorry, though! I'll hold off 'till you post next. ]]

[i suggest we just try to only post once for every roundabout. like... maybe not necessarily stick tightly to order? but if i post, then i won't post again til everyone's had a chance to post, etc.]

[Sorry about that, Sam! I'm generally disinclined towards post orders unless we also impose a time limit on people's posts. But I think once-per-round sounds fair. Works for me.]

Lola is clearly incensed by the very idea that Cold Crescent re-open. This is not surprising to Javed, who had taken note of the way she had reacted when he mentioned his intent to do so the night after the breaking of the Beloved Horror. That she says it the way she does draws a pause, a raised eyebrow followed by a furrowing. But he is unphased. In truth, she is hardly the first person to suggest such sentiment to him...she is only the first person to suggest so in that blunt of a manner.

Erich goes ballistic. Javed frowns when he does, because that's not how they're going to get people to their cause. He looks at Melantha and gives her a courteous nod of hello, but now there are more important matters. He holds up a hand to those gathered, to ask for a moment, so he can give his reasons.

"With all due respect, Miss Hawkes, I have never been quiet about my intent. I am also not alone. The reason is simple: because it is a Sept. Because if we are to defend the city of Denver against the Wyrm, then we need a base of operations here. I believe we can best defend that portal from a close proximity and that any distance we leave is room for our enemy to slip in. Furthermore, the Cold Crescent serves our purposes as a Sept and as we know the mistakes that came before, we are unlikely to make them again."

He pauses there, looks at the woman. "In addition, because it is much more than just a base of operations; it a home to the many Garou and kinfolk who have lived there for the last ten years. A home is not just a building, and forcing those people who have lived there to move on to another place will promote an instability that we can ill afford. Look at my homeland of the Middle East and see what happens when you force people to relocate. It would do those who lost their lives defending the Sept a dishonor if we were to abandoned that which they gave their lives for.

"And finally," he adds, nodding to Erich here before looking back. "Because any Sept should not simply be abandoned. Miss Hawkes, you are mistaken about the portal. It is not a thing of the Wyrm; in fact, from what we have learned it exists entirely outside of the Triat. Those are not Banes which emerged, and the only time anything emerges has when they were summoned. We must defend it, and we are doing so. And the city."

[[Yeah, sorry, wasn't trying to suggest strict post orders, more of a one a piece kind of thing. =) ]]

Melantha gets a quick nod in greeting, a quick smile. It isn't quite as warm as the earlier greeting smiles, but that's probably got more to do with the way his eyes don't leave Erich than because he's never really met her. His attention flickers between Erich and Lola. Lola doesn't actively provoke Erich, at least not as counts for provocation with Lola, but he doesn't really relax.

He follows the discussion. He'll speak when he's invited to at moots. Or if you catch him with two of the Garou he trusts most in Denver. And outside of that...he's not jumping into this debate. At least not yet.

[[Because I am studying AND Thomas is Thomas and therefore not really about interjecting into conversations of Garou who outrank him, if y'alls skip me I am not gonna panic. I'm probably good to keep up, but if it comes up, feel free to skip over me and I'll be fine.]]

Ballistic would be one way to describe the sort of rant-slash-tirade-slash-possible-frenzy Erich looks about to embark on. But Javed, ever the soul of temperance, steps in with an argument about fifty times more logical than Erich can muster up right now. Well; more like infinite times, because Erich looks like he might just ... yell. Incoherently.

Javed, however, wisely steers clear of the topic of that awful Punishment Rite and whether or not it has a place in Garou society -- seeing as how going one way would suggest the Great Elder didn't know what the fuck he was doing, and going the other might cause Erich everywhere to blow their stack entirely. Erich, however, doesn't have the foresight or patience or self-control to keep his mouth shut on the subject. Javed is barely finished when he blurts out:

"YEAH. What he said. Also, NO. No one has something like that coming. That was just -- it was like the worst thing I've ever seen in my life, and that is saying something considering I raid Wyrmholes for a living. 'Cause, dude. We're not Wyrm. We should be better than that.

"Torturing someone to death? Killing them slowly like that, from the feet up, with silver? How is that okay? How is that ever justified? How is that not something that stains our spirits as much as anything the Wyrm wants us to do would?"

This would be the optimal time for the Uktena Galliard to jump in and educate his fellow Wyrmhole raiders as to why it is rites like Gaia's Vengeful Teeth exist but Hector is otherwise occupied frowning a baffled frown and clutching onto Thomas's arm and watching the argument.

He doesn't clutch Thomas the way an aghast society woman clutches the pearls around her neck. It's more like he's bracing himself because he has to pay attention to what's going on in the present while he's mentally dredging all the awful things he's seen in his short-short Garou life to find a pearl of wisdom and purpose in it.

Being that awesome takes time and effort, man.

