Log edited with Logedit 2.6.6pl on Fri Jul 31 17:01:55 EDT 1998

Using configuration file /turquoise/homes/ammer/.logeditrc Editing out: arrive/left ANSI tf-messages Regexp stripping: Queue, Semaphore, ^Huh\? +Type, ^I don't see that Word-wrapping at 72, 0, 2 Statistics at end of log -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Andrea looks tired, as if she got little sleep, but she manages a slight smile. She approaches within touching distance, then stops.

Dana looks at the signs of tiredness with curiousity, but then stuffs her hands into her pockets. "I was hoping to see you sometime. How...how are you?"

Andrea's smile is fleeting, but she doesn't sound angry or unfriendly. "Sometimes it has to be enough just to survive the night before. You?"

Dana looks mildly puzzled at the odd wording, but relaxes into a slight smile. "Not .too. bad. Classes are going easier this semester than they ever have, and I'm trying to get out here more often. I...I don't suppose you have some time to talk? If you're busy, it's okay," she adds in a self-protective rush.

Andrea shakes her head. "I'm on patrol, but it's nothing so urgent that I can't take a break for a short while."

Dana looks relieved again, and offers, "We can keep walking if you want," prepares to if the answer is yes. "I just had something to ask, and an offer to make."

Andrea nods. "Sure." She waits until the kinfolk is ready, then begins to walk the way Dana had been heading.

Dana bites her lower lip as she picks up on Andrea's mood, initiative flagging momentarily. She's still not 100% sure of herself when she goes on. "Well..." she starts, trails off, and then tries again after a deep breath. "I missed most of what happened last week," she admits with a wince. "I was hoping you'd tell me what happened. What you can," she adds, with a look which makes it clear she realizes there may be things Andrea can't or would refuse to tell her.

Andrea considers, stepping around a fallen log. "What did you see?"

"The two...spirits showing up in the realm closer to Gaia. They looked like mortal enemies," Dana says with sober seriousness. "Touch Deer disappeared and appeared there. And then everyone could see them from this realm, and they began fighting, and everyone else jumped in. And the smaller spirit was killed, and the bigger, nastier one ran off."

Andrea's lips twitch a little, but she nods. "That's pretty much what happened. All you missed seeing was our cleansing of the area, and trying to decide our next move." Her lips twist again, more notably. "We're still working on that one, honestly."

Dana smiles, but then shakes her head. "But...what /happened/? What were those spirits?"

Andrea frowns thoughtfully. She glances around, then finds another fallen log. She motions toward it, and sits before beginning. "The larger spirit, the one we found, is the thing that that fetish had been holding back. When it was dug up, the bonds were weakened. We were trying to strengthen the spirit in the fetish to reinforce that prison--that was the second spirit you saw. A Wendigo spirit."

Dana trails along after and settles down near to the Garou, pulling her knees up towards her chest. "A Wendigo? I thought that was a tribe, like Joseph and Touch Deer."

Andrea nods. "It is. But the Wendigo is also a spirit of the Native Americans, who adopted the tribe that took its name. Uktena is also both; my pack follows Uktena, and Patrick is an Uktena. The Wendigo is a spirit of rage and cold, almost as much feared as respected."

Dana frowns slightly as she mulls this information over in silence for several moments. At least partially digested, she finally stirs from the contemplation. "So, it was a good guy."

Andrea nods. "It was the Gaian spirit in the fetish that was holding the Wyrm spirit in its prison."

"All are of Gaia," Dana says absently in a soft voice, the slight frown returning as she seems to think on things again. "So...the Wyrm spirit killed the good spirit, the Wendigo. So...the evil won."

Andrea's face sobers. "Yes. That battle, anyway. All the Wendigo spirit did was buy us time to try to figure out another way." She sighs, then pushes back her hair over her shoulder where it's fallen from the braid. "These are the Last Days, and we lose more often that we like admitting."

Dana flickers a sympathetic smile in the face of the theurge's mood. "So Scott said." She rocks a little in her seat, drawing her arms across the tops of her knees. "If there's anything I can do to help...will you let me?"

Andrea nods. She then meets the younger woman's eyes. "I don't like endangering you, though. We are pledged to die in battle the moment our First Change comes. You've had no such commitment."

