Chatting in the caern
May. 13th, 2011 08:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shelbyrouIt is currently 14:11 Pacific Time on Fri May 13 2011.
Currently the moon is in the waxing Gibbous (Galliard) Moon phase (72% full).
Center of the Caern
This is the central point of the 30-meter-wide clearing. The ground is a mixture of dark, rich, muddy soil mixed with clay, though there is an occasional patch of grass. At the center rests a large white boulder, immovable even by the strongest crinos. The boulder is shot through with streaks of quartz that produces scintillating colors when light strikes it just right. It is, for lack of a wholly adequate word, beautiful.
Around you, twenty yards in every direction, stretches the caern. To the southeast, a waterfall plummets over the edge of the chasm into a small pool in the caern; nearby, to the southwest, steam comes from cracks in the ground, perhaps some of the same water. Northwest, a rocky spar juts out of the ground at a low angle, showing a sloping but smooth top. The chasm walls narrow a bit to the northeast, causing some of the mist to swirl in that area.
Obvious exits:
Rock Slab Windy Spot WaterFall Steam Vents
It's been a long time since Meg's blocky body has done the rough equivalent of gracing the caern. She is smudged with dirt and her clothes are frayed, with the slightly felted quality of fabric that's been worn through wet and dry a little too often, and she is lying on her back in the thin spring grass at the center of the caern, her satchel to one side of her, and her hand resting lightly on the side of the crystal-streaked boulder. Her eyes are open. Possibly she is trying to decide what the scattered clouds above her resemble most.
Do they resemble white-furred wolves? No? Strange, for one appears at the northern edge of the caern, pausing with ears pricked to study the familiar stranger. Her nose lifts to scent the wind; a brief tail-wag and she makes short work of trotting to the Theurge's side, chuffing a welcome well before coming into pouncing range. Tree-Spirit! She's not quite as pristine as usual - the amount of bark and mud on her paws suggest she's been in four-footed form for longer than just an hour or two.
Meg rolls over onto an elbow, and then pushes herself upright, as graceless as ever. One might think that someone as feral as she seems to have become would have acquired something of a wild animal's grace, but apparently not. She peers at the white wolf, trying to place her. "Hi...? Oh, right. You're the ki--the one with the theories about uber-cats. Hi." She tries to run her hand through her hair but it's much too matted, and she settles for scratching her head with broken, stained nails. "How's it goin'?"
Falcon's Gambit Accepted, the wolf agrees, front paws dancing (though she's not as gauche as to actually gambol). Stilling again, she informs the other that she is a Guardian now before shimmying back into homid. "Still looking for a pack," she continues ruefully with a throwaway to one side. "How have you been, Meg-rhya?"
"Packs're good," says the woman who has steadfastly refused to consider joining one. "I been kinda...I think I was hibernatin' for a while there, or somethin'. Keep tryin' to get into focus. And I ain't 'rhya',' not if you've had your Rite, which I'm pretty sure you have. Good for you for Guardin'."
"It's practically still winter," the Virginian offers wryly. "Maybe you were just doing what trees do - you know, sleeping until the weather's halfway decent?" A shiver and glance around suggests that Shelby thinks that day is still a way off. "Just Meg, then. And thank you. I have to do /something/ - I've just been floating along for the past nine months, and really, that's only impressive if you're a rock. Have you thought about it? Becoming a Guardian, I mean?"
"I guard the woods," Meg says, with a nod toward the north. "No one else does, so I think I'm kind of a fixture. I wouldn't really know how to stop, even if there was a reason to, I think. I been a guardian once or twice, other places. It's a good way to get the land into your bones." She considers the trees, leafing out, on the rim of the canyon. "It's a mite past winter. What month is it, anyway?"
Shelby says "May," as if the sub-72 degree weather were a personal affront. "Why, if you don't mind my asking? ...Guard the trees, that is. Did something happen to them, that they need guarding? I know there's something weird up there, but I don't think anyone's ever told me what."
