Guard Duty [Armina]

[Linnea Bartlett] At least fifteen minutes before her guard duty is scheduled to start, Linnea is camped out in the library of the Guardians' quarters, beyond but still within sight of the steps leading down from the Church sanctuary above. Frissions of energy dance brightly along her singing nerve-endings - it is quiet in the Caern, and the long hours spent patrolling the dark, blind corridors do nothing to control and contain the depthless energy rage gives her as one of Gaia's warriors. Her hands are flat on the wooden table in front of her, her fingers have splayed open the pages of a book, but her attention wanders from the words every few lines, back to the incandescent glow of the light bulb as it reflects subtly off the pale, stretched skin of her hands, with their long skinny fingers and knobby knuckles. Her chin rests on the bony prominence of her half-turned wrist, and when her attention does not stray to the fascinating play of light-on-skin, it strays to the doors and corridor beyond. She's waiting for one of the other Sept members - the Truth Catcher, to show her the Guardians' routes through the lower catacombs, the vulnerable places where the tunnels connect to the city's sewer system. That's what the Warder assigned her to do; that's what she'll do.

[Armina] Armina showed up early for the msot part. It's not as if she had anything special to do or anywhere to go. But thankfully, her skin was back on her head and she was healed for the most part. Now she was back in full force with that constant scowl on her face. Her presence was obvious the moment she step foot anywhere within the caern or bawn, her footsteps always loud, always heavy, always forceful and angry. Everyone knew when she was around jsut from the sound of the stampede of her own footfalls.

She came down the stairs, her dark eyes gleaming, ready for guard duty more than some might be and more ready toc rush some skulls, but it was unlikely to happen. As she came closer, her eyes focuse don Lin and she gave a small smirk. "Vanguard of the Dawn-yuf?"

[Linnea Bartlett] The girl looks up at the sound of her name, her pale eyes catching the light shed by the overhead bulbs and gleaming for a scant second, like an animal's eyes. "Yeah - yea - hi!" she blurts out, standing up in a rush and pushing her chair back from the well-scarred, long-used library table with enough thoughtless force that it almost crashes to the ground behind her.

"You're Armina, right?" although she shoves her left hand awkwardly into the front pocket of her worn jeans, she offers the Get her right hand, to shake - and the sure curl of a friendly grin that surges wide and expansive. "It's nice to meet you? I'm going to show you the lower tunnels?" Her voice rises at the end of each sentence to make it a question, the not-quite-uncertainty customary to teenagers, and girls in particular, at odds with the force of her pure breeding and the sure confidence with which she moves.

[Armina] Armina's brows furrow at the hand and she takes it, shaking it firmly and quickly before letting go, finding the movement too aawkward for her. "Yes...You too." The chipper sound was enough to make her want to just beat someone, but at the same time made her feel like this might be a decent guard duty...at least she was with a female. "Aalright let's get to it then."

[Linnea Bartlett] "Cool. It's kind of a hike, all twisted down there - like, you know, pretzels tied into even more pretzels. Like a never-ending knot of pretzels in pretzels - " without a second glance at the book - now riffling shut on the table, without the press of her fingers to hold it open to some page certain - the Silver Fang takes off, shoving her right hand into her right front pocket to match the left. "I'll just - huh - " disappearing into the darkness ahead of them, into the stairwell that leads further into the catacombs, the girl shoots a pale-eyed glance over her shoulder at the stomping Forseti. " - the sewers might smell bad, just a warning. I don't think you care about that, though. Right?"

[Armina] "I got it...Pretzels." Trying then to shut up the continuation of the pretzel analogy. If she heard that word one more time she was going to hurt someone. One pretzel was enough. And armina follows quickly behind. "No I dont care. I wouldn't be a child f fenris is I got queasy at some sewer smell. I'd be a damn Child of Gaia or something."

[Linnea Bartlett] "Yeah - that's kinda what I thought." Near the bottom of the rough-hewn stairs, the young Fang simply jumps, landing lightly and thoughtlessly upright. Her tone is wry, if Armina can discern it - a touch of strange humor cutting through the bright pulsing energy of her loquaciousness. "Hey, you know, I met one of your tribemates? I mean, I've seen him before, but hadn't talked to him. Last night?" The light underground is meager, but after some months as a Guardian, the young Fang could walk the tunnels almost blindfolded. The night of the great battle, she remembers - a somber curtain passing across her expressive, ordinary young face - she should have been blind, from the smoke. "Hey - congrats on being TruthCatcher, too. Did someone challenge you?"

[Armina] She followed carefully, keeping only as much distance as she alwyas required between her and Linnea. "Oh did you?" A tone of disinterest. "Jackson or Ben?" Armina watched the fang and the way she moved, acted, spoke. Interesting was a way to put it. She could never understand why a girl wiht s much energy was a fang. "You too. A lord did." She gave a grumble of distaste at the mention of the tribe. "Knife me in my sleep if I'm not careful."

[Linnea Bartlett] "Yeah, but I bet you're always careful, aren't you - " down here, below the surface, where the underbawn worms an endlessly returning circuit of tunnels and catacombs, Linnea walks with swift efficiency. Where tunnels splice apart into smaller and smaller corridors, she rarely pauses, and then only long enough to point something out to Armina. Only when they are deep below the earth - deep enough that the pair can feel the weight of the earth above them thrumming with the power of the Caern's heart - does the route give the pure bred Fang pauses.

