September 16th, 1880. Evening, Night, and Morning of the 17th. The Main Camp around Bear Butte.

some mood music

The rest of the day is a blur for Rabbit. About a dozen of the Iron Dragon rail enforcers return with her to the camp, following her lead, eager to see this power that can stop bullets. The camp is abuzz with activity. The women prepare pemmican from Tatanka's holy meat, make shirts of cotton and leather festooned with stars, crescent moons, and birds, while knots of people form around Wovoka, Horn Chips, Kicking Bear, Eagles Floating On Gentle Breezes, and Screaming Rabbit herself. There is no real communication, but it seems as if Rabbit has been given the task of preparing the Chinese rail workers, the women, and the young, training them in the steps.

The preparations are followed by an enormous feast. The entire contingent of Oglala and Minniconju on the mountainside gather around a roaring fire, sing praises to the spirits, and partake of the food. The Chinese contingent cling closely to Rabbit, clearly a little uncomfortable by being surrounded with so many unfamiliar faces.

At the fringes of the feast, The Hooded One watches. He makes no move to join in, speaks no words to curse the gathering, he just stands, glaring at the assembled, his face hidden in the shadows of his robe. None approach him, save one: Sitting Bull, the Hunkpapa Wicasa.



Every Lakota present seems to recognize him, and points him out to Rabbit. Sitting Bull, too, is quiet as he watches the proceedings, but his frown speaks volumes anyway. The two watch in silence for quite a while.

---

In the Hunting Grounds

some mood music

It has been some time since Thunder Walker died, and was saved by Moses from the town of his nightmares. Time is difficult to gauge here, in the dream-like lands beyond the night sky. Thunder Walker has spent the time in the den of Laughs At Darkness, the puzzling shaman in the coyote skin. The two train as they wait for the call of the Ghost Dance. Laughs At Darkness is a trying master, demanding and more than a little free with that stick of his, but Thunder Walker has seen much in his time here.

"The time draws near." The shaman says one day, out of the blue. "Are you willing to return to the land of the living?"

Rabbit does her best to introduce her uncertain gaggle of Chinese thugs to others present, particularly those that have English as a common language. Explaining how the feast came about, she indicates her markings and encourages them to share respectfully in the flesh of one who could restore the near-dead to great health with his blood and mighty yang energies.

After the second time Sitting Bull is pointed out to Rabbit, still standing on the fringes, the small shamen extricates herself from her entourage, humbly borrows a bark tray from one of Crazy Horse's men and makes sure there is a portion of the best roasted meat for Sitting Bull. Making sure he can see it was only touched by the carving-man, she takes it over, going to one knee a little way from the chieftain to show maximum respect (and be out of kicking range while holding the sacred flesh) as she offers it.

"Hau, [Language unknown: ameortint Eeunto But,"] she addresses him. [Language unknown: "Aiilus menie ardseture oun ithstrich k Conearvor Unomma, ol ardticwhe ar osere lahian. Werncetio, E peen hiswasain Ingerscon Essom ratughfor lareaures,"] the tilt of her head hides the little knifedge smile shot that way from Sitting Bull's scrutiny, [Language unknown: "ere t taalwi n mabe u atwit Ngstit Paer mo po wheainoulour herthiwit, it p foantaus ll osstr. Ichev oufi ce roiomoer ll ro stons."]

The regal man frowns slightly at the offering. [Language unknown: "Essnd was erewasentsom."] He says. [Language unknown: "Tho romhisset tioughyinvorund lithu mensonion. Li me ted weckiv vir ndeamelin tras we dayoneter, ouati thfi Wa ut ouus nanosshi ev mefiei thol plne ur wi bleainyin."] He lifts his gaze to take in the Chinese converts. [Language unknown: "Oneanyess nti werintlin ur oullatwit ou erno at na tiplni t peasur t encee ndeectnce ilerth. Eau di mi evcari me memo siwiai esore ess omsass om lerom le whany wheon interaous tral lo pllawh ardndeany ousne. Il llen urwit lama."]

[Language unknown: "Ad wesanotren ectourare Moilni Omeeic ustaos...utbut La ntfor oer ilhios rutno. T of Streelhi con ndaron, saof ndave hisourpro tedatihis, ich u me oresondin tho on,"] Rabbit says mildly.

[Language unknown: "O foofll k fiis hiberi ic, utme houtr ro undoutsta butha icaconint di ng...lapani ersla es beek astihe tirom, moles erswitpro chacer inewilsan i pr belat Usecnc Al, il O evred trbut ienowi. Omprth, ni verillant esttedintouloun, tra ivca ee a, san onnde inacno etil heroutter, noou pa icanderat me tipe. O bevir sanhe staonelin Thivenand Pa ri haecss ec ne an te bewh icasomwhe liaick. P u hisateion, M atel ame ateas latas, ic ut his la ac ulhe n ch."]

