October: Stories and Songs

[kai]

Tonight, the Talesinger steps forward before the Truthcatcher. That alone is noticable; that alone is strange and startling and perhaps even a bit worrisome, but tonight, they are to sing and to storytell before they crack the bone.

The Talesinger tonight is no boisterous Skald, nor a stammering Gnawer, but a Child of Gaia. A very small Child of Gaia whose face has a delicate, elfin beauty with eyes that recall the indigo brightness of Elizabeth Taylor's and a soft mouth of pale pink that calls to mind amorphous thoughts of porcelain and butterfly wings. She is very pale, and her hair is very pale, almost white, and if there is any hint of Falcon's blood still left in her veins it was not enough, could never be enough to make that honorable spirit (who, perhaps to his shame, adores the beauty of his children even in their madness) recognize her as his own. Especially not when she shuffles to the center of the circle so slowly, weighed down and hindered by the twisted hunch of her spine and the one foot that is heavy, flat-soled, more dragged behind the better-formed one than stepping in time with it.

Her hair is lank. Her clothing is tattered but colorful, topped by a tapestry of vines and birds and flowers that she has wrapped around herself like a cloak. Her eyes are wide and round. Some in Forgotten Questions hate her for her parents' sin or for her pathetic, obvious weaknesses, and some cannot help but ache for her beauty and her fragility and her daft, deranged mind.

Either way, the septs grow a little quieter when she shambles to the front to take her place.

"The sun... grows... very... very old," she says into that near-silence, giving a faint shudder. All while she speaks, there are intermittent tremors. She is slow with her words. She has to pause for breath. "How long, cold... fading... death? How long?"

So not a happy story to start with.

Her hands spread, opening like a book or a cracked egg, child-sized palms held upward. "Mother picks up, suckles son." Her hands close. "Son bites! Son is a... is a tuatara. Son wounds mother, ascends to throne. There is no father; there was never any father. We knew this was coming. Lie down in sweet grass of spring, cubs in summer, all taken by cold harvest. We wonder why winter is so dark? We watch the sun die. Watch all the sons die. We knew this was coming."

The Galliard's name is Broken Tree Talks-in-Wind. She is named for the aspens: for their shared whiteness, their trembling, the soft clattering of their voices in the wind. They stand so straight and tall, though. This is their difference.

Broken Tree turns a slow circle, dragging her clubbed, near-useless right foot along with her, drawing that ring in the dirt.

"All are messengers of cataclysm, all are heralds of the god of death, but they are not the god of death, though they share his likeness. The god of death cannot be killed."

She lifts her hands, still cupped, still held upward, and scrubs them over her face. She reaches down, lifting up dirt, and rubs that over her face like she is washing it.

"When the gods go mad, the earth and its spirits go mad. The people go mad. The People go mad, and all carry sickles, all become harvesters, all grow from being cubs to being slaughterers, all look at the blood of murderous victory on their hands and feel triumph and despair."

Broken Tree sinks down into a tight, curled-up ball. She rocks slightly, making a low keening sound. "Do we have hope? Have we killed hope, too? Do we turn hope into another messenger, another herald, another servant? The sun grows old and the atmosphere thin. When the moon sets in the sea tonight, will the tide come to cover the land?"

She lifts her head, peering at someone in the crowd. A friend, perhaps. A stranger.

Maybe you.

"I would hear of hope, before the moon sets and the old sun climbs from his bed. Dark things come. Messengers and boundary-keepers watch us from the night. The mother's children twist in her arms, longing both to suckle and to devour."

She sounds, herself, so close to despair. Her voice is falling quieter, quieter still.

"I would hear of hope, my people. I would be told, and hope to be convinced, that we have not reached the end."

[Damon]

Like everyone else, Erich Storm's Teeth was watching Broken Tree interestedly, even intently, as she took the spotlight before the Bone has even been cracked. As she began to speak, he got a quizzical look on his face. His brow knit. Then it furrowed. Then it became downright thunderous, scowling, fuming.

