you like fightin'? you wanna get out of here?

ahroun.

Her name is Silhouette of Clouds. It is a lovely name, and a poetic one, given to her by a galliard rather than one of her own auspice. It doesn't strike fear into the hearts of those that hear it. Many shorten it to just the first word. A few even call her 'Sil'. It means the shadow cast over the ground when the sun is obscured by oncoming storms. It is meant to be foreboding. It doesn't quite work.

She is not very tall, and her fair skin has a smattering of freckles. Her eyes are round and clear, her mouth often unsmiling. When Erich comes up to the 43rd floor at the appointed hour on the appointed day, he finds her there wearing a zipped-up-all-the-way Adidas track jacket and a pair of skinny jeans tucked into thick winter boots. Her hair is tied up messily; she looks young, but she is a Fostern nonetheless, and a Fostern of his tribe,

and the only Fostern Ahroun of his tribe in Cold Crescent willing to accept his challenge rather than sneering at the scent of his blood.

Right now she's hanging out on the challenge floor, which has been quite a bit more lively these days.

Storm's Teeth

It makes Erich happy to come to Cold Crescent these days. It doesn't bore him, it doesn't make him sad and lonely and angry, it doesn't make him send out barrages of texts calling wolves back to the fold.

Just happy. Even if he doesn't come as much as he did for a while there -- it is a long drive from Evergreen, after all -- he likes seeing new faces in the dorms. In the laundry room. In the living quarters with the TV and the couches. He likes the shrines making their way back to the 43rd floor, and the new bloodstains on the challenge mat. He likes the lights and the activity and the occasional noise churned up from that tiny, jumbled, piecemeal body of their resident mini-wyldling.

He took the long way up today. He came with his pack; left them in the communal rooms after a tight hug. He walked through the halls. Took the stairs. Didn't stop to talk to anyone, but looked into occupied rooms and sometimes exchanged a chin-up nod, a fistbump, something. All the way up to the 43rd floor where Silhouette of Clouds waits for him, looking young and not very tall and freckled and,

really,

not terribly frightening and Shadow Lord-y. But then the same could be said of Erich, and anyway -- he doesn't mind.

He unzips his hoodie and leaves it on the back of a chair. In a t-shirt and jeans, he joins his tribemate on the challenge floor. "Rhya," he says, "thanks for coming out." A brief, awkward pause. Then he gets right to it: "I'm challenging you to recognize me as a Fostern of the Nation."

ahroun.

Forty-three flights of stairs. It's not the tallest building in Denver but it's one of the tallest, and forty-three flights of stairs is a trial even for the most fit body. And that's all it is, in homid: a rather normal human body.

Sil straightens when she sees him, and though she doesn't smile, she doesn't look all that forbidding. Not even in the eyes. Not even when her rage is this pulsing, fiery, living thing. But the other thing he will notice about her, right off the bat, is that she positively stinks of purity. Her eyes are not fair but a bright, deep, piercing blue that almost borders on indigo. Her shoulders have that broadness, her form has that lean strength. She may be a bit small, and she may look like someone who might have been better off as a prized kinswoman, but she is an icon of Shadow Lord blood nonetheless.

She nods to his thanks, and he tells her he's challenging, and since she knew that, she just nods again.

"Yeah," she says, not terribly formal at all. She's silent a moment, looking him up and down, then -- surprisingly forthright -- says: "I've never done this before." She doesn't ask him if he wants to back out, though. That would be pathetic. Hell, even asking him that would be an insult, a slap in the face. A goad to his rage, which

might be expected of most Shadow Lords.

--

"You like fightin'?" she asks, after another long moment, her chin up to meet his eyes.

Storm's Teeth

[erp. i forgot to write: HE CLIMBS THE STAIRS FROM THE FIRST SEPT FLOOR (37?) TO 43. not all the way. dear god. that would burst his heart.]

ahroun.

[derp LOL]

Storm's Teeth

There are certainly Shadow Lords -- even Cliath Shadow Lords of uncertain blood -- who would be appalled to hear that. Who'd certainly want to back out now, find someone qualified. What if she doesn't know what she's doing? What if she fails him because she messes up? What if no one recognizes his new rank because she's such a newbie herself?

