Ishikor part II

The Amalgam Queen speaks for the first time, her voice a legion of many. "There is a dark side to the Mirror, a realm of hatred and anger, a place where even creatures of Rage such as yourselves may quail at the rage you see. An Underworld, a Land of Sleepless Nightmares and Daydreams. There is a Queen there too who can judge him and hold him, prevent him from other violence, from ever returning to Ishikor."
Paul asks, "Who can, or who will?"
The Argent Queen smiles coldly at Paul. "An excellent question." She draws forth a tome of red brocade and silver trim, and strokes her hand lovingly along a silken thread of deepest indigo, and the vast book falls open to the page marked. "'And it shall be,'" she reads from the illuminated text, "'that there shall be a dark side of the mirror, where the Golden Queen, terrible and bright, shall rule from a throne of skulls, and she shall hold those that shall violate the Bright Realm, the Land of Sleepless Dreams, the Mirror of the World, the Haven, and they shall suffer at the hands of the children.'" She urges the book closed. "She shall keep him, if he so deserves in her topaz eyes."
Sepdet trembles once and quietly, like a horse shivering at the brief brush of something against its flank.
The Iron Queen holds out her hand to one side. "Come forward, Guide."
Gray approaches, padding gravely across the floor of the Throne Room - a delicate little cat, with fur the plush steel gray of a Russian Blue. She sits in front of the Garou and lifts a tiny paw to her face, which she proceeds to thoroughly clean. I am here.
Dylan looks at the cat, bemused, and from th cat to the Thrones, and back again. ~Hello.~
Paul's displeasure and grimness lightens appreciably.
The Copper Queen asks the guide, "You know your duties and restrictions?"
Wayfinder eyes the cat primly, trying to look non-threatening as much as possible, given her lupine form.
Gray proceeds to bite the nails of the paw she is washing, assiduously cleaning between every toe. Her gray eyes flick over the visitors and a single ear turns back to the Copper Queen. I know.
Sepdet glances sidelong at her packmates, her unconscious immersion into the currents of this world apparently shaken somewhat by the alternative mentioned. But she holds back the slight doubt and turns again to face the cat, smiling with teeth covered.
The steely majestrix leans back in her throne. "Then I pray you, proceed. And may the Light of the Mirror bring you success and hope... for all of us."
Paul seems about equally uncomfortable with either 'alternative', but at least appreciates having a cat for a guide. He bows to the Queens, and then again a little less low, to the feline. "May we expect active or passive guidance, noble one?"
The Lead Queen rumbles, "Do you require weapons, or will you make shift?"
Sepdet guesses, ~She may lead us, but is not to fight. Outsiders must deal with Outsiders.~ She crosses her arms. ~There is one final thing. You spoke of fashioning weapons. Whether we slay or bind, we will need tools, and our own hands and paws may not suffice.~
Sepdet pages all: Duh. Slow fingers. :)
The massive one shifts in her seat. "Of what nature?"
Paul asks, "What nature best answers the nature of your Enemy?"
Gray puts her paws firmly on the floor and looks at the Garou. Her tail curls neatly around her toes for a moment as she regards her charges, and it is now visible that her (ill-named) canine teeth drop below her lip a little, just enough to show like small white thorns through her closed mouth. I lead. You follow. You may also ask questions of me.
The patchwork regent speaks in her harmonies, "He slew the dragon with his bare hands. He posts guard against you that may or may not do battle with force. It is your choice, we can provide."
Dylan takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He will let his packmates speak on this subject.
Paul says, after a moment of thought, "Each to their own, then, so long as the choice has the potential to keep him, and minions, beyond the reach of his hands."
Sepdet considers the wounds we saw on the late dragon with a grim twitch of the mouth. ~Snares to tangle that can be cast from the hands. A knife for myself--~ she gestures, describing a curved arc about a foot long, ~since I know how to use one.~ She looks down at Wayfinder thoughtfully. ~A lure or ruse...four legs ought to be used, since you have them, Wayfinder. We'll see.~
Wayfinder pages to Paul, Limbo, Sepdet, Gray, and Dylan: I take it we can all understand cat-ese?
Limbo pages all: Perfectly. Or, well, as perfectly as the cat *wants* you to. :)
Wayfinder chuffs. There are not many ~tools~ that one can use in this form, that is true. She looks unperturbed by this.
Dylan looks disturbed. Finally, though, he says, ~Those swords of light. Might I have a shorter one?~
Paul says "Where it's all I get to play with. For myself, a staff this high," he raises a hand over his head. "Of any material that's suitable, that he won't like, preferably. Assuming I'm not going to hate it just as much. Blades on either or both end, at your whim." He grins at Dylan. Then adds, "Ammunition for my gun, if you have it. More effective against It and Its than me and mine, again, if possible. Materials for snares, pitfalls, some simple tools.""
Pack> Wayfinder says "I don't even use weapons in human form, not even talens (since I don't have any). It's not likely to make a diff. If you gave Siobhan a gun, she'd like as not blow her foot off with it."
Pack> Dylan is actually good with a gun, but /hates/ them so. I thought about it, but I just /can't/ see him asking for one, even if it would be practical. Not asking.
Gray listens to all these preparations, half-amused, half-approving. She crouches down, not-quite tucking her paws out of sight, and remarks that she hopes it it quite obvious that she won't be /carrying/ anything.
Gray pages all: it is. sorry.
A slow, ponderous rise of the arm, and then the Lead Queen brings her hand down in a slash that ends in a dull clang on the stony throne. "A net of silk spun by the giant spiders of the Diamond Mountains. Rope of the immortal vines of the Scarlet Jungle. A moon knife forged of a fallen star from the constellation of the Great Horse. A staff of wood from the Tree of Iron in the courtyard of the Shining City. And a sword made from a ray of the Great Light caught in a Sunbarrel Tree." The things appear as she names them, shining and new, tough and beautiful, fit to your specifications, but more importantly, crafted to fit your hands perfectly.
Paul looks momentarily taken aback at the results of the requests, or the method of fulfilling them. He bows deeply, greatfully and more importantly, respectful.
Gray gets to her feet and streeeeeeeeetches, reaching out her front paws in front and arching her back. She drifts towards the door the visitors came in by.
Sepdet smiles wistfully as the familiar yet more magical shape of sickle-moon meshes with her hand again, balancing it carefully in her hand and eying its blank gleaming surface. ~Perfect.~ She makes sure one of the pack with hands has gathered up the binding-weapons and then moves to follow the cat, after touching her priestess' lock to the Queens in a silent salute.
Dylan receives his sword with as much pleasure as any weapon is likely to give him, examining the handle gravely and the blade of light. He touches the guard with one long black forefinger, and discovers he can diminish the blade to a more familiar knife-length. He nods quietly, looks up and dips his head in sober thanks to the Queens, and turns to follow Sepdet like an outsized shadow.
Paul takes the staff reverently, as well as the net and vines, and says, "If we get the chance, you can distract him into this stuff."
The Metal Queen watches the trickling departure of the pack and its guide with glittery, hopeful eyes.
Dylan touches the blade lightly with one finger, eyes widening in surprise as he is unhurt. He then passes his hand thrugh the blade. Bemusement growing, he touches it to the sleeve of his still fairly new tunic, watching with fascination as pine needles andgrass stains fall away. He tucks the blade into the waistband of his baggy pants to free his hand as he walks.
Paul loops an end of the vines around the coil, as well as his belt (an economy length rope, or whip?). Then with gingerly held ethereal net in one hand, the dark wood of the staff in his right, he steps back to his packmates and falls in line behind the Guide.
Gray is already halfway down the stairs as the packmates emerge from the Throne Room, although she does not seem to be moving very fast; it is more as if the stairs are shorter than they look. Or shorter for her.
