children.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] So far as proverbial executioner's summons go, this one is rather polite: an email arriving in Ray's inbox requesting his presence at Alinea, 8pm.

Alinea, as it turns out, is one of those sleek, stylish new-american restaurants full of minimalistically smooth surfaces splashed with unusual lighting, a few carefully arranged sprigs of plant life. One of those establishments where every dish is a work of art presented on enormous, pristine, angular plates; where dinner for two would run upwards of three, four hundred dollars, and a banquet for ten could soar into the mid-four digits. Higher, if fine cognac accompanies the courses.

The waitress shows Ray to a secluded, semi-private table on the second floor, away from the main dining room. There's one other group here, an attractive thirty-something foursome at a table who do not bother to look up at Ostermann as he passes. Then there's Lukas, seated at a small four-person table with a window at his right hand, his back to the wall. The lights of the city cast dimly across his face as he ponders the street scene, but looks up as Ray approaches.

"Ray. Hi." The Ahroun seems relaxed; he's always confident. He reaches over the table for a handshake, leans back again. "Thanks for coming out on such short notice. Please, sit."

The tables here are bare and dark, satin-sheened; the chairs are comfortably padded armchairs, cream-white. There is a small sake set on the tabletop, which gives some hint as to the nature of this restaurant. French-asian fusion. How chic.

There is no menu. There are only two options: more and less expensive. Lukas orders the former for the both of them and sends the waitress on her way with a polite smile, then turns over the two tiny sake ochokus and pours Ray a cup. Sliding it across the table, he adds with zero preamble, "I spoke to Marni yesterday. She's forbidden to come near you again.

"Do you want to know why?"

[Ray Ostermann] Ray came impeccably dressed for this meeting, his finest black suit, tailored and fitted just right, the man had gone to every length he could think of to make himself as presentable as possible for the Alpha of the Shadow Lords, dressed to impress as it were.

If he knew what the meeting was about, he made no sign of it as he stepped towards the table, quite casual and quite confident in the matter as stepped up to the table and returned Wyrmbreaker's rather warm welcome. "Lukas, its a pleasure to see you again, I was surprised to hear from you."

He smiles as he says it, it really might be the case that Ray has no idea whats going on, he's curious of course, but he plays the game and waits. When the meal is ordered, and at last Lukas comes to the matter at hand, Ray's pleasant demeanor just barely holds, though Lukas can easily see the brief crack in its veneer.

"Marni....pardon me?" He says with some surprise as if he tries to puzzle it out. His shock becoming greater when hes told she is forbidden to see him again and he takes a moment to collect himself, looking away out to the city scape beyond to center his being. When he looks back at Lukas he takes a deep breath and nods. "Yes...yes I would."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "She challenged for you," Lukas says flatly. "As a mate. When I asked why, she told me Mama Anklebiter had apparently had some plan to 'claim'," the quotes are audible in Lukas's voice though he doesn't bother making the gesture, "you for the Bone Gnawer tribe in order to take advantage of your resources. Since Mama had not, apparently Marni felt that she should take up the cause.

"She also told me she had not spoken to you of this. She explicitly stated that love had nothing to do with it, and that she did not even expect loyalty from you. When pressed, she admitted to me that she was pregnant and wanted to secure your resources for the cub's future.

"I'm sorry that you have to find out like this."

He leaves it at that -- simple.

"As for Marni: she knows the laws. She knows what I demand of wolves of other tribes consorting with my kin. She knows that by my claim over my Tribe and by my rank, which is greater than hers, she was bound to obey. I don't care who my kin befriend, help, or fuck, but ultimately the best interests of the Tribe are mine to protect. I expect her to respect the Tribe of Thunder and its territories and claims, which," there's a subtle gentling of his tone here; an attempt, at least, to soften the indisputable harshness of the words, "in the eyes of the Nation, you are.

"And knowing that, she's mated with you, which she did not have the right to do. She bears your child now, and she has done this without so much as a word to me, much less an honorable challenge. When she finally did get around to challenging, she spoke to me of material needs and casual affections; nothing that made me think she would do anything but bleed you for your resources in order to clothe and feed her ubiquitous, penniless tribe. Nothing of devotion, nothing of honoring the mate of one's body and soul.

"Nothing."

Briefly, there, a shear of anger. A shockwave of rage, spiking, gone.

"It was therefore my opinion," he continues, level again, "given her actions and her words, that Marni bore no respect for our Tribe and no true respect for you. So I denied her challenge and banned her from your presence."

[Ray Ostermann] Ray had expected alot of things, he had expected an assignment, or maybe that he had been given up to another shadow lord. Or perhaps that he had somehow insulted someone...he had not however, expected THAT. He say their as he listened to what Lukas' had to say, his casual smile and bearing fading as the minutes passed and the whole situation was laid bare before him, replaced by an undeniable look of shock, his mouth held closed by only the good graces he was taught as a child.

"I'm...I'm sorry, you said that Marni is pregnant, with my child....and we are never allowed to be in each others presence ever again?" He asks as he tries to get the important details assimilated.

"Ummm....oh..ok why? I understand why she can't challenge, I do get that. But...never see each other again? Or the child?" He asks finding that particularly difficult to reconcile it would seem.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Because I can't trust her. She's already proven that she can't be trusted with my kin once. Until she manages to prove otherwise -- which seems quite unlikely at the moment -- I'm not giving her the opportunity to repeat her mistake.

"As for the child, it's a pity it'll likely grow up not knowing one of its parents. But then, that's the case for most children born of a Garou and a kin. If she's truly concerned about the child's wellbeing and quality of life with her tribe's limited resources, I've told her that I would allow her to give him into your care to be raised as a Shadow Lord. Her words were 'not a fucking chance in hell'.

"Which," Lukas adds after a moment, "as you might imagine, didn't increase my confidence in her."

He pauses for a moment. Their first course is arriving, and silence hangs over the small table as the waitress lays it out. Lukas thanks her in an undertone as she leaves, then lays his napkin in his lap, picks up his utensils. Pauses, then, to pin Ray with an intent, questioning look.

"Tell me the truth," the Ahroun says, "and not what you think is the moral answer. Do you genuinely want to be in the life of a child you didn't intend to sire, and that you didn't know existed three minutes ago?"

[Ray Ostermann] Ray...admittedly, doesn't pick up his utensil's. Despite the rich aroma and the impressive presentation of the food before him. He's lost his appetite entirely. But then, who could argue that when the man had just found out he was going to be a father...and would never know the child.

When Lukas sets about to eat, pausing to ask him that rather loaded question. Ray has to take a few moments to think on that, his fingers intertwined as he rested his elbows on the table, almost as if he were praying. However the look on his face, would not make one think of someone who is praying...if they have ever done so.

"Admittedly? No...your right, I didn't plan on having kids, an if I had had this conversation ten months ago I would have told her to get an abortion. Of course that was before I knew about all of this. However...that aside I do have a responsibility Lukas. The child is mine one way or the other...I can't just ignore that."

[Danicka Musil] From as often as Ms. Musil dines out in Chicago, and from the places she goes and the dishes (and drinks) she orders, it is not hard to make a few assumptions about her.

The first is that she either cannot cook, despises cooking, or simply doesn't have the time. The second is that she has the money to spend on places like this after buying round after round of thirteen-dollar-a-shot Polish vodka last night. The third is that she is entitled, luxurious, and high maintenance.

Just look at her. Walking into Alinea alone, wearing a skirt and top in shades of ice blue and snow white, both with curious and eyecatching drapes and crinkles. On some women it would look like she was wearing a pillowcase and a torn-up curtain. On Danicka, the movement of the fabric as she strides inside is distracting in a pleasant, breezy way. Her hair is straightened and tucked behind her ears, which is a rarity. There's a bracelet of multiple bangles, made of some pale metal, around her left wrist. Her purse, and her shoes, are silver in color. She is led through the restaurant towards a table for two, and the second place setting is efficiently removed.

If she sees her mate, it doesn't show as she picks up her menu and glances at the wine lists.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "I understand," Lukas replies, his tone surprisingly gentle.

That's all for a while. He does eat. The food here is beautiful, mouthwatering -- and miniscule. Delicate, elegant little morsels, intended as a neverending stream of bitefuls that might, two hundred dollars later, eventually fill one up. The waitress has perceived the mood of this table, though, and delivered their meal three or four dishes at a time. He samples the appetizers, a biteful each, leaves three glistening plates artfully drizzled in sauce and syrup before himself, picks up his sake, drains it, pours again.

"And," he continues, picking up the thread of conversation again effortlessly, "I wasn't asking you to dissuade you. I was asking because it'll affect how I handle this.

"If you feel a responsibility to support the child financially, that's fine with me. You can mail checks or set up a direct deposit or a trust fund for all I care. And if Marni eventually proves herself respectful of our tribe and of you, maybe we can pretend to be human and arrange visitations and the sort. I'll say this much, though: if you're going to simply fund the child's upbringing, it might be kinder for you to simply leave him to be raised by his mother and whomever she might eventually take as her mate and never let him know any longing for his real father.

"If, however, you actually want to be his father, to be in his life and raise him, I will do this much for you. I'll ask a neutral Philodox to play family court judge and argue for you to take custody of the child after his birth."

They're on the second floor, the Shadow Lord and his kin. This dining room is smaller, semi-private -- there are only a handful of tables. In one corner, a double-date of urban young professionals. In the other, Lukas and Ray. And approaching, unmistakable, Danicka Musil, dining alone out of what appears to be sheer whim.

Lukas notices, of course. He looks at her, still speaking to Ray; his eyes follow her across the room, and return to Ostermann only after she's seated herself.

"I'll be honest, though," he's saying then. "I won't fight very hard because it's not worth splintering the Sept over. And if the Philodox rules that the child stays with his mother, then the matter ends there."

[Ray Ostermann] "So....regardless of these...choices. I am never to see Marni again under any circumstances. Unless she shows the tribe proper respect..I have to say Lukas it sounds a little bit like roundabout logic. She's never going to respect the tribe if you keep her childs father from her life. Thats only going to foster resentment."

He looks at the food, and still it doesn't call to him, his mind is elsewhere, and so long as that is the case, his stomach seems to take the back seat. He thinks on his options for a few minutes. Mulling it over given that Lukas was eating. "I don't think I'm cut out to be a single parent however. I would rather raise the child WITH Marni, but if I can't do that, I won't take the child away from her."

He doesn't look happy with the proceedings, or his options, but hes doing his best to work within the confines of them, as well as being true to himself.

[Danicka Musil] She has met Mr. Ostermann for precisely one purpose: that debacle with the samples. The fight in that middle manager's office where she fired a magnum that nearly tore her arm off and Jesmond Krutova stabbed a fomor in the throat with the goddamn letter opener. Danicka scans the wine list, sets it aside after making a decision, and looks up to her waitress, smiling at the woman with the short black hair and the deep brown eyes. She's too far for them to hear her order.

What both Lukas and Ray can see, however, is that as soon as the waitress has nodded and left, Danicka is picking up her little purse and leaving her table. Walking over to theirs. Her table will be re-set. Her wine will be brought to the table she informed the waitress she would actually be eating at.

Without preamble, Danicka slides into the seat beside Ray, diagonal to her mate, and sets her purse on the table across from herself. "Good evening, Mr. Ostermann," she says. Then to Lukas, by way of quiet greeting: "Můj lodní důstojník."

