The Crescent Moon of Wisdom [attn.: EVERYONE]

[Samael]

She was sleeping when the call went out. She doesn't do that as much as she used to, but since the events at the Cold Crescent and the emotional release that came with a visit to the graveyard, it has been easier for her to get an extra hour or so a night (the sum still doesn't hit a healthy level exactly, but it's better). And thus, when she is roused by the call, she has the beginnings of a grumble, even as she's already pulling herself out of bed.

That grumbling dies when she realizes what this might be. And she's not even close to asleep now. Keisha Ballard, ahimsa Theurge of the Children of Gaia, is as awake as awake can be.

She arrives in due time, having driven there as quickly as traffic laws will allow. Which is not to say that she doesn't have a sense of urgency, but I got pulled over is most certainly not a valid excuse. She arrives in time to find her packsisters, stepping up to them in a quickly-thrown on T-Shirt and jeans. She sets the end of her new staff--treated and capped so that it's functional, but otherwise unfinished--against the ground. She doesn't offer a return smile to Phoebe's; she's too nervous, unsure of what might happen for that. She does lean against her Alpha briefly, and reaches out to touch Winona's shoulder.

And then it's time for judgment. Keisha is a gentle soul, and her reaction is about what you might expect. She has a look of relief when Hunter of Peace receives a judgment for mercy, and she joins with all the Garou there in turning her back on Retribution's Fist. She does not join in with the stories of scorn against Forge of Nótt although, like Phoebe, Keisha will most certainly be learning from her.

The next one is harder for her. She cringes when the box is brought, but she does not look away. And her breath catches when Warning Threshold is hoisted up, a chunk of his body torn away. She doesn't just flinch; she does in fact turn her head, for just an instant, when the former Warder's wolf is taken from him.

And finally, worst of all. Keisha Ballard--Still Waters--values the sanctity of life. She knows the purpose and value of Punishment Rites, and she believes in them. They strengthen the Nation by defining unacceptable behavior and the consequences of such to the Garou and kinfolk. And yet...this one she has never been able to abide. The loss of their own, in her mind, does not strengthen the Garou; it harms them.

And yet, as much as she wants to join with Erich in protesting and fighting this, even as futile as that would be. Every bit of her wants to stand up as that famous poem from Martin Niemöller circles around her brain, a set of words and ideals that she has known by heart since she was a little girl (bless her mother):

First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the socialists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.

And yet she doesn't speak out. Because she already has. They had their opportunity to speak at the moot, and she argued. And she cannot even say that it didn't have results, because perhaps they all would have died if not for those who spoke out. And as strongly as she holds to her ideals, she knows that everyone has their own path. It isn't her way to violently resist--which is not to say that she won't fight for what she believes in. And she admires what Erich is doing. But here, now...it's not the way for her.

And thus, she stays quiet. She can't watch all of it. At the end, her eyes are shut, but she hasn't turned away. She hears the screams, those agonized shrieks, and it has as much effect on her as the sight would have. She looks sick. That's because she is. And saline tracks have found their way down her face that she'll quickly wipe away as effectively as she can before attention turns away from what's happened.

And after it's all done, she looks to Erich. But he has his pack, and they will tend to him. Her lips purse and she turns, walking away with her fellow Oracles even as a part of her is left behind. She's left so many of those parts around this city; what's one more?

---------------------

Alexis also comes. The Fury kin is there like anyone else, having arrived as soon as he heard. He has no family to rouse, no children to look after, and so he gets there fairly quickly. He chooses, when he arrives, to stand near the Desert Oracles and Phoebe in the same way that Lola does Celduin. He has witnessed Punishment Rites as part of his old sept, where his mother ensured that he was brought into the Nation's ways from a young age. He wasn't much older than some of the children being held tonight when his father held him to watch judgment passed on the Garou.

He has seen some of these before, and those he doesn't, he doesn't look away from. Alexis is not a harsh man; while he is a capable fighter by any kinfolk's definition, he prefers to help people heal and defend themselves. That is not to say, however, that he is soft. And there is an almost military way in how he stands to observe, like the at-ease stance of a formation. He's witnessed some bad things in his time, but by no means is he impassive over this. The gravity of each punishment, from the lightest of them to the chillingly final, weighs upon them all. And while he never looks away, there are times when he sets his jaw or his spine goes rigid.

And thus like all others, Alexis Theron Lambros observes the justice of the Garou Nation meted out.

[kai]

The call comes while Melantha is closing. She feels a rush of nausea, bending forward as though gale wind is lashing her back. Her pupils narrow to pin-pricks, breath catching in her throat as she feels herself being pulled relentlessly, ruthlessly towards the south. Her throat is dry when one of her coworkers sees how pale she's gotten and helps her sit down. She tries to finish closing after a drink of water and a moment to absorb a sudden, pounding headache, but they send her home.

At the tiny house on its rugged wheels, Melantha finds Erich and Charlotte there. They can tell her what is going on. They can understand in a way she can't. They can explain to her, as they all clamber into Erich's truck, what they are going to witness.

