Dizzy - Cub Bonding
It is currently 19:16 Pacific Time on Fri Jul 13 2001.
Currently the moon is in the waning Half Moon phase (47% full).
Currently in Saint Claire, it's a sunny day. The temperature is 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius). The wind is calm today. The barometric pressure reading is 30.15 and falling, and the relative humidity is 49 percent. The dewpoint is 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius.)
Sophia's Apartment(#4128RAJ$)
Small, bare, and uninviting, this little apartment is clearly not the dwelling of a homebody, nor of a person accustomed to entertaining. The sitting area has only bright white plastic lawn furniture that looks as if it might have been manufactured by Tupperware. Makeshift shelves of cinderblocks and 1"X8" boards bow with the weight of scores of books. Titles like "Rescuing the Bible From Middle America" or "Zarathustra: Modernism in Antiquity" can be seen here, along with dozens of dime-store paperbacks.
The kitchen looks as if it might never have been cooked in. A small microwave on the counter is still blinking "12:00", no one having bothered to set the clock. Beside it is an electric can opener. The only evidence of use is a single glass in the stainless steel sink and a few fast-food bags in the trashcan. The sole decoration on the refrigerator is a postcard bearing a photograph of a monstrous, grimy power plant with "Come to Hanford!" printed on the bottom in fluorescent green.
Through a door opposite the kitchen, the tiny bedroom looks slightly more lived-in. On top of a black particle-board dresser sit a hairbrush, a few hair-ties, and several plastic hairclips, along with a small pile of cheap costume jewelry. A frame designed to hold several of snapshots is hung squarely on the wall. The small writing table is bare, nothing on top, nothing inside. The bed is made, a bright yellow bedspread bravely trying to cheer up the room.
John starts to walk out of the room, nodding. "Plenty." He stops in the doorway, one hand resting on the doorframe for a moment. "Some time when I'm less disappointed with the both of us, come find me and I'll show you the war. I'm going out now."
Sophia nods tersely, waiting for him to step out of the way.
John just leaves, stepping down the stairs and then out of the building, entirely.
The door opens to reveal the return of Dizzy. "I'm home," she announces as she takes her jacket off and sets it on a lawn chair, frowning. "A coat rack. I need to remember to get us a coat rack." she mumbles.
Sophia is about to walk out the door herself. "I'm going down to fetch a mattress. I'll be right back. Yes, a coatrack would be good." She heads out the door, down the stairwell, and into the basement. Finding something she thinks will suffice, she pops her neck and shifts into glabro so she can get her arms around it. Tromp, tromp, tromp up the stairs, and in less than five minutes she's ducking down so she can pull the thing through the door backward.
When Sophia comes back up, Dizzy is filing away some papers in her book bag. She looks up at the return of her roommate. Grinning, and shaking her head in disbelif she says, "You really admire John, don't you?"
Sophia, completely disarmed by the question, does not at first know how to answer. She drops the mattress briefly, allowing it to lean against the doorframe, and touches her cheek briefly, where a bruise is developing. "If it weren't for him, I would be dead." This is the whole of her answer, and she returns to her task.
Dizzy closes the flap on her bag and stands up, heading to the kitchen, "I just noticed how you try and emulate him some times." She opens the fridge and takes out the carton of milk. "Like now, and when we were down in the lobby." She grabs a glass from the cabinets and pours a glass. "You want some too?" she asks.
Sophia shakes her head. "Thank you, no. I'm fine." She finishes getting the mattress squared away on the bedframe and brushes her hands off on her jeans. She pulls a small cosmetics bag out of one of her dresser drawers and walks into the bathroom. "And why do you say I act like him?"
Dizzy puts the milk back in the fridge. "Well, remember the other night, when we were downstairs, and all the other Walkers were there. Earlier when you were standing in the lobby today, it just reminded me of him standing there." She takes a drink and shrugs.
In the bathroom, Sophia scowls. Leaning her head out of the doorway, she says "Oh, god. Please don't say that. Yes, I admire him. But shit, next you're gonna be telling me I look like him." She goes back to the mirror and starts gingerly dabbing concealer on her face.
Dizzy laughs, "Belive me, I'll make sure that doesn't happen." She takes another drink of milk before continuing, "Though, he's a lot less scary than when I first met him. I thought for sure I'd get yelled at by him. Unless he still doesn't know..."
Sophia shifts back to her breed form, too clumsy to do this as the Incredible Hulk. Seeing her reflection, it occurs to her that she looks like an oil painting someone has spilled turpentine on. She finally realizes the makeup can't work miracles and tosses the tube of concealer, along with the rest of the cosmetics bag, into the trash. She walks out into the kitchen and points at her bruise. "He knows."
