lonely for words that I ain't spoken

She hated the water, it had always left her feeling strange in the Otherlands, like her skin was prickling and her eyes were burning. Being a selkie explained it, but the discomfort remained. “I needed to pull your arm back several inches more before you would hurt anything, the pain is your brain telling you that you are close to a breaking point,” she said simply, flicking her hair out of her face, annoyed that it had fallen out of its ponytail during their time in the water. Next time, she would try a bun, or maybe ask Mira to do the braid again. Or she would if the wolf would spend longer than a few minutes in their company these days. “You need to stretch more, you’re too stiff or severely out of practice. When was the last time you did this?” Briar grabbed the wall, drawing herself to the edge of the pool, eyes lingering on the webbing of her hands. It was different to fight like this, but like all things, she would figure it out. “Evelien and Mattias,” she repeated, trying out the sound of her birth parent’s names in her mouth and finding it even more difficult than trying to fight with strange hands. “I never imagined what their names were.” She didn’t flinch at the touch, light as it was, but it did draw her from childish dreams of rescue and back to here. “Esther is the selkie who visited a while ago? Is she not related to us?” The woman had been a force of nature, and she rather admired her birth mother was like that. She didn’t respond to the end of his words, a stiffness coming to her shoulders before she flicked the emotion away like a drop of water. Emotions are easy to discard, even if she doesn’t understand all of them. “Did we have any siblings?”

When was the last time he did this? That was a question with a dark answer, one that smacked into his face like so much lead the moment she posed it. The last time he had fought underwater was thirty years prior, the night he lost his family, and admittedly, he was rusty. Very rusty, but the whole point of going to Lethe initially was to be safe, was it not? Yet here he was, more whole than he was then and...patently unsafe. “Too long ago. Not a story I am wanting to tell tonight, mijn zuster.” It was easier to talk about his parents, no, their parents. Warmer memories, should he skirt around how they died for a while. “Ja, that is her, but no, we are not related by blood. There are selkies all over. We tend to take on the languages and culture of the humans near where we live, to be safe. So we are from the Netherlands, across the ocean. Esther, she tells me your name was Beatrix, before you were taken. Beatrix van der Zee.” Not that he expected her to want that name, to feel any connection to it. She had been Briar as long as she could remember, he assumed, but she deserved to know the name their parents gave her. “Selkies, we do not have many children. It is hard to keep them safe, better only to have a few. So no, it is just you and I. As for Esther, she took me in when...when our parents were hunted down. Killed. Mama, she...” Andreas closed his eyes a long moment, taking a breath to steady himself. Old wounds still hurt when you poured salt into them directly. “She sacrificed herself so that I could get away. Papa was cut down trying to protect us both. We lose so many that family, it is not just limited to blood. So that is why Esther is family.” He explained, watching his sister carefully as they bobbed in the water. She didn’t show emotion easily, if at all, but he needed her to hear this. “But Briar, you are family too. I do not say that lightly, but I do not expect you to feel the bond either. It was broken long ago and maybe, maybe we can mend it over time. You are my sister, that is all that matters to me.”

The phone call was still rattling around her ears when a vaguely familiar nurse walked her to his room. Whether the queasy feeling in her stomach was from the rapid beating of worry in her heart, or the morning sickness slowly starting to rear its head. Mira ignored it, focusing instead on taking one step at a time to Andreas’ room. The nurse didn’t stay long when Mira tilted her head for privacy, and she approached the bed cautiously, scanning over his face carefully. Her sign wasn’t the best still, but several months of practice made her feel a little more confident in using it. ‘Asleep in the waiting room,’ she signed back slowly, needing to pause afterwards to flick the shakiness from her fingers. Was she okay? Mira’s lip trembled against her will. She flung her arms around him, drawing him close as she could, mindful of the tubes attached to him, trying to be gentle amidst the swirling fear in her stomach. What was worse, the police showing up at her doorsteps or a phone call in the middle of the night? Her heart had dropped in both, and only pure stubbornness had kept her from crying on the drive over. No such luck now, the battle lost and the tears streaming. The pregnancy was making as much of a mess with her feeling as the fact that he nearly died. She pushed back, swiping at her face with one hand. The look on his face made her glance down, the swell of her stomach mostly hidden in the large sweatshirt she had stolen from Meyer’s belonging’s. It swallowed up her frame, but in a hug? She flinched. He had almost died without knowing. She shook her head, fumbling in the purse she had dropped by the bed in her haste to help him. ‘Spare ones, not as good,’ she signed, then held out a pair of hearing aids for him. She waited to see if he would take them, and then asked slowly, “Are you okay?” What happened, she wanted to ask, but it mattered less than if he was okay. She struggled for a moment to find the words, gritting her teeth against the urge to cry more. It wasn’t like her to succumb to her emotions so easily. “I thought you were dead or dying when they called me, that I would be too late getting here,” she said, voice shaking. She took a breath, unsure of how much of this conversation he would even remember come later. But… Her eyes flickered over him once more, taking in his state. “I’m so sorry. For being distant. I know we have… we have so much to talk about and I have so much to explain, but I want you to know how sorry I am.” She couldn’t wait to say that. She fumbled for his hand.

