Brownstone -- Basement Apt.

The basement of the brownstone has been split into two sections. The stairwell leads down into the northwest corner section, which contains the boiler room, furnace, and the elevator shaft. The rest has been converted into another apartment, and Signe's made it into a rather fortified one at that. The only entrance is through a re-enforced steel door with no less than three dead-bolts. There are absolutely no windows at all in any of the four concrete and brick walls. It's a rather stark but functional space. Overhead, the air ducts and plumbing pipes are exposed, while the cement floor is covered by a ragged dark wine and gold Oriental throw rug. A makeshift shelving unit of two-by-fours and cinder block has been erected along the length of the wall with the door, and it houses a stereo, tv and old vcr. Directly opposite this is a beat-up leather couch and two mismatched recliners. The kitchen is small but functional, with a round wooden table and four chairs. Half of the back end of the building has been walled off for a private bedroom, while the rest is open to the living area. This space has been converted into a home gym--complete with wrestling mats, weights, and a full weight boxing bag.

Contents:
Dillen
Black Harley

Obvious exits:
Out Bedroom

Sitting propped up on the floor against the couch, Dillen draws a little in his sketchpad. His hand opens the tin box of pastels and pencils and pens. His hand works over the contents and he picks up a very used color, making a large arc on the paper and continuing as he draws. His eyes look down at the box and he curses under his breath. "I need more colors..."

The lift rattles; a few minutes later there's a fumbling at the locks. "...Paranoid Get." The door opens, Natalie slipping inside with a ubiquitious brown paper bag resting on one hip. She makes certain to close the door and fasten all of the locks before turning to look at the rest of the apartment, a smile quirking her lips at the sight of the boy. "Hey Dillen."

Dillen looks up from his pad. "Hey." he says softly. His hand keeps moving on the pad, smudging and drawing. he is completely involved in what he does.

"Brought you some take-out," Nat continues, heading for the kitchen. "Hope you like Chinese. Oh, got some fruit, too. Figured you might like a reminder that the world still exists." The bag's placed on the table as she speaks, small kiwi and bananas unloaded first before the typical white take-out boxes emerge. "How're you doing?"

Dillen gives a bit of a shrug. "Not many people been around lately. Just drawing." he doesn't even look up, or so it seems, maybe his eyes are looking at the bag and the contents that come out of it. "Smells good." He says softly.

Natalie snorts a laugh. "Should do. This place is fantastic. Little greasy spoon, family-run place... I'll even let you have a rangoon. Where's Signe keep the plates?" "--I got fried rice, beef and peapods, and Sesame chicken." In addition to the crinkly bag that presumably contains the aforementioned rangoons. "C'mere and set, wouldja?"

Dillen nods and slowly closes the pad he has been drawing in. The tin box of pencils and all is set on top as if a revered object. He rises up and walks to the kitchen, not saying anything as he reaches to pull plates out of the cabinet and then starts setting the table.

Natalie, meanwhile, arranges the boxes in a semi-circle on the table before opening. Tres chic. Fruit's placed on top of the fridge, paper bag folded underneath. "There. So. Tell me what you've been up to, Sport. I assume you've been told the Litany? Tribe, Auspice, et cetera?"

"Sport? My name is Dillen." the boy almost groans at the thought of being called sport. "Told a little bit of stuff. Not much of what you just said." He doesn't look at Natalie, just continues setting the table.

Natalie settles in against the fridge to watch him, arms folded over her belly and staying out of the way. "Dillen; sorry. Cripes, you don't know the Litany yet? Hasn't anyone had time to spend with you?"

Dillen shrugs. "Signe's been busy. Been pretty much on my own." He says softly and it seems he might even like it that way.

Natalie snorts her opinion of /that/. "Wonderful. Well, no time like the present. I won't get into the nitty gritty, but Signe can't take offense at me teaching you the Litany. ...Actually, before that. 'Ve you been told about the Veil? That's probably even more important."

