12-16-2013, 11:34 AM
Alright alright. Hector stands up and shoots Tamsin a look that is mostly admiration and pride but that's laced with threads of teasing Great I have to follow your bomb-ass opening way to set me up for failure. Executes some sort of collision of fists and shoulders as he and Erich cross paths one sitting down and the other trotting the rest of the way to the circle.
"Some of you are probably wondering what's going on at Cold Crescent." He frowns and waves his hands to smooth away potential misunderstanding. "No. No no. Not the goings-on we went over after the Truthcatcher cracked the bone. I'm talking about how you'll walk out of a room and come back and everything'll be upended. Or you'll think you're alone out in the hall and then you turn a corner and BAM, there's a glowing orb right in front of you."
No. That's not right.
An aside to himself: "Actually the last I heard it was materializing again."
And back to the story: "It didn't just show up at the Broadway building. It showed up at a Sports Authority in Aurora."
It sounds like a joke. It is not a joke. Look at his face. This isn't funny.
"Listen: it was minus... ten degrees that day. Before the wind chill. And it was a Friday which to humans means it's time to load their entire life into the car and go to the mall. There's a holiday coming up. Something about a fat man in a red suit. I don't understand it. My parents were Hindu. Ganesha doesn't drive a sleigh. Anyway there were about a thousand people at this sprawling mall on the other side of the city, and a handful of Garou just happened to be there."
Buying skis and Orange Julius and small electronics. Irrelevant. This is the part of the buildup where Hector paces back and forth like the movement of his feet is helping his mouth keep pace with the story.
"So this handful of Garou happened to converge upon the Sports Authority and chanced to notice that people were not calmly walking in and out of the front door anymore. One minute everything was calm and the next folks were running out of the store. Some of them were screaming. The asphalt was all covered in snow and ice, so the people driving cars were already sliding all over the place, but people were running out into the road to get away from whatever was going on inside. Some of them almost got trampled.
"Reverence of Dawn, Radiant Honor. She was the first one in the store and even with everybody screaming and elbowing each other, knocking each other out of the way, she stood her ground. She saw Pokes the Minds Eye, told him to find a way to keep the front doors open so people could get out. She saw Siren of Persephone, asked her what could possibly be causing all these people to panic.
"At first they thought it might be something mechanical just from the sounds it was making. It wasn't the Wyrm. They knew that much. It was something whirring and clanging around and people freaked out to see it. Of course they freaked out. They didn't understand it and they couldn't do anything about it. So they ran."
He swipes his hair back out of his face and finds Milton in the crowd. Pulls a puzzled but curious face.
"I still don't even know what you did, man."
Back to it:
"Pokes the Mind's Eye pulls out this... iPhone, it looked like. One of those smartphones that can do a million things. And the front door was one of those automatic glass sliding situations, it'd been opening and closing on the people trying to leave so it was clogging things up, they were starting to panic. And Pokes the Mind's Eye just waves this thing at the doors and the doors stayed open. The store emptied out after that but now the floor was shaking. Things were falling off the shelves. It wasn't Grandfather Serpent, the Wyrm. They still didn't know what it was. Radiant Honor said:"
He shores up his shoulders and stops stalking the stage. And he can never say it the way she said it, can project that kind of authority and imitate the luminescence but can never truly awe the others the way she does. It's alright. He's not one of Falcon's. He's just telling a story.
"I do not know what you are! I do not know from where you came. But you are harming those within my protectorate. You are frightening those who deserve no fear, and whose hearts should not be troubled further when the world is already so dark.
"I will end that harm! I will end that fear!
"I will end you!"
Deep-deep breath. He glances back over his shoulder at the fire crackling and nothing happens for a moment. Not I-forgot-my-lines nothing. Calm-before-the-storm nothing. The Galliard drifts back into the shadows and cups his hands over his mouth. Makes a pounding-thundering noise as he moves forward again slow. Like a big and ponderous creature assured of its strength and its territory and the power of its strength and territory.
