Eclipse [Multiple, ST'd by Jacqui]

[Katherine Bellamonte] She had felt odd all morning.

Not quite sore, but strangely tender with her limbs and joints as if she'd awoken after some great battle and knew she had been changed, somehow, but the memory of it had .. drifted. Left her consciousness. The realization that her Rage was entirely sapped had not at first frightened Katherine Bellamonte, for she was a creature who had once had all of it stolen right from her chest by some unknown force in the Umbra.

She'd lain in a coma for two days, then.

This felt strangely separate from that occurrence however as that nothing seemed to remain. No Rage, no shifting, no Gifts. It was as if she were entirely -- human. Her pack was still with her, that bond persisted but it was too strange to reach out and simply state: my Wolf is gone, I think I've lost it. So instead, the Silver Fang Elder took up her keys and drove around the streets for some time until she discovered a small Cafe in LakeView still serving, and was here to be found, frowning over a cappuccino; listlessly stirring it with a spoon.

Honor's Compass was still the same fair haired, blue eyed beauty, still in possession of her breeding, and her aristocratic looks but that was all she was right now. The same aura of anger did not pulse around her, and the female's skin seemed drawn, paler for the loss of it.

[Sinclair] Katherine wasn't alone, but this morning she may as well have been. Sinclair was asleep, a deep red seething in the back of Kate's mind, dormant as summer. It's hours later, now well into the afternoon, and that banked presence that signifies Warcry across their pack bond has stirred to wakefulness once more. When she can -- and especially in winter, it seems -- Sinclair sleeps more than any sensible creature seems to need to. She sleeps deep as a fairytale princess, in fact, as though no bramble or dragon could manage to wake her.

She's awake now, and it's been awhile, but she reaches out. It doesn't feel too strange to her to do so. But then, comparing her to Lukas and Katherine, it isn't that great of a shock that she's the first to bring it up.

I feel...

weird.

[Katherine Bellamonte] It was below freezing outside, but within the small Cafe the Silver Fang has appropriated -- and been served gladly, efficiently in -- for her own strange sense of despair, it's toasty warm. So much so that the Half Moon has shucked her coat and scarf, her gloves and hat to one side in favor of the cream-knit sweater beneath. Her fingertips are bare, she wore no rings, no jewelery save for a pair of diamond earrings that winked in each lobe.

The sleeves were pushed up each arm a way; and Katherine was staring at a sugar sachet, folding and re-folding the sides of it. The packet was quite entirely pleated by the time Sinclair's voice sounds in her head; the first noise all day and the Silver Fang started as if she were a Cub never hearing it before.

Where are you? I feel it. I've felt it all day.

She transmits some picture of where she is to the Glasswalker, the impression of the little Cafe, of her own person sitting in a corner; of the strange normalcy of the moment. They do not fear me, she says, half horrified, half ... mesmerized.

It is as if I am nothing at all to them.

[Sinclair] Instantly, the answer comes that Kate feels 'it', too. She doesn't ask what feels weird. She doesn't ask when it started or what it feels like, other than 'weird'. Sinclair's stomach sinks. Wherever she is, she closes her eyes for a moment, but she doesn't cringe. Visions of the little cafe show up in her mind, but Kate could have as well given her an address. The point of the sharing is more than that: it's the sense of the place. The lack of tension. People go about getting their coffees, taking a break in between bouts of shopping. The kid busing the table beside Kate's doesn't even flinch. Doesn't bat an eyelash.

I'm headed your way.


It's less than twenty minutes before that promise is fulfilled. Sinclair parks outside and comes in the front door, her hair long and loose and several strands falling across her face, threads of gold interfering with the glacial, pale color of her eyes. As she's coming in, someone headed out holds the door open for her. It's a young man, clean-cut and clean-shaven, wearing a wool overcoat. He looks like a professional, like a man headed back to an office somewhere. He tracks his eyes over Sinclair as she heads inside, cocking a half-smile as she turns her head around to peer at him like he's just grown a third arm out of his forehead.

When the door closes behind her and the seemingly fearless man has gone to his car, Sinclair finds Kate, her eyes wide with something like horror. Or shock. Or both. She doesn't even need to say it in Kate's mind for the message to be clear enough:

What the ASS.

[Bridget Geroux] Vapor freezing to one's eyelashes is a good way to determine that it is, indeed, midwinter. There's a certain bite to the air that goes beyond the cold, right down to the spirit. It is a night to curl up in bed beside a lover and not emerge until the sun was high in the sky.

The Fianna kinfolk has been performing at some nearby event, singing holiday jazz tunes for dosh. She wishes desperately for a mug of something hot to cling to, to ward against the cold and keep her core warm. She doesn't feel the zapping of rage because she has none, no spiritual bond withering since she only has her human heart by which to speak of things unseen.

Bridget manages to drag herself to a cafe bundled in layers and looking more polished than usual. A splash of makeup and other details appealing to this uptown crowd she'd been singing for. The young woman crosses the threshold of the cafe and approaches the counter to order a scalding beverage by which to nourish the instinct to eat, warm herself, draw away from the chill.

[Thomas Taylor] He is hard to read, if you wear everything on your sleeve then others can shake it loose. It is true Thomas has seen brighter days, it can all be traced back to one instance, when he became a man without fear. All hallows eve. He snorts, Ashley only asked him not to tell Morgan, by all rights Kage was fair game.

"If you show me yer tits I'll tell it all to yas,!" She can tell his eyebrows are waggling "But the basics is, Ashley wants me to make up Urban Legends, we know the power in 'im, an I need Brian back there to do a very modern Star Wars, found this lovely spot, but foundation pillars, gonna turn part of one to jelly or clay, push this guy in, turn it back with his features out and tell folks 'bout the one that never made it to the fishes." He grins. "Criminals are a superstitious lot, give them sum visual proof which they will 'after check out on their todd, and they can do the rest. The man the mob killed too late, they cud never make it to the water, they instead threw 'im in a concrete 'hole, little did they know it was for sum foundations, and guess 'ho paints a pretty picture."

He sighs "If I was better at crafts I'd just sculpt the damn thing but am shit, so hence I need Brian." He thumbs the back, face still in darkness. "So thats wat I need to do, where I need to do it is the middle of sum gang turf, Mob an Chargers, tis Christmas though the Mob is sentimental, likes to call it off lemon to spend with the women an kids so we sud be robin." He smirks, hidden as he is in the shadows and darkness.

"No rest for the wicked pet, an this is just one of the bloody dozen 'ave set in motion." And he is proud of his work. Thomas was a criminal, he never hid it, never denied it but yet when people discovered it they always seem shocked, even though he would tell them before they saw any of this world. He was a rogue, a shadow, he lived the night.

[Wyrmbreaker] Kate's cell phone rings.

[Katherine Bellamonte] Sinclair wasn't the type of Garou one typically ignored.

She wasn't the sort of woman that men were polite to, either. They didn't open doors for her like that, and they sure as hell didn't stare at her figure as she walked past them. They were usually already backing off, eyes elsewhere. Not today, though. Today she's just a pretty blond coming in the Cafe to meet her friend who is also just another pretty face.

It's absurd.
It's unsettling.
I know.

The Silver Fang's expression reads; her eyes drop.

Katherine's cellphone is barking; and Lukas Wyrmbreaker's face appears on the screen; captured mid sentence at some point in their acquaintance. It was not, it should be noted, the most flattering image of Lukas. She picks it up to answer, as a strongly bred Kinswoman is setting foot inside.

The Half Moon's eyes narrow for a moment in speculation, and this is in her voice as she greets her Alpha: "Lukas."

[Wyrmbreaker] "Jesus Christ, I thought you were dead." He doesn't even wait for the Lukas; he just starts talking. "Is Sinclair with you? Have you seen Asha?"

[Adamidas] What do theurges do when they can't play in the umbra?

Well, it's not necessarily play, but Alethea Adamidas has spent the better part of today trying to figure out precisely how she was going to do her job when she can't very well cross the gauntlet. More importantly, she's spent the better part of her day trying to figure out why she can't do this. Because the why was what was important to her. The why would have been easier to find if she would have been able to talk to the spirits but, as it stood, if Alethea was going to chat her head off to the trash spirits or the clouds or the starlight, she'd only be hearing her own voice in reply.

So, instead, she was doing footwork.

Which, sadly, involved her getting food. As that she's under the age of eighteen, Adam seems to think that a meal can involve coffee and rice crispie treats. So, this is where the Theurge elder enters, from stage right. Under her arm, there's a bundle of newspapers. Three to be exact. Various publications. A messenger bag full of random crap and a backpack full of books-on-loan.

[Sinclair] The last man who looked at Sinclair like that for more than the half-second it took his survival instincts to kick in -- and, in kicking, give him a testicle-shriveling roundhouse to the head -- was not only Kinfolk, he was a particularly strongwilled, adamant sort of Kinfolk. No mortal man in his right mind, no human, does what the guy who just left did. Sometimes bikers, tattoo artists, people a few steps outside what's considered normal or sane or even slanted towards one's own survival -- sometimes they look at her.

Nobody holds doors open for her. And Kate knows it. Kate knows it because she deals with the same thing. She knows because even Kinfolk who look at Sinclair like that -- like she's a girl -- are few and far between. Sinclair isn't just a wolf, Sinclair's a predator. She moves like one, even now. She feels like one

but not today.

Her movements are athletic, graceful in their way, but stiff as she walks over to Kate's table and sits down in the chair facing her sister. Sinclair hasn't blinked those wide eyes of hers. Her jeans are skin-tight, tucked into a pair of black boots. Her style has been changing ever since she moved to Chicago, ever since she joined the Unbroken, but it's no shock that those black boots have a couple of hard-looking buckles, are not adorned with little puffballs of fur or gleaming as though freshly polished. Her coat is not Army surplus but leather, over a white hoodie covered in sketched-out feathers stroked with flashes of color.

She doesn't take off any of her jackets as Kate's phone rings. Lukas sounds so intense on the other end she can actually make out the sound of his voice, if not his words. Sinclair just puts her hands in her lap, curled into tight fists.

[Katherine Bellamonte] Katherine blinks; an action of surprise that he cannot hear over the phone, her clear eyes find Sinclair, her brows drawing together in a clear expression of unease. "Sinclair is right here, she's fine." Which is an over-statement, but right now it did not matter so much.

Lukas was too panicked. "Why would you think that? I can still communicate with Sinclair." A beat.

"But now that I think about it, you've been silent all day." The Theurge enters the Cafe; and Katherine's eyes flick to her, and remain. She lifts her chin in greeting, and waves her over. "I have no heard or seen Asha. We're at the Cafe on the corner." She rattles off an address.

[Sinclair] Sinclair just mouths it, not realizing that Lukas -- who she can still feel, still sense tied to her even if he can't feel her there with him, too -- wouldn't hear her anyway if she spoke across their pack bond. I am NOT, she insists, concerning whether or not she's 'fine'. Alive, yes. Fine, no.

Her eyes follow Kate's away from the table. She sees Adamidas, sees Bridget, and gets to her feet, going over to the Black Fury first. "Come to our table," she tells the other Fostern, then goes over to Bridget. "You come sit with us, too," she goes on, and nods her head over towards Kate. "C'mon."

[Bridget Geroux] A steaming mug of coffee retrieved is indeed a goal to be grateful for on a day like this. The Canadian leaves some cash and abandons the counter with her mug, taking it to some corner where she might be able to read and rest her heels.

Bridget's eyes flick over the cafe in idle passing. She spots a familiar blonde beside another who may or may not be familiar. In any case, Sinclair made her feel so damn helpless and uneasy the last time they met that Bridget knows to leave her alone unless she's deliberately flagged down.

It's simply not her business, whatever the Glass Walker is up to. But in the blink of an eye, Sinclair tells an unidentified young woman and Bridget herself to join the table. So she must. The Stag kin picks up her feet and shuffles over to the table with her mug in tow.

Something is different, however... Something is very off. She can feel something missing. Bridget is a daring sort, but she still has keener instincts than some kinfolk.

Without a beat, she raises her eyebrows and asks, "What's wrong?"

[Adamidas] A fair chunk of garou never finish high school. Some of them don't even get to boast a middle school education. This does not mean, however, that they are incapable of doing mundane, claw-your-eyes-out research. The kind college students are prone to devolving into. Adam doesn't put her bag down just yet, as that Sinclair came over. She looks at Sinclair, and blinks. For a second, she doesn't recognize the Galliard.

She does, though, and nods. Things stay over her shoulder, and she toddles over to the table.

The backpack goes down hard, and falls like a ton of bricks. Makes the same sound, too. The messenger bag receives more care. "You guys okay?"

[Sinclair] "Don't know yet, but it's a lot of us and since we don't know, you're better off staying close just in case," Sinclair says, and she's rather brusque about it. She seems two steps from hauling Bridget over by the arm, Fianna or not, and shifts her weight from one foot to the other as though this will stop her from dragging the woman.

Thankfully, she doesn't have to. Bridget takes her coffee and goes. Sinclair isn't making her feel like her skin is crawling off of her bones. Sinclair doesn't feel like anything but ...well, from the look of her, she might be a grad student who thinks she's ever-so-alt. She might be a dropout who is using daddy's credit card to pay a lot of money to look just a few steps above trash. But she doesn't feel like a Galliard on a full moon. She doesn't feel like a predator who is as likely to tear Bridget's throat out as look at her.

