Thanksgiving last year was spent with their families - a hectic affair of flights, drives, dinners, lunches. So this year Lukas and Danicka don't go anywhere. Well, no; they go to Kate's Thing on Wednesday, because Kate always has Things, especially around the holidays, because she enjoys planning them so much. Never mind that half the time the event is a disaster and people get mad and people get upset and Kate ends up picking up the pieces, rueful, only to do it all over again.
Lukas doesn't mind anymore. It's part of her charm. It's part of her neurosis, really, but it's more charming than other forms. And they all have their little flaws. Kate likes to plan events; Lukas likes to worry. Who is he to judge?
So: they go to the event, and they dress up, and they sit around the table and dear god maybe this year Kate invites Edward back and wouldn't that be awkward, and maybe this year Maddox and Sarita decide to go get stoned on the back porch, and maybe this year Edward's screeching brat is running around dipping his fingers in all the sauces and Kate looks like she's about to explode from the germs, the germs, the GERMS, and
Lukas catches Danicka's eye and starts laughing, and soon everyone's laughing, except for Ed Junior who's getting a spanking from Kate's unflappable maid. Later on at the door, Lukas envelops Kate in a hug and kisses her cheek and tells her to just take it easy tomorrow, which is the true Thanksgiving Day. Just take it easy, bake herself a tiny little game hen, pour herself a glass of wine, and enjoy not having to hold it all together through sheer willpower.
Which is sort of what Lukas and Danicka end up doing on Thanksgiving Day. The baking a tiny little poultry thing, anyway. Not a game hen - because Lukas could eat one in one bite, probably - but a very small turkey indeed, which they stuff with cornbread and cranberries. Then there are potatoes on the side, which Lukas gleefully mashes because this is his job, yes, and of course there are kolaches. And maybe some cupcakes.
They eat not in the kitchen or the dining room but on the floor of their living room, wrapped in a blanket or two, with some old movie or other on in the background. The furnace is rumbling downstairs. It gets warm quicker now, and stays warm quicker. Toward the end of summer Lukas got ambitious, and they cleaned out the air ducts, replaced a lot of the insulation. Then they refinished the outside of the house. They stripped the whitewashing and pulled off the weird stones, replaced everything with brick. They repainted the sidings and the raingutters, replaced some of the worn shingles. They were going to plant the magnolia, but it's still so small, and so instead they just move it to a bigger pot, a very large pot, and decide to wait for next summer. Their oak is growing larger and stronger than any oak its age has a right to be, though, and sometimes Lukas sees Danicka sitting under it, crosslegged, her back to its slender trunk.
And somewhere around the time when they're getting done with dinner, sometime around when Lukas is eyeing the turkey wondering if he wants to gnaw on just one more wing or if he'd rather save room for one more kolache later, they start talking about Christmas. It's been a long time since they've seen their families. They should invite them out here. Both families. Everyone. Have them all out here, maybe even cram them all under this roof but definitely at least have the kids out here, definitely have everyone here during the day so they can fill the place up with warmth and laughter and, yes, the inevitable little scuffles and fights of having too much family around too long.
Let's do it, they decide. I'll call them tomorrow and invite them before they make other plans.
So that's how it's decided. And that's why, on the 17th of December, when winter break's started for Danicka and the kids are out of school, Lukas rents a goddamn twelve-seater van and goes to the airport. There's room for everyone plus luggage. Plus Danicka, plus him. They park in the lot and they go in on the monorail, and as they get to the domestic terminals of O'Hare Lukas checks the arrivals info and the text messages on his iPhone, because poor Lukas has not yet seen the light of Android, and informs Danicka that her family just landed, that his are picking up luggage, and that his sister's plane should touch down in about twenty minutes.
And then they'll have something like eleven peopleand all their luggage piling into the van all at once. Which Lukas is rather fiendishly delighted about. He totally orchestrated this; persuaded everyone to buy tickets right around now because the weather is better at this hour, the traffic is lighter, but mostly: because he wants to drive a bus full of his family around.
DanickaThey do consider doing it all again: flying out to see his parents, and her sister, and this time her father as well because --
the truth is somewhat galling. Her brother is an Adren, and like his Fostern rank, he is spending a long time there. He earns favors. He uses his lower rank to his advantage as long as he can. But a few are catching on to him now. He is losing clout; if he does not challenge for Athro soon, it will be disgraceful. But more to the point, even the powers of an Adren Theurge are sparse aid. Lukas does not think of challenging Vladislav for the guardianship of Danicka's father -- or has not brought it up to Danicka if he has considered it -- but even so, his mate loves her father. His mate wants to see her father. Vladislav sees his power in these matters waning, sees the risk of his pettiness being brought into the open, and more than anything, sees the risk of garnering the wrath of an Adren Ahroun who has frenzied and killed another Garou once already.
-- because it is okay, now, for Miloslav to see his daughter, and be a part of her life. So they think about it, and then realize it's an exhausting thought. As much fun as it was, it was also incredibly tiring. Easier to have everyone in one place, one den, Lukas says. And Danicka laughs and asks if he means their den, and he brightens instantly. Says yes, exactly. He will bring all of his kin -- and though by the law of the Nation the Musils are not 'his', he would still protect them -- into one den, bring the cubs back to the hearth, and they will all be warm together and eat together and be safe together.
The pleasure in his eyes at the thought is nearly enough to break Danicka's heart with tenderness. Soon enough he is calling family members before they make other plans, while Danicka is looking up flight prices and nearby hotels before the rooms and seats fill up, before the prices go haywire. She refuses to consider letting any of them -- any of the adults, that is -- pay for their own way unless she senses that they are offended. It is simply hospitality. She does not want their finances to mean they have to say 'no'. Even with Danicka's considerable savings and return on investments, even with Lukas footing at least half of it, she tabulates everything and exhales: "Okay, so no one is getting a red-ribboned car in the driveway this Christmas."
Lukas just laughs.
They spend the rest of their Thanksgiving peacefully. Simple fare, mostly meat and potatoes and stuffing and a little bit of fruit (however candied or pastry-fied it may be), a few vegetables that Danicka mostly eats because Danicka, unlike Lukas, is not a metabolism monster. She nuzzles him under the blanket when she is full, in their warm little house which is now so much prettier, so much more in keeping with the rest of the neighborhood. The magnolia is growing in its pot in the living room near a window, and Danicka actually comes out here far more often than she used to, taking care of it, taking care of the house, taking care of their den.
When they go to bed, it is on the flannel sheets they use in winter, the heavier comforter, though they still do not put curtains on the windows. Blinds are enough. She is thinking about how to set up the downstairs bedroom and the den to house the kids, and about buying more chairs for the dining room table and maybe another table and set of chairs to put in the kitchen or living room for the kids because 8 adults is quite enough for one table. She's thinking about what gifts she wants to get for everyone, and coordinating with her father and the Kvasnickas and Anezka and Daniel about who will be cooking what on Christmas Day -- this is why she got them suites with kitchenettes, at least in part -- and somewhere in all this Lukas can sense that she's not sleeping, she's thinking, so he nuzzles the back of her neck and
he slides his hand down the front of her body,
and she breathes in,
and a little while later she isn't thinking about anything, anything at all.
Getting permission to take Milos out of his fosterage for the holiday was actually one of the hardest parts about the logistics of everything. His mentor is a hard, icy Theurge up in Stark Falls, and it took intercession from Lukas himself with a mention of the boy's aunt to swing the amount of time they want with him. There were a few arguments over phones about who would pay for what, arguments that usually ended before anyone burst into tears or started shouting, but eventually it all works out.
The two downstairs rooms are outfitted for use by the kids. The den is for the boys, the open archways curtained off after some tension bars were installed. The actual room is for Renata and Irena. There are four twin-sized air mattresses because Danicka said they would sleep better if they didn't have to share queen-size ones and Lukas relented. There are warm sheets and warm blankets and brand new pillows, because Danicka and Lukas have never had to have guest linens before. Everything is new. There are new towels upstairs, too, and Danicka is saying they should really get around to finishing the basement and putting a second full bathroom down there, or even expanding the downstairs bathroom into the bedroom to put one there. At least Irena and Emanek are young enough that -- particularly in wintertime -- they don't need a bath every day. Sharing their own shower with Renata and Milos is going to be inconvenient enough.
Of course, stupid Lukas face is grinning the whole time, happy as he can be, because all this talk means is family coming to den, family-pack visiting in the future, cubs being there, kin being there, everybody together and warm and yes. Danicka can't help but laugh at him.
It's December 17th finally, then, and they are at the airport in that ridiculous van. She kept asking if he wanted her to drive her car out, too, just in case, but he kept saying no, everyone will fit, all the luggage will fit, til she started to insist and he got very sad indeed. That was when she gave him a hug and said okay, okay, we'll all be in the van. We can sit on suitcases if we have to.
The airport is... well, to say it's crowded is generous. It's madness.
"Thank god you're so tall," Danicka says, scanning the crowd leaving the arrival gates for people she knows. "If you see them, would you start jumping up and down like a five-year-old, please?" She's teasing him, and tosses a grin at him, but then
he does, in fact, give a little jump (more like a casting of his weight onto the balls of his feet for a moment), throwing his hand in the air. And Danicka just... lets out a tiny yelp. She goes in the direction of Lukas's gaze and a minute later is wrapping her arms around her father, and her half-sister, who are surrounded by two children and two teenagers and a few pieces of carry-on luggage. She begins prattling to them in Czech, kissing her father's cheek and Sarka's, then hugging all the children, and of course Milos stands quite stiffly and seriously and Emanek and Irena both squirm a little, and of course Renata is only getting more graceful and lovely by the day.
And Miloslav is getting so much older, speaking so much softer, walking so much slower, looking as though he is just a little overwhelmed all the time. And Sarka looks so much stronger -- her hair has grown now, and it's quite short but it's thick and light brown, tinted with gray here and there -- and so much more alive, a ferocity in her eyes that looks, in a way, like love. Renata seems to have taken on helping her grandfather, since her mother is healthy enough that she's reclaimed from the teenager the rights and responsibilities of motherhood that were never really Renata's anyway. Emanek looks like he is exhausted and overexcited, in a happy mood that will, at the drop of a hat, turn shrill and miserable until he gets a decent snack and, perhaps, a good night's rest.
But it's the two young Garou that, most likely, catch Lukas's attention the most. The elder, the Theurge who has gone through his First Change now and entered his fosterage, has his hair a little shorter and less cherubic, but it is hardly a buzz cut. It still curls, like Lukas's does when it gets a bit long. He looks calmer than he used to be, yet simultaneously more intense. It isn't the intensity of a troubled teenager who fears going down the path of his uncle, though: he is a Theurge who is learning, truly learning, how to respond to the tug of the spirit world in the way he is born to do. He even smiles at something Emanek does -- the boy points at something and exclaims in Czech, then smacks himself theatrically on the forehead, says D'oh! In English, in English, dummy! and repeats what he just said in the language he has gotten so very good at -- and tells his brother: You're not a dummy. Besides, you're not in school. This is a vacation.
