stars and solstice.

[Danicka] The moon is waning between gibbous and half overhead, but the way it looks out here, it could be a different moon than the one they see every night in the city, or even out in Stickney. The clarity is incredible, the brightness of it heartwrenching. Two years ago there was barely so much as a crescent-shaped shadow of light over their heads, a thin and waning sickle he saw like a crown past Danicka's golden hair as she came down over him in the woods. They were in such turmoil then, and such different people: Lukas snapping my, my, mine, my, MINE at Katherine, arguing with her about Sam-fucking-Modine, apologizing to her for Danicka's rudeness while simultaneously refusing to let Kate interfere in how he dealt with his...

'kinfolk'.

Oh, he was a different man then. Hardly even willing to admit he was a man as well as a warrior, that he wanted his family-pack and a mate and that he wanted to have cubs or find any meaning in life outside of his duties to the Nation and the War, denying even to himself that maybe picking up mortal women in nightclubs when the physical need pressed too hard inside him wasn't enough to satisfy the need in his soul.

She was a different woman. So afraid. So thrilled at her own naughtiness whenever she broke the rules, spoke her mind, risked life and limb. She wouldn't let herself trust him, or wouldn't let herself admit that she did. He didn't really expect her to. Pursued her into the woods thinking she was something like a lune, a wyldling, maybe even prey and the way she moved and smelled and the heat of midsummer stirred the hunt in his blood. She trusted her footsteps in the dark though she couldn't see a thing, and he saw the prayer and worship in that trust, but it was ages before she trusted him and his body as much as she trusted the ground under her feet, the trees that snagged on her dress.

Trees that were older than him, more reliable than him. Trees don't have tempers. Trees don't have spite, or fear of weakness; resistance to love; any of that. Trees are dependable and immobile. Two years ago she reached out to them because if she fell he might not catch her, but she could catch herself.

Only he did catch her.

Ages and ages.


Two long years have gone by now and the changes in each of them and between them and around them are too numerous and too deep to recount. He knows now, as though that one night was the only lesson he would ever need, that Danicka has never been his prey. He came into her apartment tonight with the keys she gave him, because even though they're mated and married they don't get to spend every night together, but tonight they have a date. Something, one might say, of an anniversary. They might not celebrate the night he took her from Vladik, they might not make any more of a fuss over their wedding anniversary than they did the wedding itself, but tonight...

tonight is the summer solstice. Tonight is sacred.

So of course they're going stargazing.


Lukas comes to her door, turns the key in the lock, and steps inside. Danicka isn't far, and he knows it by scent and in his blood as soon as he enters. She calls out to him in a dozen ways before he hears her voice: "Já v jsem tady, lásko!" she calls from the kitchen. Kandovany is already in the entryway, meowing at him before lifting herself from her haunches and rubbing her head against his leg.

The basket he gave Danicka on her birthday is on the visible kitchen counter, the two stainless steel mugs already tucked inside and the planisphere next to it. Her little telescope is in its case by the door. In the kitchen she's peering into the open fridge with a small frown, dressed in a short taupe skirt, a casual thing with little pockets one each side. The moss-green shirt she's wearing fits her slender form, as most of her clothes do, and the sleeves go just past her elbows. There's a swath of floral embroidery up her side and wrapping around her ribs done in a burnished gold thread. She wears no jewelry except her wedding ring, just as for a long time she wore little to no jewelry except for the bracelet he'd given her.

That may be why she never really wanted an engagement ring. Who knows.

Her hair is loose and tousled, in that way that makes it hard for him to tell if the look is intentional or if she was dancing tonight or walked around in the wind or what. She's wearing knee socks, standing on one leg, and her raised foot is pressed against her calf thoughtfully. She perks when he comes into view, smiling over at him, stepping back, and closing the fridge. "You should pack the food," she declares, and gives a little step and a hop and is in his arms, tossing her own around his neck.

The tips of their noses touch. She grins at him.

