Weigh the Risks - 11.24.2013 [Hector]

Lola Hawkes

It didn't take a lot of effort for Lola to convince Tamsin that she would agree with helping with sled-related battle tactics on a night that wasn't this one.  Some day soon they would take the sleds that Lola had mentioned up where there was snow and ample slopes for use, and Lola would use the battle savvy that she picked up during her induction all through her pre-teen and teenage years into the life of someone who was supposed to do nothing but Battle and Lead and Fight and Win all their short lives.  While Lola herself was no Garou, Celduin was wise to utilize the knowledge that they knew she had anyways.

After all, who was it that had used the words 'cleansing bomb'?

She's invited to join back at the house, of course, but Tamsin's on a mission of rectifying the matter of Theurges doing Galliard-honored rites by learning them all herself.  If she joins them, it will be later, as the night was still quite young and there was plenty to be done still after all.

Lola could argue that there was plenty of patrolling to be done still as well, but a good ten hours spent out walking the lands so far was enough to satisfy her, so she and Hector had gathered their belongings (her, the satchel that kept her supplies, Hector the project he was working on) and started the hike back east toward The Homestead, into the yawning dark cold mouth of Night.

The wind had picked up, and Lola grew tired of the way it made the tips of her hair bite at her face when it shifted its direction, so she had since taken an elastic from her wrist and bound the mass of dense black hair into a knot at the nape of her neck, pulled specifically so that the sheet still covered up her ears to make up for the hat that she was not wearing.  They'd been walking for about ten minutes now, content in one another's quiet and presence for the past couple, when she turned her head to look at what he carried with him and ask:

"So, do you want me to teach you to use that thing when you're done with it?"

Even though Hector's never seen her handle a bow or keep a quiver on her back in his life.


Hector Ghosh

Eyes aimed at the white-capped peaks of the mountains and consternation come across his face made Hector a fair target for his packsister's mockery. Of course he wouldn't want to head up into the mountains this time of day. It's too cold. He might freeze his balls off again.

The outdoor gathering ended with raised voices and threats of violence as their gatherings tend to end. As the last survivors of the original pack Hector and Tamsin are more like annoying brother and sister to each other than they were even a year ago. The thought that she would have gone off with Corey had the Ahroun hesitated long enough to give her a choice never goes far from his mind.

Yet Corey thought given the choice she would have stayed with her auspicemate.
Clearly the men in Tamsin's life are idiots.

Their ways parted then. She went back to the Caern's heart and the Uktena went back towards home. Hector held the bow on his shoulder by the not-yet-secured string, the arrows secured in that same hand, that he might keep the other arm around Lola's waist. His fingers curl against the fabric of her cloak without a pocket to duck into and when they reach rougher terrain he gives her back her space.

After ten minutes comes a question. A laugh comes out of his throat.


"Teach yourself how to use it," he says. "I didn't make it for me."


Lola Hawkes

The arm about her waist is a welcome thing, although she can't very well return the affection without exposing herself to the cold air outside.  Besides, she's found that mutual arm-looping threw off gaits, sober or drunk.  Your level of intoxication only determined the severity.  Regardless, they hit a point where they're walking over rocks and watching their step so as not to cause any to kick loose underneath them, and he releases her to instead allow the both of them the balance they need to cross this part of the land.

He laughs and explains that he was actually making the bow for her.  Lola's eyebrows hopped up on her forehead, and she paused to tug the hem of her ankle-length skirt free from a scrubby little bush that it had snagged on.  Over the past couple of days Lola has left her jeans alone, finished with the discomfort of having the one pair that can still button done up, and more than through with the aggravation of having to constantly tug them back up when they slipped if she opted to just leave a button undone completely.  She owned a couple of skirts, surprisingly enough.  She inherited several when Maria packed only what she could fit in a duffle and left.  Maria was a more slender thing, but they were the same height and these skirts were adjustable in the waist.  More of a hassle than jeans, but she'd live with it.

"Huh."

That's all he gets at first, acknowledgment while she thinks about how to feel when presented with the thought of using a bow and arrow.


"Well, at least it's not traceable and arrows can be made instead of bought like bullets...  And I'm pretty sure I've got an ancestor or two that'd be proud of it."


Hector Ghosh

"Yeah I thought I was going to have to call on mine to help me. I hate doing that, though, it's not like going through your list in your phone and getting to dial up that really cool great-great-aunt who knows everything about everything and doesn't get mad at you for bothering her. It's like oh, okay, cool, I got like a ten-percent chance my crazy alcoholic great-grandfather is going to show up and decide he wants to just stay in my body for the rest of the day, that's always fun."

There he goes rambling on about things she doesn't have any firsthand experience with again. More often these days Lola is noticing that Hector by default assumes she knows what he's talking about and takes his cues on what he needs to explain by gauging her reaction to his rambling.

That night he came home starry-eyed after an encounter with animated trees in the woods she had had to keep him tethered. He wasn't in such great shape after they broke into the hotel either. Turns out he had harvested that Bane for its Gnosis and the only reason he wasn't dizzy with the experience on this side was they went right back to fighting. In the room he'd found and guided her to he'd lain awake for a while staring into the dark like he was listening to something she couldn't hear, murmuring to it occasionally in that spirit language she will never learn, and it had taken her shushing him to get him to shut his eyes and sleep.

At least today he's not influenced by the moon or the spirits. He's just hyper. That's what happens as the moon grows slimmer. His personality has room to breathe.


"Anyway, yeah, that's why I thought it'd be good. You know. If you wanted to. I was reading, too, you can shoot a target like four times as far away with a bow and arrow as you could with a handgun. That's pretty badass."


Lola Hawkes

The night that they'd gone back to the hotel room Lola was exhausted.  She'd put up post against the ice machine some three doors down from the vacant room that Hector was accessing from the Other Side and bared and snapped her teeth at a puffy man in his fifties who had approached her.  He'd gotten four words into his attempt to invite her back to his room to join him before she had effectively scared him off by stating something hard and tooth-clacking in a language he only had the slimmest grasp on.

She'd fallen asleep as soon as she was in the bed, but was awoken a little under an hour later by Hector's muttering beside her.  She'd rolled over and pulled herself up to rest on his chest and shushed him, encouraging him to rest.  Eventually he did, and the drive home the next morning was uncomfortable because of ice and snow and nervous drivers but Lola was capable and confident, and she got them home with some delay but no trouble.

Now as they walked she contemplated the bow slung over Hector's shoulder and thought out loud for him to hear her process:

"Well, it's no sniper rifle.  Won't hit as hard or at the same distances.  But it's sure as hell gonna be more mobile than one, less expensive.  That point about 'em being tough to track still helps, too."  She hefted herself up over a jutting ledge in the landslide, hiking her leg up and bracing an arm on Hector's shoulder to get herself the rest of the way there.  With his support, she's standing on the plateau on which they would walk until they reached the house, and she holds her arm out from under the cloak, exposing that bleach-white sleeve of her sweater in doing so, to offer him the same support that she took to get him there as well.

"Plus, I could get the Theurges to make me some killer arrows.  Spirit imbued.  I'll bet Milton could hook me up with ones that explode, too, I remember that fool yammering about explosive ammo at one point."

Once Hector's up, Lola pauses like a thought occurred to her and looks at him a little harder, a little differently.