And Irena. Irca -- who refuses to go by that nickname anymore because some kid at school saw it written out and guffawed: ORCA? and then she started hitting him and she got suspended and remains terrified to this day that Lukas will find out and be so disappointed -- has gone through a growth spurt. She is almost as tall as Renata now, though neither of them are as tall as Milos, and she wears her hair down instead of in braids or pigtails now. It's shocking how much children can change in a single year, but they all have. Irena has a vivid cast to her eyes, a predatory way of looking at everything and everyone around her, devouring information from her senses, ravenous for something to set her off, to let her go.
Lukas, more than anyone -- even Miloslav, who raised a Theurge, and Danicka, who lives with an Ahroun, or Sarka, who shared a womb with a Philodox -- can see the toll that the day has already taken on the little Ahroun almost-cub and the pre-Rite Theurge cub. He knows what it is like to Change and then return to his family after being in Stark Falls. He knows what it is like to be surrounded by kin and mortals when your rage is only growing stronger. He can imagine what it was like to be in that packed-full flight, short as it was, for both of them. No wonder Irena squirms when hugged, and looks like she wants to chase down some human and tear them up, even if her body won't let her yet. No wonder Milos looks so intense: he is practicing control.
"Lukáš rodi
e jsou u zavazadla koloto
," Danicka is telling her father and Sarka after inquiring about flights and weather and health and and and, as the kids re-shoulder their backpacks, "Jeho sestra a její pÅ™ítel bude brzy pÅ™istání. Všichni bychom m li jít
ekat tam na n ." She's grinning. She can't seem to stop.
[CZECH: "Luke's parents are at the luggage carousel. His sister and her boyfriend will soon be landing. We should all go there to wait on them."]
LukasLukas is beginning to understand, finally, why his parents' friends were always exclaiming over how big he and Anezka have gotten when they were little. Well; part of that is simply because his parents were proud, straightbacked, and a little bit aloof in their determination not to let anyone else see their weakness. So they didn't actually have a lot of friends, especially back in the day, and what few friends they had rarely visited or, in reciprocation, were visited. So it was usually a long time between visits, and of course: children change.
That's the other part of it, though. Children change. Shockingly. Renata looks almost like a young woman now. Milos looks like the cub he is, very determinedly serious, and Lukas wonders - just for a moment - if that's how he looked at that age. Very Serious. Because he was a Cub now, and that was a Very Important Thing To Be.
So: Lukas doesn't, though some part of him really rather wants to, romp up to the kids and glomp them, pick them up, swing them around, razzle them, turn the littlest one upside down, pick the others up and sling them onto his back, etcetera. He might - he would - if they weren't here, and if the kids were all cubs, and if they were all furry and four-legged. He might even here, to be honest, if he weren't sure that Renata would be terrified and Milos mortified; if he weren't reasonably sure that Emanek might throw up, and Irca might bite him.
Instead, he comes up to Danicka's nieces and nephews and her half-sister; he gives Sarka a warm, but quite dignified hug. The one he gives Renata is rather carefully fraternal. Milos, he shakes hands with first before pulling the slender boy into a back-thumpy Manly Hug.
And then there are the two little ones. And here Lukas's self-control fails, and he scoops both of them up, hoists them onto his shoulders like sacks of potatoes before looking theatrically around.
"Well, I've got the luggage," he announces. "Now, where are Irca and Emanek?"
DanickaIn a year, in four seasons, children change a lot. They are all so much taller, so much more filled out, so much different in their mannerisms and yet... utterly, completely the same as they were last year. It's uncanny. Everyone is busy greeting Danicka and then Lukas. Miloslav clasps one of Lukas's hands in his, rough and calloused from decades of work as they are. He calls him Lukasek still, and -- coincidentally -- comments on how much he's grown.
Sarka smiles and gives him a hearty hug, patting his back with amusement at how Dignified he is. Renata and he do hug quickly, a brief familial squeeze, but Renata seems more confident now, less flustered by him, and so she's warmer than she was last year, less unnerved. Milos breaks his Very Serious face with a lopsided grin that Lukas has seen time and time again on his own mate's face as he gets a handshake and a Manly Thump-Hug from the Adren, and then he's taking his mother's bag even though his mother says she's fine, but he insists, because
he is a Very Serious Young Cub. And because he is, though not her eldest son, the eldest one she has here in the states. He laughs to her, his accent fading a little with precision and practice: "I don't get to take care of you anymore. Let me."
Which makes her eyes ache a moment, and she pats his arm, and he carries her carry-on bag as well as his own.
Meanwhile, Emanek is digging around in his little yellow backpack to see if he can find the other granola bar he packed For Provisions On The Journey, and yelps as he is swooped up in a very large, very powerful arm. Irena, who was about to jump on Lukas's back and start wrestling with him in a way that is only half-playful -- her need for some kind of physical roughness is almost palpable -- gets scooped up as well, and just shrieks in laughter. Several people in the terminal are staring at them, this large clump of people who are speaking in two languages, this enormous man who radiates primal fury, the noise of two young children opening up their throats. Depending on the kind of trip they're having so far, some people think it's all charming. Others think it's aggravating.
Not one of the Musils or Kvasnickas give a damn, but there you are.
Emanek is simultaneously clinging to Lukas for dear life and kicking his legs, saying -- now in Czech -- putmedownputmedownputmedown. Irena has other plans. She growls, and CHOMPS Lukas's shoulder through his coat and through his shirt and holds on like she's just caught the prey she's been harrying, snarling all through it, her mouth full of wool. Danicka and Sarka are laughing, Miloslav looks amused, Milos is trying not to laugh by pressing his lips together, and Renata looks concerned that people are staring at them.
"Put them down," Danicka says, laughing through the words, walking over and catching her nephew's legs so he doesn't kick Lukas in the solar plexus. "Emanek, stop kicking. Stop. Oh, Lukasek, stop being silly."
Irena bops her head up, nearly clocking her skull against Lukas's, smacking her mouth from bits of frayed peacoat. "Can I have a shoulder ride?" she says, almost demandingly.
"You're too old for that," Milos interjects, firmly, though the last syllable falters as he looks to Lukas suddenly, as though just remembering he's there. And, y'know, his elder.
LukasThere are, indeed, people staring. It's inevitable when there's a mega-family suddenly being very loud, and perhaps most of all people are staring at the man in the black coat who's swinging two kids around, both of whom are really just a little too old for this sort of horseplay. Plus one of them, the girl at that, just bit him. And there's real violence there, albeit playful violence: but most people wouldn't be able to see that. To most people, the play-fighting of wolf cubs looks unsettlingly real, all bared teeth and snarls. To most people watching right now, the girl looks downright feral. They think maybe she's got some sort of developmental issue.
Her sister looks - indeed - mortified.
And now the girl's demanding a shoulder ride, and her older brother is saying No. in his Man of the Family tone, then suddenly faltering because he is in a different city, the family is so much bigger here, and there's a different alpha wolf in this den. But Lukas is not wholly a wolf, and anyway the wolf part of him, the animal part that does, indeed, hunger instinctively for dominance, is sated by the way the cub senses his presence and what it means. It's enough. The human part of him, or at least the part capable of higher-order judgments like these, recognizes that if he overrides Milos now, he'll lessen the boy's influence over his own siblings. He'll make him feel even less a part of his own family.
So Lukas bends at the waist, dunking both kids down on their feet --
wait, no. He puts Emanek down on his feet, but pretends to try to put Irca down on her head, goes "Whup!" like he's made a mistake, flips her over, sets her down, and crouches in front of her.
"You are a little too big for that," he says, and then to soften the blow, "You might hit your head on the doorways."
Then he stands up, and as a group they start meandering toward the luggage carousels where Lukas's own parents are supposed to be. Danicka is beside her father, so Lukas falls in on his other side. He doesn't try to give Miloslav his arm to hold on to, or steady him, or anything so overt or embarrassing as that. He's just ... there. He's just aware of how much Miloslav has aged in that single year, the same way the children have; grown weak even as his eldest daughter and her children have grown strong.
DanickaTechnically, Irena does have a developmental issue. It will be another two or three years before she can change, before she can hunt, before she can kill, and yet every single day she can feel the stifled rage tight and hard inside of her, as though a web of steel is being built over every organ, as though those webs are shrinking, clutching at her, binding her. She has trouble sleeping some nights because of the dreams, or simply because she can't be still. She gets up sometimes and stalks through the dark hallways of her house, checking every door, sniffing at the air, looking out the windows, but
she promised her mother this past summer she would not go outside. They made a deal. She could get out of bed if she needed to, as long as she was quiet and as long as she didn't go outside. Their life is full of such clashes and compromises now. In truth, they are doing okay. With Milos gone it is a little harder. With Sarka stronger it is a little easier. With a plane ride and a crowded airport, it is a little harder.
But Milos is here again, and so is Lukas, and as much as one can feel Irena's rage in the air, one can feel her calming as well. Her mother and her sister and her little brother don't really understand, after all, what it is like. She is, at ten, already feeling the nameless dread that settles into children who know that the adults around them cannot control them, not really, not if they had to. It is not a feeling any child should have, but all Garou children do when they lack a Garou parent or guardian nearby. She feels, all at once, rebellion and relief to be around enough adults -- and some of them Garou -- that she can relax a little, she knows she doesn't have to be in charge of herself, that if she gets out of control there are people who can deal with her.
It's a lot for a ten year old to feel. So yes, her problems are distinctly developmental, it just... isn't human development.
She wipes her mouth -- and her tongue -- with her sleeve, full of strands of wool now. She regrets biting his coat, but it seemed more polite than biting his face or something. She expects to be lowered when her baby brother is, but then suddenly is twirled upside down and shrieks again, is shushed by Renata, ignores Renata, and giggles uncontrollably until Lukas flips her again and sets her down. Her face is flushed. Milos has a burst of tension run through him there, at the twirling and flipping of his little sister, but he settles himself rather easily. Lukas is not Vladislav. Lukas is not like some of the Ahrouns he has met. Lukas is playing with her like she is a baby cub who has just managed to start walking and eating meat, which is sort of accurate, and Milos... just has to remember.
Lukas is not like his uncle.
Irena wrinkles her nose, but the truth is, it was a longshot to try and get someone to give her a ride, even if that person is Really Strong and it's not like he couldn't carry her without getting tired. But she is then. They all group together, Lukas and Danicka flanking Miloslav and Lukas taking his bag -- only so Danicka can hold her father's hand, of course, which she does, happily, smiling -- and Milos carrying his backpack and his mother's bag, Emanek and Irena carrying the same backpacks they take to school, Renata with the purse -- a very nice purse, actually -- that Danicka sent her for her sixteenth birthday. Renata is trailing a little behind, texting someone on a little cellphone. It isn't a smartphone, just some skinny candybar phone that she can text and take calls and listen to music on, but she's hunched over it like she's been a teenager in this country for years.
Emanek is wolfing down a granola bar when he -- of all people -- gets down the escalator first --
"Emanek, slow down," Milos is calling to him, then, rankled: "Irena, would you grab him before we lose him?"
"What if we want to lose him?" Irena says easily, shrugging, both palms up.
-- and spies some people across the way and goes "HEY LUKAS," much louder than necessary, "ARE THOSE YOUR PARENTS? THEY LOOK LIKE YOU." He's pointing. Renata, at least, is so busy texting she doesn't have time to look mortified, and Sarka is just nudging Irena out of the way a bit to get into the crowd and closer to her youngest before he really does get lost, and
Lukas's parents are looking over towards the sound of their son's name, and the little boy who nailed them as related from twenty yards away.
