Lola Hawkes
Mondays are probably pretty uneventful out in the rural region north of Denver, Colorado. Anybody who lived out that far was either working their lands or gone into town to work their day jobs. The weather was cold as winter snapped itself back below freezing, and the skies above were gray. Most people who weren't out working were staying home and keeping warm and waiting for the snow to come and liven up the landscape later that evening.
Calden must have been out on business or something. Perhaps visiting a business prospect or acquaintance, or lending his services to a neighboring farm that his family had good history with. Who knows? All the same, he would find himself winding his way along a narrow, rural two-lane road that was lucky to be paved, making his way back out to a main highway to take himself back home. It wasn't too far from his ranch, perhaps twenty miles if even that.
Out here there are trees that line the road. They aren't especially tall in most places, and scrub lined the floor between the trees, poking out through the snow. They're still dense and clustered enough to throw some shadow across the road. Not a deep one, but the fact that the sun wasn't out and the skies were gray and wanting to go slate with the coming snow made it dim lighting to begin with. The roads ran the small risk of ice, due to the snap in cold, but Calden's truck was well equipped to handle conditions much worse than this could dream of being.
Goodness knows what that man kept himself entertained with while in his truck, be it radio or book on tape or simple silence.
Whatever it was, it was interrupted by a god damned arrow flying across his windshield, from driver's side to passenger's. The feathered tail of the arrow cuffed on the passenger side frame of the truck and went twirling haphazardly into the trees.
Calden White
An arrow.
Just smacked his truck on the A-bar.
And went spinning into the trees.
Now if Calden hadn't noticed the feathered tail, he might've just assumed a pebble had smacked his truck, cursed road hazards quietly, and driven on. But he does notice. And so he does curse, but quite a bit more loudly, and certainly not at road hazards. Maybe at goddamn kids! And then he hits the brakes.
About thirty yards down the road the truck comes to a hard stop. The driver's side door opens. Calden shoulders out, jamming his hat on his head with one hand, grabbing his rifle off its roof rack with the other. Which he promptly lays over the side of the bed, taking cover behind the truck cab.
"Now, I assume you're either a blind bowhunter," he bellows at the treeline, "or an idiot kid raising hell. Which is it?"
Lola Hawkes
The truck skidded tires on crumbling paved road and came to a stop a couple dozen yards away from where the arrow had cut its way across the road. Either side of the road was dense with trees, but the lack of leaves and the deeper shadows and cover they created meant that Calden wouldn't have too difficult a time spotting someone if they were trying to hide. He got out of his truck, grabbed his rifle, and took cover behind his vehicle. He was prepared for anything-- including another arrow, bullets, and since he was a Kinfolk probably even monsters too.
He bellowed out into the trees, but didn't get a shouted answer immediately, not just yet anyways.
Instead, he sees movement behind skeletal bushes and passing through layered tree trunks. Then comes the crunch-crunch of boots on snow and fallen twigs and branches. Whoever it was, they weren't trying to keep quiet anymore-- the sound of a truck screeching to a stop and the shouting that Calden did would have spoiled whatever quiet they were previously trying to achieve anyways, and apparently the weren't trying to hide their existence from the person whose truck the arrow had clipped.
Rather than finding a blind person or an 'idiot kid' (although that was probably highly debatable), Calden would see a woman with her head down, watching her feet, making her way down the sloped hillside to the driver's side of the truck, walking toward the road. She was 30 yards back, where the arrow had come from, and appeared to be dressed not in standard American attire but rather wearing a winter cloak-- no arm holes or sleeves, and it swept too close to the ground to be considered a poncho. It looked like it should be an inconvenience, but she moved without being much hindered anyways.
He'll recognize that it's Lola Hawkes only once she reaches the gravel of the road's shoulder and lifts her head to peer up the road at the truck. The distance is too far to see the details, but she wrinkled her nose in distaste before lifting her bow (no arrow in hand, they're all in a quiver at her hip) and pointing out toward the trees on the other side of the road. If Calden glanced quickly, he'd spy a deer fleeing across a field that's on the other side of the trees there.
