Hope-Star tears in and slides the last ten feet, causing a minor rockslide.
Joseph's ears come alert, and he watches the Strider with some amusement. ~You're in a good mood tonight, I see.~
Hope-Star tears off again, at an alarming pace. She barks over her shoulder vaguely. Apparently she's getting out her crazies so she can act cool and dignified for her night's errands. Going to town.
[.......]
Dylan seems withdrawn as he walks through the city. As he reaches the steps of the church, he glances sideways with a mute question.
Sashi does her usual disappearing act as we get into town, making herself small and inconspicuous. She shakes her head at Dylan. "My only trouble is finding a way to do this inconspicuously. Should he realize he is being tested? Why should I come all this way to ask him this thing?"
Dylan smiles slowly, as through returning from a distance. "Since he has been asked the same thing once already, under strange circumstances, he may suspect in any case. I do not ask you to disguise it. You may ask however you see fit. Perhaps," and he looks a little pained, "perhaps, if he understands it to be a test, his answer will change. I ask only that you not tell him what you think of his words until he is done."
Sashi nods sagely. "He doesn't know what I think even when I give it to him in small sharp words."
Sashi steps up to the door, pushing through. "Let us see what happens."
You climb the seven stairs, noting the huge bannisters, and push on the splintered double doors. They creak open a little, and you step into the echoing draftiness of the old church.
Forgotten Church(#1801RAJLM)
Contents:
Douglas
Hank
Elan
Tin Can Wilson
Bailey
Seirian
Mutts!
Books
Gargoyle
Obvious exits:
Street Basement
Seirian shakes her head again, her mood still very solemn and quiet. "None yet, been kinda absorbed in m'own thoughts fer a bit an'ways."
Tin Can Wilson scratches his scraggly chin for a moment, then looks over to Bailey. "You do the honors..." The knock catches him mid-sentence. "... and get the damn door. Shit." He plops back down into the pew.
Douglas turns to look over at the door with a cocking of his head to the side.
Elan smiles at Seirian and tucks the ball in his jacket pocket. It promptly rips through and bounces away into the dark.
Bailey nods once to the one-eyed Gnawer, and turns to Seirian, Herald-like as he stands up, about to speak. But, the door sounds, and he backs down. "All right, all right." He heads over to the door, clapping the 'Gazer cub on the shoulder as he passes. He opens the door, quickly.
Seirian turns her head again at the knock, any expression on her face from what Jimmy said hidden as her face is turned away.
Hank looks towards the door, hrming.
On the step, Dylan stands with Sashi at his side. He offers a polite, almost diffident smile to the Glasswalker. "I am here seeking Douglas once again," he says. "We are. Is he within?"
Tin Can Wilson looks you over.
Sashi lurks with shoulders hunched a step behind Dylan, a rather blurred figure wrapped in something more blanket than coat. Her teeth flash in a thin smile as the door opens.
Bailey's eyes widen as he steps back from the pair of Whisper's Fosterns. He nods to them both, respectfully. "He is, yes," he says, motioning them inside. He looks over to Doug. "Visitors, kid."
Elan gives a quick smile to the Strider and 'Gazer, as he goes over to sit by Hank.
Hank grins, seeing Sashi, and he waves to her and Dylan.
Douglas looks directly at Dylan with a wide grin now worn upon his face. "Hey there Dylan-Rhya. What's going on?"
Seirian smiles to the visitors and takes a few steps away from where she was standing, to give more room.
Dylan steps inside with a quiet "Thank you" to Bailey. As his eyes adjust to the light in the Church, he realizes that while Douglas may be in, so are a great many other people. "I beg your pardon," he says, and then he looks to Douglas. "Hello, Douglas."
Tin Can Wilson nods a quick welcome to the new visitors, then stretches out on the pew. "Don't beg," he says to Dylan. "Especially for our pardon. We ain't got none." He grins.
Sashi slips subduedly into the echoing chamber, scanning it out of the corner of her vision. "I also stopped by to see how things were in town, since Dylan was passing this way," she murmurs quietly. "You are well?" This is directed chiefly towards Hank, Elan, and Jimmy, towards whom her gaze drifts as she examines her surroundings.
Tin Can Wilson waves to Sashi with his newly regrown arm. "As well as we can be, I guess." He lowers his arm, examines his hand, then starts to gnaw on a fingernail. "You guys ain't staying long, are ya?"
Douglas looks to JW then back to Dylan and Sashi, "Anything... up, er, Going on Dylan?"
Sashi shoots a questioning glance at Dylan. "Not too long. Don't let us tresspass on pack-business."
Dylan does not answer Douglas directly. "Perhaps we should...go for a walk," he suggests, his tone only mildly dubious at the thought of a stroll in the scab.
