[Challenge] He has spent the bulk of the winter in Minnesota, and according to the long-timers, he's had it easy. The weather has been warm, they have said. Almost pleasant.

To a southern boy like Decker Rohl (though no one ever calls him by that last name here; his preference for his mother's surname is not even acknowledged), the weather has been bitingly cold, especially out in the deep woods, where central heating is a foregone conclusion. The closest source is the nearby kin village and going there to get warm is not even a possibility. It would be seen as a weakness.

The trees are huge and towering, their branches weighted with white, heavy snow. It's snowed here more than he last experienced, and the frequent forays above freezing half melts it, only for the temperature to drop again, creating uneven and treacherous ice, which is only covered by more snow during the next squall. It is snowing now, large and heavy flakes flurrying groundward, swirling dizzyingly in a never ending wind. He cannot see much more than a few feet in front of him before everything becomes blurred by snow, which coats fur and hair in a rim of white, making the young seem old, and the fur of animals seem faded.

The pack of the Garou he's chosen to challenge has returned from a hunt. He can smell their kill on the air, the meat sweet and raw. Jormungandr's Bane, Athro Full-Moon of the Get of Fenris tribe is crouched before the body of a deer, its throat torn out, his hands red with blood and cold, his knife slick and sticky. The viscera steams in the snow, still shiny in its sack.

The Modi flays back the skin methodically, with a practised hand while another, a Godi whose name Silence does not recall has begun to build a fire. At the perimeter, the Rotagar of the pack stalks in its wolven birth form, impatiently waiting for its share of the meat while its human packmates indulge in their ritual of skin-taking.

[cricket] [...I feel like I should be paying admission. *grins*]
to blue canary, Challenge, , , mound of snow, peep, Silence

[cricket] [...I feel like I should be paying admission. *grins*]
to blue canary, Challenge, , Lurker, mound of snow, peep, Silence

[Silence] Even Decker doesn't call himself Rohl up here.

When he arrived on the train and the bus and his own four feet months ago, he announced himself the way he always does. Decker Njalasen. Silence. That's what they call him here. Or sometimes Decker Njalasen. Or sometimes merely Njalasen, as though that were all that mattered. Son of Njal, following in his father's footsteps.

Which is, to some degree, the truth. He is what he is. Born to the same moon and the same bloodline.

Moons have turned, winter has come. Three of his pack have died. His hair has grown and his beard. His clothes are rough and illfitting, handmade, selfmade, tough against the bitter climate and the wars, the unending wars of aggression and wars of expansion and wars of vengeance of this most warlike of Septs. Four months in Storm Hammer meant an innumerable parade of battles and hunts; each of which ultimately began or ended under the heavy paw and watchful eye of Storm Hammer's warmaster.

He sees his father all the time. Not quite daily but close. He has fought under his father, seen for himself the undeniable strength of that mighty and matchless Modi of the tribe. He thinks of his skill; not merely in the slaughter of the enemy but in the rallying of his warriors. He thinks much, much less often of his mother. He finds he can't even bring her to his mind's eye anymore; can't remember what she looked like, exactly, or the color of her hair.

Her eyes were the same color as his. He knows that, but when he looks in the mirror to see the grey, all he sees is his own ruinous rage.

Snow is falling, white on blond, white on winter-pale skin, white on his shoulders and white underfoot. He comes upon Jormangandr's Bane and his kill, hangs back for a moment, watchful. After a beat or two, Decker steps forward, breaching that invisible circle that marks the private space of that pack. Their eyes will come upon him now, expectant or challenging, but he looks only at the Full-Moon.

The last time he came here, he came with trophies, talismans, trinkets, proof of his deeds. He laid them before Nine Nights and spoke his challenge.

This time, he comes emptyhanded, bowing his head once before leveling his eyes on the Athro.

"Jormangandr's Bane-rhya, I've come to challenge you for the rank of Athro."

[Challenge] Jormungandr's Bane does not look up as Silence comes to stand at the precipice of his territory. He does not look up as he speaks. The knife slices through connective tissue and beneath skin, scraping gently as he reflects back the hide, flaying it firmly towards the spine.

When he has finished the section he looks up, negligently flicking the blade. A spray of blood speckles the snow, nearly black against the white.

"Silence," he says, his voice as deep as a well. He's a broad son of a bitch, dressed in furs which are layered to cover his musculature. Thick chested, with arms like tree branches, he wears his beard long, several small braids half hidden in the thicket. His hair is worn long, held back by a leather thong. Grey streaks from the temple, prematurely. He is not old, but he is aged. A scar streaks each cheek, half hidden in the crevice of skin that brackets his mouth. "Get of Fenris Modi, Adren of the Tribe. Alpha of the Eagle Pack in the Urrah sept of Chicago." He recites it like a careless litany. The blade flicks again, and he lowers it to slide it between the crease of pelt and skin of the deer. "Njalasen." As if it were a title in and of itself.

"Before I accept," his voice is rough and hard. He speaks the way one might imagine a giant would, though his claim to size is in width, not height. "I want to hear two things from you."

The knife slices and reflects. the hide is nearly free of the body, still a single piece. "What makes you strong," a sharp-edged sound as the knife catches on bone, scraping metal on the curve of the ribcage. Jormungandr's Bane adjusts his grip and continues his work, "and what makes you weak."

The lupus huffs a breath and sits, snow clinging to its fur as it ceases its pacing, resigned to its wait.

[Silence] The pause seems longer than it is. A few seconds is a conversational eternity, but his eyes don't flinch away.

"Honor makes me strong."

They are both in their human -- homid -- shapes. Silence is not nearly so broad as the Athro before him. He's lean and hard even in his illfitting furs and leathers; a shark of a man, streamlined, devastatingly strong. Not a word of this, however, is in English. High speech, carved with the icy syllables and consonants of his heritage, is all that falls from his tongue.

"Wrath makes me weak."

[Challenge] Jormungandr's Bane speaks the language in which Silence had started this interaction. And thus, both speak high tongue, despite their monkey skins.

His hair is the colour of midnight, and the colour of iron where it greys. His eyes are a clear blue, his skin weathered and worn by out-of-door living. He is Alpha of his pack. When the Sept drinks, Jormungandr's Bane drinks to excess. When the Sept fights, his pack is a finely honed blade, with its Alpha at the head. He laughs and angers easily, each one thin facades over his face, an excess which can shift from one to the other. He is boisterous, he is gruff, and for the moment, his one regret is that his mate has given him no true-borns, though he will not give her up.

He has no breeding to speak of; all those who follow him follow him by dint of his true skill, not his blood.

There is nothing revealed now except for the utter intentness he has on skinning his meat.

"I've heard some things about the son of Njal. Some from your pack, when you and yours visited, some from Garou who've spoken to you. They speak of honour. Of a Garou strong in his Totem, in the Gifts he's learnt of Spirits. Who is strong in body, and the Fetish axe he has only just regained.

"Heard about you keeping promises to spirits. Heard about you leaving your Sept, too. S'the thing about the Nation, Njalasen. We all hear things. Make our own opinions and decisions based on the word of a Skald and all our own interpretations.

"There was a Godi named Singed Skin who created a powerful fetish meant for cleansing. " The subject changes without warning. "It would push back a blight and if thrust into a bane, could turn the cursed thing to mist.

"Singed Skin's pack was known as Whipporwhill's Lament and he and all his pack perished in a battle against cursed Garou who had danced the spiral. The Fetish was lost, and the bodies desecrated.

"Scouts found the area of the Umbra where those abominations might be. Normally, we would send a Theurge, a pack." Jormungandr's Bane fixes Silence with a piercing blue regard. "But we have higher expectations of Athros.

"Your challenge is accepted. It is thus:

"You may use no gifts. No totem. No axe or any other weapon. No talens but the one my Godi will give you tomorrow."

This was news to the Godi - who has gotten the fire gone with a spark of flame and a slow catching of tinder. The wiry man with long greasy blond hair whips his head around to look at his Alpha with an expression of almost comical dismay at promises spoken on his behalf.

Jormungandr's Bane ignores his packmate. "We will lead you into the umbra to the right realm. The talen will help point your way.

"We will lead you to where the scouts found the trail. The talen will help point the way. Come back tomorrow when the sun is midsky. We will be ready for you then."

[Challenge] (ahem. Remove the first "We will lead you... The talen will help point your way." *shifty eyes*)

[Silence] Jormungandr's Bane is a Modi wholly different from Silence: a creature of fire and excess and great, blazing glory.

