Elements [Linus]

[Bone Writer] "Fire."

He holds his hand over the gleaming light, eyes failing to squint. Failing to close or push back against the brazen heat coming up from the walls and off of the openings and egresses of the structure a blaze.

They? Are in the penumbral expanse. Having run afoul of one another on the street or in the Caern, Linus had not explained much of what he was looking to do. All that had really come up was a simple: "Right. Time for you to learn something" and any arguments had been met with a stern look and an askew jaw followed by "You a Cliath yet? Course not. So shut up and listen.".

More specifically than the penumbral expanse: They were somewhere in the downtown district, standing in front of a four alarm blaze that someone had set not a half hour before their arrival on the scene. They'd stopped as Linus had looked on the blaze in the physical, listening to the whirl of sirens, the gush of flames belching from windows and doorways and the shrieks of those on the street who's lives had been greatly disturbed. That the convenience store was also home to a second story family of Chinese immigrants who were no where to be seen on the street, told stories. Tall stories so proper within Chicago.

"It's not really something you fuck around with. Not something you ever want to know about because in all honesty? It's the most furious thing you'll ever come across."

He's standing close to the immutable and gnashing snap of the Umbral Flames, a uniform thing of orange and deeper black, toward the centre, where everything is a cinder and the heat has scoured deep and twisted and clean. Not inches from the flames themselves, dressed in cargo pants, ashen sneakers, a black long coat and a thick hoodie, skull cap covering most of his head and shadowing some of his features (or maybe that was just his proximity to the flame.

Regardless, he seems uninterested in it all. Not the snapping tongues and licking teeth of the flame itself, reaching out toward him with a crackling response that is almost a language. Almost but not quite. Not of his proximity or the whispering dawn of spiritual presences (spiders above, on roof ledges and eaves. Haunting things in alleys, peering with glittering eyes of avarice. Ghostly images in window panes, forlorn and nostalgic).

He stands beside the flame, like they are old friends, or enemies in a ceasefire parlay, staring at the gutting element, eyes turning to watch the Young Cub even as he lifts a hand to smack at the reaching snap of a twirling and fiery limb.

Gwen can feel the heat from her safe vantage point.

"...You respect fire, not because it's a Spirit but because it's Furious. It's the only thing in the world that the Wyrm couldn't conquer and still can't change. It can make it's own sort of duplication or similarity but it can never get it quite right." And his eyes back on the scorch before them.

"It's pure and clean and rich and devious and makes you beg caution. Everytime. You respect fire because it's Furious."

[Gwen Sullivan] The Umbra was a place that made Gwen feel jumpy. Not because she fretted for her safety, but because there was entirely too much going on and she was noticing almost all of it. In the physical world she was accustomed to the 'everything' that was the background, so she didn't pay much mind to the cars that drove by or the cats that looked through apartment windows. Here, though, where the air felt crisp one mile and stale and chalky in the next, everything was new on every block of the cityscape. The spiders were everywhere, and she was staring at them, unsure whether she should classify them as a threat or not even as she walked next to the Theurge, the best guide she could hope to have taking her through this realm she'd only visited two or three times prior.

Their meeting, their reasoning for being where they were now, on the opposite side of the mirror, was chance and boredom and the action-lusting spirit that lay within all their breasts coming together at once. Linus and Gwen met eyes for a moment in the Bawn, and he told her that she would learn something tonight. There was no argument, the Moon had her out crying for an escape from walls and ceilings, and she went willingly with the man not a stranger. She even followed him to the roaring rage of a convenience store fire, the kind that the fire department would call multiple jurisdictions in to help out with, that they would be more worried about containing than dousing. She even took the plunge through shadows into the world beyond.

