Definitely a Galliard.
Tuesday, 6 March 2012 19:00![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flint_garouIn which Kaz takes Flint on a field trip.
6 March, 2011
The moon is in the waxing Full (Ahroun) Moon phase (93% full).
Kaz stopped by the tenement to bail Flint out of his durance vile, taking him to Yin Ten Chop Suey via a) her favorite museum (the Science Museum!) and b) her favorite place to dumpster dive (one of the restaurants uptown throws away all of its pre-prepared plates, every night). She seems to think that the lack of badgering and the Different Stimuli will be a good thing, not a bad thing. Probably, she's wrong, but there you go. Now, after getting some remarkably good dumplings and suan la chow chow, she's stopped off at the old library, explaining, "I been sleeping here more often than not. Lefty's really done it up right."
Badgering might have helped Flint some in any case, but the boy's brought a sketchbook with him as they go out, and seemed to have a damnably good time of himself. The cub grins at Kaz as they get to the library, eyes going just a little bit wide as they get closer. "Whoa. Pretty nice, yeah." Another moment of turning the page, though the boy hasn't been quite forthcoming about what the pages and pages of various cityscape and organic form sketches are actually for. Then he looks up again, hugs the sketchbook back to his chest like it has been when not in use. "Hey, that stories I was asking you about earlier," he prompts the elder galliard, slightly nervously.
Kaz ambles over to the couches and plops the Chinese bags onto one of the cushions, perching on the arm of the couch, herself. "Yeah. Which ones, anyways? You was like, "I have to speak to you" and then you didn't specify about who all."
"Oh, I didn't?" Whoops. Flint looks properly sheepish. "Sorry, been so much trying to all at once," the cub says as he curls into one corner of the couch, balancing the sketchbook on his lap and turning back to a page that's full of writing and biting the pencil between his lips as he looks down at the page, then spitting the pencil back into his hand. "Some of the stories at the burial mounds are… less than very much, or I just didn't get very much, and." The boy still doesn't say who, of course.
Kaz starts unpacking the bags. And Flint's statements. "Yeah, they ain't the most thorough things on earth. Just enough t', y'know, get a taste of a person. So who in specific you lookin'a get the skinny on?"
Flint nods, tracing his finger along the list on the page in front of him. "Couple people," he says, pulling the page from the book and handing it over to her, which is the list of names copied down, some of them noted in very careful, very neatly drawn glyphs as well. "Any of them really. 's for what Mouse-rhya and Kavi-rhya set me to do," he half-explains.
[OOC] Flint: List, any of the ones Kaz wants to talk about or not. Roger Howls-While-Dreaming, John Walks-Thin-Ice, Remy, Elanora Skip-Tracer, Timothy Heart of the Hunter.
Kaz peers at the doodles. "You must get bored easy," she diagnoses, and then asks, "What was the official thing they set you to doing? Stories, or something else? I just ask," she says, almost shyly, "Because context is useful."
"I was sitting out there a while," Flint says of the doodles, before he nods, looking over at Kaz, and then flipping the page to just show her another page of sketch, one that looks rather well like the breakroom up at the tenement, but with some sort of art installation on the wall behind the computers, with a cityscape behind it. It's not the most detailed sketch, lacking the details that have filled the sketchbook over the past two days. "Figuring out a memorial, for the tenement, because Mouse-rhya said that with the wasps we will be losing access to the burial mounds. So." It's not an entire explanation, but it's a start. "It's for my rite of passage," the cub adds, as though that weren't obvious enough.
She leaaans over to look at the sketch, and mutters, "Huh," as she studies it. Bringing herself back upright, she says, "Yeah, gotcha. So you want the stories sort of as a… mental framework to build the memorial on. OK." Kaz gets out some of the crab rangoons, and gestures with one as she talks. "I never met Elanora. I think she got et by a bane or something. Timothy, I only ran into once or twice. He was this guy, born in Asia, had fuckin' rich parents, Ahroun. Cared deeply about the tribe, died attackin' the Gorge Gut Hive. Died damn well, as I recall." Kaz stops talking to look at Flint.
"So. Roger and John, I can talk about some. I'll spurt at you inna minute. Plus, Quentin Speaker for the Dead, he told John's story at Moot once. I'll email you about that. And… John… The other person you wanna talk to him about is Rina. Because they was in love, like, Romeo and Juliet love, like, Bonnie and Clyde love. Fucked up, stupid, intense. Her and Kavi have made her a lot less insane about it, but she may still be kinda whacked about him, I dunno. But you'll also get good info out of her. So. It's worth the being careful, t'talk t'her."
