Garou tat prose
Parties in Griffin’s Glen were rare - they were monkey nonsense, the Alpha said. Who needed more food than you could eat, or foul tasting liquid that fuddled the brain. That wasn’t the lupus way, and so it was not Griffin’s way.
But tonight the Sept of the Griffin’s Glen was celebrating. They had cleaned out Edinburgh, they had visitors from afar, and the summer was coming in. Brushwood had been lit, and songs which had not been sung in months, maybe years, were filling up the blue dusk air.
A bare foot girl in cut off jeans and a worn linen shirt padded through the glen with dark eyes sparkling with curiosity. The familiar old glades suddenly seemed bright and glamorous in the flickering light of the unfamiliar bonfire, and every single corner held a new and exotic face. A fine featured Silver Fang girl sat beside the lean jackal form of Jude Manyskins. A short woman in an outlandishly decorated bowler hat was conferring earnestly with Andraste. Even at the edge of the glade, where the firelight began to fade into shadow was another stranger; a thin featured man with a weariness about his shoulders and jaw.
“I’m Xylona,” she said cheerfully. A vague memory flickered through her head and she wondered if this was the Dog Bete that she’d heard Jacob, the Eldest Ragabash, talking about with Jenny McLeod, her foster mother. But the night was bright, and so she sat down beside him anyway.
No one really noticed the kinfolk girl sitting down with the Nuwisha. Her foster mother was busy keeping track of the two busy toddlers on her knee, her youngest foster sister had determinedly glued herself to the side of her normally absent Silver Fang father, and the other two foster siblings were clustered around the cluster of Fianna, listening to the stories. The Garou paid the monkey-girl precious little attention at the best of times, and that was not changing now.
The fire burnt a little brighter, and the two continued to chatter. Xylona heard stories of hive diving, and skyscrapers. Lex, the Nuwisha, got attention and began to grin a little more broadly. And as the night drew in, and the air turned from a soft blue to a velvety black, Xy tilted her head to one side and asked if Lex would like to come and see the loch where she took the kids swimming, and they padded off quietly into the night.
Away from the bonfire, the woods seemed a little darker, and the night a little more tangible. Xylona tilted her head upwards to the sky. It was an old trick she had used from when she was a little girl and was afraid of the dark. Her mother had told her to always look up when she began to be afraid, and remember that the sky always had a little bit of light in it. Ten years later, and seventeen years old, Xy still tended to look up when she was nervous.
Lex seemed relaxed at her side, and maybe this was the way it went, beyond Griffin’s Glen. Xy relaxed a little more, and felt the earlier excitement bubble up inside her. This strange, new, exciting creature was walking with her, the shabby little monkey-kin from the backwater caern, and was smiling at something she had said.
He told her more stories of a link to flux, which sat at the heart of the London scab, guarded by the Bone Gnawers, and cheerfully admitted to having been to Flux to collect the seeds that formed the gateway. Xy told a few of her stories, although she was somewhat aware that tales of teaching Kesi to swim, or losing one of the twins for an hour because he had climbed into the massive breadbin in the kitchen were noticeably less exciting than his. But he smiled, and continued to follow Xy along the imperceptible path, between birch and pine, until they came out from the forest to the side of the shining silver loch, and stood on the moss covered boulders at the edge.
Xy gestured to a worn rope attached to one of the tree branches which overhung the loch.
“You can swing out on that,” she said, “and then you get a good way out over the water before you jump,”
She tilted her head, and looked at Lex. There was a look to him which she thought she could read - his eyes had wandered up and down her body often enough over the last hour or so - but she wasn’t quite sure what to do next, or what she wanted to do.
Lex made no move towards her, but wandered towards one of the boulders and sat down.
"You don't get anywhere like this in London," he said, and tilted his chin upwards so he could look at her. "It helps you remember what you're fighting for..."
Xylona half smiled.
"I suppose so. It's just always been here,” she said. “My mother used to bring me swimming here when I was tiny. One of her packmates taught me to swim here. She was a Get, from the Orkneys."
She looked thoughtful.
"But nothing ever changes here,” she said, and joined Lex, perched on the rock. “I mean, there are battles sometimes, and the garou and the older kin go out to fight, and then return, but nothing much happens here.”
She remembered finding a battered silver knife with the bloodstains still on the handle down by this loch and added “although we did kill a couple of campers down here two years ago. No idea how they got this far into the territory."
Lex looked thoughtful too.
"Things can be so different,” he said. “I live in a city and one of my totems represents humanity. What I am has changed three times. I've lost count of the number of Sept Alphas that London has had in the past two years..."
Xy nodded.
