Joey wanders in from downstairs, looking a little jumpy. In place of his cigarettes tonight, he's gnawing on a Slim Jim, snapping off a piece of the sort-of-almost-real meat to chew on.

Junior is sitting with his back against one of the walls, reading with the help of a candle. An open bag of M&Ms is to his side.

Well, here you have a rather scruffy looking canine; skinny and sandy-furred and looking like she could use a bath and something to eat, though maybe not in that order. She slips through the front doors, then down under a row of pews, ears forward, tail held at a careful angle. Anneka. Someone's tied a bandana about her neck that looks as scrungy as she is.

There are some large bags of food on the dais; Kaz soon comes stomping upstairs with several cartons of potables, liquid sloshing in the cans. There's Coke, there's beer, there's quite a few other things as well. She sets them down with a thud on the dais, grunts at people, and disappears downstairs again.

Junior glances up as Kaz goes by, and grins, then waves over at Joey.

The dog pokes her head around the corner of a pew, ears up, eyes going to the bags, then to Kaz as she tromps back downstairs. Her tongue lolls out in a canine grin. Then, Otter sets herself back on her haunches and starts to scratch at an ear, head tilted. Fleas.

Bernie slips in through the door, looking a tad grumpy, and musters up most of a smile in greeting toward those assembled as she heads to the dias, and plunks her own offering down on it -- the day's 'defective' pizzas.

Joey heads over to the table after giving Junior a wave, and giving Anneka a friendly, assisting scratch behind her ears on the way. He snags a beer, first, popping the top without touching it, as is his usual method. "Don't all speak up at once," he says.

Junior grins, putting a scrap of paper into the book as a bookmark and setting it aside. "Sorry. It's a good book." He smiles. "What's up?"

Otter pauses with a hind leg poised near one of her ears and lolls her tongue out. Thanks! Hi, too. She sets her leg down then scrambles to her paws and pads over to get underfoot with Bernie. Hi, hi, hi.

Kaz, carrying a rather large turkey, and Max, hauling a few more bags, come tromping back up the stairs. Kaz, too, looks grumpy, but she manages a grin at the assembled multitudes. "Yo, hey. Anyone seen Elan around?"

"Ack, hey!" Bernie exclaims as Anneka, underfoot, very nearly knocks her over, and then half-smiles, leaning down to scritch the cub behind the ears. "Hey. You want somethin' t' nibble?" Kaz gets a shakes of the head, in the negative.

Shadow Eyes, perhaps hearing his name taken in vain, materializes in a rush of amber light and a soft cold breeze, translating out of the Umbra near a sheet of Reynolds Wrap glued to the wall over in a corner. He stretches and yawns, tongue and tail curling as he does so.

"Not yet," Joey admits, after pulling the beer away from his mouth. "Damn," he says, eyeing the food. We can smell what the Gnawers are cookin'. Kickass."

Otter looks up at Bernie, tail brushing about along the floor behind her. Hi. And yes! Haven't eaten anything today! She skews an ear over towards Shadow Eyes as he arrives, then looks back over her shoulder at him. There he is!

Max has a bag too, but hers is the plastic sort found at convenience stores. She meanders in a different direction from Kaz, first catching sight of Bernie and the cub. "Burn! Chica! Jesus-Christ-onna-Log-Ride, where ya been hidin?" Max summarily dumps an entire bag of pixie sticks -- an entire lot of them falling all over the place. Hundreds of sugar-highs scatter everywhere.

Junior eyes the food as well...grinning at the pixie sticks.

Kaz blinks mildly at Elan, and then breaks into a grin. "Hail hail, the gang's all here. Yi said she might have t'be patrollin' or somethin', or maybe she said she hadda be drinkin' patchouli -- I got it via barkin' chain an' it was a little mangled in the translation. So anyway. Hey, y'all. Glad t'see you." She takes a breath, carefully not looking at Elan, and adds, almost casually, except for the seriousness underlying her manner, "We, y'all, are goinna Moot."

Shadow Eyes shakes his ruff and pads towards the group, tail up and ears up in a dominant manner; he chuffs happily at Kaz as he draws near and yips a long high note. Mama will be pleased.