She does not apologize for interrupting. She doesn't say anything else, either. She behaves as though this is where she belongs, as though eating across the restaurant would be the height of rudeness, worse even than re-seating herself without invitation. She goes immediately to her mate's side when she sees him there -- one can assume. She remains quiet, and does not step into the conversation. But there she is, lovely and silent, this fragile little fomor-killer.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "She may indeed resent me and the Tribe," Lukas agrees, "but that's the path she's chosen. Marni had every opportunity to do this right. She didn't. I'm not a Child of Gaia, Ray. I answer to Thunder. I don't turn the other cheek and I don't dole out charity in the name of goodwill."

Another brief silence -- the waitress clears Lukas's dishes away, lays out the next course. She hesitates over Ray's untouched dinner, then quietly informs him that she'll come back later.

After she's gone, Lukas continues, "I'm sorry. I know this must be hard for you. But let's be fair for a moment. You were just as informed as Marni was; the fault is partly yours.

"I won't blame a kin for their relations with the Garou. The power balance there is too uneven for that. But the fact remains that if you want to avoid this sort of situation in the future, take the initiative to protect yourself. If you fraternize with Garou not of your tribe again, remind them to act honorably if they haven't the wisdom to do it themselves. And if you don't want it to end abruptly and badly, don't get them pregnant."

[Ray Ostermann] "Ms. Musil.." Is all the time Ray spares the woman, a brief nod of his head before he turns his gaze back to Lukas, normally he'd be quite civil, normally he'd have derailed the entire conversation to get the newcomer up to speed and involved. This topic however did not allow for such niceties. Or at the very least he wasn't allowing for such niceties.

The waitress is ignored, as if the food, but now it seems to be out of concentration, rather then stunned inability. He leans forward into the table and his eyes narrow oh so slightly. "So that's it then...thats...the end of it in its entirety?"

He asks a rather vague question, one that could have all manners of different answers, or even just plain interpretations. It might almost seem like he did that intentionally.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] There's a pause -- Lukas's ice-blue eyes flicking instantly up and onto Ray's. He's chewing a mouthful of light textures and decadent flavors, but his attention is solely focused on this man, this master-of-the-universe-type MBA, this kin of his blood.

And he lets the other feel the weight of his stare, the cold focus of his attention. The silence stretches long enough to become uncomfortable, to become menacing, before he washes his mouthful down with sake and leans back in his armchair.

"That's the end of your association with Marni," he says. So much for vagueness. "She's not to come near you again or to communicate with you in any way, or vice versa. The only exception is that I'll allow you to support your child financially when he is born. She knows this. Now you know this. I expect you both to err on the side of caution. If she defies my decision, I want to be informed immediately.

"And Ray. I still trust you and value your contribution to the Tribe and the war. Don't give me reason to doubt."

[Danicka Musil] The lack of being caught up in the conversation does not seem to make Danicka's demeanor hitch. She's brought a glass of sparkling white wine. Her legs are crossed at the ankle, a sort of thoughtless modesty though her clothes -- somehow -- bring to mind a rumpled bed, the naked body barely hinted at underneath their draping. Lifting her glass, she takes a sip and just listens.

This woman doesn't need to be brought up to speed, truth be told. What Lukas and Ray say to each other after she sits tells her that there's a woman named Marni, Garou, that is pregnant with Ray's child. She did something wrong and dishonorable. Ray is... sort of reeling.

Danicka's smarter than she lets on. Perhaps smart enough to keep her damn mouth shut, and just drink her wine. Her eyes drift to Lukas, then to his plate. She reaches over, barefingered, and takes a morsel of black truffle from his gleaming plate, bringing it to her pearl-pink lips.

[Ray Ostermann] Ray was not the sort of man used to being ordered around, and as the meal wore on, it became more and more apparent just how much like he liked it. He was bordering on tense, and the smile on his face had mostly faded away, but he still managed to keep himself from grimacing or appearing openly hostile.

"You can't really expect that to work Lukas, she is part of the nation as am I, as are you and Ms. Musil. We are going to run into each other one way or another, it may even involve business of import. How can you impose such restrictions when it could render future necessity impossible?"

And there was the businessman, buried under everything else, where Lukas was a creature of the wild, Ray was a businessman, and now he was talking semantics, specifics as if they were drawing out a contract.

"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] [fuck, i totally missed danicka's 12:23 post!]

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Though Lukas had barely acknowledged Danicka's approach, he immediately slides his plate her way when she reaches for his food. That speaks volumes to those whose instincts are more animal than human. Which is to say: almost everyone in this restaurant will completely miss the significance of that.

The Ahroun's eyes stay on Ray, though. He listens, and when Ray finishes, he answers.

"This isn't a discussion, Ray, no more than the rules I laid out the first time we met were suggestions. Those rules were broken. These are the consequences. If you're asking about actual logistics: you're familiar with the human world. Surely you've heard of restraining orders. Imagine you have one against Marni, and she has one against you. Sever contact. Stay away from each other. Period."

Another pause -- the waitress bringing Danicka's wine; Wyrmbreaker's eyes fixed on Ray the entire time.

When she leaves, he continues. "I understand that this is difficult for you. You've lived most your adult life answering to none but yourself. But I lived half my life never expecting to be asked to die young in a war that began a million years before I was born. Things change. The strong adapt. The weak are broken."

[Ray Ostermann] Ray's face is hard to read at this point, he's adopted a mask of neutrality. But his posture is still rigid as he listens to Lukas lay down the law. For the first time Ray understood some of the other Kin's dislike for the Garou who master them, and claim them without proving themselves worthy in the eyes of the kin.

His gaze flickers momentarily to Danicka, as if appraising her position, before looking back to Wyrmbreaker, an all without having spoken a single word to either of them. When at last he speaks. It is short, and bitter sweet. "Yes Lukas..things do indeed change."

The man says as he adjusts his cufflinks and makes to stand. "If you will excuse me Lukas, I have several contract's to organize in regards to dealing with Whole Health Farms." He briefly looks at Danicka. "Ms. Musil, feel free to enjoy my dinner." Its obvious he will wait only momentarily before he intends to turn...and leave.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas's eyebrow flick up at the mention of WHF. Now doesn't seem the time to ask for details, though; his only reply is a rather mild, "I'll touch base with you about that another time. Have a good evening, Ray."

Then the kinsman is turning to leave. Lukas watches him as far as the stairs, then faces Danicka across the table. After a moment, his mouth twists: a rueful sort of half-smile.

[Ray Ostermann] Ray doesn't even look back, he just gets out. He moves swiftly, far faster then he usually would. It would appear the man either has very important business to attend too, or the veneer of his mask is starting to crack. And then he is gone.

[Danicka Musil] Danicka's thoughts on all this are... difficult to read, unless one looks very closely. She's mostly sipping her wine, and sampling from Lukas's plate as it's pushed towards her. She does this with a sort of familiar impunity. There's a break in conversation where she orders a few plates of her own from the waitress, but she's not really joining into the discussion anyway. Ray is right beside her, but she doesn't look startled or put off when he rises to his feet.

Her eyes follow him. Her eyebrows flick upwards slightly as he excuses himself so quickly. "Good night, Mr. Ostermann," she says, simply and quietly enough.

He's gone a few moments later, and she's shifting into his seat, moving so she and Lukas are directly across from one another. She sips her sparkling wine, sets the glass down, and takes a bite of Ray's dinner just as he suggested she do. She lifts an eyebrow at Lukas's rueful smile, and lifts her glass. "To selfishness."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] [i reed j00!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Danicka Musil] [She's annoyed/disdainful. But mildly.]
to Lukas Wyrmbreaker

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] There's a sort of uncertainty in the way Lukas looks at his mate; her eyes; her upraised glass. After a moment, he touches his sake cup to her wineglass, but it's more out of habit than any true toast.

"Marni the Bone Gnawer," he explains quietly, "wound up pregnant by Ray. She came to challenge me for his hand in mateship. She beat around the bush for a while; first she was going on about Mama Anklebiter wanting to 'claim' him so he could fund their tribe or something; then she was going on about how she decided to do it when Mama backed down. Finally she spilled that she was pregnant by him and wanted to secure her child's future. Said something about how they didn't love each other, and that she'd let him have his dalliances.

"I denied her challenge and told her to stay away from Ray. Then I told Ray. You saw most of that exchange."

It says something, just as it said something that she eats from his plate without asking and he pushes it her way without so much as a stitch in his brow, that he tells her this now without her asking. Without his asking if she wanted to know. He shares the information in confidence, as though she were not merely a kinswoman but someone trusted; someone close.

Which she is. She's his mate.

"I wouldn't have thought twice about any of that before. He's my kin. He submits to me; I protect him, and I lead him. That's how it should be. But now ... "

He trails off; looks out the window a moment, frowning. When he turns back, his eyes are frank. He says it openly:

"I don't want to remind you of your brother."

[Danicka Musil] "You don't," she says immediately, qiuetly firmly, without replying to all the explanation. She'd figured most of that out. Lukas fills in the blankets, covers the details and nuances that didn't come across. She goes on eating Ray's dinner, slowly and consideringly, but her eyes are on the darkhaired man across from her.

"I was thinking more of the baby."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] There's a flash of understanding in his face, or at least recognition. Then he looks down at his food, picking up some elaborately arranged biteful or other and eating it wholesale.

"Marni dug in her heels," he says. "She won't relinquish the child to his father. And even if she would, Ray doesn't sound like he particularly wants the responsibility of raising a baby. It's a hard position for the child. Though, maybe Marni'll have the good sense to let her kinfolk raise her child. And even if not... at least she's a Ragabash. It won't be as bad for the baby, láska."

[Danicka Musil] Danicka is quiet for a moment. The waitress returns and brings plates of elegant little pretenses at the idea of dessert, deconstructed and yet shapely. Danicka doesn't look at them. She takes a bite of Duck from Ray's plate, and then sets her glass down. Chews. Swallows. Lifts glass once more and sips from it. So: a few moments of quiet between them.

"I wasn't talking about the child's future quality of life," she says gently. "More that... right now, this lump of proto-baby sounds like it's being seen as a..." the word drifts from her. Danicka shakes her head, exhaling. "What I meant is that they both sound entirely self-centered about this: getting what they want, the idea of themselves in relation to oh-em-gee-mai-baybee. And if that's the case, the baby shouldn't exist. It's repulsive."

She sips her wine. "Children should be wanted. As lives. As people. Not as concepts or bartering chips."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Marni's immature," Lukas replies, "and Ray's a player. Neither of them love the other, nor remotely planned for a child. If they had, this whole mess would've never happened.

"I think they're both reacting now the way they think good people or good Garou react -- which is probably better than the alternative. But I'm not surprised that they're thinking of the baby as a concept or an idealized goal-in-life or an extension of themselves and their own interests."

There's a quiet, Lord and mate regarding each other over elegant dishes, satin-finished tabletop. Lukas reaches his hand forward, holding it out for hers, folding his fingers gently around hers if she gives it to him. Just that for a moment. Just that contact, the warmth of their hands.

"What irritates me most," he adds, "is the utter lack of a sense of responsibility or foresight. It's not like they were blindsided or that this was some sort of unavoidable accident of fate. They walked into this one open-eyed, and now both of them are slackjawed that the consequences they knew were coming actually came down on their heads. If anything, I took it easy on them both."

[Danicka Musil] They haven't touched since he saw her. And barely touched the other night in Grant Park, when she called him to tell him she was hearing potential monsters in the bushes and it turned out she was right, and the monster was him. It isn't that they're so reserved or cold in public that they refuse to hold hands or kiss. Hardly that. Danicka has thrown her arms around him in crowded places, even with Garou and other Kin in view, and kissed his mouth with delight and affection.

