She Needs A Pastor

5/8/2005

01:11 PM
Logfile from GarouMUSH.

Currently the moon is in the waning New Moon phase (1% full).
Currently in Saint Claire, it is a cloudy day. The temperature is 55 degrees Fahrenheit (12 degrees Celsius). The wind is calm today. The barometric pressure reading is 29.83 and falling, and the relative humidity is 83 percent. The dewpoint is 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius.)
It is currently 12:46 Pacific Time on Sun May 8 2005.

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.
(Non-Garou, please "+view curse")
Contents:
Christine
Obvious exits:
Hallway/Living Room  Back Door  

[look Christine]
She is an Korean girl of middling height and athletic build, in middle adolescence. Exceptionally well groomed, she wears her black hair long, cut just below the shoulders, with a line of bangs at her forehead. Her face is so round it's almost circular. It's pale, and there's never a hint of makeup around her brown eyes, or her serious small mouth. She's done her best to coordinate an outfit from what looks like poor pickings. She's got a blue sequined shirt that screams 'eighties', and cutoff jeans that look rather more than fashionably distressed. Her shoes are battered green sneakers.

Christine is on dish duty! There's quite the load in the sink, which she pulls out with her latex-gloved hands and scrubs down. She works with a sense of dutiful care, rushes nothing; where has she to go when she's gone, anyways? Once the ones in the sink have been cleaned, she digs out a dish towel and begins to dry each one by hand.

Appearing from outside the glass sliding door, Yi looks through and sees Christine there with a growing, but still small smile when she does see the cub on dishduty. Her hand slides the back door open, the Gnawer ragabash offering a "Good afternoon Christine" in the process. Yi does look a tad ..tired, and somehow almost a little tense in the way she says the greeting, but otherwise remains outwardly pleasant this afternoon. "Do you want some help with that?"

"If you want to. I'm almost done," says Christine, drawing the terry cloth over a ridged bread knife. She finishes, glances at her skewed reflection in the stainless steel, and slides the knife into the rack.

"Mmm." Yi muses for a little bit, not quite extending outwards to act on her offer from before. She decides against, reasoning, "It looks like you are doing well," and instead finds a spare chair to sit in, resting her legs and body. Her eyes don't remain on the cub, sliding off to look at the paint on the walls.

Christine lets the silence stretch on into minutes, filled with only the little chinks of porcelain and steel. Then the towel is hung and the gloves wrung out. She washes out the basin of the sink and turns to look mildly at Yi. "Would you like a drink?" she asks, her voice all vague solicitousness.

The ragabash only looks back to Christine at her invite to a drink, and shakes her head. "No thank you," she politely refuses. "No need to worry about me..." she trails, before adding, "How are you doing?"

Christine tugs her hair out of the knot she'd put it up in (pinned with a pair of pencils) to keep it out of her face. She sticks each pencil behind an ear. "I'm OK," she says, in a voice that doesn't invite further conversation. She watches Yi expectantly. "Do you, um, need something?"

Yi shakes her head again, given the cub's tone. Though, the ragabash tilts her head. "What makes you think that? That I need something..."

"When you come to talk to me, Yi-rhya, you usually want something," Christine reasons on her flat, apprehensive voice. She leans back against the counter, her gaze levelled at the hollow of Yi's neck.

Yi blinks a couple times with Christine's answer, her eyes gaining a bit of confusion mixed into the curiosity, before that clears. Another small smile makes it to the cliath's face, and she turns her gaze away from the girl again, leaning her elbows up onto the table beside her. "I'm sorry if that is how it seems," she murmurs afterwards, smile disappearing. "Though if you absolutely have to need me to want something, I will ask that you do not have to use the '-rhya' title with my name. It seems so.. too polite. And far away."

Christine considers the request and nods. "Is that a Bone Gnawer thing? Olga doesn't like it either."

Yi draw in her lips, wetting them lightly in considering the question. Then she offers up as explanation, "Maybe?" The ragabash glances over only for a second or two. "Well, the Bone Gnawers... we like to treat each other as close family. I know I do, at least," she continues. "I think using the '-rhya' title too much is like... like calling a person by their full name every time you speak with them. Ours is not a business relationship." A pause. "Or... is it?" Here the ragabash's gaze lifts, a concern flitting over it.

