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Western Side of Arthur's Island
Lodgepole pines surround you and stretch into the sky above. The ground
here is soft and loamy, and the air remains cool even on the hottest
summer day. Ferns and manzinata brush make walking about a little
difficult, but they add a wonderful fragrance to the air.
East of here, the cliffs that surround the island are at their lowest,
and a convenient rock ramp descends into the water. Southeast, a
granite platform extends over the southern waters of Lake Arthur. Down
under the bushes, several small animals make their homes.
Contents:
Jade
Patrick
Touch Deer
Cassandra
Hayes
Obvious exits:
Toward the Promontory Up to the Granite Lookout
Jade moves back, a sinuous motion like twisting taffy, to regard Andrea
thoughtfully. *There are many places to look. Start outside of
yourself. What you are not. What you need to be. Jade has many secret
places to look. What you want is your own place to look.*
Andrea translates this, the faintest hint of a puzzled frown marring her
forehead.
Cassandra looks equally puzzled once Andrea translates, then says, "So,
we have to figure out what we're not?"
Hayes's brow furrows at the ground, as if he's trying to burn a hole
through it with heat vision. (He can do that. Really.)
Touch Deer doesn't say anything, only thinks.
Andrea nods at Cassandra. She glances at the lone Uktena in the pack, to
see if he has any ideas.
Patrick shakes his head at Cassandra. "We need to *start* with what
we're not, but need to be."
Cassandra considers that. "Hell, I can think of a big long list."
Patrick nods. "True. Umbral, for starters."
Touch Deer nods at Cassandra's statement.
Jade waits only a moment longer, giving the Garou time to think. Then,
darting in, it wraps a sinuous tail about Patrick's neck and the two
stand like that, frozen in time, for a brief moment.
Touch Deer starts. "Patrick....?"
Cassandra watches Jade, abit surprised herself but also freezing as she
waits.
Andrea takes a step forward, but does not interfer.
Andrea says through the mental totem link: Patrick?
The two remain locked that way, totem and Garou, perfectly still. No
struggling.
Touch Deer looks at his other packmates, worried.
Patrick answers, wide-eyed, distracted, "Ssh. Gotta get back...."
Cassandra eyes Patrick, then glances at her other packmates, now
concerned herself.
Andrea falls silent. Her shoulders tense, but she doesn't interupt
again.
Touch Deer stays quiet, and watches.
Jade releases Patrick, as quickly as she had touched him. *You are fast
in the air. The rabbit is faster. What do you need?*
Patrick nods thoughtfully. *Rabbits. Speed, for delivering information.*
Jade flutters a half-dozen transparent eyelids over here eyes in quick
succession. With a lash of her tail a rabbit spirit materializes in
front of the two. *Show me.*
Touch Deer blinks, and watches with interest.
Andrea also watches, glancing between the spirit and the ragabash.
Patrick looks from Jade to the rabbit, then unthinkingly dives, still in
homid form, to grab the little prey.
With a bounding leap, the rabbit is off, the two-legged Ragabash falling
behind.
Patrick grumbles. "Friggin' A." He quick-hifts to lupus, the better to
track and grab the litle beastie.
Patrick contorts and blurs as he is transformed.
Patrick shifts into Lupus form.
Whitestreak pulls up short, and shifts back up. "Damn hippity-hoppity
thing," he mutters and goes off after the rabbit again.
Whitestreak contorts and blurs as he is transformed.
Whitestreak shifts into Homid form.
Jade watches as Patrick disappears into the underbrush for only a moment
then interrupts Cassandra's view of the race by dipping and then
swooping up off the ground in front of her, eyes wide, staring at the
young Fury. Locking her in its gaze. Hovering in place.
Cassandra, finding a pair of yellow eyes in her face, blinks in surprise
them stares back, taking a deep breath.
Cassandra's thougght floats almost unconsciously over the link: Not
again.
Cassandra stares into Jade's eyes for a long moment, silent, wide-eyed,
seemingly caught by the spirit's gaze. She appears to be lost in some
other space and time, frozen.
Patrick comes scrambling out of a manzinita bush.
Cassandra is staring into Jade's eyes, seemingly frozen just as the
Uktena was moments ago.
Andrea glances at the other two that have not yet been graced by the
totem. She swallows hard, a touch of apprehension rapidly quelled.
Jade pulls back from Cassandra, its body twisting like loops of smoke. A
thought comes to each of you, unbidden, spillover of that thought
directed at Cassandra. *What do you need to know?*
Hayes breathes evenly, standingly loosely with the kind of extreme calm
that packmates by now know means high tension, as Jade makes the
rounds.
