Sepdet is sitting before the fire with shoulders hunched, gripping something that gleams like white bone in her brown hands.

From the shadows emerges Yi, coming up the hill with stealthy movement as she approaches. This time, there aren't any twigs that crack underfoot as she comes up blurred, shifting from lupus to homid in a smooth flow of forms. "They went swimming eh?" comes her soft question.

Sepdet looks up with a smile that's too fast, too quick--nothing odd in most people, but unusual for the reserved elder. "Indeed." She sighs and sits up straighter, looking the Gnawer over for some sign. "Finished your city errand so soon?" she asks lightly.

Yi shrugs lightly. "Still some loose ends to tie up, but I'm not in...too much hurry." She flops down beside the elder, blinking in the light of the fire at the bones in her alpha's hands.

Closer inspection shows it to be one of Sepdet's necklace-charms, which she has unstrung tonight. The thongs are draped across her wrists. The charm itself is one she hasn't been wearing for very long, but it looks old, worn, a hand-carved symbol in the shape of a cross with a loop in place of the top piece. An ankh, which Yi may or may not know. The material is ash wood, pale, almost gray, and one edge bears the brown traces of an old, old bloodstain, now all but lost. "I am thinking," she says carefully. "I cannot ask you not to go. But I must ask you to do me a favor."

Tilting her head in her ever peculiar manner that is much too animalistic, Yi wets her lips, anticipating. She does recognize the ankh, but to her it doesn't mean anything. Just another odd symbolic shape she sees around here that is popular amongst goths and other city teens. "Grandmother always told me to ask what the favour was, specifically, before agreeing to doing it." She smirks a bit. "Learned that one when they tossed me in the fish crate. So... what is it you ask?"

~Wisdom.~ The Strider smiles approvingly. She looks at Yi with fondness and a decided weight in her eyes, some unspoken burden she is refusing to acknowledge directly. ~You are going to have a hard road,~ she says seriously. ~I feel some trouble may come to you on it. I want you, if you possibly can, to make sure that someone always knows where you are, or at least where you're planning to go.~

"Asking me, for wisdom? This coming from an adren. A Strider. -My- alpha," Yi arches her brow. She has her fair share of superstition. "Trouble, is inevitable. I don't doubt I'll stumble along the way." She looks over towards the fire. "At home... there are only few I can truly trust. One, was lost to me. The other, I don't know what has become of her. And Sifu... has gone back to help his own." She licks the inside of her teeth. "Did you have visions, Sepdet-rhya? Like how you saw Joseph's daughter?" She leans in a little closer, eyes flickering from ankh to the theurge's face. "What did you see?"

Sepdet shakes her head. ~Possibilities,~ she says, weighing words, and then looks at the girl frankly. ~Capture. This is why I am afraid. Here.~ She holds the ankh out in her hands. ~A gift from me as well, although you /must/ return it to me.~ She keeps her voice steady, calm as ever; it is only the shadow in her eyes that hints at any trace of doubt.

Yi looks down at the ankh as it is offered, brow furrowing before she catches the doubt in the Strider's eyes. That, just unsettles her some. A hand slowly reaches out to cup over Sepdet's small hands. "Capture..." she repeats, quietly as if suddenly English didn't mean anything to her. Just Sepdet's eyes, and the meaning they hold inside as she tries to see through. Her hand closes over the Strider's. "If it is to be returned...then it's not a gift, is it?" Her brow lifts, faintly.

Sepdet explains carefully, holding the girl's gaze. ~Among my people the ankh is the sign of life. Another cub made it for me, when I went on my Rite of Passage, in memory of our revered elder, Horus, who wore such a thing and went all the way to Malfeas and back, and lived to tell of it. It is the one thing the Dancers were not able to take from me during that winter when I was captured and held by them.~ She takes a deep breath, passing over the details of that ordeal, from which the ancient bloodstains on it derive. ~My friends returned me to the light of day. And I gave it to Andrea before she went to the Silver River, so that she would come back in one piece. I lend it to you now. Know that it means you /will/ come back, no matter what. That is the gift I am giving you.~

The feeling of the ankh slowly lifts from Sepdet's hand, even though it doesn't seem like Yi is moving. Skills of a thief. "Then I will hold it close, so I may return it back to you in at least the same condition." She takes her hand away, and the ankh has been transfered. When she turns her palm to her face, the ankh dully gleams in the dancing firelight. After a few minutes of just quiet night sounds and the crackle of the fire, she murmurs softly. "You know... if you guys keep giving me things to wear around my neck, I'll have enough weight around me to make a water buffalo's yoke seem like a feather." She smirks wryly.

