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Currently the moon is in the waxing Full Moon phase (91% full).

Farmhouse: Hallway and Living Room

All doorways in the front part of the house lead to the front hallway, a J-shaped area with the short tail starting at the stairs, the front door hitting the bottom curve, the doorless opening to the living room halfway up the long side, and the also doorless opening to the kitchen and dining room at the very top. The hall has a simple wooden floor, and decorated with a generic print of soft-colored flowers hanging on the wall to the right of the front door, and a tall table sitting under the print which serves as a place to toss keys. A closet under the stairs serves as a place to hang coats or to toss shoes.

The doorless opening to the living room is halfway up the side of the hall's J, and the word cozy might spring to mind when looking into is, as it seems to radiate comforting vibrations. A long couch sits against the south wall beneath a large bay window curtained only by sheers that manages to obscure the view in but only filters the day's light. A variety of out-of-date magazines are strewn atop a low coffee table; more neatly presented are the plethora of books filling the small bookshelves which line the eastern wall. Three chairs sit about the room, focused inward, to allow group conversations. Large floor pillows are stacked in one corner of the room, except one, which lies carelessly in the middle of the floor, apparently left out the last time it was used.

An opening in the northern end of the hallway allows access to the kitchen and dining room at the back of the house, while carpeted stairs twist up at the other end of the hall, leading to the second floor. A door at the base of the J lets out to the front porch.

The screen door of the farmhouse bangs closed behind Natalie; she's much more gentle with the actual front door, which *snicks* shut. "Yo the house!" she calls, glancing up the steps to the second floor before checking out the front room. "Hello?"

Kevin is hunched up in a chair, looking twitchy. At Natalie's entrance he turns and gives her a faint smile. "You did come, then..." he murmurs, sounding grateful.

"I keep my word," she snaps back at him, though mildly considering the moon. "I'm no Gnawer. Though," she adds, eyeing the young man sternly, "After hearing about the crap you pulled I might be doing us all a favor if I just take you out to the woods and rip out your throat. Wanna tell me what the hell you were trying to pull?"

Kevin sighs contritely and takes a deep breath. "I got into a row with this other cub, Hope, a day or so back," he explains. "She's a complete dead loss if you ask me. She knows nothing, and keeps on saying how she doesn't want to be a killer. I kept telling her she didn't have a choice, every time she came out with it, but in the end I had to walk out or I'd have thumped her... Anyway, I was so fuming mad, I thought I'd give her a scare... and I guess you know what happened then. Instead of Hope finding me, Olga and Emma did. Two of the garou who've shown me the most kindness since I came here. I felt about six inches tall for giving them such a scare." The cub looks down at the floor.

Natalie leans against the door frame of the room, her arms folding over her chest. She lets Kevin stew in his own silence for a few moments. "--And what did we learn from this little stunt?"

"Not to play stupid pranks. Or if I must, not to play them when the moon's this close to full," responds Kevin. He looks up again, at Natalie, trying to read approval for his response in her eyes.

Nat's eyes remain lidded, hard to read. "That's close enough. And what about the rest? Emma told me you were thinking damn hard about shacking up with the Get. Are you serious, or yanking her chain?"

Kevin folds his arms glumly. "That's why I'd sooner have been found by anyone else yesterday. Even you, or Trevor. Because I am, yes. I don't suppose that's what you want to hear, but it's the truth, so there you go. After what happened, though, I don't suppose either her tribe or yours will want to know me. I'd better get ready for a life of living out of dustbins with the Gnawers."

A grimace flickers across the Galliard's face. "No, that's not what I want to hear, and no, that's not the reason why. If you're half a step from declaring yourself a Get, then you're their responsibility. I don't want to take you into town and try and win you over if you're just going to blow me off."

Kevin gives a shrug. "Ah. You didn't say you were going to take me into town as part of a recruiting programme. I was assuming it was to educate me, or to stop me from going even more mad than I already have from being here. Well, I'm not going to lie and say 'Yes, I'll come and join the Glass Walkers if you'll take me away from this farm'. But nothing's fixed yet. For all I know Fenris would have decided I'm not fit material for his elite even before my screw-up." He pauses, then a memory seems to strike him. "Oh, this was weird. This strange guy warned me off your tribe. When I told him you were one of the front runners for my loyalty, he cut me dead and told me I wasn't fit to be in his tribe, the Shadow Lords. What on earth was all that in aid of?"

