ilyana.

-missing persons-

Neither Avery nor Bright Spear are in lupus right now. Neither of them can hear the way the kinswoman on the other side of the door

stops

breathing for several long seconds. She is still, still, still as a rabbit startled by the sudden scent of a wolf. There is no answer at the door, but -- some time after they knock -- the television volume diminishes to nothing. And then the TV shuts off.

Reverence of Dawn

"Ilyana," Avery says through the door, her voice quiet but pitched to carry through the thin walls. "My name is Avery Chase, and I am not of your tribe and I am no friend to Iron Tooth. On my honor, I will not harm you or, if it is in my power to prevent it, allow harm to come to you."

She closes her eyes. "Please permit me to enter."

-missing persons-

For interminable moments, nothing. Nothing at all. No footsteps, no breathing, no television, no movement. Nothing but silence on the other side of the door -- until the mind starts to wander, starts to wonder if it imagined that there was life in there at all.

And then:

a slide of metal on metal. A click of a lock thrown back. The door opens, though only so far as the chain allows. A blue eye meeting Avery's through the crack in the door.

An urgent whisper: "Please. Go. Away."

Reverence of Dawn

Avery tips her head back for a moment as though to pray for patience from the stars, from Luna herself. She exhales, and then the lock clicks and the door opens and Avery lowers her eyes, so pristine blue, so clear, to meet those of a similar color through the line of darkness.

"If I leave you now, I believe he will come here after you. I can help you. But you have to let me in, and you must speak only the truth to me." She glances to her side, at the guardian, then at the kinswoman. "This is Bright Spear. She is helping me, and she will guard the door for you and I."

-missing persons-

Those eyes, so similar in hue and clarity to Avery's own, meet hers for only a flicker of a second. Then they drop away, neither willing nor daring to hold the eyes of a werewolf.

Some strange sound, half sob and half laugh, tears from Ilyana. "You help me," she repeats. "No one can help me. What does it matter now? I only run as far as he let me." The door shuts, the chain slides. The door opens again, Ilyana's back to Avery already, wrapping thin arms around thin body as she retreats into the room.

Bright Spear casts an uncertain glance at Avery: in or out? One or the other, she takes up her post. She knows her job: guarding the door.

Reverence of Dawn

Avery hesitates a moment, only a moment, to let Ilyana retreat into the room. She gives Bright Spear a look, both gratitude and charge of duty, before she goes into the dim hotel room and closes the door behind her. She does not lock it. She trusts the guardian at the door far more than a lock, and if the former fails, the latter will not help them.

Her brows furrow together, aching. "What do you mean, only as far as he let you?"

-missing persons-

The interior of the room is about as dismal as one might expect. A low pebbled ceiling; a handful of dusty lamps. A bathroom. A very old coffeemachine. A nightstand with a half-smoked pack of cigarettes. A wristwatch. No cell phone. Two full-sized beds, only one of which appears slept in. A small suitcase atop the other, open to reveal a few changes of clothing. And

a gun.

So there's that, at least. Across the room, Ilyana slips a hand under the shade of the floorlamp. Dim light spills across the room; spills gold through Avery's hair, casts a coruscating gleam into Ilyana's. They have a certain physical similarity, the Shadow Lord kin and the Silver Fang Philodox. Blonde and blue. Long-limbed. There is a narrowness to Ilyana, though, a frailness of bone and body. Weakness, Iron Tooth called it.

A glance over the shoulder as Avery questions. Another one of those sounds, like a mortally-wounded laugh.

"You are here now, no? If you find me, so can he. If you here already, how far behind he is, do you think?" She picks the pack of cigarettes up, claps it against her palm a few times, then flips it open and draws out a smoke. Her fingertips tremble as she fits filter to lips, but she shrugs through it. "Is okay. I know from start, no happy endings. I am tired of running, hiding, being afraid."

Reverence of Dawn

Avery comes a little further into the room as Ilyana turns on a light, gets her pack of cigarettes. She moves to a chair -- the edge of the untouched bed if there is no chair -- and sits down, hands on her lap. "I am not even certain he is following." A pause. "I doubt he is too far behind."

She frowns slightly. "Is Mudsummer's Shadow your lover?" she asks after a while.

Reverence of Dawn

[MIDSUMMER'S SHADOW. AUGH]

-missing persons-

Ilyana is having trouble with her lighter now, but something about the set of her shoulders, the balance in her feet, tells Avery she would not accept help. She triggers it again and again and again. Her eyes flash Avery's way with her question, a rare spark of eye contact.

"No. Maybe he want to be. I don't know. He want many things. He want happy ending. But I don't want." She gets a light finally, goes silent a moment, concentrating, putting flame to cigarette. That first drag is deep; Ilyana sighs relief, then tosses pack and lighter down on the nightstand. Stands there, between nightstand and the small armchair in the corner, arms wrapped around herself.

"I want to be away from him," she adds. "From him, from Kostya, from Garou. But Kostya is Crescent-Moon. He can find me any time he want. No one fool him. I don't know why he take so long. Maybe he torture me. Maybe it serve some purpose for him right now to pretend he does not know I am alive."

