one faith, one war.

Erich

Through stars. Through night. Past comets and planets. Through galaxies so alien and farflung that mankind may not have even discovered them yet. Past the ancient, crushing cores of mature galaxies, where enormous black holes -- the Wyrm still in balance, one might argue -- swallow the carcasses of long-dead stars. Across the void. Out of the unknown. Past the heart of their own galaxy, and to that distant edge; that intergalactic suburb that contains the Local Cluster,

the solar system,

the ocean-blue Neptune, the rings of Saturn; past the blazing sun. Past the mirror-bright face of their own moon. To that glorious, fragile blue-green planet, terra firma, earth, Eshtarra; the heart of Gaia.

Erich has never been on an airplane. And he marvels at this, too: the continents spread beneath them, the millions of tiny pinpricks of light that grow and grow until he can recognize the United States, the eastern seaboard, the Rockies, Denver spread below them like a living tapestry.

There the Child of Karnak meets them. There it faces them, impassive, noble, serene. There it bows to them: a slight, elegant movement of the head and neck. And then perspective skews for a moment; it's hard to say if they are immaterial, or if they cross the Gauntlet, or plunge from the skies, or --

somehow, they are back where they started. In those seats in the IMAX theater, the screen fading to black as the credits on Erich's black hole feature begin to roll.

--

A little later, they are in Erich's truck. He is driving Avery home. He is quiet, and thoughtful, and far more reserved than he was on the way out. It is not a long drive, but he drives rather slowly, and so they hit a lot of red lights.

At one of them, he draws a breath that tells Avery he's about to speak. "Thank you for saving my life, Rhya," he says softly. A flicker. "Avery, I mean."

Avery Chase

They return home, and Avery is glad of it. She loves the stars, the night, the light-strewn void, but this is her home, and ultimately she was born to tread with her feet upon the earth, to defend it, to stay with it.

They slip back into familiar timespace and find the Child of Karnak waiting. Avery thinks for a moment that whatever portal was opened for them had to be kept open and guarded -- so she bows to the Child, her hands folded, her head bowed, even before she realizes that he is bowing to them as well. Avery breathes in deeply, sinking backward and finding the theater chair against her back. Her eyes drift closed, then open, and she looks at Erich.

Together they go turn off the equipment and slip back out the way they came. They cross through the Gauntlet to leave the museum, hearing again the laughter of children, the heartbeat, the distant thudding and subtle roar of creatures who have been fossilized skeletons for eons. And then, later,

they are in Erich's truck.

--

Avery does not interrupt the silence. She is meditating, in a way, on what happened tonight. She is also taking advantage of the darkness to remain in glabro, for there are still burning, seeping wounds from the dragon across her body. A fine coat of pale golden fur covers her skin, even parts of her face, giving her an alien look around those piercing eyes. Her ears are pointed through her hair; her teeth have very sharp incisors on both top and bottom. She is taller like this, her shoulders rounded, her athletic musculature more pronounced, her limbs lithe and seeming ready at all times for reaction, for speed, for brutality.

She is an animal, and an animal-woman, and a woman, and all of these parts of her are shown when she looks at him again.

"Thank you for saving mine," she says back, also soft.

Erich

Erich, for his part, has reverted to his man-form. Maybe he's worried about traffic cams. Maybe he can't drive with big huge feet. More likely it just doesn't really occur to stay shifted. Later on, when he gets home, he'll take to his wolfskin and jump up on Charlotte's bed, or maybe Melantha's if she'll have him; curl up into a big warm ball of fur and just...

sleep...

forever. Or at least for a solid twelve hours.

Right now, though: right now he is homid-shaped, a young man with the pale colors of the north strewn through every inch of his form. He frowns a little as he's thanked in return, troubled.

"I just used one of Charlotte's talens on you," he says. "And you only needed it because you took that hit for me."

