Caging the Cannibal
Tuesday, 25 February 2014 23:00![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
littlesilvertipFirst thing first: No making sweeping life decisions while stoned. Maybe it was going to Maqi while doing that, but I got far higher than I expected to. I got so blasted out of my mind last night that I was saying all sorts of things to Unfinished-Business. I think I called her a yankee at one point, because her family was from the south. That doesn’t even make sense. I nearly ended up bawling my eyes out over her brother who got culled, and I didn’t even know the guy. I was tripping pretty hard. On the plus side, I was so mellow I got a decent enough night’s sleep.
I woke up, dry as the desert, and drank about as much water as I could. I finished sewing my parka before sunrise (the material from my sister’s collection helped finish two big pieces), then dedicated it. I made a pretty fast line for the city, using my gifts to help get there on time. The morning I spent rounding up other shapechangers to help, in case Rebecca decided to go out fighting. I got Fire-Dancer, Dives-Deep, and Dives-Deep got Song-of-Vengence, so we had a good amount of muscle lined up. Fire-Dancer and I worked out the plan in case things got to fighting, and then I went out looking for Rebecca.
When I found her, she was not far down the street from the Library. I found her with Questing Stone, looking for food in a dumpster for the Chinese. Importantly, she didn’t have her giant rat with her. She thought I looked way better (good news!), and I told her about getting a good night’s sleep, and finishing my parka. It as far, far too easy to be friendly with her, casually chatting about things. I found myself explaining where my blood’s from, but also about my adopted family, when I should have been getting her back to the library. But nope, there I was about 5 minutes later, showing off my finished parka. I felt incredibly guilty about what I was doing; I think she thought it was paranoia about getting caught by the police.
Eventually, I managed to pull myself together enough to get her over towards Library by telling her I suspected she was garou, and I was too, and I wanted to talk in a place where the veil wasn’t at risk. It worked pretty well. I’m glad she didn’t read too much into my nervousness.
All friendliness went out the window when she walked into the Library and saw all the garou there. She knew right from the get go something was up. I told her who I was (and who Emma was) so she’d realize that escape wasn’t much of an option, and told her I was hunting cannibals. I gave her a chance to come clean with everyone, but she played dumb. Bad-Boy showed up, but realized that things were… pretty tense. I gave Rebecca another chance. And then another. Finally, Rebecca said ‘thrall happens’ and blew me off, saying we should just ‘get this over with.’
That hurt. That hurt a lot. I have no idea why it hurt, but… I thought she was a better person than this. I mean, a cannibal, sure, but a better cannibal than that. I called bullshit on the thrall story, and started off with the list of people she’d eaten, and from where. The list of the who-what-when-wheres was enough to freak out all the rest of the garou. Becky snapped and confessed, but made it out like she was doing the right thing. I just kept going. Dives-Deep said the Gnawers might just kill her out-right. Becky got defiant. I shut up. I probably had another dozen I could have laid out.
We stripped her of her stuff, gave her new clothes, and stuck her in the Gnawer’s cage. Dives-Deep wanted her in the caern, but I told her that wasn’t an option at all. That’s for Jacinta and her to work out, I guess. Once she was locked up, I headed home.
I swung by the Farmhouse on the way back (Edgewood, whatever). I ran into a weird-talking Glass Walker. Striker. He was… kinda beefy. He has cool colour markings as a wolf - black and brown. And he was super tall; usually all the Glass Walkers are sticks, if they’re that tall. We did some introductions, I swapped the news with him - I didn’t learn anything at all from him, but I told him about today’s development, and the rough outline of where I’d been for the last however long. He headed off to tell the urrah about the day’s events.
I tried to roll my sister’s questions around in my head again while I was a little less stoned, and I didn’t come to any grand conclusions.
The basics are there, I guess: My role as a wolf shapechanger hasn’t changed any, and my girlfriend and I never got to having any children, so it’s not like I’m not a ’father’ anymore. I guess.
I definitely feel differently, but my instinct aren’t what’s freaking out about being female. It’s my head that’s freaking out. I keep feeling that I spend too much time thinking, like I’m falling into my ape-half’s trap. It’s pretty easy to get preoccupied with my own thoughts, though.
