Katya

Thu 01:45AM CST
Far behind the BMW sat like a dark monochrome beacon of Weaver in this place of the Wyld. Long since this one had stepped from it, a creature of modern, human beauty, with the trappings of modern luxury, and sweet scent.

But now she wasn't such a creatue. She was where the wild things grow, and the dark, sleek wolf fit right into the idylic scene. Her eyes were even more silvery grey in this form, so extreme from her birth. Like piercing fiery ice. The panorama of smells were awash with sensory inofrmation that told her the trail she was on was the correct one. One sniff and she knew how far she was from the nearest Man, and the nearest trappings of Man things. Forepaws treaded with lithe grace, making her seem like a ghostly phantom in the moonlight.. travelling to the appointed home ahead. Ears swivelled forward, as the bitch's small head occasionally lifted to test the air, panning right to left, with her expressive tail swishing high for exquisite balance.


Stormbender

Thu 01:59AM CST
These woods only grow thicker and darker. There is no true trail beyond that of scent; nothing wide enough that a human could go deep into these lands. Even she would be tested to go the way she does, from the last driveable position into the heart of the Stormbender's land. Many of the blocks are natural - streams rushing too fast to cross, trees growing too dense to navigate through. But then there are, also, blocks that were entirely fabricated - entire areas purposefully blocked off by boulders rolled into place, trees felled, and the like.

His scent is patchy; it lingers heavy as musk here, and is entirely gone fifty feet past. Like any true Theurge, the only proper path into his home is Umbral, but when she called to say she would visit him, he called back and left a very short message, curiously growled out.

"Don't sidestep."

At last his scent grows strong and solid. Pass around one last towering tree and there is a natural outcropping of granite. In the shadow of a protruding ledge is a Crinos beast, apparently sleeping. It's an odd sight. The warform is not one often associated with rest and recuperation. Even when wounded, most Garou prefer the Glabro, the Lupus...something less evident.

But there he is nonetheless, on his belly with his legs sideways like a wolf, but his chin atop his folded arms like a man. He does not seem aware of her presence at all, the great eyes shut, the broad back rising and falling slowly.

Appearances, then again, often deceive. And she tread in a Theurge's home now.


Katya

Thu 02:06AM CST
Instinct said to mask her scent, to silence the tread of those already phantasmal forepaws, and to blur the already dark silhouette she cut with Gifts of Gaia. However, protocol, and simple courtesy demanded that one announce one's presence when entering the territory of another.

This form was more suited than most for such a task. The wolfbitch did not approach directly. Hers was the circle of a wolf. Moving wide around the wide crinos, the lithe figure of the lupus made certain to scuff her otherwise precise forepaws noisily. A twig here, a leaf there. Anything more obvious would be insulting. The circle did not end on the first pass.. It became an ever descending spiral. Slight yips, and barks, subtle communication, along with the swish of her tail, and the high head of her open panting forming soft clouds of frost in the air.

Finally, she came still, near, yet not too near.


Stormbender

Thu 02:22AM CST
And somewhere between the fourth spiral and the fifth, there comes a change.

On one pass the eyes are shut.
On the next they are open, frigid blue, cold as the stars are distant.

For a very long time he contents himself to watching her, making no sound at all. For a long time already he has contented himself to listening; and for an even longer time before that, he had contented himself to listening to what his bound spirit-serfs had to say about her as she made her way through the barriers.

That he has let her get this close is a good sign.

Then, with the deliberation of an earth-dragon rising out of its element, the Crinos' chin lifts from his forearms. The maw opens wide, but the eyes slit shut. The tongue curls and the jaw stretches into a yawn. Muscles of the arms and shoulders ripple like oil beneath dense, coarse black fur. He levers himself upright the way a mechanical platform-lift rises: the crossed arms straightening with absolute steadiness until he sat rather like a wolf, handpaws on the ground between hindlegs.

Now he towered above her like a mountain, huge and broad and slow and steady. Whatever threat there is, however, is innate and intrinsic, not expressive. The great wolven head lifts; the nostrils dilate and quiver. Abruptly he whuffs out.

Garouspeech: "You have no scent. How did you come by this abnormality?"


Katya

Thu 02:31AM CST
Finally, her efforts were answered, the sleek quadraped, completed her loop to stand in front of the rising figure. Instead of answering immediately, the Garou began the slow, inexorable progress between the forms with median level ease, of a homid.

