Practice - physical plane - mid morning

[Mouse]

Carry walked up to the fire ring and sat her battered guitar case down, looking slightly surprised that no one else was here. She took a minute to gently coax the fire back to life, feeding it from the pile of firewood until it crackled merrily, chasing away the mid morning chill.

With the fire lit, Carry sat down and opened her guitar case, pulling out her guitar. It was her only real possession, and it was obvious she took immaculate care of it. After taking a moment to tune it, Carry began to pick a tune, her body gently swaying with the beat. Before long she became lost in her own music, letting her fingers do the leading.

[Mr Speaks]

A human nose pops out from a bush and sniffs the air. There is a gentle rustling before Eli emerges from the underbrush.

He sniffs a bit at the surrounding air before approaching the fire. He takes a seat beside Carry and leans up against her, quietly enjoying her music.

[DerekCase]

Lying very close to the ground rested Tide in his suchid form. Gaia had done much to benefit her creatures. The grass hid his brown-green hide well. The cool air moving across his skin were kisses from those happy little spirits even if he couldn't hear their laughter here. He had nearly drifted off to sleep when he heard the music. Listening for a while, his mood picked up.

He crawled along his belly slowly up to Carry before clearing his throat and in perfect garou said, "I knew a man once who played like that."

[Mr Speaks]

Eli jerks away and straightens up, remaining quiet in a poor attempt to hide guilt.

[Mouse]

Carry seems unaware of Eli's approach, completely lost in her own world. When he leaned against her though, she started slightly, plucking a sour note. When she realized who it was though, she quickly recovered, and her song morphed to something new. After a moment, she began to sing.

((For those who don't know, Carry has the Enchanting Voice merit. So, her singing is fucking pretty))

"Love of mine some day you will die, but I'll be close behind. I'll follow you into the dark. No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white. Just our hands clasped so tight, waiting for the hint of a spark..."

Carry got about halfway through the song before she noticed the rather large lizard crawling towards them. Her song came to an abrupt end, her brows furrowing when the creature spoke to her in Garou.

"Tide, is that you?"

[DerekCase]

Tide flashed an absurdly toothy grin. "I certainly hope so. Otherwise, I may have misplaced myself." His 16 foot long suchid form stretched before rolling onto it's back.
"I don't think I recognize that song. Though there are few I do these days. Music changes faster than most other things. I hear there's a new kind the children play these days call Wrap that's almost entirely people beating on pots and kettles."

[Mouse]

Carry snorted, doing her best to hold back a laugh. "Rap is just bad poetry put to a beat. No pots and pans. Just computer generated beats and nasty lyrics." she explained, making a face. "I prefer more acoustic stuff. The song I was singing is called "I'll Follow You Into the Dark". It's one of my favorites right now. Real nice sounding on the guitar, and beautiful lyrics."

She chuckles. "Might be silly for a Galliard, but I've always believed that someone has said what you are trying to say already, and they most likely said it better. So, I use music to tell my stories."

[Mr Speaks]

(Timeline note, carry and Eli speak at true same time)

Eli snorts, "yes, I would wager that its of the Wyrm," Eli rests back against the log, adjusting himself so that he's sitting beside carry.

"Were you here the whole time?"

[DerekCase]

"I was asleep until a few moments ago, I think, unless I wasn't dreaming the frightfully randy panther chasing me through the amazon." Tide's tail swishes softly through the grass.

"I think I've also met a computer once. He was a nice fellow, but he spoke painfully slowly. He didn't seem to quite understand that I was only passing through and didn't need to be sorted into smaller blocks. But I understand what you mean. It does often seem as if all that is worth saying has been said. That does not make it any less worth saying."

[Mr Speaks]

(I would give Derek xp, if it weren't an st character)

"A.... Randy cat?"

Eli seems somewhat lost and chooses just to learn forward and bask in the warmth of the fire on the still cold April night.

[Mouse]

"True" Carry said with a nod, "but if given the choice, why not use the better said words?"

