guns blazing.

Calden White

Griff's, it's called, and it's the sort of place you frankly wouldn't take your out-of-town friends on their first visit to Denver. Not unless they were really into the hole-in-the-wall, old-school-diner scene, or unless you didn't really want them to come back. Tiny, trashy, and looking suspiciously fast food-y from the outside, Griff's is perched on the south end of downtown, right on Broadway where it's been since bell bottoms and flowers in your hair were in.

The dining room is miniscule. There's a counter for regulars to grab a seat and watch the kitchen staff fry, grill, and fry some more. The rest of the seating is mostly booths with cracked vinyl seats and slightly sticky linoleum-topped tables; a few smaller tables with freestanding chairs. And the patio, of course, with its rain-stained umbrellas and Costco-food-court-style tables.

This. This is the place Calden picks out. This is the place that he, by all accounts a thoughtful and well-educated man who's turned his family's ancestral cattle run into a modern all-organic grass-fed fully-finishing ranch business, considers an appropriate site for a first meeting with a fellow kin of the Nation. A fellow well-established, deep-roots-in-the-area kin at that.

It better have damn good burgers.

--

When Lola pulls up, Calden's truck is already there. A late-model Silverado with all the bells and whistles, only the heavy-duty tow rig and the double axle in the back suggests that it is, in fact, a working ranch vehicle. The man himself is nowhere to be seen, which probably means he's already inside. And indeed, if Lola goes in and asks at the counter, she'll be nodded toward the back.

Calden, then: mid-thirties, unshaven, with thick dark hair in need of a trim that trends toward auburn when the light hits it right. Wide and solid across the shoulders, brawny, earthy, big hands roughened by work. He's wearing a red-checked shirt. Jeans. Cowboy boots. There's a beer in front of him, which he's only sipped at. And he's sitting with his back to the door, presumably to give her the honor of sitting in the better-defended spot.

Chivalry amongst the Nation. It's a different breed entirely.

Lola Hawkes

The vehicle that pulls up beside Calden's Silverado is similar only in that it's a truck with a bed. That's where the the similarities end. The truck that rumbles into the parking spot beside this spruced up working vehicle is a big old metal deathtrap. It's a pick-up that was made sometime in the early eighties, and its white paint is faded and dull, flaked off in areas and replaced with rust. The suspension squeaks, the frame rocks when you take a corner or a bump, and the gas milage is awful. But the truck runs, and it does a damn fine job of hauling the remains of fallen foes for proper disposal at the end of the day.

If there's any judgment to be passed on the establishment that Calden provided her with the name and address of over the phone earlier in the day, it's silent and buried where no one can see. When Lola walks in and glances about, she's more concerned with the smell of the place than the look of it. It smelled like fryer grease and mucky sanitizing solution, but she was okay with that. The counter is ignored, as are the people at it. Calden wasn't difficult to pick out from the other sparse in-and-out denizens of the dinner, so Lola approached the booth he'd set up shop in without asking for directions.

"Hey," is a greeting that meets his ear before she comes into his line of sight, some couple of feet behind his shoulder.

The woman he'll turn around to find is young, quite a bit so more than him. Somewhere in her early twenties, like so many still-alive Warriors tended to be. She was some mix of Native and Hispanic, for her features were strong and her dark eyes were set under heavily expressive eyebrows. She had long, dense black hair that was tied back in a simple ponytail at the nape of her neck, and no trace of make-up on her face or polish on her nails. She dressed plainly, in jeans and a comfortable gray pull-over sweatshirt.

More importantly than her face and clothes, though, was her posture and how her body moved. The woman stood strong and proud, with her chin rarely dipping and her shoulders never slumped. She seemed to be forever defying something-- time, nature, birth right. Though of average height, it was easy to forget that she wasn't actually six and a half feet tall after she left the room-- that's the kind of impression she made.

When Calden looks back, regardless of if he stands to greet her or not, Lola Hawkes will stick a hand out for him to shake. Though she's unsmiling for the moment, she seems sincere when she says: "Lola Hawkes. It's a god damn pleasure to meet you."

Calden White

Calden is familiar with people like Lola. Calden and his family: they are people like Lola. Folks who prize open land and cattle and crop more than any million-dollar mansion; a firm handshake and good strong eye contact more than any amount of asskissing; the fruits of hard labor more than any unearned gift or charity.

Which isn't to say he isn't a gentleman. Because he is, and perhaps more so than most men walking the streets these days. See: he still gets up when a lady comes into his presence. "Miss Hawkes," he says, and that's a miss and not a miz, "it's good to finally meet you."

When she's seated herself, he slides back in across from her. They sit a little offset: more room for both their legs. He slides one of the menus over to her. It's a laminated placard, the lamination clouded with use and time, and it looks like someone might've printed it off their home printer.

"I'd recommend the triple-giant cheeseburger meal," he says, straight-faced but for the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. "If you're going to clog your arteries, you might as well go whole hog. Sorry this isn't exactly a gourmet meal, but I promise you the beef here is great. One of my good friends in the business supplies this restaurant."

Lola Hawkes

Naturally, raised in a rural setting by a family with ranching values, Calden was a gentleman. He stood up for the lady that he was meeting for the first time, even if she had a reputation of being the farthest cry from a damsel that you could summon to mind. When they shake hands, her grasp is strong, and she does keep eye contact through the exchange.

The hooded sweatshirt stays on when she sits in the booth across from Calden, but spaced enough to make room for both sets of legs comfortably. She does push the sleeves of that sweater up her forearms, though, and accepts the plastic single-sheet menu that he provides for her. She glances down at the options, but has her attention pulled away from considering the options when Calden recommends one for her. The triple-giant cheeseburger.

For a moment Lola's jaw tightens and the corners of her mouth pinch up in something akin to distaste at the idea, and she shakes her head and looks back down to the menu. "Doesn't quite suit my tastes right now-- burger sounds rough." She glanced briefly down at the limited menu again. "Probably gonna go with the chicken instead." Something about how she stated that almost dared him to call her a pussy for going with white meat instead of red.

He probably doesn't, though, and he won't get too much opportunity for it because she's looking past him, over at the counter where two regulars are sitting chatting with one of the wait staff. "They do local meat here, though? Good on 'em. That'll make all the difference. Might have to swing by for a burger when I'm more in the mood for it next time I'm out here on patrol."

She doesn't make small talk very well, he can pick this up from her right out the gate. Lola is a direct person, blunt, straight to the point. She'd sought him out to discuss something in particular, no doubt, or at least she did so with some end goal in mind. Watching her body language and listening to her tone of speech, she doesn't seem the type to reach out and make friends just for the sake of it.

But, because she did have some kind of end goal in mind, no doubt, she still made an effort at socializing properly anyways.

Calden White

Well; he doesn't call her a pussy. But he does smirk outright.

"I'm sorry," all over-sincere apology, this, "here I thought with your reputation and your family's, you'd be wolfing down the red meat at every possibility. I'll be sure to suggest an all-vegan falafel place next time to better suit your tastes." The smirk relaxes into a smile, then. "I'm teasing," he adds warmly. "Order whatever you like. I won't judge. Much."

He turns, then, raising a hand to signal a waitress on the far side of the little diner. As she starts heading over -- taking her time to pour coffee for one of the regulars -- Calden turns back to Lola.

"Patrol?" He's openly curious.

Lola Hawkes

"I said I'd be back for the burger," Lola told him when he teasted about suggesting a vegan place instead. There was a bit of a fire in her voice, a defensiveness there when she'd insisted that she wasn't afraid of red meat, that she was planning her return to consume a burger, if only just to prove her point by now. When she'd met what she apparently percieved as a challenge on her willingness to eat like the Wolves do she'd looked up at him quickly, gaze even.

But he expresses that he was teasing, and his tone is warm and the smirk on his face is teasing but friendly. A second ticks by on some cloud-faced clock on the wall and in that span of time Lola seems to realize how she'd come across, that her hackles had gone up for no reason, and so she clears her throat and looks apologetic but doesn't communicate this vocally.

The poor dear. She's just so bad at making friends.

He'd gestured for the waitress to come over, and she started to make her way but paused to pour coffee for other customers. Lola took the time that the waitress was using to pour coffee to explain 'patrol' for Calden.

"Yeah. Making rounds, checking out dark corners, listening for screams and wails of anguish. Y'know-- seek out the things that He sends and make sure that I send them right back."

Calden White

At least Calden doesn't seem too put off by Lola's instant defensiveness. If anything, the Stagsman looks faintly apologetic -- sorry he'd made a joke too early, sorry he'd hit a sore spot, something.

Neither of them say much of it, though. They move on: she talks of patrols, he prompts for more information. She tells him. He quirks.

"As in you call in the info to the rest of the family, or as in you run in guns blazing?" -- and here they have to pause briefly because the waitress arrives. They order: Calden gets the double giant cheeseburger. Lola, meanwhile, gets what Lola wants.

The waitress departs. Calden waits until she's out of earshot before raising his eyebrows at Lola, waiting for the answer.

Lola Hawkes

Their conversation takes a brief lull when the waitress arrives. Calden orders himself a double burger, not a triple. Lola hands the menu up to the waitress and expresses that she'd like the number six combo and a coke. While the human woman is around Lola is impatient for her to leave. You see, Lola doesn't have a lot of experience interacting with regular human beings. She doesn't know what to say to them, what to talk about, or why she would even bother to care about what they could have to say. As far as she was concerned, they were the flock, and the ignorance that weighed down their brains and limbs and hearts made them precisely as simple as sheep.

But at least she has the decency not to make this too obvious. She's not cruel to the woman when they order, after all.

Once the waitress has gone away, Calden seeks clarification that Lola is willing to provide.

"Guns blazing." The Kinswoman adjusted her position and leaned back more comfortably in the bench that she sat. One arm slung up over the bench's back, and the other hand settled on the semi-sticky tabletop to idly push around a cream colored plastic salt shaker.

"See, I was supposed to be True Born. So I grew up that way-- learned to fight, learned to wage war and win it, right? Well, I hit like sixteen years old and get told 'nope, sorry, that's not the way things are', but by then it's already in my bones." Lola hasn't had to explain this to too many people. She doesn't stray away from the Sept of Forgotten Questions very often, and by now all of the Guardians new her face and her story. The Hawkes clan has been a part of the Sept going all the way back, in one way or another, after all. She isn't sure of what sort of reaction to expect from people when they learn she had a birthright stolen away by fate and poor predictions. When the news broke water at first everyone looked at her with big sorrowful eyes and it burned her so hot and angry that she would lash out in a fit of pubescent rage. Those looks stopped some time ago, though, so it's hard to say how she'd respond to them now if they were to come again.