LukasLukas's parents do, indeed, look like Lukas. Or really it's the other way around; Lukas looks like his parents. Look at his father and one might see a hint of how he'll look in another thirty years or so. There's always an if attached to statements like that, but
it's Christmas, so they don't think of things like that.
So, anyway: parents, their heads turning as their son's name is hollered out by a boy. Perhaps it reminds them of when Lukas was a boy, himself, though Lukas wasn't quite as prone to temper tantrums; just prone to yelling for the sake of yelling. Then again, Lukas also didn't have to deal with losing his father and almost losing his mother at the age of six or eight. And Emanek isn't acting out quite so much anymore, anyway. He's excited: more people! and Lukas has seen his parents too, who are still looking around; confirms their identity when he cups his hands to his mouth
(yelling for the sake of yelling)
and yells "Mom! Dad!" across the luggage carousels. More heads turn. Lukas doesn't care; he puts both his arms in the air and waves, and then his mom sees him and breaks into a smile, then his dad, then Lukas's parents are coming over, and they're of a generation that still dress up a little bit to travel; the sort of people that will be aghast in half an hour or so when Anezka comes off her plane in pajamas. They are in coats and hats and scarves, and Lukas embraces them both at once, then steps back to let everyone else have a turn
while he runs for the carousel, seeing his mother's suitcase wobbling past.
And Jaroslav comes over and shakes Miloslav's hand, then reaches for Sarka's as Marjeta takes Miloslav's next. They're reserved people, the Kvasnickas, but there's a genuine warmth in their handshakes and their smiles, the hug Marjeta trades with Sarka and Sarka's elder daughter. Some of that reserve goes away when Marjeta gets to Emanek. She ruffles his dark hair, beaming, and tells him he's grown again since Halloween,
and this is how Lukas, at least, finds out that his parents spent Halloween with the Musils. Then his mother is hugging Danicka, and then his father is taking her hands and kissing her cheek.
"Dobrý den, dcera," he says, smiling. "Thank you for having us."
DanickaEmanek, thankfully, does not look too much like Lukas. His hair is dark but not jet black, his eyes a tawny hazel with only the sparest flecks of blue and green amidst the gold. He is loud and, yes, quite moody, but things are evening out. He has, for one thing, accepted English as a language he is not loathe to speak. He has made friends at school. The trauma of moving from one country to another, losing two siblings and very nearly losing his mother has been, for the most part, processed and dealt with. Now he just likes being loud. Now he is nomfing a snack and he has gotten a chance to move around freely and he's happier, but he will probably always be a little bit moody, a little bit prone to anger at the hand the world has dealt him, how unfair it all is.
But right now, pointing and talking with his mouth full and being LOUD, he is a little bit reminiscent of Lukas as a boy, noisy and unaffected, unafraid. Whatever else he is, Emanek is fearless of just about anything but the loss of his family, and that fear is so deep it barely even shows. People stare. Emanek could not care less. So he waves heartily at the two Kvasnickas as Lukas shouts at them, yells unnecessarily, beaming, waving both arms. Danicka just covers her face with one hand and laughs, shaking her head.
Then it's time for more greetings, a whole new round of them. There are people shaking hands and Marjeta placing her hands on her knees to lean over and inspect the younger children only to proclaim that they are just so pretty, so handsome, they've grown so much. She laughs with Emanek over his little 'are those them?' joke, and the boy grins because she got it. Then she's straightening to tell Miloslav that Milos has his eyes (and he truly does), as this is the first time she's met him, at least. Danicka embraces them both, exchanging little kisses on cheeks, and it does not seem to bother Miloslav to hear Jaroslav call her dcera. Jaroslav and Miloslav hang back a bit, greeting each other like the friends they have become, talking about how their respective flights were, grousing about this or that. Danicka asks Marjeta how she's been, and about their Thanksgiving, and Sarka breaks up a sudden and ridiculous argument between the two youngest because of some joking comment on Emanek's part that embarrassed and angered Irena and they are both being irrational but, then,
they're kids.
Meanwhile Lukas is yoinking his mother's suitcase off the carousel, searching for his father's, and Milos excuses himself after giving handshakes and a little bow of his head to the Kvasnickas to go search for his own family's luggage, because this is Manly Man Work of Manliness. Somewhere over there, waiting for the various suitcases that belong to the Musil clan and the leather one that belongs to Jaroslav, Milos stands awkwardly and silent for awhile, then glances at Lukas and says: "Your parents seem very nice," he says, and as always, it is hard to tell immediately what he's getting at, what his angle is, what he's thinking behind the words that come out of his mouth.
He will do well in the tribe. He will do well with spirits, too.
His eyes never stop scanning the carousel. "We don't have much money," he says, a little lower. "We are going to make them, and your sister and her man, some things for gifts, but... I am worried they will be offended." He glances sidelong at Lukas again. "Will they be? If so, I can find a way to... get them something finer. I do not want to disrespect them."
Because they're your kin, and you are dangerous, he could mean. But:
"They seem very kind," Milos adds. "And my mother seems convinced that if we make them something it will be charming, but... I want to be sure."
LukasThroughout this little exchange, Milos is barely looking at Lukas, but Lukas looks at him. And so Milos probably misses the way Lukas's eyes suddenly soften and ache. Little enough of it shows elsewhere, to be sure. He is standing with his arms loosely folded over his chest and the shoulder of his coat just a little frayed, and the kids are being kids and the fathers are being fathers and the mothers are being mothers - both generations of them - and
for a little while, the two Garou, the ones that are already truly Garou, have a little moment to themselves. Not to be Garou, really, but just to talk.
"You don't have to give anyone gifts at all, Milos," he says quietly, "but if you did, I think it would mean a lot to everyone if you actually made them yourself. I don't think anyone could possibly be insulted by that. You're a Theurge," he adds, smiling wryly, "so you must know this: when you make a Fetish, you house the spirit in something precious. And more often than not, it's something handmade.
"And at any rate," quieter, "we didn't have a lot of money either when we were growing up. My sister and I, I mean. And I think out of shame, our family didn't really ... make friends with Danicka's. I really regret that now. So don't let some self-imposed embarrassment keep you from your loved ones."
DanickaWhen Lukas says the word Fetish, Milos gives him a quick, sudden look, surprise flickering in his eyes before he quickly controls his features. It isn't shock or panic, just that surprise that has no explanation, and then he's smoothing it over, and he smiles. He nods, because he understands this, and the analogy makes more sense to him than his mother's insistence that Marjeta and Jaroslav will not be offended by the little gifts she is going to help her children make for them and Daniel and Anezka.
Then Lukas discloses that a long time ago, they weren't exactly wealthy either. He doesn't just say that, though: that is not a source of shame or regret. What he regrets is his parents' pride, their shame, and the withdrawal from the Musils.
Milos, as sharp-eyed as his little brother, is looking at Lukas now but spots two small roll-along suitcases sliding down onto the carousel and coming their way. One is blue and green with yellow piping, the other purple with white piping, and he snatches them up when they come by. He gives Lukas a big nod then, then another couple of small ones. "Thank you," he says, guarding his little brother and little sister's suitcases.
Eventually, all of the suitcases come. Lots of them. Marjeta's and Jaroslav's and Milos's and Renata's and Sarka's and Irena's and Emanek's and then Lukas's phone is chiming with a text from his sister that they're on their way to a different baggage claim. And she's insisting they don't all get up and move, it's easier for her and Daniel to get their bags and find the rest of them, stay put, and so on.
By now Miloslav is sitting on a bench with the older of his two (present) children. Since she will not let them run around wild, Sarka has ordered Emanek and Irena to sit down and read. Renata is content with her phone, though occasionally her mother gives her a stop being RUDE look. Danicka has gone back to Lukas, wrapping her arms around his middle, smiling at their family, even the restless and still-kinda-crabby little ones, even the look of vaguely annoyed weariness on Sarka's face as she whispers to Renata to put. the phone. away., even Miloslav's frown of concentration and confusion as he converses with Lukas's parents. Even Milos, who is doing this weird thing where he occasionally gets up and paces around, checking to make sure everyone is here, that everyone's luggage is here, then sitting down again, only to repeat a few minutes later.
She squeezes his torso in her arms, smiling.
LukasMilos, of course, doesn't haul luggage off the carousel alone. The smaller pieces Lukas lets him handle, but the larger ones he gives the boy a hand with. And as the luggage piles up, Lukas privately starts to worry that the van they got, as huge as it is, might not carry everything. The kids have their own roll-alongs. Sarka has one, and Miloslav has one. His parents are sharing luggage, but it's a big one, and then there's Anezka and she's going to bring about seventeen suitcases because he opened his big mouth and told her to pack lots of winter clothes.
When everyone's got their luggage, Danicka is hugging his middle while he frowns at the pile. And somewhere over there the kids are starting to wear a little thin on their mother's nerves, and somewhere over there Miloslav is obviously struggling to keep up a thread of conversation in a way he didn't even a year ago. He's getting older, but his mind is getting older so fast, and everyone knows it even if no one mentions it outside. Jaroslav and Marjeta know it, too: they speak just a little slower, and they speak of familiar things, older things. Jaroslav resists the urge to strike up a debate to pass time.
And Lukas puts his hand over Danicka's, squeezing gently, looking back at her as she squeezes his middle in return. His worrying-about-something half-frown turns into a smile. He drops his brow to hers and nuzzles her for a second,
and Irca makes an urk, urk sound in her throat that gets her frowned ferociously at by her otherwise-text-happy sister, and Lukas laughs and straightens just in time to feel his phone buzz in his pocket.
"Hello," he says, and there's indistinct but noisy speech from the other end, "oh yeah, we're at carousel 6. Terminal 3, yep. Where are you? Oh... oh, I see you!" His arm flies up so fast he nearly clocks Danicka on the nose, and he waves. "We're over here."
And then Anezka is heading over, two big suitcases and Daniel in tow (two more big suitcases behind him), breaking into a silly little trot-run as she gets close. HI, she yells, HI EVERYONE, which of course delights the noisier kids, but makes Marjeta look like she might want to crawl under a rock. Five feet away Anezka simply drops her bags, making Daniel scramble to catch them; launches herself at her brother, hugs him, moves on to Danicka, hugs her, hugs her parents, skids to a stop because he hasn't really met the Musils since she was about ten, sticks her skinny arm out and shakes hands with Miloslav, Sarka, then the kids.
"I'm Anezka," she says, three or four times. "This is Daniel. God, it's cold here."
"You haven't even been outside," Lukas points out.
"Yeah but the deplaning bridge! It was cold."
"It was," Daniel agrees, sounding zen now that he's saved the bags.
Jaroslav clears his throat and begins buttoning his coat. "Perhaps we should go," he suggests, "now that we're all here."
