Abby heads off in lupus into the thick darkness. She has only been running for a few minutes when a figure steps out in front of her and she realises that its her father. She skids to a halt and changes into homid. Her father does not look happy. She asks why he is here, and how he got here. He says he is here because they are making a hash of the whole thing - he thought that they were meant to be connected to the bunyip, but they have shown nothing but shortsightedness while they are here. She's disappointed him as a Fianna and as his daughter. Abby has been spluttering through this diatribe, getting angrier but narrows her eyes at the last. She presses the point on how her father got here because they haven't told anyone, and then accuses it of being the spirit. Her father's eyes go black and he smiles "I will have you, now or later." Abby demands to know what it is and what it wants. The figure of her father expands up, but becoming translucent at the same time. It speaks in a whisper "I am the danger in the night. I am that which children know. I am everything you hate about yourselves." The figure is only the same dark fog as surrounds her and Abby fights to keep herself control.
Carmel turns up to Abby's house and bullies her into getting into the car. They drive out to Reconciliation, and Carmel continues to bully her into the caern. The two of them go into a small bedroom, where Julio is resting in bed. He is gray, and doesn't look too good. Julio asks how Abby is, and she sort of shrugs. Julio tells her that he is recovering now, although the gift that he used to attract the Killer of Children took all of his reserves. He probably wouldn't have had the courage to try and hold it in place, except a certain young packleader inspired him, the way she threw everything she had into defying the darkness, drawing on the strength of her pack - how could he not attempt the same? Abby doesn't exactly believe him, but he raises her head up and makes eye contact with her, and the absolute truth of this floods her soul - she knows what he says is 100% the truth, and his conviction flows back to give her strength. They talk for a few moments about this.
Julio also says that there is one other thing. When the spirit envoloped him, it was still showing him horrors and fears. One of the things it tried to show him was that there is no hope of making restitution with the bunyip. Julio says that when Abby confronted the emanation in Mooroolbark, she said that they are trying to help, but that the genocide of the bunyip was not their fault, they didn't do it, it was their ancestors. Unfortunately, for the ghost bunyip, this simply isn't the case - they are no longer material, but spirits, and they live in an eternal now. For the Bunyip, the time from their deaths until this instant is a long, drawn out, excruitating Now, and the same Garou who slaughtered them are walking the lands that were once their responsility. Julio says that it is hard, but the Garou need to take a personal responsibility for the events - not in the sense that they commited the acts, but that there is an immediate responsibility for the genocide which the Garou of now have to assume - it cannot be a matter which they take on out of a vague sense of rightness, but something for which they feel intensely responsible. Abby is unsure, but promises to think on it.
Abby waves bye to Freya and heads off for her 6 week holiday. She mostly does the backpacker thing around Europe on her own, but sometimes meets up with other Australian backpackers, or local kinfolk. She spends a couple of days in Spain, Italy and Greece before swinging back towards Ireland.
Abby basically arrives in time for the festival of Imbolc, during which the Fianna honour Brigid (or Brighid). The festival starts at dusk, and Fianna and their kinfolk come from all around to join in the rituals and the fun. Huge bonfires are lit, and some of the attending garou throw small sacrifices into the fire. Corn cakes are given to all the visitors as ritual gifts, fianna brews are in much supply. Abby wanders around having a great time. The only thing that raises an eyebrow is when some of the celebrants get a little engaged out in the open. She mentions it to one of her companions who says that its the best way to make sure no one has made a mistake and slept with a fellow garou - eveything's out in the open, to speak. Abby bites her tongue, having got the "all metis are evil" speech from Irish Fianna before.
Sometime during the evening, Abbagail finds herself having wandered away from the main celebrations. She is wandering through quiet and peaceful forests, just to give her ears a rest if nothing else. She comes across what looks like a wishing well, made of old stone, covered in moss. Having learnt today that wells are sacred to Brigid, and to Gaia, she takes a look around. On a whim, she pulls out a coin and jiggles it for a bit before throwing it in. Her wish is not precise, but sort of a general wish that she was as good at telling stories and tales in front of people as she'd like to be. The coin plings down into the darkness before making a faint splosh sound. Abby straightens up, and notices for the first time the circle of menhirs.
