vicarious.

[Wyrmbreaker] It's later now. Mrena has been dead for a number of hours. Her body is cold; if she were to touch it, it would be stiff with rigor.

She doesn't touch it. It's possible she can't, incorporeal spirit as she is.

They stand a ways from the others, Lukas and Mrena. The rest of the pack are waiting, some sitting, some standing, some watching the sky, some watching Mrena's body. They're out of earshot but still in sight in this barren Umbral plain, under the huge Umbral moon.

Lukas asked to speak to her alone, but now that he has her he seems hard-pressed to find something to say. His arms are wrapped around his chest as though he's cold, or wounded. He paces slowly, head down, and then -- all at once -- he turns to her.

"I wish our last meeting hadn't gone the way it had," he says.

[Armstrong] Her body was cold.

It was something that she, genuinely, was trying not to think about. She was trying not to think about the fact that she was genuinely deprived of tactile sensations at the moment. They stood away from the pack, and for all they knew, this was just a private conversation. Just something between Shadow Lords.

They would be allowed their secrets. Mrena was dead; she would tell no one. Lukas was surprisingly easy to confide in; were he not pack, she might find this notion disconcerting.

But there she was, all gossamer and ethereal darks and lights. Very distinctly herself, but nothing like herself. she usually seemed so sure of herself, but now? Now something had changed, and there was some silent sort of apprehension there. He had his arms folded across his chest. He paced.

She didn't move. She only just now started looking at him again.

"You were right, though," she replied. "Funny thing about living inside of your own head is that, eventually, you figure out that there's no one else there..."

Silence. Longer than she had intended. But there it was.

[Wyrmbreaker] A twist of his mouth. "We all have our flaws. But it takes a real coward to raze everyone around him down while refusing to point it back at himself. I have more flaws than I dare to name."

The Ahroun stops pacing; faces her now. His arms are still folded across his chest. His shoulders hunch. He pulls in on himself as if to make himself smaller, slighter, when normally he stands so straight, so tall, so proud.

"You were right too. I was being weak. And stupid. If you want to know the reason I'll tell you, but the truth is it doesn't matter. It's no excuse. I made mistakes, I made a mess of things, and then instead of owning up to it, I hid in a hole for a week."

He looks right at her. In the light of the umbral moon, his eyes are nearly as clear as ice.

"And I let you die alone."

[Armstrong] In the umbra, at that moment, she was every bit of her name's sake. Her eyes were so damned pale that they almost looked silver.

And in the light, his were so clear. And she turned to regard him full on; they faced each other. She looked up at him, because even when wrapped around himself, even when slightly hunched he was taller than her. Lukas would always be bigger than her- except in that moment. He seemed small, there.

And she did nothing to hide the fact that it hurt. It hurt in ways that she had never felt in life; she looked at him, brows knit, fists clench and then unclench. She reached out with hesitation, but stopped.

She didn't touch him.

And I let you die alone.
"You didn't let me do anything."

It was the best that she could offer in that regards. She tried to be somewhat comforting; this was closure. This was supposed to be closure, at the very least. He let her die alone- none of them had been there.

"There's a full moon in the ground right now... if you had made it there before I died, can you really say the odds would have been in your favor? If you had arrived too late, it would have been six on one. And we would both be skipping merrily off to our ancestral homelands and the pack would be floundering. And they would be thinking the same thing they are right now "We let them die alone."..."

[Wyrmbreaker] His smile looks a little like a wince. "I didn't say that because I'm looking for comfort, Mrena. You and I both know that if I had been there, I could have -- if nothing else -- held them off long enough to let you get away. That's how it should have been. That's my duty as Beta and Ahroun."

Lukas drops his head then, reaches a hand up, massages the back of his neck. Draws a breath and lets it out.

Quieter, then: "And you know what the worst thing is, Mrena? Some part of me can't help being ... glad that I wasn't able to give my life for yours." Christ, but he never does shy from the truth, does he? At least there's this: he looks her in the eye when he says it, his hand cupped over the back of his neck for a second, then dropping to fold with the other. "I'm glad that I have a second chance, when it was bought at the price of yours."

The silence is absolute. What more is there to say to that?

