Ivan Press

Hilary

So very many people, even someone like Ivan, might slow down when they reach a place of such lovely serenity. They would want to see it: the tall green-gold grasses, the dots of wildflowers, the fluttering butterflys and dancing bees, the mirror-finish water. Even in a near-panic, as they are, someone else would look. Some part of them would see the beauty, recognize it, take half a second to appreciate it.

Hilary drives until the car stops. She does not look around in wonder or even bewilderment. They are through the fog and she can see now. They are, as far as she can tell, not being chased by those terrible old women anymore. So she will keep driving, not taking much note of the time jump, only looking frustrated when the car sputters, slows, stops dead. She stomps on the gas pedal angrily then, then glowers at Ivan as though it's his fault it won't start.

Which isn't what she's thinking, or how she feels at all. It's just that nothing is going the way it should, and she is very upset.

Perhaps it's for the best that Ivan doesn't realize he's being glowered at. He stares through the windshield in open wonder. They are not where they were. Time has changed. Space has changed too -- those mountains, though just as tall, just as sudden, just as snow-capped and snow-draped, are not the same as the ones they were in just moments before.

Birds call from the tops of swaying pines. A gentle wind rustles through needles. After a silence, Ivan opens his door and steps out, his feet finding soft earth beneath pliant grass.

He doesn't even do her the courtesy of noticing that she is looking at him, and Hilary huffs. She looks at the dash again. It's pointless, but she puts the car in park anyway. She unbuckles her seatbelt.

And then she gets out of the car. It so happens that Ivan is doing the same thing at the same time, but they perform these decisions separately, each one choosing the risk even if they are alone.

Two car doors shut tidily behind them. Hilary, in low flats, feels the grass tickling the sides of her feet. She looks down, and swishes her foot back and forth for a moment, idle. Then she turns to Ivan.

"Does this look familiar to you?" she wants to know.

He is a New Moon after all. No matter how jaded he is, curiosity and exploration is a part of his soul. In the time she takes to investigate the grass, he has wandered forward a few steps, keen and alert, senses wide open. When she speaks, he turns back to her. The beauty of their surroundings enhances their own. He is lambent and golden, even bloody and ragged. He sees her loveliness too; always does, but is struck anew by it, his eyes widening, pupils dilating.

He comes back. Takes her hand. "No," he answers, simple and truthful. "I don't know where we are. But we're certainly not where we were."

The road that brought them here has not vanished. It is still there, winding into that thick fog. He looks that way a moment. No terrible old woman stumbles slowly through. They are, for the moment, safe.

There is, of course, a side of her that belongs here: some ancient-seeming place, untouched by modernity and all that silliness. But there's a contrast, too. She is so dark, so cold, and this place is not. She belongs here and she does not. She looks the part and yet something is off. She is still, but she is not at ease.

Does not move when Ivan comes nearer. Hesitates, because her arms are crossed over her chest, but gives him her hand when he holds out his own. Eventually. His answer does not satisfy nor comfort her. She looks over at the cottages with their slanted roofs, suspicious.

"I don't like fairy stories."

This, both out of nowhere and the most appropriate thing she could possibly say.

He huffs a laugh, wry. "I don't think we're in a fairytale," he says. "Perhaps a wolf's tale, though.

"Come on." He tugs her hand gently, but firmly. When her eyes refocus on his, he's looking right at her. "Let's get our things from the car. We'll have to leave it here. Unless you're inclined to try our luck with those crones, I suggest we look for another way out of here."

"I know that," she says, her voice tight, talking while he mentions they might be in a wolf's tale. "I'm only saying I don't like this type of story."

Her eyes, normally dark as coal, are somehow blazing when she tells him that. Lets go of his hand, though it isn't really anger that makes her do so. It's that rawness to her, that tension, as though she is collapsing in on herself, starting at her core, dragging everything else inward with an intractable and ravenous gravity.

She only has one thing in the car: her little purse, which she picks up. She frowns at the Ferrari, then at Ivan. "I'm going to ask whomever is in those houses," she informs him, and begins heading that direction with an alarmingly purposeful gait.

Well, actually, Hilary also has an overnight bag. But of course she is not aware of this, because servants packed it for her, and servants loaded it for her, and now in the absence of a servant or a bellhop Ivan is the one who pulls it out of the trunk. There is a second one for him. He slings them both over his shoulders, one on each side, leaving his hands free for other things. Like knives.

By then Hilary and her sudden sense of purpose are quite some distance ahead. The wildgrass grows past her knees, bending easily to allow her passage. Those small cottages she approaches are clustered at the near shore of the lake. A sense of antiquity hangs over the tiny settlement. The tiles on the roofs are weatherworn, the stones in the walls faded with time. The cottages are clearly occupied, though. As she approaches, she can see smoke curling from one of the chimneys, firelight through the windows. Someone is chopping wood behind one of them; she can hear it, the sharp hollow crack!-thud of logs splitting.

