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Flint Madden ([personal profile] flint_garou) wrote2012-01-16 03:00 pm
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More dreams.

And more people.
16 January, 2012
The moon is in the waning Half (Philodox) Moon phase (46% full).


Jack's been a rare sight as of late - guard duty, patrol duty, and then god knows what. Right now, however, he's parked on the couch, half-empty beer on the table (it's 3 PM? 5 PM somewhere…), a cigarette's lit, and he's reading something or another on a laptop.

Another cigarette is lit and smoldering, this one in the hands of a stocky homeless-looking woman on the front stoop. She hits the buzzer and looks right up at the camera, smiling crookedly as she does.

From the stairs enter the mismatched duo of Kevin and Flint, the ragabash leading the galliard. "Ahoy, Jack," quoth the first of those two. "Is it all right if —" What he's about to ask is interrupted by the sound of the door buzzer.

Jack looks back at Kevin, a brow quirking up. And then, the door buzzes. He grunts, "Sec," at Kevin, puts the laptop aside, hefts himself up, and limps to the door. Camille is offered, "Yo," and gestured inside, while he looks back towards Kevin. "A'ight if what?"

Flint looks up at Kevin a moment, a sidewards glance given first to the door buzzer and then to Jack after the cub's closed the door to the stairwell behind him. Thumbs are stuck loosely in his pockets, and for now, the boy seems to have gotten a lot more close-lipped than he was on the way downstairs, a nod of greeting given.

"Yo," the Gnawer replies to Jack as she heads in, giving Kevin a little nod as well as she comes into the little sitting area. She taps her cigarette into the ashtray on the table, grunting faintly, before peering at Flint. "New kid, huh?" That seems more directed at the older Garou.

"Was going to say, is it okay if I show Flint the basics of the security routines," Kevin says, rather hesitantly. It's plain that his wish to teach the cub this particular lesson has evaporated due to the presence of a garou from another tribe. To whom he replies, "Yes, he is," and beckons Flint forward to introduce himself.

"Fine with me," Jack says, reclaiming his spot on the couch with a grunt, though he shoves the laptop closed. The glance he asides to Camille suggests he hasn't forgotten her presence, but he angles a look toward Flint for his introduction.

Flint looks up, a half quirked expression on his face, looking up from where his gaze had been settled on his feet during the conversation. "Flint. Takes-It-All-In-Stride, Galliard cub," the boy says, quiet but otherwise relatively certain of himself. "Glass Walkers."

The Gnawer continues to suck on her cigarette but remains standing for now, squinting at the cub as he speaks. She nods approvingly enough and does her own introduction. "Camille Booker, called Cold As Ice, or Judge Dredd, or Eight Mile, or another ton of names over the years. Adren Philodox of the Gnawers, y'see. Nice ta meet ya, kid."

Kevin suppresses a smile at the name 'Judge Dredd'. "So what brings you to our humble abode today, Camille-yuf?" he asks formally but not in an unfriendly tone.

"Jack Moore, Fallout. Adren. Philodox, Walkers. Welcome aboard, kid." That's all given from around the cigarette, and he looks Camille-wards, too. "Yea, 'sup?"

"Nice t'meet you both," Flint says quietly, another nod ducked to both before his gaze falls on his feet again. There's some fidgeting from the cub, but it's mostly in the very soft humming that can be heard now that he's quiet. A pretty melody, but fidgeting nonetheless.

"Whelp," the Gnawer says after winking at Kevin, "since I wuz over in Oregon this past weekend, judgin' a little somethin', I was hoping someone could fill me in on the happenin's that wuz at the caern and all. Seems ta me that things 're excitin' an' all."

Kevin raises an eyebrow as it becomes apparent that Flint and Jack have not previously met, but raises it still further when Camille makes that request. "So… what was the last you heard?" he extemporises to Camille. "Were you here for the winter solstice rite?"

Flint quiets when talking actually begins again, fingers moving instead to drum on one pantleg. But a slight tilt of the head and attentiveness in posture does indicate that the boy's listening, regardless of his silence.

"I wuz just gone fer the weekend, Kevin," the Gnawer says patiently. "I know they had a rite to open th' caern, I just wuzn't there. Like I said, this little tussel in Oregon and all. Needed a judge's attention." She taps the cigarette into the tray and eyes Kevin again—though she's giving Flint mildly curious sidelong looks.

