Internal Screaming

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"Veritas Ratio is a Wolf-Not-Wolf. He doesn't think like one, doesn't act like one, doesn't rule like one."

"And most of all, doesn't h u n t like one."

Veritas Ratio is, by all accounts, a real honest to Nous, Wolf. He has fur, he has fangs, he eats meat, and just because he has a brain and uses it does not make him any less Intrinsic.

The world has changed. Been changing, really, from the savage kind of debauchery it used to be. Humanity, allowed to flourish and thrive among the things in the dark that gave them their space to breed, has created marvelous inventions of convenience. Being meat is par for the course, they're clever meat.

If you eat the ones that make the convenient things, soon there won't be any convenient things. It doesn't take a convoluted amount of math to solve such a problem.

And yet he's treated as a not quite Wolf just because he knows these things.

It's why his former pack shipped him off here, to Astralhaven.

Because Veritas Ratio is a "Human-Lover".

Not in the way of a romp-and-roll, but more he doesn't see them as meat, as prey. As pests, in some cases. He studies them, really, watches them work and gives them coin in return for their work, and keeps shops for them, and somehow he got saddled with running the whole lot because he got too curious and now he's here. As the Wolf in Charge of a bunch of humans and Intrinsic who also didn't quite fit in with their kinds, and they all look to him for answers.

Even the Aeons-damned Emanators turn to him as the leader, which he supposed sealed the deal there, and now he has to keep all these idiots that are now HIS idiots, alive.

He didn't ask for this.

But someone has to do it and, to be fairly honest, he wanted to see how well humans and Intrinsic would get along, because maybe then they wouldn't have to keep culling each other.

So he runs the shops, hires the people (Intrinsic or Human, he doesn't care as long as the job gets handled), counts the money, enforces the laws, studies the humans, fumbles with the other Intrinsic and their customs and does his Aeons-damned best to keep things going smoothly.

Which leads him to his current and most migrane inducing problem.

Veritas eyes the woman across from him with mild trepidation, the coffee shop quiet and still for the unseasonably warm winter morning. Thank the Aeons for Himeko, who cleared everyone out so he and his... well, colleage, could chat in what she insisted was a very important talk.

The "fate of all Gaia's children", or something. It was a little dramatic honestly, even for her.

T. Herta Prime was the primary researcher at Herta Station, one they'd named after her because this woman was such a genius, she outclassed several human and even Intrinsic geniuses by an outstanding divide. Even Veritas held a guttering candle to her brilliance, with the way she improved human technology in leaps and bounds.

But they were two of a kind, he and Herta, for they both suffered the same malady; curiosity.

For Herta, it was the Intrinsic.

For Veritas, it was humans.

Somehow, this had led to many, many collaborations, and he had to grudgingly admit they were now somewhat friends bound in similar interest.

She almost seemed upset today, by her scent and the slight twitch in her violet eye. She took a deep breath, hands folded on the table, the folder tucked neatly at her side shifting a little with the movement.

"The reason I am here today, Mr. Veritas Ratio," She said, a slight pause between the way she said his full, legal, human name. "Is because recently, it has been discovered that a subsection of humanity has been hiding something rather interesting."

She sits in an almost lax manner, hands fully visible, gaze trained just below his eyes- not submissive, but not challenging either. Not that he would have taken any human gaze for a challenge, but she had habits as much as he did.

"And what does this have to do with the gaia nateural?" Veritas asked, raising a single eyebrow in return.

She rarely used his full name, opting for short and simple nicknames that didn't quite feel like proper nicknames. Which meant something was serious enough for her to be this overly formal with him. Right now, he wasn't her colleague Dr. Ratio, he was Veritas Ratio, the Wolf Leader of Astralhaven.

"Well, it seems those utter morons were hiding a peculiar species." Herta tapped a finger against her knuckle, frowning. "And, frankly, none of us on the human side of things are even sure they're ours at all. So, we were hoping to ask the Intrinsic what they thought."

"A peculiar species, you say?" Now, here he leaned back against his chair, his own frown deepening. "And you are... unsure, that this species is human?"

"The data collected has proven otherwise, yes. For all they look human, their eyes certainly are not. Not to mention their abilities, in which was the main reason they were so secreted away." Herta said, now pulling a document from the folder at her side.

She slid it across the small table, the smell of coffee in the air and the warm feeling of his acquaintance's shop feeling faded as he studied the image.

For all his studies of humans, and how he knew what most Intrinsic's humanshape looked like,  the things in the photo looked human shaped, but the eyes...

It was in color and clearly from a high quality security camera, so he could see the distinct rings, the rhombus pupils, and the numb stares they were giving the camera. Each one in the photo wore loose, almost medical clothing, and bore thick black lettering in a language he didn't know along the sides of their necks.

"The files we found call them 'The Avgin'. We haven't found much else to go off of, which has lead to quite the standstill in trying to care for them. We're still combing through information, but what we do have is scant and none of the morons who did this are talking." At this, Herta scowls, something fierce and honestly a little encouraging to see.

She had seemed too calm this entire time, it was good to know she still considered these... Avgin, to be sentient beings. Human or not, it was clear the treatment of these Avgin still considered them people.

He tucks the photo into his shirt pocket, neatly folded. He will need to bring this up to the others.

"I will ask around. In the meantime, you wished to discuss moving a few of these... Avgin, here? To Astralhaven?" He asked, watching her carefully.

"Yes. As I've said before, the Avgin have a bit of a special ability." She quirks her mouth a little, as if amused and yet frustrated. "They can call forth the power of the Aeons."

Vertias jerks in his chair, a hand flat on the table before he collects himself and smooths out his expression. Curse him for leaving his usual mask at home.

"...are you absolutely sure of this." It is not a question. It is a statement.

"Well when I watched it happen in front of my eyes, yes. I am entirely sure, Wolf. I watched a little girl barely up to my hip blow magic onto a seedling, and saw it burst into fruit from the Blessing of Abundance she gave it." Herta said, low and flat. "It wasn't even a fruiting tree."

He exhales heavily, leaning back in his chair to run a hand through his hair. Aeons. The very beings who managed the world, who left pieces of themselves in the form of the Emanators, one of whom governed the very null of Winter in Astralhaven, and another who governed Spring. Who birthed the Intrinsic, the gaia nateural, the primal hunters of the world. Who watched over humans as funny little pets that evolved from life itself.

If these Avgin were able to use Blessings from the Aeons, then they were very dangerous in the wrong hands. Handle this incorrectly, and the Elders would order a Culling, perhaps even wiping the Avgin off the face of the earth.

"There is a rather... unusual Avgin, among the scant hundreds left." The woman sighed, flipping through her folder and selecting a specific photo.

When she places it down, Veritas blinks. Then blinks again.

The man scowling at the camera in the image looks like a young adult, teeth bared in a snarl and vivid, pink-blue ringed eyes narrowed in disgust. His hair is matted, dirty blonde and near brown, and his face is a sharp angular kind that looks a little hollow.