Decker Rohl

Danicka
But they don't.
That idea running fleetingly and silently through both their minds all night has been the same, but it has been a dream. No knowledge they had of each other in Chicago, dim and distant, could have led them to the revelations about each other they've had tonight. When he thinks of her now he will have two lives, two pictures, one seen out of each eye that somehow blend together into a whole person. That slip of a girl, her hair short and edged, her heart a molten core beneath several layers of slowly hardening ice.
There are six.
I didn't ask what you wanted.
I would try to love you, but I don't know how.
And this woman, fully grown, her hair long and soft, her eyes still as wide and unfathomable, her clothing so fine and her life so, so very far from his. They meet in the center of his vision, and he knows that middle part of her in a way that even her mate never could, because it lives in him, too. Despite the differences, despite the vast chasm between their lives and their destinies, despite her in silk and he in hide,
whatever souls are made of, theirs are the same. Cut from one cloth, sewn into different garments. They are alike, but they were never made for each other.
She does not belong here.
He does not belong with her.
They do not belong together.

It's Decker waking that stirs Danicka. Even unconscious, some part of her recognizes that the beast is no longer slumbering. It will be stretching, it will be hungry, it will begin stalking again. It wouldn't be the cold that woke her now, of course; under two thick furs and wrapped in this wolf's arms, Danicka wakes with sweat dampening the hairs along her scalp, sticking them to her temples in fine tendrils of moisture-darkened color; gold to bronze. She feels the cold, though, and it startles her eyes when she blinks them open. He feels her wake when she breathes in.
She smells the fur and the fire and the antiquity of it all, feels heavy and fearsomely strong arms around her, and then
realizes
it is not her mate. And her soul howls.
This is not something Danicka feels often. She hardly would know how to describe it. It's what she felt when she miscarried, though she has not told Lukas that, has not told Decker that, does not and would not speak of it in such personal terms. Her spirit was screaming, insane and inconsolable, even if outwardly she washed herself and brushed her hair and refused to cry and proceeded with life as though she forgot that her spirit ever felt such a thing.
It is not what she felt when her mother died, or even when Lukas left the hotel room, left her, moments after she admitted that she loved him. On both those occasions, she felt a sort of lightheaded numbness, the shock too sharp to even process, too hard to even name as one emotion or another.
Waking this morning, held by a wolf who is not her mate, not her utter companion, Danicka's soul begins keening, begins howling for him, crying out across god knows how many miles, begging him to hear her.
She closes her eyes again, trying to quiet herself, comfort herself. She is going back to him. It will be okay. He isn't gone. He is waiting for her. She exhales, and rubs the heel of her hand over her eyes, sniffs, and turns to Decker again. Her arm slips back over his waist. She misses that warm, lazy bonelessness of her husband in bed with her some mornings; Decker is hard as stone, so firm she can barely feel him breathing and is not sure she would be able to feel his heartbeat if she touched his chest. It is different. As her head rests on his arm and her eyes open to look into his, Danicka begins to remember who Decker is.

Alabama. Wanted to drive eighteen wheelers. He could go anywhere, be anything, be free. Likes blue. Killed his mother when he changed, tried to kill his father and couldn't, survived when his father killed him. The look in his eyes when she touched his face last night, just before they slept, like he was begging her not to stop even though letting her touch that lingering ember of softness in his heart was threatening to ignite it,
make him love her,
make him weak,
make him destroy her life.
Decker is going to go to New York City. Sometime. Probably soon. He's going to kill her brother. Not in any formal challenge, and away from any pack who might sprinkle Death Dust over his corpse. He's going to beat him until his corpse is unrecognizable. He's going to tell him why. For who. He's going to walk away. Her father and sister in law and her nieces and nephews will be safer, happier, their lives kinder. Danicka will not worry about what will happen if both her mate and her half-sister die, leaving all of them without a guardian among the Garou other than the Theurge who is just too crafty to get himself killed, the one she has no power to threaten or run from.
He'll be dead. Decker will have given her that much.
Looking at him, wordless still, Danicka thinks of all the things he told her last night on the drive, all the things he showed her just a matter of hours ago in the caern, memorizes his face. Sees him, she thinks, clearer than anyone ever has. Understands him, and -- hardest to bear, of all -- knows he understands her, too.
Whatever souls are made of, theirs are the same.

