Ornature

[Do you guys want to repost the 13 posts we have in email?]

Charlotte thinks what if he doesn't want to come and Charlotte says, "Okay," with spark of something that feels weird in her mouth. Neither ash nor flame, but something in the midst of combustion that makes her tongue tingle and what she says means more in this moment than what she thinks, because there is a mild spark of light in her eyes and a curling edge to her little half smile because what she thinks is that the worst thing would be okay too.

Because she's here.

"Maybe I will call him."

The sink is full of scraped-off burned cookie-bits and the air is full of that Christmas scent, piney-boughs and sweet spice and Charlotte is smiling one of her strange little smiles, like she's remembered a secret no one has ever known before.

"He can't stay here though. There's no room."

"Nah," Erich says, smiling across his shoulder at Charlotte while she decorates cookies and he chills out leaning against the counter waiting for Melantha to come home, "he could totally stay here."

It says something about Erich, what he says next. It says something about the sort of person he is, how generous and unselfish he is, how welcoming and eager and happy to have guests:

"I've got a queensized mattress. If he doesn't mind we can totally share a bed for a couple nights. And if my sister comes maybe she can squeeze in with you. If worst comes to worst, like if Melantha invites people too, I can always go sleep in the truck, or curl up on the floor in wolfskin.

"I wouldn't mind at all. But well, if Chaz would rather have his own room and his own bed, we can always park the tinyhouse behind a hotel or something. That'd work too."

Charlotte's hands are dusted with multicolored sugar crystals, and while she is really rather precise (if, ah, fanciful) in her cookie-decorating habits, the bright sugar is scattered all over the counter, her hands, her t-shirt and even her seams of her jeans. Tiny little particles are sticky in her hair, but given the moonlight and cotton candy color she maintains (with Kool-Aid, sometimes, and sometimes with Manic Panic dye) they seem almost deliberate. Decorate rather than accidental.

Strange to see so feral a creature engaged in something as thoroughly ordinary as decorating cookies. She is so spare and lean, her torso a parabolic arc, her arms long and elegant, defined by the solid bones of extraordinary breeding.

Charlotte loves this den. The closeness. The way their scents have mingled and permeated the wood. It is tinytiny and there is something in her that requires space, that wants to soar, but the child in her loves the neat little cubby of her bed, her window looking out into the dark wash of the piney woods near Evergreen filling with snow. She is biting her tongue with concentration as she works to dot her little galaxy-person with tiny pinprick points of changing light. Nebulae or starclusters, places where burning-things are born, and where they go to die.

Erich offers to share-his-space without a second thought, and he's smiling at her, leaning against the counter and watching her. He interrupts the sweep of light from one of the ceiling fixtures and cuts an oblong shadow across the room.

Charlotte looks back up at him, then. Shining eyes behind the sweep of pale blond lashes.

"Your sister's welcome to sleep with me. But I think Chaz would be happier with his own room. He can get a car and drive out here, too. Or rent a cabin or something. I don't wanna park in a hotel parking lot."

She's such an eldritch thing. Sometimes Charlotte doesn't quite seem real; seems half-spirit herself. Well, obviously they're all half-spirit, Erich's not dumb about that or anything, but: Charlotte seems that way more than the rest of them put together. Like maybe if you looked at her side-on she just wouldn't even be there, in that shape, or...

he's looking at her sort of side-on right now, though. He's smiling at her, and that smile widens when she looks back at him. "Awesome," he says, and straightens up. "We'll sorta kinda plan on it, then." Which means they won't plan at all, but will keep the possibility open in their minds. "But if it's just my sister she can probably just split my bed and then if Melantha invites someone she can share yours and, yeah. It'll work out.

"I'm gonna put the tree up," he adds. "Not decorate it! But just take it out of the box and put it together so it's ready to decorate."

Because of course they bought a reusable, not-real-live tree. Because of course they wouldn't chop down a tree, end its life, for the sake of a holiday. They couldn't really afford to be so wasteful, and even if they could -- they wouldn't.

"I'm glad," he adds, a little later, when he's dragging the box to that small semi-open space next to the kitchen sink and cutting the tape, "that you're gonna maybe invite your brother over. Families should get to see each other once in a while, even if they're far away."

For what it is worth:

Melantha would be horrified if they cut down a tree, unless it was a little thing that fell down on its own. It's like I don't even KNOW you anymore, she'd say, or her eyes would say it for her. Melantha would agree that Erich's sister should come and she would be vaguely worried about Charlotte's brother because she got a strange weird vibe from him and she never realized it but it was because he was like looking into the past of the sort of men she destroyed and seeing who they were when they were in their twenties and not their forties or fifties, and she would sense better than Erich that Charlotte is worried that her brother wouldn't even want to come and she would be worried for Charlotte and worried about what Erich's sister is like because even though she's concerned with what this important person means to Erich and what she might think of Melantha, Melantha is even more worried about what she'll think about her, because outside of the tribe and outside of Charlotte, almost every female relationship she's encountered has been one of combative deception, aloof and inauthentic and suspicious and vengeful right from the start.

Melantha is, wherever she goes, one of the smartest people in the room. And her mind is bored so easily, runs a million miles a minute without trying. To say that Melantha 'overthinks' is one way of putting, though that's less flattering than something about having played every possible chess game to its last moves before she ever touches a piece. That makes it sound way cooler than it is, to hold so many possibilities in mind and have nothing, really, that challenges that sort of brainpower.

So she worries a lot. It's something for her brain to do, tricking itself into thinking its being productive.

--

Tonight, Melantha comes home late, and it is not footsteps crunching their way towards the door tonight but the sound of an engine. Not the truck, obviously, that's been parked where it was when she took off on foot to the saloon. But an engine nonetheless, and maybe for once she allowed a coworker to give her a ride, but that would be so unlike her, she doesn't want to share the location of their little mobile den even with people she likes at work, and then the engine cuts off.

She comes up to the door, stamping her shoes off on the porch, and swings it open and the inside smells like cookies that are slightly burnt and smells like icing and smells like Other Winter Things, and her cheeks are pink and she has no idea they are discussing anything about where to stash people who are invited for the holidays, and she looks triumphant. Her eyes are bright with exhilaration.

"I bought a Jeep!" she declares.

The tinyhouse is small enough that the cold air blasts in all sharp and wild the minute Melantha opens the front door. Erich's going to open the box for the tree and he's telling Charlotte that they'll plan on things they might not really plan on and Erich's telling Charlotte about how important family is, how they should get to see each other, even when they're far away, and Charlotte's shooting him a strangely perception glance, which is sidelong and a bit poignant as he makes this declaration, and she looks far more human in that moment, put together from the snips and snails and sugar and spice that make up the core of us, beneath our skin and bones.

Meanwhile, there's the sound of an engine without, unusual enough that it pulls Charlotte's pale eyes from Erich to the front door, her head cocked animalisticly, her body tensing faintly through the shoulders, her mind reaching out without thought to brush against Melanthas. A wordless, nearly physical acknowledgment/query, like a wolf shouldering past its packmate, exchanging scents after a day's hunt.

That blast of bright, sharply cold air brings a tinge of pink to even Charlotte's cheeks, and Charlotte's hands are dusted with pink and green and purple sugar crystals, and tiny decorative candy pearls, and everything else from the cookie decorating kit she bought at one of those little boutiques down in Evergreen and Melantha looks so triumphant and excited that Charlotte almost natively and naturally assumes that she is bringing home a kill or something grand and there is something really rather quietly grand about the brightness in Melantha's eyes, the heralding swirl of wind-and-winter that backgrounds Melantha's entrance, enough that Charlotte throws up her arms and throws them around Melantha's neck. Hugs her, rather wildly, happy that Melantha is happy, for all that Charlotte does not care one whit about a Jeep.

"That's cool. We made cookies! They're a little burnt."

You know, reciprocity.

[Melantha totally brought home a kill. She stalked the Jeep in the wilds of Evergreen. She harried its owner with her teeth and wit. And then she savaged it with cash money and dragged it back to her den and her pack to present them with THE GLORY OF HER TRIUMPH.]

The sound of an engine pulling up outside makes both Charlotte and Erich tense instinctively. Two blond heads swivel door-ward. Two pairs of blue eyes swing noise-ward. And then --

and then --

Melantha's presence becomes known to them. By her proximity, by her totem-bond, by the faint unmistakable spirit-smell of her purity coming up to the door. And Erich straightens up from where he's leaning, his arms pulling tight across his chest, a smile revving up across his face almost entirely without his notice or permission.

Melantha! says Erich-brain. Melantha Melantha Melantha Melantha Melantha Melantha Melantha Melantha Melantha Melantha Melantha until the door opens, until she's standing there smelling like the cold and the mountains and the trees and

her new Jeep.

HER NEW JEEP!

"No WAY," Erich bursts out, while Charlotte is hugging Melantha. He comes toward them, he restrains himself -- barely -- from group-hugging like a dumbass, and then of course he doesn't restrain himself after all and just squeezes them both half to death before moving past to look out the door. "Wow. That was really fast!" -- and he swings around, grinning at them.

The response of their telepathic queries is the equivalent of a boop! on the nose in somewhat childish, delighted friendliness. It's Melantha, and Melantha isn't sobbing because there's so much blood and she's nearly dead and this guy is nearly dead and there's a dead thing outside, and Melantha isn't telling them to relax, she only called on Volcano's strength to lift a heavy thing at work, it's just Melantha coming home and saying hello.

Then saying she bought a Jeep. Which Charlotte could not care less about it, but Charlotte cares a lot about Melantha, so she doesn't have to look hard to see Melantha's vicious sort of pride in this, the happiness at surprising them, the fact that in a way this is bringing home a grand kill, one that she worked very long and hard for. She is hugged by Charlotte's skinny arms, then hugged by Erich's much thicker arms in addition, and she squeezes into the group hug for a moment, breathing in deeply.

"You just scrape the black parts off," Melantha says, which is odd, because this is not a memory from the commune of Black Furies nor one from her spy days, but a much older one. She nuzzles her nose into Charlotte's hair for a moment, then gives Erich a separate, brief-but-close hug, smiling warmly.

"Yes way," she insists, and: "It only cost like two thousand. Well. After registration and stuff. I talked him down a bit since no one is buying cars in December and since I had cash."

The Jeep outside is a dark green Grand Cherokee with gray trim. It is a hardy car, fit for the mountains, and could probably tow the tinyhouse if need be. Melantha is standing there in her coat, pink-cheeked, bright-eyed, smiling. "I thought we could use a second car. If only so I don't have to walk to work whenever you guys are in Denver with the truck, or stuff like that."

There are other reasons they should have a second car, one bright in recent memory. What if Melantha had not been a twenty-minute run through the umbra but farther away, with their only truck and what if it had been Melantha bleeding out instead of a strange and what if -

Charlotte inhales Melantha's scent, which is both familiar and heady, and which makes the girl close her eyes with a deep, abiding, primal pleasure, giving one last squeeze after Erich glomps on, then letting go. The door's open, that bright chill in the air, and Charlotte peers past Melantha's shoulders, past Erich at the open door, catching a glimpse of the Jeep in the darkness, then back to Melantha.

"Erich scraped them. I was decorating. But we have a few more if you want to decorate, too. We still have all the sprinkle colors left except pink and plum,"

and, indeed, pink and plum are the most prominent colors or Charlotte's cleverly and rather oddly decorated gingerbread people.

"Oh! I made you some gourds, okay. I put them in your loft."

"We put lights up too," Erich says, looking out the door at the newJeep while he stomps into his shoes, and then he's hopping down the porch and going to circle the car and kick the tires and brush snow off the sparetire on the back. "You saw them right? We lit them up so you'd see them coming home. And we're about to put the tree up and I think we can put some lights up inside too and, yeah.

"CHRISTMAS.

"This car's awesome," he adds, turning around, coming back up the steps now. Taking them in a quick athletic bound, glomping Melantha up again and hugging-swaying her. "Aweeeesome."

No one mentions the Other Reasons. It's not necessary, and since they aren't the only reasons, even less so. Melantha just smiles, hugging and hugged, still in her outerwear which is good because Erich is leaving the front door wide open, jeezus, erich. He's bounding around but Melantha stays just so, nuzzling Charlotte a little, squeezing her back with a tightness and familiarity that the two have that is different, very different, from the physical closeness that Melantha and Erich have.

She notices sometimes that Erich and Charlotte aren't that physical with each other. Not in homid, at least. She wonders how much of it is the sibling-esque nature of their relationship and how much of it is Charlotte's sometimes jangling, clanging tension, and how much of it is stuff she can't even guess at. She and Charlotte draw apart easily, painlessly, Melantha looking past her pink hair at the sprinkled and frosted cookies, smiling.

"I totally want to decorate, too. And --"

gourds.

Melantha's lips spread with a smile. "Thank you, Charlotte," she says, leaning over to kiss the Fang's temple through her downy, pale, dyed hair. "I'll keep one on me from now on." Maybe two. They're small, after all. She can fit them in her coat pockets or a bag easily enough. And Melantha is practical, and Melantha really hates blood, and she's not keen on dying or watching anyone die around her anytime soon.

--

Lights!

He is outside. Melantha pokes her head out of the door, which doesn't require much movement due to the size of their den, and watches Erich kick and stomp and peer and inspect. She half expects him to start sniffing at the thing, shifting to lupus and wagging his tail. It makes her smile. "I did see the lights," she tells him, since they are currently shining not far from her face. "We should do more inside. And candles."

CHRISTMAS.

Melantha just laughs, a clear and clean sound that defies the muffling silence of a snow-packed ground. It's not so snowy down in the metro area, it couldn't be. But up here, even with the daily sunlight, there's white powder on the ground.

He bounds back, and she steps into the house so there's room for him, and he's hugging her and swaying and he is so gleeful and she just wiggles her arm free to shut the door because cold. She hugs him back, though, squeezing him as tightly as she held Charlotte just moments before, her eyes closing for a moment as her face rests on his chest. She's full of odd little memories, and they're good but a little poignant and every time one comes up, she tightens her hold a little more on one of her packmates.

"Do you guys... wanna do like... Christmas gifts?" she asks, thinking of the tree.

Charlotte. Well, Charlotte beams. Bends into the whisper of Melantha's mouth over her temple, like a willow maybe, or a reed. Pliable, see? And slender. And strangely strong.

Her pale eyes shine with pleasure and happiness and contentment, the animal sort of contentment that comes from a full belly and a warm den and strength and purpose in the world. The sort that seems so far from possible when her madness takes her; seizes her, harrows her, wraps her up in the paralyzing echo chamber of her own mind.

Mmm.

Charlotte inhales again, both as Melantha leans in close and as she draws back, turning - Lights! - back toward the buffeting of cold wind pushing through the open door because - jeezus Erich - Charlotte is not wearing her coat. Though she also does not seem to mind. She just hums beneath her breath, finishes with her current cookie, glances over the others pleased that she saved some for Melantha, probably at Erich's suggestion, and then dusts the little crystals of dyed sugar off her hands, onto the thighs of her jeans.

