Assumptions.
Jun. 30th, 2013 09:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kiananlogsSunday, 30 June 2013
The moon is in the waning Half (Philodox) Moon phase (50% full).
Duke looks at the bottle as though it might contain poison and finds a place to put it. "That's awful," he says, wiping his hand on his jeans. Then he turns that confused look back on Charlene. "You remember what the moon looked like when you were born?"
"Nope." Charlene says after finishing her mouthful of steak. "But I do have a book that lets me look at a date and see what the moon was when I was born. April 1st 1994. Gibbous moon. Means I'm a Galliard and, what do you know? It works pretty damn well. A whole mess better than astrology."
Duke takes the other plate and moves a few feet away to sit on the ground. He uses the knife from his belt to cut the steak, taking a relatively large bite to start with. His gaze returns to Charlene more than once, confusion, or skepticism, still easily read.
There's a sound in the woods of someone or something approaching, but though the Fury metis moves through the woods in hispo, he emerges into the meadow in lupus. There he pauses, ears flicking and looking around before he continues across the meadow. There is a huff of greeting towards his tribemate, a more neutral greeting for the cub. They are well? the question comes. Cools-the-Flames is bearing the weight of the moon quite clearly in the additional tension that echoes in his frame, but nonetheless, he's mostly calm.
"I know it doesn't seem to make sense, and trust me, I was in the same spot you were about four years ago. I was a lost cub and the Furies decided I was a good fit, so voila, I was a Fury like that. The whole spirit world, moon phase, werewolf thing is a lot to swallow, but you've got to admit, some of it does make a little sense. I mean, hell, you can shift to Glabro already. Have you tried any of the other forms, or do you just get to that point and go no further?" Charlene pauses, and is just about to take her third bite when Cools-the-Flames makes an appearance, Charlene turning to grin at him. "Hey there, Sue. How's the leg? Me, I'm just fine, but you? You're just in time. You want me to cook you a steak or just give it to you as is?" Raw, she means.
Duke is on his feet in a heartbeat when Sue appears, the steak forgotten on the plate at his feet. His grip on the knife shifts in that first movement, but then slowly relaxes along with the tension through his spine. He watches Sue's approach, though his glance toward the galliard suggests that he's listening to her as well. He shakes his head at something she says, that look of confusion sharpening across his features. "Huh?"
Cools-the-Flames pulls his lips back from his teeth at the sight of the knife and the grip shifting. Apparently the hostility, tolerated as it was, isn't tolerated so well at the moment, and the metis barely doesn't snarl as he stalks through the meadow. Instead, there's a low rumble towards the cub. Sit, the metis suggests, and turns his attention to Charlene. Leg is fine. Regrew fine, he explains, lifting his right foreleg to show. Another pause and he bounds the last bit, flopping loosely out next to the other Fury. Hunted, the metis remarks. Won't say no to raw, though.
"Dial it back like two notches, Duke. No-one's gonna kill you unless you— remember— try to kill me first. At least eat the steak before you wind yourself up tighter." Charlene fixes Duke with a 'glare' that kind of says 'calm the f down, dude' before the third ribeye— raw as can be, is placed on a plate and within easing nomming distance for Sue. "To kind of make you less confused, although it doesn't look like Sue here… you met Sue… Sue here is talking, he is. Lots of subtle motions, movements, and sounds. You tend to pick up Wolf fairly quickly, which is what he's speaking. He basically asked how we were. The low rumble? It was a suggestion to sit. It is his moon, after all, and it tends to make things a little more interesting temper-wise." She re-takes up her plate, a normal-sized wolf next to her apparently old news, and goes back to eating.
Duke turns the knife in his hand, not threatening, but perhaps anxious, still. "I know who he is," the youth says. "And I know what he said. I don't feel like sitting, right now." He looks from Sue to Charlene and shakes his head. "You're doing it again. Acting like I should know what's a threat and what's not, like I'm stupid for not wanting my back exposed when someone shows up, but then I'm stupid enough not to even know how to shift or how to understand a wolf or recognize a metis with hoofs, when you know I killed monsters before, and I showed you my scars from when I died before."
