World of Darkness World of Darkness: Attrition - Learning from History [Complete]

[z-Amber Wren]

Amber rarely drove. For starters, her truck was not what one called fuel efficient. Built in the 1960's, it was rather the opposite, and big enough that parallel parking was a pain in the ass. She just hoped there was room in Declan's driveway for it, because looking at it right now, there wasn't.

After a bit of fancy driving, she managed to get most of the truck into the spot and turned it off. The engine coughed as it died, proof that Amber probably needed to go under the hood and tweak things again. As the last rumbles from the old engine faded into the early morning, Amber grabbed the two coffees and the bag of doughnuts and headed for the front door.

This was the first time she'd tested Declan's permission for her to pass into his territory, and she was nervous. Not that she thought he would jump her, but she didn't know that he wouldn't either. So, she'd brought gifts, and hoped he liked sugar and caffiene. With a boldness she didn't feel - in part from nervousness and in part because she was really tired - she walked up his path and knocked on the door.

[Owns-The-Night]

Late night last night. Figures it'd be an early morning to match... Declan half-grumbled, half-growled as he rolled out of his low bed and set his feet on the floor. He had spent some time patrolling the UCLA campus last night, unseen and unheard by the campus security who thought it was their job. Four feet were better than two, and when compared to noseblind, half-retired rent-a-cops there was no competition for a wolf's senses and a lightfighter's training.

He pulled on a pair of jeans and, doing them up, strode to the front door. Just before he opened it, he caught the whiff of coffee and doughnuts along with another, more important scent. His phantom hackles part-rose before he realised that he had given her permission after all, and so he was smiling slightly as he opened the front door.

"Hey." Was all he said in greeting as he leaned one hand on the doorjamb, his silver eyes scrutinising her. Smiling a little wider, he jerked his head into the house before stepping back from the doorway, giving her room.

"Come on through."

[z-Amber Wren]

Amber gave him a half-smile of thanks, trying to ignore the more feral appreciation of his shirtless form. Stop it. That'll only drive you crazy, 'Ber. "So I would have called, but I don't have your number," she said easily. That was partially her fault; she'd been busy and hadn't made time to come and see him. She moved into the kitchen and set down her food. "But I bring signs of my peaceful intentions."

She peeled the lid off a coffee and began to add creamer and sugar. "I also have news," she added, stirring her coffee with a flimsy red straw. "Last night I was hanging around online since I was at work, and some girl in the chat mentioned that she'd seen her history teacher look like a spider-thing for a moment. You might have an Azlu working here." She took a sip of the coffee, wrinkling her nose at the fake aftertaste of the creamer.

"Also, what do you know about Lucien Hunt? I mean, beyond the fact that he's an underwear model and flithy rich and so on," she added, waving all that away as if it were unimportant. "I mean, what do you know about him, personally?"

[Owns-The-Night]

"An Azlu?" Declan growled. Fuck. Not on my watch. he thought to himself. "Thanks for the tip. I'll keep my eyes open." Dumbfuck. So busy running around the campus you miss the goddamn Azlu when even a student doesn't? Well, spider-boy is gonna get sent packing, pronto.

He moved over to the fridge as they talked, grabbing a carton of milk out of it and taking a long drink. "Don't drink caffeine, but thanks for the thought anyway." he said by way of explanation as he lowered the carton and sat down at the breakfast table. Snagging a doughnut he and devouring it in a few bites, he took another drink of milk before answering her question.

"I know the kid's got zero common sense for someone supposedly so smart." he told Amber with a feral grin. "He was actin' damn strange around me for certain. Starin' at me like I was a moonrise or some such and puttin' his fancy shoes in his mouth every time he opened it. Hell," he shrugged and grabbed another doughnut "he's probably gay. Though it'd be the first time one of them got the hots for me."

