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Saturday afternoon, the day after meeting with Jacinta, I was taking a load off up on the tenement's roof while reading a digital Star Wars novel. Riley came up. We chatted a bit. Replacement car? She doesn't care and I think I found a good deal on a 1998 Toyota Camry that's utterly non-descript and forgettable--perfect for stakeouts and tailing people in the city. Lightsaber? I went down to my room, brought it up for her to look and, and she seemed disappointed when I told her it wouldn't work for her. (That's not something to play with openly on a rooftop, either.) She asked for my thoughts about vampires. I told her I'm sure there's decent ones out there, but I've yet to meet one and didn't care to go out shopping for a vampire buddy when pretty much all of them look at me like I might have potential utility as dinner. Riley reported that Lefty had considered establishing an alliance with the Seattle Camarilla vampires so that they could tackle the BSDs in Seattle, but Riley wasn't a fan of that plan because she was pretty certain that the vampires would screw the garou over at first opportunity and/or hold back in the fight so that the St. Clair garou took the most casualties/damage in defeating the Seattle BSDs. I agreed with Riley. Case in point? Riley was looking for a way to screw BOTH the Seatlle BSDs and the Seattle vampires (by handing over BSD names to the vampire prince in exchange for some money, an SMG, and some explosives(!!!!!!)), and there wasn't even talk of an alliance yet.
As I was talking with Riley, I started getting some texts from Mouse. They were originally from Elliot, the sept alpha. Blunt. Short. Direct texts that said, effectively, "Meet me immediately. We are going to have A Talk." One guess what that talk would be about. God dammit. How the hell did Mouse harboring a mage leak to him so damn fast? Jacinta said she'd tell her pack but that she'd suggest that they not go sharing willy-nilly. The only other.... Fuck. I'll bet it was Val. She blew it with Jacinta. She probably thought she'd try and help out further by spilling the beans to Elliot before.... Jesus, Val. Quit. Fucking. Helping. You're making shit blow up all over. Mouse said she was going to meet up with Elliot ASAP and wanted to know if I wanted to come along or wait. I went with her. Sooooo would have rather done this when the moon wasn't as full and like we'd discussed with Jacinta the night before.
Drove Mouse out to Edgewood. Walked her to the meadow out back. When Elliot showed up, I put some distance between me and those two, then started prepping a bit of magic in case Elliot lost it and needed to be restrained. (Again, I /really/ did not want to do this for all the reasons I mentioned earlier when I was dealing with Jacinta.) Elliot was hot, but not so hot as to be irrational or violent. I overheard that he was disappointed in Mouse because, earlier, he'd asked everyone to tell him if they knew of any others who were not garou but in the area. And chastised Mouse for not coming forward about a mage when Elliot had previously accepted a Fox and a Tiger shifter. (Granted, they're /shifters/ and still loosely affiliated with one another. I'm a bit more of a stretch.) Mouse said she was protecting family, had met with Jacinta last night, and Elliot was on the next-to-talk-to list. Elliot cooled off, then asked Mouse who it was. At this point, I stepped up, introduced myself, and backed up every thing Mouse said--and further said my own reservations about interacting with the garou here were what slowed the process down, but Mouse had been consistently prompting me to come forward to both Elliot and Jacinta. Elliot looked surprised (I don't think he'd suspected me at all), but then said that he'd heard I'd been in the area for decades and had helped the garou out on numerous past occasions. (Yeah, it was definitely Val who told Elliot.)
We had a good talk. Elliot's adren challenge had involved tracking down some mages that'd been damaging a glade and who'd swiped a fetish. One was Order of Hermes, but Elliot bungled the terminology: he doesn't know much about mages at all. Supposedly the mages attempted to use non-lethal means of thwarting the garou, so Elliot returned the favor by not killing them. (That's surprisingly progressive for a garou.) Eliot said he wasn't going to blow my cover and to let him know if people give me shit. (Hear that Riley? No more sudden face-slapping for you!) Elliot said he trusted Mouse's judgement, so as far as he was concerned, I was free to keep going where I'd been going and doing what I'd been doing. Mouse brought up that Jacinta was going to tell her pack and hadn't made similar promises. I echoed those concerns, suggested Elliot have a talk with her and her pack about it, but stressed I was not telling him that he needed to put a leash on Jacinta. (I have a feeling starting a fight between the sept Alpha and the Warder would be a Bad Idea for everyone involved.)
