A number of days later, a gift arrives for the Unbroken Circle. With the Alpha difficult to pin down (that hero of heroes, that Silver Fang Ragabash who is Meant To Turn The Tide Of The War or some such, the one that has bound them all together under the Talons of Horus), the gift is delivered to his sister to share with the lot of them, but only after an introduction between messengers has been established, only after it has probably filtered down that some higher-ranked wolf is reaching out to them somehow. It must, for most of them, only support their view of themselves: they deserve this. They are going to change everything.
There are many of them, and so the gift would seem extravagant were they smaller in number, but for their size, it is actually quite modest. They are given several bottles of a rich red wine, robust and slightly spicy to mingle with the dry sweetness. A bottle of Russian Standard Platinum, with its emblem of black wolf and white eagle, the bottle wrapped in silver and black. It is not the first hint -- they have, after all, probably heard that they were being asked about -- of who the gift-giver is, but it is the strongest.
Then again: there are plenty of Russian Shadow Lords in the city. But only one of them has, over the past week or so, turned his eye towards the Unbroken Circle.
There are some cured meats and aged cheeses, each carefully wrapped and sealed with the emblems of their makers, but among the wine and vodka and snacks come two stacks of small boxes, each one about five by seven by two, each one white, and the stacks are bound and tied by black ribbons. Everything is presented in a quite lovely fashion, and once they open the boxes, they discover assortments of kolache, which some of them don't even recognize other than 'pastry filled with some kind of fruity goo'. There are strawberry and apricot and cream cheese and blueberry and lemon and candied orange.
The note attending the gift is simple, polite, and to the point. Stepan Vedernikov, Stone's Silent Vigil, The Crow That Slays the Serpent, etc., Athro Ragabash of the Shadow Lords, sends his greetings and goodwill to the Unbroken Circle. The note may be addressed to the Alpha primarily, but it mentions Lukas Wyrmbreaker, your honorable brother of my tribe as having already represented them favorably.
It boils down to two things: let's be friends from an Athro Shadow Lord and, simply, making Lukas look good to his packmates.
--
The next day, another note comes. This one does not come to Katherine's loft but to wherever it is Lukas is staying.
Wyrmbreaker,
You have my endorsement to escort my mate throughout the city should you feel concern for her well-being. She has been informed of this and there should be no further confusion.
We would like to invite you and your packmate Mrena White-Eyes to share a meal with us before the upcoming moot. This Friday, 7?
- Stone Crow
A phone number is below. As well as an address.
Lukas WyrmbreakerThe gift basket is given a varied reception by the young wolves of the Unbroken Circle. Some of them are suspicious. No one will say it to Lukas's and Mrena's face, but they distrust gifts from Shadow Lords. They look for the hidden hook, the unseen strings. Others are delighted, and to some degree, see it as their due: proof of their own impending greatness, due recognition from their elders. Still others -- though they won't say this to Lukas's face either -- are secretly a little envious of his special recognition. A little resentful. Because the truth is: already, already, there are cracks in the Circle. There are spreading fissures in the pack.
As for Lukas: there's something oddly like dread in the pit of his stomach, seeing the gifts. Seeing the note. Seeing that obviously, that lovely woman who belonged to another wolf, who wouldn't meet his eyes, who wouldn't accept a ride home from him,
had represented him well to her mate. Had spoken well enough of him that his mate thought well of him and was not threatened or annoyed by his presence. He wonders if that means something. He wonders if he's imagining things.
--
The next day, he gets a note. It is in his mail-cubby at the Brotherhood, where he and a good number of his pack are staying. He is coming in from the cold, shaking snow off the shoulders of his coat, and Jenny calls to him that he's got mail. He gets it out of the cubby on his way to Room 2, and when he sees the return address that feeling is there in the pit of his stomach again. Dread, but not merely dread. Something a little like anticipation, too.
He closes his door behind him. Sits on his twin-sized bed, tears open the envelope, slides out the note. Reads it. Sits there a moment, note in his hands, staring without seeing, thinking.
Then he balls the note up. Tosses it in the trash. Calls the number listed.
"This is Lukas Wyrmbreaker," he says when his call is answered.
Danicka VedernikovThe number he calls has a local area code. It rings twice, and comes close to ringing a third time before it's picked up. The person on the other end sounds a little out of breath when
she
says: "Vedernikov residence, Daniela speaking."
The accents on the surname and the first name are different, very slightly, to an ear that knows. Neither is American. He says: This is Lukas Wyrmbreaker. She is silent only half a heartbeat, only the tiniest of pauses, enough to miss, enough to mistake for nothing at all.
"Hello!" she says, quite graciously, though one would be falling far short of the mark if they said she sounds 'happy' or 'pleased'. She sounds polite. She sounds courteous. She sounds like someone sounds when they are pleased, which is not strictly the same thing as saying she actually conveys pleasure.