DanickaIt is a lot of luggage. There are twelve people here, all told, and most of them are adults, whose clothes are bigger, who have to pack gifts, who are simply more burdened with Stuff. Danicka sees him frowning at the pile and just smiles to herself, grinning a little, cuz she was right. She's glad, though, for the big stupid van and everyone being together. They rented it for the week. That plus her car and Lukas's car should allow for big family outings as well as smaller groups. They'll be able to take the two cars out on that night she's planned for the adults to go have dinner while Renata and Milos watch the younger two and rent something from Netflix and eat pizza and popcorn and make blanket forts and try to get Kandovany to let them pet her. But it'll also give them the van for the last-minute shopping trip to the mall and Walgreens for stocking stuffers and whatever else they need.
It'll work. It's perfect. With all the random things that will be sour or angry, it's somehow so perfect, so unexpected, so not-at-all what she thought her life could be at any point. But there it is.
HI EVERYONE, yells Anezka, bursting onto the scene with her longsuffering boyfriend. Danicka actually lets go of her husband and waves, grinning. It did take an FPS and some hot cocoa for her to relax around Lukas's sister, but it was a single hurdle, and they are fine friends now, and she likes Daniel, and of course they were all Skyping on Anezka's last birthday, the four of them. Danicka quickly gets out of the way so Anezka can glomp her brother, then laughs and squeezes the other woman. She starts giving a round of introductions, even though Anezka seems to have it well in hand and it's not like anyone can't tell that she's Lukas's sister, but still.
Jaroslav rises and suggests they go and the kids perk up, scrambling to their feet to get ready, temporarily uncaring that they will just be crammed into a van for the drive out to Stickney. The kids all grab their own bags, and Milos takes his mother's suitcase as well, and Danicka takes her father's, and Jaroslav insists on taking his and his wife's, and so Lukas has to help Anezka and Daniel with their stuff, and soon enough:
8 adults and 4 children of both Czech and Garou descent tromp through all the various rails and shuttles until they finally reach the big pale-gray monstrosity that Lukas rented.
At this point there is an interlude where Danicka is warming up the car and the children are being arranged and Lukas and Jaroslav and Anezka are debating how to properly pack all the luggage while Milos stands nearby, huffing steam into the air, just waiting for someone to make a decision already, and Danicka shouts back that they can't stack it so high or they won't be able to see out the back, then Irena pops up from the back seat holding a couple of bungee cords and asks:
"What are these?"
And Lukas just lights up and calls her a genius child, that's perfect, where did you find those, and she beams with the totally unwarranted praise. Milos, the climber, is up on the top of the van before anyone can tell him, and Lukas is handing him suitcases and they are securing at least two of the biggest ones on top and Lukas is finally getting into the front seat, rubbing his hands together and grinning at Danicka like,
See? See? I told you we didn't have to sit on luggage or take extra cars.
The engine rumbles to life as Sarka and Renata check seatbelts and Miloslav stares out the window.
"I know a song!" Irena chirps, and Milos groans. It's covered by the sound of Irena launching boldly into This is the song that doesn't ennnnd...
and of course Anezka joins in.
LukasAnd they're scarcely out of the parking lot and onto the freeway when Lukas is vetoing the singalong, saying No. No. No. No in a steadily descending litany of negation, you've sung that six times already and that is enough. Then he's punching the radio on and finding some top40 channel where it's all teenybopper all the time, and Irena might be a proto-werewolf but she's still ten years old, so this suits her fine, and Renata's trying to act like she's way too cool for this sort of crap but of course she's not, while the adults calmly grin and bear it. Then Danicka figures out how to adjust the balance so that only the back speakers get the song. This is much better.
"So I thought we could all go back to our place," Lukas calls into the back of the van - and he does have to call, because there's a lot of length in a twelve-passenger van, "and have a little late supper. You guys must be hungry."
"We're starving!" Anezka calls from the second-to-last row.
"I think we've got some potato bacon soup from Czech Kitchens," he glances at Danicka to make sure, "and we can swing by the Jewel to grab a roast chicken and maybe a couple meatloafs. Then if you guys want to head back to the hotels Danicka and I can drive you, but if the kids want to stay with us we've got airbeds downstairs.
"Or if you guys all want to sleep over tonight," he offers, "we can probably swing that too. Might have to pile some kids on the couch or the floor, though."
DanickaSix times is enough and Irena is just laughing, the damage done, til anyone who knows about these things -- which might only be Lukas and Milos, which might only be Milos, which might include Danicka -- may wonder if she was born on an eclipse night, she's so like a Ragabash in some ways.
There is a lot of Adele and a lot of Pumped-Up Kicks on this radio station, the same stuff that gets replayed 8 times an hour on most popular stations, and soon enough Danicka figures out the electronics to let the adults have some sanity. Milos whispers something in Renata's ear and she finally puts the phone away and despite bouncing in his seat and laughing, despite all the hollering and noise, about ten minutes into the drive Emanek falls asleep against his mom's side, his mouth slack. It's just been a long day for him already.
Danicka nods to confirm the soup. "It's not fake Czech either," she assures the various family members. "We get food there all the time. And kolaches, if I'm too busy to bake. But we can do most of the cooking at home, and your rooms have little kitchenettes, but I figure most of the time we'll eat together at the house or go out."
Lukas talks about hotel rooms and airbeds and Danicka reaches over and ruffles his hair on the back of his head a little. The whole plan is for the kids to stay with them, and that's what the kids are expecting, and Sarka argued with her over that until Danicka relented and said she'd get her a room with two beds just in case. Sarka knows her children better than Danicka does. "Sweetie," she reminds him, "I think we'd have to buy a few more airbeds to fit everyone even if we just dumped the kids in the basement." She laughs, and leans back, turning to people: "We will, though. You can all stay with us any night while you're here. It doesn't matter if the rooms are empty a night here or there. So just... everyone do what makes you most comfortable and we'll figure out logistics as we go."
Nobody, it turns out, is too worried about it. Anezka and Daniel are, though they don't prattle on about it, grateful for a room of their own away from parents and siblings and children and strangers. Jaroslav and Marjeta and Miloslav would prefer not-an-airbed, and Danicka thinks that maybe they should go ahead and create a permanent guest room with an actual bed and everything, but that -- like expanding the bathroom -- is a future project.
On the way some more logistics are discussed, and back and forth is had until Danicka gets Lukas to agree to take everyone to the hotel so they can drop their things off and check in before their bellies are full and , and then go back to the house, and he can make a quick meat run while Danicka is helping the kids settle in and giving her half-sister and the children a tour of the house, letting Kandovany out. He is given the job of Getting Meat. This is good. Everyone can settle in and be warm and together and the cat can come out and then run and hide again from all the people with their tromping feet and loud voices, and he will come back with meat and feed them all, all of them, til they are fat and happy and falling asleep on each other.
Danicka, as though sensing this train of thought, or something similar to it, looks over and smiles at him. They're taking their exit, and the car has gotten a little quieter, the pressure to converse fading, the excitement wearing off. Renata is playing cat's cradle with Irena, and Milos is talking to his mother, who is stroking Emanek's hair. Anezka of course is talking rather steadily to her boyfriend and her parents and Miloslav -- no one has told her that it's pretty certain what's wrong with him is alzheimer's, but she is no fool and she's figuring it out, asking him to tell her what he remembers of her and her brother as kids. Danicka ends up supplementing one of the stories with her own memories when her father pauses, frowning and saying Wait... when he gets a detail wrong and it derails him, frustrates him,
scares him.
Emanek wakes up with a little gasp when they go over a pothole and looks around, asking if they're there yet, and his mother tells him Almost. Irena draws patterns in the fog by her window. Daniel wraps his arm around Anezka, and Marjeta strikes up a conversation with Sarka about her other two children, the older ones, the ones back in the Republic. Danicka reaches over to hold Lukas's hand across the way as he drives, happy.
Soon enough they've passed another exit, the one they'd usually get off on, because the hotel they're taking the family to is fifteen minutes north or their house. The truth is, their house is in a decent neighborhood, but the neighborhoods around them aren't so great. It took Danicka awhile to find even the one she did, which is called the Carleton, and she waffled for a long time over whether or not to spring for suites, since they would all be spending most of their non-sleeping time at the house anyway. In the end it came down to three standard queen rooms and one room with a pair of double beds. They are, however, nice rooms. It's a quaint hotel, fancy for this side of Chicagoland, though the outside looks rather run-down. It's a pretty good area, though, and all the rooms have kitchens, and it's non-smoking, and it's all the things Danicka had to insist on.-- like being able to get three rooms on the same floor.
They pull up to the curb and it takes awhile to get suitcases down and moved inside, takes awhile to check into the three rooms, takes awhile to get the kids and everyone back in the van, and by then Anezka is all but howling that she's so so hungry, so Emanek produces another granola bar to offer her, which just cracks everyone up as they head back south, back down to the true home, the real home, the house that Lukas bought for Danicka, the den she made warm for themselves and their families and their future cubs.
They haven't even decorated yet. No tree is put up, because Danicka wants them to go pick one out. The only nod to Christmas so far are the multicolored lights that Lukas staple-gunned along the eaves earlier, in gleeful anticipation of the Big Visit, and a traditional wreath on the front door tied with a big red ribbon. The front yard and back yard are both heavy with snow, the walkways scraped and salted and swept clear.
The hotel they drop the luggage off at is actually quite nice. It is older - well, it is outright old, as are most of the turn-of-the-century houses in that area - but there's a sense of history accompanying that age. It's about a block or so off Oak Park's downtown, which has a sense of bright, clean, environmentally-conscious peri-urbanness immediately familiar to Anezka, so accustomed to the endless interconnected cities and towns of southern California. Less so to their parents, who have spent most of the last twenty-some-odd years in New York City.
As they leave Oak Park, the area becomes more variable. They pass through some areas that are not so nice. They pass through some areas that are largely uninhabited - open fields and forest preserves. Then they pass into Stickney, which is small and working class but safe, and settled - largely by serendipity - by other eastern European families, Poles and Slovakians and Czechs. As they pass Czech Kitchens, Lukas points it out to his passengers, his family-kin. Then it's two left turns, almost consecutive, and they're pulling to a stop in front of the den.
In truth, their little house is not a dream house - at least not in human terms. It is huge and sprawling. It does not sit on acres of wooded lakeside. It is not lovingly designed. It does not even have the charm of Sarka's little yellow cake-house, nor the slightly timeworn dignity of Miloslav's Victorian, nor the instantly recognizable facade of Jaroslav and Marjeta's brownstone, nor the size and brand-spankin-newness of those stucco-walled, tile-roofed, architecturally confused southern Californian McMansions Anezka and Daniel are starting to look at, because Anezka is out of school at the end of the year and Daniel is already working and they think even between her loan repayments and junior litigator's starting salary they might be able to grab something up while the housing market is still tanked.
It never for a moment occurs to Lukas to be embarrassed or ashamed, though. If anything, he's proud of their wonky little house; their little home that, even to outsiders, even to the most spiritually blind of humans, feels like a den. There is a palpable warmth in the place. A sense of safety and, indeed, power. Something not to be trifled with lives here, protects this place, guards it, holds it dear. This house is loved, and taken care of, and it in turn takes care of all who are invited within.
It is cold and crisp and clear when Lukas opens the door, reminding everyone to button their coats up and tie their scarves. Then he jumps out onto the driveway, coming around to help their more elderly passengers out of the awkwardly high van. It's a converted cargo van, in truth, and bears more resemblance to its industrial cousin than to the sedan-chassis'd minivans scooting around the roads.
