arranged marriages, and all that jazz.

[Aurich]

The Silver Fangs, particularly those of the Old World, have a whole system for this sort of thing.  An entire shadow-hierarchy of dowager kinswomen, widowed of their Garou mates and past childbearing age but nonetheless fruitful enough in their younger lives to have earned this oddly exalted status, who gather now over priceless tomes of pedigrees and sheaf upon sheaf of dossiers to work some enigmatic alchemy of their own.  Who is to be mated to whom.  Who deserves whom.  Whose children has the highest chance of being trueborn.  Whose line should go on in the name of Falcon's greater glory, and whose should be quietly terminated with an unfortunate match to a mad, barren, or otherwise unsuitable mate.

The power these matchmakers hold is vaster than most would dream.  Who nowadays has the time and energy and patience to sift through all those ages of genealogy and history to determine the likeliest candidates for a successful match?  Far easier to hand over one's own details, one's own bloodlines and attributes and profiles and pictures, and let that creaky old machinery turn as it had for generations past.

Certainly that must have been on this wolf's mind, this Aurich Eberstark von Doenhoff.  After all, his introduction has, after filtering through the matchmakers' hands, eventually been sent on to the Breitenbachs, just as Genevieve's must have doubtlessly arrived on his doorstep.  And Aurich's is a rather impressive introduction: encased in stiff, elegant white paper stamped with the coat-of-arms of the Doenhoff barony, opening to a full-page portrait of the werewolf himself.  He looks to be in his early thirties.  He has a strong face, square-jawed and stern-mouthed, with unforgiving eyes.  There is nothing ethereal or otherworldly about him.  Rather, he has a heavy, solid, earthy look; a broadsword, not a rapier.  That portrait is overlain by a sheet of translucent tissue-paper, on which is printed the most salient of his characteristics:

Aurich Eberstark, Freiherr von Doenhoff

Ahroun of House Gleaming Eye

Adren, Alpha, Follower of the White Eagle

16th Generation Descendant of Konrad Winter's-Tooth, Elder of the Tribe

and his Third Mate Galena the Fair

via the Lineage of their fourth son Marcus Righteous-Dawn

On the following pages are a detailed pedigree (long, but with few truly great heroes), a brief and ironically impersonal personal history (mostly: an accounting of his greatest acts of heroism to date), a timeline from birth to First Change to formation of his pack to his various promotions (the latest, to Adren, a mere two months ago), an almost embarrassingly frank accounting of his estates and holdings and liquid assets (impressive), and finally, a discreet accounting of previous mateships (none), heirs (currently: a sister, younger by over a dozen years), and madnesses common in his family line (surprisingly few; but then, he is not the purest of their Tribe, not by far).

That is where most files of this sort end.  Aurich's has a final page: mostly blank, except for a small square of text in the middle.  In four lines, without spare and without mercy, Aurich's fate is prophesied -- the eventual and inevitable loss, the unending wandering, the forgetting.  Three years, he has remaining.  Perhaps five on the outside.  The subtext is rather clear.  Quite a catch, this Aurich von Doenhoff, but not one that can be kept for long.  Either a very bad thing or a good, depending on one's perspective.

Well.  An unusual dossier, if nothing else.

Perhaps a week after that prospective arrives from the genealogical society, a note follows from the Estate of Doenhoff.  It is brief, written in a strong hand.  Every word is steeped in a sort of thoughtless entitlement; the sort of muted power that is not, at all, accustomed to denial.  It is also perhaps the very antithesis of romantic:

Lady Breitenbach,

Based on the introduction graciously provided by your family and the genealogical society, I believe we are an eminently suitable match.  If you are amenable, let us begin the process.  Enclosed please find the contact information of my trusted majordomo, Otto, who will be pleased to make all arrangements as necessary with your staff.  If you have any requests of me, please also direct them to Otto.  I look forward to our partnership.

Yours,

A.E. von Doenhoff

[Genevieve]

"Dans la grande salle verte," she reads aloud, the children's picture book solid in her bare hands [remarked upon. noticed. because such nudity of phalanges is somewhat rare.] And the room in which she reads aloud is indeed very grande and indeed very verte, dripping of a masculine, gentlemen's club opulence and old-world money. All oxford leathers and damask of dark emeralds, burnt roan and gold. It is just past dusk in Brussels; an early, waning moon rises over the twinkling skyline, lamplight and moonlight glistening wetly off cobblestones drenched from recent rains, turning the slippery slick of it into a river of stone and a death-trap for tourists who never have the appropriate footwear or sense of balance [mostly Americans]. From the floor-to-ceiling multi-paned window, she is drenched in silver and amber glow, that sets off the bare alabaster skin of lean, sculpted arms with an opalescent glow. And at her feet, two children, her cousins, Lucienne and Roland, two and four respectively. Gawky waifs, thin-formed for their ages, baby fat melted away early. They took after the maternal line, the Beauchamps, as did Genevieve herself, which meant it remained to be seen whether the sharp lines, strong bones and lithe bodies would blossom late into beauty or linger long in homeliness. Either was par for the course.

She is not fond of most children. Loud, bratty things, most of them. How Lu-lu and Roland have thus escaped entitled snobbery is beyond her, but they have. Not so their elder sister, Matilde, hell on wheels at seven. But she was a half-sister. And she was not present, off with her birth mother in Monaco, being taught that the world was hers, handed to her on a platinum platter. Not silver. No. Never silver.

Silver burns.

Genevieve is exceedingly fond of silver; exceedingly fond and abhorrently repulsed.

The children - these children, these few she cares for, these two little cuckoos in eagles nests, with their too-large eyes, hungry for affection though they wouldn't know how to name it even if they dared give the desire words: They drink in her story, "Il ya un téléphone," Genevieve continues, "et une image de..."

They feel him before he opens the door.  Luna has only just lost the fullness of this past months pregnant luminosity, waning into the afterbirth of shadow and darker things. He is no Ahroun, but the Philodox rage that had dwindled mercifully several days ago now threatens to spike anew as the moon revolves to its equinox. He is ruddy and lean; he is fiercely handsome even in his 'ripe' age. He is a seasoned Adren with great plans for his inevitable ascension to Athro. He is her uncle, her father's father, and she loathes him. Heinrich Breitenbach's inevitable, seismic entrance eclipses the presence of his wife behind him, Emma Breitenbach nee Beauchamp. She's gone plump in her early 40s, but it is pleasingly so, a truth that cannot be said of Heinrich's eldest cousin, Astrid Van den Claes who is artificially thin and artificially clear and smooth of brawny skin and moves just slightly ahead of Emma in the manner of a kinswoman who knows her breeding, social standing and widowed connections set her a cut above.

Ah, how she reveals in it, this Bitch Queen, this puppets power she clings to. A chief marionette among the rest of us. Genevieve's thoughts are not kind; she is not soft and kindhearted among these people, save the children, only the children, only these two children. She is a tool for them, and rather a faulty one at that: And oh how it rankles the Bitch Queen  that Genevieve's considerable [taboo] talents saved her from being cloistered and hidden away, discarded, little black sheep, though she in winter-fairer than them all.

I am a tool: And I've honed myself well.

There is power in acceptance on ones own terms. There is power in being underestimated.

The children cower as their father enters: They cannot help it. He spares them not a glance. Astrid castes a withering pale-jade gaze in their direction, radiating disapproval. "Emma, dearest," the faux affection is a whiplash, "surely these children should be in bed." And that is all the attention she gives them as their mother glides forward with subdued affection [genuine] in her eyes for the children and something else [what? apology? pity? Genevieve bristles under it, though she knows the sentiment is genuine] and silently beckoned for them to follow. Lu-lu and Roland clamber eagerly to their feet, fawn eyes eager to be away from the looming presence of Père and Tante Astrid both. Astrid makes a small noise of aggravated frustration, "Honestly, Emma, surely the help can take them? You mustn't cling so to them, it is quite smothering for a child's disposition, no wonder they are so..." her hands shift in Gallic manner, "Ugh, call Hilde..."

I catch the hot piercing shimmer of pain that passes over Emma's eyes. I remember those looks from my mother; I was too young to understand what it meant, I only knew not to touch her then. It hurt too much to touch her then, my traitorous, sensitive fingers. So Heinrich is fucking the nanny. Again. And she a kinfolk of the Children of Gaia -- oh, yes, we must appear diplomatic to the 'little folk'. Noblesse oblige.

"Claire is visiting her mother this evening, Astrid," Genevieve answers, the periphery of her vision catching the brief reprieve of relief in her aunt's eyes. "I would be happy to put them to bed," her hand falls atop the sweet platinum curls atop Lu-Lu's head while she reached behind herself and surreptitiously tugs Roland's thumb from his mouth least Heinrich or Astrid see. "We can finish our story."

"No," cuts in Heinrich from behind a heavy mahogany desk where he flips open a cigar box and removes something imported - Cuban, to be sure - and industriously goes about clipping its end. Shink. "We must speak. Emma, take the children."

He does not wish them good night.

They are no sooner gone [she boldly tells them she will be by soon, ignoring Astrid's glare; praising the way Emma refuses to let her shoulders bow] than Heinrich tosses an envelope onto the table, it slides along the highly polished surface, vaguely in Genevieve's direction, beckoning her to come and fetch. Her eyes settle keenly on it from where she stands [she takes not a step forward] and the seal the Doenhoff Estates is clear enough, all the more for its being torn across the top, jaggedly so. With deliberate ease she tilts her head to one side, "It is open. Surely you can tell me its contents."

The slap is unexpected.

Heinrich hasn't moved an inch.

Genevieve miscalculated Astrid's mood and crucially misjudged the Bitch Queen ability to move with brutal swiftness. The younger woman knows enough to let her head roll with the motion, then steps back and turns towards this wretched Harpy, oozing her plastic, expensive, stolen youth and her foreman's power.

And Genevieve carefully and deliberately turns the other cheek.

"Enough," Heinrich sounds bored. "Astrid, calm your temper. This young Adren is not known for dawdling and will surely expect the proceedings to begin quickly and young Claude is not in country to heal her bruises. And give Genevieve her gloves so she'll open the damned note." The last is spoken distastefully, begrudgingly.