At the computer comment, Carry snorts again, before breaking into giggles, no longer able to hold them back. Se doubles over for a few moments before regaining her composure.

"Computers aren't living things Tide. Not really anyways. Just artificial intelligence in a box."

Carry begins to strum her guitar idly again, turning her attention to the movements her hands are making. After a while, as if unable to control herself, she begins to sing softly.

"And I'm sorry that I've always forgot your birthday and you've never forgot mine. And I'm sorry I haven't given you any grand kids, and I'm sorry that I don't have a wife. And I'm sorry if the way that I live my life is the way you think is right, but you raised me well and I think that I came out alright..."

[DerekCase]

Tide nods at the computer comment, opens his maw as if to speak, but it snaps shut as the music begins again. He waits until the song finishes with a smile on his face, and then stands on his four tiny legs and begins shifting up through Archid to Homid. For a short moment, he's nearly twenty feet tall, a T-Rex looking creature with long manlike arms and two legs bent only once and the knees, then it fades and the old man is standing before them.

"I guess not all new music has been bad. You should have heard the greeks play in their time. Their "bars" sounded much like that, all raucous and happy sadness."

[Mouse]

Carry smiles "I can only imagine it was pretty spectacular." Carry says softly, running her fingers gently across the body of the guitar, its wood polished and bright. "That kind of music is the most fun to play. Mix a little of a bunch of emotions into a song, and you leave people remembering it."

She pauses for a moment, looking thoughtful. "You speak as though you saw the greek bars yourself, Tide. I know nothing about the Mokole...do they really live that long?"

[DerekCase]

Tide scratched his beard thoughtfully, "Yes and no. Really, I don't know," he said after a moment. "There are some of us that live for a very long time, but our memories far outlive ourselves. I can remember, as I showed you, a time before before the great wars. I can remember having six legs and serving a queen who loved me and my brothers in some unknown time. I can remember watching the first mammal crawl out his hole, a curious little thing with no eggs. I can remember running as a great Auroch across the northern plains. I remember meeting a poor sad giant of a man, cracked on the head with a stone and shamed before the world. I can remember meeting a very confused Nuwisha some 60 or 70 years ago under detainment in some ROS-WEEL place in New Mexico. Our lives are long and short and many. Some of it is mine from egg to here, some of it is not, but all of it is me."

He smiles as grin that reaches his eyes, "We are gaia's memories as you are her protectors. But just as you tell stories and pass on your knowledge, we fight the wyrm things and defend her sanctity."

[Mouse]

"So, you have, like, a hive memory almost?" Carry asked, sounding a little confused. "Or, like, you have the memories of your ancestors? That has got to come in handy sometimes." she says with a smile.

"It's just so crazy, how many of you are still around. The Changing Breeds, I mean. Our cubs are taught from the very beginning that you and many others are lost to us forever. Killed off or dead or forever lost in the umbra. Why would they lie to us like that?"

[DerekCase]

Tide laughs, "It is not a hive memory, though there were once some of Gaias children that lived that way. We pass our memories, our selves onto those that come after us." His smile slips and his voice grows softer, "Yes, many of us are lost. I have memories of the Tasmanian devils, the Great Boars, the Bats and Rabbits and Sabretooth Tigers and Mammoths and many more, but some of us are not lost. Some have chosen to hide themselves from your kind's anger, have slipped into disguises or wandered into the umbra, even chosen to sleep away the centuries in places no one would ever go. Many of my kind have done this, but I am of the Rising Sun and cannot ignore Helios's call to burn away all that is defiled and wretched."

He stands and rummages through is pockets before finding his pipe, his leathery coat rattling all the time. "Calm yourself, it's mine anyway." He says to his coat before sitting back down, filling his pipe with some strange herb, and lighting it.
"You see, they are not lies but misunderstandings."

[Mouse]

"Boars? Rabbits?" Carry repeats, sounding shocked, then shakes her head. "We can't even go without killing our own kind. The Bunyip are the perfect example. Slaughtered by our own hands."

