a night of misunderstandings...

[Liadan] It's either very late, or very early, depending on how one measures the day. For Líadan, it's early. She's not normally awake this early, but her sleep has been off since the carnival adventure the other night.

So at 5am, rather than slumbering peacefully in her bed, she's in her kitchen, putting a kettle on the stove, because at this point she knows she won't be falling back to sleep anytime soon.

[Robbie Murdoch] All the warning Liadan gets is a faint sense of pressure in her ears, as though she were in an ascending plane or a descending elevator; as though the airmasses in her building had suddenly shifted.

Then the Gauntlet ruptures. Over her breakfast bar, she can see for a single, mindbending instant the very fabric of reality warp and bulge and tear. Two things fall through, one with dappled reddish fur; the other sleek, slimy, shrieking banshee-like.

Instantly her living room resounds with snaps and growl. Teeth sink through a leathery hide; handpaws grip on a long bony snout and smash a scaled head into the floor over and over and over. Reptilian claws gouge the floor -- scratching hardwood or tearing up long furrows in Liadan's brand fucking new carpet. A long, muscular tail whips and thrashes. Her coffee table shatters like so much kindling, and then there's a louder, duller CRACK, and all at once the shrieking thing falls silent and goes limp.

There's only the low, rough growling of the wolf-beast now, a snarl on every exhale, diminishing. He keeps the pressure on, jaws locked on the back of the thing's neck, paws pinning it down. When he's sure it's dead, thoroughly and irrevocably dead, he slowly lets it go.

When the wolf-man gets up, Liadan can see he's in his largest shape. Even stooping, his ears brush the ceiling. Huge, but lean and lanky even in this shape, he wipes the back of a handpaw across his bloody mouth. It's an unsettlingly human gesture on such an utterly inhuman beast. It's unsettlingly graceful, a poetically simple motion. The hand falls, clawed fingers almost disproportionately long. Even across the room the sound of his breathing is a clear, low rhythm. The timbre is deeper and more resonant than a man's breathing. Even with her eyes closed, she could never mistake it for human.

"Bring water." Human words are an effort. They come unwillingly, half-growled, with odd halts and starts. "Cold as you can. Quickly."

[Liadan] It could be a measure of Lee's strength and fortitude that when the gauntlet tears open in her apartment, when monsters break across and smash apart her living room, she doesn't shriek. She doesn't run for her bedroom, or more likely her second bedroom, which she might have a prayer of reaching. It could be a measure of her mettle that she stays in her kitchen, the small of her back pressed against the stove, sure, but she doesn't rush for her phone. She doesn't try to run at all.

She just watches. Hands clenched on the handle of the oven door, body tense. She watches a Garou she hopes is Gaian wrestle the scaled beast to the ground. The only light on in her apartment now is the one in the kitchen, and the light drifting out from her bedroom. The living room is dark, and eventually, nearly silent. Her neighbors downstairs will probably call in a noise complaint, unless Lee's lucky. There's not much time.

The Crinos Garou - she knows that form, though she doesn't recognize the monster standing over the ruin of her coffee table - growls an order for her. Water. She guesses he doesn't mean a simple glass.

The kettle on the stove has not yet begun to boil, but still, Lee takes it off the burner. This abrupt and violent arrival of a guest has woken her sufficiently for now. This is done quickly, absently, as she goes to a cupboard and removes a large bowl. This she sets in the sink in the bar counter, starts the cold tap running. Then she opens the freezer and takes out the ice cube tray and dumps the contents into the bowl. When it's full to the brim, she turns off the water, lifts the bowl, and sets it on the counter.

Then she steps back. Her hair is still tangled from sleep, and in the fluorescent light of her kitchen, her skin is deathly pale. It darkens the shadows of sleep deprivation on her face, beneath her eyes. She's tense, wary, but she knows that if this creature wanted to harm her, he wouldn't make demands of her first. Probably.

[Robbie Murdoch] Long before that bowl is on the counter the monster is reaching his hand out for it. Impatience is writ into that very outstretching of the arm, that open palm, those wide-apart fingers. He has pads on his palms, like a dog. Or a wolf. The tips of his fingers are broad, and they're padded as well.

