Meeting Slug.
Tuesday, 12 March 2013 21:18![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeremiah_garou12 March, 2013
The moon is in the waxing New (Ragabash) Moon phase (5% full).
Jeremiah's settled on one of the benches in the park, a nondescript figure not too much different than many of the other homeless that frequent the park, his knees drawn to his chest and his jacket—slightly oversized, very worn army surplus—draped around himself as he watches the world go by. Except that none of the normal pedestrians, few as there are in this sort of rain, seem to want to have anything to do with the angry young man, and the ones who do, he glares off until they back down, and go around and leave him his space.
Slug has on an old baseball cap tonight, shielding his face (and more important, his cigarette) from the rain. Slug meanders down one of the many paths in the park, sticking to the edges of the walkway. Either out of courtesy or caution, he gives a wide berth to those he passes by, sticking to the edges of the walkways. He stops near the fountain and flicks his dwindling cigarette into one of the overflowing trash cans.
Jeremiah turns his chin up to glare as Slug approaches a bit closer, the same not-quite-caring glare that everyone else has received too. But no words, at least yet, though it seems that the other at the very least seems to have reminded him about the existence of tobacco. From one pocket comes a battered pack of cigarettes and a flimsy plastic lighter, and then Slug gets glared at more.
Slug catches the stranger looking at him from the corner of his eye. The Bone Gnawer raises his eyebrow and takes out his own pack of cigarettes, fishing one out with his lips. He studies Jeremiah in the dark, his face briefly lit up by the flickering flame of his light.
With study, the cliath's breeding is undeniable. As is the fact that other than that, he's trying his best to be unremarkable. Jeremiah meets Slug's gaze for quite a while, which makes clear as well the iron grip that the Ahroun holds over his Rage, then averts his gaze and tips his head, a slight baring of throat and making obvious that he meant no challenge.
Slug puffs his fresh cigarette and blows the smoke off to the side, considering Jeremiah in silence. He waits a little while then wanders over and stands near his bench, nodding back at him.
Jeremiah doesn't bristle, though for a moment it looks like he might. And for a moment, he still doesn't speak, though there's a nod of acknowledgement in return. When Jeremiah does speak, it's one brief, high and nasal word, the voice of the jackal obliterating much of his accent but not the entirety of the fact that the ex-Shadow Lord must have learned some of his English from hillfolk and less educated sorts. "Evenin'."
Slug turns his head to the side and sticks his pinky in his ear, as if he were trying to clear it out. "Evening." He replies. "You uh… New in town? Or maybe I just don't remember you. I mean, I *think* I would remember your face, but… " Slug throws up his hands, then wipes his pinky off on the back edge of the bench.
"Prolly both," Jeremiah responds, voice slow and measured though that does nothing to improve it. "Bit different last I was in town. Bullfrog, these days. Jeremiah if y' insist."
"Bull sounds better. Or Jerry. I'm Slug. Anyways. So. You seem a little… " Slug gives the man a once over. "Like you're in the wrong place. Or the wrong clothes."
Jeremiah makes a frowny-face at the last nickname, then shakes his head. "Exactly where I'm meant to be," he responds, tugging his knit cap down over his ears a bit and then puffing at the cigarette. "'s too cold t' be inside. An' I'm fine," that statement is definitive. "I know what I look like. But I ain't, so."
"Well, no. It was much colder a few months ago. Now it's just sort of… Annoying. I doubt we'll even get anymore snow, not that that's a bad thing. Even if I don't live outside, it's still kind of a pain in the ass to deal with." Slug ashes his cigarette in the air, raining grey flakes down upon the wet walkway. "So, when you say… What you look like, you mean… "
Jeremiah lifts his shoulders in a shrug, looks up. "I like bein' outdoors. When it was colder, I was somewhere warmer," the cliath says, and then he adds. "Yeah. I mean that." He's certainly not too great at the subtlety or the intrigue, and Jeremiah's being straightforward. "Mama Rat gave me a chance at startin' again," he says. "So yeah. I mean that." And well, he could just be another crazy, unbalanced homeless guy.
"So… Hrm. That's kind of funny, all things considered. With you being who you are. And me being dressed up in my Falcony way." Slug flicks his cigarette off into the same can as the first. "But I guess everyone in this city is all weird and screwed up in their own little ways."