Here, on this side, Gwen gulped for breath for a moment after the fight through the thickly-woven web of the Gauntlet, then adjusted the heavy olive green canvas jacket that she wore and snugged her wool scarf around her chin and mouth a little more. The spiders, the spirits that swirled overhead in the blizzard-force snows, only barely perceptible, were difficult to ignore, but when Linus spoke the Cub's attention was rapt upon him-- partly because of drilled in respect, partially because it was hard to ignore a man standing side-by-side with a fire that had literally come into a life beyond what she'd seen before (no face, no limbs, but presence), but mostly because she was intent to learn.

Dressed in a black beanie, gloves to match her scarf, a pair of jeans and a pair of black boots that the cuffs of the jeans had been tucked into, Gwen squinted against the blaze of flames against her face, even from the distance at which she stood, and in the back of her mind contemplated the vast difference between that and the swirling, wet cold that tried to creep under her clothes with the wind and fat snowflakes falling upon the realms-- both of them.

"We respect it," she repeated, speaking up over the roar of the flames, "and the Wyrm hasn't changed it. ...So it's alive? It isn't a tool like normal people believe."

[Bone Writer] "Fire's only a Tool in the physical. Something people want you to believe is controllable given the proper precautions..."

He grunts slightly, leaning to one side as the Flames of the building reach out and snap a section of the second floor apart, webwork cracking under the pressure of the heat, a cave-in of ash, cinder and order plunging into the middle where slender figures made of female parts, cavort and dance around the chunks. The harsh wash of ash and guttering black smoke, peel out from the exposed windows, seeking the sky overhead. His arm reaches up and there is something of an irritated grimace there, the light flooding his partially covered face, revealing the black whorls beneath eyes where sleep has been deprived.

"Of course if people could control it, then shit like this wouldn't happen. Fire is only a Tool when it becomes a Friend and only a Friend when you learn how to talk to it. You only ever talk to it when you need something from it and only need something from it when you figure out how to Respect it properly." A long chain.

Linus stares into the fire a moment longer, before turning back to Gwen. He walks from the edge of the building as the figures within, bow and lunge and reach out with featureless faces, long yellow fingers reaching out to gather up pieces of melting or crumbling webwork, to stuff into gaping maws that weren't there a moment ago. Nymphs and Wyldlings of flame, eating while they can.

"...Fire doesn't think or reason like we do. It doesn't consider from the boundaries of survival. It doesn't even rationalize that once the fuel is gone, it is as well. It exists and does as it pleases and what pleases it, is this..." He turns a hand toward the building, without taking his eyes off the Cub.

"Which is why sometimes, the Wyrm can use it, just as it is. Clean and Pure. The Wyrm can use it against us because Fire, much like the other Elements, is one of the few things that has no loyalty. No trust or compromise. You make a deal with fire, it's momentary. You push it and it will always. Always. Push back."

And then he's pointing, that same hand, motioning toward the 'Rafters'; where huddle the skulking spiders, where tuck the tails of the spiritual vermin and rodents that crawl and creep and skuttle. Each is present and watching the flame, gutter and chew it's way through the Building. In the distance, the sound of sirens, attached to the concept of Urgency and Panic, crash through street sections in their haste to arrive.

"They understand. Respect and Fear are much the same thing in this world and they understand Fire, at least enough to be afraid. The Spiders do not rush in to quell the tide, the rats flee and the roaches burrow. The wyrm creeps off into shadow and dark, furthest away as it can, maybe laughing, maybe cringing but far away because Fire is Clean. Fire is Pure."

And back to Gwen again.

"...And in all honesty, it's the last Resort when you Clean something. Cleanse it. Water first. Earth and Air next. Fire last if all else fails because it's always hungry and the Wyrm. Can't. Have it."

[Gwen Sullivan] Hands were sheathed with gloves against the bitter winter storm that had been attacking the midwest for two days now, they had the fingers removed from the tips for better tactile function. In many the urge to borrow the heat and warm their hands and shoulders and face would be present, but Gwen must have some good base of logic that she started off with, or a mentor that drilled hard the lessons of Respect and Fear and Strength, because the thought never once crossed her mind. She learned from someone months ago (and months felt like ages now, funny how that works) that the Umbra was a place of ever-changing fluidity, and that anything and everything could potentially hold sentience. It may be of a limited sort, a different sort, but it was there.

