FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

In this chapter, David, ever so gradually, is starting to warm up to the rest of his packmates. He also asks Colin for help with a personal problem.

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Light filtering in through the curtains made David stir. The black wolf didn't want to wake up and curled up into a tighter ball. His eyes shot open.

Light. He slept too long.

He thought he felt the others stir in the bed, and his head quickly snapped up to check. They were still asleep. He let out a sigh of relief.

He slowly got up and slunk out of the bedroom, once out he quickly scampered towards the library. He had only just climbed up onto the library's small couch when the others started waking up. He quickly curled up and pretended to sleep, just in time for Colin to come in to wake him up.

He knocked on the doorway, “David, time to get up."

David grumbled, trying to sell that he hadn't just gotten there himself. He then heard Colin shiver.

“Why is it so cold in here?" asked Colin.

“Fireplace too far," David grumbled in the First Tongue.

“No, that's not it," Colin said, looking around the library, suspicious of it.

He walked into the library and tapped David on the shoulder, “Come on, get up. Jesse said he's making omelettes and hashbrowns for breakfast."

David begrudgingly slid off the couch, omelettes and hashbrowns sounded really nice. He bit his paw hard enough to draw blood to spend Essence to instantly change from Urhan to Hishu. He yelped in pain from the blast of soul-rending pain and blacked out.

He came to with Colin straining himself to pick him up from the ground.

“We really need to get you tied more to the Spirit," said Colin as put David's arm over his shoulders and struggled to stand up. “Lucas told me you almost got yourself blown up last night cause of it."

David could only groan in response as he got his feet underneath him and stood up. He walked out, with Colin's assistance and after getting dressed, to the dining table. He slumped down into the nearest chair, next to Lucas. He was too worn from the transformation to growl at him.

Jesse called out from the kitchen, “Colin, come help me with grate the potatoes."

Lucas spoke up, telling Tsu'mara sitting across from him sipping her coffee, and Colin and Jesse in the kitchen, “My mom moved into her new house today. It's just the street over, we should pay her a visit."

The others all gave various words of agreement. David could feel eyes on him as he didn't reply. He had no interest in paying Lucas' mother a visit. He remembered from last week that she wanted to pick his brain.

The others dropped the subject once it became clear that he wasn't going to reply. They changed the topics to job searching. They all had their eyes on a place they wanted to work at. Lucas wanted a job at the nearby library, and even had an interview later in the day. Jesse was getting money from streaming. Colin had his eyes on a job at a bar around the corner from the den, the Nevada Club of Pioche. The same bar that Lucas and the others, with David forcibly in tow, went to the other night. Colin's reasoning being that drunk people have loose lips and working as a bartender will make it easier to do his wolf-blood duties and gather information.

Tsu'mara spoke up in between bites of omelette, “I could apply for a security job at the mine. They could certainly use it with their thievery problem. My military background should help too."

“Being a seven foot, roided out black woman would help too," David muttered under his breath.

Tsu'mara choked on a mouthful of hashbrowns when she heard that, surprised that David actually spoke to her.

David ignored her response, he ignored most of them until Colin asked, “Any place you have your eye on for a job, David?"

David shook his head.

“How come?" asked Colin, “We all have to get jobs to help ingratiate ourselves with the locals."

“I can't," said David, avoiding Colin's eyes out of guilt.

“Why can't you?" Colin asked.

“I was in and out of asylums for most of my life, and homeless since I was eighteen," mumbled David. He wished Colin would stop prying into that.

“The protectorate wiped your medical file though," said Colin. “As far as The Herd are concerned, you've nev-"

“Colin," said Lucas, interrupting Colin. “Just cause he hasn't been in asylums on paper, it doesn't change the fact that he was in asylums most of his life."

Jesse joined in at that point and pointed at David, who shied away from his hand, “Just look at him. Out of everyone in the pack, he sticks out and disturbs people the most. Morrison said it himself, he looks like a school shooter. How's he gonna get a job looking like he does? Not to mention that this all started when he was a kid. He probably has no work experience at all. So that means no hireability in employers eyes."

“Oh," was all Colin said, guiltily.

