Ornature

[Kora] "You grew up on a farm, Roman - " Kora, a glance to Imogen, brief, then back to Roman. "You seriously don't know what cress is? I don't think I'd know what it looked like if I saw it growing," she continues, with a faint shrug. " - but I've never even been able to tell poison ivy apart from ordinary vines."

[Roman Turner] "Oh....green plant in streams. Heck, back home green plants in water means moss. Poison Ivy, I know, like say, Virginia Creeper. Dandelions and collard greens make good eating. But ain't never seen nothing no one in Kansas called watercress."

[Imogen] "Perhaps it's mainly in Europe," Imogen says, absently, picking up her beer bottle and draining it. "I'd never 'eard o' poison ivy 'till I came t'the US."

Her mouth twists slightly as she quotes: "'Leaves o' three, leave it be'. Beyond tha', I doubt I could recognize it either. Fortunately, however," the poised kinswoman smirks, "I'm not much o' an outdoorsman, a fact that I am sure will shock you all."

[Kora] "I'm pretty sure they have watercress in Kansas, Roman. I think it's everywhere. One of the first greens that greens up in the spring." Kora returns, with a subtle twist of her narrow shoulders beneath the weight of her sweatshirt. The ghost of a smile curves her generous mouth.

"I know about it more from history and - " a faint, dismissive wave of her hand, indicating narrowly some other form of literature. Faery tales, maybe. Ancestor dreams. Eddas, poetic or otherwise. " - stuff. Came in before any crops did, yeah? So if you were starving in spring you could eat that."

Then, a faint snort for Imogen. "For someone who's not really an outdoorsman, Doc, you show up in some strange places."

[Roman Turner] "I'll have to ask Pa about it next call home. Though something ya should know about poison ivy. If one of us runs through it in our furry forms, we can infect ya with the oil that collects on our coats from the leaves. Also, if ya get it on your clothes, it can remain potent for up to five years, so ya want to wash any clothes right away that ya tromped around the woods in, careful not to touch them as much as possible till ya get them washed."

[Kora] They are outside at a picnic table so pretty visible when Izzy walks up. :)
to Imogen, Izzy Montoya, Roman Turner

[Imogen] She smirks at Kora - "Sadly, the wyrm does not seem to respect my preference."

Imogen regards Roman in silence for several seconds. "I do not imagine tha' I will be petting either o' you any time soon," she says blandly. "And I frequently wash my clothes.

"However, I appreciate the botany lesson." The edge of her mouth twists up.

[Izzy Montoya] It's an odd occasion when Izzy stops by the pack house without really having any reason why... but this is one of those times. If asked, she wouldn't be able to articulate a reason why. Maybe she's lonely. Maybe she isn't. Maybe she just had a surplus of beer and was in the neighborhood... which is the most likely scenario, as she's carrying a brown paper bag, with bottles clinking inside.

She hadn't parked far, so the walk isn't long, especially as they are sitting outside. Convenient, that. A lift of her chin serves as greeting, as does her setting the beer on the table. "Thought you might need a refill."

Also inside, and pulled out first? An starbucks iced mocha, which she offers to Kora, instead of a beer.

[Roman Turner] He grinned to Izzy when she turned up like she did. Going so far as to lift his hat a bare inch of his head with a nod to her in greeting.

"Howdy Miss Izzy."

[Kora] Imogen's bland remark earns a twist of Skald's expressive mouth. Kora cuts a sideglance at the kinswoman, making another wry noise deep in the back of her throat. Petting indeed.

"It'd be nice," she says, a glance at the doctor, then Roman, the humor lingering in the frame of her mouth. "If we could schedule these things, you know? Like pistols at dawn. Then let everyone get back to their ordinary lives. And you could stay outta the damn woods."

Roman lifts his hat to Izzy, and Kora, Kora lifts her chin, dark eyes dropping to the bag with the beer. "Cheers," says the Skald, before Izzy has revealed the mocha. " - thanks." Then Izzy pulls out the mocha and ice accepts it, fingers sliding through the condensation frozen on the surface of the cup. "Everyone brings me frozen drinks, these days. Milkshakes and shit." That said, she lifts the cup in a gesture like a toast to Izzy before taking a drink.

"You working on that development stuff down by the docks too, Detective?"

[Roman Turner] "Now if they were really thinkin, they would bring ya chocolates and cookies too. Or better yet, baby gifts. I was thinking we need to hold a baby party thing for ya. Patrick and I could bake a cake and think of games for everyone to play."

[Imogen] Imogen makes a brief sound of amusement, picking up her cigarette case again as Detective Montoya enters. "Perhaps we can raise it at the next negotiation."

She lights up, as the detective sets down the beers, taking out the iced mocha for the Fenrir Jarl first. Imogen inhales her first sweet drag of her cigarette. She smokes something European with a rather distinctive filter. It must be said, though, she never leaves the butts on their property. On the streets, sure, but here, each are pocketed and taken away.

She glances at Roman, her gaze moving briefly to Kora.

"If you and Patrick want t'play house," she observes mildly, "I don't see why Kora needs t'be dragged into it."

[Izzy Montoya] She opens her mouth to correct Roman, again, but stops, remembering what a mouthful he came up with the last time she did so. Instead, what comes out is "Roman." And a nod. Ahhh. Diplomacy. Or self-preservation. Either way, she puts up with the 'Miss Izzy' from him, where she likely wouldn't from anyone else. Someone might suggest a fondness there. That someone might then be glared at, and possibly shot. Izzy Montoya is fond of no one. Well, almost no one.

Which is neither here nor there. She pulls the six pack of bottles - good beer, too, not the cheap shit - and puts it on the table so they could help themselves, before she settles to take a seat on the bench. She takes one for herself, opens it, and drinks deeply.

She looks tired, still. She's not sleeping well, she's working too hard, she's putting too much effort into things that don't equal her taking decent care of herself - decent by other peoples standards anyway. She doesn't know how to be any other way. All or nothing -- she is Fenrir.

As for the frozen drink - "To be honest, it's all I could fuckin' think of while I was standing there with the beer. If you prefer something else, I'll try to accommodate." A gesture, there. Perhaps there is something to the rumors Izzy's developed a respect for the Last Watch after all.

To answer the question, though, she nods. "Put out some feelers - should get some information back from them soon."

She doesn't comment on the idea of playing games at a baby shower, though there's a faint arch of a brow, that falls into a huff of amusement at Imogen's reply.

[Kora] "Listen to the doc, Roman," Kora advises, with a brief, flickering look back at her young packmate. The look steadies, a moment later, is pulled into something strong, more immediate, more direct. Then, a cut away as she holds up her frozen mocha and takes a drink. Something close to relenting, though the ground given is small. " - if you're that eager to go shopping for kid's stuff, I'll tell Trent to let you know if he needs anything we don't have, yeah?" A shrug, narrowly formed, quiet. "After, I mean. Though if anyone finds a kid's toboggan with Viking horns - "

Back to Izzy, then. Kora shakes her pale head - shadowed by the confines of her sweatshirt's hood - just once, in the negative when she asks if Kora prefers something else. "This is brilliant," she says quietly, dark eyes steady on Izzy's face. "I appreciate it, Detective. I'm just looking forward to being able to indulge in more adult beverages when this is all over."

Then she nods again, steady to Izzy's mention of feelers, glances back to Imogen, her voice more quiet here. "You guys get a good response from the kin? At the meeting?"

[Imogen] "Better than I expected," Imogen answers, absently. "We'll see about results. S'all tha' really matters."

[Izzy Montoya] Kora will be looking forward to more adult beverages. Izzy nods, once, meeting Kora's gaze evenly as she lifts her bottle, slightly. "I'll buy a round, when ya can."

She let's Imogen answer the question about the meeting. Izzy's presence there was mostly silent, until she'd done the unthinkable and defended the Doc, and called the Silver Fang an asshole in the process. Now that? Was fun. But she knows the first was unappreciated, the second likely will get her ass kicked sooner or later, and she doesn't rightly care in either instance. The fact she kept her mouth shut as long as she did that night was a minor miracle.

[Kora] "I'll hold you to that," Kora to Izzy, wry, direct. Then, a glance back to Imogen, accompanied by a brief gesture with the frozen mocha. "Doc, you mind giving me a ride?"

[Imogen] Imogen shakes her head slightly, pinching out her cigarette as she gets to her feet, stepping off the picnic table. "I should 'ead home, anyway," she says, an oblique references to the late hour.

"Goodnight," she says to the other two as she picks up her jacket from the picnic table, sliding into it.

[Kora] The evening is cool and damp, but no longer cold. Here in the northern midwest, it feels almost balmy after the endless darkness of winter. Still, the skies this April feel endlessly gray, as stormfront after stormfront batters its way across the great plains before slamming into the Appalachians.

No rain, not just now, but there is the smell of it in the air. It infects everything, sinks into the stone, settles into the cracks in the crumbling old mortar, perfuses through the slow-wakening tangle of weedy growth the encircles the abandoned cathedral. The structure looks empty from without, a great, haunted ruin. The few interior lights are not enough to illuminate the old stained glass windows, not even on the brights days. There's just the gleam of the old sodium vapor streetlamps across the glazed surface, the flicker of something from the interior when the heavy wooden doors swing open.

Virginia creeper, trumpet vine, and English ivy wrapped around the chainlink fence are leafed out fully, and screen more of the rambling complex from the street. Only the open gate gives a clear view up the marble steps, to the old stone portico. Damp drips down from the rain gutters and puddles pool on the broken sidewalk.