Of course they leave the bed, the furs holding her scent along with his now. Of course she washes up with ice cold water, shivering, gasping at it hitting her face. Of course she wraps herself up in jacket and coat and gloves again. Of course he feeds her: some bread, which is all she seems to want.
They leave without fanfare or looks back. Danicka does not abandon his den forever with some attachment to it. She will not miss it. She will not bother to remember its arrangement or its scent, though the truth is,
if she were eighty and changed upon it, she would walk through that narrow doorway and remember everything about this night without hesitation or falter. She would remember his scent tonight, his face looking at hers in bed, remember the way he held her ten years ago when she told him she was so sore, asked him to please just hold her.
Maybe they get looks. Maybe more of the Fenrir see her, smell her, notice her. Maybe the kin talk; there are gossips in every tribe, no matter what they think of themselves compared to each other. Maybe he lays the fur over her again; maybe with the sun up it is warm enough that her coat is enough. Maybe he changes for the walk; maybe not, if she reaches out for his hand in time, holds it before he thinks to shift. Maybe her hand in his fur again, between his withers, as they head back to the garage and his car.
Silent as a vigil, as a procession, as a funeral march.

The drive is long, and longer still because they stop to get some coffee, a bit more food for Danicka, though that doesn't take much time. Halfway back she wants to tell him to pull over, please, because she is all but overcome with the desire to weep. She wants to tell him not to go back to Storm Hammer, to come with her, to live near her, just be there, don't be out of her life, don't be gone,
but Danicka only looks out the window, holding that cup of coffee between her palms, seeing her own faint reflection suspended in the glass against trees, against powerlines, against whatever they pass. She does not cry. She does not ask him for anything.

He has to take her to the hotel. That's where her suitcase and all her thing are. She still has more than enough time to shower and pack and get to the airport from here, since originally her plan was to stay all morning and afternoon for the tail-end of the conference. She never changed her flight. She never debated whether to call Lukas and let him know she was coming home early or just surprise him.
But sitting outside the hotel in his car, Danicka doesn't get out instantly. She and he have said hardly anything to each other all this time, ever since waking up. Practicalities, mostly, necessities, quick questions with quick answers about tangible, immediate things. Washing, food, coffee, gas. Now she looks at him, still smelling like she's his when she's not, and then
leans over to him, puts her hand on the back of his neck, and bows her head. Touches their brows together, breathing the same air, holding him like that for several very long moments. Her eyes are closed. Her hand on the back of his neck is bare and warm, the same place she touched him moments after he said Wanna go again? and right after she said Yeah, reaching for him, pulling him over her because once was never enough. It never could have been.
Several long moments. Then her head lifts, her hand slips away. She lets him go.

