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shelbyrouIt is currently 01:23 Pacific Time on Sat Dec 11 2010.
To sleep: perchance to dream. The two Fangs sleep; and in dreaming, as is common with dreams, it seems the reality is the dreamworld and the real world merely a distant and unregarded memory.
The world about them both is bright as day. The sky is a perfect azure arch above. Before them lies a lake, so still and calm as to be a mirror of the sky, its dark depths full of mystery. The shore, stretching all about those unruffled waters, is of water-smoothed pebbles, palm-sized, numerous as the stars. Beyond the lake, the distance seems almost unfinished, a water-colour sketch only half complete, misty and indistinct. Far, far and far away to the left there is also a mistiness, but unlike the steady view in front, this fountains and swirls and gushes in a way familiar to those who have watched the steam vents within the Caern.
Silently, with what would be suddenness if it did not seem so apt, so appropriate, so perfect to the setting, further examination of their surroundings becomes less important than the figure that is now there, before them. To call it a turtle would fail to satisfactorily compose a picture. Even calling it a giant turtle would be woefully inadequate. Its ancient blue-grey shell stands high as a Crinos, crusted with scale and greened with water-weed and moss. Its skin is wrinkled, with a timeless, stone-like quality. Its wise, ageless eyes are rimmed with crusted rheum; its expression is both peaceful and knowing. Ah, it says, the meaning clear although it never opens its mouth. There you are. You have come.
To sleep, as a knife-moon, is to expect dreams and messages and portents. It is a strange thing, for Zosia, to sleep and not experience something of this nature. The young woman stands on shore of the dream-lake, studying the sky and water in turn. She looks worn and worried, her reality turning into a sort of worrisome dream memory itching away at the back of her mind. Nonetheless, it is the here and now that she concentrates on, the only signs of external stress the circles under her eyes and faint lines of her brow. And now, a turtle. Since it is right, since it is proper, she bows deeply to the turtle. Straightening, she leans her head back to take him in, smiling as she does. "I have come," she answers easily. "I did not realize I needed to but since I did, I'm here."
Dreams are always right, always proper, and so Shelby seems not at all surprised to find herself anywhere, even here. She takes in the Theurge with a glance but doesn't speak; instead the dark-haired girl peruses the horizon and lifts onto her toes as if those few inches will grant her untold visions. After a while she potters around the edge of the lake, lifting pebbles to display water-dark bottoms to the sky and arranging them in some pattern known only to herself.
Surely she noticed the turtle before this, but it's not until Zosia's given tongue that the Ragabash straightens, rubbing her hands together before letting them hang at her sides. "Turtle," she greets it, in English or Polish or both, knowing as one always knows in dreams that understanding will be made clear. After a moment she too bows, just as deeply as Zosia.
Shelby's curiosity shows her that behind them, leading away from the lake, is a track of beaten earth. It leads up a slope to vanish over the horizon. While facing away from the lake and looking diagonally off to the left, the Ragabash can see a mountain in the far distance, its head lost in cloud.
Quite how one determines the mood of a turtle which lacks human (or lupine) means of expression is unclear. Nevertheless, there is the sense of faint approval for the Theurge, and something approaching amusement towards the Ragabash, neither reaction dispelling his pervasive aura of tranquility.
Welcome. There is something I ask of you, before you move on, the turtle tells them both, swinging its rearing neck to right and left along the expanse of pebbled shore. One of these stones does not belong. Seek for it.
Looking up and down the shore, Zosia almost manages to hide her momentary flash of dismay. After all, the sheer number of pebbles on the shore of the lake is enough to intimidate anyone. She takes a deep breath and glances toward Shelby, not surprised that the Ragabash is present. "I'll go left you go right." That declared, she moves off without another word, her eyes searching the ground before she raises her head and concentrates further down the beach.
Shelby's already had her hands on those stones, and as such, the turtle's request pulls both her eyebrows up. "That's...," she starts, but gets no further before the Theurge is giving directions and heading away. Instead, after an amused blink after the other Fang, she turns back to the turtle. "Is there anything you can tell us about it?" she asks respectfully, adding another fraction of a bow. "How it doesn't belong, or anything like that?"
The turtle lowers its long neck (it moves all of a piece, as though carved from a piece of wood or stone, without flexing), and brings its head level with Shelby's. It seems pleased, if anything at all can be determined from its placid, aged face.
I can ask questions, it replies. The only answers I have are my own. You already have that which you seek. Why, then, do I ask?
Zosia moves restlessly along her side, both listening and not. To say the Silver Fang is distracted understates things. Periodically she leans down and picks up a stone and stares at it, seeing something else altogether. Still, she is looking. Just not....quickly. So perhaps it is just as well she's not asking questions.
Shelby meets the turtle's gaze evenly, neither pushing herself upon it nor cringing away. "I'm sorry, but I don't understand how that relates. You can ask questions? Well, then, do you have any questions of us." Another look after Zosia and she smoothly amends, "Of me?"
The turtle blinks slowly. Knowing does not require understanding, it tells the Garou. Cast away what you think you know. It drags at your steps on the journey. Cast away your need for understanding. It will mislead you. Why do I ask what I ask? When you know that, you will be a step closer to knowing which stone here is the one that does not belong.
Zosia is, in fact, meandering, but it is with a purpose--back and forth, slowly and carefully. She's making a reasonably appropriate search pattern for normal operations but has started to murmur her own soft prayers to Falcon for wisdom and patience in her search. The latter seems more important.
