It is currently 21:09 Pacific Time on Sun Sep 4 2005. Currently the moon is in the waxing New Moon phase (8% full). Farmhouse: Kitchen and Dining Room Homey is the first word to come to mind when looking at the farmhouse's kitchen. Dark, wood-paneled wainscoting covers the walls to about waist height, dark beige wallpaper continuing to the ceiling. Twin refrigerators occupy the north wall, facing the large six-burner stove on the south. The kitchen counter runs the length of the eastern wall, broken only by the double-basin sink. Cabinets run above and below the counter and a twin-pane window is set in the wall above the sink. A small pantry is set into an alcove alongside the refrigerators, presumably holding the deep freezer as well as shelves of dry goods. Some twelve feet above the floor, a large chandelier hangs from the ceiling, lighting the dining room and casting long shadows over the bar to the kitchen. A long table occupies the center of the dining room, three chairs setting along each side, and one on each end. On the west wall, a large window looks out on the trees alongside the western pasture. Set into the north wall is a large cabinet, its glass doors closed on shelves containing a full compliment of fine china and glassware as well as a few decorative nicknacks. On the east, a wide bar separates the dining room from the kitchen. An opening in the southern wall allows passage to the front entryway of the house, while a sliding glass door in the kitchen opens to a clearing behind the house. Tamara is cooking, or so it would seem. A large pot bubbles on the stove, while meat is being seared in a frying pan. Grey enters through the front door only a few moments after his Ford Torino growls its way up the lane and parks. "Anyone home?" the Glass Walkers calls out. "I am back here," Tamara replies from the kitchen, not willing to leave her cooking unattended. Grey mutters, "Just the person," mostly to himself, and stalks through the house and into the kitchen. "I talked to that cub." The twist in his mouth doesn't bode well. There's a creaking from the stairs, followed by the metis cub appearing in the kitchen doorway with a rather ratty magazine clenched tightly in one of her more natural looking hands. Her brow is tightly wrinkled, and her nostrils flare as she catches sight of Grey. Tamara ahhs, removing the frying pan from the heat. "Are you hungry?" She avoids the topic of Basil for now, turning off the stove top. Grey shakes his head. "I had dinner recently." He gives Bug a glance and a nod to acknowledge her, then crosses the kitchen to get himself a glass of ice water. Bug curls a finger momentarily into her mouth as her gaze shifts from Grey to Tamara, and back again. Then she looks away from both of the older Garou and heads straight for the refridgerator, where she demonstrates that she's quite mastered the use of this device. She rummages with all four hands as well as her nose--every bit of wrapped food or spare packaging gets a good sniff before it's put back down--and it's placed right back exactly where it was before. She looks young, maybe somewhere around eleven or twelve years of age. Her limbs are gangly, a little too long for the rest of her, a little too clumsy to be anything but the product of early puberty. As far as her build goes, she's whipcord thin--the evidence of ill nutrition is still present, though she's begun to build some muscle tone, and her previously hollow cheeks have filled out. Her hair is red, not the carrot top redness that is more common, but a dark auburn. The hair reaches just past her shoulders, though the length is definitely not uniform, and there are split ends galore. In spite of this, however, it has been pulled back into a tight french braid, as neat as can be under the circumstances. Her face is well shaped, with pronounced cheek bones and the promise that, given a few years, it might well prove decently attractive. Her eyes are a muddy sort of green, almost hazel but not quite. She's wearing a pair of very worn looking khaki pants, and an old t-shirt that is so faded the original slogan is unreadable. She has no shoes or socks, but her feet, dirty as they are, look extremely calloused, very used to having no other protection beyond her own skin. There are holes torn into either side of the shirt. This allows for her metis deformity to show clear and obvious--there's an extra pair of arms about halfway down her torso. They look even thinner than her normal pair, and the hands themselves are ill formed, with somewhat stubby fingers that are mostly the same length apart from the thumb, no fingernails, and a missing middle finger on each hand (and a space for where that finger should be). "Very well," Tamara replies politely enough. She selects two bowls and fills them