All Hail the Shifter King
Title: Lords of Kensington, Part 10
Word Count: 1666
Note: I've kind of spent more time than I should have playing with dialogue and having my characters standing around and talking / not doing much of anything. I sort of half-blame Camp Nano and half-blame my tendency to want to practice my dialogue until the cows come home. Hopefully I'll find something salvageable in all of this when I eventually come back and edit!
She woke from a dream of Rion Fell to the sound of voices, and for a moment was positive that she could hear Eli in her living room, the lilting tones of his accent and the way he would excitedly race through his words whenever his mind was going faster than his mouth could keep up. Shoving her blanket away, she glanced quickly at the time - nearly two in the morning - before she went to investigate, and was so busy shielding her eyes from the bright lights of the kitchen and trying to tame her sleep-mussed hair that she was nearly bowled over by a young man weaving and bouncing around her furniture, so fast he was little more than a hyperactive blur.
"Wha..." she managed as he breezed past her, either oblivious to her presence or too busy talking at Ryder to care about her sudden entrance. "Who..."
"... so yeah, that's about all there is to Atticus, I mean he's a good guy but you probably won't get along too well with him, not really anybody does and especially not the junglekin, no offense and all, but he's kind of the sort of guy - holy crap this is awesome!" He stooped to pick up one of Katrina's many kinetic sculptures and danced a few paces with it. "My grandfather used to have one of these!" he exclaimed, picking at the metal balls suspended by wires from the thin frame. "Anyway," he said, putting the piece down as quickly as he'd picked it up, pausing only a brief second to shift it back into it's exact previous spot, "that's why we're here. Well, that, and Anya said we better haul our asses out and you don't really want to tell Anya no, you know?" He directed the question at Ryder, who was simply leaning against the counter in the kitchen with a large mug of likely-coffee in his hands, watching the young man with an entirely amused smirk. "Yeah, exactly, I knew you'd agree," the youngster said, not actually waiting for any sort of response - or perhaps knowing he wasn't likely to get one. "This one time, holy shit, okay seriously, this one time we were headed up north to check on one of the pack halls, right? And Rhett, okay, you haven't met him yet but Rhett, he told her that he couldn't do something, like it was so simple it didn't even matter but he told her no, and holy shit I thought Anya was going to skin him alive. You've seen that thing she can do with her hands, right? Those things are like - oh man I love this movie!" He'd stopped at the shelf of discs near the television and hauled out one of the box sets, waving it with the sort of enthusiasm you'd expect in a five year old. "That part when he's running down the hallway and the alien drops off the ceiling, holy shit, I'm right out of my seat every time."
"Does he ever stop?" Ryder asked as the movie commentary continued, and Katrina, who'd been standing completely entranced in her doorway, realized that Ryder wasn't asking her but the other person in the room, a handsome brown-haired man who was crouched by her office door, petting the two very happy keesin. The man looked up at the youngster, then smiled slightly and shook his head.
"Once he gets wound up, it takes a while," he mentioned, scratching under Thaddeus' chin.
"I wasn't aware we were expecting company," Katrina groused, grumpy from being woken and confused by the constant chatter. She slid between the couch and the end table and took the movie from the young man's hand - he didn't even notice, simply breezing on to examine her bookshelf of novels and curios. "Are these Atticus' people?"
"I'd say we're more his family than his people, I mean, that's how these pack things work right?" the chatterbox asked, and picked up a heavy, leatherbound book. "Okay seriously, do people actually read these things or are they just on the shelves and stuff to make them look like they're well read? Because in every movie and stuff - oh wow, is this actually a tesma daisy?" He tapped at a large resin paperweight, then picked it up and turned it over. "Have you ever eaten one of these? It's like, like..." He paused, thinking. "Okay I don't know what it's like but it's fucking boss!"
"These are our guardians," Ryder said, with just enough emphasis on the word that Katrina would have cringed, were she not focusing all of her attention on getting her rare flower out of the youngster's hands before he possibly dropped it. "Junior there is Azrin." He gestured to the man with the keesin. "This is Benjamin."