Cassandra stands for a moment, uncertain, glancing at Andrea for a
translation.
Andrea murmurs, "She asks what you need to know."
Cassandra mutters softly, almost as if she had not heard Andrea, "To
seek the true nature of those around me..."
Cassandra's eyes are clouded, then, and she is off into her own world
again. Jade takes two this time, Hayes and Touch Deer, twining about
them like wisps of smoke.
Hayes' eyes close, his slow, purportedly-calm breathing belying the
lines of tension drawn thorugh his frame, as the spirit wends around
him.
Touch Deer's eyes widen, and a little gasp escapes his throat.
Hayes contorts and blurs as he is transformed.
Hayes shifts into Crinos form.
Touch Deer contorts and blurs as he is transformed.
Touch Deer shifts into Crinos form.
Scab-Survivor snarls savagely, both his fists clenched tight.
Haze's tense silence breaks with a ripping, commanding howl at whatever
vision he's immersed in. ~NO! STAND YOUR GROUND!~
Scab-Survivor's injured arm starts to bleed again, little trickles
trailing down his arm. He screams, howls, and spits in the way he
would during a desperate, losing battle.
Andrea backs up half a pace. She obviously wants to help, but holds
herself tightly back.
Jade releases Haze and Scab-Survivor, momentarily. *What do you need?*
Scab-Survivor blinks, the world coming back into focus about him. He
looks at Andrea, panting.
Andrea translates yet again, her voice taut.
Haze stumbles as the real world returns to his senses, one bloody hand
touching the ground to regain balance. ~Stories help not during
battle. I need warsong.~
Scab-Survivor turns his eyes towards Jade. ~I need...to be able to stand
during battle, when my strength and endurance are at their limit.~
Jade swirls like a twister. *Show me.* It catches Andrea's eye from the
corner of its own.
Andrea turns to face the spirit, her odd amber eyes caught in the
spirit's yellow gaze. She freezes immediately.
Scab-Survivor contorts and blurs as he is transformed.
Scab-Survivor shifts into Homid form.
Cassandra, hitherto seemingly locked into her own time, trembles a bit,
staring at something only she can see.
Haze's bloody talons clench, and he howls at the sky; a primal sound
that grasps toward something that can lift fallen spirits, that
contains notes of battle.
Touch Deer contorts and blurs as he is transformed.
Touch Deer shifts into Crinos form.
Scab-Survivor's eyes shut tight as he struggles to control something,
and he growls steadilly.
Andrea continues staring at the spirit, oblivious for the moment.
Crescent moons meet verticle slits as the two pairs of eyes meet.
Cassandra seems to be fighting to control herself as well, shaking
visibly now as she fights to maintain a homid form, oblivioua to
anything else around her as well.
Scab-Survivor comes back into this world again, panting heavilly.
Haze contorts and blurs as he is transformed.
Haze shifts into Homid form.
Scab-Survivor contorts and blurs as he is transformed.
Scab-Survivor shifts into Homid form.
Cassandra seems to come back into her own world, and drops heavily to
one knee, shaking her head, still trembling just a bit.
Touch Deer falls down to homid, looking around the room, shaking a
little himself. "Cass, are you okay?"
The others return to this day and this place, the visions fading.
Patrick is still off, chasing rabbits. No vision comes to Andrea,
though. Jade, with a twist and turn, fades like smoke in the wind.
Andrea's lips tighten, but she simply bows her head.
Cassandra looks up, and snaps at Touch Deer, unnacountably, "Yeah, I'm
fine. Lay off, huh?"
Hayes sinks to sit down, shaking a bit. "Jesus Christ," is his final
comment. "That was...interesting."
Touch Deer's eyebrows go up, and he backpedals a step from Cass, hands
up. "Hey, sorry, okay? Andrea?" He moves towards his alpha, to see if
she needs any assistance.
Andrea shakes her head. Her words are low. "I'm fine, Touch Deer."
Touch Deer nods, wiping some blood away from his arm. "Cool."
Hayes rises back to his feet to pace. "Meanwhile,
They-Call-Him-the-Streak is probably to Bangladesh by now."
Cassandra stands up sharply, brushing herself off. "I gotta go back to
the city tonight. Anyone wanna come with me?" Her words are a bit
clipped.
Andrea's lips quirk.
Andrea says quietly, "I will go."
Touch Deer nods. "Sure, if you have room."
