[Grip of Failed Hearts] Sleep would come eventually, like the dead or expectantly dying. A wait for something inevitable, with no fidgeting or worry to bastardize the process. Bliss was knowing nothing came and it was easy to do. Just let go. The stone floor is unforgiving and a siphon of warmth. The pews, a little better for their sturdy wooden lacquer and long lengths for such a slender frame. The space heaters in the Church are plentiful and fed via some devising by the Godi slumbering quietly beside the platform that once held the Iconic and depressing image of the Father's Crucified Son.
The night had been long. Cold. Full of lessons and...
* * * * *
The crackle of fires was something desperate. Almost eager, as they licked the pitch and bundled up strands of something near their centre, too blackened and charred to resemble anything from memory. They sit within carefully carved bowls of iron, the rims uneven and jagged, etchings of the exaggerated maws of something monstrous engraved on the bowl's external surface.
Closer inspection would reveal the scaled flesh and thick brows of dragons. Rows of the stands, six feet high and well lighting of the path before her. To either side, a bramble patch of thorns so long and curved they might be mistaken for the claws of ravens and crows; eager to dig and clutch and catch at clothes and-
The fires crackle and snap and hiss, spitting into the brilliant night sky that smells crisp and clean and vaguely of smoke and ruin. The cracking shift of snow underfoot is ominously loud, joining the snap of flames to either side, even as the path winds forward and slightly to the right. The bramble patches are well over her head and yet fail to obscure enough of the distance to keep secret the path's inevitable destination:
A rising summit, atop which stands a plateau. Upon this plateau, a great fire rages, twisting and slashing with it's long orange tongues in a wind that...cannot be heard. Around that fire, bodies, figures, silhouettes. Unfamiliar shapes and forms, all still, like statues, all the moreso for the rage of that flame at the centre of them.
She can see her breath before her. She can feel her heart beneath the bone. She can feel something singing in her fingertips and on the tips of teeth, like some invisible gristle keeping her molars apart, just so. Just ever so slightly so.
This night was hers. Could be hers.
[Gwen Sullivan] The clothes that had been most practical to borrow had not been Kora's, the Skald was far leggier than Gwen, more developed as a woman and less as a teen. Linus was even taller than Kora. The practical decision was to borrow from Roman. Gwen had fallen asleep in a borrowed button-up denim shirt, boxers, and doubled-up layers of socks, rolled into the back of a pew and wrapped in a donated blanket. Sleep didn't take long to find her, the Gauntlet never failed to exhaust her, not to mention the sluggishness that follows warming up after extreme cold. She fell asleep to the electric hum of space heaters and the sound of the Godi's breathing a dozen or so feet ahead.
The transition from the pew to the path was unquestioned, she didn't quite seem to realize that this was out of the ordinary. Much like with dreams, the setting felt as physical and organic as dirt and grass under your feet in the woods, or sand at a beach. The cold was familiar, she tucked her fingers under her arms and looked at the bowls of fire framing the mouth of the path. They crackled and spit embers into the air, snow crunched under Gwen's feet when she shifted her weight, and she followed the path with her eyes, up to the tall flames that cast shadows over abnormal, stone-frozen figures at the top of a plateau ahead.
She tucked her head, rubbed her nose at her shoulder, and looked into the brambles, hunting for eyes and faces behind the claw-like thorns. If something was going to reach for her, grab her and drag her to the snowy ground, she at least wanted to have a heads up to brace herself with.
Nothing.
Her fingernails tingled, her teeth itched. She didn't completely recognize the sensation, but it was similar to a strain in her muscles and an ache of want in her chest. All of these called for action. Behind didn't seem like an option, it may as well be a black fog, she didn't bother to inspect that option. The Fire ahead seemed more appropriate, the path drawn into the landscape as though designed precisely for the purpose of leading travelers forward to something much sought at the end-- it felt like that last leg of a journey that had all the makings of a great chronicling of storyweavers and historians alike.
Snow crunched beneath her soles, her hands dropped to her sides, and Gwen walked the path, about the faint bend to the right and forward to the flames that danced and raged and stretched for the sky above.
