...And all your charms
Jun. 12th, 2011 08:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shelbyrouIt is currently 15:54 Pacific Time on Sat Jun 11 2011.
Currently the moon is in the waxing Gibbous (Galliard) Moon phase (69% full).
Bawn: Central Forest
The forest is dark and quiet. No, not quiet. Listening. The ancient firs rear up all around, branches interwoven in a dense roof of dark green. Fallen needles lie in a thick carpet on the ground, heaped up around the drifts of undergrowth clinging to the scarce patches of light reaching the forest floor. Every sound seems muffled, and the sharp scent of pine hangs in the air like the clouds of midges that swarm ceaselessly beneath the branches. Even the many deer who roam here seem to step more quietly than usual, and the songbirds seldom sing.
The forest spreads out around you in all directions.
Obvious exits:
Story Tree Caern of the Hidden Walk Western Bawn Southern Bawn Northern Bawn Eastern Bawn
Though it's sunny elsewhere, here beneath the towering pines it's dim and cool, the chirping of birds and ray-gun cries of irritated red squirrels marking a forest at peace. An additional sound breaks the silence at the foot of one tree: Shelby, in homid, legs folded tailor style with hands upturned on her knees, murmuring a repetitive mantra.
The squirrels and birds cease suddenly, the first hint that something is coming through the forest. Perhaps then it is not surprising when a sleek white wolf picks her way along a game trail, her nose pressed close to the ground as she sniffs first here then there in a regular motion. She angles wide around the meditating ragabash and settles down to wait, looking reasonably patient.
Maybe Shelby wasn't meditating after all, or maybe the theurge got lucky in her timing, but it's only a few minutes after the wolf's arrival that the ragabash blinks back to herself and offers her elder a rueful smile. "Afternoon, Falcon's Grace-rhya. I'd thought I was going to have to come find you."
Falcon's Grace's ear flicks in a greeting before the fostern starts to gnaw at her paw. Oh? she asks in an absent sort of question. Is there reason I should be found? She seems focused on something in her paw, though her pale eyes flicker up toward Shelby fairly regularly.
"Because I wanted to talk to you," obviously, though Shelby doesn't say that bit. "Remember a few weeks ago, when I was going to sleep in the caern to see if I'd get some dreams? Well. Apparently I'm like the man who prayed for snow and got a blizzard. I keep getting these weird... I don't know, fragments."
Falcon's Grace's ears perk upwards and she looks far more alert. Alert enough to shift up to her birth form. "Dreams?" She can't pretend her question is -casual- but she can tilt her head expectantly.
Shelby acknowledges, "Dreams," and settles back against the tree's trunk, fingers idly playing with a fallen twig. "I've tried to put things in order, but they're dreams," she offers this almost as a warning, "so they don't make much sense. The first one I remember I was sitting in class. In college, I think. Taking botany, or maybe biology or something. But I remember looking at the book and something was... I don't know. Off? Something was strange about the book, but I don't remember what. The pictures, maybe."
Zosia's eyes don't precisely glaze over but, as usual in the mention of a school subject, she looks decidedly unenthusiastic. "Ah. School. Something was strange? But if you can't tell what, it is difficult to pull things and meanings from it.
"I know," the younger girl acknowledges, irritably stripping a few needles. "Trust me, I know. Why do you think I didn't tell you when I first had it? Except I keep having that dream, or if not that one specifically, one like it. I've had a few with the book, and there was one with a whiteboard, except...." She trails off with an irritated headshake, this time at herself. "OK. Basic biology - plants get energy from the sun, right? Except I was taking a test, and I got that one wrong!" Faint outrage colors her voice, even now, even considering the circumstances.
Zosia spent her entire biology class--shortly before she firsted--flirting with several young men in her class and reading fashion magazines instead of paying attention. Thus, she gives Shelby a bit of a blank look before saying, cautiously, "Okay. But how did you get that wrong?" There's something to her voice--a hint that she's working on an idea but not quite there yet.
"I didn't!" Or so Shelby claims. "Plants get energy from the sun. Everyone knows that! But the test came back, and it was marked wrong!" A thought strikes her, cutting off her remembered outrage, and turning the girl thoughtful. "...I got them all wrong."
"I've dreamed of the sun. Not directly of course, but indirectly. Sisters who are probably Garou and who worship Luna and Helios both. The dreams are getting complicated. Norman has been having them too." Zosia purses her lips. "Dreams. Sun."