Out of the blue, a sudden thrum; a concussing thud at her feet. In the gathering evening shadows, it takes a moment to spot the arrowshaft amidst the grass.

"Non un ulteriore passo avanti," an unseen voice shouts. "Tu chi sei?"

["Not another step. Who are you?"]

Of course she forgets about the bag. It was never her job to be involved with the bag unless she momentarily had a whim to be involved with it. So it's Ivan's problem. She doesn't even notice what he's up to, carrying both. Nor does she offer to take her own, or to carry both so that he can fight if need be. Hilary never carries anything she doesn't deeply desire to carry, such as a glass of champagne or occasionally her son, though he's very big now and doesn't get carried much at all.

He doesn't catch up to her in time to make some quip about her carelessness or selfishness, one of those amused veneers over how painfully fond he is of her, and all her foibles, and flaws, and even her cruelty.

The ground shakes. She does not fall. She almost never falls. She catches herself and exhales, then blinks as her eyes catch on the sudden appearance of an arrow in the middle of the meadow. Hilary is not a fool, though she is quite often foolish. She thinks the earthquake was caused by the arrow hitting the land, which is very odd, because arrows do not cause earthquakes, and are seldom seen.

Hilary frowns. She despises fairy stories.

"How dare you," she retorts, in English, because she hardly knows any Italian at all except for the names of some cars and pasta.

"Ha! Un trasgressore americano."

Another hiss of a projectile cutting through air. This time it lands not with a thud but with the sound of splintering wood, the second arrow splitting the first. This time Hilary catches movement atop one of the cottages -- the shadow of a man well-hidden beside a chimney, bow in hand.

"Nome, tribù e grado, trasgressore americano. Oppure la prossima freccia passa attraverso il tuo cuore."

"Hey!" Ivan drops their luggage in the grass, sprints up to rather unceremoniously shove Hilary behind him. "Okay! Listen. No need for unpleasantries. We don't speak Italian. Do you speak English? Parlez-vous français? Russki?"

A silence. Then:

"Français, oui. Nom, tribu et rang. À présent!"

["Ha! An American trespasser."

"Name, tribe and rank, American trespasser. Or the next arrow goes through your heart."

"French, yes. Name, tribe and rank. Now!"]

She does know the word americano, because it is obvious. And also because it is a phrase commonly found on coffee shop menus. She can guess at trasgressore, and it makes her scowl, especially as everything else devolves into gibberish.

Hilary has just decided that Italian is gibberish, because she is terribly annoyed.

Another arrow. She hops back, huffing out an angry breath. She begins swearing, but not in French. In Russian. She spits words out incoherently, not even managing a passable insult, because her Russian is still... not that good. It's lucky, then, that Ivan catches up with her before an arrow ends up through her neck. Or heart, but she isn't imagining that, because she stopped listening after grado, whatever that's supposed to mean.

She is unceremoniously shoved behind her lover, and the Russian filth stops flowing from her mouth. She scowls at him, too.

Then: French! Her eyes almost light up at the familiarity of it, even though this is all still very offensive and improper and she should not be treated like this. But she responds in the same language, if only because it comes easily to her to do so:

"Tu es très grossier," she informs the shadow up on the roof, looking right up at him as she tells him this. She sounds scoldy. "Un demi-moment." Looks to Ivan, and tells him in English: "He wants to know our names, and tribe, and rank. I only have the two. What are you, again?" she wants to know. She means his rank.

[Translate: You are very rude. Half a moment.]

Ivan turns his head to listen, keeping his body squared to the shadow on the roof. "I'm a Fostern," he says. His eyes go back to the rooftop. "Ask him what he is."

The blankness with which she regards him reminds him how little these ranks mean to her: should she be impressed? Proud? Disdainful? It means next to nothing to her. She clears her throat and nods to Ivan, apparently unbothered when he's the one telling her what to do.

"This is Ivan Priselkov," she informs their 'host', slipping back into French. "He is a Fostern Silver Fang. My name is Hilary de Broqueville, and I am also a Silver Fang. Whatever are you?"

"He is, as you say, very rude," interjects a second voice.

A final crack! from around the corner of one of the cottages, and then the woodcutter shows himself. A large man, powerful and deliberate, black hair receding from a prominent widow's peak. A simple felling axe is balanced over his shoulder, at odds with the dignity in his bearing.

"It's all right," he calls, not to Hilary or to Ivan but to his own. "Come out. I think we can assume they are friends."

Leaning the axe against the cottage wall, he strides to meet the Silver Fangs. "I am Cesare Seizes the Storm," he says, "Athro Philodox of Thunder. Our rude archer is Franco, better known as Strikes First. He is a Fostern Ragabash of Rat."

With that, the man on the roof steps from the shadows. He's young, lean, cagey. His hair is brownish, and looks in need of a washing. He eyes the newcomers with suspicion, swiping his knuckles across his nose. The bow looks homemade, and poorly at that. It's a minor miracle he shoots so well. He goes to the edge of the roof where it hangs low over the ground and jumps off, joining a tall ash-blonde woman as she steps out of the cottage.

