last will.

[Wyrmbreaker] When Sinclair left the Brotherhood, Lukas had looked at her and, for an instant, seen into her with remarkable astuteness. He'd seen enough to know she was distraught at the thought of his death; upset, too, that he had asked a Cliath he'd only just met -- and a rather pompous one at that -- to sing at his Gathering.

And he's seen enough to know not to go after her right then. To know that to follow her just then would've only made her feel cornered, caught out, defensive.

So he let her go. And it's hours later, well into the night, that he catches up to his packmate again, not in the Brotherhood but in the Caern proper. Sinclair's shift on patrol is ending. Lukas goes to relieve her, but when he falls into step beside her there's a pensiveness to him, a sort of anticipatory quiet that tells her he has something to say.

They circle the landward perimeter, pause to check a stretch where the fencing is coming loose. Sinclair makes a note to tell the Guardians on her way out, later. They start moving again, and a few paces past that loose stretch of fence Lukas speaks.

"It didn't mean anything to me, you know," he says quietly, "asking Ruarc to sing 'Danny Boy' at my Gathering. It's just a song, and one that's always sounded a little funereal to me. I liked the way he sang it. It was a whim."

He turns to look at her, blue eyes stark and clear in the dim moonlight.

"Do you want to know why I've never asked you or any other packmate to do anything for me if I were to die?"

[Warcry] Since flopping facedown into bed at the Loft only to get up, shower, and leave again without sleeping, Sinclair has not been at the Bellamonte residence much. Nor has she come to crash in a spare bed at the Brotherhood, though 'spare' beds are starting to get in short supply again, anyway. Maybe she's sleeping exclusively in her car. Maybe she finally grew some grown-up-girl ovaries and moved in with that kinsman of hers.

In any case. She'd nodded a goodbye to the Garou in the common room and flip-flopped her way downstairs not to grab another beer but to head for the Caern. Tonight she's been patrolling in homid, a disheveled mess of a girl in jeans and a tank top strolling around a shrapnel-littered cut of land, hands in her pockets and shoulders rounded, loose, lazy.

Sinclair's always thought things through best on the move. In her car. Walking from lounge to caern the night of her Fostern challenge. She is an only child -- maybe he remembers her mentioning that, maybe he's just never asked, maybe mortal family never seemed important to her until she left for nearly a month -- and contemplates things better when she is alone. Lukas was right to leave her be at first, to let her physically work out some measure of her tension as well as have some silence to deal with her own emotions as exactly that: her own.

Hours later, she's tired. Of course she's tired. Sinclair has stamina like few humans, can push herself beyond the limits of any mortal's endurance, can quite literally come back from the dead when her rage is strong enough -- though she has never tried that particular ability out. But Sinclair also sleeps -- and needs to sleep -- something like ten or more hours a day, to really be at her best. To say that Warcry is on edge on a particular day isn't exactly front-page news, and part of that is because Warcry is a vicious and cranky mess when woken before she's ready. Which is often.

Because this is War, and she has a duty to pack and sept, and a Galliard being a little on the violent and ferocious side isn't exactly a bad thing.

When Lukas comes to relieve her, as he has before, Sinclair just keeps walking with him, as she has before. She's tired and, truth be told, she wants to go home and be again with that one guy, that asshole, that kinsman with a bunch of women's names on his arm, names that aren't hers

though that's okay with her.

But Sinclair has often let their patrols overlap a bit. She has a bond with Katherine and Lukas that she does not share with even the rest of her pack. She goes to them first for aid and advice. They came and watched her when she challenged for her rank, embraced her and tussled with her when she won.

And when some nasty fucking monster had the audacity to knock Wyrmbreaker down with a slam of a door, Sinclair frenzied for the first time since her Change and had to be put down by Truth's Meridian. Distraught at the idea of his death is one way to put it, and a rather accurate phrasing, at that. Gaia only knows how she'd react if something pulled that shit with Kate. What Gaia does know is that Sinclair was out of her car and slamming into hispo, running full-tilt into battle at the first hint from the Philodox that she could maybe use some help dealing with that fallen Fang informant to the Wyrm.

