taking lonna home.

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas has been here two or three times before, dropping Lila off after some ghostly encounter or other. He's not driving this time -- Danicka is -- but as they near Lila's home the Ahroun sits up in the back seat and gives quiet directions.

Right at the second stop sign. Left here. It's that house there.

When the car is parked, Lukas is out first, flipping the passenger's seat forward and climbing out. Three rather tall people -- or two rather tall people and a body -- make a tight fit in the back of a japanese sport coupe. Lukas doesn't take time to stretch his cramped joints, though. He turns and takes Lonna over from Theron, holds her while the Theurge climbs out, then hands her back.

Then he leans into the car briefly. "Are you staying in the car?" he asks.

Whether the answer is yes or no, Lukas shuts the passenger side door, follows Theron up the walk. The hour is quite late, or very very early, depending on definition. The street is quiet, and they can clearly hear Lila's doorbell ding-dong!ing inside.

[Danicka Musil] Danicka is not in shock. If she were in shock, she wouldn't be functional right now. Able to drive a car with two large, bloody, vomit-soaked Shadow Lords and the body of a woman she couldn't quite call a friend but could have, one day. She drives silently, mechanically, and when they get to Lila's, she only gets out of the car so that Lukas and Theron can get out of it with Lonna's body more easily.

Standing by the hood, she stares at the pristine paint job. And blinks when Lukas speaks to her. Taking a deep breath, she shakes her head, and goes with the trueborns to the door. A subdued beep-beep tells them that the Infiniti is locked behind them.

She has her coat on. It's buttoned up, hiding what viscera is on her blouse. She wiped her face off with a Wet One at a red light, but there are still smears of gore on her skin and in her hair. She hangs back, watching the street, mostly, just in case anyone drives by who might be interested in two men, one of whom is carrying a limp blonde woman.

[Theron Locke] Theron sits in silence in the back seat, his eyes almost boaring a hole into the headrest in front of him. An arm had been draped around Lonna Controlling her, protecting..her.. he winced inwardly at the reminder that he hadn't.

The car eventually comes to a stop and Lukas exits and offers to take Lonna for the moment. He watches as her body slips from his grasp as he guides her towards the Ahroun. Eventually sliding out of the car him as he positions himself, his arms filled with the Child of Gaia's body once more. Turning towards the apartment as he begins the slow walk. Not waiting for the communication between his Alpha and his mate.

Just standing and waiting nearby the door....the doorbell chiming the only sound.

[Doomsday] The night is a warm one. There is a puddle -- the water thick, black and too cold; it lies on the asphalt like an oracle's mirror, like a premonition of fog (of mist), and there is a woman's white hand reaching out. No. Nay, there isn't. That was just a reflection: Danicka's, maybe, or Lonna's. They needed to step around the puddle or risk chilling their ankles (is it bad luck to break a mirror if it's water?). Lila's door isn't visible from the street. Lila's door isn't even easily visible from the house her house squats behind.

The doorbell rings, dong, ong, and there's nothing but darkness in the yard, no flickering lamplight, just shadow. It's more than possible Lila isn't home. Garou don't keep normal hours, and the Child of Gaia could be almost anywhere in Chicago if she's not home and she's not at the Brotherhood of Thieves and she's not at the caern (check off the list).

But she is home. They aren't waiting long when the door opens, and the young woman (creature) opens the door, looking as if she's fresh-woken up. She doesn't lock the door. They didn't hear her unlock it. Why would she need to lock her door? She's dressed for going outside, so maybe she just came home, or maybe she just woke up: blonde hair, loose and gleaming, catching the radiance from within and haloing up; face, half-shadowed, because she's a back-lit thing, but see how it catches the green?

"Lukas," she says, smiling, "Hey. I was just," and then, Theron: his armful. Lila goes very still, and she opens the door wider. "In," she says.

[Wyrmbreaker] Even before Lila looks to what Theron's carrying, instinct tells her something's wrong. The Garou at her door are too grave, too silent, their eyes too dark. And they're bloody, too. Theron has lost his shirt. Lukas is down to underclothes and his coat. It's a dead giveaway: war. battle.

Bringing home the dead.

Lukas nods once in thanks -- hospitality and all. His hand touches Danicka's back lightly, ushering her in ahead of him. Then Lukas, then Theron with his pitiful burden.