Cools-the-Flames remains very purposefully laying down, placing forelegs out and to either side of the plate a little possessively of it. Most cubs that come, the metis notes, know far less. You know far more. But much not known. Do not growl when people make mistakes. They are bigger. They will growl back.
"Look." Charlene gestures with the bone of her steak— jeez the girl can eat fast— using it like a baton, almost. "You think I'm being insulting by assuming you know nothing? Cubs, 99 times out of 100, know nothing, and the fact that you know something? That's great. You know stuff. Only problem is, you don't know everything, even though you've died twice and killed a few monsters. Big whoop. I've died a couple of times myself. It comes with the territory of being a Garou. It's not fun to die, which is why I generally avoid it as a rule." A bit of gallows humor there. "So, if we're going to have a civilized conversation about what it means to be a Garou, that's wonderful. If you're going to act like everyone's going to jump you, attack you for no reason or reasons unknown or vague, kill you for looking at them crossways, then do it without me here, 'cause that doesn't happen here unless you're grade-A, pants-on-head retarded. So put the knife away and eat your fuckin' steak." Charlene grumbles gnawing the bone of her steak. Annoyed Fury.
Duke looks at the knife in his hand and then down to the steak on the ground. He looks at Sue, expression hardening, and then to Charlene. "I never said I knew everything," he says, voice raising for the first time as anger bristles around him. "You tell me not to get angry when you get mad at me for making mistakes, like I should have known better, but then you still treat me like I don't know anything at all! Well if I don't know anything at all, stop getting mad at me for making mistakes! You growled at me, first! I didn't do anything to you! All I did was stand up and you growled at me! We were just talking. Just eating. And then you came and growled at me. You don't want me here? FINE! I'll go!" And with that, he takes a backward step, preparing to leave but not willing to turn his back on the others.
"Okay look…" Charlene looks over at Sue, then up at Duke. "I'm assuming a few things here, so this is not me being insulting or trying to get you to run off." Suitably prefaced, Charlene tosses her bone into the woods, crosses one leg over the other, and leans back in her chair, lit only by the glowing coals from the BBQ. Kind of cool looking, really. "I think you're really unsure of what's going on. You think you're in the middle of a bunch of the monsters that you've been hunting maybe, or whoever you were fighting with is gone and you're on your own for the first time in a very long time. Whatever the reason, you're here now, and being here has all sorts of different social expectations. If you're aware of them already, I'm sorry for wasting my breath and going over the same stuff again, but in general there's a hierarchy of rank that we, as Garou, as Pack Animals, usually adhere to. I'm a Fostern. Sue's a Cliath. Basically level 2 and 1 respectively."
Charlene takes another drink of her beer… frowns that it's empty, and gets another from the cooler next to her, opening it with a twist. "I don't know what you know, Duke, and when I try and find out, you yell at me for being condescending. I'm probably one of the most mellow Garou you'll ever meet, and I'm giving a hell of a lot of slack. The way you're acting right now? Other garou would probably give you a beating to make you learn your place. That's not me. That's not what I do. I talk a lot 'cause I'm a Galliard. We talk. Tell stories. Share things. So, anger aside, sit down and finish your meal, okay? Let's have a conversation and figure out why you're here, what you want, what you know, what we can offer, what you can offer…the whole nine yards and then some."
Cools-the-Flames lays an ear flat and back. Moon, he notes. During moon, Garou growl. Instinctive. There's a further attempt at… something, and a chewing on the raw steak, and then the metis manages to be more clear. Did not say that. Did not say did not want cub here. He disentangles himself from his food, and shifts up. It's purposeful and quick and smooth. Hispo then crinos then glabro, but not all the way to homid, and the tension of the philodox's moon shows through. There's a glance at Charlene, and the metis rumbles something, discontent and wordless, and then she starts to talk, which is probably a good thing. By the end of the shift, Sue too is standing, though he doesn't for long, crouching back down in that satyr-like crouch and one hand on the ground, hooves digging into the loose earth of their own volition.