"Nope," she tells Adamidas, on the way over. She doesn't comment on the blink, the look of vague surprise or the lack of recognition. When most of the people who know Sinclair can barely see past the feeling she gives off, that viciousness, it's no shock that when it's gone, they hardly know what to do with the young woman left behind.

She grabs two extra chairs, one for each of the two new women, and looks back to Kate, as though waiting to hear more from what's going on with Lukas.

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen trembled at the encroaching full moon. She'd seen on the news that it would be a lunar eclipse, one during the full moon, and that it happened to align with the winter solstice. Now she didn't know the significance of solstices to the Garou culture just yet, but she did know that things tied very heavily to the moon, she felt that one for herself well enough to understand it. Her Rage wasn't near what an Ahroun's was, but it was still relatively new, while she'd grown accustomed to its presence she hadn't learned to ignore it very well at all. It burned and seethed in her chest, but she was used to it, ever aware but no longer uncomfortable. When the moon was full she knew it would be at its hottest, and that she would need to go out and roam and break things with her fists and scream and release, but she had absolutely no idea what an eclipse would do to her.

It scared her a little, truth be told, even if it would never be told aloud.

When the day came and she woke feeling normal, as though the past several months were nothing but a dream, she almost didn't realize it until after she snapped out of her mid-morning haze and realized that she was sitting pleasantly at the counter with her older brother, home for the holidays, chatting about the latest album of some obscure band that had come out lately and talking about how she'd gotten her diploma early, but due to the short notice of deciding to wrap up her high school career it wouldn't be delivered for another couple of weeks. When she realized how mundane the conversation was didn't irritate her, that nothing did to that point, she was confused.

She spent the day with her family, and all was normal. She wound up at a Christmas party with them in a ritzier part of town, family friends with enough money to invest largely in her father's Harley business, she stepped out onto the back deck and stared at the moon full in the face and felt.... nothing.

That was concerning. She glanced left, glanced right, and explored the concept. Her eyes found her reflection and the world behind it in the sliding glass door and she pressed to see if she could feel the world on the other side, hoping she could spring back before the thick, impossible cords that separated the two realities snatched her up and dragged her in. Nothing. She stepped down off the deck and into the back yard, along to the side of the house in the shadows and the snow, and she attempted to shift.

Not a goddamn thing.

Admittedly she should have handled herself better. She should have just let it go and taken a breath and ridden the night out. Rather, though, she panicked. This could very easily be the End of the World that she was always being told about, and she had a responsibility to be there when it happened. So she went back into the house, mentioned to her brother to tell her parents that she was feeling sick and catching a bus home and waving off his offer to drive her back, grabbed her coat and booked it. Literally, with her canvas jacket on and beanie on her head to keep her ears warm, she ran up the street. Ran and ran and ran, hoping that this relentless beating of feet into pavement would bring back the sensation of paws into earth.

Sure enough, it didn't, and by the time she needed to stop to catch her breath she was out of the residentials and in the easing of small, comfortable businesses that bridged the gap between nice city homes and the skyscrapers. She huffed and puffed for air, breath forming clouds in front of her face, and rested with her shoulder against the glass of the cafe that the Garou seemed to be subconsciously drawn to each other in. She gulped her breath, looked desperately at the moon again, then over her shoulder into the light of the cafe.

Adamidas and Her Highness. An honest thought, bald and earnest and relieved that she'd found someone she recognized. Her lungs burned with the frozen air having been breathed so heavily while she ran, but she ignored that and pushed open the door into the rapidly crowding cafe-- one that, oddly enough, people didn't rush out of from the sensation of being strangled by the invisible hands of many hungry murdering defiling beasts.

[Wyrmbreaker] Panicked isn't quite the word for it, but drawn, tense, taut as a bowstring -- these would all be valid. Kate doesn't get half her protest out before Lukas cuts in, "Because I woke up and you were all gone."

He doesn't mean from his presence. They don't sleep all in a pile, wolflike; they sleep in their own separate homes and dens, and one of them, at least, splits his time between three dens. Lukas slept alone last night (this morning). He woke in the darkness, in the unutterable silence of his own, singular presence, which is something he hasn't felt for...

years. Longer than he can easily remember.

"Christ," he says again; Kate can almost imagine him putting thumb and forefinger to brow, closing eyes, frowning hard. It's somewhere between relief and tension. "Okay. Stay put. I'll be there in ten."

Click.

[Katherine Bellamonte] They are appearing now.

Drawn out by the sense of isolation, of, in a strange sense, abandonment. They cannot in some cases hear one another, they none of them can tap into their ancestrally passed Rage, their sense of unity with the umbra is, quite simply, gone. Some feel it worse than others; they are suddenly human. Totally and absolute with only the hint of what they truly are left in their blood; in their very eyes and faces and family ties.

Katherine can still sense her brother and sisters, she can still reach out and feel the shape and form of Sinclair's presence, though it is a strangely empty sense to do so. It was as if whatever red hot substance comprised how Warcry had always been to the Silver Fang's totem-bound sense of her was stripped.

Just taken.

She hangs up from Lukas, and looks around at the growing number gathering at the table. To the humans in here, they are just an odd assortment of people; no better or worse than they are. "He's on his way." She comments first, her voice subdued. "He could not sense us, he believed us gone." Dead, her eyes say it for her, even as they shift to glimpse the Cub dashing toward the Cafe.

Honor's Compass waves her over; and takes a moment to address the Theurge Elder in a low voice: "Have you any idea what might be causing this?"

[Milo] It's been an odd day, but then what day hasn't been for Milo Sweeney? Each mile that takes him further from the west coast leaves him feeling more and more detached, more out of touch with the world. For one thing, the scenery outside the greyhound bus' windows kept changing, and it seemed to be carrying him further and further into an arctic wasteland. Today has been different, though. Worse.

At a stop in Walcott Junction, he got out to find himself a hat and gloves. Though his rage is nearly insignificant compared to other Garou, it's usually still enough to cut a path through a crowd. Today? Not so much. He had to push through a bustle of holiday shoppers, the same as any other human. He couldn't waste any time looking for something nice, or something that suited his taste. As it was, with the crowd fighting against his progress, he barely made it back to the bus in time for it to take off for its next destination. When he got on the bus back in Portland, no one wanted to sit anywhere near him. At the stop in Davenport, Milo suddenly found himself with a travel buddy at last. He'd looked up at the stranger with wide, clear eyes, and three hours later immediately left the bus at its next stop.

Chicago. Strange city. Cold. Utterly foreign. It doesn't matter. Maybe here Milo can find someone who can explain what's happened, why people aren't so afraid of him, or why Gaia feels suddenly so distant. First, though, a cup of something hot to warm him in the absence of the light thrum of Rage in his chest.

And so the Child of Gaia makes his illustrious entrance into the Chicago scene. One might say it was fate that finds him here, literally stumbling over a knot of Garou. It could just as easily be coincidence. He looks absolutely smashing in a long wool coat, a dark blue hoodie beneath that, jeans, a striped knit cap in shades of light green, yellow, red and teal. It makes him stand out, even as he blends in with the humans, as he takes his place in the line.

Ordinarily, the breeding of the Silver Fang and the Fianna would nearly bowl him over, overwhelming his senses and drawing him closer. Today, it's a flicker, a faint tingling, barely enough to catch his attention. It does, though, and he turns his head to look at the table before stepping forward to take the next place in the line leading up to the counter.

[Booker Abbot] Booker is cold. Usually he walks around without much care for the weather, finding himself able to stay warm regardless. Oh a coat is required upon extra chilly days, but today he is freezing. His knee length overcoat is wrapped tightly around him, a scarf protruding from the collar area and his hands are sheathed in woollen gloves. Fingers and all this time. Eve would be proud.

He might be proud too if it weren't for the fact that he walks just like a human today.

Waking up feeling tired isn't the best way to start the day, but it only got worse and by the time work started he was noticing quite a few oddities. They weren't scared of him, and they damn well should be scared of him. The dealers were hesitant to hand over product and money, they were unwilling to part from their merchandise even when threatened with the business end of a twelve gauge.

This doesn't happen to Booker. Cocaine falls from upper storey windows in plastic re-up bags before he even enters a stash house sometimes.

But today? He hears them slingin' them yellow tops, them WMD's and they don't even flinch when they see him coming. Today he takes the day off. And where does a rip 'n' runner go on his day off? Why Lakeview of course, a fancy Cafe. He has enough money to have his own place like this if he wanted to, surely he can afford the coffee here.

So in he strolls, an unfamiliar face without the blood or the rage to mark him as one of theirs, and without the perception to pick up on anyone else's either. Though he isn't aware of it. They are all new faces to him, just a bunch of mortals sippin' down hot drinks.

[Adamidas] She pulls open a newspaper, then another. They're folded in half, and stacked in suck a way that she can look at two of them at once. Her hand idly goes to her messenger bag. The Fury paws around while keeping her eyes on the papers. Eventually, she grabs a yellow highlighter. Adam looks through the pages, and her eyes narrow.

"Mn," is all she says. Grunts. Her eyes focus off the paper and go to the door. Gwen. She takes her third newspaper and shakes it at Gwen, "hey, come help me read stuff."

A beat, and she looks at the people (people, because right now they were people. Because, right now, they were no different than Bridget or the barrista working here today). She knew it was a full moon today, or should have been, at least. She knew what day it is. She knows when the equinox is, when the solstice falls, the phases and position of the moon-

Her attention goes to Kate, and her voice is even. "That's what I'm trying to figure out," she says over the newspaper, "there has to be some information here. It can't be just the solstice, because if it were there would be no reason for this to not occur every winter. Though, admittedly, I think that the solstice has something to do with it. Winter is when the earth rests. So, I'm looking for something that would give us some indication that this solstice is different. Or some occurrence that would make the spirits withhold Luna's blessings, right? Maybe there's historical significance. I don't think this is the first time this has happened, but it's definitely beyond my lifetime, that's for sure."

[Gwen Sullivan] She was waved over by the two faces she recognized. Eyes hopped to Bridget and Sinclair as well, others were people that she didn't know, didn't realize she was supposed to know. Sinclair because she was at the table, Bridget because she was at the table and a strong impulse, stronger and more spiritual than anything else she'd experienced all day today, hit her in the nostrils and sinuses in the way malt vinegar right under your nose does. Revelry and clove. She stared at Bridget a little harder than the others, then finished her approach, flat-soled black boots scuffing and squeaking wetly on the tile floor as she joined the group at the table.

She came in on the butt end of Adamidas's reading and thinking aloud and grasped briefly at the hem of her coat, almost like a child, squeezing as though it would reassure herself before wrapping her arms around her own torso and frowning faintly.

Her cheeks and nose were flushed red from cold and exertion, she was still recovering her breath, and when she spoke her voice rasped a little more than the typical half-sultry sandpaper tone it maintained, throat and lungs both sore from running in such frigid airs.

"Eclipse," she said simply, followed up by an incredibly youthful statement. "I don't like it at all."

[Asha Singh] There are coincidences in the world, and there are confluences - places where the lines of energy dip and pool like snowmelt running down from the mountains, like runoff through a dry wash after the passing flash of a thunderstorm, like Jupiter aligned with Mars, whatever hippies might sing about. Confluence, not coincidence - Katherine and Sinclair are sitting around their table in a coffee shop and people look at them like women, not like wolves, like ordinary creatures - lovely, sure, but safe, more prey than predator, and outside the windows, painted against the early dark between the slatternly mounds of plowed snow already turning dark from the city's rampant pollution where they have not been painted yellow by stray dogs and stray men alike - a black Lexus (hybrid) idles, stuck behind a snowplow whose blade has come loose from its harness against the truck's nose.

The windows are tinted smoke gray, nothing clear behind the glass - except that a moment later the brakelights are brilliant crimson-white in the gloom as the driver performs an elegant maneuver, tucking the vehicle neatly between the mounds of fetid snow without disturbing either.

The passenger's door opens then - the back right door - and a girl tumbles out, tugging on a black wool coat perhaps too long for her slight frame, buttoning it furiously, slipping each button into its little noose of a buttonhole, all the way up to the topmost at her neck, like a monk, like some kid's makeshift Matrix costume, the white of her blouse lost beneath the coat before she hits the front door, shoving the café's door open with this economy of motion that bespeaks urgency.

She looks wild, Asha - not in the manner of wolves, but in this furious adolescent way - younger without the rage to buoy her spirit, to make her incandesce. The girl's low heeled black boots are firm on the hardwoods, a counterpointed rhythm - harder, firmer, more martial - against the quiet singer-songwriter's christmas album in the background - and when she reaches the table with the odd assortment of her packmates - the ones she cannot hear - she plants her palms on the edge of the table and leans forward, black eyes snapping from Sinclair to Katherine, Katherine to Sinclair and back again -


"What the hell is going on - " the girl says, only her breeding blazing against the senses now, dark eyes stark with intent - and something deeper. Some fear, some abandoned memory. Some lack. Then, Adamidas rustles her third newspaper and Asha - straightens, wheels about without charging. "I can't do anything and - you're reading newspapers?!"