What they are going to be a part of.

--

What she's heard, and what she's been told, have made Melantha wary of the cities she used to blend so easily into. She likes Evergreen. It is far away from everything, everyone, it is small and generally quiet and she feels herself normalizing slowly, discovering herself gradually in the most mundane of rhythms: waking and sleeping, working and praying, eating and reading.

When punishment is pronounced upon Hunter of Peace, Melantha understands: he did what he could, but he let rank and file and order and ease take over where instinct should have told him that what they were doing was not enough, that it was time to betray his sept leader and tell others of what was beneath them. He did fail, and his punishment suits that failure. She sees it as mercy. She understands that a for a lunar year, he will be lonely and he will be discomfited and he will suffer, and he will also be cleansed, renewed, and made a sharper wolf for it.

To this, Melantha bears witness with stillness and faith.

--

She is startled by the punishment given to Retribution's Fist, however. She blinks, turning to look at Erich and Charlotte, taking in their reactions before she looks back. She doesn't see how being shunned helps anyone. She doesn't get how having everyone turn their back and say that he doesn't exist for a while has anything to do with him answering for his failure.

But she turns with the rest, even though her brow is furrowed and her eyes downcast. She cannot witness the way Retribution's Fist leaves, or the fact that his mate turns from him also. She feels the beginnings of discomfort, seeds planted in confusion.

They all feel it, when he is gone. Even though they aren't supposed to acknowledge he was ever there.

--

The rage of the Ritemaster of Forgotten Questions makes Melantha shrink back a bit. She keeps looking at her packmates, but she doesn't speak, not even in their thoughts. She wasn't there when he said he'd tear out their throats if the leaders of Cold Crescent were ever brought before him, but she wasn't surprised to hear it. She has nothing to say when the stone of scorn is passed among the gathered people; she doesn't know Forge, she doesn't know what lambasting her for an hour will do for anyone, or shaming her with a warped voice.

The only thing that makes sense to her is the addition: that she will teach. That she will humble herself, that she will give and give and give with nothing taken in return until she can be honored again, instead of scorned.

Melantha takes a breath after that. She shivers.

--

And she does not watch what happens to Warning Threshold. The sight of the box fills her with such dread, such unwholesome terror, that Melantha just sinks backward, nauseated again, her spine tightening.

She goes into the old homestead, where a few of the elderly and most of the children are, where the mate of Retribution's Fist is sitting with her eyes turned to the hearth, her eyes cold.

Melantha sits down wherever she can, wrapped in her coat, and tries not to hear the words that follow the former Warder's punishment. She doesn't really want to see it, or think about it. It's the antithesis of Hunter of Peace's punishment, she thinks.

And coldly, despite herself,

she wonders why they did not kill him.

--

Melantha comes toward the door of Persse Place again when Curved Sky begins telling her tale. She seems so... dead inside, recounting it. She doesn't seem whole anymore. She listens, and she feels sickened by what she hears, and there is nothing at the end to take that away. There's no apology that would abate it. There's not enough understanding in the world to forgive such pride that leads to such loss.

The rite begins, and Melantha is standing with Erich and Charlotte again, and despite the layers of outerwear she has on, her skin begins to feel cold and clammy. She tenses as the stone hits the Ritemaster's palm, as the blood drenches Curved Sky's face. Her breathing turns a bit shallow, steaming in the night air. A few standing nearby see more than hear Melantha give a little shriek, a yelp of fright, as the Ritemaster lets out that undulating howl. For her part, Melantha sees more than hears the way that Curved Sky begs, and sobs, and Melantha starts crying.

That sound, rippling throughout the septs, only makes her cry harder. For the dead. For the living. For this. She hunches her shoulders, covering her eyes with her fists, sobbing into the heels of her gloves. Everything around her shudders with the chaos and madness of that shared grief, and then Erich is saying stop it, stop it, STOP IT. He's shouting, but much of it is lost except to those nearest him in this mass of bodies, much of it is lost under the howl and then

the screams.

Melantha is scared when he rushes forward, because she's veritably surrounded by werewolves. She shifts closer to Charlotte, instinctively, looking up with her tear-stained face. She catches a glimpse out of the corner of her eye of gleaming silver spiking upward into that woman's body and chokes on a horrified gasp. She feels every pulse of Erich's anger and no no no no no until he snaps, until he's trying to get through the crowd to the condemned, until other garou are handily and instantly grabbing him, yanking him back, slamming him to the earth and holding him down. She feels it, with a jerk that goes through her entire body, when the tenuous connection between their spirits is temporarily severed by his frenzy, as though the spirits do not dare let such a thing spread through the minds of packmates when one of them falters.

No one said a damn thing to her about looking or not looking or the importance of either. She doesn't think it matters if two of them or twenty of them watch what happens to Curved Sky. Maybe it's a mercy that Erich distracts Melantha enough that she just hunches over Charlotte's arm, crying into her skin and clothing, overcome. There is really no making sense of it. There is really no understanding it.

Just like any death.

