When they climb up the hill, they still have a ways to go up the road, into the hills, around the gate, and back into the safekeeping of the bawn. But this time they don't head to the visitor's center. Silhouette doesn't push him unnecessarily; they go at a decent pace. She's already tested his strength. She's tested his memory of their people. She's briefly tested his fairness. She's seen his ability to connect with the spirits. But there's one last thing she wants to see him understand, see him able to handle.
Because he is, will always be, first and foremost an Ahroun. But they are a people at war, almost endless war now, and the Ahroun are warleaders, which makes them leaders of the nation. He has to understand why all these things matter, why all these things are important,
because he'll be called upon to die for them, one day. Not just Gaia and not just the earth but for stories and songs and laws and spirits and questions. He has to die for those things, those concepts, just as much as he has to die for the people that embody them. So they can live a little longer. It's not always fair, that this is what their moon is called to do, and be. But it's right.
--
She leads him past the center, and into the trails, but they deviate from those in due time. They are going, he knows in his bones, toward the heart of the caern. He can feel, as Sil feels, the eyes of guardians watching them, just as they both feel Earth itself sleeping beneath them, dreaming an eternal Memory. By the time they get near the heart, shadowed by those sky-clawing fountain formations, Erich's lesser wounds have healed, leaving only the burns and lacerations from the things they fought a couple of hours ago.
Silhouette shifts to homid. She looks at him, her hair down now, and exhales.
"I'm going to call for one of the Theurges," she tells him. "If you are willing and able to give them chiminage, we'll ask them to summon a spirit for you, or a representative of a brood. Your pick.
"And you can ask that spirit, that representative of whatever brood you pick, one question."
Storm's TeethThis is not the first time Silhouette has surprised Erich tonight, and this time, just like every other time, he wears his surprise splashed all across his face. Wide eyes, that quick turn of the head. The furrow of his brow afterward, as though the depth of thought churning in his head can only make progress by twisting his face up in its wake.
"Huh," he says, and that's all he says for a while. Much later, still on that same topic: "Huh."
He's still thinking when she calls for a Theurge. He's still thinking when that Theurge arrives. He takes a break from thinking only to offer up a rather poor chiminage of one Gaia's Breath, one Bloody Bandage (he explains this one: he's offering his blood and gnosis, actually, not the Bandage itself 'cause the Bandage itself is an Ahroun thing and he's not sure he's allowed to actually give it away), and one smushed Butterfinger bar miraculously produced from his jeans pocket.
Then, while the Theurge prepares the rite, he goes back to thinking. He folds his arms tightly across his chest and crinkles up his brow and thinksthinksthinksthinks and there are so many spirits he could call up, so many questions he can ask. He could ask a spirit of Thunder why he was chosen. He could ask a spirit of Fenris why he was born into such a strong lineage of Fenrir. He could ask Pegasus why she let her children kinda just dump Melantha by the wayside like that, though he wouldn't necessarily expect an answer. At least, an answer that didn't involve hooves flying into his jaw. He could ask Falcon how he could let his children give Charlotte a name like Black Sheep. Though, come to think of it, that would probably just earn him talons to the face.
He thinks to himself that really, all the same, he should ask Charlotte to help him do this sometime. Just call up a bunch of spirits and ask a bunch of tough questions. Maybe he can finally get some answers around here.
--
Then it's time. Then the Theurge is looking at him, expectant, and he needs to come up with a spirit or a brood or something, god. And Erich swallows and suddenly his mind flies blank and he just blurts out the first thing on his mind:
"Uh -- can you call a spirit from Gaia's brood? Is that a thing? Can I talk to a representative of Gaia?"
He sounds like he's calling into a customer service line, he thinks. He wants to kick himself.
silhouette.Silhouette stares at him. He has no clue yet. She waits a while. And then, because dawn is going to start touching the horizon any minute now, she shifts back to lupus and begins howling. It's a very polite request, all told, rather formal, and it is a formal Theurge who arrives. His name is Hungry Road, and he is tall and head-shaven, wearing a bronze torque that they can see above his shirt collar, through a gap in his coat. He is silent when he arrives, walking with a staff covered in carvings: names, places, other languages, glyphs not made from Garou.