"Plants," Shelby supplies, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. "What has Norman-rhya been dreaming of?
"The same thing as me. Sisters. Sisters and a man that comes between them. At first, it didn't seem like that but the latest dream? The latest dream has turned...unpleasant." Zosia taps her fingers against the ground. "Plants. Dreams. Sun. Moon."
Shelby shakes her head again, thoughtfully this time. "Something getting between things." Her attention sharpens back to the Theurge. "What sort of unpleasant? Lots of blood, or what?"
"No. They were in a high-rise and getting on an elevator. The sisters. They were going to go up but at the last minute, the man gets on the elevator with one sister and they go down, together. And the one left behind screams and hammers the door." Zosia purses her lips, her eyes distant. "But are they related?"
"Don't know," Shelby has to admit, pulling her legs just that little bit closer. "You and Norman, almost certainly. I've got the outliers. Yours almost sounds like a choice being made. I don't remember anything about choosing in mine."
"Not really a choice," Zosia muses, toying a lock of hair around her finger as she continues staring into space. "I mean, the abandonned sister didn't have a choice. And he just did something, not that the other sister minded. But he didn't ask. He just acted."
The ragabash grunts and settles her chin to her knees. "Supposed to go up, went down instead. And maybe... the other girl was supposed to get on the elevator? Or did the left behind sister think they were going up instead? Maybe you don't have that much detail," she acknowledges after a moment. "I mean, it's a dream, right? I don't know that I could tell you any more about my school dreams."
"The two sisters were going to go up on the elevator together until the man came along." Zosia looks frustrated, huffing. "The sun is important. We don't have nearly as much about the sun as the moon."
Shelby huhs, looking intrigued rather than irritated. "I don't know what to say, Zosia. I thought you'd be able to give me a hint or two to figure my dreams out, but it sounds like I've just added to the confusion. They're both so... different. Or at least they seem so, on the surface. They're probably related; I just don't see how." Yet.
"They both have the sun." Zosia stops then, as that is where the similarities appear to end. "Well." She blinks slowly then smacks her palm across her head. "This is a fucking Chimera caern. And the Great Hunt is coming up."
"Only tangentially," the once-pre-law wannabe is compelled to point out. "There was a question about how many legs quadrupeds have, too." From the twist of her lips, perhaps the answer isn't 'four' after all. "Do you think the Lady is trying to give us hints about the Hunt? What could she be saying, though?"
"Dunno. The Hunt, however, is very important and unlike most of ours starts during the day, at high noon." Zosia sighs faintly. "And it is aimed at some great creature of the Wyrm. And if the Great Hunt fails at many Septs, the apocolypse is here."
Shelby says, "That part I know, from back at Sunlit Waters." Another thought twists her lips but the girl drops her eyes rather than voice it. A moment later she tells her knees, "I'd like to go on it. I don't have any fetishes or talens or anything, but I definitely want to go."
"Why wouldn't you?" Zosia asks, sounding rather confused. "You are a cliath, after all. There are some who prefer to not go on the big rites and they are the ones who Guardian. I know that most of Temperance will be going."
"That's what I meant," Shelby says, looking up again. "I don't want to be shuffled off to sit on the sidelines just because I'm not in a pack or anything. This is my first Great Hunt. I may not be the greatest warrior Gaia's ever seen, but I want to do my part."
Zosia just stares at Shelby strangely, like she can't quite follow the ragabash's logic. "Why would you have to sit on the sidelines?"
Zosia's eyes meet Shelby's for a moment, the brunette clearly debating how she'll answer. After a heartbeat, however, one side of her mouth curves. "Exactly."
"You're a fucking Silver Fang," Zosia says in a firm, no-nonsense voice. "Our tribe does not sit on the sidelines. Regardless of whether they are in a pack or not."
"I was going to say that," Shelby claims lightly, "but I thought it might be overkill. So. That's settled." She sets down the nigh-forgotten pine twig to prove it. "If I can remember any more about the dreams, or when I have another, I'll come find you. I haven't had another one of the four directions dreams, and nobody's said anything about seeing anything like I did the last time I was there."
"People are having them but we aren't talking. Again." Zosia shakes her head, touching her forehead with one finger. "Too spread out in this sept. We don't come together enough."
Shelby shrugs. "It's a big sept. Not just population, but in square miles. It's not an excuse, but it is a reason. I haven't seen you for how long? And we're in the same tribe. But I agree with you - nobody talks. For all this is a multi-tribal sept, everyone's content to stay to their tribe, their pack, their territory."
