Avery shifts again.
Huxley is bleeding on the ground, unconscious.
Avery becomes a human woman, bloodstained, naked, shoulder gashed. She slaps Huxley's face and the sound rebounds throughout the room. She slaps him again, harder. A third time; her hand turns into a fist, buffeting him until she realizes she really will kill him if she doesn't stop, even in this body. Her teeth are on edge and she can taste blood. Her will is shattered; she is barely holding on to her sanity. Tonight more rage has flowed through her veins than she has ever felt before, can ever remember.
So she forces herself to stop. And she stands up over her Rite-mate, turning to the pup and to Red Cliffs. Her voice is still a snarl when she talks to the youngster:
"Find my mate, the Fianna kinsman who was taken from me. If he is harmed in any way, I will do worse to you. Go!" she snaps, roaring the word, if he is not already running.
Her eyes turn to Red Cliffs. "I will drag this one. He, his lieutenant, and System Shock will be judged."
Huxley"He's fine," the cub hastens to assure her. "Your mate. Well, mostly. No, I mean -- he's fine. I'm going to go get him. Just -- just wait."
He takes off. He's running.
Red Cliffs, standing beside Avery, looks down at the fallen would-be leader of the Sept. Would-be visionary. Would-be leader of the war.
"Weird how we all bought into his bullshit for so long," he muses. "Guess when you're desperate enough you'll grasp at anything." He raises his eyes, firms. "Nearest Gaian Sept is two hours away," he says. "It'd be easier to call them here."
Radiant HonorMostly, the cub says, and Avery flinches toward him, stopping herself when she realizes she's about to lunge at him. He goes. He's running. She folds slightly, tired but not very injured, clinging to that last scrap of her will. She is not used to being so strung out, so close to losing all control. It's all she can do not to burst into tears.
Or frenzy.
Or curl into a ball and hide somewhere in the black depths of this horrible tower, where no one will ever think to look for her, much less find her.
--
Red Cliffs is speaking. She has her hand on her brow, but when she realizes he is talking, she lowers it. She looks at him. He mentions the sept. She nods. "Do it," she says. And then she reaches down, grasping Huxley's leg, and shifting slowly from homid to glabro, glabro to crinos. As she drags him up out of the room, she does not bother to stop his head from bouncing on metal. Or walls.
"Why desperate?" she growls, low, as they walk.
HuxleyUnasked, Red Cliffs helps. He grabs a second leg. He might have to resist the urge to pull, and pull, and pull, but it is a battle he wins easily enough.
He is not corrupt, you see.
--
"He made us desperate," Red Cliffs says simply. "He lured us here with talk of the future, of changing the war. And then he filled our heads day after day with visions of doom. In one hand he offered this impossible dream: the magic bullet of what might be if only we believed in him. In the other, he held a nightmare of what would be if we didn't.
"Most of us fell for it, sooner or later. Some resisted; they were never seen again. Huxley told us they'd abandoned us, but now I think he used them to test his machines. I followed him for a ... long, long time, too. And when I finally realized what he was and tried to stop, he pit the whole crew against me. He was hoping you'd go against me too. That would've been a coup for him; a shining Half-Moon of his own tribe backing his insanity."
They're back in the common area, eerie and silent now. Red Cliffs drops Huxley where he is, shifts down, pulls out a phone and starts to make calls
Radiant HonorAvery says nothing to Red Cliffs' tale. She listens, though. She does not tell Red Cliffs that Huxley was mad, he was delusional, if he ever though she would support him. Red Cliffs knows.
For her part, Avery stands guard over Huxley. She remains in crinos, crouched, her hand-paw poised on his throat, soaking her palm with his blood. If he wakes, if he moves, she will kill him.
HuxleyHuxley doesn't move. Red Cliffs makes his calls quietly, one after another, summoning what allies he knows of. What allies he must have been quietly building for weeks, maybe months, before Huxley discovered his betrayal and turned the Sept against him.
It's a small detail in the moment, in the face of Huxley's momentous treachery and madness -- but perhaps one day Avery will think of it. Red Cliffs would likely have died, or worse, if not for her arrival. There's some comfort in that, and some nobility.
--
A door opens. And then footsteps, and then
her mate's voice, familiar, calling her name. There is a large distance between them and Calden does not trust the youngling that brought him here; does not want to betray his emotions and attachments to strangers. It's not in his hands, though. He sees Avery and every thought departs. He rushes to her, and she is a shocking sight: naked and bloody, drained and on edge. He is, in truth, far better off. A few minor scrapes and bruises. A bit dirty, unshowered and unshaven for days. But quite alive, generally well.
He throws his arms around her. Very tight.
Radiant HonorIt will come to her later. Someone may have to tell her. Avery, so bright and intelligent and kind, sometimes misses these details of who she helps. How she helps them. That she changed the course of their lives. She mostly torments herself with questions of whether the thing she did, the thing she thought was right, really was the best course of action. She tries so hard to be good that she misses the good she does, sometimes.