"Bérénice, She Who Keeps the Vows, Adren Ahroun. She's one of yours, of Falcon." As Cesare introduces her, she nods to Hilary and Ivan, imperious. She doesn't linger long. She walks across the short distance to another cottage, knocks gently on the door, and slips inside. The door remains ajar. Meanwhile Cesare continues, "Then there's Aldric Ironjaw. An Adren of Fenris, calls himself a Skald. He's out hunting. You'll meet him when he returns."

Bérénice has reappeared. She backs out of the cottage, leading someone out with great care. Wrinkled hands clutch a walking stick; grip the doorframe for balance. Step by step, shaky, very careful, an old woman emerges into the evening.

Her face is familiar. It's possible neither Hilary or Ivan could ever forget that face. Not after what happened on the mountainside. Not after they killed her, over and over, only to have another and another appear.

This one is different, though. This one looks at them, and despite her great age there is nothing clouded or blank about her. Her eyes are calm and clear. She studies them.

"This is our Elder Theurge," Cesare says, "who is beloved of Unicorn, and who has too many names to speak. She prefers Fiore Umbral Song. I assume you were sent here in hopes of releasing her from this prison."

Hilary squares off.

Her back straightens, her head held imperiously high. She crosses her arms over her chest, each hand resting with its fingers gracefully, symmetrically spread over lower bicep and elbow. Her eyes move from one to the other to the other to the other as they appear, only growing more tense. And for her, tension often translates into anger, because she cannot tolerate the presence of uncertainty and anxiety. She has to do something with it, transform it into something that can be acted upon somehow, externalized, even if she has to warp reality to get there.

Then: the old woman. Hilary all but stamps her foot, arms flying down at her sides. "Non," she snaps, and then she really does stamp her foot. "Absolument pas."

She is livid; her face actually reddens. She hasn't even thought to translate anything for poor Ivan. She turns back to Cesare, furious. "What sort of a ploy is this?" She points, straight-armed, at a Garou of such rank she could likely wither that arm of Hilary's with a glance. "What kind of monstrosity is she?"

"Hilary," Ivan whispers, instantly pressing her hand rather insistently back to her side.

It's too late. Everyone saw. Bérénice looks appalled. Franco curses long and hard in Italian. Even Cesare's face darkens with anger, but Fiore Umbral Song, whose eyes are steady upon Hilary, holds up her hand.

Immediately, Franco shuts up. Cesare, who had been on the verge of saying something himself, holds his tongue. The Elder speaks instead.

"You have seen my ghosts, have you?"

The werewolves up by the house are all offended. Hilary knows enough about etiquette to know that it's the pointing and her yelling that has them so affronted. She actually feels a bit bad for behaving so rudely herself, though it's based less in empathy for their outrage and more in shame at not hiding better what a monster she is.

Ivan presses her hand down and Hilary glares at him, but she doesn't resist him either. She looks a bit sullen, when she turns back to the wolves who are staring at her. Then at the old woman. Her disgust is palpable, at least to Ivan. She does her best to keep it off her face. Sometimes, she is very good at pretending. She hasn't had to for a very long time now, and she discovers how much she dislikes it. Pretending.

To be normal.

Ghosts, the old woman says. Hilary scowls. "Ghosts are not meant to bleed," she says. "These did." She points at the car behind them. The windshield, streaked with the drying remnants of one of the ones she hit. It only occurs to her a second after she has pointed that, perhaps, showing them how she plowed through at least one or more of the 'ghosts' of their Elder might be considered just as bad as pointing. Maybe even worse.

She frowns, caught between her anger and her awareness that any minute now, someone is going to start scolding her.

"We were attacked. Why did you attack us?" she wants to know, not believing for a second that this old beast is in any way disconnected from the violence of her dopplegangers.

"Show some respect!" snaps Franco.

"It's all right, Franco," Fiore says. "You cannot fault them for being angry." To Hilary, "I did not attack you, but it is true that I am responsible for those who did."

"You're not responsible," Bérénice insists. "You did not devise this mad prison that holds you, let alone its darker workings."

"I didn't," Fiore answers, "yet the result is the same."

"What," Ivan interrupts in English, having caught only a fraction of what has been discussed, "the hell is going on here? None of you are making sense."

There is a streak of defiance in Hilary that wants to turn on Franco and say See? as soon as Fiore absolves her of her anger.

Then Ivan breaks in. She blinks. She turns to him.

And then, in a string of English, quickly tells him what she's heard so far: the names (the ones she remembers) and tribes (some of which she gets wrong) and the discussion thus far about prisons and 'ghosts'. She skips over their ranks entirely, and does not deign to even acknowledge Franco as existing, meaning Ivan has quite a gap in his knowledge about the one who was shooting arrows at them. Or near them.