The newer Gnawer nods slowly. "Mama Rat's been good t' me," Jeremiah squeaks out, and there's a faint glare at his lap as he settles onto the bench. Odds are he probably intends to sleep there, rain or no rain. "Happier this way, too. Fullmoon, cliath, Gnawer," he adds to his earlier introduction. "Anruth for th' foreseeable future. An' I know. I look like a fuckin' Lord, ain't nothin' I can do about that."
"Well, you could try scowling less. That would be a step forward." Slug offers, glancing sidelong up at the sky. "Ragabash, Fostern, Gnawer. Why are you Anruth anyways? Can't say I've met like… Any of them."
Jeremiah shrugs his shoulders again and briefly shakes his head. "Heh. This's about th' least I ever do," and he's still frowning or at least not smiling, and certainly still tense and guarded. "And… 'cause as a Lord, I did some pretty stupid things. Here." Which might explain, at least partially, why the Ahroun's under a punishment rite, too. "That, and I don't feel ready t' settle."
"It must have been pretty big to have it turn out the way it did. I've known people that did stupid things, and I did… A few myself. With out, y'know. Being thrown out." Slug rolls his shoulders. "Maybe I'm just luckier than you are. Or maybe I just got away with things because I was already a Bone Gnawer, and the standards were already so low for me."
The expression that passes across Jeremiah's face is anger, but it's not directed at Slug, and it's recognisably mixed with pain and loss, and he shrugs his shoulders again. "I ain't never belonged t' start," he says, barely audible and still quite squeaky. "Not anywhere it mattered. Portland, Vegas, maybe. Maybe I'll go find Kaz-rhya when I's done here."
"A lot of people don't ever feel like they belong where they end up, or wherever they travel to. Many families. Many friends. Many homes. Nothing ever really settles, 'cause a gutted man can't fill himself with a bunch of things on the outside." Slug gestures in a round about way, at nothing in particular. "Or something like that. So. Why'd you come back?"
"Fell out of th' sky. Umbra dumped me here, didn' give me no choice," Jeremiah answers, but he seems perhaps only halfway present. Halfway distant and distracted now, puffing absently at the cigarette until it goes out and pulling another from the battered pack, leaning back against the bench. "Least I can do is make a right difference an' fight, wherever I end up."
"There is no real reason to just fight for the sake of fighting. Right and wrong… Tsk, hard to really say with all the things I've seen and done over the past decade." Slug shrugs. "There isn't much of a point in fighting any battle you don't have skin in. Doing anything just because you're told you're supposed to gets kind of old."
Jeremiah still doesn't seem to be entirely present. "It makes a difference, helps someone, that's good enough for me," Jeremiah responds, no longer looking at Slug. No longer glaring or scowling either, he just seems rather… tense, and almost forlorn. "An' I'm good at it," though that doesn't seem, at all, to be bragging. Just fact, before the question comes. "Y' see Lefty much?"
"But does it? Does it really help anyone?" Slug asks skeptically, leaning back with one arm up to brace his head. "No. Can't say I do. She's busy most of the time." He pauses, biting his lip, a smirk on his face. "You know how it is with Elders. Always having to deal with problems in the middle of the night, working together with other Tribes. I'm sure she's got her hands full."
Jeremiah nods slowly, and though there might have been motive to the question as to their tribal elder, it does't come out. The Ragabash gets a possibly quizzical look and a long silence from the jackaled Ahroun, before Jeremiah finally speaks, slowly. "What good does it do not to fight, though. Then the Wyrm runs rampant. It makes a difference."
"The Wyrm is already running rampant." Slug lifts up a finger and points it to the banks of the polluted river. "It runs fast, it runs deep. Black water rages. We've tried to fight it for years, like children trying to stop a river with their fingers. All that we've accomplished is getting ourselves wet, or worse, swept away. Consumed. The world has changed in many ways… And the Garou have not." Slug scratches at the scarred side of his face, looking more distant than anything else. "Fighting a God with tooth and claw, bullets and knives. This is something an idiot does."
"And I'll fight it to the day I die for good," Jeremiah points out, squeaky voice getting in the way of otherwise trying to be even and level on the matter. He seems to be okay, however, with being called an idiot. It doesn't even get a rise of anger. "We can't just stop fighting," he adds with a faint snort, before resettling on the bench and pulling the sleeves of a sweatshirt down through the jacket.
