Your fragile, folded wings

Quite a question she asked, this social worker, and the brunt of it caused a strangled laugh to slip past his lips. Better that than a cry, he supposed. “Oh, my dear lady, she most certainly would. My leaving set off bombs in her stronghold and Morrigan never did take betrayal lightly.” Alistair said, thinking back to his conversation with Briar during the festival. Prepare for the worst, he had told her, but what could they do? Little and less, and yet Miss Lowell had offered to help him with anything he needed. Hmm. “I doubt I could get Briar to speak to anyone in authority, but do you think it possible I could get an audience with my council representative to tell them of her? To ask if she could be barred from Lethe?” A nice possibility, though not one he would put much hope towards regardless. Morrigan on a mission would hardly be stopped by such a minor stumbling block. Still, every bit helped. Alistair smiled slightly when he was compared to his grandson, and ever so slightly more when she explained her conundrum. It brought him joy to help and when one could hardly help but see bits and pieces into the lives of those they interacted with? Well, either you helped or you blocked it out. He tended to favor the former. Her questions were solid ones, but they caused her great pain, and so he reached across the desk, squeezed her hand lightly. “Love is a great mystery to all and yet it is the greatest gift, in its way. My mother always said I loved too easily, too deeply, and that would be my downfall. In a way she was right, I let myself be used and abused to protect my mother from harm. Because I loved her so dearly. And now she is gone.” He said after a long moment, hand retracting from Mira’s but still radiating as much comfort as he could, empathically. “I believe you speak of romantic love though, and that is a fine kind of love too. You loved your partner, certainly. I can feel that clear as anything. But this man you love now, it does not dishonor the love for the one lost to love again.” A softer smile crossed his lips then, perhaps for the bitterer truth he had to give. “I cannot say for sure if I have loved anyone romantically in my long life, I spent so much of it a captive. But I think if I had lost someone I loved, then found another who warmed my heart as surely as this man warms yours? Oh, I would treasure it.”

Was there a person in Lethe who had an ongoing, decent relationship with one of their parents? She could count them on one hand with room leftover. His strangled laugh brought a grimace to her face, not wanting to meet someone who could bring such an emotion from someone like him. “Easily. Anyone can request a meeting with their representative. I can’t promise they’ll squeeze you in anytime soon, but we can work on wording it in such a way that’ll prompt them to be swift about it,” she recommended, pen tapping on her paper as she wrote down a note in shorthand to remind her. If it set him at ease, Mira wasn‘t above asking Andreas to pass along the message. Or... Well, maybe not, she didn’t know what she would say to him yet. The words there, but not. She shook it off, and cautioned him: “They might not be able to deny her from Lethe on your word alone. It’ll just mean they look at her more closely if the time comes. Things aren’t as... strict as they were when I was young, but trying can’t hurt.” She didn’t know whether to blame this on the corruption in the council, or the messiness of the council in general. Denying the council seat seemed more and more of a mistake every day, even if it was truly the only option. Like she could do any better. Mira was relieved for the subject change, but the idea of voicing her feelings - when she was meant to be the professional one - was hardly a step up in her book.

She twisted in her seat, only stilling at the touch of his hand. “Love like that isn’t a downfall, you can’t be blamed for loving your mother. You are right, it is a gift, even if it’s a painful one at times. I’ll say this as a mother though: I would take a thousand lashes if it would spare Lionel any. I imagine your mother is happy you’re free, regardless of what it meant for her,” she said fiercely, trying to imagine if she had a limit to how far she would protect Lionel. There wasn’t one. The comfort flooding her was foreign, but pleasant enough to ease the tension in her shoulders and the worry in her heart. Only for a moment. Love? She tensed, thinking. Did she love Andreas? She... She did. She does. Mira bit her lip. “I know that on some level. Clark would want me to be happy, I just keep thinking how much more he deserved. Like I’m going to forget him if I accept this.” She sighed, running a hand through her hair, wishing Meyer were here. Her brother was better with his feelings, and she wished for the one person who knew her without needing the words. Only three people could do that. One was dead, one was gone, and one was... Well, she imagined he was at work right this moment, wondering why she was avoiding him. “I am lucky to have loved and been loved in return. I suppose... I suppose you’re right, I should treasure it. Not many people find it twice,” she murmured, frowning, unsure of where to go from there. She shook her head and cleaned up her things with another quiet sigh. “I am sorry, this wasn’t meant to be about me. I’ve taken up enough of your time already, too. Same time next week?” 

Date: 03/29/2021 Time: 1:30AM Location: Lethe Hospital

@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.”

