an accord with the fianna.

Van der Valk

The jump seems to happen between one blink and the next. No warning, no sign -- just his life pulled away, replaced suddenly with another's.

Cold heavy downpour on his bare head, his rough clothes. His limbs feel twice as heavy, weighed down by water. A heavy mist covers obscures the landscape, even when his dark-adjusted eyes brighten again to daylight. The wolf gives his head a sharp shake, flinging droplets of water every which way.

Smell of smoke, smell of fires built against the rain. Smell of distant blood washing away and -- perhaps he only imagines it -- smell of hard, throat-searing alcohol. Sound of rough voices and their strange musical tongue. Wolf snorts to himself and starts walking again, mud thick on his boot heels. Trudges through the storm in the direction of the voices.

sons of stag

But she's right down the hall. Another six, seven feet and he could open her door or knock and see if they can fix it, reconcile. Figure out how long it's been since it felt like things were okay between them and what went wrong this time. She's right there but

he's not. He's somewhere else. He's in some version of the past where what he does can still change the course of history. Even small histories, just handfuls of people. Maybe one particular person he can keep safe, as though that will make any difference in generations to come.

Maybe, maybe. He has no way to know for sure why he's even here.

--

Rafael smells Fianna, wine in skins and jugs alike, blood from devoured prey. They are telling stories in some language carried over from their homeland, mixed with the High Tongue of the Garou -- an abhorrent pidgin. Laughing boisterously, loudly, fearlessly.

Something weirdly seductive about it. The rain coming through the sunlight of early morning. The smell of the hunt, and the fire, and the wine. The evidence of joy and friendship. He has few friends at the keep. Few wolves he can let his guard down around. As he approaches this pack he can feel their bonds as though touching a piece of cloth: thick and warm and yielding all at once, a tightly woven thing that responds to wind and flesh.

He hears it when they begin to quiet. When they speak to one another. When they notice him coming. Smell him. Hear him. Sense him, and prepare.

There are five. Five males, two females. All of them in varying stages of dress and undress, leather and cloth, woad and blood. All of them in varying stages of drunkenness, all of them with clear eyes -- mostly green, one with pitch-dark eyes, one with grey. Red hair, by and large. Coppery and wild, braided or loose. Savages, each one. One of the women even has her breasts bared, painted with blue dye in swirls and slashes. Surely when they are among their kin they cover themselves, but one look at their wild eyes tells him they do not live among their kin too closely. One look at them and he knows: they would kill the witch in her bed, rip out her throat, if it were not for the mates and children that her herb-witchery cares for.

None of them say a word. One of them chews raw meet between his blood-stained teeth, ripped from the ribcage of a young spring stag they are all sharing.

Van der Valk

Maybe it'd be wise of him to disguise his approach. Come quietly. Lurk in the trees. Spy.

By the time that occurs to him it's too late. They've heard him, smelled him, seen him coming. He stands on a low bluff over their camp. Watches them as they watch him, tearing at raw meat, devouring their prey.

Wolf's the first to break eye contact. Takes a swallowing of pride to do that, but it's a deliberate choice. Not here to start a war, after all. Quite the opposite. He looks down, checks the shallow slope. Starts toward them, avoiding the fallen branches, the stones. When he's within a stone's throw he raises his eyes again.

And his hands. Palms out, showing them he comes unarmed.

sons of stag

There are seven of them and one of him. He's a full moon but a cliath; he can sense in their posture and direct stares that all but one or two of them outrank him. Some by quite a distance. They are a proven pack of at least seven, oftentimes more wolf than human, and he is alone. They are wary of his approach, but he is not here to add fuel to a fire.

Rafael, brave but not stupid, lowers his eyes.

When he gets close enough that he can feel the edges of their fire's heat and hear it sizzling in the rainfall, which has lessened on his walk to a drizzle, he looks up again to find that they are all on their feet awaiting him. More than one has reached for their near-man form, more comfortable in something with fang and claw than they are in the masquerade of humanity.