[z-Amber Wren]

Amber started to laugh, but she had a mouthful of donut. Instead, she coughed and choked a little, grabbing a mouthful of coffee to wash it down. "Ack... gay? Figures." She coughed against, wiped her watering eyes and sighed. "Well, he is looking for me, and I don't know why. Claims to have my insurance card - as if my employers would offer insurance to a register-monkey like me. He said his chauffer or bodyguard or something found my purse. None of them are missing, but the thought that he knows my full name and is looking for me is unnerving as all hell. And I wanna know why he's after me.

"Oh, but don't worry about keeping an eye out for the Host-bitch," Amber added, standing up so that she could pull a paper out of her pocket. "I asked the student for details on her teacher. It's hiding in a female host. You're looking for Professor McArthur - teaches History 102, whatever that is." Her grey eyes gleamed as she glanced at him. "Say, if you need help, with the toasty-hosty, lemme know."

She handed him the paper, which had the information she'd already given him, plus a phone number. "Oh, that's mine, not her's," Amber added quickly. "In case you need to get in touch with me."

[Owns-The-Night]

Declan grinned tightly as he looked over the slip of paper. "Prof. McArthur, huh? Never met her." He looked up at Amber and nodded. "Any help's welcome. Even if it's a weak-ass Host, better to bring too much firepower to the fight and not need it, y'know?"

He frowned slightly as he put the bit of paper aside. "So Little Lord Kleins is lookin' for you? Weird as hell. There's someone else too: they came seeking me out, knowing that this was my turf." His eyes narrowed suddenly. "Come to think of it, that person was real cozy with Mr Hunt at that party last week, too. Smells like they're workin' together to me." He glanced at Amber, silver eyes calculating.

[z-Amber Wren]

Amber had started to grin happily when Declan had invited her on the hunt, but that smile was instantly gone when he mentioned another person was looking for her. "That's annoying," she said softly. "Who was it? Did they say why they were looking for me?"

Her mind was racing through associations, but they weren't really coming. If it had been the one person who approached Declan, she'd have a few ideas. But adding Lucien Hunt into the picture just didn't make any sense. Why would a playboy, underwear model billionaire want to find her? Normally, she wouldn't mind at all, but she suspected he wasn't looking for any rumpy-pumpy. Which was a god-damned shame, because he was huge, if his pictures weren't photoshopped.

[Owns-The-Night]

Declan wasn't much of one to consider his words, but he wasn't a total oaf either. So he ate a third doughnut as he thought for a moment. Two leisurely bites later, he swallowed and spoke.

"They're kin of yours, from back east. They pretty much told me the whole story from their side. Seems the Wolf runs pretty strong in your family, Amber." He wasn't quite able to hide his envy. "I didn't let on I knew you, because I wanted to get your side of things. But they're in the area lookin' for you, and they were damn close with Hunt. Any closer and they'd have been sharing a pair of pants. Hmmph, maybe he isn't gay after all."

He looked at her and gave her a crooked grin. "You've got some choices to make, but for what it's worth they struck me as genuine. Also for what it's worth, I'll back your play. We're neighbours, after all."

[z-Amber Wren]

Amber was still tense when he finished, but it was a different kind of tension than before. She looked younger than she had before, as if just hearing about her family had taken away some of her confidence and maturity. "I don't want them to find me," she said simply. "I left for a reason and I have no desire to return to Massachusetts, or to bring them into my life here."

Amber grimaced suddenly. "If my kin's been spreading tales, it would explain why Hunt was talking about you being a werewolf. If he comes at you with a bottle rocket, you know who to blame, now - whichever one of my hundred cousins they got to come here and hunt me down." But if some Uratha or Wolf-blooded from the Wren clan were spreading stories of the People to the Herd, Amber or Declan were the least of their worries. Grandma Wren would tear them apart for violating the oath.

[Owns-The-Night]

"Hunt did what?" he growled, coming up out of his seat in reflexive anger. Seeing the look on Amber's face, he controlled his temper and started to pace the kitchen floor, cursing under his breath, his broad shoulders tensed.