Christine bats her eyelashes at the question, and whatever implications it holds, pass over her like water and find no purchase. "I don't think so," she says lightly, and just as lightly segues to a new topic: "But anyways, Basil's been gone a long time." There's a question of her own there for Yi to unravel.

Yi's concern doesn't really fade off with the cub's light answer. The mention of Basil, though, sufficiently distracts the ragabash away for the worse. "Only because he found himself a girl," Yi remarks flatly. Too flatly, and obviously rather suspicious of it.

Now that has Christine's attention! "Seriously?" she says, her face lighting up with unchecked amusement.

Yi in contrast is not so amused. There's a tired sigh that comes from her - like the sigh of a parent who doesn't know what to do with their child's newfound exploration of hormones. "Something like that, I guess," she answers the other cub vaguely. "He asked to borrow some money from me and wouldn't say why. Then last night, well... I met her." The ragabash doesn't elaborate too much. "It is suspicious."

Christine turns to get herself a glass of water. She's going to be here for the /whole/ story. "What's she look like? How old is she? Has she hit puberty yet?" asks Christine, rapid-fire.

Yi furrows her brow at the seeming interrogation, looking over to Christine. It isn't that the sense of interest and prying curiosity is lost on the Gnawer ragabash, but Yi's mind has other concerns. To effect though, she does answer. "She looks... young, and a little bit like a boy," Yi remembers aloud. "She looks maybe ... twelve? Or eleven? She certainly has some growing to do."

Christine snorts softly. "Crazy," she says softly, looking at her sneakers. She wriggles her toes in them, and glances up suddenly. "Are they still looking for me?"

"They?" Yi echoes, glancing over again. Then it dawns on her, and she 'ohs' softly. The ragabash doesn't answer immediately, though there's something obvious in her lack of a reply.

Christine's eyes crease. She puts her mouth to the rim of the cup. Then she holds the cool glass against her cheek and looks at Yi, eyes still narrowed broodily. Abruptly, she sets the cup down in the sink with a thick clank, as decisive a noise as a gavel's fall. She nods.

Yi watches the girl move back towards the sink, not wincing when she sets the glass down. "It has been a little over a month I think," she offers. "I don't know if they are as persistent. But, Christine... you still want to go back? Even after seeing after all you have seen?"

Christine looks at Yi solemnly. "I just wish they wouldn't give up so quick," she says.
"And if they haven't given up, then what?" Yi asks, neither investigating nor really avidly curious. The ragabash meet's the other girl's eyes.

"I don't know," says Christine, exasperated and evasive. "I guess it'd just be nice to think that a lot of people spent a long time searching. "Just to know you matter, y'know?"

Yi nods slowly, her head bowing low and face turning away to watch the sliver of clouds that can be seen through the farmhouse's back kitchen door. "But, you do matter," the ragabash utters quietly. "You matter, to us. To Basil. To Olga, to me. You matter, to Gaia."

"Thank you," says Christine dully. "But that's not what I meant."

Yi swallows as she feels her throat tighten, a hand lifting to rub beneath her chin as well. "Then please tell me what you mean," she requests, still not looking directly to the girl.

Christine tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and sighs. "I didn't mean any offense. It was just a stupid thing to think. I just wanted, I was thinking that if people, well if people aren't looking for me--" She's blundered through her carefully prepared preamble, but too late now. "Then I could go into St. Claire."

Yi stops rubbing her throat, taking her hand away and setting it back down upon the table. The ragabash's expression twists slightly, to one that is better mooded - a ghost of a smile. "I see. The farmhouse does not connect so well with those born of a city's heart, is it?" Yi's brows lift, her face softening with sympathy. "You could, you know. All it takes, is a little bit of effort. And honesty in your actions. To show that you wouldn't do harm to yourself, or to others."

"I've never been dishonest," says Christine immediately, nettled. Her face starts to sink into fretful sulk, only to be wiped clean the next second. Her eyes are bright with concentration and desire.

Yi lifts her chin a touch at the cub's statement. "Never?" she echoes, emphasizing it, focusing on such bold promises. "But you yourself, threw your bag out of the window of Simon's cab. You almost got us all hurt badly. Or killed." The ragabash eyes the young theurge, intent to hear her explaination for past actions. "How is it different now, from then?"