"So I keep fighting. It's what I'm good at, and frankly where I think I belong anyway."

Calden White

Lola isn't the first kin Calden has met who wanted a place on the front lines. Most of them -- they're driven by something a little more predictable. Vengeance for a loved one. Jealousy of a loved one. Idealism. Youthful bravado. Something.

Stolen birthright, though. That's a new one.

"What do you mean," he asks, a touch more carefully this time, remembering her easy defensiveness, her painfully obvious lack of social radar, " 'supposed to be True Born'?"

Lola Hawkes

She'd caught his attention with the reason she gave for wanting to join the fray. He's heard plenty of excuses, reasons and motivations. However, a stolen birthright wasn't something he was familiar with. What did that even mean?

His tone was careful, like he was walking on eggshells. This woman was strange and unfamiliar. He's only heard about her, just as she's only ever heard about him. She knows that he's a Fianna kinsman who lives up north, and that she's never actually seen his face before although they've been Kin in the same geographic area pretty much all of their lives. He knows that she's part of a family tied to Forgotten Questions and that she's got some reputation toward aggression.

He sought clarification as to what a stolen birthright was, and Lola was willing to explain further. She starts out at a normal tone for the first couple of words, then remembers herself and drops it to something softer that won't branch out too far from their corner booth in the dinner.

"You know how when a baby's born, they'll take it to a Shaman to determine if it's True Born or not? When they did that for me, the Shaman told my parents that I'd be an Ahroun. No one questioned her, she was old and wise and hadn't been wrong before.

"Well, she was wrong. I kept waiting for the Change, and while it found the Cubs around me it never actually found me. My sister tried to push it on me, and I'd been in some places where it should've come, but..." She realized she was losing her point and shook her head a little. Just because she spent time with a pack of Galliards didn't make her one. "We went back to her, and she said that I was Kin, not True, that her first reading must've been murky or misguided or some shit.

"So here I had this right that I was brought up knowing would be mine, and then it was stolen away." She snapped her fingers. "Like that. But I don't think all that training and work and dedication should be put out to pasture because of it, you know?"

Calden White

There's a quiet irony in this not quite lost on Calden. That Lola should have been prophesied an Ahroun and turned out a kin; that she should have gone on to -- well, if not quite to resent her nature, then at least to be driven to overcome it, to make it as close to what she thought she would be as possible. And all the while, another woman in his life had quite the opposite story. Prophesied a kin. Raised a kin, treated as a kin, groomed for a useful life as a kin -- only to up and Change one day. And then: to miss the life she thought she'd have.

"I'm sorry," Calden says quietly. "That sounds like it would be devastating."

Their burgers arrive. The timing could be better; it interrupts a pensive moment. Still, Calden keeps his composure. He spreads a paper napkin in his lap and arranges the lettuce and tomato on his burger before mashing the top bun down on it.

Then, after the waitress is thanked and departs: "For what it's worth, I have a friend who had the exact opposite happen to her. She thought all her life she would be kin, and then -- she wasn't. And you know, I don't think she's any happier about losing what she thought was her future."

A small pause.

"She is happy with what she is, though. It's possible, I think, to regret losing something even while you appreciate gaining something else."

Lola Hawkes

Quiet follows her story, pierced by Calden's quiet apology. This is interrupted not by either of them breaking the quiet, but instead by the waitress arriving with their food. Calden arranged his burger in a way that would keep it from falling apart and told her a short story about someone he knew with precisely opposite the problem.

Lola plucked the pickles from her chicken sandwich, set them aside on the tray or plate or what-have-you that the food arrived on, and looked up at the rancher with eyebrows raised inquisitively.

"Ah... Winona, right? I know her."

She drinks about a quarter of her soda in one go before setting the cup aside and leans forward to take her sandwich up in both hands. He said that he thought it was possible to regret losing what she had, but still appreciate what she had gained. Lola's answer to that is a harsh, unapologetic scoff.

"Not sure what there is to be gained when the shoe's on the other foot here. Winona? She gained abilities-- she can go to the Spirits, she can Change, she can command Powers. Me? I lost all of that. Not sure what I gained to replace what was lost that couldn't have already been there in the first place, friend."

And the chicken sandwich is consumed, also a quarter of it gone before she takes her first break in eating.

Calden White

"I haven't the faintest idea who Winona is," Calden replies, that smile stealing back onto his face, "but obviously that's a more common story than most.

"You did lose all that," he adds, "but what you've gained is the ability to do what we're doing right now. Sit in a diner. Eat. Be anonymous, pretend to be human. Not get stared at like we're the worst sorts of monsters, even if we're just minding our own business.

"You also more than likely gained the opportunity to live a full life. Have a job. Do something with your time other than fight, fight, fight and die. Graduate college, get married, have kids, watch them grow up, watch them graduate college and get married and have kids of their own. Grow old. Die peacefully in your bed knowing -- not just hoping, but knowing -- your descendants have all done well for themselves, and your family's going to be fine without you."

Calden shrugs, a lift and fall of his shoulders. "It's not to say either one of the options is necessarily better than the other. It's just that for everything you think you've lost, I think someone like Winona could name something she's lost that you still have."

Lola Hawkes

Waxing poetic as he is, it seemed to Lola that Calden might have preferred that mundane type of life. He speaks highly of the opportunity to blend in to the crowd, to lead a normal life and have a job. He says that she could now get married, have kids, be a grandma and retire and get old and die peacefully in her bed.

The longer he talks, the more offended Lola appears. He gets to the point of saying 'Do something with your time other than...' and she's biting back some vocal ejaculation or other, and when it occurs to her that she has to actively try not to interject with her disagreement Lola reels it back in. She realizes how she's letting herself appear-- oh, not in front of Calden. She was glancing toward the patrons in the diner instead, making sure that she hadn't pulled their attention over their way. When the one gentleman glancing distractedly in their direction looked back away to his coffee, Lola looked back to Calden's face. This time, though, her expression is more restrained (not necessarily tempered or entirely quelled).

When he shrugs and concludes, Lola leans over the plate and the sandwich she has since put down upon it and taps her finger tip lightly on the tabletop between them to punctuate her point that she followed to make in a slowed (but not to the point of threatening yet) and low voice.

"That's what they are, White." The name, not the race, it's not like that. "We are with our Cousins. Our allegence doesn't lay with them, neither does our cause. To bleed into their society like that? To live in that world more than the one we belong to? Ain't how it's supposed to be. Sometimes that's how it has to be, for the purpose of money and saturation, but it isn't ideal.

"I was gonna be out there with them anyways. I wasn't gonna leave my post or put down my arms. You might have? 'Winona' might have," and yes, she's using the name Winona figuratively, representationally. "But not me. I just got shit taken away, right? I didn't bring nothin' back.

"So, stolen birthright. And that's why I keep on these patrols and go alongside the Cousins. 'Cause it's what I know, and what I was made for."

Calden White

Lola looks offended. Calden looks -- well. Not angry, not quite, but: a little flummoxed. A little put-off. The Fianna is frowning, no longer eating his burger; he's looking at Lola like something about her just doesn't quite compute for him.

At length he gives another shrug. "No one's asking you to lay down your arms. I've just met you. I don't mean to tell you how to live your life. I wouldn't, even if I knew you far, far better than I do.

"I just don't think going through life feeling cheated of something you never had in the first place is a very fulfilling way to live. And I think feeling constantly less because of what you do have is ... self-sabotaging."

Lola Hawkes

For a few moments they sat, both looking bothered and confused by one another. Calden couldn't grasp something about her, he couldn't get why she pined to be something more than what she was so much that she would risk herself emulating it. Lola, in turn, couldn't come close to wrapping her mind around the concept of, what she perceived to be at least, leaving the Garou Nation to the side in favor of living a life among the drab flocks of society.

Calden White lived with other people and owned livestock. Lola's family was gone, and she wouldn't keep animals on her land because it was so close to the Bawn. As much as she might have wanted a horse to ride around on her patrols of the Bawn's perimeter, she instead had to settle for her own two feet and occasionally either the dirt bike or four wheeler, depending on the season. A horse would only be a waste of money-- it would be killed by a Garou within a year, for certain.

It was the older and wiser of the two Kinfolk that spoke first, diplomatic and polite. I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life, he said. He said, simply, that thinking less of yourself is setting yourself up for failure.

Lola's hackles smoothed back down, and she picked up her sandwich again. "Alright," she concedes. "But I'll have you know that I don't think less of what I am right now. I wish it could'a been the other way, but things are what they are. I'm doing just fine with the resources I have."

Sandwich washed down with soda, and she leads into: "So, yeah, I'll patrol. Not through the city so much these days, though, since the Spire got their shit back up and running. I stick closer to home anymore, until they need me here again."

Calden White

She doesn't think less of what she is, Lola asserts.

"Good," Calden says. He sounds warm. He sounds like he means it. He sounds, perhaps, just a little relieved. "I'd hate to think you went through life despising what you were."

There's a small pause.

"I do get it," he admits, then. "I do get how sometimes you might look at one of our cousins and wish you could run that fast. Jump that far. Move so silently, or so quickly. Kill so easily. And I get how sometimes you might think you got tails on the cosmic coin flip.

"But I try to remember that I have a lot of things, a lot of opportunities, they never could. And I try to remember that if tables were ever turned, I'd lose just as much as I gained, if not more."

He takes a sip of beer. Then he sets it down, looks across the table at Lola. "If you ever need help," he says, "you should let me know. I don't exactly cruise for danger, but I'll help a friend in need. And if nothing else, you're welcome to hide out on my ranch if you need to."

Lola Hawkes

"If the fuckin' Feds ever come after me, I'll be sure to."

Lola's referring to the park rangers of Roxbourough State Park, actually. She feuds with them regularly, although she's been on a dry spell since the spring of this year and has done a good job of leaving them alone these days. Calden, however, might worry that she'll try and hide on his property after the cops shine a flashlight on her while she's dismembering fallen foes for clean-up.

She doesn't clarify for him, that's just left to hang, and he can't be sure if she was joking with him or not. Her tone wasn't nearly clear enough.

"If you need anything in return, though... I mean a fighter or some hands and muscle for helping with something on the Ranch-- dude, I'll bet those floods kicked your ass, huh? -- You let me know."

They didn't see eye to eye necessarily, but both had firm and mutual understanding of the importance of creating these alliances, and that it was counter-productive to make rivals or enemies of someone instead.

So the rest of the meal is pleasant enough, if not made a little awkward by Lola's lack of social grace. They finish their food and drinks, Lola pays for her meal (yes she does, god damnit, and if he leaves anything for that tab it'll end up tip for the waitress if you ask Lola how the cash was divided), and they head out to the parking lot.