"What the hell is your cousin thinkin'?" he said, a snarl in his deep voice. "It has to have been her that told him. But why? It makes no damned sense: he's been seen in daylight, so he's not a vampire like she is." He looked over at Amber, reading her expression, and shrugged. Cat's out of the bag now... "Yeah, she got bit while searching for you. Doubt she's gonna get a warm welcome back home either now. Got to admire her perseverance in continuing on, but it's not like it'd be a happy homecoming all round."

"What I'm pissed about is her telling fat-mouth Hunt about me, then him shooting said fat mouth off in a public chatroom." His eyes narrowed dangerously as he came to rest against the counter, his body going still. "I might have to have a word with the both of them. Soon."

[z-Amber Wren]

Amber felt only pity for a moment for whichever cousin had gotten this literal death sentence, before she got uncomfortable. Vampires had always been "other" to her family - nothing to trust or fear, but things to be wary of. In her area, the local leeches had known to stay well away from the werewolves and their kin. It was distressing to realize that something was walking around, talking and walking like one of her cousins.

At least this explained its abysmal lack of common sense. "So she... is it Julie? She never could keep her trap shut, unless it was broken for her... Is Lucien and the leech in cahorts? So what do they want from... me..."

Could they want Melody? Her daughter was the only thing of value that she had; did the leech think that bringing a precious child back to the conclave would allow it to return home? Amber knew that wouldn't work, but she had no idea if this leech was that smart. But the thought curled her blood and ignited a burning fire in her gut. In seconds, the Rahu was just as upset as her Blood Talon companion. "Well, I wouldn't mind meeting Hunt, myself... but leech?" She frowned and said, "I'm tempted to just avoid her. What do you say to the walking corpse that was someone you knew? But I'd like to know what it wants... because there are some things it can't have."

[Owns-The-Night]

"Well, we can find out." Declan grew calmer still (on the surface at least) as planning reflexes kicked in, sorting through the problem as though it were a field exercise. "First some recon. They like to hang around in the public chat rooms: I might show up and listen in. If I see Hunt or your cousin, her name's Sarah by the by, in there, I'll see what I can find out. If that well goes dry, then we can try physical scouting."

He looked at Amber, feeling more focused than he had in months. "Listen, we barely know each other, but we seem to have similar connections here. Let's figure out what Hunt and Sarah want, whether we can let them have it, and what to do about it together. This will run smoother if we're working as a team. Lone wolves tend to work against each other even if they don't mean to." He offered Amber a large rough hand. "Sound good?"

[z-Amber Wren]

"Sarah!? Shane's sister?" Amber sighed and shook her head. "Damn... she was nice. Wasn't nuzusul, thankfully." Amber's eyes narrow. "Death must make you dumb because she was always smarter than this, or so I thought. Shame.

"Wait... there was a Sarah in chat, and Lucien was flirting with her hard," Amber added. "So she... it is dating Lucien Hunt." Amber shivered. "Gross. He must be a sexual freak." Which didn't mean that Amber didn't want to have her own bouts in the sack with him; it just diminished the possibility of it happening. "The chat room idea is a solid plan."

She reached out and took Declan's hand firmly in hers, shaking it strongly. "Sure, I'll help. I'm worried about what the leech wants - with someone like Lucien funding it, I suspect that it'll be more dangerous than normal."

[Owns-The-Night]

Declan smiled as he felt the strength of her handshake. Looking her in the eye, he obviously liked what he saw.

"First thing we've got to keep in mind is not to assume shit about shit." He leaned back against the counter next to her, relaxing as he picked up his milk carton again. "Lucien might be a spoiled rich boy getting his kinky kicks, or he might not. Hell, he might be sufferin' from a bad case of Anne Rice or some shit, thinkin' all she needs is someone to care about her. He might even be right: who knows? As to what Sarah wants..." He pondered this for a minute. "I don't want to make assumptions there either. I trust my instincts, and I didn't get a sense from her that she meant ill to either of us." He took a deep drink as he thought further, then fixed his eyes on Amber.

