It is currently 14:39 Pacific Time on Tue May 17 2005. Currently in Saint Claire, it is a cloudy day. The temperature is 56 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the east at 9 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 29.69 and falling, and the relative humidity is 61 percent. The dewpoint is 43 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius.) Currently the moon is in the waxing Gibbous Moon phase (61% full). Safehouse: GW Main Area Like the public safehouse, the foyer of the Glass Walker's private area is set off from the living room by a four-foot-high half-wall. The steps to the second floor disappear off to the right, mirroring the other set. There the similarities end - where the public area is painted unoriginal white, the walls of the Walker house are a dusty pastel teal above polished maple hardwood floors.The living room holds a comfortable couch and a pair of easy chairs, a maple coffee table matched by side tables beside both of the chair. A large plasma television holds pride of place along the far wall, flanked by maple glass-front cabinets that hold assorted media equipment. The hallway leads back toward the kitchen, pausing at a computer room on the left outfitted with enough bells and whistles to satisfy a small LAN party. At the back of the house, through an arch, the kitchen is big enough to comfortably allow two active cooks and boasts a half-sized refrigerator and full pantry in addition to the usual stove/fridge/sink combination. A dining room, nearly as large as the kitchen, is set off by another half-wall like the one in the foyer. The table is in the Mission style, all clean straight lines, and currently seats six, though there's evidence of another leaf to make it larger. Stairs in the foyer lead up to the second floor, while a doorway tucked under the curve of the stairs heads down to the basement. A heavy door in the foyer with a monitor and intercom beside it goes back to the area set up for communal use by the Sept's Garou. Natalie pages to the room: Nat's been over there most of the day (yay country music! Yay house cleaning!). Jeren's just come in, I think. And sure, if you want to set, that'd be spiffy. Here we see the elusive _Greyicus charachus_, a wary and retiring creature who, thanks to the waxing moon and little in the way of quality sleep, has been growing steadily less communicative and social. Currently, this specimen of disturbed Walkerhood is seated in the dining room, head propped against the fingers of his left hand, elbows on the table as he stares, frowning, at the newspaper. Natalie leads Jeren in from the safehouse, where the loud country music has been off for perhaps ten minutes. "I'm thinking about taking it out to Wolf Woods," she explains as the pair hit the foyer. "I have the sneaking suspicion that David knows about Harbor Park, and I -don't- want to give him a free show." Jeren is nodding as she follows Natalie through the door--and her expression is decidedly dubious. She's in the process of giving her poor, abused hair yet another raking with her fingers. "Well, I know about as much about mages as you can fit into a single, short breath, so you won't get much Questioning from me." Even as two garou come in through the door, a third one comes pacing down the stairs. Kevin doesn't race down them three at a time in his normal hyperenergetic way; instead, he walks down almost sedately, his face betraying a mind sunk in deep thought. Grey doesn't react visibly to the sound of others arriving in the outer part of this section of the house. He continues to frown at the newspaper; if anyone were actually watching him, they might notice that he's been staring at the same section of print for over five minutes. Fortunately, no one's been in a position to take witness. "What /do/ you know?" Nat asks, dropping the distracted Kevin a nod. She doesn't stop there, but continues on toward the hallway. Jeren grunts at the question. "Humans that have, somehow, developed or wrested powers that humans aren't supposed to have. I've heard the odd rumor about Caern raiding, but I'm not sure how much stock you can put into that. And that's...it. I've never met one. At least not that I knew of." Kevin keeps an even pace, walking steadily if slowly in the direction of the kitchen, returning Natalie's nod with the barest motion of his own head. Grey continues to stare down at the newspaper, not looking up when Kevin enters the kitchen. Natalie says "Well, there's at least one of them in town." Nat and Jeren hit the kitchen before Kevin does, by dint of the hallway only being so wide, but Natalie swerves over to raid the fridge rather than looking toward the dining room. "Get me a glass, please? Want some OJ? --Anyway, this mage. I call him David - or Tinkerbell if I get really pissed off. He's... done us some favors, and vice-versa." Jeren reaches up and pulls down two glasses, handing one toward the Galliard. "Hrf. Yeah, I'd like some, thanks. So what's his drive? Or does he just find it useful to have a few wolfies around for things he's not grand at handling himself?" Finally, the intrusion makes itself known to the sleep-depped Philodox, who stirs himself and looks over the half-wall toward the kitchen. He notes the presence of his tribemates with a tight-jawed grimace, then closes the newspaper -- not silently -- and pushes to his feet. Kevin follows Natalie and Jeren into the kitchen. It seems his own aim is the fridge too, but he politely stands well back and lets Natalie raid it to her heart's content before approaching it himself. Natalie pulls out her usual uber-pulp juice, unscrews the top and starts pouring