Laura Child-Holder Returns

2/3/2006

08:03 PM
Logfile from GarouMUSH.

Currently the moon is in the waxing Crescent Moon phase (37% full).
It is currently 19:55 Pacific Time on Fri Feb 3 2006.
Currently in Saint Claire, it is a cloudy day. The temperature is 45 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius). The wind is calm today. The barometric pressure reading is 29.66 and falling, and the relative humidity is 99 percent. The dewpoint is 45 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius.)

Bawn: Central Forest(#2876RA)
The forest is dark and quiet. No, not quiet. Listening. The ancient firs rear up all around, branches interwoven in a dense roof of dark green. Fallen needles lie in a thick carpet on the ground, heaped up around the drifts of undergrowth clinging to the scarce patches of light reaching the forest floor. Every sound seems muffled, and the sharp scent of pine hangs in the air like the clouds of midges that swarm ceaselessly beneath the branches. Even the many deer who roam here seem to step more quietly than usual, and the songbirds seldom sing.
The forest spreads out around you in all directions.
Contents:
Laura
Obvious exits:
Burial Mounds  Story Tree  Caern of the Hidden Walk  Western Bawn  Southern Bawn  Northern Bawn  Eastern Bawn  

Deep in the forest of the bawn, a lone, wolf-like creature the size of a small bear lies. Runs-the-Gauntlet pants out in short sucks of breath, ears slicked back against her forehead. The trees themselves provide only a bed of recently rained upon needles to rest upon, and little other comfort. For now, the ragabash stares off into space almost heedless of her surroundings.

It's almost like old times. Laura's out for a run, eyes on her surroundings, searching for something, anything that's gone wrong. Instinct has drawn her in to the central environs of the bawn. She's careful, however, not to make her way too close to the caern, and it's that alertness that brings her up to Runs-the-Gauntlet. The Fury's shoes skid on the ground, and she comes to a sharp stop when she sees the other.

Runner only shifts an ear by reflex. It tracks the sound of the woman's shoes, and then sweeps back to lay lax against the side of her hispo'ed head. Reluctantly, the ragabash rolls upright and turns to look in the darkness towards the Fury. ~Who goes there?~

[look Laura (homid)]
Laura is compact, probably no more than five foot six. Her skin tone is olive, and she's obviously spent a good deal of time in the sun. Her hair is short, cut just below the jawline. Her eyes are hazel, brownish-green if you want to be specific. Nothing about her face really stands out, aside from a thin scar leading from her nose to her ear on the left side. She looks to be in her early twenties, though there's a suggestion in her expression that she's seen more of life than average for that age group.
She is slender, with very little muscle mass or physical presence. She's wearing a jean jacket over a black tank top and ratty black combat pants. The thigh pockets have something in them, though what it is isn't entirely obvious. When she moves, she favors her left leg, limping a little.

Laura crouches. "Laura Child-Holder, Theurge of the Black Furies. Cliath. Who are you?" She doesn't demand, only asks. It's plain to see she recognizes something of the almost-wolf. It's not quite clicking with her, though.

Runner utters a low growling whine, forcing up to her paws. ~Runs-the-Gauntlet, fostern ragabash of the Bone Gnawers,~ she replies slowly, drawing in the theurge's scent as she steps forward. ~Packed under...~ And there she fades from the rest of her introduction. A shake of her fur clips off the rest of her statement, and instead refocuses her on the Fury. There is something, though, that comes to mind at the far back and it shows in the Gnawer's posture. She sniffs a bit more.

Laura notes the unfinished statement. "Have you been here long?" she asks, studying the cant of the Gnawer's ears, the way she places her steps. "You seem familiar to me. I was here before. We may have met." She pushes her hair out of her face.

Runner steps ever closer, until she has finally caught a view of the woman. ~Yes,~ she answers the theurge quickly. ~I... you have a nostalgic scent.~ She puzzles over it, and then shifts herself through her forms, expanding and contracting until she becomes a shorter, slimly built Asian woman. Yi blinks a couple of times, eyes making adjustments to the darkness.

"Yi," the Fury says immediately, giving a nod of her head. "Yi-rhya," she amends quickly. "I remember now. Yes. Sorry. I packed with Dena, under Panther, years ago. I was at the reclaiming."

Yi looks long and hard at the theurge. Finally her face shifts expressions from guarded curiosity to that of real recognition. "Laura," she repeats the name with familiarity. "I remember." And like that, it causes a few withheld tears to squeeze up to the brim of her eyes. "I remember." Her head nods slowly, and then she wipes the tears away. "I am sorry. It has been a night full of memories for me." Looking about, she gestures to the spot where she had lain. "Do you want ot sit? There might have been rain these days, but this spot under the trees is dry."

