rite of wounding [attn: phoebe/celduin]

[jamie]

Representatives from at least three different packs were present the night a kinswoman associated with Celduin threw herself into a disagreement with a warrior whose Rage can send most humans scattering in the opposite direction.

Lola was the only person who saw Hector after he came back from the Umbra, favoring his right side and refraining from crowing about what a badass he is because they weren't done yelling at each other. His packmates felt the brief strain and snap of his connection to Fog faltering before his presence came back hotter and stronger than before. That had never happened. Tamsin was understandably panicked.

The story as he told, as he would tell Phoebe at some point before they met up to enact the rite, goes something like this: the moon shone full and he went hunting alone on the other side of the Gauntlet and a Wyrmling found him. A Bane. Oily and young and warped with corruption. It did not seek to turn him or to stoke his Rage. It only wanted to taste the leeching of his lifeblood and his spirit from his body. The last thing he remembers is a cold-sharp thing catching him under the ribs. When he woke up he was in his birth form on the cool colorless ground bleeding from his ears and nose and mouth.

They didn't find the scar until later that night. It went in through his belly and came out his flank. He harvested the Bane for its spiritual energy after he climbed to his feet and he went back to his woman.

It ended up being a minor miracle that he didn't die that night. Between berating Pokes the Mind's Eye as he beat him on the side of the road and the story he told at the Moot this past week it isn't exactly a secret anymore that Lola is carrying his child. He left that out of the request when he called the number he has for Desert Oracle.

One could imagine the conversation went something like this.

"Brightest of mornings, Siren of Persephone-rhya, She Of Whom They Will Tell Tales Until Long After Her Bones Have Become One With The Rock--"
"What did you do."

Tribesmen tend to perform the rite on their tribesmen. The Uktena have a notoriously brutal interpretation of what it means to celebrate one's first Battle Scar. Hector does not cavort with the Uktena to the exclusion of the rest of the Nation. His pack consists of a Fian woman and a lupus Bone Gnawer and a teenage Shadow Lord. He counts Silver Fangs and Glass Walkers among his friends. Many of the packs in this city are motleys. It makes sense that he would ask a Fostern neither of his tribe nor his pack to mark the first permanent wound of his life with ash.

Wherever and whenever Phoebe decides she wants to perform the rite is where and when he shows up. He brings with him a very nice new hunting knife and a bottle of moonshine as a token of gratitude to the ritesmistress.

[errin]

A call to Desert Oracle usually (but not always) begins with the Alpha. When a request comes for some sort of spiritual assistance or guidance from whoever of the pack is available, Phoebe determines who is closest or who among her sisters is best suited for the task. For instance, if healing is required, she would send Keisha or Sophia before she would go herself, it's simply not an area she excels in.

The request from Hector comes at a time when she's working in her gallery. Wiping her hands off on the thighs of her jeans, Phoebe answers it and, yes, cuts Hector off mid poetic flair. He can hear the smile in her voice when she says it, all easy and amused but also Let's not beat around this bush, okay? There is a bond there, and not merely the one a of a shared responsibility of leadership. Hector has come into Phoebe's home and partaken of her hospitality. He's been in her gallery along with others to discuss and plot and plan. They were both near that pit, Phoebe and her sisters summoning while Hector and his packmates fought to keep them safe to do their work. These are binding events, at least they are to Phoebe. There's no need for such long-winded formalities. Not even for this.

She tells him to meet her that night in Roxborough with whomever he would wish to share in this ritual. Of course his pack, and of course his kinswoman, but others, too, if he likes. There's a clearing toward the south border that will do for this. When she hangs up, Phoebe leaves immediately. There are many things to prepare, and only so much time in which to do it.

The Black Fury gets there before sundown. There are herbs to be burned. While they burn in small clay pots placed to mark the four corners around her, Phoebe stands in the center, rips the Gauntlet wide, and she summons. Seconds become minutes become hours as she stands there, murmuring a call to the spirits.

She's still standing, still summoning and calling through into the other realm when Fog's children and their kin arrive. Just in time. It's only fitting that Fog itself be here to witness this sacred rite of courage.

Through the hole it comes. First it's faint, a small trailing finger of smoky fog. Then more, and more, and it begins to billow and roil and churn around them. It clings to the earth and to the dried grasses. It hangs from the bare branches of the winter-naked trees, creating a ghostly white-grey canopy around them. It brushes against them, tangling in Tamsin's hair, wrapping around Lola's feet. And then it swallows them up, swirls around them for a moment before pulling back again, and Celduin knows that they are loved by their totem spirit.

And so it is that Fog has come to attend, as well, of course it does. This is its child who has struggled through so much, who has grown so much in the months and months since claiming the mantle of Alpha.