By the time she finishes, Erich is practically champing at the bit to get out there. By the time she invites them all to speak of hope, to prove her wrong -- well, by then Erich is so worked up he just plays right into the Talesinger's hands. He shoves his way out of the crowd, trips on someone's leg, catches himself with an oath and stalks out into the middle of the ring. When he gets there he glares at Broken Tree, looking around for the Bone until he remembers, again, that there is no Bone in this part. Right.

"We have NOT reached the end!"

So it is that the first tale of the night comes from a Cliath Ahroun Shadow Lord. He is downright indignant.

"We're not even close to the end. We're just getting started. There is NO room for despair here. I hate that defeatist bullshit."

He's in her face. In another form he would be bristling, his fur standing up from withers to tail. He would be blasting breath from flaring nostrils --

well. He's already doing that.

"You want to hear about hope? Fine. Here's hope for you." He wheels away, he searches the crowd, he jabs two fingers out into the gathering. "That is Reverence of Dawn-rhya. She's a Silver Fang Philodox. And the things she does, dude.

"Have you seen her fight? She puts down Wyrmlings faster than I do. We ran into these fomori once at a bridal shop -- it's a long story -- but she just TORE THEM APART. The biggest, baddest one? She shredded it. In like. A bite. The second toughest? She shredded that one too. It took like 2 seconds. All that was left for me were the little peons. She was like the fucking avatar of glory.

"And she's just as good off the field. Maybe even better. Couple weeks ago I got into one hell of a snarl with Siren of Persephone. I mean I was ready to tear her to bits. But Reverence of Dawn-rhya stepped up. She got everyone else, especially the kin, out of the room. And then she told us to make a choice. Be selfish and fight it out, or be big about it and just... act like fuckin' adults, you know? She made us see how dumb we were being, and she talked us down. Because of Reverence of Dawn's leadership, judgment and mediation, me and Siren of Persephone walked away allies. Maybe we'll even be friends.

"Reverence doesn't brag about any of this. She doesn't hold it over your head. She doesn't let it make her arrogant or smug or anything like that. She ... inspires you. She shows you what doing good really means. And you want to keep up. You want to do your best. For her, but also... for yourself. You feel proud to be Garou when you're with Reverence-rhya. You feel proud to call yourself her friend and ally.

"She's a hero. Period. So there's hope for you.

"Over there, now." Erich points the other way now, at the Theurges near his own packmate. "That's Siren of Persephone-rhya. She's the Black Fury Theurge I butted heads with. I said some pretty not-okay things to her. She outranks me. She's a damn good Theurge, by all accounts. If she wanted to make my life hell, she probably could.

"But she didn't. She decided to sit and talk things out with me. She decided to give apologies where they were due and accept them where they were due to her. Reverence of Dawn did a bang-up job playing judge, jury and referee for us, but that would've never worked out if Siren of Persephone-rhya wasn't the reasonable grown-up she is." The word choice is, perhaps, wholly deliberate. "But she knew we're stronger united than divided. She knew all that the war against the Wyrm trumps everything else. And she was willing to lay down her own personal issues, and maybe even a little bit of her pride, so that this Sept stayed strong.

"So there's hope for you."

"Sitting next to her? That's Still Waters. I'm sorry to say I don't know her very well, but I saw all I needed to the other day at Cold Crescent. Our Elders were getting hauled off. It was like a fuckin' police state. No interrogation, no trial, not even an explanation. People were just disappearing. Most people just put their heads down and hoped they didn't go with them. But not Still Waters. She stood up. She asked why. She wasn't rude about it. She wasn't snotty or uppity or anything. She knew her place: she was a Cliath. And she knew her place: she was a champion of justice, and one of the most important pillars of justice is transparency in the whole... y'know... system.

"Now, I don't know if it did any good in the end. Hunter of Peace-rhya still got taken away. We haven't seen him since, and we don't know what went on behind the scenes. But maybe that doesn't even matter. What matters is a Cliath Child of Gaia stood up for what was right, even if it meant she'd get punished for it. She did it peacefully. She did it respectfully. And if I'm ever stuck in a deep shithole and people are trying to bury me without a trial, I hope to Gaia someone like Still Waters stands up for me.

