Lola Hawkes
When a pair of Kinfolk had gone off in
one direction and a Garou off in another, it had been around ten in the
morning, perhaps a little later. An hour into the hike the Kinswomen
had their lives threatened by a twisted abomination of two humans come
together for the rest of their miserable lives life.
Fifteen
minutes later, perhaps less, with wounds mended and shaken nerves
trying to smooth themselves, Lola Hawkes's body reacted in a delayed way
to the damage that it had taken, even though it had been healed
already. When under fire the body will do anything it can to keep
going, right down to ejecting foreign bodies for the sake of saving
their own; her water broke.
Thankfully, with the help of the strong legs of an able-bodied Garou perhaps, the way back to the house was not a long one.
Come
half-past one, Rina Ghosh had roamed outside of the house to seek her
son and summon him in. He should come meet his daughter.
Hector Ghosh
Hushed voices at the terminus of the hallway. Where the great room opens up into a loft and leads into the kitchen.
Hector
had instead to stay behind to cleanse the Fomor's body and dispose of
the remains while the women went back up to the house but Lola's body
had other plans. Of course he helped her back to the house. Of course he
got the hell out of there when Rina shooed him. This wasn't any place
for a male and he had bodies to cleanse and cremate.
By the time
that foul necessary work was done his mother was out on the porch
looking for him. He'd hosed off before coming inside the house but now
they're lingering out where the sun is drifting in through the windows.
"You don't know how she's going to react," Lola can hear Hector hissing at his mother.
"Neither do you," Rina answers in a harsh whisper.
"I know more than you do."
"Not about this."
"Mom--"
"Hector, you're being ridiculous."
"Why, because I don't want to--!"
"She's your daughter. Get in there."
Stumbling
footsteps like someone graceful who's been shoved and Hector walks down
the hallway. His feet are bare now and so is his chest. He took off
everything that splattered with blood and his hair and face and hands
are clean now. Dried because Rina made him dry them.
Hector leans slow to peer in through the doorway to the master bedroom but he does not come in yet.
Lola Hawkes
In
the hallway Hector finds nothing in disarray. His mate could be a
whirlwind of rage and anger and aggression when worked up, but that
hasn't happened in quite a while. Rina was probably a huge help, as was
being immobilized by spine-shuddering wracks of pain.
Inside the
bedroom Hector finds his woman sitting on their bed, propped up with
pillows behind her and her head and shoulders rested on their wall (no
headboard, that thing had been removed early in their relationship).
Her hair was piled up on top of her head, strings sticking to her neck
and face with the sweat that was still-drying on her skin. She was
wearing a loose shapeless dress that draped over her body and reached
her knees-- that left her arms and shoulders bare and could be shifted
aside.
Lola looked up when Hector peered around the corner-- she'd
been staring down at the wrapped-up bundle of blanket cradled up to her
chest. She blinked at him once, then offered a smile that hiked one
corner of her mouth higher than the other. She looked exhausted, of
course.
"Hey."
Eloquent to a fault.
Hector Ghosh
Somehow
he thought that would take longer. Must have been all those books he'd
been reading that he'd long since abandoned because all they did was
make him nervous.
He has been to far reaches of the Deep Umbra
tethered to his first and only mentor and he has stared down creatures
larger than he and his friends combined scaled and miserable and
breathing green fire. He knows what the northern lights look like from
the other side of the Umbra and he can see and talk to spirits. The
world doesn't look the same to him as it does to other people.
Tonight the sky will be dark, the moon's face obscured. They will not know until the
little bundle in Lola's arms reaches puberty if she is Kinfolk or Garou
but maybe they will suspect as she grows up. Right now he can barely
believe she's here.
He steps into the doorway and laughs a stunned quiet laugh.
"Hey,"
he says. Gathers up his hair and ties it back. He still smells like ash
tree smoke and hose water. Across the distance Lola can read the scar
tissue on his right upper abdomen and left shoulder. The black hair
grown on his chest. He's getting darker with the time spent shirtless in
the sun. "Nobody was timing you, you know."
Lola Hawkes
The
comment earned Hector a laugh that was rough and raspy. He'd heard the
screaming and shrill cursing she'd done through the windows and walls
of the house. She'd left her throat raw, but didn't complain for it.
There was a sense of stunned calm that followed an ordeal like that.
"Everything's
a contest, isn't it?" Eyebrows hopped up on her forehead, poking fun
at her own competitive nature. Lola then shifted her gaze back down
into her arms, shifted hands to move blankets around-- away from the
newborn's face.
"You were right. I'm sure your mother told you." Lola looked back to Hector next. "Come here, meet her proper."
Hector Ghosh
That
he hesitates this long is not out of fear of all of this becoming real
but because he has to make sure he can handle what hearing the baby fuss
and cry and scream when he comes too close is going to do to him. Never
mind that the fussing of infants and the unease of children to which he
has grown accustomed has been exacerbated by the way their parents
react to him.
When he was a cub Hector was out of control. His
Rage was hot and he was a hyperactive teenage boy prior to his First
Change. A hyperactive brown-skinned teenage boy. Small wonder he scared
everyone. He felt like a bomb about to detonate.
So he stands in
the doorway until Lola bids him enter and then he steps in with far more
hesitation than he did the night she brought him in here and they lay
together for the first time.
He pads across the room quiet as he
can so as not to startle a newborn who has heard his loud-ass voice
muffled only by her mother's belly the last several months. Who has
heard him speaking to her nearly every morning. Raksha knows his voice
already even if she doesn't know she knows. She's a baby. A blank slate.
Hector
sniffs and clears his throat gentle and climbs onto the bed beside
Lola. The blankets rustle beneath him and he draws close without
touching either of them yet. If Lola gets the idea that he's holding his
breath now that wouldn't be an inaccurate observation.
Lola Hawkes
To
the relief of both bodies now climbed up on the bed, the baby didn't
begin to scream when her werewolf father came close. Lola wasn't
holding her breath, but she had squared up her shoulders some, steeled
for the scenario were it to unfurl and break her man's heart. They fell
back round with relief when all the baby did was blink bleary eyes and
scrunch up an already scrunched and wrinkly forehead.
Newborns are
weird looking, and this one was no exception. She'd come out with
dense black hair and bright pink skin, with ten fingers and toes and no
clear deficiencies. She did not struggle to breathe or wail in agony
from some ailment that they couldn't diagnose without a doctor.
Lola
leaned into Hector when he settled on the mattress, tucked her head
near to his. Shifted her arms to better cradle the infant. Her hold on
the tiny body was naturally defensive and protective and ginger and
gentle. Like she was afraid to bruise or break the thing. They'd learn
soon enough not to be so worried, but that would come in time.
Relief rang in Lola's breath when she spoke. "You worried for nothing-- she's okay, look."
Hector Ghosh
As
Lola leans into him so does Hector settle himself down on the bed that
he can wrap his arms around both her and the baby. That she can rest her
weight on him and draw comfort from him that he was not here to give
her while she labored. Once she's shifted he smooths her damp hair back
from her brow and kisses her temple and looks down at their baby.
Both
of them sound relieved. Hector sounds overwhelmed but happy. Hard to
think of the last time he sounded properly happy when he wasn't stoned.
"Holy
shit," he says. He sniffs again and stifles his laugh so he don't
startle the newborn with the loudness of his unmuffled voice. He touches
the edges of her blanket before dusting his fingers over her brow. "Hi,
love..."
They can both hear Rina as she steps away from the
doorway and pads into the kitchen. And Lola can hear nine months of pent
up helplessness and fear and worry rush out of him in the rattling
breath he lets go and when he kisses her on the mouth now it's salty
with sweat and unshed tears but sweet too.
Lola Hawkes
The weather through the last week had
been a constant threat. Lola was in the habit of listening to weather
reports on the radio and comparing them against her own judgment when
she stood outside and looked west toward the mountains. At no point did
any twister cones dip their way to the earth, but a few nights did
bring thunder that rattled window panes and lightning that lit the sky.