"Yeah...that's why we're told London is cursed,” she said. “Griffin's Glory-rhya has been the Alpha here for twenty years, and before that this place was held by Wyld Storm Rising-rhya for ten years. I still remember her being alive when I was tiny, although she was a very old wolf then.
"And London...."
She paused.
"You've got a mule as your Alpha as well, haven't you?” she asked. “I don't think I've ever even met one of those"
Lex chuckled.
“Yes,” he said, “Michael Stands-Ready is the London alpha. He's the only metis I know, although I've met a couple of others in my time. He seems to do a reasonable job of looking after the place, and apparently my not being Garou means that I can't challenge him for alpha.”
He grinned mischievously.
“The part of me that's still Garou agrees with that. The idea of something far beyond the scale of Ragabash being trusted with more than string is, well, too potentially amusing to be anywhere near a good idea...”
He smiled wryly.
"So all of us who have excitement and danger spend all our time wishing things were boring and safe, and folk like you spend your time wishing something interesting would happen. It makes you wonder whether or not the creator actually was a trickster, like some of the native American
myths say..."
He looked at her thoughtfully.
"What do you want, Xylona? What's your ambition?"
Xylona blinked. Vague memories of Jenny McLeod saying firmly that she wanted a little less monkey-wants, and a little more appreciation of what was actually needed in her house floated through her brain.
"Well, it depends if I change or not,” she said, and looked a little wry. “I don't think I will. Not now. I'm too old.”
The series of slightly depressing conversations that Jenny and Andraste had had with her lately floated through her brain. “I guess I look after the kids,” she said, “I patrol, maybe find a mate one day. I mean, I've got good blood in me. I've thought about whether I could move up to the Sept of the Singing Seas at some point, but I'm not Fenrir so I don't know if they would have me.”
She shrugged.
"Some of the Fianna say that I should move to Anglesey, but I don't know. I'd like to see something more than the Griffin's Glen before I die though."
Lex nodded, earnestly.
"If you want to travel,” he said, “Travel to some of the safer Septs. Many places aren't as safe as up here - I've done a lot of wandering myself. Going with someone who's been out before is a damn good idea - I could happily jump off this rock, break a leg, and be wandering around again in a few minutes with a slight limp....”
Lex continued to talk, and Xylona wondered if everyone from beyond the glen talked quite as much as this man. She realised he had been chattering for a while, and she’d missed half of it.
“…you break a little more easily,” Lex was saying.
"Really?" Xy said, and grinned mischievously. This skinny and pale faced man was weaker than her? He was half the width across the shoulders of the smallest of the Fianna boys, never mention the occasional days when she had seen Red Talons walking in their monkey skin.
They were both perched very close to the water, and Xy was growing mildly uncomfortable with these serious conversations about a future which she had long ago decided she didn’t want to think about. It was far easier enough to give Lex a good hard shove, and watch as he wobbled, and then overbalanced towards the water. He looked uncertain for a moment, and let out a maniacal cackle before kicking off against the rock hard, and back-flipping into the loch.
There was a splash as he hit the water’s surface.
Xylona giggled, and clapped her hands.
"Bravo!" she shouted, as Lex surfaced
"I told you I wasn't the greatest warrior..." he said. He stayed still for a moment, treading water, and for the first time that evening his eyes began to lose a bit of their sadness and sparkled slightly.
"I also maintain that you couldn't beat that jump..."
Xylona giggled.
"You're on!" she said.
She stripped rapidly, pulling off shorts, shirt and faded underwear. She stretched out her shoulders, feeling her muscles twist beneath her skin, before she began to run, grabbing the rope and swinging out as far as she could before letting go.
Lex was chuckling when she surfaced. Xy shook the water away from her eyes and laughed herself.
“Watch,” she said, and ducked under the water, swimming between his ankles in a figure of eight, her body twisting in the dark water.
Lex grinned at her as she surfaced.
"You're very good,” he said. “Then again, I don't have much decent water to pratice in. The Thames isn't exactly the nicest place to swim..."
"My mother's old packmate taught me to swim,” Xy said, and tilted her head backwards so her hair trailed in the water, forming a fan shape. “She said she'd been taught by a shark. Although she was a Ragabash, so that was probably just a story."
She righted herself and returned to treading water easily, as Lex circled her.
"Do you want to swim for a bit?” he asked, a little uncertain. “If so, I should probably lose some of the denim and the shoes, 'cause they make swimming a little awkward, and I only own one set..."
Xylona gestured towards the shore with a tilt of her head that would have been entirely recognisable to any of the small mob of orphaned children that she had been taking to the loch since she was ten years old.
"Go! Get naked! And hang your clothes up to dry!"
