Visitors [Owen, Marni]

[Owen DeTerizzi] [nightmares gonna fuck this up?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Owen DeTerizzi]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Owen DeTerizzi] *The moon was full, and Owen was uneasy. Rage and Riddle Me This were poor allies at best. At odds with one another, resentful of shared dislike. So it seemed to Owen that he and the full moon were a volatile compound waiting for a catalyst to trigger an explosion. His teeth are set on edge as he paces the inside of a rusted hangar, firelight fading as a fire smolders to deep red coals. Long hair is tied back from his face, bound in a bandanna. A ragged bookbag bearing the insignia of a Florida college sits in the gravel near the fire, supplies carefully laid out within.

When Marni enters Owen's head jerks around to her and her tiny charge, his eyes flashing strange green in the shadows.*

Sticky Fingers. Are you ready?

[Marni] Was she ready...

Now that was a good question. Ready to find out, ready to know, ready to ensure that the child she'd fought so hard to keep together with his father was known by the spirits and would be spotted should he turn out to be garou, ready to see how her teaching will lean, what she and Ray must be sure the little baby - barely days old - knows throughout his lifetime. It's a heady responsibility, one even more intense, involved, than simply being a parent. Not that being a parent is EVER simple.

There is this though - wee Indy is wrapped up, warm, and snuggled close to her in a sling carrier, nestled against her breast, content and sleeping as she moves. Her rage is something small - yet fierce - but it is also something that Indy has lived with since the moment of his conception. He is content.

For now.

She runs her fingers along the babies back, and nods. "Yeah."

[Owen DeTerizzi] *Owen wasn't much for fiery speeches or long explanations. Instead he gets down to business, nodding gruffly and removing a sac of trail mix from his pack. The mix is tossed around the hanger, theurge concentrating most of his willynilly sprinkling in the corners and along the walls. Next its a jar of peanut butter, smeared on the lower levels of the metal walls. Hurled with a wooden spoon onto rafters. Finally the jar itself set down on its side, as the lanky glasswalker sits beside the coals and lifts a finger to his lips, gesturing Marni do the same in silence. It was now time to summon and wait, summon and wait...*

[Piercing gauntlet - gnosis roll!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5 (Failure at target 6)

[Owen DeTerizzi] [Glasswalkers don't FAIL!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 4, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 7) [WP]

[Marni] She watches, her arms protectively around the baby as she lets Owen get to work. She trusts him, she's made the much clear, and so when he bids her come and sit by his side, she does so.

Indy whimpers, but is easily soothed back to sleep once again as she rocks, and watches. and Waits.

[Gwen Sullivan] Through the silence of summoning, of waiting, of a baby asleep at a breast, there is the faintest creak of a door, something that goes quiet as soon as it starts. A cub, human skinned and average, bland as can be in appearance, is easing her way through the hanger door and closing it gently behind her, careful to be silent, careful not to disturb.

She's wrapped in an overlarge faded blue hoodie, hood up to shadow her features, with licks of mousy brown hair hanging out about the shoulders from underneath. Her hands are in her pockets, boots that ate the cuffs of her jeans quiet and still on the floor. She leans against the wall by the door, eyes wide and alert and watchful.

This was a learning experience, and she was the young come to observe.

[Marni] [changing computers - back in a flash]

[Owen DeTerizzi] *Riddle me This and Marni have visitors. First one, the mousey haired cub Owen had very nearly taken a licking over within 20 minutes of coming to the Sept. Certainly Fenrir, if her snarling mentor had anything to say about it. She creeps in like a student late to class, and Owen's gaze focussed on her hazily. Not all there, this one. His mind already crossing to where his intent lay. Across the velvet curtain.

More visitors arrive, made bold by the silence in the Hangar. Made foolish by the pungent scent of peanut butter clinging to the walls and roof. Their favorite meal - the free kind. The scurry of tiny feet whisper first across the rafters. Streaks of darker shadow streaking long the wooden beams overhead. Then, As the garou in the hanger remain still, the creatures grow bolder. The first rat skitters into the fading firelight to make off with a cashew. Its several minutes before another ventures so near, but soon after that the Hangar is alive with squeaking and squabbling rodents, carousing and gorging in the dark.