"That was... very helpful, thank you," Shelby answers the turtle, with just enough of a pause to suggest just the opposite, at least to homid ears. Still, she gives the turtle one of her brilliant smiles before turning away, her own eyes dropping to the ground. She, unlike Zosia, strides swiftly away down the beach, though her gaze skims hither and yon across her path and about five feet on either side.
The turtle seems to be disappointed in Shelby's response but says no more, and watches the two Garou in silence.
The pebbled lake-shore sits serene and smooth, level, constant, almost infinite about the tranquil waters of the lake. What seems uniform as a whole, however, is wholly disparate in its parts. Each stone is different, every grey and red, brown and yellow a shade of its own; each seam of white and crystal and gold unique; every band and every stripe distinctive and singular. yet none stands out, each, while unlike its neighbours, sits among them with perfect unity.
Zosia abruptly stops and just sits down, closing her eyes and resting her hands palm up on her thighs. "It will come," she murmurs, mostly to herself. "With your help, Falcon." She has faith, it appears, that something is going to happen. Perhaps her legs will cramp.
Moving briskly, Shelby continues away from both the turtle and Zosia until she's a good distance away from both, and out of earshot. Deciding on a spot for reasons known only to herself, she stops to give the environment another thorough once-over, checking for unpleasant (or even the opposite) surprises before returning her attention to the stones the turtle seeks. The path back is trodden far slower than the path out, the girl stopping every now and again to more closely study a rock that's caught her eye. So far none of them have been intriguing enough for her to collect, however.
For a great and ancient creature, the Turtle moves too fast to see, not even a blur of motion. It stands in one place... and then it stands in another- both beside Zosia and beside Shelby, although at one and the same time it is only in one place.
Child, if it is Falcon you seek, you must look in along a different path, it tells Zosia gently, lifting its head to look towards the great mountain that lies so far off. I see you are not yet ready for this road (it continues, turning to face the water), although its peace is something you are coming to know, a little at a time. When you are ready, you may return if you wish to, it assures her as it once more looks at the Theurge with a kindly expression. It is a journey that can always be taken by those who are ready to seek its path. It is not a path that any can be forced along, nor that any can force themselves to take, for by that very attempt to overcome resistance the road is blocked. Do not be sad, or angry, that I say this. It is not a rebuke. There is no failure here. There are countless paths, and time in which to walk them as your own heart and focus lead you. You must find the way that is right for you.
At one and the same time it is beside the Ragabash, walking beside her as she studies the rocks. it remains silent for a while, and then, when she is at one of the closer points to the water's edge and absorbed in looking at a rock, it puts out a tree-trunk-sized, scaly, blunt-clawed leg and gently tumbles her into the lake. Great ripples roll out from the splash, but are soon absorbed back into the calm surface as though they had never been.
Zosia just keeps her eyes closed as the turtle speaks, her shoulders slumping. No rebuke? The Silver Fang most certainly takes it as one, no matter the intent. The splash registers but it takes time before the young woman is willing to open her eyes. The lack of turtle does not surprise her. Shelby in the water doesn't either--it just seems to annoy her as she pushes to her feet.
As is the way of dreams, Shelby doesn't notice the obvious until she's (literally) tripping over it, fallen into the water with a splash and a cry. She struggles back to the shore with more effort than grace, and wades back onto the rocky strand while plucking unhappily at where wet clothing sticks to her skin.
"It is a dream," Zosia calls out, her voice harder than she perhaps means it to be. "You do not need to stay wet if you don't wish to." At least when it comes to Zosia logic. She moves toward Shelby but almost seems to expect that one step will cross the whole distance.
"I was never good at lucid dreaming," the Ragabash replies, turning to face Zosia who is, yes, suddenly within easy conversational distance. Dreams: what can you do? "Did you find the rock the turtle was looking for? I think she--he?--pushed me, which is probably supposed to mean something, but I don't know what. I'm not a Theurge."
"No," Zosia replies, a hint of frustration in her voice. "But it wasn't a rock that it had us looking for. It was something else, something I'm not sure of that it said I wasn't ready for." No, not a hint of frustration--anger. But it fades. "Dreams, umbra, spirits, allegory. Some theurges come to that as easy as breathing. I don't."
"Well," says Shelby with a moue that's as much sympathy as it is resignation, "you're still better at it than I am. I don't know why the turtle would ask us to look for a rock if he -- she -- didn't want us to find a rock." She gives the stones surrounding them another quick glance, just in case there actually is a rock. "I tried to ask it what was different about the rock, and it just told me it could ask questions, and asked me why it asked why it asked." She shrugs. "I guess 'because it wanted to know the answer' isn't the right one. --If it isn't actually looking for stones, though, what do you think it might actually want? Something small? Hard? Something underfoot? Something that's, I don't know, blocking something else?" A beat and she turns her attention back to the Theurge, eyes narrowed in thought. "--Wait. Why are you in my dream, anyway? Last thing I remember was that guy from The Vampire Diaries, and then you and the lake were here."
"Garou don't have normal dreams," Zosia says in a voice that is both chiding and vaguely disappointed in the Ragabash. "Theurges especially, our dreams are always messed up." Wrinkling her nose, she dismisses that and continues on with her thoughts. "But Garou are still Garou and dreams for us aren't like dreams for humans. They're a way for the spirits to pass messages or warnings or tests on to us. We have rites that can take us into dream places, deep places that are harder to get to than most umbral places. Dreams are special for us."