"Ben is fine," the man said, rising from his crouch and crossing the room to Katrina to offer his hand. "It's nice to meet you, Miss Shan."
"Likewise, I think," she said, sidestepping to pluck an expensive blown glass vase from Azrin's grasp. "Do you normally do housecalls in the middle of the night?"
"I invited them in," Ryder told her, refilling his mug. "Well, I invited Ben," he corrected. "Motormouth just tagged along."
"I have to tag along, we're partners," Azrin pointed out. He was standing in front of a framed painting Katrina had purchased on one of her many field trips, and after a few seconds stepped forward to tap the right corner up just slightly before stepping back to check the angles again.
"You're actually kin?" Katrina asked him, stunned. He didn't look old enough to have graduated from high school.
"Course I'm kin. Why wouldn't I be?"
"You just look very..." She gestured at him, as if waving her hands could finish her sentence.
"Azrin only joined our family two years ago," Benjamin told her. "It'll take a few decades for him to finish growing up." He sat on the arm of the sofa as he spoke - the keesin immediately sat beside him, nudging each other out of the way in their attempts to get his attention. "I understand that this whole situation is likely confusing for both of you. If there's anything we can do to assist..." He paused mid-sentence, briefly watched Azrin begin another quick circuit of the room, then chuckled abruptly. "I'm sorry, I forgot myself. Most of the people we get here are refugees, you see. I didn't mean offense."
"Yeah, not too often we get to hang with kings and shit," Azrin added, picking up the vase again and holding it for only seconds before Katrina took it away. "I bet the conflict down in the jungle isn't much different from the mess up here, you know? I mean aside from all the civvies dying, we try to mostly avoid that. Is it legal to kill civs down there? Cuz judging from the reports and stuff - wow! Wow! I love these things!" He plucked a hardcover Magic Eye book off the bookshelf and collapsed on the couch, grinning. "I can get these in no time flat, total cakewalk!"
"So how long are you planning to hang around?" Katrina asked, dropping into the armchair and patting her leg for the keesin to come over. They both entirely ignored her.
"Until you leave the city," Benjamin told them. "Or until Kaius is stopped, or loses interest. Whichever comes first." He fixed Ryder in a questioning stare, which the latter returned with utter indifference. "Anya tells me you have some lofty plans for Kaius."
"Something like that," Ryder said, sipping his drink.
"I'll speak to Atticus about lending you some of our pack to assist you. In the meantime, he's invited you to a pack hall for a meeting." He produced a small business card from his pocket and passed it to Katrina. "You know where this is?" he asked. She glanced at the address - it was for a small private school in one of the central districts of the city - and nodded. "Good. He'll see you in the evening, at eight. Does that work for you both?"
"We can make that, sure," Katrina said, dropping the card onto the breakfast bar.
"Perfect. Azrin and I will follow you for a portion of the day, and then we'll trade off with -"
"Whoa, wait, what?" Katrina spun on him, wide-eyed. "No way, you can't, my parents -"
"You have family in the city?" Azrin asked, not even looking up from the picture book. "What, you live here or something?"
"You're in my apartment," she pointed out.
"That doesn't mean much, you coulda just bought the place for all I know. But if you have parents or other family here we should really get someone watching them, too, I mean what if something -"
"There is no way in hell you are dragging my parents into this," she hissed. Azrin finally looked up, then, blinking in surprise.
"Hey, if you don't care what happens to them that's fine by me," he said, raising his hands defensively. "I mean, I don't get it, but if you -"
"What she's saying is she'd rather they weren't aware of all this," Ryder explained, leaning over the breakfast bar to rub her shoulder in a gesture that more meant to remind her that she was about to lose her temper than assure her of her parents' safety. "They're human. From what you've told me, Kaius won't have any interest in them."
"Fair enough," Benjamin mused. "But that doesn't change the fact that you should have an escort."
"That's fine. Let's just keep it a little more subtle where her parents are involved." Ryder turned his attention to Katrina. "That work for you?"
"I guess so," she said reluctantly, and leaned to one side to glare at Azrin. "As long as they can actually be subtle."
"Oh yeah," Azrin said, ignoring the jab. "Trust me, you'll never even know we're there."