Watching them as Erich scoops Melantha up into his arms, swaying, gleeful, with her breath in the back of her throat and a stray and animal thought that they should have the chance to be alone, shouldn't they, in their den. To -

- well, her breath doesn't go farther than that and Charlotte folds the thought into a half-hundred others, neatly in some space in the back of her mind. Her pale eyes track easily from packmate to packmate and her fey little smile comes easily as well. Charlotte does not like the artificial tree. Not that she wanted to cut one down so much as dig one up and invite it inside in a little pot, on their little table, but how could you manage it in the frozen ground, without chewing up the roots and shocking the tree with the story of its own kidnapping.

So they will have an artificial tree, and real greens from limbs that feel to the ground under the weight of an early snow, the scent of pine all sharp and cutting-bright in the air. And candles, and gingerbread star-people.

Melantha asks if they want to do Christmas presents.

Charlotte gives Melantha a curling shrug and a simmering, quiet little smile.

"I have everything I need right here."

It's hardly Charlotte's fault that she feels just a little sidelined when Erich embraces Melantha like that. Just a little extraneous, just a little third wheel. She, after all, was born to a human body just like they were. She was born in human society, inundated by human culture, and the culture of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century seems about as obsessed with sex and love and the all-important male-female pair-bond as Victorian culture was obsessed with propriety.

Erich disentangles from Melantha, though, and shakes his head. "Aw, yeah, we all do," he says, "but I think presents don't have to be about what you need. It can be about -- "

and, children of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century that they are, no one could blame them if they expect him to say what you want, greedgreedgreedgreedGREEDGREEDGREED! That's not what he says, though:

" -- taking the time to think about each other, and to find or make things that your friends would like. And vice versa! So yeah, I totally vote we do presents."

Well, Melantha is the sole breadwinner in this household, and she just dropped a couple of grand on a car, and that sounds like a no1curr and a yeah kinda! to her. She is huffing a laugh as she is brought into those heavy arms, before the squeeze and gentle shut of her eyes. She does not notice Charlotte's unvoiced thoughts, Charlotte's unfollowed trails. She draws away from Erich after the long hug, butting her forehead on his bicep like an affectionate animal, and starts shedding layers.

"You already got me presents," Melantha tells Charlotte, meaning the talens. "And you and Erich made me cookies, too." She is hanging things, shucking snowy boots, shaking out her thick hair that is so shockingly dark, especially when compared to Charlotte's almost-white and Erich's bleached-wheat. "I'm not great at making stuff, though. I mean. Stuff you'd want," she explains. "I just know survival stuff."

Charlotte gives a rather shy, narrow-shouldered shrug as Melantha defines the talens and cookies as presents. Then flashes a quicksilver little smile with a mulish sort of curl to it near the end. On someone who was decidedly not Charlotte that half-smile would verge on the sly, but Charlotte is Charlotte and there is nothing sly about the creature sharing the tiny space with them. Who ducks behind Erich to shut the door if no one else has.

"They're not all for you," Charlotte is saying as she slips behind the pair of them because she is wearing short sleeves and is FREEZING to shut the door. "Erich and I are gonna eat some too. And I'm saving some for the birds and some for the fish that get frozen in the lakes. Do you think they dream of stuff when they're stuck in the ice? Anyway you brought us home a Jeep-thing.

"We should do presents though," Charlotte has now decided, "and it doesn't have to be something you make or something you buy. It can be something you know or something you remembered or something you forgot you knew. Or something that made you smile, or made you sad, or made you both.

"Wrapped up in pretty paper or plain paper or nothing at all. Beneath the tree or in its arms. Did I show you my skull?"

"Yeah," Erich chimes in, "it doesn't have to be something you can touch. That's an awesome idea. It can just be ... anything at all, that you want to share or give or, yeah. Okay, Charlotte totally said it better than me. But dude, Melantha, if you wanna teach me how to start a fire with my bare hands, I'm all for it. I can, uh. Teach you how to fake-fart with the crook of your elbow?

"Also," speaking of skulls, "maybe you can have Chaz bring you your spine if/when he visits."

"Well... you made them for each other, too," Melantha says, regarding the cookies, and how they can be presents for everyone. "I don't know if birds and fish like gingerbread, though. Maybe they dream about berries and seeds and... types of algae."

She shrugs, finally down to jeans socks and and sweatshirt and the sweatshirt is dark blue with a wide neck and the face of a fox on the front. A fox wearing a scarf. She climbs over a chair and listens to Charlotte, turning her head to listen, as she makes her way to the couch which is where she likes to have cereal after she works. "I did bring home a Jeep," she confirms, which is a gift to all of them mostly herself. "I haven't done presents and Christmas in a long time. Not with... you know. Not-horrible people, and that was never really on Christmas."

You don't spend Christmas with the girl you're fucking on the side. Maybe a few days after Christmas. Never the day-of.

"What skull?" she asks, getting down a bowl and the cereal, which is a generic version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. And to Erich, as she opens up the tiny fridge to get out the little quart of milk which is the only kind of jug they can buy so they usually get a few quarts at a time: "I'm okay with no presents." It's not diffident, it's not distant; she just is. As she pours her cereal, as she pours her milk: "I don't mean to sound... like a wet blanket, or a sap or anything. It's just that I feel that way people seem to feel when they get Christmas presents whenever I come up to the tiny house. I don't really want anything." There's a beat, as she shuts the milk back into the fridge, looking at her bowl. "Also I really have no idea what I'd give to either of you."

Erich's figurative ears sort of droop when Melantha says she hasn't done presents and Christmas with not-horrible people in a long time. They droop a bit more when she says she doesn't want to do presents this year either, but then

he perks again. Because she says she feels like Christmas every time she comes home. Which means! Tinyhouse was like a Christmas present every day. Which is pretty awesome.

She pours her milk. He snuck a hand into the fridge as she got those quarts out and now he has a can of Sprite, which he pop-hisses open and slurps from. "Well," he bargains, "if it's okay with the two of you I'm gonna get you guys something. Just 'cause Melantha's given us friendship bracelets and Charlotte's given us pigeon-beads. I wanna get you guys something you can carry around! It's only fair.

"We don't have to make a big production of it, though. And, yeah! What's this about skulls? Sorry, I just jumped straight to your spine."

[I AM JUMPING ORDER JUST THIS ONCE]

"That's why we wrapped it up in lights." Charlotte returns, when Melantha tells them that coming home to the tinyhouse is like a Christmas present every day. The thought makes her smile: all of it. Makes her hum, too, with the sort of unstudied harmony of overtones, the strange echoes of other notes folded into the intonation of a single sound. Hum in her body more than her throat, and smile around that feeling, which is bright and correct and solid. Which makes her feel like her feet are touching the earth always, always, no matter where she is.

Charlotte grabs one of the iced gingerbread people for herself but leaves the icing and sparkles for Melantha and Erich to finish decorating the remainder of the batch, if they are so inclined, and is biting off the arm of the gingerbread person first and about to tuck herself onto the couch, pretty clearly accepting of both Melantha's and Erich's preferences regarding presents and Christmas and every layer of awareness between them. Except she does interject,

"You had to break the beads. Melanthan can't hear the pigeons or even see them now." Musing. "Maybe I'll make new ones."

before the subject turns back on itself to that of her skull.

Oh, Charlotte beams. Stuffs the remainder of her gingerbread person solidly into her mouth and CHEWS CHEWS CHEWS because her mother would perhaps be willing to committ murder to keep her children from speaking with their mouths full and swallows in a dry and rather painful rush, perking - "Avery gave it to me. In a really pretty pink and silver box. It's awesome."

Pinkening with warm pleasure and a sort of sudden self-consciousness at the memory, Charlotte slips into her little bunk of a room to retrieve the skull and show them both. Gives Erich a quick glance and a small shrug, and tells him in a quiet voice, "Avery told a story about it at a moot last summer. The guy she killed."

[CORRECTION:

Pinkening with warm pleasure and a sort of sudden self-consciousness at the memory, Charlotte slips into her little bunk of a room to retrieve the skull and show them both. Gives Erich a quick glance and a small shrug, and tells him in a quiet voice, "Tamsin and that guy in her pack - Hector? - told a story about it at a moot last summer." ]

"Yeah," Melantha is echoing. "I had to break mine so it would go find you. What pigeon spirits?" She blinks.

Skull.

This is what they talk about in the day before Christmas: fish frozen in lakes, gingerbread, skulls and spines. Avery gave Charlotte a skull in a pretty pink and silver box and it's awesome and Melantha's eyebrows hop up in something between bemusement and actual surprise and actual hilarity. She's heard about Avery from both of them. She just smiles for Charlotte, coming over to the couch to eat her cereal. "She gave you her trophy?"

"Oh, dude. She gave you the skull? You were the awesome Theurge she was thinking of! Oh man. That's awesome." And Erich, taking up the station Charlotte abandoned, starts to decorate the cookies. Well, no: first he takes a cookie and slathers it in frosting and sprinkles it with sprinkles and just NOMFS IT. And keeps talking, too, while decorating and full-mouthed and all:

"You totally deserve it though. You're like the best Theurge I know. Granted I don't really know that many, not well, but still. Yeah.

"Aw, man," sudden guilt then, "I never told you about the pigeons, Melantha? After you broke the bead! Your pigeon came to find us. And then our pigeon found you. And like, after all that time with us, they kinda turned into our friends. Yours especially. Like pretty much every time I'm in the Umbra now, it comes find me. Sometimes I see the one we had in our bead too, but that one kinda comes and goes. Aw, I wonder if we could teach the pigeon-spirit to materialize so you could meet her. I mean, you kind of already have, but. Yeah."

While Erich is nomfing the poor really-not-even-decorated-just-slathered gingerbread cookie, Charlotte nods quiet affirmation in response to Melantha's question and slips into her little room to find the skull. Which she has kept wrapped in its lovely box in a corner of her bed. Which is a little bit creepy but there's not a whole separate wing of the tinyhouse in which to display their trophies so what happens is: the lovely, lovely hatbox gets carted out and perhaps Melantha and Erich noticed it and thought it was something Charlotte collected or curated or maybe it was the conveyance of a family present or god knows what, but: instead of a lovely, lovely hat, Charlotte pulls out a human skull!

- and Charlotte is beaming, showing it off to both Erich and Melantha, blushing more deeply when Erich recognizes the story, and even more deeply when he says that she is the best theurge he knows and not really talking until the speculation turns back 'round to the pigeon spirits.

"The one that was in your bead, it loves Erich and me 'cos it remembers us. It has everything that was in your heart when you were missing us. Erich's mostly loves you so it doesn't stay as much, but they're a pair. So they also love each other.

"If I can't get them to materialize, I'll take you to see them someday."

With a blithe sort of confidence that Charlotte rarely displays. Then, having shown off her skull she heads back into her bedroom to put it away.

It is nearly Christmas! And the tinyhouse is still up in Evergreen. It moves from time to time -- partly to avoid getting an abandoned-vehicle ticket, and partly because the snowfall has been so heavy, and the cold so bitter, that Erich doesn't want the wheels freezing into place. Or the tinyhouse getting totally buried. Or Melantha having to go too far to work every day, and so on and so forth.

Still, for the past week or so, it's been situated in the residential part of town, amongst other little alpine-style houses that are one by one putting on their Christmas costumes. Lights on the eaves, wreaths on the doors, plastic Santas on the lawns -- it all leaves the tinyhouse looking rather shorn and forlorn.

So maybe it's Charlotte's idea that they decorate. Charlotte, who once threw the loveliest birthday party Erich had ever seen, with lights in the tree and meatcakes and candles and and and...

Charlotte, who suggests lights for their house. Little tiny all-white icicle lights draping from the roof outside; big, bright, colorful bulbs inside, plus maybe some fake snow and the like for the cabinets. And a wreath for the door and, of course, a tree. So that's what they're working on right now, with Melantha at work and the two of them at home. Erich is outside on a ladder, hammering tough little brackets to the eaves so they can hang lights up year after year without repeatedly making holes. Charlotte is inside working on inside-decoration-stuff, and just for good measure their tiny little oven is on and Erich is trying to make gingerbread cookies from store-bought mix.

Trying, being the operative word. Though even if it fails, he has eggnog ice cream in the freezer.

The door is wide open. It's frigid inside. Erich yells from the back (or the front, depending on whether the tinyhouse is parked or moving) -- "Hey, can you come see if this is on straight!"

Charlotte does not care about Christmas particularly, but she loves the lights. The time of year demands them. It is dark dark dark and we have to pray to make the sun return; we have to light up the darkness to remind ourselves that the seasons will move as they always do. That we sleep and wake and sleep again. There is a thing called Yule and a thing called Solstice and a thing called Christ's Mass and they have all been folded in together.

It is winter and the snow is deep, and the day is wan and the night is dark and long and the earth sleeps beneath its blanket of frigid white.

But spring will come.

It always does.

--

It is freezing inside the cold snap right now is sharp enough that it makes Charlotte's lungs burn with every breath she takes and even with the tinyfire and the tinyoven both on and the gingerbread cookies maaaaybe burning in the oven (Eric made men. Charlotte made sparrows and and tree branches and eyeteeth) the scent is festive, bright and spicysweet. Whatever she is doing inside is perhaps not traditional but does include the crisp scent of pine branches still metallic with cold and snow, but she abandons it readily enough to poke her head out through the door and then the rest of her body, hands in her pockets, pulling her hoodie close against the cold. She's been working inside so isn't wearing the bulk of her winter's coat and is clenching her jaw because she wants to forestall chattering and tips her head back and up, pale eyes flickering over the lights Erich has already put up.

"Which way do you want it?" Charlotte asks, thoughtfully, her nose wrinkled as she considers his work thus far.

"I'm trying to get it straight across!" Erich calls over his shoulder. "I mean like the top part, not these dangling lights. Up here? Does this," he points at one bracket, "look like it's straight with this one? Say stop when it's straight."

The second bracket is free in his hand. He slides it very, very slowly down the wood.

Charlotte wants to ask why it has to be straight across, why isn't crooked okay, why - except, well. She is not genuinely a two year old and staring up at him, dark down here but bounded by a half-circle of light spilling from the front door to the tinyhouse, the neighborhood similarly framed by a rich depth of shadow and the bright, welcome glitter of lights on the eaves, trees and doors of the various houses, she watches him with rather bated breath and a small, queer smile on her face until -

"Theretherethere!" Charlotte calls out, excitedly, as the brackets match up, straight across. "Right there!"

Erich is facing the brackets when she calls like that, so she doesn't see him grin, amused, endeared, happy that she's so happy.

A solid stroke of the hammer knocks the little bracket into the wood. Then he tucks the string of lights over the bracket and just hops backwards off the ladder, hands sliding down the sides, feet hitting the snow with a muffled thump.