With a certain adolescent outrage.

[Bridget Geroux] More presumed Garou approach the table, overwhelming Bridget only because she's not used to being surrounded by so many bodies. She has an inkling that most or all of them are Garou, which would make any kin nervous. Bridget shrugs her shoulders like she's shaking off drops of water or a shawl.

"Can't it be both?" the Stag kin chimes in.

"I mean, I read this book about the psychology of fairy tales and the symbolism of everything in them. If you think about it, the Solstice is really the middle of winter as far as the sun is concerned. I would think it has to do with---"

Just then a slip of a woman who looks important barges into the cafe, right up to the table, and seems furiously panicked. Bridget raises her eyebrows and shuts up.

[Sinclair] The only thing left to her is that thin bond. She can feel her packmates, however still and quiet they are. She knows she's still tied to them, she knows they're alive. She knows that Kate is there and she can hear her thoughts. She clings to that, digging in her claws. Being the person in the room everyone is frightened of never mattered too much to her. It made her lonely. It kept her apart from her parents, from those she might have gotten closer to. She feels strange, but it doesn't ache the way it would if she lost that one, last

link.

Katherine is talking to Adamidas, and the cafe is so busy with shoppers and families that they seem to ignore the gathering of young adults at Kate and Sinclair's table. Sinclair, hands curled tight, exhales as her packmate says Lukas is on his way. It'll be okay, once they start to get together. Someone will find Asha and get her here and they'll be together and it will be

okay.

As Kate lowers her voice to address Rain of Brass Petals, Sinclair closes her eyes and leans forward, resting her elbows on the table. She takes a deep breath, and exhales it slowly, and tells herself at least she's not

alone.


But then she flinches, hunched over as she is. She breathes in sharply and flinches again, as though she's being struck. A third time, Sinclair jerks her shoulders up and together, cringing away from something, and lifts her head. Her face has gone pale, her eyes stark in color. She stares at Kate, as though to make sure Kate's still there, still real, and then she covers her face with her hands and breathes very, very slowly.

Asha comes near and Sinclair can't just sense her there. Can't feel her approach. She jerks at Asha's interruption and drops her hands, staring at the girl, then gets to her feet -- nearly knocking her chair back -- and throws both arms around the smaller, even more temperamental female, clutching her tightly in a ferocious sort of hug.

"Mr. Man is on his way," she says, muffled by Asha's shoulder, or hair, or the side of her head. "He --"

Then something occurs to her, something she hadn't noticed because, well, he's not always there as it is, he's not always hiding in her pocket, and she shoves her face into Asha's shoulder. As though Asha, of all people, could be comforting right now. As though Asha, of all people, might have any clue that Sinclair just realized her numen is gone, too.

[Adamidas] Eclipse, Gwen says, I don't like it.

Her eyes widen, and the expression on her face is one that is too much like a kid on Christmas. The newspapers hit the table, and what Bridget's saying finally dawns on her.

"It could very well be the combination of both, or the spirits' reaction to both. And, if this is the case, if we have some kind of knowledge of when this has happened before, and what happened then, we'll be able to gauge what we need to do next. Best indication of future behavior is past behavior and, if this has happened before, obviously it wasn't permanent because if it were permanent, we wouldn't all be here, right?"

She flips through the newspaper to find out more information about the eclipse, and her attention falls on Gwen for a second.

"I don't think all eclipses are like this. I met a full moon once that was born on an eclipse. It's like being dual-natured, but not quite."

Asha rages, but then Asha is getting hugged. And Adam highlight a few more things in the paper. Times, specifically. Dates, specifically.

[Wyrmbreaker] Just then the fourth and final member of the Unbroken barges through the doors. Lukas isn't the type to muscle his way around. If anything, he's the opposite: he wears clothes that are cut to diminish his physical presence, to give the illusion of slightness and litheness where he is, in fact, so very broad, so powerfully built. He doesn't slam doors open and shut. He doesn't stomp when he walks,

or he tries not to. Tonight, though, the cafe door flies open fast enough to make bystanders startle. What's different is that that's the only thing that makes them startle. Someone mutters under his breath --

Asshole.

-- which is something they would have never, ever dared before. Lukas barely notices. He goes straight to his pack, straight to the others, casts a single searingly blue glance around the table and sits. Beside Asha, who's getting hugged by Sinclair. Reaching across to clasp Kate's hand briefly. All here now. All together, all alive. Okay.

"So we all feel it, then?" It's confirmation only.

[Gwen Sullivan] "If our knowledge is handed down by tales and words, like I've been told, then good luck finding a story from last time."

Gwen stepped to the side, scowling when Sinclair throws her chair back wobbling to launch herself at the small dark-skinned woman that had slapped her hands on the table throwing a fit about reading newspapers. She stuck her knee out, swathed in denim, and caught the chair to keep it from toppling completely. Her eyes, a murky green-gray, slipped across the establishment and took in the faces that stared openly, unafraid and unabashed, at the scene with all the women crowding the table. She huffed in a breath and held it in her cold-burnt lungs, sensations of Fianna's cloven scent and the frost and silk of the Fangs clashing in the front of her head for a moment before she shook it and finished her thought in an undertoned voice to Adamidas. "The last time this happened was 1554." She'd watched CNN this morning and saw a report on the occurrence. That was all.

"....People are staring." She says this quieter. "Should we all meet somewhere else? Make sure the... totem is still...there?" She wasn't sure if she should be using veiled words or not. It was awkward and uncomfortable, and it had her scowling in a heavy, unattractive way.

Almost as an afterthought, she looked to Kate, then dipped her head in a half-nod half-bow sort of gesture. "Miss Bellamonte. Honored to meet you in person." Because Fire Claws would bust her clavicle if he was here and she didn't greet her elder as appropriately as possible.

[Booker Abbot] To the counter he goes, waiting in line patiently. His eyes flick to the outbursts happening near him and he watches with curiosity. But the words alone don't create the knowledge that would have him suddenly far more interested in their little party. At least not yet. Soon it is his turn to order.

"Coffee." He says, and his accent is bred more from demographics than from geography, at least to the untrained ear. To the trained ear it speaks of somewhere southern.

"In one'a them big cups. Sugar, no milk."
"Anything else?"
"N'a pack'a Newpawts."
"..We don't sell cigarettes here."
"Ya don't?"
"No."
"Oh indeed."

But he gets his coffee and he parts from the counter in time to hear some rather intriguing words. I once knew a Full Moon..Eclipses.. So we all feel it then..

Slowly but surely he edges his way closer until suddenly he is simply standing amongst them, an unfamiliar face without so much as hint of reservation about it.

"Ya'll feelin' like ya ain't quite yourselves today huh? Names Booker. Here I was thinkin' I was just specially cursed."

[Milo] The door to the cafe is thrown open. The quiet young man with the odd hat isn't the only one to turn and look. Twice. Twice the blast of cold air shoves its way into the room. Twice, the Ragabash looks over his shoulder at the entrance of an unsettled Full Moon. Only he doesn't know that they're Full Moons. He doesn't know that they're anything other than angry individuals. Except for that faintest tug against his senses.

He doesn't turn fully to watch the progress of the one called Wyrmbreaker, instead looks ahead when it's his turn to order up a hot beverage. Canting his head up at the board, those clear eyes find the barrista. Apologies are muttered, and the youth instead makes his way toward the table full of people.

For a second, he hovers. Not because he's afraid, but because a young woman just threw her arms around another young woman and looks like she's crushing her. He doesn't want to interrupt, but he has to know.

"Excuse me," he says, his quiet voice almost lost in the crowd. It's said to the table at large, but whatever might have come next is interrupted by the tall rangy black man. "Me, too," is all he says at first. Then, "I'm Milo. Sweeney. Uh." He reaches up and removes that ridiculous hat, revealing brown hair that can only be described as shaggy, runs his fingers through it and makes it more so. There are too many people for a proper greeting, so he just says, "What's going on?"

[Kristiana Coleman] The slip of a girl makes her way into the coffee shop more out of seeing warmth and escaping the isolation of her motel room than for any real urge toward coffee. Standing back near the door after it closes behind her, she studies the menu while more or less trying to stay out of the way.

[Wyrmbreaker] "I can't even feel the Umbra, much less sidestep," Lukas replies to the girl-cub. Unfamiliar faces around the table; he doesn't even bother with introductions. "There's no way to check if the totem is still there, and at any rate, we're not going to go running to the caern at our weakest. Any wyrmspawn could follow us there and devastate everything.

"The caern has its own defenses. Spirits and subterfuge. The best thing we can do for it right now is leave it be. There's a Travelodge up the street though. I'll go book us a room. We'll take turns standing on the street to catch our septmates if we see them. And our kin."

[Sinclair] No one calls Lukas an asshole for barging around a coffee shop, just like no one brings Kate her latte with a gleaming smile and hopes for a good tip, just like no one gives Sinclair a once-over and a cocky little grin. Not on any normal day. Today's not normal. If it were, Sinclair might be introducing herself to this teenager in their midst, and she might be joining in on a conversation about stories and solstices and history since. That's. Sort of her thing. She would not look like she's on the verge of tears, while Lukas is strangling near-panic and trying to stay in Business Mode.

She probably wouldn't still be clinging to the Silver Fang Ahroun packsister like this, even as Lukas enters. She's breathing in deeply, deeply enough to smell something that makes her only hold tighter to the other girl -- for a moment. For a moment, before she relents a little, easing Asha out of her arms a bit. No apology is given. No apology is, she seems to think, needed. Asha is still an Ahroun.

Asha grabs hold of her, though, and mutters in her ear. Sinclair's pale eyes flicker, and then an expression of aching, saddened humor flies across her face at something Asha mentions. It goes away quickly, and then is just... ache. "I could," she says quietly back. "At first. Feel you. But not anymore." Those last three words are blunt, spoken hard and quick like ripping off a bandage.

She glances at Booker as she saunters up, then Milo, and then jerks her head at the table. "Sit," she says to Asha, and does so herself again, adding: "Flipping out on her isn't going to help."

[Katherine Bellamonte] It could have been overwhelming; it should have been with this many bodies that possessed the capacity for anger; for supernatural energy. But it's strangely ... okay. Or not okay, as was the case for many of them. They were at a loss, and reaching to cling to whatever was left that bound them together.

Sinclair was falling apart, and Katherine looks sharply at her as she feels a strange silencing; she can see Sinclair, but she cannot feel her. Asha, too, her tribes-mate who rushes in and slams hands on the table in a gesture that cries I'm scared without my powers, fix this, is there but not. Katherine senses them, but there is a snapped point to their connection; as if a phone line had been cut.

Lukas is the last to enter, and to him the Half Moon's eyes shift; when he presses her hand; she lifts her other and sets it atop his for a moment. Reassurance, tactile sensation. "The eclipse." Katherine is considering, for all of what occurs, she is strangely calm amidst it; her center is still there but she seems -- better, somehow. In mind. There is no madness dancing behind the blue eyes, lingering in her throat like a rasp.

"Yes, perhaps." They are swarming the table, and Honor's Compass is looking at the stack of newspapers; then canting a vague smile Gwen's way. "Under any other circumstances, we'd be discussing how you have been, Gwen." Katherine's fingers brush her coffee and she realizes its almost stone cold. She picks it up, anyway, and drinks from it.

"How long does the eclipse last?" She asks the table, her eyes moving, restless. People are reacting; approaching, trying to throw their anger, but it is useless; nothing but looks and empty air.

[Adamidas] So we all feel it, then?
"Yeah," is her only reply.

Excuse me, Milo says.
Ya'll feelin' like ya ain't quite yourselves today huh, Booker says. The Fury folds up her newspapers and inhales. She regards the people that are here, and she exhales. She's a theurge, damnit. She's cut off from the part of herself that makes her feel at home, literally half of herself. All that leaves is will and resolve.

"Okay," she says, "I know this is pretty fucked up, but we can get through this. I have a feeling that if we're this impacted, so are our enemies. To a certain extent."

How long does the eclipse last? Kate asks.
"Gimme a minute," she replies, and goes back to her newspapers.

[Booker Abbot] "And who be our enemies?" He asks, raising an eyebrow. Just to make sure.

[Adamidas] She reads, "the lunar eclipse December twenty-ten will last for seventy-two minutes... it says in here, too, that the eclipse will occur in the middle of the night for most people in the US. Eastern time, it should start between one-twenty-nine and five in the morning."

She rolls her eyes and puts the paper down, "ugh, so precise."

[Gwen Sullivan] Sinclair looks at her sharply, though Gwen gets the feeling she doesn't mean anything personal by it-- it's just how she is, and without the Rage there to proverbially cut the flesh before setting the poison into it. She asks who she is, and Gwen answers simply with a shrug of one shoulder clothed in the thick canvas of an olive green jacket. "Gwen." That's all she would give in public.

A black man and a young white man came to join them, and Gwen seemed to grow more and more anxious as their group became larger. They were becoming more and more obvious, and she felt anxiety bunching up tight in her chest, spasming like a starving stomach that clenches in the absence of food, though rather than missing food she was missing her Rage, her furnace. She took a deep breath and looked to Kate when she smiled and greeted her, then nodded simply. The nod was compliant, 'another time' it agreed.

