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Ugh. I have been negligent in updating things. Lots going on. Working with Riley on her PI exam stuff. She mentioned getting her a car so she'd be better able to function on the job. I agreed. I managed to score a nice 2001 Honda Prelude with a sunroof (for Val if she borrows the car) for $3,750. (They were asking $5,500 OBO, but--oops--the car seemed to have developed a mysterious misfire and started losing power when I took it for a spin--and when the owner took it for a spin afterwards because he couldn't believe the engine was going in the middle of a sale. That and a little Jedi Mind Trickery convinced him to take the lower offer.) Mages would make nightmarishly good used car salesmen.
Ran into Naomi a couple times. She had a bunch of recruits out in the park one day, which kind of annoyed me--even if it was being used as a temporary staging ground for the start of an exercise that took them off into the city. Right after she left, this business-looking guy came over, claimed to have spotted her, said he was a childhood friend and her and his families knew one another and he was looking to get in touch with her while he was in town. (So why the hell didn't he just go talk to her instead of watching her disappear on foot into the city and then going to talk to people she'd been talking to earlier?) It reeked of trouble, so I misdirected him and then sent Naomi a heads-up e-mail. I ran into her a few days later and she confirmed it was someone she didn't want to see. I'm okay with that, and I didn't pry. I think she might have appreciated the stark contrast to, say, Val. (Who I haven't seen much of recently because we're both so busy.)
The garou managed to awaken the caern again, which means Mouse completed her athro challenge. Apparently it is extremely rare for a metis to rise that far in rank, so she's proud of her accomplishment--and I'm proud of her. She took a bit of a beating in the fight, and it sounds like Kavi knocked pretty damn hard at Death's door, but Mouse pulled him back from the brink and no Glass Walkers lost their lives. Two other garou did, though. Owen (of the Get) and Whisper (of the Uktena). I'd only run into them on a couple occasions, so.... It didn't really hit home much. Not nearly so much as Flint's death. I missed his gathering--which is what the garou call a funeral--on purpose. I think I'd have felt a little dishonest if I'd gone: like an intruder in a solemn ritual. And Kavi was asking people to participate in a ritual, and I was afraid.... I'm not sure what would happen with me interacting with the garou in a ritual--or if that might expose me as a warper. If it happens, it happens, but having it happen at a funeral seems incredibly inappropriate. So I dodged. And I feel kind of bad about it.
Damned if I do. Damned if I don't.
In other news, it's looking like Emma is claiming eldership of the Get and challenging for athro. I don't think she's done as much as Mouse did to earn that rank, but I also know that metis are looked down upon and have to work harder to get the same amount of respect and acknowledgement that the lupus and homids do. That and Owen was head of the tribe earlier, he was the same rank as Emma, and he hadn't challenged (to my knowledge), and if Emma was under him the whole time.... I think she might be putting too much emphasis on the things she did in the Amazon, which most of the sept doesn't know much about, and oral histories--again--are hellish and stupid for keeping track of that kind of thing. I've got a bad feeling that Emma's not going to succeed. Or, if she does, it's because of the imbalance between metis and non-metis. Eh. I can't really pretend to even understand the complexities and nuances of all this stuff. It seems so arbitrary to me.
The spring solstice fell right in line with the moon getting to halfway to full. I could feel something in the air--I seem to be getting more sensitive to it over the years. I scratched out a circle in the dirt by my cabin, lined it with fresh pine sprigs woven into a pseudo-wreath, and built a little fire in the middle of it. I crossed over to the spirit world, mimicked the circle in the dirt, the pine sprigs, and the fire. Then I began focusing on the area and working to bridge the distance between the two worlds--like my talisman can do. After about an hour, I gave up. I could feel the two worlds getting closer to one another, but it was kind of like pushing down hard on a tupperware lid: it flexed and the lid got closer to touching the bottom of the dish, but it wouldn't bend enough. (I don't have a good metaphor for breaking the lid either, but I suspect *I* might have been the thing to break.) My activities did attract a few small forest spirits who seemed interested in how I was getting closer to making a bridge between the two worlds. I bet they'd have been interested in passing through.
I gave on on manipulating the stuff of spirits and switched over to where I'd left off a few weeks before: messing around with sound. I created an area about the size of a beach ball, which I then began drawing ambient sound into. Suddenly it just clicked--and it did so almost without me even noticing it. I'd been pulling in larger and larger areas of sound, just extending my reach with Forces. I dropped the magic I'd been working on (resulting in more of a *whump* of sound rather than a *BOOM!* like last time), then just stretch out my arms and--for lack of a better term--*embraced* the sonic energies in the entire clearing. Silence. Complete silence. The kind of total silence where all you can hear is the noise of your heart beating, your blood pumping--and then only because it's resonating through your body and your ears happen to be sensitive to that kind of thing--you just aren't aware of it due to all the noise the real world generates. And the sensations? Mother. Of. God. Every hair standing on end, skin tingling chills, vibrating without vibrations. Seriously? Very nearly had a "Cult of Ecstasy Moment" right there. I released the effect, sound came back in, and I started gathering wood for the small fire to make it into a bonfire. When it seemed to reach its peak combustion, I reached out with magic, pulled the flames into a ribbon of fire, and began weaving the ribbon across the air from one side of the clearing and back into the bonfire. I then began twisting the ribbon--probably a good 150' of it--into different shapes.
My new Etch-A-Sketch is made of fire.