With a snort - "Most unladylike," Genevieve cannot help but comment - Astrid [who does not rise to the bait this time, beyond rolling her eyes and scolding the twenty-five-year-old for being so childish] picks up Genevieve's kid gloves from the window sill, handling them with a scornful mue of distaste. "You'll wear lace, silk or kid leather; this rough cowhide is atrocious."

Taking the gloves, the much younger woman smiles fluidly, a gotcha, bitch, smile if ever there was one. She despised the feel of these work gloves as well: Wearing them specifically to rankle her relations was a treat to make their indeed rough feel bearable.

Gloves tugged on she does as bidden - as commanded - and slips the note from the already torn open envelope. The fleeting temptation to touch it with bare fingertips is strong: Perhaps she might garner some truth there that this unknown Garou's portfolio and picture had refused to give away. Resisting the foolish urge [I shall not touch him. that will be mine. not with my hands. perhaps he'll find it erotic. perhaps he won't give a damn.] she scans the brisk, brief contents. The antithesis of romantic [she is grateful for it], to the point and expecting acquiescence [she can play that part; it is a role she knows so well] it is a business transaction. She is a commodity but, then, so is he, in this matchmaking, this illusive A.E. von Doenhoff.

"And my response?"

Neither shows any amount of surprise that she leave the decision entirely to them. What does it matter? He is not hideous -- in fact, he is the kind of man she finds naturally appeals to her sexuality, not one of the feline-lean sex-in-suit dandies who grace the courts all too often. He is doomed; he will be a relic, if he is remembered at all. What are three years? Five? She endured longer in this house. And given his House and its duties, chances were she'd see little enough of him.

"Oh do show some gratitude, ungrateful thing," snaps Astrid. "It's a fine match we've made you, better than we dreamed and certainly better than you deserve."

"He is cursed."

"So are you."

Ennui strong, Heinrich lazily draws on the cigar, heavy eyes hooded. "Take up a pen. I shall dictate." He pats his thigh, indicating where he expects his niece and ward to sit. Astrid's face contorts. Jealousy?

Oh, just to be free of the lot of you. Her rage is a brand and she longs for the solid comfort of blades in her hands.

...oh what will become of Lu-lu and Roland? Her sorrow is a distant sea: She cannot bear to draw to its shores.

Stiffening she lifts her chin, "I can write well enough from here, Heinrich."

"Come. And we shall ask him if he'll allow you to bring Emma and the children when you meet."

And that is his weapon.

Astrid watches, shrewd, gloating, envious, aloof.

Genevieve rounds the desk and settles upon her uncle's lap. He is not even aroused beneath her, not until she cannot force herself to relax, she remains stiff. Then she feels him stir beneath her. He has never touched her beyond this.

This humiliation is enough.

"Now," he says, heedless of his cousin; ignoring his wife who enters, "How shall we respond?"

Some days later the note arrives to be delivered to Aurich's hands.

Her penmanship is impeccable, especially for being left handed. he cannot know her rage as she wrote it. He cannot know that none of the words are what she'd have chosen herself. It is all flowery compliments and coy acceptance. It is all assurances of how she cannot wait to meet him, to assure his approval and gain his suit.

It ends,

"...I shall await your response with anticipation, dear Sir.

Faithfully,

Your Genevieve."

And if he is shrewd perhaps he shall wonder how such words would come from the picture of this prospective mate, tucked away in her own dossier. She'd switched it, you see. For her they had chosen something soft and touched up, too classic to be called a glamour shot, but certainly enough to show her at her best, turned just so, hair just so, slender neck just so exposed, showing an ethereal, ivory beauty. With great care she'd managed to remove that photographic lie and replaced it with one of her own choosing. Her atop a stool, one leg curled up, in plain black slacks, a sleeveless cream coloured top, a wisp of scarf about her neck, hair just-so disheveled, the barest trace of a smile or a smirk on her lips, her sapphire gaze full on and unapologetic, eyebrows lifted just so. A look that said simply: I don't give a damn what you think of me.

That was her rebellion.

That was her warning.

Secretly she'd hoped it would drive him off. But her dowry was impressive: Not monetarily, no, but in terms of the artifacts she found with such uncanny good fortune. A list had been provided, of course. Most of them items of historical significance to the tribe; many of them auctioned off for exuberant prices to fund any number of the holdings and lobbies of House Unbreakable House. And three of them.... fetishes. One of them quite potent. True fetishes. Lost things. Three found in the span of seven years: Neign unheard of from a kinfolk these days. Hard enough for the Mystics themselves.

In this she was a high commodity. A fine tool.

But she had a last page of her own and that - among other things - had been enough to prematurely end the suits of three other potentials over the years:

Born with the ability to sense Gnosis and slight emotional context in objects and people via touch. Verified by five Theurges of the Tribe: She cannot steal the Gnosis as the Witches and Warlocks do. She is monitored and forbidden to seek outside training for her aberration. Gloves inhibit the ability entirely, she will wear them as ordered and required.

The Silver Fang did not view their rare gifted Kinfolk as something to exalt or encourage. But her gift was minor-if-useful and so it was tolerated.

It was tolerable.

She wears gloves around almost every Garou and Kinfolk she's ever met.

[Aurich]

Steel is crashing off steel when the return letter is delivered to the Estate of Doenhoff.  It's not a barony anymore, not by human law, but then the Silver Fangs never did run by human laws.  As far as the tribe is concerned, Aurich is still the Freiherr von Doenhoff, and this land belongs to Aurich and whatever sons he may have.  Won by blood, held by strength.  This land, its forests, its streams, its meadows -- and even the small, ancient keep nestled in the bend of the river, the stronghold and heart of Doenhoff.  There, the sound of swordplay has been a constant for some seven or eight hundred years ... though not, perhaps, in the great hall where Aurich's ancestors once held court.

But then Aurich doesn't actually live here.  True, he and his pack prowl these lands.  They sleep in the forest sometimes, and sometimes in the hunting lodge at the edge of that forest.  Still other times -- most times -- Aurich lives in the city, in a modern condominium with granite countertops and brushed steel fixtures and modern plumbing and a private elevator.  He just comes here on occasion to make sure the serving-kin haven't revolted, and to see to whatever repairs as necessary such that the keep doesn't simply cave in on itself.

And, when the impulse strikes, he comes here to roar and run and fight and play within the thick stone walls, up and down those ancient stone stair wells.  He drives out here with that enormous, ugly two-hander of his in the trunk of his car.  He heaves the ancient gates open, and door upon ancient door.  He strips to the waist like a peasant in the fields, unslings that sword, and growls to his pack:

Come at me.

Times like that, his serving-kin know to steer clear of the great hall.  It's hazardous there.  Blades are swung with killing force.  There are dents in the massive weight-bearing columns that flank the hall, places where steel bit into stone.  Sometimes someone loses it and there's fur, there's fangs.  There's still a set of six-inch-deep gouges in front of the great hearth where someone -- was it Aurich, or Jaan? -- caught his balance with a hindpaw dug into the ground.  Times like these, only Otto, who has served Aurich as long as he can remember, and whose forefathers have served Aurich's forefathers since time immemorial, venture near.  And even then, only to deliver messages of particular consequence.

So Aurich knows, of course, that that missive laid differentially at the foot of the baron's throne is important.  He knows what day it is.  He knows how long it's been since he penned that brief, unromantic note to the Breitenbach woman.  He knows quite well that she has likely replied; or rather, whatever Garou is closest to her.  And he frankly doesn't want to deal with it at the moment.

At the moment, he is focused, sweating, ferocious, savage.  He is hammering blows down on his packmate, relentless, and he can hear Sergei snarling, can hear the harsh pant of his breath, can feel across their link how Sergei is on the very edge of true fury, how this sparring is on the very edge of turning real.  There's something exhilarating about that.  Aurich is the very picture of control, quite the dignified brute, but something deep inside him is savage.  Something deep inside him is a creature of instinct, not intellect.  Sometimes Aurich thinks perhaps he lets that creature rule him a little too often.  His name was carved from a river of blood.  And that's the name he will give this woman, whose letter lies a few short steps away.

Will.

Wants to?

He isn't terribly sure what made him write her in the first place.  Well, no; he knows this much: Otto's nagging, certainly.  That annoying refrain that as an Adren, he had a duty to pass on his obviously winning genes, while as a Silver Fang and a Doenhoff he had a proud heritage to continue.  That thoroughly tasteless reminder, insult to injury, that if he didn't do so soon he might not ever have a chance, and the land would pass to his sister, a female, a kin at that, and Falcon only knew what would happen next.

But that's not it.  The nagging drove him, finally, to summon the matchmakers, but then they gave him a pile of prospective hire-ees for that new job opening in his life.  Wanted: one Wife for displaying on arm and bearing of heirs.  Pure breeding a must.  Occasionally enjoyable fuckery preferred, but not necessary.  Intelligence and personality non-issues.  Aurich sifted through four or five of them before he came upon Genevieve.  He was two more past her file before he grew bored, and growing bored,

backtracked, looked again at that notaglamourshot that Genevieve's uncle had inserted into her official portfolio.  Predictably and perfectly poised as any other woman in the pile, but there was something about her, wasn't there?  There must have been, because that was the one his fingers tapped over, indecisive for just a second, before he said:

This one.

Otto balked.  My Lord, the Lady Breitenbach is confirmed to be spirit-touched.  Might not another be more suitable --

Was I unclear?  I want this one.

And there it was again.  Instinct, not intellect.  And that word, shocking him even as it came out of his mouth: want.  Ask him again, why, hang his life on the answer, and still he wouldn't be able to --

his attention wavered; it was just an instant, but it was enough.  Sergei counterattacks, suddenly a hurricane of blades, pressing Aurich back, step for step, dodging, dodging, sidestepping, parrying, too hard, all his considerable strength behind that swing.  The sound of blade meeting blade is different.  Sharp.  There's a flash of spark, then the distal half of Sergei's sword goes spinning off to clatter against the floor.