The exit from the castle where you emerge from the stairs is a long, slick slide of marble... or metal... or something else, it's hard to be sure. All you know is that there are children squealing and sliding from the topmost level of the castle all the way to the bottom, and then seeking whatever means they might to return to the broad top landing... where you are... to repeat their ride.
Gray is sitting calmly near the end of the slide, washing a paw again. When she sees the packmates emerge, she fades quietly outside, letting them follow as they will.
Sepdet decides to throw off the Grup reputation just a little, whether or no the kids need reassurance--she hops and slides down on her belly, picking herself up at the end with dignity and proceeding at a comfortable trot.
Pack> Dylan catches the refference and looks stricken. Grup!
Dylan, too, takes the slide as it's intended, when he's sure he will not interfere with a child's progress.
Wayfinder's goofy grin is all that is needs to tell her reaction to the slide, as she whips down it on her rump with air streaming through her fur. She rolls at the bottom, and looks longingly back up it, before turning to her packmates and the cat.
Paul gathers the net close, tucks it in the same hand as the staff, and with a kiai charges the slope. Tumbling and sliding down looking like he's enjoying the hell out of it, human egg somehow looking wildly out of control and perfectly safe all the same. All rolled round his staff and managing, due to luck or the place itself, not to crunch anyone in passing. Proof that Aikido, and endless hours of falling, can be turned to absolute fun.
Gray squeezes her eyes at the packmates and leaves through the jeweled gates.
The hills beyond the castle are rounded and soft and covered with emerald velvet.
Paul brushes himself down, checks to make sure he didn't shed anything useful, and sets out in Gray's wake. "How far, how wide, how long, and how visible, Wise Guide?"
Off in the distance you can see Kid, easily recognizable by the printed-sheet robes, standing on the top of a grassy knoll and apparently thoroughly engaged in a fencing lesson. Kid's fencing master is a Mouse three feet high with a gold circlet tilted over one ear and a dashing red feather stuck in it, who uses a fencing rapier against the lightsaber, turning the burning bar of light easily aside. When not demonstrating thrusts and parries, the Mouse gestures tumultuously with the sword and its free paw, obviously recounting heroic escapades of some sort.
Outside, Gray looks less like a cat for a moment, but resolidifies and turns to look over her shoulder, her white teeth catching the sunlight. Too close. How visible, you will see.
Dylan brushes his hair back out of his eyes, and then begins to braid it back, the few remaining beads clicking gently against each other as he walks.
From afar, to Paul and Sepdet, Wayfinder smiles. Reepicheep is one of my favorite characters, in any book I've ever read. Second only to Kehaar, methinks.
Pack> Dylan says "haven't braided his hair in a long time. He only does it whn he thinks he's walking into a fight."
Gray eventually seems to run out of the cat form, becoming something more leggy, like a tiny antelope, but still retaining the predator's head. She moves easily over the curvaceous hills, although you cannot see anything resembling a path. She seems to retain her natural feline reticence even in this form, however.
Sepdet keeps testing and tasting the air with mouth slightly open, listening and smelling as much as keeping watch. She drops back a little to walk between the two young men, probably a foot shorter than either of them.
Sepdet whispers haltingly, evidently a translation of something not originally in Mother's Tongue, ~Now I am come to a strange country, and I will cross over, finding no roads but the tug of the land. Luck find my footsteps, and wonder mine eyes.~
Wayfinder follows behind the group, a wary rearguard.
Dylan finishes braiding his hair, taking it down to such a thin tip of braid that it needs no tie. Then he lets his hands fall to his sides, and he pads along behind the enigmatic guide, tasting the land with his footsteps.
Paul says quietly bemused, "Wonder fills my eyes whenever my friends are at my side, it seems."
Pack> Dylan says "/There/s a double-edged comment. :)"
Pack> Paul gets better at them the older he gets.
Gray reshapes hereslf again, rising on ash-colored wings as the hill slopes steeply upwards. There is a ragged gash torn in the side of the hill, an ugly scar reminiscent of strip-mining, except that it is obviously fresh and the lower end of it plunges directly into the heart of the hill itseslf, like a knife wound.
Paul asks forward, "You can't help with the struggle. But can you teach us how to fly I wonder?"
Gray circles back to the Garou and settles at Paul's feet, melting back into her prim catshape. You are too big to carry. And what is in /there/ - she indicates it with a flattening of her ears and a whisker-gesture - will not wait on the learning.
Inside the cave mouth, only the faintest of ambient light from the sky filters through the shadows. It exhales a cold, sour breath as you stand there, and only the rays of the Great Light warm your flesh from that bone-spearing chill. But the Light does nothing for the moan that rides the edge of human hearing in the lowest registers, which vibrates the hearts of the glabros and rattles the teeth of the lupus.
Paul adds in a near silent mutter, "Because flying out's almost always easier than walking, but. That makes sense." He shivers and shakes the net out a little. "Dylan? Want to have a swing with this before using the Light you carry?"
Sepdet's eyes start to lift at the upward movement, but the sight of the gaping hill catches her glance like a fishhook, and she halts for a breath or two to scent for the stain of the enemy which she almost doesn't need to check. ~Let us bring it out here,~ she murmurs with a sigh, jaw clenching at the blasphemy of sound.
Limbo pages all: For those of you with Sense Wyrm, it's in there. It's deep down in there.
Paul says quietly, "Snares here, and bait to draw? Or just announce ourselves and let him haul on out to meet us?"
~Pity,~ Dylan murmurs at the guide's response, but his attention is on the cave itself, and his bare feet seem to hesitate at its brink. He draws the knife of light from his waistband and steps forward with it held up, just one step to bring the light into the cave's shadow. Whatever passing humor, however whimsical, prompted his last comment flees at the scent of the cave itself. His face is set, now, and not happy.
The walls are freshly gouged from the earth, and the walls ooze a thick ochre fluid, like sap, like blood, like tears. There is a coppery sting to the nose here, as the tunnel slants down steeply.
Dylan nods, belatedly, to Paul, and accepts the net in silence.
Wayfinder bares her teeth at the cave, then tilts her head at Sepdet, then the others. Do we go to poke the bear, and have it charge out?
Sepdet glances questioningly at the other three. ~If it has guards waiting for us, the element of surprise down below is more likely to work against us...you think? If we call it, three together, pitching our own music against its grating, we _may_ draw it up from the depths and into our net. We will also alert him. Wayfinder, I have used myself as fourlegged bait long ago to draw dragons from dens, but I had a gift of speed.~
Dylan nods to Sepdet.
Wayfinder glances sidewise at Paul, tongue lolling for a moment. Well, at least we will not be dropping rocks on each other's heads this time.
Paul murmurs, "Then let's see what the vines like, snare wise. And give it a serenade."
Gray flicks an ear from where she is sitting, well to one side. It is tone-deaf, and deep.
Paul chuckles, dark humor. "Well. One more time having a Singer in the pack would be handy."
~In, then,~ Dylan says.
The smell and sight of the bleeding earth are making Sepdet skittish, and she keeps shifting from one foot to the other. At the cat's declaration, her face droops a little. ~Right. Wayfinder, you have the best nose and ears right now, so scout, but beware. We will be on your heels.~ Again she pauses with a look at the others, making sure there are no better ideas to be said, before pacing reluctantly towards the rent earth.
Wayfinder pads back and forth at the entrance area, anxiously, then delves inward without further comment.
Paul shrugs and says, "V behind Wayfinder. I'll take point since I've got the longer pokeybit. Y'all keep the walls from eating us. Guide. Is there a way to It that passes fewer of its minions or ambushes?"
Gray looks up at Paul. One tunnel. But the minions... I will warn.
Paul nods. "Alrighty. Wayfinder on point, but don't get out of sight of us. Dylan's Light will be our sun, if the darkness comes."