Inside, Lukas looks at the couch first: that's where Lonna said she slept. Her den, now. Was.

[Danicka Musil] Miz Musil is still in pigtails. It's absurd, those low, straightened lengths at the base of her skull, resting on her shoulders. She looks pale, drawn, and exhausted. She has her hands in her coat pockets, hiding their shaking. She doesn't move until Lukas touches her back, and then she walks inside mutely, feet heavy.

[Doomsday] [A'ight. PERC+EMP: How are YOU?]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 5, 5, 6, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
to Wyrmbreaker

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas is feeling shocked: this is the first time anyone has died on his watch since time immemorial [i.e., as far back as Damon can remember *LOL* possibly since Lukas came to Chicago!]. Lukas is also feeling guilty. He's berating himself. And finally, Lukas feels really, really bad about bringing Lila's kinswoman home dead.
to Doomsday

[Theron Locke] Theron follows the other two inside the abode in silence. Being ever so careful with Lonna as he protects her head from hitting the doorway. He can't look at Lila, can't bare to bring his eyes too her... to witness her sadness and disappointment.

Lukas eyes the couch first and then Theron follows his gaze and for the first time since his arrival he speaks "Where should I put Lonna?" The kinswoman is still a mess after all, they would need to clean her up at some stage.

[Doomsday] The galliard shuts the door behind them. Her home is modest. Not poor, not battered, not how can you live. Just: modest. Lila doesn't have a lot of possessions and if she didn't live (den [warm]) here it would feel like an empty chamber, no bullet, no heartbeat, no possibility for anything at all. But she does live here, so: home; as home as anything ever is, when your life is as transient as Lila's has been. The couch looks like a pullout and there's an afghan folded up in one corner, a few pillows, stacked beside. A love sac, voluminous, and some items that don't belong to Lila. A shoe, Lonna's. Some guy's coat. It's a college girl's apartment, maybe. Rootless.

"The bed," she says. There's no kitchen in the guesthouse. There's a bathroom. The door to the bathroom is open; maybe one of them can see their own reflection (a ghost in the dark). The place is lit by a ceiling lamp, and the ceilings are higher than one would expect. Pretentions of elegance, maybe, once upon a time, of loftiness, of lofthood, of charging-more-to-stay-here.

Lila doesn't need to waste time wondering who Danicka is or even ask the kinswoman her name. Lila knows who Danicka is. Lila's seen a possibility of Danicka in a few years' time. Lila's seen the reality of Danicka's presence in Lukas' eyes, saw it the first time they ever met, when he spoke her name. She didn't look at the kinswoman when they were outside, but she does now. That Danicka didn't look like this one, though: controlled, exhausted, upset -- shellshocked. They all had that same look. And Lila looks at them all -- reads them, knows them; holds her breath, exhales.

"Through there." There isn't really a door. There's a curtain, some hanging beads, wooden (clack [hippy]). "Please sit," she says, more for Danicka and Lukas than for Theron, who she follows into the bedroom proper. From her body language, one would assume she doesn't expect -- doesn't want -- Lukas or Danicka to follow.

When that's done, when Theron's set her down, Lila will re-ghost from behind those beads [clack, clack, clack] and say, "What happened?"

If necessary, she'll have Theron by the elbow, will take him out of that room, so that he's standing beside her, not leaning over the body. That's not Lonna, people. Lonna's gone. Or she'll be home very soon! With a story. Or she went back to her apartment, and she's getting hassled by that Turk boy, and Lila's on her way over. Or maybe she's dancing. Either way: that's not Lonna, that's just a body.

[Theron Locke] Theron hears a single word "bed" and that is where he heads, placing the body down on the pull out. Fingers running through Lonna's hair as he moves stray hairs from her face, almost tenderly. A pillow placed under Lonna's head at least she would be at rest now, the pain over.

He eventually stands and lets his eyes cast over her , a gentle touch at his arm as a suggestion was made that it was now time to leave her. A sigh given as he turns and follows behind the Galliard.

Rejoining the other two as he moves beyond the beads, falling closed behind him acting as a curtain. Standing beside Lila, he remains silent and allows Lukas to answer her question. He didn't trust himself to speak of it at the moment.