"You really, really, really need to stop using your knife to show being nervous," Sue says, the words for the first time in less than fluent English, worsened by the roughness of glabro. "We're Garou. We're creatures of violence. And for what it's fucking gwan lei lun see ah worth?" The cursing switches languages, followed by something that sounds like Arabic before Sue returns to English, though he doesn't entirely manage to stay in it as he talks. "What Charlene said about other Garou, what they'd do? It's pretty damn true. ~I grew up in a place like that, worse because I reminded everyone around me of the sin of my parents and the shame of my tribe~, and if you don't frenzy— lose your shit— I ain't going to hurt you. ~I might growl.~" He points up at the sky. "Like Charlene-rhya said, it's my moon. I'm pissy, because I feel Luna pulling at me, a hundred times stronger than the rest of the time."
Duke continues to take those backward steps until there's a significant distance between himself and the others and there he stops to listen. There's a tensing at the corners of his eyes, in his jaw, as Charlene speaks, but he doesn't move from where he stands. When Sue speaks of the knife, he glances to the blade in his hand, and there's another tightening around his eyes, a look not of anger, but of disbelief and annoyance. That look continues, edged with confusion, until Sue stops talking. "This?" he says, then, holding up the knife for them both to see. "Why does this even bother you?" He stabs it into and through his left forearm, wincing, but not crying out against the pain. "It can't hurt us. Not really." And even as he pulls the blade free, he joins Sue in glabro where the wound quickly closes.
"It's a threat. Threats are considered very bad things around Garou, where a threat could be considered a challenge for rank, position, or just to prove that you're wrong and I'm right." Charlene sighs softly and pinches her brow, standing with her plate, putting a hand on Sue's shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "And, just so you know, that was not a smart thing to do since Sue's upbringing had all sorts of things like that happening in it." Charlene looks to Sue, staring at him, boring her gaze into his. "Calm the fuck down." Wow, lots of swearing from Charlene tonight as she stares down the Cliath, trying to disarm the situation before it goes supernova.
The metis freezes at Duke's actions, that wordless snarl coming back and his lips pulling back from his teeth. He doesn't move from his spot or get up, though, and Charlene's presence might be the only thing keeping Sue from flipping his shit, or at least shifting further from glabro, and there is a bit of pressing against her hand, resistance and fight in his posture. ~You wouldn't understand if I tried to explain,~ comes the response almost yelled, no attempts left at remaining in English as he speaks. ~Shut up about things you don't know and don't get!~ He doesn't seem to be yelling at Charlene though. Or even necessarily at the cub.
Duke stares at both of them, the tension around them reaching him as well. He slides the knife back into its sheath, and sets one foot back into a ready stance. He doesn't speak.
There's no sound of Thomas's approach, no sight, and yet quite suddenly there he is, within roughly twenty feet of the meadow gathering, and heading their way at a stiff pace while pushing his battered hat back from his eyes. With the stretching shadows from the moonlight, the treeline, and the house, there are half a dozen places he might have crept from, but the feat is impressive none-the-less. "That's quite enough," he says, in a voice that isn't quite a bark, but is certainly firm and authoritative. "Think you're gonna want to stop yelling at cubs, boy. Deep breaths."
The growl doesn't quite die in Sue's throat, perhaps because he's no longer looking at Duke to see that the knife's been put away. ~I'm…~ he looks around himself, clearly trying to get his bearings, then stands, then crouches again, flexing hands into fists even as he does so, listening to something from his tribemate for a moment, and then to Duke. ~I should go,~ Sue mutters, still in Mother Tongue, but doesn't make any move to do so. Sight of the knife sheathed seems to calm the metis a little more, and he catches his teeth in his lower lip, giving Duke a nod of what seems to be acknowledgement.
Duke still keeps most of his focus on Sue, that wary gaze, that ready stance, as though still expecting the metis to attack. He gives Thomas the briefest of glances, and breathes a little bit more easily. "Thanks," he murmurs to the older man.
Thomas snaps his finger at the lingering growl. "No, I'm thinking what you should do is calm your shit down. What's going on? There a reason you were about to frenzy, or's it just seem like a fun thing to do just now? 'Cause I got to say," and for once, Thomas's usual, casual twang takes on a sharp edge that's evidence enough of his own tightly leashed temper, "it's looking pretty fucking irresponsible."
