Do You Remember?

[hazlogs]

It is currently 18:47 Pacific Time on Tue Oct 20 2015.

Currently in Saint Claire, it is mostly sunny today. The temperature is 65 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the northeast at 8 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.23 and falling, and the relative humidity is 54 percent. The dewpoint is 48 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius.) For more detail, see: http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=98501

Currently the moon is in the waxing Half (Philodox) Moon phase (52% full).

The Hub: Main Floor

The main floor of 'the Hub' is a spacious, almost sprawling room, with a two-story high ceiling and a large loft that looks out over the room itself, accessed via a winding metal staircase set at the opposite end from the heavy security door. One side of the floor is completely open, with a bank of windows facing north and offering a brilliant view of the city, especially at night. The other side contains a series of doors and doorways that lead into other rooms, large and small. One is clearly a kitchen (a very nice large kitchen with its own island and eating area), one is a bathroom, and one a repurposed conference room with a smaller central table than likely existed before, and comfortable rolling chairs that have clearly been reclaimed from various goodwill sources. Other rooms serve as storage, with one standing out as a well maintained server room, from which the local Walker server, various databases, and hardware responsible for the block's free wifi can be accessed.

The open floor itself sports several areas clearly designated for various purposes, though none have been walled off from the rest in any real fashion. One contains a comfortable, beat-up couch and armchairs arranged in a semi-circle around a large flatscreen TV and coffee table, another is a bank of multiple computers, each with their own desk and office chair, while a third is a modest exercise area mostly consisting of an open space of floor covered in a cushioned mat and several free weights. A number of monitors have been mounted on the wall next to the security door; the largest displays the area immediately on the other side of the door, with another showing the interior of the private elevator. The third and largest is split into sections, with one section dedicated to the sub-basement, another to the roof, and the others switching routinely between various parts of the interior and exterior of Maxwell Tower.

Salem is at the exercise area again, working on handstands. It was stretches earlier, then cartwheels, then a few really disasterous attempts at a front aerial flip that ended up with a few graceless, painful hits to the mat. So now it's just handstands, awkward and wobbly, /maybe/ better than last night.

Kavi rakes a hand back through his hair as he steps out into the main space, once again looking over the area as though seeking, perhaps hoping to spot something familiar. His steps seem somewhat aimless, but eventually take him toward the stairs and he sits, watching the youth at work.

Salem collapses out of the handstand, managing to work it into a roll, and then gets back to his feet. As last night, he's barefoot, just in tshirt and black sweatpants, long hair lank and unkempt. He spies Kavi and stiffens a little, then takes in a breath, reaching for calm. "Did you sleep well?"

Kavi looks down, and then back up again, pushing off from the stairs to rise. "I-- It's hard to sleep. I feel-- Everything is wrong, and--" He frowns and gives a small shake of his head. "Not wrong, just... out of place? And I-- I feel like I should be doing something. Fixing it... somehow."

"Do you remember anything?" Salem asks. "Do you know what you are?"

The question gets an odd look, a tip of the head and furrowed brow. "What?"

Salem grimaces, nose wrinkling. "Garou. Galliard. Glass Walker. Does this mean anything to you?"

The perplexed look remains, and after a second Kavi turns away, walking a few feet in the other direction. "Words," he says. "They-- They're familiar. Like... Like I've heard them before. Read them, somewhere." He turns again, facing Salem once more. "But I don't know them. I don't-- It's like a song, just out of reach. I can't remember the melody, but I can almost hear it."

Salem mutters something in irritable in Serbian and limps over toward the sitting area, where a few objects are set out on the coffee table. He beckons Kavi over, impatiently. "I had a few things in my pockets when I got back from... wherever we were. Take a look." On the table are three crow feathers, still in excellent condition but for the drop of dried blood on each stem, and a metal coin about the size of a silver dollar though heavier, unmarked but for some apparently meaningless scratches on one side.

"I... didn't have anything," Kavi says as he makes his way over, and though it's obvious Rina provided new, or at least clear clothing, he still digs into his pockets as though he might find something, now. "Just... Just the phone." His brow furrows again as he looks over the items, and reaches for the coin.

Salem hrmphs. "This was all I had. Not even my phone." He watches the amnesiac examine the objects and frowns. "You remember how to use a phone, though. And how to speak English."

Kavi takes up the coin, turning it over and fingering the edge before he sets it down, again. "And Gujarati," he says, absently. He pauses, hand hovering over the first of the feathers, and looks over at Salem again. "Is-- It's odd, right? These things?"

Salem climbs up onto the couch and sits down up on its back. "They're odd, yes. The feathers were in perfect condition despite being in my pocket."

"And... you don't know why they were there?" Kavi asks, shifting his gaze to watch the boy. "You don't... remember? But. But you remember who you are, and who she is, and... and who I am?"

Salem scratches at the bridge of his nose. "Right. I don't remember... well, much of anything about our trip. But, as far as I can tell, those are the only memories gone." He grimaces, studying his own hand. "They took... I don't know what to call it, exactly. My age?" He shrugs. "I was almost seventy years old. Now I'm... I don't know. Twelve? Thirteen?"

