[dex+performance, she's gotta get it out've her system of someone is going to kill her]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )
Sora[whatever Sora shut up you're extending that shit]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6) ( success x 3 )
SoraIt's a nice day for pedestrians to be wandering the Mall. They roam from the Tilted Kilt to the clock tower, to Good Times and to the movie theater, most of them in light jackets or at the very least long-sleeves. It's nice and mostly sunny but there's a wind that threatens to blow everything over.
Despite this, there is one person out in jeans and a t-shirt, its sleeves rolled up to her shoulders to reveal the runes tattooed into her upper arms. Sora Lundgren has an assortment of buckets in front of her, because she had an itch and she'll do whatever it takes to scratch it, preferably before those living in Cold Crescent threaten to throw her out on the streets.
She is baning on those upturned buckets, using an old pair of drum sticks to hammer out a lively rythm. There's a blanket laid out before her makeshift kit, held down with rocks at the four corners, with a smattering of coins spread across it.
There's not a lot. People are nervous about her for some reason. Is it the eye patch which covers her right eye? Is it the Rage?
Probably it's the Rage.
She plays anyway because the money is just an added bonus, something to get her a sandwich later when she's ready to eat.
NorthMost Garou don't really care much for the dogs in a city and they especially don't really care for the rats. It's probably that human part of them that wants no part of the vermin or strays. The Bone Gnawers being the exception to this. The dogs are their voice among a city full of human beings that want no part of howling wolves in their darkened corridors and lonely streets. The rats are their eyes when they are kept to just the dull vision of man. So Sora went to bang on her buckets and North went to see a man about a dog - or three. He feeds them whatever treats he can get his hands on even if his own belly growls because he doesn't really worry about food. Yes, his Rage is a curse but there's something sexual in that violent disposition that when turned on women can't deny. Thankfully, the majority of women are caretakers by nature and they gladly feed him. So, he doesn't complain.
His approach to Sora is a slow one. He watches her from a distance, watches the skirting band of humans who think about tossing money at her but are too wary to get too close. His Rage would only exacerbate their insecurity and uneasy so he waits until she stops before he crosses the space between them. His backpack is slung over one shoulder and he looks just about the same as he has every day since they met. His hair on top is golden brown and a little too long, the sides cut short. The beard is present, so are the tattoos. His off white thermal shirt hides the majority of the ink however, and his loose fitting jeans fall into and around loosely lacked boots.
"Not bad." Says North with a squinting of one eye.
SoraIf North widens his gaze, he'll find that it's not just the women of the city who will see that his stomach doesn't stay empty for long. Particularly since he spends at least some time in the Cold Crescent building with Sora. The fridges there stay more or less stocked by whoever's signed up for the store runs. This is a hospitality that Sora glady takes advantage of, and thoroughly intends to repay at some point, soon as she can.
Part of that repayment is not leaning too heavily on that generosity, hence the playing now. Or rather, hence one small reason for the playing.
And oh how she plays. She loves this, making rhythms with sticks, her fingers, her feet, her body. She loves finding them in the world and moving to them, and seeing if she can get others to move with them, too. But right now she has excess energy she needs to burn off. Still. The sweat that soaks through the back of her t-shirt and drips from her temples despite her long hair being pulled up is sign enough that she's been at this for a while.
She finishes finally with a quick, pounding flurry of beats and looks around. Some people look at her, a lovely woman with a single bright blue eye that dances with a barely bridled spirit that can't help but infuse those around them. It's insidious, infectious, it seeps into their skin and drives into their heart, making it pound to the echo of her drumming. She grins to a few without flashing her teeth because she knows. Only so many people can handle that smile coupled with that Rage and not think she's about to beat them to death with her own drum sticks.
Not bad.
She looks up, sees who it is, and grins fully for a moment before shrugging her shoulders. "Yeah, well. I'm no Dave Grohl, but I never will be if I don't practice." She is seated on an upturned bucket - there really aren't that many, one for a seat and four to play - her own pack snuggled up against the dirty white plastic supporting her. "What're you up to today?"
NorthHe has taken very little by way of food from Cold Crescent. He doesn't want to feel indebted or obligated and his pockets aren't the kind that can afford to buy him a dinner daily, let alone restock the food he could easily eat to fill up. But he does bring things in. If he takes one thing he brings twenty back. It's just the way that he is. A lean man, with tensile strength in all of his muscles, he relaxes back a little and has a good look at her buckets and the sticks and then her face and the eye patch.
