Well: they had dinner at Avery's. It was an awesome dinner, the epitome of surf'n'turf. They rode out in Erich's big truck, which, in fact, bears some superficial resemblance to Avery's gentleman caller's vehicle. Both are large, both are four-wheel-drive, both have the pulling capacity to lug not-inconsiderable objects behind them. However, where Calden's is only a few years old and really rather luxurious inside, Erich's is ... well; it's old enough that when it was manufactured, Avery was still a teenager. A young teenager. Possibly one who listened to Britney Spears and N Sync and the rest.
Anyway. It's old. It still runs well, but it's sort of dusty and weathered inside and out. There are funny clanks when they go over big bumps. The doors shut with loud rattles. It, however, manages to get them around just fine, and they cruise out from Avery's posh penthouse. They look for trouble. They trawl the streets, the nice areas and the shitty areas, the riverbanks, the downtown corridors, for
a very
long
time
without really finding much. Eventually it's nearing midnight, and both of them are sort of bored because you can only discuss the plot of Prometheus so many times, and they're over in City Park and driving sort of slowly and Erich is passing the Denver Museum of Nature & Science when he suddenly lights up with an idea.
"Hey," he says, "want to sneak inside and see if we can get the IMAX theater to work? They've got a movie about black holes."
Reverence of DawnAvery hops without reservation into Erich's truck, which is not the conservative color of Calden's, but a surprising yellow. She does not find a bluetooth-equipped dash or Calden's audiobooks inside but it drives and it hauls and that's all they really need. She would have offered to drive, but, well: one relies on one's instincts, particularly when one's instincts are suggesting that Erich is the sort to get into trouble that may scratch the paint on that Tesla.
So they take his truck, and later on through the night they stop and get milkshakes -- or Avery gets a milkshake and Erich drives one-handed while licking an ice cream cone -- and sometimes they get out and walk and sometimes they get back in the truck and say well, let's check out Five Points again because surely something has to happen over there at some point.
It's the middle of the night and their ice cream is but a memory and Avery is sipping a grande iced skinny hazelnut latte when Erich suggests they break into DMNS. Avery blinks at him. "Goodness, we could just go in the morning when they open," she says. "I'd even treat." Because, bless her heart, isn't sneaking in stealing?
Storm's Teeth"Aw, that is so not the point!" Erich protests. "It'd be boring in the morning with all the kids and tourists and dumb teenagers making dirty jokes about T-rex penises."
He is, we might note, already parking the truck. And turning off the ignition. And reaching over to grab a little sling pouch out of the glove compartment (which is also a surprising shade of yellow, though not racing-striped) and slinging it over one shoulder as he climbs out of the Dodge Ram.
"Come on. We won't break anything. It'll be awesome."
Reverence of DawnAvery actually wrinkles her nose when he mentions teenagers making T-rex penis jokes. She looks repulsed. She is. She is also convinced her brother would never. Erich starts to hop out of the truck, and Avery hesitates then follows, because there is some truth in what he says: the way people would react to them. The children. The inability to focus on the glory of all creation because of the noise and light, the lack of any meditative peace to try and fathom the death of stars because humanity is so distanced from that glory.
She looks up at the sky, where you can't even see more than a few of the brightest stars, and aches a little. She looks at Erich and gets out of the car with him, musing aloud: "I suppose I could make a donation after the fact," which she of course means.
Avery zips up her thin yoga jacket over her tank and takes out her hair tie, putting the hair she let fall on one of their walks back into a ponytail.
Storm's TeethErich bursts a little laugh at that. Then he grins at Avery,
his friend,
because of course she means that. He slings a sudden arm around her shoulders, giving her a hard, rough-and-tumble sort of sidehug. "You're a good egg, Avery Chase," he declares, and then -- pausing only to pivot around to remote-lock his truck -- lets go and starts to jog toward DMNS.
Run, actually. Full-tilt, energetic despite the hour, wildness in the marrow of his bones.
Reverence of DawnAfter Erich gives her that sudden, clavicle-crushing hug, Avery huffs a laugh. As he lets her go and starts running, she looks at the sky, shaking her head. She comes jogging after him. Jogging. More reserved, if only because someone has to be.
Storm's TeethSomeone has to be the responsible one here. Someone has to make sure they don't pull down a T-rex skeleton or break the IMAX screen or -- something. Right?
Erich might argue otherwise. But then Erich isn't arguing at all: he's dashing across that concrete plaza, dashing up those steps, all but slamming into the glass doors of the DMNS and cupping his hands around his eyes to peer into the dimly lit interior.
"I read a book when I was a kid," he says, "about some kids that ran away and lived in a museum for a while. Or something. I can't really remember anymore. But when I first left Nebraska I actually thought about living in a museum. Well, by 'thought about' I mean I did. It didn't really work though."
He turns, looks at Avery with a quick grin. "Want to sneak across on the other side? Oh man, I bet this place has the most awesome Umbral reflection."
