unfinishedlibrary | do you bare your fangs at us, sir? MOONLIT RIVALS LOG 2, SCENE 2

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do you bare your fangs at us, sir? MOONLIT RIVALS LOG 2, SCENE 2

Who: Readers and Actors
What: The werewolves who are not sneaking into the party cause a bit of mischief... and did anybody actually agree to keep the peace tonight?
When: The night of the ball itself. [ooc timeline: Feb 6th - 19th]
Where: The city of Montica.
Content warnings: Please include any warnings in headers.

Waxing Gibbous Moon

In Town

Above the city, the Umbra Mansion stands tall. Its grand doors and windows have been opened, spilling light like a beacon. Music lilts in the air, drifting so far as to be faintly heard even in the neutral centre of the city.

The streets have emptied, particularly in the vampiric half of town. Most of the vampire loyalists have joined the masquerade, leaving their homes and shops unattended. Tonight is a special night - a once in a century event, and they wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Even some werewolves and neutral citizens have been enticed to attend. Jadis the Mystic has created a lotion that will disguise the scent of a werewolf; an effect that is broken by shifting, breaking the skin, or the gradual passage of time. It is not widely distributed, but rumours travel fast. The lotion is only given to any Guildulf-aligned werewolves, but… well, there’s nothing wrong with a little trade here or there. Right?

For all of the wolves in town - with the moon so close to being full, it’s natural for them to feel a bit more excitable. Energetic. Ready to take on the world. And seeing as Montica is so empty, it’s like a playground has just been opened up. The young wolves in particular are eager to take advantage of the empty streets, the sound of not-quite-mature howls breaking through the air in their excitement. There are hardly any people around to be scared if they play too rough or run too fast, and they are taking advantage of this with great enthusiasm.

In the highly-debated 'neutral' zone, some small packs of adolescent werewolves are gathering. There's banter and roughhousing, the not-quite-adults playfully shoving each-other over the invisible line where the vampire territory begins.

Some of the bravest amongst them take the challenge to dart over and brush their fingers over silver doorhandles - their yelps spurring courage and adrenaline in the others. What starts harmlessly enough quickly escalates as they urge each-other on, teenage excitement and the thrill of the moon encouraging all sorts of bad choices. The longer they go without reprimand, the more bold they become; and somewhere along the way, bulbs of garlic start winding up in places they wouldn't normally be found. (There is at least one group who is excitedly challenging each-other to leave the garlic in more and more absurd places. If they happen to sting themselves on some silver ornamentation on the way, all the better.)

Not all homes are unoccupied, though - sooner or later someone’s going to disturb someone else’s peace, and tensions are already so high. Hopefully there are some Responsible Adults around to curtail the worst of the mischief before someone’s temper is sparked.

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As the sky lightens, the Guildulf staff and family members returning from their work of the night are presented with what happened in their absence. The courtyard is filling with bodies. More keep getting brought out, loosely covered in bloody canvas, sometimes with names attached. Jadis is there, supervising and evaluating whatever minor injuries or strains her people have come back with, carrying herself with a brittle dignity that's quite a lot colder than her typical demeanor, though she still clasps their hands and presses their shoulders. Touch remains a grounding sense and she's dosed herself to the gills to stay alert and focused after last night, making it that much more important to stay in the moment.

She is not wearing the evidence of what happened as openly as Roberte is, and by comparison she's not nearly as shocking a sight. Her face is pink and glistening with a broad first-degree burn and the layer of ointment she's applied to it, she has no eyebrows, her arms and hands are bandaged, and she's wrapped her hair in a scarf which, like her clothing, is clean. Little visible blood, mostly dried under her nails and in her hairline.

But bathing or combing the ash out of her hair would take some time and there's so much to do, so even if it's not as obvious as with Roberte, she's wearing the evidence as well. The odors would be present to a human nose; to a wolf's, they speak. Under the scents of her remedies - including the nostril-stinging wolfsbane concoction which prevents turning after a bite - the reek of burnt hair and fur follows her. Magefire and charred flesh. And even if she's wiped or washed the worst away, as with the whole house she smells like she was present for slaughter.