Asleep? Nearby? That was good, though it did not sound comfortable for sweet Lionel. Yet something told him that both he and his mother would rather be nowhere else but here, given the circumstances. Selkies healed quickly in saltwater, but oceans of it could not heal him quickly enough that he could walk out of the building after this. So it was man’s medicine he relied on now, though mainly it was tangling his thoughts and making it hard to process. He had just started to ponder the roundness of her stomach again when she offered him hearing aids, something he had to fumble through holding on to and adjusting while she settled in the chair beside him. Her question he heard dimly, it was the sentence after that hit his ears like a sucker punch. “Oh. I am guessing that I am hard to kill, schatje. But our luck, you know, must be not too bad if you are here and I am um...” Clumsily, he brushed his thumb over her hand in his, staring at the two of them touching after such a long interval as if he was trying to puzzle out if it was real. She asked him if he was okay and he didn’t have much of an answer for that. Was he? Alive, certainly. He would heal eventually. He had just come up with an answer when she began to apologize, tears beading at the corners of her eyes. “You are sorry? Mira, mijn liefje, dat doe je niet...wait.” English, not Dutch. Not Mhara either, she wouldn’t understand either. “I thought maybe you needed time to process. To think, to just be, so I did not push you. Everything is so fast the past year, so much has happened and...” There were things he kept under the surface of the water, batting them down the past year when the urge to let his heart rule his actions and his words got too strong. In the haze of painkillers, he was a man unmoored, the tethers that held him back cut through, and so he looked over at Mira, as serious as he could be in this state and let them free. Those words, the most dangerous ones he kept to himself. “I love you. I love you more than...anything. I should not have left you in San Francisco, I...” There was a knock at the door and he looked over, startled. A nurse stood there with a doctor behind and Andreas sighed. They had time to talk later. Hopefully.

@miralowell​

He remembered moving, or rather, being moved. Many questions he couldn’t answer and that August had been forced to answer for him after the men who beat him crushed his hearing aids under their feet. The painkillers they had given him were a blessing, but a mixed one. It could have been days since he last woke and in all honesty, Andreas wouldn’t have been able to tell. His mouth was dry as sandpaper, but the tubes in his arm made it clear he wasn’t in danger of dehydrating. Or moving. His left leg was in what looked like a metal cage, he was entirely alone and ach! Had the lights been so bright before? No, they must have been off, which meant someone...his eyes turned to the doorway where he saw Mira. He had no one else to be his emergency contact, and yet with the way relations were between them since the new year, he almost regretted having allowed them to bother her. Almost. It took effort to stay awake, just like it took effort to find words, and in the end he gave up. ‘You are okay? Lionel is okay?’ he signed at her as she moved closer. That was what mattered, that was something he could pull from his garbled mind at any time. His answer was a hug, something he didn’t expect, yet couldn’t pull away from either. Lingering, long enough he noticed a roundness to her stomach he hadn’t remembered before, and could’t quite process. His eyebrows knit, he stared at her long and hard as she sat beside him. It could not be, surely. It was the drugs, and he decided upon that as she settled into her seat, still so beautiful in a baggy sweatshirt that his heart ached. “They broke my hearing aids, I am sorry.”

@august-ulrich​

It was, perhaps, inevitable. You poke the bear (or the wolf) long enough and eventually their claws strike closer and closer to home. Andreas would have thought that Maksim had more sense than to attack a fellow councilperson, but it also spoke to how little he thought of Andreas himself. He had been walking to his truck after a long job, not keeping a sharp ear out as he wound through the alley towards the lot, and that was all they needed. The hearing aids got knocked out with the first shove against the wall, crushed underfoot soon after. He had always been better at fighting underwater than on land, and without any hearing to speak of? He fought as best he could, but it was two against one with a metaphorical hand tied behind his back. The only consolation was that they clearly didn’t want him dead, not the way that they backed off once he hit the ground. “A message for ya.” One said into his ear, loudly enough for him to understand. “The Alpha sends his regards. Hopes you’ll learn your fuckin’ lesson.” A foot swooped through the air, arcing towards his ribs once more, and then Andreas could feel footsteps. New ones, heavier ones, moving towards him. At the same time the two ran, too fast for the other to catch them. A hand reached for his shoulder just as Andreas started to struggle, a jolt of pain running through his leg every time he tried to get his footing. “I do not know who you are, but I am deaf.” Andreas said loudly, hand slipping again and falling once more before the man pulled him into a sitting position. Ah, Ulrich. Not his favorite person, but not a bad one for right now. Better than a stranger, better than someone he didn’t know. “I cannot stand, I think.”