Reverence of DawnThe person who should be responsible here is the Fostern Philodox. The person who should be running, full-tilt, is the Cliath Ahroun. That is how it has been since their kind began, since they first started organizing themselves into ranks and packs, since they named their auspices, since they separated into tribes. Avery smiles to think of it even as she jogs, looking around them as Erich bumps into the doors and peering in. From their angle they can see one of those skeletons hanging from the ceiling, but that's around the corner, past the entryway and the ticket lines.
Avery catches up there, and he tells her about the kids in the museum, and Avery smiles. "The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler," she says, softly and fondly. "The girl and her little brother." She looks to Erich, who has the height and fairness and bright blue eyes of one of her tribe with none of the refinement, none of the almost painful, unreal beauty. She thinks she will now buy him a copy of the book and also, she will make an afternoon date soon to go to the museum with her brother. Take him to IMAX and lunch. Talk about books.
The other side. She nods to this, and glances around and behind them. Avery notices a camera and thus they walk away, like two people who just got there too late, then come back around to an un-surveilled window to press through their reflections in the glass and step into the penumbra.
Erich is right about this place. As a spot of lushness in the middle of a city, City Park and DMNS and the zoo are all teeming with animal spirits and other naturae, or at least as 'teeming' as an urban location can get. Avery points out into the distance for Erich and shows him a giant carcass, still rotting, of a worm-like monster that she, Jack, Nina and Keisha killed months ago. She tells him that when she played the Truthcatcher she used one of its rib-bones in the moot. She does not brag about one single bite that unzipped that thing, spilling its innards all over the combatants and effectively ending its time in the shadow realm, but she remarks on the moss that has grown, the animal spirits that are using picked-clean pieces of its skeleton as a new home, at the way the universe has begun to re-absorb its energy into new life.
The museum itself is awash in spirits much more... abstract. Occasionally they hear laughter, children's laughter, ringing out from the 'Discovery Zone' on the second level. From the same floor in Expedition Health there is the steady thrum of a heartbeat, a hint of deep breathing. All through the wildlife exhibits, where motionless dioramas stand behind glass, there is a chilling and thoroughly unpleasant feeling, one that is tinged both with unimaginable stasis as well as wonder and confusion, underlined by ache for some of the creatures displayed there who no longer exist, or who are dying, dying everywhere.
Then there's the planetarium and the Space Odyssey, where even the walls seem to twinkle with stars and planets twisting, the entire darkness heavy with the void. Sometimes they hear footsteps, sometimes they see shadows of tiny spirits of a myriad of ideas flitting through the air or warping through the walls. There are posters everywhere in the material realm for the Mythbusters exhibit, but it hasn't been around long enough for the Shadow to resound with various explosions.
Avery grins at Erich as they cross through. She nods down the way. "I think the Black Holes thing is this way."
Storm's TeethAny Theurge would tell you that museums -- nexuses of thought and imagination and creativity and curiosity that they are -- are oftentimes the first buildings in any city to take on Umbral form. DMNS is no exception. They can still make their way in through the doors and the walls, but only because this is a place that does not keep people out. That would be the antithesis of the whole point of a museum, after all.
Inside, they wander a little bit. Erich cocks his head at the sound of children laughing. Pokes his head into Expedition Health. Hurries past the wildlife exhibits, the halls where, in the real world, stuffed bears and skeletal pterodactyls hang motionless for -- for more time than Erich wants to think about. He's not sure why skeletons and stuffed pelts are still being displayed. It's not like humans didn't have the technology, the know-how, to make perfectly good replicas that weren't so damn creepy.
Then they're rounding a bend. Then they're suddenly in the halls dedicated to Space, to Cosmos, to the Great Beyond. Here, the very distances seem to warp and expand. The walls seem to stretch impossibly high; the halls, though it takes them no longer than it would realmside to traverse, seem to course into the infinite. Erich meanders through with his head tilted back, staring at the stars twinkling up in the shadows of the ceiling; the galaxies spinning slowly, lazily in the distance.
When it comes time to cross back into the Realm, Erich is a little reluctant to leave. He's totally bringing Charlotte and Melantha here, he says, and
together-but-not, for they do not share a totem, he and Avery slip back through the weave of reality. They find themselves in the dim interior of the closed museum, just within the locked doors of the IMAX theater.
--
It takes them a bit of time to get everything working. They're smart individuals, and even though neither of them has ever had any experience as an IMAX projectionist, they manage to figure things out through trial and error. For a while the lights in the theater are way too bright. For a while the soundtrack is playing at ear-shattering volumes while the screen stays dark. But eventually, they get it.
Eventually, the lights dim. The soundtrack matches the picture. They rewind back to the beginning, they scramble out of the projection room, they flop into seats and lean back and --
the great curving screen begins to light up. It get brighter. And brighter.
And brighter.
And brighter.
Until Avery hears Erich say beside her: "Uh..." Until she's pretty sure she hears something, some bulb somewhere, explode with a bang! and an electric sizzle. Even then the screen doesn't dim, but the quality of the light changes. Becomes a molten, searing gold; becomes overwhelming and all-encompassing, and --
-- just when they're quite sure they can't take it anymore, the light abates. Well; no. It mellows, somehow. Though every surface is still utterly ablaze, though they are both so bathed in light that they seem to glow from within and without, they can see again. They can withstand the light again.