That said, she looks toward the sky and then the lake, a hint of a sulk in the set of her mouth. The sulk fades to resignation. "Whatever this place is, I'm not ready for it. A stone which doesn't belong at a place...." She leans down, right at the water's edge in the blink of an eye to dip her hand in the liquid peace. "A stone which doesn't belong at a place that I'm not ready for but that feels like peace. A disturbance, a thing that is disrupting the peace, something that is throwing things out of balance or into some sort of chaos...." She is thinking outloud, even as she looks up at the other Silver Fang.
Shelby mutters something under her breath that could well be, "Thank Gaia I'm not a Theurge," but offers Zosia another shrug and a rueful little version of her usual smile. "What do you mean, you aren't ready for it? It was pretty nice, swimming, except for the wet clothes part." Blue eyes consider the water for a moment, but she doesn't look like she's about to plunge back in. "Something that doesn't belong," she continues, riffing on Zosia's train of thought. "Something blocking... well, no. It can't be blocking the peace. Though maybe this isn't supposed to be a lake, and the stone is blocking a stream, or something?" That's an interesting enough idea that she goes up onto her toes again, looking for hints of an empty streambed.
"Too literal," Zosia says immediately. She has picked up that much, even if she didn't ferret out what the spirit had wanted. "This is probably more a state of mind or a mental path--the spirit mentioned a path to me--rather than a swimming location. Too literal," she repeats, giving Shelby a long look. "Allegory, symbolism. It isn't a real lake, it isn't a real stone, it is a symbol. Maybe the spirit thought we would understand this," she waves a hand at the water, "but we didn't so..." Her voice trails off and she looks around again. "So where shall we go," she says in a low voice. Without waiting for an answer, she turns and just starts to walk. "I needed to be here so I was. So where do I need to be now?" It is likely that she isn't asking that of Shelby but her voice raises slightly. Perhaps the Turtle is just hiding around a corner.
There's a 'maybe' shrug from the Ragabash as she glances away, digging one toe into the rocks, and when Zosia turns away she adds an unhappy twist of her lips. "I'll follow you," the brunette says simply, and suits action to words, falling into step just behind and to Zosia's right. She keeps an eye on their surroundings as they walk, trusting that she'll need to tend to the outer world while the Theurge attends to the inner.
It's round about the point that Zosia tells Shelby that she doesn't have to be wet if she doesn't want to be that a subtle change begins in the landscape, so gradual that it's developed a fair way before it's clear it's been shifting for a while. The change hastens at talk of state of mind and allegory, although the sense of it doing so is a subtle intrusion at the very edges of awareness. When the two finally take another good look around, ready to walk on, they find not one but three paths. The one from before leads up the slope to the horizon. Now, one on either side of the lake, are two more: one bearing slightly to the right, towards blue sky and faint, silver-white mist, one bearing slightly to the left, towards the thicker obscurity of shooting gouts and rising clouds of steam.
"Ah." Zosia sounds rather cynical. "Which path to choose. Toward the light or toward the danger. Or the theoretical middle but expected road."
"Toward what looks like light, and what looks like danger," Shelby corrects. "Or back the way we came, except I don't remember coming here." She turns to give that presumed entry road a thoughtful look and a frown, but makes no move toward any of the three, apparently keeping her word and letting Zosia choose.
Looking at the mountains, toward the side with the mist, Zosia looks torn. "When the Turtle mentioned Falcon, he looked to the mountains," she says slowly, getting the thoughts out into the air. "But when he mentioned Falcon, he said I was looking to the wrong place or searching the wrong place or something." Scowling, she shakes her head. "The steam brings to mind the steam at the heart of the caern. And yet...there's finding the way behind us. Not home, precisely, but..."
"And we still have to look for a rock that doesn't belong," Shelby reminds her. "I didn't hear anything about Falcon - I was probably off looking for the rock, or something." Or maybe with the guy from Vampire Diaries. Hard to say.
"--I don't suppose," she adds after a moment, but without any real hope that this will be allowed, "we can just wake up, or anything. I've done that before, a couple of times when my dreams just got too weird. Because this doesn't make sense either." Crouching, she picks up a smooth rock that glistens as though its wet, although of course it's dry. As are her clothes.
"No, the moment for the metaphorical rock is past." Distracting herself, Zosia eyes Shelby. "It was a symbol, Shelby, not an actual rock. As for waking up, if you want to try, go ahead. Don't know why you'd want to," the theurge adds. "We've a puzzle before us." She looks between the mists and steam once more, mulling it over.
"A puzzle with very little to go on," the Ragabash points out. "We don't even know if it's a jigsaw or a crossword." She turns and aims the rock at the water, just as one wouldn't expect of a highly-bred Silver Fang; just as one would expect of a highly-bred Silver Fang, however, the rock sinks into the water on the first 'skip'. Shelby gives a moue at that and turns back to Zosia, studying the older teen for a moment before following the blonde's gaze. "Want me to go scout ahead, or anything?"
"Not yet," Zosia says in a low voice, frowning as she does. "I don't know if I am choosing correctly. Or if there is a correct choice." She shakes that off, shares her shoulders resolutely and starts toward the path that leads to the steam.
Shelby points out--correctly, if not particularly helpfully, thank you Ragabash--"Then in that case, it doesn't matter where we go, does it?" and falls into step just a step behind the ranking Garou, as before.
