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.