And out of the light comes a figure. It is one that Avery recognizes in her bones, though she has only seen it once, a hundred years or more ago, when Denver itself was but an infant.
It wears a different face this time. It is not even making the vaguest attempt to appear human. Hairless, raceless, blazing, sheening, towering: impossibly perfect as a creature of the heavens ought to be, the golden-skinned Child of Karnak regards Avery and her companion with a silent, lambent stare.
Behind it, the silent roar of starfire: the heart of the sun itself. And beyond that -- not the confines of the IMAX theater at all, nor even those limitless spirit-halls of the planetarium, but the deep blackness of space. The infinite sprawl of stars and galaxies turning in the dark. Nebulae, pulsars, white dwarves and black; neutron stars, black holes, gashes in the very fabric of physics and spacetime.
Erich is agape. He is literally agape, staring with his mouth open. The Child of Karnak turns, then. Turns its body to the side. Lifts its long golden arm
and points into the distance.
[Roll a percep + alert!]
Reverence of Dawn[Perception + Alertness]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Storm's TeethIt takes Avery a moment to discern what, exactly, the silent Child of Karnak wants her to see. It is pointing into the distance, into a fiery veil of nebulae that conceal in their folds the first glowing embers of newborn stars. At first, she might think that is what the Karnakite is indicating. But no: it continues to point, that coruscating finger insistent and compelling.
She sees it, then. Tendrils of blackness amidst the diaphanous glow of the nebula. Darkness wreathing around two or three or more of the infant stars, drawing them together, drawing them into a fatal collision-course. As she looks, the Child of Karnak lays its other hand upon the crown of her head. Its light is so great that she can almost feel it: a heatless, overwhelming radiance that permeates every shaft of her hair, every inch of her skin.
Under its influence, she catches a glimpse of what-may-be. Those stars colliding. The silent, awful explosion, the shedding spheres of gases and molten metals blowing into the void. The hearts of those stars twisting together, fusing, corrupted, darkened,
collapsing on themselves until all that remains is a void in reality.
A hole.
Reverence of DawnAvery doesn't want to go back. She wants to run around now, to explore everything, to live in the shadow of this place, which is so much richer, which is so much more real in some ways than the physical world. She loves it here; this is one of the gifts that she would have missed, had she never changed. It is a comfort, a reminder that what she's lost is no better (nor worse) than what she has gained (or had thrust upon her).
She almost shifts, and then changes her mind, slipping back through a mirror with Erich and breathing in deeply as the very air around them changes. Everything goes suddenly quite still; everything goes suddenly very silent. There is peace in that, too; there is solidity and strength.
Out of nowhere, Avery reaches for Erich's hand, gives its rough fingers a squeeze. It's just a moment of contact, gentle and familiar, before they start tinkering with the projection equipment, laughing when it's too bright, covering their ears when it's too loud. They are neither of them tech geeks, but they are both quite bright and work things out eventually.
Sneaking out into the seats, they pick choice ones, settling in for a show about the places where god, playing dice with the universe, tosses them where they cannot be seen.
As it grows brighter and brighter still, Avery shades her eyes, wincing away, then gasping slightly when the bulb goes bang! She leans back, eyes widening, until she sees the spirit who she met in the form of an Arapaho. Avery silences a new gasp, grabbing Erich's hand lest he lunge for it or say something crazy, but Erich isn't talking. He is gawking. Avery is following that long arm into the distance, then shuddering as the Child of Karnak lays its head upon her and she sees something new, something...
awful.
Her eyes close for a moment, then open, looking up at the Child.
"What do I do?" she asks, quietly. Perhaps she only hears the words in her own mind.
Storm's TeethThe Child of Karnak, with its features so noble and impassive, simply looks back at her for a long moment. Then, a gesture that even Erich can understand: a swift, smooth, vicious slice of its finger across its throat.
Destroy the darkness.
The sun-child steps back, out of their way. The path lies open: a burning, twisting ribbon of sunfire arcing out from the heart of the star, over and around and back; dissipating into the incomprehensible distance where stars live and die.
Reverence of DawnOh, is that all? is Avery's retort, which she is far too polite to say aloud. She stares at the Child of Karnak, then looks at Erich, then
simply pushes up from the chair she's in, her hand still holding his, and leaps into the void, trusting in the sunlight to catch her.
Storm's TeethErich's hand was limp when Avery grabbed it, trying to keep him from doing something dreadfully foolish in the face of the Child of Karnak. He is still staring at that indisputably cosmic entity when Avery looks at him,
and pushes up from the chair,
and leaps into the sun.
--
Well. Leaps into the sunlight, to be exact. She is young and strong and ferocious and bright. She knows this: she knows that she is blessed in ways that mere mortals dare not dream of. But even so -- when she leaps out of that chair she soars. She moves so fast and so sure, faster and surer than even she thought herself capable of. That chair seems to streak away behind her, like debris left in the wake of some intergalactic cruiser. Erich, too: left behind her still staring, astounded,
as she sails into the darkness,
as the light catches her. Envelopes her. It does not burn her at all. It does not hurt her eyes, so it is so bright it makes her luminous. It is warm, like sunshine on a summer's day. She catches a whiff of flower-scent. A strain of song,
an instrumental version of Crazy maybe,
and then suddenly Erich is beside her, doing this awkward flailing-swim-thing until he figures out he can just -- coast. He can just soar, faster than the mind can comprehend, carried aloft by a sunbeam.