[Armstrong] He smiled- it was more of a wince. She looked at him and, for her part, could not find it in her to even fake a smile. And there she was, an imaginative creature thinking through the possibilities. She was not an empathetic creature, though- she never had been. Mrena had no idea what that felt like, what it would be like to be him at this moment.

But she would give him that, and she would stay with that thought because she understood duty. And she understood that he had a role to fulfil.

She could imagine, briefly, what it would feel like to loose Lukas in battle. She imagined that it would be no different than this.

Lukas drops his head then, reaches a hand up, massages the back of his neck. Draws a breath and lets it out.

And then he replied to her, something quiet and honest. Because, if nothing, he was honest. If nothing, he was direct. He always had been; he looked her in the eye when he said this. He had a chance to redeem himself, yes, but it was at the cost of the younger, smaller theurge.

And for her part, she just stood there and looked at him. And she looked so young then, every bit as naive as some believed her to be.

She shook her head some, lips closed, eyes wide, as though she didn't want to believe it.

But Lukas was never shy about telling the truth.

So instead, she just stood there, locking eyes with him, and not saying a word.

"What do you mean?"
Spell it out. Make it hurt. Do it.

[Wyrmbreaker] It's a common misconception that to be a Shadow Lord is to be strong in the face of others' weaknesses. That to be a Shadow Lord is to crush the weak with your strength -- to always turn your strength against outsiders, enemies, rivals, opponents.

That's part of it. The other part is to turn your strength against yourself. It's to flay yourself open, to lay it on the line, to crack open your ribs and dredge out your own weakness by the clawful.

He doesn't wince now. He doesn't even flinch. He looks right at Mrena; Mrena's shade.

"I mean," he says, softly but unwaveringly, "some part of me is glad it's me going to John Thornton with your painting instead of you going to Dani&+269;ka with whatever pale words I might be able to dredge up for her. I'm glad it's me mending my fences with Gabriella, and Sampson, and Sam, and Caleb, and whomever else I may have hurt, rather than you smoothing over what transgressions you may have made in life.

"I mean I'm ungenerous and I'm thinking of myself over the pack, over you. I mean I'm selfish."

A beat. He doesn't beg her forgiveness. He says, very softly:

"I mean there's a part of me that's glad, so fucking glad, that I'm not the one lying dead, Mrena."

[Armstrong] "I don't envy you right now," she said. Stated. "Comparatively, dying is very, very easy."

He doesn't beg her forgiveness; it's fortunate, because who was to know if she would forgive him.

And it was easy, really, to stand there and think through her mistakes and his. And it was easy to look at him and want to pick him apart and tear him down and do something so that next time something like this happened-

Suddenly, Mrena realized there was no next time. Not her her, at least.

She looked down, and for a moment she didn't know what to do with herself. It was clear, written across her palid features as clear as the moonlight. She folded her arms too tightly across her chest; she felt cold. Realistically, it was a psychological sensation instead of a physical one. And for a moment, she didn't look at him, but rather looked past him.

"For what it's worth, I'm glad it's me and not you."

And she looked at him for a moment, and as much as she wanted to wipe the expression of uncertainty off of her features, it wouldn't budge, and as much as she didn't want to appear weak infront of one of the few people whose opinion she valued, she couldn't. Mrena finally looked back at Lukas, and she brought herself to the forefront. She focused, and she looked him in the eyes.

"I want to go home," she whispered.
I don't want to be here, she meant.
I don't want to leave, she meant.
Do something, she wanted to scream.

But nothing came out. And for a split second, he could recognize that Mrena was terrified. She was facing the realm of uncertainty and, for her part, didn'tknow what to do. For this particular theurge, who prided herself on understanding the unknown, who knew so much, who studied and worked and catalogued at the expense of actually living, being somewhere uncharted scared her.

And as much as she had tried to prepare her pack for this inevitable event, she wasn't ready herself.

[Wyrmbreaker] For what it's worth, I'm glad it's me and not you.

That's when he looks aside. That's when his courage fails him, and he sees now how little courage he has, really. Not enough to stay by the side of those he loves, apparently -- not Danicka, not Mrena -- and not enough to own up to his own mistakes. Certainly not enough to wish, to truly and unadulteratedly wish things different.

