Lola Hawkes
The last two nights Lola has spent in a
largely empty home, sleeping solo in a bed she'd grown accustomed to
sharing. The moon was fat and full, blood red one of the two nights, so
she did not call to summon her mate back home. She let him have his
time under the moon, reveling in it and wetting his teeth and working
through his stress. It showed on him. She spied new silver hairs
('They're silver', she had insisted, 'not gray,' when he drew
attention to them to complain or give them names at one time) in recent
weeks and understood full well it was what would come soon with the
summer that caused this.
She let him be one night, perhaps even two, but that was plenty time enough.
No
longer content with busying herself and returning to life alone, as she
had known it before Celduin returned without her older sister running
with them, Lola had finished with tending to the large functional garden
she'd made her Project Of The Year, taken up her walking stick and
satchel, and set out into the Bawn proper.
A pause and a quick
chat with one of the Warder's Pack gave her directions to where she
could probably find Hector floating around-- they'd spied him where he'd
slept the night before, at least. So she'd set off, and at some point
or another she'll hopefully be able to pick Hector out of the
landscape. When she does, he'll find this approaching on the horizon:
Lola,
quite pregnant. Well into her third trimester with at least a month
left to go before the child would be full term. She's dressed in a
short-sleeved dress that's hemmed to mid-thigh, white and navy
horizontal stripes, stretched across her stomach because everything had
to stretch there now. She wore functional sneakers on her feet, of
course, with a wide-brimmed hat on her head to keep the sun off her neck
and shoulders. Her hair was piled up so a neck and upper back both
misted with sweat could catch the breeze and cool her. She couldn't
imagine that April while pregnant could be hotter than August of last
year ever seemed. She's not quite huffing with exhaustion while she
walks, but that's probably because she takes her time and utilizes the
six-foot tall walking stick freely.
Hector Ghosh
Celduin
might not have even gone to the moot. It's hard to tell what Celduin
has been doing with themselves lately. One of them is always gone off
somewhere on some quest that they don't see fit to share with anyone
else. They had always had a reputation for catching a breeze and letting
it carry them in one direction or another. But that was when Willow led
them. After Willow fell it was a matter of falling back down to earth
and then trying to keep moving after they'd hit the ground.
A lot
has changed for the children of Fog over the course of the last year. In
June Maria and Glen will have been dead a year. Hector and Lola's baby
is due then.
Hector started losing his fucking mind months ago but
sources say it appears to be good and gone now. Maybe he's spent too
much time around the pit or trying to find a way back to Beloved Horror
that won't let them trail him. Maybe something happened at the airport.
That's the last anyone's seen much of him after all. That was his first
moment of disgrace as a Fostern and it wasn't even that bad.
When
Lola goes looking for him no one is surprised. He's been out of his mind
for so long that when his mate comes around trying to find him it's
just another instance of the Fostern Galliard falling asleep on a rock
somewhere or drifting off into the Umbra for too long. She's in luck
today. The last time anyone saw him he was off by the rock he and Tamsin
use as a gathering place.
He has his shoes off because it was
warm today and his jeans are rolled halfway up his shins because he was
in the creek earlier. His shoulder-long hair is tied back in a bun at
the nape of his neck. He's not wearing a shirt. Fuck that. It's
springtime and it's warm. At the time Lola comes up over the rise where
she can see him he's sitting cross-legged on the rock and scrawling
something in his journal.
Something tells her of her approach.
Something on the breeze or in his ears. He looks up and Lola can see
even from a distance the love staining his eyes. It's been a permanent
fixture in his gaze since the day he jumped down onto that ledge to save
her from falling.
It isn't until she gets closer that he starts
to get nervous. It could take her a moment to sort out why he didn't
come home after the Revel.
Lola Hawkes
Hector
finds his woman in good health, she takes the hill in stride and leans
into the stick so she can push with her arm to help propel herself up
the slope. She's unsurprised to find him at this rock, the same one
that he tended to gravitate toward. It had a good slope, made for a
good surface to sit on and warm up in the sun.