Sepdet touches Yi's forehead and the back of her wrists with a light brush of fingertips as if blessing them. Then she smiles. ~I know. I am sorry. It is hard to travel light when you are carrying your friends' hearts around your shoulders, hm? The hazard of being good company.~

Yii waves off the apology. "Don't apologize. Sometimes, knowing you are burdened by another is one way to feel alive." She looks at the ankh, and then carefully wraps the cord around the sinew thong for the bear pendant she has. The ankh clunks with the light sound of wood against wood with the white bear. "So it is wisdom you ask, and it is wisdom, I seek." She inclines her head slightly to the left. "I don't want to turn your mind to dark visions... but I want to know. What...exactly, did you see?"

Sepdet's words are so smooth they might be a lullabye but for their meaning; somehow it takes the edge off the troubling images she describes. ~My dreams showed a leech pulling the strings of the net I fear you may stumble into. That is where the danger lies. I saw you in a cage, and his slaves gloating over you. There was also a glimpse of your friend John Smith--~ she frowns, disapprovingly, ~But younger. And a wolf mother being torn by her own pups while he looked on. Something he has done, or failed to do, long ago, I guess. I do not know how that is connected with the cage.~

Noddingly slowly, Yi brings her hand to touch the ankh and feel it dangling from her pendant. "A bloodsucker. And John..." She takes her hand away, only to clasp them together as she brings her knees up to rest elbows on them. She turns to the fire. "John was in Hong Kong, before," she notes softly. "Though what a wolf mother and her pups has to do with it... I don't understand right now." Then, a thought comes to her, voiced with a single word. "Betrayal."

Sepdet reaches out and presses a hand to Yi's shoulder. ~I don't know,~ she confesses. ~He holds dark secrets in his past. It tasted to me like a John who is different from the one we know now. Perhaps this comes from bad seed he sowed long ago. I am not sure. Do not let the dream make you doubt a friend. Just let it add caution to your footsteps.~

Yi lets her eyes stray from the fire to Sepdet. "I am not doubting John," she replies softly. "But that John... might have some connection with someone who would betray his own mother for his benefit and survival." Her gaze darkens for the cloudiest moment. "I'll find out soon enough." She takes in a deep breath and exhales slowly. "Something I noticed... here..." Yi says quietly, "Is that here... there is still the touch of the wolf. Instinct. At home... in the city... only the man's mind. I fear, too many at home lose themselves in the struggle to simply survive day to day. They don't remember who they are. That they are Garou, and they are protectors of Gaia."

Sepdet nods quietly. ~I saw that in Cairo, and in New Orleans.~ She speaks the town names in English, and the Arabic, the Cajun accent sounds rather odd in her throat. ~It is our dilemma. The city is where the humans are. The humans are the easiest way for the Wyrm to sink its talons into the world. So we must move among them, try to reclaim them from the enemy. But the taint rubs off of them onto us, pulls us farther away from the Mother.~

"Their gift, also their curse," Yi replies. "And I suppose...who better than a ragabash who has seen the beauty of an Umbra untouched by Weaver... to show them what it could be." She smiles, though the set in her chin is resolute. "It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it." Ah, that line. Taken from a movie, probably.

Sepdet even recognizes it, and smiles faintly. ~So Pez the Dispenser of Dubious Wisdom keeps telling me. Although usually more in relation to "keeping elders on their toes".~

Yi turns her head and blinks at Sepdet. "Pez? Like... the candy?" One wonders where Sepdet meets these people with their names...

