09. Perfect.

 I am a stranger in my own home.

There is this feeling I have had lately. Terrible and disturbing. It burns slowly, and hurts in a place I cannot describe. It is hatred, vengeance, spinning like a sword on a wheel.

I want to punish them. I want them to suffer as I do.

I want to tear through like a kamikaze pilot, dealing as much damage as I can before my life is taken from me.  To cull the evidence of my own imperfection.

I hate thier pretense. I hate their dishonesty.

Why can't they tell me why they hate me?

Why can't I forgive them?

Gaia, help me. Show me the way... show me how to fix this. How to make it all perfect again.

It's all broken and I don't know how to fix it.

It's all broken.

It's all ...broken.             

08. Ripples

At the Winter ball, I spoke with a countess on the subject of the triat, and she tested me. She asked of the war against the Wyrm, and seemed confused-- for she thought we were trying to destroy it. When i told her that to do so would not be advisable, that it cannot be destroyed, that it is our duty to bring it to balance-- to combat it where it is too strong... when i told her that all beginnings must have an end, and that without the wyrm creation would go on unchecked-- without the weaver, it would lack purpose... she said to me

"You are wiser than your elders"

Of course, I was taken aback, I thanked her, and said that they are indeed wiser than I, and more experienced. But she held firm. She said I was the only Garou she had met that truly understood.

I did not press her further... and she did not seem averse to this...

But, back to the heart of the matter... the reason I am writing... I remember her asking me a question.... one I have reflected on more and more since my conversations with Sheep Killer, Patterns of Light and Shadow, and Nemo-Rhya.

She asked me: "What ripples do you make, Sovereign Heart?"
To which I responded, "Very small ones, for now, My Lady" trying to sound modest.

But she laughed and said there was no such thing.
And she was right.

Patterns of Light and Shadow,  Double Aught, Walks the Wire, Slaughters the Fable, Moon-Duster, Falcon's Screeching Beak... Nemo, Shadows of the Past, my beloved pack mates--even my dear cousins, Joseph, and Gareth. All of these noble warriors have touched me. All of their ripples have coincided with mine....

...some have run to the Galliards to speak of my wisdom or honor.  Others have shown silent support for my cause by teaching me what they know.

I feel that I am getting closer. That I am walking the right path in order to restore my tribe to its former glory.  To showing the world that we are true and just leaders, ordained by Sun and Moon...to show my tribesmen that leading does not always mean wearing the crown yourself.

I feel that the hearts of the nation have begun to stir, and that they want to join together for the good of the mother. I grow more confident that we can and will unite in time to stave off the apocalypse. I only wish I could give others the same hope.

I wonder... as a child of  Falcon, how will my actions now affect the future? What ripples am I truly making? How will those ripples affect the pond, when I am no longer here to make them?

A good king, a true king, rules firmly and fairly. He serves his people foremost.

The king who does not do this, who believes he is entitled to his power. Who abuses it, and uses it for his own means, is a tyrant. If you live alone, and your actions affect only you-- then you may do what you will... but when you have power, or influence your every action will be as a drop of water in a still pond.

That drop will splash against the surface and make ripples.

And what are we all, but drops of water in a pond?

07. Restraint

Mother, oh mother--  you have cruelly forged me thus;

To forsake my maiden virtues, and deny that which I love.

It used to be, that the Law existed in sharp contrast. Tenants and precepts divided harshly, along irrefutable boundaries-- to be preserved and never transgressed.

I have come to know a different law. One of skin and bone, of blood and flesh. A law by which all mortal hearts abide. It is the place where the lines blur, and where what once seemed so clear, becomes muddied and unfathomable.

With a heavy conscience, I admit that I can no longer distinguish what is right from what feels right. 

What is wrong about the way I feel.

I remember... hearing a tale. Though, I do not know exactly who told it to me. Perhaps it was one of the Galliards I have encountered in my time on the Sept. Perhaps it was a dream... One wherein the Mother was trapped, singing a song in words I could not discern. A melody as tuneful as it was wrought with sorrow.

I now know how she must have felt. Wrapped in eternal darkness, with no hope of escape.

The night before we went to battle... I led you, stumbling and drunk, off into the wood...

We sat and talked as we always have... about strategies and battles, about your concerns.

Your anguish and your fear...The parts of you so seldom seen;

Things that are a part of us all.
Hours passed.
And then, the sun was on the horizon, bleeding into the sky...
The haze of your liquid vice had faded.

And as I held you in my arms, you told me 

that you loved me.