And then a dozen things -- how his pack liked the gift, if he is calling for Stepan -- are not said at all. There is just another heartbeat, a silence that she knows is a trifle awkward and does not know how to repair, or avoid, or smooth other. No: lies. She knows how. What she does not know is why she is stalled.
Lukas WyrmbreakerVedernikov.
So that's her name, then. Danicka Vedernikov, though she answers the phone with Daniela. On the other end, Lukas, whose spine had shot upright at the unexpected voice over the line, closes his eyes for a beat. A silence unwinds; one that should not be there, that both of them are too courteous and too well-mannered to allow to be there.
Then:
"Hello again. Thank you for speaking well of me to your mate." Another beat of that awkward silence. A faint exhale, a fainter shuffle of fabric as Lukas shifts on his bed. "Stone Crow-rhya invited my packmate and I to dinner this Friday at seven. I thought I would call to confirm the place."
Danicka VedernikovAfter Lukas says his thanks, there is that beat of silence, and just before he exhales, perhaps while he's shuffling: "There was no ill to speak of," and this is quiet, and demure, and has a trace of earnestness to it. What sounds like earnestness, at least.
"Yes," she says, though it's hard to say what that 'yes' is. Yes, I know. Yes, of course you are, you need to know where we live. Yes, okay, I am covering for the fact that this is news to me. She gives him an address in Lincoln Park -- though whether he knows immediately or not that her address is in Lincoln Park depends on how well he's come to know the city so far during his various excursions to hunt. Or track down his Alpha's youngest sister.
"So... the both of you are coming, then?"
Lukas WyrmbreakerIt could be earnestness. It could also be a veiled warning: do ill and I'll speak ill. At the end of the day, perhaps Lukas is every bit as bigoted as his packmates. He is wary of the kin of Thunder. Wary of their long memories and their wily ways.
There is a pause as Lukas carefully notes down the address: number and street and cross-street. She asks a question of her own, then. He hesitates again.
"It may only be me," he says. "There's a photography exhibit Mrena wanted to see on Friday. Would that be all right?"
Danicka VedernikovA silence then, less awkward than hesitating, and he has just met her but he's a mannerly young man. He knows how high her mate's rank is. He knows that somewhere in the recesses of her mind, the someone he's talking to has to be thinking seriously? she's not even going to send her own regrets? she's going to go to a photography exhibit because those never happen in Chicago, uncultured backwater podunk that it is instead of giving her respects to one of her tribal elders and his mate? really? but she doesn't say a word in that beat about Mrena.
"That's all right with me. I... suppose I'll let Stephan know?"
Lukas Wyrmbreaker"No," not rude, but firm, "if it becomes necessary, I will make my packmate's apologies for her in person, as I should.
"I'll see you Friday, then?"
Danicka Vedernikov[-h in that above post! STEPAN NOT STEPHAN]
Danicka Vedernikov"Yes," she says, mild as ever. I'll see you then." She does not hang up on him then. She would not dare.
Lukas WyrmbreakerSo there is another pause. Not a hesitation this time. Simply a small passing of time.
"Goodnight, Danicka," says Lukas. Then he hangs up.
Danicka VedernikovFrom outside, the Vedernikov condo is as modest as a gift given to a pack of... what is it? Seven? Eight? Who even keeps count. They do live just beside the northernmost tip of Lincoln Park, a short walk to the conservatory. Outside, it is a three-story brick building with foundations of stone, some hedges in front, and a wrought-iron fence all around it. The condos are arranged deeper than they are wide. There are trees out front between the fence and the road.
The unit number Danicka-Daniela gave to Lukas was on the top floor. Just outside the front door there is a buzzer, and after he calls up, the door clicks to unlock and let him in. There are only stairs in this building, but three flights will not wind him. Their front door is, like the one opposite it, painted black with a gold knocker.
Lukas WyrmbreakerLukas is honorable, which means Lukas is respectful, which means Lukas is prompt. At five to seven he finds parking beneath the building whose address was related to him over the phone. At two to seven he buzzes the front door, and just after the hour turns he is bounding lightly up to the third floor, lifting his hand to rap knuckles against the door. There is a gold knocker there, but he does not use it.
It is cold outside. It is snowing. Snow is glittering into water on his broad shoulders, in his black hair. He wears a peacoat, black, the collar turned up. His scarf is pale grey, his gloves black leather. Beneath, he wears a tie, and a thin, fitted sweatervest that he manages to look sharp in. A crisp shirt. Very nice jeans.
When the door opens, he has a gift in hand. A token offering of a bottle of Wyborowa Exquisite wódka: crystal-clear liquor in a crystal-clear bottle, intriguingly twisted. Looks almost more like perfume than beverage. He holds it out to whoever answers the door. "Thanks for having me over," he says as he steps in. "Mrena couldn't make it, but she offers these as a small token of her regret."
