Daniel Broken Hammer

[-red-] It turns out getting into the Red Talon homelands is no mean feat.

When the pack approaches the Ritesmistress for advice, this is what they're told. The Homelands themselves are bastions of tribal might and purity. Only wolves of good standing with their own tribes may expect to enter their own homelands freely. All other homelands, all other tribes -- some sort of test or challenge will take place, the difficulty of which will depend on the tribal totem's inclination, nature, and mood.

The Red Talon homeland, distant, remote, wild and insular, is certainly one of the more forbidding. It doesn't help, either, that given what happened with Griffin's more ... militant children, the Sentinels are now neither Red Talons nor likely to be in particularly good standing with the tribal totem. Nevertheless, if they persist, Bleeding Heart directs them to find a Red Talon willing to guide them there.

Daniel suggests going north. Deep in the Canadian wilds, he says, there are still packs of Red Talons roaming free; when he left his home sept, they still had loose ties to remote Talon septs. He names one or two. The Warder opens a moonbridge to the most promising choice.

Thousands of miles rush by in moments: the world rushing around them, as though they themselves stood still.

When they slam to a stop, the air is cold and brittle; it smells of fresh snow, hard earth, evergreen trees dark with winter. And huge, bristling dark wolves, the loyal of the Sept of the Summer Snow, are all around them. It takes three days, three nights, and a savage hunt for elk and deer enough to feed the Talons' cubs before the Talons will lend them one of their own to serve as a guide. Even then, the guide they get is easily the lowliest Theurge of the Sept still capable of the task.

Now they're trekking into the Umbra, following single-file behind Three White Paws, Cliath Theurge of the Red Talons. She is clearly unhappy to have been saddled with this duty, and runs far ahead of them without attempting to converse. In fact, the only thing she's said so far is: Follow. Remember path. You will need, when come back.

The pristine penumbra of the deep wilds drops away; for a while they run through shadows and smoke. Then they press deeper, leaving the familiar shadows of the earth-realm behind. Spirits get stranger, more inexplicable. Eventually, the Wyld comes to dominate: shifting rustling all around them, growing beneath their feet, twisting, rampant, riotous. Out of nowhere, a distant roaring, which grows and grows until a waterfall as high as the sky pours down before them.

Here, Three White Paws stops and sits. She barks at them:

"This, home of tribe. You show respect, apeborns. Do not forget how come back." A savage, laughing bark as she turns back the way she came, "If Griffin lets!"

Then she's gone. The waterfall sheets down before them. It appears they're meant to pass through it.

[Buried Hatchet] From the moment just before they step out of the moonbridge into the Sept of Summer Snow to the moment Three White Paws leaves them, Hatchet has not been seen outside of lupus or hispo. He's rolled in snow and splashed in streams to clean blood off himself, he's brawled with a Cliath Ragabash who went out of his motherfucking way to ask to be dominated, and he has shown a side of himself to his own packmates that none of them have ever seen in full before:

Hatchet is an animal. He is more comfortable here than he is in Chicago, more comfortable where the laws of wild things are blatant and unhidden beneath layers of human-affected structures and attitudes. He is comfortable in the snow, in the cold, in the wildness of woods. He remembers.

More than once over the days they spend with the Talons, Hatchet stops and stares southeast, stock still and golden eyes glazing as his ears perk, as though he's listening for something. More than once, the Sentinels find him outside, sniffing and digging in the snow late, late into the morning when so many of the Red Talons are sleeping off last night's hunting, looking for something. He cannot explain what he does, or why he does it. When he sleeps, he sleeps so that his packmates are guarded, even if Nate is a bit... left out of the immediate circle, these days.

It was clear from the moment they came here that among the Talons, his status as Omega was not going to be a gentle, flexible thing. All the same: not a one of the hosting tribe are permitted to abuse any member of Hatchet's pack. He's a young wolf here, a Fostern in a sept where that isn't a rank of leadership, but he is Alpha nonetheless.

Blood Summons is, unfortunately, unable to be protected under that banner. And he's a metis. Hatchet does what he can. He watches how the Fostern Fenrir handles himself. Closely.

