Currently in Saint Claire, it is raining lightly. The temperature is 46 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the north at 9 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.02 and steady, and the relative humidity is 89 percent. The dewpoint is 43 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius.)

Currently the moon is in the waxing Half Moon phase (48% full).

Stairs in the foyer lead up to the second floor, while a doorway tucked under the curve of the stairs heads down to the basement. A heavy door in the foyer with a monitor and intercom beside it goes back to the area set up for communal use by the Sept's Garou.

It's not 3:00, or even 2:30 when Nat arrives home. It's 2:15. "Thomas?" she calls as the heavy door swings closed behind her, then up the stairs, "Kevin? Hello? Anybody?" As she speaks she's shimmying out of her leather bomber, the scents of gasoline and sawdust hanging heavy about the woman.

"In here, Natalie," Thomas calls back, from downstairs in the computer room. He pushes his chair back and stretches, grimacing and rubbing his eyes. He's just not made for sitting in front of a monitor for hours.

Natalie hangs up her coat on the pegs, then stoops to unlace her boots. "Great. Whatcha got for me? Any news?" A hesitation. "Is Kevin around?"

The screen in front of Grey shows a page from whatever web browser Jeremy chose to install on the LAN computers. The site's a very bland-looking Danish-to-English online dictionary, and a notepad to the right of the keyboard contains notes in the halfmoon's thin, neat handwriting. "I think I've managed to make a little more sense of it," he says, turning in the chair toward Natalie. "As for Kevin, I think he's upstairs."

Natalie pulls off her workboots and tosses them underneath her coat, then abandons the entry to join the Philodox in the computer room. "Oh yeah?" she says curiously, hooking her thumbs into her pockets. "Got some of the blanks filled in? What does it say?"

From upstairs one can hear a pair of muffled voices, followed by what sounds like video game effects. There is rumbling. Booming. Blasting, soon followed by Kevin's voice. "What the fuck! No way in hell you fucking could have shot me from there!" There is a moment of silence, before another boom. "NO FUCKING WAY! YOU WERE INVERTED!" Obviously, someone is losing, pretty badly too. Then comes Jeremy's voice. "Dude, I've been playing this game since Beta Gold, don't trip. Halo is like my playground." Boom. "FUCK!"

Grey picks up the notepad and looks at it. "Well, with a little creative interpretation, the two notes say, roughly, 'You've taken something that wasn't yours. This was wrong of you. Nothing good will come of this. You ought to hunt the boy more often.' And then something about him needing a better teacher. Possibly a male." He offers her the notepad.

"Needing a better teacher," Nat replies flatly, taking the notes from him and skimming. "Huh. Well, Tu's his teacher. And last time I checked, he is male." She offers them back. "So you think this is a past life acting up? I mean, you're pretty damn sure?"

Grey shrugs as he takes the pad back. "I'm not at all certain of that last. It's garbled. In any case, it certainly sounds like a past life. Get, since they're the most likely to be speaking Danish." Tired eyes narrow at Natalie thoughtfully. "Didn't you say he'd attached himself to the Get, before joining us?"

The noises of enthusiastic computer gaming, interspersed by shouting and well-meant jocular abuse and insults, continue from upstairs a couple of minutes longer before coming to a climax with two people running down the stairs in swift succession, namely Jeremy with Kevin snapping (figuratively) at his heels as they burst into the living room. "Okay!" yelps the cub. "You kicked my ass in the game, but who's got the fangs offline?"

Laughing, Jeremy launches himself off the last three steps, landing heavily upon his boots as chains dance about his pants. He is wearing a shirt that says: I am not a tourist, and a backwards Stark Inc hat over his head. He looks amused. "Dude, its just a game! Its not my fault you don't got geek skills yet."

Natalie nods and starts to answer, only to be interrupted by the Geek Squad tumbling down the stairs. She throws them both an irritated glance before turning back to the older Walker. "So? Now what? You've had more experience with this sort of thing. I've just heard about it."

Grey gives the ruckus a disinterested -- or perhaps just tired -- glance before turning back to Natalie. "Honestly? I don't know. The only time I've had a cub with a meddlesome past life was Cat, and since that ancestor was a Black Fury, she didn't want him to defect to her tribe. Though she was annoying in other ways." He grimaces briefly, remembering. "Ideally, we try to get the one in Kevin's head to take a step out and talk to us. In Mother's Tongue rather than Danish, of course."