David looked at Lucas. Why was he defending him? After everything he did, attacking him the hospital, strangling him when they first properly met, being constantly antagonistic towards him. Despite all that Lucas always tried to offer an olive branch. Being excited that he wasn't the only Ithaeur in the pack, trying to get to know him when they moved in, even saving his life last night against the meth heads.

He glared at Jesse, not liking how much the Irraka lambasted him in his own, demented way of defending him from Colin's criticisms.

He moped as he picked at his breakfast, his mind stuck looking back on the hunt last night. He did so badly, Lucas and Jesse weren't even touched, and Tsu'mara was barely touched. All he did was tear off the RV and get immediately lit up by the meth heads inside. Even his only kill was only because of Tsu'mara, and even then he wasn't sure how he did that.

“Colin?" asked David.

“Hm?" answered Colin with a mouthful of hashbrowns and omelette.

“Last night, during the hunt, I used my Tongue of Fire Shadow Gift. But I don't know how I did," said David.

Colin thought to himself as he chewed his food, before swallowing and replying, “Shadow Gifts are branded into your very soul, like your Auspice is. So it's a part of you, it's instinctual like breathing."

“You can control how you breathe though," countered David.

Colin nodded in agreement, “True, true. And I might be able to help with that but it'd be better if-"

David growled, interrupting Colin. He knew where Colin was trying to lead him to. He didn't want Lucas teaching him, he wanted Colin.

Colin pinched the bridge of his nose, “Okay, fine. I'll see what I can do after I get back from the bar. I was able to teach you basics like using essence, but I might struggle when it comes to more advanced stuff like Shadow Gifts. I'm only a tutor, you'd be better off wit-"

David growled again.

“Ugh, fine. Fine," snapped Colin, admitting defeat. “I had something else planned for a lesson but I'll do this instead."

Colin stabbed at his breakfast and muttered, “At least you're speaking in front of the others now."

David moped at Colin's remark and poked at his breakfast, he didn't finish it until well after everyone finished theirs and started leaving to do their own things during the day, leaving him alone in the den.

He found it extremely boring in the den by himself. He had spent a few hours in the library sketching ideas for murals inspired by the carvings in the dining table. He didn't think he'd do anything with the ideas, as he didn't have the right kind of paint for a wall mural and also didn't want to give Lucas the satisfaction. Even though his packmate had done so much for him, and is still trying to.

He whined in guilt before slamming his sketchbook closed and throwing it across the room in a sudden rage.

Not wanting to sketch anything anymore he searched for something else to do but struggled to find anything. There was nothing else he could find to do. There was no TV to watch, and Jesse's computer was password protected.

He slumped down on the library's couch, he'd given up on trying to read anything in the library. It was just book after book of dull explanation of the spirit world, werewolf politics, legends, and other supernatural creatures in the world.

He was never much of a reader, preferring to watch documentaries or do it and experience it himself. He didn't understand how Colin made it so engaging in his lessons to review stuff from the books in that room, nor did he understand how Lucas loved all these books as much as he did. The other Ithaeur spent almost all his free time in the library.

He slid sideways on the couch until he was lying on his side on the couch. He hugged himself and shivered in the cold room, he wished his brother Michael was still alive. He wanted someone to play catch with.

He heard the front door open and he shot up, excited. Someone was home. He sniffed the air and immediately recognised the fruity smell. Colin!

He shot off the couch and to the library's doorway. He poked his head out, trying to make it seem like he wasn't too overly excited. Colin was already at the dining table, holding a grocery bag. Colin noticed him peeking out of the library.

“Oh, there you are," said Colin, with an odd look on his face. Almost as if he was trying to hide a smile.

He handed David the grocery bag, “Take this to the unfinished cabin while I get some water to put out any fires you might cause. I don't want to risk burning down the house and we can't do it outside at risk of being seen."

He did as he was told and on the way to the old, rotting cabin he snooped inside the grocery bag. It was full of candles and lighters. He entered the run down cabin, and careful of where he stepped, sat down on his knees on the rotting floor. He made sure that he sat where one of the floor joists were after, despite his careful steps, put his foot straight through the floor.

How was it even possible for the cabin to be renovated? It seemed like a lost cause.

Colin arrived at the cabin at that point holding two buckets of water.