A second gift proffered, then. A small leather satchel: talens, no doubt, of varied use and usefulness.
Danicka VedernikovIt is not Daniela who answers, but Stepan, who is noticably much older than his wife, with flecks of white and a few streaks of grey in his dark hair. His mate. His rage is a simmer, his smile easy and his eyes clear. He wears an almost invisible pair of spectacles in this form, frameless rectangles with thin wires over his ears. He wears a black suit with a plain white shirt, no tie, and it is the first time he and Lukas have seen each other up close.
He has no evident accent, but he must have been in the states a very long time. On certain words, and perhaps after some of the wodka, the accent will come out.
"Come in, come in," he says, ushering Lukas in the door even before Lukas has the thank-you-for-having-me that was drilled into him from early childhood out of his mouth. Stepan refrains from patting his back, since Lukas is slightly damp at the moment and also several inches taller than the ragabash. They are in a condo with white walls in the entry, white molding, and the wood floors glow warmly. It's well after dark now, but the lights inside have a certain sunny cheer, and the decor has a slightly modern look without being cold or unfeeling. There's the tap of heels very softly on the floor as the front door is closed, as the coat closet is opened and a hanger procured for Lukas.
Stepan does these things. Answers the door. Helps his guest hang his coat. Only then does he take the gift, then the gifts plural, looking charmed and a little amused by the vodka and the bag. Naturally, the second gift garners a bit more attention, because it is the regret of a Theurge who was invited but could not come. He takes the small bag in his hand and inclines his head to Lukas. "Tell her," Stepan says, "she must be a wise crescent moon indeed, to find an escape from spending the evening with a boring old man."
He winks. It does not cover the barb. Which might have been a joke. Might have been the inept joke of someone trying to be nice. Might have been a fucking athro ragabash talking to him.
The source of the soft footsteps comes around the angled corner from the kitchen and dining room. Her hair is loose, as it was at smartbar, but curled at the ends, falling in waves around her throat and shoulders. Her makeup was applied with a light touch, and her smile is so glowing and brilliant and perfect. She is wearing a pair of heels that are much lower than they were the other night; kitten heels, in fact. In these, she is just the right height to lay her head on the shoulder of her husband, but she does not do that as she comes around to gree them. She is wearing a dress that looks like it must be from another century, almost. The skirt is calf-length, a myriad of pleats, and camel-colored, trending towards gold. Around her waist there is a wide black band worked with gold thread in the shape of vines and leaves. The bodice is black, and the sleeves are long and just slightly loose but cuffed at her wrists, and though the upper half has ties right at the clavicle, they hang down her front instead like an undone necklace.
The blouse leaves her bare from throat to clavicles to breastbone to the skin just above her solar plexus. God: even small-breasted as she is, she just have it taped to her skin somehow.
Stepan looks adoringly at her when she comes around that corner. Or, if not adoring: very pleased. "Daniela," he says, warmth in his tone. "Look," he goes on, holding the Wyborowa towards her, "what Wyrmbreaker brought for us."
She looks at it with all the awe a twenty-odd woman is supposed to with something fine and wonderful, even though her home is clearly quite nice itself. "How lovely," she says, and smiles up at Lukas. "You shouldn't have." Then she laughs. "You shouldn't have! We're Russian. We have so much vodka." And Stepan laughs at her, shushes her teasingly, and ushers them all towards the dining room.
Lukas WyrmbreakerStepan is not how Lukas pictured him. He is not at all the skulking, razor-cheekboned assassin one pictures so easily when one thinks Athro Shadow Lord Ragabash. Lukas realizes he can't remember if he's ever seen this man before; that he is so mild, so unthreatening, so unremarkable, that Lukas's eyes simply slid right over him. And there, indeed, is his cunning. Is his hidden lethality.
"Rhya," he says, bowing his head to the man who is so far above him in rank that he could not even challenge him honorably. And then there is a removing of outerwear, an offering of apology and excuse; a barb, covered with a smile, but not so very much that Lukas does not feel it. Lukas suspects that's a kindness, in a way. He suspects that if Stepan was well and truly insulted, if he was well and truly the enemy of the Unbroken Circle now, the Ragabash would never have let it show.
"My sister is young," Lukas says instantly. "She is not so wise as she should be, nor so respectful. When the time is right, I'll see to it that she offers more fitting chiminage than this."
That is the conversation Danicka enters to. Those are the words that drift around the corner and up the hall to her; Wyrmbreaker's lower, more reserved voice mingling with the easy affability of her mate. He turns as she steps into view, tall and straight-backed, broad-shouldered and lean-hipped. A young Ahroun through and through, every line of his body marked by the strength that is his birthright.
