[Hunter] [wits+brawl]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Hunter] [dmg+1+6 pulling at lethal incap]
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[C.J. Nash] [Jesus Christ, kid! Diff 8, soaking lethal.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 9 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Hunter] The fight is over in a matter of seconds, Nash pulls a gun and finds a fist planted so squarely into his jaw that it probably knocked the weapon from his clutches. It certainly knocked the senses from his mind and his eyes go dull, void, unconscious in the span of a stun.
And in that stun it's all over, before Nash can react.
The second punch hits him in the ribs, doubly him over, cracking bone and knocking him to the ground. The heavy boot of Hunter Matthews finds him near to death, bleeding out on the road and wounded probably beyond repair. Except he's a kinsman and Hunter is a Garou. Nothing is beyond repair.
Hunter is snarling when he flips the body of the kinsman over onto his back and crouches down beside his head, staring down into eyes that can see but from a body that can do little else. The hand gun gets picked up, put back inside the holster that the kinsman had drawn it from. Then there's a gourd, retried from Hunter's pocket and placed against the ribs of Nash.
"We're goin' to see Kora." Hunter says down into the face of Nash. "I've had my say, now's her turn to have hers. But let me be clear about one thing Nash and one thing only."
A beat.
"Rosie is mine and I don't give a fuck what she did to entice ya' into bed. She's mine n'ya fuckin' know that n'ya should fuckin' know better. Ya not gonna see her ever again, Nash. Ya' can thank ya' sleazy old-man cock for that."
The gourd gets crunched roughly beneath the meaty fist of the Ahroun then smeared over the man's ribs before he's gripped about the collar of the shirt and pulled to his feet. Pockets are shuffled through until the man's keys can be found and then he's dragging[carrying, pulling] Nash back to his own vehicle.
[C.J. Nash] Most of what Hunter growls into Nash's ear, into his face, is not going to be retained. There's really no point saying it in the first place, one could argue: Nash knew all this, and he acted anyway. He still fucked Rosie even though he knew she was with Hunter, even though he knew this was going to happen, so either Nash isn't all that intelligent, or he just isn't all that enthused about being alive. This is the sort of shit a man who doesn't want to keep going does.
He lies there, eyes barely open, broken chest barely rising, but the second his mind clears, the second Hunter puts his hands on him to haul him to his feet, he's thrashing like a wet cat.
"Get the fuck off'a me!" he says, and throws a punch.
It's worth mentioning that he sounds pissed off, not scared.
[Hunter] [+18 sigh nash]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2
[C.J. Nash] [+7!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1
[C.J. Nash] [1: LOL not happening, punch!]
[Hunter] [1a punch
1b punch]
[Hunter] [1a -2 split]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Hunter] [dmg+2]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[C.J. Nash] [Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 7 (Failure at target 6)
[Hunter] [1b -3 punnchh]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6) Re-rolls: 2
[Hunter] [dmg+5 PULLING DMG at incaP]
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[C.J. Nash] [Ah hah hah, ah hah hah... hah.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 6, 6 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Hunter] There isn't a sigh when Nash strikes out at Hunter, this isn't an annoyance. There's a smile in his lips like he's just so glad that Nash gave him the chance to do this all over again.
Thwap
Thwunk
The Kinsman goes down for the second time and this time Hunter doesn't heal him or share words with him or show him kindness beyond the fact that he's still living. He grabs him in one hand and hauls his ass off the ground. Maybe his feet drag behind him or maybe he can stumble somewhat, either way he gets throw into the passenger seat of his truck.
Hunter takes the time to pick his bike up, park it on the side of the road before coming back to the vehicle and climbing in the drivers door. "This is a fuckin' piece of shit, Nash. Ya know that?" Hunter says as he turns the ignition.
[C.J. Nash] Once he's unconscious, Nash is significantly easier to move from one place to the other. He's taller than Hunter, but he's lighter, raw-boned, and can't put up a fight when he can't even support his own weight. The kinsman flops in the passenger seat, nose bleeding, ribs crackling unheard as he breathes. In a few minutes he'll be exhaling pink froth, but Hunter knows better than to heal him again.
He's Fenrir. He'll keep fighting until he's dead.
The truck's engine turns over with difficulty; there is no radio in the vehicle. All Hunter has during the drive to the church is the hum of tires over asphalt and Nash's labored breathing for background noise.
[Hunter] He drives quickly but without speeding; this vehicle feels like it might fall apart at any second, he wouldn't be surprised if he saw a hub cap roll off into oncoming traffic. But they reach the church without incident and Hunter parks up the truck, climbs out of it and moves around to the passenger side to haul out Nash.
After the vehicle is locked, the keys get dumped back in one of the kinsman's pockets while he's dragged up the steps of the Church. There he's dumped, right on the top one and Hunter Matthews beats a heavy fist against the wooden door.
[Kora] The front doors to the church are made of heavy, iron-banded wood set into gray stone, dark with age and exposure to the elements. Hunter waits several minutes before the door opens in response to his heavy knock. Surprisingly, the hinges do not protest the movement. They are well-oiled and silent.
The interior is dark, the shadows broken by the fitful illumination of braziers mounted on the stone columns marching back toward the altar. The sense of space in the interior is muted at the front door, thanks to the lower ceiling created by the choir loft.
Kora stands in the doorway, pale hair unusually loose about her shoulders. She's tall as ever, and gravid with late pregnancy, bare footed on the cold stone floor, wearing gray cotton pants and a lime green tee, long-sleeved, taut across her stomach. Her eyes are dark in the shadows of the church, the color lost except where they gleam with reflected light from the streetlamps.
"Hunter - " she begins; but whatever she was going to say is cut off as her gaze drops to the unconscious kinsman on her stoop. Her generous mouth tightens, and she cuts a lifting glance back to the Bone Gnawer, a question clear in her lifted brow.
[Hunter] "I believe this is yours yuf."
Hunter says the words then slides the kinsman through the doorway and dumps him at Kora's feet. "He needed persuadin'." There is blood on Hunter's knuckles but none on his face and the blood on his knuckles isn't even his. When he wipes them along the front of his shirt they come away clean, skin intact.
[C.J. Nash] At least he's still breathing.
Nash is dressed as he has been nearly every time Kora has seen him, his bloodied face obscured by hair that is long enough to identify him from a distance if his breeding wouldn't do it for him. Dropped on the step, he's not moving aside from the uneven rise and fall of his chest. Occasionally, he gurgles. It's not a healthy sound.
Hauled inside, he wheezes with the concussion of his body hitting the ground again, but doesn't stir. He's shivering despite the fact that he's wearing his jacket; it's cold outside, and he's gone into shock.
[Kora] (Rage)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3 (Botch x 3 at target 4)
[Kora] There is a moment where Kora's attention dilates to a single point somewhere in the middle of Hunter's face. Still, her pale features - softened by pregnancy - have the look of someone staring off into the distance. Kora's curving mouth flattens, and there's a flash behind her dark eyes. The moon's heavy; she's furious, and in that moment rage threatens to overwhelm her.
--
Maybe it's the blood in the air; maybe's it's some errant movement of the child in her stomach, a kick to the kidney, the pressure of a heel against her abdominal wall - but the flare of temper leaves her just a bit - emptier. With the moon this full, it's a physical relief that does nothing to soften the blunt edge of her anger.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" she all but snarls at Hunter, the flash of white teeth in her curving mouth. "What the fuck is the meaning of this?"
[Hunter] Hunter raises an eyebrow at Kora when she begins to lose her shit, silently leaving her body for that brief moment of tension that rides before a possible frenzy.