"Ready?" asks Phoebe, her wide mouth pulled in a broad smile as she watches them. Just as the waning Galliard moon rises into view to the east.

=====
niko @ 12:29PM
[first we rip a hole in the Gauntlet]
Roll: 6 d10 TN2 (2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 7) ( success x 6 ) VALID

niko @ 12:31PM
[wits+rituals, spending three hours to drop the diff to 4]
Roll: 5 d10 TN4 (1, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 ) VALID

niko @ 12:32PM
[gnosis again]
Roll: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 ) VALID

niko @ 12:32PM
That's it for now

jamie @ 12:35PM
Daaaaaaamn, giiiiiiiirl.

Samael @ 12:35PM
NICE

jamie @ 12:35PM
What did you just do!

niko @ 12:35PM
Invited a special guest =]

[jamie]

For as much time as he spends railing on about how badass his cohorts are Hector rarely inserts himself into a story unless he's recounting a time he and one of his departed packmates engaged in some shenanigans in another city.

Celduin has not seen their totem on this side of the Gauntlet since Willow Eyes-in-the-Dark led them. He could tell tale after tale about her. At the time of her death she was the same rank as Siren of Persephone. She was as lighthearted and enamored with the arts as Siren of Persephone. Had the same appreciation for certain comic book movie actors' pectoral muscles as does Siren of Persephone. Her moods were stormy though and she had an affinity for distant spectral things and were not for the tether of her pack she would have wandered lost in the Umbra until her body dissolved and she turned to pure spirit.

Willow is the one he thought of as he poked at the healing wound before calling Phoebe. Celduin's first alpha would have wanted to perform the rite the second the pack's Uktena came back with that scar. Would have boxed his ears because fighting a Bane by himself was a stupid foolhardy thing to do even if he emerged bloody and victorious at the end of it. Probably would have used still-red embers instead of ash. Or wine. Something that would have stung like hell.

To say Hector is distracted by thoughts and the ghosts of the people who populate those thoughts is an understatement. This is not so solemn a rite as a punishment rite but he is not a proud creature. He performs his duties and Tamsin can attest to his moments of arrogance but arrogance and pride are two different breeds of beast.

So he approaches the flame-lit circle with a reverence shown in the form of quiet footsteps and withheld speech. Stoops quick to set down the hunting knife and the moonshine at the edge of the circle where he will leave his pack and his mate. The only two who need be present are the ritesmistress and he with his wound not yet healed.

No point celebrating raging back from the dead in the absence of those he counts as important. He wasn't expecting Fog though. His nostrils flare with a hard inhale when the first tendrils begin to wisp through the tear in the Gauntlet. He nearly bursts out in delighted laughter when Fog drifts around his packsister and his kinswoman and his newest brother. That laughter does not show itself though. He smiles a clamped-down smile that shows more in his eyes than it does on his face.

Ready?

Hector puts away the smile and considers the place Phoebe has prepared for the rite. He chews on his lip as he nods his head and then he drops his jacket to the ground. Pulls off his sweatshirt and the t-shirt worn beneath it and makes a pile of his clothing. He doesn't usually need an excuse to strip himself to the waist but it is literally freezing out tonight.

The scar glints pink against his earth-dark skin. Hector joins Phoebe in the circle.

[errin]

If Hector were somehow hers, Phoebe would have words to say about what he's done. She would question him about the wisdom of wandering the Umbra alone, and tell him he's lucky it was a bane he could walk away from and not a lingering fragment of the Beloved Horror which he might not have. Or she might question waiting all this time before calling her up.

Truthfully, she still might say these things. But now is not the time. They are welcoming spirits and celebrating Hector's courage and the strength of his Rage that allowed him to remain with them another day. And celebrate they will. But first...

Phoebe stands patiently while Hector undresses, even though she too is cold. She's removed her coat and set it on the ground outside the circle, leaving her in clay-splattered jeans, hiking boots, and a thick sweater that can't keep out this cold for more than a few seconds. She doesn't shiver, though, as she holds out her hands toward him, beckoning him forward to the first of those ash-filled clay pots. Once she's led him inside with her - it's a close fit tight and intimate - she steps outside, and she goes to Hector's packmates and directs them to stand a few feet outside of those clay pots. Then she returns to stand outside the ring, herself. Taking Hector by the hands, Phoebe turns him toward each of the four directions, toward his packmates and his family. At each, Phoebe lowers, dips her fingers into the ash, rises, and smears. Her fingers are cold, but her hands are steady as she turns Hector

south, facing Tamsin and the summer, with the ashes of a branch of cedar wood, "For protection," and then

west, facing Thomas and the autumn, with the ashes of an osha root, "To heal the spirit," and then

north, facing Jack and the winter, and the ashes of sweetgrass, "For the blessing of Gaia and the earth," and finally

east, facing Lola and the coming spring, with the ashes of sage, "For renewal."

