[Calamity] (Alright:
Welcome to the Scene folks. My Name's Harv, I'll be your ST for the evening, which is Chinese for 'this is my do not fuck with face'. In all honesty, I'm not envisioning anything thoroughly violent happening tonight but given how a lot of these things are dependent on Character responses and interactions the possibility still exists SO...this scene is marked as a Skull 'n Bones to cover that eventuality.
The following rules will be in place throughout the scene:
1) One Post at a time, following the Room Order. Let's see if we can keep posts to a maximum of fifteen minutes per person, though that isn't a hard set time limit. If, for some IC reason, you feel the need to interject outside of the Posting order (I.E - Asked a pertinent question that needs an immediate answer etc.) than try to keep the response to a sentence so as not to drag on and muddle up the process. I may also be asking for a post or a pause here or there to catch up with folks or drop my own PMs and posts intermittently but that's my dispersion and you will be notified prior to the post.
2) Pay attention to the Chat. That goes for all of us, me as well. Any queries or questions that you wish to ask can be ventured there. If you have a private question or seek some knowledge specifically for your character, feel free to IM me. All of these are valid methods. Try to avoid PM'ing in the chat please, except if I ask you specifically for a roll in PM.
3) This scene is classified as a Moral Question. This means that dice rolls are Not the defining factor nor should they be considered the answer to a question.
4) Express, Expound and Enjoy and hopefully we can finish this out at a decent hour heh.
I'll be posting an Intro to get everyone together momentarily.)
[Calamity] Convergences.
The circumstance under which, parties not normally associated with one another through time, experience or relationship, come together to perform an act or event not otherwise planned, performed or practiced, leading toward a Goal of considerable weight, value and meaning.
The invisible threads connecting previously unconnected persons and places, achieving a fundamental change or alteration.
A subject of Fate and/or Destiny.
Thursdays in the Garou Nation.
* * * * *
There is a humidity in the air, a vague threat of rain in overcast skies that have long held that clutch in Chicago. Dreariness and gunmetal are a fond pair within the skies of the Cityscape and the Garou of Maelstrom's Sept know well the hardships, tensions and stress that comes with being part of this protectorate. One almost has to relinquish and let go of that sense of normalcy and comfort that might interject in the life of a Garou, because here there is no reprieve.
Every moment is a demand for more. Every second, a potential for sacrifice. Thus, grim resolution and stoicism are considered a Pride. Weathering and Endurance, a source of Solace. One does not bellow or scream defiance here, they stare and stand. Stare and Stand.
Each of those gathered today has been brought to the outskirts of Town for varying reasons:
The Metis with Secrets, the Lupus in service to Great Fenris, the Daughter of the Wolf~Lord and the Young Law~bringer of the Peace Tribe can feel him in the distance. An ache that defines the heart, gives formula to the ribs and flushes into the stomach with profound discomfort. The tug and pull draws from several parts of the landscape of Chicago and yet each arrives within minutes of each other, perhaps even seconds. From various parts of the city, they come, rushing on two legs or four.
The Call itself is something of distress. Or...triumph? It isn't entirely clear just what it is, but within it, is housed something further than the Garou lungs are capable of. More and brittle all at once. A Terrifying clarion rich with the stuff Terror dreams of each night. It skates the aether and tugs on the umbral travelers, each caught within the spirit world, and draws them to this:
A Hillside. Spotty grass over hard packed dirt, leading down a gradual and infantile hill into a broad and inky plain, which comes to an end in the glaringly inaccurate stretch of dark woods that...does not belong on Chicago's edge. Not here, according to any map looked up in the physical. Yet there it stands, a half mile distant.
The moonless sky provides little respite, no matter the threat of it's Fullness, yet the open terrain before them houses little cover or promise of threat, still...
The dark, the open and a Baleful Howl in the winds above is enough to still any but the greatest of fools from simply charging out alone to explore.
[Barks Secrets] This Metis had a job these days. A pack,a totem to please. It was an unfamiliar sensation for him. Certainly he'd been a part of a pack more than once before, but these were short lived occurrences without any strong bonds forged, and it had been quite some time sine he'd felt the pressure to please a Totem spirit (beyond Rat, of course). It wasn't that he cared particularly for the Silver Fang or the Black Fury, but they fed the totem, and the totem gave him more strength, more air in his lungs and more sureness to his step. His thoughts were clearer, his eyes were sharper... hell, he was pretty sure that even his skin was less dry and his hair less oily (that, of course, was an illusion).
So he was in the Umbra staking out, keeping an eye on what could easily become a festering Wyrmhole within the city if given a chance, waiting for the chance to give his pack a stab at some Glory, to give themselves a name and to give Momentum a little more of a shove so it rolled faster and happier with them. The night had been dull, drab, and Winston was ready to put his tail over his nose and take a nap when a chill cut through his spine and seeped into his chest. His breath wheezed noisily, he stared at the horizon, and the chill tugged him toward the city's boundaries.
Not one to argue with the Spirit or the Wolf, he went.
Surely enough, others had felt the call as well. Winston stalked on all fours in his birth form, a tall, long, Crinos made of sinew and patchy brown fur, with ridiculously long fingers and toes and ears that tended to flop. Sickly muddy yellow-brown eyes hopped from wolf to wolf, those nearer and those still coming up the horizon. He stopped to squat a couple dozen yards from the foot of the hill, scratched at his lower abdomen with wicked black claws, and spoke in a way that seemed drawling and lazy even in the mostly guttural language of the Garou.
"You all felt it too, huh?"
[Sorrow] Int + Expression
to Calamity
[Bone-Grinder] Simon was here. Dark clothing covered his arms, legs, and feet, and a bandanna was worn around his neck, tied tightly enough to be pulled up to obscure the features of his face. It fit him well, what he might identify as the "Urban Ninja" look others would just identify as the "Burgler" look. His nostrils flared at the air the second he heard the howl...
Garou sometimes missed the importance of their senses, sense of smell in particular, relying all too often on their sight without ever realizing how important a keen sense of smell is to a wolf. It was a tool that led them to their prey and warned them of dangers. You might not always see an individual but their scent lingers in the air long after they are gone like a memory left behind for others to glimpse provided they know how.
He stood fast without making the slightest hint of a motion. His eyes scanned the darkness as he drew in the scents and sounds around him. There was an air of seriousness surrounding the Full Moon as he assessed the situation to the best of his ability. Death was an all too real reality for their kind, so each and every step made must be made cautiously.
"Naw... I was just standing around staring ominously into the darkness. It's a Shadow Lord thing."He finally says as a smile takes shape on his face. His eyes slip towards Winston and then back to the Woods."Not a good place to be... I don't like it. Walking into someone or something else's territory... Without prior knowledge of the area."He says this with a little shrug of his shoulders. He was a Full Moon he rarely cared much for any situation he walked into. However, this one had the air of a trap surrounding it which was an even less welcome feeling.
[Dreams in Summer Snow] The routine defense of a Sept is a bit different than Harmony had imagined it would be, when he was far out in the suburbs and thought about coming to live in the city. He had imagined constant assaults and skirmishes, with suicidal fomori running headlong into the Sept, and then the brave Garou would be summoned to the defenses. He'd imagined that he'd walk outside the bawn and see corruption. In short, he'd imagined it to be more like the stories the Galliards tell, where they cut out the long periods of waiting and the parts in between where one is just left to be human.
Adamidas is out of town. She was the first person he really connected with in Chicago, and so for the first time since arriving in the city he is on his own. He's all right with that, though. He makes friends easily.
He's in his room at the Brotherhood when it calls him, watching a movie, and young though he is he isn't one to ignore his duties. So he claws his way into the Umbra and he goes, arriving at the hill not long after the Bone Gnawer. Dreams in Summer Snow emerges in Hispo, his fur glossy and thick and brown, and steps over toward the Ragabash and the Ahroun.
"Felt something, yeah."
[Fire-Claws] Four legs good....
His hunting tonight seemed to provide him little this evening. Even with Luna strong, deep into her pregnancy, his rage and howl seem to scare away any thought of a possible kill. The wyrm has feel silent this evening. The wyrm fears that which kills by a full moon, the wyrm hides back in its hives awaiting darker times.
But there are other things besides hunting to enjoy. Duty is strong, but to something is just as important. Protecting one's family, one's pack, one's tribe. To revel in the joy of a great kill, to sing of those who gaurantee a new generation, to feast and drink and live. You fight and die so that you and yours may truly live. It was instinctual, something even the monkeys could understand, some of them anyway.
His hunting pattern changes half way through his night. Hunting for a proper kill to hunting down those instincts that drive him here, outside of the scab. Away from the weaver tech and wyrm taint and their horrific offspring known as modernization, to the inky darkness he has not seen before. But he is still new to this region, this territory held many new places.
And the lupus bounds towards the hillside, following the felling in his gut. His fur a motley assortment, made mostly of grey as any proud Fenrir, mixed with red and black. Brown eyes moving in the darkness, as he gathered with the rest of them. He yips and cuffs in response to those not so naturally inclinded. The monkey born and the sin-born are not so intuned with such communication even if they feel it. They cannot truly feel it.
{ws}
"Garou. Stronger than normal natural howl. Aided by spirits. Seems it wants something away, scaring. Is is renowned more than any of us."
His eyes look around, before finally comin up on his Jarl. His attention focused on her now. Only her.
{ws}
"Seems it hunts. Found prey. Making it fearful as it should be."
[Sorrow] The note finds her umbral, in the hard packed land that is her territory, human-skinned along the banks of the river. There's that fat, full moon riding over the city now, clear and bright in the back of her mind even when she cannot see it. The world feels sharper on nights like this, more pointed, more present. The moonlight is so strong it casts shadows where the city's lights are not so bright as to drown it out. Across the river, electrical impulses gleam and sing along the twisted, knotted webs of the weaver's domain, skeining over huge, faceless skyscrapers, an oppressive tangle of soulless.
She runs through the city, underneath the humming pattern-web, the blue light gleaming in her fine gray fur. In her feral form, Sorrow appears almost adolescent - slender and alert, with soft paws and rich, amber eyes. Her scent is sharply female, though - mature, alive.
--
At the edge of the wood-that-should-not-be, Sorrow gathers with the rest of them, a sharp whuff of greeting as she circles, taking in their scents. Her tail is high as she greets Fire-Claws, before she melts out of her feral form, into her human skin.
Human, she's a young woman, likely older than all of them, but young nonetheless. Her hair is a pale blonde, touched silver, platinum in the light of a full moon, and it falls in errant coils around her head and shoulders, the usual hairbands lost with the change of forms. Her clothes are worn, practical - jeans, a long-sleeved thermal under a black t-shirt, and a pair of black shit-kickers. There are leather bracelets around her wrists, and a thin band of braided leather around her neck.
A glance at Fire-Claws, her eyes - deep blue, the color of twilight - just shadows here, except where they catch the light. "A gift," she confirms, when the lupus is done speaking. "a Galliard gift, Call of the Wyld carried the howl to us. He's using another gift to of some sort to terrify whoever he hunts. I couldn't say for certain, though."
Another look to Fire-Claws. "Can you catch a scent - or track the sound?"
[Calamity] (Skip me this round folks.)
[Barks Secrets] Shame wasn't necessarily the word behind Winston's behavior, he didn't maintain his birth form to remind everyone what he was born as, that he was a crime against the world by existence alone. Shame wasn't present even by a portion in his voice or posture, he seems to forget what he is, what with the certainty and lazy half-confidence that he kept about him. However, despite that, with all the other Garou about, even if he was over all other heads simply by being the only one in Crinos, he kept his own head ducked just a little, his shoulders and back hunched, and his tail low.
He watched blandly as all others arrived, then moved from his squatting sit to stand up fully, moving those deadly scratching claws from his lower belly up to his collarbone. It wouldn't be surprising if he had fleas. With his chest at the height of a few heads, be it the bottom of his ribs or the top, the labored wheezing was more noticeable, scraping and scratching in his chest and rattling in his throat. Ears flicked forward and out, as though he could find trace elements of the soul-sound that had drawn them all here.
"Well, it could be a trap, but don't you think they'd draw us somewhere with fewer routes of escape were that the case?" Mud-colored eyes dropped down to Kora, focused on her face, then jumped back up to the hill crest. "I can scout ahead if you need."
Not like that was his job or anything.
[Bone-Grinder] Simon takes in the information as it is fed to him and listens on his own. Every sight and sound surrounding them had some degree of importance and he did his best to read all that he could. After all... A Black Spiral Dancer was just as capable of summoning them with the call as anyone else. So it did not change his feeling that such a thing could be a trap but there was more to this.
"It's more about getting your enemy somewhere you are familiar with and have had time to prepare. A wolf who knows the woods is just as deadly as a dude trying to run you down in a truck."He says with a shrug of his shoulders. His eyes turning back towards Winston."Well we're not gonna figure anything out standing around here all evening. Scout up ahead and the rest of us will keep up behind you. You see anything you fall back to our position and let us know if something is coming, yip or hollar like you got scared... But don't let them know that you're leading them back to us."He says with a shrug."If there's something out there I'd like to hope we can get the jump on it still even if it more than likely expects us."
With that much said he looks at the others curiously. Sizing each one up before turning to look back towards the woods."That sound like a workable plan?"He asks the others to make certain they were on the same page.