"So there, right there, is hope for you."

He turns away from the circle. He faces the Talesinger again.

"I've got one more story. It's about a kinswoman named Eva Illeshazy. She's not here tonight so I can't point her out to you guys. I'm still gonna tell you what she did, though, because it deserves to be heard.

"Everything we know about Cold Crescent? Everything the elders neglected to tell us, and everything we couldn't figure out? She figured it out. I don't know how. I don't know what strings she had to pull or what she had to do, what she had to invest, what she had to give. But she figured it out, and she brought it to us, and the very fact that we have even an inkling of a plan, or a shadow of a hope, is because of her.

"A kinswoman. She did that. She put her ass on the line for us, not because we made her do it, not because we told her to, but because she saw need and she did her best, and her best was better than what any of us could have done.

"THERE'S hope for you.

"I can keep going. I can talk about this shit all day. I've got stories like this out my ears. But the thing is, I can't convince anyone that there's still hope. I can't manufacture it for you. You make your own hope -- or despair. You make your own victory -- or demise.

"So that's my challenge back to you, Talesinger-rhya. And to anyone out there wallowing in despair. Stop it. Just don't. Don't cry. Don't whine. Don't give up. Don't wait for someone else to light the way. Don't wait for a hero. Don't be afraid. I know it's hard. I know a lot of shit happened. I know sometimes it feels like we couldn't possibly win against something so huge and strong and ruthless as the Wyrm. I know sometimes it feels like you have nothing to give.

"But none of that is true. Because if any of that was true, then Gaia would not have made us. It doesn't fucking matter if you can't fight, or if you're blind as a bat, or if you have no clout, or if you have zero education and zero eloquence like me. There's something you can do, if you look hard enough. There is always something you can give that no one else can.

"So stand up. Stand up like Reverence of Dawn did. Like Siren of Persephone did. Like Still Waters did. Like Eva Illeshazy did. Be a goddamn hero. Be a beacon of hope.

"Every single one of us was born to win this war. Get out there and prove it."

If he'd had a microphone he'd drop it on the floor now. As is, it's something of the same effect when Erich turns and stomps back to sit next to Charlotte.

[Samael]

[[No worries! In response, saved the content of my own post for revision and posting after Damon's is done, and deleted it from here]]

[tithe]

ooc: if there is any accidental reference in this post to earlier posts, sorry! had to edit a few times! ignore said references!

--

Furious Lament
- and here are two galliards.

The wolf-voice isn't just for opening a moot isn't just for summoning enemies or allies isn't just no certainly not only for. The wolf-throat isn't just for snarling an enemy-you-will-die snarl for growling a first-warnings-are-also-last-warnings growl. Under the October Moon, moonlight silvering the dark and falling with oh they'd never think indifference they're holy they know they are it is a thing that sparks furiously inside them they do not need faith because they are what they are, Celduin's galliards slip with predatory grace from the audience and center, and there they separate, circling sinuous once twice rangy things and the Fianna with a drop of old heroes drinking up the fire in her blood oh no but not drinking up oil on fire shh simmer smoulder crackle the point is the Fianna lifts her muzzle first and howls

a plaintive question-song, anger limning the rise-and-fall sound of it

why Luna why, why, Luna, why,
why Luna why
do some stories fall into shadow
and never get told?
why Luna why, why, Luna, why,
why oh why
do we keep fighting, do I keep fighting,
when the bones of good wolves
strong wolves, laughing wolves,
the bones of the wolf who climbed the stars to steal your light
and use it against the Wyrm
the bones of the wolf who went down into the Earth
and came back with teeth of black glass and knowledge of the future
the bones of the wolf who led seventy wolves
into speaking a new caern up from a river
the bones of the wolf who first held my throat with teeth
and let me go
why do I keep fighting when these bones are still
and the wolves are gone
because wolves are not bones?
why Luna why why

Echoes of the Lost
And he'll never tell you he was lost without her but he floundered up here by himself two moons past and now they come up out of the crowd and the firelit darkness at each others' sides for a time and he's bigger than her and meaner than her and his wolf-fur is tan and red and gray darker along his spine for his blood came from the cradle of civilization though his spirit came from the southwest-american sands.