Sinclair doesn't ask Lukas what's on his mind, though even she can tell something is, and he's not bothering to hide it. She just lets her arms hang at her sides, and walks with him. Around the perimeter. Past the bit of mangled, loosened fence. And Lukas starts talking. She glances at him, but mostly keeps her eyes forward, though when one gets right down to it there isn't much likelihood she's going to trip and fall on her face. She keeps pace with the much-taller Ahroun without difficulty or even effort, walking smoothly even over uneven, ugly patches of ground. Even in flipflops. In the dark.

Helps that she's sober by now.

"Morbid as it might be," she says, to answer his question, "I'd imagine it's because if you're dead, I'd have to think long and hard about how I excuse still being alive, myself, with my packmate's body burning."

Sinclair picks her away over some broken concrete and glances past her shoulder, her bicep with its list of names, including the one of the Ahroun she killed. "Or the more sentimental route," and interestingly enough, she uses the word 'sentimental' without disgust or disdain, without dismissal, "because if something were to happen to you, I'd find it hard to speak, much less sing, and maybe you get that."

Past the concrete. Feet on soft earth again. Her feet are dirty inside their rubbery wannabe shoes. "Still hit a nerve. That guy was a prick. And not even a Galliard."

[Wyrmbreaker] Her first answer makes him glance at her, a sharp twist of his head, a frown on his face. He says nothing, though. He lets her finish, and then he lets a small silence unwind.

"Sinclair," he turns to her, then, slowing, stopping. In the dim light of the waning moon, his eyes are lost in shadow, but his frown is still visible. "If it happens that I fall before you, that's not something you should have to excuse. It's my job to protect my pack. If the pack dies and the Ahroun lives, that's shameful and inexcusable. Not the other way around."

They start moving again, then.

"It's the second reason. I don't want to burden my packmates with duties on top of their grief. I would love it if you sang at my Gathering Rite. I'd love it if you spoke. I'd love it if you were just there. It doesn't matter to me. If you have to stand over my body, I want you to do what you want and what you can bear. You could show up and wave pom-poms, and it'll help my spirit home as much as a two hour dirge.

"Which is also why it doesn't matter all that much to me that I've asked a stranger to sing at my Gathering. He's not my packmate. He's not close to me. Whatever he does won't matter as much to my spirit. But it can't harm me, either. It can only help."

[Warcry] He slows to a stop, and Sinclair is still going for a few paces before she realizes he's not just pausing, he's stopped walking. She turns, looking back at him when he says her name like that. Her hair is down, and it's not hard some nights to understand why she's mistaken for a Get. It's other times when one realizes how empty the Glass Walkers are, unable to connect to their ancestors, bereft of anything resembling purity in their blood, disconnected from the old spirits that should live in their veins. Sinclair, perhaps alone among her tribemates, is capable of feeling that absence, and aching for what the Walkers have given up to be Warders of Men.

"Lukas," she says, following his tone, though not to mock him, "I wasn't talking about excusing it to the sept or spirits, or about the impact it would have on my honor. I wasn't talking about jobs. Or duties. Or shame."

He starts moving, catching up those few paces in one and a half of his own, and she turns back around to walk alongside him once more. She doesn't tell him about songs or dirges or pom-poms. She isn't going to fantasize about what she might do at his Gathering. That feeling he picked up on, the first and strongest one, the kneejerk rejection of the idea of his death in the first place, is rising up again in her. So Sinclair keeps silent.

Then she shrugs. "I don't really have anything to say past what I just did. It hit a nerve."

[Wyrmbreaker] "I know you weren't talking about that," he replies, and there's a certain firmness in his tone, as though this was important. This is important. "I wasn't either. I'm saying: I don't want you to have to excuse or explain it to yourself. I want you to remember, no matter how hard it might be at the time, that I'm supposed to protect you guys. And I want to. And if I die protecting you guys, I'd be okay with that."

