Object Lesson
7/25/2007
11:31 PM
Logfile from GarouMUSH.
Currently the moon is in the waxing Gibbous Moon phase (75% full).
It is currently 23:27 Pacific Time on Wed Jul 25 2007.
Currently in Saint Claire, it is clear outside. The temperature is 64 degrees Fahrenheit (17 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the north at 3 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 29.97 and rising, and the relative humidity is 75 percent. The dewpoint is 56 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius.)
Farmhouse: Hallway and Living Room
All doorways in the front part of the house lead to the front hallway, a J-shaped area with the short tail starting at the stairs, the front door hitting the bottom curve, the doorless opening to the living room halfway up the long side, and the also doorless opening to the kitchen and dining room at the very top. The hall has a simple wooden floor, and decorated with a generic print of soft-colored flowers hanging on the wall to the right of the front door, and a tall table sitting under the print which serves as a place to toss keys. A closet under the stairs serves as a place to hang coats or to toss shoes.
The doorless opening to the living room is halfway up the side of the hall's J, and the word cozy might spring to mind when looking into is, as it seems to radiate comforting vibrations. A long couch sits against the south wall beneath a large bay window curtained only by sheers that manages to obscure the view in but only filters the day's light. A variety of out-of-date magazines are strewn atop a low coffee table; more neatly presented are the plethora of books filling the small bookshelves which line the eastern wall. Three chairs sit about the room, focused inward, to allow group conversations. Large floor pillows are stacked in one corner of the room, except one, which lies carelessly in the middle of the floor, apparently left out the last time it was used.
An opening in the northern end of the hallway allows access to the kitchen and dining room at the back of the house, while carpeted stairs twist up at the other end of the hall, leading to the second floor. A door at the base of the J lets out to the front porch.
Contents:
Coriander
NOTE: Current Farmhouse Residents (Updated: Jun 26)
Obvious exits:
Kitchen/Dining Room Front Door STairs
Coriander flits down the stairs in her bare feet, down to the living room, aiming for the couch. However, the sounds and smells cause her to stop and step over toward the kitchen, to peek at who is the cause of such things.
In the back of the house, The occupant of the kitchen is a teenaged girl. Not the most intimidating of people, although something about her suggests she's no shy violet. The table bears the fruits of what is presumably her work- cooling racks holding a chocolate cake, a fruits cake, and a pale sponge cake, and two whole racks of... gingerbread Crinos? She is currently bent over a bowl, face a little red, beating the contents with a wooden spoon, her heavy bangs starting to stick to the side of her face. The sound probably masks any noise the cub might make.
Kenneth enters from the front door of the farmhouse, not so much as knocking before coming in. The Shadow Lord rubs his hands, a bit stained with blood at the tips. Everything pauses for him as well, when the smells of cake and gingerbread waft through the lower house level. His progress towards the stairs starts up, but diverts for the kitchen, only to halt again as he spots Coriander on the way there. Coming up behind her, he speaks. "No one's setting the kitchen on fire, right?"
Farmhouse: Kitchen and Dining Room
Homey is the first word to come to mind when looking at the farmhouse's kitchen. Dark, wood-paneled wainscoting covers the walls to about waist height, dark beige wallpaper continuing to the ceiling. Twin refrigerators occupy the north wall, facing the large six-burner stove on the south. The kitchen counter runs the length of the eastern wall, broken only by the double-basin sink. Cabinets run above and below the counter and a twin-pane window is set in the wall above the sink. A small pantry is set into an alcove alongside the refrigerators, presumably holding the deep freezer as well as shelves of dry goods.
Some twelve feet above the floor, a large chandelier hangs from the ceiling, lighting the dining room and casting long shadows over the bar to the kitchen. A long table occupies the center of the dining room, three chairs setting along each side, and one on each end. On the west wall, a large window looks out on the trees alongside the western pasture. Set into the north wall is a large cabinet, its glass doors closed on shelves containing a full compliment of fine china and glassware as well as a few decorative nicknacks. On the east, a wide bar separates the dining room from the kitchen.
An opening in the southern wall allows passage to the front entryway of the house, while a sliding glass door in the kitchen opens to a clearing behind the house.
Contents:
Coriander
Ruth
Obvious exits:
Hallway/Living Room Back Door
Stepping inward more, Cori is just about to open her mouth to greet the other teenaged girl, but the sudden voice behind her changes her words into a short cry of surprise. She turns around, letting out a breath, "Oh, Kenneth-rhya, you scared the /crap/ outta me."
