you use flexibility and ambivalence as a shield.

Erich

In a different life, Avery might have had an office in a building like this. Might've been some high-powered executive, some up-and-coming stateswoman, someone ambitious and smart and principled. In this life, it turns out Avery has an office in this building after all, though her name might not be on the door. Her position certainly isn't.

It's an impressive office. It's on the 42nd floor, one from the top. It may or may not be a corner office, but it's certainly an office with a view -- a sweeping glassy panoramic of city or mountain or both. Through the plate glass, and from several hundred feet up in the air, Denver is tranquil and aglow, skyscrapers lit from within, stars above.

A quick rap on the door announces a visitor. It's Erich, looking out of place in jeans and a rumpled t-shirt. It's his Throwed Rolls shirt again. He wears it so often that it has to be dedicated. He lingers in the doorway, awkward, until invited in -- and when invited in, all but bounds in, eager, happy to see his friend. He comes around the desk; there's no stopping him. He hugs her! He goes straight to the window a second after, plastering himself to the glass as though he doesn't see the exact same view from the 43rd floor.

"Oh man, I bet you can see all the way to the state line from here," he says. His geography may be a little shoddy.

Avery Chase

Since achieving her still sort-of-new role as the Master of Challenges for the Sept of the Cold Crescent, Avery has spent at least several hours per week in her office. She redecorated, of course. The room had been stripped bare after the punishment of the previous leaders and the temporary closing of the sept, so she had a clean canvas to work with. And work she did. The office is in the eastern arm of the building, catching morning light but safe, for the most part, from the searing heat brought by western and southern exposure. It is not at a corner -- the apex of the triangular building is occupied by the wolf who serves as a bridge between this sept and the caern, and Avery didn't want to be at another corner, too far from that liaison.

She does have a wall made of glass, however, and a large, open office. There is a division within it, a wall she put up with a frosted glass door and a heavy lock. Through that little interior door is a small -- tiny -- sanctuary: there is a serene daybed, and a door to her small executive washroom with its spartan shower cubicle, and a little table and chair by the windows. Erich doesn't get to see that, but that's what's there. All he sees, inside the office, is the frosted-glass door with the heavy lock, unobtrustive in the midst of the rest.

See, this is the office of the Master of Challenges. The Challenge Floor is one floor above them, but not all challenges have to be taken there. The majority of the space in Avery's office is open, open, empty. Angled at a corner of her office is a clean, simple desk, long and broad and modern-simple, with a comfortable chair of white leather and shining chrome behind it. Avery has a computer here, and a sleek wireless printer hidden in a nearby cabinet, and she has a small pot with an orchid growing from it, but she has little else. She has shades that she can roll down over the windows with the press of a button, light-blocking but -- more importantly -- concealing everything else inside from any eyes that might see in, whether by telescope or helicopter.

There is a massive shelving unit against one wall, made up of several rectangular cabinets of varying sizes. There are weapons in that cabinet. There are games both recognizable and obscure. There are many things in those cabinets, fit for many sorts of challenges.

There is a small seating area in another corner, three armchairs and a little table in the middle that has a bowl of peanut butter M&Ms -- white, navy, and baby blue only. It's a spot that Erich might even be able to imagine seeing himself, Siren of Persephone, and Avery sitting at once upon a time, trying to talk through their differences. But other than her desk, the cabinetry, and the little seating area, the rest of the office is open, open, open.

There's enough room for people to throw punches at each other, for example.

--

Avery's office does not have a nameplate beside the doors -- if you are here, you know where the find her. You know whom you are seeing. The doors are double, set with frosted glass just like the interior one. One of those dual doors is open when he arrives, not because she is expecting anyone, but because she is not currently seeing anyone, and she is here. Erich, having better manners than he gives himself credit for, knocks anyway.

The woman inside has her hair up -- most of it, anyway -- and a swath of gold falling wavy across her brow and cheekbones. She wears little earrings of pale gold with blue pearls dangling from the metal flowers. Her dress is short-sleeved, mid-thigh, and pink. It is a bit old-fashioned, coming out of mid-century lines with modern patterning and jeweled flower buttons on the sleeves that seem to hearken back to the 1920s. Her heels are a bit mod, though, white and black and strappy and a bit funky, with stripes and spots both. She looks very pretty.

But then, this is Avery.

She also looks nothing like the sort of woman who might preside over a bloody challenge either in this room or at the challenge floor. But no matter; Erich knows better.

Standing by her desk but bent over it, signing something that has nothing to do with sept business, she looks up at the rap, and sees Erich there in his jeans and Throwed Rolls shirt. Her face breaks into a bright grin as she straightens, pen immediately set down, stride picking up to take her across her office toward the door. "Erich!" she says, pleased as... well. As punch. Pink punch.

So they meet in the middle, arms going around each other, hers over his shoulders and his perhaps around her waist. "It's wonderful to see you! I thought I wouldn't again until the moot."

They've parted; he's wandered to the window. She laughs at his supposition. "Perhaps. I think the Glass Walkers have a gift for that, if you wanted to learn it." She bends to her desk again, finishing some initials, a few pages of signatures. "What have you been up to?"