[OOC] Kaz: And by email, I mean, send you a log link, by which I mean, http://www.lionking.org/~black/2003/Sept_Moot_July_2003.html, which has the solid details Kaz probably won't bother with, like his real name, and stuff.
Flint nods slowly, sketching over a line drawing of cockroach (not the glyph, but just a line drawing) over and over again with the pencil-tip, without even looking at it as he listens. "Yeah. Just, I want to know more, for figuring the proposing the memorial to Mouse-rhya and Kavi-rhya. And then we'll see if they let me actually build it, afterward, but." He shrugs, settling to watch Kaz, truly listening. "Right," he adds, acknowledgement of the 'worth the being careful'.
Kaz snorts. "They better, 'cause, why the fuck send you all around Robin Hood's barn, and then bury the damn model in some archive or power point presentation? But, I'm just me, and I just got opinions." She munches a rangoon. "OK! So. You know about how people deal with metis in the general Garou nation, right?"
The cub makes a little bit of a face, complete with the distant expression that suggests that his ancestors are adding something to whatever Kaz said. And what they're adding isn't something he terribly likes. "Yeah, kinda have a bit of an idea," he says. 'Kaz-rhya is talking you sha now would you please,' the cub adds to himself.
Kaz watches him, carefully. And then she suddenly sticks her tongue out. "Sorry, sorry," she mutters. "I'll behave. But it looks like y'gettin' an earful from your internal chorus, there, and they ain't in charge n'more." She shakes her head. "Anyway. So Roger was born in Georgia. Dude lived the life of a metis, which is to say, derided, stuck in Crinos and unable to change out of it, til his first change. Even you guys, you Walkers, you're nicer to metises, but we're still… not entirely equal. So that colored his life. And, also, the thing is, his metis deformity? Most metis deformities are physical, like Mouse'n me. But his? His was of the mind."
She taps two fingers to her temple. "Part of it… this is gonna sound weird, but he was a fuckin' genius, whipcord smart, and he played with shit. Explored it. Invented stuff out of other stuff. He was always doin' that. But the thing is… He was a fuckin' genius, but his brain was too open, or something. He hallucinated shit, all the time, and there was times he couldn't tell what was real from what wasn't. I imagine that got easier over time, but given that? He must've been a fucking terror when he was a kid." She shakes her head. "Anyway, so I think he pissed one too many people off in Georgia, so he came here, and started pissing people off. When he came, the tribe was on an upswing, but he was kinda marginalized anyway, because he was batshit. So then people left or died, like they do, so f'awhile he was like, the only Walker here. And then John came, and things started growing again. And the thing with John is, he recognized what Roger could do. (That was part've John's fucked up charm, which I'll get to in a bit.) So the Walkers, in their renaissance, they got a safehouse, and John, he got Roger the basement, where Roger could fiddle to his heart's content. Most of the shit he built didn't work, or worked wrong, or worked too well, but sometimes, he got it just right. Mad scientist par excellance, that was Roger.
"Which," Kaz says, with a fond grin, "Is how he died. Dancers attacked—this was back in 2001, when the Caern got taken over f'awhile. So then Dancers attacked the safehouse. Invaded it. We all escaped, but Roger? He blew it up around them, once we all got out. He was almost dead anyways, 'cause he got fucked up in the initial attack, so… He went with it. Top of the world, ma!" She shakes her head. "Stupidest damn thing, but the best fucking way to die he coulda had."
Flint listens quietly, only a quirk of an eyebrow every so often, and the pencil occasionally scratches a few notes before tracing over the line drawing of the cockroach again. Brows occasional furrow as well, but the galliard cub listens very attentively. And if the small chorus of ancestors has anything else to say during this story, Flint's not showing it.
"He made me pretty nervous," Kaz says, forthrightly. "Because he was fuckin' unpredictable. But when he was right, he was right." She sighs, and rummages in her pocket. "So. John. Walks Thin Ice. Icewalker. John Smith." This last is said with a wealth of wry fondness. "Bullshit, John Smith indeed. John was… well, John was pure Grade A asshole, but he had reason. He was created by his environment. His actual name was Russell Stevenson, and he was born in Seattle, but I never knew either of those facts when he was alive. Seattle now, it's gone, for us, destroyed. It's a Pit, it's got Black Spiral Dancers and vampires all over it. But when he was born, when he grew up, it was, nominally, a Gaian Caern. But it was rapidly falling. And him, he was the victim of that. Politics and depredation wounded him, politics and the Wyrm's touch on Gaian Garou forced him into hiding, politics and the Wyrm's touch forced him into hiding and into bitterness. So when Seattle finally fell to the Wyrm, he fled. As far as I know, he didn't have any purpose in mind, he just fled, ran. Until this cub firsted, right in front of him."