[Grip of Failed Hearts] The Moon was...absent.
A shadows night. The night devoted to the Ragabash, by most standards and for most minds and thoughts and perspectives, that was that. Let the Ragabash consider the No Moon and tell them and others what needed to be done on these nights. Did that make all other minds frail? Fragile? Constantly seeking their spinning advice and questions?
No, the Shadow Moon to the other Auspices was one of Doubt. It was a night to question things, everything, ruminate and ponder and consider from angles not previously thought of before. The Shadow Moon was a time to wonder at the greatest and most humbling of subjects if only to strengthen oneself.
The Shadow moon, was the Moon devoted to Weakness.
She strode the path before her, the soft crunch of snows underfoot growing more pronounced as the crackling fires, spat from goblet braziers of carved iron dragons, stretched further to either side. The brambles, dark and foreboding, began to recede with the lot, until she stepped onto the first leg of an incline and the landscape beyond opened up:
It was a long bridge, bowed at the centre and thin enough to house a Crinos, shoulder to shoulder and nary an inch more. The snow had been packed down or scuffed off completely from the presence of many feet passing this way, while the drop to either side of the bridge was sheer, dark and swallowing. The black of the world below was at first, abyssal, even daunting until her eyes began to adjust and she steadily picked out the rows and tightly packed densities of a forestry, thinning as it found it's way through the crevice that made up the gap below the bridge itself.
The Bridge's other side, was a towering spire, split off from the rest of what must only be a mountain range behind her. A leaning, jutting protrusion from the earth, like some broken spear head thrust into the ground by a vengeful god, the snowy cap blunted perhaps by his out thrust palm and the spilling of blood that had created the forests below. The Oath that had bound Winter to...these...lands...
Memory. (Not her words, but hers to claim. A well spoken memory. A firm line. Someone else's description. Speaking. Saying)
The flames crackle as they end at the bridge's beginning. The summit is before her, on the other side, a sheer wall of craggy rock and jutting granite, unyielding to the touch of claw or strength for Earth stood longer than any breathing thing or other element. At the Summit's top, a distance measured by a hundred Crinos Claws outstretched to Toes, the Flame continued to writhe and jerk...
...Yet no wind harried her even in this open space.
[Gwen Sullivan] Perhaps the wind was blocked by the mountain, perhaps it only existed higher up, too rushed to waste time dipping down to hug the ground on its journey over the landscape. Perhaps it was something Spiritual, something that she wouldn't understand because it wasn't hers to grasp, control, or question. More than that, though, it was not the bridge or the drop below, it wasn't the fire that stood like a beacon on the mountainside. It did not make the bridge rock back and forth, it didn't toss her hair, plain brown and just past her shoulders to whip into her eyes or jostle her balance.
She concerned herself instead with what was ahead of her, though her focus was a drifting and comfortable thing at this moment. There wasn't an urgency about her, the air didn't feel like it was rushing. She felt strong and comfortable. The night could be hers, the words and memories that drifted through her mind could easily be as well.
Surely, so could that bridge, and whatever that fire stood for. Her bare palm swept over the end stake of the bridge, brushing snow from the top of the stake and the railing as well. Then one foot upon the long, sagging structure, followed by the other. The snow was packed down, she nudged a patch off to see it fall over the edge, to judge the distance of the fall. Precise measurements were unnecessary, what mattered was the fall would kill her (unless she awoke first, with a start that had her toppling off the pew and onto the cold, hard stone floor).
Best not slip, then. She walked to cross.
[Grip of Failed Hearts] ...And the snow would crunch and crush underfoot with nary a hint of upset for her steps. The familiarity and comfort was disturbing at once and not. Like this was her thousandth time. Thousandth and first.
"...Brother..."
It would come, the first thing audible beyond her footfalls and the snapping fires that had receded with the bridge itself. A voice not unlike parchment (aged paper, reverent for it's fragility) crumbling. Soft, tinted with sadness and the Iron to bare it.
"...We stand here this night of hollow skies to pay witness to what has come of you..."