His eyes follow Stepan's to Stepan's wife. He looks at her mutely for a moment, his face still and expressionless. Then his eyes flick to that bottle, light-catching, exquisite indeed. And he laughs, a self-deprecating sound.
"How could I not. What sort of guest would I be?"
He doesn't argue that the bottle contains Polish wódka, which is a different thing entirely. He doesn't argue the we in that sentence, either. Ushered, he moves toward the dining room, appraising the dimensions and furnishings of the rooms as he passes them.
"Your home is quite lovely, Rhya," he says. "Should I pay compliments to you or your devoted mate?"
Danicka Vedernikov[empathee!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 5, 7) ( fail )
Lukas Wyrmbreaker[I HIDING.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 6, 10) ( success x 1 )
Danicka Vedernikov"Bah," is all Stepan says to Lukas's assurance that Mrena will need to offer more. He waves a hand, smiling, eyes crinkling at the edges. The bag of talens is nowhere to be seen. Where did he put it? "If I wasted my mind's energy tracking what Cliaths owe me, I would get nothing done."
They are, after all, so far beneath him. Talens. It was so cute. Like a child giving you a rock they found because it was pretty.
--
Danicka looks at Lukas, too. Lukas is mute, expressionless, and Danicka watches him. Then she frowns slightly, her brow furrowing, her head tilting, and the moment is gone. He looks at the vodka he brought for them and explains that he had to. He's their guest.
As they walk down the hall, Danicka's skirt swishing around her calves just so slightly as she walks, Stepan smiles. "It is our home," is all he says, refusing to show the quirk at the word 'devoted'. It is not until they have reached the dining room, which is part family room, an intimate setting for the three of them in white chairs around a black table, that he adds: "Daniela is its keeper, however, and what a marvelous job she does," he tosses in at the end, with a beaming smile at her as he is tucking her chair in.
She smirks wryly, amusedly, up at him, and he looks very much like he would like to kiss her, just quick, surely it won't be rude, but
he does not, and tucks her chair in before he sits at the head of the table, with Lukas to his right, with Danicka to his left. The table is already set, and already full of food: a wooden block with a large fork and a sharp knife, a rather enormous cut of seared beef on it, resting before being cut. There are roasted, chopped fingerlings with rosemary and garlic, string beans, red wine, a carafe of water.
"We eat family style," Stepan says to Lukas, aside. "I hope you're not disappointed." A wry smile, a glint in his eye. "I know you are more used to Silver Fangs and their ways these days."
Lukas WyrmbreakerDevoted. That was a bit of an odd word to use, and Lukas knows it. He didn't want to say the other words that came to mind, though. More conventional praises, really: compliments usually meant more to flatter the man than the woman.
Your lovely wife.
Your beautiful wife.
Your trophy.
When they look as though they are about to kiss, Lukas averts his eyes. Gives them their privacy. It never quite comes to fruition. He seats himself across from Danicka, at the honored right hand of his host. Dinner is simple, and Lukas, it must be said, has developed a discerning palate in the last few years. Even so, the sights and smells before him trigger some primitive chord in him. It looks good. He's salivating.
And then --
and then that joke. That little dig, which may or may not have been another barb. Lukas certainly feels it like one. His eyebrows flicker together. He raises his eyes from the food, meets his host's regard evenly.
"I am, and will always be, a true son of Thunder. I couldn't possibly be disappointed by what a tribesman so generously offers." On that note, he picks up the nearest bottle of wine and holds his hand out for Stepan's glass. "Please, allow me."
Danicka VedernikovThat does not seem to dismay Stepan, to hear Lukas rise to the barb -- if it was -- and answer that he is no Silver Fang, he is a Shadow Lord, he would never be disappointed in what he is offered by his tribe in hospitality. Stepan just looks...
well, pleased. He nods deeply to Lukas, shifting his wine glass towards the Ahroun. And that is strangely a gift, just then: not to argue, not to wave it off, but to permit Lukas to pour for him, to accept it, to acknowledge rather than pretend to ignore the vast difference between them.
--
All the while, Danicka is watching. She is watching them both, and she is rather quiet even as Stepan carves the side of beef. The first share of the meat goes to Stepan. The first: but not the greatest. He puts meat on his plate, and then he serves his guest, an equal amount to his own. He carves another slice, only slightly smaller to account for her tiny size and milder caloric needs and perhaps some off-hand nod to her status, and places it on Danicka's plate. She smiles at him and passes him the potatoes. And so they serve, passing bowls, ladeling food onto their plates. Simple, basic, hearty fare, good for the late winter that is so brittle and so icy in this part of the country.
