Figure of speech.
Mar. 23rd, 2017 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kiananlogsThursday, 23 March 2017
The moon is in the waning Crescent (Theurge) Moon phase (28% full).
It's cold enough for a blanket, but not so cold that one's teeth are set on edge. Even so, Slug's lit a fire in the hearth, quite possibly for the smell alone. Logs have burned to embers and been replaced with fresh wood, split by heat and consumed by the flames, the andirons surrounded by a bed of orange. A few knives lay set on the table on a few sheets of paper towel, along with a tooth brush, a few small tools, bottles, and a stone. Held in the Gnawer's hand is an old revolver large enough that a mouse could wander down the barrel and get lost in it. He holds it up, cylinder open, peering down the barrel from the end where the bullets don't come out.
Just how cold it is outside is also perhaps a matter of perception, and tolerance. There is the sound of footsteps on the front porch— first on four feet, then on two— and then the front door opens, and Yael slips in, shivering. "They call this spring," she mutters in annoyance, shaking her head and brushing some of the lingering damp— because even when it is sunny it's still damp— off of herself, and then makes her way in and towards the fire. "Good morning," she offers to Slug, still shivering a bit despite the jacket and warm clothing.
Slug glances sidelong at her as she comes in, then goes back to looking down the barrel of his gun. It seems to meet his satisfaction, and, after a moment, he starts to study each cylinder one by one. "It gets a lot colder. And wetter. It isn't so bad in the city; only real bad in the woods, in the mountains. When the wood gets wet there isn't a good way to make a fire, or a place to hide, and even with the fur on your bones the cold can still seep in. Then the only thing you can do is move, or do anything not to think about it."
"I think I understand why some people are… how do you say it," Yael says, "snowbirds. Especially some of my people." She crouches down by the fire, and eventually sheds the jacket. Doesn't do much good helping her stay warm if it's too wet, so instead it's laid out to dry on an available bit of the hearth. "We're not precisely built to stay warm in weather like this."
Slug stands up and takes the poker from its place against the wall with a short twirl, then he thrusts it into the embers. A few stabs get the fire properly angry, spitting like an angry cat in a corner. "Lay the jacket on a chair or something," he recommends. "Spread out so it catches the heat." And with that, he sets the poker down. A handful of kindling chunks are thrown onto the bed of fire, and a heavy sort of log that burns for hours and hours.
Yael rises from the crouch somewhat gracefully, grabbing the jacket and listening to the suggestion, putting it out on one of the chairs before she returns to where she was, almost as close to the fire as is comfortable or possible. Or maybe a few inches closer. "It does get cold, in parts of Mali and Ethiopia and even in Israel," she says, "but it's not the same. It's not wet and cold, at the same time." There's a grin. "And usually right around the time it gets cold is right around the time I'd move on."
"I wouldn't know. I've only been to the desert a few times, and didn't tend to stay very long. Dunno how to live there, and… it seems kind of boring, so I didn't want to stay," he admits. Slug licks his teeth. "Of course, that was the American desert. Not a lot of wood out there that you can use to build a fire, from what I've seen. All that scrub-type stuff that's dry and brittle, goes up fast, burns out faster."
Yael shakes her head. "Building a fire in the desert is different," she agrees. "Even less to use to build a fire in the middle of some of the Sahara. Nothing but sand, oil rigs, and wyrmbeasts for hundreds of kilometres. Easy to get lost, easier to get dead." For all of that, she sounds almost homesick at the concept. "In any case, how's it been going?"
"Garou have one advantage, at least. It got bad enough, you could use some of your own fat to start a fire," Slug muses, pinching at a little bit of skin on his own arm. He sticks the revolver through his belt and shrugs, sitting on the stone hearth with his back to the fire. "Same old same old. Just glad things are quiet, for a change… mostly, anyways. When things are too slow, your mind starts to wander over old memories."
Yael watches Slug, and shakes her head, "Speak for yourself, American," she says, with a snort. She has a point, too. It's hard to tell with the modest clothing, but there's a chance that there's very little percentage of body fat on the Strider's frame, to the point where she might even be underweight for her height and build by a little. "I have been keeping busy, between things and learning a half-moon gift from Salem. Thinking about if I'm going to be staying long enough to start a pack. It's been… a long time since I had a pack that was more than a temporary contrivance for a battle."
