From over in the direction of the Rialto comes some sporadic singing. Obviously, at first, it's a bit hard to hear, but it eventually resolves into at least one Gnawer belting out "This is the moment..." Kaz, at least, is in homid, as she wanders into the park, the rest of the pack somewhere alongside.

Sepdet gives one of the vines a final tug, then steps out of the wide circle she's prepared for the ritual, a glimmer of a smile not quite reaching her lips. ~It is indeed. Welcome.~ She spreads her hands. ~Come in. Are you all ready?~

Matt sets his rucksack at his feet. ~Almost, Sepdet-rhya.~ He pulls from the bag a small mirror and a small metal tin. He flips the tin open and heats the black-looking substance with his lighter, closing the tin over it like shoe polish. He opens it again, and dips a finger tip into it. Looking into the mirror, he begins painting his face, starting with a diagonal line from right temple to left cheek, across his nose. The line is a vibrant royal blue. Quickly he proceeds to paint the upper half of his face blue, then offers the tin to his packmates.

Sepdet grins faintly at the coloring. ~Watch out, there's a coyote in these parts who prefers his Garou blue.~

Max saunters around the circle of vines Sepdet has prepared, examining it quietly before she approaches Sepdet from the side. "Like Clinton on viagra, Rhya." She slouches her weight to one hip and glances over to Matt, watching his face-painting with interest. She takes her turn, but simply traces a blue line with her finger that starts at her forehead and bisects her face vertically, and another line horizontally across her forehead in a huge capital 'T'.

A short low howl underscores the other Galliard's singing, Buries-the-Hatchet keeping pace at her heels. His chokechain jangles as he brushes past her legs, tail wagging slightly. His liver-colored nose upturns as he watches the tin pass hands. The elder Strider is given a quiet, appreciating woof.

Sepdet begins to move quietly among them while Matt's facepaint is passed around, embellishing their work. The theurge needs to draw runes upon each Garou's skin, the Totem glyph first, and that for raccoon beside it; glyphs for their own tribe, moon, and breeding, each done with painstaking care. She's careful to fit her design to the blue warpaint, complementing rather than overruning it. It takes a long time, since the little theurge must fight odd twitches in her fingers now and then, stiff hands.

"As I'll ever be," Bernie murmurs in response, and giggles at the painting. "Smurfy," she remarks, with a quick grin, and takes her turn next, ending up with a sort of flowy little pattern, "...how come? 'cause it makes 'em look more like th' Roadrunner?" She stays still while Sepdet draws in her, but otherwise is a little fidgety.

Kaz takes the tin readily, applying a little onto her forehead and forearms, then crouching down to offer a little to Nevada. When he agrees, she smears it carefully onto his muzzle and neck.

Sepdet chooses to put the glyphs on the pads of Nevada's feet. Apparently she's not concerned about them wearing off. After the make-up party, she beckons them mutely to stand within the perimeter of woven vines, if they haven't already drawn near. She trades the bowl of clay-paint for the empty one and the knife. ~Tonight several become one, many fingers on one hand. Tonight you seek a Totem,~ she states formally.

Hatchet shifts from paw to paw, absently, though an effort is made to stand still. The wolf-dog is excited, his jaws creaked open, a brown and pink tongue lolling out.

Kaz puts her flute carefully down somewhere a bit further away, and then gravitates toward the vines. She's still humming quietly under her breath, though she appears to have changed tunes. She may not even realize she's doing it.

Max moves around the circle once more before she steps in, bumping, nudging, and tapping each of her packmates as she passes by before taking a look around and stepping inside the vines herself with a glance to Kaz.

Sepdet steps up to Kaz, gestures for her to hold out her hand over the bowl, holds the knife ready. ~What is a Totem?~ the theurge first queries the alpha.

Pack> Hatchet says "Duck... duck... goose!"
Pack> Max grins. Rat, rat, stag, ... raccoon!

A few familiar pointed noses poke out from the enclosure around the fountain, and some gray sleek rats clamber out hopefully, whiskers a-twitch. What's going on?

Kaz holds out her right hand. "Totem? It's somethin' we ally with. That allies with us. So's we can work t'gether, for what we both /wanna/ accomplish. It's another member've the pack, really, that makes us all more'n what we could be. It's our c'nnection t'th' spirit in all of us." She shrugs. "It's what makes a pack even more've a pack."

Bernie finds a space within the circle, and her hands slide into her jacket pockets, mostly to give them something to do. She listens to the question and answer with interest, and grins at the end of it, nodding slightly. Sounds good to her.

Sepdet dips her eyes at that answer. Gently but firmly she cuts across Kaz's open palm, and blood falls down into the bowl. She moves on to Max, holding out the bowl again and asking firmly, ~What is a pack?~

A crow flies down, cocky and curious, a black shape almost invisible except as motion when his wings flutter. He lands on the bunched vines, then turns a bright eye on the gathering.

Matt stows the woad again, then sits quietly insode the circle, thinking on the questions himself.

Hatchet's tongue licks up over his nose, and then he pants again, watching.

Sepdet pages to the room: WHAT is the air speed velocity of a swallow carrying a coconut?
Matt pages to the room: African or European?
You paged the room with 'I don't knAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!'.

Kaz shifts as she watches Max, giving the crow a brief, inquisitive quork.

Max mutters low, seconding Kaz's answer. "Fuckin' A." Her dark eyes snap to the Strider as the next pop quiz flies her way. "Pack's family. Pack's who watches your ass 'n whose back's yours t'watch. S'who you /are/ 'n what you do 'n why you do it. Pack /knows/ you, like, in the dark."

The crow waggles its fanny at Kaz hopefully, as if to say, 'Got somethin' fer me?' and hops sideways.

Sepdet smiles faintly, not particularly taken aback by Max's turn of phrase. She sobers as she slices the knife upwards, adding her blood to the mix. Then she moves to Bernie. ~What is your pack's purpose?~

Kaz gives the crow an almost rueful shake of the head, and then her grin appears, mostly in her eyes, as Max speaks.

Max watches the knife cut through her palm and the resulting blood drip into the bowl to join Kaz's. A gleam touches her dark eyes as she looks through strands of her hair to Bernie, only briefly glancing to the rats, the crow, Kaz, and back again.

A lean gray shape ambles into the meadow as if he owned it, just /happened/ to be strolling by, and--oh! Coyote ears come up. Why, there are people here! Fancy that! Having nowhere better to go, with a tongue-curling yawn, the furry trickster rambles over to the fountain, lifts a hindleg sideways, and shoots Bernie a delighted grin.

Hatchet's own ears perk, a bluefaced glance straying to the coyote. He stares a moment before his drifting eyes return to the bowl. He watches it with the interest of any hungry dog when a mysterious bowl is held overhead.

Bernie considers her answer, a hand emerging from her jacket pocket to fiddle with a curl. "Way Kaz tends t' put it, investigatory asskickers, which is t' say, t' check shit out, an' deal with it too, not just wait for someone else t' handle it. An' t' pr'tect our territory, includin' th' park," her gaze, which had been solidly on Sepdet, turns to the Coyote as she adds, "...=includin'= that fountain, so go find somethin' else for a urinal," and then back to Sepdet, "...an' each other. An' all 'at."