There are claws in the place of nails, thick and black and curved and deadly.

She doesn't come close enough to hand him the bowl. One can't blame her. Still, it doesn't please the monster standing astride the dead other-monster. It makes his tail lash back and forth in agitation, though; the sort of motion all too many unfortunates have mistaken for a friendly wag. That was not a friendly wag. His hackles are up, his ruff on end, lightning in his glass-green eyes.

"Here. Now. Unless you want me. To piss on your floor instead."

[Liadan] [WP: I just woke up damn it! +1 diff]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 7, 9 (Failure at target 7)

[Liadan] In the time that Robbie has known Líadan Whelan, she's been many things depending on the nature of those around her, or the nature of the scene. She's been brave, sort of. She's been smart, sort of. She's been quiet and awkward, or fierce and strong. He may not care that sometimes she acts outside of that first, uncomfortable meeting in her old apartment. He may not even notice.

He'll probably notice now.

Lee doesn't know who he is, doesn't recognize him in the semi-darkness of her living room. She feels his rage pushing against her, beating against her senses. It makes some part of her want to curl up and hide herself away. It makes another part of her, the one that knows that's useless, that this creature is bigger, stronger, faster, stand her ground. Knowing that this is the edgy Galliard she went on some sort of 'date' with Friday night might not change her reaction.

The creature in her living room is impatient with her. It wants her to deliver the bowl directly into its wicked curved claws. Those claws could slice through her body like a hot knife through butter. Lee knows this. She's seen it. Still.

She doesn't give a fuck what those claws can do.

Color flushes into her pale cheeks, splotching. She's not the prettiest woman the world has ever seen. Her beauty isn't the kind that makes men stop and stare, that draws attention. It's worse when she's angry. Behind her glasses, her dark eyes flash.

Angrily, Lee picks up the bowl of ice water. She carries it out of her kitchen, her movements jerky, feet almost stomping. There's still a mark on her right ankle, as there will be for some time, but it doesn't affect her ability to stomp furiously. As soon as she's at the edge of her bar, she glares at the monster and its bleeding trophy in her living room.

And she hurls the bowl at both of them.

[Robbie Murdoch] The thing in her living room is a beast. He can literally smell emotion. He can smell her fear and he can smell when it shifts to anger. In some amorphous, preternatural sense, he can smell what she's about to do. His nostrils flare and his eyes flash. He begins, "Are you sure you want--"

and then she answers him. Yes, she wants to do this: she throws the bowl of water at him, and at the thing. It comes flying at him. Wood bowl, ice water. He bats it out of the air, and the gesture would be almost negligent if it weren't so tightly reined, so instantly and implacably furious.

The bowl cracks in half at a swipe of his paw. It slams into the floor far, far harder than she'd thrown it, shattered. Water everywhere; some of it splashing his face, some of it exploding across the floor. It's not really enough to drench him. It's barely enough to mat the fur on his muzzle and chest; not enough really even to wet his coat down to the roots.

Before it runs through his fur and pattered to the floor, he'd reached for her. He grabs her by the front of her shirt, nightgown, whatever it might be, twists that around his massive fist and heaves her right off the ground. Eye to eye with the monster, then: his ears back. His breathing swift and hot on her face, coppery with the tang of blood. His lips are peeled back from his teeth now. She can see her own death reflected in his eyes, writ in the threads of wolf-yellow shot through the glass-green.

Water has finally run through the red and brown and grey and black of his fur. It washes the blood and ichor from him. It drip-drip-drips on the floor, red now.

All at once he releases her. Throws her, actually; tosses her effortlessly like a ragdoll onto her couch. When she lands he snarls at her again, wordlessly, a single rough chuffing as though to quell her.

Then he turns away. His claws comb through his wet fur. He scatters droplets from the tips of his fingers, turning in place, flicking cold water in a methodical circle around his kill. He ignores her.

[Liadan] He picks her up effortlessly, twisting the fabric of her t-shirt around his massive shirt.

So did the other one. The first Crinos Garou she ever saw. The one who taught her, it's pointless to run. They'll catch you. It's pointless to fight, they'll beat you. Her life, so fragile, so comparatively weak, is in his massive, clawed handpaw.