He is the only one who hears his ancestors anymore.

He answers like the answer is the ghost of something said before:

why?
why?
i am Darkness.
i am Void.
why?
why?
i am the mother without children.
i am seedlings yet unborn.
why?
why?
i am infinite.
unfathomable.
no meaning end or measure.
why?
why?
i am loneliness and barrenness and nothingness.
three stones i grow inside myself
three eggs, three glowing coals
i reach inside and draw them out
and toss them to the void
and they burn so bright like fires
in dry leaves or wood.
i watch them for eternities.
heat makes warmth and warmth makes fire and fire makes life.
patient, patient, i swim the void and watch them grow.
why?
why?
Darkness is ended.
the Void is fled.
no longer do i drift alone.
why?
no longer am i all alone.
from the fire came the phoenix
witness of my firstborn
my creation
on wings of flame she soared across the sky
laughed at the fleeing Void
laughed to see Creation bloom
where before was nothing but the night.
why?
phoenix laughed to see the end of night.

Furious Lament
And when Echoes of the Lost ends, Cinder Song is already drawing wolf-voice out again sending it falling around the Uktena wolf's like ash from a fire sending it drifting like a wind-eddy through ash then up, up, wolf-voice to bridge-span wolf-song to follow the wolf who climbed the stars to get to Luna and ask three questions five nine questions bring them back to Gaia but forget them on the way, wolf-voice ethereal but shadow-furred, and under the wolf-voice this time demands,

strong, swaggering,

where, Luna, where
is the ground strong and sweet
under our paws
where, Luna, where
is the food good and the play quick
the wolves clever and the wolves
packed (together [united])
where, Luna, where
do we stand strong against foe
do we bare our teeth
our bright bloodied teeth
where, Luna, where
is the question [uncertainty] that can shake us
Luna, oh, Luna, beautiful Luna
where should we not-wolf wolves go?
where should we not?
where oh where is the pack of storm's teeth,
who calls his brothers and sisters together so they talk
about the war, what to do, a vigiliant family,
and black sheep,
who was saved by a river, who made the river
remember how to be clean, how to be clear?
where is that pack?!
where is the seer-pack, the pack of crescents,
of over sea and under stone, who died but came back,
because her rage was too fierce,
of sings the spirits to rest, who tends the wounded,
who sings herself restless,
of still waters, who does not falter, even in the dark,
of treads the ashen path?
where is the desert oracle? where is that pack?!
where is stone cold the pack of
dances with the hurricane, who even the dark does not spy
when she passes through it
and [afro daddy]?
where is that pack?!
where is the pack under falcon's shining wing,
the pack of anubis sight, who offers strength without cowardice,
who speaks and listens
and of reverence to dawn,
who judges fairly, who kills surely and swiftly?
where is that pack?!

Echoes of the Lost
No notion of heresy in their culture for their people have no allegiance to any but each other and their homage is paid to the spirits for their bodies are half spirit and their children are half-spirit and the land and the future and the things that keep them alive are of spirits.

Echoes of the Lost barked and howled as a vast dark thing to answer her first inquiries but now he circles around her like the moon circles the earth and his tone is sharp and bright but not like metal not like something made by man's hands like something man has only touched after much sacrifice and to no end.

But not like Luna. Luna will not answer her.

to see you must leave this behind.
this fire, these woods, the wind in the branches.
this is the true world, the mother's realm
the seat of the immortal, the heart of our world
the fragile flesh.
inside that flesh is immortality.
the shard of past lives
the seed of tomorrows.
to touch the face of our immortal Mother
you must leave behind the comforts.
speak your prayers into shallow waters!
send your essence through the glass!
the Immortal Ones have shown us the path to their domain
to the heart of immortality
we glide like shadows
errant cubs
home.
listen now to the rustle up above!
breathe the pine and forestfall!
close your eyes
forsake the things you know
and we will speak of them.
they are here
they are immortal
speak of them
that they might live on
after you are gone.

