There are many scents in this house. She can smell half a dozen distinct, frequent entities; more occasional visitors. Several of the prominent scents smell like the rancher -- blood-kin to him; father or brother or cousin or nephew. The rest smell like kin, period. Few humans come here. Few females come here, for that matter.
No other wolves come here.
The water runs hot and stays hot. There are toiletries in the shower; a little bit generic, but not cheap. The towels are thick, and the bath mats are piled deep. There's central heating, and it's on, though set low enough that goosebumps rise on her skin when the water shuts off.
She dresses again. She's human-shaped now. Though they entered through the sliding exterior door, she likely leaves through the door to the rest of the house. There's a small landing down here -- a sort of anteroom with doors to both the game room and the guest suite. Also, stairs: wooden, broad, leading up to the main floor.
There's an openness to the architecture. She can see doors that lead off to the other bedrooms in this house, but everything centers around the great room with its vast windows and its bare rafters and its enormous, stone-chimneyed hearth. Everything is open; a breakfast bar, some granite-topped counters, some stainless steel appliances and some hanging, heavy pots and pans mark the domain of the kitchen. A large dinner table nearby with room for a dozen guests marks a sort of dining area. A collection of large, well-stuffed couches cluster around the hearth. There's no TV in this room, though there may well be one downstairs. The rest of the space is open, high-ceilinged; rustic but not without a certain grandeur.
Two sets of sliding doors up here, along with the huge windows flanking the hearth. One of the doors is open, and the kinsman is outside, squatting on the deck, butchering the elk on a spread sheet of tarp.
The kill, indeed, doesn't look appetizing at all anymore. But then meat rarely is in this form: dead too long to appeal to the savage, the predator, and still too recognizably an animal to appeal to the consume, the human. Not to mention: half-eaten, its underbelly torn open, its hindlegs gnawed to bones.
The Stagsman doesn't seem perturbed, though. He's making quick work of the back end of the elk, trimming away what's too chewed to salvage. There's a certain knowledge in his hands. He knows the primal cuts, at least, would know how to chunk flesh into loin and round and brisket and chuck. He doesn't flay and butcher the rest, though. Not tonight, anyway. He flays a portion of the back, carves out the loin on one side, rises with his hands and knife bloody as her teeth had been.
He sees her, then, turning to come inside. If he's surprised to see her finally out of her wolf-shape, it's indicated only in a quick blink. Then he looks past her shoulder at the interior, which is mostly dark: only a few lights on near the couches, in the kitchen.
"Guess my dad didn't want to say hi." He holds out the loin, gesturing with his knife: an inch thick? Two? "How much more room do you have in your stomach?"
fancy ladyThe woman that he sees is on the tall side, just a few inches shy of six feet. She's best described as statuesque, with squared shoulders and a frame that is both athletic and well-curved. She wouldn't be a runway model, deathly thin and unsmiling. She would fit more on the cover of something like Maxim or Sports Illustrated, if one's mind bends that direction. Or Self, Shape, Women's Health, Fitness, given that she's fully clothed.
Her hair -- currently held back in a ponytail -- is blonde, traced with gold. Her eyes are the same silver-rimmed blue as he saw before. Despite coming out of a long winter, her skin is golden and smooth, as though she comes from some warmer clime. She's wearing black yoga pants, a white tank top, and a black jacket. All of it is basically the same soft, semi-stretchy material. The sleeves of the jacket have holes for her thumbs to keep them in place while running or working out. Her shoes are trim, black, soft-soled, and don't add much -- if any -- sound to her steps. In her earlobes are small white-gold hoops, polished to a satin sheen.
There are hints of the same purity and perfection that he glimpsed in her other forms: the way she moves isn't just nimble, it's regal. She keeps her spine straight but relaxed, comfortable in this skin, in any skin, in herself. And despite that perfection, despite tearing apart an elk in rabid hunger, there's an ease and a warmth to her that does not, in the slightest, take away from the nobility of her carriage.
She smiles. "That is a shame," she says, the first words she's said to him that weren't barks or howls, when he says his father didn't want to say hi or just slept through her arrival and showering. She takes a few more steps out, sliding the door a little more closed behind her than it was. "Not much, I'm afraid. I would love to hear that you chilled the steak and offered it to your father tomorrow, though."
The woman walks over to him, extending her hand, palm down, despite the blood on his own.
"Avery Chase," she informs him, since she couldn't before.
cowboyThat is a shame, she says, and his smile turns a little sardonic. "Not really. My dad's not very good company. We'd probably just end up having a shouting match.
"Of course I'll save him a steak, though. I think the rest of the kill will keep 'til morning in this weather. I'll carve it up tomorrow, freeze some, salt some, maybe roast the rest on a spit and call some of the neighbors over. You should take the other loin home, too. Or whatever you like." Wry again. "It's your kill."
There's blood on his hand when she offers hers, so he transfers the knife to his other hand, wipes his palm quickly on his shirt. Shakes. "Pleasure," he says. "Gotta admit, was starting to think maybe you had some compelling reason not to shift." He tilts his head toward the door she'd just slid a little more closed. "Let's go in. I need to carve this into steaks and grab a little salt, pepper and butter."
He opens his door with the back of his wrist. It's quiet inside -- the hearth cool and dark, the heating huffing softly. They cross through the middle of that great room. She's a few inches under six and he's a few inches over, but he's the one a little overshadowed by that space. Nothing, he imagines, could dwarf her presence.
Behind the sleek counters that demarcate the kitchen, he takes down a pine cutting board. Using the same butcher's knife with which he'd carved it from the animal, he blocks the loin into two-inch steaks -- and one single-inch steak -- then rinses two under cold water; blots dry on thick paper towels. The rest he piles on a plate, covers, and puts in the fridge.