Kaz gives the Coyote a fascinated -- though wary -- glance. It has somewhat the quality of the looks she sometimes gives Max. After a moment, she mutters, -Close, but no cigar,- at it.

The coyote looks smug and seems to debate for a long moment before bestowing a single drop of impudence on the ground /near/ the fountain. But he is abruptly hidden from view as-- at last!-- rounded shaggy shapes spill out of the shadows from all sides, trundling along with high arched backs on tiptoe to travel or rocking back on haunches like old mean leaning against a rail fence to scrutinize the Garou. Black masks, white stripes above, black beady eyes like the inverse of stars, bushy tails with shadow-rings, small black paws like human hands: all these are in a constant ebb and flow of motion as the raccoons circle round, sniffing, prodding, poking. They rummage through the vines with a faint rustling, then approach theGarou fearlessly.

Max listens to Bernie's schpiel, approval and appreciation mingling with the sharper gleam in her eyes. As the other ragabash includes Coyote, Max snorts quietly and nods at the last with a grunt of agreement, shifting her weight and glancing back to the rats thoughtfully.

The knife flashes again as Sepdet scores Bernie's palm. The bowl is halfway full now, so the theurge moves carefully to avoid spilling. She smiles faintly at the raccoons, stepping lightly between them, and comes to kneel beside Hatchet. ~And what is Raccoon?~

Kaz immediately crouches down, eyes sparkling, watching the raccoons. -Aw/right/. Hey, guys.- Her gaze doesn't deviate from them, but she leans slightly toward the other Galliard, listening.

Matt subtly tightens the top of his ruck and unzips the side pocket. A few glass baubles rest inside, which he wouldn't mind losing, but the main gift will have to wait, guys.

Hatchet greets the approach of bandits with a small bark. His pointy-eared head turns, and he regards Sepdet -- briefly -- before his shallow, shiny eyes inevitably stray to the ring-tailed ones. ~Raccoon is the outlaw,~ the wolf-dog begins. ~The wanted. He's got smarts, he's got his tricks, he's got black n white, just like his stripes. He may be a mischievous lil bastard, but he does it for good. He drives them humans crazy, but he does it to feed his family, his friends. He takes the bad shit, shit nobody wants, an he washes it, makes it better. He goes in the shadows, he goes in quiet, and when he gets inta trouble, ain't nobody know about it til the mornin after.~

Some of the masked bandits in question begin to investigate more closely, still moving on tentative tiptoe in that cautious way wild beasts have. Now teeth tug at pantslegs, shoelaces. Now a cold nose presses against bare skin. Now black hands poke curiously into pockets. A few of the boldest raccoons actually begin to clamber up the Garou like treestumps, investigating and exploring. Small clawed hands dig into clothes and pull at hair. One of them tries to climb onto Hatchet's back, making small growling noises which those who know beast speech may deduce are approving sounds.

Kaz, with a lot of hair to tug, leans down a little to actually /let/ one of them tug at her. She tugs back a little. Yum, tug of hair. -So you guys all comin' t'check us out?-

Hatchet's paw is gently cut like the others, adding to the mixture. Last Sepdet comes to Matt, eying him thoughtfully before posing the question. ~And what are you to Raccoon? How does your pack suit this spirit?~

Giving the little guy a ride, Hatchet blurs, changes, passing leisurely through the shapes. A tall and cockeyed-grinning teenager, he wears baggy khakis with way too many pockets, a blue shirt with a smilin' yellow lemon head, a chokechain collar, and on his hands, rings. They glitter at his fingers, various shapes and sizes. Some are simple bands, some twisty, one some poor fool's highschool class ring, and all shiny. A strange and eclectic collection, Galliard stories behind each one. Nevada slowly moves a hand toward the raccoon, letting him sniff, inspect, and claim should something catch his eye.

Bernie keeps her hands in her jacket pockets, so what they contain is fairly tactfully safe from the exploring hands, for now, and grins at a brave raccoon clambering up toward her shoulder to tug on one of the shinier curls. "Hey," she greets it quietly, waiting to see Matt's answer.

Luckily Nevada's high school ring is hard to remove, so after some preliminary tugging his passenger goes for a loose twisty one that can be easily grasped with small fingers. Their hands are as cold as a dog's nose, but amazingly nimble and neat.

Matt offers his hand, already bearing a thin scar across its palm, and an answer. "We're the nosiest buncha tobies this soide a th' fookin' grass'oppers, an' we've got th' cobblers ta keep us in th' read th' 'ole Leo Sayer. Isn't any where we won't be trainspottin', nor any situation we 'aven't got the aunti for."

As a raccoon tugs at her hair, Kaz leans a little forward, letting it get a good grip before tugging back, wincing only slightly.

Sepdet's brows purse, but hopefully it's the thought and spirit that counts most on this side of the Gauntlet, so the gist will be as clear to them as to her.

An enormous raccoon, silver-frosted and sporting a massive paunch (what passes for wealth in a raccoon world) seems to take charge of the mob, with a nip now and then to keep them in line. He eyes the Garou wisely and chitters something.

Max crouches down. There's approval in the sound in the back of her throat as Hatchet answers that her rite-mate can understand. The swarm of raccoons brings a young-looking grin to her lips. "Yo yo, Bandito," she murmurs, hushed, glancing from her own private spirit-coon to Matt and back again. Under her breath she murmurs to it, "You def'nitely got a cool-ass Look goin' on." She watches the little hands search, fascinated herself. Matt's answer draws a bemused, amused grin from Max. "Word."

Bored, the coyote gets up and wanders off. He brushes past Kaz, dips his head, and then dashes off with tail a-wag carrying something like a stick in his mouth. But of course it's not a stick.

Bernie flashes Matt a grin, before being distracted by the Coyote again. The 'stick' looks fleetingly familiar, and she turns her head to see if Kaz's flute is still where she left it...

Kaz gives the coyote an alarmed look, and then asks Sepdet, "What's the big guy sayin'?"

Nevada, having been preoccupied with the inquisitive little spirit, looks up toward the Big Daddy 'Coon.

Sepdet peers after the dwindling form of the coyote, translating without thinking, ~Branch-splitter says, 'He took your shiny.'~ The big guy in question looks at Kaz with an air of expectancy. The others pause in their explorations of pockets and persons to follow the coyote's retreat as he dashes towards the fence with, you guessed it, Kaz's flute.

Matt stands, pointing at the coyote. "Oi!" he shouts. "Gercha!" He points again at the ground in front of his feet. The scowl is no-nonsense, the Look he generally reserves for hostesses that seat tables he hasn't gotten to bussing yet.

Kaz, extremely alarmed, growls incoherently and actually shifts into /lupus/ to chase after the coyote, nose twitching to check for her own scent around here somewhere.

The fuzzy thief pulls up short and hunkers down at Matt's command, wiggling with eyes wide. As Kaz gives chase he yips and dashes off at the last second through a ragged hole in the rusty fence. The crow, who's backed off to perch somewhere out of the way, takes wing to follow, spying shamelessly.

Ears turns around to briefly send, without her usual imagery, /Hey, get around and get him from the other side,/ before she follows him through the fence, scrabbling a little as she gets caught on some of the links.

Nevada's off like a prom night dress. That was gold, right there, the coyote making that sneaky little grab -- but nobody's gonna steal his alpha's musical instruments, by fuck. Remaining human for the moment, the street hood kicks his way up and over the fence.