[Lukas] As much as Lukas threatened retribution should Kandovaný step out of line at the start, the truth is he spoils the little far more than Danicka ever would. So it's little surprise that Danicka can hear him murmuring affectionately at the door, and that when he comes into the kitchen to find his mate, Kando has been scooped gently but firmly in one large hand, her narrow ribcage cradled in his palm, forepaws dangling between his fingers.

Having caught sight of the picnic basket, Lukas is starting to say, "Oh, stargazing -- " when Danicka hops up into his arms. Or more specifically, his arm: the left hand holding Kando, the right arm wrapping tight and strong around his mate's waist as she smiles at him.

"Hi," he says, pleased. Reaching out, Lukas sets Kando down on the counter - not strictly allowable territory - and wraps both arms around Danicka. "Let's not pack food," he adds, quiet. "I can find us food."

[Danicka] The cat is not afraid of Lukas. It is less unnerved by his presence than Danicka was, even when she was falling in love with him. Kando is not from a species that was rigorously hunted down and decimated every so often by the Garou, and he's never posed a threat to her. He gives her food and strokes her fur the right way, so she goes up to him when he comes over and demands attention, knowing how freely it will be given.

Such a difference from that night during the rite of reawakening, when he stepped through his gate and found children rushing towards him, children who simultaneously were pulling away: their hearts saying papa, papa while their old souls said monster, monster. By comparison to that imaginary toddler they named for a precious metal and for summer sunshine, Kandovany is languid and relaxed in his arms. Of course, she's much older.

Danicka laughs at him when he says oh, stargazing --. "Did you forget?" she asks, rubbing her nose on his gently once or twice. He sets the cat down, and for once she doesn't shoo Kandovany off the counter and give Lukas one of her Looks. She keeps her arms around his neck and smiles at him, warm and her breath smelling faintly of white wine.

Her smile softens, and her eyes, at his words. "Baby, we're just going to the preserves. And I can't eat raw rabbit." That would be humorous, if there weren't such a tinge of ache at the separation between them, the impossibility that she could ever hunt alongside him or tear at prey he brings her with sharp, hungry teeth -- no matter how much those urges are laced through her spirit, denied by her unchanging body. She nuzzles him, though, smiling gently. "But if you want to. Yes. We don't have to pack food."

Danicka kisses him then, and he can feel her curiosity and her interest -- and, frankly, her trust -- in the kiss, as well as the way she simply gives in, gives up thoughts of planning out, of previous expectations. See it all, in her smile.

Kandovany sniffs at a vase sitting on the counter, whiskers twitching at the tulips held therein. Her tail swishes consideringly.

[Lukas] What softness and tenderness there is in Lukas wasn't evident two years ago. Still isn't evident, except in these private moments shared between them. Just look at him: large, made for war, lightning-fierce eyes, coal black hair.

Yet those ferocious eyes of his can soften. That hair of his is soft as silk between her fingers. And he leans forward as she nuzzles him, tipping his chin up and nipping the tip of her nose very, very gently.

Because he can feels her curiosity and her interest. Her trust, and the way she doesn't shy away now from giving in. And -- because he could feel that touch of ache, that awareness of the impassable separation between them, set down by nothing more or less than what they are.

"Maybe we can bring some food," he suggests. "Hot chocolate and fruit and s'mores. And some matches, for a fire."

There's a small pause. Then he wraps his arms around her a little closer, fitting his chin to the curve of her shoulder.

"It's a silly thing, wanting to hunt for you. The first solstice we spent together, I felt for a little while like maybe we could just ... not come back. We could live out there like that, hunt for each other, protect each other." He bites her shoulder now, softly, pressing his teeth momentarily against her flesh. "It was a nice thought."

[Danicka] Every time Lukas gets alone with Danicka, there's a subtle change in the air. At the beginning it was a crackling, a sharpness he usually didn't need around Kin, an intensity reserved for Shadow moots and challenges. And gradually shifted to other things. Sometimes the storm itself, tearing him to pieces and blowing apart everything in his path at the same time. Sometimes -- more, now -- this feeling that is not an eye, not a clear day, but just

home.