Kora sits slantwise on the front steps, a milkshake in hand, hood of her sweatshirt pulled up to conceal the bright flag of her pale hair. She is - heavier and more awkward every day, and looks - as she stands - like she might well go into labor at any minute. There's a certain gracelessness about her, now - that she no longer has the energy to conceal. When Rain appears between the sagging chainlink gates, the Skald pushes herself to stand. The physical effort is obvious, the hand with the milkshake braced on her knee, the other palm flat on the damp stone porch.

"Rain," Kora says, low-voiced as ever, lifting her chin by way of greeting, already turning back toward the church, reaching for the old wooden door. " - c'mon in."

[Rain] Rain has been away for weeks. At least it feels like weeks. She can't quite remember what day it was when she packed up her things and took up residence on the floor of Jackson's school apartment. When that transitioned into a suite at some hotel that his sister preferred. Easter Sunday she'd spent thirty miles away, passed out that evening on the Outriders' couch. Monday had brought her to the kin house.

Some would call it a blur, a dizzying whirlwind. For Rain, it merely is. It's what she was used to before this place, with its stout walls and its stained glass glories became her home. Before the sanctuary of that home was broken by Erek, and then troubled again by Starla and Fire Claws. It does not speak to safety to her now, the looming grey mass with its overgrown vine-sentinel outer-most walls.

The girl has changed, too, in her time away. The clothes she wears cut closer to her figure, excuse less in the sweep of lazy fabric. There is a measure more grace from the dance classes she's taking, a little more height afforded by shoes with a slight heel. Her messenger bag crosses her body, all the same, much as it always has before. Her brown winter coat has given way to a taupe raincoat. Her hair is better shaped, frames her features with less haphazard whimsy. Someone has gone about prettying up their songbird. It suits her, somewhat.

And she has never come to them empty-handed, so the heavy paper bags she carries will be no surprise to Kora. One is filled with glass beer bottles, and a jug of chocolate milk. The other with groceries -- meat mostly, but some aromatic things, too, to cook in with them. To gentle the smell of their meals and leave the kitchen smelling homey, like something more than a char pit.

"Kora." The girl's chin lifts in mirrored greeting. More than that: she smiles. It is a warm thing, despite the stresses they both lie between them. It spreads like lamplight in the dusky twilight between them. Rain makes her way up the steps without delay. Her shoulder brushes against the Skald gently as she passes; she looks up long enough to make a moment's eye contact.

"It's good to see you," she says, and the sentiment rings true.

[Kora] "You as well," the Fenrir returns, in her low alto voice. There is no regional accent to shade her tone, just the precision with which she employs words. Sparingly, and directly, without waste, without false sentiment. The edge of a half-smile is visible, curving the corner of her generous mouth. Maybe it's the shadow of her hood cutting across the strong lines of her features - but somehow the half-smile looks tired, worn. "You look well."

Then Rain meets her eyes, just a moment, and Kora's dark gaze sharpens with interest before it glazes with that animal light. Even chained in this too-human frame, there is no mistaking the animal inside her skin.

There is energy in the Fenrir woman's gait once she gains her feet; a feeding, restless sort of energy. The sort that sends zoo animals pacing the length of their enclosures, casting dark, baleful eyes at the strangers crowding through past the concrete moats and iron bars, the sticky-handed children and sweating parents. She pulls open the wooden doors with a certain vigor, and relieves Rain of at least one of her grocery bags as she gestures the kinswoman to precede her inside.

The great interior of the sanctuary is empty. The watery light of the late, gray twilight does little to illuminate the gloom. There's a faint gray light along the ribs of the roof, filtering in through the clerestory, but none of that reaches the settled stone floors. A few braziers set into the columns flicker atmospherically, and a camping lantern is a too-bright incandescent counterpoint in amongst the couches beneath the choir loft.

"I wanted to talk to you about Fire Claws and Starla," she says, stepping in after Rain, allowing the wooden door to swing closed behind her. "Let's take these to the kitchen. We'll have some privacy there."

[Rain] It does not steal away her breath the way it might have months ago, this animal thing in Kora's eyes, this hallmark of her otherness. Rain's posture shifts, but slightly. Her eyes do not widen in shock, but the warmth in them retreats subtly. She is not afraid, but neither is she naive to the threat resident in every fibre of Kora's gravid form.

As she looks away, she breathes out a little. The bag that Kora takes clinks with the upright bottles, nestled into their cardboard sleeves. The milk is Kora's, and comes pre-labeled with a Don't Even Think About it post it. Rain's hand, no doubt, differs than the Skald's, but the thought is there. The passing attempt at kinship that might not rankle the Warrior beside her.

She shifts the other bag to her right hand as the enter the church, and Rain takes a moment to glance around. As if she's forgotten, in less than a fortnight, how dusk clings to the rafters, and how the rain and snow melt come down in rivulets, or that there is always the smell of something burning mingled with the ash and soot of that truth. There is always fire here in the Jarl's hearth. There is warmth, if you're brave enough to stand close and claim in.

Their footsteps and voices echo in the expanse, giving the illusion of isolation. That there are no others, just on the periphery of Kora's mind through her packlink or even on the periphery of this room. Rain looks around, but she also looks up, to make sure no Rotagar is lingering in the shadows, waiting to pounce.

Kinfolk have long memories. Long memories and deep tracts of their minds are not gentled by forgiveness or forgetting.

The walk to the kitchen is not so long that Rain's quiet could be mistaken for reticence. When they get to the kitchen, she sets her grocery bag on the table, places her messenger bag into a chair and covers it with her jacket. It is Rain that stoops to fill the coolers, leaving Kora's chocolate milk out if she seems to want it.

"I heard a little," she says, as she nestles the beers into one cooler. "But from Milo. Starla won't talk to me," she adds, as if it were somehow important.

[Kora] There's blood in the stones, amidst the ash. New blood and old blood. Some is her own; most is not. The rafters are scorched here and there not just from the bonfires the pack burned to keep themselves warm in the deepest depths of the long, continental winter, but from the funeral pyres Sorrow has laid with her own hands, for kin the Grand Elder would not allow to be burned inside the protective cocoon of the Caern.

The Fenrir do not bury their dead. The smoke stains the stones, and carries the names on the wind to Valhalla.

Just once as they walk - quiet - down the worn aisles of the sanctuary, across the transept to the secondary structures appended to the church by later hands - just once Kora looks up, toward the rafts, pauses in thought, before continuing on. In the kitchen, she leaves Rain to put away the groceries, picks up the chocolate milk the kinswoman has brought her with a brief, ironic twist of her mouth, and tops off the half-melted milkshake with a good shot of milk, prying back the plastic lid and leaving it off, the better to stir the remnants with the much abused straw, after.

Kora does not sit, and when Rain says she heard a little the Skald stops her fidgeting, her pacing. Looks up from the milk, smoothes a long-fingered hand over the top of the cup as she settles the lid back into its grooves, then reaches up and tips the hood of her sweatshirt back from the crown of her head. Long pale hair is coiled at the nape of her neck. The messy bun is secured by a the shattered barrel of a broken pen and a red ponytail holder.

There is a steadiness to Kora's direct regard, then, across the distance between them. Rain remarks that Starla will not talk to her, and Kora acknowledges that with a faint, curt gesture of her chin. "What I mean to tell you is not meant to slander Starla," Kora begins, a certain thinning to her mouth at the thought of it. "And I trust that you will be discrete with her part in this. But I cannot leave her out.

"Roman brought two accusations to me. The first was that Fire Claws tried to compel Starla to mate with him. The second was that he attacked her and injured her. That's what you've heard, yeah?"

[Rain] The Fenrir do not bury their dead. Rain knows this. She knows that the fires carry them up, swallow them down, that the winds blow and ash scatters and they are no more body and everything soul. She knew this when she sent a sheaf of music to N.R.'s pyre. What she does not know is how Unicorns mourn their own.

She rather hopes that someone might care enough to burn her body. Or dig for her a deep enough grave that the rain will not wash away her grave clothes and whittle at her bones. Or may that, when she dies, she will be sunk in water deep enough to hide her sins. She does not dwell on these thoughts often, though, because there is no call for it. When Rain dies, she will be gone. And only then will she know whether Unicorn will keep an adoptive daughter as her own, if she will see any of them again in what passes for the Gaian summerlands. When her Family dies, they will be carried off to the place she cannot enter, by their brothers and sisters at arms. She can send songs for them, and speak of them in memory, but she cannot go with them.

Kora does not sit, and it is not long before Rain closes the cooler lid and stands, leveraging herself up with one hand on its lid. She wipes the dampness on her jeans, slides her hands back into her pockets. The Jarl's attention rests heavily on her and Rain's carriage shows she's aware of it. There is a solemnity in her eyes, and the set of her jaw. She seems older and at once more fragile. Stronger, but not yet fully tempered.

"Yes," she says. Then a pause, and a clarification. "Starla told me the same, about him compelling. I heard the other from Milo, but he wasn't certain of it." She breathes out a little, steadying her words.

"I will keep my counsel to myself," she says, to Kora's direction against divulging this conversation to everyone. "But I've talked with Jackson and August about the accusations, and told them that you and Roman were handling it. I thought it better that we hold our distance until it was resolved."

She doesn't challenge with them but neither are the words gentled. Rain wants to see her family safe, and that concern is aimed toward the other Gaian kin and then extended to the other kin who cleave to the pack.

[Kora] A moment's silence; Kora's dark eyes remain steady on Rain as she responses, her features largely still. The restlessness evident in her earlier has been subsumed, somehow, behind the surface of her skin. Swallowed back, held beneath, somehow subliminal. She nods once, when Rain remarks that she will keep her counsel; and then again, this gesture shorter, sharpened at the endpoint of the arc of motion, when she mentions August and Jackson.

