5

On and on it goes, scanning people for signs of criminal intent, constantly alert. It's exhausting because you don't want to sleep, and—

"Hey kid, wake up." You're still riding with the trans woman going in for top surgery, right? The one with the Tahoe? Yeah, you're still in her truck, and she said she was heading to—"This is Northampton. End of the line."

You awaken with a faint snarl that you carefully control so you don't terrify the driver. Your spiritual energy is waxing strong again. And freezing cold has finally left your bones; you're not feeling sick and shaky anymore. But now it's back onto the streets. You clamber out of the Tahoe and the cold air hits you. You turn back and the woman gives you one last smile. Then you see yourself reflected in the window. Your first reaction is that you look like hell. Who would ever pick you up? A kind soul, maybe. Or a bored one.

As the woman rolls away and the cold closes in, you contemplate the strange and frequently challenging intersections of your human ethnicity, your Garou nature, and what remains of the tribes. The Garou tribes aren't human families. Black Tarn said the tribes were like religions—in the confusing sense that sometimes you choose your gods and sometimes they choose you. To Clay, each tribe was a yearning so strong that it took on a spiritual form in the shape of a mighty Patron Spirit that represented its values. And to Scarper, the Garou tribes were nothing more than street gangs, fighting over turf as an enemy army set up its artillery.

But most humans don't care about your gods, your desires, or your tags. They see another human, and they see skin deep. So you can't help but think about who you are to them, and what that means to you.

I'm Black. My family came up north in the 1920s so an ancestor could work at a shoe factory, apparently.

As near as I can tell, my family is from Central Asia, with some Middle Eastern and maybe even Eastern European ancestry.

I'm East Asian. My dad was first generation but my mom's family has been in the US for at least a century.

I'm Latino. The forms I filled out as a kid said "white Latino."

I'm at least partially Native, though my mom was in some kind of messed up residential school and never knew, or never told me about, her parents.

I have Middle Eastern and North African Ancestry.

I'm South Asian. My mom was born here but my dad's family immigrated when he was three.

I'm white, at least as far as I can tell.

Good question! I'm…sort of brown? Like, that's what people say, sometimes rudely, sometimes just confused but trying to be polite. All four of my grandparents abandoned their history, whatever it was.

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