Flint Madden (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
flint_garou) wrote2012-02-24 11:00 am
flint_garou) wrote2012-02-24 11:00 am
Lots of stuff.
Chinese food. Lotta stuff.
24 February, 2012
The moon is in the waxing New (Ragabash) Moon phase (17% full).
Kaz is zonked out on a couch, snoring gently into a pillow.
The stairwell door opens into the lobby, a moment of hesitation before Flint comes in. The boy's humming quietly to himself, before he starts pacing in the lobby. Better than pacing the stairs, or the fifth floor hallway. Maybe.
"Punch buggy puce," Kaz says distinctly, as she turns over, and then mutters something about undulating carpets.
Someone, apparently, is in the office, because something impacts the other side of the closed door with a distinct THUMP.
Flint stops abruptly in the pacing, glance going between Kaz, first, and then the office door. "Um, everything alright?" The cub calls that out in the general direction of the office, hands coming out of his pockets momentarily. Though, Flint doesn't actually move any closer to the office, just turns to glance at the closed door a moment longer.
Kaz sits bolt upright, panting. Then, after a moment of getting her bearings, she flops back down again and calls, "Thanks Mouse," as if this was an expected thump. Or possibly just a warranted one. From under her hat, she tells Flint, "I was being a pain in the ass. So yeah, everything's cool."
"Welcome," comes Mouse's rather muffled reply, though not the Theurge herself, just yet.
Flint shrugs, before flopping down into one of the chairs, knees to chest. "Ah, okay." The explanation seems to be accepted rapidly enough, because as soon as the cub's settled, the humming comes back, that half-figuring-something out with pauses every so often in the melody. It doesn't last long, though, before Flint's attention turns inward a little. 'Dangitshuddupwouldyouplease.' Another pause, a longer one, before Flint offers Kaz a grin. "Not you. Really."
Kaz's hat slips off, and she peers at him. "Internal visitors?" she hazards.
More rustling in the office, and what might be a mutter.
"Earworm would be more like it," Flint says, with both a shrug and a nod. "I was off-key. I think. Took exception to it."
Kaz says, "Huh," as she sits up, the hat falling to the ground. "It ain't never occurred to me that ancestors would object t'someone's singin'. That's more… prosaic than the mythology'd present it, you know?"
Mouse steps out of the office, looking distinctly rumpled—which appears to be her theme lately—and raking her fingers back over hair that's far too short right now for the gesture.
Flint laughs, a bit. "Objects to me being off key if I'm humming something from what he remembers, is really it," Flint says. "And only if I'm really off. Also, would getting to remember the whole song be too much to ask?" The teenager rolls his eyes, a little bit, then offering a half-wave to Mouse.
"Hell, it's too much to ask f'me, and I ain't even dead," Kaz says, as she bends down to get her hat. "Hey, Mouse," she says, as she jams the hat (a fedora) back on her head. "You look like y'need about 20 hours more sleep."
"I want," Mouse says, with low key irritability, "Hair." She brushes both palms over her buzzed-length former mop. "It being a month later would be nice too."
Flint just grins at Kaz a little bit, before leaning back into the chair. "S'pose, yeah." A glance at Mouse, though, and at least this time the cub isn't carrying on the more internal dialogue aloud.
"I know the feelin'," Kaz says, ruefully. "What always gets to me is arm hair, in those kindsa circumstances." She levers to her feet and asks, over her shoulder, "Why specifically a month?" as she heads toward the laundry room.
Mouse quits fiddling with her too-short hair, though it appears to take a conscious effort for her to lower her hands. "Some of the Wyld effects might be temporary."
Flint looks up again, gaze flicking from Kaz to Mouse and then back again. "Devon's already back to normal, but." A shrug is offered, that's as much as the cub happens to know on the subject.
Kaz stops short and whirls around, which just serves to overbalance her and she almost falls over. "Does that mean I might be able to get rid of these fucking mood ring fingernails?" This seems a strange thing to be so exercised about, but there you go. "Because I was almost thinking about chopping a finger off just to see if it'd grow back right. I wouldn't care—" She waves a gloved hand "—But it's spread to my claws in other forms and I can't not pay attention to it."
Mouse blinks a few times, and offers Kaz a shrug. "Maybe. We should know around then." And then, she can't quite seem to resist asking, "…Fingernails?"
Flint gives Kaz a fairly quizzical look, sitting up all the way in his seat. Brows hint upwards, before he just purses his lips, watching. Or trying to resist asking the obvious as well.
Kaz asks Flint, "Yeah, but didn't he eat shit? Like, on purpose? This's different." She grunts at Mouse, mutters something indistinct, and then shrugs and limps over to the theurge. She strips one of her gloves off; sure enough, it looks as if she has fingernail polish on, though it's quite a mobile version. Currently, they're a muddy, roiling red; as she looks at them, they grow into a far more distinct, bright, flaming red. Angry, perhaps.
Mouse frowns at the fingernails, and then at Kaz. She remains quiet for a moment.
Flint raises one shoulder in half a shrug, watching the two older Garou, but for the moment, the cub falls quiet again.
They turn a little more muddy orange, and then swirl back to that muddy red. Kaz herself doesn't change expression appreciably, except then she sneaks a look at them; they almost instantly change back to that fire engine red, at which point she makes a face and, at the same moment, curls her hand into a fist and puts it behind her back. "It is the most minor thing to be flipping the fuck out about, but if I think too much about it, I start running circles in my head."
"It's a tell," Mouse says, as if this were the most perfectly acceptable explanation. "They're annoying."
Flint's gone distant a little, again, back to whatever internal conversation or thoughts he'd been having. Aloud, though, is added, "Yeah. Minor or not, seems annoying."
"Yeah," Kaz says, putting the glove back on. "Exactly. I don' think they're annoyin' enough to chop a finger off for if it'll maybe go away soon, though. The foot, I can cope with, that just makes me clumsier and it ain't like anyone'll notice that anyways."
Mouse's frown remains. "…The foot?" Someone has not been paying attention.
"Well, I ain't mentioned it because it ain't much of a thing," Kaz shrugs. "I mean, I already limp like a motherfucker and my leg breaks alla time anyway, so a couple toes melting off don't make a big diff'rence, in the long-term."
"Melting off?" Mouse repeats, sounding rather dismayed by the description. "Jesus."
Flint outright winces at the mention of toes melting off, looking over to Kaz and Mouse again. "Eesh."
"Well, not like fire or something. It didn't hurt, much. They just kinda… disappeared." The Gnawer sounds slightly abashed, now. "Like I said, I ain't exactly all that agile to begin with, you know?"
Mouse insists, "Still. Jesus."
"What?" Kaz seems honestly baffled now. "It's the same damn leg that has all the other problems. And I mean, hey. I compensate pretty good anyways. So it ain't a thing. Or. Well. I wasn't thinking of it as a thing?" Now she sounds as if she's wondering if she should.
"Not a thing, then, I suppose." Flint says that, with a nod, before he pushes hair out of his face. And then out of his face again when it falls right back to in front of his eyes. "Just when you said, melting, it kinda." There's a screwing of expression for a moment, and the boy shrugs.
Mouse shrugs abruptly. "If it isn't a thing to you, it isn't a thing." She turns away, patting at her pockets. She comes up with a battered packet of cigarettes, which she promptly sets about utilizing.
Kaz says, "Yeah, it didn't hurt. Though I mean, I was gettin' sat on by the sucker at the same time, so," she shrugs, "Maybe it did. But it don't now." She studies Mouse for a moment, vaguely worried, but then she remembers. "Hey! Your thing was last night. How'd that go?"
Flint gets a much more look of interest when Kaz brings up the question, attention showing in his posture as he moves to sit on the edge of the couch and closer to the pair of older Garou, listening.