Maybe it will come to her, though. Mostly right now, she thinks that she would have died, or worse, if Red Cliffs hadn't been honorable, hadn't rebelled, hadn't been brave and helpful.
--
Avery hears Calden and her relief is so powerful that she has to fight the urge to vomit. It's a strange blend of feelings, involuntary and powerful, as she hears him and rises up, turns, leaves her crinos form yet again. Her hair is stringy and matted with blood; it's all over her lovely body. She bears no new scars to terrify him; still just the one on her breast, on her shoulderblade, from the first and worst shapeshift of her life.
She wants to go to him but she's trying not to throw up, or cry, or collapse. So he gets to her first and surely this makes her look tough to the other Garou, that her mate is the one running to her, wrapping his arms around her, holding onto her. It's not the truth; Avery is so overwhelmed at the moment that she can barely move. She just tries not to break down, and so she ends up seeming almost cold, as though she is only permitting Calden's embrace.
But her eyes close, and she tips her head to his shoulder, and she sinks into his arms, and he can feel her knees threatening to buckle but holding steady despite it all. Eventually, when she can will her limbs to move, she wraps them around his waist, and stays there for a while, doing little more than breathing.
--
A moment or two later they are arguing. Mildly, and it's lopsided at best because Avery is in no fit state to argue with anyone and Calden is quite insistent, but she protests when he starts unbuttoning his shirt and he just goes on unbuttoning it, seeing how she's trembling and trying so very hard to hide it, and knowing that any moment now her nudity and her weakened will are going to overwhelm her and she might just fall apart in the middle of a crisis. So his shirt comes off, and then it comes over her shoulders, and she quietly slips her arms through the sleeves. Calden buttons it up for her partly because his fingers can go faster right now. He's large enough, larger than her enough, that his shirt is nearly a dress on her, covering her bare ass, draping over her upper body, the tails brushing her thighs.
Because it is winter and it belongs to him, it is warm. She folds up the cuffs so they don't cover her hands, and she takes a deep breath and turns to speak to Red Cliffs again. The pup who found Calden is neither rewarded nor punished. He's probably grateful to be ignored.
The three of them -- four, including Calden -- gather System Shock, Huxley, and the lieutenant female and drag them to holding cells. Avery is no good with computers so one of the others will have to make sure they are securely locked away. She talks to Red Cliffs about when the other Gaians will arrive, and then finally: if he knows where some food is.
If necessary,
they order pizza to the building.
--
For the most part, she is quiet. She stays near Calden but pulls away from being touched by anyone. She eats, whenever they find or receive food, and tries to settle herself.
HuxleyIt's a strange vigil they hold. Even after all their prisoners are locked away, even after they're scrounged up some food from the kitchens, there's time to spare. It is a long drive from the new england countryside. It takes longer still because first there must be a discussion of who should go, and why.
Red Cliffs keeps watch over the prisoners, much as System Shock had kept watch over him. Calden has found blankets; wears one over his shoulders, and gave Avery another.
Perhaps Avery takes a shower. Perhaps she waits, bloody and glorious and terrible.
--
The pup falls asleep as some point. He looks scared and miserable; perhaps some part of him wishes he'd run away. He stops wishing that when the Gaians arrive, though: they are dragging his compatriot with them, battered and bloodied, one eye swollen shut. They are dragging several others -- once-faithfuls of Huxley, fleeing in the wake of his fall.
There are half a dozen Gaians. Two Guardians of their Caern and a Warder to keep the peace. Calls-Down-the-Stars, a Theurge of significant rank, advisor to the Grand Elder, to call the spirits and oversee the proceedings. A Galliard to remember, and last, a scarred and silent Ahroun wielding a two-handed hammer, its head dull with innumerable old stains. An executioner, one supposes, if one is needed.
There is no Philodox with them. The Gaians assemble, and the fallen are brought before them. Once the bones of the story are established by Red Cliffs, Calls-Down-the-Stars looks to Avery.
"The Alpha of the Caern of the Divided River would hear the testimony of the Half-Moon from Forgotten Questions. These lives hang in balance; the balance that you keep. Who bears what blame? What punishment do you advise?"
Radiant HonorAvery eats. This helps. She calls the concierge at their hotel, and while she is showering, a messenger arrives downstairs carrying a parcel of clothing for Ms. Whitechase. She puts her hair in a bun and pins it back; she dresses in grey slacks and a silk blouse of pale lavender. Her shoulder is bandaged. She puts on mascara and a touch of lip gloss. She wears stockings and a pair of low black heels. No jewelry now; she wears only her wedding ring.
And while they wait, she ends up falling asleep on Calden's lap.