Wayfinder pauses just inside the cave mouth, awaiting the others.
The darkness closes in, grasping futilely at Dylan's Light. The twists and turns are few and slight, the tunnel only travels downward with any violence before it opens out into something resembling a natural cavern. Although the reek is less here, the cold is deeper, more biting. Along the walls, small shiny things glitter -- whether stones or eyes, no one can be quite sure. Thrust down through the left side of the cavern stands a massive taproot, torn and weeping, its more delicate branches and hairs clinging desperately to ragged clumps of soil to shield its nakedness. To the right side of the cavern, a gaping darkness that marks further tunnel. At the center is a jagged, frost-covered rock, standing amidst a pile of sharp gravel, the shattered remains of a once rounded stone.
Gray screeches, all her fur puffed out and her tail bushed like a raccoon's. She leaps to the top of the broken stone, then leaps away, dissolving out of her cat form in her haste.
l gray
Although you were quite sure of what this creature looked like a second ago, as soon as you look directly at it, you become uncertain again. Nothing as definite as blurred edges or a shadow is involved; the being is more like something seen in a dream, a symbol, an idea, an intelligence made visible and shifting moment by moment.
~That,~ Dylan says seriously, ~is a warning.~
Sepdet starts to move towards the bare lacerted root, drawn by old instinct to heal or tend. She has only moved out of position, however, by a single stride, when the cat erupts in panic. She twists back towards the darker side of the hall in a sharp pivot, one foot slipping almost out from under her.
A few moments after the cat's reaction, long enough for the company to turn to the stone, a woman is suddenly sitting there.
Sphinx perches forward on her spiky stone. "Welllllll," she drawls, stroking back her fantastic mane of tawny-gold hair. "I am your first guard to passsss."
Paul stands ready, looking a little pensive but alert.
From afar, to Sphinx, Sepdet, Gray, Wayfinder, and Dylan, Paul burns the hell out of his pizza. Sep, if you haven't, rescue your food.
Paul asks nicely, "Step aside so we can, then?"
Sphinx rocks forward on her furry hands. "Shall you answer my riddles? Shall you avoid slaying me? Shall I avoid slaying you? Shall you play the game, by the rules of this world, children's games?"
Dylan gazes at the Sphinx, and then tips his head, intrigued, as though she has already posed him one riddle.
Sepdet shifts her stance slightly as if bracing for something, crouching slightly with heels coming off the floor. She holds the knife in her left hand cocked back almost to her shoulder. ~You belong elsewhere,~ she observes neutrally. ~But you probably play the same game. Ask, then, and get on with it.~
l sphinx
She is a tawny woman, slender and wiry, covered with fur one second and honeyed skin the next. Her eyes glitter yellow and bright. She stands proudly naked, twitching her long tail lazily and hypnotically.
Wayfinder flares her nostrils, scenting in the woman's direction. She grumbles softly. Would be too much to ask for there to be only one guard...she picks up her ears as the woman speaks.
Sphinx rocks back, her long, sinuous tail flipping wildly, and applauds. "Excellent. Riddle the first, then, for there are four, and you'd best get three of them right. Hard, yet soft. Waves, yet not wet."
Pack> Wayfinder says "I think it is sand, btw."
Dylan's glance at his packmates cautiously, his hum barely audible.
To the pack, Dylan says "Sound?"
To the pack, Dylan does not sound remotely confident.
Sepdet shakes her head slightly at Dylan, making a gentle sound in return. She nods slightly at Paul, roughly gesturing something that looks like their tribe-glyph.
Pack> Dylan beats you up. Use the secret code we ALL know! :)
Paul whistles an interrogative, hand waggling.
Pack> Sepdet thinks Paul's answer works. Sand=rock, but is soft. Yes. Sepdet wasn't using Strider sign, she was just drawing dunes! Oops! :)
To the pack, Paul seems to be questioning Silence as the answer, and leaning more towards Dylan's.
Wayfinder looks entirely distant for a long moment, then huffs softly at the others.
Pack> Paul says "Sound, not sand."
Pack> Paul says "Although sand does sound nice?"
Sphinx pages all: SphinxGM vastly appreciates the fact that y'all's packchat is at least poseable! :)
From afar, to Paul, Sphinx, Sepdet, Gray, and Wayfinder, Dylan grins. Hell, we drive folks /nuts/ posing our packchat. :)
From afar, to Sphinx, Sepdet, Gray, Wayfinder, and Dylan, Paul laughs. We drive people nuts posing something that's NOT our packchat, but is merely a truly bizarre kind of language. :)
Sphinx pages all: Well, it's a helluva lot better than dead air. :)
To the pack, Wayfinder notes that grass waves, and it is soft, but not hard, usually.
Dylan looks uncertain, listening, with low whisper of melody, more of a coutnerpoint than a comment.
To the pack, Dylan says "I am not a great deal Chimera's child."
Sepdet growls softly in a faint negative to Dylan. ~But sound cannot be hard and soft at the same time, without difficulty. She comes from my tribe's country. Wayfinder's answer is plentiful there.~
Sphinx watches all the movement, listens to all the sounds, with the keenest, most penetrating interest imaginable.
Pack> Dylan looks pretty clear that he'll follow someone else's lead on this.
Sepdet straightens and meets the Sphinx's eyes unblinkingly. ~It is rock, and yet falls soft through the fingers. It is of the desert, and flows in rivers. Sand.~
Sphinx applauds in the fast, delighted manner of a child. "Correct! Riddle the second: 'Song with no throat/Touches without feeling/Lifts without hands/Sends scent reeling.'"
Pack> Dylan says "Rah, rah, Sepdet. :) We can take turns voicing the answers - there are four of us and four riddles."
Pack> Wayfinder is tempted to say pheremones, but they have no scent.
Sepdet chuckles at that, humming a question to the others.
To the pack, Sepdet seems bemused. Perhaps she does not know to whom we are spirit-children? Does wind not do all these?
Pack> Dylan says "That's feelings without touches, wayf. :)"
Dylan gives a little trill of laughter at Sepdet's question.
To the pack, Dylan says "Yes. Shall I?"
To the pack, Paul says "Oh yes, it does. Better than joy does."
To the pack, Sepdet says "Joy touches because it _is_ feeling."
Sepdet dips her eyes at Dylan in the equivalent of a nod, although she glances first to the others for confirmation.
Paul's hands pitterpatter across his body, whistle almost laughing in descant through smiling lips.
Wayfinder lolls her tongue, ears flickering while she squints at the woman. Her eyes glint with mirth.
Dylan smiles at the Sphinx. ~Wind, whose children we are.~
Sphinx applauds again, beaming pointily. "Well done, well done. Riddle the third, and if you get this answer, you needn't try to achieve the fourth: 'Always violence/Harm and sound without blows/You can never hide in the dark from me.'"
Paul hums a somewhat dismal noise, scuffing his feet.
To the pack, Paul says "Fire."
To the pack, Paul says "We walk the Elements."
Sepdet nods thoughtfully to Paul, holding up four fingers.
Dylan hesitates, then sings three long soft notes to Paul, stopping with a click. Then he sings a rising note, an afterthought, a question.
To the pack, Sepdet agrees. And we can guess the fourth for her, too.
To the pack, Dylan says "I think so. Shall we see what we ca ask for, in return for a fourth?"
To the pack, Paul says "Assistance, alliance, her freedom from the Foe."
Pack> Wayfinder notes that we unintentionally have gotten to say each of the elements that we chose when we had Wyld-foo on us.
Pack> Dylan says "Very cool."
Paul's tones rise, swerving a bit chaotically in freedom.
Dylan nods to Paul.
Sepdet's only response is a quiet smile of approval. She turns her eyes back towards the sphinx hopefully, lowering her guard a little.
