The Message

This is fan created fiction about a character in a Werewolf: the Apocalypse live action role playing game run by Mind's Eye Society. If you are a fellow player, please remember that anything you read here is considered out of character knowledge. If you are a lawyer, please don't sue me; I'm not making any money off of this and it's just for fun.

The Message
by Simon W.

Inge sat on the lake's edge. The cool breeze off the water blew her hair around, strands that weren't caught and tamed by a braid flying about free in the orange and yellow light of sunset. This was one of her favorite times of day; even in the cold, dark days of her early widow-hood when she had been overwhelmed by the combination of grief and caring for small children, she had been able to find a moment's peace in the moment of sunset. Lately she had found herself feeling very far away from those dark times.

Dagmar had regained much of the spark she had lost in the Battle of the Sept of the Crescent Moon. No longer was she hiding behind beer or duty. She was willing to live again. Inge smiled to think that her sister might be granted a second chance at living. It had taken a long time to get to this point.

Her children were all living relatively happy lives. Relatively, of course, because any child born of the Nation was going to face hardship, work, and a never ending battle against the Wyrm. But for the moment her shifter born children seemed to find fulfillment in their duties to Gaia and her kinfolk born children had their jobs in the more mundane human world to turn to as well as the support they offered to their Garou family.

And then there was Wulf, and the beginnings of the new family to come. Inge hugged her rounded belly closely. She hadn't expected to fall in love a second time in her life, and she'd tried for a while to tell herself it was something different. But no, it was love and she was happy to fall, no to dive, into it and see where it led in all its glorious chaos.

Life was actually pretty good lately.

Her vision went dark. Darker than a cloud in front of the sun. Darker than night. Darker than what she could see behind her eyelids. The communications spirits that normally whispered their messages softly screeched in her mind:

"The Gaians will kill you all. Unite or die! Unite or die! The Gaians will kill you all. Unite or die! Unite or die! The Gaians will kill you all. Unite or die! Unite or die!"

And then followed a message of wrongness; a message told with reverence and love for the Wyrm. A message of Gaian victories told as failures, but even so, ones that could be overcome in the ultimate fight to bring victory to the Corrupter, the Destroyer, the End of All Things.

Nausea swept over Inge. It was far worse than anything her pregnancy had yet thrown at her. It was a visceral, physical reaction to the wrongness of what she had heard. Nearly instinctively she called up her power to make a cleansing circle with herself as the epicenter. There was no pain, no burning of corruption from her spirit, simply the cool, soothing feeling she associated with the magic of Gaia.

She sighed in relief. She still felt unclean and unsettled but at least it was simply an emotional reaction instead her having become actually tainted by hearing the message meant for the Wyrm's minions instead of herself.

Shortly afterward there was no woman on the shore, only a splash and a ripple on the waters of the lake as Inge dove in to see if the cool embrace of water would ease her mind.

A Dream of the Future

This is fan created fiction about a character in a Werewolf: the Apocalypse live action role playing game run by Mind's Eye Society. If you are a fellow player, please remember that anything you read here is considered out of character knowledge. If you are a lawyer, please don't sue me; I'm not making any money off of this and it's just for fun.

A Dream of the Future
by Simon W. 

"These are the words of Valka Thrice Blessed."

Since Valka, Legendary Tribal Counselor of the Get of Fenris, had returned from being kicked into the Deep Umbra by Grandfather Thunder she ended all of her messages in the same way. And it always made Inge grit her teeth. Inge very well knew the respect that Valka was due and she didn't begrudge her a single bit of it. It didn't mean that she agreed with her Tribal Councilor though, about hardly anything.

But she did always listen.

Today, for the first time ever, Valka's words made her cry. Today Valka had spoken about something that Get of Fenris rarely discuss, victory. Inge knew very well that her tribe's role in the Apocalypse was to fight and to die and to ensure a future for others that they wouldn't get to enjoy themselves. It was grim perhaps but it was what every Fenrir child was taught nearly from birth. Inge had known that she was likely to outlive her sister, her mate, and very possibly her children depending on how the war for the very soul of Gaia went. She could only hope that she would leave grandchildren in her wake, and of course, countless others, Gaian and not, would live because of the sacrifices of the Get of Fenris tribe.

And truly, there was nothing in Valka's message that necessarily said that victory in the war against the Wyrm still wouldn't require the sacrifices of all of the Get of Fenris. But the very idea that victory might be possible was a heady thought; enough to make Inge slightly dizzy as she stared out at the dark mountain on which she lived.