"...Don't think I knew you could reach back to ancestors like that.  Haven't seen you do it.  ....Should I be aware of that?  Like, will your grandfather come home wearing your skin sometime and I'll need to lock you-- him outside?"


Hector Ghosh

As she talks Hector alternates his attention between the occluded path ahead of them and the words streaming from her consciousness. It's an adjustment to the lifestyle she's used to but he doesn't have to try and sell it to her. Not only an adjustment but a rational one. A gun is useful for hunting animals and for fending off intruders and idiots who decide it will be a fun time to encroach upon her territory but for all the time they've spent in the city so far this year and for how much time it looks as if they will spend in the city in the future the potential of drawing more attention to themselves than they already have is too great to ignore.

Hell, Hector accepted the consequences of his own actions insofar as they attracted the attention of local hunters. If he's going to maneuver around the city he needs to be careful about what he does where. Scaring the shit out of doctors and nurses and patients and visitors is not a way to go on about one's business without drawing attention to oneself.

Even as they edge towards the end of the first trimester of the pregnancy and Hector becomes more aware of the changes in Lola's body and what it means for the baby's safety he doesn't wave her off or insist she not do as her body tells her she is capable of doing. She is just as strong as he is even if she is not as quick or skilled with her fists. She is sturdy at least and when she holds out an arm to help him up the landfall Hector does not shrug her off.

He hands up the unfinished bow and arrows to her and then takes her hand and helps her haul the rest of him up over the ledge.

They continue on with her holding onto the new weapon and he keeping a hand on the small of her back until the terrain levels out. Her eyes shoot to him with no small amount of flint in them and he looks over at her slow. One eyebrow lifting up like to mock the sudden sharpness of her gaze.

Then a bit of color leeches from his face and his eyes widen like that's the worst thought that's come into his mind lately. It trumps imagining Corey and Lola in bed together. That's how awful it is.

"Ugh," he says as the blanching turns to a scowl. It's not an unfair question. "It's not something I'm worried about. Most of the time if I screw up trying to call on them I just end up sitting there drooling on myself because they all start talking at once. It's... okay, it's not funny like hah-hah funny, more like I'm the first Garou born to that side since he croaked so I didn't think I had that many ancestors. He won't show up unless I really biff it."

That doesn't answer the question. Hector clears his throat to make room for a story and rubs his hand along her back like to gather up his thoughts.

"Before we picked up Corey and Tamsin, remember, it was Willow and Glen and Maria and me? I don't remember where we were but I tried to call on my ancestors to help me run faster. We were retrieving some artifact out of a cave for some old blind spirit-talker at the Sept in Mexico and I was dragging ass. Apparently instead of going catatonic like I was expecting, good old Rapes The White started riding my bones. They didn't realize it until we got out of the cave and he didn't want to leave. Glen and your sister ended up pinning me to the ground while Willow yelled at him. Took a few hours. I had a wicked hangover by the time the drunk bat finally left."

Still doesn't answer the question.


"If that ever happens again, just lock the door. He'll leave eventually. Just, I don't know, stay away from the windows so he doesn't see you. Supposedly he refuses to speak English, you won't have a hard figuring out it's not me."


Lola Hawkes

He'd gotten into a habit of touching at her back as they walked in a small, bracing gesture that was intended more to assist than to guide.  If they climbed multiple flights of stairs together (as was the case when visiting Anthony's apartment), or when they were taking the uphill walk on any of the slopes out here.  She wasn't bothered by it.  Frankly, she surprised even herself with how content and comfortable she was with much of Hector's affections.  Even when he got into the habit of scooting down the bed in the mornings and whispering songs and stories to the budding baby she did not push him away.  She was moderately uncertain at first, and that made her a little uncomfortable because she was still coming to terms with the pregnancy itself, but these days she just tucked one arm behind her head and let the other hand brush through his hair.

Now, though, they walked and he rubbed at her back through the thick, rough wool of her cloak and he explained that chances were slim that she had to worry about this unwanted ancestor coming home in his place.  It has happened before, though, a few years ago before Tamsin or Corey had started to follow with Fog.  That meant it could very well happen again.

Lock the door and he'll leave.  He doesn't speak English so you'll know it's him.
Wait, correction, refuses to speak English.  That was different.


Lola scoffed a little and shook her head.  "Well, if it's happened once it's bound to come up again some time."  She didn't put much a filter on her thoughts with Hector, not in scenarios like this.  Her tone was matter of fact even if her expression was the tiniest bit sour.  "I'll do my best not to wreck your body too much if I need to teach him a lesson when it does happen, though."  She bumped her hip and shoulder to him affectionately as she said this.  Her words themselves came out in a way that was unconcerned and a little dismissive, perhaps peppered with jest, but he could be sure that she very much meant what she said.


Hector Ghosh

Times being what they are few humans their age give any consideration to the idea of starting a family this early in their lives. Most humans their age are looking at college if they are so lucky as to have the wealth and the opportunity.

Dr. Ghosh's fear of his only son dropping out of school to work at a gas station and do nothing with his life but smoke marijuana and play video games was eclipsed only by the fear that his son would come home one day, 17 or 18 years old, and tell them that he'd knocked up one of his classmates. Hector's father had no notion of a greater terribleness than his child failing to live up to his expectations.

That son has been missing for four years. It is easier for Hector to believe his family thinks he's dead. They do not think he's dead. They are still trying to find him. They have no idea that he's alive in Colorado with a Mexican-Native woman awaiting the birth of a child.

They're supposed to be a team. They have to support each other. They suck at talking about their fears and the things that bother them. They do not know how to accept help when they are wounded or in pain unless they cannot physically move and have no choice but to accept the help. Yelling is the only thing that has gotten through to either of them in the past. Yelling or physical dominance.

They're learning. Without parents or trusted elders around to answer their questions, with Hector being an alpha who played a decisive role in the subterranean battle last month, they have to figure this out on their own.

On a brighter moon he would have reacted animal-sharp to the insinuation that it's only a matter of time before he calls on his ancestors and the one with whom he is most familiar takes that as an invitation to stay a while. Would have found it neither optimistic nor amusing that Lola has a plan.

Tonight he laughs a low laugh and slings his arm around her shoulders after she bumps him.

"You're too good to me," he says as he presses a kiss to her temple. Keeps his arm there as they continue on towards the back of the house. A new tension comes into his body and before she can ask him what's wrong Hector tries something new.

He outs with it.


"He was an Athro, when he died. My great-grandfather. He came from a really long line of Uktena. His great-grandmother was an Ahroun who fought against the railroad expansion. It still ended up coming anyway but she took a stand against the Wyrmbringer. You know? That family was kind of a big deal and he decided he wanted to drink it away and now my mom doesn't even know what she is. Some of that breeding had to've trickled down to her or I wouldn't be here, right?"


Lola Hawkes

Times being what they are, Lola truthfully wouldn't have originally planned to have a child at this point in her life herself.  It would be optimistic past the point of what she was capable for her to expect that she would live long enough to reach her mid-thirties and choose only then to settle down, though.  Lola lived life hard like the brothers and sisters who shared the moon she was born under, and the scales were weighed even more so out of her favor since she went into fights with guns and soft flesh-- no armor, no healing capabilities, no fangs or claws to rip and tear with.  She had to rely on those same brothers and sisters to mend her soft flesh and hard muscle when it failed to do so itself.