[Fire-Claws] His tail wags slowly as he listens to Kora's queston. But he knows better, that was not a question of his ability, it was a command for his skill. Maybe Sparrow told her of how he hunted that stag with Rainer and Night's Reprieve, maybe it was natural for monkey born to expect if of their lupine brothers. No matter the reason, he was already on it. His nose first to the air, then to the ground, back to the air as his muscles begin to flex and tense. His answer back towards his Jarl first before evening thinking of addressing the... well...whatever Barks~in~Secrets was.
{ws}
"Have his scent. Easy to track. But rain threatens in time.
He is still curious of the other scent, but it meant little to him at this moment. However he does go back to the one that seemed to want to lead. Narrowed eyes set on the other as well, as if he knew better than his Jarl. A growl nearly escaping his lips, nearly.
to Sorrow
[Fire-Claws] His tail wags slowly as he listens to Kora's queston. But he knows better, that was not a question of his ability, it was a command for his skill. Maybe Sparrow told her of how he hunted that stag with Rainer and Night's Reprieve, maybe it was natural for monkey born to expect if of their lupine brothers. No matter the reason, he was already on it. His nose first to the air, then to the ground, back to the air as his muscles begin to flex and tense. His answer back towards his Jarl first before evening thinking of addressing the... well...whatever Barks~in~Secrets was.
{ws}
"Have his scent. Easy to track. But rain threatens in time.
He is still curious of the other scent, but it meant little to him at this moment. However he does go back to the one that seemed to want to lead. Narrowed eyes set on the other as well, as if he knew better than his Jarl. A growl nearly escaping his lips, nearly.
[Sorrow] While they talk, Sorrow pulls back her pale hair, twists it around itself, ties it out of her face, back against the nape of her neck. She's quiet, still, scanning the edge of the wood-that-should-not-be, listening to the whisper of the wind in the air, the lingering echo of the terrifying howl. "Look - " she tells them, gesturing down the hill toward the dark march of trees. " - there aren't any spirits there. Maybe they've been frightened away by the gift. Maybe it's something else - though it's hard to imagine that a Garou's howl could frighten away living spirits of trees.
"I don't want to be too far separated. You're Barks-Secrets, yeah?" This to Winston, whom she remembers only from the moots. " - scout ahead. We'll follow, down to the edge of the woods at least. Don't get too far head of us, and don't do anything especially stupid. Bring back whatever you can, and don't get caught. Go in lupus, I think. Follow the scent that Fire-Claws found into the woods, don't flail around if you lose it. Let's go."
[Dreams in Summer Snow] Harmony is not much of a tracker. He isn't much of a strategian, either: most of what he knows has been picked up on the fly in Chicago. So here, he is more than happy to defer to the Garou who are much older and more experienced with such things. Most of his time as a Garou has been spent acting as a mediator and judge, not on the battlefield.
Still in Hispo, he looks back and forth between the others as they talk about sending Barks Secrets ahead of the rest of them.
"If we end up needing a healer, I can do that," he says. "I'll keep an eye on the rest of you."
[Calamity] The Five that are that. Five and not one as a Pack should be, gather themselves together and decide. Forward...
Maelstrom's Garou are nothing if not cautious. Time, experience and circumstance have made them this way. As easily a trap, painted in their minds as anything else, if not a little easier perhaps. Does the Garou in question present them a foolhardy errand? Or is there genuine trouble afoot? Or something else entirely?
Barks~Secrets is told to move forward and do what his Auspice demands. The Garou remain on the hillside, as the Ragabash vanishes down the grassy and hard packed dirt. Soon enough he is little more than a moving shadow and eventually, the cloud cover above and the darkness of the woods beyond, he is not even that.
[Fire-Claws] He begins to pace now, the smell still lingering in his nose. This was no claith they heard howl. This was something more, something more powerful than any one of them. The rage that surrounding him was pungent, overwhelming even as far from him as they were. His fur bristles with potential. He did not think he would get a chance to hunt tonight, now he has a wonderful opportunity to hunt with his Jarl. It might not have been the best time but some reason he remembered it now and figured he should tell Kora.
{ws}
"Found Tongue-Twister. Returned weapon to her. Had words. She will see to them. Will not touch kin."
Strange things wolves come to think of. No real linear process of thought, just whatever comes to their mind at the time. But there was logic, wolf logic to it afterall. And with that he pads at the hard dirt, stil lingering over the scent that came with the garou. Scuffing up, possibly, more scents of dust and dried blood, death in its true, natural state.
[Bone-Grinder] Simon's form shifts. What was once a man standing in dark clothing is soon replaced by a wall of fur and muscle blacker than the night sky. The sound of muscle and bone popping into place as his body shifts and swells and erupts from within himself is not entirely unfamiliar to the other Garou. Soon enough the beast was standing in it's Hispo form on all fours and sniffing at the floor.
"You see anything... Lead it back to us."He once more reassures Winston. The responsibility of the New Moon was a rough one but at least it could feel safe in knowing that the other Garou would leap upon anything that brought it the tiniest hint of trouble. Simon's ear twitched and it looked about at the others and then back towards the woods. He still didn't like any of this but it was his job not to like it. It was his job to see the potential danger in anything and everything and think up how to best confront it. The life of an Ahroun was not so simple as throw oneself blindly into combat. See it as one might he knew the reality... The Ahroun not only threw himself into combat but he was also the one whose advice would either save or end the lives of his peers. Everything he said had to be carefully weighed and understood... In the end however it came down to a balancing act. Maximizing the damage inflicted against the enemy while minimizing the damage inflicted upon the Garou. A healthy 5,000:1 ratio was about the right number... Sadly it tended to be more like 5:1.
He watches Winston and the area he is about to head into curiously. In the meantime listening to Fire Claws to see if the wolf decides to make any sense. His primary interest, however, lay on his single most important role. Making certain each and every garou present here makes it to whatever they call home tonight.
[Sorrow] Here they are in the skins they were born in - the feral lupus, the human Jarl. She has a certain easily physicality, dark eyes shaded in the stillness. What a strange group is ranged here. Harmony in Hispo, who will be their healer. Kora glances at him; does that thing that humans do with their mouths and smiles. It's not a feral smile, not an intimation of threat, a show of teeth. Easy, " - thank you." she says, her voice throaty and assured.
Then, watching Winston disappear down the hill, she sinks to her haunches, balanced close to the horizon, her forearms braced against her thighs, her feet flexed in the heavy boots balanced forward on the balls of her feet. Thoughtlessly, she pushes the cuffs of her thermal up her forearms, runs the edge of her thumb over the bracelets she wears. The materials are natural, the adornment slight, earthy and eclectic - hemp rope, bits of string and line, suede and leather, braided thinly, twisted around her wrists, part of her now.
"It was the honorable thing to do," Kora says, quiet, speculative. "I need to find her, too. I've seen other of her kin in the city - one I met the first day I met Cigney - who have had no contact from her, no tribemates to turn to, no knowledge that the city is at war."
[Barks Secrets] [Dexterity + Stealth +1Momentum]
[Barks Secrets] [HAH! *Whisks behind curtain*]
[Dreams in Summer Snow] That howl continues on, and the Philodox tilts his head as the sound carries, as he listens to the music beneath it reverberate and waver. They aren't just a primal thing, the cries the Garou give. Most Galliards make an art out of sculpting sound into something more, something expressive. This one certainly strikes a certain chord in Harmony as he listens, his head tilted.
"It sounds kind of sad," Harmony says to the others. "The howl, I mean. Kind of bittersweet and...nostalgic, I guess," he says, with a look toward the others. "Like they're mourning."
But he doesn't know for sure what that mourning might be for. He just hears it, tells the others, even though he has no idea why they've been summoned or what they're here to do. The mention of the Kin just draws a sad silence from him, but he has nothing to add.
[Calamity] ...And suddenly, only a minute or so after Winston departs from the Hillside, a few seconds after Harmony's revelation, the standing Garou hear the sharp and abrupt end of the Howl, the timor of that Fearing sensation beginning to dissipate with the absence.
[Sorrow] Perception + expression.
to Calamity
[Calamity] Kora hears the wispy trail of something vaguely mournful. Like the distant loss of someone or something, long since laid to bed. Accepted for what it was. It is not grief, something recent, nor sorrow, something pondered, simply a Memory, a distant ache with no real answer or question.
Something that was and is no longer.
to Sorrow
[Fire-Claws] His head turns up to Kora as she speaks about kin and not knowing there is a war in the city. It seemed to him that most did not know a war was brewing and they could be collateral damage in a blink of the eye. He also met another Fianna kin, a strange little kin. A monkey kin not like other monkey kin.
Maybe he should use their given names. Yeah and give the Spider Bitch Queen even more power. Not all too likely.
But with the howl starting to give way, the sound moving to quiet. He becomes unnerved. His body no longer waiting, padding. He can feel it in his skin, they wait far too long. He can feel it, the howl was a call to them. And now they have lost the moment.
[Bone-Grinder] Simon waits until an appropriate distance has been made between them and Winston before moving to follow in the direction of the creature's scent. His keen nose searches for the scent of the wolf when he manages to disappear. He pauses to look once back at the others. Nothing needed to be said, he was following behind the New Moon as was promised.
He perked his ears when Harmony chimes up and he files the information away. This might very well be a funeral... In which case they might not be invited, and yet they were invited. If these were, in fact, Garou letting out such a howl then they knew full well what they were doing by unleashing that howl. They knew others would hear and they knew others would come. Inversely if they were the enemy they would still know exactly the same. There was little difference in the overall knowledge what differed was how the situation would need to be handled.
Right now Winston was his largest concern. The slightest hint of a peep from the wolf and Simon would be off. It was the deal they made. You scout ahead and we get your back. That and keeping his ears peeled for any unusual sounds. So for the most part the wolf appeared silent and focused and tensed.
Silence was good. It allowed the Full Moon the opportunity to not only breathe in the scents in the air but to draw in the sounds.
[Sorrow] "Not like they're mourning, not precisely." This is why she lingers in her human skin. The promise of complex thought, the shifting association of words, language, a skin around her framed thoughts. "Just remembering, something lost, long past, the ache that lingers after grief has gone, the hollow underneath the skin."
The woman's gaze is fixed on the horizon, the dark trees still against the shadows.
She looks sidelong at Fire Claws, then Harmony. "Let's go."
- and then she is leaning forward as if she intended to roll down the hill. Instead, the Skald changes, her body rippling outward and then inward, all the way down to her fleet lupus form. Soft footed on the wiry grass of the slope, she pads down toward the border of the trees, in the wake of the ragabash and shadow lord. Tail is straight, her ears are returned forward. Under the moon, her fur shines with good health, her now amber-eyes are bright with it.
[Dreams in Summer Snow] When the howl dies away Harmony straightens, shattered out of whatever reverie he might have been entering, and his shaggy Hispo head nods once to Kora once she gives voice to what she heard in the song. She put it better than he could have - then again, she's a Galliard, and expressing such sentiments is part of the role of her Auspice.
As Sorrow's form ripples and rolls down into something four-footed and lupine, Harmony pads after her and Fire-claws. He has some of the same readiness about him that Simon does, though it isn't because he's preparing to leap into combat at the first sign of dismay from Barks-Secrets; he's prepared to go after him with healing hands if need be. Harmony has never drawn much of a differentiation between his pack mates, those close to him, and other Garou who just happened to be around in need of help.
He keeps his eyes on the horizon, and he keeps watch on the others to make sure they're all together.
[Calamity] The Four Garou come trailing in Winston's wake, drawing across the landscape even as the cloud's above seem to...thicken. The darkness is not as oppressive as it could be. Should, probably be. The Garou find little effort in tracking Winston's trail, both his scent and the vague impressions of clawed toes digging the dirt, barely recognizable unless you knew who and what you were looking for.
The four are moving for no more than two dozen yards, a quarter of the way to the Treeline, when something begins to bulge and finally emerge from the Treeline itself:
He is massive. Glabro is the sprout of hair along bare forearms and bestial flush of features is any indication (jutting jaw, sloped brow, bushy brows) and a thick mane of brown hair, tangled up in thick dreaded curtains that fall around face and over shoulders and back. The vest at his shoulders and chest is barely large enough to contain the impressive girth that stretches him well broad, both to the side and out front in the form of a considerable belly.
His gait is slow and easy, lumbering almost yet the strength with each step...in the way he carries the massive double-headed Axe, who's head is as large as a Crinos' torso, as well as the slung over Hispo shape of the Ragabash, dangling at his shoulder by the nape of Winston's scruffy neck...tells stories of cracking mountains, damming rivers.
He marches through the woodland, pushing trees aside like saplings; they crumble in his wake, inviting a hollow into the darkness of the treeline itself, ignored for the most part by the broad monstrosity that marches forward to meet the Four Garou. It's only as they draw to within twenty yards of one another, that he Stops and, Winston still dangling, hoists the Ragabash forward to hang in the air and shake about rather unceremoniously.
"This Shit~Seed belong to you lot then?"
And whump! Winston is dropped from his grasp to land on his feet or ass, whichever the Ragabash seemed more capable with.
[Sorrow] Int + Rituals!
to Calamity
[Barks Secrets] Winston may as well be a slain boar for all intents and purposes in setting this scene.
He rides into view on the shoulder of this gigantic Glabro of a man (and that says something, that the Glabro is carrying the Hispo like a sack of potatoes), limp with zero fight in him, but the sound of his labored wheezing is the next loudest thing to this mountain man's approach itself. It's been bothering the giant's ear, but rest assured that was the only thing to. The instant he had been picked up, he went limp, his tail curled between his legs, and he was silent.