She might meet you at the gate, harried-looking and clearly not actually quite seeing you, because her gaze is glassy and no matter how familiar you are she asks "Hello? State your business." You might also come across her leaning against it, clutching at her head, or just with her head bowed and eyes screwed shut against something upsetting, mouthing denials and pleas to Tyche Automatia and Agathos Daimon.

Edited 2026-02-17 02:23 (UTC)

"... Good god, it's worse than I thought." This the first thing out of Amalia's mouth on approaching the back entrance. She's been up all night, as well, defending the peace of the Laurelthirst and anywhere else a small, flying squad could go to put out the metaphorical fires. "-- No, first-- I am Amalia, I have news from the Noctiluna, the Endymion, and the Hunters. How have you been, Jadis?"

She's lost track of Lily in the confusion; though she suspects it won't be long until the full reconciliation.

"Ama- oh. A moment please." Jadis closes her eyes hard and rubs the bridge of her nose, smearing the ointment on her skin. The here and now. Come on, keep it together. She opens her eyes again, and if she keeps glancing at something unseen just over Amalia's shoulder, she's at least seeing her. Behind Jadis a man and a boy are bringing out another wrapped corpse around to the courtyard. Their shoes are bloody.

"We lived through the night and my lord will keep his right arm, though the state of it-" She grimaces. The work she'd done on his maimed and shattered arm is quite beyond what any other healer native to Montica could have pulled off even fully rested and well-supplied. It's just also not good enough, she'd run against the limits of her understanding and strength and came up wanting. Even if she hadn't been throwing her magic around, she couldn't have restored it perfectly. "Well. We still live, but it was a near thing. The... one of the heads of the families came without a formal challenge, bringing a posse. I didn't predict that."

She does not say anything about it being partly her fault, though she feels it. There have always been rumors about her, the Guildulfs' pet witch, Roberte's pet witch, which have grown over the years to be less about him keeping a woman and more about her supposed influence on him and his tendency to trust her. A few days back she'd advised him on several things other packs and individuals would try on the night of the masquerade and he'd acted on it as reliable information. This hasn't been particularly popular and she'd expected Apienne to harangue her patron, not this.

Trying to shake it off, Jadis lets Amalia in. "And you? I'm... sorry, I've forgot what you were meaning to do last night, but I'm glad you've made it here."

"No point in hiding it now. I went among the Umbra in a futile attempt to weigh the heart of the Court." She waves a hand at the body bag. "These idiots thought that meant I was colluding with vampires, and in the name of that and strikes at-- and here I must stress the location-- The Minecart and Salten roads, thought to butcher the peace I guarantee at the Laurelthirst."

Minecart road leads further into Montica's mountains, and the Salten road leads to the port town less than a days' walk away. It should be noted Umbra Manor is near the middle of silversmith territory. Very wide-ranging to be Umbrans.

"Years of preparation and my guarantee of calm, ruined at the hands of people who haven't the sense to ask someone whose trade is information what information she is trading! And there were several bites. One yet a boy. I. Am. Livid."

Ah. She'd thought she'd seen Amalia wearing a mask (Two masks?) but knew no more than that. Jadis's difficulty with names means that she can't quite place the significance of those roads but she doesn't like to call attention to said difficulty, so she nods.

"I see," she says, pulling her focus from the happenings on the estate to those on the Laurelthirst. The little she'd picked up from it didn't make a great deal of sense but she'd been busy at the time. "So all that work trying to head off attacks on the vampires left a lot of idiot pups to find other targets. That's terrible news. If you send me the bitten, or bring me to them, I will treat them. No charge, I've already made up several doses and they only stay effective for a few days."

Her dark eyes are earnest and concerned. Jadis is very rarely angry, to look at her; she tends to show the sorrow or fear that often go with that emotion instead. "Those poor staff and patrons. Were there any deaths, do you know? Any serious injuries? The whole troupe wasn't away at the masquerade, were they?"

"No, they weren't. One was silver-burnt, but will recover. but... Well. We had help from a watch-maker, and... A brief alliance." A shadow-wolf.