"Awesome. All done. Wanna wait 'til Melantha gets here to light it up and decorate the tree? We can set the tree up though." And this is when he notices she's not in any outerwear. "Aren't you freezing? Let's go in."

He throws a brotherly arm around her shoulders. They look a little alike, blond-and-blue. They look nothing alike. He's all meaty upper-midwestern germanic-descent posterboy, cut out for quarterbacking, linebacking, hockey. She's frail and feral, her shoulder bony against his side.

Charlotte is cold. Her nose is red and starting to run; supernatural constitution or not, the sharp cold has that effect on her as her sinuses are already starting to stream, and she stands there are stiff-armed and stiff-legged to stave off the shivers and is stiff shouldered as he throws that brotherly arm around his shoulders but they are close enough now, that she just bumps back against him, all animal affection. familiar and assured.

And she has grown taller. Hardly noticeable day to day but now she is taller than Melantha, a skinny stick of a creature, bird-boned and gleaming-eyed.

"We should light it up now," Charlotte says, considering his work from way down here before she allows him to steer the both of them back inside. " - so that she get to see them all lit up in the darkness, welcoming her home. But we'll wait for her to get home to decorate the tree."

They haven't far to go, to get inside, and Charlotte turns back to pull the front door closed behind them, and inhales deeply. Gives him a sidelong look that might seem sly, except she does seem merely happy.

"The cookies smell good."

No they don't. They smell like they're burning.

But maybe that's just the bottoms.

"Oh that's an awesome idea. But we should totally wait until she's back to go out and look at the lights outside, 'cause then we can see them with her."

Charlotte closes the door. The air smells like cookies. Erich grins happily, agreeing: "That does smell goo-- wait. No. That smells like burning. SHIT."

-- and he goes to yank the door open on their tiny little oven, fanning the smoke away frantically as he grapples for the oven mitts. Fumbles with the little cookie tray. Gets the cookies out, holds them yelping hot hot hot while Charlotte moves the cutting board off the burners so Erich can set them down there, where

after a moment's inspection

they determine that yes, indeed, the cookies are burnt. But only on the bottom.

"Well," says Erich, optimistic, "I'm sure we can just scrape the tops off and eat them. It'll be a little weird but it'll still be good. You ever had gingerbread cookies before?" He's genuinely not sure. He doesn't trust her ultra-privileged upbringing to have exposed her to such mundane delights.

"'Course I did." Charlotte returns, a quiet little scoff in her voice. All as if. The scoffing note mellows into something rather more quiet and rather more golden, a glowing and vague nostalgia. "We weren't supposed to go into the kitchens," she goes on, explaining then, " - but Cook would pretend not to notice and sometimes she'd save me stuff. Or one of the girls in the scullery. Sometimes I had gingerbread.

"I mean probably." Leans in to sniff then, as Erich examines the cookies and declares that they can just scrape off the burnt part. "When I was little and there was extra pie crust sometimes Cook would save it and give it to us to make shapes with, and we'd sprinkle them with sugar and cinnamon and she'd bake them and we called them scrappies. 'Cos they were made outta scraps, see.

"Phillip didn't like that though. She said it was common." Charlotte finishes with a shrug.

"Do we have icing? We oughta have sprinkles and icing."

"Yeah," Erich has already taken a spatula out and is hard at work scraping the edible parts of the cookies off the burnt-black parts, "in the fridge, and the little cupboard over the fridge."

A small pause.

"What's your family doing for the holidays?"

How they have room for both sprinkles and icing in the tinykitchen of a tinyhouse is a mystery, but Charlotte opens the cabinet door and Charlotte opens the fridge door and finds both sprinkles and icing and the sprinkles are red and green because the season is red and green, flame-marked and fir-huedand the icing is simply white and maybe it is simply that Erich thought of it and bought them especially to use to decorate cookies or maybe such things simply appear, in the places we need them, at the times we need them. Like some kind of serendipity.

So: sprinkles and icing are ferretted out as Erich scrapes off the burned bits and Charlotte stills a bit, glances from him to the second bottle of sprinkles (these are pink and heart-shaped so, not to seasonal, and they cannot have been here since last Valentine's day since the tinyhouse is younger than that, isn't it?) in her hand and back to him. Puzzlement written across her brow.

Then she shrugs, Charlotte, quick and jerky in Erich's peripheral vision. "I dunno. Maybe a big ball for the Sept. Or something I dunno.

"That's what they used to do."

It blows Erich's mind sometimes how different their families are. How different their lives were before their lives intertwined and began to run parallel to one another. Maybe that's a sort of serendipity too.

The bag of gumdrops that Erich takes down from a high shelf and plunks next to Charlotte for gingerbread decorations, though? That's totally something he bought 'cause he thought of it 'cause they're gingerbread cookies and that's what you do.

"Do you still talk to them? And your brother, and stuff?"

"I talk to Chas sometimes," returns Charlotte, quietly and not-quite-sulkily. There it something darting in her gaze though. A kind of livid wariness has entered her body language and her pale eyes dart from the gumdrops to Erich's profile to the gumdrops and back again. "Uh, you know. Still."

"Sometimes," Erich echoes, thoughtful. They are working together, more or less. He scrapes cookies off the cookie pan. She decorates them. The designs are vivid and fanciful and they make no sense at all, except maybe to Charlotte. Erich doesn't mind. He doesn't even mind that he won't really be able to eat these cookies. He made them for Charlotte, and for Melantha, the way Charlotte made them pigeon-beads.

"But not a lot?" He tries to keep his voice quiet, gentle; tries not to make Charlotte feel cornered. He doesn't think it's working, though. The cornered part, at least. "Why not?"

The designs are fanciful. Some of these are gingerbread people Erich cut out with the cookie cutter enclosed with the kit. Some are stranger pieces, occasionally identifiable given the original intent, but more often than not the cookies expanded with the cooking beyond the initial confines and cooked altogether to form what appear to be - in the end - rather fanciful brown blogs.

And Charlotte works quietly with her sprinkles and uses all of them, the Christmas ones and the hearts and the icing and she does have rather clever hands and the designs that started as bare, wintershorn branches or doughy portraits of small birds all fluffed against the cold darting daintily over the surface of a deep-packed snow have become blobby not because she is uncareful or imprecise but rather because she did not understand the way dough expands and spreads in the oven.

The work is slower now though, and Charlotte is bent over it all furrowed and thoughtful and frowning and, yes, uncomfortable. Pricklingly so.

"I dunno," Charlotte murmurs at first, her shoulders twisting in a quick and - yes, defensive - little shrug. "He's doing other stuff now and I dunno what it is. And I'm doing other stuff too and he doesn't know what it is.

"That's all."

Erich gets the last half-burnt cookie off the pan and then puts the pan in the tinysink to soak. Hands free now, he dusts crumbs off, then folds his arms loosely over his chest as he turns to lean his lumbar back against the counter.

"Do you wanna maybe ... visit D.C. sometime? And see your brother? We could take a Christmas roadtrip. I bet Melantha wouldn't mind. I bet her boss would even give her time off. If she doesn't I could just go talk to her." Beat. Then, slightly mortified: "I mean. With a Gift. Not... beat her up."

Charlotte quickly shakes her head, close-cropped blonde-and-pink hair going all fly away in the dry heat. Wild from static electricity.

"We can't leave the Sept," the girl says, solemnly. Owlishly, and Erich knows its true.

Charlotte does not mean Forgotten Questions.

He knows it's true. He knows that really, Melantha probably couldn't get time off work either. Not that much time. Not enough time to cross most of the United States west-to-east and east-to-west again, plus time in D.C. with Charlotte's brother. Not when she just started a couple months ago, if that.

Still, he looks a little crestfallen. He angles his gaze down toward his toes for a moment, bare on the wood floor. They always leave their shoes by the door because there's so little space that whatever muck gets tracked in here eventually ends up in their beds. After a moment he raises his head and says, "Well, maybe we can have Chaz visit you out here. I'm sure he'd wanna see you again.

"I mean. If you wanna see him again. Do you?"

"'Course."

There is an undercurrent of deep and quiet passion in Charlotte's voice. She's not really looking at Erich then, not even sidelong, so she doesn't quite catch the moment when his crest falls, does she, and there's something a bit awkward about being joined both spiritually and in such physical proximity and still not looking directly at each other. Or well, Charlotte is the only one who is not looking directly anywhere, isn't she? And she has stopped what she's doing (which is decorating hte mid-section of one of the gingerbread people to look like a spiral-armed green sugar galaxy dotted by giant floating pink hearts) so she doesn't even have that my hands are full excuse.

"He's my brother."

"Well, let's invite him out here then! And I'll invite my sister out too. She's in college now so she can go wherever she wants, she doesn't even have to tell the rest of the family. And maybe Melantha can invite someone too and it'll be awesome."

This is how Erich thinks. Or: this is how Erich wants to think. He wants to think things are simple like this. That hurts can be paved over like potholes with a few little changes, a few easy fixes. He knows it's not true -- knows it better than most, maybe -- but he still wants to believe.

"You should call him and ask him if he wants to come out. Maybe after the holidays, if he has to go home to your parents instead."

Once upon a time (the best and strangest stories start with these four words), not so very long ago (and continue with these), Charlotte spent as little time in the Cold Crescent Sept as was practicable, for a wyld thing in a city with few enough wyld space. Summer saw the little pack camped up in the high valleys of the Rockies, and winter has brought them lower, lower yes but still rather far away. Only the official dissolution of the Sept of the Cold Crescent and Erich's determination to keep the Sept in the aftermath of the judgment of the elders brings her here.

And regularly.

The shrines feel all strange to her, this humming space alive with electricity, wrapped in a web of information, all glass and chrome and steel, the city spread out below, glittering in the new-come and early darkness, like a radiant galaxy. Often as not Charlotte begins her exploration of the shrines - the shrines that remain, the shrines that are newly-built, the shrines, too, that Erich would never allow to be entirely striped to pieces - not in the center of the space but its borderlands, frowning out of the windows, her breath a warm mist against the frigid glass, all humid and opaque.

And that is where she is tonight.

Avery is looking for Charlotte.

--

On the 43rd floor, where such horrors came to pass, there are shrines. Well. There are shrines if people have built them anew, and few have. Most were gone in the fire and blood. Many were gone as soon as the Great Alpha made his pronouncement. Only the transient wolves who come through here to guard the place still may have built some.

Or the one that Charlotte's own packmate put up for Luna. There's that one. Maybe there is one that Charlotte has built.

--

The elevators here do not ding, not on this floor. The emergency lights are not on, have never been on. The building hums. You can hear the mechanicals.

Avery walks out of the sliding doors, and sees exactly the girl she was looking for standing at the glass. There is a hatbox in her hands, and to see Charlotte, she breaks into a smile.

"Charlotte! My dear!"

Charlotte has not yet built a shrine, but she brings in stuff and stuFF and Stuff and her stuff is scattered around the remnants of the stripped and empty space. Squirreled away, forgotten, half-remembered. Scattered until inspiration or something close to it hits her. Hard for her to imagine how to honor volcano up where they are flying so high, so Falcon, perhaps, surely Falcon.

Soon, soon, soon.

--

Now though, Charlotte at the window - meditating, not brooding - her thick hoodie unzipped, her distinctive pink-and-platinum hair curling lightly at the ends, mussed from the hood. Avery exclaims her name and Charlotte recognizes her without looking, the vibrancy of her voice but she turns to look anyway, spins on her heel and gives Avery a rather shy smile.

And a sort of greeting-shrug, hands in the front pockets of her jeans, her spare frame all adolescent slouch.

"Hey. Uhm, hi. I mean, Avery-rhya."

Not for long, Avery wants to say.

The hatbox is white and pink in vertical stripes of organza. There is a large silver crepe bow on top. It's lovely. She crosses the room with it, smiling, her long jersey skirt swaying and kicking and whispering a bit around her boots. Her jacket covers the rest, her scarf white. The temperature dropped rapidly tonight, down to frigid, bone-shaking cold. Avery came all the way up from the lobby, and her cheeks are still a bit pink.

Avery. Daughter of Falcon, twice over, and so very blessed by him.

"I," she says, pleased with herself, "have a gift for you."

"Oh!" Charlotte exclaims, startled. She is not dressed for the weather. Perhaps she forgot the change, perhaps she merely shivered her way through whatever trip she made here. Perhaps she slipped across the gauntlet and ran ran ran through the city's reflection, befurred and brilliant, a pale streak beneath the moonless sky.

She is not dressed like a Silver Fang, like Avery. Beneath the unzipped hoodie - which is fine, of course, the best quality but - a Mexican Sprite! t-shirt in fading green, and jeans that are maybe half-an-inch too short for her, and Converse all-stars. The rubber margin is covered in ballpoint pen doodles.

And Charlotte's eyes dart from Avery's face to the hatbox, which is lovely, and back to Avery's face and it's not suspicion on Charlotte's features then, but a kind of cautious, wary ...

desire. "You didn't - " have to Charlotte is starting to say, but Avery is so bright and so pink-cheeked and so pleased and so lovely that it is hard to be anything else, so Charlotte sidles a bit more forward and swallows and the look she shoots to that box is still peremptory somehow. Like she daren't quite ask (all breathless), " - is that, I mean, did you mean the box?"

Without quite thinking about it, Charlotte is standing a leetle bit taller.

Avery does look every inch the Silver Fang. From that long hair cast straight and golden over her shoulders to the pristine white scarf -- cashmere, naturally -- to the supple black leather cropped jacket that hugs her arms to that long dove-colored skirt and the high, caramel-colored boots. Truthfully, she's a little saddened that her outfit does not present the gift to Charlotte better, just as she is a bit embarrassed to be giving it to her in the hatbox that is better wrapping than most people's Christmas gifts, but these things do not dissuade her.

She comes nearer, and she holds the pink-and-white hatbox towards the Theurge, beaming with pleasure.

"It's what's in the box," she says teasingly, cajolingly, and nods at it. "Take it," she urges softly.

Being this close to Avery makes Charlotte feel all strange and prickly and hot and aware of lo-the-many ways in which she does not match the promise of her blood, and also, strangely, makes her forget it too. There are all these threads pulling tight beneath her skin and Charlotte feels all odd, and a little bit floaty, the way she imagines a planet might without a sun to circle, Avery is teasing, cajoling, and Charlotte is charmed in the way that Charlottes are charmed.

The shy smile deepens but never loses its fey edge; Charlotte seems as much like a mythical animal glimpsed in the margins of a half-remembered forest, but more solidly so.

So urged, the girl darts a glance up at Avery and then, yes, reaches out for the hatbox with a (slightly grubby) hand that Charlotte herself does not particularly notice.

"Thank you." Charlotte's cheeks are pink now. She has not been out in the cold in quite some time.

And, slowly, slowly, she opens the box.