She knows that she's going to die. She can see it in his face. She saw it in his claws, heard it in his gravelly, growling voice before. Her anger doesn't flee at his angry snort, doesn't bleed away to the acrid stench of fear.

It turns to resignation. Líadan Whelan is going to die today, in her own home, her sanctuary. The war has come to this place that's supposed to be safe for her. And she will die in it because Lonna's not here to help her, to weaken him with her gun. She'll die because there is no Fostern Fianna Philodox with a claim on her. No pack that's been promised to protect her. She has nothing, and no one to rely on but herself.

Same as it's always been, really, ever since she was a little girl.

She's struggling when he lifts her to his face. She stares into those gold-green eyes, an angry, cornered animal, rabbit to the wolf. And she fights anyway, because god damn it, she will leave her mark. This monster will remember the redhaired Fianna kinswoman.

He tosses her to her couch as easily as a cat bats a mouse. Instantly, she's on her feet again, sweeping up a broken splinter of her table.

[Robbie Murdoch] The monster's back is to her; what must seem to her half-mad mind a good target. He's methodically combing water from his fur and scattering it to the floor, comb and scatter, comb and scatter. Cleansing. She'd know that, if anybody had ever taught her. If she'd grown up with Garou and kin relatives; if they'd taken her by the hand and taught her:

This is what Garou do. This is what they are. This is what they will sometimes demand of you, whether or not it's reasonable, and it's best for you if you just

give in.

No one ever taught her that, though. This leads to a somewhat nobler existence. Also, quite possibly, a shorter one. She comes at him with a goddamn splinter, like maybe he's a vampire and if she can stab him in the heart it'll put him down for good. His back is to her but he's so fucking perceptive, and maybe it's the clatter of wood beneath her feet or maybe it's the smell of her coming closer or maybe he sees her shadow across the floor. He doesn't even turn. His feet are planted where they are, astride the dead thing on her living room floor; he half-twists from the waist, reaches up and behind his back and seizes the long splinter. It feels like the other end has been caught in a vise, or in the gears of some great and grinding machine: an unshakable grip slowly twisting the makeshift weapon from her frail human hands.

[Blood Summons] Gaia has a strange sense of humor.

That's what the Theurges have been saying for eons, anyway, what they've been hinting at in their tales and teachings, is that Gaia is not simply some fairy tale made up to keep the cubs in line. She is Her own force, Her own being, and it is She who governs this earth that we live on. Líadan Whelan is not thinking about Gaia right now. She's not thinking about the person who ends up on the other side of her door right now, either.

The absence of thought or desire for his presence doesn't stop it from happening, though, and as the giant Crinos warrior wrestles the splinter of table-leg away from the significantly smaller kinswoman, a heavy, purposeful raucous emanates from the door of her new apartment:

bam bam bam bam bam!

[Liadan] [+6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2

[Robbie Murdoch] [init! +9]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[Blood Summons] [+6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9

[Liadan] [1a: Stabbity!
1b: Kick! spending WP somewhere]

[Robbie Murdoch] [1. disarm!
R1. grapple!
Reflexive: roar at her to knock it off.]

[Blood Summons] [1: Break down door! Feat of Strength, I don't have to roll, suckers!]

[Suspiciously Red Puddle] (*Goops*)

[Robbie Murdoch] There's knocking -- and then there's the unmistakable sounds of a struggle inside -- and then the door simply flies off its hinges. Smashes to the floor.

It's chaos inside. There's a dead thing on the floor, ten or fifteen feet long, vaguely reptilian. There's a kinswoman with a makeshift stake in her hand. There's a Garou, his fur dappled and reddish, his bloodlines faintly Fianna, gripping the other end of the stake. They don't look to be on friendly terms.

Though -- his attention squares solidly on the newcomer. The intruder. He doesn't recognize the Garou storming in; doesn't recognize who the fuck just battered down his kinfolk's door. That's enough reason for him. He turns on the newcomer with a snarl, dropping to all fours; leaping to cross the space.

[changing actions!
1a. leap!
b. bite intruder!
R1. claw intruder!]