Slug smiles a little bit, then shrugs. "There's more fat on a human body than you'd think. I should know, I've taken them apart enough times," he says, looking up at the ceiling. "Salem's a good guy," Slug says. "Just a little short-tempered. And short-bodied. There's nothing that's beneath his notice, I kid you not." His hand drifts into his pocket comes up with a package of cigarettes, which he thumbs open, picks at with his lips, and lights with a skinny Bic kept inside the pack. "Well… you people aren't really the stay-around-and-pack type, huh? Last Strider I saw in a pack was in a Coyote pack, and that was ages ago."
Yael groans appropriately at the pun, and there's a thread of… something in her expression that doesn't go unsaid. Hard to pinpoint beneath the neutral mask, overall. "Not usually," she agrees. "But we do settle down for a while from time to time. I've done it before, although not for many years now. It does seem that I'm going to be staying around here for a while, though. It's been over a month that I keep coming back here more than I ever thought I would."
"It is a good Sept," Slug says. "With good people. And me. Plenty of people wander through and decide to stay for a while, though… some move on, and we never hear from them again." Slug takes a long drag, then rises, going to the kitchen to retrieve a bottle of dark, wood-colored liquid. He swirls it around a few times and then takes a drink, smacking his lips. "Couldn't hurt to stick around— more than it would hurt anywhere else, anyways."
Something catches Yael's attention in the way that Slug phrases that, and the philodox turns a very pointed look at the ragabash. "Good people, and you," she repeats, perhaps to clarify. "In that you see yourself as not good, or…?" It's fishing, but it's very obvious fishing without much force behind it, should he choose not to answer. "None of us anywhere are wholly good, all of the time. That's life, it's full of," she murmurs under her breath for a moment, and comes up with, "shades of grey."
"Good is…" Slug makes a face like the word is so much lemon juice on his tongue. "I've seen bad, real bad. I've seen people do the right thing for the wrong reasons with less than great outcomes. I don't know. Maybe it is just because I'm older, but… I find myself reflecting a lot, on things I've done, and why I did them. I've punished myself for everything I thought was bad," he says, shrugging. "Still do, the way people always do. Of course, Philodox helped."
Yael crouches a moment longer and then turns, sitting so that now her back is to the fire, one knee drawn up to her chest. "Yeah," she finally agrees. "I've been around the block a few times. Some of those times worse than others." She shakes her head briefly, and shrugs. "Dwelling too long on mistakes is not useful either though. There is a fine line between where it helps, and where it makes you more likely to repeat them." From the tone of her voice, it sounds more like she's speaking from some amount of experience than anything else.
"Less like that. More… wondering if it was a mistake, or not. Whether it was good, or not. Sometimes even something 'bad' can have something good come of it, you know. Like burning your hand on a fire, or learning how to set your own bones." Slug makes a 'tsk' sound and takes another drink before setting the bottle aside entirely. "People change, but at the end of the day, we are who we are, same as the dirt or the sky."
Yael nods, and there's one more shrug. "Of course, times quiet enough for as much reflection," Yael says, "rarely last. I'm sure it will get… more exciting sooner or later."
"Wisdom pack under Chimera. Reflection is unending, but… the slow days make it a little more tiring than I'd like." Slug says, casting some cigarette ash into the fire.
Yael nods. "Then find something to do to fill the time a little more," she suggests lightly. "And speaking of. Have you met Reagan, the Gaian? And if so, what were your impressions? I'm… trying to work with her, some rather remedial training as it were."
"I may have," Slug says, lapsing into silence. "I am not sure. Maybe. I… don't keep track of new faces as well as I ought to. Too many old ones in my head." He worries the corner of his eye with a fist. "Besides, a Philodox asking a Ragabash for an opinion is like ice askin' fire for a light."
A brief, amused look flashes across Yael's face. "Generally in my experience Ragabash give their opinion whether we ask for it or not," she points out. "But in this case, I was truly curious. And because when one vector of approach does not work, you try another, and another, and another until something finally does."
"I've gotten more cautious about giving my opinions as time's gone on, and less sour about Philodox. But only just a little bit," he says, making a pinching gesture. "What kind of problems is Reagan having, anyways? What are you trying to help her with, if you want to say?"