Word Count: 1666
Note: I've kind of spent more time than I should have playing with dialogue and having my characters standing around and talking / not doing much of anything. I sort of half-blame Camp Nano and half-blame my tendency to want to practice my dialogue until the cows come home. Hopefully I'll find something salvageable in all of this when I eventually come back and edit!
She woke from a dream of Rion Fell to the sound of voices, and for a moment was positive that she could hear Eli in her living room, the lilting tones of his accent and the way he would excitedly race through his words whenever his mind was going faster than his mouth could keep up. Shoving her blanket away, she glanced quickly at the time - nearly two in the morning - before she went to investigate, and was so busy shielding her eyes from the bright lights of the kitchen and trying to tame her sleep-mussed hair that she was nearly bowled over by a young man weaving and bouncing around her furniture, so fast he was little more than a hyperactive blur.
"Wha..." she managed as he breezed past her, either oblivious to her presence or too busy talking at Ryder to care about her sudden entrance. "Who..."
"... so yeah, that's about all there is to Atticus, I mean he's a good guy but you probably won't get along too well with him, not really anybody does and especially not the junglekin, no offense and all, but he's kind of the sort of guy - holy crap this is awesome!" He stooped to pick up one of Katrina's many kinetic sculptures and danced a few paces with it. "My grandfather used to have one of these!" he exclaimed, picking at the metal balls suspended by wires from the thin frame. "Anyway," he said, putting the piece down as quickly as he'd picked it up, pausing only a brief second to shift it back into it's exact previous spot, "that's why we're here. Well, that, and Anya said we better haul our asses out and you don't really want to tell Anya no, you know?" He directed the question at Ryder, who was simply leaning against the counter in the kitchen with a large mug of likely-coffee in his hands, watching the young man with an entirely amused smirk. "Yeah, exactly, I knew you'd agree," the youngster said, not actually waiting for any sort of response - or perhaps knowing he wasn't likely to get one. "This one time, holy shit, okay seriously, this one time we were headed up north to check on one of the pack halls, right? And Rhett, okay, you haven't met him yet but Rhett, he told her that he couldn't do something, like it was so simple it didn't even matter but he told her no, and holy shit I thought Anya was going to skin him alive. You've seen that thing she can do with her hands, right? Those things are like - oh man I love this movie!" He'd stopped at the shelf of discs near the television and hauled out one of the box sets, waving it with the sort of enthusiasm you'd expect in a five year old. "That part when he's running down the hallway and the alien drops off the ceiling, holy shit, I'm right out of my seat every time."
"Does he ever stop?" Ryder asked as the movie commentary continued, and Katrina, who'd been standing completely entranced in her doorway, realized that Ryder wasn't asking her but the other person in the room, a handsome brown-haired man who was crouched by her office door, petting the two very happy keesin. The man looked up at the youngster, then smiled slightly and shook his head.
"Once he gets wound up, it takes a while," he mentioned, scratching under Thaddeus' chin.
"I wasn't aware we were expecting company," Katrina groused, grumpy from being woken and confused by the constant chatter. She slid between the couch and the end table and took the movie from the young man's hand - he didn't even notice, simply breezing on to examine her bookshelf of novels and curios. "Are these Atticus' people?"
"I'd say we're more his family than his people, I mean, that's how these pack things work right?" the chatterbox asked, and picked up a heavy, leatherbound book. "Okay seriously, do people actually read these things or are they just on the shelves and stuff to make them look like they're well read? Because in every movie and stuff - oh wow, is this actually a tesma daisy?" He tapped at a large resin paperweight, then picked it up and turned it over. "Have you ever eaten one of these? It's like, like..." He paused, thinking. "Okay I don't know what it's like but it's fucking boss!"
"These are our guardians," Ryder said, with just enough emphasis on the word that Katrina would have cringed, were she not focusing all of her attention on getting her rare flower out of the youngster's hands before he possibly dropped it. "Junior there is Azrin." He gestured to the man with the keesin. "This is Benjamin."
"Ben is fine," the man said, rising from his crouch and crossing the room to Katrina to offer his hand. "It's nice to meet you, Miss Shan."