"It made a body out of whatever it could find," he says when he drops his hands. The innate athleticism in his body comes out now as he loosens up his shoulders and holds his hands down at his sides like his fists are weighted down with muscle. "Helmets and bicycles and hand-weights. Little things like shirts and jump ropes. Big things like pool tables and kayaks. The ceilings in this place were so high a wolf in her war form couldn't reach the ceiling with outreached claws but this thing could have reached up and busted a light out of its fixture if it wanted to. It cast a deep shadow over the Garou and as it came towards them - that was the crashing and the quaking. It shook the earth as it walked. Knocked over shelves not with its bulk but with the vibrations from its feet and fists hitting the floor. It was furious. They were in its territory."
He cannot summon lights or call on Luna himself to light up his body but he can use his hands to make a glowing gesture as he switches from the mark of the Wyld-spirit to the mark of the Fostern Silver Fang Philodox.
"Radiant Honor armored herself. Pokes the Mind's Eye had a plan to dispatch it but Siren of Persephone said It's Wyld, I can't say for certain why it's here, the Weaver is strong and it may just want to push it out. I have a few gifts that may help in reducing its power that I can try."
He takes on a hulking threatening posture again.
"The spirit in its mass-body wasn't going to stand there all day and wait for them to act. It kept rushing forward, you know how gorillas do, feinting at them like it was going to charge and then coming back. Radiant Honor didn't want to kill it. Siren of Persephone didn't want to kill it. Pokes the Mind's Eye was like Son of a bitch I wanted to blow things up! but he didn't want to kill it.
"It brought up its fists and it busted a light out of its fixture and it ran at the Garou."
The energy in his movements becomes as frenetic as the Wyld-spirit they fought that day. Big gestures and sharp turns of his body. Mental imagery of things flying everywhere and bodies falling down.
"And they didn't want to kill it but it beat its fists on the ground and knocked half of them down and they were biting at it, tearing away at the miasma of plastic metal things it fashioned into a body and it started hurling these things at them, tents and poles and knives, things that covered up their eyes and scratched at their hides, just this flurry of stuff, but they hurt it more than it could hurt them, it was outnumbered and their teeth and claws were sharp, even Pokes the Mind's Eye hobbled it a little without blowing anything up, and it tried to escape. It was going to climb the shelves it hadn't toppled and bust a hole through the ceiling and run out into the night, but they stopped it. Took it down with their claws--"
And he hates snow hates cold hates the wet cling of it on his clothes but he crashes to the ground like a creature made of junk losing its body and crashing to the ground. Smaller than before. Bristling and crippled and furious.
"Not to kill. Just to stay."
It wasn't going to understand that. Not without a spirit-talker to apologize.
"Siren of Persephone had gotten knocked down when it sent that shockwave through the place."
He picks himself up. Doesn't have to do as much to imitate the Black Fury. He could be her stunt double, they both have the same build that disappears when they turn sideways, the same long dark hair. Her spiritual connection is greater than his though. Her affect is softer. She is not as angry as he is, will never be as angry as he is.
His voice goes calmer and even. Siren of Persephone follows Pegasus and is the youngest of a long line of fierce and protective warrior women. Even his gaze goes softer.
"She got up, and she walked up to the Wyld-spirit. It didn't speak any human tongue, or the High Tongue. She spoke to it in the spirits' tongue. Asked it to come with her so she could find it a new place."
Minute shift in demeanor. Compassion turns to distrust, softness to smallness.
"new place... has things to pushmove?"
Another of those silences without the glance backwards now. He draws another deep breath that he might transition back into the conversational shooting-the-shit tone he'd started off in without jarring the audience.
"That's all it wanted out of the store. It wasn't fighting anything or looking to destroy anything. It wanted its own space. Things with parts that popped and burst and spun, it just wanted to move these things. It likes the way manmade things shine and splash and make noise. They couldn't let it roam free and they knew it would be lonely and angry if it was out on its own. Siren of Persephone figured it would find companionship with the other spirits guarding the place and it would have a lot of shiny metal things to play with. Pokes the Mind's Eye figured what the hell, it'd be great security, it could throw intruders out the window and drop shit down the elevator shafts."
All that to say:
"So Radiant Honor, Siren of Persephone, and Pokes the Mind's Eye took it home."
He swipes his hair back from his face and starts to leave the circle. He's not done. He'll be back up in a few minutes. Before he steps off into the shadows again he adds:
"Oh, word of advice: if you're up at Cold Crescent and you've got a banana you're looking forward to eating, don't leave it lying around. You won't get it back."