Reverence of Dawn

Whatever Ilyana is, it does not seem so far that she is weak. They are not lovers. And he wants a happy ending. Avery watches her from where she sits, her eyes calm but her spine straight, her awareness open to what is beyond this room. She has to be.

"If you're discovered alive, and it becomes known to the sept that you ran, it will shame him. That may be purpose enough. But I don't understand his motives." She shakes her head. "Ilyana, I want you to tell me -- as best as you can -- what happened. What is and is not between you and Midsummer's Shadow. What he did. Where he is."

-missing persons-

Ilyana exhales. "What he want, simple. Always same. Win. For self first. Then, if is convenient, for pack, for tribe, for Garou. Easy to understand. More difficult, figure out how he get what he want."

The Shadow Lord takes a long drag off her cigarette, then, gaze lowering, eyelashes downsweeping until it's hard to tell if she's closed her eyes altogether. A silent moment. Then:

"Last year, Sept was attacked. 'Valuable' kin," the word is laced with bitterness, "moved to safehouses. Guarded by young Garou. Me and two girls lived together almost two weeks, guarded by Midsummer's Shadow. Nothing happened. No sex," another flash of her eyes at Avery -- clearly that quasi-assumption hit a nerve, "no attacks, nothing. Very boring. We play cards, we watch TV, we order food, sometimes we drink. We talk.

"Last night, other girls go home. Just me and Ethan. I talk too much. I say I do not want go back. I say I mated to Kostya twelve years and twelve years he shout at me and beat me if I make him angry. Twelve years I watch Kostya's face every time I take breath in own house because everything make him angry. Then I think, I am fool. If Ethan talk to Kostya, it is over.

"But he not talk to Kostya. He talk to me. He keep finding excuse to find me, talk to me, follow me. I tell him, go away. He never listen. After a while he tell me, I help you. I get you out. I am No Moon, I am smart, I am tricky, I have plan.

"I know he is young. Foolish. I know his plan never work. I know Kostya will find me. But I am tired of being Kostya's mate. I am tired of cooking for him, cleaning for him, smiling for him. I am tired of thinking ten steps ahead every time I make move in front of him. I am tired of learning his face, reading his mind, trying to remember everything not to do or he get angry. I am tired of Kostya fucking me, then hitting me because I do not have baby.

"So I tell Ethan, okay. I want to go. And he tell me plan. Stupid plan. He say: we pretend someone come to your house, kill you. And then we run. I say: they will think you kill me if they are stupid. If they are Kostya, they will know you took me.

"He say he not care. He say he is No Moon, he can stay one step in front. He say he can hide me and run, and when they stop looking he come back and take me somewhere beautiful.

"I think he is blind. I think probably he will die and I will die. But I do not care anymore. I just wanted get out. I just wanted show Kostya: I hate you. I am not afraid of you. I defy you."

A small silence, then. A sheaf of ash collecting at the end of Ilyana's forgotten cigarette. She looks down, sees it. Taps it onto the surface of the nightstand.

"One day, Kostya away in Caern. I make big mess in house, turn over tables, throw plates. I cut myself. I bleed everywhere. And then I run away. Ethan meet me, pick me up in car, drive me here. He rent room for me. He tell me stay here and wait. He give me no money, no car, no phone. But he give me gun. Then he run.

"I do not know where Midsummer's Shadow is. He is running. I am not waiting for him."

Reverence of Dawn

Avery is thinking, as Ilyana speaks.

What Iron Tooth wants is to win. What Iron Tooth wants is to be rid of the weak, fragile kinswoman who will not give him offspring. He wants to come out of this with a new mate, smelling like roses, having punished the evildoers. A partial victory will not be enough.

What Ilyana wants is to be done with all of them: young Ethan, awful Kostya, all the garou. But she is giving up. Can't run from an Adren Theurge. Can't hide. He'll probably kill her. But she did one thing, one last thing in her life, to show him that he didn't own her.

What Midsummer's Shadow wants is to be a hero, it sounds like. Avery doesn't know him yet. Those who know him best believe in him, consider him honorable, call him level. She thinks that it's entirely possible that he really does have a plan. She is not sure how much faith she can put in his intelligence versus Iron Tooth's, though.

Avery exhales slowly, licking her lips in thought. She is not sure what to do, and she is silent for some time. Her eyes move to the gun, then to Ilyana. "If you wait for Iron Tooth to find you, I believe he will kill you. If you go back or allow yourself to be taken back, I believe that he will still kill you. Just more slowly."

Something heavy and grotesque begins to sink in Avery's gut. "Sorting out the troubles between you and your mate is not what I have been challenged to do -- I am not of your tribe and I am too far beneath your mate's rank to challenge him, and I suspect going head to head with him would get me killed. I cannot lie, or join Midsummer's Shadow in his lies, to try and help you in a fruitless escape."

She glances down, then back at Ilyana. "But I also cannot in good conscience permit you to be killed, or return you to a monster. Outside of tribe, rank, my own name or honor... I would rather die than stomach such an injustice. And the only antidote I know is to learn the truth, the entire truth or as much of it as I can, and bring it to light.

