Chapter Two: Trail of the Straw Thief
"The winter moon is surrounded by an extraordinary darkness, the logical antithesis of the supernal clarity of day; in this darkness, the dogs in every household howl together at the sight of a star, as if the stars were unnatural things."
-Angela Carter, "The Smile of Winter"
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The Rage is in you, making you itch, making you hurt. It feels like there's wolf fur and dirty hair between your skin and your flesh, and every time you move, it slides and scratches around and you just want to dig your claws into your skin and open it up and make the itching stop.
A vegetarian café below street level, away from the freezing wind, serves as a temporary base of operations. Though you have no money, you manage to score a half-eaten bowl of lentil soup. One advantage of your monstrous condition is near-immunity to disease and infection. You eat what you find. Surrounded by pre-Raphaelite prints in gilded frames, bookshelves heavy with modernist literature, and early morning students drinking smoothies and opening their laptops—all the trappings of a well-to-do college town—you search couch cushions for change and turn up seventy five cents.
Before you can heal Clay and restore your pack, you have to consider the three necessities of modern life: food, shelter, and data. You also need to consider the Wolf: other Garou have probably moved into the territory around the Broad Brook Caern. And werewolves don't react well to intruders. On the other hand, maybe someone here can tell you more about what happened here.
I need to find other Garou and make formal introductions.
No use starving to death before I learn anything: I need a job and a place to stay. Maybe even a nice place around normal people.
I get right to work on the investigation. I need to heal Clay, and I don't expect other Garou to help.
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