"Yes. But that's been a problem in any multi-tribe sept. Not like Sunlit Waters wasn't chock full of problems." Zosia's only a little bitter. "All the things I should have been properly taught but wasn't allowed, having to hope the older Garou didn't snap and throat you all the time."
Shelby only says, "Mmm," and picks a different path to travel, thanks. "It would help if we had a tribal Galliard. Ideally, a good galliard, to show the others how it's done. ...Others in general, not any specific galliard in particular, though I'm sure I could come up with a few if you gave me some time."
Zosia sighs. "Once upon a time Cole was a good galliard. Then he started wallowing in his own misery. Quentin was good too but he was driven away long before you got here. Honestly, you and Tim have done a much better job of late than any of our actual galliards."
"Ragaliard? Galabash?" Shelby suggests, as if seriously considering a career change. "Galabash rolls off the tongue easier, you have to admit."
"If only the two moons were close together so you could pretend that no, really, you were born on the cusp." Zosia smiles at that. No. She grins.
Shelby blinks at Zosia for a moment - did she actually just see what she thought she just saw? - before giggling. "That's all right. Philolard and Gallirhoun just don't have the same snap." She rises gracefully to her feet (shooting Zosia another quick look on the way up) before brushing off her jeans. "I'm going to sleep in the Caern again tonight, so I'll try and find you tomorrow whether I dream again or not. Are you going to be covering the west tomorrow?"
"Umbra. I'll be umbral tonight and tomorrow." Zosia plays the innocent at the various looks. She has no idea why Shelby would be startled. "So if you need me while Luna's in the sky, that's where I will be."
"I'll look for you," the Ragabash promises before shifting to her own four-footed shape. A shake from head to toe sends a few bits of detritus flying, and the wolf lolls her tongue out. Run safe, hunt well.
Zosia studies her nails with a frown before nodding to the wolf. "The same. Dream well--maybe we'll get more hints."
I will pounce on them and hold them still for you to see, Falcon's Gambit promises, demonstrating on the hapless fallen twig before spinning to go, ears perked.
Zosia laughs to herself, a silent sort of laugh that may well not be noticed by the other Silver Fang. It really is a shame the theurge doesn't smile more often.
Currently the moon is in the waxing Gibbous (Galliard) Moon phase (69% full).
Bawn: Central Forest
The forest is dark and quiet. No, not quiet. Listening. The ancient firs rear up all around, branches interwoven in a dense roof of dark green. Fallen needles lie in a thick carpet on the ground, heaped up around the drifts of undergrowth clinging to the scarce patches of light reaching the forest floor. Every sound seems muffled, and the sharp scent of pine hangs in the air like the clouds of midges that swarm ceaselessly beneath the branches. Even the many deer who roam here seem to step more quietly than usual, and the songbirds seldom sing.
The forest spreads out around you in all directions.
Obvious exits:
Story Tree Caern of the Hidden Walk Western Bawn Southern Bawn Northern Bawn Eastern Bawn
Though it's sunny elsewhere, here beneath the towering pines it's dim and cool, the chirping of birds and ray-gun cries of irritated red squirrels marking a forest at peace. An additional sound breaks the silence at the foot of one tree: Shelby, in homid, legs folded tailor style with hands upturned on her knees, murmuring a repetitive mantra.
The squirrels and birds cease suddenly, the first hint that something is coming through the forest. Perhaps then it is not surprising when a sleek white wolf picks her way along a game trail, her nose pressed close to the ground as she sniffs first here then there in a regular motion. She angles wide around the meditating ragabash and settles down to wait, looking reasonably patient.
Maybe Shelby wasn't meditating after all, or maybe the theurge got lucky in her timing, but it's only a few minutes after the wolf's arrival that the ragabash blinks back to herself and offers her elder a rueful smile. "Afternoon, Falcon's Grace-rhya. I'd thought I was going to have to come find you."
Falcon's Grace's ear flicks in a greeting before the fostern starts to gnaw at her paw. Oh? she asks in an absent sort of question. Is there reason I should be found? She seems focused on something in her paw, though her pale eyes flicker up toward Shelby fairly regularly.
"Because I wanted to talk to you," obviously, though Shelby doesn't say that bit. "Remember a few weeks ago, when I was going to sleep in the caern to see if I'd get some dreams? Well. Apparently I'm like the man who prayed for snow and got a blizzard. I keep getting these weird... I don't know, fragments."