Yet, she also accepted that she was a Kinfolk in very specific and dutiful ways.  Though she would not surrender her self-perceived responsibility to guard the Bawn and fight the Wyrm in favor of working a job and earning money to support her Cousins, she still knew the importance of continuing the line.  She knew that her family's lineage was strong, that the Hawkes have been here out West since before white men came to introduce the weapons that she now relied on to survive combat.  She knew that her chances of breeding True were higher than others.  She simply didn't think that anyone would be patient or delighted enough to settle down with her long enough to procreate before she burned herself out like a burst of flame in the night sky.

Yet, here she was with a Galliard who walked with his arm around her shoulder, who loved her hard and clear and never shied away from it.  They hadn't expected to make a child as quickly as they did, but at the same time they'd spoken and addressed the matter already -- let's just let happen what Gaia determines is best, is what they'd decided.  Now that the stunned shock was wearing off they could boast that they were just that good at continuing the race.

As they walked, Hector told her a brief story of who this great-grandfather was.  He explained that the man came from a long line, deep and proud as the one that Lola came from, but diluted by drink and human women that had somehow trickled down to Hector, a kid that was an entirely different kind of Indian, standing here today.  He ended the story with a question about his mother, and Lola looked mildly surprised but mostly inquisitive when she switched her eyes from the horizon they walked toward to the side of Hector's face.  A moment was spent surveying him before she looked forward again, rested her shoulder to the side of his chest, and continued walking while she answered in a tone that was thoughtful but somehow authoritative-- like she knew what she was talking about.


"Well of course.  If your great-grandpa's line went through her and was strong enough to generate you, then of course she's got his breeding.  Possibly enough that Garou would recognize it if they saw it, which would make me surprised that no one out in her city has sniffed her out and reached out to her yet.  It's likely that it extended to your sisters, too.  If they're related to you, your mom, and your great-grandpa then it stands to reason that they'd be Kin themselves-- the lot of them."


Hector Ghosh

One would think someone would have explained this to him by now but he hasn't told a ton of stories about his fostering. Allusions to it come rarely. The pack that taught him what it was to be Garou was gone by the time Celduin as it was rolled through the Sept of the Painted Sands and scooped him up.

Babysitting a Lost Cub who just happened to be the great-grandson of a spirit-talker of such renown and stature that even his deeds at the end of his life were not enough to knock him out of the stories of their people was not what Blood on the Leaves thought he would be doing with himself at that stage in his life. The parallels one could draw between the Garou responsible for knocking Hector so far into the human world it's a wonder he ever changed at all and the Garou responsible for making sure he survived his Rite of Passage are not subtle parallels. Both perished as a result of their obsessions.

If Hector has nightmares about things he saw when he was a Cub they are quiet nightmares. He does not bolt up out of a sound sleep. Sometimes he draws a deep breath and links his arms around Lola as he had the night they came home from the punishment rite. But in those moments he says nothing.

And he says nothing for the moment Lola looks up at him. He keeps his eyes aimed straight forward so that one of them is paying attention to the terrain so all she has is his profile. A distant pensiveness in his gaze now. His sisters would not recognize him if he showed up at either of their doors now. Between the height and the hair and the Rage, the masculine maturity taken the place of boyish bravado, he doesn't resemble the 16-year-old scowling at the camera in his learner's permit picture.

Just as long as Lola thought no one would ever want to settle down with her so Hector had thought time she would reject him because he was not man enough for someone so wild.


"Yeah," he says with that drawn-out cadence of hesitation. "Yeah, I know, it's just that Helen's going to school in North Carolina and it looks like Cassandra is in New York City. I'm pretty sure Mom and Dad are still in San Jose. Everybody's all spread out. Maybe it's better that way. If nobody from our side's sniffed them out yet maybe that means they're safe. I was just... I dunno, I wonder that, all the time, how nobody managed to catch Mom. Even after the cub finders grabbed me they weren't interested in going back for her. They just hauled me out to Arizona and dumped me at the Sept."


Lola Hawkes

The pair of them were on the average end of tall for their respective genders and cultures-- Hector moreso than Lola.  They were used to traveling by foot, so they each had gaits that utilized their long legs and ate up distance with no trouble.  Prior to the grueling exhaustion that growing an organ and life within you will cause, Lola was the kind of person who didn't know what it was to get tired.  She would have shot up the multiple flights of stairs alongside the Shadow Lord Ahroun last night, without her lagging and him encouraging her (Come on, just another two flights to go!).  When she ran with Eddie and Ivan as cubs, she would scout ahead after growing impatient with their lumbering and circle back to push and shove and taunt until they picked up their pace.

It didn't take long for them to find the log house in which they live come into sight through a patch of trees.  Just before they make their way out of the treeline and into the stretch of plain that would blend into what you could call the 'backyard', Lola stopped walking.  It wasn't abrupt, she slowed down at first and switched her shoulders back a little to indicate to Hector that she would be stopping, that way he didn't try to continue on with his arm still around her.

When he stopped and looked at her, no doubt in question, he'd find that she's got a sincere and serious expression on her face.

"They probably were more worried about you, and figured she's far entrenched enough that they didn't need to bother looking into her story.  That doesn't mean that someone won't, though."

Beat.


"If you're worried about it, we could reach out..."


Hector Ghosh

And he does stop. His cold-bitten hand slides along the shelf of her shoulders as he parts from her. He comes to stand so that they face each other though the distance from her has the cold swirling back in.

Hector does not make as big a show of feeling the cold as he has in the past. It's obvious that he does feel it even through the layers he wears and the gloves and the hat but he doesn't shiver or stamp his feet or bitch about it. All he does is stuff his hands into his pockets and position himself so his back is to the breeze. Braces himself against it.

That cast to Lola's gaze has him wearing a more intense expression than he'd meant to put on for her. No negative emotion in it but his eyes are unblinking and sharp on her. As if his mind is racing and her words are reaching him only through peripheral senses.

He catches the implied suggestion as she trails off and snaps back to the present. Shakes his head hard and frowns.

"No," he says with a laugh staining his voice, "no no, I'm not--" He clears his throat and shrugs. His eyes dart away for a second.

He's lying.


"--I'm not worried. We don't have to do that. We shouldn't do that, it'd be way too much work and it wouldn't even accomplish anything."


Lola Hawkes

The intensity of Hector's stare would be enough to set most people on edge.  Under the pressure of Rage and sharp, dark glinting eyes many Kinfolk would shift their weight, swallow the nature-based fear that tried to lump up in their throats, and watch their following words carefully.  Lola Hawkes has long since established that she had nothing to fear from Hector, and even if she did the whole of the Sept knew that she met fear differently than most.  Were she worried about the way she was being glared at she would default to Fight in the Fight-or-Flight gamble that people play when adrenaline slams their system and their nerves start to quake, and rather than backing down she'd seek to gain fast dominance in the situation as a means of assuring that it didn't go out of hand.

Tonight, though, here with her mate (though no formal declaration has been made before the Sept and subsequently the Nation), Lola didn't even feel the need to go that far.  She just continued with what she had to say.

Hector's answer, though, casts a different expression across her face.  She pressed her lips together and stared at him incredulously.  It was within Hector's bones to deny his concerns, just as he was denying that the cold at the back of his neck and the wind that pressed stiff cold jeans to the backs of his legs was making him long for the fire-warmed house that he lived in.  She appears incredulous, and a drop of challenge is mixed in there as well.