The kids need no help, though, tumbling out of the back door as well as the side when they run out of patience with the adults, who are so slow, and when the van is empty Lukas hands Danicka his keys, which are already out, and tells her to take them inside while he gets the luggage. Daniel hangs around, wanting to help, but is summarily shooed off. I got it, I got it, Lukas keeps saying, go in and get something to eat. Anezka groans again that her stomach is going to turn into a singularity, is going to become a micro-blackhole and suck everyone up. Emanek is wide-eyed. He just learned about black holes from the (English!) book he read. He wants to know if that can actually happen, and Anezka assures him gravely that it can, indeed, and Lukas calls from across the roof of the van,
"Stop it, do you remember when you told me I'd grow a watermelon in my belly if I ate too many seeds? I was neurotic for years,"
and Anezka is laughing as she herds the kids ahead of herself, following them and her parents and Danicka's parent-and-aunt and Danicka into the house.
Danicka[I think he meant "It is NOT huge and sprawling"...]
DanickaLukas points out the Czech kitchens and Danicka points down the road and says that around the corner there's a dentist whose name is Musil, but she still uses her dentist in the city -- for now, she says at the end of that. Soon enough they're home, though, and the kids are bursting to be let out so they do, in fact, burst out of the van. Lukas refuses to let Daniel help and, overhearing this as she's aiding her father up the walk, Danicka looks over and gives her husband a Look, all raised eyebrows and gentle warning. "Milacku," she calls back, "we can get the kids' suitcases. I need you to go get meat!"
Oh, right. The meat.
The kids, after all, are being instructed to carry their own things by Sarka, while Anezka is claiming she's going to turn into a black hole, which has Emanek's eyes bulging. Lukas calls to her and Danicka leans to Anezka, stage-whispering: "He's still neurotic about that. I catch him spitting them out."
Lukas"Oh, well, who wouldn't spit watermelon seeds out?" Lukas retorts. "Besides Kando."
Right. The meat. But Lukas stays long enough to haul the largest and heaviest of the suitcases off the roof - there aren't that many of them, and they are mostly Anezka's, but later on she'll open it up to reveal that they're mostly gifts for everybody, things to stick under the tree. When the last of them are down he steps back, letting Daniel take over. Danicka catches him eyeing the slender man doubtfully, as though he thinks he might come home to find Daniel's broken his back. Or hip. Or a rib. Or something.
But then he steps back, and this is in a way a relinquishing of the alpha-male role, even if he doesn't consciously see it that way. Or, more accurately: it's a softening of that stance, allowing a different male to take care of his family, his pack, while he's aware. An act of trust. Lukas goes over and gives his parents another hug, then one for Danicka, telling her she'll be right back. But then Anezka is looking at him all hike-browed wondering aloud if she was going to get a hug from her long-lost brother, so of course he has to hug her, and then the two younger kids demand their due, and
many hugs later, Lukas protests that he's just going to the Jewel, he'll be back in like twenty minutes; taking his keys back from Danicka and going over to unlock and roll up the garage door. "Be right back," he promises again, gets in, drives off.
More like thirty, forty minutes later, he's back. He staggers up the steps with something like fifty bags in each hand, knocking with his forehead, calling through the door and over the sound of voices inside:
"Let me in!"
- sounding roughly as plaintive as Kandovany when she meows to be let in the bedroom in the morning.
Danicka"Kando doesn't eat watermelon," Danicka replies simply, as Lukas lowers the suitcases that weren't unloaded at the Carleton down to the waiting hands of Daniel or Milos or whoever. The adults are headed inside now, into the narrow entryway, the kids hanging tight to their smaller suitcases and waiting with surprising patience to go inside. Of course, Irena and Emanek have temporarily abandoned their suitcases altogether to go peering at the pristine snow-covered front yard that they have been forbidden from playing in until they get into some boots and several more layers. They look at it like they're hungry, eye the sky above to see how much daylight they have left.
The second Look that Lukas gets from his wife, his mate, is when she gives him a stare that distinctly says stoppit! as his face betrays what he's thinking about Daniel. Truthfully, she's worried about Anezka catching Lukas, or Daniel being offended and having no way of retaliating, no way of bringing it up, no room as Kin or as non-blood-relative to anyone to say dude, seriously? to Lukas. She takes Lukas's hands in her gloved ones when he comes over and stands up higher, kissing him on the face as the kids go on ahead after the grandparents and Sarka and Anezka and Daniel, smiling at him warmly.
"Miluju te," she whispers, just out of earshot, a few moments before
Anezka wants a hug and the two little ones want a hug and Lukas is finally able to go. She laughs, and they all tromp inside, shaking snow from boots, taking off shoes, going up the narrow stairwell to the first floor. He's going to miss Anezka's first reaction to his little house, he's going to miss the first few minutes of the kids tearing through checking everything out, but that is the burden of being the meat-hunter, the food-giver, the alpha male provider. The door closes and he drives off for close to an hour.
Inside, this is what happens while he is hunting meat and bringing home food: Marjeta and Jaroslav and Miloslav are taking off coats and gloves and scarves, commenting on how cozy everything has become, Miloslav telling Danicka the outside looks good, but from the sound of it, he doesn't quite remember what has changed. She shows him the kitchen cupboards and says that Lukas did what he said, see, and now this one is better balanced, and they fixed that one.
The closet under the stairs is packed suddenly with coats, all stuffed together in there. Danicka lets Kando out of her little carrier in the kitchen and the cat huddles inside for awhile. The kids peer in, try to lure her out, but Danicka tells them to just hang back, she'll come out when she feels safe. "She's a rescue cat," Danicka explains, quietly, as though Kandovany could overhear and be ashamed. Her hands guide the rambunctious younger two back to the living room. "She is more likely to try and make friends with you if you ignore her for awhile and let her come to you."
Sarka is demanding that the kids stop poking around until after they've taken their luggage to their room, asking Danicka again and again if she's sure it's okay, and of course it's okay, "Lukas would have all of you staying here if we had the room and enough beds. He thinks everyone should just sleep in a pile on the floor, I think."
This is very close to the truth.
So Milos and Emanek are shown the den that is off of the dining room, the curtains they'll use as doors, which Emanek thinks is cool and Milos thinks was very thoughtful. They put their suitcases in there, and Milos ends up staring at the window that faces the front of the house for a long time til Danicka catches him, and smiles, and gives him a nod. Milos grins. "In a little while," she says quietly to him, once Emanek has run off again, "you should introduce yourself to our oak out back."
Irena and Renata have the 'real' room, Irena says with superiority in her tone. Her suitcase has already exploded because she wants to find her boots and the flannel-lined pants she has and her snow gloves and her hat and scarf, but of course she can only find one glove. Renata has already taken over part of the little downstairs bathroom, her toiletry kit on the counter and her face to the mirror to touch up her makeup, because she has become a girl who wears makeup pretty much every day now, which drives her mother a little batty. The grandparents occupy the couch, and since they have all already had a tour, Danicka shows Daniel and Anezka and Sarka (and Milos, since he tags along) the upstairs, the study, the water fountain that bubbles along on the desk. Milos notices that, too.
"MAMINKA!" Irena is hollering from downstairs. "I CAN'T FIND MY OTHER GLOVE."
Sarka gives Danicka an apologetic look and heads downstairs again to help search all the luggage and several coat pockets for Irena's other glove, and Danicka heads downstairs too after Anezka's stomach gives an audible growl.
Ten minutes before Lukas gets home Danicka is texting him going Where are you? Anezka just asked me if Kando is a mouser, she's so hungry. But he's home soon, he says he's almost there, he just had to pick up a few things, which she knew meant everything in the store, and sooner or later the garage door is rattling and Danicka instantly says "Oh thank god," aloud, blurting it, "Renata, Milos, could you set the table? Just poke around, if you can't find something in the kitchen I'll come help." The table, which has an two extra leaves set in it and ten chairs around it (which are not matched) and a card table in the kitchen and two folding chairs for the two youngest.
Irena and Emanek can not help set up for dinner. When Lukas drives down his street, for the first time in Ever, his front yard is as busy as he's seen so many others. And there is a ten-year-old with blonde hair streaming out from under a knitted cap with a poof of yarn on top and ear-flaps and poof-balls hanging from the ties, who is wearing mismatched gloves and one is far too big, tromping around in the snow. And there is, with her, a six year old boy in a fleece hat with a long tail that hangs down his back and a puffy blue coat. And... there is also an eight year old girl who he's pretty sure lives across the street and a few houses down, whose snow suit is pink and thick. There's also a boy of five who is listening intently to Emanek's instructions on how to properly build a snow fort, and the once-pristine bed of snow is so demolished you can see grass underneath now.
The eight year old girl (whose name is Jessamyn, of all things) thinks that New York sounds so awesome, and as soon as Lukas pulls into the drive and opens up the garage door Emanek and his new friend dive into the fort like this hides them somehow,
so of course Lukas gets pelted with snowballs as soon as he gets out of the car. Most of them hit the car, or his knees, or the van, or the driveway. Very few even make it past the halfway mark of the yard, so the boys end up leaving their fort to attack from a better vantage point, and Irena starts saying STOP IT EMANEK WE AREN'T PLAYING THAT WITH YOU and is, of course, ignored,
as Lukas heads for the door and the boys run out of the pre-packed snowballs, but he doesn't have to call or headbang the door for long. Danicka heard the garage door and is opening the front for him, hurrying him in, asking him if he left anything on Jewel's shelves, good lord. As he goes inside, she calls out to the kids: "Five more minutes!"
AWWW.
"You'll be here all week!" she says back, waving away their disappointment. "You can get all the frostbite you want in that time, but five minutes and you're coming inside." And that is that.
LukasWhen Lukas pulls back into the driveway, sees the kids in the front yard, the snowfort they've built, the friends they've made,
he just about dies from the happy. It doesn't even matter that they pelt him with snowballs when he gets out of the car, making him immediately duck and cover behind the coupe, yelling Very Dramatically that he's hit, he's been hit, onoz! And meanwhile Irena's yelling they're not playing that, but of course Lukas is behind the car scooping up snow in his gloved hands, and when Irena comes around to see if her great big mentor-to-be is actually hit and wounded
she gets the poof-hat smacked off her head by a well-aimed snowball. Before she can yell he's firing off new snowballs at Emanek and the other kids, gathering them up so fast they mostly disintegrate to showers of snow by the time they reach anyone.
So by the time Danicka comes to get the kids, Lukas is not only staggering up the steps with most of Jewel-Osco in his hands, he's also got Irena on his back growling as she chomps his shoulder; he's got Emanek and the neighborhood kids showering him with snow and shrieking in glee. Five minutes! Danicka announces, and there's a chorus of disappointment, even as Lukas shakes snow off his head and yells over his shoulder that he'll have his vengeance! He will, mark his words, muahahaha!
Which, unfortunately, makes the five-year-old burst into tears. And Irena drops off his back and rolls her eyes, very grown-up at eight, and tells him not to be such a baby before tearing down the steps and back to the snowfight.
"I just figured," Lukas is saying meanwhile, a little out of breath and still dropping snow with every step, "I might as well stock up so we don't have to keep running to the store. So we'll have more time to just spend together. And like... ice skate and snowball fight. Oh god there's snow sliding down my back quick quick quick let me put these down so I can -- "
he thumps the bags down on the table, kicks his shoes off, and runs up the stairs.