"Calm down. Ya' gonna give ya'self a fuckin' stroke in a minute." Hunter tells her with both eyebrows raised now and a look that says quite sincerely: if I look worried it's only for you and your baby. "Let me in n'we can talk. He's not dead Kora; he's not gonna die. Cuts n'bruises. He'll be fine."
[C.J. Nash] Gurgle.
[Kora] "He's not Garou, he's kin." The feral, pregnant creature returns, emphasizing the words with a sharp snap of her teeth, as if she were biting off each word. "Fenrir kin." She adds in a moment later, as explanation for Nash's survival, perhaps, but with the sort of immediate possessiveness that feels utterly territorial.
"And you had no right to lay a goddamned hand on him."
The spasm of anger subsides into a slow burn gleaming in the fixed intensity of her dark blue eyes. She swallows once, tasting bile, feeling the fixed riger of muscles aching from the tension, the flood of stress hormones the flare of rage unleashes in her body. The child turns uneasily in her body and she breathes out all at once, shoulders shuddering with the exhalation, feeling - acutely - the limitations of pregnancy.
"You have five fucking minutes." Kora tells Hunter through clenched teeth.
Then she sinks awkwardly to her haunches to inspect Nash's wounds. Slides an arm beneath his shoulders and starts to rise to half-walk, half-carry the kinsman over to the couches in the living area, warning Hunter away with a flash of her teeth if he so much as makes a show of moving to assist her.
Fenrir take care of their own.
[Hunter] Hunter doesn't offer to help the kinsman -- he already healed him once and he won't be doing that again any time soon -- nor does he immediately follow after Kora, instead he steps inside and closes the door behind him, crosses his arms over his chest and watches the Jarl take care of her own.
Just like he had done; just like he would do.
"He had no right to lay a hand on mine neither, didn't bother him none." Hunter says. "Not that it's an excuse -- look I didn't wanna have to break him like that. Pulled a gun on me, kept fightin' when I healed em' back up."
A beat.
"Can't say I'm particularly sorry that the fucker's all balls and no brain though."
[C.J. Nash] Though he's beaten to within a few inches of his life, determining whether or not he's conscious is a task better suited for medical personnel: his eyes aren't open, don't do so much as flutter when Kora gets an arm under him and works him off the floor. He is deadweight, unable to get his legs under him to help the Jarl walk him; still shivering, his head drops forward, blood and saliva and fuck knows what else leaking from his mouth.
He's not awake to either confirm or deny the allegations, but Kora's starting to know Nash fairly well, can feel the holster underneath his jacket as she moves him. He seems the sort to pull a gun on an Ahroun.
[Gwen Sullivan] The Cub is an entity that comes and goes in the Church. When Fire Claws is present she's typically to be found nearby as well, sleeping close to his side in wolf skin, slinking across the Gauntlet or out toward the woods for hunts and lessons with her Mentor. When he's absent she tends to be as well. Even other times the Lupus Philodox will be within the echoing halls of the old church, and the Cub will be nowhere to be seen. She dedicates time to the Caern though she cannot pledge to it yet, she walks the streets to patrol the territory and contribute to the Pack that she was not a member of. She's also been known to run with Bone Grinder, the Shadow Lord Ahroun, and learn lessons of interrogation and cruelty from him.
Tonight, though, despite Fire Claws being nowhere in sight, Gwen is within the Church. She'd been resting in one of any number of back rooms, and shuffles out into the sanctuary with a sleepy-eyed look about her. Her dyed-dark hair is slept on, messy and unwashed, hanging about her face just past her shoulders. She's wearing a pair of overlarge gray sweatpants tied securely at the waist and a snug-fitting long sleeved black tee shirt with some swirling design up the left side on the front and back. She's scrubbing at her eye with the pad of a thumb and hanging in the doorway, shoulder against the doorframe, frowning and half-asleep.
"What's going on?"
Waiting, perhaps, for permission to come forward. Squinting at the body on the floor and trying to make out who it is through the shadows of the unlit room, she's trying to find recognition in the limp, shadowed figure's back and shoulders.
[Kora] "Give me a hand," Kora says to Gwen, not answering her but giving her quiet permission to step forward and help her support the dead weight of the kinsman's body. It takes strain. Effort. She lacks the grace she had, and all that strength in her abdominal muscles is dedicated just now to supporting the weight of a near-term child. Who has survived in there against all odds. Her voice is curt, the flash of temper still evident when her dark eyes reflect the light from the braziers on the wall.
"He was fighting with one of your kin?" A soft snort, backgrounded by rage. There's a baleful light across the surface of her gaze as she cuts a glance back at Hunter. "That's still no reason for you to lay hands on him unless there was some goddamned imminent danger to your kin."
[Hunter] She snorts, he snorts too and pushes away from the wall where he leans by the doorway. His face is bathed in shadow but she can see the fire in his emeralds as he stalks through the dim lights of the church.
"No, Kora. He wasn't fightin' with one'a my kin. He fucked my pregnant mate. Shit like that ain't make a Garou too rational. But here he is, alive and well, free to keep fuckin' messin' with families with the next generation of the nation."
A beat.
"Somethin' I thought ya' would understand, Kora."
[Gwen Sullivan] An elastic band is snapped off the Cub's wrist and her hands move to the back of her head. Hair fast on its way to greasy, far beyond unkempt, is wrangled into a fist and twisted about until it's a knot at the base of her skull. Secured there, she starts forward on stocking feet-- black so she doesn't have to worry about them going stained and dirty from all the dust and debris on the floor, large and baggy enough at the heels that they were probably intended for grown men rather than teenaged girls.
Kora gets Nash up, he's slumped against her shoulder arm and beachball belly, and as Gwen nears her always-hooded eyes widened some, then sharpened. Her pace quickened, and she was at Kora's side all the quicker for recognition. The long blond hair, the shape of the beaten and swelling face, the leather jacket and all struck her as intimately familiar. Gwen pressed herself into Nash's other side and grabbed his arm, dragged it over her shoulders and helped quicken the journey from front door to sofa against the wall in the living area.
Her jaw was set, Rage a flickering blue flame about her shoulders and at the top of her head. When they reach the couch she helps the man lay down, bends his knees so he can fit well enough to lay on his side rather than putting him flat on his back. Pale eyes cut back toward Hunter, and her nose wrinkles in distaste, lips pale for being pressed hard to hold back an open snarl. She wouldn't be so defensive, truly, were it not for the Moon above.
[Kora] "Starla?"
A flash of dark eyed look from Hunter to Nash and back again.
"He fucked Starla too?"
[Hunter] A frown.
"What? No, I mean he might have, how the fuck should I know? A gnawer, my mate. What's gotten into ya' Kora?"
[Gwen Sullivan] Kora and Hunter are left to hash out politics. Gwen is left crouched down in front of the couch, knees out rather than forward so that she can straddle herself nearer to the furniture, to the unconscious man laying on the length of it. She keeps her back to the Ahroun, leaves the talking to the Jarl. She was a Cub, if she opened her mouth it would only be to invite knuckles or claws into it.
Rather she scowls heavily and assesses the damage of the Kin, pushing his hair gingerly from his face. There's no tenderness in the gesture, it, as many things about the cub, is both utilitarian and a little bit awkward. She's clearing the blond out of the way so she can see his face. Touching lightly at his side to feel for breaks, for swelling, for anything out of place that might indicate internal hemorrhaging. She wasn't a medic, wasn't an EMT or a doctor or anything close to trained for this, but she could tell what was or wasn't supposed to be.