Throughout, Owen remains still. Eyes glazing as he calls silently not for rat's children, but for RAT herself. Motionless as an alabaster statue despite the rodents now scurrying over his splayed knees, hissing uncomfortably at the sudden press of rage around them.*

[Summoning rat - TOTEM. wits/rituals + WP (coolheaded spec!)]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 5, 7 (Failure at target 7) [WP]

[Owen DeTerizzi] [Oh really Kahseeno? Really? We're doing this again. >.< donchu botch me! 1gn to keep dif at 7]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7) Re-rolls: 1

[Owen DeTerizzi] [good. you get here eventually. Whats your mood like? Gnosis!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Marni] Marni is not bothered by the rats, naturally. She sits still, only turning her head away to look at Gwen as she sneaks in and watches. Marni arches a brow, slight, but then returns her attention to Owen, and the gathering horde of Rats.

They dash over her knees, one brave one sniffs at the baby and gets a wiff of diaper, and decides that there are better things to eat. Unlike most mothers - Marni doesn't jerk her baby away, scream about it being unclean, or anything like that. After all, there was a time when she was very sure she would raise Indy in the gutters she grew up in herself - and they would have been just fine, too.

She's a gutter rat - and despite the amount of money her baby daddy makes - she will always be a gutter rat.

[Gwen Sullivan] Rats.

They appear from the very wall that Gwen was leaned up against, it seemed. Bubbled up from the packed dirt under their feet, scurried down support beams from out of the rafters. They manifested from what someone might call nothing, but Gwen now knew better than to. They slipped through the holes in the Gauntlet, summoned by the man she recognized as the one that was new to the Caern when the moon was just right (perfectly wrong) for her and Fire Claws, when they had snarled and gnashed at each other and had a brief reminder of dominance and where she stood with it.

He was drawing in the rats, but they weren't enough. They scurried between her boot heels, rushed toward Owen and Marni and the lump of something wriggling at her chest, but largely ignored the Cub. Owen was pushing for something more, something greater.

Lips pressed tightly together, her teeth nipped at the flesh of her lip, hunting for a piercing that was no longer there out of habit. Still, she watched.

[Owen DeTerizzi] *Not just rats.

RAT.

Though if the cub were expecting something flashy and worthy of David Copperfield with the arrival of the Tribal Spirit, she was in for disappointment. That wasn't how RAT rolled, afterall. Let Falcon enter in a shimmer of gold, resplendent and awe inspiring. Let Uktena twist from the earth to hiss mysterious and unfathomable. Let Grandfather Thunder crash down around them, indomitable and fearsome. Just when it seems to sit in the growing dark any longer is pure folly - RAT makes her entrance. Arrival heralded only by the sudden sense of a Presence.

A fat brown rat stops its chewing on the wooden spoon and sits upright, chittering softly. Owen's voice is a low reverent rumble as he addresses the rat that seems for all intents and purposes, no different than the others.*

Rat Mother. Beside me sits one of your children, and her newly birthed kin. I've laid this meal for your fellows in hopes that you might tell us whether the child is born true or not, and that you might give your blessing to Sticky Fingers and infant.

[Marni] Rat sits up, and Marni snaps her gaze to the fat brown one, making a meal out of a wooden spoon. Her lips curve into a smile, and she lowers her head, her gaze, respectfully. It is more than most get from her, and it is completely without her usual snarky replies. This is her Totem, the presence she follows, the one who's Tribe she calls her own.

She watches as Rat's whiskers flare, as beady black eyes turn toward her and the Bean. She reaches easily to shimmy her shoulder out of the sling, so that it allows her to unwrap the baby from it's depths. She pulls it away from Indy's face. There's something different about Marni as she looks down at her son - something softer, something real, something undefined yet recognized by every person who walks the earth. Having Indy has transformed her - she is all that she was, and now she is more. She is someone's mother. It's a beautiful and precious thing.

And she'd kick your ass for thinking it.

Rat twitches her whiskers, then comes to sniff at Marni, at the baby. Marni doesn't flinch, doesn't hover protectively, but allows Mother Rat full access to her child as she wishes. Mother Rat sniffs and rubs herself against the swaddled newborn, huffs rancid breath in his face, and squeaks when the back startles and squawks a bit in response. Marni waits it out.