[[ *ahem* I play my 10H]]

The Hooded One cackles. [Language unknown: "Na ntaspo ssndul pero os omeeauest tio, plekilunni."] He says. [Language unknown: "Icing eenonsain larsomver te ore ashe n erwhie. Nde p...ic rela ro la nti tasana, acnde omac wheat ainounearore en was m, setthoeartin sareic p beard?"]

Sitting Bull raises a hand. [Language unknown: "Chhaou."] He fixes Rabbit with a piercing gaze. [Language unknown: "Naul dinkornce the und stibleine ncom ave a iculos. N lisan anen saroel n ons ted ac rianaiss fiwhek ad peio. Io heunce bein Wi sanwerstrsan ponc reand stadinres. Tihi ul ure, asbe was mach os saame staovehat redel icacriar er. P ss whethiore an are naerhi set menurende."]

The Hunting Grounds

Time seemed to pass strangely in this place. It had not been everything he had imagined it would be, endless days spent in the hunt of the buffalo with the other spirits of his people. Instead, he had spent time in the tutelage of a strange shaman in a coyote skin, from a tribe that he could not name. The man had been strange beyond describing, and his ways different from any medicine man that Thunder Walker had known in life, but there was a sense of sameness to it, in the way that he knew now suddenly that all things were connected.

And he had learned a great deal under this man, forming a new connection with the spirits like he had not imagined he might in life. This question took him by surprise though, as it was not one he expected. At first, he thought it some strange trick or game that this shaman was partial to, but the look in his eyes was different.

"To aid the people, to heal the world, I am ever ready," he said. 

Rabbit's jaw sets, but she bites back the flare of fury in her chest, showing no response or even attention to the Hooded One's taunts, merely dipping her head to Sitting Bull.

Let go or be dragged.

[Language unknown: "I ngin somencvir ar,"] she tells the chief, standing back. [Language unknown: "Ng E benc iv wi n enecca ivepr whi ica dineenvor vorerskor o etsepr wi oerthesti, olwahe ove ndect la lawafi? Verreaard Wapo o attrac, ntfipl, ven hi uturth t omeves ec eraallher. E t isun ar ere artmenvor ca ce m ere p of il, t our ati Thuhisare, entst i icahe rutut Omnoto."]

Rabbit is clearly backed off, waiting only a reply.

[[18:03, Today: Tan Xiaohan rolled 13,4 using d8,d6, rerolling max with rolls of (8+5)13,4.  persuadin'.]]

Gazes At Stars has had a stressful few days, what with the Ravenite attacks here, in the heart of the holy mountain itself. It wasn't comfortable, being surrounded by his traditional enemies the Lakota, but thus far no one had hassled him too much. Still, he's more comfortable on the fringes of the gathering...which puts him in a good position to watch the exchange between Screaming Rabbit, Sitting Bull, and The Hooded One...

---

Sitting Bull raises an eyebrow at this. [Language unknown: "Hiates."] He grunts. [Language unknown: "Ted ti."]

Rabbit bows and goes to do as she suggested, asking a couple of youths she's pretty certain are virgins to fetch food for the chieftain from a visible distance away.

Seeing as everyone else of importance has a share, she offers the bark tray of best meat to the random stargazer she caught sight of in returning to the gathering, standing a little out of grab range though her stance is calm. [Language unknown: "St andwa? E ntati nte, ntesetlat."]

[[Hi, Gazes!]]

Gazes At Stars grinned from behind the collar of his bearskin cloak and looked down from his meditations, gazing at Rabbit with faraway mahogany eyes. His long, unbound hair cascaded around his shoulders as he leaned forward from his cross-legged stance to take some meat from the Chinese shaman.

[Language unknown: "Di...A Ingearill iveardugh ei Thivorone. Cemo etplwa, Ei eendinven."] He said at normal speaking volume to the air around the two. He returned his gaze to Rabbit.

[Language unknown: "Resurewasone Nceomeant. E elhe siheme icth ive veriv Ioneenmen Tiock ng mebe Loteli. Heng eve e ursa ain. Norut thuho ponifi le yines Onthilishi winc tedtholes neat Enllec Utecre as usisol vor antnottic weadon conerstha i witpa Ant Somlesion. Forul itle lomaevhe ardandrut ouoer ncsare ntepl sssa omertrwe lesionard wa hami urewerout n our anyyinare. Et omwi anisma stthi u es Itacho Ounal u lat ntmimoev Herwilven hat. A st Illenceau t Conterter. Day plstr ouolwi ine?"]