Silence again. A sort of tense one, stuffed full of things that Erich isn't saying. Except of course Erich sucks at not saying anything, and so it's only a matter of time before he erupts with --

"Avery, I gotta say something. Don't think I'm not grateful to you for being alive. Because I am. I so am. But -- god, please don't do that ever again. Please don't put your own life on the line for me, okay?

"This isn't because I'm an Ahroun. I mean that's a good reason too -- Ahrouns are supposed to die so their allies can be safe? not the other way around? -- but this is because it's you. Versus me. I mean look at me. I'm a seven-year Cliath, I piss people off when I open my mouth, I couldn't plan my way out of a paper bag, and the only people that would follow me are ... probably the people who are just following me to keep my ass alive. If my only contribution to this war is to be cannon fodder in the last battle, then I'd be damned proud and damned happy that I even accomplished that much.

"But then there's you. Everyone loves you. They believe in you, they'd fight and die and -- most importantly -- win for you. You've shouted down some witch-woman of the Wyrm. You hit your Fostern rank on such a high note that one of the biggest hardasses in the Sept had nothing but praise for you. The powers-that-be picked you to go back in time to save the whole city before it was even born. And just tonight, an avatar of the sun itself came to find you to help it defeat... a... spacewyrm thing that was EATING. ENTIRE. STARS.

"You. Avery Chase. Reverence of Dawn, Radiant Honor. I'm not anywhere close to your league, Rhya, and I say that without an ounce of envy or resentment. I'm not even playing the same game as you. You're a hero. You're going to do something. You're going to make a huge difference in this war. I know it, everyone who knows you knows it. You know it. But that's not going to happen if you throw your life away on ... on nobodies like me."

Avery Chase

Moments after he says I just, Erich may very well sense Avery's reaction sparking to life, a reaction that only grows as he goes on. She listens to him, for what that's worth, and does not interrupt him, for if her recent challenge taught her anything, it is that much of her duty as a judge is to listen more, and say less.

That reaction, which is frustration and a rising desire to insist that he did not 'just' do anything, that she very well may have needed it anyway, does he remember at all what they were facing out there, is slowly turning to something else when he starts getting into his real reasons for asking her not to do that again. When he says it's you versus me. When he says that one of the brightest Theurges Avery has ever seen is only with him to keep him alive, that he'd be happy and proud to 'accomplish that much' to be cannon fodder.

She is distinctly, twistingly uncomfortable the more he says about her, about how people feel about her, what the spirits see in her, how special and out of his league and how she's a hero and she's going to do great things and

Avery

just

looks forward, exhaling slowly, and says: "Pull over."

Erich

Uh oh.

Erich kinda ... sinks a little bit. But he doesn't argue. He pulls over.

Avery Chase

The truck slows to a stop, and they're not in the least populated area ever, but they haven't quite passed the northern tip of City Park yet on their way back to Avery's penthouse. So when she gets out, and when Erich -- one assumes -- follows her, they still are on the edge of that park, against grass, and not many people are around.

Avery comes around the front, feeling the heat of the engine against her side as she

stalks

towards Erich. She still doesn't feel the pain of her wounds, but her body no longer glows with Luna's protection and light. Nor will the weapons of her body harm Erich more than anyone else, because he is not under her judgement, he has not fallen in dereliction of his Gaia-given duty.

And he's been a fighter too long not to see this coming, see the way her feet move and the way her weight shifts, but still, it can't help but be a bit surprising when she balls up her fist and throws it towards his jaw.

Avery Chase

[dex + brawl]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )

Avery Chase

[damage!] [b]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )

Erich

[soak!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Erich

Erich does, in fact, follow Avery out of the car. He suspects things are Not Going To Go Well for him, but the fact is he has too much respect for Avery -- and, really, for himself -- to sit sullenly in the car and be dragged out like some sort of misbehaving teenager. Even if he was just ... borderline self-pitying. Rather like a teenager.

