2018.08.15: The Fawn's Test

The Fawn's Test
A couple of quiet weeks pass, then Lleu's exploration of the Umbra begins.
IC Date	Wednesday, August 15th
IC Time	17:18:36 2018, PDT.
Players	Lleutrim, Nascha
Location	Deep Forest, at Nascha's Tree.
Spheres	Shifter, Mortal+

---

Deep Forest

The delicate balance of nature weaves on like a misty dream surrounding the quiescence of this mystical place. The passing of time seems meaningless here having come this far away from the toils of the horrors of the inner city. This place unlike any other holds a greater meaning as the wide area with massive, towering, great oak trees that reach high up into the heavens above seem to put any other simple life to shame with their ageless lifespans.

Giant roots lift up out of the ground, erupting from the solid earth like massive fingers and flooding over the landscape in a river of wooden veins. The air is warm even during the nights here as the air is trapped in by the thickened canopy of trees high up above. Animal tracks are plenty here as the area seems rich in life as well as untouched by man's presence..

---

The time has come for Nascha to get serious about some training. She's made arrangements with the friendly, but not necessarily benign spirits to give Lleutrim a little workout. She has everything all set up. She's waiting for Lleutrim at the top of the tree, wearing a tank top and a pair of shorts. No shoes.

Lleutrim has arrived and is wearing typical dedicated clothing - which is to say blue jeans instead of nice loose 511's or other tactical clothing that might be better suited, but he hasn't gotten dedicated yet. Donnachaidh goes up to where Nascha indicates he should be and looks to where Nascha is, then gives her a thumbs up. "So tell me ... what is it I'm supposed to be doing with this ... eh, challenge today?"

"Well, you'll have to figure that out. That's part of it." She hands him a mirror and says nothing else. She's grinning, though, which could be either bad or good.

All right then. The mirror is accepted. Lleu sets it where he can look into it but not drop it or risk knocking it to fall easily. He hopes. Then he rubs his hands together and looks at it, focusing his mind upon the task ahead of him and tries to see if he can repeat what happened yesterday. Or, whether he'll fail miserably.

You can almost /feel/ the spirits around up this high snickering in amusement as Lleu stares at the mirror but .. nothing happens. At first. And then...

When he comes through to the other side, the whole place lights up. Damn near every single object, every plant, every LEAF has its own spirit, it would seem. There is also a bridge, leading out across the air into... nothing? Nascha takes a moment, but when she comes through, BAM she's there. There's no fading in, no wavering and shimmering in the air. Just BAMNASCHABOOBS. Her scars are almost distractingly brilliant here, lighting up her skin almost as if she was silver, covered by a layer of skin. The smells, the sights, the sounds. This is Gaia. It's like she's RIGHT here.

It is still disconcerting - falling and yet, not falling! Vertigo makes Lleu put out his hands to hold to the tree's branches to try and keep his balance. He blinks a couple of times and looks around, taking it all in! Dazzling, so many things happening around them, and then Nascha is there with him. Or is it Nascha? Lleu turns his head and he opens his mouth, surprised to see her standing there with nothing on yet again. He /stares/ at her and for a few seconds? Lleu's forgotten /all/ about the spirits and why Nascha wants him here. It is a Garou more than it is Lleu's human self that suddenly is aware of Nascha. A predator's look, sizing her up as a woman, a beast who's nostril's flare to try and take in her scent.

Alas, Nascha's lack of scent continues to be her downfall. Yet, he picks up on /something/. Lleu steps closer to her and into Nascha's space.

Nascha is at least a LITTLE used to Garou looking at her like that. She doesn't hide her body. Never has. Never will. It's natural. She may not be wearing CLOTHES, but she is dressed, in her scars, marks of her nature, of her life, each one telling a story. When Lleutrim steps closer, into her bubble, her hands drop to her sides and she looks up at him, her eyes falling just the teensiest bit shy of his gaze. And then she waits. Sometimes, they can come to their senses before anything happens. Sometimes not. Nascha does like the guy. It wouldn't be SO bad, but that isn't why they're here, is it? Yet, there is nothing whatsoever to indicate either desire, nor revulsion, nor interest, nor rejection. She just waits to see how he takes this moment and where he goes with it.

Lleutrim starts to lift a hand to her and stops. Faith. For several seconds he closes his eyes, breathing rougher than moments ago. A muscle ticks in his jaw and he draws a long, slow breath before he looks at her again. His voice is huskier and lower than it usually is, "I'm sorry. I'm not used to seeing you ... like this. Don't you have dedicated clothing? It's ... very distracting." Donnachaidh grimaces, "I haven't... been with a woman in a couple of years. Not even with Faith. -Very- distracting."