He's familiar with this kitchen, knows where everything is. There's no sense that cooking or grilling is a rare occasion for him. He finds a nonstick baking pan under the oven and salts and peppers the two steaks he'd reserved; turns them over, does it again. Then he carves off two thick blocks of butter, lays one on each steak, and washes his hands quickly. One of the steaks is the thinner cut; presumably for her and her recently gorged appetite.
"And back out," he says, nodding at the door.
Avery ChasePerhaps he really is just an over-sharer. She doesn't comment -- or even lift an eyebrow -- at his revelation that his father is poor company, that they tend to argue. That would be terribly impolite. She asks him no questions about his intentions for the meat, to leave it out or salt or freeze or so on. It is his home. And it is his --
whatever you like. it's your kill.
There's a wry twist to her lips then. "I've taken my share. The rest is a gift; a gesture of goodwill and appreciation for your hospitality." They shake hands, and she doesn't cringe or wipe her hand off afterward, though even his 'clean' hand isn't all that tidy at the moment. Glancing over her shoulder at the glass doors, she considers telling him that no, actually, she'd prefer to stay out here while he carves and salts and peppers and butters, but for whatever reason, she goes along with him inside. She is, after all, his guest.
Avery does not lean against a wall or the shelf. She stands more in the great room than the kitchen, arms crossed loosely over her midsection, head tipped back to look at the rafters, examining the near-silent home while she waits for him.
And back out, he says. She opens the door this time, and closes it again.
The woman, no longer nameless, finds a chair on the deck and lowers herself into it as though it's a throne, her arms laid on the rests. She doesn't do this with affectation or ostentation, however; it is simply how she moves. It's not something she thinks about doing; it's not necessarily even something she had to be taught. It's in her blood.
"I must beg your pardon for remaining in lupus earlier," she says, going back a few steps, "though I did try to engage in what little polite conversation I could in those forms." A smile is tugging at her mouth, threatening to shatter any hint that she's actually prim and proper and polite. She reins it in, though.
"My concern that you might be discomfited by the sight of a human-looking person with blood on their mouth was compelling enought for me to resist shifting."
Calden WhiteThere are, indeed, chairs on the deck. Big, heavy teak things -- six of them, gathered around an umbrella'd table that could be used as outside dining space in better weather than this. While she seats herself, he crouches down to twist open the gas valve on the enormous six-burner grill set against the sturdy deck railing.
"It wouldn't have bothered me," he says, straightening, opening the lid on the grill and finding the longnosed lighter in a small drawer on the right. One hand on the gas knob, the other reaching in, he lights the grill up and then closes the lid to let it warm up. "Might've bothered Deputy Wainwright, though, if he'd driven by." A quirked smile, leaning back against the railing, arms folded across his chest. "Lives a few miles away. Widowed. Comes here for dinner at least once a week. So. I appreciate your prudent restraint."
There's a faint, gentle hint of teasing in his tone there just for a moment. Big words. Then he glances over at the temperature dial on the lid.
"I cut you a thinner steak. I know you said you're not really hungry anymore, but if I'm keeping most of your kill, I ought to at least make you my guest."
Avery ChaseSix chairs, a large house, and he lives here with his father. She smelled other males, similarly blooded, when she was in that guest room and in that great room. It did things to her own blood, especially as high as it is tonight from the hunt and the moon and her own shivering madness.
Something seems right about this, though. He cuts the meat, he cooks it, he will bring it to her and she will eat it graciously, gracefully, though she doesn't want a bite of it. It is an offering and it is her due and she was taught better than to refuse earnest tribute.
Her lips twitch at the teasing, which is better than her hand going for his neck or anything like that, anything full of How Dare You and fury.
"You're too kind," she says, and crosses her legs. "But that is what we do. We do not hunt to feed only ourselves."
Her legs uncross and recross. Her fingers drum lightly on the armrest until she notices; then she goes still. "I am on my way south," she informs him. "I will introduce myself to both septs, and give my oaths to the caern, of course, but I believe I will be settling my household in the city. Tell me -- are you affiliated with either of the septs? You're so very far away."
Calden WhiteHe's never met her before this night. She doesn't look like a wolf of his tribe, or anything remotely close to his tribe. He has his guesses: it's in her poise, her regality, the almost-archaic complexity of her speech. And everyone knows how the Fangs are when it comes to their dignity. By rights, he should be more cautious. For all he knows, a joke like that could well land him on his back, her teeth at his throat.
But then, his first interaction was not with this woman with that austere, queenly tilt to her chin. It was with the white wolf out on the range, the one who'd taken an elk down singlehandedly in seconds; the one who'd danced with herself, lazily and oh-so-self-satisfied-ly, in the wake of her successful hunt.
There's humor in her. And in him. They both keep it hidden to some degree, but it's there, glimmering to the surface now and again.
Again, now: a twinkle in his eye as his mouth tilts. "I have ties to both Septs. Loose ones. My family's so big and we've been here so long we're related to just about every Fianna in the state in some way, shape or form.
"And I'll have you know I'm so very far away because my granddad's granddad thought this was good land to raise cattle on. And he was right. We've got a river on the eastern border, plenty of grass even on a dry year. And the biggest cattle auction in the state is about sixty miles that way," he nudges his chin eastward.
"I drive a dozen steers down to a slaughterhouse in Denver every other weekend, though." This time the smile is a smirk. "Organic grass-fed beef."
Avery ChaseEspecially under a nearly-full moon, he should be cautious. Watch his words, offer his greatest hospitality, act with deference and good care. One can still see the impression of her teeth in the pelt of that elk, its blood drained into a bucket. He should be careful because of those fangs, not just because she is a Fang.