[Liadan] [Reflexive: "NO!"
declare staying the same]

[Robbie Murdoch] [for the record: i'm starting robbie at rage 4, WP 5, full gnosis, 3Agg damage to reflect recent combat.]

[Robbie Murdoch] 1a. mvmt!
b. -3 dice, +1 diff!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 5, 8, 8, 10 (Failure at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Liadan] [1a: moving!
1b: stabbity: dex + melee -3, diff 5 +1 (changing actions) (don't laugh!)]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]

[Liadan] [dam: str +1 +1][L]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Robbie Murdoch] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Robbie Murdoch] R1. claw! +1 diff.
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Robbie Murdoch] dam + 2
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Blood Summons] [Reflexive: Snap-shift to Crinos!
Soak, mother fucker!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 6, 6, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Liadan] [1a: stabbity!
1b: stabbity!]

[Robbie Murdoch] "What is your problem, Liadan!"

And you can bet that's mispronounced.

[1a. disarm the crazy kin
b. bite the intruder!
R1. chomp it again!
R2. claw it!]

[Blood Summons] [1: Jaw lock!
R1: Holding!
R2: Holding!]

[Blood Summons] [REMIX
1a: Take Robbie from behind!
1b: Jaw lock!
R1: Holding!
R2: Holding!]

[Robbie Murdoch] [1a. changed to turn with!]

[Blood Summons] [1b: Changed to grapple!]

[Blood Summons] [1b: Brawl+Strength (+4): I LOVE YOU OH SO HUGGY WUGGY MUCH! -3 pool (split).]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Robbie Murdoch] 1a. ...was mvmt!
b. chomp! -3 dice, -2 damage from grapple.
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 6 at target 5)

[Robbie Murdoch] [dam +5 -2]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Blood Summons] [Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 7, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Liadan] [1a: stabbity!: -2, diff 5 -2]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 8 (Success x 1 at target 3)

[Liadan] [dam: +0]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 3, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[Liadan] [1b: stabbity!: -3]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7 (Success x 1 at target 3)

[Liadan] [dam: +0]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 5, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Robbie Murdoch] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 5 (Botch x 3 at target 6)

[Blood Summons] Unlike the purebred monster in her home right now, the one who had kicked her door in actually pronounces her name correctly when he snarls it out.

"Líadan, stop."

[Robbie Murdoch] Against all odds, the kin manages to hit. She does more than hit: she manages to plant the makeshift stake in the Fianna's side. He roars, comingled outrage and pain; the newcomer speaks suddenly; the Galliard wraps his handpaw around the stake and yanks it out of his side.

A brighter red trickle of blood down his side, then, fresh against the duller red of dried blood, and the dullest red of his fur. It's sucked abruptly back into the wound when he draws breath to roar challenge and defiance in the intruder's face, the one whose pronunciation of Liadan's name is, implausibly enough, perfect.

[Blood Summons] [R1: Changing action: Snarl of the Predator!]

[Liadan] Blood Summons shouts for her to stop, and Lee stops. Not because she wants to. Not because she trusts her friend. But because she's lost her make-shift weapon, left it embedded in the intruder's side. She could fight with her fists. She could strike out with her feet. But she doesn't.

The intruder howls, and she covers her ears.

"Oh my god SHUT HIM UP!"

She darts around the combatants, rushes down the hall to close her front door. Which she can't, because it's been completely blown off its hinges.

[Blood Summons] [R1: Okay, for real this time: bite!]

[Blood Summons] [R1: Brawl+Dexterity (+1): Chomp! +1 diff (changed action).]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Blood Summons] [Damage: Strength +4 (Crinos) +1 (bite) +2 (suxx). Pulling at incap!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Robbie Murdoch] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Robbie Murdoch] R1. counterbite! -2 dice from damage.
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Robbie Murdoch] [dam -2 from grapple!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Blood Summons] [Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Blood Summons] [R2: Brawl+Dexterity (+1): Chomp! +1 diff (changed action).]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Blood Summons] [Damage: Strength +4 (Crinos) +1 (bite) +4 (suxx). Still pulling!]
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Robbie Murdoch] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Robbie Murdoch] [MONKITHULU WHAT IS THE FLOOR MADE OF!]

