Post by Wilhelm Opens-the-Way on Jan 9, 2010 3:11:16 GMT -8
Holly Walks-With-Dreams is a funny kind of Galliard. She ain't the type to tell tales as much as she is to getcha talkin'. She's a listener Galliard, that's what she is. It's like, she'll ask you a few questions and stories just spill out of you. She's an opener of books, of dreams. Funny way to go about it, but hell it seems to work for her. Anyway, one day on the long and open road while I sat behind the wheel of The Yellow Brick Road she got me to talkin' about my past, and this is part of a story I told:
Suggested Listening - E.S. Posthumus - Nara
I was born Hannibal Farasad. It's an Egyptian name, well the last name anyway. I came into this earth on December 15th 1979 on a British Airways airplane above Cairo. Born movin' I always say. Born to live movin' and born to die movin'. When I was old enough, my father told me that the Philodox moon was high above the desert of the Valley of the Kings when I howled my first breaths as an infant. I was named for a general of the Roman times, a gifted strategist and tactician. It was my father's choice, but he didn't know shit about history 'till he met my mother, so I figure they shared the idea.
My mother, Anne Riadh was, well is an Egyptian national with dual citizenship to the United Kingdom, and a Kinfolk. She was an archaeologist with advanced degrees in anthropology and archeology from Oxford University by the time she was my age. She travelled the world in search of ruins, artifacts and history, and far as I know, continues to do so, while occasionally teaching at Oxford.
She believes her son... she believes me, to be dead.
My father, Khufu Farasad, deed name Leech-Blinder was also a dual citizen, of the UK and of the USA, and a Silent Strider of some renown and rank before his death at the hands of leeches. He grew up a carney, a strong man and a roughneck rancher when the Carnival failed in 66. Then he fell in with a pack that had it in their mind to take back the Strider homeland. To take back Egypt.
My mother and father met on a dig in North Africa called Tabirsis Magna in 1973. Leech-Blinder was patrolling the ruins when he caught the scent of blood on the wind of the North African steppes, heard the screams of humans and rushed to find that the archaeological team had disturbed the resting place of something that ought not to have been disturbed. Something powerful and old. Many of my mother's team had been killed... eaten, and Anne Riadh, the woman that was to be my mother, was among the injured. Leech-blinder fought whatever it was out there in the old desert to a standstill before the thing inexplicably vanished, or my mother blacked out, she was never sure quite which, but my father was certain before he died that that leech he'd met that night was still around and stalking him. Anyway when the dust had settled from the battle, Khufu tended to the wounded Anne and the few others that had survived, bringing them water and helping them construct a shelter before the blistering daylight sun of the norther desert killed them all from exposure.
Father later told me that between the Delirium and the speed of the ancient Leech Queen that lay within the tomb at Tabirsis Magna, it was relatively easy for him to keep the Veil safe by telling the survivors there had been a raid for tomb treasures by cutthroat scavengers with half-feral dogs. Perhaps my father should have left the humans to fend for themselves then, but he could not take his eyes off of my mother, the beautiful Anne Riadh, with the toned body of a woman used to toiling in ruins and the exotic dark eyes and milky brown skin of a half-Egyptian, half-English woman.
He stayed with her and the survivors as she travelled back to the British Museum in Cairo for aid and resupply, though paying chimanage to the spirits of the shifting sands as he left the dig, hiding the ruins deep beneath the desert so that no other hapless humans would let any further sleeping demons free.
On the long Jeep caravan ride North to Cairo, the two talked and bickered and laughed and, I am told, eventually tumbled into the stacks of books among the rows of ancient texts at the museum. They became somewhat inseparable, at least briefly.
After some brief time in Cairo in the throws of a burgeoning and passionate romance with my mother, Khufu Leech-Blinder reluctantly made plans to return to his pack and tell them of the ruins. He could not stay in Cairo for long, he told her, for powerful Banes and other dark spirits swarmed the sands near the Pyramids and the tombs of the Valley of the Kings, and brutally attacked any Silent Striders that set foot or paw too close.
Though the deserts of Egypt were the Strider's native homeland, I would eventually learn that the arid land was poisoned to us with sky-blackening swarms of wyrm-spirits, ancient, angry ghosts, and some Gallards said even restless mummies and Leeches rumored to worship a dark serpent god.
For the few nights he stayed in Cairo, strange dreams came to my father, of the dark eyes of the Egyptian god of death Anubis shining red light down upon him while he stood beneath the pyramids, or of running through endless labyrinthine tombs, unable to find an exit, or of many other strange signs and portents.