[look Ruth (homid)]
Most people would likely not give her a second glance if she passed them on the street. She's a tanned Caucasian girl somewhere in her mid-teens, average in height, slender but reasonably graceful and with the promise of what should become a good figure in another year or so. Her face is an unremarkable oval, with intelligent brown eyes beneath rather heavy brown eyebrows. Her nose is decidedly boring, and is set above a wide mouth; Her chin is rounded with a hint of determination to it. Her hands have scabbed knuckles and short but neat fingernails. Her long, chestnut brown hair has been pulled back into a ponytail and secured with a leather thong, almost-grown-out bangs escaping to frame her face.
She wears a white T-shirt edged in black, with a large black rose emblazoned over the left breast. Worn open over that is a faded black denim jacket, with matching jeans on her legs and sturdy hiking boots on her feet.
[look Coriander (homid)]
Coriander is a young, short, blonde female, in her mid-teens, with a round, fair, freckled face and straight hair that hangs down past her waist, although tied back into a braid. Possibly her most noticeable feature would be her one blue eye and one grey eye. She dresses with regard for neither fashion nor fads, her clothes rarely ever matching at all. Currently she wears a salmon-colored, short-sleeved shirt, long enough to reach her upper thighs, that reads, in worn lettering, 'New York'. Under it, she has a long-sleeved, yellow undershirt, the sleeves covering most of her hands. In fact, her thumbs poke out of slits cut in the seamline of the sleeves. Her pants are old, worn, faded, patched, re-patched jeans that have seen better days in their time. And under them, a pair of strappy sandals for her feet.
The girl in the kitchen blinks up at the sound of voices and straightens, her neck cracking and her hand on the spoon stilling. "Far-Cry-rhya," she says, with a small but respectful nod for her former teacher, then turns open curiosity upon the other teenager. "Good evening."
Kenneth, with the relatively wild hair length now and just an overall more feral look to him than previous meetings, nods to Ruth in recognition before gazing down to Coriander. "Hey." It's a monosyllabic greeting for the both of them. And with barely a flicker of apology more in his eyes than anything towards the cub, he makes for the kitchen sink to give his hands a wash. "We having a bake sale?"
Coriander lets out another breath as he passes by before looking over to Ruth. "Right back attcha. I'm Coriander, or Tenderfoot, Theurge cub of the Children of Gaia." She moves farther into the room, peering over at the cooking with some interest.
"Oh?" The cook's eyebrows lift and she gives the cub a second sharp look before returning, with a little less vigor, to her beating. "Ruth, Cracks-the-Nut-of-Truth, Philodox Cliath of the Children of Gaia. You can call me Nutcracker if you need something shorter when wearing fur." With another sideways glance to Kenneth, and a shrug, she gestures with her head towards the door to the barnyard. "Moon's getting fatter. Sometimes I run, sometimes I find something to kill, sometimes I bake. Try something if you want, they're there to be eaten."
Kenneth finishes up washing his hands off as well as a quick splash of water to his face. Chin still dripping a few drops, he wipes the water off with a hand before he too peers at the baked goods. He makes not a move towards them though, not until he's given Ruth a good look over. "Cliath?" he echoes. "So, you passed." An unspoken pause is left hanging, but then the Shadow Lord lets go of a breath and nods. "Congratulations, Nutcracker-yuf." He gestures at Cori. "Your next task," remarks the philodox with a wryness.
"Good to meet you, Ruth-rhya. Oh, and congrats," Cori offers with a smile as she reaches over for a sample of the gingerbread. She huffs out a dry laugh at Kenneth's words, smile turning crooked, "Not quite yet. I still have a ways to go." She pauses to take a bite, chewing away with an approving grin. "Oh, but speaking of tasks, Kenneth-rhya, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to hear a story about a judgment you've had to make in the past. Ya know, sometime. If you feel like it."
In the front rooms, Salee comes down the stairs.
In the front rooms, Salee goes through the aperture at the northern end of the front hallway to enter the back room of the house.
"Count me in on that too," Ruth remarks, with a slight grin towards Kenneth. "And thank you. I had a teacher who refused to do my thinking for me." She peers critically at her bowl of cake mix, then sets it aside on a worktop.
Kenneth's lips twist into a smirk at Ruth's comment and grin, though it's fleeting as he looks back to Coriander. "A judgment I've made?" The question is left to sit and cool as the cakes and cookies are doing. Bending over the table to snag one of the crinos cookies, Kenneth inspects its shape. "Ah, right. Well that depends. Do you want a happy judgment?"