"And for the cure, I thank you. But... As for the news of vampire strikes, I know it can't have been the Umbra. Most everyone who wanted anything from the Umbra was there that night, even if I couldn't weigh all their hearts."

"If you don't have someone who can address the burns, call on me. I can give you a salve, if nothing else." Silver burns can get quite nasty untended. "Was that one of the outsiders?"

"Mmm. Those who never even set eyes on the Umbra household are of truly minor standing, all but outcasts, and rather meek. ...At least, those who have homes in the city." There had been a few, and they'd seemed like potential targets to certain families not because they'd really done anything but because they'd been left so little defended. Vampires who aren't elegant or fearsome. "I haven't heard much about these vampire strikes. Were victims left alive? Turned?"

She hopes it wasn't the night heron. Jadis is well aware that he's killing people for reasons that make sense to him.

"According to this letter, drained. And Wolves. Which itself is madness... If you have access to Lord Umbra's patronage."

"Drained wolves," Jadis repeats, to make sure she'd heard it right. "That's... yes, indeed. We're supposed to be just short of inedible, wasn't that it?"

She's not a werewolf and goes to considerable lengths not to turn, but having been in her unusual position for a decade she considers them as closer to an "us" than a "you".

"My lord is going to have to hear about that, and soon. But, ah-" She hesitates. "He's quite angry after last night. I've never seen him so upset. He will be able to shift to take in this sort of news, I think, but not easily."

"The legend goes we taste awful, and are as sustaining as lesser wolves-- not especially, in other words." If Amalia notices the slip, she says nothing of it. She's heard the rumors of Jadis using her 'wiles' to affect Roberte, but to her, it's always seemed it's gone at least half the other way, too.

"And yes. He will. But... If that's the case, doing investigation of my own initiative can only be for the better."

Amalia's not wrong.

"So there would only be a number of drained werewolves as a statement, or... what, vampires who can't get at humans?" Jadis starts to scratch her head, encounters the headscarf she's wrapped around it, and lowers her hand. "Hmm. What are your ideas?"

She's not going to not keep Roberte informed. This is stalling a bit though. They're in disagreement about something, on top of genuine rage, and the way Jadis usually has of being an exception to the harsh face he presents is not going to be quite as effective.

Edited 2026-02-22 13:14 (UTC)

"... Which fits the profile of these vampires not being Umbran." Damn it all. This is getting out of hand. "I think there's at least one group out there, likely more, who have been organizing these strikes.

"... I owe Lord Umbra a personal apology, much as it pains me to say. If these are what's been riling the werewolves, he's not directly involved."

"Umbra was very harsh to whichever clans they were contending with before, weren't they?" Jadis is frowning. She's not really up on Montica lore from that far back, she just has some awareness that the Umbrans can resort to far greater brutality than they try to let on. "So any others would want to lie low as they can."

Amalia wouldn't say personal apology if she'd merely felt Lord Umbra was behind various issues, would she? "Why, did you confront him about it?"

"I went to his court with the express intention of learning and exposing the cracks in his rule, in the hope of seeing where his stake in the violence lay." She huffs. "These countering facts, they're too important. I can't leave this be."

She takes up an arrowhead made of iron, and clutches it. Jadis can feel the familiar weight of fate being called upon. She means to swear an Iron Vow, a promise to pursue the matter to death-- and perhaps after it, if oath be dire enough.

An invisible weight on the world, which bends Amalia towards it.

"A moment first. Are you sure you want to swear by that?" Jadis asks softly. She's not saying don't, just urging her to pause and think. Honestly, she wouldn't swear so for almost anything, but, after all, Amalia does stand to gain quite a lot. "Can you do this without swearing? If it's another who ends up taking the fore, will that harm you?"

She's aware that Amalia's got that particular intuition for finding herself in the right place at the right time when something matters enough to her. It's very probable she will be the central figure here, but not guaranteed, especially if outsiders involve themselves. Jadis has the unhelpfully vague sense that they're going to find something, whoever is responsible won't just slip away entirely, anyway.

"... Someone has to get to the bottom of this. These strange stories. And the iron vow grants a measure of protection, for as much as it pulls you along with it." She pauses. "There is a strange sore upon this city, and I want to see it out, if ever I can."