"Goddammit, that's the second one this month!"  Sergei's temper is explosive; unlike Aurich, he rarely even tries to control it.  He whips the other half of his broken sword against the wall.  "Are you going to read that letter you've been thinking about this entire time?"

Aurich has the dignity not to deny it.  "After I bathe," he replies.

"What, cold feet, Aurich?  Is your lady not lovely enough to tempt you for long?  There's little point in stalling, and none whatsoever in trying to backpedal.  You've set the wheels in motion.  Now it's a matter of time, and not very much time at that."

Aurich slams his sword into its scabbard, sets it gently against the wall.  His broad back to his packmate, he's quiet a moment, head down.  Then: "It hardly seems fair, you must admit.  I might as well give widow's blacks as a wedding gift to whoever's unfortunate enough to meet me at the altar."

" 'Whoever' didn't respond," Sergei counters.  "Genevieve Breitenbach did.  And since she did, I suspect she knows of your unfortunate condition.  So perhaps she doesn't want to be married to you for very long."  He smirks, "Can you blame her?  You stink."

"How very amusing you are, brother."  Aurich's tone is dry as sand as he sweeps his shirt off the floor.  His coat.  And last, the letter.  "Tell Otto to ready my writing implements.  With the great seal and, you know, the nice paper.  I'll be responding to Lady Breitenbach."

"You're reading her letter in the bath now, are you?"  Sergei's eyes miss nothing.  "My, my.  I stand corrected.  She must be pretty enough for you after all."

Aurich is on his way out of the room, and he doesn't look back.  "Sergei," he says, "this infantile discussion is now over."

Sergei's laughter follows him out.

Given her rather unusual history, Aurich thinks, her letter is almost disappointing.  It's perfect, to be certain, but it's exactly the sort of perfect one would expect from a Silver Fang princess born and bred to be someone's purebred arm-display, heir-bearer, and occasionally enjoyable fuck.  The photograph is something else altogether.  Who sits like that?  Who smirks like that?  Who, if she wants to be someone's biddable little kinswoman, stares like that?

Aurich's response comes quicker this time, and it is even brusquer than the last:

Lady Breitenbach,

If you are available, my pack and I will be in Brussels next week.  Perhaps we might meet and, barring any unforeseen circumstances, proceed as planned.  Bring your guardian and whatever legal and financial representatives you deem suitable.  I will do the same.

Given my unique situation and, I confess, my general impatience with all the acts and nonsense of romance, I trust you will forgive my pragmatism and haste in this matter.

[Genevieve]

"You will not touch him without your gloves, do you understand?"

"Yes, Astrid." Submissive words, though her tone is a snarl.

"Nor his possessions, no matter what he might give you," Astrids clear, melodic voice [it is truly a beautiful sound, it's her siren call] speaks past the standing screen with its silk panels in the theme of a frozen cedar forest [once upon a time Genevieve had imagined herself there, a child in a frozen fairy world, catching snowflakes on her tongue, chilling bare fingers on rough bark; now her tongue is dry and her fingers work not to clench the sheets beneath her nude body] "-- if he gives you any token at all, the young Adren seems quite rational about these matters."

Genevieve is fully aware of the gleeful sneer in her however-many-times-removed, elder cousins voice: The response from the Doenhoff, from Himself, was more than satisfactory for the Bitch Queen: He wanted nothing of romance or frivolity or love. Astrid having been deprived of it herself she saw no reason others should enjoy it and certainly not her tainted upstart of a little cousin. Why Heinrich hadn't locked the gawkish child away when she was orphaned was beyond Astrid's [narrow] capabilities to fathom. That she was niece to him both by blood and marriage [the two Breitenbach brothers marrying the two Beauchamp sisters: How romantic. Neither was happy in their marriages. Wives were often swapped: the sisters were twins, perhaps the brothers weren't aware to whose bed they stumbled] seemed hardly to matter. The child was too homely, too strong willed, too dangerous with her touches that sometimes - only sometimes - discerned too much. When the orphaned whelp had bloomed from all elbows and angles and sharpness and too-large eyes and not-enough-tits-and-ass into... a she wolf, a fine specimen, a throwback to what the Kin of this Tribe used to be. Genevieve had passed from annoyance to potential threat; a threat heightened when the lithe, just-this-side-of-feral beauty had the audacity to become useful. Useful in a unique manner; a blasphemy only mitigated that her usefulness was also near-to taboo in this tribe where the strongest foundation was knowing your place.

"I want no token," Genevieve grimaces, words muttered through grit teeth the only sound of discomfort she'll permit her body as another long strip of hair is yanked free from her long legs.

"You'll touch no token. We shan't have a repeat of the last two attempts, not until the matter is settled and binding, then touch what you like, if he'll let you."

"Sweet cousin, my dear niece rendered this tribe good service when she uncovered the depths of house Von Dijk's... malady."

The younger woman laid upon the table, laid out behind the screen, stiffens, her back bowed. She hadn't heard her uncle's entrance. Hadn't felt it. For a moment she experiences an unwelcome knot of terror in her gut; a knot sluiced in the acidic juices of her disgust.

"A 'service' that nearly rocked our own house with scandal. We shan't risk the same again."

"Ah well, as you like," and he sounds as bored as ever, even as he stands too close to the edge of the screen. Too close, but not crossing. Never crossing. [Bile wets her dry tongue in the most unpleasant manner] "-- though it would be something to uncover something scandalous about one of House Gleaming Eye, would it not? You would certainly inform your dear uncle of such, would you not, pet?" One set of blunt fingertips reach just beyond and touches her toes. That is all. It is enough: Genevieve jerks and the next strip of wax pulls away painfully askew. She strangles a gasp: She will not give anyone the satisfaction.

The woman doing the waxing is a professional: She doesn't bat an eyelash, doesn't turn a shade of pale or blush. She is of the tribe, but one of the fluke births that possessed no immunity to witnessing the Change and her blood didn't sing of breeding so much as wheeze pathetically. So she was a servant and a fine one: She knew her place. "Here: How much are we removing?" Her touch is professional: Genevieve draws up her heels and parts her thighs, turns her face away, closes her eyes, thinks of tonight's auction where she might be free of this house; this horrid, beautiful home. She presses her eyes closed and think of what fine pieces she might find there, what stories they might tell. "The usual," she responds, pleased with how calm her voice sounds, pleased with how even her breathing flows. Heinrich tuts and moves...

...a boundary breached.

He's never gone so far before.

Astrid says nothing.

"All of it, I think. Men are pleased by such things."

The cosmologist says naught and doesn't even stop to ask if Genevieve agrees; the blunt wooden stick with it's dollop of just-shy-of-scalding wax is poised and ready and intimate on areas too, too exposed...

...terror slips into rage; the acid of disgust distills into the only sense of power she's ever known: The power to say No and fuck the consequences.

Moving fast and fluid she snatches up the sheet around her as she steps from the high-raised massage table, flexes her toes, the balls of her feet, feels the arch there, press down painfully onto hard wood to eradicate unwanted touch.

"I. Am. Done."

And how she longs for her blades; how she wishes she could tolerate the closeness of silver.

The cosmologist blanches at last and steps back, a quick shuffle. Astrid pulls back the screen with a yank, her too-perfect face set into a scowl that doesn't even crease her skin as deeply as it should. And Heinrich looks dangerously amused; boredom struck from his eyes for the first time in weeks - it takes more and more now to draw back the ennui, the flatness, the lackluster of interest he only feels now when he takes on his wolf forms.... and now. Flint for eyes he regards his niece, bland of expression; stirred of gaze.

"Are you?"

"Enough!" Astrid snaps, stepping in - and even Genevieve must admire her bravery, "You will be buffed and polished and shining for this Lord wherever we see fit until he tells you what he prefers: And if it's slovenly, hairy cunts then it will certainly serve you right."

"I will not," she does not speak to Astrid, it's Heinrich's gaze she holds. "He will arrive with his pack in two days and you have no Theurges in-city. You cannot beat me into submission and I am done with this."

"True, I cannot," the Garous responds mildly. "Astrid?"

It takes a shrewd eye to see how the Bitch Queen's perfect complexion goes just a shade too pale, a touch too sallow.

Genevieve's eyes cut to the Bitch Queen [and that is so much easier to manage than holding Heinrich's gaze; she refuses to let her knees buckle], "Touch me and I'll beat you into a plastic pulp," the French hissed with venomous menace. The Bitch Queen's eyes widen, her nostrils flare and Genevieve prepares herself to strike [is she aware she may die? does she want to? no. and the thought that it's the question of a bikini-wax or a Brazilian that might push her finally over the edge is almost enough to make her laugh.... almost]...

...Heinrich is laughing; boisterous, delighted laughter, nearly a guffaw, "Oh sweet, dear, impetuous idiot. I shall miss you dearly..."

"Shall I call for Roland?" Astrid's features are impassive, her colour returned, her pale-green eyes full of victory; a victory that turns sour when her Garou cousin tosses her a withering, mildly-disgusted glance, a cutting motion of his broad, manicured hand. "Leave, Astrid, I'm sure you've arrangements to attend to."

"I--" and for once the Bitch Queen hesitates, eyes darting from Genevieve to Heinrich, back and forth again. The sheet wrapped woman doesn't bother to look for sympathy, fear or solace there -- at least not of any sort that might contribute to her own well being. "Of course..."

No sooner has the door shut behind her - indeed, before it fully closes - Heinrich grabs not Genevieve, but the cosmologist [oh what is her name? somehow it's all the more horrific that Genevieve cannot for the life o her recall the middle-aged woman's name] by the throat. Squeezes and lifts. Helpless hands cling to stronger ones that may at any moment sprout talons and helpless heels kick. "Shall we play this game, Chatte?"

He could be asking her to tea; only his eyes blaze and even that fire will soon dim down to banked embers. Already the begin to dim; already he knows the battle is won.

"Stop! No, we..." anger beats out horror in her words even as she scrambles back onto the bed. A low thud: Miss I-Cannot-Recall-Your-Name-But-

Come-Wax-My-Delicates, that would be: her heels returned rudely to the floor.