Now Kaz's smile is fond, and she's clearly in memories. "Sophie. She was this lil' kid, theurge. She ain't here no more, she left b'fore the Caern fell, after she got Rited, but… Well, she firsted there, and he didn't know what the fuck to do, he was all Mr. Bitter Loner, and he couldn't cope with a cub. Innocent wee girl? Pfft. No, he was the Wrong Person for her." (Kaz seems amused by these qualms.) "Plus, he was ahroun, and she was theurge." (This seems to strike her as a more practical objection.) "So he found the nearest Sept. Which… was here. He came here lookin' f'someplace she could stay. He was gonna just leave her with the Walkers, but every damn time he tried, she'd look all sad at him, and he'd make an excuse t'stay. Because, well, they was like father and daughter, only he wasn't gonna admit that. Him, he was all hepped up on the "I don't need anyone and no one should rely on me" thing. And knowing what I know now of his history, he had real good reason. But every time he said it, back then, he'd get you almost believing it… and then he'd go home and tuck Sophie in and kiss her g'night. So. He had potential. And the Walk, it has a way of taking potential and working with it. So."
Kaz finds her Coke, and pops it open. "Dude really was an asshole, though. Manipulative, stubborn, determined to get shit done no matter what. That was the thing. Ahroun or no, his deal wasn't a search for Glory. His name fit. Icewalker. He was always thinkin', always calculatin' ways t'do shit better. He first came when we was just about t'start tryin' t'deal with the sewers, which was all kinds of fucked up Wyrm back then, an' lemme tell you, that was no picnic. But I mean, he made it easier, because he was willing and able to take advantage of th' talents of people like Roger, who, well, most of us kinda left him alone because he was batshit. John? Hell no, he put him to work. It didn't matter if the person was fucked up or insane or a metis or had committed a crime, whatever, he was gonna work to reclaim shit, be it places or people, and use 'em right."
She shrugs. "It was a cold kinda caring, but it was also really fuckin' effective. I told him, within a week of him getting here, that he'd be Elder and soon. He swore he wouldn't be. Shows what he knew. Like I said, before he came, the Walkers were in a fucked up time. He took them, and he took the streets, and he whipped them both into shape." She refocuses on Flint. "You wanna know when it was I started trusting him? It's like, prototypical of how things got weird around him."
"Yes," Flint answers, having dropped the pencil and the fidgeting entirely now that he's listening. There is an affirmative nod as well, when the cub focuses his gaze in turn on Kaz.
The metis nods, and goes on, "Rank was kind of a foreign concept, f'him, at times. Because he was brought up wrong, and because he had no trust that any authority figure would do right by their authority. And I mean. He had good reason f'that." She looks down at her Coke, briefly troubled. But then she takes a swig, and looks up. "So. I was like. 28. I'd just made Fostern, the night before. Me, the original fuckup metis with an attitude problem. Speaking as we are of people who have benefitted from the Walk…" Kaz trails off, and grins. "Anyway, so I'd had to organize th' Kin t'do stuff, they threw a big charity ball, it had come to fruition, life was grand, and th' bossman I'd challenged had yuffed me right then and there. I was on top of the world. Hadn't slept the whole night, just wandered around with a goofy grin on my face. So Icewalker came into th' Park t'say howdee do, an' called me rhya. That was grand—no one'd called me that yet. And then… we got into a discussion of what should be happenin' in the City. He pushed too hard, because that was who he was. He just was not able to take no for an answer when duty told him otherwise. So he pushed. Frankly, I forget what the fuck he said, but the specifics don't matter. He made me scared f'm'pack. I tol' him that if he touched m'pack, he'd burn—an' I showed him." She breaks off, looking at the cub directly. "Anyone used Mindspeak on you yet?"
Flint furrows his brows for a long moment and then shakes his head. "Been explained but no," the cub states, nodding very slightly and scooting a little closer over towards the Bone Gnawer, out of the corner of the couch that the boy tends to sit into.
Immediately, Kaz catches his eye, and there's the sharp scent of fire, in his mind. And then, a conflagration, vivid and intense, the image of fire, burning the library itself. Then Kaz dampens the image, lowers it, de-intensifies it. ~Mindspeak,~ she says in his mind, with her Crinos voice, and then breaks the connection. "You see?"