--

When she can, and this is while Curved Sky is still running, still dying, still bleeding, Melantha leaves Charlotte's shoulder and goes picking her way through the garou to find where Erich is flopped unconscious in the dirt. She sits on the ground next to him and puts her ear on his chest. She knows he's alive, but it helps to hear his heartbeat and feel the swell and release of his breath. She doesn't have to worry about things like what the garou think of her: whether she is honorable or craven, brave or cowardly, wise or silly. She doesn't have to worry about it, and she might not even if she should, so she curls up next to the cliath who tried to interrupt a rite and just sits with him until he comes to.

When he comes to, he curls up in a ball and covers his face and cries. Melantha scoots down by him, curls around him, and puts her arms and her head over his side, laying her warmth and her guardianship atop him, where -- if we're telling the truth -- he needs it the least.

And she cries with him.

[mnemosyne]

The truck is dark the dash a smear of glowing green, night close all around them, Denver's light brilliant against the edge of the landscape as they drive. Everything feels knife-edged. Crowded together in the cab, sharing that sense of vague nausea. Charlotte can drive because Erich taught her how, on long spring afternoons on deserted two-lane roads surrounded on all sides by winter wheat and greening stalks of feed corn, but Erich nearly-always-does and so he does. The feeling spreads or moves or maybe is born native in Charlotte's body, prickles beneath her skin like the spines of a cactus: her awareness in these moments is just-that-sharp and she takes in images in shutter-stock flashes that feel framed and articular.

Charlotte explains to Melantha what is happening: the call they are feeling and the judgment to come and she sounds so present and reasonable as she explains it in discrete little nuggets that convey the backstory without endorsing any particular version of it but even in the truck, surrounded by her pack, the creature looks - a little big green. In profile, she has that drawn pallor to match the nauseated pull of the spiritual call and half-way there the spare little theurge splays her hand around the base of her throat.
Her stomach keeps trying to crawl up through her chest.
She does not know how else to keep it down.

--

Movement helps; the sense of the forgetful earth turning over beneath their feet. That whispered promise of near-wholeness, spirit and skin, that melts over her when they cross into the bawn. Erich parks and they clamber out and hike with all the rest through the darkness. Charlotte is both more relaxed and more alert and she knows the way and the darkness hardly matters, though she does reach out for Melantha's hand half-way through the park to the site of the gathering. Her own: open. Her grip: rather desperately tight. Hushed breath and the nation all around them. The trails both familiar and forgotten, that sense of sinking into time beyond time. The way the earth remembers.

The space is crowded, the shadows are deep. The moon is a cheshire smile and she feels it prickling beneath her skin. Not quite hidden, just a slice: see the way it hooks. They call it wisdom.

Somehow Erich and Charlotte array themselves around Melantha: like bulwarks, like bookends, wholly unconscious of it, and without communication. There are so many strangers here, sniffing in her direction, but then the ripple of awareness through the crowd, and then the elders and then the judgment. No one has reason to watch or even be aware of Charlotte outside of her pack; too much is happening in the center of that loose circle of wolves. Charlotte stands stark, her spindly arms crossed tight and low over her boyish torso, elbows sharp, body language defensive. Entirely riveted on the proceedings, her breath withheld, every muscle in her frame tight.

Oh, Charlotte seems so stoic standing there, with her arms crossed and her spine lashed and eyes affixed on the center of the circle. The elders and their counterparts and their punishments. The rites that begin, the rituals her spirit knows the measure of without word or thought or deed. Which is for the best: there is so much noise in her head as the ritual of punishment begins that she can hardly remember her own name. Charlotte stares, and stares, and stares with such apparent intent that she does not notice when Melantha leaves, cuts back through the crowd to the shelter. Does not even react when Erich begins to shout, when he surges forward, into on stopping this torture. Her already taut frame vibrates, <i>quivers</i> when he is knocked unconscious. She feels that like a physical blow and still: oh, stoic, remains fixed in place when he is knocked unconscious. When Melantha hunches over her arm, crying.

Except: somewhere in there the theurge inhales; something changes beneath her skin and Melantha can feel the change, both familiar and alien. Charlotte's arms unfold and one wraps itself around Melantha as the kinswoman cries, quite unashamed. The Silver Fang rests her chin on Melantha's temple and something about her is so fierce in that moment, and older-than-time, as she draws in one packmate and settles that pale gaze, avian in its intensity, on the other packmate, unconscious now amidst the crowd. She does flinch then, too - visibly and without shame - with each cry that echoes out of the dying once-elder of the disbanded once-sept. Closes her eyes before the end, but feels it nonetheless.

Mourns,

nonetheless,

all the nameless dead.

--

The crowd breaks up. Families and packs and lovers and sworn enemies drift together or apart. There is a child, somewhere, crying.

They are all animals.

Melantha goes to Erich; covers him up, cries with and by and through and for him.

Charlotte does not. Instead she settles on her haunches a few feet away, alert, and aware, watching over them both as long as necessary. This terrible, ageless wisdom in her pale eyes.

Someone else, entirely, beneath her skin.