You know, he was thinking,[/i] paper trees aren't so bad. You could re-use the leaves. And if I could breathe, this ride wouldn't be so bad either. I don't have to walk.[/i]
Then there was the rumble of a voice in his side, and he was thrown down onto the ground. His feet may normally find ground first, but he was still playing himself as the cowering, submissive Shit-Seed that he was, so rather he hit on his side, which was, as a matter of fact, a terrible idea.
There's a yowlp of pain, the oversized wolf beast squirms, then rolls up into a sit. His sides shiver and quake, his tongue lolls out and his jaws stretch wide, and there's a hanging couple of seconds where he's simply not breathing. Then, punctuating the silence and shifting it to obnoxious staccato bursts of sound, he hacked and coughed and wheezed as though he may literally dislodge a lung.
He must make his pack proud.
[Bone-Grinder] Simon couldn't help but growl at the creature as it drops Winston on the floor. It was the one who brought them all the way out here... if it didn't wish to be bothered it shouldn't have made use of a gift it knew would carry for miles. It asked folks to join it and since Winston was lying in a heap on the floor at the moment it implied to him that the beast was here for a fight and he would be more than happy to oblige.
He could see the creature was talented and capable perhaps even a full moon in his own right but it honestly didn't matter if the beast was an elder. Garou's strength came in numbers... He stood alone therefore it mattered little how talented or skilled he might be he was at the disadvantage. The thing was more than happy to fight... Which was funny because this full moon was as well.
[ws]"Stand down... Or step up..."The Full moon gave that simple warning. If you're here to fight then let's fucking get to it. But he wasn't going to negotiate this was either a Parlay or it was a battle and by his stance the Full Moon showed that he was fully ready to back up his words. The intruder had already harmed one of their own and Simon wasn't about to let the thing so much as move without having to pay dearly for every step he gets past that point unless of course... He can show he is not their enemy.
[Sorrow]
to Calamity
[Calamity] ...Something begins to nudge at the back of Kora's mind as this walking mountain stirs itself into place before the assembled Garou. A nagging sensation that is at once familiar and alarmingly out of place. A voice creeps into her immediate mental state, housing itself amongst her thoughts like some errant intruder.
to Sorrow
[Dreams in Summer Snow] Harmony's first reaction is concern for Winston: fear that this massive, primitive looking creature hurt him somehow before bringing him back. The moment he drops the Bone Gnawer to the ground, though, Harmony's fears are laid aside even if he feels a sharp spike of indignation on the Ragabash's behalf when the stranger insults him.
That's when he notices the glyphs inked across the man's skin. The dark hazel eyes of his Hispo form squint, the way a human's might, as he tries to make out the symbols and suss out what they're for. But all he can make out are a few words, and those few words in conjunction alarm him a little. Not enough to convince him that the man is some sort of enemy, but enough that he is immediately a touch wary.
They're the marks of an old ritual, something hazy that he wasn't sure was used any longer. He has no way to communicate this to the others without the man overhearing, but he tries to catch Kora's eyes and direct them to the symbols scrawled across the stranger's chest.
[Fire-Claws] He moves in line with Sorrow, his pelt already starting to take on the winter coat as the northern frost was rolling in on Chicago. He was ready for the cold and it was starting to show. And his pelt was not as beautiful as Kora's with the impurities in color, but still quite heathy nonetheless.
As he moved with grace and agility that one could only expect from the nature born.
He moves into file with the others, his Jarl being his lead, not the shadow lord he seemed to think himself a worthwhile warrior on par with a Fenrir Jarl. He watches in response to the monster of a garou who seems to handle the no moon with little ease, even as Winston is in his hispo form. Watching him cower and act like a dog more than a wolf.
He moves besides his Jarl once more now as the Glabro creature seems to stand before them, brown eyes take in the creature and through the hair along his arms and neck he can see something. Something he tries quite hard to understand, to remember. Something he should know, but doesn't.
He growls at Bone-Grinder as he barks commands to this one. He didn't kill Winston and for all they know, they were intruding on a special rite. Or a solemn one. But he does not stop there, his body nudging up against his Jarl, taking the risk of her possible reprisial. A cuff to the Glabro form, and the Glyphs along the bare skin of the monster. Maybe she might recognize them. He does not speak however. He leaves communication to the Skald of the group.
[Sorrow] Sorrow snaps at the air as Simon starts to growl, just once, a subtle suggestion that he hold back, that he stay his rage. Both Harmony and Fire-Claws work to draw her attention to the glyphs on the warrior's chest, and she huffs ou a faint breath, a hint of negation there. The Skald does not see what they do not, not even on a second look.
Still for another half-secnd, she watches the stranger, dwarfed by the pair in their hispo forms. Then, she changes form again, matching him Glabro for Glabro, her lean frame bulked with layers of muscle, her brow sloped, her jaw squared, the protoclaws tipping the fingers of her now blunt, strong hands. Her clothing remains, stretched and strained, bound together with spirit to fit, but her hair is uncoiled, loose again.
A glance down at Simon, then Winston. Briefly, her brow furrows - she tilts her head as if hearing a different note, a still-older sng, then glance up at the other Glabro, affirming, "He's ours. And you are on the edge of our lands, stranger. Who are you, and why have you come hunting here?"
[Calamity] "Oh Aye, then?"
Loud. Thunderous, even, the mountain in Glabro turns toward Simon with the glaringly enthused offer of challenge. The massive Axe, thuds into the ground beside him, without a backward glance from the Mountain of muscle and power who spreads his legs wide and assumes a bowed wrestler's stance. He faces off in Simon's direction, a broad grin lighting his features, thick brown mane of matted hair falling over part of his face.
"I ain't one to go movin' off a Fight, Boy." A pause, shifting slightly, grunting with the exertion of the position. It isn't until Sorrow pipes in, that the fellow's bushy brow rises and a brief moment of consideration, almost forgetful really, for duty creeps into his features. He clears his throat, frowning obviously before righting himself again.
"Your lands than, girl?" He turns to look past their shoulders, frown all but banishing his eyes beneath those bushy eyebrows, a negligent hand waving at the distant landscape behind him. "Ain't see nothing but open realm, s'far as I can tell. Gaias bounty 'yond your mention."
And oddities continuing, the large fellow is correct, as the Garou might glance back the way they had come and see behind them nothing of Chicago's skyscrapers or horizon. Not even the glare of Weaver blessed illumination. Simply the roiling thickness of overcast skies and pungent clouds. What was there when they were upon that hill is now no longer. As if they'd stepped from the familiar tread of one world and found themselves in another.
"...But that don't excuse an introduction missing does it?" He chortles deeply and slaps a hand against his chest, body seeming to take that cue to shrink down into Homid, his height diminishing to just under seven feet, thick ropy muscles and thinned hair given him an aging look. Not quite grandfatherly, but certainly middle-aged in the crow's feet and haggard sag of cheeks and belly.
"Roaring~Calamity, Adren-..." A pause, a frown almost of...confusion...scratching through his thick tangled hair. "...Aye, Fostern" That frown deepens seem, a shadow cast over his eyes "...Fostern Fianna Ahroun to Gaia. Mighty be Klah'thil, Black~Clover-" He hefts the Axe at his side once more, a broad grin flashing his features once again, crushing the brief moment of confusion and sadness "=borne since my firsting and shatterer of the Wrack Laughing..."
He pauses and then nods firmly, turning eyes on Kora, that grin no less feral and fierce. Pleased even.
[Sorrow] "This moment bares a striking similarity to Wreathes~Frost~in~Red, a Lupus of our tribe bent to Ragnarok and back in clapping his jaws at any perceived threat or challenge to come. Nary a word, not a phrase could stay his snapping teeth from finding throats...easily understood when his end came spitted on some Fang's klaive for such impertinence."
to Sorrow
[Barks Secrets] The hacking is spoken over, ignored for the most part. He's a Metis, this is his burden for it, perhaps they've been around to see and hear it before, perhaps they know that he'll recover. Perhaps they just don't give a damn. It doesn't matter, because with a final disgusting chrrrrruck! a healthy wad of blood hits the ground and he pushes himself up into a more proper sit, hunched down so his head hangs between his massive shoulders.
His tongue hangs from his mouth, stained red with blood, and his breath whistles in a way that suggests he could really use an inhaler right about now.
Shit-Seed learned his place.
He keeps his damn trap shut.
[Bone-Grinder] You see this is where Simon did not feel the same as his peers. The Burden of proof lay in the hands of the intruder. They are in a time of war... If this man who just attacked Winston was not an enemy then he was already doing much to imply to them otherwise. Tonight was the full moon and Simon was a Full moon... This meant that he honestly didn't give a flying fuck who this asshole was or how good he was if it got pushed he and Simon would find out who, in fact, was the superior Warrior. So when the others growl Simon growls back...
He wasn't going to pussy foot around nor was he going to kiss ass. This man has attacked a member of their sept and is already walking on thin ice. The honest fact was that he had already been shown an incredible amount of lenience by the fact he wasn't attacked on sight for what he's done to Winston.
[ws]"Winston get away." Simon says to Winston after an introduction is finally offered. His own focus, however, remains on the other man. The one claiming to be a Fianna. Fine he would let the man talk to the others, but he would not take his eyes off the stranger till he was certain it was safe.
[Dreams in Summer Snow] Roaring Calamity makes to introduce himself, and his bulk seems to shrink and draw into itself a bit as he assumes his Homid form. Harmony is, perhaps, a touch reassured: though things have the potential to sour here, they haven't yet. It would hardly be courteous (and probably a little threatening) should he remain in a dire wolf's shape here, so he too takes a moment, his fur and muzzle receding, his legs lengthening, as he takes his Homid form as well.
Few here have actually seen him in his Homid form, even though it's the form of his birth; when he's met most of these Garou it's been for some battle or other and he's come wearing a war form. When he's been at moots, he's been wearing a war form. When they see him it's clear why: he looks very young. No older than fifteen, just beginning to go through his last growth spurt, just beginning to fill out his frame. His hair, a light brown, is styled into the swirled bowl cut that is popular with teenage boys at the moment, and he's dressed in jeans and a polo in spite of the cold.
He smiles at Roaring-Calamity, even though he can make out the glyphs a bit more clearly now. Even though he's a touch alarmed by them (or perhaps by the idea of what the other Garou must have done in order to have lost rank this way.) Is he a Charach? Is he a coward? Harmony isn't sure. Until his eyes light on the glyph under his chin, and his brows furrow, and he can't help the look of compassion that comes into his eyes.
This Garou was a proud warrior, once. That look might be distinctly unwelcome, but Harmony can't help it.
"Hello," he says, once the Fianna has given his greeting. "Dreams in Summer Snow, Cliath Child of Gaia." He glances once more toward Kora, wanting to whisper and tell her what he's seen, but it would be decidedly rude. Harmony is looking toward the old Garou with respect, now.
[Fire-Claws] He turns behind him and sees the rolling hills of nothingness. The serene beauty of the natural world without the tant of the weaver anywhere to be found. But the spirit world was a strange place, it could leave you anywhere it wanted. Direction meant little when the normal laws of the mundane meant just as little.
They could be in the homeland of the Fianna right now, of in some isolated pocket of the umbra. They could have fallen into some old realm of war. He tries to get a feeling of where they are. The smell of the land, the feel of the Sept they knew. But nothing. The scab and its stench was minimal at best, and only because it clung to them. This was not their territory anymore. This was not their land. He growls to Bone-Grinder again.
{ws}
"He's right. Not at Sept no longer. His words ring true."
He continues to look at the Glyphs. Wondering. But he was no fallen one. He spoke true. Looking to his Jarl first before speaking. He speaks his own introduction.
{ws}
"Known as Fire-Claws, forseti cliath. Born of Stone-Skin, Adren Modi of the Sept of Hidden Smoke. Pledged to the Sept of Maelstrom. Are these your lands?"
[Sorrow] Our hunting ground," Kora begins to affirm with a wry look made feral by her choice of skins. "Chicago - the city - " Then she glances over her shoulder and finds the city gone, the weaver-wrapped skyscrapers disappeared against the horizon. Arms crossed over her torso, she turns back to him, her head aslant, the usual sharpness to her attention somewhat diminished, distracted by some internal music, subtle enough that these Garou - none of whom know her well - are unlikely to notice.
The stranger returns to his homid form, and in this, too, Kora matches him. In a tribe of giants, she has learned the trick of looking up without seeming to be diminished, and she does that now, her chin high, her dark eyes level, her arms still crossed over her torso. Blonde hair loose, curling down over her shoulders, shining in the moonlight, gleaming with the promise of health.
" - we heard your howl from our lands, though we knew your wood did not belong in our city. I am she who offers sorrow, cliath Skald and daughter of great Fenris, fostered at the Sept of Wind and Rain in Hjaltland, pledged to the Sept of Maelstrom, the spirit reborn in Chicago seven winters past, Alpha of my pack and Jarl of my tribe in the Chicago protectorate."
"That," a glance at Simon, " - is Bone-Grinder, full-moon born like you. Your Shit-Seed is our Barks-Secrets. I heard your howl from my pack's territory in the city, followed it to the edge of this wood-that-should-not-be.
"And here we are."
[Calamity] "Hahaha, knew me a Hippy once-" The grin broadens again, the axe settling back into the groove it had created a moment ago, while the broad Fianna turns to regard Harmony to the exclusion of all others. His hands lift and gesture in the air, with all the tender grace and effortlessly a stonemason might possess for the newborn he holds.