Yael makes a sort of 'heh' sound. "Everything, anything. She treats interacting with Garou like an amateur anthropology project where we are the backwards native tribe," she says, shaking her head. "She spent twenty years or so outside of the Nation in academia, and wants to," Yael makes air quotes, "'mend relations with the Nation', but she's going about it… Rather wrong, and I'm amongst the more patient and forgiving. And frankly, I've been Garou the greater part of my life, even if I did spend a great portion of that with the Ahadi. Every time I get to anything that's about being Garou and that's cultural, or societal, it's like I'm talking to a brick wall."
"Well, it isn't like she's…" Slug makes a bit of a face. "Terribly wrong. Garou are kind of backwards, and not so much stupid as— ah." Slug casts into the depths of his mind and fishes out a word. "Arrogant, or a less unkind word for arrogant. I used to think a lot like she thinks, and, in some ways, I still do. It's not just because of who I am, but part of who I am. It does the Nation some degree of good to have some people around to kick it in the side now'n then, just like it does apes good to have a wolf or a Metis around."
Yael nods. "But if she keeps on quite as much as she does, she's going to get smacked, sure as anything. I think she already has a few times." The philodox is thoughtful, and then notes, "If you want to disrupt something, people will listen more if you do it at least adjacent to their worldview, yes?" A pause, "Reagan isn't even adjacent." She shrugs, and continues, "She is right in some ways, but she moreover refuses to even see herself as Garou. And like with most native tribes, if she continues to treat the Garou as some sort of science project, it's going to go badly. From the way she acts, I think that she thinks, that scientific fact and rational discourse are a substitute for basic manners."
"You should probably not let her interact with a lot of bigger dudes around here until she's got an idea of what she's doing, you know. Unless you'd like her to end up with a face like mine." Slug says, drumming his fingers across his scars. "I used to know a Philodox like her, and… well. Eventually, he died because of the way he thought and acted. It doesn't matter whether you're right or wrong if you piss off the wrong person at the wrong time, and you haven't got the muscle to keep yourself in one piece."
"At the moment, she's more or less restricted to the Fury house," Yael says. "And everyone there knows what's up." Yael snorts. "And the real problem is, she's got an idea of what she's doing. She's got very definite ideas that have set in for years, and getting what she's doing to match up with what everyone else thinks she's doing… not so much." The ragabash is given careful observation for a long minute of silence, and then Yael finally says, "But you learned, eventually, no?"
"She sounds more like a Walker than anything else, a Walker that's been gone from the wild too long. I wonder if she can even hear the thing inside of her, or if she even thinks of herself like an animal." Slug's eyes lid, one never quite matching the set of the other. "Learning is the wrong word. Maybe, surviving, like how a shard of glass gets polished smooth by the sand and waves on a beach, if it isn't carried out to sea. Things I felt, people I knew, they rubbed off on me. I still feel and think some of the things I did then, I just express them differently, think a little differently. Time, time…" he discards the butt of his cigarette for a fresh one, closing his eyes. "Telling someone they have to change doesn't work. You just have to be patient, and hope whatever you say or do rattles something."
Yael nods, turning to add a mid-size log to the fire behind her to keep it going, before draping her arms over her knee. "Yeah." Beat. "Thank you. That's an important perspective that you pointed out and that I'll keep in mind." She grins a little bit, pensive for the moment.
"No problem," Slug says. "Being a Ragabash and part of a Wisdom pack, I wouldn't be much good for anything if people couldn't bounce ideas off the back of my head." He rolls his shoulders and blows out a long lungful of smoke, away from the other Garou.
"I've gotten less bitter about ragabash as I've gotten older," Yael says. "Used to be that I didn't see the point." She grins. "Sometimes, even when it was shoved right in my face. But," she says, lips pursing for a moment, "everyone learns. It's just a matter of the right situation and circum—" Annoyed muttering in Arabic follows, and then, "circumstance. I really, really do hate the English language. It's even more stupid than some of the rather more stupid traditions."
"Being contrary for the sake of being contrary isn't something a Ragabash should do, unless they have to. The idea is just to be another light in the dark. Some Ragabash don't really get that, or… they never really get that other people are doing the same thing. Some Ragabash never learn to duck, either." Slug leans back against the warm stone of the hearth, hands folded in his lap. "I used to be angrier about Philodox, for what it's worth. Then I spent a lot of time with one or two, one in particular, and… well. You can't really spend that much time around someone without him rubbing off on you."