This
week, though? It's been warm and it's been beautiful. Today proved no
different. The sky was bright blue and the clouds were few and far
between, thin and white where they did appear. Winds kicked up every so
often to remind of the thunderstorm that was predicted later in the
evening. The temperatures were up in the mid-eighties, and it was the
perfect day for just being outside in general (provided you brought your
sunscreen).
Lola was outside, of course. This was because she
had been feeling heavy and uncomfortable for the past few days.
Occasional pains would spark 'what if' thoughts and 'maybe now?'
questions, but the pains would fade and nothing would happen. The baby
was in no rush to find its way into the world. Fed up with this
pins-and-needles sense of wait, Lola set out to hurry things along.
Of
course, she said that she wanted to stretch her legs, that they were
sore from sitting with feet propped up. Lola didn't outright tell
Hector and Rina that she was hoping a long walk out in the heat would
bring the baby sooner, but she didn't very well need to, did she?
No,
to watch her marching along one of several walking trails cut into the
earth from generations of Uktena patrolling the lands, it was easy to
tell. There was a determined crease to her brow, and when she would
stop to rest and drink water she would press on her belly like she was
gauging progress.
Rina Ghosh
Suffice to say Hector is leaving his mate right the hell alone lately.
Over
the last several weeks the tension at the Homestead has decreased not
because the imminence of the baby's arrival has done anything to ease
anyone's nerves but because the occupants of the house are growing used
to each other. Hector and his mother have been talking. Airing old
guilts and figuring out how to relate to each other again. Rina and Lola
likewise have been tending the garden and discussing Kinfolk roles
within Garou society and swapping stories.
Rina is not a natural
authoritarian like her husband is but she has her moments. Like this one
when Lola rises to walk under the auspices of stretching her legs and
Hector flared his nostrils and sat up straighter as if alarmed and the
voice that followed Lola out the backdoor was not his but his mother's.
Hector, relax.
So
he went one way in his wolf skin and the women went the other. Rina is
keeping her distance but not so much so that she could not hear Lola if
she were in distress.
They aren't within each others' line of sight when Rina is intercepted by a visitor.
Lola Hawkes
[Perception 3 + Alertness 3]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
[hector's lupus/heightened senses perc + alert]
Dice: 5 d10 TN3 (4, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Rina Ghosh
Baklava
Republik has found a way to tie their kinswoman into their totem so
that she can share the gifts and hear the silent speech of the Garou
bound together. It is a new but not obscure ritual and Hector has heard
of it but he has not even considered the possibility of tying Lola into
Fog like that.
She is Kinfolk. She was his friend before she was
his mate. As it stands the worst thing either of them can imagine would
be the death of the other. They're just about all either of them have
left. When they hunt together they hunt as a unit but they cannot call
to each other from across a great distance and share a forewarning.
Lola's
mate and Rina's son is over a kilometer away when something rustles out
of the tree-line in front of the once-lost older woman. He can hear so
much that he has learned to ignore that which is not immediate and
frightening.
His mother taking in a sharp breath and snapping a
twig as she steps back from something that reeks of vomit and despair
and pus is not something he can ignore but neither can he teleport. Her
voice is not so strong that her daughter-in-law can hear what she asks
of the new arrival Lola cannot see.
Lola does not know anything is amiss until she hears Rina scream.
Lola Hawkes
There
was a fight several days ago between Hector and Lola. She'd started
packing a handgun into her hiking bag. His side of the argument was in
favor of the bow and arrows he'd crafted for her, they were less
terrible on ears and less obvious and attention drawing anyways. Lola
argued that she barely scratched whatever she was fighting last time and
that she'd rather have a deaf baby than a dead one. Rina, no doubt
appalled by the fact that they had to be actually fighting anything in
the first place and through hearing it, quieted the both of them and
stamped the argument out before it had the chance to boil over.
As
far as Lola was concerned it was a win in her book, because she was
still carrying the gun around in one of the pockets of her hiking bag
with the bow and arrows left at home. A twinge of guilt reminded her to
get back to practicing once the baby was out and she could more
comfortably operate the bow.
This was a topic that was far from
Lola's mind currently, though. She had been walking up ahead, with Rina
several dozen yards back or so. She was thinking about the sweat
trickling down her neck and back, thinking about dinner options for the
night, thinking about circling back toward the house in case this
actually did kick start labor and she'd have to shuffle her way back
home before the baby fell out.
She certainly wasn't thinking about monsters out here on her fucking land.
This wasn't what she thought when the piercing sound of a scream
stabbed her ears and mind from behind. Eyes went wide, eyebrows shot
up, and her first thought was that Rina had been bitten by a snake or
something closer to those lines.
"Rina??"
Rina Ghosh
[rina +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
[the beast with two backs +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
A lot of the monsters they encounter start out human. Hector is by definition a monster. He was human once.
The
creature that stumbled onto the edge of the Homestead must have been
camping out at Roxborough when it was still two separate people. Lovers
or college friends or something. Sharing a tent. Sharing drugs. Or maybe
only one of them was doing drugs. Maybe it wasn't drugs at all. It
takes constant exposure for some people but for others all it takes is
one hit. Banes prey on the weak.
People like to think they're
stronger than they are but most of them aren't. These two weren't. Now
they're fused together for the rest of their lives.
Given whose land the thing has stumbled upon it won't be long.
---
Rina
hears Lola call her name but she's too terrified to answer. She is a
five-foot-two woman who works in a public middle school in San Jose,
California and she is not a timid soul. Not usually. She is married to a
hard-assed cardiovascular surgeon who is one of the most intelligent
minds of his generation let alone in his field. They raised three
children only one of whom failed to meet their expectations and now
they're just glad he's still alive.
One of the last moments Hector
had with his mother before today he was getting worked up about
something. Lola could see from the window as she was getting ready for
bed. They were not ready for bed. But Rina draped herself over Hector's
shoulders to wrap him up in a hug and stroked his hair and calmed him
even as he threatened to dissolve under the strain of whatever they'd
been discussing.
She is not a strong woman. She was once but that
was before her son disappeared. Now she's a survivor but survivors are
still damaged uncertain people.
And she is stood before what looks
like one distended gray-skinned person who is covered in dried gore.
Old blood and old puke and old shit and who knows what else. It walks on
two legs but fused onto and growing out of its back is another
person-shaped thing with lashing razor-sharp whips where its legs may
have been once. Its mouth has grown wide and filled with teeth and mucus
slavers out of it and down the legs of the creature damned with
carrying both of them until this is over.
"STAY BACK!" Rina says.
Hard to tell if she's talking to the creature who is advancing upon her
or to Lola who is nearly ready to give birth.
It doesn't listen. It whips its appendages at the terrified woman as she grabs up a nearby fallen branch to use as a weapon.
[dex + melee: lash!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (3, 4, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[damage: str +2 (Lashing "Tail") +1]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[rina soak]
Dice: 2 d10 TN8 (5, 8) ( success x 1 )
Lola Hawkes
What
Lola sees turns her stomach. Not for the gore, not for the terrible
display of once-human bodies warped unnaturally, twisted with nothing
but evil and ill intent. No, it turns because of how Rina's face had
gone gray and washed with horror. Lola's first thought wasn't for
herself, wasn't even for the life that rolled and kicked in her stomach,
but was for the once-lost mother of her mate that was staring down
something that Lola was certain she'd never seen before, never faced
before.
She muttered something, breathed it. Spanish that no one
heard, a curse or a prayer or both. Lola thought for a moment to yell
for Hector, but she knew that he would have heard the scream and would
be running their way already.
But how far was he? How soon could he be here?
Rina
screamed again, this time to tell the thing or herself to stay back.
Lola could pretend to assume she was screaming at the monster and not at
her, but frankly she didn't give a shit. The pack that was carried
against her hip was ripped open and she plunged a hand in to seize her
firearm.
She knew better than to rely on a rescue.