Dana smiles with a touch of sadness and an attempt at self-deprecating humor. "No...I've chosen to." She lets the significance hang for a moment, before rushing on. "I can't and won't fight the same way you do, but I don't want to see the world destroyed anymore than you do. I felt that way even before I knew you existed. And now I know I can make a real difference."

Andrea gives a small smile. "Sometimes it feels like nothing makes a difference, Dana. Not that we'll stop fighting..." She trails off, then shakes her head. She gives a rueful smile. "Patrick slapped me verbally for angsting over this already. I'm always poor to talk to, before I've figured out a plan of attack."

Dana smiles, reaching out tentatively to squeeze the black-haired woman's shoulder with empathic understanding. "When I lived at home, one summer I got to work at a...well, it's a retreat of sorts. The people there are only there to help other people get better. People who have problems so deep in their life that they can't function. I got a chance to watch them work, and I felt that way. I couldn't see what they were doing was making a difference. But then," she adds, a slow, warm smile growing, "I began seeing it. Little changes. But they counted them as big victories. And that made the people feel better, too. I could /feel/ it." Her pale blue eyes move to meet the dark ones, shining warmly. "Isn't this like that?"

Andrea's face relaxes, slightly. "Yes, I can see that. I think it's the shock of seeing something that evil in the heart of my territory." Her face sobers again as she says very seriously, "We should have all died, Dana. I don't know why it fled instead of killing us all. It has more power than any spirit I've ever faced."

Dana chews on her lower lip, then half-asks, half-says slowly, "Maybe there's a meaning there? It had to be following some rule, so if you could figure out its...rules," she says, but with a touch of exasperation as if groping for words. "I have a hard time explaining things anymore," she apologizes softly.

You say "Something still binds it. But what, I haven't been able to figure out, or how to turn that to our advantage."

Dana rubs the end of her nose with her fingertips. "Maybe we can help," Dana offers. "Our, my," she stumbles slightly, "abilities differ from yours. Maybe there's something we can do you can't. And we can tell you, so it'd help. That was the other thing," she continues, hesitating shyly. "I...I wanted to work stuff out with you, like that. In general."

Andrea leans forward slightly. "I will welcome any observations your magic gives. But work things out? What do you mean?"

Dana chews on her lower lip with a hint of fearful consideration, but then goes on reluctantly. "I want to help. I...well, you know I don't work alone, but they don't have...quite the same beliefs that even I do." She pauses, trying to collect words and put them into coherent order. "I--I want to work out some sort of agreement, between us, you and I or your pack and I. Maybe an understanding's a better word for it. That I'll do as much as I can to help to the extent of my abilities, and even some what my...friends can do. And in return, you understand that we're not the evil mages Scott told me about." Her voice drops, gaze sober. "I don't really want to be...killed...for what I am, when I'm trying for the same things your people are."

Andrea nods. She gives that a few minutes before answering, then she does. "If you fight on our side, Dana, at least my pack is unlikely to ever be pitted against you. I won't lie and say that some Garou don't have the same unthinking prejudices that Nic does, reversed, but we're not among them. David works toward the same goals, and he is unmolested, and even respected by some Garou. You know that if you do fall, we will have to take care of the problem. Just as if one of us did, we would expect our friends and tribemates to do the same. But outside of that, there are two attitudes that get mages in trouble with Garou." She smiles, briefly. "At least two, that is, but I know two mages that you know that get in trouble for them, so I can explain with people you know. If you will listen?"

Dana's arms shift to tighten around herself reflexively at the softly-worded threat, but showing a hint of her mettle, she nods uneasily in response to the question.

You say "The first is the problem some of us have warned Chloe about, but she has never listened. It's not enough for her to just be involved in the war. She insists on tresspassing on our territories unwanted, playing with evil that is more than she can handle and makes us risk ourselves to contain it, and generally pushing into what is not the War, but only Garou." The theurge frowns, then looks directly at Dana. "I don't know how to tell you the difference between wanting to help and doing so, and simply being intrusive. I know Chloe doesn't know the difference. I'll let you know if you step over that line, but you need to know it's there. She never has."