[C.J. Nash] That wakes him up.
As far as beatings go, this one was fairly tame: Hunter hit him four, maybe five times altogether, but as a son of Eagle, the punches and kicks he landed were inhumanly powerful. Nash's nose is bloody but not actively bleeding anymore; his jaw is discolored but not obviously broken. The bulk of the damage seems to be to his torso. He's making strange noises when he breathes, which isn't all that often, and when he exhales, it gurgles.
Then she presses on his ribs, and he coughs so violently that if Gwen's reflexes aren't honed she might end up with blood on her. His eyes don't open. The kinsman, whose tanned skin has gone pale, whose lips have a vaguely bluish tinge, seems to consider it, if only to see who's poking at him.
He weakly pushes at Gwen's hand, mumbles something that sounds like "God damn it," and goes back to wheezing.
[Kora] "If another Garou tried to steal my mate, I would tear her apart," Kora returns, without a moment of hesitation. " - but if he was willing to fuck around with a stranger, a kin of another tribe, anyone, well, he would not be mine, would he?"
While Gwen tends to the unconscious Nash, Kora straightens and stands bodily between them. There's blood on her flank, on the sleeve of her cotton t-shirt where she carted the unconscious kinsman back to the couches, on her face, in her hair, and she's swallowing hard against the fundamental substrate instinct to shift and go for the throat. The moon's high, her rage is still close to the surface and there's a certain harsh asceticism to her voice. A certain sourness beneath the storm of her gaze.
"You have a helluva nerve, Hunter," almost unconsciously, her arms cross over her stomach. It is a gesture she rarely makes, refusing to fucking acknowledge the advanced state of her pregnancy in public. Here, though, she's just shiedling the kid-to-bed from the ahroun-in-front of her. A twist of her mouth. "You said pregnant mate. The last I heard you were intruding on Roman's territory fucking his cousin. Now there's some other pregnant mate the rest of the world's supposed to be hands off? See to your own fucking house.
"I'll have the Forseti exam him. If he coerced, induced, or forced your fucking mate to have sex with him, I'll forgive you this and beat him myself for good measure.
"If not, you'll answer for every fucking blow."
[Gwen Sullivan] Nash jerks awake with a cough and splatters blood past his lips. Gwen is quick enough to duck to the side that it doesn't hit her in the face (as though she's worried about contracting anything from him), but doesn't stay leaned away in disgust or bother. Instead she catches his hand when he moves it feebly to brush her away from his ribs. Squeezes it and pinches the thin skin at the inside of his wrist with untrimmed fingernails.
"You breathing okay?" She asks, but doesn't fully expect an answer. She could hear the watery gurgling with every breath he took.
The frown seemed permanently etched into her features, she turns her head so that her chin is in front of her shoulder, giving her profile to the Ahroun and the Skald. Her eyes don't focus on either, though, she looks past both of them. Her always-raspy voice, with all the potential for husky sultry tones like the smoke filled chamber of a 1930s speakeasy, was nothing but a raw growl now.
"There's blood in his lungs."
[Hunter] A slight ponderous rumbling escapes from the depths of his throat as Kora begins speaking and when Kora finishes he waves a hand. "Forget the Forseti, wasn't no coercion. But that's between me'n'mine."
His voice is casual, like he's had far too long to think about all of this.
"Also, intrudin' on Roman's territory is a bit of a way to put it Kora. He ain't Fenrir, neither is Starla. Just cause Roman's packed with you don't mean that's how their whole tribes gonna work."
A beat and he waves a hand.
"Besides, that was awhile ago. It's irrelevant. Fact of the matter is Nash knew, I told em myself that she was mine. Did it anyway. I ain't sayin' I fuckin' followed your rules down to a letter Kora, but I did what needed to be done. If he weren't such an idiot as to pull a fuckin' gun on me he'd be sittin' there happy as day with a black eye. He got off fuckin' lucky if ya' ask me, we all did."
[C.J. Nash] He breathing okay?
Nash manages to open his eyes now, and Gwen finds them unfocused and bleary. Now that he's awake, he's also acutely aware of the amount of pain he's in, likely cursing his daughter for dragging him back into his body when he was blissfully unaware of how wrecked he was. He starts breathing faster, flinching with the pain it produces, and attempts to push himself up.
Nothing happens. Through his haze, he hears the Los Angelean Ahroun telling Kora that he got off fuckin' lucky, and Nash huffs, coughs, winces, as though he would burst out laughing if he could catch his breath. His lung filling with blood is likely the only thing keeping him from smarting off; he can't even find the air necessary to complain about not being able to catch his breath.
[Kora] There is a moment where Kora's attention is pulled back, drawn inward. She looks - meditative - then focuses again directly on Hunter. Says, in a soft, quiet voice, "I can fucking assure you that that is how their tribe works. Starla's been in town for two moons, so it cannot be all that long ago as to be ir-fucking-relevant to your own goddamned behavior. The rules in question aren't mine. They're the fucking Nation's. And if he transgressed against you, it is my duty to punish him, not yours. Since you seem incapable of understanding that, I'm happy to let Honor's Compasse explain the matter to you directly.
"Unless you want to offer me our contrition for this transgression, you can leave now."
[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen's fingers swipe through the flat cut of bangs over her forehead, pushing them out of the way only long enough for them to fall back into place once again. She's nipping at the inside of her mouth, cheeks and lips and tongue alike, with the sharp edges of her incisors. Nash isn't quite struggling for air, but it certainly isn't easy for him to breathe either. He huffs and wheezes and every half-panted breath he takes has a wet shlucking sound to it.
She lets go of his hand, her own now hovering awkwardly over his waist and shoulder. She doesn't know how to heal, she doesn't know much of how to help him. She could perform CPR, she could splint an injury, but internal damages like this she was downright useless with. On top of that, she wasn't much comfort either. The girl wasn't soft, nor was she warm. Kind emotions were a far drift from what she was accustomed to, especially these days with the hardening paces that one being indoctrinated into the Warrior's Tribe goes through.
Still, she pats lightly, gingerly at a shoulder and grinds out through teeth clenched over the inside of her lower lip. "Keep doing that. Breathing. Cough it out, don't let it well up. You go to sleep you won't cough it up."
[Hunter] "No no, I ain't hit em' to punish em'. I hit em' because he fucked my mate n'that's the laws of fuckin' wolves, Kora. That's the god damn laws of nature. He's in the state he is because he either couldn't use his brain or didn't give a fuck to -- when fuckin' my mate and when drawin' that gun -- you try dish out whatever fuckin' punishment you see fit Kora, I ain't arguin', I don't give a fuck about none of that."
He turns on his heel and heads for the door.
"He ain't worth the fuckin' hassle Kora." Called over his shoulder as he's leaving.
[C.J. Nash] It sounds like common sense advice, to keep breathing, but when breathing causes pain, one can see why Nash isn't in much of a hurry to do something that's going to hurt. All he can do is lie there, with or without his eyes open to see what's going on around him. He can tell, just from listening--Gwen's small frame blocks his view of the rest of the world--that the Bone Gnawer is starting to leave.
He huffs again, blue lips incapable of smiling, and he reaches out a pain-blinded hand to rest it atop her head. The kinsman finds the wind necessary to get out one word--"I'm"--before he coughs again, aborting whatever thought crawled into that thick skull of his. His hand leaves her hair so he can bury his coughing in his elbow. When he groans, it's nearly a growl; it would be a Fuck! if he could speak.
[Kora] "Then I will see you at the Caern as soon as Honor's Compasse-rhya is available."
And that is all Kora says to Hunter.