Who knows what he really would have done, had he been there that day. Perhaps Mrena thinks she knows; perhaps she thought she knew. Perhaps she once thought Lukas would do for her what Lukas always used to think he would -- for her or for any other packmate -- lay down his life for theirs. Perhaps she doesn't think that anymore.

Because: who knows what he really would have done. He doesn't anymore. Who knows if he'd go back and change things if he could. Who knows --

She wants to go home.

He closes his eyes. He takes a long breath. The umbral air is sweet and clean, even here, but perhaps she can't smell that anymore, either. When he opens his eyes again he looks at her with something like grief, something like pain, something like guilt.

"You'll be Home soon enough," he says, softly. And then, though right at this moment he isn't even sure he believes this, himself, "And you'll be back amongst us soon enough. Just... not as Mrena."

Christ, but that sounded empty. He has to fight to hold her gaze. A beat goes by. Perhaps he should say his goodbyes now. He doesn't. A moment passes, and then it bursts out of him, insofar as anything ever bursts out of this cool-eyed, cool-minded Ahroun:

"I don't know that we deserve the Talons of Horus anymore, Mrena. I don't know that I deserve it. I know you told us to persevere, but -- Christ, after the last five months, the bullshit with Sam, the bullshit with losing Ed, losing Kate, losing Dylan, losing you -- I don't know that we have any right to call ourselves a circle unbroken. God, I wish I had never suggested this goddamn city -- "

He stops short. That's a lie too. Because whatever else, there's one reason he's glad, glad against all else, that he's in this city.

A muscle tenses in his jaw -- releases.

"How am I to guide a pack that places your brother before yourself when I've failed that in every way?"

[Armstrong] They had discussed this before. More appropriately, he had all but screamed this at her before- Mrena didn't know Lukas that well. Not at all, really. She had admitted, before that, that she did not understand him sometimes. Or at all, really. And that idealized version of Lukas was left in the hotel room he was staying at.

God, she wanted that back. Worse than anything, worse than being alive, she wanted that disillusionment back.

Strike that.
Worse than anything, she wished Lukas believed he was the man that she did. Because in Mrena's mind, he was honorable. He would always be honorable. In her mind he was strong, and in her mind this wouldn't hurt him as much as it did. Later, she might muse on this, she might think it stupid that she wanted to cling so much to fantasy. But, there was no later. There was only now, and whatever precious few moments they had left to find closure. In a perfect world, dying wouldn't sting like failure.

But that's what it was.

And being dead felt so much like a performance reivew, and she saw her one opportunity to make things right. Lukas burst out with something, and she cocked her head to the side while she listened. It was a subtle gesture, though more avian in nature than lupine. Given the nature of their totem, given how much time she spent in the umbra, it was understandable.

He doesn't know if they deserve their totem.

"You're the only one honest enough to admit this. It's proof that you may be the only one who is deserving," she said. "Because you wouldn't be concerned if you thought things were acceptable. The fact that it takes your alpha dying to move the pack to sufficient action is deplorable... but you are the one who seems willing to change and take responsibility for actions instead of blaming circumstance."

She continued, and who would have ever thought of her as the type to speak in terms of inspiration. She had nothing else left to give them, so this was her best.

"You will bring change. You will grow. And you will remember what this moment feels like. And you will not make the same mistakes, real or perceived, again."

She looked down for a moment, then seemed to regard him. His tensed jaw, his muscles, the way his eyes didn't meet hers for a moment or so. She was seeking them out, an intentiona gesture. When Mrena reached up, it was instinctive. It wasn't like her to invade one's space, especially Lukas', but she did anyway.

When her hand met his cheek if felt like nothing more than cold wind. Something like winter, if it could be described as such.

The speed at which she pulled her hand back could be indicative of many things. None of which were explored at that moment.

"Find those who embody our ideals, and where you think we should be and where we once were, and bring them in. If we are not deserving of the Talons of Horus, find those who are and learn from them. They would not accept you if we were not worthy. They are easy to rouse and will not tolerate disgrace... the Talons of Horus remain, and I believe the spirits, int he end, have the final say as to whether or not we have disgraced them."

[Wyrmbreaker] Mrena's hand is against his cheek for no more than a flicker of an instant.

