The cubs sleep several hours until sunrise, and on into late morning. The
awaken a bit before noon on the preceding the full moon. Only one woman is in
sight. A tall, strong female who couldn't really be called attractive, yet
who bears an unmistakable presence that all Garou instinctively recognize and
respect. Her hair and eyes are dark, and the scowl she wears as she watches
these two men hints at the rage she must feel.

[Lawrence(#3606)] Upon spying the woman, Lawrence adopts an air of deference.
"Hello," he says quietly, his eyes on the ground.

[Adam(#2921)] Adam rustles himself from sleep, sitting up after a moment.
"Hello," he whispers, keeping the same measure of respect that Lawrence does.

The woman steps closer and finds a seat on a rough stone, not far from the
pair. She looks over each in turn, eyes studying them critically. Although
she carries no weapons, and seems to be alone, she seems perfectly at ease;
she seems, in fact, to consider herself in a dominant position, to anyone who
might notice. "Well," she says at last. Her voice is much like the rest of
her: harsh, not at all the sort of voice one would call beautiful, and it
holds no warmth for those she addresses. "What do we have here?"

[Lawrence(#3606)] Lawrence draws a slow breath, and looks over towards Adam
before saying, quietly, "We're from the village."

[Adam(#2921)] Adam nods. "We are," he adds. "The villagers kicked us out."

Her expression is curious, but it's a curiousity lined with tension, as if
she's unsure what to make of the whole situation. "Why would they do such a
thing?"

[Lawrence(#3606)] Lawrence shrugs his shoulders slightly, his eyes still on
the ground. "Because their wise woman told them to," he answers. "Because we
had dreams that frightened them."

[Adam(#2921)] Adam grumbles a little. "We didn't fit in, so to speak."

A bit of impatience begins to creep into the woman's features. "What was it
about you that frightened them? Why didn't you fit in?"

[Lawrence(#3606)] Lawrence shrugs his shoulders again, and attempts to explain
in more detail. "Adam had dreams of wolves. He dreamt he was one of you --
one of the creatures that keep attacking our village. He told the wise woman.
She was going to perform some kind of bizarre ritual on him, to, her words,
'drive the wolf-spirit from him'. I stood up and said that what she was doing
was all nonsense, and that living in fear of the wise woman was as bad as
living in fear of the wolves. After they drove us both away, I started having
the same dreams."

[Adam(#2921)] Adam nods in agreement. "And, in the forest, we encountered a
group of your sisters. They questioned us, and brought us back here."

The stranger touches a finger to her chin, her lips pursing as she thinks.
"Did you begin having the dreams before or after you realized that you could
understand our speech? Had you ever encountered one of us before?"

[Lawrence(#3606)] "We have... both come to realize that we've encountered your
kind before," Lawrence says. "At the time we were having the dreams, we
didn't know."

[Adam(#2921)] "I did," Adam says, expression darkening. "When...I was younger,
they, er, you, came to my home," he trembles a little, angry. "You took my
mother, and slaughtered her."

"You forgot having encountered us?" She gives Lawrence a slightly incredulous
look. Adam merely earns a shrug. "It was nothing personal."

[Lawrence(#3606)] Lawrence nods his head slowly. "It's a bit hard to explain.
For me, I met you a long time ago, and far from here. I must have put it out
of my mind." He sighs. "I'm having a hard time understanding it myself."

She obviously isn't happy with the answers she's getting. "Who, exactly, are
you?"

[Adam(#2921)] Adam looks down at the ground to stifle the glare he hurls at
the Fury. He keeps silent, slightly sullen. When the woman asks, he looks up,
then at Lawrence.

[Lawrence(#3606)] Lawrence glances up at the woman for the first time. "I'm
Lawrence," he says quietly. "This is Adam."

[Adam(#2921)] Adam turns back to the Fury, and nods.

"I am called Daeanara," the woman replies. "But that is not what I meant. Who
are you that you know our ways?"

