Date: Oct 14, 2001

Currently the moon is in the waning No Moon phase (17% full).

Currently in Saint Claire, it is clear outside. The temperature is 64
degrees Fahrenheit (17 degrees Celsius). The wind is calm today. The
barometric pressure reading is 30.14 and falling, and the relative
humidity is 53 percent. The dewpoint is 47 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees
Celsius.)

Harbor Park -- Fountain

Situated in the center of a large, open meadow is a clustering of six
trees, a flower bed, a few steel-and-wood benches set firmly into
concrete, and a flagstone courtyard that is dominated by a large fountain.

The fountain is a wide circular pool of water some fifty feet across and
about five feet deep in most places. The sculpture in the center is a mix
of old and new, traditional and modern: eight concrete-and-stainless-steel
slabs about six feet high are set in a rough Stonehenge-like circle around
the center of the fountain. Water flows from their tops, cascading in
bright mesmerizing sheets to the pool below. Rising above the steel circle
is a large marble statue of the Water Bearer, an androgynous figure draped
in robes of flowing water. It bears a large jug carved with various Greek
symbols, from which pours a seething torrent of water into the pool at its
feet.

Cars on the nearby street have an excellent view of the park as do any
residents of the tall buildings which line the waterfront.

The murky waters of the Columbia River flow swiftly along the east side of
the park. Bracketing the park to the west is First Street and the city of
St. Claire. Recent construction work is creating an earthen berm several
feet high all along the borders of the park in all directions.

It's about 3 in the afternoon. Kaz is perched on the back of one of the
benches, reading a book. There's a large bag of trash sitting on the bench
next to her.

Salem strolls into the park, the collar of his coat turned up against the
chill, hands stuffed into his pockets, sunglasses veiling his eyes. He's
directionless at first, but sight of Kaz prompts him to head in her
direction, hawkish features setting into a firm-jawed mask.

The metis sees Salem fairly quickly, and she's watching him as he
approaches, book resting on her knees. "Yo," she tells him, once he's
closer.

Salem stops in front of the bench, the Gnawer vaguely reflected in dark
lenses. "Good afternoon." His voice is polite enough, if a bit stiff.
"Mind if I sit?"

Kaz grabs the bag and drops it behind her. "G'head." She doesn't sound
anything resembling inviting, though.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Shadow Lord turned Ronin turned Glass Walker
steps up to perch on the back of the bench, much as Kaz is. His hands,
gloved, come out of his pockets as he folds his arms across his chest.
"It's about Vegas," Salem says, once he's settled down. He doesn't look at
her.

Whatever Kaz was expecting, it's not this. She goes rather still, and
doesn't look at him. "Mmm?"

Salem is silent for a moment, small muscles in his jaw twitching visibly.
The tension in his posture is one more appropriate for a fatter moon,
though he isn't angry. Finally, he takes a deep breath and then lets it
out. "I'm sorry."

She certainly wasn't expecting /that/. She slides a little bit down the
bench to get a better look at him, and just /stares/ at him for a few long
moments. She seems a bit at a loss for words.

Since she's on his blind side, Salem has to turn his head quite a bit to
glance at her, and something about Kaz's expression pulls his mouth into a
small, tight little grimace. He looks away. "I didn't _enjoy_ that damn
summer," he says, rather sharply. "And, to be brutally honest, I still
believe that Las Vegas is better run by Cockroach than Rat. But." He
inhales a sharp breath through his nose, letting it out through his mouth.
"Hmrf." He stares rather hard at the fountain.

When she speaks, her voice is a little hoarse, perhaps from the restraint
she's clearly putting it under. "But what, do tell."

Salem knows about restraint at the moment. He knows _all_ about restraint.
Unfolding his arms, he looks down at hands sheathed in black leather,
adjusting the fit of the gloves around the fingers of his left hand. "But
not that way," he says at last.

Kaz stares at his hands, now. "But you helped." There is no accent. There
is no casual tone. There are just words.

"Yes. I did." There's little point in denying that, even if Salem were so
inclined. "And I regret it."

Her gaze travels back up to meet his face. "OK. So." She pauses. "There
are many things I could say right now that would not be useful. It's quite
hard. Not to. But I think the real question is, what are you doing /now/,
to expiate the wrongs you did?"

Salem's face, scars and all, reveals little but for an iron curtain of
control, a mask that's unwilling to bare anything of the soul that lurks
beneath it. His body language continues, however, to scream with tension,
and if the moon were any fatter, he'd probably seem close to explosion
from the sheer _amount_ of whatever's bottled up under his skin. "Who do
you think informed the Walkers in L.A. what was going on?" His voice is
quiet. Quiet and flat. "And why do you think I abandoned my auspice?"

"Do you want an actual answer or a fabricated one?" Kaz sounds slightly
bitter. "Honestly, if you were to have asked me yesterday if I could think
of a reason why you'd abandon your auspice, I'd've said it was because you
were capable of anything." She chews on her tongue for a moment, and adds,
even more bitter, "It's very easy to hate someone when you don't have to
live next to them." She doesn't look as if she's going to speak again,
until she asks, in a much lower tone of voice, "Tell me about it?"

