paleo coffee!

Erich

It is not First Friday, or Third Friday, or even a Friday at all. It's a Saturday! And there is still plenty of pedestrian traffic, because it is Saturday night and it is finally warm and this is a nice place to go

for

a date.

So maybe this is a date. Except some date when Melantha has to drive herself there, because Erich just sent her a text earlier all hey wanna meet at blahblahblah? because he was already down in the city because it was his turn to guard the Sept. In truth he's a little out of place here. It's so highbrow. All the galleries have names like Hangar 41 and VERTIGO and and and he's just an Erich, so he's gravitated to a place that seems maybe a little more on his level. It's called mmm...COFFEE! So one would assume it had coffee.

EXCEPT IT KINDA DOESN'T. Or well. It probably does, but Erich is just standing in front of the ridiculously brightly-colored little cafe, staring in mute consternation at a blackboard that talks about Paleo (pay-lee-oh), a hunter-gatherer diet, gluten free! made from scratch in house! naturally sweetened with vegan options!

When Melantha finds him he turns, quick-seeking, to look at her. He breaks into a lopsided grin, puts his arm around her shoulders, squeezes. Then turns back to the baffling sign.

"How is coffee hunter-gatherer?"

Melantha

There are highbrow galleries here, where people with coiffed gray hair and skirt-suits or faux cowboy wear populate to spend money on yet another John Fielder that looks like every other John Fielder. And then there are the collectives, the workspaces, the art 'schools', and these are places like warehouses and broken-down gutted apartments where the artists both live and work and show and some of those are closed and some of them have an open-door policy regardless of which Friday (or not) it is.

The coffee shop Erich has found is indeed brightly colored, with yellow walls and orange swirls at the crown instead of molding and murals here and there that are vaguely abstract and sometimes vaguely Aztec and so on. There is a capoeira studio in one part of this weird mish-mash of buildings that share an interior courtyard that has grated walkways above and it's basically a maze but there's coffee there, even though... um. The rest of the menu is stuff like Paleo and vegan and gluten-free everything and they do not sell bottled water on principle!!! Except on First Fridays they totally do because $$$.

Melantha finds him standing outside, not going inside where there are some saggy couches and barstools and not so much hipsters as artsy types who are a little hip and a little hobo and a little dotty and actually more like Charlotte than like assholes. A lot of them are earnest, even if what they're earnest about is stupid.

Like Paleo.

She comes up around him, and it's not like she can sneak up behind him but she wraps her arms around his middle anyway, squeezing. He twists and turns and wraps her up. Asks her a question. She shrugs. She, who actually does come from a hunter-gatherer collective in the hills of the Pacific Northwest. You make leather clothes there that last you a lifetime. "In some primitive groups, coffee was a sacred drink, just like hot chocolate. A warrior's drink."

Erich

"Hot chocolate is totally a warrior's drink," he says, misunderstanding, perhaps deliberately. "Well, let's go get some paleo coffee. Hopefully they have meat. They should, right? I mean. HUNTER-gatherer."

He drops a kiss atop her head. Face it: they're a cute couple. He's tall and athletic and wholesome and all-american in this upper-midwest, my-ancestors-were-vikings way. She's -- well; she's the sort of girl people call hot and gorgeous and, because she has an olive complexion and that thick black hair and also those wild blue eyes, exotic. Even if she's wearing a hoodie and jeans or similar.

His arm stays around her shoulder, kinda just slung there all casual and heavy and fond. They go in and he's glad to see this place is not all highbrow after all. It's weird, but only a little weird, and the menu ... is actually surprisingly affordable. Not quite cheap, but not exorbitant. Salads in the $6 range, mostly. Soups starting at $4. Pastries around $2, and drinks under $3. The most expensive thing on the menu is a salmon salad at $8.50. Well; there's also something called Paleo Mexican Chocolate Syrup, which Erich can't make any sense of at all, and that's a buck more. But anyway. He's spotted what he's going to get: chicken! Oven-roasted chicken. Also, maybe a small hot chocolate. Sacred drink of warriors! He's pretty sure a small hot chocolate won't cause too much havoc in his intestines.

Melantha

He's not misunderstanding at all. Melantha doesn't disagree, even though her people didn't drink chocolate as a sacred ritual. They had other things, mostly alcoholic, to incite their terrifying frenzies. "Paleo is very meat-friendly," she assures him, while not mentioning that Paleo is often not-friendly-to-anything-else.

She squeezes. He kisses her head, atop those thick, dark locks that she trims herself. He keeps her close and they go inside. They stay close as they approach the counter, with Erich getting chicken and chocolate and Melantha making up for it with some soup -- the night has grown windy, has grown cold enough for hoodies to be zipped up -- and a chai.

Which they receive, in short order, off to the side at the other end of the counter, and take to a couch with a coffee table. They have to unwind from each other to do this, to carry cups and bowls and plates and things, but they are comfortable doing so. When they sit, they sit sort of facing each other on the couch, lounging, slouching, Melantha holding her bowl in one hand while she holds her spoon in the other, blowing steam off the surface.

She's quiet. But she's been often quiet since all those dreams began, even when they started talking about them. They depress her. She didn't even get out of bed a few weeks ago, after a particularly harrowing one that she still hasn't talked about. I mean: if anyone asked right away, if anyone was even there, she didn't want to talk about it, and then other stuff happened and is happening and maybe it was forgotten, but

there you have it. Melantha, quiet, sipping her soup and her chai, not even noticing that she's quiet because her mind is never, really, as silent as she can be.