with what looks like a curry, then drops a small piece of meat on top. One of the bowls and some cutlery is offered to Bug with an extended arm. "Hello Bug. Keeping clean I hope?" Not really waiting for a response and continuing to hold out the bowl, she returns her attention to Grey. "I take it that your meeting with Basil did not go well?" Grey takes his drink back to the kitchen table and sinks into a chair. "Nnh. No, not really. The boy really does like to hear himself talk, doesn't he?" The metis cub stiffens at this. She abruptly lifts the bottom of her shirt and gives her face a furious wipe, followed by her two natural looking hands; only then does she turn around to face Tamara and grunt. "Yes." Bug reaches for the offered bowl. Tamara sighs softly. "Yes, he does. He speaks as much as a Galliard, but twists his words like a Ragabash. He has toned that down in my presence, but he knows that I will not stand for it." The bowl remains offered and Bug easily takes it out of her hands. On closer inspection, the food in the bowl is a Gumbo and when tasted, very spicy. Bug lifts the bowl to her lips, sniffs it, then tips it just enough for a somewhat overlarge mouthful. This is instantly regretted, judging by the look that crosses her face. "Hnn!" Grey sips his water. "Does he go into a sulk when you contradict him? He did with me." The Walker's nose wrinkles. "He's obsessed with having the biggest guns and making the loudest bang. Showed no concern over the potential consequences or that he'd likely end up killing innocents needlessly. Argued with me when I pointed out how carrying a gun in the city can get him in trouble. He's /far/ too young to fool the cops into thinking he's old enough. And he tried to tell me that I didn't know how things were in /his/ neighborhood. Bah." He sits back, grimacing. "Typical idiot teenager. Thinks he knows everything." Tamara grunts and spoons up a sizeable spoonful from her own bowl, seemingly unbothered by the spicy food. "From what I have heard, the Bone Gnawers have been attempting to teach him for three months. I have only been trying for a few weeks and personally, I believe that he lives in a world of fantasy, created in his own mind." Grey grunts. "He certainly has a high opinion of himself. To be honest," he adds with a one-shoulder shrug, "I don't know if I got through to him." Bug hunches over the Gumbo bowl. She partially turns her head, attempting to spit her mouthful back into it without drawing too much attention, while her tongue flicks continuously against the roof of her mouth, like a cat with a mouthful of fuzz. Tamara sighs and rubs at the back of her neck, then briefly glances down at Bug. "Oh, come on bug, I made a mild batch. It isn't /that/ spicy." Shaking her head and swallowing down another mouthful of the concoction, the Strider continues her discussion with Grey. "Do you think there is any way to get through to him? Was he willing to listen to you at all?" Bug shakes her head vigorously and points to her mouth. "Nnn! Hot!" Just to get the point across, she points at the bowl, then at her mouth again, and repeats this several times. "/Hot/." Grey takes another sip of water and shrugs again. "He listened. I even got him to answer a couple of times with a simple 'yes' or 'no'. Whether he /believed/ me, whether he'll take what I said to heart, who knows." He glances at Bug, and one corner of his mouth twitches upward with a touch of wry sympathy. Tamara gives her head a shake. "You're just not used to it, Bug. I grey up on stuff like this, only a lot spicier. As for Basil, I have noticed that he argues with everyone and wears different masks for different people. I am starting to believe that he will not learn." Grey grunts. "Then he'll die." He sets his glass down and rubs absently at the scarred side of his face. "Or possibly not. Bigger idiots than Basil have survived their Rite of Passage. Fortunately, I don't think his obsession with military hardware is going to get him anywhere. He doesn't have the contacts or the money, and there's not a dealer in hell that's going to do business with a thirteen-year-old boy." Tamara scowls. "He could just kill people for them. Steal them..." Bug looks abashed at Tamara's pronouncement, and eyes her bowl even more warily. She turns her head slightly at this shift in the direction of conversation. "More cull?" Grey wrinkles his nose. "From whom? People don't leave that kind of thing just lying about, and I don't think he has the wits to organize a decent theft job. He /might/ be able to lift a Glock for himself, maybe a shotgun. Something easy. Not the kind of thing that would outpower a SWAT team." Tamara blinks, clearly caught off guard. "He is interested in something more then basic weaponry?" Bug's chin juts for a moment, but