Dillen nods. "Yeah, Signe told me about the veil." He walks back over after setting the table, picking up his pad and returning to drawing.

From afar, to the room, Signe sorries for not jumping in. The nephew is awake and needing attention. BB asap.

You say "Spiff." She watches him leave with a touch of bemusement. "...You not hungry? No drawing at the table, you know. Come and sit - brains work better on food. You eat, I'll talk."

You paged the room with 'Gotcha.'.

Dillen nods his head slowly and folds the pad again, placing the tin box on the top just as he did before. He walks to the table and sits down, looking up at Natalie. "Does it hurt?"

Sat Apr 17 19:38:22 2004

Natalie grins at him as she pushes herself off the fridge. "What? The eating, the talking, or the Litany? Neither, ideally. OK, there's thirteen /basic/ rules of the Litany. That is, rules that all the tribes can agree on. I'll let Signe or Emma fill you in on the Get-specific, and I won't get into the Walkers' version. Toss me the rangoons, will you?"

Dillen blinks a little and looks at Natalie, not moving yet. "Becoming... Does it hurt?" He looks about, looking for the rangoons. "Um... What's a rangoon?"

"...Becoming?" Nat repeats, puzzled. "What do you mean? There, that bag next to the steamed rice. Those are the rangoons. Cream cheese and crab: yum."

Dillen nods and pulls the bag over, sliding it to Natalie. "Being what we are. Does it hurt?" His eyes look down at his plate.

Natalie says, "Whisht, heavy stuff. Physically, yeah, it can hurt. Thing is, being what we are, we heal most wounds. Stuff that'd kill a human we will heal from in a matter of, hmn, minutes usually. There are things that take longer - fire, silver, claws and teeth of another Garou - but even those we heal from pretty damn fast." She takes the bag and opens it as she speaks, pulling out a fried rangoon before tossing the bag back to the table. "Mentally, spiritually, generally not at all. Some adjust better to it than others, but as a whole we're a pretty damn healthy bunch."

Dillen swallows a little. "Can you control it?" His questions are short and softly spoken. He plays with the fork on the table. "Or does it control you?"

Natalie considers for a moment, teeth nibbling around the edge of her rangoon. "You're probably thinking of the old werewolves and full moon story? In that case, we control it. I don't rely on the moon to change, not in any way, shape, or form. However... in some ways it - the Rage - tries to control us as well. You're not going to go slipping into Crinos just for nothing, though. It usually takes some serious mojo - anger, or fear, or sex, or humiliation - to get us to flip when we don't want to."

Dillen blinks a little. "I can understand anger or fear... But sex? I do not understand." he sniffs the air a little. "Can I have some?"

Natalie pauses in her nibbling to blink at him. "Excuse me? ...Oh! Sure, go ahead and dig in, kid." She waves the rangoon toward the table. "S'all yours. Yeah, sex. Lust, really. Any intense emotion can tip you over the edge. Especially us cranky types - galliards and ahroun."

Dillen reaches across and pulls out a rangoon. "I'm a cranky type? Knew that already." He cracks a bit of a smile.

Natalie says, "If Signe were here, I'd do a little demonstration of the healing. As it is, you'll just have to trust me. I dunno how she'd take me manhandling her cub, and, well, I don't want to risk you flipping on me. So." She finishes off her rangoon in three bites, letting him finish serving himself. "Ready for the Litany?"

Dillen helps himself to a bit of the food in the packages. "Sure. What is it?"

Natalie frowns faintly at him. "The Litany is the rules - thirteen of them - that all the tribes can agree on. I just told you that." There's a touch of impatience in her voice, but no more. "We'll do 'em by threes, I think. I'll tell them to you, go over basic reasons why, then let you ask questions. The terminology's pretty, hmn, archaic, but that's just the way they are."

Dillen raises a bit of a brow. "Oh yeah. Sorry." He frowns himself. "Most of what I learned, learned myself. Not used to really listening." He looks up, eyes shining.