The cub's ears go up as the pixie sticks scatter about all over the place, then bounds forward to catch one under her paws. She ends up under a pew, head sticking out one side, tail the other, looking at the thing. Well, I got /this/ one.

Bernie slips one slice of meat pizza from a box, and casually slides it under Anneka's pew, picking up a couple more pixie stix while she's there. "Hey," she greets Max, looking a little bit sheepish, "school an' work, mostly. An' sleep. 'bout you?"

Max dives in to scruffle the sliding cub. "I been missin' /you/, Streetfish. Fuckin' get used to your tail already." That said, Max flops into the pew behind the pixies, one in her hand and half turns to regard Kaz. She lifts her hand to whistle through her teeth in response to the moot announcement.

Joey lets out a short whistle as he drops down onto a pew. Some might catch it as the Imperial March, but he doesn't say anything else as inspiration hits. He gets back up, snapping a slice of pizza before getting back down.

Shadow Eyes clears his throat and comes forward a bit. he raises his muzzle in a long fluting howl. Look down! Look down! We're the beggars at your feet! Look down! Look down! Show mercy if you can. Look down! Look down! We're the sweepings of the Street. Look Down! Look Down! We are your fellow man! He scratches the church floor with his back legs. He settles down to scratch at his side with a back leg. We Moot, he chuffs, and ends the first part of the ritual by tapping his tail on the floor.

Kaz joins in on that song, using, in her case, the human melodies, blending strangely well with his howl, and then adds, "An' by the way, Mama? You fuckin' bet we're doin' it for her. Because this is us. We're the survivors, the spies, th' watchers an' listeners. We kick ass, when an' where we can. An' we do it 'cause of how Mama taught us. Waitin', watchin', knowin' the right time an' place -- people think we don' give a shit. Well, they're wrong. We give a shit. We just got /sense/." She pauses. "We gonna eat soon enough people, b'cause t'eat is t'do her honor, but we gonna do other things, first. Honor her other ways. Give her news, give her what we know an' why." She looks around again. "Yeah?"

Shadow Eyes yip! Yeah!

Joey lets out a breath, putting the uneaten pizza back down. "I got somethin'," he says, offhand.

Kaz shoots a grin at Elan, and then her gaze slides to Joey. "Yeah?"

Junior moves closer, then setting back to the floor as he gets comfortable. He turns his attention to Joey.

Bernie leans against the side of a pew, getting comfortable, and looks innocent. Hey, =she= isn't trying to eat anything. No food here! Paying attention to Joey only helps in this endeavour.

The cub squirms out from under the pew, ends up atop it with a scrabble and sitting next to Max. She grins the canine grin, then howls short and sharp, joining in with her elders. Then she looks over to Joey.

Standing up, the boy Raggie starts off. "Okay, from the git go. What I heard from mine is that Sepdet was visiting Miz Vicki and all, and there was something in her apartment Umbra that's watching her. So she and the sprouts living with Tom, Alicia's man, and Pathfinders went for a fly-by last week to see if there was anything there. Now, the apartment don't smell of Wyrm, but we did find a Rat Spirit, which told Sebastian that he was moving out. Why? Because there's some things, like spiders, that /are/ Wyrm, moving in. I got Sebastian running to Sepdet, and Alicia telling the Walkers and her Tribe while I'm here jawin' about it."

Max reaches over to tug at Bernie's pants, a finger hooked through a belt loop pulling in the direction of the empty space between herself and the end of the pew. Otter's arrival on her other side draws a smirk from Max. She whoop-whoops along with howls and singing and quiets as Joey begins speaking.

Kaz blinks slowly at Joey. "Well, /that/ ain't no damn good. Alec already moved t'th' Walker's apartment 'cause shit was watchin' him. Y'all stick on it, yeah?"

"'Course," Joey says, sitting down. "Get the bigger dogs to go set up a Revel, so we can get these folks back their homes. That'd be real nice."

"Gettin' there," agrees Kaz. "Anyone else?"

Shadow Eyes chuffs for attention.

Kaz glances at Elan.

