It is currently 21:24 Pacific Time on Sun Aug 22 2004. Currently the moon is in the waxing Half Moon phase (48% full). Cockroach Mansion -- Downstairs The heavy, dark opulence to this mansion known as Dominion is perfectly exemplified by the room vistors first enter, this front hall. Dark-stained wood serves as paneling on the walls, gleams with high gloss in the hardwood floor, and supports a semi-circular balcony in carved pillars. The heavy double doors, made of oak, open into the hall from the south, opposite the huge, hourglass-shaped staircase composed of red and black gneiss which soars up to the balcony; both are fenced in with a wooden railing of simple spiraled posts. Several doorways can be made out on the second floor, nearly blending in discreetly with the back wall. The wall to the left of the front doors is composed entirely of windows which run from the forty-foot-tall domed dark wood ceiling to the floor; if drawn, the heavy velvet drapes of deep red would completely mask them from view, but when parted, as they often are, one has a marvelous view of the grounds outside. A doorway to the right of the front doors leads to a parlor, and towards the back are the kitchens, the large dining room, and an office with an adjoining bedroom suite. Natalie leads Saul down from the tower, talking as she comes. "...Of course they're of the Weaver. So are we. --Sort of," she amends, pausing at the base to catch the light after him. "Cockroach is our totem. Cockroach survives. Cockroach knows the Weaver, but doesn't get caught in his webs, or spin any of her own. The Weaver isn't the Wyrm, Saul. We can work, hmn. Not with, precisely. Near. Around. In the vicinity of. In relation to. You see?" Chaney comes charging, thumping down the stairs as Natalie and Saul arrive. She stops at the bottom, claps her hands together, then goes racing back up. Saul shrugs at this, "We work with the Weaver so long as it serves one of our goals..." He trails off as he watches Chaney's display and then facepalms, "What were you saying about sending me away to learn computer stuff?" It's a rhetorical question, but he couldn't say anything nice. "Chaney!" the Galliard tosses at the lupus cub as she heads for the parlor. Then to Saul, "Send you /away/? C'mon, kiddo, think it through. Whyever would we send you away when you can have any teacher in the world for the price of DSL?" "Lessons," she adds, this time to Chaney. "Theology. Weaver, Wyld, Wyrm." "Naaaaa-t!" sings Chaney, and she races back down the stairs, grinning toothily. She's getting better at that, though she grins very widely most of the time. Saul follows after Natalie and plops himself down on the couch, "In the beginning there was the Wyld and the Wyrm. Yin and yang. Raw creation and chaos. Purposeful destruction. Not exactly a happily married couple." "In the beginning there were three," Natalie corrects mildly. "Weaver, Wyld, and Wyrm." She angles away from the chair the cubs always saw her use until about a week ago, choosing instead a less-imposing piece to seat herself in. "Creation, Order, Entropy. And when the three of them worked, everything was as it should be. The opposite of death isn't life. It's -creation-. But when the Wyrm got caught in the Weaver's webs, everything went merrily to hell. But that's basic stuff. The other Garou, they mistrust us because we work so closely with the Weaver. And again, that's not precisely the best word, but there -is- no single 'best' to use. We're affiliated with the Weaver, but we aren't his servants." Chaney bounces onto the couch next to Saul and immediately sprawls, taking up far more than her fair share of space, crowding the other cub. "Weefer," she says brightly. Saul gets up from the couch and walks over to the corner to reclaim his laptop. He sits on the floor in front of the couch and nods as he opens it up, "I know I'll probably get my head taken off for blasphemy, but I /have/ to ask it so I can see the opposite side, so don't kill me in the first swing. Why /don't/ we work with the Weaver? Cockroach seems to have a lot in common with the Weaver. Technology, order, information?" Natalie watches the byplay between the cubs with barely-veiled amusement. Saul's question isn't answered at first while she scrubs at her hair with clawed fingers. "Follow it through. We work with the Weaver. Then what?" A glance to Chaney and she adds mildly, "Go close the drapes, Chaney." Chaney, triumphant, stretches full-length along the couch, but she doesn't have time to get comfortable before Natalie gets all authoritative. Her lower lip pouts out, but she does as ordered, albeit with a huff. Saul hops up and lays full length on the couch, laying his laptop on his stomach, "Follow it through... Okay. He work with the Weaver, grandmother spider likes us, she gives us info more easily and... Ummm..we kill things that threaten her and not Gaia? I dunno. S'why I'm asking. Old and wiser heads must've thought of this before." "Follow it through," Nat directs again. "The Weaver 'wins' this little tussle between the three of them because of our help. Then what?" Her attention's roughly split between the pair of them, flicking between sulky Chaney and sprawling Saul. "...Once they're closed, Chaney, come back. I want to hear what you've got to say on this one too. Homid or hispo, pick one. But you have to contribute." Chaney closes the drapes, turns... and finds Saul on the couch. In her spot. Her eyes narrow. Then her mass increases and she drops to all fours and bounds forward and back up onto the couch. Saul can dodge or be squished by the Hispo. Saul closes his laptop quickly, throws it aside and is squash'd, "Alright. Ummm...oif?... Okay. She wins. Everyone gets a computer? And everyone gets to know everything...And all music is techno, I guess...and I guess