@briarbishop​

“Ach, alright! You break me, you have to explain to the council, Lionel, and Mira why I cannot move for the next week.” Andreas said, hauling himself out of the water and onto the concrete wall of the pool. That was a little tricky if you weren’t used to it with webbed hands, but he had been here many times over since they stopped chlorinating the water. Briar followed at her own pace, scowling at him despite the fact that she too looked worn out. It was difficult these days, finding time for his sister in between all the things happening in his life. The...oddness with Mira, the tension with Maksim, the council falling apart at the seams, but she was his sister. His only family. So he had prodded at her to spend time, pointed out to her that she had never been taught to fight in water and now that this Fiona is back, maybe she needs to double up on training to avoid surprises. It was half an excuse and half a worry, but it worked well enough. The trade off was that if he taught, she also had to let him talk about their family, even if it seemed to irk her. You had to feed her bits and pieces, so he reached for one in his mind. “Our mother, her name was Evelien. Our father was Mattias. You look very much like her but the hair? That is what Papa’s hair was like.” Andreas said, reaching over to push a wet strand of hair out of her eyes. “It was Mama who taught me to fight like this. She was very fierce, also like you. So fierce that Mama Esther, she tells me that she never forgave herself for not being able to steal you back from the Fae.”

Her lips twist, and any words she might have been able to say are fizzling out on her tongue, inadequate for what they were facing. His family, staring at him, gesturing at him, inviting him to join them in a series of clicks that she cannot decipher, but pain him greatly. Does she urge him to go, or make him stay? It’s a conflict racing across her brain until he grabs her hand, crushing her fingers with his own, as if she the rope he can use to anchor himself here. A good one, a bad one, she cannot say. “Something must have happened in town,” she murmurs, not taking her eyes off their faces. “You should–” What, should go to them? Mira is no fool, no matter how benign something looks, it doesn’t make them safe and it goes double for any mischief this town cooks up. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what to do, we don’t know what they are…” She bites her lip, holding onto his hand and her free hand reaches up to grasp his elbow, as if a touch might invoke some comfort. Is he shaking, or is it a chill from the air? She doesn’t ask, and his family is forgotten when a figure breaks through the trees, striding across the leaf strewn floor as if he owns it. She shivers, not cold, but at once feeling very young as her father looms in front of them. “You.” It’s involuntary, the way she breathes it, like his appearance has stolen her ability to speak loudly. He has this way of making her feel small, and it hasn’t changed with death, not when he looks her way with rage glittered eyes. “Andreas, be careful,” she warns, worried, her grip tightening on Andreas’s arm. Seth’s lips part, baring his teeth, and she wonders for a moment if he can speak at all when he comes closer. Her eyes don’t move from her father, looking much as he did at her trial: bloodied, clothes ripped, body trembling with barely leashed anger. Prowling closer, like a predator hunting its prey, and there is no tether to Adam Mallory to hold him back now. “You aren’t wanted here, and you can’t be here. Go back to wherever you came from, you can’t hurt us here anymore,” she says sharply, forcing herself to release her death grip on Andreas, to appear as though his appearance has not sent her heart galloping and phantom wounds stinging. She cannot let go of his hand, as much her anchor as she is his. “Meyer isn’t even here, and we aren’t kids anymore, you don’t scare us. Go away.” A liar, but she isn’t the girl he remembered, and she hopes he cannot read it on her face anymore.

It hurt like a sucker punch to the chest, seeing the specters of his family in the madding crowd of ghosts, and knowing they weren’t really there. But it was countermanded by the sight of Seth Lowell, bloodied and battered, sauntering towards his daughter with his teeth bared. His family wasn’t there, he knew they couldn’t be, that Maristela’s sad smile was nothing but an echo. Yet why did Seth seem so real, so dangerous? It was surprising, heartening even to see Mira face up to him, even if Andreas could feel the tremor in her hands. But should she have to? They felt like a united front in this maelstrom, or would if fear wasn’t eating at the edges of everything. Until Seth spoke, his deep voice rising over the din. ‘Murderer!’ he said, moving closer. ‘No daughter of mine! Traitor! Ran, left me to rot, left your pack!’ Six feet, five, four, and at three Andreas dropped Mira’s hand, stood in Seth’s path before he got to her. “You will leave, Seth. Leave, go back to the hell that you ca-” What he expected was for at most, Seth to fade through him or vanish entirely. What he got was a burst of energy throwing him back into the front wall of his own house, luckily just far enough from Mira that he hadn’t hurt her too. Blue, ghostly eyes glowered at him a moment longer, lips curved as if Seth had more to say, but then he faded. Vanished, like a old projector switched off. It took a moment to right himself, but he was still winded when he sat up once more. Another to find words, though they came out strangled and unintelligible. Mira came to him then, as his family faded away too, and he put a hand to his chest, another towards her own hand. “I am fine, schatje. Maybe, you know, bruised. You are alright? I do not know what I would do with myself if he had hurt you. I...” Love you, that was the rest that he cut off looking at her. He loved her, they had been dancing around the line lately, hadn’t they? Well, for quite a while. If he hadn’t hurt like hell, maybe he could find some courage to say it aloud. “We should go in, lock the doors. Keep each other safe, yes? Stay together.”