"I had to make a trip to Lakewood really quick. You ever been over that way?" He asks her with a hand adjusting the strap of his backpack slung over one shoulder.
DavidBuy a bigger notepad.
That was actually written on the dismal little shopping list that David clutched in a massive paw of a hand. The piece of paper was from a $0.39 pocket-sized notepad and was dwarfed by the tall, broad, and somehow still gangly man's mit. He had to adjust his glasses just to read his own writing.
David didn't push the crowd away like a force when he walked on the sidewalk, but people still naturally deferred to him if there were any potential conflict in course upcoming. He didn't have to pay attention to where he was going because everybody else did, but this was equally on account of his impossible to overlook appearance (tall, somewhat ambiguous but definitely probably African-American?, big dense glasses and frames) and the steady thrum of Rage under the surface. It made him seem always aggravated. Not ready to snap, not necessarily, but he seemed like the kind of guy that didn't have much give. Probably better to just leave him alone and not get stepped on.
He needed to buy socks and underwear. The essentials. The kinds of things that you wore through quickly working a daytime labor job out in the sun sweating into everything you were wearing.
God damnit, he sighed inwardly, silently to himself and looked to the sky. I hate my job so much. It was demeaning, really, when he thought about it (and he had plenty of time to do so).
Up ahead, there was a one-eyed woman banging on drums, a bearded man with apparent tattoos even while wearing long sleeves speaking with her. He didn't know them. The beat was decent, though, and the woman was interesting.
He wasn't good at recognizing his own kind from a distance yet, but he was keeping his eye on them, open and curious while he came to pass them by.
SoraSora starts the business of putting her things away. She feels good, rested despite having just expended a lot of energy, pouring herself into her performance. She's done what she came out here to do, so it's time to let someone else take her place. A living statue perhaps, or someone playing guitar. The vagrant and busking landscape of the Mall is a thing that shifts constantly. Sora's Rage will be forgotten when this space fills with someone else's creative energies.
For the Garou, however, her purity of breeding will remain burned in the senses. She has the bearing of a great hero of Fenris' strong bloodlines. Something about the line of her nose or the point of her chin, the light in that single bright blue eye.
An eye that is for a moment lifted up to North before looking away as she flips over the buckets she was using to play. One fits into the other into the other, so that she's left with one thing to carry and a pack to shrug onto a pair of strong shoulders. She is tall, but still several inches shorter than her companion, and much shorter than the man-in-glasses approaching them. If Sora had been at any of Denver's moots previously surely she'd recognize David Lundgren, but she hasn't, so she doesn't.
Her time is coming, though. There is a moot in a few weeks and Sora has challenged and claimed Talesinger in a strong fist, a temporary title that she none the less grips tightly.
"Not yet." Truth is, she hasn't been around the city much. "You should've told me, I would've gone with you." She nudges him in the arm, grinning still. "Unless it was a private matter." That grin widens, "Then I still would've wanted to go." David comes to pass them by and she looks over at him, the stranger who doesn't stand out to her much, gives him a nod if he's not being terribly covert about watching them.
Or if he wanders into her blind spot. Let's find out, shall we?
[percept+alert, diff +1]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
NorthHe is still getting used to these things: the brushing of elbows or shimmy of one body against the next...the prodding and exploration that come with testing the waters with would be packmates. It's obvious he doesn't mind because he leans into the nudge and flashes Sora a lips stretched wide grin that lends him a mischievous air."Had to go see about some dogs." There's a nod that accompanies the statement, reassuring her that he said 'dogs'. "Next time, I'll bring you." His Rage is wore thing, exasperated from whatever activities he's been taking part in previously before coming here and sniffing out Sora. It is a quiet hum of vibration beneath his heated, tattooed skin that doesn't over power but almost compliments him.David slips by him and he pays him only as much attention as the woman with the patch does.(percept + alert too, just let's not fail this time North)
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
North(dammit formatting!)
David[Recognize Garou: Perception 3 + Primal Urge 2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
DavidThe wolf that has been appearing at the Moots really doesn't rest in his man skin. He seems to have it in his head that there is some kind of formality dictating he should appear as a Wolf instead, respect for the landscape or Wild or something like that. But any who attended would have, by now, seen his distinct mop of hair and large boxy shoulders under a heavy peacoat as he shuffled his way down the trails back to a forgettable used car to drive away.