I'm not worried.
Really?  I don't believe you.

One eyebrow raised up, clear with skepticism, and the shape of her arms changed so he can tell clearly that she's crossed them over her chest under the cloak she wore.  He said that it would be too much work, and her jaw tightens as she clamps her molars together behind closed lips.  For a second it seems like she might pick a fight with him-- like she took some kind of offense to what he'd said to dismiss the idea of checking in on the family that he left behind along with the human world when joining packs of Werewolves out in the wild.  That moment passes, and the scales tip in Hector's favor-- she isn't going to yell or prod or dig her thumbs into the personal wounds that were concerns about his past, the fact that he knew they still held out faith for his survival.

"Fine," she says, and rolls her head to indicate that she's going to start walking again before turning and doing so.  Her arms relax under her cloak, back at her sides, and she finds her pace once more.

She just can't help to throw out at the end, though:


"Though I hope that there's no such thing as 'too much work' if there's a chance of accomplishing anything when it comes to family of any kind-- the maybe-humans away from here or the wolves that keep around."


Hector Ghosh

Confusion leaps at him like it's gunning for his throat. Spurred on by the dismissal in Lola's tone and the nebulousness of the admonition she leaves with him. Hector has never shown another creature his throat. He'd fought his last alpha so hard the other male had to walk away from him and Tamsin to keep from killing him. Every time he has been involved in a physical challenge he has heeded an honorable surrender. Gaia help him if he ever gets into a physical challenge with someone he cannot beat.

His honor will only take him so far if he himself refuses to surrender but that's a fear for another night.

Twice now he's been the one to walk away from her when they've been arguing but they were not arguing this night. It's cold and he's lying. Those two circumstances alone are reason enough for her to walk away. Doesn't stop Hector from wearing an uncertain expression as he watches her do it.

"I didn't mean it like that, I just--"


With her back to him Lola cannot read his face or his posture to glean why it is he cuts himself off. Nor can she hear him coming up behind her. He's still standing where she left him.


Lola Hawkes

The one thing that Lola hates is walking away-- from anything, really.  She doesn't like to walk away from fights, she doesn't like to walk away from projects or tasks that are half completed or presented to her.  To step back from Melantha and Erich in the park last weekend was frustrating and burned her face and chest with frustration and embarrassment that she couldn't finish what she'd started, but to go after Hector had been without question.  So, to walk away from Hector outright would have to be even worse.

That's why she doesn't do it.  She'd started to walk, but not necessarily to turn her back to him and leave him in the dust.  She'd figured that he was going to be coming along with, and appeared quietly, blandly surprised when she heard his words but they weren't at her shoulder.  She didn't get far, perhaps six or seven feet or so, before stopping again to the quiet that came when his steps didn't pick up behind her.  She turned around to look at him and blinked the surprise out of her eyes.  Her mouth pressed to a flat line, somewhere between bother and sympathy.

"Look," she starts.  For the clear (but not necessarily dominant) sympathy on her face, her tone erred on the side of bothered.  That was just kind of her default, though, so it should be of no surprise to the Galliard that she sounds a bit aggravated even though she isn't necessarily.

"It's your family.  Only mine by extension if you decide to take them back.  But really, I can't help but compare to Anthony in this situation;  He pretty much lives like a human, doesn't involve himself in this world outside of paying the Homestead's utilities and taxes and talking with you and me.  That's it, though.  He doesn't see other relatives, doesn't come to the Sept, doesn't talk to other Kinfolk or anything.  But even if we didn't need his money--" there's a mild sting of shame there, she doesn't like having to depend on him for his finances but simultaneously understands the practicality and hard truth of the matter -- "I'd still be reaching out to him.  'Cause he's Kin, and since we can tell that, the fuckers out there can tell that too.

"You got a sister in New York?  That place is a fucking cesspool, Hector.  If she's Kin, I'm astounded no one or nothing's scooped her up yet.  Your Mama lives in San Jose?  That's a pretty big city too, isn't it?  If she's made it this far, it could very well just be by the skin of her teeth, and that's not a guarantee of anything.


"It's your call-- you get to weigh the risks, but if it was me I'd at least make sure."


Hector Ghosh

"Yeah, well, the FBI's had me listed as a missing person since 2009 and the only government ID I've got expired when I turned eighteen, it's not like I can just hop on a plane if I want to go someplace far away like you can."

He doesn't mean to sling it at her like a reminder of how easily she went down to Las Vegas two months ago and he flinches when the sound of it touches his ears. Instant apology stains his eyes but he doesn't get hung up on backpedaling from something that wasn't meant as he'd stated it.

If he could talk to anyone else about this without other things coming up he would have by now. Hell, he and Tamsin made headway in locating his sisters. Ignore the fact that a frenzy nearly claimed him because she clicked on the wrong link while he was backseat driving. They have plenty of other things with which to concern themselves before they start worrying about roping his Lost Kinfolk relations back into the Nation.

"I just don't want to leave you here while I'm off moon-bridging around the country checking in with my family. You know? And I know enough about bloodlines that I feel pretty confident saying there's no guarantee either of my sisters are actually Kinfolk. We're so far removed from our great-grandfather that it's a fluke I even happened. They could be human. And it wouldn't be fair to my mom to show up just to tell her 'Oh hey guess what I'm a werewolf and your grandfather was a werewolf'--she's adopted, you know? Her parents, her adoptive parents, they're human. I'm ninety-nine-point-whatever percent sure my father's human. What kind of a Veil breach would it be to show up four years later telling my father I didn't run away or get sold into sex slavery or get chained up in some lunatic's basement, or whatever horrible thing they think happened to me, I'm just a werewolf?"


This is why he hasn't brought up this particular issue yet. It's too convoluted. He doesn't do well with convoluted. His hands are out of his pockets and Lola can see him breathing faster.


Lola Hawkes

The comment about leaping on an airplane and jetting away on a moment's notice is met with a hard stare and a look that turned her eyebrows into straight, stern lines.  Hector's face immediately flinched into apology, and that's where the minor blip in good word choice and (accidental) reference to recent arguments and past indiscretions is left.  She gave a Watch yourself stare, and he simultaneously displayed regret for how it came out.

He pressed on, explaining himself, and Lola was at least good enough to hear him out.  More times than not, to her credit, she would let people talk and actually listen to what they had to say.  She didn't carry the air of someone who was just waiting for the other person to stop so that they could state their case.  Instead, she looked like she had all the time in the world and was willing to give it to Hector here and now.  She was warm under her wool, after all, and she trusted that if Hector got cold enough to jangle his bones and shudder his teeth he would move the conversation inside.  He was a big boy, his body temperature regulation was something that could be left up to him.

Her eyes slipped easily from his face to his body, gauging the posture, noting that his hands slipped from his pockets and were held out in the air, ready for something or just too anxious to be confined.  His shoulders and chest moved just a little faster with the in-and-out of air, but all she did was pass her tongue briefly, thoughtlessly over her lips and look back up to him.

"I'm not gonna argue something that you know more about than me.  That's a fight I'd lose, and we both know I hate losing fights."

She's honest, if nothing more.