Salem shifts his glove-adjusting to his other hand, his lips pressed
together into a thin line at the Gnawer's words. He says nothing, though,
until Kaz asks her question. "About my decision to renounce, you mean?"

Kaz nods. "Yeah." It's said very quietly.

Salem, if anything, displays an even _more_ heightened sense of
reluctance. "Because I am _not_ 'capable of anything.'" The following
words come out in bursts. "I walked out of Vegas feeling... sick. To my
stomach." Another pause; he lifts his head to regard the fountain again,
still not looking at Kaz. "I almost decided to go Ronin again. By choice,
this time. I came... very close to making that decision."

Kaz continues chewing her tongue. She's looking at her own hands, now.
"What stopped you?"

"My very last scrap of optimism, perhaps?" A touch of the old, dry,
cynical Salem humor there, though it sounds a bit forced. He shakes his
head slightly, frowning. "I don't know. I thought about it, but not enough
to act upon the idea. A tribesmate in South Carolina showed me a different
path. And, so."

The metis echoes, "Different path." It's only partially a question.

Salem crosses his arms across his chest. Still staring at the fountain, he
nods once. "It's easy to be an Ahroun," Salem says. "You claw. You bite.
You let the Rage burn. You hurt. You destroy. You kill. It's what we were
all made for, of course, but for an Ahroun..." He pauses. "It's easy to
let that be all. To let it drive you to... a place that's nothing but Rage
and violence. That's empty of everything but death." The mask of his face
cracks only minutely, but there's a hollowness in his voice that speaks
volumes.

Slowly, as Salem speaks, Kaz's gaze travels back up to his face. She
swallows. "And that is not tribe. That is not auspice. That is not the
Garou. It is merely despair. And something to work /against/, not for."

Salem utters a grunt that's neither affirmation nor denial. "In any case,
I decided... with some help... that it was better that I. _Not_. Be an
Ahroun. It... doesn't bring out my best side." There's more of that
reluctance; he's not in the habit of baring his soul.

"I no--" Kaz only gets out two syllables when she bites down on what she
was going to say. There's a pause, and then she says, eventually, "You've
been an ahroun your whole life. You've only been a Walker, what, two
years?"

Salem turns his head for a moment to look at her, and though his eyes are
hidden, one could well imagine them narrowing at the aborted remark.
"Closer to three."

"How does being a philodox..." She trails off. Finally, she falls into her
usual way of speaking. "What all about it helps you not fall int' th'
emptiness?"

"Mmh." Salem straightens a bit, unfolding his arms to let his palms rest
against the back of the bench. He returns his regard to the fountain.
"It's... different. A separation, you might say, between myself and what I
was. And what I no longer wish to be." And if that wasn't revealing
enough, his next remark goes one better. "It's already far too easy to...
regress."

Remarkably, Kaz sounds not at all wary, and not at all strained, when she
says, "Yeah?"

A wry look flits across Salem's face and is gone. "Old habits die _very_
reluctantly." He purses his lips. "Technically, I should have changed my
name as well, but I've become rather fond of it."

Kaz says, "Eh. Fuck technicalities. An' anyway, ain't that more for
deednames?" After a moment, in a subject change that would do a
peripatetic eight year old proud, she says, "Thanks, by the way. For
calling LA."

Salem nods. "Byte-Me packs under Rat herself. I knew that she would get
people together quickly to take care of things."

"Ok." The Gnawer hops down off the bench, stuffing her hands in her
pockets as she does so. "You mind if I ramble at you for a sec?"

Salem directs his attention to Kaz, watching her intently from behind dark
lenses. "Be my guest."

"I gotta go patrol. So while I love incredibly uncomfortable discussions
where you bare parts of your soul at me, I don' think we can keep this one
up." She's studying him as she talks. "And this thing we just had, it's...
Vital. Something we have to do more of, if th' situation in this town's
gonna keep up. John's one of the three people in this town I respect the
most, and I wanna make sure th' Gnawers an' the Walkers keep havin' at
least a /cordial/ relationship. And there's shit hitting the fan left and
right, so we can't afford to fuck each other up, mentally. But, thing is,
ever since I first met you, you treated Gnawers like dirt under your shoe.
Me more so, but that part, I'm used to. So it ain't gonna be /easy/ to see
you in a new light, ain't gonna be easy to see you as an ally and not an
asshole. So if I'm occasionally a pain in the ass, it's either because of
ingrained reactions, /or/ because you deserve me to be a pain in your
ass." There's the flicker of a smile. "Ask John about that. Anyway. My
point is, this ain't easy. But--" A little slower, as if she's having to
force herself to say it, she adds, "I respect that you started it."

Salem inclines his head slightly. "Thank you for saying so, Kaz-rhya."
There's perhaps a touch of hesitancy over the name, and his manner's
starting to draw back into his usual dignified reserve, but the words
sound sincere enough.

Hands still stuffed in her pockets, she looks at him a moment more, starts
to say something, and then shakes her head. "Right. Anyway. Later." She
grabs her trash bag, and heads off toward the Rialto.

"Later," Salem echoes. He remains perched on the bench, watching her go.
Thoughtful.