She cautiously approaches them, still fairly squiffed from the beer she's been drinking. The circle has a central pillar, and facing her is a red-heaired woman, who looks at Abby and says "I will have always seen you, running with the night in your hands. You are going to have killed the moon." This makes Abby blink a lot and start to try to sober up, or at least make a reasonable effort to pretend. She asks some questions of the strange woman, but there is no response. A voice from further around the pillar rumbles "You have been going to stand in danger of losing yourselves." Abby comes into the circle and glances around the pillar to see a large female crinos, also with her back to the central stones. Abby steps around the pillar further and sees a thylacine. It speaks without moving its mouth - "You have a darkness within you." Abby tries to ask other questions of the rather annoying enigmatic spirits. The thylacine points left and says "Your path lies this way". Abby shrugs and heads that way. Each of the spirits indicates that she should continue. Each time she travels around the central stones, the light grows a little fainter. After 3 times, Abby comes upon an archway, leading into the stones, that wasn't there before.
The arch leads to a stair, continuing widdershins and down into the ground. The stairs are lit with torches. Eventually the stairs end, spilling Abby out into a sort of antechamber. Three chambers leaded away from where she stands. Each of the chambers appears to contain dead people - they lie there in state. One chamber is full of lupus, another full of homid, probably garou, judging by the tattoos and all. The third chamber/corridor seems likely to be full of kinfolk. Abby decides to take the homid garou corridor/chamber and see what's down the far end. The chamber curves slowly as she moves along it, so she can only see a short distance ahead and behind.
Finally Abby sees a change in the quality of light shining from ahead. It is more like daylight than not. She moves forward faster and the path she follows moves up a set of steps and into another chamber. The woman that Abby saw on the surface stands in front of an altar of sorts. Either side of her are two doorways, with different daylight streaming out of them. The woman jestures to the altar in front of her and repeats "I have seen you kill the moon". Abby moves closer and can see a quiver laying on the altar. She picks it up and realises that its a fetish - Abby cautiously attunes to it and the spirit within, finding that it was created to help kill banes. When Abby returns to the world without, the woman is gone.
She quickly glances at the two doors and nonchallantly decides on the pre-spring one. Abby steps out into a European forest, apparently nearing spring, but still snowy and chill. Pine trees add a much needed splash of green. Abby wanders along, happy to go where the path takes her. She can't see the sun, but there seems to be a sort of afternoon glow to the sky. After an hour or so, she smells woodsmoke, and following that along leads to a simple stone cottage, where she can see a woman brooming her doorstep. The woman looks up at Abby and beckons invitingly. Abby is a bit cautious, but can't see anything wrong - curse this lack of sense unnatural - so she follows the woman.
Inside, a cheery fire burns, and the woman is stirring some sort of stew or soup in a blackened pot. At this range, Abby can see that her features are not entirely human. Abby suspects that she might be with some sort of spirit related to Brigid, given the night and her wish and the cheeryness of the hearth. The woman dishes out two bowls of the stew (mmm, venison) and pours two goblets of water. She jestures again for Abby to sit and eat, and does so herself. Abby shrugs, decides she is hungry and that water would be a good idea given how much she drank earlier. When they have begun eating, the woman speaks, saying that it has been some time since one of the Fianna visited. She and Abby talk - she is most interested in hearing of the outside world, especially as she is unable to visit it herself.
The woman continues to tend her house and talk to Abby. When the sky has darkened, she offers a comfortable bed near the fire. Abby accepts and sleeps a content sleep.
Abby spends the next three days with the woman. The realm they are in has a sun on one horizon and a moon on the other, but the sky lightens and darkens during the day, and stars appear at night. She continues to draw Abby out and ask questions about the Fianna of Ireland, and of Australia, and also about what the Claws of Wisdom have done. They walk through the woods and spend time in the cottage. In the end, Abby suggsts that she should leave, and return to the Fianna. The woman agrees and shows Abby how to return to the mortal world, walking with her to an old dirt road. She watches as Abby heads into the mists of the Umbra.
As the woman fades, Abby realises that she doesn't really want to tell anyone else about this encounter. She decides to not mention anything beyond the point of finding the quiver, not even to her pack. It just seems too private.
