It wasn't long before the trees thinned out, a small clearing becoming visible where more sunlight was able to pour down to the forest floor. Stone slabs lay about in a very crude circle that most humans would never give a second glance to if they could ever actually get to this area uninvited. Tuuli bounded forward and stood upon one, looking at Catalyne with a cheerful grin before turning around abruptly and letting out a shrill whistle with her fingers between her lips.
Catalyne stood there for a while, transfixed, waiting for something to happen. There was naught but silence as far as she could tell, but Tuuli turned back to her with an even broader grin.
"He's coming," she said lightly just before jumping into the air as if intending to get down from the large rock. Instead, before she even began to fall, her body shrank considerably, her skin sprouting midnight black feathers, and within moments, she was flying up into the surrounding trees.
The young woman blinked. Had Nika ever told her about something like that before? Probably, but Catalyne never really had been one to remember everything said to her…especially if she'd rather be in the Cage making herself numb and oblivious to the world around her.
"A…raven?" she mused aloud, her voice confused and quiet as she peered into the green where Tuuli had vanished.
"Corax, actually."
She jumped at the voice and looked, wide-eyed, to where a dark-haired man now sat on one of the stones at the far side of the circle. He reached out a hand to her with a small, sly half-smile.
"Come and sit, newcomer," he said gently, his deep brown eyes sparkling with mirth. "Tell me your story."
Uncertainly, her teeth busy gnawing on her lower lip as her hardened heart seemed to grow weary within her, Catalyne did as he asked, taking a seat upon the slab opposite him. She situated herself as he was almost like a reflex, cross-legged with her hands clutching her ankles, her jeans bunching up in her grasp. He seemed friendly enough, his face handsome with high cheek bones, pale skin and a defined jaw under his aquiline nose. His hair was long to his shoulders and shaggy as if it had almost never been brushed, his black tee-shirt and dark brown corduroys rumpled like he slept outside. All he did was smile warmly at her, waiting patiently for her to respond.
"You want to know how I got here?" she asked at last, her voice somewhat hoarse. She politely cleared her throat.
"That amongst other things," he said simply. "You don't simply walk into a caern and expect to get by without at least identifying yourself…led here by a Corax or not." That smile broadened, and she noted that there was something odd about his white teeth. She couldn't put her finger on what it was just then, though.
"Um…well…" she began, at a loss for words for the first time in her recent memory. "My name's Catalyne Mears, though many refer to me as the 'Rose of Thorns'…mostly because I trounce the asses of drunkards whenever they feel the need to prove some nonexistent point."
"Hmm," came the thoughtful sound as he nodded his head shallowly. "You're Homid, then."
"You could say that, yeah."
"Tribe?"
That one she could answer with more confidence. "Black Furies. My aunt raised me as an Amazon of Diana, actually."
The man suddenly went to rub at his upper lip, his slender hand hiding whatever expression might be there. Catalyne's first guess was that he had found that response of hers humorous, but, given as she figured this now to be the caern elder…or at least one of the higher-ups, she didn't say anything. Her eyes narrowed, however, her rage beginning to simmer in the back of her mind.
"And I suppose that leaves you to be an Ahroun, then," he finished for her. "Quite impressive, Rose of Thorns, if you can live up to it."
"I've proven myself," she muttered in return.
The half-smile was back as he shook his head. "You've proven yourself in the eyes of men by fighting against men. Now that you're here among us"—he motioned out to the forest about them, and Catalyne half expected to see others come and join them—"you'll be facing much greater foes than drunkards in a half-dilapidated bar. You must become what you were set on this earth to be."
She merely blinked at him. He seemed to be spouting out enigmas that could have been explained in much simpler terms. What was she to become any more than what she already was: herself? She remembered all of Nika's lectures about Gaia and the Litany and a bunch of other shit like that, but never once did the older woman say anything about changing what she was in the course of life beyond what the years would do on their own.
The man sighed and dropped his head a little, a few locks of hair falling into his eyes. "What I'm saying is, are you willing to fight for Gaia instead of dollar bills and the pleasure of a crowd? Are you ready to set all you had in the world of the mundane apes aside and join in the struggle for our survival in these End Times? Would you be willing to follow your fellow Garou—even blindly—into whatever Fate has in store for our kind?"
Without really willing it to be so, she nodded her head a single time. "I am and would," she said quietly, scaring herself. Never in her life had she ever imagined that she'd have to make such a commitment to anything, but those four words and the reaction the man gave her afterwards were somehow more fulfilling than any wad of hundreds that Nika would hand her after a night of solid cage battles. That broad smile she saw on his face as he stood was enough to even make her mirror the expression. She felt it only proper to rise as well.
"I am called Shadow Wind," he said to her, somewhat grandly, "Shadow Lord Theurge and elder of the Three Rivers Sept. If the others were here, I'm sure they'd give you a hearty greeting."