~I caught myself, I wasn't going to lose it,~ the metis murmurs, looking up at Charlene, and then there's a nod at Thomas. ~We were talking,~ Sue continues, ~about what he knows and doesn't know, and talking about not making threats, and he,~ Sue glances at Duke, ~goes and when I suggest not using his knife as an indicator that he's nervous, stabs himself through the arm with it for no reason.~ Which would be when the metis freaked. That lingering growl still hasn't calmed, but the philodox has. At least, mostly. No longer towards Thomas entirely, the halfmoon continues, ~It doesn't matter, in this case, that we heal quickly. There are things that can hurt us.~ Quieter and not quite in coherence with the rest of the sentence, the metis rumbles, ~Not there.~
Duke squints, as though the narrowing of his eyes will help him understand the metis better. He straightens, stepping backward out of his ready stance and into a more casual posture, sliding back down to homid and hooking his thumbs in his pockets. There's a twisting at his mouth, as though he might be biting back the impulse to add his own version of events.
"You ain't in control," Thomas counters, with that same, sharp edge. "Maybe you caught yourself, maybe she helped," he glances toward Charlene, "But if'n you were in control, there wouldn't be any catching needed. You wouldn't be shouting in Wolf at a cub who can't even understand you, and you wouldn't be talking yourself down now. Now, we're in agreement that things can hurt you, and I'd put frenzying Wolves near the top've that list. So lemme ask you straight, Sue. You in any danger from this boy here, even if he decided to try an' take you on?"
Sue tilts his head and looks at Duke, sitting back in that strange crouch of his again, and there's a look at Thomas, before Sue responds. ~Not~… pause. "Not much," Sue says, switching deliberately to English, though it seems to take conscious effort at the moment. "Far less than he would be in from me. I'd get hurt more— my claws aren't worth shit in a fight," the metis admits, and follows it with. "But not lose. And we heal. That's not the matter here. Here's not the matter." It takes some time for Sue to come to this conclusion, and it's not entirely clear how much he believes himself. There's a wary eye on Duke even a moment after the cub's taken homid again. And the metis goes silent, nails digging into his fists.
Duke looks to Thomas, raising an eyebrow at the question and then looking to Sue for his answer. His lips form a tight line and he breathes out through his nose.
Thomas's eyes narrow. "Beg to differ, here is the matter. 'Cause while you're bein' all sad and vulnerable over there, there's a cub what needs teaching and guiding, and to be able to feel moderately safe in the company of other Garou. He ain't here to babysit you an' make you feel all snug. He's here to learn, an' this ain't teaching him anything other than a ranked Wolf can't keep his shit together." The man turns abruptly to Duke. "Anyone gone and claimed you yet, boy?"
Sue looks at Thomas, and just nods once. Eventually the metis shifts, down to homid himself. "It's together," Sue says, sharp and irritable and with all the weight of the moon bearing down on him again. "And I'll deal with making sure I don't let myself get set off like that. Again." Nonetheless, there's still a wary glance to Duke, followed by, "Saw he'd been talking with Salem-rhya."
"I talked to a lot of people," Duke says to Sue, biting the words. He reaches up and rubs the back of his neck, turning more toward Thomas and his tone mellows further. "But none of them want me. Salem said, if I talk to everyone else, and no one else wants me, he'll figure something out. Find a place for me that isn't in a grave, he said."
"Salem," Thomas muses. "Well, that works out just fine. Met him twice, grizzled old bastard. Okay. Go an' get your things," he says to Duke. He reaches into an inside pocket of his duster, produces a scrap of paper that looks as though it's been in there for quite some time, and a pen. He proceeds to scratch out something on the paper before handing it to Sue. "That's my cell number. Rarely keep the damned thing on, but I check it for messages. You go and give that to Salem, and you tell the rest've the Wolves that this kid's gonna be staying with me until some tribe pulls their heads out've their asses and takes responsibility for him. You tell 'em he'll be around when he feels like it, and under my protection until they do what they should already have done."
Sue looks at Charlene a moment and nods, though he lifts his hands in a shrug. "He wasn't born a girl," the metis says, and it's not quite as though it's a bad thing. "We'll do what we can in the mean time, but. Stupid," and there's an apologetic glance to his Fostern tribemate, "as I tend to often think that particular ban is, it's who we are. I'll pass the message along." Sue takes the paper, folding it into his pocket, and then he looks at Duke. "Look, sorry about that," he offers the cub, and then both Furies head towards the treeline, shifting into lupus before they get there.