Ears yells up at the crow, as she gallops, managing to barely track the little thief, -Hey, fucker, /you/ want shinies? Fuck with that fuckin' coyote!-

It's a good thing you're mostly no-moons, or at least partners in crime enough for some of the skills to have rubbed off. Matt stalled the thief long enough to eliminate his headstart, but he's small, speedy, faster than the Garou and bolts for the nearest alley as they converge on him from several sides. The chase is on.

The crow gives a confused rawk, then amiably wings after the disappearing prey. He doesn't do more than a glancing divebomb or two, but at least his croaking caws of tally-ho and booga-booga, or the corvid equivalent thereof, make it easier to track the coyote.

Pack> Max tests.
Pack> Bernie fails miserably. Shoulda studied.
Pack> Ears is wooden. Is therefore not a witch.
Pack> Nevada cheats off Matt's paper.
Pack> Matt says "Puts 'c' for everything."

Matt has plenty of experience clearing fences, and is over this one rapidly. The exercise energizes the woad he wears, and his expression becomes a little wilder, ignoring little scratches and cuts. You can go a little faster, if you don't give a damn if you hurt yourself.

Nevada whips around a corner just a bit too fast, shoes skidding a reluctant turn. His chokechain collar bounces, too large for his blue-streaked human neck, and a small bullet keychain has been affixed to one of the rungs. To steady himself, he pushes off from a wall as he passes, leaving the faintest of smears stamped behind from the glyphs on his palms.

Ears keeps loping, grimly, trusting her packmates to head him off at the pass, so to speak.

He leads you a merry chase, over and under and through. Somehow he finds the most disgusting laces to travel, through puddles of slime behind the McDonald's, a twisted creaking forest of rusty metal that collect like cobwebs under old fire escapes, through the cloying, leering, wiggling monstrosities of brightly-colored lawn ornaments that have taken on a life of their own in a postage stamp yard. There's a clink somewhere under the fire escape, and Nevada stumbles over a section of Kaz's flute that somehow separated from the rest. Suddenly the coyote yelps and dives for cover under the nearest object, which happens to be a huge, hulking, web-encrusted monstrosity with bulging metal panels like muscles and bulbous stinking wheels. The spirit of an SUV?

Ears isn't quite able to get under that herself, but she calls underneath it, -I'll let you off the hook with the crows if you give it back...-

Bernie follows along a bit slower than the others, not intentionally, just because she isn't the quickest runner, regardless of form. That, and she seems partially distracted, eyes focused on the Coyote rather fiercely. She grins at the clink, and keeps running after, pulling up short before risking collision with the SUV spirit. She picks up any sections of flute she passes, on the way.

Pack> Ears explains that pose: | Long distance to Sepdet: Ears sends a rather graphic vision of about 40 crows divebombing him at once.

Matt skids to a stop about the same time as everyone else, shifting up to Crinos and repeating his 'get over here' gesture. ~Good game. You lose. Give us the flute.~

Bernie finds another piece of the flute along the way. The coyote's nose pokes out from under the monster nervously. Crows? He spits, and the final segment of the the flute rolls out. The crow, perching nearby, lets fly with raucous cawing.

Nevada sits there a second on his fallen-down ass, grunting, before he scoops up the detached piece of flute. It's the front part, the puckered sideways mouthpiece. He gets up, brushes himself off, and generally plays it off cool. He meant to do that.

Max shifts down to lupus and skims along and aside the others, watching for possible escape routes, trying to cover uncovered routes, giving the pack a more complete circuit, chase-wise. You can run, but you can't hide.

A door swings open suddenly like a left hook, bowling into Matt's side. The coyote, wiggling out from under the SUV, gives a sudden yelp of panic as it starts to settle down on its tires.

Bernie steps over slightly, into a conveniently cast shadow, and seems almost to disappear into it as she watches, the flute piece moving into her jeans pocket.

The metis, sounding not at all smug, calls up, -Call off your pals, bud.- Not, mind you, that the crow had any. To the coyote, she adds, -Thanks. Din' mean t'freak you're nothin'...- She picks the piece up carefully in her teeth, and then, eyes widening, backs up and spits it out somewhere further up the road.

Nevada winces as the door slams into the Fianna, but he doesn't back up. He stands his ground -- for the moment -- staring up at the huge metal thing, the mouthpiece slipping into one of his many pockets.

Speaks-Circles tumbles onto his butt, scuffing the palms of his hands bloody. Not that he notices, standing. ~Oi!~ he howls, ~Not your fight.~

The engine roars to life with a belch of diesel fumes, and the headlights begin to glow with the sickly grayish green of certain sorts of fungus. Coyote has, yes, landed himself in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time, and is in danger of getting crushed by his folly.

Ears's nose twitches. Slowly, she grates, ~I think that's Wyrm, people. An' Coyote don't deserve that.~ Flicking an ear, she adds, ~Time f'th' kickin' butt method, hey?~ She circles it warily. ~Tires. Muffler. That kinda shit. C'mon.~ That said, she falls easily into crinos and lunges for the rear tires, using, like a bad child of Weasel, claws rather than teeth. Good thing she's not a child of weasel anymore.

The tires start spinning and shredding under Ears' tender ministrations. Some spiders boil out of the hood and cabin door, looking rather like they're constructed of bits of carborator, fan belt, dipstick, jumper cables, golf clubs, cup holders, and all the junk that people tend to leave in their cars. Bernie's nose gets molested by a pair of pink fuzzy dice sprouting tentacles.

-Get outta there, man,- Nevada warns the coyote as he arches up into warform. Looking like some bastard love child of Ol Yeller and the rabid wolf what killed him, Hatchet just stares at the SUV for a brief but surreal moment. He's joyridden enough of these bitches, but he hasn't yet battled with one. He changes that, attempting to leap up onto the spidery hood.

Bruises shifts from lupus up to crinos and lunges in on the opposite side of the car from Ears, her intention to tear at the hood until Hatchet leaps atop it. She adjust her attack to the front grill, kicking at it.

Bernie looks mildly annoyed at not having the gift down perfectly yet, and more so as she shifts up to the warform and claps the dice hard between her hands, muttering ~Tentacles, tentacles, always with th' fucking =tentacles=!~

The coyote wriggles and struggles under the heaving hulk, whimpering and whining-- my fur's crooked! My fur's on crooked! as if this explained everything. Meanwhile Kaz has managed to wrench a tire loose. Hatchet, true to his name, manages to crack the partly-open hood like a crabshell and peel it back, while Max takes on the grill to bare more of the monster's innards. It starts lumbering forwards like a bull, cutting into Bruises' legs with some bare edges of metal that are showing. The coyote finally squirts free of the carcass just in time, as the remains of a wheel roll over where he was pinned.

Ears tosses the tire away, casually, and starts raking at metallic innards, from the rear, trying to pull some vital parts completely out. ~Yeeaahhhh, c'mon, I always knew SUVs were up t'no good...~

Bernie rips the damn suckers loose leaving her snout bleeding and squashes the stuffing out of the damn things. Jumper cables with legs like a millipede's wrap around Nevada's legs, while a fan belt snaps loose and tries to serrate Matt's throat. There's a clacking sound as something breaks loose inside the engine, and the vehicle stops lumbering forward, but continues heaving and vibrating. Kaz, meanwhile, pulls the tailpipe and half the back panel loose. A piece of bumper goes flying, bearing the sticker, "My other car is a moon bridge" and a Cthulu-Jesus-fish.