Silence has no permanent home here. He has no pack with him; no kin; no blood and family to gather around him and build a longhouse around. He could share his father's house, his pack and his kills and his meat, and perhaps that would be proper. He does not. He has spent the winter, instead, in his own rough shelters, and occasionally drifting through the houses of other Garou, the beams and rafters hung with a stranger's trophies, the doors carved with a stranger's names and deeds.

He has spent a night or two under Jormungandr's Bane's roof. He sat far from the fire and partook of meat and mead last amongst the Adrens there. He watched, though, listened and saw. It was, perhaps, the Athro's devotion to his mate that subconsciously led Decker to choose him above others to challenge.

He listens and watches now, silent and attentive, as Jormungandr's Bane speaks. He does not swell with pride when his victories are mentioned; he does not hang his head with shame when his failures are brought up.

He does, however, stir faintly as the subject changes, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Resettling.

"No gifts," he repeats, ascertaining. "No totem. No weapons. No talens but the one your Godi provides.

"Maybe I ask a question, Rhya?"

[Challenge] Jormungandr's Bane half grins, the scars one side of his face creasing and wrinkling as his mouth hooks up.

"That was one," he answers. "But you may ask another."

[Silence] "Why did you ask me to name my strength and weakness?"

[Challenge] Jormungandr's Bane's face splits into a grin.

"I asked to see what kind of Athro you would make," he says. "I'll explain the rest if you pass. My last gift to you from Athro to Adren.

"Hell, I'll probably tell you if you fail, too, should you survive. But you don't need it now."

[Silence] Silence exhales a short huff that none here would recognize as humor. Then he lowers his head, which is not quite the same gesture as a bow.

"Thank you, Rhya."

--

Early on, the nights before major battles and major raids, Decker found it impossible to sleep. His rage would ride too high. His anticipation was a palpable force; the eagerness for blood like a fire in his veins.

It's different now. He wanders the stillness of the kin village, ice and snow crunching beneath his feet, and knows that he'll sleep the minute his head hits the pillow.

They're far out of cellphone range here. He has to hike out of the bawn, out beyond the barrier-shield that carves Storm Hammer out of human reach. The call goes through in bursts and waves, full of interruption, and goes to voicemail.

"'m leavin' fer my challenge proper tamorrow," he says to Imogen's mailbox. "Jus' wanted ta tell ya ..." Pause.

"Well. There don't need to be nothin' said. You know already."

--

He sleeps under Nine Nights' roof that night. Late into the night, he talks to Nine Nights' Skald. He asks about Honir, and Apep, though he can't remember the names he gave them. Long past midnight, the fire's down to embers, and he rolls himself up in furs on the floor. Though the kin are up at dawn, Silence doesn't open his eyes until nearly midday.

Cold water splashed on his face cleans last night's smoke and dust from his skin. It runs down his beard and drips on his bare chest. He dresses and meets Jormungandr's Bane at midday, when his shadow beneath him is shortest.

He wears his ugly steelsoled boots; his ugly rawhide trousers, cinched with an ugly leather belt; his ugly shirt; his hideous wolfskin cloak, flayed from a Dancer.

His hands are empty. His arms are bare, and there is no tattoo on his right.

"'m ready, Rhya," he says -- English.

[Silence] Silence exhales a short huff that none here would recognize as humor. Then he lowers his head, which is not quite the same gesture as a bow.

"Thank you, Rhya."

--

Early on, the nights before major battles and major raids, Decker found it impossible to sleep. His rage would ride too high. His anticipation was a palpable force; the eagerness for blood like a fire in his veins.

It's different now. He wanders the stillness of the kin village, ice and snow crunching beneath his feet, and knows that he'll sleep the minute his head hits the pillow.

They're far out of cellphone range here. He has to hike out of the bawn, out beyond the barrier-shield that carves Storm Hammer out of human reach. The call goes through in bursts and waves, full of interruption, and goes to voicemail.

"'m leavin' fer my challenge proper tamorrow," he says to Imogen's mailbox. "Jus' wanted ta tell ya ..." Pause.

"Well. There don't need to be nothin' said. You know already."

--

He sleeps under Nine Nights' roof that night. Late into the night, he talks to Nine Nights' Skald. He asks about Honir, and Apep, though he can't remember the names he gave them. Long past midnight, the fire's down to embers, and he rolls himself up in furs on the floor. Though the kin are up at dawn, Silence doesn't open his eyes until nearly midday.

Cold water splashed on his face cleans last night's smoke and dust from his skin. It runs down his beard and drips on his bare chest. He dresses and meets Jormungandr's Bane at midday, when his shadow beneath him is shortest.

He wears his ugly steelsoled boots; his ugly rawhide trousers, cinched with an ugly leather belt; his ugly shirt; his hideous wolfskin cloak, flayed from a Dancer.

His hands are empty. His arms are bare, and there is no tattoo on his right.

"'m ready, Rhya," he says -- English.

[Challenge] The sun, such as it is, is mid-sky, hidden behind a thick blanket of clouds. There is no shadow beneath him at all, only a pale diffuse light that reflects off the snow which crunches with every step, and more often than not, stays more solid than it should, the thick layer of ice beneath solid, uneven and ungiving. The wind blows intermittently, chapping his skin, burnishing his cheeks red beneath his beard.

Jormungandr's Bane is out in a combat circle with a cub, in his homid form, absently batting away the young boy's attempts at attack while shouting out direction interspersed by something like encouragement.

"Stop leading with your left - I can see you coming from a mile away! there we go, there we go, you almost touched my fur there, little bird. I know you want to be using tooth and claw, but you're a long goddamned way away from there, there you go, you're leading with your left again -" and this time, the cub is sent sprawling to the snow with a merciless thump from his teacher, and Jormungandr's Bane grins. "See where that got you?"

Silence is there, dressed in his ugly, fashionless furs. "Get up, Ratasokr," the Athro says, and does not offer a hand to him. "Go get Ox and tell him I've said you have to try and beat him up."

Ratasokr, thus called for his lightness of bone and body, his constant scurrying struggles to his feet, his face flushed with anger and exertion. He is dressed in clothing of fur, likely cured by another, and his hands are chapped, the knuckles bruised and scabbed. He ducks his head sharply, once and starts off through the snow at a dead run.

"And don't lead with your left!" the Modi shouts after him, his voice echoing off the trees and sky.

Silence speaks to him - tells him he's ready. Jormungandr's Bane eyes him, taking stock of his bare hands and the empty skin of his arm.

"So you are," he says. A bit away is the sound of snow crunching. The tall and lanky Godi, dressed in furs that are nearly as ugly as Silence's, is making his way through the trees, clutching a small leather bag.

"We'll meet Guts on Snow," the pack's lupus born, a Skald, "at the bawn's border and cross over into the shadow there. "Mid-Winter's Blood will lead the way."

With that, he turns and begins toward the bawn's edge, finding paths through the trees where there are none beneath his feet, moving unerring toward his packmate.

[dust] [Morning, folks. Mind if I watch?]
to Challenge, Silence

[Challenge] (I don't!)
to dust, Silence

[Silence] (i don't either!)
to Challenge, dust

[Silence] Decker was older than the cub Ratasokr when he underwent his Fostering. His first lessons in war came not from a Garou, and certainly not from an Athro, but from the boys in the schoolyard. That's no sob story. He wasn't bullied. He was a bully, or tried to be. He picked fights he couldn't win until, of course, he could. And did.

It's possible that had his parents been close, had his father stayed, had he been raised in the Sept, he would've begun his training as early. They always knew he would change. Prophecy of Ashes foresaw it moments after he was born: a male, a full moon, a Garou; an auspicious heir to his father's glory. It's possible he would've been taken into the Bawn as early as his sixth or eighth or tenth year, trained in the ways of war long before the Change was upon him.

That wasn't how it turned out. And at any rate, the Sept in Alabama was a world away from Storm Hammer. Nowhere near as large, or as old, or as deeply and ferociously Fenrir.

Decker watches the cub scurry off in the same silence he witnessed their brief bout of training. He steps forward and announces himself. Given orders, he nods once, a quick jerk of his chin up, and falls in behind the Athro.

"Was that Ljufu Ragnvaldsdottir's boy?" he asks; and then, "Grown big."

That's the only conversation he attempts. His movement through the snow, even after so many months, is nowhere near as practiced. He keeps his eyes mostly on his feet, on the treacherous snow and ice, and only occasionally flicking toward the trees and the broad back of the Athro leading him.

[Challenge] Jormungandr's Bane scoffs. "It is, and he has. Like a goddamned weed, though he's still got bones smaller than my little finger."