From her jacket pocket, Cassandra pulls out a small black box and a
lighter, and extracts a clove from the box. "I dunno about you guys,
but I need a smoke. That was freaky."
Hayes paces, fidgetting. "Do you really have to breathe that shit out
here?"
Cassandra looks at Hayes. "Look, it could be worse, could be nicotine."
Andrea doesn't step between the bickering, at least not yet. Her eyes
turn away from her packmates, fixed at an empty point in space.
Touch Deer moves towards Cass. "Easy Hayes, we have all been through
alot just now. Cass, can I bum one off you?"
Hayes says "The theory being that it's better because you're just
drawing pretensiousness inside instead of tar? Do you snap your
fingers for applause? No offense, you understand, I'm just curious."
Cassandra arches an eyebrow at Andrea, but nods absently to Touch Deer.
"Sure." She hands him a small cylinder. "Careful, they'll choke you if
you draw too fast." She eyes Hayes with some annoyance. "Did I ask for
your approval? Do I really damn well care what you think?"
Touch Deer lights the clove a little clumsilly, but takes a drag with
smile and a relaxing "Ahhh." His eye level on Hayes. "Yeah, fuck you."
Andrea finally turns. Her voice is soft, but strong. "Hush, both of you.
You're fighting over things you don't care about, because of whatever
you saw. Don't speak words that you don't mean."
Touch Deer cracks his neck, and takes another drag, exhaling out his
nostrils.
Cassandra turns a brief eye on Andrea, and grins weakly. "Hey, you
okay?" She takes a drag as well as she waits for an answer.
Andrea glances at Touch Deer. She seems a little unsettled, but says
nothing. Her eyes go back to the other two. "Yes. Or at least, I will
be."
Hayes snorts. "Well, you already look like the Indian from the Village
People, so it's not a surprising sentiment." He eyes Andrea and
shrugs, paces away from the group, drumming fingers in shifting tempos
against legs.
Andrea's lips thin as her eyes rest on Hayes's back. She sighs, very
softly.
Touch Deer blinks, and snorts. "That's real funny, dickface. You shoulda
been a raggie, I swear."
Cassandra shrugs, and walks over and sits down on a rock. "On second
thought, I'mm too damn tired to trek back to the scab tonight. Mebbe
tomorrow."
Andrea glances back at Touch Deer. She speaks again, more forcefully.
"Stop it. You claw at one that guards your back." She looks at Hayes's
turned back. "Both of you. We are pack. Insults aren't going to help
whatever it is that troubles you."
Touch Deer ignores his alpha. His eyes wander over to Cass. "Shit,
seriously? I have to sleep out in the woods again?" He puffs on his
cigarette morosely.
Cassandra shrugs. "Yeah, well I'm tired of sleepin' in Wyrm stink, an
even more sick of stupid Fury cubs."
Hayes leans against a tree and smirks. "His special wolf friend's been
giving him the cold shoulder. Can't be bribed with rabbits anymore. I
feel for you, man." At the response, a glare thick enough to eat with
a fork, he shrugs again and begins to pace around restlessly some
more.
Cassandra adds morosely, leaning her chin on her knees, "Mebbe we oughta
go rip the hell outta something."
Jade pages: An echo comes into your mind. *What do you need to know that
you do not have?*
Andrea clenches her hands in frustration, but turns her head toward the
right. She says, *A way to see the heart of the problem. To know how
to stop the hateful words they do not mean to say.*
Jade hovers back into view. *The words who does not say? Tell me what
you see?*
Andrea turns to look harder at her pack, pale eyes narrowed.
Cassandra looks over at Touch Deer and, seeing that he's finished his
clove, grins. "Damn, you finished that fast. They're kinda bad for
you."
Hayes stares at the sky contemplatively and announces, "This is
bullshit. What the hell are we doing, trying to keep this fucking
deadweight? Ooh, let's show the other tribes the error of their ways.
Let's let them continue to buttfuck momma Gaia while they're at it."
Andrea struggles with her temper as she attempts to find out what made
her pack go mad.
Jade pages: Something just seems...wrong. Something about this scene.
They don't seem real, almost. Your packmates are...insubstantial.
Cassandra lsitens calmly to Hayes, remarking, "Well, at least bring the
men along."
Andrea moves toward Hayes, the most belligerent. She reaches to grasp
his shoulders.
Hayes dissolves, like smoke, under Andrea's touch and her fierce eyes.
One by one the others dissolve as well as Patrick returns, holding a
rabbit in his hands.
Andrea looks around before her gaze settles on Patrick. She tilts her
head at her old friend, a wrinkle line on her forehead.