Kevin gives the goth kin a grin. "If I'd not got rusty out at the farm for all those weeks with no 'puter, I'd have given you more of a run for your money. Wait till I'm back in practice." The youth is also wearing a t-shirt bearing a picture of a smiling, blissful Pontiff, clutching an oversized joint, with the slogan THE POPE SMOKES DOPE underneath. It may be recalled that Scratch used to sometimes wear this; seems he left it behind when he went. "Hey look," he says, nudging Jer in the ribs and pointing through to the computer room where the other two sit. "Nat and Thomas're gaming too." He stifles an enormous yawn and stretches.

"Dude, I can give you two years and you still won't beat my ass in Halo. Who do you think started the D3 clan?" Jeremy says with a bit of nerd pride. "Yes, the one that stretched from Unreal Tourn all the way to Halo 2 X Box Live. That'd be me. No normal dude could pull that off, it'd have to be in the family." As he glances over at Kevin's last statement, his eyes widen and he starts over, waving to Thomas, a grin forming over his face. "...Thomas... Hey..." Insert idol worshiping here.

"Does that work?" Nat asks, surprised, her back to the doorway of the room. "I mean, if we get him into Crinos... he doesn't know Mother's Tongue. At least, not that I know of. I haven't been teaching him. Maybe Tu has. But doesn't he... I don't know, need to be hypnotized or something?"

Grey catches Jeremy's wave and gives the kinfolk an unsmiling nod of acknowledgment. "He doesn't have to know Mother's Tongue," he tells Natalie. "But I've never heard of a past life that didn't."

Kevin lets out a low whistle. "Okay, I show throat. You are the coolest." He performs a deep salaam to Jeremy, as seen in WAYNE'S WORLD. "We are not worthy! We are not worthy!" He then turns to the two cliath and does it again, just because. For all that he still looks like he's about a week behind on sleep, he seems in exuberant mode today.

Jeremy puffs up a bit and chuckles at Kevin. "My room mate Ebony who was in the UK at the time co founded it. We were pretty bad ass." He tilts his head to Nat and Thomas, then grows quiet to try and pick up whats going on.

Natalie turns to look at cub and kin again, thoughtfully frowning. "Huh. Kevin, can you come in here for a minute? --Jeremy, aren't you supposed to be at work?" A quick glance at her watch, and back up at the kin. Confused: "Or did Jon give you the day off?"

Kevin straightens up, gives Jer another dig in the ribs, and saunters over to the computer room. "What can I do for you today?"

Grey receives Kevin's noisy self-abasement with a dour, humorless grimace, then leans back slightly in his chair, arms folded across his chest.

"I got Tuesday and Thursday off this week because I am working weekends now." Jeremy explains with a grin, straightening his hat forward in the correct spot instead of sloppily backwards. He clears his throat some, sneaking another look to Thomas, then back to the others as he glides his hands into his pockets.

Natalie ohs her understanding, then nods and turns back to Kevin. "Well... we think you've got another person living in your head, kiddo. A... a past life, actually. Thomas knows more about them than I do - you need to have better breeding than we do for them to show up." And if there's one thing the disgraced Philodox has, it's good breeding. "It's been leaving us notes in the middle of the night."

"Nothing to do with breeding," Grey corrects. "It's merely that the Glass Walkers look forward instead of backwards. Thus, our ancestors mind their own damned business."

There's a silence lasting several seconds from the cub. His eyebrows drift millimetre by millimetre downwards into a frown; odds are he's turning this information over in his mind. Finally Kevin speaks. "I'd tell you to stop kidding me, but April Fool's Day isn't for a fortnight yet, and I've believed so many impossible things in the last few months... what's one more?" He gives a sharp, almost canine laugh. "That's what those notes in gobbledegook were about?"

Jeremy tilts his head. "Its what I was talking to you about the other day.. the thing that you 'lost'. I thought you were whining cuz you misplaced the iPod I gave you."

Natalie acknowledges Thomas' correction by opening one hand; her eyes, however, are on the cub, considering and thoughtful. Well, until Jeremy speaks. "--You know something about this? What have you got?"

Grey turns mismatched eyes onto the gothkin and regards him steadily, eyebrows raised.

Kevin shakes his head. "I did wonder what you were talking about, only we got onto another subject before I got round to asking you..."