Small talk isn't even small talk here. It always has a purpose. Jormungandr's Bane doesn't launch into a story about Ratasokr, or seem interested in plying him with tales. He has a bit of a voice of storytelling, truth be told. A sense of over sized drama and boisterous tales, his stories often involve humour mixed with a healthy dose of gore.

Guts on Snow meets them beneath a large bare oak tree, and blinks its greeting as it gets to its feet, shaking the snow from its fur. The Godi, Mid-Winter's Blood looks around them all, then nodding once, begins to cross over.

They each cross over individually - no one helps another. Carrying their own weight.

On the other side, the sun is even more muted, barely a haze in the sky, the faintest glow of the rising moon just barely visible on the horizon opposite. It will be up in another hour, and the choice of Jormungandr's Bane's timing perhaps had less to do with poetry and more to do with practicality.

Mid-Winter's Sky has dark circles beneath his eyes, creases of fatigue and signs of a sleepless, difficult night, visible even in the shadow. He carries a small leather bag with him, which he transfers to his other hand before passing over to the Adren Modi, "Might as well give this to you now," he says. Inside is a hunk of raw quartz, shot through with veins of granite and fool's gold. A hole has been carved near the top, and a long thread of leather strung through it. "There's a spirit bound there that is sister to the spirit in the Fetish. The closer you get, the brighter it will glow. The farther, the duller. Pretty simple." He has a high reedy voice, thin as a whisper. "It'll only last three days though. So find what you need before then." The stone is dead and dull in his hand, no light at all.

In Silence's experience, this pack does not have a totem link. He has never seen the utter silence of inner communication or the blank looks thereof. The long walk through the umbral territory offers similar proof. The pack talk absently very once and a while about things from their day to day lives. The spirits. The hunting. The Sept and other packs. A spirit trail which Mid-Winter's Night has found which may lead to a hunt.

They hardly chat continuously, but it is a long walk. Conversation comes in brief spurts, then dies again, only to renew some time later.

Luna begins to rise in the sky, half-full. Their surroundings lighten. Umbral snow blows into their faces with the giggle of water gafflings. Glade Children huddle together while earth jagglings snooze beneath a layer of snow. The umbra here is utterly different from the umbra in Chicago. The reflection is more untethered. Layered, uncontrolled. The weaver has little hold here, a few spiders carefully crawling through the branches of a glade child, gently spinning little webs. It is not as sterile here as the great webs of towering buildings, the iron and concrete elementals.

At some interminable point, their surroundings begin to change. At first it may not be clear, but Silence will realize that they are no longer in the near-Umbra, but heading deeper in, away from the world. The snow becomes thinner and then disappears entirely. The spirits they see become less representative and more uncontrolled. Once or twice, Mid-Winter's night calls something out in the liquid language of spirits, answering some unheard catcall. They remain now, on a moon path, never straying from it.

It is hard to say how long it's been, when the moon path fades away. For a split section, everything around them is black, dark and a vast nothingness.

Then abruptly, it coalesces. The ground beneath their feet is yellowed grass, scorched by sun. The moon shines above them with the heat of a desert sun in the world, beating down, incessantly. A few trees stand bare branched, stunted and thin.

Ahead of them is a great and looming mountain. The sky above is a faded and scorched blue. Behind them is not the umbral path upon which they had walked at all, but an unending flat-plane which shimmers endlessly in the distance.

Guts on Snow whines softly as he shakes his heavy winter coat, his ears pricking forward as he turns in a circle to take in the surroundings, his tail out straight in commentary.

The stone that Mid-Winter's Blood gave Silence is now glowing faintly, a whisper of light.

"This is where we leave you," Jormungandr's Bane says.

[Silence] Decker's almost used to the cold now. He can't remember the last time he was warm. The snow in his face doesn't bother him, though the giggles make him snort once, a powerful blast of an exhale. The ice underfoot and the chill in his bones seem almost natural, as though this is the way it's meant to be. The way it's always been.

Which makes the sudden heat all the more shocking when it comes. Umbral travel is not like travel in the realm. There is no visible progression, mountains to highlands to plains to deserts. Thought guides movement. Landscapes change with little notice, bleeding slowly from the edges, or like this: all at once, an entirely new world unfolding beneath the feet.

Silence gasps in the sudden heat, then shakes himself once, animal-like. What Jormungandr's Bane says to him may be the first words any of the packmates have said to him since he took the talen. What he says back is definitely the first thing he's said to any of them, and it's a single word.

"Thanks."

The talen is glowing now. He has to cup it in his hands to be sure. The Modi's brow is beetled. He frowns down at hte stone, and then looks at the pack again. A few more words:

"Good huntin' if we don't meet 'gain."

He turns from them then. Three turn back; one goes on alone. His shadow stretches long over the sere ground. After ten paces he unpins his cloak, rolling it into a lump, carrying it in one hand as far from his body as possible. After a hundred, his back is wet with sweat and he longs already for cool water. Hell. He longs for snow, giggling gafflings or no.

The Modi traces a broad circle, first. He walks the rim two or three times, and then an arc along one edge, and then along one quarter. When he's finally certain of where the glow of the talen is strongest -- as subtle a distinction as this may be -- he turns and starts in that direction.

[Silence]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 10

[Challenge] "And to you," Jormungandr's Bane holds out a hand - if Silence reaches for it, he shakes it warrior style, closing his grip around the Adren's forearm.

He makes no comment on seeing him again. No offer of any hope or a sign that he might think the Adren Modi will succeed or fail. His palm is calloused his fingers as hard as iron, his grip ungiving.

Releasing it, he turns to go with his pack. Mid-Winter's Blood pauses, turning back, his hair already greasier for sweat and heat. "You probably have a little over two days now," he says, twitching his chin toward the stone. With that, he turns, and takes three steps - and all three disappear entirely. Silence is alone.

The heat is oppressive and it is not long before he can smell himself, the sharp smell of fresh sweat. It soaks his unkempt hair and beard. Runs into his eyes. The air is sharply dry with every breath, sucking the moisture from inside hi mouth. The sweat lifts even as it begins to drip, leaving an unpleasant heavy dampness in his clothing and hair.

Watching the stone for the subtle shifts of illumination creates tricks in his mind. He spends time, unsure of whether or not he truly sees something, or if he's only been looking so long that he is imagining it. The shifts are subtle, the sun is hot and the sweat drips down his face.

It is impossible for him to be entirely sure. Once, he thinks it might be toward the desert. But twice, it seems, it appears to lead him towards the mountain.

The mountain it is.

The ground beneath feels utterly alien after all this time on snow and ice. He steps expecting to feel the ground shift beneath him and finding solidness is almost as disorienting as slipping unexpectedly on ice. There are no paths, no signs of footfall.

After a dozen, two dozen feet, he knows he's made the right decision. The stone is definitely brighter than it was.

The ground rumbles around him suddenly, a deep sussurance of sound, rocks grinding together, sand whispering together, the trees rattling their bare and dead branches. He can just hear the sound of rocks clattering down the mountain.

Just beneath it, the sound of a high pitched, wailing scream, inhuman and imperfect. Cut off, then silence.

[Silence] At the first hint of rumble, Silence snapshifts. There was a time when this was difficult for him. An exercise of will. Now it's instantaneous, thoughtless: pure instinct.

He lands on four feet, cloak gone, clothes gone, nothing but fur. Hispo form. A second later, the screaming raises his hackles. He stands with forepaws braced, tail bristled, ready to wheel toward any attack. When none comes, he shifts down, slowly, until he's in his lithest form.

When he slides into a trot, his feet barely kick up any dirt. The ground is parched and dead. He lopes toward the mountain, the talen clenched in his teeth, sweat and saliva dripping off his tongue around it.

[Challenge] (perception alertness please.)

[Silence]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Challenge] He's in his wolf form and the shifts between the perceptions, the mindsets are no longer as alien to him as they once were. No longer as terrifying. They are things he has likely accepted now. Given into.

The human mind
The wolf mind
The monster mind
Everything in between.

Realizations do not come in thought but emotion, instinct. He sees a tree and does not think of it, or its branches or the purpose it might serve, but instead feels its familiarity or lack thereof. It's use as shelter. As food. Whether or not it is a threat. Beyond that, he likely thinks of it not at all.

The distance between him and the mountain is long and spotted by small glades, parched and scorched in this heat. They offer the shelter of dead leaves and plants. And in one, as he passes it, a shadow moves, black and oily, bleak and solid beneath the thin yellow leaves. Something hisses, and dead foliage crackles as the black, not quite seen thing begins to move forward.

Farther up, another glade.

He hears the crackling foliage there too.

