#PLAY WEREWOLF THE APOCALYPSE HE SAID ITLL BE FUN HE SAID

[ventruetheurge]

I don't think I ever actually posted this one here that I remember but this is what I drew from our legacy game a while back, from a funerary session

The purpose of the session was for my White Howler PC after multiple years we put into this game to finally reunite with her father who's been missing since she was four years old and get some sort of catharsis and resolution of what has been a years-long mystery ic and ooc

In this session, because it was a funerary session, she went alone, without her pack. This normally would never happen ic, but because a player left and the other player was still not in a space to participate when we proceeded with this, it was left to me and my ST to handle the scene and get a bit of closure for the both of us for the game and my character specifically.

So what happened in canon is that she lies to her pack as they become scattered due to the encroaching and ever pressing apocalypse and its consequences, and approaches the caern/pit of Gaia's Heart alone. There she meets up with a Black Spiral Dancer named Cooper Siphon, who is her current packmate's former packmate and friend from when they served the Wyrm, a warborn/crinosborn/metis man and fellow theurge. We've engaged with him before, as he has narratively frightened my pc since they met, though he could also be assumed to be a kind of ronin himself at this point.

Despite being diametrically opposed in terms of what they believe (wyrmish/gaian) and how they go about being a theurge, the two agree to enter the Caern/Pit of Gaia's Heart alone, to find out what happened there and to try and access the energy of the ley lines beneath it and its spiritual power to stop the apocalypse. Cooper wants to use the energy to try and reset the world to an earlier state and undo all of the pain and treachery the path of fate has chosen. My pc, Celeste, born Courtney, believes strongly that the world cannot and should not be unwritten or unmade, and that the only course of action is to deal with the consequences and fix the world we currently have, even if that's impossible.

As this particular story does deal with the often fandom-dreaded concept of 'The Last White Howler' plot suggested in legacy's WH tribebook (yes ok boo and throw tomatoes), this is somewhat significant because her character is largely informed by an overwhelming loneliness that will end in tragedy- a rewrite of the world could undo the fate of the White Howlers, and create a world where she was never alone, where her father never left, etc- it could offer an alternative to all of her suffering, but it has long been a theme in this game with herself and her ronin BSD-turned-WH packmate that what she and they want is not to unmake or erase the people and undo what Black Spiral Dancers are, but to meet what became of her tribe where they are at, help them seek absolution from Gaia and pull those who no longer wish to continue from the arms of their Dance, with the grim understanding that the desire to change has to come from within, and that this is not possible for every Black Spiral Dancer.

So, they part ways. Prior to this, due to past issues with her mind being controlled by a former Sept Leader, she has acquired the gift Mindblock, which rejects attempts to control one's mind or other mental assaults, which allows her to pass through the plethora of illusory obstacles very easily- not that she knows this, because she is alone.

She walks further in until she encounters a large spiritual guardian and a man, who appears to be fighting it. She quickly joins the fight, surprised as she is, and when the creature is slain, the man who appears to be her age saunters forward to greet her. Their eyes lock and the two immediately recognize that their eyes are the same, and there is a momentary beat of mutual horror before the man looks away, and asks for her name.

Their reunion is emotional and painful, and she demands to know why he left her, why he didn't tell her of her garou nature and asks where he's been these past two decades. He leads her further into the caern, and shows her his corpse. He came to this caern 20 years ago for the same purpose, and he likewise came alone. And when he encountered the guardian, it severed the head from his shoulders, and he died.

He had a friend, or perhaps an item, in that he carried the severed skull of an ancient and powerful mage with him, who specialized in time magic. By some twist of magic and fate, perhaps through Gaia's judgement for his crimes as he was a man not born Garou, but who stole enough pelts to become one, he was sent back through time, and had been using his powers to fight through multiple historical wars, had been fighting to return to his appropriate timeline and his beloved only child, and thought he perhaps could have returned and changed his fate to undo the mistake he made. But now that they were reunited, this was clearly not meant to be.

My pc held herself and wept, with the particularly sad comment that she understood now that there truly was no one who was ever going to come for her, who was ever going to save her.

The two spoke for some time, and shared thoughts of love and regret, and she shared her death prophecies with him and told him very honestly that she didn't think he would be alone in death for very long, and she would likely soon follow, while he softly asked her to keep fighting, and told her that he wished she would have a long and happy life.

At the end of their teary meeting, he asks his daughter for an embrace that he has waited for for so long. And she gives it to him, and squeezes him tightly for a few moments before his body falls to bones.