[Init! 5 + ....]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
[rerolling for TBWTB +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
[rerolling for rina +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
Round 1.5
The Beast With Two Backs: 12
Lola: 10
Rina: 6, 1L
Rina Ghosh
Rina
is terrified and has a fresh gash across her collarbones but she isn't
running to hide behind the nearest tree yet. She brandishes the stick
she'd picked up and tries to shoo the creature back into the woods.
[Rina takes defensive action this round.]
Lola Hawkes
Rina
is terrified. The monster is terrible. Lola, given the chance, can be
terrifying. She's done it before, and she aims to do so again.
So,
the pack is flung to the ground, shoved off her shoulder and away from
her, and only the gun remains in her hand when the pack hits the dirt.
Her arm swung up while the pack swung down. Lola's brow hardened,
flexed, her eyes pinned on the monster, and she fired off a shot.
[Splitting actions -- draw weapon, fire gun-- spending WP on shot.]
Rina Ghosh
And
the creature senses if it doesn't see the pregnant woman come up behind
it. It does not have to turn around to attack her. She can see that the
two bodies are fused hips to shoulders. The upside-down Wretched with
tentacles for feet can still jackknife itself towards Lola to bite her.
So that's what it does.
[For
record-keeping purposes: the creature has Extra Speed, which lets it
take an extra action per turn without splitting, and Hector was half a
kilometer away at the start of the scene (I typo'd earlier) so he will
not arrive for another three rounds.
1: Lash Rina.
2: Bite Lola.]
Rina Ghosh
[dex + melee: lash]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (3, 5, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[dmg]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Rina Ghosh
[HAHAHA I FORGOT RINA IS BLOCKING
dex + melee]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Rina Ghosh
The lashing once-legs smash the branch as if it were no more substantial than a toothpick but Rina is unharmed.
[dex + brawl: bite]
Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 5, 8) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[dmg: str + 1 +1]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Lola Hawkes
[Soak!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (5, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Lola Hawkes
[Fire Handgun: Dex 3 + Firearms 3, -3 split, spending WP]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Rina Ghosh
The
creature's slimy teeth graze her elbow and the smell of decay and old
vomit is overwhelming but the bite neither breaks the skin nor throws
off her aim.
Lola Hawkes
[Short Range diff should have applied, actually 4 suxx, for the record]
Lola Hawkes
Lola's
lip curled away from her teeth and her dark eyes flashed with
violence. Her face twisted into a snarl of disgust and battle both, and
the gun aimed to the wall of slimy gray body before her.
BLAM!
[Damage (Lethal): 4 Base + 3 Success Bonus]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 7, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )
Rina Ghosh
[soak!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5) ( fail )
Lola Hawkes
[Init! 5 + ?]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
[TBWTB +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
[rina +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
Round 2
Lola: 9, OK
The Beast With Two Backs: 8, 4L
Rina: 7, 1L
Rina Ghosh
With
the cracked remains of a broken branch in her hands Rina has nothing
left with which to defend herself. She looks around quickly to find
another branch and darts off the path to grab it.
[Arming herself, no proper action this turn.]
Meanwhile
the creature catches a 9-millimeter slug that goes through one's belly
and the other's chest. It looses a dual-throated burbling snarl and
renews its attack.
[1: Lash Rina, attacking from the side bonus in place this time :(
2: Bite Lola]
Lola Hawkes
There's
something satisfying to Lola about the hot spray of blood and ichor
across the bare skin of her hands and arms. It felt like victory. A
therapist would have a field day with her. But then, they would
probably have a field day with any Kinfolk they met.
The blood
also stank to high hell and her stomach twisted again. Adrenaline
flooded her veins and made her hot, made her sweaty. It made her vision
sharpen and her breathing shallow, but it drove her forward.
Two
quick squeezes of the finger. Another sweat-pouring, nerve-fraying zoom
of focus to line the shot, a prayer that it will do what it needs.
[Splitting Actions-- two shots, WP spent on the second.]
[1A. Fire Gun: Dex 3 + Firearms 3, -2 die for split, -2 diff for Close Range]
Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (2, 2, 5, 9) ( success x 2 )
Lola Hawkes
[Damage (Lethal): 4 Base + 1 Success]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
Rina Ghosh
[such soaking]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Lola Hawkes
[1B. FIre Gun: Dex 3 + Firearms 3, -3 die for split, diff 4 for Close Range, plus WP]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (6, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Lola Hawkes
[Damage (Lethal): 4 Base + 3 Successes]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
[so mean]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 7) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
The
bullets don't even faze the gore-armored creature. Whatever argument
Lola had had with her mate about the efficiency of metal versus wood
goes out the window but he will take no joy in having won that argument.
Right now he is sprinting harder than he has ever sprinted in his life.
The silence in the wake of his mother's scream spurring him on.
The
creature whips its unholy appendages at Rina as she rushes for the
nearest thing she can find. Her breaths are coming in ragged terrified
spurts but she still doesn't run.
[dex + melee: lash! -2 dice because damage, -1 diff because flanking.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (6, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[+1]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Rina Ghosh
[rina soak]
Dice: 2 d10 TN8 (2, 6) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
[dex + brawl: bite! -2 dice.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (2, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[+1]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Lola Hawkes
[Soaking!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (4, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
Round 3
Lola: 1L
The Beast With Two Backs: 4L
Rina: 2L
Rina Ghosh
The
second strike catches Rina in the shoulder. She screams with pain and
renewed fear but it doesn't stop her from grabbing up a rock too large
for her hand but not too large that she can't lift it.
Lola
catches the teeth in the ribs this time. It tears her shirt and
scratches her skin but it doesn't do her any slowing damage. The baby is
reacting to the gunshots Hector told Lola could still damage her ears
even within her womb but she's safe. If anyone is going to make it out
of this alive it's the baby.
The creature meanwhile slavers and moans at them. It would be a mercy to put this thing down. Look at how it suffers.
Pain
and not weight keeps Rina from being able to lift the rock over her
head. Feeling the burning makes her cough out a tear-wet breath but she
isn't crying. She's just preparing to throw the rock at the creature in
the hopes of making it go away.
[Rina is throwing a rock at the beast.]
[1: One more Lash on Rina before the big scary wolf gets here.
2: And another Bite on Lola.]
Lola Hawkes
[Split actions! 1 defensive action, and one gunshot-- headshot, with a wp spent!]
[Gunshot: Dex 3 + Firearms 3, diff 4 for Close Range, +2 diff for called shot, -3 for split, plus WP]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Lola Hawkes
[Damage (Lethal): Base 4 + 1 Success]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Rina Ghosh
[soak!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[dex + melee: lash! -2 dice for damage.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (2, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
[+0]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Rina Ghosh
[soak!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN8 (9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[dex + brawl: bite! -2 dice for damage.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (5, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Lola Hawkes
[Evade!: Dexterity 3 + Athletics 3, -2 for split, -1 dexterity dice for being big and pregnant]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
[+1]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Lola Hawkes
[Soak!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 7, 7) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
[just for shits -
dex + athletics: rina throws a rock. -1 die because damage.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
[rock smash!] [B]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (3, 8) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
[soak!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
Both
women are bleeding by the time the underbrush and the low-hanging trees
start to rustle with an oncoming arrival. Rina is hyperventilating and
her dusky skin is growing pale but she chucks the rock at the monster
anyway. The effort has her falling to her knees but she doesn't intend
to stay down for long. Her daughter-in-law is bleeding heavily from a
wound she just took to her shoulder.
The pain from the wound is
enough to distract Lola from the baby's protestations but she hasn't got
much longer before a different distraction will come along.
The
creature is wheeling on Lola to finish off what it started when a wolf
near as tall as Rina bursts out of the greenery and sets upon the
monster. Moving so fast it doesn't see the state the women are in. He
can smell though. His woman's blood and his mother's blood hit his
nostrils at once.
[frenzy check just for shits]
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 4, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Rina Ghosh
[hector +9]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )
Rina Ghosh
[TBWTB +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
[Two lashes on the hispo thing holy shit we're gonna die.]