[Silence] Distance falls away faster in this form. Perceptions are more immediate, sharper. The heat is almost a taste. He picks up speed as he goes, stretching out his stride, loping at the maximum limit of what might be called a trot.

The first glade, he does not even slow as he passes.

The second, he pauses, not because he's worn or tired but because he knows better than to exhaust himself before war. He moves into the shade, sinks to his belly, and rests panting, one forepaw folded under his chest.

The third, and there is a shadow moving, catching his eye for only a second before it's gone. The fourth, another.

Silence pauses this time. Stops, wheels on his haunches. Trots to the glade, slowing as he nears, padding one foot at a time now, sniffing. Hunting for the crackling, the shadow.

[Silence]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 5, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Silence] (HUNT AGAIN!)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 7)

[Challenge] Smell sound sight. Smell sound sight. The wolf's brain works in a different order than human.

Silence sniffs the air, and after several breaths, catches a smell which does not belong. A hint of rankness, a slight miasma of rot. The catches in his throat as his gorge rises to reject it. His stomach turns.

This is not meant to be of Gaia. His body, born of Her, rejects it.

Once, he almost loses the stench, as it becomes overlaid by the heavy smell of broken and crunched foliage, crisp as an onion's skin. When he finds it again, he finds it with an utter certainty, a smell, a sound, the heavy uneven breathing rattling above the sussurance of the dead glade.

Then sight, he sees a curve of an oily black hide beneath the fall of a dead, wide-leaved plant. He sees it coil, slowly, turning its head toward him.

It has a heavy, pronounced brow ridge, prominent over black, shiny eyes. The tendons that work the jaw and teeth and stand out in sharp relief between the sharp scythe blade of the cheekbones, down toward the blade of the jaw. It is as if one took the face of a human and made its bones sharper, harder, with bony prominences that stand out in sharp relief against skin which is not so much skin as it is leather, pulled tight over its profile.

It's body is long, the tail curving around itself, its long limbs pulled into itself.

The bane coils in on itself and hisses, poising to strike.

[Silence] The smell of rancid meat. Fungal rot. A slick, wet whispering, like an eel slid over dry rock. And then he sees it, this not-quite-manfaced snake coiling to strike.

Silence wheels to face it. His teeth bare. He barks at once, "Strike at me and I'll tear you in two. Answer my questions and you might live."

[Challenge] The bane merely hisses in response, baring grey-slick, saliva soaked teeth at the Adren. Every muscle is poised to strike, trembling with the eagerness to do so.

It does not move.

Farther ahead, the chitter-chatter-CLACK of another bane's teeth as it communicates in a language that Silence does not understand - and likely does not want to.

[Silence] Silence's teeth are bared, his lips trembling with an unvoiced snarl. Pale eyes pin the bane. His ears are folded back, his tail lowering with uncertainty.

He's never known a bane to behave like this. Most banes he's encountered have attacked outside. The few that did not relied on stealth and subterfuge; they would either run now, or leap all too gleefully into a battle of wits. This one, however -- it is entirely clear that it would like nothing more than to fight, bloody and vicious.

And yet: it holds back.

After a moment or two, Silence draws back. He is cautious. Battle fever is bright in his veins. He bites it back. His eyes never leaving the bane, the Modi backs out of the glade, growing to his Hispo form as he does so. Shade slips off his body. The hot moon beats down again. It is not until he is a good twenty, thirty yards from the glade that he turns away, loping for the next glade up.

[Challenge] The bane snarls, the sound of it on the edge of panic, high pitched and vibrating. As Silence begins to lope from the glade, it scurries after him, its claws digging into the sand its wings unfurling from around its body, beginning to flap as quickly as it can.

It is not perfect for flight. A few flaps of the wings brings it partway aloft, then down again, its claws digging quickly at the ground to gain more momentum.

It reaches the air on the second attempt.

Silence has its back to it. It is aloft. This would be a perfect moment to attack.

Only it doesn't.

It flies above, calling out in a loud urgent voice, frustrated, impotent.

In the next glade, a second bane bursts from the leaves, scurrying rapidly, its body low to the ground, its multiple arms and legs crooked and spindly like a crab's, a second set of heavier arms, heavily hooked and jagged jutting from an erect torso.

Ahead, there are three more glades, closer to the mountain. He can hear them call from there.

There is a sense of urgency in the sound. There is, in act, a sense of urgency among the banes. On the edge of panic, frustrated, impotent, as none attack, but as two more exit from glades closer to the mountain, seem to be intent on heading towards him.

[Silence] The direwolf's head snaps up, about, twists and cranes to each new sight or sound. As the calls of the banes resounded from glade to glade, the Modi at first moves faster; then slows.

Then stops. Feet planted, facing as many banes as possible, he simply watches to see what they do. He looks for patterns; some indication of what they're communicating, or what they want. He looks to see if they're herding him any particular way.

And then there's the talen. He spits the crystal onto the ground to see its brightness, its hue.

[Silence]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 4)

[Challenge] They communicate through chitter chatter and chirps and shrieks. He can discern no words, no phonetics. It is a language he is not built to understand.

But they are communicating.

They do not seem to be herding anywhere, but they do seem to be intent on stopping him from going closer to the mountain. They spread out as a phalanx, each apart from the other, though within striking distance should Silence attempt to pass between them.

The one who had been in the air is now grounded, joining its fellows. There are four in all, and a fifth, a black spot at the farthest glade, running toward the mountain.

He spits out the crystal. It glows brighter than it had before, pulsing with a steady heartbeat. He was headed in the right direction, and they are now blocking his way.

One of the banes snarls, and surges forward - another bane, the first he'd seen, unfurls its wings and snaps forward, beating it back.

They resume their positions, the aggressive bane snarling as ichor drips from a gash on its side - courtesy of its fellow, watching Silence with a deep abiding hatred.

It snaps its jaws once. Twice. Click. clack.

Another bane snarls, then does the same. Click. Clack.

The winged bane spreads them to their full span, flapping them as its rears up on its hind legs, screaming an order skyward, but it is losing control over its fellows. The third clicks its jaws two, and then all three are doing it, over and over again.

Click, clack. Click click clacks. A snarl, a growl. Click, clack. Click click clack.

He may not speak their language but he knows a taunt, when he hears it.

[Silence] The grey direwolf watches as the banes assemble and taunt. The fur on the back of his neck, and all down the column of his spine, stand on end. He bristles, his posture threatening, instinct.

But. He doesn't attack. He paces forward, slowly, one paw in front of the next, eyes flicking from bane to bane to bane

to distant bane, far out of his reach.

And back. Still advancing. Still coming forward, that same deliberate, slow pace, no sudden movements, watchful, cautious -- and ultimately, curious. They don't attack him immediately, though he's outnumbered and alone. Why?

[Challenge] (perception alertness, please!)

[Silence]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Challenge] As he comes in closer, the banes clack their teeth louder. One shrieks, snapping its teeth, only to abruptly quell itself, getting under control with a disgruntled murmur.

As he draws closer, the banes begin to form a semi circle, drawing in. closer both to him and each other. They close ranks, just as slowly as he draws nearer to them. They make no attempt to block his potential escape away from the mountain, but they do appear intent on blocking his forward motion. They create a line which they intend to hold.

Click-click, clack.

Behind him, the fleeing bane has reached the mountain's edge and has begun to ascend it, black against the scorched yellow earth. The surface is not entirely smooth, full of uneven protuberances, that kind that would ease its particularly steep climb. Some of the bulges have shadows deep enough that they might contain caves.

He can see a shadow of movement higher up the mountain. It is more than a trick of the eye or an unfelt breeze.

[Silence] Silence knows the strengths and limits of his body better than most. He knows how fast he can run

(not fast enough to catch the bane running up the mountain)

and he knows how hard he can hit, and he knows how far he can jump. When he's within radius of a leap, the Modi, quite simply, and utterly without forewarning, leaps. Hindclaws rake the parched earth. Forepaws leave the ground. He lunges, but not for the banes.

Over them.

[Silence] (leap! str +hispo +ath)
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 10

[Challenge] About ten feet away from the banes, his claws dig into the earth, his hindquarters bunch. He can hear the sharp scream of outrage from one of the banes, and as he leaps, see the heads of the banes crane to follow his arc.

The winged one screams as it takes to the air, turning after him. It moves faster than one can even imagine.

By the time he hits the ground the winged beast is hovering ahead of him, screeching toward the sky, a high toned and repeated sound, a lilt at the end, a sound of yearning and question.

The other banes - they're on his heels.

This is their world, the umbra. Their air, their land, even tainted as they are, they exist within it easily. And move within it too.