Otter, alongside Max, almost looks like she's going to say something, then she's looking over at Shadow Eyes as well.

Shadow Eyes has just returned from tending to the Oak Tree guardian at the former Power Plant. The Shadow of the Park continue to improve, and the spirits we have summoned there are staying. The strange spider-Wyrm things from the corrupted-place-of-healing Umbra grow more numerous, other spirits tell me. The larger creatures are staying put, though.

Bernie allows herself to be dragged, and plops down in the space beside her packmate as guided, staying quiet for the time being. Nothing new to report, just now.

Kaz says, a little wryly, glance sliding from Elan to Joey, "No shit, they're getting more of 'em?" Her gaze further slides to Anneka.

Joey nods slowly. "Yeah. And it sounds like they're staking out new territory."

The cub turns an ear towards Kaz, slowly, then Anneka's glancing over at the metis. Her tail thumps once against the pew.

Max rests her arm lightly across her packmate's shoulders. A glance is cast to Kaz which then follows that gaze back to Otter.

Pack> Max asks across the link concisely so as not to distract Kaz, "Matt okay, B?"

Shadow Eyes is done, and rests on his front paws.

Kaz says, a little glumly, "Sounds like. Otter?"

The cub skews an ear back, then forward. I wondered what spiders wanted with them, but then I remembered. She scrunches down on the pew a bit, claws scraping. ~Hospital~.

Pack> Bernie replies similarly, if a bit tiredly, "Yeah, just been a really busy month, you know? ...You guys all good?"

Kaz says, a little grimly, "Yeah." Then she adds, "Y'all mind if I babble now?"

Max looks from Otter back to Kaz, brows rising beneath her stringy hair. She flips a pixie stick between the fingers of her free hand while the others tap lightly against Bernie's shoulder.

Pack> Kaz, not very focused, sends a general impression of busy happiness.

Bernie gives Max a slight smile before focusing on Kaz.

Otter fidgets, turning about a few times on the pew before ending up curled near Max, just touching her. There's a faint growl turning, somewhere in the cub, though it drifts off, quick enough. She lifts her ears, looks to Kaz.

"First of all, I think y'all already know, but we got us another cub. Galliard. Renee. She's all grumpy and shit, but she's ok, pretty much. An' Anneka there's gonna be goin' on her Rite in like, nanoseconds." Kaz goes on, "Ok. And now f'the shitty shit. First of all, Salem, Mr. Vegas Gnawer Killer, he's gettin' Ostracized f'fuckin' Edge over, breakin' the Veil, an' runnin' outta town. Y'all want the whole story, jus' ask. /Second/ of all... Y'all 'member Rotem? Asshole, but /our/ asshole? Supposedly committed suicide, despite whinin' to 4 different tribes to save him not 2 days before that?" Her voice goes harder. "Well, /while/ the asshole was giving me a mint condition copy of Aquaman #1 so I could win my goddam challenge, Jarred went an' confessed that /he/ actually killed him. Like we all thought anyway. He either owes us fuckin' /big/ or we have to haul his ass in front of a judge, people."

Shadow Eyes flicks an ear.

Joey's jaw just sorta hangs open. "Fuckin' A," he mutters.

Junior growls deep in his throat.

Shadow Eyes's rage slips from his control and he grows up into the Hispo for for seveal seconds before he fights it down. Judge... feh. Gnawers judge Gnawers. I say he just disappears next couple days.

Max purses her lips, looking from Kaz to Junior to Elan and back again. "He say why?" Her tone is oddly casual.

Bernie's eyes narrow, but she doesn't look anything close to surprised, just the same amount of pissed she's looked whenever that Slord's been around or mentioned since, well, pretty much when it happened. Fingernails drum rhythmically on the wood of the bench, beside her.

Kaz shakes her head. "/Fuck/ no, Elan. He's the fuckin' Lord Elder, we ain't makin' him disappear without shit gettin' /noticed/. We are either /gettin'/ shit out of him or gettin' him to proper goddam justice."

Shadow Eyes snorts as he resumes the lupus form. If a Shadow Lord Elder falls in the junkyard car compactor and there is no-one around, does he make any noise?