Live in Lethe long enough, and you tend to find the festivals blending into each other, but while that wasn’t the case anymore - given her previous memories were tainted by the shadow of her father and the current ones by all the deaths to follow - it still wasn’t a place she wanted to stay for long. A cursory visit, for Andreas to do his council duties to the satisfaction of anyone watching and for them to purchase a set of home-knitted scarves as a late Hanukkah present, which she has laying across her lap, the edges twisted into knots as her eyes flicker to the window and then back to the television. Nothing in his house was going off to signal an intruder, but Mira worries for a moment, accompanied with a glance at Lionel’s closed door and his quiet snores, whether the window to his room is locked. “I do,” she says with a nod, and another time she might be amused by the question, at the possibility that her enhanced hearing doesn’t pick up something that his less than enhanced does, but instead her brows furrow and she follows him towards the door. “You are ridiculous if you think I am letting you go out there alone. I’m stronger than you, remember?” she tells him sharply, words pitched. “I’ll thank you not to sacrifice yourself.” Its a work in progress, them learning to work with each other when both have spent so long either protecting others or protecting themselves, but it’ll get easier with time. Her shorter height makes it hard to see over his shoulder, but it does let her peer under his arm out the door, narrowing on the shadows - or lights, more like, given their strange glow - wander across. “Andreas, what is it?” He has a funny look on his face, and Mira has gotten used to reading his expressions, and the way he wears his heart on his sleeves, but the look is gut-wrenching enough to send her gaze back to the figures. Misty, but their faces grow sharper and sharper, distinct in the moonlight. “Is that…” Mira doesn’t finish it, hand reaching for his elbow, as though to steady him or comfort him, but knows without a doubt that the figures creeping closer to them, drawn by their voices, are people she has only ever seen in photographs.

Memory gets dull with time, no matter how often you drag out the old photos and rip the old wounds open, trying to sharpen it. He had forgotten the way that his son used to tilt his head at new sounds, like a puppy. He had forgotten the way that Maristela had always held his hand in strange places, the way she twisted her curls into something more practical. Maybe it was better to forget, instead of being pummeled by the silvery forms of his family floating towards them both, gentle as a feather on the wind. Maristela called out to him in Mhara, she held a hand out for him, and he found that his hands were shaking as he reached behind to try to find Mira. Mira who was solid, who was alive, Mira who also owned his heart just as much as they did. His first attempt at speaking came out in clicks, so he shook his head and tried again. “They cannot be illusions, there’s too much...no one would know how they looked when they died. No one but myself. But I do not understand where they are coming from. Or why they are coming.” Andreas said, well aware his eyes were full of tears. He needed something real, something solid, and so he reached for Mira’s hand in all this chaos. Twining their fingers together felt like anchoring himself at a safe harbor, even if he could see Maristela reaching for him. Elias too, by now. They called to him in Mhara, gesturing with their free hands so vehemently that it broke his heart. Part of him wanted to go to them, but part of him knew that wouldn’t ease any of his pain, nor did it make him trust whatever was happening here. He had just looked away from Mira again when another spirit pushed his way forward. One that he had only seen in pictures, as he had made it into town a few years after the man’s death. “You are not welcome here, Seth.”

@miralowell​

They had left the festival far earlier than most of the revelers, more out of knee jerk fear than anything else. He was proud of Lionel though, he hadn’t refused to go to Irving Square at all, which would have been fair given what happened the last time an event was held there. A few games, a few stands, and they went back home to watch movies until sweet little Lionel fell asleep midway through one and they had to carry him to bed. That allowed them to swap movies from a documentary to A Quiet Place, which was better suited to the audience now sitting on the sofa. They were midway through when Mira kept letting her attention flit to the window, then back again, and her body language made it clear something was...off. Outside of the house. Something that wasn’t tripping the sensors and cameras he had all over this place. He paused the movie, a monster frozen on the television screen, and stood. Distantly he heard something, though he couldn’t be sure what. “Schatje, do you hear that? Do you...” He asked, only to see her nod vehemently. A hand shot to his hearing aids and he turned them up higher, the better to decipher what was being said outside. “I will check, ja? I will be back.” It didn’t surprise him that she followed, but it worried him. The whole thing worried him. What sort of being could get past his defenses here? None he had yet crossed paths with. Carefully, Andreas opened the front door and saw a mass of spirits floating in the wooded surround. Talking, gesturing as silvery versions of themselves. Including two faces he knew, that he missed more than any other. There.