Lukas glanced to her and reassured her that the Caern would do fine, and went on to agree that they should go elsewhere. He would book them a room at a motel, and she nodded in agreement with that.

How long would the eclipse last? Well, Admidas was on it, and though Gwen had two answers she could give she was starting to feel like she was becoming too know-it-all for a cub amongst Cliaths and Fosterns. So, rather, she rubbed her throat and looked to Booker, quirking one eyebrow at him. "...Who do you think?"

The crowd was bothering her, the eyes that stared. With Rage people would be calling the police, certain they were up to no good. Right now they just looked suspicious, and rather than having already phoned the cops someone would probably do so in a few minutes. So Gwen tugged her hat on her head snugly and took a few steps toward the door, then stopped to look back at the group, then rolled her shoulders and switched her weight between her feet.

Anxious to go, anxious to lead them out, but well aware of her place on the totem pole.

[Kristiana Coleman] Finally having reached some sort of a decision, she makes her way to the counter and waits to order.

"Tall half caf skim latte, light foam, with half a shot of peppermint and half a shot of vanilla. Half a shot of each only, I don't want a full of both. And don't try to give me old milk either, or whole. I want fresh skim"

Either oblivious to or uncaring of the annoyed expression on the barista's face, she digs her card out of the large bag on her shoulder and hands it over.

[Wyrmbreaker] "We can't assume," Lukas interjects, "that this will end with the eclipse. And I'm not sitting on my ass to find out if it will or won't."

He raps his knuckles on the table twice, sharply, attention-catching.

"Let's move to the Travelodge. We'll talk more there. Figure out a plan of action."

[Booker Abbot] This is a trick question, it's like a mexican stand off. If he says the wyrm and they're BSD's he's fucked. If he says Gaians and they're Gaians.. he's fucked.

He decides to stay quiet.

A shrug is what Gwen gets, and a knowing smile. She's a smart one.

[Asha Singh] Sinclair offers no apology, and Asha doesn't ask for one. There's something direct about the girl's eye contact as they draw apart, something firm underneath, whatever bedrock Falcoln has given his crazed children to see them through the waning days of their influence - that solidity bespoke by blood, by age upon age, measure upon measure, by memories that are not and could never be her own, but live in her nonetheless. Maybe there's gratitude there, whatever strength underscores the girl's wildness.

And she sits, Asha, her delicate jaw set firmly, her constants in the chaos her packmates. The conversation moves on around her and someone says Eclipse and Adamidas mentions times, dates, assures them that their enemies must be affected as well. "I saw the moon," says Asha. "In the sky. It's full." As if they might forget; though there's more weight to her emphasis than just reminding them of the phase. That familiar rush of -

- all gone. "And, it's foolish to assume they're cut off like we are. It makes you complacent. Like a - [xxx]." She finishes with another incomprehensible word that sounds like a curse, some dark, foul, foolish thing, and stands, glancing to Lukas (as ever) for direction. "Thomas is outside. He can put the room in his name. We'll get two with a connecting door."

[Kristiana Coleman] The building rage tickles at the back of her neck, and she looks over her shoulder with slightly narrowed eyes as she scans the crowd, seeking out the source.

[Adamidas] [this is my willpower score!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Sinclair] Sinclair nods, and gets up -- without nearly knocking anything over this time -- and grabs Lukas's arm briefly before going anywhere. She stands on her toes to utter something in his ear, then lowers herself down and lets go of him. "My car's outside," she says, but doesn't offer anyone in particular a ride. She hesitates, though, before she heads for the door, and her brows pull together as she looks at Lukas, who drove her alone, and Asha, with her Tomas, and Kate, who probably got here in her own car, too. She can't say what she wants to say to them, not when all that's left of her pack in her mind is an endless silence, but perhaps, after all this time, they can read it on her face.

"I'll ride with you," she says finally to Asha. Her car can just stay the fuck here.

[Bridget Geroux] "How can I help?" Bridget asks without a beat.

She notices the lost, torn, frustrated faces around her. Mostly new ones, all are severely out of their element. She remembers faintly leading the play spirits around with her harmonica and it spreads a small smile to the corner of her pouty lips. The kinfolk isn't about to be left behind, however, since Simon's persistent warnings of the Sept being at war come surfacing up from her subconscious.

Bridget indulges in two mouthfuls of her coffee before raising to her feet.

"I'm not going to bother with introductions. Can I hitch a ride with one of you?" she asks.

[Wyrmbreaker] As Lukas is moving to stand, Sinclair leans in. A quick whisper. The Shadow Lord's brow furrows; he shoots her a glance, then looks at Asha.

Nods. "Okay. Have Thomas do that." Then he's buttoning his coat, having never even taken it off, bringing up the rear as the group begins to move toward the door. As Asha is passing him, he reaches out and snags her by the arm, pulling her back.

[Adamidas] She gives Asha a rather pointed look. It's a lot more intense than one would assume that a teenage girl should be able to muster. She does, however, only let the look linger for a second, and she gathers her things. All things gathered up, the Fury counts what she has, and looks at Gwen. She smiles, it's about as reassuring as she can offer.

"We're going to figure this out," she says. She waits to see who is coming with.

[Asha Singh] Some other night, even wild, Asha might look like she belonged here. Might imagine it a game, this place full of people, full of humans, full of sheep to be menaced by the elegant, slinking little wolf in her. Tonight is different. Sinclair is coming with her and her kinsman; Asha nods, a significant glance slipping from Sinclair to the door, looking through the reflections in the windows trying to catch the attention of the kinswoman outside when Lukas draws her back. Her fine little mouth tightens around her teeth, the expression suggests suppressed anger, as if she meant to bare her teeth but swallowed the threat back at the last minute. Tension lingers in her neck, the long slope of her trapezius until it disappears underneath the big collar of that black wool coat.

[Katherine Bellamonte] [Okay! Welcome to the finale of Lunar Eclipse Night, version Cinematic! Bear with me as I get myself sorted and type up a sort of intro to pull everyone together for what I have in mind. This scene is probably going to have at most, some perception dice but nothing combat-driven.

If you have to crash out for whatever reason, feel free and I'll figure something out for your character.

So, off we go! ]

[Katherine Bellamonte] "Some say the world will end in a catastrophe so large, nothing will live to tell the tale. I venture not, we'll go out in darkness. Fighting nothing but the memory of our own shadows." - Unknown Galliard, Silver Record

--

They all feel it. As one. Not even the Kinfolk amongst them are spared, though for them, the more their blood sings with breeding, the tougher it is to ignore. It's a tugging from their bellies as if a hook were thread by invisible wire and suddenly; abruptly -

wake up

-- whether or not they sleep; as one the voice is there. It is neither a man's voice distinctly, or a female's. It is simply voice; as wind is wind and rain is rain. Voice is here, and Voice is speaking to them; whether they're showering, sleeping, or scrolling newspaper clippings for details about an Astronomical event. Voice finds them in the street, or in the bathroom; it brings with it for the Garou a flare; a flash in the pan sensation.

It's almost painful; the sound of Voice.
It feels strangely familiar though, almost like -- home.

A definition they cannot quite describe but that it makes them start; turn faces, eyes, ears -- all to the windows, to the sky outside. Come, Voice instructs and brings with it an intense tug. To resist seems unspeakable; and the longer they do, the more blinding the Voice sounds, as it returns.

Not angry; not violent -- but here, but now.

[Anyone who resists the urge to move outside must roll WP against Diff 7.]

[Gwen Sullivan] [Willpower]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 6, 10 (Failure at target 7)

[Sinclair] [Willpower]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Danicka Musil] [Willpower]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 7)

[Wyrmbreaker] It's a short trip from the cafe to the Travelodge, but Lukas is one of the last ones there. He's not alone when he walks in. He has his mate with him, and everyone knows instantly why it took him so long to drive a block and a half.

They've been here a while now. They talked about eclipses, solstices; some grew frustrated; someone threw a pillow across the room. Stripped of their rage, their anger is not so fearsome as it was. The fit of pique was more amusing than frightening.

They've consulted almanacs, newspapers, laptops. They've come up with nothing, and Lukas is sitting on the corner of one of the doublebeds now, one hand on his knee, elbow outturned. He's diminished by that lack of rage. He seems -- younger, perhaps, or perhaps only normal. A young man a few years out of college, good-looking, with crystalline eyes that might smile easily.

"...must be a reason for this," he's saying. "We might not be able to reach our Wolves or our spirits, but it doesn't mean we can't look for a reason -- "

and right there, right then, he breaks off. Sits suddenly upright, face taut and alert. Without another word, he gets up and walks to the window, dragging it open, letting the cold pour in. He sticks his head outside.

[not resisting!]

[Kristiana Coleman] She's obedient. No one can deny her that. Without waiting for her specialized coffee, she moves for the door and out of the coffee shop, looking up at the sky as the door swings behind her.

[Katherine Bellamonte] [Kinfolk -- you can roll WP resistance + whatever your PB is. So, PB1, take a +1 Diff.]

[Danicka Musil] [With PB difficulty added: Failure]

[Adamidas] When she hears voices, and when they tell her to move, she listens.

She doesn't really try not to follow along. When one feels the pull of home, the intense urge to go, she goes. It is a voice. It is Voice, just like wind is wind and rain is rain. She pulls her backpack back over her shoulders, and makes sure that her bag is secured.

No one has to say a word. She doesn't say anything, she doesn't explain, she doesn't pretend that this is anything but right. Lukas gets to the word must and she's moving.

Most natural thing in the world.

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen was heading outside initially anyways. Lukas had rapped his authoritive knuckles on the table to announce so, Adamidas had smiled reassuringly, and that was enough. Get the fuck out of dodge.

But then came that voice, that tug, that stomach-wrenching thing that felt more... thrilling than painful, more pleasant than disgusting. She paused at the door and stared out the front window, eyes leaping up into the sky, hunting for the moon, searching, needing like it was the key to taking a deep breath that would let her be at ease. That was a lie, though, and the lure to come outside was strong as a mother telling your five-year-old self to come with the urgency that compelled, like a lover gesturing you into their chest after being apart for far too long.

But one couldn't charge blindly. One had to think. This couldn't... It couldn't just be as simple as that. They weren't made to be blindly obedient, or just plain blind. Her brow creased and her teeth clicked at the piercing in the cleft of her upper lip, muscles rigid, trembling along her shoulders and biceps.

But Lukas brushed by and out the door, and Adamidas followed. Gwen felt her feet drag after, and as though she was leaning backward against an unrelenting force that pushed her forward, she too moved out the door, eyes scanning the sky, the street, the shadows-- anything and everything, with one hand pressed on her upper stomach as though to quell or cut off entirely that urging tug.

She didn't like this. She didn't trust it. But she couldn't ignore it.

[Kristiana Coleman] (Oops) She drives to the Travelodge as if guided by something, looking unsure as she gets out of the car.

[Sinclair] The ride in Asha's car is much, much smoother than it would have been in Sinclair's. One is a Lexus. The other is...

an El Camino. A very nicely restored El Camino, but motherfucker, an El Cam is an El Cam and there's nothing one can do about it.

At the motel, Sinclair is preparing to argue with Asha about getting cleaned up and attended to by a Theurge, or anyone who might be able to help her. She's preparing to argue because... well. It's Asha. If everything with Asha weren't tinted with the scent of battle, she wouldn't be Asha, and Sinclair wouldn't have been quite as overjoyed to welcome the girl into the pack.

She's standing by the window, hand on one of the thick, ugly curtains, staring outside. Some people aren't here. Notably, a purebred kinswoman of another tribe and two total strangers. Her jaw is tight, and she's itching for a fight regardless.

Then Voice starts luring her outside, and she remembers when Voice was a little girl in the umbra and she remembers when Voice was a butler leading a charge and she remembers when Voice was something shadowy seeping into her mind, and Sinclair snarls. Out loud, and full-throated, she growls against the tug, even as her Alpha is getting up and coming over to the window.

"Don't," she says, putting her hand flat on the cold glass. It clouds around her fingers. Adamidas is doing it, too, and Sinclair says again, louder. "Don't." Gwen now, too. "Guys, stop!" she snaps finally, and it says something that even now, lacking rage, lacking the fury that backs her authority, Sinclair has the skill to infuse her voice with something like power.

[Asha Singh] Underneath that fashionable military style wool coat - purchased this evening, to hide the exact wounds the rest of those who make it to the hotel will see on her when they get they - Asha's fine white blouse is stiff with blood. She cannot shift, and wounds that would have once been an annoyance - something she could grit her way through a fight with, and then sleep off in a day or two or three, curled somewhere in lupus - are deeper.

In the hotel, the creature changed shirts - something cheap, something handy. Available for $15 bucks from the miniature gift shop run by the front desk clerk: I HEART CHICAGO - the cheap t-shirt reads, with a poor rendition of the Chicago skyline that looks rather more like the view of Shanghai from one riverbank to the other than anything like the actual city in which these Garou have made their stand against the end of days.

Thomas tore her blouse to strips and rebound the claw marks scoring her ribs, and then the girl paced, watching the windows while the rest researched, a shadow behind the front windows every time pale lights from some passing car skimmed across the icy screen.