Slug cracks an eye to look at her. "At least with Garou we can always talk in Crinos, or wolf body. Humans can't do that much." A beat. "Hey, you might want to try talking with Reagan in Crinos sometime, get her to work on diagraming the beast tongue or something. Like baby steps into beast-mind."
"Some philodox never learn to get down off of the horse and see the world we live in," Yael says, and there's a raised eyebrow and then nods. "Worth a shot. Get her to use it more, and maybe something will rattle the right direction." She grins. "Which reminds me. I need to find Thomas at some point, see about that gift he was going to teach me, one of the language ones."
"Ah," Slug says, with as straight a face as he can muster, which is very straight indeed. "Soon you'll finally know what the fox does say."
Yael looks at the ragabash— and whatever reference it is is apparently entirely lost on her, because he gets a somewhat blank stare. "I know that was supposed to be funny," she says, not unkindly, "but I don't get it."
"It is a song from the internet," Slug explains, tapping the side of his head. "I only even know because I hang out with a lot of Walkers and blow a fair amount of time on computers when I'm bored, but… hmm. I'm sure Thomas has been asked the question enough times by now that he'd do something not nice if asked again."
Yael grins a little bit. 'Oh' is mouthed briefly, and there's a nod. "Although there's a certain amount of it that is, I guess, predictable. When I finally met one of the Mokolé for the first time, last year, the first thing that happens is he takes out this beat up old radio that must have been older than either of us, and started playing that one Duran Duran song."
Slug makes an interested sound and rubs at his chin. "Met a couple of Khan, some wizards, and I'm dating a Corax… but I've never really met a Mokolé. Probably a good thing, although I do want to meet a Ratkin." His lips purse. "Although from what I've heard, there's never just a Ratkin, and it is usually a pretty bad idea."
Yael tilts her head to one side. "So are the Mokolé, most of the time," Yael says, "but I was lucky. That, and if The Gate fell then their wallows in the area would have been next, and so they were inclined to not kill me outright. Which is what I hear they had done to the last few Garou who tried to find them." She shakes her head. "I'm usually pretty good at talking my way out of circumstances where I would otherwise get squashed. Life skill."
"It helps, especially if you have to deal with criminals on a regular basis. They're generally against being punished," Slug explains, discarding the remains of yet another cigarette in the fire behind him. "I could introduce you to my girlfriend sometime, if you haven't met her already. Val. She just sorta flies in when she's in the mood— not always down for socializing. She has a healthy and respectful fear of Garou, because… birds."
Yael grins a little bit. "I haven't had the chance to meet her, no," Yael says, "and I'd like that. I've known a fair number of Corax over the years, although they don't tend to stick around Africa very much either. Mostly ran into them in Europe." Yael glances at Slug, and adds, "Respectfully, I have a healthy and respectful… well, fear isn't quite the right word, but close, of most other Garou myself. Like I said, life skill."
"Nothing wrong with that," Slug says, winking his bad eye at her. "It is easy, sometimes, for our rage to get the better of us, and…" he tilts his head. "You don't look like you'd be much in a straight up fight, which isn't saying much when you can plan things out, but matters a lot when a fight just sorta happens and you ain't got time to think."
Yael nods. "Pretty much. I can take being hit a fair few times until I can get out of there, but if it comes down to it, I get out of there. Died once or twice when I wasn't able to get out of there fast enough, but that was before I knew better." She grins. "Fighting isn't at all my strength, to put it bluntly. Planning and strategising and getting the best possible outcome from a mission, that rather more is."
"You know what they say," Slug says. "The best armor is not getting hit. I'm used to getting torn to shreds, even though I don't like it. Fought without an arm, had my face melted into one long piece of bone by balefire, although… most of my worst injuries have been from other Garou." He sucks his teeth. "And were my own fault, more often than not. Being able to take a hit is important, but not being in the kind of situation where you have to is probably the best thing, yeah. Nothing you can do about it though, other than working out and playing with pain."
Yael pushes to her feet, and reclaims her jacket, and nods. "Again, thanks," she offers, and then without further ceremony makes her way towards the front door.
"Yeah," Slug says with a wave, taking up the bottle again. "You have a good one. Let me know how you make out with the chick at the Fury house."
Yael pauses and turns and gives Slug a decidedly odd look. "That's one of those English figures of speech, right?" she says, and then she's through the door and gone.