Joey speaks, very softly. "Well, is it as much making him disappear than ripping his dick off and stuffing it down his throat publicly?"

Kaz tells Elan, quietly, "Feel free. But do you wanna get personal satisfaction, or d'you wanna make him--" she shoots a sour grin at Joey, "/Suffer/." To Max, she adds, with vast stores of wryness, "He said he did it because the political pressure on the Gnawers was gettin' to be too much." There's a pause. "Mighty big of him, ain't it."

Max smirks and settles her hand in the cub's fur, tapping the pixie stick against her paw thoughtfully. She casts another look, sidelong, to Kaz.

Shadow Eyes is more than willing to opt for suffering.

Junior growls. "Oh, real big of him. Sufferin' sounds good."

Otter stares, jaw dropped. Such a human face on a wolf. The fur along her back, ner hear shoulders starts to bristle. Then she shakes her head and turns her ears towards Kaz. A wolf, perhaps, has had too much information given to her at once. She growls, claws clicking on the pew's aged wood-- then looks down at the pixie stick. An ear skews. I wonder why he told you then, if he'd say he never spoke those words if it meant protecting himself.

Bernie's voice is fairly quiet, and much colder than most of the assembled have heard from her. "I remain all for him suffering." That's all, for the time being.

Joey speaks up. "Can I say something?"

Kaz gives Anneka a sour smile. "Against a judge? Ain't holdin'." To Elan, she nods. "/Public/ takin' outta his hide, then. B'cause frankly, he /aches/ not t'have this talked about in public. He /hid/ from it for /ages/. He--" She breaks off. "Yo?"

Pack> Kaz says, "No shit, Bern, you want him to suffer? I had no idea." The sarcasm is practically palpable.

Otter glances up at Kaz, turns an ear. A nod. Secrets are like that. They want to be where people can see them, they'll try hard to be there. They'll come out. For ~Shadow Lords~, this has to hurt. They are a lot of what they hide.

Pack> Bernie's mental reply is completely dry, "I'm a subtle bitch."

Joey stands up. "Actually, you just said what I was thinkin', girl," he starts. "What he did, it says a lot of things. It says he thinks we can't deal with our own, and that's a fucking insult. Yeah, I know all the crap Rotem did since day one, and I argued with you an' Elan about how to handle it. But that's over an' done with, and it don't matter any more. What /does/ matter is that Jarred thinks we can't do our own shit. And, he was disrespectful to Alicia's mate in his own fucking home, so he's already on my shit list. I want suffering, and a lot of Public suffering before we kack him. Life for a fucking life, in the end. And make sure the rest of this Sept fucking knows not to mess with ours. Ever!" He's close to shouting now, and bursts into the Glabro form unwillingly.

Kaz gives Joey a long look. "/Personally/, I'll just take public humiliation and whatever punishment a philo'll give him. B'cause Gnawers has fuckin' died f'fuckin' killin' Garou aroun' here. Don' f'get Tommie. But I ain't gonna discourage no theurges or no ragabashes as wanna do some, uh, more private stuff, y'know?"

Max shrugs narrowly between the Gnawers on either side of her. "If Timmy had dragged his bony ass here, he'd say whatever we do we gotta do /cold/."

Joey shrugs at Max. "Then I'll be a second rate substitute," he says to her. "Oh, I'm all for the public shit, and the Philos. We find a hangin' judge, in that case, and make sure the job gets done. But, my vote is that he suffers, then dies."

Shadow Eyes remembers Tommycat, yes. At least, I know tales of her. What was done to her will not be done again, by anyone.

Again, Kaz says, "More private stuff, Joey. More private." She adds, "We're the soul of propriety, people. We's perfect gentlepeople. /In public/. Anyone as fucks with him in public's gonna get /me/ on their asses. I don' /give/ a shit what we do in private. An' no shit, Elan, it ain't gonna be done because we ain't gonna get /caught/."

Max winks at Joey offering a half nod, chin to chest before she slouches lower, a small not particularly sweet smile touching lips as Kaz speaks.