Today he was dressed in a light gray jacket with a white shirt underneath it. His jeans fit him well. All of it was older, though, clearly worn and washed many a time over. He looked like a man who wanted to dress well but could only afford secondhand. Despite the fact that his glasses were almost overwhelming on his face and his hair wasn't amusing anybody with what it was trying to pull off at its length today.
Then the two that he'd noticed had noticed him back, were glancing in his direction. When they turned, there was something particular about the line of the woman's jaw, the eagle-sharp cast of her one good eye (unless the eyepatch was there as a ploy for some unfathomable reason), the height and cut of her stance that struck home. The man beside her was clearly beast within the skin of a man. It was almost as though instead of having tattoos the markings were ink hackles, quivering and ready to rise. The pair were both Garou, that was undeniable.
He nearly stopped walking for half of a second, his stride faltered but he caught himself before he stopped completely. When he recovered, it was to pull a smile that one would suppose is supposed to be friendly but he wasn't showing his teeth at all and it made it look nearly strained somehow. The shopping list was jammed into his coat pocket, let to crumble as it will, and the other hand lifted to hail the pair.
"Well hello, neighbors." This in a voice that didn't boom at all like you expected someone his size should boom. Low, but not big. Not loud.
Sora[DO I KNOW WHAT YOU IS? I AM SUPER GOOD AT THIS YOU GUYS: percept+PU diff 6+1]
Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (3, 9) ( success x 1 )
SoraIt's the faltering step that causes Sora to look a little harder at the stranger. Something about the way he looks at them, at her, it speaks of a recognition. Sora's memory isn't perfect, but she's certain something about him would ring familiar if they'd ever met before. She studies him, head tilted curiously as she continues to listen to North, her blue eye wide and inquisitive. Is that-
Wait, what?
She looks at North, attention grabbed. "Did you say dogs?" Yes, yes he did. She lets out a chuckle and says, "It's probably best I didn't go with, then."
And then he's there, the stranger who has an edge to him, something that Sora picks up on faintly. That thrum, that low hum of Rage. He almost stops completely but doesn't.
"Hi," Sora greets, and her voice doesn't boom but it feels like it has the capacity to carry. If she wanted she could make herself heard all the way down the street, same as she'd made her drums heard practically to Union Station.
"I think I'd remember you, neighbor, but then I'm pretty new to the neighborhood myself," she says, latching onto David's code (is it a code?).
Tamsin16th Street Mall. Sidewalk. Shoppers. Street traffick.
Tamsin's busked here before with Hector. Tamsin's busked here before on her own. Tamsin's does have an instrument case strapped to her back so maybe when she sees Sora packing up her rather prime spot she'll slip herself in because there's never enough cash to go around. The case is too little to be the guitar, so it's probably the new ukulele. Around her throat is a black scarf with pink skulls. Clamped on her head is a felt fisherman's hat. Her shoulder-length hair is in two low pig tails. Her jacket's a size too big and it's green and covered in patches. Her jeans are jeans there's not much to say about jeans except they fit all right and they're black too. Under the jacket is her David Bowie Labyrinth teeshirt.
And she simmers, Galliard does, all contained-Rage, low-ebb, the sound of embers burning in the dark - look at her, fey-girl, quiet-thing, bloody rites on tors in moonlit woods where this world and another coalesce into Faërie, turn your head right and the breeze says stag's stag's stag's stag's the only one with a crown you know if you know how to know these things.
Half-closed eyes of the 'just woke up in the afternoon why doesn't that feel the same as waking up in the morning.'
Half-closed eyes as she squints at that 'fro over by the other busker who [wait stop- stop stop stop; drag, held, fixed- don't you see the heroes, shining, all their tales- bright and dark and in between?] is packing up.
That's what's his name. What's his name who she remembers more as a wolf. What's his fucking name, Tamsin, how could you forget, how could you not fucking remember, you're the worst, spiral into darkness, perfectionist perfection--
Oh. "Hey what's the Word!" she calls out, cupping her hands around her mouth.
To her fellow busker? To Final Word? To North? ONLY TIME and their reactions will tell.
North"Yeah dogs." He says in a way that might sound incredulous though not quite too offended. He laughs though, light hearted and easy as if Sora said something that sought out his funny bone and tickled it. Greyish eyes are lowered on the Get of Fenris he was walking with and he lets loose an almost exasperated sigh. "You gotta think outside the box. Might be a big story there just waiting to be told." His eyes drop to follow David but he doesn't speak to the stranger with the massive head of hair. There is a nod though, polite enough and respectful, but no words.