When the coat rattles, she tilts her head curiously. "Do you have a rattlesnake in your coat?"

[DerekCase]

"No," Tide puffs his pipe. "She's just angry. Have you ever considered that it is no entirely of your own failing? The ratkin were supposed to keep the humans in check before they ever needed culled. The mokole were supposed to share their wisdom with the garou as they grew, so that they would not repeat their ancestor's mistakes. The Gurahl were supposed to heal the wounds of harsh words before anything escalated into war. The Nagah were supposed to cull those that would not listen, not learn, not be healed and were beat on defying Gaia. All have failed in part to lead to this." He said with a sweeping gesture.

[Mouse]

Carry remains silent for a moment, mulling over the old man's words. "We have to start doing better." she says finally. "Start learning from our mistakes and listening to others. If we don't we're never going to win. We stand no chance if we don't learn from our mistakes and start fresh, the way we are supposed to be." She looks up at Tide. "I guess that's why I like this sept so much. Why I've stuck around despite all the horrible things that have happened. Because this sept, this caern, is a beacon of hope for that."

[DerekCase]

"It is good." Tide says simply. "Now, tell me about yourself, Carry."

[Mouse]

Carry chuckles. "Where do I start? I'm originally from Cincinnati. My mother was a kind, gentle woman. A theurge, who used her gifts to heal the sick and soothe the weary. She...died, giving birth to me. My father was an Ahroun. The Caerm Wader. I grew up in a warehouse in the middle of the ghetto. Didn't see outside until I was nearly nine." She frowns, shaking her head. "Once I hit my first change, things were better. I proved to be useful, gained the respect of my septmates. Then, things went...bad...and I had to leave. Wound up coming here, and I've been here ever since."

She pauses. "I've never thought I've been that great of a Galliard. I think too much like an Ahroun. Too quick to jump into a fight. Too quick to get angry. I try to temper it with my music. It helps some. What it doesn't control, a good hunt takes care of."

Carry pauses again, taking a minute to gently place her guitar in its case and close it. She throws a couple more pieces of wood on the fire before she continues. "I can't imagine myself ever going back to Cincy now. No reason to. My mother's dead, my father hates the place I call home, and my old pack is dead. Come to think of it, every pack I've ever been in has fallen to shambles. Either died or ran off. So Momma Rat and I just keep to ourselves now. It's easier that way."

[Mr Speaks]

"The Apis, the Comazotz, the Nagah, the Bunyip, the Grondr. All murdered by us out of arrogance. I shudder to think of how much we have doomed ourselves in the process," Eli mutters.

"The world is ugly and overrun with weeds, because we killed the groomers, and none of us care to do anything about it. We sin with our brothers and rarely mate purely anymore without the bulls to guide us. The southern hemisphere has all but fallen because we killed the bats, the corax are already stretched thin trying to take our messages, our brother Africa die because of that. And the snakes, no wonder this arrogance continues, no wonder our own kind fell to the Wyrm. Gaia gave us someone to watch us, and save us from our own arrogance and poor decisions and we slew them.

"I mean hell, it wasn't until a short time ago that I even knew the bears were still walking. Thousands of year later they are afraid to come out of their holes and heal this land. Afraid of what our rage might do again."

Eli puts his head in his hands, "what kind of world have we cut ourselves?"

[Mouse]

Carry reaches over and gently wraps an arm around Eli's shoulder, giving him a comforting squeeze. "That's why we're gonna fix it Eli. That's why we are going to set things right. We can't bring the dead back to life, but w ecan pave a new way for those who still live."

[Mr Speaks]

(Well I'll be damned. Derek it was you we were waiting on...)

[DerekCase]

Tide clears his throat, his adam's apple bobbing up and down chaotically. "Yes, yes. Indistinctions are much easier to make than distinctions, mind you. What would you have us do, hope these things better? What plans of action have you made?"

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