He doesn't feel a thing. He doesn't know what she feels: the burn of his rage, the burn of his life, the aliveness of him calling to her; taunting her, perhaps. Maybe she draws back because the temptation is to great: to stay, to not go, to wander the umbral planes as a shade, staying close to the still-living.

It doesn't matter. It's for the scholars to debate. What is not debatable is that he listens to her: he listens, and when she doesn't-quite-touch him, he looks at her, and his shoulders unhunch a little.

They straighten; they roll back. He stands straight and when she's finished he unfolds his arms, lets them drop to his sides. These could be the final orders of an Alpha; this could be the final counsel of a Theurge. There's wisdom in it: he sees it now, clearly, shorn of what uncertainty he accused her of in life, stripped of the doubt and lack of confidence he once saw.

They face each other. It's the first time he's just looking at her -- not staring, not shying away, not wincing, not wracked with guilt and shame and grief.

"I would have followed you," Lukas says. "You would have led us well."

A moment goes by. He looks briefly at the rest of the pack in the middle distance; at this range he can hardly tell the difference between them. They're luminous creatures in the penumbral light, aglow with the moon and their own spirits.

"I'll remember what you said," he says, and returns his eyes to her. "And I'll remember your conviction when my own falters."

[Armstrong] And that could have been what it was. She reached for him out of subtle want. She wanted to be alive, she wanted to not be having this conversation at all, she wanted to stay. Mrena wanted so many things, and they were things that she had no clue she had ever wanted until she realized she no longer had the opportunity to have them.

Or maybe it was symbolic. At the end of the day, this is what she dealt with. White Eyes lived a world of symbols and gestures and ritual and meaning; at the end of her days that was all seh became. A symbol. Something with gestures and ritual and amorphous concepts. At the end of it all, White Eyes would be nothing more than a concept.

The Alpha who never was.
The theurge who would always be.
The Shadow Lord who could have had the world if she would have taken it.

Opportunities passed, regrets aside, she would fade into tales. She would live in memory and song. In this, she was more than she ever could have been in life.

"Let them falter, Wyrmbreaker. They will learn nothing from perfection; they'll gain more in trying to attain it."

He would have followed her, he says. She would have led them well. To that, all she did was nod, a silent bit of gratitude, acceptance. He would have followed her; he had no clue how much that meant. But she wasn't looking at him now; she was looking at her pack. That which never was looked back at what could have been, and she seemed ever untouchable.

Just as she always would be. Just as she always had been.

"... do you think he'll take care of him?"
He- Sam. Him- John.

"I feel so stupid asking; he's Fenrir. They don't need someone looking after them."
He had no idea.

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas has to think about this for a moment; not because he doesn't have a ready answer but because he's not certain he should voice it. Maybe now -- far too late -- he should invest in little white lies. Maybe he should tell her yes, yes, it'll be okay. It'll all be okay. Maybe he should lie.

He's frowning. Then he's not. In the end, he gives her the truth as he sees it, blunt and unadorned, but gently as he can: "No. I think Sam has enough trouble trying to take care of himself.

"But John will take care of John." The Ahroun shrugs his shoulders, looks back at the once-Theurge. There's the faintest echo of a smile at the edge of his mouth. He parrots her back to herself: "He's Fenrir."

A short pause.

"Should I tell him myself?"

[Armstrong] He could have lied to her. It would have been humane.

But that was neither here nor there. He hadn't been shy about the truth before; she would not abide by anything but the truth now. Sam had enough trouble taking care of himself- something about that brought about a nostalgic smile. She nodded slightly, as if to say yes, you're right, what are we going to do with Sam? Though, Sam was distinctly Lukas' territory now.

But then he asks if he should tell John himself.

She was quiet for a moment, and she nodded It was quiet affirmation of something; in all honesty, she didn't care who told John so long as someone did. She looked at her packmates though, instead of their impromptu alpha.

"That man meant the world to me; I hated that about him," she said. It was something unfamiliar mixed with a quiet resentment. How dare he mean so much to her. How dare he come up in her thoughts after death, how dare he... how...

"I don't think he had any idea."
It was for the best.

[Wyrmbreaker] That makes him laugh -- a short, mirthless exhale, nearly soundless. When she looks back at him Lukas is looking at her fondly, smiling, sad-eyed.

"I understand."

And he did. God, did he understand that.

"Should I tell him that, too?"