"Where are they then?" Her fear of the place had suddenly fled after the welcome. It felt almost as if she were meant to be here all along and she'd finally come home.
"Oh, various places. Work, home, traveling…whatever they do during the week. Friday is when we all come together to perform the tasks Gaia and Luna set before us. And Helios in Tuuli's case." The last was said as an afterthought.
"And what has been going on recently?" It was a simple question, really, but Shadow Wind almost seemed impressed with it.
"Right to the thick of it, I see. Well, Rose of Thorns, this city isn't as pleasant as it seems. Of late, we've had problems with a renegade bunch of Settites. They seem to be working together, but, at the same time, each action they carry out is on an individual basis—each leech seeking out his own fortunes and benefits with it all. Our Fianna Theurge, Walks-in-Darkness, should be able to give you more detailed information if you so desire. She and her pack are in charge of the investigations. Beyond that, the only other things of interest to us are the ever constant threats from the Pentex company. Of course, the branch here in the city is controlled by a man by the name of Edward Sinclair, the Archbishop of the local Sabbat."
"Ouch," Catalyne commented dryly. "And the two problems are in no way connected?"
He shook his head. "Not that we've noticed. Going by what we know of these Settites, the Sabbat are hunting them down as readily as we are. Talk to Walks-in-Darkness. She'll be able to tell you everything. We've had…our own troubles within the Sept as well. I'm afraid my knowledge of what goes on has suddenly become very limited.
The young woman's brow furrowed, her lips pursing and partially opened as she tried to make sense of that.
"But you're the Sept elder," she retorted. "What could possibly go on within your own territory that you wouldn't hear about?"
"It's unsafe to talk about it…here or anywhere close by."
The very tone of his voice was heavy enough to make Catalyne take a slight step backwards, instantly forgetting anything else she had wanted to say. Shadow Wind's face had darkened, and she suddenly wanted nothing more than to get away from there as fast as she could. Fortunately enough, his anger was not directed at her but at some unknown, ignominious entity. That thought still brought no comfort.
Shadow Wind suddenly whistled shrilly, the sound echoing through the park about them. Moments later, a black form came swooping out of nowhere, alighting on the stone behind the Garou elder and squawking a single time before slowly shifting and growing into the familiar form of Tuuli.
"Little Wind," the elder said to the perky girl, "kindly direct Rose of Thorns back to where you found her." He turned to Catalyne, then, his eyes filled with compassion but his face still stern. "Again, welcome to the Sept. But let me suggest to you this: if you plan on joining us on Friday, do not come here. Head to the junkyard on the outskirts of town. Tuuli can show you the way." With that, he nodded to her in an action that portrayed slight respect and vanished off into the trees, the wind suddenly blowing to cover his tracks in the ground-lying leaves.
Tuuli watched after him for a time as Catalyne did before turning about, her smile as bright as ever.
"Shadow Wind's nice, he is, even though he's gone a bit loopy the past couple weeks. Come with me. I's show you back!" She let out a childlike giggle and skipped off through the woods, Catalyne left to jog along behind, every now and again turning around, hoping for some kind of sign as to what problems within the Sept the elder had hinted at.
They reached Panther Hollow Road within minutes, Tuuli never slowing her pace nor relenting in her laughter. Catalyne quickly found it annoying, though, the fact that the girl turned out to be a Corax really explained a few things—that annoying dialect of English, for example. How the other Garou could stand it, if they could indeed stand it, was beyond the young woman's comprehension.
"Here you go," Tuuli said, heaving a sigh but maintaining that hundred-dollar smile. She hopped up onto a picnic table and looked around. "Right back were I's be finding you."
Catalyne had a look around herself, not because she doubted the girl's observation, but because she just needed something to give her body to do while her brain churned through the past fifteen minutes. A very surreal fifteen minutes despite her upbringing with Nika and all the training of who she was and what she was capable of. In all honesty, she'd never thought that, one day, she'd wind up as part of a caern.
"Thanks," she said at last to the Corax, looking up and managing to give the scrawny girl a grateful smile. "Where should I meet you on Friday? That's…" she checked her sport's watch more for her own knowledge than anything, "in three days."
Tuuli's face screwed up in exaggerated thought, her right leg bending at the knee so she was only standing on her left foot. Her head shot from side to side as she tried to think of a decent spot, her black hair swirling and whipping into her knobby elbows. She clicked her tongue and snapped her attention back to Catalyne.
"I'll find you," she said simply. "There's nothing about this place that I's not be knowing about." Her eyes seemed to go right back to the dragon pendant at Catalyne's throat. "And…one of these days…." But she didn't finish. Instead, she faulted into the air much as she had in the clearing, shifted, and flew off back into the trees, Catalyne left to do nothing but stare after her.