first crescent after autumn's (Persephone's) equinox
Sepdet begins to sing in a low faltering voice by the fire, quiet enough not to disturb, and also quiet enough not to embarrass herself.
Sepdet's words drift across the Wheel as she moves around the circle, a whispered melody on the wind.
~The river runs down,and the river runs down.
She pulse like moon's blood, but she pulse with the sun.~
Sepdet kneels to pat down the churned earth with her feet.
~Oh river running down, oh river running down,
He flow in my canals, he overflow my fields.~
Sepdet brushes back some leaves and branches that have blown into the Wheel's edge, her melencholy voice like the sigh in the evergreens' boughs.
~River run me to the sea, river run me to the sea,
Water to water, between land and sand.~
Sepdet darts a startled look at Dylan as she passes by and drops her eyes, voice silenced for a few breaths by uncertainty. Then she shrugs, braces her shoulders, and picks up the last lines as she picks up the fur and bark-flakes from the pool's surface.
~River runs no more, river runs no more.
They put walls on my water, Hapi, barren, but unbowed, like me.~
Sepdet remains crouched by the water, staring dubiously down at her reflection.
Later, towards dawn...
+weather
Currently on this breezy and crisp fall night in the general St. Claire area, it is 56 degrees Fahrenheit (13.3 degrees Celsius). The wind is coming from the east-northeast at 7.95 mph. The ground is normal. Skies are clear with a possible chance of precipitation.
+myth
The Garou know this of this place:
The pool symbolizes the season Spring and the age of Birth and Infancy. Traditionally, it corresponds to the auspice Ragabash, and is where the Opening Howl is led at Moot. The waters of the pool are sacred, and it is impolite to partake of them without offering a short prayer.
On the eastern curve, Joseph makes his way out of the woods to the east.
On the eastern curve, Joseph heads into the center.
At the center, Joseph glances around the wheel, and follows it to the pool.
At the center, Joseph heads southeast to the pool.
Joseph has arrived.
Sepdet smiles and sits back from her quiet study of the stars from a mirror's view.
Joseph seems subdued, but peacefully as he steps to the pool and takes a seat.
Sepdet traces a ripple-pattern, and turns back. Not in wolf, yet her stance and years of training are enough to
convey her words even before she speaks them aloud. ~The Wheel tasted silence for a while, tonight. The homids of the city sleep. The Guardians run the perimeter. She sleeps, and she is awake, and she listens and waits, just now.~
Joseph looks up rom his thoughts. He tilts his head, noting the exact way the light reflects from the Keeper's eyes and defines the curve of her face.
Sepdet puts her hands flat upon the earth beside the water, raising her head like the animal which of course she is, looking across to the earth mound. ~When your people tended this place, it stood for spring. Autumn lies on the other rim. But it is near to dawn. So it feels right here. And I like to pretend I understand the spring.~
Joseph smiles, soft. "Life."
Sepdet shakes her head. ~Well yes, but it's the birth that I've always found so strange.~
Joseph looks up into the predawn. Orion's bright stars glitter and he follows them. "How so?"
Sepdet smiles and flashes her teeth at a name star. ~Where does it begin? I know where it ends. I don't know how to begin things, only make them grow once they're born. Where did Gaia start? How did /I/ start. Birth is a maddening wonder, and it's nothing I'll ever do.~
Joseph's eyes grow sad, but on this dawn it does not last long. He takes a deep breath and lays flat on his back by the pool to watch the sky shift with birth.
Sepdet closes her eyes and turns towards the east, crossing her arms in front of herself shyly. ~I do this every dawn since I was born, except the nights when i wasn't me at all, when sunrise did not come. I do it now, still, sister mine, as you have since the world began...~
Sepdet tilts back her head and cups her hands. For a long time she holds the pose, as if drawing in the sky for her cry. And then she lets fly a high, shimmering keening, easily mistaken for a hawk's call, except it goes on long, long beyond the wings of one bird.
Sepdet lets it fall and fade, and then whispers in the silence made lighter by what went before. ~On the twenty-ninth day of the second month of Akhet, Sepdet hails you. On this the day when the children of the rebellion are wrapped in linen and buried, Sepdet hails you. Shine forth, shine day, shine life, shine hope. Ra, Atum, Amon, on Shu's wings, your children hail you, and the world is green at your command.~
Sepdet's eyes crinkle as she comes back to herself. ~Good morning, Grandfather.~
Joseph's eyes are alight as he listens and watches.
Sepdet smiles sadly. ~My Sister has a louder voice, I'm sure...but from down here... Little Star does her best. Fair morning, Joseph. Fair tomorrow, whatever it brings us. We will rest in the hope of it, for now.~ And then she lets the silence be.
Joseph rises from his position and makes his way to sepdet.
Joseph leans across her and kisses her softly on the cheek, whispering, "In the hope of it, Little Star."
Sepdet shivers, touches the back of her friend's hand as carefully as a spider's threads, and smiles in the dawn.
+finger sepdet
Information for Sepdet (Alias 'Sep'):
Sepdet is connected.
Email address: ellen@medusa.perseus.tufts.edu
WWW Page: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/~ellen/homepage.html Location: Around the Pool
Other Name(s): Little Star. She no longer calls herself Moonfang (d'siaH).
Race: Garou Sex: female
Breed: Metis Auspice: Theurge
Tribe: Silent Striders Rank: 2 (Fostern)
Position: Keeper of Land, Coyote's daughter, Strider elder (not Elder!) at 14. Harbinger? Only time will tell whether that title is hubris or hope.
Info:
Father, do not die before I find you. Do not die before I can ask you how your Sight could have gone so wrong. My name and life, you gave me, you damned me with! A Talesinger's lawfulness you twisted with your vision, and you offered up yourself to see that vision live: Hope.
Hope? Yes, still. Innocence? Some things born, burn. It's a long road from the desert, from my jackal kin, from old Strider stories, and the hunger on which my Mother weaned me. It's far from the city which first showed me Wyrm, and Rat's children who taught me to survive there. My uncle is away now, he who trained my moon while cursing his brother's folly. And the Wheel? What did it teach? Pack and family, and the price of friendship--death's parting.
You are all dead now, all but two. I guard them as second fathers; the rest, I tend as Keeper. But in my own brush with death, the Wyrm has taught me what it tried to break from me, the road you laid for me. Hope.
Ash, ember, egg, and phoenix's flame; my star Sepdet is my name.
