Returning with Ed's Head
1/19/2009
08:01 PM
Logfile from GarouMUSH.
Currently the moon is in the waning Half Moon phase (42% full).
It is currently 19:58 Pacific Time on Mon Jan 19 2009.
Currently in Saint Claire, it is foggy. The temperature is 33 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius). The wind is calm today. The barometric pressure reading is 30.31 and falling, and the relative humidity is 96 percent. The dewpoint is 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius.)
Bawn: Northern Forest(#3012RA)
Dark and forboding woods stretch in all directions but the north, the trees close together as if they were soldiers closing ranks against the enemy of Man. The trees here are tall, and close off all light from above, like they were pillars in some vast cathedral to Nature. Songbirds flit between the branches and the snuffling of small animals comes from the brush if one listens close enough. The busy interstate highway to the north, though, drowns out most of the subtler sounds in that direction.
The northern edge of the bawn is marked here by the unavoidable length of Interstate 90. Near it, the sounds of traffic drown out the more natural sounds of water and wildlife. In all other directions, the traffic noise recedes into the background.
Contents:
Kaz(#3820PJXc)
Oncoming Storm
Obvious exits:
Interstate 90 North Lone Boulder Western Bawn Central Bawn Eastern Bawn
The fog muffles footfalls, makes the vision a little unreliable in these already forbidding woods. Other sounds are strangely attenuated. Through it all comes the sound of a flute, only barely audible over Interstate 90. On a moss-covered rock sits Kaz, eyes closed and body relaxed, playing a permutation of 'Red River Valley' with quiet attention.
The Wendigo's white-furred form blends remarkably with the browns and greens of her surroundings, making her difficult to spot as she makes her way toward the sound of the flute.
From a different direction south of the Warder is the sound of an identifying and searching howl some distance away. Runs-the-Gauntlet returns from her hunt! She searches for the Warder and the Alpha!
Kaz shoots straight up, puts her flute down on top of the flute case, and then, quite out of character, doesn't even put it away, she just abandons it and starts heading towards that howl. (She also appears not to have noticed Jacinta.)
Oncoming Storm flicks an ear toward the howl, watching Kaz long enough to see what she does before turning, herself. Unlike the alpha, she pauses long enough to howl in return, acknowledging the ragabash's call and her intention to arrive shortly.
A couple of short yips confirms the ragabash hears the Warder's howl and that she's staying put. By the time either of them have reached her, Yi is back in her human form and sitting upon a barely cleared patch of forest floor. Beside her is a beaten up plastic cooler over which a protective hand has been set upon.
Kaz is, probably, slower than Jacinta. But louder!
Oncoming Storm drops her gift of Camouflage when she nears. Just as she comes within view of the ragabash, she slows, and rises up to two legs, coming to a stop in her birth form before the Bone Gnawer. "Waqaa."
Yi doesn't see the Warder until the fog's parted enough. But even then, it takes her voice in the dark to let her really know that she's there. The ragabash shifts her legs from a crosslegged position to rise as well. Her throat clears. "Jacinta. I have returned," she restates. When it looks like she's about to go on, though, the sound of Kaz's footsteps cast a hush on the no-moon. She squints, trying to peer past the Wendigo.
Kaz calls, when she hears voices, "Yo!" and then finally emerges from the fog, out of breath. There's a brief glance at Jacinta, clearly surprised, and then she adds, "Welcome back."
"Ii-i," Jacinta says to Yi, and then looks to the approaching galliard. Her posture shifts noticeably, clearly deferential to Kaz. "Waqaa," she adds for the alpha, her tone respectful, if not warm.
Yi can't help the slight rounding of her eyes and arch of her brow at Kaz when the Alpha appears. Immediately following, her eyes turn downward. "I know I have gone a long time. And I hope Diego came back earlier to tell you what happened," she says to Kaz, even though her volume is enough for both to be included. Then, to Jacinta, Yi stoops to push the cooler forward in between them.
Kaz responds to Yi's brief display of non-submission and then submission mostly by raising one eyebrow. But at Yi's words, she shakes her head. "No, no he din't. He may /be/ back, but he didn't tell me nothin'." She eyes the cooler half-curiously, half-warily.
Jacinta looks to Kaz as she speaks, and then turns back to the ragabash. Whether she has an opinion, or even understands the conversation between the Gnawers, she makes no indication. Her attention, instead, turns to the cooler and she crouches before it to lift the lid.
Yi keeps her eyes down and away, not looking at the two of them. "I told him I would walk," she responds to Kaz's statement. Once the lid opens, the contents within can be seen quite clearly. And smelled, for that matter. The large amount of salt is packed around the head of Ed in her vampiric appearance, hideous and fanged, yet somehow peaceful. Yi takes a breath to steady herself.
Kaz's expression, as the cooler is opened, is complex. Relief, sadness, a little bit of anger, perhaps. She, too, takes a breath. "I'm sorry, Ed," she mutters, and then flicks a glance up to Yi. "I'm glad you're back," she says again. "And... I'm sorry you had to."
Jacinta's expression is one of simple satisfaction. "Assirtuq," she says, and gives a single bob of her head. Glancing to Kaz, she holds the lid open for a moment longer and then carefully lets it close. "It is done," she says with that same sense of satisfaction, rather than pleasure or anger.
Yi wets her lips as the cooler is closed. "Is it?" she questions aloud, rhetorically. "She had help. She made claims. Maybe I could believe a little bit of what she said. Especially about the part where she had those who helped her." She looks up then to the pair, head shaking slightly side to side with a soft humorless laugh, "I killed her on Christmas morning."
