I’m
pregnant.
I’ve got
a tapeworm.
My
metabolism is speeding up.
I keep writing ideas down, crossing them out as soon
as I do. I just want to know why I’m always hungry. I want to know why every
time I see food, I feel like I should gorge myself. And most important of all…
…Why haven’t I gained a fucking pound?
I keep writing ideas down, because I don’t want
to look out the window. It’s cold, it feels cold, it fucking smells cold. Even
from inside my boyfriend’s apartment, I can smell how cold it is. Isn’t that
funny?
I smell all kinds of things now. I smell it when
people are afraid. They break out into this ugly, rank sweat and back off like
I’m about to pounce on them and rip out their hearts.
I’m looking at what I just wrote, and I feel
hungry again.
What the Christ is wrong with me?!?
Why does the moon make me so…pissed? But it
isn’t like anger. It’s like angry sex, when you hate and lust a person at the
same time, just wanting to fuck them harder until you both bleed.
I haven’t had angry sex in years. Hell, I
haven’t had sex in…I guess just three days, but where the fuck is Neil? He’s
been avoiding me, too. He’s been scared. He said I’ve been…changing.
Change is good.
I look at those three little words in my
journal, trying to remember what they mean. I feel hungry again, and a
cheeseburger sounds really nice. Fuck it, then, I’m going out, and if Neil
wonders, then he should have called.
It isn’t until I step outside the building that
I realize how cold it really it. This is nothing compared to Massachusetts, but
anybody who says Ohio winters are mild is goddamned liar. I hitch my jacket up
around my shoulders, not wanting to go back for a real coat.
I’m running before I realize it. Up ahead I
smell food. Now I’m sprinting. I smell meat, uncooked, but with that sweet,
pure smell that bloody flesh has. I’m running, and I realize I’m hot, so I
throw my jacket off and run, and fuck what the onlookers think of a crazy coed
running in her biker shorts and a sports bra in the middle of January. I take a
quick right — this isn’t the way to High Street, but I smell the food and I
know it’s this way. There’s a door across the street from me, a door into a
grocery store. That’s where my dinner is. I know it.
By the time I hit the door, I’m moving with
enough force to knock somebody down. But everybody gets out of my way, and I
see why reflected in the glass door. I look freaky, I’m bigger, I’m muscular,
and hairy. But fuck all that. Where’s the meat?
This grocery has its own meat department; they
actually link sausage and shit like that. That’s where the smell’s coming from;
the cuts are hanging on big hooks in the back room, and when I burst through
the door with the “Employees Only” sign, everybody freaks. One guy shits
himself — I can smell it, of course, but it doesn’t smell bad, just…thick.
Another guy passes out. And when I reach for the first hunk of beef, just
hanging there, ready for me to tear into it, I understand why.
The arm I extend is two feet longer than usual,
covered in black fur, and ends in claws. Not cat claws, you know, but huge,
dagger-looking things. But time to think about that later. I take a big bite.
It’s like angry sex. Maybe better.
(Matt’s Note: This character was actually played
in a game I ran set in Columbus, where everybody started off as normal
humans. This wasn’t really the way her
first change played out, but I rather wish it had been. The character’s voice
stayed true, I think).
Forbidden Love
I can smell myself on her skin. I smell me on
her, her on me, and us together on the bed. I smell sweat and sex on the
sheets, in our hair. I smell it even though she’s gone.
She — a woman and warrior, and a true Child of
Gaia. I could never bring myself to call her by her Garou name. I love her too
much to see her as a killer. She is, of course. That’s what we’re for. Funny,
as a human I used to look in the mirror and wonder what I was for. Come to find
out, I’m for killing. I’m a weapon.
We’re for killing, I said to her. She was
covered in blood, but not her own — some deformed thing from out of the bayou. We’re
weapons; we’re Gaia’s fucking guns. She didn’t answer me. Hell, I’m
surprised she could even understand me. I had claw wounds through both cheeks,
and half my left foot was torn to hell. I was lying there on the ground. I had
never killed anything at all before, short of slapping at bugs. And now here
were four people — or things that once were people — dead at my feet. I’d never
felt so mechanical in my life. I didn’t feel the pain of my wounds, I didn’t
feel or hear or smell a thing. All I could think was I am a tool.