Erich, on the contrary, looks -- sort of relieved, actually. Some tension goes out of his shoulders. Not all of it; he is nervous. He's cranked tight, his hands are fists in his pockets, he sort of can't stand still on the mat. But he cracks a grin, sort of lopsided.

"Well, this is kinda my first time too. So."

A long moment. A question. Erich thinks about it, shrugs.

"Yeah, I guess. I mean it's not my favorite thing ever-ever, but it's not bad. I like it when... y'know. I really feel like someone deserves it."

ahroun.

Her eyebrow flicks at that 'kinda'. But it's more wry, like whatever, okay bro than ugh.

She shrugs at him. "So how do you know if they deserve it?"

Storm's Teeth

"Well, I don't ever really know. But sometimes I feel like they do. And sometimes that feeling is more certain than others. Like that bastard that killed Raspberry Sky and then threw her body down to us?

"He deserved it. He deserved it ten times over."

For a second Erich's fists are so tight in his pockets that he has to take them out. He has to loosen his fingers, wiggling them in the air before letting his hands just hang loose at his sides.

"And if you ask me why, then I guess it's because he did his best to hurt people and make the whole world a little bit darker."

ahroun.

Sil growls.

That bastard that killed Raspberry Sky. That makes her growl. Back in her throat, low and not even conscious. It's just there, an instinctive reaction to mention of the Beloved Horror, Raspberry Sky's death, the lot of it. She huffs out a breath through her nostrils, giving a sharp little nod. Yeah. He deserved a beatdown. Ten times over.

After a minute, she looks around, then back at him. "You wanna get out of here?" she asks him, frowning a bit. "We should patrol or something."

Storm's Teeth

Erich looks a little caught off-guard. Is this how challenges are supposed to go? He realizes neither of them would really know.

So, again -- always -- he goes with his gut. "Yeah, sure." He steps off the mat, bending to give it that superstitious little pat that so many Garou offer up. Snapping his hoodie off the chair, he tugs it back on. It's the thick one, sherpa-lined, still a little thin for the sort of weather that awaits them outside.

It's all right, though. If push came to shove, he has fur.

silhouette.

So they head out, mismatched in breeding and height and complexion, down the elevator. But Sil's hand hesitates by the L button and then, since they are in the elevator that none but their kind access, she goes to SB 1.

The Graves.

It's a long ride down. She crosses her arms over her chest, looking up at the ceiling. The silence is, at least at first, a bit awkward.

Storm's Teeth

Patrols.

This wasn't really what he was expecting when she said that word. Maybe some romp through the streets. Maybe a cruise through the rougher parts of town. But not -- this.

The elevator ride seems to take forever. Forty some-odd stories, even in a modern express elevator, takes a while. About halfway down Erich breaks the silence: "Why're we going down to the Graves?"

silhouette.

This, to be honest, wasn't what she had in mind either. But her mind keeps changing. Man, she's having second thoughts about doing this. Y'know? He's this enormous Fenrir-blooded dude who lives in the sticks with some crazy pink-haired girl and some kinfolk that he claims is his packmate who has equal say in the pack. And he's all bouncy and eager and reminds her a little of a golden retriever or something and this cannot go well.

But.

Her eyes skim over to him as he speaks, and he asks a totally valid question, but it's one she at least has an answer to. "There's some people I want to visit," she says. "People I want you to visit, too."

Another ten floors go by. She sniffs, rolling her shoulders back, her eyes going forward again. "Why aren't you packed with any Shadow Lords?"

Storm's Teeth

The question pains him a little bit. He shrugs those big shoulders, folding his arms across his chest. "I don't know," he says. "Guess it just never worked out. I mean for the most part I didn't meet many Shadow Lords. Up 'til recently I didn't even stay in one place very long. So, that probably had something to do with it. And I guess the Shadow Lords I did meet just ... we never really clicked. Not the way me and my packmates did."