Still in English, she tells him: "You're entirely right, though. None of them are making sense, especially the old one." Her frown softens, aches a bit: "I don't know how to tell them that they need to let us go so we can go home. They're very rude, Ivan."

As Hilary repeats the introductions -- some of them, anyway, and with some accuracy, anyhow -- Ivan looks from one Garou to the next. When she finishes his eyes return to hers. He turns his back to the others, if only briefly, to speak directly to her.

"I don't think they're holding us here," he says quietly. "I heard the Shadow Lord say something about a prison. I don't think they can get out any more than we can."

"Well that isn't my fault!" she tells Ivan, but she turns back to the Garou, her voice dropping into French again as easily as sipping a glass of wine.

"We should not be in prison with you," she explains to them, assuming that if they are imprisoned, they probably did something to deserve it, "so if you would just let us know how we might leave. I told my son I would come back."

Franco snorts. "I knew it. She's crazy. Fucking Silver Fangs."

"Watch your tongue, Ratling," Bérénice bristles.

"What did you say?"

"Stop." Cesare ends the burgeoning argument. "This helps nothing. Silver Fang. Hilary, was it? Tell me straight: were you sent here to free us, or no?"

Hilary's eyes snap at Franco, blazing. There's a challenge in them, as though she's daring him to walk over to her and say that to his face. He likely doesn't even notice; his packmate is insulting him far more directly, and she is being addressed by the one who actually started with words rather than arrows.

"We were not sent here at all," she insists. "We were chased."

The disappointment is palpable. Franco groans. Bérénice's mouth twists, and she turns away.

"Do you know nothing of us, then?" Cesare asks. "You were not sent by our Sept; not told of our plight?"

"I think that much is clear." Fiore is the only one who looks unsurprised. "And I think, in that case, they deserve to know what is happening here."

Cesare looks at the Theurge for a moment, then levels on Hilary again. "I can't say that isn't fair. But there's no reason for us all to stand about calling to each other. Let's go inside. I'll tell you what I know there."

Disappointment, for some reason, is something Hilary can recognize rather readily. Understanding it, however - empathizing with it, even pitying those who feel it - is a tad beyond her on a good day, and next to impossible with strangers, and utterly impossible in their current situation.

All the same: she sees it, and because she is piqued and bewildered, it bothers her.

She defiantly (petulantly) does not want to shake her head to answer Cesare, but she is saved from that by the little old woman. The wolves up by the house move towards each other; she turns toward Ivan and relays to him what has been said, ending with:

"Should we go inside with them?"

because a moment ago, he seemed so worried.

She asks him these things as though he would know the right answer. He doesn't. All he can do is -- well; perhaps it is more than she is capable of. He can watch. He can listen. He can intuit and sense, even when he cannot understand grasp the words.

"I don't think they'll hurt us," he says quietly. "I think we might have a chance at figuring this out if we work with them."

Hilary frowns at him in a way that paints her suspicion all over her face: she clearly is not quite so convinced yet that these terrible people didn't send zombie dopplegangers after the two of them. So her eyes are steely, and her back straightens, and without a word, she turns from him and strides up to the houses, head held high.

There are half a dozen little cottages clustered here by that still lake. Though rather charming from afar, up close Hilary can see the wear and tear evident on every one of them. The stones are weatherworn, the mortar chipping. Here and there, tiles are missing from the roofs. Only three of the houses appear to be lived in: the one Franco perched atop with his bow and arrows, with a cracked front door and shutters that are hanging by threads; the one Fiore emerged from, with windowboxes populated by rather wan-looking flowers; and the one they approach now.

It is the largest of the lot, this one, though in no better repair than the rest. Its front door squeals as Cesare opens it. He holds it open, and together with Bérénice they help Fiore across the threshold. Franco, bringing up the rear, sweeps a mocking bow as he gestures for Ivan and Hilary to go ahead of him.

The floors are hardwood inside, knotted and creaking with nearly every step. The floorplan is simple. A single story, three rooms; one that serves as living, kitchen and dining room all, and two smaller bedchambers. Neither bed looks slept in. It seems none of the Garou actually dwell here, though it seems they use it as a common gathering area. The furniture is plain, simple, wooden. There is little in the way of luxuries, and it is nearly as cold inside as out.

Cesare, blowing on his hands, stops Franco before he closes the front door. "Vai a prendere della legna da ardere," he says. The Ragabash snorts but complies. The door thuds shut. They see him through the front windows, circling around to the side of the house where firewood is stacked against the outer wall.

"Please." The Shadow Lord gestures Ivan and Hilary toward the kitchen table, which is so rustic and rough-hewn it might have been lifted from some Manhattan socialite's loft. Repurposed raw furnishing trends, and all. In place of dining chairs they have two long benches, one on either side. Ivan, after a moment, takes a seat on one bench.

