dead or alive.

-black hat gunslingers-

The jail: two cells, iron-barred, one stuffed with two snoring men, the other with three. One appears to be passed out. One has his back in the corner, shaving his nails with a short, blunt-looking knife. The third man's hanging his arms out of the cell, leering at the females as they enter.

"BAWS," he brays. "BAWS, YOU AIN'T TOLD ME YOU WERE HAVIN' LADY FRIENDS COME OVER. BAWS."

"Shut the fuck up, Rollins," his neighbor one cell over snaps, sitting abruptly up in his cot. He sees the women too. Tugs a forelock. Flops back down; promptly snores.

The deputy guarding them is sitting on a plain wooden chair behind a plainer wooden desk. He is young, early 20s, blond. He's painstakingly writing a letter in a wobbly hand. Passing him, Avery and Charlotte can see the beginnings of a letter:

Dearest Anabelle,

and he nods at them as they pass. "Ma'ams," he says, and goes back to his letter.

There's an inner room. Thick walls, thick oaken door. A big desk, grand for this dusty little town. A big revolver right on the tabletop, within easy reach. Behind the table sits Boss, Sheriff Lark, the man who apparently summoned them. Or called for them. He has hair dark as a raven's wing, greying at the temples. A severe, gaunt-cheeked face marked by sun and wind and a bullet-graze to the cheek. Blue eyes, very pale, like light glinting off the barrel of a gun.

He is unmistakably kin to the Nation: a Shadow Lord, besides.

Like his underling, he too is writing, but it does not appear to be a personal letter, and his hand is swift and sure. As they enter, he studies them a moment. Then he throws down his pen and barks a short laugh. "A lawman and medicine man, they told me, and wouldn't give me names when I pressed. Well, now I know why." He stands, affects a small bow. "Ladies. Shut the door and we'll talk."

Black Sheep

Charlotte frowns at the boy thoughtfully and catches, see, the sharp edge in his eyes. Her pale brows are drawn together and her gaze lingers on him for some time, as if stuck, and it is the horror she feels everytime he shifts that wad of tobacco in his mouth, every time that browish, staining spit sluices across his stained teeth.

"You know your mouth is turning to brown goo."

This when he tells them not to dawdle.

--

In the jail, she's all alert, darting glances at the prisoners, alternatively wary and ... well, warier, the animal sort of wariness that human strangers in groups larger than three or four tend bring out in her. There's enough politeness in her that she does dip her head and avert her eyes from the man who tugs respectfully in their direction, but she shifts her grip on her bow, thinking about how the sweep of her skirts against the floor sound like the movement of the window through winter-bare trees.

Soon as they're in the Sheriff's office, Charlotte resolves to let Avery do the talking. He tells them to close the door and she returns around rather swift, finally letting go of Avery's arm to reach and pull the door solidly closed.

Reverence of Dawn

Avery's eyes are cool against the boy -- for he is a boy, and younger even than her brother, who will be a boy to her even when he becomes a father in his own right. She intends, at some point or another, to show that would-be gunslinger just why anyone would call upon her for aid.

When they reach the jail, she pauses, turning to look at him. It's a moment after Charlotte has told him that his mouth is turning to brown goo. "You," she says, directly, her voice weighted with authority but soft as velvet, "will learn to speak to me with respect. You may learn on your own, if you can. Or I will instruct you."

Her eyes stay on his for a moment longer, cementing the certainty she speaks with -- it is not a threat, it is not a request. It is an inevitability. He may choose his own path from there. After that moment, Avery takes her eyes off of him again, walks into the jail, and looks around, observing the prisoners without judgement or concern. She walks steadily, slowly toward the room they're being led to, and when she is inside, she reaches up, unties the ribbon from under her chin, and removes her bonnet. She shakes out her hair, and there is sunlight aplenty here to shine off of it.

A lawman and a medicine man, he asked for. They sent him two ladies, one with a bow and arrow, one with a fucking bonnet.