Until Tamsin calls out, words carrying to keen ears the sound bringing up his chin and flaring his nostrils to scent the air. Car exhaust...perfume...sweat...food...plastic and wood...and then something that was like a long forgotten memory, a name that hangs phantom-like on the tip of your tongue tempting and teasing you with the promise of what it is, but never giving it up. He licks his lips, tastes the air and says quietly,
No way, and by then his body has angled toward the Galliard in the Labyrinth tee and pig tails, his eyes glinting curiously.
David"Well, not that kind of neighbor. I'm not actually crashing in the barracks or anything." His answer for Sora is casual. The cadence to his voice is, the word choice and volume and all that. But he's still looking at Sora a little too heavily to be casual just yet. Maybe sizing her up a little. That's probably just habit built into him from fostering his way through the Get of Fenris tribe.
Not that they know what tribe he is. He sure doesn't look like a Get of Fenris, apart from being big.
North had nodded at him, and David looked to the Bone Gnawer, surveyed him curiously enough, and nodded as well.
Then: A two-cadence vocalization and 'Word'. It could have been his name. Well, his Name. His other name, at least. Either way, David reflexively lifted dark eyebrows up on his forehead in some amount of surprise and turned about to look back in Tamsin's direction. A quick-note taken of how North had looked across the way as well, but then David was squinting-squinting.
Recognizing Tamsin-- the petite Fianna that spoke up with him at the Moot. Lifting a large hand into the air above his head and waving across the way at her.
SoraSora lets out a huff of a laugh, smile broadening as she looks aslant of her wouldbe packbrother, that blue eye all alight with mirth and good humor. "Yes I look forward to the day I tell the story of how I scared all the dogs with my mighty presence." She lifts her hands as though to frame something, a marquee perhaps. "The Cautionary Tale of Bites, Muninn, and the Dogs." She nods her head, and then she tilts her head. Listening.
To David, yes, of course to David. Barracks, hm, yes. Barracks, dorms, the city place where Sora stays and North sometimes crashes.
But also to the sound of someone calling out. Someone calling out with the sense, the feel, the prescene of a Stag-child. Sora's hair is up, pulled up in a loose and haphazard knot on top of her head, so that those standing closest to her can see her human ears actually prick! Shift a fraction as she turns to look at the other girl, fey Galliard, follower of a foggy totem. Not that Sora knows these things on sight.
Oh, oh Tamsin. Oh Tamsin oh Tamsin oh Tamsin. You are shortly in for a surprise.
For the moment Sora is curious. She does not search out the girl's bearing to look for the Rage they share, the ability to shift that they all carry in their blood and bones. She looks from Tamsin with her Stag's blood and then she looks at David. Oh yes David.
"I've a room in the barracks," she says, continuing the code-talk. Breaking it, maybe. Even tilts her head a little in the direction she knows that great, shining black wedge-shaped building to be. Then she shifts, setting down her collection of buckets, within which is the rolled up blanket thing - coins and all. Straightening, she shifts the weight of her pack, settles it more comfortably on her shoulders. "I'm Sora. I left a map on the white board a few months ago."
TamsinDavid holds up a hand. Tamsin does too. Takes her hands away from her mouth the left one reaching over to her ukulele strap to hitch it up right hand the one in the air. There're rings on her fingers but they're not silver. They're resin and a hemp bracelet knotted around her wrist with multi-coloured beads and she cannot teleport so it still takes her a bit of time to make it across the pavement to Sora's corner. "Um," she says, on arrival, "A hand isn't a word." She smiles without showing her teeth; it's mischief. It's I-am-fucking-with-you OR AM I? It's-
It is North. The Galliard peers at him [she keeps wanting to look at Sora, coruscating Fenrir-thing, glaciers and long halls and fire in the sky; ancestral enmities but go back further and- think of the language and- ], biting the inside corner of her mouth, and her eyes are still very squinty. She opens them in a more regular way; aaaaaaaagh SUUUUNNNNNNSHHHHSHSHHHSSSS squints again. Then she puts her thumbs beneath them her index fingers on her eyelids and opens them that way; then she beams!
She'd probably go HEY or something but Sora's talking and Tamsin is quiet and serious more often than she is not and she likes to listen so instead of going HEYYYY she beams at the Ahroun and salutes a two-fingered what-up salute which turns into a 'fist bump please?' offer of a fist.
Then looks at the other Fenrir. The one who looks like a Fenrir and feels like a Fenrir.