"I will speak to August," she says at last, the curtness of the gesture insinuating itself into her tone. "If you need to clarify the details so that Jackson is not under operating under any misconceptions, I trust you will - " A brief, sharp gesture here substitutes for words. Kora closes her eyes, a feral halo of frustration overwriting itself across her open features, ending with a flat line of her mouth. " - do so without impugning Starla. What you heard was accurate, and not the whole story."
The flat shape of her mouth twists at the right corner, a flat sort of irony. "The first charge was that Fire Claws attempted to attract her to mate with him against her will. If that were the whole of it, he would no longer be my packmate.

"It was not the whole of it.

"Fire Claws wanted to feel what it was like to get drunk, according to Starla. He came home wounded from a hunt, and there was a bottle of vodka on the kitchen table. He started drinking. Starla apparently thought that he had had too much to drink and wanted to take the bottle away from him. Instead of coming to find one of his packmates to deal with him, she sat in his lap to play keep away with the bottle."

There is - still - a note of disbelief on Kora's voice on that point of the story. Nevermind that she had to pry it out of Starla; it seems borderline absurd, something out of a trash Ionescu knockoff.

"Fire Claws is a lupus. He has never before been drunk. The combination of lowered inhibitions, Starla's proximity - " here, Kora pulls up clearly short. "I make no excuses for him. What he did was wrong, and I have punished him for his weakness. Still, among wolves, that power of attraction is part of - mating practice. He did not mean to subvert her will. I hope you understand the distinction I am making. He was not stalking her. He did not take her unawares. He did not intend to fool her into his bed.

"And, moreover, he is aware of the weakness he showed.

"He is barred from drinking. And if there were a wolf kin with whom he might mate, he is barred from that for the next moon. Even should another kinswoman sit in his lap, there will not be a repeat of the incident."

[Rain] She does not lean against a wall or affect any other posture of indifference. What is happening between them, right now, it is imminent and heavy. That Kora takes the time to explain any of this to her, a small and fragile songbird, is weighty. Rain knows this. She shows the respect and attention necessary to reflect it in her posture and expression.

They are both adept in saying as much with their silences as they are with their words. The stories they know are scored into their bones, they hang like lodestones around their neck. Rain knows this heaviness. She knows it is rare.

Rain's silences say that she is listening. Then they speak to an incredulousness and wonder that should leave her slack-jawed, standing agape, like a fool in the kitchen. Instead her hands come out of her pockets, and then rest on the back of the chair in front of her. They tense a little, but do not go white knuckled.

The girl breathes out before she speaks. She tips her head down so that, for a moment, the sweep of her lashes obscures the shape of her eyes, such that she has to push a lock of hair back, behind her ear, when she tips her chin up again. When she says, level and a little too coolly:

"I believe you."

But more than belief, Rain trusts her. She understands that these things are handled in manners beyond her comprehension, and that the matters of wolf-born behaviors are beyond her. Her expression is riddled with other things, things that are not trust, and do not speak to safety, but the words she offers to the Skald are acceptance.

"Would I be out of turn," she asks, tentatively, "To say that I would rather not be alone with him, still? I do not understand lupus born very well. I do not want to... make the same mistakes in judgment."

And there it is, the subtle words underlaid with tension for her cousin-kin. Tension and concern. It's not a clear thing: Rain worries for her, Rain worries about her, Rain worries about what she may be getting up to. All this worry without resolution. Muddy waters. Her question hangs between them, likewise unclear.

[Rory] There are times when the metis born does not hesitate. There are times when she seems near fearless, and completely unaffected by things that would make even the most hardy of humans pale, stammer, stutter hesitate. Those times involve battle, and her duty.

This is not one of those times.

Which is why this is the Rory that so many people see, know, judge: She hesitates on the steps of the church, her pack slung over her shoulders, her curls damp from the rain, her blue eyes registering her wariness, her uneasiness, her worry. She chews on her lower lip, absently. She looks over her shoulder toward the street, as if considering a quick getaway...

And then she knocks anyway. Because there are few people -Human, Kin, Garou alike- who are really as resiliant as the redheaded Ahroun at the door to the Last Watch Church...

[Kora] "No," returns Kora, direct and clear-voiced. "You would not be out of turn. He has broken the trust I placed in him regarding my kin; broken the hospitality of my house. Regardless of the rest: he has to earn that trust back.

"But it would be wrong for you to let that idea crystallize. To let it harden. To let it become the only thing you know about Fire Claws. Lupus born Garou are wild; often full of anger and pain, and when they come to the city, it is often only because they mean to die gloriously. One last futile blow against the Wyrm.

"I've known those Garou. Burned them and spoken their rites; sent them on to Valhalla. Fire Claws has some of that anger scored across his soul, but he is more than that. Trust your instincts. Treat him respectfully - as you always do. And allow him the opportunity to earn that trust back, if he means to do so.

"Now," a brief pause, a flicker of a lifting look outward, a moment's attenuation. " - the second charge."

[Kora] Kora does not leave the kitchen to answer the knock at the front door. Not now. However, Liz shamelessly employs an NPC to do so. The knock resounds through the interior of the church, and a gruff one-eyed, one-armed man Rain has seen on odd occasions - Yule, perhaps - hobbles toward the door. The Fenrir blood in him is obvious. So are the old scars. In the Church, Erick does not bother with an eyepatch, and has left off his prosthetic arm while some ulcerations on his stump heal.

He's in his 30s but seems older; roughened by time and care. There's no denying the spark of interest in his eyes when he sees the lovely little redhead at the door, but he does not flirst. Just grunts, " - help ya?"

[Rain] "No one is only the sum of their past mistakes," Rain says, in agreement with what Kora has told her. The knock on the door draws her attention, but Rain does not turn her head or shift her eyes away from what is transpiring in the kitchen.

Kora tells her not to let this one thing crystallize, to not let it be everything she knows of the lupus born Fenrir. It is difficult, to be fair, to think of allowing him near her. Or trusting him. Rain does not give trust lightly. She has the scars and nightmares to back up her reasons; she has been to dark places and always learned to shine again. It would not be everything she knows of Fire Claws. It already is less than the whole of what she knows.

Kora will vouch for him, if with caveats and cautions. She does not condemn him. He is greater than whatever these situations have painted him to be.

She swallows a little, breathes in a bit, and nods. They soldier on, and Rain remembers when the deepest shadow cast between them was the suspicion Last Watch held for Eve. It was not so very long ago. Perhaps they would find their way back to that.

[Rory] Rory blinks, surprised though she knew someone would answer - while Lessa shamelessly laughs at Liz's use of an NPC to open the door. She wrinkles her nose, and lowers her head, her hair hiding her features, as always. She is many things - many more than most will ever know, but under it all is her innocent bashfulness that is a fundamental part of who she is.

She takes in the one armed Fenrir, quickly, meeting his eyes only briefly, before lowering them in respect. "I came so tee Kora... is he shere?"

Her voice doesn't waver, and she seems sure, for all her words are forever mixed up. Brave little redhead.... Sorta.

[Kora] "The second charge was that Fire Claws wounded Starla. That's also true. And also not the whole of the story.

"Let me begin by saying that if Starla had come to me after the first incident, I would have barred the two of them from being together and the second incident would not have happened. Starla had apparently decided that she wished to teach Fire Claws about the human world, because she believed she had a keen understanding of animals.

"So she took him to Chinatown for Chinese food.

"She said something to Fire Claws. He became offended, thinking she had called him a dog. She responded, apparently teasing him by saying that she would bring a leash next time. The moon was his moon, and the pair of remarks enraged him. He saw red; the edge of frenzy."

A brief, narrow glance away; past Rain toward the kitchen door. Past the door to toward the entrance to the church proper. Her rage uncoils under her skin without loosening beneath it.

"He would have frenzied, but he had the presence of mind to hold it back. To swallow it. He yelled at Starla to leave, knowing what he would unleash if she stayed.

"She did not move. So he pushed her away, and she fell. Finally, he came close to throttling her, trying to pick her up and move her bodily. Starla says she was paralyzed with fear and could not move. Finally, he had the presence of mind to leave her.

"I don't know if that is the truth of it. If she was paralyzed by fear, or bound by some foolish need to prove herself strong in the face of his rage. Or one, and then the other. She told Roman and I that she did not mean to bring these incidents forward, and would have told no one had Milo not ferreted out the truth of them.

"And she was wrong in that, too."

Kora grimaces, then. "Fire Claws lost control. He suggested that we perform the rite of the stolen wolf on him to punish him, but he did work to hold off the frenzy instead of giving in to the sweep of it. That's harder than it seems.

"And," a brief, spare smile, " - I don't believe that confining him to his wolf skin would teach him what he needs to know about the vulnerability of our human kin.

"So he is confined to his human form until the next full moon. He will fight in it. He will eat in it. He will sleep in it. And when the term is finished, I will take him to the Battleground realm, and we will track down the echo of that night amidst all the battles there, and he will live Starla's part until he understands her fear, her vulnerability, and his part in it."

[Rain] There is a point, about midway through, when Rain turns her head a bit to the side. Casts her gaze toward the ancient lumbering fridge rather than toward the Skald. Her hands have tightened on the back of the chair and her jaw is a tense thing. She is slight, but there is muscle beneath her skin and every bit of it sings with tension, is coiled, is tight.

And still she listens. Fear, and anger, and the confluence of both do not stopper up her ears. Rain has faced worse than these memories before, and she has had an opportunity to revisit them before this moment. To be prepared. That, more than anything else, is the mercy Milo afforded her in telling her.

Her eyes close, and she swallows back her first reply. Silences her second. Waits out her third. It's not wisdom that tells her biting things are not to be aired in this place, but rather experience.

"I do not understand her," Rain says. That her first words are not about Fire Claws, but rather about Starla should be striking. There are no contractions. Each syllable is weighted, meted.

