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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | On a Wednesday fraught with high emotions, five glasses of whiskey, and danger conspiracies, Natalyah retreats, while Lathrik follows. One angy blankey worgen, pet well. 2200~ words. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Arc: The Red String Game
Natalyah is in her worgen form, anger having forced the shift, all bristled fur and eyes that seem too bright in the dimness. She pulled off the blanket of the bed and wrapped it around herself, sitting on the bed, her back against the wall, and her canes wedged into their usual place between the bed and the nightstand. It's dark in the bedroom, no candle lit, and the only light comes from the space under the door of the other room and what little moonlight and residual streetlamps filter in through the curtained, high window.
Lathrik stumbles blindly into the room, feeling his way, incautious because the place is home. It is this incautiousness that leads him to run into, and, indeed, trip over, the corner of the dresser, bringing him to his knees at the edge of the bed.
"'Talyah," he says, brushing it off like it never happened, "what's wrong?"
Natalyah, on the other hand, does not brush it off. "Lathrik!" she says as he lands, lunging forward with the sort of precision that comes when you have fantastic low light vision, and it almost goes wrong because she forgets until just the last second that she does not have her human hands, but clawed ones. She pulls her claws up and away as she sets her palms on Lathrik's shoulders, a veritable monsoon of an overheal of the Light flooding him the way she still does, an incautious use of her mana as much as a desire to give left unchecked.
"Light," Lathrik whispers, glowing in the light of the overheal, his eyes spilling over with tears despite his effort to scrub them away. "I'm fine." His voice has that small, vulnerable waver to it, but he presses on. "'Talyah, I'm fine. How're you?"
She leans forward to do that brush of her cheek against his that she does in this form, and then scoots back into the corner she was in, her dress with its soiled hem from all the forest and street walking she's done dragging across the sheet. No matter how much she scrunches up though, she's still a large worgen. "I'm not running from you," she answers instead of the real answer. "I'm angry at Reniya." Uh oh. She's definitely really angry at him, and hurt, if he's not 'Ren' at the moment. "And if I stay out there, I'm going to tell him what I think, and it's just going to make you upset. So, I'm here, because I don't want to hurt you again."
"I… see," Lathrik says, joining her on a tiny piece of the bed. "Is it the situation with Ilanya?"
"It's with everything. It's Reniya doing things like apparently talking just fine with Siamus about the Count, enough to get Siamus to come here, and Reniya withholding it from us so we had no idea that Siamus knew, or what he knew, and was coming here so we had to figure that out on the fly. Reniya being cavalier about talking to Ilanya, as if she hasn't made it abundantly clear that she's on the Count's side, not ours, repeatedly trapping him into telling her more. And then doing it again, treating us like we're the bad guys he needs to worry about talking to, about 'trapping' him, like I'm a trap he's fallen into because I went there worried he was in trouble or danger. You heard him, Lathrik. The moment he saw me there, he was instantly on guard, as if I have ever done anything but try to help him, as if I wasn't showing up ready with the bleeding cavalry if he needed.
"And when I tell him why Siamus is questioning him, explaining the real concerns he's brought up to us to give him context for why he needs to tell us everything, Reniya accuses me of putting thoughts about the Count into his mother's head, when I was only there talking to her at all because he was being — " she cuts herself off, and curls up harder into an angry ball. "And I'm tired, and I feel like a — a thing I won't say. My head hurts, and I've been cold and hungry for hours."
Lathrik lets her vent, gently petting the angry ball. "I don't believe that you're a 'thing ye won't say,'" he says softly. "This whole thing with the Count has been… like a web. The more we struggle, the worse we're caught. It's pulling us apart, and sometimes I wonder if we're not doin' it to ourselves. But that's enough for now, aye? We've done enough for tonight."
Natalyah starts to uncurl from her ball with the petting, leaning towards Lathrik, right up until he wonders if they're the ones pulling each other apart, and she jerks back as if stung. "You're saying that I'm pulling you all apart?" she asks in a hurt, wavering voice. That is not really what he said, no, but it seems like that's what she heard of taking the comment as directed at her, personally.
"Oi, that's not what I said," Lathrik says, reaching for her again. "We're all on edge. Even I…" A shudder runs through him. "Even I've started to doubt him."
Natalyah doesn't have anywhere to go, in her little corner, and she doesn't seem able to resist the urge to reach back to Lathrik, but it's with a hurt curl of shame. "And it's my fault," she says. "I'm the one who insisted on investigating it, of going to look into the Count. If I hadn't, none of this would have happened. And I'm the one who was here when the Count came and I'm the one who messed everything up even more. I'm the interloper, the outsider, who came crashing into your friendships, pulling you all apart. I am the — " she doesn't actually say it, because she said she wouldn't. But it lingers in the air anyway, like almost burning rice.
"No, you're not," Lathrik says, his voice firm this time. He is prepared to fight that unsaid word if he has to start a crusade to do it. "I wouldn't know my father was alive if it wasn't for you. Peril and I would still barely be speaking. I'd have probably… kept on how I was until no mana potion could fix it. You've brought light into my life, Natalyah, in ways no one has before, and you've pushed me in ways I needed to be pushed. I only wish ye didn't have to suffer for it all."