“Watch where you step. You'll fall right through if you don't step on the supports," warned David.

Colin listened and took soft, careful steps. Feeling out the integrity of the floor before he put his weight on it. He set down the buckets and sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of David.

He reached over for the grocery bag and pulled out a candle, a candle holder, and a lighter.

He lit the candle and set it in the holder in between the two of them. “You got your Tongue of Fire Shadow Gift from a spirit of fire and rage. So I can only assume you used it without knowing during the Siskur-Dah because you were angry. You do have a bit of an anger problem."

David started to growl but Colin immediately smacked him up the side of the head.

“Don't start," warned Colin. “It's true, and if you always use your anger to use Tongue of Fire you'll end up getting burnt."

“Now look at the candle flame," ordered Colin.

David did as he was told and looked into the bright yellow teardrop of flame that danced on the candle's wick.

“If you want to control your Shadow Gift, you need to find a better, more safe emotion to use as a focus. Anger is easy but too difficult to control. Like throwing gas on a fire. It'll get the fire going faster but it'll be too easy to lose control of it," said Colin.

“What is anger?" asked Colin.

David thought to himself. Colin was clearly trying to lead him to a predetermined conclusion and David knew that it was the kind of question he wouldn't get right on the first try. He answered, quoting his doctors “Anger is an emotion characterised by antag-"

“No," said Colin, interrupting David. “Not what is anger to your doctors. What is anger to_ you_?"

David stammered, trying to explain it. But he couldn't. Anger was something that followed him most his life since his family died. He couldn't explain it in words despite it constantly whispering in his ears. Smoldering promises of-

“This is supposed to be a lesson not a fucking therapy session!" snapped David

“Language!" Colin snapped back, “And c-!"

And there it was. Colin was about to utter the phrase that never succeeded in doing what was told and always did the opposite.

“CALM DOWN?!" roared David and in reply, to his surprise, the candle flame roared up to a foot long stream so bright it went from its usual hot yellow to a blinding white.

“See what I mean?" asked Colin in a serious tone. “If you don't find a safer emotion to use as a focus you'll end up losing control and hurting yourself and the ones close to you."

“Now. Please," said Colin, in a much softer tone. “What is anger to you?"

David held his tongue, hesitant to answer.

Colin reached forward and gently grabbed David's hands. He pulled them towards himself until they were on either side of the candle in between the pair. He said, “I'm not an idiot psychologist who's gonna drug you up to the gills according to some stupid thesis that some arrogant scientist submitted that's just gonna be disproven in a decade."

David choked on his words and stammered, unable to find the proper words for his feelings.

“How do you portray anger when painting?" asked Colin.

David found it much easier to explain after being asked that, “It's warm, no. It's hot. Red hot and scorched black. It's almost seductive. Promising to keep you warm but…"

He trailed off, guilt gnawing at his stomach.

“Go on," Colin said gently. “Keep going."

David continued to look into the candle flame, the candle it was atop of much shorter than before from his outburst. He picked up from where he trailed off, “It promises to keep you warm but while it keeps me warm in the moment, it leaves me a burnt out husk after it's gone. It's like a drug, it keeps me coming back to it to stay in the warmth. To escape that coldness it leaves me in after it's gone."

“Anger is many things," said Colin. “How you described it makes it out to be a purely negative force. But without anger, how could the downtrodden be inspired to overthrow their oppressor and better their lives for themselves and their loved ones? Without anger how could someone be inspired to protect those who have been wronged?"

David's heart started to race as Colin was still holding his hands.

He kept talking, “Anger is many things, and all of them can be described as one thing; Passion. A broad, and, well, fiery emotion. The fire and rage spirit you got your Shadow Gift from could also be accurately described as just a spirit of passion. You're such an angry person because you're an extremely passionate person. But the people who were supposed to help and support you after you became Wolf-blood didn't. Instead of stoking that passion towards positive things, they mistreated you, making that passion fester into a constant rage towards everything around you."

Butterflies swarmed in David's stomach as Colin's thumbs stroked David's palms.