That's as much tending as she'll allow. If there's anything left in the theurges, says Asha, they should save it. Who knows how long -


- and here, now, a voice rising in the darkness, an urge deeper than meaning that reminds her so much of the link she shares not just with the spirits of her tribe and house, but with the mad spirits of her ancestors, the voices she always wanted out of her head, whom she misses now like a piece of herself.

Close to the door, Asha is moving before she can think to resist or even begin to say why. It's only with the sharp snap of Sinclair's interjection that she pauses long enough to look at the Galliard.

[WP!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 4, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Danicka Musil] The woman that Lukas brings with him into the little motel room at the Travelodge is a stranger to many of them. Even his packmates don't see her often, though there are perhaps several reasons for that. She's dressed as she was when he picked her up -- not at her apartment, but the place where she was 'safely' surrounded by mortals -- and that means that she's dressed very strangely, compared to the rest of them.

Perhaps strange for a Shadow Lord, Danicka wears black only rarely. Tonight she enters the hotel room in a pair of flat-soled boots underneath the long skirt of a black dress. It's exceedingly simple, more than a little old-fashioned. The collar is off the shoulder, the sleeves are long. It isn't velvet, but the fabric is heavy, draping well. Her hair, often compared to gold in at least one mind, is in a single braid tied with a thin black ribbon without a bow. The strands of it cut across her fair skin, over her clavicles, braid resting on her shoulder. She has a black shawl as well, and she smells faintly of woodsmoke and ash.

Since she got here she's been quiet. She's occupied an armchair near a corner and she's not participated in the conversation about how, and why. She's watchful, alert, seeming as much curious as tense. Her eyes have, at some point, watched all of the Garou in the room with equal closeness. Mostly, though, and by no surprise to anyone, she keeps her eyes on Lukas.

When Voice tells them to come, she rises to her feet with a single smooth lift, her skirt falling around her legs again, and follows Lukas.

[Wyrmbreaker] [oFINE]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Adamidas] [WHY ARE WE STOPPING?! wp]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Wyrmbreaker] Something almost like irritation flickers over his face. Lukas stops at the door, spreading his arms to bar it completely, then turns to look over his shoulder at Sinclair.

They no longer have a totem link, a way to speak into one another's minds. They can still communicate without words, though, and the lift of Lukas's eyebrow says, Why?

[Katherine Bellamonte] For those who move to windows, for the Kinswoman getting out of her car and turning her face to the sky, for the Cub; so uncertain to begin with, still so new to all of this -- they see something. The sky is darkening, the shape of the moon changing as shadow creeps across it. Beneath it; sitting in the middle of the street amongst people; amongst traffic and cars and store-fronts that suddenly feel too bright; too artificial --

they see a Wolf.

To Lukas, it is almost nothing but a pair of red eyes. Its fur blacker even than his, its claws sharp and white even with the dimming moon. It is the largest Wolf he is ever likely to see; more the size of some prehistoric creature than that of any wild mortal cousin of theirs; even their mightiest Ahrouns in war-form would pale beside this Wolf. Its eyes are the red of fire; of unbiased anger and they are fixed on the Ahroun at the window. A pair of moon-watchers step off the curb beside the black wolf and through the black wolf and its form shimmers; like the disturbed surface of a pond.

The wolf feels like that which Lukas has lost.

--

Adamidas sees the same Wolf, but it is purely, starkly white. Its eyes are gold, and as a couple step off the curb; they step right through the giant Wolf as if it were not there at all. A car travels past; and the Wolf does not move an inch. It simply sits in the middle of the road as the moon begins to shrink --

and waits.

--

The Kinfolk see neither Wolves, but a young girl. Her shape is blurred but for the suggestion of a dress; of silver hair that dances over her shoulders. She sits, cross-legged and patient in the midst of a street with a ball in her hands; she's looking at Danicka and Kristina as if she's been expecting them.

She holds the ball out.

--

The Wolves stand as one; whether they see it as a black creature with burning red eyes; or white, with warm, golden eyes.

--

For those that resist; they feel a wave of sudden despair; a high keening that grows inside their skulls and pounds like the waves against the shore; there is rhythm with each keening smash against those rocks inside their heads: come, come, come it repeats over and over.

[Sinclair, Asha, ...okay, EVERYONE resisting soak 1 bashing!]

[When they glimpse the Wolves, Lukas, Sinclair, Asha see it as a black form. Katherine, Gwen, Adam are seeing it as a white form. Danicka and Kristiana, see a little girl.]

[Sinclair] [Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Asha Singh] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 3, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Adamidas] [Oww!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Kristiana Coleman]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Gwen Sullivan] [Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] [yelp!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 5, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Gwen Sullivan] Lukas stops at the door, braces an arm within it to prevent others from going out, but he's turned and left his body narrow so he can look back at Sinclair and Asha, demand why he should stop. Adamidas stops short as well, convinced by Sinclair's compelling words to halt her feet and pay mind to what the Glass Walker has to say.

Gwen, though, her resolve is not so great. She wants it, the logic in her mind tells her to stop, had been doing so from the beginning, but it was nothing compared to instinct and what her belly and her heart told her to do. Lukas was easy to look up to, especially for somebody so new to the game, but this Voice, this... this beautiful white wolf with the liquid gold eyes sitting in the middle of the street, waiting so patiently. People pass through it, it is beyond them. It waits exclusively for them. Who was she to keep it waiting?

She felt something thump!. It didn't phase her an inch, it felt like little more than a second cramping, strange and unsure but not quite painful enough to dissuade her yet. She put one hand at the crook of Lukas's elbow and ducked her head some to pass under it, walking out onto the street with limbs and back stiff, expression grim and hard like granite. She needed to be out there, it was going to be too late before long.

[Wyrmbreaker] -- and then that eyebrow lowers; the Shadow Lord's ice-blue eyes squeeze shut. He flinches at exactly the same instant as everyone else in the room, everyone but the very few who are not resisting the call of ...

whatever that is. The Wolf. The girl. Something.

It passes. Lukas opens his eyes, lowers his hands from the frame and turns to face Sinclair steadily. "I think we should follow," he says, quiet but steady. "It feels like ... "

me, he wants to say. He gives his head a quick shake.

"It feels right to follow," he amends.

[Adamidas] Gwen's still moving, she thinks, and the female takes a few steps to catch up to the cub. She sees a wolf, and her hesitance hurts, aches, drones. She doesn't ignore the feeling anymore, and the Fury takes her steps outside, She looks at the wolf, and her head cocks to the side. Its eyes are gold, and it stands purely, starkly white.

"Come on," she insists to the group. She doesn't look back for long, just long enough to catch up to Gwen and just long enough to follow the white wolf. It's waiting for them. Both of them. Her eyes travel up to the moon- it shrinks some and wanes away. If Lukas is still in the door, she squeezes through, or at least tries to. Wyrmbreaker's a big guy, as such he can take up a fair chunk of a doorway.

The sound Alethea makes isn't human, not exactly. A close approximation of a whine of discomfort, though given their state it's more anxious-teen-at-the-dentist than animalistic. The balance is offset. She goes with what her instinct had told her.

The Wind is the Wind.
The Rain is the Rain.
The Voice is the Voice, and who was she to deny it?

[Sinclair] She wants to tell him don't you remember --

but she can't. Something hits Sinclair like a hammer to the chest and her hand clutches at the curtain. That black wolf outside takes her eyes off of her Alpha, and she doesn't try to tell him he can't listen to things that summon him when he's at his weakest, when he doesn't want to resist and isn't sure he can. She looks through the window again, the imprint of her hand vanishing from the glass, and closes her eyes.

They burn.

The loneliness that's been with her for almost as long as she can remember, growing stronger every year, is crushing her now. It was teachers and kids at school first. The boys who freaked out and couldn't stand to stay near her, the friends who drifted away rather than keep her in their lives. It was her parents, distanced by their own inability to understand what was happening to her. It was the Glass Walkers who took her at the beginning, who she couldn't bear to look at because they were the ones who locked her away.

It was Regina, who she could never quite reach. It was Colfax, who she ran away from. And every wolf she knew, every wolf she packed with. Something about what she is keeps her apart even from other Garou, and she's never understood why. She's never understood how it could be like this, and she's questioned a thousand times if this was really how she was supposed to be born.

Lukas is, perhaps, more connected to his nature than any of the other Unbroken. She could hear panic edging his words even when Kate was the one on the phone with him. Sinclair's never been that tied to being a Garou. A part of her has been asking since she woke up if what she really feels is relief. A part of her has been asking if she really wants to go back to being all the many things that separate her from her family, from humanity, from the one who her heart called mate even if she never even managed to say the word love out loud.

It was starting to feel less like living in solitary, with the Unbroken. With Tripoli. There was a world she could reach into that felt like home, but even there the spirits were wary of her.

Sinclair is closing her eyes so tightly there at the window, like she doesn't even hear Lukas anymore, like she isn't aware of him or Gwen or Adamidas or any of them heading out the door. Whatever it was that Sinclair had to say, she isn't saying it now. She's got one hand pressed flat against her breastbone as though applying pressure to a wound.

Gwen goes out. And Lukas speaks but isn't going without them. Adam goes. And Sinclair just shakes her head, slowly, twice, though it's unclear if it's in resistance. Tears come, without explanation or warning, seeping out from under her dark, soot-colored lashes. Right now there's no rage in her, no violence, none of the wrath that changed her so utterly when it began to appear in childhood. There's just a dreadful sense of loss. Of refusal.

She shakes her head again, and turns her head to look at Lukas. Her eyeliner is running, leaving black trails down her cheeks. "I can't be this anymore. I don't --"

Sinclair closes her mouth again, refusing to say the rest. Pain in her chest and her skull or no, she puts her hands on the windowsill and lets her head drop, and does not move.

[Asha Singh] Asha does not articulate what feels right about leaving this cheap motel room, with its scratchy comforters and its faux modernist prints on the walls, swirls of color so indistinct that they could not offend anyone anymore than they might inspire. Someone turned the television on and CNN is in the background, reporting on the weather. Correspondents are parked outside, peering up at the sky, in some cases through thick cloudcover while banal anchors beam white-toothed smiles back to the camera.

- the Silver Fang is still, shoots Adamidas a glance as she urges them onward, making noise in the back of her throat. The cheap cotton of her t-shirt is damp again as the tenuous balance of clotting and bandaging is broken again, and the wounds begin to seep, but by now she has the coat back on, which makes her look larger than she should, which diminishes the strangeness of seeing someone so well-bred in such cheap fabrics.

When Sinclair bends forward, Asha shoots Lukas a look, still and simmering and dark. She feels the urge as well as anyone else; trusts it and mistrusts it in equal measure. If she were going to -

- she says nothing. Stands there, watching her Alpha, edging forward to brush her flank against Sinclair's - a physical promise of presence - utterly animal, that, for all that she has lost her wolf and everything that came with it.

[Danicka Musil] The little girl outside looks nothing like the daughters Lukas saw once in a vision, in a rite, in the underworld. She doesn't feel like a daughter to Danicka. She feels like someone else, someone Danicka knows, though she's never spoken to her except in the recesses of her own mind or in the presence of humans who barely understand what they're trying to acknowledge.

Danicka has lost nothing tonight. She's been sitting here with Ahrouns, with a Philodox who may as well be one in terms of rage, with a young woman who would normally terrify her. She's been watching them all act like... well. Young adults. Lukas isn't even twenty-five yet. They're just people, for once. And they're unnerved and vulnerable and it's so strange to her.

On some level she feels sickened. This isn't right. She knows it isn't right. She worries about the whys, she worries about what's being planned for them. On another level, though, she is comfortable with ambiguity in a way few are, in a way few can tolerate. There are things she has done that even Lukas doesn't and probably shouldn't know about just because he would wonder what kind of sane creature would do that sort of thing. He would be terrified by how at ease Danicka is with some of the most profound risks, and he would hate himself if he understood that very little that the mortal world has to offer frightens a woman who has lived so close to death by frenzy since she was a toddler.

When she goes outside to meet the little girl, she puts her hand on Lukas's side briefly in passing, her palm against his ribcage, but says nothing. The threat of dying tonight inside this room, torn to shreds by the very wolves that are supposed to protect her kind, is gone. There is nothing outside on that street that she finds too horrifying to accept.

Danicka goes towards the girl with the ball, and holds out her hands as though to catch it, once thrown.

[Danicka Musil] [Ofine. "Lukas is only twenty-five."]

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas has a lot on his mind right now. He has his mate to protect. Wolfless and toothless as he is, he brought her here to be with him, so he could protect her. He has younger wolves to guide and watch over. A cub, even. He has another kin he's never met before quietly idling nearby, and he has his packmates, one wounded, all wolfless.

But a constant undercurrent in his mind through all this, all of it, is simply: end this. make this stop. bring my Wolf back. complete me. It was never: I'm happier this way. It's easier this way.

Even if his car wasn't choked with rage when Danicka climbed in. Even if he could feel the difference when he reached to embrace her then; feel how there was no tension in her when he wrapped his arms around her, even when he squeezed her tighter than she would normally be able to bear. Even if humans didn't dart out of his way. Even if people weren't afraid to call him an asshole now when he was being one -- never, not once, did he wish this to be permanent.