Tin Can Wilson nods and smiles. "Cool. Just got a few things going tonight, is all." He examines his fingernails once more, then begins to chew on them again.
Sashi finally focusses on Douglas again, looking at him more closely. There is a strange wariness in her expression.
'Wild hair, black as night, frames the scared face of this 13 year old,
child. Two small, dull-grey eyes shine something that almost cancels the
light around them. The young child stands at no remarkable height, but
almost exactly average. He wears a heavy gray wool shirt, and tight fitting
blue jeans on his slim, tight muscled figure. He has a look of fear mixed
with awe and wonder about him. (+details)'
Elan nods as he settles in beside Hank.
"Unless," Dylan adds on a second thought, with his eyes on Tin-Can Wilson, "your business includes the cub?"
Seirian lowers her pad of paper from her chest, snags the pencil from behind her ear, and starts scribbling on it between glances at the conversation.
Tin Can Wilson shakes his head. "Nah, you can have him. We really don't need him around right this minute."
Douglas nods to Dylan and steps towards the door, yet still behind both Dylan and Sashi. "Sure thing..."
Bailey looks over to the other Galliard present. He cranes his head, ad is very curious as to what, exactly, the lass is scribbling in that notebook of hers.
Dylan inclines his head. "My thanks," he says. Then he turns back toward the door and leaves without further conversation.
Dylan opens one of the double doors at the back of the church, leaving for the streets.
Dylan has left.
Sashi holds up a hand to the others and follows in step with her packmate.
You pull open one of the two doors and walk down the stone steps to the street.
Jermantown Avenue, Industrial Sector
Contents:
Dylan
Truck
Obvious exits:
Filthy Alley Forgotten Church East West
Douglas comes out of the old church and down the stone steps to the street.
Douglas has arrived.
Dylan proceeds down the sidewalk, bare feet slapping faintly against the cold wet cement without apparent discomfort, though he does look as though he finds the touch unpleasant in some way. A pace or two from the church, he slows to allow his packmate to take the lead, with the exchange of a wordless glance.
Sashi growls. "If it's still there, it would do," she mutters, heading west and north with head down.
You leave the more active industrial sector for the mostly-abandoned area to the west.
[....]
West Bridge Street
The desperate hopelessness of the industrial sector just to the south makes itself felt here, in crowding tenements and dying trees. Many of the people here leave their homes to go to the factories and warehouses, and to return again to noise, crowding, and the tempers of too many people in too small a space. The street is a patchwork of potholes and attempted fillings of
them, cracked across with the imperfection of the work. The occasional shop is tucked in here, small building among those a few stories taller. From 13th to 15th Streets, every inch of land is used, mostly for buildings, occasionally for a small, struggling garden which even in the best years cannot hope to provide all the needed vegetables.
Contents:
Douglas
Dylan
Obvious exits:
HOstel Donut Shop Williams Repair Shop South North East
Currently on this highly windy and cold fall in the general St. Claire area, it is 35 degrees Fahrenheit (1.7 degrees Celsius). The wind is coming from the west-southwest at 40.4 mph. The ground is wet. Skies are hazy with no chance of precipitation.
Sashi breathes a quiet sigh as we get to the gasping-for-life stretch of poor houses and apartments and spare, sad postage-stamp-sized makeshift gardens rattling with the dry husks of last year's vines and plants. "This is what they do to Gaia. No wonder our cubs are thus inside."
Douglas shakes his head but slightly. "Might I mention something, I believe, about... them?..."
Dylan glances at his packmate, and then gives his attention to Douglas, interested. "Of course. Please."
Douglas looks around the houses and dying patches of nature. "This isn't /mans/ doing... It is the doing of individuals. There was never intention to cause harm to the planet, only to make housing for people to live... They believe this more civilized then living in the middle of a forest. My home is a great place... it's not exactly a wealthy place, but for the most part it's beautiful, healthy, and though it may not exactly be a city, it is a pretty large town. I loved that place, though perhaps not the people who lived there. What you see here is perhaps the weavers doing, or the wyrms... but not to be put on human shoulder's alone." Douglas isn't looking at Sashi or Dylan as he says this, but directly at a dying tree a bit off in the distance.
Sashi says quietly, "The way a human makes its house, or a wolf lines its den... they mirror the animal's spirit. They also show the way it was raised. Both. And 'blame' is a word humans invented." She casts a glance sidelong at Dylan, and takes a deep breath, something else obviously on her mind than their surroundings.
Dylan eyes the cub uncertainly. He is homid himself, and yet he seems to want the cub's opinion, here. "What I see around me," he says slowly. "This is the choice of individuals. Individuals did it, chose it, out of wrong-seeing, or wrong-wanting. It is not a piece of how human places of civilization inevitably unfold." The sentences are issued as statements, but his expression, and a faint lift of the tone transforms them into questions.