"What do you think, Little Foglet?" she asked the small Fog spirit that always followed her around now, "What would we do if the future was a possibility and not just a dream, eh?" Spirits have no shoulders, and yet it managed to shrug its shoulders all the same.

Inge nodded. "Yeah, I'm not sure either. I guess I'll have to think about it."

She went inside her little cottage. She had herbs that were dry and needed to be ground and stored. She had some phone calls to make in the morning. There was work to do. But she felt a little bit lighter tonight, as though a heaviness of spirit had been lifted.

"Dammit, Valka," she muttered to herself. "I am ok with respecting you... but I really don't want to start to like you."

Shouting At The Sky

This is fan created fiction about a character in a Werewolf: the Apocalypse live action role playing game run by Mind's Eye Society. If you are a fellow player, please remember that anything you read here is considered out of character knowledge. If you are a lawyer, please don't sue me; I'm not making any money off of this and it's just for fun.

Shouting At The Sky
by Simon W. 

Inge looked up toward the sky. Clouds had rolled in for a rare spring rainstorm but she could feel Luna behind them, in her crescent shape that Inge so strongly identified with. The little Fog spirit she had befriended was beside her, not hiding tonight since there was no one to see it.

"The Pentex created plague was designed to kill between ninety-five and ninety-nine of all humans on earth. Through the efforts of the Garou Nation and our Fera allies we managed to get that number down to about twenty percent. By any logical measure this is a victory, glorious and honorable! We should see it as such."

The Fog spirit had no response and Inge knew the only person she was trying to convince was herself. Because 2.1 million people dead in Southern California didn't feel like a victory. It felt like a gut punchingly painful loss. Maybe less personal than the losses inflicted by the Dark Brigade nearly a decade before but the sheer numbers made up for the fact that this time she hadn't lost friends, family, and community personally. Instead she ached for the millions upon billions of humans in the world that had lost their friends, families, and communities.

Inge knew the kind of work that was needed now. She understood the kind of toll that the survivors would feel. All she needed to do to remind herself of that was to look at her sister and the crushing weight of survivor's guilt she felt after the Battle of the Sept of the Crescent Moon. Dagmar had technically survived that fight... but the woman who'd come back to tell Inge that both of them were now widows wasn't the same woman who'd left for the battle. Dagmar had stuck around just long enough for the funerals and then she had left to try and disappear.

Inge never mentioned how much that had hurt. She never told her sister about the bone achingly hard work it had been to try and hold together a community of mostly kinfolk and children who had not yet shifted together for the years it had taken for the Garou Nation to start recovering and for caern seeds to be planted and for those left behind after that battle to have new septs to live and work at. She feared that the new, more fragile Dagmar wouldn't be able to tolerate the knowledge; not if it were spoken aloud anyway. She had no doubt that deep in her heart Dagmar knew. But the sisters just pretended that the words being unspoken meant they were unthought.

Funerals would have to be arranged. The dead would have to be tended to, both spiritually and physically. Communities would need to be cared for. And the Sept of the Desert Wind, by being spared the ravages of the plague, would need a special sort of tending. Because survivor's guilt could kill and Inge wasn't going to lose any more of her sister to it. Not if she had to claw at the forces of the Wyrm herself with nothing but her all too human hands.

"You don't get to take any more of her, you bastards!" Inge shouted out at the dark. "Not today. Not while I draw breath."

She went inside her cabin, the little Fog spirit trailing after her. As she slept the clouds cleared so that when she woke at dawn she was greeted with a wobbly, watery sunrise. Battered, weepy, fragile, but not broken. Just like herself. Just like her sister. Just like the Gaians.

The Cause

This is fan created fiction about a character in a Vampire: The Masquerade live action role playing game run by Mind's Eye Society. If you are a fellow player, please remember that anything you read here is considered out of character knowledge. If you are a lawyer, please don't sue me; I'm not making any money off of this and it's just for fun.

The Cause
by Simon W. 

Marianne carefully unpacked the boxes and boxes of books which made up the bulk of her haven. She lived surrounded by them. The only concessions she made to trying to make her home look like a normal human lived here was that the bedroom had a bed in it and she actually used the shower. The living area was filled with book shelves, a couch, and a desk and chair. The dining area held more bookshelves. The kitchen? Well she used kitchen cupboards as bookshelves.