Lola Hawkes
Lola
learned how to be a quiet fighter, don't blame her teachers for what
she does. She was a Uktena learning how to be an Ahroun, and the Uktena
peddle in secrets and fight in the shadows. Their relationship with
the dark and with the warfare that waged within it was so close that one
of the very first gifts they taught their young was to manipulate the
dark into an inky blackness to aid their causes. To make the best use
of that, you had to be quiet.
Lola, though? She snarled, she
growled, she yelled. She gnashed her teeth and grated out her
frustration in half-clipped words, mingled in English and Spanish both,
while unloading her gun into a monster who seemed to absorb much of the
force of the rounds with the dense layer of snot and slime all over its
body.
Rina was on one side, lobbing a rock after she'd lost her
stick, taking lashing after lashing from the flailing once-legs on the
creature's back. Lola tried to jam her gun into the thing's teeth while
it was biting at her, but her bullet just clipped its scalp and those
teeth didn't break but instead buried into her shoulder and tore a nasty
gash in its front and back. Pain flashed white hot and seared down her
arm, up into her neck and hot into her chest. The baby kicked and her
stomach clenched. She pressed her wrist and forearm into the wound,
which pumped blood down her arm and into her shirt.
The Kinswoman
grated out a low roar of pain. Then came the crashing sound of a beast
the size of a horse breaking its way through the underbrush. A camper
would weep despair that another had come to kill it, but Lola saw
nothing but cavalry written into the bristling gray fur of the Galliard.
Thank Gaia. She was running out of bullets.
Rina Ghosh
[Yes you are gonna die.
1 + 2R: biting. You piece of shit.]
Rina Ghosh
[dex + brawl: CHOMP.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Rina Ghosh
[And it's dead.]
Rina Ghosh
Hector
is one of the first people who will stand up in mixed company and
proclaim Kinfolk to be just as strong and capable as any Garou fighting
in his human skin. No reason why they shouldn't be allowed to hone their
skills and fight if that's what they want to do. Lola Hawkes was a
stronger fighter than he was in the beginning. Back when he was still
clinging to his humanity.
But she's the mother of his child now.
Feminism and equal rights have nothing to do with the fact that if he
hadn't shown up this Wretched would have torn his mother to ribbons.
Would have bitten pieces out of his mate until there was nothing left.
At
least that's what his imagination will tell him later. For all he knows
Lola would have come back firing and it would have fallen this time.
That doesn't stop him from biting the thing clean in half at its
midsection. Doesn't stop there. Faster than Rina's eyes can follow he
rips the lashes from the thing's trunk and wishbones the mobile half's
legs.
By the time it's done and he's melted back into his man-form
Hector's face is dripping with blood. It's in his hair and pouring down
his neck and chest. He's not so wild-eyed as he was a moment ago. Only
three seconds have passed since Rina fell to her knees and Lola clamped
her hand down to her shoulder.
"'RELAX?!'" he asks his mother. "How am I supposed to relax when you guys are wrestling with fucking FOMORI!"
He's
not panicking. The moon is too thin and his Rage is halved. He's not
exactly calm but he isn't going to lose his shit either. He looks at his
mother and determines her to be stable before rushing over to his mate.
His hunting knife thwaps against one thigh while his medicine bag
clunks against the other hip.
"Move your hand, baby."
Lola Hawkes
The
pain in Lola's shoulder wasn't debilitating, but it was quite bad all
the same. She didn't sink to her knees from it, but her feet did plant
heavier in the ground and the weight of her body seemed to sag lower as
well. Hunkering down was the best way to describe what Lola was doing.
She kept her head up, watched as the twisted once-campers were fell by the teeth of the most primal representation of Wolf and War-- a
Hispo.
It was only while that mighty head shook to worry and
wishbone legs in twain that Lola's head tucked and eyes fell away. Her
breath hissed through clenched teeth, and she focused on that and
keeping pressure on a wound that still oozed blood with each pump of her
heart.
Hector asked her to move her hand and she looked up at
him, into his face for a moment first. Her face was sprinkled with
blood, his was coated in it-- particularly around the mouth. The part
of her that love him and war both wanted to smear it clear from his
mouth to kiss it, but a heaping combination of circumstances stayed that
urge. Instead she complied, but wincingly, and lowered her
gun-wielding hand to her side.
Her brow creased and her eyes moved
past Hector's shoulder to Rina instead. She was in worse state, but
her very Nature still had her evaluating the condition of the smaller,
less physically sturdy Kinswoman instead.
Rina Ghosh
He
isn't even out of breath. The women are both breathing heavier for the
pain and the exertion but Hector who ran clear from one end of the
property to the other is barely showing signs of adrenaline or exertion
as he coaxes Lola into peeling the pressing palm away from the gaping
bite wound in her neck.
The sight of it makes him sigh but Hector
doesn't fly into a rage. Something has him trying to stay calm now. It's
calmer than he has been in months. As if he's been presented with a
task and that task must be completed and if he fails in this task more
than just his reputation is at stake.
When he reaches into his bag
he draws out a small clay gourd etched with glyphs. She's seen one
before. This time he isn't breaking it over her leg and abducting her
from the hospital. He's breaking it over her shoulder and smoothing away
the blood after to make sure the wound is healed.
Better than any
medicine humans could provide so far as he's concerned. Once she's sure
she's better Hector lowers his fouled face to her hair and scents her
before drawing away from her.
"Ma," he says, "it's okay."
"What was that?" she asks in a keen.
"Remember how I was telling you about spirits?" he asks as he kneels beside her. She hasn't lifted herself out of the dirt.
"Uh huh...?"
"Sometimes spirits get corrupted. They want to hurt people because pain is all they know."
"Banes," says Rina. She eyes the gourd her son produces. "Lola told me."
"Okay."
"My ears are ringing."
"That's from the gun, Ma."
He
breaks the gourd over his mother's throat and lets the water wash over
her wounds. The water spirit takes away the scratches and the
lacerations and leaves her tattered and stained but whole.
Lola Hawkes
Those
gourds are perhaps why Lola wasn't so worried for the wound in her
shoulder, not as she had been for the wound in her leg when she was out
snooping with one of Cockroach's Ragabashes. She didn't seek to do
anything but keep pressure on the thing until the cooling mend of
Water's touch could re-knit what she had so carelessly ruined.
Hector
brushed her hair away from her neck and Lola tipped her head to the
side to give him clearance. She could see the bright and angry red
where skin had split on Rina's chest and collarbone, but the woman
wasn't in dire condition. Very shaken, remaining on the ground on her
knees, but that was to be expected. She would be fine as well, Lola was
sure. She had to be.
Lola's eyes closed when the gourd's water
rinsed away some but not close to all of the blood and left renewed skin
in its wake. Hector leaned in to breathe her hair and Lola lifted a
hand to cup the back of his neck when he did, but he was soon to leave
and she was okay to let him go.
She needed to go lean on that tree
anyways. Her back muscles had begun to cramp and ache in a slow and
radiating way, no doubt a delayed reaction from the stress of the fight.
Lola Hawkes
[Oh Lola, how long are you going to be miserable with this?]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )
Rina Ghosh
[AND WE'RE FADING THERE NOBODY WANTS TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT]
Lola Hawkes
[Yeah, it's icky.]
Lola Hawkes
It's Sunday morning, and as much as Lola would have liked to have been the first one to wake up, to be the one to get coffee ready for the other two and prove that she could be a good hostess, no matter how gruff.... That was not the case. She slept long and deep these nights. She would be up and to the bathroom often, of course, but that was in a barely-conscious state and she would be asleep as soon as she was back in the bed once more.
It's likely that Rina is up before Lola. Possible even that Hector is-- he had fallen asleep earlier after all. When she awakened, Lola made enough of a pit stop out wherever Hector and Rina may be (provided it's as far as the kitchen, living room, or front porch) to say good morning before she retreated for a shower.