"Fond and lovely girl, by the name a Gwen. Given over to all sorts'a mad dashin' 'n dancin' 'bout. Skirts always half an inch shy of showin' yah just what'cha want'd to see. Had the boys 'round the fires trippin' over their own tongues most nights while she played some sort a-" A gruff furrow of the brow, scratching chin, followed by the bright smile of remembrance "-A viola. Aye, was a Viola. Would dance 'n skip with her viola twiddlin' 'n fiddling and..."
He strings an imaginary viola by his chin, eyes closing and body swaying slightly with some imaginary tune that falls from his lips, an approximation both rough and roughshod at best. It lasts for a few long seconds, before his features fall away in a memory's smile, eyes falling to the ground briefly, hands falling away.
"...Fuckin' bastards came into tha' camp one night. Gwen went to her grave spittin' three of the fuckers under her breath 'n claws." He's nodding, eyes flicking back and forth, solemnity climbing his face.
"Was a Good Lass, she was, she was..."
His head lifts back to the moment. The present. Turning then to regard Kora and the rest, perhaps for the first time. He snorts and chuffs loudly, shaking his head with the flap of thick cheeks.
"Aye, aye. Fine names, all." He nods again, brow furrowing once more even as the mighty Klah'thil is tipped into his fingers with little more then a brief flicker of those digits on it's haft. He breathes in deeply and nods once, firmly down at the Cliaths.
"Younglings, the lot of you...." The grin flashes again. Broad and as excited as ever.
"Come then to join me in the Hunt? Aye, knew they wouldn't let me down. Well, don't any of you worry none-" He wags a telling finger at the lot of them "-We've found us a quarry alright. Full 'n wrymsome and deadly to boot, Aye! it'll be a fight that piss-sopping son of a hydra knew, it will!"
And he turns with the heft of a mighty limb, beckoning them on in his wake, marching off toward the East, following a parallel course to the Treeline he'd emerged with Winston, from.
[Barks Secrets] His airway would relax as far as it ever would after some time, the whistling and wheezing quieted while the collective of Cliaths listened to this man marked with runes's story. He suggested they help him in his hunt, spun about, and went to lead them back into the forest of cardboard and paper trees.
The Ragabash wheezed, coughed, and growled quietly as he stood up.
Note, though, that he stands, but does not move to follow after.
"I want a Theurge."
This is said like a guilty man saying that he wants a lawyer.
[Sorrow] As the Fianna begins to turn off toward the east, Kora calls out in his wake, " - you knew who wouldn't let you down?"
[Calamity] A bright laugh erupts as the Mountainous Calamirty continues marching.
"The Sept, Girl! The Sept!"
[Dreams in Summer Snow] It's as he turns that Harmony leans in to whisper to Kora. "He's under the Rite of the Winter Wolf," he says to her.
[Bone-Grinder] Simon simply watched though he did not his head in acknowledgement when he is introduced to the man. He keeps himself quiet and silent as he watches and listens. It isn't until Harmony speaks up that is attention is pulled towards him and then back towards the man. Under the rite of the Winter Wolf? Where is his pack then? SHould they not be tending to him?
[Bone-Grinder] [ws]"Where is your pack? Why are they not with you?"This was a solemn and an important ritual indeed it was important to see it through... If it was this mans time to die and no one was around to see it through then it was their responsibility to see it through.
[Calamity] "...Lot of 'em Died, Lad! Now hurry up! Wyrm to be Killin' 'n yer all Lollygaggin' about like a bunch of flower fuckin' fairies!"
[Dreams in Summer Snow] Harmony looks after the old Garou, and it's clear that he wants to follow him. It's also clear to him that the aid that he'd hoped for from his Sept has not come; they left him to go and hunt alone. To die because they believe him to be useless now. Maybe it will come. Harmony hopes, but it isn't for Calamity's sake that he does. He just doesn't want to believe that the Sept, any Sept, would abandon this once-Athro no matter his faded glory.
"We should go with him," he says quietly to the others. "This kind of judgment...it's wrong, and it's short-sighted of those that passed it."
[Fire-Claws] He almost begins to pad off at the potential hutn offered to them. He could feel the rage start to boil in him, already overtaking his willpower as the beast rides to the surface. The full face of Luna now beating down on him more than it did before.
But hearing the confession that Dreams offers up. He turns to the Child of Gaia wth a quizzical look. As if he was unsure of it, his instinct telling him to go and kill and enjoy the glory that is too come. But there is the fact that this one, once lost his glory, his rank. His honor and name. To be apart of such a rite, it is indeed noble. He sits down and snaps at Harmony. Growling.
{ws}
"NO. Do not rob him of his proper glory. His name. His last rite."
He would have sat down, but not now. He is growling at the Child of Gaia. What do they know of a good death. Of a proper honor, of great glory.
[Sorrow] "It's not a sentence of death," Sorrow corrects Harmony quietly, with the confidence of a true believer - already moving in the stranger's wake. "It's a rite he performed himself, a death he chose for himself, when he felt it proper."
With a brief, winging glance at Harmony, Sorrow taks off in the Fianna's wake, following in his footsteps. "My Septmate tells me you have performed the Rite of the Winter Wolf. We will be honored to hunt with you, stand with you, and sing your deeds when the Rite is completed. Tell me your stories as we hunt - "
[Calamity] (Uh oh. Rage roll.)
[Calamity] The Monster of a creature is humming something, uplifting and bright as he marches forward...
...and as the others pull forward into his wake, a small ways behind him they watch the landscape seem to shift and alter to the whims...no, not the whims but the necessity of this moment. The paper forest, a two dimensional nothing, spiritless and unfettered, seems to warp and flow into the darkness that exists between until it is an inky haze behind them and slowly swallowing the forestry itself. This odd transformation seems to eat up the ground behind them, not swiftly but steadily, pulling in the wake of the mountainous Fianna.
As he marches forward, the landscape seems to alter and shift, almost imperceptibly, until it looks as if he is marching across rocky turf and terrain, slowing his gait to make sure his steps are more certain and sure. Then, almost at once, unbelievably even, the Garou find themselves scrambling around on rock, the landscape to their left and right a mountain range diorama that looks more like some movie backdrop than a true sight to behold.
Roaring~Calamity, huffs and puffs, Black~Clover bouncing about in his hands as he climbs his way towards the dip in the wall of rock ahead, where stands a plateau waiting to overlook...something...
...Then-
My septmate tells me you have performed the Rite of the Winter Wolf-
"What?!" He wheels, the flush of anger like a gavel hammering the mountain rock, chips and slate peeling down the walk to bounce among their legs and teeth, as the Rage plumes and follows. He stares with feral eyes, restrained fury, the axe hefting to point down at them.
"So they told you then? Sent you along behind me to watch? To chastise as well? Sent you with more of those lies! Like I was the one to betray!?!"
Plumes of white mist begin to seep from his nostrils and words, as the chill air of the mountains creeps into the scene, the last marker of their scenic shift. Still he stares, froth gathering at the corners of his mouth.
"It weren't me, ya little Bitch!" He slaps his chest with his free hand. "They died in battle! Died as heroes! Blood and bold and true, each one! Melody! Thomas! Feral! Winch-"
And he freezes, Pauses. Frowns again, ferociously still.
"Winch...and...and..." And that hand comes up to slap his head. Trying to dislodge a memory.
"Winch and...and..." And something begins to crumble under that veneer. Creeps in-
-Something in the valley beyond. A dozen more yards of climbing, a sound erupts from over the wall of rock. A chittering thing. A vicious and ugly thing and Calamity is snapping his head around as if his eyes could find that sound.
"Aye...Aye you're there...You're there..." And the axe hefts, a growl escaping his lips.
"The Wyrm is come! No more words! None of it! It's time, Lads! Time for War! Time for Glory!"
And he continues marching. Up those slopes. Slowly. Almost...desperately.
[Barks Secrets] Winston didn't move to follow after the marching Fianna. Rather, he listened and gathered information it was a pile of precious dollar bills all crumpled up and floating away on the breeze. The Rite of the Winter Wolf, one wants to go help and another snaps, telling them no, to let him have his glory. Winston agreed with the Wolf, and flinched when the Skald, the leader of the Blind Muscle Tribe, rolls forward and offers help on his last quest.
There's a snap of Rage in the air, and Winston's body hunkers down against the shifted scenery of rock (which his claws had struggled to find purchase on, but managed somehow anyways) when the Fianna bears down upon the Get of Fenris, and he wheezes audibly from stress.
The Fianna seems to press through his Rage without tearing the intestines from any bellies, loses his train of thought, then declares that war is on and starts marching again. Winston stares after for a few seconds, then shakes out his pelt in a wolfish translation of the human gesture of clapping dust off your hands.
"Well, he's crazy and that's not in my jurisdiction."
And with that said, the Metis simply turned and started walking(climbing, struggling) in the opposite direction of the old wolf on his last journey.
[Bone-Grinder] He keeps close, he keeps watch. The wolf showed signs... He showed why the rite had been performed and why it even existed. This was the reason for this ritual, and any warrior could understand and relate to it. it mattered not how able bodies a Full Moon was... Or anyone for that matter. Thangs happen to a Garou, mind or body, that cannot be undone. Sometimes a person reaches a breaking point from which there is no recovery and the only thing left is to alieviate ones peers of their suffering.
Do not suffer thy people, tend to thy sickness
He was Garou. He had fought, he had slain an untold number of their enemies. He stood there with strength, determination and honor and Simon found himself respecting that much. The full moon kept up with the Full Moon. This was an Honor, this was his Honor! This was his night to stand and to shine. This was his night to let loose his fury and in a final surge of unmitigated fury teach the minions of the wyrm a lesson they would not soon forget and they... They would be a part of his final moments. The final breaths of a hero as he falls this night in battle. They would bear witness and they would take part(If doing so were not a suicidal act).
The wolf wins every fight but his last and then... He dies.
This was this warriors final battle and Simon stood ready to see him earn his final little scrap of honor. For all he had sacrificed at the very least they would come to the next mood with their heads held high and deliver to the sept the story of the final moments of this brave warrior.
Simon had been the most apprehensive but Simon was also a Full Moon and he understood the importance of this ritual. The man wished to die while he was still himself, while he could still stand on his own two feet. They would see it through... Either the Wyrm would kill him this night. Or they would emerge triumphant and then in those final moments Simon would personally see the ritual through to completion. Whatever the case this warrior would have his final battle and he would kill anyone who would dare stand in the way of that!
[Dreams in Summer Snow] Even Harmony almost quails from the force of the Ahroun's Rage when he spins to face all of them and howls about his dead packmates. The grimace that had been threatening to form when Kora mentioned the rite actualizes, and he looks between the Jarl and the once-Athro, trying to come up with what words he can to placate, to quell.
Whatever happened, Calamity clearly can't remember much of it. He's older: perhaps something has driven that memory out of him, perhaps it's just an effect of age. Maybe he did kill his packmates. Still, watching him, hearing that note of desperation in his voice, makes Harmony's heart ache and he can't shake the feeling that it's wrong to let him wander off to die alone.
Calamity marches off. Harmony looks once toward she who offers sorrow and then starts after him. At the very least, he wants to be there.
[Fire-Claws] He listens intently to what the monsterous fianna has to say. The monkey jibber-jabber spews forth in verbla diarrhea. These monkeys could talk for hours and never seem to say one thing worth while. Half of his words a mixture of confusion and others lies. He can feel it in his bone, his muzzle.
He watches as the Fianna begins to storm off to war, to kill the creature before him. He sits nearly sits down and watches. The wolf was strange, confused. Maybe the loss of his pack had ruined his mind. Maybe he was just that far gone, disgraced. This would be his final battle. His good death.
He sits first. Watching. Waiting. He would pounce in if anyone tried to stop him from his good death. But he would not. He would wait until it was done. Until the Fianna engaged in battle. And then....
He would howl. A howl that one who goes to face a good death deserves. A howl of lost and glory and honor and righteousness. A howl of pain from a lost warrior and joy that he found the courage to face his final battle with honor and pride. A howl all too similar to the one that brought them there.
[Sorrow] Sorrow stands her ground against the snap of the Fianna's rage, the hot spike of it that seems to warp the air around the Fianna - something about her body language, though, suggests that she's readying herself to dive out of the swinging arc of that great axe should it ever come down to it. Her attention remains on his face as he begins to protest his innocence, the deeds of the dead, their names,
- Melody, Thomas. Feral - Winch.
"Gwen?" she supplies, as they are moving again, prodding him to remember even as he marches to forget.
They are climbing, though - heading toward a final fight, and she has left her softest human skin behind as they go, scrambling up the now rocky slopes in the wake of the adren, her tail high and her eyes - bright, but sometimes distant, distrated by memory that drifts in and out of focus as the Fianna's does. In the sharp morning air she follows to the final fight.
This is not a spectator sport for her. When he fights, she fights alongside him, tearing into the wyrm as if they were pack, fighting in his wake, letting him remember not just the glory of his deeds, the bright burst of rage moving through his veins, but the feeling of fighting with a pack, like the pack-animal he is. Feinting to avoid blows as much as she deals them, swift, light-footed, until the death blow comes to him, as it must.
And she fights so that she will remember this; each blow, his great, hefted swing of his massive axe, the whine of the blade through the sharp air, its shuddering impact on the carapace of his enemy -
- and when it is over, if it so ends, then she will howl.