She drinks her wine as Stepan talks to Lukas. Asks him a couple of questions about the Unbroken Circle -- simple ones, their totem, their number, when they came to Chicago, how the are finding it here so far. The rest are all about Lukas. His name. His family and fosterage, his mentor, would he like more wine, please help yourself to more steak. There are no more barbs -- not really. Not like the couple he's given so far, testing jabs at Lukas's control and Lukas's restraint. He just asks questions, and he occasionally gets off on tangents of his own: being just a bit younger than Lukas and coming to America. The fact that he has only recently come to Chicago from New York, himself. His first pack. His mentor, who is dead now.
Danicka drinks her wine as she eats, and she eats... moderately. Neither with a heavy appetite nor picking at her food, but much slower than either of the garou.
Sometime during the conversation, as they are winding towards the end of the main meal -- which has gone on some time, with all the talking, til the meat's flavor shines past the distractions of hotness -- and perhaps towards dessert and vodka,
her foot rests alongside his beneath the table, outside to outside, through their shoes. It slid forward perhaps on accident. It remains, and it cannot be anything but intent.
Lukas Wyrmbreaker[wat wat wat ar you doing.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 2) ( botch x 1 )
Danicka Vedernikov[obviously she's just drunk and has no idea that his foot is there.]
Lukas WyrmbreakerIt is, so far as dinners with Shadow Lord Athros go, a rather enjoyable affair. The food is good. Stepan is an excellent conversationalist. He keeps the focus largely on Lukas, which -- if one is inclined to be suspicious -- might be a way to mine information without revealing his own hand. Or maybe he's simply a polite host who allows his guest to talk about himself and the things he's interested in.
And so, Stepan and his wife-mate discover that Lukas is, like so many of their Tribe, from the city of New York. Not born and raised there, no, but in faraway Prague. Lukas has the wisdom and caution to keep some things close to his chest. He doesn't speak of his family's downfall; he glosses over the immigration. He speaks of Stark Falls, and of Promised Rain-rhya, who was a fairly fresh Adren when his training began and close to Athro when it finished. They discuss how fortunate he was to have received such a protracted Fosterage when so many cubs are pushed out into the world, onto the front lines, mere months after their Firsting.
He speaks a little of Edward Bellamonte, too, and Boston. The pack they forged there, a circle unbroken under the Great Flock of Horus. He speaks nakedly, honestly and ambitiously of their goals here in Chicago. To establish a dominant presence in a very young Caern, where Garou of Stepan's rank were few and far between, and which Garou of Stepan's rank rarely considered worthwhile of their time. To cut their teeth there, and to grow strong there, and to train themselves in the tactics of leadership and battle that they would bring,
one day,
to the Great War at large.
Perhaps Stepan is privately amused: such dreams these young wolves have. Or perhaps, like Promised Rain before him, he sees in Lukas unforged potential. Untapped promise.
--
Dinner is beginning to wind down. The roast is carved and half-devoured, draining blood-tinged juices onto the plate. The first bottle of wine is empty, and the second is being poured through. Lukas is refilling Stepan's glass, and then Danicka's, and then his own. He is listening to Stepan speak of his own journey from New York to Chicago, and
this
is when Danicka's foot slides against his own. And rests there.
Give him this much. He is not so inexperienced as to flush red, as to leap up in fright. He is not so mindless or straitlaced, either, as to instantly call her out and denounce her for a whore. He, instead, does what most people might in such a situation.
His eyes flick down for an instant. Then, politely and tactfully, he withdraws his own foot. Here, under his elder's roof, he cedes that territory to his elder's mate -- kin though she may be.
Danicka VedernikovThe focus of conversation is largely on Lukas, that is true, but Stepan chimes in here and there. Not to interrupt, more to share: Daniela has family in Prague! he says delightedly, though he does not try to go off on that tangent of their names, their faces. He urges Lukas on, instead; comments on how young he was when they immigrated, asks after his family and where they live now: the parents in New York, the elder sister in Los Angeles. He knows Promised Rain -- well. Has met him, has made his acquaintance at some moot or warmoot or the other between the Sept of the Green and Stark Falls.
They do, indeed, at this juncture, discuss how fortunate Lukas was. And there is a seriousness behind the new-moon's eyes as he regards Lukas here and now, the benefit of being fostered by such an honorable Philodox of their tribe. It is a good name to have in the shadow of your past.
He also does, yes, look a little patient to hear of these Cliaths and all their grand plans, but if he is amused, he does not stab at their idealism, their youth, the things that many would see as illusions that need to be swiftly and ruthlessly cut down so they don't get themselves killed.
Danicka is mostly quiet. Sometimes she gives a little nod or answers a question Stepan poses her softly, but Lukas does not engage her directly and she does not engage him directly. Oftentimes in conservative households it is the wife who not only prepares the meal but answers the door and hangs the coat and serves the food and also keeps the flow of conversation going, keeps everyone talking amicably, changes subjects when necessary, but all these duties seem rather split between she and her husband. Conversation, it seems, is Stepan's realm... at least when their guest is another werewolf.