This time, they want again. Except this time, when he moves, they will not be so passive. Above them all, on the mountain, the shadow has become a form, human shaped as it steps out along the mountain's edge, on a collision course with the solitary, fleeing bane.

[Challenge] "This time, they wait again. Next time, when he moves, they will not be so passive."

[Silence] Silence cannot speak their language. Cannot understand, and does not want to understand, what it is they say to him.

He understands intent, though, and the language of the body. He understands that they will not let him past them unopposed. Perhaps they are charged with this duty. Perhaps they hesitate only out of self-preservation; the best offense being, such as it is, no war at all.

It doesn't matter. Silence hits the ground running. He does not stop; he does not pause. The winged one is before him again, the rest behind, and he swerves sharply to the side. A spray of dirt. He plunges for the right side of the winged beast, then cuts to the left at the last second.

If they pursue, he snaps into lupus in an eyeblink, racing for the mountain and the shapes on it, eyes on the target, trying to understand what is happening in that faraway exchange.

If the banes gain on him, he runs faster, channeling rage into singular bursts of speed. Not to outrun them altogether, but simply to force some to lag and others to keep up; to open up distance between the leaders and the stragglers. Silence knows: all he needs is a handful of seconds to kill, but numbers matter more than skill.

[Silence] (going home!!)

[Challenge] He chooses his fastest form. The sveltest, swiftest, the most animalistic. With it comes primal knowledge.

He is faster than they are, better. At least better than those on the ground.

The one in the air, though, it's close proximity raises the hackles on the back of his neck. It flies close his form, over top of him. It matches his speed exactly, effortlessly. He had a head start, at first. When he had surged forward, his form falling to lupus, his bones crunching and his tendons snapping, the bane had swooped, screaming as it catches only air.

It had been a head start at first.

Now he has none.

The form on the mountain has met the other bane. As suddenly as an eyeblink, it is wolf-formed as well, darting down, a spray of dust and dirt and rock flying in its wake.

--

And with that, his attention must move, because the bane - up until now, the one stopping the others from attack, up until now, the one which has shown the most reservation, the most control, screams at the top of its lungs as it dives down, its talons spreading.

The others are behind him, outpaced, but trying vainly to catch up.

[Silence] In this form, vision is less important. It's all smell and sound, scenting and hearing, and Silence always did have good ears.

It's not the scream he reacts to but the faint, leathery snap of wings canting against the wind, folding for the dive. The Modi leaps sideways, twists upward in midair, snapshifting in an instant, meets the diving bane like a dog meets a frisbee:

with his teeth.


[for the record: -1R earlier to get into lupus. -1R now to get into hispo!]

[Silence] [-1R for earlier hispo too!]

[Silence] +10! no SotF!
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Challenge] 9
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6

[Challenge] Split action 3 ways
hamstring
Bite
Bite

[Silence] split!
a. bite
b. bite
c. bite
d. bite
R1. block the hamstringing! if it's already dead: RUN MORE!

[Silence] -4!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 5 at target 5)

[Silence] dam +4!
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Challenge] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Silence] -5!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Silence] +2!
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Challenge] SOAK!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Silence] -6! HAIL!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5) Re-rolls: 2

[Silence] +4!
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)

[Challenge] SOOOAAAAK
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 6, 8, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Silence] -7!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 9 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Silence] +0!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Challenge] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Challenge] RAR! Hamstring!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Challenge] (err. Redo!)

[Challenge] hamstring -3
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)

[Silence] (block!)
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 10 (Failure at target 8)

[Challenge] damage! (aggravated)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Silence] (soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Challenge] bite! -4
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Challenge] damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Silence] (soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Challenge] bite! -5
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Challenge] damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Silence] (soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Challenge] (+1)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5 (Failure at target 6)

[Challenge] The beast's teeth snap at the hispo's heels, tear into the flesh of its side. The Garou's blood paints its teeth as it screams, arching its talons to tear into his skin.

(reinit! +9)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9

[Silence] +10!
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Challenge] claw
hamstring!
bite
bite

[Silence] a. move behind flappy thing!
b.
c
d - chomp!
R1. again: block hamstring if necessary; otherwise... i'll figure it out when it gets there!

[Silence] (change a to a bite too!)

[Silence] -4 splits, -1 pain mod.
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Silence] 3
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Challenge] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 6, 7, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Silence] -5, -1!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 4, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Silence] damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Challenge] soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 4, 5, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Silence] WTFBBQ JUST DIE
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 9 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Silence]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Challenge] aaaaaaaand soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Silence] (last chomp!)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 3, 8 (Failure at target 5)

[Challenge] claw!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Challenge] damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Silence] (soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Challenge] hamstring!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 8 (Failure at target 8)

[Challenge] bite!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 4, 9 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Challenge] damage
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Silence] (soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Silence] +WP!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP]

[Challenge] bite!
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Challenge] damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Silence] (soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Challenge] Fighting a creature like this without gifts, without fetish, without his totem. It is has likely been years since he's done anything of the sort.

The beast moves like a snake, arches it's back like a python, sets its claws into his skin like an eagle. It tears the flesh from his flank, its teeth scraping against bone, and pulls out a chunk of his lung. Air fills his chest cavity from the hole. His lung collapses with a sudden surge of pain, the pressure compressing on his heart, forcing it to stop beating under the weight.

There is a split second of absolute blackness. It is almost something like peace. As if, for a moment, he could breathe without the weight of rage, without the pulse of war.

The sudden in-rush of sensation is deafening. Blinding. It sears through his veins as his heart a sudden, jerking pump, his lung expanding as the hole in his chest heals. He can feel every grain of sand beneath his body, hear every laboured breath and feel every heartbeat as it spasms inside his agonizing chest.

The rage, which had so quietly receded, roars back into his mind, his veins, it overcomes as his consciousness subsumes. It would be almost a relief to give into the red.

And whether it is or not, give in he does.

It is all cut down into split seconds. One split-moment - the bane tearing out his lung. The next - dead. The third - alive. By the end of the moment, he is raging, lost to the fire of it. He is no longer Silence, Decker, no longer anything remotely less than a monster. He is war-formed, unfeeling of pain. He gets his feet beneath him, even as a wash of blood spills over his grey fur.

And the next, the bane's teeth pierce the junction between shoulder.

And it is darkness again - this time, one broken with pain and flashes of bright light. The unbearable heat of the desert, a yearning for the cold. The sound of a woman's voice, snapping, then clicking, a snarl, then faded out into darkness.

For most Garou, this would be the moment of their death.

--

He comes to slowly, painfully. He is human formed, his head pillowed haphazardly by some poorly cured furs taken from his attire. His cloak perhaps. At worst, his boots. The ground beneath him is hard and cool, though there is still a lingering heat to the air, a wash coming from a source of ventilation nearby.

His eyes are crusted - blood or sleep, it makes no difference. He must crack the barrier before opening his eyes. It is dark where he is, he can sense the closed in space of where he is. Tight walls, low ceiling. Dim light coming from an opening farther up.

He is not the only person lying here. He can smell the stink of death, burned and raw flesh, popped blisters that charred all over again. There is a hulking shadow of a body, slumped just barely within sight, toward the end of the cave.

There is a form opposite, erect, still living, limned dimly in the light. He must have made some sound, or perhaps she merely sensed it, but she turns to look his way.

Hawkish features are cut sharply in the dim light, a strong-boned face with a mouth too wide for her jaw. Hair pulled back and severely, mercilessly drawn back into a braid. He cannot see much of her skin, but what he can see is sallow, and painted with black markings what are likely tattoos.

"I've healed you a little," she says, her voice light, almost girlish. Impossibly young for her stature and posture. "Your blood was making the banes mad."

[Silence] Silence awakens.

For a moment, he tries to stay silent, tries to pretend sleep, tries to figure out what the fuck and where the fuck and

no good. She -- enemy? ally? -- is turning, is addressing him. So he gives up the pretense. Never was too good at that. Sits up instead, suddenly, too suddenly, reaches instinctively for his gift ...

no.

Let it go. Not allowed. He accepts the pain, thinks of some asshole Fenrir down in Alabama misquoting the military: pain is weakness turnin' ta strength, boy! He scrubs blood out of his eyes and opens them, sits up, puts his back to the wall if he can. There are others in here. They smell awful. They smell dead, possibly. And then there's the woman, whom he can only surmise is the wolf that ran down the mountain, the one that the bane went to summon.

"Tha fuck..." he croaks, coughs, tries again. "Tha fuck are you?"

[Challenge] She watches him, intensely as he forces himself to sit. Her breath draws in sharply as he pushes himself through the pain to sit up. There is wall available and it is cool beneath the touch.