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.

“A bit, yes. Cora worries for her children, her husband, given how unsettled Lethe is to how she states it was before. And it is inevitable that her mother would make her way towards Lethe, given that I am here and so is dear Briar.” That was an answer that Mira would want an explanation for, but he would give it. Only if asked though. If she was willing to brush it aside (he assumed not) he would much rather leave those fears unrustled into full flower. The remark about his grandson makes him smile. Were they really? A fine thing. that. He liked his grandson, even if he worried about him with this man who was harassing his wife prowling about. “My dear Mira, it’s hardly unprofessional. The mind wanders, and especially these days. I was there for a bit, followed my family to the hospital to watch over Fiona.” He paused, realizing that was by no means as interesting as finding out just what he couldn’t reach in her aura about that night. What preoccupied her so. His mother had been terribly nosy, he knew full well he had inherited that failing. “What about yourself, Dr. Lowell? If I may pry, what preoccupies you that also reminds you of my grandson? He is your friend as well as your patient, I believe he’s said. And you are a stalwart woman, if I may say so. It must be quite something that has you tangled in knots.”

She frowns, and poorly attempts to hide her curiosity, something spotted easily enough that she gives up on hiding it. “That sounds ominous. Would this mother truly try to chase you across worlds after you both?” The question is stupid, and Mira knows it the moment she finishes asking, a grimace on her face, knowing better than anybody what some people would do when slighted. Seth Lowell is fresh on the mind, still two weeks later, though less of a troublesome nightmare than she expects in light of all else. “I heard about Fiona. I get the feeling you want to talk about something else.” And she’s right, when he begins prying. Her lips twitch, amused against her will at the so very clear similarities between him and his grandson. “You and Gabe are both blunt, and when you know me as well as him, I have no doubts you will be as direct about questioning me. How much do you know about me from Gabe?” It’s as much to buy time as it is to find answers, but he’s as persistent as his grandson, too, and she gives up attempting to hide with a huff. “Oh, alright, I can see this is not something that will be left alone. My... partner died in September, he was a good man and he deserved more than what he was given.” The pang is still there, but it’s easier to talk about than it once was. She falters, mouth opening to speak and then snapping closed, unable to explain Andreas, and the well of feelings for him she is trying to grasp still. This time, Mira sighs. “Love is very strange, Alistair, and I think I’m only just beginning to figure pieces of it out. I didn’t think I would be able to move on, and now I’m afraid that I have.” Too soon, it feels like, and yet she doesn’t want to wait. It’s too confusing, and she grimaces, finally returning her eyes to his, unaware of them drifting to her lap. “Have you ever been in love?”

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.”

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 trail: 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.

Date: January 14th, 2021 Time: 2:17PM Location: Mira Lowell’s office, just off Irving Square

@miralowell​

“Oh! Well enough I suppose. I have people who are kind enough to bear with my inexperience. A fine job, a lovely apartment. A large chunk of my family is here, even if my daughter has seen fit to take her children elsewhere.” Alistair answered, after Mira had asked him how he was doing in Lethe. Once he had been given ID, he had been assigned to a caseworker to help him settle in. At first he had been a tad dubious, but she had gotten him a therapist to sort out his mind with and he quite liked her as a person. So it was no hardship to come to the sessions, especially now that Marielle had taught him how to order a cab to his destination using this smartphone thing she had insisted he needed. “I understand her reasoning and she calls from time to time, does some video thing so I can talk to my grandchildren. You must understand, Miss Lowell: anything is better than my previous situation.” When he had arrived he had been offered a beverage as a courtesy, one that he had neglected to the point that his peppermint tea might be a tad oversteeped. Ah well. Alistair lifted the teabag out by its string and carefully discarded it in the trash can, then set to tearing open the sugar packets he had been offered. “But Miss Lowell, if you’ll forgive the intrusion, it’s quite hard for a Fae to not notice the emotions of someone else in a room. You seem conflicted, preoccupied. Worried about someone you care for. Are you alright?”