Gwen wasn't stupid enough to warm her hands on a raging fire that was taking shapes vaguely human, vaguely monster, and actively consuming the building rather than simply causing it to go up in flames and crumble into ash. The process was wholey different from this point of view, and the last thing she wanted to do was offer Fire one more thing to snap up in its frenzy.

Linus approached, parted himself from the flames, and Gwen looked past him to the fingers that looked like talons that looked like whips while they reached out for debris and threw it between white-blue-yellow teeth to lap with angry orange-red-black tongues. Her head edged to the side some, and a hand lifted from her pocket to play with the solitary piercing in the cleft of her upper lip. Eyes washed out smokey gray by the harsh light of the fire jumped to the Godi's face while he spoke, and stayed there while she understood, contemplated, and verified.

"I understand how the fire is clean and strong, strong enough to clean when other things can't. I understand how you can...." She trails off, uncertain of how to word her thoughts while Fire was right there, but pressed forward anyways with a faint furrowing between her eyebrows. "How you can give Fire its start. How do you start Air? Do you... bury something to clean it with Earth? Drown it to clean it with Water?"

[Bone Writer] "...You don't start, Air. Air's already here. It's been here a long time, longer than you or I or any old body looking to tell you they've seen some shit. Same principle with Earth and Water. Unlike Fire, those three came before and have existed, continue to exist and will always exist long after you and I are gone. Fire's the difference because it's the part Gaia keeps close. Keeps her warm-" And he stamps on the ground, looking down as if they could view the molten heart of the Mother herself, buried so far below the surface of where they stand.

"Fire needs fuel because it's away from Gaia up here. Some of it managed to escape the prison of the Earth, so it could play with the Air but met Water along the way and grew jealous or some such. Fuck I ain't a Skald. Ask Kora sometime." He waves off the stories, turning to begin the trek past the flaming building and on down the street, nary a glance offered or given to the lingering presence of dozens of shades and figures on the street's opposing side.

"Elementals exist in a different frame of mind. Liken them to the crazy hobos on the street. Still part of this world, but they think and reason differently than the spirits here, nevermind us. When you run into one, expect that you will be operating on it's basis for Control and Response, not the other way around. Fire's the most dangerous of the lot but the others have their own little quirks and how to's as well, that will get you anywhere from frustrated to just plain dead."

He stuffs his hands into the jacket pockets, dressed in the cut-off gloves that seem to be the norm. for those busy on the street. A slight lift of shoulders, tucks his ears deeper into the scarf at his neck, even as he steps sharply left without detouring from their direction at the gush of flames reaching out of a doorway, explosive and violent. One could almost hear the Joy in the air as it raged skyward. The figures within are no where to be seen, squinting as one must to gaze into that inferno.

"Earth isn't a cleaner. It's a containment device. You bury something to starve it of air. Keep it trapped. Contain it. That's what Earth does."

He motions off to their left as the flame is left behind, the guttering light still somewhat prevalent at fifty yards distant. Beyond his finger, down the street of the next intersection, the screaming shriek of blue and red sirens, attached to nothing, crash around curbs and corners on their way to the scene they are leaving.

"Air is the breath of life. Give and take. Chill and freeze. Steal words and songs. Voices and throats with nothing but a breath or the lack thereof. You don't cleanse with air. You contain. A lot like Earth that way."

He steps up onto the curb as the Ambulance Chasers, Wyldlings of pure noise and tragedy tear through their intersection and take the corner wildly, coming into reach of the blaze itself.

"Water is the cleaner. Purifies, like tears. Like blood. Like rivers carry poisons to oceans that can swallow them. Like salt cleans wounds and ice calms swelling. Water is the cleaner but needs the earth to contain and the air to spread the word."