Erich

She gets soup. He gets hot chocolate. They've gravitated toward hot, warm liquids by the same instinct. It's cold(ish) outside, after all.

Erich doesn't start in on the drink immediately, though. He sets it aside and he balances his plate of chicken on his lap. He got a oven-roasted chicken breast, which may or may not have come with some sides, and if it did come with sides -- well, he actually declined them because he's not going to eat them anyway. The chicken, though. That he does eat, enthusiastically, sawing at it with knife and fork.

So it takes a little while before he notices Melantha is quiet. Quiet. They're quiet in each other's presence a reasonable percentage of the time -- she's reading or he's daydreaming or they're both just occupied doing something else. This sort of pensive, withdrawn, melancholy quiet, though; it's different. And after awhile, he does notice. It's like a pressure in the air. He takes another bite of chicken and then sets his utensils down and kinda moves his leg so it bumps hers.

"You 'kay?"

Melantha

They eat first. Thirst is the greater need, physiologically speaking, but hunger is so loud, so demanding. Melantha is hungry. Melantha got hearty soup, a thick base, sprinkled with cheese, filled with meat. They eat first, and they eat quietly, letting chai and chocolate cool slightly. They are often quiet together, because they live together and live with a friend. You cannot live with constant noise, with constant invasion of your silence; it is nothing to go out, to eat, to not speak.

But it's easier, outside of home, to see just how quiet she is. How it's not just 'quiet', but that sort of heaviness to her, like she's a little bit hyper-aware of every spoonful, all the work it takes to do things like pick up food and put it in your mouth and chew it. It's so much clearer, outside the home, that something is off.

He bumps. She glances up, used to this sort of thing, these brushes, nudges, the way Charlotte and Erich both get her attention sometimes with touch and not with sound. Get her attention or show her comfort. Show her comfort or ask for it themselves. Ask for it themselves or shrug it off. Shrug it off or say hello. Say hello or say goodbye. Say goodbye or say come with me.

Melantha blinks slowly. She shrugs, looking at her soup. "Yeah." Not really. She frowns a little. "Not really."

Erich

Yeah, she says, sounding like she means not really. And then: not really, she says.

Erich looks at her from where he is, side to the back of the couch, back to the arm. One knee kinda folded up sideways on the seat; the other leg extended now, his shin crossing hers, a point of contact where he can feel close to her. Comfort her, sort of.

"Still dreaming?" he asks, a little quieter.

Melantha

That may be a comfort, but he can't know: that was how it was when they first met. She would think something, and then say it. Sometimes clearer than it was in her head, sometimes kinder, sometimes harsher. But she spoke it. And for a long time it hasn't been that way. She's been shuttered and stuttering, tripping over her own thoughts, hesitating, confused.

This time she thinks not really and then she says it, because it's the truth. This feels familiar to her, but not consciously.

She nods. Looks at him. "You?"

Erich

"Yeah." He doesn't look at her, saying that. Weird, because it's not like it's something to be ashamed of. Not his fault he's having dreams. There's obviously some outside force at hand. And yet still -- evasive, a little bit, eyes skidding aside, voice hushed.

Then he looks at her again. Frowns a little. "Mine aren't as bad as yours." He sounds a little guilty. "They're ... kinda nice sometimes, actually. Just waking up in a familiar room. Bright day outside, but a storm kinda on the horizon. And a little boy that says he's my brother comes and gives me a hug.

"Sometimes I tell him he's not my brother and he gets mad and scared. Sometimes... I just let him believe what he wants. 'Cause it's kinda nice."

Melantha

Before he says it, with that touch of guilt, Melantha knows why he looks away. She does get him. Not always, not perfectly, but she does know that of course, Erich would feel guilty that someone he cares about might suffer more than he does. It's easier, she thinks, for him to think about the pain others feel and how he can stop it or fix it, because he can't stop and doesn't know how to fix the pain he's felt and the pain he keeps on feeling. But that's just a part of it. It's just because he cares. It's because it hurts him when she's hurt, and he can't do anything about the fact that she's hurt, and he's the type that would feel guilty about that.

If there's a 'type' for that sort of thing.

"I dreamt about a little boy," she says quietly, which may also mean: she is still dreaming about a little boy. "Looked like he could be your brother." She looks over at him. "And an old woman. And a man on a pyre."

Erich

She gets it. Of course she gets it. She's Melantha, and she's his packmate, and she's kinda sorta maybe his girlfriend, and also she is very smart and cares for him and --

she gets it. And that, too, is nice. Really nice. Erich isn't quite sure how long it's been since he's been so uncomplicatedly and unreservedly understood. Ellie might've been the last, or maybe the only other. His sister Ellie, not Eva's-Ellie-who-got-him-a-Harry-Potter-book. Though that Ellie is pretty awesome too.

His curiosity piques: she tells him about a little boy. An old woman. A pyre. "So you found out where the ashes were from? 'Cause I remember last time we talked about this you just saw ashes but didn't know where from."

Melantha

Melantha takes a breath and nods. "Yeah. I walk into the woods. I find this boy and this old woman gathering sticks to put on the pyre, and whoever is on it is wrapped up. Then... I don't know. Sort of out of nowhere or because the woman says something, the boy just goes ballistic. He starts screaming about how he hates everyone and everything, he hates her, he hates me, he hates 'him'. He rants about how everyone leaves."

She looks at him for a moment.

He could be Erich's brother.