The moon is in the waning Crescent (Theurge) Moon phase (28% full).
It's cold enough for a blanket, but not so cold that one's teeth are set on edge. Even so, Slug's lit a fire in the hearth, quite possibly for the smell alone. Logs have burned to embers and been replaced with fresh wood, split by heat and consumed by the flames, the andirons surrounded by a bed of orange. A few knives lay set on the table on a few sheets of paper towel, along with a tooth brush, a few small tools, bottles, and a stone. Held in the Gnawer's hand is an old revolver large enough that a mouse could wander down the barrel and get lost in it. He holds it up, cylinder open, peering down the barrel from the end where the bullets don't come out.
Just how cold it is outside is also perhaps a matter of perception, and tolerance. There is the sound of footsteps on the front porch— first on four feet, then on two— and then the front door opens, and Yael slips in, shivering. "They call this spring," she mutters in annoyance, shaking her head and brushing some of the lingering damp— because even when it is sunny it's still damp— off of herself, and then makes her way in and towards the fire. "Good morning," she offers to Slug, still shivering a bit despite the jacket and warm clothing.
Slug glances sidelong at her as she comes in, then goes back to looking down the barrel of his gun. It seems to meet his satisfaction, and, after a moment, he starts to study each cylinder one by one. "It gets a lot colder. And wetter. It isn't so bad in the city; only real bad in the woods, in the mountains. When the wood gets wet there isn't a good way to make a fire, or a place to hide, and even with the fur on your bones the cold can still seep in. Then the only thing you can do is move, or do anything not to think about it."
"I think I understand why some people are… how do you say it," Yael says, "snowbirds. Especially some of my people." She crouches down by the fire, and eventually sheds the jacket. Doesn't do much good helping her stay warm if it's too wet, so instead it's laid out to dry on an available bit of the hearth. "We're not precisely built to stay warm in weather like this."
Slug stands up and takes the poker from its place against the wall with a short twirl, then he thrusts it into the embers. A few stabs get the fire properly angry, spitting like an angry cat in a corner. "Lay the jacket on a chair or something," he recommends. "Spread out so it catches the heat." And with that, he sets the poker down. A handful of kindling chunks are thrown onto the bed of fire, and a heavy sort of log that burns for hours and hours.
Yael rises from the crouch somewhat gracefully, grabbing the jacket and listening to the suggestion, putting it out on one of the chairs before she returns to where she was, almost as close to the fire as is comfortable or possible. Or maybe a few inches closer. "It does get cold, in parts of Mali and Ethiopia and even in Israel," she says, "but it's not the same. It's not wet and cold, at the same time." There's a grin. "And usually right around the time it gets cold is right around the time I'd move on."
"I wouldn't know. I've only been to the desert a few times, and didn't tend to stay very long. Dunno how to live there, and… it seems kind of boring, so I didn't want to stay," he admits. Slug licks his teeth. "Of course, that was the American desert. Not a lot of wood out there that you can use to build a fire, from what I've seen. All that scrub-type stuff that's dry and brittle, goes up fast, burns out faster."
Yael shakes her head. "Building a fire in the desert is different," she agrees. "Even less to use to build a fire in the middle of some of the Sahara. Nothing but sand, oil rigs, and wyrmbeasts for hundreds of kilometres. Easy to get lost, easier to get dead." For all of that, she sounds almost homesick at the concept. "In any case, how's it been going?"
"Garou have one advantage, at least. It got bad enough, you could use some of your own fat to start a fire," Slug muses, pinching at a little bit of skin on his own arm. He sticks the revolver through his belt and shrugs, sitting on the stone hearth with his back to the fire. "Same old same old. Just glad things are quiet, for a change… mostly, anyways. When things are too slow, your mind starts to wander over old memories."
Yael watches Slug, and shakes her head, "Speak for yourself, American," she says, with a snort. She has a point, too. It's hard to tell with the modest clothing, but there's a chance that there's very little percentage of body fat on the Strider's frame, to the point where she might even be underweight for her height and build by a little. "I have been keeping busy, between things and learning a half-moon gift from Salem. Thinking about if I'm going to be staying long enough to start a pack. It's been… a long time since I had a pack that was more than a temporary contrivance for a battle."
