It is currently 17:36 Pacific Time on Thu Feb 19 2004.
Currently in Saint Claire, it is partly sunny. The temperature is 50 degrees
Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius). The wind is calm today. The barometric
pressure reading is 30.27 and steady, and the relative humidity is 61
percent. The dewpoint is 37 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius.)
Currently the moon is in the waning No Moon phase (6% full).
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.
"Next week?!" Karl exclaims. "Shit." He's not scared, more... excited. Several
things to say half-form in his head, but he's still left speechless.
Alicia places her hands on his shoulders and lets out a breath. "Woah killer."
She says with a soft laugh. "I think you and I need to talk about this
though." She glances up, offering a smile towards Doc, before looking to
the cub again. "Outside?"
The back door creaks open, and in pokes the gaunt face of the Sept's only metis
cub. Atcen grimaces, pulling back a bit in a way that's not quite a
flinch, then firms her jaw and steps inside, barefoot and grubby.
Doc blinks and looks over her shoulder as Karl swears. "Oh hey," she says.
"Good to see you, Karl." She starts slathering peanut butter all over the
bread. "See y'all." She turns her attention to Asteryx now, considering
him.
Asteryx blinks at the loud shouting and peeks his head through the door to the
kitchen, gazing back and forth at the decor and then at the group. "Mind
if I grab a bite?
Asteryx steps into the kitchen, heading for the fridge, still keeping his eyes
sort of... Neutrally on the group.
[Asteryx]
These are the scars of one who has seen too much, felt too much, experienced
too much pain in a short amount of time. These are the scars in this
one's eyes, dark, brooding, yet alight with fury and determination. These
are the main, distinguishing traits of Asteryx. Standing about 5'10 and
weighing in about 145 lbs, Asteryx is a slender specimen of an abused
human. A spiky mess of brown hair sits on his head, over a sharp
featured, profoundly Slavic face typical of Shadow Lords. Two intense,
brown eyes, deep like pools of disturbed Earth seem caught partially
between this world and some other world of his own, staring within and
without. Although the pains of his past are obviously deeply etched into
his spirit, his gives off an aura of zeal and determination for some
cause, some goal, though what it is would be a mystery.
Currently, Asteryx is dressed in a form fitting black shirt, adorned with a
pair of neon goggles floating over a fire, overpowered by large neon
letters that seem to scream their reading of "SYSTEM F", yet this is
normally not seen due to the sweat jacket he wears over it, the large
white skull design leering viciously out. A pair of heavy, baggy black
pants, obviously meant for the rave scene yet modified with chains to add
hints of depressive air clink around his legs, covering a pair of heavy
combat boots, which clunk quietly wherever he goes. Yes, Asteryx (you'd
wonder where he got such a weird name, wouldn't you) is a typical
speciman of a World of Darkness human... And yet so much more...
"Hey Doc," Karl offers. "Outside? Uh, okay," he says, leaving the glass and jug
of water on the counter, and moving off to head out of the sliding door.
Asteryx obviously makes the decision to not wait for an answer, opening the
refridgerator and peering inside...
Offering a smile, Alicia nods her head to the others, wiggling fingers to
Atcen. "Hey lil sis. Glad to see you around again." With that, she pushes
open the door and heads outside.
Atcen sidles out of the way of those heading for the back door and, as it
happens, moves closer to Asteryx and the fridge. Ice-pale blue eyes stare
bluntly at black-clad, chain-burdened one. Then she moves _way_ too close
(personal space? what's that?) in order to peek inside the fridge as well.
The young Galliard sort of gives this Atcen girl a semi-disturbed glance,
stepping to the side and opening the door wider, standing silent and
reaching for the eggs. Pulling them out and gazing at them critically, he
grabs a stick of butter and throws them (well, sets them) on the counter,
the multiple chains of metal around his neck jingling as he obviously
gives the young, slightly world-worn girl the space she didn't give him...
Hygieia finishes putting together her sandwhiches and moves away from the
fridge. She watches the interplay between the two Garou at the fridge
with a modicum of interest, but stays pretty quiet about it.
Asteryx - Pulling out a frying pan and stopping to gaze with wary eyes for a
moment between both Atcen and Hygieia, he silently starts up the stove,
slicing a bit if butter and throwing it in the pan. Grabbing the eggs, he
breaks them deftly into a bowl he had set to the side, engrossed in his
task. Reaching for a fork, he begins to beat the eggs quickly, pursing
his lips and then flashing his eyes once more between Hygieia and Atcen...
Work hard, play hard, sweat hard -- and Atcen's starting to do quite a bit of
sweating right now, and she sure as heck doesn't know what 'roll-on
deodorant' means. The Wendigo cub bares her yellowish teeth at Asteryx in
a broad, rather feral grin, then pokes into the cold happiness of the
inside of the fridge and rummages around. The milk gets sniffed. So do
some of the leftovers. Then she finds the packaged baloney and picks it
up, peering at it.