They're silent again. Sinclair doesn't say much else. Wyrmbreaker's her packmate, though, and certain things don't need to be said. Don't even need to be looked for. He can intuit it as easily as he can reach out to her mind across their bond.

After a while he says, quieter now, "I know this is really hard for you to think about. And I'm not dwelling on it because I enjoy torturing you, or because I get some sick thrill out of fantasizing about my own demise. I hate the thought. I hate that I might have to abandon you guys like that. I ... hate the thought of one of you having to tell my mate about it all.

"But I lost my Alpha once, long before you and Theron and Iona and Asha came along. She died, and we weren't there for her -- Kate, me, the others of the Unbroken Circle. The guilt was ... crippling. And the uncertainty, not knowing if anything I was saying and doing after the fact was right, or what she would have wanted, or ...

"I would've hated it if she'd told me this shit before she was dead. But I would have really appreciated knowing after the fact. So I'm saying this now to you. Because it came up. Because I don't want to make a big deal of it. Because I want someone to know, so that if and when it happens maybe you'll remember what I said and tell the others. And maybe it'll help then."

[Warcry] For a moment it seems they're going to have two different discussions, two different tracks, each one based on the two reasons she mentioned he might not ask his packmates to perform somehow at his Gathering. Sinclair doesn't answer him the first time, though. Her jaw tightens briefly as he brings up again that he's supposed to protect them, and that he'd be okay dying to do so. She keeps walking, and she tells him she has no response other than what she's already said.

They keep walking. And Lukas does not need to raise his voice as he talks to her, because they are all but walking in the same rhythm. Then, abruptly, though they're on patrol, she stops near the fence and turns fully to face him. Her mouth opens, her hands lifting, but then she puts them down and closes her mouth and sits on the ground cross-legged.

Sinclair looks up at him. Maybe expectantly.

[Wyrmbreaker] She stops. This time he's the one to go a few steps past before he turns, eyebrows quirking. She sits. He stares at her for a moment. His expression can't seem to decide whether it wants to convey anger or amusement.

"Let me guess. You're trying to tell me I'm lecturing you like you're a child."

[Warcry] "No," she says, a bit quietly, though there's a trace of amusement behind it, "I'm inviting you to sit down with me to talk."

[Wyrmbreaker] "Oh." Somewhat abashed, Lukas takes a few steps back and sits. Crosslegged. He rubs his face a little with his hands, then reaches down and scoops up a handful of lakeshore soil. "I'm not sure I had anything else to say, honestly. I was just ... talking. It came to mind, that's all."

[Warcry] Now her hands are loose in her lap, playing with her fingernails again like it's an old habit. Her elbows are on her knees, her posture a little on the lazy side. Lukas plays with the sand, and Sinclair looks out past the fence for a moment til she finds the water with her eyes. Or with her ears, as though checking the direction of the wind. Then she turns back around, the breeze pushing a few strands of her hair across her face. She lets them be. The wind will move them away again, eventually.

"Okay," she says, after a long enough silence that he might have wondered if the whole 'talking' idea had been set aside.

A pause. "When you're dead, I'm going to have to come to terms with the fact that I'm not. And what you want, and what Ahrouns are supposed to do, really isn't going to make a fucking bit of difference to me then. And I don't care even now. So yeah. I know how it's supposed to work. and with other Ahrouns in other packs, yes. They'd damn well better die to protect their packmates if it comes to that. But this is my pack. And you are my Alpha. And if you die, whether alone or to guard us, then it's very nice and all that your spirit will be okay with that, but I'm still going to have to figure out a way to be okay with the fact that I'm not. Period."

Definitively, this. Firmly. Simply put: I'm going to feel how I'm going to feel.

Bluntly put: So suck it up, man.

"Tell me what you want." This is a response to the rest of it, and less firm, less blunt, less end-of-story-move-on. This is a resonse to talking about Mrena, who she never met. His guilt. His uncertainty. Her hands open, and then come back together in a gesture that, somehow, seems like she's handing something over to him, or inviting him to give her something. Or both, in that little wave of her hands before they touch each other again. "Who should tell your mate and your other Kinfolk, if there is a choice. And how. What your Gathering should look like. What will help your spirit."