"Ah. Well. I wasn't there either," Kevin prevaricates. "I was on duty here at the house that night…" He looks hopefully at Flint and Jack.

Flint shakes his head, a glance given to Kevin. "I heard Mouse-rhya talking about something about it, last night," the boy says, "but I was mostly asleep and going straight up to bed, so."

"Right. Then I'll try and catch Mouse at some point. The world didn't explode an' the Caern's still there." The Gnawer reaches up and rubs her chest, frowning slightly. "Whut dreams you guys been havin'?"

"Out on patrols," Jack says. "I ain't heard much about it. You heard anythin' about it?"

"All I heard was Mouse grunt at me," Kevin says. "As if she wasn't happy. I figured I'd ask her again sometime when she hadn't been up all night."

Flint falls quiet yet again, another shrug coming from the boy as he does so.

"Well, considerin' the way the dreams have been goin' lately, I ain't surprised." Camille's fingers remain pressed to her chest and she says, slowly, "I had a dream th' other night. Chimera wuz doin' some weird stuff in it an' I woke up with a scar."

"Only weird one I've had's been one with a ship. And a fountain." Jack takes a drag off the cigarette, and leans over to the ashtray to snuff it out. "Yea? What was that one about?"

"I had the ship one, too," Kevin remarks. "These dreams are all anyone in the sept seems to talk about any more. I wonder if they form a set, like baseball trading cards? And if we arranged the complete set in the right order, would they all suddenly make sense?"

The cub's brow furrows momentarily. "I had the ship dream," he says, pausing half a moment before continuing with a much longer train of thought. "And I… I remember Mouse-rhya talking about having a strange dream and waking up with a new scar. Um, just over a week ago?" Flint looks over at Camille as this is brought up. "I know that Tim was trying to put more of the pieces together, and I know that the dreams… there's some logic behind the different people who have the same dream, but." A shrug. "I don't have enough pieces of the puzzle to make sense of it, myself."

"Dunno. -That- is a question for th' theurges." Camille stabs out the last of her cigarette and grimaces. "She was talkin' to me, right? An' there was something about the end of a season and there was a mirror then -bam- it shattered and a piece hit me in th' chest. When I woke up? There was a scar." She grunts at Flint's info, her nose wrinkling. "So I weren't the only one having it. Not sure if that's good or bad."

"…huh," Jack muses, and then shrugs a shoulder. "Probably," he says, to Kevin. "Anyone have any more've those crossroads dreams? Sort've seems t'have started with those."

Kevin gives Camille a thoughtful look. "This scar? You still got it? Is it any particular shape or colour or… anything unusual? Unusual apart from it appearing on its ownsome overnight, I mean."

Flint looks over to Camille. "Mouse-rhya didn't seem particular inclined to talk about the dream other than asking anyone else had had a dream and woken up with a scar, too," the boy says, with a shrug.

"Bet she wasn't. She ain't a big one for talkin' in general." Grunting, Camille considers it. Then: "About the size of my palm, really, in the shape of th' piece of glass that hit me in the dream."

Jack leans over to pick up the abandoned beer on the table. "So. Any correlations b'tween who got th'scars and who didn't? Obviously it ain't tribe or auspice related."

"And the glass wasn't any particular shape?" Kevin presses on with his line of questioning to Camille. "Is yours the same shape as Mouse?" He spoils his would-be serious investigator air, by proceeding to snigger at his own unwitting double-entendre. "Scar, I mean," he adds, still grinning.

"Nor did Mouse-rhya say anything about the shape of the scar," Flint adds, "but, I'd guess that anyone who had that dream, probably woke up with a scar." A nod to Jack. "The question is, what the correlation is." The cub falls quiet again, brow furrowing as thinks.

"How would I know?" Camille asks Kevin, frowning. "I didn't even know other people had the dream I did." She taps her fingers against the table. "Me. Mouse. Anyone else?"

"None that I know of," the philo answers from the couch. "But, shit, could be half th'sept for all we know. Or just you two."

Kevin's smile fades. "Wouldn't be surprised, but I don't remember hearing of any," he says to Camille. "I suppose it's a galliard's job, really, to go around trying to find out and cross-reference all these weird dream sequences."