Natalie's eyebrows twitch upwards. "If you're half a step from joining them, then it doesn't matter if I do a striptease and promise you a new Dell monthly, does it? So no, then there's no point in me taking you into town to try and win you over." The rest of the question draws her eyebrows back down again. "--Run that one past me again? You talked to a Shadow Lord. Said you were thinking of joining the Walkers, and he told you that you weren't perfect enough to be a Lord? Well, that's pretty much what you can expect from the bastards. Don't worry about it."

Kevin remains in the chair, and in his gloom. "Well, after meeting him I wouldn't join his tribe if I got paid in gold bullion, but what I didn't understand was what his tribe -- or was it just him? -- had against yours."

Natalie replies evenly, though her nostrils flare, "Not knowing who you talked to, I can't answer. It could easily be one or the other. I told you what the Walkers are like. A lot of the other tribes don't trust us. Because we live in the city. Because we adapt. Because we don't want to wipe out all the humans. Hell, because our tribe's Totem is a cockroach. Lord only knows why that particular Lord said what he did. Maybe to spread some love and good will around. That could be the main reason in itself."

"He gave his name as Jarred," Kevin clarifies. "He came out with shopping. I told him his tribe was the last one I'd yet to meet. He told me not to trust anyone who tried to recruit me." He shrugs. "I'd say he was just bitter and cynical, only he seemed pretty... powerful."

"Jarred," Natalie repeats, her eyebrows going up again. "Fostern Galliard, and Elder of the Shadow Lords. So yeah, he's a little powerful." She snorts, her attention diving inward for a few seconds. "--Well. That doesn't answer the question of the city. If there's no way you'll join the Walkers, I'm not gonna bust my butt doing the song and dance for you. It's only polite to let me know, huh? Think about it for a few - I'm gonna run up to the bathroom. When I get back you can let me know if you're serious about joining us, or if you're just using me to stop looking at the same four walls."

Kevin sits back and watches as Natalie makes a temporary exit. When she returns a few minutes later, he's still in the same position, half-recumbent in his chair. He looks up at the Walker with a guarded expression.

Natalie pauses in the doorway again, her eyebrows up expectantly. "Well? What's the word? You getting the full tour, or am I just your taxi driver?"

Kevin says nothing as he gets up, walks to the window, and looks out for a moment at the cold clear day, the brittle blue sky overhead concealing a moon that's pushing completely full. "I don't think putting it that way is very helpful," he finally responds, turning back round to contemplate Natalie. "I think it's fair to say that I'm down to two choices now, and that the Glass Walkers are one of them. But I've also got to say that the Get are going to be a hard act to beat. But hell." Suddenly he smiles, for the first time since Natalie's arrival this morning. "If your tribe are worth a damn, and I know they are, you're not gonna let that stop you giving it the good old college try if you think I'm worth trying for. I don't suppose you'd be too disappointed if you could steal me from under Fenris's nose either. I owe it to you, at the very least, to meet your tribemates, and listen to as much of the full lowdown as you see fit to give me."

Despite that very full moon Nat can't help but twitch a smile at his words. "You're right. About both the Walkers and that yeah, it'd be a coup to slip you away from another tribe. I'm not going to rag on the Get - both my packmates are Get Ahroun, and Gunnar's likely going to be joining us soon - but I just can't see you as a berserker. So." She jerks her head invitingly. "Let's go. I can give you a few hours back in civilization. Maybe you can meet Saul. He's going on his Rite of Passage tonight."

Kevin clenches his fists in delight. "Yes!" he exclaims, unable to conceal his longing to be out of his prison even if only briefly. "But I'm not going to let the fact that you have fast cars and money sway me," he warns, "while the Get only have scars and claws. And if you think I can't be a berserker... well, let's just wait and see," he concludes, evidently deciding against pursuing that line of conversation. "When does the bus leave, mummy?"

Natalie snorts at the 'fast cars and money' line. "I've got a little green pickup and a mitre saw," she tosses back. "And I don't have to eat ramen and mac 'n' cheese any more than I want to. So. There anything you need to grab? Shoes, coat, anything like that? You go get what you need and I'll be waiting for you in my truck."