The moon is in the waning Half (Philodox) Moon phase (50% full).
Duke looks at the bottle as though it might contain poison and finds a place to put it. "That's awful," he says, wiping his hand on his jeans. Then he turns that confused look back on Charlene. "You remember what the moon looked like when you were born?"
"Nope." Charlene says after finishing her mouthful of steak. "But I do have a book that lets me look at a date and see what the moon was when I was born. April 1st 1994. Gibbous moon. Means I'm a Galliard and, what do you know? It works pretty damn well. A whole mess better than astrology."
Duke takes the other plate and moves a few feet away to sit on the ground. He uses the knife from his belt to cut the steak, taking a relatively large bite to start with. His gaze returns to Charlene more than once, confusion, or skepticism, still easily read.
There's a sound in the woods of someone or something approaching, but though the Fury metis moves through the woods in hispo, he emerges into the meadow in lupus. There he pauses, ears flicking and looking around before he continues across the meadow. There is a huff of greeting towards his tribemate, a more neutral greeting for the cub. They are well? the question comes. Cools-the-Flames is bearing the weight of the moon quite clearly in the additional tension that echoes in his frame, but nonetheless, he's mostly calm.
"I know it doesn't seem to make sense, and trust me, I was in the same spot you were about four years ago. I was a lost cub and the Furies decided I was a good fit, so voila, I was a Fury like that. The whole spirit world, moon phase, werewolf thing is a lot to swallow, but you've got to admit, some of it does make a little sense. I mean, hell, you can shift to Glabro already. Have you tried any of the other forms, or do you just get to that point and go no further?" Charlene pauses, and is just about to take her third bite when Cools-the-Flames makes an appearance, Charlene turning to grin at him. "Hey there, Sue. How's the leg? Me, I'm just fine, but you? You're just in time. You want me to cook you a steak or just give it to you as is?" Raw, she means.
Duke is on his feet in a heartbeat when Sue appears, the steak forgotten on the plate at his feet. His grip on the knife shifts in that first movement, but then slowly relaxes along with the tension through his spine. He watches Sue's approach, though his glance toward the galliard suggests that he's listening to her as well. He shakes his head at something she says, that look of confusion sharpening across his features. "Huh?"
Cools-the-Flames pulls his lips back from his teeth at the sight of the knife and the grip shifting. Apparently the hostility, tolerated as it was, isn't tolerated so well at the moment, and the metis barely doesn't snarl as he stalks through the meadow. Instead, there's a low rumble towards the cub. Sit, the metis suggests, and turns his attention to Charlene. Leg is fine. Regrew fine, he explains, lifting his right foreleg to show. Another pause and he bounds the last bit, flopping loosely out next to the other Fury. Hunted, the metis remarks. Won't say no to raw, though.
"Dial it back like two notches, Duke. No-one's gonna kill you unless you— remember— try to kill me first. At least eat the steak before you wind yourself up tighter." Charlene fixes Duke with a 'glare' that kind of says 'calm the f down, dude' before the third ribeye— raw as can be, is placed on a plate and within easing nomming distance for Sue. "To kind of make you less confused, although it doesn't look like Sue here… you met Sue… Sue here is talking, he is. Lots of subtle motions, movements, and sounds. You tend to pick up Wolf fairly quickly, which is what he's speaking. He basically asked how we were. The low rumble? It was a suggestion to sit. It is his moon, after all, and it tends to make things a little more interesting temper-wise." She re-takes up her plate, a normal-sized wolf next to her apparently old news, and goes back to eating.
Duke turns the knife in his hand, not threatening, but perhaps anxious, still. "I know who he is," the youth says. "And I know what he said. I don't feel like sitting, right now." He looks from Sue to Charlene and shakes his head. "You're doing it again. Acting like I should know what's a threat and what's not, like I'm stupid for not wanting my back exposed when someone shows up, but then I'm stupid enough not to even know how to shift or how to understand a wolf or recognize a metis with hoofs, when you know I killed monsters before, and I showed you my scars from when I died before."
Cools-the-Flames remains very purposefully laying down, placing forelegs out and to either side of the plate a little possessively of it. Most cubs that come, the metis notes, know far less. You know far more. But much not known. Do not growl when people make mistakes. They are bigger. They will growl back.