Jade is bright, moving quickly like coils of rope in an arcane dance. To
Andrea, *Understand what is not natural. Learn from it.* Then sweeps
its gaze across the others. *You know where to look now.* The air
itself glimmers. *Inside of yourself. Outside of yourself. Jade has
given you what you need, has she?* The latter is more rhetorical than
an actual question. *Use it wisely.*
Patrick grins at Andrea. "Roast rabbit?"
Andrea shakes her head. She then says to the silent Touch Deer. "Do me a
favor. Never take up smoking." She smiles wanly at Patrick and motions
him in.
Jade slowly dissolves, like a spray of water, and is gone.
Cassandra relaxes as well, and again pulls out a box and a lighter,
looking around at her packmates. "Anyone mind if I smoke? I need it."
Patrick shrugs. "Downwind."
Andrea shudders involuntarily, but says nothing.
Hayes sits down and leans back against a tree quietly. He chuckles. "I'm
suddenly going to start minding?"
Cassandra blinks at Patrick, but nods. "Aah, I'll wait on it." She
tuckes the two objects away, then lets out a deep sigh. "Dammit, I
love Jade dearly but sometimes she makes Silence of the Lambs look
like happy hour."
Patrick smiles slightly. "That's Uktena for you. See the shit I was born
into?"
Hayes sighs. "Started my career with disturbing faux realities. Feeling
right at home."
Andrea rubs her hands together in her lap. She finally asks,
"Whitestreak, what was your rite of passage like? I've never pressed
you on it before."
Patrick settles down on the ground, his hands unconsciously clenching a
little more firmly around the rabbit. He looks down for a moment, then
back up. "You know the Uktena and Wendigo are related, two of three
brothers?"
Andrea nods, saying, "The water spirit, the ice North wind, and the
turtle."
Cassandra nods, and stands up, scrounging around the area. Before long,
she comes back with an armload of firewood. "Patrick, you actually
wanna cook the rabbit?"
Hayes nods. "I've heard some tales of them."
Patrick looks up, distracted. "Hunh? Oh, um, sure," he says, handing it
over while he continues his story. "Well, Wendigo wasn't originally
the icy north wind, but that's a story for a later time. Occasionally,
Wendigo spirits go rogue. They taste the blood of a human, or Garou,
and like it. They're hooked." He doodles in the dirt a bit, then looks
up. "It's like a drug. They'll do anything for it again."
Cassandra winces at the mention of drugs, but forces herself to light a
small fire and start figuring out how to clean a rabbit.
Andrea glances at the silent Touch Deer, then nods again.
Patrick continues, "Anyways, it was the winter of '80. It was pretty
cold in Chicago. Major surprise, hunh? Constant wind from the lake and
everything. Anyway, there were lots of people dying from frostbite.
Some even Garou, which was almost impossible. So the Crescents did
some checking, and figured out it was a rogue Wendigo." Bitterly, he
adds, "A *small* rogue Wendigo."
Cassandra whistles softly under her breath, her hands busy, but the
whistle is shaky.
Andrea nods, dropping her eyes to Cassandra's preparations.
Patrick licks his lips before continuing with his story, "We never
figured out when or why it had gone rogue, but it wasn't important.
What *was* important was that it was killing off Kin and weak cubs,
mostly of the Wyrmcomers," he looks around at most of the pack and
says, "Sorry. Just a term. Anyways, mostly newer tribes, but some
Uktena, too. Since it was small and defeating others through surprise,
the elders thought a good-sized pack of cubs could bring it down."
Cassandra has done a somewhat clumsy job of preparing the rabbit, but
what she has done is nearly finished. She listens now to Patrick, her
attention divided.
Patrick adds, with quite a bit of rancor, "They had a lot to learn."
Patrick shivers a bit, then goes on with his story. "I think there were
5 of us. Just a sec." he counts on his fingers, then nods. "Five.
Three Uktena from Chicago. Two Wendigo from some Canadian Sept north
of the lake. Hunting this damn thing through the city. We *should've*
had a Walker or Gnawer or something, but the elders were convinced
this was *our* problem, and *our* solution. No need to involve
others."
Andrea nods again, raising her pale eyes to her packmate's face.
Patrick pulls his jacket closer around him. "So we took a city map and
plotted out his hits. Narrowed down the area to check. Went out in
groups, usually Umbrally, avoiding the spiders, hiding in webs,
tracking down this cannabalistic spirit. Never went out singly,
usually in groups of 3 and 2; no reason to use yourself as bait when
you'd just end up as a Garousicle for it."