Rabbit looks blank, but bobs a little to the stranger. "Ah...English?" she tries.

Gazes at Stars blanches for a moment, then smiles apologetically.

"Screaming Rabbit. I hear your talk with Sitting Bull of the Lakota. You are a good omen. You are friends with Thunderbird and bring the Ghost Dance to your people who would not hear Wovoka. You withstand abuse from the Hooded One. And you manage not to kick Sitting Bull in his stubborn Lakota face," the Shoshone repeated, "I think that is all I said. I am Gazes at Stars. Have you eaten yet?"

Rabbit tilts her head a little, not recognising the accent. The comment about Sitting Bull brings a small smile she can't quite suppress to the corner of her mouth.

"I hope it," she says of omens, then looks back a moment towards the fire and those that feast there.

"Be welcome, Gazes At Stars. Ah...only two bites," Rabbit says, rubbing her upper arm absently. "I know I should eat, but it hard to be hungry."

Gazes at Stars nodded.

"I know the feeling. When the spirits speak, I look to them, and they require no food, no water. I have been interrupted by the growling of my stomach many times." The Shoshone shaman smiled, then looked up to his right. "Dogwa, [Language unknown: mais arad inngac i, ica]?"

Gazes pulled his cloak a little tighter, "You must be cold. Dogwa speaks favorably of you, Screaming Rabbit. Please tell me if I can help."

The small shamen tenses, suddenly very wary of the other's movements and ready to bolt should he move towards her, watching his hands on the cloak.

"I...thank Dogwa, and hope to deserve such reputation," she says, swallowing. "Gazes At Stars need not tl- trouble himself for this one. You all right out here? Wovoka not mind to talk to foreigner - any kind, he talk to all of them."

Then, because her curiousity was frequently ahead of her tact: "Are you from the north? I don' recognise your accent at all."

Gazes, sadly oblivious to Rabbit's discomfort, burst out laughing.

"Perhaps I spent too long communing since we entered the Sioux lands. They make me uncomfortable, but Wovoka knows the will of the spirits well. I am sorry we have not met before. I often bed away from the camp, for my dreams are restless and I speak to spirits even in my sleep," he said cryptically before explaining, "I am of the Newe, what the white men call Shoshone. I am a Ghost Dancer. I traveled with Wovoka from Paiute lands when the White calf was born. I was there when the H- When Raven attacked and you called the Thunderbird."

The fire popped, and for a long second Gazes watched an errant ember float through the air. It blew toward the pair, and Gazes at Stars smiled when the ashen flake landed in the dirt by their feet.

"The omens were not good, the signs unclear. But now... they are better," he said, turning back to Rabbit, "I apologize for not acting sooner. I am eager to Dance for the new world. I only hope we can keep the ravens at bay. They are...numerous."

Rabbit nods slowly, processing this, still on high alert much as she had been with Moses until that prophet had made her a solemn promise. "Did you know our friend that died there?" she asks.

As the flake of ash blows softly away, Rabbit sets the tray down and examines the back of her hands a moment before folding her arms. "I hope they less numerous soon...I have plan for that, but I don' know if it wir work."

Gazes shakes his head slowly.

"I only knew Thunder Walker as long as he had walked with Wovoka. It is always unfortunate when an enemy of the Reckoners falls. And he seemed a decent man." the Shoshone said, "I am hopeful for your plan. If I may be honest, the Green Snake people, who build the rails, make me nervous, as much as any Lakota. I do not trust their Chief. But these are not my lands, not my treaties."

Mention of Thunder Walker's name was a reassurance, even if Rabbit had not seen when this man rejoined Laughing Calf's party. Having the not entirely unmerited local distrust of Chinese people expressed to her for the second time that day brings a faint bemused smile to Rabbit's lips.

"The warlord Kang..." Rabbit hesitates a moment, then starts from the beginning. "His name, it not 'snake', like small poisonous animal that hide most of the time, then bite if you tread on him. It 'dragon'. That mean, ah...water-panther. Very big, powerful spirit animal."

Rabbit crouches and finds a bare spot of earth to draw a dragon on with a pebble, privately noting to try and hoard some of Tatanka's dried flesh or pemmican for the Yuan's next visit. She sketches out coils, taloned feet, the tasselled flag of a tail and mighty antlered head, sharp ears, fierce eyes and long whiskers. "Iron Dragon. If you tread on him, you not know it until he bite you in half, because he is so big, you think you are on the ground. So. It is well not to trust him, because he do what he want...but if we can show him he want this, the Nations strong, the millennium-cycle to start better...you see how it is well to have the dragon with us."