Dizzy drops the glass into the sink, not caring if it breaks or not, and rushes over to her roommate, "Oh my god! He hit you? Never mind what I just said, that man is dangerous." She looks back towards the kitchen, "Let me get you some ice to put on that." And zoom, she's off again to get a towel to hold the ice.
Sophia rolls her eyes. "Look, Dizzy? We're garou. If I just shift and sit still for a while, it will go away, and it won't even hurt any more. And I was talking shit, so I deserved it."
Dizzy stops what she's doing and looks back at Sophia with a frown, "Because we're werewolves, because we heal. That makes it okay for us to hit each other? Hard enough to leave a bruise?"
Sophia nods. "You're getting the idea." She walks into the sitting area and plops down on the floor, stretching her legs out. "It's a common practice. I was pretty close to smacking you, earlier. It's no different."
Dizzy tosses the towel into the sink, still not totally convinced. "That seems a bit barbaric, doesn't it? Unless I'm missing something." She walks into the living room, steping over her roommate, to take a seat in a lawn chair.
Sophia shrugs. "Barbaric isn't necessarily a bad thing. Glass Walkers forget that too often, I think. We are half wolves. You know what they do to punish their young? They pick them up with their teeth, right here," she says, holding the back of her neck, "And shake."
"Yeah," Dizzy says, "But they don't toss them off a cliff or pop them in the eye." She pretends to punch herself in the eye, for effect.
Sophia looks heavenward. "Oh, come on. Nobody threw me off a cliff. And he didn't even close his fist. My point is, though, that would kill a human baby, if you shook them like that. But it doesn't really hurt a wolf pup, because they're built different. And we're built differently than humans, too. Even if we look like them."
"What about me, then?" Feeling, that she's got to be right at least once in the past couple days, Dizzy presses the point, "Why didn't he hit me then. I'm the one dumped the coke. Paid for it, waited, walked over and splash! Premeditated drenching and all. Why did he hit you and not me, then?"
Sophia says, without hesitation, "Because you had apologized when he came in. He didn't hit me because of what you did. He hit me because of how I reacted to it. I smarted off, he raised the back of his hand, and I smarted off again. Cub go boom. It's really not a big deal."
Dizzy is still a tad uncomfortable, coming from a life where news about spouse abuse and child abuse abounded on the television and in the newspaper, "Well... try not to smart off, please? That's supposed to be my job, right? Dizzy of the smartass moon."
Sophia shakes her head. "No can do. He was wrong, and needed to be told that. But I expected him to hit me when I said it."
Dizzy sits up and looks down at her roommate on the floor, "Garou society is pretty fucked up."
Sophia scowls. "Not as fucked up as human society. I'd rather be a wolf. At least you know what their motivations are. Humans are all weird and half-nuts.... ukh."
Dizzy sits back again and looks at the ceiling, "I guess. I don't know too many wolves though." She grins to herself. Since learning she was a werewolf, she's only seen one other person as a wolf.
Sophia smiles. "That reminds me. I don't think I'm supposed to be teaching you any more, but you should start learning the wolf tongue." She yawns and stretches her limbs out, and when she pulls them back in again, she has begun to shift, lazily passing from form to form until she reaches lupus.
Dizzy sits up in her chair and watches Sophia shift, "How can you teach me if I can't understand what you're saying?"
Spot barks and walks to the door, wagging her tail. Smart cub is here. Open the door.
*knocknocknock* There's a rapping at the door, just few rapid beats and silence.
Dizzy gets up from the lawn chair, "What's that Lassie, you wanna go out? Timmy fell in the well?" She laughs, grabbing her coat. "We're going outside, huh?"
Spot shakes her head, prancing from paw to paw. "Ruff!"
Dizzy blinks as she hears the knocking, she looks down at her roommate, "Looks like we have company instead." She places her jacket back on the chair and goes to open the door. A crack at first to see who it is, and then she opens the door, "Oh, hey. What's up?"
Corey has his hand up as if he's about to knock again when the door swings open. "Oh, um." He drops the hand to his side, then pulls it behind him to clasp the other one. "Just wanted to talk, is all, and..." He breaks off. "Hey, where's your roomie, Amanda?"
Spot barks and goes to find a comfy spot on the floor. I'm right here.
"Dizzy, please. It makes me feel weird to have people call me Amanda. I'm sure you can see Sophia just fine," Dizzy heads back to the chairs, "What did you want to talk about?"