Bruises snarls as the SUV tears into her, but the pain seems to only invigorate the ragabash. She moves around to the side to try to help disable the spirit's ability to roll at all, first using her claws on the tire and then trying to bend, pull and wrench the wheel from its axle.

Hatchet growls, the low sound thrumming in his throat. With one hand he tries to rip and pull at the jumper cables, but it's hard to reach that far in his awkward position at the moment. He takes out his frustration on the windshield wipers instead, meanly snapping them.

Ears keeps forging forward, going for muffler... Or more tailpipe... Or engine parts... ~C'mon, you,~ she growls, ~Ain't you figured out it's time to quit yet?~

Speaks-Circles is pissed, stomps up to the thing and, with no art whatsoever, puts a clawed fist into the SUV's right headlamp. ~Fight blind, bastard.~

Stomps-The-Wyrm grins ferally as the dice squish and the engine dies, though it fades a little in a wince as the pain form the tentacles and the new bits and pieces attacking her sinks in. She swipes claws at a fanged cup-holder, trying to grab onto the attacking jumper cables with her other hand and yank.

A belching, choking puff of black smoke blinds and probably gags Ears as she pulls the muffler loose. There's a crunch of plastic and webs as Speaks-Circles breaks out a light, and a sudden rushing noise as Max takes out the radiator and green fluid dumps all over the street. Hatchet, still engaged in tearing the engine's guts out from above and dodging animated dipsticks tying to impale his family jewels, pulls out a chunk of machinery. Under the relentless dismantling, the engine wheezes and coughs to silence, and all that's left is an angry horde of McDonald's Monopoly Game stickers scurrying around like flat pillbugs and trying to attach themselves to the Garou's feet.

Speaks-Circles growls, clawed hand pressed against his bleeding neck. The monopoly pieces get a stern glare. He doesn't allow them near his feet, but this is more out of wary confusion than fear.

Ears clambers out from under the car, coughing heavily, and then does a brief little hoedown of a dance, stomping on stickers as if her life depended on it. She is, meanwhile, growling, ~Bout fuckin' time, dipshit,~ at the former truck.

The coyote pokes his head out from behind the trash cans, then, only after the behemoth begins to dissipate and fade from view, he saunters over to pee on a hubcap.

Stomps-The-Wyrm gives the side of the front of the car a gratuitous kick of defiance as it quiets, and blinks at the stickers. Well, that ain't right. She leans down and starts stabbing them, impaling them on the tips of her claws. It's like picking up litter in the Park!

Bruises kicks at the SUV shell a few more times than she needs to, growling at it, ~Combust /this/, Lee Iacoca.~ She steps away with a humph and mutters, ~Eddie-Bauer-Special-Edition, my /ass/.~

Thanks to Stomper, Hatchet can free his legs from the autobeast. He kicks the last of the cables away as the spirit disappears, though that's exactly the kind of motion he soon regrets. Thanks to the dipsticks attacking other dipsticks, so to speak. The Galliard, growling, takes to pounding the little monopoly pieces with a fist.

The little bits of paper squash flat and begin to flutter away, some blown on the umbral wind, others skittering for cover in the cracks of the sidewalk. You are left victorious, with a flute, an unrepetent coyote, and a highly entertained crow watching from a streetlamp.

Bruises follows after some of the dead monopoly pieces, collecting those she can catch in order to keep them from littering the umbral landscape. What she plans to do with them is anyone's guess. Her gait is a little awkward thanks to a notable almost symmetrical gashes high on her thighs where the front of the torn up vehicle rammed into her.

Ears glares at some of the pieces, but she's soon giving /that/ up to shoot the coyote a beady look. She scrambles to fetche the one piece of flute she can actually find, and then asks, ~Anyone know where the rest of this thing is?~ She sounds a little plaintive.

Bruises looks up from her paper chasing -- having shifted down to homid -- and frowns mildly at the tone of Kaz's voice or, more likely, the fact that there are potentially still pieces missing.

Hatchet withers into his birth form, faint blood spotting up and down the legs of his gray khakis. These pockets get exploratory, wincing patting before Nevada fishes out a mouthpiece from one of them. It's slightly grimed from gravel. "Got one," he says.

Stomps-The-Wyrm nods to Kaz. ~I have the small end,~ she replies, touching her muzzle gingerly where those damn tentacles burrowed in a bit, but gets distracted as she notices Speaks' bleeding neck. She shifts down toward homid as she walks over to check on it. "...we all relatively okay?" she asks, absently fishing in her pocket for the other flute bit.

Ears fades down into homid herself. Her voice sounds a little hoarse. "Y'all're my fuckin' heroes, amen an' selah." She takes first the mouthpiece and then heads over Bernie-wards. "Looks like. Max, you'n your leg gonna s'vive?"

Matt shifts down to glabro, croaking "Not brown bread yet, tens." His voice is extremely hoarse, gravely and an octave lower than normal. Blood seeps slowly around his fingers, held to his neck.

Max snorts quietly and goes back to her impossible task of picking up little pieces of debris. "Ain't no thang," she calls as she moves around. A thought seems to occur to her and she looks around and back in the direction they came. "Um, what 'bout Sepsep and the 'coons?"

"Guess they back at the park," Nevada says, folding his arms. "Well, this was real impressive. Ow. --What's wit them pieces, New Maxico? Collect 'em all?"

Bernie hands the flute bit over to Kaz as she approaches, distracted, and then goes to look at the neck wound, trying to see how bad it might be. "....yeah, we should prolly get back b'fore she runs off t' catch Must-See TV..."

Kaz has completely failed to find the flute case, so she settles for just putting it together again. "Thanks, y'all, an' yeah," she adds, starting Parkwards immediately, "I think we kinda oughta get back t'raccoonage."

Matt moves his hand to let Bernie see the wound, already starting to walk toward the park. The cut is deep and angry, but the flow of blood appears to have stopped. It looks a lot worse than it is, blood smeared all over his neck and now into his shirt. Not that it appears to bother Matt in the least.

Nevada follows, his trademark swagger somewhat dampened, unpimped, and limped. That evil bastard automobile, hurting Carson City like that.

Bernie winces at the cut, but since Matt doesn't seem to be bleeding to death or falling over, just makes a face and nods slightly, following back the way they came. She's walking fine, since everything saw fit to attack her =above= the waist.

The coyote decides to give Kaz a wide berth, but does tag them as they make their way back to the park.

When the Garou return, there are less raccoons than there were before they left to retrieve the stolen flute: only half a dozen or so. Sepdet is watching from a respectful distance, and keeping them away from the bowls; she looks over the group with an impartial eye to make sure her other services are not needed.

The chief of the raccoons, Branch-splitter, eyes the warriors assessingly, chitters in a way to make himself understood. Persistence. Cunning. (His eye lights on Bernie and Kaz especially). Will. (This to Speaks-Circles.) Fierce fighting. (Bruises and Hatchet). Is there anything else you offer us?

