October 30, 2002.10.30.02. - stargazing [decker][pine barrens]
(insert some stuff here)
(decker)
Decker watches Dire, somewhere between incredulous and bored. Mild curiosity might have a foot in the door, too. Sitting forward, elbows on knees, feet planted wide, he's quiet like he usually is. His whole damn pack was pretty quiet.(Wonder what Livingston was up to in that truck...)
At length, he lowers his head, paws a hand over the short-buzzed hair, and shakes his head once like a prizefighter before a fight. Getting to his feet, he nods up at James. "Go fer a walk." An invitation or a request or a command...pick one.
A pause, turning back to Siobhan. A grimace. "Yeah, they do. One of 'em, at least."
(james)
he figured they'd understand
some things do cross tribal boundaries
but the Gnawer stretches to stand
somewhat skirting the circle
moving into the smoke for a few
damn pine-sol
making his sinuses burna glance to Decker
and he moves off as well
wouldn't matter which one it was
(decker)
A lifted brow at Dire. "Why not?" - with that, turning, moving off. He had issues to discuss with his packmate, and they'd been brooding too long already.As the voices in Gabriel's clearing (which is apparently where they are) fade into the distance, Decker's muddy shoes track over pine needles, dead leaves - and, beneath that, the spongy, soft earth.
He wasn't really Urrah...not at heart. He couldn't tap into the flow of the city. Couldn't strengthen his soul in the heart of the iron towers. Then again, he couldn't stand to be cooped up out here for long, either, but sometimes it was almost good to be back. Almost.
Another quarter-mile or so. "Shit I said 'bout Gaby really had you worked up the other day, huh."
(james)
sometimes, you take a walk in the woods, in total silence, and you feel like you're on a death march, there's things you don't want to talk about, where you've been, where you're going, and why you're heading there..... and other times..... you can walk between cities and not say a word and still be comfortable
at ease
at homewell, almost
he's certainly not at home way out here in the woods
getting used to it, slowly and surely
he learned a lot on the drift south from NYC
but the scents are so severe and pure it gives him a headache
he's Urrah through and throughand if it weren't for his packmate, probably two days from finding his way back from whence they came
but he is comfortable in the silence
he's just as comfortable breaking it, softly"For a lot of reasons."
(decker)
Decker, moving low to the ground, simply spreads his open hands: a shrug, an invitation to elaborate.This far from the city, the stars are pinpricks of blazing light overhead. The Milky Way is visible, a diffuse scattering of distant stars spilled like quicksilver. The tips of the trees trace black against the blue-black sky. One of the few pure places left on earth, this, and while the Urrah can't appreciate it, even he would know this is what they fight for. And Decker knows, too - deep inside, under the apathy, under the fury, under the ugly side of him that wants nothing more than to kill and kill and kill.
A Fenrir does not fear death, but nor does a Fenrir love it. A Fenrir does not fear death because he fights out of love of life. And what he fights for, in the end - is not the glory. Not the honor. Not the wisdom and not the rank. Not the blood, not the violence, not the thrills and not the kills.
He fights for this. A peaceful night when rage was spent and the beast was slumbering (if only for a while). A silent night with your pack, when you don't have to think about Dancers, corrupters, lovers, traitors. If only for a moment. If only for an instant.
Born to fight.
Born to die.
Someday, Decker will understand.Talk to me, Jamey-boy.
(james)
part of the walk he spends looking where he's going
but soon as he learns the triggers in Decker's footsteps to what's ahead, the lay of the hidden path, he lets his eyes drift up
falling into that easy, ground covering stroll
one nice thing about being so far out
you can see the starsnot just what works down through the city's jungle canopy haze of electric confusion
but everything
Pegasus..... parts of Sagittarius...... Draco..... Scorpius......
all drifting down through the trees
enjoying it for a dozen or so yards, soaking it up, getting used to it
he's known it all along
he's just never known how to appreciate itsome things take time to wrap your mind around
"Ever say a Gnawer, for any reason, doesn't matter again, Decker..... I won't hold back. I don't know your history with her. I don't particularly care. I met her, and there's something tragically wrong.... but that doesn't mean she doesn't matter. We hear that all the time. From Lords..... Walkers..... Fangs.... Wendigo..... Fenrir.... everybody. But to hear it out of the mouth of your own packmate?"
dark eyes glance over, watching the Modi's profile in the starlight
"That hurt."
he's quiet for a few more steps
this is the hard part"Tainted Gnawers are something of tender spot."
(decker)
Dark eyes on his profile: he feels it, and turns to meet the gaze, slowing, stopping. Hands in his pockets, he looks at his packmate by the light of the distant stars for a long, long moment, and he's the first to look away.An exhale. That ain't how I meant it. But that wasn't something he could say. A frown stirs his brow, which could be kingly in ten, twenty years, in another life.