Furious Lament
plaintive 
why
becomes for life
swaggering
where
becomes here

and now

now the Fianna-wolf whose ears have pricked-up up playful playing legs-spread play-bow quick and a leap, turn, roll-in-the-dirt, stalk around Echoes of the Lost, stalk-stalk, hunt-hunt, follow-follow, brush against, a shadowling thing, the Fianna-wolf who howls a third question-song singing-question what

Luna!
what [who] are we?

humans hearing would be afraid prey hearing would be warned hairs-rising back-of-neck cold they'd feel it in the marrow where it silvers itself burns sharp

this wolf-song

but this wolf-song it is not a threat it is a declaration a question that knows its answer it is not a wolf-song it is a garou-song a one-thing then-another song in wolf-throat and oh it does know the answer

but

it wants to hear it said

Luna!
what are we when your light touches us
transforms us makes us this-shape and that-shape
what are we when Helios is bright
when we are strong
when we are weak
what are we
when we howl
what are we?

Echoes of the Lost
what are you?

And still he orbits her. Snaps at her heels as he moves about her. Stolid and angry but not impotent. Not lashing out. It's Rage, not rage.

oh my brothers
oh my sisters
by the stars and the crackling of the fires
remember how you hunt
like the wolves you are
remember how you sing
like the men you may be
let no one tell you these days are easy!
let no one tell you they are not cold
that you do not toil
and bleed
and measure the seasons in the deaths of friends.
never was this world a paradise!
it is built on bones and brambles.
if paradise there be where all is bliss
it be in an Otherworld
where lessons learned in this land
have blossomed into greater sense.
life is a mountain we climb.
those who fall from its slopes may be mourned
but they do not bring the mountain down!
those who claw at its slopes may be slain
but they do not bring the mountain down
and you would not let them if they could.
they are less than worms in a carcass
termites in the wood -
they corrupt what they cannot enjoy
and from these
we take our supper!
what are you?

Furious Lament
- this is when they howl together; wordless, though of course there've been no words, not really, just the shape of them, poetry dredged up out've wolf-voices, but this this is real wordlessness raw sound braiding one around the other -

what are you?

- blooming, blossoming, into another-shape, not a wolf-shape this, no, a shape that belongs to these, muscle-bound shape, preternaturally dextrous, war-shape, warrior's-shape, Rage's shape, battle-form - 
see?

- finish with a ROAR.

Echoes of the Lost
They do not stay in their wolf skins for wolf skins are for the hunt and for shadows and for feasting. Not for war. Not for the call of it. The alarm hurled into the air not a wail of foreboding but a roar of warning.

And he bursts up into his war form beside his sister and he towers over her and the fur in this form is black as the night around them and their voice is like the earth opened up to swallow all those things that would see Her burn.

That is what they are.

- and then (at least) the Fianna takes a seat (for now). Wet that whistle for more tales. Cede the floor to Echoes of the Lost or somebody else.

[Damon]

[ahem. edited above!]

[jamie]

"Where's Desert Oracle at!"

The Uktena stands in his human skin in front of the fire and he has his hair yanked back after his and Cinder-Song's opening act. He wears a blazer over a flannel shirt and his eyes glint like all the metal he has punched into or hung off of his body.

He finds them in the audience and points them out like Erich didn't already do a good enough job of embarrassing half of them earlier.

"Okay, good, they're all here." He claps his hands. "Alright! this is a story about geomids and giant death robots and a bunch of spirit-talkers who didn't take any of Grandfather Spider's guff.

"Now, I wasn't there, and these gals are terrible at bragging about themselves, so there may be a veeeeeery tiny amount of poetic license taken tonight, but this actually happened. They've got the scars to prove it."

Hector holds up a hand like to frame a tall immobile object in the empty space to the side of the circle he's not on and moves towards it slow as he sets the scene.

