Fucking Teenagers - 9.28.2013 [ST'd by niko][Keisha, Sophia, Thomas, Reese]

{doom}

Though most of the Garou's efforts have been centered on the area of downtown surrounding 1999 Broadway, the area around the Caern needs patrolling, too.  The bawn is covered by a near invisible contingent of Guardian wolves, but the suburban area just to the north?  Not quite so well defended.  There is a corner one must turn to reach the park, from Waterton Road and onto Rampart Range, and at that corner there is a grocery store, a nail salon, an art gallery, and the area's public library, among other things.

In this shopping plaza, closer to the Chase Bank - an island building between the plaza's spacious parking lot and the road - a group of people sit around off the back of an old beat up truck.


Lola Hawkes

When the Cold Crescent Sept building on Broadway was shut down and in crisis mode, Lola went on several patrols with Garou collaboratives through the city.  Since the Sept had opened its doors and the burst of weak points in the Gauntlet had lessened, the Kinswoman was nowhere to be found within Denver proper.

Her place was protecting the Caern of Forgotten Questions, just as she was born to do, and just as her ancestors had done before her.

Somehow, though, she was talked into coming out into the Suburbs to patrol there with a collection of other Garou.  She knew Keisha from one patrol earlier, and she knew Thomas from just a little more than that.  The Silver Fang she was utterly unfamiliar with, but she wasn't unpleasant about it.

She was bothered by her inability to carry her rifle around with her in the suburb, it wasn't at all like patroling out around the Bawn proper.  But she had her revolver strapped to her side in a holder underneath her zip-up gray hoodie, the sleeves of which pushed up past her elbows.  Jeans and walking shoes completed the boring, forgettable ensemble.  Lola wasn't dressed for fashion tonight, she was dressed for utility.

The Kinfolk must not have caught too much grief when she joined with the other Garou to walk the suburbs.  She didn't cause much greif either, and largely kept to herself, occasionally chattering if anyone else opted to bring up conversation.  She did speak up, though, when they round the corner of the shopping plaza and she spies the truck with the collaborative of people hanging out.

"Worth keeping an eye on those guys, you think?  Or should we just keep on?"


Still Waters

They may make an odd group for patrolling, but they aren't an improbable one.  A wide variance of skills and attitudes lie between these individuals, and isn't that the best for a patrol group anyway?  Keisha walks along with the others, dressed down a little bit from her usual neo-hippy garb.  It's not particularly useful for potential combat situations, after all so she's wearing an old Sisters of Mercy T-Shirt (a relic from her part) and loose-fitting jeans.  She's still rocking the sandals though, and of course her staff, tapping on the ground with each step.

She knows everyone that she's here with, has worked alongside all of them at least once and trusts them all.  They've shown good judgment when she has, after all.  And...well, she's Keisha and even if things haven't been going their best, she's always the optimist.

The group near the truck catches the attention of Lola, and of Keisha as well.  She nods a little bit at the kinfolk's words, taking them as she would from any Garou.

"Worth keeping an eye on, at least until we pass by."  There isn't anything inherently suspicious about them, but you never know.


Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

Thomas is just glad to finally be on another patrol with people he trusts.  For all that patrols with new Garou (and mostly new kin) have taught him to at least trust a few more people, if only on patrols, he'd prefer to be out with people he knows.  

After the initial greetings, which are friendly even if that is tempered with a bit of distance and reserve with Sophia, he stays mostly quiet.  Patrols are...not so much social occasions.  He's dressed in his general out of the city clothes, cargo pants, tee-shirt, sensible hiking boots.  If not for the Rage, he'd be easy enough to slip around here unnoticed.  

He nods to Lola and Keisha.  "A little caution never killed anyone."  There is a tiny flash of a grin.  "Or probably not often, anyway."


Treads-the-Ashen-Path

They were the ones who opted to bring Sophia out into public, and so they were the ones who would have to deal with the consequences of their actions. She couldn't help who she was, she couldn't help the fact that she held little concern for the workings of the material world, she couldn't help the fact that there was little difference, in her mind, between the imagination and reality. This Silver Fang was a walking example of why the other tribes are convinced the 'Fangs have gone mad.

Today the Theurge concerned herself with a sparrow, the pungent scent of death rose from it's carcass and drew her closer to investigate the thing. Beneath it's feathers the thing wiggled and squirmed, and she couldn't help but give the softest laugh. "Aww she has babies..." She says as she gently pushes the feathers away to reveal the entry wound where the sparrow had been shot by a bb gun. That wound was now well opened by the fly larvae that now made the internal organs of this creature their home.

Death was more than just a fascination to the Theurge, it was her calling, and so she didn't seem bothered in the slightest when she lifted the carcass from the ground in both hands and muttered a soft little prayer for the creature, before drawing out a small cloth to wrab the bird in, maggots and all, and there it goes, right into the bag she had stropped across her shoulder. Sophia was never one to pass up an opportunity to collect something that could be put to use at a later time.

Although Sophia hadn't bothered to look in the direction of the pickup, she had heard the others, she had heard their questioning, and it didn't make sense to go into this situation unprepared, so she decided to check the area for the wyrm's presence![Sense Wyrm, Diff Varies depending on the strength of the wyrm in the area, as well as how long at has been since it passed through the area!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )


Reese Evans

Reese is not especially fond of the 'country', regardless of the terrain, but there he can find virtue and value and so many different sorts of beauty.  The suburbs, though?  They're so much worse, with their chain coffee and burger joints and chain bar/restaurants and white picket fences and lawns mowed just so.  But he's there, and uncomfortable despite the reassuring pressure and weight of the pistol in its holster at his back, even with his shoes that are too pretty and fine to be strictly practical for patrol work but still apparently comfortable for walking.

So, yes, there he is - the eldest Evans kid, out to patrol the suburbs near the Caern he never visits, with people he mostly doesn't know.  Or, with whom he only has bare acquaintance, anyway, with the notable exception of one.  Who, at the moment, he's treating exactly as he does everyone else.  And, for those who are paying attention to his clothes?  Nice, expensive (but obviously well worn) jeans and a t-shirt that fits well to his shoulders and chest and tapered waist - with a beer company logo splattered across said chest and torso, of course, because it's Reese.

In his defense, he designed the logo.

"I used to have a truck we hung out in the back of fairly often, trying to get people to buy us beer.  That's not a convenient place for it, but could be a similar thing."


{doom}

The patrol group's may seem a little odd at a glance.  A kinswoman, two Theurges, and a Galliard?  But think about it and it makes sense.  Two kin to speak to the humans, two packed Theurges to deal with any rogue spirits they happen across, and a Galliard for balance.  The one who grouped them together wasn't thinking "combat."  They were thinking "patrol, watch, alert."  Of course, should trouble rise up before them, each is more than capable of holding their own.

Lola and Keisha notice the revelers on the truck first, who have noticed them, too.  A man and two women sit on that tailgate, with two more men leaning up against the side.  The conversation of the five trails off when the quintet of Gaians nears.  A couple are smiling, one is stone faced, all watch.  The two women lean together to whisper as they look from Lola to Sophia to Keisha.  One of them hops down, glances back to the others, and tentatively steps forward.

"Heeeeey," she says to Sophia, a large jeweled pendant catching the light and sparking red.  "You wanna party?"

She looks young.  They all look young, late teens probably, very early twenties at the oldest.  Behind the girl, the other four watch one, grinning.  Stone-faced.  Watchful.


Lola Hawkes

The sidewalk the group of Gaians was walking on touched the parking lot that the truck was parked in.  All five of those gathered-- both Kinfolk and all three Garou, survey the group of five that hung out at the truck.  These loiterers surveyed them in turn.

Their stride wouldn't break though, and they kept walking forward on the sidewalk.  The Gaians wouldn't be worried enough to be caught looking at these people, for what did Gaians have to fear other than death coming some five years earlier than normal?  Not many of them were likely to reach 30 years of age anyways.

A woman hopped down and took a step forward to call out to Sophia, ask if she wants to party.

Lola snaps an answer, her voice all bravado and raining hell.

"No one wants to fuckin' party with you.  Or your sentry-ass friends."


Still Waters

Keisha loves her packsister.  Her obsession with death and dead things creeps the life-venerating Child of Gaia to no end and they will probably never be quite on the same page because of it, but it doesn't change her feelings.  Siblings--even pack siblings--don't need to see eye to eye on everything and this is just one of those wierd (very very wrong) quirks that she accepts.

That being said...it's probably not a good sign that of all the people in this group, the one collecting a bird corpse is the one that the group wants to party with.  Yeah, that's completely bad, she's pretty sure.  But it's no certainty, so it's not time to start thinking tactically.  (And that will start getting awkward anyway if these people are bad guys and yet alive.)