"They--" Meg stops, blinking. "May, huh? Well, hell. I'm...twenty-nine? Thirty? Jesus, I have no idea. I'm somethin'. Well, it don't matter that much. Seriously, you ain't heard about the woods? How much of a story do you want? The simple version is, there was a blight there that nearly killed everythin' there - all the trees, that is, but that ain't real good for the things that live in an' around them, either - an' woulda crossed the road an' come toward the caern if we hadn't done anythin'. That's why mosta the trees there are still scarred, from the blight. So we stopped it, but...the way it happened left 'em pretty vulnerable, an' I'd offered my life as chiminage to Tree if she would heal the woods, an' she kinda took it out in trade. So I looked after the woods for the first year, an' then she let me loose but I just kinda kept on." A galliard she notably is not, alas.
"May 2011," Shelby agrees, with just a hair too much innocence to be entirely plausible. She listens attentively rather than keep on, and waits a beat or four after the story's done before offering a, "Huh," and a moment later, an actual question. "So... do they still need the hand-holding, do you think? Or is it habit that keeps you there?"
Meg looks vaguely amused. "I think I remembered the 2011 part. Or woulda, if I'd thought about it. But no, it ain't really either of those. It ain't just habit, but they're strong, now. Beautifully strong." And for a moment, there's a softness about her that no one who's never seen her in the umbra would be likely to recognize at all. It takes the bite there could have been out of her next words. "I think I might take exception to 'hand-holdin'', too, but I'll let it go this time. Every single spirit of livin' creatures in those woods gave its life to save them. Every one. They were empty, alive but with the heart cut out of them. I walked every part of them for months to keep them alive and to fight off the Wyrm when it tried to move in while the spirits were gone, and kept walkin' them once they started comin' back and settlin' in, until they were like they should be. Now, they're more like a part of my body than a place. While I belonged to Tree, I could put my hand against one, an' know everythin' they were tellin' each other, who was comin' in, who was in trouble. It ain't like that now, but a place that's been through all that...it's holy. It ain't a caern, maybe not even a glade, exactly - not yet, anyhow, not the whole thing - but it's somethin' worth guardin'. There's spirit there. An' I guess it deserves more'n just me, but I'm what it's got."
The Ragabash tilts her chin as she glances over one shoulder, but whatever she may have thought she'd seen is no longer there, and her attention returns to Meg. "I didn't understand. Thank you. Do you think, then," and her tone is all seriousness, rather than her usual laced-with-humor, "that we should add that territory to the bawn? Because then the Guardians would go up there - we could go up there - and they would get more than 'just you', as you put it. I could ask August-rhya about it, but it might come better from you."
Meg hesitates. "I ain't been around much," she says finally. "But last I checked, we din't really have the numbers to add about two hundred square miles to the bawn. You been guardin' what we got. You think you could more'n double it, an' still do right by it?"
"Do you think one person can adequately guard two hundred square miles, and do right by it?" Shelby counters, shrugging the question away. "Of course not, but we don't get the luxury of just doing what's easy, or doesn't take too much time, do we? I mean, look at me. I don't really want to be tied to the Bawn, but being a Guardian is something that needs doing. Just one pack can't handle it. Maybe one more body isn't going to do anything, but sometimes one makes two, and two makes three, and soon enough we aren't spread so thin that stupid exploding glue-mice get through without anyone noticing."
"It's different, if it's the bawn," Meg says quietly, very definitely. "Make it the bawn, and guardin' is the least of what changes. You're talkin' about a change in the wards, and in the whole...there ain't good words...the wholeness of the caern itself. When the time comes that the sept is strong enough to guard it all, an' the caern is--is blossomin' an' reachin' out to hold more, then yeah, those woods will be ready. An' no. I don't think one person was enough to guard those woods when they were weak, an' I don't think it's enough to guard 'em now they're strong. But I did it. Maybe someone else coulda done it better, but I was given to 'em an' I did it. I walked every part of 'em, three or four times each moon. I know every tree, every nest, every deer path. People call 'em my territory, an' that ain't so. They don't belong to me. I belong to them. It's the task I was given, an' I did it the best I could, an' they survived. An' people helped as they could, too. Came up to patrol now an' then, when their duties let 'em. Brought me food an' blankets when I couldn't leave. Came when I called, the couple times there was trouble I couldn't handle. No. No, I wasn't what they should've had. But it was enough. An' it'll be enough, for as long as it's gotta be." She draws a breath, and tries to let go of the hard edge that's crept into her voice, the brittleness in her posture. And then she says, "Explodin' glue mice?"