The cub flicks her ears back, then forward. It's right to bring him to a judge, and right that the ~Sept~ punishes him, one and all. If we do it, then it's us killing him and we'd be the ones judged for what we've done. She leans down to touch a nose to one of her paws, where the pixie stick's been bumping it, then looks up. I bet rats have seen him do a lot of things.

Joey's eyebrows find a place under the new bandanna he's been wearing, and he takes both hands, pointing to Anneka, in a 'hint hint' gesture.

Shadow Eyes's tail wags. Rats see everything.

Quietly, Bernie speaks up again, "Ideally? If you ask me, what I'd like to see happen? Ideally, public, by-the-rules judging and punishment. Privately, I'd like to see him suffer enough, in a quiet and organized fashion, that he commits suicide." A slight pause. "Even if he needed a little hand, there. Maybe especially. Poetic justice is the prettiest kind." There's the slightest hint of something vaguely resembling a smile at the corners of her lips, there, but there's nothing nice about it. "I'm just sayin'. In an ideal world."

Joey just swivels his head to stare at Bernie. "And she was such a sweet kid," he mutters. "Fuck me, I'm impressed."

Pack> Max says "Makin' Einstein proud, fuckin' A, Burn."

Kaz says, vaguely, "Whassat, Bernie?" It's clear from her tone and her posture that she approves of absolutely everything her packmate just said; she just seems to feel this is, somehow, too public a venue to talk about it. "Right," she eventually says, "Judgement. And stuff. In spades."

Shadow Eyes thinks that Stomper wins the prize.

Bernie half-smiles toward her Alpha, sideways, head bowed slightly. "Nothin', Kaz. Nothin' at all," she replies, still soft, but more casually. "...is there more on the agenda?"

After a moment's pause, Otter rears up and somehow manages to get a foreleg about Max's shoulder, though this leaves her leaning on the ragabash. Her other foreleg waves about, counterpoint to her tail bumping against the pew. There's lots of us and lots of rats! Who does he have? Lies. Those aren't family. Not close!

Otter, then, gives Max a very sloppy lick.

Max looks to Otter, briefly startled, then grinning. This, of course, means, she gets a faceful of licking to which she squinches up her nose and mutters something at the cub.

Otter looks back at Max, ears aloft, tongue lolling out in canine laughter. Her tail thumps around behind her.

Shadow Eyes has no other business.

"Agenda..." Kaz looks as if she has to think. "Oh. One more bit've news. We got leeches in town. Y'all keep a close lookout -- Bern got jumped by one, an' me an' Max an' some Walker beat a couple of 'em up, too. I don' know nearly enough about 'em, but John -- th' Walker? He knows a bunch, if anyone wants clues an' shit." Apparently, she's letting Elan speak for himself on that front.

Shadow Eyes knows some about them as well, he growls, and shakes his ruff. ~John~ and I have spoken about them, but it appears I need to see him soon, now.

Bernie just nods once, confirming Kaz's assertion, and runs a hand through her curls.

The cub, still draped on Max, looks around her at Bernie. An ear skews. I've never seen them, I think. I don't know much about them. What do I look for?

Kaz says, unintentionally vaguely, "Things with fangs," and her glance slews to Elan.

Shadow Eyes flashes his fangs!

Kaz suggests, gently, "You got any other clues, chief?"

Shadow Eyes then shakes his ruff, and stands. They are dead things. They have no scent, and only what warmth they gain by feeding. Know them in this way, if you are in lupus. Otherwise.. it can be difficult.

Otter snerfs, almost a sneeze. Then she drops down to rest her forelegs on the pew. That's harder. But I'll watch and listen.

Max adds, with a pixie-stick pet to Otter's furry belly, "They can take a freakin' shitload of beatin and still slam you up and down a wall if you's not careful."

Joey nods slowly, listening to this. "I'll keep an eye out. If you find one specifically, and want to track him down, call us."

Kaz tilts a grim sort of grin at Anneka. "Well, it's parta what you been workin' on anyways, that scent shit..." She shakes her head. "Anyways. Stories an' songs. Anyone got somethin'? I c'ld do th' honors if y'wanted, but..."

