[At the safehouse...]

The mood during the run was, to put it mildly, 'grim'. After her outburst with the Gnawer Elder, Nat lapsed into silence save to tell Kevin that he was running with Grey and her. No arguments. Under other circumstances the morning would have been quite nice - the temperature was perfect for running once they got warmed up, and Kevin got quite the tour of St. Claire. Of course, those circumstances would have involved being inside a car, or having the distance spread out over days. With Nat and Thomas pounding at his side like over-zealous bodyguards, Kevin was forced to run and run - and run. Not until the boy was staggering and retching did they turn for home - and even then it was over a mile until the hedges of the Victorian came into sight. Only at the last did they show any mercy and slow, dropping into a walk for the last block and a half. With Thomas at the rear to 'encourage' the cub to pick up his feet, the Glass Walker entourage re-enters their home, the heavy door closing behind them all.

Compared to Grey, Natalie's actually quite chipper and sweet. Compared to Grey, who glowers at the cub as though he'd like nothing more to drag him down into the basement and use him as a target of all his anger and frustration. All that bubbling, seething, repressed rage directed at one hapless no-moon cub, and nothing but a single Galliard to keep it from boiling over on the poor lad.

Kevin makes it half-way across the room before folding up and supporting his hands on his own knees, panting and grey-faced. The cub, fine sprinter though he may be, is less of an endurance runner -- and less still when he's running on approximately one hour's sleep followed by a screaming row under a full moon. Whether he could actually speak in this situation is questionable; in any event, he doesn't try. He just looks at Grey as though he expects the grizzled philodox to inflict some new indignity on him any second now, and as though he's resigned to whatever it may be.

Natalie isn't able to indulge in the luxury of holding still - her Rage goads and whips her to keep walking, to pace across the living room like a tiger behind bars at the circus. "You will never never invite that trash into our home again."

Grey prowls as well, pacing back and forth behind the cub. Two tail-lashing tigers and one exhausted monkey on the very wrong side of the bars. "What the fuck were you thinking?" he demands.

"So you already said. So I already agreed," Kevin wheezes as he begins to recover. "While we're writing new laws on the bottom of the Litany, does this go for other tribes too or only the Gnawers? Because, you know, as I was taught the litany," he looks from Nat to Grey, taking in both of them, "it says 'Respect for those beneath you, all are of Gaia'. And 'Submission to those of higher status'." The cub isn't speaking argumentatively, but resignedly. "I really thought that giving the elder of the Bone Gnawers a bed for the night would have fallen under one of other of those laws -- if not both. But I guess I got it wrong again."

Nat jams a hand toward the other side of the wall. The public half. "That's what those rooms are for. This is our home. Our place. Our territory."

Grey, just out of the corner of Kevin's eye, twitches toward the cub, hand clenching into a fist, but at the sound of Natalie's voice, he aborts the gesture with a snarl. "/No/ one of other tribe is allowed over here," he says instead, still sounding one centimeter from resorting to physical violence. And then again, "What the /uck were you thinking?"

"THOMAS." She snaps out just the one word, her eyes still on the cub as she waits for his answer. "Leave it. I'll handle this." Bad cop, psycho cop!

"Also," Kevin grates, "she's a theurge. Talks to spirits. Spirits like the one in my head. He's not come out since you nearly throated me, far as I can tell, which makes him overdue for a visit. I... thought she might know how to cope with him if he did. Given you guys were off drinking," he concludes, this last sentence escaping ill-advisedly from the corner of his mouth as an addendum.

Grey jerks back at Natalie's snap. He snarls at her, then flashes throat and backs off. Kevin's finishing remark draws another venomous scowl from the halfmoon.

Natalie's teeth bare at the reminder of Kevin's 'passenger'. "And he won't come out. He gave his word. He's a Get - honor is everything. I talked to Signe. That's still no reason for you to..." She makes a face, muscles jumping as she tries to pick out the exact word required. "Violate our home. You have questions about things, you come to me. To us. We are your tribe, your family. Not them."

Kevin boggles at these words of Natalie's. "You what? You got him to give his word...? Oh, SWEET HOLY FUCKING CHRIST." The cub shouts out those words almost at the top of his tired voice. "Don't you think that was an important enough piece of news that you MIGHT HAVE TOLD ME? I could have slept at nights properly all week." The trio are arranged now like the corners of an equilateral triangle, each one cranked up with anger, like a delicate interlinked system that could be destroyed with one tiny push from any direction.

