zg_shadows | Sri Lanka again.

Conflicting emotions and duties skittered through her mind and under her skin making her twitchy. She didn’t want to be in the company of De Xue or Tolly but had no way to get rid of them; she wanted to speak to Kit alone but had no idea what to say...

They were in the Temple the Tiger Lord ruled as the heart of his lands; the scent of thick jungle-like vegetation filled the air and if an ear was strained southwards the sound of the sea could be heard. The sun was full and golden in an achingly blue sky and Ash was certain that any second now she was going to go completely crazy and kill someone. She closed her eyes and dug her nails into her palms mapping out blood-red crescent moons on her skin. It didn’t help. With a suppressed snarl she turned from her companions and started to walk away.

“Ash?” Tolly called, his voice mostly curiosity tinged with a drop of concern.

Shut up an’ don’t you dare follow, she commanded silently, for the love o’ Selene, or I might tear out your throat...

Behind her she heard Tolly take a step, and then a near-silent rustle of silk as De Xue intercepted. “When the lion wishes to wash its wounds in private, the wise man does not ask why,” he murmured.

“But...” Tolly frowned, not least of all because the Corax in him he didn’t believe in ‘private’. “We were asked to wait here so greetings could be exchanged. And everyone keeps going on about manners and the etiquette of the East – isn’t someone going to get upset she’s just wandered off?”

De Xue allowed the corner of his lips to rise in the smallest of smiles and lowered his voice to the barest of whispers. “Humbly this one would suggest that Ashriel has drunk tea with the Lord many times and so may be forgiven some small lapse in manners. Also, when a wounded lion stalks through the Tiger’s lands, the Tiger knows better than to bite her tail.”

“No, wait – the Tiger’s a girl now?” Tolly asked, his voice and eyes lively with mischief. “Or is the lion a girl? Lions and tigers are boys y’know. Lioness would be a girl – and anyway, Ash is a fox...”

De Xue looked very briefly heavenward as if seeking solace there, and sighed.

=====

Ash prowled down a colonnade ignoring the carved gods who watched her from the pillars and the birds who sang in the garden to her right. She didn’t know why she had asked Tolly to bring her here. She had too many things to do, too many things to fix and no idea how to do it. Selene had re-forged her soul with a kiss and she knew little of her new duty or abilities. Her pack mate was dead, her enemy still lived and because someone had chosen to disregard her words and warning, Rorg had fallen. Grey had left with barely a backwards glance and she had been asked to lead a new Sentai. All this had happened in less than a week and whilst she was still reeling, Yuki was at Fushimi, waiting for some news as to whether he would attend his lover’s wedding or her funeral.

She stopped abruptly, trying to calm her thoughts and untangle her emotions one from the other, seeking some island of stability however small... and finding none. For the love of all Heaven – how was it everything just got more complicated day by day and her shit list got longer and longer?

A sense of loss and longing drenched her, as pointless as it was painful. There had been a time – not for Ash, but for Khara – when there had been no regrets, no confusion, no loss. The world had been shining new in her eyes and the path her paws walked promised nothing but glory and adventure. Now her path offered an eternal battleground with only questionable victories to show for it...

=====

Kit struggled into a shirt as he hurried towards the heart of the caern. He had been holding a class teaching some of the younger and lower-ranked Sept members how to fight. Word had only just reached him of his visitor’s arrival – the Tiger Lord rarely thought anything important enough to interrupt martial training and so had delayed the news until the lesson’s end.

The Pumonca picked his bare feet up a little higher, adding to his speed without it becoming unseemly; then gave up and hit full-out sprint. As he turned a corner his legs almost tangled as his heart tightened and he saw who stood in the slanting sunlight beneath the colonnade.

She was lithe and tightly muscled; her skin was tanned and her hair was a dandelion mess of cream, caramel and silver gold. Her waistcoat and jeans had seen better days and her many trinkets were gaudy in comparison. Her arms were hugged around her stomach and her chin was tucked towards her chest in a perfect picture of misery.

“Khara?” The name was strangled, rusted with disuse ever since Flux had eroded the ties that bound them, reworked that which made them and turned his sister into Ash.

The girl looked up; her face was triangular and her eyes very large, but irises which should have been golden were blood red and marked with a narrow fox-slit pupil. Upon seeing him the girl’s expression was relief and sorrow both at once, but she still ran to him. She moved through the columns of light and shade cast by the sun; as she did her skin blanched and her hair darkened, her body stretched an inch or so becoming more delicate. By the time she reached him it was Ash who threw her arms around her brother as if Khara had been nothing more than a trick of the light.

He hugged her fiercely, a rumbling growl of protection and worry grating through his throat despite his human seeming.

“Hey you,” she said in a small voice.

