May: Opening Howl / Inner Sky

[kai]

It would be very easy to say that 'everyone likes Raspberry Sky', but she is a werewolf, and a blanket statement of goodwill is generally a lie when it comes to werewolves. That said: most people like Raspberry Sky, or learn to like her. Her expressive face, her attitude, the dedication that lies underneath the big smiles and pink hair.

Raspberry Sky is acting as this month's Caller of the Wyld and Master of the Howl. She's been out at the caern frequently these past several weeks, feeling the place out under each phase of the moon from the last moot to this, and in the end, the place she chooses to gather the wolves of Forgotten Questions and Cold Crescent both is a broad meadow. Her very presence chases the bullfrogs and snakes off, and though she doesn't bare her teeth at the mule deer chewing on the branches of scrub trees, they scatter anyway.

She is there long before sunset. She is there when the humans are still there. The park closes at dusk, and the cars of visitors leave the park. The gates are closed. And as the sky turns a darker and darker blue, ever shading towards black, the rangers and volunteers who always seem to get scheduled on full moon nights start to welcome new visitors.

Those coming from Cold Crescent by car have the gate opened for them. Others run through the umbra and appear on the outskirts of the bawn. Everyone's guard is high. The kin carry radios in case they lose cell reception and many of them carry weapons as well. Northward and down the slope, the town of Roxborough Park settles in for a boring suburban Saturday night. They all come, two septs' worth of Garou, and they are many. Every rank is represented. Every auspice. Nearly every tribe. A pair of Fangs, one a Royalist and one a Renewalist, have agreed as always to sheath their claws for the night. Everyone is converging but they do not know to where; this month's Master of the Howl has not begun calling them.

In the meadow, Raspberry Sky waits for night to fall completely. A few Garou have found her, but they do not congratulate themselves overmuch. They begin to gather appropriately for the space, in the the concentric circles that place the higher-ranked closer to the center and the Cliaths and Fosterns to the outer edges of the meeting. And when Raspberry Sky starts to sing, the first Garou who managed to find her aren't quite sure if she's just killing time or... what. Besides: some of them are used to the opening howl being a single voice, or a choir of chosen voices. The entirety of two septs is seldom invited to join together, all at once.

But they certainly recognize the song. Some of still love it, and some of them are so sick of it, some of them saw the band at Red Rocks not too long ago, but almost all of them heard it, and even if they haven't, the chorus is simple enough that after an iteration and a half, they can join in. And join in they do, because while the first several seconds are confusing to more traditional garou, it soon becomes clear that the Gnawer Theurge is working a rite... in her own particular fashion. Even the most grudging wolf can't turn their back on their caern by withholding their energy from this.

"I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweetheart
I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweet"

The Theurges and Galliards and Gnawers are joining her first. One of them, a Fianna, even draws a guitar out from where it's been dedicated to his skin and starts playing along. There's something familial and casual about it all, even including the sidelong glances and mild annoyance of those who think this is completely disrespectful and who the hell does she think she is and what the fuck is this shit. It's like a campfire without the campfire, until the majority of the garou are clapping along with Raspberry Sky, until their gnosis is flowing from their voices and their occasionally stamping feet and until the wolves who are still waiting to be called start to hear the singing, growing louder with every voice that's added. Some are in lupus and throw howls and barks into the mix. This is the first moot of true spring, already spiraling into summer. Last month it was still freezing outside most days. Everyone can feel the difference.

Raspberry Sky, as dozens upon dozens of werewolves in every shape and form gather around her, just keeps clapping and grinning and singing:

"(Ho!) So show me family
(Hey!) All the blood that I will bleed
(Ho!) I don't know where I belong
(Hey!) I don't know where I went wrong
(Ho!) But I can write a song
(Hey!)"

And they sing it multiple times if they need to, vamping from end to beginning and through it again, until the septs are gathered together by pack and tribe and rank, singing, clapping, howling, all of them realizing round after round of the song who they're really singing to -- and for. Their feet hit the ground on downbeats. They will remember this one. That memory, a shared and unique memory between this many garou, will leave the totem of their caern well-fed, well-pleased.