Something in Jacinta's tone raises Kaz's eyebrow, but that's forgotten at Yi's words. She blinks, and takes a half pace forward. "Those who helped her?" she repeats.
Jacinta's eyes narrow at Yi's words. She doesn't speak, but the intense curiosity is clear in her gaze. Wrists resting across her knees, she watches the ragabash for further explanation.
Yi's expression continues to hover somewhere indescribable, just beyond the line crossing into being upset. "You know. Vampires always need help to get things for them what they cannot get themselves. This one," she indicates with a nod of her head to the cooler, "had her help. She was trying not to feed on humans. So she had help collecting other kinds of blood for her to drink. Animal blood." Her gaze raises again to them both. "Her mother told me many things. There was a name of a man in St. Claire. Ben. He is a butcher."
Kaz narrows her eyes slightly, in thought. "Gaian Kin," she eventually says. "I knew someone was helpin' her with the animal blood, but I din't realize it was him. OK. I'll tell Salem later." After a moment, she adds, "I thought you meant people who were like, helping her do... stuff betrayin' us, the Garou. But, not that you know of?"
Jacinta's jaw clenches, and she rises to her feet. She doesn't contradict Kaz, but there's an increase in the tension through her jawline at the alpha's final statement.
Yi swallows down a reaction, twitching slightly at her eyes and mouth. Until, she can't hold it in. "I was called a monster!" she blurts out abruptly, loudly. "They treated her as one of their own. In all this, I will be the one who is painted out to have betrayed Family. Do you know that?" Her finger points down accusingly at the cooler, words vehement, "Her own mother would help a vampire before she would help Garou." Shortly after her bluster, she sags.
Kaz's jaw sets. "That's either because her mother's love blinded her, or because Ed was bein' more of a fuckin' leech than I knew and had some mojo powers. I don' care which, but lemme tell you. You're Family. You ain't betrayed /nothin'/. You hadda let someone go whose time had come, which... ain't the same thing as bein' a monster." A little quieter, she adds, "It really ain't."
Jacinta's lips peel back from her teeth. "You ended the monster. The thing that killed her and left the walking corpse, that was a monster. You are Garou. You did what was needed." She thrusts a hand out toward the cooler. "That, was no longer family to the Garou."
"She told her whole family the truth," Yi grits out. "She told them and they all just... accepted. Family was Family, no matter the hardships. Isn't that what we are about? Even Diego wanted her to live. She begged me. She said she could help us, lead us to others who were less in touch with their human memories. She said that her sire offered her a chance to go to the vampires, for them to be her Family. She rejected them and came to us instead." Shaking her head, Yi looks to the pair searchingly.
Kaz sighs, and plunks down next to a tree. "The way I see it, her specific blood family has... well, like, kinda insanity-sauce built in. I don't get blood bonds, obviously, but I do get close, strong family, and sometimes you just... ignore reality and love the person. But that don't mean she was... that don't mean she should've still /been/ the person, 'cause she was /dead/. She was /unnatural/ and /dead/." She sighs. "Admittedly, I'd love t'find other leeches and off /them/, too, but helping her along to whatever comes next ain't a problem, Yi. It may hurt and Diego's crush may've gotten smooshed, but in the long run? It was right. F'you /and/ f'her."
"She lied," Jacinta says with venom, but bites back anything further when Kaz begins to speak. She lets out an unhappy huff of a breath and takes a backward step. "I leave it to the Urrah to find if there are others of her kind. Quyana," she says to Yi, and then to both, "Piuraa." She doesn't depart immediately, however, waiting on the edge of turning.
Yi balls a hand into a fist, displaying a little more than just hurt amidst her anger. As Jacinta turns to go, though, she speaks up. "What do you want done with this, Jacinta?" Her glance checks back to Kaz as well, then down to the cooler.
Kaz says, "Me, I'd go with buryin' her." She shrugs.
Jacinta looks down at the cooler and then back to Yi. "Do what you wish. The threat is ended. The rest is yours." That said, she does turn, slipping down to lupus before heading into the forest.
Yi says nothing more but to nod her head to Jacinta, and glances back to Kaz. "Maybe. I will see to the rest of this," she says as she moves to pick up the cooler once again. Even as Jacinta heads off though, the ragabash asks when the Wendigo is out of sight, "Why tell Salem?"
Kaz slumps slightly. "'Cause me and Lefty and some other folks didn't immediately kill yon Vampire. So it's...legitmately being construed as a Litany problem. Which he's lookin' into." She rubs her face. "Some fun now."
Kaz also nods to Jacinta, before saying all that.
Yi frowns, and her grip on the cooler's handle tightens. After some moments of silence, the ragabash remarks, "I will go speak to him later then. Maybe there is something I can say or do." Turning on a heel, she makes to go, but waits on Kaz.
Kaz considers her. "Dude," she says, more of the tiredness showing, "We didn't. Just because I was letting her live in part because I thought I might, at some point, get vital information out of her doesn't mean I didn't /do/ it. I mean. Reasons are sometimes just hidin' the truth, and if he thinks, /as a Philodox/, I was wrong, I gotta man up and accept that."
Yi looks back to the Gnawer elder, and for a moment her sympathy bubbles up. "I know. I know what you mean. And I know you or Basil would not have told me about her if you did not trust me," she replies quietly. "I trust he will be fair."
There's just the slightest ghost of a smile when Kaz says, "Yeah, I do. Trust you. And him." There's a small pause before she says, "Thanks. I'll see you back'n the city, later?"
Yi looks right on at Kaz and for a moment smiles back. "At the Odeon," she replies with a dip of her head. Then she does fully turn and starts off into the fog, cooler at her side and steps growing fainter.
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