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas doesn't follow, and doesn't want to, himself. He looks around the guest house, with its once-upon-a-time dreams of elegance and expense, and then takes a seat as it is offered to him.

Perhaps Danicka sits too. Or maybe she doesn't. He doesn't force her, either way.

Then Lila is back, the bead curtain clacking in her wake. Lukas has shed his coat by then, which is folded into a small bundle atop the couch cushion beside him, lining-out to avoid staining the fabric or leather any more than his bloody clothes already do. Because that's what he is right now. Bloody. He's in his underclothes, a plain white t-shirt and charcoal grey boxer-briefs, and though the latter doesn't show blood very much the former has bloomed with bloodstains, blood and other viler fluids, seeping into the fabric from the inside-out.

Wyrmbreaker himself does not look wounded, sitting on the couch with his feet apart and his elbows on his knees, hunkered over. There's a patch of skin on his shoulder that looks new, but to have regenerated so quickly means he was never badly hurt at all. His face is a mask of blood, though, his mouth and jaw still smeared with it despite abortive attempts to clean himself up in the car.

Against that backdrop: dark hair, swarthy skin, red blood -- his eyes are arrestingly brilliant. They flick up to Lila as she asks the question they've been waiting for.

Lukas straightens a little. He tells the story softly, without fanfare, but with more brutal, honest detail than he would have given anyone other than the Galliard Elder of the Sept:

"We were at the Blue Chalk Cafe, Dani&+269;ka and I. Lonna came in and we invited her to sit with us. She mentioned she had just left Ezra's dubious care and come into yours. Theron arrived as well. It was just coincidence, all of us at the same time.

"There was a waitress. She brought us our coffee. She was ... sick. She started vomiting; soon she was bringing up blood. Then one of the waiters. The customers panicked. Most ran. Some began to vomit, too. Six in all. Meanwhile the waitress was convulsing, and then -- she peeled out of her skin and came for us.

"There were security cameras in the corners. We couldn't risk shapeshifting, using gifts or rage. Dani&+269;ka went to the office to deactivate them. Two of the creatures followed her. Two more attacked Theron and I. Lonna went to the front of the cafe -- to try to cover the windows, I think. It separated her from us. She was alone, and two of them came after her.

"By the time Dani&+269;ka got the cameras down, they had managed to pin her down. They were all over her. I couldn't get across the room in time, but the truth is even if I could have, I wouldn't have. At that point, Theron and I both ... chose" that, the damning word, "to stand our ground and finish the ones who were trying to get in the office.

"In that time, Lonna died.

"After that, we could shift freely, and Dani&+269;ka had her gun. The battle was over quickly. Dani&+269;ka made sure there was no trace left of the surveillance tapes online or offline while we set fire to the bodies and left the place to burn. We came here."

That's it, then.

[Danicka Musil] "That's not --"

She almost speaks, when Theron asks Lila where to put Lonna. But Danicka cuts herself off, quieting and moving to someplace to sit. Anywhere. Where Lila indicates. That will do. She sinks down on the couch slowly, sitting on the edge of the cushions and keeping her feet together, her back straight. There are flickers of the woman Lila saw in the underworld hiding deep inside the woman now sitting in her den, but they are not the same.

This woman is many things that the gatekeeper was not: she's bloodsplattered. She looks like she's maybe thirty, rather than mid-thirties edging towards forty. She's also weak. Lukas talks about her pulling a gun on fomori, obliterating surveillance, and it's nearly impossible to imagine her doing anything of the sort. She's moving when she's told to. She's not speaking. She's in here because she's afraid to be out in her car, alone, at night, in Bronzeville.

She's not able to make eye contact with any of them, and truth be told, she isn't even able to look at Lila. Her hands rest on her knees. She stares at the floor, and a few times, she closes her eyes as though to stave off the urge to weep, or maybe just

lie down.

Eventually she does, however, speak up: "Can I please... can I please go clean her up? She's covered in..."

Vomit. Blood. Taint.

[Doomsday] [Whoa! WP: Be Cool, Galliard Chick. Just Shitty Luck!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 4, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Doomsday] Lila listens without interrupting. Behind her, what's left of Lonna (that's not) is on the bed. The bed was clean; looked unslept in. The corners were tucked, military style. Now, the covers are bloody, covered in whatever Lonna was covered in: just how bad is the kinswoman's body? Just how much of it is left? Just what happened? Lukas is telling her a story, and, as with all of the stories he's told her, it's not one that makes her happy.

