They did set an alarm. Danicka did, at least. It buzzes and chimes on her phone, waking her up far too early. She bats at her phone mindlessly until she turns it off, drops back against Lukas's arm, and sleeps again. So then they wake after noon. He's launching out of bed, throwing back the covers, they have to hurry, it's not even morning anymore. Danicka pulls the covers over herself again and curls up, telling him to relax, this isn't Manhattan.
Lukas eats leftover goulash. Danicka indulges in a few bites of salmon but grabs some fruit and yogurt from the little cafe downstairs. And green tea. Cutting back on caffeine, she says as they walk out into daylight, is always harder after a night like that. She's hidden behind large sunglasses when they get into the car, dressed in jeans and riding boots again, a long-sleeved purple shirt fitted to her torso underneath a quarter-sleeved, buttonless cardigan in cream. It flows around her a bit, cozy and light, while she leans back and blows into her tea a bit to cool it.
They drive. Out to Melnik, where her father and her father's family are from. Danicka is antsy, fidgeting frequently -- twisting her ring, adjusting her bracelet, checking her phone for no real reason. She keeps changing the radio. When she asked her father about his relatives he didn't remember much; it made Danicka suddenly, fiercely needful. Sabina watches over them when they visit Prague, but there are Garou in the family out there as well. She knows that when her father dies she won't lose all connection to these people, but when he can't even remember, when Sarka came so close to death and when only Gaia knows how many times Sabina has faced it down, Danicka worries.
She doesn't want to be adrift. She said as much to Lukas that same night after getting off the phone with Miloslav. He held her, wrapped her up in his arms, rested his chin atop her head, while they sat on the couch. Her fingertips stroked the back of his hand that night while she talked, the sort of thoughtless motion that she always restrained -- and restrains -- in public, but which happen more and more when it's just the two of them. Danicka is so graceful, after all. Danicka is so elegant, so lovely. She sits with her back straight and she doesn't fuss with things. But Lukas knows her: the part of her that snarls and claws at him, and the part of her that mouths along to horrendous pop songs while she plays World of Warcraft, running around on her Blood Elf Paladin Deev'ah. The one with the really big hair. And the part of her that frets sometimes just as much as he does, or does a ludicrous, childlike voice saying Oh, look what you did! if ever she drops something in the kitchen.
There are things Danicka does, likes to do, is that no one but Lukas knows or sees. Even around family she's careful, but that could change, too. It is not hard to imagine her being more
and more
herself, as she raises children to not be so afraid of judgement and punishment as she always was.
The land gives way to farms and vineyards, cleared stretches that are not quite as vast as those in America but large enough. Those become larger as they go out, then smaller again, more clustered to trees. Melnik lives where two rivers meet, and the land is lush and fertile. Even driving through it, Lukas can feel his spirit pang and twist the same way it does when he's with Danicka herself, scenting the bloodline and history of her family. He was surrounded by that scent and that feeling last night, but here he finds the physical reality of it. And in Melnik proper, they find one of the largest ports in the Czech Republic. Her family's vineyard lies outside of that, even, and far past the surrounding areas of the town.
It is one of the smaller vineyards. They aren't a major exporter of wine by any means. But there are the fields, the crop. There is the pressing-house and the winery itself. There is a small cottage out front where they might do business with travelers, hold tastings, the like; they are not living so far in the past or so far removed from society that they seem displaced in time.
There are several of them. People. Kin. All smelling -- and even more than Danicka -- like kin of Thunder, children of Veles. There is only one of Miloslav's siblings left, just a couple of years older than he is, but still with bright, shrewd eyes and daring anyone to treat him as vulnerable just because he leans on a cane. And Miloslav's nieces and nephews, at least those who haven't moved away; there are a few of those, some in their fifties, some as young as their late thirties. Then all the children: teenagers and younger, though none as young as Emanek or even Irena. There is one baby, trying to eat its fist where it sits on a porch, slobbering everywhere.
They know Danicka the moment she takes off her sunglasses. They know her because she does not look solely like Laura Dvorak, who none of them ever met. She looks like Sarka and Sabina, who they helped raise after their father was sent to America. They are wary of her because of that woman, that Ahroun from the States, but Danicka... well. If Danicka can do nothing else in the world,
she can make people like her.
Only not slyly this time, not manipulatively, not with that sense that what they think of her doesn't matter, they don't matter, they can't touch her. She is, as the lupus wolf once said... soft. But still a part of the storm, still with mountains and lightning behind her eyes. And though at first it's awkward, especially as they treat Lukas much as his own family once treated him after he changed, it relaxes slowly. Danicka says something that makes eyes jump to him, to see how he's reacting, if he'll let her get away with that. And he is. He's laughing, and an eleven-year-old is staring at him unabashedly, and things begin to calm down after that.