"So one morning Siren of Persephone's kinsman Georgie comes up to her and tells her there's something weird growing on the trunk of a tree on the property line between her yard and the neighbor's yard. She's got this humble little house in a neighborhood east of here, humans living around her are all law-abiding people. It's quiet. The lawns look pretty happy."

He stops walking when he's come abreast of the imaginary tree.

"She goes out to look at it and she sees it--" An exaggerated expression of confabulation, palms out brief before he points again. "Those of you who've never seen a geomid before don't know how ugly these things are. I'm talking ugly. They don't even follow the laws of nature. They're shapes, but they just do whatever they want. Not like agents of chaos do whatever they want. They do whatever they want but with purpose. It's enough to suck the life out of you.

"So she takes a look at it. Doesn't look like anything more than a green plastic useless thing stuck to the bark but it won't come off. She looks across the Gauntlet and that's when she figures out ah, hell, it's a geomid.

"Concerning this particular geomid: it was a beacon. A flag for the Pattern Spiders to find where they needed to come in and start putting up webs. And it was just sitting there--" His left hand starts opening and closing in a slow pulsing gesture. "--pinging out into the Penumbra that this was the spot, Spider Friends, let's get moving."

He takes a few steps back to transition away from the tree and crosses the circle before the fire, the pulsing hand movement ceasing.

"Treads-the-Ashen-Path and Still-Waters and Over-Sea-Under-Stone all come. They've had the same vision. A big mechanical thing stepping out of a tree and into the yard. Once they're all there they decide they're going in. Nothing they can do on this side. So they step sideways."

Again with the framing of the tree with an outstretched hand.

"And it's just sitting there, like it's waiting for them. Still calling out for reinforcements and they're already coming. Two Hunter Spiders heard the four of them arrive and stopped what they were doing to come investigate. Plenty of us would have just gone for the Spiders, right? Big smelly oil-dripping bucketheads coming at you, one of them's got flamethrowers for arms, the other one's got laser weapons?--you'd go for the thing obviously trying to kill you.

"Siren of Persephone didn't. She told the rest of the pack to focus fire on the beacon, take it out before it could summon any more Spiders. That's all it's meant to do, and it summons them in prime numbers. It's never just one."

A beat. He scoffs.

"'Focus fire.' Wasn't like she was running into battle with a bunch of Full Moons. She had with her: an Ivory Priestess of the second rank, a skinny ahimsa, and a spirit-talker who went her whole life thinking she was going to grow up to be a kinswoman. They're all right there. They're all still alive. They didn't run.

"And this is what they don't brag about. None of them has said anything about how Siren snared the geomid so it couldn't do anything while Treads turned the spiders against each other, or how Under-Stone ran at the geomid and bit it, over and over even though it looked like it nothing was scratching it, and Still-Waters went at it in her war form, with her staff, and it must've felt like hours, but they don't say it felt anything other than necessary. They don't say how the spiders destroyed the geomid and then they turned on each other, how the last one standing took down Siren and Under-Stone because it was standing there with its beacon destroyed all on its own and it just lost it, started shooting lasers at them, it took down both of them one after the other but they didn't stay down. Neither of them. They got back up and this is old news for you unstoppable killing machines who've already got a few under your belt but Siren and Under-Stone, they've never frenzied before. Treads and Still-Waters, they've never frenzied before.

"Doesn't matter. They didn't even flinch. They kept fighting until that last Hunter Spider was nothing but bolts and wisps of smoke." He holds up his hand to where the tree still stood invisible at the edge of the circle. "The tree survived. And now Grandfather Spider knows better than to put down stakes in Desert Oracle's backyard."

The evening's Embarrass The Theurges quota: reached.

[kai]

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!"

[errin]

Broken Tree Sings-in-Wind asks for tales of hope to blaze against the darkness of the coming end-of-days.

For a long time, Ingrid is content to sit and listen. As Erich rails against that thinking, pointing out faces in the crowd. As Celduin move together and speak words with wolves' tongues. As the Alpha rises to tell the tale of a pack of Theurges. And she watches the others, the ones who dance or sing songs that send shivers down the spine. And as she does these things she also thinks.