He is not at all interested in that Butterfinger, thanks. He is also not shy about expressing his disgust with that particular offering, his face a momentary sneer. But the healing talens, he takes. He tries to explain the bandage: his blood and gnosis. The Strider regards him with dark, polished black eyes: "It is a betrayal of the leeches to give it to another, for those of other moons can make use of them, but should not. I will free them and take your spirit's energy instead."
Serious as he is, he is not malicious. He takes the bandage and the gourd and puts them in his bag, leaving Erich to just trust that he won't use the bandage to heal or bolster himself and actually will set the leech spirits inside free.
Gaia.
Hungry Road gives a small smirk. Silhouette is, once more, hanging back. "All spirits are of Gaia's brood," he says. "All born to earth are her representatives."
But he's nice. He says: "Perhaps you could be more specific. What aspect of Gaia do you wish to speak to? She is Earth, and she is Mother, and she is Lord. She is the planet we walk on; she is the giver of rage. What face do you wish to look upon?"
Storm's TeethIt has been a long night. In the course of that night Erich has felt like a failure more than once. He has nearly died at least once, possibly more than once. He has bled himself empty, he has contemplated what is right and what is fair, he has told a story near and dear to his heart that -- he realizes -- he's never actually told anyone else, though it has been told to him many times.
He is, in short, tired. He is worn thin, and the not-malicious sneers and not-mean smirks still grind on his last nerves. Erich has to clench his teeth to keep from being rude to a man who is, at the end of the day, just here to help.
"I want to look on the face that made me what I am," he says. "The one that made me to be her champion. The one that most needs me. Is that possible?"
silhouette.Hungry Road stares at Erich as he says what he does. He looks at Silhouette again, but she gives no indicator either way. Hungry Road, left to decide for himself, closes his eyes and takes a step back. And he begins to summon.
--
As Erich knows from all his time with Charlotte, summonings sometimes take a long time. Charlotte is good and sometimes it's only minutes. This summoning has Hungry Road's eyes turning back in his head, his outstretched arms straining and trembling, his lips moving silently with unheard utterances. He is sweating, and both Erich and Silhouette feel sudden spikes -- behind him, Silhouette snarls, growling, thrashing her head a bit.
He feels his own rage grow in intensity, scraping away at the inside of his skin. And then, sharp enough, piercing enough to stab like a knife through his skull, he hears a woman scream. It's an agonized sound, almost a growl of rage in itself, but filled with pain and -- yes,
fear.
--
Hungry Road drops his arms to his sides and falls to his knees. His nose is bleeding. He pants, looking directly at Erich from where he's fallen. Silhouette's head is turned sharply in the direction of the scream, half-stepping that direction like she can't bear not to go to it, and bizarrely:
one hand resting over her lower abdomen, her face paled, her eyes staring and strained, as though she feels exactly the pain they all just heard and is shocked and afraid and confused but drawn. Erich is drawn, too. He may be moving before he realizes it. Toward the one who made him.
The one who needs him most.
Storm's TeethSo
somewhere in the middle of that, in the middle of the eye-rolling and lip-moving and sweating and trembling,
Erich starts to think maybe this wasn't his best idea ever. But by then it's too late. It's too late because his rage, that terrible ravenous beast inside him, that part of him that is not at all savagely joyful and wildly jubilant but simply savage, wild, hungry, vicious, which he tries and tries hard to keep sated with semi-regular indulgences -- that side of him is growing. Is snapping against its captors and straining against its chains. Is rapidly careening out of control, out of his grasp, out of even the controlled unchainings he allows it, and just
just
just as he thinks he won't be able to hold it anymore, this time when he drops the chain it won't be one of those berserker rages he can snap himself out of, it won't be like that at all but something horrible and uncontrollable and not even really him --
-- it stops.
Hungry Road is bleeding. Silhouette is white. She is holding her lower abdomen, and frankly Erich has lived in a tinyhouse with two girls long enough, and was raised on a farm with about fifteen girl-siblings and girl-cousins long enough, to know what cramps look like. To know what pain in the womb looks like. He's looking at it, which makes no sense and all the sense in the world, because he called Her. He asked for Her to be called.
