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| - The two Garou were packmates, close since they were cubs. It was believed they had a great destiny, for how unusual was it to be blessed with two Garou of such breeding in the same generation and the same sept? Surely it was a sign from Gaia and Griffin that better times were coming. They were treated like alphas in their own right and were quick to rank despite their young age as their pack received the choice assignments. However, the most glorious battles can be the most deadly and their luck finally ran out. A strike on a group of scrags went horribly wrong for the seasoned pack, leaving three dead and both Smoke and Dawn badly injured amidst their fallen foes and friends with another scrag lurking outside the cave the two had taken refuge in. Expecting this to be their final battle, the two came together in ways forbidden, giving in to the closeness that had always been there - for who greater and more worthy of a mate was there but the other? The End Times, however, are not without a sense of irony. Life as a Metis Red Talon would hardly be called living for most Garou, but she was breathing, left to pick at the kills when all else had finished, and sleep at the edges of the bawn near the rest of her tribe. To Hatchling, it was good. She had food, shelter, and a pack. The abuse of the sept was expected and she came to accept it over the long years of being shoved over, bitten, forced to the most abject shows of submission on a regular basis. She was Metis. It was her place and at least she had one. Her lone source of more kindly companionship was Milk-Eyes, another Metis. He was tolerated for his rank, a ancient blind Athro who came at a call from the sept for truthseekers when their own numbers dropped alarmingly low and stayed to mind the mule pup. Good! The sept said, less of her they had to deal with. It was he who raised Hatchling and taught her the ways of the Garou and to speak in the Mother’s Tongue. He guided her in how to hunt when the other Talons had no tolerance for her presence. When her first change finally occurred, it was he who was assigned to be her mentor. Hatchling’s joy at being able to run and look like the other wolves remains one of her fondest memories, even if the elder Talons had to quickly remind her of her place as the lowest of the low with even more violent shows than normal. The blood was worth it, her happiness was absolute in that moment. Her cubhood was exceptionally brief, having been given exactly one month after her First Change before sending her on her Rite of Passage. They had no desire to wait any longer. She would either prove useful or be slain and to them it was fine either way. With little in the way of humanity to learn, all Hatchling was left to do was grow used to her new forms and the Umbra. When the Sept gathered again at the next full moon, her rite of passage was set. Traditional as most Talon rites went, her duty to seek out a hunter who had been creeping near the bawn’s edge, bring him before the sept, and pass judgement. Cut and dry. What they didn’t expect was she’d find herself running smack-dab into a Spiral and a new-changed cub who’d been the unlucky target of the even less lucky hunter. The Spiral had been drawn there by a kinfetch who, true to form, went for the wrong Garou. To say the sept was shocked would be an understatement when a bloodied Hatchling came trotting back to the caern with the cub. Hatchling was deeply pleased with herself, eagerly telling them the tale how she swooped down on the Spiral from an overhanging ledge while he was distracted by dragging away the unconscious new cub, and once she’d dispatched him she gathered up the bewildered young wolf and brought him back. Grudgingly, they admitted the foul little thing had done good if not was outright lucky to have survived with no permanent injury, proclaimed her Cliath, and named her Griffin’s-Shadow-Brings-Home-The-Lost. The cub was brought fully into the sept’s fold, welcomed by her family as a new Galliard while Griffin’s-Shadow turned to finally begin life as a more accepted member of the sept. Mostly. She was *still* a Metis.
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