When she gets out of the car, and closes it behind her, and walks to the hotel, Danicka does not look back. She thinks he'll understand that. Partly: she can't bear to see him watching her, or watch him leave her. And also because: they are past the point of looking back. They both are.
It seems like she should have said something. That she won't ever forget him. That she'll always remember him and what he has done for her. That knowing him for two nights of her life has changed that life, shown her a reflection of herself she never could have understood without him. She wants him to know that he is a part of her, that they are two of a kind, that she believes one day they will meet again when they wear new faces, carry new memories. She should have said goodbye, but at the very end of it all, Danicka has nothing to give him but her silence.
She thinks: he already knows all of that. He already understands. Because whatever souls are made of,
theirs are the same.
Silence
Morning is as merciless as anything else in the far north. It is fierce and bright and cold, and what light steals in between the miniscule slits and cracks of the thatching falls searing across the dirt floor, the furs. They open their eyes in unstable light, the Modi quiescent just a little longer, his body hard under her arm. The Shadow Lord tells herself she will be home soon. She is going back to what is hers. The keening in her soul quiets. She stays a little longer with this wolf, who is not hers, and who can never have a claim over her.
He closes his eyes a little longer. A handful of minutes, no more. Then, on a swift inhale, he sits up. Swings his feet to the dirt floor.
And so they rise, they dress, they wash with water so cold it takes their breath. They eat some of last night's bread. Danicka doesn't want chicken soup; Silence lifts the pot in one hand and drinks directly from the lip. Then he opens the door to his cottage, which is to say he pins back the heavy skins and shoves aside the wood slab, rather like a caveman rolling a stone out of the entrance of his cave. That searing mid-morning light leaves a brilliant white oblong on the floor, so bright that it lights even the shadows. It is a clear day outside. The sky is an impossible, crystalline blue, and the ground is blindingly white.
They were likely the very last souls in Storm Hammer to sleep last night, and equally likely the last to rise. The Sept is alive: smoke drifting from the huts and the langhúses; farmers in the fields. The percussive, metallic music of the blacksmith. The scent of new bread, reheated stew. Beef and venison and cabbage. Potatoes. The sudden stench of someone dumping their chamberpot in a ditch. The shriek of children, playing in those precious few years before they'll be expected to work, to pitch in, to pull their own weight just like everyone else.
Life is tenacious. It goes on. It finds a way, always. There is life here, as cold and stark and grim as the north seemed by night. There is life, and it is hardy, and rough, and hotblooded against the chill. She does not belong here, but some people do. These people do.
And Danicka is right: these kin and wolves of Fenris are prone to the same social urges that stir any people. They look at her as she passes, surprised or shocked or delighted or puzzled. Tongues wag; she can't understand half of what they say; many of them aren't speaking English at all. Precious few of them recognize her, or her mother in her. A little girl runs up to Danicka as she's passing the Caern's heart; she's blonde and blue-eyed and perhaps seven or eight, and she stuffs something into Danicka's gloved hand before running away again. It's a pebble, pale blue and veined in white, pretty, worthless. Decker eyes it a moment, then shakes his head with a snort.
" 's my half-sister," he says. It's one of the few things they say to each other that morning. "My old man has like a dozen bastards. She pro'lly likes yer hair. Obsessed with blondes lately now that she's discovered she is one."
Out from the village, then. Out, away from the huts and the houses and the pigpens and the chicken coops. With the sun up and the weather finally, sluggishly turning toward a short Minnesota summer, they don't need fur. He carries the fur she wrapped around herself last night, has it folded and draped over one shoulder. It looks right on him. Barbaric. He walks in his human form; wants to, anyway. He's glad when Danicka takes his hand, and though he says nothing of it, his hand squeezes hers through their gloves. Just once.
They pass the last of the farms. They pass the trophypoles. Different guardians this morning, wiser about keeping their mouths shut. One of them nods to Danicka, and she knows from the look in his eyes that he, too, knows who she is. Out a little farther, and they're at the crest of the hill where the Caern's spiritual curtain wall lies. Decker pauses there just briefly. He glances over his shoulder. Perhaps Danicka doesn't.
They cross the wall. The world swims, comes back together. They are alone.