But if he thinks back, most of the time there was some kind of extenuating circumstance: her feeling was high, or she knew that the people in view would not care, or she decided she did not. Danicka's behavior has some inconsistencies. What she does one day is not how she will act another. What matters tonight might not matter tomorrow quite so much. It's bewildering, and frustrating, and sometimes even worrisome. He has come to see the threads in her, however, that don't change. Some things matter every night, every day, every moment.

Marni and Ray and their baby and their stupidty and selfishness and immaturity probably aren't going to matter much to her for more than a few minutes, at most. She reaches over and curls her hand oddly into his, knuckles to his palm, even if his hand is turned upward. Or wiggling her hand under his, if his palm is down. Either way, the sensation is unexpected, and perhaps that was the point, or perhaps there was no point and she just wanted to do it this way, feel his warm palm on the back of his hand.

Danicka quirks a brow and shrugs one shoulder, the one that's mostly bared, sipping her wine before setting it down and picking up a fork to lift a bite of something orange and green and almost gelatinous to her mouth, discovering that it is actually an almost buttery mix of sweet and salty. Ah, gourmet food.

"This is one of the downsides of being an honest and forthright person," she says, a bit breezily. "You assume that people listen to a single word of the truth when it isn't what they want to hear."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] [delete the last both! i can haz english grammur?]

It is unexpected -- this touch of her knuckles to his palm. Makes him glance down, his startling clear eyes flicking, glinting, scattering the mood light in here: dim for the most part, halogen spotlights over each table, casting the white dishes into a dazzling, levitating radiance against the dark tables. Those lights gleam off his thick dark hair, too, when he leans forward on impulse and kisses her palm, smiling now as he sits back.

"Well," he replies, "the upside is that eventually people learn. Then, when you make a threat, they hear a promise." He affects a severe expression, "Easy, effective intimidation."

And drops it, wry now, "Or so goes Istok's theory."

His hand moves past her palm; his thumb traces the delicate metal of the bracelet. His smile is small, pleased. "I saw you wearing this the other night, too. It made me happy."

[Danicka Musil] The kiss to her palm makes Danicka smile. The lighting and her style tonight all make her seem serene, even as she toasts to selfishness and opines about children, of all things.

There's something merciful about the way Danicka does not comment on Promised Rain's theory. Consistency, she once said, was for pets and children. You have to be willing to follow through on whatever you say, or they never learn. But Garou aren't children, no matter how immature, and Istok's theory is in direct opposition to her own. She and the Philodox could argue endlessly about who was more full of shit... if Danicka had been born to Change.

But if she'd been born to Change, she would be a Theurge, like her brother. She would not have been the lowest on the familial totem pole growing up. She could have eventually fought back. She may never have left. She would not be Danicka; she might go by Daniela, might have abandoned that name altogether to call herself by her deedname alone. The possibilities are literally unfathomable.

The truth remains: were she ever to meet the Garou who mentored her mate, she would pretend to agree with him, if she spoke to him at all beyond the simplest and most deferential of introductions.

"That's adorable," Danicka says, matching his wryness. "'People learn'." She turns her hand, pats his as she lifts her glass again, eyes sparkling just like the wine itself. She laughs lightly, and sets the now-empty glass by the edge of the table. Neither of them have withdrawn their hands; in fact, Lukas is touching her wrist, touching the sterling bracelet he gave her.

She smiles. No wryness now, no serenity. Just warmth, her eyes dropping to the metal and to his fingertips. "I really like it," she says quietly, moving her hand so that the light catches the piece of jewelry and glints against it. "It suits me. It's... nice enough to go with clothes like this, but I could wear it anywhere."

Danicka laughs again, leaning over to offer him her lips, grinning softly. "You did good."

Then, whenever their lips part, after a silent sigh: "I dimly remember meeting you in the park, and a couple of others. But mostly I remember being grotesquely hung over yesterday morning."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Of course, he rises to the invitation. His hand folds around hers as he leans forward, kisses her over enormous plates adorned with perfect morsels or scant crumbs. It's not the sort of hungry, wanting kiss he might give her later in the entryway of her apartment, or at the foot of their bed in Stickney. It's not the slightly clumsy, trashed kiss they shared once over pierogis and 'potato juice' at a Polish restaurant that looked like an alpine lodge.

It's light, warm, considered, patient: his lips touching hers, closing gently over her lower lip for a moment before they draw apart.

"It reminded me of you," he says softly.

Then Lukas is leaning back in his cream-white armchair again, and their hands are still linked. The mood at this table has changed drastically: relaxed now, intimate despite the two extra chairs. The waitress will note it, will wonder about Lukas's first guest but ask no questions, and will begin to serve them one dish at a time again, a constant stream of tastes and textures that may or may not leave Lukas craving a good hearty slice of pizza when all is said and done.

He likes that about Danicka, too: that she'll eat at places like this; that she'll wear a dress like that. That she'll turn around and chow down with him over meatlover's pizza or cheap chinese takeout, sitting on the floor, watching old movies from ten years ago.

"You were very drunk," he fills her in, quiet, amused. "You muttered about Polish potato juice and threatened to set a tree on fire." His humor fades somewhat, then. "I'd just killed a fomor, and I had to get rid of it. We left you alone in the Park. I was a little worried, but I didn't want to coddle you."

His hand squeezes hers gently. His thumb rubs over her knuckles.

"I went to your place afterward. You were there, and you were already asleep." The smile, returning, is softer now; private. "So I slept too."

[Danicka Musil] He tells her that she was muttering about the vodka when he saw her and Danicka doesn't laugh at the image of herself threatening a tree, doesn't go quiet at the mention of having to get rid of his kill. She doesn't even smile warmly and thank him for trusting her to get her grown-ass-woman-self home when utterly wrecked. She says something in Czech that may make his ears very well burn, and despite the fact that she's a quarter Polish, it's a searing ethnic invective without a trace of genuine feeling behind the sort of gasping irritation she says it with.

Danicka shakes her head, resettled into her seat once more after the kiss they shared over the center of the smallish table. "I have never," she says firmly, "met a chef who could drink that much. And I have matched many a chef in my day, drink for drink, but I think that damned woman was trying to teach me a lesson. I haven't been that drunk in years."

Their waitress comes. Danicka does not order another glass of sparkling wine. She sips her water, now, and eats a few more bites. Maybe they'll get Chinese food later. Then again, given that she usually eats one slice for every four that Lukas can put away, and usually tops out around two or three, these morsels might be enough for her.

"Well, I remember waking up with you, obviously," she says, and smiles a little at him. "But who's 'we', that left me alone in the park?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas laughs under his breath. "You and your drinking contests with restaurant staff. You were pretty blitzed that night last year too, when I found you outside Zealous and took you home.

"'We' were Karl, Simon and I. Karl's a Fenrir's who's going to run with my pack for a while. A Ragabash. Simon's another Lord Ahroun. Mila showed up, too, but she didn't stay."

[Danicka Musil] "It's not contests," she argues mildly, "it's just... getting together with people. Social lubricant. Winding down with them after their long days and listening to them. It wasn't me last night, it was Klara trying to make it all competitive."

Under the table, her foot rests alongside his. Strokes against his ankle once, more tenderly than lasciviously. That night outside of Zealous, she wanted him to take her home and fuck her. She wanted him to fuck her in his car, wanted his hands up her skirt while she wrapped her arms around his neck, and that isn't what happened.

That night, he didn't come up to her apartment and hold her in his bed. Back then he wasn't even welcomed into her room yet, much less given a key to come into it at will.

Her eyebrows flick up. "Zahradnik?" she asks.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "You told me about Klara, too," Lukas remembers. His smile is faint, a little wistful. "You seemed particularly impressed by that."

Their hands are linked. Their feet touch. They create these little connections between them, these points of contact, almost as though they were instinct. Second nature. Like shoots unfurling toward sun and sky; like roots diving for the deep dark earth.

"I don't remember his last name," he continues. "His deedname is 'Bonegrinder', though. About this tall," he gestures in relation to himself, "short black hair and tattoos. You've met?"

[Danicka Musil] "I wouldn't say impressed," Danicka says, with some reservation underneath the lightness of her tone. "I just... thought it was neat."

Her hand withdraws, not for any conversational reason, but because she's eating. She's sipping her water. She's using her hands, both of them. It's possible she took it back even while they were talking, and that's why her foot sought his, why she made contact of another sort. She nods in answer to his question, making a quiet mmm sound of acknowledgement, affirmation.

"I did. He followed me and some girls away from a nightclub. I suppose now because of my breeding, though at the time he was just being a complete creep." She picks up her spoon to dip into an interestingly-colored mousse lounging on the corner of a plate. "His communication skills are lacking."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] The corner of his mouth moves, a self-deprecating sort of smile accompanied by a vague gesture of his hand. Again, when she opines on Simon; this time less self-deprecating, more in quiet humor. That too fades.

They eat; the next course comprises of a single spoonful, the contents of which they'll have to discover by taste. At their neighbors' table, they can occasionally hear individual dishes described to the diners, but something about the two Shadow Lords -- Lukas's rage, Danicka's dress, the quiet intimacy surrounding them, which is somehow as forbidding to outsiders as it is warm to them -- indicates to the waitstaff that they don't want to be disturbed. That they're really not all that interested in the full pretentious experience.

Lukas sets his spoon down on the plate. Rather suddenly he asks, "Do you think we'd name her Klara? If we had a daughter."

[Danicka Musil] She's taking her spoonful more slowly. Tiny tastes no bigger than the tip of her tongue, savored silently while her thoughts move past the latest babbling Shadow Lord to come to Chicago and onto dinner. Lovely stuff, this mousse. The rest of the plate is bare, and it's topped with a squiggle of hardened sugar in bright green, but it isn't chocolate or vanilla or any other dessert-styled flavor. It's curious. All the dishes here are curious.

Lukas's spoon clinks against his plate, and he asks what he does, and something in her chest twists hard in on itself. "I don't know," she murmurs, and takes another miniscule bite.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] As soon as she answers, his eyes drop. It's hard to tell if he's disappointed, or suddenly embarrassed, or anything else. He looks at his empty plate with its squiggles of sugar, green on white, like modern art. Earlier there was an elaborate contraption: some thin-sliced smoked meat draped over a tiny rack, set over a smidge of sweet rice. He's not thinking about the curious food, though, or the elaborate mouthfuls. Whatever he's thinking about has him frowning faintly, his brow furrowing on itself in thought or ache.

"I'd love it if we had a daughter," he says softly, looking at his plate. "Not now. I don't mean now. But one day."

At last his eyes rise again, meet hers over their bright food, their dark table. Out of the direct line of light, the blue of his irises seems more resonant; more depthless. "Thinking about it breaks my heart a little."

[Danicka Musil] Like Lukas's, Danicka's eyes are downcast, surveying her intricately-plated food. Unlike Lukas, she hasn't looked up. She's been focusing on her plate since Simon was brought up, not to hide at first but simply because was curious about this course. She doesn't see Lukas look downward, and she doesn't try to read him to figure out what's going on. She does that less and less now, because she no longer feels the terrified need to tell him whatever he wants to hear so that he will leave her alone. Or at least not hurt her.

Beneath her draping, glacially blue top, Danicka's chest moves steadily with her breathing. Her eyes don't meet his. "Can we stop talking about this?" she asks, touching the handle of her spoon and rubbing her thumb along it. Her tone of voice is still light. But now there's a wound-up tension threaded through it, a need.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] A flicker across his brow -- not quite a frown this time; a stitch of ache.

"Okay," he says simply, quietly. And, "May I ask why?"