And in this form she finished. Hair, black as night was tied into a tight, functional bun. Her lithe, athletic frame was partially covered in a form-fitting jacket, somehow showing the swells of her feminity beneath the heavy packaging. The supple swells of her hips, thighs, and calves were even more on display, sheathed in a tight, flexible yoga pants, dark as her aforementioned hair. Those eyes remained upon the crinos's massive form throughout the shift, full lush lips pursed into a pensive expression before answering.

"A Gift," her slavic tone was hard-yet-soft, guttural yet feminine, "And it is not always masked," To accentuate her point she allowed her scent to flow forth. Feminine. It spoke of dark vistas, and secret pools, tinged with the slight modern smells of the city, tobacco, and vodka. Utterly slavic.

"And .. your choice of clothing for the evening, Vaclav?" one high-arch tilt Russan eyebrow raised, her lip quirked in slight amusement.


Stormbender

Thu 02:42AM CST
As her scent is loosed to the winds the Crinos-beast lifts again his broad muzzle. Even in lupus, no naturalist would ever recognize this particular subspecies of wolf. The shoulders so broad, the chest barreled; the limbs thick and stocky, the muzzle not the long and graceful taper of modern wolves, but wider, almost blunt, thicker. He resembles the humans' image of Canis lupus the same way a lion resembled a leopard.

This time he can smell her. This time his cold cold eyes narrow; the pupils dilate, and in their core is a spark of something hot.

They are so close to their Beast in this form. And the very core of a Lord's ambition, one might say, is the double helix of the greed for what cannot be his, and the willpower to hold him back from should not be his - or spur him onto claiming what should, regardless.

She knows her effect upon males. She cultivates it. But the bender of storms is not her fool.

"Fur suits me perfectly," growls the monster, darkly amused Garouspeech to her English. "Don't tell me it frightens you. You are a guest in my home. Under my protection. What have you to fear?"


Katya

Thu 02:51AM CST
Her hint of amusement blossoms to a full, small smile, and the canting of her head with her simple nod, "As you say, it would be insulting to imply fear of harm while in your home," Though her scent betrayed none, which they both were aware, "I merely find the form.. cumbersome for more than war," she enunciated the word with a delicate wave of her slim gloved hands, before folding them casually, shifting to stand hipshod on her right leg, accentuating that all too feminine form. Crinos was not for trading recipes, after all.

"On the other hand.. it is comforting to be around more wyld surroundings. The trappings of the city occasionally grow.. distasteful," the barest flare of her nostrils.


Stormbender

Thu 03:22AM CST
He laughs. With her, or perhaps even at her. The sound is like distant thunder, rumbling deep in his barrel chest.

It would be an unbelievable sight, were a human to witness it. The slender, lovely young woman conversing so casually with the hulking, monstrous black beast who, sitting, was fully as tall as she was standing. Her Russian-accented words to his incomprehensible snarls and growls, yips and rumblings.

Then again, a human witnessing the scene would run the other way in mindless terror. The point is utterly moot.

Suddenly he moves, the laughter sliced away neat as a knife. A massive handpaw reaches forward, the rough pads catching on the threads of her jacket as he pulls her close, eye to eye, ice gray to ice blue.

"Let's cut. The pretty bullshit," he grates out, in halting and growling English, "Katya."

Then it's Garouspeech again, "War is everywhere. It is unavoidable now. It will kill us one by one if it can. But perhaps not together."

The grip of that handpaw is almost painful, deadly claws digging through jacket into flesh. He shakes her once, lightly, but it still rattles the teeth. She can almost taste his hunger for the bond, the inexplicable and unexplainable comfort of pack, which he, like any Garou no matter how great or how base, craved with every last fiber of his being.

"I speak of pack. Give everything. Hold nothing back. What is yours is mine is yours. Can I trust you at my back, Dark Moon?"


Katya

Thu 03:46AM CST
To say she took the grab and subsequent shake stoically would be a lie. No one takes the laying on of hands by those in War form, while clad in homid, stoically. Her lush lips part exhaling a breath, of possible startlement. Lithe frame coils, eyes search out his, she may think at first in challenge, but she looks beyond them to the reflection of herself in his huge glassy orbs.

Ever the pragmatist, her instinct is to find the nearest reflective surface, and here those ice-blues serve her needs. Her spiritual foot was poised to do the very thing he had forebade.. Do not sidestep .. when she saw that it was no a surpise attack..

Those icy silver orbs refocused on his own gaze and broken english, before his incredible grip scores ribs, and causes the slight hiss of pain after the shake.

She's standing there remarkably poised on her toes, on the balls of her feet, ready to shift - to lupus of course. Live and strike from secret - or sidestep. She ponders his words, the barest knit forming on her pretty brow.