Welcome to the Scene folks. My Name's Harv, I'll be your ST for the evening, which is Chinese for 'this is my do not fuck with face'. In all honesty, I'm not envisioning anything thoroughly violent happening tonight but given how a lot of these things are dependent on Character responses and interactions the possibility still exists SO...this scene is marked as a Skull 'n Bones to cover that eventuality.
The following rules will be in place throughout the scene:
1) One Post at a time, following the Room Order. Let's see if we can keep posts to a maximum of fifteen minutes per person, though that isn't a hard set time limit. If, for some IC reason, you feel the need to interject outside of the Posting order (I.E - Asked a pertinent question that needs an immediate answer etc.) than try to keep the response to a sentence so as not to drag on and muddle up the process. I may also be asking for a post or a pause here or there to catch up with folks or drop my own PMs and posts intermittently but that's my dispersion and you will be notified prior to the post.
2) Pay attention to the Chat. That goes for all of us, me as well. Any queries or questions that you wish to ask can be ventured there. If you have a private question or seek some knowledge specifically for your character, feel free to IM me. All of these are valid methods. Try to avoid PM'ing in the chat please, except if I ask you specifically for a roll in PM.
3) This scene is classified as a Moral Question. This means that dice rolls are Not the defining factor nor should they be considered the answer to a question.
4) Express, Expound and Enjoy and hopefully we can finish this out at a decent hour heh.
I'll be posting an Intro to get everyone together momentarily.)
[Calamity] Convergences.
The circumstance under which, parties not normally associated with one another through time, experience or relationship, come together to perform an act or event not otherwise planned, performed or practiced, leading toward a Goal of considerable weight, value and meaning.
The invisible threads connecting previously unconnected persons and places, achieving a fundamental change or alteration.
A subject of Fate and/or Destiny.
Thursdays in the Garou Nation.
* * * * *
There is a humidity in the air, a vague threat of rain in overcast skies that have long held that clutch in Chicago. Dreariness and gunmetal are a fond pair within the skies of the Cityscape and the Garou of Maelstrom's Sept know well the hardships, tensions and stress that comes with being part of this protectorate. One almost has to relinquish and let go of that sense of normalcy and comfort that might interject in the life of a Garou, because here there is no reprieve.
Every moment is a demand for more. Every second, a potential for sacrifice. Thus, grim resolution and stoicism are considered a Pride. Weathering and Endurance, a source of Solace. One does not bellow or scream defiance here, they stare and stand. Stare and Stand.
Each of those gathered today has been brought to the outskirts of Town for varying reasons:
The Metis with Secrets, the Lupus in service to Great Fenris, the Daughter of the Wolf~Lord and the Young Law~bringer of the Peace Tribe can feel him in the distance. An ache that defines the heart, gives formula to the ribs and flushes into the stomach with profound discomfort. The tug and pull draws from several parts of the landscape of Chicago and yet each arrives within minutes of each other, perhaps even seconds. From various parts of the city, they come, rushing on two legs or four.
The Call itself is something of distress. Or...triumph? It isn't entirely clear just what it is, but within it, is housed something further than the Garou lungs are capable of. More and brittle all at once. A Terrifying clarion rich with the stuff Terror dreams of each night. It skates the aether and tugs on the umbral travelers, each caught within the spirit world, and draws them to this:
A Hillside. Spotty grass over hard packed dirt, leading down a gradual and infantile hill into a broad and inky plain, which comes to an end in the glaringly inaccurate stretch of dark woods that...does not belong on Chicago's edge. Not here, according to any map looked up in the physical. Yet there it stands, a half mile distant.
The moonless sky provides little respite, no matter the threat of it's Fullness, yet the open terrain before them houses little cover or promise of threat, still...
The dark, the open and a Baleful Howl in the winds above is enough to still any but the greatest of fools from simply charging out alone to explore.
[Barks Secrets] This Metis had a job these days. A pack,a totem to please. It was an unfamiliar sensation for him. Certainly he'd been a part of a pack more than once before, but these were short lived occurrences without any strong bonds forged, and it had been quite some time sine he'd felt the pressure to please a Totem spirit (beyond Rat, of course). It wasn't that he cared particularly for the Silver Fang or the Black Fury, but they fed the totem, and the totem gave him more strength, more air in his lungs and more sureness to his step. His thoughts were clearer, his eyes were sharper... hell, he was pretty sure that even his skin was less dry and his hair less oily (that, of course, was an illusion).
So he was in the Umbra staking out, keeping an eye on what could easily become a festering Wyrmhole within the city if given a chance, waiting for the chance to give his pack a stab at some Glory, to give themselves a name and to give Momentum a little more of a shove so it rolled faster and happier with them. The night had been dull, drab, and Winston was ready to put his tail over his nose and take a nap when a chill cut through his spine and seeped into his chest. His breath wheezed noisily, he stared at the horizon, and the chill tugged him toward the city's boundaries.
Not one to argue with the Spirit or the Wolf, he went.
Surely enough, others had felt the call as well. Winston stalked on all fours in his birth form, a tall, long, Crinos made of sinew and patchy brown fur, with ridiculously long fingers and toes and ears that tended to flop. Sickly muddy yellow-brown eyes hopped from wolf to wolf, those nearer and those still coming up the horizon. He stopped to squat a couple dozen yards from the foot of the hill, scratched at his lower abdomen with wicked black claws, and spoke in a way that seemed drawling and lazy even in the mostly guttural language of the Garou.
"You all felt it too, huh?"
[Sorrow] Int + Expression
to Calamity
[Bone-Grinder] Simon was here. Dark clothing covered his arms, legs, and feet, and a bandanna was worn around his neck, tied tightly enough to be pulled up to obscure the features of his face. It fit him well, what he might identify as the "Urban Ninja" look others would just identify as the "Burgler" look. His nostrils flared at the air the second he heard the howl...
Garou sometimes missed the importance of their senses, sense of smell in particular, relying all too often on their sight without ever realizing how important a keen sense of smell is to a wolf. It was a tool that led them to their prey and warned them of dangers. You might not always see an individual but their scent lingers in the air long after they are gone like a memory left behind for others to glimpse provided they know how.
He stood fast without making the slightest hint of a motion. His eyes scanned the darkness as he drew in the scents and sounds around him. There was an air of seriousness surrounding the Full Moon as he assessed the situation to the best of his ability. Death was an all too real reality for their kind, so each and every step made must be made cautiously.
"Naw... I was just standing around staring ominously into the darkness. It's a Shadow Lord thing."He finally says as a smile takes shape on his face. His eyes slip towards Winston and then back to the Woods."Not a good place to be... I don't like it. Walking into someone or something else's territory... Without prior knowledge of the area."He says this with a little shrug of his shoulders. He was a Full Moon he rarely cared much for any situation he walked into. However, this one had the air of a trap surrounding it which was an even less welcome feeling.
[Dreams in Summer Snow] The routine defense of a Sept is a bit different than Harmony had imagined it would be, when he was far out in the suburbs and thought about coming to live in the city. He had imagined constant assaults and skirmishes, with suicidal fomori running headlong into the Sept, and then the brave Garou would be summoned to the defenses. He'd imagined that he'd walk outside the bawn and see corruption. In short, he'd imagined it to be more like the stories the Galliards tell, where they cut out the long periods of waiting and the parts in between where one is just left to be human.
Adamidas is out of town. She was the first person he really connected with in Chicago, and so for the first time since arriving in the city he is on his own. He's all right with that, though. He makes friends easily.
He's in his room at the Brotherhood when it calls him, watching a movie, and young though he is he isn't one to ignore his duties. So he claws his way into the Umbra and he goes, arriving at the hill not long after the Bone Gnawer. Dreams in Summer Snow emerges in Hispo, his fur glossy and thick and brown, and steps over toward the Ragabash and the Ahroun.
"Felt something, yeah."
[Fire-Claws] Four legs good....
His hunting tonight seemed to provide him little this evening. Even with Luna strong, deep into her pregnancy, his rage and howl seem to scare away any thought of a possible kill. The wyrm has feel silent this evening. The wyrm fears that which kills by a full moon, the wyrm hides back in its hives awaiting darker times.
But there are other things besides hunting to enjoy. Duty is strong, but to something is just as important. Protecting one's family, one's pack, one's tribe. To revel in the joy of a great kill, to sing of those who gaurantee a new generation, to feast and drink and live. You fight and die so that you and yours may truly live. It was instinctual, something even the monkeys could understand, some of them anyway.
His hunting pattern changes half way through his night. Hunting for a proper kill to hunting down those instincts that drive him here, outside of the scab. Away from the weaver tech and wyrm taint and their horrific offspring known as modernization, to the inky darkness he has not seen before. But he is still new to this region, this territory held many new places.
And the lupus bounds towards the hillside, following the felling in his gut. His fur a motley assortment, made mostly of grey as any proud Fenrir, mixed with red and black. Brown eyes moving in the darkness, as he gathered with the rest of them. He yips and cuffs in response to those not so naturally inclinded. The monkey born and the sin-born are not so intuned with such communication even if they feel it. They cannot truly feel it.
{ws}
"Garou. Stronger than normal natural howl. Aided by spirits. Seems it wants something away, scaring. Is is renowned more than any of us."
His eyes look around, before finally comin up on his Jarl. His attention focused on her now. Only her.
{ws}
"Seems it hunts. Found prey. Making it fearful as it should be."
[Sorrow] The note finds her umbral, in the hard packed land that is her territory, human-skinned along the banks of the river. There's that fat, full moon riding over the city now, clear and bright in the back of her mind even when she cannot see it. The world feels sharper on nights like this, more pointed, more present. The moonlight is so strong it casts shadows where the city's lights are not so bright as to drown it out. Across the river, electrical impulses gleam and sing along the twisted, knotted webs of the weaver's domain, skeining over huge, faceless skyscrapers, an oppressive tangle of soulless.
She runs through the city, underneath the humming pattern-web, the blue light gleaming in her fine gray fur. In her feral form, Sorrow appears almost adolescent - slender and alert, with soft paws and rich, amber eyes. Her scent is sharply female, though - mature, alive.
--
At the edge of the wood-that-should-not-be, Sorrow gathers with the rest of them, a sharp whuff of greeting as she circles, taking in their scents. Her tail is high as she greets Fire-Claws, before she melts out of her feral form, into her human skin.
Human, she's a young woman, likely older than all of them, but young nonetheless. Her hair is a pale blonde, touched silver, platinum in the light of a full moon, and it falls in errant coils around her head and shoulders, the usual hairbands lost with the change of forms. Her clothes are worn, practical - jeans, a long-sleeved thermal under a black t-shirt, and a pair of black shit-kickers. There are leather bracelets around her wrists, and a thin band of braided leather around her neck.
A glance at Fire-Claws, her eyes - deep blue, the color of twilight - just shadows here, except where they catch the light. "A gift," she confirms, when the lupus is done speaking. "a Galliard gift, Call of the Wyld carried the howl to us. He's using another gift to of some sort to terrify whoever he hunts. I couldn't say for certain, though."
Another look to Fire-Claws. "Can you catch a scent - or track the sound?"
[Calamity] (Skip me this round folks.)
[Barks Secrets] Shame wasn't necessarily the word behind Winston's behavior, he didn't maintain his birth form to remind everyone what he was born as, that he was a crime against the world by existence alone. Shame wasn't present even by a portion in his voice or posture, he seems to forget what he is, what with the certainty and lazy half-confidence that he kept about him. However, despite that, with all the other Garou about, even if he was over all other heads simply by being the only one in Crinos, he kept his own head ducked just a little, his shoulders and back hunched, and his tail low.
He watched blandly as all others arrived, then moved from his squatting sit to stand up fully, moving those deadly scratching claws from his lower belly up to his collarbone. It wouldn't be surprising if he had fleas. With his chest at the height of a few heads, be it the bottom of his ribs or the top, the labored wheezing was more noticeable, scraping and scratching in his chest and rattling in his throat. Ears flicked forward and out, as though he could find trace elements of the soul-sound that had drawn them all here.
"Well, it could be a trap, but don't you think they'd draw us somewhere with fewer routes of escape were that the case?" Mud-colored eyes dropped down to Kora, focused on her face, then jumped back up to the hill crest. "I can scout ahead if you need."
Not like that was his job or anything.
[Bone-Grinder] Simon takes in the information as it is fed to him and listens on his own. Every sight and sound surrounding them had some degree of importance and he did his best to read all that he could. After all... A Black Spiral Dancer was just as capable of summoning them with the call as anyone else. So it did not change his feeling that such a thing could be a trap but there was more to this.
"It's more about getting your enemy somewhere you are familiar with and have had time to prepare. A wolf who knows the woods is just as deadly as a dude trying to run you down in a truck."He says with a shrug of his shoulders. His eyes turning back towards Winston."Well we're not gonna figure anything out standing around here all evening. Scout up ahead and the rest of us will keep up behind you. You see anything you fall back to our position and let us know if something is coming, yip or hollar like you got scared... But don't let them know that you're leading them back to us."He says with a shrug."If there's something out there I'd like to hope we can get the jump on it still even if it more than likely expects us."
With that much said he looks at the others curiously. Sizing each one up before turning to look back towards the woods."That sound like a workable plan?"He asks the others to make certain they were on the same page.