Calden will drive North.

Lola, to the South.

a schoolboy reciting a lesson.

Avery Chase

It is not so very late in the day when Calden receives a phone call from Avery, but lately it does not need to be very late for the sun to be setting and a chill to be settling over the land. It's colder now, when one stands on that land of his, than it is in the city. Somewhere, perhaps even in his line of sight, the sun is a searing, molten line on the western horizon, blurring the edges of the mountaintops against the sky.

His phone rings and does not chime; she calls instead of texts and her voice sounds weary and exhilarated at once.

"Darling," she sighs, fondly, as though by picking up the phone and saying hello or whatever clever or loving thing he's thought to say he has broken her heart with his sweetness, his masculinity, his stoicism, his lustiness -- whatever quality or set of qualities he possesses that she believes both admirable and inimitable.

"May I come see you tonight?" she asks him, with no suggestion in her tone that she expects refusal or delay, despite the request for permission. She likes, as she has said, to hear him say yes to her. She likes to ask. Tonight of all nights, she wants to remember how precious kin are, how needed, how many ways one must protect them and guard them and show them respect, how much

better she is than Iron Tooth.

Calden White

Calden doesn't know who's on the other end when he picks up the phone. He's out on the ranch, it's noisy in the background with shouting men and lowing cattle and loud bangs and thumps, and he is talking into a tiny bluetooth earpiece that leaves his hands free to do his rough work. So there's no clever or loving thing: there's only a Hello! half-shouted across the phone. But then: she sighs it, darling, and he knows her. He knows her at once, knows the thrill that runs up his legs and through his spine.

"Miss Chase," he says,

and his ranch hands have heard him say the name often enough now, heard the way he says it often enough, that they exchanged a silent, amused glance. Go on, Ian calls, go talk to your lady-love. We'll hold down the fort.

Calden's lady-love hears him swear -- playfully, but rather blisteringly -- at his cousin. Then a door closes and the noises recede to a dull roar in the background, and his voice is there, right there in the foreground, warm as well-sunned oak.

"I would be delighted if you were to come see me tonight," Calden replies, smiling. "I'm going to be done here in a little bit. You should come whenever you like. And bring a few changes of clothing. Just in case a happy flood prevents you from going home again."

Avery Chase

May I?I would be delighted.

On the other end of the line, Avery's lips open in a slow but broad smile, bright and warm and titillated all at once. She does not tell him, of course, that she has already packed a bag. "I half-expect I should come upon you doing a rain dance," she teases, but fondly.

Nor does she tell him that she is already in her car, and not the bouncy little mini-SUV that she would normally drive out to his place, because that car is in Las Vegas and no longer owned by her. She hasn't had time to get a new one, so it's the Model S that Avery is in, and talking to him via bluetooth as well through the car's dash. He may hear the engine, but given that it is as silent as a hunting shark, it's improbable. Avery pulls toward the gate as it opens, and out, north onto Polo Club Lane, and she will go east until 25, then farther and farther north until she gets to him.

"I won't interrupt your work any longer," she tells him, the smile evident in her voice. "I wouldn't want to delay you from seeing me once I reach your latitude."

They say their goodbyes, their see-you-soons, and from then on, Avery drives... perhaps a bit illegally. She waits until she gets to the interstate before tearing a hole in the space-time continuum, though. She is truthfully not in the mood to drive, certainly not for two hours, but requiring Chauncey to drive her to Calden's ranch seems a bit much, even to her.

--

So it is that a couple of hours later, or a bit less than, around eight in the evening, it's that midnight-blue Tesla that slides into some fitting spot in front of Calden's house. So it is that wherever he is, he may only hear the car because of the silence that places like this have apart from cities and towns. So it is that he more than likely, in fact, hears the thump of the front door shutting.

Oh, she wanted to dress up a bit. It would be a lie to say she didn't feel a pang this evening that she could not simply call him and see him then, see him there, have him come home with her and celebrate with her family at some fine restaurant and then, perhaps, drive just a short while to his home and spend the night with him there. Take him to brunch the next day and sit on the same side of the booth, nuzzling and even kissing over their egg dishes with appalling lack of concern for anyone else in the restaurant. Go back to his place or her own and spend the rest of the day in bed, making love and dozing off in turns. It ached a bit to think of how far he was, how separate their lives are, how many days they spend apart compared to how many days they spend together.

Avery did not dress up, though, or call to see if he could both magically finish his work and then teleport himself to her doorstep. She drove out here, and she wears a pair of leg-skimming jeans with discreet pyramidal studs up the outer seams, tucked into riding boots and worn with a sleek black top and a three-quarter-sleeved, cropped wool jacket. It is not quite the flannel and cotton she wore the last time she was here, but it does appear that Avery does own denim and is not afraid to wear it. Her hair is straight. Her purse is a bright gentian blue. Her bag is in the trunk.

As soon as he sees her, he knows something is different about her. As soon as she sees him, as soon as he is within reach, she puts her hand on the back of his neck, pulling him down to kiss him, hungrily, devouringly, groaning softly into his mouth when their chests, when their bodies, finally meet.

Calden White

The front of Calden's house is far more low-key than the interior, where everything gleams with quality; the back, where vast soaring windows open onto the deck and the land beyond. That says a lot about the man himself: private, unostentatious, not the type to put on a show.

From inside, it is impossible to hear that stealth fighter of a car she drives. He does hear the door thump, though. Or at least: his favorite cattledog napping at his feet hears it. Patches is her name. Her head comes up, her ears cock forward -- and then fold back sharply. She gives a whine. Runs off somewhere into the house, or perhaps out.

Avery is approaching the door when it opens. It has grown quite chilly since the last they met. Her lover is wearing jeans. He is wearing ridiculous shearling house slippers. He is wearing a sweater in darkdarkdark brown, and it is cable-knit, thick and warm and cozy and old-fashioned.

His eyes smile even before his mouth does. His eyes skim over her, spark with appreciation and recognition and -- something, some curiosity. "You look -- " he begins, but then her hands are pulling him down and he goes without resistance. He greets her with a kiss, a hard hungry one right there on the doorstep. His arms wrap behind her waist; he lifts her feet off the floor and turns with her, closes the door with his back against it.

Sets her down, her bootheels touching the floor between his slippers. And he smiles at her there, his face close to hers.

"You look wonderful," he finishes. "I think you're actually glowing."

Avery Chase

It would make her ache if she saw the way that slightly-more-spoiled-than-the-rest cattledog whined and ran off to hide. Avery knows that feeling, has known it since she was young, and Changing only intensified her understanding of the animal expression of it. But Patches takes off before Avery's boots are even tapping softly on the deck. Calden is expecting her; Calden knows that sign, the way his animals seize up and bolt or dissolve into panic when she is near. He knows she's here.

Avery is lifting her hand to knock when Calden appears. And perhaps it's the sight of him, or her own happiness, or her long travel and weariness and the things she saw and the things she did, or maybe it's simply those ridiculous house slippers that endear her so instantly to him, but instead of knocking, her hand reaches for him.

They kiss. She can feel the cables of his sweater through the thin black shirt she wears hugging her breasts and covering her arms. She gives that soft little groan of wanting and relief and tenderness and lust against his lips as he pulls her in, probably grabbing the handle of her waiting suitcase and hauling into his house right along with her body. The door closes; her suitcase totters over and thumps to the ground as Calden lets her slide back to earth. Avery rests her hands on his arms, smiling up at him when her feet touch the floorboards again.

"Hello, my darling," she murmurs, and he tells her she looks wonderful. Glowing.

Avery's eyes spark delightedly; there is a wicked little moment when she thinks, simply due to that word choice, to tell him that she is with child, and she'll say it just like that, oh he'll panic, he'll just lose his mind, and she cannot help but grin at these mischevious little curls of imagination. Calden has never told her that One Day he would like to be a father, that he does want children, that Eva said she'll let him borrow her kids now and again, that he may not panic quite as she imagines, but the same reason Calden hasn't brought this up is the reason Avery doesn't make this particular joke; they are not there yet.

"That's such a nice thing to say," is what she says instead, that momentarily impish grin becoming warmer and softer. She leans into him, veritably snuggling against his chest right by the door. "I am very happy," since that was somehow not obvious, "as I have just returned from a quest to be recognized as being of greater rank." Avery's smile becomes closed-lipped, pleased, still glowing but like embers and not the sun. "I wanted to see you. Share it with you."

Calden White

Calden doesn't seem to mind snuggling with Avery right by the door. He leans back against that door, relaxing into it with a thump. Some people raise walls and doors to keep some threat out, keep the world out. Calden: he raises walls and doors because he feels their strength in his bones. When he stands in his home like this, feet planted, back to the wall, he strengthens this house as much as it strengthens him. And that strength is in his arms, warm, unmalignant, freely shared, as he holds his lady close to his heart.

"I didn't realize you were going to challenge," he admits, "but I am not the least bit surprised to hear you've succeeded. Congratulations, Miss Chase. I'm sure it was well-deserved."

He straightens, then. Drops one arm, slides the other around her shoulders as he toes her fallen suitcase up from the floor and grabs the handle again, wheeling it behind them as they leave the foyer. "Come on," he says. "Let's go put your things down. Do you want slippers? I got you a pair."

The sky outside is darkening already. Overnight temperatures have plunged below freezing; in the morning Avery'll see frost on the window, the whimsical and mysterious patterns and whorls on the glass. Winter, holt and haven of her tribe, is coming upon the land. The great room is dimly lit; the heat is not so high as it could be because sometimes Calden likes to feel the chill a little. Likes to bundle up a little. Loves to light fires. There's a small one there right now, dwarfed by the size of that enormous hearth; small and merry and crackling, casting warm shadows through the open spaces of the home. A book there too -- an electronic one, a kindle with a small booklight clipped atop, and a mug of something-warm.

Avery Chase

"It was on the horizon," she says thoughtfully, of challenging. "I knew it was time when more and more of my own rank were giving me the honorific of a fostern and more of higher rank were looking to me as their equal. I spoke to Javed about it and he was quite faithful that I would triumph."

Avery smiles. "And I did."

She squeezes to him, sliding her arms around his waist, closing her eyes for a moment against his chest. She listens to his heart beating beneath that thick sweater, that warm skin, those slabs of muscle across his chest. "Nooo," she whispers, murmurs, when he moves from the door. For a moment it seemed she might simply drowse off there and then, but he's straightening and she's sliding backwards a bit, only very slowly opening her eyes, looking up at him.