He turns away from Nascha and leans against the edge of the crow's nest basket, tipping his head up to look around at the restless spirits. Lleu clears his throat, "So, I'm supposed to figure out what to do?" Therefor first, he must observe things around them /other/ than naked, magnificent Nascha.

Nascha waits, just waits. When he lifts his hand, she doesn't flinch, doesn't move, doesn't even really breathe. When he closes his eyes, she takes a half-step back. "I don't. I'm sorry. I'll cover myself." She doesn't sound particularly happy about that, but with no hesitation, she turns, her long silky hair flowing down her back to just above her butt, and she moves to the edge of the platform they stand on. She takes in a deep breath and makes a soft little whispering sound that causes several of the nearby spirits to turn and move in their direction. With her back turned toward him, she is perhaps less of a distraction, though several spirits wind and twine around her, forming into a sort of.. dress.. maybe... something..

There is the bridge that leads off into nowhere, stretching out into the distance, passing by several trees, none of which are even close to as tall as this one. That's the only thing that doesn't look RIGHT. But where's the other side?

No, when he turns his head, her backside is as lovely as her front. The Umbra makes him far more aware of being garou. Lleu makes himself focus on everything else and asks, "Where does the bridge go? I want to take it and see .. but ..." Yeah, he doesn't know where it goes. So Donnachaidh looks around. He will try this beckoning of spirits to him, those that are near. "Can any of you tell me where that goes? Is it safe for me to follow it?" It's supposed to be a test, right? So let's see if he can get any of the spirit things around him to do a little recon, or somehow communicate with him.

The bridge shifts and shimmers slightly, though it doesn't look any more or less solid than anything else here. Nascha turns back, clothed awkwardly in spirit stuff that has coalesced around her naughty bits, but not much else. Sort of like a bikini. Or censer bars from TV, almost, though the 'clothing' sort of moves and ripples, and is very much alive. "Remember that nothing here will actually HURT you. This is all fabricated as a training course. That doesn't mean that you won't experience pain - possibly a LOT of it, if you make the wrong choices, but this is for training." The spirits don't seem to understand, or care, about Lleutrim.

It was worth trying! Lleu looks back to Nascha and hey, she looks pretty good in that shifting, living outfit. It makes him smile and probably does little to blunt the desire that rouses his blood. He draws a deep breath, "All right." and carefully moves past the branches, stepping over and holding onto things in the event that setting foot on that bridge might in fact prove not to be as tangible and weight bearing as it could be. Yet, has he not seen Dragomir open such bridges? The Cub boldly goes where ... lots of others have gone before him. Stepping out in the world.

The bridge holds his weight easily, though it dips just a little, and there's a shimmer along the length of it, stretching off into nothing. Nascha smiles and she nods. "Trust is important. But trusting TOO much can certainly be a bad thing. Reasonable caution, not storming ahead. Good for a first try." She moves up to step behind him on the bridge, seemingly with no care in the world. One of the spirits wrapped around her brushes against Lleutrim. It's a cool sensation, though not cold.. more like.. the chill you get from minty toothpaste, or vapo rub.

Lleutrim finds the bridge to be steady and that Nascha seems to be coming along with him, so he starts to walk and take some care not to get close to the edges. Donnachaidh may as well enjoy the view but he stays vigilant for what may lay ahead that could be a threat.

Nascha doesn't seem to have any issues at all. She slips around him, actually balancing briefly on the edge, and she takes the lead. "It isn't far," she tells him, hurrying along, the spirits trying to stay glued to her back side. "There's a little shallowing not far from here that will allow us to slip into another realm." She seems excited all of a sudden, eager, maybe over eager. And where's Rocky?

Rocky is whereever Rocky is ... Lleutrim can't keep track of him half the time. He just assumes that Rocky is around somewhere. As Nascha takes the lead, Donnachaidh tries not to think about how nice it would be to use his hands to part the gathered little spirits shrouding Nascha's butt cheeks. No, no... don't think about /that/. He quietly sighs and picks up the pace to keep up, trying to stay focused on what they are doing and where they might be going.

Nascha hurries along, moving on nimble, lithe little feet, glancing over her shoulder here and there to make sure he's still back there. She moves quickly, but with caution and then finally, out of nowhere, she draws up short, just an inch or two from what looks like a vertical mirror that shimmers and ripples like a stone thrown into a pond. "What do you think is beyond here?"