The path is plainly a path when it starts, but before long it is no more than a trace on the ground, and some way after that, with the steam-spurts still seemingly no closer, the trail peters out into a light dusting of what can only be snow. The scenery ahead has taken on an aptly seasonal appearance. Crisp, pristine, perfect white snow blankets the ground before them, and the air hangs white and hushed. Great, low, rolling hills slumber in their wintry beds, eternally serene in their wait for a distant spring. Gentle snowflakes drift down to settle quietly among their fellows. All is calm, all is bright, all is peace... save, up ahead, for that distant rising obscurity of steam.
"Snow," points out Captain Obvious, with a distasteful wrinkle of her nose. "Well, at least it isn't cold." Her voice is pitched quietly, out of deference to the scene, perhaps.
"It is lovely, really," Zosia says, not pitching her voice low on purpose but doing so unconsciously. "Lord only knows what we're going to be facing up ahead but it is nice to feel peaceful." Her exhaustion fades a bit, for the time being, leaving her looking worn but alert. "So often it isn't." She still moves ahead, her steps determined.
Two steps farther on and Shelby says, "The lake was peaceful too. Maybe that's a theme, or something."
The two Garou are aware after a time that it is cold, even that they feel cold, and yet it is not troubling and they need not pay attention to the discomfort of their bodies. The cold is, but can be realised and experienced with detachment, without need to shiver and complain. They walk on into the hush, into the white that is a million subtle shades of whiteness. The serenity wraps itself around them, cocooning them away from the constant troubles that come with living, leaving their minds clear to view the world without the ensnaring net of overwhelming emotion and circular thought.
It is like a small awakening from that waking sleep of clarity when a figure appears in the distance before them- a mighty buffalo, his great, raised head set with horns, white coat thick and perfect as the snow. He wades towards them through the thick, glittering carpet, graceful and awe-inspiring and inevitable as an avalanche, or a glacier. Once closer he stops, and waits, watching the Garou's progress.
Though the Silver Fang tribe is known for being from countries that are often very cold, Zosia herself hails from a rather steamy part of the United States. The fact that she isn't commenting on the cold and on the snow is notable, though she doesn't immediately notice it herself.
Besides, there is a buffalo in front of her. When the spirit stops, she does as well, just watching it through the faint haze of light-touched snow. Flexing her fingers, she takes a sharp breath in before bowing, low and deep. That is very real awe and honor in her motions and expression. As she rises, she adds, *Greetings, honored one.* As an aside to Shelby, she murmurs, "Buffalo was one of the former Caern totems at the Hidden Walk."
As before, Shelby is just a beat behind Zosia in giving the spirit due deference though her bow is as low and her words as polite: "I am very pleased to meet you, Buffalo." "--I'd heard that," she continues to the Theurge, sotto-voice. "Bison, Cougar, and Magpie, wasn't it?" Just to prove she was paying attention.
It was, and is, and shall be, the Wheel, the white buffalo replies, walking on again towards them, stately despite the deep drifts that he must break through. He lowers his head in deep, grave thought. Buffalo was there in its winter, in the time of the elders, he says after long consideration. That was fitting, for winter is the place of the White Buffalo. Now the Wheel has passed through its spring and the time of trust, and enters the summer of adolescence.
"Where we question and attempt to find ourselves? Where we try and fail but try again and learn, both from failures and successes?" Zosia hazards that carefully, working through the idea outloud.
Shelby keeps quiet, though politely attentive, as Zosia and the spirit speak.
All that, and more, the buffalo agrees gravely. You will learn more as you journey, of the wheel and of yourselves. But you did not start at the center, he notes with a shake of his great horned head and shaggy neck. You came to the place of water, and winter, and age, and wisdom; you walk the path of serenity. Would you walk on, little ones? Or would you stand at the center, and make a new choice? There is no right answer here. There is no wrong answer. Each answer holds its own degree of truth; and you can make no mistakes, for every step is part of the journey of knowledge, no matter which direction it leads in. If you did not learn that beside the lake then know it to be so now. Know also- and know last, until we meet again- that each path can be followed only once; for although you may walk in the same direction a second time, and make the same choices, you will be different and so your path will be a little different too. You may return to any place; but what you find there will depend on your thoughts and your heart and your actions.
The buffalo looks between both Garou, and awaits their response.
"I would start at the center," Zosia decides after a moment of personal contemplation. "I have much to learn before serenity will benefit me fully. I cannot decide for Shelby," she adds, giving the ragabash a ghost of a smile. "I do not know what she needs for her own heart."
"Knowledge," the brunette answers promptly, addressing Zosia. "I have no idea what's going on, or why. I'm no Theurge; I don't do any of this dream-walking whatever. So if it's all the same to you, Zosia-rhya," she inclines her head toward the blonde and, after a moment, toward the bison as well, "I'll stay close to you until whatever happens, happens. It's pretty obvious I'm not going to be of much use just wandering around by myself."
Very well, the white buffalo says, dipping its mighty head. Then all you need do, is to turn back.
Zosia nods to Shelby and studies the buffalo searchingly. Whatever she sees there, she nods agreeably and bow deeply. "Thank you," she murmurs. With that said, she turns and starts to walk back, to their beginning.
"Be safe, and thank you," Shelby appends to her own farewell to the placid spirit. Then she falls into step behind Zosia once more, using the Theurge's footprints as her path rather than wade through the snow.
It only needs both Garou to turn and start to retrace their steps, and the scene reforms around them. They stand at a crossroads, with tracks of beaten earth leading away. To one side, a slow down towards a lake that seems familiar. Opposite that, a path into forest. The other two paths lead to a great mountain, and to a heat-hazed red desert.
There is some little time to take it in, but barely enough, for something wakes them both, and they find themselves once again in the physical world.