In that time, Lonna died. That's what he says, and they can all see the galliard's control over her silence slip a little. They can feel the sudden boil of [simmer (moon)] Rage, that thing that makes her a monster, that uncomprehending, blind and alien fire that licks her bones into a monster's shape flare up, smolder all the way up her spine, touch her dreaming (no: awake) eyes. Lila's looking at Lukas as if she doesn't get it. Lila's looking at him with blank incomprehension -- for a second, at least -- because she doesn't get why the concern for some fucking Weaver toy means that her kin is dead.

Not just any kin. Kin who was so hurt. Kin who was always getting herself into trouble. Kin who was so damned eager to help that she: Kin who she'd just started to help, maybe. Help for real. That kin. The one who was always getting in trouble around Shadow Lords: now, look. Final trouble, and she's dead. Because of security cameras in a coffee shop.

Lila takes a deep breath: raw, ragged. "Okay," she says, then -- whatever else she was going to say goes up in smoke; her gaze snags on Danicka when the blonde woman speaks. "I'd be glad for your help," she says, simply. Then, to Wyrmbreaker and Eyes of the Oncoming Storm: "Thank you for bringing her here."

[Wyrmbreaker] On that note Lukas stands up, picks his coat up. No apologies, because right now there's a beast behind Lila's eyes, and animals don't understand things like sorry and wish I could have and wish she didn't.

Animals understand: mine. Animals understand: dead. And animals understand: you didn't help.

So Lukas pulls his coat back on. And he nods to Lila, which is as much apology or acknowledgment or goodbye as he's going to give.

To Danicka, though: "I'll wait for you outside."

[Danicka Musil] One of the times that Danicka closes her eyes is when Lila stares blankly at Lukas, her rage checked but risen, snarling behind those pretty, shining eyes and that cherubic face. The kinswoman -- the one still alive, the one that Is -- sways slightly when her eyelashes meet, exhaling. It's a subtle thing, but Lila sees the tail end of it, sees Danicka's eyes opening again, when she swings her head around and looks at Wyrmbreaker's mate,

the one they chose to protect instead of Lonna.

Speaking of choices, Danicka chooses to believe, straw-grasping, that Lila being grateful for her help doesn't mean that Lila will be helping. It's a very thin form of faith. She rises to her feet and immediately walks from living room to bathroom. There will be towels there. She can wet them. She can do something, get the worst of it off of Lonna, even if she can't pick her up and set her in a bathtub.

Water runs in the sink. Cupboards open and close. And the beads clack as Danicka goes from one room to the other, going to perform the last possible corporal act of mercy.

[Theron Locke] Theron had been standing at Lila's side and had felt her rage starting to boil as Lukas spoke. He is silent as as he waits and listens as he fury builds. Who could blame her really, they had failed to protect her and now she was dead being delivered in the middle of the night.

Lila address him and it's all he can do to reply with a "It's the least I could do...." the statement drifting off into silence once more. None of his words were going to help now, so he was keeping his mouth shut.

Beginning to move after his Alpha. it seemed he was no longer wanted here. He'd had the opportunity to say goodbye, now it was time to allow others to do the same. "Lila, there are others that would want to know. Do you want me to contact those I know about, or would you prefer I leave that to you?"

Standing by Lukas' side as he awaits a response. Watching as Danicka begins to gather the things she requires to clean up Lonna.

[Theron Locke] (( Just a warning guys I may need to leave soon ))
to Danicka Musil, Doomsday, Wyrmbreaker

[Doomsday] Theron says, it's the least I could do, and Lila's an eloquent creature. Her expression says: really, those're the words you want to use right now.

"I'll contact people," she tells him, because he is interested, because he is asking, because he is concerned. Lila shifts her weight from one foot to another, no longer still, like she just wants to move. She'd tracked Lukas back to the door with her eyes, hadn't expected any more've an apology than that scant nod (she knows, she knows, it's just: it just happened) and now she wanted to get out've her skin: that'll have to wait. "But I'd really appreciate some help."