She grins when he nips her nose like that, the grin including a small huff of amusement and, of couse, tenderness. For the barest moment Danicka rests her head against his shoulder, her face to the side of his neck, smiling more softly. "Ooh," she says. "I like s'mores." There's a beat. "Also some wine. It's too warm out for cocoa."

And matches, for a fire. Because that, at least, they cam bring from the mortal, civilized world. Danicka is literally hanging from him now, wondering to herself if he plans to ever let her go and begin moving about, but she doesn't quite want him to yet. She does; she doesn't. She is so often like that, wanting and not wanting, happy and disturbed, sad and delighted. Strangely, the more Lukas accepts her inherent duality and irreconcilability, the more Danicka herself reflects on it, considering it, trying to understand herself when she cannot explain herself -- and would, of course, resist any external pressure to do so.

"It's not silly," she tells him, half-ruffled and immediate, but settles when he goes on. Smiles. "I know, baby."

She knows. Either because he's told her before, confessed this before, or because... because she thought so, too. Or because she just knows. She turns her head and kisses his jawline, nuzzling him there.

A moment passes. Then two, and another. Danicka wiggles in his arms, kicks her feet gently. Kandovany, still on the counter, peers over the edge and contemplates jumping down. Danicka is holding Lukas though, squeezing him, welcoming him as though she hasn't seen him in days -- which may very well be the case. Harder for him to keep track of days, though he never forgets how long it's been since he's held her.

"Okay," she says, and her socked toes rub against his legs. "Lemme down, I gotta find blankets."

[Lukas] The reluctance with which Lukas lets Danicka down is not entirely feigned. One arm remains around her waist long after her feet have touched the ground; he nuzzles against her temple, stirs her hair with the tip of his nose. "Mmm," he says, smiling. "You smell like you."

Then he lets her go. "Do you want to get the wine," he asks, taking over to riffle through the fridge and the pantry, looking for chocolate, marshmallows, graham crackers, "or should I?"

He's found chocolate; takes it down from a cupboard, sets it on the counter. In more or less the same motion, he scoops Kando up off the counter and bends to set her back on the ground.

[Danicka] She laughs at that: she smells like herself. And, frankly, like the party she was at earlier. Wind in her hair, wine down her throat, sweat, grass. And beneath all that, herself. He's never smelled perfume on her flesh, very little artificial to interfere with what and who she is. Maybe she learned that early in life, growing with two Garou, their senses not so much heightened in human form as their minds more trained to pay attention to scents.

There's no stash of Hershey bars, Jet-Puffed marshmallows, and HoneyMaid graham crackers in Danicka's cabinets. She tells him she'll get the wine, of course, because she's always made rather good use of the little built-in wine fridge in her apartment. The chocolate he finds is some organic, dark, five-dollars-a-bar stuff that Danicka sees him taking out for s'mores ingredients and just raises her eyebrows at him.

He should have known, really, given that it was on the top shelf behind three rows of glasses, hidden and out of reach even to Danicka. May as well have been behind glass with FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY plastered across it in red.

"We can get stuff for s'mores when we stop for firewood," she tells him as he tucks the seventy-odd-percent chocolate back where it belongs. The rest, however, goes in the basket: wine, and a pair of glasses. Matches and a couple of blankets and, when Danicka gives in, a thermos of hot cocoa and the two stainless steel mugs he included in her birthday gift. There's a little food, too: some cheese, and strawberries and peaches and blueberries, a few items nestled in among the blankets.

She doesn't ask him what he plans on doing. What he thinks he's going to hunt out there in the forest preserves. She doesn't know what he's going to bring back, and if she's supposed to know how to cook it. She worries that she'll be disgusted, or she won't want it, and he'll be hurt -- and Danicka has no answer to that in her own mind, really. She nuzzles Kandovany briefly before they head down to Lukas's car, and lets the cat go freely about the apartment as she always does when Danicka is gone, but she's quiet when she locks up.