At the end of three days, though, they follow a Theurge and they come to a waterfall and she run-dances off, leaving them behind, leaving them to their own devices. Hatchet chuffs, howling a grateful goodbye after her, then swivels his head back around to the others. There's no hesitation, then: he goes first through the waterfall, padding along slowly at the start.

[End Transmission] It's been a while [read: her whole remembered life] since Echo has been so far from the domain of the Weaver-run cities. Born in one of the biggest webs of all, New York City, to come so far into the wilds [and into the Wylds] is to step completely out of the young urrah's comfort zone. Of perhaps all of her pack, save perhaps Word on the Street, End Transmission understands herself to be the least trusted by the Red Talon that leads them.

Oh, they were all city wolves, all different but she was a child of the Weaver.

She had, according to many Garou who had sought to insult her tribe in the past, forgotten how to be the wolf, so caught up in her apeskin. So busy with her technology. None of which would help her out here. Out of respect, or perhaps simply out of ease, Echo follows along in her Lupus form along the trail, her mottled coat broadcasting her interbred ancestry like nothing else.

[End Transmission] It's been a while [read: her whole remembered life] since Echo has been so far from the domain of the Weaver-run cities. Born in one of the biggest webs of all, New York City, to come so far into the wilds [and into the Wylds] is to step completely out of the young urrah's comfort zone. Of perhaps all of her pack, save perhaps Word on the Street, End Transmission understands herself to be the least trusted by the Red Talon that leads them.

Oh, they were all city wolves, all different but she was a child of the Weaver.

She had, according to many Garou who had sought to insult her tribe in the past, forgotten how to be the wolf, so caught up in her apeskin. So busy with her technology. None of which would help her out here. Out of respect, or perhaps simply out of ease, Echo follows along in her Lupus form along the trail, her mottled coat broadcasting her interbred ancestry like nothing else. She had been threatened, and snarled at, and fought with many times since they arrived, though her Alpha's presence and her rank had afforded her some degree of reprieve.

When they reach the waterfall, the Glass Walker flicks her ears back, turns to watch the Theurge run off, and then follows when Hatchet begins through the waterfall.

[End Transmission] [stupid jove posted before I was finished. Ahem.]

[Word on the Street] It was an exhilirating rush to travel via moonbridge, as the sights and sounds rushed by till a point when they reached their intended destination. To say Nate was out of his depth in this environment was a bit of an understatement, as the Bone Gnawer at the rear of the pack, looked around his current surroundings. Word on the Street born of the Jackal's blood...the lowest of the tribes... he doubted the Talons would give him much quarter.

The air here almost gives Nate a heady rush, so crisp and pure. The rich, pungent smells and stenches of the city soon forgotten as the Gnawer clears his lungs. They had hunted together as a full pack for the first time in awhile it seemed. Nate relished watching how his fellow packmates hunted as he took his lead from them.

It was his time to learn , just as it had been Joey's. However Nate also had the task of re-earning his Alpha's trust, so he wasn't surprised if he found himself off to the side of the pack. But he wasn't going to be dissuaded from holding his own and show that he was a member of this pack through thought and action.

They eventually reach their destination, he watches as each of his pack mates head under the waterfall falling in behind them once they had all gone through.

[Face of Death] Joey traverses the distance with her pack, ears alert, eyes searching, nose to the ground. When they halt in the frozen north, the desert-born Rotagar shakes once, and is still. She will trust her winter fur to keep her warm. Unlike Hatchet, while Joey is enjoys being in her four-legged forms, she does so here more out of a need to stay warm than out of respect for the wolves of the sept they have journeyed to.

She watches, mostly, while they're there. She watches Hatchet romp in the snow, stays near when he stares to the south and east. She watches the way the wolves of the Sept of Summer Snow treat the Fostern metis, impassive.

When they are lead to the waterfall, she keeps close to her packmates. She waits for the alpha to go, then big sister and big brother. Then it's Joey's turn.

[-red-] It should be said:

In their three days with the Talons, they are pushed. They're bullied. Their 'hosts' don't believe in hospitality; it's possible they don't even understand the concept. They are intruders here, unwelcome visitors to another Sept's territory; there's just enough Garou mixed in with the wolf for the Red Talons not to attack them outright, to drive them yelping from their lands, but the Sentinels will never once make the mistake of thinking they've made lifelong friends.