When Lukas looked across the table at Danicka in that moment, trying to gauge what the hell when her foot touches his, her face is slightly turned towards Stepan, listening to him talk about things she must surely already know about him. She is smiling and leaning back a bit in her chair, her fingertips touching the stem of her wineglass, her eyes bright with intoxication and amusement. He sees three-quarters of her face, the arch of her cheekbone, the way a lock or two of hair fall past her jaw, tumbling past her shoulder. She is very beautiful, but she looks as though her attention is on her husband, her mate, the man who must have given her not just that diamond, that one pure 3-karat rock that gleams on her hand, but this condo, that Macbook on the desk they passed, the money to buy things like that dress, excellent beef, enough vodka to drown any sorrow she might have.
She probably doesn't know where her foot even is, and so Lukas does what anyone with an iota of manners would do in that situation, and simply draws his foot back.
--
There is a pewter trivet inlaid with a circle of hardwood on the table for the wine bottle, to catch any stray droplets that may roll down the side, staining the label on their way down the dark glass. When the base of the bottle touches that hardwood after Lukas has filled his glass, and when he next lets his eyes flick away from Stepan -- mid-story, now, about a cub he fostered a few years ago -- he finds Danicka's eyes on him. They are that same mottled, shifting green, the color changing every time he looks at her, it seems: one way in the club, another in the hall, this new one as she sips her wine. She looks in his eyes only a moment, and in that moment the corner of her mouth quirks, almost a smirk but there's something lopsided and just... goofy about it, almost.
It's gone a moment later, or he looks away, or both, and she is straightening up, shifting her chair back. "I'll get dessert," she says quietly, under the current of conversation as though she expects to simply be ignored, but knows she might be rude (and possibly punished) if she just left without saying anything.
And yet: as soon as the back legs of her chair make some faint sound on the floor, Stepan is interrupting himself, rising from his chair. He even goes so far as to re-button his suitjacket when he does, a motion so effortless and barely noticeable across his midsection it is not unlike the way he seemed to magic the bag of talens away. The man would be a remarkable pickpocket. A flash of surprise races across Danicka's eyes, but he just smiles at her, warmly, saying that would be good, yes. There is now a flavor of Russian to his every word, and sometimes his grammar slips into more familiar patterns from his childhood and youth, but that's the wine, the meat, the comfort of his home.
There is something else in that surprise in Danicka's gaze, before she turns away and goes to the nearby kitchen. Even when she is out of sight they can hear her, if only barely, for she moves quietly even in drunkenness and does not make a fuss. Cupboard doors here and there, the tap of her feet. But mostly it's her scent that lingers for the wolves of her tribe. There are others in whom the scent of Thunder is more potent, but it is in that exact lack of potency that something else comes through. Not storms over mountaintops, shadowy crags, the smell of looming triumph, but a more delicate, far more elusive feeling that the spirit answers to.
When she is absent for a few moments, it strangely seems more apparent: the richness of her blood, the warmth of it. Coming in from the cold to find a fire going and bread and meat on the table. The quiet fussing or heavy sleep or rowdy tangling of pups, the presence of spirit-pack and blood-pack alike, all sheltered from the cold outside yet still blessed by the rain coming down, soaking into the fields. The wind in the wheat and the vines, the breeze making the leaves of the trees talk in tremors. She smells like wildness and life and verdant growth, the time of year when one can simply walk outside to pluck food from the earth itself. It was hidden in smartbar. It cannot be hidden now.
--
She comes back with a tray, on which is a cranberry upside-down cake, a few smaller plates, and a trio of shot glasses, heavy-based and straight-sided. The Wyborowa is already on the table. And of course, when she re-enters, Stepan is rising again, moving a few things out of the way on the table between the three of them so she can set the tray down, coming around to ease her chair back in.
Stepan pours the vodka, opening the bottle with a sound of satisfaction. Danicka cuts the cake and serves them, but it's Stepan who gives the toast. Nothing artful. Nothing sideways. Just Za zdorov'ye! before he downs his shot. Danicka does hers as well, drinks as much as her husband, though her voice was lost in that toast. Though she is relaxed, very relaxed indeed, in her chair, eating her cake in slow, small bites while the menfolk talk more, now about the caern, about the garou they've met -- Shadow Lord and otherwise -- and the state of things, the war, some recent battles. To her credit, she doesn't look sick or dismayed to hear it discussed. She just eats her little slice of cake, drinks her vodka, only knocking the shots back if Stepan insists on another toast.
"Oh," she says, somewhere around the second (or third, or technically possibly sixth since the glasses hold doubles) shot of vodka. She is twisted slightly in her chair, looking at the dark window in which she can see her reflection but also the world outside. "It is really coming down out there."
