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Friday, Jan 17.
It's been a busy week. I've been playing catch-up with work for Terminus, then my own PI business. Evenings? Kind of wish I could spend them with Emma, but the moon is too full. Instead, I've been reading an old (1884) novel, Flatland, about a 2D world where a character (a square) meets a 3D character (a sphere), that the rest of the 2D world believes doesn't exist. The square has its horizons broadened, and speculates with the sphere on the existence of a 4th dimension. The sphere is offended and returns the square to the 2D world. I had to laugh a little bit. It's gotten me reading some older Euclidean mathematical texts on geometry and spatial relationships, though. I had a knack for that sort of thing back in college. An intuition. I kind of miss college and the intellectual stimulation. I'd consider graduate school, but what's the point? I don't need a better job. Plus, as things get more and more theoretical, I'm nervous that what seems intuitive to me might end up being some kind of magical breakthrough to a professor. Or utter insanity. Best to leave it alone.
I ran into Val at Snakes and Lattes this morning. We had a good chat. Caught up a bit. She and Brad seem to be getting along fine. She mentioned thinking about using that hidden glade she showed me the other week as a place to drop off a spirit egg. Corax usually only have one in their lifetime. It's rare that they have two in a lifetime. Almost unheard of to have three. She sees it as a duty to create at least one. Makes sense.... biologically. Explains why there's so few of them, too. I told her that if she was going to do a spirit egg, she ought to do it soon because she's "no spring chicken." That got a laugh. I like it when people laugh. She also mentioned that there's typically only going to be maybe one or two corax visiting the glade when I show up once per month to refresh the sigil I placed there, marking the place as claimed by a mage (in the hope that any other mage that happens upon it won't claim it or drain it). She suggested I bring fatty meat instead of shinies, to help stay on the ravens' good sides.
Sunday, Jan 19
Moon was waning but still a little on the too-full-for-comfort side of things. I was passing by the tenement and decided to briefly pop in to donate a case of Coke to the cause. Mouse was in the breakroom, in lupus. She looks weird in that form--dimensions all wrong. And scarred. She's had a rough life. I suspect it won't get any easier for her. Every now and then, I find myself pitying the garou. Mouse mentioned Duke was claimed by the Get, so he won't be in Thomas' hair anymore. I suspect Emma will be very busy working with him. As it turns out, Emma's challenge for adren looks to be happening almost immediately. Why am I so nervous about that? Rhys and Salem showed up, which I took as a sign that I should leave with the moon being as full as it was. I left immediately, even though I'd have rather chatted with them all. It's like.... I have to stay away from family. For my own good.
It's a fucked up "family" dynamic, but I've pretty much given up on ever having such a thing with my dad--so it's all I've got. Mom gave up on the family when I was twelve. A clean cut. Dad.... I don't know when he gave up. Maybe he'd given up then, too. And it just took me a decade to figure it out. Val said she considered me to be family, even though corax don't have kin like the garou do. I guess family /can/ be who you choose to make it with. Family to a bunch of werewolves and wereravens. It's a fucked up world I live in. Just roll with it, Nick. Just roll with it or cut your ties with everything.
Monday, Jan 20
I was reading a paper on multi-dimensional geometry in the park--yay, Kindle Fire with its PDF storage capacity!--when Mr. Lee, Ky, Naomi, and Val turned up. This guy came by eating a cellophane-wrapped sandwich. The /unwrapped/ cellophane sandwich. Plastic and all. Thaaaat's not normal. I reached out with some Entropy and Spirit magic and.... yup. Abnormal negative entropic spiritual decay. AKA Wyrm-taint, as the garou call it. I quietly tipped Thomas off (Naomi called him that, so I guess that's his first name?), and he set off after the guy. As the others gathered nearby, I told them Thomas had mentioned the guy "smelled Wyrmy"--the language the garou used--and they seemed to buy it. (Except Naomi, who asked what tipped me off along with some other stuff, and I just omitted part of my response to her. Hopefully she just forgot because she dropped it." We all set off trailing Thomas, but then we lost him. (Well I didn't as he was using a magical effect to conceal himself, but it just turned him into a magic-radiating beacon for me.)
Thomas called my cell, told me he'd give us an address, and about 30 minutes later we were outside this large business named Thoralon. Ky left to go alert others, but Naomi and Val and I hung back so as to give Thomas breathing room--and support if he needed it. He tracked him after work to a nice suburb. (The guy drove a Lotus Evora. Nice!) Thomas and Val went in while Naomi and I stayed in her car a ways off. I made sure not to use an magic because, hello, Naomi hates mages, was right there next to me, and she's armed. Lay low, Nick.