"Love ‒ we need it now
Let's hope for some
Cause oh, we're bleeding out
I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweetheart
I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweet
(Ho!)
(Hey!)
(Ho!)
(Hey!)"

--

[The May moot has begun! As there is only one caern in the area, garou from both Forgotten Questions and Cold Crescent are expected to attend and participate. The date of the actual moot is May 25th, so everything in these threads is to be considered out-of-character knowledge until the conclusion of the moot threads.

Please post your character in here! If you don't post in by the time these threads close, it's assumed that they didn't show up. It is not necessary to post how much gnosis is contributed, as a gathering of this size doesn't have anything to worry about in that respect.

Also good to note: the 'tone' of this portion of the gathering is set by the CotW/MotH, and so in this instance it's definitely more relaxed and jovial. But as rounds of the song are sung over and over and the gathered garou are drawn together, the sense of reverence rises, as does the sense of of connection to each other and to the caern.]

[Joey]

Jack wiles away the day in Roxborough until the moon begins to show itself. When the sun begins to set his listless wanderings take him, like they does so many recreational hikers, to the homestead and its water spigot. Since setting down roots in Colorado Jack spends most of his time in the Sept of Forgotten Questions, though weekly forays into the city aren't unheard of. Some of the Garou would know of the last's result.

This leaves his hygiene, unsurprising for one of his tribe and – some might say – especially unsurprising for one of his breed, with much to be desired. So along his trek he gathers the right clay dust, the right fine dirt, into the coffee jar that hangs off his belt on a length of heavy chord through holes punched in its hull.

He approaches the spigot he'd found set into side of the building one particularly parched day previous. The last few visitors from a mundane world filter away from the building, and it's when he's alone the biker begins by shedding his leather vest, next pulling off the sweatshirt and BBQ restaurant souvenir crew neck beneath it, the heavy duck-yellow canvas work dungarees after jackboots and socks are kicked off.

All but the vest soak beneath the flow of liquid from the pump, the whine of its metal lever rising and falling to coax it forth. Sodden, the weight allows them to be beaten on the closest broad and flat rock or boulder, the fabric then twisted, fingers and arms flexing to do so until a steady stream of water is wrung to a trickle and then to only drops, then laid out in the dry breeze and what remains of the sun.

When that is finished he kneels beside it, palm and fingers cupped to throw the precious water over his frame's bulk. His muscles are fat and broad, sinewy only on his arms and legs, the definition framing muscles only noticeable in the light pucker of skin from where they rise. Once he's sufficiently dampened, his hand dips into the popped coffee can and draws out handfuls of the sandy grit earth. He slaps it in clouds onto his skin, again and again until he is a golem, an elemental of the earth caked with the stuff.

The hunting knife finds itself in his hand next. The flat back end of the blade, with its gentle curve near the tip, finds the contors of his flesh. Draws across the mud, it scrapes the stuff into a dingy hunk of buildup that further serves to clean his skin before it is too much and he whips the excess off the blade. The process is repeated Every now and then it gets a rinse. The method of cleansing leaves long streaks like a squeegee, lines of mud that dry quickly in the breeze once they've thirstily soaked up the water. It would be harsh on some skin, but his windburnt and sunbaked flesh stands up to it rather well, and instead the grit acts as an exfoliant.

He continues washing up, casting the water over himself again to rinse off what's left. His head hangs under the spigot, the now empty can filled and dumped over his head, then his neck and shoulders, then his front and back down his torso to his legs as he stands upright.

The only pieces of clothing he pulls on are that leather cut and those canvas pants. The latter dries faster than the rest, left where they lay to take the night and do so. Sun has fallen. The park should be empty. His instincts and the senses they feed off tell him this is true. Those same senses catch the sound from the meadow, not too far, but not too close.

Jack is no stranger to the sounds of camaraderie, no stranger to songs around the fire, and in a moment he is a dark mottled wolf yipping and barking and howling the whole way to the gathering.