"I'm not saying you didn't do a good job - Gaia knows, you probably did better than any four random Garou would have done, either singly or together. I'm saying...," the girl stops there, lips pressed together, and shakes her head. "I'm saying," she tries again a moment later, her own voice softened, "that you should have had more help. I'm trying to think of ways to, to acknowledge what you've done, the work and time and sweat you've put in, to make people say 'Hey, you know what? This is special, what Meg's done'. And that is why I call you Meg-rhya, whether you like it or not. Respect." A corner of her mouth lifts as a peace offering. "Yeah. I learned about them from a new Fang. He's an Ahroun. Apparently they were heading for Edgewood. He and Jacey were there, and there was some... well, you know. Anyway, the mice were sticky, and then they exploded. He lost a hand that way. It's growing back, though. This was last week, so it's probably grown back, past tense."
"Hands're always annoyin'," Meg says vaguely. "Explodin' mice. I'll be damned. Edgewood's the bawn, too - I mean, you don't need me to tell you that, I'm just sayin'." She focuses on Shelby and crooks a wry smile. "I ain't ignorin' what you said. I appreciate it. I just don' know what to say about it. It do'en't really matter what folks say. You guard the caern. That's good enough. An' like I said, folks did help, when they could. I shouldn't've said I did it alone, 'cause it ain't true in the slightest. Zosia an' Norman an' Golden an' the al--I mean, Kaz...Other folks, too. I was just the one who stayed. An' it was fair, because I was the one that asked an' offered. Zosia was pissed at me for it, too." Her smile deepens briefly, in remembered amusement. "This new fang the one Zo was talkin' about? Mark or somethin'?"
"Exploding glue mice," Shelby reminds, because the sticky-portion is the most important. Or something. "You took the lead. You were the spearhead." The other side of her mouth lifts at Zosia's annoyance; a knowing head shake follows after. "Marcos, yes. He's a little younger than me. I don't know where he's staying - I don't think at the house, though. He's very...." Her eyes drift past Meg's shoulder for a moment. "...Ahrouny. He was jonesing for a fight, and that was back when the moon was barely out of Ragabash. He's going to be bouncing off the walls once it gets really big."
Meg grunts and shifts so that she's sitting cross-legged, pulling her satchel into her lap. "One of those," she says knowingly. "How's he do in the umbra?" She begins rooting through the bag for something.
Shelby shrugs again, refocusing. "Don't know. Zosia might, but he's only been around a couple of weeks. Moon hasn't really been big enough to find out." She settles with a sigh, bracing her weight on arms stretched behind her. "Why? Have something you'd like him to look at? Or is it just a general question?"
"Just gen'ral," Meg says, pulling a grubby tangle of twine out from the bag. Apparently that's what she was looking for, as she folds the top back over the bag and sets to work picking the snarl apart, thick fingers oddly delicate in their work. "An' I was thinkin' about it 'cause Zosia said he was kinda young, an' lots of times, with ahrouns, that means all realm muscle, an' tin foil in the umbra. An' let's face it, we do more fightin' on the other side, except when things go really wrong or really stupid. So if he's like that, an' he's still young, might be a good time for him to start workin' on bein' tough on /both/ sides, 'fore he gets stuck in his ways." Because Meg spends so much time thinking and talking about the training needed in the young of the sept.