The one who made him.
The one who needs him most.
--
He is moving before he realizes it. He is walking toward that scream, and he could not interpret what that scream meant. If it was rage or pain or anger or agony; if it was the sound a laboring woman makes bearing down that last time, so focused and so wild and so instinctive that her labor is nearly rage,
or if it was the sound a woman makes when she is fighting and fearing for her life.
Or both.
It compels him, though. It draws him, and almost without meaning to he follows it, he walks, he jogs, he runs, and then he is dropping to all fours and he is not-a-wolf and not-a-man but in-between, both, running toward his Mother as fast as his enormous deathdealing paws can carry him.
silhouette.She's so young.
It's terrifying how young she is, and that only makes his rage spike higher, harder, burn hotter. She's not older than him, she's not older than the world. When he finds her, she's hiding in the snow near the rock, sobbing with fear and pain and something like anger. She looks like a teenager, her skin a deep brown tinged with gold, her hair thick and black and soaked at the hairline with sweat. She's on her hands and knees, her belly so swollen it's unmistakable what's happening to her. Inside of her.
When she lifts her head to look at Erich, her eyes are older than time, dark as the night sky itself, speckled with stars. And that Something Like Anger in her screaming is
rage
itself.
--
After her eyes catch on his for a still moment, just a moment, she screams again as yet another contraction clenches up inside of her. And he had it right: it is rage and pain and anger and agony, it is bearing down for the very last push, it is focused and wild and instinctive and she is fighting for her life, fearing for it,
which is when he hears the noises around them. Other spirits, twisted ones, but even now he can tell they are nothing but shadows. This one a spiral, that one a bane, this a nexus crawler. Aspects of the Wyrm and tendrils of the Weaver creeping towards her, threatening her, encroaching on her.
She screams again.
Everything in his mind goes white.
--
This frenzy is not like other frenzies. He sees flashes of what he is doing. He sees himself tearing these creatures apart, not sure if they are dreams or memories or real or part of Gaia herself somehow. He sees Hungry Road and Silhouette of Clouds briefly, and they are just as frenzied as he is, fighting as furiously, with a passion that no Garou ever remembers because no Garou can ever live inside of the passion of frenzy and remain sane. He only has these glimpses.
Every time a new contraction hits, every time she screams, the world goes white again.
--
When it fades he's wobbling on his feet. The shadows of nightmares are gone. Hungry Road is passed out, blood drying in trails from his nostrils over his face. Silhouette of Clouds is on her knees, arms wrapped around her midsection, sweating and swearing and rocking herself to try and ease a pain that will, from this moment forward, make every goddamn month feel like a cakewalk no matter how bad it gets. If she ever has kids, she'll remember this, and recognize it.
Gaia, Primordial Mother of Rage, is still pregnant. She is still in labor, weeping from it, but she doesn't sound so afraid anymore. She has spent her rage through the three of them, channeling so much of it through them that it wore out the Ahrouns and completely knocked the Theurge out, wounding his very mind with the overload. So she doesn't scream with so much anger anymore, either. She can focus. She has something to give to the world. Something new.
Her hand grasps at the ground, reaching for purchase, finding only dirt and snow. She's still alone, and as her hand reaches, she looks for Erich again. Her eyes lock on his.
He hears Her.
You called me.
Storm's TeethIt's surreal. Never in his life, never never never ever, has Erich ever felt so much rage. It's possible he'll never feel so much rage ever again, so long as he lives. It's possible Elder Ahrouns don't feel so much rage; possible that no one ever feels this much rage.
Except Gaia, Mother of them all. Not the Mother that poured cool water over his head and laughed and blew in his face, no, not that one at all but a different one, a different face of the same goddess; Gaia, Primordial Mother of Rage, who made him and made him what he is, who made him and all his kind because
She needs them.
