"It is time you sat down and listened." Sullen, the teenager crosses the floor of the kitchen to sit at the antique table across from the severe older woman whom she calls Great Aunt. One hand scratches neglectfully around the raised scabbing of a fresh tattoo, the only one she'll have, a winding glyph of her tribe. The Fianna have marked her, and now it is apparently time for it to be explained why. Annabelle Slaughter is in her fifties and her hair is fading from the red it once was to ginger, greying slowly as time eats away at her good health. She is severe and prim and has never forgotten that her mate was an Athro of the tribe. One who died ten years ago and gave her no children. She has not mated again, but memory of her mate has given her some prestige. Memory and sheer personality. When she speaks she has an accent of an educated british woman, somewhat out of context with the cornish city of Penzance, just as ancestral near-mansion she lives in seems out of place with the smaller family homes. "You must understand your family, my dear, and how important you are to the tribe, being as you are." The girl who sits before her might as well be a brick wall as she sits, straight backed in the wooden chair. The teenager's hands, long and fine fingered, musician's hands, rest flat on the table as if she was waiting only for her chance to rise. Music was something the girl did well - something Annabelle intended to culture; it was a fine thing for her to do in her spare time. None of this guitar and fiddle nonsense, but perhaps the violin. "It's not simply being kinfolk. Heritage is everything to them, and to us, you know. And your heritage - yours and mine - is a very fine one indeed." The girl needs a hair cut, she notes distracted as she watches strands of hair spill across the teenager's cheekbone, flaming bright, edging on chaotic. Loose, it nearly hid the bruise across younger one's cheekbone. She had gotten that the night she'd gotten the tattoo. Another form of marking. Another form of memory. Annabelle continues, speaking as if the teenager's silence was inconsequential, "I shall tell you them all some day, your ancestors, but today I will tell you of the most important ones. Gaia's Lament, Saloon Player - don't smirk, dear, it is unbecoming and unnecessary. Deednames are important, and you'd do well not to insult them -" and then as if the interruption had not occured, "and Carves the Name." The teenager's face was set to endure this. It hardly seemed likely that Annabelle would get any answer from her this day. It would be truthful to say that Annabelle did not care, so long as the headstrong girl just listened. "Gaia's Lament as a storyteller, a Galliard - you'll recall the auspices? -" and no answer was taken as an affirmative and Annabelle continues on, "of our Tribe, and it is said he was there to see the birth of the cursed tribe from the bowels of the earth," a recitation from memory, from heart. It is likely that Annabelle has never so much been near one of the cursed tribe, the Black Spiral Dancers, and never would be. It was a story she told, the way it had been told to her, and it loses some meaning for that, "alongside Fire's Flame, who is a true hero of the times. Perhaps you could ask one of the Garou to tell you the story," for Annabelle did not know. She doubts the girl will, and doubts more that it would be told, but what she says fills the hole in her lack of knowledge, "and what's more, Gaia's Lament's stories are still told to this day, his words on the tongue of other Galliards of our tribe." After a moment, Annabelle stands, walking to the fridge to pour herself a glass of juice. She can feel the teenager's dark blue eyes tracking her as she moves. She continues to speak as the lemonade pours into the glass from the jug, ice cubes clinking as they fall with the fluid. "Some five generations ago was a Ragabash named Saloon Player," and her back turned, she cannot see the girl's smirk again, though she can well guess it is there, "who was well known as a scout and a finder of treasures - fetishes they're called -" turning back, she catches the tail-end of a derisive look on the slight redhead's fine features. The look Annabelle gives her great-niece could crack stone, and the teenager blows out air through her nose, otherwise keeping to her silent-treatment. "and these fetishes are very important to the Garou at large. He once found a fetish that helped save our very Caern. It is said he died trying to bring another great treasure home; though nowadays no one remembers what this fetish was called." Smooth motioned and straight backed, the older kinfolk sits back down at the table, placing her cup upon it. "And then there was Carves-the-Name, your great-grandfather. My father. He was the head protector of the caern, called a Warder," generalizations. Annabelle does not know exactly what her father did, and again, repeats as she best she knows how, "He was a great Garou. A warrior. An Ahroun." This last one, perhaps is most important to the older woman. Dearest to her heart, though she barely knew him. "He fought every war with great dignity and was respected in the Sept. He spoke, everyone listened. He died protecting the caern - a noble death. A good death." Annabelle sips her drink, and looks across the table at her grand-niece and offers her a slight cool smile, "And those are the more noteable people in your history. You see, all these things are important to Garou. Since there are good Garou, brave Garou, in your blood, it makes you all the more important. Your sons, daughters could be just as great. And so, they want to be sure there is no misunderstanding with the other tribes that you are what you are. There is Fianna blood in your veins. The Fianna want to be sure no tribe tries to harm you. Steal you away." She can see the doubt melded with derision flicker in her great-niece's eyes, and once more regrets the method in which this came about. There are not a few who have become bitter after perceived mishandlings. Instead of continued argument or comfort, however she takes another swallow of her lemonade and asks, "Do you have any questions. Imogen looks across the table at her great Aunt, sitting straight and still in her chair. Her arm itches and cheekbone hurts. In what Annabelle has told her, much of it is in the dark. She does not know what a cursed tribe is, nor can she recall what a ragabash is. She has never seen a caern. There are certainly questions she might ask. Instead, she rises from her chair and asks only one, "May I go now?"