Corey looks down. "Oh, right, I should expect things like this, shouldn't I." He shakes his head, then breaks his hands apart and runs his left hand through his hair. "At any rate, I wanted to know about first changes, if you've got the time and inclination." He looks at Spot again. "But if I'm interrupting anything..."
Spot looks up and shrugs lazily. I've got all the time in the world.
Corey takes the shrug and move to the chairs as an unspoken invitation to step inside and close the door behind him, though he remains standing. "I just need to know... what sets it off?" Yeah, he loves to ask simple questions with short answers. "I mean, I understand I had a spirit stuck to me that basically told a Garou that I'm ready to burst like some badly-built dam, but if that's the case, what'll it take to make the change happen?"
Dizzy shrugs as she sits down, "Jeremy only had to make me very angry at him. I was pretty ticked at him when I first changed. Now I'm grateful though, that he did it, even if it was a pretty dumb idea."
Spot stands up and growls at Corey, raising her hackles, fangs bared, the whole bit. She walks in a circle, and then yawns and lies back down on the floor, telling the cub: Rage does it.
Dizzy tries to explain her roommate's actions to Corey, "Sophia's trying to teach me how to speak like a wolf... I think."
Corey blinks at Spot a few times, wondering what he did wrong. Then he picks up that that was his answer. "So I've just got to get pissed off, is that it? Any other emotions that do it?" Thoughtfulness and worry are written all over his face.
Spot backs away from Corey. Her posture is submissive; her tongue is sticking out slightly, her eyes are to the side, her head and tail are low. She scrunches her body into a corner and whimpers softly. -Fear can do it. Being in a corner can do it.- She stops her little game and walks over to the chair, tapping it with her nose. -Have a seat.-
"I can only explain what happened to me," Dizzy informs the pre-changed Walker. I don't know how anyone else changed..." she trails off, watching her roommate, "I think she wants you to sit down. As for emotions, I was a little scared before I got mad at him. When Sophia knocked on the door, and Jeremy was telling me their was guys with guns outside... I was scared, yeah."
Corey nods slowly. "Fight or flight. The most basic instincts, taken to extremes." He walks carefully to the chair indicated, trying not to step on any toes, or paws.
Both eyebrows shoot way up as Corey sits down. "He told you /that/? No wonder you changed. And no wonder everyone's saying he was stupid about it." He nods to Sophia, "I'd ask how yours happened, but I don't think one of us is equipped to listen properly."
Dizzy nods, "It was pretty convincing, due to the circumstances. He told a good story. Hey, have you seen someone do the big dog thing yet, Corey?" Dizzy uses Jeremy's phrase for shifting to crinos.
Spot sighs. All /right/. I'll shift back. And I was just getting comfortable. Her outline shudders and warps as she shifts through her forms till she arrives at homid.
Dizzy blinks as her roommate turns back, not expecting it. So the young ragabash asks her friend, "Okay, were you planning on going somewhere Soph? Or should have I shifted into wolf form as well?"
Corey catches the feeling if not the exact meaning of that sigh. "Sorry, I meant I should ask later." To Dizzy, he says, "Yes, I had a Child of Gaia demonstrate the big dog thing. Is there an actual name for that, or what?"
"Crinos," Dizzy tells him. "That's the real name. So, you didn't freak out when you saw this Gaian change? If I wasn't... doing what I was doing, I'd have gone wacko at seeing Sophia turn into a werewolf."
Sophia answers the questions one at a time. "First of all, Corey, rage and terror will make you change. Dizzy, no, I just wanted you to listen to me for a while, get used to how the language works. And... yeah. Crinos."
Corey shakes his head, grinning ruefully. "I was already too freaked out by having Kaz tell me about a dream I'd had before I'd told anyone half of it, and Alicia telling me I was going to try to kill someone, I guess. I mean, being accused of attempted murder before anything happens is a bit weird, you have to admit."
Dizzy thinks on matters, leaning back in her chair, and offers, "I wonder if it's going to be harder, now that you know about it... Did you know before you changed, Sophia?"
Sophia nods. "Yeah, my mom explained the whole thing and told me to start walking, that I had to come to St. Claire. About halfway, a bane tried to kill my dog. I dunno, things happened so fast, I... I changed and John showed up all at the same time. Killed the thing, though. Nice and dead."
Dizzy sits up to look at her roommate, who just _may_ be crazy. "Walk to St. Claire?" she asks, "From where?"
Sophia shrugs. "Not that far. Just from Hanford."
