"I'm afraid that marryin' for love is a luxury few if any Silver Fangs are allowed."

Barnyard
The lane wends its way back and around the farmhouse to here, where it widens into a broad, grassy sward contained only by the woods which encircle it on three sides. Buildings break up the purity of the landscape: an open-sided structure which serves as a garage and the big barn, empty of livestock, to the east. A good-sized vegetable and herb garden furrows the land south of the barn, while a pyramid-like pile of rocks, of similar consistency to the gravel of the lane, rests a few yards south of the garage.
North of the buildings, the fields have long been fallow, hastening a conversion from farmland to natural prairie. A sliding glass door allows admittance to the farmhouse, the interior obscured by Levolor(tm) blinds in a wood-grain pattern. The lane leads out around the house to the southwest. The discerning can just barely pick out the beginnings of a faint path into the woods towards the southeast.

A shroud of low grey clouds covers the sky, low rolling stratus clouds that despite their grey bellies refuse to send rain. A stiff breeze plays across the dried grass in the fallowed fields, decorated here and there by a green thistle or mottled red milkweed. Erika stands in the herb garden, standing over a row of green leafy plants with a hoe in her hand and a shovel on the ground beside her. She is wearing her familiar white-and-blue cap and tattered jeans, but still sports the borrowed oversize blue sweatshirt. Her back is to the driveway, and she seems quite intent in scraping the dirt out from around the small plants.

For once, Cedric doesn't hurl his yellow MX-5 up the track to the farm as though a thunderwyrm were on his tail. He takes it at a gentler pace, pulling into the yard without any squeal of brakes or wheels, and parks up alongside the barn. "Ahoy ahoy!" he carols out to Erika, whom he spots working on her gardening task.

Erika turns around at the sound of crunching gravel, absently pushing away the blonde strands that the wind throws in her face. "Cedric!" Dropping her hoe on the ground, the girl hops her way across the rows of vegetables, then runs the rest of the way towards the car. The girl's spontaneous grin becomes much more demure, and she swallows. "Uh, hello Cedric-rhya."

Cedric springs lithely out of the car like an aristocratic version of the Dukes of Hazzard, revealing that he doesn't drive with his seatbelt fastened. "You're a busy little bee," he grins. "Sowin' and reapin' and weedin' and hoein' and improvin' the shining hour by raisin' fruit and vegetables for your fellow farm inmates, what?"

Erika grins, scuffing her foot at the ground and sending small rocks clattering. "Yeah, Cole asked me to help out with some stuff around here. I guess no one really had a lot of time for gardening this summer, because the tomatos all had yellow leaves and there were all sorts of caterpillars and weeds. It's probably too late this season to help them along, but the soil is good, and there are carrots ready for harvesting." The girl glances up at the sullen sky, then down at Cedric's more cheery face. "So what are you up to?"

"Did you tell Cole I was after a meeting?" Cedric asks. "I went round some real estate places in St Claire today hoping to find something for sale out here, but no dice so far. St Claire's a weird city. Kind of... compact. But then I'm used to London which sprawls like a drunk on a dirty old mattress," he says poetically if pungently.

Erika says "Geez, I'm sorry, Cedric-rhya. When I ran into him yesterday I was so wrapped up with farmhouse stuff I didn't even think about it." The girl's shoulders slump forwards as she looks at the ground. "I should have thought about it. He's out right now, but I'm sure I'll run into him tonight or in the morning.""

Cedric wags a gently reproving finger. "A good galliard doesn't forget a message she's been charged to pass on," he chides her.

The girl shakes her head and turns it away. "You're right, sir. I'll...I'll have to work on that."
Cedric clears his throat gently in the hope of making her turn back. "No need to look so mortified," he tells her. "The whole business of being a cub is learning, and one learns by makin' mistakes, no?"

"I'd rather get it right the first time," Erika says looking up at the elder Fang with a wry expression.

"Even Fangs don't always get it right first time," Cedric confides in the tone of one imparting a secret. He chuckles at his own joke.

Erika glances around at the barn, then over at the tail end of the yellow convertable. "Okay, let me make sure I got it right." The girl's Appalachian accent draws out all the vowels. "You wanted to meet him, and you're looking to buy some property around here, right?" She turns her face to Cedric now, the wind making her blink.

Cedric inclines his head graciously. "Who better to ask than the guy who lives here what houses are for sale?"

Erika nods. "I saw some houses for sale in Kent Crossing when I was in Wildfire territory, but those were on the other end of town." The girl crosses one leg behind the other. "Blackriver told me I'm not supposed to learn from Cole or Dillen any more though, just you and her. I guess that's a tribe thing?"

Cedric nods. "I don't suppose either of them would mean you harm, but... there are separate tribes for a reason. It isn't just like coming from a different family. We have whole different mindsets. Take Cole. Fianna, yes? Now they have a whole different way of lookin' at things from us. Take breedin'. They'll --" He breaks off, pauses, rubs his chin. "Let's just say, they don't value the ol' stud-book the way we do."

Erika blushes and rubs the back of her neck. "My family bred horses, with as fancy a pedigree as you'd like. But it's hard to imagine breeding humans, let alone Garou." The girl looks up at Cedric. "I guess I always thought I'd grow up and get married and have a ranch of my own. But Blackriver says we can only marry our kinfolk, right? And there aren't any around here."

"That's right," Cedric confirms. "I'm afraid that marryin' for love is a luxury few if any Silver Fangs are allowed. If there really are none of our kin around here, it's possible we can have one shipped to you. Or you to him. But all that is well in the future," he hastens to add, "and first we have to get you safely grown up!"

This gets a grin from the cub. "Yeah, you sure got a task on your hands there! Seriously though, living here...well, I know I'm not supposed to learn from other people, but you can't help but to see things. Like yesterday, I was downstairs cooking, and I heard this big ruckus upstairs...Emma was tearing into this other guy, even though she's all beat up, and she's not much bigger than I am. Dillen had to come in and split them up."

Cedric's eyes narrow. "I met Emma. Briefly. She did not seem full of the joys of life," he understates. "But she didn't actually attack me. I pity the poor chap who she did. Do you know who he was?"

"Um, I think they said his name was Ethan. Emma yelled lots of stuff at him and kicked him hard in the, er, kicked him hard." Erika glances around, then up at Cedric again. "Uh, Cedric-rhya, is it okay to talk with this stuff? I mean, just between you and me?"

Cedric smiles quietly. "You might like to ensure that nobody is earwiggin' before letting loose with any particularly slanderous gossip," he tells her, "but in general, I'd sooner know things than not. Anyway..." He looks around. "Since there's nobody else around, I have a suggestion. Why don't we drive down in my car to Kent Crossin' and back? That way I can keep my eyes on the road and you can watch out for realtors' boards, instead of me having to split my attention. I nearly ran into a Honda earlier through not lookin' at the road. Would have sucked to hit a Honda," he says, as though to hit a Japanese car is the worst of all indignities over those of other countries.

"All right!" the cub says, running around to the passenger side of the car. "Will you show me how the roof goes up and down?"

Cedric chuckles. "I'll let you operate it," he says indulgently as he climbs back in. By opening the door, this time.