she's got yet another question on the tail-end of her last. "What? Swa-at? G'un?" "Try high-explosive cannons," says the Glass Walker sourly. He cuts a look over to Bug, and his expression softens a touch, turning less stony. "SWAT are a type of human guardian. Elite warriors for dangerous missions. Guns are human weapons that can kill from afar." Tamara stares at Grey for a moment. "Oh, for the love of Gaia. I really don't care about him using Weaver tools, but I wanted him to know how to use his claws and teeth first." This appears to be enough to satisfy Bug for the moment, even though her forehead wrinkles again at 'cannons'. She turns her gaze back to her bowl, which is given two small sniffs. "Cannons are /big/ guns," Grey explains to Bug, catching the puzzlement in her expression. "Big the way a Crinos is big to a wolf pup." Then he turns back to Tamara. "Mm. Well, as to that, he told me he doesn't think his claws and teeth are useless. He /still/ seems to think that because humans carry guns, he should too. I pointed out that we're not so easily killed, but I'm not sure if he was convinced." His mouth tightens. "Which is why, of course, that my tribe makes sure that our cubs take a bullet a few times during their training." He takes a sip of water. Tamara's eyebrows lift, hat moving a little more then it should when she does so. "Do you think that would help him at all?" Bug looks up again at this additional explanation. She opens and closes the hand on one of her lower arms a few times, then lowers it and nods. "Is very big gun." Grey glances at Bug again and gives the mule cub a faint, crooked smirk and a nod. It vanishes as he looks back at Tamara, his expression turning serious again. "It can't hurt," he says with a shrug. "Would you be willing to do so?" Tamara asks. "I know how to hold a gun, but I doubt that I could hit anything with one." Bug in turn drops her gaze to her bowl as Grey looks toward her, though her expression has become terribly pleased. She even dips a pinky finger into the cooling Gumbo and brings it to her mouth--unfortunately, the cold has done nothing against the spiciness, and she ends up grimacing again, though silently this time. Grey shifts his weight, sitting back in the chair. "Certainly." He lifts an eyebrow. "If the Gnawers don't object." Tamara shovels the last of her gumbo into her mouth and swallows. "I was given permission to teach the cub as I saw fit, short of locking him up for more then a few hours. Otherwise, I can beat him within an inch of his life. Being shot will not kill him." Grey toys with his glass. "No, it won't. Hm. Maybe arrange a simulation of a gang beatdown, too. Bats, chains, et cetera. Nothing lethal... to us, anyway. Make him keep his cool and keep the Veil. With a mouth like his, he's bound to get on the wrong side of people, and the Curse doesn't make you immune to attack." Tamara shakes her head. "I would not be able to arrange for that and I believe that he has been in fights with such humans before. At the very least, he claims to have been." Grey wrinkles his nose. "After one meeting, I'd put more value in a cockroach turd than that boy's /claims/. And it shouldn't be difficult. Get some Garou together, in homid. Even other cubs will do." Tamara scowls. "I will think on it... I am not certain about such an idea. Being around too many humans tends to make me somewhat nervous. They are a factor that I am not used to dealing with." Bug finally appears to give up on the gumbo. She takes it to the sink, going so far as to turn on the tap and give the bowl itself a good scrubbing out, before setting the bowl aside to dry and turning back to the conversation. Grey's brow furrows. "I'm not talking about humans. I'm talking about several Garou, in homid, taking Basil to, say, the barn, and administering a beatdown with improvised, non-silver weapons. As with shooting him, it'd show if he's able to keep his cool, and thus keep the Veil under a /real/ situation, and perhaps it'll bring home to him that it /does not matter/ if the gangers near his home have guns. Their bullets aren't going to kill him." Tamara nods. "I will consider it. Are you certain that you do not want anything to eat?" Grey shakes his head again. "No. Thank you. In fact, it's time I started back." He finishes off his glass of water and pushes his chair back. "Very well. Luna light your path." Farewell given, Tamara starts to package up her food and putting the leftovers in the fridge. Grey, standing, inclines his head to the Strider. "Likewise. And you too." This second is directed at Bug. He rinses out his glass before heading out of the house. Bug avoids coming into contact with Tamara's Gumbo by sliding to the side as she passes. Grey is given a slightly puzzled blink, and no return goodbye.