“Everything that happened to you happened at such an important, formative age. The anger you always feel may lessen and cool somewhat, but I don't think it will ever truly leave you. You can vent it in healthier ways. Like expressing it more in your art. And also by exercise. Tsu'mara can show you-"

David yanked his hands away and snapped, “You're supposed to be teaching me how to better use my Shadow Gift."

Colin crossed his arms and snapped back, “And I can't do that if you keep retreating into the anger that has you lashing out at the others and will make you lose control of your Gift like you just did before."

David stood up to storm up, but the first stomp he took sent his foot straight through the rotting floor. He fell to his knees and snarled when the hole he made scraped his shin bloody. His vision started to blur and his eyes burned.

“David," Colin said sadly, “They're your pack. Your family. You can't-"

“My family's dead!" snapped David while he angrily wiped away the tears burning his eyes.

“David, please," begged Colin. “They're your family too. We're your family."

Colin including himself in the last comment felt like a stab in the heart to David. He couldn't bring himself to retort, not wanting to hurt Colin.

Colin offered both his hands to David, and kept them held out when David refused to take them. But, eventually, David slunk back over to Colin and the burning candle. He wiped his eyes before taking Colin's hands again.

“Now concentrate," said Colin. “Use your passion, not your anger to influence the candle. You don't have to tell me, just focus on whatever passion you choose."

David closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. It was spirit magic, and he knew trying to think logically about anything concerning spirits would lead him to failure. He had to think more emotionally, do what felt right. But not using his anger to influence left him stumped. What could he use instead? Passion felt too broad a thing to focus on. He also had trouble focusing because of Colin's hands still holding his, making butterflies fly in stomach and his face flush.

“Good!" Colin suddenly exclaimed. “Very good!"

David opened his eyes in confusion, and gasped when he saw the candle flame wavering a full foot in length from the candle, which was quickly burning up. Once the wick and wax was all gone, the lengthened flame sputtered out.

“Your Shadow Gift is pretty weak right now," said Colin. “So all you'll be able to do with your Gift is intensify already existing sources of flame. But there's plenty of things you can do with that if you're creative."

“What can I do when it's stronger and how can I make it stronger?" asked David as Colin started digging around the grocery bag for another candle.

“You'll be able to start moving it around. Taking it from its source and moving it elsewhere. The stronger it becomes, the larger and more powerful flames you can move around. At its strongest, you can create it from nothing," said Colin as he put the new candle in the holder and lit it.

He had David hold his hands out again, but didn't hold them this time. “As for making it stronger. There's a purity to fire, and as you become more renowned for that purity it will affect the spiritual half of your soul and strengthen Shadow Gifts that resonate with your purity."

“My purity?" David asked, utterly confused. “What? How do I even do that?"

“Quite a few ways," answered Colin. “Stuff like making a great sacrifice in order to uphold the Oath of the Moon, losing face to uphold the Bone Shadow's tribal oath, or—"

He cleared his throat and blushed.

“—or, uh, taking a mate."

“So it's gonna be a long while before I do any of that then," said David. Which made Colin's face harden.

“What?" asked David.

“Nothing," said Colin before continuing on with the lesson.

David spent the next few hours practicing calmly extending the candle flame, with Colin scolding him several times when he lost his anger and made the flame roar out of control and almost set the rundown cabin on fire. Colin made David get extra buckets of water multiple times because of it.

It wasn't until late afternoon, and feeling mentally drained from focusing on manipulating the flames that Colin decided that he had had enough practice and concluded the lesson.

He went back to the house to take a nap in the library but stopped in the doorway when he saw Lucas had returned home. The other werewolf was lounging on the couch reading a thick leather bound tome. Lucas looked up from the tome and rolled his eyes when he saw David standing awkwardly in the doorway.

“What this time?" asked Lucas, pointedly and glaring at David. “Random growls and snarls, follow me around like a puppy while acting like your not, or-"

“Thanks."

“What?" asked Lucas, shocked.

David wrung his hands. Why did Lucas have to bring attention to it? Why couldn't he nod and go back to reading?

He avoided Lucas' surprised gaze and stammered, “Thanks for saving me yesterday. It was—"

He paused as a lump formed in his throat and he choked on the words he was trying to force out.

“—nice to have someone have my back like that."

Lucas was silent for a moment, staring at David still standing awkwardly in the library's doorway, before saying, "Anytime."