That startles the galliard, who takes a step back and studies Salem all the more closely. "How--?"

"Fae," says the boy who used to be a man. He says it like this should explain everything. "Fairies. Sidhe. Goblins. All that kind of thing. Don't ask me the goddamn hows or whyfors. I /suspect/ that if and when we remember what happened to us, we'll understand more about /why/ we are the way we are. Until then... we learn to cope."

Kavi blinks at the explanation, such as it is, and then shakes his head. "Cope," he repeats, turning away from the philodox. Once again, a hand rakes back through his hair, pulling it back from his face. "I don't--" He breaks off, and draws in a deep breath, holding it for a long second before he lets it slide away.

Salem stands up and walks down off the couch, arms spread. "For /me/, that means getting used to a body I haven't had in decades. Technically, a body I /never/ had, since I didn't have this scars back then, and I was older when I--" Back on the floor, he eyes Kavi. "Well. When I could first do this." And abruptly he grows in size and mass, sprouting fur and claws and fang-filled muzzle.

Salem contorts and blurs as he is transformed.

You shift into Crinos form.

Scar

This young werewolf is short and skinny compared to most of his kind, barely reaching seven and a half feet even when fully upright. This is no unblooded cub, however; the sheer number of battlescars that mark him is testimony to a life filled to the brim with violence.

Much of his black-furred pelt is missing, replaced by the badges of old wounds -- thick scar tissue, hairless patches of poorly-healed burns, pockmarks of old shrapnel wounds, and places where the fur just grows oddly due to otherwise unseen scars. Half of his right ear has been torn off at some point, his left hand is missing its smallest finger and half of its ring finger, and he limps when he walks, favoring his right leg. His right eye is wolfishly gold; the other is a milky white within a tangle of scars down that side of his lupine face. Another scar runs crookedly across his muzzle, and his bushy tail bends in the middle the way it probably shouldn't.

Kavi jerks back, eyes wide as the youth changes form. All the frustration and anxiety of the amnesia are swallowed by a moment of fear-based rage. But only that. Just a flash, and then the galliard, breathing hard, manages to ground himself. It takes a moment, and the way recognition forms it's almost possible to see the film being removed from his eyes. "G-- Garou," he says after a beat, reaching for the word he'd heard earlier.

Scar hunkers down into a crouch and nods. ~Do you understand me?~

Kavi nods without hesitation, though he still studies the crinos with only partial recognition, like someone who has seen examples in film and print, but never encountered one in person.

Scar utters a raspy little growl and shifts back down to human form. "So, that's something else you remember. I was speaking in Mother's Tongue just now."

"Mother's Tongue," Kavi repeats, that same partial recognition in his tone. "Garou," he says again. "Woods. Stag..." He swallows, and crosses toward the monitors. "And this. This is-- This is important to me. Somehow."

Salem grabs a pack of cigarettes and a lighter that's also sitting on the coffee table and lights up. "We're Glass Walkers, part of a tribe of urban werewolves who embrace human invention and technology rather than growl and piss and sneer at it." He climbs back onto the couch, hunkering down into a kind of squat at one end. "Our patron spirit is Cockroach."

Kavi notes the cigarettes, watching the boy light up with neither approval nor its opposite. Curiosity, perhaps, though that may be more about the words that follow. "Glass Walkers," he repeats, rolling the words, testing their feel. Then his brow furrows, and he looks somewhere else, somewhere not even within the room. "Cockroach," he says softly, and nods. "I know..." He huffs out a breath and the quiet is gone from his voice when he finishes the thought. "Something."

Salem raises an eyebrow. "Something?"

Kavi shakes his head, a fierce, frustrated negation. "Something. I-- I don't know. It's just out of reach. Always just out of reach, and I-- I can't remember."

Salem grunts. "Maybe Mouse can help you with that. Mouse is our elder. Alpha. Leader. She's a Theurge and a goddamn excellent one."

Kavi's eyes close for a moment, and he focuses on his breathing, two slow, deep breaths in and just as slowly released. Then he nods, and opens his eyes to find Salem again. "Mouse..." he says. His fingers fidget at his sides, almost forming fists and then opening again. "But not-- Not yet. I should-- I feel like I should be doing something."

Salem takes a drag off his cigarette and exhales smoke. "I don't think there's a lot you /can/ do until you remember who and what you are. Or relearn it."

The frustration surfaces more fully, and Kavi begins to pace near the bank of monitors. "I can't-- I don't know how to do this, to do nothing. I don't know... anything, and-- And waiting-- I don't think I'm good at waiting."

"You're /injured/," says the boy, a bit sharply. "Can you even shapeshift? Step into the Umbra? Perform any of the Rites you knew, the Gifts you'd learned? Can you recite the Litany, or /any/ of our lore?"

Half of the words the boy speaks are unfamiliar, which does nothing to ease the frustration, but he's taken aback by the tone, even so. The pacing stops, and though it takes a moment, he pulls his gaze back to Salem. "I don't," he says, his voice quiet and tight. "I don't know anything."

Salem inhales a lungful of cigarette smoke and then lets it out, slowly. "We'll work on that, ne?"

Kavi frowns, but he nods all the same and turns back to watch the monitors.