Laura edges her way under the tree. "May I ask what's happened? It's been a day of frustrations for me, but somehow...this seems as though it may be worse." She finds a spot to sit, brow furrowing with concern. From her backpack, she pulls a small leather-wrapped bag, and from the bag, shortbread cookies. "Here, if you'd like one."

Yi joins the Fury, easing down beside her. The cookie is looked at blankly for that one moment, and then taken. Thanks follow. "A long night to come, and only started," she notes softly. "Today my pack is no more. Alicia... you remember her I think, Guards-the-Flame. And her cousin, Dakota Heals-the-Rift. They decided to leave the sept and return to the Western Eye in San Francisco. I heard Alicia has a kinfolk there... a new love. And Dakota, she wants to train under her mentor some more."

This is perhaps more of a blow than Yi anticipated. Tears well in Laura's eyes, though they are quickly rubbed away on a forearm. "Ali was...she was like a sister. Dammit. I didn't know she had a cousin but...dammit," she murmurs, the cookie taking the brunt of her emotion. "I was looking forward to seeing her again..."

Yi chews, though her concentration is faint on the action. And she hadn't expected Laura to be so upset by it. This only seems to compound the feeling of loss - a feeling she tries hard not to show visually too much. "It is okay," she justifies. "They are not truly gone. When they are down there, I might find enough money to spare and call her. Long distance." A smile, however small, is forced.

"She's one of the reasons I came back," Laura says around the end of the mouthful of cookie. "Dammit. You have their number? I had so much to tell her." The cursing's not as heartfelt as the rest of her words. The tears, quick as they came, have been quelled.

Yi nods slowly. "I do," she affirms, looking down to her cookie and finally taking a bigger bite of it. "But it has been a long time since I have seen you. I honestly do not remember when you left." She admits it readily, with just a coloring of shame for it. "What other reasons do you come back?"

Laura shakes her head. "To see Helen, to see the Sept. This place is more my home than Wandering Wind. Always has been, I was just too dumb to see it. I just missed this place." She glances at the Gnawer, as though sizing her up. "How has it been? Even this last year? I met the Shadow Lord we have in charge now..."

Yi slumps against a tree trunk, sighing heavily. A finger goes up to wipe away a crumb from her lips. "-I- just met the new Sept Alpha two days ago. I do not know why, really, Touch Deer gave his position so quickly. I guess it will come out at the moot." She then glances back to the theurge, abrupt and examining. "Are you supposed to be here? The Guardians, or Jamethon, they said you are allowed on the Bawn?"

Laura takes another cookie. "Bawn. No caern. Jamethon's orders. I've been looking for the guardians, actually, to see what they're going to do about my..." The cookie snaps, and Laura barely catches the free end before it hits the ground. "About my tribe. Have you met the cub, Alesia?"

Yi resumes chewing on the last quarter bit of her cookie, relaxing again. She shakes her head, however, in response. "I have not seen Alesia, no. Though Helen and I will be going on a scouting mission soon enough. And you have met others? There must be many new faces here for you to see."

"Several. Seems like almost too many. It was a relief to hear Jamethon's name when I spoke with the others on my arrival." Laura pops the half-piece into her mouth. "My tribemates have had our cub for a month, and did not check her for Wyrm. She has been to the caern twice. I had to Cleanse her today, as I found the scent of the Enemy."

Yi sits up at that news, eyes widening in surprise. "Tainted? How?" A pause, followed by a retrospective answer to her own question, "did not check for..." Flopping back, the Gnawer turns her gaze upwards into the trees. "The Guardians must be -angry-."

Laura snorts. "If the first non-cub Fury I saw hadn't already been half-dead, I would have thrashed her there myself. We don't need that nasty business happening to us again." She bares her teeth for a moment. "Which is why I'm looking for them. I don't want the cub punished for what is clearly the elders fault. I don't suppose I get much say, but...I want to say it anyway."

Yi exhales slowly, calming down that quickened beating of her heart. "It... does not seem right to punish the cub, no. Her elders, though," she says, gazing to the theurge. "I guess you will have to find a galliard who can tell you all that has happened, hm? At least Kaz is at the farmhouse most of the time. She is caretaker there, now. And Jamethon, you know, he is Warder. There might be a lot of new faces, but there are still some old." The ragabash digs deep for some humor. "Gaia knows, I am another year older by few weeks now."