Her eyes are for Mama Rat though, and she finds her gaze captured, and held. Marni tips her head to the side, curls sliding along her jaw. She waits, and then reaches down to unwrap the baby further. Indy squrims and whimpers in the cold, but it isn't for long. Mama Rat darts forward and nips the baby in the fleshy part of his thigh.

Indy screams, his little face reddening in his outrage, and Marni waits a moment more, before wrapping her infant back up again, and cradling him close, soothing him at her breast, deftly slipping him under the edge of her layered shirts so that he can nurse.

The totem wriggles it's nose, and then sits up to scent the air, before turning to Owen. Several rats come closer, and then curl up against Marni, one coming to curl up in her lap up against the baby.

Seems the answer is a yes.

[Owen DeTerizzi] Thank you.

*Owen's brows are drawn together in a scowl at the wailing child. Little boy's high pitched scream enough to raise his hackles. The theurge had pushed thoughts of fatherhood far from his head, left then long ago on bloodstained carpet, and the indignant screech Indy makes has him closing one eye against the sound. His head ducks to Mother Rat - or to the rat that used to be, as the Totem's presence fades, leaving the fat brown rodent to scamper off in search of a stray filbert or two.

The infant's screams are still echoing in the Hangar as Owen shoves himself to his feet with a gruff od discomfort, calloused hands out towards the bonegnawer.*

He's been chosen by Gaia. Please give him to me so I can perform the rite.

*Yes. After all that waiting, that wasn't the rite. The rite is yet to come. Still, the Glasswalker doesn't look perturbed, and who knew the labors of ritual better than a theurge?*

[Marni] She blinks. chosen. There's something in her eyes, something conflicting, something that wars within dark brown gaze. Pride, certainly. Confidence, assuredly. And perhaps a Mother's fear, unbidden.

But she nods, and pulls Indy from his sling, wraps him in his blankets, and hands him to Owen.

[Owen DeTerizzi] *Hands so large should never be so gentle. Indy is handled like a Fabergé Egg. Tiny. Precious. Terrifyingly delicate. Marni has seen him like this to a lesser extent, not through a red haze when he was elbow slick in her birth fluid settling a screaming newborn on her chest - but in the tense moments of waiting before delivery, when a tiny orange tree had held every spare moment of his attention.

Indy is tucked against a dull flannel shirt as Riddle Me This sets his phone to reflect an image in a bowl of - yes - bottled "spring" water. Crouching, child set beside the bowl amidst skittering rats, Owen hisses and grabs a handful of ash from beneath the coals, a cheap scalpel drawn from his belt and clicked to sharpness. Glasswalkers eyes glazing once more as Indy waves chubby fists at the gathered rats, and wails his displeasure in spluttering red faced anger.*

[Starting BAPTISM BY FIRE Rite! WP! cha+rit]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]

[Marni] She watches, closely, hovering without moving an inch, chewing on her lower lip as Owen handles her son. She wraps her arms tight around herself, pressing tight against breasts that react to her son cries, milk soaking through her shirt.

She watches, and doesn't interfere, even as her son screams...

[Owen DeTerizzi] *There's a flicker. The barest shimmer of something other than rats and Garou in the dark. The very barest idea of a rat. The hint of a rodent. A kin fetch spirit in attendence. Indy yowls as calloused fingertips streak his face with warm ash. Blackening nose. Eyelids. Ears. Tongue. That barest ghost of a spirit haunting the corners of everyone's vision with each careful touch of soot to the babe.*

Hmm.

*A rumble of consideration, before Owen gestures for Marni's hand. If it is extended, a scalpel kisses across the new mother's thumb whisper quick, blood beading to the surface, gathered quickly on the theurge's own blackened fingers. That done, the ritual with soot is repeated, this time with the wet sheen of blood. Indy squalls anew with all the furious bluster of a healthy baby boy. The fire pops to life suddenly, and the insigna of the BoneGnawers glows like embers amidst soot, everywhere the theurge has touched Marni's child. Marking him. Branding him as what he was and what he would forever be.