Pause. "I haven't been here very long; I don't know everyone Lonna knew. Gina," she says, "And Edwin, and ... once family stuff is straightened out, where she's going into the ground, or ... There'll be a memory service. Memory, anyway," Lila blinks, once, bright.

Then -- and Danicka's straw-grasping, revealed for the futile gesture it is -- she goes to help clean Unicorn's own Lonna Larson up and ready her for the grave.

[Danicka Musil] Again the beads clack, and Danicka's head comes up like a deer's -- an animal in the woods who has heard a twig snap. She's perfectly still for a moment, her hand poised with a wet, scrunched-up towel in one hand. There's blood on it, bile, thick and blackening, all of it. She's wiping Lonna's hair clean, kneeling on the bed next to her, and now

she's staring at Lila, motionless, and there's no doubt that right now fight isn't an option.

[Theron Locke] Theron looks towards Lila's expression and blanches a little, eyes lowering after a few moments. Knowing that he should have kept his mouth shut. Careless...

"Okay... I can help you to some degree as well. I'll let you know names and details or just direct them to you. If you need any help with organising the service please let me know. One thing you might like to know, she loves flowers. Natives in particular... she tended a garden.." And with that Theron starts to choke up on a memory, turning away as he takes a breath.

[Wyrmbreaker] Outside, Lukas is quiet, and tense. His back is to the door, his arms folded as much for warmth as out of habit. He turns slightly, swiveling at the hips as Theron emerges. His eyes glimmer, catching and throwing back what light there is, before he turns forward again.

Silently, he stands there waiting.

[don't wait for me from here on out!]

[Doomsday] Lila has wanted to meet Danicka since Lukas first said her name. This is not how she envisioned meeting her. Lila's gaze touches the deer-startled stillness of the (living) kinswoman, and she reaches up, tucking a lock of her hair behind one ear. The hair tangles, gold as an elm leaf about to fall, as gold as fairy coin, and she blinks again. "Hi," she says, and then: "This won't work. I'm going to take her clothes off."

She's telling Danicka this like Danicka doesn't know, like she can't see. Because that's just what the (i belong to the poet's moon) not-woman does: peels off Lonna's shirt, unbuttons whatever buttons are there to button, as if the shirt's going to ever be used again (as if she doesn't want to find blood-soaked buttons on the floor). Lila, human-shaped, isn't very strong, so she'll ask for Danicka's help holding Lonna once -- maybe twice. Just: get those filthy rags off'a her, right? Lila handles the dead woman carefully, and with respect.

Lila tries to handle the living woman the same way, because it's not her fault.

[Theron Locke] Theron turns back to see Lila already moving to assist Danicka, he just lets out a sigh and leaves the building. Foot steps padding over the ground as he moves to stand besides Lukas , joining him in silence.

[Theron Locke] okay guys I'm dreadfully late for an appointment.. I need to head off. If someone has grabbed a transcript I'll take a read later
to Danicka Musil, Doomsday, Wyrmbreaker

[Danicka Musil] As Lila moves further into the room, Danicka remains frozen. Her chest is moving under her coat with deep breaths that she still tries to keep silent, tries not to show. There is something archaic, ancient about this, that echoes the very fact that Lila so recently went to the underworld. In several cultures, preparing the dead to be buried was the work of women. In some places, it still is. Among the Garou, however, they take care of their own. Burn or bury them, float them out to see, do whatever their tribal culture dictates.

Lonna's not Garou, though. Nor is she a Shadow Lord. All Danicka knows is: her body is a mess. And they can't leave it like that. It may be sorrow, grief, mourning. It may just be simple practicality.

In any case: she doesn't simply bend her head and go back to work when Lila comes in, tender towards the corpse and helpful to the Galliard. Her lips together, her nostrils flaring, Danicka slides backward off the bed, feet touching the carpet, backing away from the Child of Gaia before she quite knows what she's doing. As soon as she does:

she stops.

The look on her face is vaguely apologetic. She takes a ragged breath, her pupils tightly constricted despite the fact that the room isn't very bright, and goes to work on Lonna's shoes as Lila works on her shirt. That's how they have to do this: Danicka flinching every time Lila speaks to her, eyes downcast and body kept facing the Galliard as much as possible, as though she can't bear the thought of having even a gentle wolf at her back.

