Thunder's Claws stares into the water, attempting to tune out everything going on around him.
Magpie-spirit swoops down on wide black wings, bird-shaped at first, greeting the dancers and others with a bemused, rapid caw-caw-caw of bright laughter. She weaves in and out of the dance, feathers obscuring people's vision, before coming at last to light within the chalk circle before Thunder's Claws.
Derrick begins leaping occasionally towards the sky, keys jingling in his fingers.
Atalanta's dance continues, lightness of step, darkness of the narrow moon, peripheral to the true Rite, interleaved with it.
Thunder's Claws takes some time to notice that the bird is in front of him. When he finally looks up from the bowl of water, his pupils are dilated so far that they have swallowed up his irises.
Andrea seems to play tag with the dark-feathered spirit for a moment before she flies on inside the circle. The theurge smiles, faintly, but does not stop her efforts. She dances with shadows, and the only noise is her breathing and the crunch of her feet when she lands.
Derrick splutters as the feathers get in his face, grinning. He doesn't stop even after Magpie settles down, but does slow down a bit. Jumping, dancing, breathing.
Without really undergoing any visible change, the Magpie somehow seems almost human once she furls her wings, although the spirit's true nature is clear in her bright, alert eyes. Sobering, although the smile doesn't leave her face, the odd little woman tilts her head to one side and asks in brisk spirit's tongue, *So lonely for our company, my children? What seek ye?*
Andrea does speak then, to translate Magpie's words. Her voice has some of the lilt of the spirit's, though her words are certainly more ragged due to the dance. She repeats the words, then falls silent again.
Atalanta is hungry for knowledge, but dances, silently, lithely stepping higher, leaping in longer and longer arcs, the illusion of floating and of flight accentuated with the working of the streamers. Her Spirit, her time to ask, that will come. Now, it is this Spirit's time, another Garou's place to ask, and hers to pay tribute to them both, and to the asking, in dance.
Thunder's Claws's ears come forward as the spirit speaks, as if he understood them even before the Theurge translated. He indicates that we seek the meaning behind the visions that have appeared in the Caern. Visions from the past, but horribly real.
Magpie-spirit turns abruptly, the fringe of her jacket flying out like the flash of her wings. 
Magpie-spirit nods sadly. *The wheel turns. The wheel turns over in its sleep, dreaming awake: this you see.*
Thunder's Claws asks if these are nothing more than dreams, then? Is there nothing to do but wait for the Wheel to wake? Or wake it ourselves?
Atalanta turns as the Spirit turned, improvising from what she sees, learning, worshipfully, respectfully, silently. And she dances.
Magpie-spirit shakes her head at the questions. *The dreams come from within, but the spark that triggers them comes from without. The Wheel spins backwards, brief moments, now: what was, for a moment, is. And you cannot fight what has already happened. You must find the source.*
Derrick dances, dancing as if running, as if trying to run off the earth into the sky. He is much less clumsy than at the last Rite he attended, more joyful, and he shows it, leaping.
Thunder's Claws draws back from the bowl, his hackles bristling in response to whatever it is that he sees there.
@doing Dancing a runner.
Magpie-spirit taps her staff sharply on the ground. *For the echoes you see are but ripples from a stone being cast. It falls like a child's toys carelessly discarded. She cleans her room, and it falls on us. And the Wheel stirs in its sleep to scratch the itch.*@pemit Thun=The image, which gusts apart like clouds, and you see the medicine wheel reflected within the bowl. A blurred small figure is playing hopscotch between the chalk lines, chanting in a simple singsong as it skips forward to retrieve a tossed pebble. Both figure and pebble flicker out, as the shadowy hand closes over the stone.
Thunder's Claws decides to ask the question that my well end the vision: Who is the source?
Magpie-spirit turns westward, eyes narrowing, and points out into the forest with her staff. *I know not. But it tastes of the reckless magic, of a Child of Man with more power than wisdom. It smells of foul air, too--a pact formed of ashes. There must be a reckoning.*
Thunder's Claws's body begins to slump as Magpie turns to leave. He glaces westward, following the line of her staff, but his motions are slow, tired.
Atalanta looks West, now, not hesitating in her dance, but directed for a moment.
Derrick almost shadows Atalanta, for a moment.
Andrea's eyes also follow the path of the staff as she takes in a sustaining breath.
Thunder's Claws whimpers softly as another vision appears in the bowl, and then lowers his head as it fades away to just water. Another whimper - this one of pain - escapes him as he sinks to the ground. His breathing his labored, as if he'd been the one doing all the dancing.
Magpie-spirit nods her head gravely to the small gathering, then unfurls wings of shadow and launches herself airborne and back into bird's true shape. She circles the dancers briefly in fairwell. As she passes over the Fang, a hand or claw outstretched snatches the jingling keys he holds aloft. Then she veers sharply upwards and vanishes skyward.
Derrick lets them go gladly, and whirls around in a final, exultant, running leap.
Atalanta follows behind Derrick, his initiative and insight exceeding hers, and she makes an effort to catch up.
Derrick pants.
Atalanta trails off in her dancing, but she is far from done for the night. Now she begins to practice each new movement, each little component, to understand the dance more deeply.
Andrea slows, gradually coming to a stop. She simply breathes for a minute, then moves toward the Shadow Lord. Her brow creases.
Derrick crouches on the ground, breathing hard. He looks at the Lord, but lets Andrea, who has known him longer, approach him.
Thunder's Claws seems to be fine. He indicates that he simply has a very bad headache. And he's exhausted.
Andrea nods, coming no closer. "You should sleep. Think on what she showed you. She may show you more in your true dreams. Will you be able to get home?"
Thunder's Claws thinks he will sleep here. A warper, then, is the cause?
Thunder's Claws pages to Andrea, Atalanta, Magpie-spirit, and Derrick: I don't.
Atalanta says "I will watch over your sleep, to make sure no one disturbs you, Mister Alexander.""
Andrea nods. "I will come tomorrow and speak with you?"
Thunder's Claws asks that everyone spread the news: if any more visions are encountered, they are to be left alone. We cannot stop them, anyway. He indicates a quiet affirmative to Andrea.
From afar, to Andrea, Thunder's Claws, and Derrick, Atalanta is such a liar. She'll run away if a Nexus Crawler comes.
Andrea nods. She smiles at the other participants in the rite, then turns to run to the south. Her form ripples into lupus as she does so.
Andrea contorts and blurs as she is transformed.
Andrea shifts into Lupus form.
Derrick grins quietly, and returns to the Caern. "I'll spread the word, TC."