Garou. BoneGnawer.

That done, Owen stands up and wipes his hair from his face with a streak of grey across his cheek. Nodding to Marni.*

Its done.

[Gwen Sullivan] The whole while, the cub had been silent against the wall, almost forgettable by how the mute blue of her clothing blended softly into the shadows, while black would make her a silhouette. She's silent, motionless (save for leaning to the side some to get a better view of what Owen was doing when he got a hold of the impossibly small child).

The appearance of Rat had been something to view. Rat didn't acknowledge her much when set to her task, but Gwen had dipped her head respectfully anyways. The screaming of the child didn't cause her to flinch like the Theurge had, nor to press her arms to her chest to stifle the ache that a screaming infant could cause there like the Ragabash. She was still, molars pressed tightly together, and watchful.

Attentive. Learning. No student, she wouldn't try to repeat this, but a guest listening broadening their horizons, a stray hovering in the back of a classroom while a topic that was not within their major was being covered.

There's the smell of blood and trash and milk and ash, and the ember-red glow on the child dies out, as does the tingle of spiritual energy that filled the room like a cloud of static and something... warmer, more green, more brown, less blue, less white. The baby goes back to the woman, and Owen states that it's done. Gwen's gray-green eyes settle on him, eyebrows lifted but invisible in the shadows of her hood, intrigued and curious about what she'd just witnessed.

[Marni] She offers her hand the instant it's asked for, and her fingers hover closer once the cut is made, little more than a hiss at the cut, the blood welling. It's barely even a scratch to be thought twice over, especially when her child is screaming and she wants nothing more than to snatch him up and sooth him.

She waits it out - watching, learning, observing.

And when Owen says it is done, THEN she snatches up her baby, and holds him close, humming softly as she soothes away his distress, and cleans off the residue of ritual from his skin. "See, that wasn't so bad...."

She flashes a smile up at Ow"en. "Thanks..." Only then does she tip her head toward Gwen. "Ya can come closer if ya want."

[Gwen Sullivan] It's this sort of youth, wide-eyed though not as exuberant as one would think such youth should show. She was still school-aged, she should be a junior or a senior in high school by the youthful shape of her face, the size of her eyes, how her curves hadn't completely finished filling in yet under the baggy hoodie and straight-cut jeans.

Still, she doesn't hesitate when invited to come closer. She does so with her hands in her pockets still, leaned forward like she'd never seen an infant up close before, glancing to Marni to be sure that the invitation was more than just two steps closer, to Owen to see how he fared after expelling such spiritual effort, and to the bawling pup that would one day be one of them.

[Marni] (brb - getting the kid from work)

[Owen DeTerizzi] ...

Ew.

*One word. Two Letters. As Owen shakes a half squished dollop of rat-feces off his pants. Scowling at the rats gathered around, searching corners for further treats. He's silent and cool as he collects the rest of his equipment, washing his hand in bottled water before tucking everything carefully away. His backpack slung lazily over his shoulder. Only once his own things have been tended to, and the fire put out, does he divert his attention to the cub and gnawer mama once more. A moment silence before he gestures to the baby.*


Baptism By Fire. Assigning a spirit to make sure the cub is never lost. It'll alert the bonegnawers when his Change is soon to happen. Guide them to him.

[Owen DeTerizzi] [hands are dead. Owen goes to caern heart to recharge and commune with Maelstrom. Tells Gwen should she have questions, contact him another day. Tells Marni Congrats.]

[Marni] She nods, as Gwen hesitates, slightly, and chuckles. "Ya wanna hold him? He ain't to happy right now, but ya can if ya want." She digs in a pocket to pull out a diaper and goes about deftly changing the baby first, as he's quite certainly more stinky than he was before.

She laughs at Owen's two letter disgust and smiles at him "Thanks again, Owen. I owe ya one."

[Gwen Sullivan] "I.. don't know." She admits it with the hoarse kind of honesty that should come with a half-moon's tongue. Her voice is raspy like sandpaper without sounding like she's smoked her vocal box away, something that could turn husky one day when she grew into it a little bit more, learned how to work it just right and hang her eyelids at half-mast. For now, though, they were wide open on her plain (though symmetrical) face under that faded blue hood.