Slug smiles a little bit, then shrugs. "There's more fat on a human body than you'd think. I should know, I've taken them apart enough times," he says, looking up at the ceiling. "Salem's a good guy," Slug says. "Just a little short-tempered. And short-bodied. There's nothing that's beneath his notice, I kid you not." His hand drifts into his pocket comes up with a package of cigarettes, which he thumbs open, picks at with his lips, and lights with a skinny Bic kept inside the pack. "Well… you people aren't really the stay-around-and-pack type, huh? Last Strider I saw in a pack was in a Coyote pack, and that was ages ago."
Yael groans appropriately at the pun, and there's a thread of… something in her expression that doesn't go unsaid. Hard to pinpoint beneath the neutral mask, overall. "Not usually," she agrees. "But we do settle down for a while from time to time. I've done it before, although not for many years now. It does seem that I'm going to be staying around here for a while, though. It's been over a month that I keep coming back here more than I ever thought I would."
"It is a good Sept," Slug says. "With good people. And me. Plenty of people wander through and decide to stay for a while, though… some move on, and we never hear from them again." Slug takes a long drag, then rises, going to the kitchen to retrieve a bottle of dark, wood-colored liquid. He swirls it around a few times and then takes a drink, smacking his lips. "Couldn't hurt to stick around— more than it would hurt anywhere else, anyways."
Something catches Yael's attention in the way that Slug phrases that, and the philodox turns a very pointed look at the ragabash. "Good people, and you," she repeats, perhaps to clarify. "In that you see yourself as not good, or…?" It's fishing, but it's very obvious fishing without much force behind it, should he choose not to answer. "None of us anywhere are wholly good, all of the time. That's life, it's full of," she murmurs under her breath for a moment, and comes up with, "shades of grey."
"Good is…" Slug makes a face like the word is so much lemon juice on his tongue. "I've seen bad, real bad. I've seen people do the right thing for the wrong reasons with less than great outcomes. I don't know. Maybe it is just because I'm older, but… I find myself reflecting a lot, on things I've done, and why I did them. I've punished myself for everything I thought was bad," he says, shrugging. "Still do, the way people always do. Of course, Philodox helped."
Yael crouches a moment longer and then turns, sitting so that now her back is to the fire, one knee drawn up to her chest. "Yeah," she finally agrees. "I've been around the block a few times. Some of those times worse than others." She shakes her head briefly, and shrugs. "Dwelling too long on mistakes is not useful either though. There is a fine line between where it helps, and where it makes you more likely to repeat them." From the tone of her voice, it sounds more like she's speaking from some amount of experience than anything else.
"Less like that. More… wondering if it was a mistake, or not. Whether it was good, or not. Sometimes even something 'bad' can have something good come of it, you know. Like burning your hand on a fire, or learning how to set your own bones." Slug makes a 'tsk' sound and takes another drink before setting the bottle aside entirely. "People change, but at the end of the day, we are who we are, same as the dirt or the sky."
Yael nods, and there's one more shrug. "Of course, times quiet enough for as much reflection," Yael says, "rarely last. I'm sure it will get… more exciting sooner or later."
"Wisdom pack under Chimera. Reflection is unending, but… the slow days make it a little more tiring than I'd like." Slug says, casting some cigarette ash into the fire.
Yael nods. "Then find something to do to fill the time a little more," she suggests lightly. "And speaking of. Have you met Reagan, the Gaian? And if so, what were your impressions? I'm… trying to work with her, some rather remedial training as it were."
"I may have," Slug says, lapsing into silence. "I am not sure. Maybe. I… don't keep track of new faces as well as I ought to. Too many old ones in my head." He worries the corner of his eye with a fist. "Besides, a Philodox asking a Ragabash for an opinion is like ice askin' fire for a light."
A brief, amused look flashes across Yael's face. "Generally in my experience Ragabash give their opinion whether we ask for it or not," she points out. "But in this case, I was truly curious. And because when one vector of approach does not work, you try another, and another, and another until something finally does."
"I've gotten more cautious about giving my opinions as time's gone on, and less sour about Philodox. But only just a little bit," he says, making a pinching gesture. "What kind of problems is Reagan having, anyways? What are you trying to help her with, if you want to say?"