[Gwen Sullivan] Linus begins walking once more, and Gwen falls into step as though she'd been doing so for years, only half of a pace behind so that he's still leading and she's still following, but she's near enough to his side to maintain conversation and at least portray a sense of confidence in her step. Even if it is terribly false in this world of shifting realities and muted reflections.

She's taking account of what he says. He starts with a story about the origins of the elements that he cuts short because he can't be bothered with it, it's not his thing to remember the details of the stories that taught him about what he did, that was the base and ground for what he was trying to teach her now. The four basic elements were all creatures of their own right-- Fire volatile and hungry, but clean none the less. Uncontrollable but able to be contracted with, albeit briefly, if you know how to conduct yourself before it. Earth was for containment, when you wanted to suffocate it, Air would steal the breath from your lungs and give it in the same minute. It contained as well.

Water. Water's the cleanser, and it's the go-to when you needed something Cleaned.

Which had her thinking.
"What would you--"

WHRRUUWWRRR! A cluster of spirits that were nothing but noise and a rush of movement more than any visual manifestation that she really registered ripped through the street, stumbling over each other and skidding on the snowslick pavement to round the corner. While Linus calmly stepped onto the sidewalk, Gwen leapt instead, heart jamming itself neatly behind her clavicle to hammer rapidly for a moment, Rage (still as difficult for her to contain and negotiate with as the Fire she was just introduced to, particularly on nights where the moon was perfectly halved such as this) roared its answer at the backs of the Wyldlings as they continued toward the flames, and Gwen just stared wide-eyed after them with a hand curved to mimic a claw clutching the front of her coat.

A few deep breaths, and even though Rage still burnt like terrible heartburn and her heart itself, though it had fallen back into place, continued thumping heavily, she was able to finish her thought. "What do you 'Clean'? Is that like how you take care of the mess left behind after a fight?" She was thinking specifically to the corpse she left so carelessly in a dumpster, one that her mentor was left to 'clean' for her.

[Bone Writer] "Sometimes. It's more complicated than that, though most other Garou would have you believe otherwise."

He waits on the sidewalk for her to catch a breath, calm a little and return full focus to the conversation, before continuing their walk down the street. Winter's sweeping grasp seeks out any exposure in their clothes, air looking for warmth to dig out of flesh and leave behind it's favourite chill. He keeps most of his features behind the scarf and under the skull cap, regarding the steadily darkening streets before them.

"Taint is multi-purpose and varied. Wyrm doesn't dip it's toe in the big pond and suddenly start laughing about it. He's gotta do it in specific ways. With specific methods. Treat each fight, conceptual or visceral, as if you needed to know the specifics. Find out what needs cleansing and what just needs disposing of. If you're not sure? Fire." The end all cure all be all.

They stop again, Linus pausing as they turn the next corner. He stands on the curb once more, looking up slightly to regard the street lamp overhead, a row of them continuing down both sides of the street. In the physical, a dull, florescence illuminating and emanating safety or the illusion of. Within the physical, it is a powerful humming bolt of contained electricity, a glass bauble of lightning shrieking within a prison.

"Beast of War. Eater of Souls. The Defiler. Each holds dominion over a certain type of Taint and within each of those three categories, specifics to be found but...those are more your territory than mine. Basics are pretty simple though: Beast governs the Body and the immediate physical. Violence, Hatred and Wrath. Anything you run into that is looking to brawl and grin about it? Chances are they owe part of themselves to the Beast."

He pauses, one hand vanishing between the scarf and jacket, pulling aside the protective cloth and exposing his chest to the air briefly. A moment of struggling and that Spear flashes into existence on the tips of his fingers, shoulder shrugging his clothes back into relative place.

"The Eater is after the soul or what constitutes such in every living creature. You'll find it's presence in the Umbra a lot more widespread than the other two, who prefer to concentrate their efforts on singular events or circumstance. The Eater spreads, like a virus or a cancer and corrupts the basic elements of everything around it. Pollution and Waste, Gnostic spiritual presence. Most things disgusting on a vomit and napalm sort of scale can fall under His Domain."