Given the drop of he into the discussion, Mira knew their thoughts were running in the same direction. For the life of her, she couldn’t think of a legitimate reason to target her, she wasn’t exactly making waves in the werewolf community, but Andreas was perhaps right. It didn’t seem like an attempt to kill, just to scare. “They think I will run, perhaps, but it makes no sense to be so forward, I have no plans on stealing the pack. I have no more wish for them than they do for me,” she mused, the lines around her eyes easing at his words. They weren’t wrong, were they? At the end of the day, she couldn’t stick around for the sake of pride, she had to think about Lionel, and yet the idea of ducking her head and fleeing her home - again - in the dead of night because a werewolf with a head too heavy to carry on his shoulders chased her away - again. She leaned her head on his shoulder absently, though it occurred to her how easy it was to sink into the comfort and gentleness he offered, face tilted up to look his way. His eyes were an anchor, and she blinked, forcing herself to look away. “I don’t want to go back out there. Hiding, looking over my shoulder, it was a difficult with only one werewolf, let alone two of us.” And a child, to boot. No, she shook her head, leaving wasn’t an option and it wasn’t just pride speaking. “If Maksim wants an enemy, he has one then,” she said seriously, blue eyes narrowing in thought, trying to decide what she will do first. Punching him is out of the question, no matter how much she longs to do it. The violence fled in the wake of his final comment, unable to stay afloat with the warmth and safety in her chest, and her gaze returned to him again. Her fingertips rose rest gently upon his face, and she leaned forward, pressing an impulsive kiss against his other cheek. No pause to think before she turning, wrapping her arms around his neck and drawing him into a hug. “You shouldn’t have to, but I know you would. If you’re willing to put up with us, I’d feel safer here than I would somewhere on my own – and if there’s anyone I trusted to watch my back, it would be you.”

There it was again, batting at the tip of his tongue. That love, buried deep but of late, nearly spring loaded with every fresh tragedy that was pushed into Mira’s lap. He wanted to lay it out on the table for her to see like so many flowers, but he couldn’t, could he? Clark had just died, and painfully at that. The kiss on his cheek made his heart skip a beat, so it was lucky that she pulled him into that hug so he could compose himself. “Mira, I would be willing to shelter you all the days of your life. I would...” Andreas caught himself, pausing to take a deep breath instead of letting anything slip. “Probably do something, you know, reckless and stupid to protect you both. I am thinking you told me not to do those things though. Many times.” He told himself to pull back, and yet he couldn’t force himself to, not when they were holding each other so tightly and the scent of her, all coconut and lavender, made his heart clench. Instead he nuzzled at her cheek slightly, he closed his eyes a moment, and he just existed in this far too long hug that they both seemed to need. Despite his vow to himself, he brushed a kiss against her cheek in turn as he pulled away, well aware that a line was being crossed that he might regret. But only might. It could turn out better than he had assumed. “Two enemies, schatje. You and me. I did not wait so long to see you again to turn tail when things become rough. I spent all that time regretting it before, I will not leave you again.” This he said holding her hands in his, eyes wide and earnest as a Bible sworn oath. He had never told her how badly he had regretted his leaving, even if by now she knew he left to lure a hunter away from them both. Yet now it was written plain on his face to be read, so plainly that he was lucky only she was there to see it. “Not ever, if you will have me around. That is okay, ja?”

Marielle’s frown deepens when Andreas questions her, though it begins to lessen when he agrees. All right then, so they have an understanding of sorts. At least he isn’t attempt to change her mind, something Mari does not partake in often. “Funny,” she scoffs, continuing to prod him. “Am I amusing to you, brother? Am I?” Her prodding is enough to make Andreas stand, thus tipping the stool over when the edge of his ass hits it. Marielle snorts, though her merriment is short lived given the mention of Esther. Her smile begins to fade and her eyes get wide, almost stern. “You wouldn’t dare…” Mari’s eyes narrow. The last thing she needs right now is for an overbearing Esther trying to FaceTime her about the three-thousand-year-old fae she has living above her shop. “And to be fair, I’ve dated people much older than I am before, you just have not met them. That’s purposeful,” she points out, setting the lotion she has for her foster brother onto the counter. It’s quite the blackmail he has on her now, which, if it were her, she’d certainly use to her advantage. 

But luckily, she has a bit of her own. Though Mira, she’s sure, would go over far better with Esther than a Alistair would given his age. What Esther would really prefer though, is for them both to find selkie lovers. “Hm, that Max guy?” Marielle does not bother keeping up with the politics here, not when she has her foster brother for that. He’ll keep her updated enough. And now he’s going on about Mira situation, which…yeah, is shitty. But it’s obviously an excuse to offer up his home. I mean really? She thinks, meeting Andreas’ gaze as he goes on. “Well I’m so glad you approve of him Dre,” she snorts, though she means it, deep down. That type of thing is important to her, which is why she tended to keep her play things away from Andreas to begin with. Disapproval. “He’s not ‘my man,’ though. He is a man, a fae man, who I… happen to care about. And yeah, Briar mentioned she knew him, but she did not say all that. Why the hell is she avoiding him and this place like the plague then?” Well now she’s just curious and puts aside all the teasing. What is it with Briar and Alistair, anyway? A father/daughter type relationship, perhaps, from what she’s gathered so far. They both come from the same place, with that woman, who Marielle would gladly punch in the gullet. “I mean if you insist,” she shrugs. Though she doubts she will actually go seek out the woman she’s specifically trying to avoid. “I can just…pop in for dinner one night. Surprise,” Mari puts her hands up and wiggles her fingers around. 