And this, unlike what they were talking about earlier, comes back to what she is. And what matters to her, because of her auspice and her personality... and their bond as packmates. And the mention of his guilt, the way it crippled him. The wondering if this is what would have been wanted, if they were doing and saying the right thing.

"Tell me for our sake," Sinclair adds, a little quieter. "But not just 'Danny Boy'. Tell me what you will have wanted, so we have that comfort."

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas listens as Sinclair lays it out for him. And Sinclair isn't the most well-spoken of people, of Garou, or of Galliards, but the truth is she is eloquent. There's a simple, brutal elegance to her speech. When she wants to, she can get her point across with scythelike clarity.

Which is why she earned the name she did. Which is why she's Brutal Revelation, now.

He leans back as she speaks, and the relaxation of his posture doesn't detract from the attention in his face. He watches her, and when she's finished he nods. He understands. She can see that on his face.

"I get it," he says. "And I understand that whatever I say now, you'll probably still feel how you feel." That's a quirk of being packmates. You start thinking the same; inadvertently saying the same words. "But maybe if and when you feel like that, you'll remember how I felt and feel a little better."

She asks, then. She wants to know what he wants. Not from life; this is not a tell me what you want to be when you grow up sort of thing, nor even the sort of tell me all about yourself thing she's done for other, aging Garou, or Garou on the front lines of a particularly bitter war, those that might die, and soon. Maybe she met one of them, took down their lives and recorded it, even while she was back home with her parents. Maybe it was some freckled kid, seventeen years old with a soft Kansas twang who told her about his puppy when he was a kid and his elementary school mascot and his rite of passage and the first time he won a challenge. Whose face lit up when he talked about Xboxes and the latest first person shooters. Who was dead before she left Kansas.

Or others like them. Dozens by now, hundreds. Sinclair comes off as loudmouthed, irreverent, almost careless, but a Galliard's burden is heavy. It's the weight of memory itself, the history of a dying race playing itself out faster than anyone could possibly record. Burning itself out, and when it's all gone, when the last of their people is dead, whatever's not written will be lost forever. As though that person, that deed, that battle, that event had never existed at all.

And this is part of her job, too. Not merely to fight, and to see, and the remember, but also to know. To hold in her mind the painful minutiae of what her Alpha wants his funeral to look like. How he wants to be celebrated and remembered.

He thinks about it for a while. A long time -- taking his time, unhurried. These things are important. He has no doubt that she will remember, that it will be done exactly as he asks, that this certainty will bring them some measure of peace. Because they'll get it right. He wants it to be right.

"I want Kate to tell Dani&+269;ka." That's where he begins. It might be the most important thing. "They don't like each other, but I think they respect each other. They've known each other longest. And Kate understands exactly what it is to lose your family.

"I want her to tell Dani&+269;ka as soon as she knows, as soon as the pack knows. Before anything else. I want her to be gentle, but plain about it. No embellishments; no pithy words of wisdom or comfort. I want her to be compassionate, but not to the point of condescension. Kate will know what I mean. She'll get it right. She's stood on the other side too often.

"If possible, I want someone who was there to go with Kate. I don't want them to say anything. I don't want them to offer apologies or tout my final bravery or any of that shit. I just want them to be there to answer questions if Dani&+269;ka has any. That's all.

"I want this pack to take up guardianship of my mate so long as one of us still breathes. Formally, she is to be given into the custody of her half-sister, Oath of the Sky, Athro Philodox of the Shadow Lords. Her brother Heals By Pain might come for her, but he is not to be allowed to claim her under any circumstance."

There was a quiet ache in every methodical word of that until Heals By Pain's name came up. At that, Lukas's voice turns cold and hard, with no room for argument.

"As for the pack," he goes on, "I understand that the survivors of the pack might want vengeance, but I don't require it. Whoever leads the pack next -- I suspect it will be Kate, or you, so long as one of you lives -- should judge the situation and act accordingly. If you need vengeance to find closure, then take it, but do it cautiously. If it's enough to say Wyrmbreaker fought and died well, then leave it at that. Under no circumstances are my packmates to die gloriously in my name. That's stupid, and it'll piss me off wherever I am.

