What Could Have Been, What Will Have Been...

The second night of Roaring Jack's moot had been a haze of deuls, drink, and tales of glory and honor. Late into the night Rends-The-Gar fought and listened and boasted along with his tribesmen. He'd learned much through the course of the night, much about his heritage and culture and had won much honor in the fighting pits. But now, as Luna swam among the stars in her languid path, all was quiet in the once-sacred forest where the Greatwolves of the North had made merry. Now quiet and alone, Rends sat with his back against a great petrified pillar of wood set with weathered native runes, newer and sharper Get runes, and twin sets of claw marks; each telling their own history of the ancient place.

Content and happily tired, Rends puffed away on his corncob pipe, taking the occassional sip from a horn of mead. He leaned back into the sentinel tree, but felt something jabbing into his back. Reaching back into his pack, Rends pulled out the offending item. Now cleaned of flesh and hair with the help of some of the spawn of Cockroach, Tames-The-Weaver's bleached white skull stared at Rends. Mood suddenly soured somewhat, Rends stared back, blowing smoke into the hollow eyes. The smoke swirled inside, the bled up into the air to be lost in the night air. Rends shook his head and whispered to his father's shade.

"Did you know you'd fall like that? Is that why you took us away and hid us from the rest of the Get? Is that why you took all this away from me?"

The skull offered no answers.

"I seen what you could have been. Why weren't you better? What's the difference between you and that other version of you?"

The wind shifted ever so slightly and Rends-the-Gar caught a whiff of stinking alligator grease, the odor so strong he could almost taste it, even through the heady smoke of his pipe.

Can't-Be-Killed of the Uktena stood at the Get's elbow, wrapped against the spring chill in a black buffalo hide edged with grey wolf fur. His nose, forehead and cheek bones were like high plateaus in the moonlight, and the rest of his lined features were valleys of shadow. Rends noticed carved skullcaps hung around the Uktena's neck, each one covered in shriven scenes as intricate as they were cryptic.    

"I see our taste in trophies is not so different," the elder Tonkawa remarked dryly. He crouched beside Rends, ignoring the smoke to get a better look at the skull held by the Ahroun. After a quiet moment, the Uktena murmured "The similarities are striking... as are the differences."

Rends chuffed, standing and facing the Chief.

"Ma always said I was lucky to get paws strong jawline."

He handed the skull to the Tonkawa Chieftan.

"Strange, ain't it, how the mighty can fall. And after they do theys nothing more than rotten flesh and bleached bones. Tames the Weaver was counted one of the mighty once. I seen a world where he didn't fall, and my family stood together against the Wyrm."

He puffs on the pipe, staring into the empty eyes of his father.

"But that ain't this world. In this world he's a disgrace and I struck him down myself. Makes me wonder where the line is. Did he know when he lost his sight? Could he see when he fell from grace? Would it have changed anything?"

"Our bodies are doomed from birth, strong and weak alike. You know this, it is the way of Gaia."

"I did not know your father, but if he was as the other Get of Fenris, he was strong. And proud. One does not require the other, yet the two often go hand in hand. To be strong is not the same as being unassailable." Can't-Be-Killed pushed his index and ring fingers into the eye sockets of the skull, and held them there, before he turned his gaze on Rends.

"I can feel that your father was full of despair. That he suffered anguish over his failure to keep Gaia's will, I have little doubt." The Uktena's head twisted as he looked over his shoulder at Rends, the moonlight catching the edges of the cratered scars along his jawline.

"You fear to make the same mistake? Do you feel the sliding grip of the Wyrm's coils?"

Rather than blustering or roaring a protest at the very question, Rends stood silent in rumination for a long moment. Maybe it was the drink, or the pipe, or some newfound kinship with the greater Nation, but some of the bravado seemed to be gone from the wolf of the plains.

"Yes."

He huffs a breath, almost as if to expel the taste of the word from his mouth.

"I seen a pattern in the stories of my people as I sit and listen. Warriors rise, fight, lead, and die. But too often they die cuz they's too proud to see the error of their way, or they overguess they own strength and leave nothing but orphans to take revenge. I feel that same pride in me, and it scares me. I feel my father's ghost just over my shoulder, dangling his failures over me when the night is quietest..."

