erich and ingrid are both butthurt.

Ingrid
So, Saturday night was arguably a success. Bit of a clusterfuck, sure, when plans were ditched and everyone on a mission scattered to the winds. But some kids were rescued, some tainted ones dealt with in some way, and most importantly a blighted taint was burned from the face of the earth, the land cleansed with fire and wrath.

Other things happened that night, too. Things that were less pleasant, things that left a sour taste in the mouth or, in the case of one wolf, the taste of another werewolf.

The physical injuries have healed. One has to wonder if others may yet remain, unseen scars left upon the psyche.

Maybe. This is Ingrid that we're talking about. Cold, unfeeling, aloof, distant, uncaring. Weird, outcast, outsider. These are all words that have been used to describe her in the past.

She does not go find him because she never goes to find him, not unless she absolutely has to. She has only been inside that tinyhouse! once, or during the course of one day, the first day that they all arrived in Denver. So, Erich gets a text that is simply: Let's talk. followed by a location. The location is one of Denver's park areas, not too far from Forgotten Questions, not to far from the last bastion of civilization that is Denver's south side. Someplace quiet where they can talk. Someplace close enough to help should the unthinkable happen, and they find themselves set upon by Spirals or some other horror.

It doesn't matter if he gets there early (unless he gets there twenty minutes early, Ingrid isn't that determined to keep someone from waiting), she's already there, waiting for him on a bench, her back to the table. There's a cold empty outdoor grill a few feet away, and other tables, but no one comes near her. They will have their privacy.

Erich
Well, Erich isn't early. In fact, he's borderline late, rolling up about five or seven minutes after the appointed time. He's wearing jeans that have seen better days. He's wearing a t-shirt that advertises some greasy-spoon somewhere called MOM'S PLACE. He's wearing an expression that reads -- well, any number of semi-conflicting emotion.

"Hey," he says, and plants a palm on the tabletop, levers and twists in the same seamless motion, plants his ass on the table and his feet on the bench. They're facing the same direction. It is midafternoon; there are families having summer picnics in the distance. In the far, far distance, because no one comes near these two. Erich watches them a while, the sunlight dappling him through the shade of the trees.

"I'm sorry I bit you," he starts with that. "I'm not gonna say I didn't mean to 'cause I did. But it wasn't really 'cause you took down the one I was fighting."

Ingrid
That surprises her. If he weren't sitting beside and a little behind her, he could see it, just barely. The lift of a brow is faint, the widening of her eyes fainter. He can see the way her head angles, though, an expression of canine curiosity despite her posture and her fine clothes. Anger's cousin irritation is just starting to creep into her voice when she asks, "Why was it, then?"

Erich
There are multiple ways to answer that question, multiple levels on which he could answer. In the end, after a few seconds of silent frowning, Erich goes with the simple approach. Starts there, anyway.

"I was in a really bad mood. I had to take it out on that thing. So when I couldn't..."

A short silence. Then he exhales, gives his head a small shake.

"I was pissed off at your new alpha. And at you. But mostly I was just kinda what-the-fuck at you. And a little... butthurt, I guess." He turns, the sunlight a glint in his pale eye. "What's the deal with you and Afro Daddy anyway?" He can't help it: the name kinda comes out edged in mockery.

Ingrid
She could interrupt him. Gaia knows, there are so many other Ragabashes in the world who would pounce on that silence and fill it with questions, the sound of their voices, anything. But Ingrid lets him talk. She lets the silence span and draw. And as she listens, irritation grows a little stronger, starts shading toward that anger.

Her head shifts one way while he talks, then the other.

"You were in a bad mood." She states it, lets the words fall like stones in the space between them as she turns to look up at him. "You were in a bad mood so you attacked me. In the middle of a fight. In the middle of our mission." The look she gives him then, brows lowered over those dark eyes - not black when exposed to proper light but dark dark brown - and the slightest, slightest shake of her head clearly asks him What? "It couldn't wait?"

Erich
"I was in a bad mood," Erich instantly detonates, "because you act like we're such good friends, and then you waffle on being my packmate for a year, and then you run off and pack up with some random fuckface who just rolls into town. Without even a word to me about it! Your supposed friend, who you literally ran to when the sky fell on your head! What the hell is up with that, Ingrid!"

A beat.

"And I waited until now to lay that on you, didn't I? I didn't stop in the middle of combat to have it out with you then, did I? I owned up to fucking up and apologized instead of trying to spin that into you trying to steal my kill or some such, didn't I? If that's not enough for you and you want to see me tarred and feathered, you're gonna have to wait for the moot. But right now we're going to discuss what the hell is up with -- with all that shit I just talked about, I don't even want to say it again."

Ingrid
"No," she says, those dark eyes of hers glittering with Rage. "You didn't wait until now, you almost killed me. I had thought you merely lost control again, but now you say it was on purpose. That it was your choice. And you want to tell me that is my fault?"