And yet: she gave those little howls and pranced her enormous paws on the earth in delight with her own full belly and her own sharp claws. Dragged the elk over to give it to him, tail wagging happily. To share.
"I'm glad," she says, earnestly, "that the tribes still have kin who work in the meat industry. What you see along highways and in every town -- it's appalling. Frightening," she says, hitting that word with intensity that does not, for a moment, indicate that she feels afraid. "What the humans buy from you, though, we know is safe for them. Clean."
The fervor, mild though it was, fades a moment. She glances out onto the horizon, the plains, still almost vibrating with energy, as though it is taking all her will not to shift again and tear off into the moonlight. Or fidget, or dance, or climb the house and jump off the roof. Her head swivels back to him.
"Any particular relative I should watch out for in these septs?" she asks, teasingly, and for a moment there's a bright white flash of teeth, a momentary grin that she controls a moment later.
Calden White"Well," he taps the pads of two fingers against his lips in thought -- it's almost a shushing gesture, "there is my cousin's mother's brother's wife. I think she might be the Talesinger at Forgotten Questions."
There's that laughing spark in his eye again. He straightens up off the railing, turning to hook those two fingers under the handle and lift the lid on the grill. A thin billow of smoke emerges. He scrubs the grille clean with a steel brush, then lays the thicker of the two steaks on. The lid closes again.
"My family's real big," he says, "especially if you count all the way to the hairs on the roots and the twigs on the branches. But our blood doesn't run as rich as some's." There's a look here, knowing and astute and wry. "Most all of us are kin."
And now he lifts the lid again, and the thinner steak goes on the fire. "Medium? Rare?"
Avery Chase"When you count hairs and twigs," says she, "many families grow exponentially."
She smirks a little. "Rare, if you please." There's a pause. "You seem quite knowledgeable about the nation, for all your distance from it." Legs crossed, one foot begins to wiggle a bit. "Do you have wine?"
Calden White"We might not have close Garou relations or live close to a Sept," he replies, "but we remember who we are and where we come from.
"I do have wine," he adds, "and whiskey. There's a little cellar downstairs if you want to pick one out yourself. It's the narrow door behind the stairs. Or I can just grab something while the steaks are resting."
Avery Chase[perception + empathy // witnessed by niko, matt, CC]
Roll: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6, 9) ( success x 2 ) VALID
[AM I OFFENDING YOU? :[ ]
Calden White[! no! he not offended. he's relaxed and enjoying her company, and in general he seems pretty used to having random Garou (and probably nonGarou!) guests.]
Avery ChaseHer eyes watch him closely at that first statement: something about the phrasing, something about the phrasing of a few things he's said. Her eyebrows, which are surprisingly dark, tug together a little, more thoughtful than anything else. For that moment, her foot goes still. She looks at him, curious and even intrigued, and then
isn't, anymore. It's gone like a cloud passing from where it lingers in front of the sun. She gives a faint press of her palms to the arm of her chair and in a singular motion is on her feet.
"I would love to choose a wine. Whiskey as well, if you prefer it." She sniffs the cooking elk, looking from the grill to him. "Or scotch, perhaps. Something smoky. That's better. I'll find some. If not, a very dry red, heavy and rich. Yes."
She speaks quickly, when she gets excited. Talks without leaving room for him to jump in. A sudden, winning smile breaks over her face. "We'll both go down when they're finished cooking. What if I run into your father? Oh, I'm sure you'd get an earful about letting strange women in yoga pants wander around the house at all hours."
Her shoulders tug together in a small self-squeeze of rapid, sudden nostalgia and pleasure. "I remember sneaking into the wine cellar when I was younger, on nights like this. Of course I didn't know yet that once wine is opened it begins to spoil. I re-corked a bottle and hid it downstairs for three weeks before I came back for more. Oh, I learned a lesson that night."
Calden White"I'll get an earful about that," he agrees, "and about not cooking you a proper dinner, and about not bringing out the fifty-year scotch, and...."
He trails off, his smile hooking up one corner of his mouth. The lid lifts. The steaks turn. "I'll be back," he tells her,
and he is, moments later, bringing two heavy earthenware plates and a roll of foil with him. He sets them on the platform next to the grill, opens the lid, waves smoke away from his face, and pulls her steak off the fire. His, he lets grill just a bit longer before taking it out as well.
He lifts the plates, then. Hands her the thinner cut, then nods her indoors.
"We can leave the steaks on the dining table for a bit. I'll put a piece of foil over them while we pick out some wine."
Avery ChaseThis time she stays outside. But not still, no. She moves about as he goes inside for foil and plates and knives and forks. She looks at the grill. She walks off the patio and looks at the stars. She moves like she has boundless energy even after her hunt. It's not until he's taking the meat off the grill that she drifts back, inhaling the scent. Her pupils are dilated despite the darkness, eager for the meat even though she's full. She follows him like that, close at hand, like she can't remember the rules of polite distance.
She's about to argue that they should eat outdoors; she's forgotten the whiskey and wine. She take a breath, then nods, and walks with him into the great room.
Calden WhiteHe sets the meat down on the table. A flick of a switch turns on narrow-angle spotlights focused along the length of the table, though he sets their plates across from one another at the head of the table.
They go downstairs. He shows her where the cellar door is -- it's really the basement door, but he leads her past the clutter of generations' worth of storage to the smaller, stone-lined room where he keeps the wine. Like any good Fianna, he's got quite the arsenal. Some of the bottles are coated in a thin layer of dust. Others have been put in more recently, or looked at more recently. A tug on a string turns a small, low-wattage overhead lamp on. The ranchman peers at the shelves until he finds what he's looking for -- a bottle of Bruichladdich scotch, which he tucks under his arm.