Perhaps it is these tales as well as the slow burning fire of Rage stoked, but eventually, she is the one who steps into the circle. Ingrid does not make a great show of her appearance - in fact, someone else is half a step inside before they realize oh, someone else got there first. She stands there a moment, staring out at the crowd with eyes that are black as coal, black as the night they rail against, glittering with fire like stars, her hair down and wild around her shoulders. If anyone expects her to cavort about, to tumble and tell jokes and enliven this gathering, well they don't know Dances With the Hurricane. She is not that sort of Ragabash.

When she speaks she is not loud. She could be. Ingrid knows how to pitch her voice just so, lifting it to be heard by Garou all the way in the back, but she doesn't. This is not a story for loud voices. It is a story for a quiet, deadly Ragabash with a rather intimate association with darkness and shadow and secrets. Her voice is just barely loud enough, and so the crowd has to quiet still further. It is not a silence as absolute as the one that follows the Great Alpha's cracking of an antler's rack, but it's close enough.

"Allow me to tell you about a Citadel that fell to fire, and the hope that was found in its ashes." She is not a storyteller, she does not have a flair for the dramatic, she cannot spin this story into something entertaining, or incredibly interesting. But she will tell it just the same.

The first part, when Afro Daddy who was not her Alpha then sought her help in scouting this place out. A child went missing. The Glass Walker wanted him found. Together, they did just that, found the body buried in the little graveyard. Mutilated. Tortured. Every moment until the last must have been filled with pain.

And they can hear it, a shiver in Ingrid's voice, a tremor of cold furious Rage when she describes it.

She does not give the details of the assault. This is not a tale for glory, or honor, or what wisdom could be found that night. By now they've likely heard it already from some Garou or other, or perhaps one of the Kinfolk there that night. Or maybe they haven't, and Ingrid is going to be set upon by an eager young Galliard the instant she steps from the circle. Either way, she says,

"Four of us, Afro Daddy-rhya, Treads the Ashen Path-rhya, Storm's Teeth-yuf, and I, brought down the Citadel and purged it with cleansing fire." Ingrid's mouth curves into the slightest of smiles. She has laid enough groundwork and the skeletal details. There was a place that did terrible things to children, and it was dealt with. Now finally:

"Twenty children were kept in that place. One died terribly. Three were tainted beyond saving. One escaped. Fifteen were saved. Fifteen were taken from that place of darkness and pain. Fifteen were cared for by Kinfolk. Fifteen were sent home to their families.

"We cannot save everyone. That does not mean we can stop fighting."

She does not stand there in lingering silence. As soon as she's finished she inclines her head to the gathered Garou of two septs. She turns, and in one fluid motion she dips lower for Broken Tree Sings-in-Wind and turns to return to her place in the crowd.

[tithe]

Here she is again. Fey and slim and small and dark and this time girl-shaped. Cinder Song, Furious Lament considers the crowd and of course she doesn't see them not really. Because if she really saw them she'd flee and the Rage-furnace'd kick up and she'd give herself into religious frenzy and that might make a point some nights or during the revel but she doesn't want it now, and so: although Tamsin considers the crowd and looks as if she's looking at it of course she isn't really. She lifts her voice and it is strong and carrying, and this is what she says:

Listen.

The Fianna have stories about the Good People. The Gentry. The Folk. There was an Ahroun once, a strapping young woman whose hair it is said was the color of blood righteously spilled and the only thing sharper than her claws was her tongue. Her name was Honor's Command when she was young, but when she died her name was Honorable Command, Opens the Mountain with a Word, Gentry Cursed. They said her tongue was sharp enough that it once cut a pass through a mountain and it was a good pass until a loathsome Wyrm-spawn with fifteen heads and reeking breath that could, if it touched you, call your bones out of your arm, and set those bones fighting to claw out your throat. That's a story for another time. Honorable Command earned the name Gentry Cursed when she, the story goes, closed her eyes and opened them and hundred years had passed. Gentry Cursed was lucky enough to be young; lucky enough to adapt. Lucky enough to be Garou.