DanickaIrena's shriek is very non-Ahroun-like, but the way she runs straight at Lukas and nearly headbutts him in the gut is. She wriggles away and is running off to grab her New Friend by the hand and grabbing snow while, suddenly, there is an all-out war in the front yard. Not for long, though. Danicka is coming to the door and shouting a time limit and Lukas has fifty bags and a ten year old to carry and she is ducking behind the door to not get snow all over her.
He muahahahahas. The neighborhood boy Emanek has befriended starts crying because he thinks he's really going to get attacked by this strangely scary man that Emanek is friends with, but suddenly -- perhaps a little shockingly -- Emanek turns to him and slings his arm around him. Irena calls him a baby and Emanek just shoots a death glare at her. From Danicka's mouth comes: "Irca!", sharp and unamused. From Emanek, however, comes a surprisingly forceful: "That is not okay, Irena! You know it! Vem si to zpátky," he all but snaps, demanding despite his age, his small voice, while he holds the sniffling 'baby' in his arm so he won't run away.
Irena, dropped back to the ground, stands stock still a moment, defiant, then looks at the five year old and says: "You aren't a baby. But stop crying," as though it bothers her. "He's only playing."
But by this time, Danicka -- who lingers in the doorway only to ensure that the children don't tear into each other or run home crying to their parents and cause a huge neighborhood drama -- has turned away to start brushing snow off of Lukas. She closes the door and goes upstairs with him. Downstairs, behind them and outside, there is a very small and not-yet-changed cub who is reminded of what she is, what her uncle is. Her brother, who forgets it a few moments later, does not understand what he is as kin yet. He does not know how he keeps Irena from becoming a monster. He does not know that his other uncle is a monster, he would never think Milos is, he does not think his aunt Sabina is a monster, but he knows
it isn't fair to call a little boy a baby because Uncle Lukas is scary sometimes. Even if he doesn't mean it. And he will yell at his stupid sister if she's a jerk about it.
Lukas tells Danicka he figured he'd stock up, and she laughs. "You do know our cupboards weren't exactly bare before, right? If we have to go to the store again in the next month I'll be surprised..." and then he helps at the top of the stairs, wiggling, putting bags down in the living room and kicking his shoes down the stairs like he's Emanek and tearing off up the stairs. Danicka laughs and shakes her head, and people start getting into the bags to help put things away,
and from the upstairs window, Lukas can see Irena making snow angels, and Jessamyn, and he can see how red Emanek's nose has gotten. From upstairs, he can hear his sister and her male, his mate and his parents, a mother and her two older children. Plates clinking and bags rustling as they're unpacked.
LukasLukas is not upstairs very long. Only the great and important and much-relished duty of being meatbringer managed to trump the draw of family; now that that balance is lost, he can't bear to be away for very long. Soon enough he's stripped off his outerwear and his wet shirt, put on a fresh one. They hear him coming down the stairs, thumping down two at a time in his bare feet. The house suddenly feels small and full of life, which it is; he comes down and glomps Danicka from behind, kisses her behind the ear and then tells people that there's pecan pie in that bag, no, that one, and vanilla ice cream in that one.
The places are being set. He got raw meat too, chicken and beef and a whole leg of lamb they'll roast some night, but there's stuff from Jewel's deli: two rotisserie chickens and a meatloaf. They go on the table, ferried over by one of the older kids. Meanwhile the soup is getting reheated on the stove, and with this many people in the house it's not possible for everyone to talk to everyone else, not possible for anyone to attend to everyone. So there are little conversations going on all over,
Lukas's mother and sister talking while they put together a salad because Marjeta refuses to have no greens whatsoever on the table; Daniel and Sarka getting acquainted, the former holding a bottle of beer that Jaroslav had earlier dug out of his son's fridge stash; the younger kids still outside, their shrieks occasionally overcoming the double-layer windows; Miloslav and Jaroslav over in the dining room where it's a little quieter, talking about yesteryear, the latter occasionally and gently inserting a reference to recent events, gradually enough that the former's failing mind can follow.
"I think it's ready," Lukas says, stirring the soup one last time and turning the heat off. "Renata, can you put a pot thingie down on the table? I'm going to carry this over."
And he does, and the others drift in to join the fathers behind him. Everyone settles, largely at random, while Sarka goes to call her kids in. They can't hear her words, but they can hear her tone: pure Mom, no room for argument. So many parents today bargain with their children, ask their children's permission for everything. Sarka is of a firmer breed. She tells, and the kids come in, yelling goodbye to their new friends, shedding coats and shoes and washing their hands before coming to the table, plates in hand to pick up food before retreating to their little table in the kitchen.
By then everyone else is seated; Lukas and Danicka in their usual places, their parents on either side, the siblings and older children down and around the sides. Jaroslav is standing, enthusiastically and expertly carving the chickens. Lukas is corkscrewing open a bottle of red, which the adults will share and, if their mother permits, the teenagers will taste.
"I'm so happy you're all here," Lukas says. If he's said this before, he's forgotten; he means every word, even if he stumbles over one or two. "I really am. I like - I just really enjoy seeing you all in the same house, at the same time."
DanickaTheir cupboards and their fridge are overflowing now. He even bought fruit, because Danicka likes fruit, and some vegetables, no matter how suspicious he is of them. Cereals in bright colored boxes. Milk. More milk, because they had some. More butter and baking things because doesn't Renata bake? And meat. So much meat that the freezer is stuffed, and ice cream, and a pecan pie, and Danicka is laughing while he hugs her, holding his arms over her middle, and people are
drinking a little and relaxing, talking, making a salad, stirring the reheated soup. Sarka is getting the kids to come in because it will take at least five more minutes to get them undressed and washed up and Emanek's nose clear of running and Irena calmed down enough that she doesn't knock over everything she comes close to, including people. Renata lays down a trivet -- the 'pot thingy' -- for the soup and Milos is helping his mother herd the kids and listening, with interest, as they tell him about Jessamyn and Ethan, their new friends, and how Jessamyn said Irena could come over and play at her house if it was okay with her mom and how Ethan has the Lego Hogwarts Castle, maminka.
Eventually, people get seated. Adults and teenagers here, children there, within Sarka's earshot and out of the corner of her eye. She has no comment on wine, seeming surprised and a little confused when she gets a questioning look as the bottle hovers over Milos and Renata's glasses. She waves a hand. "Of course, of course," still quite accented. Irena asks if she and Emanek can have some, and Sarka calmly tells her: "A little, if there is some left and after you've eaten some."
But Irena peeks through the adults and goes: "Oh, it's red," and seems uninterested after that. Emanek just says: "I want a beer." and Milos just says: "Eat your dinner."
So: people settle into their seats. Danicka is holding Lukas's hand for a moment because she thinks if he doesn't have something to hold onto in the midst of all his happiness, he might explode. So he voices it. He is sitting back down after serving wine, and Jaroslav is starting to pass the meat, and the Musils hesitate a moment, used to a moment of silence before the meal but, it seems, unoffended. It is a family thing, for them. And it is okay for it to be only for their part of the family, when they are home. So meat is passed, and soup is spooned into bowls.
"We both do," Danicka says after him, quietly. "It's... more than I ever expected."
She does not get more emotional than that. Even with her family, even as close as everyone is, Danicka holds the full depth of her feeling very close to her chest, very private. And because they are family, and close, no one pushes any further. They understand, and Anezka catches Lukas's eye to grin at him, making a face, and Miloslav reaches to hold his daughter's hand beneath the table. The kids are silent for the first time in a few hours now, ravenous for food in a way they hadn't realized. The adults, in fact, keep only the slightest level of conversation around the dinner table after that, picking two chickens clean and discovering what the meatloaf tastes like crumbled and put in the soup. Another bottle of wine is opened, simply because there are so many of them, but this one does not get drained -- and Renata and her brother are only permitted the one glass, and the two little ones permitted only a few mouthfuls in the bottoms of their glasses.
Danicka, near the end of the meal, spies past Sarka that Emanek is feeding tiny bits of chicken to Kandovany under the table and, for once,
just lets it go. Let Kando get fat and spoiled for a week. Let Emanek make friends with the animal in the oldest, most natural way known to living creatures. She holds Lukas's hand and looks at him as their family finishes dinner and just hangs out, talking. Anezka has gotten Renata to come out of her shell a little, because Anezka has that gift, and Daniel has actually found common ground with Milos: football. Real football, which Daniel keeps calling soccer. Miloslav is actually dozing a little in his chair.
Danicka smiles at Lukas, her eyes relaxed with warmth and with wine and with food and with love. They close once, open slowly, and she squeezes his hand. She cannot say what she wants to right now. She adores him. She never thought she would have this, any of this, in her life. She would not have this without him.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
LukasDanicka doesn't need to say anything. Her love is in her hand, in her eyes, in the slow way she blinks, the warm laziness that settles over them. Anyone at this table can see that the two of them, the two who have made this small house their home, are in love. Anyone can feel that love at the core of everything else; the foundation on which this den was made and filled, around which this family has gathered.
And there isn't really a necessity for speeches or grandiose gestures. There are little conversations all around the table. No one thinks badly of Miloslav for dozing at the table. No one tells Emanek to stop feeding the cat, you'll spoil her. It's Christmas. It's okay if Kando is just a little bit spoiled. She's a rescue cat. She, too, has had precious little happiness in her life before this.
The chickens are picked clean. The soup is more or less gone. The wine is one and a half bottles gone, and dinner winds down, and Jaroslav is yawning, his body clock an hour ahead of Chicago's. There's a stirring as everyone senses at the same time that it's time to go back to the hotel, time to disperse and find their sleeping-spots, curl up and sleep with full bellies,
even though in reality Anezka and Daniel are on west coast time, and it's early still for them, and they're totally going to ride the El into town and check out the nightlife.
Still. They pile into the van with the parents. Sarka hugs her kids goodnight, checks to make sure they all have their toothbrushes and clean underwear and the like. Jaroslav gives Danicka's father a hand up into the van, making it seem somehow like a brotherly clasp of hands rather than assistance to the weak. It's the least he can do, when many years ago Miloslav offered him friendship rather than charity. They are, indeed, friends. They are realizing that they always have been; they simply lost touch for a while.
After some discussion Daniel and Marjeta, who are the most sober of the bunch, drive. Marjeta takes Lukas's car and Daniel takes the Infiniti, and Lukas manages not to warn him to bring it back unharmed or else, and they drive off with the kids waving and Lukas's arm around Danicka to keep her warm.
When they go back in, Danicka goes to help the kids prepare their airbeds while Lukas loads the dishwasher. The little ones brush their teeth and wash their faces and get in their PJs, tearing around the house laughing a little while longer before hugging their aunt goodnight. Emanek is out almost immediately. Irca tiptoes back out after a while, gets "caught" by Lukas and hauled back to bed under his arm like a small log, giggling and kicking her feet the whole way. This time she stays. When Lukas comes back out Renata is talking with her aunt, crosslegged on the living room couch, and Milos is hanging out by the windows.