“I’m familiar with your family. I’ve only met your kids in passing, but I was your grandson’s doctor for a while,” she admits, smiling, knowing its been a time since she’s had to help him. Mostly because she’s stepped back from work, even if her still up to date license says otherwise, and mostly because he has little need for a doctor as a vampire. Alistair knows little of this, but they are hardly ever here to talk about her, and she’s content with that given she already has one nosy Meadowes man in her life. Said nosy Meadowes man is the reason she’s too distracted to form a better response to his talk of Cora than: “Good, I was worried how her departure would hit you for a while there, but you seem no worse for wear. Did she say why she left, or does this have to do with the past you’ve left as well?” She knows the details about his previous situation, the bits he’s willing to share with someone who is a virtual stranger. A couple months of knowing each other hasn’t changed that, and Mira isn’t inclined to dig into it beyond the necessary bits. Just as she wouldn’t want someone prodding into her past. She watches him make his tea silently, a little amused at the details his grandson got from him -- and then her smile slips, recognizing the look on his face from one on Gabe’s. “You and Gabe are very alike,” she notes with a frown, tapping her fingers on the table, trying to think what would be the easiest response. The one least likely to stir a pot she’s been trying futilely to avoid jostling any further. “I apologize, it’s unprofessional, but I was thinking... about the festival. Were you there for any of it? I left early to avoid the possibility of trouble, but it is relentless.” There, easy, and it isn’t even a lie. Mira is thinking about the festival, even if her thoughts head in the direction of the aftermath of even that.

“Oh? Watch me. There’s no updates, Mira. She’s missing, we can’t find bloody anything, and my uncle’s gone off to fuck about somewhere too, as he always does.” Gabe said, summarizing what he found notable about his family’s recent history into as little detail as possible. Not interesting, not why he was here today. It was Mira that he worried about now, even if he was sure that him turning wasn’t going to erase her big sisterly tendencies towards his own well being. Ah well. You couldn’t have everything in life. The mention of the fire made him sigh and it made her tense, so they should discuss that a tad. “I saw, yeah. Saw, kicked at the ashes a wee bit when I was helping my Da search for Fiona, and I was then told off for putting my dead foot in something still smoldering. Little birds’ve told me that twat council rep of yours has something to do with it. Is that true?” That was a half rhetorical question, practically everyone nosy enough to prod around knew it was true. Aha! And there she went, blushing when she called the selkie man an underwear model. Excellent. He did so like being right about his hunches, even if some might frown upon a recent quasi widow having a mutual crush on someone new so quickly. Fuck them, honestly. Mira’s life as far as he knew was deeply lonely and full of tragedy. Let her be happy for once, that was his dearly held wish for his closest friend. “No, he’ll look at me with his eyebrows knit and ask me what I’m smoking. Believe me, I’ve talked to the man.” Gabe countered, cupping his hands around the tea mug for warmth. A fine thing, warmth. He had never had enough of it previously and now? Now he felt a deep urge to be warm as often as possible. Must be an undead thing. “I’ve seen how he looks at you, and you at him. It’s pretty bloody obvious that’s not how you normally look. I get out and about now I’m dead, you know? But something tells me you’re holding back on analyzing those feelings. You’ve prodded my arse more than once about bottling up, and now it’s my turn to prod back.”

“Don’t get lippy, I’m still older than you. Physically.” Shorter, by a great degree, and almost a century younger, but still. “You aren’t telling me how you feel about all of this - and don’t say it isn’t important, you love that cousin of yours. How are you all holding up?” She’s sympathetic, and wishing her nose could offer more assistance than it had, mostly because the trail was long cold and trailed all over the town. Mira doesn’t want to talk about her brother’s home, or the broken pieces of it still scattered across the forest ground, but then, Gabe hardly wants to talk about his family, so she supposes this is the exchange of being nosy. “Vampires highly flammable, I would think the many vampires in your family tree would mention this,” she tells him, to buy time while she smooths the expression off her face. Her fingers pushing the plate of food away and grasping a mug of tea herself, though her eyes flicker around as if she might except to find the councilman walking through the door. “Well, I have no proof, but given the amount of wolves who still ask for a Lowell, I can’t imagine he and I will ever be friendly.” And that’s putting it lightly. She thinks the people here are such a sucker for tradition, they’ll accept any Lowell on the seat, even one like her, who is the closest thing to a traitor a werewolf pack can have. Still, she doesn’t want to tempt fate and paint themselves as anymore of a target, and yet the moment the conversation swivels over to Andreas, she almost wishes for Maksim to walk in the door and pick a fight. Something to avert the disaster they were heading towards - she had forgotten how pesky feelings can be, and she frowns, hiding her blush in the mug of her own drink. It isn’t hard to channel her expression, to look a little more aloof, not unlike the years in San Francisco pretending to be somebody else. “Oh, you’ve talked to the man, have you? I suppose that means you know him very well, much more than me, the person who lives with him,” she retorts, not ungently, thinking of how to spin his other words. How to turn the tables to something less... open. to his final words. She’s never been the open one, after all. “You’re seeing things, there’s no feelings. There can’t be. Because that would be wrong, and it would be a betrayal.” Her mug creaks beneath her fingers, and she loosens her fingers with a scowl, realizing too late what cards she’s shown.

