"Who did you think I was, the King of the Spirals?"

Big Red Barn(#3420RA)
The barn is built in the old style, a vast three level structure that is greater in height than a mere three stories, actually closer to five. Great wooden posts support the weight of the upper levels and roof, sunk into the hard-packed dirt floor of the first level like a sparse forest of regularly spaced, naked trees. The stalls and flagstones which once were here have been torn out to leave a rather open area where even crinos Garou may roam freely without fear of running into anything but the supports or the walls or the ladder at the back which allows access to the other two levels.
The first two levels are relatively open to each other, the second being only little wider than a catwalk going around all the walls but the front one, which has massive, twenty foot tall doors set into it. The third level is a true second floor except for a place cut out that allowed hay to be tossed down to the ground floor when the farm was actually worked. Now, it is a hayloft where Garou can sleep outside of the house.

There's a deep growl from near the back of the barn, and then a sudden explosion of hay as a grey wolf launches herself through a half-destroyed bale. Missed me!

Fears-Pain rolls to avoid being tackled by her 'sister'. She ends up flat on her back tail wagging happily. Weee! her body seems to say as she scrambles to get up. she races round to try to 'ambush' the other cub.

Trips-Over-Paws is bowled to one side as the white wolf scrambles up from almost underneath her. Claws scrabbling on the dirt floor, she rights herself, tail blurring in the air as she looks around. Where'd she go?

A tuneless whistling outside presages the entry to the barn of a lanky teenage boy dressed in a dirty track-suit. He's evidently heard the racket of young wolves at play, because as he comes in his head's turning from side to side, looking for the source of the noise. "Who's home?"

Fears-Pain blinks. She watches hears the noise and smells the strange scent almost immediate. She barks softly. Follow me! Hide! She communicates as she ducks into a pile of hay. Hide, then attack...

Trips-Over-Paws's head snaps up, nose towards the new voice. Ooops, a stranger! Oh... At the bark from Fears-Pain, she blinks that way, then copies the other cub in diving in amongst the hay.

Kevin evidently notes the suspicious rustling as two figures disappear into the hay. Still whistling, he moves through the barn and round the punchbag, heading for the loose hay that's piled at the back of the barn, still glancing about curiously.

Fears-Pain pauses, she tenses and then like a white-streak of lightening, she leaps from the hay. NOW! Her growling is a warning as she lands near the 'intruder'. Who? her posture demands.

A little belatedly, Trips-Over-Paws scrambles out of the hay behind Fears-Pain. With a growl she jumps clear of the troublesome dried grass stalks, and scurries around between Kevin and the door.

"Whoa there!" yelps Kevin, confronted by not one but two wolves suddenly scurrying round him. He doesn't seem at all surprised to see them there, though a brief look of discontent shows on his face when he realises that their movements aren't random but are designed to cut him off from the only exit. "Okay, guys, calm the hell down," he says in a sardonic voice. "Who did you think I was, the King of the Spirals?"

Fears-Pain crouches growling still more fericly. WHO? she asks again, eyes fixed on him. To her lupine companion- Move in.

Trips-Over-Paws takes a step closer to the stranger, and growls again. To the experienced ear, there's as much fear there as anger... but that doesn't make the threat behind it any less.

Kevin gives an ostentatious sigh, looking from one wolf to the other, and places his hands on his hips. "Kevin Lockwood, Power-in-the-Darkness, cliath ragabash of the Glass Walkers, and not as you seem to surmise an Elder of the Black Spiral Dancers or a hyper-muscular fomor. Who the hell are you two?" he goes on, carrying the war (as it were) into the cubs' territory.

Fears-Pain pauses. Stand Down, she tells the other cub. The white-wolf, sits stands down herself, less afraid though no less weary. Who is the Elder of the Children of Gaia? the young wolf asks, still redy to attack or flee if need be.

Trips-Over-Paws tilts her head at Fears-Pain, her growl wavering. Huh? What did that mean?

"Stacey Walks-The-Middle-Road," Kevin responds promptly. "Go on, ask me another. Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?"

Trips-Over-Paws stops gowling and sits down, looking embarassed. Her canted ears and shifting tail make an apology for the earlier threats.

Fears-Pain realxes. HE's good. She says calmly. No more questions, the she wolf, stretches and yawns, showinging her teeth before turning over on her back and scratching the itchy places-she's definately relaxed enough showing her belly.