Lola's opinion on both the status of Cold Crescent and the death of Curved Sky isn't couched in euphemism or disclaimers, and Melantha actually instantly respects that. She doesn't end her sentences on a question mark. She doesn't shift her eyes from man to man to man to man to see if they're liking what she's saying. In fact, she's getting all up in the grill of a Fostern Ahroun, which -- whatever her other opinions on it may be -- Melantha decides means that Lola's got her some ovaries.

It's hard to verbalize any other kind of thoughts when Erich keeps blowing up, though. He yanks the conversation back to the rite, and Melantha looks between he and Lola.

"She's dead either way," she says, a bit flatly, "and the rite isn't going anywhere, good or bad. What point does it server for you two to bicker about whether or not it was justified?"

Melantha looks at Javed. "For what it's worth, I know what you mean," she says, about something other than Gaia's Vengeful Teeth. "Garou and kin live in cities, and in most cities, they're like... refugees." She turns to look at Lola again. "Who have every right to build and hold on to a home together, if they can. And if they want to build a home where they can do the most good, and keep the Wyrm from getting at a new source of power, that doesn't seem stupid to me. It's practical." She shrugs. "Besides, no one's saying you have to live there."

Javed pulls Lola's attention away for a moment. His voice was a low thing, and something about its register and the throat that it stemmed from made it easy to distract Lola from whatever she was about to sink her teeth into. Bless him, he is calm and logical and takes his time in explaining his standing to Lola. And, for the most part, she seems to at least understand where he's coming from.

He says that the portal isn't of the Wyrm, and her eyebrows lift out of that hunkered down scowl to show her surprise. Really, now? they say. But she doesn't have a chance to speak to the matter, to ask her questions and find out more on the topic. Erich is interjecting again, following up from where the Silent Strider left off. Except, rather than defending his reasons for staying at the Broadway Building, he instead switches back to the matter of the Punishment. He says that it's something that stains your soul, and that no one should be tortured.

Someone stop her, because Lola downright sneers at him.

"Estás tan susceptible," she begins in Spanish, her language slipping between the two that she grew up speaking since she was able to make her young tongue and tiny baby teeth form words. "Clearly your soul couldn't handle the burden."

Then Melantha, bless her as well, interjects in a very matter-of-fact way that what's done is done, what exists exists, and that's the way it is. Lola's attention settles solidly on her for the first time tonight. The Black Fury woman addressed her directly, and Lola is at least respectful enough to listen. She's known for her prowess, her outbursts, and the fire in her breast that struggles to make up for the Rage she feels (nay, insists) she was denied, but at least she knows how to listen.

When Melantha finishes making her statement, Lola scoffs, but something about it seems more compliant than she had been before. "I don't deny it needs watchin' and moniterin'. I don't think we should collapse the building on top of it and ignore it's there-- then it'd come back to bite our children right in the asses. But to have families living there? A daycare of infants, people resting their heads? It ought'a be patrolled, but not lived in, not now that we know what's there. If you live there, you get comfortable there, and the vigilence will slack.

"But, like ya said, I'm not the one who has to sleep with Not-Bane Monsters trying to crawl through another dimension in my basement." Her hands go up, palms out, in a gesture that says 'That's all you, take it if you want it'.

Clearly, your soul couldn't handle the burden. Melantha frowns, fury blossoming in her pale eyes. "Was that seriously necessary? You can't disagree with someone without insulting them, too? No one here is calling you weak or stupid because of what you think. Maybe you could try showing the same respect to them that they're showing you."

[Sorry guys! I had to interject that! I'll be patient now.]

Melantha gets a nod when she pulls the matter back to one that is a bit more arguable than whether such an extreme Rite should be used, and--indeed--a look of gratitude. It is not that he does not have an opinion on Gaia's Vengeful Teeth, of course, but that would only serve to divide them further and that is the last thing that they need. So he keeps his attention where it has been: the matter they can resolve.

"I understand what you are saying. And no one will be forced to stay there. But I would also point out that the portal rested undisturbed for years and countless Garou and kinfolk lived without any threat. It took Green Dragon Itself, embodied within a pack of powerful Black Spiral Dancers, to cause damage. The portal had nothing to do with what occurred on Floor 43, I believe, other than its objective. And now, being well aware of what lies down there and not keeping it a secret, we can remain extra vigilant in case any other Incarna-possessed Black Spiral packs wish to assault us and attempt to reclaim it again. This time, I think, staying up front about it would defuse any potential bombs as were delivered."

That may sound like it has some sarcasm in there, at least from the wording. But the truth is that his tone is quite serious and ever-respectful and calm. He means exactly what he says; no more and no less.

People start trying to bring the emotional volume down a notch or two, and sometimes then bring it up a notch or two. Hector's grip on his arm is unexpected enough that he actually glances at Hector's hand and then at Hector's face before he returns his attention to the discussion.