And then she touched me, and I felt the love of
the Mother from her fingertips like a trickle, like a torrent, like a
waterfall. And I was healed. I saw whatever light you care to mention, praise
Jesus and all that shit.
I kissed her. The kiss tasted like metal,
because I was kissing her through blood and bile. That’s the point, really, you
know. That I was kissing her through all of that hate. And in spite of
all the inevitable consequences, she kissed me back. No one saw. No one knew.
We were safe.
We were safe.
Human beings are the only animals that cry
because of emotion, or so the nature channels will tell you. And it’s so
mystical an experience that we’ve got all sorts of taboos about it. I didn’t
cry in her arms that day; I wept. I wept so hard that the skin under my eyes
bruised. When it was all over, and the real world came back and I had to see
something other than her, covered in blood and holding me, I knew we would
become lovers. I knew we would break one of the most sacred tenants of the
Litany. I will not say that I did not care, because I did care, and I was
terrified.
But I also knew in that moment, lying there on
the blood-soaked ground, my face hot and awash with my blood, the fomor’s
blood, my tears, and the muddy waters of the bayou, I knew that I had a
choice. I could choose to break the law and become one with this woman,
this beautiful person who reached past the Rage and pain like she was bursting
a soap bubble. I was and am a creature of passion and light, and I would sooner
be outcast from the entire Garou Nation than give that up.
That may well be my fate. Maybe something worse.
I knew we would be caught, and as I said, the choice to love and be damned was
ours. So now I’m waiting, because they’ve left me here in our tiny room while
they deal with her.
I can smell sweat and sex from our bed, and I
move around the room by scent and touch, because they’ve not allowed us any
form of light for weeks. It hasn’t bothered us. Light, darkness, love, choice,
sex, laws: these and so many other things are what you make of them.
We found light and love in breaking a law, and
so served Gaia in the best way we could. I’d like to see them try to damn us
for that.
(Matt’s Note: In case you don’t play this game,
werewolves are forbidden to mate with one another. I’ve never had two characters get even remotely affectionate
beyond friendship in any Werewolf game I’ve run, or even had a player
who played a character with that kind of backstory. I, on the other hand, have tried to do so twice and had the game
fizzle due to faulty Storytelling. (See my Developing
a Story essay for my thoughts on fizzling games). Not sure why; seems like
it would be a great character point.)
Combat
Six more yards.
I swing one arm over my body, dig my claws into
the dirt, and pull. This would be easier in some other form, but what the hell,
it’d be easier if I could walk. But the thing on my back with the nasty talons
dug into my shoulders would shred my Homid form, so I pull myself along in Crinos.
Five more yards.
Give or take, but about five. The problem with
this sept is that it’s so fucking isolationist, the spirits that could help me
or alert someone else can’t even see me until I reach the bawn. Thank you
mister paranoid Uktena Theurge. And I have to crawl — and slowly — because when
I tried getting up before, the thing’s tendrils started swishing around. The
thing’s actually shoved its little tentacles up my nose and down my throat. Why
it doesn’t just kill me…
Four more yards.
…I don’t know. I don’t know where my pack is. I
don’t know how a bunch of two-bit Ohio rednecks got enough silver to load
12-gauge shells, nor do I know how they were able to stand their ground against
us without panicking. I know I need to get to the caern and warn the rest of
the sept. That’ll be worth some respect. Some Renown from the elders, the
spirits, or whoever else cares.
Hell, I just want this thing out of me.
Three more fucking yards.
I can see the bawn. I try to pull myself harder,
but I can’t. I can’t will myself to put more force into it. Even staying in
Crinos form is an effort, my body keeps trying to get me to relax and slide
into my natural state. I can’t Rage. I haven’t got the energy. I feel like
gagging. I reach back to pluck this thing off of me and promptly vomit. Great
Gaia, help me…
Only…two…
I’m weak. I’ve got no strength and no Rage and
it’s drinking me dry like fucking leech. It’s not feeding on my flesh. It’s
feeding on my will.
It’s trying to make me lose the wolf.
But I have to get back. I have to warn the sept.
I have to see if my pack made it back. One of them must have. I’ll bet it was
Sings-With-The-Wind. He’s capable. I’ll be here’s there right now, warning the
sept about those psycho rednecks with the silver-loaded…
Three more feet.