"So he pulls the canvas off and there's this man on the pyre. He looks like he's sleeping, not dead. The woman starts to come towards me as the boy runs off into the woods. But... I keep chasing him. Because I don't want her either."

All of this feels like a wince to say. She doesn't wince. But it's there; a flinching-away, a something-else, a rawness that she shrinks from.

Erich

"That's ... really weird."

Which is not exactly a brilliant thing to say, but: there it is. It's really weird. It is. Erich eats some more chicken, thinking about it. He cuts a chunk of chicken off and offers it to Melantha in case she wants some. He wipes his mouth on a napkin, tucks it between plate and lap.

"I mean, not that mine isn't. But yours is weirder. And it's weird how they kinda feel like pieces of the same jigsaw puzzle? Only so far apart they don't really even seem like the same puzzle. Do you think the guy on the pyre is the boy's brother? Maybe he thinks I'm the dead guy."

Pause. Horror!

"Or maybe I am the dead guy. Not that I'm dead, 'cause obviously I'm not, but. In the dream! Or something. Oh man, that's creepy."

Melantha

It's really weird. It's weird that a part of her keeps thinking that she's 'supposed' to stay and see what the woman has to tell her or do to her. It's weird that she has such a visceral, internally-screaming reaction to the man on the pyre, or such a howling sense of loss and savagery when she charges after the boy into the woods, always to lose him, always to wake

unable to move, for a while.

'Weird' is just one way of putting it.

--

Melantha shakes her head at the chicken; there's some in her soup, after all. He asks about the guy on the pyre -- brother? Maybe it's Erich!

She shakes her head at that, too. "I don't know. I felt like he was a father." She doesn't say 'my father'. Or 'the boy's father'. Just a father.

Erich

"What about the old woman? A grandma?"

Melantha

Melantha just gives a small, tight shrug. "I don't know. She doesn't say anything." There's a pause; another thought she doesn't want to turn into words, but does anyway.

"I don't let her. I don't want to know what she has to say. Or see what she wants to do."

Erich

Erich reaches out to her. Spontaneously and thoughtlessly, which -- let's be honest -- is how he approaches a lot of things in life. Not so tenderly as this, though. That plate of chicken breast gets set aside. On a nearby table if there's one available; on the couch or on the floor or something if not. They're too far apart and at too awkward an angle for him to just hug her, so instead he puts his hands on her knees, on her forearms, finds her hands and holds them.

"Maybe," he says seriously, "if you want, you can sleep while Charlotte and I watch over you. And then maybe you can let her talk to you. And if you look like you're having a horrible nightmare or ... or in any sort of danger, Charlotte and I will wake you up. So you kinda have that safety net.

"Only if you want to though. I think either way, whatever these dreams are trying to tell us will just kinda declare itself. I just kinda get that feeling. So. I don't think you need to go out of your way to figure it out or anything."

Melantha

If he had hugged her, she would have spilled her soup in his lap. Accidentally, to be sure, but that's just physics. 'Accident' is just another way to describe 'physics', most of the time. But he doesn't hug her, seeing how awkward it would be. He just touches her, on her knees because her hands are holding her bowl of soup.

She looks tender a moment, but then she shakes her head. "No, it's... not that I'm scared of her," she says. "I just..."

Melantha takes a breath. "I hate her. I don't want to listen to her. I want her to leave me alone. I just want to find the boy."

Erich

Erich looks like he's aching. Then he looks like he's frustrated. Say this much for them: she never has to guess what's on his mind. It's written all over his face, real-time.

"I wish I could go into your dream with you," he says. "I know powerful Theurges and Galliards can do that sometimes. I wonder if we can find someone who'll help me do that."

Melantha

"Me, too," she says, achingly, interjecting when he says he wishes he could go in with her.

He mentions that sometimes that can happen. She blinks. "That's a really good idea."

Erich

And now: a great big grin, sudden and spreading. "Yeah. It is, isn't it!" He looks excited. "I bet we can find someone who can do it. If not at Cold Crescent, then definitely at Forgotten Questions. I guess it's just a question of will they do it."

Melantha

It's like he doesn't even know when his ideas are good until someone points it out to him. Melantha is hurt by this and endeared by it a little, but mostly the former. She shrugs. "I don't know why they wouldn't. I mean. It's not just me. It's you, too, and that woman Tamsin."

She means: it's not just Kinfolk having weird dreams. "You don't know until you ask, I guess. But then if you went with me, maybe we could catch the boy, or... I don't know. Maybe I just wouldn't feel so..."

Melantha winces a little. "Like my heart is broken."

Erich

Erich winces too. He winces and he actually leans down and smooches her atop her knee, through her jeans, because that's the part of her closest to him right now.

"I'm gonna go ask," he says. "And maybe then I can see if your boy is the same as my boy. 'Cause if he is, I dunno. Maybe he's real. Like us."

Melantha

She feels sort of ridiculous saying that. But at the same time, she doesn't know how else to describe how she feels in those dreams. Why she feels enraged and lost and grieved all at once, why she wakes up and doesn't want to get out of bed. Her heart is broken.

Erich kisses her knee. Melantha feels sad. She twists a little, leaning over to put her soup on the coffee table next to his roasted chicken. And when he is lifting his head, she leans toward him, putting her hands on his cheeks.

She kisses him, not to preclude anything he says and maybe she even hears everything he says, but she kisses him all the same, full and warm and tender.

Erich

It's a sweet kiss, this. And also -- a startling mature kiss. Especially for the two of them, who are on their best days less-than-mature, and sometimes little more than kids. Her hands on his face; his warming her knees. That kiss long and warm and tender.