Before her, the wall of the Summit juts, towers and waits. Craggy rock bares slits of flinted rock, more treacherous to grasp for the threat of cuts than the fall that might come should fingers and claws scrap an icy edge and slip away. The height is black as much as the night sky and the chill of the evening finally reaches her, here. Tests the flesh like she was something new, pokes, prods and digs out pieces of warmth like morsels and ants from a hillside.
"This night you stand accused and will answer for such, in Gaia's name or in Death..."
[Gwen Sullivan] Once across the bridge, Gwen was stopped by the sheer face of the cliffside, something dark like obsidian in this moonless night, with sharp and jagged edges for handholds. It felt as familiar as the path had, but she didn't know all there was to it. She didn't know that she could climb the wall (though she could trust that she could), she didn't know that it was the only way up. Her eyes swept left and right, to see if there was a path, a ladder, divots in the wall that would be more comfortable on the hands to climb.
That wasn't the case, it wasn't the point of this place. Things weren't meant to be easy, to try and find an easy way, to try and get around what was meant to happen, to test you, that was weakness and it wasn't how she was being taught to be.
Gwen's hands swept through her hair, brushed shorter layers up front out of her eyes. The winds were whispering down, toying with her hair and touching cold fingers to her neck and arms. She rolled her shoulders against the cold, against the challenge presented to her, and soon after this loosening motion they changed-- broadened and grew heavy with layer after layer of muscle.
She took on the Crinos form, the strongest that she had. While not the swiftest, what she needed was strength and hands that could grasp. Teeth would do her little good to reach the flames, the words up above. She snorted air that puffed white out of her nostrils, not unlike smoke from the carved dragons holding the basins on the other side of the bridge. Her claws tested the rock: unyielding, there for many thousands of years longer than she had been. The tough padded palms of her hands would hold better on the edges than the softer flesh of human ones would-- her muscles would be strong enough to make the journey, her arms and legs long enough to reach for the next scrap of purchase.
She'd crossed over great heights, now she'd attempt to climb them.
[Grip of Failed Hearts] The Climb was arduous. Slow and steady. Hurried movements would bring cuts from the flint rock and mistakes from her. The sharp scrape of claws on rock was a grating noise, that dug into the sensitive ears of the Crinos form she now wore. Upward she went, each breath and pull and grasp, like a mechanical motion, pneumatic and seemingly effortless. A thousand thousand times, this climb, reaching for hand holds she knew were there, setting clawed toes to the same as she passed them.
"...Three nights ago, you strode to war with your Pack. With your Sept. You, Curdles~the~Blood~Cry, Adren, Modi of the Fenrir, stepped into the breach of the Old Wood to stand beside your betters and lessers to wield Gaia's name and break the Wyrm-
She could feel the hum of muscles tensing, fire beginning to warm her blood even as muscles strained and pushed themselves past the beginnings of fatigue that saw her half-way up the climb. This was not an if, moment, but a when. Something so familiar she simply needed to take each movement slow. Steady. Comfortable and careful.
And yet above, the voice continues, closer and clear for the lack of wind that buffets her.
"You strode to War and felled the enemy. You held the glory of yourself and those around you in each blow and for this, you are Powerful. Yet the Ragabash tell us-
And a new voice joins the choir above, clipped and low like whispers.
"I watched you, Brother. Tend to the field like a harvest. Cleave, left to right and left again, almost eager for the next body. Eager for the next death. Saw blood rain around you and with each step you took, left behind the lesser Moons. The lesser Ranks. The lesser bodies to fend. Tell me, was this your-"
"Enough! The time for your questions is done..." The original orator's voice like a cracking slab of ice, silencing the other's words.
And yet another voice. Feminine and cold.
"I watched Him" Him, as if the accused were not even there "open up the guts of some Jotunn thing that had cleaved the head of Alpha and Beta both from one of the fledgling packs. The others floundered and hesitated nearby and I saw no leadership in his stride. Simply a juggernaut. Simply automaton. Where was he to inspire? Where was he to lead in war as he was meant?"