Charlotte, whose blood is purer and whose spirit is stronger and who is so very blessed by her ancestors that they sometimes walk through her body as though it is their own... feeling strange and prickly and hot and aware of her own shortcomings when she is near Avery. Avery would be bewildered. Avery would be stunned. Avery would be confused and saddened, but she would not sock Charlotte in the jaw the way she did Erich when he basically told her no no, madam, let me throw myself into the jaws of the space-wyrm for you, after all, you will do so many great things and I am but a hapless pawn in our great war, m'lady and she thought she didn't hit him she was going to begin speaking very shrilly indeed. And loudly.

No: she does not feel the urge to raise her voice at Charlotte, and probably would not even if Charlotte were to say foolish things like her packmate sometimes does. Nor can she imagine feeling the desire to punch Charlotte in the face, though if it were strictly necessary she might have to get over that.

Mostly, right now, she is just thrilled that Charlotte is taking the hatbox from her. Because Charlotte, in her way, is like a unicorn, and she seems to be interested in her present, and Avery is beside herself with excitement. She clasps her hands to keep from clapping, but does not hug them by her chin. Instead, she lowers them, pressing her lips together as Charlotte removes the hatbox's lid to find clouds and clouds of gauzy silk, one enormous length of it wrapped loose as a hurricane's spiral around the skull of a full-grown man sitting in the middle.

It has been ruthlessly cleaned. Occasionally it has been given sunlight to bleach it. It is in good shape. No bits of flesh, no rotting smell -- and also no antiseptic smell, which is a plus. It has a vaguely botanical scent instead, some other natural cleanser or oil or something. It has most of its teeth.

Avery's eyes are aglow. She watches, breathlessly, waiting for a reaction. Maybe it would mean more if she told the story behind it. Wait, no: didn't Celduin tell that story at some moot? Will Charlotte remember? Will she recognize it and recall the story? Will she realize that she -- she! -- is the talented Theurge of Avery's own tribe to be waited for, sought out, and gifted like this?

Stay tuned.

Charlotte is pulling out the spiral cloud of gauzy silk and seems quite thoroughly charmed by the extravagence of the wrappings, the liquid spill of those lengths of silk through her fingers. And she is unwinding them and unwinding them and unwinding them to find, at the center, a scoured skull and -

"Oh," somewhere in the middle of this Charlotte has settled herself down on the floor, the hatbox between her legs. It is a charming picture, like Christmas morning, except on one of the abandoned floors of an abandoned Sept that has been stripped of most of its furnishings and left echoing-empty aside from what they have brought in with them but:

"Oh - " all delight, this quiet exclamation that goes from native diffidence to a half-transported enchantment as Charlotte pulls the skull from the last of its wrappings, which fall away like a winding cloth from a corpse.

Quite simple, really, and quite simply happy, Charlotte starts to, well, babble, "I used to have a spine that Lauren gaven me and I took it to Washington when I went there with Chaz and I kept it in my room and we looked out over the old oak tree and I have one of his acorns but our house moves so I don't know if I should plant it but because I can't put it in a pot because the tree was way bigger than our tinyhouse but Erich said that I should get one and that I shouldn't bring my spine with me but he said I can have it now.

"Except not through the mail, so if I get my spine it won't match but it matches anyway because one's a head and the other's a spine all slinky and spiny and it's perfect is what I mean.

"Where'd you get - "

And this time, the oh is soundless, just an open-mouthed intonation of the syllable. Charlotte's eyes are fixed on Avery and nearly grave there, but Avery can read the way the realization creeps across Charlotte's consicousness in the widening of her eyes, and the deepening stain of red in her cheeks.

Oh.

Charlotte wants to refuse the honor a thousand times over. Doesn't she know? Couldn't she see? Wouldn't she -

But who can refuse Avery Chase?

"Thank you."

The box and the gauze are the gift! SURPRISE.

Not really. Charlotte gets to the skull, has lowered herself to the ground, and Avery follows her, a smooth crouch, as comfortable as a lioness. She folds one arm loosely over her knees, watching in serene pleasure now as the Theurge brings yet another new, more vibrant memory to this spot that held such unspeakable horror and violation. Cleansing is a process. So is grieving. So is redemption.

The skull of the man Avery warned, then helped slaughter, is lifted up. It is lighter than you would think. Heavier, too, somehow. She babbles. A spine! Acorn. Their house moves. Perfect.

Patiently, and rather happily, Avery just listens. She tips her head, as though this is a conversation and not a babbling of words, as though this is an instruction and not just word salad. And then Charlotte asks, and half-asks, and then realizes, and Avery smiles.

Gently.

Charlotte whispers a thank you, and that is when Avery shakes her head, and says quietly: "I am in love with Calden White." It is the first time she has said this to anyone, though Charlotte can't know it. Calden knows. Anyone who sees her with the kinsman can tell there is something coy and happy and intimate between them. Avery says it without anything but what it is: no claim, no defense, no assertion, no details, no hedging, no embarrassment, no deep-breath-now-we-plunge, no ache, no invitation for questions. Just this. Just the truth.

She is in love with Calden White.

"You have my deep and abiding gratitude for what you did for him," Avery goes on, just as softly, holding the other Fang's eldritch, fey eyes with her own, which are not some unnameable color but something more approachable, something warm and summery and yet achingly glorious in its own right. "The skull is yours for your talent and your power, which all who meet you know, and which the spirits and your people speak of in greater measure with each turning of the moon. It was meant for you from the moment I told its original owner that I would be taking it from him.

"But my gratitude," she adds, her brow furrowing just a touch, "is not something I can give you in a box, and it cannot be wrapped in silk. You have my favor, Black Sheep. And if there comes a day or a time that I find a way to truly show you the depth of that gratitude, know that I will."

[EDIT:

Charlotte whispers a thank you, and that is when Avery shakes her head, and says quietly: "Do not thank me, Charlotte." That refusal, gentle as it is, hangs in the air for a moment before she goes on: "I am in love with Calden White."]

Charlotte

Charlotte cannot know it but what is there about the posture or the admission or not-admission, the statement that is arresting. Three and one half-thousand voices seem to be all rattling around Charlotte's head and she is pulled in a half-a-dozen directions, babbling, yes happily, all stream-of-consciousness as she handles the skull of a man who was broken long before he was dead. Who could not know any sort of redemption, except for whatever was granted him in a violent burst, by Avery, with her claws.

Look, see - Charlotte is blushing and not-really-looking back directly at Avery who is crouched before her. The flush spreads down from her hot pale cheeks, down the column of her too-long throat. Were she dressed differently, by which we mean well, that throat might be swan-like or elegant and there is something beneath all this about Charlotte that is not elegant but graceful; swift, and animal in its promise, yes.

But now: arrested. Pale eyes fixed on Avery so directly and that flush slowly draining from her cheeks and throat.

Charlotte's skin is fine and white. There is a distinctive gravity to the rhythm of her breath. The steady tidal bearing of it. A pulse beats, visible, at the base of her throat.

So.

So.

--

At the end of it, the girl-who-is-not-a-girl swallows. Her skull is on the floor between her legs, but one hand is smoothed across the crown, the curve of her palm fitted neatly over it. Charlotte seams her mouth and licks her lips. Begins to respond - just an intake of breath - then stops and offers a curling shrug.

"I love Melantha." Shining eyes, and tears behind them, but Charlotte does not shed them. "I bet she's alive 'cos of him. It's like a circle. Or thread made into a length of cloth.

"Stronger for the weave."

There are parts of that night that Avery does not remember with perfect clarity. She unleashed her rage and tapped her will. They shot at her from above. They shot at Celduin. They shot at Calden. She remembers the men on the bridge; she does not remember if it was she or Jack who killed the tattooed man on the path whom she threatened with this fate. She does not remember shifting back into her human skin. She remembers a blanket wrapped around her body, blood staining her jaw and throat and breasts, remembers Calden assuring her later that she had nothing to be so ashamed of, even though she was.

She doesn't quite remember if she ever gave a thought to the redemption of men like this or not. There are better garou than she who do ask such questions. Sometimes she wonders if she was always so callous, if this should have been her clue all those years ago that the life of a kinswoman to Falcon was not her path. Then she feels bad for equating callousness to the state of being garou; it seems unfair to her to paint all of them in such light, especially when wolves like Keisha roam the land.

Charlotte speaks, and Avery lets her thoughts drift from her again, not so self-centered, focusing her eyes on the other Fang again.

She thinks, briefly, one last thing: she is so glad that there is one of her tribe here who is like Charlotte. So wondrous. So wise. She decides that if anything should ever happen to Erich -- perish the thought -- Charlotte will not be left adrift. Nor will Erich, in the reverse situation.

--

Charlotte loves Melantha. Avery's lips part at the statement, the truth in it, the difference between I am in love with and I love. She gives a small smile, exhaling softly, gratified in some deep way that Charlotte understands in part what this meant to her: to have him survive. To have that not be the end.

The truth of the matter is, and perhaps they both know this on some level, it was the kinfolk who saved each other. Had either one of them been hunted alone, they might have died. Had Calden not handed Melantha a gun. Had Melantha stopped shooting because the sight of all that blood terrified her. It was their strength. It was their determination. It was their will that kept their lights from going out in Golden.

It still means something that Charlotte laid her hands on Calden, and did so before healing the one she loves.

Avery, glorious and shining and wonderful and perfectperfectperfect Avery, knows in the depth of her heart that in the same situation, she doesn't know if she would have done the same. So she reaches over, slowly, and lays her warm hand atop Charlotte's, holding the Theurge's eyes.

"I think you are right," she says quietly. "All the same: know that you have my favor. And should you need me, call on me."

Her hand squeezes once, then slips away as she rises to her full height again, looking down at Charlotte with something like contentment in her eyes: to see a favorite of hers so pleased, surrounded by the wrappings and holding the gift that Avery had the pleasure of bestowing on her. She looks so at peace, looking on her like that.

"Good evening, Black Sheep. May it be well for you."

With that she leaves, turning gradually and walking herself back to the elevator, thinking that though she saw him quite recently at her packhouse, she should like to brave the snowy roads and go north tonight.

Elsewhere in the country, tornados are touching down and ripping houses from their foundations, and terrible thunderstorms that turn the sky black are accompanied by winds that snap branches from trees and send them crashing down on rooftops and powerlines. Here in Denver, though? The weather is downright balmy. There isn't a single cloud in the sky, and the sun is bright and warm. Many people are out in the park today, having picnics and riding bicycles and playing games of frisbee and what-have-you. Merriment is abound here at the City Park, because it could very well be the last day that the citizens of Denver get to be out without a hat and scarf for many weeks to come.

There is one part of the park where this merriment doesn't quite bleed over, though, and that would be at the edge of one of many flat sprawling fields of well-groomed grass. Here Lola Hawkes was laying on the ground with her back in the grass, looking up at the chipper blue sky and listening to the squall of ducks and geese in the pond not too far away.

She looks like she might be sleeping here because she has nowhere else to go. She's dressed in a pair of jeans that are getting worn out at the knees and thighs, frayed at the cuffs. The sneakers on her feet have seen better days, but are still intact at least. She has a plain gray hooded sweatshirt wadded up to make a pillow under her head, and there's a loose black T-shirt that she's wearing under that-- cut almost provocatively low at the neckline, with a hem long enough to fall past her hips and rear end while standing.

For now, though, she laid and soaked up the sun and stared at the sky with an expression that was somewhere between neutral and gravely worried, given the fact that her eyebrows had somehow found their resting spot knitted together into a pseudo-frown.

Somewhere nearby a child pointed and asked their mother if she was okay. The mother, a woman with expensively dyed hair in a sharp A-line haircut, gathered her child's hand up and advised him not to bother those less fortunate. Lola managed to overhear some comment that the mother made to the friend she was walking with about how the woman on the grass was 'probably sleeping it off'.

In other circumstances, Lola may have stood up, chased the woman down, and dared her to say that again to her face. Today, though, she just scowled a little harder but stayed still and quiet in the grass.

Hector's sitting not too far away from her underneath a tree. His skinny legs are crossed at the ankle and he's hunched over a paperback novel that he's reading. An elbow on a knee and his chin propped against the heel of that hand.

His eyes lift from the page when he hears the little girl's high voice pointing out the downed woman in the grass. As the mother drags her child away from the woman his eyes follow her.

At least he has the decency to wait until she's out of earshot before he starts to laugh.

"Oh, man," he says before he turns back to his novel. "That'll give 'em something to talk about at yoga tonight."

To some, this weather would be considered balmy and warm. Certainly it is warm for the season, particularly in a mountainous region like Denver. And that brings out the people who want to enjoy a pleasant day for picnics and exercise and taking their dogs for a walk. However to Javed Anubis-Sight, for whom the average November day is in the mid-80s, the high 50s is downright frigid. He may just never get used to the idea of Denver weather for as long as he lives here.

That being said, you'll see and hear no complaints to him. Complaining really isn't Javed's thing, and no matter what the weather he always appreciates the ability to get his feet under him and do some wandering. Sure, these days his wandering is kept within the very general environs of the Denver area but it still counts as wandering. His people has wandered since they were cut out of their ancestral homeland, their connection to their ancestors denied. It's very possible that they will wander until the end. And Javed is no different in that.

Generally, he does try to keep at least somewhat away from people when he wanders. Not that he avoids populated areas, but he doesn't go out of his way to march directly through the crowds. In America, the last thing you want to be is a dark-skinned man of Middle Eastern descent with one good eye and a general ambience of "psychotically angry." And the fact that he gives off that ambience through his calm demeanor just makes it worse. So he tends to keep to the sidelines when he moves through parts.

And this is how he ends up coming across the edge of the field where Lola and Hector sit. He has his hands in the pockets of that military jacket he picked up not so long ago, his eyes up and around, keeping alert. This is how he registers the two sitting there; though he doesn't recognize them, Lola's breeding draws his attention. He throws a quick glance around before he approaches.

Their purpose for coming into the city was some errand or another for Anthony. They'd met up with him at one of his tattoo parlors that was set up in prime real-estate in Downtown Denver, and after Hector had effectively terrified one of the clients who was getting his throat tattooed and after Lola had her brief conversation with Anthony in the back room, the errand was finished and they were on their way.

Hell, they were already in the city, why not spend some time in the park keeping an eye on things? It'd been a while since they'd run any kind of patrol on these streets, so they decided to spend some time resting in the park, watching the things that happened around them and keeping an eye out for hiccups in the peace while simultaneously soaking up the sun. Hector had his book, and Lola said she had plans for a cat-nap but instead was left with her thoughts.

The quiet had been mutual and comfortable, interrupted only just now by the two women and child and Hector's chuckle in answer. Lola turned her head to glance over at the long-haired Uktena man, then jerked one shoulder so it rubbed in the grass-- this this closest she was getting to a shrug for the moment. "If that's what they find to talk about, then their lives are pittyingly boring."

