Brief caern-log from the point of view of my Red Talon alt, Swipes-at-Salmon, newly arrived at the sept. Echen tells some cubs and young Garou about the Impergium.

Around the Pool
The inscribed Wheel continues, running past a small pool of clear water just inside the outer line.  The ground on the Wheel is rough, with uneven patches of grass sprouting here and there in defiance of the countless generations of feet that have trod this path.  On to the north is the firepit, and back to the west is the windy spot.
Contents:
Jace
Echen
Hazmat
Knapsack
Moon Otter
Cyllan
Ned Briggs
Grandfather
Quiet Pool
Obvious exits:
Forward  Back  Center of the Wheel
Set.
Cyllan nods to Jace. “Think so.” Then she turns back to Echen. “That doesn’t help the fact that I can’t _GO_ to school right now because if I do, I’m gonna get killed. Is this going to stop? Am I even going to make it through? And is it worth it?
Ned Briggs . o O (Killed!?)
Grandfather looks to Echen. Do you not live in the scab? Why do you not live in the forest with your kind?
Echen chews on his lower lip. “I know,” he says. “I wish I had an answer for ye, lass, I really do. We’ll make it, all of us. Just… follow yer heart, I guess, is th’ best advice I could give ye.” He glances over at Grandfather. “Huh?”
Hazmat lies down some distance near Moon Otter, who actually makes more sense than Grandfather.
Grandfather looks up at Echen. Did you just not give advice to avoid the humans? Do you not live amongst them?
Swipes listens tiredly to the conversation half homid-speech, not really concentrating enough to pick out the gist from what words she knows just now.
Grandfather pages: When did you join Summerfrost, if I may ask?
Echen half-smiles, and, fluently, switches tongues. ~I’m Fianna, boy,~ he says. ~We’ve a few tricks t’ make it easier.~
You paged Grandfather with ’3 days ago. ;) The day after I was ‘birthed’.’.
Hazmat looks at Mountainsong. Tricks?
Cyllan sighs. ~Oh well, maybe the damn things’ll be dead soon and I can get over this ‘illness’ of mine.~
Swipes wonders absently if eating Twinkie-spirits is one of these tricks.
Grandfather pages: Congratulations. On occasion I act as Clouded Sky, if you sren’t aware. A pleasue to meet another pack-mother.
Jace smiles at Swipes.
Cyllan rises. ~I’ve got to get some dinner. Back later all.~
Cyllan has disconnected.
Echen nods, sagely, at Hazmat. ~Tricks.~ He settles into a crouch at the edge of the pool and trails a hand through the water. ~I could sell ice to an eskimo, and drink any man under the table without blinking. And Stag is my father… he helps me hide the hunter, deeper within.~
Swipes’s eyes narrow. Ice to the Uktena-kin. /That/ I would like to see.
Near the Fire Pit, Ned Briggs circles the Wheel, arriving from the eastern curve.
Hazmat doesn’t understand the Eskimo bit, of course.
Moon Otter tilts his head at Swipes-at-Salmon.
Echen says, absently, “Now, th’ Impergium. I’m no authority, mind ye, but I do remember it, from time to time.”
Hazmat cocks her head. Remember?
On the northern curve, Ned Briggs comes back with an armful of deadwood.
On the northern curve, Ned Briggs heads into the center.
At the center, Ned Briggs heads northeast to the fire pit.
Near the Fire Pit, Ned Briggs squats down, and carefully feeds the fire, oblivious of everyone around him.
Cindi has arrived.
Cindi appears in a glimmer of light.
Near the Fire Pit, Ned Briggs starts reading his book.
Echen’s tongue darts over his lips. ~For five thousand years before men began to farm the land, we Garou managed the numbers of humans who lived. Each village had a limit, of men we allowed to live. When another was born, we took a life.~
Cindi arrives, shakkashakkashakkas her head and walks over to a small saplng and sits next to it. ~Morning.~
l Cindi
A somewhat buxom young woman, about 5’2″ looks back at you from bright blue eyes. She’s dressed in a rather casual ensemble today. A pair of worn, faded Levis 619 jeans caress her at hip and thigh, a red spotted hankechief tucked into a back pocket. Pulled over a shirt is a worn, much loved knitted sweater, the lavender wool blending into the jeans nicely. Gracing the whiteness of her throat is a small chain ending in an iron pendant. Long blond hair is worn loosely, drawn back from her high forehead by a simple beret. Under one arm, she has a handbag. It could probably hold a Buick. A walkman’s plug leads down from her ear to her belt and yes, she’s wearing Keds.
Carrying:
Bramble
Moon Otter wonders if a Ragabash got to do the math.
Hazmat pricks her ears at Echen.
Grandfather nods a friendly greeting to the newcomer, and moves near her and introduces himself silently, so as not to disturb Echen’s lesson.
Swipes looks unimpressed. Her former homids still do not overbreed even today, and there was never a need to cull them as there is here.