Nevertheless, the point is: he gets out of the truck. And Avery comes around, and Avery stalks toward him, and Erich has been in far too many scrapes not to see it coming. The balled-up fist. The solid blow. The impact of knuckles to jaw, which fails to knock him flat on his ass only because his skull is so damned thick. Not because she pulls the punch. Certainly not because he makes even the slightest attempt to dodge or duck or -- anything so cowardly and non-responsibility-taking as that.

In the wake of it, a bruise already blossoming on his jaw, Erich keeps his eyes firmly and rather ashamedly on the ground.

Avery Chase

Only after that blow hits does Avery do the sensible thing and slip back into her birth form, even though she's weaker like this, even though she won't heal like this. It is the responsible thing to do, and it is also the way she can signal to him that one hit is all that is coming.

"I am garou," she says to him, because it is the first thing she can say at all, even if it is coming through clenched teeth. Even if her blood pressure is high, and her heart is racing, and her breath is coming a little bit faster because she's just... mad.

"I'm going to die in this war," Avery says, a little louder, the words ferocious with emotion. She does not say this resolutely, or coldly, or even with rage. She is going to die. She does not want to die. She cannot imagine wanting to die. "And neither righteousness nor heroism nor the love of my friends is going to change that."

Roughly again, fierce, almost snarled: "I have the same destiny you do. The same one we all do. And we all deserve better than that. We deserve long, full lives and we deserve families and we deserve to have fat, happy babies with the people we love." Her voice is thick now, choking for a moment before she hangs back, saying quieter: "We deserve better."

Avery takes a breath, leaning back a bit, for she has indeed leaned in. "I saw what was about to happen, I knew I had better defenses than you did, and I made a call," she says, her voice firm again. "I won't promise you that I won't make another, similar call in the future. Because Ahroun or Philodox, Cliath or Fostern, Shadow Lord or Silver Fang, we are all fighting the same war, and we all face the same fate. The only difference between you and I, Storm's Teeth, is that my faith in myself and my faith in you..."

her hand balls into a fist again, held just in front of her heart, in the line between their two chests,

"are one faith. And I will as readily die for your life as I will fight for my own."

Erich Reinhardt

"We are fighting the same war," Erich agrees. His voice is soft. It begins soft. It gains strength as he continues, though -- as his eyes come up from the ground, meets hers. "We are. And I hear you, Rhya, and your faith in me -- in all your fellow Garou -- is ... it's one of your best qualities. It makes me want to live up to what you see in me, and it makes me want to be better than I am. More. I think I've said this before."What I'm trying to say now is: I know you'll die in this war, just like I will. I'm not telling you to stay alive and let me die or something stupid like that. It's just -- we're not all the same, you know? You outrank me. You're better than me. And I mean -- it's like playing... playing chess or something. Or what they describe chess like in books and movies, anyway. You don't throw your queen away in the first move. That's what the pawns are for. You save your queen for the endgame. For when it really matters.

"Here's the thing. I know we'll all die in this war. But I don't want you to die, for me, on some nameless battleground long, long, long before the final battle. I want you to be there for the final battle, even if it means I have to die first so you get there, because I know you're going to do something important there.

"That's all. I'm sorry if I implied that I wanted you to be cowardly and shrink from battle and ... stuff. That wasn't my point at all."

Avery Chase

That brow, which can be so placid in judgement, is furrowed when he looks up from the ground to meet her eyes. And she listens, her hand unfurling and slowly moving to her side again. And she does hear him. She frowns deeper when he says that bit, again, about how she's better, and it doesn't look like aggravation or mere how dare you not think better of yourself?! aggression. It looks more like pain. It looks more like... something else entirely, difficult to parse out of that lovely face, those brilliant eyes.

