10-14-2013, 03:49 PM
The Talesinger remains in the center of the gathered wolves like the youngest and weakest and slowest of the prey, the sort that becomes so desperately, needfully pursued when the wind on your face suddenly has a slap to it, when the breeze in your hair starts to pull at it, when meat becomes scarce and thin and more difficult to find.
Then:
with the clarity and eloquence one only expects from the blessing of his moon, Storm's Teeth gets all up in Broken Tree's face, though he has to hunker down to actually get nose to nose with her. Her eyes cross, but it looks like they probably do that often. It's a wonder she isn't half-blind as well as hunch-backed, club-footed, and weird. Those eyes wobble sickeningly, and then Erich storms off in disgust, going to
the Falcons.
--
For her part, Reverence of Dawn blinks in startlement as she is called out; she gives Javed a sidelong look that mingles polite tolerance and polite embarrassment. But she smiles. She likes Erich. Her arms cross as he goes on, about the bridal shop and the near-facedown between he and Siren, and there is a faintly pink glow of pleasure in her cheeks as she is praised to the gathering...
even if she would argue that he and Siren were hardly dumb, they're both utterly lovely and brilliant and really, if anyone deserves praise for the two of their decisions and restraint, it's obviously the two of them. All the same: she smiles, and she glances at Javed, then simply -- out of happiness or closeness or whathaveyou -- bumps her shoulder into his.
--
In the middle of the circle, being berated with stories of goodness and hope by the Shadow Lord, Broken Tree follows his path with her eyes, follows the ones he points out. From Avery to Phoebe, Phoebe to Keisha, as he tells them that Keisha is a champion of truth, justice, honesty, honor, peace, respect. That she showed these things to elders so far above her it would rend their name to accept a challenge from her rather than simply ignoring her.
Even when ripples of offense or fear or simple discomfort go through the listeners to hear Erich speak of the 'police state' and the elders being dragged off, the Talesinger, who rules the songs and stories tonight, does not stop him. She does not cast him a Look. She stares at him from the dirt, and more importantly: she stares at the three garou he calls out.
Broken Tree rocks slightly in the middle of the throng as Erich yells directly at her before what-would-be a mic drop. When he is stomping back to Charlotte, most may miss the tiny flinch of her lips, which could be a grimace and could be a grin but never really becomes either. She is on her knees now, instead of a crumpled tangle of limbs. On her knees, crooked as she is, sitting on her heels and putting her hands on the dirt.
"I would hear," she says a few seconds later, as though Erich never even got up,
"of light in the darkness. I would hear talk of this shit all day. All day. All night. It is night now. And the only light we have... is so very far."
--
Those lovely eyes of hers swivel around the gathering, waiting fo the next one. A song is sung, and it is sung in a very old tongue by a very young Skald, but it is one of the rarest things: a song of the Fenrir that actually sounds hopeful rather than doomed. Granted, it is a song about blood on the battlefield and the death of hundreds of heroes and so on, but in each refrain it comes back to a phrase about the sun rising again, the sun rising again, the sun rising to see all these things, and though the dead may die the sun rises again, the sun rises again.
It's entirely possible the Skald wrote it himself, but who knows. It gets a good reception, and the Talesinger digs her fingers into the dirt where she kneels, hunched and broken, drawing her legs up higher and tighter under herself.
--
Two galliards come forward, a Fianna and an Uktena, packmates, brother and sister who look nothing alike. What they offer is not song nor poem nor story nor anything that would find a home in human lexicon. They are wolves and they move as wolves, speak as wolves, who care less for meter or rhyme as they do for the purity of raw, savage expression. Every time they repeat their questions to Luna the plaintiveness of it is merely a veil over the anger, the rage that lives in every cell of their beings, every drop of blood, every breath. The anger that, until the very end, none of them ever really escape.
There are times when wolf-formed garou in their midst howl, unable to stop themselves, but it is not an interruption so much as a joining, a twining of these aching voices with those of the two wolves who move together and apart, speak together and apart. The garou who cannot help but cry out along with the galliards do so in time with the flickering of shadows, and it seems then as though the fire itself speaks in response.
The wolves hear the name of Storm's Teeth, who just burst out with HEY I HAVE NICE THINGS TO SAY ABOUT PEOPLE >:[ not so long ago, and their ears perk. They look at him. They look at Charlotte beside him. They look for the Oracles and find them standing shoulder to shoulder with the Republik, and they hear -- many for the first time -- of deaths, of the return of garou who fell in battle, and they remember that even the crescent moons of their kind are warriors in the end,
always at the end,
which is not always the end.