"This is my pick," he tells her. "Go ahead, take whatever looks good."
And while she browses: "So whose cellar was it?"
Avery ChaseAvery's eyes glance over the table when he sets it outdoors. It's cool tonight, temperate, but it will only get cold again. Winter is lingering here, peevish and maniacal, especially on the plains where the wind has free rein to whip up suddenly and scorch one's cheeks and knuckles til they burn from the chill. They have some shelter here, brief as it may be for at least one of them, though it's likely she'll find a soft place to rest her head without much trouble.
They go inside, and they go downstairs. She drifts along behind him, steady and silent and fair, taking as much advantage as she can of the traditional hospitality of his kind while still holding on to her dignity. Her fingers trail over a dust-limned row of family boxes, fearless of the filth.
Then the cellar. The light comes on, casting her in a sickly yellow that only seems to bring out the gold in her hair, the silver in her eyes, the softness of her skin. Hard to make Silver Fangs look ugly. Hard to make them look as ill as their searing purity indicates they may be becoming.
"Oooh," she says aloud, at the bottle he takes. She huffs a laugh. "That will be quite enough for the both of us, I think," she says, with that some pleasant humor he saw glimmering in her propriety over and over again upstairs. She looks at what he has, browses anyway, but takes nothing. He asks her about where she's from, whose cellar, tell me more, and -- quite amicably -- she does.
"My family's," Avery tells him, scanning a list of labels, corks, and seals. "Long before I went away to school. I was resentful that they'd had another baby and I was determined not to babysit him." She pulls out a dark brown bottle, flicking her eyes over the label. She puts it back anyway and looks over at him. "If I ever catch him in our cellar I'm going to hang him upside-down from the roof by the ankles."
Calden White"Pick one out anyway," he urges. "Consider it a gift."
The cellar is not large. With two people in here, it feels small. With four, there would be no room to move around. Every wall is stacked high with shelves, with a freestanding shelf bisecting the room. The spirits are deeper in the room. The wines are closer to the door. The oldest bottles might go back to his grandfather's time, if not earlier, and they come from all over the world. France, of course, for the wines. Scotland and Ireland, Russia and Poland, for the spirits. But also rarer breeds: Portugal, Spain, Italy, Romania, Turkey, Australia. California, some of the newer bottles. South Africa. One bottle even comes from Mongolia, though if she asks about it, he has no idea what it is. Neither of them, presumably, can read the lettering.
And he asks his question, and she answers, and there's a moment there where she feels him regarding her with the exact same curiosity and astuteness with which she'd regarded him moments before. What he sees makes him smile.
"Just one brother then?"
Avery ChaseA glimmer of competition sparks in her eyes as she glances over at him, his urging. "I wouldn't dream of it," she tells him, half coy and half challenging. Yes. Let's play who can be more polite. She smiles.
"Just the one," she confirms, straightening from where she'd bent slightly to look at a lower bottle. She weaves around a shelf, stalks toward him. "He's quite a bit younger. A kinsman, as far as we know."
Calden White"Please." His eyes glint right back at her in the dimness of the cellar. "I insist. If you're going to leave me elk, then you have to let me give you wine."
She comes toward him. He gives way -- though perhaps not so quickly as he could have. Certainly, not so quickly as he would have if he were afraid of her. He's not afraid of her. Cautious, when he met her bloody and ferocious on the range. But not afraid.
"I'm one of five brothers. Did I mention?" He's smirking. He knows he's mentioned. There's a hint of competition here too. "And my dad's one of four. There's a girl in his generation. My grandfather was one of nine. Irish Catholics. Devout about their stance on birth control, anyway, if not on the actual religion part of it." He nods at a wine bottle near her hand. "That's a pretty nice Syrah."
Avery Chase"I was hunting on your land, if I'm not mistaken," she says, arching her tone and her chin and her back, ever so slightly, drawing herself up a bit more. "A portion of the kill is your due, and you have done more than enough. I couldn't bear it if I were to impose on your kindness any further than the warm bath and hot meal."
She says all this so seriously, so perfectly, that it's hard not to break into a grin, which she does. "Goodness," she says, in mock awe of the immense size of his... family. "And what of the next generation?"
Calden White"Avery." He's Very Serious now. "Just take a bottle of wine home so we can eat before the venison gets cold."
Whether she does or not, he ushers her doorward. At the entry to the cellar, he reaches up and snaps the light off. The door he taps closed without latching it, letting the wines stay a little cooler than the rest of the basement and the rest of the house.
"The next generation," he replies, "is something I haven't gotten around to yet, which my dad has Thoughts about. But my oldest brother's already up to four. My second is at two. The third is gay, which my dad also has Thoughts about. And my little brother is working on his doctorate.
"It's a different time now, though. I don't think we'll ever see families of nine all living on the same ranch again. Except on talk shows."
Avery Chase"Calden," she says, also Very Serious, though her blue eyes are mirthful, sparking and spiking at the edges of her irises.
She doesn't take the wine. She walks past him toward the door, striding on ahead of him up the stairs, her hand grazing the railing. Avery ascends stairs very much like she descends them or passes through entryways: the nobility of her bearing is so ingrained, so carefully trained or so carefully bred into her that it's unconscious. There's a deliberation and a purpose to each step, light as it may be. It is not hard to envision her in a gown rather than workout clothes, gliding across some polished marble floor.