"Her fate was not ours to decide." When he finally does break into the conversation, he addresses Erich, and his tone is relatively gentle, if strained. "She was not ours to judge. All we have, right now, is to watch those who have earned that right already and decide whether we will follow in their footsteps or not. In that your packmate is correct, the rite will not be abolished, and tonight is maybe not the best night to discuss it.

"I'm not saying you should be silent. I'm saying we should reopen the discussion, both discussions if you like, on another night." He waves with the hand on the arm of his that's free. "Privately. My place, if you want and need a place to do this, or wherever else. We can talk."

He takes a very careful breath and actually makes eye contact with Erich for a few seconds, though his expression is more of a plea than a challenge. And for all that he does not like to be in the middle of these things at all, his tone is steady. "Not like this."

"And his place is really nice," he says. "High ceilings. No one around to hear us scream. You know. Isolated."

Erich's mouth flattens to a line when Melantha points out that dead is dead. His hand squeezes hers after a moment, though. He casts her a quick, sidelong glance. Exhales.

A moment later he squeezes her hand again. This time it's involuntary, it's furious, he's taking a single step toward Lola and uttering, clench-toothed, "I swear to god if you weren't kin -- "

-- only to stop because Melantha is stepping up, and Melantha is kin too, and: well, he just stops. And scowls at Lola. And flicks a glance at Thomas.

"I'm sure your place is awesome but honestly I think she and I are just gonna fight all night if we're in the same room."

[guys! i'm gonna be slow! on the phone wishing my mom a happy bday :] ]

[HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAMON'S MOM]

Thomas speaks up this time, and Lola's gaze is pulled toward him. There are a handful of Garou that Lola would say she has a soft spot for, and most all of them reside within the circle that is Celduin. Thomas she may have been unsure of at first, but she regards him more gently as time continues on. It must be something to do with a budding maternal instinct.

Melantha's eys light with a mute fury, and she calls Lola out on the shade that she'd thrown Erich's way. The Uktena didn't appear ashamed or defensive to the fact at all, though. It was abundently apparent that she felt justified in everything that she said-- as to whether she actually was or not was what was left up for debate (that debate would eventually conclude with, no, Lola, that was a hundred times unnecessary and probably really stupid to boot).

Lola's lips were parting to answer back, and the way her mouth and eyes were held and how smooth her breathing was it was clear that her answer was going to be a calm one. But then Erich actually took a step forward, and any progress that was made with the headstrong Kinfolk was dropped like a plate made slippery with dishsoap.

I swear to god if you weren't kin--

"What?" Lola's word is barked out, not shouted, but stamped sharply like a knife thrown in the dirt. Erich had stepped forward one single step, and for that Lola took two toward him. Her shoulders rolled back, chest pushed out, chin lifted, and eyes flashed fury. Her lower jaw jutted out, and she even went so far as showing her teeth just a bit (although it's yet to be determined if that was intentional or involuntary, an expression made from years and years of fighting with wolves). "Huh? Don't let me bein' a Kinfolk stop you, ése."

She's got her arms to her sides, hands balled into fists, feet set apart in the grass. The wild glare in her eyes and how her muscles twitched in her upper body made it plain that she wished he would. Then she'd have an excuse to throw her fists at someone, and there was seldom a time that she didn't itch for a fight.

"WHOA."

Hector abandons his place at Thomas's side and moves with a fluidity and a quickness that seems woven into his bones. He's slight enough that he can and does slide between Erich and Lola. It doesn't bother him to have Rage as hot as Erich's at his back. Doesn't bother him having a pissed-off girlfriend at his front either.

He puts a hand up on her shoulder and spins her around so he can sling his arm over it. If she doesn't want to move with him that's great. He isn't above picking her up.

"Hey, alright, no. We're not doing this here. Come on. Goodnight, everyone."

Charlotte shows up. There's no why or wherefore for it but it's a park and there's a full moon somewhere out there beyond the horizon. The sun has set, is setting further, is sinking and the days are all closing in together, getting darker and shorter and the nights longer and the night sky bright and cold. It is not frigid right now, not freezing not-yet, but it is cold enough that they can all see their breath. Charlotte can see her breath and that's what she's watching. The way her breath condenses and coalesces and then dissipates as it leaves her body. Atomizes.

She's sitting on the spine of a park bench and one hardly notices her until one notices her and then if one is a werewolf one cannot un-notice her because she is royalty.

With shorn, pink-tipped shoulder-length platinum hair and a certain lankily adolescent frailty that is deceptive in its spindly way and packmates to whom she is attuned enough that the frission of Erich's sudden involuntary spasm of fury sizzles down her spine and is enough to wake her up from her steady study of her condensed breath and propel her to her feet and into earshot just in time to hear Lola call Erich an essay.