Natalie hooks a chair with one foot and pulls it out. "Yeah, well. As a cub, you'll have to learn to listen. Most elders aren't going to be too particular about beating information into you - and I mean that literally. So. First off. Garou Shall Not Mate with Garou. You do, and the offspring's sterile and deformed. Sometimes mentally, sometimes physically. Sometimes both. Two - Combat the Wyrm Wherever it Dwells and Whenever It Breeds. That's pretty obvious, huh? Three - Respect the Territory of Another. That goes back to our wolfy bits. No traipsing around where you don't belong, and if you're passing though, announce yourself."

Dillen frowns. "Then who the hell do you fuck?" His face scrunches up.

Natalie snorts as she plops into the chair, the breath escaping her body. "Not Garou. Humans. Wolves, if you can find 'em. Humans are easier. Kinfolk's best. Trust me, there are plenty of options besides boinking your packmates."

Dillen holds up a hand, "Wait... I'm supposed to stick my dick in a wolf? Are you a crazy woman?"

Natalie bares her teeth at him in something that could be interpreted as a smile. "No, I'm Garou. As are you. And I think, cub, that you're a little young to be thinking of mating. Now do you have questions about the other parts of the Litany, or are we going to keep harping on sex?"

Dillen rolls his eyes. "Okay. fine. No fucking garou." He snarls. "What the hell is the Wyrm?'

The Walker's teeth clack together, tension rising. "Hell, hasn't...? No, of course she hasn't. Cripes." Her fingers drum against the tabletop for a moment, her eyes fastened on him. "You'll have to take that one on faith for a bit. Short answer is, the Wyrm is a bad nasty. Anything longer will wait for a different day. That's cosmology, and tribe-dependent. Sig'd get cranky."

Dillen rolls his eyes again. "Fine. And I gotta tell when I piss in someone's yard. I gotcha." He sits back in his chair, looking at Natalie as if to say, 'What's next?'

"Y'know, for all you act meek and mild, you're awfully lippy." Natalie continues to study him, then snorts again. "Right. Accept an Honorable Surrender. That is, if someone shows you throat you back off. There's no need for us to go around killing each other. These next two are related - Submission to Those of Higher Station, and The First Share of the Kill for the Greatest in Station. Basically, don't get lippy when someone ranks you, and if someone ranks you, they get first choice of the loot."

Dillen nods. "Yeah, like my dad. Hit me when I am lippy, hit me when I'm not." The boy slides out of his chair and walks back to the couch to lean against it, "So what the hell does it matter? I'm gonna get hit."

Natalie carefully wraps her fingers around the edge of the table, continues to watch him with eyes gone cold. "If you come back and sit down," she enunciates carefully, "I will finish the rest of the Litany." She doesn't make any move to leap up and smack the bejeezus out of the boy, despite his lippiness.

Dillen looks up as his hands curl around his legs. "Can't you talk from there?"

Natalie takes another moment; when she speaks again her voice remains even, if cool. "I can, but your supper is getting cold. I'm also still waiting for any questions you have on these three tenets, but I won't discuss them with you over there." Without taking her eyes from him she inclines her head toward his empty seat.

Dillen sighs from his seat and reluctantly comes back over to his seat, moving it a bit away from Natalie. "No mating with Garou, Kill the Wyrm, and Announce myself." He repeats back. "If someone submits, let them go..." he swallows at the last two that Natalie told him. "I can't do those."

Natalie's head cocks. "You can't do them? How do you mean? You don't remember them to repeat back, or you can't obey them?'

"I can't follow them." Dillen shrugs, looking down at his plate. "They aren't fair. If a man beats on you because he can, aren't you supposed to fight back?"

