Post by Athena Fire-in-Snow on Oct 30, 2013 4:58:14 GMT -8
The day this Rite is due to begin, the Sept once again receives a number of visitors. Around noon, several pack’s worth of Fianna come in through a Moonbridge from Oregon, including Layla’s father. They are welcomed and offered food and drink while they wait for the ritual to begin, and informal stories are swapped about Layla and the events of the past month.
At sunset, Athena calls the Rite to order. She begins a boisterous retelling of Layla’s early years, from her childhood in Michigan as the daughter of a Kinfolk father and an absent Garou mother, through two years and her Rite of Passage in Ireland, and finally to her return to the states, first to her home Sept which refused her entry, and then across the nation until she reached Seattle.
The tone grows darker as she speaks of her time in Seattle. Athena tells both of Layla’s trials and triumphs. She stood as one of the few Garou ever to survive not one but two successful Caern Buildings, but she bore great loss as tragedy and circumstance ripped pack after pack away from her. Her first pack, the Rock of Ages under Earthquake, dissolved around her when the higher-ranked members were pulled off in different directions, leaving her alone. Layla forged her own pack under Wild Raven at the new Sept she helped raise, but the tragic fall of Jumps the Shark to the Wyrm shredded the pack and they were forced to disband. She then helped form Shadowed Coils under Quetzalcoatl, but this pack too was forced apart as members were pulled on missions elsewhere and Layla herself was called to her final pack, the one formed to defeat Eater-of-Souls. Yet throughout this litany of instability that tore at her wolf-heart, Layla kept her focus, continuing to fight the Wyrm wherever it dwelt and whenever it bred, no matter the losses she suffered. And in her final battle against the Eater of Souls, she made the ultimate sacrifice, throwing herself in front of Visili and taking a hit for him so that he could have a chance for the killing blow…at a cost of not just her death, but her very soul, consumed and lost for eternity to the Eater’s hunger.
There is a long moment of silence after this, a pause to let the weight of a soul settle on each listener. Athena then lists Layla’s virtues, throwing a bundle of sacred plants into the fire, each component chosen to represent the qualities she embodied in life: oak for strength, patchouli for passion, edelweiss for devotion and laurel for perseverance. The bundle is wrapped with a cord plaited from yarrow, hyssop and poppy, giving honor to the manner and price of her death: courage, sacrifice and oblivion. As the smoke reaches skyward, Athena leads the witnesses in a common chant, calling upon Mary to bless them with her virtues and aid them in continuing the battle against Gaia’s enemies.
Finally, as full darkness falls, Athena launches into a closing speech, calling upon everyone to remember Layla’s endurance and sacrifice, and to grant her the immortality she sacrificed by ensuring that her stories are remembered always. She ends the Rite by leading a final great Howl, a shout of defiance to the enemies of Gaia!
At sunset, Athena calls the Rite to order. She begins a boisterous retelling of Layla’s early years, from her childhood in Michigan as the daughter of a Kinfolk father and an absent Garou mother, through two years and her Rite of Passage in Ireland, and finally to her return to the states, first to her home Sept which refused her entry, and then across the nation until she reached Seattle.
The tone grows darker as she speaks of her time in Seattle. Athena tells both of Layla’s trials and triumphs. She stood as one of the few Garou ever to survive not one but two successful Caern Buildings, but she bore great loss as tragedy and circumstance ripped pack after pack away from her. Her first pack, the Rock of Ages under Earthquake, dissolved around her when the higher-ranked members were pulled off in different directions, leaving her alone. Layla forged her own pack under Wild Raven at the new Sept she helped raise, but the tragic fall of Jumps the Shark to the Wyrm shredded the pack and they were forced to disband. She then helped form Shadowed Coils under Quetzalcoatl, but this pack too was forced apart as members were pulled on missions elsewhere and Layla herself was called to her final pack, the one formed to defeat Eater-of-Souls. Yet throughout this litany of instability that tore at her wolf-heart, Layla kept her focus, continuing to fight the Wyrm wherever it dwelt and whenever it bred, no matter the losses she suffered. And in her final battle against the Eater of Souls, she made the ultimate sacrifice, throwing herself in front of Visili and taking a hit for him so that he could have a chance for the killing blow…at a cost of not just her death, but her very soul, consumed and lost for eternity to the Eater’s hunger.
There is a long moment of silence after this, a pause to let the weight of a soul settle on each listener. Athena then lists Layla’s virtues, throwing a bundle of sacred plants into the fire, each component chosen to represent the qualities she embodied in life: oak for strength, patchouli for passion, edelweiss for devotion and laurel for perseverance. The bundle is wrapped with a cord plaited from yarrow, hyssop and poppy, giving honor to the manner and price of her death: courage, sacrifice and oblivion. As the smoke reaches skyward, Athena leads the witnesses in a common chant, calling upon Mary to bless them with her virtues and aid them in continuing the battle against Gaia’s enemies.
Finally, as full darkness falls, Athena launches into a closing speech, calling upon everyone to remember Layla’s endurance and sacrifice, and to grant her the immortality she sacrificed by ensuring that her stories are remembered always. She ends the Rite by leading a final great Howl, a shout of defiance to the enemies of Gaia!