Mouse sticks a cigarette into her mouth and flicks her lighter. "Better than expected. I was expecting someone…older. Kind've relieved really."
The metis finishes her trip to the laundry room, now, coming back with a cup of water. "So what's she actually like, a kid?"
"Teenager." Mouse amends, "Young-ish teenager. Could be a trick and all, I mean, she's a spirit. But I don't think so. She's…eager. Wants acceptance. I was taking the blatant flattery for an attempt to boost my ego in her emails, now I think it's just her trying to get people to like her. On the other hand…she did say she already has spirits under her. So she's powerful, even if she is new."
Down the stairs a few at a time comes a gallumphing Nieve, apparently in a good mood. She comes to a halt just before the heavy door, straightening herself out and then pulling it open, presenting a slightly more sober face to those in here. Not that she's high on anything, other than life itself. "Hola chico y chicas," she greets, a finger-wiggle offered to all three.
"Well, a City Father—Mother—A City Spirit," Kaz settles on, "Is gonna be a thing with some adherents, sure. What's she want outta us, though?" She salutes Nieve with her cup. "Hey, hi! 'Sup?"
"Hi Nieve-rhya," Flint says, ducking a half a nod, before the cub's attention turns back to Mouse.
Mouse puffs at her cigarette. Nieve gets a faint nod. "City-Spirit-to-be, I gather. In short? She wants us to like her. And when I say 'her', I mean her. The city-to-be, city potential, that kind've thing. And she'd like us to kill the Wyrm in the city. Even said she'd promise not to expand over the river, or encroach on Garou territory."
The dreadlocked woman tips a salute to Kaz. "Ears," she greets the Gnawer cheerfully. "An' cubby, I forgot your name, sorry," she asides to Flint apologetically. "City spirit to be?" she wonders then, sounding curious about Mouse's comment.
"Flint," Kaz supplies, and then says, "Huh. Honestly, that sounds kinda… like a good thing? I mean. I already like the damn' city anyway, it ain't like I'm gonna gronk at her, and I'm gonna whump Wyrm anyway, so if we get an assurance urban sprawl ain't gonna happen on purpose, then what the fuck, y'know?"
Mouse nods slightly. "Yeah, I'm…not really seeing the downside at all here. Of course, everyone else was a little paranoid, but that's why I brought them. I need to go talk to Jacinta, see what her thoughts are. Then elders' Moot." To Nieve, "We're being courted by a spirit calling herself Claire, and another named Jeb. Met with Claire last night, Jeb gave us his pitch a while ago. Essentially, Claire wants the city to grow and better itself, to incorporate Weaver and Wyld and the uncorrupted Wyrm the way they should be, or at least, that's the possible long-term goal. Jeb's a traditionalist, and wants the city to remember its roots, and for everything to be as it always was, as much as possible."
"Flint," the boy echoes, grinning a little. Then the boy looks at Mouse. "Those two don't sound quite like they mesh so well, Mouse-rhya," he says, reaching up to rub his hands. "Forward, back, sure. Both, though?"
"Mmn. Kinda like Dollah an' Credit," Nieve muses, reflecting on other spirits with this kind of opposition. "An' they're both lookin' to become a City Parent?" she wonders then. "Dealt with a couple in the past, but never one… sorta becomin'—never figured they had t'grow into it."
"Huh," says Kaz. A frequent refrain, of late. "Interestin'." Then she shrugs, and says, mostly to Flint but also to Mouse, "Dunno. It could work, t'mesh 'em. Get Claire's forward lookin' and the ol' dude's memory and carin' for what's gone by. Might be it might even be good f'him. 'Cause stasis… Ain't good f'anyone. 'Cept pure Weaver, of course, but fuck that."
Mouse nods. "Yeah. Well, that's what happened anyway. Anyhow, anyone need me for anything before I head out on patrol?"
"No, though I do wanna catch up with you a bit later. 'parently you guys have a problem I've known for ten years," Nieve ventures to Mouse, tipping her a salute as well as she prepares to head off and patrol things.
Kaz shakes her head. "Sometime, I gotta talk about the tiger dude, but that can wait."
"Nothing from me, Mouse-rhya," Flint says, though there's a half tilt of his head at 'tiger dude'. The boy ventures a very wary half-glance at the front door, then back away again, shrugging it off.
Mouse pauses, half turned toward the door. "Err, hang on. Tiger dude? Problem for ten years?"
"The tiger dude," Nieve confirms. "Karuvar. Known him a -long- time. Imagine my surprise findin' him here," she ventures, then looks sidelong to Kaz for what she was going to say.
"Yeah, I ran into the—" She stops to blink at Nieve. Then she goes on, a touch of wonder in her voice, "…Guy. A couple times."
Flint just looks from Nieve, to Kaz, to Mouse, and back again. "Tiger dude?" The cub runs a hand through his hair, that question posed, another look of interest on his face.
Mouse seems to have forgotten the cigarette in her hand now. "…Okay, patrol can wait a few minutes. Both've you, spill."
The dreadlocked woman tilts her head slightly. "Karuvar an' I worked together on a thing or two back when we both were in New Mexico," she explains. "I'unno how much ten years has changed him, but we were pretty good friends once, an' that seems t'be true now."
Kaz blinks at Nieve in interest, but then shakes her head and explains to Flint, "The Bastet that stole the fetish that I stole to begin with. It was in Harbor Park but ain't anymore." Then, she finishes her water and explains to Mouse, slightly hesitantly, "Well, I ran into him in Harbor Park by accident awhile back and he was all … Nice at me … And then he and me arranged to get together later and he's … Demanding annoying shit, but I think it's mostly that the people who hired him are assholes, surprise. But if what he's suggesting is on the level, it… might work out?"
Flint nods to Kaz, settling to listen for the moment.
Mouse nods slightly, and sticks the cigarette back into her mouth. "Salem and I had a meeting with him last week. What's he suggesting? That is, I'm wondering if it's what we talked about, or something he's thought up?"
Falling silent to listen to Kaz and Mouse, Nieve finds a place to prop herself on one of the chairs, pulling out her own pack of roll-ups and lighting one.
Kaz says, almost cheerfully, "I dunno!" but then explains, "He wants me to go meet the King of Cats, which, let me add parenthetically, should be amusin' as hell to witness, and then the King'll tell me about some fetish he wants me to fetch. (They don' mind if I bring friends with me to fetch it.) This will, apparently, help… expiate my lil' personal sin of cat-murder, too. Frankly, if it was just about me and my fuckups, I wouldn't bother, because I need more complications from fetishes like I need a hole in my head, but, having Luna's Derriere at the Park was damn useful, and if we do enough back checkin' to make sure the fetish the King wants us to get is actually held by the Wyrm… Well, it'd be good f'th' Sept. I think, anyway."
Mouse's right eye narrows thoughtfully. "That's his ridiculous spirit friend. You should have a Theurge with you." She purses her lips. "Did he say anything about what this fetish is?"
Flint slides so that he's sitting on the couch proper now, rather than the edge of the arm, leaning backwards as he listens.
Likewise listening intently, Nieve takes a puff from her smoke and exhales slowly, regarding Kaz and Mouse both with focused curiosity.
"Oh, the Puss in Boots one? I thought it'd be more dramatic." Kaz sounds disappointed, somehow. "But no, he didn't specify what fetish it was. Like I said, I ain't gonna go get it just on his say-so. Not this time. Ethics, you know? And yeah, I'd love a theurge with. Like. Maybe you? If you have like. Time or whatever?"
"From what little I saw," Mouse says, dryly, "he is extremely dramatic." Her chin jerks upward. "I'll make time. Just tell me when. I mentioned, see, that if his friends could supply us with another fetish that did what that one did—without the Bastet specific properties—then the issue would obviously be rather resolved on our end. He wanted to acknowledge that you did all the fucking work to get it, something his friends kind've neglected to mention. At all."