Erich

"The Glass Walkers have a gift for seeing to the state line?" Erich looks appropriately awed. But: "Nah, I don't think I should learn it. I'd probably piss someone off. Some elder or maybe Cockroach or maybe even Thunder, who knows. I don't need it. I can just get binoculars.

"Oh, stuff." One thing segues into the next. No it doesn't; there's no segue. One thing just kinda pops into the next. "We're still living in the mountains. More so now actually, 'cause it's warmer and there isn't a ton of snow in the way. Melantha's building a second tinyhouse. Charlotte and I are still in our tinyhouse. Honestly I haven't been down to Cold Crescent much lately, but I think once Melantha's tinyhouse is done we might be moving closer to the city again. Maybe? I don't know, I have to talk to them."

There you go, Avery. More than you ever needed to know. Erich turns away from the night, the mountains, the city. He peers at Avery's desk, curious.

"What are you signing off on? Challenges?" That would be quite Cold Crescent, he thinks: challenge forms in triplicate.

Avery Chase

"They have a gift -- eyes of the eagle, eagle-eyes, something like that."

Avery re-situates the stack of papers she was signing, lifting and tapping and straightening them before laying them aside, pen on top. It's a very nice pen. She gave her father one to match on Father's Day. Inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Very pretty. Not what she would have liked to get him, but he has put spending limits on Avery's gifts to him for years. She only gets away with going above those limits at Christmas.

She perches on the corner of her desk, lightly, long legs stretching, one crossing over the other at the ankle, hands folding. She listens, intent and interested as he tells her about his pack, about his packmate-kinswoman, about his thoughts.

Avery laughs. "No," she admits. "Just some spillover from other business -- family, real estate, you know." She handwaves it off. He doesn't know, most likely. "Challenges in here are matters of honor. Some have questioned it, but... that is the way it should be. Having to sign your name to something as insurance that your word is true is a human invention, borne of human dishonesty."

Her head tips. "You know, I realize -- speaking of names -- that I haven't heard a new one for you, these past months. Did you decide against a higher name to go with your higher rank?"

Erich

"Sounds like a Silver Fang gift," Erich comments, and honestly it sort of does. He thinks, anyway. His eyes glance at the pen; it's not avarice or envy or anything deadly and sinful. It's just curiosity. It's also the predator's eye, drawn to movement.

A second later his eyes flick up: he looks at Avery. "Oh." A faint flush to his cheek now. "I guess I kinda forgot. I think we were kinda bouncing a couple ideas around? Earth's Heart, particularly. But it was never really official.

"I don't mind not having a new name. I don't mind having one either." His hands tuck into his pockets; he shrugs. "Whatever works."

Avery Chase

[Perception (Insightful) + Empathy]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )

Erich

[Erich SAYS he's okay with it either way, and it's mostly true, but in his heart of hearts Erich totally wants a second name that would be so cool forever always awesome yay. And he's not totally set on Earth's Heart by itself? But he kinda likes Storm's Teeth - Earth's Heart. That makes him happy cuz his mommy is the earth and he loves his mommy and yay.

Also he's sort of embarrassed that he totally forgot about the name thing. And that he doesn't have a second name yet. And all that.]

Avery Chase

Avery gives that a moment's thought. Then she laughs, pure as the clinking of crystal. "You're not wrong," she tells him. Her moon is outside; it is coming into view, but not through the windows she has. She can feel it, though, hovering in the air, a cleanly halved face of obsidian and silver. She considers everything.

Good time to do paperwork. Good time to consider the origins of gifts.

He tells her that 'we' -- she imagines he means his pack -- were bouncing a couple of ideas around, and her dark brows perk in interest. She mulls 'Earth's Heart' over in her mind, thoughtful, considering the sound, the implications, the meaning. Perhaps she's already heard the story of how Erich was elevated in his rank. These things do tend to get around, after all.

Then she notes the way he slips his hands away, the way he shrugs, the ambivalence. And she watches him, still thoughtful. In some ways, as much as he's grown and changed in the year or so she's known him, she still remembers keenly getting so angry at him that she punched him in the face. The way he talked about himself, about what his use was. What he's for. What he's meant to do. She's changed since then, too. Recently, she came the closest to death save dying that she has come since her First Change. And she doesn't remember that death. Avery still has not fully processed how this experience with the minotaur-like creature in Calden's fields changed her, but she knows it did.

She imagines Erich has changed since she punched him, too.

"It is sometimes good to be at peace with many outcomes," she mentions. "To be flexible, to care little for the names and labels and more about the truth we find." Quiet, for a moment. Her eyes are on him, steady and bright, as they ever are. He has never seen her cloudy, her eyes like glass from sheer pain. Always bright. Always clear. Always far-seeing as the totem that blessed her by birth and by rite.

"On the other hand, I think that occasionally, you use flexibility and ambivalence as a shield." Her brows lift slightly. Her voice is gentle; her expression is expectant. "It's easier, sometimes, not to admit -- even to ourselves -- what we really want. Then it doesn't matter if we don't get it, right?"