"These are really good, by the way. Way better than my cookies." Cori looks back over at Kenneth, though, finishing off her cookie while considering his question. She is, in fact, reaching for a second before she answers, "It isn't a requirement. I get the feeling there isn't too many of those. I guess what I'm looking for is a story of a judgment that'll teach me what it means to be Philodox."
Ruth heads over to get herself a glass of water. She waves a hand at the cups and looks between the others, silently offering drinks. "You can't explain what it is to be a Philodox just by talking about a judgement," she states. "If a philodox ends up having to make a judgement, sometimes that means the philodox didn't do the job right before it got to that stage." Then she looks to Kenneth, enquiringly.
Those with keen ears might hear the sound of light footsteps coming from the living area. A pair of green eyes peer into the kitchen, observing the scene within, but not drawing any undue attention.
"Could get to that point, sure," Kenneth replies to Ruth's statement. His fingers twist the cookie in his hands until a leg breaks off with a small shatter of crumbs onto the table. "But she's right," he remarks back to Cori. "A philodox doesn't just sit around and bang gavels down. Halfmoons keep the W--" Kenneth's eyes sharply glance towards the silent observer, regardless of her trying to be discreet. "You. Come in. Have a cookie."
"I didn't mean to imply that, Kenneth-rhya, Ruth-rhya," Coriander looks between them, somewhat apologetic, "I know there's more to each of the Auspices than can be easily covered in one conversation. But Stacey-rhya wants me to learn everyone's role in the Sept and I want to learn, too." She might have gone on, but Kenneth directing attention toward the entrance brings Cori's attention that way, too.
There's a small squeak of a sound as the eyes disappear momentarily. A few seconds later, however, their owner emerges; a young girl with dark red hair, incredibly pale skin and a figure so tiny she almost looks to be wasting away. She approaches the table silently and plucks up a cookie, nibbling on it as though she might not truly want it. Her stomach gives her away, however, choosing that precise moment to growl loudly. That could, perhaps, explain the miserable expression on the girl's face.
A teenaged girl standing about five-and-a-half feet tall peers at her surroundings, as though she wants to take in everything and memorize it. Her appearance is rather frail, fragile. Her limbs are long and slender, almost to the point of being bony. But as stark as she is in body, her face is the opposite. Her features are soft and delicate, with high cheek bones that accentuate her pale green eyes quite nicely. Deep red hair, a shade so natural, but so perfect it had to have come out of a bottle, frames her pale face, cut in layers that brush her shoulders.
Her current clothes clearly were not picked by her, as they are much too large. A baggy tee shirt and sweatpants hang on her slight figure.
Ruth blinks at Salee for a moment, puts milk into a glass and slides it over, then frowns and looks back at her bowl of cake mix. "Mint!" she says decisively. "Hold the introductions, I'll be back in a moment-" and she heads out into the garden.
Kenneth pops the gingerbread leg into his mouth, chewing away. Almost about to speak before swallowing, he catches himself and swallows the piece before doing so. "These're good," he comments towards Ruth just as she departs. Then he evaluates the new girl with a distanced sort of eye, keeping his neutrality in tact. "Kenneth," he offers by way of an introduction. Nevermind what Ruth said, yet.
Taking her queue from Kenneth, Cori turns to Salee, smiling over at her, "Coriander. I'm a Child of Gaia, Theurge cub. And you're new around here, huh? Making yourself at home yet?"
Coriander, huh? Well that's a sufficiently silly enough name in the redhead's mind to give a little bit more than she usually would. "Saxona Lexine," she says quietly, "Salee." She takes another bite of her cookie, attempting to quiet her insistent stomach before continuing. "Jack brought me here a couple days ago. I don't even have my own clothes yet. Making the best of it though, I suppose..." She eyes Kenneth for a moment, clearly not as comfortable with him as with the other girl. "Oh. I, uh, I guess I'm a Ragabash," she adds quietly.
"Jack?" The name is echoed by the Shadow Lord, obviously not recognized readily. Kenneth gestures towards the chairs around the table, taking little note of the cooling racks with cakes and cookies. "Well don't just stand there, have a seat or something."
"Cori, for me. Nice to meet you, Salee. And I never did get my own clothes. I took some out of the bin and just kept them. They've done me good so far." Coriander moves to take a seat at Kenneth's words, and another cookie. "Yeah, who's Jack?"
Salee blinks. She clearly had expected that people would know the man who brought her here. "Jack Salem," she intones softly, a question. Surely they must know. He just seemed so /important/ to her. Something about him... "I couldn't really find anything that fit me... Well, what I did was just... I'd rather wear these." She tugs on her oversized tee shirt. Finally, she takes a seat and finishes off her first cookie, immediately grabbing a second.