Date: January 1st, 2021 Time: 12:03AM Location: Andreas’ home in the Lethean woods

@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.

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.

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?”

Andreas was the type of man who would lay down his life for somebody he cared about, and it was this exact reason that she worried over this... Well, she couldn’t deny there was something between them, much as she tried to stuff it back into a drawer, much as her mind tried to remain oblivious to it. Much as she tried to do the right thing. Mira watched him, feeling at once cruel and bereft as he battled his own emotions, half hoping he would fail, but more relieved than not when they stayed locked away. Cruel, indeed, and yet... Mira focused on the issue at hand, rather than the one she would someday have to face. “I’ve told you more times than I could count not to do anything reckless, but you will sometimes. Just don’t get yourself help for our sake either, I don’t want that on my head and you deserve more,” she said simply. There it was again, the feeling of simply being for a moment, no longer drowning under the emotions that were acting as anchors around her ankles, as if his presence was a balm. And the cruelty again, for leaning into this when she mostly certainly should not. Mira held back a sigh, chin tilted, eyes on his face and then away, at the kiss on her cheek. It was best he couldn’t hear the way her heart was beating, or the reluctance of pulling away until her eyes alighted on a photo on the wall. The guilt came back full force, and this time she did sigh. “You never did say what happened back then. It was hunters, I think you mentioned the once?” She squeezed his fingers, acknowledgement of his words, and a nod, too, for the belief she had in them. “You are family, you are always wanted around.” Therein, of course, being the issue, but for a moment, Mira was content to not think about it.

“Osiris and Anubis are not monsters. Not my fault they have good taste.” Ingrid smirks despite the defense, shrugging. The wine isn’t ideal – she’d been trying to pawn it off, really. But she’s not so adamant as to reject it. The smile turns into something more rueful as Mira goes on, and the tattoo artist gives a tight nod. “That I understand.” She sits back then, gaze momentarily out the window. There are no plans to pry into the parental problems, no matter how deeply she may relate. “It’s a bitch, but, you know. They say time heals all wounds. Still waiting on some pretty old ones to be patched up, if I’m being honest, but… I’m gonna assume it gets easier.” And that’s all she says on that, watching Mira’s search for the wine glasses with vague interest, amusement easier than what seems to be the only other option right now. Grief is sneaky, she’s learned that much. No room for it now. “Think I was the one within an inch of my life, if that trip to the ER is anything like I remember. But I’d like to think I landed some solid punches. I sort of remember the guy, but uh… don’t think he was exactly there of his own volition. Got my suspicions.” She’s not going to toss Maksim’s name out in the open, though. Not now. As far as she knows, any Lowell’s got some powerful connections in the werewolf community and as fun as it was the first time, Ingrid’s not really fond of the idea of another knife between her ribs. “Hm. Well, looks like that one’s making a home.” She jerks a thumb back towards where Lionel is sitting, even if he pays them no mind. “That’s a good thing. How ‘bout you, though?” Ingrid’s gaze is level, far from judgmental. “Does it feel like home, or just a nice, wood-paneled rental?”

Date: November 30th, 2020 Time: 1:12pm Location: Lackadaisy Cafe

@miralowell​

“It is a bloody cliche, I’m aware of that. I’m a bloody cliche, Mira. I can’t drink it, but I can, y’know, embrace the aroma of it.” Gabe explained after Mira asked him just why he had ordered a mug of Earl Grey that he wasn’t going to be able to drink. It was a fair question, he knew that, but it rankled. He didn’t know any other British vampires to ask if they had the same yearning, but it hardly mattered. What, were the tea police going to report him? Unlikely. Gabe shrugged, then nudged her knee under the table to get her attention again. “But we aren’t here for me, now are we? Not much life in a subject like ‘Gabe’s gone and become undead’ once you’ve got the basics down. I want to hear about you.” Mira arguably was worse about actually being willing to talk about her woes than he was, but they had an understanding with one another. A detente, if you will. Something was eating at her and he didn’t have to have empathy to notice, just eyeballs in his head and a working knowledge of body language. He had seen her around town with that brawny selkie councilman, the way that the man looked at her, so he could guess. Well, guess badly. It was sounder to actually ask her in the end. “You, Lionel, that underwear model looking selkie you’re staying with. I’m going to assume he has something to do with that look on your face right now. C’mon then, spill it.”