Paul speaks, "Fire, that consumes. Tell us, riddler, would you like the answer to your last all unasked? We might assay that, if you would offer us a bonus. Perhaps your assistance in our task?"
Wayfinder dances on her paws, obviously following her packmates' conversation, but unwilling to break her surveillance of the guard.
Pack> Sepdet says "Of course, we could be too cocky, if Fire's wrong. :)"
Pack> Paul says "We could be. Hopefully not."
Sphinx smiles and nods in response to the answer, but her face clouds at the request. She considers for a moment, her tail lashing from side to side. She seems to be in a considerable internal struggle. At last, she says, "If you answer the fourth, you may ask me one question in return, which I will answer truthfully. Is that acceptable?"
Sepdet ventures a cautionary, melencholy pattering of notes to the others.
To the pack, Sepdet warns softly that each of the Three so far have not been the element themselves, but an aspect. We may not guess right: rain, I think, but perhaps river, or pool, or tears. We can try, though.
Paul looks to Wayfinder, for she is the Fourth.
Dylan nods to Sepdet, adding a final note to hers.
To the pack, Dylan says "We may get the question, anyhow."
Wayfinder's attention is on the guard, and she does not notice Paul's scrutiny.
Paul replies, "For the fourth riddle, if answered, not only passage but a question to you, yes."
Paul says "We already have our passage, but riddles and sharing are fun in and of themselves."
Sphinx nods, her joyous manner somewhat subdued now. "Riddle the fourth, then: 'Many of me can blind/Alone, I prophecy danger/yet children welcome me.'"
Paul looks up, then whistles shifting tones.
To the pack, Paul says "Snowflakes?"
Dylan sings high and sure, relieved.
To the pack, Dylan says "Paul is right."
Sepdet's brows and tone are quizzical, the flavor of this answer not being quite as sure, the answer being somewhat out of her ken.
Paul chuckles quietly.
To the pack, Sepdet says wonderingly, are they Harbingers, then? I did not know.
Paul pages all: Had to be a schoolkid, I guess. Poor sepdet. :)
Pack> Wayfinder says "What's the prophecy bit?"
Pack> Paul says "Icy roads ahead?"Pack> Dylan says "If you're alone, you're going to be in trouble. :)"
Pack> Paul says "The first snowflake means winter's there, as well as bad weather coming."
Pack> Dylan says "It's not a sign, it's just....yeah, I think so."
+pack/c :has no idea what to ask the sphinx though.
Pack> Sepdet has no idea what to ask the sphinx though.
Pack> Dylan neither.
Pack> Paul says "For the trail that leads directly to the badguy?"
Pack> Dylan says "Ask what single thing we can do which will serve us best in defeating it/him/her?"
Pack> Dylan says "Or perhaps that's too sledge-hammerish."
Pack> Dylan says "Ask what we can do to win the next guardian to our side. :)"
Pack> Sepdet says "Well, I wouldn't ask, but it's late. And it's likely to give us a riddlingly true answer anyway."
Pack> Dylan says "Ummmm.... :)"
Pack> Sepdet votes for the sledgehammer, and lets the GM wiggle as she will. ;)
Pack> Wayfinder is in a sledgehammer-like mood, yeah.
Wayfinder grumbles at the strange woman. That would be snowflakes, born of water. Her earlier light mood seems to have dropped off to a dour expression, and she makes no effort to couch her reply in a clever answer.
Sphinx nods gravely. "Your answer is correct. Your question now?"
Paul guestures to Sepdet.
Wayfinder does not seem inclined to ask, but flips her ears back towards her packmates, listening.
Sepdet gives Paul owl-eyes, a long slow blink, and then addresses the Sphinx gravely. ~Unsubtle, but serving our present purpose: what single thing will most serve us in defeating the foe we now seek?~
Sphinx blinks slowly, her tail falling limply against the rock like a dead thing. "Blindness," she replies, and vanishes.
Paul uhs. "Anyone have Perseus' shield handy? That sounds like a medusa sort of answer."
Dylan catches his breath, startled by the answer even more than the disappearance. ~I hope,~ he says softly, falling out of music once the questioner is gone, ~that we will have a chance to ask again, before we find out that we do not understand.~
Sepdet takes a step backwards. ~We are walking in blindly,~ she notes bemusedly. ~Perhaps it would be better to close our eyes. I shall not jump in the river quite yet, however.~
Dylan points out, very quietly, ~She did not say /whose/.~
Sepdet nods firmly at Dylan's caution, this not having escaped her.
Paul says, "Well, lets go onward. Hope they're all as talkative."
Gray drifts down the tunnel ahead of you, her soft gray fur glimmering rather than vanishing in the shadow.
Wayfinder follows after the cat, with a half-hearted warning grumble at Sepdet.
Sepdet makes a contrite sort of a noise in the back of her throat at Wayfinder and follows after.
Paul falls into place, looking a bit bemused.
Dylan takes his place at Paul's left shoulder once again.
The tunnel snakes around in a broad widdershins spiral that tightens rapidly, but it's nearly impossible to tell where the last curve will be. The ceilings drip earthsblood at occasion, and the floor is slick with more slime than the fallen ooze can account for.
Paul uses his staff to steady his (only!) two legged footing, cursing the lack of coordination from warform or four legs under his breath.
Gray drifts ahead of the pack, always just within sight, until you come upon the incongrous tiny fanged cat sitting bolt upright in front of a tunnel turn.
Sepdet walks somewhat cringingly, perhaps regretting her choice to shuck footwear in the last year or so. Again, she braces, muttering something about snakes and labrynths as we come to the next crossroads. The knife's back in ready-mode again.
Wayfinder regards the cat curiously, ears and nose searching beyond her for some sign of the next guardian.
Dylan walks slowly, bent-kneed and careful, until Gray blocks the way. ~Is it this turning?~ he asks the small beast.
Gray answers not in words - well, not in what passes for words with her - but by sinking down into a low hunting crouch. Ears pricked, shoulders low, tail lashing, she creeps around the last turn.
Wayfinder backs up a step or two, wrinkling her nose. There is something that dies ahead. It has not enough to eat, one thinks. Then she follows the cat.
~Ah,~ says Dylan, understanding.
Pack> Paul says "Dylan would. Intimately."
The curve flattens and opens. In the darkness, a pair of huge, dark eyes stare out of a corpse-gray face. From the ceiling, roots dangle, limp and lifeless, torn apart by some force that ripped open the earth above. Fresher air, by no means the clean stuff you were breathing in the hills, blows down coldly from above.
Pack> Dylan says "Ouch."
l
Ishikor(#3527RJ)
The umbra here stretches with dusty roads and narrow paths, stars and the wan light of the thinning moon shedding a radiance on the Umbrascape.
Contents:
Dylan
Wayfinder(#3698PJOce)
Paul
Hollow
Gray
l hollow
Emaciated. Starving. Skeletal. Her skull shows through the papery skin of her face, her fingers are fluttering spiders, weightless, airy things. The fabric -- something resembling burlap, yet somehow heavier, coarser -- hangs on her frame, dangles, flaps, drags. She looks like she'll fall over at any second.
Sepdet hisses a long, tense, almost buzzing sort of warning, tinged with a few low notes.
Paul breathes shallowly, staff held loosely as he searches and watches.
To the pack, Sepdet says "Hungry for food, or name, or purpose? Not all things eat the same things."
Paul whistles low, and adds some noises from deeper in his throat. Sounds like a worried R2D2 for a second there.
To the pack, Paul says "So long as it isn't like the Muck in the River, or the howler."
A single, ivory hand stretches out from the dank shadow, and it draws the rest of the pathetic body after it.