Grey takes an abortive step toward Kevin, his scarred face twisted into something very ugly and very, very dangerous. There's anger, and there's the Rage of a former Ahroun on the razor's edge of frenzy. That he hasn't lost it yet is testament to the strength of his will, but even the strongest will doesn't last forever.

Natalie advances that same step on Kevin, her face as twisted and ugly as Thomas'. It's like a distorted mirror where if the inhabitants escape all hell breaks loose. The tatter dregs of sanity are in her eyes, scarcely covering the Rage bubbling within the Galliard. "DROP YOUR EYES!" she screams back, staring him down, arms quivering and twitching behind her like the backswept wings of a psychotic hawk.

It would take a stronger-willed, or stupider, person than Kevin not to obey that hurricane-force command from the elder. He doesn't only drop his eyes, but twists his head aside, showing throat, and panting again, no longer from exhaustion but from the throbbing intensity of the situation. He says absolutely nothing.

Meanwhile, just to the side and behind the cub, the scarred Philodox makes a low rasping noise that sounds quite growly. His hands open and close, open and close.

Natalie spits out something vile that sounds like she's been picking up things phonetically from Thomas and turns away. "Get. To your. Room. Now."

Kevin backs off cautiously until he gets to the stairs, not turning his back on the other garou. When he gets within reach of the stairs, he makes a flying leap for them and takes them two if not three at a time, all the way up to his room. The noise of a slamming door comes from upstairs.

Kevin heads up the steps to the second floor, the floor creaking faintly under his weight.

Grey watches the boy's retreat with poisonous eyes. His harsh, labored breathing has little to do with the extensive morning run.

Natalie's teeth chatter, though it's warm enough inside and she's still sweaty from the morning's workout. She wraps her arms around her chest as though that will help, breathing fast and quick and shallow.

Grey closes his eyes and focuses on his breathing. Inhale, exhale, rinse and repeat. Only when he's reasonably certain that he's gotten his rage back under acceptable control does he open his eyes again and look sidelong over toward Natalie. "I'll make breakfast."

She echoes, "Breakfast." Not agreeing with, not hungrily. Just... echoes it.

Grey nods. "Breakfast," he says, keeping his voice nice and even. "Eggs, toast. Et cetera. Should be ready by the time you're out of the shower."

This time it's the 'shower' that Nat repeats. A few more seconds and she turns, heading for the downstairs bathroom and the shower stall there rather than the larger one upstairs.

Grey meanwhile heads into the kitchen, shrugging out of his sweatjacket. He hangs it over a dining room chair, then washes his hands and sets about the task of cooking up breakfasty things, eggs and bacon and toast and juice and decaffeinated coffee.

Natalie takes a bit longer in her ablutions than usual. When she finally emerges - wearing bra and sweats, her sweaty shirt draped over one arm and shoes and socks in the other - she pokes her head into the kitchen. "Enough time to change?" A quantity of hot water dumped on the head is balm enough for many ills, including throat-tearing Rage.

"If you're quick about it," comes the reply from the Philodox, who doesn't even look up from flipping the bacon. It's all sorts of delicious smells coming from there.

Natalie nods to his back and ducks back up the stairs. There's a pause at the top, then the sound of her door closing a few seconds later. It's less than five minutes before she's back.

Grey starts serving out plates of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast; the place-settings and butter and such are already set out on the dining room table, and it all smells quite appetising, full moon or no full moon.

Kevin follows Natalie back down the stairs, his face set in an unreadable mask. He casts Grey only the briefest glance as he follows the elder into the room at a fixed distance, as though she has him on an invisible string.

Grey looks calmer, if still rather rumpled from lack of a proper shave and shower and being clothed in t-shirt and sweats.

Natalie stays silent on the journey through living room and hall, across kitchen and into the dining room. Only after she's seated does she offer conversationally, "I think I am going to take Signe up on her suggestion that Emma train you, Kevin. It will be good for you to learn to work with other tribes."

Kevin looks up as he's about to sit down, evidently not expecting that little bombshell. "Emma," he says, in measured tones, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, neither dismayed nor pleased. He takes his seat with that one word.

Grey looks sharply at Natalie, mouth twitching into a surprised frown. Thin-lipped, he carries a couple of plates in and sets them down in front of Natalie and then Kevin, then returns to the kitchen to get his own portion of breakfast together.