So instead of doing that, she just comes to a smiles a little bit and shakes her head.  "We're kind of heading somewhere specific," she says, speaking up even though she wasn't addressed.  Talk to one of them, talk to all.  "What kind of party you thinking about though?"  

She looks down at the pendant on the girl, curious.  Yeah, she probably looks like she's checking the girl out (and don't discount the possibility in most cases!) but she's not.


Reese Evans

"Speak for yourself," Reese answers Lola with a lazy, cocky grin shot Lola's way and a wink for the girl asking about partying; he, too, checks out the pendant, and maybe looks like he's checking out the girl too (but really probably wouldn't in 99.9% of cases, because reasons).  But he's old compared to the kids at the truck, like he is compared to most of his companions now - at twenty-eight , he's probably at least a few years older than everyone in the motley patrol-pack, and nearly a decade older than the group at the truck.

"What's happening?"


Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

Thomas tenses, just slightly when the woman approaches Sophia, but his attention shifts quickly enough back to the four that remain at the truck.  The one girl is right in front of Sophia, who presumably can keep an eye on her well enough.  He defaults, as he usually does, to letting Keisha handle the people.  Sophia is also involved now, with the girl.  That's enough attention for her.

[Perception-Empathy: Sp. Hidden Motives (What, in at least one thing he is kind of like a Lord?)]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )


{doom}

[manip+subt]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )


Treads-the-Ashen-Path

She gives a little smile when she senses something on the air and she speaks in the softest of tones. "He's here..." She says to the others. "Coiled, watching, ready to strike..." She adds as she glances around, and then in the direction of the truck.

Other's approach. She counts their footsteps out loud. "One, two, three, four, five, six..." They stop and she finds herself looking away from them, her smile ever warm, their aggressive approach was noted and she gave the softest of laughs at their question. "They march together, soldiers perhaps, unwitting pawns, or maybe they have nothing to do with any of this?" She seems to be speaking to herself. "Voices chime in unison, seeking trouble more than fun, but the real question remains..."

Finally she looks back at the pair. One, and then the other, and she pauses for several long moments before speaking up in that same soft tone. "Why me? What do they really want?" She asks them indirectly, her greyish-blue eyes dancing from one figure to the next and she smiles back to them, in no way aggressive or cruel, she was curious about them more than anything!

There's a reason people might not want to bring Sophia into public too much!


{doom}

Keisha starts checking out the girl, and so the girl changes direction and starts heading toward the woman with the wicked staff and the cool dreads.  Lola's snapped answer is goes unnoticed.  At least, that girl doesn't notice it.

"What?" cracks across the distance between the truck and the sidewalk like a snap of thunder.  The owner of the voice, the stone-faced young man, pushes off from the side of the truck, meaty fists clenching.  The others drop off the back of the truck and start their approach, as well, coming up behind their friend.  Offering support?  Maybe?  Except that most of them are reaching into their pockets for something.

But, hey, questions were asked of them.

The girl with the jeweled necklace says to Keisha, "This kind," her smile turning wicked.

One of the young men, headed for Reese, says, "This is."

And the other girl says to Sophia, her eyes - pupil and iris both - completely black, "Because we need another girl or we won't be even."

In fact, all of their eyes are black.  And all but the one brandish knives or switchblades.


Still Waters

[[Per+PU!]]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 3, 5, 5) ( fail )


Reese Evans

[uh, heh.  Per 2 + PU 0, why not?]
Dice: 2 d10 TN8 (2, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]


Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

[Who has laughable perception...?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (4, 6, 9) ( success x 1 )


Lola Hawkes

[Perception 3 + Primal Urge 0]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 3) ( fail )


Lola Hawkes

Those wolves (and the kin of) that rallied around her contradicted her bust-out statement that no, none of them wanted to party at all.  They asked what kind of party, and the other Kinsman did so even with a wink. This earned him a sharp, brief scowl.  No chastizing, though, or chewing out in other way shape or form because there was a burst of vocal sound from the truck and those that were lingering behind approached now.

Lola glanced left and right, up either side of the sidewalk, then looked back to those that approached.  Their faces were stoney, save for the girl who had approached them first.  A knife was drawn, and it became apparent where this was headed.

Quick as a whip, Lola reached inside of her sweater and drew her revolver, thumb finding the familiar safety switch and turning it off.  Her upper lip was curled away from her teeth, and her dark eyes flashed something a little too mad for anyone without Rage to have any right to carry with them.

[Init die + 3 Dexterity + 3 Wits]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 1 )


{doom}

[It's hard to notice much beyond the fact that these people are IN YO FACE, wielding knives and looking for blood.]


Still Waters

She looks the girl over as she comes up, and now she IS checking her out.  Not for sexual reasons (well, not only, sometimes you can't help to notice those things), but in a potentially combative way.
When she gets that wicked, nasty grin and her eyes go black, Keisha smiles a bit.  "Oh, girlfriend.  You were so goddamn close to my type, too."

She has her weapon, and it's always at the ready.  And she falls back into a defensive stance, ready to lunge forward.

[[Init+5]]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )


{doom}

Stoneface dude: +5
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )


{doom}

Knife dude 1: +5
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )


{doom}

Knife dude 2: +5
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )


{doom}

Pendant girl: +7
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )


{doom}

Other girl: +6
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )


Treads-the-Ashen-Path

Sophia frowns a little when she catches sight of their darkened eyes. Was this real, or was this another nightmare? It was increasingly difficult to tell the older she got, it all seemed to blend together into a seemingly endless collection of memories. She did, however, remember hearing her pack sister, at least she thinks that was her, and that voice helped to anchor her to the world as she found herself pondering how to act, react, or if she was even going to act at all!

Though, she wasn't the only one present. There were kin here! That made this matter a little more delicate and Sophia came to realize she would be needed. If there was going to be a fight here, someone would have to wipe the blood off the several garou, and kin, about to get stabbed by all those cute little switchblades!

[Initiative! +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )


Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

And this, right here, is why Thomas just never bothers with parties.  Sometimes, maybe, they could be fun.  But then, there are all the parties with the creepy black-eyed, knife-wielding people and those are just not worth the effort.  (Sadly, he probably enjoys the creepy black-eyed knife-wielding maniac parties better than he would a more conventional one, but...that is neither here nor there.)

[Init + 5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )


Reese Evans

"Her first," Reese says, not with complete authority - it's a guess, based on the way her companions are reacting to her, the way she's taken the lead.  "Something to do with the necklace, I think - the 90s want it back."  And of course, the gesture is in the general direction of pendant-girl, the one they've been most interested in since they met this group of creepazoids.

And yes, there's that gun coming to hand, so comfortable and comforting just in its weight and cool that warms to his touch.

[+6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )


{doom}

Round One (holy shit why so many bad guys)
OG 16
Thomas 15
Stoney 14 [simultaneous w/KD2]
KD 2 14 [simultaneous w/Stoney]
Lola 13
Pendant 12
KD 1 10
Keisha 9 [attack simultaneous with Sophia]
Sophia 9 [attack simultaneous with Keisha]
Reese 8

declare in reverse, roll the other way!


Reese Evans

[Reflexive: safety off
1: Shoot to disable - pendant girl]


Still Waters

[[Rage Spent
1a: Iskakku Strike: Hand Smite (standard parry but at diff 8, if successfully parried than hand is dislocated)
1b: Called shot for that pendant
R1: Iskakku thrust strike]]


Treads-the-Ashen-Path

[Hmm... Sophia will... Hmm... Taunt, whomever tries to attack her! If not, then whomever tries to attack... Lola first! Gotta protect the Kins! :) ]


{doom}

KD1: Cut Reese!
Pendant girl: 1a/b: Cut Keisha!


Lola Hawkes

[Headshot on Stoney, spending WP]


{doom}

KD2: Cut Thomas!
Stoney: Punch Lola!


Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

[Spend 1 Rage
1. Dodge (for once!)
Rage: Punch K2 in his nose (WP - for extra fun-times)]


{doom}

[OG: Take a bullet for pendant! (dex+ath to get in the way)]


{doom}

[Stoney: Punch Lola!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )


{doom}

[dam: +1]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )


Lola Hawkes

[Soak]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )


{doom}

[KD2: Cut Thomas!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN4 (3, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )


Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

[Dodge]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )


{doom}

[dam: +2+1]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )


Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

[Soak]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (1, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )


Lola Hawkes

[Headshot: Dexterity 3 + Firearms 3, Diff 8 for Called Shot, spending WP]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 3, 3, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]


Lola Hawkes

[Damage: Weapon Base 6, + 2 suxx]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 6 )


{doom}

[one severely brain damaged teen is down for the count!]