She somersaulted again in the water another couple of times, and then surfaced again in time to watch Lex clambering out of the loch. He pulled his shoes off and watched the water pour out of shoes with a slightly pained expression, before laying his jacket down carefully. Then he paused, an odd expression on his face before he took off his T shirt, but he did so. The clothes were somewhat haphazardly thrown over branches or rocks to dry, with the exception of the denim jacket which was put down carefully, and something else, tucked into a boot.
He paused again, before sitting down, thoughtfully kicking his legs in the water with his combats still on.
"You know, I'm way more citified than you. I . . ."
He paused, and seemed unsure of what to say.
Xylona blinked, confused for a moment.
She swam a little closer, and half pulled herself out of the water, her elbows and chin resting on the rocks, beside Lex's legs.
Words were escaping Xy. After a while she settled for folding his trouser leg up carefully, to stop it trailing in the water.
"You don't want to swim any more?" she said, which seemed the safest thing to say.
Lex reached over and gently stroked Xylona's hair. Xy felt a small wash of warmth run over her.
"I'd quite like to swim,” he said. “Just city folk usually wear something to swim in. It's not really the way Gaia meant it, but folk from the cities normally don't strip off unless, well, they know each other pretty well."
An odd image of a parade of men and women in jeans, boots, shirts and sweaters, all clumsily splashing about in the water leapt into Xy’s mind.
"Garou will now and again, 'cause of shifting or something like that,” Lex continued, “but that's folk that there won't be . . . any other complications with."
A faint prickle of embarrassment ran through Xylona as she caught up with what he was saying. She had this nasty feeling that what he was trying to say was that he’d rather not get naked with her because that meant sex, and that wasn’t something he wanted. She was also aware that she was naked, and entirely out of the water and exposed from the waist up.
"You know how folk send out messages through body language and stuff?” Lex said. “I guess I'm just worried I might not be speaking quite the same as you with body language, and don't want to lie to you, as it were.
"Does that make any sense?"
Xy pulled back, shrinking back into the water until it swirled around her shoulders.
"Yes. Sort of. I'm sorry."
"There's nothing to be sorry for,” he said. “There's not all that many folk who're willing to talk to me as is.”
He looked regretful.
"I've hurt too many people," he said, and then flashed Xy a warm smile again, reassuring and slightly mischievous.
"Don't let a daft old Urrah ruin the evening,” he said. “I just don't want to hurt you, you know?"
Xy had a sneaking suspicion that there was something in this conversation that she was missing. It went back and forwards like waves on a shore. Monkey babble was what one of the Red Talons would call it, and she wasn’t very used to it.
"So don't,” she said. “It's not that hard. I'm kin, not chalk."
She grinned, still a little unsure, but relaxing again slightly.
Lex shrugged very slightly.
"You know,” he said. “I prefer your company to the folk over at the party. And . ..”
He paused and then continued “I like you far too much to start making any assumptions about what you want. I'd still quite like to go swimming for a bit, if you're OK with that. Just, well, remember my instincts are a bit dull from too much city living, so be really clear if you want something, 'cause I might miss what you're implying."
Xy wondered if she actually still remembered how to speak English and wondered if this would be easier if she asked him to shift to something resembling wolf form. She had a feeling she might be able to follow this conversation more fluently that way.
"What do you mean? What am I meant to ask for?" she said, and from the expression on his face guessed that she was sounding odd. She added rapidly "I don't really meet new people very often. I'm sorry."
Lex frowned.
"I hope I've not offended you or anything, have I?" he said
"No," she said. Too quickly. Damn. Too quickly. "No. Not at all. I mean..."
She trailed away before she could start babbling and then tugged at the legs of Lex’s trousers gently.
"You going to come swimming or not?"
Lex chuckled and dropped into the water without making a splash.
Xy said nothing, and pushed off from the rocks with her feet, twisting back into a backwards somersault neatly, her body forming a smooth arch above the surface of the water for a moment as she slid down.
Lex was at least smiling when she resurfaced.
"There’s nothing you're meant to ask for. I was just trying to say that living in a city means I ain't too good at guessing folk, so I may not pick up that, say, you wanna go swimming when you say 'lets go down the loch', and you might have to push me in before I get the hint..."
Xy tilted her head to one side.
"Well, what do you want me to ask for?"
Lex kicked upwards in the water and stretched his arms, working out the knots under the moonlight.
"There are plenty of things I'd like you to ask for,” he said, “but I don't get to ask for them. I didn't believe in ordering kin around when I was Garou, and I don't have the right to any more."
"Like what?” Xy asked. She was beginning to relax again. Whatever the long string of monkey babble, Lex’s eyes were wandering up and down her again. "And asking” she added, “isn’t ordering...."