"Garou," she answers specifically. "Theurge. Ronin."

Her arms are thickly tattooed, the lines of them blurring with distance, but he can see enough to know they cover her to her fingertips, up her arms beneath the shorn sleeves of the oversized t-shirt she wears. They reappear again at the neckline, sliding up her neck to end, in uneven waves at her jawline. One imagines they are beneath her clothing as well, winding up and down her torso, breasts, collarbone, all hidden beneath the man's shirt, darkened by his blood.

"The humans called me Sara."

[Silence] Coolness. After months in the Minnesota snow he thought he'd miss the heat of the south, but no. The heat outside was unbearable, choking. The fact that it was a dry heat didn't make any fucking difference at all.

So: coolness. And for a moment Decker just leans against the rock, absorbing it.

Then his eyes open again. "Sara," he repeats. Okay. "'m Decker. Full Moon. Fenrir. This's my Athro challenge. I think." A snort -- a fine mist of blood, messy. "Mighta jus' flunked.

"Tha hell ya doin' truckin' with banes?" He turns his head, looks around. Dark. Blurry. Questions take the place of observation. "Fuck are they? Where is this ... tha mountain?"

[Challenge] A pause.

"What was your challenge?"

She sounds young. She sounds weary. Still, there is a note to her voice, a tone, a way in which she poses the question of a near Athro that suggests her rank higher than Cliath, and likely, higher than Fostern. The rank where there are more below than above. When you start to give orders. Learn how to teach lessons.

It's unconscious, breaking through the barrier of her quietness, which is as much deliberate as due to things beyond his ken.

[Silence] A muscle tenses in Silence's jaw. If the gash on his neck had been any higher, 'Sara' would see that happen: the raw red meat of his masseter muscle clenching on itself.

"Don't know if I kin trust ya 'nough ta tell ya." He hears the irony in that. It makes his rage flare briefly higher in humiliation. Then he adds, "'f ya tell me why yer truckin' with banes 'n why ya called 'em off me, 'n 'll tell ya what my challenge was."

[Silence] (remove the 'n after the comma!)

[Challenge] Her eyes lock on his neck as his jaw clenches. She does not quite see the raw meat of the masseter muscle clenching, but she can see the gaping wound move as auxilary muscles do. She can imagine the pain. Her eyes jerk back up to Silence. "Remember that I healed you," she reminds him, an edge touching her voice. At first, it might seem like further cause for trust.

But by the time she's done, he'll see it for what it is:

"Banes are the only thing that will listen to me. I 'truck with them', as you say, because Gaian spirits won't sully themselves with me."

She steps closer. The swirls of her tattooing becomes more clear - a dizzying array of pictish symbols, woven amidst an unending sea of spirals; maps of tainted beauty.

"That's what happens when you dance the spiral.

"I called them off you, because I had ordered them not to kill."

[Silence] Instantly the Modi coils into a crouch that...

...simply falls apart. It's been so long since he's willingly put aside the gift of painlessness in the midst of danger. He hardly remembers how to operate with pain slowing every move, dulling every strike. He hardly remembers how to balance when his side is torn open and all the postural muscles there have come unmoored.

Silence collapses back against the wall, legs not quite gathered under his. He bites back a groan behind clenched teeth, tense lips. When the wave of pain passes he opens his eyes again.

Remember that I healed you, she said; not a recrimination or justification, but simply that. A reminder, in case he tries to do what all good Gaians would, and end her.

"Naw, s'ppose they was ordered ta -- "

he cuts off. No; a deal was a deal. He says: "My tribesmen sent me ta retrieve a Fetish. Was made by Singed Skin of tha Fenrir. Crafted 'n bound ta cleanse. Said ta be able ta destroy a bane in a single thrust.

"It was lost," he continues, eyes unflinching, "when Dancers killed 'im 'n his whole pack. Tha Fetish is somewhere in this realm. On tha mountain."

A pause.

"Was you one'a tha Dancers that killed Singed Skin 'n his pack?"

[Challenge] She watches him, avidly as he starts to get to his feet, her lips parting slightly to draw in a near silent breath as he crumples back against the wall with a bit-back groan.

"I said I only healed you a little," she says, almost apologetically.

His eyes open again, and he starts to make a comment, then backtracks, returning to the deal they've made, and answers her question. She seems a little surprised that he does, taken aback.

He asks the question and she does not answer immediately. Her hands clench into fists - and she hisses with the pain of it, pupils dilating as blisters beneath her skin crack and begin to leak. He can smell it now, faint mixed with the cold rock and heated earth outside, the smell of his own blood and sweat. The sharp, tangy smell of serum, the raw smell of burnt flesh. The shadow is too dark to see the extent of injury, if he even cared to. it is not so bad that her skin is charred - that he would see for sure.

"We needed it," she says, intently. "He was supposed to -" a pause, a break.

"We need it. I can't think of any other way."

[Silence] A dozen questions spring to mind; in the end he pushes them all aside for this one, first:

"Why tha fuck does everybody smell burnt?"

[Challenge] 'Sara' unfolds her fists and straightens them, pressing her palms against the line of her cloth slacks. "We activated it," she says, "The Fetish. It killed my packmate," a gesture of her hand toward the body remaining at the far end of the cave, slouched with the loose jointlessness of death.

"And burnt us whenever we touched it."

[Silence] Decker laughs.

He can't help it. It's not a particularly polite laugh, nor a nice one. He's not laughing with her; he's most definitely laughing at her, this Gaian-turned-Spiral-turned-Ronin. It's not a loud one, either, and he frankly doesn't have the fucking breath for a good belly laugh. It comes out like a snort, blasting another fine spray of blood into the air.

"Now I know why ya toldjer banes not ta kill me."

Humor fades. Hardness remains. Hard eyes, hard jaw, hard hands clenched to fists.

"Why do ya 'need' it? What is you tryin' ta do? What was who supposed ta do?"

[Challenge] Being laughed at, even if it isn't a belly laugh, sparks a fire through her worn exterior. Sara lifts her jaw and stares at him, hard. "Why did I keep them from killing you?" she enquires. "According to you, that is."

And before he can insist she answer his questions first, if he even intends to, she cuts him off (or imagines she does), "I've answered ever question you've asked so far, and only asked you the one."

[Silence] "'Cause y'all cain't use it," Decker replies, "but I kin."

[Challenge] She grins - a flash of her teeth showing beneath generous lips. "Don't flatter yourself," she says. "The only favour I have to ask of you is to leave us be."

[Silence] "So you kin keep on burnin' yerself ta crisps on that thing?" the Modi shoots back, riled, perhaps, at being so flatly contradicted. "What is y'all tryin'a do with'it?"

[Challenge] "Isn't it obvious?" her smile becomes sliding, slick and shimmering. "We're trying to cleanse ourselves."

[Silence] A brief silence answers her question: no, it wasn't obvious to the Modi. At all. He looks at her for a long moment, frowning; then around at the other bodies in the dark. Her burned packmates, presumably.

Back to her.

"Cain't jus' leave y'all be," he says. "Even if I weren't challenged ta bring back tha fetish, it belongs to tha Fenrir. Now that I know 's here, cain't jus' turn 'round 'n pertend I never saw it.

"So. We kin fight over it now 'n see which one'a us kills the other faster. 'r we kin work tagether. I help y'all cleanse yerselves. Then you gimme tha fetish. We got a deal?"

[Challenge] The Ronin shakes her head, her eyes lifting skyward in muted frustration. "You could fight me," she says, lowering her gaze, and lifting a hand to push it with restrained agitation over her tightly bound hair, "and either I win, and you die. Or I lose, die, and you still won't have the fetish. It's not here.

"You're badly injured, I'm not. Let's be clear on what your options really are."

Her fists close again, her breath hissing as her palms crease over the burnt skin. Sparks of strength waver and submerge beneath her agitation. The base of her personality seems intact, but the waves of emotion fall, helter-skelter through her. Annoyance at him, frustration at the situation, all ceding to her all-encompassing focus a searing goal around which everything centres. In better circumstances, she might be charismatic. Even compelling. Now, she is half-unwound, her emotions gushing free from torn seams.

Her hands close and reopen several times as she keeps her eyes focused upward, as if she expected to find an answer writ on the cave's ceiling. Her foot stamps an outward display of her inward skirmish.

She looks back down.

"For the sake of argument," she says, her voice softer, "How would you help us?"

[Silence] In silence, the modi watches the theurge war against herself, twist and stamp. When she's done, he lifts his chin a notch.