[Armstrong] She was every bit little sister for a moment; there were certain aspects of life that she had avoided. Components to the human interaction ritual that she had never completed or understood. This, amond so many other things, was something Mrena realized she wanted too late.

"Please do," she said.

She paused, and then seemed to think for a moment. She didn't reach out to him, she let her gaze come back to the other Shadow Lord instead of anywhere else. "Journal's under my pillow where it always is. Try not to let anyone else read it."

Every bit a little sister, but he knew that was more than a diary she had willed to him.

[Wyrmbreaker] "On my honor," he says, and this would be a small vow for some. For Lukas, whose every word was on his honor, to state it explicitly was ... something else, altogether.

Another pause. Then, "Is there anything else?"

[Armstrong] Silence.

"Tell me about yourself."

[Wyrmbreaker] There's a flicker of surprise; perhaps a touch of bemusement too. After a small silence, Lukas simply asks, "What do you want to know?"

[Armstrong] "Tell me... tell me what your Rite of Passage was like," she started.

But she wasn't done. Not by a long shot.

"Tell me why you were named what you were. Tell me why you came to Boston, where you've been-" she continued.

Questions were coming more rapidfire at that point. The pace signified something, and they came, quickly, building up in pace. Why was she asking this? Why did all of this matter now? Why did she give two shits about where he came from, what he was named for, why he was here and not in New York.

"-tell me who the first person you fucked was like, tell me about your first broken bone, your first scar, why you like lamb, tell me what high school was like, tell me what it's like to have a sister-"

And then it hit. It hit hard. He looked at her, bemused, surprised, and she was asking him to tell her all these things. She was asking him about herself, but she was asking for something equally important. Something that, if she had time later to muse on this, would feel almost childish against her skin. Felt too warm and too cold all at once.

"-tell me something."

She was asking this, these questions, all rapidfire, because she wanted to know what she had missed in life. And she wanted to know him, she wanted to know about him, and for a moment she wanted to live through him.

Tell me it was all nothing.
Tell me that the road leads nowhere.

And sometimes, it was easy to forget that Mrena was so young. Tha thse had changed young. That she had missed so much.

It was easy to forget that, maybe, she missed not having those things.

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas is drawing breath to tell her about his Rite of Passage when she goes on. She asks about his name; why he came to Boston. He releases half his breath in a huff of a laugh, a touch awkward -- hold on a minute, the breath says, but by then she's asking where he's been; how he lost his virginity; his first broken bone, his first scar --

and on and on until she can feel his start to tense, start to close up, because she's asking too much, she wants too much of him; and he can't take it, and

-- and then she says: tell me something and suddenly he understands.

Mrena is dead. This is it. Her spirit will persist; it will go on. It will return, but it will be changed. The same essence, a new body. All her memories, all the experiences she ever had -- these, she's set down in her journal, and that will be the last record of Mrena White-Eyes in this world. That's what she's giving him: the sum total of her existence. And what she wants back:

The memories she does not have. The experiences she's missed. A slice of his life to add to hers for as long as she has consciousness of this life of hers; a few more years tacked on to her pitiful twenty.

Lukas understands, and the look in his eyes is something like a slow crumbling; something like a wince, something like a falling asunder.

"Okay," he says. "I'll tell you."

--

So he tells her.

He tells her what she asks. He tells her about his Rite of Passage, which was glorious and successful and all, but really -- not that special. He did not stand out. He's never really stood out; he's always been the beta, the quiet support player, the backbone but not the head. His name is the same; glorious and threatening and shadow lord and all, but nothing that stands out in a crowd. He tells her about leaving New York for Boston: it was mostly whim, partly because he'd struck up a friendship with a visiting Fang by the name of Edward Bellamonte. He tells her about the first girl he had, who was darkhaired and liked tuna fish sandwiches on rye bread. He tells her about his first broken bone (ulna, falling out of a tree, age 8) and his first battle scar (four weeks past his rite of passage, Dancer) and why he likes lamb (the texture; the tenderness; the flavor; the cost). He doesn't tell her about high school because he never went to high school; like her, he changed at age 14. He tells her that having an older sister is the biggest pain in the ass you'll ever love.