The cub looks up, after a moment. "I haven't heard, other, but. Mouse-rhya seemed damn sure that it was shared, to start with." A pause, and Flint looks over to Kevin. "There… seem to be two types of the shared dream thing, I think? Ones that multiple folks have," the boy says, "and ones where multiple people have it, and the other people who had it are in the dream."

"Dreams. Theurges. But really, sounds more like a buncha people should really just get together and start figurin' out who is having what. Lots of different tribes, too." Camille wrinkles her nose. "Judgin' is easier."

"Don't y'envy 'em?" Jack says, wryly, And then, to Flint: "Yea, that's sort've like th'crossroads thing. Ain't had one've those in a while, though."

"Some would say judging was too easy," Kevin remarks, in a voice which can't decide whether to be as loud as his normal speech, or a stage-whisper.

Flint turns to Jack, a moment. "'Crossroads thing'?" The question is asked, brow half-furrowed. "Before me," the cub says, by way of reasoning for asking.

"Usually they wuz the ones who wuzed judged sayin' that," Camille says conversationally to Kevin. Then she grunts at Jack. "I ain't had one of those types of dreams for months and months. I ended up in some forest full of brambles." She frowns. "Which….sounds like the bawn now."

Jack looks vaguely amused, though it barely shows. "—dreams. Bunch've us was havin'. Woke up tossed on some crossroads, with four paths. Each path had different shit goin' on. I had it twice. Apparently some people had it more'n that."

Kevin gives Camille a steady look, and then turns aside to regard Jack. "As I've said before," he comments, "we do have to remember that sometimes, a dream is just a dream. We must beware of reading too much into every snooze."

Flint looks to be sort of simply filing away the various information in the conversation, having fallen quiet but for that faint strain of hummed melody once again.

"No, those dreams were different. Ya really could tell when you were in onna them versus just the usual thing." Camille nods to Jack. "There wasn't a lotta rhyme or reason."

"If I did that," Jack says, dryly, while taking a pull off his beer, "I'd be hopin' to hell and back that some of my dreams had Deeper Meanin'." By the way he says it, one probably doesn't -want- to know what he's talking about. "And yea, all of 'em had some big change goin' on."

"There's nothing for it," Kevin says, with the air of a man who's come to a momentous decision with some reluctance. "I'm gonna have to start making the rounds of the whole damn sept, asking people about dreams, and getting them to keep dream diaries. And then collate them all and try and piece out anything meaningful from it all. That should keep me out of mischief for a while," he muses. "And give Flinty a break from me stabbing him too. Hmm. I wonder if Red Talons dream…"

"Yeah, lupus dream too," Camille says quietly. "We all do. We're all of Gaia."

"Dream've killing rabbits," Jack says, helpfully. But then, "—Ain't such a bad idea, but it's going t'be one that'll be time consuming as shit."

"I am not unaware of this," Kevin says a little grouchily to Jack. "But we don't know how much time we've got. And I can't think of any better things I can do which may help out in this crisis. I've been sitting fretting for days over it, as it so happens. I hate feeling helpless."

"It'd give you somethin' to do that would be rather important," Camille says calmly, agreeing with both of them, it appears.

Flint looks up, grinning a little at Kevin's words. "I don't need that much of a break," the boy says, half joking. "Otherwise, I'll get out of practise, and such. Though, truly collating dreams would be really nice to have all the pieces of the puzzle."

"Ain't arguin'," Jack says with a shrug of a shoulder. "Probably be good t'see where things're lining up."

"Right," Kevin says. "I'm doing this thing." He takes a deep breath, and lets it out again. "…how many garou are there in this sept?" he goes on to add, as if the question has never occurred to him before. "Two dozen? No… must be more… thirty, thirty-five?"

"There's a lotta Garou," Camille muses thoughtfully. "Five or six in my tribe alone, I think, from what I've been hearin'."

Flint just shrugs at Kevin's question, grinning ever so slightly and humming again.

"And there's what, 9? 10? of us?" Jack ponders this. "Far's I know, there's only three, maybe four Pure Ones. Few Fianna. There even any Shadow Lords left since Kenneth left? Few've everythin' else."

"There's a Strider or two, there always is." Kevin is counting on his fingers. "And we mustn't forget the Pure Ones, sorely though we may be tempted to wish we could… Touch Deer, Jacinta, Silvertip, Reggie of course… Likewise if we forget the Furies they'll bust our balls. And there's got to be half a dozen of them. Furies, I mean. Not balls."