A small pause. He debates a while. Then he goes on:

"For a while I thought I'd get packed with Ingrid. You know her? She kinda comes and goes. Dances with the Hurricane. But she kinda never really gave me a solid yes and I guess I never really gave her a solid hey-let's-get-packed-up either. And then I met Charlotte and Melantha, and ... Ingrid just can't really meld with a pack like that. I mean, can you imagine her living in a tinyhouse?"

silhouette.

Silhouette gives Erich a shrug at that last, that question. They've reached the SB-1 level. The doors open, but do not ding. She shakes her head as they walk out into the impossible, impenetrable darkness. They can see a bit at first from the light inside the elevator, but after those doors close again, there's nothing.

Just a presence, and her vioce.

"I don't really know her,"

a voice that down here seems so much smaller.

--

It's easy to lose yourself in darkness this thick. Silhouette does nothing to change it, though ostensibly there are ways. From the sound of things she isn't moving away. They're still standing just outside the elevator doors.

"I don't really click with most Shadow Lords," she says, after a while, her voice disembodied in the surrounding shadow. "I mean, I should -- I was born as one. My dad was this big damn hero. My mom was this tragic beauty who died young. It's like, this whole story, you know? You can just picture the drama of it, and every so often, it's punctuated with lightning. Especially moments like me changing, and how young I was, and how this was all auspicious and I was orphaned and it was all just so..."

Here is where she would look at him, if she could see him.

"You know how they can be," they she says, as though she's not one of them. "Kinda theatrical?"

Storm's Teeth

The darkness down here is so complete. Erich thinks maybe he's not the only one glad for it. It's so much easier to talk about difficult things when you don't have to look someone in the eye. When you don't have to see their eyes on you.

She tells him a story. And he didn't expect this either, but then none of this is what he expected. So it hardly even bears mentioning anymore. He listens; the story makes him a little bit sad. He can see parallels. Auspicious. Theatrical.

"Yeah." He laughs a little. "I know." A small pause. "It was like a Big Deal when I was born True, too. I mean they didn't know for sure, no one does, but they knew it was a possibility -- a big possibility, I guess? -- and they knew I was born under a full moon. The Fenrir," he doesn't even bother to pretend that maybe she didn't know he was born Fenrir: that would be an insult to her intelligence, "are really whatever about their Full Moons. Like way more than we are about our Theurges. Almost all their big heroes are Full Moons. They definitely think of Fenris as a Full Moon. Hell, even their Sept Alphas are always Full Moons, which is probably why a Fenrir Sept is basically always at war."

He tapers off. "Anyway. Didn't mean to interrupt."

silhouette.

"Jesus, that's intense," she says, with something like surprise as well as... well. Clearly no one gave her a study material in her fosterage entitled All About The Fenrir. Just like no one ever, ever gave Erich a manual called How To Totally Be A Shadow Lord, Seriously, No One Will Ever Suspect A Thing.

There's sympathy in her tone, too. Not a lot, but a thread of it: yeah, there are parallels.

"You didn't," she tells him, after his 'anyway'. "For what it's worth, I think a lot of tribes are like that. With their ahrouns. Probably not to that extent, though. Like the Shadow Lords make a big deal about their Theurges, and... y'know, it makes sense, cuz if you want to learn a gift or get some serious mojo going, you have to get the spirits involved. And to do that, you have to go through Theurges. They're the gatekeepers of all this power. So I think sometimes it's a bit of sucking up, to tell everyone that in our tribe we revere the Theurges because of whatever reason.

"But really... I think most tribes have a hard-on for their full-moons. And it's like, you're supposed to be this icon of What A Shadow Lord Is because of it, you know? Or I guess maybe 'What A Fenrir Is', if... y'know."

If he was Fenrir.

Storm's Teeth

"Well, I dunno if they thought I was supposed to be an icon. But I was definitely supposed to be a Fenrir."

He says it like it's meant to be a joke. But it's not, of course. It's really not. No laughter follows it; just a sort of awkward silence.

"What about you? What were you meant to be? Like some sort of ... black widow avenger?" Oh god. Was that a pop culture reference pun? It might have been.

silhouette.

Well, she doesn't laugh. He'd hear it. Where they are, it would be impossible to hide a sound. It's so silent. There's no more Raspberry Sky, whispering to her sister's grave. Not anymore. The ghosts that Charlotte awoke in October slumber once again. Maybe now they are finally free.