I thought... "I should hate you for this", and a part of me did. It hated you to the point of loving you, for hatred is the love of anger. It hated you for making me so flawed, so imperfect... when I had fought to make myself a paragon of my tribe: both honorable and virtuous. It hated you more than anything else...because you threatened its very existence. Because you have always made me weak as surely as you have made me strong....

It hated you... because it knew-- despite everything...

  ...that I loved you, too.

That hatred has since been eclipsed by a fire and a passion that makes even the solar Celestine look like a dim candle in a windstorm...

I may be young, but I am no fool... I know that in being with you, my spirit courts its own darkness... that desire and morality are at war over my heart...an intricate dance of serpents, bound by the strings of the Nation I am sworn to avail.

Is it wrong that serving you has become as important as serving the Mother herself? Is it  wrong that I feel like a marionette; dancing around right and wrong with no true purpose except to appease those who are holding the strings? That I do not long for the embrace of the Mother, as much as I once did?

My love, where it that I could forsake all of this... fighting for Gaia, my ambitions, the ability to change. Were it that I could deny my status as a supernatural being and stand beside you for the rest of my life...I would find a place amongst the kinfolk, trusting in you to defend me as you always have, as you always will.

But I cannot, and I will not.

Instead, I will retain the power of my many forms-- retain it, and fight beside you. Because it is the only way I can ensure that we both shall live. At your suggestion, I will throat to custom and take a mate this season...chosen from among those to whom love matters not; so that while my body can not be given to you-- my heart will belong to you solely.

I disbelieved you when you told me that my light would one day die, that my idealism would lose lose its luster...

...but even though I will vehemently deny it, my inner fire has already begun to flicker...

It used to be that I loved her. That I craved closeness to her like I craved redemption for the First Tribe. But now... now, I question her. I question her for forging me as a spiritual weapon, imbued with fragile heart; cursed with the capacity to love, as well as to hate; cursed, for they are one and the same!

I question her, for she has cursed me.

I do not know why this is happening to us-- I do not know what I can give you that will make up for what I cannot...All that I do know, is that I have never known love before you. That I will never know love again after you have gone. That love will then exist, for me, only in memory... a song composed of all the beautiful, violent words you ever said to me-- strung together, and overlapped-- indistinguishable to all but me.

A song that will play on my heartstrings, 

Into eternity, and ever onward.

06. Cubs.

Each day, I wake in suffering; I struggle to rouse myself from slumber.
I kick the blankets from my bed; I let the cold morning air caress my naked skin.
The fine hairs on my arms prickle; I feel the wheels in my head start to turn.
I stand with eyes closed and I listen-- to the rhythm of the Mother.
Who within me has placed a clockwork lion,  that roars in the beat of its gears.

I turn to face the rising sun, begging the blessings of my patron.
And raise my voice in thanks--
For those who look to me for guidance and wisdom.
It is with them, that I know myself.

Something I wrote earlier ... I'm no Galliard, but I appreciate the rhythm of words and the sound of music.
Ulrich and Dusty have told me, in their words and actions-- that it is the place of the First Tribe to lead. That as a Cliath, I must first learn what that means... and so, I have found my place among more humble means...apprenticed to the great leaders of our sept.

I feel I have found my place at last-- In giving balance to Hutch's temper... in aiding my pack, in safeguarding the cubs from the full reality of what it means to be Garou-- until they are ready to face it on their own... that is what this entry will be about... the cubs.

There is a sadness in the way they look at me, I have seen it in their eyes. I know they wonder why I did not challenge for Den Parent. Why I did not seize the opportunity to lead them solely-- to be their Alpha in the realest sense.

But perhaps I am imagining it.

The truth is, that I wanted to. I dearly wanted to. But what I wanted paled in comparison to what I knew they needed. I only spoke to Gallows as if I intended to challenge so that I could ensure  I would with them in some way.

A Cliath has no business being the Den Parent. I know that quite well. 

I could not hope to defend them if I was constantly defending myself. I could not risk being challenged and losing to one with more experience-- for I am sure there are those who would see me as unworthy.

I am so glad that Gallows was not challenged.  

That it was him, and no one else.

I could not bear to see them in the hands of someone who does not know them, 

does not care for them, does not understand them, as I do. 

Too often, a Den parent forgets that he or she was once a cub. Too often, our memories truncate, when we are faced with how short and brutal our lives often are. We become disillusioned, jaded, and bitter-- and we take it out on the weak out of some misguided idea that they must be made hard.