--
Later she stirs. She is woken. The others have arrived. She watches the coward arrive and sneers slightly at him: coward. She watches the others pulled in and she feels bolstered by righteous satisfaction. She greets the Guardians and Warder and others as though this is her sept, her tower. In a way, it is: she has conquered it. If she knew where the whiskey was, she would offer them drinks. If she'd thought of it, she would have had someone, somehow, bring some sort of modernistic nosh.
Avery does love hostessing. Even though sometimes her idea of what's appropriate to the situation is a bit... warped.
--
Huxley and his ilk are brought in. All of them are. She steps forward when called by the Theurge and inclines her head to him. And then she takes a deep breath,
and begins her testimony.
Radiant HonorSo she tells them how she came to be here. It is a detailed story, though told an efficient pace: how Huxley's driver met her and her mate at the airport, and the chain of events since then. The strange feeling she got here; the brawl between Red Cliffs and System Shock she was expected to... do something with. At each turn, the focus is on Huxley himself: his failures of etiquette. His failures of honesty and integrity. His delusions. His coy evasion of true leadership. She tells them what was said when Huxley finally took her, and her husband, down to see the 'Goliath'.
"You will find that abomination in the spiral that lies at the center of this would-be sept," Avery says to those gathered, in case any wish to be excused and investigate it.
She goes on: telling Huxley she would not join him. Huxley entering the machine. Her failure to protect Calden from even being here, her growing rage, her frenzy: she speaks of these things with the shame she thinks they have earned. She does not avoid it. She wouldn't. She tells them how she woke up, and how Red Cliffs allied himself with her.
And how System Shock tried to stop them, or rather: tried to run off and warn the others about them. She tells them about the cubs and the lieutenant, pausing only to look at the female and require her name, as well as those of the cubs. She speaks of the coward who ran, and the one who tried to help.
Then Huxley. The Goliath, and how she stopped him from using it. The battle, or what she recalls of it. And then, in quick summary, how they came to be here.
"Red Cliffs has, by risking his life to rebel against Huxley and risking it again to aid me, has repaid whatever debt he has incurred by his earlier failures," she says, firmly. Shakes her head. "I would not punish his ideals when punishment should, in fact, be reserved for the one who took advantage of it.
"The cub who overcame his cowardice does, I believe, deserve to be held accountable for some of his foolishness; he only chose honor when cowed. However, I say again: the worst crime rests on the shoulders of the one who abused the ignorance, immaturity, and fear of a mere cub."
She looks at the one who ran away, her eyes briefly flickering cold. "This one needs to have his cowardice held to the light, and to the fire, so he may learn the painful lesson of what happens when we submit wholly to our fear." She looks away again, back to the other Gaians. "Temper his punishment with mercy: he is only a cub, and one who was lied to and threatened by his elder.
"System Shock is an arrogant fool," she says, the words snapping slightly when she says them. "He was misled as much as the others, but he knew what he was choosing. Do with him what you will. And this one," she adds, waving an arm at the lieutenant: "Not only did she follow willingly, she attacked other Gaians and helped her leader intimidate, threaten, and harm those who would have spoken against him. She has earned no mercy, at least not in my sight."
Avery is flickering; her rage meets her will and they war against one another inside of her. She stops for a moment there, taking a breath. "Huxley has tainted himself, and perhaps others, with the influence of the Weaver. I believe he has killed his own kind in pursuit of serving the Spider of the Triat. He has hidden away in the cage of the Goliath like a coward; he has turned his back on the gifts of the spirit. He has lied and misled younger and weaker wolves, risked the lives of those who tried to pull him back to the path of honor, and --"
She stops for a moment, and then exhales.
She believes it. So she says it.
"It is my judgement that he no longer deserves the life that Gaia has given him. He was not tempted; he succumbed. Cleanse him by returning him to the Homelands."
sept of the divided riverNo one departs to examine the sordid bones of the thing Huxley sought to build. All remain where they are. The warriors of the Caern watch the prisoners, hawkeyed.
The elders of the Caern watch Avery. Now and then they murmur amongst themselves. The Warder frowns from the beginning; her face a thunderous scowl by the end. The Galliard listens sharp-eyed, shaking his head now and then in disbelief, or disgust. The Theurge is impassive, her eyes closed. The Ahroun flexes his hands around the haft of the handle now and again. Stares at Huxley like a predator watches prey.
Red Cliffs watches Avery too. He bows his head to her at the end slightly and silently. The cub beside him -- the one that allied himself with them at the end -- flinches when Avery speaks of his accountability; shivers in what might be relief when he is absolved of the worst of it.
The other cub cannot meet Avery's eyes. He begins to weep, shoulders shaking silently: perhaps out of fear, and perhaps out of shame.
It brings disdain to Huxley's lieutenant's eyes. Of all the prisoners, she stands the straightest; stares defiantly back at Avery the entire time. When Avery is finished, she snarls four words:
"I followed my Alpha."