To sleep: perchance to dream. The two Fangs sleep; and in dreaming, as is common with dreams, it seems the reality is the dreamworld and the real world merely a distant and unregarded memory.
The world about them both is bright as day. The sky is a perfect azure arch above. Before them lies a lake, so still and calm as to be a mirror of the sky, its dark depths full of mystery. The shore, stretching all about those unruffled waters, is of water-smoothed pebbles, palm-sized, numerous as the stars. Beyond the lake, the distance seems almost unfinished, a water-colour sketch only half complete, misty and indistinct. Far, far and far away to the left there is also a mistiness, but unlike the steady view in front, this fountains and swirls and gushes in a way familiar to those who have watched the steam vents within the Caern.
Silently, with what would be suddenness if it did not seem so apt, so appropriate, so perfect to the setting, further examination of their surroundings becomes less important than the figure that is now there, before them. To call it a turtle would fail to satisfactorily compose a picture. Even calling it a giant turtle would be woefully inadequate. Its ancient blue-grey shell stands high as a Crinos, crusted with scale and greened with water-weed and moss. Its skin is wrinkled, with a timeless, stone-like quality. Its wise, ageless eyes are rimmed with crusted rheum; its expression is both peaceful and knowing. Ah, it says, the meaning clear although it never opens its mouth. There you are. You have come.
To sleep, as a knife-moon, is to expect dreams and messages and portents. It is a strange thing, for Zosia, to sleep and not experience something of this nature. The young woman stands on shore of the dream-lake, studying the sky and water in turn. She looks worn and worried, her reality turning into a sort of worrisome dream memory itching away at the back of her mind. Nonetheless, it is the here and now that she concentrates on, the only signs of external stress the circles under her eyes and faint lines of her brow. And now, a turtle. Since it is right, since it is proper, she bows deeply to the turtle. Straightening, she leans her head back to take him in, smiling as she does. "I have come," she answers easily. "I did not realize I needed to but since I did, I'm here."
Dreams are always right, always proper, and so Shelby seems not at all surprised to find herself anywhere, even here. She takes in the Theurge with a glance but doesn't speak; instead the dark-haired girl peruses the horizon and lifts onto her toes as if those few inches will grant her untold visions. After a while she potters around the edge of the lake, lifting pebbles to display water-dark bottoms to the sky and arranging them in some pattern known only to herself.
Surely she noticed the turtle before this, but it's not until Zosia's given tongue that the Ragabash straightens, rubbing her hands together before letting them hang at her sides. "Turtle," she greets it, in English or Polish or both, knowing as one always knows in dreams that understanding will be made clear. After a moment she too bows, just as deeply as Zosia.
Shelby's curiosity shows her that behind them, leading away from the lake, is a track of beaten earth. It leads up a slope to vanish over the horizon. While facing away from the lake and looking diagonally off to the left, the Ragabash can see a mountain in the far distance, its head lost in cloud.
Quite how one determines the mood of a turtle which lacks human (or lupine) means of expression is unclear. Nevertheless, there is the sense of faint approval for the Theurge, and something approaching amusement towards the Ragabash, neither reaction dispelling his pervasive aura of tranquility.
Welcome. There is something I ask of you, before you move on, the turtle tells them both, swinging its rearing neck to right and left along the expanse of pebbled shore. One of these stones does not belong. Seek for it.
Looking up and down the shore, Zosia almost manages to hide her momentary flash of dismay. After all, the sheer number of pebbles on the shore of the lake is enough to intimidate anyone. She takes a deep breath and glances toward Shelby, not surprised that the Ragabash is present. "I'll go left you go right." That declared, she moves off without another word, her eyes searching the ground before she raises her head and concentrates further down the beach.
Shelby's already had her hands on those stones, and as such, the turtle's request pulls both her eyebrows up. "That's...," she starts, but gets no further before the Theurge is giving directions and heading away. Instead, after an amused blink after the other Fang, she turns back to the turtle. "Is there anything you can tell us about it?" she asks respectfully, adding another fraction of a bow. "How it doesn't belong, or anything like that?"
The turtle lowers its long neck (it moves all of a piece, as though carved from a piece of wood or stone, without flexing), and brings its head level with Shelby's. It seems pleased, if anything at all can be determined from its placid, aged face.
I can ask questions, it replies. The only answers I have are my own. You already have that which you seek. Why, then, do I ask?
Zosia moves restlessly along her side, both listening and not. To say the Silver Fang is distracted understates things. Periodically she leans down and picks up a stone and stares at it, seeing something else altogether. Still, she is looking. Just not....quickly. So perhaps it is just as well she's not asking questions.
Shelby meets the turtle's gaze evenly, neither pushing herself upon it nor cringing away. "I'm sorry, but I don't understand how that relates. You can ask questions? Well, then, do you have any questions of us." Another look after Zosia and she smoothly amends, "Of me?"
The turtle blinks slowly. Knowing does not require understanding, it tells the Garou. Cast away what you think you know. It drags at your steps on the journey. Cast away your need for understanding. It will mislead you. Why do I ask what I ask? When you know that, you will be a step closer to knowing which stone here is the one that does not belong.
Zosia is, in fact, meandering, but it is with a purpose--back and forth, slowly and carefully. She's making a reasonably appropriate search pattern for normal operations but has started to murmur her own soft prayers to Falcon for wisdom and patience in her search. The latter seems more important.