I do not want this for them. What I want, is to see them come into themselves from a place of true strength. I want to see them united, to see them work, sleep, and breathe as a unit. I want them to wake and take heart, knowing that they will one day be great warriors, and heroes of Gaia.

But to do that, I must first help Gallows to shape them into Garou. It is difficult, because they knew me as someone else.  They knew me as one of them. As their Alpha. I cannot allow them to be more loyal to me than to their den parent... and so I must make it so they will not like me. I must be the one that they will not prefer to see.

They will think I have betrayed them, that I no longer see them as my little brothers and sisters.  

That I am not there to reassure them.

They must never know the truth.

That I will be with them always, that my heart goes with them into their trials

... and far more than it aught to. 

That I will be the first to champion their causes and hopes, and the first to fall in their defense.

That I wish I could be more for them, because they mean so much to me.

When they return from their rites.... I will howl the loudest for their victory.
When they are grown and the Galliards sing of their tales,
my spirit shall sing along with them-- uplifted in knowing that they have done well.

I will never forget that night by the fire, when Lyle spoke to me of his sadness. How I longed to tend his sorrows then-- to hold him in my arms until he hung his head no more. I did not care that he was a Bone Gnawer... nor that I was not his Den Parent.  All I knew, was that I wanted to be there.

And I relented, the tiniest bit. 

I placed my hand on his shoulder, which was all I could bring myself to do... 

and I let him rest his  head  on my leg.

Going to Unicorn's Glade used to be dudgery. I used to feel trapped there... like it was more a prison to me than a home... but now? Now it is a place of happiness. Nothing compares to the pride I feel when I see them lined up in the morning, nothing compares to the sorrow I feel when I see them make a misstep-- knowing that I must correct them.

My darling cubs, there are so few I would give so much for, short of my pack, my Caern, and the Mother herself. When you look to me for guidance, when you show me that you need me... I am forever glad of it. Because you remind me of what it is to be a leader. Because you are a part of what holds me together when my outlook is bleak.

Forgive me for being so rough with you. Forgive me for demanding and pushing and snapping at your heels when you step out of line...

Forgive me, for doing as I feel I must.

Forgive me 

 By remembering all that Gallows and I can give to you... because... of all Garou, 

there is no one who loves you more.

05. Promises

When you join a pack, you make a promise-- not only to the totem spirit, but to those who accept you. To fight, and die, and bleed alongside them as if they were your brothers and sisters. To serve their causes and support their dreams. To guard their values, their secrets-- to know them as you know yourself. You don't join it because you have something to gain. You don't join it because you want to be with your friends. You join it because of its purpose. You join it because you feel in your heart that it is the right thing to do.

Our packmates are greater than family, because we get to choose them.

They share our values and convictions-- our joys and sorrows.

Brothers in arms, and brothers in mind...

...The day you ceased to call me "sister" was the day my heart was cleft..

A true Garou does not fear death, but accepts it as an inevitability. A true Silverfang welcomes the challenge with zeal. Because it is in facing death that he remains fit to lead. He suffers for those who look to him, and in so doing he earns the right to lead. He keeps his word, remembers every promise...

My Alpha says I will not hold grudges, and for obvious reasons, I want to follow this order. I want to,desperately--

for there is nothing I would not do for him if he but asked it of me. 

Yet, strangely, I find that I cannot. I cannot, in the present time, forgive you for leaving.

For breaking your word. 

For using my pack, my family, to what seems to be your own ends. 

... for giving me the hope... hope that others of my kind might have thought the same way...

... and then, abandoning me.

...The day you ceased to call me "sister" was the day my heart was cleft. 

I am so sorry, Gareth. I hate to think of you this way. I hate questioning your resolve, your motivations. I hate holding you at arm's length, when I should be embracing you-- I can never express, never show you, how pleased I was when you joined me. I can never tell you how happy it made me to have a Gleaming Eye, one of my very own, choose to stand alongside me. I can never express the sadness I feel in knowing that it meant nothing to you, in return.

I hoped...I hoped for so much more than this... 

Dreamed that perhaps in you, I might have found someone...

Someone who would join me in this hair-brained quest for redemption.

Yes, I hoped.  I hoped, and that was my folly. Putting faith in one who would ultimately betray it.  I have run the scenario through my head a thousand times, and then a thousand more. Looking for signs, for reasons.... and I believe I have found some answers.

But I haven't found them all.