He looks a little less wounded when they draw apart. He gives her knees another quick rub, then sits back and picks up his chicken again. Hands her her soup.

"Charlotte and I were talking about taking another roadtrip too," he adds, off-topic. "All three of us this time. We were gonna take you to Baja, but we figured we can maybe explore new places and new roads too, now that it's warming up. And when we get back... well. Maybe we can start building you your own tinyhouse."

Melantha

No one looks at them like they're annoying teenagers when they kiss like that. It's not this feverish, rushed thing, all tongue and eagerness. A couple of people glance over but then away, as though intruding on something. It's soft, but it's not entirely chaste. It's warm but not overpowering. It's tender but not childish.

She doesn't kiss him to comfort him, or comfort herself. Not for gratitude, either. There's no reason why, and no reason necessary. He's Erich, and she loves him, and he kissed her knee and she just -- wanted to kiss him, then.

Her head tips. She smiles. "I think that's a good idea," she says. "A road trip, like that? Maybe... it'd make it easier for you, too. I don't know. About me moving out."

Erich

There's a poignant aspect to his smile. "I think all this makes it easier. Having time to process it. Talking to Charlotte and you about it. This roadtrip. Being in a pack, too. I mean, always being together even when we're apart. It all helps.

"Oh, man." Another lightbulb! "Have you tried talking to us from your dream? Maybe we should try that too, if we can't figure out a way for me to just go into your dream."

Melantha

She has taken her hands from his face, but not far. She touches his cheek, lightly, just two fingers, as he tells her all the things making it easier. She's resolved. She was resolved when she told him the first time. If it was too painful for him to build it, she'd hire someone. She would do it herself, slowly and laboriously, but she'd made up her mind. Not because she doesn't care about his feelings. She does. Very much. But before she is his girlfriend, his friend, his packmate, she is herself. And to put it poetically, she won't set herself on fire to keep him warm.

All the same. She's glad it's getting easier for him to deal with it.

"You mean like talking in my sleep? Or -- oh, wait. You mean --"

Volcano, which she doesn't say, because they'll sound like crazy people. And she isn't brightening. She's -- shaking her head. "I couldn't. I did try."

Erich

"Oh." His crest falls. He offers up a crooked little grin. "I shoulda guessed. You're smart.

"Well, I'll talk to the people at Eff Kew. And hopefully they'll help us. And hopefully we'll figure this out! 'Cause I think we should figure this out before we go roadtripping."

Melantha

Melantha is smart. Melantha is really, really smart. Melantha is probably like, the smartest person Erich knows. Of course she tried that. But she feels a little good about herself, and how smart she is, when Erich is all I shoulda guessed about it. Because, yeah. She's really smart.

"Definitely," she says. "I'm barely in the mood to do anything with these dreams. I won't be in much of a mood to enjoy a beach or something."

Erich

She is smart. Sometimes she rattles off stuff he has no idea how anyone knows, let alone the girl he lives with who schlumps around in sweats on the weekends and clips her toenails all curled-up on the couch and sometimes has bad breath in the mornings before she brushes her teeth but he can't really blame her for that because sometimes his breath is radioactive. But she's smart. She's really smart. She's so smart sometimes he wonders why she ever thought she was dumb, even when she was playing a part so well that no one, not even Senator Wyrmington, knew any better.

"Which would totally be a dealbreaker," he says, his mood slowly righting itself, that crooked little grin slowly turning more into a real grin, " 'cause Charlotte is dying to teach you how to surf and drink Mexican beers. She's really thrilled that they're called cervezas there.

"I was gonna maybe try to rent a little boat out there too. 'Cause Charlotte was playing with a toy boat, and I think she'd like being in a big one."

Erich

[HE WONDERS WHY HE EVER THOUGHT. I KNO PRONOWNS.]

Melantha

Melantha is amused. "I should learn Spanish," she says. "I know a little, but it's mostly spanglish stuff I used when I was Maria. I think I could learn it though." She smiles. "See, I would think that Charlotte has been boating before, all WASPy and rich. I don't mind sailing. I think it'd be more fun when I'm not supposed to be like, laying out on a bikini the whole time and wearing heels for some godawful no-reason."

Erich

"Man, I always forget Charlotte is all WASPy and rich. 'Cause she has pink hair and doesn't wear, like, little sweaters tied around her shoulders."

He forgets, too, that Charlotte is a mother. That Charlotte is -- though he'd tear anyone's throat out for saying it degradingly -- a charach. That Charlotte has sinned, whatever that's supposed to mean, and that Charlotte is not a little girl,

not his little sister,

but his pack-sister and his spirit-sister and a powerful Theurge in her own right. He forgets that, just like everyone else does.

"I bet she'd still wanna go sailing with us though. 'Cause we're not stuffy and we're not gonna be drinking champagne and mimosas and snitting about everyone.

"You didn't really know Italian either, did you? I mean all I ever heard you say was vaffanculo, and everyone knows that already from mafia movies."

Melantha

"I think Charlotte forgets sometimes, too. In a way," Melantha says. She means the bit about being a WASP, and wealthy. But she also means all the things not said: that she is a mother, that she is a charach, that because she is female she took the lion's share -- the whole share -- of the blame for a sin that took two people to enact, a sin that in all actuality the father had a better shot at avoiding, had more responsibility to --

Melantha can't think about it. If she thinks about it she's too angry. Charlotte is her sister, even though neither she nor Charlotte grew up with real, true sisters. Melantha had none but her tribe; Charlotte had two weird little girls who never seemed to like her much, and certainly didn't trust her.