In the end, even as strongly as he feels about this, all Avery does is sigh. "I didn't think you were implying anything of the sort," she says quietly. She is silent for a moment, then shakes her head. "When I'm fighting the Wyrm, I'm not playing chess. I'm not thinking of who our side can stand to lose if we have to. That mindset, that view of things --"

and here it comes, the part where she says that's not the war they're fighting, that's not how they as a nation should be, he shouldn't think that way:

"-- is necessary. I know that. It's the way a general has to look at an upcoming battle. It's the way a warleader has to examine the land and the foe and decide who goes on the front line and when. I know that." She gives a soft huff of laughter, and even though her gift keeps her from feeling the sting of her wounds, still that laughter sounds and looks pained. "But I'm not a general or a warleader. Those aren't decisions I've been called to make, and I thank Gaia for that."

Avery reaches out to him with the same hand she struck him with, her knuckles reddened from the memory of the impact. She squeezes his shoulder. "You're no pawn to be sacrificed, Erich. And if I let my friends and allies die in front of me when I have some power to stop it from happening, then I'm not 'better' than anyone. I'm not even good enough to live with myself." A wry, rueful little half-smile, something more like a wince: "I'm certainly no queen."

Erich Reinhardt

That mindset. That view of things --

Erich's shoulders have rounded. In another form his ears would be flat, his eyes quite possibly squinched; he'd be flinching from a blow waiting to land. Is cold, he expects her to say. Is cruel. Is inhumane, is calculating, is ruthless, is disgusting, exactly what she would expect from a sneaking, faithless, backstabbing Shadow Lord.

That's not what she says, though. Necessary. That's the word she uses. That's the word that brings his eyes up again, round with surprise. And, a moment later, when she reaches out, when she squeezes his solid, meaty shoulder:

gratitude. That she understands. That she endorses their differences, even, without invalidating either his stance or hers. And, subtler: that she sees promise in him. More than he is. But maybe, just maybe: not more than he can be.

He wraps his hand around her forearm: a thoughtless gesture of solidarity, a moment of connection.

"Thank you," he says softly. "For ... tonight. Everything tonight." He doesn't have the words for it; they fall inadequate. He gives her arm a squeeze, and then nods her at the car.

"Come on. Let's go home."

Avery Chase

Avery, like Charlotte, does what is for many of their tribe unthinkable: she trusts a Shadow Lord. A Shadow Lord who didn't even have the sense to be born into the tribal blood, for goodness sake. She trusts him, and she believes in him, and she has faith in him. Faith that, spared from the Wyrm of the void, he would turn on it and destroy it even if her body was lying limp behind him. Faith that he would survive. Faith that he is good, even in his mistakes. Faith that they are in fact mistakes and not carefully calculated jabs and parries. Faith that one day he will make calls in battle that she cannot stand to imagine, just as she makes judgements that his shoulders should not bear.

Just: faith. Just hope. All that light in her, which others see as some inner spark, which she sees as merely living in a many-windowed room, basking in the glow of those around her.

They clasp one another's arms like comrades.

Avery smiles.

"I'm sorry about your jaw," she says, politely and truthfully, even if it walks hand in hand with the equal truth that she stands by that bruise she gave him. Even if both these truths live in the shadow of the fact that Erich's jaw will be well again with no more effort than it takes him to slip from one form to another.

They part, and Avery circles the truck, climbing back into the passenger seat. After driving a little bit, she thinks of something and smiles to herself. Within a few weeks, she will find him again, and bring with her a gift for him: audiobooks. On leadership, on public speaking, pop psych on different types of leaders and recordings of speeches given by people like Churchill and Roosevelt. After all, he likely has long drives between either sept and the tinyhouse in Evergreen. She'll thank Calden for the idea, she'll glow with delight should Erich appreciate them, she'll tell him she has a gift for Charlotte, too, but not to tell her.

For now, they drive. Back to the Highlands, and to that glorious penthouse of hers, where she hugs him -- carefully, as they are both still burnt and bleeding in places whether they feel the pain or not -- and goes upstairs,

to pass out for a few days.