Just tell me why. Why did you break your word? Was the lure of power, of your vision, too great, for you to preserve the bonds of brotherhood? What foul scheme has caused your heart to turn, to change as the night's evanescent celestine?

I wonder... has the one who walks with heavy footsteps convinced you I am unworthy?
This is not like you. This is not what you showed me. Not what I wanted to believe.

But I suppose it is what it is.

I can understand the Glasswalkers not holding a grudge. I can understand them forgiving you. That is their way-- they do not see things quite the same as we do. It makes no difference to them whether or not another Silver Fang is in the pack or not. They have others. Others who understand their pains and their struggles. Others like them.
.. But, I do not.

When I am reasonable... I know that I do not hate you for what you did. I know that my disappointment comes from a place of sorrow-- and that despite it all, I want the best for you, I want you to be happy. It is simply that this, all of this... makes it so hard to move on from all that has happened in recent days. It makes the guilt I feel all the more difficult to bear, it makes caring all the more arduous.

Brother, I cannot help but feel that I have failed you most of all... 

and I cannot help but wish I still had you here.

the day you ceased to call me sister, was the day my heart was cleft.

04. Kings

I remember my father as a distant, stormy man. He had long, straight hair that fell over his shoulders, fair as sunlight, and deep eyes the color of moss-eaten stones. His high cheekbones were so striking that they would have made his face look gaunt were it not for a solid, square jaw, and a stubborn chin which always made him look dour. 

I was told that he was born in Auvergne, and that he grew up in a small fishing villiage by the cold sea. His father died when he was very young-- a casualty of war-- and he returned with his mother to Latvia, where he lived until he was seventeen or eighteen.

I do no know where he went after that, or by what means he returned to France. All I know, is that he must have been there by the time he was 26, because that is when he met my mother, the late Ambassador Emmauldine Yvette Delacourt.

I am the daughter of Arnaud Defresne, a businessman whose exact tradings were kept a secret from even my mother. He was a clever man, far too clever-- who had a penchant for breaking the unjust rules and replacing them with his own, more equitable versions.  Rare was the occasion we spent together, a fact which made every moment significant.

One day, during a chess game, he asked me why I played so aggressively. And so I told him, "papa, if I do not act quickly, then I will not win against you."

He smiled, and then placed his hand on the king. He was playing black, and I, White.

He always played black. I think... because he knew I liked to go first.

Or maybe he preferred to lay in wait.

To strike from behind, 

as was his way.

"It is the king who wins the game, my daughter" he said to me.
"But when does he ever venture onto the front lines?"

"Never--" I said. "because he is vulnerable, and his mobility is limited."

"I see why you think that." He said, firmly but fondly. "but you are only half right, dear child.-- look."

He moved his bishop into place, and ended the game... for my king had nowhere left to move. It was a cruel thing he did. Like a cat playing with a hapless mouse who had no defense against it.

"Yes his mobility is limited. You are right, in that. But you see, if he could move anywhere, he would have no use for a knight, a queen, or a castle. A king..." and he said this, looking deep into my eyes.

"A king is but one man. He cannot do everything, cannot know everything. Sometimes he can defend himself. But more often than not... "

his fingers wrapped around the white queen, and he slid it across the board, such that it placed the dark king in peril. A move that would have won me the game, had I seen it but a moment earlier.

"He must rely on those he trusts to stand beside him... in this way, even the small can defeat the mighty. In this way, he is strong."

He looked at me knowingly, and I wondered in that moment if perhaps he saw something coming that I did not.


"Remember this, ma fille... ce n'est pas important avant qui l'on se tient ... c'est ceux qui se tiennent devant l'on."

He got up then, and left, placing his hand on my head before he disappeared into his study, and closed the door. Without looking back, he never looked back. And I sat there, staring at the board.

It is not important who you stand in front of.

It is who you have standing behind you.

A leader who thinks too much of himself risks more than he knows-- for in doing so, he makes himself a target. To fight and die for glory and honor is one thing... but to die for lack of wisdom is entirely another.  A leader knows how to curry favor. To be equitable, to bleed and die along with his people-- to be reliable in times of strife and peril. But he also knows that without wisdom, honor and glory are nothing.
 
I am but one. I cannot be all. But for the sake of my people, for the sake of my tribe... for the loves and loyalties of my fellows-- I shall have others, to be my eyes.

You may walk with heavy feet-- and speak in harsh tones.
Break my back upon the yoke of dishonor.

But in doing so, you are forgetting that it is the station of frail things to confound the strong.

And Pride goes before the fall.