Falcon's Grace's ears perk upwards and she looks far more alert. Alert enough to shift up to her birth form. "Dreams?" She can't pretend her question is -casual- but she can tilt her head expectantly.
Shelby acknowledges, "Dreams," and settles back against the tree's trunk, fingers idly playing with a fallen twig. "I've tried to put things in order, but they're dreams," she offers this almost as a warning, "so they don't make much sense. The first one I remember I was sitting in class. In college, I think. Taking botany, or maybe biology or something. But I remember looking at the book and something was... I don't know. Off? Something was strange about the book, but I don't remember what. The pictures, maybe."
Zosia's eyes don't precisely glaze over but, as usual in the mention of a school subject, she looks decidedly unenthusiastic. "Ah. School. Something was strange? But if you can't tell what, it is difficult to pull things and meanings from it.
"I know," the younger girl acknowledges, irritably stripping a few needles. "Trust me, I know. Why do you think I didn't tell you when I first had it? Except I keep having that dream, or if not that one specifically, one like it. I've had a few with the book, and there was one with a whiteboard, except...." She trails off with an irritated headshake, this time at herself. "OK. Basic biology - plants get energy from the sun, right? Except I was taking a test, and I got that one wrong!" Faint outrage colors her voice, even now, even considering the circumstances.
Zosia spent her entire biology class--shortly before she firsted--flirting with several young men in her class and reading fashion magazines instead of paying attention. Thus, she gives Shelby a bit of a blank look before saying, cautiously, "Okay. But how did you get that wrong?" There's something to her voice--a hint that she's working on an idea but not quite there yet.
"I didn't!" Or so Shelby claims. "Plants get energy from the sun. Everyone knows that! But the test came back, and it was marked wrong!" A thought strikes her, cutting off her remembered outrage, and turning the girl thoughtful. "...I got them all wrong."
"I've dreamed of the sun. Not directly of course, but indirectly. Sisters who are probably Garou and who worship Luna and Helios both. The dreams are getting complicated. Norman has been having them too." Zosia purses her lips. "Dreams. Sun."
"Plants," Shelby supplies, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. "What has Norman-rhya been dreaming of?
"The same thing as me. Sisters. Sisters and a man that comes between them. At first, it didn't seem like that but the latest dream? The latest dream has turned...unpleasant." Zosia taps her fingers against the ground. "Plants. Dreams. Sun. Moon."
Shelby shakes her head again, thoughtfully this time. "Something getting between things." Her attention sharpens back to the Theurge. "What sort of unpleasant? Lots of blood, or what?"
"No. They were in a high-rise and getting on an elevator. The sisters. They were going to go up but at the last minute, the man gets on the elevator with one sister and they go down, together. And the one left behind screams and hammers the door." Zosia purses her lips, her eyes distant. "But are they related?"
"Don't know," Shelby has to admit, pulling her legs just that little bit closer. "You and Norman, almost certainly. I've got the outliers. Yours almost sounds like a choice being made. I don't remember anything about choosing in mine."
"Not really a choice," Zosia muses, toying a lock of hair around her finger as she continues staring into space. "I mean, the abandonned sister didn't have a choice. And he just did something, not that the other sister minded. But he didn't ask. He just acted."
The ragabash grunts and settles her chin to her knees. "Supposed to go up, went down instead. And maybe... the other girl was supposed to get on the elevator? Or did the left behind sister think they were going up instead? Maybe you don't have that much detail," she acknowledges after a moment. "I mean, it's a dream, right? I don't know that I could tell you any more about my school dreams."
"The two sisters were going to go up on the elevator together until the man came along." Zosia looks frustrated, huffing. "The sun is important. We don't have nearly as much about the sun as the moon."
Shelby huhs, looking intrigued rather than irritated. "I don't know what to say, Zosia. I thought you'd be able to give me a hint or two to figure my dreams out, but it sounds like I've just added to the confusion. They're both so... different. Or at least they seem so, on the surface. They're probably related; I just don't see how." Yet.
"They both have the sun." Zosia stops then, as that is where the similarities appear to end. "Well." She blinks slowly then smacks her palm across her head. "This is a fucking Chimera caern. And the Great Hunt is coming up."
"Only tangentially," the once-pre-law wannabe is compelled to point out. "There was a question about how many legs quadrupeds have, too." From the twist of her lips, perhaps the answer isn't 'four' after all. "Do you think the Lady is trying to give us hints about the Hunt? What could she be saying, though?"