"Shoes? Coat? It is to laugh!" Kevin comments, and suits the action to the word with a guffaw. "All I have is what you see me in. These dreadful old clothes that Helen found me just before Christmas to stop me from sitting around completely stark naked. No coat. No shoes." He lifts his foot up to display that the sole thereof is calloused and, alas, filthy dirty from several weeks spent barefoot. "No money, no passport, no watch, no papers, no tribe, no nothing. And no mitre saw, whatever the hell that is. I'm traveling light and ready to go when you are."

Natalie fshhts and eyes him from head to toe. "I remember those clothes - I Dedicated them to you, remember? And you haven't found any others that you like better? No shoes? Because this isn't Minnesota, but it's still too cold to go wandering around outside barefoot."

Kevin gives a wry smile. "This isn't a fashion showroom out here. There's hardly any clothing spare, and what there is doesn't fit me. I'd suggest that if you were going to the city we could stop and buy some shoes at least, but I've no money to buy them with and no idea how I could get any."

Natalie exhales a breath, runs a hand through her hair. "Well. Crap." Another second and just before he can think she'll withdraw her invitation, jerks her head toward the lane. "We'll just have to see about getting you something. Shoes at Goodwill are only a couple of bucks. --Say," she adds, staring at him as though trying to read the words inscribed on the inside of his skull, "You don't know anything about violins, do you?"

"I'll do your washing up," Kevin perkily offers. "I've done enough of it here to be quite the dab hand at cleaning dishes... Violin? No, sorry. Keyboards are my instrument, but I'm only a doodler. I can't play anything fancy."

Natalie sighs and waves off the offer. "Damn. I just thought... last time I took someone to Goodwill it was Erik. I promised to find him a violin, but I know as much about them as you know about being pregnant. So." She jerks her head again and heads for the door.

Kevin follows Natalie. "If you gave him more than one, that would make it gratuitous violins..." he quips as he heads out.

Natalie looks back at him sharply, then snorts again. She leads the way outside - her truck is indeed green and small, though it's obviously well-cared for. The radio flicks on as soon as they're both buckled in: modern country, which Nat happily sings along with. Her voice is decent, but nothing to write home about. The drive into town passes uneventfully, though there's a burst of swearing as some over-compensating guy in a red BMW cuts her off at her exit.

Kevin spends the journey gazing out of the window, trying to warm his feet up under the truck's heater, and generally acting overjoyed to see the sights. "There are people out here... actual ordinary people who don't know a thing about you and me and Emma and everyone..." he murmurs at one point as the truck runs parallel for a few moments with a newish station wagon containing a middle-aged couple. "I could almost have believed that the world I came from wasn't here any more." He shuts up again as the duo arrive in the town, content to drink in the sights of civilization that have been denied him for so long. Eventually the vehicle comes to a halt. "Where's this?" he asks, looking up and down the street.

"And they all need to be taken care of," Nat agrees, speeding past the station wagon. "--What? Oh, it's the Goodwill. People donate clothes and stuff here." She cracks open her door, then closes it again with a frown. "And you're not wearing shoes. Damn. Uh... you know what size you wear? American size? I'll run in and get you something. Don't think," she adds severely, "That just because you aren't in the woods I can't still track you if you decide to run. These are my woods."

"British size eight is, um... I think it's US size nine? I know it's one different, but I forget whether it goes up or down." Kevin gives an apologetic smile. "I don't suppose you could find some socks too, could you? I'm sorry to push my luck... You can lock me in here if you like. Either way I'm going nowhere."

Kevin pages to the room: No worries. Just unsure of the etiquette involved, not having rped outside the farm and caern area up to now.

Natalie offers her own foot over. "Show me your foot. And you might not've noticed," she adds with a grin, "but the locks are on the inside of the door. So I can lock you in all I like. It's not going to stop you." Once they've compared feet she nods and slides out of the truck. "OK. Shoes, socks, and a coat of some sort. Anything else?"

Kevin reddens a tiny bit as he lifts his foot, whether at Natalie's generosity or at the physical proximity of their tootsies who can tell? "I really really appreciate this," he says in heartfelt tones, and settles down to listen to music coming from an actual honest-to-Gaia radio, which no doubt seems like the sound of a heavenly choir after the farm.