--
They hear of Stone Cold, and of the Falcons. They hear this tale that is not-song-not-poem-not-dance but all these things and not just animal and not just human but garou, but what they are, a way of communicating that no other creatures can attend to,
and they listen. The Talesinger listens. She is the only one, perhaps, in the gathering of the moot, who does not roar with them in the end, called to unleash these sounds that belong solely and entirely to their kind, their people, their blood.
The Talesinger rests on one knee, one hand. She says nothing now. The momentum is powerful now, surging forward, and some of them are all but fighting to be next. The next is a ragabash who replays for them, through tumbling and acrobatics and panted exposition, a MIGHTY DUEL between two combatants. About halfway through it, someone cups their hands around their mouth and yells BOOO, THAT'S FROM PRINCESS BRIDE which, all the same, means that the heckler and the ragabash both get some laughs from the mostly-homid crowd. The Talesinger waves the grinning, blushing no-moon from the circle.
And then she watches Echoes of the Lost come back to the center. He points out, for the second time tonight, that two of their number died and returned. Two of their number whose rage is not so great to even frenzy most of the time, may never be great enough to cause them to frenzy, but when their lives were about to be stolen from them, their rage was more than enough. Some (primarily cliaths who don't know any better and think packs don't count unless they are a 5-part group with each moon represented once and only once) have scoffed at the Desert Oracles. All Theurges! All females! Scoff. Scoff.
They're going to stop doing that now. Or at very least: they're going to get whacked upside the head if they say that stupid shit from now on, by any wolves who can hear Echoes of the Lost and what he says about the Desert Oracles now.
--
The Uktena Alpha of Celduin takes his place again, but more than a few who have been present at the last several moots know better than to think that they've heard the last of Celduin for this night. The Talesinger sways slightly, and those with keen eyes can see that under that blanket-tapestry-cape of hers, she is growing. Fur over her skin, claws instead of nails, sharper teeth, sharper eyes, the angles of her face not quite so elfin nor pretty anymore but animal and alien at once.
"More," she says, whisper and snarl at once. "More. They are listening. They are hearing. They do not remember it is night, they do not recall the cold. More, now. More!"
Then:
with the clarity and eloquence one only expects from the blessing of his moon, Storm's Teeth gets all up in Broken Tree's face, though he has to hunker down to actually get nose to nose with her. Her eyes cross, but it looks like they probably do that often. It's a wonder she isn't half-blind as well as hunch-backed, club-footed, and weird. Those eyes wobble sickeningly, and then Erich storms off in disgust, going to
the Falcons.
--
For her part, Reverence of Dawn blinks in startlement as she is called out; she gives Javed a sidelong look that mingles polite tolerance and polite embarrassment. But she smiles. She likes Erich. Her arms cross as he goes on, about the bridal shop and the near-facedown between he and Siren, and there is a faintly pink glow of pleasure in her cheeks as she is praised to the gathering...
even if she would argue that he and Siren were hardly dumb, they're both utterly lovely and brilliant and really, if anyone deserves praise for the two of their decisions and restraint, it's obviously the two of them. All the same: she smiles, and she glances at Javed, then simply -- out of happiness or closeness or whathaveyou -- bumps her shoulder into his.
--
In the middle of the circle, being berated with stories of goodness and hope by the Shadow Lord, Broken Tree follows his path with her eyes, follows the ones he points out. From Avery to Phoebe, Phoebe to Keisha, as he tells them that Keisha is a champion of truth, justice, honesty, honor, peace, respect. That she showed these things to elders so far above her it would rend their name to accept a challenge from her rather than simply ignoring her.
Even when ripples of offense or fear or simple discomfort go through the listeners to hear Erich speak of the 'police state' and the elders being dragged off, the Talesinger, who rules the songs and stories tonight, does not stop him. She does not cast him a Look. She stares at him from the dirt, and more importantly: she stares at the three garou he calls out.
Broken Tree rocks slightly in the middle of the throng as Erich yells directly at her before what-would-be a mic drop. When he is stomping back to Charlotte, most may miss the tiny flinch of her lips, which could be a grimace and could be a grin but never really becomes either. She is on her knees now, instead of a crumpled tangle of limbs. On her knees, crooked as she is, sitting on her heels and putting her hands on the dirt.