"Firs' thing I kin think'a is tryin' tha fetish on ya myself. Seems like tha easiest 'n mos' direct way. But I don't doubt that that's tha last thing y'all would want, seein' as how," there's deep, sardonic irony in his tone, "ya don't trust me none.

"So if not that, then next thing I'm'on suggest is Erebus. Ain't sure why y'all ain't headed there already, when 's fuckin' made fer people like you. But I figger you pro'lly have yer own reasons fer not goin' there.

"Las' thing I kin suggest is pro'lly somethin' you have more experience with than me. I hear way out in tha Deep Umbra they's places where thoughts 'n concepts take form. Maybe if you 'n yer pack head on out that way, you kin find a place where tha taint in ya takes form separate from yerself. Then maybe you kin kill tha taint without killin' yerself with it."

Decker shrugs, shoulders moving against cool stone. "You tell me if any'a those ideas is any good."

[Challenge] "We're not going to Erebus," this is absolute, resolute, "No one - "

A shadow darkens the opening of the cave, blacks out the light that comes through. A lanky limbed male, his chest bare and wired with muscle ducks through. "I told you to wait."

"We've been waiting too long," he declares to 'Sara', snorting back what sounds like sinus cavities full of mucus. "Wanted to check on you."

He turns his head, cocking it like an animal as he regards the Fenrir. Sniffs again.

"He's still alive," the newcomer observes.

"I told you I was leaving him alive." Sara is not a small woman by any means, her height extended to nearly six feet, her limbs long and leanly muscled. Still, her lanky companion has nearly a head on her.

Still - Silence is well acquainted with the body language of Garou. just as he could guess at her rank - Adren, or high Fostern, he can tell, she is Alpha. It is in the way she looks at him.

The way he looks at her - well. It is likely true that Sara does not have an easy leadership.

The newcomer sniffs again, "You going to introduce me? Or are we staying nameless like you did with Singed Skin?"

"You haven't got a human name." With that, she turns back toward their - he's not a captive, not truly. He is too dangerous for that, too undefeated. Their guest then.

"This is my packmate. He's Ahroun."

A pause. "We're not going to Erebus -" near her the Ahroun fills his chest to retort, silenced by a sharp gesture. "No one will ever come back. We,"

"You." The Ahroun.

"I want this solved while we're still worth something. While we could be."

His talen remains on the ground. It glows no brighter than it had at the glades.

[Silence] Mutely, the Modi turns to regard the newcomer. He takes in the other's stance, his form, his apparent strength or lack thereof, the constant sniffling. No human name. Metis? Some sort of metis deformity -- deviated septum? Cleft palate? Too dark to tell.

This is her packmate. He's Ahroun.

"So'm I," Decker replies, some sort of introduction, before his attention is back on the Alpha.

"Fine." He doesn't argue for Erebus. Not like he had any particular love for a place full of molten silver; the world's most horrendous purgatory. "So either ya hand me this fetish 'n I try ta cleanse ya with'it," his tone suggests he finds this unlikely, "'r we try tha Deep Umbra. If you think that's poss'ble. As a Theurge."

[Challenge] "We are not handing the fetish over," the Ahroun speaks again, his aggression weighing the room almost as much Sara's agitation has. He is a sharp counterpoint to her. A fuming core of rage versus her muted desperation.

There is a whiff of burnt skin from him, as a breeze comes in from the freshly opened cave mouth. The way he holds his hands is key - a stiffness, the glove like, swollen shape to them. The stronger, fresher smell of char.

It would appear that Sara had been wiser than her packmate. And had either had him try it first, or had simply had the sense to let go sooner.

"Be quiet." Sara's voice is low. "I'm thinking."

"Think faster, Alpha. I want him gone." He snorts again, loudly and turns his head to spit, a heavy splat of saliva and mucus as it hits the cave wall. the nameless Ahroun is no weakling.. A stance which is shoulder width apart, a back which is straight with strength.

"Be quiet," she repeats.

Silence lasts for seconds.

Finally, "Anythbing is possible in the deep Umbra. If you can only find it."

[Silence] The other Ahroun's rage irritates Silence, makes him turn his head on his shoulders slowly, flexingly, ignoring the shriek of pain from his torn neck. He flicks the nameless Ahroun a glance, says nothing.

Not until 'Sara' says anything is possible in the deep Umbra. Then he nods, a brief jerk of his chin up.

"Well let's go look fer it, then."

[Challenge] Sara's eyes lower to Silence's neck as he shrugs, her mouth pressing shut, her teeth catching on her bottom lip.

Her gaze focuses again when he speaks, before turning her head to look at her packmate.

"Go get Joshua."

Again, a human name. it must be strange for him to hear it from such obviously full-blooded Garou.

'Wait a second-" a glance toward Decker, making a brief gesture, "Don't move yet, Gaian."

"I don't like it. You can't trust him and he won't do us any good anyway."

"Go get Joshua."

"Just kill him, Ke- Sara!" The slip is obvious. He had been about to call her something else and shifted it.

"Go. Get. Joshua."

"He's not -"

The Theurge snarls and pushes forward, pushing her burnt hands against his bare chest, her fingernails scraping at his skin, tearing off strips of his flesh, drawing blood. It is a deliberate, calculated movement. Not far away, beyond the cave, he can hear the familiar shriek of one of the banes.

"Joshua, Nag'kahr. Now."

Absurdly, the Ahroun grins as he wipes a hand over his bare chest, the marks already healing, his skin knitting over the gashes his alpha has made, lifting a finger to his mouth, wet with his blood.

"Tsk."

He goes out the cave opening.

Sara turns back, lifting one hand to her face, sniffing the blood before dropping it like it scalds, wiping her hand viciously against the fabric of her trousers.

She does not speak, but instead eyes the Fenrir pensively, her breath coming, just a little too quick for a resting rate.

[Silence] Silence tenses as the two ex(?)-Dancers quarrel over him: muscles coiling, body readying itself by instinct alone. He knows he's faster than the Theurge; he suspects he might be faster than the Ahroun. He suspects he may be able to defeat at least one, even injured as he is; he knows that if he plays it smart, uses tactics, uses the full extent of his powers, he can take one of them down. Maybe both.

He wonders if it's worth it: his honor for his survival. He wonders if compromising one for the other is the first step down a long and spiraling path.

But in the end it's not a necessary calculation. The Ahroun -- Nag'kahr -- goes to get Joshua. The Theurge, Ke-something, stays where she is. Silence meets her eyes levelly, unflinchingly, waiting a few beats.

"Why tha fuck you wanna be cleansed anyway?" he asks abruptly. "Yer side's winnin' tha war."

[Challenge] The question causes her to blink. It surprises her that he would ask.

A Gaian Garou might note his bitterness, might comment on it, find it cause for concern. She might try and find the root of his problem, that he might ask the question the way he did.

She is clearly not Gaian. Every inch of tattoo on her skin declares her as something else.

Her surprise passing, it replaces itself with mirth.

"A thousand reasons. A million."

A pause.

"You ever doubted your side?"

[Silence] The Modi's head is tipped back against rock, his gaze frowning, cast down the high plane of his cheekbone. Until now, anyway. His head snaps upright, eyes ferocious.

Then he thinks for a moment. It takes that moment of genuine thought, which would appall the cliaths and fosterns of Storm Hammer; which might be better understood, though, by its athros and elders.

"Naw. Not my side. But whether'r not it even makes a diff'rence anymore, yeah."

[Challenge] She has been standing all this time. It is only now that she sits, sinking down across the cave from him, her back against the wall, drawing one knee up toward her chest.

It's oddly companionable.

If one ignores the gaping wounds in his throat and side, and her predilection for a snake eating its own tail, that is.

"Huh." This, a quiet, almost self-reflecting sound. "And here I thought everyone did."

She's quiet for a few seconds, one hand absently picking at the loose and blistered flish of the opposite palm. Here her tattoos are more visible, but they are dizzying in their makeup. it is not like anything he has ever seen, and likely, ever wanted to.

"I did, obviously." She says finally, dropping her hands and glancing toward the cave opening. The talen on the floor still glows with the same dim light it had had before. It will apparently be a while.

"And I suppose I have again."

[Silence] "What tribe was you?"

[Challenge] "Uktena." He can see it only just. The sallow skin, the dark hair. Whatever native blood she has is long diluted.

A moment's silence, her eyes lifting toward the ceiling of the cave. "I was a proud cliath," she decides to tell him, finally. "Arrogant, really. They liked to put me in my place, and I liked to spend long nights thinking about how wronged I was." Her fingers close absently the serum from her blisters sticky against her skin.

[Silence] Cliath. So young. "'n here I was gon' say mos' Cliaths don't never ask no questions at all."