They stay for dinner, which is served around a large table -- or rather, several tables pushed together under a single cloth -- in the tasting room, since the only residence on the site is for a single family and their kitchen is not big enough. Many of them live elsewhere, nearby, their own miniature kin village.
With, notably, two Garou in the mix. One is young, not quite thirty, and remains in lupus at the edges of the land, watching, hardly seen before they leave again, satisfied somehow by mere observation. Hard to tell at a distance, and with hardly a glimpse, but... feels like a spirit-talker. Maybe they just know. The other is Danicka's cousin, in his fifties. He is missing his right arm. He has lost the wolf. No one speaks of it. He is the one who stares hardest at Lukas, who flat-out snaps his teeth once at another cousin who tries to help him carry something; cubs of the same litter, parents and grandparents themselves now, with roots to their love and their anger that go deeper than any oak's. He is bitter, but not to the core:
when they eat, the baby smacks everything away. He scoops her up in his remaining arm and plants her on his knee, holding her expertly in the crook of his elbow, close enough to the table that he can use his hand to feed her. She calms right down. Opens her mouth obediently, patiently, while he puts bites within reach. Sometimes just out of reach. She stretches, grabs his fist, pulls the food to her mouth and gnaws on it, slobbers all over his knuckles. He smirks, his eyes twinkling with affection and appreciation and approval. Her mother, one of those who is technically Danicka's niece, doesn't bother with any of it at all; she talks to Danicka about television.
They stay around the table for a long time. There is resistance when Lukas gets up to help clear the dishes, wash them, and confusion: how do you show him proper respect? Let him do the dishes or insist he be waited on? Is this a trick?
Danicka warns someone to watch him; he never scrapes all the food off the plates, he always misses a spot on the forks. She is playing a card game with one of the teenagers. They relent, and let him help.
When they depart, there are embraces. Not as tight or as lingering as the ones with her half-sister, the niece, the nephews, her brother-in-law, but still warm. Those that have Facebook are friended. Those that have cellphones, which is most of them, are stored in Danicka's address book. Pictures are taken. A bottle of wine is sent back with them. They are walked to their car by Danicka's cousin, but he doesn't talk to them now any more than he did before. Wolf or no, he seems like he has to see them off his territory. Needs it, like air or like water. He smokes a handrolled cigarette to the side as he walks alongside them, saying nothing. When they get in the car, all he does is give them a short nod of goodbye. He stands behind them when they drive off, watching them go.
A few moments, only, after they've driven, and Danicka begins to cry.
LukasDriving out, Danicka is so nervous. It's been a long time since Lukas has seen her like this. Maybe he's never seen her like this. She hasn't had a lot to fidget about recently, and before that -- well; she wouldn't have shown him. Not like this, anyway. When he first met her, she just stopped eating if she was nervous, if she was uncomfortable, if she was scared. It took him a while to realize that. It took him a while to realize she was so thin not because she came from Manhattan, not because she'd mistaken malnourished for beautiful, but because she couldn't eat when she was frightened, when she was threatened, when she was unsettled.
She's not eating very much now, either, but then they didn't really pack snacks for the trip. Just those skewers they ate miles ago. Just some of the snacks they had left over from their flight. Danicka can't seem to stop moving. She checks her phone. She twists her ring. She crosses her legs this way, then that; she shifts her weight.
He reaches over, finally. He takes her hands in his, firmly: grounding her like lightning to a spire. They're turning off the highway, onto the small country road. The land here is so very different from the United States - the huge sprawls of the Midwest. The light is different too, slanting, giving a golden cast to his swarthy complexion. Making her simply luminous.
"It'll be okay," he says: deliberately, gently, meeting her eyes. "You'll see."
A little after that they're there. The people, the air, the very earth seems to smell of Danicka and her kin. Although her more distant relatives seem to expect Lukas to dominate the situation and all involved -- or perhaps because they expect it -- he hangs back just a little. Lets Danicka take the lead. Lets her introduce him, and not merely with words and names, but with the way she interacts with him. With the things she says to him, and about him; the gentle little trespasses that show her family that,
no, he doesn't mind. No, he won't tear them asunder at the first whiff of disrespect.
He follows them through the vineyards. He looks at the pressing-house, the winery, the oak barrels and the casks. He meets each of Danicka's very many cousins and nieces and nephews and aunts and uncles and great-uncles and great-aunts; all these people that look vaguely, unmistakably like her. And her father. Lukas's very body language is deliberately unassuming: his hands in his pockets much of the time, the slightest relaxed slouch to his usually excellent posture.
To the wolf at the edge of the land, he turns and he nods. Slowly, visibly: an acknowledgment and greeting. By then the shadows are getting long. When he comes in, dinner has been laid out. Simple fare. Good wine. He sees that a spot has been set for him at the head of the table, but he pretends not to notice; he takes a spot on Danicka's other side instead, between her and one of the younger uncles. Across the table, the Garou who has lost his arm and his wolf both feeds the baby. He is bitter, though not to the core. He stared hard at Lukas when they met, and it was a regard that Lukas quite consciously chose to meet, but not to challenge. That regarded lasted a handful of moments. Though there is rage in Lukas -- a slow, devastating hurricane of it -- he kept it where it belonged.