“No I would not, because then you would go mentioning Mira to her and then cycle never ends. So you can rest assured, little sister.” Andreas is aware she keeps her conquests to herself, he isn’t as blind as she seems to think he is, but it’s more accomodating not to mention that fact. For them both, honestly. You can only prod Mari so far before she takes things personally, and he knew better than to dig himself into that hole. Well, at least so early on in the day. “Then we get the lecture about how few selkies there are and oh, could we not find any to marry, she knows someone who knows someone else who...” He rolled his eyes, well aware that Mari had heard the same thing as often as he had over the past forty years. There are few selkies, he’s aware of this as much as any other of their kind, but love comes in strange places, doesn’t it? And he certainly would not put duty to the pod over duty to be true to one’s heart either. The sarcasm in her voice as she whips out that nickname again doesn’t go unnoticed, but he isn’t going to rise to the bait either. She had asked him another question that was more important. One about Briar.

“She...” What all should he tell Mari, who is dubious about this sister of his even now? The short version, he thinks. Smoothed over like a blunted sword. “She says that he forgives her for a wrong that she did to him. But she cannot forgive herself. She has also told me that he helped her escape. So I am thinking that somehow in escaping, she got him hurt. Probably because the Morrigan woman, she had been keeping Briar on a leash too.” It’s an assumption, but not a bad one. Briar was reticent about the gritty details and he hadn’t talked to this Alistair yet, but you could surmise from what Alistair had told Mari the sequence of events. Andreas rolled his eyes again at the very idea that Mari wouldn’t be welcome at dinner, then shook his head. “Ja, I insist. And no, you should say ‘hey dre is it okay to come over’ before you are popping in. I do not like surprises and neither do they. Which is, you know, understandable.” He paused, then tapped the jar she had placed in front of him. “You are working on the species, yes? What do you have for wolves?”

“It is different” Seph was quick to admit as she glanced at Andreas. Just in the little time she’d been away from her home, from her pod, she could already see the contrasts from what she’d known her whole life. “But good different”. It had been a couple of years since the last time Josephine had seen her uncle. He hadn’t changed one bit, but she had. She was more of a woman now and hopefully he’d see that, hopefully it would keep him from treating her like the way her parents and her whole pod did, as if she was still a little girl. The young selkie nodded along his words, grateful for his kindness and attentiveness. Her eyebrows arched a little as he mentioned the river and the mysteries around it. ‘The dangers around it’, her mom and dad would say. “Stealing people?” she asked, more out of curiosity than worry.

She settled in the passenger seat of his truck. A little smile crossed her lips as he talked about the people that might welcome her here the same way he did. Josephine was already looking forward to meet them all, wishing to expand that little circle of family and friends she had known up until now due to her shielded upbringing. “I can’t wait to meet them all” the girl said with genuinely excited smile “And thank you for letting me come here. I don’t think my parents- my dad, especially… would have allowed me to come here if you hadn’t agreed to- well, look after me”.

Good different. He could work with that, couldn’t he? It wasn’t the perfect time for his niece by marriage to come into town, but there seemed to never be a perfect time in Lethe anyway. You just had to adapt around it. “Ja, last year people kept showing up in town without memories. Washing out of the river, you know. Then this year, someone from Lethe who went missing washed up the same.” Andreas explained, backing his truck out of the parking spot with a practiced motion. With another he turned them onto the street and kept driving forwards. They had a ways to go, given how far off the beaten path he had chosen to live. “It has not happened for a bit, but the river has a spirit to it like the oceans do. I think if you are respectful to the river, it is fine, but you try telling these other creatures that. They already think selkies are crazy, some of them.” He grinned at her enthusiasm and reached across to pat her shoulder in a quasi fatherly gesture. She was under no obligation to care, to want to meet these new people that were so much of his life now, but it warmed his heart that she wanted to anyway. “You are always welcome, kleine sirene. I am thinking you will want your own place, so we will look for that soon. I will take the sofa, you will be borrowing Mira’s room and she mine. It is nice to have people. It is very lonely sans pod.”

How much upheaval could she have in one year? It had been her mindset when she chose to move into Meyer’s house, to a place that was thick with memories but ones mostly dulled by age and the changes Meyer had done to the place when he ripped the original down. A phrase fate considered tempting if the photos on her phone meant anything, her fingers zooming in on the pictures of the fire, as if she didn’t have the entire scene memorized. “You didn’t have to, I could have done it,” she told him with a faint smile, predicting his protest before it even left his lips. Andreas hadn’t hesitated to open his home up to her and Lionel while they waited on the verdict of Meyer’s home, and her smile faded as the marshal’s response flickered across her screen. Apologetic, and recommending her finding a place to stay for a while that was a little less well-known. “No, I didn’t think he did, but I had hoped. It would be a great deal safer if it was an accident, but someone doing it on purpose? That means someone chose to do this, someone wanted us to suffer somehow.” She slumped against him, head leaning back to look up at him with a crease to her brows. She passed over her phone, though the report gave little in the way of answers, only detailing what could be saved and what could not, and whether it was arson or accident. “Maybe we should relocate. Somewhere other than Lethe, but I don’t want to uproot all that we have here,” she considered, lips pursed, annoyed at the idea. Lethe was a mess, but it was hers and she didn’t want to leave the people here she loved. “I don’t want to put you in danger, too. Fire and selkies aren’t a good mixture, Andreas.”