Avery inhales the smell of him and considers it. She turns to look at Charlotte, wondering what the Theurge makes of this, but Charlotte is quiet, and Avery slowly turns her gaze back to Sheriff Lark. The door is closed. Avery steps forward, hair loose around her cheeks, brushing her shoulders.

"You may call me Merriweather. My cousin you may refer to as Miss Lightfoot. Now," she says, and then gracefully seats herself across from him, perched on the edge of a chair, folding her hands on her lap, "what seems to be the trouble?"

-black hat gunslingers-

Addressed so by Avery, the boy doesn't quite blanch, but something about his demeanor does shift. The smirk he sent Charlotte when Charlotte commented on his - er - charming tobacco habit: that goes away. His back straightens a bit, like maybe he was about to face off with the Fancy Lady, but then he seems to think better of it.

"Miss," he mutters, evidently directed at both of them, and slouches off.

--

Charlotte closes that heavy oaken door. It's several inches thick, quite possibly the most valuable piece of wood in this shantytown, and solid enough to stop a bullet. Certainly solid enough to stop conversation from wafting through -- though there is that hole-in-the-wall behind Lark, which passes for a window.

He leans back in his chair to glance through that window. Makes sure no one's eavesdropping outside, and turns his attentions back on the ladies. Avery introduces them, and he snorts. "Merriweather's a man's name," he says, "and Lightfoot's an Injun name. I reckon neither of you is either of those."

That's where Lark's interest in the matter seems to end, though. He pulls a sheet of coarse paper out of his desk, poorly pulped and poorly bleached, flecks of wood still visible in the weave. Lark slaps it face-up on the desk.

PROCLAMATION:

$1,000 REWARD

for the arrest or capture

DEAD OR ALIVE

of notorious robber and murderer

SHERMAN KANE

and an additional $250 reward for the arrest or capture of each of the seven men

of the KANE BROTHERS GANG

"The Kane brothers," says the sheriff. "Sherman, Richard and William. Three of the meanest sons of bitches this side of the Mississippi, accompanied by four of the meanest sons of bitches this side of the Rockies. Killed a hundred men, made off with half the gold in the Rockies, and torched a dozen homesteads in the last three years. Last seen three days' ride down the South Platte -- two days ago.

"They're comin' here next. They're comin' for us. And word has it they've got more than guns up their sleeves. Word has it they've got black magic on their side. That's why I called for men, claws and magic from the Sept. I suppose I'll have to settle for ladies, bonnets and slingshots."

Black Sheep

Charlotte puts the longbow aside once the solid door is solidly closed. Within reach, the bow, and flattens her mouth and frowns at the Shadow Lord with this darting look that feels stolen because she never looks at him fully and looks rather sullenly away from him if he ever fixes her with his eyes rather than Avery. She always seems younger than she is at home, though perhaps that does not translate to this time, when even younger counts as: fully adult, when adolescence was not yet defined as a nebulously extended period from late childhood to oh, early middle age.

But see: arms cross beneath the bodice of her simple white gown, she hangs back until he sets out that wanted poster and then she lifts her chin, craning forward to study it and then lifting a covert little glance back at the sheriff as he continues.

"I have claws," she shoots back when he dismisses both slingshots and bonnets and ladies too and the words are as sullen as the look she shot him. Then shoots Avery a sidelong glance, her brow furrowed as she mutters, " - wait, that means that's today," aloud.

Then she straightens her shoulders and cuts another look out through that hole in the wall that is the window, assessing the early morning light. "How much time do we have to prepare?"

Reverence of Dawn

With the six-shooter concealed neatly in that voluminous skirt, Avery feels no need or desire to reveal it, to set it aside, or to indicate that she wouldn't use a weapon on the kinsman. Different times; she doubts that the kingship of her tribe even in this era holds any weight with some Shadow Lord kinsman in the west. The wild west.

Calden is going to be so jealous, she thinks, with a surge of wicked glee deep down.