"Oh for god's sake." Hygieia can't stand the sight of that much longer. She
points at Atcen. "You. Sit. I will make you something. You will eat it.
You will like it. And you will quit pawing everything in there!"
[Hygieia]
The young woman before you stands at 5'6". She is compact and muscular,
appearing stocky rather than svelte, but she's obviously in great shape.
A black bandana covers her head, its tails whipping out behind her, but
there are a few honey colored bangs spiking out in front. Intense hazel
eyes seem on the verge of a narrowed glare even when she's smiling. The
eyes hold more green than anything else but soften to grey or blue, very
occasionally, when their owner relaxes a bit. She has a patrician nose
and a strong stubborn jawline; she's not exactly pretty but she is
statuesque. Her skin is a slight olive color, looking prone to tan.
She's dressed in a pair of jeans, a black tank top and a pair of sneakers that
may have seen better days. Her left hand is completely covered by a livid
acid burn scar.
The omelet... What a holy creation the omelet is. Asteryx seemed
plenty absorbed in the god-given task of omelet crafting and glanced up,
raising a thick eyebrow at Hygieia's words, shaking his head slightly,
and going back to beating up the eggs before dumping them onto the frying
pan and continuing to play with them. "I wonder if there's such a thing
as omelet spirits," the slightly surly looking Galliard mutters as he
flips around the eggs...
Atcen jumps slightly at the Fury's commanding tone and drops the baloney --
only to snatch it up quickly and move away from the fridge. Which she
leaves open. Rather than go to the table, though, the cub edges back to
the wall furthest from the stove and squats down, sitting on her heels
with her back to the wall.
Good enough. Hygieia abandons her sandwhiches and grabs some things out of the
fridge. In a flurry of motion she has Atcen a glass of milk poured, and
she has plucked one of her three untouched sandwhiches off of her own
plate. "/Omlet/ spirits?" she drawls, as she brings the food to the
little metis. She holds it out impatiently. She'll deal with 'chair' next.
Atcen gives up trying to gnaw through the plastic covering the processed meat
and drops it in her lap to take the sandwich. "Thank you," she tells
Hygieia in a formal, stilted kind of way, and then proceeds to devour the
sandwich -- whole, almost. It's gone within two, three bites.
Asteryx - Gazing up from his creation which is promptly flipping through the
air as he twitches the pan and catches it, he twitches his nose at the
tough, muscular looking woman. Shrugging, he continues to swirl around
the thing before dumping it onto a plate, throwing the pan into the sink
with a clang, and traisping to the fridge, wiggling his fingers all...
Weasely style as he reaches into the cold recesses of the fridge to
withdraw... CHEESE! Gazing at it with profound consideration, he sets it
down next to the still steaming omelet, looking about for a grater...
Hygieia rescues the baloney. She pulls a chair from the table. "Sit on this,"
she orders. "Don't crouch in the corner like a damn barbarian. It makes
me uncomfortable." She grabs more bread, frees baloney, puts baloney
between bread. Brings this new creation back to Atcen. "You're welcome,"
she grumbles as an afterthought. NOW she sits down at her two remaining
sandwhiches and takes a bite, glowering at nothing in particular. When
that bite gets down she looks back at Asteryx. "So you are?"
Atcen frowns as the Fury takes away 'her' baloney, but doesn't protest.
Especially when the Fury makes another of the meat-bread combinations.
Reluctantly obedient, she takes her glass of milk, crams most of the new
sandwich into her mouth, and goes over to the table to sit on the
indicated chair. The cub is sweating freely now, as if the room were a
lot hotter than it is.
Asteryx - The skinny youth had dissapeared beneath the counter for a moment
before peeking up with those intense, hawkish eyes at Hygieia, cocking
his head at her before rising up and holding the cheese grater, setting
it to its Gaia-given task of cheese grating. "Asteryx
"Dances-O'er-The-Fallen-Heart", galliard of Grandfather Thunder's brood,
at your service. That's the short version... You can just call me
Asteryx, if you please..." His manner is polite, and his words aren't not
tinged with the anger and gloom that seemed to rise off of his form (as
did with most Shadow Lords). "May I ask your name...?"
"Hygieia is my honor name; among humans I am Haley Collins, and some folks
round here just call me Doc, though it hacks off some of my sisters when
they do. I'm a full moon of the Black Fury tribe and a Guardian. Good to
meet ya, Asteryx." She peers back at Atcen, eyes narrowing. Decides the
kid needs more food. Plucks up her half eaten sandwhich and pushes the
other intact one down the table at the cub.