Kaz hands the flute carefully to Sepdet "Take care've this, huh?" As Branchsplitter speaks, she blinks. "Um. Love and trust and companionship and fun and food fights and friendship and stubbornness...- Kaz trails off, and then whips a metallic silverish chain, about 2 feet long, out of her trench-coat. -And shinies.-

The other Galliard stands straight, one leg turned slightly to the side. Rings glitter at his fingers, the skin blued from contact with his neck and face. "A good time," Nevada throws in.

Sepdet takes the flute with a quiet nod and observes without interfering.

Branch-splitter's eyes gleam at the chain. One of the raccoons beside him makes a dash for it, leaping to grab one end of the dangly bit.

Matt looks around for his rucksack, finding it near Sepdet. His pupils are fairly widely dilated as he leans over her to retrieve it. No surprise the shiny baubles are missing from the side pocket. Untying the top, however, he reaches in and produces a bundle wrapped in aluminum foil, reflecting in the moonlight. "an 'earty meal," he offers, unwrapping a stack of steaks, grilled.

The raccoon that confiscated one of Nevada's rings earlier is now wearing it on his nose. Another is busily trying to get it away from him. The scuffles stop as noses swivel in formation towards the smell of steak.

Stuffing papers in her pockets, Max follows after her packmates and settles to a crouch a yard or so from Sepdet. She reaches down her shirt as the offerings begin and pulls out a lighter that looks almost -- but not quite, to the observant -- exactly like her own lighter. "Looks good," she begins, then snaps the stainless steel lid open with a deft flick of her wrist. "Shines. Burns hot. Trouble's a fire. Ain't nothin' gonna stop us." Flicking the lid closed she holds the lighter out in her palm, offering it.

Kaz dangles the chain for the 'coon, playing with it in much the same way she might play with a cat, until Max brings the lighter out, and then she just freezes for a moment, until she's able to get a /good/ look at the lighter. This gives the raccoon quite the advantage, however.

Attention flickers from steaks to shinies to flame; one raccoon freezes and skitters off at the flash of light. Kaz's makes a grab for the chain and yanks it from her hands. The remainder of the raccoons dash for the food, tumbling over each other to get at it; a few rats from the nearby manhole also succomb to temptation and run into the circle for a nibble. But the one who took Kaz's chain stops and stares hard at Max, head cocked to one side.

Nevada starts to slowly smile, watching the raccoons re-enact a familiar scene from the First Assembly of Dog whenever those steaks are delivered. Matchbox Max is given a thumbs up.

Max regards the raccoon, still and patient, palm still extended.

Kaz is pulled off balance, and eventually reverts to a crouch, one hand on the ground, watching the transfixed 'coon.

The raccoon that borrowed Kaz's chain is a rangy buck, full grown and sturdy looking, with a certain thoughtfulness in his gaze that many of the others lack. There's a soft chittering, and this time it's not like Branch-splitter, who like many spirits could make his thoughts intelligible to Garou when he chooses. Instead, you /understand/ the growls and whines this one makes: Bright. His small paw closes on the lighter's box tentatively, as if afraid it will bite back.

Bernie gives the huge bloody gash on Matt's neck another somewhat worried look, and glances over to Sepdet, who she figures would be the one to know if it was anything to be concerned about. "Prolly some amusement, too," she remarks a tad wryly, fingers gingerly checking out those tentacle wounds on her nose again. "Oh. An', y'know. Things." She reaches into her pocket, pulling out a small stack of CDs. Most seem to be promos for AOL and other systems, though a couple might be games, or maybe music. "Shiny," she remarks, tilting them a bit so the un-papered sides catch and reflect the light, "...an' plus, y'know, fulla all sortsa information, 'f y' know how t' get it out." She goes quiet, then, as the raccoon checks out Max's offering.

The raccoon investigates the lighter sniffingly, then whips around and bowls into the others, wrestling for a bit of meat. When he pops out of the fray, he's got Nevada's ring threaded on the chain looped in his jaws, the lighter still clutched in one paw. He pops out in time to investigate Bernie's offering, and seizes on them gleefully, shoving a small fist through the holes in the middle of several CD's.

Kaz tilts a grin at Bernie, but then just stops moving in brief shock. "Dude..." She trails off, and then her face splits in a broad grin. "Hey, /awright/, we got us a raccoon..."

Nevada's smile evolves into a full-blown grin as he watches the antics of the raccoon spirit.

Max remains still during that paused moment where the raccoon reaches and hesitates and it looks as though the ragabash is holding her breath, almost reverent, certainly hopeful, somewhat excited. Finally she agrees with a slight dip of her chin in a nod then flickers her gaze around to each of her packmates, searching their expressions for similar reactions.

The other raccoons are starting to drift off with their prey, one or two lugging them down to the river's bank to wash their food before finishing it. Branch-Splitter nods once, satisfied, and starts to trundle off, after boxing one of the youngsters and absconding with at least half of its steak.

The pack's new friend lays all his shinies out on the ground, huddling over them, sorting, sniffing and examining them and looking back up at each person in turn as if identifying them by what they've given him. (He rubs his tummy at Matt). Bright. Games. This--? He looks at Nevada, holding up the ring. And this? he looks at Kaz, dangling the chain.

Kaz looks slightly embarrassed. Jerking an imaginary chain through her hands, she explains, "You can kick ass with a chain, bust heads. But it also links things t'gether, an' more t'th' point here, /people/ t'gether, an' it's tough as nails, can't be broke. Plus," she adds, letting her hands drop, "Hey, shiny. So I figured, why not...?"

The raccoon's whiskers quiver. Oh. /Oh/. He tugs at a few links, testing their strength, then lovingly gathers all the shinies to his chest. They disappear, but oddly, there are vestiges of them in its fur. Its eyes take on the gleam of the baubles Matt gave it; there's a twisted line of golden fur around its wrist on one side where it last held Nevada's ring, and a silver band of fur around its neck from the chain. The lighter rings of its tail take on an iridescent sheen like the CDs, and, with a gleam in its eye, it wiggles its fingers, and a tiny ghost of a flame plays over the little black paw.

"Rings.. rings is for promises, for idennity," Nevada starts with a shrug. "An' fo' leavin marks on people's faces when you punch 'em. Talk about givin' people shiners. Also unbreakable.... rings, not faces."

The raccoon sits back on his haunches and rubs the silver fur of his tummy, looking well pleased. We will find things and seek things and fight the bad things and make the good things. And always shinies.

Both Kaz's and Nevada's explanations draw nods of concurrance from Max. A brief, hushed bit of delighted laughter escapes her lips at the incorporation of fire in the raccoon-spirit's facile paw. She remains crouched, fascinated, though there's an air of barely restrained excitement to her. The gashes on her thighs aren't bleeding so profusely now. Max voices the pseudo-toast, "To shinies up the ass!" she agrees.

Bernie grins at the change, and then snickers at Max's comment. "=Yours= if y'want," she retorts happily, "I'll keep mine in my pockets, I think."

Sepdet slips to the edge of the circle and begins to brush out the runes in the dirt and roll up the vines with the efficiency of room service. ~Congratulations,~ she tells them over her shoulder.

"What she said," Nevada says on a grin, starting to laugh at Bernie's remark. Delighted with this new spirit, he looks up, and sends the Strider an appreciative glance.

Matt sits down, heavily. Nothing to add, really, except a wince at his ribs.