And another silence follows, something pregnant there, as if the Original speaker might have called for a quiet without words this time. Still, onward She climbs. Upward and nearby the top, a brittle edge destined to draw blood upon arrival.
"I saw him climb to the head of the Column we fought through" And yet a third voice, this one dulled and warped as if his voice were a shattered thing. Some maiming or other to ruin it "And thrust claws and teeth into their Leader's chest. Rip free the bones and heart and hold it aloft in triumph. I saw him cast it aside as pulp and turn to the rest of us, grinning and remorseless. We lost many that night. Many to the destruction..." A beat. A pause. A breath? "...And he Grins..."
There is silence again. She reaches one hand to grasp that edge, feeling the flint lick blood from one palm and then another, even as a last grunt of exertion brings her over the top and into view:
The plateau is bare of adornment, save the presence of four shadowed things, standing in a broad circle around the fire, their backs to the cliff edge she struggles briefly to overcome. Their attire and dress are human, the shapes and images of familiar heights and weights colliding with names in her mind...
...Harrows~the~Bright...Rotagar
.....Mourns~the~Unanswered...Rotagar
...Makes~Mirth~of~Blights...Rotagar
...Thread~Carves~Stone...Skald
Fosterns the first three. Adren the last.
And as she climbs to her feet finally at the edge and sees the burning consume of that massive flame, dug out a hole for itself in the plateau's middle, she can view a fifth within it's midst. Burning and yet not. A form and shape kneeling as if in pain or exhaustion, upon the surface of an Anvil black and carved with the blue of a Fire's heart, formed to glyphs both ancient and shimmering.
"These are the accusations. The tellings of the last of us that remain of a once Dozen Elders to this broken Sept, for surely we are that this is necessarily. You are accused of failure to abide the Litany's laws, Brother. Failure in your duties to Gaia, to Tribe, to-..."
And clawed feet crunch in the snows, pulling the attentions of four silhouettes surrounding the fire, invisible for the light at their backs. They all turn, almost as one, to regard her place, the air a brittle heat both vicious and direct that at once changes. Seems to shift as recognition captures their attentions. There is expectation now...from one. The Galliard.
Worry. Fear. Respect. Contempt. All these, from the others.
"The Council welcomes you, Sister. We did not think you capable of-" A pause. A beat. "We presumed on your weakness. An obvious mistake."
There is silence again for a brief moment. Then:
"Will you stand as Judge?"
[Gwen Sullivan] Holds in the rock felt familiar, her hands and feet knew where to go. It was like walking the path home from school after doing so for a couple of years-- your feet carried you and you didn't even notice until you were coming up the driveway. She knew how to hold her hands and carry her weight so that her palms would not cut. She listened as she climbed, and it was like dialogue from a movie that you watched a hundred times over in your youth-- she knew every word as it was said, but did not know it until she heard it. It was a hazy sensation, she felt sharp and alive and full of strength while simultaneously foggy and content with the feeling of riding in the backseat.
Up and over the edge of the sheer cliff side, and Gwen did not slink in the shadows or pause to see who was there around the tall, raging fire that stretched like an enthralled dancer toward the stars above. She straightened and stood tall, certain, letting her presence announce her arrival rather than words or obvious scuffs of feet to warn, so as not to surprise. She knew the faces, she knew the names and ranks and deeds (and misdeeds of youth) that went with them. She understood the expressions when their eyes fell upon her and had no need to question them, she already knew the fear and respect and how they twined together like woven thread, the worry and contempt a part of the situation and her role within it.
Thread~Carves~Stone was met with a faint dip of her snout, acknowledgment. They'd thought her incapable, thought her gone, thought her overwhelmed. It was irrelevant, she was there now, and they needed a judge.
"As always," was the answer, rumbled in her chest in the language of the Garou, and turned her eyes, wolf-yellow (stark blue) upon the Modi in question, where he knelt upon the Anvil. Her arms folded over a chest broad and powerful even when compared to those of other male Crinos, her shoulders turned to the cliff's edge, her front toward the fire. She maintained the form more true to what they were and stood to hear the remainder of the tale. She would demand it from every mouth there.