Corey gets even more worried at Dizzy's musings, and the eyebrows rise again. "Pre-clued, and getting into the action immediately." He lets out a low, appreciative whistle. "Wish I could claim /any/ foreknowledge, but I don't think either of my parents knew."
Dizzy ohs, and goes back to relaxing in the chair from Sophia's comment. After Corey speaks, she offers this bit of wisdom, "I don't think they would have clued you in, pre-change, if it made it harder to do it. You know, that's probably what would have happened to me if not for Jeremy."
Corey considers the potential difficulty, and whether the fact that he knows now will affect it. "You know, I'm going to have to reject that idea. These are basic emotions we're talking about, right? We can control our reactions to them... in this case, we can prevent ourselves from actually attacking the objects of our rage, or fleeing from them. That doesn't mean the instincts aren't /there/." Positive attitude. check.
Sophia heads into the kitchen to get some kool-aid, offering the others a glass. "I think that changing when you already know makes it easier, because then you don't necessarily freak out and go crazy when the change happens."
Dizzy polietly declines the offer for kool-aid. "That was my original line of thought, Corey. But, well you've got to trust what the elders do, and if they think that you knowing is a good idea, then it probably is."
Corey declines as well. "Umm, on a related note," he plucks at the shirt he's been wearing since he came to the house, "does your clothing change with you automaticly? It happens for everyone I've seen, but my gut feeling says 'no'."
Sophia comes in with her red bug juice. "No, you're very right, Corey. My first time, and Dizzy's too, we ended up in the raw. In my case, I was out in the middle of the woods with John at the time. Talk about scary? Thank Gaia I had a packed bag on my back."
Dizzy shudders a bit at the mention of losing clothing, she looks at Sophia, "Maybe we need a 'to do' list on the fridge. The first thing I'm writing on there is 'Learn. The. Clothes. Rite. Secret. Thingy." She pauses, "'Buy a coat rack' is second."
Corey stops picking at the fabric and sighs. "Great. I didn't get a chance to pack before I was brought here." He looks down at his shirt and mutters something about having to burn it later. "I suppose if I changed now, I'd be spending a lot of time as a wolf until I could get some replacement clothing," he muses with more volume.
Sophia chuckles. "I meant to have Kaz do it when we were over there, but it slipped my mind. Ya gotta chill with those clothes, though. Ya can't do a new set every day. You wear the clothes till they're too dirty, and then you take them off, wash them, and put them on again."
Dizzy nods, looking at the clothes she's wearing, "I'll have to make sure I'm wearing something that will stay in fashion, then. Of course, I've got, like, what? A decade left to live?"
Corey looks up with a wry expression, "Go with dress slacks and your best blouse. At least you'll make a good-looking corpse." He affects the manner of someone at a funeral, and sobs, "She died so young! But what /good/ taste in clothes!"
Sophia laughs some more. "Keep your mouth shut more often and you'll stretch that a whole lot. But no, I mean... you can do a different set once in a while, it's just not an every day thing. But, oh, no. Don't do that, because they'll get stained with blood. Wear something practical."
Corey considers his own attire again. "Practical, yes. But I don't want to have to get bloodstains out of this, I rather /like/ this shirt." He pauses, and digs in a pocket. "Sophia, you can go pretty much where you want, right? Within reason, I mean."
Dizzy looks over to Corey with interest. In terms of getting places, the free-roaming, car-owning, ragabash cub is the way to go.
Sophia nods. "I can. Just not alone at night. Dizzy, apparently, is allowed to go wherever the fuck she pleases, but that's another matter. I honestly have no idea about you."
Dizzy smiles to her roommate, "You have to remember Sophia, I'm an old crone in garou society. I'll be able to legally drink and gamble at the beginning of next year."
Corey chuckles, then frowns and curses as he can't find what he's looking for in his jeans. "Must've left it in my room. Any rate, I was hoping you could assist me in getting some backup clothes, or, hell, even things that I'd prefer to have to use for ever and ever, amen."
Sophia nods. "Sure. No problem. So, what's the state of things with you? Are you grounded?"
Corey spreads his hands in the universal gesture of 'beats the hell out of me'. "I honestly don't know. I haven't been told I am, but then..." He stops. "Would it be considered an exercise of my ragabash nature to interpret this as 'not grounded'?"
Sophia shrugs. "I've recently learned a rather hard lesson, which is that it's not my place to interpret that kind of thing." She rubs at her cheek, where a large bruise was earlier.
Dizzy grins in Corey's direction, "That's how I interpreted my lack of instruction in the territory issue. Though, I do have a car, so I don't have to worry about some mugger causing me to change. I gotta worry about road rage instead."