"When it is done," she says, and her words are unsteady. Her eyes do not sweep back toward Kora when they do blink open. This is an uneasy thing, an unsteady thing. "When he has lived her place in this. If he would like to talk to someone, who is not Starla, but has also been there?"

Another breath. Another moment in which to reconsider this.

"I will listen."

[Kora] Erick is not the brightest man in the world; were Rory looking up instead of down, she might SEE the gears in his head moving as he works to figure out what the hell she means by that. The THINKING frown creases his brown for several seconds longer than perhaps it should, before he at least pulls open the front door to the huge old church.

"They're in the kitchen," he says, with a grimace. " - but it looked serious. I don't think right now's ideal. You can wait, though. Or leave a message." A pause, not quite flailing, as he glances back toward the altar. "There's beer if you want one."

[Rory] She peeks up at him through her curls, her eyes a vivid green behind the blood red... even if it weren't for the pull of her blood that the True can feel, it's isn't hard to imagine her Fianna. in fact, it's hard to imagine her anything else...

He pauses, thinks a moment longer, and it doesn't seem to bother her. She knows she makes mistakes, and cannot understand or fix them because she does not hear them. Some have told her translating becomes second nature after a while, and for that, she is grateful.

She is also grateful for the offer of beer. Her eyes light up, and she looks past him, hopefully, and then nods, slightly. "Ok."

She will wait.

[Rory] (thanks for letting me crash :) Rory will wait patiently, and Lessa is gonna sleep. :) night!)
to Kora, Rain

[Kora] There is a certain privacy Sorrow affords Rain as the kinswoman considers and discards her first reaction. Her second. Her third. The melting milkshake is long since abandoned. There are few enough other places to look, but just as Rain glances away, so does Sorrow - off to the side, a steady attention, that hint of distance, that measure of privacy, that silence in the interstitial places as Rain composes herself, eyes closed, swallowing back, silencing, waiting out each underscored urge.

Sorrow looks back only when Rain speaks, but in that moment her attention is immediate, steady and unyielding. Some of the liminal tension in her own face ebbs. A twist of her mouth, her curling smile like a ghostlight where it touches her eyes. "You should have been born to Fenris," quiet, that. Direct. So many different names for strength.

Then she exhales once, all at a go. "If she were my kin, I would send her home. Someplace safer for her. With family as a guiding hand. "

A brief lift of her chin. "Roman's forbidden the relationship with Simon, but she has her mind set on him. If he challenges for her, Roman will accept the challenge. I don't know how she imagines that Simon is safer than Fire Claws. He's not. He's more dangerous and less controlled, but that's not a lesson she's ready to learn. And you're not responsible for her. You can't fix her if she is not willing to speak to you. I don't know whether it's shame or fear or willfulness, but whatever it is is dangerous to herself and others."
From the bracelets wrapped around her wrists, Kora unlaces one. It is a narrow strip of braided leather, dark but stained by water, rainwater, saltwater, lakewater - all of it. Narrow enough to be unremarkable, but quiet and sturdy, with a certain - mmmm - to it underneath everything. "That's a talen. There's a spirit bound within it that will come find the nearest Garou should you break the binding of it intentionally. You just need to break it and will it, and the spirit will be loosed.

"Bring it back to me in a moon so that I can release that spirit and bind another. Its servitude is not meant to be endless."

[Rain] You should have been born to Fenris.

This lifts the corners of Rain's mouth in an odd way, part smile and part disbelief, warm in ways that are contrasted heavily with the tension in the room, though that is rapidly falling away, receding, curling out around their edges like smoke from a doused flame. She glances back to Kora, but doesn't comment on the quiet words she offers. Instead, Rain owns them silently, and keeps them as her own. It's another form of gratitude, of acceptance.

This is just a moment, though, and then they move on. To talk of Starla and Simon, which looses the warmth from Rain's expression again. Her mouth purses a little; she exhales through her nostrils.

"I will let you and Roman know if I hear of her putting herself in danger again," Rain says. It is not the same as offering to be her cousin's keeper. Just that she will keep Last Watch appraised, aware of what comes her way. It's the best she can do, that any of them can do.

When the bracelet is handed over, Rain is careful with it. Not ginger, no, but appreciative and respectful of it. She understands that there is a Spirit bound to it, but does not quite know what that means. She will worry, for a few days, whenever she bumps her hand into something by accident, that she may have upset the spirit within it. She will not take it off until that moon passes, and it is returned to Kora. It will sleep against her skin, stay close.

Rain fastens it around her left wrist, just loose enough to move with her, tight enough to stay.

"It's a fetch?" she asks for confirmation. Just to solidify the words and their attachments in her mind. It is dark against her pale skin, but does not seem out of place on her at all.

"Thank you." There's a little pause. Then she adds, "For this" and touches the bracelet on her wrist. "And for talking to me about this. I know that you don't have to, and I wouldn't understand if you chose not to, but I appreciate that you do. You and Roman have been good to me. If there's anything I can do to repay it, Kora, please just ask."

[Kora] "Mmm - " Kora's confirmation of the name - a fetch - of the talen is low, subvocal, the meaning confirmed by the reinforcement of a narrow affirmative nod. It's a fetch. There are a half-dozen or more similar bracelets on Kora's wrist, and a narrow twist of dark against her pale throat. What marks this one as different from any of the rest is difficult to guess, except perhaps, when Rain goes to cinch the worn ends together, pulling the piece snug and finds two small bone beads worked into the weave of the thing, practically invisible but for the faint bump against her skin.

"It's all reciprocal, Rain," returns Kora, a brief twist of her mouth. " - and you've been good to us, too."

[Roman Turner] He had called them together, requesting Starla turn up at the Church also. Even going so far to escort her there if need be, so they could have a long overdue sit down and talk. So far he'd gotten things all from one side and needed both for his own peace of mind. A few things needed ironing out so the kin in the Pack weren't scared and because all the recent drama was sucking his very soul dry.

"First, thanks y'all for showing up. Second, I don't reckon this is going to be entirely pleasant, but it's got to be done."

He'd settled on the back of one of the pews, booted feet resting in the seat. A bottle of water was held dangling between his open knees.

[Starla] She was quiet during the walk to the Church, bottom lip tucked inward as she chews on it absently. A hand lifted to catch and control the stray tendrils of black hair that curls along the line of her jaw. She keeps her head down, eyes on ahead of her on the ground. In the Church, Starla finds a pew to sit down in, drawing her legs up to tuck and fold her feet under her thighs, cross-legged.

She looks up at the others when Roman speaks.

[Fire Claws] There were times that he had missed the Sept he was born at. The discomfort of what happened when drama occurred was one such event. He had already forgotten what had transpired between him and Starla several nights ago. What had been done seem immaterial to wolf born already. A war needed to be fought and he did not waste his time with anything that did not involve ensuring the garou their glory.

However pack issues did arise and he would not negate such an issue. When asked, he would come to the gathering to discuss whatever it was that needed to be discussed. The wolf holding his skin as he paced around the large stone den when the no moon speaks, he finally plants his hind on the cold ground, his tail slowly wiping away at the ground behind him. Ear perked as he listens.

[Sorrow] Fire Claws and Sorrow both heard the request from Roman; Kora reinforced it - firmly, quietly. Beyond the reinforcement, her mind closed, solid as the heavy wooden doors that protect the sanctuary of the long-abandoned church. Roman's sitting on the back of a wooden pew; Kora's standing a few feet away, quiet for now. Heavily pregnant - they must imagine it will be any time now - with her usual dark gray sweatshirt and jeans on to chase away the chill in the sanctuary. This business is not conducted in amongst the comfort of the old ratty couches scattered under the choir loft, but closer to the transept, the altar. There's a certain ruined majesty up here; the ribs of the ceiling evident in the fast-failing light, the clouds beyond have that late evening glow from the dying sun. Half the stained glass windows are enshadowed, dark. The rest are caught between gray and brilliant. The light gleams on the surface, but is too murky to make more than incidental, watery impressions on the marble floor.

There is the scent of storms on the horizon, somewhere close. The Fenrir can feel winter's touch in the air; snow to the north, the gray ache as it reasserts itself against the coming spring.

The Skald's dark eyes flicker between Starla and Fire Claws, attention lingering first on one, then the other before it returns to Roman. Otherwise, her body language is as closed as her mindvoice. "What's this about?"

[Roman Turner] "I've got three things I want to bring out here. The first two involve Starla and Fire Claws. I am first going to say what I have been told, nothing more. Then once this can of worms has been dumped out on the table, we can hash through the mess."

His gray-blue gaze, so much like old faded denim, went from Starla to Fire Claws before he spoke again with a pointed look at Fire Claws.

"I need human ears and words for this. Oblige me by shifting to two legs, please."

Then his gaze included Sorrow.

"Starla tells me first one night Fire Claws came in covered in blood. She decided he needed help that he apparently did not need. He then proceeded to get drunk and she says he used a power as she put it, to make her want him sexually. She says she resisted because he fell asleep. That the next day they spoke of it and he said it is not so. I need both sides of that in the open. That's the first item."

[Starla]

[Sorrow] Kora's standing with her legs shoulder-width apart, hands in the pockets of her sweatshirt, pulling the waistband down below the apex of her abdomen, stretching out the warm cotton. Her hair is pale, gleaming with shifting colors reflecting from the flickering of the braziers on the marble columns, smooth against her scalp, pulled back into a heavy twist at the nape of her neck, some complex internal knot, imprecise, disordered. She cuts a glance from Roman to Starla when he is finished; her ears are bare, and the movement sends the old iron charm dangling from the inner cartilage of her right ear swinging with the movement.