Douglas looks back at Dylan with a grin behind straighten lips. Well... I'm sorry for bringing up such a grim discussion. Was there someplace you were bringing me?"
Sashi mutters under her breath, "The road is the goal." She adds gently, more audibly, "In fact, I have a question for you, Douglas, but I think your elder asked you one already."
Douglas nods quickly to Sashi... then looks slowly back to Dylan, "Thank you for understanding... There are a many out there that thirst for power, and wealth, and other things that some humans believe hold glory... but I still love the humans that I once belonged to. As much as I love Gaia and the Garou and our cause. They are not evil... one man can be truly evil, but on the other side of the coin, one man can be kinder and more loving of nature then any one Garou as well. The latter people usely don't seek power though, they are the kind who work their whole lives but have nothing to show for it but pride in how their lives have turned out."
"I lived on a place of farming and gardening, as well as wilderness," Dylan says thoughtfully, almost meditatively. "And a place of children - mostly children fostered there. Once we had a child come and live with us who had never seen a live bird up close before. She picked up a baby chick, fascinated by the softness of its feather and the tiny, frantic heartbeat. She held too tight. The chick died. She was not evil, but the bird was still dead."
Douglas looks up into Dylan's eyes searching for some sort of obvious emotion that he might be able to share. "Out of not understanding, comes nothing good... but if she understood before she picked up the chick, perhaps it would be a full grown bird by now? With little chicks of it's own?"
Sashi halts her restless pacing along the struggling weeds at the crumbling sidewalk's edge and turns sharply towards Douglas. "He speaks understanding," she says quietly.
"And will you educate the whole human race, before it picks up the planet?" Dylan asks gently. "And is that different from what we struggle for, already? But come. Sepdet said she had a question for you."
Douglas looks again to Sepdet and then back again to Dylan and nods simply to him. "The whole human race has been damaged far beyond repair..." he then looks to Sashi and awaits patiently .
Sashi ducks her eyes. "I do. Douglas said once he owed Hope-star a debt, for helping with a creature that plagued him. This...debt. Why?" She stops, trying to phrase the question carefully, only now turning her dark gaze fully on him. "What happened at that Rite, Douglas? What led to it, and what did you see during it? Hope-star never heard your side of the tale."
Douglas looks down with Sashi's eyes, and an expression of uneasiness washs over his face. "Ok... The rite was something that I feared but awaited with open arms. At this rite, I was placed in a circle of others and the creature that tormented me was called forth... and I was afraid, and it fed off my fear. Eventually I was learned that the wyrm creature fed on my fear of it and I relized that if with out my fear it was weak, that there was no need to fear it. So I brought up all my willpower and looked dead at it, and saw how weak it was..." he trails off as he looks back up at Sashi for any kind of responce.
Striding jauntily along the sidewalk, a tow-headed young woman makes her way down Bridge Street. A plastic bag emblazone with 'China Cuisine' dangles from her fingers, bulging with its contents. Though the woman's attire is a little too high-class for this particular neighborhood, she moves with the nonchalance of a woman who understands the law of the streets. Blond curls haloed under the streetlamps, she continues on briskly in the chill, boots ringing out against concrete.
Sashi falls silent as the lady cruising through draws too close, and slouches against a mournful excuse for a mailbox, looking about as threadbare as her surroundings. She stares at her feet an takes another deep breath.
Drew looks you over.
Dylan listens thoughtfully to Douglas's answer. He is as threadbare as one could wish, but not at all suited to his environs. His bare feet, his posture, his stillness all draw the eye as an anomaly. He catches his packmate's change in manner and glances over at Drew.
Douglas looks down again as Drew walks by and slowly lifting his gaze again notices Dylan's not seeming exactly at home.
Information for Douglas (Alias 'Mirage-Drinker'):
Douglas is connected.
Email address: elraver@adelphia.net
Location: West Bridge Street
Other Name(s): Douglas Altman , Drinks-the-Mirage / Mirage-Drinker (cub-name)
Race: Garou Sex: male
Breed: Homid Auspice: Ahroun
Tribe: Stargazers Rank: 0 (Cub)
Pack: When I RoP, I'll be happy to.Sept: Hidden Walk.
Position: 'Gazer Cub, one of the few.
OOC: Dex: 4 , Rage: 6 , WP: 7 , Int: 4
Info: (Thursday, September 24th 1998): : Douglas Altman,
Drinks-the-Mirage, has been around since late November of 97'. He is but a
cub, yet already knows the Wyrm... The wyrm does not scare him however, he
does not fear death, for he knows of the glory after life. On the night of
Wednesday, May 27 1998, Douglas with the help of Dylan, Lightseeker,
Hope-Star, and most importantly the great one Li Kao, the curse on his
family was abolished and douglas was able to deliver the finishing blow to
the creature that was bound to him. Douglas is no longer unsure about life,
he believes he has a place in life, otherwise he would not have survived
this long. He is happy recently for being able to help the cub, Julie,
through shifting.