That appeared to be
precisely what Hector was doing when Lola saw him. He knew she was
coming, there was no sneaking up on him. She wasn't trying to sneak,
she'd probably be miserable at it in her condition anyways, plus he was a
Wolf as much as a Man and each had their own ways of knowing when their
mate was about. Their eyes found each others faces across the brief
distance, and Lola lifted her hand to wave (though she didn't wave so
much as just show him her palm and fingers for a few seconds before
dropping her arm again, but he got the idea).
When she drew near
enough to be heard without having to call out to him, Lola said: "I'd
kind of figured you'd be hanging around here. Nice day and all, good
for sunning...," And when nearer to the rock she stopped and looked up
at him, lifting the brim of her hat with her free hand. The other hand
planted the walking stick into the ground-- it was a solid thing, carved
from some heavy branch of a dense wood. It was smoothed and polished
once but worn and dusty with much use. Lola had tied three bundles of
sage with twine and hung them near the top. They weren't lit yet, but
one could imagine that she probably left a trail of lingering sage smoke
behind her when the time came for mosquitoes to be out in force (or
when she needed to keep evil away, but that was another thing entirely).
She'd
paused when she peered up at Hector and saw the signs of nerves in his
eyes and mouth and manner. Her brow crunched down into a frown. "I'm
not interrupting something here, am I?"
Hector Ghosh
In
order to find an analog for this nervousness of his she would have to
think back to the first time they coupled on a heavy moon after learning
of her pregnancy. To remember that Hector's greatest fear right now
first-time father as he is is being the thing that kills their child.
He'd
been a strung-tight mess during Cassandra's visit last month. Lunch had
not been a disaster but it had been tense as the human woman killed the
silence with talk of her own family. How Vijay was doing with his
practice and how their son was doing in school. Little talk of how
Hector's resurfacing had affected him. Likely not at all. His nephew had
been a very small child when he disappeared.
Even if he wanted to
he couldn't be around the boy now without scaring him. His Rage isn't
enough that he can't have a conversation with a normal person but a
normal person can sense the monster in him. It's an instinctive thing.
Lola
thought he'd calmed down a bit after calling his mother. She'll be here
on the third of May. It's a Saturday. They had to go to the library one
day to set up an email account so she could get them her itinerary.
It's printed out and affixed to the refrigerator with a magnet now. The
flight will arrive in Denver from San Francisco at 11:28 in the morning.
His
eyes tick to her stomach and he laughs a tinned laugh. In his muscles
she sees the war between going to her and staying back.
"No!" he
says quicker than he means to. Clears his throat and puts down the
journal and starts to inch towards her. "No, I just... hi."
Lola Hawkes
[Perception 3 + Empathy 2: We probably have a good idea of what's up, but...?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Lola Hawkes
Never
known for being much of a people person, it was a surprising thing that
Lola was able to pick up on their moods and temperaments with any
proficiency at all. For Lola it wasn't really about being able to
soothe or heal those that need it. Rather, she read people because she
knew even as a preteen that in order to lead her people she would need
to understand her people, and Lola was dreaming of leading great War
Packs into battle in those formative days.
With Hector, of course,
her ability to read him comes from other places. Familiarity. Love.
Things of that nature. She watched him waffle on whether or not he
should come down from the rock to join her on flat earth, watched his
eyes and heard the tightness to his voice and throat and words. It
didn't take her very long to sum up where the jittery behavior was
coming from.
More level now, even with her hair sticking to her
neck where it had fallen loose from its place under her hat on account
of how hot she felt in the sun, Lola didn't become impatient with the
Galliard. Instead she set her mouth flat and her eyes resoled, sighed
quietly, and lifted her walking stick to extend the sage-decorated end
to him. An offer to guide him down off the rock. He didn't need the
guidance, but the point was encouraging him to come join her. The
equivalent of an extended hand.
"I've missed you." It's a good place to begin.
Hector Ghosh
He
can't even try to reassure her with a reminder that he's only been gone
a couple days. Ever since he and Tamsin left with the intention to hit
every sept that would listen to them he's been gone near as often as
he's been home with her. Twice now he's been gone so long that he's been
surprised at the difference in the size of her belly between departure
and homecoming.
It isn't entirely his anxiety and his flighty mood
that has had him gone from her but Lola's missing him isn't unfounded.