"If Mouse is unavailable for whatever reason, I'm around as well," Nieve offers mildly. "Karu did suggest I get the whole story from you guys before hearin' it from him, for fairness. He's grown up a bit since I last saw him, I'm guessin'."
Flint just makes a few small hmmn sounds as he listens. Interested without being too interested, and the cub's gaze ends up on the door separating the lobby from the outside world, focus very much turned inward. 'Didnot.' So much for not holding internal conversations aloud.
"Yeah, that'd work OK, too, although honestly, if we were able to get the Face back and make a formal agreement that any Bastet that wanted t'use it'd be safe… I think that'd be damn good f'th' Sept." Kaz shrugs. "But I ain't a diplomat, so what do I know?" She tosses her cup in the trash, and grins at Nieve. "He's here because, basically, of my Adren challenge, so I could tell you 'bout that while Mouse goes off to do her thing, if you wanted, or I could just say, his employers got reason to be pissed, really."
Mouse shrugs in return. "I suggested that as the more likely scenario. Going to get back with him soon to see what he's heard." She stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray on the coffee table, then offers the two Walkers and one Bone Gnawer a nod. "I'll be back later."
"Hasta luego, jefe," Nieve nods to Mouse, then turns her attention to Kaz. "Sure, m'always good for a story, 'specially one relevant to friends an' current times."
Flint looks over to Kaz, then to Mouse. "Seeya, Mouse-rhya." A pause. "Can Kaz-rhya take me to go get Chinese later, maybe?" There's a twinge of hope in the boy's voice, as he glances between the two.
Kaz looks hopeful, too.
Mouse pauses at the door. "…Wear a hat and don't draw attention to yourself." This to Flint. "Your grandparents were looking for you." And on that note—great note really—she steps out the door.
Flint makes an utterly, utterly disgusted face at the news, though it's accompanied by the murmur, "Yes'm." The cub grins over at Kaz, grin turned to Nieve as well. "Luckily we've got a fair few hats around?"
Kaz blinks a bit. "Well. Uh. Maybe we could order Chinese in?" she offers. "Or, yeah. Hats. Fedoras? Ski masks," she decides. "Anyway. So OK, my Adren challenge. The then-Alpha sends me to go follow stories and get Luna's Face. Which I know only by name and that it's an Incan fetish. So I book it to a few villages, people eye me in confusion, I spend more bus money and get to another place, and lo, they've heard the story— but it's Aztek. I gotta look Aztek up in the dictionary, but hey, Aztek not Inca, got it. And this lady telling me this shit—" Kaz stops, and starts again. "This lady is old. She's old, blind, and she is more theurge than some of the best theurges we've got. She ain't a shifter, she's actually a cat-shifter kin, but she's… got a presence. I really liked her. She tells me… well." Her intonation changes, clearly becoming something more Spanish in its rhythms.
"'Mother to many, but no children to call her own. You will know her by this and by the bat that left his mark on her. For the spirits have opened the way—and what was lost shall be returned to its owners.'" She pauses. "So basically, I'm fated to come. The spirits have said so. Ain't that just grand? But anyway. She don't know where it is. I deflate sadly. But her son does! I perk up. But he ain't there. I deflate. But then, he comes home. I perk up. He is a jerk. I keep perked, because at least he exists. The thing is… Imagine the pissiest Wendigo ever, right? Mutiply that times about 50, and you have Wind. He haaaaates me. He hates my entire race. Because him? He's an actual cat dude. And we've, uh," Kaz looks wry, "Us wolf dudes ain't been real good to them. So he blusters at me, and makes me tell him a secret, and tells me I'm fated to bring the damn thing back to them, to which I'm like, 'If you say so!' even though that really ain't happening, and so he finally tells me where they think the damn thing is. Which is, in the Umbra, in Mexico City. Tourist mecca, that."
"Huh." Nieve pays attention to Kaz's story, listening and smoking her cigarette to the butt, then lighting another—the pack is offered around amiably.
Whatever hint of foul mood had hit the boy from the mention of his grandparents is banished entirely with the story. The galliard cub perks up, turning to listen to Kaz, though with a polite shake of his head to decline the pack of cigarettes. There is the occasional, attentive nod from Flint, along with the look that he'll likely remember every word that Kaz has said.
Kaz shakes her head at offer of the cigarette, and says a little vaguely, "Various things happen, some Gnawers and stuff help me out, and then I reach over… And I'm in front of a fuckin' Aztek temple. I mean. Seriously and literally. The thing is huge, it radiates power, and it's seriously… Old. There is no damn trace of this in the realm, let me tell you." Suddenly, she's gotten more specific again. "So I go lookin' for the damn thing, and I get bit by a snake. Poisonous snake, I guess, because I pass the fuck out. And when I wake up, I'm in the middle of a grand little hallucination where I'm in the body of a cat shifter, and this big black panther cat shifter comes upon me and gives me… well, advice, and shows me his people, at their height. The glory of his people, and the fall of his people, and the death of his people. It is… Magnificent, and sad, and I am… honored to have seen it. And I truly wish I could have spent about 10 years with him, hallucination or no." She's silent a moment, and then shakes her head.
"Anyway, so he shows me where the fetish is. He then disintegrates— I mean, like, growls old and dies in front of me, and then decomposes and dries up into dust— and then I do that, which I really quite seriously do not recommend if you're ever having prophetic hallucinations, it's real uncomfortable— And then I wake up. So, well, there's some banes hangin' out, when I wake up, but I know where the thing is. Or I think I do, at least. So I head thattaway, to the top of the temple, fending off little flying bane guys as I go. And there it is, right where the dead dude put it. So I grab it, head back down, hide for awhile while the banes get bored, reach back over, go back to the Gnawers and thank 'em, and then… start home. Because… Well, I have a challenge to finish, and I can be damn useful to my Sept as Adren. And them Bastet knew where it was and never tried to find the damn thing? I got no debt to them. But Wind? That Bastet dude that told me those things? He catches up to me. Which is where things go shitty, and fuck things up for the Sept down the line."
"An' is that who hired Karu?" Nieve wonders curiously, having paid rapt attention to the story, enjoying a good tale as much as any other Garou. "Sounds like a serious trip an' a half, Ears."
Flint nods after Nieve's question, fingers tapping slight time to something unheard against his knee.
"No, sadly, that'd mean life was easy. And I wouldn't have blood debt on my hands. 'Cause did I mention the blood debt?" She sighs. "He demanded it back. I tried to negotiate, I tried to get out of it. I really did. I tried negotiatin', I tried talkin', I tried everything. But he wanted the damn fetish back. And… At the time, the Alpha was a Shadow Lord, and fuckin' things up. And I'm a metis. I technically could challenge her f'Alpha while Fostern, but I know reality, and reality is, it would't have gone over well. And, well. The long term health of this Sept was too important to me. I needed to make Adren. And that meant bringing the fetish back. So I kept talking, but I wasn't gonna give him the damn thing." Kaz sounds, honestly, almost anguished. "So he attacked. And I kilt him. He didn't give me much choice." She looks down at her napkin. "I buried him there," she says quietly. "And the last thing I saw before I left was that dude from the hallucination, frowning at me." She's silent a moment. "I wrote his grandmother later, telling her where he was buried, 'cause I owed her that, if not a fuck of a lot more'n that. Her being a seeress, maybe she got clues from that. I don' think she'd hire Karuvar, but I bet some of Wind's buddies would've. Which… Is why we're here now."
"If he din't ever go t'look for it, how can he demand it back?" Nieve asks forthrightly. "I get it, though. Karu's a decent guy for a cat. Trusted him a lot once, figure he can't have changed that much. If you can sort it out with him, it's worth it."