Flint startles, sitting up all the way and just staring at the other galliard for a minute. Hand comes up to rub at his forehead. "Weird when you talked," he explains nose wrinkling, though not at all in distaste, just in thought. "Then again I'm kinda used to hearing voices."
"Yeah," acknowledges Kaz. "Anyway." She pauses, and smiles, slightly. "John. Yes. Well." Her smile twitches, grows larger. "He didn't like that." This is, from her tone, clearly a bit of an understatement. "I put the spark in his mind, and boom, space of an instant, he's pulled a knife on me an' he's got it on my throat." A pause. "Silver knife, in fact. He really didn't like people fucking with his mind. At all. Because like I said. He had been fucked with plenty, back in Seattle. His Elders did it, the fuckers that invaded that Caern and made him one of its last survivors, they fucked with him— and he wasn't gonna let anyone do it again. Ever." She takes a breath.
"He tol' me so, that mornin', in a tone of voice that just cut t'my heart." She shakes her head. "So he's got this knife on me, this silver on me, he's got all the power… An' me, at his mercy, I'm startin' t'feel sympathetic toward him, like I wanna have his back… we was already helpin' each other, but him pullin' a knife on me made me want to take over the place with him." She smiles down at her Coke. "Fuckin' stupidest contradiction… But you know. You could argue we did. Because soon after that, I was Elder of the Gnawers, he was already Walker Elder, and we was one big cooperation society." She takes a swig. "But that was him all over. Lone wolf that bonded a tribe together. Dude who said he couldn't trust, drawing trust out of the most unlikely people. Dude who'd never had love, learning how to do it in the most fucked up of ways." She sighs. "And I miss him. He died, more'n 10 years ago now, on a rank challenge I sent him on. But he's remembered. And I just hope he's having a better time of it, this life. He better fucking be."
Flint nods very slightly as he listens, and the small smile that happens upon the boy's face is wistful when he does pick up the notebook again, turning back a page and adding a carefully thought out sketch of a claw glyph for growth and then for trust, here and there on the sketch of the actual memorial, though he frowns at the glyphs and erases them, redrawing several times until he's actually satisfied. Another, longer nod, although still silent, follows, before the cub reaches over for his own heretofore unopened soda. "Gaia watch," he murmurs, almost instinctively.
Kaz's smile rises, and she raises her Coke in salute. "Fuckin' amen," she says, and downs the thing in one long pull. "So anyways," she says, wiping her mouth. "That sufficient for you?"
"Yeah, thanks Kaz-rhya," Flint responds, turning the sketchbook so that she can see the sketch, as well, before he takes a few sips of his soda. The shapes are organic, almost abstract except where they're obviously drawn from not only the city but city being something that's all the cub's ever known, for the most part, decorated in large part with the glyphs for tribe and totem, glory and honor, and clouded circles hilighting the slightly raised areas which are individual rather than parts of the whole piece. There's a half-nervous smile on his face, too. "Out of wood," he explains. "Reclaimed wood and metal an' other materials from the city, and some wood from the bawn, and then, it goes on the wall behind the computers, where it can grow when the time comes, too."
Kaz looks at it; she clearly looks at it assessingly for a moment, and then, as the lines on her face become less drawn together, she simply falls into the art. A few moments later, she looks over to him, angling a grin his way. "Yep," is her decision. "You's a Galliard."
Flint takes the sketchbook back, a little tiny bit possessively as he glances down at it, tucking the pencil into the pocket of his jacket. "And I think walking around and being out today, helped me get the idea of where it was all going," the boy says, half excited chatter more than anything else as he leans back into the couch again. "Plus, I went and talked to Ishmael-rhya and made sure that he thought it was doable, so that when I go and explain the proposal, I know it's doable."
"Oh, yeah?" Kaz edges back on her perch. "And Ish thought it would work? Cool. You're sensible, kid, I like that. I mean, with the usin' the resources you got."
Flint nods several times in a row. Definitely excited chatter mode, or maybe it's just the caffeine from the soda as well. "He did," the cub confirms, with a very faint bit of confidence in himself that's something that had been … less than present even a few weeks before. "So, now all I need to do is finish—and maybe get Kavi-rhya to help me with the computers more—the database, and then. Go talk to Mouse-rhya and Kavi-rhya with the proposal." Pause. "Right?" The question is asked very quietly.
Kaz thinks about this. Of course, Kaz knows much less about it than Flint. But Kaz has given her imprimatur on much less direct evidence. And really, what she's judging is not at all the actual plan. After she watches him a moment, she nods. "Yeah. Def'nitely right, kid."