Max slouches down in the pew as Kaz turns the moot toward more casual topics. Her arm slides back across Bernie's shoulders to drop in her own lap as she goes about tearing open a paper container and pouring the powder all into her mouth, head tipped back. She lifts a hand in the air then, her mouth full of purple sugar and announces brightly, "Joey's got a voice on him." Another half grin is slid in the other raggie's direction as Max volunteers him.

Joey is a little calmer now, as he shifts back down. "Say what now," he asks Max? "I ain't got a story or a song f'r tonight, so..."

The cub looks down at the pixie stick, then up again. Her ears lift and she scrambles down from the pew to nose at one of the bags and look inside. Hands, hands, hands. I like hands. Hands.

Elan clears his throat. "Three dogs were sitting in the waiting room at the veterinarian's. One of the dogs was hanging its head and sighing. The second dog turned to him and asked "What are you in here for, buddy?" The dog looked depressed, "I'm in big trouble", he said, "My owner has a really nice sports car with leather seats. I just love to go for rides in it. Well, the other day, he took me for a ride and I was so excited, I peed on the nice leather seat. Now he's having me put to sleep."
"I know how you feel", said the second dog. "My owners have a beautiful, expensive oriental rug. The other day they were late getting home from work and I just couldn't help myself...I shit all over their nice carpet and ruined it. They're having me put to sleep, too."
Both dogs turned to the third dog in the waiting room. "So what are you here for?" they asked. "Well," said the third dog, "my owner likes to do her housework in the nude. The other day, she was vacuuming and she knelt down to vacuum under the sofa, and I just couldn't help myself. I hopped on her back and had the ride of my life!"
The other dogs nodded in sympathy, "So she's having you put to sleep, too, huh?" "No," said the dog, "I'm having my nails clipped."

Junior blinks. Then reddens.

Elan sits back down.

Bernie thinks about that a few seconds, blinks, blushes, and snickers a little, tipping her head down to steal one of Max's pixie stix.

Otter looks up from the bag with a bottle of soda caught in her jaws. She has the looks of someone who has missed something, totally. An ear splays out as she glances from Junior to Bernie, then back to Elan. She blinks, then-- Oh! Her teeth clink against the glass.

Kaz snorts in sudden, amused laughter. "That'll do, boss, that'll do..." She trails off. "Ok. Now then. We gotta feast comin' at us. Scuse me a sec..." She rummages under a pew, and gets her flute. Slowly, she begins playing, a nameless, formless tune that eventually firms itself into 'Here Comes The Sun'. She plays it several times, with a few variations, looking, particularly, toward Elan as she does so.

Otter glances towards Kaz, then scrambles off the dias and over to a pew. She sets down on her haunches to watch, the bottle still caught in her jaws.

Elan humms along with the flute work, then breaks into song, tossing his arms and head back as he hits the high points of the piece, finally ending and wiping his eyes. "Goddamn, I'm gonna miss him..."

Max watches Joey leave and turns back to listen to Elan's story. It takes a moment, but then the ragabash snorts. One more pixie stick gone, three hundred and twenty eight left. She licks the leftover powder off her lips with a purple tongue while watching Kaz play, at the same time reaching for the bottle Otter has in her mouth.

Kaz, her own eyes full, segues into 'Something in the way she moves', dancing in a slow promenade around the circle of Gnawers. She plays a brief chordal riff from 'All Things Must Pass', and lowers her flute. At some point in there, the food and drink has... increased dramatically. "Yeah," she mutters. "Me too."

Otter is thoroughly distracted by Kaz and Elan, so it's simple to tug the bottle from her mouth. She looks back over her shoulder at Max, grins quick in the canine fashion, then blurs, limbs stretching out. Soon enough, a somewhat bewildered looking sandy-haired kid is sitting on the floor.

Max pops the cap off the bottle, breaking the hush and offering it back to a homid Anneka with a half smile. "Yeah, but you still got godawful dogbreath, Streetfish."

Anneka sticks her tongue out at Max and catches the bottle in her hands. These distract her a bit and she wiggles her fingers, then grins. "It was kinda hard t'brush my teeth."