Stepan thumps his hand on the table, beaming at Lukas. "You will stay, then!" Like he was just waiting for an excuse to offer. "We will pour you into bed and let you dry out!" He laughs, boisterous now.
Lukas WyrmbreakerShe is very beautiful. She is beautiful enough that any man who might call her wife or mate would be proud. Would feel a little bit proud, and smug, and arrogant, to have someone like her on his arm. It's not just that, though. It wasn't really that that drew him to her that first night in smartbar either. It was --
it was, and is, that sensation she leaves behind. The promise of drenching rain and fertile earth, warm spring sunshine, pups tumbling over one another before a lit hearth. The meat on the table, the wine in their glasses. The crusty warm bread that breaks to reveal a moist, dense center. The comfort of bed, the welcome of home. The welcome of her arms, too, he imagines, as she draws
her husband
into bed.
Lukas stops that train of thought. Enough, really. He glances up from his wineglass to find his host speaking of some cub he fostered; glances up to find his hostess rising from her seat. And so, of course, as smoothly as though it were instinct and not merely very, very, very deeply entrained manners: he rises with her. Stands politely until she has left the room.
--
Again, when she enters. Rising, helping to clear the table, seating himself. They pour vodka, they make toasts. Stepan's native tongue begins to creep through. Lukas's does not. He matches them shot for shot for the first one, the second, even the third; but then he declines, he defers, he cedes to his elder. It's a subtle sort of politesse, or perhaps he simply wants his wits about him. Snow is pattering softly on the windows. The ground is turning white. It is the winter of 2009-10, and it is cold, and it is really coming down out there.
Lukas glances up, startled, as Stepan offers the hospitality of his guest room. He laughs a little to laugh it off, even as he holds up a forestalling hand. "I appreciate it, Rhya," he says, "but I should really go home. I am the Beta of my pack, and when Edward isn't there,"
which is always. which is already, even now, becoming a wedge between the brothers,
"I have a duty and a responsibility to ward and protect my packmates. I am grateful for the offer, I truly am, but -- I should go soon."
Danicka VedernikovTwo bottles of wine and half a bottle of vodka and, finally, the three of them slow down. Two of them are garou; they can burn the effects of alcohol off in an eyeblink. One of them is kin, though. And what a slender, fragile kinfolk she is, very nearly keeping pace with the two of them. She must be well and truly drunk, and yet she is still so quiet, even with her eyes sometimes sparkling and her lips sometimes smirking at some odd comment one or the other makes that causes some stray, secret thought to go through her mind.
Stepan looks crestfallen, though perhaps it is a bit affected. He turns to Danicka, who shifts side to side in his vision before she coalesces into one form. "See! This is the trouble with these cities, everyone packed so close together," he says, gesturing with both hands like he is fluffing a very small pillow. "No one stays with friends on cold winter nights anymore! Hospitality? Ruined." A sweeping gesture with his hand, then, nearly knocking a glass off the table but he grabs it, quick as a shot, holds it a moment with comically widened eyes, then gently rights it.
Danicka just chuckles to herself, no full laugh but something throaty and deep. She looks over at Lukas, slowly, thoughtfully, meeting them. Surprisingly, stunningly, meeting them. "Oh, don't try to guilt him, Stepan," she says, in the exact tone of a chiding wife, in an affectation so on-point but so false it borders on unsettling and uncanny.
"Fine, fine," the athro grumbles affably. He peers at Lukas through his spectacles. "We will do this again, yes?"
Lukas WyrmbreakerThe comically widened eyes -- that makes Lukas laugh a little under his breath. The reflexes of the man, though, and the way he seems to just make things appear and disappear from his hands like magic: Lukas remembers these things. He keeps them in his mind, places them carefully and deliberately beside Stone Crow's image of the affable, generous, harmless man.
He discovers that he rather likes Stone Crow. But he is not, by far, foolish enough to let his guard down entirely. He does not for an instant forget that Stone Crow is three ranks his senior, and a Shadow Lord, and a Ragabash.
"It's not my intention to turn my back on your hospitality," Lukas explains, when the glass is rescued and the Athro's wife has interceded on his behalf. "It's just that when creature comforts and good company -- and even good manners -- are set in balance against duty, duty must always win."
There is a moment, there. A second where Danicka's eyes meet his. It is the first time. He discovers her eyes are greener than he thought. A moment later he turns back to Stepan.
"I would love to do this again. Maybe next time the Circle can host. Or Mrena and I, personally."
Danicka Vedernikov"Perhaps next time, you bring Mrena," Stepan says instantly. "We will see if she keeps up." His mouth spreads in a sudden flash of a grin, quick as a bolt of lightning making the night sky gleam.