[Grip of Failed Hearts] The Four Silhouettes before the fire take in her words with something like acceptance, though one might think their attentive return to the fire is too swift and mistake it for dismissal. Those few would never understand the dynamic of the Fenrir. A Forseti stood as the law and the litany, each mark and measure of their place in the Tribe designed on strict, vicious adherence to the Laws of their people. To do any less would allow for the Strength that the Fenrir were known for, to grow unchecked and thus, uncontrolled.
This was the lesson of the White Howlers in their cousins, closer to that edge than many other Tribes. Discipline to measure the Strength and Fury. To temper and quench the Rage.
They step aside to offer her a space within the circle of halves, a seemingly reflexive movement that is at once telling and ordered. Judgment stood here this night and thus, her place was secured and cemented with no broach of question or comment from the Four Rotagars standing around the flames.
"Pack, Tribe and Auspice, Brother. Yours was the failure that broke the back of the Wyrm. In this, your duty was done but at the cost of so many-"
"Weak!" He snarls from within that flame and She can see it there; the reason for a Modi's leadership. The reason for their ferocity and the vast constriction of power. It is in his voice and his movements as he struggles against the flame containing him. Against the Anvil which seems to bare him down. He strains and his obscured form, a blackened thing with luminous eyes, shift to regard the circle outside his 'prison'.
"Weak...one and all...that would not rise...again..."
Thread~Carves~Stone offered little to that but a slow inhale. The Rotagars, were not so composed.
"To Fight as One! As Pack! As Sept! Our Weakness in separation! A Weakness you Cau-" Harrows~the~Bright shifts forward, a lanky and aging creature, well into his forty winters. It is as far as he gets, as the Modi's snarl flattens him to his knees, the sound reverberating with terrible fear. He breathes hotly into the snows, a choking sound emerging where words once were.
"...No, Blood~rhya! One of us falls and another is here to speak!" The woman, Mourns~the~Unanswered, a face carved by knives and hate, steps forward to point at him from beneath her own cloak, a midnight black and thick affair that conceals the rest of her. "You left those of us behind to pursue your own lust for glory! Left many of our younger to die at the hands of the enemy who laughed-"
"Your weakness not to make them choke on it, Whore..." The reply drew furious shaking to the Valkyrie's form, her leaden feet threatening to breach the fire cage even as a low rumble from Thread~Carves~Stone edged out into the night behind her.
"Should we thank you then? Celebrate the deathblow you dealt to their leader?" Makes~Mirth~of~Blights. A Teenager, if that. Powerfully built and taller than all others present. Pimples still clung to his chin and cheeks, where scruffy patches of hair began to peek. The fire of his eyes was not so much angered, but disassembled. Detatched. His voice, like Gravel, in a throat thick with scarring. "Celebrate the Dead-"
"YES!" Comes the boom from within the flames, silencing all those on the plateau.
"I've heard enough..." Thread~Carves~Stone stepped back from the firelight, a proud beard, thick braids, dangling over bare chest and back. The lack of wind made each voice a clear thing up this high, even his murmur as he pulled his eyes from the flame and cast a glance down at Her.
"Judge and let this be done..."
[Gwen Sullivan] The Rotagar go forward one after the other, throwing their words at the Modi chained by weight and flame and Spirit to the Anvil. The Modi snarls at them, the sound heavy and powerful enough to cause hearts to quake and joints to go weak. Harrows~The~Bright falls to the snow, and no one reaches to help him up or defend him. They are Fenrir. They stand strong, and when they fall they rise once more.
She stands still, feet and great weight planted heavy on the stone-and-snow ground, arms over her chest and thick mane of fur blowing at her back and shoulders. The Rotagar react to the snarls, the provocation, but the two of higher rank, the Skald and the Foresti, do not.
The Skald looked to her, said she should judge, and she did not disagree.