She was putting them away on autopilot, the Dewey Decimal system doing most of the work for her, while she was lost in thought.

Everett had been an objectively terrible sire. No one who knew him could disagree and people who knew his childer only had to look at the fact that the one who had been effectively adopted was a lot more stable than the one who had drifted around on her own for decades. Marianne knew that her feelings about him were anything but objective. And still, she knew he had been a terrible sire.

He'd taught her almost nothing. He wasn't truly an Anarch so he couldn't teach her about the sect he claimed she belonged too. His opinion of the Sabbat was simply that they were there to be killed, by him preferably. Most of what she knew about actually being kindred came from what she had learned before she had met him, when she had been the Professor's ghoul. The only thing he'd really ever tried to tell her had been so garbled by his own issues that she hadn't really understood at the time.

It was shortly after they'd fled from Los Angeles. She'd had no idea what drove him eastward with such fervor at the time. All she knew was the he ran. And then, somewhere in the middle of nowhere New Mexico they'd been jumped by Sabbat. It was just three of them, which is probably what saved their lives because Everett fought them alone. He insisted Marianne stay out of the fray and she was more than willing to do so. He bloodied them up well enough so they could flee. And as they raced down the highway he tried to explain.

"The blood gets up, ya know? It's what makes us Brujah. It's what makes us... it's what makes us us. There's something that burns in all of us and when you see it you've got no choice but to stand up for it. Mine is the Sabbat, you see." He spit. "They all gotta die, you see."

Marianne did not see. And he'd never really bothered to explain. In the following decade she loved him, hated him, and left him. But she never really understood exactly what he'd been trying to get at.It had been other Brujah, later on, that she met that explained the Cause to her. And she had assumed that she'd just not really had one. It made sense given her history.

As she methodically put the books on their shelves she knew she'd been wrong all those decades ago. Because now her blood was up. Because now there was something burning in her heart that would not die. Because now she knew exactly what it was that drove her forward to eternity.

"It's not right," she said to herself. "Like playing chess with a damned pigeon. It's gonna shit all over the board, knock over all the pieces, and declare itself the winner no matter what you do. And that... that's not right. I'm not playing any of their games. I'm not joining any of their teams. I won't be corralled and emotionally manipulated. Nope, it's time to stand up and tell them 'no'. Because I don't like bullies and I don't like being forced to choose and I really, really don't like these damn Ancients!"

Raven

This is fan created fiction about a character in a Werewolf: the Apocalypse live action role playing game run by Mind's Eye Society. If you are a fellow player, please remember that anything you read here is considered out of character knowledge. If you are a lawyer, please don't sue me; I'm not making any money off of this and it's just for fun.

Raven
by Simon W. 

Inge couldn't sleep. Luna showed Her full face to Gaia in their eons old dance. Dagmar has fallen into an uneasy semblance of sleep finally. Albin (as she must call him now) was at least settled down and resting if not truly sleeping. Inge carefully wandered the boundaries of the sept, barefoot, bare headed, and full of an overabundance of feelings. Occasionally she could see the guardians on their rounds but they didn't stop her. She didn't go past the bawn but she wandered somewhat aimlessly otherwise. 

Eventually she found herself at the place where she'd laid out Raven's body. She didn't know what else to do for the woman who had so unfairly died. Now that the rush of adrenaline was over, now that she, Victor, and Albin were free of that place, she was finding that her anger and rage were cooling into an emotion she really would have rather not confronted; grief. 

"I'm sorry," she whispered to the corpse. "You died because of my pride and my sense of honor and justice and that's not right. You shouldn't have had to pay the price for my actions."

Raven had told Inge her given name once, all half dozen lyrical syllables. Inge had looked at her in guilty confusion at the realization that she wouldn't even pronounce it correctly. "It's ok," Raven had said, "You can call me Raven." Raven had taught Inge many of the rites she had learned recently. Raven had been adventurous and righteous and brave, everything Inge considered herself not to be. Inge had appreciated being around the younger woman even when they clearly approached life from opposite directions. 

And now Raven was gone, killed by Masterson's knife perhaps but also by Inge's decision to not give him what he'd wanted. 

There was a loud crack as a tree branch broke off of a nearby tree. The wind had been high the last few weeks and this wasn't unexpected. But it made Inge shiver, as she remembered the snap of doom from the mouth of the giant snapping turtle that had eaten the formori as they made their escape. It had saved them but it had still felt... desolate somehow. Inge wasn't extremely well versed in just what had happened to Turtle but she knew that Raven had been trying to find a way to save him and.. well she'd clearly formed some sort of connection with him. Unfortunately it had come too late for her personally. 

