"Didn't they need Galliards in Idaho?"

Bawn: Central Forest(#2876RA)
The forest is dark and quiet. No, not quiet. Listening. The ancient firs rear up all around, branches interwoven in a dense roof of dark green. Fallen needles lie in a thick carpet on the ground, heaped up around the drifts of undergrowth clinging to the scarce patches of light reaching the forest floor. Every sound seems muffled, and the sharp scent of pine hangs in the air like the clouds of midges that swarm ceaselessly beneath the branches. Even the many deer who roam here seem to step more quietly than usual, and the songbirds seldom sing.
The forest spreads out around you in all directions.

Long-Suffering makes her a slow, progressive pace towards the center of the bawn. She really is not heading in an particular direction, just wandering about out of boredom.

This wolf appears to be a defined best as a red wolf, commonly found in the continental United States. From nose to tail, she is about four and a half feet in length and weighs between 45-50 pounds. Her ears stand erect at the top of her head, sloping down her angular muzzle to her charcoal black nose. From either side of her muzzle, there is a pair of golden-brown lupus eyes. Characterized black lines mark out her maw, filled with pearly white fangs. Her undercoat is thick, trapping in air to help keep her warm in a harsh winter storm. The guard hairs are coarse and hollow. Her legs are long and muscular, making her create graceful and purposeful movements. Her angular muzzle slops from a broad skull down her neck, shoulders, and back. Narrow, muscular shoulders shape her form as they lead down the rest of her form. The length of her fur is a fine blend of tan, nutmeg, bark-brown, gray and black. The tan is briefly seen in splotched on her cheeks, chin, upper chest, belly, and the underside of her limbs. Her posture seems generally neutral unless provoked.

Power-Up, on the other hand, does seem to be moving with some purpose, coming from a westerly direction and moving towards the centre also. His nose is quite low to the ground as though he's either following a scent or else trying to pick one up. Then he finds one, though it's not one he knows, and after a moment's pause he lopes off at an angle, following it. As it's barely a minute or two old he doesn't take long to come up behind the other wolf, whereupon he lets out a firm bark. Hello, hello. Who are you, who?

Long-Suffering turns her head over her shoulder to look towards the wolf behind her. A guest, she chuffs. For now. She dips her head while sniffing in the direction of the other wolf. Long-Suffering, she begins to introduce herself. Uktena Songkeeper. She leaves it at that, not implying anything more about herself to the unfamiliar wolf.

Power-Up moves up to Long-Suffering and the pale-brown wolf gives the red one a good sniffing. Now he's this close to her, the Uktena can hardly fail to notice the angry pink scar between his forelegs. I am Power-in-the-Darkness, he introduces himself in turn. New-moon cliath of Those Who Walk Among Glass. But I do not walk among glass just now because I seek knife-moons here on the bawn. Have you seen any?
Long-Suffering stiffens a little as she looks over Power-Up, and her ears flicker back as she notices his scars on his leg. She stares longer than what is considered poliet before shaking her pelt. No, she answers back in a blunt chuff.

Power-Up circles round the Uktena curiously. Are you a cub? I have not seen you before, no, not scented you, not heard of you.

Long-Suffering huffs in slight disgust at being called a cub. No. Her ears raise on her head as she watches the Glass Walker circle her. The fur at the nap of her neck ruffles up in defense. I come from Two Stumps.

Power-Up doesn't seem very impressed. For all the meaning that explanation has for him, she might as well have said she came from Mars. You are here now, he points out (redundantly). You did not tell rank. Have elders said you can be here on bawn, here close to caern?

I am Cliath, the red wolf replies. Reflection's-Howl and Circle Keeper have allowed me to be on the bawn anywhere I wished, as long as I do not step into the caern.

Power-Up's body language betrays a little disappointment, perhaps, that he cannot order this newcomer off the bawn. Where is Two Stumps? he enquires. Have you come far? Are you staying long?

Long-Suffering crouches and points out her tail as she reads the other wolf's body language. The lupus decides that it is better to continue this conversation in homid, thus shifts into birth-form. "I come from Howe, Idaho." the mutli-ethnic girl responds. It is easy to tell her Native American-Black ethnicity. "And I plan on staying her for as long as this Sept needs a Galliard."