It's her voice that gives her away. She doesn't recognize him just yet, having never heard him yell she didn't know his voice right off the bat.
"More like a hunter that had a clear shot 'till your fuckin' truck was the first in an hour to make its way down this road." There's a pause, and then a follow up that sounds more indignant than before: "Is that a fuckin' gun? You gonna shoot?"
Calden White
Oh of course it was Lola. Who else would be mad enough to fire an arrow across a road? Immediate anger -- not the diffuse, undirected damned kids sort but a focal sort -- flares through Calden. She dares him to shoot.
He immediately fires a single round into the air. The gun's report cracks sharp as ice through the winter air.
Then Calden throws the safety on, shoulders the rifle, and steps around his truck. "I know you're young, Lola, but damned if you aren't the worst sort of young sometimes. You're reckless, you never admit a mistake, and you just do not give a damn about anyone who isn't in your little circle.
"Who the hell hunts across an open road? What if a kid on a motorcycle came by instead of me? You could have laid someone out on the asphalt with an arrow through the neck."
Lola Hawkes
With the crack of the gunshot firing through the air, Lola's entire body tensed and bucked much like the deer that she'd been aiming to kill when she clipped the Silverado. Shoulders hunched up, knees bent and leg muscles bunched like she would have to run. The bow was brought forward, but it wasn't as quick to aim and fire as a gun was. She didn't have the reflexes for a bow and arrow built into her like she did for a gun, so she didn't reflexively reach for her arrows at her hip to defend herself either. She just startled, stood lower and steadier to the ground like she would be ready to run if need be.
Before she had the opportunity to really make a decision where to run or how to react, the rifle was shouldered and the man was coming around from around the truck. He called her by her name, and she looked more carefully now that she had a better view of the man, no longer blocked by much of his truck.
"Fuckin' Calden," she announced, more to herself than to him, and straightened up once more. Her teeth were clenched and bared a little in front, and with her hand grasping her bow too tightly around its middle she walked toward the truck. In the middle of the road, too, like she was making a statement about how little it was used by vehicles.
As she walked, she barked back with the same sort of fire and indignant anger as he felt flare up within him.
"There ain't no goddamn kids on motorcycles out here, it's the fucking sticks. That hill--" she gestured fiercely with the bow, pointing to the side of the road she'd been shooting from-- "gives good vantage of that sweet spot." And she gestured just as harshly to the other side of the road, where the trees thinned a little more and apparently, if you were to believe Lola, deer liked to be.
She didn't try to get into the older man's face (yet), and instead stopped to stand a few feet from the back of his truck, feet finding the gravel on the shoulder of the road again. She had a knit cap on her head to keep her head and ears warm, but the broader hat that kept sun out of her eyes and off her face was pushed back to rest on the backs of her shoulders, supported by the attached twine that stretched across her collarbone. Her eyes flashed, her cheeks were red (probably from the cold more than anger, though), and she looked at him as though he was the instigator in this whole thing.
"What the fuck was that last bit, White? 'Bout not giving a damn? What the hell kind of mud are you slinging, huh?"
Calden White
Calden gives a short, angry shake of his head. He yanks the driver-side door of the truck open, slams the rifle back into its roof rack.
"Do I have to repeat myself? There's no hidden meaning here, Lola. You are literally firing across a public road without giving a single damn about who might come rolling down that road. When I call you on it, you fall back on stereotypes and assumptions.
"What, you've never seen a kid on a dirt bike out here? You've never seen a farmer on a tractor using the roads to get around the snow? That's a hell of a thing to bet innocent lives on. What exactly were you going to do if you hit someone -- yell at them for using a public road?"
Lola Hawkes
The way the grown woman scowled at him, it had her looking for a moment like a petulant teenager. Her nose was turned up, and acknowledgement that she'd fucked up flashed clearly in her eyes before they had clouded up with anger once more. Calden slammed doors and guns and gun racks while lecturing her, and Lola simply frowned almost defiantly.