Anything less would have been the insult of pity. Anything more would have been cruelty: something akin to shoving a man twice his age and half his strength head-first into a toilet. Lukas doesn't do things like that anymore. He's vaguely ashamed to remember it.
He does watch the once-Wolf, though. Thoughtfully, and without quite realizing he's almost staring, he watches him feed the baby, who does not fear him. He's not so very old. Somehow, Lukas didn't expect that. He thought only the very old or the very sick or the very weak lost their wolf. This one seems to be none of the above, and Lukas finds himself thinking,
That wouldn't be so very bad. That wouldn't be bad at all.
The moon is a bare crescent tonight, but beginning to wax. It is setting when they leave. Prague, though the largest city in the Czech Republic, is not so very large at all compared to the cities they've lived in, grown up in. Out this far, its lights don't even touch the sky. The night is already dark; the stars are unfathomably many.
There are hugs. There's two bottles of wine sent back with them, because Lukas praised the vintage that flowed around the table so heartily. They've brought gifts too, which were given out at dinner. It feels a little like an early (or very late) Christmas. Most of the family stays, or drifts back to their individual homes in their miniature kin-village. That makes Lukas ache, too: everyone all living in one sprawling estate where everyone has their own little house and everyone's babies grow up fighting and playing together, and everyone burying their parents and themselves on the same land. He turns to wave as them as they walk out to the car. Danicka's cousin walks with them, and Lukas burns to ask him questions, how, why, did he want to do it? was it worth it? -- but it would be grossly rude, he knows it. He keeps quiet,
and so,
a few moments later they're driving away, that wolfless Garou in their rearview mirror. That's when Lukas hears Danicka sniffle. That's when he reaches out to her, pulls her tightly and wordlessly against his side, holding her very close.
He doesn't ask her why she cries. Or tell her to stop, please, stop. He holds her. He drives. He waits.
DanickaIt'll be okay. You'll see.
He doesn't know that. He can't make her promises he can't keep. Danicka does settle a bit, though. She wiggles her foot and she lets herself be anxious anyway, but she holds his hand. She squeezes it, sometimes.
In the end, it is okay. It's more than okay. It's impossible to keep track of who is an uncle and who is a cousin and who is a niece or nephew, but after a while it doesn't really matter. Danicka takes her turn holding the baby, who is drooling and gnawing on anything. She's a fussy child, cheeks inflamed with teething, but for some reason that rageless, unshifting werewolf in their midst calms her. Lukas watches and thinks he wouldn't mind living like that. Holding a child who doesn't fear him. Danicka catches his eye somewhere in there, wondering at his thoughts. She can't fathom it. She has no wolf to let go of.
In the car, she cries. He holds her to his side. It takes her a while to get through that first burst of it, telling him she never really knew -- never felt -- how big her family is. She grew up so isolated, belonging so fully to Night Warder that the rest of the Musil clan was all but forgotten... or forbidden. But she has sisters and cousins and an uncle with a cane and a cousin with one arm, nieces and nephews from her own age down to school-age. She has second-cousins and third-cousins. She has, through Lukas, a mother- and father- and sister-in-law and Daniel, who she shares a name with as well as an understanding of loving one of the rather unruly Kvasnicka children. She never really knew. She never felt she was a part of it.
She asks him, as he drives, to make sure their kids know it. Feel it. If something happens to her, even if he can't raise them himself, he has to promise he'll make sure they go to the Czech Republic. He has to make sure they grow up speaking the language of their family's homeland. They need to visit New York and be visited, see their grandparents and aunt and cousins as often as possible. They need to know they are part of something that is more than their school or their neighborhood or their own family or even the Nation.
He has to promise.
Truthfully, Danicka doesn't cry for very long. She does it half out of joy, and half out of that gnawing pain in her that comes from seeing how much love there really is in the world and how very little of it she was given growing up.
She gets herself together after that. She doesn't want to cry anymore. She just wants to be held. They are driving not back towards Prague yet, but toward the estate where his family once lived. Where he was born. Where the cook candied oranges from the grove and folded them into kolache for him.
LukasHe has to promise. It hurts him to do it, though. He hates the thought of it: outliving her, having to go on, having to raise their children and raise them well, because they are all that remain of her. He shies from the thought like a wolf from fire. She can feel it, the tightening in his arm, the tension in his side.
He promises, though. Quietly, and very carefully, he says: I promise.