{doom}

[Pendant Girl: 1a: Cut Keisha! -2]
Dice: 6 d10 TN4 (2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )


Still Waters

[[Hand Smite: Dex+Iskakku, -2 dice for split action]]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )


{doom}

[so close!  dam: +1+2]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 5 )


Still Waters

[[Soak]]
Dice: 2 d10 TN8 (4, 7) ( fail )


Still Waters

[[Rage to avoid being stunned]]


{doom}

[1b: and the other one *cringe*]
Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (3, 5, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 4 )


{doom}

[dam: +3+1]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 4, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )


Still Waters

[[SOAK?]]
Dice: 2 d10 TN8 (4, 8) ( success x 1 )


{doom}

[Knife Dude 1: Cut Reese!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN4 (1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )


{doom}

[dam: +3+1]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )


Reese Evans

[soak!]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 5) ( fail )


Treads-the-Ashen-Path

[Changing action! +1 Diff, to use a Gaia's breath on Kiesha! Spending a Gnosis so it gets an automatic 7 Successes, that heals the max of 4 Health Levels! Will also use the Pack network to communicate with the waking Kiesha "The Veil can be dealt with later, the battle cannot."]


Still Waters

[[Called shot for the pendant, diff 8, -3 dice for split, WP]]
Dice: 1 d10 TN8 (10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]


Still Waters

[{Damage]]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 6) ( success x 1 )


{doom}

The youths converge on the group of Gaians, intent on adding at least one of them to their group.  But the Gaians are not about to let a bunch of punk teens get the best of them.  Instantly, they spring into action, readying weapons, getting ready for the attack.  Luckily, no one needs to visit the ATM machine for at least a few more seconds, because...

The stone-faced youth, the one who'd taken offense at that cheeky young Lola for talking like that to his girl (all of their girl, they all form up ranks around her, or try to), swings for the Uktena.  He's a star athlete, you know, got a scholarship to take him to some out of state college, he and his girl are going to get out of this town, go away, do things, somewhere else.

A bullet to the brain immediately puts an end to that plan.  Or was it the necklace that put them on the path to a ruined future?  Either way, Lola points, aims, fires, and the boy's eyes roll back in his head.  Down he goes, a chunk of his brain and too much blood splattering the pavement.

One of the other boys goes for Thomas, it's so easy to get a knife, see, they sell them literally everywhere.  In gas stations, in gift shops, at public events.  Coloradoans and their love of knives, let me tell you, it is a strange yet sort of beautiful thing.  It was easy to get one, and not that hard to use it, either.  The boy cuts out, and he tries to slice at Thomas' midsection, but the wolf is too quick.  He curves his body, sucks in that gut, takes a knick to his forearm instead.  It'll be a scar later tonight, nothing more than a memory in a day, and that's if he doesn't choose to shift sometime.

The third boy goes for Reese.  He's a little stronger than his friend who went for Thomas, not so strong as the one who went for Lola.  A little quick.  A little deft.  He slashes out and that blade catches the kinsman across the chest.  Maybe he'd go for more, try to dig it into Reese's chest, but, well.  Things happen.  Plans change.

The girl with the pendant, the one who seems to be the leader, now.  She's a tough one.  Doesn't look like she should be.  Cute little Latina girl, shorter than Keisha, with thick dark curls that spill over her shoulders, not too strong looking.  Not too tough.  And yet, some power drives her, drives that knife that she, too, found (probably bought with the other kids, probably made a thing of it) so easily.  And so easily cut across the Garou with the staff, knicking an artery or just getting really lucky.  Blood spills from the wound, pours over Keisha's side and stains her tee shirt, but that's not the end of it.  She's cut again and down Keisha went, her thoughts of pain flickering out over the totemic link.  Somewhere not too far from here, their Alpha stirs.  But Sophia is there.  Sophia reaches into her pack and draws forth a gourd, cracks it over her prone sister's form, brings her back up again.

Up with her staff, swinging for her attacker's chest.  The chain that held that pendant, big, heavy, round, blood red even in the darkness as if it has its own glow, was surprisingly weak.  Keisha swings, a bit of link snags onto some rough chunk of that staff, and it snaps.

Instantly, the girl's eyes go from black to, well, they still look black because they're so brown, but they have a light of their own to them now.  She's back in her own mind, back to being an average teenaged girl.  An average teenaged girl with a bloody knife in her hand.

Behind her, the other girl starts screaming.  Her friend is on the ground, a hole punctured straight through his head, his lifesblood pooling beneath his skull.  His eyes stare up dully.  Somehow, by some miracle, he still lives.  When the other girl, the one who'd had the pendant turns and sees, she rushes to the boy's side.  Takes up his hand in hers.  And she cries and says his name over and over again.

One of the boys runs.  The other stands stock still.  The other girl takes off after her friend, screaming into the night, both of them ignoring the truck.

Meanwhile, there's activity over by that grocery store.  Shots fired out here, just past the farthest edge of proper civilization?  People will notice it.  It was just one, so people are curious.  Did a car backfire?  Was that...?  Was it maybe something else?  Most get in their cars and drive away.  A few are wandering closer.


{doom}

Thomas: 1L
Reese: 4L
Keisha: 3L
Stoney: 6L, never gonna go to college


Still Waters

She's still bleeding at the moment, a little woozy.  Once the pendant breaks, she plants the staff on the ground to lean on for support.  Now is not the time to shift and heal.  But she'll live.  And there's someone else who may not if she's not quick enough.

The others are running but there's still the boy that the girl is crouched over.  She lurches that way, dropping down.  "Hon, lemme look," she says to the frantic girl.  "It might not be that bad."

Hey, you've gotta try, right?  And she focuses herself, fights through the pain and moves like she's trying to look at the wound...but really, just trying to heal it with her hand on the exit wound.

[[Mother's Touch]]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 7, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]


Still Waters

[[Another die!]]
Dice: 1 d10 TN5 (10) ( success x 1 )


Lola Hawkes

With the pendant jerked from the Latina girl's neck, the mayhem of battle came to a sudden stop.  The attacks from the young people ceased all at once, and there was a moment of still where the fog of possession cleared from their minds and the air as well.  Then a scream punctuates the quiet, caused by the boy whose head was bleeding freely all over the pavement, thanks to a skilled and merciless shot from Lola's revolver.

A revolver that she has not lowered or returned the safety to yet.

Her shoes squeaked a little in the blood pool when she briskly took the three steps between herself and the boy's fallen body.  Their rubber soles gripped the pavement sufficiently, though, because Lola's stance did not shift or shake or waver when she reached down and wrapped her left hand full up in the dense black curls of the girl who was crying this boy's name over and over and holding his hand.

She wrenched the girl's head back, fingers tightly wrapped in her hair, and pressed the still-warm barrel of the revolver to the girl's cheekbone.  Lola's teeth were bared in a snarl as she leaned over the girl and half-shouted her demand.

"Where did you get the necklace, girl?  Spit it the fuck out."


Reese Evans

Reese is cut, and fairly badly.  It's not irreparable by any stretch, but it's enough that he's bleeding quite a bit, and it's not slowing and scabbing over anywhere near as quickly as a Garou's would . . . for obvious reasons.  So, while he's concerned about the necklace and the girl and the kid who's now highly unlikely to be accepting that college scholarship and Lola and Keisha and Sophia and all, but really his first concern is Thomas, to whom he turns immediately and never mind that he's been acting as if he barely knows the Galliard since this started.

It's a thing, okay?  It took him god knows how long to tell his family because he wasn't sure how they'd react.  A bunch o near strangers are a different beast.

But still, there he is in front of Thomas, reaching to check the cut on Thomas' arm, to make sure he's okay.  Yes, he knows that if something's wrong there are quick and relatively easy fixes for the Trueborn, but that doesn't stop the fretting.  "Are you okay?"  It's kind of funny, given the gash across Reese's chest.


Treads-the-Ashen-Path

She finds herself glancing around. The blackness drained from the eyes of the young people, with the darkness came a moment of clarity. These children were not fomori, but there was something affecting them nearby. This both saddened and concerned the Crescent moon, who was quick to approach the man laying on the ground with a bullet lodged in his brain.

She took the time to open his eyes and peek inside, to be sure the darkness was gone, before she decided to do her best to help him recover from the damage inflicted upon him. "He was here and then he was gone, curious..." She says as she begins the process of mending the young man's wounds.

[Using Mother's touch in order to ensure this one doesn't suffer too much!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (4, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )


Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

Thomas frowns a little at Reese waving off his hands, but a good half his attention is still on pendant girl and those immediately around her.  Keisha is helping one of their victims, acceptable.  Lola is-  His eyes widen a little, but really they have seconds here before they need to get the hell clear and they do need to know where that damned pendant came from.

"I'm fine.  You're good to get out of here?  Because in a minute we might be running.  Less than that even."  He reaches down to pick up the bits of the pendant.  "And then we'll figure out what the hell this is."