Lark comments on their names, and Avery politely does not roll her eyes, but leans over to look at the wanted poster. Seven men. Goodness. She listens to Lark, then looks to Charlotte, who she notices keeps dodging direct eye contact with the sheriff. Her brow gives a tiny furrow, but she does not comment or question for now. She looks back to Lark, her expression serious. A hundred men. Half the gold. A dozen homesteads. She wonders just how much of that is hyperbole, until he tells them that this gang might have black magic.

Avery is looking at Lark when Charlotte says she has claws, and when she hears that, Avery's lips spread in a slow smile that is more pleasure than smirk. Charlotte gathers that they have extraordinarily limited time now, and Avery only looks more pleased. "You have," she says, addressing Lark, "no [i]idea[/i] what my magician here can do with a slingshot."

She was listening at the moot. Oh yes.

Charlotte asks what time they have, and Avery nods, looking to Lark.

Black Sheep

Avery's slow spreading smile has Charlotte warming to her immediately. Gravitating toward her, like few errant iron shavings towards a magnet. Like a lodestone. Instinct has Charlotte shifting her stance and sort of sidling until she is standing beside the philodox, though just a step or two behind, and on the left, rather than the right.

Flanking her as if she were a Queen, see.

Tyrant of me, ruler of wolves.

Charlotte's pleasure in Avery's compliment is sudden and bright and sweet and vicious, all at once. It births a smile that shows teeth in an all-at-once flare.

"Uh, and uh, if you know maybe," Charlotte continues then, pale eyes on Avery's profile rather than the kinsman's, " - where they're coming from. If there's a good place to uh, set up an ambush. Or just what they'd be going for, I guess like the bank? That'd be good too."

-black hat gunslingers-

"Well, I sure hope I find out just what your magician is capable of," Lark replies to 'Miss Merriweather', his moustache giving a sardonic tilt. Then his cool eyes flick to 'Miss Lightfoot'.

"They might be here by sundown. They might be here tomorrow. They might be here a week from now. Depends on how occupied their last haul keeps them, and for how long. Chances are they'll be coming out of the south, but we can't be sure. I've got my two scouts riding up and down the trails keeping an eye out, but you ladies oughta know better than most how easy it can be to slip that net if you've got the extraordinary on your side. All you can count on is that they won't be coming from across the South Platte River. That'd give us a tactical advantage, and they ain't stupid."

There's a beat. Then Lark leans forward, looking from one Fang to the other.

"You'll forgive me, ladies, for abradin' your delicate ears with this talk. But you're what the Sept sent me, and you deserve to know what you're walkin' into.

"When the Kane brothers ride into town, they come with demands. The money. The precious possessions. The food stored up for winter. The horses, the mules, the alcohol -- everything. They want it all dumped out in the streets for them to pick over.

"And they want the women, too. The men. The children. Anyone who might prove entertaining. They want every livin' soul lined up on the streets, and then they take their pick.

" 'Course when this all started, towns would resist. Sheriffs, deputies, gunmen, sometimes even rival outlaws squattin' pretty in some tribute-payin' town -- they'd put up quite the fight. And Sherman Kane welcomed the resistance. He applauded it. He told them: that's mighty brave of you. If you beat me, then hats off to you. But if not, I'll raze every last buildin' to the ground, kill every last livin' soul.

"And that's what happened. The Kane brothers won. They had their pick. And then they put the rest to torch. Three towns butchered like that, and the rest got the message.

"So now when the Kane brothers ride in, people don't even fight. They just lie down where they are and wait. Sherman Kane takes what he wants, and then he leaves the rest untouched. 'Better this way', I've heard the sheriffs and mayors of those yellowbellied towns say.

"Better this way.

"I mean to put up a fight. I don't expect to survive it, and I don't particularly expect anyone else to either, but this town sure as hell is not gonna roll over for these mongrels of the Great Defiler. So if you ladies wanna clear out, I won't think poorly of ya. But if you stay -- well. You know what you're signin' on for."

