Union County, Georgia, 1985.

Blairsville, population of 698 became population 700.

January was Liza Jane Beaumont's month.
March was Harbin Locksley's.

Liza Jane was the youngest child of the Singing Beaumonts, a family act that once traveled around, singing old fashioned bluegrass and gospel at revivals around the south. By the time Liza Jane was born, Betty Lou and Edsel Beaumont - her parents, both Child of Gaia Kinfolk - had returned to their homeplace on Blue Mountain, just outside of Blairsville, to take care of their aging grandparents and raise their own children in a more stable environment. Betty Lou ran the farm while Edsel had himself an excavating business working for State Road Commission. It was good, since he often got inside information he could pass on to other Kinfolk with Garou ties as to what the current development plans were. Might not've been good for business all the time, but no one ever said Edsel Beaumont didn't do right by his tribe.

Betty Lou had seven children between the ages of 16 and 26, and then she had four miscarriages in a row. When she was 30, old Doc Howard said she wouldn't ever have another one, so imagine her surprise when she done found herself pregnant at 40. By that time, she was already a grandmother thrice over, though her two oldest girls had both moved up to Tennessee so there wasn't anyone in the immediate family who was Liza's age.

In contrast, Harbin's family wasn't quite as big. Strangely, for a Southern family, he was an only child. Which means he got the full brunt of whatever genes were supposed to be sewn under the no-moon. Good ol' local Hospitality - and the fact that kinfolk stick together - kept the two families together. Liza Jane's parents tended to treat Harbin's as their eldest children, anyway.

There was a half-mile of beautiful Blue Mountain wilderness that separated the Locksleys from the Beaumonts; and throughout his childhood Harbin found his way over more and more often. But the other Beaumont kids were a lot older than he; so he found a strange kinship forming with little Liza Jane.

The two were inseparable. Home schooled until 1st grade, all the way through elementary school, middle school, and even high school. They learned how to play the fiddle together. They both learned to sing together. Even though she found a procilivity for more instruments than he, they began to put this talent of theirs to work. They'd play and sing together at various little joints around the town, even so far away as the Walasiyi Inn at Neel's Gap down in the Blood Mountain Wilderness about fourteen miles away.

That's quite a distance for two teenagers to travel without a car. They had both been driving since they were tall enough to see over the steering wheel, but there were just some times you couldn't borrow the car. Enough little gigs under their belt and Harbin got his hands on a 1970 Chevy Chevelle LS6 - 454 cubic inches with 450 horsepower. While it was in his name, they both drove it just as much.

Sixteen years old and they were both juniors at the Union County High School, it was a beautiful spring evening and they were heading down to Neels Gap for another of fiddlin' at the Inn. Harbin was a good ol' boy, but never ranking up among the high school jocks (few as they were). Somewhere, somehow, buried in the depths of backwoods testosterone there was a word misspoken that suddenly ignited a bitter rivalry between Harbin and the high school quarterback.

It caught up to Harbin and Liza Jane. It showed up as headlights in the back mirror about six miles out from the Inn. The headlights got closer, closer, and even closer. Tires screamed as the weight of the Chevelle swerved into the roadside wash.

Neither were badly hurt, just stunned and shaken. It was what waited back up on the asphalt that shook them more. Three forms silhouetted by headlights. Words that taunted and threatened on the whiff of beer. There was the jingle of a length of chain. The solid smack of aluminum ballbat against palm Something in the young man snapped.

It wouldn't be that bad if they were threatening him, but it's the fact Liza Jane was there, too.

The next morning, the news made the sorrowful report that the star quarterback at the high school and two teammates had been killed when their truck had run off the road and rolled into the trees. The driver's blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit for adults, and none of the three teenagers were wearing seatbelts. There would be a closed casket funeral the following Tuesday.

What happened during the night was the most important. Harbin had frenzied on the three football players, in order to protect his best friend. The blood raged and burned to let him go six ways furry from sunday and obliterate the threat (and their car). Realizing what happened, he ran into the woods. He had heard about these things, but to be one? He ran out of fear, he ran out of Rage, he ran until he realized that he was leaving Liza Jane behind.

Oddly, she had followed him. She waited for him to come back, to shift down, to talk with him through the night. They never made the gig.

The Beaumont's, being older and wiser kin, had seen what they thought where the signs. But out of respect hadn't said much, as it seemed the boy was really going to grow up to be another kin to add to the flock that called Blairsville home. By the time Harbin and Liza Jane got home - bruised, shaken, in the knocked up Chevelle and he in shredded clothes - they said more than a mouthful.

That was well over a year ago. Since then, they found some other Garou that hung around the Appalachian Trail. Oddly, it was at the Walasiyi Inn, and they had been keeping track of the would-be Ragabash. He was introduced to the Children of Gaia camp Patient Deed and educated about what he was, and what he was born to do. The sept was based from a Children of Gaia and Uktena caern. You can bet he made sure Liza Jane was there every step of the way. Or at least as much as he could keep her abreast of things.

He couldn't, obviously, take her along on his rite of passage. He was paired off with a Theurge and sent on a spirit journey. One of the old Cherokee spirits of the area was upset, it had been offended by some mortals that had defiled a part of the Appalachian Trail. It was their job to find what needed to be appeased and placated - the Ragabash and the Theurge. It was there that he gained his deed name, for the bright light that Umbrally appeared on his brow and the way he used his wits to solve the offense - "Bright Little Warrior"

When it was over, he immediately went back to tell Liza Jane all about it. To this day, they're still inseparable.

This is what's brought them up to New York. Someone that passed through the Inn invited them up to play a few gigs. And the Chevelle (fixed and since repainted) took them all the way from north Georgia to New Yawk state. Two high school graduates ready to see the world., learn all they could about it. And now they're on their way back down towards home. Seems they caught wind of some high ranking officials in the Pine Barrens area, so they should stop and pass on their respects, and all that.

last update .01.05.03.