--
He drops before Her. He drops to his knees and his huge handpaw covers her hand as it grasps for dirt and snow. He grasps Her fingers and though his digits are huge, though his palm is padded and his fingers tipped in claws, it's Her strength that makes him wince. Their eyes lock. He trembles; he can't help it. She is so Everything. She speaks and that is Everything too. His skull resounds with it, his entire body echoes with it, the way it used to when his body wasn't a body at all, when it was his spirit itself that was held in Her womb; when Her voice was all around him and moving through the very particles that made up that primordial, nascent spirit that became him.
What She says is not a question, and so he does not answer it; it is simply truth and absoluteness and there is no need to answer. He called Her here, and he has a question for Her, and it is not any of those questions he might have asked those totem avatars, those powerful elder children of Hers.
It is not why he was made a Shadow Lord. It is not why he was born to the Fenrir. It is not why the Furies were cruel to Melantha, nor why the Fangs were cruel to Charlotte. It is none of those things, none of those small, petty, unimportant things that dwarf to nothing in the face of Her rage.
It is,
quite simply and quite purely,
the only question he has ever wanted to ask Gaia from beginning to end, from the moment he could understand his place in the world
to this one. Right here. Right now.
--
"How," asks Storm's Teeth of his Mother, "can I best help you?"
silhouette.There's a saying, a quip, a glib response to something deadly serious:
If violence is the answer, that must have been one hell of a question!
Whoever first said it probably wasn't Garou.
--
He comes to her in crinos, because there is no other form he could take for her right now. He dwarfs her like this, but she encapsulates him. Everything he is, everything he was, everything he may yet be: she holds him inside. She clutches at his hand and it makes pain shoot through him, momentarily pooling agony in his midsection, as though something were clawing to get out of him, thrashing, breaking his bones from within. For a moment he forgets that right now he seems to the rest of reality as though he is outside of her; for a moment, everything is dark and warm and wet and life itself is inextricable from the fire of rage.
She breathes in sharply at his question, and her grip tightens. She bears down, gritting her teeth, and visions flash rapid-fire into his mind. Some are his past, images of memories. Punching that kid who took his younger cousin's pencil box. Eating his vegetables at dinner. Listening to his elders. Training. Following Grandfather Thunder when he went through his Rite. He sees himself, feels himself, crushing a talen over Avery. Hugging Melantha when she was sad. Killing one of the Beloved Horror. Smiling at the paper planes in DIA, questioning Hector, speaking up at moots.
All of these, interspersed with so. much. fighting. Every fight he's ever been in. Fights he knows he hasn't gotten into.
There's a sharp stab through his soul in one vision, brief as it is: the end. He feels it, he does not see it or know it or understand it.
And all of these things seem to culiminate at once. Into words, or more than words, something beyond words:
Be good.
--
Be good.
That is any mother's wish.
And fight. And die.
That is a wish only the mother of rage would have. Wishes that only she would tie inextricably to one another. For him to be a vessel for her rage. For him to fight the Wyrm and hold on to his will.
For him to be everything he already is, in a way. And more.
--
She pulls him down. She clutches at him, hands buried in his fur, and gives a last, long wail in that needful embrace. But there is no birth. There is an explosion in his heart of fury as she vanishes, a sense of loss and rebirth at once. She is gone. Hungry Road is still passed out.
Silhouette of Clouds exhales heavily, pantingly, swearing as the agony in her goddamn uterus finally leaves her. "You asshole," she mutters, not that he could have known exactly who Hungry Road was going to call, or what it was going to do to all of them.
silhouette.[WE BE CUT FIRST THREE LINES]
Storm's TeethErich does not answer her. Even though she is his elder, and even though she is the master of this challenge, and even though he likes her and respects her very much and would attend to her in an instant any other time she called,
this time he does not answer her.
He remains where he is when Gaia left them. Which is: down, down where She pulled him. Down in the earth, which seems appropriate. The handpaw that had held Her hand remains where it is too, outstretched, the tips of those cruelly clawed fingers curled ever so slightly, the palm very empty. He can still feel the imprint of Her hands in his fur. He can still feel the imprint of Her memories, which are his memories, because he was born from Her and will be given back unto Her when the end comes.
He covers his face with his other handpaw. The palm over his eyes, the fingers splayed over muzzle and brow. He stays like that for a long time, shoulders enormous and hunched, muzzle nose-down in the muck, until little by little his warform melts from him.