Hector has been unpredictable since nearly dying down in the airport
basement. Like he doesn't trust himself anymore.
Everyone has forgiven him because everyone makes mistakes.
When
the stick comes forward he is reminded of a Tolkien character because
his brain is saturated in Tolkien stories. If he and Tamsin could move
to Middle Earth they would in a heartbeat. But a smile comes across his
lips and he laughs an uncertain yet grateful laugh and climbs the rest
of the way off the rock.
His approach is a halting hesitant thing
but when he gets near enough to her that he can read her face for signs
of distress so can Lola see the depths of his own. It doesn't stop him
from putting his hand over her belly. It just means he's slow about it.
And when the baby doesn't react to his presence Hector doesn't hesitate at all to wrap his woman up in his arms.
"I'm sorry," he says into her neck. "I'm so bad at this."
Lola Hawkes
With
visible pregnancy comes the risk-- nay, the promise of unwanted
attention from strangers. It was often harmless, really, typically
questions from well-meaning elders or other mothers or people working in
the stores Lola needed to visit to make conversation. But there were
always a few that felt just because a person looked warm and matronly
(due only to physiology, mind you, rarely ever did Lola look very warm,
especially for strangers), who felt that there was an open invitation
for touching.
Two people touched her stomach the other day while
she was waiting around Anthony's tattoo parlor for him to finish a
session so they could go to dinner. One was uninvited, a woman who
seemed perfectly nice but was unwelcome all the same. Lola had twisted
the poor girl's wrist to a point where she could quickly fracture the
joint with more pressure. The time following was an incredibly stoned
young man in the middle of his session that was talking with Lola for
twenty minutes or so during a session break outside. Lola had warmed up
to the hapless young man enough after fifteen seconds that she let him
touch when he was incredibly impressed by how a stomach looked when a
baby flipped around inside of it.
When Hector stepped down and
approached to reach for her stomach, Lola did nothing to stop or warn
him. Strangers had to chat her up for a long time, or they ran the risk
of broken fingers and wrists. Hector was the one person with open
invitation, so he received no reluctance or resistance when he comes
near. He'd see no signs of discomfort in her face-- his Rage was a
palpable thing but Lola was calloused to it.
What passed between
them and reassured Hector was not words, or anything really of men. It
was touch and sense and breathing. When it had passed he wrapped Lola
up in his arms, and Lola tipped the walking stick out away from them and
curled her free arm around his back and splayed a hand between his
shoulders.
"You wanna tell me what 'good at this' even looks
like?" There's a note of humor there, no laugh or chuckle in her voice
or twinkle in her eyes, but a subtle shift to her tone. Hector hears
and senses it more easily now than before-- when they were years younger
and fresh to each other it had probably been much more difficult to
interpret. "Because I don't know that I've seen it from anyone."
Hector Ghosh
Her
question and the followup make him laugh a quieter laugh than Lola has
grown used to hearing from him. With only one arm free and her belly
between them she cannot grasp him tightly. A few inches of height allow
him to envelope her and he holds her as secure as he can without
squeezing her. Presses his lips first against her throat and then her
jaw and then her temple. Scenting her as he goes. A hand at the nape of
her neck assures him that even if he can't be sure of the next several
months no calamity is going to strike them today.
"One day we're
gonna look back," he says, "and it's gonna be like 'Remember when we
didn't know what we were doing?'" His voice takes on a softer edge but
doesn't rise in pitch. Like he's imitating his mate. Tough and feminine
at once. "'Yeah. I remember. You were completely fucking useless.'"
Lola Hawkes
Theirs
was a people between species, given traits of two because they would
best be used to protect Gaia. Because they were what She needed. So
they were Men and Wolves both, and they operated as such. Some things
were best processed with a human approach and mindset-- structure,
detailed plans, battle attacks, puzzles and logic and things that man's
quick and deep-folded mind would be able to work through. Other things,
though, were more real and bright and certain from a wolf's standpoint.
How
Hector held her with his taller body curved down past the space forced
between them by the child she grew, how he breathed her scent and knew
it was her with no poison or altering or injury, how he held her near
and assured himself of the fact that his mate and young were intact and
well, all of that was more primal.