In one of Lukas's hands is the handle to the basket. In his other hand is Danicka's hand. She carries the little telescope case, and asks as they approach the elevator:

"I'm uneasy," she says, and that is all she says at first, and it might shock him since she was smiling a moment ago, seemed tittering and excited as they finished packing up, and not a bit of it seemed feigned. So the ground under his feet might tilt, but she holds his hand. "It's about this whole... finding food for us thing, and I don't want you to ask 'would you rather I not' because if that's what I preferred I would have just said so or I'd be saying so now."

By now they're in the elevator, and the doors are closing behind them, in front of them, as she turns her head to look at him. "There's a part of me that likes the idea of all this, just like... I thought about staying out in the woods forever, too. But it's a fantasy. It's not something I actually want." Her brows are drawn together saying this, her fear of hurting him more evident than any other prevailing emotion. "I'm mostly human, Lukáš. And not ...really a hunter," she says softly. "I'm worried that you'll hunt and I'll be more sad than pleased. Or be sitting there alone while I wait for you to come back. I'm worried that you'll bring me back something to eat and I'll just be repulsed, or disgusted at having to clean and cook and eat something that was alive just moments ago.

"I'm afraid that if that's how I feel it will hurt you terribly," she goes on, her brows tightening. "And I'm afraid that me saying all this is going to make you think that the way to fix it is to just toss the whole idea, but then I'm going to feel like I've stifled you, or told you to pretend to be human. I'm afraid that if I don't even try I'm going to feel sad about it, too." Her hand is tight with his, holding as though she's afraid he's going to pull away. "I'm sorry. I didn't think much about this before, but I was packing up the bits of fruit and wine and all of that was just so normal, but then..."

Danicka shrugs, shaking her head a little. "I don't know. Maybe I'm just tired or still buzzed, but it all feels very complicated and if I weren't afraid of hurting you somehow I don't think I'd be worrying about it like this. But I am worrying, and a little sad."

[Lukas] At that very first sign of possible distress, that very first I'm uneasy, Lukas turns near-instantly to his mate. His hand is still in hers. His eyebrows have come down over his eyes, black over blue; he furrows at her, worried, listening.

When she finishes, his thumb strokes thoughtfully over her knuckles a few times. He tugs her a little bit closer, his forearm along hers.

"I wouldn't ask you to clean and cook my kill," is the first thing he says, softly, as though it's important to establish this. That she isn't there to play his servant, his scullery maid, his good little kin. "And I don't want you to be sad about this. Or worried. Baby..."

The elevator rocks to a stop, but he doesn't move to get off. He turns to her instead, facing her.

"Baby, I understand why you're uneasy. For what it's worth, I wasn't thinking of laying bloody carcasses triumphantly before you. I just want to feel close to the land tonight. Close to you. To celebrate the season and the fertility of the land. Give praise and give worship in some raw, unpolished way."

[Danicka] The ride down to the underground garage is impossibly fast, impossibly smooth. They live in a world where so much is done for them, made easy for them: great heights scaled, vast distances crossed, and all they need do is press a button or turn a key. Yet for all the advances humans make -- and it can't only be the Glass Walkers who look at that kind of ingenuity, that kind of hunger, and marvel at what humankind has done -- they can't make this easier.

Can't make it easier for a man and a woman to understand each other. Can't scale those heights. Can't cross those distances. Can't make it any easier to stand next to someone you love, holding tightly to their hand, prepared to and promised to spend the rest of your life with them, and feel that uncrossable chasm yawning between you.

No wonder they make love not just as ravenously as they do, but the way they do: the way Lukas doesn't let go of her, doesn't withdraw from her, the way Danicka wraps her arms and legs around him and buries her face against his neck and closes her eyes so that the warmth of their skin melts them together and makes her believe they aren't, in fact, quite so separate. For awhile, at least.