Then Hector jumps in and well and yes.

Here's Charlotte at the tail end of everything. So much going on that she doesn't say hi except to her pack. In their heads.

Hi.

Hector moves quickly to get Lola away from the situation, and so does Javed. Not to get her pulled away, but rather to interject himself between the kinfolk and the Ahroun. The metis is ever-respectful, ever calm. That is only because he makes himself so on a constant basis. The urge to lose control is always--ALWAYS--present and he knows that Erich probably feels the same pull. The Shadow Lord is just more open about it, and a kinfolk daring him to throw down--

Well, Javed has little doubt that Erich wouldn't ACTUALLY do it. But he also is not taking the chance that Rage proves to be greater than logic, which is why he positions himself between the two. He says nothing because there is nothing to say. He just...

Stands there. He's not facing either of the two, though that would of course change if one of them continues this dangerous course of action.

He would say hello to Charlotte if he knew she was there and this didn't happen, but his attention is kind of preoccupied. And he would have to recognize her too, which...yeah.

Lola, for what it's worth, hasn't lost Melantha's respect. It may not matter to the Uktena whether or not she has it in the first place, but even angry on behalf of one of her best friends, even though she disagrees with Lola and may not even like her at all, Melantha has respect for her, and tries to show it. Lola steps up, fists clenching, goading Erich to fight with her -- okay, maybe the sheer stupid factor of that lessens Melantha's esteem, but it's not like it lessens it any more than Erich half-verbalizing that 'if you weren't kin' threat took him down a notch -- and Melantha tightens her grip on Erich's hand right back, the flow of Volcano's power making that grip a lot harder and lot firmer than Melantha's power alone.

She blinks, startled, when Hector... completely disregards Lola's agency. Gets in between her and Erich. Swings her around, puts that ever-so-sheltering arm over her and decides, for people who are not him, that this is over and he's going to shepherd his lady away from them. Melantha's anger surges again, like a storm over a maelstrom at sea, and this time it is directed wholly, entirely -- and yes, okay, perhaps unfairly and perhaps out-of-linely -- at Hector.

But it's Lola she looks at, to see what Lola's going to do about it. After all. It's Lola's grown-ass body that Hector is manhandling, and Lola's argument that Hector is ending.

--

Charlotte, coming up towards them, can feel that white-hot rage in both her Ahroun packmate and her not-even-a-wolf packmate. It's like a rapid heartbeat from Melantha, who isn't getting in between anyone but Javed is and Hector is but Melantha just holds really tight to Erich's hand while she chatters through Volcano.

hey! hi! I think everyone is trying to make erich and thisgirlIthinkhernameislola not beat each other up which is sort of hysterical because now there's like a billion people trying to make sure that doesn't happen. I'M REALLY GLAD YOU'RE HERE.

"Dude." Erich's teeth are gritted. There are things to be said, stuff about what would happen or what could happen or omfg or --

"DUDE."

That's all he says in the end. Charlotte is there. He glances at her quickly, mind-nudges her, then goes back to shaking his head at Lola. "I can't even. You're nuts. You would die. I mean, not that I wanna kill you? But seriously, you would die."

[sorry guys, still on phone. just go around me if you need to!]

Thomas looks at Lola for a second like, 'are you even doing this?' And then he breathes out, hard. It's too forceful to really be a sigh. Because of course she's doing this. She's bold, and she's fearless, and she doesn't know how to walk away from anything. It's why he loves her. It's why she'll die.

He has -mostly- made peace with those things.

Javed and Hector are already between Lola and Erich. Erich isn't charging. And...Charlotte. He's come to respect Avery and he owes something to Sophia, but Charlotte is the only Silver Fang that gets a reflexive smile from him. She even gets it now, though it is quick and tense.

Lola and Erich are up in one another's faces, for he stepped forward and she downright refused to step backward. She manages to spit out her challenge, and at once bodies are moving to separate them. They all know what moon it is, and they all feel the almost overwhelming presence of Erich's Rage pulsing in the warm afternoon air. Javed puts himself between them, giving each a shoulder, presenting neither of them his back or his front. Lola jerks her head back when Javed intervenes, nostrils flaring, eyes wide. She might be about to push him out of the way, yell at him for trying to interrupt this, but then there's Hector.

Hector's hand lands on her shoulder and pushes, urging it to move, trying to physically force her to turn about. He's taller than her, broader in the shoulder, built deceptively strong for how skinny he looks under the clothes that hang from his body. But Lola is a strong woman, square in her shoulders and solid in her hips, dense in her thighs and strong in her core. He pushes her shoulder and she locks her bones and muscles and refuses to be moved. If Hector pushes hard enough she'll have to give up a step of ground, but it probably doesn't come to that. She's turned her eyes from Erich to Hector, is looking into his face with an expression that is bewildered, insulted, unsure, wild and flying and needing something to bring her back and ground her, or alternately to launch her into the sky and let her go.