"What the bejeezus!" he yells. "What is going on! How do you know these people!"
And a beat. Galaxies streak by. Stars, burning in the silence of space, casting them in blue-white, in yellow-gold, in aged, dignified autumn-reds. A comet keeps pace with them for a while, and then curves off on its orbit around some alien sun. Erich whips his head around to follow it with his eyes. A sudden laugh:
"Is this actually happening?"
Storm's TeethErich's hand was limp when Avery grabbed it, trying to keep him from doing something dreadfully foolish in the face of the Child of Karnak. He is still staring at that indisputably cosmic entity when Avery looks at him,
and pushes up from the chair,
and leaps into the sun.
--
Well. Leaps into the sunlight, to be exact. She is young and strong and ferocious and bright. She knows this: she knows that she is blessed in ways that mere mortals dare not dream of. But even so -- when she leaps out of that chair she soars. She moves so fast and so sure, faster and surer than even she thought herself capable of. That chair seems to streak away behind her, like debris left in the wake of some intergalactic cruiser. Erich, though: yanked along with her, giving an undignified yelp of surprise as he tumbles into motherfucking deep space,
as she sails into the darkness,
as the light catches her. Envelopes her. It does not burn her at all. It does not hurt her eyes, so it is so bright it makes her luminous. It is warm, like sunshine on a summer's day. She catches a whiff of flower-scent. A strain of song,
an instrumental version of Crazy maybe,
and meanwhile Erich is beside her, doing this awkward flailing-swim-thing until he figures out he can just -- coast. He can just soar, faster than the mind can comprehend, carried aloft by a sunbeam.
"What the bejeezus!" he yells. "What is going on! How do you know these people!"
And a beat. Galaxies streak by. Stars, burning in the silence of space, casting them in blue-white, in yellow-gold, in aged, dignified autumn-reds. A comet keeps pace with them for a while, and then curves off on its orbit around some alien sun. Erich whips his head around to follow it with his eyes. A sudden laugh:
"Is this actually happening?"
Reverence of DawnThe song catches her for a moment, or lifts her. She feels herself weightless, powerful, alight and aloft, and suddenly laughs, though she is going into the darkness to try and combat the darkness, but that is who she is. That is what she was made for.
Erich comes behind her, trailing at her hand, hearing perhaps that laughter, that wild and brilliant sound before they sail into the light. Avery looks at him, beaming, her hair fallen down again and whipping around her face.
"Charlotte!" she yells back. "She called a Child of Karnak to help us in the past! Please tell me she didn't neglect to tell you that sto--"
a yelp, a whoop, as they find a comet trailing with them, and even Avery forgets for a moment how much she wants to see that lovely young Theurge lifted up. Erich wants to know if this is actually happening. Avery just shrugs at him, turning her back into the wind of space, throwing herself into it like she's going to do a backstroke. Who knows?
Storm's TeethAnd so they go, out and out and out farther still. Unimaginably fast, soaring through the grandeur and serenity of the cosmos, secure in the soundless sheath of their sunbeam.
They left their own star-system behind in a blink of an eye, barely registered the Great Red Spot of Jupiter, the icy, tiny, recently-and-injustly demoted Pluto still ringing around the sun. They leave their Sun and its brothers, their arm of the great spiral galaxy the humans have somewhat unimaginatively named the Milky Way. They cross the heart of the galaxy, and then turn ninety degrees, follow the axis of that galaxy out into the void, out where the thick of the stars begins to thin, out to distances where the pinpricks of light streaking by are not solitary stars but entire galaxies, too far away for them to resolve the details.
This far away from any point of reference, caught in the impossible speed of their sunbeam, it becomes easy to lose track of speed and distance. For a while, it seems they have slowed. It seems they are standing still, floating in a quasi-prenatal weightlessness. Erich is still beside Avery, turning in slow circles, looking every which way. Sometimes he points out something in the distance, a lattice of trinary stars or a silent ice-strewn planet lost from its moorings, whipped out into deep space by some passing rogue star. Most of the time he just stars, wonderstruck, eyes wide, trying to see and see and see and remember and see some more.
Gradually, though:
gradually, Avery becomes aware of movement again. Becomes aware of their staggering speed as they begin to approach that distant galaxy glimpsed when they back -- what should we call it? back in the IMAX theater? back on earth? As they begin to enter that new, alien spiral of stars and moons and planets. As they plunge past constellations they've never in their lives seen, the pattern and weave of a sky entirely different from theirs.
The nebula, then. It opens before them: an unfurling smoke of warm magentas and shocking greens, electric blues, deepest purples. A shimmering cloud that glows from within: every mote, every speck possessed of its own light. Those infant stars cradled in the mists, some just beginning to burn, some not even quite there yet. Avery can hear them, too, the silvery music of their young voices, distant as bells in some faraway belfry.