Dana pales, looking genuinely shocked. In a hurried, shocked whisper, "I wouldn't do that." She swallows visibly, arms tightening hard around her as she gathers her self-possession. "I've had first hand experience with Chloe being touched by the evil. I'm not that stupid. I don't really want to be involved in the war, I just want to help where I can." She seems unaware of the incongruity of that statement.

You say "From what I've seen of you, Dana, I'm not worried about you tresspassing. I just want you to understand that my pack's misgivings about some that you know isn't just because you can work magic. It's because of basic attitudes in the personality of someone with that power." She frowns, rubbing her face. "The second is something I'd dealt with among mages elsewhere, but not here. It's the reason Nic has not yet had more spirit teaching from me, and may never. When he spoke with me, he baited me, showing his own blind prejudices against my kind." She shrugs a little with a smile, then adds, "I could forgive that. Stupid, unwise, but not untrainable. The real problem came in every word he said /without/ intent. Everything he phrased was in what something could give him, or what he could get out of something, or if he could use something. Have you noticed this in talking with him?"

Dana nods with transparent hesitation, as if revealing something she shouldn't but unable to lie. "He's...like that. But he's not a bad guy," she says quickly in his defense.

Andrea gives her head a small shake. "I don't say he's evil, Dana, at least not yet. But at heart he's selfish, and a user. Those are things that call to the Wyrm, and he will have to be very careful never to fall to its clutches. I don't wish to pass knowledge on to such a one, though I will still teach you and this other, if she is more like you than him." The theurge gives a wy smile. "Though Nic called it--I would have taught you anyway, even without the fetish trade. But I accept you, as you are now. I don't accept him, not yet."

Dana nods, again with that sense of betraying something by the simple gesture. "I understand. He might not, but I do. But...that's part of why I did this. I can see it," she says with a touch of bleakness, but also a sense of momentarily dropping a burden. "Back when this all started, I could see both Nicodemus and Scott--saying the same things, almost. Like you said, sorta," she adds with a glance which slews just as quickly away. "And look what happened. I don't want that to happen again, not if I can help it." Her voice drops into quietness. "I'm just hoping you want to prevent it, too."

Andrea tilts her head. SHe says honestly, "I want to prevent the Wyrm's victory, and as much bloodshed as I can. But what did Scott say that was like what Nicodemus said?"

Dana chews on her lip. "It wasn't what he said, really it was...how he did. It was as..." she hesitates visibly, as if on a precipice, then closes her eyes as she goes over it, "as self-centered," she says almost inaudibly, "as you say Nicodemus is. Condescending and self-centered. Although not about him in particular, but the Garou."

Andrea considers, then says, "I could see that. I would worry less about Nicodemus if he was selfish for a group, instead of himself, but neither is good." She smiles at Dana, again. "You're not going to find words about Garou infalibility or superiority here. We do what we must, but we're only mortal, too."

Dana smiles weakly. "I tried to tell Scott that, but I think he was too angry. And felt he was right. He tried to work something out with us later, but I think the damage was done. It was a good idea, though...I stole it, you could say." Her smile widens a notch, but is still small.

Andrea chuckles a little. "What did you do?"

Merriment brightens Dana's features for a split-second. "Came and talked to you?"

Andrea's eyes crinkle a little. "Ah." She then pauses and adds, "I can't give you a safe-passage sign, Dana. If for some reason you get in trouble and it's not your own doing, feel free to invoke my name to wait for judgement when I can defend you. I can do that much for you, as long as the other Garou isn't beyond reason. You're my kin...and my friend."

Dana bites her lower lip, expression softening and warming at the designation, looking shyly pleased by it. "Thank you. I....I've not had many friends in my life." She gives another self-deprecating smile, then with less uncertainty, says, "I'm not looking for safe-passage. I...I understand enough of things to know where things stand," she says delicately. "I just don't want what happened again to happen again, and I think being able to talk, not being /afraid/ to talk...will help. At least some."

Andrea leans over to touch Dana's shoulder. "You can always come talk to me, Dana."

Dana flashes another smile, then pushes to her feet. "I should let you get back to your patrols. And I should...get out, and get in touch with my center. See you Tuesday, maybe."

Home          Main Log Index           Quiet Log Index            Ouro Log Index