Natalie disappears inside the storefront, which has a near-constant stream of shabbily dressed people coming and going. Several of them veer off to avoid entering the place at the same time as the Galliard, and after she's entered a clot of people hurry out, keeping their eyes down and shoulders hunched as if afraid of something. It's perhaps ten minutes later when Nat reappears, the little scene at the doors repeating itself, though she seems unaware of the effect she's having. She raps on his window once then opens the door and tosses a plastic bag onto his lap. Inside is a navy blue hooded sweatshirt, a three-pack of athletic socks, and a pair of running shoes that aren't too badly worn and more or less fit. While he's exclaiming over his treasures and getting dressed she slips back around to her side and starts driving again.

After another ten minutes or so they pull up in a quiet section of town, in the driveway of a large Victorian-era house. "Here we are," she says, hopping out of the car. "Home sweet home."

Kevin alternates poking through the bag like a small child with birthday presents with trying to follow the route of the journey, until they arrive at the house. "Hooboy, looks cool," he comments as he clocks it.

A used couch and a pair of recliners are grouped around a coffee table in the living room, with a foursome of wooden chairs claiming the bump out for quieter conversation. The dining room boasts a white laminate table with four vinyl-covered - too new to be 'vintage', too old to be trendy. The appliances and cupboards in the kitchen are new - or at least refurbished to look like it - and a door leads out to the backyard from there.

"Thanks," she says, leading the way into the house. She doesn't say any more until the door's closed firmly behind them both. "Welcome to the other safehouse. The city side." She gestures around at the well-worn furnishings. "It's not much, but it's... safe."

Clutching the bag of clothing to him, Kevin looks round, appearing slightly ill at ease. "Nicer than the farm," he says, and tries, with scant success, to rub some of the dirt off the soles of his still-bare feet onto the mat inside the door. "Mind if I sit down to put these on?"

Natalie flicks a magnanimous hand. "Sure. There's bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. Down here's the living room," she heads around the half-wall into the bright room, "and down the hall's another bathroom, the kitchen, and the dining room. So go knock yourself out."

Kevin lowers himself onto the sofa and eases a pair of socks onto his feet, finally covering up grime and callouses of which a Bone Gnawer might be proud. He hefts the shoes. "If I turned up with these to an athletics event," he says, "I'd get laughed out of town. But then again I don't suppose that matters much any more." He slides them on; Natalie has chosen well and they're a pretty good fit once he ties up the laces. "Let me get this straight... if I'm going to shift I've got to take these off again first, unless I get them dedicated?" he checks.

"Exactly," she nods, leaning casually against the wall to watch him. "Most people don't bother Dedicating socks, because they're so easy to replace. But shoes, a coat... sure."

Kevin stands as he awaits an answer and takes a few steps, looking anything but an athlete as he walks in shoes for the first time in two months. "Okeydoke. Now, you said there was a bathroom...? Mind if I go and freshen up?"

Natalie jerks a thumb over her shoulder in answer. "Knock yourself out," she says again. "There's no beds upstairs yet, but if the floor calls your name, go for it. I'm gonna make myself some lunch. You want anything?"

"Whatever you've got," Kevin says, as he wobbles towards the direction indicated. "I'll try not to be long." And indeed he isn't. After a few minutes he emerges looking clean, pink and happy, and generally well scrubbed. "Ohhh... that's so much better...."

Meanwhile Nat's retreated to the kitchen to make peanut butter sandwiches. A stack of four waits on the dining room table, with another waiting on a plate in front of an empty chair - Kevin's presumably. Her own sandwich is more than half gone. "You look chipper," she says, nodding toward the chair. "Go ahead and sit. Eat. Fire off questions if you've got 'em."

Kevin sits opposite Nat and eagerly wraps himself around the first of his sandwiches. "Mmm. How'd ya know it was my favourite?" he asks as his first question. "It tastes so much nicer over here than the stuff we get back home... You said there was another cub here? Saul?"

Natalie's about to answer when her cell rings - no annoying song, no cute 'dingledingledingle', just a straightforward double-ring. "--Just a sec," she says, pushing back from the table and standing as she pulls the phone from her hip holster and flips it open. She swears at the ID display, then lifts it to offer a very neutral, "Hello?"

Kevin takes advantage of this interruption to polish off one sandwich and make inroads into the next.

A familiar computerized voice responds. "Good afternoon, Ms. Baker. You problem has been largely solved--should you simply leave them alone."

"David?" Nat says questioningly, her chin coming up like she's scented prey. "Say that again - what?"

The sound of happy munching continues to come from Kevin on the other side of the table.