there's no logic to flowers or trees, really... Ummm...a lot of deforestation happens?" He mumbles, "Ya know, I /was/ here first. Didn't they teach you in the pack that whoever gets there first, gets the comfy spot?" As a dire wolf, Many Faces is a little over five feet tall at the shoulder and is a brutish, hulking mass of fur and muscle, a war machine on four legs. Long legs end in huge paws, each one well-armed with wickedly sharp claws, and the heavy, fang-filled muzzle is perfectly formed for ripping and tearing. Many Faces's fur is mostly reddish-brown, similar in hue to that of an Irish Setter, but her paws, tail-tip, and ear-tips are dark brown. Dark brown spots cover her lower legs, petering out about halfway up. Her jaw, throat, and belly are all a pale yellowish color, and above each blue eye is a small white spot. When raised, her tail curls over her back like a husky's. "She was there first," quoth the Galliard, mildly. "You sat down, she sat down. She pushed, you left. The couch was hers." Ah, basic pack workings. What fun. "Chaney... /Chaney/. What happens if the Weaver wins?" Many Faces is also, at least by her reckoning, dominant to the other cub; that much is blindingly clear in her body language. Far too powerful jaws snap far too close to Saul's face as she claims as much space on the couch as her ponywolf mass can take. Which is a lot. She answers Natalie distractedly, telling her that Weaver means nothing changes, nothing grows. The lupus growls, emphasizing how Bad this is. Saul closes his eyes and shifts to glabro and listens to the couch protest noisily. He rolls out from under the hispo'd Chaney and sighs as he hits the floor, "I'm asking Marcus for one of those huge bean-bag things." He says, shifting back to homid and reclaiming his laptop. Natalie says "You don't want her to be dominant to you, push her back. But yes, you're both right. Weaver 'wins', and the world becomes stagnant. Unchanging. Wrapped up in webs. It swings too far back to the Wyld, though, and there's nothing but change and chaos. Anarchy everywhere." The woman stretches her legs out in front of her, claiming her own space in front of her chair. "What we /don't/ want, more than anything, is for any of the Triat to win. What we want is *balance*. As it should be. The Wyld is the weakest of the three, so that's who we fight for. Any attacks by either the Wyld -or- the Weaver weaken the Wyrm. And /that/ is what we want." Many Faces lolls her tongue as she listens, ears alert and perked toward the lecturing Galliard. Fight the Wyrm whereever it lives and breeds! Saul points back at Chaney, "The Litany. Okay so we a living funnel. We cause the Weaver to beat the crap out of the Wyrm. We're the guys who have to out-think a being who could probably write us out of existance by making a phone call to a cell phone or something..." He opens up his laptop once more and goes browsing the web. With a snarl Nat surges out of her chair and over to Saul, slamming the lap top closed. Fingers? They'll grow back. "I'm /talking/," she growls inches from his face. "You want to live long enough to meet a Net Spider, you'll never ignore me again!" Many Faces startles at the sudden burst of movement from the Galliard, her ears flattening. Then, recovering, she regards Saul with an expression that's nothing less than smug. Saul begins to start up but settles himself back down and frowns, "I was multi-tasking, ma'am." He jerks his fingers out from under the screen, "It will never happen again, however." He says through gritted teeth. Natalie's bared teeth are far too reminscent of a wolf's right then for comfort. "Damn straight it won't," she agrees, staring at the boy until his eyes drop away. "You're so damn desperate for people to talk to instead of the web, and what's the first thing you do when I talk to you? Pull out your laptop!" A huff, a snort, and she pushes herself back to her feet, dusting off her knees and letting her irritated gaze sweep over Chaney as well. "Well?" Many Faces tilts her ears backwards and licks her chops, her curled tail thumping the couch appeasingly. She lets out a little whine to emphasize this. Wyrm is the enemy. We fight Wyrm. For Weaver and Wyld and Gaia-Earth-Mother. Yes? Saul opens the laptop a sliver to check on the screen and then closes it, setting it aside. His frown continues as his eyes shift back and forth across the room, attempting to grasp more of the situation. Natalie snorts at Chaney as well before turning on one heel and pacing over to the far wall. "Exactly. Most of the other Garou, they don't see things the way we do. They'd paint the Weaver with the same brush as the Wyrm, when in reality..." This time her snort is dry humor, not irritation, and when she turns to the cubs she's regained some of her earlier good mood. "Hell, in -reality- no one knows what's going on. But they'd kill the Weaver and the Wyrm both in their efforts to protect the Wyld. But that's the end of lessons for tonight. Think on this, though: Any one of the three supreme to the other two is dangerous. Doesn't matter if it's the Wyrm, the Weaver, -or- the Wyld." Many Faces lolls her tongue and expresses enthusiastic agreement, tail thumping the couch. Saul nods slowly and seems to slowly relax, yet doesn't say anything for the time being. He just simply agrees. Natalie considers them both. "Here endeth the lesson. Chaney, I was telling Saul earlier: I want the two of you to spar with each other. Saul, I want you working with her reading and writing at least half an hour every day. An hour'd be better. And now I'm heading up to bed. Don't wake me." Many Faces melts down into lupus form with a tongue-curling yawn and stretches herself along the couch. Sleep, yes. Saul just seems to simply accept this all with a nod, though his frown returns to his face.