[Fire-Claws] His tail wags slowly as he listens to Kora's queston. But he knows better, that was not a question of his ability, it was a command for his skill. Maybe Sparrow told her of how he hunted that stag with Rainer and Night's Reprieve, maybe it was natural for monkey born to expect if of their lupine brothers. No matter the reason, he was already on it. His nose first to the air, then to the ground, back to the air as his muscles begin to flex and tense. His answer back towards his Jarl first before evening thinking of addressing the... well...whatever Barks~in~Secrets was.
{ws}
"Have his scent. Easy to track. But rain threatens in time.
He is still curious of the other scent, but it meant little to him at this moment. However he does go back to the one that seemed to want to lead. Narrowed eyes set on the other as well, as if he knew better than his Jarl. A growl nearly escaping his lips, nearly.
to Sorrow
[Fire-Claws] His tail wags slowly as he listens to Kora's queston. But he knows better, that was not a question of his ability, it was a command for his skill. Maybe Sparrow told her of how he hunted that stag with Rainer and Night's Reprieve, maybe it was natural for monkey born to expect if of their lupine brothers. No matter the reason, he was already on it. His nose first to the air, then to the ground, back to the air as his muscles begin to flex and tense. His answer back towards his Jarl first before evening thinking of addressing the... well...whatever Barks~in~Secrets was.
{ws}
"Have his scent. Easy to track. But rain threatens in time.
He is still curious of the other scent, but it meant little to him at this moment. However he does go back to the one that seemed to want to lead. Narrowed eyes set on the other as well, as if he knew better than his Jarl. A growl nearly escaping his lips, nearly.
[Sorrow] While they talk, Sorrow pulls back her pale hair, twists it around itself, ties it out of her face, back against the nape of her neck. She's quiet, still, scanning the edge of the wood-that-should-not-be, listening to the whisper of the wind in the air, the lingering echo of the terrifying howl. "Look - " she tells them, gesturing down the hill toward the dark march of trees. " - there aren't any spirits there. Maybe they've been frightened away by the gift. Maybe it's something else - though it's hard to imagine that a Garou's howl could frighten away living spirits of trees.
"I don't want to be too far separated. You're Barks-Secrets, yeah?" This to Winston, whom she remembers only from the moots. " - scout ahead. We'll follow, down to the edge of the woods at least. Don't get too far head of us, and don't do anything especially stupid. Bring back whatever you can, and don't get caught. Go in lupus, I think. Follow the scent that Fire-Claws found into the woods, don't flail around if you lose it. Let's go."
[Dreams in Summer Snow] Harmony is not much of a tracker. He isn't much of a strategian, either: most of what he knows has been picked up on the fly in Chicago. So here, he is more than happy to defer to the Garou who are much older and more experienced with such things. Most of his time as a Garou has been spent acting as a mediator and judge, not on the battlefield.
Still in Hispo, he looks back and forth between the others as they talk about sending Barks Secrets ahead of the rest of them.
"If we end up needing a healer, I can do that," he says. "I'll keep an eye on the rest of you."
[Calamity] The Five that are that. Five and not one as a Pack should be, gather themselves together and decide. Forward...
Maelstrom's Garou are nothing if not cautious. Time, experience and circumstance have made them this way. As easily a trap, painted in their minds as anything else, if not a little easier perhaps. Does the Garou in question present them a foolhardy errand? Or is there genuine trouble afoot? Or something else entirely?
Barks~Secrets is told to move forward and do what his Auspice demands. The Garou remain on the hillside, as the Ragabash vanishes down the grassy and hard packed dirt. Soon enough he is little more than a moving shadow and eventually, the cloud cover above and the darkness of the woods beyond, he is not even that.
[Fire-Claws] He begins to pace now, the smell still lingering in his nose. This was no claith they heard howl. This was something more, something more powerful than any one of them. The rage that surrounding him was pungent, overwhelming even as far from him as they were. His fur bristles with potential. He did not think he would get a chance to hunt tonight, now he has a wonderful opportunity to hunt with his Jarl. It might not have been the best time but some reason he remembered it now and figured he should tell Kora.
{ws}
"Found Tongue-Twister. Returned weapon to her. Had words. She will see to them. Will not touch kin."
Strange things wolves come to think of. No real linear process of thought, just whatever comes to their mind at the time. But there was logic, wolf logic to it afterall. And with that he pads at the hard dirt, stil lingering over the scent that came with the garou. Scuffing up, possibly, more scents of dust and dried blood, death in its true, natural state.
[Bone-Grinder] Simon's form shifts. What was once a man standing in dark clothing is soon replaced by a wall of fur and muscle blacker than the night sky. The sound of muscle and bone popping into place as his body shifts and swells and erupts from within himself is not entirely unfamiliar to the other Garou. Soon enough the beast was standing in it's Hispo form on all fours and sniffing at the floor.
"You see anything... Lead it back to us."He once more reassures Winston. The responsibility of the New Moon was a rough one but at least it could feel safe in knowing that the other Garou would leap upon anything that brought it the tiniest hint of trouble. Simon's ear twitched and it looked about at the others and then back towards the woods. He still didn't like any of this but it was his job not to like it. It was his job to see the potential danger in anything and everything and think up how to best confront it. The life of an Ahroun was not so simple as throw oneself blindly into combat. See it as one might he knew the reality... The Ahroun not only threw himself into combat but he was also the one whose advice would either save or end the lives of his peers. Everything he said had to be carefully weighed and understood... In the end however it came down to a balancing act. Maximizing the damage inflicted against the enemy while minimizing the damage inflicted upon the Garou. A healthy 5,000:1 ratio was about the right number... Sadly it tended to be more like 5:1.
He watches Winston and the area he is about to head into curiously. In the meantime listening to Fire Claws to see if the wolf decides to make any sense. His primary interest, however, lay on his single most important role. Making certain each and every garou present here makes it to whatever they call home tonight.
[Sorrow] Here they are in the skins they were born in - the feral lupus, the human Jarl. She has a certain easily physicality, dark eyes shaded in the stillness. What a strange group is ranged here. Harmony in Hispo, who will be their healer. Kora glances at him; does that thing that humans do with their mouths and smiles. It's not a feral smile, not an intimation of threat, a show of teeth. Easy, " - thank you." she says, her voice throaty and assured.
Then, watching Winston disappear down the hill, she sinks to her haunches, balanced close to the horizon, her forearms braced against her thighs, her feet flexed in the heavy boots balanced forward on the balls of her feet. Thoughtlessly, she pushes the cuffs of her thermal up her forearms, runs the edge of her thumb over the bracelets she wears. The materials are natural, the adornment slight, earthy and eclectic - hemp rope, bits of string and line, suede and leather, braided thinly, twisted around her wrists, part of her now.
"It was the honorable thing to do," Kora says, quiet, speculative. "I need to find her, too. I've seen other of her kin in the city - one I met the first day I met Cigney - who have had no contact from her, no tribemates to turn to, no knowledge that the city is at war."
[Barks Secrets] [Dexterity + Stealth +1Momentum]
[Barks Secrets] [HAH! *Whisks behind curtain*]
[Dreams in Summer Snow] That howl continues on, and the Philodox tilts his head as the sound carries, as he listens to the music beneath it reverberate and waver. They aren't just a primal thing, the cries the Garou give. Most Galliards make an art out of sculpting sound into something more, something expressive. This one certainly strikes a certain chord in Harmony as he listens, his head tilted.
"It sounds kind of sad," Harmony says to the others. "The howl, I mean. Kind of bittersweet and...nostalgic, I guess," he says, with a look toward the others. "Like they're mourning."
But he doesn't know for sure what that mourning might be for. He just hears it, tells the others, even though he has no idea why they've been summoned or what they're here to do. The mention of the Kin just draws a sad silence from him, but he has nothing to add.
[Calamity] ...And suddenly, only a minute or so after Winston departs from the Hillside, a few seconds after Harmony's revelation, the standing Garou hear the sharp and abrupt end of the Howl, the timor of that Fearing sensation beginning to dissipate with the absence.
[Sorrow] Perception + expression.
to Calamity
[Calamity] Kora hears the wispy trail of something vaguely mournful. Like the distant loss of someone or something, long since laid to bed. Accepted for what it was. It is not grief, something recent, nor sorrow, something pondered, simply a Memory, a distant ache with no real answer or question.
Something that was and is no longer.
to Sorrow
[Fire-Claws] His head turns up to Kora as she speaks about kin and not knowing there is a war in the city. It seemed to him that most did not know a war was brewing and they could be collateral damage in a blink of the eye. He also met another Fianna kin, a strange little kin. A monkey kin not like other monkey kin.
Maybe he should use their given names. Yeah and give the Spider Bitch Queen even more power. Not all too likely.
But with the howl starting to give way, the sound moving to quiet. He becomes unnerved. His body no longer waiting, padding. He can feel it in his skin, they wait far too long. He can feel it, the howl was a call to them. And now they have lost the moment.
[Bone-Grinder] Simon waits until an appropriate distance has been made between them and Winston before moving to follow in the direction of the creature's scent. His keen nose searches for the scent of the wolf when he manages to disappear. He pauses to look once back at the others. Nothing needed to be said, he was following behind the New Moon as was promised.
He perked his ears when Harmony chimes up and he files the information away. This might very well be a funeral... In which case they might not be invited, and yet they were invited. If these were, in fact, Garou letting out such a howl then they knew full well what they were doing by unleashing that howl. They knew others would hear and they knew others would come. Inversely if they were the enemy they would still know exactly the same. There was little difference in the overall knowledge what differed was how the situation would need to be handled.
Right now Winston was his largest concern. The slightest hint of a peep from the wolf and Simon would be off. It was the deal they made. You scout ahead and we get your back. That and keeping his ears peeled for any unusual sounds. So for the most part the wolf appeared silent and focused and tensed.
Silence was good. It allowed the Full Moon the opportunity to not only breathe in the scents in the air but to draw in the sounds.
[Sorrow] "Not like they're mourning, not precisely." This is why she lingers in her human skin. The promise of complex thought, the shifting association of words, language, a skin around her framed thoughts. "Just remembering, something lost, long past, the ache that lingers after grief has gone, the hollow underneath the skin."
The woman's gaze is fixed on the horizon, the dark trees still against the shadows.
She looks sidelong at Fire Claws, then Harmony. "Let's go."
- and then she is leaning forward as if she intended to roll down the hill. Instead, the Skald changes, her body rippling outward and then inward, all the way down to her fleet lupus form. Soft footed on the wiry grass of the slope, she pads down toward the border of the trees, in the wake of the ragabash and shadow lord. Tail is straight, her ears are returned forward. Under the moon, her fur shines with good health, her now amber-eyes are bright with it.
[Dreams in Summer Snow] When the howl dies away Harmony straightens, shattered out of whatever reverie he might have been entering, and his shaggy Hispo head nods once to Kora once she gives voice to what she heard in the song. She put it better than he could have - then again, she's a Galliard, and expressing such sentiments is part of the role of her Auspice.
As Sorrow's form ripples and rolls down into something four-footed and lupine, Harmony pads after her and Fire-claws. He has some of the same readiness about him that Simon does, though it isn't because he's preparing to leap into combat at the first sign of dismay from Barks-Secrets; he's prepared to go after him with healing hands if need be. Harmony has never drawn much of a differentiation between his pack mates, those close to him, and other Garou who just happened to be around in need of help.
He keeps his eyes on the horizon, and he keeps watch on the others to make sure they're all together.
[Calamity] The Four Garou come trailing in Winston's wake, drawing across the landscape even as the cloud's above seem to...thicken. The darkness is not as oppressive as it could be. Should, probably be. The Garou find little effort in tracking Winston's trail, both his scent and the vague impressions of clawed toes digging the dirt, barely recognizable unless you knew who and what you were looking for.
The four are moving for no more than two dozen yards, a quarter of the way to the Treeline, when something begins to bulge and finally emerge from the Treeline itself:
He is massive. Glabro is the sprout of hair along bare forearms and bestial flush of features is any indication (jutting jaw, sloped brow, bushy brows) and a thick mane of brown hair, tangled up in thick dreaded curtains that fall around face and over shoulders and back. The vest at his shoulders and chest is barely large enough to contain the impressive girth that stretches him well broad, both to the side and out front in the form of a considerable belly.
His gait is slow and easy, lumbering almost yet the strength with each step...in the way he carries the massive double-headed Axe, who's head is as large as a Crinos' torso, as well as the slung over Hispo shape of the Ragabash, dangling at his shoulder by the nape of Winston's scruffy neck...tells stories of cracking mountains, damming rivers.
He marches through the woodland, pushing trees aside like saplings; they crumble in his wake, inviting a hollow into the darkness of the treeline itself, ignored for the most part by the broad monstrosity that marches forward to meet the Four Garou. It's only as they draw to within twenty yards of one another, that he Stops and, Winston still dangling, hoists the Ragabash forward to hang in the air and shake about rather unceremoniously.
"This Shit~Seed belong to you lot then?"
And whump! Winston is dropped from his grasp to land on his feet or ass, whichever the Ragabash seemed more capable with.
[Sorrow] Int + Rituals!
to Calamity
[Barks Secrets] Winston may as well be a slain boar for all intents and purposes in setting this scene.
He rides into view on the shoulder of this gigantic Glabro of a man (and that says something, that the Glabro is carrying the Hispo like a sack of potatoes), limp with zero fight in him, but the sound of his labored wheezing is the next loudest thing to this mountain man's approach itself. It's been bothering the giant's ear, but rest assured that was the only thing to. The instant he had been picked up, he went limp, his tail curled between his legs, and he was silent.