His arm goes for her shoulders, and she may have been about to relent, but then Erich's voice plucks at her ears again and her chin jerks, face moving from being aimed at Hector's to looking back past Javed's chest, back to the blond-haired Shadow Lord who's equally bewildered with her.

Lola wavered, but only because her normal answer to something like that would be to press the challenge. To fucking dare him to. If Javed and Hector weren't there she would get close enough to touch her nose and forehead to Erich's face, to breathe hot air down his throat and drag that Rage and Rise out of him. Since that wasn't an option she was left to words, and words simply weren't her strong suit.

That's why she says:

"What? I'd die 'cause you can't just settle shit with your fists?" This is called over Hector's arm and shoulder, past Javed's solid body. There were spectators now. People weren't sure if they should call the cops or not, and no one wanted to get close enough to find out. "You'd kill me, sure, but then you'd have to hang your fucking head in shame 'cause you can't control yourself well enough to let a Kinfolk survive a disagreement with you!"

It looks like Hector is being a controlling overprotective male with no sense of personal space or respect for his kinswoman. It also looks like he doesn't care how his reaction or the behavior that comes afterwards looks. Lola locks her feet into the ground and then she starts to shout back over his shoulder.

That's when he says 'fuck it' and yanks his arm off her shoulder like her skin shot up about a hundred degrees in temperature and keeps walking, quicker than he was when he thought Lola would at least walk with him.

He hasn't ever stood up in front of a moot and laid down a claim on her. So far as he's concerned she can make her own decisions and nobody has to come to him if they want to be seen in public with her. That notion is at war with the fact that they mean more to each other than 'tribesman' but anyone looking at him can see he's angry.

And then he starts ranting to himself once he's past the outer edge of the congregation because he can't keep his mouth shut when he's this aggravated but there's no point aiming it at anyone else. The thoughts aren't even fully formed. They just fall out of his skull like his mouth is a release valve as he keeps walking.

"That's great, keep trying to to rile up an Ahroun on a full moon so he might eat your entire head in one bite, I didn't want you and the baby to actually stay my mate and my baby, why would I want that, mates and babies are pains in the neck, they just cry and eat things and die anyway--"

They are both burning in her mind, then. Both bright, all incancescent. Charlotte does not understand the way that people of a certain scientific persuasion understand the sun to burn: she merely knows that it does, that the sun has a name and the heat inside it is hotter than most anything she can imagine except the they feel sometimes when things are intense and jagged and vivid and immediate. So Charlotte has her hands balled up into fists and her fists curled up beneath the raggedy cuffs of her slighty-oversized hoodie perhaps in unconscious physical reaction to that burning-brightness and her mouth goes skewed, twists to one corner and her nose wrinkles and her attention goes darting-bright over Lola and Hector; specifically their backs. And Javed, yes his too and there's enough going on that the coil of instinctive revulsion that lances all through her because she remembers he's a mule doesn't much show and anyway no one's looking at her right now because

FIGHTFIGHTFiGHT

Except Thomas, who flashes her a reflexive smile that she returns, her own taut-as-his because there is the scent of ozone in the air and well, Charlotte's smile is a little daft. Her attention is scattershot and there's so much around them just at that moment.

Erich gets mind-nudged back. So does Melantha. The affection is heavy and is pack-centric and is animal-spirit.

I'm glad I'm here too who are you fighting because she called you essay? I heard a really cool song about the sun -

Chatter chatter chatter chatter in the back of their minds until Lola turns and calls out all that over her Fence of Warrior Defenders. All the breath goes out of the theurge and the creature's pale, wild eyes dart over Javed, Hector, take in Lola all askance in the shadows. Only a momentary glance.

Charlotte knows what Erich's rage is like. How it explodes over him, how he loses himself to red, red ruin. How these things consume, and are in turn consumed. She breathes out hard, steps in front of no one, affixes the whole of her attention on her Ahroun packmate now.

we'rerighthere we'rerighthere stay. right. here. she doesn't know anything about you. she's not your fight tonight. More wordless than anything though there are words scattered into the mix. What Charlotte does is make herself an anchor, a sink, a taproot, a ground.

She had to get out of that house. It's confining in there, with just herself, bad memories, and a disembodied voice to keep her company. Not that she'll shake that voice, mind. He follows her everywhere.

It's a pleasant enough day, for almost-winter, and she's out for a run. Feels good to run, feels good to be in the park again, even though this time she tends to scatter people wherever she goes. It's almost a blessing, that, considering that they smell like meat.