{doom}

Her boyfriend is bleeding out all over the pavement, the light leaving his staring eyes, and all this girl wants to do is, well, she doesn't know.  She's too wracked with grief, both for what she sees and what it means and what will surely come soon.

So when Keisha stumbles over she barely even registers it, just keeps holding that hand while the tears pour down over her heart-shaped cheeks.  And they continue to do so when she finds a hand tearing at her hair, yanking her head back.  Someone is screaming in her face and all she can do is start to wail.
"No!" over and over, sometimes drawn out, sometimes choked off.

"We found it," is her answer finally, from the boy who stayed.  Two of his friends are gone, one of them's dying (isn't he?  That chick just touched him and the boy sighed and closed his eyes, and his breathing normalized.) and the other's crying.  It's too late to run now, he thinks, so might as well fess up.

And then, "You folks need help?" someone calls from the direction of the parking lot of the grocery store, drawn by the shot, the activity, and the ensuing shouts.

It's not really a Veil breach, they're all human-looking, but most of them have blood on them in some form or another.  Either someone needs to start fast-talking, or the Gaians need to follow Thomas' suggestion and start running.


{doom}

[PS: Kid's all healed!]


Lola Hawkes

The girl was useless, Lola decided.  She just continued to cry and beg her no.  You see, Lola didn't grow up around normal humans-- she was raised up around Kinfolk and Garou.  They were all made of significantly tougher stuff than human teenage girls.  So she had expected to scare the piss out of the girl, but that she would at least have enough preservation sense about her to cough up the information.

Luckily, one of the boys that stayed behind did instead.  Lola's eyes cut to him sharply, then over her shoulder toward the call of someone asking if they needed help.  A low curse was spat out in Spanish, and Lola tucked the gun into its holster and zipped her hoodie back up so the zipper hovered in front of the swell of her chest, pressed tight against the garments she was wearing.  She straightened up, walked a few steps toward the boy that spoke, but kept her hands out and near her sides, and allowed enough distance that he wouldn't have to be afraid she was going to grab onto him too.

"Found it where?," she asked, and snapped quickly afterwards:  "Quick, now.  It's important."


Still Waters

There's a moment where Keisha is about ready to grab that gun out of Lola's hand and snap at her for using that kind of tactic.  But she's got more important things to deal with and so she shuts it out because--well, because she has to in order to save the boy.  And Sophia comes to help and between the two of them, that guy may get his college tuition after all.

"Ease up just a bit, 'kay?" she says to Lola, gritting her teeth and getting to her feet.  It's rather snappish, and when someone approaches to see guns aimed at kids and one laying on the ground...now they look like the aggressors.  Just great.

~totem~ "Sophia, please don't say anything right now.  Just promise me."

So Keisha does what Keisha does best (besides her staff-fighting); she puts on her best smile and waves a hand to the approaching guy, activating one other gift from the Goddess: her Persuasion skills.
"Hey...everyone's okay.  Just an argument, things got heated for a minute, but we're good, I promise.  Go do your thing, okay?  Nothing to worry about."

[[Persuasion!  3rd WP]]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]


Reese Evans

The frown draws Reese up short and abrupt, much as running into a glass wall might and with about as much hilarity - his hands probably don't get to the Galliard at all, and so he's left looking pretty silly for a moment before he shrugs, nods.

"I'm fine.  Just a scratch."  It's not, mind, but he's hardly going to admit it now - instead, he calls out, "We're alright, just helping these kids with their car.  Engine backfire, you know, and a chick-fight."  He shrugs, rolls his eyes as if to say 'what're you gonna do' and stays well out of range of Lola, who he knows is pretty bad ass from things he's heard.

[Manip + Sub]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (2, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) [WP]


Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea

Thomas glances at Keisha dealing with people, then at Reese, and there is a sudden smile because...Reese is brilliant.  And because...you know, reasons.  

Which would be the same reasons he turns a look on Sophia that is only about half a step short of a command about healing someone that they actually do care about (like their kinfolk who are bleeding!) instead of random, inconsequential people who attacked them.


Treads-the-Ashen-Path

The boy's survival wasn't a huge concern, though she preferred not to have his death on her hands. So when the matter was settled she simply stood up and looked in the direction of the one asking if they needed any help. She smiled slightly and allowed Reese to handle the matter. Right now she found herself more interested in the pendant.


{doom}

Lola releases the girl to continue her sobs, which end shortly when the boy on the ground, further healed by Sophia's touch, opens his eyes and blinks around him.  "What...happened?"

Between them, Keisha and Reese convince the Good Samaritan that everything's fine, nothing to see here, there are not the droids you're looking for.  He sort of wavers, but Reese has such confidence and Keisha seems so nice, that has to be the truth.  He wanders back over to his car to get his groceries home.

The Uktena kinswoman goes after the boy next, letting this one know by stance if not by words that she's not going to try and grab him or hurt him.  He shrugs.  "I dunno, Jessie found it," he glances back in the direction the other two had taken off into.  "Said she found it in the trash or something."

Except she didn't.  This pendant, when they examine it further, contains within it a spirit of memory, one that has been trapped inside for a long long time.  Longer than any spirit could be expected to stay within an object.  It was angry, and it made all those around it angry, and it turned those children on each other at the same time that it stole their memories becuase fucking teenagers up to no good playing their music too loud and being a general nuisance.

At some point the teens climb into their truck and drive away, and they know because the Garou and the Kin know how to persuade fragile, traumatized teenagers not to go talking about what happened tonight.

And the Garou and the Kin continue their patrols, because the night is young, and there are places yet to discover before their sweep is through.


Still Waters

And once everyone is gone so no one sees it, Keisha turns to Reese and lays her hand on his chest, eyes shutting and will focusing to heal the knife wound.  Her own can be handled by finding an alley and changing form.

[[Mother's Touch, WP 4!]]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 4) ( fail )


Still Waters

[[Oops, forgot the WP point spending check box]]

Curling Smoke - 9.25.2013 [Hector]

Lola Hawkes

A week and a half has passed since the floods, the fights, and the reconciling.  Since Lola and Hector became an item.  Between then and now, he has made the habit of sticking around the territory, because the City didn't need them so much anymore, and because he had a Kinswoman and bed to keep him warm at night these days.  The yard space at the back of the house had been transformed, posts and a fence put up and the earth turned and churned to create a considerably sized garden.  Lola explained that she didn't want to have to run into the suburban grocery stores nearly as frequently anymore, so she would make what she could off the land instead.  She was going to look into what seeds you were supposed to plant in the autumn in order to harvest the next year.

The rains had continued, off and on again, and today was another cold, wet, windy day.  The Roxborough State Park had just officially been reopened to the public that day, although not all trails were accessable at this time.  The flood waters at the dip of the road leading out to The Homestead hadn't had a chance to recede entirely yet, so Lola hasn't traveled off the property in some time.  She's simply stuck to her patrols, worked on clearing the land as well as she could after the flood waters had ripped through the area, and worked on her garden project.

It was a simple life, and she seemed relatively content with it.

That would only last for so long, though, because she would soon be itching for news of the War.

Tonight Hector had come back from whatever business he had been attending to, and Lola suggested that they go hang out on the porch.  Which was code for Let's get high.

And they did.  Fast-forward to them on the porch together, in the pair of wooden rocking chairs with the small table between them.  The mason jar that hosted her modest kit of pipe, grinder, and stash was open on that table, and the pipe was being passed back to Hector after Lola's first pull.  When the little glass pipe was relinquished from her possession, she leaned back in the chair, holding the smoke in her lungs for a dozen seconds before letting it out in a dense plume of white.  She tucked her hands into the stomach pocket of the hoodie she was wearing and rocked herself lightly with the toe of her boot.

"I saw Erich today," she commented, initiating the conversation.  "He said that his Kinswoman, that older severe looking lady from last time, that she has news that we all need to hear.  He's called a Warmoot, and it's this Friday evening."

Hector Ghosh

Before he started spending his nights here in Lola's bed the Galliard could not truthfully claim to have a schedule. If anything he had adapted to life in the city without a safe place to crash and was used to bouncing from public place to public place and moving whenever someone caught him filching unattended food or sleeping someplace he shouldn't have been. The university library was a fabulous place to live because no one noticed if he fell asleep. Students fell asleep in the middle of reading all the time.

No chain restaurants or massive hotels or 24-hour university libraries out here by the park and no need for them anyway. For the first several days his nerves jangled for the fullness of the moon and then came the Moot and the waning of it and he seemed to have an easier time adhering to her schedule. It meant abandoning the urban primitive aesthetic to which he was not accustomed nor was he fond.