Our purpose does not change and will not change. But it was hard, getting used to the world a hundred years after the one she'd been born to. The garou she'd known were long dead and so were the kin.

We've got a lot of stories about getting lost in time because of Them, and it doesn't always work out so well as it did for Honorable Command. There is a story about a Strider whose name was Black Stone from the River, a Theurge who wandered so far and so deep that he could never find his proper time again. Time just let him go and refused to keep him on the road forward most've us are walking. He's seen again and again. Talked to, too. But never in the right order.

Can you imagine wandering so far time gives you up? Not knowing how to get back? If Gaia needed you fifty years from now, when you opened your eyes would you be ready?

Listen.

This is a story about a pair of garou we know and how they were ready, but it wasn't the sleep of legendary heroes who have volunteered to sleep until they're needed, until Ragnarok is here, until some End Time looms -- wasn't that sleep which pushed them into the future. It was need, pulling them back into the past. Denver's past. Our history. That other time, it needed them the way rain needs to fall or roots need rain and after a forest fire the seed needs to crack open and grip that soil tight so it doesn't spill.

This is the story about how Reverence of Dawn met Black Sheep and how they rallied a long-ago Denver and were unwavering against the terrible no-good rotten -- and I mean rotten, rotten to the marrow, rotting in the spirit -- Sherman Kane and the Kane Brothers Gang.

And it's a story of Platte River, and how it saved a life.

[to be continued & finished tomorrow, when less sleepy]

[-ix-]

“It was, perhaps fittingly, a dark and stormy night. It had been raining for days and the rivers ran wild and high under a waxing sliver of a moon. Anubis-Sight, Reverence of Dawn, Black Sheep, and I were gathered together with a talen map that displayed our target and enough time for a few words and then whatever time it took us to drive to figure out how to stop a truck full of Wyrm-tainted sludge from being dumped into the South Platte.” Thomas, as ever, is different when he's telling stories. Notably because he only really seems to bother with owning the space around him when he's performing. For this story he's fully present, but aside from the tension humming through all of those gathered he doesn't seem particularly manic tonight.

“For anyone wondering, that's...roughly ten minutes. For a group of four Garou with limited experience working together, that's barely any time at all, but we already had the beginning of a plan as we reached Reverence of Dawn's car.” He does not elaborate about that car, but just for a second he catches Reverence of Dawn's gaze and smiles. His eyes are already away from hers before the smile is even half formed, because as much as he needed her attention for those few seconds he does not need her to even think he might be challenging her. No, Broken Tree asked for hope, and this story with it's happy ending and this gesture of...well, friendship would imply trust. And affection. Avery gets neither of those things from him. But, respect that is only about three and a half steps from something that could be friendship one day, that he can do.

“Black Sheep summoned a Gremlin as we headed to catch the truck, to stop it before it could reach the water. The limped and sputtered into a stop beneath an overpass, its engine crippled. And then she called on a night spirit, shrouded the truck and our path in darkness. Hid us from any watching eyes.” This is apparently the kind of story where people he's talking about are permitted some sign of recognition, because Black Sheep also gets a smile. Whether this new, more connected kind of narrative is brought on by the fact that he's come to a moot something other than alone, or because he's playing with the solidarity theme bought on by the display of unity between Desert Oracles and Baklava Republic, or just because he's doing a more subdued version of pointing people out as Storm's Teeth and Cinder Song and Echoes of the Lost did, it's hard to guess. Maybe none of that. Maybe all of that.

“Once we had the truck stopped, obscured, Anubis-Sight led us in claiming it.” Here, Anubis-Sight gets a smile and a slight nod. “The men inside the truck fought, and fought hard, to keep us from taking the truck from them, and finally fought simply to destroy the truck and us and themselves. Anubis-Sight battled one of them, ripping the weapon from his hands and buying us time. Reverence of Dawn killed two of the three of them, tore into them with fangs and claws until they struggled no longer.”

“We brought the truck back, let whatever horrors it was carrying be disposed of. Not a drop of that poison reached the river.” Thomas moves back to where he was, shifts back to lupus, and waits for the stories to continue.