The sheer primal insight of the Red Talons is uncanny, too. They sense the hierarchy of the pack almost instantly. Nate gets the worst of the abuse. Echo's next: not because she ranks lowly in her pack, but because she's a Glass Walker. After Hatchet trounces one of the Talons at the end of the first day, the pack is afforded a little more respect, grudging as it is. The snapping, dominance, and constant challenges gets shifted to Blood Summons, then -- Fostern too, perhaps, but also metis. Twisted.

--

At the waterfall, they take their rightful positions. Hatchet first, Echo next. Then Broken Hammer; then Face of Death; then Word on the Street. Last, the not-yet-packed.

The pack can see water spirits flitting over the surface of the waterfall as they approach. Dancing in the foam. One spins up from the surface of the pool, scattering droplets from itself until it disintegrates in the air, only to reform again in the pool beneath. They watch the pack as they pass.

The waterfall is bracingly cold, fresh as anything they've ever seen or smell or tasted. It blasts down on them, driving them nearly to their knees as they pass through

and when they're in the shadow of the waterfall, they find a cave opening before them. A tunnel, with a dim light at the end.

As the pack steps forward, the noise of the waterfall abruptly drops away behind them. Other sounds come to them: the chirruping of insects, the singing of birds. Rustling of rich plant foliage. Their fur is soaked through and through, but they're not cold. The air is rich and warm and moist -- almost primordial.

Life runs rampant here. Movement is all around. Small animals in the undergrowth; a jewel-bright python in the trees. A wild, senseless assortment of foliage presses in from every direction. A flash of movement in the trees: a wolf staring at them, not a Garou-spirit but a wolf-spirit, turning away to melt soundlessly into the shadows.

It is nighttime. A million stars burn in the sky. The moon was not full when they left, but it's full now: hanging enormous overhead, the face of Luna shining on one of her Tribes.

As Blood Summons steps out of the cave, his body abruptly shakes and tremors. His forepaws plant; his head bows toward the ground, every muscle clenched, mouth open in a soundless snarl.

When he raises his head, he leaps abruptly for Hatchet. His eyes are two glowing lamps, pupilless and incandescent, as though he burns from within.

[Buried Hatchet] There's little difference, in Hatchet's mind, between what the Wendigo did to him when he was a cub because he was a Wyrmbringer, and what the Red Talons do now because he and his pack are homid-born and Blood Summons is metis-born. He does not feel shame. He does not feel driven to prove himself to them. When they push, he pushes back. When it's appropriate and necessary, he submits. When Echo and Joey and Daniel and Nate are bullied, he snaps his jaws and barks warnings. When Blood Summons is nipped at and challenged, he hangs back and pays attention.

Had to have gotten that idea from somewhere, after all, to give it to Joey.

It's behind them, now. They'll have to go back the way they came to get to the moonbridge to get home, or so he believes. But for now, the Summer Snow's Garou slip away from his thoughts as he and the Sentinels and Blood Summons go through the waterfall and into the homelands of the Red Talons, where everything is wild and ancient and does not care for them any more than the Wyld does. He remembers this, and he is on the verge of reminding his packmates This place does not care about y--

when the metis shakes, and trembles, and lunges.

In hispo, as he's been since they began their trek, Hatchet wheels around to face Blood Summons, hackles up and teeth bared in an open snarl. The others are told, sharply over totemphone:

Hold back! If I can't put him down, Joey and Dan first to help! Echo and Nate, keep your eyes out.

[End Transmission] Echo, smaller in her wolf form than the others is none the less agile, and quick-footed. Part of this must come from her Auspice, and part from years of practice at being so. When the Metis trembles, and his eyes flare, and he leaps at Hatchet --

Echo snarls and rises up, bringing her paws back down with a whuff of contained surprise and outrage as she's told to hold back. She does not understand, but then -- looking at where they are, she does not understand much of anything. She is agitated, uncertain; afraid. This was the Wyld's home, this was the Talon's home.

They had no rights, here.

So, fur bristling, she moves to keep a watchful eye on the path before them.

[Face of Death] Joey's ears flick forward, back, every which way they can, trying to take in the sounds, listening for something, trouble, spirits, whatever. She watches the water spirits as they shed their form, then appear again.