"I've asked Dani&+269;ka to tell my sister and my parents. I'd like it if you could add: if Oath of the Sky will have them, they should go into her guardianship as well. I would prefer if my sister were mated to a kinsman, but if she loves a Garou of honor and worth, then I would not bar her from him.

"As for the rest of my Tribe: I want you to tell Mila, and accompany her as she tells the rest of the tribe and our kin. I don't want to leave any instruction as to who should take my leadership, nor whose custody the kin should pass into. Whoever is most deserving will take it of their own accord. That's the way it works. Mila might think her role as herald means she's the successor; that's not the case. Theron might try to claim it by some right of inheritance. That's not the case either. If he can seize power and hold it, then good for him. But I do not recognize him as my successor, nor hold him in any higher consideration for this particular job than the others of my tribe.

"And as for the Ahrouns: Asha is to bring them the news and call for a new challenge. Do not wait for the moot. Do it immediately so that there's no break in the leadership. I want Asha to challenge for Ahroun elder, even if there are higher ranked Garou laying claim to the role. Of all the Ahrouns in the city, I think she understands what needs to be done the most. She has my full support."

Lukas shifts a little, putting his weight on one hand, rubbing the back of his neck for a moment.

He continues.

"I want a ... happy Gathering. I know I will be missed and grieved, and I appreciate it. I want to be celebrated too. I want life and the living to be celebrated." His mood is actually lightening as he thinks, pictures it, speaks. "I want my fair share of oh my god he was so strong! stories, of course, but I want other stories too. Singing 'Wild Nights' on the streets. Taking blackmail pictures of Kate after she wrecked her car. Eating that muskrat with Asha. The kolá&+269;e story that Dani&+269;ka knows. I want people to hear stories like that, if they're not too painful to tell. I want people to know who I was, not just who the cubs can look up to as a role model. I want people to know how I've failed and how I've triumphed. That I liked candied oranges. That I loved rack of lamb. I want them to know all the people and things I loved.

"I want my kin to be there too. Dani&+269;ka, Anežka, and my parents. Someone should tell Istok Promised-Rain, my mentor, if he still lives. And when all the stories are told and the pyre is lit, I want there to be food and drink. Music. A party. Just put it upwind of my burning corpse, please.

"In the morning, when the ashes are cool, I want a handful scattered at the base of Perun's shrine, a handful buried with the oak in my backyard. Dani&+269;ka will know what I mean. The rest -- just let it blow away on the wind."

He's quiet again, introspective.

"And I want someone to tell Dani&+269;ka I'll be waiting for her in the Homelands." This is the first time in all this, all the many things he's told her, that raw emotion threatens to choke him. "That I'll build us a den and wait for her there with all the little ones she never met."

[Warcry] There are Garou who want to be the Talesinger of the sept. To remember the stories of this caern and its people. To tell them over and over. To make up stories, share morality plays, or make their words into a sort of poetry. And Sinclair is not that sort of Galliard. She sings other people's songs. As a so-called 'Moon Dancer', or whatever the lameass name for her auspice is these days, she is often seen as a failure because she does not seek to uplift and inspire with long-winded tales by the fire.

In battle she lifts her head and opens her throat and unleashes howls of fury to lend rage back to her people, her pack, her allies.

For her challenge she spoke about the Law, though she is not a Philodox. She told the truth about Garou who are still living. She told the truth about her own stories, her own past. She does not, perhaps can not, simply make something sound nice for the sake of beauty. She is not an artist. She is, as her names imply,

a scream,

a roar,

a revelation.

She does her 'job' when it is necessary, and she also does it quietly in many ways. Moments like this, which appear without searching for them. Some Galliards go up to anyone who will talk to them and try to learn everything about them. Sinclair does not. The truth of a person comes more freely when it is not hunted. She has that much patience: to wait for a night when it simply becomes true to her that she needs to challenge for her rank. That she needs to go to her parents. That she needs to sit down with her Alpha and have him tell her, in as much detail as he can bear, what should be done when he is gone.