She doesn't cry for very long. She wants to be, and she is, held. The drive back is not quite so long, because they are not returning to the hotel tonight. It's still long enough that eventually, in the darkness, Lukas confesses
that he envies Danicka's cousin a little. The one who has lost his wolf. He knows he doesn't know the story behind it; he doesn't know what trauma or horror might hide behind the bitterness. But he thinks it might not be so terrible if he could hold his children without their fearing him. He thinks maybe that's a fair trade: all that power, all that strength, given up so those he loves will not fear him.
But only if the war is won, he adds. Just in case. Because if I gave up the wolf and then something happened, something I might have been able to stop...
he doesn't go on. It's too terrible to think of; that sort of dreadful liability, that kind of guilt.
In the darkness, it takes them a little while to find the address they were given. Lukas has almost no recollection of the countryside, the lay of the streets. He thinks maybe that tree looks familiar, or the shape of that roof. He's not sure. It was so long ago.
They're not really in the suburbs yet. They're not in proper farmland either. The houses are large and few and far between, but much of the land they sit on is for leisure and pleasure. Some of the estates are quite grand, with beautifully trimmed lawns and hedges. Others have run a little wilder: the grass long, the trees old. Here and there, small ponds, streams. Weeping willows dipping into quiet waters.
They pass over a small stone bridge, and then they find their turnoff. There is a gate, but it is almost purely ornamental. It stands open. There are no walls to either side, only thick stands of trees. Inside, the land opens up. It is unsurprisingly one of the less manicured plots of land: the ground gently rolling, the grass long and dotted with trees. The drive takes a smooth curve to the front door of a house that was probably much larger in Lukas's memory and imagination; a mansion, a veritable museum to a five year old's eye. Looking at it now, he sees that it would be considered quite generous for a family of four, yes, but not extravagant. Not absurd. The architecture is alpine-inspired with perhaps a touch of Tudor. There are several face-cords of firewood stacked under the overhanging roof. Lights still burn in the windows, evidence that -- as late as they have arrived -- they will not be waking their hosts.
Shutting the car off, Lukas takes a moment to draw a breath, his hands on the wheel still. Then he pushes his door open and gets out, coming around as Danicka is stepping out of her side. He takes her hand as they go to the door. His back is quite straight now. He doesn't fidget, but perhaps he wants to.
The door opens. Danicka sees Lukas's neck bend as his gaze swings down three feet from where he expected to see a face. A very small, very dirty boy stares up at him; there's something wild in his eyes. A beat of astonished silence. Then the boy shrieks a laugh and tears out of sight.
His parents -- they must be his parents -- welcome Danicka and Lukas in, then. They're a pleasant, polite couple, both of them quite fair of hair. The man is handsome, in a severe sort of way, with intelligent, deep-set eyes. He's rather young behind a rather full beard -- perhaps a year or two older than Danicka. The woman is younger still, likely younger than Lukas, and though not quite a beauty, she is possessed of a sort of grace and elegance that calls the eye. They are deferential. Lukas doesn't try as hard to break them of the habit this time. They are not, after all, his family -- and in their world, deference is rather akin to a survival instinct. The lady of the house offers them dinner, which they decline; then coffee and cake, which Lukas, at least, accepts.
They eat at the kitchen table, though they're offered the formal dining room. It is too dark to see much of the estate, but Lukas can tell the orange grove is still there. Tiny footsteps thunder from one end of some unseen upstairs hall to the other, and back again, and forth again, until the mother calls up the stairs:
Vilém, usadit! Vase sourozenci spí!
Lukas wonders if it isn't a little late for a boy that young to still be up. He's Ragabash, the father explains with a small, bland shrug. Who are they to tell him otherwise?
Lukas, the specter of Vladik quite clear in his mind, has to bite back a sharp reply.
They are shown to a room at the south end of the house, which Lukas instantly recognizes as once having belonged to him, and recognizes now -- by scent, by furnishings, and by the toys underfoot -- as belonging to Vilém. The understated graciousness and generosity makes Lukas regret his harsh thoughts. He thanks the couple, assures them that no, no, they have everything they need; go to bed; we'll talk more in the morning.
The boy's bed -- far too small for two adults -- has been moved somewhere else. In its place, overlarge in the small room, is a bed likely from some guest room or other. They find the bathroom down the hall, shower and brush their teeth, change into pajamas. Vilém is a small, feral shadow, peeking through the stair railings at them, giggling at the slightest hint of affection between Danicka and her mate, trailing them all the way to their door. Finally, Lukas can't help himself. He shoots a ferocious stare at the boy, points emphatically and silently down the hall, pantomimes laying his head on a pillow.
They close the door. Lukas locks it. I don't want to wake up to that brat sitting on my chest, he says, only half-joking. The bed is a little smaller than a queen, which makes for a tight fit, but then: they always sleep so close. He wraps himself around his mate, whuffing over her shoulder as he settles. Sex crosses his mind lazily, as it so often does when she's this close, this accessible, this warm in his arms. He holds the thought a moment, savoringly; then he lets it go, crosses his shin over hers, closes his eyes.