Patrick looks over at Cassandra. "Rabbit?" he asks, breaking the
narrative flow rather abruptly.
Cassandra mumbles something about it being a wonder every Garou north of
California doesn't die of frostbite as she sharpens a stick, managing
to slit her thumb with the kinfe in the process.
Cassandra replies after a moment, "Working on it, I dunno what the hell
I'm doin', so bear with me."
Touch Deer smiles, and scoots over to his packsister. "Let me help you?"
Cassandra shrugs, and scooches over to give Touch Deer room, nodding as
she sucks on her bleeding thumb. "Please. I don't wanna poison
people."
Touch Deer helps out Cass here and there, suggesting where to slice,
what to remove, what to tie off, etc.
Patrick nods. "Hokay. Thanks. Where was I? Oh, yeah, tracking and
scouting for the Frozen Wonder." He takes a deep breath and continues,
"Anyway, to make a couple weeks' worth of story short, we found it. Or
it found us. We went to the warehouse we thought we'd tracked it to,
to set up an ambush. The bastard had set up an ambush of its own."
With Touch Deer's expert help, Cassandra manages to get the rabbit
cleaned and spitted and cooking over a small fire. She winces at the
mention of the ambush. "Yeah."
Touch Deer sits back to listen, intently, to the story.
Patrick looks over towards the fire. "Imagine a seven-foot-tall
humanoid, weighing *maybe* 170 pounds. Skin so white it's translucent.
Ice for hair. White furs for clothing. And teeth. Teeth more cutting
than a blizzard. Now imagine sitting in wait, so you *know* it's
coming and have time to scare yourself. And then imagine feeling this
icy, frozen touch go down your spine."
Touch Deer swallows, and shivers involuntarily.
Cassandra shivers involutarily as well, convulsively.
Andrea's lips thin. She nods again.
Patrick spits out, "I decided then and there to fuck this macho thing,
and yelled for all I was worth. Got one answer, Ice-Hunter from the
far side. I spun, and started to run; I could smell the blood on its
breath. It wasn't easy, though ... the damn thing had frozen down my
back."
Touch Deer inches towards Patrick, eyes wide.
Patrick shakes his head. "We were lucky. We couldn't go through with the
original ambush, but we could do a variant. Of course, I didn't want
to be the bait, but it seemed I'd already been cast into that role by
the icy cannibal. I ran. It followed, too fast by half. Its touch went
down my back again, more forcefully this time. I shifted down from
crinos to lupus midway through that touch, tucked my tail down so it
couldn't grab me, and ran to save my life."
Cassandra turns the spits slowly as she listens.
Patrick looks down, then up again. "Like I said, we were lucky, and it
*was* stupid, or at least hungry. Ice-Hunter was metis; I ran to him,
and he created fire in his hands. He'd already done the one other
thing we'd agreed to do as a last resort: opened up gas valves all
over the place. Can you say 'boom'?" He looks down for a moment, then
back up. "I don't remember a lot for the next week or so. I was told
that I probably survived thanks to the thing's touch, or else the
blizzard that'd kicked up in the meantime. Maybe it was Wendigo."
Touch Deer swallows.
Cassandra winces as well, shuddering uncontrollably. "Ow. Mother of us
all."
Patrick shrugs, and shivers again. "Anyways, I was cliath. I never saw
Ice-Hunter again; I was told he'd lost a limb or two in the explosion,
but was honored cliath. The cannibal never returned, if *it* survived.
And my fur grew back, well, you know, white. So the elders called me
'Whitestreak', in honor of my souvenir of the rite."
Touch Deer nods, and then nods again as he gathers everything in his
head.
Patrick looks around, a hesitant smile on his face. "So ... everyone
asleep now?"
Cassandra shakes her head and pulls the finished rabbit off the spit,
handing it to Patrick. "Nope, finder's keepers." She sighs heavily.
"Reminds me way too much off my own Rite..."
Touch Deer blinks. "Not mine."
Hayes says "Mine was basically a...learning experience."
Touch Deer looks up. "Cassandra, what is bothering you?"
Patrick grins thankfully at Cassandra as he takes the rabbit and tears
off a bit of the meat. Looking over at Hayes, he says drily, "Mine was
a bit of a learning experience. Just in a different way, I'd bet."
Cassandra shrugs a shoulder at Touch Deer. "Everything. Nothing. I can
handle it."
Touch Deer nods. "But maybe we can help?"
Andrea finally stands and touches Patrick's shoulder gently.
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