"Well, we can maybe drink champagne and mimosas," she couches, because they're tasty. He moves on to her linguistic capabilities. She riases her eyebrows a touch. "Cosa vuoi dire, non mi parlo italiano?" she rattles back, smooth as butter. Then she scoffs: "Come fai a saperlo? Si riesce a malapena a parlare inglese," she finishes, with a mock-disdainful jerk of her head in his direction. She tosses her hair off of her shoulder, staring him down.

Erich

Erich says:

"Um."

Melantha

Melantha blinks. She looks concerned. It's fake. It's silly. But worriedly: "Oh, non si capisce italiana?"

Erich

"Pizza? Roma! Trattoria! Chicken alfredo!" His meager resources exhausted, Erich shrugs. It's worth a try: "Stop-a talking in Italian-o and kiss-a me-a?"

Melantha

"That's just racist," she informs him, laughing.

Erich

"I know." He grins, sheepish. "But you had my back against the ropes. What were you saying, anyway?"

Melantha

"I was just making fun of you for thinking I was faking the Italian. I really do speak Greek, too," she says. "So I think I could learn Spanish if I got some tapes and stuff. And then I could be our translator. We should visit other places while I'm learning, and I can be listening while we drive and stuff. But then by the time we get to Mexico I'll know how to get around and order cervezas and stuff." She smiles.

Erich

That grin of his: it never goes away for long, and right now it's just growing and growing. "I love you," he says, rhymeless and reasonless. "You're the coolest Melantha I know."

Melantha

Melantha smiles. "That's not saying much," she points out, teasingly. She looks brighter than she has in weeks. "I am probably the only Melantha you will ever know."

Erich

"Well even if I meet a million other Melanthas, you'd still be my favorite. That's saying something."

Melantha

"I think you're making a blanket statement without reasonable supporting evidence," she says warningly, shaking her head, the way someone might say I don't know, bro, seems like a bad idea to me. She's smiling, then, at the end.

Erich

"I think you just like to argue with me," he counters, and yes: still grinning. "Whatever you do When You Grow Up, I think there should be plenty of arguing involved."

Melantha

She nods. Perkily, several times in a row, her eyes round and big and her lips pressed together in a big smile. Yup! She likes arguing with him! He nailed it!

Then, more seriously: "Seriously?"

Erich

He's briefly taken off-guard by the seriousness -- but then he thinks about it. And he nods. Quick and several times in a row, just like she did.

"Yeah. I'm not saying go be a lawyer, 'cause I think there are plenty of other jobs that involve arguing. Or at least convincing other people. I think you'd be good at it. And I think maybe you'd like it.

"Though honestly, I think you can do whatever you want and be good at it. So if you end up deciding you wanna be, like, a fingerpainter? You should do that, too."

Melantha

"Yeah, but... what kind of jobs?" she asks, pressing for more. Arguing, convincing, does he really think this is what she should like to do forever and ever and does he think she could and just... what does he think. And why. It clearly matters to her.

He's her best friend, after all. She nudges his knee with her own, then picks up her soup again to keep eating. "Other than fingerpainting."

Erich

"I don't know," and he really doesn't. He didn't even finish high school. He barely left his family's enormo-farm and never left his little town in the middle of the grain fields at all until -- well. We all know that story. He know very little about the world, though, and all the jobs out there, and what people actually did with their lives if their lives weren't already devoted to Killing Bad Things.

"Maybe... I don't know. You like wild places right? Maybe you could join like... one of those conservation groups. And go arguing for funding and... and like. Protection laws. And stuff. Maybe you can argue for women's rights and stuff. Or be involved in like, battered women's shelters? If you wanted to go into law, I bet you could be like a prosecutor for corruption cases and stuff.

"I think there's a lot you could do. I don't think you need to be in any hurry to start? 'Cause if you wanna just chill in Evergreen and be a waitress and build your tinyhouse, that's a good way to spend your time. But when you're ready, there's a lot you could do."

Melantha

"I've thought about law," she admits. "And politics. And lobbying, maybe." She pauses. "Don't call them 'battered women's shelters'. I can tell you why later or show you a TED talk that puts it pretty succinctly, but 'battered women' is just... kinda problematic."

Melantha sips her soup, then turns on the couch, scooting over so that they can still eat and be side by side, facing forward, which makes conversation awkward but makes them able to touch more, able to cuddle a bit. He can even put his chicken on its plate in his lap and eat one-handed if he wants to hold his arm around her. Not that Melantha is subtly suggesting he do so by scooting over beside him and nuzzling his shoulder. Not at all.

"I think one of the things that's hard is that there's so many things I really care about. How do you figure out which one you devote yourself to?" She takes another bite, thinks, then looks at him. "You know I know how to draw, too?" She says this, not really a question, knowing he doesn't know because she's actively kept him and Charlotte from knowing. "I do. I sketch a lot."

Erich

They scoot together. He doesn't put his arm around her immediately, but that's only because he's eating and he needs one hand for his fork and the other for his knife. His leans his shoulder comfortably against hers, though; aligns his thigh to hers.

"I guess you devote yourself to whatever you feel most," he says thoughtfully. "And maybe that doesn't even have to be just one thing for the rest of your life. And it definitely doesn't mean you aren't allowed to do anything else at all. I think maybe it's like... you try to pick one thing you wanna do most right now, and let the other things fall into place as they may.