And something else. A dark note, barely on the edges of their perception. Sour and nauseating, blurring the corners of their vision as they grow nearer and nearer. A darkness, wholly different from the infinite vault of space: thick, material, fetid, malevolent. Coiling as they draw near and nearer still. Seething, turning,
coiling about to face them. Coalescing, by some grace of Gaia or Karnak, into something their eyes can see and their minds comprehend. A serpentine shadow, sinuous and sinister, its thick coils threading amongst the stars they have come to protect.
Erich has forgotten to wonder whether any of this is real. He glances at Avery as they plunge into the heart of that endangered nebula, the dissonance of that dark entity all but stealing his shout from her ears:
"I'm with you, Rhya! I'll follow your lead!"
Reverence of DawnFor her life, she will not forget this. Whether it is real or not, the experience is whole and entire. Her senses are enraptured by this, and her heart and spirit as well. She will remember the way she and Erich held tightly to each other though on some level she wanted to be more trusting that the universe would not separate them unless it needed to. She will remember the awe in his eyes and the awe in her own mind. The light, and the wonder of it, and the blessedness of being permitted to see it.
And oh, the colors.
--
Her hand tightens sharply whe she feels them slowing, and sees that darkness. She recoils a bit, but she is driven forward by the sunlight itself, even as her shoulders tense. Avery's joyful face darkens, grows serious, as the dark serpent begins to turn to face them.
Avery takes her hand from Erich's, and when she flows into hispo, the stars come towards her, drifting to the tips of her fur, surrounding her in a paler glow that is both starlight and reflection. They soak down through her entire form, turning her whiter than white, incandescent with glory, and even as the reflection of all those stars shining against multiple moons turns to armor for her, the glow remains, pulsing as softly as a slumbering heartbeat.
[-1 WP for Resist Pain-1 WP for Lambent Flame (+1 diff to hit in melee/brawl, -1 diff to hit with ranged attacks)-1 G for Luna's ArmorStamina + Survival]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 5, 8, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Storm's Teeth[-1 WP for resist pain!]
Before their hands separate -- as he's shouting encouragement and allegiance to her -- Erich's hand squeezes Avery's right back. He squeezes hard, he squeezes with surety, and he squeezes with something
very much like joy.
To be here. To have seen what he's seen. To be chosen, if only by grace of proximity to the Silver Fang whose very name echoes the celestials, for this most glorious of quests. Joy, and faith, and courage, and determination.
Oh, the virtues she enkindles in the hearts of her followers.
--
The very stars come to abide in the tips of Avery's fur. Even amidst the glow of the nebula, which paints huge, savage, mottle-furred Erich-direwolf in every shade of the rainbow, Avery remains purest white. She cadensces with her own light, much as the cosmos themselves do. She burns, star-like herself,
as they plunge into the heart of the nebula,
as they meet the unwinding coils of darkness head-on.
[let us init! :D]
Reverence of Dawn[Init! + 9]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
Storm's Teeth[Erich +9]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )
Storm's Teeth[COSMIC WYRM +9]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )
Storm's Teeth[Tiebreaker: odds erich, evens cosmik wyrm]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Storm's Teeth[Cosmik Wyrm
Erich
Avery!
declares in reverse! some general tips: Cosmik Wyrm is, for all intents and purposes, a gigantic snake-thing winding around some stressed-out baby stars. it strikes multiple times a turn, and it probably has some evil powers up its nonexistent sleeves. the arena we're in can be handled like any old diced combat for convenience, but! you can also take SPAAAAAACE into account and take advantage of stuff like: NO GRAVITY. etc.]
Reverence of DawnAvery begins to howl at the thing. Bellowing, roaring howls, barking defiance in the face of this thing, trying to attract all its attention away from those stars, towards the light and dark wolves who now face it down.
[Reflexive:
-1 WP for Fangs of Judgement
1. Main action essentially surrendered in favor of spending a turn barking at the Cosmic Wyrm for Eagle's Beak (-1R). Will take up to 3 hits for Erich when/if possible!
R1.
R2. -- bites!]
Storm's Teeth[Erich:
1. FENRIR LORD AHROUNS WILL TAKE THEIR OWN HITS. Also, rush Cosmic Wyrm head-on and bite it.
R1. Try to pin it for Avery's bites R1 and R2!
R2. Bite it again! (putting this after Avery's R2)
R3. Once more!
Cosmic Wyrm:
1. Drain Light! Roll CW's Rage vs Bebe Stars' Gnosis in a resisted roll. Every 2 successes gives Cosmic Wyrm an extra attack die for this turn.
R1. Thermonuclear Spit! Projectile AoE attack that does aggravated damage due to NUKLEER RADIATION.
R2. Bite Avery!
R3. Bite Erich!]
Storm's Teeth[Drain Light!]
The coils tighten. Darkness pulses, a sickening beat against the backs of their eyes, the insides of their ears.
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 7 )
Storm's Teeth[Bebe stars resist!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )
Storm's Teeth[Erich: BITE THE EVIL THING.]