Kaz breaks down her flute and then starts digging into some of the stuffing that's falling out of the turkey, silent, now.

Anneka drinks, gulping quick, then sets the bottle down and scrambles over to help with the turkey. Help herself, as well as, well, helping. Gosh, does she look skinny. Her eyes are wide and just a bit lupine. Turkey-- pizza-- hungry cubs don't bother with utensils.

Junior goes over and helps himself to the food as well.

Max smirks at Anneka and twists in the pew so she's lying down with her head on Bernie's closer leg. "You copacetic, chica?" she asks under her breath, a small furrow between her brows as she looks up at her packmate.

Bernie reaches down and ruffles the other raggie's hair, mostly because she can, and nods once. "Yeah," she replies similarly quietly, "just been a pain of a week or so. Thanks."

Max grunts, then reaches down for another pixie stick -- lime, this time -- and dumps it into her mouth, remaining where she is.

Kaz eyes Bernie distractedly for a moment, and then puts her stuffing down. "You wanna talk about it, or's it the kinda thing that don't talk out?"

Bernie glances up. "Just tired an' grumpy an' shit, I guess. Maybe I'm allergic t' birthdays or somethin', I dunno. Middlea finals an' stuff, so, y'know... it'll pass, an' stuff."

Kaz says, blankly, "Exqueeze me?" There's a pause, and she adds, "Did I just /hear/ you right?"

Bernie blinks. "...I dunno. What did you think I said?" she queries, stealing one of the orange pixie stix.

Slowly, Kaz repeats, "Birth. Day. Day of natal /bliss/. Are we supposed to /know/ this shit, Bern, or're you just wantin' t', y'know, avoid th' details?"

Bernie blinks again, and half-smiles. "Oh. Well, I'm pretty sure my mom'd debate you on th' bliss part. It was Thanksgivin', I figured people knew from last year, but, c'mon, it was 17, not exactly a big deal." She shrugs. "Technically, I guess I c'n see R an' NC-17 movies, now, but no one ever stopped me. WIth th' R movies, I mean. Never tried th' other."

Kaz looks at Max, faintly exasperated. "'Not exactly a big deal'," she mutters. "'Not exactly a big /deal/,'" she repeats. "No, Bern, I had no clue from last year. I have no fuckin' idea when the fuck my birthday is, and Max won't fuckin' /tell/ me /hers/, so I gotta fuckin' celebrate /someone's/, and I can't /do/ that if you don' tell me when the fuck it is, you know?"

Bernie looks slightly sheepish again. "November twenny-second," she replies, and offers as an afterthought, "Matt's September nineteenth."

Max tips her head back on the pillow of Bernie's thigh to watch Kaz across the pews, upside down. The closest she can come to comforting just now is in offering to share her legion of pixie sticks.

Kaz quirks an eyebrow at Max, and files Bernie's words away in a mental rolodex. "/Next/ year," she says, very firmly. "Mebbe by then Max'll've gotten over bein' bashful or somethin'."

Max lifts a hand in the air without looking at Kaz to flip her off. "You gotta come hang at the Ree, Burn."

Bernie nods. "I should. You mind me doin' homework while I'm there, though? 's not th' most sociable thing t' be doin', gen'rally."

Kaz grunts. "Hello? Half the time I'm fuckin' playin' the fuckin' flute and she's cuttin' shit out f'that thing of hers. It's called bein' companionable, it ain't like we expect shit of you. We miss you, Bern, an' it ain't like bein' friends, or pack, or whatever, demands we any of us gotta be /entertainin'/ each other every time we see each other."

Max pokes Bernie in the belly gently with an empty pixie stick straw. "What Zee said. You gotta come /hang/, chica."

Bernie giggles, and nods once. "Okay. I'll come be socially asocial at you guys. Gets kina lonely at th' Dec'dence anyhow. Which, you guys should come by, also."

Max eyes Bernie directly from her perch. "I wasn't sure, really, how much company you wanted there."

Kaz starts eating stuffing again, watching Bernie.

"More than none," Bernie decides, "I think more'n none is safe." She gives the stuffing a considering look, and muses, "Think there's a telekinesis gift? That'd be handy, sometimes."