He swam forward, leaning in towards her. She could catch the scent of him now - unfamiliar, with an odd odour of smoke and strange places still lingering on the skin. He tilted his face towards hers for a second, and then swayed sideways, to whispering distance.
"I'll tell you what I want if you tell me what you want…"
He circled her again, a little closer this time, brushing against her as he did so, and smiling when he felt her arch slightly into him.
"I'm a troublemaker,” he murmured, “a known liar and a trickster. You've trusted me this evening, and you have my loyalty for that."
He paused and tilted his head back towards her.
"You're free to ask for anything else of me tonight, but I can't promise anything beyond that.” Lex looked wry and added, “I could get banned from the Sept, for all I know..."
Xy broke back and twisted underneath the water again in another backwards somersault, this time swimming through Lex's legs, brushing against his thighs. She felt his shiver very slightly at her touch.
A slight doubt assailed her for a minute. She thought she knew what was happening here, but she was unsure, and every now and then a sensible part of her brain reminded her that this was certainly not something any of the Elders would approve of, and she was risking herself for the sake of being a night’s entertainment for someone who was leaving tomorrow anyway.
She resurfaced behind him and shook the water out of her hair.
"You're leaving the Sept tomorrow, anyway, aren't you?” she said. “You're not going to stay..."
Lex seemed regretful.
"I don't think that I am entirely welcome here, and I have responsibilities in London," he said, and kicked himself back towards the bank. He leant against the bank, facing out into the loch with his arms resting along the bank.
"I . . ."
He paused
"I won't treat you like a kid, Xylona,” he said. “I'm not the best person to be associated with, and some of your Sept may not approve of you being here. Whether I come back or no I can't promise that we'll meet again as anything but friends."
He smiled wryly.
"What I guess I'm trying to say is, don't do anything in a night that you'll regret for a decade afterwards. I'd appreciate it if you didn't do anything that I'll regret for a decade afterwards, too, but I'm pretty sure you're not intending to do anything I would regret…"
Xy tilted her head to one side, and stayed treading water where she was, and then took a deep breath.
"Do you want me?" she said.
Lex met her eyes, and his own seemed somehow sad. He paused for two or three seconds, looking at her, then nodded slowly once, as if not trusting his own voice.
There was a little more chatter after that, more nonsense words that didn’t seem to make much sense, while the two of them slid around in slowly decreasing circles in the loch’s water, until they finally found themselves standing, quite close together, in the shallows. Lex grinned in response to an earlier jibe.
“I guess,” he said, his smile fading a little, “you’re lucky that I’m not like most city folk…”
Xy nodded, slowly and silently, not moving away, but not quite moving forward just yet. Her eyes didn't move from Lex.
"You never said what you wanted..." he said quietly.
Xy bit her lip slightly, and let her body drift slightly towards Lex's in the water. She brushed his leg with hers.
"I want…” she said, and paused. “I want you to show me how to do this...."
She paused again.
"I want you."
Lex nodded very slightly and drifted forward, gently putting his arms around Xy's waist, and then, very carefully and gently, he kissed her on the lips.
He tasted a little acrid, of whiskey in his mouth, and smoke on his lips, but his mouth was warm. He pulled the Black Fury girl into his arms, and after a while Xylona found out that the city boy was quite happy to stop his monkey babble, and fade into a kind of hazy world, where the only thing that really mattered was the feel of skin against skin. There was a quick stabbing pain, a little later on, when her body seemed to be tearing inside, but then there was the warmth of the other’s arms around her, and his lips feeling soft against her skin as he kissed away all the pain and kept her close to him when he began to move inside her.
In the aftermath, Xy looked up at the sky. Luna looked back down on her, with an impassive silver face. She held her face upwards for a while, crooning an old song.
“An grádh-soin tugas gan fhios…”
This love of mine came without my knowledge
She looked back and Lex and half smiled.
"I wanted this to be mine,” she said. “My choice. Not...not something that was given by others to some garou because he has the right blood, or because I'm the right age for mating and it's what I can do.
"This..."
She gestured around briefly.
"This isn't anything to do with anyone us. Just you and me."
Lex knelt by her.
"Thank you,” he said, and his face was serious. “Thank you for trusting me with that. I feel honoured that you did."
Then he grinned very kissed her on the cheek.
"Oh, and it was wonderful, too. I won't forget that."
The forest was almost entirely black in the thick cluster of trees around the farmhouse where Xylona lived, and she couldn’t see the sky through the trees. Her body felt different, not quite her own any more. Something, somewhere inside, had changed and she didn’t know quite what.
The house was still empty as she slipped inside. She didn’t go upstairs immediately, but stood for a moment in the hallway, uncertain whether she really belonged there anymore or not.