“Hey darlin’. What you been doin’ now? Kwaii came here some nights back with his flames all in a twist...”

She closed her eyes and bit her lip; she was very fond of the little flame spirit and missed his wide-eyed chattering, his light and warmth. She also hated that she couldn’t have kept even that small comfort against the storm of loss and change that had drenched her. No blazing rage, no familiar sprit, no pack, no victory... “James is dead,” she said with difficulty – and immediately wished she hadn’t as that made it twice as real. Her eyes stung with salt. “I helped rescue his children and then I fuckin’ got him killed!”

Kit held her tighter and felt her lungs hitch as she strove not to cry. “Were you bein’ dumb?” he asked her in perfect seriousness.

She looked at nothing for a long moment, searching her own memories for fault. “I don’t know,” she said at last.

“What were you doin’?” he prompted.

Her voice was very small. “Tryin’ t’kill the Rank Nine Lord o’the Black Spiral Dancers.”

Her twin’s lips tugged up into a smile, part admiration and part shared sorrow. “Only you, oh sister mine. What happened?”

“He killed three o’the Garou and corrupted Rorg before we bundled him into Flux.”

“Not countin’ the Eternally Pissy Hunter getting’ royally screwed I’d call that a definite win...” He sighed. “Would James have gone if he didn’t believe in what you were doin’ an’ how you were doin’ it?” He saw her guilt-fuelled indecision and laughed gently. “The answer you’re lookin’ for is ‘no’ - because I know damn well you wouldn’t have had a Wolf that terminally stupid in any pack o’yours.” Kit hugged her again. “I’m sorry for the loss, darlin’, I liked James. Drink t’his memory, say a prayer for his spirit, watch over his kin and make sure his death weren’t in vain.” She knew the words, it was what their mother had taught them both; but he felt she might need to hear them again.

She sniffed, wiping at her face with the back of her hand, and nodded. “Yeah.” And then with slightly more conviction as she gathered her razed feelings, "Yeah." She gave Kit a suddenly suspicious look from beneath her hair. “When did you grow up so much?”

He smiled, wide, easy and charming. “I’m as old as I need t’be – and just then I figured you needed an elder brother. Now I done that I figure I can drop it.” He nuzzled at her head – a supremely feline gesture as f he was looking for a spot to start washing. “You gonna tell me what it was that Luna gave you when she sent Kwaii packin’?”

Ash let go of her twin and took a step back. She let her breath out in a slow hiss and shifted. She was crinos, vulpine and larger than a Garou in their battle form. She stood tall and two-legged with thick white fur traced over with silver patterns that looked like flame. Deep red markings still masked her face and tipped her limbs and six tails. Upon her brow Luna’s kiss burned moon-silver-bright.

Kit swore reverently in Kheur.

Ash shifted again, fur and muscle receding in an instant until she was once more a young woman in faded clothes with red hair and pale skin. “It ain’t common knowledge yet,” she said. “But that’s mostly ‘cos no one in London knows Kitsune can’t do that. Ain’t sure how long I can keep it from the House – ain’t sure it’s a good idea either since there’s a whole bundle o’shit I just don’t have the knack of any more.” She shrugged, a manufactured gesture which tried to feign a lack of concern but failed to banish the worry writ across the set of her shoulders and the tilt of her head.

Kit blinked away his shock as best he could. “Yuki know yet?”

She tensed, another pain called to the fore. “I ain’t been able to send word since I told him I was off t’try kill Rkleish.”

Kit’s eyes widened. “An’ you came talk t’me? Dear Selene in heaven, what the hell you doin’ here? He woulda been goin’ spare all week!” Much as Kit liked Yuki, the Pumonca had no faith in the Katatribe’s ability to remain sane, stable or functional when not welded soundly to Ash. He started to run down the corridor, dragging his twin with him.

“Kit – Tolly an’ De Xue are here...”

“They can come too,” he decided. “C’mon, shift y’tails!” At the back of his brain, rather over-dramatic little cartoons were playing out of what Tsuko Yukimaru might have been up to. They ranged from the likely (being a difficult and miserable bastard) to the melodramatic (committing sepuku) to the unlikely (becoming a Yama King out of spite). A sudden thought occurred and he slowed his pace. “Almost forgot – I got a message from home.”

Ash frowned.

“Aunt Glory says that December will be fine, failing that January will be acceptable since the snow keeps the land pure. That mean anything t’you?”

Ash’s scowl deepened and then with a lurch she stopped moving as she deciphered Glory’s message. “Oh – ohhhh Gaia damn her smug all-seein' eyes,” she swore, sounding deeply put upon.

Kit looked quizzical.

Ashriel sighed deeply. “You fancy attendin’ a wedding in a month or two?”

“Whose?”

She smiled lop-sidedly. “Mine.”