Yael makes a sort of 'heh' sound. "Everything, anything. She treats interacting with Garou like an amateur anthropology project where we are the backwards native tribe," she says, shaking her head. "She spent twenty years or so outside of the Nation in academia, and wants to," Yael makes air quotes, "'mend relations with the Nation', but she's going about it… Rather wrong, and I'm amongst the more patient and forgiving. And frankly, I've been Garou the greater part of my life, even if I did spend a great portion of that with the Ahadi. Every time I get to anything that's about being Garou and that's cultural, or societal, it's like I'm talking to a brick wall."
"Well, it isn't like she's…" Slug makes a bit of a face. "Terribly wrong. Garou are kind of backwards, and not so much stupid as— ah." Slug casts into the depths of his mind and fishes out a word. "Arrogant, or a less unkind word for arrogant. I used to think a lot like she thinks, and, in some ways, I still do. It's not just because of who I am, but part of who I am. It does the Nation some degree of good to have some people around to kick it in the side now'n then, just like it does apes good to have a wolf or a Metis around."
Yael nods. "But if she keeps on quite as much as she does, she's going to get smacked, sure as anything. I think she already has a few times." The philodox is thoughtful, and then notes, "If you want to disrupt something, people will listen more if you do it at least adjacent to their worldview, yes?" A pause, "Reagan isn't even adjacent." She shrugs, and continues, "She is right in some ways, but she moreover refuses to even see herself as Garou. And like with most native tribes, if she continues to treat the Garou as some sort of science project, it's going to go badly. From the way she acts, I think that she thinks, that scientific fact and rational discourse are a substitute for basic manners."
"You should probably not let her interact with a lot of bigger dudes around here until she's got an idea of what she's doing, you know. Unless you'd like her to end up with a face like mine." Slug says, drumming his fingers across his scars. "I used to know a Philodox like her, and… well. Eventually, he died because of the way he thought and acted. It doesn't matter whether you're right or wrong if you piss off the wrong person at the wrong time, and you haven't got the muscle to keep yourself in one piece."
"At the moment, she's more or less restricted to the Fury house," Yael says. "And everyone there knows what's up." Yael snorts. "And the real problem is, she's got an idea of what she's doing. She's got very definite ideas that have set in for years, and getting what she's doing to match up with what everyone else thinks she's doing… not so much." The ragabash is given careful observation for a long minute of silence, and then Yael finally says, "But you learned, eventually, no?"
"She sounds more like a Walker than anything else, a Walker that's been gone from the wild too long. I wonder if she can even hear the thing inside of her, or if she even thinks of herself like an animal." Slug's eyes lid, one never quite matching the set of the other. "Learning is the wrong word. Maybe, surviving, like how a shard of glass gets polished smooth by the sand and waves on a beach, if it isn't carried out to sea. Things I felt, people I knew, they rubbed off on me. I still feel and think some of the things I did then, I just express them differently, think a little differently. Time, time…" he discards the butt of his cigarette for a fresh one, closing his eyes. "Telling someone they have to change doesn't work. You just have to be patient, and hope whatever you say or do rattles something."
Yael nods, turning to add a mid-size log to the fire behind her to keep it going, before draping her arms over her knee. "Yeah." Beat. "Thank you. That's an important perspective that you pointed out and that I'll keep in mind." She grins a little bit, pensive for the moment.
"No problem," Slug says. "Being a Ragabash and part of a Wisdom pack, I wouldn't be much good for anything if people couldn't bounce ideas off the back of my head." He rolls his shoulders and blows out a long lungful of smoke, away from the other Garou.
"I've gotten less bitter about ragabash as I've gotten older," Yael says. "Used to be that I didn't see the point." She grins. "Sometimes, even when it was shoved right in my face. But," she says, lips pursing for a moment, "everyone learns. It's just a matter of the right situation and circum—" Annoyed muttering in Arabic follows, and then, "circumstance. I really, really do hate the English language. It's even more stupid than some of the rather more stupid traditions."
"Being contrary for the sake of being contrary isn't something a Ragabash should do, unless they have to. The idea is just to be another light in the dark. Some Ragabash don't really get that, or… they never really get that other people are doing the same thing. Some Ragabash never learn to duck, either." Slug leans back against the warm stone of the hearth, hands folded in his lap. "I used to be angrier about Philodox, for what it's worth. Then I spent a lot of time with one or two, one in particular, and… well. You can't really spend that much time around someone without him rubbing off on you."