"Um... well, a few days ago I found the first note and asked Kevin about it, because I know the rest of you guys plus Scratch doesn't speak Danish and so... my computer has a built in translator for about thirty two languages and I kinda put it together and asked him about it." Jeremy says with a rub of his neck. "I thought he was just fucking around."

"Danish?" Kevin ejaculates. "I don't speak bloody Danish."

"What have you got?" Nat repeats, more intently, while staring at the Kin.

"You used to," Thomas tells the cub, quite seriously. "Another you did, at least."

Clearing his throat, Jeremy takes his PDA off his hip from a small leather holster and taps it on. He taps a few more times and says. "The first letter said.. You have taken something that is not yours, you should not have done so. No good will come of this. The second says... you ought to shoot the boy more often. It will make him strong. He needs to learn this."

"And youuu... didn't think to tell anyone?" the Galliard boggles. "Hell, Jeremy." Another second's disbelieving staring at him and she turns back to Kevin. Lucky Kevin. "Hell. --All right, Thomas, now what?"

"Well, I just found the second letter today to be honest." Jeremy rubs his neck again, sighing. "That and Danish is freaking hard to crack. I had to stay up till' three in the morning last night just to find the right accents for the lettering."

Grey gives Jeremy a faintly disgruntled look, and while Natalie makes her boggling inquiry, he turns back to the computer and closes down the web-browser. "We try to provoke the Dane into coming out and talking to us. Hypnotism might work. Some kind of trance state."

Kevin's face is a picture, especially when he hears the contents of the second note. "Gug," he says, his mouth suddenly dry. At Grey's words, he takes an unconscious step backwards.

Natalie steps to one side, giving the scary-looking Philodox a physical as well as metaphorical clear shot at the boy. "Huh. Well, he's all yours. All I can think of is toking him up on the pot Scratch left behind. Or getting him absolutely wasted on the JD. Unless...?" A thought strikes, she shoots one of the innocent computers a thoughtful look. "We could work up some sort of screen saver for him to stare at. Watch one of those for a while and your brain goes fuzzy."

Jeremy perks up. "I got just the thing!" He says, then starts darting upstairs. "Be right back, you gotta check this out! I downloaded it! Its damn cool!"

"Come back here, boy," Thomas growls over at Kevin. "Don't be such a goddamn coward."

Kevin scowls and takes another step, this time forwards. "I am not smoking marijuana for anyone," he says firmly. "Filthy bloody habit. I draw the line at drugs." From the emphasis he puts on the last words, seems he draws the line under it as well.

And perhaps around it, with little stars for emphasis. "You'll do it if we tell you to," Nat growls back - and yes, it's most definitely a growl. "But we'll try the other way first. Come over here and sit." A nod toward the closest chair and then she takes a step back, ceding the lead to Grey.

The kinfolk comes down after a few minutes, carrying his wide screened Titanium laptop. "I even got some weird Hindu music on here." He flashes a quick grin. "..Um... Kota put it on there... it's her meditation grooves."

Grey pushes to his feet, waving Jeremy over to where Kevin's being urged toward a computer chair.

Kevin sits, with poor enough grace, the expression on his face a picture of foreboding. The cub took the prospect of being shot in the gut yesterday with less fear shown than this! But cowed by the dominance of Nat and Grey, he protests no further, for now.

Sitting the laptop down in front of Kevin, the Gothkin leans over and turns on his iTunes. He selects Dakota's playlist and soon, soothing, but yet real trippy music begins to play. He presses a few more buttons and the wide screen effect turns on. Lots of swirling colors begins to dance in front of the screen, turning and twisting, filling up the screen. Its definitely eye catching. "Here you go.. I say turn off the lights, relax your eyes and just stare into it, try and look past the colors and let your mind wander. It's what Dakota tells me to do." For what reasons, he won't go into.

Natalie quietly heads over to flick off the lights. She pulls the door mostly closed as well, casting the room into gloom.

Grey stands near the door, arms folded across his chest, watching Kevin somberly.

Kevin obediently sits and gazes at the pretty swirly patterns. He looks very suspicious at first, all the more so when Nat clicks the switch and pulls the door to, leaving the screen as the only real light source. As minutes pass he seems to relax some, but nothing more spectacular than that appears to be occurring.

Natalie nudges Grey and murmurs something.