In the morning, light comes through a window so familiar Lukas forgets for a few disorienting seconds his age, the time, the year. Then the smell of his mate brings him back to the present. The bed creaks as he sits up. He scrubs his face, yawns, stretches so noisily he wakes Danicka if she hasn't already woken.
They can see the orange trees by daylight. He points one out: there, that one, that's the one he used to climb. He's amazed he remembers. When they emerge from their room the house is already alive with activity, and the bathrooms have already cleared of morning traffic. Those with small children always wake early. Lukas and Danicka brush their teeth and wash up and dress, and when they go downstairs they see the family at the tail end of their breakfast. They have a cook, who seems to double as the maid. They have a nanny, a harried-looking woman in her fifties, and small wonder: Vilém is one of four. Two older brothers, a younger sister. It's the classic pattern of a family hellbent on having at least one of each gender. The older boys are quite well-behaved, their table manners impeccable. The youngest girl is a handful; but then, she's barely a toddler.
Vilém never sits still. He bounces in his seat. He gets down, he runs around, he comes back. He spills his milk; he definitely doesn't cry about it. He tells Lukas he's going to find him when he's bigger and then he's going to ask him all the questions he can't answer. His mother, perhaps noticing Lukas's strain or perhaps simply strained herself, sends him outside to play. His second brother goes with him, and their nanny.
When he's too much of a handful, his mother says as they watch the children play through the window, I try to remember his Fostering is only a year away. And then who knows when he'll come home again.
Lukas is surprised. So young? The mother nods:
We are very lucky.
Later on they walk in the orange grove. Lukas finds his favorite tree. It's smaller than I remember, he says, which could be true of everything. He looks at Danicka with a smile. Want to climb it? And if she does: he helps her up, giving her a boost. He hovers a bit under her. If she falls this time, he thinks, he'll catch her. He will.
The father comes out of the house and gives them a cloth sack. Take some oranges, he urges. Please, please, we can never eat them all. And while Lukas goes around picking oranges, the father stands with Danicka, his hands in his pockets, a sense that he wants to speak in the air. After a while he asks if she has children. If she wants children. He wrestles for a long time with what he wants to say next; he is a private man from a private culture, a private tribe. In the end he says it:
It's not easy. I am afraid that one day I will be afraid of Vilém.
They stay for lunch. It's a mild spring day, so they eat outside. The conversation is light; weather and tourism and what it's like to live in their respective countries. It's suggested that they visit Prague Castle.
Come back anytime, the couple says as they're packing to go. You're always welcome here. Lukas suspects he won't be back, though. The house he was born in is not his home anymore. His home is a tiny wonky little house in Stickney, guarded by spirits, shaded by a magical oak. The thought of it makes a pulse of homesickness go through him. He keeps the oranges he picked, though -- a huge bag of it, to be honest, pounds and pounds of citrus. They take a picture in front of the house. Two, actually: one just the two of them, Lukas and Danicka, one with everyone in it.
Then there are goodbyes, and the inevitable exchange of contact information which, in this case, may or may not ever be used. As they drive away, Lukas rolls down the window and waves from the car. Vilém races beside them on his child-sized bike, beating them to the gate, skidding to a stop to watch them go.
"Let's make kolaches out of those oranges," Lukas says as they turn onto the road back to Prague. "And I'm going to smuggle a few back to Chicago to plant."
DanickaWhen Lukas begins to tell her the thing that's been weighing on his own heart since they left her family's land, the car is dark. It has the air of a confessional, their faces hidden from each other by a screen of shadows even though they are still in physical contact. And what he says is, in a way, a confession. What sort of Garou says that they wouldn't really mind not being Garou anymore? It's usually a weakness. A sign of infirmity of mind or spirit, a red flag that they are on the path to harano. His own packmate, losing the wolf for a single night, could not say with her whole heart that she ever wanted it back.
But if his children wouldn't fear him. If Danicka, at her weakest and her most exhausted, did not flinch from him. If he could enter her room at night without startling her or reminding her, however briefly, of her mother. If he could take a fussing child of his own, sit them on his lap, and calm them down rather than make it worse. Would it be worth it?
Only if the fight is over. And neither of them say it, and neither of them need to, but the fight shows no sign of slowing down in their lifetimes.
Danicka rests her hand on his torso, her arm resting over his midsection, covering the very space where his scar is. She is quiet for a time, and only says that she doesn't know how her cousin lost his wolf. Or his arm. Says it softly, and neither of them speak for a very long time after that.
The landscape they move into makes her sit up, unwinding from his side and peering out the window. She says it almost reminds her of New Orleans, this place where he was born, where he grew up -- at least a little, for a few years. The willows, the abundance of water that is common to cities built along rivers. The trees flanking the gate remind her of The Gentlemen, and she says this aloud, and Lukas has no idea what she's talking about at first. As they drive up the curve to the doors, she tells him briefly about the ancient guardians of the Sokolov's southern estate.