"That's a good idea," the Ragabash agrees, watching the twine-untangling idly. "I'll tell him to come to you for lessons, then?" Perhaps there's enough humor in her voice to cue Meg to look up; if she does, Shelby's not even trying to hide the laughter dancing in her eyes. "I really haven't spent much time with him, except to know that he's from New York somewhere. This Sept is going to be a shock for him, if it isn't already. ...Speaking of," she adds, rolling first to her knees, then her feet, "He's supposed to teach Rites out-Tribe for his Chiminage. I don't know if he has that covered yet, but if he doesn't...?"
Meg does look up, and her eyes narrow a little at the laughter, but she seems more tolerant than she sometimes is and acknowledges it rather ruefully, a flicker of the eyebrows like an unspoken 'touche'. "He ain't a cub, then, I take it? Yeah, fine, send him my way. I'm more'n happy to learn, an' if he can put up with me, I can maybe show him around a bit. His call, on both counts. But I'm about as out-tribe as he's gonna find, short'f a Gnawer."
"Cliath," the brunette agrees, returning the acknowledgement with another flicker of a smile. "I think he's planning on teaching Jacinta-rhya, though I don't know how that's going. I've never me the woman, so...." Trailing off, she punctuates it with a shrug. "I should keep going - it's nice to see you around again. If you want to leave me a message sometime, Edgewood's probably the best place to do it. I don't think Zosia'd be too keen on playing receptionist for me." She moues wry amusement.
"Jacinta's back?" Up go the eyebrows again. "Guess I'll be walkin' carefully, then." Except, knowing Meg, probably not. "Edgewood, got it. You need me an' I'm not on the bawn, come to the northern edge an' howl. I'll get to you. More likely on the other side than here, but either way. Have a good one." She's almost got the knots out now, but she spares the Fang a glance, sharp but not wholly unkind.
"Won't we all, from what I've heard," the Fang says wryly, adding a friendly nod for Meg's look. "Gaia watch you, Meg...-rhya." A 'hah' escapes for her cleverness -- Meg thought she was safe! - Shelby knows she's gotten caught! -- and the girl surges back into lupus before bounding away, tail flagged in a silent hah-hah.
Currently the moon is in the waxing Gibbous (Galliard) Moon phase (72% full).
Center of the Caern
This is the central point of the 30-meter-wide clearing. The ground is a mixture of dark, rich, muddy soil mixed with clay, though there is an occasional patch of grass. At the center rests a large white boulder, immovable even by the strongest crinos. The boulder is shot through with streaks of quartz that produces scintillating colors when light strikes it just right. It is, for lack of a wholly adequate word, beautiful.
Around you, twenty yards in every direction, stretches the caern. To the southeast, a waterfall plummets over the edge of the chasm into a small pool in the caern; nearby, to the southwest, steam comes from cracks in the ground, perhaps some of the same water. Northwest, a rocky spar juts out of the ground at a low angle, showing a sloping but smooth top. The chasm walls narrow a bit to the northeast, causing some of the mist to swirl in that area.
Obvious exits:
Rock Slab Windy Spot WaterFall Steam Vents
It's been a long time since Meg's blocky body has done the rough equivalent of gracing the caern. She is smudged with dirt and her clothes are frayed, with the slightly felted quality of fabric that's been worn through wet and dry a little too often, and she is lying on her back in the thin spring grass at the center of the caern, her satchel to one side of her, and her hand resting lightly on the side of the crystal-streaked boulder. Her eyes are open. Possibly she is trying to decide what the scattered clouds above her resemble most.
Do they resemble white-furred wolves? No? Strange, for one appears at the northern edge of the caern, pausing with ears pricked to study the familiar stranger. Her nose lifts to scent the wind; a brief tail-wag and she makes short work of trotting to the Theurge's side, chuffing a welcome well before coming into pouncing range. Tree-Spirit! She's not quite as pristine as usual - the amount of bark and mud on her paws suggest she's been in four-footed form for longer than just an hour or two.