The door closes behind him and Nash is lying there, listening to the echo of footsteps on the stones of the church. Unable to move, with Gwen's frame blocking the light. Kora swallows back the echo of her ancestors in the back of her mind, the need for blood in return, and frowns down at Nash. "Gwen," to the cub. "There's a box by the far wall, wooden. I have healing talens inside. Gourds, yeah?" Her voice is clipped, still taut with half-swallowed fury. "Bring me one."
[Hunter] [thanks for scene!]
[Gwen Sullivan] Nash's hand lifts, hovers haphazardly, then settles on top of her head. Gwen didn't do affection well, or craft words carefully. She was straight to the point in everything. The night that paternity results were pulled from an envelope and left to hang in the air between cub and Kin there hadn't been much catching up, lamenting about what could have been, or promising to be there from here on out. Nothing like that. Just a matter-of-fact statement that he'd have to get an apartment with an extra room and silent resolve on the cub's part to make an effort with this Kin.
Simple, physical stuff like this, though, she understood. A hand on the head was met with her nudging her head into his palm, tucking her chin and taking a deep breath.
He's coughing again, pulling his hand back so he could cover his mouth with the crook of his elbow. Hunter's leaving, the door thumping closed behind him, and Kora's giving her instructions. There were healing gourds in a box against the wall, bring one on over. Gwen's pale green-gray eyes hopped up to the Jarl's face, then the girl nodded and pushed herself up onto her stocking feet. Legs that weren't short to support a petite frame, nor long enough for the word 'leggy' to be applied to her, carried her across the large room in hunt of what she was told to fetch.
Once found, a gourd is delivered into the hands of the Skald.
[C.J. Nash] He has to know he fucked up, that this was going to be the consequence of his going to bed with a woman who, if not in her own mind, belonged to a Fostern Ahroun from a tribe of creatures who have been mistreated and oppressed throughout history. Hunter didn't ask him questions before he came at him like a freight train, didn't stick around to ask questions in the event that he was healed before he could drown in his own blood. Even were he not Fenrir, in the presence of his Jarl, he wouldn't have a lot of room to complain.
So he doesn't. It's more like bitching than anything else, as though a collapsing lung is on the same scale of irritating as a paper cut or a stubbed toe; his body is doing the complaining for him. He's clammy, blue, short of breath. Kinfolk heal faster than normal human beings, yet they die just as easily. Were they to leave him without healing, he would be dead within days.
Kora sends the Cub for a healing gourd, and he takes his elbow away from his face. His eyes are closed as he breathes. The blood he coughed up went into the crook of his jacket. He's still shivering. Unlike plenty of other people near death, he isn't begging for forgiveness or absolution. Either he doesn't believe he's going to die, or he doesn't believe he's done anything worth apologizing for.
Given who it is we're talking about, it's likely the latter.
[Kora] "You've heard of these?" Kora to Gwen, here. "Gaia's breath. They're bound with water spirits. They take some time to make, though - and you cannot keep a spirit bound indefinitely, not with a simple talen-making rite, so we don't have many on hand. I make these down by the river. Roman and I fought a battle last summer at the riverside; I was nearly swallowed by a giant spirit of corruption. He died, but came back. Just barely, though, floating alone in the river.
"I was poisoned, slowly losing coherence. Nearly dead. But the river knew what we had done, and the spirits healed me, cleansed the poison from my body, and healed Roman. So we started a clean-up, yeah? Riverfront, as a sort of chiminage. I've made these there ever since.
"The spirits aren't meant to be used, though. They aren't - things, right? Resources for us. This is an exchange of sorts, and you have to respect what they offer you, use it wisely, and do not waste."
Kora cups the gourd, imbues it with some of her spirit, and breaks it over Nash, letting the clean water run over his battered features.
"This is not a waste." She says, quietly to Gwen. Understanding something of the extent of Nash's injuries.
[Kora] (1 Gnosis spent - 4 Health Levels)
[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen stands like some mix between a sentry and an apprentice at Kora's side after the gourd is handed off, watches intently as the elder female displays the gourd and tells the story of how it and its counterparts all came to be. Her eyes only stray from Kora to check the doorway when the wind makes it creak, as though she's braced for Hunter to come back, ready and willing to change into a figure that would shred her undedicated clothes and throw her bulk (considerable for coming from a teen girl but nothing compared to that Ahroun's) against his to stop him from doing more harm.
He doesn't return, though, so she's safe to pay careful mind to Kora and what she does with the gourd. It cracks, the water contained inside drizzles over his face and chest. It works magic, takes a moment for the spirit to wake and do so. In the quiet that would follow Kora's last words, the waiting moments for the effects to be realized, the Cub murmurs quietly.
"No, a waste is the energy that... man--" she wanted a crueler word, obviously, but chose something less venomous, "spent on this. ...Stupid, stupid decision."
[C.J. Nash] They can practically hear his ribs knitting back together, his lung reinflating as the dust, the water from the broken gourd splashes over him. He sucks in a breath, as though he's been bucked from a boat into frigid water, so quickly does he go from being in excruciating pain to its lessening to an ache: he gasps, shocked, and pushes himself bolt upright. He ends up doubled over, coughing so hard he nearly loses the contents of his stomach. Blood comes up instead of gastric fluids, and Nash scrubs his face with his hands when he's got his wind back.
"Holy shit," he says. He is not Garou; he has to have experienced this before, this spiritual lessening of his physical suffering, yet he can hardly claim to be used to it. He says it again, slower, almost reverently, but he doesn't thank Kora or start to explain himself. He sits with his forearms between his knees, digesting the fact that he isn't close to death anymore.
[Kora] "If I wasn't pregnant," Kora tells Gwen, quietly. "I would've throated him." With utter confidence. Nevermind that Hunter was a fostern Ahroun, now and it would not likely have been so easy.
"As it is, I'll lay it before the Adren Fang Philodox for judgment, or instruction, since he seemed unable to grasp where he failed to heed the litany." This is a quiet aside. Kora watches as Nash sits up and starts coughing, quietly standing back, giving him room to breath, to reorient himself, to find his way back into the world.
[Gwen Sullivan] If I wasn't pregnant, uttered the Jarl in a soft voice at about the level of Gwen's ear-- Kora had a few inches on her, but not enough to make her a full head taller. The young Philodox's brow furrowed more, and a hand lifted to scrub absently between her breasts, where the chest aches with emotion and Rage.
"If I weren't but a Cub I would have done so myself. I know where he was wrong, I just don't have the... the weight to back that up yet."
Nash is coughing, leaned over the couch and half-belching excess blood onto the floor. Neither woman goes to touch him, to comfort or help him as he worked the fluid from his lungs near to the point of vomiting. They let him work through this on his own, and only once he's recovered, sitting back and breathing more steadily, arms dangling between his legs, does Gwen speak up.
"Better. Good." Because she doesn't know what else to say. She doesn't ask for his side of the story because that was Kora's place. She doesn't tell him that Hunter was wrong in what he did because that was unnecessary. Beyond those two words she's quiet. Her hands go into the pockets of her oversized sweatpants and she frowns down at the mussed blond hair on Nash's head, not at him so much as the situation she'd awaken to find.
[Gwen Sullivan] Matter of fact, her presence here as a whole was unnecessary. She determines this with a nod of her head and by glancing to Kora. "I'm going to go back to sleep." Then, to Nash: "Find me or call me, let me know you're okay..?"
And with these disclaimers left, the teen stalked back through the doorway, to the hallway with many doors and many utilitarian sleeping arrangements.