She came back clean, dressed in the single pair of shorts with an elastic maternity waistband that she owned, a black T-shirt stretched tight over her stomach. The forecast called for a day where the temperatures would be up into the eighties, so Lola opted for sunscreen over clothing to protect her skin and wore socks and sandals (hiking sandals, according to Anthony, and though Lola was still skeptical of the concept they were much kinder to her feet than her boots were anymore).
She knew that Hector was planning to take Rina into the Bawn, up to seen the Caern. Lola had it in her mind that she would be coming along to help as a guide. Hector may be a Galliard, better suited to singing the history of Forgotten Questions, but Lola grew up here and has made it her personal duty for over the past five years to walk these lands and keep them safe. She knew them like the faint and faded scars on her knuckles.
"When are we headed out?" Would be her question, of course, when Hector's ear is available to hear it.
Hector Ghosh
Without a torrent of medication coursing through her Rina doesn't sleep near as much as she had grown accustomed to sleeping. Though her son hasn't developed a parent's ability to awaken at faint noises he has shared a bed with Lola since September. The frequency of her rising in the night has increased the further the pregnancy has progressed. It takes little to rouse him. His brain has wired itself for vigilance and even if he knows it's only his mate getting up to come right back it drags him awake every time.
Rina is up before the sun and Hector isn't far behind her. The moon is fattening and even if Hector is not strictly bound to its light and crippled by its dark it's no secret that he becomes more moody the closer the gibbous moon draws. He spends nearly half the month enthralled to the threat of a frenzy.
The coffeemaker burbles at Lola when she drifts into the kitchen to seek out her people. A plate of food has been left out for her but the stove and counters are clear of detritus and the front door is open so she has a clue of where to start looking when she's ready to leave.
The smell of pot smoke greets Lola when she pushes open the screen door. Rina is sitting far enough away from her son that the breeze takes it and Hector doesn't have that glazed-giggling look he used to get when he was younger and stoned. Pot is medicinal now.
When the door opens they both look over at her. Rina looks placid but prepared. As if she is centered in the moment but not relying on it to stay peaceful. Hector looks relaxed but in that jangle-nerved way that comes to him when he's gotten himself riled up and come back down already. His eyes soften when he sees her and he smiles without realizing he's doing it.
When are they headed out.
He thought she'd never ask.
Hector springs to his feet. Despite the threat of heat he's wearing dedicated boots and jeans. His REAGAN | BUSH '84 t-shirt isn't a t-shirt anymore. He's torn the sleeves off of it. Between the hippie-long hair and the aviator sunglasses he has achieved a level of not-giving-a-fuck that is almost transcendent. If he weren't effectively hiding in the woods until his child's birth he would be making a fine leader in this hopeless war they're fighting.
Rina gives Lola a patient smile and eases herself to her feet. She's wearing a plain t-shirt and khaki shorts and worn-in hiking boots. Her silvered hair is braided and clipped off her neck.
"Good morning, sweetheart," she says.
"What time is it?" He glances skyward. "Shit. Let's go now, I wanna get back before it gets hotter than hell."
Lola Hawkes
A long-time smoker of pot herself, Lola immediately recognized the smell when she stepped out onto the porch. Before they were aware of her pregnancy Lola would join Hector out there on the porch, with the mason-jar kit set up on the table between chairs. These days though, and a ways into breastfeeding as well, Lola was realizing, she had to abstain. The smell would occasionally hit a flint of envy within her breast, but Lola got over it quickly. She's known much worse things than being denied a hit.
Out on the porch Lola offered a small smile back to Hector, but then shifted her eyes to Rina with the greeting of 'Good morning, sweetheart'.
"Morning," is her answer, plain and simple.
Hector checked the sun to gauge the time, and Lola did the same thing automatically when he'd asked for the time. Rina would probably observe that they do this rather than checking wrists for watches or pockets for phones to know the time in precise, computer-monitored and world-agreed numbers. She would see things during her time here, small things and big things alike, that would help her understand how close to the Wolf these two lived their lives. Or, how far away from the Spider and her Web, anyways.
It's agreed that they should go, and Lola noted the attire and preparedness of the both of them. They'd been waiting on her. So, Lola nodded and gestured back over her shoulder. "My pack's back in the room, but it's got plenty of water and food packed away already." She'd made a point of packing it and replenishing the supplies within last night. She'd pointed out the obvious that her one pack wouldn't carry supplies for the day for all of them, if for nothing more than to prompt Hector to be sure that there was another to go along with it. The fact that Lola was looking specifically at Hector when she mentioned the location of the pack told him already that she was going to ask him to go get it, but she'd follow up with words anyways: "Would'ja fetch it please?"
While Hector was complying, which really didn't even require the 'please' but Lola figured he deserved the good manners anyways, Lola took her walking stick from where it was resting against the wall near the front door on the porch. The stick was gnarled, rubbed down and oiled smooth and cut from a good, heavy branch. She had a couple bundles of sage tied near the top, left to dangle from their sort lengths of twine like small gray-green ornaments.
Walking stick in hand, Lola looked to Rina and raised her eyebrows, then gestured toward the corner of the house they stood in front of, though she was trying to gesture to the shed/garage that was just out of sight from where they were standing.
"Got another walkin' stick in the shed, if you want it?"
Hector Ghosh
And she knows even if she had issued the request in a gruffer tone without the magic word Hector would have nodded and rushed off to grab it for her. It's rare that she asks for help and if she can recall the last time he denied her anything she asked for a long time has passed since then. The Galliard gives a quick vocal confirmation and ducks back inside the cabin.
It leaves his mother and his mate alone but that had happened the night before already. It's going to happen a lot over the course of the next month. All Rina is planning on doing between now and some nebulous time in the future is helping her son and the mother of his child prepare themselves.
Hard to tell if Hector seems calmer or not. For a child of Fog he has always been a loud creature. They can both hear him as he clomps through the house into the bedroom. Rina follows the gesture with her eyes and gives Lola one of those wan but genuine smiles when she offers the use of a walking stick.
She and her husband are from California but Rina has the wasted musculature of someone who spent nearly four years without an appetite or any real hope for the future. The loss of her youngest child has left her wiry. The muscles of her forearms and legs are lean but without much fat to camouflage them and loud blue veins stand out against the olive of her skin. She looks tired.
"Oh, I'll be alright," Rina says. Though she doesn't drop a term of endearment the warmth stains her tone all the same. More thumping inside. "Thank you, though."
Hector trots across the house with the packs on either shoulder and bursts through the door like he has time to be fixing a busted screen. It does not bust the screen but he has more energy than he knows what to do with.
"ONWARD!" he says and the volume of his voice coupled with his Rage is enough to startle Rina but she forces a smile anyway.
It isn't a far walk to the Sept. Telling his parents Lola works for Roxborough wasn't a difficult lie to sell for the proximity of it. They start off.
Lola Hawkes
The offer for the second walking stick had been a courtesy, but one based in a small amount of concern. Rina looked small and thin. Though Lola didn't worry that she was sick, she was worried that a long hike in the heat might take its toll.
The offer was declined, though. Lola shrugged and let the matter be.
Soon Hector was joining them again, a pack slung over either shoulder. His bellow for them to move forward was threaded with Rage, but Lola did not startle as Rina had. She just smirked a little and put out a hand in an offer to take one of the two packs. If he didn't relinquish hold, though, she wouldn't press the matter. Less weight to carry wouldn't be any skin off Lola's nose.
The walk wasn't a terrible one, really. Lola and Hector both have walked that foot trail worn into the dirt through the trees back toward the park and the Bawn many times before. Their pace could be comfortable, the trees had leaves on them enough that they provided shade when walked under. Lola moved at a steady pace, she was inexhaustible before pregnancy but even that only slowed her down to an average level.
The walk was lengthy enough for conversation, though. Lola was warning Rina in a tone that wasn't grave, not really, but still sounded a little bit like a disclaimer to be listened to.
"You might see some weird stuff while we're here. Like shifting, and fighting. This is one of the safest places to be, though, so don't get spooked okay?"