Should I be doing other things now? If I’m keeping the old ways, sure, I need to start changing how I make prayer, at a minimum. I was pretty blasé (and incoherent) about that last night, but now that I’m actually not high, I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Enough of that for now. I’m going to work on chores, study the mage mandala some more, and then try to get some early sleep. I can’t say I’m happy with how today turned out - Rebecca was bloody business - but there’s definitely some satisfaction in seeing the old ways lead me to one of my tribe’s old quarries.
I woke up, dry as the desert, and drank about as much water as I could. I finished sewing my parka before sunrise (the material from my sister’s collection helped finish two big pieces), then dedicated it. I made a pretty fast line for the city, using my gifts to help get there on time. The morning I spent rounding up other shapechangers to help, in case Rebecca decided to go out fighting. I got Fire-Dancer, Dives-Deep, and Dives-Deep got Song-of-Vengence, so we had a good amount of muscle lined up. Fire-Dancer and I worked out the plan in case things got to fighting, and then I went out looking for Rebecca.
When I found her, she was not far down the street from the Library. I found her with Questing Stone, looking for food in a dumpster for the Chinese. Importantly, she didn’t have her giant rat with her. She thought I looked way better (good news!), and I told her about getting a good night’s sleep, and finishing my parka. It as far, far too easy to be friendly with her, casually chatting about things. I found myself explaining where my blood’s from, but also about my adopted family, when I should have been getting her back to the library. But nope, there I was about 5 minutes later, showing off my finished parka. I felt incredibly guilty about what I was doing; I think she thought it was paranoia about getting caught by the police.
Eventually, I managed to pull myself together enough to get her over towards Library by telling her I suspected she was garou, and I was too, and I wanted to talk in a place where the veil wasn’t at risk. It worked pretty well. I’m glad she didn’t read too much into my nervousness.
All friendliness went out the window when she walked into the Library and saw all the garou there. She knew right from the get go something was up. I told her who I was (and who Emma was) so she’d realize that escape wasn’t much of an option, and told her I was hunting cannibals. I gave her a chance to come clean with everyone, but she played dumb. Bad-Boy showed up, but realized that things were… pretty tense. I gave Rebecca another chance. And then another. Finally, Rebecca said ‘thrall happens’ and blew me off, saying we should just ‘get this over with.’
That hurt. That hurt a lot. I have no idea why it hurt, but… I thought she was a better person than this. I mean, a cannibal, sure, but a better cannibal than that. I called bullshit on the thrall story, and started off with the list of people she’d eaten, and from where. The list of the who-what-when-wheres was enough to freak out all the rest of the garou. Becky snapped and confessed, but made it out like she was doing the right thing. I just kept going. Dives-Deep said the Gnawers might just kill her out-right. Becky got defiant. I shut up. I probably had another dozen I could have laid out.
We stripped her of her stuff, gave her new clothes, and stuck her in the Gnawer’s cage. Dives-Deep wanted her in the caern, but I told her that wasn’t an option at all. That’s for Jacinta and her to work out, I guess. Once she was locked up, I headed home.
I swung by the Farmhouse on the way back (Edgewood, whatever). I ran into a weird-talking Glass Walker. Striker. He was… kinda beefy. He has cool colour markings as a wolf - black and brown. And he was super tall; usually all the Glass Walkers are sticks, if they’re that tall. We did some introductions, I swapped the news with him - I didn’t learn anything at all from him, but I told him about today’s development, and the rough outline of where I’d been for the last however long. He headed off to tell the urrah about the day’s events.
I tried to roll my sister’s questions around in my head again while I was a little less stoned, and I didn’t come to any grand conclusions.
The basics are there, I guess: My role as a wolf shapechanger hasn’t changed any, and my girlfriend and I never got to having any children, so it’s not like I’m not a ’father’ anymore. I guess.
I definitely feel differently, but my instinct aren’t what’s freaking out about being female. It’s my head that’s freaking out. I keep feeling that I spend too much time thinking, like I’m falling into my ape-half’s trap. It’s pretty easy to get preoccupied with my own thoughts, though.
Should I be doing other things now? If I’m keeping the old ways, sure, I need to start changing how I make prayer, at a minimum. I was pretty blasé (and incoherent) about that last night, but now that I’m actually not high, I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Enough of that for now. I’m going to work on chores, study the mage mandala some more, and then try to get some early sleep. I can’t say I’m happy with how today turned out - Rebecca was bloody business - but there’s definitely some satisfaction in seeing the old ways lead me to one of my tribe’s old quarries.