[Danicka Musil] "It makes me sad," she says quietly, simple as that, and finishes what's before her. Doesn't touch the green squiggle; it's left alone on the corner of the square white plate. Setting the spoon down, she glances up and over at Lukas, a thin, tight, humorless smile on her lips and emotion making her eyes glassy. "I have too many children I'm never going to meet, is all."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] On impulse, Lukas sits forward, reaches across the small table, touches his mate's face. He does this sometimes: a gesture so innocuous and so undeniably intimate, performed with such unthinking swiftness that it seems a necessity. Something he has to do to understand her, or make contact with her, or connect with her.

A moment later he sits back. Even quieter now, "What does that mean?"

[Danicka Musil] If the reason he does this is for intimacy, connection... need, even, it has to be heartbreaking that she's so still under his touch. If he does it to try and be closer to and understand her, it has to wrench slightly that she's that still because she does not want to flinch away and hurt him. The last time they had much time alone together it was like this at first, when she was withdrawn and quiet on the balcony. She didn't want to be touched, and it's hard to discern why.

He knows she can't be frightened that he'll hurt her. Surely not, after all this time. It can't be that she doesn't love him, doesn't trust him, not after everything they went through -- some of it recently -- to get to a point where they could believe in one another and rely on each other for comfort and so much else. So it might be painful, to reach out to connect, and be unable to. Even if it's just for a moment.

Danicka's eyes have drifted downward again. She toys with her utensils idly, and seeing that they've finished their mousse, the waitress returns and sets two plates down. These have a raspberry-colored molded jelly on them, and there's some kind of medallion of meat inside of it, the whole thing surrounded by bits of greenery here and there.

"Prosím, můžeme mluvit o tom tento když nejsme ne při čtyř-hvězdičkové restauraci?" she asks, barely audible.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] It does hurt, that she's still beneath his touch. She doesn't lean her cheek into his hand the way she has so often in the past. She doesn't look at him, and she doesn't raise her voice above that shred of a whisper.

He's reminded of how quiet she was, how withdrawn, the last time they ate together. When he called her luxurious; when he called her wild. When she looked at him like he didn't know her at all.

He's reminded of how badly that night went for a while, and it chills him.

"Jo," he says, and picks up his fork for the next dish. "Promiňte."

[Danicka Musil] "Nebuďte být, láska," she says, looking up and over at him, her brow wrinkling with ...whatever it is. The ache that had her eyes shining and her tone so quiet. And now with concern, because he says sorry like that, and because he says sorry when she's withdrawn and she knows it. And because

it isn't his fault.

Their legs are still in touch under table, one of her feet between his, and they stay there while course after course of little plates of decadence come through, one after the other. Danicka doesn't have another glass of wine; she seems to have had her fill of alcohol for the time being, after that night at Russian Tea Time.

They're quiet for awhile, until she's taking a deep breath and lifting her head and starting to converse a little about her last training session, about various styles of fighting and a few martial arts Sofia has suggested she look into for learning self-defense. She tells him she was thinking about getting some summer bedding for the den, and for his room at the Brotherhood, too, if he'd like it. And would he like to go shopping with her, get lighter, thinner sheets and comforters for the warmer months.

And so on, until she's asking for and picking up the check. Her belly is satisfied, if not full. Lukas could probably eat here all night and never attain any kind of real satiation. Danicka doesn't show any signs of resistance to leaving, which means they might have to pick up the earlier thread of conversation, as she signs her name on a credit card slip. She just whips the pen neatly and gracefully across the bottom of the receipt before folding it back in its slim leather portfolio, putting her own copy in her purse and looking over at her dark-haired, pale-eyed mate.

"I was going to head back to my place before going to the den. Do you want to follow me and take one car from there, or go on ahead?"

A pause. "That is, if you'd like to spend the night with me there."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] It's not quite the thoughtlessly warm way they've conversed before over dinner. There's some quality of distance and effort there. He can tell she's making the effort to converse. He can feel the distance there, though he can't quite understand it.

There's a genuine brightening, though, when she discusses bedding for summer. The den. His room at the Brotherhood. He'd love to go shopping with her, he says. That alone must say something about how rare, really, their time together is, that even this most mundane of tasks is to be looked forward to.

Then they're moving on through their desserts, and he's mentioning that Karl might join his pack, and that Theron was going to challenge for Fostern, and that Kate had changed. Was grown up -- or something. He can't quite define it, but he can feel it, and he's glad for her.

He mentions, too, that Kate's siblings had more or less abandoned her by now. That's a more sober note.

Dinner's over. Lukas finishes his rice wine. When the check comes, Lukas is reaching for his wallet when Danicka picks it up. He looks at her with upraised eyebrows: she's sure. He doesn't argue further, and when the billfold goes on the edge of the table, they regard each other over the table.

There's a hint of a wince -- he nods. "Of course I would." And, "I'll follow you. Then we'll take one car."

Their time together, despite everything they've done to increase it, is still rare. Even the most mundane of tasks become precious.

[Danicka Musil] When someone is gone, the things you miss are usually small, and seemingly innocuous. It isn't looking at pictures of them that sets you off; it's a certain word that reminds you of a joke or a memory that you couldn't even explain to someone else if you wanted to. And you don't want to; it's one of the few intimacies you can hold onto even after they've left or died. So you don't try to tell anyone why this one small thing has such meaning to you. Why a chair is not just a chair, why a season coming into its own as the year turns makes you ache, why you cannot fold sheets without losing yourself in a sort of dream. Or void.

Over the course of just a year -- and three months, give or take -- and even with as little time as they have together, Lukas and Danicka have built up a vault of such things. Certain foods, certain places, certain turns of phrase, or the way a breeze will twist the prism in her window, warping and dancing the rainbows on the carpet. To anyone else, the idea of sharing a car ride together might be nothing of note, but it makes Danicka think of a night at the Shedd.

He wants to take one car, and perhaps he always did. Always wanted to share that with her, even when she did not want it and he did not deserve it. It surprised him when she wanted to stop at her car not to get in and drive herself to the W, but to grab a bag from the backseat so she could go with him. They'd argued, and yet. They were still so new to each other, and yet. Danicka locked her car and got back into his. It was one of those early, pale displays of trust that were like thin rays of sunlight coming through heavy cloud cover: so wan, so small in comparison to what they could be, and yet so warming. So welcome. Like a blessing, and like guidance.

They're past that, now. Most of it. Trust still is, and perhaps always will be, something tenuous. She learned her entire life not to rely on others, not to believe in them. She learned that all trust would inevitably fail, and would prove ultimately foolish. She's trying. Part of the argument the other night tied into that: a long time ago, she wasn't trying. She didn't know how to, she didn't want to, she was afraid to. But Danicka tries, and sometimes she sees in Lukas that whatever noble ideals he's been trained according to, sometimes

he doesn't trust anyone, either, and has to try just as hard to trust her.

Right now, she's trying. She's trying to connect with him through words, show him that they are okay and she is okay even if she can't quite bear to let down the wall she has around her. Not here. Not in this four-star restaurant, after a glass of wine, after talking about what children are, what they should be, and the ones that Danicka doesn't have. She keeps the guard up to protect herself, not to push him away. She just doesn't know yet how to let him in, without breaking down utterly.

Still: she tries. Talking about shopping and whatever else comes to mind, to be close to him on some level, albeit a surface one. He can tell she's not relaxed, and he knows something is wrong, but nothing more than that. He can tell she's reaching out to him. So they talk about new sheets and things for his room, maybe some furnishings for the den. She says she wishes school hadn't gotten so busy, she would have liked to plant tulips, but maybe later this year when it's time again. She doesn't know a lot about gardening, but she wants to learn more.

Gardening. Bedding. This is what they talk about, and with some strange, childlike, obvious excitement. Doing things together like walking around Bed Bath and Beyond or digging around in the ground. Of course, though, there's always the war, and his pack.

Her eyes darken and her brow furrows for a brief second at the mention of Katherine's siblings, but Danicka has nothing to say about it. She doesn't talk to Lukas anymore about her relationship, or lack thereof, with Katherine. This is something they've sort of agreed to, and it's brought some peace to that source of tension. Still, the expression she wears for a moment is troubled, and perhaps he thinks she's irritated that he mentioned Kate at all. Perhaps he understands:

this is Danicka, who did not want him to kill or even attack her elder brother, who brought her to the brink of death and warped her mind and abused her year after year after year until she did not even recognize herself as a good person. This is Danicka, who nearly went back to that house after the Sokolovs let her go so she could take care of her aging, ailing father as his mind descended into bewilderment. Danicka, who protected Ilari Martin when he lived with her out of some kind of strange sense of loyalty because he slept down the hall every night.

Co je doma, to se počítá.

Perhaps that frown is compassion, and not annoyance.

There's no quirk of her brow back at him, though, when he raises his when she grabs the check. The perception of reality the guardians of the underworld took from his mind was not reality itself, he knew from the start and knows even better now: Danicka could never work another day in her life and her children would be set. She and her mate could run off to expensive hotels and fuck on thousand-thread-count sheets without having to keep one another quiet and they would not feel a dent. She has exponentially more liquid funds than Lukas now, coming in on a steady stream without much more effort on her part than checking in with her accountant occasionally.

He looks at her with upraised eyebrows, and Danicka just goes on putting her card in the billfold without meeting his gaze. Of course she's sure. This is their own interpretation of traditional gender roles, flipped through the world of the Nation: Danicka pays for dinner, he makes breakfast, she reams out Garou who act like idiots, and Lukas does the dishes.

Sometimes she kills the monsters

and he drives them home.

Which is what happens: they leave the restaurant together, walking back into the warm night. She links her hand with his as they rise to leave, the bracelet around her wrist falling to the heel of her hand and brushing against his in rhythm with their stride. Danicka kisses him outside on the sidewalk, or outside her sleek blue Infiniti, wherever it is that they part to meet back up at Kingsbury Plaza. She holds his hand, and lifts herself up on her toes, and closes her eyes to kiss his lips.

Slow, and sweet, and lingering.

Her eyes open when they part again, looking more vivid green in the lamplight. "Miluju tě, miláčku."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Their hands still linked, his palm comes to her face, cups her cheek the way he had, or the way he'd wanted to, in the restaurant.

Slow, and sweet, and lingering.

Then they're coming apart, and her eyes are more vividly green in this light, and his are more faceted, deeper, like crystals, like minerals, like cut stones. He looks at her a moment, studying her in the lamplight, in the coolness of late evening, early night, and then he kisses her again; a gentle press of his mouth to hers.

"Já vím."

They part at her car. He walks another half a block to his, and she likely doesn't wait for him. It's only a few blocks to Kingsbury Plaza, and when he texts her. She replies: she's upstairs, back soon. He doubleparks at the curb and waits, glancing into the rearview mirror now and then to make sure parking enforcement isn't swooping down on him.

Five, ten minutes later, she's back. He reaches across the passenger's seat to open the door for her, holding his hand out for her things. He lowers her bag into the rear seat as she climbs in. He likes this, somehow: picking her up at the curb. It feels casually familiar, intimate in an everyday way.

Just like riding in one car does. Just like brushing his teeth beside her in her bathroom, getting his shaving kit out of her medicine cabinet, does.

It's a longer drive out to Stickney. Lukas puts on a little music, inflates lumbar support a bit on his seat, hooks his fingers through the bottom of the wheel and cruises down the highway in sixth gear. He props his right elbow on the arm rest and holds his hand out, lacing his fingers through hers if she gives him her hand. He mentions that he dropped by the den and planted the oak sapling in an indoor pot; didn't put it into the ground yet because he wasn't sure it was big enough to survive, and because he wasn't sure if she wanted to.