[Robbie Murdoch] It's a strange sort of standoff: the werewolves with their fists locked in one another's fur, snapping and biting at close range. Fur flies. Blood runs down the Fianna's side, twists down his leg, stains the carpet in drops and streaks.

And then -- in pools. And then in great, sodden patches, dark red, soaking down through the fiber into the underpadding; the poured concrete beneath. In the end the Fianna barely manages to scratch the Fenrir. In the end the Fenrir tears the Fianna's throat out in one vicious bite: vicious, and expert, and controlled. It's probably cold consolation.

There's this to be said: even as his blood is turning Liadan's living room into an abattoir; even as his knees are buckling out from under him and his vision is hazing over, he's a stubborn motherfucker. His handpaws twisted into the Fenrir's fur hold his weight when his feet no longer do. His claws flex. He wants to gouge down. He doesn't have the strength left. With his last conscious breath he snarls threat and vengeance

and, truth be told, a sort of vicious desperation. In that instant it's utterly clear the Galliard believes he is defending what is his.

His eyes roll back. His claws slacken. He drops, deadweight, thudding so heavily to the floor that neighbors two floors down will hear it. Show's over. Curtains down. As heavy grey unconsciousness overtakes him, a low snarl in his mind, rich as velvet, soft as silk, implacable as a heavy paw laid on his throat:

...you pathetic weakling.

[Blood Summons] That door had blown off the hinges as though a beast greater than the one that strode over the threshold had come for Lee. What it revealed Record of Ruin isn't likely to remember when he regains consciousness. The beast with which he battles, briefly and bloodily, is huge, gray-furred, and but for that snarled command at a kinswoman who is not his in any sense of the word, largely silent.

Perhaps he should have said something. This creature is a Fostern of the Nation, and though he holds no office within this particular Sept--though no one has even seen him in a full turn of the moon--there is still some degree of responsibility that comes with his rank. There is the responsibility to ensure that the Garou he meets in his travels know who the hell he is before he starts bandying orders about, certainly, but there is also the responsibility to know that the Kinfolk he comes across are safe.

The last he had heard, this young woman's guardian was gone. What he had heard through the door was a struggle; what he had seen was Lee attacking someone he had never seen before, someone whose very being shone with heritage, someone who he could not tell from a single glance or inhalation the state of his soul, whether he carried with him the Corrupter's influence or not.

The nameless Garou holds onto Record of Ruin with the hopes that hearing some semblance of speech from his own throat will make him stop. It does not make him stop. He keeps fighting, and that's when the Godi tears out his throat and drops him to the floor with a thoughtless thud of muscle and bone.

It lasts so short a time, took so little effort and energy, that the sky-eyed beast is not even out of breath by the time it's over. He's covered in blood, sure, and there is the faintest of scratches on his forearm where the Galliard had bitten him, but his chest is not heaving and he is not struggling to remain on his feet.

Once the Fiann is on the floor, reverted to his breed form, the creature she knows as Bob--she knows him as plenty other; she will never call him by any of those names--follows suit, briefly appearing as a taller, uglier version of his human form before reappearing as the one Lee knows.

He viciously wipes his exposed, uninjured forearm across his mouth to clear it of blood, then steps forward, nudging the downed body with his toe to make sure he's unconscious. Glancing to Lee, he draws a rumbling breath in through his nostrils before he speaks.

"Should I kill him, or heal him?"

[Suspiciously Red Puddle] (*dribbles out of robbie*)

[Liadan] There's nothing that can be done about that door. There's nothing to be done about the commotion made in this apartment, Lee's new home. There's nothing they can do about Robbie's howls or the thud of his heavy war form hitting the floor.

Lee comes around the corner, intending to go to her bedroom for a change of clothing. A bag. Something. They have to get out of here. She can't explain away what's happened in this place, so it's best if no one thinks she's here. When she comes upon the debris of the living room battle, she stops dead in her tracks.

There lies Robbie Murdoch, Record of Ruin, her sometimes roommate when she stays the night at The Brotherhood. Just the other night, she fought to protect him, to warn him of danger, keep him safe in the only ways she as a kinfolk can. And there, in his side, is the bleeding wound where she stabbed him.