--
And then, Huxley. Bloodied and beaten, too weak even to rise. Still he has the gall to smirk a few times -- when Avery describes her defeat, her imprisonment. Snorts audibly at other times: when he is accused of all his many crimes. When Avery is finished, he spits on the floor: mingled blood and saliva.
"Do with me what you will. You'll see who was right when the Apocalypse comes."
Radiant HonorHuxley's lieutenant speaks up. And Avery stares back at her for a moment. She doesn't shake her head. She doesn't move. She just says, flatly:
"You failed your Alpha."
--
Huxley snorts and smirks and Avery does not look at him. She does not even call him by any name he has earned; certainly not Rhya. He spits. She watches the elders who have come. She does not answer him. She does not need to spell out, for anyone, his lack of remorse.
It's written in blood and spittle on the ground.
sept of the divided riverThese exchanges -- or lack thereof -- are also watched. Witnessed. Remembered.
And when they are done, and when there is nothing more to say, the Theurge rises. With her rises all her Caernmates who have taken a seat or dropped to a crouch.
"Red Cliffs," says Calls Down the Stars, "do you have anything to add?"
He glances at Avery. "Only stories of the atrocities here. Nothing that'll make you change your view of that Urrah for the better."
"Very well. Radiant Honor, have you anything else to say?"
Radiant HonorAvery thinks for a moment.
If you kill him, I want to help.
She blinks a couple of times.
Kill his lieutenant, too.
Exhales.
"I will stand as witness to your judgements," is all she says in the end.
sept of the divided riverCalls Down the Stars's eyebrows rise. Yet after only a moment's thought, she nods.
"As you wish. You, Red Cliffs, and your mate may follow us in your car. We'll handle the rest."
--
It's been days since Avery arrived at Twin Pines for the second time. Riding down in the silent, glassine elevator, it might seem longer -- or it might seem a few blinks of the eye. Their car is where they parked it. Red Cliffs piles into the back as Avery and her mate take the front seats.
As they leave the garage, the ground shudders with some deep, distant concussion. As they drive away, they see the top of the skyscraper ablaze; fire trucks already screaming to the scene.
--
A block later a nondescript sedan pulls up next to them. The window rolls down to reveal the Galliard. "Follow us," he says,
and so they do: onto the freeways, then onto smaller, winding highways; across a state line; into the forest. At some point they turn onto a private road, which becomes a dirt road. At some point they park their cars.
"Your mate should stay here," says the Galliard. "We'll leave a Guardian if you like."
--
The rest of the way on foot, then. Terrain's rugged here: hilly, rocky, deciduous forests deep with snow. Huxley and his gang, bound now with silver-laced shackles, are prodded ahead of the Guardians the Warder. One or twice one of the cubs slips, is hauled unceremoniously back to his feet and pressed on.
It is near daybreak when they arrive at the Caern's Heart. Word has spread, and a crowd has gathered: wolves, mixed in tribe and age and rank and renown, some curious, some angry. The prisoners are bound to the Wyrmpole, and the Grand Elder -- an aging wolf, hair long and grey -- gathers to confer in private with her advisors. This time, Avery is not invited to speak.
--
She is momentarily alone. The Septmates ignore her, by and large; they do not know her, do not know her role. The guardians guard; the accused slump silently against the Wyrmpole, defiant or angry or frightened or simply exhausted.
After a while, Huxley calls out to her:
"You remember our Rite, Avery? Righteous and forthright even then, you were."
And a little later:
"Never thought it'd end like this."
--
Soon enough the Council returns. And there is no explanation, no preamble, no extended discussion. This Sept does not operate that way. The story will come out later, little by little, propagated by the Galliards. For now, there is only judgment.
"Pup," to the one who stayed and fought, "you have no name, and you will bear no name until you've earned one properly amongst us. Your past is gone. You are wiped clean. You start anew, from the beginning, a green cub all over again.
"Pup," to the one who fled, "you too have no name, and you too will bear none until it is earned. You too begin anew, but your path will be harder. For three turns of the moon you will speak not at all or with the voice of the jackal, so that anyone who hears know will know your cowardice. After that... we shall reconsider your standing.
"System Shock, you are a dangerous fool. You are to be sent into the Far Umbra to quest for your own redemption. When you succeed, you may also begin anew. Do not return until you do.
"Iron Spine," this, to Huxley's lieutenant, "you will die. For your loyalty, blind, misguided and misplaced as it is, we offer you the honor of a good death. You will fight against our foes until you fall. In return, we will see to it that your kin are honored and cared for, and that they are never burdened with the knowledge of your dishonor and your failings.
"Return to your Homelands. Learn again what it is to be a good Garou. When you come back to us, be a better Beta to your Alpha, and a better warrior to the Nation."
And then, the last.