She brushes her slim fingers under the dragon-sketch, leaving tiny waves in the soil. "-and Lord Kang, he very good at treaties, with the American langrige. If we only drive out the white man, not make clear show of strength-without-the-gun and offer him to join us, the white man just sit outside and make big siege - kill off Tatanka's herds, all that. They try it already. Lord Kang's understanding, his raiload working harmoniousry with spirits, not against...these great advantages to make a peace that not stop where borders are now, not stop after only thirty, fifty years."

"...but it not easy, to convince an iron heart like that."

Stars looks between the dragon in the dirt and Rabbit. Slowly, he draws his coup stick and puts the handle end in the dirt.

"Your plan, your ideas, sound good. I have heard of the water-panther, the great cat. What I do not know," at this he began drawing the sharp angles of great wings, the hook of a beak, "Is when the Iron Dragon has written treaties with the Great Fathers, when the dragon must share the new year with the Thunderbird," he drew a rough snarling face, "with the Coyote", and then a snake, "And the Newe and Paiute..." He stood back, "Will he stand with the spirits, or use the iron rivers to divide them? I have not seen a harmony of the spirits in the Iron Dragon. But as I say before. I am Newe, Shoshone. I find it hard to truly sympathize with the nation of the Sioux. But I believe..." he paused, faltering, "I trust Wovoka. His Ghost Dance should come to pass."

A little wary of the stick, Rabbit watches the spirit-shapes appear from the earth, then looks up at the foreign shaman. "I do not believe he would have reason to put discord among the peoples," she says, puzzled, then looks down at the drawings again.

"It was like this in China, two millennium-cycles ago. We don' lose who we are - my father was Miao, my mother Han like most the Chinaman you see here - for being together, calling the land one thing, and that we come from it...it can work, for it has work, many thousand years. With iron roads we can extend a hand to our brother, to our sister far out the West, end the Way of the Gun there also. Do you see?"

The Shoshone is quiet for a long moment.

"I think so, Screaming Rabbit. In the name of fairness, I must confess I do not follow the old ways, and the way of the gun, I think, is not so much the problem. It is the way of greedy, angry men, red and white and yellow. But I follow the Way of the Brave for a long time, went on the warpath many times. Perhaps I am too untrusting. There is a reason the Great Spirit spoke to Wovoka and not Gazes at Stars, after all," he admitted with a self-deprecating grin.

"But I am sure you did not come to Bear Butte to defend your plans to me. I am your ally, Screaming Rabbit. Please remember that, whatever trials will come to pass."

Rabbit looks straight at Gazes At Stars. Her voice is low, controlled and resonant as the steady beat of the soft of a clenched fist against steel.

"It is the problem. You were a warrior long before; you already have the art, think it light to take up one weapon or another weapon...but for those that come after you, see this easy thing, this easy killing of their brother with no way to halt the blow, no need for much training, it get in their thinking. That is Raven's Path."

She stands, digging her nails into her palms to hide the tremor in her fists. "What world it make, where it so easy to kill that it sound stupid not to murder? When to be attacked is to be blamed for not shoot first? That path go off into darkness...to place where there is no end to the madness, the fear that makes the hatred."

Rabbit shakes her head, her entire body tense. "The Raven shaman I fought...he so powerful he pull up the dead like grass, and still I get blood of him. Being the strongest not make him safe, but he still think to get stronger, to be like stronger one that hurt him, long time ago...and so heap up land and men and food with greed to show it."

"It fear, under anger, under greed...and the weapon of fear is the one made for kill human being onry and in great number, the one that Buffalo has no part in, the one idiot child could use." Rabbit swallows, looks away, breathes.

"I not blame you not to trust all the foreigner," she says quietly. "You have reason for that. -but I trust better one I see is ally, than one who say it."

Gazes is taken aback, stepping backwards with a confused look when Rabbit accuses him of contributing to the fear of the world, to setting his enemies on Raven's Path. For a split second he attempts to speak, but quiets quickly when he realizes the truth in her words.

He listens to her words, searching look still on his face, and when she has finished, he nods deeply, looking at the ground. He speaks quietly, ashamed that Rabbit has inadvertently seen so deep and true into his heart.

"You and your words are great wisdom, Screaming Rabbit. Fear is truly the greatest weapon of the manitou, one they have forged and handed to men and women to use. I have...wielded this weapon in the past, and I suppose I have not truly set it down. The ways of peace and isolation are not easy for me, and alliance with the white tribes, or the Green Sn- Iron Dragon, is hard as well. I have seen the necessity of Wovoka's ways, so I have followed, but the world is a bloody place, full of shadows and evil. There is a fear of the Ravens in my heart, and it has guided me."

He neglected to specify the manner of his fear, opting instead to return his coup stick to his belt and mutter prayers to the spirits around for strength and insight.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:58, Wed 08 Feb 2017.