But she does give a huff, a heh sound. "I don't know. Maybe something like that. Like... little and cute but an Action Girl and way hung up on my parents' death and... y'know. Theatrical. Shadow Lord Arya Stark or something."

She takes a deep breath, and exhales, and something moves in the air -- moves against his soul. It's a release of gnosis, a gift to the spirits here, and a ghostly pale light begins to illuminate the air, from no apparance source. It brings her back into the picture, gradually, but the two of them look almost black and white, everything around them sapped of color. She turns to look at him, her pupils blown wide already to take in what little light there is.

"It gets brighter the more it's fed," she tells him, in case he wants more to see by, "but it never really feels -- or looks -- warm."

On that, she starts walking toward a particular grave, gesturing for him to follow. "Come on."

--

Silhouette leads him down a path of mounds in the earth to one near a corner. Must be an early one. There's a slab of rock at the head, as with many of them. Carven into it are glyphs. It's a Shadow Lord's grave, for an Athro, a crescent-moon. Before saying anything, Sil leans over, brushing dust off the stone, picking a dead bug out of one of the crevices made by the glyphs. She tidies it up, brushing it off with her jacket-sleeve, blowing on it. This is what you do. This is how the garou honor their dead, even years after the fact.

"This is the grave for my mentor," she tells him. "He was super cool. He was kind of dramatic too, but he was always telling me that I shouldn't listen to other people's expectations of me. That I shouldn't like... be defined by my parents or my breeding or even my moon, really, which I thought was weird. He said that all garou, no matter their auspice, should be strong, and remember the stories of our people, and be fair, and know the spirits, and question the ways. I don't always know if he was right, because I don't meet many who think like that."

Storm's Teeth

Going to that glyph-carven grave, that monument to a Shadow Lord of very high rank, Erich instantly thinks that it must be Silhouette's father. Big hero. Left her an orphan. Who else could it be? And when he sees the inscription, the moonphase, Theurge, he's briefly mortified. He wonders if she thinks he was disparaging the Crescent-Moons in some way, saying they were idolized the way the Fenrir idolized their Modis. Well; one-tenth as much.

But then she tells him. Not her father but her mentor. Super cool. Kind of dramatic, but --

you are not defined by your parents or your breeding or your moon.

be strong. remember the stories of our people. be fair. know the spirits. question the ways.

Erich pangs a little somewhere inside. His arms are folded across his chest again: that self-protective gesture he doesn't even think twice about. After a moment, with just a touch of hesitation, he comes closer to the gravestone. He brushes some dust off the crevices, and then he drops to sit crosslegged near it. Not on top of the grave, of course. But near it.

"I'm a little jealous," he admits. "No one ever told me stuff like that. It would've been nice to hear something like that when I was a confused wet-behind-the-ears kid, thirty minutes a Cliath and out on my own.

"I can't tell you if he was right or not either," Erich adds. "I think it'd depend on who you asked. But it'd be nice if more people thought like that."

silhouette.

Sil looks at him suddenly when he moves to clean off the gravestone a bit, but she doesn't stop him, with words or hand or glance. She's crouching; he sits, and she watches him as he tells her he's a little jealous. She was trained well, maybe better than him in this regard, and her features don't express much. Betray much. Or else: she's just listening, more than she's reacting.

"You didn't have a mentor?"

Storm's Teeth

"Oh no," Erich sounds a little embarrassed, like maybe he'd been misleading her into thinking he was some sort of mentorless cub-orphan. "I had a mentor. He was my uncle. He taught me a ton, but it was like... a ton about being Fenrir. And he never taught me anything like that. It was all stuff like, you were born a Fenrir and that is best! You were born a full moon and that is best! That means your purpose in life is to go out there and kick asses and never surrender and never apologize and fight every last Wyrm you see and bring glory to the Fenrir, because that is best!

"Nothing about like. I dunno. Not being defined by who I was born as. I mean I was completely defined by who I was born as, until all of a sudden I turned all that on its head."

silhouette.