Come morning there would be work to do. Half the sept was unable to care for themselves because of harano. There were kin, local and distant, to be reassured. There was wounds to see to and Inge had an ever growing list of people and entities to enact vengeance on. But tonight, while the moon rode through the sky, Inge would sit with Raven. She bowed her head and cried; finally unable to keep the grief at bay. 

Post Apocalyptic Musings

This is fan created fiction about a character in a Werewolf: the Apocalypse live action role playing game run by Mind's Eye Society. If you are a fellow player, please remember that anything you read here is considered out of character knowledge. If you are a lawyer, please don't sue me; I'm not making any money off of this and it's just for fun.

Post Apocalyptic Musings 
by Simon W. 

The Apocalypse War has ended, and we lost.

Very few Garou will tell you that. But we are living in a post-apocalyptic world now. And it is as much as a struggle as you might expect from such a time and place. 

It's not the first time in the history of the Nation that we have lost the war though. Every time we fight it, we lose. You see, it is the job of the Nation to fight against the enemies of Gaia and to defend Her.

It is not our job to win.

You will tell me that these are just the bitter words of an old woman who has seen much and lost much. But I don't say these things to discourage you! No, I want you to listen to me and learn.

We have lost the war. The war is done. Now it's time to work; because despite the propaganda that it would be otherwise the world is still here and Gaia still needs us. The world is going to shit so I need you to take your Honor and take your Glory and use them to pick up a shovel and give me a hand!

There are people to feed.

There are wolves to protect.

There is land that needs restoring and there is water that needs purifying.

It is hard, boring work and no one is going to sing about it when you're done. In fact, it might even go completely unnoticed by your contemporaries. But it is the work that ensures that Gaia survives; that life continues, and that anyone will ever sing anything in the future. 

So I ask you to join me. Because the Apocalypse has come and gone but we have a world to rebuild from the devastation. And I, for one, intend to do my fair share. 

Chop Wood, Carry Water

This is fan created fiction about a character in a Werewolf: the Apocalypse live action role playing game run by Mind's Eye Society. If you are a fellow player, please remember that anything you read here is considered out of character knowledge. If you are a lawyer, please don't sue me; I'm not making any money off of this and it's just for fun.

Chop Wood, Carry Water

by Simon W

Inge peered carefully around as she stood outside near the little cabin that was her new home. She'd come outside for some air under the moonlight. After years of relative obscurity she was taking her place once again in a sept but she found herself craving time to herself. And so she took it in the cool of the evening. Storms had rolled through the mountains earlier and there was enough moisture left so that every surface was covered in silvery dew.

It was time to reassess what she was doing now that she was settled. She was reminded of an old phrase her mother used to say, "chop wood, carry water". As a child she hadn't understood what it meant really. She'd only really learned what value was in it after that terrible day when Dagmar and her pack had gone to fight and only Dagmar had returned. Dagmar hadn't really been completely alright since. Inge still didn't know exactly what had happened and she wouldn't ask the only person who could tell her. Some wounds didn't heal, even after eight years.

In the first terrible days after it happened Inge had been completely overwhelmed with all of the questions, the what-ifs, and worries of the future. But she had people who needed her to be present, to be functional. So while Dagmar wandered to the mountains to grieve, Inge was left to tend to the day to day duties of mother, kin, and healer. She'd focused on each task as it lay before her slowly working her way through the years.

Of course she still missed Gunther. He had been a good mate to her and a good father to their children. But he had also been a warrior for Gaia and, as all Fenrir expected to, he had paid the price of death to defend Her. Inge truly hoped that his death had been an honorable one and that he'd slain those that were harming Gaia before he succumbed.

But now the figurative wood had all been chopped and the water carried. Heinrik, Lars, and Karl had mates and households of their own now. Sigrid was in training to become a warrior in her father's footsteps. Inge had come to the Sept of the Desert Wind to continue her care-giving, only for her sister now instead of her children. It wasn't going to be enough. Inge could feel it in her bones. And she didn't like this feeling of having no clear task before her. She had become dependent on the clear boundaries of her world. Things were shifting now and undefined.

Inge sighed. She gave one last look up to the sky, to see Luna's bright face. And then she went inside to busy herself and try not to think about what was missing in her life.