Max tosses a grinning smirk over at Bernie. "Wait 'til you got some-a my secret recipe punch in you, chica. Freaky things, like, ensue." Her gaze turns quickly back to the raccoon though, even after Sepdet starts clearing things up. "You gotta name?" she asks the spirit.

Kaz tells the 'coon, "You, my friend, kick serious ass," and finally just sits down. "Sepdet, you're my fuckin' hero. Want some help with that?"

The spirit blinks quietly. Name, it says with a certain wistfulness.

Matt looks up vaguely, at Max's question. "Some kinda fookin' Robin 'ood, if ye ask me."

Sepdet shrugs her shoulders. ~No, I'm fine. Just one last thing.~ She picks up the bowl of blood, lets the raccoon sniff it, and then moves among them one last time to gently dab a spot of the mingled blood on each of them, over their hearts. ~Together,~ she mutters.

Max edges closer to the spirit, already testing proverbial limits and curious to boot. "Yeah," she answers as she moves nearer. Casting a glance to Matt then looking back to the raccoon. "You ain't jus' no ordinary 'coon, y'know." she notes, complimentary in a roundabout way. She glances up at Sepdet as she dabs blood.

Kaz looks down at her heart, and then up at Sepdet. And then she just shrugs, and starts crawling after Max.

Bernie grins back at Max. "Oh, yeah? We'll hafta see..." She trails off as Sepdet comes by, and adds to her, quieter, "...thanks." Dropping to sit down beside Matt, she regards the Raccoon with his shinies, and grins. "If there's gonna be robbin' from th' rich an' givin' t' th' poor, I jus' wanna make sure everyone knows I'm th' latter..." She lifts a hand and wriggles the fingers in a wave at the raccoon, almost shyly.

The newly dubbed 'Hood reaches out and pokes at one of Max's rubber bands, then settles down to groom himself. His black nose twitches at Bernie hopefully.

Nevada carefully drops to a crouch, eyeing the raccoon a minute. "That's what I'm talkin' about, man," he says, touching the blood spot on his shirt before he combs his hands through his hair.

Max glances down at her wrist as the spirit fiddles with her rubber bands. "Y'want one?" she asks, pulling one off her wrist. She flicks it, demonstratively, at Kaz, taking a moment to share an electric look with the pack alpha.

The raccoon lumbers backwards with surprising agility as the rubber band goes flying, eyes startled but not terrified. He licks his nose.

Kaz gets poinged on the shoulder, and says, reflexively, "Ow," before getting drawn, briefly, into that look. Her grin rises, and then she breaks it, to look for the band and shoot it back at Max. Though, it must be said, not very well.

Matt doesn't bother to get up to be anointed, the mingled blood dabbed on his chest camouflaged by his own. "Glad ye liked the Jim, friend," he adds, smiling wanly.

Max is thwapped by the band and catches it deftly before it hits the ground. "Hood ain't no cheesehead." She turns back toward the spirit. "He's a regular fucking Einstein f'you ask me." She leaves the rubber band on the ground for the spirit to investigate if it so chooses then turns and leans back to grab Nevada by the ankle. The woad-written 'T' on her face is smudged in some places but still for the most part intact. "I dinnit get t'blow nothin' up. We /gotta/ fix that." Hopping up to her feet, still a little stiff, she circles around Nevada and hops on his back, piggy-back style. "We done it again," she mutters by his ear. "You my lucky charm or'm I your four-leaf chica?" Lovely, that woad.

The raccoon resumes grooming himself with neat paws, watching their intereactions with the sort of pleased interest of a child with a new toy.

Kaz flops onto her back. Her hat falls into her face.

Matt rises ponderously, having realized he can wash up a little in the fountain. He leaves the woad, but does his best to wash the blood off of his neck and chest, taking off his shirt to wring it out in the water. The moonlight casts strange shadows across the scars on his back, making the flesh seem rippled. Wet, he sits with his back to the fountain, cool stone on his back. Watching the others cavort with 'Robin.'

Kaz eventually disappears to get her extra flute case, and, in a few minutes, reappears, flute case in hand, an Anneka right behind her. "Hey, yo..." she calls. "Lookit what I found."

Bernie shifts in place a little as Matt rises, watching curiously to see what he's up to. She watches possibly a bit longer than strictly necessary to figure it out before returning the larger part of her attention to watching 'Hood, until Kaz rearrives. "Hey!" she exclaims, "you found another flute case! ...oh, anna Ann'ka, too." She grins at the cub, waving a hand.

Anneka's got owlish eyes, wide and bright as she looks about at the park and the city beyond it. They alight on the fountain, on the cobwebbed and cement city beyond, then at the folk gathered about. She smiles and waves. "Hey, hi."

From a piggyback perch on Nevada's back, Max waves at Anneka. There's a large 'T' traced in blue over Max's forehead, nose and chin and there is a plentiful amount of blood scoring gashes across the fronts of both of her thighs. The wounds don't appear to be bothering Max at the moment. She greets Anneka brightly. "Yo Streetfish!"

"Blow'n stuff up... jives wit' me," Nevada's saying, wobbling a little off-balance before he stands up, to give Max a proper piggyback ride. "You aine no four leaf chica... you a Chance card waitin' to happen. I'll laugh if you fuckin win somin' wit those things-- hey, Raggedy Ann!"

Anneka blinks twice and laughs at Max, perched atop Nevada, her eyes only darting for a moment to the gashes across Max's legs. Really, she's getting used to wounds like that not being the biggest deal in the world. And it does distract her from the river, yes it does.

Off behind the fountain, the raccoon is wandering, making a soft low chuckling sound in his throat. It sounds remarkably like purring.

Kaz shoots a grin at Bernie. "Yeah. I haddan extra some moron tossed 'cause it was the wrong color." She retrieves the flute from where Sepdet put it, and starts breaking it down.

Max smirks a little. "I's just pickin' the shit up for Mama Moon. She don' want no Baltic Avenue floatin' 'round her pad." Eventually she slips off Nevada's back, swats him on the rear and meanders over toward Bernie.

Matt relaxes, the upper half of his face coated blue on a diagonal from his right temple to his left cheek. On a similar diagonal, he sports a deep gash in his neck, bleeding again now that he's washed the clotted blood away. He's shirtless, watching Max, Nevada and Bernie play with a large racoon.

Anneka follows along behind Kaz until she's near enough to the fountain to be thoroughly distracted by it. She grins as she rests her hands on white marble and leans over to look at the water and her reflection in it. Matt gets a quick, curious look, though, then she's tilting her head, listening for the source of that unusual purr.

"Well, if you got onna those Get Outta Jail Free cards, hook me up," Nevada says with a smirk. "An' I could always use a Community Chest.. " His eyebrows wiggle, up-down, before he settles down next to the fountain. He limps a little, much to his chagrin.

The purring quiets. Hood noses at the fountain and then scrambles up on top of it, waddling along the edge, behind Anneka. Eventually, a cold nose pokes into her ear.

Max casts a smirk over her shoulder at Nevada. "You sayin' you ain't got no chests all on your own? Boy ... we gotta talk." Then she turns back to Bernie and sinks down to a cringing crouch beside her and murmurs low to her, lifting a hand to touch a finger lightly under the other ragabash's chin very briefly.

