As always, Charlotte is very quiet throughout the cracking, a slim, white-furred wolf who is remarkably, always silent in her packmate's shadow. Erich takes the bone and she is alert then, tail high, and after that a cascading discussion and for all her purity, no one is watching her then to see her reactions, no matter how compelling her purity.
Somewhere in there though: a rippling movement, like liquid, and in the end as with Tamsin, a girl-form crouches where the wolf had been. Charlotte looks really quite tense and her eyes are set and her brows are set and her mind is really rather closed to the minds of her packmates as she takes the bone, heart in her throat, beating. Beating,
as she takes the bone.
"Forgotten Questions has a Wyrmfoe." The girl, a skinny thing in jeans and a Denver Broncos t-shirt begins. "New one every moon. Every moot. A Caller-of-the-Wyld-Things and a Talesinger and a Fool. Cold Crescent does not need any of them. Forgotten Questions has a Caern to be opened and fed and sustained, a hunt to be called and a revel to be led and Cold Crescent has none.
"We don't need a Wyrmfoe and a Caller-of-the-Wyld and a Fool. We come here every moon; we join the Septs and we join moot and we run beneath the moon together we do it together, led by one Wyrmfoe and one Caller of the Wyld, and questioned by one Fool.
"So we can share the things we need to share.
"Can't share a Warder." A brief, avian, nearly alien blink as Charlotte's eyes go towards but shy away from the place where the Grand Alpha sits. " - that'd be <i>stupid</i>. The Warder here has to protect the bawn and defend the Caern from everything that wants to devour it and defile it and drain it. The Warder there - "
A small, one-shouldered shrug.
" - well, Cold Crescent was established to Ward, wasn't it. Cold Crescent's like a watchtower. It is a watchtower, a fortress, and we aren't there to keep the world from tearing apart our most sacred of places. We're there to keep those Things and the Things-that-Love-Them from tearing apart the world.
"I think the Warder is the leader of Cold Crescent," Charlotte starts, looks a bit guilty for making a statement like that. Swallows. " - or should be. There's no reason to separate Warder and alpha when there is no Caern to guard, no bawn to protect. So I think the Warder should lead us, and answer to the Grand Alpha. I don't think we need a separate Grand Alpha - not because we don't need leadership; but because we need leadership of a different sort for a different sept made for different reasons with a different purpose."
It all comes out in a tumble, really and at the end the girl is holding the bone and closing her mouth quite neatly and looking around the circle of wolves with rather wide eyes and a pounding heart and feeling brighter and more alert and also somehow noisier in a way that makes her begin to stiffen up and she might well just stand there bone-in-hand for an uncomfortably long period of time but she is lucky enough to have packmates one of whom nudges her mindfully and Charlotte startles, see, alert and awake and almost-but-not-quite fumbles the lion's jawbone from her hand in her haste and eagerness to hand it back to the Truthcatcher and slip out from the center of the circle, away from the scrutiny of the crowd. Cheeks flaming. Of course they are.
Somewhere in there though: a rippling movement, like liquid, and in the end as with Tamsin, a girl-form crouches where the wolf had been. Charlotte looks really quite tense and her eyes are set and her brows are set and her mind is really rather closed to the minds of her packmates as she takes the bone, heart in her throat, beating. Beating,
as she takes the bone.
"Forgotten Questions has a Wyrmfoe." The girl, a skinny thing in jeans and a Denver Broncos t-shirt begins. "New one every moon. Every moot. A Caller-of-the-Wyld-Things and a Talesinger and a Fool. Cold Crescent does not need any of them. Forgotten Questions has a Caern to be opened and fed and sustained, a hunt to be called and a revel to be led and Cold Crescent has none.
"We don't need a Wyrmfoe and a Caller-of-the-Wyld and a Fool. We come here every moon; we join the Septs and we join moot and we run beneath the moon together we do it together, led by one Wyrmfoe and one Caller of the Wyld, and questioned by one Fool.
"So we can share the things we need to share.
"Can't share a Warder." A brief, avian, nearly alien blink as Charlotte's eyes go towards but shy away from the place where the Grand Alpha sits. " - that'd be <i>stupid</i>. The Warder here has to protect the bawn and defend the Caern from everything that wants to devour it and defile it and drain it. The Warder there - "
A small, one-shouldered shrug.
" - well, Cold Crescent was established to Ward, wasn't it. Cold Crescent's like a watchtower. It is a watchtower, a fortress, and we aren't there to keep the world from tearing apart our most sacred of places. We're there to keep those Things and the Things-that-Love-Them from tearing apart the world.
"I think the Warder is the leader of Cold Crescent," Charlotte starts, looks a bit guilty for making a statement like that. Swallows. " - or should be. There's no reason to separate Warder and alpha when there is no Caern to guard, no bawn to protect. So I think the Warder should lead us, and answer to the Grand Alpha. I don't think we need a separate Grand Alpha - not because we don't need leadership; but because we need leadership of a different sort for a different sept made for different reasons with a different purpose."
It all comes out in a tumble, really and at the end the girl is holding the bone and closing her mouth quite neatly and looking around the circle of wolves with rather wide eyes and a pounding heart and feeling brighter and more alert and also somehow noisier in a way that makes her begin to stiffen up and she might well just stand there bone-in-hand for an uncomfortably long period of time but she is lucky enough to have packmates one of whom nudges her mindfully and Charlotte startles, see, alert and awake and almost-but-not-quite fumbles the lion's jawbone from her hand in her haste and eagerness to hand it back to the Truthcatcher and slip out from the center of the circle, away from the scrutiny of the crowd. Cheeks flaming. Of course they are.
But my heart is wild and my bones are steel
And I could kill you with my bare hands if I was free.
- Phosphorescent, Song for Zula
And I could kill you with my bare hands if I was free.
- Phosphorescent, Song for Zula