Danielle the Problem

Danielle wakes in a restaurant, alone. There's a dish under a metal cover, with bits of cat underneath. The girl with the implants is sitting across from her suddenly. "Reading your datastream is hilarious."

Danielle is busy being revolted. The girl points out that the BSD pack is backtracking her trail. Where did she leave from? (Implying: will they find your family?)

On the plane, Rey notices Danielle's having bad dreams. Ambrose wakes her. The Iterator throws a cat paw at her, which rolls off her chest in the real world. Ambrose puts it in a containment jar.

Danielle freaks out. Ambrose gives her brandy and calms her. She tells a halting story about her mother...which Olesya interrupts with, "So what parts of her did you eat?"

The others are shocked. Danielle only says she can't remember. Olesya asks if her mother was Balam. Danielle doesn't think so...but Ambrose checks the paw. It's Balam, and it's female, and it's kin to Danielle somehow. Sonya sniffs it, verifying it's family, and is interested to note it's not decayed.

Sonay and Jonas ask about this quest Danielle says she's on. She says she grew up with her mentor telling her she'd leave one day to go to the City of Winds. Then one day she left, leaving clothes and a note saying, "You will know when to go." She never saw her again. Jonas notes this is all because she gave the BSDs a map--there's something mystical about travel maps. What about her mentor's note? Danielle says she left it.

Ambrose notes that cats tend to go for protein--liver, heart.

They need to follow RF's trail before Danielle's. They transfer planes, heading for South America. Danielle falls asleep again.

She wakes in an office. Robert the tentacular Nephandus is sitting there. "How does it make you feel?"

"Actually," she answers, "you scare me."

"Awww, thank you!" He needles her till she tells him that the purpose of Bastet is to watch. "So you're not like Garou, then, who have a useful purpose."

They know the legend of the Three Brothers. The IX girl is there suddenly. Robert's happy she's helping him write an important thesis. "You really should be honored!" he tells Danielle. The girl hisses in irritation and takes a soda from the fridge, then accosts Danielle about why she's here.

"To learn."

"This is not a learning curve. This is a learning spiral. Maybe someone else sent you. Calash?" Robert protests he's supposed to be doing this. "Yes, why don't you go run the genetic sampling test?"

"Yes!" he yelps happily, and scurries off. Danielle digs her nails in her palms.

"Do you enjoy that?" the girl demands. "Could be a telling sign who sent you. Do you enjoy your Rage? Some werewolves do." But then she begs off. "Off to have a conversation with the thing in the center of your soul."

Danielle wakes up on the plane. Some of the others are snoozing. Sonya and Rey are up front, talking about fae and Fomorians. Danielle comes forward, looking worse than before she slept, and tells them the dream. "I can't do this anymore. I can't deal with it!" she grits out.

"It doesn't matter if they're figments or monsters," Sonya answers. "You don't have the real answers, so find them."

Sonya asks questions, learning she never met any other shifters, and no one knows Danielle's name. Weird. Yet she's Rank 2. Sonya asks why. Danielle tells how she stopped fomori from breaking into a tomb near the pyramid in her territory. She never left that territory. Sonya realizes her mother must'vebeen the temple's guardian. If she left, then, she was probably passing it to Danielle. Who does have a feathered serpent tattoo like the one at the base of the temple (its mouth was the tomb entrance). Jonas tips his hat back and points out if Danielle left, then her mentor probably came back in that case. Danielle doesn't know her mother's name. Sonya plans to ask around in the Amazon.

Danielle says her mentor led her to the temple while the fomori were breaking in, and stood back. "They didn't know what hit them," Danielle boasts.

"Yes, I'm sure your battle prowess is legendary," Sonya says dryly. Rey snickers. Danielle's mentor told her nothing about the tomb. The fomori were just grave-robbing. The Bastet returned everything and resealed the tomb.

Sonya asks about smelling Wyrm taint. Danielle says she has no skills to smell it...yet she's identified it correctly during her journey so far. It's not a skill, it's an ability of shifters. So either her ability was repressed, or the place was so Wyrm-tainted that she had no basis for comparison. Or her mentor lied and there was no Wyrm taint at the temple at all.

Jonas points out the unusual nature of a shifter being born directly to a shifter parent. Coincidence, or spiritual lineage? Maybe her mother was the proper temple guardian. Was Danielle even destined to be a shifter? Did eating her mother do something?

The plane lands. They go to RF's adoptive human family. Sonya decides to bring Danielle. Let the Mokole decide what to do with her. They settle in, get treated to an impromptu party, and plan their further journey.

that night, Danielle dreams of a train station. The girl says trains here lead to different destinations, and changes the setting to a crossroads. She asks if Danielle's developed any theories.

Rey notes Danielle's dreaming again. He peeks in to see the girl telling Danielle it's a Green Court Fomorian's shade in her soul. She bothers Danielle about avoiding choices and knowledge. Rey slaps Danielle awake. She tells about the dream, then asks if crossroads are significant. Of course! Any of them could tell her that.

Onward! They reach the tree where RF was found, and are met by a brontosaurus and a pterodactyl. The Garou are silent and respectful. Ambrose nearly vibrates with excitement. He feels breath on his neck, turns, and finds himself face to face with a velociraptor. "Hi, sir! I'm just the help. You want to talk to them."

"I'm well aware," the dinosaur replies.

Ambrose gapes. "It's so cool when you talk!"

"I know." They ride the brontosaurus to the wallow, where the Mokole take human form. Walking Hawk is there.

They talk to RF, give him a drinking bowl to remember where he was born. His vision: born to Uktena in El Dorado. Ambrose thinks that's awesome. A Mokole tells the story:

Technocrats with the Conquistadores mapped and locked things down here. They fought a war with a Dreamspeaker king named El Dorado. They finally won by locking his city out of reality, but they couldn't finish it. He was too powerful. He sealed the city into its own realm to keep it safe. Only natives of the city can find the paths to walk to come and go. Walking Hawk says the Mokole can't walk the way he does. The Mokole warn that there will be Pentex and other enemies on the way, but RF can lead them back.

They share the discovery of Wonshee's journal, which laments the fighting between tribes and that it leaves them alone to deal with their fate.