Currently the moon is in the waning Crescent Moon phase (27% full).
Currently in Saint Claire, it's a sunny day. The temperature is 79 degrees Fahrenheit (26 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the north at 6 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 29.97 and falling, and the relative humidity is 43 percent. The dewpoint is 55 degrees Fahrenheit (12 degrees Celsius.)
It is currently 17:57 Pacific Time on Thu Sep 13 2001.
Farmhouse: Hallway and Living Room
All doorways in the front part of the house lead to the front hallway, a J-shaped area with the short tail starting at the stairs, the front door hitting the bottom curve, the doorless opening to the living room halfway up the long side, and the also doorless opening to the kitchen and dining room at the very top. The hall has a simple wooden floor, and decorated with a generic print of soft-colored flowers hanging on the wall to the right of the front door, and a tall table sitting under the print which serves as a place to toss keys. A closet under the stairs serves as a place to hang coats or to toss shoes.
The doorless opening to the living room is halfway up the side of the hall's J, and the word cozy might spring to mind when looking into is, as it seems to radiate comforting vibrations. A long couch sits against the south wall beneath a large bay window curtained only by sheers that manages to obscure the view in but only filters the day's light. A variety of out-of-date magazines are strewn atop a low coffee table; more neatly presented are the plethora of books filling the small bookshelves which line the eastern wall. Three chairs sit about the room, focused inward, to allow group conversations. Large floor pillows are stacked in one corner of the room, except one, which lies carelessly in the middle of the floor, apparently left out the last time it was used.
An opening in the northern end of the hallway allows access to the kitchen and dining room at the back of the house, while carpeted stairs twist up at the other end of the hall, leading to the second floor. A door at the base of the J lets out to the front porch.
Aaron is sitting on the couch, paging through a magazine that must be at least a month and a half old. His hair looks like it was styled in a wind tunnel, laying every which way but down, and his feet are propped up on the coffee table.
From the outside, there is the sound of a car pulling up and parking. A beep from an activating car alarm, then two pairs of feet up the porch. The noise ends with a knocking on the front door. Knock knock.
Jervis is sitting opposite the Strider cub, leafing through a thick paperback. A freshly lit cigarette is precariously perched in his left hand.
Jeremy shifts a bit on his feet as he stands at Amanda's side, his blue eyes glancing all about from behind the pair of thin glasses. His hair is a bit miffed, in that typical dorky way, but at least he's dressing more.... currently. Looser jeans and a solid black shirt.
Aaron looks up from his magazine, and peers towards the door. "Friend or foe?" he calls, tossing the magazine onto the table before him. He looks over to Jervis, and blinks. "You expecting company?"
Jervis shakes his head, getting up. "No sir." He walks toward the door and opens it. "Oh hi!" he says, joyous. "What are you guys doing here?"
Hey! It's that girl that lost it at the McDonald's that one time. She was the one that dumped the coke all over that other girl and ruined Aaron's soccer uniform. "Hey, Jervis," she says, walking right in. Motioning to the geek next to her she introduces him, "This is Jeremy, he's kin." Suddenly, the Strider cub catches her eye. Ohmygod. She looks at him, wide eyed, "You're... one of us?"
Jeremy heads inside and glances up shyly from beneath his blonde and black streaked bangs, a faint smile of amusement touching his features "H'lo." He softly says in a voice barely heard, quiet murmurs.
Aaron blinks, his mouth hanging open. "Hey, I remember you! You're the nutball with the Coke!" He breaks into a wide grin,extending a hand out to Dizzy. "And I guess I am... you are too, huh? Weird. Name's Aaron. Galliard cub of the Silent Striders."
Jervis smiles. "Jeremy and I have met, Dizzy. I had an extended stay at the Walker house, when I first came the city."
Jeremy dips his head slowly towards Jervis as recognition dawns upon him for a few seconds. He forgot what was said between the two though. Gazing over at Aaron, he lifts up a hand and wiggles thin fingers to his direction.
Dizzy ohs at Jervis and looks at Aaron as if he was some sort of space alien in disguise, shaking her head and his hand simultaniously. "Dizzy Bradstreet. Glass Walker Ragabash cub. Spins-in-Circles, or Protects-Others-from-Themselves. Depends on how angry you are at me." She rolls her eyes, the joke coming out totally wrong from how she imagined it in her head. She turns back to Jervis and asks, "You stayed at the Roach Motel?"
Jervis chuckles briefly. "Yes. John was the one that cubnapped me, if you remember me telling you."
Aaron plops back down on the couch, shaking his head. "Man, it just gets weirder every day."
Jeremy stays quiet as the Garou converse among themselves, seemingly losing himself in thought. He's obviously not a man of many words, just simply subtle talents.
"I don't think you did, actually," Dizzy says to the Silver Fang in a condesending tone. She then nods at Aaron, "How long have you been around here?" she asks, shifting her weight onto her other foot, "I mean, because I stop by here every now and again." She seems to totally ignore the kin boy.