Cesare takes the other. Bérénice drags an armchair over for Fiore -- easily the most comfortable seat in the house. As for the Silver Fang herself, she takes a post leaning against the kitchen counter. There are pots and pans on the shelves, and simple dinnerware made mostly of wood or clay. No modern appliances. No electricity either, for that matter, and as dusk falls they are increasingly in shadow.

At least, until Cesare lights a fat, squat candle in the middle of the table. Then flickering light traces their faces out of darkness again. By then Franco bangs back into the cabin, arms laden with firewood. While he unceremoniously goes about lighting a fire in the hearth, Cesare speaks.

"We are Garou of the Sept of the White Summits," he says. "We've been caught here longer than we care to remember. Years, at least. Perhaps even decades. Fiore was the first of us to fall prey to this prison. Our Caern lies hidden amongst the tallest peaks, and the trap was laid along a path home that we all knew. Like the rest of us -- and perhaps like you -- she walked that pass and found it shrouded in mist. When the mist cleared, she was here, and her Wolf had been stolen from her."

"Difference was," Franco says, stacking logs and lighting kindling, "she wasn't chased in by a horde of zombie Fiores."

"Franco," Bérénice says sharply. The Ragabash only shrugs.

"Fiore was our Mistress of Rites, and a powerful and prized elder of our Sept. When she vanished, we thought she had gone on one of her journeys into the Deep Umbra. Yet as the months went by we grew suspicious, then worried. Eventually the Grand Elder commanded the Sept to seek her wherever she might have gone. Aldric Ironjaw volunteered. Alone he followed rumors and echoes for weeks until he too came upon that mist-shrouded pass. He doesn't speak much of what happened, but Fiore says he appeared here bloodied and harrowed.

"After that, the Grand Elder called for an entire pack to investigate the disappearances. I volunteered my pack. Bérénice, Franco, and I. Like Aldric before us, we investigated. We followed clues. We found our way to that pass, where we lost our Wolves and met -- well. The duplicates Franco so respectfully termed 'zombie Fiores'. They pursued us into this valley, and we have been here since."

Perhaps surprisingly, Hilary has a greater tolerance for the disrepair of these cottages, and their generally rustic appearance, than she does for the inhabitants, or for the mystery of how they came to be in this valley. But then, one only has to remember what the villa looked like when she first saw it: the heavy layer of dust, the dried leaves and needles littering the courtyard, the silent fountain with its spots of algae slime, the creaking doors, the windows that stuck when one tried to open them, the cracked terra cotta here and there. And that is where she wanted to be, perhaps for the rest of her life. That is where she wanted to raise their son.

Or one could look at the place she wanted built for herself: nothing at all like what Ivan would have had made for himself, or even for her. It feels older than it is. It feels a bit like these cottages, though it is better taken care of, smaller, and filled with a veritable riot of color that hints at the proofs that Hilary indeed has a soul: her love of dance, of food and cooking, of a child.

She thinks of her cottage, and the villa, when she comes into the largest cottage. She misses it. And she thinks of Anton, and she worries about getting out of here. So at the threshold she pauses for Ivan, and though she doesn't take his hand - that is a bit too weak, in front of strangers - she does brush hers against his, as though she needs to remind herself that he is no ghost, no phantom, and this is not just her madness finally taking its full hold of her.

The mockery in Franco's bow goes unnoticed, if only because she gives him a small, regal nod of acceptance as she passes him. It seems that she will take it as her due, whether he intends it as such or not.

--

She observes the table with some trace of curiosity before she sits, sweeping her skirt beneath her legs and settling in beside Ivan. Her posture is straight, her shoulders back, her ankles crossed. Her sunglasses, perched atop her head when she first entered, are completely removed, folded, and set on the table slightly to her right. She folds her hands in her lap, one atop the other.

The onset of dusk and the arrival of candlelight makes her distractingly lovely. It plays up the darkness in her eyes, turning them liquid. One could imagine themselves nightswimming, sinking beneath the water to cool fevered skin. The warm light softens the fall of her hair, brings up the tone of her skin. When she tips her head slightly to one side, she almost seems welcoming.

Whenever Cesare pauses, she takes a moment to translate quietly for Ivan, though she says things like:

the old woman got lost and isn't a wolf anymore

and

the idiot one says nothing useful

and

none of them are wolves.

In the end, she is frowning. She murmurs to Ivan: "They know nothing." Then, slipping back into French: "If you attempt to depart, do they chase you back? Or is there simply no way through the mist?"

If one were to ask Ivan, she is always distractingly lovely. Even in these dire circumstances -- even with the two of them locked in some suffocating little paradise -- he notices. His eyes follow her as she touches his hand; again, as she sits beside him. The others converse in French. It taxes him to understand. It is easier to wait for her to translate -- if only in approximations and summations -- and to watch her instead.

The old woman isn't a wolf anymore, he discovers. The idiot says nothing useful. None of them are wolves anymore.

Not even him. Ivan redirects his attention where it should be. He watches Cesare now, intently, trying to ferret the meaning from that fluid, foreign tongue.