He showers every day now. Sometimes twice a day. Hasn't shaved his face but he also isn't burning through his Rage just to keep himself calm. Doesn't smell like dried sweat and old blood half the time she sees him anymore. This arrangement turned out to be a vast improvement for him.

They're sat out on the porch and the weather is crummy but he's not wearing anything on his feet. Has on a pair of jeans she hasn't seen before and several layers to keep out the chill. The blazer he's wearing as a jacket is wrinkled to Hell and back but it looks warm.

He accepts the pipe when it comes to him and he watches her face as she speaks of running into Erich at the Sept. Draws that first hit into his mouth and sucks it back up through his nostrils. Muscle memory and a private joke. She'd teased him for that trick once. He takes a second deeper hit before he passes it back. He knows her tolerance is lower than his.

"Maybe she's got more information than the Elders have. They shut us down--" Us. The Fosterns and Cliaths. "--when we brought up scouting for Beloved Horror at the Moot. They're starting to act just as weird as the Cold Crescent Elders did, man, you wanna hear a story?"

Does she wanna hear a story. Is water wet?

"Okay, so check it: last-last Moot the Master of Rites from Forgotten Questions was all THEY HAVE FAILED THEY WILL BE DEALT WITH about the Guardians at the Spire Sept, right? And everybody was like HOLY SHIT? So--" He starts ticking off with his fingers. "--the Master of Rites, the Keeper of the Land, and this old-old Gaian Athro go missing. So Keisha and Erich go to talk to these two Forgotten Questions Warders who are hanging around the Broadway building. Just out of curiosity, where'd they go, a little transparency would be nice, you know."

Sigh. Huge hit off the pipe.

"None of our business."

Lola Hawkes

"Huh."

This is all that he gets as a reaction from Lola when he tells the story of what's going on at Cold Crescent.  High ranking members of the Sept were going missing, because at the last Moot at Forgotten Questions, the Rural Elders had roared their outrage and insisted that where Cold Crescent had failed, it would be addressed and 'dealt with'.  Naturally, Lola doesn't seem shocked or bothered by this.  As a matter of fact, when she finally went on to comment, she confirmed her support.

"Well, they fucked up."  This was stated simply, matter-of-fact in tone and delivery alike.  "Someone gets knowingly kidnapped by a Black Spiral Dancer pack, and then when he shows up out of nowhere no one's suspicious enough to really look into the matter?  They just let him back in, put him in a sick bed and go about their day just glad that his face returned?  They did that to themselves, it was a rookie mistake and everyone suffered for it."  She reached across, accepted the pipe and lighter, but simply cradled it in her hand for the moment, not rushing forward to the next hit and instead choosing to gauge where the first one got her.

"I will say, though, I don't approve of the cloak-and-dagger method to remedying the situation that they're taking.  If you're gonna punish someone for their failings, it should be public.  There should be a ceremony, everyone should gather round and see their shame and shortcomings and learn from that shit."  Her nostrils flared in a moment of anger, but that anger didn't go too far.  "Wish I could say that going and talking to those Warders would do any good, but I'll tell ya know it won't.  They aren't listening to those two-- Keisha and Erich, so there's no reason they'd listen to you or me."

Her thumb tapped thoughtfully against the curved glass in her hand, and she resumed that slow toe-driven rock in her chair.

"Has anyone gone looking for the Council members that went missing?  Like, scoped out Forgotten Questions and its territory to see if they're in holding someplace there?"

Hector Ghosh

"It'd be hard to pull off without drawing mad attention to yourself."

The edge that's with him all the time now that he does nothing to dampen his nature has softened with the cannabis and Hector sits back in his chair. Still watchful for the gloom hung over everything with the temperature dropping rapid from the height it attained during the day. Not a fog so much as a humidity in the air born of all the water leaving the land sodden so long after the torrential rains moved on.

"You know? They've got all these rites going to tell if somebody's someplace they aren't supposed to be and even if we did find where they're holding them..."

He's staring off into the distance as if he can see the heart of the Caern from where they sit. In his mind he can. The minds of those whose memories hold tight to places and people and the collision of them in time threaten to let them spill forth without warning but Hector finds solace in knowing once he's told a story that it passes on to others as if they themselves were there. As - if - he ages he will learn to tell the tales of comrades fallen in his presence without letting his grief swarm him each time he thinks of it.

"I wouldn't be surprised if they took them out back and shot them."

Lola Hawkes

"That's a good point."

She said, apparently to most of what Hector had to say.  For a moment they sat, quiet on the porch, watching the sky go gray and the world go damp, looking off toward the Caern together.  If they were humans, this could be a window fifty years into the future -- an old and gray couple, rocking together on the front porch of their rural home, watching the weather and days go by.

They weren't human, though, even if Lola was some close approximation to that.  She may have the opportunity to grow old and gray (although at her pace, it seemed unlikely, she had too much War in her heart and charged forth into battles unquestioningly far too often), but Hector certainly would not.  He was a Garou, and he was probably going to burn out young.  Lola's mother had survived into her fifties, but that age was the human equivalent of being in your mid nineties.  It happened, but not very often.  If they were fortunate, and if Hector was some perfect balance of smart and lucky both, he might get to be middle-aged one day.

For now, though, they're both in their early twenties not questioning what the next decade will bring for them.  Lola finally lifts the pipe and snaps life from the lighter.

In.  Hold.  Out.

Through the plume of smoke, from unpainted lips and white teeth, she said:

"I wouldn't be too shocked if they were executed either.  It was a big fuck-up.  But that's a hell of a waste of manpower.  I mean, every Garou's precious, right?  Numbers keep falling, need to repopulate..."  She gestured with a 'so-on-and-so-forth' twirl of her hand and set the pipe and lighter both back down on the table.  "If we're just taking high-ranked Garou to the chopping block behind closed doors.... That's a problem.  I support Forgotten Questions, it's my Sept, but if it turns out that's what they're really up to then there's gonna be trouble-- like, a big political shit-storm and the possibility of an uprising.

"I sure as hell hope it doesn't hit that point, though.  That shit sounds exhausting."

Hector Ghosh

The only task more difficult for a Galliard than memorizing the entirety of the Silver Record is surviving to the age of 75. If not for the war and the Glory come from living so long there is the weight and the burden of memory. Given that he has four years beneath his belt and was fostered by an Athro of dubious sanity and been to places not only in this world but in the Umbra that he can only attempt to describe to others and has not yet called upon his Rage to save him the odds are good that he may at least live long enough to see 25.

But Hector doesn't think that far ahead. Consequences are not anything he ever really bothers himself with. Lola knows if he isn't impulsive then he is at least intelligent enough to skate by when his ability to control his mouth or his hands fail him. Doesn't bother with consequences and doesn't bother with goals. It didn't occur to him until recently that he ought to start thinking of himself as leading a pack and not just keeping the seat warm for when it's alpha came back.

It would be nice to imagine a future where they could while away their twilight years sat out here knowing that the land would survive for Lola had descendants to care for it but Hector still wakes up with the sun some mornings and an arm draped over her hip or his head on her chest as if he's surprised to find himself in bed with her. Like he's waiting for her to regain her senses and kick him back into the other room. The joked-about grandchildren may yet be a reality but his sustained presence in Lola's life is not at all assured. Never earned a scar but that doesn't mean he's invincible.

That shit sounds exhausting.

"My mentor's pack had a Philodox in it," he says. Looks over at her now that the pipe is back on the table and reaches out to run his fingers through her hair like to draw strength from her as he tells whatever story he's about to tell. "Fostern, name was Broken Dawn. Dude hated getting stuck with cub-sitting duty but deep down he totally thought I was going to grow up and be a huge badass. Woke me up when it was still dark one morning all--" His voice goes drawling gravel, pitched like one who grew up speaking the Navajo tongue. "--'Get up, whelp, today you see what happens to traitors.'" Drops the voice. "I'm seventeen, just failed my first Rite of Passage, don't know what the hell's going on, and here's Broken Dawn's hauling me through the Caern at the Sept of the Painted Sands just about by the arm. He tried explaining the rite to me before we got there but that didn't do any good."

His ring-heavy hand leaves Lola's hair so he can pick up the pipe. Tamps down the ashes atop the buried grass but doesn't light it yet.

"Anyway, we rock up to this scarred patch of rock in the heart of the Caern. Whole Sept's just standing around like they're at a funeral or something. My mentor, Blood-on-the-Leaves, was the Sept's ritesmaster. He and four other Garou have this Adren trickster chained up and they're just dragging him along. They get him to the middle of this gnarly-looking rock and Blood-on-the-Leaves opens his own palm up with this arrowhead and starts reciting all the things this poor bastard did."

Here he lights the pipe and takes a killing drag off of it. Holds onto the smoke until he's sure he's got the image down right and then he lets go the breath.