Almost. Soon the young 'fuck you dad' air had faded and been replaced with something that was more of a slow burning anger. Violence trained and written into bones for years upon years that had been left with no outlet mid-pubescence. If Calden had friends who hung out in bars and liked to tell stories, he may have heard by now about a fight that broke out in Castle Rock, where some Mexican chick threw some girl to the ground by flipping her chair. How the criminal playing guitar that night had dragged her out of there in a fury like he was going to beat her raw for it later. How they ripped off up the road in a car and no one got the plates but thankfully no one really got hurt. If Lola still thought she could get into fights with everyday people, she clearly hasn't completely transitioned that part of herself from Wolf to Kin just yet.
All the same, she just scowled hard and heavy and retracted her arms back under her cloak, for the sake of warmth-- to reach out from under the cloak meant to open it up in the front, revealing an outfit consisting of jeans and three layers of shirts stretched over her stomach and chest both. When she wasn't gesticulating actively, it was warmer to keep her arms by her sides. The bow disappeared under there as well.
"Well, no one got hurt, so dig that stick out of your ass. Jesus, man, did I fuck up your truck? Or were you already having a bad day?"
Calden White
Calden shakes his head, the quick hot burn of anger transitioning into something more like disbelief; disgust. " 'No one got hurt, so dig that stick out of your ass'. Can you even hear yourself? I've got eight year old nephews who understand responsibility better than you."
The door of his truck is still open. He plants a foot on the running board, ready to swing back inside, and for a moment it seems like he's about to. Seems like he might just slam the door and drive the hell away. Then -- perhaps against his better judgment -- he stays. Tries one more time:
"It's not about whether or not someone got hurt. It's that someone could've gotten hurt. It could've been me, it could've been a stranger, it could've even been you. And you don't seem to give a damn.
"You're out of control, Lola. You do reckless, dangerous things. You think that's the same thing as bravery, but it's not. It's really not."
Lola Hawkes
He accuses her of having the responsibility of an eight-year-old, and whatever ground he may have hoped to gain crumbled out as though pushed loose by the foot that moved to propel him back up into the truck's cab. It may have been better if he just chose that moment to drive away and left the Kinswoman to stew and rage and curse his name at the empty wilderness. Instead, though, he paused and looked back to try again.
Lola's arms were under her cloak still, she wasn't gesturing madly at him or trying to take a swing to defend her name by forcing words back through they mouth they'd fallen from.
However, she is seething. It's a quieter, slower thing than the explosive Rage that she would've had were the soothsayer's initial prediction of her heritage an accurate one. Instead of bellowing at him in a show of teeth and brute force, she crossed her arms tightly over her chest so that the bow created a curious, sharp-cornered looking lump under the big wool garment she kept the winter away with. Her eyes hooked onto the Fianna Kinsman's face, and she all but sneered and threw back at him:
"Nah, I don't give much of a damn. The worst that happened today was I lost the deer and you spiked your blood pressure. I clipped your fuckin' truck with an arrow and you wanna call me outta control? Wanna accuse me of having no responsibility?" Here, a huff. She sounded like she wanted to laugh, like she was assured of her own victory in her argument here. Under her cloak her shoulders tensed and trembled with ready energy, like she was expecting what was to come next when she swung the limelight around wouldn't be good at all.
"I've got my responsibilities where they need to be. With the Nation. And my Tribe."
She didn't have to say more. The way she rocked her weight like she was waiting for him to throw a fist and the sharp anticipation in her eyes was plenty enough to speak to what she meant.
Calden White
No fist comes flying, no matter how much Lola might expect -- or want? -- it. Instead, only a short glance; a hint of exasperation in his tone.
"Really; this again, Lola?" He steps down from the running board, turns toward her. "I don't tell you how to live your life. I don't tell you to sit at home and I don't tell you to be a good little kinswoman. Whether or not I agree with the choices you make, and whether or not I think they're good choices for you and your loved ones, you're a grown woman and it's not my business to mind yours.
"By the same token, I'm a grown man with no ties to you other than a tenuous friendship that you keep trying to blow up. It's not your business to mind my business, either.