"It was Jackson - he and Severina - well, he's packing up." Linnea had been quiet for some time, perhaps blessedly so, in Armina's opinion. Down here, where their senses swim with darkness and their features are an indistinct blur of pale no-color against swimming black, she begins again - hushed and quiet, out of some respect for the depths to which they have traveled, or the strange traverse of echoes through the deep tunnels. " - not with Severina, that'd be funny. Not funny ha-ha, more - " she shifts her shoulders in an expressive shrug, and her voice drops. "Well, not funny really. I know Ben, kinda. The Guardian, right? I know him.

"Hey - what happened in your challenge?"

[Armina] "As careful as I can be." Eyes shifting to the Fang. She'd pause every now and then to look at what she was shown but remained msotly quiet, speaking only when Linnea asked her something. "With Nico I suppose. The two of them cause more damage than a pack of BSDs." Her form rippled, hair grwing longer and in places it probably shouldn't for a woman. In Glabro she patrolled behind Linnea, always on the lookout. "Jackson can barely stand me I couldn't see him with Severina." And she nodded. Yes that was Ben. "We were posed a few questions and I knew more. Thats it."

[Linnea Bartlett] "And Ghost-Rider. A Theurge? I don't know if you remember - it was all in the story the Talesinger told." Her voice has dropped several tones, further testament to the gravity of that story. "- you know, about the battle. It was good." Quiet, moment's later. "I don't mean the battle, her story. I could hardly think for it, you know? It made me - I wanted to fight it all over again. I wanted - oh, wait - " the girl stops, her fingers running lightly over the earthen walls, blind and seeking. "One of the routes to the sewer is down here, I remember it. You can smell it better than me, probably? I like four legs better than two here - but I can't think right, I mean, not the same. I can't think and talk - talking sort of disappears? And, well - you know what I mean I bet.

She stops again. Then: "here, come feel. There are glyphs like braille, raised into the tunnel? But it's crumbled a little. Maybe the battle - I wonder if anyone else felt it. Them, people I mean - like an earthquake?"


[Armina] "No it was a good battle. We had heavy losses, but the Caern still stands and we're still here to remember those who gave their lives. Shows how well numbers does against sheer strength and determination. Everyone did their part and more....shows how well we trained." She moved nearer, looking to the girl slowly, then touched where she did. "I was too engaged on other things. " Her eyes moved to her again. "I prefer the wolf form...communication does change, it's no longer talking..more movement based. Are you packed yet?"

[Linnea Bartlett] Armina's words have arrested her. The young Silver Fang, her fingers still tracing the shape of the passageway carved into the crumbling earth, stops where she is and looks back and up at the Fenrir Forseti. Linnea's braid slides against her back, a faint, familiar weight. Do you really think that - she wants to ask, but it seems a wholly foolish question.

"Yeah - I just, don't think the same way. Everything goes straight and - what is it, linear? I like it fine, I just don't know that it's always - always - I think I miss some things. Nuances. Everything's direct and in front of me, but the world doesn't seem to always - to always work that way?" Then, in response to Armina's question, the girl offers a subtle shake of her blonde head. "I'm a Guardian. But everyone's pulling guard duty - and I don't think, I think - " she takes in a deep breath, stares into the darkness, and forces herself to find some thread of focus in the constantly moving stream of her thoughts. "I think that I can fulfill my duty to the Caern best with another pack. Mobile and stuff - "

[Armina] Armina narrows her eyes at the strange way of jsut pausing and moving from one thing to another. "Right well... everyone has to pack up, it's unnatural for a garou to not be packed." Seeming to give Linnea another appraising look. "If you chang eyour mind, just let me know... I'm looking to pack up with someone, and I refuse to go int a pack where my abilities and my gender make me a minority or less than."

[Linnea Bartlett] "I know. I need to pack. I can't stay a Guardian. There's more to be done than - " she shrugs. "I can do down here. If you're interested, I'm interested. Have you met Severina? I was on duty with her last night. I - well - or there's Benjamin. I don't know if he wants to be a Guardian anymore." Linnea flashes a sudden brilliant half-smile, which is soon lost in the darkness. "I haven't formed a pack before. I joined the Guardians after my rite of passage and - that pack was already together?" Her voice hardens, momentarily. "I think it should be a pack of war - there's - " again, the stopping and starting, the wild roiling tumult of thoughts surfing a sea of sensation.

[Armina] Armina's brow rise with amusement. "I wouldn't mind having Ben in the pack...good man, worth a salt and a Fenrir to boot. I've met her before, Strong woman, I'd like to have her in it....could use another forseti." The smile is enough to make Armina smile just a little. "Alright well...you can join up with me if you want."

[Linnea Bartlett] "We should talk to them - or I can, we'll see. Is this your - first? Or did they - " die in the battle as so many did goes unvoiced. Linnea has found the catch to the tunnel leading into the sewer system and unhitches the clasp. "Oh! - here, look, this is where it opens, it was half-covered up - " and the conversation returns to matters practical and immediate, as guard duty continues for most of the night.