She comes across the little gathering, and it's not entirely a welcome sight. Most of these people she caught glimpses of at the Judgement, if she recognizes them at all. Javed she knows, and she sees how he's placed -- between a woman and a man. Keeping them apart. For their own good.

"You see how they are?" comes a whisper in her ear, and she just growls under her breath. This is the last thing she went to the park for, damn it all. She just wanted to get away from all this pent-up bullshit. At least Javed's there, at least...

She takes the run down to a walk, leans up against a tree, and just watches. Yes, let's see how they are.

He had been keeping a shoulder to each of them, with intent to change that if one of them continued. They both continue, but one more than the other. And so he snaps his attention to Lola as Hector stalks away, staring at her. He's always calm and polite, but a little of both have begun to erode away now between the Rage (exceeding even his own, no less) colliding with him on one side and defiance burning on the other side. His own Rage spikes up a little bit in response of being between these two fires; it is held firmly in check, though.

"Miss Hawkes. I would request that you join..." He almost continues with Hector's Deed Name, but he has noticed the people gathering and he stops himself. The words sound odd coming from his mouth, like he is attempting to speak a language he knows but doesn't truly understand. Like if you had tried to speak Japanese after learning it from a book, but had never heard someone else speak it. "Mister Ghosh in departing. Please."

The Please is less of a request than it is a very, very, very strong sugg--oh, let's call it what it is. He's telling her to leave while trying to be as civil about it as possible.

Melantha frowns. She rears her head back a little, not unlike a pup who has gotten a butterfly landing on their nose and isn't quite sure what to make of it.

"That's -- that is literally no different from the 'what are you gonna do, hit a woman' line," she says, taken aback. "It's one thing to stick up for yourself, but it's a completely different thing to insult and goad someone to try and prove something about yourself... then unravel whatever you think you're proving by sneering that they should be the ones ashamed for picking on li'l old you. That's twisted, sister, and it's cheap. It'd be twisted and cheap even if you weren't garou and kin, even if you weren't male and female."

Her hand slips out of Erich's, and she steps forward, because Lola is the only one she's talking to right now. "For what it's worth, if you two decided to punch each other out, here's how it works: if you lose control, you aren't going to hurt him much. If he loses control, he kills you. That power differential sucks, and it's not fair, but it's a real thing we all have to deal with.

"If he were to swagger around treating you like shit because he knows he's stronger than you and you can't fight back, then he's a crummy douchebag. If you swagger around getting in people's faces because you know that they can't hit you back unless they want to risk killing you, then you're a stupid asshole. And I don't really know you, but I know Erich's not a crummy douchebag, and I don't think you're that stupid or that big of an asshole."

She isn't even paying attention to Hector's rant, or realizing that Lola is pregnant. She's just talking to Lola. "So if you're trying to prove something, at least prove something other than 'I'm a stupid asshole'," she says, quieter.

"No," she spits out at Melantha. It was unfortunate, and later Lola may feel a twinge of guilt for letting her anger lash at the other Kinfolk like that. But Melantha's not an unintelligent woman, she's probably well aware that Lola's anger is still flaring at Erich, that she holds no ill will toward the Black Fury. She probably had more to say, but Melantha kept talking and Lola yielded the floor to her, but wasn't able to keep paying attention to what she had to say.

Rage was a flaring whirlwind about her, and all at once Hector was absent from her side. This was what drew Lola's attention more dominantly than anything else. Her head twisted, eyes breaking away from the dead-on heavy-weighted glare that she'd landed on the Black Fury while waiting for what she had to say. She was watching Hector storm away, she could hear his voice but couldn't make out his words for the sound of Melantha's voice filling her other ear. She held a hand up, pinky and ring finger curled loosely down, index and middle pointed up. The hand shook a little, and a small 'Shht!' noise came from her mouth. She was cutting Melantha off, informing her that she was done listening, that she was trying to hear something else, that she needed her focus elsewhere.

A few of Hector's words got picked up on, but truthfully they weren't the most important thing anyways. The important thing was that he was walking, not looking back. A pained expression flashes momentarily across Lola's eyes, flexes her eyebrows up in the middle, but she's scowling heavily again just as quickly.

The hand that had been lifted to signal for quiet clenched into a fist, and that fist bounced in the air a little bit before she took a step backwards. Her body was tight like a wire, she was so worked up that the acid in her stomach was trying to climb its way up into her throat. Her nose crinkled up, her forehead mimicked the texture, and she took another step back. For all of the people gathered, Lola's eyes find Thomas's rather than anyone else's, and for a second her expression is a plain to see pleading for assistance: Jesus Christ, Thomas, help me I don't know how to de-escalate anything that isn't what I do.

She won't wait for him to interject or take the reins, though. Instead the tension within her will snap with a curse released into the air like the kind of snarls that lions make at one another over territory: "Motherfuck!"