She keeps her distance. But she stays. And she cleans Lonna with a striking lack of hesitance, washing her breasts and her navel and making sure there's nothing that's seeped between her legs. She wipes her arms and her thighs and her knees and cleans under her fingernails. It takes time. It takes more time, because she's so terrified of Lila she can't speak.

Maybe she wouldn't speak, anyway. They are performing something of a sacred act, after all.

[Wyrmbreaker] Lonna's clothes are soaked. In blood. In the dark, thick vomit of the creatures that did this. The shirt is clammy and damp, ragged in places, and if they aren't careful it'll tear. Lonna's pretty blonde hair is matted, stuck together.

Lonna's eyes are half-open. She's turning cold, turning stiff, and there's no light in those eyes.

Lonna's not here anymore.

Her body is, though. The evidence of what happened to her is. And it's pitiful. Rageful. It wasn't a single unlucky hit that did her in; it's at least two. Two bites. Not great ruinous gashes, the sort werewolves and carnivores leave, but ragged, torn-edged wounds that were as much ripped and chewed open as they were sliced.

Also, bruises, contusions, imprints from where she was held. Scratches, where their nails, because somehow even without skins the things that held her had fingernails, had gouged her.

All these tell Lila: she did not die easily. And they tell Lila: she did die struggling. Resisting. Clinging to life.

[Doomsday] If Lonna wasn't dead --

but she is

-- from what Lila knows of her, she'd know this: the kinfolk wouldn't be comfortable with the way Danicka flinched and would've probably flinched herself. From what Lila knows of Lonna she pulls this: the kinfolk would've tried to make this grim (grave) task as easy, as tranquil as possible; she'd care, she'd want people to feel better, and they just aren't going to feel better. That's what Lila knows, and possibly even part of what Lila thinks about when she washes what she can out've the wounds, pauses for a moment, bare-knuckles against a cut, because she could just touch her, and --

No. Lonna's dead. There's nothing to heal. There's nothing to mend.

Danicka's terror, the way she flinches from Lila, would usually be enough to cause Lila to back-away, to talk-more, to do to do something, calm, but she not now. Her concession is a quiet, speaking only when necessary, Do this, Could you, Thank you, Will you, okay.

When Lonna's as clean as she'll get [baptism (cleansing)], washed so she's just raw and pale and wax, Death's wick unlit, Lila wads up the bloodied, vomit-streaked towels, the mess and the mulch of it, and she goes to dump it in a corner of the bathroom with some of Lonna's make-up (god knows Lila rarely bothered) on the counter still, and the truth is this: she's blank, again. Paper-blank, because now, now she'll need to make human arrangements, now she'll need to call -- maybe some've Hill House's kin -- hell, maybe Izzy or that Slaughter woman -- just to get the body burned (or ready for burial).

"Thank you," she says, again, when she comes back. And then, gentle: "You should go and get cleaned up yourself now."

[Danicka Musil] Lila gathers up the towels. Danicka stays with what is left of Lonna. Truth be told, that isn't much: a corpse too far gone to even have useful organs and tissue to donate, and she thinks Lonna would have wanted that, probably, but she doesn't really know.

Danicka is sitting on the bed with the body when Lila comes back in to tell her Thank you. Simply put, she starts to cry. It took a world out of her, being in here with a Galliard in this state. Cleaning a dead body ravaged by fomori. Danicka has not been this drained in months, or maybe she just blocks it out when she's this exhausted. She ducks her head as the tears well up and come out, fighting them like some adolescent boys do, choking them down, struggling.

"I'm sorry," she says, and it's breathed, and it's all she says. I'm sorry Lonna's dead. I'm sorry I didn't realize it. I'm sorry they didn't keep both of us safe. I'm sorry they chose me.

Except: not that last.

Danicka is not sorry to be alive, and Lonna dead. She doesn't say so. But still: she's sorry. For something. Maybe she's sorry for crying in Lila's bedroom.

Rising off the bed, she edges towards the door. Has to edge, the two of them moving at opposite ends of a pole, orbiting, because Danicka can't push past her or even go near the door while Lila's standing there. There's nothing more to say. This was how they were introduced, Wyrmbreaker's mate and Waking Dream. So be it.