"I could argue that I think the Veil gets a pass of consideration when you consider that the humans in question are direct, immediate family members of one of us, but you'd have to ask a Philodox about that.  This moon--" she meant the moon overhead, obscured by dense gray clouds-- "isn't mine, after all."

Her shoulders move up, her chest expands out as a deep breath is taken, and when the air goes out of her its slow and calm, but not tired.  This isn't the kind of sigh she gave when she was exhausted with a topic and trying to wrap things up so she could move on to something else.  It's her making an honest-to-god effort at being sensitive to Hector's situation-- one that she'll never understand and hasn't had to comprehend.  The people she grew up close with all had families that knew what they were, that were involved in this world.  The Sept of Forgotten Questions was a traditional one, and people who didn't drift in and instead grew up in the area had done so in a culture of Wolves and Knowing.  Lola didn't have friends that were brought into this world in their adolescence, nor did she know many Lost Cubs that had to leave their families behind.  Hector was pretty much the only one to fill that slot.

"I'm not gonna lie-- I can't quite understand why you'd keep hiding.  But like I said, it's your call to make.  I can't weigh in too much 'cause I got literally shit-all for experience in situations like this.  I've got no advice to give that isn't all speculation."


She paused, slid one foot forward to rock her weight more toward him, but didn't take any further full steps toward him.  She'd initiate, but not completely close distance just yet.  Her hands would come out from under the cape and spread in front of her, palms up and fingers splayed.  "You wouldn't have to worry 'bout leaving me behind, though.  I can take fine care of myself.  Or be there to brace you, if that's better."


Hector Ghosh

Even if she does not close the six yards between them the fact that she opens up her posture and leans forward as if to come back is enough to have him drawing another deeper breath to keep himself from becoming overwhelmed by the enormity of this undertaking they're discussing.

It isn't much wonder that when Hector has moments of downtime he spends them engaging in activities where he has to fix or create something. Lola has done a fine enough job of maintaining the place on her own. The roof was fixed during the firestorms this summer and the windows let in no drafts. He has had to find things to occupy his time. The vinyl player runs again now and he has started building a bookcase to hold all of the records that have been sneaking home with him when he takes trips into Littleton. Sometimes he brings used books home with him too. The bookshelf is giving him something to do that feels mundane and useful at once. That has nothing to do with his duties.

The bow doesn't quite fall into the mundane category but once it's finished it will be a sturdy and beautiful thing. And he has no real training in woodworking or carpentry. Motherfucker could earn a living wage at construction if he could control his Rage or behave himself around humans but he can't. About all he can manage these days is writing songs when he isn't building something and playing his guitar in crowded stinky bars and then getting his energy out abusing his packsister.

Building a bookshelf isn't the same thing as revealing himself to his parents four years after disappearing. Making a new family would be easier and that alone scares the shit out of him.

Hector comes forward in two steps. Almost always he is the one to pull her into his arms. Only once has he dove at her like this. He was on the ground split open by a Fomor and seconds away from a frenzy that could have killed her. He'd buried his face in her lap then. Now he doesn't hide his face but he still puts his arms around her waist instead of around her shoulders.

Instead of answering her he lets out his breath in a sigh frustrated and grating enough that it nearly sounds like a snarl.


Use your words, Ghosh.


Lola Hawkes

Hector takes two long-legged steps toward her, quick and almost rushing, and wraps his arms about her.  Again, some would cringe from a rush by a Garou with Rage that challenged up against the force of their own will, but Lola stood planted to the ground for all the reasons previously established.  His arms typically went about her shoulders for the sake of height disparity and comfort, but now they looped about her waist and drew her in close middle-first instead.  This brought her stomach to his, and touch brought more firm attention to the steadily, just-at-the-start growing stomach than sight did.  She'd left her arms open to invite him in, and as he snarled hot breath above her shoulder she lifted her arms, the cloak falling to lay heavy against her back, held in place by the heavy button and high neck flaps at her throat and chest.

One arm looped over the top of his shoulders, and the other hand settled on the back of his head, over top the hat that he wore.  She stretched her neck and aimed her face up, touched her left brow and cheekbones to his right, and breathed deep and slow as though she could guide him wordlessly to do the same.

He's a Galliard, he should be using his words, but Lola understands that he's also a Garou, which made him precisely as much Beast and Man as he was Human, equal among one another in their triat within his being.  Sometimes the Man would lose to the other two, and language would drop off the map momentarily as well.

"I ain't asking you to make choices, not right now at least, certainly not for this.  No one is, except maybe yourself."


Her volume is lower here, this near to him, and though her tone is still matter-of-fact she at least has notes of patience and reassuring there as well.  Having a Garou to balance and love is helping her figure out how to be a Kinfolk faster than before.


Hector Ghosh

Even just a few months ago Hector did not want to accept comfort from anyone let alone from a woman. This has been a constant for years. The machismo of youth gave him the notion that he had to be strong every waking moment. That all he was allowed to show the world was anger and even then it was to be a flinty sort of anger. Maybe he'd seen too many Dirty Harry movies before his First Change.

This is something he is going to have to figure out on his own. A lawgiver or a higher-ranked Garou could offer him some guidance to put to rest the notion that he would be committing some sort of violation if he brought his parents and his sisters into the Nation but they cannot make the decision for him. And this undertaking may have less to do with getting back his family than simply making sure they're safe and free from undue attention before he slips back to Colorado and goes on with his life.

Maybe he's just thinking, in light of what happened with the huntress sisters, that it would be better to show himself to his parents before human law enforcement figures out where he is.

Whatever he's thinking is trapped inside his skull as he presses his brow to Lola's brow. His chest moves hard and fast before the purposeful slowness of his woman's breath, the hidden but palpable press of her growing abdomen against his pelvis. He clutches her to him and in less than sixty seconds he's calmed again.

The only person thinking of solutions to this right now is Hector.

He turns his face towards her that he might breathe in the scent of her hair. It comes to him electric with cold and he eases back that she does not have to support him anymore. Hector rubs her back with hands no longer ready to strike out at ghosts and presses his lips to the corner of her jaw beneath her ear. Hot breath shoots out his nostrils like the last of the tension leaving through a steam valve before he speaks.


"We should go inside," he says. "I wanna make sure the grip on the bow's okay for you before I finish tying down the string."

Crab Bake - 11.24.2013 [Tamsin, Hector]

Hector Ghosh

[dex + crafts: how shitty is his first attempt at making a bow]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )


Hector Ghosh

The rock where the Uktena Galliard has taken to parking himself during his moments of resting and writing at the end of his patrols is trying to leech the heat out of his ass. It cannot sap it out of the rubber of his Timberlands so it goes for his backside. That's fine. Joke's on it. He doesn't have much backside from which it can harvest joules of warm-energy.

He keeps telling himself he'll get used to it. With a cap and gloves on and his back to the wind is really isn't that bad. Cold as a bastard but it won't kill him. If an oil-soul Bane couldn't kill him then inclement weather isn't going to be the thing to do it.

As it goes Hector is half-crouched half-sat on the big rock by the stream and he's squinting at whatever today's arts and crafts project is supposed to be. Wood shavings form a spotty half-moon around his left side and a small quiverless quiver of half-a-dozen arrows, naked yet of fletchings, sits on his left. He is in the process of wrestling rawhide string into the notches of what is beginning to look like a sturdy bow.

If Lola wasn't aware that he had been drying rawhide string, well... Fog.