So Lukas goes to him, puts his hand out and touches the windowpane. As cold as it is outside, the window feels faintly warm. He smiles at Milos and says:
"Would you like to meet them?"
Lukas[AHEM. changes.
"Still. They shuffle out the door with the parents. Sarka hugs her kids goodnight, checks to make sure they all have their toothbrushes and clean underwear and the like. Jaroslav gives Danicka's father a hand getting into the car..."]
Danicka
It is, in truth, still pretty early, but it's pitch black outside by the time they all stir from the table and start to clean up. It's only eight or so by Chicago's clock, but nine by the New Yorkers' internal timepieces and a long, busy, draining day besides. The sun was close to setting when the kids were outside with the snow, but as soon as it blipped beneath the horizon it got very dark, and with a few sips of wine and full bellies and exhausted bodies, it is not hard to get Irena and Emanek into bed. In fact, it's a little closer to nine by the time they are settled down, by the time the dining table is cleared, by the time they are washed up and changed, by the time they are changed into pajamas, by the time Danicka has silenced any argument about staying up.
"You need your rest," she says firmly.
"But Renka --"
"-- is sixteen and knows when she needs to rest. You are ten and it is past your bedtime."
Irena is sullen, frowning at Danicka in the mirror for a moment. "It isn't fair."
"No," Danicka says easily, brushing the girl's hair because she wants to, because she likes it, because it is a way of showing the girl affection right now. "But it is how it is. And tomorrow we're going to go ice-skating in Millenium Park and buy a Christmas tree, and if you turn out to be tired and cranky, you will have no fun, and that won't be fair to you or anyone else. So you just have to decide what is more important."
Irena thinks on that, though she's still frowning. Danicka kisses her cheek after she sets down the brush. "Come. Go try to bite your uncle before bed."
Emanek, already ready for bed, is hanging off of Lukas's arm, hands clasped over his bicep, at that moment. They do roughhouse a little, but Danicka makes them all stop playing before the kids get too worked up all over again, and it's off to bed. Emanek, yes, wiggles a little and then crashes out completely, a limp lump of boy-child. The rest of the house must stay a bit quiet, since he only has curtains for doors, but Renata says he (totally) will not wake up, he's like a rock.
Irca, on the other hand, scowls and says her mom lets her get up, after Lukas scoops her into his arms and marches her back into her bedroom. "Only after everyone else is asleep," Renata chimes in, and
the little girl lets Lukas tuck her in, sighing, trying very hard to be still, whispering "Will you stay with me?" to him, like it's a secret, like she doesn't want anyone to know this weakness. So he stays in there with her, sitting on the floor beside her airbed, until she falls asleep, which really isn't all that long. Out on the couch Danicka is sitting with her legs tucked up, smiling at something Renata is confessing to her. (It involves a boy named Seth and all of that texting earlier, in fact.) Danicka is mostly listening, her arm propped on the back of the couch. Her eyes flick to Lukas when he passes through, but he can tell that they're Talking, and with a glance she knows that Irena is asleep now, and he goes in to the kitchen, where Milos is looking out the windows to the back, his palm against the glass.
Lukas touches it, too. And Milos doesn't speak, but in a moment or two, Lukas does. Milos turns to him and nods, his eyes so bright and so clear and so familiar, his expression serious but eager at once. "Very much," he says, part ache and part duty, part gratitude and part impatience. He, perhaps even as Lukas does, glances out around the corner into the living room to see that Danicka and Renata are okay, the orange cat dozing on Renata's lap. He listens to the house, to its quiet, to the furnace going, to the dim breathing of his siblings, and then -- only then -- is he ready.
LukasLukas does not disrupt Danicka and Renata again to tell them that he and Milos are going across the Gauntlet. That they are going to visit the spirits of the house. That they are going to pay their respects, and share their warmth, and see that the house remains loved, taken care of, protected and protective.
Instead, he simply watches as Milos takes stock of the moment, the situation, his siblings and loved ones. Then the teenager nods, and Lukas puts a hand on his shoulder. Milos is a Theurge, but he is so very young, and only just awakened to who and what he really is. Lukas's spirit is likely stronger, though it won't be for very long. Milos is talented, driven, and a quick learner.
Still. This time, it's the older Garou that pulls the younger across the Gauntlet, watching his own dim reflection in the window until that reflection breaks up. The veil between worlds parts. They slip across,
and here the moon is enormous and so close they feel they can touch it. The earth is frosted. The street is empty, the asphalt and houses mere dreams of themselves. The den is solid and real, though. It seems to glow from within, lit up by the warmth of its inhabitants. The fire-spirit in the furnace downstairs murmurs and grumbles in its sleep; it is not truly awakened, though it stirs close to it every winter when its flames are stoked. The floors and walls sigh around them. Here and there, flickering through the walls, spirits of Electricity crackle and play. Occasionally they peer out of the outlets, but they are as fickle and skittish as Kandovany, and do not approach the stranger yet.
Glass is alive now, glistening and clear and calm at the moment. It says nothing, but when it is touched, it hums inaudibly under the fingertips. It regards the young Theurge with curiosity; without recognition, yet without threat or agitation.
DanickaBoth of Sarka's Garou children are drawn, by strong instinct, towards Lukas. They love Danicka. They treasure her, trust her, listen to her advice, but their mother's twin is an ocean away from them and their grandfather's son is a twisted example of what the Lords can be. Lukas has helped them, helped their family, and if Danicka loves and trusts him, they do as well.
Back at Stark Falls, Milos has his mentor, and he has the other cubs he's training with. These days, the best-behaved and best-controlled of the cubs are sometimes permitted to spend time with Kin in the village, but only when supervised by a Fostern or higher and only after at least three months of no incidents of unwarranted outbursts. Milos has been allowed to have dinner, once or twice, with families of kin. Families. He can not run around with the teenagers, he cannot escape the watchful eyes of adults, but he is allowed to talk over the dinner table occasionally to kin who are kids or teenagers. It's an experiment, really. It isn't how things were done even when Lukas was a cub. They do it in hopes that it will help their tribe continue to survive in a world dominated by humans. But even that, and even the other Garou at the caern, aren't the same as being with his sister, and even being with Irena isn't the same as being with a fully-grown Garou who is also family.
In New York, with her brother in his fosterage, Irena has no one. She squirmed and fidgeted for awhile as Lukas sat with her, but it was all emotions she could not get out, couldn't find words for. Milos has said this is normal, and he felt this way, too, but it's probably worse for her because she has more rage. He told her that sometimes he got so lonely and so frightened, and that there was no one he could talk to and that made him angry, and then he got more lonely, and... so on. But she's ten years old, and somewhere inside she has a passionate, fiery feeling of gratitude and adoration for her aunt's mate, and she does not want him to ever ever ever go away, and there are no words for this sort of thing when you're ten.
When you are fifteen, and you are able to change your shape finally, when you know you have a strong mentor and a strong alpha in your family-pack, when you can finally relax and let go a little bit, all that unbearable tension with your own rage and your own happiness turns to freedom and delight. They cross the Gauntlet --
Danicka feels it, hears it softly, as they press through, but she keeps her attention on Renata. The girl needs privacy to open up like this, is skittish when there are more ears around, and Danicka understands that better than anyone else. She has to talk to someone, someone not-her-overprotective-mother, about things like how you know if you're ready and what it feels like and what it's going to be like afterward, so Danicka gives her all of her attention, mostly letting Renata do the talking.
-- and almost instantly, Milos drops to all fours. He is, to put it plainly, a gorgeous young wolf. The breeding of the Musil family was, in fact, diluted by mingling with the Dvorak line a little. His coat is thick with winter and black as shadow, black as coal, absorbing every drop of light. You would never call it 'glossy' -- contrarily, he seems to be a dark, living void, especially on this side of the veil. His eyes remain that perfect, clear blue, like the moon on snow in the middle of January. His breath steams, and then his tongue lolls out in pleasure, his body giving a great big shake, his tail wagging and ears flicking.
All of that shaking and stomping turns into a bright, big howl at the moon suddenly, clear-voiced and exuberant. The spirits of sleeping plants, the perennials resting under the earth and the bulbs going through their wintertime before spring's color, tremble a little to hear it. Milos is still inside, but the windows of the house seem bigger here, taking up almost entire walls. He stamps his forepaws again as he brings the howl down, stretching into a playbow, then turning around in a couple of circles. He glances at Lukas but then is off, sniffing at the outlets, sniffing at the glass, then he takes off again. The boy truly is a Theurge: he does not hesitate for a moment to simply walk through the wall between kitchen and back porch, right through the door. It's a doorway, even if there is a 'door' there. Doorway means gateway means passage: he does not stop to try and open the spiritual reflection of a door, because that is not how it exists here. A gateway is a gateway is a gateway.
Outside there is snow, of a sort, more of a frozenness to the ground. He circles the oak multiple times, sniffing and sniffing and sniffing. He sniffs at the flowerbeds and the fence and he perks up and comes very close to chasing a fox spirit til he realizes that no, it comes here because of something else, drawn by some other feeling that lives in this place. It is not for chasing. Milos is motionless for a little while, and his ears flick and rotate, but he does not go after the fox. Eventually the tiny fox-spirit, who leaves a wispy trail of essence everywhere it moves, goes back to its burrow, and Milos turns to find Lukas with his eyes.
He is done exploring. A sense of seriousness settles down on him now, as though awakened by the sight of the curious but fearful little fox, and he goes first to the oak. It is young, but it is sacred. It is not the only Awakened being in this territory, nor the first one, nor the strongest, but it wears a mantle of sanctity like nothing else here. Milos can understand. He spoke to the oak in Danicka's backyard. He knows some of the story, albeit from the oak's perspective. He can guess, young as he is, that this tree represents more to Danicka and Lukas than some kind of misplaced nostalgia for her childhood.
So he finds a good spot, and he settles on his haunches, and is silent for a long time, simply looking at the spirit-form of the oak, however it appears. Milos is motionless: still and patient, he waits to speak until he is spoken to. After awhile his head cocks, and his ears flick again, twisting forward; he's listening now.
LukasLukas does not truly know what is said between his oak and his nephew. And in truth, the oak is not his at all; it belongs to his totem, to whom in a way he, too, belongs. Regardless, Milo drops into lupus, runs through the gateways of the den - the doorways guarded not by physical barriers but by watchful spirits - runs into the yard where the moonlight hits the ground like frost.
There he sits, motionless and patient and silent. And here the oak is much larger than it is in the realm; larger, with an ancient heart within its youthful form. The bark is still smooth. The boughs are crowned with leaves, though it's the dead of winter. It has a voice like soft and distant thunder, which Lukas does not understand, but Milos does,
and the oak speaks of welcome and of hospitality, of territory and dominion over land and sky; it speaks of the sacred majesty of its lineage and the ancient strength of Milos's. It speaks of where it comes from, how it came to be, and it is like this that Milos learns that this oak is not an awakened oak at all, not a physical thing elevated into a spiritual presence, but the other way around. A spirit given form, birthed from the sky and rooted in the ground.
While Milos speaks to the oak, Lukas steps out of the den as well. The snow on the ground is pristine. He leaves tracks, but they fill themselves in, the snow-spirits quickly undoing what trace he leaves. He sees the tiny fox-spirit, looks evenly at it as it looks back at him. Eventually it returns to its burrow, a wary, shy thing with sharp teeth and a fragile body; a little-seen resident of his territory that he does not mind sharing with. He told Danicka about it one night, not so long ago:
I saw a fox-spirit in our yard tonight.