As they walk, he answers her question. He talks again about his father, his father's opinions. When he mentions that his father has Thoughts about his middle brother's sexuality, Avery releases a soft huff past her lips that might be laughter. There's no stiffening to her spine, no sudden look of disgust -- is she touching something that a gay touched? Is his brother tainted by the Wyrm and all its perversions?
"Inter-generational households have pros and cons," she says, setting a final step on the landing and half-turning to watch him take his last few steps. "They're actually becoming more common again. Older children who stay home or come back home or invite their parents to live with them and their children. It's a trend that follows the economy, but I doubt -- as you do -- that it has cultural longevity."
Calden WhiteThere must, Calden muses, be some law about following an attractive woman in yoga pants up a flight of stairs. However, there are certainly laws of etiquette about shoving rudely ahead of your guest and/or tailing twenty feet behind as though she stank. His hand on the banister and his feet thumping the wood lets her know where he is -- a polite few steps behind, quirking that smile at her again when she turns to face him.
"You seem like a woman who reads a lot," he says; he means it as a good thing. "Go on," he nods tableward, "I'll get some silverware and glasses. Catch up in a bit."
Which he does. By the time she's settled in her seat, he's handing her a fork and a sturdy steak knife; he's setting down a small bowl of chilled sugar snap pea salad left-over from some previous meal.
Two tumblers follow the side dish down onto the table. The Bruichladdich under his arm is still sealed. Those small, bright overhead spotlights glint off his thick hair, pick out the gleams of auburn, as he bends his head to the task of peeling apart the foil. Then, with a faint pop, the cork comes out of the bottle and he pours a generous few fingers into each of their glasses.
Avery ChaseThere are no laws, written or otherwise, about following a woman in yoga pants up a flight of stairs. There are some written recommendations and unwritten expectations for personal space and how much to give and no pushing and so forth. There are definitely other laws, written in ink and ones and zeroes and etched with claws and howled at the moon. Those, however, are not as important as the laws of hospitality that both guest and host are trying -- competitively -- to follow.
"I like to," she confirms, regarding her reading habits, "though I don't get as much time to do so as I would like."
She smiles at him, offering to take the whiskey with her when he says he'll get silverware and glasses to give him less to carry. Whether or not he takes her up on that she does go outside, leaving the sliding door not-entirely-closed behind her. Out there, she reaches up and pulls the elastic out of her hair, shaking it down and ruffling through it with spread fingers. She looks at the moon, and when she hears the door slide open again, she looks at him.
"Ooh, salad," she says, peering at the snap peas and the slivers of almond and the faint whiff of mint.
As before, when she seats herself it is a smooth slide into the seat, her legs crossing in the same motion. She watches him as he peels the foil off, her eyes somewhere between his fingers and his profile, but when he begins to pour, her eyes are on the liquid itself. She takes the glass, asking for neither ice nor a few drops of spring water, and simply inhales the smell of the whiskey.
Avery exhales and it sounds almost like a sigh when she does. "Now this," she says, as he goes for the steaks, "was not where I expected to end up this evening."
Avery Chase[THAT'S THE WRONG POST]
Avery ChaseThere are no laws, written or otherwise, about following a woman in yoga pants up a flight of stairs. There are some written recommendations and unwritten expectations for personal space and how much to give and no pushing and so forth. There are definitely other laws, written in ink and ones and zeroes and etched with claws and howled at the moon. Those, however, are not as important as the laws of hospitality that both guest and host are trying -- competitively -- to follow.
"I like to," she confirms, regarding her reading habits, "though I don't get as much time to do so as I would like."
She smiles at him, offering to take the whiskey with her when he says he'll get silverware and glasses to give him less to carry. Whether or not he takes her up on that, she goes over to the table, circling it slowly until she gets to a seat that will place her opposite of him, if he sits on the long side, or at his side if he sits at the head. She reaches up and pulls the elastic out of her hair, shaking it down and ruffling through it with spread fingers. She looks around the room again, as though to pick out some details that she may have missed before, but when he comes out of open kitchen again, she looks at him.
"Ooh, salad," she says, peering at the snap peas and the slivers of almond and the faint whiff of mint.
As before, when she seats herself it is a smooth slide into the seat, her legs crossing in the same motion. She watches him as he peels the foil off, her eyes somewhere between his fingers and his profile, but when he begins to pour, her eyes are on the liquid itself. She takes the glass, asking for neither ice nor a few drops of spring water, and simply inhales the smell of the whiskey.
Avery exhales and it sounds almost like a sigh when she does. "Now this," she says, as he goes for the steaks, "was not where I expected to end up this evening." A faint smirk, the glass not far from her lips. "Competing with a Fiann over who can be the most gracious."
Calden WhiteHe does, in fact, sit along the long side of the table. They are both near the head of the table; neither of them take that seat of honor, however. They face each other instead across that heavy surface, which has seating enough for -- well; no. It couldn't possibly seat his entire sprawling family down to the hairs on the roots and the twigs on the branches. But it could, at least, seat him and his father, his brothers, their spouses, and the kids old enough eat like at the table like real adults. Amidst all that empty space -- the long dark gleam of the table, the soaring rafters overhead -- the surrounding darkness and the focal lighting makes their late dinner seem paradoxically intimate. He laughs as he pulls his chair up to the table, flicks a napkin carelessly over his jeans, and picks up his utensils.
"Hold on now. No one's competing over being gracious. You'd win that contest hands-down. We're competing over being hospitable, and I'm afraid I'm going to wipe the floor with you." He lifts his tumbler and reaches across the table to clink it against hers, though he makes no toast. "So be gracious and take home a bottle of wine. Or I'll be offering you the guest suite for the night." He glances out the window at the deepening night -- the last of daylight almost wholly gone now. "It is getting so very late."