"It's fine to be prepared for the worst, but we don't want to get things wrong on either side of the math."

[z-Amber Wren]

"Fair enough," Amber said with a shrug, "but I still dont' want to meet it. I grew up with Sarah; I won't want to have a chat with her corpse. I get that vampires aren't truly dead; I don't care. I don't trust them. And it's already shown that it's running around flapping its jaw; I don't want it finding out about Me-"

Amber stopped, hesitating between trusting Declan and deciding that this was none of his business. But she was lonely, and that loneliness was easier to bear when she was around him. She knew it her wolf-spirit was just calling to his wolf-spirit, seeking its own, but she longed to share her pain with someone who would understand what having and losing her daughter meant, on an instinctual level. "I have a daughter," she said softly. "I don't want her growing up with my relatives. So I don't want them to find out about her, and I don't want it thinking that it can go spreading tales to make a homecoming any easier. I'm not saying it is going to do that, but I have to protect Melody."

[Owns-The-Night]

A daughter! Declan's surprise was visible in the widening of his eyes, immediately followed by empathy. He reached out and put a hand on Amber's shoulder, letting it rest there with a soft squeeze before releasing and dropping back to his side.

"I..." he stopped, then started again. "I can't even pretend to know how you feel, Amber. But I do know how it feels to want to protect someone." His head tilted to one side as he studied her, the rest of his body relaxed and still. His body language, wolfish as it was, was both reassuringly familiar and a disconcerting reminder of her family. "Your secret is safe with me. I'll handle any face-to-face stuff with the vampire until you're ready to handle it, one way or the other. We'll look after Melody, don't worry."

He gave her a reassuring grin, a sly crooking of the mouth that altered his imposing expression, making it merely roguish in a dangerous, rugged way.

"So tell me about these relatives of yours. We might have to deal with them one day, leech errand-girl or not."

[z-Amber Wren]

Wolves are social creatures, and part of that communial feeling was touch. It wasn't necessarily sexual, and in the case of the warm hand resting on her shoulder, it wasn't. It was silent comfort that reminded her of family. And he backed that feeling up with words, but his request to hear about her family wasn't welcome. Still, they were companions of a sort, and if she told him, it would be the first time she'd ever told someone the full truth about her family. It was, she thought, a bit of a relief to finally be able to talk to someone about it.

Amber looked down at the table, then dug in the bag. It wasn't hard to see that she was stalling a bit. Picking out the last sprinkled donut, she started, "We lived in a conclave up in the Appalachians in Western Massachusetts. Kept to ourselves - everyone in Peru, the closest town, thought we were crazy hill people." She snorted softly, making her ponytail bounce. "I guess, to them, we kinda were. I mean, we had our reasons; the area was thick with Pure at the time - may still be. I grew up in a warzone, aware that there was fighting all around me, but unable to share that with the outside world.

"My Grandmother ruled the whole family with an iron fist. She's got this weird mix of Puritan upbringing and Storm Lord mentality. So everything is pretty harsh, very strict. She dictated which wolf-blooded went to which Uratha for mating, and controlled all aspects of... well, everything." Amber sighed. "My mom said she loved us, that she was trying to do her best for us. It's hard to feel that way when you see her mete out punishment to your cousins like the Red Queen. She didn't seem to love us at all.

"There were three groups in our family - the Uratha, those thought to be nuzusul and the breeding stock. I mean, the nuzusul were certainly expected to have babies too, but it wasn't a focus.

"No one had it 'easy' in the family, but each person had their different kind of hard. The Uratha had to live up to Storm Lord ideals, which was kinda ok, since most of them were. But it was rough - constant scrutiny regarding their actions and duties, and the endless war with the Pure and the spirits and gods only know what else. The nuzusul were taught how to fight and some of the basics of being a werewolf, to prepare us for changing. We were expected to be the best and brightest of the kids, regardless of our capabilities. We were driven, literally, to be better then the 'regular' kids - when we weren't, we'd failed not just the family, but Skolis-Ur. The other kids were second-class. Not as much was expected of them - all that was expected actually was that they'd stay out of trouble, contribute to food and the community and that they'd breed as much as possible. But they weren't given much leeway to do anything, either.