Despite the cold, Phoebe moves quickly but does not rush them through this. By the end her fingers are like ice against the tough raised scar tissue. She's smiling throughout when she speaks, offering Hector a quick wink when he's finally facing his mate. Phoebe steps away from him then, a few steps until she's somewhere between Lola and Jack. There, that smile widens until she's beaming at the Uktena Galliard.

She looks from left to right, to each of Hector's packmates and to his mate, before she melts, her form rippling and shifting and changing down into her Lupine form. Lifting her muzzle to the sky, Phoebe hops up, her front paws lifting from the ground as she howls and howls and howls with all of her might. To Echoes of the Lost! To Gaia! To Luna! Their brother, their friend, their lover, he has lived another night, and will fight another day!

=====
niko @ 2:28PM
[charisma+expression+PB, and Rage for extra RAWR and a WP for extra OOMPH]
Roll: 10 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1 [WP] VALID

jamie @ 2:28PM
Look at those stupid 5s.

[Kenna]

This scar could be linked back to being Lola's fault if you decided to go that far down the chain of reasoning. After all, if she hadn't broached upon the topic of an Alpha that beat then abandoned him, Hector wouldn't have felt so strong a need to go hunting beasts that would try to consume him body and soul. If things had gone differently and Hector hadn't returned that night, she would have blamed him and herself equally with bitter, sharp-toothed hatred and stomach-turning guilt and sadness.

But Death had not defeated him, and he instead returned to her with blood staining his face, having spilled from his eyes and ears and mouth and nose and a still-healing wound punched through his abdomen. He was exhausted and only half-healed, but he was alive, and he brought home this scar to prove that not even killing blows would take his fight away.

A few days later they stood to commemorate it, to call the spiritual essence forward and celebrate the scar and all that it stood for. The night was cold, as they were going to continue being for the next few months. Lola stood with the Celduin pack, not bound to Fog as they were, but an equal part of the heart that lived within the crew. She wore a dense, heavy brown wool cape rather than her canvas jacket tonight, as it served better at keeping the cold at bay. The garment fell to a few inches above her ankles, and all that showed between the hem and the earth were the broken-in hiking boots that carried her around the territory.

She'd greeting Tamsin and Thomas with familiarity and affection. Tamsin would get a hug that opened the cape to reveal several layers of insulating sweaters and shirts beneath, and Thomas would get the same neck-and-jaw clasp that he often did. The unfamiliar Wolf that joined them was regarded carefully, curiously, but not cautiously. So this was the Jack wolf that she was told about. Her nostrils would flare and she'd huff a cloud of white breath from them, much like a bull. So, she thought, it takes his Alpha dying for him to finally come back and see what's been going on. I'll have words with him another time.

Another time, but not tonight.
Tonight, they were here to be together, not for Lola to start shit.

So, the ceremony would commence. Phoebe had been at work while the pack waited patiently. Lola had a travel pack with her, as she almost always did when traveling by foot, and shared her grog and a thermos of hot soup to help keep all parties warm, but when the time came she was straight backed and attentive. Unsmiling, but that was simply her way. Light-hearted and pleasant was not her default expression.

When Fog came to join them and swirled about her ankles, pouring in from a hole punched between This World and The Other, Lola closed her eyes and breathed deep through her nose. She didn't have the same intimate spiritual connection to this spirit that the other wolves did, but she felt and appreciated the presence none the less. Her eyes would open again when the half-touch of the Totem had engulfed and passed over, and fix her gaze upon Phoebe and Hector and the ashes that were being spread.

When the ceremony was concluded, after she'd been directed to stand to Hector's east -- the direction of the rising sun, the Dawn, of renewal and Things To Come, Pheobe had donned her wolf form and let forth a howl that burst into the night sky and echoed off the mountains that stretched toward the sky to their West. Lola could not howl along with, but she breathed deep so her breast would fill with the sound and closed her eyes and tipped her face back to the sky, as though she too could join her voice to the chorus to come.

She couldn't Howl.
She couldn't love Fog like the others did, or be a part of It.
But she was there, and she would support and celebrate to make up for it.

[errin]

[[Whoops! Forgot the most important part!

niko @ 10:18AM
Did I never roll the dice for the actual Rite of Wounding?

jamie @ 10:20AM
LOL dude you so didn't.

niko @ 10:22AM
[whoops! Rite of Wounding: charisma (captivating) + rituals, diff 6]
Roll: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 10) ( success x 2 ) Re-rolls: 2 VALID]]