Then he's just Erich, facedown in the dirt like a little boy who just tripped over a branch. He is still covering his face, and after a while he draws back his other hand, covers his face with both his hands and
just
sobs for a while, silent and overcome, shoulders shaking, tears as warm as summer rain. He would not be able to tell Silhouette why he weeps if he tried.
--
Eventually he calms. Eventually he starts pushing up out of the mud, wiping his face, getting enough dirt and grime on his face that the tear-tracks aren't as visible. He gets up then, a little shaky from
well
everything. He looks over at Hungry Road. He looks over at Silhouette.
"Sorry," he says quietly, sheepish.
silhouette.Silhouette feels like her midsection just erupted in a cataclysm. She's so woozy she doens't fault him for crying. She sort of feels like crying, herself. But she just hunches where she is, holding her abdomen, still rocking slightly, waiting for the last pulses of pain to leave her.
Hungry Road is waking, and looking dazed, wiping his face with the back of his hand and looking at the drying blood, then looking around for Gaia, then for Erich. He watches the young Ahroun for a moment, but says nothing.
Erich tells Silhouette he's sorry.
"Jesus," she mutters. "I thought you were going to ask for Thunder or something. Ask why you had to be born Fenrir if you were meant to be a Lord. But no, you wanted to talk to Gaia."
Hungry Road takes a breath, sitting up, interjecting there: "Is your question satisfied?" he asks Erich, starting to push himself to his feet. Not to be outdone, Silhouette decides to get up quickly.
Storm's Teeth"I thought about it," he admits, "but this question was more important."
Hungry Road, then. Erich's eyes cut toward the Theurge. He holds out a fist for a bump. "Yeah. Thanks, dude. Seriously. I put you through a hell of a lot. And ... I know that coulda gone really badly for all of us, and maybe worst of all for you. So. Thanks."
silhouette.Hungry Road does not fist bump. He does take Erich's hand and clasp his arm, giving a nod. "I serve Gaia," is all he says.
He lets go. He gives a nod to Silhouette, who inclines her head as well. The Strider departs from both of them, perhaps to meditate. Perhaps to weep. Perhaps to go to his mate. Perhaps all of the above.
--
Silhouette shakes her head at Erich. She sighs. "So you know what that test was, right?"
Storm's Teeth"Yeah." Erich nods a couple times. "The Ragabash test. I was supposed to question, just like the one before was the Theurge test, and then the Philodox, and then the Galliard. And the first one was the Ahroun test.
"And I know that wasn't a very good question. Ragabash-wise, anyway. I mean. I think the point of a Ragabash is to like... question the ways? Question our traditions and poke at the foundations and see if anything's loose. That... totally wasn't what I did.
"But," and he maintains this. And there's a certain certainty in this that's new, "it was the only question I wanted to ask. I mean maybe it didn't shake the foundations of anything, and maybe it'll cost me this challenge. But it was right. For me. I really needed to ask that question and I didn't know when I'd get the chance again. I mean you don't just ... summon an aspect of Gaia Herself up at a whim, you know?"
silhouette.She huffs a breath, shaking her head, and for the first time tonight, she interrupts him. When he's saying our traditions and poke at the foundations and see if --
"Stop," Silhouette tells him, and goes on: "They weren't tests to see if you were a good Galliard -- newsflash, but that was the worst retelling of Last Flame's story I've ever heard. Or to see if you were a Philodox, because if you don't realize that what's fair isn't always right, you shouldn't even be in a schoolyard, much less a battlefield. Or a Theurge, because Theurges don't say heeerrre, leechy-leechy-leech when they're making talens.
"It wasn't the Ragabash test. Cuz I haven't been testing you to see if you could do what the other auspices do. Honestly, I just wanted to know if you were well-rounded. If you weren't just a meathead jock-type Ahroun. If you knew that you can't ignore the history, even if you weren't raised with it. You can't make things as simple as black-and-white. You can't ignore the fact that you're a guardian of the spirit world as well as the physical. And as for this one,"
she exhales, still worn out from the frenzies cast through her by Gaia,
"the test was to see who you would want to question, and what you would ask, and what that says about you. But Storm's Teeth, I'm telling you: if I was trying to test you to see if you could do what the other auspices do even half as well as you do what an Ahroun does, you would have certainly failed."