"Not while I've been here," Christine is quick to amend, coloring faintly. "And I /didn't/ almost throw myself out of the car. If I wanted to that, I would've taken my seatbelt off. I didn't want anybody to be hurt...by an accident. I just wanted a cop to stop you."

Yi amends her own expression, the small, calm smile returning to the no-moon. "I know," she adds after. "I haven't met a cub yet who hasn't at some point wanted to go back at least once." She pauses in thought of the generalization, then corrects, "Well... maybe two." Two fingers hold up, as if to affirm this.

Christine is not interested in those two cubs, whomever they may be. She's on one track, come crash or come destination. "What do I need to do?" she presses. "I haven't run away. I haven't lied. I've learned as fast as I could." Her voice breaks with breathless frustration.

Yi sees that her digression hasn't distracted the theurge cub, and bows her head again to look to the tabletop, and her hands. Taking in a slow breath, she pushes back her sleeves of her shirt up to the middle of her forearm, looking down to the scars that encircle her wrist and cut through her skin thinly. Half a minute passes before she answers, "You simply need to /believe/." Yi looks up. "Learning is one thing. But without believing in what you have learned... you will not understand why things are this way." Still, she taps a finger lightly on the tabletop. "What have you learned?"

Christine says, "I've learned that there are twelve tribes, and they all have different purposes and different lifestyles, and I'm a Bone Gnawer, and Bone Gnawers at the bottom. Our totem is rat, and we put spirit pigeons on people. People who don't have pigeons are lost cubs, like Basil, but they get tribes eventually. We can go into another place called the Umbra which Olga says is like the other side of the world, and you do that by looking at a reflection, and there are wyrm--no, wyld spirits called lunes there." When she pause to take her breath, and think of more, she's got a panicky look. Is it enough? She speeds up. "I'm a theurge and a cub. A cub because I haven't done a rite of passage. A theurge because that's my auspice, and an auspice has to do with the moon on your birthday. Some cubs are raised knowing what they are, and some aren't, and they get kidnapped. Mine is the auspice of being very spiritual. Basil's is the one of being hot tempered. People who aren't werewolves, but who know about us are called kin. People of a higher rank are called rhya to their face. You have to respect people above you, and people below you." She'd keep going, certainly, but she's out of breath.

Yi listens intently, nodding with some parts, not nodding in others. Her dark eyes watch the cub keenly, but do not reveal anything that gives Christine any insight to the no-moon's thoughts. After the girl finishes, Yi smiles in an enigmatic way, before looking back out towards the glass door. "A packmate of mine, a Wendigo galliard named Leonard Brings-the-Buffalo-Home, told me a story once. Although, I always called him Little Bear, as was his cubname. He never really corrected me for that." The ragabash's words flow quiet and slow, winding around like water in a river's bend. "Told me a story of a trickster who's name I forget now. But this trickster, he looked one day at the slow waters of a river and saw plums there. The most delicious plums he'd ever seen, just within arm's reach. He decided they were too good to pass up, and reached for the plums. He fell in the water, and was soaked. When he got up out of the river and looked back, there the plums were, once again right there taunting him." Yi doesn't look at Christine, insteadwatching the clouds drift. "The whole day went by, then night, and then day again. The man waited at the river bank, watching the plums floating in the water, and time after time he reached for them. Every time, he fell in the water and was soaked. Every time, he got out of the water and the plums were there again. He tried many ways to surprise the plums. He tried many clever tricks he had learned from the spirits to grab them. But he didn't get them. Then, finally his wife came and the trickster said to his wife, 'Woman! Look, there are the most delicious plums on the land floating in the water there. They are there in the day, but disappear at night. I wait by the water's side, and I will get them one day.' The wife of the trickster scolded him, 'Idiot! Can't you see? The plums are still on the tree... you fool of a husband... busy chasing reflections, while the truth hangs over your head.'" The ragabash ends her story on a soft note, and with a smile, looks back to the cub.

Christine nods at appropriate intervals, a quiet acknowledgement that the only thing required of her is attention and consideration. She even summons up a smile for the fable's close. But when Yi turns her gaze on Christine, the girl gets a cornered look. "I see," she says, tightening her smile at its loose edges, making it as firm and immovable as a doll's plastic simper.