Max sits up. "You go, girl." Pushing her hair out of her face -- it all falls back almost directly -- Max stands on the pew and stretches her arms upward. "Been missing Streetfish's ass, too."

Kaz rises to her feet, puts some stuffing on a plate, and hands it to Bernie with a flourish. "Yes," she says, trying not to smile, "There is. An', yeah, more than none works for me..."

Bernie grins and takes the plate. "Cool. Easier t' learn that I expected." She sets it in her lap and adds, "...thanks. I dunno, I guess I've act'ly been lonely, now that I think 'bout it more, which's weird 'cause I never useta be so much a social kind of person. 's nice t' be 'round everyone again."

Max steps across pews to the next row over, not the world's best at demonstrating affection -- though her effort tonight was indeed a rare event. She heads over and plucks some meet off the turkey's drumstick and nibbles on it.

"Welcome," Kaz mutters, then shrugs. "I hate people, most of the time. Don't mean I ain't a pack animal anyways." She doesn't seem to find this at all a difficult dichotomy to accept. "An' y'can be by y'self in a buncha people anyway. Ain't a big thing."

Max flickers a glance across the turkey to Bernie. "Means I get to poke you more often, s'all." She grins tiny little grin at the other ragabash. "Ain't like I ain't used to getting bit at."

Bernie nods, mouth full, and munches. "'strue," she agrees, after swallowing, and then grins at Max. "Grr, rar! I'll sharpen my teeth, or somethin'."

Kaz mutters, "I don' bite. That way."

Max inquires mildly after taking another nibble of turkey meat and casting an odd look at Kaz, "Hey Burn, did you and Matt see the meteor shit the other night?"

Bernie brightens and straightens up a bit, with a nod. "Yeah, I dragged him out t' th' Lone Boulder where there's not so much light t' get in th' way. It was kickass, I never saw so many of 'em at one time. Li'l chilly, but worth it. 'd you?"

"I was Umbral," Kaz says, quietly. "At th' Caern. It was... amazin'."

Max nods silently, looking back down at the turkey. She picks off another piece of meat and nibbles at it.

"Ooh! I didn't think of that... what was it like there?" Bernie asks, forgetting about her stuffing for the moment.

The metis is not, generally, given to rhetorical flights of fancy. "Like I could see Gaia, all around me, constantly. Spirit surroundin' us, spirit becomin' part of us."

Bernie thinks about that, and nods. "I guess I'll hafta try that when the next big shower comes, in, what, ninety years?" She smiles slightly, and takes another bite of the stuffing.

Kaz shakes her head, lightly. "They're... I done it before. Leonids, it's worth it ev'ry year."

Bernie makes a mental note of that. "I'll hafta check it out, next time, then.... def'nitely." Glancing down at her plate, she sighs. "I prolly better get t' bed, I have a mornin' class t'marra."

Kaz glances around. "Fuck." To Max and Bernie, she demands, "Y'all'll distribute some've this food, right?"

Still standing on the pew, Max salutes. "Yassir."

Bernie does likewise, from her seat. "You got it, chief."

Kaz says, "Thank yew, thank yew. Me, I get t'go patrol. You comin' with, Max, or're you gonna crash?"

Max hops off the pew. "Comin' with."

Bernie eyes the food. "I... guess I'll put off th' goin' home t' sleep 'til after passin' some of that out, then."

Max pokes Bernie as she steps past her. "I got it covered, Burn. Go crash."

Kaz adds, "Most of it can kinda stay til 3 hours from now, after all."

Bernie stands, pushing a stray curl behind her ear, and entirely failing to convince it to stay there. "You sure?"

Max uh huhs, half grinning at her auspice-mate.

Patiently, Kaz says, "Positive, actually."

Bernie nods once. "'kay, then. I'm gonna go crash, in that case. I'll try an' drop by t'marra or th' day after or soon, anyhow." She steps over and grabs both packmates in a big quick hug before releasing them again and heading for the door.

Max is left looking comically surprised. She waves after Bernie too late.

Kaz's hug is quite firm; she doesn't seem at all surprised. "Later!" she calls.