But the Ghosh and Hawkes family, they didn't really subscribe themselves to many human norms, did they?
What
Hector had to say earned him a low chuckle from Lola, the sound in her
chest and throat rather than reaching and bubbling from her lips. She
pressed her temple to his, forehead to his, breathed with him and then
eased back. Being near and touching was well and good, but she was
sweaty and Hector didn't exactly run cool himself either. "You're
being too hard on yourself," she told him flatly. "I don't know what
you think it is you're supposed to be doing, but I'm not noticing anything that you've missed."
Pause, and then as an extra thought she added: "You made the crib."
Good job, Lola. Way to reassure.
Hector Ghosh
More
than one story of Lola's exploits have come to him in the last month.
Always it is with the sense that Hector might be better off not knowing
that the mother of his child got into an argument with Alexis the Black
Fury kinsman over whether she ought to bring a shotgun inside a diner
kitchen or that she was seen with Erich Storm's-Teeth again even though
she and Erich Storm's-Teeth no longer have qualms with each other.
Nothing
wracks Hector's nerves more than knowing he cannot protect his baby and
his woman at the same time. His woman is capable and strong and can
protect herself and yet his is a memory that holds tight to everything
he has ever heard. It will take him a long time to forget the fear leapt
up in his throat the morning she called him from a hospital bed.
As
much as he can remember fears and pains and sorrows his is a warm
heart. He prefers playing and laughing and telling stories of triumph
and foolishness and rejuvenation more than he wishes to dwell on the
dark things. Dwelling on dark things makes him angry. He's a traveler
but not a dweller.
Lola starts to disengage herself from him and
he lets her go. It's hot and they're both tacky with sweat and she has
more than one body to keep cool.
He made the crib.
Given the
melting of his expression and his muscles and the tension in his body
it would be an understatement to say he needed reassurance and yet
hearing it lets him take a deeper breath to blow away some of his
uncertainty.
"That crib," he says as he picks up his journal and
his knapsack, "is going to survive the Apocalypse. It already made it
through Tamsin jumping in it. I am the king of carpentry."
Lola Hawkes
While
Hector gathered up his journal and knapsack, Lola reached into the
satchel that rested at her left hip, supported by a strap that crossed
diagonal over her chest and back. She procured two things-- a lighter
and a bottle of water. The water was offered to Hector first, a drink
to wet his mouth and throat if he wanted it. Whether he accepted or
not, Lola would follow by taking a drink for herself before tucking the
bottle away. The lighter was used to ignite to a smolder the end of one
of the sage bundles tied like a tassel to the top end of her walking
stick. A keen eye at the horizon had told her the sun would be setting
and that was precisely when the bugs liked to come out to chew on your
legs and neck.
"Tamsin is lucky the crib survived her. She would
have gotten the honor of bringing back all the things you'd have needed
to fix it." Lola's tone is casual, and she speaks while holding flame
to sage. Hector can find a sort of matter-of-factness that's
reassuring. He can hope that it would carry over to parenting more than
her hot temper and harsh hand.
When content with the smoke
curling from the dusty dry green bundle, Lola returned the lighter to a
satchel pocket and fixed her eyes on Hector again. Her mouth didn't
make the shape of a smile often, but her earth-brown eyes were warm
enough. She didn't come to find him because she was angry that he'd
been absent. She'd come simply for the reason she'd stated-- she missed
him, she wanted to bring him home.
"That crib will survive
whatever beasts we unleash on the world, though. That's for sure." A
beat, and a hint of a grin formed. "You're the only person that thinks
you're gonna fall on your face. You know that, right? Folks think I'm
more likely to fuck up than they think you will."
Hector Ghosh
Hector
accepts the bottle with a murmur of gratitude and takes enough to rinse
the dust from his throat before handing it back. His knapsack goes over
his shoulder and he takes whatever extra burden Lola will offload
before they fall into walking beside each other. His legs are longer and
his center of gravity is not skewed by the weight of new life. But he
is perceptive and he knows her and he walks slow so she does not have to
push herself to keep up with him.
They're going home together.