"I heard you," she says, so seriously. "I heard you when you sang your hello and the rocks they sang back too and the sky did open up and widen because such was the grace of your voice; I was not speaking then or I would have come to find you. I'm Tamsin."
NorthFaces he cannot place well, but scents are filed neatly away in some feral corner of his brain to be referenced when required. He knows Tamsin's scent and the way she speaks and her face isn't one he could easily forget even though he's forgotten more than his fair share of pretty ones. Before she makes it to their corner his long arms are crossed over a not quite barrel chest. This isn't a big bear of a man and David is more than likely bigger than he is. But his is the build of a body made for endurance and distance and the long fight. The last hurrah. Narrow and lean with a strength that surprises most that tangle up with him, North would look lanky to David probably. At least at first glance.
Tamsin wants a fist bump and she gets it, tattooed knuckles pressing light to her delicate ones in a friendly greeting. There had been introductions before he was waylaid by the face of his past he left behind so many miles back, so he does the appropriate thing and offers David a hand and his name.
"North."
NorthI have to take care of something quickly...I will hurry back as soon as I can. Go on and post around me, please and thank you :) North will stand over to the side, or dig something shiny out of a bin. lol
brb
DavidThere's a flicker of interest in the mention of a map on the whiteboard. David had to think about that, and it showed in how his eyes went a little glassy behind already glass lenses, how he was clearly searching for a visual memory so his eyes went unfocused to not dilute the effort. He was trying to remember a map drawn on a whiteboard. It took him a second to remember the road map, the one printed on glossy brochure paper. With the stars. He was surprised by the Caern in Iowa-- he was so nearby but unaware of its existence. A statement to how many Garou there still were, how large their armies could still potentially spread.
Anyways
Tamsin joined them, and David's attention pulled back into this world. She was mentioning that a hand wasn't a word, and he looked a little confused, stared at his palm for a second, then jammed both of his hands into his coat pockets. "It is. Just not in the language you were expecting."
He shifted to the side, found himself standing next to North and glanced over to the other man. It was at this point that he was offered the Gnawer's hand to shake. David blinked, dislodged a hand from his pocket, and wrapped it around North's offered one.
To compare the two men: David was taller, and while most of it was hair some of it was build too. Only by a few inches, though, it wasn't very noticeable. His chest and shoulders were wider. He carried the frame of a man who had the potential to be huge, a beast really. His hands were large enough to indicate such. But his chest and core where the jacket and shirt sat close didn't show layers of muscle built up from life in battle. He was skinnier than what suited him ideally.
Still had a decent grip though. And fresh still-building-and-healing callouses on his palms. He was learning how to work. Those muscles would grow.
"David." A brief, conspiratorial glance about, then he leaned in and added in a lower tone: "Cliath. Judge. Get of Fenris." A cleared throat, and a deed name that one would have to stretch to imagine him living up to-- "Final Word."
He let go of North's hand and straightened up. The pair settled to just stand off to the side, mutual in their quiet and acceptance of one another's introductions and looking back to the ladies instead.
SoraSora looks at Tamsin curiously, head tilted, watching her. There is no shift on the part of this pure bred Fenrir woman to make it easier to take in these three with her one good eye, she has no qualms moving her head from side to side and back again to look at each person. Someone ends up in her blind spot sometimes because someone is always in her blind spot. Such is the way of things when you are the Eye of Muninn.
Hand is not a word? What?
"I knew a talesinger who lost her voice. A spirit came and took it away, locked it up and put in a box maybe, put that box on the top shelf. Something, somewhere. Anyway, she spoke with her hands. And more beautiful words you will never see than those said with Ghost Howl's expressive fingers." Grin. Two Galliards meet on the street, folks.
This Fianna girl heard her sing her hello to the sky, to the sept, to the Caern, to the mountains and on and on. Then her brows lift, sweeping things that rise like wings over an eye of blue ice and a dark patch of nothing that covers nothing, only a hole. If they look closely they can see the edges of scar tissue. It's frayed the bottom edge of her brow and the upper edge of her cheek.
That look happens because Tamsin says her name and really how many Tamsins can there be in one place? If they were over the sea, across the Pond, in the land of Fiann himself it might be different but they're not. The men go silent, watching the women, the gibbous moons meet.
