zg_shadows | (no subject)

The Sept of the Heart of Albion was oddly quiet. Miriam wasn't entirely sure what to say herself, as she sat cross legged at the edge of the hall, watching her Alpha talking to the new King of the Austere Howl.

What was there to say?

Lucas Drake had been a lunatic. Everyone had known that, and yet he had been familiar. He had been a known quantity, and now he was gone. What replaced him? A teenage boy from nowhere, with no family name, no recognisable history?

Outside the hall there was movement. Jamie McKipsie (and why had he not taken the throne? It was his by rights, and he had stepped aside for this kid...) had a small child sitting on his lap, chattering at him.

"And then we saw a train, Da," she was saying. "A real train, and it made this huge noise, but I wasn't scared at all. And it went so fast - I stuck my head out of the window and I nearly got it blown off, but Xy pulled me back inside..."

Katrina Nikitinivich was standing a way away, talking to a boy with tangled dark hair and Miriam frowned slightly. She disliked the way the two looked at each other. She knew her views on intertribal mating weren't the most popular, but when you'd spent the last three years in a pack with two brothers from a mixed mating, one of whom had been chosen by Falcon, and one had not, and you'd seen the odd sense of dislocation, the loss, the lack of belonging that your packmate lived with for every day of his life, you began to see where the traditionalists were coming from.

Downhill, slightly away from the hall, a slim girl with a tangle of black curly hair was standing, and Miriam wondered who she was. She was one of the kin from Griffin's Glen, but she wasn't really talking to anyone, and seemed more lost than most. She stood with her arms wrapped around herself, staring into the middle distance. Miriam shrugged. Griffin's Glen raised odd kinfolk, often no good for anything other than breeding when you took them away from their isolated glen.

The voices of a few of the garou floated out in the air.

"All a trick..."

"Yes. The Bone Gnawer wanted to teach the Nation a lesson. So he posed as a Nuwisha. And he did. He made half the Nation look stupid, and made the other half look worse than stupid."

"And then killed the High King..."

There was a silence then, as if the speakers were uncomfortable with their own words. Down below, one of the Red Talons from Griffin's Glen looked up, with sharp teeth gleaming.

"Lex-rhya taught us much. Now Garou will think twice before they break their own laws to torment one they thing won't be able to tell tales. I bet he has many interesting stories to tell of stupid Garou and stupid Garou kin who behaved badly when they thought that only a Dog Bete was watching. And those tales will be what the Nation learns from all this."

The kin girl noticeably stiffened at that comment, and Miriam raised a quiet eyebrow, but said nothing.

Inside the hall she heard her Alpha call, and scrambled to her feet. Edward Ryder looked unusually drained today, and she remembered that Lucas Drake had once been his packmate.

"Death's Kiss" he said sharply.

"Death Comes Quiet-rhya" she replied. "What may I do?"

"We can't find Yarn anywhere," he said. "Go find Silver Talon and set out. I want him back."

She nodded and he smiled, a quick flicker of a smile at her.

Outside the sun was brightening a little, and it glinted on the fur of the rangy silver wolf which waited for Miriam.

"We go hunting," she said, and smiled a white toothed smile.

She glanced down the hill again towards Katrina, and for a moment a wistful expression crossed her face, but Katrina's eyes were tangled up with a blue eyed Fianna boy. Miriam sighed. Maybe Katrina didn't need to challenge just yet, but it would come soon enough, and she needed to remember that. Katrina couldn't be her friend. Not really, no matter what either of them wanted.

A quick nip at her side brought her back to the task at hand.

"Yarn has not gone that way," Silver Talon said sharply, with a flick of his ear in the direction Miriam had been looking. Miriam sighed and shook her head.

"No," she said. "He did not."

Her body twisted for a moment, and then a second silver furred wolf stood in her place. She sniffed at the air delicately, and tilted her head towards the edge of the bawn.

"This way," she said.

Her companion grinned.

"This way then," and he batted his tail enthusiastically. "We hunt."