Another faint pause. "You are right that I should be careful with my vow."

After the sun's broken above the horizon -- but before all the pale colors of dawn have fled the sky -- a curious personage approaches the Guildulf gates and their flagging guardian. He is tall -- nearly seven feet if he's an inch -- and clad in robes of gold and cream and crimson hung and stitched with the symbols of a magician's arts. Like the woman at the gate, the cloud of the night's scents is thick around him -- wolf's blood and vampire's, a bite of burned garlic, the scent of a silver wound -- but unlike her, he carries himself with the poise of someone who's had a decent night's sleep.

Which he has not -- but then, he was made to function on very little.

He pauses before Jadis where she's slumped against the gate, deep in the throes of her megrim, and studies her with a single eye grown grey with concern and evident compassion.

(Her spirit! O, her spirit! She doesn't flame so brightly as one of his sons, but she burns bright, and part of it is the great rift torn through the middle of it that lets the light from beyond shine through. Without further study, he cannot be sure -- but the marks of the soul-wound look almost self-caused.

It is not a path he would suggest to any aspirant to open their inward eye to the Great Ocean, but the absolute audacity of it -- and the results! ... What a woman!)

"Daughter," he finally says, in a tone warmly avuncular, warmly worried, "what have you done to yourself?"

Edited (A form of address that felt slightly more correct) 2026-02-19 02:17 (UTC)

Jadis feels, at nearly all times, that the insights she'd sought follow her, or carry her like a horse that she can't actually control but usually goes where she wants eventually. It pauses, it grazes, it examines some things she'd never have thought twice about and misses things that are obviously important to normal senses. Sometimes, usually when she gets just the right sort of curious or is upset enough, it takes off at a gallop and it's all she can do to hold on as a torrent of information - visions of what is and may be, context, impossible knowledge about stars or the body or what a 'drone' is - comes and blocks out her sight.

It never does this about what she thinks of as the 'outside places' like the one with the library, or the town with all the automatic carriages, or the homes of the outsiders; it shows her but never explains the other-selves attached to several of the people she knows, or if she has one such self, though she knows she must. Contemplating outside-things in detail hurts. Trying to argue with the familiar/alien sense of a hunger that can't be fed and regards the bodies of the rival werewolves so recently killed with speculation and longing hurts, and Jadis is pushing into it.

Hearing is the one sense nearly as reliably of the present as touch is, so she hears the stranger's warm, deep voice, if at a distance, and is reminded she still has a duty, and registers something pressing at her, as the rays of the sun exert a pressure on her in the summer. If Jadis was at her best she might use her Polaris spell to insulate herself and create a pocket of calm, but she might not think to do so. This aura is quite unlike the "night heron"'s.

"A moment," she says thickly, opening her attention and her eyes, which go round as she stares up at the stranger. And up, and past. Her pupils, which to normal human eyes are indistinguishable from her irises in all but the best light, dilate to their fullest. Jadis doesn't understand what she's seeing - there's someone absurdly larger than the face he's presenting, yes, but past that it's abstraction, and a flicker of wings? - but oh, glory! Under the burn she flushes and grows pale, recognizing something she'd had a premonition of, that she'd assigned a name.

"You're the cotinga," she breathes, awed and curiously happy, and pulls her gaze down all the way back to the mask he's holding down at near-mortal level for her. He has quite a few names of his own, and she knows none of them; when she metaphorically holds out her hand she feels several brush her fingers, but only one that settles on her palm and can be grasped. "You're... Lord Nerd!"

"Lord Nerd," she names him, and he laughs aloud -- his concerned mood brightening as the sun breaks through cloud -- to hear the name on her lips. Oh, Konrad had said this was the harpy woman, hadn't he? It was good that his brother's co-conspirator remembered that much of the Library.

"The very same," he replies, with a smile. "And glad I am that you recognize me.

"I have heard from my brother of the attack against your house." There's a brief pause, as he looks past her -- past the gates -- to the bodies in the courtyard. All of that is as settled as he expected it to be, for he'd tarried quite deliberately after having Konrad's news. Better for him, as an unknown quantity, to arrive after the first flush of emotion and suspicion were over.