The Spear butt hammers into the ground, Linus eyes narrowing as he regards the Electric Presence within it's static prison. His jaw unhinges slightly, a bark of static erupting off his tongue. Unintelligible but obviously reactive, as the lightning in a bottle suddenly, for lack of a better word, 'perks' and seems to flash and jag up against it's glass prison, aimed in their direction.

"The Defiler" He says without taking his eyes off the above "is the Worst of the lot in most people's eyes because it's subtle. It hides and makes it's home in the Mind. Perversion and corruption of the thought process, which can lead very easily to all other forms of Taint. The Defiler is the thing that pushes a thought to action, turns a Pervert into a Pedophile or a Drunk into a Wife-beater. Favourite candy is kids and favourite playground is the corporate world."

He speaks again in that odd static tone, head pushing forward on a stalk of a neck, eyes narrowed and vicious, tongue a crackle of noise that makes it seem like he could spit sparks at any moment.

"Each of them is housed in a different sort of situation and it is important for you and your moon to know how to differentiate. Not to cleanse, though that's probably part of your duty as much as mine, but to decipher and prevent. I can help and treat something, but an ounce of Prevention to a Pound of Cure and all that. If you know Taint like you know Gaia, than you can put the Wyrm in the ground before it ever finds root or seed."

Another burst of static speech, spear weaving, it's jagged single edge leveling past Gwen toward the path they once came and then motioning up toward the neighboring lightning bulb, who has begun to pay them mind as well.

[Gwen Sullivan] When Linus walks, Gwen walks. She finds his pace, though his legs are certainly a bit longer, and matches it to keep up, able to turn it into a stride that she walked with at least a show of strength, because she certainly couldn't have it housed truly within her this young, legs long enough and feet fast enough that she didn't have to jog or scuff toes to keep up. So it makes sense, of course, that when Linus stops the Cub stops as well.

He's explaining the Wyrm and its different heads to her, and she'd heard brief mention of this but hadn't gone into detail just yet. It had intrigued her, she'd wanted to know more on the topic. Knowing your enemy is the best way that you can defeat it after all. That's why armies and governments go through so much trouble to learn each others languages, to intercept transmissions and know the plan, and know how one another thinks so they could predict the next move even if no message was caught in clips and codes off a radio. She listened carefully now. She didn't listen any less when he spoke of elements, but determination was a new buzz, electric not unlike the words coming off his tongue or the element (perhaps a cousin of fire?) trapped in the glass up above.

As he said, this was what she was supposed to know.

Her eyes followed the motion of his spear at first, then the balls and slashes of electricity in the lamps above. She spoke with a bland kind of gravel to her voice, matter-of-fact as was typical for her when she was relaxing into something more casual and comfortable. "You do a fine job of making the war effort sound more impossible than before." Do not mistake, however, that there was any note of defeat in there. There wasn't the spark of excitement for the challenge either, though, that was more for the bloodthirst of young Full Moon cubs. For Gwen, for the Philodox, it was a matter of observation.

[Bone Writer] "War is impossible, Girl. First thing you need to realize..."

He grunts, rolling a shoulder to work out some kink that has suddenly or maybe constantly appeared. The spear lowers slightly and his attention turns to the Elemental of Lightning in the next bulb over, head jerking at the first one he'd been speaking to as another crash of Static speech rips free of his mouth. There is something...condescending? No, not quite. Provoking in that tone, even as his eyes drift off toward Gwen.

"Too many of us go into this thinking they're super heroes, who punch like superman, shit badass like Daredevil and Fuck like the Hulk. A year on, if they aren't dead yet, they suddenly start getting antsy and twitchy about the fact the hundred corpses they've got on a Wyrmpole haven't made a dent. They start showing doubt and that starts the Wyrm laughing again 'cause he turned hope into...something else. Something you're gonna find hard to dig yourself out of..."