Someone had a likely name, he knew that as well as she did. Someone who unfortunately shared a table with Andreas himself a few times a month at meetings, who was more than a little angry at the fact that the former Alpha’s sister and the killer of the man he had planned to take down himself years before was so insistent upon refusing to follow his rules. His edicts, that was what Maksim liked to call them. As if he had that power. “Someone wanted you to learn a lesson, that is what I am thinking. But he does not know you like I do. How stubborn you are, how fierce, and so he thinks this will push you into line.” Andreas said, snaking an arm behind her so that he could hold her close. She deserved that gentleness, that comfort, and he...well, he needed it too. “And as for leaving, I am thinking that you told me once that leaving let all the pack members that hated you win. Maksim is pack now too, yes? So if you leave, if you run, he wins. But Mira, mijn kleine vogel, if you want to, I will help you.” Even if it would kill him to see her go, tear his heart asunder once more. He would help, he would do anything he could to see her feel safer than she does in Lethe. Andreas shrugged off the idea that he could be in danger, then shook his head. “I am not, you know, bragging, but the house is wired and fitted with sprinklers. Pressure sensitive mats, booby traps, etc. And Mira, It is very silly for you to think I wouldn’t brave him for you.”

@josephine-vidal​

“It is just very different, little one. I am not going to lie to you and say it is safe all the time, but it is safer than the human world. I do not miss the way I had to live outside of this town.” Andreas explained, walking his niece out of the town hall after her intake interview. She had passed with flying colors, which he had expected, and now they had to find her somewhere to settle, to spread her wings a little. He had dropped in on Maristela’s family a few times over the years, visited with the remnants of that pod by way of vacation. It had been a while since he had seen Josephine though, and he was surprised that her father was even willing to send her here. “The pool at the gym, you can use that with my membership. They do not chlorinate there, it is okay on the skin. But not salty, I am sorry to say. The river is, you know, not terrible. People are afraid of it though, there is strange magic that has been stealing people in its waters.” Andreas realized as they reached his truck that he had been going full dad on her and giving her only the negative about Lethe, the worries and dangers that her own father would want her warned about. He sighed, then opened the door for her to slip inside. Once she had settled in and he had sat in the driver’s side, he changed his tone. “You do not have to hide what you are here, Sephie. And you will like the friends and family here. Mira and Lionel will love you. Beatrix, I do not promise. Mari is a good soul, but do not let her talk you into anything. She is a little wild.”

Was it a mistake telling Andreas about Alistair? Probably, yes, she is feeling like it is now, but he would have found out on his own eventually if she hadn’t. Best to be upfront with these types of things, she’s found. That doesn’t mean she has to like it though, his teasing. Marielle narrows her eyes, quick to swat her brother in the arm. “Aye! He didn’t have a home, what was I to do? Throw him on the street, oh no,” Mari clicks, shaking her head. “I gave him the apartment upstairs because he needed a safe space. And he has a very bad limp, did you know the woman he was with cursed him? Tortured him and held him captive too, so if I want to pick up a stray,” she begins to conclude, openly annoyed by her brother’s antics, “then I’ll pick up a stray. Fuck you,” Mari adds, poking a finger to his cheek. She’s been looking for a prototype lotion she spent a lot of time on for Andreas, but can’t seem to find it anywhere. There’d been a bin she kept a random assortment of things in, Andreas’ lotion being one of them. Now it’s nowhere to be seen. She’s about to give up when she turns, finding a box labeled ‘prototypes.’ Marielle’s frown deepens. The hell? She didn’t label things…that’s when it dawned on her that she’d asked Alistair to help her organize the place a bit. Well…he certainly did a good job, didn’t he? Marielle’s brow rises, but it quickly crease again when he brother speaks. 

Lotion is flung his way, but only a little. She doesn’t want to waste the whole goddamn bottle in her annoyance. “Oh yeah, did Briar tell you that? I’m not blushing! I have a natural glow and it’s been a while since I’ve had any water today. Fuck you, stop looking at me like that,” she mutters, covering her cheeks with her hands. “So what if he’s three thousand years old, you really think I care about that sort of thing? Age? It’s a number, Andreas, it merely means he has experience,” Mari tuts with a wave of her hand. What experience exactly, well it varies. Alistair is a quick study but he only ever resided in the Otherlands. That makes his experience a bit limited. “Hm…an arson, the house fire? They sound like great excuses for Mira to stay over. It works in your favor, does it not, deartháir?” She teases, a smirk turning up at the corners of her lips. “Fine, yes. I…care, for this man. You can speak with him, you don’t have to avoid him just, be less…you about it,” she insists, gesturing to him with a great deal of hand movement. “I still haven’t properly met Mira yet. I think that’s a real shame considering she’s practically moved in with you.” 