Laura shakes out of her anger, giving a slight chuckle. "And they're all so young, the ones I've met so far. I feel ancient sometimes. Like the mother I've become, others." She leans back against the tree. "I hope I can find the old faces. Kaz, I've seen. Helen. Grey. Yourself."

Yi nods twice more. "Megan and Signe both have also gone their own ways, too. Though I stay here still, sometimes wondering if I should go. I only tell myself that this place fell once. We need all the help we can find." She looks seriously to the theurge. "It is good to see you back."

Laura shrugs a shoulder. "It is good to have returned. Though my chiminage may be a long time finishing, I want to help. If you need a theurge in your scouting, you have only to ask. I may not have quite the ritual knowledge of other theurges, but I can heal." She looks in the direction of the caern center, then back to Yi. "And fight."

Yi cracks a bit of a wider, fiercer grin. "I know it," she confirms. "And for theurges... you would have Jamethon and Gunnar here at the caern often. My tribemates, Christine, Olga, Wrong Way who is lupus born, and I heard there was a Glass Walker theurge, though I admit it has been a long time since the days when I walked among them welcomed." She puts a hand to her lower torso, covering a spot as her smile wanes. "Best to find a chiminage you are good at, yes. Maybe, I will ask Helen and Jamethon about your chiminage. There are plenty of things to deal with, especially in the city. The hospital, you know... that is gone. It exploded one night some time ago."

"Exploded? Just...exploded. I remember when we were trapped in town, in the Walker safehouses and the junkyard, seeing that blight the first time." Laura's lip twitches. "At least I don't mind dealing with the Scab so much. Helen's set my chiminage-I'm teaching the cub, Alesia, to be a theurge. I'm just not sure how long it will take me to be done it. But, as I said. I will help where I can, even if I can't go near the caern."

Yi nods, a grim line of her lips marking her opinion. "There has been little searching about what happened since then, but there are a couple of threats to consider. There is a Nexus Crawler that was tied to the hospital, but when it exploded, the Crawler moved. I was told it was weakened, but then I have not looked for it again. There are also some Scrags in the city Shadow. Dillen Bloods-Bane knows more about it than I do." She looks over. "As you can see, the Wyrm still holds strong here."

"Hm." Laura offers no comment on that for the moment. "Seems we can never quite get a hold on the bastard, but who can. So, what are you scouting? Not the Scrags, or the Crawler, eh? What else befouls the land?" She tucks the last of her cookies away, saving for another time perhaps, and pulls out a canteen. "Tea?"

Yi holds up a hand in polite refusal of the offer, and then uses it to gesture towards a direction. "There is a yard for tire dumping. And even though no one knows who set it on fire, that is what is happening. The fire department in the city says there is nothing they can do but let the tires burn. And they keep burning, and burning... and the smoke and pollution gets into the air. We scouted the place in the Realm, thinking we might find something, but nothing really was there. Only... we sent a cub on her rite of passage there. A -cub-. She went into the Shadow to scout that yard, and never came out."

Laura takes a swig of the tea. "No sign, no nothing...so, what's been found since then? Or is that why you and Helen are going to investigate?" She's already puzzling over what the thing may be.

Yi nods on the latter half. "Helen and I. Rusty, if he shows up. We will go there and see for ourselves what is there, and Gaia damn anything that tries to stop us." A fist balls up, crushing what last crumb of cookie she had in between her fingers. "And there is some kind of bane that is out further down the river. Vera, the Alpha, said she found it again and will be leading a pack or so out there. We failed to kill it last time during the Great Hunt."

Laura's lip twitches again, revealing a bit of tooth. "Anruth or not, I want to be there. I came back here to help this place, and I'll do it one way or the other." She growls. "I'm tell you this now, and if I see Vera-rhya again, I will tell her that I am willing to help with the other bane, whatever assistance I can provide."

"Hopefully you will not be an outsider for long," Yi says with conviction. "With Alicia and Dakota leaving... we will be short even more. It will be a hard road ahead." The ragabash sighs again, and finally stands. "I think I am going to go to the Burial Mounds for a little bit. Are you staying at the Fury house, or the farmhouse?"

Laura nods. "My home is with my tribe, at the Fury house. I have a room there, but I am also going to begin spending more time between there and the farmhouse, to lend a hand to Kaz-rhya." She looks out over the bawn, sighing when she spots no one familiar. "A message will reach me at either place. Walk with Gaia, Yi-rhya."

Yi adjusts her coat slightly, and dips her head. "Again, it is good to see you again, Laura. Soon enough, you will be a stranger no longer," she says with a light smile. "Thank you for the cookie... and good hunting." The ragabash turns and shifts again, melting up and down into her hispo form again to trot off into the darkness.

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