She didn't know, but she held out her hands anyways, awkward. The youngest child with her older brother not having any children of his own yet, she'd never been around small children, let alone held one this tiny, this angry, this delicate.

Owen told her she could talk to him if she had questions regarding what she'd seen, what else she could see, and she accepted this with a nod before switching her attention back to Marni (a complete stranger, or as good as) and the offer to hold something she likely wouldn't get to again. It was a precious chance, she understood, and took it while she had it.

[Marni] Marni chuckles as the cub admits that she doesn't know. "Well, ya honest, that's good. Jus' watch his head, support it, an' you'll be fine."

She watches, closely, even as she sets Indy into the cub's arms, helping Gwen adjust her hold to support him correctly. The adjustment to more rage has him testy, but Gwens is not any thicker than his mothers, and he quiet's soon enough. Marni smiles, and hmms her assurance, her approval.

"His name is Indy. After m'packmate, Indira." The sadness there, mingled with pride, suggests said packmate is no longer around. Then, belatedly. "An' I'm Marni."

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen's hands, despite not knowing where to be, do not shake with uncertainty, fear doesn't once splash over her face or pale her already nigh-colorless eyes. She lets Marni guide her left hand to the back of the infant's neck, cradling it carefully between shoulder and the back of tiny skull, and lays the babe's weight along her right forearm. When Marni lets go, trusting the cub to hold her infant on her own, Gwen pauses, holding the baby out awkwardly from herself, then eases him slowly in to be cradled near her upper stomach. Too low for her to understand how to hold when feeding, that would come one day with nature and maternal instincts (perhaps, if she survived long enough).

Eyes were wide with exploration, mouth set in a straight line, as she looks down at the little pink fellow's face. Marni introduces herself and her infant together, and Gwen glances up toward her with pale green-gray eyes and tugs the corners of her mouth up in a smile of greeting. She didn't seem the naturally smiling sort, but that she tried for it was good at least.

"Gwen. Good to meet you." There's a brief pause, and her tongue and lips and voice work on some pre-trained autopilot that has been ground into her by her mentor. "Philodox Cub, no name or deeds yet, student of Fire Claws, who's Forseti of the Get of Fenris." She had no breeding to her, no physical or genetic or even spiritual suggestions to where she might have come from originally-- apparently this rite hadn't been done on her, it left no traces, they would be lingering on a face so fresh as hers to the Change.

"...I'd figured it would have been after Indiana Jones." Again with that bald honesty, no lick of humor there. The kid might hear the joke a thousand plus times in his life, but this wasn't meant to jest. "Naming after a packmate... That's good. Sounds noble."

[Marni] She nods at the introduction, then laughs easily with the joke. Marni's lips curve easily into smiles, and she laughs just as freely. Whereas Gwen doesn't do so often, it seems, the Raggie is far easier read, far easier going. It doesn't make her dislike the other girl at all, just simple observation.

"She died." Noble, and done in loving memory. "He ain't got a middle name yet - Ray, my baby daddy, is still deciding. Lettin' him choose since I insisted on Indy, boy or girl."

She shrugs, slightly. No breeding in this one, either, obviously. Ray didn't have any either - and as a direct result, neither does little Indy. He'll be able to blend in just as easily as his mother, as his Tribe. "Been around long?"

[Gwen Sullivan] "Since September."

She'd been in town longer than some of the newer faces that have blown in have been, but when she said 'around' that encompassed everything, from First Change to having her eyes opened to the dark realities of the world she'd grown up in. September was when the curtains were drawn back and the monsters behind them were shown gnashing their teeth and sharpening their claws and blades, anxious for the fight that was nestled in her ribcage like this newly stoked flame that she wasn't sure would ever go out.

It felt pretty damn mighty tonight. She was curious as to how the infant was tolerating it when grown men shrank from her on the street.

Little Indy was lifted higher, above her chest and the meager swell there that was modest to begin with, shrouded by the size of her hoodie. Her head ducked down, nose settled near the fuzz on top of the tiny infant's head, and she breathed his scent. This young, this fresh, and already the Wolf was strong with her. It came from having a Lupus mentor, spending so much time with him, in fur and on four legs. "Very small," she says, then comes closer to hand the baby back to his mother. As she does, she lifts her eyes to Marni.