Her eyes stayed on the Modi through this time, taking moments to hop toward the accusers once a turn of speech, but always returning to his broad form, weighed down, fatigued, trembling under the weight of what cages him. Black lips peel from teeth that have killed more than she would remember to count (because she does not recount such things, that is for Skalds, the Historians) and a rumble of a growl spilled from between them, words intermingled with the sound.
"Curdles~The~Blood~Cry, it is secret to none why you achieved the rank you have. Your might is unquestionable, tenacity unmatched. We trust you to lead us through battle."
Her muzzle wrinkles, turning the growl more aggressive. "But that is precisely what you did not do. You left your people behind and your duty along with them. It was not their weakness to die, but your weakness not to temper yourself. You have been seduced by the Beast of War and have made no action to resist. Enraptured with the Kill, you have forgotten Yourself, and more importantly, why we are here."
The wrinkles smooth from her muzzle and she unfolds her arms, slowly, letting the tree-trunk limbs hang ready at her sides. "There are too few of us now to risk your insanity to bloom further and infect what we have left."
The last words are to the effect of sucking the air from an area and all sound along with it. They will not be unnoticed, and they are Final.
[Grip of Failed Hearts] "Infect..."
The word is a subtle thing. Crushed by the weight of something profound. Something harrowing.
"Know this, Forseti. You are not the Leadership. Not the body to stand at the forefront. You do not wake and slumber with blood between your teeth and claws. The Modi stands the thread and crack. The Modi stands the line and Hall and you would presume? You would dare Judge me for my duty? My Action?"
There is something charged in the air. A clap. A frisson. A static that lifts the fur on necks and backs, even as the Rotagar near as one, pull themselves forward through the snow. The night air hangs with grief and the stillness of the winds, so much so that the buffeting flame before them, shouldered as it is by the suppression of the Rage they contain.
"Fenrir lives fell destroying the Wyrm. That few still stand? That you and these pathetic creatures would dub those sacrificed as mewling pups?! As Cubs in need of Wetnurses?! As Bodies waiting to fall, ever eager for my word to stir them on?! Where was the Skald to cry War in their ears and stir their hearts?" And at this, there is a quiet pause from behind them, where Thread~Carves~Stone stands just beyond the firelight.
"[i]Where the Forseti to stand their sides and bolster them with her Strength?! I tore the Heart from their blasted Elder and showed it to those left behind me and waged a war against a Great Foe! For this I am Judged?! For this I am a Criminal! Betrayer of Gaia! Fallen to the Beast!" There is a menace now amid the flames which balk and shiver awkwardly. The anvil itself seems to shimmer, waver within the fire as if the heat of it were suddenly affecting the image that had been so resolute a moment ago.
"Infect? You are infected. Have been infected. Weakened by the excuses and madness of the Question, constant and unforgiving from those of lesser stock, heedless of answers..."
The Rotagars sneer. Snarl. Cloaks dance and bunch around shoulders, even as they shift eyes toward one another and then the other Adrens present. None speak. Not yet. It was not their time or moment in this.
"Release Me, Girl and I will cut out the Infection" A hiss from Harrows~the~Bright, who crouched further in the snows.
"He's gone mad. We should end him now..."
"Release Me!"
"Now, while he is still contained in the Fires!" Harrows~the~Bright turned his eyes toward the other Rotagar, stepping closer to the firelight, trying almost desperately to catch the eyes of Mourns~the~Unanswered and Makes~Mirth~of~Blights, both staring, the former with a snarl on her twisted features, the latter with an almost awkward calm in the moment.
The Flame twisted, shortening suddenly, the Anvil blurring beneath the bowed cinder of a form, even as it flexed. The prison weakened.
"Release Me!"
"Rhyas!"
and silence still, from Thread~Carves~Stone...
[Gwen Sullivan] "I judge you because it is my duty!"
The Foresti roared, and the sound was like thunder, rumbling in the rock and blasting toward the sky alike. She bristled, her muscles taut and body straightened up, well-muscled chest pressed out and head thrown forward along with it as though to propel the sound with more force. Her eyes flashed electric and righteous, and Rage, heavy and thick like molasses seeped into the air around her, oozing and potent.