Sepdet holds up her knife and shows it like a lion showing its teeth, standing a little behind Wayfinder in the shadowy darkness. ~Our business is not with you, only the one who forces you to guard. Let us pass, lonely one.~
Hollow hisses, but the voice clarifies from that hiss. "Feed me. Feed me, each of you, and you may pass. It has been a long, long time since I ate." She cocks her head, eyes huge for the shriveled face. "I've been good. I haven't eaten. I've lost weight. Doesn't it look good on me?"
Dylan shivers once. ~What do you require? For no, starvation does not become you.~
Paul licks his lips. "Privation for no good reason is never pretty."
Sepdet replies frankly, ~No. Lack, self-made, makes one lacking. I will give you a vision of something with words, if you like.~
Wayfinder bares her teeth at the thing, but doesn't offer comment on its appearance. She asks, instead, what the guardian would like to eat?
Hollow shakes her head. "Visions do not quell the ache here." She gestures to her belly, which lays so tightly against her organs that their outlines are clear. "I require food, and there is nothing living here to hunt. " She looks at Wayfinder. "Something from each of you, something on your bodies, something edible that carries some warmth, for it is cold here, bitter cold, I could freeze to death in it."
Pack> Dylan looks alarmed.
Paul unbuttons his jacket and says, "Here's something to help you stay warm."
Hollow shakes her head. "Feed me," she insists again.
Wayfinder bristles, deeply buried Rage coming to the surface, but she keeps it under control. One could fee you blood, as the ~leeches~ drink, for that is warm. And there are no other parts that one wishes to spare. Her disgust at even this suggestion is apparent.
Paul sighs and says, "And should we give you that warm part of ourselves that is mercy, and release you from torment?"
Pack> Wayfinder<--Leech intolerant, starting to twig out
Hollow half-lids her staring, dark eyes. "Such mercy you show, oh, man, as might be shown by the man who waits above."
Gray hisses with impatience, and dashes forwards. She does a complicated, curling twist, that cats seem to do so often, but when she is done something small and dripping is in her mouth. She drops it at Hollow's feet, where it becomes a neat anonymous lump, and a warm smell, like baking, fills the cavern. As the little cat backs away, you can see that her chest cavity has been split open; strangely, there is no blood.
Hollow falls upon the morsel and consumes it, even to the point of licking the floor where it fell.
Sepdet Pages all: Oh dear. I have an answer but it's spammy (and seeing Cat, it may well not suffice.) Brace for impact. :)
Dylan's expression opens as he watches the little guide. ~So simple,~ he says painfully, ~except I do not know how.~ he seems about to say more, when Sepdet speaks and he subsides.
Sepdetstands straighter, trying to concentrate and muster up a different world than this stinking, cold, dying, constricting tunnel with its inhabitants wound deeper and deeper into decay. Being a keeper of memories treasured, and of visions, she offers one that calls to her of a home she doesn't have. ~The canyons are of stone, but the stone is soft enough to dance to the trembling winds. The rocks are all of gold, like a lion's strength, but at sun's dying, at sun's brave struggle to rise, they turn red and burn with fire and wrath. Lizards dart, scorpions skitter, and you may taste but one sweet plant's leaf on the whole of the side of a hill. Between dry hills is a different place, a space of green, where bright green reeds shiver and tremble beneath a canopy of ducks' wings, and echo like flutes the calls of the great hawk that flies down to feast upon them. The water darts with fish and its carpet is of sleek black mud, a millenia's life-harvest couched in dirt. The sky is painted blue glass, like one great eye of truth looking down upon you from the blazing sun. Do you feel his truth? Do you feel _his_ heat, cold one? He sears the sky white with his passing, where he stands, yet gently leaves no scar behind. And at his glance, the desert glows and bakes and shimmers At his glance, the black earth yields a forest of plants, lush water-lilies to bloom, grains for food, the reeds for writing, clothes, and mats, palms for shade and persea for their sweet, wild spicy scent that paints the wind. And at his glance, the clear waters shine like the sun, in adoration for Him. Under his eye, there is no word for cold, and a thousand for heat.~
Gray nods approvingly. That came from the heart. Complete the gesture. She licks her chest fur gently as the hole begins to close. Or did you not think that symbols are meaning here?
Hollow looks up, wide-eyed again, from her scrabbling at the floor, and stares at the Strider, mouth agape and drooling.
Sepdet sighs and slices into a finger-tip with the knife, holding it out unhappily, trying to think of the feeding of spirits, not the feeding of that which she despises.
~One can give one's heart away a hundred times and never lose it,~ Dylan says. ~And I have known hunger.~ He lifts the knife of light and cuts his own chest carefully down the middle, eyes wide but hand quite steady.
Hollow reaches up and licks delicately at the finger, still staring up at Sepdet's face.
You whisper "And couched a little in that touch is Mother's Touch, for that feels safer to her than just giving blood alone." to Hollow.
Paul holds up his left hand, ties a bit of the vine at his belt around the base of his left pinkie finger. Drawing his knife, he sets it against the base of that finger, just above tie, at the joint.
Sepdet holds quite still, almost paralyzed. Maybe her word-picture was as much an anchor for her own nerves as a gift to the empty creature, although meant for the latter. She waits several heartbeats, then drops her hand again, clenching it.
Hollow crawls backward from Sepdet, but staying within the circle of light cast by Dylan's knife.
Wayfinder backs away from the /thing/ as it licks Sepdet's finger, teeth bared, and bristling over her entire body. Her entire body also quivers with two conflicting signals, that she seems to barely control. Run or attack. Flee or fight.
Dylan's breathing slows, his eyes are wide and dream-like. He reaches into his chest and pulls out his heart. He kneels down and offers it to Hollow, cupped in both hands, the knife now safely back at his waist. There is very littlt blood.
Pack> Dylan sighs. It's not a leech, it's someone dying for lack of care, folks. Give her your heart.
Wayfinder backs away from the /thing/ as it licks Sepdet's finger, teeth bared, and bristling over her entire body. Her entire body also quivers with two conflicting signals, that she seems to barely control. Run or attack. Flee or fight.
Paul stands shocked still, staring at Dylan, and at Hollow.
Sepdet sings something steadying, anchoring, and simple: the old lullabye that is her password to healing. Her eyes are very wide and round though, as she sees how Dylan demonstrates more concretely what she was trying to do in so many words.
Hollow reaches out, her bony hands trembling, her mouth working on amazement, and lets her spidery fingers wrap around Dylan's still-beating heart.
Dylan sets his hands palm flat to the ground and waits with his head bowed.
Paul's knife hand shakes, then drops to his side. Still holding the knife, he raises it towards his own chest, then stops, breathing hard. "I... Can't..."
Wayfinder bumps up against Sepdet, seeking an anchor for her irrationality. Sister, you will have to help one, one does not have ~hands~. She looks up to Sepdet's face, fixedly, doing her best to stuff her Rage down again.
Paul's shaking gets worse, moment by moment.
Sepdet swallows and turns back to her tribesmate. ~We are in a world of stories, and we must follow its rules, or we are just as bad as the one who broke them. She is sick, hurt, and alone. Gifts are healing. Gifts are a connection. That is what she needs.~ Her voice shakes a little. ~A pure gift of kindness is not sullied. She is of hurt and sickness; she is not of corruption.~
Pack> Wayfinder puts the onus on poor Seppie. Evil Wayf.
Pack> Wayfinder notes a repeat of the Silver River. Seppie dives ahead, and Dylan follows, while Wayf and Paul freak out. ;)
Pack> Sepdet knew she was wyrm, because self-hurt to this extent _is_ evil. But there is still a difference in my head between gangrene and canker, and that which deliberately causes it in others.
Hollow takes the heart gingerly and stares for a long moment at it, the light of greed gone from her eyes. She clasps it to her shriveled breast like a lover, and the air shivers around her body. She looks at Dylan, at Sepdet, at Grey, at Wayfinder, even at the trembling Paul, eyes swimming, and croaks, "No one... the cat... you... the others... I..." Her forms shimmers, begins to dissolve. Her voice is a thin echo on the air: /No one has ever done this for me before./
Pack> Wayfinder says "Yay, Dylan!"