Aaron shrugs, and counts on his fingers. "A few weeks - I spend a decent amount of time out back in the barn," he says, jerking a thumb towards the back. "Still trying to get the hang of the 'walking on four legs' bit."
Jervis nods. "Must have slipped my mind." he says quietly, amusedly. He takes a drag from his cigarette and sits back down in his chair, facing the group.
Dizzy crosses her arms and nods at Aaron, "Yeah, it takes a while. Speaking on four legs isn't that easy either, in my experience, but you'll get it eventually." Hah! She even sounds like she knows what she is talking about. "How has it been finding Elders for, like, teaching and such? I know Tobin and Jervis here have voiced that it's almost impossible for them." She motions toward said Fang cub with her head.
Aaron smiles slightly. "Not too bad, actually. I've spoken with Sepdet-rhya a few times, and mostly with Seeker-rhya... both of them from my Tribe. Also spoke to Dena-rhya and Andrea-rhya about a number of things, also." He chuckles a bit. "Met me a whole lot of rhyas."
Jervis takes a drag, turns a page in his book.
Dizzy nods, understandingly, "Yeah... That's mostly why I come down to the farmhouse, to find elders and such. Mostly, in the city, I can go find a Gnawer, if need be, but this is a good place to find just about anyone. You're probably stuck in here too, I'd bet."
Jervis says, abruptly, "Oh hey, Dizzy. Have they started any sort of combat training with you guys at all?"
Aaron wavers a hand. "More or less. I can go to the barn if I want, and into the bawn... Seeker-rhya actually showed me this really great place called the Umbra..." The boy's face is flushing a bit now with excitement, and his hands are gesturing frantically as he speaks. "... and there were spirits there, and little moon-things, and the moon was really bright and was lighting things up like the sun, and..."
"Yeah," the Walker cub responds, adjusting her hat and brushing her hair back behind her ears. "I've seen the Umbra in the city, lots of spiders there. And yeah, Jervis. We've had combat training almost from day one. John has been teaching us like, how to fight in Crinos during the morning and recently I've been going to see Yi, a Bone Gnawer, I dunno if you know here, for some martial arts training. She's pretty badass, like, Jet Li and all."
Jeremy continues to wander around the room aimlessly, glancing around. He seems to be able to occupy himself quite well.
Jervis murmurs, "I see."
Aaron raises an eyebrow. "Spiders? Blech."
The Walker new moon glances over at the kin boy, suddenly remembering the puprose of the visit, "So, yeah, Jer. This is where pretty much all of the woodsie cubs are put. Much more restriced than over at the Walkerhouse. Lots of interesting people, thoough, and kin show up around too, from time to time."
Malachi comes trotting barefoot down the stairs, looking freshly washed. Well, his body looks freshly washed; his clothes are grubby and dirt-stained.
[Malachi]
Malachi's a scrawny kid of about eleven or twelve years old, small for his age -- maybe four and a half feet -- and rough around the edges. There's a hardness to the kid that's more than a little unsettling; he seems like the type that could explode into violence at the smallest provocation.
A brutally short fuzz of black hair covers the kid's head; it's utilitarian, but unfashionable and unflattering. Mismatched eyes -- the left brown, the right pale blue -- swim fishily behind coke-bottle glasses with big, thick black frames. The glasses are adult-sized, obviously secondhand.
He's dressed in a pair of gray shorts and a plain white t-shirt. Both items of clothing are oversized and severely rumpled; it looks like the kid lives in them. His feet are bare, the soles nearly black.
Jervis glances at Malachi briefly. "Indeed." he says, before going back to his book.
Jeremy doesn't glance over just yet, unaware that she is even speaking to him yet.
In the back of the house, Seeker passes through the open doorway for the front part of the house.
Aaron looks up, glancing at Malachi. "'Lo there," he says, waving slightly. "How's it going?"
Seeker nods a greeting. "Evening."
Malachi pushes his glasses up his nose and nods to Aaron. "Yo." Mismatched eyes squint over at Dizzy and Jeremy.
Dizzy turns to see the little boy coming down the stairs, another new face, it seems, then back at Aaron, "Yeah, the Umbra in the city is _covered_ in, like, spider webs. Pattern spiders are everywhere too. It's pretty creepy."
Jervis remains discreetly disinterested.
Aaron makes a face. "Man, that's nasty. I _never_ would've guessed that many spiders lived in the city. Roaches, perhaps, but not spiders."
Malachi pulls a face at mention of the city. "City sucks," he announces, thumping the last step off the stairs and making for an overstuffed chair.
Dizzy grins, shifting her weight again, "The only roaches I've seen are the two and four legged ones living in the safehouse, well, and Roger's appartment. Cindy brought an actual roach over to live over there."