Otherwise, she is still. Dark eyed and steady. "I'd like to hear what happened from you, Starla," says Kora, low-voiced. "In your own words. Then I will have Fire Claws' response."

[Fire Claws] He nodded his head when Roman asked him to take on the monkey skin and he does so to oblige the Fostern coggie. It was a slow transformation through the forms, his fur giving way as he shifts and changes. His body enlarging at first to the massive war form, muscles and sinew given way and explode to part that no creature should be able to have. And soon after the apex of his form, shift and shrink down, muscle no longer massive but contained. Skin exposed to the elements, only hidden by now by the dedicated clothes of faded and worn black jeans, ripped and tattered shirt and boots that have seen better days.

He stands there before the rest of his pack mates, leaning again a pew now as he listens to what has be said. He does not attempt to interrupt Fate~rhya as he listens. Trying to recall an event that seem years ago to the lupus born. His face contorted now as he struggles to recall the event.

[Starla] Starla draws in a deep breath, holding it in her lungs while Roman spoke; it's released slowly, rushing out of her mouth and nose in a small hiss of air. She flicks her eyes to the wolf-born, arching an eyebrow at him, she stares at him hard for several seconds, and then pulls her eyes to Roman - listening.

"Fire Claws wanted to know what it felt like to git drunk. It came out of conversation he had wit' Amy and Rain at the Broho one night, when they's drinking. I found Fire Claws injured and fetched the first aid kit wit' the intentions of cleaning up his wounds, there was a bottle of vodka sitting the table in front of him."

She flicks her gaze up, looking first to Kora and then to Roman, and finally Fire Claws, "He ain't likely gonna remember this; though, he started in on the bottle, I tried to control how much liquor he consumed. I don't what provoked it after that, maybe it was my breeding, me being too close, or the end of mating season for wolves. Next thing I know I was crawling in his lap after meeting his gaze, he did something to try and git me to mate wit' him. I come to my senses and managed to resist before he past out. I confronted him the next day, and he says I lied."

[Roman Turner] Watching Starla as she spoke, his gaze then shifted to Fire Claws with a lifted brow.

"I can tell ya, this first item troubled me and I would of let it lay for a quiet word alone, if not for other things taking place. Now, it's your turn Fire Claws. What do you recall?"

[Sorrow] Kora listens intently, dark eyes fixed on Starla. Her brow is furrowed as she contemplates the kinswoman, her attention keen and direct. When Starla finishes her story, the Skald cuts a moving glance back toward her feral packmate, the Forseti. Briefly, she searches his blunt human features. Then echoes Roman. "Everything you remember of it, beginning to end."

[Sorrow] Per + Empathy [Truthiness + FEELINGS)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
to Starla

[Sorrow] HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL.
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
to Starla

[Fire Claws] He scrunches his nose at the memory of it. It was hard to recall what had happened, his mind a fuzzy maze of thoughts that didn't seem to flow in chronological order like it does for humans. Thoughts come and go as she begins to speak, his smell of vodka coming to his mind. The sensation revisited when he recalls what he remembers. He shakes out his head. His words come across a mutilated as he speaks.

"Aye ramemba dat night... somewat. Afta' 'unting aye came to den. Sum banes on pack edge. Kill'd em. Cam back wit sum cuts. Starla saw me... sad needed help. Aye needed no help, wounds heal gud. Fine. But smellvodka.. recall da words of kin and..." he tried to think about what the word Rain used when she called it something else, but it seemed lost to the lupus at the moment. "... monkey fire water. Curious."

He looks down, trying harder to push pass the haze of murky memory and what was said. Trying to recall everything. "Drank da fire water. Taste bad, buh made warm. Nice feelin, but kin said musta drink slowa. Sat on me, 'eld bottle away."

He continued to try, closing his eyes tight as he forces himself to remember, to recall. To just put the pieces together.

"Smell da kin... close, smell of vodka, smell of breedin'. Head turnin'. Aye did use attraction on 'er."

[Roman Turner] His nod was curt, a simple single motion.

"It don't matter to me if ya were born with fur and four legs, or as bare as a baby bird with two legs. What matters here is, we are not Wolf, we are not Man. We are Garou. We are the protectors. We walk a fine line between two worlds. I will not take a lack of knowledge and a smell of breeding as excuses. The two of you are at fault here. Learn from this and don't repeat it."

He looked back and forth between them and continued.

"This next part I don't have full knowledge of either. I got a call from Milo telling me Starla was hurt. When I get hold of her she's less than pleasant and tells me that once more it involved Fire Claws. Now Starla, give us that entire story."

[Sorrow] Roman appears ready to move on. Kora gives him a single look; flat and challenging. She is clearly not ready to move on. "I'm not finished," she interrupts, before he invites Starla to tell the next story.

"Starla," Kora cuts a glance back to the kinswoman, her own voice is low, still and quiet. " - you said, the next thing you knew you were crawling in his lap. Did you sit on him to take the bottle away? Or were you drawn in?"

"Fire Claws, you are a Forseti. Tell me what you did wrong that night."

[Starla] Starla takes in another deep breath, her eyebrows furrow inward, nearly touching at its corners. She gathers her hands in her lap, fingers intertwining to wring them together. She scrunches up her nose, dropping her gaze down to watch her hands, tongue running out across her bottom lip.

She flinches under Sorrow's question, lifting her head up to look at her. "Sat on him to git the bottle away and then jus' sort got drawn in from there."

[Roman Turner] His brows worse then furrowed with Starla's admission.

[Roman Turner] ((Ut oh, brain going. Worse=Rose. Don't ask how it came out that way.))

[Fire Claws] His discomfort with the English language was starting to show now as he was struggling to find the correct words to answer his Jarl. He seems to resign himself for the moment and connects to his pack mates if allowed. His words clearer, his accent not coming across within the mind.

~Totemlink~
Weakness. I allowed myself to lose control. I showed weakness over what I wanted at the moment for what was proper. Jarl.

[Sorrow] "That detail," the Skald says, low and direct to Starla, " - is an important one, Starla."

Kora allows Fire Claws to make the mind to mind connection. There is a faint - thinning of her attention in that moment, a drawing-back. She half-closes her eyes, listening to his response, then translates it aloud for Starla a moment later.

"Fire Claws says his failure was weakness. In his weakness, he lost control and allowed his momentary desire to overwhelm his knowledge of what was right and proper, Starla."

Kora glances back to the lupus, then. "Have you been drunk before, Fire Claws?" A brief, foreshortened sort of pause. He can answer through their spiritual connection, but Kora questions him aloud for the benefit of the kinswoman. "Do you intend to drink again?"

[Starla] If the wolf-born intends to drink again, it won't be in the presence of the kin. She tilts her head to the side, watching the interaction between Kora and Fire Claws. She is quiet, no verbal response given to Kora's statement, just a raising of a dark eyebrow.

[Roman Turner] He spoke in response to Starla's brow rising.

"It was not necessary for ya go climb on top of him to control his drinking Starla. You are not responsible for Fire Claws' drinking if he wants. But by climbing on him ya put both of you in a situation. You too are at fault."

[Fire Claws] He watches how Sorrow reacts to his words, how she repeats what he says and his eyes are given to look at the ever-increasing stomach that has formed over their Jarl. His eyes no meeting with the coggie at one moment or another during the situation. Just speaking when addressed from those of rank.

"No" and "No" are the only response given, or needed for that matter. Not like a child answering his mother out of habit, but one who understands that he does not like what happened because of what he did.

[Starla] Being at fault, she understood, Starla was shouldering that guilt along with the one that had come from last Monday. If it hadn't been for Milo, they wouldn't be here having this conversation. Starla would have just buried it and never mentioned it to anyone, hoping that Fire Claws would have forgotten or not broached the subject.

She has no verbal response to Roman's words, her head bowing again to drop her eyes to her hands.

[Sorrow] "Roman's right," Kora echoes, glancing at Starla. "I'm sorry that he tempted you, and glad that you were able to resist him. I will not blame you for his actions; in the end, he is the Garou and bears the burden himself. But, Starla, you were unwise. To remain in the room with a Garou who was drunk; with a lupus Garou who had never before been drunk. Foolish to sit on his lap when his inhibitions are lowered. You know that he is wolf-born, that he is Garou. If you wanted to stop him from getting drunk, you should have found one of his packmates," a tight glance.

--

Then she looks back to Fire Claws, speaking aloud for Starla, reinforcing it across their spiritual bond. "Fire Claws, we do not take our human-born kin as mates through compulsion. They are not wolves, they are not ruled by instinct. The matter of respect for those beneath us is written into the litany, but there's a practical side to it as well. If you violate the trust of your kin, they will desert you one by one.

"And we cannot live without kin, not in these cities. We will never win the war against the Wyrm without them.

"You also violated another's territory. Starla is kin to the Children of Gaia. She is Fate's kin, his territory, and by tempting her to mate with you, broke the law in spirit if not in fact.

"This is your punishment from me: you will not drink spirits of any sort for one moon. Thereafter, if you wish to drink you must do so in the presence of your packmates for another moon. I will not deny a warrior of Fenris mead, but you must show that you are strong enough to stand up to its effects.

"Second, you will not be permitted to court or mate any kin for the space of the same moon."

[Sorrow] "Now," a lifting glance, back to Roman, her voice taut, her countenance stark, strained. "What is the next matter?"

[Roman Turner] "Now, the other issue. Milo contacted me in concern over Starla, she was injured. She implied it was Fire Claws and due to some thing she said to him."

He looked at Starla as he spoke.

"Your side first Starla. The entire story, including what ya said."

