11-20-2013, 10:25 PM
The truck is dark the dash a smear of glowing green, night close all around them, Denver's light brilliant against the edge of the landscape as they drive. Everything feels knife-edged. Crowded together in the cab, sharing that sense of vague nausea. Charlotte can drive because Erich taught her how, on long spring afternoons on deserted two-lane roads surrounded on all sides by winter wheat and greening stalks of feed corn, but Erich nearly-always-does and so he does. The feeling spreads or moves or maybe is born native in Charlotte's body, prickles beneath her skin like the spines of a cactus: her awareness in these moments is just-that-sharp and she takes in images in shutter-stock flashes that feel framed and articular.
Charlotte explains to Melantha what is happening: the call they are feeling and the judgment to come and she sounds so present and reasonable as she explains it in discrete little nuggets that convey the backstory without endorsing any particular version of it but even in the truck, surrounded by her pack, the creature looks - a little big green. In profile, she has that drawn pallor to match the nauseated pull of the spiritual call and half-way there the spare little theurge splays her hand around the base of her throat.
Her stomach keeps trying to crawl up through her chest.
She does not know how else to keep it down.
--
Movement helps; the sense of the forgetful earth turning over beneath their feet. That whispered promise of near-wholeness, spirit and skin, that melts over her when they cross into the bawn. Erich parks and they clamber out and hike with all the rest through the darkness. Charlotte is both more relaxed and more alert and she knows the way and the darkness hardly matters, though she does reach out for Melantha's hand half-way through the park to the site of the gathering. Her own: open. Her grip: rather desperately tight. Hushed breath and the nation all around them. The trails both familiar and forgotten, that sense of sinking into time beyond time. The way the earth remembers.
The space is crowded, the shadows are deep. The moon is a cheshire smile and she feels it prickling beneath her skin. Not quite hidden, just a slice: see the way it hooks. They call it wisdom.
Somehow Erich and Charlotte array themselves around Melantha: like bulwarks, like bookends, wholly unconscious of it, and without communication. There are so many strangers here, sniffing in her direction, but then the ripple of awareness through the crowd, and then the elders and then the judgment. No one has reason to watch or even be aware of Charlotte outside of her pack; too much is happening in the center of that loose circle of wolves. Charlotte stands stark, her spindly arms crossed tight and low over her boyish torso, elbows sharp, body language defensive. Entirely riveted on the proceedings, her breath withheld, every muscle in her frame tight.
Oh, Charlotte seems so stoic standing there, with her arms crossed and her spine lashed and eyes affixed on the center of the circle. The elders and their counterparts and their punishments. The rites that begin, the rituals her spirit knows the measure of without word or thought or deed. Which is for the best: there is so much noise in her head as the ritual of punishment begins that she can hardly remember her own name. Charlotte stares, and stares, and stares with such apparent intent that she does not notice when Melantha leaves, cuts back through the crowd to the shelter. Does not even react when Erich begins to shout, when he surges forward, into on stopping this torture. Her already taut frame vibrates, <i>quivers</i> when he is knocked unconscious. She feels that like a physical blow and still: oh, stoic, remains fixed in place when he is knocked unconscious. When Melantha hunches over her arm, crying.
Except: somewhere in there the theurge inhales; something changes beneath her skin and Melantha can feel the change, both familiar and alien. Charlotte's arms unfold and one wraps itself around Melantha as the kinswoman cries, quite unashamed. The Silver Fang rests her chin on Melantha's temple and something about her is so fierce in that moment, and older-than-time, as she draws in one packmate and settles that pale gaze, avian in its intensity, on the other packmate, unconscious now amidst the crowd. She does flinch then, too - visibly and without shame - with each cry that echoes out of the dying once-elder of the disbanded once-sept. Closes her eyes before the end, but feels it nonetheless.
Mourns,
nonetheless,
all the nameless dead.
--
The crowd breaks up. Families and packs and lovers and sworn enemies drift together or apart. There is a child, somewhere, crying.
They are all animals.
Melantha goes to Erich; covers him up, cries with and by and through and for him.