"Some of you are probably wondering what's going on at Cold Crescent." He frowns and waves his hands to smooth away potential misunderstanding. "No. No no. Not the goings-on we went over after the Truthcatcher cracked the bone. I'm talking about how you'll walk out of a room and come back and everything'll be upended. Or you'll think you're alone out in the hall and then you turn a corner and BAM, there's a glowing orb right in front of you."
No. That's not right.
An aside to himself: "Actually the last I heard it was materializing again."
And back to the story: "It didn't just show up at the Broadway building. It showed up at a Sports Authority in Aurora."
It sounds like a joke. It is not a joke. Look at his face. This isn't funny.
"Listen: it was minus... ten degrees that day. Before the wind chill. And it was a Friday which to humans means it's time to load their entire life into the car and go to the mall. There's a holiday coming up. Something about a fat man in a red suit. I don't understand it. My parents were Hindu. Ganesha doesn't drive a sleigh. Anyway there were about a thousand people at this sprawling mall on the other side of the city, and a handful of Garou just happened to be there."
Buying skis and Orange Julius and small electronics. Irrelevant. This is the part of the buildup where Hector paces back and forth like the movement of his feet is helping his mouth keep pace with the story.
"So this handful of Garou happened to converge upon the Sports Authority and chanced to notice that people were not calmly walking in and out of the front door anymore. One minute everything was calm and the next folks were running out of the store. Some of them were screaming. The asphalt was all covered in snow and ice, so the people driving cars were already sliding all over the place, but people were running out into the road to get away from whatever was going on inside. Some of them almost got trampled.
"Reverence of Dawn, Radiant Honor. She was the first one in the store and even with everybody screaming and elbowing each other, knocking each other out of the way, she stood her ground. She saw Pokes the Minds Eye, told him to find a way to keep the front doors open so people could get out. She saw Siren of Persephone, asked her what could possibly be causing all these people to panic.
"At first they thought it might be something mechanical just from the sounds it was making. It wasn't the Wyrm. They knew that much. It was something whirring and clanging around and people freaked out to see it. Of course they freaked out. They didn't understand it and they couldn't do anything about it. So they ran."
He swipes his hair back out of his face and finds Milton in the crowd. Pulls a puzzled but curious face.
"I still don't even know what you did, man."
Back to it:
"Pokes the Mind's Eye pulls out this... iPhone, it looked like. One of those smartphones that can do a million things. And the front door was one of those automatic glass sliding situations, it'd been opening and closing on the people trying to leave so it was clogging things up, they were starting to panic. And Pokes the Mind's Eye just waves this thing at the doors and the doors stayed open. The store emptied out after that but now the floor was shaking. Things were falling off the shelves. It wasn't Grandfather Serpent, the Wyrm. They still didn't know what it was. Radiant Honor said:"
He shores up his shoulders and stops stalking the stage. And he can never say it the way she said it, can project that kind of authority and imitate the luminescence but can never truly awe the others the way she does. It's alright. He's not one of Falcon's. He's just telling a story.
"I do not know what you are! I do not know from where you came. But you are harming those within my protectorate. You are frightening those who deserve no fear, and whose hearts should not be troubled further when the world is already so dark.
"I will end that harm! I will end that fear!
"I will end you!"
Deep-deep breath. He glances back over his shoulder at the fire crackling and nothing happens for a moment. Not I-forgot-my-lines nothing. Calm-before-the-storm nothing. The Galliard drifts back into the shadows and cups his hands over his mouth. Makes a pounding-thundering noise as he moves forward again slow. Like a big and ponderous creature assured of its strength and its territory and the power of its strength and territory.
"It made a body out of whatever it could find," he says when he drops his hands. The innate athleticism in his body comes out now as he loosens up his shoulders and holds his hands down at his sides like his fists are weighted down with muscle. "Helmets and bicycles and hand-weights. Little things like shirts and jump ropes. Big things like pool tables and kayaks. The ceilings in this place were so high a wolf in her war form couldn't reach the ceiling with outreached claws but this thing could have reached up and busted a light out of its fixture if it wanted to. It cast a deep shadow over the Garou and as it came towards them - that was the crashing and the quaking. It shook the earth as it walked. Knocked over shelves not with its bulk but with the vibrations from its feet and fists hitting the floor. It was furious. They were in its territory."
