Currently the moon is in the waning New Moon phase (17% full).

Steps lead up from the southeast corner.

The sounds of destruction and general thumping around in the basement start slowly in the late evening, and continue on intermittently into the small hours of the evening. By ten o'clock, all is quiet and still in the bunker as it's approached.

Footsteps make their way down the stairs as they had several hours ago; this time they continue on over to the bunker instead of stopping at the bottom and retreating after flicking on the lights. A pause outside the door, then a rather out of place double-knock and the woman's voice from yesterday: "How are you doing in there, kiddo?"

There's a small rustle of bare feet on the concrete floor, but no answer.

"If you don't want to talk," the woman continues, "That's fine. I'll just go back upstairs. Thought you might appreciate a bit of company." There's silence on the other side of the door - if she is going to go through with her threat, she's not acting on it immediately.

Silence. Something light and plastic impacts with the other side of the door--empty water bottle, perhaps?

Perhaps. "Your call," the woman offers lightly, undoubtedly shrugging. "Someone'll be back in a few." Minutes? Days? Hours? Then she does start moving away, heading back toward the steps. Not at a jog, but not at a foot-dragging pace, either.

More silence, for a few counts. A popping of joints can be heard: something heavy and snarling and wordless throws its weight against the concrete wall nearest Natalie.

Happily for her, Natalie knew what she was doing when she built the cell. The footsteps pause, just for a second, then continue on. After another few seconds the single bulb flicks off, leaving the cub with only the faint light that sneaks in through the 'windows' at the top of the cell.

The youngster's tirade doesn't let up for a solid ten minutes; the sound of banging metal and claws against concrete underscore her howls of rage in a bizarre basement symphony.

Time passes - how much, the furious cub has no way of knowing. Enough time that the quality of light coming in through the windows changes. The feet come downstairs, the light flicks back on, and the feet go up again without so much as acknowledging the girl's presence. More time passes, and those apples - were they even eaten - were a long time ago. No one replies to the screaming, or the yelling, or the howling, or the sounds of the scant furniture being destroyed. She could be forgotten, for all the care either the woman or the scary-ass man show.

And then, in a period of sulky silence, they come again: the creak of the stairs, and then the just-audible pad of sneakered feet across concrete floor. And the double-rap against the thick steel door. "How are you doing in there, kiddo?"

"Psycho," comes the reply, her young voice hoarse from hours of exertion. Whether she's referring to herself or her captor, it's hard to tell. There's a brief shuffle of feet. It sounds like the cub is somewhere at the far end of the bunker, as far away from the door as space will allow.

"Good to hear." There's the sound of metal sliding over metal, at top of door and bottom, and then it swings inward to reveal the woman from last night. She steps into the little room as though she owns not only it, but all the land as far as the eye can see as well, and casually pushes the door closed behind her with her left hand. Her right clutches a bottle of Coke and with a slice of cold pizza balancing awkwardly atop it. "Figured you might be hungry."

The girl stares sullenly from across the room, dark eyes hollow from lack of sleep. She's naked again, curled on the floor with her back against the wall--the remnants of the set of clothing left by Natalie are strewn in rags around the bunker, along with apple cores, a mangled water-bottle, and a metal cot-frame imitating a pretzel. The youngster's stop-sign colored hair is standing on end, giving her the look of an alarmed animal. She eyes the pizza ravenously, and gulps.

As soon as the door closes the bolts can be heard sliding - guess she brought a friend down with her. "Yeah, I thought so." The woman looks around the room, eyebrows lifting at the mess, but either doesn't notice or doesn't respond to the faint ringing from upstairs. "So, a trade. I'll give you this," she hoists the food and drink, "in exchange for a name and your birthday."

Calculating, the skinny kid appraises Natalie for a long moment. Bare toes tap out an unconscious tattoo against the concrete floor, and she hugs arms around her folded knees. "...Put'm down," she finally rasps, eyes locked on the woman's hands.

Natalie's eyebrows go up. After a second she crouches, setting the Coke bottle between her feet. The pizza stays in her hand, though. "--I know the sorts of things that've been on this floor. Trust me, your stomach will thank me for not putting it down. So. Name and birthday?"

She scowls, showing that gap where a tooth should be. Dark eyes flit between the bottle of Coke, the pizza, and Natalie's face. Still toe-tapping with jittery energy, the kid chews on her lip before conceding one syllable: "Cy."