[Lawrence(#3606)] "You won't believe us if we tell you," Lawrence says quietly.

[Adam(#2921)] Adam shakes his head. "We have trouble believing it, ourselves."

Daeanara replies, "I do not see how you have anything to lose."

[Lawrence(#3606)] Lawrence shrugs his shoulders, and rises to his feet after
giving Adam a somewhat helpless look -- the kind of look that signals a
departure from a plan. "I am Lawrence Hammil, called Reaches-High by the
Children of Gaia. I am a cub, and I am on my Rite of Passage." He frowns,
then, and attempts an elaboration. "Our tribal elder sent us into Dream for
our Rite. This, to us, is a dream. The world we know is far away and many
years from now."

[Adam(#2921)] Adam nods. "And I am Adam Bowden, Barks-Softly. A Philodox Cub,
also of the Children of Gaia. As Lawrence said, we are on our Rite of
Passage. We are...not from around here."

This is clearly not an answer that the Fury was expecting. "So all of this,
this Caern, your village, even me. All of it is nothing but a dream?"

[Lawrence(#3606)] Lawrence draws a breath, then lets it out slowly. "Real
enough," he says, "that we didn't recognize it as a dream until just
recently. As far as we knew, we had lived our whole lives in that village. We
had memories consistent with living our whole lives in that village. And now
-- now we know that those memories were not ours."

[Adam(#2921)] "To us, it is," Adam says. "Lawrence anbd I are in a dream, in a
way, but this is all too real." He nods again. "for a long time here, neither
of us remembered who we really were."

"Why were you sent here, then?" the Fury asks. "Into this dream? What purpose
can it serve?"

[Lawrence(#3606)] Lawrence glances back down at the ground. "What purpose does
a Rite of Passage serve?" he asks, countering question with question. "But I
have found something important to me, that I would like to try to accomplish
while I am here."

[Adam(#2921)] Adam takes a deep breath. "We're...protecting the humans.
Killing them, hunting them like animals, it's wrong."

Daeanara scowls. "You're the second person to tell me that today. You judge us
by human standards. Why shouldn't they be hunted like animals? That's what
they are. And as nothing else will hunt them, that task falls to us."

[Adam(#2921)] Adam nods. "And that's the second time in two days we have been
told that. It seems we're at an impasse."

[Lawrence(#3606)] Lawrence sits back down. "Do you want to know what the
result will be? Do you want to know what will happen, because you hunt them
like this now?"

Daeanara folds her arms. "Certainly."

[Adam(#2921)] Adam sighs. "Humans will come to hate us, naturally, and the
sight of us in the Warform will drive them insane. The only humand that can
be safely dealt with, because of this insanity and the Rage, will be Kin."

"And what is a Kin?" she asks, one eyebrow arched.

[Lawrence(#3606)] Lawrence nods slowly. "And despite the hunting, they will
come to live across the whole of the land anyways. They will gather in huge
numbers, and build huge metal buildings that reach up towards the sky. They
will grow more and more ignorant of Gaia's path, until, finally, they become
easy prey for the Wyrm's agents. They will dig deep into the earth to plunder
her resources. They will be shown how to make the Wyrm's fire, and use it,
out of ignorance, to keep the darkness and the cold at bay. They will dump
poisons and garbage into rivers and streams, kill animals simply because they
can, and the Garou will have to adopt strict laws to hide from them --
because they will have grown so powerful that, should they discover us, they
will destroy all of us." He pauses, then adds, "All this will come to pass
because you spend your time hunting them to keep their numbers down rather
than teaching them, and guiding them back onto Gaia's path."

[Adam(#2921)] Adam waits til Lawrence is finished before answering. "Kinfolk.
They are humans, relatives of the Few garou that are left, that are immune to
this insanity upon seeing the Crinos form, called the Delierium. Through
them, we interact with the overgrown human society, which by our time, has
conceived of crimes against themselves, Garou, and Gaia of unimagineable
proportions."

