Chapter 10 Meeting of a Supernatural Kind of the Female Persuasion

The person is a beautiful young ghigau. She wears White Buffalo Calf hide clothes. She bears a Quilled Tobacco Bag. She is smoking a Chanunpa.

Nuala gets the confused impression that she had coalesced from a smoke cloud that she herself had been smoking.

Nuala groans.

"Please don't call me great chief."

The newcomer at first looks affronted.

As if she had said something, Nuala continues.

"That honor is due my maternal grandfather."

The newcomer's face softens.

"Well you sure behaved like one!"

"Oh puhleeze, that was nothing!"

Protests Nuala with too much vehemence. She is thinking of what she had to say to Etain that she never had the chance to say, and she is starting to consider that she might indeed have overreacted, and what is more, been unfair, not punished the affront – because an affront had been committed that begat punishment – but she had unleashed her frustration of not being able to say what she wanted to.

The newcomer seems to sense this.

"Now listen to me…"

Nuala shakes her head

"Listen to me!" The newcomer says imperiously.

Nuala stares at her defiantly.

"You were right to defend that maiden's honor, you were right to protect what was your own…"

Derisive snort from Nuala.

"… Anyway. As for overreacting, think of what the stories tell about me. I completely annihilated the man who tried to embrace me, reduced him to his bare bones."

She looks seriously into Nuala's eyes.

After a while, Nuala can't help a chuckle, of sincere humor even if a very subdued one.

The newcomer feigns affront, but then relaxes her posture and lets out a chuckle of her own.

Then a wave of anguish clouds her expression.

"You might have to live up to your maternal grandfather before the night is out…"

She whispers to herself.

Just then Selu and Pah make their entrance into the patio.

"Wohpe! Sweet calf maiden!" Cries out Selu, and lets out a peal of laughter.

Pah smiles so hard her jaw threatens to come unhinged.

"Selu! Corn mother! Pah! Moon grandmother!" Greets Wohpe.

The three of them embrace.

Nuala picks herself off the ground.

Wohpe, as if she had been waiting just for this, kisses Nuala like the other two had, a peck on the left corner of her lips, a peck in the place of her third eye, and a peck on the right corner of her lips.

Nuala takes this greeting ill at ease.

Then once more drifts to the handrail, where once again she leans on her elbows, staring at the city.

Eventually she lights up a cigarette.

As if they had been just waiting for that, Wohpe produces a Calumet with a Fired Clay Pipestone to Selu, a Calumet with a Red Pipestone to Pah, and refills and relights her Chanunpa.

Pah, Selu, and Wohpe talk animatedly amongst themselves, with frequent gestures and stares aimed at Nuala, all the while smoking their pipes.

Occasionally a few words drift towards Nuala clear enough for her to discern them, words like "Malkavian" and "Insane" and "Derangement" and "Blunted Affect".

Nuala gazes at the city and smokes her cigarette.

Eventually Delirium joins them and entertains herself playing with the smoke.

Suddenly.

"It's time."

Says Nuala.

And heads out of the patio.