When she'd turned her head to look at Hector, another familiar figure caught her attention. Well, her attention was caught first because of the fact that the tall masculine figure with the army jacket was approaching them directly. Lola had hooked her elbows to the ground beneath her and pushed herself up into a half-lounging lean instead. Her chin jerked in Javed's direction, calling Hector's attention to his approach, and only after another moment and a squint did she recognize the man.

She liked Javed enough that the semi-stormy mood that had been peeking in and out of her day was cleared when she realized who he was. It had been a while since she had words with the Metis Warrior. So, one hand lifted and waved over her head, hailing the Silent Strider and showing friendly recognition. She didn't say anything, though. That she tended to leave to Hector when he was about.

"Are you kidding? If I saw you lying passed-out on the grass in the park I'd tell everyone I knew. You were drooling a little, it was kind of funny."

When Lola sits up from her supine position in the grass Hector lifts his eyes again not because he picks up on the Fostern's presence but because he isn't entirely convinced the kinswoman isn't rising to slap him upside the head. He's about to laugh again when she stays reclined on the ground and indicates a spot in the distance with her chin.

They've had a relatively wide circle of solitude today owing to the energy jangling in Hector's nerves. It isn't his moon that will be calling to them tonight but it's just as easy for him to snap and succumb to frenzy on a full moon as it is on a gibbous. Most people don't find being around him particularly pleasant any time of month.

It's that whole "psychotically angry" thing Javed understands so well.

It isn't Lola's voice but Hector's that comes across the field. By now he's starting to pick up on the fact that Javed doesn't recognize faces but he's slower to pick up on the fact that voices aren't much more help to him. Hector rests the book facedown on the grass and cups his hands around his mouth to project his voice further.

"HI JAVED!"

Javed isn't as good at recognizing voices until there has been a hell of a lot of association between it and the identity, this is true. Even then it sometimes takes a lot of focus for the Strider to sort through the various hints and clues that he has to keep in mind as associations to people's identities. But behavior is always an easier thing to put together. And the clues here coalesce, combine into a singular identifier: Lola's breeding, Hector's full-on shout, their presence in each other's company. These combine with several little clues to broadcast who the couple are, and while there's always a chance he could be wrong Javed would consider this an educated guess.

The Iranian takes his hands out of his pocket as he comes up to the couple, folding them together as he offers kin and Garou a nod of greeting. "Good afternoon, Echoes of the Lost. Miss Hawkes. It is most pleasant to come across you both in my daily travel, as always." Ever polite, that Strider. "How does this day find you?"

It's like it's spring and the daffodils are popping up! Except it's not spring, it's almost winter. And instead of daffodils, it's Erichs popping up out of the grass. Or well: one Erich, lurching up kinda rumpled, a book tumbling off his face where he'd set it down to shield his eyes from the sun while he took just a tiny nap.

Which went on for a couple hours. But anyway.

"I said I'll return it tomorrow, it's not due until Tuesday!" Pause. Blink. Wait. Dreaming. Right. Erich rubs his face in both hands, then looks around. Oh look! People he recognizes. He grabs his book, dusts some blades of grass off. Gets up and ambles over.

"Javeeeeed." Erich sticks out a fist for fist-bumping. "Hectoooooor. Person I don't knoooooow."

Hector's cupped hands assured that his shout would travel, although one can rest assured that Hector would have been able to shout across the park without needing the help of his hands to megaphone the sound further. Between the eager shouting and the water-snake-god heritage in Lola's face and bones, Javed's able to figure out who it is that he's walking toward, that had summoned his attention unintentionally at first, but eagerly soon enough.

When the Silent Strider was near enough to greet them, Lola relaxed back on to both elbows again, but did not resume her full on sprawling pose in the grass. Her hair was down in a heavy mass of black that fell past her shoulders, making its way toward the center of her back in length. There was a dead leaf and a few grass clippings caught in her hair from where she was laying on it, but she didn't notice, and probably wouldn't much care even if she did.

His greeting is formal and polite, as are most of his mannerisms. Lola nods her head to him, dips it really more than anything else, to mirror the respect that he showed the both of them to begin with.

"Warm and pleasant enough. Even here, I suppose." Her nose wrinkled up a little as she glanced back toward the walking path nearest to where she and Hector had set themselves up, and watched a forty-something year old man in a windbreaker jogging suit plod his way along. He was prompted to move faster than a leisurely stroll for the first time in forty minutes when he got too near to the growing cluster of high-Raged Garou in the park. Lola's undeserved disdain for this average human man was cut short, switched when another voice joined the fray.

Her eyes were dark always, thanks to her heritage and ethnicity, but they were cool and hardened when they fell upon Erich. She looked him over, from shoulder to knee and back up to face, but said nothing to greet him in return. Rather, she pressed her lips together and situated herself so that she could sit up straight and not lounge leisurely any longer. It seemed that Erich's presence meant she was no longer comfortable enough for that kind of relaxed pose.

The Strider joins the Uktena and bows and gives them as formal a greeting as one would expect in an urban park in the middle of a warm November afternoon. As he approaches the Galliard picks up his novel and dog-ears his page and tucks the book into the back pocket of his jeans. He's wearing the pin-striped blazer instead of the army jacket today. That's enough of an admission of the weather not being that shitty as they're going to get out of him.

And then a Shadow Lord emerges from dreams and the long grass like a mythological creature rising up out of Loch Ness. Hector pushes wild shocks of hair back behind his ears and returns the greeting:

"Eriiiiiiiich." He waits to see how Javed is going to fare with the bump before holding out his own ring-covered fist. In the meantime his mouth runs. "Erich, meet Lola Hawkes. She's my handler. Lola, this is Erich Storm's-Teeth."

Erich's sudden appearance of course draws the metis' attention; anything with a Rage higher than his own had better Gaia-damned well catch Javed's one eye, or he can hand in his Ahroun badge right now. He snaps his attention over, eyes narrowing slightly by default when he can't recognize the man off a few quick hints. Erich and Javed have had some interaction but not as many as he has had with Lola and Hector, and thus it is a little harder for him to figure it out.

The good news is that there's only one person who's ever fist-bumped with him, and that would be Erich. Combine that with the Fenrir blood and once again, the Iranian has an identity confirmed. The first time they did this, he was uncomfortable with the gesture as he didn't understand it. This time...well, he still doesn't understand a single iota of it, other than It's like a handshake, only with fists. But that is enough that he doesn't seem exactly uncomfortable, instead only giving the amount of pause needed to associate fist bumb with Shadow Lord. And then he holds out his hand to accept the greeting.

"Good afternoon, Storm's Teeth. I hope we did not interrupt your rest." He gestures to indicate where Erich came from, as if to indicate the nap from which he awoke.

"It was time for me to get up anyway," Erich says affably. The fistbumps are completed: one is awkward and a little unnatural, the other actually sort of normal. He raises that bump-happy hand to Lola: "Hey, Lola."

And then this sort of curious tilt-headed look at Hector, and the worst attempt at a subtle sort of confirmation-of-relationships ever: "Handler as in .... like .... girlfriend?"

The introduction between Lola and Erich is brief and simple. Hector refers to her as his handler, and in most conditions that would have earned him a grin or chuckle or smirk or something good-humored along those lines. In this moment, though, the humor seems lost on her. Erich gives her a 'hey', and Lola just hops her chin up in return.

The question that followed, clarifying what Hector meant by 'handler', had Lola making a scoffing sound and deciding that sitting was no longer acceptable. She left her hoodie in the grass for the time being and pushed herself up onto her feet. Thoughtlessly, she seizes the waistband of her jeans through the loose fabric of her shirt and tugs, adjusting the way her pants sat about her waist and hips-- pushing down rather than pulling up, of all things.

"Don't worry about it," Lola says to Erich, answering the clarifying question in Hector's stead. She looked a little stiff and on edge, but who can blame her? She was swimming in a pool of Rage standing here between the three Wolves that had come together in the park this afternoon, brought by chance or Fate or some other form of magnetism.

"I know Storm's-Teeth," Lola provided for Hector, addressing the introduction that he'd given. She looked at the Shadow Lord for a moment, like she was teetering on the edge of what to say next. Her expression sets at a light frown and after a second she figures out what she wants to follow it up with. "We've seen each other at the War Moots."

Remembering the moon above and feeling the strong, seizing swell of Erich's Rage was what kept her from immediately spitting out some venomous comment about the scene he made at the punishment ceremony. That didn't mean that the electricity and desire to confront didn't keep thrumming under her skin, though.

The Galliard looks as if he's about to laugh at the question and supply his own answer but then Lola is getting to her feet and telling Erich not to worry about it. That almost-laugh turns into an uncomfortable smile and a silent bobbing of his head.

Yup. That's my girlfriend.

The conversation carries on and Hector rubs the sort-of beard he's got growing. Poor bastard can't grow a full beard even though he hasn't shaved his face in months. Points for trying.

"Oh, right, the warmoots."

His eyes go distracted as he listens to something the rest of them can't hear. One of his packmates is probably yammering at him right now. Or incoming. Or incoming because he's been yammering at them.

"Oh yeah." Erich gets this awkward look on his face that tells everyone he doesn't remember Lola in the slightest. "I remember you now. Cool."

His hands go into his pockets. Jeans, t-shirt. Summer gear. Or just year-round gear, maybe, if you were born in the upper midwest right smack in the middle of the snow belt, and also your ancestors were viking barbarian wolves. The storms of Thunder are a little different. Thunderstorms, hurricanes, typhoons. Hot and oppressive and destructive. Likely the comparison doesn't occur to Erich at the moment, though, because he's kinda nodding-up at Hector and saying,

"Happy for ya, man."

Re: having a girlfriend, one imagines. Even if said girlfriend is like let's not discuss it.

Thomas comes toward them with the lack of ambling that suggests that he's probably been in some kind of contact with Hector - and at least most of those gathered have seen him calm enough that they could easily imagine yammering.

Javed gets a nod in greeting as Thomas approaches, but then a warm smile. "Javed." And then, because maybe that wasn't enough of his voice yet for Javed to recognize him. "I haven't seen you by the house for awhile." It's the best clue he can think of so that Javed can guess without any overt prompting. They really need to get a code phrase or something.

Then Hector gets a nod and a similarly warm smile. "Hey." It's a somewhat cautious hey, like he is trying really hard not to say something ridiculous and formal like good evening instead because...reasons.

Erich gets a nod and no real verbal greeting as Thomas moves closer to Hector and Lola.

Lola doesn't get as much in the way of the nodding, but Lola is the only one he reaches out to touch, that same featherlight graze of fingertips over her shoulder. She gets a smile too. Apparently it's smiles for everyone day.

There are many things that Javed is good at. He can rip off heads with the best of them, for example (it is his favorite combat tactic). But the concept of relationship dynamics is one that completely eludes him. Yes, its completely understandable--what use will he have for them, after all--but it still makes for times where he's in the dark or at least not elucidated on why someone would have to invent so many different terms for mate, and why someone might be coy about their status in such respects. And thus, when those exact things unfold he simply stands there, attention shifting from one person to the other and not quite getting the full context.

Javed, of course, has his own thoughts about what went down during the judgment of the Elders, but that is not his place to offer an opinion. The matter is past them as far as he is concerned; he is more interested in the present, after all. He nods a little bit to Erich when he says it was time to get up anyway, accepting it without question.

And then Thomas is there. He looks over at the other Shadow Lord and offers another nod; the mention of the house is indeed a sufficient clue. "Thunder's Cry Echoes From the Sea. I have not been, this is true. Most of my time is spent in patrols, working with my new student or at the Cold Crescent building as of late."

Lola doesn't look insulted that Erich clearly doesn't recognize who she is. There's no hurt or anger or anything like that. She does look about a coin toss away from rolling her eyes at him, though. Again, the Full Moon that was waiting its turn to dominate the sky kept her actions in check. With how clear and brilliantly blue the sky was today, it was a sure thing that the light of the moon would be vibrant enough tonight to cast shadows and show clear paths through the landscape.

Hector nods to confirm Erich's question anyways, and though Lola's moderate frown doesn't budge any she doesn't shoot any sharp glares at her Tribemate or try to negate the fact when Erich expresses happiness for the man that he fought beside in taking down Beloved Horror. Rather, Lola contents herself to bite her tongue and fold her arms under her bust and cast her gaze about.

It's in this casting about that she notices Thomas's approach. She doesn't smile or wave, that gloom that's been following after her all day has settled a cloud over her head once more, but she does at least nod to him when they initially make eye contact. When he gets nearer and reaches out to touch fingertips to her shoulder, she manages to break through that surly attitude if only for a moment, if only for the newest member of Celduin. For him, she unfolds her arms just long enough to reach out and pat a hand against the side of Thomas's neck, a clear gesture of comraderie and oddly martial affection, before her arms stitch together across her chest once more.

Javed says something about a new student and the Cold Crescent building, and Lola's attention snaps to him like a rubber band sailing across a high school classroom.

"You're bringing a student into the Spire Sept?"

Erich is happy for him. Hector keeps that uncomfortable expression on his face but it's an act. He's trying to get some sort of a laugh out of Lola, stood across from him and awash in all this Rage as she is.

"Thanks," he says. "I can't believe she went for it, either."

Then Thomas tries to go around the circle and appropriately greet everyone. He ought to know what's coming by now. Neither the content nor the volume of Hector's speech has been appropriate since the day they first met and even then that was only because he was trying to decide if Thomas was a friendly or one of Grandfather Serpent's.

Now he tucks his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt as he waits for Thomas to work his way around the circle. Once he gets to Lola and Javed returns the greeting it's all over though.

"There's my boy!" He reaches out to ruffle Thomas's hair and then he puts him into a headlock for good measure. Not a side-hug but a proper headlock. "Aw, son, you're getting so tall. I'm not going to be able to do this in a couple years, you'll be big enough to kick my ass."

As Hector makes his greeting to Thomas, Javed turns his attention to Lola. The Ahroun regards the kinfolk calmly for a moment before shaking his head. "You misheard me, Miss Hawkes. I am working with the student, a lost cub of my Tribe and auspice. And separately, I am spending time as the Cold Crescent. Although I do intend to bring her there at some point, now would most certainly not be an appropriate time. It would be more appropriate when she has gained more footing within the Nation, preferably after her Rite of Passage, or when we get the Sept fully re-opened."

And of course, there's nothing in there suggesting that he feels the need to defend the decision. The explanation is because he respects the kinswoman and feels that she merits one.

She'd misheard him, and Javed clarifies what he'd said. He says that he isn't bringing a Cub to the Broadway building, and Lola's posture relaxes just a touch with that reassurance. He might not be able to recognize faces, but he can probably understand her body language well enough to pick up on the fact that that matter was settled, as far as the Kinswoman was concerned.