Wait, does that meant --
--
Silhouette, standing in the heart of the caern with him, straightens her shoulders a little. "Your first test was the easiest one I gave you, Storm's Teeth. You showed me how strong you are, and how you manage chaos. Not perfectly. But good enough.
"The tale you chose to tell was one that tells me a bit about the sort of Garou you are. Where your priorities lie: not in glory and honor, but in doing what needs to be done.
"You know that doing what's right is hard to figure out, but it trumps doing what's 'fair'. It means you'll try to do what's right, but you aren't going to pretend you always know what that is.
"When the time came to speak in a way that spirits would understand, and give them what they needed, you figured it out. You gave wholeheartedly, and accepted gratefully. You didn't try to become something you're not; you tried to understand what they are.
"And given a chance to ask any question you wanted of any of the beings that guide our very existence, you asked for Gaia. And you asked Her the only question any of us should ever ask Her."
Silhouette shakes her head at him. "Of course you passed your challenge, Storm's Teeth-yuf. Don't be a dumbshit."
silhouette.[does that MEAN! gah]
Storm's TeethWhen Silhouette cuts him off, there's this look of -- it's almost defiance. Not quite, but something close. A sort of hard, both-feet-planted sureness that hadn't been there through the first four challenges.
Those, he was never too sure of himself in. He thought he fucked up the first one because he didn't do it all alone and plus he kinda just flung himself in headfirst the way he always does. He thought he probably didn't do great on the second because he's a really shitty storyteller. He thought the third went by so quick that either he actually managed to squeak past or he just failed so bad she put him out of his misery. The fourth; well, it was a success, but it also took a very long time and half the time he was calling heeeere leechy leechy leech like an idiot.
But this one. The fifth and last; the question. This one, he's sure on. He's not sure he passed, he's not sure he's fostern material at all, but he was sure of the question, and -- in some strange way -- proud of it. Proud that he asked; proud that he got an answer. Proud that the answer was
actually sort of encouraging. Keep doing what you're doing. Fight. Die.
Be good.
--
So that's the look on his face. Surety, and a sort of odd pride. But as she keeps talking, as she lays out his shortcomings if he were actually being testing on how good a Galliard, Philodox, Theurge or Ragabash he was,
and as she begins to lay out what the tests were really about. As she begins to talk about how he actually performed on each of them,
that look changes a bit. It turns cautious. It turns cautiously hopeful. It turns revelatory, a slow-dawning understanding that brims over into outright jubilation right as Silhouette shakes his head and says of course and tells him to stop being a dumbshit.
Erich throws his head back and whoops. He whoops so long and so loud that it's almost a howl, and then he throws his arms around Silhouette and it doesn't matter that she's still his elder and they're still in the heart of the Caern and this is a sacred place, come ON, and they were just in the presence of the Mother.
It doesn't matter. He's happy. He whoops again, he hugs her and squeezes her and lets her go and, quite frankly, bounds around her in great big leaps and fist-pumps and yells and yawps and
finally, finally settles down when he rips a scab open on his side and has to double over groaning-laughing-clutching his side.
"Ow. Owwww. Ow. Thanks, Rhya. Like seriously. Thank you. And ow."
silhouette.If they had not just been in the presence of an aspect of the Mother, it's possible that Silhouette would flip him over her head and slam him to the ground for trying to hug her after proclaims him a Fostern, calls him yuf, and tells him not to be a dumbshit.
But they were. And she laughs at his joy, permitting him to grab her and squeeze her even if she doesn't quite hug him back. Geez. What a freak, this one.
--
When Erich settles himself down, Silhouette is smirking at him. "Serves you right," she says, of his rib-splitting pain renewed. Then her eyes narrow. Sharpen. "What did you just call me?"