"Look." Charlene gestures with the bone of her steak— jeez the girl can eat fast— using it like a baton, almost. "You think I'm being insulting by assuming you know nothing? Cubs, 99 times out of 100, know nothing, and the fact that you know something? That's great. You know stuff. Only problem is, you don't know everything, even though you've died twice and killed a few monsters. Big whoop. I've died a couple of times myself. It comes with the territory of being a Garou. It's not fun to die, which is why I generally avoid it as a rule." A bit of gallows humor there. "So, if we're going to have a civilized conversation about what it means to be a Garou, that's wonderful. If you're going to act like everyone's going to jump you, attack you for no reason or reasons unknown or vague, kill you for looking at them crossways, then do it without me here, 'cause that doesn't happen here unless you're grade-A, pants-on-head retarded. So put the knife away and eat your fuckin' steak." Charlene grumbles gnawing the bone of her steak. Annoyed Fury.
Duke looks at the knife in his hand and then down to the steak on the ground. He looks at Sue, expression hardening, and then to Charlene. "I never said I knew everything," he says, voice raising for the first time as anger bristles around him. "You tell me not to get angry when you get mad at me for making mistakes, like I should have known better, but then you still treat me like I don't know anything at all! Well if I don't know anything at all, stop getting mad at me for making mistakes! You growled at me, first! I didn't do anything to you! All I did was stand up and you growled at me! We were just talking. Just eating. And then you came and growled at me. You don't want me here? FINE! I'll go!" And with that, he takes a backward step, preparing to leave but not willing to turn his back on the others.
"Okay look…" Charlene looks over at Sue, then up at Duke. "I'm assuming a few things here, so this is not me being insulting or trying to get you to run off." Suitably prefaced, Charlene tosses her bone into the woods, crosses one leg over the other, and leans back in her chair, lit only by the glowing coals from the BBQ. Kind of cool looking, really. "I think you're really unsure of what's going on. You think you're in the middle of a bunch of the monsters that you've been hunting maybe, or whoever you were fighting with is gone and you're on your own for the first time in a very long time. Whatever the reason, you're here now, and being here has all sorts of different social expectations. If you're aware of them already, I'm sorry for wasting my breath and going over the same stuff again, but in general there's a hierarchy of rank that we, as Garou, as Pack Animals, usually adhere to. I'm a Fostern. Sue's a Cliath. Basically level 2 and 1 respectively."
Charlene takes another drink of her beer… frowns that it's empty, and gets another from the cooler next to her, opening it with a twist. "I don't know what you know, Duke, and when I try and find out, you yell at me for being condescending. I'm probably one of the most mellow Garou you'll ever meet, and I'm giving a hell of a lot of slack. The way you're acting right now? Other garou would probably give you a beating to make you learn your place. That's not me. That's not what I do. I talk a lot 'cause I'm a Galliard. We talk. Tell stories. Share things. So, anger aside, sit down and finish your meal, okay? Let's have a conversation and figure out why you're here, what you want, what you know, what we can offer, what you can offer…the whole nine yards and then some."
Cools-the-Flames lays an ear flat and back. Moon, he notes. During moon, Garou growl. Instinctive. There's a further attempt at… something, and a chewing on the raw steak, and then the metis manages to be more clear. Did not say that. Did not say did not want cub here. He disentangles himself from his food, and shifts up. It's purposeful and quick and smooth. Hispo then crinos then glabro, but not all the way to homid, and the tension of the philodox's moon shows through. There's a glance at Charlene, and the metis rumbles something, discontent and wordless, and then she starts to talk, which is probably a good thing. By the end of the shift, Sue too is standing, though he doesn't for long, crouching back down in that satyr-like crouch and one hand on the ground, hooves digging into the loose earth of their own volition.