Seeker says "They are Weaver spirits. Some think of the Weaver itself as being a great spider, weaving the web of reality. Pattern spiders seek to calcify the Wyld into unchanging, ordered reality."
[Seeker]
In his present surroundings, Seeker stands out in a crowd. His height, over six and a half feet tall, and his clothes are unusual for this part of the world. His dark skin and clothing suggest North Africa, particularly one of the nomad tribes, the Tuareg, perhaps. Seeker is whip-thin, but corded muscles stand out on his arms and legs. His face is long and gaunt, his expression always severe, unsmiling. Only one eye stares out intently at his surroundings, the other covered by a black eyepatch. On the left side of his face, a ragged, hairless scar rips from his lower jaw down to his neck. His feet are adorned with ancient leather boots which speak of countless hundreds of miles traveled in all terrain.
Jervis looks up from his book at the umbral talk, but only briefly.
Aaron jumps, and spins to look at Seeker. "Seeker-rhya, when'd _you_ get here?" He catches his breath after a moment, and nods. "So all the spiders are supposed to be there? The actually... make things?"
Dizzy shifts her head back a bit, surprised at the new speaker's entrance and appearance. "Umm..." she says nervously, "Dizzy Bradstreet, Glass Walker new moon cub. Speaks-in-Circles and Protects-Others-from Themselves."
Malachi flumps into the chair, then sits upright out of his lazy sprawl to stare hard at Dizzy for a moment. Then he slouches again. "Oh. Yeah, I 'member you." He pauses, then introduces himself, watching Dizzy carefully as he does so. "Mal. Full moon of th' Children of Gaia. Bites-Everythin', or Biter."
Seeker nods at Dizzy. "Seeker, fostern ahroun of the Silent Striders." He looks at Aaron. "Not exactly. Pattern spiders try to bind anything they can into the Weaver's service. Including us, if they can."
Aaron whistles appreciatively. "They don't know we're on their side?"
Jervis, eyes on book, ears elsewhere.
Dizzy blinks in surprise, and looks at Malachi, "You're Bites-Everything?" She snorts, surprised that the angry wolf she met in the woods was just a dirty little boy, "Well, Stinky, nice to meet you in homid, then."
Seeker says "We're not on their side. We're trying to stop the Weaver from spreading further."
Aaron blinks. "Bites-Everything? Man, remind me not to piss you off." He cracks a wry smile, looking at Malachi, then turns to Seeker. "Oh. I'm assuming they don't listen to reason, huh?"
Malachi's eyes narrow at Dizzy. "Yeah. Right. Real nice." The growl behind his tone is fairly obvious. "So, what were you 'n th' other ~urrah~ doing out there that day anyway?" And yes, Mal pronounces 'urrah' like it rhymes with 'scum'.
Jervis looks up from his book.
Dizzy shakes her head and sticks her hands in her jacket pockets, "Well, we're were out on survival training... and you?" the Walker cub speaks down to the Gaian much like an adult speaks to a small child who is acting up.
"I," states Malachi firmly -- and it's for damn certain that the young Ahroun doesn't appreciate Dizzy's tone, "=live= out here. 'N yer a cub too, y'said so y'self, so don't act like yer one'a my elders when y'talk t'me."
Aaron raises an eyebrow again, watching the conversation between the two. He just sits quietly on the couch, staying out of this one.
Dizzy has what, almost a decade on the young Ahroun? She dismisses him with a small wave of her hand. She glances over at the kin boy, who's been quite quiet. "You ready to go?"
Jervis blinks, and that's it.
Malachi, enraged, grabs the closest thing at hand -- a small throw pillow -- and hurls it at Dizzy with every ounce of force he has. The cub leaves the chair a moment later, but unlike the soft missile, heads for the back door instead of the Walker cub.
Malachi goes through the aperture at the northern end of the front hallway to enter the back room of the house.
Aaron watches Malachi leave, then looks to Dizzy. "Man, what's eatin' _him_?"
Seeker snorts at the insolent cub.
Jervis blinks again, and shrugs. "This is why I'm glad I'm a Ragabash." he says to no one, and starts back on his book.
The pillow hits Dizzy, quite surprised at the attack. Picking it up and tossing it back into the chair, she shakes her head at Aaron, "I have no idea. But, I think I'm going to get going. I'll see you all later."
Seeker nods to Dizzy. "Aaron, have you been practicing?"
Aaron waves a hand at the departing Dizzy. "See ya' later," he says, leaning back on the couch. "Sure have," he says, smiling at Seeker. "I've almost got the hang of walking in Crinos - even jumped once or twice, just to see if I could. I still trip over those extra legs in wolf form from time to time, though."
Jervis stands. "I'll--leave you two be. I have errands."
Dizzy and Jeremy leave through the front door. A couple of seconds later, the sound of a car alarm being deactivated, then the sounds of a car driving off.