Meg rolls over onto an elbow, and then pushes herself upright, as graceless as ever. One might think that someone as feral as she seems to have become would have acquired something of a wild animal's grace, but apparently not. She peers at the white wolf, trying to place her. "Hi...? Oh, right. You're the ki--the one with the theories about uber-cats. Hi." She tries to run her hand through her hair but it's much too matted, and she settles for scratching her head with broken, stained nails. "How's it goin'?"
Falcon's Gambit Accepted, the wolf agrees, front paws dancing (though she's not as gauche as to actually gambol). Stilling again, she informs the other that she is a Guardian now before shimmying back into homid. "Still looking for a pack," she continues ruefully with a throwaway to one side. "How have you been, Meg-rhya?"
"Packs're good," says the woman who has steadfastly refused to consider joining one. "I been kinda...I think I was hibernatin' for a while there, or somethin'. Keep tryin' to get into focus. And I ain't 'rhya',' not if you've had your Rite, which I'm pretty sure you have. Good for you for Guardin'."
"It's practically still winter," the Virginian offers wryly. "Maybe you were just doing what trees do - you know, sleeping until the weather's halfway decent?" A shiver and glance around suggests that Shelby thinks that day is still a way off. "Just Meg, then. And thank you. I have to do /something/ - I've just been floating along for the past nine months, and really, that's only impressive if you're a rock. Have you thought about it? Becoming a Guardian, I mean?"
"I guard the woods," Meg says, with a nod toward the north. "No one else does, so I think I'm kind of a fixture. I wouldn't really know how to stop, even if there was a reason to, I think. I been a guardian once or twice, other places. It's a good way to get the land into your bones." She considers the trees, leafing out, on the rim of the canyon. "It's a mite past winter. What month is it, anyway?"
Shelby says "May," as if the sub-72 degree weather were a personal affront. "Why, if you don't mind my asking? ...Guard the trees, that is. Did something happen to them, that they need guarding? I know there's something weird up there, but I don't think anyone's ever told me what."
"They--" Meg stops, blinking. "May, huh? Well, hell. I'm...twenty-nine? Thirty? Jesus, I have no idea. I'm somethin'. Well, it don't matter that much. Seriously, you ain't heard about the woods? How much of a story do you want? The simple version is, there was a blight there that nearly killed everythin' there - all the trees, that is, but that ain't real good for the things that live in an' around them, either - an' woulda crossed the road an' come toward the caern if we hadn't done anythin'. That's why mosta the trees there are still scarred, from the blight. So we stopped it, but...the way it happened left 'em pretty vulnerable, an' I'd offered my life as chiminage to Tree if she would heal the woods, an' she kinda took it out in trade. So I looked after the woods for the first year, an' then she let me loose but I just kinda kept on." A galliard she notably is not, alas.
"May 2011," Shelby agrees, with just a hair too much innocence to be entirely plausible. She listens attentively rather than keep on, and waits a beat or four after the story's done before offering a, "Huh," and a moment later, an actual question. "So... do they still need the hand-holding, do you think? Or is it habit that keeps you there?"
Meg looks vaguely amused. "I think I remembered the 2011 part. Or woulda, if I'd thought about it. But no, it ain't really either of those. It ain't just habit, but they're strong, now. Beautifully strong." And for a moment, there's a softness about her that no one who's never seen her in the umbra would be likely to recognize at all. It takes the bite there could have been out of her next words. "I think I might take exception to 'hand-holdin'', too, but I'll let it go this time. Every single spirit of livin' creatures in those woods gave its life to save them. Every one. They were empty, alive but with the heart cut out of them. I walked every part of them for months to keep them alive and to fight off the Wyrm when it tried to move in while the spirits were gone, and kept walkin' them once they started comin' back and settlin' in, until they were like they should be. Now, they're more like a part of my body than a place. While I belonged to Tree, I could put my hand against one, an' know everythin' they were tellin' each other, who was comin' in, who was in trouble. It ain't like that now, but a place that's been through all that...it's holy. It ain't a caern, maybe not even a glade, exactly - not yet, anyhow, not the whole thing - but it's somethin' worth guardin'. There's spirit there. An' I guess it deserves more'n just me, but I'm what it's got."