Pack> Dylan thinks he may have done the diving this time, Wayf. on Gray's cue.
Dylan lifts his head. The light from his knife shows tears on his cheeks. He stands up, very slowly.
Hollow is gone, leaving Dylan's chest intact, heart where it belongs.
Sepdet kneels slowly and puts her hands behind Wayfinder's shoulders, murmuring softly, ~It was the intent that was necessary. But well done, Burns-bright still. You put our fears to shame.~
Paul sighs quietly, then says between measured breaths, "Left, sinister, heartside." He steps forward, hands over the Hollow one, knife back at the fingertip. Then dropping his hands yet again as the apparition vanishes, shaking even more violently.
The scream of rage from above is legendary.
Wayfinder sighs with relief, still shaking herself. She looks to Dylan with undisguised wonder. Thank you, she says very very quietly. Then her head whips upwards, at the scream.
Dylan hesitates for a moment. Then he looks up. ~I am glad,~ he says quietly, ~that it seemed to me I could do it and live. Otherwise, I could not have tried until after the fighting, and it would have...been harder.~
The ground trembles.
Paul stands quite still, shuddering. The scream cuts him back into alertness and he sheaths the knife even as the ground trembles.
Sepdet bares her teeth and hisses, nearly throwing herself upon the wolf in raw instinct at the sound. She uncurls a second later and grins coldly, although she does not look in that direction. ~So, mocker of children's dreams, you live up to your own tale, and know no room for mercy.~
Dylan moves back to take his place behind Paul and to the left, heartside, sinister. ~We should go. We have our surprise, I think.~
Sepdet nods to Dylan and starts moving. ~I wonder if it will be possible to shake him from his role.~ Her voice, itself, is still shaken. Perhaps the last test will have been the worst.
The ground shifts, rends, rocks, and presses upward, the earth above shredding apart, screaming.
Wayfinder shies away from Sepdet, teeth clicking as she barely restrains snapping. She moves forward, quickly, seeming eager to shed her Rage on something, at least.
Paul still looks pale and shaken, but he waves the group forward. "Guide? Lead us, quickly!"
The floor below lifts the group through the opened roof.
The ancient grove looks like it once drew down green light to the forest floor, a verdant gold that might attract those seeking silence and solace. Here and there are scattered signs of children at play: a tiny heap of rocks arranged in a manner strongly suggestive of an altar, the flat central stone stained with berry pulp; several long, strong sticks, varying from twisting wands to admirable swords to towering staves, leaned in the nook of a sheltering ash; the low, broad branches of a beech worn smooth and bare of branchlets with possibly hundreds of little feet; the front half of a war-torn and yellowed copy of _Little Women_ nestled in a hollowed-out space under a thick sprawl of forsythia.
But now the grove is darkened, filled with a thick gloom that stifles and stupefies, an aura of threat that presses directly on the solar plexus, dread that turns the spine cold. The trees wring their branches together in anguished, unnatural posture, closing out the bright light from the top of the Tower. Shadows huddle in a darkness deeper than they've ever known. The sounds of animals which so populate the rest of the forest are absent here, and the silence is devoid of peace; instead, it is pricked with baleful wariness.
A cold, blue glow lights the nave of the tree cathedral, and a figure glowers there.
From afar, Wayfinder almost bit you. She's never been this twiggy around you, but you know that.
Gray says, fur puffed out, irony tinging her tone, Up.
You paged Wayfinder with 'Define twiggy? :)'.
Wayfinder pages: About to lose it. Loss of control. Barely keeping a cap on her Rage.
l
Ishikor(#3527RJ)
The umbra here stretches with dusty roads and narrow paths, stars and the wan light of the thinning moon shedding a radiance on the Umbrascape.
Contents:
Dylan
Wayfinder(#3698PJOce)
Paul
Murphy
Gray
l murphy
This man's face is broad, cleanshaven, and open, with high cheekbones and a sharply sculptured jaw. Eyes blue as fall skies peer from under thick, friendly, brown eyebrows, and an errant lock of his wavy brown hair curls across his forehead. Broad shoulders and powerful arms strain the fabric of his shirt, except where the lower sleeves spread fuller before gathering at his brawny, dark-haired wrists. His narrow waist and hips are clearly muscled as robustly as his tree-trunk thighs under the tight Spandex of his pants, and knee-high riding boots encase equally burly calves.
His stance, his every gesture and expression, convey confident might, fierce protectiveness, and a certain potence that suggests not only indisputable virility but also an inevitable, yet gentle, sovereignity over all he surveys.
Pack> Sepdet resists the urge to quote the end of labrynth. ;)
Paul nods towards Grey, and starts to follow the directive. "Shall we ask him forth? If everything else can be released and redeemed, maybe he can too?" But he's really not sounding confident at all.
Wayfinder bounds towards the figure, as soon as her footing settles beneath her.
Sepdet looks utterly baffled, gaze darting all around the area and all but ignoring the man, in spite of the fact that he must almost surely be our goal. She seems to be searching for something. Thoughts, however, are jettisoned as Wayfinder dives first.
The man strides toward the emerging (and dirt-covered) pack, the blue lights buzzing like tightly controlled fireflies around him. "You have taken my wife from me," he says in a surprisingly soft, resonant voice. "I don't forgive that." He watches tehe wolf approach, booted feet spread in preparation.
Pack> Sepdet blinks. Gah. it's Gascon. :)
Pack> Dylan HOWLS. Tell Murphy that!
Pack> Wayfindergiggles.
Paul says, "Laughter, let fly!" and steps up behind Wayfinder as backup. "Hope, Seek the answer!"
Sepdet snaps, ~If you never thought to give her your heart, she's not your mate anyway!~
Sepdet does not try to stop Wayfinder, although she makes an abortive step after. Speed is no longer surety for her. Or perhaps it is only the Strider letting others leap into their own rivers.
He laughs at Sepdet. "You have no idea what I've given her, dog-girl."
Dylan flinches, almost imperceptibly, at the word 'wife.' Light blade held in one hand with the blade unobtrusive along his wrist, he flings the light net up and out, attempting to trap the burlesqued man of action beneath its web.
Wayfinder charges as close to the man as she dare, skidding to a stop. Glaring at him, fully challenging: Wife, she snarls. Slave, more likely. She boldly continues to glare at the man, lips lifted from her teeth.
Murphy steps forward to backhand Wayfinder with a broad, tanned hand.
Paul swings over the wolf's back, staff darting in to strike at the 'man's' hand. Force and skill and wood of iron and legend.
Pack> Sepdet acks. I think I know the answer. (waits and sees, as I've already posed/said a bit much for these few milliseconds.)
Pack> Paul says "It's the task I set you. :)"
Dylan pages to Paul and Sepdet: So, when are you two challenging for Adren again...? :)
The big man's hand lashes out in a broad arc. Wayfinder performs a stiff-legged leap backwards to dodge, and manages to avoid all but a graze, which is still hard enough to roll her head over tail about ten feet away, though the roll keeps her from being more than bruised. However, Paul's staff connects hard and full, and the shattering bones are fully audible to everyone in the grove, even above the ringing note of the wood of the staff. Murphy staggers back, blinking at his broken arm.
The net, at last, settles over him like a delicate filigree.
Paul grounds the end of his staff. "Now! Will you submit!?"
Despite the net's settling, Dylan does not look remotely relieved.
From afar, to Murphy, Sepdet, Gray, Wayfinder, and Dylan, Paul DOES look glad that staves are easy to get moving again if you're not QUITE done with them.