Even if they both know that some requests may never be fulfilled. That they could leave the caern tonight and die in the same moment. That there might not be time. That he might outlive his mate. That they might both outlive Asha and Katherine. It won't be necessary, really, to go over this every time someone comes or goes or dies or gains or loses rank. The meaning of all that Lukas says is taken into Sinclair's mind just as surely as the words. She understands how it is to be, if it is possible.

This is why she sat down. Not to make a point. But because his whim to ask for 'Danny Boy' at his Gathering twined with her trauma over the thought of losing her packmates and led to him walking with her tonight which brought them to this moment when he expressed an awareness of what would be needed by those who survive him.

And, perhaps inadvertently, expressed a need of his own. A need that called to her true duty under her moon more than any recitation of a poem, singing of a song, telling of a story.

So Brutal Revelation sat down, and does her duty.


He speaks at length. That he can speak it at all says something for how his mind works, and also how patient she is. She does not interrupt, nor does she distract, nor does she speak up when he pauses for a long time. A Guardian passes them, a little higher on the slope, glancing at the two packmates in conversation, but leaves them be, walking onward. The night gets a little cooler.

In all honesty, it's been awhile since she's done this. She met up with some Walkers in Kansas, and there were... incidents. But everything she did while she was in Wichita was done almost exclusively with her parents. The stories she listened to and the ones she told. The years they passed apart were brought into focus in three different minds. Maybe there's some freckled seventeen year old in Kansas who died before she left. Sinclair never met him. If his story was not taken by another,

it is gone.

Lukas's story is not what she's asking for now. Maybe another night. Maybe she will gather it after his death, speak to everyone who knew him, gain a partial realization of who he was. Maybe who he was will manifest itself in tales and songs and drinking at his Gathering. And maybe not. Maybe so much of his life will be forgotten, and lost, as so many lives are now, in the last days.

That his pack should die and he live: that is the sort of guilt that could cripple Lukas.

That her pack should be forgotten: that is the fear that pushes Sinclair to ask these questions, and bear the answers.


She has reactions. Not at first. That Kate should tell his mate, and how, and how not. That he does not want his mate to wonder, to have questions that remain unanswered. That her brother shall not have her, that her half-sister will hold the claim, that because her half-sister is an ocean away, the Unbroken will protect her. His voice hardens on the name of the Adren Theurge. Sinclair does not question, because this is not about satisfying her own curiosity.

One might think she would nod when he goes on to discuss how the pack should behave afterwards, who shall likely lead -- though Sinclair notes he does not truly name a successor, only his suspicion of how it will go -- but she does not express agreement or even acknowledgement and understanding. That she is listening intently goes without gesture. That she understands is implicit in the fact that she does not stop him to question, or clarify a point.

But she can't help the smallest, tightest, most aching flicker of a smile when he says that if they die for his name, it'll just piss him off.

His family, then, his parents and his older sister, and his wishes for them. It might be amusing to think of an Athro Philodox suddenly gaining four or more Kinfolk -- Sinclair doesn't know that Oath of the Sky already has six Kinfolk and two pre-Change Garou under her guardianship, that there is a certain degree of self-governance in the Musil clan as it lives in Prague -- but one has to think of what those Kinfolk are. Purely bred, Anezka is. Capable of raising orphaned offspring, his parents are. They are useful and valuable and must be accounted for.

He is responsible for more than most men in their early twenties are, or could handle being.

Sinclair is to accompany Mila as a Shadow Lord Galliard spreads the news to the tribe and their protected Kin. She understands that, and she also understands, intuitively, her role and purpose. She understands why he leaves no instruction, or at very least does not question the wisdom of that. She is not a Shadow Lord. She notes the importance of not naming a successor, and the naming of at least two Garou who might think to presume themselves to deserve it without challenge or proof.