Hector Ghosh
He does no such thing. Hector shoulders the heavier of the two packs and gives his mother a glance. She with her thin calves and her floppy hat and her look of aged resignation now that the drugs are out of her system. She looked tiny stood next to Lola even before the imminency of the baby's birth became a physical presence. But then so did Maria. Maria was no taller than five-foot-four and built like a teenager but she had an energy and a humor that gave the impression of a greatness her body didn't afford her.
More often these days Hector sits hunched over a table writing down things he doesn't show other people but isn't reluctant to share either. No more reluctant than he is about anything else at least. It's a fresh journal that he bought from a store in town. Into it he's putting every thing he can remember about being Garou. If he can find the time he'll fill another one with every thing he can remember about the Wyrm but Echoes of the Lost is known for the breadth and depth of his occult knowledge. Riddles don't stand much of a chance when he starts to pick them apart. He could spend the rest of his life writing about the things he's seen and all that would accomplish is to drive him mad.
Some would argue he's already half on his way there but in the sunlight walking with his mother and his mate Hector looks content. His face turns towards the sunlight and he breathes deep of the mountain air and he doesn't talk of his worthlessness or his dwindling hope for the future.
Don't get spooked. It's sound advice but Rina still does look uncertain about all this. Like she has to have made some kind of mistake agreeing to come out for all this. The human part of her brain wants to tell Narendra what their son is up to but the rational part, the part that will aid her in accepting the part of her that is Kin to these creatures, knows that Hector isn't Narendra's son anymore. Not really. He belongs to this Nation now.
"Okay," Rina says and her tone rings with that uncertainty but it doesn't drip.
She holds up on the walk as well as they could expect her to. She doesn't complain and takes the water when Hector begins to dole out bottles. Once they arrive at the park proper he rolls his neck until it pops and stands listening for a few seconds. The more she's around him the more Rina realizes her son can and does sense things neither she nor Lola can sense. If it isn't a sound off in the distance or a scent their noses don't detect it's something more spiritual than that. Something she can't begin to define or identify.
Being around Hector unsettles her a little but no mother wants to admit to being unsettled by their own child.
"Alright," Hector says. "Ma, you ready?"
Rina gives a brave little nod of her head but doesn't speak.
Hector offers her his arm to escort her and she takes it.
Lola Hawkes
The journals were new, and Lola was keeping an eye on Hector's habits with them. She was daughter to a Theurge. She'd seen a Garou become lost in their works before. There had been several occasions where Javier has needed to pull his wife away from a circle of salt drawn on the earth. Rituals oughtn't be interrupted, but after weeks out in the woods alone, barely moving, enough had to be enough.
Lola knew that a Galliard could become equally lost in his histories. She's heard cautionary tales warning against blindness for many Auspice stereotypes. She grew up in this world, after all. So she had inquired once or twice about what he was putting in his journals, but never critiqued or actively read through them. She found that to be invasive-- his works were still in the works, after all. Curiosity sated, she was content to simply watch and make sure he didn't start to become lost in ink and paper.
It hasn't gotten to that point yet, so there was no real worry.
Along the walk Lola kept her pace without trouble or throwing herself into labor for the effort to keep up with the Ghoshes. She huffed on the inclines, but was fine otherwise. When they reached the park proper Lola straightened up with her hands pushing the small of her back to stretch it. When a water bottle came her way she drank a few big gulps before screwing the lid back on.
Rina's voice wasn't shaky, but she did sound nervous. Lola cast a glance over to her, from the woman to Hector, and then away again, over the horizon. Hector would be the guide on this one, really. Lola tended to let him take the helm in matters more social anyways, and this was a learning expedition anyways. Who better than a Galliard to explain to someone the story and culture of their people?
Lola, she was better suited as a sentry anyways. That's precisely how she looked, posted on the small ridge that they'd paused at, looking into the park and in toward the heart of the Caern. While Hector was looking to his mother, offering her his arm and reassurance through it, Lola's eyes narrowed out into the grass and trees.
"Someone's coming to meet us," she announced, and casually removed the lid of her bottle to take another drink.
She was right-- through the narrow cluster of trees up ahead someone was barely visible through shadows and leaves and bushes and tree trunks. Headed their direction, though, so they'd be identifiable soon enough.
Hector Ghosh
As far as Hector is concerned they have the rest of the month to tell his mother all of the stories she can absorb. Longer. They don't know when the baby will come and his mother has already taken a leave of absence from work. It's the end of the school year and she kept to herself the red tape she had to cut through in order to secure the time. These aren't things she needs to share with her son and his young wife when they have so much else to think about and Hector doesn't ask her how her work is going.
Maybe if things had turned out differently Hector would have been the kind of son who called his mother once a month and showed an interest in her life but Hector doesn't understand her life anymore. Took him long enough to understand his own and now the rest of their people look to him to explain the things that happen and to give vision to the events that would otherwise fade away and he doesn't know how to talk to his mother anymore.
But they don't have to cram every story they can think of into her head today. Hector just wanted her to see. To introduce her to Tamsin and to Thomas. To show her the cabin where the Kinfolk gather during moots and explain how the memory-spirit protects them from humans. How the earth has forgotten more than any of them will ever remember and that's how the place got its name.
He can explain the notion of a Caern or a Sept better than Lola can. He's been to the heart of the Caern. He knows what it means to conduct a Gathering for the Departed and what it means to not.
They're coming up on a year since Celduin lost both their Ragabashes and then their alpha. It doesn't hurt Hector to talk about it anymore but there's a sadness in him that wasn't here before. When he first came to Denver he was in denial. If he just kept moving he'd be alright but then he settled down. That's when everything comes rushing in.
That's another story he'll tell his mother before she leaves.
Right now they have a visitor.
If it were anything worth worrying about one would hope Hector would sniff it out.
No more of a sniff than anyone else would draw in to fill their lungs normally and Hector snorts it back out when he narrows down who it could be. Doesn't really matter who it is specifically. He addresses everyone in his echelon in the same casually disrespectful tone in private. Can get away with it because he stands up in front of the Nation and immortalizes them every month.
So he calls out:
"Hey! Pocahontas! Quit prancing around in the woods and come say hi!"
Lola Hawkes
The sort of moving about in the trees that's happening doesn't stink of threat and danger. Hector and Lola have both been in situations, together and apart both, where they've been able to sense the battle in the air before it was about to hit hard. There's a certain feel, a slinking approach, when someone (or something) is walking toward you with ill intent.
That's not how this person walks, though. They're standing upright, pace even, no longer making any effort to mask steps or movements, not like they possibly may have been doing before they recognized the people on the horizon themselves.
Either way, when called out, the answer that returns is a man's voice.
"Prancing? Is that what you kids call taking a piss these days?"
Soon to follow, the figure made their way out into open visibility. He was a white man, six feet tall even with an average build made to carry muscle thanks to expectations both within his Nation and his Tribe. He had red hair that was buzzed short along the sides and back, but kept long and combed back on top. He was wearing a pair of jeans and hiking boots, a brilliant pink tank-top, and kept an evergreen canvas backpack on his back. He squinted through the sun out at the three children of Uktena, smirked with immediate recognition, and approached.
Hector would recognize the man from moots and time spent around the Caern in general-- his was a distinct appearance. He'd probably have the name before Lola announced it across the distance in her own special manner of affection.
"Eddie Luske, ya fuckin' barbarian. Come say hello."
"Real fuckin' gas, being called a barbarian by the likes of you."
But he does-- come over to say hello, that is. He was approaching all the while anyways, and stopped first before Hector and Rina. His hand stuck out for Hector's-- formalities and all. They've no doubt met before, but he still offers a firm shake of greeting for his fellow Galliard, and even goes so far as to hit him with a: "Good morning, -Rhya."
And then, next, murkily colored hazel eyes hopped down and over to the woman in the floppy hat. "And good morning to you." He wasn't the sort of Garou who would only address other figures of authority and war like himself, but rather than directly asking Rina who she was, Eddie directed the question back to Hector instead: "Who's this, your ma?"