"Cy," Nat repeats patiently. "All right. And birthday? Month, date, and year, please. Then both of these are yours."

"Why?" The question is blunt, and the kid's expression is rife with suspicion.

"Because I want to know," the woman answers, her veneer of patience quickly fading away. She may not be as scary-looking as the freaky man from last night, but she manages to be nearly as alarming in her own right. "Last chance, Cy. Birthday, or you can think all night about how good a slice of Canadian bacon pizza and a bottle of Coke would have tasted."

That last scenario seems to push the girl over some kind of edge: she's tough, but not that tough. Transferring her scowl to some dirty spot on the concrete floor, she mutters, "March third." Grubby fingernails pick absently at a scab on her shin, and Cy's lips twist with the distaste of surrender.

Natalie isn't completely heartless. She stoops again to scoop up the pop bottle between the index and middle fingers of her left hand, then takes a step toward the sulky cub. "Year? I'm guessing... '93?"

Cy bristles indignantly, dark eyes flashing a warning up at the woman. "Ninety," she growls. Her nostrils flare.

Natalie bristles right back at her, lips twitching as though they'd peel off her teeth like a dog's. After a second, though, she snorts and walks over to hold out bottle and slice. "They're yours. My name's Natalie. You remember the man from last night?" For the first time she looks slightly uncertain. "--You remember anything from last night?"

In a flash, the loot is snatched from Natalie's hands. Scrambling to another corner of the bunker, Cy crouches at a safe distance and rips into the pizza without decorum: she eats like someone unaccustomed to plenty. Chewing and gulping, she doesn't answer the woman right away. Stuffing her face is the priority at hand.

While the urchin scarfs Nat looks around the remains of the room. A glance toward the girl and she heads over to study the cot-frame-as-pretzel sculpture; crouches again keeping it between her and the girl to pick at the ruined blankets. "Cripes." The single word isn't regretful, or accusing, or even sad - it's more a commentary: the sky is blue, and demolished blankets make you say cripes.

Cy coughs briefly, almost choking on a bit of insufficiently-chewed Canadian bacon. Gnawing on what's left of the crust, the girl eyes Natalie from a distance. "Don't r'member," she says finally, with a dark glance towards the shredded remnants of a pillow. Even a few seconds with food in her belly seem to have a calming effect on the kid; she lowers herself onto her haunches, a little more clear-eyed. Behold, the wonders of alleviating low blood sugar.

Food is good. "Yeah, I kinda figured you wouldn't," the woman says as she stands, then shoves the mass of bent cot over to the wall. "Do you remember anything? Last night was pretty stressful." She glances around the room again, eyebrows lifted sardonically, and adds, "Obviously."

The last of the pizza crust is demolished, and the kid doesn't even miss a beat as she cracks open the Coke. Half-distracted by the fizzy sugary goodness, Cy grunts. "Weird dreams," she offers, after a few long swigs and a belch that echoes impressively for someone of her size.

"--Like?" Nat gives Cy another quick look before heading around to gather up the ruined bits of once-clothing. "And trust me, kiddo - whatever you tell me, I'll believe."

She sniffs, once or twice. Knuckling at her slightly runny nose, the bright-haired girl frowns. That abbreviated toe-tapping starts again. "You a pig?" She takes another pull off the bottle with the practiced ease of a brown-bagger, keeping one eye on her captor.

Natalie answers the question with a flat-out eyeroll, and doesn't bother to hide it. "Do I look...? Oh, hell." Turning to face Cy fully, she tosses a scrap of what was once sweatpants toward the ruined cot. "No. I'm not a cop." What she is is fully under the lightbulb so that the... change is utterly visible. "I'm not a cop," she repeats, muscles shifting and somehow growing, her fingernails thickening, browridge developing, and voice dropping through an octave. "I'm not a dream, I'm not a hallucination, I'm not a special effect. I'm your family."

Feral though the girl may be, her expression is easy to read as she stares up bug-eyed at the impossible woman: Oh Shit, Not Again. With a bellyful of food and a night of exhaustion behind her, Cy's reaction this time around is very different--she drops the Coke bottle, screws her eyes shut, and sticks both fingers in her ears. Nose to knees, the scrawny girl begins rocking spastically.