You know, he was thinking,[/i] paper trees aren't so bad. You could re-use the leaves. And if I could breathe, this ride wouldn't be so bad either. I don't have to walk.[/i]
Then there was the rumble of a voice in his side, and he was thrown down onto the ground. His feet may normally find ground first, but he was still playing himself as the cowering, submissive Shit-Seed that he was, so rather he hit on his side, which was, as a matter of fact, a terrible idea.
There's a yowlp of pain, the oversized wolf beast squirms, then rolls up into a sit. His sides shiver and quake, his tongue lolls out and his jaws stretch wide, and there's a hanging couple of seconds where he's simply not breathing. Then, punctuating the silence and shifting it to obnoxious staccato bursts of sound, he hacked and coughed and wheezed as though he may literally dislodge a lung.
He must make his pack proud.
[Bone-Grinder] Simon couldn't help but growl at the creature as it drops Winston on the floor. It was the one who brought them all the way out here... if it didn't wish to be bothered it shouldn't have made use of a gift it knew would carry for miles. It asked folks to join it and since Winston was lying in a heap on the floor at the moment it implied to him that the beast was here for a fight and he would be more than happy to oblige.
He could see the creature was talented and capable perhaps even a full moon in his own right but it honestly didn't matter if the beast was an elder. Garou's strength came in numbers... He stood alone therefore it mattered little how talented or skilled he might be he was at the disadvantage. The thing was more than happy to fight... Which was funny because this full moon was as well.
[ws]"Stand down... Or step up..."The Full moon gave that simple warning. If you're here to fight then let's fucking get to it. But he wasn't going to negotiate this was either a Parlay or it was a battle and by his stance the Full Moon showed that he was fully ready to back up his words. The intruder had already harmed one of their own and Simon wasn't about to let the thing so much as move without having to pay dearly for every step he gets past that point unless of course... He can show he is not their enemy.
[Sorrow]
to Calamity
[Calamity] ...Something begins to nudge at the back of Kora's mind as this walking mountain stirs itself into place before the assembled Garou. A nagging sensation that is at once familiar and alarmingly out of place. A voice creeps into her immediate mental state, housing itself amongst her thoughts like some errant intruder.
to Sorrow
[Dreams in Summer Snow] Harmony's first reaction is concern for Winston: fear that this massive, primitive looking creature hurt him somehow before bringing him back. The moment he drops the Bone Gnawer to the ground, though, Harmony's fears are laid aside even if he feels a sharp spike of indignation on the Ragabash's behalf when the stranger insults him.
That's when he notices the glyphs inked across the man's skin. The dark hazel eyes of his Hispo form squint, the way a human's might, as he tries to make out the symbols and suss out what they're for. But all he can make out are a few words, and those few words in conjunction alarm him a little. Not enough to convince him that the man is some sort of enemy, but enough that he is immediately a touch wary.
They're the marks of an old ritual, something hazy that he wasn't sure was used any longer. He has no way to communicate this to the others without the man overhearing, but he tries to catch Kora's eyes and direct them to the symbols scrawled across the stranger's chest.
[Fire-Claws] He moves in line with Sorrow, his pelt already starting to take on the winter coat as the northern frost was rolling in on Chicago. He was ready for the cold and it was starting to show. And his pelt was not as beautiful as Kora's with the impurities in color, but still quite heathy nonetheless.
As he moved with grace and agility that one could only expect from the nature born.
He moves into file with the others, his Jarl being his lead, not the shadow lord he seemed to think himself a worthwhile warrior on par with a Fenrir Jarl. He watches in response to the monster of a garou who seems to handle the no moon with little ease, even as Winston is in his hispo form. Watching him cower and act like a dog more than a wolf.
He moves besides his Jarl once more now as the Glabro creature seems to stand before them, brown eyes take in the creature and through the hair along his arms and neck he can see something. Something he tries quite hard to understand, to remember. Something he should know, but doesn't.
He growls at Bone-Grinder as he barks commands to this one. He didn't kill Winston and for all they know, they were intruding on a special rite. Or a solemn one. But he does not stop there, his body nudging up against his Jarl, taking the risk of her possible reprisial. A cuff to the Glabro form, and the Glyphs along the bare skin of the monster. Maybe she might recognize them. He does not speak however. He leaves communication to the Skald of the group.
[Sorrow] Sorrow snaps at the air as Simon starts to growl, just once, a subtle suggestion that he hold back, that he stay his rage. Both Harmony and Fire-Claws work to draw her attention to the glyphs on the warrior's chest, and she huffs ou a faint breath, a hint of negation there. The Skald does not see what they do not, not even on a second look.
Still for another half-secnd, she watches the stranger, dwarfed by the pair in their hispo forms. Then, she changes form again, matching him Glabro for Glabro, her lean frame bulked with layers of muscle, her brow sloped, her jaw squared, the protoclaws tipping the fingers of her now blunt, strong hands. Her clothing remains, stretched and strained, bound together with spirit to fit, but her hair is uncoiled, loose again.
A glance down at Simon, then Winston. Briefly, her brow furrows - she tilts her head as if hearing a different note, a still-older sng, then glance up at the other Glabro, affirming, "He's ours. And you are on the edge of our lands, stranger. Who are you, and why have you come hunting here?"
[Calamity] "Oh Aye, then?"
Loud. Thunderous, even, the mountain in Glabro turns toward Simon with the glaringly enthused offer of challenge. The massive Axe, thuds into the ground beside him, without a backward glance from the Mountain of muscle and power who spreads his legs wide and assumes a bowed wrestler's stance. He faces off in Simon's direction, a broad grin lighting his features, thick brown mane of matted hair falling over part of his face.
"I ain't one to go movin' off a Fight, Boy." A pause, shifting slightly, grunting with the exertion of the position. It isn't until Sorrow pipes in, that the fellow's bushy brow rises and a brief moment of consideration, almost forgetful really, for duty creeps into his features. He clears his throat, frowning obviously before righting himself again.
"Your lands than, girl?" He turns to look past their shoulders, frown all but banishing his eyes beneath those bushy eyebrows, a negligent hand waving at the distant landscape behind him. "Ain't see nothing but open realm, s'far as I can tell. Gaias bounty 'yond your mention."
And oddities continuing, the large fellow is correct, as the Garou might glance back the way they had come and see behind them nothing of Chicago's skyscrapers or horizon. Not even the glare of Weaver blessed illumination. Simply the roiling thickness of overcast skies and pungent clouds. What was there when they were upon that hill is now no longer. As if they'd stepped from the familiar tread of one world and found themselves in another.
"...But that don't excuse an introduction missing does it?" He chortles deeply and slaps a hand against his chest, body seeming to take that cue to shrink down into Homid, his height diminishing to just under seven feet, thick ropy muscles and thinned hair given him an aging look. Not quite grandfatherly, but certainly middle-aged in the crow's feet and haggard sag of cheeks and belly.
"Roaring~Calamity, Adren-..." A pause, a frown almost of...confusion...scratching through his thick tangled hair. "...Aye, Fostern" That frown deepens seem, a shadow cast over his eyes "...Fostern Fianna Ahroun to Gaia. Mighty be Klah'thil, Black~Clover-" He hefts the Axe at his side once more, a broad grin flashing his features once again, crushing the brief moment of confusion and sadness "=borne since my firsting and shatterer of the Wrack Laughing..."
He pauses and then nods firmly, turning eyes on Kora, that grin no less feral and fierce. Pleased even.
[Sorrow] "This moment bares a striking similarity to Wreathes~Frost~in~Red, a Lupus of our tribe bent to Ragnarok and back in clapping his jaws at any perceived threat or challenge to come. Nary a word, not a phrase could stay his snapping teeth from finding throats...easily understood when his end came spitted on some Fang's klaive for such impertinence."
to Sorrow
[Barks Secrets] The hacking is spoken over, ignored for the most part. He's a Metis, this is his burden for it, perhaps they've been around to see and hear it before, perhaps they know that he'll recover. Perhaps they just don't give a damn. It doesn't matter, because with a final disgusting chrrrrruck! a healthy wad of blood hits the ground and he pushes himself up into a more proper sit, hunched down so his head hangs between his massive shoulders.
His tongue hangs from his mouth, stained red with blood, and his breath whistles in a way that suggests he could really use an inhaler right about now.
Shit-Seed learned his place.
He keeps his damn trap shut.
[Bone-Grinder] You see this is where Simon did not feel the same as his peers. The Burden of proof lay in the hands of the intruder. They are in a time of war... If this man who just attacked Winston was not an enemy then he was already doing much to imply to them otherwise. Tonight was the full moon and Simon was a Full moon... This meant that he honestly didn't give a flying fuck who this asshole was or how good he was if it got pushed he and Simon would find out who, in fact, was the superior Warrior. So when the others growl Simon growls back...
He wasn't going to pussy foot around nor was he going to kiss ass. This man has attacked a member of their sept and is already walking on thin ice. The honest fact was that he had already been shown an incredible amount of lenience by the fact he wasn't attacked on sight for what he's done to Winston.
[ws]"Winston get away." Simon says to Winston after an introduction is finally offered. His own focus, however, remains on the other man. The one claiming to be a Fianna. Fine he would let the man talk to the others, but he would not take his eyes off the stranger till he was certain it was safe.
[Dreams in Summer Snow] Roaring Calamity makes to introduce himself, and his bulk seems to shrink and draw into itself a bit as he assumes his Homid form. Harmony is, perhaps, a touch reassured: though things have the potential to sour here, they haven't yet. It would hardly be courteous (and probably a little threatening) should he remain in a dire wolf's shape here, so he too takes a moment, his fur and muzzle receding, his legs lengthening, as he takes his Homid form as well.
Few here have actually seen him in his Homid form, even though it's the form of his birth; when he's met most of these Garou it's been for some battle or other and he's come wearing a war form. When he's been at moots, he's been wearing a war form. When they see him it's clear why: he looks very young. No older than fifteen, just beginning to go through his last growth spurt, just beginning to fill out his frame. His hair, a light brown, is styled into the swirled bowl cut that is popular with teenage boys at the moment, and he's dressed in jeans and a polo in spite of the cold.
He smiles at Roaring-Calamity, even though he can make out the glyphs a bit more clearly now. Even though he's a touch alarmed by them (or perhaps by the idea of what the other Garou must have done in order to have lost rank this way.) Is he a Charach? Is he a coward? Harmony isn't sure. Until his eyes light on the glyph under his chin, and his brows furrow, and he can't help the look of compassion that comes into his eyes.
This Garou was a proud warrior, once. That look might be distinctly unwelcome, but Harmony can't help it.
"Hello," he says, once the Fianna has given his greeting. "Dreams in Summer Snow, Cliath Child of Gaia." He glances once more toward Kora, wanting to whisper and tell her what he's seen, but it would be decidedly rude. Harmony is looking toward the old Garou with respect, now.
[Fire-Claws] He turns behind him and sees the rolling hills of nothingness. The serene beauty of the natural world without the tant of the weaver anywhere to be found. But the spirit world was a strange place, it could leave you anywhere it wanted. Direction meant little when the normal laws of the mundane meant just as little.
They could be in the homeland of the Fianna right now, of in some isolated pocket of the umbra. They could have fallen into some old realm of war. He tries to get a feeling of where they are. The smell of the land, the feel of the Sept they knew. But nothing. The scab and its stench was minimal at best, and only because it clung to them. This was not their territory anymore. This was not their land. He growls to Bone-Grinder again.
{ws}
"He's right. Not at Sept no longer. His words ring true."
He continues to look at the Glyphs. Wondering. But he was no fallen one. He spoke true. Looking to his Jarl first before speaking. He speaks his own introduction.
{ws}
"Known as Fire-Claws, forseti cliath. Born of Stone-Skin, Adren Modi of the Sept of Hidden Smoke. Pledged to the Sept of Maelstrom. Are these your lands?"
[Sorrow] Our hunting ground," Kora begins to affirm with a wry look made feral by her choice of skins. "Chicago - the city - " Then she glances over her shoulder and finds the city gone, the weaver-wrapped skyscrapers disappeared against the horizon. Arms crossed over her torso, she turns back to him, her head aslant, the usual sharpness to her attention somewhat diminished, distracted by some internal music, subtle enough that these Garou - none of whom know her well - are unlikely to notice.
The stranger returns to his homid form, and in this, too, Kora matches him. In a tribe of giants, she has learned the trick of looking up without seeming to be diminished, and she does that now, her chin high, her dark eyes level, her arms still crossed over her torso. Blonde hair loose, curling down over her shoulders, shining in the moonlight, gleaming with the promise of health.
" - we heard your howl from our lands, though we knew your wood did not belong in our city. I am she who offers sorrow, cliath Skald and daughter of great Fenris, fostered at the Sept of Wind and Rain in Hjaltland, pledged to the Sept of Maelstrom, the spirit reborn in Chicago seven winters past, Alpha of my pack and Jarl of my tribe in the Chicago protectorate."
"That," a glance at Simon, " - is Bone-Grinder, full-moon born like you. Your Shit-Seed is our Barks-Secrets. I heard your howl from my pack's territory in the city, followed it to the edge of this wood-that-should-not-be.
"And here we are."
[Calamity] "Hahaha, knew me a Hippy once-" The grin broadens again, the axe settling back into the groove it had created a moment ago, while the broad Fianna turns to regard Harmony to the exclusion of all others. His hands lift and gesture in the air, with all the tender grace and effortlessly a stonemason might possess for the newborn he holds.