"There's gotta be a coupla Fangs around to look down their noses at people. Dunno. Probably a few of each tribe, at least, except Stargazers." Camille shrugs slightly.

There's the rattle of keys in the lock of the front door.

Flint looks up at the sound, hands shoved half into his pockets again. "Seems like another list to keep track of," the boy says with a grin to Kevin. "Could be useful to know, possibly."

Jack snorts at Kevin at the last, amused, and turns his attention to the door, fishing out another cigarette as he watches.

Kevin has run out of fingers twice already, and still has several tribes to go. He lets Jack and Flint worry about who's at the door as he performs mental arithmetic, muttering under his breath.

Camille just leans forward, watching Kevin with an amused expression as she lights another cigarette.

The knob is turned and the door pushed inward, followed by Mouse looking—well, she doesn't look nearly so tired as she has been lately, though, once she sweeps off her sunglasses, there are still visible shadows beneath her unnatural eyes. "…Whoa. Party?"

Flint looks up from where he's standing half in the middle of the seating area, giving Mouse a faint grin when she enters, though it's mitigated by barely visible concern, as well. "Hi Mouse-rhya," he calls. "Um." A jerk of his head goes towards everyone else, and a shrug, as a matter of answer. "Talking of dreams."

"Yo, boss," Jack says from the couch, mumbled around a cigarette he has to flick a lighter three times for to light.

"Dreams." Camille takes a pull on her cigarette and blows out some smoke. "We shared a dream. Th' one with th' scar."

Kevin looks up to glance at Mouse, loses count, shrugs, and abandons his attempt. "Yes," he says. "Apparently so. And while you're here, could I ask you two to compare notes on your dreams, see to what extent they were identical? It'd also be interesting to compare the scars you received."

Flint looks up when Kevin's done speaking. "And when you had the dream," the boy adds, brows furrowed in thought again.

Mouse frowns at Camille, looking thoughtful, then looks toward Kevin. She nudges the door shut with the back of her shoe. "Ehm, if you like, though so far I think they've all been pretty much the same." She tucks her sunglasses away into an inner pocket of her coat—it's not her usual one, it's a black duster that looks rather new, if you ignore how it's been rather rumpled and ill used recently.

Jack adds, "Many others have 'em?"

"Kid, I ain't taking my shirt off for you." Camille studies Mouse back, tilting her head. "Others? Honestly, she'd likely be the best source for ya." She's checking a very cheap watch strapped to her wrist.

Kevin explains to Mouse. "With all these dreams people have been having, I figured it would be a good move for me to interview every garou in the sept, or as many as I can find anyway, make notes of their dreams, get them to keep dream diaries for the future… and cross reference everything, see if anything significant shows up."

Mouse gives Kevin a look, half amused and half interested. "Well, that couldn't hurt. And it'd save me being the Hidden Walk dream depository, because damn am I ever building up a collection. Anyway." She pushes away from the door, meanders to about the couches, and then abruptly slips through the forms until she hits lupus. Well, her version of lupus, which looks strange enough on a good day. The raised, jagged scar is quite visible on her chest, even with the fur.

Camille sighs heavily, nodding. "Looks exactly the same as mine." That stated, the Gnawer checks her watch one more time. "Right. Gotta go meet Shanise. I'll see you all later." The philodox heads for the door.

Flint drums fingers irregularly, but quietly, against the couch, gaze following the Elder until Camille speaks. A nod of parting is given, but the cub remains as quiet as he often is.

"Later," Jack says to the other philo, and then just looks at Mouse. "Huh. Weird. Yea, I ain't got nothin' like that. Wonder what caused it."

"Right," Kevin says firmly. "Flinty, you'd better get back upstairs. I'm going to start logging this dream database, and I suppose it'd better start now. And with us. Mind if I send an email round the internal network asking everyone to speak to me, Mouse?"

Flint grins at Kevin, hands shoved back into his pockets. "Yessir," he responds, the grin fading into a slightly quirked smile. "Seeya," the boy adds, ducking a nod to all three Garou before he makes his way for the stairs. Footsteps fade as the cub climbs back up to the fifth floor and things to do.

First-Strike licks her muzzle. She doesn't mind at all. It saves her a lot of talking.

"Okay then… Better get to work." With those words, Kevin turns to follow Flint upstairs.