He grows serious, then: "Are you planning to drive down to Denver?"
Avery ChaseShe smirks. She wins grace. He wins hospitality. Petulantly, but not serious in that petulance, she retorts: "Only because it's your house."
They clink glasses together. The toast is silent but it's nonetheless understood by them both: sharing a table, a meal, a drink. There's something unspeakable to that, because it is unnecessary to form words around it. She draws her glass back as he's telling her to be gracious and she just laughs. He get serious; she doesn't.
"Oh, I was going to cross over and run. Besides; the hour only matters if you're primarily diurnal." There's a beat. She tips her glass, smirking. "And I am not."
Calden White"That's over a hundred miles." Calden is a little aghast. "I could drive you in the morning, at least as far as Fort Collins. I'll have to go buy a new axle boot anyway." He thinks a moment, brow furrowing -- she can almost see his head filling with thoughts; the minutiae of daily life that he had, for a moment, forgotten. "It'll have to be mid-morning though. One of my cows breeched today out near the northern fence. The calf's out all right and one of my ranchhands is camped out with them tonight, but I have to drive out in the morning with the trailer in case the cow needs a vet. I was heading over earlier when my axle boot tore. Oh, geez," he takes a larger-than-a-sip of scotch, clinks the glass down, and rubs his hand through his hair. "It's one thing after another."
Then he refocuses on her. His grin looks a little tired this time. "But really. If you want to hitch a ride down with me, it's no problem."
Avery ChaseAvery gives him a full eyeroll, softening it only after the fact with a sweet smirk tossed his way. A hundred miles. The horror. "I brought down an elk tonight, thank you," she reminds him.
After another small sip of the whiskey, she sets the glass down, leans forward, and begins to cut into the rested elk steak. The scent of it appeals to her no less than the smell of it when it first died, when she first ripped through its throat and hot blood rushed over her. It's just a different sort of appeal.
He looks stressed. She eyes him, then smiles, just as sharp as ever. "Elegantly played, Mr. White," she tells him. "I shan't be put in your debt so easily."
A bite of meat goes into her mouth. She chews, smirking at him with her lips closed together.
Calden WhiteAs she begins eating, he too -- reminded, perhaps, or perhaps just subtly waiting for his guest to begin -- picks up his utensils and begins to cut into his steak. His cut is thicker than hers, and he helps himself to a few spoonfuls of the leftover salad.
His eyes flick to her as she smirks. And he grins back, shoulders relaxing. "Damn," he exaggerates a fingersnap, "I thought maybe the sob story would get your defenses down."
Avery ChaseShe chews, she swallows, she dabs at her mouth with her napkin and then picks up her knife and fork to cut another piece off. Her smile at him is wry. "I am a Philodox." No 'child of the half moon' or 'born with Luna's face half-veiled behind the shadows of night' or any of that. She is more than her birth. She was not simply born on the right night. She is this. It is a title and a duty both. She has become it.
"We are not so easily fooled. And no more gentle than an Ahroun."
The second bite is popped in. Her teeth tear it to shreds, hidden behind those lightly tinted lips.
Calden White"I wouldn't make the mistake of thinking any wolf was gentle," he replies.
The scotch whisky is, as she'd requested, smoky. Not the smokiest she's ever had, but enough to bring out the charbroiled flavor in the fresh, fresh meat. The outsides of the steaks are seared, but the insides -- particularly hers -- are pink verging on red. The juices that run across the plate are, for lack of a better word, still a little bloody.
"So what's in Denver?" he asks. "You mentioned you were going to present yourself to the Sept. Septs?"
Avery Chase"Septs," she says, after another round of chew, swallow, dab. "Though I will spend most of my time in the city, there is only the one caern, and I will be bound by both love of Gaia and loyalty to duty to protect it. As are we all."
She lifts her glass to take a drink. "And in Denver, I suppose there is much of what is in any city. Medium to tall buildings. Many people. Art, theatre, music, fine dining, et cetera. Apparently there is also a sculpture of a giant blue bear." Her eyebrows flick up: ooh la la. They come down again, she drinks a longer pull of the whiskey and hisses with something between burn and pleasure or pleasure at the burn.
Calden WhiteEven chewing, that frequent, wry smile of his reappears. After he swallows and wipes his mouth on his napkin he replies, "I'm trying to pry here, Avery. What I mean is: why Denver? You don't strike me as a local girl. If you've come a long way to get here ... did you just toss a dart at a map or something?"
Avery Chase"Always the true price of Fianna hospitality," she says, and there's teasing in it but a kernel of belief behind it. "You want the sob story, as you put it."
She doesn't flinch from the truth. She saws into the steak, which only releases more of its thin red juices onto her plate. "There is an Adren of my tribe where I come from who only refrains from breaking me in half on sight because her honor forbids it and her mate,"
those two words come with difficulty,
"would be troubled by it." Avery gives a small shrug. Her eyes skipped away for a moment, but return. "And I am not inclined to live on the west coast, though I have enjoyed my stays there in the past. Denver is one of the few areas in the middle that I find tolerable, and which my father and brother could be convinced would not be miserable."
Calden WhiteCalden reads a story there between the lines. A scandal, in truth. Perhaps it's not the truth; perhaps it's inadvertent that her words seem to paint the framework. But he hears it there, and he sees the skip of her eyes away and back.
He considers her a moment. Then he leans forward, resting a forearm along the table's edge -- etiquette breach! -- and picks up his scotch in the other hand. The amber liquid revolves around the glass. He takes a sip before he answers.