Reverence of Dawn

Of the two of them, it is Charlotte's purity that shines, as clear as crystal, and as glistening as unalloyed silver. But there is a brittleness that comes from such purity, a closeness to the sun and to Falcon and to sheer, unadulterated madness. Avery can smell it every time Charlotte moves near her; she could find the girl across the city, could find her buried ten feet underground, could find herself staring at her, staring, for thoughtless hours until she lost herself quite entirely in ancient memory of what they all used to be:

so perfect.

Indeed, she is drawn to Charlotte as much as the girl seems drawn to her, but it is possible that Avery would draw people like this without a drop of queenly blood in her veins, without a hint of her tribe's history. She is extraordinarily charismatic. She is lovely -- nay! Let's be honest: she is gorgeous in a warm, touchable way that makes people want to grow closer, closer, rather than shy their eyes from her glory. She likes people. She sees the good in them, sees the best in them, and lauds them for it.

People don't want to disappoint her. People don't want to lose that trust, that goodwill that seems so personal, so insightful. People don't want to lose the feeling of someone looking at him, really looking at them and really seeing that thing they're good at and that thing they like about themselves and then drawing it out and naming it. People, most of the time, just want that recognition. They want to feel known, and to feel that what there is to know about them is

wonderful. Just splendid, as she says.

So yes: people are drawn to her. Wolves and kin and men and women and monsters, because of her purity and her beauty and the power of her voice and all these things, but it is nothing compared to the instinctive, kneejerk feeling Avery has when she looks at Charlotte. She must be protected. She must be heeded, for there is truth and discernment swimming in those pale, round eyes that see through the moon to the darkness that spreads over it every month. She must be feared, the way that all who are wise fear those who hear the voices of the dead and the invisible.

"Oh," Avery murmurs with an equally sardonic smirk right back to Lark, "sir, I do share your hope. Deeply."

--

Sundown. Might be from the south. And of course: might come in a week, might come a different direction. Avery shakes her head at the mention of their last haul, about to speak, but stays her tongue as Lark leans over to describe... horrors and abominations.

If you ladies wanna clear out --

Her eyes have darkened with his tales. And rage has flared within them, re-igniting their color. Avery lifts her hand to halt his speech, and perhaps he has cousins or brothers or parents or children who are wolves and he can sense the roar in her, sense it licking at his face like a fire, the way it rises up from her like a maelstrom that will turn the sky black and suck whole ships into oblivion. Avery's breathing has quickened. She exhales, after a moment, unable to speak the words she paused him in order to say until she reins herself back in.

"Their last haul will not keep them long. The Defiler is also the Beast of War is also the Eater of Souls; the hunger does not abate as it is fed, but grows. Soon enough they will begin to eat the mules and the horses. Then they will eat the women, the men, and the children. And all the while, they will be devouring all hope. All resistance."

Avery lays her hand on the table between her and the Sheriff, her eyes on his eyes, her hand inches from his hand. "You are a glory to your tribe and to Gaia in your refusal to give them so much as an inch," she says, and the words are almost a snarl with fervor, "and I will be honored to tear them to pieces beside you."

There is a mere beat of a pause, and he may know, somewhere deep in the back of his mind in this moment, that at times the rage of a werewolf... really isn't that far from the destruction of the Wyrm.

"Because we will," she murmurs, holding that gaze. "Rip them to pieces.

"And burn them alive."

-black hat gunslingers-

It is hard not to rouse to that fervor, that certainty, that force of personality as magnetic as the sun, as potent as a punch. Perhaps even hardboiled, grim, cynical Old West sheriffs can find it in themselves to be swayed by it,

if only a little,

and if only so subtly as a new hardness in his eyes; a shifting of his weight. He laces his fingertips atop his desk and atop the set-aside letter he was penning when they entered.

"I got three deputies, every one of 'em kin. They got sharp eyes and fast hands, and if you give 'em a rousin' speech they'll follow you like puppies. I'll leave 'em in your hands.

"Most the miners came out here alone, thank god, but a few morons felt it best to bring the whole family. Unless you got someplace else for me to be, I'll take the women and children into hiding across the river. There's a ravine out there that one man can hold for hours with a good rifle in his hands. We'll pray the devils don't go that way, but if they do I'll keep 'em occupied 'til the women and children get away.