Khufu considered not telling my mother he was leaving Cairo at all, but my mother, he would tell me laughing as he rarely did, saw right through his subterfuge and demanded to know why he felt he had to leave, and before he knew it, he was telling her everything, about the Garou, about the Silent Striders and their war against the Leeches holding their homeland. Anne took it all in raptly, but calmly. When Khufu was finished unburdening himself, worried that he would now have to perhaps kill Anne to keep the Veil from a breech, she spoke about how she had seen him in his war form fighting the pale woman-statue that had crawled from the earth and killed so many of her archaeological team, and had somehow not been afraid of his monsterous form, but comforted, as if the swirling sands of Egypt had themselves come together to form into her savior. With a start, Khufu realized that if Anne had not fallen prey to the Delirium and had indeed seen her, she must be Kinfolk, and drew her up into his arms with joy.
He told her this, about what it was to be Kinfolk, explained what it meant, and she accepted this too, calmly and raptly, so he said. Many things my father told me I have looked upon with a grain of salt, but this I believe. My mother was, is, a remarkable woman.
On the heels of this revelation, the two made love, and when it was time for Khufu to leave for the North African Caern in the morning, my mother had already packed to come with him.
My parents-to-be returned to the North African Caern where my father's pack made their home, and there my father learned about ancient Egyptology and the occult from my mother while she steeped herself in the lore of the Garou. They remained lovers for many years, were eventually married, and my mother gave birth to me that same year.
Life in the Sept soon weighed heavily on my mother however, as she longed to continue her passion for archeology, and with her new-found understanding of the ancient world and how the trinity of Wyld, Weaver and Wyrm had shaped it, she longed to see if she could find archaeological evidence of the hidden world that was told of prior to and during the Impergium, yet she stayed with the Sept anyway as she did not wish to be without my father, and I was but a babe. My father was an Ahroun though, and a fierce warrior, and treated my mother as sometimes Kinfolk are treated, as without the ability to gain Renown as we Garou can. This cooled her to him, and she, I think, saw in him his rage and was afraid. My mother would much later tell me that she believed that he was perhaps intimidated by her intelligence, that she had her own career and was more independent than he knew what to do with, that he didn't ever truly feel worthy of her.
It was at this time that a Theurge of the Sept came forward to advise the couple that based on the readings of the dreams surrounding their first meeting, it was imperative I kept moving throughout my life, or the dark enemies that haunted the Silent Striders out of Egypt would surely catch up to me and end my life prematurely. It was an expected tale, one that all Striders are told at one time, or another. Our ways can never be the ways of home and hearth. "Always the sand burns our feet," said my father. My father did not travel with us.
With great sadness, my father and mother parted, with my mother taking me with her to begin crossing the globe once more, travelling from ruin to ruin, visiting the broken headstones of civilizations long gone.
Well that's all for today anyway. What happened to me after that is another tale.
Suggested Listening - E.S. Posthumus - Nara
I was born Hannibal Farasad. It's an Egyptian name, well the last name anyway. I came into this earth on December 15th 1979 on a British Airways airplane above Cairo. Born movin' I always say. Born to live movin' and born to die movin'. When I was old enough, my father told me that the Philodox moon was high above the desert of the Valley of the Kings when I howled my first breaths as an infant. I was named for a general of the Roman times, a gifted strategist and tactician. It was my father's choice, but he didn't know shit about history 'till he met my mother, so I figure they shared the idea.
My mother, Anne Riadh was, well is an Egyptian national with dual citizenship to the United Kingdom, and a Kinfolk. She was an archaeologist with advanced degrees in anthropology and archeology from Oxford University by the time she was my age. She travelled the world in search of ruins, artifacts and history, and far as I know, continues to do so, while occasionally teaching at Oxford.
She believes her son... she believes me, to be dead.
My father, Khufu Farasad, deed name Leech-Blinder was also a dual citizen, of the UK and of the USA, and a Silent Strider of some renown and rank before his death at the hands of leeches. He grew up a carney, a strong man and a roughneck rancher when the Carnival failed in 66. Then he fell in with a pack that had it in their mind to take back the Strider homeland. To take back Egypt.
My mother and father met on a dig in North Africa called Tabirsis Magna in 1973. Leech-Blinder was patrolling the ruins when he caught the scent of blood on the wind of the North African steppes, heard the screams of humans and rushed to find that the archaeological team had disturbed the resting place of something that ought not to have been disturbed. Something powerful and old. Many of my mother's team had been killed... eaten, and Anne Riadh, the woman that was to be my mother, was among the injured. Leech-blinder fought whatever it was out there in the old desert to a standstill before the thing inexplicably vanished, or my mother blacked out, she was never sure quite which, but my father was certain before he died that that leech he'd met that night was still around and stalking him. Anyway when the dust had settled from the battle, Khufu tended to the wounded Anne and the few others that had survived, bringing them water and helping them construct a shelter before the blistering daylight sun of the norther desert killed them all from exposure.