[C.J. Nash] [WRIZZAP]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Hunter] [dmg+1+6 pulling at lethal incap]
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[C.J. Nash] [Jesus Christ, kid! Diff 8, soaking lethal.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 9 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Hunter] The fight is over in a matter of seconds, Nash pulls a gun and finds a fist planted so squarely into his jaw that it probably knocked the weapon from his clutches. It certainly knocked the senses from his mind and his eyes go dull, void, unconscious in the span of a stun.
And in that stun it's all over, before Nash can react.
The second punch hits him in the ribs, doubly him over, cracking bone and knocking him to the ground. The heavy boot of Hunter Matthews finds him near to death, bleeding out on the road and wounded probably beyond repair. Except he's a kinsman and Hunter is a Garou. Nothing is beyond repair.
Hunter is snarling when he flips the body of the kinsman over onto his back and crouches down beside his head, staring down into eyes that can see but from a body that can do little else. The hand gun gets picked up, put back inside the holster that the kinsman had drawn it from. Then there's a gourd, retried from Hunter's pocket and placed against the ribs of Nash.
"We're goin' to see Kora." Hunter says down into the face of Nash. "I've had my say, now's her turn to have hers. But let me be clear about one thing Nash and one thing only."
A beat.
"Rosie is mine and I don't give a fuck what she did to entice ya' into bed. She's mine n'ya fuckin' know that n'ya should fuckin' know better. Ya not gonna see her ever again, Nash. Ya' can thank ya' sleazy old-man cock for that."
The gourd gets crunched roughly beneath the meaty fist of the Ahroun then smeared over the man's ribs before he's gripped about the collar of the shirt and pulled to his feet. Pockets are shuffled through until the man's keys can be found and then he's dragging[carrying, pulling] Nash back to his own vehicle.
[C.J. Nash] Most of what Hunter growls into Nash's ear, into his face, is not going to be retained. There's really no point saying it in the first place, one could argue: Nash knew all this, and he acted anyway. He still fucked Rosie even though he knew she was with Hunter, even though he knew this was going to happen, so either Nash isn't all that intelligent, or he just isn't all that enthused about being alive. This is the sort of shit a man who doesn't want to keep going does.
He lies there, eyes barely open, broken chest barely rising, but the second his mind clears, the second Hunter puts his hands on him to haul him to his feet, he's thrashing like a wet cat.
"Get the fuck off'a me!" he says, and throws a punch.
It's worth mentioning that he sounds pissed off, not scared.
[Hunter] [+18 sigh nash]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2
[C.J. Nash] [+7!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1
[C.J. Nash] [1: LOL not happening, punch!]
[Hunter] [1a punch
1b punch]
[Hunter] [1a -2 split]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Hunter] [dmg+2]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[C.J. Nash] [Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 7 (Failure at target 6)
[Hunter] [1b -3 punnchh]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6) Re-rolls: 2
[Hunter] [dmg+5 PULLING DMG at incaP]
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[C.J. Nash] [Ah hah hah, ah hah hah... hah.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 6, 6 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Hunter] There isn't a sigh when Nash strikes out at Hunter, this isn't an annoyance. There's a smile in his lips like he's just so glad that Nash gave him the chance to do this all over again.
Thwap
Thwunk
The Kinsman goes down for the second time and this time Hunter doesn't heal him or share words with him or show him kindness beyond the fact that he's still living. He grabs him in one hand and hauls his ass off the ground. Maybe his feet drag behind him or maybe he can stumble somewhat, either way he gets throw into the passenger seat of his truck.
Hunter takes the time to pick his bike up, park it on the side of the road before coming back to the vehicle and climbing in the drivers door. "This is a fuckin' piece of shit, Nash. Ya know that?" Hunter says as he turns the ignition.
[C.J. Nash] Once he's unconscious, Nash is significantly easier to move from one place to the other. He's taller than Hunter, but he's lighter, raw-boned, and can't put up a fight when he can't even support his own weight. The kinsman flops in the passenger seat, nose bleeding, ribs crackling unheard as he breathes. In a few minutes he'll be exhaling pink froth, but Hunter knows better than to heal him again.
He's Fenrir. He'll keep fighting until he's dead.
The truck's engine turns over with difficulty; there is no radio in the vehicle. All Hunter has during the drive to the church is the hum of tires over asphalt and Nash's labored breathing for background noise.
[Hunter] He drives quickly but without speeding; this vehicle feels like it might fall apart at any second, he wouldn't be surprised if he saw a hub cap roll off into oncoming traffic. But they reach the church without incident and Hunter parks up the truck, climbs out of it and moves around to the passenger side to haul out Nash.
After the vehicle is locked, the keys get dumped back in one of the kinsman's pockets while he's dragged up the steps of the Church. There he's dumped, right on the top one and Hunter Matthews beats a heavy fist against the wooden door.
[Kora] The front doors to the church are made of heavy, iron-banded wood set into gray stone, dark with age and exposure to the elements. Hunter waits several minutes before the door opens in response to his heavy knock. Surprisingly, the hinges do not protest the movement. They are well-oiled and silent.
The interior is dark, the shadows broken by the fitful illumination of braziers mounted on the stone columns marching back toward the altar. The sense of space in the interior is muted at the front door, thanks to the lower ceiling created by the choir loft.
Kora stands in the doorway, pale hair unusually loose about her shoulders. She's tall as ever, and gravid with late pregnancy, bare footed on the cold stone floor, wearing gray cotton pants and a lime green tee, long-sleeved, taut across her stomach. Her eyes are dark in the shadows of the church, the color lost except where they gleam with reflected light from the streetlamps.
"Hunter - " she begins; but whatever she was going to say is cut off as her gaze drops to the unconscious kinsman on her stoop. Her generous mouth tightens, and she cuts a lifting glance back to the Bone Gnawer, a question clear in her lifted brow.
[Hunter] "I believe this is yours yuf."
Hunter says the words then slides the kinsman through the doorway and dumps him at Kora's feet. "He needed persuadin'." There is blood on Hunter's knuckles but none on his face and the blood on his knuckles isn't even his. When he wipes them along the front of his shirt they come away clean, skin intact.
[C.J. Nash] At least he's still breathing.
Nash is dressed as he has been nearly every time Kora has seen him, his bloodied face obscured by hair that is long enough to identify him from a distance if his breeding wouldn't do it for him. Dropped on the step, he's not moving aside from the uneven rise and fall of his chest. Occasionally, he gurgles. It's not a healthy sound.
Hauled inside, he wheezes with the concussion of his body hitting the ground again, but doesn't stir. He's shivering despite the fact that he's wearing his jacket; it's cold outside, and he's gone into shock.
[Kora] (Rage)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3 (Botch x 3 at target 4)
[Kora] There is a moment where Kora's attention dilates to a single point somewhere in the middle of Hunter's face. Still, her pale features - softened by pregnancy - have the look of someone staring off into the distance. Kora's curving mouth flattens, and there's a flash behind her dark eyes. The moon's heavy; she's furious, and in that moment rage threatens to overwhelm her.
--
Maybe it's the blood in the air; maybe's it's some errant movement of the child in her stomach, a kick to the kidney, the pressure of a heel against her abdominal wall - but the flare of temper leaves her just a bit - emptier. With the moon this full, it's a physical relief that does nothing to soften the blunt edge of her anger.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" she all but snarls at Hunter, the flash of white teeth in her curving mouth. "What the fuck is the meaning of this?"
[Hunter] Hunter raises an eyebrow at Kora when she begins to lose her shit, silently leaving her body for that brief moment of tension that rides before a possible frenzy.