There is something subtle there, thought less subtle while he's drunk: he is less interested in the other members of the Circle. The Silver Fangs, the Silent Strider, the Glass Walker, the Get of Fenris. Not rudely, not even that dismissively, just... indifferently. Where Lukas is as bound to his pack as blood, more than blood, even more than tribe, Stepan is another sort of wolf. Tribe matters very much to him.
Conversation continues apace for a little while after that, mellow now, though they are all refraining from imbibing any more. Danicka eats a spare baked cranberry from her plate, holding it in her mouth, sweet with syrup created by nothing more than sugar and heat, tart, and she seems to get sleepy, get only quieter and quieter. They can all feel the night winding down, so when Lukas excuses himself, no one is surprised, and no one urges him to stay this time. Danicka, Good Little Housewife that she is, doesn't manage to remember to offer to wrap anything up for him, and Stepan doesn't backhand her into next week for forgetting, either, but chances are Lukas would try to refuse, anyway.
They are rising, all of them, and Danicka is hanging back in the dining room, catching her eyes on Lukas's earlobe instead of his face, murmuring that it was a pleasure, he is welcome anytime,
because that is what you say.
Stepan walks him to the hallway and gets his coat for him, insisting on walking Lukas, if not directly to his car, at least downstairs to the front door. As they're stepping out of the condo, the door closing softly behind them and cutting them off from the scent of the meal and cake and woman inside. This time he actually does thump Lukas on the back. "You are good," he says, as they walk down the hall towards the stairs. "She told me: you were polite. Perhaps push a little hard. Pushed!" He laughs at himself, shaking his head, going on ahead of Lukas as though by instinct, as new moons go before the full moons. "I cannot speak proper English after vodka," he says, not like a weakness but a decision, like refusing to drink wine from juice glasses.
But he is laughing at that, too, what Danicka apparently said about him. "But you did not try to frighten her, did not touch her. She said 'respectful'. He looks back at Lukas at the first landing, his eyes keen. Knowing, even, with a glint in them. Not an unkind one, just:
"She is... delicate," he says more quietly, his hand making an odd gesture to the side, like he is trying to pull the word from the air, even if it is not the right word. And it is not. His hand drops; he huffs a laugh, turns, and keeps on heading down the stairs. "But she has been told: you have my permission now, and we both have our duty. If she is not safe and she is being silly -- she is sometimes very silly, too -- do what you need to do."
Lukas WyrmbreakerThis is what Lukas says, because it is what he was always taught to say:
Thank you for inviting me.
He even turns to face his host and hostess. Straightens his back despite the alcohol and the hour. Smiles a little, delivering the line: a quiet, private sort of expression, some distant memory ringing in the back of his mind.
And afterward, walking outside with Stepan, wrapping his scarf around his neck and buttoning his coat: he listens to his elder, smiles when he should and laughs when he should. Catches himself -- barely -- before saying something abominably stupid like,
she is not delicate.
she is not silly.
she is not breakable.
she is not --
-- because really. What does he know.
Out on the sidewalk, then, where he turns to face Stone Crow. Where he extends his gloved hand, gripping his tribesman's forearm solid and secure in his palm. "Thanks again," he tells him. "I had a good time with you and your mate. I'll make sure Mrena introduces herself to you soon, and we'll look forward to spending time with you soon.
"I'll keep watch over your mate whenever I can," he adds. "I won't let her come to harm if I can help it."
Danicka VedernikovStepan looks only a little pleased and amused at Lukas's second thanks, this one upon leaving. The way he straightens his back. The way he looks so happy to be saying it. Danicka, however, blinks slowly at him, and her brow furrows a touch, her mind caught for a moment by something else. It is gone, then, as she begins tidying up and Stepan walks Lukas to the door, out the door, down the stairs.
Outside, with Lukas standing on the steps out of the building and Stepan staying in the doorway because -- drunkenly, perhaps -- he forgot his key and cannot follow Lukas down to the gate, the older Shadow Lord grips Lukas's arm in a way that says he has known warriors, many warriors, is a warrior, and even with the alcohol his grip is no less sure. He lives or dies by what he can do in the utter extremity of existece.
"You won't," he says,
but not as a warning. Just an acknowledgement, something deeper than simply I know. They release each other, with the sense of an oath sealed, and Stepan stays in the doorway until Lukas gets to his car outside the gate, giving him a wave and letting the door close as Lukas beeps it unlocked.
A few floors up, smoke curls away from the balcony of their condo. Danicka, without coat or hat or scarf or anything, stands up there watching him walk away from the building, watching him circle his car, watching him go to the front door. She is smoking a cigarette, long and gleaming white in the halflight. It is still snowing, dusting Lukas's shoulders and falling on his ears. She is under her roof's overhang, sheltered, but it is bitterly cold outside, fathoms below freezing,
but she watches him until his car is gone.
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