"Morning's Herald," says the Elder, "that was the last time you will be addressed by that name. You are to be stripped of rank, tribe, auspice and name, since you cared nothing for our traditions. You are to be stripped of your Wolf, since you denied this mighty gift Gaia has given you. You are to die, but not by honorable combat nor by tooth and claw, as you have turned your back on your birthright. Alone, a pariah in apeskin, you will be executed by the basest implement of the Weaver we can find.
"That is the path you have chosen, and this is where it ends."
Radiant HonorIt almost takes the last scraps of Avery's will for her to leave Calden again. She just nods, though. And she embraces him, but strangely: it seems like she forces herself to do so, before she turns away to go with them.
--
Avery says nothing as they follow. She does not complain about wearing kitten heels in the woods, and she refuses to lag behind. She wears a coat; perhaps it is Calden's. There is some comfort to her, though, being surrounded only by wolves now. She lets her mate slip from her mind, if only for a while; it is better this way. She does not want to think of him when before her eyes is something...
like this.
--
When she is alone, she finds a place to sit. She sits, and she looks at the moon through the treetops. It comforts her, though it also fills her with fury she cannot temper with inner reserve. Perhaps that is why she can't stop herself from looking at Huxley when he speaks to her, reminds her of their rite. Perhaps her rage is why
she says nothing at all to him. She only stares, as though at a stranger. She will give him no comfort. She will give him no mercy.
After a while, she looks at the moon again.
--
The council returns. Avery rises to her feet. She folds her hands before her and listens to the mercy given to the cub who helped her; she finds his eyes briefly, if he is not too ashamed. She gives him a small nod. She does not do the same for the one who ran; he got off easy. So, too, does System Shock, she thinks.
But then: all of them, right now, are little more to her than the ones who took her mate. Drove her to frenzy. Made her come far too close to killing them in her fury. Made her miss Christmas with her family, her and her new husband's first Christmas with these people, this piece of her history and even if they open presents later it's not the same.
Avery blinks her selfish, childish petulance away. She is exhausted, but she knows this is hardly the time. She watches as Iron Spine is sentenced. Her jaw clenches as Iron Spine is given an honorable death, her secrets hidden away from her kin. Avery reminds herself that this is not her sept. She knows only these past few nights; no judgement she would given them based on that would be as fair as that of her elders, those who know their names, their stories. More of them, at least. She is too close to be impartial.
She knew this when she decided not to suggest a punishment for any of them but Huxley. She knows the limits of her own wisdom. Sometimes, she knows the limits of her own honor.
--
Then Huxley. Who she does, in fact, remember as a teenager. He was younger than her; they were all younger than her, though Huxley was one of the ones closer to her age. Sometimes they were so selfish and self-centered and she would set her teeth before speaking to them, advising them, warning them that what they were about to do was stupid. Huxley wasn't the one awed by her scar; that was the Ahroun they were with during those nights, who was trying to hold on to a pretense of being unafraid of death. Avery knew that. Huxley was sort of a nerd. It hasn't been so many years; he isn't that old now. He is still, obviously, younger than she is.
Not as wise.
Not as loved, by kin or spirit or even wolf.
Avery tries to feel something when she looks at him. Grace. Pity. She tries to feel something other than an almost sickening satisfaction. She reflects on the punishments of the others, how each one seems so bitterly wan compared to what she wants to do to them. She looks away, into the dark woods, for a few moments. She looks there as though her sympathy might be hiding in the shadows. She cannot find it, or sense it, or feel it.
She looks back at Huxley again. He is to be stripped of his wolf, and die a human. She sees nothing wrong with this. She thinks of him dead, and gone, and she thinks only that they should get it over with so she can go to sleep, and hide from her own shame. Her own fear of herself, which steadily grows the longer she stands in the moonlight.
Avery takes a very deep breath, and exhales it slowly. And wisdom comes to her. She settles into it, though it hurts, slipping it into a pocket for later. She opens her eyes, and though she feels no mercy or sympathy for those judged, she doesn't feel... empty. Anymore.
sept of the divided riverIn those few seconds when Avery's eyes were closed, the Guardians have already moved in. The one pup is unchained and set loose; he stands there, small and uncertain and flinching, afraid of some trick inherent in his sudden freedom. His counterpart is led away to be stricken with the jackal-voice. He is crying again, and the guardian leading him looks disgusted: truly, he is cowardly.
They will fall into the care of some cubmaster in the morning. They will be trained again, harshly but fairly, and perhaps one day grow to be worthy members of the Nation. Or perhaps they will die sometime in the Fostering or the Rite. It happens all the time. There's no room for mistakes in war. Or cowards.
System Shock too is led away: taken deep into the heart of the Caern where the moonstone lies. In a few moments the Caern's heart will briefly incandesce with a cold white light. When it fades, System Shock will be gone, flung into some dark, treacherous corner of the Umbra to seek what salvation he might find.