"Fond and lovely girl, by the name a Gwen. Given over to all sorts'a mad dashin' 'n dancin' 'bout. Skirts always half an inch shy of showin' yah just what'cha want'd to see. Had the boys 'round the fires trippin' over their own tongues most nights while she played some sort a-" A gruff furrow of the brow, scratching chin, followed by the bright smile of remembrance "-A viola. Aye, was a Viola. Would dance 'n skip with her viola twiddlin' 'n fiddling and..."
He strings an imaginary viola by his chin, eyes closing and body swaying slightly with some imaginary tune that falls from his lips, an approximation both rough and roughshod at best. It lasts for a few long seconds, before his features fall away in a memory's smile, eyes falling to the ground briefly, hands falling away.
"...Fuckin' bastards came into tha' camp one night. Gwen went to her grave spittin' three of the fuckers under her breath 'n claws." He's nodding, eyes flicking back and forth, solemnity climbing his face.
"Was a Good Lass, she was, she was..."
His head lifts back to the moment. The present. Turning then to regard Kora and the rest, perhaps for the first time. He snorts and chuffs loudly, shaking his head with the flap of thick cheeks.
"Aye, aye. Fine names, all." He nods again, brow furrowing once more even as the mighty Klah'thil is tipped into his fingers with little more then a brief flicker of those digits on it's haft. He breathes in deeply and nods once, firmly down at the Cliaths.
"Younglings, the lot of you...." The grin flashes again. Broad and as excited as ever.
"Come then to join me in the Hunt? Aye, knew they wouldn't let me down. Well, don't any of you worry none-" He wags a telling finger at the lot of them "-We've found us a quarry alright. Full 'n wrymsome and deadly to boot, Aye! it'll be a fight that piss-sopping son of a hydra knew, it will!"
And he turns with the heft of a mighty limb, beckoning them on in his wake, marching off toward the East, following a parallel course to the Treeline he'd emerged with Winston, from.
[Barks Secrets] His airway would relax as far as it ever would after some time, the whistling and wheezing quieted while the collective of Cliaths listened to this man marked with runes's story. He suggested they help him in his hunt, spun about, and went to lead them back into the forest of cardboard and paper trees.
The Ragabash wheezed, coughed, and growled quietly as he stood up.
Note, though, that he stands, but does not move to follow after.
"I want a Theurge."
This is said like a guilty man saying that he wants a lawyer.
[Sorrow] As the Fianna begins to turn off toward the east, Kora calls out in his wake, " - you knew who wouldn't let you down?"
[Calamity] A bright laugh erupts as the Mountainous Calamirty continues marching.
"The Sept, Girl! The Sept!"
[Dreams in Summer Snow] It's as he turns that Harmony leans in to whisper to Kora. "He's under the Rite of the Winter Wolf," he says to her.
[Bone-Grinder] Simon simply watched though he did not his head in acknowledgement when he is introduced to the man. He keeps himself quiet and silent as he watches and listens. It isn't until Harmony speaks up that is attention is pulled towards him and then back towards the man. Under the rite of the Winter Wolf? Where is his pack then? SHould they not be tending to him?
[Bone-Grinder] [ws]"Where is your pack? Why are they not with you?"This was a solemn and an important ritual indeed it was important to see it through... If it was this mans time to die and no one was around to see it through then it was their responsibility to see it through.
[Calamity] "...Lot of 'em Died, Lad! Now hurry up! Wyrm to be Killin' 'n yer all Lollygaggin' about like a bunch of flower fuckin' fairies!"
[Dreams in Summer Snow] Harmony looks after the old Garou, and it's clear that he wants to follow him. It's also clear to him that the aid that he'd hoped for from his Sept has not come; they left him to go and hunt alone. To die because they believe him to be useless now. Maybe it will come. Harmony hopes, but it isn't for Calamity's sake that he does. He just doesn't want to believe that the Sept, any Sept, would abandon this once-Athro no matter his faded glory.
"We should go with him," he says quietly to the others. "This kind of judgment...it's wrong, and it's short-sighted of those that passed it."
[Fire-Claws] He almost begins to pad off at the potential hutn offered to them. He could feel the rage start to boil in him, already overtaking his willpower as the beast rides to the surface. The full face of Luna now beating down on him more than it did before.
But hearing the confession that Dreams offers up. He turns to the Child of Gaia wth a quizzical look. As if he was unsure of it, his instinct telling him to go and kill and enjoy the glory that is too come. But there is the fact that this one, once lost his glory, his rank. His honor and name. To be apart of such a rite, it is indeed noble. He sits down and snaps at Harmony. Growling.
{ws}
"NO. Do not rob him of his proper glory. His name. His last rite."
He would have sat down, but not now. He is growling at the Child of Gaia. What do they know of a good death. Of a proper honor, of great glory.
[Sorrow] "It's not a sentence of death," Sorrow corrects Harmony quietly, with the confidence of a true believer - already moving in the stranger's wake. "It's a rite he performed himself, a death he chose for himself, when he felt it proper."
With a brief, winging glance at Harmony, Sorrow taks off in the Fianna's wake, following in his footsteps. "My Septmate tells me you have performed the Rite of the Winter Wolf. We will be honored to hunt with you, stand with you, and sing your deeds when the Rite is completed. Tell me your stories as we hunt - "
[Calamity] (Uh oh. Rage roll.)
[Calamity] The Monster of a creature is humming something, uplifting and bright as he marches forward...
...and as the others pull forward into his wake, a small ways behind him they watch the landscape seem to shift and alter to the whims...no, not the whims but the necessity of this moment. The paper forest, a two dimensional nothing, spiritless and unfettered, seems to warp and flow into the darkness that exists between until it is an inky haze behind them and slowly swallowing the forestry itself. This odd transformation seems to eat up the ground behind them, not swiftly but steadily, pulling in the wake of the mountainous Fianna.
As he marches forward, the landscape seems to alter and shift, almost imperceptibly, until it looks as if he is marching across rocky turf and terrain, slowing his gait to make sure his steps are more certain and sure. Then, almost at once, unbelievably even, the Garou find themselves scrambling around on rock, the landscape to their left and right a mountain range diorama that looks more like some movie backdrop than a true sight to behold.
Roaring~Calamity, huffs and puffs, Black~Clover bouncing about in his hands as he climbs his way towards the dip in the wall of rock ahead, where stands a plateau waiting to overlook...something...
...Then-
My septmate tells me you have performed the Rite of the Winter Wolf-
"What?!" He wheels, the flush of anger like a gavel hammering the mountain rock, chips and slate peeling down the walk to bounce among their legs and teeth, as the Rage plumes and follows. He stares with feral eyes, restrained fury, the axe hefting to point down at them.
"So they told you then? Sent you along behind me to watch? To chastise as well? Sent you with more of those lies! Like I was the one to betray!?!"
Plumes of white mist begin to seep from his nostrils and words, as the chill air of the mountains creeps into the scene, the last marker of their scenic shift. Still he stares, froth gathering at the corners of his mouth.
"It weren't me, ya little Bitch!" He slaps his chest with his free hand. "They died in battle! Died as heroes! Blood and bold and true, each one! Melody! Thomas! Feral! Winch-"
And he freezes, Pauses. Frowns again, ferociously still.
"Winch...and...and..." And that hand comes up to slap his head. Trying to dislodge a memory.
"Winch and...and..." And something begins to crumble under that veneer. Creeps in-
-Something in the valley beyond. A dozen more yards of climbing, a sound erupts from over the wall of rock. A chittering thing. A vicious and ugly thing and Calamity is snapping his head around as if his eyes could find that sound.
"Aye...Aye you're there...You're there..." And the axe hefts, a growl escaping his lips.
"The Wyrm is come! No more words! None of it! It's time, Lads! Time for War! Time for Glory!"
And he continues marching. Up those slopes. Slowly. Almost...desperately.
[Barks Secrets] Winston didn't move to follow after the marching Fianna. Rather, he listened and gathered information it was a pile of precious dollar bills all crumpled up and floating away on the breeze. The Rite of the Winter Wolf, one wants to go help and another snaps, telling them no, to let him have his glory. Winston agreed with the Wolf, and flinched when the Skald, the leader of the Blind Muscle Tribe, rolls forward and offers help on his last quest.
There's a snap of Rage in the air, and Winston's body hunkers down against the shifted scenery of rock (which his claws had struggled to find purchase on, but managed somehow anyways) when the Fianna bears down upon the Get of Fenris, and he wheezes audibly from stress.
The Fianna seems to press through his Rage without tearing the intestines from any bellies, loses his train of thought, then declares that war is on and starts marching again. Winston stares after for a few seconds, then shakes out his pelt in a wolfish translation of the human gesture of clapping dust off your hands.
"Well, he's crazy and that's not in my jurisdiction."
And with that said, the Metis simply turned and started walking(climbing, struggling) in the opposite direction of the old wolf on his last journey.
[Bone-Grinder] He keeps close, he keeps watch. The wolf showed signs... He showed why the rite had been performed and why it even existed. This was the reason for this ritual, and any warrior could understand and relate to it. it mattered not how able bodies a Full Moon was... Or anyone for that matter. Thangs happen to a Garou, mind or body, that cannot be undone. Sometimes a person reaches a breaking point from which there is no recovery and the only thing left is to alieviate ones peers of their suffering.
Do not suffer thy people, tend to thy sickness
He was Garou. He had fought, he had slain an untold number of their enemies. He stood there with strength, determination and honor and Simon found himself respecting that much. The full moon kept up with the Full Moon. This was an Honor, this was his Honor! This was his night to stand and to shine. This was his night to let loose his fury and in a final surge of unmitigated fury teach the minions of the wyrm a lesson they would not soon forget and they... They would be a part of his final moments. The final breaths of a hero as he falls this night in battle. They would bear witness and they would take part(If doing so were not a suicidal act).
The wolf wins every fight but his last and then... He dies.
This was this warriors final battle and Simon stood ready to see him earn his final little scrap of honor. For all he had sacrificed at the very least they would come to the next mood with their heads held high and deliver to the sept the story of the final moments of this brave warrior.
Simon had been the most apprehensive but Simon was also a Full Moon and he understood the importance of this ritual. The man wished to die while he was still himself, while he could still stand on his own two feet. They would see it through... Either the Wyrm would kill him this night. Or they would emerge triumphant and then in those final moments Simon would personally see the ritual through to completion. Whatever the case this warrior would have his final battle and he would kill anyone who would dare stand in the way of that!
[Dreams in Summer Snow] Even Harmony almost quails from the force of the Ahroun's Rage when he spins to face all of them and howls about his dead packmates. The grimace that had been threatening to form when Kora mentioned the rite actualizes, and he looks between the Jarl and the once-Athro, trying to come up with what words he can to placate, to quell.
Whatever happened, Calamity clearly can't remember much of it. He's older: perhaps something has driven that memory out of him, perhaps it's just an effect of age. Maybe he did kill his packmates. Still, watching him, hearing that note of desperation in his voice, makes Harmony's heart ache and he can't shake the feeling that it's wrong to let him wander off to die alone.
Calamity marches off. Harmony looks once toward she who offers sorrow and then starts after him. At the very least, he wants to be there.
[Fire-Claws] He listens intently to what the monsterous fianna has to say. The monkey jibber-jabber spews forth in verbla diarrhea. These monkeys could talk for hours and never seem to say one thing worth while. Half of his words a mixture of confusion and others lies. He can feel it in his bone, his muzzle.
He watches as the Fianna begins to storm off to war, to kill the creature before him. He sits nearly sits down and watches. The wolf was strange, confused. Maybe the loss of his pack had ruined his mind. Maybe he was just that far gone, disgraced. This would be his final battle. His good death.
He sits first. Watching. Waiting. He would pounce in if anyone tried to stop him from his good death. But he would not. He would wait until it was done. Until the Fianna engaged in battle. And then....
He would howl. A howl that one who goes to face a good death deserves. A howl of lost and glory and honor and righteousness. A howl of pain from a lost warrior and joy that he found the courage to face his final battle with honor and pride. A howl all too similar to the one that brought them there.
[Sorrow] Sorrow stands her ground against the snap of the Fianna's rage, the hot spike of it that seems to warp the air around the Fianna - something about her body language, though, suggests that she's readying herself to dive out of the swinging arc of that great axe should it ever come down to it. Her attention remains on his face as he begins to protest his innocence, the deeds of the dead, their names,
- Melody, Thomas. Feral - Winch.
"Gwen?" she supplies, as they are moving again, prodding him to remember even as he marches to forget.
They are climbing, though - heading toward a final fight, and she has left her softest human skin behind as they go, scrambling up the now rocky slopes in the wake of the adren, her tail high and her eyes - bright, but sometimes distant, distrated by memory that drifts in and out of focus as the Fianna's does. In the sharp morning air she follows to the final fight.
This is not a spectator sport for her. When he fights, she fights alongside him, tearing into the wyrm as if they were pack, fighting in his wake, letting him remember not just the glory of his deeds, the bright burst of rage moving through his veins, but the feeling of fighting with a pack, like the pack-animal he is. Feinting to avoid blows as much as she deals them, swift, light-footed, until the death blow comes to him, as it must.
And she fights so that she will remember this; each blow, his great, hefted swing of his massive axe, the whine of the blade through the sharp air, its shuddering impact on the carapace of his enemy -
- and when it is over, if it so ends, then she will howl.