Natalie says, "Yes and no." She pushes herself back into her chair, fingers reaching out to toy with the paper of the rangoon bag. "First off, we're Garou. Life isn't 'fair', if by fair you mean everyone's treated equally. Some of us - Signe, for one - have done more, and are recognized for it. She ranks me, for instance, and she's my pack alpha. Leala's my tribal elder. That means I need to listen to what those two tell me to do. It doesn't mean they have permission to whale on me whenever they feel like it, though. As for not being able to do them... you already have." The remains of the food are given a nod. "You came back when I told you to - submission - and you waited to eat until I said you could. First share of the kill. Neither one was, hmn, some horrible twisting of your will, was it?"

"Only because in my house you got slapped if you did." Dillen sighs. "That's gone now though." he takes a bit of the food on his plate. "I hear you on them. I'll try." He does his best, it's hard for him to say it though and when he does, it is quiet.

"It'll get easier as you adjust," she assures. "Your wolf part will help you through it, if you can listen to it." She pulls another rangoon free of its crinkly wrapper and nibbles at it. "Ye Shall Not Eat the Flesh of Humans. Fairly obvious, and one I don't think you will have a hard time following, hey?" She drops him a wink. "Respect for Those Beneath Ye - All are of Gaia. This is what prevents Signe - or myself - using you as a punching bag. It says we don't get to treat you like dirt. Of course, if you constantly flout submission, that's another story."

Dillen bites his lip and thinks for a moment. "So they can't beat on me?" As his eyes raise up a little. "Even if I do something that isn't how I am supposed to do it?"

Natalie considers him as she thinks for an equal amount of time. "Depends, kiddo. You set the table with the forks to the right? Nope, no beating allowed. However, you go traipsing into the Dominion and raid our fridge? Beatage permitted. It's a matter of degree. You'll need to trust that if there is physical punishment, it'll be for a reason. I don't, Signe doesn't - hell, none of Havoc - will beat you to get some sort of jollies, or because we're bored, or because you looked at us funny. If you start to think things are getting hairy, you show throat. Immediately. Accept an Honorable Surrender, remember? You're a cub, you've got amnesty to a point."

Dillen nods slowly. "All right." It gives a feeling that he may not fully believe all of it, but he accepts what Natalie says. "What's next?"

The Walker Galliard studies him a moment longer, then drops a nod. "Next. The Veil Shall Not Be Lifted. Period, end of story. Don't tell anyone - anyone who you are or what you can do. Not unless you know they already know. Don't go muttering in dark corners, don't use Garou terms on the street. You break, you die." She lets that sink in while she chews and swallows a single bite. "Do Not Suffer Thy People To Tend Thy Sickness. Simply put, if you're too broken to continue fighting, if you're a liability, you don't make the rest of us pander to you. Think Spock: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."

Dillen nods to the veil one and then looks up. "So if I am hurt, might as well kill me?"

Natalie shakes her head, perhaps meaning to be reassuring. "Nope. Remember what I said earlier? About how we heal?" She tugs the collar of her sweatshirt and tips her head to the left, revealing unmarked skin. "About three weeks ago I got into a fight with Josh - a tribemate. He ripped a huge chunk out of my neck." Her fingers run over the unmarked, unblemished, entirely whole skin, then drop. "Took me about four days to heal. You could take one of Signe's kitchen knives and chop off your own hand. It'd grow back. Hell, if you want I'll let you stab me yourself. I'll be good as new and twice as natural in a few minutes." She grins, then sobers. "It takes heavy mojo to seriously injure us, Dillen. We can even heal from things that would kill us. It leaves a scar, but we heal."

Natalie leans forward, drawing loosely clawed fingers down the left side of her face. "Another tribemate of mine - Thomas - is all scarred up on his left side. He lost an eye, and that didn't grow back. But he's still alive and kicking."

Dillen raises a brow. "We heal that fast? That's not possible." Then he remembers the wound he game Signe and she didn't even blink. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the switchblade, flicking it open and looking at Natalie for a moment before he pushes it against his arm and digs into the skin. His face contorts and he bleeds as the knife parts his flesh as he pulls it across his arm. Then the blade is set to the side as his eyes watch the gash.