And then he tells her about things she didn't ask about. He tells her about moving to the United States when he was 5 and not knowing a word of English. He tells her about growing up in the rougher, ethnic neighborhoods of New York City. These are things the pack knows about, vaguely, but he never bothers to expound on -- stories that he doesn't lie about, but facades her refuses to drop entirely. He tells her that his parents were very poor in his childhood (something about Shadow Lord politics); he's careful to tell her his childhood was good, was happy, was not deprived in the ways that mattered. He describes for her his closeknit family, his stalwart father and his gracious mother, the oldest of old blood, the noblest of nobility.

He tells her how his sister used to boss him around, how she was always trying to help him even when he didn't need it. He tells her how he was an expert treeclimber as a boy. He tells her about winning his first fight at school and being thrashed for it by his father because it was a fight he started, and a Kvasnicka, descended from the ancient house of Zierotin, should have known better. He tells her about the posters he had on his wall in the first house they had, after they'd recovered, after his parents regained some of their liquid assets. He tells her about his first concert, two weeks before his First Change. He tells her about his mentor, who was a Philodox. He tells her about the books he read, the textbooks he checked out from the library and read, the books he borrowed from his father and read, the way he educated himself when school, when university, became an impossibility.

He tells her about the Bellamontes as they were: stiff-lipped Katherine, easy-smiling Edward. He tells her about the nights he and Ed caroused out on the town, the girls they would pick up, the way they would flock to Edward's charm and banter; the way they trembled when he touched them, because his rage was too much for them. He tells her about playing cards until dawn, losing sums of money he couldn't afford just to keep up with the Fang until he learned to win.

He tells her about what he saw in Edward. He tells her why he convinced Ed to come out to Chicago, where the pack would splinter like ice dashed upon rock; like birds scattered by a high wind. He tells her about his sister visiting him a few months ago, and his father's birthday.

He tells her why he spends nights alone at clubs, feeling the beat flow through him. He tells her about the women he finds there sometimes, and how they've made him cynical.

--

Hours slip by. The stars wheel. The moon skates across the sky.

Their packmates mill in the distance; they look their way sometimes. They lie down in one form or another; they sleep, and in their sleep, they unconsciously ring Mrena's body: a guardian phalanx, an honor guard for the dead.

Lukas talks on, unhurriedly, uneditedly, stream of consciousness, memories offered up as they come to him.

--

He tells her what it's like to feel that first attraction, that true attraction, that will later become love. He tells her what it's like to feel jealousy, and rage, and uncertainty, and all the things that are unfamiliar even to him. He has trouble describing love, though he tries hard. But then, perhaps Mrena has some inkling of what that's like. He has no trouble describing heartbreak and loss, though he doesn't go into detail.

He does not tell her what it's like to make love to Danicka. That alone is too personal; he doesn't even approach it, and perhaps she knows better than to ask. He does tell her the one memory he has of Danicka, the woman he loves, before she was a woman and he was an Ahroun: he tells her about the oak tree in Danicka's backyard when they were children, and how Danicka followed the Kvasnicka children into its boughs and slipped and fell.

He tells her about watching the sunrise over the Atlantic in New York City. He tells her about the quality of the light in the room he lived in as a small child, the way it was only ever bright at daybreak, but how, at daybreak, the very air would turn golden.

He tells her how he never as a child expected to be a Garou. He tells her how that was a surprise to all of them. He tells her how sometimes he wonders what his life would have been like as a kinsman.

He tells her of his impressions of her, the first time he saw her: a child, a girl, a little sister.

He tells her of his impressions of her tonight, the last time he will ever see her: a theurge, a woman, an alpha.

--

It's morning.

The penumbral sunlight is weak, and the moon still dominant. Lukas's voice has long since worn down to a husking rasp. He's lying on the ground now, stretched full-length like a boy, a college kid in the room of his old friend, talking til dawn. As the hours rolled one into the next his sentences became sparser, his memories fewer, more tattered, older, faded. At last, he has nothing else to offer her.

He lies in silence then. Perhaps he dozes a while. When he opens his eyes again, the sky is a deep, deep blue, far darker and richer than any daylight sky found on earth.

"Sampson," he says, hoarse, "wanted us to run with you one more time." He turns his head to look at her, wherever she might be. "He thought we could follow you as far as we're able, if you're willing."