6 March, 2011
The moon is in the waxing Full (Ahroun) Moon phase (93% full).
Kaz stopped by the tenement to bail Flint out of his durance vile, taking him to Yin Ten Chop Suey via a) her favorite museum (the Science Museum!) and b) her favorite place to dumpster dive (one of the restaurants uptown throws away all of its pre-prepared plates, every night). She seems to think that the lack of badgering and the Different Stimuli will be a good thing, not a bad thing. Probably, she's wrong, but there you go. Now, after getting some remarkably good dumplings and suan la chow chow, she's stopped off at the old library, explaining, "I been sleeping here more often than not. Lefty's really done it up right."
Badgering might have helped Flint some in any case, but the boy's brought a sketchbook with him as they go out, and seemed to have a damnably good time of himself. The cub grins at Kaz as they get to the library, eyes going just a little bit wide as they get closer. "Whoa. Pretty nice, yeah." Another moment of turning the page, though the boy hasn't been quite forthcoming about what the pages and pages of various cityscape and organic form sketches are actually for. Then he looks up again, hugs the sketchbook back to his chest like it has been when not in use. "Hey, that stories I was asking you about earlier," he prompts the elder galliard, slightly nervously.
Kaz ambles over to the couches and plops the Chinese bags onto one of the cushions, perching on the arm of the couch, herself. "Yeah. Which ones, anyways? You was like, "I have to speak to you" and then you didn't specify about who all."
"Oh, I didn't?" Whoops. Flint looks properly sheepish. "Sorry, been so much trying to all at once," the cub says as he curls into one corner of the couch, balancing the sketchbook on his lap and turning back to a page that's full of writing and biting the pencil between his lips as he looks down at the page, then spitting the pencil back into his hand. "Some of the stories at the burial mounds are… less than very much, or I just didn't get very much, and." The boy still doesn't say who, of course.
Kaz starts unpacking the bags. And Flint's statements. "Yeah, they ain't the most thorough things on earth. Just enough t', y'know, get a taste of a person. So who in specific you lookin'a get the skinny on?"
Flint nods, tracing his finger along the list on the page in front of him. "Couple people," he says, pulling the page from the book and handing it over to her, which is the list of names copied down, some of them noted in very careful, very neatly drawn glyphs as well. "Any of them really. 's for what Mouse-rhya and Kavi-rhya set me to do," he half-explains.
[OOC] Flint: List, any of the ones Kaz wants to talk about or not. Roger Howls-While-Dreaming, John Walks-Thin-Ice, Remy, Elanora Skip-Tracer, Timothy Heart of the Hunter.
Kaz peers at the doodles. "You must get bored easy," she diagnoses, and then asks, "What was the official thing they set you to doing? Stories, or something else? I just ask," she says, almost shyly, "Because context is useful."
"I was sitting out there a while," Flint says of the doodles, before he nods, looking over at Kaz, and then flipping the page to just show her another page of sketch, one that looks rather well like the breakroom up at the tenement, but with some sort of art installation on the wall behind the computers, with a cityscape behind it. It's not the most detailed sketch, lacking the details that have filled the sketchbook over the past two days. "Figuring out a memorial, for the tenement, because Mouse-rhya said that with the wasps we will be losing access to the burial mounds. So." It's not an entire explanation, but it's a start. "It's for my rite of passage," the cub adds, as though that weren't obvious enough.
She leaaans over to look at the sketch, and mutters, "Huh," as she studies it. Bringing herself back upright, she says, "Yeah, gotcha. So you want the stories sort of as a… mental framework to build the memorial on. OK." Kaz gets out some of the crab rangoons, and gestures with one as she talks. "I never met Elanora. I think she got et by a bane or something. Timothy, I only ran into once or twice. He was this guy, born in Asia, had fuckin' rich parents, Ahroun. Cared deeply about the tribe, died attackin' the Gorge Gut Hive. Died damn well, as I recall." Kaz stops talking to look at Flint.
"So. Roger and John, I can talk about some. I'll spurt at you inna minute. Plus, Quentin Speaker for the Dead, he told John's story at Moot once. I'll email you about that. And… John… The other person you wanna talk to him about is Rina. Because they was in love, like, Romeo and Juliet love, like, Bonnie and Clyde love. Fucked up, stupid, intense. Her and Kavi have made her a lot less insane about it, but she may still be kinda whacked about him, I dunno. But you'll also get good info out of her. So. It's worth the being careful, t'talk t'her."