"Other than the four of us wearin' the star, not many in this town know how to fight. Not many are armed beyond some rustin' flintlock their grandpappy gave 'em. But I reckon a few might rally to you if you stick their backs to the wall hard enough.

"The most defensible building in town is probably the bank. But the ruffians'll burn half the town if you meet 'em there. Otherwise Elijah Barnes had the cockeyed idea of building a stone mansion for him and the missus on the south end. He only managed to build half before he ran out of money, but it's still a fortress compared to the rest of the houses. And on the north end, Mayor Watson's house is pretty sturdy. And I'll wager he'll be mighty pleased if you manage to save his home."

He looks from one Fang to the other, and back.

"You ladies have any questions for me before I introduce you to the deputies?"

Black Sheep

Oh, Charlotte is quiet as the conversation continues, but sometimes, at odd times, strangely fierce. Her mouth is closed and still and she is solemn and no one is studying her, but see - she feels the lick and curl of that wrongness and that hunger up the column of her spine as Avery lays out the path of the Defiler, the Beast of War, the Eater of Souls, the unholy trinity and the hunger in them that will not be abated until the world is consumed. The girl's arms uncross, then, and her hands are fists at her side and there is a responsive and razor-lit gleam in her eyes as Avery accepts the challenge laid out by the kinsman, and pledges to

Rip them to pieces, and

burn them alive.

--

Charlotte is so disengaged from popular culture that the Western tropes hold little meaning for her. So she puzzles her way through the rest of it, the miners and their families, the women and the children, the deputies, every one of 'em kin and the ruffians and the strongholds and the rusting flinklocks and the grandpappies and it all seems so strange and weird when Avery stops speaking and the kinsman starts, though by now at least he has accepted that they are something other than ladies armed with bonnets and slingshots.

And for the first time Charlotte wonders, really wonders, where they are. In the Umbra or the physical world; in some pocket realm where the memory of the attack plays itself out again and again and again. In the atrocity realm, the battleground, the domain of some -

- so see, the girl's still listening but her attention is drifting, a bit fey, a bit mad, a bit detached, all around the room, pale eyes running speculatively over the very bones of the place. The planks in the ceiling and the wall. The window, through which a patch of dusty street, and sky outside, is visible.

She pushes her vision across the Gauntlet. Inhaling slightly with the effort, her attention detaching itself from the immediate and physical. Is there a gauntlet? Are there spirits on the otherside to whom she can appeal?

Then, quite abruptly, Charlotte comes back to the immediate, detaches her vision from the beyond. It is rather like waking up, suddenly and from a vivid dream, the wrenching shift in perspective.

As ever, she avoids eye contact with the Shadow Lord, but slides closer to Avery and lifts her chin toward the taller woman. Murmurs that she doesn't like the idea of men-with-guns, and that's how she says it, men-with-guns in such a distinct manner that it is clear that she never considers kin to be wholly men, trying to fight alongside them, going mad with fear or rage, who knows, at the sight of warformed Garou."Maybe if they'll fight, we can use them like a gauntlet, or a net, to funnel them to us if they come from positions we aren't expecting. And as scouts around the town, to warn of their approach."She wonders how mad the earth is here, over the men crawling in around and under her. How angry the river might be. She thinks about fire and how hungry it is; a different sort of clean-burning hunger than the Defiler Wyrm, but still: bright and sometimes insatiable. All it wants to do is: ignite, and smolder, and burn. Will water and earth talk? Could they be persuaded to make quicksand? To open up a sinkhole or unleash an earthquake that would shake the men from their mounts? All humming speculation behind her eyes."Which is closer to the river?" Charlotte thinks to ask, likely as he is escorting them to meet the deputies, or inviting the deputies into his office. "The mayor's house or the stone house?" Then, to Avery, "I like the stone house better." She doesn't know why, precisely, perhaps because it is unfinished, a potential ruin. But: she just does.