"All of it," he repeats softly, distracted, interest vanished. "You will be clean and perfect, Chatte."

With shaking hands the cosmologist lifts the bowl of hot wax, taking up the blunt stick and blowing, the wax left too long over its flame, turned to hot. A bump is all it takes; just a deliberate shift of his weight and too-hot liquid spills as he passes by, back around the screen, pools and scorches the older woman's fingertips and then - as she naturally drops the pot - the delicate flesh at the insides of the bride-to-be's thighs.

Such a shame.

Such an accident.

--------------

It was Genevieve who responded to his note this time. By sheer twist of fate the missive was delivered when neither of her guardians or jailers were home. This note was hers to answer and this time she did so with simple, boldly-feminine strokes:

"Monsieur von Doenhoff,

This arrangement is agreeable on all counts. If you wish a neutral ground upon which to meet - I confess this to be my own preference - may I suggest du Ecaillier du Palais Royal in Sablon across from Sainte-Gudule. The establishment is well known for its owners discretion and utilitarian ease with all members of our Tribe. Being amenable, I shall make the appropriate arrangements, which is to say I shall be there as is required by own part of this compact.

Shall I set your mind at ease? I shall instead simply be blunt then, yes? I care not a whit for the difficulties, time and other such foibles of romance or its trappings. I am willing, I am fertile and my own requirements most reasonable. I am independently wealthy. I have no desire to play the princess; I require no prince. I make an excellent arm piece when required. I am contented alone when left to my own devices. My other requirements can be discussed in the presence of our retinue.

G. Breitenbach."

Her seal in wax: The seal of a great-great-great-great grandmother whose name she bears; who took on the calla lily, the peregrine and the moon as her sigil. It is old, its motto in a forgotten, archaic Germanic dialect: I Am Ready. Her seal in blood red wax on paper pressed with the stains of mistletoe in its center, red stains amidst ivory plains.

She'll nurse the blistering burns from the wax in punishment for uncensored notes to a future mate.

[Aurich]

"Goodness, Aurich."  Arabella Eberstark is lounging on the window side armchair -- her brother's armchair -- fanning herself with a scrap of paper.  The window is open.  The day is already hot, and it's scarcely past eight in the morning.  "Remember when I said you were the most staid, boring, unromantic creature I've ever known?"

A week has passed since Aurich sent back his response; five days since he received a letter written by the same hand, with a decidedly different voice.  This time, he thought, the voice matched the picture.  Direct.  Forthright.  Perhaps smirking, just a little.  His reply was not a letter at all, but contact finally established between their intermediaries: schedules compared, a date set.

A Wednesday morning.  9am.  Like a business meeting.  Sergei had laughed when he heard. Try any harder to make this strictly business, Aurich, and someone will accuse you of protesting too much. Aurich paid him little mind; Wednesday was a perfectly good date, and he was hardly protesting anything at all.

His eyes are closed now.  He is relaxed.  He is ignoring his little sister.  There is a hot towel on his face.  He can hear his valet honing the straight razor for his morning shave.  Aurich is in his shirtsleeves, freshly washed, freshly dressed.  The shirt is new and newly pressed, quite crisp.  Very white.  Against it, his skin seems swarthier than ever.  Not at all the pale, slender gentility of the far North, this wolf.  Husky and dark, and despite his valet's valiant attempts, prone to five-o’clock shadows by noon.

"Well, I take it back."  Undeterred by his silence, Arabella chatters on.  "This," a flap of paper, "unseats you from that dubious throne, brother dear.  I daresay your Lady Breitenbach -- "

Aurich snatches the towel from his face, crosses the room in three strides, and snaps the letter up in so clean and quick a motion that it seems to have simply vanished into midair.  Anyone else would quail.  Arabella sticks out her tongue.

"Don't go through my personal correspondence," Aurich mutters, returning to his shaving chair.  His valet raises an eyebrow, then begins to work up a lather with the brush and cream.  "Mother taught you better than that."

"It's hardly my fault when you leave your personal correspondence laying out for all to see," Arabella protests.  "Besides, all I was going to say was that your Lady Breitenbach -- "

" -- must want out of her household rather desperately," Jaan interrupts from the doorway.  "Maybe we should have a better look at the circumstances of her upbringing."

"Has everyone read my mail?"  Aurich is muffled now, the valet rapidly brushing shaving foam over his jaw.  "The circumstances of her upbringing hardly matter.  If she's suitable, she'll be removed from that environment.  If she's not, someone else can bother with it."

Arabella gasps.  "Some people would call that cruelty, cutting her off from her family.  If my mate tried --"

"Your nonexistent mate, who will never materialize if you persist in pestering me."

" -- if my mate tried that sort of thing, I'd run straight back home.  And you'd give him a good beating for his audacity."

Aurich can't help a smile.  The valet draws back, waits for it to fade, then begins to shave that cheek.  "Not everyone is blessed with a pleasant family life, 'Bella.  And Jaan has it right, I suspect.  Lady Breitenbach wants out of hers.  I doubt she'll want to maintain ties."

"What if her family insists?  She did find some interesting trinkets.  They might want to keep a stake in that sort of asset."

Jaan again, thoughtful, leaning against the window frame.  Cars flash on the street below.  They've rented this suite in town for a fortnight, but Aurich doubts they'll stay that long.  He, for one, means to be gone by tonight -- with or without the woman.  And without the woman's troublesome family.  He huffs a breath, somewhere between impatient and irritated.

"Mateship isn't a joint endeavor.  If she's mine, then she's mine.  They'll have to respect that."

The Doenhoff entourage arrives a little ahead of schedule.  This is intentional, and perhaps tactical.  They set up in the prescribed meeting room -- a lavishly decorated dining room that could easily seat forty, but only has places today for a dozen or so.  The seats are arranged in two groups, facing across a table bare of cloth, bare of all but the most simple of decoration.  No food, either.  No meal, no snack, nothing, not even a bone to nibble on.  Just three crystal pitchers of iced water.

Germans.  Never did know how to throw a party.

Aurich is seated in the center, facing the door.  He lounges, but he does not sprawl.  There is containment in his posture, balance.  Jaan is to his right, back straight, attentive.  The rest of the pack is at their ease to his left, two wolves.  Arabella is not in attendance.  Aurich's majordomo is, though, and two lawyers, an accountant, a financial advisor, and a personal assistant: all of them arrayed behind the seated wolves.

One more thing.  There on the table in front of Aurich -- something, the shape indefinite beneath a heavy, draping bolt of velvet stained in the Doenhoff colors.  Deep red, bright gold.  Rich black.  Aurich has a heavy hand on the cloth, possessive as a paw laid over prey.  And, as the hour grows nearer, he grows more impatient, shifting in his seat, his dark eyes flicking again and again to the clock.

When the door opens,

the Doenhoff retinue rises to their feet.  Aurich last by a millisecond.  They fold their hands behind their backs, all except that hand Aurich has on the velvet.  As the Breitenbach party arrives, the Ahroun inclines his head in silent greeting.  It is Jaan that gives the formal welcome, in French now, his clever linguist's tongue perfect on the vowels, without a trace of accent.

"On behalf of Aurich Eberstark, Adren Ahroun of the Silver Fangs, Alpha under the White Eagle, Lord and Warder of Doenhoff, we extend our warmest welcomes."

[Genevieve]

The appointed time at the appointed place. 9am on a Wednesday morning that blooms with humid, sweltering heat, chased away by cleverly [expensively] installed a/c units in this old world building [gutted form within, renovated on its facade. well built walls can hide all the more.] They arrive early, though they do not present themselves until just the stroke of nine. Early: to ask around with well known proprietors and find out whispered inklings of Doenhoff's pack and retinue -- How many? How many True Born? Ah, the whole of the pack then. Kinfolk? So many? Presumptuous or shrewd? -- these are the questions Heinrich and his two packmates ask; and the head of their lawyers, a man on the far side of middle-aged with hair more silver than jet, with deep crinkles about eyes and mouth when he smiles, when he laughs, which is often in Genevieve's presence. She comments blithely on his suit, his chosen regiment of armor: His briefcase and his saber sharp mind. She dubs him a knight in good charge of her earthly possessions and anoints him with a kiss settled just so between his bushy brows because she is a good five inches taller than him in her heels. It's her laughter that gets him and the few patrons who hear their banter: Rich, husky [an earthen throatiness not so-much sex, not so-much vitality, so much as a general well being with the angel on one shoulder and the demon on her back], musical in the way that a caves breathing is musical. No chimes, no giggling, no smoldering I'm-a-secret-nympho-beneath-this-Chanel-chastity-belt.

They've dressed her for the occasion: And the head attorney comments with gracious warmth on the loveliness of Chanel so graced to clothe one such as the Lady Breitenbach. Her responding smile is close lipped, soft enough to take the edge off the smirk, honest enough to let the whisper of that smirk show at all. Dear, dear, Oncle Antoine, I'm a feral thing dressed up like a peacock: I am not sure which is more offensive. These words for him only, squeezing his arm tighter as they walk behind the three Garou who lead the way. Ah, pet, not so, you must not think so, this will be good, you'll see, he assures her, avuncular [more so than her blood-uncle; always] and caring. Soothing. She snorts softly, And yet here we are, we approach the door, Oncle, we hasten to keep our formation tight without appearance of that haste; we straighten our shoulders for battle, beyond those doors: the battlefield. Antoine Beachamp shakes his head, indulgently, but the press of his hand on hers is a warning as well and when he answers it is with sincerity: Not a battlefield, dear one, whatever the look of things.

She looks his way - to the left and downward, her gaze [so deep a sapphire today as to seem closer to onyx in the right light] steady, knowing... resigned but at ease. No, no, Anotine, from all the others I will be lied to and accept it, but not you, please. You're right but you lie with omission: It isn't a battlefield, dearest Oncle, it's a summit to draft the terms of my surrender.