Lleutrim comes up behind her and slightly to her left side. "Looks like water. Or a portal. Anything could lie beyond it." He shoves a hand into a front jeans pocket and roots around to see if he can find anything. Nope. Having nothing dedicated to come through in his pockets, Lleu rips off the metal button from the front of his jeans. Donnachaidh tosses it into the mirror to see if it will plop and pass through, or bounce off, or make a dragon leap out!

It does pass through, and there's a little whoosh sound as it goes. Nascha grins and she nods. "Good call. I'll sew that back on when we get back home." She holds out a hand, slipping to the side to motion him through. Assuming he goes, on the other side, he will find an open plain with a gentle breeze. Spirits drift about here and there grass and small flowers are abundant, but on the horizon, there is a darkness. It doesn't seem particularly ominous, just.. ya know.. dark. Nascha follows behind, but the spirits... yeah, no. They don't want anything to do with this place. THis isn't their area. So.. naked again.

Lleu inhales a deep breath and steps though. He tries to take in the new landscape with all of his senses. Investigating things here as a wolf might be wiser and for a moment he stands there and ... welp, nevermind. The +shift key must be broken, because Donnachaidh only scowls growls a curse, "God damn it." Something pisses him off but he clamps down on it and manages not to let his anger well up into rage.

A couple of slow breathes and he starts walking, looking around. Can he detect anything up ahead near that darkeness? Flocks of birds, smoke, a cloud, anything?

Nascha's gaze shifts over toward the man when he grumbles and she tilts her head to the side. "What happened?" she asks, motioning toward the darkness. "Let's go that way." And there are birds. No smoke. Clouds off in the distance. But there is a PRESENCE there. "We can't go all the way, but over there is the local Fianna presence. It isn't Stag itself, but a representation of your tribe.

Donnachaidh starts to pick up a jog, moving easily and accustomed to running over distances - and they have distance to cross. "I tried to shift forms. I couldn't, for some reason." He glances to see if she's keeping up fine and ... oh boy, she's naked again. Eyes forward, Marine! "Fianna?" His stride almost breaks, "Wait, why can't we go over there? Who's Stag?"

Nascha nods. "Happens sometimes. It's okay. You'll probably need your voice anyway." She keeps up easily, jogging next to him, bouncing and jiggling in all the right ways. "Stag is your tribal spirit. It's just what it so---" She's interrupted by the chuffing call of a... have you HEARD a stag make noise before? She slows, reaching out to grab him by the arm. "Wait. They're sending a messenger." Assuming he stops like he's supposed to, Nascha waits, breathing heavily, a light sheen of sweat broken out over her form. She watches off into that darkness and a small little deer appears, trotting forward, all legs. It's young. "Who goes there?" Calls the tiniest of adorable little Disney sorts of voices. ALMOST Bambi.

Why yes, yes Lleu /has/ heard the sounds a stag makes to his does or to challenge other bucks. Donnachaidh breaks stride and slows to a stop when he hears it even as Nascha has put out a hand to halt him. His head is turned in the direction he heard it come from, silvery grey eyes alert and seeking for the source.

It isn't at all the big, deep throated buck he was expecting. A brow is arched at the little, dainty thing. A glance at Nascha, then Lleu steps forward and stands before the small deer. His baritone is resonate, "I am Lleutrim Robert Donnachaidh, Cub of no pack, born on two legs beneath the gibbous moon." He puts out a hand to invite Nascha to come and introduce herself.

"I am Nascha, Uktena kin. I come to bring the Cub to meet his tribe." She stays ever so slightly behind and to the side and her head is dropped way down in reverence of this silly-looking little fawn. The little fawn trots forward a little more and circles around the two of them, snurfing at Nascha's hair and sneezing, snurfing again, backing up, shaking its head, then just plowing its nose into her armpit for a nice, deep sniff. Nascha allows all of this to happen. The fawn jerks its head back and there's a SHIFT off in the distance. Nothing changes, but EVERTYHING has. There's that chuffing call again from way back and the little fawn trots its gangly little self back around to the front and looks up at Lleutrim. "Tell me a story, Galliard." It sounds SILLY coming from a deer, the mouth doesn't move right, the mouth isn't DESIGNED to form those sounds, but somehow it does. And despite the teensiness of this little thing, it's like there's something MORE here. Something much, much more powerful than this little bambi wanna be