Father later told me that between the Delirium and the speed of the ancient Leech Queen that lay within the tomb at Tabirsis Magna, it was relatively easy for him to keep the Veil safe by telling the survivors there had been a raid for tomb treasures by cutthroat scavengers with half-feral dogs. Perhaps my father should have left the humans to fend for themselves then, but he could not take his eyes off of my mother, the beautiful Anne Riadh, with the toned body of a woman used to toiling in ruins and the exotic dark eyes and milky brown skin of a half-Egyptian, half-English woman.
He stayed with her and the survivors as she travelled back to the British Museum in Cairo for aid and resupply, though paying chimanage to the spirits of the shifting sands as he left the dig, hiding the ruins deep beneath the desert so that no other hapless humans would let any further sleeping demons free.
On the long Jeep caravan ride North to Cairo, the two talked and bickered and laughed and, I am told, eventually tumbled into the stacks of books among the rows of ancient texts at the museum. They became somewhat inseparable, at least briefly.
After some brief time in Cairo in the throws of a burgeoning and passionate romance with my mother, Khufu Leech-Blinder reluctantly made plans to return to his pack and tell them of the ruins. He could not stay in Cairo for long, he told her, for powerful Banes and other dark spirits swarmed the sands near the Pyramids and the tombs of the Valley of the Kings, and brutally attacked any Silent Striders that set foot or paw too close.
Though the deserts of Egypt were the Strider's native homeland, I would eventually learn that the arid land was poisoned to us with sky-blackening swarms of wyrm-spirits, ancient, angry ghosts, and some Gallards said even restless mummies and Leeches rumored to worship a dark serpent god.
For the few nights he stayed in Cairo, strange dreams came to my father, of the dark eyes of the Egyptian god of death Anubis shining red light down upon him while he stood beneath the pyramids, or of running through endless labyrinthine tombs, unable to find an exit, or of many other strange signs and portents.
Khufu considered not telling my mother he was leaving Cairo at all, but my mother, he would tell me laughing as he rarely did, saw right through his subterfuge and demanded to know why he felt he had to leave, and before he knew it, he was telling her everything, about the Garou, about the Silent Striders and their war against the Leeches holding their homeland. Anne took it all in raptly, but calmly. When Khufu was finished unburdening himself, worried that he would now have to perhaps kill Anne to keep the Veil from a breech, she spoke about how she had seen him in his war form fighting the pale woman-statue that had crawled from the earth and killed so many of her archaeological team, and had somehow not been afraid of his monsterous form, but comforted, as if the swirling sands of Egypt had themselves come together to form into her savior. With a start, Khufu realized that if Anne had not fallen prey to the Delirium and had indeed seen her, she must be Kinfolk, and drew her up into his arms with joy.
He told her this, about what it was to be Kinfolk, explained what it meant, and she accepted this too, calmly and raptly, so he said. Many things my father told me I have looked upon with a grain of salt, but this I believe. My mother was, is, a remarkable woman.
On the heels of this revelation, the two made love, and when it was time for Khufu to leave for the North African Caern in the morning, my mother had already packed to come with him.
My parents-to-be returned to the North African Caern where my father's pack made their home, and there my father learned about ancient Egyptology and the occult from my mother while she steeped herself in the lore of the Garou. They remained lovers for many years, were eventually married, and my mother gave birth to me that same year.
Life in the Sept soon weighed heavily on my mother however, as she longed to continue her passion for archeology, and with her new-found understanding of the ancient world and how the trinity of Wyld, Weaver and Wyrm had shaped it, she longed to see if she could find archaeological evidence of the hidden world that was told of prior to and during the Impergium, yet she stayed with the Sept anyway as she did not wish to be without my father, and I was but a babe. My father was an Ahroun though, and a fierce warrior, and treated my mother as sometimes Kinfolk are treated, as without the ability to gain Renown as we Garou can. This cooled her to him, and she, I think, saw in him his rage and was afraid. My mother would much later tell me that she believed that he was perhaps intimidated by her intelligence, that she had her own career and was more independent than he knew what to do with, that he didn't ever truly feel worthy of her.
It was at this time that a Theurge of the Sept came forward to advise the couple that based on the readings of the dreams surrounding their first meeting, it was imperative I kept moving throughout my life, or the dark enemies that haunted the Silent Striders out of Egypt would surely catch up to me and end my life prematurely. It was an expected tale, one that all Striders are told at one time, or another. Our ways can never be the ways of home and hearth. "Always the sand burns our feet," said my father. My father did not travel with us.
With great sadness, my father and mother parted, with my mother taking me with her to begin crossing the globe once more, travelling from ruin to ruin, visiting the broken headstones of civilizations long gone.
Well that's all for today anyway. What happened to me after that is another tale.