Jack does not know the song. That doesn't much matter. He howls and yips along with it anyway, and while his front paws are posted into the ground, his hindquarters hop and thump and stomping into the earth as he bucks back. Where the Garou delineate themselves by tribe, Bone Gnawers joining with the most initial exuberance, he is drawn. Greeting those he has already come across and those he hasn't with equal fervor. When Raspberry Sky claps, his jaws snap happily. Kicking up dirt. Rolling and tumbling in the tall grass before righting himself and hopping again. Undoing his work at cleaning himself without thinking. And most importantly?

Without caring.

[errin]

[fucking awesome posts, Kai!]

Nina's bike isn't designed to make it down and around the one and a half mile stretch of gravel road between the Roxborough Parks District building, past the reservoir, and to the bend that curves around the eastern ridge of the park itself. And while she couldn't give less of a shit about arriving with a face full of road rash, she doesn't want to risk harming her trusty steed. So she bummed a ride with one of her new friends, a fellow dormitory resident of 1999 Broadway's 39th floor. After the events outside Pints a few weeks back the Rotagar decided to ditch her bedbug-ridden room at the Royal Palace for something cleaner. Her new room, which she may or may not be sharing, is cleaner. More sanitary. Doesn't have any questionable stains on the mattress. And, it's a little closer to a home than the wanderer's had for some time.

So, the moot. Her first one here, and the first one she's been to in a city like Denver. Two septs, one Caern, she's been curious about how that worked since she first rolled into town. Little by little she's learning. This is the night when they set aside their differences, their petty squabbles, and join together to honor Earth, Gaia, Luna.

She follows the others, dressed for the weather in her grey t-shirt with the pink Supergirl S, jeans that have recently become cutoffs, long enough that skin of her leg does not make contact with the leather of her hip bag, and her maroon and white Adidas sneakers, her hair down, twisted to fall over one shoulder. They go to the edge of the bawn where they wait, Nina bouncing on the balls of her feet, hands in her pockets, eager to go, to get on with it. She stays, though, because she doesn't know where to go yet. The not knowing is frustrating and exciting, because it's different. How boring would it be to hold the same rituals in the same place month after month into eternity?

The song starts somewhere in the distance. Those nearest to her start off in that direction. Nina watches them go first, lifting her chin and tracking their progress even as her weight shifts forward, ready to carry her onward. It's not long before she's trekking out after them, a grin splitting her face, following the sound of song to the meadow. Once there they part ways. Some join their packs. Some stand with others of their ranks. Nina joins the Others, the newest, the Cliaths, the unbonded. When she joins in on the chorus it's with a voice that is, well, terrible. Unmelodic. The Rotagar cannot carry a tune to save her life but it doesn't matter. She's clapping and stamping along with the others, feeling the trail her Gnosis makes through her body, from her heart and down into the ground with each stamp of her sneakered foot, feeding and strengthening the Caern.

She's just happy to be here. Happy to belong. Happy to be home.

[Share]

Another new-ish face. Ursula, some American werewolf in Denver who has come by in the last few months to each sept. She gives a brief kiss to the cheek of the pretty Gaian kin who brought her, possessive, protective(My-kin. Not my-lover).

Seconds after she is away from the kin, her hands raise to her hair to muss it, fluff, mess, shake. Allow the fresh, the pure winds of the sept with the pollens and the sharper scents of pines and grasses and heady wildflowers and more to run through the blonde mass and chase away the city tameness. Earth, moist, rocks, sky. Everyone present shares in the intimacy of the scent bath of the meadow. They are marked, and Angel of Mercy revels in the knowledge.

The garou woman is lush, pretty enough, wildness in her heart for only a theurge on this ahroun's night. Anticipation of rituals, intensity, all of it sings to her soul and raises the hairs on her arms as she approaches the circle, takes her place by the cliath crescent moons with a nod to one of the familiar faces, though tonight is her first moot in the Denver area.
The music starts and her lips thin in what might be surprise- eyes narrow. Still, she sings after a round or two, holds nothing back, offers rhythm and more as best she can.
The energy of the song sweeps through her, and she is given to the Howl, whatever the words or form.
Just another form of Lovemaking...