He's singing a song to the string as he couples it to the bow.

"get in your notch motherfucker
get in your notch motherfuckerit's too cold for your bullshit
and it's such a nice notch
get in your notch motherfucker..."


Lola Hawkes

There's a good chance that Lola got her cloak made fun of the first time she wore it out, when they'd gone to meet the Black Fury Theurge and see Hector get his first scar rubbed with ash and properly introduced to his Body Soul and Name.  She could give half a shit less, because the whole while she was out there she didn't feel her body tremble with the chill of the night air once.  It was heavy enough that winds wouldn't blow it open, and the high neck reached her hairline in the back and sat softly just under her jaw in the front.  She had to replace her backpack with a big rectangular satchel that sat at her hip, kept in place with a strap that went over one shoulder to cross diagonal over the chest and back, but that was just fine too.

Yesterday she'd crunched her way into the driveway long after the sun had set, returned home from an announced visit to Cousin Anthony in the city.  Today she woke up not much longer afer the sun did, warmed up with coffee and breakfast, filled her satchel with supplies and was on her way.  Even when happy in her home she needed to be out on her land just as badly, and since the snows were not coating the land just yet she went by foot.

It's about another hour before dusk will come sweeping over the land when Lola decides to go see if she can find Hector at that rock that he so often will spend time at.  She's marching her way over the hillside, the hem of both her cloak and the dense green skirt swishing at her ankles as she went, when the song meets her ears across the otherwise quiet (save for the wind whistling its way through the trees and rocks when a gust picks up) land.

"If it's that cold," she says to introduce herself to the setting, speaking as she crests the soft slope that the rock perches near, "then you should probably find a better place to work, don't you think?"


Hall

Tamsin meanwhile. Now Tamsin. Tammy-sin. Don't call her Tammy, ever, Tamsin Hall. Tamsin was at the heart of the caern -- or near enough. A theurge doing a galliard's job as far as rites go (Tamsin is traditional, after all) has put bees under her skin, has made her antsy, made her unbearable, made her heart-sore over the things she doesn't know but should, so she has been talking other garou into teaching her things and they've been sending her out in miniature quests in order to help with the teaching and also because they've got their own things to do. Tamsin has hardly had a moment to miss civilization at all, at least until she and that Skald got into an argument and, long story short, when Tamsin trudges through the desolate beginning-to-winter landscape in search of Hector, it's with a surprising amount of pleasure, since her Saturday and Sunday've been so busy and full of brawling.

Hark, is that Hector - singing? And is that Lola?

Tamsin goes into sneak mode. There's nothing more satisfying than sneaking up on Hector and Lola.

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 4) ( fail )


Hall

Ah, yes. Tamsin has never known herself to be stealthier than right now. That bit of dry bracken she stepped in was remarkably silent. That sneeze, she just knows that it wasn't that loud-- and this rock is the perfect size to hide behind. Sure, to hide behind it, she has to crouch and maybe from a certain perspective it's a lot smaller than her and isn't really worth hiding behind, and there is the instrument case she is carrying, but she's pretty sure this shadow is hiding it perfectly ably. They will never see her coming.


Hector Ghosh

Before he hears Lola speak he hears the slight rustling of cold-dead leaves and grass beneath the soles of her shoes. Intent upon his work as he is Hector is not oblivious to the world around him. If anything he has to make a conscious decision when he sets himself out here on his own not to activate the gift that gives him a wolf's acuity in his human skin.

Today he made the conscious decision. He doesn't need sharp sight and scent to woodwork. He can hear just fine. Something about months spent in an urban jungle and the paranoia of expectant fatherhood and being responsible for the lives of his packmates now that he has the mantle of leadership upon him is causing the young man to have more awareness of his surroundings than he did a few months ago.

He also has a battle scar that he didn't have a few months ago because of his failure to heed his surroundings in the midst of an angry hunt but let's not mince words.

Hector turns towards Lola and smiles a beatific smile at the sight of her. It persists even after she appears and criticizes his choice in work landscape.

"Maybe I like being surrounded by ancestor-spirits when I'm working," he says in a tone pitched to mock hers. Stops winding the string around its new home to address her. In the sun his eyes are still rock-dark but that idiotic smitten light doesn't leave his face. "It's peaceful."

This he says before an elephant comes stomping through the brambles and an explosive lung-noise bounces through the trees. He lowers his project and straightens his spines to look towards the glint of light off metal he just saw.

"Did you hear that?" he asks Lola like he isn't looking right at his packsister. "It sounds like someone just farted. Behind that rock. No, babe, look." He points with the half-finished bow and drops his voice to a stage whisper. "Don't get scared, but I definitely see a fart-monster."


Lola Hawkes

Unless some strange recessive gene came forward-- likely from Hector's background rather than Lola's-- the baby that wouldn't arrive until some unannounced date next summer was going to have eyes dark like pitch.  This is what Hector has, and Lola's similarly colored eyes skim over what is clearly a bow that he's working on.  He expressed that he liked working with the ancestors around him, and one corner of her mouth pulled into a tiny smirk and her eyebrows rose.

"Finding your tradition, huh?"

But then there's the crunch-crunch of feet on leaves and a sneeze, and Lola's attention is pulled away much like Hector's.  He reacts easily, but Lola's kneejerk reaction is caution, and the humor in her face was seeped away quickly.  She turned her head to look where the noise came from, and frowned at the body curled half-hidden behind a rock.

Did you hear that?  A fart monster.

Lola looked at Hector, scowled like she was puzzled, then looked back toward the rock.  Recognition of what shapes and features she could find set in, and her posture relaxed once more.  Under the heavy flaps of her cloak Lola's hands tucked into pockets cut into the folds of her skirt.  "So, do we defeat it?"


Hall

They begin to discuss things. Hector and Lola. Fart Monster. Pft, leave it to Hector to be a total idiot, Tamsin thinks, although with rather more cursing, and no little glee. They have no idea she is there: of this, Tamsin is absolutely, 100% certain, and she slowly shifts her weight from one boot to the other, the instrument case riding hide on her shoulders, cracking her hard in the back of the head. She swallows a blistering curse, which nonetheless carries quite well. Then she begins to slowly, cartoon-dramatically, stretch out a hand, and crab-walk/crawl toward the next rock, a scatter of pebbles behind her.


Hector Ghosh


"Unless you have a candle and a match in your--"
It would be better for his continued success at not giving himself a hernia trying not to laugh if Tamsin had stayed behind her rock or stood up or something other than what she actually does. Which is swear and begin to do some sort of sea creature shuffle-walk around the back of the rock.

He tries so hard not to laugh. A stitch knits itself between his brows as he grits his teeth but his eyes crinkle up like they do when he's actually laughing. Eventually he loses muscle tone in his legs and sets down the bow so he slink forward.

"Shh," he says to Lola. Still stage-whispering. "I think I know another way to defeat it. Stay here."
Because fart-monsters are attracted to unattended purebred kinswoman apparently. Using her as bait. Classic. Hector drops into a crouch of his own and starts to circle around the rocks in a direction trailing his packsister the fartmonster.

[dex + stealth: doo doo doo you can't see me i am one with the fucking forest]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )


Lola Hawkes

When someone is clearly convinced that they haven't been spotted, and in that shadow of self-delusion tries to go from one form of cover to the other, it's typically a pitiful thing to behold-- particularly for a third party.  A third party would watch as that someone crawls their way from point A to point B, unaware of those that had spotted them standing and openly watching.