Atcen certainly _looks_ like she needs more food, and she's not shy about
eating whatever's put in front of her. "Atcen," she offers up when her
mouth's not full for a moment. "Galliard of the Wendigo. Cub.
Jacinta-rhya's my teacher." She tilts her chin up rather proudly at this.
Asteryx - A grin falls over his face as he flips around the omelet. "Ahh, one
of our great Amazonian warriors! I have only met a few, and they were
theurges. It is a rare honor indeed to meet one such as yourself."
Turning that gaze upon Atcen, he raises an eyebrow, looks down at his
omelet, and sets it in front of Atcen, obviously giving it to her.
"Pleaseure to meet you too, cub o' the Winter cannibal."
Hygieia suddenly has an honest grin for Asteryx. It seems the two of them have
turned feeding this cub into a project. She approves. "Thanks," she says.
"Not much of one for fancy words myself, but its good to meet you too."
Hygieia then seems to realize she already said it was good to meet him and
decides to shut up, popping sandwhich into her mouth.
Atcen blinks rather bemusedly at the Shadow Lord, then reaches out to take up a
handful of freshly-cooked omlet -- and immediately pulls her fingers back
with a hiss and sticks them into her mouth.
Hygieia stares at Atcen. Then she stands up and gets a spoon for her. She cuts
into the omlet with a spoon. "Like this, see? Kay? You got it now?" She
holds the spoon out to Atcen awkwardly.
The mule cub hrmphs as she takes the spoon, holding it about as well as most
Americans handle chopsticks. "Is hot," Atcen says, and puts down the
spoon to pull up the tail of her dirty t-shirt, using it to wipe her
sweaty forehead.
Asteryx - he stares quietly at the two of them and shrugs. "We Galliards...
Well, it is our way to learn fancy words. Ain't that right, cub?" He says
as he pokes Atcen gently on the head.
Atcen growls irritably at the poke and swats at Asteryx.
"She needs to learn a few things before fancy words," Hygieia says flatly. She
turns to Asteryx. "I would like to know if you think when you're done
eating if you can locate a bathrobe."
Asteryx - Pulling back his hand, he looks understandingly at Hygieia and nods,
turning silently toward the stairs and dissapearing for a moment... And
he comes back down, not much later holding a large, white bathrobe,
obviously oversized, but it will have to do. "I'm actually not gonna
eat... I assume that you presume to bathe the youngster, here?"
Atcen prods the omlet warily, nose wrinkling. Apparantly, it's still too warm
for her taste. Pale eyes flick up and between Asteryx and Doc.
Asteryx - turning brown eyes upon her, he raises and eyebrow and
matter-of-factly suggests she try blowing on it...
"Ooooh, you better believe it." Hygieia says firmly. "Thanks Asteryx." She
grabs the bathrobe. "Up, cub. C'mon, you can eat that later. It'll be all
cooled off then." She starts to mutter: "May not be my tribe but this is
just disgusting."
The back door opens with its customary noises to admit one dirty and rather
battered looking Joshua. The Ahroun starts into the room, brow furrows as
he stands there just looking at Atcen, confused by her presence. Only
after standing there dumbly for a moment does he notice the two elders.
"Oh, good afternoon Rhya..."
Asteryx - Obviously, as if called off by some other force, the young galliard
simply turns and looks at them before turning toward the back door... And
departs...
Atcen stares at Doc, eyes narrowing a bit, but gets up from the table, chewing
on her lower lip in the process. Joshua's arrival gives her pause, and
she turns to stare back at the Walker cub, glowering. Bit of antagonism
there, obviously.
"Afternoon." Hygieia grunts at Joshua. "Follow me," she tells Atcen. "Lets go,
come on."
Atcen snaps her jaws in Joshua's direction, then turns her back on him to trot
after Hygieia.
Joshua peels back his lips, showing a little teeth as he glowers right back at
Atcen as she heads out. He lifts his chin a little, adding nothing as
Hygieia starts to round the Wendigo cub out of the room.
Anthony ambles into the kitchen, carrying an empty soda can loosely in one
hand. He starts rooting around the kitchen looking for a place to dispose
of it, not giving the others around the kitchen much past a quick glance.
[...]
Farmhouse: Upstairs
Hardwood floors creak beneath your feet as you step into the hallway. A single
lamp hanging just above the stairway sheds enough light to prevent
serious accidents but allows shadows to shroud the majority of the
ceiling and the several doorframes on both sides of the hall at night.
During the day, however, sunlight streaming in from the windows at both
ends bathes the hall in golden light.
A room converted into a small, private infirmary is through one of the doors to
the west, while the door to the east on the farthest end leads to a
stairway up to the attic. The stairs down lead to the main floor of the
house.
Hygieia leads you right into the bathroom and starts filling a tub. "Get out of
those nasty clothes /right now/. You can just dump them in the tub." She
drapes the bathrobe over a towel rack and starts pulling out soap and
shampoo.