“He’s gone,” she said, out loud. “He is gone, and nothing has changed. Just be glad you’ve got the memory”
And she moved to the window to look up at the velvet blue sky.
But tonight the Sept of the Griffin’s Glen was celebrating. They had cleaned out Edinburgh, they had visitors from afar, and the summer was coming in. Brushwood had been lit, and songs which had not been sung in months, maybe years, were filling up the blue dusk air.
A bare foot girl in cut off jeans and a worn linen shirt padded through the glen with dark eyes sparkling with curiosity. The familiar old glades suddenly seemed bright and glamorous in the flickering light of the unfamiliar bonfire, and every single corner held a new and exotic face. A fine featured Silver Fang girl sat beside the lean jackal form of Jude Manyskins. A short woman in an outlandishly decorated bowler hat was conferring earnestly with Andraste. Even at the edge of the glade, where the firelight began to fade into shadow was another stranger; a thin featured man with a weariness about his shoulders and jaw.
“I’m Xylona,” she said cheerfully. A vague memory flickered through her head and she wondered if this was the Dog Bete that she’d heard Jacob, the Eldest Ragabash, talking about with Jenny McLeod, her foster mother. But the night was bright, and so she sat down beside him anyway.
No one really noticed the kinfolk girl sitting down with the Nuwisha. Her foster mother was busy keeping track of the two busy toddlers on her knee, her youngest foster sister had determinedly glued herself to the side of her normally absent Silver Fang father, and the other two foster siblings were clustered around the cluster of Fianna, listening to the stories. The Garou paid the monkey-girl precious little attention at the best of times, and that was not changing now.
The fire burnt a little brighter, and the two continued to chatter. Xylona heard stories of hive diving, and skyscrapers. Lex, the Nuwisha, got attention and began to grin a little more broadly. And as the night drew in, and the air turned from a soft blue to a velvety black, Xy tilted her head to one side and asked if Lex would like to come and see the loch where she took the kids swimming, and they padded off quietly into the night.
Away from the bonfire, the woods seemed a little darker, and the night a little more tangible. Xylona tilted her head upwards to the sky. It was an old trick she had used from when she was a little girl and was afraid of the dark. Her mother had told her to always look up when she began to be afraid, and remember that the sky always had a little bit of light in it. Ten years later, and seventeen years old, Xy still tended to look up when she was nervous.
Lex seemed relaxed at her side, and maybe this was the way it went, beyond Griffin’s Glen. Xy relaxed a little more, and felt the earlier excitement bubble up inside her. This strange, new, exciting creature was walking with her, the shabby little monkey-kin from the backwater caern, and was smiling at something she had said.
He told her more stories of a link to flux, which sat at the heart of the London scab, guarded by the Bone Gnawers, and cheerfully admitted to having been to Flux to collect the seeds that formed the gateway. Xy told a few of her stories, although she was somewhat aware that tales of teaching Kesi to swim, or losing one of the twins for an hour because he had climbed into the massive breadbin in the kitchen were noticeably less exciting than his. But he smiled, and continued to follow Xy along the imperceptible path, between birch and pine, until they came out from the forest to the side of the shining silver loch, and stood on the moss covered boulders at the edge.
Xy gestured to a worn rope attached to one of the tree branches which overhung the loch.
“You can swing out on that,” she said, “and then you get a good way out over the water before you jump,”
She tilted her head, and looked at Lex. There was a look to him which she thought she could read - his eyes had wandered up and down her body often enough over the last hour or so - but she wasn’t quite sure what to do next, or what she wanted to do.
Lex made no move towards her, but wandered towards one of the boulders and sat down.
"You don't get anywhere like this in London," he said, and tilted his chin upwards so he could look at her. "It helps you remember what you're fighting for..."
Xylona half smiled.
"I suppose so. It's just always been here,” she said. “My mother used to bring me swimming here when I was tiny. One of her packmates taught me to swim here. She was a Get, from the Orkneys."
She looked thoughtful.
"But nothing ever changes here,” she said, and joined Lex, perched on the rock. “I mean, there are battles sometimes, and the garou and the older kin go out to fight, and then return, but nothing much happens here.”
She remembered finding a battered silver knife with the bloodstains still on the handle down by this loch and added “although we did kill a couple of campers down here two years ago. No idea how they got this far into the territory."
Lex looked thoughtful too.
"Things can be so different,” he said. “I live in a city and one of my totems represents humanity. What I am has changed three times. I've lost count of the number of Sept Alphas that London has had in the past two years..."
Xy nodded.
"Yeah...that's why we're told London is cursed,” she said. “Griffin's Glory-rhya has been the Alpha here for twenty years, and before that this place was held by Wyld Storm Rising-rhya for ten years. I still remember her being alive when I was tiny, although she was a very old wolf then.