And, with that, she spins about and takes off after Hector at a jog. She barely remembers to snatch her hoodie up from off the ground on her way.

That hand that lifts to signal for quiet is, not surprisingly, ignored, including the weird hissing noise that Lola spits out as well. Melantha finishes, and when she finishes, Lola doesn't even answer. Lola swears, Lola looks for help at Thomas, and then Lola

runs after her maaaaan.

and Melantha stands there staring after her, stunned. "Wow," is all she says.

Thomas watches them again. He stays mostly quiet and he doesn't move in between anyone. People are between people and talking is...well...right now it's like trying to herd four separate cats. Which is to say, extremely challenging. Hector is leaving.

And Lola is pleading. He manages a real, warm smile and makes a little shooing motion. 'Get out of here, go with Hector,' that gesture says, 'and I'll try.' It's not exactly the following he intended to do, but...Thomas and Lola might not be the most expected kind of allies. But they manage it. Somehow.

How do you smooth things over after Lola? Awakened steamroller? Thomas glances over the others and waits for a reaction now that Hector and Lola aren't there to engage. Steamrollers...not so much his thing.

Charlotte is all stiff-shouldered and misses absolutely everything that goes on after the direct challenge Lola lobbed at Erich. Then it ends; Lola turns around runs away, and they're left standing in a loose half-circle and Erich,

has not yet exploded

and the moon is full and bright someone beyond the horizon and Charlotte cants her head, turns in brief awareness to keep Lola in her peripheral vision as her figure diminishes and then disappears, lost in the wash of streetlights framing the edge of the park in amber light.

"That was weird." Which: Charlotte is weird. She has a half-dozen weird things in her pockets right now. But people say that sometimes. She's heard them say it. Also, quietly, as the humans who have stopped to gawk start to move onward, " - we should go hunt or something."

Erich spends the better part of the last few moments just sort of sputtering in aghastness. Which is better than bursting into murder-ness. But still: not exactly awesome and glorious. Fortunately Melantha pretty much gives a better argument than he possibly could, and fortunately Javed,

as ever,

is a force of stability in their little gathering. Which is important, because Erich is sort of the opposite of a force of stability.

Anyway: Lola storms off after Hector, who also sort of stormed off. And Erich makes a few more exasperated noises, then stuffs his hands into his pockets. "What the hell," he finishes. "That was just. What the hell. I mean I get chip on shoulder, but. What the hell.

"I guess we can go hunt, but what the hell."

Melantha hears Charlotte suggesting a hunt, and her brows tug together a moment, but she looks away and catches sight of a woman across the way who, frankly, looks more like the ideal of womanhood to Melantha than anyone else here, herself included. She sees the woman watching them, and tenses slightly.

"Guys," Melantha says quietly. "Guys, who is that? She's staring."

Ruby shifts off of the tree and walks straight up to her mentor, eyeing the assembled gawkers and such, noticing Melantha but not what she has to say. "Hey Javed, it's Ruby. What was that all about?"

She has an idea, of course. Just, that furious thrumming wanting that got her out of the house tonight could be enough to cause this. But surely these people, with their years of experience (she is guessing they are more trained than she) they would know how to contain themselves?

Well you see, Erich, Hector is like the ocean. You surrender, You don't fight it. Fighting is how people drown. Understanding isn't something you're really meant to do with the sea, You make peace with it. Lola is...like that, only different and nothing like water. But he says none of that. It wouldn't really help anything.

"I would explain, if I could. Or if it would help. But neither of those things is so much true at-"

His eyes flick to Ruby and he stops speaking. And for a half second his expression goes cold. She announces her name for Javed, so he doesn't offer an introduction to Melantha.

He nods to Javed, then Erich, then Melantha. "It has been lovely to see you all. If you'll excuse me...."

So the last time someone told Erich that someone else was staring at them, he threw a hammer at the peeper's head. Like not even a Viking throwing-hammer, but the sort of thing you buy at Home Depot to do home improvement with. It is somewhat possible, given the moonphase and Erich's general mood, that he's looking around for something to chuck at the latest stare-r.

Fortunately she comes over herself and makes herself sort of known. Ruby. Erich instantly wants to make a mean joke about Red Riding Hood or something, but since she seems to know Javed and he kinda likes Javed and also he's not a douchebag, he's just grumpy right now, he doesn't.

"See ya, Tom," he says, sort of offhand, to his tribesman's departure. He doesn't know that guy very well. Probably should get to know him better. Well, another time. His attention comes back to the newcomer.

"So who're you?"