Oh?
Yeah. It sort of reminded me of you.
And sometimes he brings it food; scraps of rabbit-englings he chases in the neighboring woods, brings down to nourish his own spirit; bits of tender flesh and rich organ-meats that he leaves near the fox's burrow. He never sees it take the offerings, but always in the morning they're gone.
DanickaMilos listens for a long time to the oak. Perun's oak, who is not awakened but something else altogether, something very special. He speaks to it, too, and when his throat opens it is no clear howl or friendly growling or rough barking, but a voice in the spirit's own tongue. This is true xenoglossy, an ability he has only because of his auspice, a gift almost no non-Theurge ever learns. He speaks like he is a brother to the oak, converses quietly for a few minutes, and when he is done, he gives a deep bow. He rises, and he digs a little among the roots of the oak. When he has made a tiny hole, Milos opens his mouth and exhales.
A brightly glowing wisp leaves his throat, a blue and white sickle-shaped thing surrounded by a corona of its own brightness. It lowers, very gently, down into the hole, where Milos then buries it. For a little while the glow emanates through the dirt, pulsing like a living thing, left there for the oak to absorb.
Rising, he comes back to Lukas and gives one of those tongue-lolling smiles. "Peace between Volos and Perun," he says, as though this statement is highly amusing somehow, a weird inside spiritual joke, but perhaps Lukas gets it somehow, as... obscure as the thoughts of a Theurge might be at times. But he trots off then, back into the house, and then all throughout it. He talks to glass and his voice is brittle and almost shrill when he does, like a nail going down the glass itself or the sound of it squeaking with cleanliness. He sniffs again at the electrical spirits that peek from the outlets. He goes down to check on the furnace, the fire-spirit within that sleeps so grumpily. He listens, mostly, to the water spirit in the fountain upstairs, and he even checks on Danicka's garden.
The gift of gnosis he gave to the oak is repeated only for the glass spirits, this time given via a cloud of frost across a pane as he presses his paw there, glowing blue and then vanishing into the glass. Lukas, of course, has no idea what Milos says to all these spirits -- unless instinct tips him off. Milos doesn't speak of it until they are preparing to cross over again and he is shifting into homid once more, ruffling his hand through his hair.
"I asked them to protect my kin while they're here, too," he says. "The water-spirit said it sensed sickness but couldn't tell from where, so... we should keep an eye on everyone." Even then, Lukas can tell what causes the uneasiness as Milos mentions that: he's thinking of his mother. He's not experienced enough to know if the water spirit just felt the scars and memory of his mother's cancer, or if someone is coming down with the flu, or if Sarka is going to relapse, or what. But that's what he has. "They're very content spirits," he tells Lukas. "You've given them a safe, comfortable home."
LukasThrough all of this, Lukas does not interfere. He does not even follow Milos, per se; he stays close enough that he can hear the boy, sometimes see him where the spirit form of the house is still weak. Close enough to be there just in case. Not that he expects any incidents. Everything he's seen of the boy, every scrap of intuition he has, tells him that Milos is serious and thoughtful and a very good Theurge. Not merely talented, but good; conscientious and responsible and pure of heart.
And Lukas, in truth, is deeply appreciative of what Milos is doing. Talking to these spirits who really have had no one but one another to talk to. He Awakened them, it's true, and he and Danicka both do their very best to keep them. But neither of them are Theurges. Neither of them can trully talk to them, truly know for certain if the spirits are content, if they are happy, if they are safe, if they can even survive here, so far from the two Caerns. Of all the auspices, the Unbroken seems to have the most trouble keeping a Theurge. Even if they had one, some instinct tells Lukas that he would not allow that Theurge to come to his den, no more than he allows any other of his pack here. They are his brothers and sisters, soul-siblings that he shares his very mind with sometimes. But the den is not theirs, but his and Danicka's. Family-pack can come here, but not spirit-pack.
Much later, after Milos has given what little Gnosis he has and spoken to all the spirits of the home, they prepare to return. And Milos speaks of what the water spirit told him, and Lukas's eyes darken a little, grow a little more vigilant. He nods. "We'll be careful," he says. And adds, "Don't worry. If it's your mother, we'll deal with it as it comes."
The rest of what Milos tells him soothes him, though. Makes him smile. "I'm glad," he says as they find their reflections in the glass once more. "They do the same for us."
Crossing back, the Gauntlet relents with a sudden snap. And suddenly the world is not so luminescent with moonlight; the walls and glass not so glitteringly alive. They are back in the kitchen, and their kin are asleep or talking quietly, all of them content and safe.
DanickaBack in homid, there's a weariness in the corners of Milos's eyes that wasn't there before and was hard to see in lupus. Sure, his tail had been drooping, but now he actually wears the tiredness he has to feel after traveling from Stark Falls to New York City to JFK to O'Hare to the hotel to the den to this moment. More than that, even, he wears the loss of the gnosis he gave to Oak and Glass. There's a dullness in his eyes, which are normally so very bright as to remind one of blue flame. He isn't exactly stumbling around in exhaustion, but it isn't hard to tell that before he sleeps -- and perhaps when he wakes -- he's going to be meditating.
"It could just be Emanek getting a cold," Milos says with a shrug. "Or d de
ek." There is that, too: would a water spirit call that sickness? Would it be able to understand that they can't cure it like a wound? He shakes his head a little. "It's not a very strong spirit, because it's such a little fountain. And because it is not a natural flow of water, it is... a little stupid."
He doesn't speak of his mother. She is cancer-free. He knows enough to know that it can come back, but he clings to that diagnosis, that label: if she were sick again, he'd know. He'd sense it. He's sure he would even be able to smell it. He would. She is his dam. He'd know. He tells himself he would know.
They go back, and the real world seems almost a disappointment to Milos, tiring him as much as the spirit world energized and delighted him. He listens a moment and he can tell that Renata has gone to bed, because he can feel the absence of her. They've been gone a long while, and it's very late now. He yawns, and he bumps himself against Lukas's side, and says he'll see him in the morning. Through the archway he goes in to Danicka, who is sitting on the couch reading a book. She smiles at him and tilts her face up as he leans over and gives her a kiss on the cheek, then the boy is heading down the hall and slipping through a curtain into the dark room where his little brother is sleeping.
He checks on him. Listens to see if he can hear a wheeze or rattle in the boy's breathing. He touches the back of his hand to Emanek's forehead just in case. And then he shuffles out of his clothes, bedding down for the night, forgetting even to meditate.
Back in the living room, Danicka tucks a bookmark into her reading and watches Lukas come nearer. "Everything good?" she whispers to him.
LukasThey don't speak much more of Sarka. Or of Milos's grandfather, for that matter. There is so little they can do for Miloslav now, apart from talking to him. Reminding him gently. Keeping him, as much as he can be kept, connected to things. It is very sad to talk about, at any rate.
It worries Lukas that the water spirit is weak and stupid. Milos can see this clearly, and if Danicka ever mentioned how much of a planner and a worrywart her mate can be -- well. He understands what she means, now.
"Maybe I can build it a larger fountain," Lukas muses. "Find some way to let it collect rain, or melted snow. Tie it into the natural water cycle a little more."
DanickaGiven the look on Lukas's face when Milos admits that the water spirit in the fountain is... well, rather dumb, he wonders what the Ahroun would think to hear that the water spent a good five minutes showing Milos how it could go down through the hidden hole then up a tube and out and across some fake rocks and back into the pool and down through the hidden hole then up a tube -- before he got it to talk about anything else. He decides not to mention that, amusing as it was. As small as it is, and as weak, the water spirit is very happy, and feels very important.
No, Danicka never talked to Milos about what sort of a worrier Lukas is. She is so private as to be almost secretive, hard to know even for her family. Warm, certainly, but in any case, uncomfortable with talking overmuch about the ones she loves most. The one she loves most.
Milos tips his head, listening, and gives a small shrug. "You could build a pond. The water will still protect you from outside."
Lukas"But it'll freeze over in the winter." He's mulling, mulling, mulling this over, and in truth Milos might be slightly unnerved to have his uncle-by-marriage, his elder-by-law, thinking aloud to him like this as though they were ... well. More like equals. "Maybe in the winter I can bring it inside, keep it in the little fountain. But in the summer it can be outside, in a pond. With real rocks and watergrass, exposure to the rain."
He looks at Milos. "Do you think it would like that?"
DanickaMilos frowns a little, shaking his head. "Water freezes and is still water. It doesn't hurt it. It changes forms. So do we."
He isn't, oddly, unnerved. It's a little confusing, because Lukas has managed to awaken all of these spirits and he's kept them quite happy and safe and healthy here, and he seems intelligent, so Milos is pondering why he seems so concerned, why he's working so hard to think, to make it right. There is more peace in him than the Ahroun -- than any Ahroun, really. He doesn't have their rage. Not yet. Probably not ever.
Lukas describes water in the fountain, water in a pond, keeping it warm like it is something that will die if frozen, rocks and watergrass, rain. He smiles a little. "That would all be good. But water is in everything. You are breathing it right now. It is mixed into the concrete in your basement. It is in the oak, feeding it. It is all over the ground and soaked into your clothes from earlier, stuck to the wheels of the van. It is inside you. It is an older and stronger family of spirits than almost any of Gaia's. Water is... not hard to please. It does not fear heat or cold. It..."
He struggles a bit, using his hands, then finds words: "It does not need anything from you. You need it. It knows as soon as it is awakened that you need something from it. It wants to move, and be clean. That is the best you can do for it." There's a beat. "Maybe an underground ...pump. To keep it moving."
LukasThere's a lot of wisdom in what Milos says. More, really, than can be taught in so short a time. Lukas suspects a lot of this comes from Milos, himself: an intuitive understanding of spirits in a way that Lukas cannot, and will never be able to comprehend.
Spirits are not people. They are not even alive the same way flesh-and-blood beings are alive. They can alter entirely without losing their identities. They can split and reform; they can even disappear, and come back. He thinks of water. He thinks of evaporation and rain; freezing and melting. He thinks, even, of the void of space - the liquid water hiding beneath miles and miles of solid, extraterrestrial rock. It's almost mindboggling how universal water is, Lukas thinks. Older and stronger than almost any of Gaia's.
And a little piece of it, one little gaffling who is very small and very weak and not very smart, lives here, under his roof. Is happy here.
That makes Lukas happy, too. It makes Lukas happy that already, Milos can teach him things. He smiles, and as they're crossing back over he reaches out - not placing his hand on the Theurge's arm, this time, but his arm around his shoulders. It's a wordlessly affectionate sort of half-hug, and one that he reinforces with a light squeeze as they pop through.
"I'll do that," he says. "Thank you, Milos."
They part, and Milos goes to bed. Renata has already gone. When Lukas comes to the living room, goes to find his mate, she looks up from her reading and watches him. He draws near. Sits beside her. She whispers, and he smiles over at her; leans over on impulse and kisses her,
gently but not lightly,
letting his brow rest against hers afterward. "Yes," he whispers back. "Everything's wonderful."
