Long distance to Robin: Sepdet finds Glissa's words the other night -particularly- ironic, now. Maybe she's the Harbinger. :)
From afar, Robin shakes her head.
"Black Rabbit?" the kin asks, her words abrupt.
Sepdet shuts her eyes. "He wasn't there," the Strider mourns softly. "Gaia help me. He'd already gone back to tell the other pack of our victory. I don't know. I tried to stop Steven, and his teeth were around my throat, and then I don't know what happened. I woke up as they tried to carry me into the Realm. My body was healed as only she could have done. They would not tell me what happened and fed me scorn. I ran away, and did not stop running. When I could see I went back, and I found her where they had left her, in the spirit-world. Killed from behind." The last elicits a feeble spark of fury in her eyes, but it too fades.
Sepdet trails off and adds, "I couldn't call for him without -them- hearing. I don't think they told him. He may not know."
Robin's hold on the Strider's jaw tightens for a painful moment, then she draws the Glabro in and holds her tightly, wordless once more. "He has not come here," she offers flatly.
Sepdet shivers. "If I call him, they'll hear me," she says in the voice of a small child. "I don't want Wolverine in my head anymore."
You paged Robin with 'Sekhmet has this doofy zen candle thing my Mom got me, a frosted glass thing like a square chinese lantern suspended from iron posts. It's in a pool of smooth stones. It cascades water over the sides of the lantern, and inside, there's a place to put a candle. So I put in a weird gray/black/swirly/speckled candle I made years ago that I normally only burn during lunar eclipses and new moon. I lit it tonight for Chloe. It just gave out a ball of fire and dripped black tears all over the sides that fell into the water and coalesced.'.
Robin still holds Sepdet close, fingers brushing back her hair idly. The Lakota woman is used to injustice, on both more and less grand a scale than this. As is true to her heritage, she does not dishonor Chloe by offering pithy reassurances.
Sepdet's body begins to sink into the water again. "She is on the island," she continues softly. "I will be there now. The alpha--Brian--he came. He was mad with rage. We buried her together, with the raven-spirits watching. He said I could tend the place and make a pack to protect it, so it shall never be defiled again. Will you help?"
Robin frowns a little, but she only lets go of Sepdet to move after her into the water. "Is it on your bawn?"
This, at least, brings a bare trace of music, or at least of rhythm, back into her tone. She turns in the water to face the woman, orbiting her in a slow arc, hands spreading out unconsciously like wings to steady herself in the deep tub. "No. No, it is a place where humans can come on an evening, and walk along the shore, and pick up feathers," she whispers.
"You will not come here again?" Robin asks, slowly turning in the large tub to follow Sepdet with her eyes.
Sepdet starts and growls. "No! I do not mean that! I am not going to hide there for life, Robin. I only will go there to make things grow, and see that nothing creeps back onto the island again. I'll still come here."
"If you feel it would bring honor to the place," Robin begins, sounding hesitant in the speaking altogether, ".. there was a silent fire between us." Her fingers move to the buttons of her blouse and undo them one by one.
Sepdet nods bleakly. "Raven women." Her eyes follow Robin's hands without even seeing.
You paged Robin with 'Hey, you're flirting again. ;)'.
Robin pages: Never!
Robin pages: I asked Donna what the Lakota response to death is and she said 'Not talking about it'. Bah!
You paged Robin with 'Well that makes things challenging for us. :)'.
You paged Robin with 'Although Sepdet seems to dance around it too.'.
With a wet slap, Robin's blouse lands on the bathroom tiles. Her hands move to her ruined suit pants under the water, dragging them off with some effort and sending them after the blouse. "Come."
Sepdet's eyes squeeze shut suddenly and her hands clench water, while Robin's finishing undressing. Even as Robin issues the gentle command, the Strider lurches forward with an abrupt splash, propelling herself blindly towards the human with lips parted in sobs that make her shoulders tremble but never betray a sound.
Joseph has arrived.
Robin's arm snakes around Sepdet's waist and turns her around in the warm water, then pulls her back up against her own. Settling back, silent -- this may or not be comforting to the Strider -- and holding her firmly, skin-to-fur, offering strength.
Sepdet is too limp to remember danger now, thankfully, and leans back, letting Robin keep her from sliding under. She crosses her hands over Robin's forearm and presses it while the tears shake loose, melting into the steam and water silently. The Strider continues to cry for a long while with no sound, eyes closed, head slumped back against Robin's shoulder.
Minutes pass, spinning out unnoticed. The kin holds the Garou, her only movement the drifting of her nose against the back of the Strider's head now and then. Eventually some time later, a roughly hummed, hardly audible tune stirs hoarsely in Robin's throat.
Sepdet's breathing slows a bit at the sound, still coming in small fits and gasps. Her feet paw slowly at the water, heels barely tapping the bottom of the tub as her body sways gently against the kinswoman's steady support.
Robin pages to the room: Is Joseph arriving?
From afar, to the room, Joseph could! Do you guys want me to?
From afar, to the room, Joseph needs the last couple poses. I missed them in my reconnect.
Robin continues humming for several refrains before easing gently back into silence, content to be still in the hot water as long as Sepdet is. At first hint that the Strider has fallen asleep, Robin will try to move her out of the tub and to the bed. Good luck, Robin.
Joseph comes in through the umbra, a trick he's become more familiar with over the last few weeks. He stops in the entryway to the loft bedroom, frown deepening as he sees the kin and the Strider. Something's wrong. This much he already knows, but nothing more.
Sepdet's silent crying has stilled, and her eyes are closed: maybe she is asleep. As Robin attempts to move her, she stirs, but after a confused moment scrabbles towards the edge of the tub, willing to be guided.