"Well, and yeah. His entire damn Balam people want it back, so bully for them, why didn't they get it in the first place. But —" Kaz stops to rub the back of her neck. "It… Is really theirs. In the end. And I'd rather not fuck with them if I don't have to. So yeah, Karuvar here, he really does feel on the level, and caught between expectations and reality. And I think he's trying to make it work f'both the Balam and f'us. I respect that. You knowin' him, that helps too. So. Thanks."
"A long time ago, we were both workin' in the same area. Very small sept, an' so to help handle all the shit goin' down in the city, we had a kinda truce with the local cats, a 'work together to fight mutual enemies' sorta thin', if not quite friends," Nieve explains quietly. "There was a thing, most've the sept were goin' off to take down some Spirals an' them who weren't were lookin' after the bawn. I… absolutely wrecked myself makin' talens an' stuff for the fight—rookie mistake I know—an' needed somewhere t'stay where I'd be safe an' not a burden to th' sept guardans. So, I went t'Karu an' he let me crash in his cave for a bit. Slept like… twenty hours, totally safe."
Flint nods, attention then turning to the Theurge when she speaks. It's the same almost-rapt attention that the boy paid to the story.
Kaz smiles, just a touch. "He's a dude with a code've honor. And I like that his code lets random theurges sleep in his cave. I don't get his code, but I figure if I think of him like a Silver Fang, I can at least get in the right area code."
"Not so random, weren't like I was a total stranger, but yeah," Nieve nods. "He's got that, an' it's odd but makes kinda sense. Y'ever see that Jake Gyllenhall movie, Prince of Persia? Figure he's somethin' like that, all dashin' an' darin', but utterly loyal to whatever it is he works for. S'somethin' to be wary of but trust in at th' same time."
Kaz squints. "No, but maybe I should. Gyllehall has good hair, after all. And if it gives me insight on tiger-dude, why not?"
"We could bring the Chinese food back," Flint ponders, looking to Kaz. "But if I wear a hat, can I please come with you t' go get it?" The cub grins. "Just, wanna get out of here a little bit. Haven't been out of the building since—" the words cut off with a shrug. "I got ungrounded," he settles on. Leaving out whyever he was grounded anyway.
"Karu used to have good hair. Now it's all chopped short," Nieve remarks with the air of one harboring a grievance. "Anyhow, I was on my way out t'see about a job, I'll see you folks later," she adds, rising to head over to the door herself.
Kaz waves to Nieve. "Catch you later." She considers Flint. "Sure. You want authentic, or Americanized?"
Flint grins. "Real Chinese food," the boy says. "Haven't had the real stuff since I left Oakland. There was a great little restaurant down there that always had specials at the end of the day, went there. Sometimes." A pause, and the cub gets to his feet, moving towards the basement apartment, disappearing down into it, and coming back up with a black beanie tugged down over his head, hair having been pulled back before he did so. "So." A grin is given to the older Galliard. "Americanized's fine, but real Chinese is way better."
Kaz has, while he's gone, put her ski mask on (it's cut off around her ears). "Works f'me. I mean, sometimes all I want is a good lame rangoon, but mostly? I like the kinds of places only Chinese people eat at. So hey," she adds, as they start out the door, "Why was you grounded, anyways?"
"'Cause I tried to run away," Flint says. "'s what. The other evening." A shrug of explanation. "So I was grounded and. Was stupid of me, and it's not like I'm going to do it again. I'm really not, and all." There's a glance, and a wave, given to one of the security cameras as the cub passes it.
Kaz makes a face at the camera. Once they're out of range of it, she nods. "Did that a couple times when I was a cub. Can I ask why, or should I butt out?"
Flint grins, shoving his hands a bit into the pockets of his sweatshirt. "I'd panicked, and then Devon said something while. Trying to be helpful that didn't sound helpful to me and just made me angrier, and I didn't calm down so well and wanted space," he offers as they walk. "And then I went and hung low in my grandparents' garage loft after doing nothing for most of a day, and then Ishmael showed up, and brought me back."
Kaz leads the way to what turns out to be a very battered mini-RV, parked in front of the tenement. "Panicked over what?" she asks, as she unlocks the passenger side door.
"Cleaning up a bunch of blood in the hallway," the cub says, though there's a longer, thoughtful pause. "Starcaller had showed up in the hallway, and Mouse-rhya shot him a lot because I panicked to begin with when he showed up out of nowhere." The boy gets in, shrugging it all off with a grin.
"Oh! That clusterfuck. I still gotta be plaintive at Mouse about that. But you know." Kaz stops, a few feet from him. "That's actually a real fuckin' reasonable thing to panic about. In case people was tellin' you otherwise."
Flint nods. "Clusterfuck's a good way to put it," he decides. "Yeah. I. I dunno, if it had just been one, or the other, I probably. It wouldn't have been so much as to make it too much all at once. And then being grounded when I got back, I guess that was reasonable enough, too."
"Well, yeah. Though it still sucks. Get in," Kaz urges, and goes around to unlock her side. "What'd Devon say, anyways? Or would rememberin' just bring it back and there ain't no point?"
Flint grins, clambering inside and then pulling the door shut after him, and only then once the door's shut actually sitting down on the passenger seat. "I don't even really remember. Something about panicking being not useful and such, but it didn't help, since I was already panicking."
"God," Kaz rolls her eyes. "Thaaaat's right. Don't feel what you're feeling, right this instant!" She snorts, as she starts the RVling going. "So like. I tell you three times. Feel your feelings, and work through them. Don't step on them. You know that already, but I figure. reinforcement can't hurt."
The cub grins again. "I'm working on that part, working through them. Sometimes, it," Flint pauses, head tilts to one side in the more internal dialogue, then he continues. "It was easier when all this, like when all this happened and Kavi-rhya and Mouse-rhya told me about the whole Garou stuff to begin with, to accept things and ignore the bad feelings, and all, rather than work through them. And. That was what all led to the running away, really. Not what Devon said in specific, but."
"Yeah," Kaz says, listening as she drives. (Rather less badly than usual.) "That makes sense, kinda. The newness made for… I don't know if I'd say shortcuts, but— It kinda made for a vacation from what life was usually like? And then it all came clompin' down at once, then?"
"Pretty much," Flint nods. "And with my. My ancestors," the words carry a quirk of a grin for the cub, "a lot of it made a lot of sense, so it was really easy to accept things. So between that, and between it being a. Hell of a lot better than before, because stuff sucked, before." The cub falls silent. "And then yeah, all at once."
"Yeah," Kaz agrees. "Emotional overload 'r us." She glances at him, at a stop light. "I know Riley was talkin'a you about it, too, and I s'pect Mouse, too. But. If you get overload again and y'need a place t'just be, f'awhile? You want my number? I'm good at just shuttin' up and hangin' out, and I got a place you can crash."
Flint grins, nods. "Thanks, Kaz," the boy offers, nodding. "Yeah. Most've, talked to Riley again after and such, more'n figured things out and straightened them out." The boy stares out the window a little as they go. "Starting to get the hang of working through feelings, though. 'S weird, 'cause it's not something I ever did well before all this." The cub pauses, shrugs. "Before all this, I'd either end up getting in fights, or bury myself in a book until I forgot about it. Don't work quite so well, anymore."
"Well, before all this, you ain't had quite the same kinds of pressure that you do now," Kaz says, heading back into traffic and starting to peer at street numbers. "Ah," she mutters, and then starts looking for parking spaces. "Plus, Rage… makes for different kinds of emotions. And makes it more directly necessary to acknowledge and cope, instead've dissociatin'—pushin' it away."
Another nod. "So I've kinda noticed. Pushing it away, it just comes back anyway, with more Rage and angry when it does," Flint observes.
"Yeah. It takes a lot of people a lot longer to figure that out. Because," Kaz summarizes, as she steals two parking spaces efficiently, "A lot of people are morons." She cheerfully gives the finger to someone honking at them, and says, "Awright! Chinese-ho."