"Hey hey hey," the woman says hurriedly, worriedly, her voice returned to its normal range. "It's okay, kiddo." A second, and she's sitting beside the girl, arm draped hesitantly over her bare shoulders. Her skin is warm, and utterly human - not hairy and lumpy like the steroid freak that she was bare seconds ago. "I know it's a hell of a thing, but there isn't any easy way to break it to you."

Cy flinches dramatically at the touch, expecting some death-blow that never comes. The rocking continues, unabated by physical contact, but the cub eventually pulls grubby fingers from her ears and returns to hugging her knees. "W'you want," she hisses, eyes still squeezed tightly shut against the life-turned-Twilight-Zone.

She's back to her normal size, too - well under six foot. Not the whatever the hell that thing was. "We want -you-, Cy," she says soothingly, making no further moves on the girl. "You didn't know it, but someone did. You're a werewolf. A Garou. Like me, like Thomas - like the man yesterday. It's a hell of a thing to try and understand, like I said. I know. All we can do is try and make it as easy as possible for you."

The 'W' word is what does it, sending the girl up and away in that fleet-footed scamper. Heedless of her nudity, she slams into the steel-plated door with the flats of both palms, then whirls towards her captor. "Open it," she demands, finger leveled at the heavy portal. Brown eyes burn into Natalie's with barely-restrained panic.

Natalie clutches at the girl but doesn't otherwise prevent her escape - just remains where Cy left her, shaking her head. "No can do, kiddo. Sorry. Rather, I can open it, but I won't. Not until I know you're not going to freak." She looks pointedly around at the mess before meeting Cy's eyes with her own. "Who do you think caused all this damage? I'll give you a hint: no one else has been down here."

"Y' nuts," Cy informs the woman flatly, but her gaze breaks away, dropping to the floor. She begins to pace a little bit, one hand scrubbing at her matted red hair. Frowning darkly.

Natalie might be nuts, but she's also patient. Her knees pull up to her chest and arms wrap around them as she studies the girl in silence.

Cy takes a moment from her pacing to kick ineffectually at the steelplate door with a bare foot, wincing sharply. She crosses to yet another wall of the bunker, opposite Natalie, and slumps to the floor there. Agitation shows plainly in every line of her face as she searches the ceiling with her gaze, finger-tapping the cold ground. "Gimme s'm clothes, at least," she mutters distractedly.

"I gave you clothes," Nat points out as she pushes herself to her feet, hands brushing off her tush. Her clothes, in fact, are in perfect condition, despite her earlier growth spurt. "You flipped and ripped them up. But I'll see what I can do." She heads over to the door, finger directing Cy to the far wall as though she were a well-trained dog. "You go over there and sit down again. I'll head upstairs, see what we have, and be back. I'll see what I can do about lunch, too. Well, supper."

The girl moves begrudgingly as directed, too lost in her own internal machinations to protest much. Taking up the half-spilled bottle of Coke, she moves to sit against the wall opposite the door. One finger twists a lock of red hair in some repetitive, nervous tic--she seems to have a lot of them.

Natalie watches her as she moves with the intent gaze of a predator. Only after Cy sits again do the bolts slide, though Natalie never signals her outside conspirator. Probably just good timing and luck. Nat 'bounces' the door open, then opens it just far enough to slip out. "I'll bring a few more blankets, too. No cot, I'm afraid - expenses won't let us replace it daily. But we'll get you as comfortable as we can." 'We'. Suggesting that there are more of these freaks. Out she goes, the door closing behind her, and the locks slipping back into place.

By now Cy's well-familiar with the sounds of someone going upstairs - the creak on the third tread, the muted sound of a door opening and shutting. It is perhaps five minutes, certainly no more than ten, before the sounds appear in reverse. The double-knock is hardly surprising, as is Natalie's, "How are you doing in there, Cy?"

A wordless human grunt filters through the door. Little more.

"Give me words, kiddo," Nat directs patiently, probably shifting her weight onto one hip. "I want to make sure you can still make them."

"Fine," comes the reply, dripping with the universal exasperation of young teenagers everywhere.

Natalie smirks - not that Cy can see it - and reaches up to shoot back the bolts at floor and ceiling. This time, when she bumps her way through the door, she brings Nirvana with her: an entire box of pizza balanced on her hip. Oh yeah, and some fabric in her other arm. "Glad to hear it. Here, this is for you." She holds out the box, pizza slithering within, and kicks the door closed behind her with one foot.