Perhaps more than any other member of the Unbroken but Lukas himself, Sinclair cannot tolerate that sort of weakness. She can, at very least, grasp what he is saying.

The Ahrouns are another story, and Sinclair remains quiet and still. She is to make sure Asha knows Lukas's wishes. Though he doesn't say it explicitly, she is to make sure Asha knows why.

It is when he talks about his Gathering that she begins to show herself as more than a human-formed recorder. Ache floods her features without moving them, and it intensifies at the humor behind oh my god he was so strong!. Wild Nights, which makes her glance away for the barest of half-seconds. She does not imagine telling these stories, or asking the rest of the pack -- and his kin, and his mate -- to tell their own. She cannot be distracted now by picturing that.

Lukas pictures it, and this is good, because his spirit will be on its way to departure when these things happen. Sinclair's job is not to imagine it now, and she is looking back at him again, knowing that it may very well fall to her to tell stories of his failures, if no one else will. But:

he wants people to know how he's failed. Along with his triumphs, his life, the life and the people he loved. Who should be there, those loved ones, the ones that matter, so they can eat and drink and let him go where he can, across the Gauntlet and on his way to the homeland, hear and know. Hear, and find a reason to come back and fight the Wyrm for this world, this life, these people.


He wants the wind to take all but two handfuls of his ashes. Sinclair looks at his hands, sand-stained from where he thoughtlessly, contemplatively, picked some up just a little while ago. Her eyes are a deeper blue than they usually are, cerulean silk splashed with water. She looks back up at him when he breathes in, to say

this one last thing.

A part of her cannot bear the emotion in his voice. The way it threatens him in a way she's never seen him threatened before, by anything. That he speaks of waiting for his mate to come to him, building her a home for the day her spirit arrives. She doesn't understand what the hell he means about little ones she's never met, but it isn't really all this talk of Danicka that makes Sinclair tip her head back and look at the sky instead of her Alpha.

It is the fact that this is painful. All of this. They will shake it off and move on with their lives and the war, though perhaps with a little renewal of vigor for the living because of this conversation. They will get up off the ground and keep going. But right now she is in the thick of the future, which is heavier even than memory, and it is a moment in the future that is full of grief Lukas cannot possibly understand,

because it will not be his. It will be for the emptiness left where he used to be, and he will not be there to share the burden of it.

Sinclair closes her eyes against the thinning moon for a moment. She breathes. And exhaling, she opens her eyes and lowers them to look at him. Gives a single nod, which she has not done the whole time he's been speaking. Quietly, and like a vow:

"I'll remember."

[Wyrmbreaker] It's just as well that Sinclair doesn't look at him when he tells her that one last thing, the only truly specific thing he wants said to anyone in all this. He can barely bear to say it. He can barely bear to think of it, because somehow that above all else makes it real.

And it's not the fear of death or even the pain of not being alive anymore that sets such ache into him. It's not that at all. It's the thought of being parted from these people, the ones he loves, his packmates from tribes and bloodlines other than his own, for however long it takes to be reborn again. It's the thought of being parted so unbreachable from his mate for even a day. Even a moment. For as long as it takes for the rest of her life to spin out.

That divide, that distance, that time: it breaks his heart, and he's glad, selfishly so, that Sinclair does not see it.

Then he's quiet, and so is she, and then she breathes in the night air. Which is not cool, because it is summer. Which is warm, and humid, and touches the skin like silk. When Sinclair leaves this place tonight, she will go home to her boyfriend, her not-mate who is nonetheless exclusively and willingly hers. When Lukas leaves this place, hours later, when the next of their pack comes to relieve him --

he'll go home to his mate, too. She might not be there. She might have already left for school. That's okay. The scent of her in her sheets, the presence of her in the place she lives: that will be enough.

And for now: this is enough. The presence of his packmate. The sense, deep in his mind, of the others: of Kate and Asha, Theron and Iona; even Caleb, fitful spirit that he is.

She makes him a promise. It is a promise that takes a lifetime to keep, but it is not one she cannot make.