"Sarah was the third group; her twin brother, Shane, the second. They were inseparable until he started to change. They were split up and we didn't see him anymore. Sarah managed to escape, but only to college. I... stole a truck and ran away when I was sixteen." She gave him a sheepish grin and a shrug. "Probably should have stayed, but I couldn't handle how repressive it was. I just had to get the fuck out of there."

[Owns-The-Night]

Declan listened quietly, only moving to take sips of milk, as Amber told her tale. He was quiet for a short while after that, musing over her words, his eyes on the floor. When he spoke, his words went straight for the jugular with characteristic bluntness.

"Granny sounds like a bitch and a half. Family is more than soldiers and breedin' stock on a fuckin' chessboard." He growled slightly as he spoke. "I was raised by my uncle, my mother's brother. He was wolf-blooded, I know that much now. But damned if he wasn't the last person to show me any sort of fellow-feeling and kindness before I joined the Army." He raised his head and looked Amber in the eye. "If you don't want to go back, and don't want your daughter raised by the Bitch Queen, then it's not happenin'. Before, it was just you. Now it's two of us. And I got a feelin' that is going to grow, too."

He hesitated, pondering how much he should share with the female. But she had been candid with him, so the least he could do was return the favor.

"I met someone else at the party. She..." he shrugged, not wanting to sound crazy, though he could feel his face getting a little warmer as he thought about Morgan. "We talked about destiny and fate and stuff. She told me she was a 'willworker' and that she could do magic. She showed me too. She showed me... I guess you could call it 'Fate'. Strands of it, everywhere, linking people together. It's worn off now, but ever since then, I've been having strange thoughts about how all this weird shit is coming together, and maybe there's a design or pattern there that I can grasp, if I can just figure it out."

He stopped, searching Amber's face for some sign he was making any sense at all.

[z-Amber Wren]

Amber stared at Declan for a long moment. Finally, she said, "Wow, that's something else. A... willworker? That's odd. I'd heard rumors of humans who could do incredible things. But I've never met one before. Do you think... could I met her?" Amber seemed genuinely curious. "Just because I think it'd be neat to meet another kind of supernatural, and not one that's dead."

She tilted her head. "Besides, maybe she'll show me strands of 'fate' or whatever, too."

[Owns-The-Night]

"I can arrange a meeting, yeah." Declan grinned at her. "I've been thinking outside the box on defending my territory. Flexible teams are better for that sort of thing."

He stood upright and moved over to the bin, dumping the now-empty carton in there, then turned to Amber. "I've got to get to work." he smiled. "But I'll be hanging out in that chat later if I can get the thing to play or whatever it does." He shrugged: computers were a small and only partially opened book to him.

[z-Amber Wren]

Amber chuckled a little at his lack of computer saavy, but she hadn't expected him to know much about them. He just hadn't seemed the type. "Well, I'll get out of your hair," she said. "But I'll be back tonight to help you with that Azlu. I get off at midnight, and I'll drive over as soon as I can."

There were three donuts, and she left them for him. The second cup of coffee left with her. At the door, she turned back and gave him a quick wave. "Later, Dec."

[Owns-The-Night]

"Later, Amber." He grinned at her and came to the door to see her out. Watching her walk down the path and climb into her old beater, he admired In a purely platonic way, of course the sway of her hips and the long-legged stride. He waved as she backed out of the driveway, then closed the door.

The house smelled of her now. Faint soap and women's deodorant, but more significantly, the scent of Female that tightened his belly and created longings he knew were way out of line, beyond the pale, and straight-out wrong. He breathed it in as he went back through to grab the doughnuts, then shook himself as though he were a dog waking up.

I better grab a shower. A cold, cold shower.