"That was... very helpful, thank you," Shelby answers the turtle, with just enough of a pause to suggest just the opposite, at least to homid ears. Still, she gives the turtle one of her brilliant smiles before turning away, her own eyes dropping to the ground. She, unlike Zosia, strides swiftly away down the beach, though her gaze skims hither and yon across her path and about five feet on either side.
The turtle seems to be disappointed in Shelby's response but says no more, and watches the two Garou in silence.
The pebbled lake-shore sits serene and smooth, level, constant, almost infinite about the tranquil waters of the lake. What seems uniform as a whole, however, is wholly disparate in its parts. Each stone is different, every grey and red, brown and yellow a shade of its own; each seam of white and crystal and gold unique; every band and every stripe distinctive and singular. yet none stands out, each, while unlike its neighbours, sits among them with perfect unity.
Zosia abruptly stops and just sits down, closing her eyes and resting her hands palm up on her thighs. "It will come," she murmurs, mostly to herself. "With your help, Falcon." She has faith, it appears, that something is going to happen. Perhaps her legs will cramp.
Moving briskly, Shelby continues away from both the turtle and Zosia until she's a good distance away from both, and out of earshot. Deciding on a spot for reasons known only to herself, she stops to give the environment another thorough once-over, checking for unpleasant (or even the opposite) surprises before returning her attention to the stones the turtle seeks. The path back is trodden far slower than the path out, the girl stopping every now and again to more closely study a rock that's caught her eye. So far none of them have been intriguing enough for her to collect, however.
For a great and ancient creature, the Turtle moves too fast to see, not even a blur of motion. It stands in one place... and then it stands in another- both beside Zosia and beside Shelby, although at one and the same time it is only in one place.
Child, if it is Falcon you seek, you must look in along a different path, it tells Zosia gently, lifting its head to look towards the great mountain that lies so far off. I see you are not yet ready for this road (it continues, turning to face the water), although its peace is something you are coming to know, a little at a time. When you are ready, you may return if you wish to, it assures her as it once more looks at the Theurge with a kindly expression. It is a journey that can always be taken by those who are ready to seek its path. It is not a path that any can be forced along, nor that any can force themselves to take, for by that very attempt to overcome resistance the road is blocked. Do not be sad, or angry, that I say this. It is not a rebuke. There is no failure here. There are countless paths, and time in which to walk them as your own heart and focus lead you. You must find the way that is right for you.
At one and the same time it is beside the Ragabash, walking beside her as she studies the rocks. it remains silent for a while, and then, when she is at one of the closer points to the water's edge and absorbed in looking at a rock, it puts out a tree-trunk-sized, scaly, blunt-clawed leg and gently tumbles her into the lake. Great ripples roll out from the splash, but are soon absorbed back into the calm surface as though they had never been.
Zosia just keeps her eyes closed as the turtle speaks, her shoulders slumping. No rebuke? The Silver Fang most certainly takes it as one, no matter the intent. The splash registers but it takes time before the young woman is willing to open her eyes. The lack of turtle does not surprise her. Shelby in the water doesn't either--it just seems to annoy her as she pushes to her feet.
As is the way of dreams, Shelby doesn't notice the obvious until she's (literally) tripping over it, fallen into the water with a splash and a cry. She struggles back to the shore with more effort than grace, and wades back onto the rocky strand while plucking unhappily at where wet clothing sticks to her skin.
"It is a dream," Zosia calls out, her voice harder than she perhaps means it to be. "You do not need to stay wet if you don't wish to." At least when it comes to Zosia logic. She moves toward Shelby but almost seems to expect that one step will cross the whole distance.
"I was never good at lucid dreaming," the Ragabash replies, turning to face Zosia who is, yes, suddenly within easy conversational distance. Dreams: what can you do? "Did you find the rock the turtle was looking for? I think she--he?--pushed me, which is probably supposed to mean something, but I don't know what. I'm not a Theurge."
"No," Zosia replies, a hint of frustration in her voice. "But it wasn't a rock that it had us looking for. It was something else, something I'm not sure of that it said I wasn't ready for." No, not a hint of frustration--anger. But it fades. "Dreams, umbra, spirits, allegory. Some theurges come to that as easy as breathing. I don't."
"Well," says Shelby with a moue that's as much sympathy as it is resignation, "you're still better at it than I am. I don't know why the turtle would ask us to look for a rock if he -- she -- didn't want us to find a rock." She gives the stones surrounding them another quick glance, just in case there actually is a rock. "I tried to ask it what was different about the rock, and it just told me it could ask questions, and asked me why it asked why it asked." She shrugs. "I guess 'because it wanted to know the answer' isn't the right one. --If it isn't actually looking for stones, though, what do you think it might actually want? Something small? Hard? Something underfoot? Something that's, I don't know, blocking something else?" A beat and she turns her attention back to the Theurge, eyes narrowed in thought. "--Wait. Why are you in my dream, anyway? Last thing I remember was that guy from The Vampire Diaries, and then you and the lake were here."
"Garou don't have normal dreams," Zosia says in a voice that is both chiding and vaguely disappointed in the Ragabash. "Theurges especially, our dreams are always messed up." Wrinkling her nose, she dismisses that and continues on with her thoughts. "But Garou are still Garou and dreams for us aren't like dreams for humans. They're a way for the spirits to pass messages or warnings or tests on to us. We have rites that can take us into dream places, deep places that are harder to get to than most umbral places. Dreams are special for us."