Elliot asked if I was the only mage in town, and I told him I wasn't. But I wasn't going to tell him names or quantities--just like I didn't expect names and quantities for him. And I made it clear I knew how the garou had tracking rites and gifts. He seemed okay with that. (I suspect Jacinta'd have been much less okay with that.) Elliot wanted me to act as a bridge between the garou and the mages, and wanted me to encourage the mages to come forward and meet with him--otherwise he couldn't offer them any protection. (Honestly? I feel like I'm in more danger now than before. Ila /might/ go for this, but I suspect Charley, with what his own family did to him, will not.)
I then brought up how I'd turned fetishes over to the garou in the past, and that I knew about the magic knife the garou currently had. I'd give then any fetishes I found if they gave any magic items over to me. Starting with the knife. Elliot's going to look into getting the knife and giving it to me, though it seems like it will come in concert with me assisting to see if the person wielding the knife earlier that KL killed was the mage or a minion. Elliot looked distinctly uncomfortable about giving a knife that could temporarily render a garou unable to shift, rage, or access their static forms of magic. I don't blame him one bit. (If he knew what I could do with that Knife and some Correspondence and Matter and Forces magic? Stab a garou from miles away? I don't think he'd want to give it to me at all.) But I assured him I wanted the knife to study and for defense against Spirals (or perhaps an aggressive gaian garou).
We wrapped up the meeting--Elliot needed to be elsewhere--by Mouse mentioning she's going to try and get something done with her back soon, and that she'd be putting Salem in charge of the tribe in her absence--even if he didn't want to. (Poor guy. That's the reward you get for being competent and respected: more shit to deal with.)
After the meeting ended, Mouse asked me about something I'd said to Elliot earlier: that I'd already seen the knife after she'd told me not to examine it until after the meeting with Jacinta and Elliot. (This being before the shit hit the fan.) I think Mouse missed the e-mail I sent her earlier, so I repeated how I'd been over at Val's to watch a movie when Charlene turned up with the knife, gave it to Val, and I mentioned how Val might want to be careful while handling it because getting nicked might rob her of her shifting abilities and magic; so Val passed the knife over to me. Mouse was a bit hot over that. Not me looking the knife over when it was handed to me, but Val--who'd heard Mouse caution me about not examining the knife--handing me the knife anyway. I think there's a little misplaced aggression there. I looked at it because, hello, it was /right/ /there/ and no need to construct some elaborate ruse to get it away from KL (or Charlene at that moment). And I explained why I'd done it to Mouse and then apologized, but she brushed it aside and said I was not "a soldier" and that the rules for garou beneath her didn't apply to me. (I kind of think they do, to an extent at least, but.... I'm embarrassed because I acted a bit like a disobedient cub or a wet-behind-the-ears well-meaning cliath.)
As I was talking with Riley, I started getting some texts from Mouse. They were originally from Elliot, the sept alpha. Blunt. Short. Direct texts that said, effectively, "Meet me immediately. We are going to have A Talk." One guess what that talk would be about. God dammit. How the hell did Mouse harboring a mage leak to him so damn fast? Jacinta said she'd tell her pack but that she'd suggest that they not go sharing willy-nilly. The only other.... Fuck. I'll bet it was Val. She blew it with Jacinta. She probably thought she'd try and help out further by spilling the beans to Elliot before.... Jesus, Val. Quit. Fucking. Helping. You're making shit blow up all over. Mouse said she was going to meet up with Elliot ASAP and wanted to know if I wanted to come along or wait. I went with her. Sooooo would have rather done this when the moon wasn't as full and like we'd discussed with Jacinta the night before.
Drove Mouse out to Edgewood. Walked her to the meadow out back. When Elliot showed up, I put some distance between me and those two, then started prepping a bit of magic in case Elliot lost it and needed to be restrained. (Again, I /really/ did not want to do this for all the reasons I mentioned earlier when I was dealing with Jacinta.) Elliot was hot, but not so hot as to be irrational or violent. I overheard that he was disappointed in Mouse because, earlier, he'd asked everyone to tell him if they knew of any others who were not garou but in the area. And chastised Mouse for not coming forward about a mage when Elliot had previously accepted a Fox and a Tiger shifter. (Granted, they're /shifters/ and still loosely affiliated with one another. I'm a bit more of a stretch.) Mouse said she was protecting family, had met with Jacinta last night, and Elliot was on the next-to-talk-to list. Elliot cooled off, then asked Mouse who it was. At this point, I stepped up, introduced myself, and backed up every thing Mouse said--and further said my own reservations about interacting with the garou here were what slowed the process down, but Mouse had been consistently prompting me to come forward to both Elliot and Jacinta. Elliot looked surprised (I don't think he'd suspected me at all), but then said that he'd heard I'd been in the area for decades and had helped the garou out on numerous past occasions. (Yeah, it was definitely Val who told Elliot.)