Before he can respond - she sees the dismayed acknowledgement already in his hazel eyes - she pats his hand and disentangles her arm from his, her head ducking to brush her lips over the beloved wrinkles of his cheek. She lengthens her stride until she is just behind Heinrich, in all his severe, austere glory. Heinrich flanks his Alpha, another Half-Moon, a seasoned Athro, Etienne De Sauveterre, and beyond Etienne strides Liesl Lavigne, newly named Adren but two moons ago, the rare Galliard in a tribe with such a love for their Ahrouns, their Philodoxes and Theurges. The only one missing is Claude, the Theurge, about his own business though perhaps bearing witness to these events via the totem communication granted them by their Patron, the Harrier, a favorite among Unbreakable Hearth. And old, established pack. The old guard; those now taking their place as leaders of the House, perhaps soon leaders of the Tribe.

Genevieve moves in stride with them - Etienne's lips quirk; Liesl looks sardonically bemused, Heinrich doesn't even spare her a glance until she speaks: "A moment, please. I need to freshen up."

They are naught but a matter of yards away from the dining rooms heavily ensconced doors: Irritation shimmers over Heinrich's usual aloof boredom, his hand reaches out - she is already stepping away, towards the nearby powder rooms, Etienne stills Heinrich's motion easily enough: "Leave her be," and, to Genevieve's retreating form, in tones low, staid and not at all to be argued with: "Five minutes. No more."

The timing is crucial. The timing is key.

In the spacious, well appointed, well cleaned stall of the restroom she finds the garment bag left hanging there not an hour ago by her assistant who'd snuck into the ladies room quite unabashed by his decidedly masculine gender. Off goes Chanel. Off goes the silken stockings that laid just high enough to rub sore and raw the still-healing blisters from the 'accident' with the hot wax. A sigh of relief: No more. Deftly placing a sterile bit of gauze to place [ah, relief] she quickly changes...

...and emerges just at the five-minute mark, greeted by the exact sight she anticipated: With two hands, Etienne grasps the handles of the decadent doors and pushes them open, entering with all the air of propriety he so easily possesses, born to him, breed in him. Too late to stop now. Too late to do more than accept that she shall travel at the fore of the retinue of her fellow Kinfolk, the lawyers, the financiers, the majordomo of house Breitenbach, dressed not in a debutante's immaculate gown, but in a sharp, smart Armani suit of deepest pinstriped, one button jacket fit like a glove to her willowy form, the whole of it a subtly different first impression than that which they had dictated for her.

No, the setting was business and so she chose to present herself as such: A businesswoman at the top of her game; a young Queen, waiting to be birthed, but damned if she'd ever deign to let them force her into the role of damaged goods masquerading as a princess. She's swept back her hair into a loose twist, strands of it slipping artfully free, an earthy dishevelment so eloquently shy of disarray.

Heinrich's gaze narrows, the threat an implicit promise.

The corners of Liesl's eyes crinkle, just slightly.

Etienne reveals nothing.

Antoine and the other Kinfolk suddenly wish for a good, stiff drink.

But the ritual is already in progress and flows on without a hitch: Etienne responds, steely eyes sweeping over Jaan and dismissing him just as easily, to Aurich he speaks. "A warm welcome just shy of the boundaries of my own protectorate? How magnanimous." Curt. Succinct. He strides forward purposefully, "I, Etienne De Sauveterre, Philodox of the Silver Fangs, Harold of the Sept of the Suns Scepter, Alpha of Harrier's chosen, Athro of House Unbreakable Hearth do so extend right of hospitality to the austere visitors of House Gleaming Eye."

He moves all the while, steady and strong, taking a place not across from Aurich but instead at the head of the table, where Liesl has already moved a chair for him, anticipating his moves in a manner that would intimidate Kin and human alike, but is par for the course for any damned pack worth its salt. With a sweep of his hand he indicates for the rest of his pack to settle across from Aurich and his accompaniment: Fine enough for them. Not so for Himself.

Introductions are given in a brisk staccato. Heinrich first, then Liesl, then Antoine and his assistants. Genevieve is last.

"The Lady Breitenbach, Heinrich's niece and ward."

He doesn't snap his finger, but the motion of his hand accomplishes the same thing: It indicates that she remain standing [if she will not deign to be presented as cosseted royalty, then he shall not treat her as such; punishment without word or physical contact] between Etienne and Heinrich who sit like the lords they are.

Another would bow her head, would endeavor to the demure. Or the spoiled and petulant. She lets her gaze travel over the lot of them - they flicker flash to those packmates in their wolf forms, a sublime appreciation there for all that it is brief and too-fleeting to be noticed, surely - before settling at last on the Garou who will decide if he'll take her or not. And there's that smile: The one from the photo. Just the same. Subdued but, oh, so very eloquent; articulate.

Take me or leave me, it means little enough to me... but my don't you do look fine.

"Gentlemen."

She knows of course that if they bothered to extend their senses just so they could hear the quickened pace of her heart; smell on her nerves and fear and rebellion and humour and pain and excitement and anxiety and traces of raw flesh [blood and trapped blistered fluid] and sweat. Perhaps the wolves have already spoken to Aurich of as much in their own manner. She knows they can. She knows that Etienne and Heinrich no doubt can as well.

Her shoulders slope not a hitch; her stance languid.

Etienne eyes her for a moment, his thought indiscernible, before his look swivels to Aurich, "what say you? Shall we proceed?"

Genevieve’s gloved hands smooth the hem of her jacket over the trim fit of the suit pants over her hips. Her gloves that shelter and hide away the tremble there. Her gloves that she is forbidden to remove until this matter - this business - is settled.

[Aurich]

From the moment Genevieve enters the room, Aurich's eyes are on her.  And there they stay, all through the subtle maneuverings of the two packs.  Even in this -- perhaps especially in this -- there are politics, there are stratagems, there is battle and war.

Aurich's has the tactical high ground: backs and flanks protected, defensible behind the line of the table.  Etienne reminds them of their political vulnerability, though: the nearness of his own domain; his familiarity with this land echoed even in the very language they speak.  Etienne takes the head of the table.  Sergei, wolf-formed and even less inclined to control himself, bares his teeth, converting the threat to a yawn only at the last moment.  Victor and Rasputin are merely watchful, one homid and the other lupine.  They have this, too: the advantage of sheer numbers, which counts for something.  It counts for much.

Jaan does the most talking.  He translates everything the Belgians say, as fluent in German as he is in French.  He does this for Aurich's benefit, but Aurich

is merely watching Genevieve.  His eyes are dark, but when the light hits just so there's a flicker of color there, wolf-green.  He watches her walk.  His eyes flick down to see her hand rest on the back of her chair.  Then someone else pulls it out for her.  He watches her sit, and only after she has seated herself does he and the rest of his pack retake their seats.

Chair-legs groan against marble.  A rustling of fine fabrics, fur.  Aurich settles: broad, dark, focused.  The knuckles of his hands are large.  The span of his chest and shoulders challenges that smartly tailored coat of his.  He watches, introductions exchanged all around him, and at some point, at some time, Genevieve smiles that smile of hers.  Aurich's eyes narrow a little, though not in anger.  Consideration, perhaps.  And his nostrils flare, as though he might be able to catch the scent of her across all that space.  There must be something there.  There must be something about her, that he doesn't once look away.

Not until Etienne presses, at least.  Then Aurich's attention, like a wave, finally breaks.  He blinks; it is languid, lazy, thoroughly animal.  Nevermind his fine clothing.  That crisp white shirt, that charcoal-grey suit cut just so.  Nevermind his smoothly shaven cheeks, already and always darkened by a shadow of beard.  Nevermind the signet ring on his finger, the cufflinks flashing at his wrists.  He is a beast.  He smells blood, and it is pure.

And yet: his fingers move idly.  A fold of velvet catches between thumb and middle, is released.  He draws a breath; he tips his head toward Jaan and speaks in German, a low murmur.  Jaan's voice is the one heard, polite, French.  Translating or paraphrasing or embellishing; it's hard to tell.

“Photographs and letters have not done the Lady Breitenbach justice.  In correspondence she was a lovely creature.  In person she stands singular, incomparable.  However, two questions.  The first: now that she has seen my Alpha, felt his presence, met his brothers, what says the Lady Breitenbach to the proposed match?

"And the second -- "

Aurich cuts in here.  He does not bother to speak French.  He bites the ends of his words off, teeth flashing.  His consonants are harsh as knives on stone.

"Why does the Lady Breitenbach stand wounded before me?"

[Genevieve]

Photographs and letters have not done the Lady Breitenbach justice.  In correspondence she was a lovely creature.  In person she stands singular, incomparable.

Jaan speaks: But it's Aurich she watches now. She cannot hold his gaze as steady or as long as he does [and like so many other kinfolk, it rankles: not openly, not even fully conscious. but Kinfolk are submissive in their very genetics to Garou -- and yet not all Kinfolk are born with the natural inclination to be submissive. They dance along a grey, shifting, dangerous psychological line. she dances very well.] and the only indication that she might find Jaan's initial words either pleasing, displeasing or boring is the faintest tweak of her lips and a glimmer in her eyes as they dare to catch his again: Heated sapphires, tossed into coals - I know what you really said; I know your Beta is primping your words in a language that drips of frivolity - before her gaze is forced broken again because something is building in his, something snapping there, contrary to his cool, just-controlled-beast demeanor. Fascinating, but dangerous and she is no masochist. She knows when to push, where to push... and when to back the fuck off.

Her thighs press together of their own volition. And this displeases her for any number of reasons.

However, two questions.  The first: now that she has seen my Alpha, felt his presence, met his brothers, what says the Lady Breitenbach to the proposed match?

Yes, by all means, what does The Lady Breitenbach say to the proposed match? And her glance towards Aurich this time is simple and poignant: Seriously? And there are words in her eyes; the breaths that would form words; the curve of her tongue that would shape those words; the flex of her wide, sultry, not perfect lips that would set those words free, but instead press and hold and trap her words because...

...Etienne would speak. His word is law. Though there is a chance he would defer to Heinrich as her Guardian. But not the Ward herself, surely not.

Heinrich shifts, he also would speak, already smiling with bored smugness. How amusing: Of course the Chatte accepts, what better prospects does she have?