24 February, 2012
The moon is in the waxing New (Ragabash) Moon phase (17% full).
Kaz is zonked out on a couch, snoring gently into a pillow.
The stairwell door opens into the lobby, a moment of hesitation before Flint comes in. The boy's humming quietly to himself, before he starts pacing in the lobby. Better than pacing the stairs, or the fifth floor hallway. Maybe.
"Punch buggy puce," Kaz says distinctly, as she turns over, and then mutters something about undulating carpets.
Someone, apparently, is in the office, because something impacts the other side of the closed door with a distinct THUMP.
Flint stops abruptly in the pacing, glance going between Kaz, first, and then the office door. "Um, everything alright?" The cub calls that out in the general direction of the office, hands coming out of his pockets momentarily. Though, Flint doesn't actually move any closer to the office, just turns to glance at the closed door a moment longer.
Kaz sits bolt upright, panting. Then, after a moment of getting her bearings, she flops back down again and calls, "Thanks Mouse," as if this was an expected thump. Or possibly just a warranted one. From under her hat, she tells Flint, "I was being a pain in the ass. So yeah, everything's cool."
"Welcome," comes Mouse's rather muffled reply, though not the Theurge herself, just yet.
Flint shrugs, before flopping down into one of the chairs, knees to chest. "Ah, okay." The explanation seems to be accepted rapidly enough, because as soon as the cub's settled, the humming comes back, that half-figuring-something out with pauses every so often in the melody. It doesn't last long, though, before Flint's attention turns inward a little. 'Dangitshuddupwouldyouplease.' Another pause, a longer one, before Flint offers Kaz a grin. "Not you. Really."
Kaz's hat slips off, and she peers at him. "Internal visitors?" she hazards.
More rustling in the office, and what might be a mutter.
"Earworm would be more like it," Flint says, with both a shrug and a nod. "I was off-key. I think. Took exception to it."
Kaz says, "Huh," as she sits up, the hat falling to the ground. "It ain't never occurred to me that ancestors would object t'someone's singin'. That's more… prosaic than the mythology'd present it, you know?"
Mouse steps out of the office, looking distinctly rumpled—which appears to be her theme lately—and raking her fingers back over hair that's far too short right now for the gesture.
Flint laughs, a bit. "Objects to me being off key if I'm humming something from what he remembers, is really it," Flint says. "And only if I'm really off. Also, would getting to remember the whole song be too much to ask?" The teenager rolls his eyes, a little bit, then offering a half-wave to Mouse.
"Hell, it's too much to ask f'me, and I ain't even dead," Kaz says, as she bends down to get her hat. "Hey, Mouse," she says, as she jams the hat (a fedora) back on her head. "You look like y'need about 20 hours more sleep."
"I want," Mouse says, with low key irritability, "Hair." She brushes both palms over her buzzed-length former mop. "It being a month later would be nice too."
Flint just grins at Kaz a little bit, before leaning back into the chair. "S'pose, yeah." A glance at Mouse, though, and at least this time the cub isn't carrying on the more internal dialogue aloud.
"I know the feelin'," Kaz says, ruefully. "What always gets to me is arm hair, in those kindsa circumstances." She levers to her feet and asks, over her shoulder, "Why specifically a month?" as she heads toward the laundry room.
Mouse quits fiddling with her too-short hair, though it appears to take a conscious effort for her to lower her hands. "Some of the Wyld effects might be temporary."
Flint looks up again, gaze flicking from Kaz to Mouse and then back again. "Devon's already back to normal, but." A shrug is offered, that's as much as the cub happens to know on the subject.
Kaz stops short and whirls around, which just serves to overbalance her and she almost falls over. "Does that mean I might be able to get rid of these fucking mood ring fingernails?" This seems a strange thing to be so exercised about, but there you go. "Because I was almost thinking about chopping a finger off just to see if it'd grow back right. I wouldn't care—" She waves a gloved hand "—But it's spread to my claws in other forms and I can't not pay attention to it."
Mouse blinks a few times, and offers Kaz a shrug. "Maybe. We should know around then." And then, she can't quite seem to resist asking, "…Fingernails?"
Flint gives Kaz a fairly quizzical look, sitting up all the way in his seat. Brows hint upwards, before he just purses his lips, watching. Or trying to resist asking the obvious as well.
Kaz asks Flint, "Yeah, but didn't he eat shit? Like, on purpose? This's different." She grunts at Mouse, mutters something indistinct, and then shrugs and limps over to the theurge. She strips one of her gloves off; sure enough, it looks as if she has fingernail polish on, though it's quite a mobile version. Currently, they're a muddy, roiling red; as she looks at them, they grow into a far more distinct, bright, flaming red. Angry, perhaps.
Mouse frowns at the fingernails, and then at Kaz. She remains quiet for a moment.
Flint raises one shoulder in half a shrug, watching the two older Garou, but for the moment, the cub falls quiet again.
They turn a little more muddy orange, and then swirl back to that muddy red. Kaz herself doesn't change expression appreciably, except then she sneaks a look at them; they almost instantly change back to that fire engine red, at which point she makes a face and, at the same moment, curls her hand into a fist and puts it behind her back. "It is the most minor thing to be flipping the fuck out about, but if I think too much about it, I start running circles in my head."
"It's a tell," Mouse says, as if this were the most perfectly acceptable explanation. "They're annoying."
Flint's gone distant a little, again, back to whatever internal conversation or thoughts he'd been having. Aloud, though, is added, "Yeah. Minor or not, seems annoying."
"Yeah," Kaz says, putting the glove back on. "Exactly. I don' think they're annoyin' enough to chop a finger off for if it'll maybe go away soon, though. The foot, I can cope with, that just makes me clumsier and it ain't like anyone'll notice that anyways."
Mouse's frown remains. "…The foot?" Someone has not been paying attention.
"Well, I ain't mentioned it because it ain't much of a thing," Kaz shrugs. "I mean, I already limp like a motherfucker and my leg breaks alla time anyway, so a couple toes melting off don't make a big diff'rence, in the long-term."
"Melting off?" Mouse repeats, sounding rather dismayed by the description. "Jesus."
Flint outright winces at the mention of toes melting off, looking over to Kaz and Mouse again. "Eesh."
"Well, not like fire or something. It didn't hurt, much. They just kinda… disappeared." The Gnawer sounds slightly abashed, now. "Like I said, I ain't exactly all that agile to begin with, you know?"
Mouse insists, "Still. Jesus."
"What?" Kaz seems honestly baffled now. "It's the same damn leg that has all the other problems. And I mean, hey. I compensate pretty good anyways. So it ain't a thing. Or. Well. I wasn't thinking of it as a thing?" Now she sounds as if she's wondering if she should.
"Not a thing, then, I suppose." Flint says that, with a nod, before he pushes hair out of his face. And then out of his face again when it falls right back to in front of his eyes. "Just when you said, melting, it kinda." There's a screwing of expression for a moment, and the boy shrugs.
Mouse shrugs abruptly. "If it isn't a thing to you, it isn't a thing." She turns away, patting at her pockets. She comes up with a battered packet of cigarettes, which she promptly sets about utilizing.
Kaz says, "Yeah, it didn't hurt. Though I mean, I was gettin' sat on by the sucker at the same time, so," she shrugs, "Maybe it did. But it don't now." She studies Mouse for a moment, vaguely worried, but then she remembers. "Hey! Your thing was last night. How'd that go?"
Flint gets a much more look of interest when Kaz brings up the question, attention showing in his posture as he moves to sit on the edge of the couch and closer to the pair of older Garou, listening.
Mouse sticks a cigarette into her mouth and flicks her lighter. "Better than expected. I was expecting someone…older. Kind've relieved really."