So there's something like shock, and incomprehension, when Sinclair collapses in on herself the way she does. When she says what she does. He stares. He startles when Danicka passes him, her hand against his side: warm against warm. He looks at her with wide eyes, catches her hand as she's leaving; lets her go.

Looks past her to the great Wolf. Meets its eyes unflinchingly, unchallengingly.

"I'll come soon," he says: a promise. "And whatever you want to show me, or give me, or take from me... I'll accept it then. But I need some time right now."

A pause. He puts his hand on Sinclair's shoulder, his eyes still on the Wolf.

"Please."

[Katherine Bellamonte] When Danicka reaches out to catch the ball from the little girl; there's a silent gurgle of laughter from the child and even as the Shadow Lord Kinswoman feels the reality of the toy hit her palms; both of them fade. Like the flash burn after a picture is taken; they are at once there; and then not.

Kristiana, too, passes from sight.

--

yes, they hear as this happens, and Voice is happy.

--

The moon vanishes a little more; and one of their fold unravels. She cannot, she will not, she does not want.

--

Please.

The black Wolf only stares at Lukas; and its voice is steel and blood; anger and decay, there inevitability in its voice. It is the rumble of the battlecry; the nature of his heart and soul. There's no pity to Wolf. There's only what is. What shall be.

If you do not come you will not know

--

The Theurge elder is edging toward the white Wolf; and it rises and speaks in tandem suddenly, with the black.

This is transcendent, it cannot be stopped

--

Voice is back, and it wraps around Sinclair where she's fallen like a shroud; at once comforting and insistent.

It is who you are, it cannot be changed

--

Black Wolf speaks again; a rumbling growl.

If you do not come by the time the moon is gone; you will never understand

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen doesn't come close enough to be stricken by the wolf, though she does not believe it will lunge and use teeth on her.

She stops at the curb, aware despite the need to be with this wolf that it was still in the middle of the street, that she was still in the physical realm (she knew that because she tried to pass to the other earlier and she physically, spiritually could not make it happen). She could get hit by a car, and if she couldn't shift, hell, maybe she couldn't heal? She would not go out on somebody's windshield, or worse yet left broken and bleeding out in the middle of the street where her comrades couldn't heal her, while they couldn't put on the strength and swiftness needed to catch the vehicle when it sped away, fearing legal repercussions.

She stood in front of the Travel Lodge, out of the way of traffic, of claws and fangs of this gold-and-white wolf, and waited for it to lead.

[Wyrmbreaker] There's only a single nod, unwavering.

"I understand."

--

Then he's turning away from the black wolf, the embodiment of -- what? Rage, certainly. His own rage? Everything he is? For a moment, Lukas wonders if he will lose himself forever if he doesn't follow. Now. By the moment of totality. He wonders this and he feels a surge of panic, but he bites that back, too, like all the others, and his hand firms on Sinclair's shoulder.

"Listen to me," he says, quiet and low. "Listen to me. No one can force this on you. Not even Perun, or Cockroach, or Luna, or Gaia herself. If you don't want it anymore, there are ways for you to renounce all that you are. To let this cup pass from you.

"But Sinclair, listen to me: that is not what Gaia asked of you. She asked you to stand up and sacrifice yourself, sacrifice everything in the end, so that she can live. So that everything good that you love can live. And she didn't ask this of you to hurt you, or to crush you. She asked this of you because you are strong enough."

[Katherine Bellamonte] Every step brings Gwen closer.

She feels that little pulse again, little surges like electricity at her fingertips; setting her hair on end. It's the same kind of sensation that comes from stepping into the Umbral realm. White Wolf turns its massive head and stares into the Cub's eyes. It has no real mannerisms to suggest its form; it does not wag its tail, nor flick an ear. Its eyes are solid; absolute.

The warmth it radiates is intoxicating.

--

When Lukas speaks; the Voice rushes around him like a blast of wind, rustling the leaves on a wintry day.

[Adamidas] She should be panicking.

She should be clawing at the walls, pacing, screaming, railing, wanting this all to go away. She should want it all back. She should be outraged at the mere idea that someone could take this from her. Take away a very vital, very pivotal piece of her being. Alethea should feel naked, she should feel concerned, she should feel lost. The fact of the matter is, though, that she isn't. She doesn't. The Fury isn't lost or confused or anything.

The path is different, the dance is the same. Some part of her was afraid that some vital, valuable part of herself could be taken away. Her throat hurts, it aches to swallow right now just from memory. But she isn't afraid, instead she moves with the confidence and the insistence that she is used to. It's a strength of purpose that drives her, and without her connection to Gaia pulling her in one direction, without her rage silently clawing at whatever it can get its hands on, all she has is her will.

Resolute.

And right now, it's all she is, and the fact that her connection to that hasn't waned keeps her going. She steps forward and stays with the cub. She is not afraid or nervous because her will is strong, and they will figure out what is going on.

"Lead," she tells the white wolf, "and we will follow."

[Gwen Sullivan] Adamidas is at her side. Lukas and Asha, Sinclair and Kate, they all stay inside the lodge room, stuck for some reason that Gwen isn't paying a lot of attention to. Someone was reluctant, someone was missing themselves. She'd be soaking up every detail in a typical situation, but right now it was impossible to pay mind to the world outside of her immediate proximity and the Wolf. The Kinfolk across the way? All but invisible, lost in the glow of the Wolf.

The warmth is beautiful. It was golden, it smelled heady like wine, beautiful like a bouquet, and tasted sweet and thick like honey. She spoke to Adamidas, and it was lucky she was near otherwise her words would have been lost-- Gwen breathes them more than she speaks them. "Is that Luna?"

From the mouths of babes, they say.

Adam tells the Wolf to lead, and Gwen steps forward after a brief glance left and right for incoming vehicles (some small semblance of sense remained) before stepping out and approaching the apparition.

[Sinclair] Sinclair's shoulder tenses under Lukas's hand, against the way Asha brushes against her. She doesn't jerk away from either of them, but the contact doesn't seem to ease whatever pain comes with being torn in half and choosing which half to let go of. Lukas tells her, twice, to listen to him, and she bristles, looking away.

He gives her a really great speech. A very Ahroun speech, a very leaderly speech, about Gaia and sacrifice and being strong, and Sinclair shakes her head. She shakes him off. She gives him a Look. "Fuck Gaia, Lukas," she says, those tears and that makeup drying on her face.

"Gaia never asked. She made me this, and it took away everything else. If what she wants are willing soldiers, then this is my answer: no. My mandatory tour's over. I'm done," she says, her voice cracking on the last two words. "But you know what? That fucker out there just told me that this is who I am. That it can't be changed. So my thinking is, when all this is over I'm going to wake up a wolf again, whether I understand or not, whether I want it or not. Whether I'm 'strong enough' or not."

Her eyes go back to the window, staring out at that Wolf.

"Go," she tells Lukas. "It's not going to wait forever."

[Asha Singh] "I know what those things feel like. But sometimes things trick you, make you think they're right when they're wrong. And if they're wrong those two are going to get eaten up, -rhya." There's an urgency in Asha's voice; she doesn't have Lukas voice and doesn't repeat his assurance that Sinclair is strong enough. It feels almost - insulting, to reassure a werewolf of her strength, and she cannot bring her throat to make whatever words might be suggested by the idea - renunciation, surrender. Give this up.

"We're stronger together than apart, and we can't leave them alone out there." With an urgent roll of Asha's eyes, suggesting - something of her opinion. "Come - on." With that, a brief, direct look at Lukas. "We need you. Let's go.."

[Sinclair] "To be honest, Asha," Sinclair says quietly, her voice steadier now than it was a moment ago, "you guys are stronger without me right now."

She always tells the truth. No matter how brutal. No matter how shameful.

[Katherine Bellamonte] When Gwen and Adamidas approach the great white Wolf and tell it to lead; it gets to its massive feet; it's chest at the tops of their heads; its paws the size of craters. It looks down on them, and while it cannot be a smile; the feel of one is suddenly around them, they can hear the distant sound of laughter; and intense warmth floods them.

They begin to emit a glow; it becomes blinding in short order.

Standing amongst her pack-mates; Katherine makes a noise, it is a short soft oh; her lips shaping surprise, her mouth rounding around the words. "Sinclair, it's --" she fades before she can conclude her thought. So too, does Gwen and Adamidas.

--

The moon continues to darken.

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas doesn't look away from Sinclair, except for a single slice of his eyes toward Asha. He shakes his head.

"We're stronger together than apart," he repeats, affirms, "and that's why we're going together, as a pack, or not at all. Sinclair, you've always told me the truth, even when it wasn't pretty or nice or pleasant. So I'm going to do the same for you right now and tell you:

"You're being selfish.

"You might have spent your whole life so far giving and giving and never asking a thing for yourself, but that doesn't negate that you're being selfish right now. It doesn't make it all right for you to say, fine, I'm done, I've given enough. I quit.

"I'm sorry I'm saying this, but I have to. To give is why you exist. It's why we all exist. Gaia doesn't want willing soldiers. She wants sacrifices. That's why she made us."

A beat.

"But that doesn't mean we can't find good things along the way. That doesn't mean we shouldn't hold on to what good we have. And -- Christ, I know right now it feels like it'll be easier if you just give it all up, throw it all in Gaia's face and go be a ... a human or something, but Sinclair, you have a pack. You have brothers and sisters that love you and need you. You have a family that you need, too. And I promise you, if you turn your back now, you will regret it. Not because of Gaia, or because of fate, but because you'll be severing the last real bond you have.

"You heard the Wolf. You are what you are. You can deny it, but it won't change what you were made to be. And it won't change what your spirit will always long to be."

[[ Fade out, scene concluded with spiritual enlightenment and going home. ]]

Trust [Linus]

[Bone Writer] There is a small alcove in the line of the shore that makes up the edge between Parkside (rocks for a good thirty feet, then ice chunk riddled water, then water you could store meat in for a century, it's so cold) that is a comfortable little duck pond, fed by a small river that is man made and aesthetic by most circumstances. It's there for old men and women to sit on benches around and throw bread at the quackers for lack of anything else to do with the last decade of their lifestyles.

In the Physical, it is a serene little place, bordered by a jogging path, so young people in the prime of their lives, wearing spandex and boasting abs and thighs the likes of Adonis and Aretimis, can wave politely at the aged and weathered in hopes the good deed will stave off their own inevitable downward spiral.

Depressing.

The Umbra:

The Pond is iced. A layer of shifting cracks and subtle murmurs below the patina of white crusted snow over solidified water. Black peeks through where scuff marks have been made to clear the frost on it's surface, revealing a gaping maw of dark below the surface. The surrounding foliage and trees are little more than silhouettes of pretty, glittering cobweb and pattern, the meticulously crafted 'Garden Spiders' slumbering quietly into their intricately hexagonal nests within those trees, rooted as they are in a landscape sculpted by Man and the Weaver with generous theft from Gaia's own beauty.

It is here that Linus stands, on the ice's edge. His garments are the same familiar cargo pants, half jacket and sneakers, buttoned up around a scarf and cap, to keep the chill at bay. This close to the lake, the winds are somewhat more bitter than within the inner city, pushing cold to exposed flesh like a greedy fuck buddy.

He reaches into the space between jacket and scarf, rubbing at the left side of his chest with a grunt of ache. The hand comes back out again and shoulders roll, neck lolling to either briefly. Then, he's turning to Gwen and perking a brow.

"Tonight's lesson starts now..."

And he opens his jaws wide, rolling the lower mandibles around with the articulating and disturbing rush of cracks and clicks that sound not unlike snapping bones or breaking ice. As soon as his jaws close, he takes a step out onto the pond. Then another. He is not careful, but confident, striding over the surface of the Umbral pond even as the ice creaks and groans beneath his weight. There is almost a whining chord to those sounds.

Soon enough, he is in the middle, turning to face the very centre, a finger pointing at the space opposite him for her to occupy.

[Gwen Sullivan] The pair had walked part of the city as though the distance their feet covered was nothing. Today's man, softened by vehicles and reclining chairs, would get blisters on their feet and be fatigued after a scant few miles. Gwen, up until a several short months ago (where the hell did the time go?), may as well have been precisely the same as modern man, would have been were it not for school sports. She didn't look the type, but she'd played softball, volleyball and ran track (distance and jumps). More likely than not it was catering to some of the wolf that had been hibernating up until last August.

The wind bit cold when they passed into the Umbra, Winter had more of a presence here than it did in the Physical world. Gwen was okay, though, she grew up in the Midwest, she dressed in layers that insulated the core of her body and kept her fingers and nose covered when out for long periods of time. Her boots had no heel to them, just flat sturdy soles like winter boots ought to have, so she did not slip or struggle on the stretch of rocks between snowed-over grass and the pond's iced over edge. She just stood next to Linus, as quiet as he was going to be, waiting to learn.

When it was time for a Lesson, she let him speak first and guide the night.

So with a rub of his chest and a frown, he announced that the lesson was to begin immediately. Then his jaw dropped low and rolled to and fro as though he had a too-large jawbreaker jammed between his teeth, and the sounds that came carried no voice, rather they sounded like snaps and creaks and toneless groans. She lifted an eyebrow, uninterrupted by piercing scars despite the jewelry that adorned the rest of her face, and watched with interest as he finished the spirit's sentence and stepped out onto the ice.