Dice: 10 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 7 ) Re-rolls: 1
Storm's Teeth[Dam +6]
Dice: 16 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 7 )
Storm's Teeth[Soak!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Storm's Teeth[Avery: WHUM WHUM WHUM
Cosmic Wyrm R1: Thermonuclear Spit!]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 7 )
Storm's Teeth[AoE Damage!]
Dice: 14 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 6 )
Storm's Teeth[Erich soak! D:]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Reverence of Dawn[SOAK]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )
Storm's Teeth[Erich: grapple! Str + Brawl! Sustained strength spec. THIS IS WHY I TOOK THIS SPEC, BTW. /shameless]
Dice: 12 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 1
Storm's Teeth[Cosmic Wyrm: resist!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Storm's Teeth[D:
Pinned with a net +1. -2 diff for attacks on it, +2 diff for attacks from it.]
Reverence of Dawn[R1. Bite!
Dex + Brawl / diff -2]
Dice: 8 d10 TN3 (1, 1, 2, 2, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Reverence of Dawn[R1 Damage
Str + 1 (bite) + 1 (hispo bite) + 2 (FoJ) + 2 (eagle's beak) + Suxx -1]
Dice: 14 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )
Storm's Teeth[soak!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 2, 6, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Storm's Teeth[Cosmic Wyrm: R2 - bite Avery! +2 diff]
Dice: 10 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 1 )
Storm's Teeth[Damage!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Reverence of Dawn[SOAK]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Reverence of Dawn[R2!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN3 (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 7 ) Re-rolls: 1
Reverence of Dawn[Damage!]
Dice: 17 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 9 )
Storm's Teeth[OW.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Storm's Teeth[Erich's R2! NOMF.]
Dice: 10 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 5 )
Storm's Teeth[dam +4]
Dice: 14 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 11 )
Storm's Teeth[Cosmic Wyrm: OW.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Storm's Teeth[Cosmic Wyrm R3: Bite Erich!]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 8 )
Storm's Teeth[Damage!]
Dice: 15 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 8 )
Reverence of DawnThe wyrm lashes out towards Erich, and something vicious flares in Avery's eyes. She snarls a roar of defiance at it, a NO that transcends word or language, running like a streak between the void-dark wyrm and her friend, her ally. She rushes, a glow of blinding white, and turns her side into those black fangs, baring her teeth to take the brunt against all the armor and strength that Luna has given her.
Not because he is weak. Not because of his moon or his flesh or, really, anything to do with him. She does it for the same reason that Javed first did it for her, what feels like much longer ago than it was: it is just who she is. She doesn't even think about it.
Maybe she should have.
[Soak for Erich!]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Reverence of Dawn[Avery is at 7A!]
Storm's Teeth[DDDDDDDDDD:
Rage roll!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 5) ( fail )
Storm's Teeth[WELL FUCK YOU TOO DICE. R3 BITE.]
Dice: 10 d10 TN5 (3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 6 )
Storm's Teeth[Dam +5]
Dice: 15 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )
Storm's Teeth[Soak!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 5, 7, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )
Storm's TeethThey are fearless. They are dauntless. They plunge into the darkness that awaits them, one of them descending with the harsh screams of a raptor, the other howling what could only be an anthem of war.
The darkness reacts. It only tightens its coils on those distressed, strangled stars: tightens even as it comes about to face its foes. The stars are shrieking. Avery can hear them. Erich can hear them. The high, alien waver of their voices, the dimming of their light
even as the darkness grows larger. Denser. Utterly lightness and reflection-less, perceived only as an absence of visual information.
It is enough. They hardly need to see details in order to attack. And god, do they attack: lunging in with teeth bared, tearing away great ragged pieces of blackness that dissipate to nothing even as they're wheeling around for another go. Storm's Teeth gets a grip on the monster. He bears it to the ground, insofar as they have a ground: he bears it, let us say instead, to the surface of that gleaming sunbeam that led them to their task.
The wyrm shrieks. It shrieks as its darkness touches the brightness, not because that brightness injures it or burns it but simply because it cannot abide the light. It hates it, it envies it, it wants nothing but to devour it in its cradle.
Avery won't allow anything like it. She knows what Erich is doing, and though they are not a pack they move like one: the grey wolf holding the serpent down with tooth and claw; the white wolf plunging in to bite. To tear.
--
They do so much damage in so little time. So much: not enough. The wyrm lashes, thrashes. Erich lets it loose. He bites, tears free another great shred of blackness. It strikes back --
and Avery,
brave, incorruptible Avery,
doesn't even think. She throws herself in the path of destruction. She takes that blow meant for Erich,
which would have killed him,
and drops.
--
Erich: left staring, stunned. A beat. Two. Then he roars, his eyes flash lightning, he lunges again at the wyrm. Brings it -- so very close -- to the brink of death.
Oh, but not quite.
[Wyrm: TOTTERING ON LAST LEGS.
Avery: 7A and incap :[
Erich: 4A and pissed off >:|]
Storm's Teeth[reinit! Wyrm +9]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Storm's Teeth[Erich +9]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )
Reverence of Dawn[+9]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
Reverence of DawnAll stars must die.