Perhaps he'll find it. Come back tempered, wiser, a new wolf. Perhaps more likely he will not: will lose his way or die somewhere out there, his spirit wandering forever thereafter. This, too, happens all the time. There's no room for mistakes in the outer reaches. Or fools.
Iron Spine is stripped of her belongings. Her fetishes and talens are divided amongst the Sept. Her personal belongings are set aside to be given to what family she might have. Stone-faced, head high, she follows the Wyrmfoe of the Sept: off to whatever last hunt or ten he might find for her.
Perhaps in a day or a week she will die, alone and packless, roaring defiance to the end. It is clear she does not see the crime in her actions, and never will in this life. She does, however, have the honor and the courage -- or perhaps simply the blind obedience -- to die when she is told. But then: there is no room for such unquestioning loyalty anymore.
--
They have to drag Huxley away. It's not a struggle, and it's not a fight. It's simply unwillingness. A leadenness of foot.
"We could have been heroes, Avery. We could have ended the war, you and I. We could've shaped the future, and now it's lost." His voice rises as the Guardians pull him from the Wyrmpole, from the gathering, off into the night where the rituals are performed. "We could've won, but you were too blind! All of you! Too foolish, too complacent, too cowardly!
"You'll see! When the Wyrm comes for all of you, you'll all wish you'd listened to me.
"You'll see!"
--
Later, the mute Ahroun beats him to death with a tire iron. His corpse is dumped in the river.
Perhaps Avery asks. Perhaps someone tells her. Or perhaps it's a detail she doesn't care to know, or simply doesn't care about. She is offered hospitality at the Caern -- a bed and a meal, if she needs such things -- but the truth is they are an insular people; their own rules, their own traditions. They are polite, but they are not welcoming.
Besides, her mate is waiting for her. Her family is waiting.
Radiant HonorAvery watches. She walks over to the cub who helped her and she puts her hand on his arm for a moment, and a moment only. No thanks. No absolution. Just contact. Her eyes are on him, and her hand is soft but somehow heavy, as though she is laying a burden on him. One day, she hopes he'll be wise enough to realize what that burden is.
Nothing for the coward. She wonders if he will only resent what has happened to him, if he will always live in fear. She wonders if his punishment will make him a better wolf in the long run, or simply shame others into not following his example. She doesn't think long on it; the rite is done. Or will be, soon.
She does not watch System Shock, but she looks at Red Cliffs when the other is taken to be flung into the Far Umbra. She wonders if once upon a time they were friends. Or at least: comrades. If they fought together and not just against one another. But really, it doesn't matter. System Shock is as good as dead. If he returns, he will not be the same wolf.
As for Iron Spine, she watches her stripped, but she will not watch her die. That will take time. She will be beaten, and exhausted, and half-starved, by the time she goes. She will not be humbled. And that is why she has to die.
Avery knows this.
--
Huxley is pathetic to the end, a child refusing to walk. She watches him blandly, as he blathers about his delusions about how she was somehow his partner. She wonders where he got this ideal of her, melded her righteousness with Iron Spine's unwavering, unquestioning obedience. She wonders how far back his delusions go.
That's all they are. She hears him screaming that they'll all see one day, and thinks that she is not alone when she hears in her heart the answer. She waits for him to be far enough away, with those who do not follow standing near her. Says to them, even if it is only a cub, a Cliath, a Guardian...
"Maybe," softly, as though to herself. "But I wish to die as a Garou, and not a tool of the Weaver."
Avery does not ask. She is not told. Because in the end, she slips her clothes and shifts her shape. She follows, a silent and clear-eyed white wolf, to the place where Huxley is beaten to death. This she witnesses: the brutality of his death. The banality of it. The sickening crunch of bone, the splatter of flesh. She watches one of his eyes fall from its socket. She watches his face seem to... crack, and then melt. She watches him die, and she does not snarl or howl or beat her chest but she watches, because she wished for it,
and because she advised it.
Maybe no one would give her that burden to bear. Say that it isn't hers. But she knows it is; she takes it anyway.
--
Then she turns back. He is not sung for, not burned, and given no rite. She does not regret this. He was no longer a wolf. She returns to her clothes. She says goodbye to the elders, thanks them for their justice, and their rescue of the mess that became of that urrah monkey's attempted sept. She bids farewell to Red Cliffs, and Red Cliffs alone; gives him an embrace, and tells him the names of her family nearby. She tells him to seek her out, if he is ever in Colorado. And when she has done her duty, and taken her burdens, and paid her respects, she finds her way back to the edges.
Finds her way back to Calden. She is silent and seems hollowed out in the car on the way back to -- no. Not her family. The hotel. She does not look at him, or talk to him; her rage jangles her nerves, spikes the edges of her skin. And they get there and go upstairs and she's had a bath and something to eat and she's exhausted and all she wants to do is sleep so she takes off her clothes and she pretends she is alone and it is midday and suddenly she is just there,
sitting on the edge of the bed,
naked,
staring at nothing.