They get their overnight bags, their gifts, and go to the doors. Knock. It opens. Both of them drop their eyes suddenly. Danicka blinks suddenly at the boy's peal of laughter, eyes following him as he takes off. She already is calculating his age, the time, wondering why he's still up. She doesn't say anything, holding Lukas's hand in her free one. After they're welcomed in, it takes effort for Danicka not to say aside, in English, that despite their pale hair, the couple reminds her of his parents. His mother was more of a beauty, though; you can see it even now in her features.
Coffee and cake. They all sit together, talking awkwardly only until Danicka takes them in hand and smooths things over. The tribe has a loss in her: she could have been a brilliant politician, scheming for the good of the tribe. She is pure charm when she wants to be, and they are more at ease with Danicka than with Lukas. Laughter is quiet; there are other children asleep. This is what Danicka talks to them about, for a while; it opens people up. Pride and love overcome wariness or protectiveness, most of the time.
Even when feet thud upstairs and the mother has to call to their son. Lukas asks the question; the father sighs an answer. Danicka's eyes flick to Lukas, and her hand covers his on the table. She senses the sharp reply he doesn't give voice to, but not the face that springs to his thoughts.
Danicka feels, not surprisingly, a bit awkward about staying in the house of a family not her own. She didn't even want to stay with his family at first. Her thanks are profuse, as are her assurances to the couple that they need nothing, it's fine, they are fine. The boy actually startles Danicka when he peeks at them in the hallway: not his presence, not the rage that he does not quite have yet, but how quiet he can be when he wants to, the gleam of his eyes in the dark. She gives a small jump and a quiet gasp, which perhaps makes Lukas's wordless directive to go. the fuck. to bed. all the more forceful.
They once slept -- and made love -- an a much smaller bed one Thanksgiving. In another room that had once been his. Danicka doesn't feel quite so sinful as she did that night, doesn't want to feel him up until he can't take it anymore and pins her underneath him, doesn't even -- truth be told -- think of sex. But he does. And he flexes his arms around her, breathes deeply, and she whispers: don't you dare with a smile fuzzing the words, as though she can read his mind.
He always thought she could. Sometimes, perhaps she can.
Danicka wakes before Lukas, though not to the sun. She wakes to the sound of people in the house: unknown house, unknown people. She doesn't sleep as deeply. She sneaks out of bed carefully, slips out to use the bathroom and wash up quickly. When he wakes she's back in the room, getting dressed. He yawns, stretches the way he does, rubs at his face. She smirks at him, buttoning the fly of her jeans. Lenivý chlapec, she says, all but purring the tease.
Going downstairs, Danicka greets the housekeeper and nanny, giving polite hellos to the older children and a simple Vilem with a nod to the Ragabash. She merely smiles at the toddler, otherwise leaving her alone. They sit to breakfast, which Vilem dominates by his noise and his movement and his talking until every other person at the table becomes a shadow of themselves. Even Danicka, used to it from years of her own life, almost falls into it. She doesn't betray her thoughts with her eyes. Even Lukas can't read her, for most of the morning.
But her eyes come up when they mentio the fostering, just a year away. Lucky, his mother says, with tightness at the corners of her eyes. Danicka drops her eyes again, reaches for her coffee, takes a sip. She changes the subject, talking to one of the older boys: what is his favorite book?
The groves smell of oranges, rich and acidic and floral. He finds his favorite, and Danicka is shocked he remembers it. He asks if she wants to climb; she laughs: Don't you remember last time? but his crest falls when she says that. She laughs, softer, kisses his cheek. She's only teasing. She hardly even skinned her knees that day, all those years ago.
Later, but not very much later, Lukas goes picking oranges that would be out of reach to anyone without a small ladder. Danicka stands with the man of the house, peeling an orange and sharing segments with him. It's the first one Lukas plucked.
Does she have children?
No, she says slowly, thoughtfully. Not yet.
Does she want children?
Oh yes. I always have. I convinced myself for a long time that I didn't, but yes. Very much.
And she goes on peeling the rind, passes him a section of orange which he merely holds as he stands there, frowning and thinking. Danicka waits for him, eating her orange in small bites as though she has no idea idea, is completely oblivious to the fact that he is working up to something. It comes out finally, eventually. Danicka looks at him, steadily, but doesn't speak for a moment. She thinks about how to phrase what she wants to say to him.
It isn't, she agrees after a time, her voice as low as the rustle of branches brushing together in the breeze, swaying heavily with their fruits. Her eyes lift, and skate over to meet the man's. And you may be. I was afraid of my mother. I am still afraid of my brother. Sometimes I am afraid of my husband.