Natalie laughs shortly. "Yeah, you're Get, aren't you? One thing I didn't mention - we don't heal in our birth forms. Homid, for the likes of me and you. So..." She flicks fingers at the boy. "You'll need to shift up. Glabro if you can manage it, Crinos if you have to."

"Now you tell me." Dillen crosses his brow. "Why don't we heal in normal form?"

Nat retorts, "Because we don't, that's why. Don't be greedy - we've got four other forms we do heal in. The Metis do heal in all five forms, but like I said, they're screwed up in other ways. So." She flicks fingers again. "Shift if you're going to. Otherwise, I'll finish the last three."

Dillen looks to the now really bleeding gash and then to Natalie. He sighs deeply and closes his eyes, trying hard to shift, face turning red at the try. An unsuccessful one at that.

Natalie sighs. "Cripes. Slap your hand over it, kid, put pressure on it. Can you listen to me while you're doing that? There's only three left and I'd really like to get through them before we start dancing about with shifting."

"Yeah, I can listen." As Dillen reaches for the napkins and shoves them into the gash on his arm. "Hurry up." His fingers reaching to press about on his arm to cut off the flow.

Natalie shakes her head but goes on, her eyes flicking between the cut on the boy's arm and his face. "Again we've got a pair: The Leader May Be Challenged at Any Time during Peace, and The Leader May Not Be Challenged during Wartime. We don't follow our leaders in slavish lockstep. If I think I can do a better job leading Havoc than Signe does, I can Challenge her. However, if we're in the middle of big hoohah, it's stupid for us to be spending our time and energy fighting each other. The last one's another biggie: Ye Shall Take No Action That Causes a Caern to be Violated. So no leading your new friends to the caern."

Dillen nods. "Yeah, I can see why all those are around." He looks at his arm. "Fuck." He's looking a little less than happy about his arm. "I think I got it all... For now. May have to have a refresher course." He looks at Natalie, a little panicked, "Shifting would be a good thing now."

Natalie chuckles non-amusement and stands, waving him to his feet as well. "We'll try the easy way first. Easy being talking, not smacking. So. You know you're a werewolf. You're as much wolf as you are man. Think of what that means. Think of standing on all four feet, of your tail. Think of seeing things with your nose, not your eyes." She backs into the larger room as she speaks, coaxing him along with her eyes and lowered voice. "Feel the floor beneath your feet. Feel your connection to Gaia. Close your eyes, feel how things shouuld be. You as wolf."

Dillen is now breathing hard, a scared look in his eye. He finally manages to close them and concentrate on the voice that speaks to him. A combination of his fear at the moment and the coaxing by Natalie causes his to finally shift into crinos and right past into hispo.

Natalie's voice drops off. Should Dillen-as-hispo look at her, he'd find her grinning. "You did it! Good job, kiddo. Stick like that for a couple of minutes, and when you shift back you'll be good as new."

Dillen now stands in the middle of the room, looking at himself. He opens his mouth and tries to speak, being stopped by his new throat. His eyes, now dark in contrast to his homid eyes look full of fear.

Natalie plops down where she stands, waggling her fingers invitingly. "No worries. Hispo can talk if they have to, but it's easier to just let your body do the talking for you. You can understand me in this form, and I can understand you too. So c'mer a second and I'll rub your ears. You have no idea how good it can feel."

Dillen cocks his head to one side and then looks down at his arm, already closing up. he looks to Natalie and nods, padding over to her, shifting the rest of the way into lupus as he does so. He crouches down, pushing his head under her hand.

Natalie obligingly lets her fingers play around the base of his ears, scratching and rubbing at the sensitive skin there. "And you hit lupus: good job. You know the names of the five forms?"

Dillen looks up, tongue waggling about. He enjoys the scritch behind his ears.

[RL emergency called an end to the scene. Dillen finished healing, they cleaned up and Nat went home.]

[End of log]