The cub's eyes get very big and she jumps, laughing as she turns around. "Hey--! Oh--" She blinks twice. "Hello!"

You sense Max whispers, "I ain't never had no one who I wanted so bad for a sister, Burn. You rock this pack 'n your brand of 'bashin' rocks my world." A rare warmth touches Max's dark eyes, taking the edge off the sincerity so clear to see there.

Hood scrabbles back a few feet, almost dropping into the pool but using those claws to hang on.

Kaz says, sounding innocent, "Oh, I didn't mention Einstein here?"

Bernie looks a bit startled at Max's murmur, and blushes, then smiles rather more soft and warm than her usual grin and adjusts her glasses, replying equally quietly.

Anneka giggles quietly as she blinks at the raccoon. "No-- I don't-- Oh!" The last an exclamation, but still almost a whisper. She sticks her hand out, slowly. "Hi, I'm Anneka." She's also a little bewildered.

You whisper "Whoa. I'm all, like... honoured. Thank you." She grins a little more, and continues, "...guess 's a good thing we're fam'ly now then, huh? So we c'n go rock th' resta th' world..." to Max.

Hood, rather than doing anything useful like shaking Anneka's hand, sits up on his hind legs and gives her a piercing look. Who?

Kaz, whose grin would appear to be permanently affixed to her face, at this rate, explains, "He wants summat other'n a name, y'know. An' he's ours. Our Totem." She can't quite seem to say this without looking around at her packmates, though it's a quick glance.

Max grins a small, dangerous, auspicious grin at her ragabash sister. "Hell, yeah," she replies, then pushes painfully up again and, after ruffling Bernie's curls, meanders over toward the fountain, in Matt's direction in particular.

Bernie rises and follows, since everyone seems to have migrated over there as it is. She stops just in front of the fountain, facing those sitting on it, and rocks back and forth slightly on the balls of her feet, hands in her jacket pockets, grinning at them all.

Anneka draws the hand back and runs her fingers through her curly hair. She glances over at Kaz, then smiles again. "Oh, cool!" She blinks. "Um-- what would he want, then?" She glances back at the raccoon, and blinks again.

Matt smiles widely at that. Our totem. Our pack. The gash on his neck weeps sanguinely, droplets trailing thin lines down his chest. He seems unconcerned, but willing to relax and resist his instincts toward rambunctiousness. He starts to cross his arms across his chest, but the beginnings of a wince convinces him that they are just fine at his sides.

The raccoon drops back down onto his forepaws and twists to look at the cub. Who you are. What that means.

Kaz shrugs. "I dunno. Seems like he wants sorta... Less a name an' more a description."

Max settles on the cement beside Matt and bumps her shoulder gently against his arm. Typically she'd draw her knee up against her chest but today that's /not gonna happen/. She half smiles sidelong at him, matching him, at least, in facial blue marks. Her tone is low with him as well, hardly audible unless one is trying to listen in. "You's down wit' the bone-crowd, like it or not, now, Lucky." There's an unspoken question in her eyes as she watches Matt sidelong.

"Whooooooo are yooooouuu?" Bernie directs to Anneka, doing her best imitation of the Caterpillar in the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland, and grins some more, slight bouncing continuing as she bleeds off excess energy. There's blue on her face as well, sort of a flowy design, and a bunch of angry looking red dots on and around her nose, where the tentacles dug in. She doesn't have any other visible wounds.

Matt quirks an eyebrow at his packmate. "Really? Whot makes you fink you aren't all Fianna fer a day?" He reaches over to flake a little of her woad, showing her the blue on his finger. "Oi'll be foine," he adds. "Nuffin' a liter o' mercuricrome an' three meters o' bandages wouldn't fix."

Max smirks at Matt, but her gaze is warm. "I don't got no problem with a little tribal bleedin'. But tonight, boy-o, you 'n me, we ain't nothin' but Trouble." Max grins and glances around Matt at Kaz and Anneka.

Max pushes back up to her feet and moves a little stiffly around Bernie and Anneka to resettle behind Kaz, leaning her back against the pack alpha's and exhaling quietly.

Bernie claims the spot Max just vacated, and leans over to bump her flatmate's shoulder gently with her own, and give him a smile. Her feet still move a bit, toes bouncing.

Kaz leans back slightly, supporting her packmate's weight, and then leans her head back to thunk into Max's, briefly.

Matt smiles, eyes twinking in a slightly defocussed manner. "Feelin' the woad a bit, are we?" He nods toward her jigging feet.

Max relaxes, unperturbed by the thunk. Her mild -- some would say sated -- smile faces out into the park's umbra away from the rest of her pack and Anneka.

Bernie glances down at her feet, and giggles, leaning in a little more as she relaxes. "Mayyyybe," she replies, grinning. "Or I could just be psyched. I dunno."

Anneka ohs, faintly. She curls up into a perch on the edge of the fountain, her legs pulled up and her arms wrapped around them. "Well, Anneka means me, and I'm a Bone Gnawer, a cub, too, and a half-moon." She glances at the raccoon, still a bit bewildered. "I never really thought that 'who are you?' would be a big question, but now that I'm thinkin' about it, it is." She straightens up a bit, rocks back on her rear, precariously near to falling back into the fountain. "I'm th'skinny kid you see floatin' out on th' ocean, th'one you're thinkin' y'see every day, no matter when y'go to the beach. I'm th'kid who's always skatin' 'round somewhere in th'city, th'kind y'always see but never really see. I'm th'kid who came here from th'ocean in th'belly of a metal thing, t'find out that she was really a wolf, an' that she had a tribe an' a place t'call home, here. I'm still sortin' out what alla that means, too."

Kaz mutters, "Me, I'm just bouncin'. From, well, everythin' an' nothin'."

Matt touches his neck and examines it. "Oi'm still leakin' claret, aren't Oi."

Max's half closed eyes open a bit as she listens to Anneka's statements. "Careful, Zee. Don' get too close to Streetfish'r you'll fall in 'n I can't hold my breath that long." Could be a compliment or an insult.

The raccoon, as Anneka speaks, rises back on his haunches. Good. You ever think you're done finding out, you're wrong. He pokes his nose at her hand, and then hops down off the fountain with a *fwump* and waddles over to Bernie, where he settles down into silence, sitting next to her with his feet tucked under his stomach.

Bernie's feet go still a moment as she listens to the cub's answer, and she nods once, approvingly, after thinking about it a second or two. She glances over to check Matt's neck, worried again, and nods once more, this time not so approvingly. "Yeah... you're still leakin'. Prolly we oughta go put a couple tubesa Neosporin an' a hugeass bandaid on that, in th' soon..." She reaches over to scrtich 'Hood behind the ears almost absently, as he's settled there.

Kaz nudges Max, to warn her that she's moving, and then rises to her feet. "Y'all're fab and shit, but I gotta go do that, y'know, patrol thing. 'Hood, you're m'damn hero."

The raccoon, a little uncertain still, shies slightly at Bernie's scritching, but then discovers he likes it and leans into it. He looks up at Kaz and chortles, deep in his throat.

Max pushes up as Kaz does. "Y'want comp'ny, Zee?" She casts a still-fascinated look at Hood.

Anneka blinks again and glances from Hood to Max then rests her chin on her knees. Her bright green eyes have a distant edge to them, wide and unfocused, her smile muted but there still.