She squeezes his hand, looking at him with that tight little furrow still between her eyes. Danicka has always looked a little older than she is. Lines here and there, an age in her gaze that her chronology denies. No wonder she looks like that, the way she frowns now, worried and caught in this irreconcilable struggle. No wonder her eyes are colored by sadness.

God, he worries too. That frown of his, quizzical and concerned and fierce all at once. The way he pulls her nearer, feeling that distance and saying no firmly, physically, not the only way he knows how but the way that comes instantly, without need for pause or thought or question. Come here. Here. Here. Mine.

On some level she half-expects him to bend to her, bend over her, and put his mouth on her shoulder, holding her in his teeth the way he does sometimes when he is particularly affectionate, or protective, or overcome, or... anything. The way he hugs her like that, even if his arms are elsewhere.

So Danicka, in turn, leans against his arm, rubbing her face once or twice against his sleeve, and closing her eyes. Her brow smooths a little bit, just like that. Just because of that: because wordlessly, underlying the rest, Lukas sensed the root of it all, even before the thought quite finished playing out in her own mind. Come here, he said, and here she is, rubbing her face on him like that, feeling him warm and solid, and the distance seems

not gone,

but a little less.

I wouldn't... he begins, and she huffs a small laugh, because, well, she didn't really think he'd expect her to whip out a buck knife and start carving, only to look up a bit later and go oh, didn't you know? I also trained as a butcher. Truth be told she's never much felt like she had to be a good kin for him, or a maid. And it isn't because Lukas makes a point of establishing that; it's because, from the start, she never would have stood for it, and he sensed that, and somewhere in his viscera, that's part of what drew him to her.

The amusement is this brief, breathed thing, fading along as his words roll into new phrases, new thoughts.

I understand, he says as the doors ding and slide open, hesitating for them. They're closing again before he's finished talking, but Danicka doesn't hustle them off the elevator. The stars are going to be there all night, after all. She turns her head up, still leaning on his arm, and meets his eyes.

to feel close to the land
close to you
to celebrate
give praise
give worship
raw

She's quiet a moment, as the elevator starts to lift them upward again. "That's why I said yes," Danicka finally tells him, her voice soft, her eyes engulfing his.

[Lukas] That's when Lukas does, in fact, lower his head to hers. Brings his brow against hers, their hands still linked; nuzzles against her, slides his cheek past hers, rubs and bumps against her gently, grips her shoulder gently in his teeth.

Shows her, in short, his affection. Not with words, or even with a kiss - but in the simplest, most primitive, rawest way possible short of making love.

Lukas understands, with the part of him that was nearly human for thirteen years, just how much he really is asking of her. It's one thing to drink wine and pleat flowers into one's hair in honor of the season. One thing, even, to run naked into the wilderness; to fuck like animals in the dirt, beneath the summer sky. It's something else entirely to skin and char and devour something that was alive only a few moments ago; something that's now dead because

Danicka's lover is not human, and took the shape of something savage and wild, and hunted something by his senses and his instincts, and extinguished it with his naked, terrible teeth.

He asks a lot of her. Everything they are asks a lot of the other. No power, human or superhuman, has yet been able to bridge that chasm. Ease that burden. In the end, more than anything else - even war, even death - that distance is the greatest barrier between them.

This is the only way they can hope to cross it, even for a moment. By communicating. By reaching out. By pulling each other closer - somehow.

When he draws back, Lukas presses his lips to Danicka's brow. His hand squeezes hers a little tighter. "If or when you don't want to anymore," he says quietly, "we'll stop. I'd much rather be close to you than anything else, tonight."

[Danicka] She smiles knowingly. As his face rubs on hers, and as he nuzzles her to the point that her shoulder bows, her neck tilts, because he is never light or hesitant about his affection; it's a heavy, forceful thing, and she closes her eyes again as her hand comes up to rest on the back of his neck. Feeling the pressure of his teeth closing on her shoulder through her clothing, Danicka's smile softens, and her hand holds him all the closer.