It's dark. And bleak. And:
But if you treat him like your son, and not like a wolf, then maybe as he grows he will remember to treat you like his father, and not his prey.
She passes him another crescent of orange. Lukas heads back toward them, holding several pounds of oranges, nearly splitting the seams of the sack. He looks absolutely, completely delighted with himself. Danicka gives him a whole quarter of the orange she's holding, her fingertips smelling of its pith. Perhaps he eats out of her hand. Perhaps all the man with her sees is that: sometimes she is afraid of her husband. But that is not all they are. It is not all they have between them. It does not rule.
Outside, Danicka shares stories with the nanny and housekeeper. She is not ashamed to say, among Shadow Lords, that she worked for a Silver Fang family as their governess. She entertains the toddler a bit with her hands while she explains to the older boys that at her school, she gets to play with lasers. And make them.
Soon enough, though, there's no reason to stay anymore. They say their goodbyes, though without the same embraces as with family. They get in the car and drive away, Vilem following them. At the gate she asks Lukas to pause, and Danicka leans out the open window, beckoning to him. She has something to say to him.
You must sleep more, she says firmly, half-scolding, or when the time comes, you will be too weak and silly to protect your sister and brothers. You are a good boy; you should not be so careless.
Maybe that's out of line. Danicka does not seem to care. Lukas saw her brother's face for a moment yesterday. Danicka saw flashes of memories far starker: her own blood spat out on the floor in front of her moments before losing consciousness. Her books bleeding ink all over her hands, catching fire, screaming at her. Her mother's indulgent smile. Vladik's staring eyes, crawling up her skin when he would see her in pajamas or when he would throw her door open without warning, snapping at her if she yelped in surprise, refusing to look away because
who was she to tell him no?
Lukas saw Vladik, bit back a sharp reply.
Danicka saw red. There's a hardness in her eyes when she talks to Vilem like that, even if she's softened her tone a bit to tease-but-not-quite-tease him. The true meaning is clear enough to the adults present: he had better straighten up and act right, or soon enough he will be worthless. He will be weak, a trait no Shadow Lord could tolerate. And truth be told, Lukas never knew her as a governess: if Vilem had been her charge, she would have gone upstairs last night and informed him that he could take himself to bed or he could be dragged. His choice. She never was The Nice One, though.
They drive out of the gate, heading back to Prague. She eyes Lukas, shaking her head. "I do not want to get arrested on my way back to the States. You're on your own. But find me an oven and I will make koláce for you."
DanickaSTOP DOING THAT KAI
LukasOf course Lukas eats out of Danicka's hand. There in the grove, with the tea-scented smell of orange flowers all around them, in the green shadows of the trees: a moment more intimate than either of them intended. His lips kiss her palm. He smiles into her eyes as he sucks the wedges up, his teeth barely grazing her skin.
Later, at the gates of the estate -- Vilém's estate now, by the strange and often unfair laws of their tribe -- Danicka says what no one in this family would dare to say to the boy. She sees his eyes widen, his nostrils flare. Vilém's eyes never leave the woman that everything in his life so far has taught him is inferior, is less, is unimportant. He stares, he very nearly glares. At then he backs down. The moment is there, and unmistakable. His eyes drop, he sulks a little, and then he meets her eyes again. He nods. Chin jutting, stubborn even now: but he nods.
He waves at them as they go. And perhaps there's something just a little forlorn about it: waving to the first person in god knows how long who's dared to take a firm hand with him. He's not their boy, though, nor Danicka's charge. They'll have to hope that his mentor, whoever it is, will do a better job with him than Danicka's mother did with Vladislav. The boy is so young. To put so much power into the hands of such irresponsible, wild youth: the wonder isn't that men like Vladislav exist. The wonder is that there aren't more of them.
Vilém is not Vladik, though. Not yet; and he may never be. Creatures like Vladik, in the end, are as much nature as nurture.
The afternoon is bright, a day as clear as yesterday. "We'll buy a toaster oven," he says as they turn onto the road back to Prague. "And flour, and butter, and sugar. There are pans in the suite; I saw them. I'll help you. We'll make them together."
A few moments pass in quiet. Then Lukas reaches over and -- yet again -- finds her hand.
"Miluji te tak moc," he says softly. "Tam je tak mnoho dobrého ve vás."
DanickaDanicka is thoughtful, her sunglasses back on, the bag of oranges at her feet. "You know," she muses aloud, "with what we're paying, we should just talk the hotel into letting us use their kitchen one night. After the restaurants close." She says this with utter confidence, as though no one would dare deny them. Between the two of them, even with Gifts or magic or threat of any kind, they are remarkably persuasive. It says something about them both that even when they can, they don't always demand to get their way. Not with each other. Not in the world, either.