"Tamsin?" Sora asks, voice lilting upward as her body leans toward the girl, excitement causing Sora to stand at full height, her chest expanding with a deep deep breath. "As in, Cinder Song? As in, Furious Lament?" And they can feel her spirit rising within her, pouring out and from her. Causing their hearts to pound a little harder. Infecting them. "As in, Celduin?!" And she takes a step forward, but stops herself, arms lifted like she's about to throw them around the other Galliard, wrap her up in that scent of the Fenrir, of her own skin and the sweat that is drying on its surface and in her clothes. But she doesn't. Because Sora knows Hector and she knows stories about Cinder Song Furious Lament, but she doesn't know Tamsin, girl with the hat, the braids the ukelele.
What comes next she says for David, because North knows her and would maybe call her sister, and Tamsin heard her howl her name. She grins at the other Fenrir. "Well met, cousin." Do they look like cousins? No, no they do not. "Sora, Eye of Muninn. We share a tribe and a rank but not a moon. Galliard."
TamsinThe Fianna doesn't look gleeful when David examines his hand that expression of confusion a stamp on his face. Too easy, maybe is what she's thinking. Too easy, tucking that away like a present to herself, the corner of her mouth wanting to sly-turn up. Too easy so maybe she won't mess with David. Not the language she was expecting: "Fair point. Unsurprising."
Because he's a judge. Because he's fair. As they'll all soon know. Sora knew a talesinger who lost her voice. Tamsin listens with grave-eyed attention (grave-eyed, squinty-eyed, because she pulls the brim of her hat down again or adjusts it so the HSSSS sun doesn't get to her and she can look at them all without wanting to gouge her eyes out). Her weight goes up onto the balls of her feet and it's not QUITE a bounce but eeee eeee yayyy look a galliard she can swap parables with eee yes it is fucking on. "Yeah?" she says, prelude to something parable-y, but she is quite put off her stride by Sora's evident excitement.
If she were Tamsin-wolf right now, wolf-shape Fianna-thing, her ears would be pricked right up with alarm, her eyes bright, very still. As it is, humans blush. Fuuuuuck blushing. FUUUUUCK BLUSHING. Whatever, she's getting a magical sunburn, that's what she'd say aloud. Convincingly. Maybe. Anyway, she blushes a little and clears her throat and says, "Yes."
Sora introduces herself to David; Tamsin whispers to North, "you at Cold Crescent?" And at the end of the introduction, Tamsin looks between the Fenrir again, glances carefully at the street (this collection of wolves; they're avoided), and then says:
"Final Word. He did keep the bone at the circle; did act as Truthcatcher during the Cold Moon, Coldest Moon of a cold year; there we did decide on the course of plan which brought our tale to you, Eye of Muninn. And North, he's got the moon full-up and boiling in his heart, doesn't he? I once saw his teeth so gore-splattered there was more gore in his teeth than there was foe to bite; it was brave."
Okay, Tamsin. You are hung-over. Enough with the Fianna Galliarding. "Ummmmm, so Sora. Are you like, literally a drummer? You wanna um like meet up sometime for story swapping and if you're good, uh... Like, I could kind of use some percussion on this track..."
North(back)
Sora[i have to jet for home but bbiab!]
NorthHis head inclined toward David so he could catch the small but important whispers of rank and auspice and tribe. Hair bristles, those fine strands of blonde that run from the nape there at the back, down the curve and to a spine that doesn't care posture. His offered back in the same quiet measure: Bite's Back. Full Moon. Cliath. Bone Gnawer.
Fingers scratch at his beard which needs a good trim and when Tamsin tells about that one time with the blood and gore and gristle between front teeth he doesn't blush or lower his chin. He smiles wide and nods because he remembers too.
Yes, he's content to stay there with David. The humans can feel it, the danger inherent in all of them.
DavidThe woman had turned to him again, and David blinked owlishly at her from where he stood shoulder-nearby-shoulder with her potential packbrother. She was introducing herself. He listened-- she had a name that he would note for later. She was a Skald, and that explained plenty. He'd suspected as much, seeing so much of their shared tribe in her face and spine and seeing her playing street music. The pieces were easy to fit together.
"Well met," he agreed, the two words a formality learned and expressed and spoken as through drilled into him in the military. That's basically what living this life was, though, wasn't it?
Tamsin started speaking what she knew of him-- brought up the moot and he cleared his throat into a big fist and adjusted his glasses and scrubbed his scalp through his dense hair. "Ah, yeah, one and the same."
He looked like he wanted to hang around more. Socialize. Get to know some of these wolves-- they didn't seem so bad, not nearly so intense as the ones back in Minnesota, the ones that howled war-fog to welcome him into the Nation. The way that his weight rocked forward on his toes then back again to his heels, just a little, suggested he intended to stick around. He was clearly idling.