"Rats run from a sinking ship. They don't stop the ocean from rushing it by plugging the holes with their corpses." Slug glances at Jeremiah, then back at the river's edge. "It's pointless to keep fighting the battle as it is now. Either we find a new way to fight it, or we let the world die."
"When you found a new way t' fight it that works, let th' rest of us know. Last I knew, there wasn't a consensus t' let things die, though," Jeremiah points out. "I been on enough sinkin' ships, in my life, to recognise them. Seen enough fighting I'd be happy if I never had to again, but. That much," and the expression the Ahroun wears is deadly serious even if his voice fails at that, "St. Claire ain't one. Never said I was eager to die. I ain't stupid." At which point Jeremiah doesn't seem particularly eager to continue talking much, either, though it might be at least on account of his voice. Or it might be on account of the subject matter.
"How many people have been looking?" Slug asks, rising up to his feet. The Ragabash rolls his head until something in his neck pops, then turns around to look back at Jeremiah. "Ever wonder what would happen if the Wyrm realized it was mad? If someone was able to show it that it was broken, that it was wretched and stagnant?"
Jeremiah lifts his gaze to follow Slug's movements for a bit, and shrugs his shoulders. "Don't look at me for that," he points out. "I know damn well I don't see nothing 'til it hits me in the face." There's a pause, and then Jeremiah answers. "Probably more destruction. Question for the shamans, not for the likes of me." The bench vacated, and slightly shielded from the rain by a nearby tree, Jeremiah lays out on it, with a yawn and a shrug.
"Mmm. Well. I'm going to go let a friend or two of mine know that I'm not dead… Yet. So." Slug takes his cigarettes out of his pocket and tosses them on Jeremiah's belly. He wriggles his fingers at the former Shadow Lord, then turns away and walks off toward the road.
The ahroun raises a hand in acknowledgement and thanks, one hand moving to take the pack of cigarettes and tuck it carefully into a pocket where his own battered pack had disappeared, And then Jeremiah settles onto the bench, ostensibly to sleep.
The moon is in the waxing New (Ragabash) Moon phase (5% full).
Jeremiah's settled on one of the benches in the park, a nondescript figure not too much different than many of the other homeless that frequent the park, his knees drawn to his chest and his jacket—slightly oversized, very worn army surplus—draped around himself as he watches the world go by. Except that none of the normal pedestrians, few as there are in this sort of rain, seem to want to have anything to do with the angry young man, and the ones who do, he glares off until they back down, and go around and leave him his space.
Slug has on an old baseball cap tonight, shielding his face (and more important, his cigarette) from the rain. Slug meanders down one of the many paths in the park, sticking to the edges of the walkway. Either out of courtesy or caution, he gives a wide berth to those he passes by, sticking to the edges of the walkways. He stops near the fountain and flicks his dwindling cigarette into one of the overflowing trash cans.
Jeremiah turns his chin up to glare as Slug approaches a bit closer, the same not-quite-caring glare that everyone else has received too. But no words, at least yet, though it seems that the other at the very least seems to have reminded him about the existence of tobacco. From one pocket comes a battered pack of cigarettes and a flimsy plastic lighter, and then Slug gets glared at more.
Slug catches the stranger looking at him from the corner of his eye. The Bone Gnawer raises his eyebrow and takes out his own pack of cigarettes, fishing one out with his lips. He studies Jeremiah in the dark, his face briefly lit up by the flickering flame of his light.
With study, the cliath's breeding is undeniable. As is the fact that other than that, he's trying his best to be unremarkable. Jeremiah meets Slug's gaze for quite a while, which makes clear as well the iron grip that the Ahroun holds over his Rage, then averts his gaze and tips his head, a slight baring of throat and making obvious that he meant no challenge.
Slug puffs his fresh cigarette and blows the smoke off to the side, considering Jeremiah in silence. He waits a little while then wanders over and stands near his bench, nodding back at him.