The colors on the screen go from blobs to spiral like patterns, then zig and zag. Once in awhile the screen will melt away, then reform again, this time in a new dance. The music definitely seems traditional, the typical stuff a Child of Gaia Theurge would listen to when doing her Yoga exercises. Its so soothing, relaxing. Flip, flip. The screen continues on, bright oranges and yellows, drifting into softer blues and greens.

Nat whispers, "So... now what? One of us goes into Crinos? Or he has to shift up, or what?" to Grey.

Grey murmurs back.

The Goth kin stands near the back in the darker parts of the room, watching curiously from afar. His hands are slid into his pockets and he doesn't exactly stare at the screen.

Grey whispers "Play it by ear. If he speaks in Danish, or otherwise seems not himself, take whatever form works for speaking Mother's Tongue. And... as Elder, you may want to do the talking. Just speak as you would to any Garou messing with your cub."

"...Um, guys," Kevin eventually murmurs, "don't like to say this, but it's pretty hard to relax when you three are all looking at me and waiting for weird stuff to happen."

Natalie's got her ear tilted up so Thomas can murmur into it; at Kevin's words she snorts and stuffs her hands into her pockets. "Stage fright," she says clearly. "Just ignore us, Kevin." Nevertheless she turns so she isn't staring at him, and goes back up onto sock-footed tippy toes to continue her sotto-voice conversation.

Nat whispers, "Like Jamethon and Saul. I'll have to tell you the story sometime. All right, I can do that." A quick glance toward the boy and she adds, "I'm still relying on your for guidance. I have no idea what the hell I'm doing." to Grey.

Grey leans an elbow against the wall and actually slouches a bit to make it easier for the Elder to whisper secrets in his ear.

By now the Kin has put a pair of head phones on and is listening to his iPod, the volume down low. He is staring off into space at the far wall, not glancing over at them.

Kevin starts taking deep breaths, in, out, in, out, his hands dangling down between his legs idly as he tries to concentrate on the screen and tune out other sensory input.

Grey whispers "The most difficult thing, in my experience, is that you can't exactly throat the ancestor if it proves to be stubborn."

Grey senses "Natalie snorts quietly and nods, lapsing into silence."

Natalie nods and lapses into silence, dropping back down to flat feet.

Grey's jaw tightens as he stifles a yawn.

After about the tenth song, Jeremy glances over towards Kevin and the computer and lets out a soft breath.

Kevin eventually shakes his head and straightens back up. "Pleasant, but I'm still me," he delivers his verdict.

"...Damn," comes Nat's voice; a second later and the harsh overhead lights bring everyone blinking back to wakefulness. Yay fluorescent bulbs. "Well, that didn't work. Now what?" This last is aimed squarely at the Philodox.

Grey grimaces, squinting painfully at the sudden stab of light. "Ngh. Means we find another way, that's all. Or wait until the Dane comes out on its own."

Jeremy blinks his eyes for a few moments as the light comes on, then heads over and plucks the laptop up, closing the lid. "Sorry guys. I shoulda tried some viking heavy metal instead. I got a lot of that."

Kevin blinks as the lights come back on and his eyes focus. "Danish writing," he says thoughtfully. "That weird guy Gunnar couldn't possibly have been involved somehow? I mean, sorry to be a skeptic, but that sounds less outre to me than some weird ancestral memory taking me over..."

"Gunnar couldn't have gotten through the door." Nat sounds utterly convinced of that. "And even if he could have, he wouldn't have. No, I think tomorrow we'll try something a little more... deliberate than watching funky lights."

Grey rubs his eyes again tiredly. "Anything else you need from me this afternoon, Natalie?"

Natalie's still scowling at the ineffective computer as though this is its fault. "--Not that I know of, no. Thank you."

Kevin looks dispirited. "I don't like the sound of that," he sighs to Natalie. "Is there really and truly no other way? I... just... think drugs are... y'know... nasty. I don't even drink, never mind anything stronger..."

Grey nods to the Elder and, after giving Kevin a sour look at his continued protests, stalks out and upstairs.

"You'll be fine," Nat says, doing her best to sound reassuring. "Neither one of us will let anything happen to you." She tosses the departed Grey a glance, then paces across the room to rejoin Kevin. "Grey'll tell you what a stubborn possessive bitch I am. You're my cub, not the cub of some long-dead yahoo who doesn't know his place. We'll do some research today, and know what we're getting into. Worst comes to worst, and we'll just knock you out. No harm, no foul. Besides... remember how fast you heal? That goes the same for erm, illicit substances. I burned through about six martinis in less than fifteen minutes once. If the drugs aren't working, you can just shift and it'll be gone."