Before long, the guy came out the front door with Thomas right behind him. The guy vomited chunky acid and worms and stuff all over Thomas. A fight broke out, but it was over almost immediately. Val did some small fireball trick (?!?) that incinerated the body and everyone bailed to rendevous at Snakes and Latte's upstairs apartment. Thomas demonstrated his ability to come in through a second story window and then claim "I flew" when asked how he got there. (I suspect he actually did fly, too.) Naomi demonstrated her ability to tend to burn wounds. Val demonstrated her ability to heal. And I demonstrated my ability to sit there and observe while drinking alcoholic beverages. Thomas introduced himself as Uktena kin. Naomi retold her tale to Val and Thomas: mage messed her up 8 years ago, nothing the garou tried to do seemed to fix it, all attempts to track down the mage have been fruitless, a friend of hers got a ping that the mage was in Saint Claire not long after Naomi turned up, and Naomi thinks she's a test subject of some kind. Thomas seemed to think Naomi might be a tracking device the mage might be using to locate garou and garou hideouts because mages wouldn't wait 8 years for a single test subject. (Thomas clearly does not know much about mages skilled with Life or Time magic.) I mentioned how Naomi's situation seemed connected to KL losing her ability to shift after getting stabbed by a knife, we speculated on those being connected.... And then we just sort of broke up. I crashed on the couch and was up and out before the early bird.
Tuesday, Jan 21
Stayed home playing through Portal and Portal 2 yesterday. On the futon. Under the blanket. With LOLcat curled up on or next to me. All day. Because I could.
Emma called that evening. She passed her athro challenge and didn't mention missing any limbs or anything, so that was excellent. She apologized for not calling me earlier and I pointed out that I ought to be pretty far down her list of priorities. She's got her own daughter. Her mother. Herself. Her tribe. At best I'm 5th place. I'm okay with that. And hopefully that gave her a little perspective, too. I am looking forward to seeing her, though. When the moon is more conducive to that sort of thing. She seems like she is, too. And wanted a "normal" date. I think I can arrange normal--but awesome at the same time.
It's been a busy week. I've been playing catch-up with work for Terminus, then my own PI business. Evenings? Kind of wish I could spend them with Emma, but the moon is too full. Instead, I've been reading an old (1884) novel, Flatland, about a 2D world where a character (a square) meets a 3D character (a sphere), that the rest of the 2D world believes doesn't exist. The square has its horizons broadened, and speculates with the sphere on the existence of a 4th dimension. The sphere is offended and returns the square to the 2D world. I had to laugh a little bit. It's gotten me reading some older Euclidean mathematical texts on geometry and spatial relationships, though. I had a knack for that sort of thing back in college. An intuition. I kind of miss college and the intellectual stimulation. I'd consider graduate school, but what's the point? I don't need a better job. Plus, as things get more and more theoretical, I'm nervous that what seems intuitive to me might end up being some kind of magical breakthrough to a professor. Or utter insanity. Best to leave it alone.
I ran into Val at Snakes and Lattes this morning. We had a good chat. Caught up a bit. She and Brad seem to be getting along fine. She mentioned thinking about using that hidden glade she showed me the other week as a place to drop off a spirit egg. Corax usually only have one in their lifetime. It's rare that they have two in a lifetime. Almost unheard of to have three. She sees it as a duty to create at least one. Makes sense.... biologically. Explains why there's so few of them, too. I told her that if she was going to do a spirit egg, she ought to do it soon because she's "no spring chicken." That got a laugh. I like it when people laugh. She also mentioned that there's typically only going to be maybe one or two corax visiting the glade when I show up once per month to refresh the sigil I placed there, marking the place as claimed by a mage (in the hope that any other mage that happens upon it won't claim it or drain it). She suggested I bring fatty meat instead of shinies, to help stay on the ravens' good sides.
Sunday, Jan 19
Moon was waning but still a little on the too-full-for-comfort side of things. I was passing by the tenement and decided to briefly pop in to donate a case of Coke to the cause. Mouse was in the breakroom, in lupus. She looks weird in that form--dimensions all wrong. And scarred. She's had a rough life. I suspect it won't get any easier for her. Every now and then, I find myself pitying the garou. Mouse mentioned Duke was claimed by the Get, so he won't be in Thomas' hair anymore. I suspect Emma will be very busy working with him. As it turns out, Emma's challenge for adren looks to be happening almost immediately. Why am I so nervous about that? Rhys and Salem showed up, which I took as a sign that I should leave with the moon being as full as it was. I left immediately, even though I'd have rather chatted with them all. It's like.... I have to stay away from family. For my own good.