But then a shrill tone shrieked from his pocket-- the worst ringtone imaginable. God knows why it's on his phone (actually, it's so he doesn't miss it over the sound of tools and engines and other such ruckus at work, but no one here knew that), but he looks inconvenienced when he plucks the device (decked out in a heavy-duty case) from his coat pocket and checks it. Oh for the love of... his boss.
"I need to take this." He put it simply, showed the phone to everyone (as though they missed the awful noise it was making) but not long enough for them to read the display screen before he snatched it back. "I'm sure I'll be seeing you all around." An apologetic wave of long fingers, and the man had turned around and answered his phone, finally, everyone be thankful.
Shoulders up against the wind, he walked on his way while arguing with his boss whether or not his name was actually on the schedule for today, and if he was supposed to be in four hours ago then why didn't he call four fucking hours ago jesus.
David[And I'm going to try and catch a cat nap before I need to hit the road in an hour. Thanks for playing you all!]
Tamsin[Thank you! It was nice meeting David outside of a moot thread!]
North(North will meet Sora back at the dorms and will hunt down Lady Tamsin for catching up soon. I, sadly, need to get ready for bed. Curse time zones! Thank you for the play!)
Tamsin[But Jess will chill until Niko returns, like a badass. HI KAI.]
Sora[dang it i just got here!!!]
SoraBrows lift, grin lifts with it, turns into a smile. "Yes I-" pause because she is looking now for the source of that awful screch. If she were Godi perhaps she would wonder what wounded spirit was calling out to her now, but she is not. She is Skald. Talesinger. Odin's raven of memory, sent to gather tales and bring them back to the Homelands for the next go-round. She is looking for the source and maybe the story and she finds
a cell phone. She gives David a sympathetic look, not that she understands. She does not own a cell phone to call her away from meeting other Garou. But he seems reluctant - to leave them maybe? to take the call maybe? - and that she can sympathize with.
And then North is heading off as well, going back to Cold Crescent to occupy a room that is more Sora's than his but is theirs just the same. She offers the Gnawer a wave and a sharp grin, and then
Tamsin.
Tamsin wants to know if Sora is like, literally a drummer, and there is now space in which the Skald can answer.
"Yes." Grin. She reaches up a hand to sweep wisps of hair back from her angular face. "Though I do not, unfortunately, literally own a literal kit." She does not dip to retrieve her buckets that serve as her drums for now. This city feels like Fate and meeting North felt like Fate and so Sora is thinking that it is her Fate to stay here long enough to get a drum kit. Maybe a place of her own to put it in. Hopefully a place of her own to put it in.
"What kind of percussion?" she asks. "What kind of a song?" She is interested. Her feet have covered much ground over the last few months. It's been a long, long time since she shared a space with another wolf and longer since she could work with one. And a Galliard. A Fianna Galliard. Yes, Sora is interested.
Tamsin[Hmmmmmmm. Play-play?]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
TamsinTamsin waves to David. Tamsin: she is often so uncertain, too - not good enough, not good enough, not good enough! - that she feels a certain echo of kinship with the Fenrir who doesn't look like one. Then there's the Shadow Lord who feels like one. Such a strange meeting of Fenrir lineages here in Denver, something story-worthy in that perhaps. Tamsin: her eyes squint again because it's just easier and she hmms as she waves. Waves to North, too. Won't Hector be amused? Wonders where the sister is because isn't there a sister?
And then the Galliards are alone. At last.
"I'm not sure," she answers, all grave and earnest. "But I think it needs something, like … Um, here. I'll play you a few bars of the melody so you can get a feel, and..."
Tamsin, she is setting her case down now, unsnapping it, taking out the ornate ukulele gift, cradling it. The song isn't for a ukulele, but she will adapt it. Melody is melody, and for now it suits. Biting the inside of her mouth, she plays a song that is
a searching song, a longing song, a world's not as it should be song
a wandering melody, a melody that wanders, circles back, earnest and haunted simplicity
it's not quite a mourning song; it's a hunting song
a finding song; a question of a song, this song
that's the kind of song the song is.