[Starla] This is where she grows irritated, a little scowl playing across her features at the mention of Milo. She keeps her voice low, fingers clenched together as Starla works the tension out that forms in the line of her jaw, teeth grinding. She clears her throat a little, "Fire Claws and I went to Chinatown for food, since he ain't ever had Chinese, I didn't think it would go bad. I wasn't paying attention to the moon. He was grouchy and hungry, we finally got to this small park and I set the food down. He was terse wit' his words, jus' wanted to eat. I set the food down in front of him, and asked him to sit. He shot back wit' some comment that he wasn't a dog..."

She wets her tongue with her lips, rubs her hands together, "To which I asked if I needed to start bringing a leash and collar, meaning for it to be a joke, and he went and flipped out on me. Next thing I knew, Fire Claws was on me, he grabbed me, picked me up and threw me down in the grass yelling at me to leave. I landed funny on my shoulder and injured it. He looked like he was about to frenzy, but managed to control himself."

Starla shakes her head, lowering her gaze, "I was scared, scared out of my fucking mind... I couldn't move even if I wanted to leave I was stiff, frozen in place. Fire Claws yelled at me to leave again or he'd kill me. Next thing he had his hands around my throat and was choking me..." she makes the impression of cupping her hands over her throat. "He didn't do it, something happened wit' him and he walked away... some woman came over to help me after he left..."

She shakes her head again, "This I know was my fault. I goaded him when I shouldn't have, was too stupid to not pay attention to what time of the moon it was. I ain't blaming him for what he done, that's all mine. I would've never told anybody about this if it weren't for Milo."

[Sorrow] Kora listens silently, dark eyes steady on the kinswoman as she speaks. When Starla is finished, she glances over at Fire Claws. "Now it's your turn, Fire Claws. Beginning to end."

[Fire Claws] Again the murk of memory seems to haze over what Fire Claws must search out to remember. Even though this even was much more recent and would most likely be recalled easier to many, it is just another part of the miasma of events that floats within the lupus mind. Much more difficult this is as scent is not so apparent to him, smells not like the other. He closes his eyes, hard and tight as he tries to recover the events that led to him bruising the kin. His eyes still closed he speaks.

"Dis 'appen unda Luna' half- face. Ma moon. Tension strong. Went ta eat wit Starla, sum place with strange smellin' food." He could not recall the exact name of the food anymore, it was all the same, this monkey food cooked and prepared with strange combinations of herbs and sauces and other foods. "Sat away from two-legs. Wanted food... she called mah dog. Wolf is no dog... not weak dog. Moon strong. Ever'tin red. Held back urge to kill. Barked. Warned 'er ta leave. Pushed 'er away. Hard. Starla fell... did not leave. Want'ed ta kill. 'eld back. Warn kin again, grabbed her neck to... in...inti..in... errr scare 'er ta go. Still dere. Sought Jarl' 'elp over link. Sorrow~Rhya council mah ta walk away... did so. Barely."

Unlike the first time however, this event seems to have shaken Fire-claws a little more. AS he spoke his fists tightened as he recalled the night, nearly drawing blood from his own palm each time he said the word 'warning.' His teeth grated down on themselves, nearly snarling even though his eyes did not open the whole time.

[Starla] Starla's head snaps up to pin her gaze on Fire Claws, she immediately unfurls her legs to drop her feet onto the ground, hands dropping to curl around the edges of the pew's bench, leaning forward to push off of it. She stands slowly, feet braced for a second, and then Starla is moving away from them.

She gives her back to the group, her arms drawn tightly to fold over her chest, a hand lifted to cover her mouth. She paces to put distance between herself and the Garou; a line of tension burns in the muscles of her back, making her shoulders hunch forward with stiffness and her spine rigid.

[Roman Turner] Starla moved and Roman spoke softly.

"Ya have something to add to that? I can seen the tension in your body. Or is it something else?"

[Sorrow] Roman inquires whether Starla has something to add; Kora listens, quietly to Fire Claws, then turns settles her dark eyes in the kinswoman. Quietly echoing Roman's question, wordlessly.

[Starla] Starla stops; she shakes her head at Roman's question, "Naw," she says back to him, "Ain't got nothing to add."

[Roman Turner] "Ok."

His gaze went to Sorrow, letting her have first words.

[Sorrow] "Starla, I would like to know why you took Fire Claws to eat Chinese food after your experience with him when he was drinking. Second, you said you would never have brought this forward but for Milo. Why is that?"

--

Then, the heavily pregnant Skald - still standing, though by now she has pulled her hands from the pockets of her sweatshirt and slipped them into the front pockets of her jeans. The straight line of her long arms frames the swell of her beach-ball stomach, elbows locked as the too-long, too-wide sleeves slide down her forearms.

"That's twice you've lost control, Fire Claws. How would you judge yourself?"

[Starla] She turns around to look at Kora, pulling her hand from her mouth, "This ain't the first time or the second time, or even the third time me and Fire Claws butt heads. He's snarled at me before on different occasions, the last time was the first time he got too close to losing control."

Starla shrugs, "Roman said not to coddle the Fenrir, I was jus' dumb enough to think maybe I could halp him to understand what humans were like, to halp him socialize better. I thought I had a better understanding of animals than I do people, but maybe him being a Garou tends to misconstrue my way of thinking. Hard to remember the wolf within when ya used to seeing the outer shell of a man. I can't understand why Fire Claws is here in the city if he hates humans so much, if'n he's gonna continue to carry such hate and anger, then why does he stay in the habit of the very thing that destroyed his life before coming here."

[Starla] (appends!!) "I would've jus' buried it and looked the other way."

[Starla] (habit = habitat)

[Sorrow] "It is not my place to judge you, Starla, as you are not my kin. But you would have done no one any favors by burying the incident and pretending it did not happen. Roman has the responsibility and the right to know what happens to you; and Fire Claws is my packmate and my tribe; a Forseti. I have the same responsibility for him. By ignoring the incident, burying it, you allow such weakness to fester.

"That is not the way of the Fenrir, nor is it what our totem expects of us. I know you are a kin. Perhaps you meant it as a kindness. It was no such thing."

[Roman Turner] He wasn't so thrilled with the animal understanding comment, but for the moment let that rest.

"So, trouble between the two of you has been more than the two times we are aware of?"

He sighed, continuing.

"You are not to be alone with Fire Claws. The two of you need to learn from this. I am not forbidding sharing time together, but with another present, preferably a Garou."

[Fire Claws] He does not look up when Starla stands to walk off, he does not need to know what the kin is doing. He looks at Sorrow and ponders what she asks of him. His words now triggered across the link, even as Starla is speaking. His link connects them and he answers his Jarl. There were two possible choices for such actions. Some more demading them others.

~Totemlink~
I have heard of two ways to punish someone. I have heard of those forced into a spiritual quest... to find the land of Unicorn's children and seek the skills of spirits of tranquility and calm for those that are beyond control. Some do not return from such a quest.... there is another punish I have seen.

He pauses as the thought crosses his mind, a punishment he has seen done at his home sept to embarrass another. But it was still a punishment done for the same reason.

~TL~
...I have seen a rite... known to rip the wolf from a true born. Make them without wolf. While without wolf, they are tested... omega to another. If they can learn to control themselves they are given the wolf back. If not they must endure the punishment until they have learned... or die gloriously and without honor.

[Starla] "Ya're right, I'm not a Get of Fenris, I never will be, nor will I ever hold up to their ideas or opinions as I will never understand them or what'cha determine is a weakness."

Starla looks to Roman, narrowing on him for a fraction of a second, she shakes her head at him, "This'll be the last time I will step into Fire Claws' presence, wit' or wit'out Garou. It's better I avoid him all together."

[Sorrow] There's the diminution of Kora's attention, again - that thinning glance as he delivers his recommendations very their shared spiritual connection. Once, her pale brows lift in twin arches over her dark, steady eyes. "When you lost control, Fire Claws, did you shift?"

[Roman Turner] "Never say never Starla. Fate has a way of making fools out of pledges like that."

He stepped towards her his words low.

"With that thought in mind, hear me now. If ya want Simon, if he wants ya, then he can man up and come show he values ya as much as your Tribe does, as much as I do. Until that time, you are not to see him."

[Fire Claws] His answer is quick. Simple

"No."

[Starla] "Bullshit."

She levels her gaze on Roman now, narrowing her eyes as she turns around, arms dropping from her chest to set her hands on her hips, "We're jus' sleeping together - we ain't involved in no relationship. I fuck him the same way I fucked Hunter. The same way I'll fuck any other man: Garou, kin or human. Ya're jus' pissed off because I am sleeping wit' him."

[Roman Turner] "This is my call Starla. Don't demean yourself this way. You can talk to him on the phone, tell him if he is interested, if he wants to challenge for ya, then do so. But the gravy train has stopped. Ya know our issue with him. Have some honor in this matter. Unless ya want to pay a visit back home?"

[Sorrow] "In this, I disagree with you, Fire Claws. Though you lost control, you had the presence of mind to stave off frenzy. As close as you came, you did not give in to the red wave. You will not lose your wolf.

"But you need to learn what it means to be kinfolk; to be two-legged; to live in the city. To that end, you will live for the next half-moon in your homid form. You will not shift. You will eat as a man, live as a man, and face threats as a man. As a kin.

"You will learn how vulnerable our kin are in the face of rage and tooth and claw, because you will live it. And at the end of the fortnight, you will travel to the Battleground realm, and you will find the battle you yourself created there - Fire Claws against Starla - and you will stand in her place; feel both her vulnerability and the paralyzing immediacy of her fear.

"In doing so, you yourself will learn to be strong. You will have to learn the control you require; not from unicorn's children, but from Fenris' own."

[Roman Turner] ((Ok,I have to be up in 5 hrs for work. If you want to continue Starla, let's schedule for it.))