They each have their wounds, oddly mirrored: his from a bane, hers from a baneslayer. He looks at her hands for a moment, but it's really just a place to rest his eyes.

"Uktenas is always taught ta question 'n seek more, though. Fenrir, most'a our Fosterin' is jus' here's tha Jormungandr, here's all tha Bad Shit he does, here's all tha heroes you should be like, 'n note: they's all dead in glorious battle 'gainst Jormungandr. Class dismissed. Go out 'n die good deaths."

He thinks a moment.

"Firs' time I questioned tha go out 'n die was 'bout a year 'fore I challenged fer Fostern. Firs' time I questioned whether 'r not it makes a diff'rence was a l'il after that, I think. 'n sometime when I was a Fostern was when I decided no, fightin' don't make much diff'rence at all.

"But I guess you kin call me a good Fenrir. 'Cause I'm'on go down fightin' anyway."

Not a lot of pride and glory in that. Just cold fact. But then, she already knows that; she's seen it for himself. He turns his head toward the opening of the cave.

"What we waitin' fer?"

[Challenge] She grins a little, a half hook of her generous mouth. "I think my questions ran more along a little more ignoble lines."

He asks what they're waiting for.

"My packmates and the Fetish. The Ahroun's gone for Joshua. They're all that's left."

There is quiet, genuine regret for that. She closes her hands hard enough that it might hurt.

"After that, I'll try and find us a way into some of the deeper umbral realms. Maybe think of something that will give us direction."

[Silence] "Do ya got a way ta tether yerself to tha near Realms? 'cause if ya don't, y'oughta leave tha Fetish where it is."

He reaches for the talen, picks it up, holds it up. He doesn't try to hand it to her. It's part distrust; it's also a vague idea that it might burn the Dancers the way the fetish itself does, if only on a lessened level.

"My elders made me this talen. It homes in on tha fetish. Kin be a sorta compass if we ain't got no other."

[Challenge] "Uh-huh." He can tell her distrust before she's even spoken it. It's in the tone. "And what stops one of your elders having the same thing and finding it while we leave it undetected, huh?"

[Silence] Decker gives her a disgusted look more at home on a surly teenager's face than an almost-Athro Modi's.

"Whatever. When we's lost out in tha Deep Umbra 'n my ass is spendin' eternity as a blue octagon, I'm'on know who ta blame." A sharp sniff. "You gon' heal me anymore at all, 'r you want me ta limp along at half speed?"

[Challenge] She snorts in response. "There's no umbral realm that turns you into a blue octagon," she retorts.

A pause.

"Give me the talen," she says, getting to her feet, and crossing the distance.

[Silence] Decker turns his face so the Ronin doesn't see the sudden, inappropriate bubble of amusement that threatens to burst from him.

Then she asks for the talen, approaching, and he instantly turns back, tensed. In the dimness, his bared teeth glistens. It would be ludicrous in this form if it weren't so utterly savage. He grasps the talen in his hand for a dangerous second, two.

"What do you want it for?"

[Challenge] Her hand is held out for it, and her fingers curl slightly. At his question, the look she gives him is exasperated, a curl of the upper lip, a twitch of her eyes heavenward.

"So we can find our way back, of course. I'm going to leave it behind, but I'm not going to leave you with the one way back."

[Silence] The one way back, she says. Silence narrows his eyes on her. A second or two elapse.

"Heal me 'n I'll give ya tha talen."

[Challenge] Sara exhales a breath, a deliberate calming measure.

She reaches out with her hand, tattooed from shoulder to fingertip, and closes it over the hand which holds the talen. Her palm is sticky with broken blisters, the skin very hot to the touch, the broken patches scratching against his knuckles.

The Ronin lets her gift run through him. It feels different than it would from a Gaian.

Somehow, it tastes black.
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9

[Challenge] "I would have healed you anyway," she observes as she moves to take the talen from between his closed fingers.

[Silence] Wounds close. Muscles reknit. Tendons reattach with tiny, almost imperceptible snaps of tension. Decker grimaces, rolling his newly resealed joints, twisting as though his skin sits poorly on him. He'll need a Rite of Cleansing when he gets back. If. He wonders if that's an unkind, ungrateful thought to have.

When she reaches for the talen, though, he opens his hand and lets her have it. Fuck if it burns her. She'd have asked for it, literally.

Then the Modi's on his feet. The Ronin might expect him to attack her now, or at least pull on Gifts, pull out weapons. She might even wonder what sort of Adren Ahroun had absolutely no way of healing himself; but then, he is a Fenrir.

In the end, all he does is lift his cloak from the ground: heavy wolfskin, so large it must have come from a Crinos, inscribed with dark runes that, doubtlessly, 'Sara' could read. They're faded now, almost invisible with repeated cleansings and cleanings. Still, when Silence shakes it out, there's still a faint scent of musk -- it's hard to say if it belongs to its present or former owner.

It's not cold enough for the cloak, really. Nonetheless, he throws it over his shoulders, the head over one, a massive handpaw over the other, and pins it.

"Fuck sorta Athro Theurge cain't find her way back from tha Deep Umbra, anyway?" he mutters, grumbling, and then jerks his head toward the door. "We leavin'?"

[Challenge] He gets to his feet, abruptly, suddenly, and the Theurge does not stand back, twisting her head up to look at him as his height exceeds hers.

There is a measure of tension. This had been a risk. A calculated risk, to be sure, but a risk, nonetheless.

She takes the talen but is careful to touch only the thong, her eyes on it intently as she cocks her head, lifting it to eye level. After a second, she taps it with a finger.

There appears to be no ill-effect. Half nodding to herself, Sara ties the thong about her neck, giving Decker a gimlet eye.

"I can," she says. "But only as I am now. When it's all through, I don't know what spirit will listen to me, and if I'll be in any shape to force them."

[Silence] Silence nods -- a simple jerk of his head upward. "Fair 'nough."

[Challenge] She smiles, her teeth flashing beneath her mouth. "Fair enough," she echoes.

She looks him over briefly, her gaze lingering over the places of his healed wounds, the scar, if she can see it. Something like regret passes over her face then fades as she inhales a breath slowly through her nostrils as she turns away.

The talen at her throat has begun to glow brighter, and she picks it up in her palm to see it.

"I guess it won't be long now."

[Silence] [When will the Shadow Lord Moot be dated? odds - 5th. evens - 14th.]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Challenge] So they wait, while the talen grows brighter and brighter. Certainly brighter than he had seen while at the glades. By the time the Ahroun darkens the opening of the cave it glows nearly white against Sara's sternum, illuminating through her skin as she reaches up to remove it from her neck, moving it to her pocket instead, where it glows through the fabric.

Nag'khar snorts before he enters the cave, a sinus deep snarl before turning his head and spitting a voluminous gush of slime against the outer cave wall.

He saunters in, followed a small wiry man, all long limbs and a hunched posture, his head swung forward and his spine slightly bent as if at a permanent curve. He brings with him a long slender object, wrapped in what looks like a cloak made of the skin of some great animal. It might be a war-formed Garou, but there is no head or paws to identify it.

Nag'kahr stares at the Modi in open dislike before swinging his head viciously to look at his Alpha.

"I am not going to continue to explain myself, Nag'kahr," the Theurge says before he can say anything.. "Don't start."

The metis sniffs again, viciously, and turns to spit against the same wall as Silence before he turns back. "Fine."

"What's the plan, Sara?" The newcomer, presumably Joshua asks as he comes forward. "One more good kill before we abandon the fun life forever?" His grin is toothy.

"Deep Umbra," Sara answers flatly. "We'll find somewhere to cleanse us."

"Is he coming with us?"

"Yes."

[Silence] On his feet now, the Modi faces the Ronin's packmates as they enter. His eyes flick briefly to the splashes of mucus on the wall, then back. Move between Nag'kahr and Joshua as they speak.

When they're finished, Silence says, staring at the males, "Yer packmates don't sound much dedicated ta yer cause."

[Challenge] "My packmates," Sara answers though he isn't looking at her, "have agreed to follow me anyways."

There is a sense that the words are as much meant for him as it is for her two packmates. It's in her tone, the way she looks at the two male Garou as she says it.

"Put the fetish by Davan," a sharp gesture toward the corpse laid against the wall. "We're leaving it here."

"Sara," the half-moon speaks. "This is insanity. You don't even know him. And now we're leaving the Fetish?"

"It's sanity, you just don't know it," she spits back. This has the rhythm of an oft-taken fight. Words they've thrown at each other before a thousand times.

Joshua snorts. "You're not so sane."

"I will be. Put it by Davan, and we're going."