"I would hear," she says a few seconds later, as though Erich never even got up,
"of light in the darkness. I would hear talk of this shit all day. All day. All night. It is night now. And the only light we have... is so very far."
--
Those lovely eyes of hers swivel around the gathering, waiting fo the next one. A song is sung, and it is sung in a very old tongue by a very young Skald, but it is one of the rarest things: a song of the Fenrir that actually sounds hopeful rather than doomed. Granted, it is a song about blood on the battlefield and the death of hundreds of heroes and so on, but in each refrain it comes back to a phrase about the sun rising again, the sun rising again, the sun rising to see all these things, and though the dead may die the sun rises again, the sun rises again.
It's entirely possible the Skald wrote it himself, but who knows. It gets a good reception, and the Talesinger digs her fingers into the dirt where she kneels, hunched and broken, drawing her legs up higher and tighter under herself.
--
Two galliards come forward, a Fianna and an Uktena, packmates, brother and sister who look nothing alike. What they offer is not song nor poem nor story nor anything that would find a home in human lexicon. They are wolves and they move as wolves, speak as wolves, who care less for meter or rhyme as they do for the purity of raw, savage expression. Every time they repeat their questions to Luna the plaintiveness of it is merely a veil over the anger, the rage that lives in every cell of their beings, every drop of blood, every breath. The anger that, until the very end, none of them ever really escape.
There are times when wolf-formed garou in their midst howl, unable to stop themselves, but it is not an interruption so much as a joining, a twining of these aching voices with those of the two wolves who move together and apart, speak together and apart. The garou who cannot help but cry out along with the galliards do so in time with the flickering of shadows, and it seems then as though the fire itself speaks in response.
The wolves hear the name of Storm's Teeth, who just burst out with HEY I HAVE NICE THINGS TO SAY ABOUT PEOPLE >:[ not so long ago, and their ears perk. They look at him. They look at Charlotte beside him. They look for the Oracles and find them standing shoulder to shoulder with the Republik, and they hear -- many for the first time -- of deaths, of the return of garou who fell in battle, and they remember that even the crescent moons of their kind are warriors in the end,
always at the end,
which is not always the end.
--
They hear of Stone Cold, and of the Falcons. They hear this tale that is not-song-not-poem-not-dance but all these things and not just animal and not just human but garou, but what they are, a way of communicating that no other creatures can attend to,
and they listen. The Talesinger listens. She is the only one, perhaps, in the gathering of the moot, who does not roar with them in the end, called to unleash these sounds that belong solely and entirely to their kind, their people, their blood.
The Talesinger rests on one knee, one hand. She says nothing now. The momentum is powerful now, surging forward, and some of them are all but fighting to be next. The next is a ragabash who replays for them, through tumbling and acrobatics and panted exposition, a MIGHTY DUEL between two combatants. About halfway through it, someone cups their hands around their mouth and yells BOOO, THAT'S FROM PRINCESS BRIDE which, all the same, means that the heckler and the ragabash both get some laughs from the mostly-homid crowd. The Talesinger waves the grinning, blushing no-moon from the circle.
And then she watches Echoes of the Lost come back to the center. He points out, for the second time tonight, that two of their number died and returned. Two of their number whose rage is not so great to even frenzy most of the time, may never be great enough to cause them to frenzy, but when their lives were about to be stolen from them, their rage was more than enough. Some (primarily cliaths who don't know any better and think packs don't count unless they are a 5-part group with each moon represented once and only once) have scoffed at the Desert Oracles. All Theurges! All females! Scoff. Scoff.
They're going to stop doing that now. Or at very least: they're going to get whacked upside the head if they say that stupid shit from now on, by any wolves who can hear Echoes of the Lost and what he says about the Desert Oracles now.
--
The Uktena Alpha of Celduin takes his place again, but more than a few who have been present at the last several moots know better than to think that they've heard the last of Celduin for this night. The Talesinger sways slightly, and those with keen eyes can see that under that blanket-tapestry-cape of hers, she is growing. Fur over her skin, claws instead of nails, sharper teeth, sharper eyes, the angles of her face not quite so elfin nor pretty anymore but animal and alien at once.
"More," she says, whisper and snarl at once. "More. They are listening. They are hearing. They do not remember it is night, they do not recall the cold. More, now. More!"
my whole life is thunder.