Charlotte does not. Instead she settles on her haunches a few feet away, alert, and aware, watching over them both as long as necessary. This terrible, ageless wisdom in her pale eyes.
Someone else, entirely, beneath her skin.
Charlotte explains to Melantha what is happening: the call they are feeling and the judgment to come and she sounds so present and reasonable as she explains it in discrete little nuggets that convey the backstory without endorsing any particular version of it but even in the truck, surrounded by her pack, the creature looks - a little big green. In profile, she has that drawn pallor to match the nauseated pull of the spiritual call and half-way there the spare little theurge splays her hand around the base of her throat.
Her stomach keeps trying to crawl up through her chest.
She does not know how else to keep it down.
--
Movement helps; the sense of the forgetful earth turning over beneath their feet. That whispered promise of near-wholeness, spirit and skin, that melts over her when they cross into the bawn. Erich parks and they clamber out and hike with all the rest through the darkness. Charlotte is both more relaxed and more alert and she knows the way and the darkness hardly matters, though she does reach out for Melantha's hand half-way through the park to the site of the gathering. Her own: open. Her grip: rather desperately tight. Hushed breath and the nation all around them. The trails both familiar and forgotten, that sense of sinking into time beyond time. The way the earth remembers.
The space is crowded, the shadows are deep. The moon is a cheshire smile and she feels it prickling beneath her skin. Not quite hidden, just a slice: see the way it hooks. They call it wisdom.
Somehow Erich and Charlotte array themselves around Melantha: like bulwarks, like bookends, wholly unconscious of it, and without communication. There are so many strangers here, sniffing in her direction, but then the ripple of awareness through the crowd, and then the elders and then the judgment. No one has reason to watch or even be aware of Charlotte outside of her pack; too much is happening in the center of that loose circle of wolves. Charlotte stands stark, her spindly arms crossed tight and low over her boyish torso, elbows sharp, body language defensive. Entirely riveted on the proceedings, her breath withheld, every muscle in her frame tight.
Oh, Charlotte seems so stoic standing there, with her arms crossed and her spine lashed and eyes affixed on the center of the circle. The elders and their counterparts and their punishments. The rites that begin, the rituals her spirit knows the measure of without word or thought or deed. Which is for the best: there is so much noise in her head as the ritual of punishment begins that she can hardly remember her own name. Charlotte stares, and stares, and stares with such apparent intent that she does not notice when Melantha leaves, cuts back through the crowd to the shelter. Does not even react when Erich begins to shout, when he surges forward, into on stopping this torture. Her already taut frame vibrates, <i>quivers</i> when he is knocked unconscious. She feels that like a physical blow and still: oh, stoic, remains fixed in place when he is knocked unconscious. When Melantha hunches over her arm, crying.
Except: somewhere in there the theurge inhales; something changes beneath her skin and Melantha can feel the change, both familiar and alien. Charlotte's arms unfold and one wraps itself around Melantha as the kinswoman cries, quite unashamed. The Silver Fang rests her chin on Melantha's temple and something about her is so fierce in that moment, and older-than-time, as she draws in one packmate and settles that pale gaze, avian in its intensity, on the other packmate, unconscious now amidst the crowd. She does flinch then, too - visibly and without shame - with each cry that echoes out of the dying once-elder of the disbanded once-sept. Closes her eyes before the end, but feels it nonetheless.
Mourns,
nonetheless,
all the nameless dead.
--
The crowd breaks up. Families and packs and lovers and sworn enemies drift together or apart. There is a child, somewhere, crying.
They are all animals.
Melantha goes to Erich; covers him up, cries with and by and through and for him.
Charlotte does not. Instead she settles on her haunches a few feet away, alert, and aware, watching over them both as long as necessary. This terrible, ageless wisdom in her pale eyes.
Someone else, entirely, beneath her skin.
But my heart is wild and my bones are steel
And I could kill you with my bare hands if I was free.
- Phosphorescent, Song for Zula
And I could kill you with my bare hands if I was free.
- Phosphorescent, Song for Zula