When he reaches for her hand, her own slips under his, palm to palm, fingers smoothly lacing. She's looking out the window, the sun dappling the trees and creeks they passed through last night when it was too dark to see. She doesn't look at him when he speaks at first, her lips curling into a soft smile at the first few words. They don't always say this, or say it this way. Sometimes it comes out in flurries, declarations that pepper their language for days at a time. Other times, they go weeks without needing or wanting to give it voice. They don't always say it back to each other, either. Danicka squeezes his hand instead, this time.
Her head turns a moment after the rest of what he says comes out. She has nothing to say to that either. Once, it might have made her cry to hear anyone say that about her. She might have denied it, or scoffed at it. Not believing it to be true, the words would have only hurt her in some bizarre, twisting fashion. Now she just aches a bit, knowing why he says this. She tells him about the conversation with Vilem's father, what he said, what she told him, how it informed her own boldness with the boy at the gate.
"One of the great flaws of our tribe, and several others, is the belief that gentleness or care are the same thing as weakness." She pauses a moment. "Even you and I used to believe that."
Lukas"Yes," Lukas agrees simply. His hand squeezes her, a gentle firm pressure; the sweep of his thumb crosses her knuckles. A moment later he raises her hand and kisses it, his lips against the back of her hand, the bristle of a day and a half's worth of beard scratchy on her much softer skin.
"It's not, though," he adds. "And we know that now."
They roll down the windows a little as they drive. There's still a bit of chill in the air -- high fifties, breezy and clear. The wind is fresh, though, and fresher than cycled and conditioned air. It lifts the scent of oranges, fills the cabin of their rental with it. Lukas had forgotten, somehow, that oranges smell like citrus, but their flowers smell like jasmine, like gardenia, like tea. The memory reawakened is aching and bone-deep.
By early afternoon, Prague is in sight again. Situated in the river valley, there's a bit of haze overhead. They see what passes for rush hour traffic leaving the city as they enter it; it's nothing compared to what they see in Chicago, but it still slows them at some crossings. The radio is on again. It plays something in Czech, unfamiliar to both of them.
DanickaShe's never had anything like this. All her love, the love given and not returned, has been furtive. She recognized it at first in Lukas, something he couldn't bear to feel but couldn't bear to keep hidden, but now there is all this hand-holding and these frequent kisses to her palm, her fingertips, her temple, her cheek, her lips. He eats oranges from her hand if she offers them, another kinsman looking on as though he can't fathom what he's witnessing.
Danicka eats another orange, a larger one, in the car. She peels it with the same efficient violence that she might use to skin a small animal, de-bone a fish, carve a turkey, and feeds him again, just as she did in the grove. She likes feeding him. Not in the way he likes feeding her, almost anxious at first and then deeply, thoroughly satisfied. She simply likes the act of it, inherently physical and thus deeply intimate. She imagines feeding children by hand before they can manipulate their own spoon, grasp their own bits of food. Her children. Theirs.
Smiles, lopsidedly, when Lukas says om nom nom and 'accidentally' catches her fingertips as well, lips folded over his teeth, gnawing softly on her.
"Moje laska," she murmurs tenderly, rubbing her knuckle lightly against his cheek when he lets her go.
Closer to Prague, where they have the remaining days of their vacation free and to themselves -- not that they are in any way forbidden from meeting up with her family again if they like -- Danicka gets a headache. They roll up the windows and lower the sound on the radio. She sips water and closes her eyes, and Lukas strokes her hand while he stops and goes. Danicka drifts into a restless nap.
They pass around the old fountain they took pictures at their first day here, and during one of her brief moments of waking, she glances at it through the window and gives a little smile. "It's so old" she murmurs, then gives a shiver as though cold and rests her head on the glass again.
Parking at the hotel, it is difficult to wake her despite the seeming shallowness of her sleep. Danicka opens her eyes groggily, pawing at her shades until they come off and then wincing at the light. She doesn't say much. She still seems half-asleep, only able to say Moje hlava, gruffly, putting cool fingers to her brow. Her brow which, Lukas soon learns, is not so very cool itself. Something is overtaking her, turning her skin feverish, spiking through her head, and tossing her on waves of nausea. He helps her to their room with his arm around her, all but holding her up, though she insists on walking -- wordlessly even then, pushing at his hands when he seems like he might carry her.
In the elevator she sways, grips the handrail, and presses her forehead to the wall. She swears like a sailor in the language of this place, muttering oaths in gibberish, nonsense arrangements.
She needs help getting to bed. Danicka is delirious by that point, fighting with her clothing like she doesn't understand it, clawing at it to get it off, get it off, her skin ashen and her eyes watery. Her lips seem livid red against such paleness, her eyes impossibly bright. She never vomits, but chokes often as though she's going to, only able to sip a little more water before the room spins and she lies down, curls up, covers her eyes against any and all light that might be in the room,
whimpers at any noise, even his voice,
shakes going through her every few moments. Her breathing, even when it steadies with sleep, is ragged.