Slug cracks an eye to look at her. "At least with Garou we can always talk in Crinos, or wolf body. Humans can't do that much." A beat. "Hey, you might want to try talking with Reagan in Crinos sometime, get her to work on diagraming the beast tongue or something. Like baby steps into beast-mind."
"Some philodox never learn to get down off of the horse and see the world we live in," Yael says, and there's a raised eyebrow and then nods. "Worth a shot. Get her to use it more, and maybe something will rattle the right direction." She grins. "Which reminds me. I need to find Thomas at some point, see about that gift he was going to teach me, one of the language ones."
"Ah," Slug says, with as straight a face as he can muster, which is very straight indeed. "Soon you'll finally know what the fox does say."
Yael looks at the ragabash— and whatever reference it is is apparently entirely lost on her, because he gets a somewhat blank stare. "I know that was supposed to be funny," she says, not unkindly, "but I don't get it."
"It is a song from the internet," Slug explains, tapping the side of his head. "I only even know because I hang out with a lot of Walkers and blow a fair amount of time on computers when I'm bored, but… hmm. I'm sure Thomas has been asked the question enough times by now that he'd do something not nice if asked again."
Yael grins a little bit. 'Oh' is mouthed briefly, and there's a nod. "Although there's a certain amount of it that is, I guess, predictable. When I finally met one of the Mokolé for the first time, last year, the first thing that happens is he takes out this beat up old radio that must have been older than either of us, and started playing that one Duran Duran song."
Slug makes an interested sound and rubs at his chin. "Met a couple of Khan, some wizards, and I'm dating a Corax… but I've never really met a Mokolé. Probably a good thing, although I do want to meet a Ratkin." His lips purse. "Although from what I've heard, there's never just a Ratkin, and it is usually a pretty bad idea."
Yael tilts her head to one side. "So are the Mokolé, most of the time," Yael says, "but I was lucky. That, and if The Gate fell then their wallows in the area would have been next, and so they were inclined to not kill me outright. Which is what I hear they had done to the last few Garou who tried to find them." She shakes her head. "I'm usually pretty good at talking my way out of circumstances where I would otherwise get squashed. Life skill."
"It helps, especially if you have to deal with criminals on a regular basis. They're generally against being punished," Slug explains, discarding the remains of yet another cigarette in the fire behind him. "I could introduce you to my girlfriend sometime, if you haven't met her already. Val. She just sorta flies in when she's in the mood— not always down for socializing. She has a healthy and respectful fear of Garou, because… birds."
Yael grins a little bit. "I haven't had the chance to meet her, no," Yael says, "and I'd like that. I've known a fair number of Corax over the years, although they don't tend to stick around Africa very much either. Mostly ran into them in Europe." Yael glances at Slug, and adds, "Respectfully, I have a healthy and respectful… well, fear isn't quite the right word, but close, of most other Garou myself. Like I said, life skill."
"Nothing wrong with that," Slug says, winking his bad eye at her. "It is easy, sometimes, for our rage to get the better of us, and…" he tilts his head. "You don't look like you'd be much in a straight up fight, which isn't saying much when you can plan things out, but matters a lot when a fight just sorta happens and you ain't got time to think."
Yael nods. "Pretty much. I can take being hit a fair few times until I can get out of there, but if it comes down to it, I get out of there. Died once or twice when I wasn't able to get out of there fast enough, but that was before I knew better." She grins. "Fighting isn't at all my strength, to put it bluntly. Planning and strategising and getting the best possible outcome from a mission, that rather more is."
"You know what they say," Slug says. "The best armor is not getting hit. I'm used to getting torn to shreds, even though I don't like it. Fought without an arm, had my face melted into one long piece of bone by balefire, although… most of my worst injuries have been from other Garou." He sucks his teeth. "And were my own fault, more often than not. Being able to take a hit is important, but not being in the kind of situation where you have to is probably the best thing, yeah. Nothing you can do about it though, other than working out and playing with pain."
Yael pushes to her feet, and reclaims her jacket, and nods. "Again, thanks," she offers, and then without further ceremony makes her way towards the front door.
"Yeah," Slug says with a wave, taking up the bottle again. "You have a good one. Let me know how you make out with the chick at the Fury house."
Yael pauses and turns and gives Slug a decidedly odd look. "That's one of those English figures of speech, right?" she says, and then she's through the door and gone.