"I was curious," he says. "A sob story or a laugh story or no story at all but a clever deflection would've all satisfied me. It's true that I think there are few better ways to pass an evening than to share a drink and a story with a stranger, but -- "
his eyes find hers. It is still too dark to see their color, but perhaps there's green in them, just like there's a touch of roan in his hair, just like there's a touch of Stag in his blood.
"I'm sorry things went south and you had to get out of town, Avery. I wouldn't want that sort of sob story from anyone, let alone you."
He extends his glass across the table again. Another mute toast.
Avery ChaseThere is more to that story. She gives no reason behind this Adren's hatred of her, and perhaps she doesn't even notice what her voice does, how it hitches, when she mentions that Adren's mate. Calden fills in the blanks as he will, but he asks no more questions, and she does not know what he assumes. Or what he sees.
Her eyes glance at his forearm on the table, but they are not dining formally. Only one fork, after all. Only two courses. Only two guests.
Something about his words makes her fight a smile. There's just something so potently stereotypically Stag about how he likes to pass an evening. She drinks her scotch, slowly draining the glass. She is fresh to this altitude from a lower one; what he poured her would not, should not affect her as quickly or as strongly as it is, but she finds herself quite loose as the alcohol spreads warmth through her limbs.
"I did not have to," she corrects him, mild but immediate. "It was simply the wisest course of action that satisfied several needs at once." She tips their glasses together, and drinks, because it is ill luck not to drink after a toast, even a silent one. "Besides, my brother likes to snowboard. It's awful; you'd think he would at least learn to ski like a gentleman." She shakes her head, setting her glass down to eat more of her steak. "Do you ski, Calden?" she asks him as she cuts, looking over at him. She keeps switching: first name, last name. No name.
Calden WhiteHe's looking at her as she fights the smile, and so he sees it tugging, and there's this look in his eye: I know, I know, don't say it. So his apology ends up not quite so heartfelt, a little more laughing, at least there at the start.
It's still an apology, though . And she still corrects it. And he still taps his glass to hers, and drinks, and then sets the glass aside to stab pieces of cut steak with his fork and ferry them to his mouth. None of this fork-in-the-left-hand-knife-in-the-right stuff for him; he trades hands like she trades names for him.
"I know how," he says. "I skiied more when I was a kid. And there were a couple ski trips in college. But these days, not so much.
"You? What do you do for fun? Other than dance in direwolf-form over the carcass of your kill." And he's smirking again: oh yes, he saw.
Avery Chase"Ohh," she says, as though thinking about it. "As I mentioned before, I do like to read. I do that quite a lot, actually. I enjoy shopping and giving gifts for my loved ones and acquaintances. There's also dancing and theater; culture and nightlife. I played tennis in college. I still enjoy that on occasion. As for skiing, it's not nearly as enjoyable as simply running through the snow on my own feet, but it can be pleasurable."
She smiles at him, unabashed at her dancing. "It's much easier to hunt prey on lands like these, as well. And that is fun in its own desperate, gasping way. Especially if you start hungry."
Calden WhiteNone of what she says surprises him or fits ill against the picture he's forming of her. Likes reading. Likes shopping and gifts. Like dancing, likes theater, likes culture. Plays tennis. He can believe that.
"Thanks for not taking down one of my steers," he says. "I wouldn't have faulted you, but it's appreciated. And you know -- if you're hungry or tired or just plain bored, you can always stop by. There's a reason I've got a guest suite downstairs."
Avery ChaseBeautiful, blonde, statuesque, educated, cultured woman likes shopping, reading, dancing, tennis.
Slaughtering prey animals with her fangs and claws, tearing meat from ribcages until she can't stuff herself full of its tender organs any more.
Avery flicks her brows. "A steer isn't a challenge," she tells him. "Cattle are more tame. It takes so much longer for them to tap into that frantic need to survive when they're raised to be slaughtered. Now a bull..."
But she's teasing. She listens to his offer and shakes her head. "I'm sure your father would have Thoughts on that as well."
Calden WhiteHe laughs: "Hell, lady, we'd have words if you took down one of my bulls. I've only got six.
"Yeah," he sighs, "he might. But my dad can have all the thoughts he wants. I've always kept this house open to Garou and kin that need it or want it. That's not going to change. Where else am I going to find strangers and stories? I'm not big on the bar-and-nightclub scene."
Avery Chase"Oh, I'd get you a new one," she says, her eyes and her tone twinkling, mocking, and contrite. She's also sincere, though; she'd buy him a new bull if, in a fit of hunger and rage, she tore apart one of his only breeding bulls. "I'd get you two for your trouble."
She means that, too, and seems faintly excited by the idea. She grins, flashing her teeth, and chuckles. "I am eager to meet this father of yours. I always get very amused by people who disapprove of me. I like to practice the faces they make in the mirror and use them on other wolves."
Calden White"You can't get me two," he retorts promptly, straightfaced. "That'd be too many and they'd fight over the pretty young heifers come summer."
And then he laughs - loudly enough that the sound echoes off the high slant of the ceiling. "Well, for what it's worth, I'm sure he'd approve of you just fine. He tends to reserve his nitpicking for his own."
Calden drains the last of the whisky from his glass. After a moment's consideration, he pours a little more. Splashes another shot into her glass, too.
"So what are you gonna do when you get down to Denver tomorrow?"
Avery Chase"Then he and I can nitpick you all together. We'll be old chums in no time," she tells Calden, quite seriously, until she can't help but grin at the end. He splashes some more scotch into her glass and she laughs, bright. His laugh rose and resounded against the warm, golden wood. Hers shoots up like a star falling in reverse, then bounds about the rafters.
They said something about the first baby laughing for the first time, and what that sound created. Someone wrote about it. Someone who never, ever really grew up. It sounds like that. Like it could create fairies.