The smell of Earl Grey wasn’t her favorite, the scent a little too strong and familiar for her taste, but at his explanation, she held her hands up in surrender. “It is a cliche, a horrible cliche. Just don’t chug it, I’ll have to make them remove you if you start dry-heaving in front of my salad,” she warned, toying with her fork. Usually a meeting with Gabe involved prodding him about his health, and checking all the things she shouldn’t be given she was no longer his doctor, but it was pointless when he was a vampire now. It was a little impressive the vampire folk were letting him out and about on his own, freshly turned and all, but she figured someone with enough willpower as Gabe would warn her before he lost it. “Oh, there is a lot going on in the Meadowes side of town, you can’t change the subject so easily.” She pointed a fork at him, eyes narrowed, trying to decide which part of her life she could fling at him without opening doors better left closed. “Someone burnt down Meyer’s house on Halloween,” she said eventually, shrugging, as if it didn’t bother her to know someone had purposely targeted her. It didn’t, really, not when it seemed on par for how her life was going since she fled Lethe twenty years ago. At his comment, her face reddened, and she shot a glance around, frowning. “Andreas was kind enough to let us stay with him until things settle, yes. I don’t have a look on my face though, this is just how I normally look,” she muttered, rubbing her cheeks, as if to erase the red from her face before someone saw it. Too late, though, the memory of kissing his cheek was coming to mind and she deflected it with humor. “Did you call him an underwear model? Please, tell him, he’ll find it funny.”

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.”

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.”

“Oh! Neighbors! I’m from Santa Cruz, an hour-and-a-half south or so.” Maya wasn’t great at reading body language, so she couldn’t tell that Mira knew something was up, hence her uppity-ness. “I’ve only been here for a couple months, Mack a little bit longer. She contacted to meet me here, and invited her friend too, who should be coming anytime. A werewolf. I don’t know her. I guess she makes friends everywhere she goes.” She was happy for her sister. Jealousy was the wrong word because she wanted her sister to thrive, but she also wanted to meet people for herself without getting hit upside the head. She wanted to know how Mack did it, found the good in people instead of attracting the bad ones. Well, maybe it was just Lethe (or the screening process, really) because she hadn’t been hit once since entering its walls. 

“There’s far more people from California jammed into this tiny town than I expected,” she said with a snort, trying to imagine how so many different places converge on this one little place. A smile curved at her lips, picturing Mack and the friends who were drawn to her like moths to a flame. “I’m not surprised, she’s very charismatic when given the chance, and friendly, too. Not afraid to talk to people, it’s a good trait to have, not many people could pull it off.” Mira couldn’t, not in every situation, but at least she didn’t have to worry about finding something for her and Maya to discuss, they had a little bit in common. Albeit, she couldn’t imagine how much there was to talk about when it came to their mutual friends and family. Lionel tugged on her hand, and she sighed. “I promised to take him to get his face painted. You’re welcome to join us, if you’d like, but I imagine you want to get back to drawing?” Mira asked, brow raising, leaving the offer up to the other woman. A thought occurred to her, and she paused in walking away to say over her shoulder: “You should come over for dinner sometime, we would love to have you.”

Date: November 11th, 2020 Time: 1:12 pm Location: Andreas’ home

@miralowell​

Regardless of the circumstances, i.e. the charred mess a mile north in the woods that was once Meyer’s house, Andreas found that he was enjoying having Mira and Lionel as houseguests. Mari had made some crack about how clearly he was starving for socialization, but Mari also seemed to have acquired herself a new guest in her shop as well, so she had no room to talk. Having them there took the oomph out of his workaholic tendencies as well, so that was a good thing, was it not? On the average Wednesday he would be elbow deep in cords, but today he was doing laundry and unwinding with Mira after they had spent several hours the other day picking through the rubble. The rubble had given them back very little, but Lionel’s stuffed bat was one of those things and it was fresh from the dryer by now. Andreas carried the basket into the living room, taking the other end of the sofa from Mira, then held up the freshly cleaned stuffed animal. “See? Very well kept, this bat. Does not smell like fire at all, I washed him, oh, three times.” He said, holding it up for her to see. She smiled lightly as she saw it, but then her phone pinged and the smile fell. The fire marshal had promised a verdict on the cause today, so he had a feeling it was to do with that. The bat he sat carefully on the coffee table to wait for Lionel to return from school later, but he himself slid closer to her on the cushions in case she needed a little moral support. Well, and to be a tad nosy. “Well, liefje, I am not…well, I am not sure what we expected. Meyer does not stint in his building.” He said, sliding an arm over her shoulder by way of comfort. “What are you thinking about? You are both welcome here as long as you like, I promise.”

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.”