But I’m sure I can rest. It hurts so much to
move. I’ll just wait for them to find me.
If I stay very still, I can almost hear them
coming. It’s hard to hear well in Homid form, so I have to stay very still.
So still.
Scared Outsider
“Katie!”
I
can hear people yelling my daughter’s name back and forth. We’re using it to
keep tabs on each other as much as anything else. Everyone else is behind me;
I’m tearing through bushes and prickers like a madman. Guess that makes sense?
I always told Katie she couldn’t go running off
past our fence. I told her about poison ivy, I told her about animals like
raccoons and skunks that might be rabid, but I never mentioned the wolves. I
didn’t think they were there. But John showed me the tracks, and I went from
planning to spank the little brat to having a panic attack on the back porch. Wolves?
Here? On my land?
I swear, the first four-legged thing I see gets
shot. And I’m selling off this excess land as soon as Monday rolls around. It
isn’t like my wife and I take long, romantic walks through the woods like we’d
planned to when we bought this acreage. Good thing, too, I guess.
“Kate!” That’s my brother, Tim. He’s the only one who
calls her “Kate.” She’s only 12, for Christ’s sake. She can be Katie for a few
more years.
Something crashes through the brush, off to my
left. I hear twigs cracking and see branches waving madly as if trying to get
my attention. Behind me — more distantly now — I hear the other two members of
our makeshift search party. We’ve spread out too far, I think.
“Tim?" I call out. Nothing. I move over in
the direction of the disturbance. Now, I’m no tracker, but you’d have to be
pretty blind not to see that something huge was here. A young tree is uprooted,
the brush is all trampled, and where the hell is Tim?
“Guys!" I shout. No answer. Oh, Jesus. I
walk a little further, trying to see some sign of my brother. I find it about a
yard away.
Tim’s rifle, snapped cleanly in two. I pick up
half of it, wondering what in Hell could do that? No way a wolf did this…maybe
a bear? But I’ve never heard of a bear in this area.
I cock my rifle, and something moves off to my
right. Chipmunk, I pray. Squirrel at the very largest. But no way, it’s too
big. I can see it moving towards me. It looks like it’s walking on two legs. I
level my rifle. “Tim?” No response. I’ll wait until I can see it before I
shoot. Maybe it’ll go away.
And from somewhere, I hear a scream. The scream
begins as a cry of fear or pain, unmistakably human, and then winds up into a
howl. I whirl around, trying desperately to get my bearings, and I realize it’s
coming from behind me.
Whatever’s coming towards me starts to come
faster, and I whip my rifle to my shoulder and fire. I hear a shriek — not from
anything human, I’m sure! — and whines of pain. It stops, and falls out of the
brush at my feet.
It’s Katie.
Her clothes are mostly gone. Her hair is matted
and soaked in mud, and her small body is covered in dirt and bug bites. The
bullet left an exit wound in her back, and I roll her over to try to comfort
her. Her mouth is half-open, and I realize that she’s lost two teeth somehow. I
stroke her face. I feel numb — this can’t be my daughter. Her eyes flutter, and
I think, oh, thank you God, briefly. Then she bites my hand.
It’s just shock, my useless brain says
as I jerk my bloodied hand away. She’s in shock. Katie crawls to all
fours and drags herself away from me. She makes it about six feet before
collapsing.
I fall to my knees. I cock the rifle again, not
really sure why. When the wolf steps out of the brush — silently, utterly
silently — I don’t even bother pointing the gun.
Historical
I could not bear to perform my task in my
natural form. The stench is too much to bear. So, I walk among men as a man,
wearing garments I took from a dead Scot. No one even gives me a look.
The battlefield seems endless. Framed as we are
by hills on all sides, it is as though I’m in a bowl, a massive cauldron into
which has been poured blood, bile, viscera, metal, fire, and the occasional
horse.
The survivors camp just over the eastern rise.
But the man I want isn’t among them. My dream showed me this battle – how one
army would be slain by a much smaller one, simply because the smaller army’s
leader knew when and how to strike. I do not know the leader’s name, only that
he, too, will in time be struck down by cleverness.
Perhaps by treachery. But the difference is
often a matter of who still stands to tell the tale, when all is said and done.