More
than one person has joked about Hector's being better suited to
parenting than Lola is. He has Rage lapping at his breastbone and wasn't
born into this but he's become a leader despite all of the hurdles he
had to overcome. His lack of desire or natural ability or confidence
didn't stop him from taking up the mantle when it was necessary. One day
he could be a great hero of the Nation.
But he is the only person
expecting that he will fail. Lola tells him this and he doesn't doubt
her. She knows he doesn't doubt her.
"Yeah, well," he says. "That's because you've got an itchy trigger finger."
He
isn't sure if they're talking about their reputations within the Nation
or within the context of parenting. Either way his joke has solid
footing.
Lola Hawkes
The start of a grin that had
been there before cracked full and spread across the Kinswoman's face-- a
face that was rounder, less pronounced in the cheekbones as it had been
before. This is the softest she's probably ever appeared-- Hector's
dredged up a childhood picture of Lola or two, and as a child she was
wiry and long-limbed and lean. She's always been built of tough stuff.
It took bearing children to put fat on her body and round up the edges
of her face for the first time.
They started walking, but were in
no hurry. Hector would wait for Lola's new shortened gait, and the sun
was only just settling into dusk. There was time to make it home, and
they were a people that lived without alarm clocks anyways.
One
day that may change. Lola has been considering quietly to herself how
she could begin to earn money, to take the financial responsibility of
The Homestead off of her cousin's hands so that they wouldn't be a
burden to him. Maybe if he looked at his connection to the Nation as
less of a chore he could become more involved in it. Lola wasn't
entirely sure yet what she could realistically do to earn money,
though. She wouldn't fight a human country's wars and was left
uncertain of where else a soldier would fit in. This would be a
conversation, perhaps, for another day. For now they spoke of parenting
and reputations and walked at a comfortable pace through the Bawn, Lola
now without her satchel as Hector had requested to take it from her
shoulders.
"Well, probably because they think you'll live longer.
Or that you'll be less likely to beat the children." This was the same
matter-of-fact tone that she'd had earlier, but it's not appropriate
here. Perhaps making jokes about beating kids could pass as humorous,
considering that both of them would more likely take someone's throat
between their teeth for laying a finger on their child than anything
else. She probably shouldn't joke about the fact that her reputation
for recklessness pegged her at the same lifespan as what she would've
had estimated were she born True instead of a Kin.
"More than
that, though, it's because you're good." She glanced sideways at him,
pondered for a second, then clarified while reaching for his hand if
only to squeeze it for a moment. "Just... Overall. You're Good." Good
with a capital 'g', clearly.
Hector Ghosh
They
will have to have this conversation one day. Both of them are physically
capable of performing any manner of general labor jobs. Hell - Lola has
the brains and the lack of Rage that could lead to a high-paying
skilled trade. But they haven't ever had to think of themselves outside
of their roles as younger siblings. This is the first time in their
lives that they are equal halves in a partnership. That they have had to
rely on another person in order to survive.
If it weren't for
Lola then Hector would have fallen into a depression from which his
spirit could not recover. Well enough to say that Tamsin kept him afloat
but Tamsin has her own demons. She needs an alpha. And Hector has
managed to fill that role to the best of his abilities.
But he
also told Tamsin that the thought of Lola being alone caused him
anguish. It was within the context of her giving birth to their child
that he made this confession but it was a general truism. He's carried a
torch for the angry kinswoman for years. She might have devolved into
isolation-induced lunacy were not for someone to keep her grounded.
This
isn't an act of altruism they're performing for each other. If anything
the Nation stands to benefit the most from their loving one another.
But they are going to need money to support themselves and their
children. Both of them agree they're going to have more than one child.
The Homestead was built with a brood in mind.
Their hands grasp
for so long as the warmth and the exertion makes the contact tolerable.
Hector's thumb grazes her knuckles before releasing her again.
"I know," he says. And humble too. "I just... hope I stay good. You know?"
Lola Hawkes
Were
it not for Hector coming back and making sure that Celduin kept its
ties to Denver, despite the fact that its one packmember who had come
from the area was dead and gone, then it was difficult to say what would
have come of Lola. Without someone to be there with her, to give her a
reason to stay grounded in life in this realm, then she would no doubt
have continued down the path of a soldier and made her life worth the
tide of a battle that she hopefully helped to change.