They would - they will - speak for her. But it isn't that knowledge that holds her clever tongue; her careful, artful tongue: It's the intuitive sense that Aurich -- that this unknown Adren; this up-and-coming-but-doomed [what a paradox] Silver Fang lord -- is about to speak and that.... that... holds her attention rapt.

She has a  sixth sense.

She is spirit touched.

[She's just a sharp observer; and they prefer to attribute it to supernatural taint]

"Why does the Lady Breitenbach stand wounded before me?"

German. German is a harsh language: It's beauty is the strength of stone and the test of harsh winter; ice that can kill or nurture and protect you. It's barking and biting; it's raw and unapologetic. Sometimes it is song.... this, though, this is the breath before the rending of teeth through flesh.

Despite herself, she blanches.

Liesl translates now, fluidly, from German to French, but Etienne and Heinrich have already stiffened, adjusted their elder, magnificent - one solid and immovable, the other crafty behind hooded-bored-eyelids - stances. Not because they understand German, but because even in the Homid form Garou like these have long learned to read into the nuances of body posture and tone. By the time the translation comes Etienne looks fleetingly surprised [surprise that is almost immediately smothered] and Heinrich looks... bemused... then blank.  Etienne tilts his head a fraction towards his Beta... that is all. A moment, a second passes. Then, simply: "A mishap with some hot wax it would seem. And no concern of yours: Her health is pristine, the wound already healing," he goes on in fluid, rolling French, despite the clench of his salt-and-pepper bearded jaw. "Such things happen. If and when she is yours you may deal with her clumsiness as you see fit."

Heinrich snorts; a bemused noise, "We'd thought she'd grown out of it, but I am told women of such uncommon height and build are often given to clumsiness. Such is life, yes?" A wave of one be-ringed hand, such a Gallic gesture, dismissive and barely apologetic: You're getting our half-price, clearance rack Kin, what do you expect?

"As per your first query," finally Genevieve speaks. She cuts in. And she speaks not the French of her birth, but the German of her ancestry and the three Garou beside her blink: No doubt Liesl is translating via their totem-connection. Etienne looks for a moment as though this Kinswoman has suddenly sprouted antlers and he's not quite sure what to make of it -- why on earth is she speaking? -- Heinrich rubs two fingers over his temple: See what I have to deal with?

The question about her wounds provided her a moment of unbalance to strike on and she seizes it, continuing her words before she is cut off, by reprimand or fist, whichever it might be.

"I have four questions before I give my agreement."

Etienne blinks. He is of the old school: Surely the Kinswoman is aware she is here purely as an ornament; as a prize on an auction block. His eyes dart to heinrich, chastisement in them. Heinrich in turn shrugs, but bows his head in the slightest - but sincere - show of deferment and lifts a hand, to grab the attention of his majordomo lingering behind the other Kinfolk who comprise this song-and-dance-and-legalities retinue. "Escort Genevieve to the facilities so she might collect herself;" barely looking his nieces way, "Of course you accept, dear one -- go and refresh yourself while we handle the rest of this."

Genevieve doesn't move -- it's Aurich's response she waits for.

And perhaps that says something.

Her gaze is hooded. Unreadable.

It does not plead with him to save her. [I am no princess; I want no prince]

But it watches: She watches carefully.

[Aurich]

A mishap with hot wax, they say.  Clumsiness.  Such things happen.

Aurich listens.  His face is stone; it betrays nothing.  No telling whether or not he believes it; what he thinks of it.  No telling whether or not those two Philodoxes in the pack have weighed in across their totem, either.  A few beats go by.  Then Genevieve speaks, and as though drawn by magnets, Aurich's eyes go back to her.  For all their weight of bearing, for all their rage, her Garou escorts have become immaterial.  This is, in truth, a luxury he has only because he is flanked by his own pack.  Because he trusts in their strength and their vigilance so implicitly, so utterly, that he can freely turn his attention away from the threat

and to the prize.

For the first time, Aurich addresses the woman directly.  A surprisingly eloquent gesture of his hand first, palm turning up.  Permissive, even inviting.

"Ask what you will, my lady."

[Genevieve]

Heinrich is a Philodox himself: He knows the ways of such things -- without binding rituals more exacting than the most basic gifts of discerning Truth, his words are, within their precise, careful context, true... enough. As is Etienne's reminder that whatever happened to Genevieve yesterday, a month ago, years ago, are of no concern to von Doenhoff, his pack or his interests. They are here to discuss the business of a future...

...and if the chagrined look on Antione's face is any indication, it's a future the Kinsman and his cohorts suspect the Lady Breitenbach may never achieve: Defiance and assertiveness are dangerous paths to walk, no matter how well played on her part.

Heinrich inhales sharply through his nose, his eyes narrowing for a moment on Aurich: They are of a rank but Heinrich is seasoned and a good ten years or more Aurich's elder. Etienne lifts a hand this time, dismissing the majordomo who'd risen to escort the kinswoman away and he speaks just as Genevieve's lips part.

"Indulge the youths, Heinrich -- by all means, Genevieve, ask your questions if your prospective," there's an emphasis there, "mate is willing to hear them. I confess myself curious."

Yes, the Athro made sure to step in and speak before the Kinfolk to make it clear just who controls whom... for the time being.

Leisle and Heinrich watch the younger pack. Their expressions blandly bemused. Their scents alert and ready.

Genevieve only watches this man - beast, Garou - who may or may not take her. Her gloved hands lace over her crossed knees [tsk, tsk - a real lady would cross her legs at the ankles], she does not fidget, she does not sit ram rod straight; she is crouched though she is sitting; she is acutely sensitive to the miasma of assorted tensions and traps laid out around her. The scent of adrenaline spiked sweat is clean but metallic.

The cant of her head, the sweep of her eyelashes, all a gracious acknowledgement - she meant when she said that she could play the role of arm-candy quite well when needed - of Aurich's permission. Not Etienne's.

"My questions are simple but blunt." She makes no apologies, continues in German. "In no particular order: Will you permit me to continue my work and in so doing, agree to allow me to support myself, signing off any claims to your own fortunes? Will you expect me to live with you for extended periods? Will you allow me to see my family?" That question may come as a shock - and it's the only question that draws a real response from Heinrich, a smug expectancy... that is until her last query which, let's be clear, is a dozy.

She doesn't bat a damned eyelash,

"And, if you should so choose to take on mistresses or other dalliances - with my direct understanding that I am not allowed the same leniency," a glint of flint in her eyes but no regrets. "Will you acquiesce to using sexual protection with other partners or abstaining from taking my bed until such a time that any illnesses may work free of your accelerated immune system without infecting my own?"

In the background someone chokes on their water.

Leisle actually has to bite back a laugh.

Heinrich closes his eyes briefly.

Etienne looks like she's sprouted antlers with red flashing bulbs.

Any second now one or more of them may erupt. Any second now. But there's that breath before the storm where Aurich may respond as he so pleases.

[Aurich]

Most Garou would be appalled.  Some would be livid.  More than a few might call the whole thing off over such questions.  A few -- particularly those of Aurich's unstable auspice -- might decide to exact some form of blood-vengeance here and now.

Aurich, though.  Aurich is silent for a second.  And then he laughs.  It is so sudden and unfettered a sound, an expression, that for a moment it seems some other man has taken his place.  It only lasts so long, though, and soon enough Aurich is folding that laughter away, leaning back in his chair to regard this horribly inappropriate, enfant terrible of a prospective mate.

When he speaks, he is courteous.  There is not a trace of mockery in his tone.  "We are sworn to White Eagle, madam," he explains.  "Like our totem, we take only one mate.  And so there will be, my lady, no mistresses.  No dalliances.  No other woman but yourself, so long as I draw breath."

A beat.

"So if we are to proceed in our agreement," he adds a vaguely scandalous comment of his own -- surely that's not a smirk lurking in the corner of his mouth, "I hope we find each other at least passably satisfactory.

"As for the rest of your questions: you may continue your work.  You may retain your own assets.  You need not spend every waking hour in my presence, and indeed I encourage you not to.  I am quite busy.  It seems you are as well.  However, you will naturally be expected to spend some time in my company, and you will preferably at least pretend to enjoy those moments.  And when you are not with me, I will expect you to remain available to me,"

There are ways to interpret that, some more innocent than others.  Aurich's eyes flicker, though.  Touch her collarbones.  Then a little lower.  Then back to her eyes, but the pause has pulled just a little too long, and his tone is somehow rougher:

"...should I require your presence."  Another pause; he presses on, stoic again.  "As for visiting your family," his eyes pin Heinrich for a moment, come back, "to whom do you refer, exactly?"

[Genevieve]

He laughs and she is not offended; in fact for a moment she seems captivated by the sound; her surprise faint but pleasurable. Oh, no, she doesn't go all doe-eyed and salivating for him; neither is she softened and endeared... it's a studious appreciation, like catching the first strains of a tune unknown to you, but that calls all the same and you mind yourself to find out what the rest of the song might sound like; if it might crawl beneath your skin and please you all the more. It is sensual, her surprise, her subtle pleasure; sensual without being drenched in sexuality; her fingers flex and an unbidden thought - ugly and beautiful all at once: Perhaps I would like to touch him after all.

Perhaps that will shatter what seems to designed to be my clarion call.

The thought is clamped down with a slight furrow of her brow, a dip there, a triangle of caution [I do not want to love you; I will not allow myself to love you or anyone else; not that way] and put away much as he controls his own laughter.

His response, when it comes, takes her but surprise. Genuinely. And in that moment she seems more the young woman that she is; ignorant of such things as are most Kinfolk. Her eyes widen slightly, her head tilts slightly, a feral motion of cautious curiosity. For once she breaks her gaze away from him and looks to Liesel, switching her words not to French or German, but Dutch: "Are you held accountable to laws bidden by your totems?" Bluntly asked, the edge of that bluntness softened only by a rare, rare lapse into an innocent wonder.

Liesel's brown eyes warm, far more indulgently than either of her pack mates would ever imagine to deign and she answers in fluent kind, "Yes, child," 'Child' she says, though she cannot be much older than Genevieve herself -- though from the Fang Galliard the word is not at all unkind. "To risk the ire of one's totem is seldom done and even more seldom worth the cost."