03. [Backstory] A conversation in the Garden.

"Messieur Chastel, Il faut que n'oubliez jamais le position en que --"

"Mister Chastel,  it would be better if you did not forget the delicate position in which I am--"

"Attendez, il faut faire un decision, je vous prie- Donc je vous demande encore: Le reve, ou la realite?"

"Contrary, it would be better if you made the decision: prithee tell me your answer... the dream, or reality?

"Si je puisse remarquer du rank de Messieur..."

"Need I remind you of your station, Sir..."

"Bof! Mon rank? Typique de vous, madmoiselle Delacourt, modele du "Maison Oeil-Brillant"...N'oubliez pas que c'etait vous qui m'avez atrapper..."

"Hah! my rank! How typical of you, Miss Delacourt. Paragon of "House Gleaming Eye"..

Do not forget that it was you who entrapped me"

" Messieur Chastel, vous n'avez aucun droit--!"

"Out of line!...Mister Chastel... you have absolutely no right to..."

"Aucun droit a dire cela? Typique, aussi. Exactement comme ton pere, Messieur le gardien de moeurs."

 "No right to what? Speak the truth? Also, typical. 

You know, you're a  lot like your dad...this "Keeper of the Ways."

"Arnaud!" 


"Ah, finalement tu le dis..."

"Ah, at last you say it"

"Comment?"

"What?"

"Mon prenom. J'ai commence d'avoir supcon que tu l'as oublie..."

"My first name. I'd begun to suspect you'd forgotten it"

"Mes parents, Ils ont raison a douter ta famille...seducteurs partous...c'est a cause de cela je suis interdit a te voir."

"My parents were right to question your family.  Decievers, the lot of them.  You know that's why   I am forbidden to see you, don't you?

"Sachant ceci, pourqoi est-ce que c'est tres dificile a leur desobeir encore une fois? Partirions ce soir, et ne voir jamais au fond..."

"Mm, yes. But knowing that,  why is it still so hard to disobey them once more?  We could very well leave tonight, and never look back."

"C'est facile  pour toi, que comprendrais-tu la tradition, la noblesse de mon peuple? Se marier avec Renard est un honneur, car il est fort, beau, et  bien haut-place dans le court de sa Maison."

"That's easy for you to say! what would you understand of tradition,  of the nobility of my people? To marry  Renard is an honor, for he is strong, handsome, and  highly placed in his respective court"

"Fort, beau, bien place... riche egalement. Et, bien sur, ne d'une marriage consinguine.."

"Ah yes,  handsome,  well placed,   probably rich, and no doubt born from an incestuous  union"

"Mechant! Que soyez vous de l'honneur."

"You dare~! What could you know of honor?!"

"Je sais  que baiser ta soeur n'est pas noble du tous... tu as deigne insulte, je vois. Desolee, maitresse. Je veux dire seulement que la vie ne droit pas etre vecue a l'injonction d'un autre. Meme que l'autre est  un ancetre."

"Well, I know that  fucking your sister isn't  at all honorable.  if that's what you mean. 

I see that you have taken offense ... you have my apology, Mi'lady. I only want to say that life aught not be lived at the behest of another. Even if that other is one of your ancestors"

"Ce n'est pas ma choix, Arnaud, et ce n'est pas possible de partir, d'abondonner mes obligations...Bien que je part avec toi, mes accions mes actions laisseraient une tache indélébile sur la maison Delacourt...mon nom, mon rank.. tous, serait rendu nul."

"It  isn't up to me, Arnaud, and it's not  not possible to leave-- to abandon my obligations....Even if I could leave with you, my actions would leave an indelible  stain  on the name of my family.  my name, my rank, everything, would be rendered worthless."

" Desavouee, oui... mais hereuse. Vous ne l'admittriez jamais, mais, c'est la verite. Et la verite vient rarement avec douceur."

"You'd be disowned, yes. But you'd be happy. Though you'd never admit it., it is the truth-- and the truth rarely comes softly upon us"

"C'est vrai...Vous partirez?"

"That is true... are you leaving?"

"Oui... j'reviendrai plutot, trois jours, une semaine... qui peut savoir... mais je vous promesse-- je vais le faire avec un solution de ta problemme, maitresse."

"Yeah. I'll be back soon. Three days, a week... who knows? but I promise you, I will return with a solution to your problem, Mi'lady"

"Solution?."

"A solution?"

" Vous verrez... jusqu'a ce moment la-- je reste ton serviteur"

"You'll see.  Until then--  I remain  your servant"