One of them speaks. A fire-haired female, in heavy woolen tunic and a man's leather hunting breeches. Barefoot in the mud, her hair bound severely behind her head in a thick rope of a braid. She's square-jawed and scarred on her face and hands, some of the only visible skin on her.

"You lost, whelp?" says she, clearly of Adren -- if not higher -- rank. There's evident threat in her tone. Of course there would be: he is in their territory. Strolled right up to their hunting fire.

Van der Valk

"No."

Wolf comes to a stop. Legs apart, boots caked with mud. Mud flecking the hem of his blue surcoat, sodden and worn now, not nearly so fine as it had appeared at the feast.

"I was looking for you."

Seven of them. One of him. He is aware of the latent danger; the skin on the back of his neck feels taut. Aware of the threat in the female's tone. In the number and posture of her brothers, sister. Wolf glances at the fire; the kill. Back to the female.

"Came alone so we could talk. Will you welcome me to your fire, daughter of Stag?"

sons of stag

These woods were not planted by men. Undergrowth pulled at his hose and tore them, scratched his surcoat. He's caked here and there with mud. Porridge or none, his stomach wants the bloodied stag they're pulling meat from. Wants it cooked or raw, it hardly matters. And there is a part of him that aches, that is howling and clawing at the walls, longing to be welcome here. Around a fire, with some shared language, invited to the hunt. And it is hard, to the point of impossibility, to tell which part of him wants it: the Rafael from the future, asking Devon to just stay with him, saying Always, or the wolf from now, who lives without a pack, on the fringes of even his own tribe.

The female's head cocks. Her rage is a banked fire, as fickle and as sharp as the crescent moon, and just as secretive about its power.

"Talk of what, Fang?"

Van der Valk

"War."

Wolf takes another few steps closer. Lone creature, strong enough in his own right but wary; without that sort of innate confidence that comes with knowing one's own back is covered.

"Avoiding it."

sons of stag

She scowls at him. Bares her teeth when he walks closer. Her hands are at her sides, pointed to earth, as though to summon it to her. He speaks of war.

"Explain yourself --" she begins, about to insult him (again), when the bare-breasted female rolls her eyes and exclaims:

"Bollocks of Christ, Agatha, leave off!"

One of the males, heavy-shouldered and dark-browed, scowls at her for the swearing. She ignores him. As well she might: she is in her thirties. She is ancient, in this land, and for their species. She is closing in on forty and well-scarred. They are as much a symbol of her status as the brass ring pierced through her left nipple. Her hair is the fairest of the lot, her eyes more sky blue than sapphire, tinged with green, and though her words are brutal, her voice has a lyrical quality.

Her hand gestures at the fire. "Sit," she says, to Rafael himself. "We will not kill you, miles from your kin, with no one to sing for you. Eat, if you will, and know the burden it will put on you."

The female is carving something into her thigh with the point of a small knife. She bleeds, and does not care. She is enjoying the design. She has others: she tattoos herself, like those dark-skinned ones from islands afair. She speaks of burden and knows the laws: he cannot eat their kill and sit by their fire and then do them harm or insult.

Nor can he refuse such generosity, and retain his honor.

She uses hospitality like a shackle. And such it is. But it is so different from the witch's way, sensing hunger and offering her own breakfast.

Van der Valk

"You have my thanks."

Even in his own time wolf knows the meaning of hospitality. Understands, though dimly, the ancient laws that bind host and guest. Understood them when he took girl under his roof, fed her, put her into his protection -- flawed though it may be. Would never hurt her willingly. Has hurt her plenty nonetheless, unwilling and half-knowing.

He doesn't hesitate to come forward. To crouch by the kill, drawing a small knife from his boot, sawing off a still-warm strip of meat from the rich, soft belly.

Sits, then. Muddy and sodden and heavy-shouldered, hunkering on a log, tearing immediately into the flesh. Witch's porridge might keep a witch-kin alive, but it left him starving again within hours. His hunger isn't a pretense. It is real, and so is his gratitude.

His mouth is bloody when he wipes it on the leather palm of his glove. Still has some meat left, but he has, as he said, come to speak. Of war. And its avoidance.