We had a good talk. Elliot's adren challenge had involved tracking down some mages that'd been damaging a glade and who'd swiped a fetish. One was Order of Hermes, but Elliot bungled the terminology: he doesn't know much about mages at all. Supposedly the mages attempted to use non-lethal means of thwarting the garou, so Elliot returned the favor by not killing them. (That's surprisingly progressive for a garou.) Eliot said he wasn't going to blow my cover and to let him know if people give me shit. (Hear that Riley? No more sudden face-slapping for you!) Elliot said he trusted Mouse's judgement, so as far as he was concerned, I was free to keep going where I'd been going and doing what I'd been doing. Mouse brought up that Jacinta was going to tell her pack and hadn't made similar promises. I echoed those concerns, suggested Elliot have a talk with her and her pack about it, but stressed I was not telling him that he needed to put a leash on Jacinta. (I have a feeling starting a fight between the sept Alpha and the Warder would be a Bad Idea for everyone involved.)
Elliot asked if I was the only mage in town, and I told him I wasn't. But I wasn't going to tell him names or quantities--just like I didn't expect names and quantities for him. And I made it clear I knew how the garou had tracking rites and gifts. He seemed okay with that. (I suspect Jacinta'd have been much less okay with that.) Elliot wanted me to act as a bridge between the garou and the mages, and wanted me to encourage the mages to come forward and meet with him--otherwise he couldn't offer them any protection. (Honestly? I feel like I'm in more danger now than before. Ila /might/ go for this, but I suspect Charley, with what his own family did to him, will not.)
I then brought up how I'd turned fetishes over to the garou in the past, and that I knew about the magic knife the garou currently had. I'd give then any fetishes I found if they gave any magic items over to me. Starting with the knife. Elliot's going to look into getting the knife and giving it to me, though it seems like it will come in concert with me assisting to see if the person wielding the knife earlier that KL killed was the mage or a minion. Elliot looked distinctly uncomfortable about giving a knife that could temporarily render a garou unable to shift, rage, or access their static forms of magic. I don't blame him one bit. (If he knew what I could do with that Knife and some Correspondence and Matter and Forces magic? Stab a garou from miles away? I don't think he'd want to give it to me at all.) But I assured him I wanted the knife to study and for defense against Spirals (or perhaps an aggressive gaian garou).
We wrapped up the meeting--Elliot needed to be elsewhere--by Mouse mentioning she's going to try and get something done with her back soon, and that she'd be putting Salem in charge of the tribe in her absence--even if he didn't want to. (Poor guy. That's the reward you get for being competent and respected: more shit to deal with.)
After the meeting ended, Mouse asked me about something I'd said to Elliot earlier: that I'd already seen the knife after she'd told me not to examine it until after the meeting with Jacinta and Elliot. (This being before the shit hit the fan.) I think Mouse missed the e-mail I sent her earlier, so I repeated how I'd been over at Val's to watch a movie when Charlene turned up with the knife, gave it to Val, and I mentioned how Val might want to be careful while handling it because getting nicked might rob her of her shifting abilities and magic; so Val passed the knife over to me. Mouse was a bit hot over that. Not me looking the knife over when it was handed to me, but Val--who'd heard Mouse caution me about not examining the knife--handing me the knife anyway. I think there's a little misplaced aggression there. I looked at it because, hello, it was /right/ /there/ and no need to construct some elaborate ruse to get it away from KL (or Charlene at that moment). And I explained why I'd done it to Mouse and then apologized, but she brushed it aside and said I was not "a soldier" and that the rules for garou beneath her didn't apply to me. (I kind of think they do, to an extent at least, but.... I'm embarrassed because I acted a bit like a disobedient cub or a wet-behind-the-ears well-meaning cliath.)