He smiles. It's not aching. It's not sad. It's a smile, sudden and genuine and true. It brings to mind what he said: happy. A happy Gathering. Celebration.

"I know," he says. "I know you will."


There's a sense that he wants to ask her the same in return. What does she want? Who should tell whom; what should be done? And he will -- but not right now. Not tonight.

Enough, now. Enough heaviness, enough of this unbearable, unavoidable pain of loss. He sits with his packmate a little longer, in the night and under the stars, with the lake lapping at the shore.

Then he breathes in, and he gets to his feet. He holds his hand out to her to pull her up. Not because she needs it. Because she's his packmate.

"Walk with me as far as your car?" he asks, smiling.

[Wyrmbreaker] [add: "doesn't look at him LONG." and delete: "and he's glad, selfishly so, that Sinclair does not see it."]

[Warcry] None of this has been about probing, questioning, searching for answers and stories in the depths of Wyrmbreaker's heart. And Sinclair gives him a little mercy, at the end. He speaks of waiting for his mate, and she looks at the stars when emotion tries to strangle his very voice from his throat. They are, in effect, his last words, no matter what he says in the moments right before his death. Tell my mate I will be waiting for her. I will build a den for us, and wait for her in the homelands with the little ones she never met.

Sinclair promises to remember, and it is the only one she must keep no matter what else she becomes in this life. She is the keeper of the memories of their kind, good and bad, honorable and despicable. Speaker of last words, giver of testimony, and so on, and so on, until some younger Galliard comes and learns her life so that when she is gone there's someone to make the same promise to her.

Who has a right to make it, and the ability to keep it.


She doesn't pick up on the feeling that Lukas wants to know the same about her. Last will and testament, and all that. In all likelihood she'll balk at discussing it. But this is Sinclair, and she is not an Ahroun, she has no mate, no troupe-sized gathering of Kinfolk to contend with, no leadership here of tribe or pack or auspice. And this is Sinclair, who waits for Time to come. At least Lukas knows that much: not tonight. Not, perhaps, for a very, very long time.

She is already getting up when he does, at that deep breath in and the stirring of movement in his bones. She rises with the sort of predatory grace borne of strength and speed more than sly motion, and doesn't even seem to notice his hand unless he's still holding it out by the time she's brushing her sandy hands off on her thighs, and brushing off the butt of her jeans.

Her brow furrows a little at that smile, and that request, but it's a look that's hard to categorize as concern, or even compassion. Something of both, maybe. She gives him a nod, her face clearing, and puts her hands back in her pockets, and they start to walk again.


As it turns out, she didn't bring her car tonight. And though they may talk again later, at some point Sinclair shifts to lupus while it is dark enough and they are deep enough in the bawn for a stretch of their patrol to do so and walks with him like that, darting ahead to sniff very interesting smells and then circling back to trot alongside his legs, her form large and her fur glossy and her eyes a thought-obliterating blue. She digs a hole for awhile, because Lukas stops to speak to one of the Guardians. She reminds him over totemphone to mention the fence, barking without translation at him for attention.

But after she shifts back to homid to continue, he does actually ask her where her car is, and she points in the direction of Cabrini-Green, saying it's in the parking lot of her building. This is how Lukas finds out that she's living with this kinsman of hers now, that boyfriend who is sleeping right now, without her as Lukas's mate is without him. But that is also how he finds out the meaning behind that furrow of her brow when he asked her to walk with him as far as her car, her actions an unspoken and even unnecessary assurance:

Farther than that, Alpha.


The sky is lightening when Theron or Kate or Iona arrive to take their patrol. Sinclair seems drunk from sheer sleepiness, and there's dirt in her hair from the time she spent in lupus, rolling around in the sand while she kept Lukas company. She's trying to tell him something about this great place outside of Chicago's city limits where they serve awesome shawarma, but she can't stop yawning, even as they walk away from the bawn together.

To his car, or to Cabrini-Green, since it isn't too far and the sun's coming up. To whatever point they separate at, he to his mate's bed and she to her boyfriend's, though

because they are pack

they are never really separated while they live.