"Fuck." She stands there, stock still, just a moment longer. Then, "Shit," as she hurries to his side. "I know him. Don't kill him." She's angry again, torn for a moment between shaking the unconscious Galliard, slapping him, something, and telling Blood Summons to heal him first. Sucking in her bottom lip, her eyes narrowed, she tosses her head to the side and goes into her bedroom. "Heal him," she says. "Please." And she disappears into the room at the Godi's back.

[Blood Summons] "Wait."

She's heard how his voice gets when he's angry. It has only happened once. That voice of his barely sounds human on the best of days, but when he had practically roared at her, he was nearly unrecognizable. There is tension in his speech, now, but the electric fear that his voice can instill in the average person is not riding the wave of his Rage. He's in control of himself right now.

"Are you hurt?"

[Liadan] She stops in the doorway and turns, looking at him over her shoulder. Her hair, still tangled from waking, is worse now. Her skin is pale, and she trembles a little in spite of the fact she doesn't think she feels scared. There's a mark on her ankle, a band that wraps around, the scar of a burn. But otherwise, there's no blood on her that doesn't come from her attack on her own tribesman. She doesn't limp, or whimper, or grimace. She's not in pain.

"No," she says simply. "I'm alright. He popped in fighting that thing," she gestures to the dead creature near her sofa. "I didn't recognize him in Crinos. We need to get out of here."

[Suspiciously Red Puddle] *goops*

[Blood Summons] We need to get out of here.

A low grunt, neither agreement nor rebuttal, leaves his throat, and the tall, black-clad creature drops himself into a crouch on the blood-stained carpeting. There was a time when this young woman--not all that much younger than he is, really, but anyone comparing the two of them at each others' sides would be remotely convinced that the two of them are the same age--had made fun of him for wearing the same color, the same style, the same damn clothes every single time she saw him. What he hadn't told her was that black concealed blood in all its colors and stages of oxidation better than any other color he had stumbled across in all his infinite years of experience.

Her actions, the way she carries herself, does not war with her words. She isn't hurt. He doesn't move to stop her.

He looks down at the brutalized body of the Fiann, and presses a merciless hand right in the midst of his gaping throat.

[-1Gn: Activate Mother's Touch.
Medicine + Intelligence: HEAL!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 8, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 6 at target 3) [WP]

[Robbie Murdoch] [how bad are we?]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 5, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Liadan] [need 3 suxx to be in a throwing things mood]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 6, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Robbie Murdoch] As brutal as Blood Summons is in combat, he is, in the end, of the crescent moon. When he lays on hands, Robbie's wounds immediately close; not merely the gash to the throat but the puncture in his side. Even the long, inflamed welts the creature on Liadan's floor had left in him fade to mere scratches, mere bruises.

A second later the Galliard's green eyes snap open. He stares at the ceiling like he doesn't recognize it. Hawklike, cameralike, the eyes flick from side to side, to all corners, then to Blood Summons.

There, they lock.

The Galliard sits up. The movement is different somehow; subtly changed. Blood Summons would not see it. He's never seen Robbie before this night, period. Liadan -- might.

Robbie twists his head on his neck, slowly, a strange bestial flexing-craning. His tongue moves behind his lips. He spits sideways, a thin stream of bloody foam; the last remnants of his punctured lung.

There's a soft menace in his tone, as though he had not just been laid out by this Fenrir. As though he had not just been healed by him. As though he did not rank a full step below him, and as though he did not instigate the violence to begin with:

"Some nerve you have, Son of Fenris, violating the territory of Stag and baring teeth against a Garou wounded by the Wyrm. Explain your presence here and make it good."

[Liadan] [wits + emp: recognition?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Liadan] Lee disappears into her room, but not completely. She doesn't shut the door behind her when she goes inside. From the living room, anyone looking in can see her unmade bed, still retaining her body's heat. They can see the terrarium in the back, filled with green things and a croaking frog. What they can't see, not unless they duck their head inside, is Líadan changing. The door stays open because someone would have to be out of their mind to want to see what Lee has to offer. At least, that's what she apparently thinks.

She's just inside the door, at her dresser, twisting into a bra and pulling on a clean shirt and jeans. The clothes she's slept in get stashed in her book bag. She finds a tie for her hair, and she finds something else. A spare shirt and a spare pair of jeans.