Avery's hands slide together atop her skirt, lacing, folding. She wears a right-hand diamond ring, and its setting looks a bit like ivy, a princess-cut stone in the center of all the tendrils. It catches the light and gleams. It was a gift from her father, after she earned her first name -- and her true voice -- among her people.

"My tribe," Avery says, her voice lower, though just as clear, "obviously places a great deal of importance on names. Lineages. Deeds and the poetic recitation of deeds. My first deed name echoes the first name my mother bore, in fact. I do not believe you require a lecture as to why Silver Fangs -- or any tribe, for that matter -- may consider these things to be important. But... even though we have a tendency to be a tad wordy with our christenings..."

She has lost herself a bit in her language. She huffs a small laugh, smiling, and for a moment there's no rhya and not even any yuf, despite her office and standing in the sept or their shared ranks, there's just Avery, talking to her friend: "Erich, would you like me to name you?"

Erich

Really, he shouldn't be surprised when she sees right through him. Isn't she a Philodox? Isn't she a daughter of Falcon, twice-blessed? Still, when she calls him out -- gentle though it may be -- his eyes shy aside. He shrugs a little; he's about to do it again, he realizes, to use flexibility or at least ambivalence as a shield, and so he stops.

Looks her in the eye. Nods. "I think you're right," he says. "I think maybe 'cause I've had a couple times when I didn't get what I wanted, I tend to pretend I don't care what I want now a lot. Not just to you. To myself, too. 'Cause then, yeah: if I don't get it, then it doesn't matter. Or at least I can pretend it doesn't matter.

"So. Okay. Here's the truth: I'd love having a second name. I'd love it if you named me."

Avery Chase

'A couple of times', he says, like they weren't big deals. Like what he wanted was out of the ordinary or strange or impossible somehow, and not getting it shouldn't have been any big surprise. As though being loved and accepted by your family or respected by your peers or given worth beyond cannon fodder were outlandish desires for him to have in the first place.

Avery doesn't know every detail of Erich's past. She does know that it couldn't have been easy, anywhere or with anyone, having the blood he has,

in the tribe he's in.

He confesses, as people are wont to do with her, particularly under her moon. And Avery is not sitting in judgement of him, which is why he can admit anything. It's easier, perhaps, that she said it first, that she let him know -- by acknowledging it -- that it was okay. Understandable. Maybe it even helped that she made her offer instead of dragging it out of him, making him ask, making him uncomfortable and vulnerable when, frankly, he already is.

They all are. Just because they're monsters doesn't mean they aren't also people.

Avery smiles at him. She stands from the corner of her desk that she was standing on. "Then I shall." She walks toward him, a few steps. "Will you give me a little time to think it over? I know you've already been waiting some time now, but I don't want to rush something this important." Her smile grows a bit, her eyes twinkle. "Perhaps in time to announce at the full moon?"

Erich

She walks toward him. That's invitation enough for Erich. He hugs her again! He wraps his arms around her and fairly squeezes her, nevermind that she's wearing that slightly retro outfit with those slightly mod heels; nevermind she's so put together that he ought to worry about messing her up somehow.

He's not worried about that. Somehow, he doesn't think she would be, either.

"That would be amazing," he says, still squeezing, "though you don't have to rush it for the full moon either. Just whenever, you know? I'm just happy you're gonna name me. I'm so happy you're gonna name me. I probably would've just asked you to do my challenge, if it wasn't so inappropriate."

Avery Chase

Avery is not expecting to be hugged again. She laughs, though: does not swat him away or stiffen or otherwise react awkwardly. She hugs him back, far more gently, patting his broad back and giving him a little squeeze. He makes her think of Oakley, in a few ways. Not many. Just enough to forge a connection in her instinct toward him.

"Oh, it won't be a rush," she says, laughing again. "That's positively dragging it out just for the effect. You should be named," she says, stepping back from him, touching his shoulders, "publically. Proudly. And yes," she adds, eyebrows up again, arch, "it would have been very inappropriate for me to do your challenge."

A third time, she laughs, patting his shoulders and circling her desk, picking up her purse -- a tidy little white thing with black piping and gold accents, one of which is emblazoned with a heavy MK -- and her stack of papers, setting them inside a white portfolio. "Let's get some dinner," she says, out of the blue. "Biker Jim's is just up on Larimer and I know it's still open. Have you been there? Doesn't matter -- you'll love it. Meat as far as the eye can see," she says, palm out, arm giving an epic wave. "Elk dogs, wild boar dogs, veal, rattlesnake, bacon-wrapped beef. You'll love it."

And won't they be a pair, eating late at Biker Jim's downtown, in her pink dress and mod heels and Michael Kors bag, her diamonds and pearls. And him, in a Throwed Rolls t-shirt and old sneakers and at-least-mostly-clean jeans. Nevermind that she, being fancy, will probably get the Duck Cilantro hot dog. Or pheasant. They're still getting hot dogs.