Sepdet looks mildly surprised. ~Well, yes, I understand there is something like that,~ she says, with such innocence that one might never guess the serious theurge had ever packed under a trickster totem long ago. ~But I named Collin that after his Rite of Passage. You see, 'Pez' is a small container, a little round pot, in the language of my ancestors. It is usual for Owl's children to take a name from "Khem" that you younger tribes call "Egypt". It seemed a fitting name to me for him, somehow.~

Yi thinks on that, and a small smile creeps along like a tiny bug. And finally once the thought and mental image formulate into something a little sturdier than squishy clay, she giggles softly. "It is quite appropriate. Who would've thought, God was a candy dispenser." The newmoon laughs a little more this time, and the twinkling light in her eye returns a bit stronger. "Well I have something to ask you, Sepdet..." she unclasps her hands and rubs at the bottom of her chin.

Sepdet cocks her head. ~Anything,~ she replies deliberately.

"Well," Yi wrings her hands a bit. "I was thinking... since you Striders roam the face of Gaia so much..." She tilts her head, curiously. "Do you get souvenirs? And... where do you keep them all?" She grins, in an all too lupine fashion. Complete with tongue slightly lolling and jaws open.

Sepdet drops her eyes. ~We travel light. Here--~ she says, touching her necklaces-- ~and here...~ this time, her beltpouch. ~And you have seen the leather bag I carry on walkabout, and my jacket of many pockets. But in truth I carry too many things. Striders must travel light, carry most their possessions here and here.~ Her forehead, and her chest over her heart. She glances westward. ~I have been given gifts by friends since dead that I cannot bear to part with: a few pictures, a few musical instruments. I had them in my cave on the bawn, before Brian destroyed it. Then the Farmhouse. And now Robin's attick.~

Yi nods with the logic in it. "So... I guess it'd be a bit much if I brought you back a giant jade fish or something of that sort, na?" Her smile doesn't fade much. "The Gnawers supposedly travel, but most have found places to hide their things. Must be an instinct of Rat."

Sepdet laughs. ~When I dressed as a bone Gnawer, it was so much easier. I still wear the jacket of holding in my travels, and when I am going on hunts where all my healer's salves and bandages may be needed.~ She taps the beltpouch at her side. ~There is room for small treasures here. But truly, friend, stories of the road and your travels are a gift enough for me.~

Yi scruffles the top of her head lightly, and then drops her hand down to the pendant to touch it. "I'll be sure to bring back something... for each of you." She taps the pendant a few times, and then the ankh. "Do you think...that Salmon would travel with me?" She fingers the underside of the pendant. "She makes long journeys already. But, would her presence still be around, that deep into the Weaver's webs?" Clearly, she's thinking of her home waters. They don't look all that peachy for fish who like clean rivers and clear seas.

Sepdet smiles. ~I do not think Silverscale's spirit may reach that far, but some of her cousins do travel to the western shore. Perhaps one of them will like your scent enough to follow you upstream. A slim chance, I admit, but it's possible.~

Yi nods with a short tic of her head. "Or maybe we have an Uncle Koi. Who knows?" She shrugs lightly. "Well... I need to be off again. My strides this time are short, and the path now well trodden to the city." She chuckles, rising to one knee. Her eyes look back to Sepdet with a warm light as she touches the ankh. "I will see you again."

Sepdet smiles back, face more unguarded and emotions closer to the surface. ~That's right. Have a good walk, my friend.~

The newmoon gives the Strider a wink, her eyes lightening as she does while she shifts to her travelling form. Like this, the ankh hangs from the pendant's dedicated sinew cord. With a small chuff and an overly affectionate rub of her fur against the Strider, she bounds off a few paces and barks a farewell before slipping into the forest shadows.

Sepdet stares after Yi. Only when the no-moon is gone does the theurge sag into a heap beside the dying embers, lying on her side and staring up at the moon. ~Let me be wrong,~ she begs the stars, sounding old and tired. ~Please? Just once? Let me be wrong. She is too bright and innocent... and there are some things I cannot heal.~