I kick my way through a murder of crows feasting
on a dead Englishman. Scots, English, they all look the same as corpses.
One crow flies north instead of returning to his
feast. I follow him, as in my dream, and as in my dream, he leads me to a dying
Scot.
My English is poor, but the Garou tongue is not
bound by this national foolishness. “I am Laslo-Haunts-Barrows, a Galliard of
the Shadow Lords,” I intone, leaning in. He tries to speak, but only manages to
gurgle. “I dreamt of you, and I know of the fetish you carry. Give it me and I
shall see that your sept receives it.” For a price, of course, but why trouble
him in his dying moments?
He reaches under his trues and removes a small,
brass, charm. I feel the spirit inside it flutter in fear as he hands it to me.
He squirms in pain; somehow he managed to lose the wolf in battle and had
little defense from the English’s blades. I draw my own blade, and whisper a
blessing in my native Romanian, which he seems to understand. His dying words
are a request, which I make a note to fulfill if I have time: “Tell Wallace it
was an honor to die for him.”
An honor to die for a doomed human. How very
strange. I put him out of his pain, and leave the blood-soaked fields, the
fetish clutched tightly in my hand. The
moon rises over Stirling castle – I think perhaps I will sleep there tonight.
The English have no further use for it.
(Matt’s Note: In the days of William Wallace,
Scots didn’t wear kilts. They wore trues, a weird sort of baggy-shorts affair.
Kilts didn’t come along for quite some time, and even then they were only
invented because someone wanted to give the impoverished Scots a cheap
alternative to pants. I say, all traditions are invented, so there’s no shame
in following them.)
Duel
His name is Unlidded Eye, and he scares the hell
out of me.
He hasn’t moved a muscle since we started this.
Honest to Gaia, he hasn’t moved. Only his lips when he speaks, but other than
that, not even a cocked eyebrow. It’s fucking freaky! And here I am, shifting
about in my seat, drinking water, trying not to look him in the eye…I don’t
think he’s even blinked. Shit.
“Michael,” he begins, again refusing to use my
full name, “explain again why you didn’t report this Wyrm infestation to your
sept.”
“Well, Unlidded-Eye-rhya, all cities have
enclaves of vampires, and-“
“Combat the Wyrm wherever it dwells and wherever
it breeds!” He snarls the words, but with all that venomous passion behind it,
the bastard still doesn’t move. “Simply because such beasts exist in ‘all
cities’ doesn’t mean that we should simply roll over and ignore it.” Pregnant
pause. “Or make deals with it.”
“Look, I admit I can’t call myself a fanatic
warrior for the Garou, coming from Vancouver —“
“You shouldn’t call yourself Garou at all,
coming from Vancouver.”
That does it. I’m out of my seat, storming
across the room at him. I’ve already reached Glabro form before I realize I’m
changing. He’s up, too, but slowly. The bastard doesn’t think I can fight him.
I’m still an Ahroun, dammit!
“Mind your temper, Fists-of-Peace.” Oh, sure,
now he knows my name. “Unless you wish to challenge me?”
I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. But the words
are out of my mouth before I can stop them. “Yes, I challenge you. You know
nothing of what it’s like to live in a city. You can’t just chase down Leeches
and kill them in the street!”
“I could,” he says, still cool as ice. He looks
to Gabriel Heart-Storm, our Master of Challenge. Gabriel doesn’t like me any
more than the Eye, and he’s itching to see me get my ass kicked.
“Fine,” says Gabriel. “Unlidded Eye is only a
rank above you, so a straight fight should be fair. Not to the death, though.
We need all the help we can get around here,” he says with an apologetic look
to the Shadow Lord.
“Very well,” he growls. “Just to a clear win,
then?” Gabriel nods, and the Eye leaps for me.
For not having moved in an hour and a half, the
bastard is fast. Thing is, I’m faster. The first thing I learned when I became
Fostern was how to get drop on an opponent. So the Philodox flies at me, but
I’m already cutting loose with another Gift. He barrels into me, but by that
time he’s gotten a face-full of love for the Mother. That was the first thing I
learned when I became Adren, fuck you very much.