Reverence of Dawn

Three kinfolk deputies. The Sheriff himself will take the women and children across the river. The rest will, in a sense, need to be guided. Driven. Inspired. Avery breathes in deeply, then out, and considers the options laid out before them. Charlotte has other questions, some voiced and some not, but Avery seems... simpler. Not less intelligent, not by a longshot, and not opposed to complex thought and consideration, but: there is some insight into her character here. There's a need, and she answers it without concern for the when or where they are. This man is kin, though not of her tribe. His deputies are kin. His enemies are of the Wyrm.

She will ask where they are, and how they came to be here, later. For now she knows her purpose. Avery cleaves to that like a bride to a groom.

Her eyes skim to the Theurge when the Theurge returns from pressing against a wavering, rippling membrane and mentions, softly, that she does not like men-with-guns, and there's a flash of something like sympathy in Avery's eyes before she turns back to the sheriff.

"I am inclined to run out to meet the Kane Brothers Gang," Avery says, sweeping to her feet -- sweeping, yes, because there is nothing else to be done in those skirts of hers -- "before the town is more than a shimmer on their horizon. That may not be the wisest course, however." She pauses. "Sheriff, now that I know why I am here, I must requisition clothing of a more battle-ready nature, perhaps from one of your more slender male citizens or a young man."

Avery holds her bonnet, her pretty floral bonnet, and adds: "I agree with Miss Lightfoot. Mayor Watson shall have to pray for grace and then, if necessary, rebuild."

-black hat gunslingers-

[Shit, I realized I screwed the orientation of the town up in my head! The main street runs east-west, so instead of saying something about how most likely the Kane Brothers Gang would tear up half the town on the way to the bank, the Sheriff would probably just mention that the bank has the thickest walls, but a simple floorplan and not much opportunity for misdirection and ambush. The Mayor's house has a complex floorplan, but wooden walls. And the unfinished house is somewhere in between. Plus, unfinished.]

So far as Charlotte can tell, there is a gauntlet here. It is thinner than the one she is used to, but then -- Denver City is so much smaller in this time, and the West is still so very Wild. All her senses, somatic and supernatural, suggest that the world she is in now is real. Is her world; simply another timeframe of it. The mind shies away from the implications and repercussions thereof, though; the paradoxes of causality, the potential loops and bifurcations.

"The Mayor's house is in the west," the Sheriff answers, "a stone's throw from the river. The stone house is in the east. And you can see the bank if you look out the window," he nods window-ward.

"As for ridin' out to meet 'em -- well, that depends on my scouts catchin' sight of them before they're upon us. It's a possibility, though. Sherman Kane's got a curious sense of honor. He won't try to flank you or go around ya. If we find him and stand in his way, he'll fight us where we are. It's a risk, though. We won't be able to dig in, and if we fall they ride in unopposed."

And: she wants battle-ready clothing. Lark snorts under his breath, then raises his voice: "Charlie! Get in here."

The door behind them bangs open. The letter-writer from outside comes in, middle finger inkstained. "Boss?"

"The ladies need a change of clothes. Somethin' more suitable for ridin' and fightin'. Find the kid and tell him we're draftin' those pretty new clothes he was savin' for the harvest hoedown."

Black Sheep

Avery would like to ride out to meet them. Charlotte flashes a sudden grin, momentarily forgetting, perhaps, that a stranger is also in the room with them.

"That's how Erich likes to fight too," she says, this quick and wolfish curl to her mouth that belies her girlishness with a quick and feral show-of-teeth. " - except mostly he can't help himself." It's not honor or that firm, forward-seeking, forward-looking commitment to confrontation, it's some kind of innate - not bloodlust, not [i]specifically[/i]. Call it battlejoy.

But see: this glint of recognition and something else as Avery admits that it is not necessarily the best possible plan and then an almost covert glow of pleasure when her own is endorsed.