"I don't know though. I never really had to sit down and decide, y'know? I mean, I guess you could say I had to decide stuff like was I going to fight with my teeth more or my claws, or a weapon. But. It's not the same thing."

Melantha

"Well that's what I'm saying," she... argues. "I don't know which one I feel most. My feelings are always changing." She frowns a little, though not at -- or because of -- him. She eats some more soup, which is comforting, because soup is made to be so.

"I think you never really got to sit down and decide," she says. "Or even think about it." She looks at him.

Erich

"Well, yeah. That too. But in a lotta ways that makes it easier. I mean, I could sit and whine about how no one ever asked me and oh maybe I actually wanted to be a museum curator, but really I have nothing to complain about. I get all sorts of ridiculous gifts, and in return all I have to do is basically be a good person and help my mom."

He finishes his chicken breast. It was really good. He wishes he had a bit of bread to mop up the last of the juices, but then that's not a great idea because bread would make him sick. So he puts his knife and his fork on the plate, his plate on the little coffee table, and then,

now,

he puts his arm around her. Same way he always does: draped heavy and warm as a bearskin across her shoulders.

"I think maybe if you're not sure what you feel the most, then maybe you just aren't at a point where you can decide what to do with your life yet. And that's totally fair. My sister has no idea what she's gonna do with her life either. She's already changed majors like three times."

Melantha

Help his mom. That's how he puts it. Be a good person and help his mom. She smiles softly, leaning into him as they set aside the bowl and the plate that once held soup and chicken. She picks up her chai instead, curling up under his arm, letting her eyes close for a moment.

"Yeah," she says after he speaks, thinking on what he's said. She smiles. "I just... when I started out with the Furies, with what girls like me were going to go out and do, there's sort of this pre-training period. And it's pretty brutal. You have to be sure you want to do this, you see the need, you're going to attack it. You have to hold that purpose between your teeth no matter how much it might seem easier to drop it. A lot of others that started out with me didn't finish and didn't end up working like I did.

"So it's weird to me, a little, to think of going into something where I'm not holding it in my teeth like that. To let it change. To change my mind."

Erich

"I actually get that, I think. Holding it in your teeth and not backing down. It's not ... really how I think about what I do? But I can see how it might kinda apply.

"I think for the most part people are supposed to have a choice though. And they're supposed to struggle with it and not be sure and let things change and maybe feel a little off-balance now and then. I think it's okay."

She picks up her chai. He remembers his hot chocolate and picks that up, holding it gingerly for a moment before taking a sip. There's a bathroom close by, he figures, if worst came to worst.

Melantha

Melantha just listens to that. She doesn't have an immediate answer, or even an immediate response. She is just quiet, mulling it over while Erich sniffs at and considers his hot chocolate. She knows stuff like this is a weird sort of risk for him, and a bit of an embarrassing one, like his toxic breath when he has ice cream in bed and doesn't bother to brush his teeth again after, or when he eats any ice cream at all and basically does not stop farting for several hours and it smells like death.

She likes him anyway, even though sometimes he's totally gross. What is she going to do? Tell him he can never have ice cream again or she won't like him?

She sips her chai, which won't hurt her. Thinks about making choices, and changing her mind, and that not... being the end of the world. Not ruining her shot at her life having meaning. She looks through the window, at the window, at the darkness beyond it and the reflection she sees in it. "I never really fit in," she says quietly. "With the Furies. I mean... when I was a kid, even, and a teenager. There was just so much I didn't really 'get'. I'd been by my dad with all these brothers. I kept saying the wrong thing and I'd get these weird looks, even from the other kinfolk living with us. Even with Damaris coming to live with my family after my mom died, I just... I was sort of weird and different. Not in this cruel, malicious way, I can't say I was being judged and treated badly, I just didn't really fit in. It was such a struggle to try and fit in.

"Damaris was the one, after I started menstruating, to talk to me about it, because I kept coming to her with all that. And she said that there were some of us who just did better when we went out into the world of men. We knew their rules and their perspective in a way the Furies who 'got it' and fit in with other Furies didn't. She said maybe that being raised by men and understanding men better than other Furies didn't have to make me feel like I couldn't really be a part of the tribe.

"I wanted so badly to feel like a part of the tribe," she says wistfully.

Erich

Erich,

whose heart breaks and mends a thousand times a day, whose heart had just mended a little while ago when they thought of A Plan for those weird dreams and then maybe Melantha won't have to be all alone smelling ashes while some creepy old woman tried to talk to her,

feels his heart cracking again. Somehow he'd always assumed she fit in great with the other Furies. She so obviously cares about Gaia, and the Wyld, and women. She's such a fighter, she never shies from anything, she argues all the time, how can they not see she was a true Daughter of Pegasus? Except that's not what she's talking about at all. She's talking about not quite fitting in. Not quite being part of that commune, all-female, all-natural and all-organic and paleo in a way these scruffy modernists wouldn't even begin to understand.

And -- somehow he'd always assumed she wanted to do what she did. That it was a goal for her, a path she wanted to take, a path of vengeance and war. Which isn't to say she didn't want to, or Damaris forced her or anything horrible like that, but -- he never, not for a moment, imagined that

fitting in,

that holy grail of all teenagers,

was what drove her. Was even one of who knows how many reasons that drove her.

It's a good thing his arm is already around her shoulders, because it makes it easier for him to hug her. And he does hug her, very tightly, making a low distressed little noise in his throat like an animal. "You are a part of the tribe," he says fiercely, painfully. "I don't know anyone that is more a Black Fury than you. I mean I don't know that many Black Furies, but still.