Kevin concludes his display of bona-fides by shifting through the forms and adopting lupus himself. See, see, he crows. I am one of us, a warrior of Gaia. He sniffs in the direction of each cub a little ostentatiously, then comments that he does not know the scent of either.

Trips-Over-Paws wishes she knew WHY they had to do that, and submits uncomfortably to the sniffing. Trips-Over-Paws, she indicates, and seems rather flumoxed as to how to do any more of the introduction.

Fears-Pain bounces a bit noting the shift and scent change. She hops back on to all fours. Fears-Pain, she begins to receite the near ritual-greeting of the Garou. Child of Gaia, Theuge, my human names... Kristin... the human name sounds very strange coming out of the wolf mouth and she drops her head to her paws. Why couldn't I have been given a cooler name like... like... like... um? Her tail slpams the ground with each like.

You will have a better name once you are adult, Power-Up assures Fears-Pain. As a cub all of us must endure names that mock or belittle us. You are both very new? I do not come to this place often but I do not think you were here the last time I was.

Trips-Over-Paws's small whine and briefly drooping ears indicate that she is a cub, she feels very new, she's glad that the older Garou is not a bad one, and she does, indeed, trip over her own paws.

Power-Up's ears twitch. Not bad, me? That is not what every garou would say about me, no, no.

Trips-Over-Paws looks confused now, raising into a semi crouch and backing off a couple of steps. You bad?

Power-Up assents with a hangdog look, pacing forwards. Yes, yes, I am sometimes bad. Sometimes very bad, yes.

Trips-Over-Paws's ears twitch forward. Her tail waves a little. Naughty-bad. Her lips peel back into a tiny snarl. Not bad-bad.

Then you heard, Power-Up concludes. His ears lie flat. There is no difference, or so they say, between bad-bad and naughty-bad. All is bad, bad, bad.

Walks-Middle-Rhya wouldn't chase you away? Trips-Over-Paws mananges to ask, after several false starts trying to convey the question while in lupus form.

Power-Up looks at the curious cub for a moment, then shifts back into homid. "I'm a dangerous influence," he says, his British accent a little more pronounced now. "I ask questions that shouldn't be asked even by a ragabash. Like, what will happen if the Wyrm wins and the Apocalypse comes?"

Ruth blurs abruptly into her birthform. "You're from England too?" she asks, absurdly happy to hear the accent, everything else forgotten for at least a few moments.

Kevin drops all pretence of trying to sound local and speaks in what is evidently his natural voice, which Ruth may recognise has a distinct west-of-England burr. "Uh, yeah, sure I am," he says, surprised at Ruth's own accent. "Don't tell me you are and all?"

Ruth nods. "Near London. But why are you here? I mean, I came for an educational school trip, only I don't think the teachers were thinking quite this sirt of education, but what about you?"

"I'm from Somerset... Yeovil," Kevin says, still looking shocked. Or as this is British reunion day, perhaps he's gobsmacked. "I was over for a junior athletics tournament, as it happens... and I Firsted during the hundred metres relay." He gives a wicked grin. "Lucky I wasn't running in it, really. I didn't make it out of the reserves, and I stamped off in a huff and... well, it's a long story."

Ruth has to giggle at the thought of someone actually Firsting in a race. "I'm sorry, it's not really funny I know, but, well, it is, in a cartoon sort of way." She manages to sober heself again. "You said something earlier. About the Apocalypse?"

Kevin's expression regains the grim look which it lately wore in lupus. "Yeah, the fast-approaching end of the world. What about it?"

Ruth looks down a bit. "More things I haven't learned about yet," she says. "Except that bit sounds like something I've heard before."

"Yeah. The Apocalypse is..." Kevin begins, and then interrupts himself. "Is something I shouldn't go into with you unless Stacey says I can, which is probably very unlikely given my general omega bastard status round here. In fact," he says, "I probably shouldn't be seen with you at all. Though if you want," he adds with a dark smile, "and if you're not too scaredycat, I can catch up with you from time to time and teach you the real stuff. The stuff they don't tell cubs usually." There's a strangely gleeful expression on his face as he makes that offer. "Don't answer me now, think about it..." And he turns away from Ruth with a wink to head for the barn door.