The passing woman meets each of the trio's eyes if they let her, neither unfriendly nor inviting, and moves by. She doesn't seem in a hurry, and the only unusual thing that hangs about her is the fact that she is a young, attractive woman walking the streets alone in a less-than-savory side of town. The sounds of her footfalls eventually fade into the urban night.
Sashi sighs and watches the stranger out of the corner of her eye with a faint air of sadness, hands jamming deeper into the shelter of her makeshift winter coat.
Douglas looks back again to Sashi and takes a deep breath. "Shall I continue?"
Drew heads south, into the industrial district.
Drew has left.
Sashi nods quietly, as the woman passes on. Her brow has furrowed more deeply, but she holds more questions for the moment. "Please."
Douglas again takes a deep breath letting it sit in his lungs for a second and releasing it in a yawn. "What led to the rite?... hrm... I was cursed... I had a burden upon me placed on my bloodline by the wyrm in return for some sort of disservice one of my ancestors did to it. I don't truly know the nature of this curse, only that it tormented me when I came here to St. Claire. Eventually Dylan saw the creature that plagued me and through events I am myself unsure of arranged for help in defeating the creature and destroying the curse. After the great one Li Kao told me what I had to do, I did all that was asked happily... Except perhaps giving up my jacket was a bit difficult to do. But I've grown out of the jacket recently... Anyways, after a lot of hard work I was brought with others to the place that I would be freed of the wyrm's grasp."
Sashi presses her lips together debatingly. "But what did the rite mean? The...the willow? And the fires? And...Li Kao? What is it that made these things able to wring the terrible creature from your soul?"
Douglas looks to Sashi with a gaze obviously looking for questions within questions. "Friendship?... brotherhood and sisterhood... Caring... Understanding... Knowledge. These things helped to defeat the beast... I don't know if anything else, the willow and the fires, really mattered for more then a focus."
Sashi puffs out her cheeks. "And for this, you are in debt to those who led the rite." She shakes her head quietly at Dylan. "He speaks some truth, but doesn't know it. He speaks much that misses the mark, and doesn't know that either."
Dylan holds Sepdet's eyes for a long moment, then nods. "Come, Douglas," he says gently. "I will walk you back to your city den."
Sashi drops her eyes before her packmate's gaze, and goes silent and "small" again.
Douglas looks back to Dylan with a look of confusion on his face. Then saying softly to Sashi, "Ok. Though I don't believe myself in debt for their help... but for the principal of their giving to help me. If ever they were in need, ever, I would return the friendship again and again." after this he turns to follow Dylan again.
Dylan sets off into the city in silence. As the three of them draw near the church, however, he says one last thing to the cub: "You will be asked one more time. Think, Douglas. Or stop thinking. One or the other." Then he slips off into the sparkling city-darkness with Sepdet at his side, and does not look back.
Douglas stands there for a second... wondering how with so little words Dylan can hit him so hard. Almost feeling like he has to pick himself off of the ground first he makes his way behind Dylan and Sepdet... his decision made.
Dylan stops and turns around, face as unreadably calm and patient as it ever is, serenity like an abyss at the feet. He looks at Douglas, and waits.
Sashi goes a few steps past before realizing Dylan's stopped, her footsteps having unconsciously sped up as they turned for home. She turns back, expression less patient, and more caged.
Douglas only nods to Dylan slowly, eyes locked on his stargazer elders' own unreadable eyes. He steps forward to stand closer to Dylan.
Dylan lifts a gnarled hand and sets it on Douglas's shoulder, accepting the eye-to-eye gaze as few garou will.
Douglas continues his gaze even as a slight shudder hits him with the laying of Dylan's hand. Douglas' eyes are fighting to be silent, and as unreadable as possible... and by some force of will achieve this state to all but the most observant, which would seea bit of longing in his silent gaze.
Sashi observes this silent confrontation mutely, a trace of hauntedness dogging the hollows of her face.
Dylan's face shifts suddenly, a breach, a break, and then it's gone. In its place is a profound, aching weariness. He pulls his hand back and half-turns away. "I am not all-powerful, Douglas," he says in a low voice, almost a whisper. "I do what I can and grieve when it is not enough. Go back to your friends. I will see you again."
Douglas then drops his dead gaze but remains looking at Dylan's face. "Thank you Dylan-rhya."
Dylan moves on into the darkness and is gone.
Sashi nods unconsciously, making a hollow birdlike noise in the back of her throat as she slips after.
Douglas remains looking in Dylan's direction as he walks away... but the searching gaze that was before does not return to his eyes when Dylan leaves.
11/24/98