She rises then, and only because he's sitting on top of a table and she's wearing heels is she able to come close to meeting him on a level. "You want to talk about these other things, alright. Let us talk about these other things. You say I waffled," and there's a weight to that word, the look she wears briefly showing she either doesn't quite understand it or she has never used it in a sentence until this moment and can't quite decide if she likes the feel of it on her tongue, "on being your packmate? You have asked me once, a year ago, and I said no. You asked me to run with you and Charlotte and I said no. I found you in Mexico and we came here together. You did not ask me to join you under a totem, and even if you had I would have said no. So tell me, Erich. Which of us is wavering?"

Erich
"You didn't tell me no," Erich argues. "The first time, you just didn't even answer. The second time -- okay, I don't even remember what you said. Maybe you said no. But the third time: some people might think you coming with us to Denver meant something other than 'no'.

"Anyway," there's something oddly savage about the sudden redirect, "that's not even the point. The point is, you act like I'm your friend, and then you neglect to even tell me that you were packed with some new dude. Let alone why. Or why you wouldn't pack with me all this time, but jumped on his bandwagon in -- what, a month? Less?"

Ingrid
"Oh you forgot," she says, drawing out the words with the slightest of smiles. "How convenient." Where he becomes savage, she - though obviously angry - remains cool.

"You may not remember, but I do, or are you deaf as well as stupid?"

Erich
"How about you answer the goddamn question!" Erich is flatout shouting.

Ingrid
"Why would I do that," she asks, cold in the face of his rage, "when you're answering it for me? Or when you answered it for me the other night?"

Erich
"Ugh," Erich throws up his hands. "That doesn't even make sense. I asked you why you didn't bother telling me you packed up. And I asked you why you packed up with some random glass walker, but not me. How the hell did I answer that for you?"

Ingrid
"The answer to the first is that what I do and who I do it with is none of your concern," she says airily. "And I cannot believe I have to spell out the second, but I suppose I have to add phenomenal stupidity to your list of failings. It's because you are weak," and her her words are pitched to cut as sharply as that sword of hers. "And because you are selfish. You could have killed me, and what then? What if I had risen and blindly attacked the rest of you? What if I hadn't? The others would have been down their scout and down a set of claws and they would have been doomed to failure. And why? Because you were too busy wailing like a child over someone snatching up a bone that was never yours to claim."

Erich
Deaf. Stupid.

Weak.

It's that last insult -- not that the earlier ones didn't sting, didn't burn in his chest like an ember -- that snaps some tenuous thread in him. In an instant Erich is in Ingrid's face, roaring wordlessly at her, eyes hot as afterburners, a second away from shifting.

He controls it. Sort of: he slams his fists into the picnic table on either side of her, cracks the wood. In the distance a family is staring at them, the mother hurrying to gather her kids. Erich's chest heaves. His nostrils flare. Gradually it winds down. He breathes normally, inches away.

"So we're obviously not friends anymore," he says, almost conversational. "And I think the answer you're actually giving me with all these offhand little snarks is that we never were. Guess I was just convenient muscle all along. I'm obviously just too dumb to have seen it until now.

"But before you go about calling me weak, dumb, and selfish, you better take a good look around yourself. Your Alpha's the one who wanted to go home with the job unfinished. Your Alpha's the one who wanted two wolves evacuating kids and one breaking a generator while I rushed the enemy. Your Alpha's the one who wasted all his time pinging at the snipers with a goddamn peashooter.

"You're the one who came running to me for comfort when you couldn't handle the shitstorm out there anymore. I'm the one who picked you up and gave you a shoulder to lean on. You're the one who turned your back on me as soon as you found -- " the sarcasm drips, " -- better. I'm the one who put you down in one bite.

"Don't you forget that, Dances with the Hurricane." He pushes off the table, gives her room to do her disappearing act. "Because I won't."

Ingrid
At last her digs, carefully timed and placed daggers, set off the chain of reaction intended since he said he meant to take her down, his pettiness brought to the field of combat by his own admission. He moves, gets in Ingrid's face, snarls and Ingrid

weathers it. Her hands folded primly in her lap, her shoulders set, her spine straight. Her eyes, though. She offers him the slightest smirk, but it's the barest tightening around her eyes that gives sign to her carefully contained fury, the only emotion she allows to show on the surface.

Her head tilts at him, while he stands there breathing heavily in her face. "And you wonder why I won't join you."

She doesn't wait for him to finish regaining control, but dips beneath his straining arms. And she pauses. Looks back over her shoulder at him.

"You're right, he did. But you forget, Erich, no one told you to go rushing headlong into battle on your own. Our mission was to release children, not engage the enemy, you made that choice, just as you have chosen to reshape the past to suit your own accusations."

Then she smiles, and though it's wider there is no mirth to it, only disdain. She even claps her hands together for him. "Oh good for you, Storm's Teeth. An Ahroun took down a Ragabash half his size with scarcely any skill in her natural weaponry in one bite. You must be so proud." She turns then, calling back over her shoulder to him, her tone offhand, "There's no need to worry I might call you for some sort of comfort."