Everything that lives dies, everything that exists must devolve and extinguish.
But the amount of energy in the universe does not expand, nor contract. It does not truly live, nor truly die. It cycles through transformation after transformation. These stars will, one day, lose their light and their power and go dark. One may become a hole. One may become a supernova, creating even gold and potassium and other elements in its eruption.
This, then, is an example of the madness of the Wyrm: destruction gone unchecked, destruction out of balance, destruction too soon, for no purpose but the destruction itself. The pain. The wrongness of it all. It is not time for these nascent stars to fall apart, collapsing in on themselves. What is happening is wrong. It is too soon. They should live for billions of years. They should go on, and on, and on, and something is attacking them in their infancy like a cobra sneaking into the cradle.
Erich and Avery are not having it.
--
Of course she feels no pain. The spirits that protect her would never allow that. She is aware of the damage being done, but it is only when she tries to turn again to face it, to fight it, that she realizes she won't be able to. That she should, in fact, be feeling agony on the verge of death. Avery only senses dimness overtaking her, then swallowing her, as she slumps to the sunbeam that flows under and around them like a current yet gives them ground to stand on. She does not change, and she does not move, but the wounds on her body create a wreckage of silver and red.
Perhaps it is her spirit, momentarily loosed from the bounds of flesh, that lays a hand on Erich's shoulder and reins in his control, keeps his senses about him. Perhaps it's just the moon, waxing but rather neatly halved tonight, tamping down his considerable rage. Avery has fallen. Someone has to be reasonable.
There's really only him.
Storm's Teeth[+1 rage to both for OW I GOT HURTED.
+2 rage to avery for OW MOTHERFUCKER I'M INCAP.
+1 rage to erich for ACK NO MAI FREN.]
Storm's TeethSomeone has to be reasonable. There's really only him. But he's not really reasonable. Not reasonable at all right now; a little closer to panicked, really. This was supposed to be fun. This was supposed to be a night out on the town with his friend, werewolf style. Even when things got a little out of hand, even when they were suddenly plunged into a battle of cosmic -- albeit distant -- importance,
Erich never thought this might happen. He never thought, not for a second, that maybe he might have to come back from this alone. Tell everyone how it was that Avery, who is so much better than he is, so much wiser and kinder and more honorable and more pure and just -- so much more, died so that he could live.
Or: that neither of them might come back at all. That their packmates, thousands or millions or billions of light-years away, might suddenly feel them wink out of existence
and never ever know what had become of them at all.
--
It is staggering. The scope of it, the horrendous possibilities: he wants to scream, he wants to howl, he doesn't know what to do. He wants to lose his mind. He wants to. That would be so much easier: to just lose himself and let instinct take over. Give up responsibility. Give up choice and reason. Just -- let go, and then sort the pieces out later.
Frenzy doesn't come, though. His rage flares, and it gutters. It doesn't matter. His hand is on the trigger. He could make his own frenzy. It would be so much easier that way --
but he doesn't.
Someone has to be reasonable. If it comes to it: someone has to remember.
--
Erich wheels away from the wyrm. He is moving as fast as he ever has. He is biting the fur on his foreleg, tugging, pulling, twisting that tiny gourd that Charlotte gave to him god-knows-how-long-ago that he's never ever thought to use up until now. He's yanking it out and he's crunching it between his teeth and whuffing the powder onto his friend,
praying to Gaia or Luna or whatever powers might exist here in this distant corner of the universe,
please please please work. please.
[Declare for Erich:
1a. -1Gn. Gaia's Breath talen!
1b. GRAPPLE THE WYRM DOWN AGAIN. YOU NO HURT FREN.]
Storm's Teeth[Cosmic Wyrm:
1. Drain Light ON AVERY. Resisted roll, if successful will remove either Lambent Light or Luna's Armor (random roll) in addition to +1 die for every 2 succ.
R1. Thermonuclear Spit!
R2. Bite Erich!
R3. Bite Avery!]
Reverence of DawnAvery's eyes snap open. She breathes in sharply, looks at Erich, and her tongue almost lolls and she almost licks his face because she's just so proud of him, isn't he clever, you quick-thinking young thing! She could just tackle-pounce him in her delight, but even as proud as she is, as pleased, all of those feelings are pushed to the side by her utter loathing for this thing.
She is on her feet and leaping past Erich, perhaps even over him, snarling a warning at that beast that yeah. that's right. I'm back, you fucker.
[1a.1b.R1.R2. -- RIP IT APART.]
Storm's Teeth[1a. dun! -1Gn
b. GRAPPLE. -3 dice. Spending WP to make it stick >:|]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Storm's Teeth[Wyrm: reflexive thrash-resist!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 7, 7, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 6 )
Reverence of Dawn[1a!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 4, 8, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1
Reverence of Dawn[Damage!]
Dice: 14 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Storm's Teeth[D: soak!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Reverence of Dawn[1b!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (5, 5, 6, 6, 6) ( success x 6 ) [WP]
Reverence of Dawn[DAMAGE]
Dice: 16 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 8 )
Storm's Teeth[noooo i don't wanna die!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Storm's Teeth[x_x]
Reverence of Dawn[*ROARS*]
Storm's TeethEven here, Gaia has power.