Kenneth blinks with the speaking of that name, and where the two of them sit, he ends up standing. The one legged crinos cookie is left on the table. "Jack Salem," he repeats the name slowly, this time with a tone of recognition, "Oldish guy, scarred blind on the left, kind of got some grey? Philodox Glass Walker?" Everything about the clothes is temporarily ignored.
Coriander, on the other hand, still looks clueless. So she just puts a hand on Salee's shoulder and gives her a smile, "Don't worry about the clothes. You look just fine. I like comfy clothes, it's why I went with the torn jeans, they've had a little love in the past, see?"
Salee also seems to be ignoring the conversation about clothing now, giving her full attention to Kenneth. "I'm not sure about that last bit, but the description is him. I think he might have said something about Glass Walkers... But Jack's said a lot of things since he picked me up." She finishes off cookie number two and forces herself not to reach for a third one, even though her stomach protests audibly.
Kenneth doesn't say anything further for a long moment, though he doesn't sit himself down just yet. Instead, the philodox turns towards the cabinets, where he opens a couple and takes out plates. "So. You two... want some cake?"
Sitting back as the conversation continues on the subject she knows nothing about, Cori only perks up again when Kenneth mentions cake. She smiles brightly and nods her head a few times in quick succession.
"I think I should eat something that isn't sweet before I think about cake." Salee groans quietly and wraps her arms around her midsection. "I don't think I've eaten anything for a couple days..." There's a reason for that, but she's hoping it's passed by now.
Couple of plates it is, then, as Kenneth takes out the dishes and forks for it. Before he goes on serving though, the Shadow Lord makes his quick stop to the fridge to extract some sandwich making materials. "Don't know how much 'Jack' told you," he considers, "but if you want to stick around then go ahead. Coriander?" He pauses, pushing down the toaster lever. "How much do you know about philodox so far?"
"Oh, well, you better eat, then. Cake can wait." Coriander looks over at Kenneth, her head tilting to one side. "In all honesty? Not much. The general stuff. You guys are the mediators, the judges. But beyond that? Nothing."
Salee glances between Coriander and Kenneth, but keeps her mouth shut. These are the things which she does not understand, and doesn't feel she has much right to yet. She's confident that when it's time, someone will take her aside and explain.
Kenneth goes right on with the sandwich making, methodically placing meat, cheese, lettuce, even some mayo and mustard... it all comes out to a decent turkey, ham, cheddar and swiss that gets a sprinkle of pepper on it as well before it's laid out on a plate, and *clunk* set right in front of Salee. At least the plate misses the cookies she's snatched. No command to eat, but he does give her a pseudo-authoritative look. It lingers there a little while longer, and then he turns to Cori. "Keepers of the Ways. That's what I was saying before. Yes, even werewolves have traditions, and they go way back. Supposedly, before Mankind even decided to utter 'ugg', that's where things started. You'll hear about wanting to change things, and some Garou challenging the laws and creeds of our kind but in the overall, we Garou honor what good has come of the past, and despise the evil that rides on its coattails."
Coriander can't help but turn her face away from the meat in that sandwich when it's delivered to Salee, but she covers by looking toward the fridge and standing to get herself a drink. So, she ends up standing off to the side as she listens to Kenneth's explanation, paying close attention, but only giving a nod to indicate that she's taking it in.
Salee seems surprised. She hadn't expected anybody to actually /make/ something for her. "Th- Thank you," she stammers to Kenneth as she picks up the sandwich. Her stomach gives a bit of a sickening lurch, and it briefly shows in her expression. However, she forces herself to take that first bite. It's all the same as it always was. Nothing changed, kiddo...
Kenneth washes his hands off again, wiping dry before he turns to grab another plate out of the cabinet and a knife to cut the cakes. He goes right for the chocolate, slicing up a few to put on. One plate he leaves where Cori sat. The other, he puts in front of himself and contemplates it a little further. The crinos cookie? Brought up and its leg gets stuck right into the cake top. The philodox glances over to the 'new' girl, but his words continue for Cori. "I don't know what Stacey told you about this task, but maybe I ought to tell you, it's not a very fair task."
The cake is eyed, but the girl stays put, drinking her glass of ice water. Cori looks back over at Kenneth when he speaks again, eyebrows rising at the comment, "Oh? Not fair to who?"
The sandwich is dropped back onto the plate as Salee turns a shade of green that matches her eyes. She rushes out of the room with a mumbled apology and there's the sound of the bathroom door slamming.