"I bet she'd be honored." As far as Indira and how her name traveled goes.

[Marni] She watches Gwen, though it is not a hovering move - not like some. She's not dancing and uneasy and ready to dive to snatch back her baby. She simply watches, trusting this young stranger with the life of her young.

Others will not be so lucky.

She takes the baby back when he's offered, and wraps him up expertly in his blankets, then into his sling, adjusting it so that she can nurse the infant in relative private, and continue her conversation at the same time. He's a week old, and she's already a pro - a natural.

"He is." Small, that is. "Ya rage ain't so much more than mine, an' he's been nestled right up against mine from th'inside for months now. Others, they make him a bit more uncomfortable, an' he frets, but for now, he ain't too upset about those of us with lower levels." She answers the question that was unasked, as it's something that almost surprised her too. Ray expected it, though. He does so love it when he's right...

Indira would be honored - and Marni smiles, softly. "She would. She adored Ray, an' was thrilled when we got t'messin around. She'd have loved t'see this one, an' I'm sure he'll live t'make 'er proud."

[Gwen Sullivan] She watches the baby go back into the sling, quietly amazed by how easily and confidently Marni handled him when the slightest slip of how well you were holding his head could be the end of him. Yet he soldiered against Rage, let a Monster like Gwen hold him, and was quiet and happy half-tucked into his mother's shirt to find a nipple and fall asleep at it. Gwen sniffed some, rubbed her nose with the crook of her index finger, then shoved her hands back into her pockets, straightened her posture, and looked up to Marni's face.

"I suppose that makes sense." As far as Rage goes. She'd never bothered to ask about breeding, about what happened when a Garou had an infant rather than a Kin. She had so much more on her plate than worrying about repopulating the Nation and finding a Kin-- especially when so few of them seemed to be of the masculine persuasion. It was a side-note, a hunt that she might focus on more once she'd found a Name, a Tribe, a Pack, and a Territory.

"..Ray?" And her hand shoots up immediately to precisely where the top of Ray's head would be if he were standing beside them. "Is he up to here, with dark hair, a strong jaw, and a suit worth a mortgage payment?"

[Marni] Once young Indy is comfortable, she settles comfortably herself, rocking slightly side to side, her movements those of mother's everywhere - things ingrained so deeply she doesn't even realize she does it. She reaches up to scratch at the back of her neck and then laughs outright.

"Yeah, sounds like him. S'my BabyDaddy" A beat, and an unrepentant grin for using the slang first. "and Mate. We met when Indira an' me stole his iPhone."

[Gwen Sullivan] "Wouldn't have guessed," she says blandly, quietly in that soft rasp of a voice. Her hand returns to her pocket once identity is confirmed, Marni agreeing with the very basic description of the picture saved in her head of the man. She could describe the pattern of the tie he'd worn on both occasions she'd run into him, give the width of his shoulders and hips, remember how it was strange that salt didn't stain the shine of his shoes, and precisely how his smile set on his face. Not because she cared to pay more attention to him than to anyone else, but because that was the way her mind worked.

In a month she would remember the precise length of Marni's hair, even with the kinking curls throughout it. She would remember the wet splashes of milk on her shirt, the type of pants she was wearing, and where the ash had been smudged from Indy's skin to hers. Everything, every detail, logged away and available for access whenever she needed, or whenever it bubbled up on its own accord.

"...I thought that the Kinwomen were responsible for babies," she mused outloud, expression a curiosity that had been in the back of her mind since meeting the Jarl and noticing the swell to her abdomen. "Because they were off the front lines."

[Marni] She arches a brow, slightly, then chuckles. "We're jus' as capable of gettin knocked up, an' breedin true as any Kin too. Ain't no slight t'gettin pregnant. This lil guy, though a surprise, was totally worth givin up the ability t'change for the last few months."

She shrugs, slightly. "These days, even th'kin are on th'front lines. We're dyin out faster than we can raise th'next generations. Indy here'll likely be raised primarily by his father an' other kin, because I gotta keep to m'duty. But ain't it our duty, too, t'birth those that'll take our place?"