It wasn’t that he was intent on dissuading Mari from liking this man, this Fae who had cared for his sister in the Otherlands for many a year. He just enjoyed razzing her about the fact that she was so attached to him so early on, which in his experience was a very un-Mari thing to do. It had given him pause to find out that he was three thousand years old, but Fae were...strange that way. “Natural glow? I am thinking not, but that is alright. I think I can trust him with you, he seems a good sort. It is just funny, that is all.” Andreas said, swatting away her hands as she prodded at his cheeks. The stool he had been sitting on he knocked backwards in his haste to get away from her and he sighed. “All of these young, pretty things you have gone with over the years and it is this one you like enough to blush. The limping old Fae man with the soft smile. You are lucky I will not be telling Mama Esther about him or then you would be hearing about things.” Things being the standard laments, that none of her children had seen fit to fall for selkies and only the one she had lost for a time had given her any grandchildren. Hanukkah was coming up though, then they would both be in for it. He wondered absently if Alistair would be invited.

Andreas scowled at his foster sister when she brought up Mira. Of course she would do that, the prodding thing with the Gaelic endearment that was meant to cozen him into saying something about Mira that wasn’t her business. Was it only fair given he was teasing about Alistair? Yes. Did he have to like it? No. “Excuses? No, we are thinking it is the Alpha trying to make a point about wolves who will not kiss his ass.” He said darkly, picking up the stool and sitting on it once more. “He knew she was not home, sot it was meant to scare. Chastise. She has lost enough in her life, Marielle. Her home, her family, her safety. Gotten it back then lost it again, you know? I am...” He paused, realizing he was both blushing and getting carried away doing it. Shit. “Listen, did Briar tell you that your man, he raised her in the Otherlands? Kept her alive, it is sounding like. So if that is who you like, you have picked a good one. And I will be kind to him for you.” True, she hadn’t met Mira yet. He wasn’t sure how that had even happened. They ran through so many of the same circles by nature of their bonds with him, with Briar, with others. “I do not know why you have not. You would like her, she is fierce like you. And you would like Lionel too, I think. Come over then.”

Say something? Well, she had much to say and no kind way of saying it. “I did not escape under the thumb of one person to whom I owed my life only to wind up under another person,” she said, snappish, only reigning back her frustration at the last moment. It was not his fault she could not seem to get her feet under her without something knocking her over, it was not his fault that Fiona Laughlin was still gone. Ten days now, and Briar still couldn’t decipher the peculiar pain in her chest. It was not his fault that Morrigan left marks either, invisible to them both. “I do not mean… I do not want to owe you. I owe you too much already.” Her eyes were on the shop, trying to find the best way of explaining the fight or flight feeling looking at it invoked. “I do not know if I should, did I tell you what I did? Maybe this is not the best place for me, to be so close, he is forgiving, but…” she said, trailing off, toying with the front of her coat. It was a borrowed thing, one of Andreas that he no longer wore, until the other coat could be tailored better to her. The process wouldn’t take so long if she could just be there for the fitting, but the Morrigan look alike owned that, and Briar hadn’t yet found the courage to confront her once more. That, too, she could see gleaming several shops down. Her shoulders bunched together, missing the comfort of knowing her place and hating herself for missing anything of the Otherlands. Briar chewed on her lip, and while she could not fathom apologizing to Cora Meadowes yet, she could find the strength to ask this. “Will I still be able to visit you?” She didn’t know if she could call him brother, no matter what the lady over his phone liked to say, but he was - possibly - a friend.

He was getting used to this woman who was and wasn’t his sister. Her quirks, her damage, the little tics that she hadn’t gotten over yet in her time in the mortal realm. One of those was that she seemed to always be looking over her shoulder, be it figuratively or otherwise. Another was that she was proud past the point of sense, so he could tell from the way she reacted that he had wounded her pride a little. Ah well. Couldn’t be helped. “By whose standards, Bea? Not mine. You owe me nothing at all by mine. Do not throw roadblocks in front of yourself, liefje.” Her question surprised him enough that he let the blinds he had been lifting fall back into place with a plastic-y clatter as he turned around. Would she be able to visit? What a...well, what an awful question to consider the source of, really. “Bea, you can visit me and Mira and Lionel whenever you like. But if you choose this place, any place even, you know I will set up the cameras for you, right? So you can feel safer.” The Fae man, Alistair, he was an odd thing to have stumbled into their lives. Andreas was grateful someone had cared for his sister in her time away, but he clearly discomfited her in some way. He had a feeling it was in the same way he had now, but closer to guilt than pride. There was a kitchen table left in this apartment with two chairs and he took one, gesturing for Briar to take the other and sit with him a spell. “Whatever you did, he has clearly forgiven you for it. I cannot make you forgive yourself of course, but you can tell me what happened. I will not hate you, I will not push you away no matter how hard the words are.” He looked over at her, the same dark eyes meeting his own, and smiled. “I promise you that, okay? You are kin, even if you do not feel like it yet.”