She closes the door quietly behind her when she leaves the place, as though someone is sleeping inside. And Lukas is waiting for her.

[Wyrmbreaker] For a long time, Lukas and Theron simply stand there. They face the street. They don't speak.

Eventually, Lukas turns to his packmate and says, "You should go back to the Brotherhood. Let Edwin know. Gina. Whoever else you might think of. I'll wait here until they're done."

So the Theurge departs. In wolf-form, and in the velvet shadow of the moon, because they only have one car and it belongs to Danicka.

Lukas stays.

The night turns on. The women work inside, and Lukas waits. Cold and passing time turns the blood on his skin tacky, turns it sticky, turns it stiff and dry finally. He shivers for a while, but then he doesn't really feel the cold anymore. His ancestors stood sentry on mountaintops, cliffsides; fought vampires and wyrms on the snowy, thunderwracked peaks.

He can stand vigil for an hour.

Eventually Danicka emerges. Lukas looks at her: intent, intense. Then he looks at Lila, nods to his fellow Elder, the Garou that fate has thrown him together with some three or four times now.

The Shadow Lords depart together. The Garou and the living kin, the one they chose to protect. His arm comes around her shoulders before they're even halfway down the walk.

[Doomsday] [Thanks for the RP!]

[Wyrmbreaker] [should be noted: Lila specifically instructed Theron NOT to notify people, so Theron should probably respect that ICly *dies* but Lukas doesn't know that!]

[Danicka Musil] [That was a great scene, guys. Thank you!]

[Theron Locke] (( Yep all good I got that.. and THeron will respect that ))
to Danicka Musil, Doomsday, Wyrmbreaker

[Wyrmbreaker] He hugs her to his side. Even now, even after all that time in the cold, he's intensely warm. Danicka gives him the keys. He drives without question: not north but south, toward their den.

She begins to cry. He looks at her, his heart twisting in his chest, but he says nothing. After a while his hand comes to her leg, covers her thigh, her knee. She cries, and she cries, and he keeps his hand on her body until sobs become sniffles and sniffles quiet to a shellshocked nothing.

Lukas feels shock, himself. He cannot remember the last time someone died on his watch. Lukas feels something very much like guilt, something gnawing and biting at his viscerae,

though perhaps not for the reasons one might expect.

Because while Danicka tended the body, Lukas stood outside and thought about it, walked through the battle one second at a time, considered each strike, each blow, each hit, each instant. Considered the options, the outcome. Considered everything, and decided --

(here's another cold truth, then:)

Decided, even knowing what he does now -- that Lonna would die and Danicka was perhaps never really even in danger -- that if he were given the opportunity to go back and make that choice again,

he would choose exactly as he did. He would sacrifice Lila's kin to protect his mate.

And he's not sorry he did that. He's not sorry he chose that, and would choose it again in a heartbeat.

If there's guilt -- and there is -- it's not because he didn't save Lonna, or even because he wouldn't change the way he chose. If there's guilt, it's only because:

he's not even sorry. Not one bit. And because: he's selfish after all.

This is not something he tells Danicka. Not right now. It's all he can think of though. So the trip to Stickney is silent, is long, is finally over when they pull into their garage, and the doors close, and Lukas gets out and comes around to the passenger's side where Danicka is climbing out.

They go inside, then,

and go upstairs without a word,

and turn on the water in the bath,

and he helps her strip out of her clothes before shedding his own,

and then they get in the shower and stand under the spray and wash and wash until the water at their feet is not red, not pink, but clear again.

Danicka cries again. It breaks his heart, so he holds her in the steam and the water and the hot, cleansing warmth, and he murmurs shh, shh and i'm here, i'm here and holds her curled to his chest and rocks her until she's quiet again, quiet and drained and clean and warm and

alive.

He holds her that night, while they sleep. He stays awake long after she's asleep in his arms, and he feels guilty again, briefly, stabbingly, there and then gone. When it's past all he feels is gladness, and gratitude: because he's glad Danicka is alive. Because he's glad his honor was not stronger than his love. Because he's glad, even, that he can hold her tonight. That all that remains of his rage is a tiny flickering pilot-light, afterburner blue like his eyes; that his mind is a vast glassy calm; that the night is silent and still, and their den is dark and warm, and

he still has her.

She's still alive.
to Danicka Musil