"Yes, Emma. --Thanks." This last for Thomas' benefit and his breakfasty goodness. "Also, I talked to Signe a few days ago. She wants to bring Gunnar over to talk to you." Natalie gestures at the cub with a fork before using it on the eggs. "Well, Mr. Frostbite, in your head. If we can't hash it out peacefully, we'll take it to a Philodox. I want Megan-rhya, since these are her rules."

Kevin picks up a fork himself to do battle with his breakfast, but once more Natalie's words give him pause. "I've met Gunnar." He does not speak the name with so much neutrality as he did Emma's. "I take it that means that Signe-rhya has disputed your claim to me." He stabs the fork viciously into the innocent mass of scrambled egg and takes a mouthful. Even in these fraught circumstances his appetite has not, seemingly, deserted him.

Grey returns with his own plate of food and takes a seat at the dining room table. He doesn't offer anything to the conversation, just begins to eat with the methodical pace of someone who (unlike certain cubs) doesn't have much of an appetite at all.

"If she has," Nat begins carefully, "It's not formal. Right now she just wants to talk to you. And, I'm assuming, him. I've given her the courtesy of agreeing." It's almost as though this morning's blow up never happened - just a nice Nelson family breakfast at the Walker house."

Kevin digests this mentally even as he digests his breakfast physically. "Okay," he confirms. "I guess he's going to be with me indefinitely, so it makes sense for him to have some contact with people who have some chance of understanding the old... guy." The last word is chosen with some thought, and bears every sign of being a late replacement for a less respectful choice.

Grey continues to make little more noise than the clink of fork against plate.

Natalie takes up her juice, inclines her head toward the boy. "Yes. And they need to know that you haven't been coerced." No, Kevin's here freely and of his own will. "--What were you and Emma squabbling over yesterday?"

Kevin slices bacon into carefully measured, even, bite-size pieces. "Pretty much nothing. One of those squabbles that Garou seem prone to at the drop of a hat. Not sure I even remember... let's see. She put me on the defensive by mentioning Frozen-Toes. I asked her whether Signe'd been told. She wouldn't answer. I got cross. She asked me why I was cross. I pointed out it was full moon and she said something like 'Don't talk to an Ahroun about full moons, you pathetic no-moon.' And then you came and defused the whole fight before one of us could say something even sillier." With which he pops a piece of bacon into his mouth and chews it forcefully.

"I've heard worse," is Grey's muttered opinion.

"Welcome to the Garou nation," Nat agrees, voice and smile tight. "I'll give you a hint, Kev: when you're around a Galliard or an Ahroun with the moon gets big, our tempers get a little short. If you don't want to end up a red smear on the wall, drop your eyes and don't talk back. Bite through your tongue if you have to. It'll grow back." Her eyes flicker to Grey, then back to her breakfast.

"Worse insults, or worse reasons to get into a fight?" Kevin queries to Grey. He looks at Natalie as though he'd dearly love to make a smartass retort to her advice, but given the nature of the advice itself, he ends up saying nothing directly to the elder for now.

Grey lifts his eyes from his plate to stare stonily at the cub. "Both," he says curtly.

Now it's Natalie's turn to fall silent and eat, leaving Kevin and Grey to get chatty.

If this be chattiness, make the most of it. "Look... I don't set out to piss anyone off," Kevin says to the Philodox regretfully. "It just seems to happen."

Grey continues to stare at Kevin, his fork idle on his half-empty plate. "Nothing 'just seems to happen'." There's a note of scorn as he repeats the phrase. "There's a reason, always. Even if the reason's nothing more than the fact that Luna's fat and all of us, some more than others, have to share in her PMS."

A corner of Nat's lip twitches, but she continues to eat, alternating bites of egg and toast.

Kevin butters toast vigorously enough to send a few crumbs scattering over the table. "There's always a reason, yeah. Just not always a good reason."

Natalie points out mildly, "Getting a birthday card with money in it isn't a good reason, no."

Grey's reply to Kevin is forestalled by Natalie's interjection. He eyes her sidelong, then grunts agreement and focuses on finishing his breakfast.

Kevin's brow furrows at Natalie's words and he looks at her as though trying to divine how seriously her words are meant. "Trouble is, it's easier to see the reasons when you're picking up the pieces afterwards than in the heat of the moment."