Atcen wrinkles her nose a bit, but obeys, stripping down without any hint of
knowing what a nudity taboo is. The water pouring out of the tub faucet
gets warily eyed. "Is hot?" She looks at the Fury, frowning. "Do not make
it hot."
Hygieia sticks her wrist under it. "You've got a real thing about hot, don't
you? Ok. You stick your wrist in here and tell me if its too hot. If its
too hot I'll make it colder."
Atcen walks over to the tub, dumping the t-shirt and jeans in. She barely lets
her skin touch the water before jerking away with a grimace. "Want
_cold_," she says, backing away. "I'm child of _winter_, need _cold_."
"Shit. Cold it is." She turns off all the hot water and just shakes her head.
"Cold or hot will clean just as good," Hygieia grunts. "But right now
you're a child of /dirt/ and you're not coming out of there until you're
clean."
Atcen frowns. "Lick in wolf body. Get rocks in stream and wash there, did
yesterday." She looks down at the soaking clothes. "Grandmother is part
dirt."
"Well today you're nasty. Into the tub." She dumps a whole capful of shampoo
into your clothes and starts scrubbing them fiercely. She seems an old
hat at handwashing clothes though.
Atcen wrinkles her nose at the artificial-flowers smell coming off the shampoo;
her upper lip wrinkles away from her teeth in a disgusted way and she
sticks her tongue out, too.
Hygieia turns and glowers at Atcen. "In or I will pick you up and I will /dump/
you in." She works up a good lather on the clothes and then lets them
soak a minute. "You have about three seconds to make your decision."
Atcen hrmphs, shoulders hunching and head lowering in a sullen kind of way
before she obeys. She tests the water first and, finding it bearable,
steps in and sits down.
More shampoo goes right into your hair and Hygieia starts scrubbing, though not
ungently. "Its a good thing you keep this short," she comments. "Nothing
wrong with bathing in wolf form but you gotta keep those clothes cleaner
than that. You sweat a lot. Sweat makes dirt stick and you become a
sticky smelly mess. Nobody wants to eat or...or anything with a sticky
smelly mess."
"Is better than _th-- ugh!" Atcen snaps her eyes shut, thrashing her head back
and forth. "Ugh, hurts!" Seems like some got into an eye.
"Are you a warrior of Gaia? Rinse that eye out, Winter-girl. I'm busy. Splash
some water in it." Hygieia is only going to coddle so far it seems. She
grabs a cup and says, "And when you're done with that you'll wanna close
your eyes cause I'm going to rinse your hair. Then we're gonna scrub you
down and I'm gonna give your clothes another thrill. I'll take them to
the dryer and you can wear the bathrobe in the meantime, and then I'll
dry out your hair a bit. I ain't a beauty queen, I reckon, but you need
help."
Atcen grumbles something about how the stuff that's being used on her is
"stinky" and "bad" as she washes her eye out, then sits still for the
rest of the procedure.
Hygieia sloshes the water down on your head. "Hey, some other Garou bought it,
it can't be that bad, kiddo." She lathers up a washcloth with soap and
starts scrubbing you down as impassively as if she were performing a
medical procedure. She rinses you down and studies you critically.
"Alright, come on out." She grabs a towel. "Rub this over your body while
I get your clothes dealt with."
Atcen gets out, dripping and clean (and my, but you can count nearly every rib,
plus some) and uses the towel on herself, her lower lip still pouting out.
Hygieia scrubs and scrubs on those clothes, then lets the water out of the tub
and starts wringing them out. "Let me tell you something important,
Winter-girl. Just like when you're a wolf. If you're a wolf and the first
thing other wolves see is someone with their head high and their coat
healthy, then they find some respect for that wolf. If they see a
stinking cur who shrinks into corners, they nip at that wolf and don't
even wanna let her eat. And its great that you can wash as a wolf, but
you got two sides to you. You're a metis? Then you've got a hard enough
row to hoe and you'd better take every advantage you can, unless you want
everyone to look at you and dismiss you and decide you're nothing more
than someone to be kicked all your life. Get it?"
Atcen looks up from her examination of the towel to regard the Fury with
sullen, pale eyes, her jaw still set and her lower lip still protruding.
When Doc's done speaking, she nods slowly.
"Good," Doc says a little more gently. She holds out the bathrobe. "Put this
on. Don't wander too far. I'm going to take your clothes to be dry. I'll
dry them on cool so they won't be too hot for you when they come out.
Then I'll be back to deal with your hair and clean up the bathroom, and
then if your omlette is still there I'll cut it up for you so it will be
easier for you to manage. If not you can have another sandwhich." She
picks up your sopping clothes and wraps them in another towel.
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