The Spear jabs hard, snapping at the street corner once more, even as he nods up at the next Street light, this one barely visible from the corner they'd come from. The static this time is visceral, jaws unhinging sharply, cords of muscle appearing in his slim neck as he thrusts his head forward and all but barks at the pair of elementals who are rushing up against their glass prisons with something akin to fervor. Bug zappers hooked up to a Hydro Dam.

"You come into this war with the determination to Fight and the Fuck your way through the best damn life you have to give Gaia. Live or die. Fight or fry. Your hand is a fist and your fucking the Wyrm over not just 'cause it's the right thing to do but because you Enjoy putting him down and in his place. You enjoy thinking circles around him and knowing what he's going to do and where he's going to do it. You grow to love being the shadow over his shoulder that he's constantly worrying about and the Judgement that confuses him 'cause he doesn't know right from wrong anymore. You're the convincer. You're the belief. That war is impossible..."

He hefts the spear somewhat and looks up at the glass bulb, squinting at it's flare of florescence.

"...But then, most folks think that about us, to."

The Spear snaps forward, jagged head poking the glass 'cage' which splinters and cracks audibly after the blow. A moment later and the Lightning is free, arcing hard into the glass sphere of the next street lamp, shattering it and freeing it's 'brother' so that the next Street lamp in the line, back toward the blaze, receives a pair of bolts. And the next, three. The next, four. A rush of Storms and Volts chasing something the Godi said, all the way to the inferno.

Leaving the pair of them in the relative dark, but for the vaguest of glimmers from Luna above, peeking between thick clouds and banks.

[Gwen Sullivan] "You sound like Fire-Claws."

The statement doesn't sound like it came from the mouth of a teenager muttering that someone talked like their father did, though the words when left without the voice to guide them would be precisely that. Because of who she was, what position she held, how insolent and fresh-faced she was supposed to be, and simply because she was a seventeen year old girl. However, the faint rasp, more like sandstone than gravel, was commending more than anything else.

"I don't think myself a superhero." Her words are slow and relaxed even though little else about her was. If nothing else she could portray herself decently, even though the electricity had her on edge (more than Linus's speaking in static, which was strange in and of itself) and her Rage was only just settling back to a volatile simmer after the Chasers had streaked by. "I just think that I've got a duty. And that it's my job to turn it from 'just a duty' into my life."

The electricity becomes bright and almost deafening in that mute buzz that you hear inside your head, humming within your eardrums rather than hearing with them properly. All erupts when Linus jabs the bulb with his spear and sends the electricity streaking away, freeing all others up the block like a cartoon where one dog escapes from the pound and throws open all the other pen doors while it races its way to freedom. Once they are gone, the buzzing has dampened and the light has returned to dark made gray by the constant blitz of white winter snow and winds, Gwen spoke further, eyes up toward the rooftops and windows rather than the moon. She drifted when she watched the moon, and she wanted to be focused now.

"I want to be what I need to be. I just know, like everyone else knows, I'm not there yet.
"....but I'm getting there."

[Bone Writer] "...Yeah yeah yeah."

Linus waves. Waves like some Kid who's been through what Gwen's going through. What she'll be through eventually. He nods, motioning them down the street further, as the street lamps suddenly begin to dim and crackle all around their vicinity. Bulbs tinkle and crack and lightning leaps and hurtles off into the sky, free for the moment.

"Super hero thing is some of us. Not all of us, but some of us. Others just bog down and try to freight train through it all. Others yet, just want to pretend like they know what they're doing and don't. Others don't and know it and still fuck up. Main point is that eventually, you're going to run up against something that convinces you to Stop wanting to be the Necessary and suddenly...You just are."

The lightshow begins to afflict other parts of the block as well. Buildings dim in windows and doors, the effect like some widespread EMP that flares outward and upward, arcs of electricity leaping and cavorting not unlike the flames of the building itself. Power seems to drain from the world around them until darkness eclipses the landscape for two blocks in all directions.

Leaving the sky lit by the distant inferno, which continues to scream and gush smoke.