Hector had crouched down, but Lola stayed standing and watched Tamsin with an expression of 'oh my god what is she doing' on her face, as plain as the glow of the setting sun behind the cloud cover over their heads.  Tamsin had bashed her head into the case that she kept on her back, then shifted about and started to crawl sideways, knees bent, pelvis dropped, like some kind of a crab.

Hector shushed her and said that she should stay there, and starts to ghost his way across the ground.  If she didn't know where he was and watch him get there, Lola would have missed him entirely for how little sound he makes and how flat he keeps himself to the ground.  She lifts her eyebrows, purses her lips, and nods her head appreciatively.  Well done, Ghosh.

But, Lola had other plans.  He wanted her to stay put, but telling Lola to stay still anywhere if it wasn't specifically to guard or beat something didn't tend to go very well.  Instead, Lola tossed her head so her hair was thrown off her shoulders and down her back instead, and carried herself with long-legged steps across the stiff bristle-grass and dirt to where Tamsin was crawling sideways.

Certainly Tamsin will see her coming, but Lola doesn't pause to address her or stop to explain how plainly obvious she's being.  Instead, the sturdy Kinswoman stooped down and hooked one arm under Tamsin's right thigh, clamped the other about the center of her torso, and lifted her off the ground to carry her back to the rock.  Once she's got the smaller Fianna woman held up against her chest and stomach and is walking back to The Rock Where Galliards Gather she speaks.

"Hector was going to have himself a crab bake.  You'll thank me."


Hall

Tamsin has no idea where Hector went. He was there one moment and the next he wasn't. He's probably gone to pee behind a rock or something, like some kind of boy. Maybe he's gone to make sure everything's still in place. Hee, Hee. Hector will never, no matter how many times he dies and returns from the dead, live that one down. Never. So one moment Tamsin is crawling, climbing, sidewinding, sideways, and the next she casts a quick glimpse at the rock and Hector has disappeared, and then a shadow falls across her, and she looks up, and up, and it's Lola. Tamsin's expression is one of shock, and she opens her mouth to say something, when --

When Lola --

"Hwahh?!"

The Fianna says something like that. The instrument case tha-thumps against her side again, then hits the ground, strand hanging from Tamsin's shoulder and torso, while Lola carries her like so much luggage up toward the rock. Then when Lola adjusts her grip and Tamsin squeaks, another surprised sound, it trails along behind just occasionally hitting a stone, and she manages to say, "Wha, Lola, you shouldn't be carrying, gagh, um, Looola, wait, he's baking crabs?"

She sounds truly perplexed. Tamsin doesn't struggle for fear of hurting Lola, but once they're closer to the rock she squirms a little.


Hector Ghosh

Only the grass and the branches rustle as he moves but that could just as easily be the wind. They do not follow Air. They follow Fog. And Hector is such an arrogant little shit that he doesn't even call on Fog as he slinks through the shadows of the rocks in the mid-afternoon sun and comes up around behind Tamsin.

Before he can pounce on her like a jungle cat Lola walks right up to her and scoops her up. He slips back out of sight and keeps his back against the rock until he hears the instrument case thump against the rock. A hyperactive overprotective father would have come leaping out from his hiding place to tell her not to pick up a grown-ass wolf-woman but Hector has been reading a lot of books lately.

He doesn't leap out from behind the rock. A fingerless glove and the hand inside and part of an arm come out but low to the ground and only enough to snag the handle of the case and drag it slow-slow back behind the rock.

Heh heh heh.


Lola Hawkes

Over the time that Celduin has been coming back to Colorado to visit the Hawkes family (or what remained of it) when Maria insisted they pay a visit to her baby sister and make sure she hasn't been locked away yet, Tamsin and Hector have both come to know Lola as a strong thing.  Of course she was-- she trained to be, she came from a long line of strong Garou anyways.  They'd seen her throw heavy logs of wood around when chopping for the house, or carry bodies the size of grown men over her shoulders when it was time to burn the fallen foes.  That she was able to lift Tamsin from the ground was no surprise.

The big black instrument case thumped onto the ground, and Lola glanced distractedly back at it, then scoffed lightly at Tamsin's protests (though the Fianna did nothing to struggle or push away from the baggy white sweater that she wore underneath the cloak, whose long hem fell to her hips to make up for the space that the low-slung skirt didn't cover on her mid section).

"You don't weigh that much," Lola expressed, and plunked Tamsin down beside the Rock, which had somehow come to be the equivilent of Home Base in Lola's mind when this current game was being considered.  She didn't dump Tamsin on her rear, but released her leg and let the Fianna find her feet before letting go of her weigh altogether.

"Yeah-- you.  You looked like a crustacean, waddling sideways like that.  Did you think that would help, somehow?"  By now Lola's lost Hector too, and turns about with her eyebrows furrowed in concentration while she skimmed the landscape hunting for him.  Apparently she's changed teams now, the turncoat, by revealing his plans to Tamsin and coming to her aid.

"Well, shit."  The Kinfolk puffed some and her arms withdrew back into her heavy cloak, which fell closed over her torso once more.  "Now I have no idea what he's gonna do."


Hall

The case is still attached to Tamsin, so Hector's slow, creeping, reach-out drag-drag heh heh heh would probably get a notice, or it would if Lola weren't so damned stolid in her carry. As it is, Tamsin, finally freed, huffs as huffily as you can please, fixing her hair and adjusting the strap and studying the instrument case's bottom for scratches and generally behaving more like a cat who has been pet without its permission than a wolf, although she finally just sits cross-legged in the dirt rather than getting up, and says with all due sincerity, "Well, I think I heard him and you say something about farting, and I don't know if he confessed to you, but he did tell me he was having some problems lately in the ol' backdoor department. Like, it just wasn't flowing as easily as it could, so fucking idiot like, he was asking about 'hole openers' you could make with thorns and what would happen if you ate this herb with that herb..."

Tamsin doesn't know where Hector is, but that doesn't mean she doesn't speak clear and carrying, just in case he's around. Because surely this would flush him out. 

Pun, intended.

"...what does it mean if you having fucking gas but can't actually take a shit anyway? By the way how are you Lola?" Her voice gets less clear and carrying. "I got the coolest present for Heckle!"

[Tamsin lies! Like usual! About all that 'advice' stuff.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) Re-rolls: 1


Hall

Then: "Wait, you saw me?" 

[And a purebreed lying die for Hector's sake.]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )


Hector Ghosh

[dex + ath: doing stuff what you can't see because stealthy]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 6, 6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1


Hector Ghosh

The area around the cluster of Rocks Where The Galliards Gather is mostly flat. In the warmer months the flatland is green. The Rocky Mountains hold their post in the west but the rocks down here loom. In places the rocks are taller than war-formed wolves. Cliffs and sheer walls make up the heart of the Caern.

Trees surround them too. The women cannot see Hector as he slinks back from the rock where Lola snatched up Tamsin and ducks behind one of the trees. Or how he stays within the copse to loop around behind them again. How he climbs up one of them like a goddamn spider monkey and doesn't even scuff the bark of the tree with his boot heels as he makes his way to the nearest low-hung branch.