Near the Fire Pit, Ned Briggs turns a page.
Echen narrows his eyes thoughtfully. ~Men are not used to being prey, you see,~ he says. ~And yet they were ours. And this drove them, all of them, and their descendents, mad. They cannot bear the sight of one of the half-forms, without being frightened witless and then, later, trying to explain it away, as something other than it was.~
You paged Jace with ‘Somewhere, way back there, Swipes has Inuit blood. Or maybe her batch of Inuit have Red Talon blood. It’s so hard to tell. ;)’.
Hazmat wurfs. Is that why it was stopped?
Cindi chuffs quietly to Grandfather, listening to Echen’s tale of the early days.
From afar, Jace grins.
Moon Otter , still listening to Escen, gets up and pads over to sniff the new one.
Near the Fire Pit, Ned Briggs irritably turns another page.
Echen says, ~They avoid the places that we frequent; they shun our company. This because they know, somewhere, deep inside, that we still are, and that we are still hunters, that we are the ones who killed their ancestors.~
+finger Swipes
Information for Swipes:
Swipes is connected.
Location:       Around the Pool
Other Name(s):  Swipes-at-Salmon
Race:           Garou                 Sex:            Female bitch
Breed:          Lupus                 Auspice:        Philodox
Tribe:          Red Talons            Rank:           1
Position:       Swatter of cubs. Member of Summerfrost.
Info:           Hailing from northwestern Alaska and a Talon and Uktena caern grown big, her small pack was killed by hunters, to her vast fury. Still sporting a bullet lodged in her fractured hip, she tracked the vacationing homids back to Washington state. Police found the pair of brothers tumbled down a short slope behind their house, necks broken. She paused here on the long trek home, thinking to winter here and regain her strength, if the caern allowed it. Instead, a mule healed the near-crippling wound, so that she nows owes him a debt (to her personal shame), and Song Weaver has asked her to bide and join Summerfrost, a pack to which Swipes-at-Salmon was instinctively drawn. With no pack to return to and a long battle up the pecking order of her old Caern the only other option, Swipes-at-Salmon stoutheartedly accepted the challenge of trying to protect a sensible pack amidst a chaotic, homid-ridden sept. Perhaps she can cuff a little sense into these pups who spend at least half the time chattering to the winds and waiting for their elders to do all the work.
Echen waves his damp hand through the air, absently. ~Suddenly,~ he says, gesturing at Grandfather, ~His ancestors decided that there had been enough bloodshed. Some Garou agreed, some did not. Some felt it was right to let the humans live, while others wanted to keep their numbers down, as had always been done. So a great Moot was called, to decide the matter.~
Hazmat listens quietly.
Cindi strokes the bark of a small sapling, eyes distant.
Moon Otter circles a bit and curls up on the ground.
Echen taps his chest with one finger. ~Me people loved their Kinfolk. But they still bloodied their claws enforcing the quotas, as did all the tribes.~ His shoulders lift and fall in a shrug. ~Anyway. For three days and three nights, a Shadow Lord debated with a Stargazer, in a challenge of words. Had the Shadow Lord won, I am sure we would still be killers of men. Instead, the Stargazer won, and the Impergium, as it was called, was lifted. No longer do we enforce limits on the numbers of men who live and die.~
Grandfather looks to Echen surprisedly, then back to Cindi and their quiet conversation.
Cindi nods. ~And some would say it was a mistake. Too late and too soon.~
Hazmat urfs thoughtfully.
Near the Fire Pit, Ned Briggs says “And Great Fenris was chained !…”
Near the Fire Pit, Ned Briggs stomps off…
At the center, Porthos heads southeast to the pool.
Porthos has arrived.
Hazmat looks up and wuffs to Porth.
Jace nods to Porthos.
Porthos nods quiet greetings, having appeared from Umbral patrol.
Porthos smiles at Jace. “Read about you in the paper yesterday, Jace. Congratulations.”
Jace smiles. “Thanks.”
Echen glances after Ned. ~This one whould have you believe that the end of the Impergium was the cause of his tribe’s, and his people’s, nature. I tell you this, cubs: Norsemen raided the shores of Eoghan More long, long before this great Moot, this Concolation, was ever called. Norsemen and the Get of Fenris. I know this because I remember it, because I saw it, through other eyes than these.~
Hazmat looks at Mountainsong curiously.
Moon Otter tips his head sideways at Echen.
Swipes whuffs. Each of you sees a different part of that story, Fianna. Some say the little runt-tribe were the first to pity the furless ones. Many claim their /own/ blood was not at fault. But where is the fault? Are the furless ones better now, that there are so many they claw at each other with wyrm-things because they have not proper tooth and claw?