"We all see," Yi notes, her smile small, but not tight. "We can see with our eyes," the ragabash put a fingertip near her eyes, "the plums in the water. But can you see the truth, hanging above your head?" The finger withdraws back onto the table. "Christine..." she says again, gaze going down to her fingers, "Have you shifted forms at all since we found you?"

Christine looks at the window. She closes her eyes for a moment. "When I hit Olga, I changed." The smile remains there, on a face where it obviously doesn't belong any longer, a vestigial thing.

"And since then?" Yi asks, now glancing up with only her eyes moving.

"No," says Christine.

Yi nods but once, and asks, "Why not?"

"My faith," says Christine simply, "Makes it complicated." She's no longer putting much effort into her responses; her face has drooped and gone distant again. There's an expectation of defeat written clearly there.

Yi slumps too, so that her chin lowers all the way down to the table and rests there. "How come?" she asks, just listening there, not seeking challenge or victory.

Christine says, "Because--this is the way it works, for me. Everything is right, or it's wrong. I know it's not a popular way to look at things, but that's how it is for me. And you can't assume that just because something looks harmless, it is. Because there isn't any such thing as harmless. There's just the stuff that glorifies God, the things that he approves of, and the things he doesn't." She's trying now--has been brought, by force of habit, back into the pale of her passion. "And I don't know what shifting is. There's no easy thing in the Bible that says 'thou shalt not shift'. But I don't think it is." She nods to signal the end of her piece.

"What is shifting?" Yi asks, but the question is rhetorical. Her head doesn't really move from the table it rests on, corralled by her arms. "What is it but just faith in yourself?" The ragabash rolls her head to one side, thinking aloud more than really having any kind of debate. "Is shifting good? Is shifting evil? Who said that changing one's body to be that of a man, or that of a wolf, is right... or wrong?" She lifts her head a touch from the table, still not looking at Christine, still more thinking to herself. "Did not God change his form, from a God, to a man's?"

"God sent his son, who was a man," says Christine gently. "We aren't meant to have faith in ourselves. We're meant to trust ourselves to God. To our faith in God." Her tone is mild enough, though there's a stubborn set to her jaw.

Yi here looks to Christine. "Then, what are we to do with this ability, given to us by powers greater than us?" The ragabash leans herself over the table, her brows lifting, eyes seeking. "What are you going to do?"

Christine looks at Yi blankly. "I'll pray," she suggests.

"For a vision?" Yi queries, head tilting.

Christine shrugs. "I try not to pray to ask for things," she says. "I just pray to get to know God. That's wisdom--that's what we believe. It just helps you, uh, helps /me/ know what to do." She waves a hand sharply, as though irritated with herself. "I'm not going to the city, am I?"

"But you pray to get to know God better, is that not asking him for something?" Yi asks. The sharp handwave effectively cuts through the question. "Even if you did go back," Yi asks instead, "what would you do?"

Christine grins wryly. "I've missed four Sundays." She nods to Yi's first question. "I said I try not to ask anything. Sometimes I ask. Mostly I just try to--how do I put it? Open up my heart, and let him put whatever he wants in there. "But I can't help hoping for certain results sometimes, yeah."

Yi nods slowly, though her thoughts turn visibly. Whatever she says afterwards, sounds like Mandarin, poetic nevertheless. Then, the ragabash looks up to the cub. "What do you think about the spirit world?"

"Do you mind if I sit down?" says Christine. She moves to pull up a seat at the table, adjacent to Yi. "I don't know," she says. There's been a certain sureness to her answers up to this point. "It's very beautiful."

Yi nods, gesturing for Christine to sit as she wants. "Surely there must be something, beyond it being pretty. You have no questions about it? At all?"

Christine licks her lips. She stiffens faintly. "I have questions," she admits. "But I need a pastor."

Glancing over, Yi blinks at the cub. "But humans cannot step into the Umbra," she says just as surely as Christine was with her own beliefs.

Christine pauses. "I'm sorry," she says placidly, as though she truly did regret that there had to be any misunderstanding between them. "I think I'm human, whatever I can do."

Yi sighs quietly, shaking her head, but then stands up and breathes in deeply. "You think you are human..." the ragabash says, "but you are again, only looking at the plums in the water."