[Starla] She snorts loudly, keeping a narrowed gaze on Roman, "Goodnight, Roman." The kin was done, she steps away from them, moves around the Garou to leave the Church.

[Fire Claws] He looks at Sorrow for a moment, wanting to say something. But holds his tongue on the matter. It was a compromise between the embarrassment that he has seen visited upon one at his home sept and what could have been. He did not like the idea of not having his fur to warm him, nor the claws and fangs to defend or kill as needed. It would not be an easy turn of Luna.

"Yeah Sorrow~ryha."

However it seemed fair. Would he feel fear at such an event? It is unlikely. He still had his rage, his ability to fight. He was not merely claw and teeth.

[Roman Turner] He called after her, following her out. "I"ll take that as ya want me to call home and make arrangements."

And they were gone.

[Roman Turner] ((Thanks guys, I have to sleep))

[Sorrow] There's a lacuna; a pause. The disagreement between Roman and Starla pulls them away from the center of the church, near the transept where the small group had gathered. Kora is still standing, though by now her back has begun to ache. The subtle throbbing that would never have settled into her muscles when she herself was able to shift forms; to allow her body to renew itself.

She glances up once, as Starla flounces out of the church, angry at her cousin's declaration about the limits of her autonomy. Then drops her gaze back to Fire Claws, finds the feral Garou's gaze on her, reads something of his desire to speak in the blunt expression on his feral features. Kora lifts her chin in a subtle upward sweep that settles into a faintly angled cant - the wolf inside her human skin evident in just that moment.

The corners of her generous mouth twist upward, not quiet a smile. Her teeth remind hidden behind her lips. Fire Claws will have to rely on the cues of his eyes as much as his nose in the coming nights. This is just the beginning.

"You look like you have something to say, Fire Claws." - she says, low-voiced, quiet. "What is it?"

[Fire Claws] He paused a moment more, wondering. His eyes turn back on his Jarl. Curious of what was said.

"Aye shal bare da burdin of dis punishment. Bu' mahbe Starla is rite... aye ave no love for da two-legged. Aye handl' wat aye ave too. But aye will not go out mah way to 'elp dem. Save dem. Kill wyrm yeah. But two-legs... dey brough dis on demselves. Nah kin no. But da rest. Aye cam ta kill wyrm... not ta be two-leg kind. Spent mah youth hatin' monkey, wary of two-leg 'fore change... afta change not much different."

[Sorrow] "Have you been up in the belltower?" Kora asks Fire Claws, a slicing, dark-eyed look follows as she lifts her chin toward the doors in the south western corner of the church. Linus barred the rest of the pack from the belltowers, preferring to tend to the ravens that were Hrafn's counterparts on this side himself.

He's gone now.
Kora misses him; an ache behind her breastbone.

His presence little more than peripheral, at the edges of the pack's consciousness these nights.

She pauses long enough for Fire Claws to say: yea or nay, then tells him to "C'mon," and starts off toward the belltower, that awkward human waddle defining her gait, her center of gravity offkilter, her weight too far forward; awkward for it, ungainly as any human woman in late pregnancy would be.

The stairs are worn from years of use, and there's a musty scent in the tower. Bird shit and feathers scattered about here and there. When they get close to the top, a handful of brooding birds take flight - an impression of black wings against the night sky. But just as she knew, there is a view here of the territory; squat and industrial, the city spread out beyond, the weaver's towers gleaming in the south, the office buildings, brilliant, reflective, glowering where they erupt against the horizon, the El tracks and elevated highways looped around the interior like veins and arteries, carrying the lightwaves of late night commuters into or away from nameless destinations. There is the lake to the east, flat and dark, water and sky merging together almost seamlessly at the horizon; and to the west, the city continues unbounded in its outward sprawl.

She's quiet for long minutes, encouraging him to look, to take in the view. At some point, she says, "Big fucking place, isn't it?" A supple twist of her mouth, lost in the shadows.

[Fire Claws] When Kora asks about the belltower it was obvious that he was never up there. Raven's own were tended there, kept by Bone~Writer for the time to ensure that Hrafan's children were tended in the physical as well as the spiritual. He did not venture onto the turf that the spirit talkers took as their own, not lightly. The spiritual ones of the true born tended to bend in strange manners that defied even the most abnormal of two-leg.

He furrowed his brow as she ascends, beckoning him to follow.

It was odd to watch a Jarl of the Get seem to waddle like a penguin in any manner. Even if they held the future of the tribe within their womb it was still something to see. A strange feeling to follow the demands of a leader who could not fight. But then again alpha wolves were central to a pack when they were with cub. Even if the territory was threatened bu another pack.

He does not say a word when offered to look out on the city from such a height. The city spread out further and further than one could image. Much farther than one could see from this level in the air. It was filled with buildings, cement and glass, steel and concrete, blacktop and iron. Where she saw a large city building to life he saw only one thing.

"Da scab seem neva endin'"

[Sorrow] "Pretty much," she says, low-voiced, looking out over the expanse as her attention swings back to the lupus. "And it's teeming with humans, yeah? Every little point of light is another one. Sometimes the Wyrm hides inside them. Sometimes it preys on them. Sometimes it strikes through them, and sometimes - " a supple curve of her mouth, mostly hidden in the shadows.

The reflection of the lights downtown casts a crawling band of light across her cheeks, highlighting the smooth line of her cheekbones, the plain of her temples sweeping up to a high, clear forehead. A half dozen refracted lights gleam across the surface of her eyes when she looks back to him. " - rarely, they fight back against it. If they, collectively, are the authors of anything, I think it's the Weaver's dominance, not the Wyrm's, yeah? But I think that they are the instruments rather than the authors, even then.

"If you were, say, hunting cougars in a forest full of deer and elk, though. Would you ignore the elk and deer? Or would you want to know their ways? How the herds move; how they startle. The noise the bucks make when they sense danger near. The way they stampede when the cougar strikes. All that?"

[Fire Claws] (Are you really that thick not to get the analogy?)
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 1 (Botch x 2 at target 6)

[Fire Claws] He looks at her for a second with utter confusion over his face. He couldn't seem to match the words with the meaning by any possible way. He could only think of the situation as it was laid out.

"Wh'ja 'untin cougars?"

[Sorrow] "It's an analogy," she returns, with a quiet huff of an exhalation and a twist of her mouth. "One thing stands for another. In this case: cougars are the Wyrm, the forest is the city, and the deer and elk are humans. You see? If you want to hunt the Wyrm in this habitat - if you want to successfully hunt the wyrm, systematically.

"To track down the big threats to the Caern and the territory on this side and the other - you have to know how the animals in the forest move. How they react. How they look when they are sick, how they look when well. When they will stampede; when they will charge; when they will die."

[Fire Claws] He looked at his Jarl for a moment and then looked out on the city once more. His mind still running with the idea of hunting. His mind trying to put together what was being said. He didn't understand it, how could he.

"In da woods... ya 'unt da elk and da deer. Whe' ya com across dat cougars... yeah deal wit dem. But ya still hunt da elk and deer."

[Sorrow] "I didn't say it was a perfect analogy. Yeah?" She says, shaking her head. "Pretend the cougars are tainted; you aren't hunting for meat and food; you're hunting them as if you would wyrm. Do you understand now?"

[Fire Claws] The wolf born seem intend on just watching the city for the moment, watching the cars move down the streets and avenues that dictate each pathway through the maze of the scab, he watches as lights go out here and there as the city is becoming more and more sleepy. He watches and ponders what he would do if he were hunting wyrm. These humans were instruments of the wyrm.

"Aye see"

He watched the city as the two-legs slept and he pondered what new horrors the wyrm would use them for. What torments Gaia would suffer due to these instruments.

"Ya watch the prey to betta undastand da otha predators."

[Sorrow] "Exactly," Kora returns, a quiet, sweeping look back out to the city. A supple note of approval in her eyes and voice. "You have to take the time to understand them if you want to hunt effectively among them.

"If you just want to through yourself forward into glory," a twist of her shoulders, narrow for her tall frame, swallowed by the fabric of her sweatshirt. " - well, there are a half-hundred deadly battles within reach, yeah? But you want more than that, I think. You don't just want to kill Wyrm, you want to do so effectively. It's what Hermodr expects of us, too.

"You can't kill all of them; and underneath, some of them are more on our side than the Unmaker's. Not enough, to be sure. But some." Then she cuts a glance away from the horizon, dark eyes settling on Fire Claws. "I'm not suggesting that you go out of your way to protect them, mind you. On some level, it they need protection - if they've seen some manifestation of the Wyrm, or a Garou in warform, they are already compromised. Broken. Bleeding, and you have to root them out for their own good, or kill them to protect the veil."

Pitiless in this, the Skald.

"But your hate is wasted on them; this is their habitat, and to hunt here, you have to know how they move."

[Melody] Night has fallen, and the curtain of our present tale rises upon a wooded area within striking distance of the Windy City. Currently devoid of actors, our stage nevertheless shows nature green in branch and stem, with any number of nocturnal animals about their nightly rounds. The air, if not "fresh", at least far fresher than the shrouded pall that usually hangs over the asphalt jungle to the east.

In short, it is an idyllic and tranquil scene, or at least as idyllic and tranquil as nature ever really gets so close to an urban area in this dark, benighted world.

Now enter, 2006 Nissan Sentra, stage left. Along with the two blonde girls currently inside it.

[Sorrow] The city is a corona in the east; an orange glow that engulfs the sky. After a handful of days with nearly perfect weather, the night is cold and gray. The moon, somewhere behind the moving blanket of stormclouds above, is waning from the full. A gibbous moon, the barest sliver stolen from its frame. Sorrow's moon.