Etienne releases his breath in a sound that from any other man would seem.. grumpy; gruff at the very least. "We are not here to educate the child," from him it is blase and condescending without a thought or a care, "In matters in which she needs no education. Be thankful that this prospective mate of your seems graciously inclined to handle your impudence."

Genevieve nods in his direction, just enough of a submissive display to quell his ire: After all, that  Aurich has answered her at all; that they have not dragged her off by the very roots of her hair -- this is a victory of its own for her and more than she imagined she might be allowed. Imperceptible to all but the most heightened senses, a sense of relief trembles through her; before she lets her saucy lips take on the the barest hint of smugness; if only because she would not be herself did she not push just... a touch... farther...

"...I am glad," in German again, "to hear this, my lord." Smugness - the barest whisper of it - gone; and in its stead the facade of good, courtly manners. And in her muscles hums something different...that cautious relief; the lingering seed of doubt and surprise.

It might be easier if he did screw around. I'd counted on that. I'd made my bargains on that.

He speaks of her other queries, accepting them graciously - pointing out realities without apology or guile.

I hope we find each other at least passably satisfactory, says he and.. is that a smirk? And.. is one echoed, softer, fainter, on her own lips? The arch of one fine plucked brow, a duskier blonde than the golden hues of her hair. As if she sees no problem there...

...this bold, horribly inappropriate, enfant terrible of a prospective mate... this Queen in the making.

Her expression is more somber, sharper as he acquiesces to her requests of continuing to work; to support herself; to see to the growth and maintenance of her own financial assets and business savvy, noted and calculated.... he speaks of her... availability... and his gaze is as understated and yet ripe with feral claim as the rest of him. Calm and controlled he may be: There's no denying the wolf in him, though. Flicker-flash: again she is caught somewhat by surprise.

Attraction was not something she'd bargained for.

Tolerance. Consensual tolerance - that is what she bargained for. But his gaze slides to the pronounced line of her clavicle, slightly arched, the pronounced 'v' of the sternal head; she is lean, willowy. Her breasts are small; her hips fuller, but the whole of her too long and lithe to be dubbed pear shaped.

His tone is rougher.

She forbids - by sheer force of will - her eyes to dilate slightly, her pulse to increase. She controls it. She will not be undone by him.

"I will not deny a mate my company." Is her response and if it is a tad more husky it is, at the very least, not by much.

As for visiting your family....

Heinrich is, for once, not enthralled by his ennui. In fact, in human terms one might say he has taken a sudden bout of a sour stomach. He is not best pleased with how this going -- Etienne seems to have regained his patriarchal good will, Liesel seems downright happily amused by it all. Heinrich answers, smoothly, "My niece is quite fond of my children, Eberstark. And they are of her. Each would be quite distraught without some continued contact. Surely such an indulgence can be made."

Genevieve's expression is careful; schooled. More masked than ever before, but she cannot mask the spike of anxiety in her scent: "I love my young cousins, my lord... they are precious to me." Softer words than you would expect from one such as she.

And this time her eyes do hold a plea: She allows it -- she must. It is not for her own benefit but for theirs. "Lucienne and Roland are precious to me."

They. And only them.

Heinrich still looks damned pleased with himself. Etienne and Liesel less so.

[Aurich]

The truth is, neither of them bargained for attraction.  Neither of them want attraction, nor anything approaching a real bond.  It's easier without.  Cleaner.  Safer.  And ultimately, kinder.  After all, every Garou's time is limited.  Aurich's more than most.

And yet -- there are sparks.  Perhaps it's inevitable for Aurich.  He picked her out of a dozen others, after all, relying on nothing more than that first initial, irrational pull.  It was the way her eyes met the camera.  It was something about her.  And she is so very well-bred.  She is so very

incomparable.

It's the flip side that's a little surprising.  Those tiny telltale signs.  A twitch of a finger.  A breath drawn differently.  Certain words, certain ways of speaking.  Subtle, subtle shifts of her body.  She controls herself.  He pretends not to see.

They return to safer subjects.  Her cousins, she says.  Aurich considers this.  Jaan is still translating, quietly, and for the benefit of the Belgians now.  Heinrich opens his mouth again.  Aurich has a brief, bloody thought of cleaving that tongue of his in two.  Fitting, really; the man practically wore scales already.

"If and when the little ones are old enough to travel," Aurich decides, "they would of course be welcome at Doenhoff.  It's not very far from Brussels, even by train.  My brothers or I could easily escort them."

That final question answered, Aurich lifts his eyebrows.

"Is there anything else on your mind, Lady Breitenbach?"

[Genevieve]

One cannot call Liesel impish, but she is clearly the more humane of the three Garou present on Genevieve's side of the this court, this battlefield, this plateau of formal surrender. The Galliard briefly fans herself with a sidelong glance at Genevieve, who catches the meaning easily enough: Oh, the UST! Genevieve brow furrows once more but her wide lips press to suppress not a scowl but the sudden urge to laugh. The urge itself irritates her: It is a feminine urge; a sensual urge and she bargained for no such thing in this room. The Galliard's gaze is not unkind; the glance shifts to Heinrich though at Aurich's response... his measured, careful response. A response that is all the panacea Genevieve needs to rid herself of sexual notions in a place where she is already too painfully aware that her reproductive organs are on a seller's block.

When they are old enough to travel...

How old is that?

Her response is hushed, controlled and calm [her fingers twist and tighten, locked beneath gloves, hidden beneath the table] "May I ring them? It will be some years before---"

"What is this?" Heinrich does not bother to hide the scowl that ripples over his mature, chiseled-good-looks features, and for once a true shine of the beast within him comes to the fore. Hackles would be raised now were they shifted to such forms. Etienne sits up, irritated that such a simple matter should be taking such unexpected turns. Heinrich goes on, leaning forward. "What Silver Fang denies his mate of the tribe - of good line and breed - to continue visiting the family that raised her? Surely her business will bring her back to the city from time to time. The anniversary of her brother's death, her parents, to their graves within our family crypt."

The mention of those deaths does not make Genevieve blanch with a feminine-weakness, no urge to swoon, not need to weep pretty, pretty tears. She does not weep pretty, angelic tears. Rage fires in her eyes and twists in her gut. She takes a drink from the goblet of water before her, the black silk of her glove slipping on the chilled crystal, she tightens her grasp before it should slip away.

Etienne drums his fingers on the table, his mien one of irritation, his words for the leader of the younger [larger] pack beside him, "Truly? These affairs are usually a question of dowries, of rights of offspring, wills and the clever human creation of the prenuptial agreement. In this... unique... situation," unique is said with some small distaste, tempered only by good business savvy - or, perhaps more appropriately, greed,"We also must consider the rights of artifact ownership, should Genevieve continue to find such objects as she has in the past. The trinkets of course are yours to do with as you wish - or hers if you are so lenient in your mate's business acumen - but artifacts of significance to the house of her Birth: You cannot expect us to blithely allows these to be hoarded by House Gleaming Eye. But we've yet to speak of such nuanced matters and already you mean to insult this family, this pack, by suggesting that one of our own may not return from time to time to those bonded to her in blood?" His large hands lift, the knuckles dusted with silver hairs but those hands are no less strongly seasoned for the signs of age upon them, "Accommodations must be made for pairs made between houses. If you are unwilling to acquiesce to reason on these matters then it may be that this match is not, after all, to our mutual benefit. House Unbreakable Hearth does not lack for its own bachelors and widowers to take up the child's suit."

Ah, of course: The meeting has come to the threatening and bargaining stage. Delightful.

Genevieve doesn't mean to speak: Really, she doesn't. Her own damned sense of self-preservation is trying desperately to batten down the hatches and seal all ports. Her decidedly wicked sense of sarcasm slips through too-slow floodgates and the words roil out in French -- a truly sumptuous language when one seeks to drench each syllable in sardonic svelte, "Ah, well, now we've come to it. My hands are more valuable than my twat, I'm afraid. And yet both are utterly taboo to speak of in good company. A delicious irony."

Etienne's eyes go hooded - most displeased - and it's Heinrich who snaps up and pulls out Genevieve's chair: "To the floor then, cha--," he bites off the inappropriate 'endearment' with a snarl, "If you will speak like a wench of low breeding then you may present yourself as such and degrade yourself properly."

[Aurich]

A bit of misunderstanding in there, truthfully.  When they are old enough to travel, says Aurich.  May I ring them, asks Genevieve.  Aurich quirks an eyebrow -- surely the most evident expression he's worn to date, aside from that brief, surprising laugh.

"Old enough to talk is old enough to travel, I would think.  I hardly meant -- "

They are interrupted.  Aurich closes his mouth.  His face is still again.  He watches Genevieve.  He listens to her uncle, and his Alpha.  Jaan translates, of course, with the same diplomatic neutrality he's so impressively maintained throughout.  There's blustering.  Then there's complaining.  Then there's a threat, which makes wolf-Sergei's hackles rise; makes Victor's eyes narrow.

"Now, that is charming," the younger of the two pack Philodoxes drawls.  Victor is everything Aurich is not: one of those lean, fair, lovely Fangs, with a sardonic edge that dims the idealism of his youth.  "I do believe the Rhyas are threatening to take their ball and go home."

"Victor," Jaan warns.  Victor shrugs and sips his water, but frankly - his commentary is forgotten, because then Genevieve adds her own, and Jaan is translating in a low murmur, and Heinrich has evidently heard enough.

He yanks Genevieve's chair out from under her.  Clumsy, he'd called her before.  She goes to the floor, and Aurich is instantly and furiously on his feet.  His chair topples.  Sergei is leaping to all fours before it crashes to the floor, an instinctive reaction to his Alpha's motion.  The other Ahroun is snarling openly, baring his teeth, white fur all abristle, but the moment where Aurich might have leapt over the table and painted the floor with blood seems to have come and gone.

He is cold again; controlled.

"Heinrich," he says, "tell me.  Why does the Lady Breitenbach stand wounded before me?"