Somewhere, someone hits the F3 key. The message repeats verbatim. "Good afternoon, Ms. Baker. You problem has been largely solved--should you simply leave them alone."

Natalie sets the remains of her sandwich back down on the plate - carefully, as though she's being judged on style. "No more delusions from our friends?" she asks into the phone, just as carefully. "They don't feel any need to play the Lone Ranger anymore? What about our special snowflakes?"

Kevin takes another bite of sandwich, chewing thoughtfully. He can hardly not listen to this conversation, one-sided though it be.

"They probably feel a little silly about playing Lone Ranger for as long as they did and are putting away their childhood toys. The snowflakes are still present."

Natalie clicks her tongue, her expression abstracted. Right into the microphone, too. "--Good. That's good news. Thank you. I'll pass along the word to those who need to know. We might melt the snow, but it won't happen in the near future."

Kevin finishes his sandwiches, and a sly smile appears on his face. The cub's still saying nothing, though.

"Take care where and how you melt the snowflakes. This was not a light nor easy undertaking."

Nat listens to the other person, then nods. "I hear you. This won't be an action movie." A pause, and she continues, "If that's everything? I've got a lunch date."

Kevin rises from table, takes his plate to the sink, and rinses it off in a leisurely fashion.

"That's all. You know how to reach me. Enjoy your lunch, and I hope it doesn't complain too much while you eat it." *click*

Natalie starts to reply, then pulls her phone away from her face so she can glare at it. "--Bastard," she mutters, then flips it closed and reaches for her sandwich again. "Kevin?"

"That's my name," the new-mooner replies, whirling round from the sink and taking a few steps towards Nat. Bending over to bring his face close to hers, he speaks in a mock-conspiratorial stage whisper. "The geese are flying high over Moscow tonight."

Natalie back up hastily from him, baring her teeth at the boy. "What? What the hell are you talking about?"

Kevin backs off too. "Nothing, nothing! Just kidding! You sounded like you were talking some code-words just then." He nods to the phone that lies, closed, on the table by the remaining sandwiches.

Actually the phone's still clutched in Nat's hand. She scowls at him a second longer, then slips it back into the plastic holster on her belt. "Oh. That. Yeah - phone lines aren't secure. People can tap into 'em. So when you talk about things you need to tapdance around the topic." She nods the boy toward the last few forlorn sandwiches. "You done eating? So what questions do you have for me? Anything?"

Kevin nods in assent. "I guessed as much. I suppose you have to be pretty cautious... You were mentioning this cub Saul?" he reminds Nat. "The one who's about to go for his test?"

Natalie nods and slips back into her chair. "Yup. What about him? He's Ahroun. Probably, oh, about twelve." She hesitates, thinking, and uses the time to take a bit of sandwich. "No, thirteen. I think."

"Oh, just wondering if I'd get to meet him. I suppose if he's gearing up for being rited, he's got more pressing issues than hanging out with me. Do all cubs get sent for the test when the moon matches their birth auspice, or is it just coincidence? And... what does it all involve anyway? Or is it one of those tests where you just get dropped into it with no preparation and have to puzzle your own way out?" Kevin too sits back down, and with disregard for the furniture's health pushes the chair back till it rests on its two rear legs only in a precarious balance.

Natalie shrugs idly. "He's around somewhere. He might wander through, he might not. And... it's just coincidence, at least for Saul. He's heading into the Umbra, and that's best done under the fat moon. If that's when your teachers decide you're ready, that's when you'll get tested too." The rest of his questions coax a wry smirk from her. "And -that- depends on what your test is. You might know what you're going into, and you might not. Me, my Rite was to talk a bunch of classmates into helping me build a Habitat House."

Kevin raises one eyebrow. "You had classmates? You actually got taught in classes instead of any old how? And what's a habitat house anyway?"

"Classmates," Nat repeats, her eyebrows going up at his enthusiasm. "As in, high school classmates. And a Habitat house... see, there's this project called Habitat for Humanity. Builds houses for low-income people. They have to put in hours on their own house as well as a bunch on houses for other people. Sweat equity, it's called. Then they have these really low house payments. And I volunteer - well, volunteered a lot on them back when I was a kid. So'd my Pop. My test was to keep my nose clean and my grades up - and considering that I'd been suspended at the end of the year before, that wasn't just icing on the cake - and to make nice with enough of the humans to talk them into doing something they wouldn't: building that Habitat house. Goes back to what I was telling you about keeping the city healthy."