The Ragabash tilts her chin as she glances over one shoulder, but whatever she may have thought she'd seen is no longer there, and her attention returns to Meg. "I didn't understand. Thank you. Do you think, then," and her tone is all seriousness, rather than her usual laced-with-humor, "that we should add that territory to the bawn? Because then the Guardians would go up there - we could go up there - and they would get more than 'just you', as you put it. I could ask August-rhya about it, but it might come better from you."
Meg hesitates. "I ain't been around much," she says finally. "But last I checked, we din't really have the numbers to add about two hundred square miles to the bawn. You been guardin' what we got. You think you could more'n double it, an' still do right by it?"
"Do you think one person can adequately guard two hundred square miles, and do right by it?" Shelby counters, shrugging the question away. "Of course not, but we don't get the luxury of just doing what's easy, or doesn't take too much time, do we? I mean, look at me. I don't really want to be tied to the Bawn, but being a Guardian is something that needs doing. Just one pack can't handle it. Maybe one more body isn't going to do anything, but sometimes one makes two, and two makes three, and soon enough we aren't spread so thin that stupid exploding glue-mice get through without anyone noticing."
"It's different, if it's the bawn," Meg says quietly, very definitely. "Make it the bawn, and guardin' is the least of what changes. You're talkin' about a change in the wards, and in the whole...there ain't good words...the wholeness of the caern itself. When the time comes that the sept is strong enough to guard it all, an' the caern is--is blossomin' an' reachin' out to hold more, then yeah, those woods will be ready. An' no. I don't think one person was enough to guard those woods when they were weak, an' I don't think it's enough to guard 'em now they're strong. But I did it. Maybe someone else coulda done it better, but I was given to 'em an' I did it. I walked every part of 'em, three or four times each moon. I know every tree, every nest, every deer path. People call 'em my territory, an' that ain't so. They don't belong to me. I belong to them. It's the task I was given, an' I did it the best I could, an' they survived. An' people helped as they could, too. Came up to patrol now an' then, when their duties let 'em. Brought me food an' blankets when I couldn't leave. Came when I called, the couple times there was trouble I couldn't handle. No. No, I wasn't what they should've had. But it was enough. An' it'll be enough, for as long as it's gotta be." She draws a breath, and tries to let go of the hard edge that's crept into her voice, the brittleness in her posture. And then she says, "Explodin' glue mice?"
"I'm not saying you didn't do a good job - Gaia knows, you probably did better than any four random Garou would have done, either singly or together. I'm saying...," the girl stops there, lips pressed together, and shakes her head. "I'm saying," she tries again a moment later, her own voice softened, "that you should have had more help. I'm trying to think of ways to, to acknowledge what you've done, the work and time and sweat you've put in, to make people say 'Hey, you know what? This is special, what Meg's done'. And that is why I call you Meg-rhya, whether you like it or not. Respect." A corner of her mouth lifts as a peace offering. "Yeah. I learned about them from a new Fang. He's an Ahroun. Apparently they were heading for Edgewood. He and Jacey were there, and there was some... well, you know. Anyway, the mice were sticky, and then they exploded. He lost a hand that way. It's growing back, though. This was last week, so it's probably grown back, past tense."
"Hands're always annoyin'," Meg says vaguely. "Explodin' mice. I'll be damned. Edgewood's the bawn, too - I mean, you don't need me to tell you that, I'm just sayin'." She focuses on Shelby and crooks a wry smile. "I ain't ignorin' what you said. I appreciate it. I just don' know what to say about it. It do'en't really matter what folks say. You guard the caern. That's good enough. An' like I said, folks did help, when they could. I shouldn't've said I did it alone, 'cause it ain't true in the slightest. Zosia an' Norman an' Golden an' the al--I mean, Kaz...Other folks, too. I was just the one who stayed. An' it was fair, because I was the one that asked an' offered. Zosia was pissed at me for it, too." Her smile deepens briefly, in remembered amusement. "This new fang the one Zo was talkin' about? Mark or somethin'?"