The sheriff calls for his deputies, summoning someone to bring them clothing more suited to war than whatever it is these garments are meant to be suited for: decorating the space men expect them to inhabit, perhaps. Charlotte sidles up to Avery and,

murmurs, with a wary glance at the Shadow Lord,

" - if we know where we are going to fight them I can try to summon some elementals. Maybe open a sinkhole beneath them or shake them from their horses or liquify the ground and break their ankles. Or, stuff.

"Maybe I have time to make some talens too. I've made arrows and stones, maybe I could find something that was what a bullet wants to be - " except Charlotte shivers, and seems more doubtful of this aspect of her drifting plans after a moment's thought, " - except guns seem all spidery to me. I hate spiders.

"It's better here. Can you feel it? We're close to the other side."

Reverence of Dawn

Avery attends to the man as he explains the setup of the houses, the available lots to resist the Kanes. Avery's eyes are serious, no matter how curving her smiles, how lilting her tone of voice. She is a lady, but so is the goddess Athena, with her steel-colored eyes and her helm and shield.

"I shan't ride to meet them, Sheriff," Avery assures him. "It is in my heart to do so, but the choice lacks wisdom. I do not know what their true strength is, and there are only two of us to give you aid that men alone cannot aspire to."

Like growing into a nine-foot-tall monster and ripping someone in half. Or igniting them with a thought, a word, a call for help.

Lark calls for Charlie, and Avery gives him a winning smile where she stands. "Oh, my," she says, of the fancy clothes the kid was saving for the 'hoedown'. Looks like she's looking forward to ruining that outfit forever for 'the kid', whoever that is. She wonders if it's the rude one from outside.

Meantime: Avery turns to Charlotte, nodding. "I think we have a few hours. If the spirits around us are prepared to guard us, that would be ideal. I cannot help you make talens, sadly." She thinks a moment, feeling the weight of the firearm in her pocket. Then she reaches out, resting a hand on Charlotte's shoulder, taking her eyes with her gaze. "There is a time and a place," she tells her, quietly, "to set aside our emotions, which are fleeting, and our fears and disgust, which are hindrances, in order to do what is necessary."

But then a pause.

"However," Avery adds, that hand on Charlotte giving a thoughtful squeeze, "the pain I can deal with a revolver is nothing compared to what can be done to the corrupted with no more than the weapons and judgement that Gaia gave me. My own strength is in my very nature and cleaving to it, honoring it with both intent and action. I believe your strength will be in doing what you know is closest to your true nature; if you despise the tools of the Weaver and the spiders that crawl across its work, then turning against that may only damage your integrity and weaken you.

"Call on what is pure and unviolated inside of you and around you," Avery tells her, softer still, "and that purity will shine with such glory that defilement will be nothing more than a dream to wake from."

Her hand slips from the other woman's. She straightens her shoulders and asks her also: "I leave the final decision of where we make our stand to you, in respect for the spirit of the place. But I do discourage the bank." She smiles.

-black hat gunslingers-

"Before you decide where to dig in," the Sheriff says, "I suggest havin' a look at your options and the lay of the land. Charlie,"

-- this, while Avery is speaking to Charlotte. This, while Avery is displaying that inspiration and emotional bolstering that, perhaps even more so than her bloodline or her charm or her eloquence, makes her such a remarkable leader --

"take 'em to the stables and get 'em saddled up. That bullheaded colt might do well for Miss Merriweather. And maybe that evenkeeled mare for Miss Lightfoot here. While they're picking out horses, get the clothing from the kid and round up the boys. Tell 'em to head over to the stables, because I'm leavin' them and the menfolk in the command of our lawman and medicine-man here.

"Meanwhile, I'll gather up the women and children and start packin' for a trip out to the gully." This is around where Avery finishes, and the Sheriff glances at her. "Unless you want me to do otherwise."

Black Sheep

Then, while the sheriff summons the boy and gives out his orders and directives - to which Miss Lightfoot pays no particular attention, it should noted - Charlotte attends quiet seriously to Avery and Avery's counsel, tucking her head as the philodox rests a hand on her shoulder and listening with a certain level rather grave attention that makes Charlotte look like a child raised on funerals. That same stock-still solemnity that would assuredly accrue to the undertaker's daughter.