Calden is walking and she is going along with only mild disgruntlement. He mentions slippers and she is about to laugh, to tell him that's lovely, she would love to match, but her nostrils flare slightly as they're walking into the den where the fire crackles and the ereader's screen is dimming and turning itself off. She pauses in step and closes her eyes a moment.

Something else changes about her. Nothing so clear as a smile or something that makes her seem to glow. It's warming, though, and intrinsically a part of her, like it comes from her blood. Her father, her mother, the aunts and uncles and grandparents and beyond who gave her those arched brows, those full lips, those bright eyes, refined generation by generation. Inhaling deeply, Avery opens her eyes and pauses a moment, then... whistles.

One steady note, then three quick ones of a note, and a final one quick on their heels that lowers just a titch. It's a call, and not the sharp two-note whistle that would be heard out on the field, maybe not even one that Patches has ever heard before, but she hastens to it. Arrests, wherever she is, floppy ears cocking upward, tail swishing with recognition that does not make any sense, except that for thirty thousand years her kind have known those sounds and those smells, have answered them because Food, because Pack. She remembers, through some spirit-memory of her own that she cannot voice, and moments later, the steady trot of her paws brings her loping back to

Avery. Not Calden.

Avery, who is slipping her arm from around him and lowering herself to a crouch before the cattledog, smiling as graciously as a queen to her subject as she reaches for the beast's ear. And curls her hand behind it, and scritches her there, and smiles broadly, glowingly, as Patches turns her head into the affection without hesitation. Licks her chops and licks Avery's wrist and gives a happy little whine, her tail swishing through the air in involuntary expression of her comfort and her pleasure. Then her haunches lower so she can go on enjoying it, and her tail begins to thump.

From her crouch, Avery turns and looks up at Calden, smiling. She's pleased with herself, but more than that, she's seeing how he reacts. Seeing if he's pleased, too. Seeing what this does to his heart, to his joy, to see one of the many domesticated creatures he both cares for and protects and relies on and rules answer to Avery, too, as a master.

Calden White

Calden has lived alongside Garou for enough years to recognize and understand that indefinable sensation of their magic. Because it is magic: old magic, wild magic, neither magic of the light nor the dark but simply: primordial, ancient magic, whose roots entwine with the roots of the world itself.

He becomes quiet, and curious, and watchful, as it suffuses his lover. If his ears could move, they too would perk to the strange, unfamiliar-yet-familiar whistle she gives. And then: then the click of claws on wood, the soft swish of long fur, the happy panting of a canine coming to the call of

her mistress.

Calden gives a quiet, surprised, happy laugh. He comes to crouch beside Avery, and beside this slightly-more-pampered cattledog. Patches is downright blissful, leaning into Avery's caresses, tail thumping-thumping-thumping the ground as she lowers to a sit, to a crouch, to outright rolling on her back as though she just can't take it anymore.

"I thought you didn't know that Gift," Calden says, smiling.

Avery Chase

As Patches collapses, Avery just smiles and smiles, gladly rubbing the dog's proffered belly with a low coo of admiration for what a pretty, pretty girl she is, yes she is. She feels Calden beside her, watching as for the first time since he's known her, and the first time since her change, an animal such as this does not all but piss itself in terror or bare its teeth and snap its jaws at her.

"I didn't," she murmurs back to him, which is all the confirmation he might need, if he lacked it to begin with, that she learned this for him. Or them. Or herself, so that she could have this moment. And plenty of others.

Avery leans over to him, her hand pausing on the dog's belly but remaining buried in her fur, to give Calden a soft kiss on his mouth, which he so considerately lowered to her reach. "I'm glad to see you're pleased," she says softly, truthfully. "Now would you like to hear what I would like to do to celebrate?"

Calden White

Calden is a considerate gentleman, indeed. So considerate, in fact, that he even turns his head and leans in a little for that kiss. That soft, sweet little kiss on the mouth, shared between the two of them, glimmering in his eyes as she draws away. She sees him lick his lips softly; sees him smile.

"Before you tell me," Calden says, "let me just tell you that we've been culling for the winter. And I just might have set aside an entire fresh veal loin for you after you called to let me know you'd like to see me tonight.

"So." That smile curls into a faint, playful smirk, "Take that into consideration, Miss Chase."

Avery Chase

She grins at him. Her tongue pressing into the backs of her front teeth, her lips spread wide. That smile is worthy of a camera commercial but it's paired with a gleaming flash in her eyes, a savagery that is nigh unto bloodlust. Freshly killed. Young. Tender. Hers.

Avery takes a breath, laughing out that smile. "You darling man," she says, ever so fond, embarrassed a little by her own hunger even in the midst of her gratitude. She tips her head over and nuzzles him. "Truthfully, Calden, I was going to say that what I want most is to eat with you, have some wine with you, wear those very cozy-looking house slippers with you by the fire, and when I simply can't keep my eyes open another second, I'd very much like to go to your bed and sleep in your arms for... oh, perhaps only a year or two."

She smiles again, softer and warmer as her eyes drift close, her head tipping against his til brow touches temple. "My challenge began at dawn." A beat. "Yesterday. I slept for a few hours in a car either late last night or early this morning, and my heart is thrilled, but I find that the longer I'm here with your fire crackling and your dog wanting to be stroked and the smell of you near me... the more difficult it is to keep myself awake." Her brow and her nose rub gently against his face, his jaw, til she tucks herself under his chin, breathing his scent in from his throat.

"I hope all that doesn't sound too terribly dull, dear one."

Calden White

Tenderness, and a bit of ache, comes into Calden's eyes as Avery admits that she's slept very little in the past thirty-six hours or more. They are there, somewhere amongst his sturdy furniture, warmed by his fire. She nuzzles against him. She curls up against him, as though she were ready to drop into sleep right here and now,

meal-less, wine-less, slipper-less,

and he, to be perfectly honest, isn't entirely opposed to the idea. His arm drapes heavy and secure around her shoulders. He kisses her between her eyebrows, rests his chin gently as she tucks beneath. Resists -- barely -- the urge to just slump back against something and stay there.

"It doesn't sound dull at all," he murmurs. "It sounds like a perfect way to spend an autumn evening."

--

A few moments later he does, in fact, summon the will to rouse himself. They help each other to their feet, laughing quietly. Patches the dog jumps up and tails them, claws clicking, all the way up the stairs where Calden sets Avery's suitcase on the bed for her to unpack her things. While she's doing that, he builds a fire in the bedroom hearth, banking it for later. He drops a pair of snug, cozy slippers by her feet, too, and now they match. He looks at her feet in those slippers and then he wraps his arms around her, kisses her on the cheek.

Later on they come back down the stairs. They stop by the cellar; they come back up to the kitchen. Where, as promised, resting on a bed of ice beside a sturdy cutting board and an enormous carving knife, is the fresh and freshly trimmed loin of some unfortunate young bovine deemed too weak to survive the winter. There's a certain cold arithmetic in the operation of a cattle ranch. The weak die first, the strong die later, and the fertile die last of all when they're almost past their usefulness. In some ways that hard, practical way of figuring seems almost at odds with the warmth and generosity of the man Calden is. But then: sometimes one might say that savagery, that bloodlust that sometimes flickers in Avery's eyes, is at odds with her radiance, her charisma, her laughter, her politesse.

They are, to some degree, creatures of duality. They are, to a greater degree, simply complex. Simply possessed of more facets than one.

Avery Chase

Of course he aches: this is the man who fussed over her because she ran through the rain. Granted, during some disastrous and life-destroying rain that accumulated enough to break apart asphalt and wash out roads, but he's not the sort to turn a blind eye to suffering. One way or another, he does something about it.

Or tries, at least. Sometimes, she has seen that he is willing to do nothing at all, when that is what is most needed, and wait with her for it to pass.

--

Avery goes upstairs with him. They take (he takes) her suitcase, and Patches follows after, happily swinging her tail and hopping up the stairs with them, staying out from underfoot but following following sniffing waiting to see what's going on. She sniffs curiously, trotting back and forth between the suitcase and ...as it turns out, not just a drawer in the dresser but space in the closet and a drawer in the bathroom. Avery keeps glancing over at Calden as he shows her these spaces, smiling in amusement and fondness as he makes it more clear than he ever has that, should she just move in one day that would probably be just fine with him. Just fine, indeed.

So she puts away some clothes, here and there. She puts the small hair dryer she brought last time and this time in her drawer. Not quite six months or so after meeting, she leaves enough there to last a weekend. Maybe more than a weekend. Rather likely more than a weekend.

Avery changes, too, slipping out of her boots and even out of those skin-tight jeans. Surely Calden sees her underwear, pink and white striped this time instead of black and white but of the same cut and style as those iconic underthings. She slips out of the wool crop jacket over her black longsleeved shirt and puts on a pair of ... pajama pants. Slightly swishy, jersey-cotton pajama pants in dusky blue that could almost be slacks worthy of going out in if one squints and ignores the comfortable waistband, but they are in fact cozy, soft, comfy pajama pant from which, in a few more moments, shearling house slippers peek out.

Downstairs, they get wine. They go to cook -- well, Calden does. Avery's eyes spark at the sight of the meat, and she looks at him with such a smile, eager and grateful and impatient and adoring, unashamed of her hunger, or how it makes her lick her lips when he begins slicing it into steaks. When he begins to talk of how he'll cook it, which is all charming mundanity but makes her stomach growl. She nods at his suggestion, the rarity of the meat he intends, and watches him cook, all but staring at the meat as its smell fills the kitchen.

Calden White

Patches adores Avery now. The small, pretty cattledog with the bright eyes and the soft fur is following Avery everywhere, everywhere, swishing her tail as she watches Avery's things being settled in here, there, everywhere. The hair dryer lives in the bathroom drawer now. The clothes live in the closet! The underthings live in the drawer, and this is all well and good and proper and right, because Patches adores Avery-master and Avery-master is claiming territory amongst Calden-master's things. Good.

The truth is, Calden probably adores Avery just as much. And is just as pleased with Avery settling her things here. He's just a little quieter about it, and a little bit less obvious. Just a tiny bit. When they're going down the stairs again, though, he slides his arm around her waist once more. God, but he just loves the feel of her close to him,

even if all they're going to do is eat, and drink, and curl up, and sleep. Even if he had to control himself when she stripped down to her iconic panties, even if these ones are pink and white.

Pink. She wears pink. That endears him so utterly; he smiles to himself.