While Lola is running off and Charlotte is approaching and Erich is What the hell-ing, Javed is staying perfectly still, watching the departing kinfolk. There is time to react when he is sure blood is no longer potentially about to spill. That moment appears to be drawing very close, and while his face remains stone inside, the Strider is relaxing. He even allows himself a rare brief, outward display of emotion as he shuts his eyes, takes in a breath, lets it back out. His muscles begin to loosen where they had drawn tight in very zone of his person. And then opens them and starts to turn his attention to--

Wherever it was going, it snaps in the other direction when Melantha asks Who is that? She's staring. His gaze rests on Ruby and he doesn't know her, of course. And she is kind enough to identify herself, though the specter at her side does that well enough for her. Ruby has the easiest clue of all time, short of the pack bond he has with Avery.

And he draws up, formal again. He looks at Thomas, and his brow furrows at the way he looks at Ruby. That's a conversation they'll be having later.

But now, the cub. He looks back at her and nods his head. "Miss Lee. There was a disagreement. Words were shared that caused the disagreement to escalate rather thriftily. But it has been resolved, for now anyway." He doesn't talk to the ghost. He never does. He can't hear it anyway.

"Some introductions are in order, though I know not who you have met and who you haven't." So he turns to the others. "This is Ruby Lee. A newly-discovered part of my Tribe, and our Auspice." Said with a look to Erich. He lets the others make their own introductions.

Erich sputters. Charlotte lets him sputter; she doesn't really know how to answer or what to say or even what just happened and now there's a woman who's staring and hey! Charlotte looks but Ruby's already there; greeting the metis Ahroun. The creature's attention flickers between them briefly and then - oh, these things are quite circular.

Charlotte gives Thomas a really-rather-shy wave by way of farewell and is sort of sidling out of immediacy and earshot of Javed and Ruby except Erich isn't going anywhere and he's still all bright (he calls it grumpy but it is moon-madness, which is polished and keen and brighter than that human word can encompass and there is something searing about it, burning clean that Charlotte both likes and doesn't-like) so Charlotte's not really going anywhere.

Doesn't say anything more but she does put her fists in the front pockets of her hoodie - which are capacious - and pulls out two things. One, the skull of a baby bird; and two, a small box of very fine chocolates.

Room for just four pieces inside the box and one is already gone. Charlotte does not have enough for everyone but she has enough for her pack. And offers one to Melantha.

'Course if Melantha prefers the baby-bird-skull she can have that instead.

The author recommends the chocolate.

In all her life, Ruby has never seen someone, found someone, who feels like Melantha does. Well: smells. Feels, too, in the part of her that can see this ghost and step through the boundary between worlds. The scent is powerful, and it is alluring, even if that allure is not sexual. It inspires the desire to protect and guard, but also the simpler, quieter desire to simply be near. To Ruby it does not smell like an ancient and long-lost homeland, but it brings to mind myths of maidens stolen by cold hands, of grieving mothers turning the world to winter in longing for her, of a woman in the underworld coming into power as a queen, as a bride of hell. But also the springtime, the lush earth, the darkness of wet soil after a rainstorm.

Just looking at her, it's no wonder to see Erich or Charlotte sticking close to her, bumping against her, as though her very presence comforts them, even if it doesn't erase Charlotte's madness or Erich's anger. Even without her speaking, even if she weren't -- let's face it -- very pretty, with brightly intelligent eyes, it just doesn't seem strange that she would be cared for.

She knows Javed. So Melantha looks at Javed. Javed says Miss Lee and the woman herself says Ruby so now Melantha knows, but doesn't know. Javed says she's a Silent Strider Ahroun and Melantha looks back at Ruby.

She lifts her hand, gives a small wave. "I'm Melantha Argyris," she says, and she sort of relishes saying her name to new people, her real name, her birth-given name and family name, not Celia or Maria or Isabella or whoever else she's been. "I'm Black Fury kin."

Erich, who was caught up for a moment eyeing that baby-bird-skull Charlotte pulls out, flicks his eyes back to Ruby as the introductions start. He takes one hand out of his pocket. His knuckles ache from clenching his fist so tight, but now he shakes his fingers out and kinda waves.

"Hey. Erich. Shadow Lord Cliath. Ahroun, like Javed said."

And mindvoice: Charlotte what's with you and skulls!

There is a very brief flicker of surprise at being called Tom, less because he's annoyed and more because people just generally don't do that and it sounds strange to him.

He returns Charlotte's wave with a less shy one, and a smile.

And then, while Ruby is distracted by introductions and before she can set him bristling and there is another fight to break up, Thomas is gone.

Oh, they are introducing themselves. So, Charlotte says "I'm Eulalia Charlotte Horatia Hypotenuse Ampersand Evadne Jefferson-Gray, House Wyrmfoe, Lodge of the Moon, and I'm a crescent moon and a Silver Fang."

I like skulls. It's where your head lives. Do you want a chocolate?

And then Charlotte goes very very quiet for very strange reasons having to do with the moon and the sun and the earth's movement around its polar axis. And other more secret things.