Natalyah ends up curling her upper body (all that will really fit of her truth be told) into Lathrik's lap, her head tucked into his torso. So he can feel when she starts crying, even before it's really audible. "I'm not the one suffering," she tells him, the words garbled and partially muffled from her position. "And I'm not suffering with you, so don't even think about trying to send me away. Being cold and hungry doesn't count," she adds. "I'm the one getting off scot-free so far."
"Aye? Then what d'ye call this?" he asks, continuing to stroke her fur.
"Being angry, and difficult, and trouble, and crashing through things upsetting everyone's lives, and getting loved when I shouldn't be and don't deserve it," Natalyah answers. Well. No one can say she isn't honest about her feelings, even if they're a wild sort of tangle.
"Whether or not ye feel you deserve it, ye have it all the same," Lathrik says. "And I won't be changing my mind on that, even if ye are angry, difficult, and trouble. You're also more than that."
There's several high pitched sobs at it, and then sniffles, and finally a hoarse sounding, "Will you take this dress off me? I don't think I can shift back again, and I can't sleep in it and I can't get it off without ripping it." The dress, secured by a hook and eye closure at the back of it, followed by a series of small buttons, wasn't a dress she was able to put on by herself either. Taking it off by herself as a human would have been extremely difficult. But now, with her clawed hands, it's impossible.
"Ah…" Lathrik knows better than to argue, but he does spare a glance towards the door. "Alright. Will it… stay worgen-size?" he asks, starting on the closure.
"No. Not once it's off me. It'll be its usual size," she says. "And no, I can't really explain it. It's a weird magic thing. Like where one of my fingers goes and where all my shoes go."
"I believe ye," he says. "Just wanted to make sure we're not messin' up your clothes." He finishes the closure and moves on to the buttons.
He encounters the other impediment of the worgen back pack, her emergency items for mounting a rescue if necessary still secured to her. The straps have expanded, magically, but the little worgen is the same size, which now seems comically small on the large worgen.
It's still dark, and Lathrik's eyes have only adjusted so much. When he reaches the back pack, there is a moment of poking and frowning before he slides his hand under it to get at the buttons. He is not about to tell her to take it off. His other hand comes to rest on her head, giving slow, occasional pets when he can balance the coordination with his unbuttoning hand.
Natalyah meanwhile, subsides into a deeper calm, the storm passing along with each pet another gust of wind blowing the thunder clouds off and away. By the time the dress is open and could be removed, she shudders, and with some effort, flips the switch once more to human. It doesn't come easily, and it shows in the way she sags against him, the weakness severe enough to give genuine worry that perhaps she's fainted again.
But no. She is still conscious because she groans, and limply moves her arms to start pulling herself out of the dress like a very tired caterpillar trying to shed its cocoon. She struggles against the straps of the backpack for a moment, wriggles against Lathrik as she tries to shimmy out of the dress.
Lathrik wordlessly helps her with the dress. By not actually grabbing the dress. His hands are still on her, sweeping the dress away from her skin in a stroking motion that seems more like he's enjoying the feel of her than actually helping.
It may be more helpful than if he'd gone for the dress, as tension and residual anger sweep off her, leaving Natalyah in her undergarments, but somehow less exposed raw nerves than she was a few moments ago. The dress slips off the bed, dragged by its heavier cloth, the back pack landing with the barest tap onto the pile.
She sighs against his abs, face pressed into his shirt and arms wrapped around his waist in a loose grip. Her breathing has slowed, and deepens a little more with each passing second. She mumbles something much too quietly for it to be deciphered, as sleep tiptoes closer and closer, hovering over the butterfly with a net ready to bring it down.
Lathrik watches her with a gentle fondness, probably not even worried about the transformation that might follow if she succumbs to sleep. He stays put, caught in his own net that he doesn't seem eager to leave.
He knows when sleep drags her all the way down, when nothing holds the human form in mind any longer. The transformation isn't the usual blink-shift, the control of choice of stepping from one to the other. It's slow, damningly slow, the way the fur spreads out of her like black grass growing, a sense of it rising up from under her skin, pulling with it the rest of the worgen shape as if from some place within. He can feel the way her spine stretches and pops, her limbs drawn out in a way that seems like a form of torture, a body on the rack of shifting, each tug lengthening her against her will. Her face distorts as the bones shift in her face, her hands contort as fingers blend and elongate, her nails growing until they're no longer nails but talons, the sense of something clawing its way through the human body at last reaching the surface.
Now he is a little worried about the transformation, a flash of Light pouring from her fingers into her, even if there is nothing really to heal. He continues petting her soothingly, even as her form changes, his expression crinkling into silent concern.
Some of the Light catches on something around her hip, a deep bruise whose pain had passed long enough ago that it's likely the worgen simply forgot about it in the wake of everything else, and another smallest touch on her right palm where a very superficial scrape was, not enough to register as a wound as she went about her running on her hands. But nothing else finds purchase, no pain with the transformation. She stretches in her sleep, mumbling something contentedly, nuzzling against Lathrik without rising fully from her sleep.
Lathrik lets out a small sigh at the small scrape and bruise, but his gaze is still affectionate, and eventually, his eyelids start to flicker. In the span of a few minutes, he manages to fall asleep, still sitting up, with his hand still resting on her head.