Jeremiah doesn't bristle, though for a moment it looks like he might. And for a moment, he still doesn't speak, though there's a nod of acknowledgement in return. When Jeremiah does speak, it's one brief, high and nasal word, the voice of the jackal obliterating much of his accent but not the entirety of the fact that the ex-Shadow Lord must have learned some of his English from hillfolk and less educated sorts. "Evenin'."
Slug turns his head to the side and sticks his pinky in his ear, as if he were trying to clear it out. "Evening." He replies. "You uh… New in town? Or maybe I just don't remember you. I mean, I *think* I would remember your face, but… " Slug throws up his hands, then wipes his pinky off on the back edge of the bench.
"Prolly both," Jeremiah responds, voice slow and measured though that does nothing to improve it. "Bit different last I was in town. Bullfrog, these days. Jeremiah if y' insist."
"Bull sounds better. Or Jerry. I'm Slug. Anyways. So. You seem a little… " Slug gives the man a once over. "Like you're in the wrong place. Or the wrong clothes."
Jeremiah makes a frowny-face at the last nickname, then shakes his head. "Exactly where I'm meant to be," he responds, tugging his knit cap down over his ears a bit and then puffing at the cigarette. "'s too cold t' be inside. An' I'm fine," that statement is definitive. "I know what I look like. But I ain't, so."
"Well, no. It was much colder a few months ago. Now it's just sort of… Annoying. I doubt we'll even get anymore snow, not that that's a bad thing. Even if I don't live outside, it's still kind of a pain in the ass to deal with." Slug ashes his cigarette in the air, raining grey flakes down upon the wet walkway. "So, when you say… What you look like, you mean… "
Jeremiah lifts his shoulders in a shrug, looks up. "I like bein' outdoors. When it was colder, I was somewhere warmer," the cliath says, and then he adds. "Yeah. I mean that." He's certainly not too great at the subtlety or the intrigue, and Jeremiah's being straightforward. "Mama Rat gave me a chance at startin' again," he says. "So yeah. I mean that." And well, he could just be another crazy, unbalanced homeless guy.
"So… Hrm. That's kind of funny, all things considered. With you being who you are. And me being dressed up in my Falcony way." Slug flicks his cigarette off into the same can as the first. "But I guess everyone in this city is all weird and screwed up in their own little ways."
The newer Gnawer nods slowly. "Mama Rat's been good t' me," Jeremiah squeaks out, and there's a faint glare at his lap as he settles onto the bench. Odds are he probably intends to sleep there, rain or no rain. "Happier this way, too. Fullmoon, cliath, Gnawer," he adds to his earlier introduction. "Anruth for th' foreseeable future. An' I know. I look like a fuckin' Lord, ain't nothin' I can do about that."
"Well, you could try scowling less. That would be a step forward." Slug offers, glancing sidelong up at the sky. "Ragabash, Fostern, Gnawer. Why are you Anruth anyways? Can't say I've met like… Any of them."
Jeremiah shrugs his shoulders again and briefly shakes his head. "Heh. This's about th' least I ever do," and he's still frowning or at least not smiling, and certainly still tense and guarded. "And… 'cause as a Lord, I did some pretty stupid things. Here." Which might explain, at least partially, why the Ahroun's under a punishment rite, too. "That, and I don't feel ready t' settle."
"It must have been pretty big to have it turn out the way it did. I've known people that did stupid things, and I did… A few myself. With out, y'know. Being thrown out." Slug rolls his shoulders. "Maybe I'm just luckier than you are. Or maybe I just got away with things because I was already a Bone Gnawer, and the standards were already so low for me."
The expression that passes across Jeremiah's face is anger, but it's not directed at Slug, and it's recognisably mixed with pain and loss, and he shrugs his shoulders again. "I ain't never belonged t' start," he says, barely audible and still quite squeaky. "Not anywhere it mattered. Portland, Vegas, maybe. Maybe I'll go find Kaz-rhya when I's done here."
"A lot of people don't ever feel like they belong where they end up, or wherever they travel to. Many families. Many friends. Many homes. Nothing ever really settles, 'cause a gutted man can't fill himself with a bunch of things on the outside." Slug gestures in a round about way, at nothing in particular. "Or something like that. So. Why'd you come back?"
"Fell out of th' sky. Umbra dumped me here, didn' give me no choice," Jeremiah answers, but he seems perhaps only halfway present. Halfway distant and distracted now, puffing absently at the cigarette until it goes out and pulling another from the battered pack, leaning back against the bench. "Least I can do is make a right difference an' fight, wherever I end up."