before she replies. "You know, I'm not sure." Oblivious to Kevin's wants and needs, not to mention the Philodox, she doesn't move from the fridge, though she does flip the door closed with a foot. "Some of A, some of B. Right now we're in sort of a 'you scratch my back, I scratch yours' relationship. I have a suspicion as to who he is, but I'm not willing to share." Jeren taps her fingernails against the side of her glass, frowning. "Mmm. Useful for the moment, I guess." She gives Grey a belated glance after she finishes speaking, but only offers him a nod. Grey doesn't return Jeren's nod; the surly Philodox simply makes his way through the kitchen -- where even oblivious Galliards can't help but notice him. The newspaper's left on the dining table behind him. Kevin leans against the kitchen work area, trying not to look obtrusive, and not succeeding too well now that four garou are all in this relatively small space. He's still looking thoughtful, and still hasn't spoken, though Thomas gets a repeat of the tiny nod which Natalie and Jeren received earlier. "Exactly," Nat approves, gesturing with the carton so Jeren'll produce her glass for filling. "--Oh hey, Thomas," she adds, catching sight of the silent man and dropping him a nod. "Just who I wanted to see. David's given us a present. -He- says it's a bunch of, hmn, fireflies or something that need to be released on the far side of the gauntlet." Grey is halted in his intended escape by the sound of his name. The name he's going by this year, anyway. His mouth twitches in an abortive grimace as he turns toward her. "...And you're going to do it?" He looks at her with dead, bagged eyes, hands buried in the pockets of his sweatjacket, his voice nearly toneless. Jeren holds out her own glass toward Natalie. She's fallen silent once again, and her gaze hovers somewhere just above the lip of the glass itself. Kevin seems to be taking heed of this mysterious conversation at last. He glances first at Nat, then at Thomas, and raises an interrogative eyebrow. "Well, I wanted to get some other opinions on it," the Galliard explains, splitting her attention between Jeren's juice-glass and the jersey-garbed man. "Like yours. He was all firm about how he's /sure/ all that needs to happen is that they get carted flip side and released, and how he'd try and do it except it'd be easier for us and blah blah blah. But as I was telling Jeren..." The flow of juice tilts off; she screws the cap back on and continues, "There's no way in hell I'll do it at the Caern. I don't even really want to do it at Harbor Park, and I really don't want to do it alone. There's about fourteen of the little buggers, and Gaia only knows what they /really/ look like." Grey's scowl deepens. "I'd want to know the fuck what I was releasing before I released it," is his answer to the Elder. "We're not his fucking /dogs/." Thud, thud, thud. After the second-floor bathroom has been hogged for a solid hour and a _half_, there are signs of life from up above as footsteps lazily descend the staircase. Kevin looks from Thomas to Natalie like a spectator at a tennis match, a spectator who doesn't know the rules of the game and isn't entirely sure what he's watching. Jeren drinks her orange juice with about as much chatter as she gave when it was being poured--that being, none at all. Now that the Galliard and the Philodox are engaged in conversation, she's dropped right out of it, and her demeanor has taken on a slightly different edge. What exactly that is, isn't clear however. Natalie bares her teeth at Thomas in a silent snarl. "Grandmother. Suck eggs. I want /useful/ conversation." Grey stiffens at the show of teeth from Natalie, then takes a step back, face turning aside. Tense, he folds his arms across his chest and addresses the wall past the Elder's head, his brief flare-up of temper rapidly sinking back under a general miasma of weariness. "I think you're treading on thin ice," he says flatly. "That's all." The owner of the footsteps wanders into the kitchen with wet hair and a towel draped around her neck, looking squeaky-clean. Cy blinks at the unexpected gathering in the kitchen, and heads promptly for the fridge. She's wearing baggy sweats and a hooded sweatjacket so enormous on her that it couldn't belong to anyone else but Grey. Beware the cub given access to house laundry. Kevin finds himself caught in the crossfire here, with no evident place to go that seems more safe than his exposed position between the two cliaths, unless perhaps he were to dive for cover under the table. Scorning, it seems, such a cowardly resort, he simply holds his ground, and bites his lip. Jeren sort of...shoulders into Kevin, trying to usher the poor cub out of the way. She finally chimes in again, a little more loudly than should be natural. "Well, I'm sure we're all in agreement that shifty mages aren't to be trusted explicitly." Natalie takes a drink of her high-pulp juice, her eyes flicking off Grey to the uncomfortable looking Kevin, and from there, to Jeren and Cy. "He's done us favors," she says finally. "And you're right, Jeren. I don't." Finding the carton still in her hand, she turns to pull the fridge open with a free pair of fingers and replace the juice in the door. "So now that all of the obviousness is out of the way - /again/..." Grey reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezing shut like a man with an oncoming headache. "If David is who you think he is, he can sense the use of Truth of Gaia. So questioning him's not going to do shit if he /wants/ to lie to us." His eyes open as his hand scrubs down his thin, stubbled face, and he stares hollowly at Natalie. "You