"Calm down. Ya' gonna give ya'self a fuckin' stroke in a minute." Hunter tells her with both eyebrows raised now and a look that says quite sincerely: if I look worried it's only for you and your baby. "Let me in n'we can talk. He's not dead Kora; he's not gonna die. Cuts n'bruises. He'll be fine."
[C.J. Nash] Gurgle.
[Kora] "He's not Garou, he's kin." The feral, pregnant creature returns, emphasizing the words with a sharp snap of her teeth, as if she were biting off each word. "Fenrir kin." She adds in a moment later, as explanation for Nash's survival, perhaps, but with the sort of immediate possessiveness that feels utterly territorial.
"And you had no right to lay a goddamned hand on him."
The spasm of anger subsides into a slow burn gleaming in the fixed intensity of her dark blue eyes. She swallows once, tasting bile, feeling the fixed riger of muscles aching from the tension, the flood of stress hormones the flare of rage unleashes in her body. The child turns uneasily in her body and she breathes out all at once, shoulders shuddering with the exhalation, feeling - acutely - the limitations of pregnancy.
"You have five fucking minutes." Kora tells Hunter through clenched teeth.
Then she sinks awkwardly to her haunches to inspect Nash's wounds. Slides an arm beneath his shoulders and starts to rise to half-walk, half-carry the kinsman over to the couches in the living area, warning Hunter away with a flash of her teeth if he so much as makes a show of moving to assist her.
Fenrir take care of their own.
[Hunter] Hunter doesn't offer to help the kinsman -- he already healed him once and he won't be doing that again any time soon -- nor does he immediately follow after Kora, instead he steps inside and closes the door behind him, crosses his arms over his chest and watches the Jarl take care of her own.
Just like he had done; just like he would do.
"He had no right to lay a hand on mine neither, didn't bother him none." Hunter says. "Not that it's an excuse -- look I didn't wanna have to break him like that. Pulled a gun on me, kept fightin' when I healed em' back up."
A beat.
"Can't say I'm particularly sorry that the fucker's all balls and no brain though."
[C.J. Nash] Though he's beaten to within a few inches of his life, determining whether or not he's conscious is a task better suited for medical personnel: his eyes aren't open, don't do so much as flutter when Kora gets an arm under him and works him off the floor. He is deadweight, unable to get his legs under him to help the Jarl walk him; still shivering, his head drops forward, blood and saliva and fuck knows what else leaking from his mouth.
He's not awake to either confirm or deny the allegations, but Kora's starting to know Nash fairly well, can feel the holster underneath his jacket as she moves him. He seems the sort to pull a gun on an Ahroun.
[Gwen Sullivan] The Cub is an entity that comes and goes in the Church. When Fire Claws is present she's typically to be found nearby as well, sleeping close to his side in wolf skin, slinking across the Gauntlet or out toward the woods for hunts and lessons with her Mentor. When he's absent she tends to be as well. Even other times the Lupus Philodox will be within the echoing halls of the old church, and the Cub will be nowhere to be seen. She dedicates time to the Caern though she cannot pledge to it yet, she walks the streets to patrol the territory and contribute to the Pack that she was not a member of. She's also been known to run with Bone Grinder, the Shadow Lord Ahroun, and learn lessons of interrogation and cruelty from him.
Tonight, though, despite Fire Claws being nowhere in sight, Gwen is within the Church. She'd been resting in one of any number of back rooms, and shuffles out into the sanctuary with a sleepy-eyed look about her. Her dyed-dark hair is slept on, messy and unwashed, hanging about her face just past her shoulders. She's wearing a pair of overlarge gray sweatpants tied securely at the waist and a snug-fitting long sleeved black tee shirt with some swirling design up the left side on the front and back. She's scrubbing at her eye with the pad of a thumb and hanging in the doorway, shoulder against the doorframe, frowning and half-asleep.
"What's going on?"
Waiting, perhaps, for permission to come forward. Squinting at the body on the floor and trying to make out who it is through the shadows of the unlit room, she's trying to find recognition in the limp, shadowed figure's back and shoulders.
[Kora] "Give me a hand," Kora says to Gwen, not answering her but giving her quiet permission to step forward and help her support the dead weight of the kinsman's body. It takes strain. Effort. She lacks the grace she had, and all that strength in her abdominal muscles is dedicated just now to supporting the weight of a near-term child. Who has survived in there against all odds. Her voice is curt, the flash of temper still evident when her dark eyes reflect the light from the braziers on the wall.
"He was fighting with one of your kin?" A soft snort, backgrounded by rage. There's a baleful light across the surface of her gaze as she cuts a glance back at Hunter. "That's still no reason for you to lay hands on him unless there was some goddamned imminent danger to your kin."
[Hunter] She snorts, he snorts too and pushes away from the wall where he leans by the doorway. His face is bathed in shadow but she can see the fire in his emeralds as he stalks through the dim lights of the church.
"No, Kora. He wasn't fightin' with one'a my kin. He fucked my pregnant mate. Shit like that ain't make a Garou too rational. But here he is, alive and well, free to keep fuckin' messin' with families with the next generation of the nation."
A beat.
"Somethin' I thought ya' would understand, Kora."
[Gwen Sullivan] An elastic band is snapped off the Cub's wrist and her hands move to the back of her head. Hair fast on its way to greasy, far beyond unkempt, is wrangled into a fist and twisted about until it's a knot at the base of her skull. Secured there, she starts forward on stocking feet-- black so she doesn't have to worry about them going stained and dirty from all the dust and debris on the floor, large and baggy enough at the heels that they were probably intended for grown men rather than teenaged girls.
Kora gets Nash up, he's slumped against her shoulder arm and beachball belly, and as Gwen nears her always-hooded eyes widened some, then sharpened. Her pace quickened, and she was at Kora's side all the quicker for recognition. The long blond hair, the shape of the beaten and swelling face, the leather jacket and all struck her as intimately familiar. Gwen pressed herself into Nash's other side and grabbed his arm, dragged it over her shoulders and helped quicken the journey from front door to sofa against the wall in the living area.
Her jaw was set, Rage a flickering blue flame about her shoulders and at the top of her head. When they reach the couch she helps the man lay down, bends his knees so he can fit well enough to lay on his side rather than putting him flat on his back. Pale eyes cut back toward Hunter, and her nose wrinkles in distaste, lips pale for being pressed hard to hold back an open snarl. She wouldn't be so defensive, truly, were it not for the Moon above.
[Kora] "Starla?"
A flash of dark eyed look from Hunter to Nash and back again.
"He fucked Starla too?"
[Hunter] A frown.
"What? No, I mean he might have, how the fuck should I know? A gnawer, my mate. What's gotten into ya' Kora?"
[Gwen Sullivan] Kora and Hunter are left to hash out politics. Gwen is left crouched down in front of the couch, knees out rather than forward so that she can straddle herself nearer to the furniture, to the unconscious man laying on the length of it. She keeps her back to the Ahroun, leaves the talking to the Jarl. She was a Cub, if she opened her mouth it would only be to invite knuckles or claws into it.
Rather she scowls heavily and assesses the damage of the Kin, pushing his hair gingerly from his face. There's no tenderness in the gesture, it, as many things about the cub, is both utilitarian and a little bit awkward. She's clearing the blond out of the way so she can see his face. Touching lightly at his side to feel for breaks, for swelling, for anything out of place that might indicate internal hemorrhaging. She wasn't a medic, wasn't an EMT or a doctor or anything close to trained for this, but she could tell what was or wasn't supposed to be.
[C.J. Nash] That wakes him up.