He says he bought some mixed seeds. Flowers, some fruit-vines -- grapes, berries. He has no idea how to garden, though, and anyway he hasn't gotten around to tearing up the concrete in the front yard to put down flagstones and soil.

"We should shop for gardening stuff sometime too," he says, leaving the city behind, driving into the darker suburbs. "Plants and tools and all."

[Danicka Musil] Going upstairs for a few things doesn't take Danicka very long. She's well-practiced at throwing things into a bag at short notice, and from the sound of things, it's possible she was thinking about going to the den after dinner even before she saw him and Ray at Alinea. When she comes out of the lobby, she's still wearing her outfit from the restaurant, but she's carrying the messenger bag she usually takes to school. No need to bring extra clothes, or extra toiletries: the den has what she needs, in that respect.

It also has a computer, but she's still bringing her laptop with her, and at least one textbook. Lukas opens her door, takes her bags, and they do all this smoothly, easily. Her skirt bares an inch or two of her thigh when she steps into his car and settles herself into the seat, but she doesn't bother to adjust it as she buckles herself in.

Her interest in the fate of the acorn-cum-sapling is evident in her eyes as he talks about it. Of course she wants to plant it. She says it just like that, too, quiet and a little aching:

Of course I want to. With you.

But then: she laughs quietly because he wants vines, and she's not sure those will grow in Chicago, but she doesn't know. May as well try. She knows there are herbs and some roots that will grow pretty much anywhere, but maybe they can start with flowers. And in the back yard, where there's plenty of room for a garden and a tree. But later, yes: flagstones, and soft-leafed plants that will brush their ankles as they walk to the front door from the garage.

As they leave the highway, she cracks her window to let in some of the night air, now that the rush of the highway will no longer drown out all music and conversation. "It sounds like we're just going to tear up Bed Bath and Beyond and Home Depot," she says, with wry amusement. "Or Lowe's. I like Lowe's better. All that blue."

Danicka is quiet for a moment. "I wanted to have the baby, the first time I got pregnant," she says. It's not quite out of nowhere. Not quite out of the blue. It's been on her mind since the restaurant, and now they're in the car and they're going home and the steadiness of the ride and the fact that Lukas has to keep his focus not entirely on her makes it easier to talk. So she talks. "Immaturely and selfishly and more as a concept and an escape, but... I did want the baby. And even though what my brother did probably didn't help, I felt like... it was my fault that I lost it."

A long pause, then. She says, "Like maybe I deserved it," almost in a whisper, but there's no tremulous grief to the words. It's an old memory, a decade old, this guilt-ridden, ashamed feeling that was once so strong in her teenage self. And perhaps once again it's striking to look at what was hapening to them in different parts of New York at the same time: Danicka was recovering from a miscarriage and about to enter nine years of well-paid servitude to a Fang family. Lukas was learning how to be Garou, how to fathom the brevity of his own lifespan, how to temper the Rage that back then so severely outclassed his young, feeble grasp on self-control.

Her throat moves as she swallows, and yes: her hand is laced with his, her fingers stroking in between his idly. She looks at his hand, so much larger than her own, surreal in its softness and intimidating in its strength. "When you asked me about New Orleans the other night... all I could think about was the other pregnancy. And what you said once about not thinking I could be cruel, and how we argued about betrayal."

Danicka looks over at him, withdrawn a little, wary, her eyebrows tight together as though she's feeling a spasm of some twisting pain, just waiting for it to pass. "I know you don't like hearing about a lot of what my life has been, but... I think I need to tell you about this."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Driving means he can't hold her eyes for long. He can only look at her in glimpses and glances -- which he does, almost sharply, as she brings up the subject she couldn't stand to talk about in public. At a four-star restaurant. With waiters and waitresses hovering.

That was nearly half an hour ago now; maybe longer. They weren't truly at ease in the meantime. Their humor and affection wasn't false, but the subject wasn't forgotten; merely set aside. Early on, they spoke of an old children's book, and about foxes and taming. It's a little like that. The subject was too tender to broach, and so Danicka asked Lukas to please let it be,, and Lukas backed off to a safe distance, and sat down, and waited for his mate to come to him.

Which she does, now. Quiet, and then almost whispering.

When she says, like maybe I deserved it, he glances at her again. This time he's almost wincing. This time, almost against his will, his hand closes a little tighter on hers. Between his callouses, his skin is soft and supple, reborn every time he changes. His hand is warm and strong, though, and he holds hers as though he could pass on some of his strength like this.

A third time he looks at her -- at the end, when she says she knows he doesn't like hearing about this. And his frown deepens a little, aching. And he shakes his head.

"There was only ever one thing I didn't want to hear because it hurt and angered me," he says quietly, "and I think I've finally set it behind me. Everything else, it was always just that I hated to think of how you were hurt. And I hated to hurt you when I made you think of it all over again."

A pause; a gentle pressure of his fingers around hers.

"Řekněte mi."

[Danicka Musil] "I know," she says, perhaps too intensely, closing her hand on his. "I know why, Lukáš." Why he hated to think of how she was hurt, how he could not have helped her even if he was there, how there is no way to go back and protect her from things that did such longstanding, perhaps irrevocable damage to her.

For a few moments at least, they're holding each other tightly, and then Danicka's grip eases, the need to reassure him that she understands fading. "When we get home," she says, which is just another way of telling him what sort of conversation it's going to be. What kind of story.


The rattle of the garage door sets off signals in their brains, fills them with a sense of relief and respite. Home. No more driving, no more showing faces to the world. This is the one wild place in a world full of rules and set tasks, where they can damn well have a huge-ass turkey for Thanksgiving if they want to, roll around in a mountain of wrapping paper in Christmas Eve, play computer games, or putter around in a garden to their heart's content. It is not exactly a bastion from the war, which touches everything, all the time. It is why his race exists. Supporting his race is why hers does.

But they've carved out a bit of home here, something they never thought they'd have. He was wistful and perhaps jealous the other night when he learned that Holds the Line lives with his mate; maybe wary of it, too. The underworld tried to teach him it could be possible, and that he could not let fear that it would destroy his mate stop him from at least trying. There are other reasons, though. Such as not letting himself ask Danicka to give up what autonomy and solitude she's finally managed to find and be comfortable with. Such as not torturing himself with the simultaneous longing-for and dreading-of cubs. Children. Their children.

So many reasons why they don't give up their respective individual dens and come to live in this one. They need to be close to the city, after all, for her school and his duties. And reasons not to move in with each other: so that she does not have to, by default, welcome every member of his pack into her home if they need to come to see him or if they come to crash with him. So that he can be available and accessible to the entire sept if need be, as elder of a tribe and an auspice and very nearly one of the highest-ranking Garou here, period.

But this is home, from the rattling open of the garage door to the quietude of unloading the car and going inside together. Danicka's quiet, if only because she's thinking of how she can say to him what she wants to say to him. The house is quiet, and the neighborhood, because the hour is late and the families they share this street with are watching their late-night shows or falling into bed to sleep. Their footsteps echo gently on the pavement, and the sound of the lock twisting back into place resounds.

Danicka holds his hand going up the stairs, her bag over her shoulder and her laptop bag hanging from his. She smiles at him.

They come home the way they usually do: up to the living room, past their handprints stuck in the paint, setting bags down here and there. Danicka sits on the couch to take off her heels, unstrapping them and setting them under the coffee table. She looks comfortable like this, in her thousand-dollar outfit on a hundred-dollar couch. Her head tilts as she removes her earrings, tiny white gold hoops with pale blue gemstones hanging from them. They make a soft clink and scrape sound as she sets them on top of the table.

Her eyes find his, wherever he's gone: to set bags down, to remove his coat or his own shoes.

"Come sit with me."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas still remembers buying this place. Finding it, first off: the hours of research that went into that; Chicago's neighborhoods, its housing market, his accounts, what he could afford, where. Somewhere where the median selling price was still reasonably high; somewhere where crime was low. Somewhere where he'd feel safe leaving his mate alone, even if she came here by herself late at night, even if she walked alone from the detached garage to the front door.

The house itself didn't matter so much. So long as the foundation was still sturdy, the walls not in danger of imminent collapse. Everything else -- the mess, the chaos, the filth -- he could clean that up. He could fix it, make it livable, make it a home.

A den. For himself. For his mate.

And now they have it, and the rattling of the garage door is familiar. As is the click of the front door's lock. As is the queer little half-staircase up to the main floor, and their handprints in the paint near the door, and their inexpensive furniture and old TV; all these things that are a world away from the luxury that Danicka has in her own den. Not that any of that seems to matter. Not that Lukas ever expected it to matter.

They smile at each other going up the stairs. There's no better reason for it than that they do. She smiles: and he smiles back, and feels warmth unfurling in his chest like a flower.

In the car, he'd laughed when she said they're going to tear up BB&B and Home Depot. Or Lowe's. Quietly, though, the prospect pleased him -- the thought of wandering through vast anonymous aisles full of mundane consumer goods. The thought of picking out this gardening toolkit, that rosebush. This comforter, those sheets. That towel rack. This shower tray. These wildflowers. That bag of topsoil.

He's the alpha of his pack. He's the alpha of his tribe. He's the alpha of his auspice, and getting closer to adren by the day. Yet what matters to him --

well. It's what she's always believed.

Co je doma, to se počítá.

Lukas dials the thermostat up a few degrees and hangs his coat in the closet under the stairs. It's one of those rare nights he's in a blazer and slacks; both of them a medium shade of grey. His shirt is dark, though, close to black. He wears no tie, but with his coat off she can see he wears braces, which he shrugs off his shoulders as he comes toward the couch, letting them hang down to his thighs; letting his pants slip down an inch or so to hang off his hips.

He sits next to her, stepping out of his shoes as well, pushing them aside. Beneath them, their furnace is rumbling to life. He's a furnace of his own, though, intensely warm beside her, leaning back against the sofa cushions. He holds his arm out, silently offering her his warmth and his nearness, the comfort of contact. If she comes to him, he drapes his arm over her shoulders, draws her against his side, and kisses her temple.

And he listens.

[Danicka Musil] A great deal of preparation went into creating this den for her. They share it, it's their home, their den, theirs, but somehow she knows instinctively that every last shred of effort Lukas put into finding it, procuring it, and getting it ready for comfortable habitation was for her. It isn't that he's insensate or that he doesn't care about his environment: she's seen the care he takes to keep his room clean and orderly, sees the pleasure he takes in surroundings like Alinea or her apartment. It's just that this was a mating ritual as old as the arch of her back when he turns her over and she looks at him past her shoulder, and just as intrinsic to what they are.

He took a mate. And then made a den to bring her to, where he could keep her safe and warm. Of course as soon as she came to it she began covering it with her own touches, her own scent, the bits and pieces of herself to mark it as her own. Black and white and yellow dishes in the kitchen, graphic and stylish and with a subdued cheer. Knives to cook with, her clothes, her books. He went on as he had from the moment he started researching: awakened certain spirits, to guard the den and to guard her. He found the den and made it safe. Danicka comes to it again and again to keep it warm, just as she promised.

Almost everything here except the bed and the little things Danicka's added are secondhand. He fixed up what he could, and took care in his choices to begin with, but she sort of likes that the rightmost knob that controls the stove is a little finicky. She likes that the garage door rattles a bit more noisily than is perfectly necessary. She likes that the couch sags in this one spot, and that sometimes when it's very quiet she can hear a soft creak when she sits in the rocking chair and moves it back and forth with her toe against the carpet.

It helps feel like a home, to her. The house she grew up in was old, and everything in it had a history all its own. The history of these things is not theirs, but she likes that most of what they own here isn't shiny and new. Some decorators would say that it gives the place personality, maybe. Danicka just likes feeling comfortable here, and it shows in the way she relaxes almost as soon as he sits down beside her.