Sora[hm can Sora do a thing? let's go dex+perf +1 diff because she's never heard it before]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 2, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
SoraTamsin isn't sure what kind of percussion, or maybe she's not sure what kind of a song? Sora realizses that she's still leaning toward the Fianna, 'still' being relative. She leaned away when the boys wandered off their own ways, watching them go, but soon as the Galliards were alone she was back. Weight forward to the balls of her feet in a lean. Like she's drawn to Tamsin, or like she is always on the brink of something. Movement, bursting forward into a story or a tale or a song even. Sora can sing, see, but her passion is drumming. Drumming, for her anyway, is more physical than singing is. Singing can be, too, but it's just not the same. It's not the same at all.
She rocks back a little. Gives Tamsin her space again, space to pull out a ukelele and get ready to play a few bars of an unknown (to Sora) melody.
The Fenrir tilts her head, angles it to the side, then shifts so that one ear is pointed toward Tamsin. That blue eye of hers, so bright and piercing, softens as she listens to the melody, goes distant like a Godi's except it's not spirits she sees. It's melodies, ripples in the air, rhythms.
Not entirely without thought, she presses her palms to sturdy hips and pats. Pat-pat puh-pat. Testing out those rhythms that she sees and that she feels. Pressing them against that melody to see what works. Not quite there, not quite, no. But it's only her first time hearing it. She comes close but she's not quite there.
"Nice," she says, and for once her voice is low and quiet between them. Not even carrying to the humans who are trying to give them a wider berth. "I think I can work with that, definitely."
TamsinMusicians are a strange people. They're a People, really, a tribe in and of themselves, regardless of musical style. They're experimenters and explorers. They're testers of sound. They're testers of heart-string tugging, of emotion. Get a couple musicians in one place, especially if they're the creative kind, the kind who aren't just in it for the precision, for the mathematical exactitude of a harmony, and they'll start to talk shop. Maybe they'll sing, they'll swap their voices back and forth, or just start fitting disparate pieces togethr: melody, chords, bassline, another melody, riff, chorus, no, what about if we do this, no no what if instead of that we do - so this is normal. Troubador. This is how bards in the old days did it: how they still do it. Because Sora and Tamsin: they are bards, gibbous moon moon-dancers, singing down the moon when they've gotta, keeper of the histories that don't get written down and none of them get written down and it is quite a weight.
Sora drums against her hips. Tamsin listens, intently. Her head is canted a little to the side.
Raises her eyebrows, like- you want to try again? And then plays it through once more so that Sora can try something different.
Even so she says, either after or before, "Cool. Um. Really cool," shy, suddenly, again: "We've been after a drummer for fucking ever. Not for everything, but you know... Sometimes there's a need, and Jack, well, he was enthusiastic about the prospect but... And anyway, yeah."
"You challenged for Talesinger, didn't you? For this next Full Moon. The Eclipse. You wanna, um! Go somewhere," more private, unspoken, "to talk or something?"
SoraSora is learnéd in a number of languages, and Tamsin is learnéd in a few of her own, but for now they speak a language that is both universal and private. They speak in notes and beats. Nods, looks. Rhythm and melody and the harmonies Tamsin finds in the strings of her instrument.
You want to try again?
A nod, Yes, and so it goes. Tamsin playing and Sora finding the right percussive notes to accompany. She is loud, the Fenrir, she can be anyway. Tamsin heard her howl but didn't say where she was when she heard it. Could have been inside the Sept of Forgotten Questions, could have been a mile away on a mountain peak. Chances are she would've heard it regardless.
But Sora can also be quiet, and this song, this finding question of a song, it doesn't sound like it needs to be loud, not at first.
Then Tamsin gets all shy and Sora grins because Sora is almost always grinning. Waning Galliard and Waxing Galliard. One a dark thing, one a bright shining one. And yet one does not eclipse the other.
Tamsin, she says they've been after a drummer and Sora's smile widens and that eye of hers goes bright. Fate. Kismet. Something. Something put her in Hector's path and changed her own. Stopped its meandering and gave it a purpose. Brought her here. To a sept. To a pack. To a band. To a fucking-- No, no. Peace, Sora, peace.
She nods with enthusiasm, one sharp dip of her head. "Yeah," she did challenge for Talesinger for the next moot. The eclipse. The Eclipse. Sora is looking forward to it, she shines for it, becomes bright for the dark night even though it's still the middle of the day. Her grin becomes a happy thing, pleased and amused but really just happy. "Yeah I'd really like that. I'd really like that a lot. Do you mean like back to the Crescent?" Because there they can talk about an-ee-thing.
Tamsin[AND THEN THEY WERE GALLIARDS]
No comments:
Post a Comment