As far as beatings go, this one was fairly tame: Hunter hit him four, maybe five times altogether, but as a son of Eagle, the punches and kicks he landed were inhumanly powerful. Nash's nose is bloody but not actively bleeding anymore; his jaw is discolored but not obviously broken. The bulk of the damage seems to be to his torso. He's making strange noises when he breathes, which isn't all that often, and when he exhales, it gurgles.
Then she presses on his ribs, and he coughs so violently that if Gwen's reflexes aren't honed she might end up with blood on her. His eyes don't open. The kinsman, whose tanned skin has gone pale, whose lips have a vaguely bluish tinge, seems to consider it, if only to see who's poking at him.
He weakly pushes at Gwen's hand, mumbles something that sounds like "God damn it," and goes back to wheezing.
[Kora] "If another Garou tried to steal my mate, I would tear her apart," Kora returns, without a moment of hesitation. " - but if he was willing to fuck around with a stranger, a kin of another tribe, anyone, well, he would not be mine, would he?"
While Gwen tends to the unconscious Nash, Kora straightens and stands bodily between them. There's blood on her flank, on the sleeve of her cotton t-shirt where she carted the unconscious kinsman back to the couches, on her face, in her hair, and she's swallowing hard against the fundamental substrate instinct to shift and go for the throat. The moon's high, her rage is still close to the surface and there's a certain harsh asceticism to her voice. A certain sourness beneath the storm of her gaze.
"You have a helluva nerve, Hunter," almost unconsciously, her arms cross over her stomach. It is a gesture she rarely makes, refusing to fucking acknowledge the advanced state of her pregnancy in public. Here, though, she's just shiedling the kid-to-bed from the ahroun-in-front of her. A twist of her mouth. "You said pregnant mate. The last I heard you were intruding on Roman's territory fucking his cousin. Now there's some other pregnant mate the rest of the world's supposed to be hands off? See to your own fucking house.
"I'll have the Forseti exam him. If he coerced, induced, or forced your fucking mate to have sex with him, I'll forgive you this and beat him myself for good measure.
"If not, you'll answer for every fucking blow."
[Gwen Sullivan] Nash jerks awake with a cough and splatters blood past his lips. Gwen is quick enough to duck to the side that it doesn't hit her in the face (as though she's worried about contracting anything from him), but doesn't stay leaned away in disgust or bother. Instead she catches his hand when he moves it feebly to brush her away from his ribs. Squeezes it and pinches the thin skin at the inside of his wrist with untrimmed fingernails.
"You breathing okay?" She asks, but doesn't fully expect an answer. She could hear the watery gurgling with every breath he took.
The frown seemed permanently etched into her features, she turns her head so that her chin is in front of her shoulder, giving her profile to the Ahroun and the Skald. Her eyes don't focus on either, though, she looks past both of them. Her always-raspy voice, with all the potential for husky sultry tones like the smoke filled chamber of a 1930s speakeasy, was nothing but a raw growl now.
"There's blood in his lungs."
[Hunter] A slight ponderous rumbling escapes from the depths of his throat as Kora begins speaking and when Kora finishes he waves a hand. "Forget the Forseti, wasn't no coercion. But that's between me'n'mine."
His voice is casual, like he's had far too long to think about all of this.
"Also, intrudin' on Roman's territory is a bit of a way to put it Kora. He ain't Fenrir, neither is Starla. Just cause Roman's packed with you don't mean that's how their whole tribes gonna work."
A beat and he waves a hand.
"Besides, that was awhile ago. It's irrelevant. Fact of the matter is Nash knew, I told em myself that she was mine. Did it anyway. I ain't sayin' I fuckin' followed your rules down to a letter Kora, but I did what needed to be done. If he weren't such an idiot as to pull a fuckin' gun on me he'd be sittin' there happy as day with a black eye. He got off fuckin' lucky if ya' ask me, we all did."
[C.J. Nash] He breathing okay?
Nash manages to open his eyes now, and Gwen finds them unfocused and bleary. Now that he's awake, he's also acutely aware of the amount of pain he's in, likely cursing his daughter for dragging him back into his body when he was blissfully unaware of how wrecked he was. He starts breathing faster, flinching with the pain it produces, and attempts to push himself up.
Nothing happens. Through his haze, he hears the Los Angelean Ahroun telling Kora that he got off fuckin' lucky, and Nash huffs, coughs, winces, as though he would burst out laughing if he could catch his breath. His lung filling with blood is likely the only thing keeping him from smarting off; he can't even find the air necessary to complain about not being able to catch his breath.
[Kora] There is a moment where Kora's attention is pulled back, drawn inward. She looks - meditative - then focuses again directly on Hunter. Says, in a soft, quiet voice, "I can fucking assure you that that is how their tribe works. Starla's been in town for two moons, so it cannot be all that long ago as to be ir-fucking-relevant to your own goddamned behavior. The rules in question aren't mine. They're the fucking Nation's. And if he transgressed against you, it is my duty to punish him, not yours. Since you seem incapable of understanding that, I'm happy to let Honor's Compasse explain the matter to you directly.
"Unless you want to offer me our contrition for this transgression, you can leave now."
[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen's fingers swipe through the flat cut of bangs over her forehead, pushing them out of the way only long enough for them to fall back into place once again. She's nipping at the inside of her mouth, cheeks and lips and tongue alike, with the sharp edges of her incisors. Nash isn't quite struggling for air, but it certainly isn't easy for him to breathe either. He huffs and wheezes and every half-panted breath he takes has a wet shlucking sound to it.
She lets go of his hand, her own now hovering awkwardly over his waist and shoulder. She doesn't know how to heal, she doesn't know much of how to help him. She could perform CPR, she could splint an injury, but internal damages like this she was downright useless with. On top of that, she wasn't much comfort either. The girl wasn't soft, nor was she warm. Kind emotions were a far drift from what she was accustomed to, especially these days with the hardening paces that one being indoctrinated into the Warrior's Tribe goes through.
Still, she pats lightly, gingerly at a shoulder and grinds out through teeth clenched over the inside of her lower lip. "Keep doing that. Breathing. Cough it out, don't let it well up. You go to sleep you won't cough it up."
[Hunter] "No no, I ain't hit em' to punish em'. I hit em' because he fucked my mate n'that's the laws of fuckin' wolves, Kora. That's the god damn laws of nature. He's in the state he is because he either couldn't use his brain or didn't give a fuck to -- when fuckin' my mate and when drawin' that gun -- you try dish out whatever fuckin' punishment you see fit Kora, I ain't arguin', I don't give a fuck about none of that."
He turns on his heel and heads for the door.
"He ain't worth the fuckin' hassle Kora." Called over his shoulder as he's leaving.
[C.J. Nash] It sounds like common sense advice, to keep breathing, but when breathing causes pain, one can see why Nash isn't in much of a hurry to do something that's going to hurt. All he can do is lie there, with or without his eyes open to see what's going on around him. He can tell, just from listening--Gwen's small frame blocks his view of the rest of the world--that the Bone Gnawer is starting to leave.
He huffs again, blue lips incapable of smiling, and he reaches out a pain-blinded hand to rest it atop her head. The kinsman finds the wind necessary to get out one word--"I'm"--before he coughs again, aborting whatever thought crawled into that thick skull of his. His hand leaves her hair so he can bury his coughing in his elbow. When he groans, it's nearly a growl; it would be a Fuck! if he could speak.
[Kora] "Then I will see you at the Caern as soon as Honor's Compasse-rhya is available."
And that is all Kora says to Hunter.