The metis finishes her trip to the laundry room, now, coming back with a cup of water. "So what's she actually like, a kid?"
"Teenager." Mouse amends, "Young-ish teenager. Could be a trick and all, I mean, she's a spirit. But I don't think so. She's…eager. Wants acceptance. I was taking the blatant flattery for an attempt to boost my ego in her emails, now I think it's just her trying to get people to like her. On the other hand…she did say she already has spirits under her. So she's powerful, even if she is new."
Down the stairs a few at a time comes a gallumphing Nieve, apparently in a good mood. She comes to a halt just before the heavy door, straightening herself out and then pulling it open, presenting a slightly more sober face to those in here. Not that she's high on anything, other than life itself. "Hola chico y chicas," she greets, a finger-wiggle offered to all three.
"Well, a City Father—Mother—A City Spirit," Kaz settles on, "Is gonna be a thing with some adherents, sure. What's she want outta us, though?" She salutes Nieve with her cup. "Hey, hi! 'Sup?"
"Hi Nieve-rhya," Flint says, ducking a half a nod, before the cub's attention turns back to Mouse.
Mouse puffs at her cigarette. Nieve gets a faint nod. "City-Spirit-to-be, I gather. In short? She wants us to like her. And when I say 'her', I mean her. The city-to-be, city potential, that kind've thing. And she'd like us to kill the Wyrm in the city. Even said she'd promise not to expand over the river, or encroach on Garou territory."
The dreadlocked woman tips a salute to Kaz. "Ears," she greets the Gnawer cheerfully. "An' cubby, I forgot your name, sorry," she asides to Flint apologetically. "City spirit to be?" she wonders then, sounding curious about Mouse's comment.
"Flint," Kaz supplies, and then says, "Huh. Honestly, that sounds kinda… like a good thing? I mean. I already like the damn' city anyway, it ain't like I'm gonna gronk at her, and I'm gonna whump Wyrm anyway, so if we get an assurance urban sprawl ain't gonna happen on purpose, then what the fuck, y'know?"
Mouse nods slightly. "Yeah, I'm…not really seeing the downside at all here. Of course, everyone else was a little paranoid, but that's why I brought them. I need to go talk to Jacinta, see what her thoughts are. Then elders' Moot." To Nieve, "We're being courted by a spirit calling herself Claire, and another named Jeb. Met with Claire last night, Jeb gave us his pitch a while ago. Essentially, Claire wants the city to grow and better itself, to incorporate Weaver and Wyld and the uncorrupted Wyrm the way they should be, or at least, that's the possible long-term goal. Jeb's a traditionalist, and wants the city to remember its roots, and for everything to be as it always was, as much as possible."
"Flint," the boy echoes, grinning a little. Then the boy looks at Mouse. "Those two don't sound quite like they mesh so well, Mouse-rhya," he says, reaching up to rub his hands. "Forward, back, sure. Both, though?"
"Mmn. Kinda like Dollah an' Credit," Nieve muses, reflecting on other spirits with this kind of opposition. "An' they're both lookin' to become a City Parent?" she wonders then. "Dealt with a couple in the past, but never one… sorta becomin'—never figured they had t'grow into it."
"Huh," says Kaz. A frequent refrain, of late. "Interestin'." Then she shrugs, and says, mostly to Flint but also to Mouse, "Dunno. It could work, t'mesh 'em. Get Claire's forward lookin' and the ol' dude's memory and carin' for what's gone by. Might be it might even be good f'him. 'Cause stasis… Ain't good f'anyone. 'Cept pure Weaver, of course, but fuck that."
Mouse nods. "Yeah. Well, that's what happened anyway. Anyhow, anyone need me for anything before I head out on patrol?"
"No, though I do wanna catch up with you a bit later. 'parently you guys have a problem I've known for ten years," Nieve ventures to Mouse, tipping her a salute as well as she prepares to head off and patrol things.
Kaz shakes her head. "Sometime, I gotta talk about the tiger dude, but that can wait."
"Nothing from me, Mouse-rhya," Flint says, though there's a half tilt of his head at 'tiger dude'. The boy ventures a very wary half-glance at the front door, then back away again, shrugging it off.
Mouse pauses, half turned toward the door. "Err, hang on. Tiger dude? Problem for ten years?"
"The tiger dude," Nieve confirms. "Karuvar. Known him a -long- time. Imagine my surprise findin' him here," she ventures, then looks sidelong to Kaz for what she was going to say.
"Yeah, I ran into the—" She stops to blink at Nieve. Then she goes on, a touch of wonder in her voice, "…Guy. A couple times."
Flint just looks from Nieve, to Kaz, to Mouse, and back again. "Tiger dude?" The cub runs a hand through his hair, that question posed, another look of interest on his face.
Mouse seems to have forgotten the cigarette in her hand now. "…Okay, patrol can wait a few minutes. Both've you, spill."
The dreadlocked woman tilts her head slightly. "Karuvar an' I worked together on a thing or two back when we both were in New Mexico," she explains. "I'unno how much ten years has changed him, but we were pretty good friends once, an' that seems t'be true now."
Kaz blinks at Nieve in interest, but then shakes her head and explains to Flint, "The Bastet that stole the fetish that I stole to begin with. It was in Harbor Park but ain't anymore." Then, she finishes her water and explains to Mouse, slightly hesitantly, "Well, I ran into him in Harbor Park by accident awhile back and he was all … Nice at me … And then he and me arranged to get together later and he's … Demanding annoying shit, but I think it's mostly that the people who hired him are assholes, surprise. But if what he's suggesting is on the level, it… might work out?"
Flint nods to Kaz, settling to listen for the moment.
Mouse nods slightly, and sticks the cigarette back into her mouth. "Salem and I had a meeting with him last week. What's he suggesting? That is, I'm wondering if it's what we talked about, or something he's thought up?"
Falling silent to listen to Kaz and Mouse, Nieve finds a place to prop herself on one of the chairs, pulling out her own pack of roll-ups and lighting one.
Kaz says, almost cheerfully, "I dunno!" but then explains, "He wants me to go meet the King of Cats, which, let me add parenthetically, should be amusin' as hell to witness, and then the King'll tell me about some fetish he wants me to fetch. (They don' mind if I bring friends with me to fetch it.) This will, apparently, help… expiate my lil' personal sin of cat-murder, too. Frankly, if it was just about me and my fuckups, I wouldn't bother, because I need more complications from fetishes like I need a hole in my head, but, having Luna's Derriere at the Park was damn useful, and if we do enough back checkin' to make sure the fetish the King wants us to get is actually held by the Wyrm… Well, it'd be good f'th' Sept. I think, anyway."
Mouse's right eye narrows thoughtfully. "That's his ridiculous spirit friend. You should have a Theurge with you." She purses her lips. "Did he say anything about what this fetish is?"
Flint slides so that he's sitting on the couch proper now, rather than the edge of the arm, leaning backwards as he listens.
Likewise listening intently, Nieve takes a puff from her smoke and exhales slowly, regarding Kaz and Mouse both with focused curiosity.
"Oh, the Puss in Boots one? I thought it'd be more dramatic." Kaz sounds disappointed, somehow. "But no, he didn't specify what fetish it was. Like I said, I ain't gonna go get it just on his say-so. Not this time. Ethics, you know? And yeah, I'd love a theurge with. Like. Maybe you? If you have like. Time or whatever?"
"From what little I saw," Mouse says, dryly, "he is extremely dramatic." Her chin jerks upward. "I'll make time. Just tell me when. I mentioned, see, that if his friends could supply us with another fetish that did what that one did—without the Bastet specific properties—then the issue would obviously be rather resolved on our end. He wanted to acknowledge that you did all the fucking work to get it, something his friends kind've neglected to mention. At all."