Lleutrim observes how very demur Nascha is being. He looks back at the fawn and settles himself to kneel down before it. "Long ago, there once was a great forest. It spread wide around the world, deep, thick and dark. And yet was filled with many a happy glade, dale, meadow, river, swamp, mountains, and more. A great hunter was in that wood, a man of renown, but also a man of great pride. He carried his pride like a shining mantle over his shoulders and he sought deep within the heart of the wood for a stag. Not just /any/ stag, but to hunt the greatest of beasts that inhabited those parts. For he had slayn all manner of beasts, seeking for the best trophies. Not for meat, but for pride. So he hunted this stag with his every effort, desiring to prove his prowess, yet the stag eluded him. He tracked it, he stalked it, he laid in wait for it to come and drink, he tried to lure it by mimicing the sound of does, the clashing of antler. Though he caught sight of it, the stag was too smart, too fast, for his bow or spear."

"Now this man, he grew angry. Because his pride was affronted. So he spent the entire summer trying to get that stag, and come the autumn he had come to a hollow in the steep mountains. He was exhausted, ashamed of his failure. Yet the stag as there, in the valley. So this man, rather than admit defeat, he kindled a fire. It loosed it upon the wood to burn the trees, to burn the stag, to destroy the wood rather than let the great beast beat him! The flames engulfed the trees, a great inferno. No one knows if it got the stag, but the man himself was consumed by the ravaging fire. Like an angry spirit it ran out of control and devoured the forest up to the foot of the mountains until nothing was left but blackened bones of the trees and earth, and smoldering coals. The people wept."

Lleu draws a slow breath, "The people began to starve. The water ceased to flow. The land lie barren and when the people tried to cultivate it, it bore little and struggled. So a boy stood up, the very man's son who had set the fires the years before. "We must replant the trees and bring back the stag! Only then may he forgive us and the land be reborn." The people did not wish to listen to this boy, so he set forth by himself, only a boy. He went far and long, gathering the seeds of trees, and seeking for struggling seedlings on the slopes. And where ever he could find them, he brought them down to the burnt land that was once fertile and began to plant along what remained of the trickling streams. He spent his /life/ time slowly planting the forest back and bit by bit, his people began to see the results of his labours. The trickle of the dying stream began to recover. So they lent their failing strength to him and helped him plant, and plant because they were afraid for their children. It took them years. The trees grew, thickened, the forest slowly began to spread, the waters to flow. It brought back the rains without washing away all of the soil. And by the time that boy had grown to be an older man, and have a child of his own, she lived to see the Stag return. So the story is handed down, do not obliterate the forest. If we destroy it, if we wish to live, we must keep and replace it. That's a story I was told when I was a boy."

"Yeah, I mean, okay. True enough. That was a darn good story," says the gangly little fawn. "But I was kind of hoping to hear something .. ya know.. ORIGINAL." The little fawn jerks its head, chin rising and then they're falling.. falling.. falling.... like REALLY falling.. through the air, where the ground has disappeared beneath them. Nascha lets out a single little squeak of surprise, but that's the only sound she makes. She knows it's safe. It's safe. It's safe. The ground comes rushing up toward them from way way down below, at an alarming rate. It's getting closer.. and closer.. and closer.... and then WHAMMO! There is excrutiating pain as bones crunch and crack and innards do things that they absolutely shouldn't do, things shifting around, teeth breaking.. and then..... they're both back in the Nascha's tree, staring off at the bridge, whole and unharmed, though the MEMORY of the whole thing is RIGHT there and the lingering thought of 'I'm going to die now' holds on tight.

Nascha is there too, just where she was when they stepped through, leaned over the edge, visibly fighting a scream.

Lleutrim smiles where he sits, "Well, I'm happy to make one up entirely from scratch. In fact..." but the fawn jerks it's little head and it suddenly feels like Donnachaidh is FALLING! He throws out his hands and arms to grab for ... anything! "NASCHA!" No, he's not afraid for himself, but for her! Desperately he grabs for her and tries to slew her slight frame above him - so when they hit the ground, /his/ body will take most of the impact and maybe, just maybe she might survive the fall.

It's funny. When great trauma happens to the body, you feel it. But very often, there's no pain. At first. **///BAMCRUNCH!///**. The detached awareness of bones breaking. Then? Nothing. Vaguely pain begins to heave up in a wave and overwhelm Lleu like a black fog to smother him. He sighs and lets it wash over him, not even aware if Nascha survived...

...

He's still breathing. Donnachaidh holds to the crow's nest railing with white knuckled hands and opens his eyes. Looking around, Lleu pushes off from leaning against the rail, "Nascha! Are you all right?"