They both know they can't say something right now that will erase her uneasiness or alter his fear of losing her because of what he is. They both know that. They've known that for a long while now, and unlike a great many couples who would try to traverse that distance with a child, unlike others who would fight until they tear each other apart, unlike others who would relegate their relationship to something purely sexual, functional, and separate from the rest of their lives,

they just accept it. And let it ache. Some things are worth hurting for.

She knows that those teeth he's using to hold her close to him are, later on tonight, going to be drenched with blood, gums blackened with it, and she knows he's going to lap up some of that blood tonight, hot and fresh and serving to slake a bit of his hunger before he digs into the meat. She knows that. It's strange, how she caresses the back of his neck and the soft, clipped hair there, knowing that.

Her head turns, and Danicka kisses him where she can reach: his jaw, maybe, or under his ear, or the side of his neck. And a moment later her lets her go. She looks calmer now. The tension has left her, and much of the sadness. He isn't upset. He isn't hurt, defensive, retreating to a stony shell of frustration and anger and the hard, cold glare of a Shadow Lord -- and while he rarely pulls what she would call 'that shit' with her, it has happened, and it is sometimes almost more than she can stand to push past. Sometimes it's all he can do to stay open, to not protect himself the way he used to. They both have their habits.

Now that she knows he isn't hurt, that he understands, that he's telling her he'd rather be close to her than to the earth, than to the hunt and the summer, she smiles gently when he kisses her brow. They're up at the sixteenth foor, and a bachelor and some of his buddies step on, about to go out for dinner. They give personable nods to Danicka and Lukas, but go back to their conversation, which involves:

- Family Guy
- Eric's new speakers
- whether 'Sucker Punch' is feminist or not,
- and if they should get sushi or tapas.

Danicka is friendly while they ride down to the lobby, holding Lukas's hand and suggesting this tapas place on North LaSalle. She asks him if he remembers going there with Lee a couple of years ago, and sooner or later they hit the lobby and the bachelors file out. One of them actually tips his hat -- newsboy cap that it is -- to Danicka and gets a wry eyebrow lift from her, more because his utter sincerity at trying to be a gentleman to the only lady present amuses her more than an attempt at flirtation would.

She steps out with Lukas finally, and says what has been on her mind since the doors opened on the sixteenth floor: "Just hunt quickly," and her voice is low, personal, "so I'm not alone for very long."

Lifts his hand, still held in her own, and kisses the back of it as they head towards the doors. "Also when we stop for firewood and the rest, we should get some mouthwash for you."

Ever-practical, his mate.

[Lukas] Conversation momentarily interrupted by a bachelor and his friends, Lukas is quiet, a solid and thoughtful presence beside his brighter, more apparently outgoing mate. In reality, it's arguable that Danicka is far more secretive, but all the same Lukas's only contribution to the conversation is agreement that he remembers the tapas bar they went to with Lee, and that it was, in fact, rather good.

The atmosphere in the elevator is amicable enough. Lukas makes the men a little uneasy in some deepseated, half-forgotten corner of their minds, but there's safety in numbers and anyway, Danicka is so friendly and warm and, well, attractive. They talk mostly amongst themselves and one doffs his hat on the way out. Danicka lifts a wry eyebrow. Lukas smiles; he likes the nod to old-fashioned manners and mannerisms because in some way that reminds him of his father and the way his father raised him.

A little later, Danicka tells him not to leave her alone for too long. He understands without a doubt that it has nothing to do with fear of the dark, or of being unprotected, untended; everything to do with not wanting to feel so keenly the separation between her and her mate.

Not tonight. Especially not tonight.

So Lukas looks at Danicka a moment. He nods, and that mouth that will later sprout sharp teeth presses briefly and early to her temple.

"Nebudu," he murmurs.