When Abby finds her way back to the Sept she is visiting, she is most surprised to find that 3 weeks have actually passed, not three days. She has missed her flight home, not to mention the rest of her holiday. The local Fianna think that she has probably encountered some of the fae - the tripartate figure occurs a lot in Celtic mythology. The quiver too, is celtic in style, but no one seems to have any knowledge of the fetish. Abby marks it down to one of those weird werewolf things and tries to get back to Melbourne in time for her course to start.
All during the feast at Tir n'Noght, Lord Reegus has being hanging off Abby's side, flirting with her. Some part of either the drink, or Abby's nature responds to his presence, but she manages to keep her instincts firmly under control. Eventually she agrees to take a walk in the gardens, and he continues his attempts to woo her. Abby, however, remains firm. Well, relatively firm. A couple of kisses don't hurt, right. Firm, yes.
Abby is a bit too concerned to be willing to experiment - she's not sure about the local customs, she's not sure whether its a good idea for fae and garou to mix, she's not sure whether her parent's would approve.
She ends up back in her rooms, alone, before her pack return from the huge feast, sucessfully having stuck to her mythological archetype.
Notes: dream from Brigit, 'talking' with Janos. To be filled out when I can find my book.
Abby decides to use her Fae Kin gift. And botches. There's a noise behind her, and she spins to see the insane and temporally challenged aboriginal/fae/wyrm woman who looks at her and says "I have seen you kill the Moon". Then a voice says "'ello poppet" in her left ear. Abby goes to run in lupus, but a hand grabs her tail and pulls, and the world spins.
When she can see again, she's laying on her back in a forest at night It senses of fae all around, and she can see stars, but they don't match with the familiar constellations and there's no moonlight at all. She sits up and finds that there are two gentles standing nearby - long, straggly grey hair, glowing red eyes, red hats, fingers like talons - oh good, recaps, and probably Unseelie.
She demands that they let her back and the recaps tell her that they don't think that would be much fun. Abby leaps at one of them and it dodges away, but she manages to get a grip on its throat - the other has vanished. She makes certain threatening noises at the one she has captured, and it comments that they could just take her to the Queen - everyone knows that taking Abbigail O'Farrell of the Claws of Wisdom to the Queen would certainly end in being justly rewarded. Abby sighs. There is a brief glimmer to her left and suddenly something... no, somethings hits her from that side, jarring her off the redcap and rolling her through the forest - it feels like she's been runover by a train.
The redcap's voice echos in from the forest and says that rather than taking her to the Queen, they offer her a game instead - if she wins, she can go free. If they win, she gets to be their hunting doggy. Abby looks about the forest, and notices that there are low fae bouncing around a distance away. She asks what game, and they say just a chase - they'll chase her through the forest. She makes a counter offer - they try and catch her without anyone else helping or interfering, and no tricks: if they win, they take her to the Queen and get their reward, but if she wins, they take her back. There is some muttering from the direction of the forest and they seem to be happy about that, but they insist that she doesn't use any tricks either. Abby gives out a Howl of the Wyld, chasing all the low fae away. The redcaps are unhappy, but she says that the low fae wouldn't have interfered anyway - right?
The redcaps start to count, as best they can. Abby takes off at great speed. The forest seems to block her - the ground becomes goopy in the best paths, trees bow in the wind and get in her way - but she ignores this cheating and leaps and jumps and dodges all the crap the redcaps throw in her way. They are chasing, but she is getting away from them. Abby is scudding along through the forest, just starting to realise that she didn't actually put a timelimit on the chase, when she runs into an open circle of moonlight - she skids to a halt.
Abby is standing in a circle of menhir stones, in bright moonlight. The centre of the circle is a piller and in front of it is a thylacine. It speaks - without moving its mouth - and says "I will have been going to see you running with the night in your hands. You have been killing the Moon". Abby realises it is the same woman she has seen before. The thylacine says "You have been in danger of losing yourselves. There will be a darkness within you".