"Apparently he'd been seduced by a Black Spiral Dancer. Like it wasn't bad enough that he was a Charach. Gave away the Sept's position to her Hive. Don't know what that was supposed to accomplish but her entire pack was wiped out and here he was. And Blood-on-the-Leaves was telling the whole story only he was... crying and screaming it at him, and smearing his blood all over the trickster's face while he was doing it, and the blood and his tears were dropping onto the rock, and I don't know exactly what happened but the rock started cutting him. Wasn't just the rock. When they let go of the chains so he could run the other four chased after him in their war forms and you could just see the sand and the desert grass eating up his feet. He ended up falling down not that far away and just..."

Hector blows out a breath and runs his hand down his face and comes back to the present.

"It is exhausting. Maybe they'll end up having a public punishment rite later and they're just keeping them for now. I really don't know."

Lola Hawkes

While she didn't expect that the day would come soon that she or Hector would decide they were finished sharing a bed, that didn't mean that Lola wasn't just a little surprised each morning when she'd wake up with Hector wrapped about her with an arm keeping her close, or resting at her side with his head on her chest and her arm about his shoulders.  The surprise was a pleasant thing, rest assured, but she would feel the occasional twinge of uncertainty.  Having someone around to touch, to relax with, to share a bed and your body with... this was all foreign to Lola, and it felt too good to be true.  Oh sure, she knew there was nothing wrong with it.  They were from the same tribe and everything, so they didn't even need to worry about tiptoeing around age-old issues of tribal possession.  For a change of pace, a Kinfolk and Garou were doing what they were supposed to do.

But when he would wake and greet her with a squeeze, and when she would watch him stretch his way into consciousness and rise from her bed, uncertainty would be pushed aside.

Why be so hung up what was down the road?  Their people lived in the fast lane anyways.

Hector had a story to tell, and he reached over to touch her hair, which was left down to hang about her back and shoulders as it so often was.  Lola flashed a brief smile to him and her chin lifted, angled to answer the affectionate touch, but relaxed and settled into her chair to hear the story he had to tell.  When his hand leaves her hair, after fingers ran through it until that portion was smooth and tangle-free, she brought the heels of her boots up onto the very edge of her chair and wrapped her arms around her knees.  This pulled her legs to her torso and helped to keep warm and comfortable while breathing the crisp, damp autumn air.

When he finished, she was bobbing her head a little to keep enough momentum for her chair to rock.  This was a thoughtless motion, she was staring out to their left and into the distance of her property.  Though her eyes suggested she had gone elsewhere, the fact that she issued a low, impressed whistle confirmed that she'd been listening.

"That's fucked up.  But then, so is betraying your Caern to a Black Spiral Dancing piece of ass, so..."  And she shrugged.  The story was impressive, the rite sounded like it would have been horrific to witness, but she wouldn't show sympathy to Hector for having been forced to see it.  Things like this built Garou into what they are, and she would never wish experience away from one of them.

"That's just the problem, though, isn't it?  No one really knows.  I don't think it's the fact that punishment's being dealt that's bothering people-- it's the secrecy behind it that makes it worse.  I'm certain that the Forgotten Questions elders have their reasons...," and her nose and between her eyebrows scrunched up in displeasure for what she confessed next, "...I just don't trust that they're good reasons."

Hector Ghosh

And she knows by now that Hector does not want nor would he know how to react to sympathy. Every experience he has becomes an adventure by virtue of the fact that it becomes a fantastic story by the time he's done with it. Told right he could make the death of his pack sound amazing. They fell taking down two Banes that aimed to latch onto Garou hosts and drag them down into a fate worse than death. Nothing more honorable or true than that.

He was young and had not yet proven himself but Lola can glean from his telling of the story, imperfect as it is, that it shaped him. It spoke of the level of immersion he experienced in a culture foreign to him. Four years ago he was failing out of high school because his personality took a hard turn left and his parents and his teachers and his friends lost their grip on him.

Now he belongs to a world that reveres his Rage and makes use of his energy and his propensity for showmanship. He sits next to a kinswoman who loves him and the land is safe and he is hazy but not stupid. Nothing in this life now that he would exchange for anything in his past occurring differently.

She doesn't trust that the reasons the elders have for withholding their actions are good reasons. Hector has since set down the spent glass pipe and the light. His hand is free and he reaches out to run it up the back of her hand, up her forearm, up up to her shoulder and then back down again. Loose grip on her wrist that she might take his hand if she wants to turn her palm towards his.

"Maybe it's not as bad as all that. You know? Like maybe the lawgivers are working them over so they can figure out what to do. That stuff takes time. It'll be alright. If we can't trust the people guarding the Caern we've got a huge problem." A beat. "Wow, I'm stoned. That made no sense."

Lola Hawkes

His hand ran up her arm and back down again to rest at her wrist, and it's not surprising to find that she endorses the end goal.  Her fingers lace through his and turn his arm so that the back of his hand is facing the table, the back of hers pointed upward.  Her other hand reached back to tug the hood of her sweater up over her head, and immediately retreated into the pocket at her stomach.

He voiced a thought, then contradicted it by saying he made no sense.  Lola laughed, more than she would have were she sober, certainly, but did not burst into uncontrollable giggles.  Lola preferred to know where her stopping point was and stick to that-- flying too high through the night wasn't something that happened often with her.

"I think it made sense.  I'm just hoping that you're right, and that we don't have a huge problem on our hands after all.  Y'know, as if Beloved Horror isn't bad enough on its own."

She's content to be quiet with him for a minute or two.  Her rocking slowed, legs fell back away from her torso and feet found the floor once more.  The night somehow found a way to grow colder within that time, as the wind kicked up and shifted directions so it was blowing at them from their right side, promising to carry more damp weather to the land through the evening hours.

"....Wanna wrap this up out here and come inside with me to fix dinner?"

Hector Ghosh

When Lola laughs he grins slow and humbly pleased with himself and squeezes her hand for the chill he finds in it. Packed so long as he was with tricksters his sense of humor has remained an attribute near as strong as his combat prowess but he still seems relieved to find he can make her laugh. So many of their conversations hinge on heavy things and that is unlikely to change. Nothing they can do about it either. Balance in the universe hinges on the Triat and so long as they fight to keep the Wyrm at bay their conversations will go like that.

But she heard the truth in the midst of his consciousness stream. As much as he knows and as much as he has seen in his life Lola knows the Nation and the potential depth of their betrayal better than he can. She has heard more stories and seen the workings of the Sept from a different and more difficult angle. He trusts her and he trusts her judgment and he trusts her input.

The wind picks up and Hector does not react to it but Lola is hunkered down inside her sweatshirt. She hasn't got Rage to burn against the chill.

"Yes," he says to fixing dinner. Unintentional enthusiasm from someone with a fast metabolism and no natural defenses against the munchies. He picks up the pipe without letting go her hand and shakes it out over the edge of the porch. Pockets it so he can properly clean it out inside and follows her inside. "I could eat an entire cow right now."

And it must be a sign of some semblance of peace with his past and the losses he's suffered one stacked atop the other but he does not joke about his parents as he used to as a younger Galliard. No point bringing them up when they're as far gone from him in California as Willow or Glen in their own separate Homelands, as Corey gone back to Houston. The impulse doesn't even come to him with her fingers entwined with his and the Sept of Forgotten Questions so near and food and shelter under the roof. His surviving packsister and their new packbrother a shout away through their totem.

Hector does what he can to help in the kitchen. Possessing of knowledge and technical skill but now amused by everything and moving slow and distracted by her hips and her hair. Easily distracted by something to chop or something to stir or something to sauté on the stove. At the end of the night when they've cleaned and washed up and the rain has started pouring down again he waits until she's climbed between the sheets before he sheds his human clothes and then he cuts the light and follows her.

Their lives are so short and uncertain. If never comes the morning when they awaken close to each other and feel comfort instead of relief or surprise then that's just as well. They still have the nights before all the mornings they don't.

Gravity with Gravity - 9.20.2013 [Tamsin]

Lola Hawkes

"So, have you heard the news?"

It was eleven in the morning, on a Friday, and the women were in what would constitute the backyard of the house on a small hill that the Hawkes family (pop. 1) owned and lived in.  For the past hour they've been tilling up dirt in a specified square area, hacking at the earth with hoes and earth tillers.  The day was fair, the skies a bright blue and the sun warming the earth to a comfortable low-seventies range.  The leaves on the trees were working on turning, and the smell of autumn had been in the air earlier today while the world was still waking up.  Today, when Tamsin had come up, summoned for a visit and promised lunch, Lola had a project in progress-- she was making a garden.

Not for flowers or anything so frivolous, but a significant amount of land to grow food.

She'd said she was tired of needing to rely on the small suburban towns and their shitty little grocery stores so heavily.