"And London...."
She paused.
"You've got a mule as your Alpha as well, haven't you?” she asked. “I don't think I've ever even met one of those"
Lex chuckled.
“Yes,” he said, “Michael Stands-Ready is the London alpha. He's the only metis I know, although I've met a couple of others in my time. He seems to do a reasonable job of looking after the place, and apparently my not being Garou means that I can't challenge him for alpha.”
He grinned mischievously.
“The part of me that's still Garou agrees with that. The idea of something far beyond the scale of Ragabash being trusted with more than string is, well, too potentially amusing to be anywhere near a good idea...”
He smiled wryly.
"So all of us who have excitement and danger spend all our time wishing things were boring and safe, and folk like you spend your time wishing something interesting would happen. It makes you wonder whether or not the creator actually was a trickster, like some of the native American
myths say..."
He looked at her thoughtfully.
"What do you want, Xylona? What's your ambition?"
Xylona blinked. Vague memories of Jenny McLeod saying firmly that she wanted a little less monkey-wants, and a little more appreciation of what was actually needed in her house floated through her brain.
"Well, it depends if I change or not,” she said, and looked a little wry. “I don't think I will. Not now. I'm too old.”
The series of slightly depressing conversations that Jenny and Andraste had had with her lately floated through her brain. “I guess I look after the kids,” she said, “I patrol, maybe find a mate one day. I mean, I've got good blood in me. I've thought about whether I could move up to the Sept of the Singing Seas at some point, but I'm not Fenrir so I don't know if they would have me.”
She shrugged.
"Some of the Fianna say that I should move to Anglesey, but I don't know. I'd like to see something more than the Griffin's Glen before I die though."
Lex nodded, earnestly.
"If you want to travel,” he said, “Travel to some of the safer Septs. Many places aren't as safe as up here - I've done a lot of wandering myself. Going with someone who's been out before is a damn good idea - I could happily jump off this rock, break a leg, and be wandering around again in a few minutes with a slight limp....”
Lex continued to talk, and Xylona wondered if everyone from beyond the glen talked quite as much as this man. She realised he had been chattering for a while, and she’d missed half of it.
“…you break a little more easily,” Lex was saying.
"Really?" Xy said, and grinned mischievously. This skinny and pale faced man was weaker than her? He was half the width across the shoulders of the smallest of the Fianna boys, never mention the occasional days when she had seen Red Talons walking in their monkey skin.
They were both perched very close to the water, and Xy was growing mildly uncomfortable with these serious conversations about a future which she had long ago decided she didn’t want to think about. It was far easier enough to give Lex a good hard shove, and watch as he wobbled, and then overbalanced towards the water. He looked uncertain for a moment, and let out a maniacal cackle before kicking off against the rock hard, and back-flipping into the loch.
There was a splash as he hit the water’s surface.
Xylona giggled, and clapped her hands.
"Bravo!" she shouted, as Lex surfaced
"I told you I wasn't the greatest warrior..." he said. He stayed still for a moment, treading water, and for the first time that evening his eyes began to lose a bit of their sadness and sparkled slightly.
"I also maintain that you couldn't beat that jump..."
Xylona giggled.
"You're on!" she said.
She stripped rapidly, pulling off shorts, shirt and faded underwear. She stretched out her shoulders, feeling her muscles twist beneath her skin, before she began to run, grabbing the rope and swinging out as far as she could before letting go.
Lex was chuckling when she surfaced. Xy shook the water away from her eyes and laughed herself.
“Watch,” she said, and ducked under the water, swimming between his ankles in a figure of eight, her body twisting in the dark water.
Lex grinned at her as she surfaced.
"You're very good,” he said. “Then again, I don't have much decent water to pratice in. The Thames isn't exactly the nicest place to swim..."
"My mother's old packmate taught me to swim,” Xy said, and tilted her head backwards so her hair trailed in the water, forming a fan shape. “She said she'd been taught by a shark. Although she was a Ragabash, so that was probably just a story."
She righted herself and returned to treading water easily, as Lex circled her.
"Do you want to swim for a bit?” he asked, a little uncertain. “If so, I should probably lose some of the denim and the shoes, 'cause they make swimming a little awkward, and I only own one set..."
Xylona gestured towards the shore with a tilt of her head that would have been entirely recognisable to any of the small mob of orphaned children that she had been taking to the loch since she was ten years old.
"Go! Get naked! And hang your clothes up to dry!"
She somersaulted again in the water another couple of times, and then surfaced again in time to watch Lex clambering out of the loch. He pulled his shoes off and watched the water pour out of shoes with a slightly pained expression, before laying his jacket down carefully. Then he paused, an odd expression on his face before he took off his T shirt, but he did so. The clothes were somewhat haphazardly thrown over branches or rocks to dry, with the exception of the denim jacket which was put down carefully, and something else, tucked into a boot.