--

In the kitchen he carves steaks. He washes and dries the knife and the board. He fires up the flat grill. He unwraps a stick of butter and presses it onto the hot surface, melting down an artery-clogging amount of it, and then he salts the grill just to make sure hypertension comes along for the ride. Pepper, too, and then

the steaks: raw, red, and so fresh that even Calden could probably eat it completely uncooked and be just fine. The meat sizzles as it hits the hot metal; the scent of it rises, a delicate beefiness that makes poor Patches audibly lick her chops. Calden wasn't kidding: he lets the steak sear long enough to brown each surface and no more, pulls it off the fire immediately after to rest on the cutting board, covered by a thin aluminum foil.

He goes to dig around in the pantry, then, pulling out a can of dog food and a jar of horseradish. "Do you want to feed Patches?" he asks Avery, and if she does, then he shows her where the little-used indoor dog bowl is, and the can opener. Meanwhile, Calden softens butter in a small dish; stirs horseradish into it. Plates the steaks -- two or three in every plate, and a few more spares on the side -- and lets a spoonful of horseradish-butter melt over each one.

Avery gets the wine. And the glasses. Calden nods her out of the kitchen. "Upstairs?" he offers. "Or do you want to stay down here for a while?"

Avery Chase

At first, Avery assumes that Calden means meat and bones for Patches. He asks her if she wants to feed the dog and she just assumes that means sharing the kill with her. But she only sees enough steaks for the two of them, and looks at Calden with some measure of bewilderment before she sees the can of dog food and blinks. Her head rears back slightly as though to get a better look at the thing, and though she tries so hard to be so gracious, he can see the little twitch of her nose as it wrinkles in distaste.

Perhaps he laughs. Feeds Patches himself, while Avery leans over from her seat on a barstool to see. She does not like the smell of dog food. Patches, however, seems more than content to go over to her bowl and stick her face into the stuff, happily licking it up. Avery just shakes her head a little; a true predator's marveling at how these long-domesticated, perpetually-immature canines are so pleased with so little. Maybe it's condescending. Then again: the chasm between a cattledog and a garou is so vast it is a wonder that she even understands the other creature's body language as well as she does.

Patches is happy. Her tail and ears and her relaxed back and soft fur and bright eyes all say this to Avery as clearly as if it were being spoken aloud. And Avery is happy, and she knows that it is so much easier to conceal than it is for the dog, and thus that much more important to say aloud.

But she does not want to say it aloud. Selfishly, childishly, she just wants Calden to know without her having to use all those silly words. So she goes over to him while he's melting butter for horseradish, sliding off the barstool and padding over to him in the slippers he got for her, wrapping her arms around his body from behind, soaking up his warmth, shuffling with him from spot to spot while he cooks. She most certainly does not get the wine. She keeps snuggling him, wordless and yet very close, til he's having to disentangle himself from her arms in order to move anywhere at all.

It takes some time.

--

In the end, they eat not at the kitchen island or at the vast table but in front of that still-crackling fire. Calden stirs it back to life for a little longer and they eat on the floor or at the coffee table and use glasses instead of drinking straight from the bottle. Patches comes in after eating to flop in front of the fire where she can see and smell them and hear them. Avery

tells Calden about her challenge.

She tells him about Anvil of Justice sending her after a ragabash of their tribe, and the broad strokes of what he'd been accused of. That already she could feel a bias against him growing in herself for such cowardice; right or wrong, guilty or innocent, Avery's disappointment and frustration to hear that he ran doesn't even need to be spoken for it to be quietly, easily felt. That she tried not to give in to such bias barely needs to be noted, for this is Avery, who believes the best of people, even when it sorrows her to see them fall short.

She tells him about the pack: the Alpha's anger, the Beta's faith, the Gamma wolf's mentions of things Midsummer had said that got Avery thinking. She tells him -- quite clearly pleased with her own cleverness already -- that she was beginning to suspect that Midsummer faked the kinswoman's death in order to give her an escape route from her mate. A foolish plan, wanting to run off into the sunset together. Iron Tooth, she tells Calden, was no more or less than she already suspected. She admits that she held out hope for him at first, that he would turn out to be a warm and loving mate, that he would be honorable if not kind, that he was not abusive, even if he was firm. Not, Avery clarifies, because that would make judgement easier. But because she would want to see him, a Shadow Lord and Adren, and know that his mate was not abused in truth.

She tells him about driving down to Fort Garland, and there are mentions of Bright Spear sprinkled throughout this story: the questing stone and gum-chewing, the advice, the girl's obvious eagerness to get out of the caern for a while. She tells Calden all about meeting Ilyana, and how much that changed her perception of the woman herself, and of the situation. Then: the long, long drive to Las Vegas.

The anger that grew in her on the way for Midsummer.

The confrontation. Which is said so simply: that he burst out of his hotel room, ran, and so she told him to stop. And he stopped. Avery does not seem to think anything of that, does not brag about it, but it is not hard to imagine the sight, and how stunning it must have been: a glabro-formed werewolf bolting for his life and limb, throwing her against a wall, skidding to a stop at a single word from her.

Avery is quiet then, on her second or third glass of Bordeaux, when she tells Calden of the things he said. The way it broke him to hear the truth, and the way it breaks her heart,

and the fact that it would have broken her heart more to leave the truth unspoken.

She tells him inevitably of her judgement upon the ragabash. But she describes it so coldly, so dispassionately: it is the only way she can tell someone aloud, outside of a ritual challenge, that she found this delusional, cowardly fool and felt pity for him in the midst of her anger and disgust for him, and systematically removed from him the blessings of all but their highest god. That she took even his name, giving him another, and a shameful one at that. That she exiled him.

Before -- though Avery does not say it quite this proudly -- she saved his life.

Then all the hanging ends: what she did with (for) Ilyana. The jet trip home, the culmination, the assurance from Anvil of Justice that Iron Tooth would be judged and punished.

--

Avery sighs, leaning against his arm, because it is such a very, very nice arm, holding her wineglass in her palm of her hand to subtly warm the red with her body heat. She is watching the fire, and she has destroyed the steaks he carved and cooked and gave to her. Her belly is full of red meat that still tasted faintly of lifeblood and youth, full of red wine that tastes like luxury and refinement and an older world. Slowly, she sips, and slowly, her eyes close and open again.

"I have a new name," she tells him, with a small smile. She is tired. The meat and wine and fire and dog and lover and the retelling have all left her even more primordially comforted, more ready for a long, deep sleep. With a slight lift of her chin, a new clarity of her wine-lowered voice: "I am Reverence of Dawn, From Whom the Stars Shall Not Be Hidden By Sunlight, Radiant Honor, Whose Virtue Shines Unwaveringly Through the Night." A little wry tilt of her mouth, though she can't hide her pleasure at the name itself, the meaning of it, the rhythm and the poetry of both together. Those blue eyes drag off the fire, the flames still reflected in her irises, and meet his.

"I suppose you would have seen me named something about how incorruptible and brave I am," she teases, even though she knows, she knows how deeply he means it when he tells her these things about herself. How remarkable he thinks she is. How utterly, how completely, he adores her.

Leaning over, she kisses him. On his cheek. On his mouth, though, if he turns his head towards her. Soft. Slow. Bold.

Parting, her eyes -- which fell closed at the touch of his skin to hers -- open again. "I bought you souvenirs."

Calden White

If the Fangs are renowned for their silver tongues, then the Fianna are doubly so: golden-tongued bards, one and all, if the stereotype is to be believed. And to be sure, Calden does not lack for eloquence, plainspoken though he may be. He has no trouble translating his intelligence and wit into spoken words.

Yet for all that, his greatest quality is perhaps the ability to listen. To wait, to be patient, to give space where space is needed. Avery knows that: knew it from the moment she very nearly gave herself over to madness and needed him to stay,

and saw that he stayed. He came no closer, drew no farther away. He stayed, and he waited, and he listened to the silent language of her body until she could bring herself to welcome him again.

--

He listens again now: listens as they gather over their food, their fire. Can't think of a better way to spend an evening, he'd said the first time they met, of trading stories by the fireside. He said something similar tonight of her proposition: red meat, red wine, warm fire, warm bodies.

And a tale, it turns out. Her tale: the saga of how Reverence of Dawn became Radiant Honor; of how her name became a poem. Calden smiles often through that tale. When she speaks of Bright Spear. When she speaks of the gum-popping, and the girl's wonder at being out in the world, out driving, out in Vegas.

When she speaks of her return, too. When she speaks of the praise, well-deserved, that was given to her. When she speaks that name of hers, lovely, fitting: oh, he smiles then, a slow warm thing that spreads over his face like a sunrise.

The darker parts of her tale: they touch him too. They put a furrow in his brow. They put thought into his eyes. Yet in the end it's the quiet, abiding, deep joy that lingers in his breast; hangs in the air like the last note of a symphony.

"It's a beautiful name," he says softly, "and you earned every syllable of it. As for 'incorruptible' and and 'brave' -- well; I'll suggest it to your next challenge-master. In the meantime," the smile grows, "I'll have to satisfy myself with Honor and Unwavering."

A pause.

"Virtue, too. I like that. It's a good word for you." There's perhaps just the tiniest edge of warm humor here: "It sounds very demure and pure and clean and ladylike."

His eyes spark with laughter, then. "A souvenir? From Vegas? You didn't buy me a lottery ticket, did you?"

Avery Chase

In answer to all these things, Avery just

snuggles closer to his side, tucking herself between his arm and his ribs, closing her eyes as she rests against his shoulder, his left pectoral muscle, her warm arm draped over his middle. The clothes she wears, even pajamas -- especially pajamas, really -- are so soft. So fine. Touching her is sometimes a bit startling, as though one wasn't aware before she existed that clothing could feel that way. She is so wealthy. She is so enamored of pretty and lovely things, the pleasures of robust wine and rare meat, a fast car and a sunny home. Granted, she is also enamored of things rough and low and and a bit filthy, and it's this adoration that Calden sweetly teases her about.

Avery laughs, scritching at his side to tickle him, kissing his chest through his shirt before she tips her head back to look at him. "I am demure and pure and clean and ladylike. I'm not the one who smells of livestock a majority of the time, for one thing. And for another, I think it's quite ladylike and pure to come the way I do when you're worshipping me on your knees."

Which is a slightly less vulgar way of describing Calden eating her out. Licking her senseless. Burying his face in her cunt and moaning at the taste of her. All of which, mind, would have been equally if not more accurate.

She stops tickling him. Resumes snuggling. Pauses. "No, but that would have been so clever! They're all in my suitcase."

They. Because she said souvenirs. Plural.

But for now she yawns, deeply and satisfyingly, curling against him as though she is perfectly content to sleep here, like this, with Patches occasionally thumping her tail on the floor in mute happiness and the fire dying down and Calden's heart going lub-dub beneath her ear. Which she is, of course: content. And perfectly so.