She didn't follow immediately, she didn't want to rush if the ice had agreed to hold him but not her. She waited until he indicated for her to move, which she did without pause. The girl didn't walk with predatory grace, her stride was as average as most the rest of her, but she stood straight and walked with a sureness that catered to her birth moon, and looked patiently, curiously at the ice below her and Linus's feet as she came to stand a few feet in front of him.

[Bone Writer] He waits for her to join him, keeping his finger pointed out and at the ice until she's standing in the precise place indicated. The entire way forward has the surface upon which they both now stand, creaking dangerously under Gwen's feet. She can feel the vague shift of balances and equilibrium moving to attempt to accommodate her sudden presence on uneven ground. She can also feel the slap of the winds, attempting to fuck with her balance and throw more weight in one direction.

"Ice is a bit of a tricky bitch." He starts, looking down at his own feet, spread slightly wider than would be comfortable or normal for a still person. "It'll cave or run in any direction that is lighter than beneath your heels. A bit of an annoyance really. Moreso for the fact it's slippery as fuck, as well. Reminds me of a Ragabash in that sense..."

The last line is muttered, his head and eyes canting around them, watching the snow scuff and brush, revealing more windows of black where it wipes clean off the icy surface. He's quiet for a moment or two then, stilling himself with out-raised hands. Then, with a quick jab between clothing layers, that half-headed spear, looking like the barbed tip of some dragon's tail, snaps out and lays itself in the base of his palm and across his shoulders.

Where it settles and he puffs out his cheeks, blowing an exhale between them.

"So what about this situation do you trust?"

[Gwen Sullivan] As is always the case and rarely anything but, in a situation where the opportunity to learn more is presented Gwen is attentive and quiet, her eyes sharp and alert and expression serious without being grim. Her posture was similar to his, feet a little wide, knees slightly bent as though she were on a snowboard, absorbing the motion and shock of ice as it shifted and rocked, braced for hard bumps and heavy jolts if they happened to occur. Her hands, however, were in her pockets. They would only snap out if she felt her balance going, arms would hold away from her sides until she found that balance once more and was comfortable with hiding her fingers in the warmth of her canvas coat.

The spear coming out of his chest was never a boring sight, she watched with intent interest as a weapon manifesting from someone's flesh. The comparison between ice and a Ragabash was met with a small upward lift of one corner of her mouth and an amused huff of breath that hung white in the air for a few moments before dissipating into the night.

What about this situation do you trust?

She thinks only for a moment, perhaps even just half of one before answering, the faint rasp of her voice made moreso by the cold in her throat and lungs, but none of that negated the honesty in her words. "You." A beat, a glance down to the black beneath the ice. "And your bargain that you made with the Ice."

[Bone Writer] The Spear snaps around sharply, it's butt cracking hard into the ice underfoot.
The resultant, protesting crack that erupts is a threat and a shiver under the heels. He sways slightly to one side to absorb the shock, knees bending to catch it all.

"Now why the fuck would you want to go and do that?"

[Gwen Sullivan] Her knees don't buckle, they take in the jerking motion of the ice in response to that spear butt stabbing into the ice, but regardless she has the same amount of grace as your average person, she's no lithe certain predator (just yet). Her arms go out, gloved hands grasping air for purchase that did not exist, windmilling once. Her right boot slides back, her chest and shoulders lean forward, and balance is found once more, even as the ice plates they stood on rocked with residual momentum.

She looked up at him, arms still out and shoulders rolled forward. The effect was a shadowed eye, a gaze out from under her brow.

"Because you're the guide here, the Theurge... Godi. You know what's what in this place." She licked chapped lips, her arms relaxed a little, but she didn't straighten up. She was braced for motion, perhaps even for assault. She'd trained with a Fenrir Lupus and learned under his heavy paw, unannounced attacks were nearly a norm from mentor to student as far as she was concerned. This was how they learned after all, right?

"What would you get out of leading me astray? None aside from me not surviving the Rite, and if that's what you wanted you wouldn't waste your time with me in the first place. I don't know this world, you do. That means either I have to trust you or I can't trust anything here right now at all."

[Bone Writer] "Don't know me, Kid. Or my motivations. What I want or need. What I think or reason. We've talked a couple of times and that ain't anything but a First date and your panties on my bedroom floor if I'd wanted. Nothing of trust there."

He sucks at his teeth and leans to one side, wincing slightly in the motion.

"You ain't pack. You ain't Tribe. You ain't anything but some young Cub. Not even a Garou, 'cause that means Warrior and that ain't you. You're a Werewolf, which is English for Monster. No path. No goal. No nothin' to separate you right now from something tucked in a hole somewhere, waiting to die or kill. Pure instinct. Pure shit brained."

He draws a circle in the snow over the ice, eyes falling to the black that reveals itself. There are laced lines of jagged white through that black now, spreading out from where he is standing. He sneers, briefly, then wipes it clean with a frank glance back up at her.

"I ain't even your Mentor, girl so don't go thinking I'm worth shit all to you. If I had my way, you wouldn't be leaving the Bawn and have to sit at the feet of a proper Adren listening when he spoke and memorizing shit like I had to do for nights on fuckin' end. I ain't even cuffed you yet 'n I got calluses on the back of my brain. You've it easy and yet you're still saying stupid shit..."

A sharp intake of air, snorting back a gob of mucus and spitting off to one side. He wipes at his nostrils with the back of a gloved hand and taps the spear's butt against the ice once more.

"So...What can you trust about this situation?"

[Gwen Sullivan] There's not as much Rage in the girl as there would be if she had been born a week later than she had been. Her heart doesn't burn with insult as she listens wordless while the Godi talks her down, sneers and demeans and no doubt intentionally stokes the fires of that supernatural, Luna-gifted fire. Yet it scalds none the less, warms her from the inside out. Her joints ache and muscles tighten, asking for action.

The difference between her Rage and that of an Ahroun is that hers asks for a fight, wants for it, waits and waits until the opportunity shows itself. An Ahroun's demands and fights and screams for the war. Hers just prefers it.

Yet, as with all Garou, the Wolf is there regardless, unassociated with Rage yet similar all at once. It prompts her to curl her upper lip, but sense stifles the growl that would sound awkward in a human throat anyways. Her teeth grit and her eyes drop down to the circle he draws in the ice, stay there, analyze it while he repeats the question. Rather than defend her Mentor in how he's chosen to teach her, or defend her answer (because regardless of all the points he tried to make she still trusted him. If she didn't she wouldn't be here in the first place), she gives him another.

"Not a fucking thing." The bridge of her nose, red from the cold, was wrinkled up with irritation, with the stress of shackling the Rage under the nigh-halved moon. "But I have to put faith in something, otherwise I am just that Monster."

[Bone Writer] "Good answer..."

The butt of the spear snaps hard into the ice again. The resultant sound less protest and more warning. The shift underfoot happens again, though he only sways a marginal inch or two, suggesting her supposition of a 'deal' struck was true. Or his balance and consideration for the situation is not simply wholly important. The sneer doesn't leave his features, even as the spear settles off to one side again.

Crack goes the ice.

"...But wrong." He sucks at his teeth once more.

"...Faith in 'Not a Fucking Thing' is about as useful as Faith in 'Something'. You want to be ambiguous and Gay, go join the fuckin' Unicorn crew. They'll welcome your weakness and following with open arms and smiles and invite you to their orgies." There is a sing song quality to the last bit, followed by an almost whimsical and wishful sigh.

"...Wanna try again?" the spear hovers a half a foot off the ice, Linus lips pursed off to one side expectantly.

[Gwen Sullivan] And kids complained that college courses were difficult....

The spear hammers into the ice once more, and it answers with a snap and a shift. Gwen had the right idea in not straightening back up, this time she took the jolt and rocking motion with a little more grace, even if her right hand did reach down toward the ground at one point as though she may have to catch herself. This isn't the case, but still she doesn't straighten up, and now she leaves her arms in front of her, tensed with elbows out, as though next time she may just go onto all fours rather than bother with the effort of standing tall. There was nothing tall about hunched over and prepared anyways.

"To say that I have faith that Gaia will keep me straight is stupid-- if that were the case there wouldn't be casualties. To say that I trust you, though it's true, is the wrong answer. To say that I trust nothing, because outside of you I don't, is wrong as well." She's almost sneering, despite her best efforts to keep her lips flat on her teeth. It's obnoxious, it makes her look young and insubordinate, but that's what happens when wolf expression is portrayed on a human face-- some things are just lost in translation.

"So my final answer would be my ability to survive-- but that would be a lie. I don't think that I could beat you, I don't think that I would win a fight if the spirits rose up and crashed upon me. Even if retreat would be a tactical choice I would be shamed because of it, and then I'd probably get caught in the webs on my way back to the physical world. None of that would stop me from holding ground and giving it my all.

"But that's not the point. I can't trust you, I can't trust nothing, so I trust me."

[Bone Writer] "Finally!"

He throws his hands and the spear up in the air, without releasing the weapon, eyes rolling and shoulders slumping. His free hand goes patting and reaching for a pack of cigarettes that aren't there, a fact that takes him several seconds and half of his next speech to realize.

"A Garou's gotta have faith, strength and He's gotta fucking know he can count on his own damn self in every situation. You want to be pack? You want to be Tribe? You want to- Fuckin' hell where are my smokes...fuck, Umbra, right...Fuck. Where wa- Oh yeah. If you want to be any of these damn things, that means you gotta be trustworthy. You gotta be centre and you gotta be something before you can be something to someone else."

He taps the spear butt into the ice again, shaving his foot over the snow to leave a bare patch of cobweb cracks around two very large white shard dents around his own position on the ice. the cracks vanish into the areas where snow still covers the landscape they've chosen to stand on.

"Don't trust I won't toss you into the waters. Don't trust I won't do the same to myself if it means taking you with me, or that I have or haven't prepared for that fact. Think it through. Think through everything. Reason what you can count on and what the fuck you Can Trust, because it's those facts. Those sturdy, solid things that make up what is going to be important to you come a situation that's gonna need your Judgement."

He crouches now, weight falling into a tighter, denser ball that has the ice creak loudly again beneath him. If the Spirits are indeed assisting Linus' efforts, then he is certainly testing their patience at this point. The spear remains upright, even as he stares up at the cub with a Frank sort of grimness.

"Philodox is required to separate truth from fact and fact from lies. What the fuck good are you if you're just going to Trust shit blindly? Faith is my territory, by the way. Spirits don't lie. Ever. People. Garou. Kinfolk. Everyone else? They do and that? Is your Job. Your party."

A pause. Thinking, eyes at the canopy above. Then? He snorts. Loudly.

"Good Luck."

[Gwen Sullivan] He exclaims 'finally', and Gwen's initial response to that combined with his tossing his hand and spear in the air had her body tightening up, tensing, curling a little lower, hands reaching toward the ice to brace herself. If she had to leapfrog her way back to shore, looking like an idiot trying to scramble over floating, shifting hunks of ice then so be it. If he wanted to go into the icy waters that was all on him, and once she was sure he wasn't going to drag her down with maybe she'd consider going back to help (even if he put himself in that dumb situation on his own).

But no. The spear butt doesn't put a final strike down upon the ice, and Linus doesn't reach to shove her down into the icy waters. He speaks, explains the point he was trying to make because she finally got the answer right. He relaxes and searches for cigarettes, and she stays tense, center of gravity left low and knees remaining bent. Her chest burned like when you've gulped too many breaths of sub-freezing air, it was an uncomfortable mix of the wrong kind of adrenaline and her Rage toiling and creating tumult.

He snorted and wished her luck, and she grumbled a little and, finally, lifted a hand to shove it inside her coat, digging the heel of her hand into the center of her breastplate and rubbing firmly, as though she could quell the icy burn within through physical pressure and will alone.

"I understand the point you just made." She speaks after a minute, frowning at the black beneath the ice. "I appreciate it. I know the impact was the point and that's what'll make it stick with me." Her right hand continued that firm, steady scrub against her chest. It sounds like she's leading up to a 'but', however that word never comes. Perhaps she reconsidered last moment and veered away from it, or perhaps she's just acknowledging the lesson and proving she understood it.

"Do we learn of the Water and Ice now? Or do we get coffee?" A silly question, in any other voice it would be sarcastic, undermining. From Gwen, though, it's simplicity and truth. She knows better than to smartmouth (to most, anyways).

[Bone Writer] "You will understand."

A correction to her statement. He taps the spear a couple more times, jaws working left and right again.

"Now here's something you need to understand. I'm a cliath. I make only slightly less mistakes than you do most of the time. That means you're gonna make the same dumbass shit I do when you get to be a Cliath. Most of us though? Learn one thing and keep that close 'cause it's our best chance at staying alive."

He shrugs.

"S'different for each tribe, what that thing is? Call it a lesson or just a survival skill-" A beat, grinning and nodding. "Yeah, that's what we'll all it. You trust your own ability to survive. That's what this is...Part of the Skill set. It's one thing that keeps with you throughout your training, throughout your lessons. Applicable whether you're talking to a Modi, Godi or Rotagar. Part of what binds you to the other Moons and makes you capable of dealing with anything."