Echen turns his head back towards the group at the pool, and smiles slightly at the odd looks. ~No tribe remembers the histories like the Fianna,~ he says. ~And I am gifted, some might say cursed, that I can still hear through the ears and see through the eyes of my ancestors long dead. I know what they knew, I feel what they felt. I remember what they experienced.~
Porthos’s eyes stop on his reflection in the pool.
Moon Otter turns an appraising eye towards Swipes.
Jalal turns over at the edge of the pool, and sits up. He glances around groggily.
Hazmat looks at Mountainsong, and then at Swipes-at-Salmon.
Cindi tilts her head, ~Otheres remember the story as well. And closer than one might think. A shame the homids were….damamged by the culling.~
Porthos has left.
Porthos gazes into the pool, and suddenly he vanishes.
Echen’s gaze drifts to Swipes, and he shrugs. ~I killed, and I killed, and I killed, night after endless dark night. I painted the paths of my Kinfolk’s villages red with their blood, each time another child was born to them. We are all at fault; none of us are innocent. those who say otherwise are fools.~
Swipes dips her muzzle. Wanton slaying. Bad. Cull the weak, the sick, the dying-already, keep the herd healthy and well and happy. That is wolf’s lesson. Is it a bad one?
Jalal rises unsteadily to his feet. He frowns for a moment, embarrassed, then lowers his head silently to Echen, then to the others, before sitting down crosslegged a little closer to the pool.
Cindi chuffs, ~It works for deer for that is their place. For the homids…it bred fear and insecurity into their very souls…. And a hatred of those who did it.~
Echen rises from his crouch and shrugs again, expressively. ~Who can say, Red Talon? Humans are not wolves, nor are wolves humans. What is good for one may or may not be good for the other. I haven’t made up my mind, just yet.~
Cindi adds, ~And in that fear, they destory Our Mother. And turn to Our Enemy. And thta is the tradgedy.~
Hazmat huffs, digesting this information, and turns to look at Cindi.
Hazmat introduces herself to Cindi.
Swipes has not understood. There, in ice and hard taiga, she lived. The herds are still strong there, both fourfooted and twofooted. There is no wanton slaying. So she wonders.
Grandfather looks to Jalal, who apparently arrived while Grandfather nodded off. I a, pleased to see you live, ‘brother’.
Cindi smiles to Hazmat, ~Ah. Yes, I remember. Just before RainWalker-yuff took us to visit Mescilito….~
Grandfather rises and moves to jalal’s side, nodding politely to Cindi as he leaves her.
Swipes does not understand how it is here. There are so many homid and weaver things. She shrugs.
Echen half-smiles, and begins a slow walk back away from the pool, into the woods. ~Think on this last thing, cubs: the blood of the uncountable humans who we culled stains your claws, too. You are hunters, and killers, and they hate you and fear you for it.~ He pauses as he walks away. ~G’afternoon.~
Hazmat urfs, remembering. That was the day the Stormcrow threw her into the water…
Echen heads west, back along the Wheel’s path.
Echen has left.
Jalal nods to Grandfather from where he sits, paying more attention at the moment to Echen.
On the southern curve, Echen heads south, out of the Wheel and into the forest.
Swipes turns her attention to Cindi, standing back on her haunches. I do not think I know you. Swipes-at-Salmon, Half Moon of Red Talons and swatter-of-cubs for Summerfrost. Honor to your pack.
Grandfather looks at Jalal again as Echen leaves. What happened in the Umbra? I returned from the scab to find Desert watching your wounded body.
Jalal stares pensively toward the water for a moment, then turns toward Grandfather. He grunts. ~Yes, I live. And you met Desert-rhya, at last.~ He coughs.
You paged Grandfather with ‘Wait for Sepdet to come in later tonight, about an hour, and she’ll tell the whole horrible story… she healed them.’.
Cindi inclines her head to Swipes, ~I am Cindi Walks-Through-Malls. SilverFang theruge. Beta of MoonShadow. Other things as need be…~
Hazmat looks puzzled. Malls?
Grandfather nods. We spoke briefly, and shall talk again when next we meet.
Cindi chuffs, ~Swatter of Cubs is a worthy occupation.~ She tilts her head, looking thoughtful, ~A weaver place where homids….hunt. It does not translate well…~
Jalal moves himself a little to face his tribesman. ~Dyaln didn’t tell you, I guess. Perhaps we should go to the Story Tree for this…~
Hazmat urfs, not understanding, really.
Moon Otter stares into nothing. Blood on my claws….
On the northern curve, Ned Briggs emerges from the thin treeline to the north.
You paged Grandfather with ‘Well, if you’re on later … aha. Jalal will tell you what he knows.’.
On the northern curve, Ned Briggs heads into the center.
Swipes has to go attend to the pups now. She will be back later.
At the center, Ned Briggs heads southeast to the pool.
Ned Briggs has arrived.
Near the Pool, Grandfather nods goodbye to Swipes.
Near the Pool, Ned Briggs says “He’s gone, then?”
Swipes whuffs a farewell to all, nosing Jace in passing.