"My tribesmen have been reawakening our lands," he says. "Last night the rite was interrupted. An Adren was thrown from his gate, disgraced and a failure. Even now he searches for the culprit amongst your tribe, and when he finds him, or thinks he finds him, he'll go for blood. Your tribe will defend your own. My tribe will too. You know how high the tension runs already. It'll be war for certain, left alone."

sons of stag

His stomach scratches and claws at him when he nears the stag. He's starving. He burned off the porridge on the way here, and it was hardly enough to tide him over after a night of running alongside Stalks in Snow-rhya. The memory of last night's feast is long, long gone as far as his body is concerned.

So he sates it. Takes food before warmth. Carves off meat and shoves it in his mouth, ravenous, leaving blood on his gums and down his jaw. It's not still warm but right now he doesn't care. He didn't help kill it but right now he doesn't care. His body soaks up the blood and the juices of the meat with a lover's satisfaction.

The seven of them watch as he eats, and the one called Agatha hangs back, going to sit beside her pack-sister, watching him with keen eyes. The pack-sister, who he soon comes to recognize as their Alpha, watches him too. She is not wary. She is not keen. She is curious, though, and that has its own intensity. She remembers things. She will remember him.

They are all silent, in case she speaks again. Which she does not. She listens, after Rafael slakes the loudest of his hunger pangs, and begins to speak of his tribe, and of war. And how it might be prevented. Her eyebrows flick upward.

"Your tribesman fails, and seeks to kill Fianna to hide his shame?" She shakes her head. "The older you Fangs get, the more of a joke your honor becomes." Anger tightens her jaw as she picks up a stick, poking at the fire. The rain is easing off. The flames do not sizzle so much; she tries to get fresh wood to the heat. Smoke goes up in thick white plumes.

Van der Valk

"My tribesman thinks he was cheated of his glory," the wolf says, "and seeks vengeance.

"I was there when he was thrown from the Umbra, and I can't blame him for his suspicions. It did have the look of deliberate sabotage. A trap sprung to humiliate a Fang, though not to kill him. Which is why I'm here. What happened to my elder was an insult, but it's not worth war. Or death."

He eats the last of the meat. Watches the female as he does, cautious, keen-eyed himself.

"Do you know anything of what happened?"

sons of stag

The alpha of the pack shrugs one broad, part-scarred, part-tattooed shoulder. "From what you say, I believe you need to speak to your elder, not to those he seeks to kill. He would be wrong to seek bloodshed for a brief humiliation. You know this, or you would not be here. So if I knew of a tribesman of my own who sprung such a trap, why would I tell you?"

Van der Valk

"What I know," wolf's irritated, "is that it's one thing to pull a Fang down from his pedestal for a laugh; another to interrupt a sacred rite. I said the act was not worth war or death. I never said it's not worth punishment.

"And I'll thank you to tell me," he adds, "because I'll see that whoever did this is justly punished. No more, no less. And I promise you, I'm the only Fang who'll speak of justice. The rest of my tribe will want vengeance."

sons of stag

"We can punish our own for foolishness," says the alpha, dry as bones under sun. "Tell your elder to bring it to the next moot between tribes." Bitterly, then: "Your kind outnumber ours. Surely the punishment given there will outstrip the crime as viciously as it would if your elder had his way this night."

Van der Valk

"Then punish him yourself," comes the immediate reply. "Here, now. Let me bear witness back to my elder."

sons of stag

She sucks on a back tooth. "Will it stop him, do you think? Or is he set on stringing us all up by our innards?"

Van der Valk

"I don't know. But if he demands more than is just, I'll stand with you."

sons of stag

That gets the attention of seven wolves on him at once. They were all paying some attention at least: the galliard who leads them was speaking with this stranger, and he was sharing their kill, sitting by their fire. The rain has cleared to be only clouds and a chill in the air. Their tunic-wearing mystic is the first to jerk her head up, looking right at him when he says he'll stand with them if his elder is unjust.

The alpha straightens her back. Her brow furrows as she looks on him. Says nothing, for a time. The fire crackles, and a log splits, but all ignore it.

"What is your name, Falcon-whelp? Your true name."