Lola had asked the question with a solid 'thunk!' of her tilling fork in the ground.  The lawn tool was left there, and the Hispanic-Native woman straightened up and wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her glove.  She was dressed in jeans and dirty gray-once-white sneakers and a black tank top, with her hair tied back out of her face with a ponytail and bandana for good measure.  Those gloves were taken off and tucked into her back pocket for the moment, and she took a break to rub at her sore hands.  She was taking a break for a second, and squinting through the sun to look over at Tamsin.

'The News' that she was referring to could be any number of things that Hector may or may not have told Tamsin, if they've spoken at all this week.  Or Tamsin might not have any idea at all, if Hector hasn't been feeling the need to share tales about the Kinswoman with his packmate recently.

Whatever it was the Fianna was or wasn't expecting to hear, the answer was:

"I saw Corey."

Tamsin Hall

Lola was making a garden and Tamsin, feeling that she should, offered to help, as soon as she saw what was going on. Tamsin did not know how to help, a fact which became very obvious very quickly. Gardening is not something she's done much of, outside of some lima beans in ziplock baggies for a science project back in whatever grade, and she vaguely recalls overwatering some some marigolds once. There was a real-working farm she went to on field trip, though she snuck away to play in the woods. She tried to grow carrots once by taking carrots out of the refrigerator and planting them in a pot, so she could work on her own personal version of Hobbiton- she needed a Samwise.

All to say: Tamsin required direction after her offer to help, but sticking metal things into the dirt and churning it was easy enough to learn. There was something hypnotic about metal into dirt metal into dirt metal into-

News, Lola says, and Tamsin looks up, her muddy eyes touched by a note of inquisition, and then she says, I saw Corey, and Tamsin's forehead crinkles, and THEN Tamsin squeezes her hoe hard enough to gouge her palms with splinters, if there were any splinters, knuckles sharp and white, and she says, eloquent as only Fianna can, "What? Here?"

Lola Hawkes

Tamsin had, of course, offered to help.  She might suspect that this was Lola's plan all along.  If you were to ask the Kinswoman, she'd say that she would've had Tamsin up for lunch regardless but the timing sure did work out nice.

When Lola had stopped and rubbed at her hands and mentioned the alpha that ran from his pack, the Fianna, understandably, reacted negatively.  Her expression change was observed, but not shrank away from.  Lola knew Tamsin well enough, and didn't worry about harsh outbursts from her-- not in her direction, anyways.  She and the Fianna had never had any real reason to come to disagreements before, so even when carrying a sensitive subject into conversation she did not fear the Child of Stag's ire.

"No, no, not here.  I'll tell ya a story."  She'd stop massaging her own hands and nod her head toward the iron-wrought patio table that sat up on the back porch.  There were four chairs circling the piece of furniture, and a pair of glasses along with a pitcher of water.  The ice had melted considerably since she brought the pitcher out, but there was still enough present that the drink would be cold.  Lola'd toss the lukewarm water from her own glass out into the yard, then refill it with colder stuff.  The same courtesy would be given to the glass Tamsin had drank from before.

"I was worried about Hector and whatever unresolved stress he was holding onto from what happened up in Winnipeg.  A lot of it seemed to be centered around Corey and how he left you guys.  So I decided I was gonna talk to him, see what his side of the story is.  Thought it might help bring some pieces together, and maybe if I knew more about what happened the more I could help, you know?

"So I give him a call-- this was a week and a half ago mind, last Wednesday.  He says he doesn't wanna talk about it on the phone, so I tell him 'Fine, where are you?'.  He says he's back in Houston, but wants to meet in Vegas."  Lola rolled her eyes and took a deep drink from her water glass.  "I guess he had to go out that way to help his cousin with some shit.  So I hopped a flight and met up with him the next day."

Tamsin Hall

The Fianna-girl's fingers knot more forever-firm firm-forever just-stay-here on the hoe. Not Here, Lola says, but I'll tell ya a story, those words are a charm for the wolf. Her mouth is an unhappy line and her jaw is tight shut on a snap, like she could chew the topic and Corey out've the air, and she flicks a glance to the side, and then flicks a glance to the other side, and then drags the hoe over to the porch but she doesn't actually take a seat.

Leans and listens, agitated, simmering-seething galliard-girl, conflicted and blank with it. Tamsin's not somebody who fidgets with nervous energy unless she's about to perform, so she unwraps her hands from the hoe and instead picks a splinter out of her palm, teasing wood out from the just-translucent flesh. The way it hurts you'd never think she's taken claws down her side and across her arm and been fine there-after, that they'd leave no mark but this stupid splinter would actually get in there and hurt. Pinkblood wells.

Lola Hawkes

Lola was well aware of the splinter that Tamsin'd put in her hand when she squeezed the wooden handle of the hoe she was working with.  The motion had been sudden, sharp, careless, and the tool was old and temperamental, so of course she got a splinter.  She watched her ease the sliver of wood out of her hand, but made no motion to fuss or offer assistance.  She wouldn't go to fetch rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide from the bathroom inside, because she knew full well that her Wolf Cousins dealt with significantly worse on a weekly basis.  If a Garou couldn't handle a splinter, they may as well be considered a Cub all over again.

Tamsin's silence didn't affect Lola too heavily.  She probably anticipated it, matter of fact.  She simply allowed enough time for the Galliard to interject, and when no such statement came she pressed on.

"I spent a night down there-- we split a room, and I was back on my way the next day."

There's a tick of the clock, and Lola's gaze sharpens on Tamsin to some moderate degree.  This wasn't the kind of stare that you place on someone when you're trying to put them in the hot seat or scold them or force a reaction from them.  It simply reflected gravity.

"He told me what happened at the Gathering.  And what happened after."

Tamsin Hall

Tamsin has a bad habit. The bad habit is chewing on the inside of her mouth. The taste of blood is iron-tang, and iron's poison to the fay, and the Fianna have blood that supposedly mingles with the blood of the fairies, but don't call them that, so what does that mean? Who knows? The taste of blood is iron, and surely Lola did anticipate the galliard's silence -- Tamsin (was very much a Waning galliard, born as the moon's light was diminishing) was perfectly capable of listening until a story was finished without interjecting, no matter how her moods lashed at her. 

So. Gravity is met with gravity. Gravity to grind bones to make bread, simmering rage leashed but of course it's leashed. Tamsin has control of herself, in spite of what you hear about Fianna. Tamsin was born human and raised human and she knows her own mind.

"Oh, did he?" Tamsin sounds passionless. "What'd he say?"

Lola Hawkes

Tamsin was gnawing away at the inside of her mouth.  Her tone of voice was flat, her expression unamused, pissed off and controlled.  Rage was a low roll of waves under the surface of the Fianna's skin, but Lola didn't fret or fear for it.  She stood comfortably on her own property, like a wolf in its territory, with her feet spread apart and planted at the edge of the back porch.  Her left arm looped over her stomach, and the right hand continued to hold the glass of water.

"In short, that those racist-ass Wendigo up there wouldn't allow you to do the Gathering-- barely allowed him and you to be there for the Gatherings at all.  That Hector had to put his brown face on and coax them into letting you be there in the first place."  There's clear disdain in her voice when she speaks of the Little Brother tribe.  Clearly, racism is something that strikes the flint of aggravation within her more easily than other topics.  Specifically here, to find that that tribe that was supposed to be such a proud representation of the Garou of the Americas before the Great Migration, was going to split a pack up over something as petty as the color of skin that their guests wore.

"Said that Hector was supposed to do the Gathering, but was M.I.A., and when he came back they fought-- hard."

Another drink of water, and Lola twisted at the waist to reach back and set the glass on the edge of the patio table without needing to move her feet.

"And that he ain't coming back unless he abso-fucking-lutely has to."

Tamsin Hall

"Ha." Not a laugh: more a bark. "Uh. There was and is no power in all of Creation that'd keep me -- us -- from our own packmates' Gathering, so Corey overstated the need for 'coaxing.' Hector can't talk his way through an open door. If he had to do that instead of walking, he'd be stuck in one spot forever. So. Yeah. They were assholes though who sure as fuck needed to be reminded that the Garou are something more n' location and these skins." 

This: is clearly difficult for Tamsin to say because each word is fluid-bitten-out-seething-angry-furious-cool, and she takes a step back from the Uktena kinswoman, and gives herself over to melancholy so completely, draws her eyebrows so fiercely together, that her head hurts and stabs with migraine. Fianna are dramatic.

See, she looks so hurt. Deer-in-headlights hurt. Slapped-child hurt. A blink, and it's gone.

"Ha," again, this time far more sardonic. The kind of ha that's a prelude to bitter-seed taste, cracked teeth. She sounds scornful, "Like there's anything for him to come back to. Dudes are such arrogant fucks." 