--
Perhaps he brings her tea before he sits beside her. She doesn't flinch away. She looks at him. Looks at his hands -- maybe the teacup in them. Smells of whiskey; he really is a Fianna. Follows his hands to his wrists, his arms, but she cannot make it to his face. She curls slightly in on herself, shoulders tense, staring forward.
Her voice is hoarse from weariness:
"Why do I want to be punished?"
CaldenThe teacup is nothing like what they have at home. No delicate fine china here. No sturdy earthenware either. It is plain, white, set apart only by a certain symmetry and uniformity to its angles that bespeaks a finer and more expensive craftsmanship than, say, Walmart.
The tea is hot, and it is black; the edges dulled off with a dollop of cream and more than a dollop of scotch. Calden delivers it into her hands if she'll take it. Sets it beside her, steaming and fragrant, if not.
Either way, he sits beside her. He takes his time: because he is a large, deliberate man, and because he does not want to be more than she can bear. For some moments after she speaks, he's silent; pondering.
Then he reaches over. Stops shy of touching her, but turns his palm over for her hand. If she wants.
"I don't know," he says softly. "I don't think you deserve to be punished."
AveryBig and strong. Patient and kind. Avery loves him so.
She does look at him, briefly, as he comes nearer, carrying her 'tea'. She has pain in her eyes, and weariness, but glimmering through both is her adoration. Patches looks at her like that sometimes, though with less intelligence. That is how she sees him. So she takes her teacup, and holds it in her hands as though to warm them, but her hands have never been cold. Even before she changed, she remembers: she always ran so hot. So many of her childhood teachers thought she had a fever when she didn't.
Avery closes her eyes, inhaling the tea, smelling the scotch, her lip quivering at the scent. Of course. She did marry a Fianna. Not that she would ever forget, but these little things remind her. And amuse her. And comfort her.
She has not taken a sip before she speaks. She does not sip it when he answers. She sees his hand, and she doesn't want to take her hands off the teacup for some reason, so she makes a little gesture with her head, towards herself. He might see it as a summoning, but it isn't; she just doesn't know how to say aloud, right this moment, that it's okay for him to move closer. Next to her.
He answers. Avery sighs. "I hate it when I frenzy," she says, her voice breaking on the word itself. "I'm useless when I do. And I left you beh--" but her voice cracks again when she says she left. Tears spring to her eyes, full and hot and overpowering.
CaldenSo he moves a little closer. Avery's husband slides over, sits right beside her, his shoulder to hers; his thigh along hers. He doesn't put his arm around her -- yet -- but he is close, a steady and sturdy warmth.
"I was fine," he assures her. "Huxley didn't give a single hoot about me. He had me tossed into one of the bunk rooms and locked me in. That's all. You were much worse off, the last I saw of you. To be honest, I -- "
It's his turn to lose his words. His jaw tenses reflexively; he clamps down on whatever unspeakable thing might come next. He is gripping the edge of the cushions, white-knuckled, uncertain if she can bear his embrace.
AveryCalden is almost as warm as she is. Perhaps warmer, right now; she is naked, after all. And though her rage still spikes almost uncontrollably here and there tonight, it seems more that the sapping of her will is what cools her. Even the spirits who attend to her when she calls do not feed on Avery's fury; they come to gather around her will. That is her strength. That is what fuels her voice when she speaks, when she sways people. That is what she misses most, right now. Those clear eyes. That clear mind.
She closes her eyes as she feels him against her and she begins to cry even before he says a word. She cries quietly. Those soft, cold tears that drip silently out from under her dark, gold-dusted eyelashes. She takes a single shaky breath midway through what he tells her, and strangely she seems comforted to hear that he was just tossed in a room and ignored, but not by much; what if she had failed? What would they have done with her mate, after that? She can't think of it.
Avery suddenly takes a drink of that hot, steaming tea, though it scalds her tongue. She sort of wishes it were straight scotch, at the moment. She sniffs.
Calden stops mid-sentence. She turns to look at him. Her brow furrows; she doesn't understand at all why he is so tense suddenly. And it gives her something to focus on, more than her own self-recrimination.
"What?"
CaldenHe, too, suddenly wishes for scotch. Hot totties: what was he thinking? He should've brought tumblers of whisky. He should have brought the bottle.
"I thought you might have been dead," he says, all on a single exhale. "I thought they'd kill you, if you weren't. I thought I'd never see you again."
AveryAvery doesn't answer that. She looks at him, and her brow is unfurrowed, and then she looks away. And then she slowly stands up, her knees a bit shaky, and she puts the hot tottie on the nightstand beside the generally worthless landline.
She goes over to the wet bar in their suite. She comes back
with a bottle of scotch.
She sits beside him again, just as close as before. And she stares ahead as she puts her hand on the bottle. The cap comes off with a soft pop, and she offers it to him. First, of course. He hasn't had any. Not even with tea.