It's a fucked up "family" dynamic, but I've pretty much given up on ever having such a thing with my dad--so it's all I've got. Mom gave up on the family when I was twelve. A clean cut. Dad.... I don't know when he gave up. Maybe he'd given up then, too. And it just took me a decade to figure it out. Val said she considered me to be family, even though corax don't have kin like the garou do. I guess family /can/ be who you choose to make it with. Family to a bunch of werewolves and wereravens. It's a fucked up world I live in. Just roll with it, Nick. Just roll with it or cut your ties with everything.
Monday, Jan 20
I was reading a paper on multi-dimensional geometry in the park--yay, Kindle Fire with its PDF storage capacity!--when Mr. Lee, Ky, Naomi, and Val turned up. This guy came by eating a cellophane-wrapped sandwich. The /unwrapped/ cellophane sandwich. Plastic and all. Thaaaat's not normal. I reached out with some Entropy and Spirit magic and.... yup. Abnormal negative entropic spiritual decay. AKA Wyrm-taint, as the garou call it. I quietly tipped Thomas off (Naomi called him that, so I guess that's his first name?), and he set off after the guy. As the others gathered nearby, I told them Thomas had mentioned the guy "smelled Wyrmy"--the language the garou used--and they seemed to buy it. (Except Naomi, who asked what tipped me off along with some other stuff, and I just omitted part of my response to her. Hopefully she just forgot because she dropped it." We all set off trailing Thomas, but then we lost him. (Well I didn't as he was using a magical effect to conceal himself, but it just turned him into a magic-radiating beacon for me.)
Thomas called my cell, told me he'd give us an address, and about 30 minutes later we were outside this large business named Thoralon. Ky left to go alert others, but Naomi and Val and I hung back so as to give Thomas breathing room--and support if he needed it. He tracked him after work to a nice suburb. (The guy drove a Lotus Evora. Nice!) Thomas and Val went in while Naomi and I stayed in her car a ways off. I made sure not to use an magic because, hello, Naomi hates mages, was right there next to me, and she's armed. Lay low, Nick.
Before long, the guy came out the front door with Thomas right behind him. The guy vomited chunky acid and worms and stuff all over Thomas. A fight broke out, but it was over almost immediately. Val did some small fireball trick (?!?) that incinerated the body and everyone bailed to rendevous at Snakes and Latte's upstairs apartment. Thomas demonstrated his ability to come in through a second story window and then claim "I flew" when asked how he got there. (I suspect he actually did fly, too.) Naomi demonstrated her ability to tend to burn wounds. Val demonstrated her ability to heal. And I demonstrated my ability to sit there and observe while drinking alcoholic beverages. Thomas introduced himself as Uktena kin. Naomi retold her tale to Val and Thomas: mage messed her up 8 years ago, nothing the garou tried to do seemed to fix it, all attempts to track down the mage have been fruitless, a friend of hers got a ping that the mage was in Saint Claire not long after Naomi turned up, and Naomi thinks she's a test subject of some kind. Thomas seemed to think Naomi might be a tracking device the mage might be using to locate garou and garou hideouts because mages wouldn't wait 8 years for a single test subject. (Thomas clearly does not know much about mages skilled with Life or Time magic.) I mentioned how Naomi's situation seemed connected to KL losing her ability to shift after getting stabbed by a knife, we speculated on those being connected.... And then we just sort of broke up. I crashed on the couch and was up and out before the early bird.
Tuesday, Jan 21
Stayed home playing through Portal and Portal 2 yesterday. On the futon. Under the blanket. With LOLcat curled up on or next to me. All day. Because I could.
Emma called that evening. She passed her athro challenge and didn't mention missing any limbs or anything, so that was excellent. She apologized for not calling me earlier and I pointed out that I ought to be pretty far down her list of priorities. She's got her own daughter. Her mother. Herself. Her tribe. At best I'm 5th place. I'm okay with that. And hopefully that gave her a little perspective, too. I am looking forward to seeing her, though. When the moon is more conducive to that sort of thing. She seems like she is, too. And wanted a "normal" date. I think I can arrange normal--but awesome at the same time.