"To you," Kenneth answers Coriander, looking after Salee as she flees. He turns back to Coriander, completely undisturbed. "If she didn't tell you what a philodox does, how does she expect you to know whether the judgment we tell you is a true, fair judgment, or just a decision based on opinion?"
Coriander does look after Salee when she runs off, concern there, but she doesn't move to follow, she just walks back over to the table, to grab her cake. Then she moves over to sit up on a countertop. "Maybe she thinks I'd learn more about what a Philodox does from an actual Philodox instead of an Ahroun. And, no offence meant, Kenneth-rhya, but how does /anyone/ /ever/ know if a judgment was true and fair or just based on opinion?"
Kenneth smirks, finally digging into the point of his cake slice with a fork. "That is the dilemma we face," he replies, "but there's one thing. The truth? It can be subjective. Manipulated. Believed. But a lie... those will always be constant in dishonesty." He leaves that logic there, waiting for the cub to take a bite of the cake before he offers forth, "For instance, I'm a Shadow Lord, and Shadow Lords are believed to be underhanded in their ways. As such... I'll tell you that I just poisoned the cake you just ate."
Coriander pauses for a moment, looking over at him as if she really believes him and like she might just run off and join Salee in the bathroom. But she shakes her head. "But that would be stupid. I mean, if you were being underhanded, you wouldn't have let people see you offer me the very thing that poisoned me. And where's the gain, right? Underhanded, maybe, but pointlessly cruel? I don't think so." She looks rather proud of herself for a moment, but it falls back into nervousness when she looks back over at him. "Right?"
"Well," Kenneth motions with his fork towards the hall Salee just ran down, "the only witness you have is in the bathroom worshipping the porcelain god, after taking just a bite of what I made for her." He leans back against his chair, watching the cub's reaction.
The cub's reaction is simple. She's plain scared, and not too good at hiding it. Eye widened, muscles tightened, still as she can get as she stares over at the Shadow Lord. "No... You're just pulling my leg." Really, she wants to believe that, her words sounding almost like she's trying to convince herself.
It's not so much a smile on his face, but a look that belies his seriousness. Kenneth stands from his seat, moving towards the cub, but only to reach the silverware drawer where he grabs another fork. "Am I?" he asks in a somewhat rhetorical manner. "You could just believe that what I'm saying is truth, and think that you're about to fall over and spill your guts out. Or, you could leave it up to chance that I'm not as cruel as to do something so horrible to a possibly innocent pair of cubs. Or... you could demand solid proof that the cake is not poisoned, by letting me, the one you question, test it myself."
And at that look, first, one of Cori's eyebrows lifts, followed by her eyes narrowing in his direction. "Ya know, you could have just gotten your own piece. Or asked for a bite," she says as she holds the plate out toward him. "And, for the record, I don't think Stacey-rhya'd befriend someone who was really that cruel." And, to prove her point, she even takes another bite. It's mostly chewed before she pauses and looks back over at him, a crooked smile appearing, "What do you mean, 'possibly innocent'?"
"Oh I have my own piece," Kenneth points out with a nod towards the crinos cookie-topped cake slice sitting with its point partly eaten. With the fresh fork, he takes a mid-sized bite out of it to chew on and swallow. "Possibly innocent," he explains, "because I believe no one is completely pure. But at the same time, it'd be rude to assume, wouldn't it?" The philodox steps back to his seat, joining the second fork with his original. "And 'for the record', the cake is certainly not poisoned. After all, it was your tribemate who made it." He takes another bite of chocolate cake from his own plate, touching the tines of his fork to his lips before adding, "Do you see the difference? Judgment versus Opinion. Opinions are biased. If you believed I was cruel enough to poison cubs because I'm a Shadow Lord, that's a judgment based on opinion. If you believed you could leave your fate up to chance, that just because I'm Stacey's friend means I wouldn't be that devious, that's another opinion. But... if I take a bite of the same cake you eat, that I claim to have poisoned, and I don't fall over... then that is not opinion. It's fact. And it's true - the cake is not poisoned." He skips a significant beat, before adding with a grin, "Then again most poisons don't affect us Garou, if we shift forms quickly enough."
Coriander moves over and sits as well, plopping down in her chair. "But opinion doesn't count for nothing. The call character witnesses and stuff in trials, don't they? They do in books." She takes another bite, though, bigger this time. "But I get you, you can't make a fair judgment without getting the facts, with just opinion you could be wrong. And likely are." Moving to grab her drink, she points a finger in his direction, "You give one scary object lesson, Kenneth-rhya."
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