Daeanara scowls again. "And yet you have nothing to show this is true but your
own words; you, who have already admitted that you think that we are all but
a dream fashioned for you by an elder who sent you on a Rite of Passage. How
do I know you aren't both simply mad?"

[Lawrence(#3606)] Lawrence shakes his head. "You don't," he says quietly. "You
have every reason to think that. I know I did, for a time." He pauses. "On
the other hand, can you afford to be wrong? What do you have to lose by
trying to reclaim the humans for Gaia rather than giving them up for lost and
simply culling them?"

[Adam(#2921)] Adam nods. "Humans, they need to be taught, to be returned to
Gaia's heart. Killing them will make things much worse in the long run."

Daeanara shakes her head. "If you *are* correct, then why should we even
bother? We are just a dream, and when you leave, we will no longer exist?
Correct? Even if you managed to convince me, you would have changed nothing
in your world."

[Adam(#2921)] "How can we know," Adam asks, "if you don't try? Maybe we're
dreaming, but it's a real dream, one of the past. For all I know, this /is/
real, and Lawrence and I are displaced in time."

[Lawrence(#3606)] Lawrence nods slowly. "And on the other hand, what do we
gain by doing nothing? Perhaps what we do here will mean nothing; perhaps it
will mean a great deal. I would rather try to make a difference and chance
accomplishing nothing, than do nothing and *definitely* accomplish nothing."

Daeanara says, "If what you say is true, your elder was a fool to send two men
to deal with the Black Furies."

[Lawrence(#3606)] One corner of Lawrence's mouth sneaks upwards in a hint of a
smile. "I doubt Andrea knew what she was sending us into," he says quietly.
"But there was a third person with us. Louisa. We lost track of her at the
village."

[Adam(#2921)] Adam nods. "I agree with Lawrence. And, he's right, Louisa...she
might still be at the village. She is known as Weighs-the-Law, another of our
tribe."

The woman's head comes up sharply. "What does she look like?"

[Adam(#2921)] Adam blinks at the sudden reaction, then describes Louisa to the
Fury.

"I have seen her," Daeanara admits. "But her story is different from yours.
She claims to be human. She says she was taught by the Children of Gaia, but
she does not know why."

[Lawrence(#3606)] With a sigh, Lawrence says, "Likely she's as confused as we
were a few days ago."

[Adam(#2921)] Adam nods. "None of us came into this dream with our memories,
and the memories we have came back slowly."

Again the woman's expression turns thoughtful. "I will ask her questions
hinting at the things you have told me and see if her memories return to her.
The had better, for all your sakes."

[Lawrence(#3606)] Lawrence puts in, somewhat hastily, "We have no reason to
lie to you. We're at your mercy. There's no need for threats."

Daeanara, already rising to leave, stops and glances at Lawrence over her
shoulder. "What would happen to you if you died in this dream?"

[Lawrence(#3606)] "What happens if one dies in Dream?" Lawrence asks in
answer. "I honestly don't know. But I do know that here, I can't shift, I
can't heal, and I can't use my gifts. So I'm not a threat to a Garou."

[Adam(#2921)] Adam shakes his head. "I do not know, either."

"Something I shall have to ask the Theurges, then." She turns to go, and
pauses again. "Food will be brought to you, and blankets. At least until we
can determine what to do with you. You cannot expect us to abandon over a
thousand years of tradition and history in one day."

[Lawrence(#3606)] Lawrence nods slowly, and calls after the elder, "Thank you
for listening to us."

[Adam(#2921)] Adam doesn't say anything as Daeanara leaves. He brings his
knees close to his chest, and stares at the ground.

[Lawrence(#3606)] Lawrence mutters, "That could've gone better."

[Adam(#2921)] Adam shakes his head. "Maybe, but there's only so much we can
do. We can only tell them what we know."

Home          Main Log Index           GM Log Index            Dream Realm RoP Log Index