"If Mouse is unavailable for whatever reason, I'm around as well," Nieve offers mildly. "Karu did suggest I get the whole story from you guys before hearin' it from him, for fairness. He's grown up a bit since I last saw him, I'm guessin'."
Flint just makes a few small hmmn sounds as he listens. Interested without being too interested, and the cub's gaze ends up on the door separating the lobby from the outside world, focus very much turned inward. 'Didnot.' So much for not holding internal conversations aloud.
"Yeah, that'd work OK, too, although honestly, if we were able to get the Face back and make a formal agreement that any Bastet that wanted t'use it'd be safe… I think that'd be damn good f'th' Sept." Kaz shrugs. "But I ain't a diplomat, so what do I know?" She tosses her cup in the trash, and grins at Nieve. "He's here because, basically, of my Adren challenge, so I could tell you 'bout that while Mouse goes off to do her thing, if you wanted, or I could just say, his employers got reason to be pissed, really."
Mouse shrugs in return. "I suggested that as the more likely scenario. Going to get back with him soon to see what he's heard." She stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray on the coffee table, then offers the two Walkers and one Bone Gnawer a nod. "I'll be back later."
"Hasta luego, jefe," Nieve nods to Mouse, then turns her attention to Kaz. "Sure, m'always good for a story, 'specially one relevant to friends an' current times."
Flint looks over to Kaz, then to Mouse. "Seeya, Mouse-rhya." A pause. "Can Kaz-rhya take me to go get Chinese later, maybe?" There's a twinge of hope in the boy's voice, as he glances between the two.
Kaz looks hopeful, too.
Mouse pauses at the door. "…Wear a hat and don't draw attention to yourself." This to Flint. "Your grandparents were looking for you." And on that note—great note really—she steps out the door.
Flint makes an utterly, utterly disgusted face at the news, though it's accompanied by the murmur, "Yes'm." The cub grins over at Kaz, grin turned to Nieve as well. "Luckily we've got a fair few hats around?"
Kaz blinks a bit. "Well. Uh. Maybe we could order Chinese in?" she offers. "Or, yeah. Hats. Fedoras? Ski masks," she decides. "Anyway. So OK, my Adren challenge. The then-Alpha sends me to go follow stories and get Luna's Face. Which I know only by name and that it's an Incan fetish. So I book it to a few villages, people eye me in confusion, I spend more bus money and get to another place, and lo, they've heard the story— but it's Aztek. I gotta look Aztek up in the dictionary, but hey, Aztek not Inca, got it. And this lady telling me this shit—" Kaz stops, and starts again. "This lady is old. She's old, blind, and she is more theurge than some of the best theurges we've got. She ain't a shifter, she's actually a cat-shifter kin, but she's… got a presence. I really liked her. She tells me… well." Her intonation changes, clearly becoming something more Spanish in its rhythms.
"'Mother to many, but no children to call her own. You will know her by this and by the bat that left his mark on her. For the spirits have opened the way—and what was lost shall be returned to its owners.'" She pauses. "So basically, I'm fated to come. The spirits have said so. Ain't that just grand? But anyway. She don't know where it is. I deflate sadly. But her son does! I perk up. But he ain't there. I deflate. But then, he comes home. I perk up. He is a jerk. I keep perked, because at least he exists. The thing is… Imagine the pissiest Wendigo ever, right? Mutiply that times about 50, and you have Wind. He haaaaates me. He hates my entire race. Because him? He's an actual cat dude. And we've, uh," Kaz looks wry, "Us wolf dudes ain't been real good to them. So he blusters at me, and makes me tell him a secret, and tells me I'm fated to bring the damn thing back to them, to which I'm like, 'If you say so!' even though that really ain't happening, and so he finally tells me where they think the damn thing is. Which is, in the Umbra, in Mexico City. Tourist mecca, that."
"Huh." Nieve pays attention to Kaz's story, listening and smoking her cigarette to the butt, then lighting another—the pack is offered around amiably.
Whatever hint of foul mood had hit the boy from the mention of his grandparents is banished entirely with the story. The galliard cub perks up, turning to listen to Kaz, though with a polite shake of his head to decline the pack of cigarettes. There is the occasional, attentive nod from Flint, along with the look that he'll likely remember every word that Kaz has said.
Kaz shakes her head at offer of the cigarette, and says a little vaguely, "Various things happen, some Gnawers and stuff help me out, and then I reach over… And I'm in front of a fuckin' Aztek temple. I mean. Seriously and literally. The thing is huge, it radiates power, and it's seriously… Old. There is no damn trace of this in the realm, let me tell you." Suddenly, she's gotten more specific again. "So I go lookin' for the damn thing, and I get bit by a snake. Poisonous snake, I guess, because I pass the fuck out. And when I wake up, I'm in the middle of a grand little hallucination where I'm in the body of a cat shifter, and this big black panther cat shifter comes upon me and gives me… well, advice, and shows me his people, at their height. The glory of his people, and the fall of his people, and the death of his people. It is… Magnificent, and sad, and I am… honored to have seen it. And I truly wish I could have spent about 10 years with him, hallucination or no." She's silent a moment, and then shakes her head.
"Anyway, so he shows me where the fetish is. He then disintegrates— I mean, like, growls old and dies in front of me, and then decomposes and dries up into dust— and then I do that, which I really quite seriously do not recommend if you're ever having prophetic hallucinations, it's real uncomfortable— And then I wake up. So, well, there's some banes hangin' out, when I wake up, but I know where the thing is. Or I think I do, at least. So I head thattaway, to the top of the temple, fending off little flying bane guys as I go. And there it is, right where the dead dude put it. So I grab it, head back down, hide for awhile while the banes get bored, reach back over, go back to the Gnawers and thank 'em, and then… start home. Because… Well, I have a challenge to finish, and I can be damn useful to my Sept as Adren. And them Bastet knew where it was and never tried to find the damn thing? I got no debt to them. But Wind? That Bastet dude that told me those things? He catches up to me. Which is where things go shitty, and fuck things up for the Sept down the line."
"An' is that who hired Karu?" Nieve wonders curiously, having paid rapt attention to the story, enjoying a good tale as much as any other Garou. "Sounds like a serious trip an' a half, Ears."
Flint nods after Nieve's question, fingers tapping slight time to something unheard against his knee.
"No, sadly, that'd mean life was easy. And I wouldn't have blood debt on my hands. 'Cause did I mention the blood debt?" She sighs. "He demanded it back. I tried to negotiate, I tried to get out of it. I really did. I tried negotiatin', I tried talkin', I tried everything. But he wanted the damn fetish back. And… At the time, the Alpha was a Shadow Lord, and fuckin' things up. And I'm a metis. I technically could challenge her f'Alpha while Fostern, but I know reality, and reality is, it would't have gone over well. And, well. The long term health of this Sept was too important to me. I needed to make Adren. And that meant bringing the fetish back. So I kept talking, but I wasn't gonna give him the damn thing." Kaz sounds, honestly, almost anguished. "So he attacked. And I kilt him. He didn't give me much choice." She looks down at her napkin. "I buried him there," she says quietly. "And the last thing I saw before I left was that dude from the hallucination, frowning at me." She's silent a moment. "I wrote his grandmother later, telling her where he was buried, 'cause I owed her that, if not a fuck of a lot more'n that. Her being a seeress, maybe she got clues from that. I don' think she'd hire Karuvar, but I bet some of Wind's buddies would've. Which… Is why we're here now."
"If he din't ever go t'look for it, how can he demand it back?" Nieve asks forthrightly. "I get it, though. Karu's a decent guy for a cat. Trusted him a lot once, figure he can't have changed that much. If you can sort it out with him, it's worth it."