[OOC] Kaz: And by email, I mean, send you a log link, by which I mean, http://www.lionking.org/~black/2003/Sept_Moot_July_2003.html, which has the solid details Kaz probably won't bother with, like his real name, and stuff.
Flint nods slowly, sketching over a line drawing of cockroach (not the glyph, but just a line drawing) over and over again with the pencil-tip, without even looking at it as he listens. "Yeah. Just, I want to know more, for figuring the proposing the memorial to Mouse-rhya and Kavi-rhya. And then we'll see if they let me actually build it, afterward, but." He shrugs, settling to watch Kaz, truly listening. "Right," he adds, acknowledgement of the 'worth the being careful'.
Kaz snorts. "They better, 'cause, why the fuck send you all around Robin Hood's barn, and then bury the damn model in some archive or power point presentation? But, I'm just me, and I just got opinions." She munches a rangoon. "OK! So. You know about how people deal with metis in the general Garou nation, right?"
The cub makes a little bit of a face, complete with the distant expression that suggests that his ancestors are adding something to whatever Kaz said. And what they're adding isn't something he terribly likes. "Yeah, kinda have a bit of an idea," he says. 'Kaz-rhya is talking you sha now would you please,' the cub adds to himself.
Kaz watches him, carefully. And then she suddenly sticks her tongue out. "Sorry, sorry," she mutters. "I'll behave. But it looks like y'gettin' an earful from your internal chorus, there, and they ain't in charge n'more." She shakes her head. "Anyway. So Roger was born in Georgia. Dude lived the life of a metis, which is to say, derided, stuck in Crinos and unable to change out of it, til his first change. Even you guys, you Walkers, you're nicer to metises, but we're still… not entirely equal. So that colored his life. And, also, the thing is, his metis deformity? Most metis deformities are physical, like Mouse'n me. But his? His was of the mind."
She taps two fingers to her temple. "Part of it… this is gonna sound weird, but he was a fuckin' genius, whipcord smart, and he played with shit. Explored it. Invented stuff out of other stuff. He was always doin' that. But the thing is… He was a fuckin' genius, but his brain was too open, or something. He hallucinated shit, all the time, and there was times he couldn't tell what was real from what wasn't. I imagine that got easier over time, but given that? He must've been a fucking terror when he was a kid." She shakes her head. "Anyway, so I think he pissed one too many people off in Georgia, so he came here, and started pissing people off. When he came, the tribe was on an upswing, but he was kinda marginalized anyway, because he was batshit. So then people left or died, like they do, so f'awhile he was like, the only Walker here. And then John came, and things started growing again. And the thing with John is, he recognized what Roger could do. (That was part've John's fucked up charm, which I'll get to in a bit.) So the Walkers, in their renaissance, they got a safehouse, and John, he got Roger the basement, where Roger could fiddle to his heart's content. Most of the shit he built didn't work, or worked wrong, or worked too well, but sometimes, he got it just right. Mad scientist par excellance, that was Roger.
"Which," Kaz says, with a fond grin, "Is how he died. Dancers attacked—this was back in 2001, when the Caern got taken over f'awhile. So then Dancers attacked the safehouse. Invaded it. We all escaped, but Roger? He blew it up around them, once we all got out. He was almost dead anyways, 'cause he got fucked up in the initial attack, so… He went with it. Top of the world, ma!" She shakes her head. "Stupidest damn thing, but the best fucking way to die he coulda had."
Flint listens quietly, only a quirk of an eyebrow every so often, and the pencil occasionally scratches a few notes before tracing over the line drawing of the cockroach again. Brows occasional furrow as well, but the galliard cub listens very attentively. And if the small chorus of ancestors has anything else to say during this story, Flint's not showing it.
"He made me pretty nervous," Kaz says, forthrightly. "Because he was fuckin' unpredictable. But when he was right, he was right." She sighs, and rummages in her pocket. "So. John. Walks Thin Ice. Icewalker. John Smith." This last is said with a wealth of wry fondness. "Bullshit, John Smith indeed. John was… well, John was pure Grade A asshole, but he had reason. He was created by his environment. His actual name was Russell Stevenson, and he was born in Seattle, but I never knew either of those facts when he was alive. Seattle now, it's gone, for us, destroyed. It's a Pit, it's got Black Spiral Dancers and vampires all over it. But when he was born, when he grew up, it was, nominally, a Gaian Caern. But it was rapidly falling. And him, he was the victim of that. Politics and depredation wounded him, politics and the Wyrm's touch on Gaian Garou forced him into hiding, politics and the Wyrm's touch forced him into hiding and into bitterness. So when Seattle finally fell to the Wyrm, he fled. As far as I know, he didn't have any purpose in mind, he just fled, ran. Until this cub firsted, right in front of him."