"Likewise, I think," she said, sidestepping to pluck an expensive blown glass vase from Azrin's grasp. "Do you normally do housecalls in the middle of the night?"
"I invited them in," Ryder told her, refilling his mug. "Well, I invited Ben," he corrected. "Motormouth just tagged along."
"I have to tag along, we're partners," Azrin pointed out. He was standing in front of a framed painting Katrina had purchased on one of her many field trips, and after a few seconds stepped forward to tap the right corner up just slightly before stepping back to check the angles again.
"You're actually kin?" Katrina asked him, stunned. He didn't look old enough to have graduated from high school.
"Course I'm kin. Why wouldn't I be?"
"You just look very..." She gestured at him, as if waving her hands could finish her sentence.
"Azrin only joined our family two years ago," Benjamin told her. "It'll take a few decades for him to finish growing up." He sat on the arm of the sofa as he spoke - the keesin immediately sat beside him, nudging each other out of the way in their attempts to get his attention. "I understand that this whole situation is likely confusing for both of you. If there's anything we can do to assist..." He paused mid-sentence, briefly watched Azrin begin another quick circuit of the room, then chuckled abruptly. "I'm sorry, I forgot myself. Most of the people we get here are refugees, you see. I didn't mean offense."
"Yeah, not too often we get to hang with kings and shit," Azrin added, picking up the vase again and holding it for only seconds before Katrina took it away. "I bet the conflict down in the jungle isn't much different from the mess up here, you know? I mean aside from all the civvies dying, we try to mostly avoid that. Is it legal to kill civs down there? Cuz judging from the reports and stuff - wow! Wow! I love these things!" He plucked a hardcover Magic Eye book off the bookshelf and collapsed on the couch, grinning. "I can get these in no time flat, total cakewalk!"
"So how long are you planning to hang around?" Katrina asked, dropping into the armchair and patting her leg for the keesin to come over. They both entirely ignored her.
"Until you leave the city," Benjamin told them. "Or until Kaius is stopped, or loses interest. Whichever comes first." He fixed Ryder in a questioning stare, which the latter returned with utter indifference. "Anya tells me you have some lofty plans for Kaius."
"Something like that," Ryder said, sipping his drink.
"I'll speak to Atticus about lending you some of our pack to assist you. In the meantime, he's invited you to a pack hall for a meeting." He produced a small business card from his pocket and passed it to Katrina. "You know where this is?" he asked. She glanced at the address - it was for a small private school in one of the central districts of the city - and nodded. "Good. He'll see you in the evening, at eight. Does that work for you both?"
"We can make that, sure," Katrina said, dropping the card onto the breakfast bar.
"Perfect. Azrin and I will follow you for a portion of the day, and then we'll trade off with -"
"Whoa, wait, what?" Katrina spun on him, wide-eyed. "No way, you can't, my parents -"
"You have family in the city?" Azrin asked, not even looking up from the picture book. "What, you live here or something?"
"You're in my apartment," she pointed out.
"That doesn't mean much, you coulda just bought the place for all I know. But if you have parents or other family here we should really get someone watching them, too, I mean what if something -"
"There is no way in hell you are dragging my parents into this," she hissed. Azrin finally looked up, then, blinking in surprise.
"Hey, if you don't care what happens to them that's fine by me," he said, raising his hands defensively. "I mean, I don't get it, but if you -"
"What she's saying is she'd rather they weren't aware of all this," Ryder explained, leaning over the breakfast bar to rub her shoulder in a gesture that more meant to remind her that she was about to lose her temper than assure her of her parents' safety. "They're human. From what you've told me, Kaius won't have any interest in them."
"Fair enough," Benjamin mused. "But that doesn't change the fact that you should have an escort."
"That's fine. Let's just keep it a little more subtle where her parents are involved." Ryder turned his attention to Katrina. "That work for you?"
"I guess so," she said reluctantly, and leaned to one side to glare at Azrin. "As long as they can actually be subtle."
"Oh yeah," Azrin said, ignoring the jab. "Trust me, you'll never even know we're there."