She probably would have stayed more relaxed, reached down to grab her hoodie and dig around in its pockets for a pack of gum that she bummed off her cousin (it helps my stomach, be a friend), but for Javed's last couple of words.

Her eyes sharpen, pupils constricting a little, and her expression sets itself like stone. Suddenly her words were sharp and difficult to navigate, much like the earth that took Curved Sky's life away last month. All at once she was a yawning bear trap waiting to be sprung.

"Why the fuck would you reopen that hellhole? After everything that just happened?"

"You're welcome an-" Thomas starts to Javed, and then his hair is being ruffled and he's in a headlock. Which, beyond the initial half second where he tenses a little, doesn't seem to bother him at all. And really, he should have expected that the second he got close enough for Hector to reach him. He's grinning by the time Hector is done talking, and tries, rather ineffectually, to shake his head. Less like he's trying to get away. More like in response to what he's saying. "I would think it might still be slightly impolite, regardless," is all he says, but the tone is less about formality and more about amusement.

He does make an effort to get away then, but it's not really serious. Hector will let go when he lets go. Thomas isn't so much attempting to escape as seeing if he's about to get released. He doesn't continue with whatever he was about to say to Javed whether or not he is released, less because of Hector's interruption and more because he's interested in the answer to Lola's question.

And everyone's response. Especially everyone's response.

The weather lately has been spectacular. It nearly feels like the last few days of September, not the middle of November. But that's this part of the country, this part of the state: seventy degrees and sunny on Black Friday, snow flurries on Father's Day. It's happened. And those who have been here a few years, or all their lives -- including the assholes with the 'Native' bumper stickers -- know it, and just shake their heads over it.

Melantha has been here only a matter of months, and she is still bewildered by the fact that the seasons here don't give a fig about your expectations. She overdressed this morning, because it's colder in Evergreen than in Denver, and the only reason she knows to dress in layers is because of much travel and living in the middle of nowhere the rest of the time. So now in the seat of the truck there's her big long warm coat -- the new one, the one that isn't bloodstained -- and a hoodie and Melantha herself is just wearing a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up over a t-shirt. The flannel is blue and green and black. The t-shirt is grey. Her jeans mostly fit, but that's what belts are for.

She's walking towards them because she can sense where Erich is. She can always find Erich, and he can always find her. Even if he couldn't track her by that overwhelming breeding. They are bound by spirit, after all. They're pack. Even if she can't always fight alongside him. This isn't a fight... she's pretty sure. After all, Javed seems okay, and she recognizes the others for the most part.

everything that just happened? Lola is saying, and angrily, in voice and in expression. Melantha looks at her, because she's speaking, then at Erich, then at Javed. "Hi again. If you can't tell who I am it's Melantha, Erich's packmate."

And that is as far as she goes, in terms of interrupting. After all: people are talking.

Well, that gets Erich serious in a hurry. Mention of Cold Crescent. Memories of everything, everything happening in the last few weeks. His affability evaporates. His face slams into a scowl.

"The hellhole never closed. Wolves sitting in the Cold Crescent building twenty-four seven might be the only thing keeping a lid on the whole pot. Abandoning post is like, the worst idea ever. But then this is an idea coming from the same Elders that think torturing someone to death with FUCKING SILVER IS DECENT JUSTICE."

Oh. He's yelling. Erich bites his lip, reining it in.

"Sorry. Still mad." And: Melantha! His eyebrows come up a bit out of their scowl. He sort of sways sideways to nudge her. "Heya."

[Willpower!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

"Slightly impolite?"

Because roughhousing with a cohort every time you see him is the height of propriety. He feels the wriggling as Thomas tries to escape and claps him on the gut with his free hand before releasing him. Reaches up with the hand that just released him to pick a piece of fuzz off the collar of Thomas's shirt.

His eyes move sidelong when the other kinswoman arrives and he nods his chin up at her. He hasn't ever shaken her hand and though she didn't speak the entire time they were both at the alpha meeting Phoebe called before the subterranean fight. At least he remembers his name. It's kind of his job to remember people's names.

"Hey, Melantha."

This is just a sidebar. He goes back to paying attention to the Ahrouns and Lola after he's greeted her. A tension stretches his spine taut like he's expecting this to come to blows. It doesn't resolve when Erich raises his voice. If anything an expression of oh, shit comes across his face.

Erich isn't the one whose reaction he's worried about.

At the one warmoot she went to, it's true: Melantha did not say a word. She stood off to one side, she looked distinctly uncomfortable, and she tensed whenever eyes glanced her way. She seems less retreating now, but it wasn't exactly fear that had her so uncertain at the warmoot. She wasn't at the second one. She didn't see Erich and Phoebe, a Theurge of her blood-tribe, get all up in each other's faces. Frankly, she barely knows anyone beyond Charlotte and Erich. That may be the source of her silence.

Well, Erich gets mad. And Melantha knows him well enough to know the difference between getting mad and losing his temper and RUN, but it's still worth noting that she doesn't flinch when his voice raises. She looks at him, her brows tugging together, head tipping to the side. He stops yelling, and he nudges her. Her mouth, turned down, lightens a little with familarity and affection, but she doesn't bump him back. No reason, really. He's just pretty solid, and bumping against him usually ends in her stumbling backward.

Hector says hi, and she looks over at him, startled to hear her name from a voice she mostly finds unknown. "H- hi," she says, politely enough. That uncertainty: it's not fear. Not even with Erich and Javed near her. Not even with Lola scowling. Not even with two Galliards standing right there. She breathes in deep, and drops her hand to hold Erich's. Not for solidarity or comfort. Just cuz, y'know. Handholding.

Lola had harshly questioned Javed's motives on why he would want to re-open the Sept, and Erich answered for him. The Shadow Lord spoke his piece, and come the end of his piece he was shouting. This pulled the attention of a young attractive couple that were walking their border collie-- the dog whined and yelped and started barking, and the young couple startled. The man put his arm around the woman's shoulders while she seized his shirt by the stomach and back. They hurried along quickly, but Lola didn't notice them at all.

She barely noticed that another Kinfolk that she only vaguely recognized had arrived (Melantha got a brief flicker-glance and not much else), for the Uktena Kinfolk was too busy glaring into Erich's face.

Tread lightly, was a piece of advice provided to her once upon a time ago, when she was still reeling from the news that she would never Change, to help teach her how to interact with Garou now that she would never be one herself. Today the words rang solid enough in her head, and the fact that Hector and Thomas were watching to see what she did, that she pulled in a full deep breath through her nose that filled her lungs and pushed her chest out.

Astonishingly even to her, Lola's voice is even when she speaks:

"Bane Tenders keep watch over portals and Slumbering Great Ones. You don't see our tribe building Septs overtop to keep that shit on lock, do you? Living where the Wyrm shits is the worst fucking idea I've ever heard.

"And I'd call death a fine 'bout of justice for someone who's responsible for the death of so many. That rite is an old thing, a piece of tradition, laid down upon those that've committed the worst crimes. The fact that that woman chose to strong-arm what she thought was the best idea despite what everyone around her advised, to threat of their very fucking lives? She had it coming."

[[Hey guys, can we keep to some kind of pretend post order please? My entire post is being made irrelevant because everyone's talking over each other.]]

[[The one I'm trying to type, I mean. =) ]]

[[ Hazards of being in a group scene, friendship. To have a solid post order with this many people would put us at like one post per person every hour. I'm sorry, though! I'll hold off 'till you post next. ]]

[i suggest we just try to only post once for every roundabout. like... maybe not necessarily stick tightly to order? but if i post, then i won't post again til everyone's had a chance to post, etc.]

[Sorry about that, Sam! I'm generally disinclined towards post orders unless we also impose a time limit on people's posts. But I think once-per-round sounds fair. Works for me.]

Lola is clearly incensed by the very idea that Cold Crescent re-open. This is not surprising to Javed, who had taken note of the way she had reacted when he mentioned his intent to do so the night after the breaking of the Beloved Horror. That she says it the way she does draws a pause, a raised eyebrow followed by a furrowing. But he is unphased. In truth, she is hardly the first person to suggest such sentiment to him...she is only the first person to suggest so in that blunt of a manner.

Erich goes ballistic. Javed frowns when he does, because that's not how they're going to get people to their cause. He looks at Melantha and gives her a courteous nod of hello, but now there are more important matters. He holds up a hand to those gathered, to ask for a moment, so he can give his reasons.

"With all due respect, Miss Hawkes, I have never been quiet about my intent. I am also not alone. The reason is simple: because it is a Sept. Because if we are to defend the city of Denver against the Wyrm, then we need a base of operations here. I believe we can best defend that portal from a close proximity and that any distance we leave is room for our enemy to slip in. Furthermore, the Cold Crescent serves our purposes as a Sept and as we know the mistakes that came before, we are unlikely to make them again."

He pauses there, looks at the woman. "In addition, because it is much more than just a base of operations; it a home to the many Garou and kinfolk who have lived there for the last ten years. A home is not just a building, and forcing those people who have lived there to move on to another place will promote an instability that we can ill afford. Look at my homeland of the Middle East and see what happens when you force people to relocate. It would do those who lost their lives defending the Sept a dishonor if we were to abandoned that which they gave their lives for.

"And finally," he adds, nodding to Erich here before looking back. "Because any Sept should not simply be abandoned. Miss Hawkes, you are mistaken about the portal. It is not a thing of the Wyrm; in fact, from what we have learned it exists entirely outside of the Triat. Those are not Banes which emerged, and the only time anything emerges has when they were summoned. We must defend it, and we are doing so. And the city."

[[Yeah, sorry, wasn't trying to suggest strict post orders, more of a one a piece kind of thing. =) ]]

Melantha gets a quick nod in greeting, a quick smile. It isn't quite as warm as the earlier greeting smiles, but that's probably got more to do with the way his eyes don't leave Erich than because he's never really met her. His attention flickers between Erich and Lola. Lola doesn't actively provoke Erich, at least not as counts for provocation with Lola, but he doesn't really relax.

He follows the discussion. He'll speak when he's invited to at moots. Or if you catch him with two of the Garou he trusts most in Denver. And outside of that...he's not jumping into this debate. At least not yet.

[[Because I am studying AND Thomas is Thomas and therefore not really about interjecting into conversations of Garou who outrank him, if y'alls skip me I am not gonna panic. I'm probably good to keep up, but if it comes up, feel free to skip over me and I'll be fine.]]

Ballistic would be one way to describe the sort of rant-slash-tirade-slash-possible-frenzy Erich looks about to embark on. But Javed, ever the soul of temperance, steps in with an argument about fifty times more logical than Erich can muster up right now. Well; more like infinite times, because Erich looks like he might just ... yell. Incoherently.

Javed, however, wisely steers clear of the topic of that awful Punishment Rite and whether or not it has a place in Garou society -- seeing as how going one way would suggest the Great Elder didn't know what the fuck he was doing, and going the other might cause Erich everywhere to blow their stack entirely. Erich, however, doesn't have the foresight or patience or self-control to keep his mouth shut on the subject. Javed is barely finished when he blurts out:

"YEAH. What he said. Also, NO. No one has something like that coming. That was just -- it was like the worst thing I've ever seen in my life, and that is saying something considering I raid Wyrmholes for a living. 'Cause, dude. We're not Wyrm. We should be better than that.

"Torturing someone to death? Killing them slowly like that, from the feet up, with silver? How is that okay? How is that ever justified? How is that not something that stains our spirits as much as anything the Wyrm wants us to do would?"

This would be the optimal time for the Uktena Galliard to jump in and educate his fellow Wyrmhole raiders as to why it is rites like Gaia's Vengeful Teeth exist but Hector is otherwise occupied frowning a baffled frown and clutching onto Thomas's arm and watching the argument.

He doesn't clutch Thomas the way an aghast society woman clutches the pearls around her neck. It's more like he's bracing himself because he has to pay attention to what's going on in the present while he's mentally dredging all the awful things he's seen in his short-short Garou life to find a pearl of wisdom and purpose in it.

Being that awesome takes time and effort, man.

Lola's opinion on both the status of Cold Crescent and the death of Curved Sky isn't couched in euphemism or disclaimers, and Melantha actually instantly respects that. She doesn't end her sentences on a question mark. She doesn't shift her eyes from man to man to man to man to see if they're liking what she's saying. In fact, she's getting all up in the grill of a Fostern Ahroun, which -- whatever her other opinions on it may be -- Melantha decides means that Lola's got her some ovaries.

It's hard to verbalize any other kind of thoughts when Erich keeps blowing up, though. He yanks the conversation back to the rite, and Melantha looks between he and Lola.

"She's dead either way," she says, a bit flatly, "and the rite isn't going anywhere, good or bad. What point does it server for you two to bicker about whether or not it was justified?"

Melantha looks at Javed. "For what it's worth, I know what you mean," she says, about something other than Gaia's Vengeful Teeth. "Garou and kin live in cities, and in most cities, they're like... refugees." She turns to look at Lola again. "Who have every right to build and hold on to a home together, if they can. And if they want to build a home where they can do the most good, and keep the Wyrm from getting at a new source of power, that doesn't seem stupid to me. It's practical." She shrugs. "Besides, no one's saying you have to live there."

Javed pulls Lola's attention away for a moment. His voice was a low thing, and something about its register and the throat that it stemmed from made it easy to distract Lola from whatever she was about to sink her teeth into. Bless him, he is calm and logical and takes his time in explaining his standing to Lola. And, for the most part, she seems to at least understand where he's coming from.

He says that the portal isn't of the Wyrm, and her eyebrows lift out of that hunkered down scowl to show her surprise. Really, now? they say. But she doesn't have a chance to speak to the matter, to ask her questions and find out more on the topic. Erich is interjecting again, following up from where the Silent Strider left off. Except, rather than defending his reasons for staying at the Broadway Building, he instead switches back to the matter of the Punishment. He says that it's something that stains your soul, and that no one should be tortured.

Someone stop her, because Lola downright sneers at him.

"Estás tan susceptible," she begins in Spanish, her language slipping between the two that she grew up speaking since she was able to make her young tongue and tiny baby teeth form words. "Clearly your soul couldn't handle the burden."

Then Melantha, bless her as well, interjects in a very matter-of-fact way that what's done is done, what exists exists, and that's the way it is. Lola's attention settles solidly on her for the first time tonight. The Black Fury woman addressed her directly, and Lola is at least respectful enough to listen. She's known for her prowess, her outbursts, and the fire in her breast that struggles to make up for the Rage she feels (nay, insists) she was denied, but at least she knows how to listen.

When Melantha finishes making her statement, Lola scoffs, but something about it seems more compliant than she had been before. "I don't deny it needs watchin' and moniterin'. I don't think we should collapse the building on top of it and ignore it's there-- then it'd come back to bite our children right in the asses. But to have families living there? A daycare of infants, people resting their heads? It ought'a be patrolled, but not lived in, not now that we know what's there. If you live there, you get comfortable there, and the vigilence will slack.