He paused again, before sitting down, thoughtfully kicking his legs in the water with his combats still on.
"You know, I'm way more citified than you. I . . ."
He paused, and seemed unsure of what to say.
Xylona blinked, confused for a moment.
She swam a little closer, and half pulled herself out of the water, her elbows and chin resting on the rocks, beside Lex's legs.
Words were escaping Xy. After a while she settled for folding his trouser leg up carefully, to stop it trailing in the water.
"You don't want to swim any more?" she said, which seemed the safest thing to say.
Lex reached over and gently stroked Xylona's hair. Xy felt a small wash of warmth run over her.
"I'd quite like to swim,” he said. “Just city folk usually wear something to swim in. It's not really the way Gaia meant it, but folk from the cities normally don't strip off unless, well, they know each other pretty well."
An odd image of a parade of men and women in jeans, boots, shirts and sweaters, all clumsily splashing about in the water leapt into Xy’s mind.
"Garou will now and again, 'cause of shifting or something like that,” Lex continued, “but that's folk that there won't be . . . any other complications with."
A faint prickle of embarrassment ran through Xylona as she caught up with what he was saying. She had this nasty feeling that what he was trying to say was that he’d rather not get naked with her because that meant sex, and that wasn’t something he wanted. She was also aware that she was naked, and entirely out of the water and exposed from the waist up.
"You know how folk send out messages through body language and stuff?” Lex said. “I guess I'm just worried I might not be speaking quite the same as you with body language, and don't want to lie to you, as it were.
"Does that make any sense?"
Xy pulled back, shrinking back into the water until it swirled around her shoulders.
"Yes. Sort of. I'm sorry."
"There's nothing to be sorry for,” he said. “There's not all that many folk who're willing to talk to me as is.”
He looked regretful.
"I've hurt too many people," he said, and then flashed Xy a warm smile again, reassuring and slightly mischievous.
"Don't let a daft old Urrah ruin the evening,” he said. “I just don't want to hurt you, you know?"
Xy had a sneaking suspicion that there was something in this conversation that she was missing. It went back and forwards like waves on a shore. Monkey babble was what one of the Red Talons would call it, and she wasn’t very used to it.
"So don't,” she said. “It's not that hard. I'm kin, not chalk."
She grinned, still a little unsure, but relaxing again slightly.
Lex shrugged very slightly.
"You know,” he said. “I prefer your company to the folk over at the party. And . ..”
He paused and then continued “I like you far too much to start making any assumptions about what you want. I'd still quite like to go swimming for a bit, if you're OK with that. Just, well, remember my instincts are a bit dull from too much city living, so be really clear if you want something, 'cause I might miss what you're implying."
Xy wondered if she actually still remembered how to speak English and wondered if this would be easier if she asked him to shift to something resembling wolf form. She had a feeling she might be able to follow this conversation more fluently that way.
"What do you mean? What am I meant to ask for?" she said, and from the expression on his face guessed that she was sounding odd. She added rapidly "I don't really meet new people very often. I'm sorry."
Lex frowned.
"I hope I've not offended you or anything, have I?" he said
"No," she said. Too quickly. Damn. Too quickly. "No. Not at all. I mean..."
She trailed away before she could start babbling and then tugged at the legs of Lex’s trousers gently.
"You going to come swimming or not?"
Lex chuckled and dropped into the water without making a splash.
Xy said nothing, and pushed off from the rocks with her feet, twisting back into a backwards somersault neatly, her body forming a smooth arch above the surface of the water for a moment as she slid down.
Lex was at least smiling when she resurfaced.
"There’s nothing you're meant to ask for. I was just trying to say that living in a city means I ain't too good at guessing folk, so I may not pick up that, say, you wanna go swimming when you say 'lets go down the loch', and you might have to push me in before I get the hint..."
Xy tilted her head to one side.
"Well, what do you want me to ask for?"
Lex kicked upwards in the water and stretched his arms, working out the knots under the moonlight.
"There are plenty of things I'd like you to ask for,” he said, “but I don't get to ask for them. I didn't believe in ordering kin around when I was Garou, and I don't have the right to any more."
"Like what?” Xy asked. She was beginning to relax again. Whatever the long string of monkey babble, Lex’s eyes were wandering up and down her again. "And asking” she added, “isn’t ordering...."
He swam forward, leaning in towards her. She could catch the scent of him now - unfamiliar, with an odd odour of smoke and strange places still lingering on the skin. He tilted his face towards hers for a second, and then swayed sideways, to whispering distance.