"You are a Black Fury. And that's not something you have to prove, or earn, or do stuff to maintain, or ... anything like that. It never was. Anyone who made you feel like you had to do something to be a Black Fury is a dumbass and we should go kick their butts. You're a Black Fury just like I'm a Shadow Lord, because that is what our spirits were long before we were even born."

Melantha

When she says that she wanted it so badly, she means that's all she wanted. That's all she lived for, after a while. To be accepted. Not just to fit in, but to be accepted by some... spirit of the tribe. Not really Pegasus, but something deeper, something shared by all of them that Melantha still cannot name. All she knows is that she wanted it. So terribly.

She's shrunken now, and doesn't see anything going through Erich's mind, or try to understand his unspoken thoughts. But he knows now that she submitted herself not just to Gaia, to Luna, to some faith or belief of her own, but... to the Black Furies, as some sort of ideal amalgam of everything it meant to be one of them, to be a part of them. It was what she had to give. So she gave it, and somehow she didn't quite get what she expected out of it.

It does, if he thinks a little more, put the idea of her ultimate rejection in a different light. For Melantha to feel so lost, so abandoned, she wouldn't need to be cast out and told never to return. And in truth: that's not at all what happened. All she'd need, to feel such pain, is to not get the indefinable blessing of an entire tribe, generations upon generations. It would feel like rejection. It would feel like abandonment, to not get what you had worked so hard for, when you couldn't even quite say what it is you'd wanted all along.

She tucks in on herself a bit as he hugs her. Not overmuch, since they're in public, but she curls slightly, while he tells her she is, he doesn't know anyone more Black Fury than her. She looks sad, poutful, and this looks lovely on her face, even without the gloss, the lashes, everything she did to make herself young and dewy and vulnerable-seeming.

She doesn't have to prove it, earn it, maintain it. She thinks on what he says, especially the part about how anyone who made her feel that way --

Melantha puts that thought away. She's not ready to look at that right now. Rome was not built in a day. She just curls in to being hugged, breathing him in.

Erich

So he hugs. For a long time. It's something he's reasonably good at, which one might not expect him to be reasonably good at. Ahroun, after all. Full-Moon, bringer-of-pain, herald-of-death, avatar-of-war, vessel-of-violence, all the many things Full Moons are supposed to be. And Shadow Lord, and Fenrir-blooded, and generally big and wide-shouldered and hard-bodied and -- just not the hugging type.

Except he is. And he does give pretty good hugs. This one is long and endless and all-encompassing and for a while that is all he is doing: he is an Erich and Erichs hug. That is what they do. That is what he does.

A little bit later, he nuzzles her hair a little. Kisses her temple. "I don't know if I ever told you this," he says, kinda muffled, "but that first time we, y'know. Had sex? Out in the woods? I had a visitor that night. I mean -- in my dreams. It was like... an ancestor of yours maybe? She felt like a Black Fury.

"Except she also felt more, like more powerful than just someone's ancestor from ye-olden-times. It was like she was the Black Furies. Like she was a piece of the Wyld and a piece of Pegasus and a piece of Spring and Summer and Earth and Gaia made into something that kinda seemed like it might've been a woman, or a priestess.

"Anyway. She kinda ... found me in my dream. And she put her hands on my shoulders and -- it's not like I saw her and she saw me or anything, it was all kinda murky dark the way dreams are? But she was there and she was kinda inspecting me, kinda very carefully but impersonally. Like she was trying to see if I was strong, but also like she was trying to see if I was brave and true and kind and good and ... well. Pure of heart?

"It wasn't scary. I didn't feel threatened or dehumanized or anything weird like that. It was kinda nice. She looked at me for a long time and then she kinda approved and went away, and then I had a dream about chasing rabbits and stuff and ... I'm getting off-track.

"The point is: I think even if the Black Furies you knew here on earth, or in Oregon, or whatever -- even if they didn't really make you feel like you belong, you must belong. Like literally, I think you must belong to Pegasus, just like Pegasus belongs to you, because if you didn't ... then why would she care so much about you that she'd send a really really really powerful spirit down just to vet the guy you'd picked out?"

Melantha

No, he never told her that. He can tell because she's lifting her head from where she's tucked into that hug, looking at him, looking lost around 'visitor'. In his dreams. Her face pales for a second, but it's okay -- not one of those dreams. Maybe an ancestor. She felt like a Fury.

He has her attention. He has it through everything he says, even when tears sting her eyes and make them burn. Making her sniff, reaching up to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand. "Are you --"

A beat, a tremor of breath,

"Are you making that up?" Because she can't stand it, if he is. She doesn't want lies for comfort. She is far past a point in her life when stories could make her feel less alone.

Erich

"What? No." Erich actually looks a little affronted. "When have I ever lied to you, even just to make you feel better? Plus, do you really think I could make that up? I mean that is like, I-just-dropped-acid levels of creativity, if I just made that up right now."

Melantha

"Don't be mad at me," she insists quietly, because if he's mad she might just have a meltdown in the middle of the cafe. She just. She's just.

She's crying a little, covering her face, because she can't. She just can't.

You know.

Deal.

Erich

And instantly Erich melts, feels bad, hugs her about fifty times tighter and closer except not really because then he would squash her. But he does hug her tighter, and closer, and kiss her very adamantly through her hair.

"I'm not mad. I'm not mad, 'lantha." That's a new one. "But I didn't make that up. It's true."