"But, like ya said, I'm not the one who has to sleep with Not-Bane Monsters trying to crawl through another dimension in my basement." Her hands go up, palms out, in a gesture that says 'That's all you, take it if you want it'.

Clearly, your soul couldn't handle the burden. Melantha frowns, fury blossoming in her pale eyes. "Was that seriously necessary? You can't disagree with someone without insulting them, too? No one here is calling you weak or stupid because of what you think. Maybe you could try showing the same respect to them that they're showing you."

[Sorry guys! I had to interject that! I'll be patient now.]

Melantha gets a nod when she pulls the matter back to one that is a bit more arguable than whether such an extreme Rite should be used, and--indeed--a look of gratitude. It is not that he does not have an opinion on Gaia's Vengeful Teeth, of course, but that would only serve to divide them further and that is the last thing that they need. So he keeps his attention where it has been: the matter they can resolve.

"I understand what you are saying. And no one will be forced to stay there. But I would also point out that the portal rested undisturbed for years and countless Garou and kinfolk lived without any threat. It took Green Dragon Itself, embodied within a pack of powerful Black Spiral Dancers, to cause damage. The portal had nothing to do with what occurred on Floor 43, I believe, other than its objective. And now, being well aware of what lies down there and not keeping it a secret, we can remain extra vigilant in case any other Incarna-possessed Black Spiral packs wish to assault us and attempt to reclaim it again. This time, I think, staying up front about it would defuse any potential bombs as were delivered."

That may sound like it has some sarcasm in there, at least from the wording. But the truth is that his tone is quite serious and ever-respectful and calm. He means exactly what he says; no more and no less.

People start trying to bring the emotional volume down a notch or two, and sometimes then bring it up a notch or two. Hector's grip on his arm is unexpected enough that he actually glances at Hector's hand and then at Hector's face before he returns his attention to the discussion.

"Her fate was not ours to decide." When he finally does break into the conversation, he addresses Erich, and his tone is relatively gentle, if strained. "She was not ours to judge. All we have, right now, is to watch those who have earned that right already and decide whether we will follow in their footsteps or not. In that your packmate is correct, the rite will not be abolished, and tonight is maybe not the best night to discuss it.

"I'm not saying you should be silent. I'm saying we should reopen the discussion, both discussions if you like, on another night." He waves with the hand on the arm of his that's free. "Privately. My place, if you want and need a place to do this, or wherever else. We can talk."

He takes a very careful breath and actually makes eye contact with Erich for a few seconds, though his expression is more of a plea than a challenge. And for all that he does not like to be in the middle of these things at all, his tone is steady. "Not like this."

"And his place is really nice," he says. "High ceilings. No one around to hear us scream. You know. Isolated."

Erich's mouth flattens to a line when Melantha points out that dead is dead. His hand squeezes hers after a moment, though. He casts her a quick, sidelong glance. Exhales.

A moment later he squeezes her hand again. This time it's involuntary, it's furious, he's taking a single step toward Lola and uttering, clench-toothed, "I swear to god if you weren't kin -- "

-- only to stop because Melantha is stepping up, and Melantha is kin too, and: well, he just stops. And scowls at Lola. And flicks a glance at Thomas.

"I'm sure your place is awesome but honestly I think she and I are just gonna fight all night if we're in the same room."

[guys! i'm gonna be slow! on the phone wishing my mom a happy bday :] ]

[HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAMON'S MOM]

Thomas speaks up this time, and Lola's gaze is pulled toward him. There are a handful of Garou that Lola would say she has a soft spot for, and most all of them reside within the circle that is Celduin. Thomas she may have been unsure of at first, but she regards him more gently as time continues on. It must be something to do with a budding maternal instinct.

Melantha's eys light with a mute fury, and she calls Lola out on the shade that she'd thrown Erich's way. The Uktena didn't appear ashamed or defensive to the fact at all, though. It was abundently apparent that she felt justified in everything that she said-- as to whether she actually was or not was what was left up for debate (that debate would eventually conclude with, no, Lola, that was a hundred times unnecessary and probably really stupid to boot).

Lola's lips were parting to answer back, and the way her mouth and eyes were held and how smooth her breathing was it was clear that her answer was going to be a calm one. But then Erich actually took a step forward, and any progress that was made with the headstrong Kinfolk was dropped like a plate made slippery with dishsoap.

I swear to god if you weren't kin--

"What?" Lola's word is barked out, not shouted, but stamped sharply like a knife thrown in the dirt. Erich had stepped forward one single step, and for that Lola took two toward him. Her shoulders rolled back, chest pushed out, chin lifted, and eyes flashed fury. Her lower jaw jutted out, and she even went so far as showing her teeth just a bit (although it's yet to be determined if that was intentional or involuntary, an expression made from years and years of fighting with wolves). "Huh? Don't let me bein' a Kinfolk stop you, ése."

She's got her arms to her sides, hands balled into fists, feet set apart in the grass. The wild glare in her eyes and how her muscles twitched in her upper body made it plain that she wished he would. Then she'd have an excuse to throw her fists at someone, and there was seldom a time that she didn't itch for a fight.

"WHOA."

Hector abandons his place at Thomas's side and moves with a fluidity and a quickness that seems woven into his bones. He's slight enough that he can and does slide between Erich and Lola. It doesn't bother him to have Rage as hot as Erich's at his back. Doesn't bother him having a pissed-off girlfriend at his front either.

He puts a hand up on her shoulder and spins her around so he can sling his arm over it. If she doesn't want to move with him that's great. He isn't above picking her up.

"Hey, alright, no. We're not doing this here. Come on. Goodnight, everyone."

Charlotte shows up. There's no why or wherefore for it but it's a park and there's a full moon somewhere out there beyond the horizon. The sun has set, is setting further, is sinking and the days are all closing in together, getting darker and shorter and the nights longer and the night sky bright and cold. It is not frigid right now, not freezing not-yet, but it is cold enough that they can all see their breath. Charlotte can see her breath and that's what she's watching. The way her breath condenses and coalesces and then dissipates as it leaves her body. Atomizes.

She's sitting on the spine of a park bench and one hardly notices her until one notices her and then if one is a werewolf one cannot un-notice her because she is royalty.

With shorn, pink-tipped shoulder-length platinum hair and a certain lankily adolescent frailty that is deceptive in its spindly way and packmates to whom she is attuned enough that the frission of Erich's sudden involuntary spasm of fury sizzles down her spine and is enough to wake her up from her steady study of her condensed breath and propel her to her feet and into earshot just in time to hear Lola call Erich an essay.

Then Hector jumps in and well and yes.

Here's Charlotte at the tail end of everything. So much going on that she doesn't say hi except to her pack. In their heads.

Hi.

Hector moves quickly to get Lola away from the situation, and so does Javed. Not to get her pulled away, but rather to interject himself between the kinfolk and the Ahroun. The metis is ever-respectful, ever calm. That is only because he makes himself so on a constant basis. The urge to lose control is always--ALWAYS--present and he knows that Erich probably feels the same pull. The Shadow Lord is just more open about it, and a kinfolk daring him to throw down--

Well, Javed has little doubt that Erich wouldn't ACTUALLY do it. But he also is not taking the chance that Rage proves to be greater than logic, which is why he positions himself between the two. He says nothing because there is nothing to say. He just...

Stands there. He's not facing either of the two, though that would of course change if one of them continues this dangerous course of action.

He would say hello to Charlotte if he knew she was there and this didn't happen, but his attention is kind of preoccupied. And he would have to recognize her too, which...yeah.

Lola, for what it's worth, hasn't lost Melantha's respect. It may not matter to the Uktena whether or not she has it in the first place, but even angry on behalf of one of her best friends, even though she disagrees with Lola and may not even like her at all, Melantha has respect for her, and tries to show it. Lola steps up, fists clenching, goading Erich to fight with her -- okay, maybe the sheer stupid factor of that lessens Melantha's esteem, but it's not like it lessens it any more than Erich half-verbalizing that 'if you weren't kin' threat took him down a notch -- and Melantha tightens her grip on Erich's hand right back, the flow of Volcano's power making that grip a lot harder and lot firmer than Melantha's power alone.

She blinks, startled, when Hector... completely disregards Lola's agency. Gets in between her and Erich. Swings her around, puts that ever-so-sheltering arm over her and decides, for people who are not him, that this is over and he's going to shepherd his lady away from them. Melantha's anger surges again, like a storm over a maelstrom at sea, and this time it is directed wholly, entirely -- and yes, okay, perhaps unfairly and perhaps out-of-linely -- at Hector.

But it's Lola she looks at, to see what Lola's going to do about it. After all. It's Lola's grown-ass body that Hector is manhandling, and Lola's argument that Hector is ending.

--

Charlotte, coming up towards them, can feel that white-hot rage in both her Ahroun packmate and her not-even-a-wolf packmate. It's like a rapid heartbeat from Melantha, who isn't getting in between anyone but Javed is and Hector is but Melantha just holds really tight to Erich's hand while she chatters through Volcano.

hey! hi! I think everyone is trying to make erich and thisgirlIthinkhernameislola not beat each other up which is sort of hysterical because now there's like a billion people trying to make sure that doesn't happen. I'M REALLY GLAD YOU'RE HERE.

"Dude." Erich's teeth are gritted. There are things to be said, stuff about what would happen or what could happen or omfg or --

"DUDE."

That's all he says in the end. Charlotte is there. He glances at her quickly, mind-nudges her, then goes back to shaking his head at Lola. "I can't even. You're nuts. You would die. I mean, not that I wanna kill you? But seriously, you would die."

[sorry guys, still on phone. just go around me if you need to!]

Thomas looks at Lola for a second like, 'are you even doing this?' And then he breathes out, hard. It's too forceful to really be a sigh. Because of course she's doing this. She's bold, and she's fearless, and she doesn't know how to walk away from anything. It's why he loves her. It's why she'll die.

He has -mostly- made peace with those things.

Javed and Hector are already between Lola and Erich. Erich isn't charging. And...Charlotte. He's come to respect Avery and he owes something to Sophia, but Charlotte is the only Silver Fang that gets a reflexive smile from him. She even gets it now, though it is quick and tense.

Lola and Erich are up in one another's faces, for he stepped forward and she downright refused to step backward. She manages to spit out her challenge, and at once bodies are moving to separate them. They all know what moon it is, and they all feel the almost overwhelming presence of Erich's Rage pulsing in the warm afternoon air. Javed puts himself between them, giving each a shoulder, presenting neither of them his back or his front. Lola jerks her head back when Javed intervenes, nostrils flaring, eyes wide. She might be about to push him out of the way, yell at him for trying to interrupt this, but then there's Hector.

Hector's hand lands on her shoulder and pushes, urging it to move, trying to physically force her to turn about. He's taller than her, broader in the shoulder, built deceptively strong for how skinny he looks under the clothes that hang from his body. But Lola is a strong woman, square in her shoulders and solid in her hips, dense in her thighs and strong in her core. He pushes her shoulder and she locks her bones and muscles and refuses to be moved. If Hector pushes hard enough she'll have to give up a step of ground, but it probably doesn't come to that. She's turned her eyes from Erich to Hector, is looking into his face with an expression that is bewildered, insulted, unsure, wild and flying and needing something to bring her back and ground her, or alternately to launch her into the sky and let her go.

His arm goes for her shoulders, and she may have been about to relent, but then Erich's voice plucks at her ears again and her chin jerks, face moving from being aimed at Hector's to looking back past Javed's chest, back to the blond-haired Shadow Lord who's equally bewildered with her.

Lola wavered, but only because her normal answer to something like that would be to press the challenge. To fucking dare him to. If Javed and Hector weren't there she would get close enough to touch her nose and forehead to Erich's face, to breathe hot air down his throat and drag that Rage and Rise out of him. Since that wasn't an option she was left to words, and words simply weren't her strong suit.

That's why she says:

"What? I'd die 'cause you can't just settle shit with your fists?" This is called over Hector's arm and shoulder, past Javed's solid body. There were spectators now. People weren't sure if they should call the cops or not, and no one wanted to get close enough to find out. "You'd kill me, sure, but then you'd have to hang your fucking head in shame 'cause you can't control yourself well enough to let a Kinfolk survive a disagreement with you!"

It looks like Hector is being a controlling overprotective male with no sense of personal space or respect for his kinswoman. It also looks like he doesn't care how his reaction or the behavior that comes afterwards looks. Lola locks her feet into the ground and then she starts to shout back over his shoulder.

That's when he says 'fuck it' and yanks his arm off her shoulder like her skin shot up about a hundred degrees in temperature and keeps walking, quicker than he was when he thought Lola would at least walk with him.

He hasn't ever stood up in front of a moot and laid down a claim on her. So far as he's concerned she can make her own decisions and nobody has to come to him if they want to be seen in public with her. That notion is at war with the fact that they mean more to each other than 'tribesman' but anyone looking at him can see he's angry.

And then he starts ranting to himself once he's past the outer edge of the congregation because he can't keep his mouth shut when he's this aggravated but there's no point aiming it at anyone else. The thoughts aren't even fully formed. They just fall out of his skull like his mouth is a release valve as he keeps walking.

"That's great, keep trying to to rile up an Ahroun on a full moon so he might eat your entire head in one bite, I didn't want you and the baby to actually stay my mate and my baby, why would I want that, mates and babies are pains in the neck, they just cry and eat things and die anyway--"

They are both burning in her mind, then. Both bright, all incancescent. Charlotte does not understand the way that people of a certain scientific persuasion understand the sun to burn: she merely knows that it does, that the sun has a name and the heat inside it is hotter than most anything she can imagine except the they feel sometimes when things are intense and jagged and vivid and immediate. So Charlotte has her hands balled up into fists and her fists curled up beneath the raggedy cuffs of her slighty-oversized hoodie perhaps in unconscious physical reaction to that burning-brightness and her mouth goes skewed, twists to one corner and her nose wrinkles and her attention goes darting-bright over Lola and Hector; specifically their backs. And Javed, yes his too and there's enough going on that the coil of instinctive revulsion that lances all through her because she remembers he's a mule doesn't much show and anyway no one's looking at her right now because

FIGHTFIGHTFiGHT

Except Thomas, who flashes her a reflexive smile that she returns, her own taut-as-his because there is the scent of ozone in the air and well, Charlotte's smile is a little daft. Her attention is scattershot and there's so much around them just at that moment.

Erich gets mind-nudged back. So does Melantha. The affection is heavy and is pack-centric and is animal-spirit.

I'm glad I'm here too who are you fighting because she called you essay? I heard a really cool song about the sun -

Chatter chatter chatter chatter in the back of their minds until Lola turns and calls out all that over her Fence of Warrior Defenders. All the breath goes out of the theurge and the creature's pale, wild eyes dart over Javed, Hector, take in Lola all askance in the shadows. Only a momentary glance.