"There is no real reason to just fight for the sake of fighting. Right and wrong… Tsk, hard to really say with all the things I've seen and done over the past decade." Slug shrugs. "There isn't much of a point in fighting any battle you don't have skin in. Doing anything just because you're told you're supposed to gets kind of old."
Jeremiah still doesn't seem to be entirely present. "It makes a difference, helps someone, that's good enough for me," Jeremiah responds, no longer looking at Slug. No longer glaring or scowling either, he just seems rather… tense, and almost forlorn. "An' I'm good at it," though that doesn't seem, at all, to be bragging. Just fact, before the question comes. "Y' see Lefty much?"
"But does it? Does it really help anyone?" Slug asks skeptically, leaning back with one arm up to brace his head. "No. Can't say I do. She's busy most of the time." He pauses, biting his lip, a smirk on his face. "You know how it is with Elders. Always having to deal with problems in the middle of the night, working together with other Tribes. I'm sure she's got her hands full."
Jeremiah nods slowly, and though there might have been motive to the question as to their tribal elder, it does't come out. The Ragabash gets a possibly quizzical look and a long silence from the jackaled Ahroun, before Jeremiah finally speaks, slowly. "What good does it do not to fight, though. Then the Wyrm runs rampant. It makes a difference."
"The Wyrm is already running rampant." Slug lifts up a finger and points it to the banks of the polluted river. "It runs fast, it runs deep. Black water rages. We've tried to fight it for years, like children trying to stop a river with their fingers. All that we've accomplished is getting ourselves wet, or worse, swept away. Consumed. The world has changed in many ways… And the Garou have not." Slug scratches at the scarred side of his face, looking more distant than anything else. "Fighting a God with tooth and claw, bullets and knives. This is something an idiot does."
"And I'll fight it to the day I die for good," Jeremiah points out, squeaky voice getting in the way of otherwise trying to be even and level on the matter. He seems to be okay, however, with being called an idiot. It doesn't even get a rise of anger. "We can't just stop fighting," he adds with a faint snort, before resettling on the bench and pulling the sleeves of a sweatshirt down through the jacket.
"Rats run from a sinking ship. They don't stop the ocean from rushing it by plugging the holes with their corpses." Slug glances at Jeremiah, then back at the river's edge. "It's pointless to keep fighting the battle as it is now. Either we find a new way to fight it, or we let the world die."
"When you found a new way t' fight it that works, let th' rest of us know. Last I knew, there wasn't a consensus t' let things die, though," Jeremiah points out. "I been on enough sinkin' ships, in my life, to recognise them. Seen enough fighting I'd be happy if I never had to again, but. That much," and the expression the Ahroun wears is deadly serious even if his voice fails at that, "St. Claire ain't one. Never said I was eager to die. I ain't stupid." At which point Jeremiah doesn't seem particularly eager to continue talking much, either, though it might be at least on account of his voice. Or it might be on account of the subject matter.
"How many people have been looking?" Slug asks, rising up to his feet. The Ragabash rolls his head until something in his neck pops, then turns around to look back at Jeremiah. "Ever wonder what would happen if the Wyrm realized it was mad? If someone was able to show it that it was broken, that it was wretched and stagnant?"
Jeremiah lifts his gaze to follow Slug's movements for a bit, and shrugs his shoulders. "Don't look at me for that," he points out. "I know damn well I don't see nothing 'til it hits me in the face." There's a pause, and then Jeremiah answers. "Probably more destruction. Question for the shamans, not for the likes of me." The bench vacated, and slightly shielded from the rain by a nearby tree, Jeremiah lays out on it, with a yawn and a shrug.
"Mmm. Well. I'm going to go let a friend or two of mine know that I'm not dead… Yet. So." Slug takes his cigarettes out of his pocket and tosses them on Jeremiah's belly. He wriggles his fingers at the former Shadow Lord, then turns away and walks off toward the road.
The ahroun raises a hand in acknowledgement and thanks, one hand moving to take the pack of cigarettes and tuck it carefully into a pocket where his own battered pack had disappeared, And then Jeremiah settles onto the bench, ostensibly to sleep.