Calden White

I am demure and pure and clean and ladylike, she says,to which he protests: "You are! I'm not saying otherwise." -- and then laughing, because she accuses him of smelling of livestock (which he does. faintly: but he does); reminds him that he's the one that worships her on his knees."I do," he agrees, affably, and gives her a firm squeeze of his arm; lays a kiss on her temple. "It's a very good way to worship someone so pure and clean and demure and ladylike as you."He leans back against the couch. They are not sitting on the couches; they're on the rug in front of the fire, their steaks sliced and devoured. All but a small piece. A few sips of wine; maybe a glass left in the bottle. They are warm and replete and full and drowsy from alcohol, from the company, from the cold night and the warm fire and the dog at their feet."Thank you for thinking of me," he says, quieter and more seriously. "I'm sure the souvenirs are lovely."

Avery Chase

"They're tchotchkes," she says sleepily, blissfully, which is neither agreement nor argument with his surety.

There is quiet, for a while. Quiet deep enough to hear only the breathing of the dog and the crackling of the fire. Quiet that lasts long enough to wonder if Avery's breathing has turned steady and slow and unconscious, but then:

"I think of you a great deal, and more often than I say," Avery murmurs. "I thought of you when Charlotte and I were back in time. There was a deputy --" she arrests for a moment, can't remember if she told him this, but she tells him now, maybe tells him again, "-- who looked like your brother. Even your twin. His name was Trevor Clay. Every time I saw him it was like catching a glimpse out of you from the corner of my eye. There were moments when I was not sure if we would ever be brought back home, and in those moments, I wondered if he was Gaia's way of making it up to me, and if she could know how insufficient that would be.

"All through my challenge, I thought of you. Of how much garou like Iron Tooth," and Calden cannot know this, because she has never appended 'rhya' to that wolf's name in his presence, but this is the only occasion that she does not and will not, unless he should be brought down below his current rank, "disgusts me. Of how the treatment of kin as no different from a protected territory of land and how the laws are warped to support this appalls me and makes me fear for the degradation and corruption of my people. Of how deeply I want to guard you from ever being so insulted, even by other garou.

"When we drove through sunsets and sunrises, and when I was alone for a moment after punishing Stray and felt so very sad, and when I flew back, I thought of you."

There is a deep breath in and a slow breath out, a gentle sigh. "I do believe I've fallen quite in love with you, without even realizing it until I was somewhere in the sky over Utah this afternoon."

Her hair brushes over his shirt as she readjusts how she rests on him, pillowed by his body in the way that she fully intends to sleep tonight. "But I am in love with you. Entirely and ardently."

Calden White

I am demure and pure and clean and ladylike, she says,

to which he protests: "You are! I'm not saying otherwise." -- and then laughing, because she accuses him of smelling of livestock (which he does. faintly: but he does); reminds him that he's the one that worships her on his knees.

"I do," he agrees, affably, and gives her a firm squeeze of his arm; lays a kiss on her temple. "It's a very good way to worship someone so pure and clean and demure and ladylike as you."

He leans back against the couch. They are not sitting on the couches; they're on the rug in front of the fire, their steaks sliced and devoured. All but a small piece. A few sips of wine; maybe a glass left in the bottle. They are warm and replete and full and drowsy from alcohol, from the company, from the cold night and the warm fire and the dog at their feet.

"Thank you for thinking of me," he says, quieter and more seriously. "I'm sure the souvenirs are lovely."

Avery Chase

[

Avery Chase

"They're tchotchkes," she says sleepily, blissfully, which is neither agreement nor argument with his surety.

There is quiet, for a while. Quiet deep enough to hear only the breathing of the dog and the crackling of the fire. Quiet that lasts long enough to wonder if Avery's breathing has turned steady and slow and unconscious, but then:

"I think of you a great deal, and more often than I say," Avery murmurs. "I thought of you when Charlotte and I were back in time. There was a deputy --" she arrests for a moment, can't remember if she told him this, but she tells him now, maybe tells him again, "-- who looked like your brother. Even your twin. His name was Trevor Clay. Every time I saw him it was like catching a glimpse out of you from the corner of my eye. There were moments when I was not sure if we would ever be brought back home, and in those moments, I wondered if he was Gaia's way of making it up to me, and if she could know how insufficient that would be.

"All through my challenge, I thought of you. Of how much garou like Iron Tooth," and Calden cannot know this, because she has never appended 'rhya' to that wolf's name in his presence, but this is the only occasion that she does not and will not, unless he should be brought down below his current rank, "disgusts me. Of how the treatment of kin as no different from a protected territory of land and how the laws are warped to support this appalls me and makes me fear for the degradation and corruption of my people. Of how deeply I want to guard you from ever being so insulted, even by other garou.

"When we drove through sunsets and sunrises, and when I was alone for a moment after punishing Stray and felt so very sad, and when I flew back, I thought of you."

There is a deep breath in and a slow breath out, a gentle sigh. "I do believe I've fallen quite in love with you, without even realizing it until I was somewhere in the sky over Utah this afternoon."

Her hair brushes over his shirt as she readjusts how she rests on him, pillowed by his body in the way that she fully intends to sleep tonight. "But I am in love with you. Entirely and ardently."

Calden White

Calden did not, in fact, know about Trevor Clay. He didn't know -- though the notion intrigues him, fills him with a queer sense of both elation and awe -- that somewhere in the annals of time there was an echo of him. And perhaps another, and another; and so maybe the Garou mythologies are right, after all, and we each have an undying spirit reborn again and again into different bodies and different times.

He didn't know, either, that Avery thinks of him so often. So often as he thinks of her, in truth: though perhaps in moments less mundane, and more emotionally strained, than those random flickerflashes he has of her

when he sees the sun glaze the land a certain way;

when he hears a certain song on the radio;

when he reads a certain passage in his book.

And he didn't know that she loved him. Yes, perhaps he had a small suspicion. He is, after all, not a wholly insensate man. He is not entirely devoid of emotional intelligence. He knows how she looks at him and he knows how it feels -- how it felt recently, more and more -- to make love to her. He didn't know, though; and he didn't know either that she would even know it herself. Recognize it. Allow herself to quantify it.

Love: for someone who once feared that she was doomed to abandon all that mattered to her. Who once feared she was mad and broken in that terrible way.

--

For a long time Calden says nothing. There is no sense of chill from him, though. No sense of awkwardness, or distance, or that she may have said something wrong or inappropriate or terrifying.

They rest together comfortably. Tenderly. She resettles against him, unfrightened by her own confession, and his arm tightens ever so gently around her; a tiny little mirror of what she just voiced. A moment later, a slow gentle sigh of his own. He nuzzles his nose into her hair, closes his eyes.

"You're in love with me," he whispers; not incredulously, but -- tastingly, in a way. Trying them out, hearing them in the air. And then: "I'm in love with you."

Like a poem, that. Reciprocal, measured. Like her name.

Avery Chase

Calden does not tell Avery the thoughts he has of her, or when they fall, or how out of the blue they are. It's hard to tell someone why a certain verse in a certain song brings them to mind or how a thought of them washes over one's mind for no reason at all or no reason that can be named. Easier to describe the moments as she did, when there's no question to be asked about why then, why that thought, why him.

A little more vulnerable and even silly-feeling to tell him how frequently she has an errant surge of almost painful longing for him, while driving or sitting to dinner or even zoning out a little while someone talks: suddenly the image, almost the sensation itself of fucking, of his mouth at her breast, his hand between her legs, his entire body moving between her thighs. And maybe embarrassing, in her odd little way, were she to tell him the little fantasies she has of him, poignantly simple and mundane and normal, while listening to classical music or waking up and having breakfast: if he were there, and if they were cooking something together, and if they were to go on errands afterward and the little arguments they'd have about what they think of something on NPR.

They think of each other far, far more than they say.

--

But: loving him does not remove the fear that she will be unable to be near him one day. Joining a pack does not erase the concern that she will desert them out of sheer derangement. These things cannot unmake madness any more than her love for her family or her care for her kin are able to. But Avery would never call herself broken. Would never suggest that she is damaged or incapable somehow. Even if -- and she knows it may be when -- she begins to slip easier and more frequently into these foggy states of self-isolation, she would never call herself doomed. As cliche as it might sound, Avery truly believes that you are only beaten when you surrender.

The truth is, Avery's slow settling into this, with him, has nothing to do with her flickers of insanity. She may indeed be doomed to abandon everyone who matters to her, one day. But that has never stopped her. It has never even slowed her down. Only heartbreak, of a painfully human sort, and the wounds left by it, have held her back from this. From him.

--

He repeats it. Lovingly, tenderly, softly. It makes Avery laugh quietly, a smile breaking over her face though her sleepy eyes never open. "Like a schoolboy reciting a lesson," she teases him. She does not lift her head to look at him. She does not let go of him. She only exhales, breathing steadily beside him.

"Oh, darling," she whispers. "Take me up to your bed."

Calden White

It would make Calden ache if he knew that she feels vulnerable, and a little silly, thinking of telling him the lust-touched fantasies that sometimes flicker through her mind. It would make him ache if he knew that she feels a touch embarrassed, thinking of telling him the simpler ones, the mundane ones, the normal ones that have nothing to do with sex at all.

Thoughts of them, cooking together. Going shopping for groceries and maybe a new shirt for him, not a red plaid one good god, and shoes for her. Debating something on NPR. Arguing whether french toast is better with syrup or powdered sugar; whether steak is better with horseradish or bleu cheese.

In some ways those are the moments even more precious to Calden than the ones where she's arched and crying out,

the ones where he's buried deep and moaning against her throat,

the ones where her legs lock around him and her arms hold him so tight and her teeth grip his skin, tattoo his flesh, show him in the most elemental way possible that she accepts him, he is hers.

--

These moments, too, precious to him: Avery pillowed on his broad and besweatered chest, eyes closed, smiling. Her arms wrapped around his torso, enclosing him in her scent. Take me to bed, she whispers, and he unravels one of those arms to lift her hand to his lips. He kisses her knuckles: it's almost courtly. But when he whispers --

"Come on."

-- it's tender, it's soft. He lifts their plates and stacks them, collecting a last few scraps of meat and feeding them to Patches. Their glasses he leaves on the coffee table. The wine he leaves uncorked. They can clean up tomorrow. They have all the time in the world.

Calden gets to his feet and he helps his lady up. Then he thinks better of it and he scoops her up instead, laughing with her if she laughs at his silliness, his chivalry. Smiling if she only tucks herself against his body.