Eyes distant, but locked on the skull, smoke billows out of his mouth and occludes his eyes for just a moment. It catches under the brim of his Ranger hat, creating a hazy halo.

"I see the potential of that same failure in myself. So I push myself to do more, fight harder, lead better, but is it enough? Where will my failure start me down the road to dishonor? How can I know I'll leave my future children with anything more than a vendetta?"

"You will fail, Rends-the-Gar, I promise you." Can't-Be-Killed growled softly. "But will you allow that inevitable future failure to shake you, to make you lose faith?" Dispassionate eyes fixed on the Ahroun, two pools of flat obsidian glinting in the night.

The taciturn edges of the older Uktena's mouth twitched upwards ever so slightly. "These questions you ask make me think that you will not be swayed from Gaia's path, for you have seen what lies down that road- not just dishonor, but madness and deepest misery."    

The Tonkawa rose and drew his hide cloak about him a bit tighter, but still his gaze lingered on Rends; it was starting to get a little unnerving how long Can't-Be-Killed could go without blinking. Finally he handed the skull back to the Get of Fenris, the polished jaws clacking slackly. "Your father is gone, but his death proved to be his final lesson. I wonder if he had the clarity to realize that, in the end."

Rends took the trophy back and regarded it for a silent moment before he nodded to himself and looked up at the chief.

"I reckon he may have other lessons to teach yet. Or at least I can use him to avoid falling into the same trap. I was gonna ask Eldgrim to help, but he has his hands full. Will you help me make him a fetish? Somethin I can use to see different paths, avoid the trap my pa fell into?"

His eyes are earnest, eager.

Can't-Be-Killed made a small grunt. "Though I am inclined to help you, after all your pack has done, know this: seeing the future is a gift that Gaia alone grants. All else is smoke: guesses on the part of spirits or even tricks of the enemy."

Rends smiles, chuckling.

"I don't wanna see the future. I plan on making that myself. I want something to show me what could have been. Something to let me know how my choices might have lead down different paths."

He stares at the skull again, toying with the mobile jaw.

"The future is a promise. The past a story with a thousand endings that could have been. Help me see what some of those other endings are so I can understand how to get the ending I want."

"I could do this..." Chief Placido looked at Rends for a long time as Luna slowly began to wane, drifting lower into a scattered bower of clouds. "However, ask yourself: you do not permit those around you to undermine you or your decisions, do you?" The shadowed werewolf's voice was low, soft gravel. "To do so would weaken you, as Alpha... A leader must be strong, decisive. I too lead, both wolf-brotherhoods and my kinfolk tribe. I would not seek to create an object whose sole purpose is to torment me. To live with failure and learn from it, that is different from agonizing over what might have been."

"You seek wisdom, I understand that. I respect you for seeking how to better be a leader and warrior of the Garou Nation. But hindsight is already perfect. Having a bound spirit whisper how precisely you could have avoided tragedy or created a better tomorrow that will never be..." The Uktena trailed off, shaking his head sadly.

"That is the very sort of thing that might make you like your father."

Rends considered the chieftan's words in silence.

"There are times when they's no good decision to be made. They's times when every choice plays into your enemies' hands and every road ends in death. But knowing the how of it, and what other plans may have been made can give me an insight into my enemy's mind..."

He takes a final drag from the pipe, then pats the bowl empty and stows it away.

"My pack faces an enemy in Houston who's had years to study and plan. We already know he's a crafty son of a bitch, and he knows our faces. He's kilt Garou before. Jose Miracle will be no easy enemy to best. But he's a planner. He's got backup plans on backup plans on backup plans. If I can see where he wants to move and when, I can counter him. I will know what he wants to protect and kill. And if I can know that, I can kill him. Better, I can put together what exactly he's building towards and move to stop it. I don't second guess myself, and I ain't gonna let me or anyone else start. I will use the bones of my father to see the webs the Enemy weaves. What I want is to see the traps ahead of us so I can disarm them or turn them on the Enemy. I reckon in that way he'll finally have actually tamed the Weaver."

He chuckles as he regards the Uktena.