This morning, I was planting tulip bulbs in Harbor Park. I ran into Emma--echoes from a year ago, except she didn't have Zoe with her this time trying to eat the bulbs. Spring must be in the air: I kinda asked her out. The rational part of me is screaming away and telling me I'm a complete idiot.
Tell me something I don't know.
Ran into Naomi a couple times. She had a bunch of recruits out in the park one day, which kind of annoyed me--even if it was being used as a temporary staging ground for the start of an exercise that took them off into the city. Right after she left, this business-looking guy came over, claimed to have spotted her, said he was a childhood friend and her and his families knew one another and he was looking to get in touch with her while he was in town. (So why the hell didn't he just go talk to her instead of watching her disappear on foot into the city and then going to talk to people she'd been talking to earlier?) It reeked of trouble, so I misdirected him and then sent Naomi a heads-up e-mail. I ran into her a few days later and she confirmed it was someone she didn't want to see. I'm okay with that, and I didn't pry. I think she might have appreciated the stark contrast to, say, Val. (Who I haven't seen much of recently because we're both so busy.)
The garou managed to awaken the caern again, which means Mouse completed her athro challenge. Apparently it is extremely rare for a metis to rise that far in rank, so she's proud of her accomplishment--and I'm proud of her. She took a bit of a beating in the fight, and it sounds like Kavi knocked pretty damn hard at Death's door, but Mouse pulled him back from the brink and no Glass Walkers lost their lives. Two other garou did, though. Owen (of the Get) and Whisper (of the Uktena). I'd only run into them on a couple occasions, so.... It didn't really hit home much. Not nearly so much as Flint's death. I missed his gathering--which is what the garou call a funeral--on purpose. I think I'd have felt a little dishonest if I'd gone: like an intruder in a solemn ritual. And Kavi was asking people to participate in a ritual, and I was afraid.... I'm not sure what would happen with me interacting with the garou in a ritual--or if that might expose me as a warper. If it happens, it happens, but having it happen at a funeral seems incredibly inappropriate. So I dodged. And I feel kind of bad about it.
Damned if I do. Damned if I don't.
In other news, it's looking like Emma is claiming eldership of the Get and challenging for athro. I don't think she's done as much as Mouse did to earn that rank, but I also know that metis are looked down upon and have to work harder to get the same amount of respect and acknowledgement that the lupus and homids do. That and Owen was head of the tribe earlier, he was the same rank as Emma, and he hadn't challenged (to my knowledge), and if Emma was under him the whole time.... I think she might be putting too much emphasis on the things she did in the Amazon, which most of the sept doesn't know much about, and oral histories--again--are hellish and stupid for keeping track of that kind of thing. I've got a bad feeling that Emma's not going to succeed. Or, if she does, it's because of the imbalance between metis and non-metis. Eh. I can't really pretend to even understand the complexities and nuances of all this stuff. It seems so arbitrary to me.
The spring solstice fell right in line with the moon getting to halfway to full. I could feel something in the air--I seem to be getting more sensitive to it over the years. I scratched out a circle in the dirt by my cabin, lined it with fresh pine sprigs woven into a pseudo-wreath, and built a little fire in the middle of it. I crossed over to the spirit world, mimicked the circle in the dirt, the pine sprigs, and the fire. Then I began focusing on the area and working to bridge the distance between the two worlds--like my talisman can do. After about an hour, I gave up. I could feel the two worlds getting closer to one another, but it was kind of like pushing down hard on a tupperware lid: it flexed and the lid got closer to touching the bottom of the dish, but it wouldn't bend enough. (I don't have a good metaphor for breaking the lid either, but I suspect *I* might have been the thing to break.) My activities did attract a few small forest spirits who seemed interested in how I was getting closer to making a bridge between the two worlds. I bet they'd have been interested in passing through.
I gave on on manipulating the stuff of spirits and switched over to where I'd left off a few weeks before: messing around with sound. I created an area about the size of a beach ball, which I then began drawing ambient sound into. Suddenly it just clicked--and it did so almost without me even noticing it. I'd been pulling in larger and larger areas of sound, just extending my reach with Forces. I dropped the magic I'd been working on (resulting in more of a *whump* of sound rather than a *BOOM!* like last time), then just stretch out my arms and--for lack of a better term--*embraced* the sonic energies in the entire clearing. Silence. Complete silence. The kind of total silence where all you can hear is the noise of your heart beating, your blood pumping--and then only because it's resonating through your body and your ears happen to be sensitive to that kind of thing--you just aren't aware of it due to all the noise the real world generates. And the sensations? Mother. Of. God. Every hair standing on end, skin tingling chills, vibrating without vibrations. Seriously? Very nearly had a "Cult of Ecstasy Moment" right there. I released the effect, sound came back in, and I started gathering wood for the small fire to make it into a bonfire. When it seemed to reach its peak combustion, I reached out with magic, pulled the flames into a ribbon of fire, and began weaving the ribbon across the air from one side of the clearing and back into the bonfire. I then began twisting the ribbon--probably a good 150' of it--into different shapes.
My new Etch-A-Sketch is made of fire.
This morning, I was planting tulip bulbs in Harbor Park. I ran into Emma--echoes from a year ago, except she didn't have Zoe with her this time trying to eat the bulbs. Spring must be in the air: I kinda asked her out. The rational part of me is screaming away and telling me I'm a complete idiot.
Tell me something I don't know.