"Nurse a hangover, apparently," she tells him, amused at the idea. She shrugs. "Or wash up at the hotel and get ready to receive my father and brother and the members of staff who will be arriving with them. The house is still being decorated. We'll tour the city, acquaint ourselves with the area, stop in and observe the progress on the house, give the designer some notes, have a nice dinner somewhere."
She pauses, thoughtful. "Perhaps play Scrabble."
Calden WhiteAnother laugh - quieter this time, a huff of breath and a flash of teeth. He pours anyway. He pours generously, because of course he does, and then the cork wedges back into the bottle and he sets it aside.
It feels like there should be a fire in the hearth. It feels like they should be gathered around the fire, perhaps with music, perhaps with friends old and new. But it's just the two of them, with those overlight spotlights falling in perfect dinner-plate-sized circles all down the length of the table.
"Are you all living together? Your father and brother and you -- an intergenerational household?" He mirrors those bookish words of her back at her with only a hint of teasing. "Or is your brother -- you said he was at college, didn't you?"
Avery Chase"We will be, yes," she answers, swirling the scotch and inspecting its legs before she takes a sip. She ignores his teasing his time, because she's simply too noble, you see. "There may be other properties involved down the line, but that way we can all look after one another. Besides. I wouldn't want to break up the staff. They're very distant family, themselves. We must treat them better than we would human servants, with more mind to their long-term welfare."
She looks at him through the scotch, then the glass, then the air. "We should build a fire. And play Scrabble, if you have it. I may not be able to trounce you in games of hospitality, but I will destroy you in Scrabble."
She remembers, a moment too late and her mind skipping backwards and forwards throughout their conversation, that he asked her yet another question: "My brother is in high school. For a little longer, anyway. He's a decade my junior." She gives a world-weary sigh. "He'll be going to 'South' high. Is there anything sadder than a school with a name that unimaginative? Practical, and I do see that, don't think I misunderstand the usefulness of the designation, but it just sounds so bland."
Calden WhiteHe's getting that unavoidable quirk to his mouth again. "My last name is White," he reminds her, and then stabs up the last bits of meat and vegetable on his plate.
With it cleared, he stands, hold his hand out for her plate if she's finished. "I don't have Scrabble," he says, "but there's a billiards table downstairs, and I'm pretty sure I've got Clue."
Avery Chase"You're Fianna," she tells him. "I'm sure your name is actually something that looks completely unpronouncable but, in actually, sounds exactly like 'white' in English."
She has eaten most of the steak, leaving only a thin line of meat on the plate. She looks thoughtfully at it, then nods: he can have it and she won't snap his arm off in her teeth. "Clue with two people isn't much fun." Which really only leaves the one other option.
Leaning back in her chair, she watches him head to the kitchen. Her eyes look drowsy from alcohol, but she's still talking quickly and -- at times -- talking a lot. She doesn't slur. When he turns back toward the great room, and her eyes drag back upward to look him in the eye, she asks: "We won't disturb your father, will we?"
Calden WhiteCalden smirks. "You're right. I actually spell it M-A-C-F-A-O-I..." he screws up his face for a moment, one eye squeezed shut to think, "...T-I-G-H."
He takes her plate from her. She leans back. He's turning to go and she looks at him. It's not a hearthfire but alcohol that glimmers in her eye. She asks him something that gives him just a beat of pause. He's quite still for a moment, head tipped a little, this odd, alert look on his face.
"Doing what?" And then he figures it out. "Oh, billiards?" He huffs a laugh; feels silly. "No. The table's downstairs and my dad lives over in the corner room." He nods over his shoulder. "Walls are thick."
Avery ChaseShe's still seated, her forearms resting on the arms of the chair. Every chair is a throne to her. She may still be sitting up straight, but her head is slightly lowered, animal and intent. Her fingernails rake slightly, soundlessly, against the wood beneath her hand. Even regal, she can be languid. Even languid, there is a vibratory energy around her, like keeping still for even a few moments is driving her mad.
One has to remember: they are all mad. All of them. Some hide it better than others. But they are all out of their minds, and just as a good story is the cost of Fianna hospitality, madness is the price of their purity, their strength, and their power.
Avery exhales, a puff of air that is not laughter this time, though it should be, at his momentary lapse of comprehension. Doing what.
"Are they."
Calden WhiteSo maybe it wasn't just his mind wandering in scandalous directions, hearing things that weren't there. The plates are still balanced on his broad palm, hovering forgotten in midair. Their eyes meet. The very air around her nearly quivers with her presence, her restrained and langourous energy. He remembers how she took that elk, leapt and sank in her teeth and tumbled it to the ground, dead in an eyeblink.
He has an image in his mind. It pulls into focus all of its own accord, sharp and hot as the taste of blood: those longfingered hands of hers gripping the front of his shirt, tumbling him down on the smooth red felt of his billiards table, climbing over him
just like an animal.
He puts the plates down after all. A knife slides from one side to the other, doesn't clatter to the tabletop. "Very," he assures her.
Avery Chase"Fantastic," she says, smiling again. That smile would be wry in any other moment, but there's something almost sinister about it now. No, not sinister: wicked, maybe. Coy? A little.
Her palms press; she rises up the way she has every time he's seen her do it. But she can't stay still for long. She picks up her glass by the rim, carrying it with her. "And so odd that you don't have Scrabble," she comments, walking back towards the stairs she initially ascended after her shower. She doesn't look back to see if he's following. "What sort of a host..."
Avery doesn't finish that. She starts walking downstairs.
Says, behind her:
"Bring the scotch, won't you?"
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