"Exploding glue mice," Shelby reminds, because the sticky-portion is the most important. Or something. "You took the lead. You were the spearhead." The other side of her mouth lifts at Zosia's annoyance; a knowing head shake follows after. "Marcos, yes. He's a little younger than me. I don't know where he's staying - I don't think at the house, though. He's very...." Her eyes drift past Meg's shoulder for a moment. "...Ahrouny. He was jonesing for a fight, and that was back when the moon was barely out of Ragabash. He's going to be bouncing off the walls once it gets really big."
Meg grunts and shifts so that she's sitting cross-legged, pulling her satchel into her lap. "One of those," she says knowingly. "How's he do in the umbra?" She begins rooting through the bag for something.
Shelby shrugs again, refocusing. "Don't know. Zosia might, but he's only been around a couple of weeks. Moon hasn't really been big enough to find out." She settles with a sigh, bracing her weight on arms stretched behind her. "Why? Have something you'd like him to look at? Or is it just a general question?"
"Just gen'ral," Meg says, pulling a grubby tangle of twine out from the bag. Apparently that's what she was looking for, as she folds the top back over the bag and sets to work picking the snarl apart, thick fingers oddly delicate in their work. "An' I was thinkin' about it 'cause Zosia said he was kinda young, an' lots of times, with ahrouns, that means all realm muscle, an' tin foil in the umbra. An' let's face it, we do more fightin' on the other side, except when things go really wrong or really stupid. So if he's like that, an' he's still young, might be a good time for him to start workin' on bein' tough on /both/ sides, 'fore he gets stuck in his ways." Because Meg spends so much time thinking and talking about the training needed in the young of the sept.
"That's a good idea," the Ragabash agrees, watching the twine-untangling idly. "I'll tell him to come to you for lessons, then?" Perhaps there's enough humor in her voice to cue Meg to look up; if she does, Shelby's not even trying to hide the laughter dancing in her eyes. "I really haven't spent much time with him, except to know that he's from New York somewhere. This Sept is going to be a shock for him, if it isn't already. ...Speaking of," she adds, rolling first to her knees, then her feet, "He's supposed to teach Rites out-Tribe for his Chiminage. I don't know if he has that covered yet, but if he doesn't...?"
Meg does look up, and her eyes narrow a little at the laughter, but she seems more tolerant than she sometimes is and acknowledges it rather ruefully, a flicker of the eyebrows like an unspoken 'touche'. "He ain't a cub, then, I take it? Yeah, fine, send him my way. I'm more'n happy to learn, an' if he can put up with me, I can maybe show him around a bit. His call, on both counts. But I'm about as out-tribe as he's gonna find, short'f a Gnawer."
"Cliath," the brunette agrees, returning the acknowledgement with another flicker of a smile. "I think he's planning on teaching Jacinta-rhya, though I don't know how that's going. I've never me the woman, so...." Trailing off, she punctuates it with a shrug. "I should keep going - it's nice to see you around again. If you want to leave me a message sometime, Edgewood's probably the best place to do it. I don't think Zosia'd be too keen on playing receptionist for me." She moues wry amusement.
"Jacinta's back?" Up go the eyebrows again. "Guess I'll be walkin' carefully, then." Except, knowing Meg, probably not. "Edgewood, got it. You need me an' I'm not on the bawn, come to the northern edge an' howl. I'll get to you. More likely on the other side than here, but either way. Have a good one." She's almost got the knots out now, but she spares the Fang a glance, sharp but not wholly unkind.
"Won't we all, from what I've heard," the Fang says wryly, adding a friendly nod for Meg's look. "Gaia watch you, Meg...-rhya." A 'hah' escapes for her cleverness -- Meg thought she was safe! - Shelby knows she's gotten caught! -- and the girl surges back into lupus before bounding away, tail flagged in a silent hah-hah.