That said, she looks toward the sky and then the lake, a hint of a sulk in the set of her mouth. The sulk fades to resignation. "Whatever this place is, I'm not ready for it. A stone which doesn't belong at a place...." She leans down, right at the water's edge in the blink of an eye to dip her hand in the liquid peace. "A stone which doesn't belong at a place that I'm not ready for but that feels like peace. A disturbance, a thing that is disrupting the peace, something that is throwing things out of balance or into some sort of chaos...." She is thinking outloud, even as she looks up at the other Silver Fang.
Shelby mutters something under her breath that could well be, "Thank Gaia I'm not a Theurge," but offers Zosia another shrug and a rueful little version of her usual smile. "What do you mean, you aren't ready for it? It was pretty nice, swimming, except for the wet clothes part." Blue eyes consider the water for a moment, but she doesn't look like she's about to plunge back in. "Something that doesn't belong," she continues, riffing on Zosia's train of thought. "Something blocking... well, no. It can't be blocking the peace. Though maybe this isn't supposed to be a lake, and the stone is blocking a stream, or something?" That's an interesting enough idea that she goes up onto her toes again, looking for hints of an empty streambed.
"Too literal," Zosia says immediately. She has picked up that much, even if she didn't ferret out what the spirit had wanted. "This is probably more a state of mind or a mental path--the spirit mentioned a path to me--rather than a swimming location. Too literal," she repeats, giving Shelby a long look. "Allegory, symbolism. It isn't a real lake, it isn't a real stone, it is a symbol. Maybe the spirit thought we would understand this," she waves a hand at the water, "but we didn't so..." Her voice trails off and she looks around again. "So where shall we go," she says in a low voice. Without waiting for an answer, she turns and just starts to walk. "I needed to be here so I was. So where do I need to be now?" It is likely that she isn't asking that of Shelby but her voice raises slightly. Perhaps the Turtle is just hiding around a corner.
There's a 'maybe' shrug from the Ragabash as she glances away, digging one toe into the rocks, and when Zosia turns away she adds an unhappy twist of her lips. "I'll follow you," the brunette says simply, and suits action to words, falling into step just behind and to Zosia's right. She keeps an eye on their surroundings as they walk, trusting that she'll need to tend to the outer world while the Theurge attends to the inner.
It's round about the point that Zosia tells Shelby that she doesn't have to be wet if she doesn't want to be that a subtle change begins in the landscape, so gradual that it's developed a fair way before it's clear it's been shifting for a while. The change hastens at talk of state of mind and allegory, although the sense of it doing so is a subtle intrusion at the very edges of awareness. When the two finally take another good look around, ready to walk on, they find not one but three paths. The one from before leads up the slope to the horizon. Now, one on either side of the lake, are two more: one bearing slightly to the right, towards blue sky and faint, silver-white mist, one bearing slightly to the left, towards the thicker obscurity of shooting gouts and rising clouds of steam.
"Ah." Zosia sounds rather cynical. "Which path to choose. Toward the light or toward the danger. Or the theoretical middle but expected road."
"Toward what looks like light, and what looks like danger," Shelby corrects. "Or back the way we came, except I don't remember coming here." She turns to give that presumed entry road a thoughtful look and a frown, but makes no move toward any of the three, apparently keeping her word and letting Zosia choose.
Looking at the mountains, toward the side with the mist, Zosia looks torn. "When the Turtle mentioned Falcon, he looked to the mountains," she says slowly, getting the thoughts out into the air. "But when he mentioned Falcon, he said I was looking to the wrong place or searching the wrong place or something." Scowling, she shakes her head. "The steam brings to mind the steam at the heart of the caern. And yet...there's finding the way behind us. Not home, precisely, but..."
"And we still have to look for a rock that doesn't belong," Shelby reminds her. "I didn't hear anything about Falcon - I was probably off looking for the rock, or something." Or maybe with the guy from Vampire Diaries. Hard to say.
"--I don't suppose," she adds after a moment, but without any real hope that this will be allowed, "we can just wake up, or anything. I've done that before, a couple of times when my dreams just got too weird. Because this doesn't make sense either." Crouching, she picks up a smooth rock that glistens as though its wet, although of course it's dry. As are her clothes.
"No, the moment for the metaphorical rock is past." Distracting herself, Zosia eyes Shelby. "It was a symbol, Shelby, not an actual rock. As for waking up, if you want to try, go ahead. Don't know why you'd want to," the theurge adds. "We've a puzzle before us." She looks between the mists and steam once more, mulling it over.
"A puzzle with very little to go on," the Ragabash points out. "We don't even know if it's a jigsaw or a crossword." She turns and aims the rock at the water, just as one wouldn't expect of a highly-bred Silver Fang; just as one would expect of a highly-bred Silver Fang, however, the rock sinks into the water on the first 'skip'. Shelby gives a moue at that and turns back to Zosia, studying the older teen for a moment before following the blonde's gaze. "Want me to go scout ahead, or anything?"
"Not yet," Zosia says in a low voice, frowning as she does. "I don't know if I am choosing correctly. Or if there is a correct choice." She shakes that off, shares her shoulders resolutely and starts toward the path that leads to the steam.
Shelby points out--correctly, if not particularly helpfully, thank you Ragabash--"Then in that case, it doesn't matter where we go, does it?" and falls into step just a step behind the ranking Garou, as before.