There's a flash of irritation beneath Christine's calm. "I have a soul," she says sharply.

Yi slides her hands into her pockets, her eyes moving to meet the cub's. "Of course you do. You have walked into the spirit world. You have breathed the spirit air, walked on the spirit earth, and felt the spirit wind on your face. Is that not enough proof?"

But for all of Yi's reasoning, something has switched off in Christine. "I /need/ to talk to a pastor," she insists, with the vehemence of a prisoner requesting her lawyer.

"Why?" Yi asks, countering with a solid front, hands gripping the cloth in her pockets and what items are within them. "What do you need to ask about?"

Christine pushes her chair an inch away from the table. "Because I don't know everything," she says. "And I want to ask questions, and that's who might know the answers, a pastor. I can ask without giving you all away, your veil. If you'd just let me go for an hour next Sunday..."

"What does a pastor know that a theurge wouldn't know better?" Yi takes out her right hand, placing it palm flat on the table, staring at the cub. "Why can't you ask me? Why can't you ask any of us around here?"

"Well, I'm a theurge and I don't know," says Christine, compressing her lips. "I want to ask a Baptist. I want to ask a Christian. This /theurge/ wants to ask a Christian."

Yi smacks her hand down on the table in a short vent of frustration, as the tension wells out into an outburst of violent words. "Why don't you ask GOD?" she yells angrily, but turns away with a jerk. The ragabash takes steps towards the glass door, stopping just in front and looking back out towards the clouded skies. Her hand at her side, curled into a fist as she breathes fast and long, breath actually forming small puffs of heat against the colder glass.

"Please," says Christine, rising unflinchingly. "Please, I just want an hour, and then I won't say anything about going back to the city. Or half an hour." The words come out in a desperate rush.

Yi's shoulders rise and fall, eyes locked on the clouds outside like a hawk on a mouse in the field. The fist by her side lifts and uncurls as she puts it over her mouth, covering her face and rubbing hard into her skin. The ragabash doesn't reply for a time, keeping silent as she thinks. The hand then drops away, left to hang by her side. "Today is Sunday..." she muses quietly. "But it's getting late."

Christine nods. "I did mean next Sunday." But from the eagerness in her voice, it's plain she regrets whatever she meant. Her body tenses with the readiness to go /now/.

"Do they work this late?" the ragabash continues, this time her voice tuned down to a quiet level once again, like the one from her first arriving.

"There are late night services sometimes," says Christine. Then, reluctantly, "But I don't know any of the churches inside St. Claire. I know a few names, from the girls at my camp, but not when their services are or anything."

Yi slowly turns around, her head first moving, then the rest of her body. "We could make it if we run?" the ragabash asks, as if she didn't know the time it took to get from the farm to the city. More incredulous, she says it in a way of suggesting they run on foot.

Christine looks queerly at Yi. "Where's your car?" she asks.

Yi shrugs a touch, turning back to the woods outside. "I didn't bring it," she answers honestly. "I ran here."

Christine looks disappointed, but not defeated. "I can't run that far," she says. "I'm in good shape, but not that good." She really doesn't get it.

Yi wets her lips then. "I believe you can," she notes. "But, this is my deal." The no-moon turns around, leaning against the non-sliding portion of the glass door. "We /can/ make it, if we shift. The form of the wolf, the lupus, was meant for running. If you do that for me, and we run to the city, I will call it a fair trade, and let you have as much time with the pastor as you wish, within reason." The ragabash's eyes focus once more upon the girl. "And we can take the Mystery Mobile back here, afterwards."

Christine stares at Yi. Then she turns away with a fierce, disappointed anger. "No thank you," she says, struggling to keep her face reasonably still, though all the muscles bound by sinew to sorrow move involuntarily. "You were right. It is late."

Yi doesn't look disappointed, as if she had expected refusal. "Tonight is as good a night as any - a thin moon is better to meet with humans under." The ragabash only remarks on this. "It is a one-time deal, Christine. Take it or leave it, because I feel Olga will not be so giving."

"It's late," Christine repeats darkly. "I've got to get to sleep, Yi-rhya."

Yi turns then, and slides open the glass door. "Good night then," Yi says with a sense of finality.

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