"Are you ready for it? Is there anything I can do to help?" She's ironing one of his shirts, soft music on the radio. It's after dinner (one of his amazing meals) and there's a certain calm in the air. Life is good.
Cian puts the last of the dishes in the dish rack and turns, drying his hands on a dish towel. "I'm... actually good, I think." He sounds vaguely surprised by the admission. And it's honestly the first time he's been able to say as much with the full moon staring him down. The first time it's been this close and he's been this... normal. Relaxed. He can feeling it calling to him, feel the wolf coursing through his blood and humming just under his skin, but it's not the ravening beast of the past. It's something he feels like he might actually be able to welcome, tomorrow. "I'm actually almost looking forward to it."
"Really?" She sets the iron upright so she can turn to look at him, surprised by the admission. "I'm glad to hear it. What's changed your opinion of the full moon so greatly?" Perhaps it was like involving herself in the machinations of the changeling courts--they were much less frightening when you understood a little bit behind the curtain.
"Knowing I don't have to lose control and be a monster." Or hoping he doesn't. "I'd... never even considered the possibility of just accepting the change. Getting used to it and working with it." He shrugs, lips twitched up in a faint, wry smile. "It was all about trying to suppress it, fighting down a monster that... doesn't even have to be there." He's still not sure he'd be safe on his own at this point, in fact he's fairly certain he wouldn't be, but he's just as certain that he will be with Fran around to help.
She nods quietly, putting the shirt on a hanger and reaching for the slacks that go with it. "What made it so hard to conceive of, before? Was it just fear that made you decide to struggle with yourself as much as possible?"
"The most wonderful time of the year." His tone is more than a little sarcastic, but his grin is genuine. Nothing like a good full moon to help Ariel's mood. "At least until we hit a year with blue moons again."
Cian cocks his head slightly and his nostrils flare as he scents the other wolf. He's not likely to be automatically at ease in the presence of his own kind for a good while, given his turning, but the man seems innocuous enough. For the moment. "This August or not 'til 2015, depending on how you want to define it," he answers.
If Ariel notices the man's unease, he doesn't acknowledge it. His posture stays relaxed, the grin still a grin and not a show of teeth. He'd been alone long enough to realize that acting threatening got you nowhere.
"July, then. 2015," he clarifies. "Two full moons in the month." He's possibly put more effort than is healthy into researching such things. This August will simply be the third of four full moons in the fall season.
"Will you be in town tomorrow, for the moon?" The relaxed posture and calculated lack of overt thread is helping, but he's still not really at ease.
"Town?" Ariel echoes, incredulous. He bites back on his amusement and manages a snort instead. "No. Who spends high, holy days in town? Too many people and strays for that."
"So it is." Urania's voice is a low, warm purr, and her moon-blue eyes rake over the young werewolf speculatively. "I suppose you have plans to celebrate it?"
She smells old and not-really-human,with hints of parchment or vellum or papyrus and inks no longer in use today and the scent of empty sky on a starlit night.
"Perhaps 'celebrate' wasn't the word you were going to use."
"... observe might be closer," he concedes. Though he's beginning to think that there might possibly come a day when celebrate isn't far off. For now, though, the approach of the moon still has his blood running wilder than he's truly comfortable with, and while he's anticipating it there's still a trace of worry.
He can't resist the urge to scent her again, trying to trace and place all the layers and depths to her scent. It's strange and intoxicating and somehow awful, in the oldest, most traditional sense of the word.
"May I help you, Lady?" It... seems the most appropriate form of address, at least of those that come quickly to mind.
"I think I'm in a better position to help you, right now." There's a restrained humor in her expression--she's noticed the sniffing, the sense of being on edge. She'd always liked werewolves, to be honest. Rare was the werewolf who didn't know the moon cycles like the back of their hand.
"All moons are wolf moons, the face of our mother. Ahman Iduth, as the People call her." Alexander sips his tea (green, honeyed) and glances up at the sky. "But you're a different breed of werewolf entirely, and my myths are only those to you."
Cian keeps his distance, eying the other wolf somewhat warily. So many months without ever meeting another of his kind, he comes here and suddenly they seem to be crawling out of the woodwork.
"I didn't even know there was more than one breed of us before now," he admits, curious but cautious. "And I know little enough even of what's supposedly my own kind."
"Honestly? I can't tell you much about yours. I just know you're not one of mine." There's a smile that shows teeth as he says that, not entirely comfortable in Cian's presence himself. Alexander carries a layered set of smells on him that include gunpowder and mineral oil and spearmint chewing gum, as well as the tea he's sipping now. "You're not Uratha, one of the children of Mother Moon and Father Wolf, one of the custodians of the spirit world as well as this one. For which I consider you lucky--what purpose do you serve? What do you have to work to protect on a daily basis?"
"My family. My friends." He shrugs. For himself, Cian smells fairly strongly of flour and yeast, both as separate items and melded together in the warmth of fresh-baked bread, meat and cheese and herbs and all the varied scents of a warm, busy kitchen. "I've no real idea what I am, other than myself."
Alexander straightens to his full height--still less than six feet, but it's more the posturing and use of space that matters than the actual height. "You're a pup. A clueless little pup."
"That's right. How are you feeling about it?" She leans on the counter casually, watching him. There's still something alert about her--like lounging around in wolf form with ears still perked. "Not that, of course, the name of the moon has any effect on anything."
"I... better than I expected to," he admits, smiling faintly. "Better than I ever have before." Still not completely at ease, and it's there in his posture--too alert, slightly tense and twitchy--and his scent, bled through with a thin thread of anxiety and something carefully tamped down that wild and erratic and hovers on the edge of rage.
"But not completely at-ease. You're still trying hard not to jump at shadows." Which she can understand, given his background. She's just pointing it out because the bullshit half-answer didn't really work for her.
"Building up your trust in yourself, really. But it's possible." She lightly touches his arm, a tiny gesture of support. "Helps you're not alone anymore. The wolf needs pack, it's kind of a thing."
Comments
"I like 2015. It builds a bit more suspense."
"Will you be in town tomorrow, for the moon?" The relaxed posture and calculated lack of overt thread is helping, but he's still not really at ease.
"Perhaps 'celebrate' wasn't the word you were going to use."
He can't resist the urge to scent her again, trying to trace and place all the layers and depths to her scent. It's strange and intoxicating and somehow awful, in the oldest, most traditional sense of the word.
"May I help you, Lady?" It... seems the most appropriate form of address, at least of those that come quickly to mind.
"I'm Urania. What's your name?"
"I didn't even know there was more than one breed of us before now," he admits, curious but cautious. "And I know little enough even of what's supposedly my own kind."