[Gwen Sullivan] She nodded her head in agreement, tugging at bits of lint and loose threads in her hoodie pockets while glancing away from Marni and Indy to the smoldering flames that the ritual had taken place around. She sniffed once, against the effects of cold on even a healthy nose, and the sound echoed in the big empty hangar.

"Of course. Everyone has to do their part, and you and Ray have done yours in that respect." There's a pause, one that lingers, before she voices her next concern in a way that's not quite a question but is open enough for response at the end anyways. "The Red Star, though, is still there. I hear it's a sign of the End, that the next generation might not be relevant."

Another pause, and she sucks at her tooth like there's something stuck in the crack between tooth and gum, then presses on with that thought process. "It wouldn't matter either way, though, as far as Duty and Law are concerned. If you let them slack because of a fear or a theory, then that's enough leeway for other laws to go crumbling as well. Then we're all nothing but Monsters after that."

[Marni] She nods, slightly. "Yeah, sometimes, it seems a bit futile, what we do - but we do our Duty, an' respect our laws, and all that shit, just as our folks before us, an' hopefully ones like this lil guy after us."

Her lips curl into a lopsided little grin. "Ya kin tell ya a Philodox, already. Jus' the way ya thinkin it through. Not all of'em do that. My unasked for advice - remember there's always more than one way t'skin a cat, t'see a law, t'judge a Sept Mate. Ya remember that, an seek through all sides, an' ya'll do just fine."

Then she grins. "Not that my opinion means jack shit."

[Gwen Sullivan] Marni said her opinion didn't mean much, but she slipped it in anyways. That brought the cub's eyes back to her face. Gwen's expression didn't soften much to answer the grin, but it didn't seem very hard in the first place. She wasn't aggressive or angry, she wasn't distant like a Theurge who's dappling persistently in the Other World would be. She's simply... focused. Focused and determined. There doesn't seem to be much relaxing in her, the way she stands is alert and respectful rather than slouched like the average teenager's would be. Her boots, heavy black things, are a steady distance apart from one another, and her shoulders are back and squared.

"You've got a Name, a Rank, and now a child. You've seen a lot more than I have, and all of that makes your words well worth listening to." Another sniff, this one smaller. "But I will try to do that, to hear everything in order to find the purest truth."

Yet another pause, a scuff of her boot on the packed dirt floor, and Gwen nodded her head toward the hangar door. "I don't know if you'll hang around now that his baptism is done--" she called it a baptism because she didn't know what it actually was, but that's certainly what it could be likened to, "-- but I was gonna go ahead and put that fire out if you're done with it and go back to my paces... I'm sure Fire Claws wouldn't appreciate slacking."

Those Get of Fenris are harsh on their cubs, Marni had probably heard, would probably know. No better way to whip them into the shape that Great Fenris demanded of them, after all.

[Marni] She nods, slightly, and stretches, adjusting young Indy in his sling, now that he's asleep, and readying herself to go. "I should get back anyway, tell Ray th'news."

She didn't say good news, just news. A small thing, but likely an easy reason behind it. She wishes what all mothers wish for their children - a long fruitful life, filled with everything they desire. What she's learned here tonight, suggests that her son will follow her own footsteps, rather than his father's. This lowers the life expectancy considerably - As if being one of Rat's wasn't hard enough. The little guy has a long, hard road ahead of him, for sure.

"Have a good one, Gwen. Ya need anythin' give a yell."

[Gwen Sullivan] It would be a hard road for certain, but it would be Dutiful, Purposeful, and chock full of honor and glory and adventure and tales to pass on for generations to come. If all went well and the time was given, anyways.

Marni nods and agrees that she should go tell Ray the news, and Gwen offers another smile, this one a bit softer and easier than the initial one she'd put on for greeting. Her hand showed itself again, this time to wave farewell.

"Of course. You too. Thank you."

And she'd watch for Marni to exit the hangar. From there she'd work to kick dirt up onto the fire until it was extinguished, stamp it out and stir up the ashes with her boots, and from there continue her rounds with the Guardians.