Van der Valk

Wolf's back straightens too. Unconscious response to the weight of those eyes on him. Seven stares, seven minds trying to figure him out. Eight: he's trying to figure himself out, too.

Rain's stopped. His clothes are still heavy, uncomfortably clammy. He rolls a shoulder, grimaces. "Bleak Dawn." The name that comes out of his mouth is not his own, and so after a moment he adds: "Called Rafaël, where I come from."

sons of stag

The meaning of those words, the many meanings they could have, send a faint chill up a spine or two. The Fianna gathered around him -- surrounding him, actually, which feels at once threatening and protective and familial and dangerous -- all care about the meanings of names, the weight of the words. It hardly matters what language they come in. They care about these things. The sound of the syllables, harsh and cutting each other off.

For a while they are quiet. Then their alpha speaks, she who knows these names, who feels their spirit more than anything: "Well met, then, Bleak Dawn. May your name be ever true for your foes, and never your friends." She rises. "I am many-named, but most call me Warcry, which was my first."

Walking over to him, she offers him her arm, to help him up, or to simply welcome him more properly.

Van der Valk

"Warcry-rhya," he acknowledges, standing as he takes her arm. Doesn't bother to mention that that name isn't much of a problem because he has so few friends to begin with. Clasp of his hand is brief but strong. Then he releases.

"Do we have an understanding, then?"

sons of stag

Their hands touch, and a moment into it her nostrils flare. They withdraw; she is too proud to jerk away. "Be careful with your oaths, Cliath," she says, harshly but not unkindly. "They follow you."

Her hand clenches at her side, unfurls, fingers wiggling, like she's trying to wake it up again.

She nods. "We are in accord."

But she is quiet for a bit, before taking a breath, sighing it out. "He is a cub," she says, emphasizing the brevity of the word, the immaturity of it. "Misguided, but no worse than that. And he has not returned from the Underworld." Her head shakes slightly. "He may have already received his punishment, Bleak Dawn."

Van der Valk

Cub.

Word takes some baseline anger out of the wolf. Quick frown flicks across his brow; deepens at the rest of it.

Wolf flicks a glance at the sky. Harder to judge time, overcast as it is. Doesn't need to know the time to know he doesn't have enough of it, though. Not to go into the Underworld, find a cub, come back by noon.

Wonders why he'd even want to, anyway.

"Can you get me into the Underworld?"

sons of stag

Her eyebrows go up. So do Agatha's. A couple of the others look at each other.

She nods. "We're going again at nightfall." Shrugs slightly. "Have our own sacred rite to continue, after all."

Van der Valk

A slight difference: "Will you bring me with you?"

sons of stag

Eyebrows go higher. Warcry looks at the theurge, then back to Rafael. "What do you have in mind, Cliath?"

She is the second Adren to ask him that today.

Van der Valk

In counterpoint, wolf's eyebrows come down. Lock over his eyes.

"Cub's lost in the Underworld, you said. I'm going to find him. You'll teach him a lesson. And then you'll tell your tribe what a Silver Fang did for the Fianna, and I'll tell my elder what the Fianna did to right the wrong done to him.

"Both tribes do something for the other. Maybe we'll settle the matter."

sons of stag

Seven wolves staring at him. All of them speaking, though only one aloud, where he can hear it. They look at each other, some of them -- younger ones. The older Garou in the mix know better, or don't need to. They keep their focus on him while their minds touch through their totem.

Warcry is frowning. But it isn't anger. She crosses her arms over her chest, and after she has quieted the advice of her packmates, she shakes her head at him.

But it isn't refusal.

"You are a strange wolf, son of Falcon." She nods toward the direction he came. "Meet us here again just before dark. We will take you across, and while we continue our rite, hopefully you can find him."

Van der Valk

Called strange, wolf just grunts. Maybe it's meant to be a laugh. He wipes his glove on his surcoat again. Gestures roughly at the kill.

"Thanks for the meat. I'll see you at sundown."

Serves as a goodbye. Wolf turns and walks away up that gentle slope, the deep blue of his surcoat disappearing into the trees.