The path is plainly a path when it starts, but before long it is no more than a trace on the ground, and some way after that, with the steam-spurts still seemingly no closer, the trail peters out into a light dusting of what can only be snow. The scenery ahead has taken on an aptly seasonal appearance. Crisp, pristine, perfect white snow blankets the ground before them, and the air hangs white and hushed. Great, low, rolling hills slumber in their wintry beds, eternally serene in their wait for a distant spring. Gentle snowflakes drift down to settle quietly among their fellows. All is calm, all is bright, all is peace... save, up ahead, for that distant rising obscurity of steam.
"Snow," points out Captain Obvious, with a distasteful wrinkle of her nose. "Well, at least it isn't cold." Her voice is pitched quietly, out of deference to the scene, perhaps.
"It is lovely, really," Zosia says, not pitching her voice low on purpose but doing so unconsciously. "Lord only knows what we're going to be facing up ahead but it is nice to feel peaceful." Her exhaustion fades a bit, for the time being, leaving her looking worn but alert. "So often it isn't." She still moves ahead, her steps determined.
Two steps farther on and Shelby says, "The lake was peaceful too. Maybe that's a theme, or something."
The two Garou are aware after a time that it is cold, even that they feel cold, and yet it is not troubling and they need not pay attention to the discomfort of their bodies. The cold is, but can be realised and experienced with detachment, without need to shiver and complain. They walk on into the hush, into the white that is a million subtle shades of whiteness. The serenity wraps itself around them, cocooning them away from the constant troubles that come with living, leaving their minds clear to view the world without the ensnaring net of overwhelming emotion and circular thought.
It is like a small awakening from that waking sleep of clarity when a figure appears in the distance before them- a mighty buffalo, his great, raised head set with horns, white coat thick and perfect as the snow. He wades towards them through the thick, glittering carpet, graceful and awe-inspiring and inevitable as an avalanche, or a glacier. Once closer he stops, and waits, watching the Garou's progress.
Though the Silver Fang tribe is known for being from countries that are often very cold, Zosia herself hails from a rather steamy part of the United States. The fact that she isn't commenting on the cold and on the snow is notable, though she doesn't immediately notice it herself.
Besides, there is a buffalo in front of her. When the spirit stops, she does as well, just watching it through the faint haze of light-touched snow. Flexing her fingers, she takes a sharp breath in before bowing, low and deep. That is very real awe and honor in her motions and expression. As she rises, she adds, *Greetings, honored one.* As an aside to Shelby, she murmurs, "Buffalo was one of the former Caern totems at the Hidden Walk."
As before, Shelby is just a beat behind Zosia in giving the spirit due deference though her bow is as low and her words as polite: "I am very pleased to meet you, Buffalo." "--I'd heard that," she continues to the Theurge, sotto-voice. "Bison, Cougar, and Magpie, wasn't it?" Just to prove she was paying attention.
It was, and is, and shall be, the Wheel, the white buffalo replies, walking on again towards them, stately despite the deep drifts that he must break through. He lowers his head in deep, grave thought. Buffalo was there in its winter, in the time of the elders, he says after long consideration. That was fitting, for winter is the place of the White Buffalo. Now the Wheel has passed through its spring and the time of trust, and enters the summer of adolescence.
"Where we question and attempt to find ourselves? Where we try and fail but try again and learn, both from failures and successes?" Zosia hazards that carefully, working through the idea outloud.
Shelby keeps quiet, though politely attentive, as Zosia and the spirit speak.
All that, and more, the buffalo agrees gravely. You will learn more as you journey, of the wheel and of yourselves. But you did not start at the center, he notes with a shake of his great horned head and shaggy neck. You came to the place of water, and winter, and age, and wisdom; you walk the path of serenity. Would you walk on, little ones? Or would you stand at the center, and make a new choice? There is no right answer here. There is no wrong answer. Each answer holds its own degree of truth; and you can make no mistakes, for every step is part of the journey of knowledge, no matter which direction it leads in. If you did not learn that beside the lake then know it to be so now. Know also- and know last, until we meet again- that each path can be followed only once; for although you may walk in the same direction a second time, and make the same choices, you will be different and so your path will be a little different too. You may return to any place; but what you find there will depend on your thoughts and your heart and your actions.
The buffalo looks between both Garou, and awaits their response.
"I would start at the center," Zosia decides after a moment of personal contemplation. "I have much to learn before serenity will benefit me fully. I cannot decide for Shelby," she adds, giving the ragabash a ghost of a smile. "I do not know what she needs for her own heart."
"Knowledge," the brunette answers promptly, addressing Zosia. "I have no idea what's going on, or why. I'm no Theurge; I don't do any of this dream-walking whatever. So if it's all the same to you, Zosia-rhya," she inclines her head toward the blonde and, after a moment, toward the bison as well, "I'll stay close to you until whatever happens, happens. It's pretty obvious I'm not going to be of much use just wandering around by myself."
Very well, the white buffalo says, dipping its mighty head. Then all you need do, is to turn back.
Zosia nods to Shelby and studies the buffalo searchingly. Whatever she sees there, she nods agreeably and bow deeply. "Thank you," she murmurs. With that said, she turns and starts to walk back, to their beginning.
"Be safe, and thank you," Shelby appends to her own farewell to the placid spirit. Then she falls into step behind Zosia once more, using the Theurge's footprints as her path rather than wade through the snow.
It only needs both Garou to turn and start to retrace their steps, and the scene reforms around them. They stand at a crossroads, with tracks of beaten earth leading away. To one side, a slow down towards a lake that seems familiar. Opposite that, a path into forest. The other two paths lead to a great mountain, and to a heat-hazed red desert.
There is some little time to take it in, but barely enough, for something wakes them both, and they find themselves once again in the physical world.