"Sounds sweet," Kevin concurs. "You got to stay in normal, human high school all through this? That must have been like walking on broken glass. Rar for you. Mmm, actually, that was going to be another of my questions. We have twelve tribes, right?" He holds up all ten fingers, realises that's not enough, and waves two more of them in the air, folding the rest down. "And of those twelve, you and the Bone Gnawers take care of the cities, and the other ten all stay out in the countryside, by and large... isn't that kind of an imbalance? Am I missing something here? Is the threat to Gaia really that much greater away from the city?"

"I'm a freak in Garou society," Nat affirms, sounding smug about the whole thing. "I've got my high school diploma and post-secondary schooling. That's not that uncommon in the Walkers, but it's pretty damn rare everywhere else. Except maybe you low-Rage types. As for the rest of it..." she shrugs and leans over to pluck the last of the sandwiches. "Depends on who you ask. Goes back to tribal bias. Ask a... oh, ask a Wendigo and they'll tell you that the cities are cancers that need to be wiped out. Ask a Walker and you'll get the opposite story. So no, I don't think the threat's that much bigger out in the woods."

Kevin looks at Nat, head on one side. "I'm sure there's a very obvious reason why there are no objective figures or statistics about the incidence of Wyrm attacks and so forth, to prove it one way or the other. I'd have thought it was just up your tribe's street to do things like that."

Natalie smirks over at him. "Oh yeah? And who do you think we'd be convincing if we trotted that out at a Moot?"

"See, I told you there'd be a good reason," Kevin responds wryly. "From what you're saying I guess the Wendigo think numbers are some kind of Wyrm magic. Do they want to make the humans go back to living in trees and caves, or are they just going to kill all the city dwellers when they burn the cities down?"

"Evil Wyrm magic," Nat clarifies. "And... hell, I dunno. Probably both. The Talons are even worse - at least the Wendigo would let humans use those wacky advanced tools like the wheel and the lever." More sandwich disappears - she isn't gulping it down, but it's disappearing rapidly despite that. "I won't try and tell you that we don't have any weaknesses as a Tribe, or try to sell you a bill of goods that says they're not really weaknesses, they're strengths in disguise."

"I thought there wasn't any other kind of Wyrm magic?" Kevin queries. "Have the Get been telling me things in black and white again when the reality is shades of grey? Word is they're a bit prone to that. And as for the Talons... I've not met one yet and between you, me and the table leg I'm not entirely relishing the thought." He rocks back forward and finally lets the chair sit on the four legs it was designed for. "You'd think, if garou have been around for as many squillions of years as Trevor was teaching me, we'd have learnt to get along a bit better by now. I guess I'm still not quite seeing the big picture?"

Natalie only smirks at him to answer his first question. "--Well, what do you know of the big picture? Have you learned about the Triat? Wyrm, Weaver, Wyld? How good's your grasp on our history?"

Kevin frowns and tries to dredge his memory. "The Wyld creates, the Weaver shapes, the Wyrm breaks down. Only the Wyrm got itself twisted up and is trying to destroy stuff faster than the other two can do their thing, so the world's getting out of balance, and that's where we come in. Trying to keep things from getting even worse. I don't have a clue how long it's been that way though. I know that back at the dawn of time the three were in perfect balance, but it's clearly not been like that for a tidy few years."

"Try hundreds of thousands," Nat says, popping the last of the sandwich into her mouth. "And you're mostly right - but no one knows if the Weaver went mad and tangled the Wyrm in her webs or if it was the Wyrm who corrupted the Weaver. But something happened to disrupt the balance. That's when Gaia created the Garou, once the Wyrm had started attacking her."

Kevin ahhs, a light evidently dawning. "I didn't realise it happened in that order. I somehow got the impression we were here all along and just got pressed into Gaia's service when everything started getting out of control. Makes more sense now you put it that way. Hey, are we cool or what? We've been keeping things from falling apart for hundreds of thousands of years!" He grins, quite plainly proud to be part of an elite that can claim such a record.