"Thus I came to offer my aid to you and your lord -- and to ask for your help, for I have heard you're skilled in healing the particular wounds of wolves, and your lord was not the only one harmed last night."

Jadis laughs when he does, which startles her. This sense of delight in the attention of something marvelous is so strong and striking, it's hard not to believe that the situation, all of it, is solvable. Some aspect of Kyprioth, and maybe a dragon, some part of her thinks, and for a fraction of a second that makes perfect sense.

He's here for a reason, though. Multiple reasons! She tries to gather her wits.

"I know my lord Roberte Guildulf is kin to you," she starts. Talking about the other-selves of people she knows causes an unease in her that even the cotinga's proximity can't quite dampen. "He does not. Please don't speak other names to him. Last night before the night heron - your brother, I'm sorry - arrived one of the assassins bit and shattered the bones in my lord's right arm."

With her left hand, the back of which is bandaged, Jadis indicates on her own right arm, bandaged as well from a far more restrained bite. Radius and ulna, carpals, metacarpals. "It would have been better if he hadn't shifted, twice." She shakes her head, grimacing, distress breaking through. "I fused the bones and I pulled the nerves and the veins through but I didn't... it hurt him so... The closest I've ever done before was much simpler! Just a compound fracture! So it's still. It's not aligned right. I'm not good enough to restore his arm, even immediately after the damage was done."

She'll circle back to the rest of this in a bit. By the standards of Montica, Jadis has done something quite impressive in healing Roberte. She is exceptional. She's just not good enough for the trust he's put in her, and especially under the cotinga's gaze knows that her very best, even if she'd been fresh and had had the time to work slowly, is little better than wrapping a limb in linen.

Edited 2026-02-22 03:17 (UTC)

All that brilliant attention remains focused on Jadis as she begins her accounting of the night's events. It is scattershot -- not unexpectedly, given her condition -- but it is not the worst briefing Magnus has been given, and it contains all he'd wish on his brother's condition. More than, even; her second reference to knowledge of the greater world beyond and around the Story is a pleasant surprise. So, she could be considered a sort of native agent -- clearly eager to work with them -- and to her caution he not trouble her lord with that knowledge, he gives due gravity and a grave nod.

And her description of the healing she performed gets a considering look as well. That is also more than he'd hoped to hear, given Konrad's expectation Magnus' own touch might be required to save their brother from sepsis. He lets a little of his relief to know he's less vitally necessary color his tone: "You couldn't heal him perfectly -- but do I understand correctly, daughter, that you still saved the limb? After spending yourself fighting his enemies?"

His sharp eye hadn't missed the marks of warpflame on her -- or one of the corpses piled in the courtyard. The Pyrae art is unmistakable after all his years seeing it wreaked on the Imperium's foes.

Okay. He's not going to go in and overwhelm Roberte with what will seem like nonsense, delivered from a much more authoritative source than she'd been in her wild ravings when Roberte first brought her home.

"Well. Yes. I only got a few of them, sometimes um. I get too many visions and I can't see what's in front of me, and once it started it was just too loud to... One of these came to me for something sensitive once, and it meant enough they hesitated to kill me." Jadis takes patient confidentiality very seriously, she'll share the name and identity but is not telling anyone about the nasty case of syphilis, even now. "But they still tried, and so I knew where they were and... I burned them up! I hate to think that's why I took them as a patient that time, and it didn't mean enough that they'd stay home, but..."

She wavers, and then looking back up at him - did he just call her daughter? oh that is flattering and she doesn't deserve it - she continues in a giddy rush. "But it was amazing. I didn't know I could...! And it didn't burn the house down! There's kind of a crater in the floor and ceiling in the study but it didn't catch! I remembered that part!" Jadis hugs herself, ignoring that it stings salved wounds, and lets out a half-hysterical giggle.

Edited 2026-02-23 02:34 (UTC)

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do you bare your fangs at us, sir? MOONLIT RIVALS LOG 2, SCENE 2

In Town

early morning at Guildulf house

Re: early morning at Guildulf house

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howdy fellow majjikal individual

welp

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