"As for Tamsin. I get it. She's your friend and you don't want to see her hurt. I don't either, and she's my blood. But she's also a grown woman, and you need to stop minding her business. Give her this much credit: if she has a problem with me, she can -- and I believe she would -- come to me with it. She doesn't need you to help her fix problems she doesn't ever have."
A small pause, as though considering whether or not to go on. In the end he does --
"I gotta say, Lola: you surprise me. And not in a good way. For someone who's so vocal about kin being more than the studs and broodmares of the Nation, the property of their respective tribes, you sure as hell seem to have different opinions deep down.
Lola Hawkes
It's surprising to say that Lola was still and quiet and heard the man out. She didn't appear to enjoy it, by any means, but she set her lower lip firm and stubborn and wrinkled her nose and clenched her teeth and she kept her quiet until he was done. By the time his final statement was presented she appeared to be seething-- boiling with indignance and chewing on tacks. Her chest was alight with fire that she used to think would propel her to take up claw and fang, but that day never came.
She didn't gesticulate violently, though. Just shook her head sharply and scowled hard. When she spoke, her voice was strained from the effort not to shout.
"You're confusing 'minding your business' with 'giving a shit', White. If you wanna take responsibility for yourself and no one else? Fuckin' fine. But I'm looking out for Tamsin 'cause I care. Don't you tell me how to watch over or care for my loved ones when in the same breath telling me to stop fuckin' around with what you do with yours. Goddamn hypocrite anyways."
At this point she shrugs her cloak back, exposing the layers of snug insulating clothing underneath and freeing up her arms. She now pointed at Calden's chest with the bow. If the thinning thread of respect that she had for him weren't still intact, and if she didn't hold appreciation for hospitality shown before, she would have whipped him in the chin with the handcrafted weapon instead.
"And another thing you've got all mixed up: Just because I know I'm worth more than a broodmare, as you put it, doesn't mean I don't know what duty is. I respect my Tribe, my Family, and our traditions. I know they exist for a reason. And just because you're content to fantasize about human life and live away from everything out on your land, that doesn't give you the right to shit on the way things are supposed to be and then drag everyone down with it.
"I'll tell ya who you should be worried about-- your Avery. She's a fucking Silver Fang Philodox, Calden. You think diddling with some fuckin' Fianna Farmhand is gonna go over well with her Elders?"
She took two slow, dragging steps backward. Ready to be on her way, wanting to leave before more damage was done, but unable to turn her back on the fight just yet. She gripped her bow and brought it back to her side and the cloak fell closed once more. She had a look on her face like she could both smell and taste something horrible.
"But nah. You keep on. No one's complained or said anything yet, right? Everything's sure to work out okay."
Calden White
Somewhere in the midst of that, sometime between when the bow is jabbed at him like a spear, and when he's as good as told he's disrespecting tribe, family and tradition, and when he's called a Fianna farmhand, and when she tells him -- the height of sarcasm, here -- that everything'll be just fine,
Calden's face just closes like a book. After that, he's just waiting for her to finish: stone-faced, stone-eyed.
When she does finish, a beat of silence goes by. Then: "I think we're done here." He pulls his car door open again and, unless she stops him, gets in.
Lola Hawkes
Oh, she saw when Calden's face closed up and his eyes when stony. She knew he was done listening to her, but she kept on anyways. Sometimes it was just about having your say-- the release of getting the words out itself soothed whatever ache of pride or hurt she might have felt for the exchange by substituting the balm of victory. When she was concluding she was already moving backwards and away. So, when Calden announced they were done and got back in his truck, Lola was already leaving. Again, she was trying to steal the chance to say who ended it, so as he tugged his car door Lola was turning already, moving off the road and into the trees.
Still on the hunt. Not for the same deer, clearly, it would be too alert now. But there was food to bring home, and now she'd probably have to drag the carcass farther to her vehicle than she was hoping before.
She could try to blame that on Calden, on his truck getting away, but she wouldn't. That was a minor offense in light of the confrontation itself.
As far as Lola figured, she would be done with the White family for the time being. If he wanted to shame himself and his lover then so be it. It would take high water and harsh circumstance to get her back onto that man's side again.
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