The drive is long. They stop for coffee, a snack. Once or twice, he thinks maybe she's going to say something, maybe she'll ask him for something he has no right to give her. He's afraid she'll speak because he doesn't know that he has it in him to deny her now any more than he would have last night, had she reached for him. She doesn't, in the end. She keeps her peace. He keeps his. The sun reaches an apex and begins to slide into the west. Slowly, slowly, human civilization reasserts itself. Silence looks more and more out of place. He doesn't belong at all, not one bit, when he finally pulls to a stop in front of her hotel. His eyes scan the building; then they come back to her.
Maybe he should say something. That he won't ever forget her. That they are two of a kind, and even if they were never meant for one another they are the same. They've changed each other. Maybe he should reassure her that he'll be all right. Maybe he should give her some way to contact him, some emergency means in case she's endangered, in case she's alone, in case she changes her mind.
He doesn't. Easier this way. When she leans toward him, pulls him toward her, he goes without resistance. His eyes close; his brow rests to hers. Anyone would think they were lovers, but he doesn't try to kiss her. It doesn't cross his mind. He doesn't interrupt the sanctity of the moment, or grasp at it. He lets it wash through him, like sunlight through an open doorway, lighting even the shadows. A very long time passes, and then
she draws back.
He smiles a little as she looks at him. It's such a subtle expression on the hardness of his features that it's nearly impossible to discern. Just the barest curvature of the lip. Just the slightest softening around the eyes. They don't speak, and a moment later she gets out of his car. She doesn't look back, and he doesn't blame her for that, or hate her for it, or forgive her for it. There's nothing to forgive. He understands: they're past the point of looking back.
When the door shuts behind her he turns out of the parking lot. He doesn't look back, either.
--
A few weeks go by. Perhaps a month or two. And then the night is dark and the moon is full and all the Sept of the Green is gathering for the moot. Heals by Pain leaves the house he shares with his mate. There's something waiting for him on the street, sitting at the curb. It rises when it hears the snick of the door locking. It moves like a python, the utter steadiness of unspeakable strength. Fenris is the savage brother of Jormangandr, the world serpent; in their own mythology, the Fenrir are closer to the Wyrm than any other tribe. Destruction makes a home in their hearts.
Once upon a time Heals by Pain called the Stark Falls Sept the backwaters, the sticks. One can imagine what he'd think of Storm Hammer. Besides, Silence really is from the backwaters, the sticks. Long before he turned into a barbarian he was called all manner of things. Hick, redneck, dumb as a post. Never to his face, though. God knows what Heals by Pain thinks to see the wolf that approaches him now, dressed in animal hides and skins. What he thinks when the wolf calls him by name. Says:
Yer sister sent me.
Says:
Ya broke a covenant every time ya raised yer hand to her. You owe her. Tha debt is pain, fear, 'n one life. She'll mourn ya when yer dead.
Heals by Pain never shows up at the moot. His packmates feel his link blink out of existence. They look for him for days and days; they find his corpse nearly a week later, battered beyond recognition, dishonor carved into his brow in Fenrir runes.
And then of course there's an investigation. Spirits are consulted, records are checked. A Warclaw, a Fenrir and a Full-Moon, was in the area a few days prior. Hunting some Wyrm-wolf from New England to the Chesapeake, it seems. He has a history of violence. A history of murder. He has a reputation for having a quick temper, a brutal hand. He's done something like this before on numerous occasions, carving dishonor into the hides of his enemies. Or victims. Who knows what poor Heals by Pain might have said or done; who knows how he brought Silence of the Fenrir's wrath down on his head.
The proof isn't solid, of course. It's circumstantial at best. Still; everyone knows who did it. But then there's the matter of the rank of the offender, his position, his affiliations. There's the fact that Storm Hammer is a hornet's nest on the best of days, ever so ready to fall on any perceived offense. There's the fact that Heals by Pain had a lot of 'friends' while he was alive, associates kept in line by implicit threat of retaliation, creatures bound by the ropes of their own shady dealings. None of that matters now that he's dead. Every rope, every bond, every string is cut.
In the end, it's rather firmly suggested that Silence not return to the Sept of the Green again. That any business the Nation's Warclaws might have with that Sept ought to be conducted by his compatriots who were better able to restrain themselves. Heals by Pain's things, along with what influence he retains in death, are summarily divided amongst his packmates. He passes into memory.
Another week goes by. Someone finally remembers to notify his kin. His mate gets a visit from a young Galliard who dreads the task.
His sister gets a phone call.