The door closes behind him and Nash is lying there, listening to the echo of footsteps on the stones of the church. Unable to move, with Gwen's frame blocking the light. Kora swallows back the echo of her ancestors in the back of her mind, the need for blood in return, and frowns down at Nash. "Gwen," to the cub. "There's a box by the far wall, wooden. I have healing talens inside. Gourds, yeah?" Her voice is clipped, still taut with half-swallowed fury. "Bring me one."
[Hunter] [thanks for scene!]
[Gwen Sullivan] Nash's hand lifts, hovers haphazardly, then settles on top of her head. Gwen didn't do affection well, or craft words carefully. She was straight to the point in everything. The night that paternity results were pulled from an envelope and left to hang in the air between cub and Kin there hadn't been much catching up, lamenting about what could have been, or promising to be there from here on out. Nothing like that. Just a matter-of-fact statement that he'd have to get an apartment with an extra room and silent resolve on the cub's part to make an effort with this Kin.
Simple, physical stuff like this, though, she understood. A hand on the head was met with her nudging her head into his palm, tucking her chin and taking a deep breath.
He's coughing again, pulling his hand back so he could cover his mouth with the crook of his elbow. Hunter's leaving, the door thumping closed behind him, and Kora's giving her instructions. There were healing gourds in a box against the wall, bring one on over. Gwen's pale green-gray eyes hopped up to the Jarl's face, then the girl nodded and pushed herself up onto her stocking feet. Legs that weren't short to support a petite frame, nor long enough for the word 'leggy' to be applied to her, carried her across the large room in hunt of what she was told to fetch.
Once found, a gourd is delivered into the hands of the Skald.
[C.J. Nash] He has to know he fucked up, that this was going to be the consequence of his going to bed with a woman who, if not in her own mind, belonged to a Fostern Ahroun from a tribe of creatures who have been mistreated and oppressed throughout history. Hunter didn't ask him questions before he came at him like a freight train, didn't stick around to ask questions in the event that he was healed before he could drown in his own blood. Even were he not Fenrir, in the presence of his Jarl, he wouldn't have a lot of room to complain.
So he doesn't. It's more like bitching than anything else, as though a collapsing lung is on the same scale of irritating as a paper cut or a stubbed toe; his body is doing the complaining for him. He's clammy, blue, short of breath. Kinfolk heal faster than normal human beings, yet they die just as easily. Were they to leave him without healing, he would be dead within days.
Kora sends the Cub for a healing gourd, and he takes his elbow away from his face. His eyes are closed as he breathes. The blood he coughed up went into the crook of his jacket. He's still shivering. Unlike plenty of other people near death, he isn't begging for forgiveness or absolution. Either he doesn't believe he's going to die, or he doesn't believe he's done anything worth apologizing for.
Given who it is we're talking about, it's likely the latter.
[Kora] "You've heard of these?" Kora to Gwen, here. "Gaia's breath. They're bound with water spirits. They take some time to make, though - and you cannot keep a spirit bound indefinitely, not with a simple talen-making rite, so we don't have many on hand. I make these down by the river. Roman and I fought a battle last summer at the riverside; I was nearly swallowed by a giant spirit of corruption. He died, but came back. Just barely, though, floating alone in the river.
"I was poisoned, slowly losing coherence. Nearly dead. But the river knew what we had done, and the spirits healed me, cleansed the poison from my body, and healed Roman. So we started a clean-up, yeah? Riverfront, as a sort of chiminage. I've made these there ever since.
"The spirits aren't meant to be used, though. They aren't - things, right? Resources for us. This is an exchange of sorts, and you have to respect what they offer you, use it wisely, and do not waste."
Kora cups the gourd, imbues it with some of her spirit, and breaks it over Nash, letting the clean water run over his battered features.
"This is not a waste." She says, quietly to Gwen. Understanding something of the extent of Nash's injuries.
[Kora] (1 Gnosis spent - 4 Health Levels)
[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen stands like some mix between a sentry and an apprentice at Kora's side after the gourd is handed off, watches intently as the elder female displays the gourd and tells the story of how it and its counterparts all came to be. Her eyes only stray from Kora to check the doorway when the wind makes it creak, as though she's braced for Hunter to come back, ready and willing to change into a figure that would shred her undedicated clothes and throw her bulk (considerable for coming from a teen girl but nothing compared to that Ahroun's) against his to stop him from doing more harm.
He doesn't return, though, so she's safe to pay careful mind to Kora and what she does with the gourd. It cracks, the water contained inside drizzles over his face and chest. It works magic, takes a moment for the spirit to wake and do so. In the quiet that would follow Kora's last words, the waiting moments for the effects to be realized, the Cub murmurs quietly.
"No, a waste is the energy that... man--" she wanted a crueler word, obviously, but chose something less venomous, "spent on this. ...Stupid, stupid decision."
[C.J. Nash] They can practically hear his ribs knitting back together, his lung reinflating as the dust, the water from the broken gourd splashes over him. He sucks in a breath, as though he's been bucked from a boat into frigid water, so quickly does he go from being in excruciating pain to its lessening to an ache: he gasps, shocked, and pushes himself bolt upright. He ends up doubled over, coughing so hard he nearly loses the contents of his stomach. Blood comes up instead of gastric fluids, and Nash scrubs his face with his hands when he's got his wind back.
"Holy shit," he says. He is not Garou; he has to have experienced this before, this spiritual lessening of his physical suffering, yet he can hardly claim to be used to it. He says it again, slower, almost reverently, but he doesn't thank Kora or start to explain himself. He sits with his forearms between his knees, digesting the fact that he isn't close to death anymore.
[Kora] "If I wasn't pregnant," Kora tells Gwen, quietly. "I would've throated him." With utter confidence. Nevermind that Hunter was a fostern Ahroun, now and it would not likely have been so easy.
"As it is, I'll lay it before the Adren Fang Philodox for judgment, or instruction, since he seemed unable to grasp where he failed to heed the litany." This is a quiet aside. Kora watches as Nash sits up and starts coughing, quietly standing back, giving him room to breath, to reorient himself, to find his way back into the world.
[Gwen Sullivan] If I wasn't pregnant, uttered the Jarl in a soft voice at about the level of Gwen's ear-- Kora had a few inches on her, but not enough to make her a full head taller. The young Philodox's brow furrowed more, and a hand lifted to scrub absently between her breasts, where the chest aches with emotion and Rage.
"If I weren't but a Cub I would have done so myself. I know where he was wrong, I just don't have the... the weight to back that up yet."
Nash is coughing, leaned over the couch and half-belching excess blood onto the floor. Neither woman goes to touch him, to comfort or help him as he worked the fluid from his lungs near to the point of vomiting. They let him work through this on his own, and only once he's recovered, sitting back and breathing more steadily, arms dangling between his legs, does Gwen speak up.
"Better. Good." Because she doesn't know what else to say. She doesn't ask for his side of the story because that was Kora's place. She doesn't tell him that Hunter was wrong in what he did because that was unnecessary. Beyond those two words she's quiet. Her hands go into the pockets of her oversized sweatpants and she frowns down at the mussed blond hair on Nash's head, not at him so much as the situation she'd awaken to find.
[Gwen Sullivan] Matter of fact, her presence here as a whole was unnecessary. She determines this with a nod of her head and by glancing to Kora. "I'm going to go back to sleep." Then, to Nash: "Find me or call me, let me know you're okay..?"
And with these disclaimers left, the teen stalked back through the doorway, to the hallway with many doors and many utilitarian sleeping arrangements.
[C.J. Nash] [WRIZZAP]