Abby asks the thylacine about killing the moon, and her response is a bit confused. She says that she did see Abby kill the moon, but she now will have seen another - the Shaper, or Artisan. Abby is a bit lost, and looks down. The ground sparkles in an odd way, and when Abby checks it, it burns - silver. That's weird. She asks the woman (now an aboriginal woman) if there is any other advice she has for Abby and the woman says "We were the people of the crossroads. We will be the children of the gate. We are in every boundary between one place and another". Abby asks if that means the woman can help her leave, and the woman says that Abby will always be able to leave. Abby smacks herself in the head and uses her Faerie Gate gift - she travels 3 times widdershins around the piller - just as she is leaving the last circle, she notices a silvery handprint on one of the columns....
Abby appears next to a large rock - its dark, but there is a fire nearby, quite a large one. Something comes out of the dark, attacking her, and she steps backwards and away. Something else smacks her in the temple, it goes black.
Abby comes to in homid form. She is lying on the floor, in moonlight, in a small hut. She goes to sit up and an arm pushes her down. A voice, Australian, asks who she is, and Abby replies with "yes! made it back home, what's the date?" The voice demands her name, and there is a metallic sound and a glint and feel of silver. Abby says "Abbigail O'Farrell, of the Claws of Wisdom, of the Sept of Sleeping Lore". The voice says "how did you get here?" and she suggests contacting Sleeping Lore to confirm who she is - the voice says he's well aware of who the Claws of Wisdom are. Abby says that the came here from the faerie lands, where she got taken against her will during the eclipse.
The voice seems satisfied and says that his name is Eoin Baillie - Abby sits up, allowed this time, and looks at him, realising that Eoin is one of her second cousins - she hasn't seen him for about 10 years. He kind of disappeared - not in a bad way, but just people stopped referring to him much. She tries to question him, but he is reluctant to talk, and Abby wants to get back to her pack - she's not sure where she is, but she is too far away to use their mental link. Eoin says that she now has two choices - she can either put on the hood he has with him and they'll send her back to Rippling Waters, or she can swear an oath to never reveal anything about where she is to anyone, including her pack. She says they have a mental link and that can be hard, and Eoin says the hood. Abby is reluctant, but he says that she has to trust him as a Fianna. Abby agrees and is brought out of the building, and led by Eoin and a female Garou (who she can smell) across some grassish terrain. There is a brief wait and then she is led down a moonbridge. Eoin's voice says that Sandra (the Keeper of the Land at Rippling Waters) will take the hood off when they've gone, and Abby waits patiently.
Sandra removes the hood and looks at Abby a bit strangely. Abby says that she wants to head straight home, if possible. Sandra agrees and arranges a Moonbridge back to Sleeping Lore. Abby resolves to only tell her pack that she came from the faerie land to Rippling Waters and then home.
Mae Fischer shows up at Abby's place unannounced. She says that she happened to be in Melbourne and thought she'd drop by. Which is a total lie, because she has news for Abby.
After the last council meeting and the pack winning the challenge against Tjinderi, Tjinderi told the pack what they asked, and then left. So there was going to be some fireworks at this Council Meeting on Tuesday. However, a little bird told Mae that Tjinderi has already sent apologies, and won't be there. Sooo, if the Claws of Wisdom were going to go, its probably not worth their time.
The other thing that Mae wants to ask her about is why on earth Cole was wearing a scottish noble's crest when he was at the Brigetfest earlier this month. Apparently some Hunter Valley Fianna took offence and challenged him for it and won, but inquiring minds want to know why it is he was wearing it in the first place.
Abby asks which house it was, and Mae says "Thomas of Ercildoune". This causes Abby some consternation, because that Thomas is known to her through stories of True Thomas, the man who went to Arcadia for 100 years before returning to the mortal world. She says that she'll try and find out when she can.
When Abby is going to mention something about why the garou are behaving so stiffly toward one another, she catches Mae's eye, who shakes her head. They saunter off quietly, but Freya spots them. Abby gives her a quick reassurance and heads out of sight with Mae. Mae just says that there was a bit of a dispute about some stuff on the border between the two caerns - two packs wanted to sort something out, and they got miffed and there was some out of context quoting.... basically its nothing really, and its already sorted, but there's some lingering awkwardness. Mae just doesn't want anyone else blundering into it.