Nascha is normally pretty damn calm and composed. She literally faced death with the monster and was still calm and on top of things. But now, as she leans there over the edge, trying to breathe, get her bearings, there is a sob torn from her lips and her knuckles stand out a brilliant white against the railing that keeps them from toppling over. "Fine," she says, a little too quickly, her hair falling to obscure her face. BUt at least she's clothed now

Well, everything seems to be all right now. Pranking fucker. Laugh it up. Donnachaidh goes back to leaning against the tree or the rail and takes a long moment to slow his own heart rate and get his breath back. Nice and calm. Dump a lot of adrenaline into a Marine and after a while they just get to be junkies for it. So he grins after a moment and says low, "To be honest, I did make up that story. I totally pulled it out of my ass - but I did borrow from at least two or maybe three other stories and wove a new version. Everyone's an art critic."

Lleutrim adds, "Didn't feel right to claim it as entirely my own though."

Nascha nods just a little, still gripping the rail, though she's slowly starting to calm down, the white on her knuckles easing up just a little bit. "Well, clearly Stag didn't like it," she mutters, starting to straighten her back, let go of the railing, and she pushes her hair back from her face. "I have never been so scared in my life," she confesses.

Lleutrim lets out a long breath, "Too bad. I was hoping that he would like it. It's a story about squandering nature and how the stag is linked to the wood, and the land and the water is linked to the trees, and the people ... I would have thought the Great Stag would appreciate a story where the wood and the beasts are the most critical, key elements even to man's survival."

Donnachaidh lifts a hand to rub over the back of his skull, "What sort of stories do you think he would have liked better?"

"I got it. He might have gotten it too, or it might have been a test," she says. SHe's a little cranky now that she ALMOST FUCKING DIED. Quite unlike her, really. And there's still no sign of Rocky. "I don't know. Maybe he wanted to know about YOU. Your story was good. Your story was amazing. I'm not knocking it, but it was very impersonal and a little generic."

"Fair enough. I guess I'm not used to a fawn coming up and talking to me, let alone asking for a story out of the blue. I could have sat there and told a much more personal story if I'd known that's what he wanted." Lleu settles himself down to sit on whatever is reasonably stable up in the tree to do so. "I've never exactly done this before." He twists his mouth a little wryly, "I suppose I botched my chance to join the Fianna."

Lleutrim adds low, "I'm sorry you got caught up in it and had to go through that, Nascha."

Nascha nods, taking a few more breaths and sweeping her fingers under her eyes and then following the motion on up to push her hair out of the way. Totally wasn't crying. And the whole area is stable. It sways gently in the breeze, and it SHOULD NOT be that way at all, but it is. She slides down the railing, and pulls her knees to her chest. "No. You haven't botched anything. It was a test, sure, but you're a Cub. All of this.. everything that happens right now, is just practice."

"Practice. I think maybe this Stag spirit has a sense of humor. If it's not a one time fail, you're out thing, then I'm game to go back and keep trying. The last bit was ... very unpleasant. But, he didn't kill us for real. So, we .. I pick myself up and go right back to whatever." Lleu smiles and puts out a hand to stroke Nascha's hair. "You don't have to come next time. No reason for you to have to endure my screwing up." Donnachaidh looks around, "Where's Rocky? I keep expecting to see some hint of him around but I haven't."

Nascha shakes her head, turning into the touch and just plopping her face against his shoulder, her nose practically in his armpit. She's a little shaky, regardless. "You can't go alone. Rocky's somewhere. He wouldn't have let anything happen, but he's obfuscated somehow. I can sense his presence when he's here." Her voice is a little muffled from being buried in his shirt, but she isn't clinging. Just leaning.

Lleutrim makes more like a big brother for a moment and puts his arm around Nascha, his hand to rub her back. "I won't go alone if you tell me not to. But if it's just walking over a bridge and running into pushy little dear demanding stories, I can probably wing that. Let him kick my ass around, not yours. It's not even your tribe. Or .. you know a garou should probably be showing me this stuff, not you anyway. I mean you know your stuff but you are Kindred, not Garou. Not /quite/ the same thing. Andy should be taking me, or Jake, or Dragomir, Journey. More teachers I have the better anyway, for some different points of view. Let you have a break, Nascha."

Nascha shakes her head. "It will be different next time. The bridge is gone." She peeks up at him, her eyes a little red from the brief hysteria. "No, this is part of what I do. It isn't the first time a spirit has kicked me out of the Umbra, nor will it be the last." She gives him a little smile and leans back from him. "I'm okay. I'll round up the spirits and we'll go again if you're ready."

(Continued in the next log: The Owl's Test.)