"For that, and for my own challenge, I must find Midsummer's Shadow. Do you have anything of his? Anything at all?"

-missing persons-

She is not weak, no. But Ilyana is bitter, she is cynical, she has seen nothing but the worst of life for so long that she refuses to believe in anything but.

So when Avery begins to explain that Ilyana's troubles are not in the purview of her challenge, that she is not of rank or tribe to challenge, that she would die if she went head to head with him -- Ilyana turns away. A wave of unsurprised disgust flickers over her face, which she can't quite hide. Maybe she's tired of hiding that, too.

But then Avery goes on. She says, I cannot in good conscience. She says, I would rather die than stomach such an injustice. And Ilyana turns back, and what is in her eyes is not hope

but something rather like pity.

"You want happy ending too," she says, and gives that shredded laugh again. Nods at the suitcase, something caustic and wry in her eyes, "The gun is his. But if you take, you must leave me other weapon. I will not wait for Kostya with empty hands."

Reverence of Dawn

Ilyana's mockery does not pique Avery's rage. Looking at the two of them sitting there, she would rather her faith in the best of people than Ilyana's defeatism. She can live with it. She eyes the kinswoman as she rises from the bed, walking to the gun. "You could come with me instead," she offers easily. "I assure you, even if you intend to die kicking and screaming in the end, you will have a far more interesting last few hours with me than in this,"

her eyes cast around the room, "splendid place that Midsummer's Shadow has left you with."

Avery's head tips. "Is it so different having a gun or not, when either way you are sitting in a dark room watching television, waiting to die?"

-missing persons-

For the first time, the laughter that comes to Ilyana's lips is not entirely poisonous. She looks around herself at her splendid room, then back at Avery. There's a twist to her lips, somewhere closer to smirk than smile.

"It is palace," she counters, "compared to stone hole Kostya lives in." Then she moves, heron-graceful on those long legs, that thin body, taking a last drag off her cigarette before crushing it out on -- well, whatever is nearest to hand. It happens to be the bedframe in this case. She lifts that gun out of the suitcase. The way she holds it, dangling limp from her fingers, tells Avery she has no earthly idea how to use it beyond point and squeeze. She hands it to the Philodox.

"With gun I can shoot Kostya when he comes through door, then shoot self in head," she explains. Russian Shadow Lords. Defeatism and fatalism is an art form for them. "Without gun I have to be more creative."

On that note she begins to throw what few belongings she has unpacked back into the suitcase. "I will come with you. For now. But you must promise: if Kostya tries to take me back, either he dies or I die. I do not care which but I will not go back."

Reverence of Dawn

All of this is beyond what Avery knows: a garou who would treat the precious, pureblooded kin they were permitted to mate with so shamefully, so callously, so brutally. A stone hole of a den, abuse between two who should be lovers. Fatalism. Suicide. Cutting oneself to spread blood all over the place, make it look like you were raped and murdered in a werewolf's frenzy. It's madness -- all of it, madness. Avery cannot begin to place herself in those mindsets, and

she does not try. What she has to do here requires focus and momentum, not just empathy.

She takes the gun, and she does know how to use one of these, used to be better with them, in fact. She places it in her coat pocket for the time being. She watches Ilyana, standing now, waiting to head out the door with Bright Spear, hoping they don't return to her car to find Iron Tooth waiting for them.

"As I said, Ilyana," Avery says quietly: "I would rather die."

It is, whether the kinswoman can hear it or not, an oath.

--

When Ilyana is ready -- and after Avery has warned her that it is cold outside, she may want a jacket -- she opens the hotel room door and nods to Bright Spear. "I have something to find Midsummer's Shadow with. And she's coming with us."

-missing persons-

It is an oath. And Ilyana's cutting, caustic manner fades a touch. For the third time in all this time, her eyes meet the Philodox's.

She nods. "Me too."

--

The door opens. Avery steps out, glorious, golden, even in the dead of night. In her wake, the slender shadow of a Shadow Lord, dragging a small suitcase behind her. She has put on a light gray coat, woolen, sashed at the waist. There's this much to be said: Iron Tooth didn't dress his mate in rags. But then, that would have shamed him.

Bright Spear gawps to see Ilyana following Avery out. "Is she -- "

yes, yes she is. She's coming with us.

"Um. Is that a good -- I mean -- " she thinks better of it. "Okay, Rhya. Here," she sticks her hand out for the luggage, "gimme that, you're making so much noise, god."

Ilyana doesn't relinquish it in the end. Bright Spear doesn't insist. No one in their small party suggests checking out of the motel. They walk away from the Lodge Motel, and they walk down that main thoroughfare, half a mile or more, until the tiny collection of buildings behind them grows small with distance.

Iron Tooth is not waiting for them. Their luck has not given out on them yet. They throw Ilyana's luggage in the back of the Juke. Ilyana gets into the shotgun seat, leaving the kinswoman to climb into the back. She wraps her coat tighter around herself, doesn't touch the seatbelt, and stares mutely out the window while Bright Spear borrows Avery's pendant again.

"It's pulling west, Rhya," she says,

and so it is.

-missing persons-

[AHEM. Bright Spear climbs into the shotgun seat.]