"Just keep listening to others. That's what a cub does. Listen and learn. That's what a cliath does. Listen and Learn how to pick out the Truth from what's being said. That's what a Philodox does." And he nods at the sudden darkness of the alleys and the shadows, which seem to come alive with the presence of things formerly afraid to move in the light of the lamps. Not such an illusion of safety in this realm.

"That's course. Stick to it."

[Gwen Sullivan] Something stupidly sentimental jumps to mind, painfully cliche, and she has the sense about it to keep it to herself. Yet as she watches the electricity gather up and release itself into the sky, taking the power from roughly eight or so city blocks with it, she couldn't help but think that the lighting probably regarded Linus as some sort of a hero at this moment.

Unless all that static was him demanding they owe him a favor later for his releasing them to do what they please.
That, somehow, felt more likely. Because it was practical and he just got done speaking of contracts and alliances.

The darkness swallowed them up, with the glow of fire, the overwhelming city lights in the distance against the sky that hadn't even been dampened by the mass of power that Linus had just taken out, and the moon glaring through the clouds like a band of hazy light. Gwen squinted upwards for a moment, then ducked her head and dusted snow from her eyelashes before tugging her scarf up to cover her nose and holding it there.

"After the listening and the learning comes the trials, ominous and undisclosed as they are. After that comes the pack, the duty, the Life. But when you lose that, when you face something and you just Are...." She pauses, frowning some and flicking her tongue at the stud of her piercing on the inside of her upper lip while she thinks out the words, then continues after a handful of seconds: "What grounds you? Is it personal? Is it Spiritual on the level of the totems and deities? How do you keep from losing the path?"

[Bone Writer] "Depends on who you are. Mostly personal, that. Each body fighting for the right to exist and help Gaia exist and all that stuff. Some of us can't cope and die. Others fall. Less about finding a reason to stay focused and more about finding a point of view, really. It's easy to love Gaia. She lives-" He taps his chest and his head and his chest again "-all the time. S'that creeping sensation in your gut and everywhere else when you run into something Wyrmish and it ties knots inside you. That ugly sensation. Gnostic warning system. S'how I see it anyway. If you don't feel a bit ugly inside when you see something Wyrmish, than you're in a bad way and need to do something. One of your best indicators that something's wrong in a given situation. If you aren't feeling wrong about the obvious Ugly. The obvious Evil."

A pause in their pace, turning to look back at the power outage. His upper lip rolls slightly, grim features twisting into something less stoic. More feral.

"Hate talking to the Electrics. Feels like my damn jaw dislocates everytime."

And then back onto their path. The Caern was North in a 'roundabout way and he was quite ready to call it an evening at this point. Excitement, adventure and duty had been done.

"Beyond those though. Pack. Totem. Both keep you sane. Both keep you grounded and let you know if something's wrong, either with them or with yourself."

[Gwen Sullivan] "No, I don't think I need to worry about that." This in reference to how she felt like she may throw up and her Rage may eat a hole through her belly when she hunted that man to his apartment and saw the sick things he did with the women he drugged and brought home with him. He had more trophies than she wanted to really contemplate. What was gone was gone, after all.

They walked vaguely northbound, if she thought about it and looked at the skyscrapers she could tell but she couldn't be bothered to worry right now, she was fine just walking and talking-- more to the point, listening, learning, and discussing openly. It was a calm situation where her being a Cub wouldn't get in the way, so her taking time and asking questions was not garnering rolled eyes and impatience, and she was more than happy to take advantage of what time she got with this.

He stated that Pack and Totem were needed, and she understood why. She yearned for that, the pack, what she saw when she came into Kora's territory and was offered up pizza or Chinese food and a chair inside of a prayer hall. That sort of comradery, a home, a place to be at the end of this month when her roof and bed and job and allowance all went out the door.

The back and forth would not end there, but questions would spark further conversation, and they would not cease until irritation showed on the Godi's visage, or until they parted ways.