Very seriously - or at least, there's no signs of amusement on the Galliard's face. "That's why I try not to make any important decisions when the moon is big. That's part of why I didn't say anything to you about Signe. Or talk to Emma yesterday. Rational thought goes right out the window." She studies his face a moment longer before returning to her juice.

Grey has nothing to add to this and seems quite intent on eating.

A light seems to dawn on Kevin at Nat's explanation, and he finishes his toast looking very thoughtful. He swallows and speaks again. "That takes you out of the loop for a week or more of every month..."

Natalie presses her lips together in a smile that rises no higher than her nose. "Exactly. And the more stress is added, the worse it gets. If my Pop's card had arrived today instead of Tuesday, I wouldn't..." Her eyes flick to Grey and she corrects, "I probably wouldn't have almost Frenzied over it."

Eggs. Bacon -- nope, that's gone. Toast. Finish off the juice. Grey's withdrawn into himself, paying the conversation half an ear's attention. His chair scrapes against the floor as he pushes it back and stands to carry his dishes and such to the washer.

"Frenzied." Kevin is making a habit of speaking one word and then pausing, this morning. "That mean what I take it to mean?"

"Probably," Nat agrees blandly. "It means a blind, berserk, killing frenzy." Not even a flicker of her eyes toward the others - her toast requires every last morsel of her attention. "I never remember what happens. Just more and more stress... and I black out. Like Sunday, when Thomas and I were sparring. I remember hitting the wall, and next thing I know I'm flat on my back on the floor. Frenzy."

After a clatter of dishes into the washer, Grey speaks up. "There are three kinds of frenzy. One, the berserker that Natalie's described. Two, the Fox frenzy, wherein fear overtakes you and you run away in wolf form, as fast as you can. The third is called the Thrall of the Wyrm." His voice is flat as he straightens up and looks across into the dining room toward them. "Like the berserker, but worse. Can't be stopped by any force of will, lasts longer and... you're apt to do things when Thralling that makes a normal berserking fit look positively humanitarian."

Kevin's eyes narrow as Grey delivers this information. He bares his teeth briefly at the mention of the third type of frenzy. "That would be what Lucas was suffering from... which led to his demise?"

Grey's mouth thins. "Not entirely. The Wyrm rides you when you Thrall, but afterwards, it's gone. Still, if he'd been doing it a lot, and eating human flesh each time, that could have caused him to become tainted." The halfmoon shrugs tightly. "Or, he could have become tainted somehow and that urged his Rage on to make him Thrall repeatedly."

Natalie finishes the last of her toast while Grey explains. "I've done both fox and berserk. Neither one is... particularly enjoyable."

Kevin rubs his chin in thought, surreptitiously feeling to see how his beard's coming through (it's still barely more than a dozen bristles). "I think I may have done the fox sort in my first change. I was in a complete panic, I ran like nobody's business. Luckily for me, before I could cause a complete disaster, I ran into Scratch."

Grey grunts. "Lucky you. Lucky for the rest of us." He shoves the dishwasher door closed and heads for the hallway. "I'll be upstairs," he throws back to Natalie. It'd be fair to guess that he's heading for a shower.

"And for that," Nat says as she rises, bringing her as-yet untouched coffee with her, "Scratch avoids my 'bastard' list." She offers Kev half of a thin smile before wandering over to lean on the half-wall. "After you showers, it's more practice with Mother's Tongue for you, kiddo."

Kevin watches Grey depart. "I never know whether he's mad at me or just being his normal self," he muses. "...ah well. Yes, sure thing, I need the practice. Would be nice to know how to make actual sentences. Grey was translating for me at moot, but I know I only got the essentials of most of it."

Natalie says, "Thomas has had a hell of a year. But even before he was gone he was pretty... I dunno. He didn't seem as bitter, I guess." A glance after the departed Philodox and coffee. "You'd be bitter too, if you went through what he did. He was Fostern when he left. Now he's the lowest of cliath. Dishonor. Charach."

Kevin nods, plainly trying to understand. "He's not the lowest of cliath in my eyes," he says loyally. "I bet he could kick the ass of most of the other cliaths in town. Charach..." He flaps his hands impotently as he searches for inspiration. "Even as Charach, I'd back him against any enemy." He sighs. "I'll get ready for my own shower."

[End of log]