He takes her up the stairs, and then through his bedroom door. It's warmer in here. Heat rises; heat remains in enclosed spaces. He closes the door softly behind them with his heel. There's a fire lit here too, banked from when he built it, and after he sets her down he goes to stir up the flames a little more. No other light but firelight, and in the dancing shadows the room, the son of Stag, and the very air between him and the daughter of Falcon seems a little lost in time. Antiquated; ancient.

Avery Chase

Spoiled, spoiled pup. Patches, lapping red juices off Calden's fingers gratefully and eagerly, following them to the stairs as they walk that way.

Avery gets up only slowly. Avery makes a little moaning sound when he pulls her, and so a moment later he scoops her up. Avery does not laugh this time. Avery just makes a low, settled hum in her throat, behind her lips, curling up against his chest with her arms looped loosely around him. The stairs are wide and the door opens easily when he takes her inside. The air is comfortingly warm, and will stay so, even with air slipping up the chimney from his bedroom's hearth.

It occurs to her half-sleeping mind that they should just drag pillows and blankets before the fire and sleep there instead. She would change her shape and sleep beside him as a wolf, her body heated and her fur thick. She could keep him warm even if the chill encroached. She would have claws and teeth ready if anything came for him in the night.

They are drifting thoughts, neither human nor animal, and fixated on the guardianship that she and all of her kind have been tasked with. They slide from her mind as Calden sets her down on the side of the bed that is, when she comes here, becoming Her Side. She should brush her teeth. She should drop the slippers from her feet to the floor. She should tell him that if he's going to stir up the fire then he should undress her so she doesn't get too hot, because he knows by now how hot she gets in her sleep, how her always-warm skin turns luxuriously hot, an utter glory in the winter, like holding a sunbeam. But she just

says his name, into his pillow, muttering it and calling to him because she doesn't want to fall asleep before he's holding her.

Calden White

Patches only rarely gets the privilege of coming up here. Of not merely entering the house but going upstairs; of not merely going upstairs but entering this, the den of dens. She is rather beside herself right now, tail swinging, swinging, swishing wide, nose to floor and sniffing everywhere.

The humans -- or at least the human-shaped ones -- are far lazier and less energetic than the dog. Avery is already curling into the pillows like she might drop off to sleep any second. Calden stirs the fire up a little, but then he closes the glass doors to even that heat out a little. Shut out the baking heat; shut in the convective warmth that would otherwise escape up the chimney.

It's not cold enough to need the basement furnace yet. With a fire in the hearth, the night won't chill them, but the bedroom will, by morning, be cool enough to justify the winter bedding; the dog that is even now thinking of jumping onto the bed and curling up at the foot. Cool enough, too, to justify

holding her the way Calden intends to: arms wrapped around her, his larger, huskier body wrapped around hers. She is perhaps not the only one who fixates on guardianship of loved ones.

--

He laughs as she mutters for him to come to bed. It is a low sound, and one that fits amongst the heavy woods, the ruddy fire. "Coming, coming," he says, indulgently, as he sets the fireplace poker back on its stand. He takes a detour, shedding his clothes and dropping them in his hamper; stepping out of his slippers. A moment later she feels him taking her slippers off as well, dropping them by the bed where she'll be able to find them should she rise in the night.

"Do you want this off?" he asks her, whispering, tugging at some article of clothing or other,

and if she nods, he helps her undress; helps her get under the covers instead of merely sprawling atop them. Eventually his side of the bed dips. He crawls in under the sheets, his rough hands sliding around her waist, his warm chest against her warm back.

I love, I love, I love, he thinks. Like a schoolboy reading a lesson. Then he draws the sheets up, and he closes his eyes.

Avery Chase

"Mm," is her answer, only barely coherent as an affirmative. So he tugs down those loose, silken-feeling but soft cotton pajama pants. She is still wearing those striped pink-and-white panties beneath. It's really the bra -- white -- that she wants off when he helps her sit up and peels her out of that close-fitted longsleeved top, but Calden takes care of that, too. And Avery mutters something about brushing her teeth, maybe something as simple as the whispered warning of: my mouth's gonna be gross before she's lying down again, sighing at the feel of the pillow cradling her head.

And the man cradling her body, drawing the covers up over her but not tucking them too tight, slipping his arm over and around her.

And the dog giving a little leap when they're both still enough that she doesn't think she'll be shooed off, flopping down at their feet and thumping her tail softly, happily against the covers. Avery, even more animal than Calden and perhaps more animal -- in a way -- than Patches, thoughtlessly tucks her feet against the dog's side, their bodies separated only by the winter bedding that will keep them so very warm tonight.

She puts her hand over Calden's hand, murmuring:

"Love you,"

like they say this all the time. Every night.

radiance of honor.

-justice-

It is early afternoon when they land at Denver International. A cool day, and mostly clear.

Chauncey is waiting for Avery, waiting for her right at the base of the deplaning stairs, even if she neglected to specify that he should receive her. He nods hello to Bright Spear, and then he sweeps the back door of the car open for them.

There is bottled water in the back for Avery and her young friend. Snacks, too, which Bright Spear tears through with the vim and vigor of a growing cub. They do not delay. Though Bright Spear perhaps would not mind seeing more of The World Outside The Caern, their path to Forgotten Questions is the shortest, most direct one possible. It does not take long at all before they are getting out of the car, walking through the wilderness. It does not take long before they are crossing into the Bawn.

Thoughtlessly and instinctively, Bright Spear takes the lead then. Avery outranks her, but she is, as she so bravely stated in that hellish elevator ride, a Guardian of the Caern. She leads the Philodox down hidden paths Avery would not have thought to take. They reach the challenge circle before long.

"I'll go find Anvil of Justice-rhya," Bright Spear says,

and drops into her small, lithe, russet-furred wolf-shape. She darts away, leaving Avery to her thoughts.

--

Ten, fifteen minutes later, she is back. Girl-formed again, lingering in Anvil's shadow, she gives Avery a surreptitious little smile before stopping at the edge of the challenge circle.

Anvil of Justice crosses that line. He looks at Avery expectantly.

"Well, Reverence of Dawn? What did you find, and what have you done?"

-justice-

[okay, NOT IN WOLF-SHAPE! broad daylight!]

Reverence of Dawn

There is a part of Avery that is very young inside when she disembarks from the plane and sees Chauncey there, standing beside some gleaming black car that belongs to the family and not specifically to Avery. It makes her think of her family, of all those servants living just across University Boulevard who are also sort of family, of her late mother, of Chauncey having always been there, as long as she can remember, of being such a fixture in so many memories.

Like being there, walking with her father out into the wild she had run to, looking for her just as intently, wrapping both she and her father in a large blanket when her father lifted her from the ground and took her, sobbing, back home so the family doctor could re-hydrate her and assure them she was not injured terribly from her running-away. She recalls being so embarrassed after that, particularly with Chauncey, and how he never paid it any mind, and never treated her any differently, and how childishly grateful she was to him for letting her pretend that it never happened, how foolishly and immaturely blind she was to the fact of how closely he watched her whenever he drove her somewhere after that.

There is a part of her that wants to run over to him and throw her arms around him and just cry on his chest and tell him she's just really tired, but even at her worst -- and she is far from her worst right now -- Avery has never done such a thing. She doesn't now. She merely smiles, walking over to him, clasping his hand briefly, telling him how good it is to see him. Then she gets into the back seat, lets her hair down, combs it, then puts it back into a much smoother bun while Chauncey drives them towards Roxborough.

She daubs a just-a-shade-darker-than-natural color onto her lips, presses them together, blots, and leans back while Bright Spear devours the snacks. Avery just smiles dimly to herself, fond of the girl.

--

They do not, when they drive into Roxborough State Park, have to pay the park fee. They are known, and they are waved in. They park, and Chauncey stays with the car while Avery and Bright Spear get out. The former is not exactly wearing hiking clothes, and gets a few looks, but she would get looks anyway. They start walking on one of the trails, but somewhere along it they stop running into families, stop skirting by couples or people with cameras, and sooner or later

they abandon the trails altogether, and when they come near some of the Fountain formations, shaded between enormous slabs of stone, Bright Spear takes off to go find Anvil of Justice. Avery takes a deep breath. She exhales slowly, and she does this several more times before her elder appears again to her.

The circle is what they make it. Between the two of them, it is here and now. It needs no line, for they will not be thrown down in combat and they will not be interrupted.

He asks his question.

"I found him, Rhya," she says. "I captured him. I learned the nature of his crime. I rendered judgement upon him. And I carried it through."

--

And thus, she tells him. She tells him about her conversations with the packmates of Midsummer's Shadow, and the near-lie that their Beta told him, the Alpha's anger, the Gamma-wolf's belief in the worst. She tells him about talking to Iron Tooth, and in detail: the things that were implied, and occasionally she uses the exact wording. She tells Anvil of Justice that the bracelet he gave her to track Ilyana's 'remains' down had a spiritual resonance, and that though she saw no storm crow trailing them, she believed they were being tracked.

She tells him that the questing stone took them to Fort Garland and that is where they found Ilyana, alive and... well as one might expect. About the truths Ilyana told her. Avery tells him about her oath to the kinswoman. She does not hold these things back: she is not ashamed, and she does not want to earn her rank by careful omission. She would rather fail. Then the gun as a tracking focus, and the three women finding themselves in Vegas hours upon hours later.

Avery tells Anvil of Justice that her quarry tried to run, but stopped when commanded. She tells him of his paranoia, and of all the things he believed to be true. She recounts to him her judgement. The guilt of Midsummer's Shadow.

The punishment she chose.

The punishment she laid down.

--

That is where she ends. With casting Stray down to cubhood, to exile, to ostracism. Of Ilyana and Iron Tooth, she says no more.

"And now," she says at the end, "have done all these things, I return to you."

-justice-

Anvil of Justice listens.

He listens carefully, with sun-squinted eyes and a cocked head. He pays attention to everything, every detail of conversation, every nuance related by Avery, but in particular he pays attention when she speaks of Midsummer's Shadow. His capture. His judgment. His punishment.

That is where she ends. With Stray; with exile and ostracism. Anvil of Justice is frowning mildly. He lifts a hand, scratches the angle of his jaw.

"And what of the kinswoman Ilyana?" he asks. "Will you return her to her rightful mate?"

Reverence of Dawn

Avery is quiet a moment.

"When I left Stray behind, I met Iron Tooth-rhya in the lobby. We did not speak. We rode the elevator back up together. Bright Spear-yuf, perhaps sensing his intention given what he said before about flaying his target alive, spoke to him, saying that people would find out.