"Got it," he says at last; unvoiced apology. Then - a sharp glance back; a sharp frown. "She ain't--"
Pause. Stop. Decker didn't lie often, didn't lie well, and couldn't really lie to a packmate. A shake of his head, once or twice.
"Don't know that she's tainted. Was - hoverin', the last I saw o' her. But I ain't sure o' that."
There's too much taint around him. Sickboy, Salome, and now Gaby as well...? And if one knew about Imogen, they all knew. He didn't want to accept it. It wasn't something he wanted to face. For the first time, Decker felt himself trying, trying hard, to willingly block the truth.
(james)
he knows that's more of an apology than most gethalf of him didn't even expect it
not from a Fenrir to a Gnawer
not from a Foster to a Cliath
but he doesn't make anything more of it
just a little bit of a smile - accepted
it's the past nowbut in a breath it changes
tattered tails swirl around second hand Cochrans as he steps up to the Modi
right up
so this time storm gray can't look away"You don't know. You're not sure."
something burns deep inside the rich brown
even out here in the darkness beneath the trees
it's visable"Or do you just not want to accept it."
he didn't either
he hated accepting it
..... and who's he talking about, anyway?(decker)
"Back off," snaps Decker immediately. Seems like the Modi still had some fire left in him. A step back, a frustrated turn. Two steps away, two steps back. Pacing."I don't care. I don't fuckin' wanna know. I don't - know."
Silence. Turning, moving, head down, one restless hand running over skull so recently cracked, already healed. It's not the physical cuts that stay with a Garou, most times. It's the other ones that you can't see, that cut the deepest.
"I ain't no Theurge," muttered. "I can't figger it out none, either."
(james)
this time
he doesn't back off
he doesn't back downnot. from. you. not. this. time.
while the Fenrir paces, the Gnawer stands still
such a contrast they've always been
one sleek, seething, stalking between the trees the frustrated, explosive predator
one shaggy, tattered, the calm statue of a strange school of reason"Let me tell you something, Decker. Ahrouns can figure it out. It's just a matter if they do it too late. You don't want to let it become too late like I did."
(decker)
His back to the Bone Gnawer, the Modi turns his face to the stars. Inhales. Fills his lungs with pinescent and starlight.Exhales. Barely audible,
"Like you did?"He doesn't turn; he just listens. Sometimes, eye contact made it that much harder to speak. To listen. To hear.
(james)
"Yeh.... like I did."again, that silence between them
when the Modi looks up to find his answers in the stars
he looks down, already knowing what's laying beneath the earth"Because when you've denied it until you're the only one left, you're the one that has to kill them."
(decker)
And...
...silence.Crickets somewhere, the last of the season. The next cold front will kill them all, and the land will know winter.
Crickets, a babbling brook, the wind in the trees.
Decker lowers his head, inch by inch, and finally runs both hand over his face, over his head, scrubbing hard as though to scrub the last few months away. If he'd known the complications he'd face here, if he'd known the responsibilities he'd bear as a Fostern...
No use regretting the past. That was the path of the weak, the cowardly. Dropping his hands, Decker lets a breath out.
"Me 'n Gaby, we was tight. We had an agreement," he says. A year of silence passes before he speaks again. "Unspoken truce. I ain't gonna break it. Not before she does."
And another.
"But she hustles at the Stix Billiards Hall."She was James' tribesmate. Was. She was Decker's...friend? Either way, Decker didn't want this kill.
(james)
unseen
dreadlocks shift across fabric in his nod
he can understand that
filing the information awayit didn't need to be said
it was obvious he was going to do it anyway
(it was obvious he was told to)
and the Gnawer steps up
just beside his packmate, shoulder to shoulder
his eyes lift, too
but maybe what he searches for is entirely different"I lost my pack.... and my mate.... because I let it be too late. I won't let it happen again."
it may mean nothing to Decker
but it means everything to him(decker)
A dichotomy.
A juxtaposition.The raggedy Gnawer looks to the stars. The purebred Fenrir, an echo of the great heroes of the past, looks to the earth. The one so young by human terms, already a Fostern by the Garou. The other older, wiser, still a Cliath - perhaps only because of the weight of his past, which he could not set down. Side by side: packmates, auspicemates. Matched in height and strength and little else; connected in ways humans could never dream of.
He doesn't have to say anything. In the end, Decker just sets a hand on James' solid shoulder, squeezes once.
James will track her down and do what's needed, but he'll be there to back his packmate up. And to close the book that he opened.
Posted by james at October 30, 2002 12:00 AM
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