Cy is still in the same spot as when Natalie left her, twiddling with the now-empty Coke bottle. Her eyes light up at the woman's arrival--or rather, the pizza box's arrival. With the speed of a born scavenger, she snatches it up and plops it open in the middle of the floor, sitting cross-legged as she takes up a second piece. Obviously not pacing herself.

Natalie shakes her head, amused, and tosses the wad of fabric to the floor at the girl's side. "Couple of blankets in there, a t-shirt, and some sweats. You're going to have to go commando for a while, at least until we can get you shopping. --Go easy on the pizza, will you? You'll probably want some more later." Three slices of pizza - all Canadian bacon - are rattling around in the box, which is from a local store. Well, two slices now.

Cy blinks and looks up, cheeks bulging with pizza, as though she had momentarily forgotten about the crazy woman. She chews for a moment, warily, then queries around the mouthful: "G'naleffmeeyowt?"

Natalie blinks at her, boggling. "--Pardon me?"

The pizza-eating machine frowns, skinny throat bobbing as she swallows the enormous bite. "Are you going to let me out," she repeats deliberately, showing a brief moment of perfect articulation. She immediately takes another bite.

Natalie ahs, even going so far as to drop a nod at the clarification. "Eventually. When is up to you. Once you've got a handle on what's going on and won't be a danger to yourself and others, we'll move you upstairs." A pause, a meaningful look around the destroyed room, and she adds, "Imagine what you'd do to a room full of furniture."

Cy follows the woman's glance, munching thoughtfully. Shaking her head, she cocks a thumb towards the wreck of the cot-frame. "Didn't do it," she says with certainty. She seems to have made up her mind about something, while Nat was gone. Holding the half-eaten slice in her teeth, she begins riffling through the clothes on the floor beside her.

Worn black t-shirt, nondescript grey sweats with the elastic gone out at the ankles. Charming. "And that's why you're staying down here for a while." The Galliard sighs upward, blowing bits of hair off her forehead, then leans back against the door with her thumbs hooked into her beltloops. "You remember what happened after you asked me if I was a cop?"

"'M hallucinating," the girl answers, removing the slice of pizza from her mouth. She takes one more bite, then sets it back in the box so she has both hands free for getting dressed. "Haven't slept. Prolly drugged." She seems rather matter-of-fact, with a fifteen-year-old's transparent bravado.

"Could be drugged," Nat agrees, "But it isn't. And since there's going to be little to convince you..." A shrug. "But here. I'll give you a choice: I'll shift either to the steroid-user I showed you before, or else go flat out wolf. Or hell, big freaky wolf. Which do you want to see? There's just one catch - hallucinations don't jump when you say frog. If I shift for you, right here and now, you have to admit you've already taken the red pill."

Cy glances up at the woman, squinting, then back to the pizza just as quickly. "'S some kinda mind control," she mumbles around another bite of dough. "Y'gonna make snuff porn outta me'n'dump my body in the river." Either she's resigned to her fate, or she's testing Nat.

Natalie's breath hisses out in disgust. "Good Gaia, no. That's... yuch." The woman pushes off the door, 'bouncing' it open again, eyes narrowed at the cub. "I can see we're not going to get anywhere else tonight. So, rules. If someone talks to you, you answer. In English. Otherwise that door stays closed. Light comes on in the morning, goes off again at night. Someone will bring you food. You can try jumping us, but I wouldn't recommend it. You have any questions before I go?"

The girl scowls at her captor, slouching in her too-large clothes--prickly she may be, but the girl doesn't seem to relish the idea of being left alone. "What day is it?"

"Wednesday," the woman answers calmly. "We brought you in here yesterday around five. Anything else?"

Cy lifts her chin defiantly, straightening her skinny spine a bit. "Can't keep me here f'rever," she challenges. "People--people are g'na look f'me."

A small smile curves up Natalie's lips; she dips her head and touches one finger to her temple in ironic salute. "And that wasn't a question. Goodnight, Cy. I'll see you after a bit." Never taking her eyes from the girl she reaches for the door, then backs through the opening, pulling the door closed behind her. Before the newly minted Philodox has the chance to do more than scramble to her feet she can hear the bolts shooting home once again.

[End of log]