They're coming apart from their pictures of civility and refinement. Bare or socked feet, jewelry coming off, his suspenders dropped. They lounge. He opens his arm to her, and Danicka tucks her legs up on the couch to curl against his side. She smooths her skirt over her knees, nestling her head against his shoulder and chest, her hand laying on top of his thigh when she settles.

"The men-at-arms the Sokolovs hired to protect us in New Orleans were a couple of Fianna kinsmen named Rick and Christian. They were ...well, about what you'd expect of Fianna bodyguards-for-hire." Whatever that means. Maybe that they were rough and tumble. Maybe that they were exceptional drinkers. She doesn't detail their personalities for Lukas; this is the first time she's referred to them by name. Perhaps because:

"I was sleeping with both of them. And Helena. Sometimes... well." All together. That's one of the remarkable things about Danicka's particular brand of deviance: she finds it a little too easy to take others with her there. Others find it a little too easy to follow her, so gentle and warm and inviting, into whatever whims come across her mind. She wouldn't let them get hurt, they think. And she seems to know what she's doing. And they don't realize how superb a liar she is.

That is all she says about her dalliances with the bodyguards, and that much he'd probably already figured out. She was a wicked, sinful thing in New Orleans, just out of high school and granted more freedom than she'd ever known, but even before she was legal she was tearing up New York City on her nights off, doing things he probably never needs or wants to hear about. But yes, shocker of shockers: she fucked the men at arms who were there to keep she and Yelizaveta and Helena from getting eaten by vampires and assaulted by riffraff in the streets.

There is so much she could tell him about those two men, though. Rick's chess playing, which usually led to brawling. He taught her about pool and darts and hustling and whiskey and was, in his own words, a fucking genius, love. Christian's quieter nature, more of a leader, the one most likely to try and talk sense into them when they started getting stupid. He was the oldest person in the house. He was not the one who started fights, but he was the one who would end them, usually with a sudden and promised burst of violence. He was slow to warm up to all of them, took a long time before he would laugh and smile freely.

Danicka doesn't tell Lukas any of that. So he doesn't know how she would sound, speaking of either man with genuine affection that lives on years after the fact.

"When I thought I was pregnant," she goes on, "the only one I told was Christian. I never really said it, but I'd... been sleeping less with Rick and Helena and random people from clubs or whatever. More with him." Danicka is looking at her knees, plucking at the hem of her skirt repetitively. "And he hadn't been fucking anyone else for a long time. He'd, um. He told me --"

Another sentence Danicka does not have the courage or will or heartlessness to finish. She takes a deep breath, exhales in a sigh. "Long story short, I was almost certain he was the father. And he wanted me to keep the baby, leave the Sokolovs when we got back to New York -- this was right around the time they'd decided to move us all back -- and... be with him. He was sure that Vladislav would allow it, since I was pregnant. I hadn't told him about ...the other time." She swallows, pressing her lips together for a moment. Licks them.

"So for awhile, that was the plan. We kept it a secret, though I think Rick and Helena and Yelizaveta all sort of knew. Christian was happy, and I think he really was in love with me." She frowns at that, a sort of confused and pained expression that doesn't fade easily, or soon. She never said something like that about Sam, whose infatuation with her was just as fleeting and meaningless as all his other deep, true loves. Sam never really loved her. Sam was an idiot.

Danicka speaks of Christian with respect. And pain.

"When we got back to New York, I took Yelizaveta and Helena back to the Sokolovs. Rick and Christian took their last paychecks and their bonuses, and Christian told me where to find him after I left my job and told my family. He said he'd wait for me to tell him it was alright to come speak with Vladislav, because I told him my brother should hear it from me first."

There's a long pause, then. She's grown detached in her tone of voice, a bit flat. Her hand is still on her skirt, but no longer moving and plucking aimlessly. Just... still.

"I waited til my next day off, took an old friend from high school with me to the Planned Parenthood in Newark, and never contacted Christian or Rick again."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Let's be honest, now.

She doesn't tell him much about what 'sinful' entailed. He doesn't really want to know the details. Even what she does tell him makes him tense briefly, his arm over her shoulders stilling, his ribcage stopping midbreath. Just for a second. Just a second.

Then it passes. And he nuzzles against her hair, and this is a little like the way he nuzzled her on the balcony, in her comfortable lawn chair: as though to reassure her or himself. He reminds himself that this is the past, and though there are so many things in the past that make him hurt for her, it helps him to remember -- all of them, together, made her who she was when he met her at SmartBar in the winter of last year. And if she were not who she was, none of this might have happened.

For the sake of who she is now, he relinquishes any false claim he might think to exert over who she was.



So there it is, then. He tenses, and then he lets it go. He listens, his mate leaning against his side, her head on his shoulder, her hand on his thigh. He breathes quietly. He hears that she was pregnant again, and truth is until now he never quite stitched it all together in his mind. The men at arms. Her second pregnancy. New Orleans, and the first taste of freedom she had there.

And: the number of people who have loved me -- two.

And the number of people I've loved -- one.



Lukas doesn't know, of course, what happened that week they were apart. He doesn't know that during that week she fucked a man who was, in fact, rather into her. That liked her on a level a little bit deeper than the casual passing tolerance for a one night stand. That would've liked to see her again. That asked her for her number, only for her to tell him she'd already given it to him

when she hadn't.

He doesn't know that she fucked a girl whose boyfriend was asleep in the other room. That they'd been gaming together for months. That after that morning, Danicka never talked to any of them again.

She does this. It wasn't just Christian, and it isn't just the restaurant staff she meets sometimes, or the deli owners in tribeca or soho or the village who know her by different names, who seem to think she's different people. She exists in little facets and slices, showing a different side of herself to almost everyone she meets, crafting entire lives out of lies, and they believe her because she's so beautiful, and they trust her because she's so warm, and they love her because she's so unique, a singular point of light that outshines any other in their drab little lives, a woman who was special, who was more, even if they don't understand how.

And they're drawn to her. And they never realize just how capable she really is of coldness, of a cutting, razoredged ending.



Lukas thinks to himself that maybe he's the first time, the first one who was drawn to her, who fell for her, that she didn't leave stranded without a word. He thinks that even when he didn't believe her capable of cruelty, he's known she was, and is.

He remembers the indifference in her eyes, once. He supposes she would've shown Christian that same indifference had he tried to track her down.

He believes she's capable of cruelty. And of coldness.

He does not believe she's cruel or cold. There's a difference.



And there's a quiet, afterward. He's still listening, though she isn't speaking anymore. He's listening to her silence, and to her breathing, and to the warm huff of air through their vents. He's listening to the space between them and the warmth of her body close to his.

He's listening to her stillness. And after a moment, he covers her hand on her skirt. Draws it back to his leg, and holds it there, gently.

"Who were you protecting?" he asks. It's very quiet.

[Danicka Musil] Perhaps one of the most uncomfortable parts of this is that Danicka really does not seem to know which Fianna kinsman was the father of that baby. It was most likely Christian. It could have been Rick. Either way, Christian was the one who loved her. Christian was the one who claimed the child, claimed her, as much as a Kinfolk can claim another.

Which is to say: not at all.

But Christian was still the one she made certain promises to. Maybe she told him she loved him, too. Maybe she told him she'd try. She told him she'd speak to Vladislav and yes, she'd be with him, she'd be his. Now the child is gone and so is the man, and so is that entire life. To an extent, so is the woman she was then. Not a woman at all. She was nineteen fucking years old. She was an adolescent.

And some poor idiot fell in love with her, just like Lukas did, and she shattered him, just like Sam. Danicka has left a minor wake of emotional destruction in her path through life, from friends in childhood to the unfortunate adults who she learned would accept almost any lie she fed them, so long as it tasted the way they expected it to.

Maybe Lukas is the first. That poor Walker kid, Stephen, what happened to him? She never told Vladislav who it was that got her pregnant, and he never found someone with a gift that would rip the truth out of her mind. That would have been shameful, to even allow anyone else to know what she'd let happen to herself. But she doesn't talk about Stephen in the present tense. She left him behind, at some point. Maybe right then, right after she miscarried, though they went to the same school still. Maybe she left him stranded, too, without a word or a glance back.

It's possible, if he thinks about it, he'll realize there's almost no one in her life she's close to, no one she trusts, no one she keeps near enough that she could not cut them off, cut them out, cut them down. She has dozens of friends, and most all of them mean veritably nothing to her. And then there's him.

On a day to day basis, she surrounds herself with strangers and becomes their friend. Deeper, though, she's isolated. And she crushes those who try to get any closer, or those who do, or those who might.

She stared at him with indifference once, when she thought he was through with her anyway.

She pushed him away once, when he made the mistake of revealing he knew more about her than she'd let on.

She could still crush him. But instead she holds to him. Comes home with him. Leans into his side and listens to his heartbeat and is comforted by it, comforted rather than terrified by the fact that she could not bear for him to be gone. Usually it's the other way around: she's always found a sort of relief in the fact that none of her relationships mattered much. Not so, now. Not with him.

Who was she protecting, when she terminated her pregnancy and cut someone who really was a very decent fellow out of her life. Who was she protecting: the baby, perhaps, from the chaos and unwantedness it would have been brought into. Christian, who very well might have been destroyed by Vladislav had the Theurge gotten the chance. The Sokolovs, Helena, Rick... she could probably make an argument that she was protecting anyone she knew at the time. Her father. The poor man probably thought his daughter was a virgin until the Kvasnicka boy took her away as his mate.

Danicka hasn't taken her hand from Lukas's leg. She rests it there, exhaling softly when his own hand covers hers, warming it. "Myself," she says quietly, though without shame so many years after the fact. "I didn't want to have a baby. I didn't want to give my body over to pregnancy and birth. I didn't want to lose my freedom. I didn't want to raise a child. I didn't want to lose my job. I didn't want to deal with my brother and father. I didn't want to settle down and be someone's girlfriend or babymama. I didn't want to end up falling for Christian only to get taken away to be given to a Garou if they wanted me."

She pauses. "But I don't think any of that would have happened anyway. Vladislav would have beat me half to death if he found out. And that would have been the end of all of it, anyway. So if I was going to lose the baby no matter what I did, I figured I'd lose it on my terms. Keep my job and my secrets. I took the easiest path available to me."

And that, strangely enough, has a note of shame to it. That she was weak. That she took the most selfish, cowardly way out. No matter how visceral, how brutal, the 'easiest' path happened to be.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Earlier, he told her that there was only ever one thing she told him that he didn't want to hear from a purely selfish standpoint. Everything else she could possibly tell him -- if it hurt him, it was only because once upon a time it hurt her.

That was the truth. And that's the truth now: what she tells him hurts him because it hurt her. What she doesn't quite tell him hurts him too, though. It hurts him that a few days ago, she called herself a bad person, coming off all that. Coming home from New Orleans, leaving her lover behind without a word. Aborting the fetus. Leaving all that behind,

for the sake of survival. For the sake of self-protection.

It hurts him that she thinks this makes her a bad person. And that even before that, long before that, she thought she deserved to lose her unborn child because...

he can't think of a logical end to that sentence. He cannot think of a single reason why a sixteen year old girl deserves something like that. To be beaten, to be terrorized, to be literally brutalized into miscarrying.

"I don't think self-preservation is cowardly," Lukas says. This is so quiet, this first thing he says: so quiet, so low, more felt through his solid side, his wide warm chest, than heard. "And if it is, then it's a necessary cowardice that every shred of instinct we have points toward.

"I don't think what you did made you a bad person. I don't think that was easy for you, either."