"Dunno. The Hunt, however, is very important and unlike most of ours starts during the day, at high noon." Zosia sighs faintly. "And it is aimed at some great creature of the Wyrm. And if the Great Hunt fails at many Septs, the apocolypse is here."
Shelby says, "That part I know, from back at Sunlit Waters." Another thought twists her lips but the girl drops her eyes rather than voice it. A moment later she tells her knees, "I'd like to go on it. I don't have any fetishes or talens or anything, but I definitely want to go."
"Why wouldn't you?" Zosia asks, sounding rather confused. "You are a cliath, after all. There are some who prefer to not go on the big rites and they are the ones who Guardian. I know that most of Temperance will be going."
"That's what I meant," Shelby says, looking up again. "I don't want to be shuffled off to sit on the sidelines just because I'm not in a pack or anything. This is my first Great Hunt. I may not be the greatest warrior Gaia's ever seen, but I want to do my part."
Zosia just stares at Shelby strangely, like she can't quite follow the ragabash's logic. "Why would you have to sit on the sidelines?"
Zosia's eyes meet Shelby's for a moment, the brunette clearly debating how she'll answer. After a heartbeat, however, one side of her mouth curves. "Exactly."
"You're a fucking Silver Fang," Zosia says in a firm, no-nonsense voice. "Our tribe does not sit on the sidelines. Regardless of whether they are in a pack or not."
"I was going to say that," Shelby claims lightly, "but I thought it might be overkill. So. That's settled." She sets down the nigh-forgotten pine twig to prove it. "If I can remember any more about the dreams, or when I have another, I'll come find you. I haven't had another one of the four directions dreams, and nobody's said anything about seeing anything like I did the last time I was there."
"People are having them but we aren't talking. Again." Zosia shakes her head, touching her forehead with one finger. "Too spread out in this sept. We don't come together enough."
Shelby shrugs. "It's a big sept. Not just population, but in square miles. It's not an excuse, but it is a reason. I haven't seen you for how long? And we're in the same tribe. But I agree with you - nobody talks. For all this is a multi-tribal sept, everyone's content to stay to their tribe, their pack, their territory."
"Yes. But that's been a problem in any multi-tribe sept. Not like Sunlit Waters wasn't chock full of problems." Zosia's only a little bitter. "All the things I should have been properly taught but wasn't allowed, having to hope the older Garou didn't snap and throat you all the time."
Shelby only says, "Mmm," and picks a different path to travel, thanks. "It would help if we had a tribal Galliard. Ideally, a good galliard, to show the others how it's done. ...Others in general, not any specific galliard in particular, though I'm sure I could come up with a few if you gave me some time."
Zosia sighs. "Once upon a time Cole was a good galliard. Then he started wallowing in his own misery. Quentin was good too but he was driven away long before you got here. Honestly, you and Tim have done a much better job of late than any of our actual galliards."
"Ragaliard? Galabash?" Shelby suggests, as if seriously considering a career change. "Galabash rolls off the tongue easier, you have to admit."
"If only the two moons were close together so you could pretend that no, really, you were born on the cusp." Zosia smiles at that. No. She grins.
Shelby blinks at Zosia for a moment - did she actually just see what she thought she just saw? - before giggling. "That's all right. Philolard and Gallirhoun just don't have the same snap." She rises gracefully to her feet (shooting Zosia another quick look on the way up) before brushing off her jeans. "I'm going to sleep in the Caern again tonight, so I'll try and find you tomorrow whether I dream again or not. Are you going to be covering the west tomorrow?"
"Umbra. I'll be umbral tonight and tomorrow." Zosia plays the innocent at the various looks. She has no idea why Shelby would be startled. "So if you need me while Luna's in the sky, that's where I will be."
"I'll look for you," the Ragabash promises before shifting to her own four-footed shape. A shake from head to toe sends a few bits of detritus flying, and the wolf lolls her tongue out. Run safe, hunt well.
Zosia studies her nails with a frown before nodding to the wolf. "The same. Dream well--maybe we'll get more hints."
I will pounce on them and hold them still for you to see, Falcon's Gambit promises, demonstrating on the hapless fallen twig before spinning to go, ears perked.
Zosia laughs to herself, a silent sort of laugh that may well not be noticed by the other Silver Fang. It really is a shame the theurge doesn't smile more often.