The idiot one snorts again. He is still working at lighting that fire, striking flint with a rather large hunting knife. Over his shoulder, "Oh, yes, attempt to depart. That's exactly what we need right now."

"Franco," Bérénice is clearly losing her patience, "if you have nothing useful to say, don't say anything at all." To Hilary, then, "We have attempted to leave. We get nowhere. We walk into the mist and no matter how hard we try to keep our bearings, to keep moving forward, we find ourselves walking out back into the valley."

"It is worse than that." For the first time in some time, Fiore speaks. "It seems -- "

"Elder," Bérénice whispers. "You needn't -- "

"They deserve to know." Cloudy eyes turn unerringly toward Hilary. "It seems every time one of us tries to escape, some part of us passes through. Not ourselves, our conscious willful selves. But something. A shell."

A silence. Cesare adds reluctantly: "Aldric told us he tried to escape three times. And when my pack came to the pass, we saw three ... three Aldrics who were not Aldric."

"And untold Fiores," the Elder adds dryly, "who were not Fiore. So you see, Hilary, you were not altogether wrong to blame me for your woes. I can only say: I did not know. And I wanted -- so very much -- to go home."

That sounds like a nightmare, what Berenice says. Walking into a mist, and finding oneself trapped. Finding, even worse, that one's self is splintered, is taken away from you and warped into something else, turned into one of those things.

That sounds, in fact, like some very specific nightmares Hilary has had.

She is very still beside Ivan, and forgets to translate. Her hands, beneath the overhang of the table, have clenched on one another.

It is hard even for her to meet Fiore's eyes, because for not the first time today, she is wondering if she has simply... gone mad. Fully, and inevitably, and inescapably. She is wondering if this is where her mind will be, forever, even if her body is somewhere else. Perhaps she is drooling on herself in that body already. Perhaps, until she dies, her reality will be an idyllic meadow filled with strangers, everything gradually decaying around her, while every attempt at escape unleashes horrors back upon her.

So that is what is behind her eyes, when she looks at the old woman.

And nothing in her throat. Nothing in her mouth. Not even breath, for a moment.

She turns to look at Ivan, and it takes quite a bit for her to whisper:

"Have I gone mad? Is it done, then?"

She's not quite right.

Even if they didn't know she was a Silver Fang, they would guess it. It's in her bearing, her beauty, her thoughtless expectation of privilege. It's in all those things, but most of all, it's in her strangeness. The way she doesn't quite react the way one should when confronted with such things. The way she's just a little off.

She's more than a little off, right now. There's something in her eyes which the old woman cannot see, and which no one else quite catches. Everyone intuits it though; the sense of unease in her, coiled like a snake. The way she turns not to Fiore, not to Cesare, not to any of them but to the one she came here with. Her mate, surely. The way she doesn't ask the questions another might, but instead --

whatever it is she asks, in English and so softly, that makes his brow furrow like that. That makes him put his hand on her cheek and his brow to hers, and damn whoever might be watching.

"If you're mad," he whispers, "then so am I. We're in this together. I'm here with you."

They are uncomfortable, watching. Bérénice averts her eyes. Cesare clears his throat softly and looks at his hands, folded together atop that table. Franco keeps working on that fire, which is finally starting to smoke, starting to lick. Only Fiore keeps those sightless eyes of hers on Hilary, on Ivan.

The fact that Hilary does not wince away from his hand on her cheek shows just how close she is to convinced that none of this is real. His response makes her brow furrow, too, and he can see that the idea of Ivan being just as lost as she is, their son abandoned, does not do much to comfort her.

Eventually she looks away, though, and moves from his hand, and then...

she leaves the table. She slips off the bench and rises to her feet, not to go anywhere in particular, but to pace a few steps away, thinking to herself. Of course, what does it matter if she makes phantoms uncomfortable? The demons her mind has summoned up will wait for her, perhaps. So Hilary goes over to the fire. She stands a bit away from Franco, terrible and useless Franco, and watches the fire he's building.

Eventually: "What do you do, then?" she asks, of no one in particular, though still in French. Perhaps she's asking herself, but a moment later it becomes clear she does seem to want to know: "If you cannot leave without multiplying your horror, if there is no escape you know, then how do you spend your days?"

A beat. She frowns even deeper, realizing the most obvious question: "What on earth do you eat?"

Franco gives the fire one last prod, then rises. Dusting his hands, he shoots Hilary a glance when she says if you cannot leave -- but then she has questions, and Cesare is the one to answer.

"We live as Garou." Firm, that, though it only sparks yet another derisive snort from Franco. "We remember who and what we are. We spar with each other. We tell stories of our people. We hunt. We sleep in separate houses, the males in one and the females in another, that we are not tempted. We try to keep these houses in good repair, though -- " a wry turn of his mouth, " -- that seems to be a futile endeavour."