Storm's Teeth"Rhya." He's still doubled over, but this comes without hesitation too. He's quite ready to dodge, though, if she looks like she's about to clock him. "'Cause you made it to Fostern first. So that makes you Rhya, even if we're technically Yuf."
silhouette.[dex + brawl]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )
silhouette.[rerolling that 10]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
Storm's Teeth[ACK!!!!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
silhouette.[damage] [B]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Storm's Teeth[OW]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
silhouette.Oh, she clocks him all right. And he barely -- barely sees it coming, because she's damn fast. Her fist slams into his jaw for his trouble, even though he can shake it off easily. She exhales roughly. "You are a stubborn asshole," she informs him, jabbing her pointer finger into his shoulder. "I hope next time, you'll respect that I've judged you to be my equal, and actually treat me like one in return," she says, and it's all well and good and sort of lighthearted but
sort of serious, too. She didn't hit him because it was fun. She hit him because she was insulted. A little angry.
silhouette.[BRRRZZZT]
silhouette.If they had not just been in the presence of an aspect of the Mother, it's possible that Silhouette would flip him over her head and slam him to the ground for trying to hug her after proclaims him a Fostern, calls him yuf, and tells him not to be a dumbshit.
But they were. And she laughs at his joy, permitting him to grab her and squeeze her even if she doesn't quite hug him back. Geez. What a freak, this one. And she's grinning as he yawps and yells and bounds, gleeful, exhilirated, overwhelmed.
--
When Erich settles himself down, Silhouette's smile is more of a smirk. "Serves you right," she says, of his rib splitting pain. But then he says something, and her brow tightens, and she cocks her head. Her arms, crossed over her chest, unfold. She walks over nearer to him, reaching up to his shoulder.
"You're my equal now. It'd me a lot to me if you acted like it."
silhouette.[it'd MEAN a lot to me. gah!]
Storm's TeethHe's still doubled over when she reaches out, so it's not very far-up a reach for her. It gets his attention though -- gets him cocking his head her way, listening, thinking.
Then he straightens up. It takes effort, but it's effort he's glad to expend. "Okay, yeah," he says, nodding. "I get that. I'll always respect you 'cause you were one hell of a challenge-master. And also 'cause you're totally unlike any other Lord I've met. In a good way. I mean you see things in a way that most people don't, but maybe more people should. And I respect that.
"But ... I get it. Yuf."
silhouette.She smiles thinly, giving him a weary nod. "Thanks for that," she says, of his opinion of her as a challenge-master. And as a Shadow Lord. She doesn't need to tell him that he's rather unique in her experience, too.
"There are a lot of ways to show respect. And for me, being your equal is one of them." Her hand squeezes his shoulder, the one on the not-as-heavily-injured side, then claps it. "Yuf," she calls him, and the corner of her mouth tugs out in a grin. "Come on. I'll drive you back to the city so you can go find your pack."
Storm's TeethErich's hand catches Silhouette's as it's dropping from his shoulder. He clasps it, grasps it, gives it a solid squeeze. And, as she starts to grin, so does he.
"Deal," he says. "And y'know. You oughta come visit us sometime. We live in a tinyhouse up in Evergreen these days, but sometimes around the moot we'll drive the whole thing down. And dude, it is awesome. I mean it's got everything..."
And so it goes: Erich extolling the virtues of the tinyhouse at length most of the way back to the car. The sun is kissing the horizon by the time they pile into the Subaru and buckle themselves in. They've been up all night. They're pale from exhaustion and flushed from excitement -- or at least Erich is -- and on the way back to the city he does, in fact, fiddle with the stereo a bit. He leaves the CD in. He talks about how much he likes this song, and that one, and oh this one reminds him of his pack, and so does that one, and and and
halfway there, almost mid-sentence, he just drops off to sleep: burnt through, pooped out, exhausted. His head against the glass, his cheek serendipitously cradled in the sash of the seatbelt, he naps all the way back to Cold Crescent where he wakes half-groggy and a little confused, not quite sure where he is or when he is or if any of that actually happened.
Until he looks over at Silhouette, of course. Until he looks down at himself, sees the cuts and bruises and gashes and scabs. Sees that hand that his Mother grasped in that shockingly strong grip of Hers,
which is inexplicably, miraculously as perfect as it was the day he was born.
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