Corey sighs. "In that case, I should assume I'm grounded until proven otherwise. Right."
Dizzy's look turns serious and nods at Sophia's words, "Yeah, sometimes you don't want to just interpret."
Sophia bristles slightly, but forces herself to stay put. 'Not gonna get into it,' she tells herself. 'Let it pass on by.' She just tries to imagine she never heard it in the first place.
Corey slumps in his seat. "Same old story. Talk to the elders." He doesn't seem at all surprised, just annoyed that his loophole was shot down so quickly.
Sophia sighs. "Someday, I hope, there will be enough of us that elders won't be hard to find."
"Give it long enough at we'll be Elders," Dizzy ribs. "Actually," she says, turning serious again, "Have you gotten any word on your Rite yet? I know you've been talking about it."
Sophia snarls as much as a human can. Not at anyone in particular, but it's still a snarl. "It has, apparently, been pushed back because of the way I handled the situation today. What exactly I did, I am not sure. But John told me today he is holding me back because of it. So. Is age equivalent to experience? As far as I know, that's all he was there to hear me say. So now I'm guessing four months instead of two." Her expression is that of a trapped animal.
Corey winces in sympathy. "Grand. Er, should I ask what the situation was? I'm guessing no, but I'm just curious because I wasn't there."
Dizzy slinks back in her chair, "Four months? Just because of today?" This news makes her a little mad because the whole thing was her fault, and hers alone. She is tempted by the thought of talking to John herself. The thought of Sophia's black eye sobers her right back up, though. "Maybe if you show exemplary skill, or wisdom or something it'll come back down. Time off for good behavior."
Sophia shrugs and plops down on the floor. "Well, I figure I had two months to go, anyway, but yeah, from what I could gather it was basically doubled because of today. And... it's a difficult situation, see. Half the time, when you speak up for yourself, they're all like, excited for you, and they gain that much more respect. The other half the time, they start snarling at you. What can ya do, eh?"
Also not telling Corey the story, Dizzy notes to Sophia, "I've noticed that as long as you agree they're right, punishment is less severe. But that's probably only because I've been a garou for what? Four days?"
Not slow to take the hint, the male nomoon decides he doesn't need to know badly enough to risk his current good relations with the other cubs. His only addition to the conversation is, "I see a long cubhood ahead..."
Sophia sighs. "I don't know about you, but if I agreed they were right, I'd be lying for the sake of ass-kissing. Because when they're right, I do agree with them. But most of the time, it's not a matter of that. It's a matter of them having too big of egos to admit they aren't thinking logically about things. Ok, like yesterday, I wasn't allowed to take you to the store, but somehow Jeremy knows what to do? Sure. Right. And then, today, all of a sudden, you have even more freedom than I have? They're nuts. They're acting on whims, and you can't get a straight answer out of any of them." She finishes her rant and blows a piece of hair out of her eyes.
"It's not ass-kissing," Dizzy explains, "I'd just rather pick my battles. Dump coke on them when I feel they're not wearing enough clothes once I'm at their level or once they think it's time where I can make that decision for myself."
Corey gets up in an attempt to slip out quietly once he realizes he's no longer part of the conversation.
Sophia looks up at Corey. "Are you leaving?" she asks.
Dizzy looks over to the attempted escapee and inquires, "Too late for you?"
Corey doesn't break stride until he gets to the exit. "Yeah, I think it's time I begged off for tonight. You two seem to have things to discuss without me." He smiles, waves and opens the door to leave.
Dizzy shrugs and goes back to leaning back in the chair, "This is all stuff you're going to have to deal with too. Might as well learn now."
Sophia says nothing. It makes no difference to her, one way or the other.
One last cheerful comment comes back in before the door closes. "If Sophia doesn't know how to deal with our elders by now, I sure as hell don't, and I doubt you really do either. Toodles."
Dizzy looks over to her roommate. "Well...", she prompts, "What now?"
Sophia shrugs. "I don't really know. I'm having one of those days when you're just fed up with it all. Not in a very fun mood. Sorry."
Dizzy nods and goes back to looking up at the ceiling again, "Today ranks pretty high on the crap-o-meter."
Sophia chuckles softly. "Hey, at least we have two beds now, right. Something good happened."
Dizzy smiles, "Yeah. No more floor sleeping for you." She glances in the direction of the bedroom, "Kind of makes it feel more like 'our' place than 'your' place."
Sophia yawns and prepares the new bed for sleeping in, putting sheets on it and so forth.
Dizzy rolls out of the chair and goes into the bedroom to help her fellow cub.