Now Kaz's smile is fond, and she's clearly in memories. "Sophie. She was this lil' kid, theurge. She ain't here no more, she left b'fore the Caern fell, after she got Rited, but… Well, she firsted there, and he didn't know what the fuck to do, he was all Mr. Bitter Loner, and he couldn't cope with a cub. Innocent wee girl? Pfft. No, he was the Wrong Person for her." (Kaz seems amused by these qualms.) "Plus, he was ahroun, and she was theurge." (This seems to strike her as a more practical objection.) "So he found the nearest Sept. Which… was here. He came here lookin' f'someplace she could stay. He was gonna just leave her with the Walkers, but every damn time he tried, she'd look all sad at him, and he'd make an excuse t'stay. Because, well, they was like father and daughter, only he wasn't gonna admit that. Him, he was all hepped up on the "I don't need anyone and no one should rely on me" thing. And knowing what I know now of his history, he had real good reason. But every time he said it, back then, he'd get you almost believing it… and then he'd go home and tuck Sophie in and kiss her g'night. So. He had potential. And the Walk, it has a way of taking potential and working with it. So."
Kaz finds her Coke, and pops it open. "Dude really was an asshole, though. Manipulative, stubborn, determined to get shit done no matter what. That was the thing. Ahroun or no, his deal wasn't a search for Glory. His name fit. Icewalker. He was always thinkin', always calculatin' ways t'do shit better. He first came when we was just about t'start tryin' t'deal with the sewers, which was all kinds of fucked up Wyrm back then, an' lemme tell you, that was no picnic. But I mean, he made it easier, because he was willing and able to take advantage of th' talents of people like Roger, who, well, most of us kinda left him alone because he was batshit. John? Hell no, he put him to work. It didn't matter if the person was fucked up or insane or a metis or had committed a crime, whatever, he was gonna work to reclaim shit, be it places or people, and use 'em right."
She shrugs. "It was a cold kinda caring, but it was also really fuckin' effective. I told him, within a week of him getting here, that he'd be Elder and soon. He swore he wouldn't be. Shows what he knew. Like I said, before he came, the Walkers were in a fucked up time. He took them, and he took the streets, and he whipped them both into shape." She refocuses on Flint. "You wanna know when it was I started trusting him? It's like, prototypical of how things got weird around him."
"Yes," Flint answers, having dropped the pencil and the fidgeting entirely now that he's listening. There is an affirmative nod as well, when the cub focuses his gaze in turn on Kaz.
The metis nods, and goes on, "Rank was kind of a foreign concept, f'him, at times. Because he was brought up wrong, and because he had no trust that any authority figure would do right by their authority. And I mean. He had good reason f'that." She looks down at her Coke, briefly troubled. But then she takes a swig, and looks up. "So. I was like. 28. I'd just made Fostern, the night before. Me, the original fuckup metis with an attitude problem. Speaking as we are of people who have benefitted from the Walk…" Kaz trails off, and grins. "Anyway, so I'd had to organize th' Kin t'do stuff, they threw a big charity ball, it had come to fruition, life was grand, and th' bossman I'd challenged had yuffed me right then and there. I was on top of the world. Hadn't slept the whole night, just wandered around with a goofy grin on my face. So Icewalker came into th' Park t'say howdee do, an' called me rhya. That was grand—no one'd called me that yet. And then… we got into a discussion of what should be happenin' in the City. He pushed too hard, because that was who he was. He just was not able to take no for an answer when duty told him otherwise. So he pushed. Frankly, I forget what the fuck he said, but the specifics don't matter. He made me scared f'm'pack. I tol' him that if he touched m'pack, he'd burn—an' I showed him." She breaks off, looking at the cub directly. "Anyone used Mindspeak on you yet?"
Flint furrows his brows for a long moment and then shakes his head. "Been explained but no," the cub states, nodding very slightly and scooting a little closer over towards the Bone Gnawer, out of the corner of the couch that the boy tends to sit into.
Immediately, Kaz catches his eye, and there's the sharp scent of fire, in his mind. And then, a conflagration, vivid and intense, the image of fire, burning the library itself. Then Kaz dampens the image, lowers it, de-intensifies it. ~Mindspeak,~ she says in his mind, with her Crinos voice, and then breaks the connection. "You see?"