He crouches in the branch long enough for the women to develop a false sense of security.
Whereupon he yells "BANZAI!!" and jumps down out of the tree onto Tamsin.

[lol soak roll]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (10, 10) ( success x 2 )


Hector Ghosh

[That should have been 3 dice but it was only 2B he had to soak so whatever Show-Off.]


Lola Hawkes

Lola just stares at the Fianna flatly while she goes on about how Hector was complaining about a mix of constipation and gas pressure both.  It's fairly clear that the Kinfolk has no interest in what Hector's bowels are doing (provided they aren't doing it in or on her bed).

She chooses to skip that topic entirely and instead asks:  "Heckle?  Who's Heckle?"

And:  "Well yeah we saw you.  You fuckin' sneezed, man."

Then:  BANZAI!

Hector leaped down out of the tree, throwing himself toward Tamsin.  Lola could be wise and just step back out of the fray, but where's the fun in that?  She instead tosses her arms out, intent on redirecting Hector's trajectory from Tamsin to the earth.


Lola Hawkes

[Alley-Oop!:  Dex 3 + Athletics 3]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )


Hector Ghosh

[dex + ath: don't biff it when you hit the ground that would be embarrassing]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )


Hall

"Heckle," Tamsin says. "Y'know. He of the IBS. Heckle 'coz he talks a lot." Tamsin looks meditative, places a finger on her chin, tilting her head to the side. One can practically see her ears droop. "Damn. I thought it was a quiet sneeaaahTHETAINTCHAFINGFUCK," at the same time BANZAIIIII and here comes Hector, and Tamsin, sitting, is at a distinct disadvantage, so she side-rolls and then Lola! Lola! Lola preserves her. "HECTOR. OH EM GEE. TOOK. You frickin' TOOK! What if the orcs heard you huh? Thanks, Lola," a grin, though her attention is now narrowed on Mr. Ghosh. "What sort've Ent d'you think that tree would be anyway? Wouldn't it be cool if we had an Ent forest around the caern?"


Hector Ghosh

Were not for Lola's attention and athletic prowess Hector would have landed right on Tamsin's back and they both would have wound up facedown in the grass.

The amount of grab-ass the members of Celduin have historically engaged in used to be a lot higher. Glen and Maria were adept at the art of physical comedy and were not above putting Hector into a headlock to calm him down when he got too wound up. As he's wont to do. He talks a lot and he doesn't tend to sit still. Hector and He Who Shall Not Be Named were the worst offenders. Their wrestling matches used to cause property destruction.

Now Hector only has Thomas to wrestle around with and Thomas doesn't even put up much of a fight. Jack will put up a fight but Jack hasn't been around much the last several months. It saddens their alpha but what are you gonna do. If Jack wants to ride his bike down the highway by himself that's his right, man.

Lola gets him around the ribs and wings him away from Tamsin with a "WHOA!!" from him and a wheeling righting of his equilibrium as he acclimates to solid ground and not wrestling with his sister. He still laughs. It was fun. As he settles Tamsin starts to rail against him and he laughs even harder. Comes to stand behind Lola and puts his arms around her shoulders and rests his chin on her shoulder like he's just oh so innocent.

"Ents would get so much shit done if they lived around the Caern," he says. "They'd have won the War already."


Lola Hawkes

The strong and athletic thing that she is, Lola has no trouble preventing Hector from landing directly across the cross-legged Tamsin.  Lola had glanced up a split second earlier than Tamsin did, and by the time the Fianna was shouting her mangled-up curse into the air Lola was spreading her feet, digging her heels, and putting her arms out, left arm higher than the right.  She catches Hector by the ribs and belly and twists her shoulders and waist and manages to smoothly switch his momentum from down to diagonal, sending him sprawling into the dirt.

Tamsin's shouting, Hector's laughing, and Lola just looks proud and smug and not a bit surprised that she was able to accomplish what she was trying at.

Tamsin gives her a thanks, and Lola just smirks that smug smirk of hers and nods her head:  "Well, you'd be miserable if he broke your neck landing on it."

Hector came up behind her next, wrapped his arms about her shoulders which had settled back under the cloak she wore and then laid his chin to rest atop one of them, so his ear was beside hers, cheek near to hers as well.  Around any number of other Garou or Kinfolk or even some humans, Lola would be uncomfortable and immediately shrug him off.  Around Celduin, though, the wolves that she would say were close enough to family to count, she was relaxed and unworried of protecting what she had from prying eyes.  These eyes already knew, anyways.  So she bumped her skull to Hector's briefly, affectionate in that strangely gruff way that she had sometimes, and dipped her hands back into the pockets of her skirt (though no one could see this, really).


Hall

Tamsin smiles quietly at Lola, because she would be rather miserable if he broke her neck; there are no rage backs from that kind of death, death that isn't battle-hot, plain accidents. The breed form is surprisingly vulnerable, isn't it? And she rolls her eyes at Hector, because she almost always rolls her eyes at Hector, but also because the Ents winning any war is preposterous, however frightening and epic and super-cool they are, and Tamsin tells Hector so with this: "You are such a hippy sometimes. What do y'all wanna do tonight?" Her cheeks are flushed but she doesn't seem all that cold; warm-blooded, Wisconsin-bred girl. "Wanna go up to the mountains and play in the snow? Ooh!! We could make a fucking sled! And practice badass moves on it. Because I figure now that it's going to get super cold and the snow's gonna come, there is an opportunity for us to do something epic by riding in on a sled."


Hector Ghosh

He is such a hippy sometimes.

Though Hector is not much taller than Lola the difference is more marked when he is wearing shoes. He might grow another inch or two before his early twenties are done with him but he has already shot up six inches since his First Change four years ago. He's happy with average.

Tamsin gets a big toothy idiot grin and then he lets her keep going. Frowns at the idea of going up into the mountains. He played in the snow once. It was awful.

When the wind picks up Hector stands closer to Lola like she's the one who needs the buffering from the wind. It hits his back but he doesn't shiver. He just locks his arms around her tighter and laughs at Tamsin's suggestion.

"What are we gonna do, sled into battle against Beloved Horror? In Death Machine form? We could get a jump on them when they were laughing their asses off."


Lola Hawkes

At the mention of hiking up further into the mountains and practicing sledding, Lola shifted her gaze up through the dimming fall of dusk toward the snow-capped mountains that hugged the landscape to the west.  She was gauging distance, the time it would take to reach the point where the snow sits on foot, and what paths they would need to take in order to get there.  After all, the cliff faces got sheer in places, painfully rocky and jagged and impossible to scale without equipment or the claws of a Garou's strong hands and feet.

A gust of wind tosses at Lola's hair, but she does nothing to keep it out of her face.  It would fall still on its own when the wind stopped its game.  All the same, Hector brings his chest up nearer to her back and locks his arms more securely in place, behaving as though he should be sheltering her from the wind on account of her being colder, or less braced for the fall of the sun and the subsequent (and already dropping) fall of temperature.  There's a reason she wore the cloak, though, it was dense enough that wind couldn't cut through it or throw it open on her, and warm enough that she could wear sweaters and layered shirts underneath and be just fine.

Still, she shifted her weight on her feet and settled a little more comfortably where she stood, venturing to let her shoulders rest back against Hector more soundly.

"There are old sleds in the shed back home.  Wood with metal runners.  We wouldn't make it tonight, though."

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