Natalie snorts at him, amused. "Right. Though in the beginning we weren't the only ones." She thinks about that, then shakes her head. "Not that we're the only ones now. I'm getting ahead of myself. Gaia created the Garou to be her warriors. The Corax - the bird-shifters - to be her eyes and ears. The cat-shifters to carry her secrets. The dinosaur-shifters..." she cuts off any outburst with a lifted hand, "They're not really dinosaurs, but that's the best word for them - to be her memory. And so on, and so forth."

Kevin looks interested at this last batch of information. "No kidding? Trevor never mentioned any of these. He probably meant to, only he never came back for the longest time after he gave me the basics. There's such a lot of stuff I know sod all about yet. The Umbra. How the caern works. Rituals. Damn it, I don't even know how to talk in crinos form yet. All I can do is grunt. If I try to speak English, I end up nearly biting my own tongue off."

"It's hard," she agrees, still with that half-smile. "We've got our own language. The Fianna developed it lo these many years ago. And no, since you're a lost cub, no one wants to teach you much. Don't want to 'contaminate' you." She makes air quotes. "Anyway, tens of thousands of years ago there happened what we affectionately call the War of Rage. All us Garou got together and decided to slaughter the other shifters. Maybe they got us at the wrong time of the month. Once -that- was over, and most of the others were killed, things went swimmingly again. Until the Impergium."

Kevin pulls a face. "How can it be contaminating me to teach me to talk, dammit? Or would it be bad news if I learnt how to speak garou in a Get accent? Oh well... Impergium? That would be Roman? It sounds Roman. It also sounds a bit of a mess, if it's comparable to what sounds to my doubtless untutored ears awfully like..." He hesitates, wriggles in his chair, then says the word. "Genocide."

Natalie's swung straight into lecture mode, and seems happy as a clam to be there. "It -was- genocide. The Impergium is what gave us a bad name among the humans. You see, someone - and again, I don't think anyone knows who - decided that the humans needed to be wiped out. So we - they - went into their villages at night, and killed the old, the sick, and the weak. That's why humans can't bear to see us in Crinos. Racial memory. The little lizard brain remembers." She taps the base of her skull. "That's why there's the Veil. We call it the Delirium, what happens to them. Our kin - the humans related to us - don't suffer from the Delirium. They see us and remember what we look like. Other humans forget. Usually. But some of them don't. That's a big part of why being a Walker is a damn hard job. Other tribes, if they come across something big and nasty, they just get bigger and nastier and kill it. I come across a mugger, and I've got to take him out myself. No just nipping up into Crinos."

Kevin nods at intervals throughout this lesson, looking quite pleased, as though he's finding pieces of the huge, complex jigsaw that is the world of werewolves suddenly starting to pop into place and make sense. The last words, though, make him squirm in his chair. "Oops. I came across a mugger... well, three of them. And I didn't take them out. They ran for it like rabbits. I was too stunned by what happened to my body to do anything but hide under a tarp till this scary guy found me, knocked me out, and dumped me at the farm. Did I cause a lot of grief with those thugs? Veil breach, like?"

Natalie shakes her head easily, brushing a bit of hair behind one ear. "Nope. Scratch took care of it. --I finally found out who helped you. Scratch, Glass Walker Ahroun. But see, delirium. Delirious. Most people rationalize away what they saw. Big dog. Bear. Freaky guy on steroids. So the Delirium helps us. We just can't rely on it. Some people - people who aren't Kin -see us and remember. That's what happened most recently with the Veil breech here in the city. So." She shrugs. "If someone sees you in Crinos and doesn't look like they're freaking out and babbling, you kill them." Said so simply.

You paged Kevin with 'I figure when you need to go, we can just call it. Nat fills him in on Garou history, drives him around the city a bit. Points out Havoc's territory, which is a pretty crappy part of town south of Bridge. She'd probably mention that Signe, the Get elder, lives in their territory. Then back to the farm around 4-5pm.'.

There is a moment's silence as Kevin digests that. "Well," he says eventually, "given the way they made tracks, I'd say they were pretty damn delirious. Panic over." He pauses, than another penny seems to drop in his mind. "Veil breach in the city...? Would that be what got Signe so fussed, a week or two ago?"

Nat says, "Bingo," and levels a finger at the boy. "It's been a long and messy road. The phone call earlier is - I hope - the last of it. I've got to tell Megan and Signe about it." She checks her phone again and frowns. "Huh. It's getting late. Lemme drive you around town, show you some of the sights. Then I've got to get you back to the farm and get back here to collect Saul."

[End of log]