Especially here, in the purity and depth of space, in the primordial chaos where stars themselves are born: Gaia has power.
That gourd crunches to dust. Take a moment to imagine it: those tiny, powder-fine fragments of organic matter seeding through this nebula. Stars will coalesce. Planets will compress into being. And perhaps those fragments, those molecules of carbon and nitrogen and oxygen and all the rest of the building blocks of life -- perhaps they will, in time, in millions or billions of years, form the nuclei of new life in and of themselves.
That's the future. This is the now:
the gourd crunches. Life and renewal rushes into Avery. Wounds close, bones seal. Her eyes, blue as flame, blue as sky, blue as the heart of the galaxy itself: they open. The pupils constrict. Her lungs fill. She leaps up, she snarls, she --
tears a shred from the flailing wyrm. Not enough. God, but they're locked in a desperate struggle now; the coils of the wyrm winding around her, squeezing tighter and tighter, sucking at the very edges of her being. She can feel it: that terrible, crushing power, which is darkness, which is despair itself, which is death before death's time has come.
She, too, is light. This thing devours light. And she --
-- she is done with it.
Reverence of Dawn lunges forward. She sinks her teeth into the wyrm. Her jaw locks. She twists her head, savagely, as vicious as she's ever been. A noise, then: a sharp snap! that resounding inside and outside her very skull. A shriek, bending the edges of reality, blurring her vision, hurting her ears. And then --
then --
the wyrm, dissolving. The shadows, receding. The coils that threaten to crush her: releasing, dissipating, slowly and then quite suddenly losing all solidity. She drops back to the great golden path that brought them here, lands on her paws, is almost immediately pounced on by an Erich-wolf that is licking her jaw, licking her chin, bounding around and under and beside her.
All around her, those newborn stars: their glow begins to brighten again. Beat by beat, pulse by pulse, blue-white light glimmers through the core of the nebula. Their tiny, bright voices weave again through the clear, untainted darkness of space: shedding a steady glow that will, at some unimaginably distant point in the future,
when she and Erich and everyone they know would have long since moved on to new bodies and new lives,
when their long war is at last won or lost,
fall softly upon the face of the earth.
Reverence of DawnAvery falls, and in falling, watches the Beast shudder itself to pieces that fly apart, merging with the void, melting into oblivion. Light resounds into the vacuum left by that dying monster, quivering and singing though it will take eons for their song to touch upon Gaia, Eshtarra, earth,
home.
Granted, she can't quite appreciate the stunning beauty of it all with Erich licking her, even the parts of her that are still wounded and bloodied. She tips her head back and growls a low rumble of acknowledgement as he is bumping his shoulder into her ruff, flopping his muzzle over her neck, showering her with affection and gladness that she is only too happy to receive as, frankly, well-deserved adulation. Avery lets her tongue loll out. She gives Erich one restrained but hearty lick of her tongue, good Erich, hello, yes, didn't we do well?
She stands on the sunbeam after getting to her feet, watching the little stars all around her growing a bit stronger, a bit brighter, as the sunbeam still coils and rolls around their paws. Avery turns to Erich, and if she were in any form but this, she would smile. As it is, she simply wags at him.
Storm's TeethLittle by little, Erich's excitement and gladness and adulation and joy abates to something a little more restrained. They are both bleeding. They are both wounded, though neither of them doubt that Avery took the lion's share of the hurt tonight. Thinking of it, Erich gives a low whine, lays his chin over her back.
They might talk of it later. He might protest it. He might be a little ashamed, because that hit she took nearly killed her. And more than a little grateful, because that hit she took may well have killed him. They might discuss it, come up with some sort of pact -- but: not now. Right now, Erich lays his chin over Avery's back and just
abides for a little while. Is content in the presence of his friend, his leader; bathed in the light of stars and galaxies so very, very distant from his own.
Eventually, his tail swings a few times. He backpedals, wagging as he looks about. Maybe we can come back here someday for a visit, he says, but I think maybe we should go home now.
Reverence of DawnAvery, bathed in her own light, and Luna's light, and the light of the stars she so reveres, tucks herself easily under Erich's muzzle, seeming to understand. She isn't thinking about the hit that nearly killed her, that might have killed him; she's thinking of the fact that he brought her back. That he abandoned his rage in favor of her life, and how difficult that must have been for an ahroun, and one of his temperament. How decisively one must have to act in battle, to make these decisions that could risk giving the enemy a chance to lunge for both their throats, and how he set aside that risk and that pride and everything else and just acted. She must thank him, and she must tell him how brilliant she thinks he is, and right now she is not sure how. Sending him home with steak and lobster leftovers now seems so paltry.
He says they should go, and her tail wags in answer. Avery takes a small hop on the current of sunlight, back towards the direction they came. The light brought them, and the light will take them home. This time she doesn't begin to run. She simply turns homeward, and stays side to side with Erich, bloodied but unbeaten,
until they soar back through stars and night, past comets and planets, through galaxies.
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