Lucas returned his attention to the tome in his hands. But he kept flicking his eyes back to David as an awkward silence filled the room.

“Is there, uh…?" Lucas asked before trailing off as he carefully chose his next words, “anything else you want?"

David wrung his hands again as he struggled to put into words how he felt. He felt he owed a debt to Lucas for saving his life last night, and to pay Lucas back for being so horrible to him the last couple weeks since they met.

“Is there anything you want me to do?" David asked Lucas, while silently begging that Lucas wouldn't take the offer. Just asking would be enough to pay that debt in David's eyes.

“Oh! There is actually," said Lucas.

David cursed internally.

“You're an artist, and I need to spray paint some territory markers but I don't have a pack sigil. You think you can make that for us?"

“A sigil?" asked David. “Like the Ashenga one we saw on the mile marker?"

“Anshega," corrected Lucas.

“What?" asked David.

“Anshega," Lucas said again. “It's pronounced Anshega. Dixie and Matt mispronounced it. Common mistake in Hishu due to the lack of a muzzle."

Lucas then, to David's utter shock, shifted his mouth into a muzzle. Just his mouth. He then said in fluent First Tongue, “Anshega"

David was shocked and disturbed by the strange sight in front of him and could only get a dumb sounding, “Uhhhhh…"

Lucas shifted his mouth back to normal and said, “I know what you're thinking, you need a specific Wolf Gift to be able to change specific body parts like that. But yeah, like on the mile marker. It'll let other Uratha know that Pioche has already been claimed. Especially the Anshega."

David didn't say anything else, and entered the library proper. He got his sketchbook and pencils out of the desk drawer to start sketching out ideas. He paused just as he was about to put pencil to paper. He didn't put his sketchbook back in the drawer before he left earlier in the day. Lucas must've seen it on the floor and put it back. He hoped that Lucas didn't see his sketches of the wall mural.

Lucas had gotten up from the couch and stood over David as he started to sketch different moon themed rough sketches. It looked like incomprehensible chicken scratches to Lucas but David could see that image through the seemingly random pencil strokes.

Lucas told him, “We need something that represents all of us."

David changed tactics and started sketching out rough ideas involving their respective tribes.

“We also need something that shows we're affiliated with the Protectorate. It'll discourage the Anshega from trying to attack us," added Lucas.

David slammed his pencil down on the table and snapped, “Do you want it done or not?"

“Yeah," said Lucas.

David spun around and yelled in Lucas' face, “THEN FUCK OFF!"

Lucas jumped away from David, and Colin gave an admonishment of David's language from the other room.

“There's the David I know," Lucas muttered before leaving. But not before grabbing another book from the shelf. “Was starting to worry you got sick."

David growled at Lucas as he left. Finally alone in the library, he got to work without interruptions. He tapped his pencil on the desk as he tried to think of a way to incorporate all of Lucas' suggestions. After several, in David's opinion, ugly ideas he thought to just put their tribal icons on a drawing of the Welcome to Las Vegas sign. The familiar wolf skull of the Bone Shadows on one side and on the other side the icon of the Iron Masters which was a stylized wolf's head that looked like a jagged, bolted plate of iron.

But he kept running into a problem with each iteration of it he tried out. Having the tribal sigils on each end of the sign left a giant blank space in the very middle of the sign. But, for a reason he didn't know or understand, it felt wrong to David to try and fill in the blank space each time he tried.

He was stumped and was trying to figure out how to solve the problem when he was shocked by Lucas suddenly saying from behind him, “Oh wow, that's really good!"

“Argh!" yelled David before spinning in the chair to face Lucas. “What the fuck did I say?!"

“David!" gasped Colin from the other room.

“Oh, shut up, Colin!" yelled David.

Lucas held up his hands, “I'm just saying that it was good."

David snarled and tore the unfinished sketch from his sketchbook. He slapped the page on Lucas' chest who grabbed it to keep it from falling.

“Then fuck off and go make a stencil out of it!" snapped David, ignoring another admonishment from Colin in the other room.

He stood up from the chair and stormed over to the couch. He slammed himself down on it, and rolled over so his back faced Lucas, ignoring him as he tried to take a nap.