Waver like a warp in glass, another step back, Tamsin looks not at her shoes and not at Lola but at Lola's house, then says after an uneven pause, changing the trajectory of her movement (away, away from the kinswoman) toward the house instead of toward the open fields, lengthening her stride so she gets to the door in one-two, and maybe her reflection shivers across glass like a promise, or maybe the gray-blur of dusty screen-door and old wood set off her sudden bloodlessness, her dark hair, deep-set eyes, bloody lips, "Um, bathroom. Gotta use it."

Lola Hawkes

Lola's eyes followed after Tamsin's face as the expressions shift drastically across it.

They then follow the younger, smaller woman's body as it traveled backward at first, away, and then forward and cutting toward the backdoor instead.

"You know where it is...," Lola said slowly as Tamsin excused herself to use the bathroom.  Her tone and body language were a mite suspicious, but mostly just acutely aware.  She was processing Tamsin's response to having the topic of her Pack as it used to be and the days in which it tore itself asunder.  Perhaps she was even judging it a little.  Whatever it was, she wouldn't come out and say, though. Instead she just huffed, re-bound her hair in a ponytail whose end was left stuck in the elastic, thus keeping her heavy black hair off her neck and shoulders entirely, and killed her glass of water before continuing to work on the garden.

When (if) Tamsin comes back out, Lola is standing with her back to the house, fists on her hips, looking at the churned up squares of dirt and gauging how many posts she would need for a fence, based on how far apart she would want them to be.

If (when) Tamsin comes back out, Lola hears the door and says over her shoulder without moving her eyes to follow her words.

"Look, if that subject's not one that you can talk about, that's just fine Tamsin.  We can find somethin' else to discuss.  Like the Spire Sept and Beloved Horror and Times Gone By and Hector's Well-being and How's Nora and Family Doing.  Ya just have to say so is all, don't go hiding away 'cause you can't talk about something yet."

Tamsin Hall

When the Fianna-girl returns, after quite some time -- a good ten minutes, she is calm again. 

Look, if that subject's not one that you can talk about, and she interrupts: "I can discuss it. But not without fury when I hear Corey's acting like he's still got rights over whether or not he gets to return." 

That sentence is spoken as flat as river-silt, flat as that place by the shore where the water rushes over and makes everything silver and dangerous and sinking and without tone and dangerous glimmers of light. Her voice picks up to more natural cadences after, no longer flat but full the way a voice should be.

"I could've discussed it earlier-- why didn't you come to me with your concerns about Hector? Why'd you need to fly to the guy who chose not to be involved any longer? The guy who isn't born to be a storyteller and witness and keep the histories, huh?

"A phonecall and I would've been here."

"I wish I did know how to help Hector stop blaming himself for the way everybody went after, and during. His guilt makes him think things that aren't true are true, same with Corey probably. Hector gives himself credit for all the bad shit, and nothing good- but he just goes all hyperactive and waxing moon on you so it's always underneath. What do you do with that?"

The question could be rhetorical like the others (hurt) seemed to be-

But then she says, just to make it clear that it's not, 

"You got any ideas?"

Lola Hawkes

"I know you could'a told me.  But I wasn't seeking the story of Where Was Hector During the Gathering."

Tamsin's tone of voice was flat at first, but found normal cadence soon enough.  However, the sting of hurt clung to her words despite how she tried to make them sound.  It was clear in the content of what she said as well as her face.  Lola was decent at reading people, so she understood that.  It wasn't understanding that was Lola's weak point, it was empathizing and communicating back that always tripped her up.

But she's got good intentions, and she's honest, so that tends to help keep Lola from looking like too much of a dick all of the time.

"I went to Corey because of a talk Hector and I had.  He sounded like what was bothering him wasn't just what happened with the Pack, or not even dominantly that.  It sounded like, at that point at least, he was really torn up over what happened between him 'n Corey.  But he wouldn't talk about it, and I wanted to hear from the horse's mouth what it was all about, why he left the way he did.  I knew I couldn't talk to Hector about it 'cause of how he gets, and, no offense Tamsin, but I figured your view on the whole ordeal would be a bit skewed.  Rightfully so, don't get me wrong, 'cause he did just up and leave your asses.

"I thought talkin' to Corey would help understand what happened better, and with that understanding I could help Hector."

Tamsin doesn't know how to help Hector either, and asked if Lola had any ideas.  The Kinswoman answered by shrugging and looking down to pluck bits of prickly weed and clumped dirt from her gloves.  "I wasn't so sure myself when I got back.  I was really pissed off, finding out that Hector vanished and missed the Gathering.  I approached the subject with him too harshly.  We got into a fight and stormed away from each other.  Then another big fuckin' rainstorm hit-- this was last Sunday, remember that storm?  Yeah, it catches me while I'm still out walking it off and causes a mudslide, and I get my ass stranded on a rock.  Hector has to come get me.

"Apparently natural disasters put an end to feuds faster than anything else.  After that he seems to have been a lot more... chipper, I guess?  He seems better these days."

Tamsin Hall

No offense, Tamsin, causes the wolf-girl's eyes to narrow again, runs up her spine like a razor blade's edge, or the edge of a page from a book drawing out one of those stinging but bloodless paper-cuts, edge is the word, that's all. Lola's got good intentions and she's honest; Tamsin can be petty and hold a grudge, but she doesn't often choose to. What would Gandalf do? What did grudges bring Boromir? What of the dwarves and the elves? What of the Steward of Gondor? And she knows Lola, and how Lola communicates, or tries to. So: her eyes narrow, and there's that edge turned-outward, simmering well, but it doesn't lash out. Tamsin listens grimly, snorts faintly at rightfully so, and then listens with curiousity as Lola explains why she went off to talk to Corey, what happened in the river-flash of a flood, and she's frowning easily at apparently natural disasters put an end, "That … Hector," she says. "If he doesn't start fucking mentioning that shit over the Totem, I'm going to hold him down and cut off all his hair."

Her arms unfold, thumbs hooking on her jean pockets, and she says, "Maybe he just needed to fight with somebody about it. He's getting really into being pack leader finally. It's strange," a pause, and a downward slant of that frown, her considering gaze on the garden-to-be. It's not Hector being enthusiastic about being pack leader that's strange, it's - "Celduin, looking to stay in one place for," skip-voice, quiet, the second half of that word is 'ever,' but forever isn't real, "a long time, instead of wandering along a route."

Lola Hawkes

There's a moment where this, too, may turn into a fight.

It manifests in Tamsin's simmering Rage and insult bubbling up to the surface.  Reflex and impulse told her to be defensive, to take offense when Lola told her not to, because if Lola felt like she had to preface her statement with 'no offense', then certainly there was something there to be bothered by.  Tamsin could have lashed out, unleashed the well and any other words that might've flowed from behind it.

But she knows Lola better than that.  She's known this Kinswoman since she was still a Kin-teen.  She knew that Lola was rough around the edges and bad at communicating gently.  She also knew that Lola, for all her tough exterior and sharp-toothed battlelust, had good intentions in her heart at damn near all times.  She knows that, if nothing more, she can rely on Lola to not tell her lies or mislead her.  Knowledge of that fact, and a deep breath, helped Tamsin to keep her cool and be receptive instead.

The Fiana unfolded her arms, loosened her posture, and Lola relaxed in return.  The weight she stood upon shifted to carry differently between her hips and feet how she was standing.  Those gloves were tugged back securely on, as she was finished plucking at them and cleaning them of debris.  Her hands found her waist and rested there, elbows out, posture loose but ready to resume work.

"He needs a hole to be made in his walls before he can finish crumbling down," Lola confirmed, agreeing with Tamsin's observation that he just needed to fight with somebody.

And...  "Yeah, I noticed that too.  Took the reigns on a patrol he and I and that Thomas Shadow Lord kid were out on.  Had authority in his words and shoulders that he didn't used to.  I didn't stop to question him 'till after the fight was finished, and I realized there wasn't a lot to question then either."

And, on the last comment she made, about Celduin settling in, Lola switched her eyes to Tamsin's profile and observed the younger woman's face while she, in turn, stared out at the garden-to-be.  Something softens on Lola's face, raw and sympathetic, a sensation that she wouldn't know how to properly articulate on the spot.  So, instead of trying to explain why it was okay that Celduin was settling down, how change was a part of nature and how packs really should keep a territory anyways, Lola walked to join the Fianna's side more closely and threw an arm around her shoulders, clapping the shoulder opposite her with one glove-covered hand.

"I never got the wanderlust myself-- Maria took all of it.  But if you are all settling, even if just for 'a time', I'm glad it's here."

Here with me.

"....We got another square to finish, then I say we call it a day and get stoned and eat sandwiches."