It was a pretty easy guess to make, when it comes down to it.
Hector Ghosh
By the time Eddie has come out of the trees Hector has given his mom back her space and she is intend to stand on her own. She murmurs to Hector and he hears her and acquiesces the smaller of the two packs to her. She shoulders it and she is holding onto the straps when the stranger comes out of the trees.
The Uktena's eyes are concealed by the sunglasses but the Fenrir can read his respect and his pleasure at having the Cliath's company again all the same.
Who's this, your ma?
"Yeah," he says, "so watch your fuckin' mouth." Nice, Hector. "Ma, this is Eddie. He's a talesinger, like me, and uh..." He rubs the fingers of his right hand against his palm like something just dawned on him. "You probably don't wanna shake his hand." He wipes his palm on his pant leg and then punches the Skald in the shoulder. Pissing in the woods and shaking people's hands afterwards. Fuck, man. "Eddie, my mom." A beat. "Missus Ghosh."
"Good morning, Eddie," says Rina. She works in a middle school. This behavior doesn't faze her.
Lola Hawkes
Eddie wore no sunglasses-- he spent so much of his time out roaming the land with the Guardians that the brightness didn't quite register with him so much as it would with Hector's possibly still-bloodshot eyes. His skin was red from the sun (even though he did smell like sunscreen up close) and though he was somewhere around his and Lola's age there were crows feet beginning at the corners of his eyes too. This life aged them, Rina could tell. These were both boys, children in her scope of things, with gray hair and wrinkles developing prematurely.
This life, whatever it was, it aged them quickly.
The catch about not shaking hands was met with a laugh, and Eddie had bunched his shoulder up and turned like he was using his own bicep and shoulder as a shield for his chest and stomach. Like he's used to retaliation striking there instead. Though his shoulders themselves weren't particular broad, the muscle laid upon them was thick and defined and put on display by the lack of sleeves on his shirt. Still chuckling, the Get of Fenris made a show of rubbing his shoulder gingerly before looking back to Rina again. As he was minded, he kept his hands to himself, but still gave a smile full of big square white teeth when Rina bade him good morning in return.
"Mrs. Ghosh. Downright pleasure."
All the while, Lola had been posted a dozen feet away or so, where she had been before while scoping out the Caern's lands before them. She had been futzing around with a lighter and her walking stick, and only once she'd managed to light one of the two bundles of sage did she pocket the lighter and come to join. Eddie chose to acknowledge the Kinfolk's approach by swinging around and putting his arms out wide.
"Bring it in, Hawkes."
"Puaj, I don't want your hug."
This must be a common complaint, because Eddie utterly disregarded it and closed in anyways He made a show of trying to figure out what angle to approach from, then settled for one side and wrapped arms about her. Lola grunted, tolerated the affection for a tick of the second hand, and fended him off soon after with her walking stick and a complaint of: "You're covered in sweat already, Jesus man."
Naturally, Eddie wiped his forehead on her cheek before stepping back, hopping out of range of the walking stick. Rina sees something like a big brother harassing their little sister in the exchange, whereas Hector can find more of the truth to it. These two would have been packmates, probably until one or the other shuffled off the mortal coil, if Lola had ever Changed. While Lola wiped her face and grumbled to herself in Spanish, Eddie clapped his hands together and addressed Hector once more.
"So, what's the business? Are your parents coming to join Forgotten Questions now?"
Hector Ghosh
"It's a long story. I'll tell you later."
Or he probably won't. Uktena and all. This must be the nascency stages of his learning how to lie effectively. His story isn't one of glorious origins even if the line did start glorious. It's one of spiraling and madness and rape and lost birthrights. The woman standing next to him has a sharpness to her come of a difficult early life and she looks her age. Lola can see the Uktena in Rina even if she cannot sense her breeding. Dark intelligent eyes and mixed genes.
She's quiet through it all. Respectful in the way parents tend to be when meeting their children's friends and yet this is a different sort of quiet.
"This is Ma's first time at a Sept, so I just wanted to show her around." These two grew up together. They grew up here. He seems to expect already that the Skald is going to want to whisk her off: "Or, you know. I told Lola I wanted to show her around, and Lola was like 'Great! You can be my pack mule, and I'll show her around!'"
Being a month away from giving birth doesn't protect Lola from her mate's ball-busting any more than it protects her from her friend's hugs. She wasn't a delicate flower eight months ago and she sure as hell isn't now.
Lola Hawkes
Eddie Luske has spent some time around a couple of Uktena's children-- he knew Maria growing up, of course, and Lola's parents as well. There were some other Uktena about the Sept as well, and Eddie was good at watching and listening and learning. So, when Hector expressed that he'd tell the story later, the Skald didn't quite believe him, but knew better than to call him out on it or try to press the subject. Maybe he'd follow up asking for the story another time. For now, though, he shifted his focus over to Lola while Hector centered his ball-busting on her instead. Watching the would-be Ahroun ball-bust back was typically a good time.
And good old reliable Lola...
"Ain't my fault that me and mine have been with this Caern since before either of you even knew it existed." She took another drink of her water before offering the bottle to Eddie, who accepted the offer but was quick to drink and did not take much from her reserve. As though retaliating or accepting the drink was a one-or-the-other option, he didn't contest her insistence that ancestral right was something that made you a good guide.
While Eddie drank, Lola cut through a cloud of gnats with the sage-smokey end of her walking stick and looked to Rina, who had been keeping her quiet and watching and learning since the Skald had joined them.
"Is there a place you wanted to check out first? The cabin, the graves....?" Lola's tone was borderline monotonous, as often was the case when it was neutral, but it had an edge of concern to it. Like she was worried that Rina wasn't having a good time.
Hector Ghosh
Her son is not the most emotionally literate creature currently serving Gaia but when he glances over at his mother he can see the wrenching that the question does to her. Rina is not wavering between glazed automation and teary acceptance like she did during their first and what will likely be their only trip to San Jose but this is a heavy experience for her.
Just last night she'd likened accepting Hector's new life to converting to Hinduism for her husband. In reality it's more akin to suspecting her son had joined a cult and now she has to suspend her disbelief until she has proof to the contrary. And how the hell can a couple of moon-dancers prove that spirits and Gaia and all of that actually exist. They can talk about it. Shift into their war forms and show her that they're part something that isn't human. But Rina has lived the entirety of her fifty years as a human woman.
This scares her. They haven't even gotten into the park yet and the meaning of all of this scares her. She's already lost her son once because these people kidnapped him. She's trying though.
"I don't need to see the graves just yet," Rina says.
Something in her tone stings him as shrapnel would sting him and Hector snaps in a breath. Can't put a hand on her back because she took the pack from him. The moon is fattening but not swollen to the point where he cannot control himself. It isn't as if he can blame the moon for all his moods anyway. It isn't even the fault of the Rage.
He feels helpless awaiting the baby's birth and he feels guilt over what his disappearance did to his mother and Tamsin and Lola have both used the word 'Harano' in a sentence to describe what they're afraid might happen to him but while he has flirted with Harano they have not consummated the courtship yet. He was in a shitty mood yesterday and he's in a shitty mood today and when he speaks his tone is like a note strummed on a string drawn too tight. The string doesn't snap but the note doesn't sound right either.
"Lola," he says, "she's never been to a Caern before." He doesn't say fucking Caern but they can all hear it. "You wanna show her around, or you wanna wait in the cabin until we're done?"
This is why Rina brought a bottle of Valium to Colorado with her.
Lola Hawkes
I don't need to see the graves just yet.
The answer had caused Hector to suck in a quick breath. Lola had picked up on the tone, but didn't react so sharply as her mate. She didn't have the passions of Rage to stoke her emotions, and it wasn't her mother who sounded so wrung out, so worried. She'd simply nodded, understanding that the prospect of visiting evidence of much death may be best skipped over, left for later after Rina's had more time to learn about the Nation and its War.