wanted my opinion. You have it. You're playing a dangerous game. One that could screw all of us." That said, he turns to head out of the kitchen. Seeing as the path to the fridge is blocked by a knot of apparently tense Garou, Cy blinks again, backpedals, and turns for the coffee maker at the other end of the kitchen. One hand returns to scrubbing at her wet hair with the towel as she pulls out the mug with cows on it. Kevin inches a little way over but remains very close to Jeren, whom he evidently sees as a buoy of security in the choppy sea of rage that's threatening to wash over the kitchen. Certainly, Jeren is showing her fair share of tenseness in this. The glass of orange juice is practically forgotten in one hand. The Ragabash clears her throat, ducks her head, and then states, still in that slightly-too-loud tone. "--Find a Theurge. Have them take a look at those...whatever they are. Hell, I've still got that fang, if you want to go over and sniff them right now. Let's take care of that, and then worry over the bigger problem." Natalie snarls audibly this time, pivots on one foot and flings her mostly-full glass toward the far corner of the kitchen, on the other side from the coffee maker. Juice arcs free in a gilt shower all over the wooden floor, and the glass itself strikes the cabinets and explodes in a sudden shower of knife-edged shards. "/Dammit/!" she rages, whirling back on Thomas'... back, teeth fully bared this time. "Did they cut off your balls -too-?" Jeren gets a furious glance, and then an upward jerk of her chin. "Yes. /Thank/ you. A /good/ suggestion." With the crash of shattering glass, Thomas Grey -- almost at the hall with those quick, long strides of his -- whirls around with a vehement curse in Serbian and, quicker than the eye, lays hands on the whiteboard stuck to the wall -- the nearest and most convenient object to him currently -- tears it free and /hurls/ it, with all the strength of his arms and his Rage, at Natalie. Apparently, Jeren has suddenly contracted a cause of the Stupids, greater than what usually plagues her. Or at least, she's feeling mildly suicidal. Close as she is, she's still not fast enough to step between the two in time to stop that Rage-hurled whiteboard, but she steps in almost right behind it. And then the lights flicker. Click, click, clickclickclick. As if the lightswitch were having a spasm, which it actually appears to be doing. ~That~ Jeren grates painfully in the Mother Tongue, ~Is /enough/! Stop!~ Cy startles tightly at the sound of exploding glass, whirling just in time to see the whiteboard go flying. She rumbles warningly, eyes ablaze at Natalie, then chokes it off with a sudden, "/Fuck/." The cub slams both hands over her ears and screws her eyes shut against the flickering lights, trembling. "_Not. Again._" Kevin evidently decides that pride is a commodity too expensive for the cub to afford, and does dive for cover under the table without further ado. Wolverine's child gets her arms up in time to knock the whiteboard away from her face; the flickering lights do nothing at all to soothe her temper. Nor does she pay Jeren's thin-voiced command any heed, nor Cy's frantic grasp for control. Instead Natalie rushes Grey, leading with her shoulder like a linebacker. "/Downstairs/!" And Jeren was just spinning to face the Elder too--she turns just in time to be half shouldered, half bowled right out of the way, and for that matter, right off of her feet as she was in half-spin and already unbalanced. The Ragabash hits the opposite counter with one shoulder, then the floor, with a yelp that not even the most Delirium induced person could mistake for human. And then she shifts, right there on the floor--straight through to lupus, and she rolls immediately onto her back in the wolf equivalent of 'no squishy!'. Cy just stays rooted in place, ears and eyes closed, growling as she wrestles with her own bucking rage. Kevin goes to ground under the table, his fearful homid eyes meeting Jeren's for a moment as the wolf rolls over mere inches from his hunched-up body. Natalie may not have even realized Jeren was there, not in the mood she's in. Despite her own rule of 'no shifting on the first floor', by the time she hits Jeren she's in Glabro, her height and weight roughly matched with Grey's. She manages to bum rush him back several feet with another snarled, "/Downstairs/," and the pair hit the top of the basement steps together. The Philodox boils down the steps, spoiling for a fight, but she manages to halt her flight by grabbing onto the door frame, then slams the door closed behind him. "Clean it /up/," she yells back at the kitchen before charging through to the foyer, and from thence up the steps. The lupus-turned Ragabash rolls rather stiffly to her feet, favoring one of the forelegs for just a moment before that wonderous Garou healing takes care of whatever dents Natalie's Glabro-rush left. She shakes herself vigorously, then turns toward Kevin for a moment, flattening her ears as she informs him flatly that the elders are moon-mad far too early. Then she pads over toward Cy, nudging at her with a tentative wet nose and whines meant to try and calm her down. "--Leave m'alone," the young Philodox growls, wrenching hands from her ears and yanking herself out of the range of Jeren's touch. Shooting an exasperation-edged frown in Kevin's direction, she storms out the back door of the kitchen and out into the backyard. Hopefully some fresh air will cool her nerves. Kevin peeps out from under the table like a rabbit from its hole, then emerges fully, and makes a beeline for the other door, the one leading further into the house.