Kaz grins. "Sure thing, Sparks. C'mon, let's blow this popsicle stand." She adds, "People, later..." and then heads off, flute case in hand, toward the Rialto.

Matt nods, dipping a hand into the fountain to wipe the blood dripping from his wound. "Good job it doesn't 'urt." He snorts bemused, at the interplay between Anneka and Hood.

Anneka's eyes are largely obscured by her sandy, curly hair, but somewhere along the line they've grown brighter, her attention drawn back to the here and now and a raccoon. She glances at Hood, sidelong, a little hesitant if intrigued.

Bernie, sitting on the edge of the fountain between Matt and a raccoon spirit, keeps scritching the latter between the ears as she reaches over with her free hand to take a better look at the still-bleeding gash on the former's neck. She's hurt too, but the odd circular wounds on her face are no longer bleeding and don't look too worrisome. "You doin' that, or does it just not?" she asks the Fianna.

"Not whot?" Matt asks, not parsing her question.

"Hurt," the Ragabash clarifies, finishing her inspection and pulling back a little.

Bitter Cup comes in from the shadows near the river, toward where the webbed, silent bridge spans its waters. Her sandy-yellow coat does little to nothing to hide her from sight, though strangely the shadows seem to cling to this hispo's form.

Matt waves his hand in a circular motion, encompassing the woad on his face. He's wearing easily twice as much as anyone else in his pack, covering the upper portion of his face in a diagonal from right temple to left cheek. "feelin' no pain, really. Aches a bit. So do the ribs." The gash on his cheek follows a parallel line, and weeps blood slowly.

Bitter Cup continues to approach the center of Harbor Park. Though her dark eyes watch the small gathered pack carefully, she makes no special effort at stealth. The raccoon spirit gains no small part of her attention.

Bernie continues to scritch Hood, who presses up into it purring a bit and being generally reminiscent of a cat in his reaction. Catching a hint of movement, Bernie's attention is distracted from her packmate's wounds and toward the approaching Hispo, who gets an inquisitive look as the girl tries to determine if this is someone she knows.

Matt follows her gaze, adn raises an eyebrow at the newcomer. Turning to Hood he asks, "Mate o' yers?"

Bitter Cup approaches within comfortable conversation distance of the other Garou. The shadows continue to cling to her fur like a cloak, waving languidly as she flicks a greeting ear at the others. Hello.

Hood tilts his head a bit one way, and then the other, taking in the Hispo, in a way that strongly implies no, he doesn't know her. Bernie lifts her hand from the scritching, briefly and much to the spirit's dismay, to wave. "Hey," she replies, curiously.

Anneka stirs slowly, brushing her hair away from her eyes as she glances off towards the newcomer as well. Her smile's faint, her eyes curious if clouded in a fashion that suggests that her mind is not entirely on the moment.

"'allo," Matt replies, smiling a little distantly. "Matt Fulton. Speaks-in-Circles. Fianna philodox. Cliath. Packmate to Trouble." This last makes him smile more widely.

Bitter Cup flows into homid as introductions begin, returning to that form instantly through the gifts of the umbra. "Hello," she returns to the Fianna with an absent smile, as she straightens into a standing position. "I've seen you before at moots, but I didn't know of that pack. I'm Andrea Wyatt, born as Drinks-Deeply-of-the-Bitter-Cup from the silver river, theurge Master of the Rite, Voice of the Goddess for the Children of Gaia, and alpha of Ouroboros under Uktena's guidance." Almost as an afterthought, she adds, "You may have heard of me as Moon-Laughs-Quiet."

Anneka sits up a bit more, her eyes drawing into focus as she uncurls, setting her feet down on the ground. There's a glance back towards Bernie and Matt, then to Andrea. Her faint smile grows a bit. "I'm Anneka. Philodox cub of th'Bone Gnawers."

Bernie grins, sitting up slightly straighter. "Bernie Rosenberg, Stomps-Th'-Wyrm-With-Steeltoed-Boots, Cliath Ragabash 'Gnawer, an' also packed with Trouble. Niceta meetcha; 'licia's mentioned ya... this's Hood," she adds, indicating the raccoon. He puffs up slightly at being introduced.

Matt chuckles. "To be 'onest, Oi've 'eard of you as"--he does a poor imitation of Alicia--"'Oh my God! Andrea's at th' caern, Oi 'ave ta go!' So. Pleased ta meet you. Do you prefer one name o'er anovver?"

Andrea laughs softly at the impression, though the theurge doesn't give the impression of mocking the cub. Hood gets a bowed head of respectful greetings. "I packed under Raccoon, long ago," she comments, softer than her introduction. Eyes back to Matt, she answers, "I am Andrea Drinks-Deeply-of-the-Bitter-Cup. All other names were left behind."

Bernie giggles, and nods. "...yeah, that's 'bout right," she agrees to her packmate's impression. "'s niceta meetcha."

Matt nods. "Oi'll go wif Andrea, if ye doan't mind. 's roight 'andsome ta meet an actual August Personage." He leans his head back against the fountain, unfortunately opening his neck up a bit more.

Anneka drifts off of her fountain perch and over towards the folk gathered near Hood. The raccoon gets a careful smile as the cub brushes her hair from her eyes, a smile that's bigger, if lopsided when she waves to Bernie and Matt, to Andrea as well. "I've gotta go do somethin' b'fore th' sun's up," she says, quietly. "So-- g'night." Then, to Andrea. "It was good t'meet you." She almost starts off towards the Umbral city, then stops, utterly still. "Oh-- yeah." She turns about on a heel, to the fountain.

Anneka takes a breath before she looks down at the water, watching her reflection, the moon on it, then reaches down into it, and elsewhere.

Andrea says a farewell to the cub before turning to look at Matt's neck. "Run into trouble?" she asks.

Matt shrugs. "Found it, killed it. Not before it got a shot or two in, though."

Bernie laughs. "Well, act'ly, it was th' wyrmy SUV that ran inta Trouble... in a non-collision sorta way." After a quick wave goodbye to the cub, she gives the still bleeding wound another somewhat concerned look. "...we prolly oughta go do somethin' 'bout that 'fore you run outta blood, though..."

Andrea's eyebrows arch. "Shifting is the good first step," she advises mildly. "You won't regenerate in that form."

Matt shrugs. "Joost shifted back a few minutes ago. Wasn't doing much good. Probably needs some bandaging ta 'old it closed."

Bernie nods, and pushes up from the fountain, giving Hood's fur a last scruffle and then offering the hand to Matt to help him up. "Prolly so," she agrees.

Andrea rolls her left shoulder in a half-shrug. "I've just found being in a healing form helps healing," she comments before dropping the matter. Her eyes steal to the edges of the park. "I need to keep moving, though. Well met, Trouble. May Raccoon guide you well."

Matt winces as he accept the hand and rises, straining his ribcage. "Aye, as does rest. An' may 'e keep 'is eyes on you as well. The wind at yer back." To bernie he smiles. "Fanks, Books. Shall we limp 'ome then?"

Andrea shifts again into hispo before moving off, deeper into the city.

Bernie half-smiles, and nods. "Home sounds like a plan t' me," she replies. "G'night, Hood. Have fun, yeah?" Keeping possession of the hand, she turns her focus to the water of the fountain to begin the trek home.