And she says nothing.
What on earth does one say to that?
CaldenCalden doesn't quite laugh. He doesn't have the heart to laugh, just now: contemplating the death of his beloved, his mate, his wife of less than a year. But the edge of his mouth does move a little as she returns with scotch.
He takes it. He lifts it to his mouth. It's a light touch; he doesn't chug. He takes a good swig, but it's smooth; betrays practice. Fianna. As he hands it back, he pulls his sweater off. It's cable-knit, thick and warm, warmer still with his body's heat. Without explanation -- for he needs none -- he lays it over her bare shoulders.
"I asked the Guardian about the judgment," he says a little later, "while we were waiting for you to return. He had a connection to his packmates. He told me. It couldn't have been easy for you."
AveryThere are reasons why they fell in love. Why they married. Why they have the relationship they do, so early into it. He speaks of thinking she was dead. She brings scotch, because sometimes she just gives up on words. On eloquence. On making sense of it all. Right now she is lucky, and she knows it, that she didn't run away. Not in the Weaver-sept. Not after her frenzy. Not when she saw him. Not now, back at the hotel, thinking of these terrible things. She feels very proud of herself, and even such a strong emotion threatens to shake her to pieces.
He drinks. She takes the bottle back and she takes a drink; a larger one. She's not practiced with drinking straight from a bottle. She also has poor self-control at the moment. The amber liquid dribbles out of the corners of her mouth; she coughs, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, hands him the bottle back after he takes off his sweater.
But when he lays it over her, she shrugs it off, gently. She's so warm. She doesn't want it. She leans against him, though; she does want him.
Her eyes close briefly, and open, as she rests her head on his shoulder. The scotch burnt its way down her throat, but warms her chest, her belly. It feels very good.
"It was," she says softly. "Frighteningly so."
CaldenThis time he does wrap his arm around her. It is simple and familiar; he sometimes feels like he's known her half his life or more. He sometimes forgets they met not so terribly long ago.
They pass that bottle of scotch back and forth. He takes another sip before handing it to her.
"Were you being fair and just?"
AveryDoesn't fight him. Doesn't pull away, recoil. She doesn't reach for the scotch this time; she stares at the bottle, the liquid sloshing inside, glass to glass. His question makes her begin to cry again, through which she whispers, chokingly:
"I don't know. I just wanted him to die."
Calden"You don't know?" he repeats, gently; perhaps just a touch incredulously. That arm around her tightens; he hugs her against his side. "Oh, Avery. Do you really think an entire Sept would have heeded your advice if it weren't fair and just?"
AveryAvery just shakes her head, though it's still pressed against him. "I cannot judge whether I was fair based on the consensus of the people. I can only know my own conscience. And in this case: I do not know if my advice was just."
She is quiet a moment, her voice small. "I think it was. But I was so angry. I should have abstained. And I only realized that after he had been dragged away. That is why I followed."
Calden"I don't understand," Calden says softly. "Why did you follow if you thought you should have abstained?"
Avery"Because I was part of it," she answers him. The words come quickly to her tongue, but not easily. She's still not sure if this will help him understand. "I said I thought he should die, and they were killing him. I realized I should have told them that I was too angry, too enraged, too close to it to give judgement on him, and then I would not have... a hand in his death. But I spoke, and so I did. It was my duty to witness his death."
A moment of silence, there.
"And my punishment," she whispers, realizing it now. But there is another beat of silence,
just one more.
"And I wanted to watch him suffer. I wanted to listen to him die. I wanted to see him broken to pieces like that,"
and her teeth are on edge in those final words, harsh and snarling, a reminder of her rage, and how much it claws at the inside of her skin.
CaldenCalden can't pretend that it doesn't disturb him, at least a little bit. Part of his daily life is death, but it's different. He doesn't truly know how it feels to kill out of hate.
Calden can't pretend, either, that he doesn't understand it to some degree. Not the killing, but the wanting to kill. That, he does understand.
"When they dragged you away," he says quietly, "and I thought you were dead... if someone handed me a gun loaded with silver, I would have fired every bullet into his head. Every one. I don't know if that's right. Or just. Or fair. I don't know if you were right, or just, or fair. I can't ... I can't give you that absolution, if that's what you want."
He wraps his other arm around her, though. Cradles her head, kisses her temple.
"But I get it. At least a little. And I love you."
AveryHe would have killed out of hate. So would she. Neither of them did.
Calden's hatred may have abated when he saw his mate alive.
Avery's did not.
Perhaps this is the difference between anger and rage.
--
Avery rests her hand on Calden's leg. She closes her eyes. "I don't want absolution, darling," she murmurs, and only as she is saying it realizes that it is true. But she doesn't want to be punished anymore, either.
He presses his lips to her temple. She breathes more deeply. "Come," she whispers. "Let's wash these days away. We both need to rest."