Power-Up follows the Uktena's lead and changes up to homid form, revealing himself to be a long-legged, skinny teenage boy, seemingly a couple of years her senior. "Didn't they need Galliards in Idaho?" he asks, innocently.

Cricket appears headstrong for her age, and she comes to stand with her hands on her hips. "Yes, but I came here on a request."

Kevin raises one eyebrow a fraction. "Whose request?" His queries are still polite, but nonetheless firmly spoken.

Cricket plants her moccasins on the ground as she looks directly towards the Glass Walker. "White Bear," she replies in a deadpan voice.

One corner of Kevin's mouth turns slightly upward. "It was my understanding that White Bear was 'dead'," he drawls, waggling his fingers to demonstrate the presence of inverted commas round the last word.

"He is," the Galliard replies and raises a lone eyebrow. "Sometimes news gets around slowly." Her arms fold across her chest and self-confidently stands before the Ragabash.

"And so we need good galliards," Kevin concludes with the air of a man slotting the last piece into a jigsaw puzzle, "to make its progress faster." His body language, in contrast, is languid and rather forcedly nonchalant. "But even though he's dead, his request to you still holds good?"

"No," Cricket replies, "but the Uktena here see use for me. We are small. I am seen no different than any other guest that you have.' The Uktena frowns. "I even came here clean of Wyrm and Weaver, and I was still treated unkindly on the soil that was once my brothers."

Kevin fidgets a little at Cricket's forthright declaration of her purity. "There is a fine line between stringent checking and unkindness," he points out. "I hope that no garou here would show you ingratitude after you were shown to be untainted."

"No more than they should show an unfamiliar in their territory," Cricket replies, her eyes briefly looking up into the sky. "But when all know who I am, I hope that I am treated well for somone whose tribe was here first." She raises her brow to see if the Glass Walker will disagree with her.

Kevin looks as though he'd like to, but he doesn't. "News of your presence has yet to reach all of us," he points out with slightly strained gentleness. "In this sept, there are many tribes, and news does not always move as fast between tribes as it does within them, if you follow me."

"It sounds that there are little Galliards to go around." Cricket replies. "All the more reason to have more, don't you think?"

Kevin again sounds like a man who's completed a jigsaw puzzle. "Then it's a good thing you're here!" he proclaims, with a smile and both eyebrows inching up to denote his amusement at the circuitous argument.

Cricket smiles, which really is a friendly-gesture. Perhaps she knows who Kevin is and his story but is simply being polite because she is still in guest status? She does sigh as she rubs the back of her head. "I have not been to the scab nor do I have any wish to, but is it as bad as I have heard?"

Kevin's eyes narrow for a moment as he considers that one. "I don't know what you've heard," he says, in rather friendlier tones than he's mostly used so far. "It can be pretty bad. Equally, it has its good points. You can't really compare it to the bawn, or even to a normal parcel of countryside. The two things just aren't the same. As for not wishing to go there, well, I can understand your desire, but the Litany tells us to fight the Wyrm wherever it lives and breeds, and sure as hell there's no place it does that more than in the cities."

Cricket nods her head in agreement. "I will go wherever Gaia is in need of an able body," she replies. The Galliard combs her fingers through her long black hair as she drifts into an odd silence. "But I have no desire otherwise."

Kevin nods firmly. "I go all over the place," he drawls in his soft English accent. "Not a big one for sitting on my backside all day and waiting for the Wyrm to come to me."

Cricket appears a bit amused as the Ragabash says this, but the Uktena sobers and frowns a little. "Nor is it mine," the Galliard replies. "The Wyrm finds us even when it doesn't have to look sometimes, however, that is why we have laws. We have laws to keep us in good mind and spirit."

Kevin looks away from Cricket, and fidgets again. "That we do," he agrees in a slightly uneven manner. "Your point being?"

"My point?" the Uktena asks, looking crossed. "Well, what do you think my point is?"

"I don't know," Kevin says a little heatedly. "If I knew what your point was, I wouldn't have had to ask you, would I? Why do you think I need reminding of our Nation's laws?"

"I was not asking to start an agruement," the young Utkena replies. She shakes her head, shrugs her shoulders, and then begins walking towards the wood without a word.

Kevin opens his mouth as though to retort something, then shuts it again, and with a frown turns away from Cricket and starts walking the other way.
Cricket shifts into lupus when she is just about out of sight and disappears into the forestry. It appears that their conversation has ended and quite abruptly.