His hand holds hers a little tighter, holding on like she was at the edge of some precipice, or he was. Like one of them is slipping. Like their connection is all that holds back the rising tides of black chaos.

Both their names have something to do with light. With brilliance. Shadow Lords named after light: as unusual, as extraordinary, as they are themselves.

"I used to think you weren't capable of cruelty," he adds, and this is nearly a whisper now. Even the low thrum of his voice is gone. This is almost unvoiced, a hush. "I didn't know you then. Now I know ... you are capable.

"I still don't think you're cruel. Or that you ever were."

He turns toward her, kisses her temple, kisses her brow. Nothing rushed about that. Nothing hasty, nothing brief, no sign or signal that he's just trying to end this conversation. A slow, warmth press of his lips to her skin, instead. And the unyielding closeness of his body, the strength of his arm around her.

"Even if you were, or are," he adds, "it doesn't make a difference to me. You're my mate. Vše co jste jsou."

Another man might put a third word in here, still; an implication of forgiveness; an implication of fault.

Lukas doesn't:

"Miluji tě."

[Danicka Musil] What Danicka tells Lukas now casts what she's said in passing moments or in the midst of arguments over the past year or more in a new light. He hears what she did to Christian when she was nineteen and ties it back in his mind to what she said about being a bad person. He hears her say maybe she deserved to miscarry when she was sixteen and thinks of the beating Vladislav gave her, thinks some part of her viewed it as the punishment he meant it to be.

But Danicka didn't say that aborting a baby that Christian was already attached to, one he wanted to father, made her a bad person. She didn't even claim that doing so without informing him and cutting him from her life completely was why she said she was that hard-and-fast yet ambiguous code for a certain morality: bad.

And she said maybe she deserved to lose the baby. Not that she deserved to be beaten.

Like so much with her, the truth exists in nuances, shaded and opague. Her subtlety is a strength he was attracted to from the instant he met her, when she turned his own smirking words into a puzzle box of neither yes nor no, til he could not tell if she was offering him an invtation or rejecting him outright or something else entirely.

At the same time, however, Danicka's sideways approach to the truth has been one of the most infuriating things about her. They argue sometimes because they simply aren't speaking the same language, and it has nothing to do with Czech or Russian or English or what they were raised to speak. They often think they're both being perfectly clear, only to learn later that they are still sometimes pure mysteries to the other.

"I wasn't looking for absolution," Danicka says quietly, looking at their hands while he kisses her face, her brow, holding her like that, so warm and so close. "Or reassurance."

She's not seeking his comfort right now, that much is plain from her body language. If anything, she's resisting it, the way he once resisted what he thought would be coddling from her, after failing in the Ahroun challenge the first time around. There's a pause between how she vocalizes that resistance and what she says after it, long and steady.

Her head turns so she can look at him, sitting side by side with him, only meeting his eyes now. "I wouldn't call myself a bad person based on a single set of choices with reasonable, if not noble, motivations. I..."

she stops there, exhaling with something that sounds almost like frustration. "I wasn't looking for anything from you. I just wanted you to know."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Suddenly it feels like he's misstepped somehow and the ground beneath his feet is trackless and unsure. There's resistance in Danicka, and so there's a matching resistance in Lukas: a sense of walls rising inside him, protecting himself from the exposure that's left behind when his warmth and -- let's admit it -- comfort is met only with her stillness and withdrawal.

Which is to say -- he too draws back into himself, his hands returning to his lap. Stung in spite of his better judgment, his better intentions, he sits leaning over, his hands idly together, elbows on his knees. She looks at him now, but he's no longer looking at her. A moment passes.

"I wasn't absolving you," he says quietly, tense. "It's not my place. I wasn't -- "

That's not true, though, so he doesn't finish. Another quiet; then he speaks again.

"I was trying to reassure you. But all I was trying to reassure you of was that I'm not ... disgusted or shocked or put off by what happened. Because last time you told me something, I flipped, and you said you didn't know if you could still trust me enough to tell me anything at all."

He can look at her again, and does, meeting her eyes frankly.

"I know you don't want anything from me. I just ... wanted you to know, too."

[Danicka Musil] "I didn't think you would be," she says quietly, watching him as he withdraws a little, pulling away. Their inexperience in love and relationships of any decent caliber shows in moments like this, when they fear being wounded because neither of them have ever lost a lover due to argument or incompatibility before. They got lucky, obscenely so, to find each other and to find that they were so well-suited to one another despite all their individual quirks, neuroses, and -- bluntly put -- issues.

But when you look past their age, his rank in the nation, her wealth, you see a couple of people in their mid-twenties, neither of whom have really had a serious boyfriend or girlfriend before. You see two people who were so unused to letting their guard down that the first time they made love it was almost like two virgins meeting.

"The other night when we argued, I was more afraid that anything I would tell you would make you... doubt me." she says gently, her brows pulling together. "I wasn't afraid that you would be disgusted with me." That much is sincere, and utterly true: Danicka does not fear the revulsion of others. She doesn't worry that they'll be shocked or horrified by her behavior. She doesn't even process why that would necessarily be a bad thing, to upset them so entirely. And there it is again, that twisted brand of innocence about her: she does such things and does not seem to understand why, exactly, they're ...wrong.

Or she used to be like that. It lingers, still, in some things. Like not fearing his disgust, or his shock, that she was once so cold.

Danicka leans over and nuzzles his temple briefly, then rests her brow against it. For a long time she's silent, and if he moves closer to her or puts his arm back around her or draws her nearer, she sinks into him just as surely as she drew away a moment ago.

"Does it make sense," she whispers, after a very long silence, "that I'm glad I didn't keep the baby, and I don't regret the abortion, but thinking about it still makes me so sad?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas doesn't lean back again, and he doesn't draw her close again the way he had.

There is this, though: when Danicka leans into him, when she rests her brow to his temple, he eases after a moment. He leans against her in return, their weight meeting and equalizing somewhere in the middle. After a moment, he draws a breath, winds his arm gently around her waist.

They rest together like that for a while. She speaks, and he listens, and then he turns his head against hers, turns until he can rub his nose alongside hers; tip his brow against her lips.

"I don't know," he replies, just as soft. And, after some thought, "I think so."

[Danicka Musil] Quiet, then, for another unwinding, unfurling span of time. Danicka rests with him, his iron-hard arm yet soft around her waist and her smooth brow against his heavier one. There is nothing more to say, really. She's told him one more thing that no one else knows about her, a secret that she's held so long it seemed she would never share it, and discovered that it feels anticlimatic to tell Lukas. It is as though he already knew, or should have, and loves her anyway.

Which she knew, before she told him to let it go until they'd left Alinea. There, she wasn't trying to push him away, wasn't trying to hide, wasn't trying to retreat from him lest he hurt her. Now he knows, though, why this was private. Though he might not know exactly why she was thinking of it, until Danicka takes a breath and pulls away

only to shift around on the couch cushions and lay her head on his lap, hair cool and straight and soft on his thighs. "Anyway," she murmurs, settling herself there, in a way she's never allowed herself -- nor, truthfully, wanted very much -- to lay against him. "The two of them, and the three that you told me about that... don't really exist and might not ever. That's what I meant, when I said I have too many children I'm never going to meet."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] As she pulls away he straightens, growing alert the way he had days ago when he'd dozed as she ate, awoken when she finished. His eyes watch her, and soon enough it becomes clear that she's coming back; she's not going anywhere.

She lies down, puts her head in his lap. He leans back in the couch, relaxing finally from that reflexive tension that had crept into him when he sensed her pulling away, earlier. She's back, his body whispers to him. She's here, and it's okay.

He combs his fingers gently through her hair. Spreads it over his lap, and off the side of his thigh. Golden between his fingers, lustrous and cool: he remembers seeing it rippling off the edge of a bed, the roots darkening with sweat; remembers how he thought of gold brocade, textured and variegated.

And after a moment, his other hand comes to rest on her stomach, over her diaphragm. Then down, lower, thoughtful, eventually spreading over her belly; her empty, fertile womb that had borne and lost two sons, two daughters, two cubs, two children that will never be. That may never bear the three his subconscious and his instinct promises him.

He has nothing to say now. An apology seems out of place; not enough.

[Danicka Musil] She's never done this before: lain on his lap like this. Not when she's actually been seeking the comfort she's said tonight she wasn't looking for. Not when she's been sick. She does it right now, though, and when Lukas runs his hand down her middle and lets it rest over her lower abdomen, her eyes close tight and hard, and her hand flexes where it curls over the top of his thigh.

Then reaches down, and covers his hand, and moves it back up to her heart. She cannot bear what he is doing, yet cannot bear for him to pull away entirely.

Danicka has never said to him that she would like to one day be a mother. She's never confirmed this or even suggested it. All she's told him is what she said earlier tonight: when she was sixteen, she wanted to keep the baby. But Danicka was sixteen, and while she was more hardened by suffering than any sixteen year old should ever be, she still didn't know the world, or herself. She didn't know what that life would have turned out to be.

And here she is, sad because of two pregnancies that ended barely after beginning. Sad over three children he met in the underworld that don't exist in any place but spirit and memory, who may never be. Danicka may never get pregnant again. Danicka may have all boys. Danicka may never produce a trueborn child, Danicka may have such a difficult time with one or two that they give up just to save her health and possibly her life. One never really knows.

Of all the uncertainties in life, reproduction -- for all that it is the single most driving force in human existence, for all that it has a rather tried-and-true method of going about its business -- is a hell of a crapshoot.

She exhales, and he feels her heartbeat, steady as a drum under his hand, behind her breast, beneath the soft, soft texture of her shirt. "You want to order a pizza?" she asks, still quiet.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] There is no resistance as she moves his hand. There's almost a sense of relief, as though holding his hand there contemplating children, contemplating cubs that may never be, is too much even for him. He finds her heartbeat instead, turning away from the uncertain and the nonexistent to something so certain, so absolute, so sure that sometimes it blinds him to think of it. To look at it.

She's named after an ancestor. Her name speaks of gods and judgment, but not the name she uses on a daily basis; not the softly susurrant nickname he uses for her. That name means morning star. It means daybreak, and the coming of light and warmth. It means,

in an oblique sort of way,

jaro.

He cups her breast through her strange, expensive dress. The fabric is cool and shifting, reminding him of desert sand in the moonlight, of rawsilk through which her skin is so near, so immediate, so warm. He can feel her heart beating, steady as a drum. Soft as distant thunder. After a moment his hand is simply over her breast, caressing, warm, holding.

"I want to order a pizza," he whispers, and a touch of amusement finds his mouth, finds his eyes. "I want to hold you tonight."

[Danicka Musil] "Oh, then we shall have to make arrangements for both of these things," she says mildly, her voice slow and light, as though she's talking to him in a dream. She turns onto her back, shifting his hand to her ribcage unless he moves it back to her breast. He can feel her lingerie underneath, whatever it is. Something soft. No hints of lace. Thick enough that though the house is still cool, her nipple doesn't press against his fingers through it.

She looks up at him, her skirt tousled and her shirt loose, smiling in a gentle, aching way. "I'm actually not hungry," she admits, just to get that out there. "So don't stare at me or nudge food at me, okay?"

Which means: the food at Alinea was enough for her. Which means: she suggested a pizza because she knows it could not be enough for him. Which means: she does not want him to worry about her.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] His laugh is a huff of air. He bends to kiss her forehead. It's a little awkward, with her on his lap, he curling on himself. Perhaps she lifts her head a little. One way or another, they make it work.

"Okay," he promises. "I won't."