"Well, and yeah. His entire damn Balam people want it back, so bully for them, why didn't they get it in the first place. But —" Kaz stops to rub the back of her neck. "It… Is really theirs. In the end. And I'd rather not fuck with them if I don't have to. So yeah, Karuvar here, he really does feel on the level, and caught between expectations and reality. And I think he's trying to make it work f'both the Balam and f'us. I respect that. You knowin' him, that helps too. So. Thanks."
"A long time ago, we were both workin' in the same area. Very small sept, an' so to help handle all the shit goin' down in the city, we had a kinda truce with the local cats, a 'work together to fight mutual enemies' sorta thin', if not quite friends," Nieve explains quietly. "There was a thing, most've the sept were goin' off to take down some Spirals an' them who weren't were lookin' after the bawn. I… absolutely wrecked myself makin' talens an' stuff for the fight—rookie mistake I know—an' needed somewhere t'stay where I'd be safe an' not a burden to th' sept guardans. So, I went t'Karu an' he let me crash in his cave for a bit. Slept like… twenty hours, totally safe."
Flint nods, attention then turning to the Theurge when she speaks. It's the same almost-rapt attention that the boy paid to the story.
Kaz smiles, just a touch. "He's a dude with a code've honor. And I like that his code lets random theurges sleep in his cave. I don't get his code, but I figure if I think of him like a Silver Fang, I can at least get in the right area code."
"Not so random, weren't like I was a total stranger, but yeah," Nieve nods. "He's got that, an' it's odd but makes kinda sense. Y'ever see that Jake Gyllenhall movie, Prince of Persia? Figure he's somethin' like that, all dashin' an' darin', but utterly loyal to whatever it is he works for. S'somethin' to be wary of but trust in at th' same time."
Kaz squints. "No, but maybe I should. Gyllehall has good hair, after all. And if it gives me insight on tiger-dude, why not?"
"We could bring the Chinese food back," Flint ponders, looking to Kaz. "But if I wear a hat, can I please come with you t' go get it?" The cub grins. "Just, wanna get out of here a little bit. Haven't been out of the building since—" the words cut off with a shrug. "I got ungrounded," he settles on. Leaving out whyever he was grounded anyway.
"Karu used to have good hair. Now it's all chopped short," Nieve remarks with the air of one harboring a grievance. "Anyhow, I was on my way out t'see about a job, I'll see you folks later," she adds, rising to head over to the door herself.
Kaz waves to Nieve. "Catch you later." She considers Flint. "Sure. You want authentic, or Americanized?"
Flint grins. "Real Chinese food," the boy says. "Haven't had the real stuff since I left Oakland. There was a great little restaurant down there that always had specials at the end of the day, went there. Sometimes." A pause, and the cub gets to his feet, moving towards the basement apartment, disappearing down into it, and coming back up with a black beanie tugged down over his head, hair having been pulled back before he did so. "So." A grin is given to the older Galliard. "Americanized's fine, but real Chinese is way better."
Kaz has, while he's gone, put her ski mask on (it's cut off around her ears). "Works f'me. I mean, sometimes all I want is a good lame rangoon, but mostly? I like the kinds of places only Chinese people eat at. So hey," she adds, as they start out the door, "Why was you grounded, anyways?"
"'Cause I tried to run away," Flint says. "'s what. The other evening." A shrug of explanation. "So I was grounded and. Was stupid of me, and it's not like I'm going to do it again. I'm really not, and all." There's a glance, and a wave, given to one of the security cameras as the cub passes it.
Kaz makes a face at the camera. Once they're out of range of it, she nods. "Did that a couple times when I was a cub. Can I ask why, or should I butt out?"
Flint grins, shoving his hands a bit into the pockets of his sweatshirt. "I'd panicked, and then Devon said something while. Trying to be helpful that didn't sound helpful to me and just made me angrier, and I didn't calm down so well and wanted space," he offers as they walk. "And then I went and hung low in my grandparents' garage loft after doing nothing for most of a day, and then Ishmael showed up, and brought me back."
Kaz leads the way to what turns out to be a very battered mini-RV, parked in front of the tenement. "Panicked over what?" she asks, as she unlocks the passenger side door.
"Cleaning up a bunch of blood in the hallway," the cub says, though there's a longer, thoughtful pause. "Starcaller had showed up in the hallway, and Mouse-rhya shot him a lot because I panicked to begin with when he showed up out of nowhere." The boy gets in, shrugging it all off with a grin.
"Oh! That clusterfuck. I still gotta be plaintive at Mouse about that. But you know." Kaz stops, a few feet from him. "That's actually a real fuckin' reasonable thing to panic about. In case people was tellin' you otherwise."
Flint nods. "Clusterfuck's a good way to put it," he decides. "Yeah. I. I dunno, if it had just been one, or the other, I probably. It wouldn't have been so much as to make it too much all at once. And then being grounded when I got back, I guess that was reasonable enough, too."
"Well, yeah. Though it still sucks. Get in," Kaz urges, and goes around to unlock her side. "What'd Devon say, anyways? Or would rememberin' just bring it back and there ain't no point?"
Flint grins, clambering inside and then pulling the door shut after him, and only then once the door's shut actually sitting down on the passenger seat. "I don't even really remember. Something about panicking being not useful and such, but it didn't help, since I was already panicking."
"God," Kaz rolls her eyes. "Thaaaat's right. Don't feel what you're feeling, right this instant!" She snorts, as she starts the RVling going. "So like. I tell you three times. Feel your feelings, and work through them. Don't step on them. You know that already, but I figure. reinforcement can't hurt."
The cub grins again. "I'm working on that part, working through them. Sometimes, it," Flint pauses, head tilts to one side in the more internal dialogue, then he continues. "It was easier when all this, like when all this happened and Kavi-rhya and Mouse-rhya told me about the whole Garou stuff to begin with, to accept things and ignore the bad feelings, and all, rather than work through them. And. That was what all led to the running away, really. Not what Devon said in specific, but."
"Yeah," Kaz says, listening as she drives. (Rather less badly than usual.) "That makes sense, kinda. The newness made for… I don't know if I'd say shortcuts, but— It kinda made for a vacation from what life was usually like? And then it all came clompin' down at once, then?"
"Pretty much," Flint nods. "And with my. My ancestors," the words carry a quirk of a grin for the cub, "a lot of it made a lot of sense, so it was really easy to accept things. So between that, and between it being a. Hell of a lot better than before, because stuff sucked, before." The cub falls silent. "And then yeah, all at once."
"Yeah," Kaz agrees. "Emotional overload 'r us." She glances at him, at a stop light. "I know Riley was talkin'a you about it, too, and I s'pect Mouse, too. But. If you get overload again and y'need a place t'just be, f'awhile? You want my number? I'm good at just shuttin' up and hangin' out, and I got a place you can crash."
Flint grins, nods. "Thanks, Kaz," the boy offers, nodding. "Yeah. Most've, talked to Riley again after and such, more'n figured things out and straightened them out." The boy stares out the window a little as they go. "Starting to get the hang of working through feelings, though. 'S weird, 'cause it's not something I ever did well before all this." The cub pauses, shrugs. "Before all this, I'd either end up getting in fights, or bury myself in a book until I forgot about it. Don't work quite so well, anymore."
"Well, before all this, you ain't had quite the same kinds of pressure that you do now," Kaz says, heading back into traffic and starting to peer at street numbers. "Ah," she mutters, and then starts looking for parking spaces. "Plus, Rage… makes for different kinds of emotions. And makes it more directly necessary to acknowledge and cope, instead've dissociatin'—pushin' it away."
Another nod. "So I've kinda noticed. Pushing it away, it just comes back anyway, with more Rage and angry when it does," Flint observes.
"Yeah. It takes a lot of people a lot longer to figure that out. Because," Kaz summarizes, as she steals two parking spaces efficiently, "A lot of people are morons." She cheerfully gives the finger to someone honking at them, and says, "Awright! Chinese-ho."