"You really, really, really need to stop using your knife to show being nervous," Sue says, the words for the first time in less than fluent English, worsened by the roughness of glabro. "We're Garou. We're creatures of violence. And for what it's fucking gwan lei lun see ah worth?" The cursing switches languages, followed by something that sounds like Arabic before Sue returns to English, though he doesn't entirely manage to stay in it as he talks. "What Charlene said about other Garou, what they'd do? It's pretty damn true. ~I grew up in a place like that, worse because I reminded everyone around me of the sin of my parents and the shame of my tribe~, and if you don't frenzy— lose your shit— I ain't going to hurt you. ~I might growl.~" He points up at the sky. "Like Charlene-rhya said, it's my moon. I'm pissy, because I feel Luna pulling at me, a hundred times stronger than the rest of the time."
Duke continues to take those backward steps until there's a significant distance between himself and the others and there he stops to listen. There's a tensing at the corners of his eyes, in his jaw, as Charlene speaks, but he doesn't move from where he stands. When Sue speaks of the knife, he glances to the blade in his hand, and there's another tightening around his eyes, a look not of anger, but of disbelief and annoyance. That look continues, edged with confusion, until Sue stops talking. "This?" he says, then, holding up the knife for them both to see. "Why does this even bother you?" He stabs it into and through his left forearm, wincing, but not crying out against the pain. "It can't hurt us. Not really." And even as he pulls the blade free, he joins Sue in glabro where the wound quickly closes.
"It's a threat. Threats are considered very bad things around Garou, where a threat could be considered a challenge for rank, position, or just to prove that you're wrong and I'm right." Charlene sighs softly and pinches her brow, standing with her plate, putting a hand on Sue's shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "And, just so you know, that was not a smart thing to do since Sue's upbringing had all sorts of things like that happening in it." Charlene looks to Sue, staring at him, boring her gaze into his. "Calm the fuck down." Wow, lots of swearing from Charlene tonight as she stares down the Cliath, trying to disarm the situation before it goes supernova.
The metis freezes at Duke's actions, that wordless snarl coming back and his lips pulling back from his teeth. He doesn't move from his spot or get up, though, and Charlene's presence might be the only thing keeping Sue from flipping his shit, or at least shifting further from glabro, and there is a bit of pressing against her hand, resistance and fight in his posture. ~You wouldn't understand if I tried to explain,~ comes the response almost yelled, no attempts left at remaining in English as he speaks. ~Shut up about things you don't know and don't get!~ He doesn't seem to be yelling at Charlene though. Or even necessarily at the cub.
Duke stares at both of them, the tension around them reaching him as well. He slides the knife back into its sheath, and sets one foot back into a ready stance. He doesn't speak.
There's no sound of Thomas's approach, no sight, and yet quite suddenly there he is, within roughly twenty feet of the meadow gathering, and heading their way at a stiff pace while pushing his battered hat back from his eyes. With the stretching shadows from the moonlight, the treeline, and the house, there are half a dozen places he might have crept from, but the feat is impressive none-the-less. "That's quite enough," he says, in a voice that isn't quite a bark, but is certainly firm and authoritative. "Think you're gonna want to stop yelling at cubs, boy. Deep breaths."
The growl doesn't quite die in Sue's throat, perhaps because he's no longer looking at Duke to see that the knife's been put away. ~I'm…~ he looks around himself, clearly trying to get his bearings, then stands, then crouches again, flexing hands into fists even as he does so, listening to something from his tribemate for a moment, and then to Duke. ~I should go,~ Sue mutters, still in Mother Tongue, but doesn't make any move to do so. Sight of the knife sheathed seems to calm the metis a little more, and he catches his teeth in his lower lip, giving Duke a nod of what seems to be acknowledgement.
Duke still keeps most of his focus on Sue, that wary gaze, that ready stance, as though still expecting the metis to attack. He gives Thomas the briefest of glances, and breathes a little bit more easily. "Thanks," he murmurs to the older man.
Thomas snaps his finger at the lingering growl. "No, I'm thinking what you should do is calm your shit down. What's going on? There a reason you were about to frenzy, or's it just seem like a fun thing to do just now? 'Cause I got to say," and for once, Thomas's usual, casual twang takes on a sharp edge that's evidence enough of his own tightly leashed temper, "it's looking pretty fucking irresponsible."