She expects the water to be freezing, to set her bones to rattling in a way unbefitting one of the Get of Fenris. There are traits the young Rotagar is missing that are constants in most of her tribesmates, but she does not show weakness unless it is to her alpha, and to her packmates who are above her. Which is everyone except Nate.

When the metis crosses beneath the waterfall and leaps to attack, Joey whirls. Every instinct tells her to attack, to protect her alpha and to bring down the Fostern, preferably without killing him. Hatchet orders her back, so she holds her place, hackles raised and teeth bared.

In her Hispo form, Joey stalks to the other side of the cave, ready to flank Blood Summons if her aid is needed.

[Word on the Street] NAte is quiet for once it would seem, normally talking often and at length for once the Galliard is silent. His ears pricked up as he listens to every noise. His eyes peeled open as he takes in every sight, as if he is committing the entire trip to memory.

These surroundings were pure inspiration, he couldn't wait to return too the streets of Chicago and bring this scene to life.

As Nate hears the growl he twists around , as his claws dig into earth below his paws. Ready to spring forth if given the order, but it does come as he is ordered to hold back. His body relaxing slightly as he just waits to see what happens. Splitting his attention to what was happening, but also to his surroundings should any other problem present itself.

[-red-] [dan!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2

[Face of Death]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[End Transmission]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10

[Buried Hatchet]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[-red-] [nate]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[-red-] Instantly when the stranger -- because that's how Daniel thinks of him, because sometimes Daniel's mind is as simple and feral as a Talon's -- lunges at his Alpha, the Forseti bares tooth and claw and prepares to leap on the offender's back.

At the command over the totemphone, however, he hangs back, tail low, whining in anxiety and impatience.

--

And Blood Summons lunges.

And he's surreally strong. There's no way, no possible way a metis with glass-fragile claws, even a Fenrir metis, could be that strong. In one bite he tears the side of Hatchet's throat out. The Alpha calls for his packmates then, likely. As they descend, Blood Summons wheels; his teeth catch Nate at the side, the soft boneless part of his body between rib and hip girdle. He disembowels the Gnawer in a single bite.

Broken Hammer snaps at that point -- leaps forward snarling, incoherent with rage. And there's nothing supernatural about Blood Summons' toughness. Two or three good bites puts him down in a pool of blood. Broken Hammer slams to a stop,

shudders all over,

and turns on his packmates just like that.

It's Joey who puts him down. Joey who's next taken by the madness. Her Alpha does for her -- or perhaps by that point Hatchet has realized the futility of it and stopped. No matter. If Hatchet doesn't take Joey down, Joey takes Hatchet down.

And then, suddenly as it began, it's over. Echo's still standing. So is Hatchet. Or Joey. One or the other, depending on whether or not Hatchet fought. The rest of them are on the ground, bleeding, nearly dead, breathing rapid and shocked from the onslaught. Four of them in all. Four Garou nearly slaughtered in an eyeblink.

The air seems to thicken. Out of nothing, a form coalesces. They call him Griffin, but that's a human name, a human concept. What the spirit is is a shifting, savage thing, a representation of every apex predator to have ever walked the earth.

A eagle's eye flashes. A lion's claws flex. A snakeheaded tail lashes. A shark's skin ripples over its body; is replaced by a bear's thick, shaggy fur.

It roars at them:

"WHY HAVE YOU COME HERE!"

[Buried Hatchet] The Forseti and the Rotagar are called first. They're Blood Summons's tribemates. They're the ones Hatchet allows to help first, the ones he calls as he's fighting through the blood gushing from his neck.

But then it's Daniel they have to fight. And Hatchet is starting to rear back when Joey rips into her brother, starting to realize this isn't going anywhere good... and then it's the littlest sister of the pack snarling at him. He stands his ground, stock still, and a moment later:

he's on the earth, leaving the two Ragabashes on their feet. His sides are heaving from pain; he's used no gift, and he allows himself to feel what Joey did to him. What he would've done to her, if he weren't... y'know. Actually rather bright. His eyes roll upward as Griffin appears, and he struggles to try and stand, but is unable. Now would be an awesome time for the motherfucking Theurge to not be bleeding on the ground, he thinks, but oh well.

You work with what you have.