Melantha

A couple of people glance at them, occasionally, but find them mostly boring. Pretty girl with beefy boyfriend and she's getting weepy and he's hugging her like it will fix everything; nothing exciting there. Even if the young man does make their skin crawl up and try to escape the room without the rest of them.

She doesn't sob, though. She weeps a little, sniffling, and hugs him back. "Well," she says, when she can, "I don't know how to process it yet."

Erich

"I don't think you have to process it," he replies, his arm still around her. Arms, actually: the nearer one a strong solid curve behind her back, the other closing the loop at her shoulder. "I just wanted you to know. And you can just hold on to it and process it as slow or as fast as you want, or even just keep it there. Just as a very cool and special thing you know about, like. Yourself. And us. And the things that watch over you and us."

Melantha

"Yes I do," she argues, of course, because her brain simply doesn't work like his, heart heart doesn't work like his, her feelings of rejection and aloneness in the world are not like his, they are vastly, profoundly different in almost every visible and invisible way.

But he's not arguing. He's just saying: it can just be. Which she answers with a skeptical look, but doesn't argue with again. She leans on him, and wipes her eyes a little. Leaning that way, she looks at his plate. "Was the chicken good?"

Melantha

"Yes I do," she argues, of course, because her brain simply doesn't work like his, heart heart doesn't work like his, her feelings of rejection and aloneness in the world are not like his, they are vastly, profoundly different in almost every visible and invisible way.

But he's not arguing. He's just saying: it can just be. Which she answers with a skeptical look, but doesn't argue with again. She leans on him, and wipes her eyes a little. Leaning that way, she looks at his plate. "Was the chicken good?"

Erich

"Okay," he says, affably. "You process it in your own time, then."

They both look at his plate. Erich feels a little bad. "It was good," he says. "I should've saved you some. Wanna get some to go? We can bring Charlotte some too."

Melantha

Affable, sweet Erich. He's just glad he told her.

And then he's sad! He did not save her any chicken! Melantha laughs, finally wiping her face dry completely. "If I'd wanted chicken I would've ordered some," she says simply. But she nods to the idea about getting some for Charlotte. "We should get her a muffin, too. Cranberry-orange."

Melantha nods at the door. "You ready to head back? It's a long drive."

Erich

"Yeah," he says, to all of the above. He stirs a little, unlooping one arm. The other stays where it is. He likes to stay close to her, especially when she's been crying and she still feels a little fragile to him. "Let's get a muffin and some more chicken and go home."

Home. To their tinyhouse. The very thought fills Erich with a warm happy glow. He loves it, their tinyhouse. He loves that they all live there. It makes him pang a little, even now, to think of Melantha moving out, but ... well. It's like Charlotte said. They're always together, all of them, even when they're not. And it probably wouldn't hurt to have a little more room for the three of them.

They get up. They go get in line again, and while they're there waiting to order, Erich sort of squeezes Melantha a little. Sort of a thoughtful, gentle little thing.

"Hey," he says quietly, "if you finish processing, let me know what you think, okay? Of that lady of Pegasus coming to make sure I was ... I dunno, worthy of you."

Melantha

Melantha doesn't feel fragile nearly as much as she did when she first got to Denver, when fragility was anathema, when she didn't know what it meant or how to survive it. She had forgotten how fragile, how brittle, she once was. She hated herself for not being stronger. She's been despising herself for all her weaknesses, her flaws, for a long time -- not really her fault, but not really fixable, either. Not her fault that her mother only had one daughter, not her fault that she had so few women in her life until she was utterly surrounded by them, not her fault that somewhere along the line she got it into her head that this made her Different, this made her Weak, this made her a bit of a cripple among true women.

She doesn't really feel fragile right now, though. She's not alone in it, hasn't been alone in it for some time. Erich and Charlotte are, if you ask Melantha, just as fragile and in some ways even more fragile, than she is. And it's not because they're broken or inherently flawed or something. It's because Charlotte's whole tribe is screwed over or screwed themselves over and Charlotte didn't do any of that, didn't deserve it and it hasn't stopped her from being incredible. She's not obsessed with the approval and acceptance of her tribe. Or anyone, really. And it's because Erich got hardcore rejected, well and truly, which sort of puts Melantha's own feelings of abandonment in perspective, and she's a little ashamed of them, because no one has told her if you come back, we will kill you. They even made sure she got back into the world with her own real name and everything. It hasn't stopped Erich from doing his best. Even Gaia told him that's all she really wants of him.

She's thinking of this as they stand in line to get her sister a muffin, that being fragile and broken and vulnerable and hurt and screwed up hasn't stopped her two best friends from being strong and vibrant and powerful and good. They don't hate on themselves all the time for being fragile and broken and vulnerable and hurt and screwed up. And maybe Erich still has Ellie and Charlotte still has her family and Melantha has two brothers somewhere out there who have never come looking for her as far as she knows. But Erich can't ever, ever go home again, and instead of dealing with that he just compresses it into a tiny ball that turns into frenzy when he lets himself think about it. And Charlotte's brain just will not do what she needs and wants it to do sometimes, she can't really exist in reality alongside everyone else all the time. Their vulnerabilities and their broken bits and their hurts are not the same, but they make the three of them the same.

The same enough, she thinks, holding his hand and sipping her chai. Being squeezed, then, which makes her turn her head toward him.

He asks her, quiet like a secret, if she'll tell him what she thinks once she finishes thinking. She smiles a little. "Okay," she says back, just as quietly, and leans into him, resting their brows together. "I will."