"And you have abandoned yours."
The Modi roared and flexed his might against his restraints, stunting the height of the flame, weakening it's power over him. The Rotagar grow anxious, the Skald remains steady and silent, and the continued insistence to be released pounded her ears and echoed out into the distance. Release me!, he insisted, and the Philodox only shook her great head, muzzle crinkled up with a snarl that was beyond being disgusted, above Rage alone and the furthest thing from a sneer.
She drew from her thigh a weapon that Gwen had not realized before, an axe from the loop of leather that hooked under the weapon's head to cradle it secure until released for what it was crafted to do-- Execute.
She did not look to the Skald for advice, for acceptance, a go ahead... she did not need his approval within her own domain. She did not shush or shoo the Fostern from the flames, they would know well enough to move back, to give her the berth that she would demand with presence alone. Crinos hands wrapped about the handle of the axe in positions that felt like home, where faint grooves existed from being held so frequently in the very same manner, and almost excessively muscled arms raised the weapon over her head.
She did not waste breath with last words, or give him an opportunity to break free and swipe claws at her exposed belly while gloating over him in this position, letting him soak up the sight of his Judgment. The Trial was over, the decision had been made, and to reiterate what had been said here was posturing and for show. There weren't enough of them left to put on a show for, and she grew out of that years ago.
Shoulders rolled, teeth bared, and metal gleamed as the axe came down.
[Gwen Sullivan] [Roll 1]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[Gwen Sullivan] [Roll 2]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 5 (Failure at target 7)
[Gwen Sullivan]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Grip of Failed Hearts] The moment is a Hard one. A vicious one:
The Garou surrounding the flame, step forward, almost as a whole. Snow crunches underfoot, one of the first sounds beyond the crackle of the flames and a sharp series of barking orders, clashing demands and roars tear the night apart.
The flame bunches suddenly and crashes downward, leaving the crisped, burned and near skeletal frame of the Modi within visible upon the blackened anvil. The Snarl that erupts from him is molasses, a clutch of mucus, the vile stream of liquids across his frame pooling and falling across ruined muscle.
All this in an instant. The instant between life and death.
He lunges, the spirit of battle driving him forward, past wounds and times and meaning. Claws dance on bony digits and the snap of teeth reach out into the air with an inarticulate sound born of nothing of Rage. The fury of betrayal.
This is the same instant.
The Skald bellows something, furious and...off. As if the timber of the moment were different for him behind the standing Forseti. Crashes of snow and the tumble of bodies off to one side, sliding and scraping over rock and ice. Flickering glances take up the presence of an Adren skald, draped in fur and Crinos terror, crashing into the blackened furred presence of Harrows~the~Bright brandishing some form of dagger in one hand.
This instant is brief and irrelevant next to the charging Modi...
The barking Rotagars to the left are a snarling presence both, human throats sliding into the deep thrum of the Hispo jaws raking out to clap at the air a half second slower than the Modi's response. A half second slower than the Full Moon in full Force. A half a world as it might as well be.
This instance passes and the next one begins. Blood and Pain and Shock.
Something slides into the nook of ribs, gutting strength from the ribcage and forcing it outward into limbs and neck and fingers. Hard slices of cold seep at the flesh and draw at the neck, robbing the expulsion of an exhale of any power or bellows. Pain floods for a moment and then diminishes a second later, even as the axe falters in her grip.
"Not this night..." Mourns the Unanswered's voice is another instant in and of itself, pulling the attention even as she twists the Klaive in Her side, forcing up higher up. Her eyes watch the flash of something similar in the hands of Makes Mirth of Blights, stepping into place to lay into the crumbling Modi as the flash of flames behind tears his legs out a moment before the lunge.
"...Not ever, rhya." Something of venom from the young Valkyrie, who stabs again...bringing feathers of darkness to the eyes and mind, axe fumbling over fingertips steadily growing numb. Eyes begin to flicker and dance and the fade of this moment begins to seep into the dancing flutter of eyes beholding a Church roof. Cold stone and the soft snores of a nearby Godi, sleeping.
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