When she gets to the bedroom door again, she stops. She's still furious. It's a rage unlike anything she's ever felt before, burning in her blood and obscuring her vision. Mostly. When she sees Robbie standing, she wants to throw the clothing at him. She wants to throw every dish in her kitchen, actually. She wants to tear her television off the wall and try to smash it over his head.

He's different, though. His posture has changed, his expression. She's only seen this side once before, in one of his other forms. But she knew then that Robbie was different, that he wasn't himself. And she can tell now, vaguely, that he's different again. It stays her hand.

"We need to leave," she repeats, now that Robbie's body is up and moving and someone is inhabiting it. "Before my neighbors start getting curious." Gritting her teeth, fighting down the urge to throw the clothing in Robbie's face, she holds up the clothing to Robbie, questioning.

[Blood Summons] It isn't until consciousness returns to the supine form on the mangled carpet that the Fenrir removes his paw from the Fiann's throat. Preparation for another round of battle is the only reason he kept it there to begin with, should he need to quickly pin the knit-together sub-Cliath back to the floor. That isn't necessary. This creature without a name, without anything other than the purity of his blood to identify himself, does not launch himself at Blood Summons as though he is wholly prepared to instigate another round of bloodshed.

Líadan's apartment can hardly take another drop of blood. It's a wonder the neighbors haven't called the police yet, haven't called someone to report the blood dripping through the ceiling. Maybe they have. Sirens don't typically go off unless there is a body at the other end of the line. They don't go off when the assailant isn't present. Sirens are a warning. They make people run faster.

The Fostern doesn't know all this. He knows that there is a dead Wyrmling in the living room, that there is an unidentified Fiann on the ground in front of him, and that there is a kinswoman lingering somewhere in the background, returning from changing while the healing and interrogating takes place to tell the two of them--to tell the Fiann, mostly--that they need to get out of here.

Neither one of them pay her much mind.

"The last I was aware," he says, his voice level, his eyes slightly narrowed: he doesn't trust the sub-Cliath he just dropped like a sack of meat onto the carpet if only because he isn't acting like a sub-Cliath, "this kinswoman had no guardian, and this space was no one's territory. I was checking on her, and I heard a struggle. Is your memory intact, or would you like an explanation for what happened after you attacked me, too?"

[Robbie Murdoch] There's a thinly veiled insult in that, or at least a stinging reminder of their so-recent altercation. It makes the Fianna's eyes glitter. It makes him laugh -- a single, sharp bark that flashes his teeth and then drops away. What remains is a sort of soft, cold menace, an icy and utter confidence. He gets to his feet, smooth and swift, one palm to the floor helping the rise.

"The Fenrir I know, ravening wretches though they are, at least had the courage to utter a threat like a man. You lay yours out in insinuations and intimations, like a ... "

There's a long pause, the Galliard's eyelids closing briefly, eyes moving behind them, darting side to side like a dreamer's. Then they open again.

" ... little bitch." The words sound somehow foreign on his tongue. "But I'd watch my tongue, Get of Fenris. Even in this whelp's body I could lay you out like a newborn pup."

A beat, a heavy stare. Then a blink, slow, even lazy. The Galliard looks to his kinswoman. After a moment -- not a hesitation but a consideration -- he takes the clothes from her. There's a moment where he pauses, and this is a hesitation of sorts. A faint frown creases his brow. Then it resolves, and he shakes the clothes out, laying them out over the back of the couch.

He's not naked right now. He's retained his clothes, which must have been dedicated -- a simple pair of jeans, thick and sturdy; a simple buttondown shirt, too warm for this weather. Both are sodden with blood. He goes to work unbuttoning the former, his fingers uncharacteristically slow and stiff with the fastenings.

"Go," he says. It's a dismissal, bitingly offhand. "Get out of my territory. You," that's to Liadan, "stay. Help me clean up this mess. If you think leaving it for your neighbors to find is a valid solution then you're a fool. If you really want to protect them and their Veil, you'll work quickly and willingly."

[Blood Summons] [O RLY]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Robbie Murdoch] [*coughs* "The Garou I know at least had the courage..."]