He does not roar right back, but his voice is firm, harsh in this form, predator meeting predator. "To learn. Our lack of understanding of your children led to death. It led to strife within the pack. It led to weakness. We are here to learn. We will take nothing from your lands but knowledge."

[End Transmission] It takes all her strength to hold back, and to stay her claws when the insanity begins. Pack-mate turning on pack-mate, all of them tearing, pulling, bloodying the next and End Transmission somehow apart from it all; standing further down the path, her fur on end, her throat pulling an endless, low-voiced snarl from deep in her chest. At some point she'd even surged into her Hispo-skin in preparation to strike down whichever of them turned their borrowed wrath on her but then --

the air thickens.
Griffin appears, and demands they explain their presence.
Echo backs away from the apparition, head lowered, body cowed in instinctive submission, she does not question why.

Do you need healing? she asks of their Alpha, because, well, because he was Alpha.

[Buried Hatchet] Not now. It's a simple answer, rife with his tension. He doesn't take his eyes off Griffin.

[-red-] When Griffin's maw opens again, he emits a shriek so piercing, a cry so wild, that their fur stands on end; their teeth ache in their sockets.

"Take back something more than knowledge," the totem-avatar screams. "Take my children back!

"Three of mine you have slain -- the fourth so grievously wounded it was only luck that kept him from the same fate. Take their spirits back to the earth-realm. Take back the spirits of the wolves you see, the spirits of the trees, the spirits of all that you two legged wretches have brought to ruin. Take them back!

"Bring them all back to life, and you may have earned some right to the knowledge you seek!"

[Face of Death] Joey is called in to action, and for a moment, she loses her mind. Each takes the other down, until only the No Moon's are left. Joey stands for a moment, stunned to find her brothers' blood in her mouth and on her claws. Her ears flick back and down, eyes wild, tail down.

Buried Hatchet doesn't need healing now. Joey lowers her body to the ground, letting out a small whine, her tail flicking once before she stills. Griffin shrieks, and she tenses. Part of her, the weak part she keeps buried, wants to go to Echo's side, go to Hatchet's, lay beside her brothers for strength and comfort. She doesn't go to them, but waits.

[Buried Hatchet] Now might not be the time to tell Griffin that his children were dicks. Or that they were corrupt, or that they disrespected territory, ignored the caern, began the process and performance of aggression. Hatchet does, however, start to push himself to his feet, struggling and fighting for it, blood drenching him from the wounds left by Blood Summons and Laughs in the Face of Death. He soaks the ground even as he stands. He does not stumble, but he sways for a moment. Steadies.

"We are children of Bear. We are a pack of healers and guardians and predators. We did what we had to to protect ourselves and our caern and those that we watch over. But we are not enemies of the wilderness.

"If we go back without the understanding we're looking for, we will make the same mistakes over and over again. We will not change. We cannot undo death, but we are wolves, too. We are talkers to trees. We are Garou. If you let us stay, we can go back and heal better, protect better."

He's quiet a moment, breathing labored. "What would you have from us, to let us be in your lands? What payment do you require?"

[-red-] Even standing, Hatchet comes up no higher than the bottom of Griffin's chest. The totem is enormous here, charged with power: an extension and a reflection of the Incarna himself.

The turns his head haughtily away from talk of payment, as though he were above such human concepts as bartering and trade. His eyes, staring and savage, fix on the two Ragabashes standing unharmed. Or, in Joey's case, crouching on her belly.

"Prove yourselves worthy of this knowledge."

That is the last thing the totem avatar says to them. In another eyeblink he flies apart into a wild flurry of fur and feathers -- hawks and raptors taking to the air; wolves dashing into the undergrowth; reptiles slithering underground. When the last of the disturbance has ceased, a wolf slips out of the foliage. A Garou. An ancestor-spirit of the Talons.

He looks young; healthy; his fur thick and dark, the ruff shot through with red. His eyes are intelligent and calm. He observes the Bear-pack for a moment, noting their wounds with neither pity nor compassion nor distaste. Then he sits on his haunches and lets his tongue loll out.

"In my last life I was Missing-Tooth-Good-Eyes," he greets them, "Middle Rank Moon Dancer. Great Griffin commands that I test your strength. When you are ready, we will begin."