Sepdet has made no move to engage, although usually no shrinker from any fray. Her brow is knotted in concentration, so much she is almost not monitoring packmates' progress, and only takes a few steps closer to be within a good spring's reach of them.
Murphy's face fails to purple, although he is most certainly enraged. He glares out at the pack. Sepdet's leg folds under her, and her fall takes her to the ground with a crack of her femur and hip.
Wayfinder rolls to her feet again in moments, zipping back towards the fray, eyes narrowed and ears pinned back.
Paul's eyes narrow, and he darts a quick look over to the sharp sound.
Sepdet's concentration is broken along with the bone, and she gives a pained grunt. But as soon as she finds wind, she only turns to watch, eyes squinted, mouth crimped into a thin line.
Paul's neck spasms so that he can't turn his head back.
Paul shouts, "Blindness! Go for the eyes," and closes his own.
Pack> Dylan says "Kerey's lying on her bed, dizzily singing, "I'm especially good at exPECtorating--!"Pack> Paul says "Well, shit. What we give, we get."
Pack> Paul says "From so far, anyway."
You paged Murphy with 'Gah. I'm going to KICK myself if I'm wrong. One more observation, and then I'll see if I'm right. I think I understand, I think ,I think...'.
Pack> Paul says "Pattern established, although I didn't seem him glare my way that time. Misfortune befalls those he glares at."
Pack> Dylan nods.)
Pack> Dylan says "So do you think closing our own eyes makes the slightest bit of difference?"
Pack> Paul says "I don't think our eyes closed helps, but I want him thinking we think it will when I try to put him down. :) Murphy's law, you know."
Pack> Dylan nods and grins. :)
Murphy bellows, straining the unbreakable strands of the silk of the giant spiders of the Diamond Mountains, and attempts to kick Wayfinder's harrying shape.
Dylan leans down, long fingers digging into the soil, until he has a large handful of dirt. Then he straightens and moves patiently around, not hurrying, not to be diverted, until he stands where he can throw the dirt into the trapped man's eyes.
Wayfinder ducks away, using speed born of the Rage so recently called up to whirl lightning fast and dive in again. Time-worn tactics of distraction, to all apparent.
The flying boot misses, but Wayfinder does manage to tread upon a particularly pointy piece of stone, which makes her shift her balance, and over she goes, end over end again, only this time at Rage-speeds.
Pack> Wayfinder says "Clumsy brat."
Sepdet winces at Wayfinder's tumble, struggling to her feet in protest against the possible fracture.
Murphy strains the net, and Dylan can see a few of the strands beginning to give. Through gritted teeth, the man says, "Only... a matter... of a moment..." as his massive muscles ripple.
Long distance to Dylan: Sepdet waits to see if your dirt-trick works, then I'll do it. Gods, I'm going to feel stupid if this is wrong. :)
Paul goes side on, hands VERY carefully and patiently getting the vine loose from his belt. Whistling shrilly, he cracks a peek to see where Murphy's attention is, then lets fly with the length of vine aimed to whip around the foe's head. And eyes. Hopefully.
Wayfinder finally digs in her claws enough to stop herself, and bounces back up again, fully prepared to charge at the man again.
Murphy's attention is up, bringing a truly impressive oak tree down to smash Wayfinder (hopefully).
To the pack, Paul says "Anyone have a mirror? Looking at himself would SUCK!"
Pack> Paul WISHES he had a mirror. God. What a coup.
Dylan's dirt catches Murphy square in the face, giving Wayfinder, with her Rage, plenty of time to slip out from under the oppressive and growing shadow of the tree. Paul takes advantage of the situation and neatly binds up Murphy's eyes. Murphy bellows angrily and strains at the net, but seems thoroughly trapped now.
Sepdet gives a low soft chuckle, sudden and quiet in vast contrast to the sounds of cracks, thuds, and other dramatic fight-sounds; perhaps her own voice is lost in the chaos. "Ah. Fall back. Little bully's not worth our effort anyway. Ignore the little prick." Yes, her English is gruff and rusty, but she does use that word. She adds something else more sharply, in an insistent trill, trying to pack meaning into a few spare notes.
To the pack, Sepdet explains fiercely, He's built himself into this great huge villain, but we don't have to buy his tale.
Pack> Wayfinder says "Oh, heck. I always seem to be on the verge of being squashed by something. If it isn't rocks thrown on me by Paul, it's trees. Sheesh. ;)"
Murphy strains the net. "I'll rip your heads off. I'll choke you in your own bile and stop your hearts with a glance! I'll be out of this in moments, and you'll see where your talk gets you!"
Sepdet has finally gotten her feet back under her. Slowly, calmly, she turns her back on the frothing caricature and starts to walk across the clearing, suddenly more interested in the bark of a nearby tree.
Paul turns his back to the 'foe', and walks over to Sepdet. "How's the leg?" he asks with (slightly) forced casualness.
Wayfinder angles toward Sepdet, jumping as the tree thumps into the ground just behind her. She is obviously confused, but seems willing to let her cooler-headed sister prevail.
The voice turns sly, and he quietly works against the ties that bind him. "Can't you see what they're doing here? They're keeping all these children prisoner with those huge dragons at every edge, keeping everyone in. I've come to set them free."
Dylan takes a step back, and then another. Then he turns his back. ~I like the little altar,~ he observes.
Sepdet rolls her shoulders. ~Hunh? Oh. I'm doing pretty good these days, really. Do you think anyone would mind if I borrowed one of these staves? I dropped mine somewhere.~
Paul says to Dylan, "We had a treehouse near where I lived back in the East, but it had NOTHING on this place. The kids'll be glad to play here again." He hands the staff to Sepdet with a smile, then steps over to the tree/cathedral to look it over.
Wayfinder noses Sepdet worriedly, then looks between her and the bound man.
Murphy continues, voice getting a step more desperate. "Look, you can have any part of the world you want for yourselves. I just want to have the City. Those automaton queens who never did anything for anyone can go off the edge and we can split the place up, okay? The kids will be safe and happy, and the mean queens will be gone."
From afar, Wayfinder is looking over your leg, btw.
Paul steps away from the tree and offers Murphy a canteen. "Would you like some water?" Guarded a touch, perhaps, but even now visibly relaxing as he massages his neck.
Sepdet sighs and lays a hand against one of the beeches. ~Someone really needs to give you more water. Maybe we can sing down a good rain for you.~ She grins down at Wayfinder and--a bit stiffly--lowers herself to the wolf's level, burying her fingers in the wolf's ruff and beginning to groom her.
Wayfinder barks at the man: This one does not /want/ to stay here! One has a mate to return to! Subsiding, she turns back to Sepdet, nudging her very cautiously.
Murphy tenses. "I don't want water. I want my wife, I want to be let go, I want to make this world RIGHT." His voice doesn't raise, particularly, but it slips toward the shrill.
Paul puts the canteen back on his belt and says calmly, "Well, your wife will come back if she likes. And changing someone else's world doesn't make it Right automatically. Anyway, I'm sorry about your hand. Is it going to be ok?"
Wayfinder pages: If you are paying attention, that statement really cost Wayf. The one about the mate, that is.
Paul pats the bound man on the shoulder gently.
Murphy explodes into a ripple of muscular motion, screaming in incoherent rage, tearing in Paul's direction.
Pack> Dylan says "Oops."
Paul's whistle catches a ride on a wisp of a breeze, but Paul doesn't even look at the bound man bumping up against him. Perhaps to his error.
To the pack, Paul says, before the eruption, "Odds on healing up a little before the next chapter?"
Sepdet sighs and gives Wayfinder a tighter hug, before letting her go. In spite of the sounds behind her, she doesn't turn around. With a little effort.
Sepdet sighs and gives Wayfinder a tighter hug, before letting her go. In spite of the sounds behind her, she doesn't turn around. With a little effort.