"How did it happen?" she asks him, quietly.

Storm's Teeth

Another small hesitation. He barely knows her, after all. And they're in the middle of a challenge. She might be testing him. This might all be a test to see if he could keep his mouth shut and not divulge the secrets of his soul to anyone who asks. Hell, after his track record with not keeping his mouth shut, a challenge like that just might be fair.

But then: he's an Erich. And he wouldn't be an Erich if he always thought in curves and knots; if he always distrusted others; if he guarded his tongue and his thoughts and kept his cards close to his chest. He wouldn't be an Erich if he didn't make up his mind about people on gut feelings and first impressions, and right now, his gut tells him that he can trust Silhouette. He likes her.

So he tells her. After that one small hesitation, he sort of just lays it out for her. Where and how he grew up; when and how he Changed, and was trained, and underwent his Rite, and --

was a Shadow Lord. Didn't choose it. Wasn't chosen. Simply was.

It gets a little easier to tell this story every time. This time, maybe for a the first time, he doesn't feel absolutely choked up with hurt and rage to tell it. It was a long time ago. He's had a lot of people tell him since that what happened to him was unfair and crappy, which he's always known. He's had a lot of people tell him, too, that it didn't make him any less. That he didn't always know.

When he finishes, he uncrosses his legs and draws his knees up instead. Sets his back against a wall. Shrugs.

"So that's pretty much the story."

silhouette.

What a test that would be: to be a real Shadow Lord, you have to be a liar. Or at very least: a mask, a cipher, who may be loyal but never loves.

And Erich would almost certainly fail that test.

--

As he speaks, she moves to sit cross-legged in the gravedirt, too. Well, the dirt beside the grave. The sub-basement still glows faintly with that spirit's light, turning them colorless. She listens as he tells her how he found out he was a Shadow Lord; that it wasn't a renunciation. That he wasn't -- not really -- kicked out for not being Fenrir enough. But because his soul was something else.

And Silhouette is very serious then, and silent. She breathes in after a while, then looks down at her mentor's gravestone. Her tongue rubs against her lower back teeth in thought, giving her jaw a hardened look. When she looks back to him, she looks like she's decided something.

"I was gonna challenge you to show me why you deserve to be a Shadow Lord, or what you think a Shadow Lord is, or something." She shakes her head. "You know. Like... 'prove you're one of us' or whatever. But it's one thing to renounce, or be adopted. And that's not how it happened." She pushes to her feet, brushing off her jeans. "You didn't choose Grandfather Thunder; Grandfather Thunder chose you. Eons ago, maybe. Challenging that isn't my place. And it shouldn't be the place of any Shadow Lord. Any garou."

Sil offers him her hand, extending it palm up toward him. "Kind of a shitty challenge anyway. So we're gonna go do that patrol now. I've got some other tests for you."

Storm's Teeth

No one's ever said that to him before either. No one's ever really asked him to prove he's one of the Shadow Lords -- but if she had asked it of him, if someone else had, he probably wouldn't have been insulted. Almost might've felt like it was a long time coming; like he owed that to someone, or everyone.

No one's ever told him you don't have to prove it, though. And when Silhouette does just that, Erich looks at her with unmistakable surprise.

"Y'know, I wouldn't have been surprised if you'd asked me to prove I deserve to be a Shadow Lord," he says: because of course he does. Because a thought hardly ever strays into his head before it's coming out his mouth. "I sort of thought maybe that's what tonight would've been about. Some part of me almost feels like it's weird that no one's ever demanded that of me.

"But ... I've never thought of it that way. The way you just put it. Like, not having to prove that to you. Or anyone. 'Cause for all anyone knows, for all I know, my soul's been Shadow Lord since forever. I dunno." Another shrug, this one quick, almost like he's trying to shrug a burden off his shoulders. "What I'm trying to say is: thanks for saying that. 'Cause, yeah. Like I said. I've never thought of it that way before."

He reaches out, then, grabs her forearm instead of her hand. He leverages her strength to pull himself to his feet, which is subtly different from letting her pull him up.

"Cool," he says, that lopsided grin coming back as he dusts the seat of his pants off. "Bring it on."