I end up underneath him. He’s not fighting me,
though, he’s just casually lying there, still dazed — Dazzled, really. I take
on the Crinos and hold his still-human body above my head. Gabriel, with what
looks like a smirk — did I misjudge him? — nods and grants me victory. I toss
the Unlidded Eye to the ground. He snaps out of the Gift with a start, and
stands to face me. He still looks dignified, but not quite so stoic.
“You may be right about the Leeches,” I growl,
“But I’m Michael Fists-of-Peace, Child of Gaia Ahroun, and I’ve never
broken the Litany in my life!”
He just nods, sits down, and indicates my chair.
“Point taken, Fists-of-Peace. Shall we continue?”
Damn. I think I’m starting to like this guy.
(Matt’s Note: A lot of this scene actually
happened in a game I played in.
Fists-of-Peace was a character played by a friend of mine, and since my
character wasn’t in this particular scene, I took on the role of the Unlidded
Eye to give the GM a break. Most of the really inflammatory comments were
remarks I actually made, and it pissed “Michael” off quite nicely. The fight
never happened, but if it had, that’s pretty much how it would have gone. By
the way, in Vancouver, werewolves and vampires have a tenuous alliance, whereas
everywhere else they’re at constant war.)
Approaching Doom
The Sept of the Awakening is about to earn its
name, I
think grimly.
The half-buried statue of a giant in East
Potomac Park was moving. Not in any way perceptible to humans, but from the
Umbra, it was pretty clear. I could see claws forming on its hand, and feel the
ground shaking, gently, as it stirred.
I know there is no way to stop it, but no good
will come of this. The Red Star, what some Garou call Antihelios, the Eye of
the Wyrm, has been shining on this statue for a week now. The rumors of the
perfect metis child — what I’d give to lay eyes on it! Then I could put their
fears to rest. — have trickled in, and the Garou here are in an uproar. One of
these crazy Bone Gnawer elders has even talked of using a Gift to cause a riot.
A riot, in a nation’s capital! But it is her destiny to cause such chaos.
Hopefully she’ll wait until I’m gone.
The Gauntlet ripples and a young Glass Walker
stands beside me. I can’t remember his name, but he saves me the embarrassment.
“Eats-Only-Ashes? I’m Road Rage, a Glass Walker Ahroun, Fostern.” I nod. I
don’t really care. “Mother Tamara asked me to find out what you see.”
“Too much,” I reply. He fidgets. “Hard to say
yet. It’s waking up, that much I know. It’s angry about something, and my guess
would be it’s nothing we can fix.”
“So…we’re doomed?”
“I didn’t say that,” I answer, but my mind says,
Of course we’re doomed. “I didn’t say that.” I sink down to the grass,
the spirit world rippling and flowing all around. The polluted spirits from the
Potomac River gurgle harshly, while the spirit of the caern frets helplessly.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes. I do, rhya.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap, and he jumps. “I’m
not above you in rank. I’m a Cliath.”
“But…the way the others treat you…and your
pack…” This is obviously too hard for his tiny, Ahroun brain to encompass. I
turn to face him. The knowledge that he exceeds me in rank doesn’t seem to have
reassured him any.
“I was not born a Child of Gaia, nor a Theurge,
for that matter. I was born a Silver Fang Galliard, and was called Sings Silver
by my tribe. I sang of the glory and majesty of the old days, and of past
battles and great deeds done. I knew the entire Silver Record by heart. I
attained the rank of Athro.”
Road Rage’s eyes widen. “You renounced your
name?”
“More than my name. I renounced my auspice, for
I had no more tales to tell and no wish to tell them. I renounced my tribe,
full of blithering idiots and two-bit schemers. I renounced my sept and formed
a pack that, like me, wished to find our true place before…” I trail off. This
part is always hard to say.
“Before the Apocalypse?” he offers.
I laugh. My laugh is short and biting, as
always. “The Apocalypse? No, Road Rage. Before it’s too late. Nothing to do
about the Apocalypse.”
“Why? And why did you renounce yourself?”
“I renounced myself because Gaia showed me the
truth.” The ground rumbles, loudly this time, and I feel the Gauntlet all
around me quake. “And the truth is, the Apocalypse has been all around us for
some years.” I turn to face the giant’s head, and I feel its Rage and pain as
it struggles. “We just keep snapping at shadows.”