If War
hadn't claimed her, then some well-ranked Uktena, or possibly even
Wendigo may have come through the area, sensed her breeding, and decided
to snap her up and away from her family's land. Without surviving
Garou relatives to defend her name per tradition, there wouldn't have
been much to stop some Fostern or Adren from having her return to their
Sept with them.
"It's a gamble," she confesses when he says that
he hopes he can stay good. Lola didn't wax philosophical much, the most
scholarly or philosophy/theory-based conversations she had usually
circled around war and battle tactics and the plotting of enemy paths.
To speak of the goodness or wealth of a man's soul wasn't really
expected of her, but there were always exceptions to Lola's
granite-chipped demeanor for Hector.
"Or a test of endurance, I guess. We don't all stay good, and those of us who stay entirely
good die much younger than you or I are." His thumb had grazed her
knuckles, and she'd dusted fingertips over his palm and wrist when their
hands parted. With her right hand dedicated to managing the walking
stick and the satchel strap leaving her without anything to hook her
thumb into to rest, the left hand came to the underside of her stomach
for support. Some woman at some store that Anthony had dropped her off
at to "buy some goddamn clothes that fit you barbarian" had shown her
this elastic and velcro band that was supposed to help with the extra
weight, but Lola called it a stupid waste of thirty dollars and now here
we are, using hands for that support instead.
"Besides, we've
already gone over this-- you're not going to be the one bringing harm to
Raksha or I. We won't need to worry about that."
Hector Ghosh
"I dunno."
Because
he does worry about it. He doesn't know if He Who Waits For Dawn ever
gave any thought to the height from which he could fall but he did fall
from on high and when he landed it was a bloody mess whose shrapnel
carried far. The stories they continue to tell about the spirit-talker
out at Sept of the Painted Sands are tinged with foreshadowing. Sure he
exorcised this Bane or cleansed this Blight but he also drank too much
and raped human women and was alone when he made a martyr of himself. In
death he reclaimed his honor but he would have been more use if he
hadn't been an ass towards the end.
Now he's a shadow hung over
Hector if only because the Fostern is not tall enough to step out from
under it. He's working on it. It was only within recent years that he
began to make sense of omens and prophecy. That he began to realize that
there may be some weight to his and Tamsin's meeting. They were both
Lost after all. They were both Lost because of things their ancestors
did.
But they are not their ancestors. Even Lola Hawkes has had to
work to gain her own reputation. She wouldn't have the reputation she
had if she lived alone. It's taken others singing her song to ensure it
will live on after she's gone.
"No," he says after a moment, "fuck
it, you're right. It's just..." He sighs hard. "Everything'll be easier
once she's here and I can hold her. You know? Maybe not easier,
like I know that's when everything's going to change, it's just... I am
worrying. It's like when you have a scab that's all itchy and you know
if you scratch it you're gonna bleed like a bastard and you scratch it
anyway and then you've got worry all over your clothes."
Lola Hawkes
"Won't
be easier," she agreed in that methodical way she spoke when she was
thinking hard on what she was saying. There was a small furrow of focus
to her eyebrows when she spoke this way, a telltale sign of investment
in the subject at hand. Or of puzzlement, though that was usually
accompanied by frustration as well. There's no frustration written
through Lola's frame today, just thought.
"But it's good to know,
still. To be there, past the unknown. It's the unknown that scares us
most, and that's why our people seek the shadows." She was speaking of
the Uktena, of course. Radical and forward-thinking in some ways,
traditional back to the centuries before in others, Lola was a person
who harbored strong tribal ties. This is why she looked warily upon
Calden and Avery, Thomas and Reese, and other non-traditional pairings.
But, in one of many lessons that Lola was still learning, she opted to
do her best to keep her concerns of such affairs to herself for now.
She had plenty of other things to worry herself with than the love lives
and political turmoil of other tribes.
"Can't tell you not to worry. Wish I could give you all the reasons you need not to."
She swished her walking stick into the air in front of them, clearing a cloud of gnats out of their path.
"But I can tell you I'm pretty fuckin' certain it's all gonna be just fine."
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