"It's like we're in a loop," Bérénice offers. "When we try to leave, we loop back in. When we fix something, it loops back around to being broken. Even ... even the animals we hunt." She casts a glance toward Cesare, a hint of worry in her look. "Sometimes I swear I've killed the same deer over and over."

"Is anyone going to tell her the other thing?" Franco abruptly interrupts. He glances from one packmate to the other, back. "Anyone? Or do I have to do it?"

Her back is to the rest of the group, so it's only Franco who sees Hilary deeply roll her eyes when Cesare tells her we live as Garou. It ends up perfectly timed with Franco's snort, but that's unintentional on both their parts. She would never synchronize disdain with someone who shot arrows at her. Not on purpose.

Then of course there's the look of disgust when he talks of being 'tempted', the way a teenager might look when her parents start talking about Making Love.

But the loop that Berenice speaks of, killing the same deer over and over, makes Hilary frown in thought, and finally turn around, her slender arms crossed low over her chest. She finds that oddly interesting, which is another telling sign of how warped her mind is: of all the horrifying things she's heard today, that one should disturb her, not intrigue her.

Franco interrupts, and she pauses: "Un instant," she tells him, holding up a finger, and then looks over at Ivan, translating a summary of what they've just heard.

(they live very dull lives and fret over sleeping arrangements
everything fixed breaks itself again
they hunt and kill the same animals over and over)

Her finger lowers only after she's finished. "Vous pouvez continuer," she tells Franco, waving a hand to indicate that he may get on with it.

"No?" Franco makes a show of waiting. "Okay. Fine. I'll tell her. There might be an exception to the rule. Someone who got out."

"Franco..." Cesare's tone is half warning, half beseeching. "It's Aldric's business. Not ours."

"Cazzate. Siamo tutti bloccati in questo insieme. Anyway, the jackass was more than happy to tell everyone." He turns back to Hilary. "Now, I can't promise this is true. None of us were here to see it. But Aldric told me -- told us all -- he didn't come here alone. He came here with his son, a stripling pup of twelve, not even Changed yet. Stupid as hell to bring a kid like that, if you ask me, but of course the mighty sons of Fenris don't ask the bastard of Rat to give their opinions on that sort of thing. No, Aldric was proud as a peacock of that boy. His trueborn heir, so on and so forth. Wanted to make him strong and tough, wanted him to be the biggest baddest wolf in the pack one day. You know the drill.

"Anyway. To hear him tell it, the boy got out. Rest of us cocksuckers apparently walk in circles every time, but that twelve year old brat? He walks right through the mist and gets out." Franco shrugs. "Don't know how much of that is true and how much of that is Fenrir piss in the wind. But you can make of it what you will."

["Bullshit. We're all stuck in this together."

Also, earlier Cesare said "Go outside and get some firewood."]

Hilary listens. And she frowns. And walks back over to Ivan. She tells him quickly what Franco has said, and sits on the bench again, but facing outward. She is trying to piece this together, like a math problem, or a difficult recipe handwritten into an old book. Probably some sort of bread, and all the measurements are based on the hand size of the person who wrote it down. A handful of this and that, which don't translate into grams at all and thus throw off the chemistry.

She turns to Fiore for a moment.

"Where do you think the mist comes from? Do you believe it was... made? As a trap?"

Fiore is silent for a beat. Whatever thoughts turn behind those eyes are her own; she is placid and opaque as a nighttime sea.

Then: "Yes. I believe we are in an Umbral realm -- a pocket separated from the rest of time and space. There are many in the Deep Umbra, some of which will trap a Garou as surely as this place. But those realms are strange, often incomprehensible, and almost always inhospitable. This place is different. It feels so deliberate, so directed. So perfect a prison for us, where we can survive forever but never escape.

"But I do not know who creates the mist. Or who created this place."

"The Wyrm," Franco says dryly, "obviously."

"That is not at all obvious to me," Fiore counters. "You are young, Franco, and very brash. When you have seen all that I've seen, you'll know that all is not as easy as you think it is."

Give her credit for this: Hilary does not understand, but she is trying to. And it distracts her, at least, from her terrors. She is actually rather well practiced in spending endless days stuck in her own madness, and this is quite a bit more curious than ennui and emptiness. So she listens, intently, to Fiore.

"It sounds positively mythic," she observes, though perhaps no one quite grasps from just a few words that she means specifically Greek mythology, with all those perfectly just (yet mercilessly unfair) punishments for hubris or offense to the gods. Only in this case, she can't quite think of who might want to trap them all, without killing them.

Or trap Fiore, specifically, without killing her.

So she adds: "You said 'us'," she mentions, directly to the Elder, disregarding respect. "But it isn't about anyone else here. If it is a trap, it appears it was set for you."

[perception (2) + empathy (0)]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (5, 8) ( success x 1 )

It must be quite the feeling to take an Elder of the Nation aback like this. Or perhaps it would have been had Hilary been anyone but Hilary. Fiore's reaction is subtle, controlled, but present. And Hilary, shockingly, catches it for what it is:

Surprise.