For a minute he seems like he isn't about to answer, distracted suddenly by the thunderous groan from underfoot, that has him frowning and suddenly looking down at the pond beneath them. It isn't massive. Barely twenty yards across. A quick sprint might get them to reach the edge but then...Linus doesn't look like he's ready to bolt. Nothing in his posture, says to run or brace himself with any particular effort. He looks more agitated at whatever the spirit beneath them might be saying than, anything else. His jaw looks like it could unhinge again, but then his face comes up like he suddenly remembered she was there.

"Weakness isn't anything. Not a cure, not a flaw, not a fault, not nothing. If you find out you have it? Get rid of it." A pause to let that sentence hang on it's own. Another loud groan erupts around them, the ice beginning to sag slightly under their heels. Still he remains standing where he is.

"That means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Part of it though is figuring out when to say Fuck you to the Impossible, rather than try and make it out in one piece."

There is a Sharp

Crack

And Linus stares at Gwen, meeting her gaze. The cobwebs of white begin to turn to patches, obscuring the black in chucks and sections.

[Gwen Sullivan] He corrects her on her understanding, and she nods in agreement. He was right, she phrased that wrong. From there the lesson pressed on, and she payed attention diligently, even as the ice complained and groaned and creaked. It interrupted Linus, and he looked down like he was going to speak to it, judging by how his jaw shifted on its hinges (she was learning to recognize when he was going to speak English or Something Else by how his mouth moved, and that had her wondering what it meant that she recognized it at all).

He seemed to think it would be okay, and spoke further, touched on the topic of weakness. This was one she was familiar with from Fire Claws. It was something to be recognized immediately and cut out just as fast. It wasn't something to be dwelled upon, and was hardly anything to learn a lesson from. Lessons learned from weakness would be rooted within it. Lessons ought to be learned from wisdom and strength instead.

Another crack! resounded, buzzed vibrations up into her knees and hips. Linus stared squarely at her, she flicked her eyes down to watch the spider-thin patterns of cracking ice branch out under their feet, then looked back up, matched her eyes to his.

"And this... This is another lesson of trust? Your bargain with the Ice looks like it's winding down." A beat, and then a hitch of her thumb toward the shore matched with a questioning lift of eyebrows. She wouldn't dart away for fear of her own safety, but if given the go-ahead you better believe she would clear away from the thin and crumbling surface.

[Bone Writer] "...Girl, when the fuck did you ever hear me say I had a deal with the ice?"

A brow perks and Linus tilts suddenly to one side as the patch under his left foot dips, forcing him to re-step forward slightly.

[Gwen Sullivan] Her answer is a blank stare, eyes a cool shade of gray-green to match the weather about them. It isn't disbelief that she wears above her blood-flecked scarf so much as dry skepticism. Were they in other forms, either of them, the way that her heart picked up the beat and began to hammer in her chest, how she could feel her pulse in her stomach and throat both would have been more noticeable to both of them.

"Then why are we still standing here." Her tone was unamused enough to take the question mark off of a question.

[Bone Writer] "Because I ain't a Fuckin' Pussy."

And he flashes her a sharp grin, before flicking his eyes down at the rapidly devolving Ice, which has begin to chatter away in clinks and plops of sloshing water all around them. He doesn't move. Doesn't step. It's a four second gap, perhaps a sliver of a chance for Gwen to do something before his jaw spasms and a sharp

Crack!

Erupts from his mouth.

The answer to which, is a similar one from the ice and the swift upheavel of the Godi's footing, sending him plunging into the black waters with the upturned and watery slick ice gobs vanishing all across the pond.

[Gwen Sullivan] Her mouth opens, winter-chapped lips parting to show a faint flash of teeth and tongue as she's about to form words in response (or retort) to his answer. This was similar to having a rug pulled out from under your feet and seeing that the whole time you've been standing on a square two feet of floor while everything else was open twenty feet down to a cement floor. Your certainty of your balance changes just from the realization, not because of anything physical. That's how she felt about the situation, and she was fighting to catch up still.

He was Mad.
She supposed that they all were, had to be in their own ways.

His jaw shifted curiously, and a snapping sound, loud and resounding cracked out from off his tongue. It was answered by the ice, and the waters rolled, the ice sheets splits and spread away from one another, and Linus, with a splash, dropped into the icy black waters.

She understood that the Umbral Reflection and the Physical were not the same. The pond in the Physical may only be a dozen feet deep, but who was to say that it wasn't two or three times that depth here? That it didn't widen past the surface, that there weren't tunnels and chasms that they couldn't see from up top? She also understood that if anyone had a handle of the situation it would be Linus. Another understanding that conflicted with that, however, was that Lone Wolves did not prosper, and while he was right that they were not pack or family or tribe or anything of that sort, it didn't give her right to just leave a Garou to struggle on his own.

Stupidity and Logic fought in her mind, twisted together like dueling snakes, and then tossed one another out a window as her decision was made. Her body snapped like the ice and the language of its spirit did, her clothing tore, and a pelt of dusty tawny-gray rippled from her skin to replace the bare patches that the ruined clothing left. She rode the jerking ice and let herself fall in after. By the time she hit the water, her Rage had warmed her body from burning away and she was in Hispo rather than Homid. Clawing through the water after the Godi.

[Gwen Sullivan] [+7]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Bone Writer] (Initiative! 7 +...)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Gwen Sullivan] [Action: Help Linus toward the surface]

[Bone Writer] (Action: Punch Gwen in the Head upon surfacing)

[Bone Writer] (Dex 3 + Brawl 1. Diff 6)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Bone Writer] (Str 2 + 1 Sux)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Gwen Sullivan] [Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Bone Writer] The Pair go into the dark and the cold.
The moment Gwen hits the shock, she comes to a new realization. Or perhaps a familiar one. The insulative properties of Fur are wiped out the moment it becomes soaked through. Warmth seeps from her hispo shape with disturbing alacrity, even as she plunges into a thorough dog paddle below the surface. Teeth and touch find the slim theurge, already kicking toward the surface...

...And she assists with nudging snout and Hispo strength.

They breach the surface with gusts of shocked breath, both, Linus spitting and sputtering and teeth chattering all. Yet no sooner have they begun to bob in place, then he's turning to lunge up out of the water slightly and crack a fist off the top of her head. It's ineffectual, but felt despite the numbness spreading through both their forms. A pale tint comes to Linus' bedraggled face, even as he bares human teeth at her.

"...You do as I say when it comes to the Spirits, you understand?! And I didn't say shit all about helping me with nothin'!" Ice chunks are smacked and slapped away, even as he treads in place before her, nearly nose to nose, teeth to teeth.

"There are rules. Laws for how to combat Weakness!" He spits water off to the side and reaches up to Grab at one of her ears and pull downward, so that he can match her eye to eye, heartbeat thrumming just alongside her snout.

"Until you know them, you listen! Don't fuckin' Act!"

[Gwen Sullivan] She expected the cold, she's been wet in fur before and understood that. She wasn't a polar bear or an otter, wolves, even the very large ones made for fighting the Wyrm, were not meant to be submerged in frozen waters. But less than them were thin Theurges, so Gwen had made the plunge. Broad paws that easily outsized dinner plates scooped at the water, pushed her body down until her nose found the currents from Linus's kicking toward the surface. So she hooked her snout under his armpit and pushed him up toward the surface.

They broke through the chunks of ice and into the air both with a gust of breath and a splash of water, steam rolling rapidly off their bodies into the frozen night air, seeping away from them as quickly as air from a punctured balloon. Her head was about the size of his torso, but that didn't stop him from slamming a fist into the front of her skull, chattering teeth and all. She barely flinched. Soon her ear was snagged and her lower jaw was dunked underwater as he dragged her head down-- not by force but because she let him. In these bodies she could plow over him, but in society, in her mind, she would not. She just stared hard at him with eyes the same yellow as those of many a wolf, and tossed her head up to blow the water from her snout above his head, clearing it before dropping her massive head and flicking her ears. I understand is the message portrayed, even as her trunk-thick legs kicked rhythmically in the water on either side of him, creating currents that rocked him easily back and forth in front. He held to her head, and she swam to stay upright, to keep them both above the water.

So she didn't act. She stayed treading water, her nose near to his, hot breath doing little to keep him warm in the water. Her eyes stayed on his face. Physically, nothing told of action. Inside it was a test of will to not simply grab one of his arms in her mouth and haul him back onto land so they could dry and warm.

[Bone Writer] He snorts. As much as the helplessness of standing on Ice that controlled whether he was warm or cold. As much as a Cliath teaching a cub is out of their depth when such things are meant for Elders. As much as the Spirit World is a massive place filled with ancient beings, totemic monsters and the sheer innumerable fact that you do not belong...

...Linus weathers the buoyant moments alongside the Hispo that could snatch him in half with a single bite or bowl him over with all the aplomb and anger of a Crinos.

"Weakness is a disease and a fucking system of rules, just like Strength. Just like Honour. You want to live by those rules, then don't bother with Fenris. He'll eat your fuckin' head before you get a chance to give him excuses."

And he finally releases her ear, shoving away from the burly Hispo to begin swimming for the shore. Of the spear, there is no sign, his hat having been lost below the surface somewhere, scarf trailing behind him like some dead serpent. His teeth chatter, his frame shivers and it's a vague struggle to pull himself out of the waters, but he does and remains in homid while doing it.

"Get out of the water. S'time for coffee."

[Gwen Sullivan] She treads the waters and listens, stares with all the too-focused attention that a predator has in its gaze into his face while he speaks around chattering teeth, one hand grasping her ear, turning her head sideways some by dragging it down, the other hand swishing under the water that threatened to throw the both of them into shock with how cold it was. Her limbs stiffened, but they were as strong as they could ever be, and she remained above the water, shivers rolling down her sides and back.

It's only when he shoves away from her and swims for the shore that she does as well, paddling through the water after him, climbing onto the shore only a few feet to the side of and behind him. He advises that they would go for coffee, and she snorts some, sprays more icy water and snot out onto the rocky ground at the shore, then shakes out her coat as much as she could, starting with her massive head and ending at the soggy tip of her tail.

He stubbornly remains in human form, and she keeps near him, keeps in Hispo for the duration of their time in the Umbra. Fact was she didn't have dedicated clothes, what she had been wearing was left floating in the lake. Spending much time with a Lupus is influencing her habits some. Linus shivering with wet clothes clinging to his frame has her thinking of his warmth. With Fire Claws distance was a flimsy concept, brushes and physical contact was a heavy part of communication. Were it him she would be pressed to his side and sharing heat in an instant.

With Linus, though, she Did Not Act Until Told.

[Bone Writer] ...He moves forward a safe distance from the Pond, pulling at his clothes as he goes. It takes some doing and effort, but eventually, the Godi is stripped down to his boxers (a collection of stoned smiley faces on black pattern, with a thick joint tucked into each identical smile and the words 'Good Times' printed in bright green cartoonish bud, across the ass cheeks). He doesn't seem to care, mind or show any favour toward Gwen in this condition but sets to work shivering in place, standing on the snow and wiping his hands across flesh and skin to shake away as much water as possible.

It's a half minute before he realizes she's still there. His lips are blue and his skin is nearly white with cold.

"T-t-t-t...F-fu-fu-fu-ck...." And he stops himself and rolls his shoulders.

And in an instant, boxers expanding, he is in Lupus. A gangly thing, lanky and long from tail to narrow snout. Fur sprouts droplets and miniscule dew over a relatively dry pelt of speckled and gunmetal gray. He shakes himself reflexively, dismissing what little water still clings to him and leaving behind a lolling tongue and a vague shiver that begins to recede under the still cold flesh now fully furred.

He turns those eyes of vague yellow surrounding black, to stare at her, ears perked and jaws clapping shut. Then he leans down, gathering up the sodden clothes in his jaws and turns to the distant park, dragging the articles along with him.

[Gwen Sullivan] There's a spark of humor at the Godi's choice of undergarments, this doesn't manifest outwardly though. Gwen remains a few yards off from Linus, shaking her pelt out once or twice. She doesn't stare, but doesn't go to any extreme lengths to avert her eyes either. Rather, she looks back to the pond, glances to Linus to check and make sure his lips hadn't gone more blue and his movements hadn't become too sluggish and stiff, and then looks upshore to the skeletal trees instead.

He stammers through a spastically shivering jaw a curse, then his body melds down into that of a wolf, not the overtly large one that she was but a much smaller, more streamlined, more acceptable to the human eye variety. He shook out his pelt, one darker and more dominantly gray (a sign of his heritage) than hers, and she followed suit by shrinking into a matching form. As a wolf she was as average as she was as a human. Her frame was sturdy, her face and paws dominantly white, and she was somewhat smaller than her male counterpart but not drastically so.

He dragged clothes, she had nothing left to carry with her. They traveled like this for some time, through the Penumbra until they passed through the boundaries of Linus and his pack's territory. Once within the echo of the church they would cross over. Dry clothes, warm drinks and food, followed by much needed rest. Not many words from the Cub, though, she would digest the evening until sleep took her away under a blanket on a stiff surface.