Pack> Paul says "Could be the end, maybe not."
Pack> Paul is good at goading, it seems, though.
Pack> Sepdet says "Um. You didn't quite understand Sepdet's instructions. :)"
Pack> Paul says "Shoulda just ignored him entirely, right?"
Pack> Sepdet may be wrong, of course.
Pack> Paul wasn't TRYING to be inciting. I was trying to edit him from being Monster to being Child.
Pack> Dylan says "or made fun of him, I suppose. Dismissed him, I think. DYlan's not very good at dismissing anyone. :}"
Murphy snarls, amidst the roars of rage, "I know how to get back here, I can leave now, tomorrow, any time, go home, and I'll come back, I'll come back here and I'll WIN, I'll WIN this time, goddamn you smug fuckers, I'll WIN because I'll have Beth with me again and as long as she's helping I can do anything. I can do anything even without her but goddamnit we'll rule this place like no one else has ever ruled before!"
Sepdet says absently but clearly, ~Just ignore him, packmates. He's not important. Let's tidy up here a bit, leave a little surprise for the kids. Think we can manage a sand castle out of dirt?~ In punctuation, she gives a simple, lazy whistle. Blindness, she reminds them. We don't see him.
Paul steps away from the bound and frothing man, saying, "I've never tried that."
Murphy's shape begins to lose cohesion, molecules slipping over each other in an excellent mockery of Garou shifting or, at least, a Hollywood version of it.
Wayfinder suddenly appears to understand. This one can dig!
Dylan stands with one hand against a tree trunk, head slightly lowered, his ineptiness with dissimulation hindering him. At least, though, he can keep silent. He knows how to do that.
Sepdet gets up and starts moving around the clearing, gathering discarded leaves, twigs ,and anything out-of-place and bringing it to the area in front of the alter--building materials! She has a big grin on her face. Perhaps grown up was never a duty that sat well with the Strider anyway.
Dylan gives a soft worried hum, as though unable to stop himself. Do we know he is ending, and not leaving?
To the pack, Paul says "I think this one should be paddled until his ass falls off, or sent to the darkside."
To the pack, Sepdet says softly, lips barely moving. I do not know. I only feel, like at the river, that he is not to be thought of.
The form seems to pull in on itself, shrinking, the voice getting thinner and fainter, the vine-ropes of the Scarlet Jungle tightening. At last, a small doll remains on the ground, still wrapped tight by the rope and net.
Dylan sings three notes, a gentle, falling triplet of warmth and acceptance.
To the pack, Dylan says "I trust your sight."
Sepdet starts decorating the others' hastily-erected walls and towers with sticks for flagpoles with leaves stuck through them, and nice pebbles for the floors. Finally, almost in afterthought, she "stumbles" across the doll. ~Someone must have dropped this. Here, we'll give it a little tower to play in, where he can pretend he's the villain plotting to take over the realm. An out-of-the-way tower, though, so he's not a nuisance.~ She sticks the doll haphazardly in a pile of dirt, thoughtfully gives him a pointed cap--wizard's, or dunce's, hard to tell--and sits back, apparently satisfied.
The forest grows quiet, and the trees, creaking like old women, begin to unwind their grips on each other. Light from above streaks through, dappling the ground and breaking apart the gloom.
Paul looks at the tower. Looks at the doll, looks at Sepdet with dark eyes. And whispers into the no longer still and silent air.
To the pack, Paul says "Leave this one here, and he could again become Menace for this place. He reminds me all too much of Chloe walking my dreams, and nearly dying of gunshots. A child, a malicious child, but perhaps a child. How is a child like this prevented from becoming an adult monster and wrecking havok on all the worlds?"
Wayfinder follows after Sepdet, somewhat protectively, carrying things in her jaws as needed. She regards the doll in its tower somberly, after Sepdet sets him up.
Dylan watches Sepdet and smiles. Then he reaches up and loosens his hair from its braid. To Paul, he says, ~Shall we take it back, then? Back to the Queens?~
Wayfinder sniffs around the area, absently. We are done? /That/ was what killed the dragon? Where is our guide?
Murphy pages all: Well, the East Coast contingent is collapsing, I think. We'd best end here, methinks, with a pose left from everyone?
Paul sighs. "We could take him with us. Back, if back we can get. That would remove him. As opposed to kill him.
Sepdet turns back to look at the trees and listen, not answering their questions and glances for a while. Finally she sighs and stretches. ~I think we're finished here, but we can ask them to make sure. S't-Bastet--~ by this, she seems to be addressing the cat-- ~do we need to go back to the Queens, or do they see? Is this a proper ending for this story?~
Sepdet pages all: OOps. Not sure if cat's still here. Gods, we THINK too much. :)
Gray pads up to the castle and pats the tower delicately with her paw. This is a very good ending for the story, and I thank you, we all thank you, more than you can know.
Paul looks at the cat for a long, long moment then says, "if the tellers and guards of the stories are satisfied, who am I to argue? Certainly, it looks a lot better than it would ending in something grim."
Sepdet smiles wistfully at the cat. ~I know the Queens said it was a very strange chance indeed, not usual, for such as we to fall into this world. But I wish we could...come back sometime. To see if the dragon's all right. But I suppose we have our own dragons, our own dreams that need caring for, and perhaps should go now, if you need us no longer.~
Pack> Sepdet misquotes Yoda. I never think. I do, or do not. There is no think. ;)
Wayfinder regards the cat, serene now, but lets her packmates speak instead. She looks apprehensively skyward as Sepdet mentions the way the group arrived.
Gray sits up, squirrel-fashion, and reaches out a pair of small hands, her muzzle growing sharper, and wings unfolding again. Yes. You need to go now, before the dragon wakes again, and /this/ (picking up the doll) will also need to be gone. She looks obliquely at Sepdet as she starts to rise into the air with slow, silent wingbeats. This is Ishikor, the eight-sided mirror, and when you need it, in dreams it is there. You know the way, although it will be barred to you henceforth. The way knows you, and will welcome you in your hour of need. Both are true.
Paul extends a hand for the moppet. "Shall we take it with us?"
And the world turns and the world turns, and the Garou find themselves at their entry-point, with a long, thin, golden path of light leading into the reaches of the Umbra they are so familiar with.
Pack> Paul says "If we can."
Paul staggers, and lets his hand fall. "Or not."
Wayfinder looks quite relieved that she doesn't have to fly, or otherwise have her paws leave 'ground'.
Sepdet stares up at the path and touches it with her finger, tasting it. ~That was what I asked Cat, Shesemw. If we had taken it elsewhere, it would not have been an ending. It would have to _go_ somewhere. If the Queens need to put it in a safe place, now, I think, they can.~
Dylan stumbles as he comes into his own world. ~Thank you,~ he says softly, only hoping it will be heard where it is intended.


Limbo pages all: Since I'm not exactly authorized to give away Cool Weapony things, I do the next best thing: your weaponry is now extremely pretty jewelry. Wayf even gets a filigree web-charm.
Limbo pages: And your staff is returned to you. :)
Limbo pages all: many thanks to my assistant, the cat. :)
Pack> Sepdet adds another charm to her necklace, and winks.
Paul pages all: Think I'll add a nice vine tattoo around a limb. Hmm. Some new carvings popping up on the staff, too. Thanks limbo!!
From afar, to Paul, Limbo, Sepdet, and Wayfinder, Dylan wonders what to do with his, and then figures it out He sends it home, to where they try to make Ishikar, either more accessible or less necessary. :) Limbo, it was marvelous.
Pack> Wayfinder peers. A web? Isn't that a sign of Weaver?
Pack> Dylan says "Only if you want it to be."
Pack> Dylan says "Make it a web woven of vines."
Pack> Dylan hugs you all hard and goes fall over.