~I caught myself, I wasn't going to lose it,~ the metis murmurs, looking up at Charlene, and then there's a nod at Thomas. ~We were talking,~ Sue continues, ~about what he knows and doesn't know, and talking about not making threats, and he,~ Sue glances at Duke, ~goes and when I suggest not using his knife as an indicator that he's nervous, stabs himself through the arm with it for no reason.~ Which would be when the metis freaked. That lingering growl still hasn't calmed, but the philodox has. At least, mostly. No longer towards Thomas entirely, the halfmoon continues, ~It doesn't matter, in this case, that we heal quickly. There are things that can hurt us.~ Quieter and not quite in coherence with the rest of the sentence, the metis rumbles, ~Not there.~
Duke squints, as though the narrowing of his eyes will help him understand the metis better. He straightens, stepping backward out of his ready stance and into a more casual posture, sliding back down to homid and hooking his thumbs in his pockets. There's a twisting at his mouth, as though he might be biting back the impulse to add his own version of events.
"You ain't in control," Thomas counters, with that same, sharp edge. "Maybe you caught yourself, maybe she helped," he glances toward Charlene, "But if'n you were in control, there wouldn't be any catching needed. You wouldn't be shouting in Wolf at a cub who can't even understand you, and you wouldn't be talking yourself down now. Now, we're in agreement that things can hurt you, and I'd put frenzying Wolves near the top've that list. So lemme ask you straight, Sue. You in any danger from this boy here, even if he decided to try an' take you on?"
Sue tilts his head and looks at Duke, sitting back in that strange crouch of his again, and there's a look at Thomas, before Sue responds. ~Not~… pause. "Not much," Sue says, switching deliberately to English, though it seems to take conscious effort at the moment. "Far less than he would be in from me. I'd get hurt more— my claws aren't worth shit in a fight," the metis admits, and follows it with. "But not lose. And we heal. That's not the matter here. Here's not the matter." It takes some time for Sue to come to this conclusion, and it's not entirely clear how much he believes himself. There's a wary eye on Duke even a moment after the cub's taken homid again. And the metis goes silent, nails digging into his fists.
Duke looks to Thomas, raising an eyebrow at the question and then looking to Sue for his answer. His lips form a tight line and he breathes out through his nose.
Thomas's eyes narrow. "Beg to differ, here is the matter. 'Cause while you're bein' all sad and vulnerable over there, there's a cub what needs teaching and guiding, and to be able to feel moderately safe in the company of other Garou. He ain't here to babysit you an' make you feel all snug. He's here to learn, an' this ain't teaching him anything other than a ranked Wolf can't keep his shit together." The man turns abruptly to Duke. "Anyone gone and claimed you yet, boy?"
Sue looks at Thomas, and just nods once. Eventually the metis shifts, down to homid himself. "It's together," Sue says, sharp and irritable and with all the weight of the moon bearing down on him again. "And I'll deal with making sure I don't let myself get set off like that. Again." Nonetheless, there's still a wary glance to Duke, followed by, "Saw he'd been talking with Salem-rhya."
"I talked to a lot of people," Duke says to Sue, biting the words. He reaches up and rubs the back of his neck, turning more toward Thomas and his tone mellows further. "But none of them want me. Salem said, if I talk to everyone else, and no one else wants me, he'll figure something out. Find a place for me that isn't in a grave, he said."
"Salem," Thomas muses. "Well, that works out just fine. Met him twice, grizzled old bastard. Okay. Go an' get your things," he says to Duke. He reaches into an inside pocket of his duster, produces a scrap of paper that looks as though it's been in there for quite some time, and a pen. He proceeds to scratch out something on the paper before handing it to Sue. "That's my cell number. Rarely keep the damned thing on, but I check it for messages. You go and give that to Salem, and you tell the rest've the Wolves that this kid's gonna be staying with me until some tribe pulls their heads out've their asses and takes responsibility for him. You tell 'em he'll be around when he feels like it, and under my protection until they do what they should already have done."
Sue looks at Charlene a moment and nods, though he lifts his hands in a shrug. "He wasn't born a girl," the metis says, and it's not quite as though it's a bad thing. "We'll do what we can in the mean time, but. Stupid," and there's an apologetic glance to his Fostern tribemate, "as I tend to often think that particular ban is, it's who we are. I'll pass the message along." Sue takes the paper, folding it into his pocket, and then he looks at Duke. "Look, sorry about that," he offers the cub, and then both Furies head towards the treeline, shifting into lupus before they get there.