He cannot summon lights or call on Luna himself to light up his body but he can use his hands to make a glowing gesture as he switches from the mark of the Wyld-spirit to the mark of the Fostern Silver Fang Philodox.
"Radiant Honor armored herself. Pokes the Mind's Eye had a plan to dispatch it but Siren of Persephone said It's Wyld, I can't say for certain why it's here, the Weaver is strong and it may just want to push it out. I have a few gifts that may help in reducing its power that I can try."
He takes on a hulking threatening posture again.
"The spirit in its mass-body wasn't going to stand there all day and wait for them to act. It kept rushing forward, you know how gorillas do, feinting at them like it was going to charge and then coming back. Radiant Honor didn't want to kill it. Siren of Persephone didn't want to kill it. Pokes the Mind's Eye was like Son of a bitch I wanted to blow things up! but he didn't want to kill it.
"It brought up its fists and it busted a light out of its fixture and it ran at the Garou."
The energy in his movements becomes as frenetic as the Wyld-spirit they fought that day. Big gestures and sharp turns of his body. Mental imagery of things flying everywhere and bodies falling down.
"And they didn't want to kill it but it beat its fists on the ground and knocked half of them down and they were biting at it, tearing away at the miasma of plastic metal things it fashioned into a body and it started hurling these things at them, tents and poles and knives, things that covered up their eyes and scratched at their hides, just this flurry of stuff, but they hurt it more than it could hurt them, it was outnumbered and their teeth and claws were sharp, even Pokes the Mind's Eye hobbled it a little without blowing anything up, and it tried to escape. It was going to climb the shelves it hadn't toppled and bust a hole through the ceiling and run out into the night, but they stopped it. Took it down with their claws--"
And he hates snow hates cold hates the wet cling of it on his clothes but he crashes to the ground like a creature made of junk losing its body and crashing to the ground. Smaller than before. Bristling and crippled and furious.
"Not to kill. Just to stay."
It wasn't going to understand that. Not without a spirit-talker to apologize.
"Siren of Persephone had gotten knocked down when it sent that shockwave through the place."
He picks himself up. Doesn't have to do as much to imitate the Black Fury. He could be her stunt double, they both have the same build that disappears when they turn sideways, the same long dark hair. Her spiritual connection is greater than his though. Her affect is softer. She is not as angry as he is, will never be as angry as he is.
His voice goes calmer and even. Siren of Persephone follows Pegasus and is the youngest of a long line of fierce and protective warrior women. Even his gaze goes softer.
"She got up, and she walked up to the Wyld-spirit. It didn't speak any human tongue, or the High Tongue. She spoke to it in the spirits' tongue. Asked it to come with her so she could find it a new place."
Minute shift in demeanor. Compassion turns to distrust, softness to smallness.
"new place... has things to pushmove?"
Another of those silences without the glance backwards now. He draws another deep breath that he might transition back into the conversational shooting-the-shit tone he'd started off in without jarring the audience.
"That's all it wanted out of the store. It wasn't fighting anything or looking to destroy anything. It wanted its own space. Things with parts that popped and burst and spun, it just wanted to move these things. It likes the way manmade things shine and splash and make noise. They couldn't let it roam free and they knew it would be lonely and angry if it was out on its own. Siren of Persephone figured it would find companionship with the other spirits guarding the place and it would have a lot of shiny metal things to play with. Pokes the Mind's Eye figured what the hell, it'd be great security, it could throw intruders out the window and drop shit down the elevator shafts."
All that to say:
"So Radiant Honor, Siren of Persephone, and Pokes the Mind's Eye took it home."
He swipes his hair back from his face and starts to leave the circle. He's not done. He'll be back up in a few minutes. Before he steps off into the shadows again he adds:
"Oh, word of advice: if you're up at Cold Crescent and you've got a banana you're looking forward to eating, don't leave it lying around. You won't get it back."
Look. I have school. And RP. And all my other time is taken up by sheer, unreasoning panic. I don't have time for Reddit.
-- ixphaelaeon
-- ixphaelaeon