Joseph sets something down on the dresser, moving to help. He finds a towel, holding it out while Sepdet comes out of the tub. Questions lurk in his eyes as he looks from one to the other, but he doesn't ask them. Patience he understands these days.
Robin's wet underwear is a half shade darker than her skin. Wet, it might as well be off along with her blouse and pants in the pool of overflowed water on the bathroom floor, She guides Sepdet up and out of the tub and looks to Joseph as he wraps a large, thirsty towel around the Strider.
Sepdet focusses on Joseph when she's climbing out, for she has to open her eyes to stand. She gives a little yelping cry and wobbles forward into the towel, reaching for his shoulders. She searches his eyes, sees the unknowingness there, and her hands tighten almost painfully. "A bad thing," she tells him softly, trying to make gentler something that cannot be gentled.
Joseph wraps the Strider in the towel, and then wraps her in his arms. There's fright in his eyes as he meets Robin's gaze--a rare enough thing to see--but Sepdet's words make him more curious than anything. "You should lie down."
Robin simply waits, heat escaping her skin and rivulets of water sliding downward. Her gaze is heavy upon the two Garou but she remains back by the tub's edge.
Sepdet is sandwiched between them, and her voice is a little stronger for it. She refuses to budge until she's gotten through this, and holds his gaze with numb eyes that refuse to focus. She mouths one word. "Chloe."
Joseph's eyes narrow at the spoken name. At first, it's confusion that shadows his eyes. It gives way to dread, but he waits for the rest.
Sepdet caresses his shoulder with one hand, her touch still very weak. "She is gone," the Strider tells him. "She fell." The numbness the Strider feels makes it easier for her to hide what she does not say: her face is too drained even for secrecy.
Robin does not add to the news. She does, however, watch Joseph's reaction closely.
The shock of that--the disbelief--makes Joseph's hold on Sepdet lose its strength. He doesn't drop her, but for a omment she slides in his arms. He pulls her back to the bed, sitting down himself. There's little other outward reaction, however, except for his attention to Sepet. The Strider is pulled into his lap, held close, rocked.
Robin doesn't immediately follow the pair from the bathroom. Instead there is the sound of water draining and of Robin cleaning up the wet floor.
Sepdet goes with him, a fresh wave of tears spilling as she settles against him. She is wet and limp and small against him, and there's almost no weight to her at all as she digs her nose into his shoulder. But it passes again like the rain that doesn't fall in the desert, and she lifts her head and meets his eyes, setting a hand by his ear and twining her fingers in his hair. "She died healing. But the sky will fall from this in thunder and blood and rage. But not yet. Now there's only silence. Knowing. She lies quiet now, and she won't fall anymore."
You paged the room with 'Well -that- was incomprehensible. But then, it's Sepdet. ;)'.
Robin pages to the room: Glissa has nothing on Seppie. :)
Joseph can't find any words. Apparently, he doesn't really need any, anyway. He continues to rock the Strider in his arms, protectively keeping her wrapped up. Eventually he whispers to her, but the words are confused, and spoken in Lakota anyway.
Sepdet rests against him, making small noises against his skin that speak more of the wolf or pup than human words. Eventually she turns her head to look towards the door to the bath and makes a soft querying whimper.
Not long after, Robin comes out of the bathroom wearing her robe. She moves over toward the bed and the two Garou, stopping a few feet away. She wraps her arms around herself.
Sepdet rolls out of Joseph's lap and tumbles onto the bed on her side, hands flopping against the mattress as she holds them out towards the woman. "Be here," she whispers.
Joseph lets the Strider go, only becuase she seems to need to. He gives Robin a pleading glance. He doesn't move, though.
Sepdet snags Joseph's thigh with a bare foot, tugging at him too.
Robin approaches the bed, her fingers settling feather-light on Joseph's shoulder while her eyes move to Sepdet.
Sepdet says mournfully, "Den. Pack." She looks to Joseph to explain, hands still open and pleading, draped across the bed in a loose tumble of limbs and hair.
You paged Joseph with 'The tug of her foot should perhaps trigger memories of everyone piled into the shelter on top of each other. She uses feet as much as her hands when being wolfy.'.
Joseph speaks in Lakota, his voice quiet. "She needs to sleep. Like wolves, all piled in together. Warm."
Robin's fingers slide off Joseph's shoulder as he speaks. She murmurs back, in Lakota, "I am not a wolf." Regardless, she crawls further onto the mattress on her knees, ignoring gapes here and there in the material of her robe. She drags the blanket from home back with her and settles in close to the Strider.
Joseph waits for Robin and Sepdet to get settled before he joins both, trying as best he can to wrap them both up protectively. He whispers to robin in their native language, "I don't think Sepdet minds."
Sepdet makes a little soft noise in the back of her throat that might have been a laugh any other night of the year. "I was not a jackal, but my den-mates didn't care. Den sleeps together." She huddles down between them and under them and over them, a thin arm under someone's waist here and a knee over someone's thigh there and her head pillowed on Joseph's chest and a hand cradling Robin's jaw. She closes her eyes, shivering slightly, although the heat from the bath is still coming off of her along with the water.
Robin settles in on one side of Sepdet, her scent only more discernible for the impromptu bath. One hand slides across the Strider to pull Joseph even closer. She has no words, save for the intensity of the gaze she captures Joseph's with across Sepdet.
Joseph meets that gaze with the same intensity. Unpsoken words fill the darnkessof the bedroom, and then the Wendigo too settles in as close as he can, fingers touching at Robin's cheek as well.