"I'll tell you what I want if you tell me what you want…"
He circled her again, a little closer this time, brushing against her as he did so, and smiling when he felt her arch slightly into him.
"I'm a troublemaker,” he murmured, “a known liar and a trickster. You've trusted me this evening, and you have my loyalty for that."
He paused and tilted his head back towards her.
"You're free to ask for anything else of me tonight, but I can't promise anything beyond that.” Lex looked wry and added, “I could get banned from the Sept, for all I know..."
Xy broke back and twisted underneath the water again in another backwards somersault, this time swimming through Lex's legs, brushing against his thighs. She felt his shiver very slightly at her touch.
A slight doubt assailed her for a minute. She thought she knew what was happening here, but she was unsure, and every now and then a sensible part of her brain reminded her that this was certainly not something any of the Elders would approve of, and she was risking herself for the sake of being a night’s entertainment for someone who was leaving tomorrow anyway.
She resurfaced behind him and shook the water out of her hair.
"You're leaving the Sept tomorrow, anyway, aren't you?” she said. “You're not going to stay..."
Lex seemed regretful.
"I don't think that I am entirely welcome here, and I have responsibilities in London," he said, and kicked himself back towards the bank. He leant against the bank, facing out into the loch with his arms resting along the bank.
"I . . ."
He paused
"I won't treat you like a kid, Xylona,” he said. “I'm not the best person to be associated with, and some of your Sept may not approve of you being here. Whether I come back or no I can't promise that we'll meet again as anything but friends."
He smiled wryly.
"What I guess I'm trying to say is, don't do anything in a night that you'll regret for a decade afterwards. I'd appreciate it if you didn't do anything that I'll regret for a decade afterwards, too, but I'm pretty sure you're not intending to do anything I would regret…"
Xy tilted her head to one side, and stayed treading water where she was, and then took a deep breath.
"Do you want me?" she said.
Lex met her eyes, and his own seemed somehow sad. He paused for two or three seconds, looking at her, then nodded slowly once, as if not trusting his own voice.
There was a little more chatter after that, more nonsense words that didn’t seem to make much sense, while the two of them slid around in slowly decreasing circles in the loch’s water, until they finally found themselves standing, quite close together, in the shallows. Lex grinned in response to an earlier jibe.
“I guess,” he said, his smile fading a little, “you’re lucky that I’m not like most city folk…”
Xy nodded, slowly and silently, not moving away, but not quite moving forward just yet. Her eyes didn't move from Lex.
"You never said what you wanted..." he said quietly.
Xy bit her lip slightly, and let her body drift slightly towards Lex's in the water. She brushed his leg with hers.
"I want…” she said, and paused. “I want you to show me how to do this...."
She paused again.
"I want you."
Lex nodded very slightly and drifted forward, gently putting his arms around Xy's waist, and then, very carefully and gently, he kissed her on the lips.
He tasted a little acrid, of whiskey in his mouth, and smoke on his lips, but his mouth was warm. He pulled the Black Fury girl into his arms, and after a while Xylona found out that the city boy was quite happy to stop his monkey babble, and fade into a kind of hazy world, where the only thing that really mattered was the feel of skin against skin. There was a quick stabbing pain, a little later on, when her body seemed to be tearing inside, but then there was the warmth of the other’s arms around her, and his lips feeling soft against her skin as he kissed away all the pain and kept her close to him when he began to move inside her.
In the aftermath, Xy looked up at the sky. Luna looked back down on her, with an impassive silver face. She held her face upwards for a while, crooning an old song.
“An grádh-soin tugas gan fhios…”
This love of mine came without my knowledge
She looked back and Lex and half smiled.
"I wanted this to be mine,” she said. “My choice. Not...not something that was given by others to some garou because he has the right blood, or because I'm the right age for mating and it's what I can do.
"This..."
She gestured around briefly.
"This isn't anything to do with anyone us. Just you and me."
Lex knelt by her.
"Thank you,” he said, and his face was serious. “Thank you for trusting me with that. I feel honoured that you did."
Then he grinned very kissed her on the cheek.
"Oh, and it was wonderful, too. I won't forget that."
The forest was almost entirely black in the thick cluster of trees around the farmhouse where Xylona lived, and she couldn’t see the sky through the trees. Her body felt different, not quite her own any more. Something, somewhere inside, had changed and she didn’t know quite what.
The house was still empty as she slipped inside. She didn’t go upstairs immediately, but stood for a moment in the hallway, uncertain whether she really belonged there anymore or not.
“He’s gone,” she said, out loud. “He is gone, and nothing has changed. Just be glad you’ve got the memory”
And she moved to the window to look up at the velvet blue sky.