Charlotte knows what Erich's rage is like. How it explodes over him, how he loses himself to red, red ruin. How these things consume, and are in turn consumed. She breathes out hard, steps in front of no one, affixes the whole of her attention on her Ahroun packmate now.

we'rerighthere we'rerighthere stay. right. here. she doesn't know anything about you. she's not your fight tonight. More wordless than anything though there are words scattered into the mix. What Charlotte does is make herself an anchor, a sink, a taproot, a ground.

She had to get out of that house. It's confining in there, with just herself, bad memories, and a disembodied voice to keep her company. Not that she'll shake that voice, mind. He follows her everywhere.

It's a pleasant enough day, for almost-winter, and she's out for a run. Feels good to run, feels good to be in the park again, even though this time she tends to scatter people wherever she goes. It's almost a blessing, that, considering that they smell like meat.

She comes across the little gathering, and it's not entirely a welcome sight. Most of these people she caught glimpses of at the Judgement, if she recognizes them at all. Javed she knows, and she sees how he's placed -- between a woman and a man. Keeping them apart. For their own good.

"You see how they are?" comes a whisper in her ear, and she just growls under her breath. This is the last thing she went to the park for, damn it all. She just wanted to get away from all this pent-up bullshit. At least Javed's there, at least...

She takes the run down to a walk, leans up against a tree, and just watches. Yes, let's see how they are.

He had been keeping a shoulder to each of them, with intent to change that if one of them continued. They both continue, but one more than the other. And so he snaps his attention to Lola as Hector stalks away, staring at her. He's always calm and polite, but a little of both have begun to erode away now between the Rage (exceeding even his own, no less) colliding with him on one side and defiance burning on the other side. His own Rage spikes up a little bit in response of being between these two fires; it is held firmly in check, though.

"Miss Hawkes. I would request that you join..." He almost continues with Hector's Deed Name, but he has noticed the people gathering and he stops himself. The words sound odd coming from his mouth, like he is attempting to speak a language he knows but doesn't truly understand. Like if you had tried to speak Japanese after learning it from a book, but had never heard someone else speak it. "Mister Ghosh in departing. Please."

The Please is less of a request than it is a very, very, very strong sugg--oh, let's call it what it is. He's telling her to leave while trying to be as civil about it as possible.

Melantha frowns. She rears her head back a little, not unlike a pup who has gotten a butterfly landing on their nose and isn't quite sure what to make of it.

"That's -- that is literally no different from the 'what are you gonna do, hit a woman' line," she says, taken aback. "It's one thing to stick up for yourself, but it's a completely different thing to insult and goad someone to try and prove something about yourself... then unravel whatever you think you're proving by sneering that they should be the ones ashamed for picking on li'l old you. That's twisted, sister, and it's cheap. It'd be twisted and cheap even if you weren't garou and kin, even if you weren't male and female."

Her hand slips out of Erich's, and she steps forward, because Lola is the only one she's talking to right now. "For what it's worth, if you two decided to punch each other out, here's how it works: if you lose control, you aren't going to hurt him much. If he loses control, he kills you. That power differential sucks, and it's not fair, but it's a real thing we all have to deal with.

"If he were to swagger around treating you like shit because he knows he's stronger than you and you can't fight back, then he's a crummy douchebag. If you swagger around getting in people's faces because you know that they can't hit you back unless they want to risk killing you, then you're a stupid asshole. And I don't really know you, but I know Erich's not a crummy douchebag, and I don't think you're that stupid or that big of an asshole."

She isn't even paying attention to Hector's rant, or realizing that Lola is pregnant. She's just talking to Lola. "So if you're trying to prove something, at least prove something other than 'I'm a stupid asshole'," she says, quieter.

"No," she spits out at Melantha. It was unfortunate, and later Lola may feel a twinge of guilt for letting her anger lash at the other Kinfolk like that. But Melantha's not an unintelligent woman, she's probably well aware that Lola's anger is still flaring at Erich, that she holds no ill will toward the Black Fury. She probably had more to say, but Melantha kept talking and Lola yielded the floor to her, but wasn't able to keep paying attention to what she had to say.

Rage was a flaring whirlwind about her, and all at once Hector was absent from her side. This was what drew Lola's attention more dominantly than anything else. Her head twisted, eyes breaking away from the dead-on heavy-weighted glare that she'd landed on the Black Fury while waiting for what she had to say. She was watching Hector storm away, she could hear his voice but couldn't make out his words for the sound of Melantha's voice filling her other ear. She held a hand up, pinky and ring finger curled loosely down, index and middle pointed up. The hand shook a little, and a small 'Shht!' noise came from her mouth. She was cutting Melantha off, informing her that she was done listening, that she was trying to hear something else, that she needed her focus elsewhere.

A few of Hector's words got picked up on, but truthfully they weren't the most important thing anyways. The important thing was that he was walking, not looking back. A pained expression flashes momentarily across Lola's eyes, flexes her eyebrows up in the middle, but she's scowling heavily again just as quickly.

The hand that had been lifted to signal for quiet clenched into a fist, and that fist bounced in the air a little bit before she took a step backwards. Her body was tight like a wire, she was so worked up that the acid in her stomach was trying to climb its way up into her throat. Her nose crinkled up, her forehead mimicked the texture, and she took another step back. For all of the people gathered, Lola's eyes find Thomas's rather than anyone else's, and for a second her expression is a plain to see pleading for assistance: Jesus Christ, Thomas, help me I don't know how to de-escalate anything that isn't what I do.

She won't wait for him to interject or take the reins, though. Instead the tension within her will snap with a curse released into the air like the kind of snarls that lions make at one another over territory: "Motherfuck!"

And, with that, she spins about and takes off after Hector at a jog. She barely remembers to snatch her hoodie up from off the ground on her way.

That hand that lifts to signal for quiet is, not surprisingly, ignored, including the weird hissing noise that Lola spits out as well. Melantha finishes, and when she finishes, Lola doesn't even answer. Lola swears, Lola looks for help at Thomas, and then Lola

runs after her maaaaan.

and Melantha stands there staring after her, stunned. "Wow," is all she says.

Thomas watches them again. He stays mostly quiet and he doesn't move in between anyone. People are between people and talking is...well...right now it's like trying to herd four separate cats. Which is to say, extremely challenging. Hector is leaving.

And Lola is pleading. He manages a real, warm smile and makes a little shooing motion. 'Get out of here, go with Hector,' that gesture says, 'and I'll try.' It's not exactly the following he intended to do, but...Thomas and Lola might not be the most expected kind of allies. But they manage it. Somehow.

How do you smooth things over after Lola? Awakened steamroller? Thomas glances over the others and waits for a reaction now that Hector and Lola aren't there to engage. Steamrollers...not so much his thing.

Charlotte is all stiff-shouldered and misses absolutely everything that goes on after the direct challenge Lola lobbed at Erich. Then it ends; Lola turns around runs away, and they're left standing in a loose half-circle and Erich,

has not yet exploded

and the moon is full and bright someone beyond the horizon and Charlotte cants her head, turns in brief awareness to keep Lola in her peripheral vision as her figure diminishes and then disappears, lost in the wash of streetlights framing the edge of the park in amber light.

"That was weird." Which: Charlotte is weird. She has a half-dozen weird things in her pockets right now. But people say that sometimes. She's heard them say it. Also, quietly, as the humans who have stopped to gawk start to move onward, " - we should go hunt or something."

Erich spends the better part of the last few moments just sort of sputtering in aghastness. Which is better than bursting into murder-ness. But still: not exactly awesome and glorious. Fortunately Melantha pretty much gives a better argument than he possibly could, and fortunately Javed,

as ever,

is a force of stability in their little gathering. Which is important, because Erich is sort of the opposite of a force of stability.

Anyway: Lola storms off after Hector, who also sort of stormed off. And Erich makes a few more exasperated noises, then stuffs his hands into his pockets. "What the hell," he finishes. "That was just. What the hell. I mean I get chip on shoulder, but. What the hell.

"I guess we can go hunt, but what the hell."

Melantha hears Charlotte suggesting a hunt, and her brows tug together a moment, but she looks away and catches sight of a woman across the way who, frankly, looks more like the ideal of womanhood to Melantha than anyone else here, herself included. She sees the woman watching them, and tenses slightly.

"Guys," Melantha says quietly. "Guys, who is that? She's staring."

Ruby shifts off of the tree and walks straight up to her mentor, eyeing the assembled gawkers and such, noticing Melantha but not what she has to say. "Hey Javed, it's Ruby. What was that all about?"

She has an idea, of course. Just, that furious thrumming wanting that got her out of the house tonight could be enough to cause this. But surely these people, with their years of experience (she is guessing they are more trained than she) they would know how to contain themselves?

Well you see, Erich, Hector is like the ocean. You surrender, You don't fight it. Fighting is how people drown. Understanding isn't something you're really meant to do with the sea, You make peace with it. Lola is...like that, only different and nothing like water. But he says none of that. It wouldn't really help anything.

"I would explain, if I could. Or if it would help. But neither of those things is so much true at-"

His eyes flick to Ruby and he stops speaking. And for a half second his expression goes cold. She announces her name for Javed, so he doesn't offer an introduction to Melantha.

He nods to Javed, then Erich, then Melantha. "It has been lovely to see you all. If you'll excuse me...."

So the last time someone told Erich that someone else was staring at them, he threw a hammer at the peeper's head. Like not even a Viking throwing-hammer, but the sort of thing you buy at Home Depot to do home improvement with. It is somewhat possible, given the moonphase and Erich's general mood, that he's looking around for something to chuck at the latest stare-r.

Fortunately she comes over herself and makes herself sort of known. Ruby. Erich instantly wants to make a mean joke about Red Riding Hood or something, but since she seems to know Javed and he kinda likes Javed and also he's not a douchebag, he's just grumpy right now, he doesn't.

"See ya, Tom," he says, sort of offhand, to his tribesman's departure. He doesn't know that guy very well. Probably should get to know him better. Well, another time. His attention comes back to the newcomer.

"So who're you?"

While Lola is running off and Charlotte is approaching and Erich is What the hell-ing, Javed is staying perfectly still, watching the departing kinfolk. There is time to react when he is sure blood is no longer potentially about to spill. That moment appears to be drawing very close, and while his face remains stone inside, the Strider is relaxing. He even allows himself a rare brief, outward display of emotion as he shuts his eyes, takes in a breath, lets it back out. His muscles begin to loosen where they had drawn tight in very zone of his person. And then opens them and starts to turn his attention to--

Wherever it was going, it snaps in the other direction when Melantha asks Who is that? She's staring. His gaze rests on Ruby and he doesn't know her, of course. And she is kind enough to identify herself, though the specter at her side does that well enough for her. Ruby has the easiest clue of all time, short of the pack bond he has with Avery.

And he draws up, formal again. He looks at Thomas, and his brow furrows at the way he looks at Ruby. That's a conversation they'll be having later.

But now, the cub. He looks back at her and nods his head. "Miss Lee. There was a disagreement. Words were shared that caused the disagreement to escalate rather thriftily. But it has been resolved, for now anyway." He doesn't talk to the ghost. He never does. He can't hear it anyway.

"Some introductions are in order, though I know not who you have met and who you haven't." So he turns to the others. "This is Ruby Lee. A newly-discovered part of my Tribe, and our Auspice." Said with a look to Erich. He lets the others make their own introductions.

Erich sputters. Charlotte lets him sputter; she doesn't really know how to answer or what to say or even what just happened and now there's a woman who's staring and hey! Charlotte looks but Ruby's already there; greeting the metis Ahroun. The creature's attention flickers between them briefly and then - oh, these things are quite circular.

Charlotte gives Thomas a really-rather-shy wave by way of farewell and is sort of sidling out of immediacy and earshot of Javed and Ruby except Erich isn't going anywhere and he's still all bright (he calls it grumpy but it is moon-madness, which is polished and keen and brighter than that human word can encompass and there is something searing about it, burning clean that Charlotte both likes and doesn't-like) so Charlotte's not really going anywhere.

Doesn't say anything more but she does put her fists in the front pockets of her hoodie - which are capacious - and pulls out two things. One, the skull of a baby bird; and two, a small box of very fine chocolates.

Room for just four pieces inside the box and one is already gone. Charlotte does not have enough for everyone but she has enough for her pack. And offers one to Melantha.

'Course if Melantha prefers the baby-bird-skull she can have that instead.

The author recommends the chocolate.

In all her life, Ruby has never seen someone, found someone, who feels like Melantha does. Well: smells. Feels, too, in the part of her that can see this ghost and step through the boundary between worlds. The scent is powerful, and it is alluring, even if that allure is not sexual. It inspires the desire to protect and guard, but also the simpler, quieter desire to simply be near. To Ruby it does not smell like an ancient and long-lost homeland, but it brings to mind myths of maidens stolen by cold hands, of grieving mothers turning the world to winter in longing for her, of a woman in the underworld coming into power as a queen, as a bride of hell. But also the springtime, the lush earth, the darkness of wet soil after a rainstorm.

Just looking at her, it's no wonder to see Erich or Charlotte sticking close to her, bumping against her, as though her very presence comforts them, even if it doesn't erase Charlotte's madness or Erich's anger. Even without her speaking, even if she weren't -- let's face it -- very pretty, with brightly intelligent eyes, it just doesn't seem strange that she would be cared for.

She knows Javed. So Melantha looks at Javed. Javed says Miss Lee and the woman herself says Ruby so now Melantha knows, but doesn't know. Javed says she's a Silent Strider Ahroun and Melantha looks back at Ruby.

She lifts her hand, gives a small wave. "I'm Melantha Argyris," she says, and she sort of relishes saying her name to new people, her real name, her birth-given name and family name, not Celia or Maria or Isabella or whoever else she's been. "I'm Black Fury kin."

Erich, who was caught up for a moment eyeing that baby-bird-skull Charlotte pulls out, flicks his eyes back to Ruby as the introductions start. He takes one hand out of his pocket. His knuckles ache from clenching his fist so tight, but now he shakes his fingers out and kinda waves.

"Hey. Erich. Shadow Lord Cliath. Ahroun, like Javed said."

And mindvoice: Charlotte what's with you and skulls!

There is a very brief flicker of surprise at being called Tom, less because he's annoyed and more because people just generally don't do that and it sounds strange to him.

He returns Charlotte's wave with a less shy one, and a smile.

And then, while Ruby is distracted by introductions and before she can set him bristling and there is another fight to break up, Thomas is gone.

Oh, they are introducing themselves. So, Charlotte says "I'm Eulalia Charlotte Horatia Hypotenuse Ampersand Evadne Jefferson-Gray, House Wyrmfoe, Lodge of the Moon, and I'm a crescent moon and a Silver Fang."

I like skulls. It's where your head lives. Do you want a chocolate?

And then Charlotte goes very very quiet for very strange reasons having to do with the moon and the sun and the earth's movement around its polar axis. And other more secret things.