A slow swallow, "For one who would draw insult for those fearing their safety in his home, you work hard to cultivate the emotion, Storm-bender," low calculating, her chin dipped, giving the feral edge as she stared through dark lashes.

He was not alone in his longing, the vodka-tinged near harrano had haunted her nights, and allowed the icy facade of detachment crumble to trembling in the lonely hours of the night.. utterly alone.

"Da," she said simply, "Know what you ask for when you ask the bond of my moon. Your strengths will be tested, your weaknesses will be rooted out, your patience will ebb... " Then there was a slow smirk, as her form coiled serpentine, "and your self-marshalling.. will be shown," Oh yes. She did indeed cultivate it.

Then the pretty bullshit was gone. No smirk. Full lips straightlaced. Her expression serious, almost coldly calculating, "But your shadow will be my cloak. Your enemies will not approach from behind, and will instead feel my cold bite upon their hamstrings."


Stormbender

Thu 04:15AM CST
For an eternity the huge, wild eyes - which in this form she could see were not at all the pale blue of a northman, but instead the clear frigid blue of a mountain wolf - hold hers. Bore into hers. Not in challenge but in questioning, in measuring, in weighing: the weight of her words against some imaginary feather of gold. The truth in her eyes, against the deceptions she, a Ragabash of the Shadow Lords, must be all too capable of.

Theirs is not a tribe that trusts easily. Some might say theirs is not a tribe that trusts at all. Even in the desperation of loneliness, he would never dream of throwing himself into the orbit of an unworthy pack.

But, that she had not burst into her warform instantly at his grasp was telling. And Theurge that he was, the secrets of the heart are mirrored in the eyes. He read in hers the same hunger for a pack.

Perhaps trust could exist here after all. Perhaps it could grow.

Slowly, his crushing grip loosens. The handpaw settles to the earth with a soft thump, dust eddying on either side. He regards her eye to eye, sitting on his haunches in his half-man, half-wolf form.

"I know what I ask. And now know this: when the moon waxes round, I am bound to this form. I can take no other. This is my first weakness, which I give you to unasked." His nostrils flare. The moon he speaks of reflects in his eyes, twin points of burning light. Then he chuffs a breath out. "Test me, taunt me, harry me and hound me. But do not break my trust, Merciless Vengeance."

He does not add a threat to that.


Katya

Thu 04:39AM CST
For a long moment those facetted eyes of glacial ice take in the warform, which was not revealed as a once-monthy curse. One weakness, indeed. One freely given. Perhaps to hide worse.. Perhaps merely as an offering of good faith.

When she is released, she shifts stance, if not form, before giving a slow nod, "Agreed. Treachery against packmates is intolerable," That much trust had to be given. And, moreover he'd agreed to the rather harsh role New Moons of the Shadow Lords were assigned: The harrying of their leadership to cull the weak, and hone the strong.

She took a long moment to consider him, marvelling at the readability of the crass war-form, and it's lack of sublety. Someone who wished to dominate.. to crush others.. at the same time utterly alone without the conforts of pack.

"We should discuss specifics.." her lips parted. Closing. Then finally speaking anew, "But the hour grows late."


Stormbender

Thu 04:53AM CST
"Discuss..." he echoes, laughing softly, as if to himself.

No more on that subject.

Abruptly the Theurge rises to his feet, towering now, huge even for a Crinos. In the light of the moon he, straightening, reveals the multitude of hairless scars across his chest, shining and smooth amongst black fur. Glyphs: Clarity, Protection, Strength. The next she sees them, they will not read the same. Then he turns away, his back to her now as he spreads his arms, their proportion longer than human. Without fear of being overheard he calls to the spirits in their native tongue. To one who does not understand it, it sounds like gibberish, not even sounds a human, or wolf, or even Garou throat should be able to make.

The burst of noise travels ten feet, dying exponentially, much faster than it should - devoured whole by the unseen creatures on the other side of the Gauntlet, taken and ferreted away, passed about, spread over acres and acres. His servants, bound unto his will by brute intimidation and bribery by turns, since he did not yet have the Gift to command them outright.

When he finishes, all is silent as it once was. He does not turn back to her.

"Sidestep without fear. They will not harm you now." Halfway his head turns, enough that she can see the wolven profile over the furred shoulder. "I will seek you out tomorrow, Ragabash. Be ready for it."


Katya

Thu 04:57AM CST
When he turns she was no longer where he left her. Like a mist on the breeze even her scent is gone.. like an ephemeral dream.. making one wonder if she was even there in the first place..

Till the low chuckle flows like the wind blowing upon dark branches between the trees.

"If you find me.. I shall be impressed,"

And then the wind blew... and she truly was gone.