Kevin appears somewhat consoled by these words of kindness from his elder. "Well, what the hell, I suppose one should try everything once..." he allows.

"Think of it as a learning experience," she approves. "Now... I think it's about time you show me that email you want to send your mom, don't you? --Unless you've completely spaced it..." A look up would show she's teasing, a little smirk twisting her lips.

Kevin stands, stretches, yawns. Again. Sure has been doing a lot of that yawning lately, and he seems to realise this. "Mebbe this is why I'm not sleeping worth a damn any more... Hell. Anyway. Let me just grab my notebook." The cub dashes off to the bunkroom and back down again clutching that item. "Here we go..." he says, flipping to a page with much evidence of redrafting and crossing out.

By the time he's back Nat's the computer room and has taken up residence in the living room. "Show me." She's already reaching for the boy's notebook.

Kevin passes Nat the note. It reads thusly: "Dear Mum, Well, what can I say? I'm truly and genuinely sorry for not coming home when I should have. And more so for not having contacted you before -- if I'd been able to, I would have, believe me. // Anyway, firstly, I AM ALL RIGHT. I am well and happy and taking good care of myself. But I'm afraid I can't come back... not for now at least. This has NOTHING to do with anything you've done, or not done -- so don't blame yourself, Mum. It's just... something very important for me. I can't say more, I'm afraid. And I know it'll be difficult for you, but try to believe me and not go hunting me down. // I'll do my best to keep in touch regularly, so you at least know I'm okay still. And just so you know that this is really me and not some sick prankster: the worst fish and chip shop in the world is in Salisbury, just off the ring road. We ate there a couple of years ago after we went round Salisbury Cathedral. You said the chips tasted like they'd been fried in engine oil and neither of us could finish them even though we were both starving! // Well, Mum, that's all for now. Don't reply to this -- I won't get it. I might be able to give you a contact email address later, but can't promise, I'm afraid. I love you very much and I'm missing you like crazy. All my love... Kevin xxxxxxx."

Natalie scans the note once, twice, then a third time, her eyes lingering on a few lines on this final go. "This looks good. But... put the 'I am all right' right at the top, huh? She's got to be out of her mind with worry. Go ahead and send it." She offers it back with a tight smile. "You're doing a good job, kiddo. You're going to make us all proud."

Kevin, who has been watching Nat tensely as she scans and rescans the note, lets go a huge sigh of relief. "Jeremy's set up a spoof account that bounces via Florida and Canada," he confirms, "just in case she does try and track me down, which I bet she will no matter how much I ask her not to, cos she's like that. I'll put the 'I am all right' as the title as well, how's that?" He reclaims the notebook from the galliard.

Natalie drops a pleased nod. "That sounds like it'll work. And - you might see Jeremy before I do, so if you do, tell him to give you Josh's old laptop. If you're going to be one of us, you deserve the accessories too. Then have them send that," a nod toward the notebook. "--Tu have you doing anything special today?"

Kevin laughs. "You're behind the times, Nat," he grins. "Jer's already sorted me a laptop. How else do you think he was pounding me at Halo, upstairs earlier?"

Nat says, "Ah. I figured he'd brought something over, not that you had your own." She opens a hand again, dismissing the idea. "Jeremy and I'd already discussed giving it to you. He just jumped the gun by a hair. Well, I'm going upstairs to clean up. Smelling like gasoline and sawdust won't win me any prizes."

Kevin nods and stands up. "I'll get it sent, and then, I might try and sleep again. Nothing like being shot to make you feel kind of worn out the next day." He delivers that line totally deadpan.

Natalie manages another little smirk as she pushes past him. "Or having your brain taken over by one of your dead ancestors. All right, I'll catch you later. Why don't you spend the rest of the afternoon shifting, if Tu doesn't have you doing anything special."

Kevin nods as he heads stairwards. "Okay. But I reserve the right to curl up on the bed in lupus if I get too exhausted."

Natalie takes the steps two at a time in an excess of energy, then disappears into the bathroom. The shower starts up a few seconds later.

[End of log]