He kisses her again, a quick stamp of his lips to her brow. Then he leans to one side to get his phone out of his pocket. It's the phone she got him, thin and glossy in his large hand. He searches for pizza parlors within delivery distance, then makes a call.

He orders meatlover's pizza, not surprisingly; a shrimp scampi and sun-dried tomato pizza as well. Both thincrust, new york style. That has less to do with city loyalty than simple preference. After he hangs up, he passes the phone to her, asking her to set it on the coffee table. Then he shifts on the couch, murmuring move over a little as he comes down to lie full-length on the sofa.

It reminds him a little of holding her in his bed at the Brotherhood: the closeness, the cramped quarters. This is even narrower than a twin-sized bed. They can't sleep here; one of them would end up on the floor.

He wants to lie with her like this for a little while, anyway.

[Danicka Musil] So they lie together like this. For a little while. Danicka turns back onto her side and doesn't bother to reach down and try adjusting her skirt as it moves around and rucks up and generally gets displaced around her hips and thighs. She holds to the edge of the couch until Lukas settles down behind her and wraps his arm around her, and they remain like that for some time. She drowses, her belly actually quite full -- or at least satisfied, given that Danicka has never found being truly 'full' a very pleasant feeling -- but does not sleep, as though talking about all that she has tonight has wearied her somewhat.

What he feels is a steady heartbeat and regular breathing, close enough to sleep that if she chose to she could let herself slip under completely. She's not so tired that she would simply lose herself in relaxation, though. His phone rests on the coffee table, her bags slouch on the floor beside the couch, and she yawns at some point, her hand touching his lightly.

In due time, perhaps with passing, momentary snippets of conversation or perhaps total silence but for their breathing and the furnace's running, the doorbell rings. They have to have a doorbell in this house, with the front door so far down. There's a car outside with some poor kid holding a bag to keep the cardboard boxes hot. Danicka stirs, and puts her hand on Lukas's leg. "I'll get it," she murmurs, starting to sit up to go down.

It is not hard to puzzle out why, and it is not immediately for Lukas's sake that she sits up, and rises to her feet, skirt finally falling in its crinkled, crushed way around her legs again. It rustles, as she bends to get her wallet out of her bag.

Because she thinks -- because she's almost certain -- he'll question, or resist, Danicka leans over and kisses him before she goes down to the front door. One hand is up, holding her hair back off her face so it doesn't fall onto him. The other holds a few folded bills of cash. She kisses him softly, quickly, warmly. And goes downstairs with light, rapid steps of bare feet on the steps.

From the living room, he can hear her converse briefly with the pizza delivery boy, hear the door close and lock again. Then her footsteps again, and the smell of his pizzas, and the return of his mate.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] By the time she comes back up that half-flight of stairs, he's raised himself on his elbows. Seeing him like this -- big, relaxed, stretched out across the length of the sofa -- it's almost impossible to imagine how there was ever room for her there. How there's ever room for her anywhere near him, with his rage and his presence and his sheer, physical might.

They make room, though. And Danicka is not so weak or helpless as one might think.

Lukas sits up fully as she returns to him, reaching out for the pizza boxes. He sets them side by side on the coffee table, and there's far too much there even for him. He'll eat a few slices and leave the rest for tomorrow. They can heat it up for breakfast. Or brunch. Or lunch. Whenever they might wake.

"I love it," he says quietly as she sits again, "when you kiss me before you leave for school in the mornings. And how you tell me to go back to sleep. You reminded me of that just now, before you went to get the pizzas."

Neither of them would have said at the start of this that there was any room for the other in their life, much less their heart. She knew she would eventually be mated to a Shadow Lord, probably one of her brother's rank or just below it, probably a Ragabash or a Theurge because Vladislav knew she was too weak to bear the Rage of a Garou like their mother. She was already half-useless as it was, or so he made clear by his hesitance and his hints at shame anytime a septmate suggested they might be interested in pursuing her. Courting her. Taking her -- from Vladik -- to be his own.

Danicka is her brother's sister. They both were born under crescent moons. They are both fairhaired and light-eyed. Growing up they played the same piano, read the same book, hid under the same stairs when their mother Raged. They are both exceptional liars. They know how to get what they want by convincing other people it's what they want.

And he did not want to lose her, for whatever reasons he had, twisted and otherwise. So one of his brethren would make an overture and he would behave as though he was loathe to let out the secret of his sister's Veiled eyes, as though he did not want to burden one of his packmates or tribemates with a female that could barely tolerate their people. And many of them, seeking a strong and fertile mate from a strong and fertile line, were easily dissuaded. Many of them, who loved Vladislav or owed him favors, were easily counseled into looking elsewhere for the sake of the Theurge's honor.

Then there was Lukas, who wanted her so much he could barely stand it, and ultimately could not keep himself from having her. Lukas, who began falling in love with her the first time he saw her as a woman. Lukasek, who played with her when she was young, who still does not know that even then, Danicka was capable of caring for him enough to suffer for him, and enough to weep for him if he was in pain. Lukas, who knows now how warm she really is, and how tender she can be, underneath all the coldness and cruelty she has learned to use to protect herself.

And amuse herself. There's that, too. That which makes her say she was a bad person, that which disturbs him sometimes at how easily she could humiliate and crush those around her and find some kind of delight in it. Her saving grace is that compared to her brother, she escaped their childhood relatively unscathed, unwarped. But then, she was never given the power he was, and what little she found was usually taken from her brutally and immediately. She had to create her own, and it always had to be secret.

With what freedom and power she's carved out in her life now, she's found room in her life, in herself, for this. She's become stronger, and better, so quickly and exponentially that her self-image has yet to catch up. She can lounge on a couch with her mate while he eats. They have room enough for that, now, the two of them. Room enough to share what they have, however much it is.


Tonight when he puts the pizza away, Lukas will see there's no milk, no eggs, no bacon, certainly no fruit. There's coffee grounds but that's about it for breakfast foods. In the morning when he wakes, nuzzling Danicka and murmuring whatever he does about going to get the leftover pizza, her eyes will stay closed but she'll stick out her tongue in a silent blegh. Not that she's never eaten pizza for breakfast. Not that she doesn't understand the appeal of cold pizza, or toaster-oven-reheated day-old pizza, as an early lunch. Perhaps it's the lingering memory of Alinea's cuisine that has her turning up her nose at the thought.

So she'll turn into the pillows once more and drowse for a little longer. Lying behind her, Lukas will touch her hair, or simply hold her, and think for a minute or two before kissing her shoulder. It's code in a way, this gesture, and has been since the first night he found himself naked in bed with her, stretched out behind her, caught between the desire to slide his arm around her and sleep and the desire to make love to her again and the fear that if he let on he wanted such things -- to hold, to make love, to keep -- that she would leave. Danicka will quietly mmm, and Lukas will gently slip from bed to pull on the sort of casual, simple clothes they both keep here. Wait til he's downstairs to lace up his sneakers. Lock the door behind him when he goes out into the brilliance of a spring morning.

There's a Jewel-Osco literally down the street, a five minute walk if you take your sweet time about it and stop to smell a couple of hydrangea bushes on the way. It takes no time at all, and little effort, to get a bag's worth of groceries. Still, even though the motions are comprised of carrying a basket through the aisles and swiping his plastic at the cashier's stand, a bone-deep satisfaction with the rightness of this warms Lukas's empty belly, wraps around his heart:

he will feed his mate, who is warm and safe and sleeping in their den, where one day they could very well begin to raise cubs. Children. Who will eat food that their mother and father grow in the backyard garden, or carry back from the grocery store

just like he's doing now.

And his instinct tells him, whispering it as he takes out his key and unlocks the front door in return home: [i]yes. this is good.[/i] And his mind tells him what Danicka never came out and said explicitly, but what he can guess at when he connects the dots from multiple moments in their time together. Underground, kissing him and telling him she wasn't ready, but she would welcome his cubs. The look in her eyes when she held the little glove he brought back from the Rite of Reawakening. The true grief for children that never took a breath, even though she does not wish she'd had them. Even the vicious protectiveness he sees in her sometimes, and how his gut tells him it would manifest tenfold if what was hers -- of her blood and of her body -- was threatened.

Lukas's instinct, mind, spirit and body are in accord. Almost always, but certainly in this: it is good to provide for his mate, and feed her when she is hungry. And his mate, one day if not too soon, would like to be a mother. Would like, more specifically, to have children with him. And that's good, too.

All of that in the morning though, before Danicka has even woken, opening her eyes upstairs to the smell of coffee and eggs and bacon.


Tonight, though, this: setting pizza boxes down on the coffee table and looking down at him. He takes her slender hands and pulls her forward before either of them touch the food, and Danicka's knees press into the couch cushions beside and between his legs, her eyes looking down into his as he tells her what he does: that he loves it when she kisses him in the mornings. That he loves how she gentles him back from the way he stirs whenever she leaves bed. That he's happy now, looking at her like this now, because she just reminded him of it.

Danicka smiles, strands of hair framing her face. They never stay straightened for long. At the end of the day the waves start to come back, the ends start to curl under, the wisps start to caress her cheeks. She puts her hand on the side of his face, light and soft, and kisses his brow. The space beneath his eye. And his mouth, before it tastes like cheese and meat and sauce and whatever else.

"I'm glad," she tells him softly, which is both the truth and a sideways reassurance. Kisses him again, which is, again: truth and comfort.


The shit with Ray and Marni isn't resolved yet. It will remain a headache for some time after that meeting at the restaurant. Danicka wants to stay out of it; her feelings are not yet so evolved that she is not still rather self-centered and unconcerned with the vagaries of other people's drama. They come and go. They cause headaches. Occasionally they offer amusement.

There's still the war going on, always the war, and the Hive is buzzing the more problems the sept causes for it. Lukas is well past the point where he could -- perhaps should -- challenge for his rank. That does not mean he wants it yet, or that he's ready. That want is growing, and will only grow, until the point where he seeks out an Adren or Athro of his rank and seeks recognition for his deeds.

And Danicka, in a few weeks' time, will have finals for the last term of her freshman year. She'll declare her major before the end of the summer, probably take summer classes, and it's entirely possible she'll go for a dual degree. She has the time, and she has the money, and she likes to learn. Lukas knows damn well from watching her how much she's changed since she started classes. It has done more for her confidence and her sense of self-worth than any other situation in her life, him included. And considering how much being with him has altered her, that is saying something.

Tonight, though, she doesn't do homework. She'll save that for tomorrow, digging her laptop and her books out of the bag she brought. After breakfast. After sleeping with him upstairs under their comforter only to realize halfway through the night that it's warm enough they're kicking it off and sleeping under just the sheets, so they really should go shopping soon for something lighter. Tonight, they don't talk anymore about children or Ray or Marni or any of that shit.

Tonight, Lukas starts eating pizza and Danicka leaves him to it for a little while so she can go change into a pair of lounge pants and a t-shirt. Tonight he slows down his chewing and they lean back and pick up the remote to end up watching some late-night movie that Danicka has seen and Lukas hasn't so she explains to him what happened in the first twenty minutes so he has a clue what's going on for the next eighty minutes or so. Tonight it's been a week or so since they fought. Since they last made love. Since they last slept in the same bed and one of them wasn't blacked-out drunk.

When they go upstairs, the pizza put away and the television off and the heat turned back down -- neither of them knowing how warm it will be tomorrow, once the sun has a few minutes in the sky, and how that warmth will fill up their bedroom along with the output of the furnace -- they will undress themselves slowly, and slide into cool, clean sheets slowly, and though neither of them is particularly exhausted,

something about the comfort of this night, of this place, leadens their eyelashes and their limbs, weighing them down in minutes into a deep, heavy sleep.