She has not seen it tonight, and that is assuredly for the best. Still, she can feel it up there, the inevitable, invariable pull of her birthmoon, the little extra charge of it underneath her skin, no matter how impotent that charge must seem when she's gravid with child.

The parking lot is mostly deserted. There's a van down in the shadows by the picnic area, but no one obviously around. Kora pauses, still, watching the other vehicle quietly for a moment after Melody shuts off the engine. The study lingers: the van in the distance, Kora's face, and then Melody's superimposed over it, reflected in the glass by the dim glow of the dashboard lights, by the wash of a single streetlamp over the dark, deserted parking lot.

"I feel better already," says Kora, quiet, reaching to undo the latch on her seatbelt before opening the door. The air smells like the memory of rain and car exhaust, the deep green musk of rotting vegetation and waking soil.

[Melody] "Is that more because of where we are now, or where we aren't?" Melody smiles, almost more to herself than to Kora. And then she's killing the engine and slipping outside herself.

Melody is, for all her innate nature, far more comfortable with civilization and technology than Kora is. Or other Get in general, for that matter (bastard streak of Glass Walker blood in there somewhere?). So it is that you might almost expect her to be a bit less comfortable out in the actual wild (such as it is), like a wolf that's been raised in captivity, never quite feeling the connection to its natural home. Yet apparently, that isn't the case - for all her quirks and foibles, she seems to draw energy from the forest as much as Kora does.

And, perhaps thankfully for Kora's sanity, she's even dispensed with most of her usual fancy (and pink) wardrobe for more sensible hiking boots, jeans, and a tan jacket over a simple green t-shirt.

[Sorrow] "I don't know," returns the Skald, glancing skeptically up at the night sky for a moment, as if she could gauge - by the particular quality of orange, by the dampness of the air, by the sound of the wind in the canopy of trees just starting to leaf out - whether rain might be imminent. It's dark, though, and the patterns of the clouds are little more than a dull orange-gray above them, a shadowy mass, the details of which disappear into insubstantiality, receding the longer she frowns up at them. As if in answer, a single raindrop - just one - falls out of the dark, shivered off the limb of of a mostly-bare oak tree, maybe - hits her on the cheek, just below the eye. Rolls down her cheek as she looks back at Melody, across the front end of the old Nissan, taking in her attire with a single, liquid look.

"I've never felt so trapped in the city before. In my own goddamned territory. In - "

A hand held palm-up shows no further raindrops, so Kora settles for zipping up her oversized hoodie - make for a large, large man, not a pregnant woman. It accommodates her stomach, pulled taut, but drowns her shoulders and arms. - but leaves the hood down.

"C'mon," she says, lifting her chin in a moving gesture toward the dark copse of woods, eschewing the open picnic area for the dark trailhead. Beyond, they can hear water rushing in a creekbed. "You settling in?"

[Melody] "Anything you want to talk about?" She says it casually, almost off-handedly, but Kora likely senses the underlying interest there. It might even strike her as humorous that her younger sister of 7-8 years seems to be developing an interest in acting like a would-be therapist. Shouldn't this be the point where Melody should be asking her about boys or college or something?

"And... settling in? As well as can be expected, all things considered. Though someone apparently slipped me a Bieber poster. Not sure who. Or if they meant it as a sincere gesture or a joke." She shrugs.

And she follows as Kora heads towards the trail. "Umm, you sure you're..." She trails off, and sort of gives a sheepish little half-smile accompanied by near-indecipherable hand-gestures which Kora thinks might be Melody's way of asking whether or not a pregnant woman should be walking trails in the middle of the woods. Or maybe not. Hard to tell, really.

[Sorrow] "Bieber?" Kora returns, glancing over her shoulder, pale face a smear in the dark shadows of the trail. Her brows lift in twin arches over her keen dark eyes, which reflect whatever ambient light filters down through the canopy. She has been entirely lost to the world of men for five years or more. Justin Bieber is -

- not in her frame of reference. There's nothing since 2006 or 07 on her iPod, which seems to be the only modern convenience she carries around. Even then, her taste is older. The Pixies. The Replacements. Radiohead. "I have no idea what the hell that is," she continues, turning back to watch where she's going. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. The train well-worn, somewhat muddied from the recent rains. There's a quiet hush in the air that becomes clearly the longer there are out here. In the distance: the roar of some freeway.

Not here. Nothing. Nothing close.

Just the sound of their breathing, Kora's care with where she puts down her feet. See how well she deftly ignores Melody's attempt to play therapist. "I promise," - low and ironic, a pale hand on a scarred limb, balancing as she kicks into the underbrush, looking for a walking stick. " - that I am not going into labour out here."

[Melody] "Yeah, you know, Justin Bieber? Singer? Really popular? Totally famous? He was really huge on YouTube?" She trails off at the look of complete and utter lack of comprehension. "Ehh, never mind."

She smiles faintly at Kora's promise. "Can we at least avoid any really steep or hilly trails, just in case?" And then she's quiet for a few moments, before pointing out: "And you never did answer my question, you know. Anything you want to talk about?" See how well she doesn't let herself get distracted? Probably too much to hope for, really.

[Sorrow] "I don't need a therapist, Dee," returns Kora, low-voiced and direct. She's half-crouched now, gauging the relative heft and height of a pair of broken limbs she has wrested from an overgrown bramble. There's a certain sharpness to the tone near the end, like the defined line of a parabola approaching the limits of Kora's patience, for all that Melody has done nothing to engage that subprocess. " - there's nothing to talk about. I'm just - "

With a flattened mouth, Kora chooses the slimmer, longer of the two branches and hefts it up, standing abruptly, testing the tensile strength of her makeshift walking stick by jamming it several times into the muddied ground. She breathes out, lifts her chin down the trail, the sound of water in the interval distance echoing through the semi-bare trunks of the trees. Here are there, pear trees are a white smear against the interminable shadows. They are already losing their blossoms, but the dogwoods and redbuds have yet to bloom.

"C'mon," Kora returns, quiet as she takes off, her gait steadier with the added support of the stick. She glances back just once, says, quiet to Melody. "If you want to run, I don't mind."

They both know what she means; the caged wolf is visible in the gleam of the Skald's dark gaze.

[Melody] "No, but you have an understanding and lovable sister who is available as a sympathetic shoulder to lean on, who is fully capable of dispensing both advice and in equal quantities, so you should totally avail yourself of that." She spreads her arms in a gesture which almost seems to say 'Ehh? Ehh?'.

"I mean, let's be honest. It's not good to bottle stuff up, or try to carry the entire world on your back. So... maybe it's good to talk about stuff sometimes. Even if it's only to vent and talk about how badly you want to punch someone or how much of a poo-poo head you think someone is being."

She doesn't say anything about how much pressure Kora is under as Jarl, or what various Kinfolk are up to, or the whole deal with Linus and the family, or even the normal stress of pregnancy, but she's probably thinking of at least a few of those things.

"We all admire your self-sufficiency, but that doesn't mean you have to do everything yourself, you know."

[Sorrow] Kora makes a low sound in the back of her throat, then. It sounds nearly like dismissal, quiet and sure. Kora's steadiness remains, but some of her openness is gone. Walled away. Melody has a fine view of her sister's back, the bunching of fabric at the shoulder, the way it spreads to accommodate her hips. From behind she could almost imagine that Kora was not pregnant. Except for the way it changes her gait, the way her stomach takes 2.3 seconds longer, it seems, to turn around than the rest of her.

"How about this for a start: I'm tired of fucking Shadow Lords." A pause like a valley as she goes on. Ahead, through the scrim of the trees, Melody can see the gleaming surface of a creek moving through the dark march of trees. " - and Bone Gnawers. And fucking gloryhounds. And - " a quiet shake of her pale head as the path breaks through the treeline at the edge of the small pond. "I'm not sure that talking about it makes it better. I fucking hate gossip."

[Melody] "I can see why all of those things would annoy you." She nods, almost sagely, though Kora likely misses the gesture in her insistence at setting the pace (or maybe more from Melody's refusal to set much of a pace at all). "But even if talking about stuff doesn't make it better, maybe it can help keep it from getting worse?"

She shrugs as they walk, and maybe there's even a hint of a smile in her next words. "Or do you just think you'd be happier walking in total silence and having the cutest wolf ever just sort of brushing up against your leg the whole time being all cuddly and adorable?"

[Sorrow] "Wolves," Kora returns, glancing back now, standing aside so that Melody can join her at the water's edge. " - aren't cute, Dee."

The pond is narrow, not natural - made by a cement dam they can both see dimly in the uncertain light. They are not so deep in the woods that the forest service has given up putting out trash cans and picnic tables, though - and in the clearing by the dam, they see a pair of picnic tables both chained to the fixture of a charcoal grill. Ripples move across the surface of the dark waters, some occluded reflection of the sky.

"Sometimes I miss the ocean," she continues, after a quiet moment. "There was a time when I missed pizza, but now I miss the damn ocean." A brief, sidelong glance at Melody's profile. "What about you?"

[Melody] "I beg to differ. Wolves are totally cute. And some are definitely cuter than others." And she does indeed move up to stand next to Kora, smiling. "The ability to rend flesh and break bone in no way detracts from cuteness." She pauses for a second, head tilting, smile fading as her lips quirk into an almost bemused thoughtful expression. "Well, except maybe in the immediately moments before, during, and shortly after said rending and breaking. That would probably be a period of diminished cuteness."

And she looks over at Kora, somewhat thoughtfully, at her question. A poignant look, as if pondering all of the things she misses, or mourns the loss of. And then:

"Not really. I mean, I never liked the ocean all that much in the first place."

And then, a slowly growing smirk.

[Sorrow] (and fin?)

[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]