Flint startles, sitting up all the way and just staring at the other galliard for a minute. Hand comes up to rub at his forehead. "Weird when you talked," he explains nose wrinkling, though not at all in distaste, just in thought. "Then again I'm kinda used to hearing voices."
"Yeah," acknowledges Kaz. "Anyway." She pauses, and smiles, slightly. "John. Yes. Well." Her smile twitches, grows larger. "He didn't like that." This is, from her tone, clearly a bit of an understatement. "I put the spark in his mind, and boom, space of an instant, he's pulled a knife on me an' he's got it on my throat." A pause. "Silver knife, in fact. He really didn't like people fucking with his mind. At all. Because like I said. He had been fucked with plenty, back in Seattle. His Elders did it, the fuckers that invaded that Caern and made him one of its last survivors, they fucked with him— and he wasn't gonna let anyone do it again. Ever." She takes a breath.
"He tol' me so, that mornin', in a tone of voice that just cut t'my heart." She shakes her head. "So he's got this knife on me, this silver on me, he's got all the power… An' me, at his mercy, I'm startin' t'feel sympathetic toward him, like I wanna have his back… we was already helpin' each other, but him pullin' a knife on me made me want to take over the place with him." She smiles down at her Coke. "Fuckin' stupidest contradiction… But you know. You could argue we did. Because soon after that, I was Elder of the Gnawers, he was already Walker Elder, and we was one big cooperation society." She takes a swig. "But that was him all over. Lone wolf that bonded a tribe together. Dude who said he couldn't trust, drawing trust out of the most unlikely people. Dude who'd never had love, learning how to do it in the most fucked up of ways." She sighs. "And I miss him. He died, more'n 10 years ago now, on a rank challenge I sent him on. But he's remembered. And I just hope he's having a better time of it, this life. He better fucking be."
Flint nods very slightly as he listens, and the small smile that happens upon the boy's face is wistful when he does pick up the notebook again, turning back a page and adding a carefully thought out sketch of a claw glyph for growth and then for trust, here and there on the sketch of the actual memorial, though he frowns at the glyphs and erases them, redrawing several times until he's actually satisfied. Another, longer nod, although still silent, follows, before the cub reaches over for his own heretofore unopened soda. "Gaia watch," he murmurs, almost instinctively.
Kaz's smile rises, and she raises her Coke in salute. "Fuckin' amen," she says, and downs the thing in one long pull. "So anyways," she says, wiping her mouth. "That sufficient for you?"
"Yeah, thanks Kaz-rhya," Flint responds, turning the sketchbook so that she can see the sketch, as well, before he takes a few sips of his soda. The shapes are organic, almost abstract except where they're obviously drawn from not only the city but city being something that's all the cub's ever known, for the most part, decorated in large part with the glyphs for tribe and totem, glory and honor, and clouded circles hilighting the slightly raised areas which are individual rather than parts of the whole piece. There's a half-nervous smile on his face, too. "Out of wood," he explains. "Reclaimed wood and metal an' other materials from the city, and some wood from the bawn, and then, it goes on the wall behind the computers, where it can grow when the time comes, too."
Kaz looks at it; she clearly looks at it assessingly for a moment, and then, as the lines on her face become less drawn together, she simply falls into the art. A few moments later, she looks over to him, angling a grin his way. "Yep," is her decision. "You's a Galliard."
Flint takes the sketchbook back, a little tiny bit possessively as he glances down at it, tucking the pencil into the pocket of his jacket. "And I think walking around and being out today, helped me get the idea of where it was all going," the boy says, half excited chatter more than anything else as he leans back into the couch again. "Plus, I went and talked to Ishmael-rhya and made sure that he thought it was doable, so that when I go and explain the proposal, I know it's doable."
"Oh, yeah?" Kaz edges back on her perch. "And Ish thought it would work? Cool. You're sensible, kid, I like that. I mean, with the usin' the resources you got."
Flint nods several times in a row. Definitely excited chatter mode, or maybe it's just the caffeine from the soda as well. "He did," the cub confirms, with a very faint bit of confidence in himself that's something that had been … less than present even a few weeks before. "So, now all I need to do is finish—and maybe get Kavi-rhya to help me with the computers more—the database, and then. Go talk to Mouse-rhya and Kavi-rhya with the proposal." Pause. "Right?" The question is asked very quietly.
Kaz thinks about this. Of course, Kaz knows much less about it than Flint. But Kaz has given her imprimatur on much less direct evidence. And really, what she's judging is not at all the actual plan. After she watches him a moment, she nods. "Yeah. Def'nitely right, kid."