She had been about to move forward. Lola's lips parted and her head had turned-- she was about to say something to Eddie, but paused when Hector spoke instead.
While she wasn't the most socially graceful thing, Lola was not blind or deaf to the moods of others-- especially not to Hector. She heard the things unspoken, but seemed to be more focused on the things said instead. Her brow flexed and the Kinswoman frowned. She rubbed the side of her stomach and the frown went through a couple of stages-- thoughtful, conflicted, bothered.
Then:
"You go on ahead." She sounded like there was another sentence to follow that one, but had swallowed it back. Paused, and chose to replace it instead with another. "I'll see you back home. Got work to do on the garden anyway."
From there, she glanced back to Eddie and raised her eyebrows. "Wanna help build some planter boxes?" To which Eddie simply shrugged. Lola shrugged back, and looked to Hector and Rina again. Her body language was stiff. She wanted to start walking, clearly, but was waiting for some kind of confirmation or agreement first.
Hector Ghosh
Just before Hector disappeared he and his mother argued over whether he was going to eat breakfast before he went to school. All he had had was a glass of orange juice and Rina was concerned that he was getting too scrawny. Like she could hear his anger eating him up. He had always been a hyperactive child but towards the end was when she stopped recognizing him. What Hector will probably never forgive himself for is that the last time he saw his mother he threw a plastic tumblr into the sink and stormed out of the house and then he never came home that night.
She has no idea what just happened. No Rage roils up in her son but he reacts to something that the rest of them don't even sense and then Lola lets him go. Whatever he thinks or feels when she puts her hand to the side of her belly he keeps to himself but contrition comes to him fast.
"Keep an eye on her, man," Hector says. Tries to pass it off as a joke but the moment has grown tense and knowing Lola as they both know Lola it isn't much of a joke at all.
When he turns to keep on walking it's with a hand to Rina's elbow and a low C'mon, Ma but the lost kinswoman stands still a moment longer. Clearly confused by what just happened and uneasy around her son in this place and they can both see she doesn't want to be rude. The smile she gives them is weak but warm. The Fostern walks quickly and just as he's realizing his mother isn't moving she's forcing herself to.
"It was very nice meeting you, Eddie," she says.
And off they go.
---
Later on that afternoon Hector returns Rina to the Homestead and is barely there long enough to drink water straight from the hose before his packsister shows up. Tamsin greets Rina with enthusiasm and Rina is happy to meet her. Heard so much about her and wow isn't that something one of Hector's friends doesn't tower over her. Tamsin whisks Hector off and neither of them give much explanation as to where they think they're going.
They'll be back later. That's all the explanation is mother gets. Maybe they have to go practice. Hector earns a little money here and there playing shows with Tamsin but she's the singer and their little band's face and she's the one whose name people around town know.
"Okay," Rina says. Lifts a hand to wave to them but they've already turned to go.
Whether Lola was there for Tamsin's arrival or still out in the garden she has a line of sight on the woman as she adjusts her hat on her head and crosses her arms over her chest and watches the monster that used to be her son walk off with his friend. Can see if not hear her as she draws a deep breath and lets it out in a sigh.
Lola Hawkes
The foursome parted ways without much more said on the matter. Eddie just jerked his head upward in a motion of affirmation and acknowledgement and smiled when Hector advised him to keep an eye on Lola. It was a silent No worries.
The Get of Fenris, more pleasant than the tribe was stereotyped to be really, gave that smile to Rina too and echoed the sentiment with a "An honor. Take care, ma'am."
He and Lola then went back to the Homestead, taking a less-direct path and following a trail that their feet knew well. They spent the time talking: about Rina's being out here, about the fact that the woman was Lost up until Hector went back to find her again. How all of this was new. How Rina's being out here was supposed to help comfort and calm Hector, and now he was behaving as though he simply had one more thing to worry about.
They made their way back to the house their own due time, but Eddie was only around long enough to help put up two sides of the planter box before he was called away. Some business somewhere, who knew. But when duty called, you went. So Lola had set to work, and by the time the Ghoshes got back she had finished two boxes before calling it 'way too fucking hot' and going back inside.
After Tamsin had come and collected Hector and gone again, Lola was left to stand not far off from Rina, also bidding the two farewell as they went. For this proximity, the sigh certainly does not go missed.
Her father and sister weren't around to comment on how much Lola sounded like her mother when she-- without turning her head to look at her-- said to Rina:
"You're worried already."
She sounded a lot more like Lola and less like Knows the Whispering Ones when she followed up by unsmilingly, but genuinely, reassuring the other woman. "You'll get used to that. It's like the first stage of becoming a Kinfolk." And Lola would know all about that, wouldn't she?
Hector Ghosh
As the weeks pass a rhythm will establish itself. In everything Hector has always expected excellence and his behavior now that he is a Fostern is no exception. That he feels himself cracking under the pressure of welcoming their child into their lives is a constant source of aggravation for him and his mother has only been here for two days. She too is having to adjust her entire life to make room for her child. Not even six months ago she was taking medication to get through her days. Still has to. His reappearance didn't fix everything.
Like as not this is simply one more thing he has to worry about. But they will get through this. By this time two weeks from now Hector and his mother will have started to sort out how to talk to each other again. He will have started building fires in the backyard again. Sitting out by it smoking pot and talking to his mother. Telling stories. Reminiscing as a means of reestablishing their relationship.
In time Rina will be able to say Hector's name in the same tone his father uses and it will correct him even if it does not calm him. His father might have been a better candidate for this task but they could never bring his father to the Caern. And now they're asking Rina to keep secrets from the man with whom she's shared everything the last thirty years.
This sucks.
Before he leaves he puts a hand on the back of Lola's head and rests his forehead against hers before tattooing the space with his lips. He's gone when she sighs.
Rina's worried already. The tiny woman looks over at her daughter-in-law and gives her a tight smile. With her hands rested on either elbow and her weight distributed equal between her two feet she looks easily broken and as if she would persevere anyway.
"Of course I'm worried," she says. Gentle. Easier to speak to Lola gentle than to speak to Hector gentle. Lola doesn't make her nervous. "I've already lost him once." Oh well. She releases her elbows and turns back towards the house. "Let's have lunch."
Lola Hawkes
On at least one occasion when Lola had observed Rina quietly and stoically, as was her way, she'd had the same thought occur: Narendra may have been the more ideal choice for who to send out after all. Not because he was a medical doctor (not that kind of doctor, but still), but because he struck Lola as a man who did not shake. She was surprised by how well he held up to Hector and his Rage, impressed with him.
He was human, though, and this was no place for him to be. If either were to come, it had to be Rina.
But when Lola looked at her with that tight smile, those thin shoulders, that small frame, she creased her brow with the very thing they spoke of-- worry.
Still, she just nodded and went inside when Rina suggested they have lunch. It wouldn't be until they were eating that Lola would try to spark a conversation again.
Lola may have cooked, or Rina may have offered, or it may have been a dual effort. Whatever it is they wound up eating, Lola recommended that they go to the patio table and chairs on the patio out back. The heat wasn't so terrible if you weren't hiking and climbing around. The sun tea that Lola brewed a few days earlier was chilled and refreshing and helped cool them also. The heavily pregnant Kinfolk had downed a third of her glass quickly before leaning back in her chair. One hand settled on top of her belly, pressing slow and idle like she could somehow shift her squished-up organs around to make more room for the contents of her stomach.
"Rina." She said the woman's name to begin. Were she to glance up at her daughter-in-law she'd find the severe looking young woman all but staring her down across the table. Like she was full of resolve and intent, though, not threat and violence. That was a very different stare that she probably wouldn't ever have to see.
"We can talk at you about the Nation and all of this until our lungs collapse and not begin to cover all of it." Her use of a pause is misplaced. It makes it seem like she's about to end there, and Rina might be about to prompt Lola to continue or try and sum up a response that would work by the time Lola finished her thought. "You'll take more away from here if you ask questions. You must have some by now?"
[[ Faaaade away. There was much conversation about things that are Garou related. ]]