Guilt.

A secret, somewhere. Something she doesn't want everyone to know.

There and gone. Fiore grasps the arms of her chair and begins, shakily, to stand. Bérénice is instantly at her side, helping her up. "Perhaps so," Fiore acknowledges, "but whether this trap was laid for me alone or for all of us makes little difference. We are all caught in it now, and I do not know if there is a way out. Gaia knows I have tried. So many times, I have tried.

"Sono stanco, Bérénice. Andiamo a casa. We will speak again, Hilary. But not tonight."

Of course Hilary doesn't think anything of knocking an Elder werewolf off her guard. Hilary doesn't consider that someone else might feel shame, or guilt, or fear. Hilary also does not think anything of arguing with werewolves, or even insulting them. For a minute there she was considering kicking Franco while he made the fire, to see if he was real.

She frowns up at Fiore and Berenice together, and for a moment there is clear disgust on her face that seems directed at the Silver Fang, not the Child of Gaia. But her attention, otherwise, is focused on the Elder. "It makes all the difference," she says peevishly. The echo of and you know it is not spoken aloud.

Regardless, she does not try to stop the old woman from leaving with her nurse. She frowns at Ivan and tells him, in English:

"The old woman is a liar."

Ivan's eyes, which have traced from one speaker to the next, flit quickly to Hilary. He adds yet another language to that confusing mix:

"Mi pogovorim pozzhe."

Cesare looks from one to the other, a faint stitch in his brow. He watches the Theurge leave with the Ahroun, disquieted, then stands himself.

"Umbral Song-rhya is right. We can speak more tomorrow. There's no shortage of time here, to be sure. Let's get the two of you settled -- I assume you'll want a cottage of your own. Aldric will be back from the hunt soon, and you'll have a share of the kill."

[dammit i forgot to translate again. Earlier:

"I'm tired, Berenice. Let's go home."

Just now:

"We'll talk later."]

Hilary's nose, unsurprisingly, wrinkles at the mention of 'share of the kill'. She looks rather put off her meal, so to speak. But her eyes glint when Aldric is mentioned. She nods.

A wild hare enters her mind to suggest that Franco fetch their bags from the car, but even Hilary knows that he won't, which would sour the amusement of asking. So she rises, picking up her sunglasses, and looks to Ivan. "I suppose it's a good thing we packed," she says, and presses her lips together.

Ivan laughs under his breath, dry.

"We packed for the weekend," he says, rising with her. "And I don't intend on staying any longer than that."

"Nor do I," she says, a bit testily, though it's not quite directed at him. No more than it's directed outward, in all directions, a flood of radio waves relaying to everyone that she is displeased with this whole situation, thank you. She turns to Cesare, returning to French. "So where are we staying?"

"Show them to one of the empty cottages, Franco." Cesare, clearly the Alpha of his pack, doesn't seem inclined to perform the task himself. "Bérénice and Fiore live in the house with the flowers. Aldric, Franco and I live in the one with the shutters. This house we keep as common space to gather around the fire at night. Any of the others would suit you well, I think."

Franco, just as clearly the Omega of the pack, dusts his palms off and pulls the front door open. "Come along, transgressori americani," he says, smirking. "Time to pick out real estate for the rest of eternity."

"Thank you kindly, inutile italien," she tosses back, striding out of the door.

Again, with her head held high.

Outside, night has begun to fall. The sun has set, and a fresh chill fills the air. A blue glow still lingers in the west. What passes for the west, anyway. If Fiore is right, that's not even the sun in the sky. Those aren't their stars, their mountains, their world.

Franco walks ahead of them, bypassing the cottage with the shutters and the cottage with the flowers. A little farther away along the stony lakeshore are the other three cottages, all three about the same size, all three in some state of gentle disrepair.

"Well, you can have your pick," he says. "Probably nothing like the palaces you're used to, but Bérénice hasn't died of want yet."

Hilary observes what's available and does not give Franco the satisfaction of seeing her wince or grimace. She glances at Ivan and gives the faintest shrug, an indicator that the choice is his.

She does turn to the useless Omega, however: "Someone will let us know when the other one returns, yes?"

Franco tilts his head at the inquiry. "Wasn't planning on it. But I guess if you want, I could let you know. Not sure why you'd be in a hurry to meet him though. He's ... intense."

Her eyebrows flick slightly at that. She almost rolls her eyes again, and one of Franco's persuasion can surely see how close she comes. She waves a lithe hand. "Do let me know, yes. I wish to speak with him."

Franco shrugs. "You asked for it."

With that, he heads back toward the cottage he shares with the other males, his stride swift and silent. A matter of steps and he becomes indistinguishable from the evening shadows, gone.

Left alone, Ivan raises his eyebrows at Hilary, then starts heading toward the one most distant from the others. As he walks, he reaches out, his fingers snagging Hilary's.