"Iron Tooth-rhya was unmoved. He thanked me for making it much easier on him to for putting a tribeless, nameless cub to death. I told him what I had learned: that his mate left him of her own will because of his treatment of her. I told him that his treatment of her was in breach of the Litany, for he has not shown respect to those beneath him. I told him what Ilyana had said to me: that she hates him enough that she would rather die than return to him."

Avery realizes as she speaks what this could mean. All the things it could mean. But this is who she is.

"I told him that he did not find her when she was gone, and did not even look for her. Taking him at his word from my first conversation with him, he believed her to be dead and did not immediately seek the garou he thought responsible, and I told him how strange that seemed, and would seem to the septs. I told him that if he murdered Stray, it would be known that he killed him despite that he was already punished, and again reminded him that Stray took no action that coerced or forced Ilyana to do anything she did not want to do, nor did he trespass with her physically."

Avery blinks slowly, trying not to show her weariness. "I warned him, as is the duty of my moon, that should Stray show his throat, Iron Tooth-rhya would be in breach of the Litany again if he tore it out, and merely... shamed, if Stray fought back or simply let himself be killed. I was going with Iron Tooth-rhya to stand as a witness to any of these outcomes, but that by my own judgement upon the criminal, I could not and would not aid him.

"Iron Tooth-rhya did not leave the elevator. We began to return to the lobby. He asked me how I would tell anyone these things if he tore my throat out. He did not follow through. He suggested that I not repeat what I know, called Ilyana a bitch, implied that he continues to own her, and told me to 'let her stay dead' and to allow others to believe that Stray was punished and exiled for murder, and not his true crimes. He told me," Avery says, still level, "to speak nothing, and Ilyana would live. He told me that if I spoke the truth, that his mate would be returned to him."

Avery already told Anvil of Justice about her oath. She does not repeat it. She is quiet a moment, then takes a deep breath.

"Upon returning to Ilyana with Bright Spear, I arranged for return transportation for Bright Spear and myself to Denver. Outside of the airport I gave Ilyana my car and I believe my steward has already wired a sum of money to the kinswoman. She has contact information for my steward, and the title and registration will be legally passed to her. Should anyone attempt to return her to Iron Tooth-rhya, I will fulfill my oath to her, even should it mean my name and my life."

A heartbeat.

"And hers."

Another heartbeat.

"So no, Rhya. I will not. She left him, and he has not attempted to reclaim her. But all of that is, of course, outside the bounds of the challenge I was given."

-justice-

"It was," Anvil of Justice observes, "but then the matters we preside over are rarely so neat and precise as to fit into tidy little boxes.

"That is a strange argument you use," he adds. "I own a klaive. It was crafted by my father's father's mother. It has been in my family for many years. If I were to lose it tomorrow and believe it destroyed, I would grieve, but I may not search overmuch for it. But if it were found again, it would still be my klaive. Dishonor would come upon he who took it for himself without a word to me.

"So: the kinswoman Ilyana is Iron Tooth's mate. He lost her, he did not look for her, but now she has been found. By the laws of our Nation she is still his mate. She is still claimed by him. One might say she still belongs to him.

"Yet you did not return her to his keeping. So I ask you again: why?"

Reverence of Dawn

"A kinswoman is not a klaive," Avery says, and there is a sharpness and a suddeness and rage to her tone that erupts from her, around her, like a white corona lifting from her skin, arcing like electricity in her voice.

"Ilyana was not taken. She left. She was downstairs in a car when Iron Tooth-rhya was spewing about how she should stay dead, and he did not go to take her back. It is far from my duty to drag her back by the hair to him when he is the one who drove her away, lost her, and does not care enough to go seeking her even when he discovers that she lives." Avery pauses a moment, but her rage is high and her will is low and she is not desperate enough to call on Falcon's strength to replenish it. She reaches for control.

"Rhya, I told you what he said. He no longer wants her; has not wanted her for some time. Hates her as much as she hates him. He does not respect the honor of having a mate. He has broken the Litany by treating one given to his protection with abuse and violence greater than kinfolk are created to bear. The laws of our nation do not speak of mateship between kin and garou. The only way they can be applied to that end is so equate kinfolk -- those who bore us, those who love us, protect us, help us, parent our children, are our children -- with territory. With klaives, burrows, pack protectorates, or a favorite set of dedicated clothes."

That reach for control is failing. But she is, to be fair: willing to let it fail. She is seething. There is fire in her eyes.

"I told Ilyana on my name and my honor, which is greater and deeper than any renown the nation can lay upon me, that I would die before delivering her to such a grotesque, unholy arrangement as her 'mateship' to Iron Tooth-rhya. What they both spoke of to me, in all truth of their hearts, is no better than the violence and the degradation that is so easily spurred on in humanity by the Wyrm. In many ways I believe it is worse to see it among Gaia's chosen: kinfolk as property and chattel, blind eyes turned to abuse of those weaker than us, the twisting of a law -- meant to keep our rage in check, to save us from corruption -- into whatever is most convenient for us at the time."

Her nostrils flare as she exhales. Her head shakes. "Whatever my name or status, whether I am a criminal or a cub or ostracized like Stray, at the end of the night I have to live with myself. I will not be a party to the rape, abuse, and eventual murder of a kinfolk, no matter what their tribe. And certainly not in the name of a law that has been so warped as to leave its spirit unrecognizable."

-justice-

Avery is angry. Avery is furious; she is sharp and her words come sudden and her control is failing. She is willing to let it fail.

Anvil: he is impassive. He is blank-faced, his eyes intent but shuttered. He listens, he listens, he listens. And in the end:

"You are, I think, weaving so many words and explanations and justifications that it begins to cloud the arrow of your thought. It is not necessary to explain the mitigating or aggravating circumstances, the factors that swayed your decision. It is not necessary to express your outrage. It is not necessary to cite those vows you made, to repeat what was said to you, to endorse what you said to others; all these things, ultimately, stem from that core reason I have yet to hear expressed clearly from you.

"You looked upon this kinswoman and consciously, deliberately, unwaveringly made the decision not to return her to Iron Tooth. You did not argue with yourself, I think. You certainly made no vows before you had already made your decision. So what I want, Reverence of Dawn, is to hear you crystallize that decision for yourself. I want to hear you say aloud,

"in one sentence,

"why."

Reverence of Dawn

In one sentence.

In one sentence, Avery's voice is low, and shaking, and... passionate.

But she does not even have to think before she answers.

"It would be wrong."

-justice-

That one sentence.

That one sentence: it hangs in the air. It quivers there, like the last note of some catastrophic symphony, in that instant before the applause begins.

Then Anvil of Justice repeats it. Reinforces it:

"Because it would be wrong."

--

The Adren exhales. Some rigidity goes out of his spine. A sense of tension leaving the air.

His turn to talk, then:

"Law and justice, Reverence of Dawn, are not one and the same. There are, amongst those Philodoxes of the Nation interested in such intellectual discourse, two schools of thought.

"There are those who argue law must stand above justice, for law is absolute, law is universal, law is the one constant from pack to pack, sept to sept, protectorate to protectorate. Even when the consequence of law is unjust, it must be upheld, for law is a rigid and brittle thing that cannot bend without breaking.

"And there are those who argue that justice must stand above law, for justice is the sun which casts law as its shadow. Law exists merely to protect justice, and if keeping the law means subjecting one to injustice, then law may be broken. Law must be broken.

"By my name, I expect you can surmise which camp I belong to. By your answer, I believe I know which tenet, if any, you would subscribe to. However, a good Philodox knows that there is no single right answer to that debate. In fact, perhaps it is necessary to have that very debate, each and every time law and justice stand at odds.

"And in a way, debate and duality is the very core of our auspice. Half light, half dark: we are the line that separates truth from lie, right from wrong, retribution from forgiveness. We must always see both sides of every dispute, every crime, every punishment. We must debate ourselves ceaselessly to arrive at that one single judgment that pares duality into singularity. We must, in the end, always cleave to the path of honor."

A pause.

"Forgive me, Reverence of Dawn. I am philosophizing. I am an Adren, a teacher to the Nation, and sometimes the urge to lecture is irrepressible."

--

"To the matter at hand, then.

"Reverence of Dawn, from the moment you undertook this quest you proved yourself clever and resourceful. I doubt many other Cliaths would have thought to ask the masters of their challenge the very question that had been posed to them. I could see that you were quite pleased with your own wit -- and I must concede, you had a right to be.

"In your quest to find the whereabouts of Stray, you were intelligent and creative. You were savvy in your use of what resources were available to you. You negotiated the uneasy relationships set before you, and there were many uneasy relationships. You avoided, on multiple instances, outright confrontation which would have ultimately proven detrimental to your question.

"In your quest to discover the true nature of Stray's crime, you have excelled my expectations and hopes. I had my suspicions regarding the prevailing version of events, but the way you pared away the chaff and revealed the truth was genuinely admirable. You were dedicated, determined, and relentlessly thorough. You left no stone unturned, no voice unheard. By the time you assembled your judgment, you were fully armed with the truth. Well done, Reverence of Dawn.

"The punishment you ultimately meted out to Stray, then. Some might find it a touch harsh to strip a Garou of name and rank, to exile him from the Nation until he has once again earned the right to rejoin it. Others might find it merciful to give him, in essence, a new life and a fresh start. To let him learn again those lessons of loyalty, of courage, of wisdom and of respect that he should have learned as a cub. In my view, your punishment was as fair as your judgment was sound. It fits the crime. It fits the criminal.

"Which brings us to the final point. The relationship between Stray, Iron Tooth and the kinswoman Ilyana was complex at best; outright treacherous at worst. There were moments you could have strayed yourself. Lost your moral compass; given up your honor. Lost your very life. Yet you navigated that spider's web with as much skill and aplomb as could be expected of a Garou of your experience -- or, indeed, a Garou of greater rank and experience. You have survived. You have passed fair judgment. And you have, I am proud to see, refused to bow to the pressures and threats placed upon you by a Garou of far greater rank. You have refused to relinquish either Ilyana or Stray into his cruel custody.

"You are courageous, Reverence of Dawn. You are sharp and true, wise and unyielding. You have kept the foremost covenant of our auspice: that of utmost and most meticulous honor."

--

A brief silence. From the corner of her eye, Avery can see Bright Spear shifting from one foot to the other, eager; feeling some amorphous promise in the air.

Anvil of Justice speaks again:

"Reverence of Dawn, I find you worthy of the rank of Fostern. I confer upon you a second name to share glory with your first. From this day forth you are Reverence of Dawn, From Whom the Stars Shall Not Be Hidden by Sunlight. And you are Radiance of Honor, Whose Virtue Shines Unwaveringly Into the Night; Fostern and Philodox of the Lodge of the Sun, the Tribe of the Falcon, the Nation of the Garou."