Nodding understanding or agreement with each suggestion until Avery comes to the last and tells - her. her? her, that she is leaving the final decision of where to make their stand up to Charlotte.

"Oh," a round mouth and a darting glance up at the sheriff, this little glance, hoping that Avery means the kinsman will chose, not her. But no: he is giving orders and summoning his men; he is laying out his plans to take the women and children to a point of relatively safety, or at least, a place where they can massacre themselves before they are so-massacred by the hungry men with worm-eaten hearts who ride on the town intent on destruction.

"Okay." At last, and softer than anything else she's said this strange, shifting, time-ridden day.

--

And then Charlotte waits until Avery has blessed the sheriff's plan for his own life or redicted him to a new plan. Waits until the summoned boy is escorting them toward the stables, and then and only then does she confide, very quietly, in Avery that she has never ridden horses.

Reverence of Dawn

Oh, dear.

Charlotte has never ridden. Avery has, though not for a very, very long time. She wonders if the horses in this time -- bullheaded and evenkeeled, as they are described -- can withstand their rage. She considers her own, and Charlotte's; they are hardly as horrendous as an Ahroun would be, but still: she wonders. Avery refuses to show it, however. She walks arm-in-arm with the Theurge if the Theurge allows it, head held high, face placid.

The Sheriff does ask her if she has another plan. Avery considers this for a long time, ticks of a clock, beats of a heart.

"I would prefer that you take a posse," she says, without irony at the word, "even if they are just a handful of sons who know how to shoot. Or at least one of your deputies. I would not have you stand alone for all the wives and children you are meant to guard."

She breathes in, deeply, chest expanding with it. "I will leave the choice to you. Even if you take your best marksmen, I would rather know that it is more than one man holding the ravine." She doesn't say it, but it's true: even his best marksman is not as dangerous, in the end, as Charlotte and Avery together. She believes this with all her heart.

They begin to walk again, and perhaps clothing is procured or they are led to horses in this time, but Avery's thoughts are turned inward. The delight in the strangeness of all this has settled like dust, leaving the true weight of what they are about to do. Or attempt. At the stables, later on, told that Charlotte cannot ride, Avery says only:

"These will be horses used to being ridden. If you give them trust, they will carry you without needing much guidance. They have been the companions of humankind for nearly four millenia, and perhaps even longer," and at this her voice falls, hushed, with some wonder. She turns to give Charlotte an aching little smile. "And we are not human," she murmurs, "but I wonder if these horses, in these stables, have carried wolves before. Their spirits may know that we will not harm them. They may not have forgotten. If all else fails," she adds, "you will ride with me in my saddle, and all shall be well."

-black hat gunslingers-

All shall be well.

It's hard not to rally to words like that. Such quiet confidence, such absolute conviction: so much so that one finds oneself wanting to make such a prediction true if only to prevent Avery from having told a lie. At least -- that's the look Charlie has in his eyes. A bit starstruck. A bit bedazzled.

The Sheriff looks a little more bemused. A little more world-weary. There's a tilt to his lip, but the droop of his mustache hides most of it. His cool eyes flick to his deputy.

"Charlie," he says, "why don't you come out to the gulch with me after you're done showin' the Misses to the stables. And put the word out to the town on your way back. Every man over sixteen is expected to arm himself and defend his own property at minimum. Volunteers who want to fight the Kane brothers ought to report to the Prickly Rose by -- " a glance at Avery for confirmation, " -- noon?

"Tell the boys under sixteen go with their mothers. Tell 'em anyone who knows how to wield a knife or a gun is expected to be a man today and aid in the defense of his mother and sisters. That'll put starch in their spines.

"I'll see you shortly." The Sheriff stands, lifts his hat from its rack, and tips it before setting it on the crown of his head. With an open hand he ushers the wolves toward the door, "Ladies. I'll say a prayer that your eyes are keen and your hands quick."