[kai]

The full moon is not the first time Avery Chase has visited the Sept of Forgotten Questions.

She came during daylight hours on one of the first truly warm days this year, her driver taking them down the bumpy road from the gate to the visitor's center. Her hat was large and floppy and made of straw bearing a wide black band, and her sunglasses were in the style of Miss Audrey Hepburn. Her sundress was white and her shoes are not made for walking in for very long. Someone forgot to tell her that cork wedges are for picnics you don't have to hike to.

She set off all the same, leaving her driver in the dove-grey Flying Spur in the parking lot. He was agonizing, nearly nailbiting, over the mess and damage to the car that just driving there might have done and was composing in his head a proposal for the house steward on purchasing something more rugged for Miss Chase's excursions into outlying areas. He does not like dirt. After a few moments of fussing, he got out, rolled up his sleeves, got some cloths in the trunk kept just for this purpose, and started polishing the Bentley. He ignored every odd stare he got.

So did Miss Chase, in her wedges and sunhat and pretty little dress. She took her time walking, and left the beaten path, heading ever inward until she could feel eyes watching her steadily. No quirked eyebrow, no strange looks. Just someone watching her, alerted by her scent or her breeding or by a radio call from one of the kinfolk rangers. She turned to the Guardian then and announced herself. It sniffed her, and led her to the caern's heart to pay her chiminage.

She closed her eyes as she pulled the memory from the depths of her mind. There's no true continuity there, not in those early memories. No chronology, not even any certainty. Avery showed Earth the shadows and colors of a greenhouse, the knowledge of a greenhouse even when the picture is unclear. A black dog, block-headed and with a sleek coat, sniffing at her. There is no context, no particular meaning. Just a memory, given to the spirit to bond them. Avery thanked the totem spirit quietly as she departed, returning to her driver and a gleaming car without even dust on the wheels.

She did not come back again. Not until this night, some time later. She's been so busy, you see. There was so much to be done to prepare for her family, for the help, for her own needs while in the city. Even when she was informed of a summer solstice gathering, she was too busy to attend. A shame. Fianna gatherings can be terribly amusing.

Tonight, Avery is not dressed in a floppy sunhat and pristine sundress and wedges. She's wearing clothes that look like they're made for yoga -- which in fact they are. Black pants, white tank top, black jacket, sneakers. Her hair is let down. She is waiting in the parking lot with her driver as before, though this time in a luxury SUV to be determined later by her player. She's a little embarrassed to not have a pack, peering out of her tinted windows at a few garou and kin milling about who seem to know each other. Perhaps she has no reason to feel embarrassed, even a little, but try telling her that.

People start to look up, start to hear something in the distance. People are starting to move a new direction. Avery follows them. Some, familiar with each other since cubhood, jostle and snap at each other as they walk. Avery feels inherently more drawn to the older garou, in whatever form they're walking in: the fosterns, the adrens even. They're steadier. They're older. She breathes in deep and exhales slow and, as the garou begin to gather towards the meadow, she starts to see more like herself: older cliaths, not quite so immature. She smiles.

Oh, she knows the song. And she sings along with a passable if not remarkable voice. By the end of the final rendition she's smiling, bright as the moon overhead.

[Samael]

Keisha is running late. It wasn't intentional, the girl hasn't quite learned how to get around her new home like the back of her hand yet and she made a wrong turn along the way. She moves up as quietly as she can to the gathering, keeping her staff from tapping on the ground so as not to draw attention away from what's going on. Her dreads are hanging free tonight, spilling over her shoulders down the back of the loose-fitting natural fiber dress that she's wearing. She kicked her sandals off back where she parked, far enough away so as not to make a mess of the air in this natural environment and her feet feel right at home against the earth.

She slips up to the group and comes to a stop next to Ursula and the other theurges, shutting her eyes and letting the song invade her senses. She feels the energy ebb and flow. She doesn't know the song but once she has a hang of it, she joins in. The feeling of connection is one that she welcomes.