Jaan has leaned forward, tense, on the verge of rising himself.  He translates in a tense mutter.  Rasputin, who has been minimally attentive throughout, at last pauses in the midst of licking a forepaw and sets his yellow eyes on dear uncle Heinrich.  Victor, who alone remains lounging in his seat, is smirking.

[Genevieve]

The chair is yanked out from beneath her with a strength and force no normal man of Heinrich's age would likely manage. He is intent to see his niece in her place [it isn't about sex, really, it isn't about sexual gratification, it is about control - one of the few things left to excite a Garou whose mind inevitably succumbs - always - to numbness and lassitude]. Clumsy he called her: She is nothing of the sort. Once, yes: In her youth, in her wretchedly awkward adolescence when she was all long limbs, long torso, gangly and slow to sexual maturation. Control was her only defense and she uses it here: To save herself injury she grasps the handles of the chair as it moves, uses the backward momentum; the undeniable pull of gravity; twists herself and lands to the side in a crouch. Healing flesh tears, brings the sting of tears to her eyes; furious she denies the impulse to blink, to shut her eyes; jaw clenched, the strong line of her face prominent; the nostrils of her bold, sharp nose flexing.

Aurich is on his feet - the motion, the raw energy, it catches the periphery of her vision - she tenses reflexively, crouches lower when the biting growl of his wolf-formed packmate permeates the air... too many threats, too many possibilities [the other kinfolk in the room have backed up to walls, are still as stone, a prey response] - Heinrich looms over her, willing her down with a burning gaze. Submit, it commands. Her Will is strong... it truly is, but even the strongest willed of Kinfolk must bend. Kinfolk with any sense of self-preservation [or who have something else of value to lose] learn to bend and sway like the willow, least they break. The strength of her will is shown in that she resists just long enough to make it clear that submission is not her nature; but the crouch becomes a kneel; her bottom settling back to stiletto clad heels, hands on her thighs, staring ahead at a fixed point, jaw tight. Jaw. So. Tight. Can you hear the molars grind?

Alabaster skin has gone pale as winter's first snow: in some it would be a sign of an impending bout of fainting. In her it is pure fury.

The span of seconds. Breathes, barely more than two, before Aurich stays on his side of the table and asks his question; makes his demand. Etienne has risen as has Liesel, who murmurs her own translation if it's German the Doenhoff still speaks. And Heinrich.... Heinrich relaxes, releases a breath, all the delicious [deadening] apathy pouring itself through his veins. He rolls his shoulders; he shrugs with great insouciance, "Aurich, tell me: What business of yours do you possibly presume it to be?"

There's a moment. A pause. A stirring between the three older packmates. Heinrich inclines his head slightly in Etienne's direction.... and without a further word, moves to leave the room, unless otherwise stopped. Unless otherwise interrupted, Leisel moves to hold out a hand to Genevieve, speaking in a low, careful tone, one reserved for wounded animals and scared children: "Stand, child, it is done."

[Aurich]

Aurich moves.  His left hand snatches the cloth from the table.  The colors of Doenhoff billow into the air, fall to the ground with a muffled whumpf.  Revealed on the table: what must have been intended as an engagement gift to Genevieve.  No jewelry.  No useless trinkets, no expensive baubles; no ring to bind her.  A pair of swords, instead.  A rapier and a main-gauche, a matched set with simple, elegant hilts and lean, deadly blades.  The eye barely has time to register before Aurich has taken up the parrying dagger, hefted it, whipped it at Heinrich's back

only to sail past him and slam into the door, quivering.

"I'm not done here."  Aurich's voice is a growl.  "And you'll do well to listen, Lord Breitenbach.  You have a name to preserve, honor to guard, a life to lose.  I have none of these things.  I have no patience, either, and no incentive to hold back.  I suspect your niece wouldn't mind terribly if her engagement presents arrived stained with your blood.

"Genevieve is mine."  It's the first time he's said her name.  He says it like he has a right to her already; like he always did.  "She is no longer of House Unbreakable Hearth.  She is of House Gleaming Eye, and of House Doenhoff.  You will relinquish all rights and all claim to her.  You will never again stand unaccompanied in her company.  If you attempt it, I will tear you limb from limb.  As of this moment, she and all that is hers, past and present and future, is no longer your concern and will never be again.

"Should you desire some sort of bride-price, some concession for the loss of her person and talents and what renown she might earn your house, haggle it out with my lawyers and my accountants.  I will give you any monetary price you name.  I will not cede you anything beyond material wealth.  Not a moment of her time.  Not a hair on her head.

"If you are wise, you will accept these terms and we will part in peace.  If not; well.  Wars have begun over less.  But remember this, Heinrich.  My fate is already known.  I will not die here.  Not today.  Not to you.  Your fate, I'm afraid, is far less certain."

[Genevieve]

This started - this whole meeting - in more or less the usual manner and mien of such things. Two Silver Fangs of appropriate age and appropriate breeding meeting after a selective, invasive, dull process maneuvered by matrons of the genealogical societies and the drawing room whispers of who is suitable for whom. They'd never met. Pictures in dossiers. A few letters between the two of them, remarkably unromantic, especially his last to her and her last to him, the only one written in her hand and birthed by her singular mind, her forthright voice. This started with their retinues and goblets of water: An unknown something on the table, covered in the colors of House Doenhoff. This started with every intention of boredom and dry, dry mechanization of fate in which she, ultimately, had precious little choice.

As is often the case where Genevieve is concerned: Things do not play out as they were meant to. The matter becomes complicated; the atmosphere of the room sizzles at first with an elemental attraction neither parties counted on; then burnishes a molten, smothering heat as dark truths are hinted at; smart mouths are opened; violence simmers like a miasma in the air; a lethal haze; it sings in their blood. The kinfolk - the forgotten kinfolk - eye one another, nerves piqued, fight or flight instinct keening in their eardrums [flight usually wins]. The colors of house Doenhoff unfurls, floats; tempered steel revealed, wicked and sharp, no trinkets these, no dull blades for ornament. No more proof needed than the lethal grip of the dagger, now imbedded deep in engraved, glazed wood; trembling like a cross. There's a tone to that sound, a resonant pitch that sends a shudder [shiver. delicious] through her, her lips parting into a slight, soft [not slack, no] O, the precursor of a whimper if she was afraid [she is, in part] or a bedroom moan [and that is closer; and damn him. damn him for knowing somehow; damn him for making her want him. now. wanting him was not part of the bargain. wanting was not something she was prepared to give].

Heinrich shifts; no more warning than the frisson in the air; the crackle of ozone. He is no cub, no fumbling pup; the change takes him in less than seconds and he stands in Crinos at the door, wrenching loose the dagger...

...Leisel shifts to hispo, snarling low in her silvery white throat.

And Etienne... Etienne roars, "ENOUGH!" still Homid form, but there is no denying his Breeding, his Rank, the pull of it. Fall in line, it demands. "House Unbreakable Hearth will not be dictated to by a gang of adolescents following their just-blooded Adren. This arrangement is null: You will leav--"

"No!"

For a horrible moment she has no idea to whom she is supposed to plead - Aurich? Etienne? Heinrich? She shudders, then snarls, up on her feet now and she reaches for the rapier on the table, holds it with a grip that tells Aurich everything he needs to know if ever he wondered how she might receive such a gift.

A Queen must have a flair for the dramatic.

A Princess may tremble and quail; bat her eyelashes prettily; cry so-so-prettily.

A Queen must be stronger than any man in spirit alone: Nothing else is left her. It is her only weapon.

The sword is turned on none of them. Its end slices through the fine fabric of the dark, pinstripe Armani slacks, the tip through the blood soaked bandages, revealing raw, open, blistered skin.

"Heinrich Brientenbach's madness claims him. For three seasons now it grows worse. The attention he lends me is a precursor of rape and incest. He has watched me nude and punished me for attempting to hide that nudity from him." Her voice carries; it is breathy but not breathless. It does not waver. "If you take me, Aurich," yes, she says his name, her eyes cut to him, brazen [wanting], demanding [pleading], "in this manner, it is his children who will be punished in my name. I cannot abide that. I will not abide that." In her gloved hand the sword is held at half-point, defensive, her body attuned to the blade, taking it on as an extension of her flesh, her mind. Her singular; forthright; desperate mind.

There are stories like this: Bodas de Sangre -- Blood Weddings. There are tales and plays and poems and sagas sung of celebrations of love turned to massacres.

[Aurich]

There is no celebration of love here.  There is electric, elemental attraction.  There are darker lusts; there is pride, and a lot of it.  There is madness.  And most certainly, there is blood: mad blood, pure blood, hot blood ready for war.  Chaos comes very close to overtaking this entire affair.  A blade is thrown.  One werewolf bursts into Crinos; another to Hispo.  White Eagle's pack is on their feet, every last one of them, their young Philodox calmly removing his cufflinks, which are not dedicated.  He wouldn't want to break them in the shift, after all.

Only that shift never comes.  An Athro roars.  There is an instinctive shrinking, particularly in the Fosterns - Victor, Rasputin.  There's a moment -- this arrangement is null -- when Aurich is resurgent in his wrath, slamming his palms down on the table as though he might vault it and launch into the previously promised violence, but then

Genevieve takes up the rapier.  She turns it on herself.  His heart gives a beat so hard he can feel the pulse reaching his throat, his ears, his fingers in tandem.

"Don't," he says, at once command and plea.

She doesn't.  Not as he fears, anyway.  She slashes her slacks open -- one of the kin gasps -- then everyone sees.  Jaan winces.  Rasputin cocks an ear at his Alpha, questioning, but Aurich holds up his hand.  She is speaking.  He attends.  When she is done, he exhales a breath he didn't realize he held.  He straightens his back, and the threat in his very posture lessens.  He seems less the beast, more the man.  And he bends, gripping the colors of his house, drawing that heavy swath of velvet from the floor.

It ripples open when Aurich tosses it to Genevieve.  Perhaps there's symbolism in that; perhaps he's simply being chivalrous, giving her something to cover herself with.

"Then what exactly do you propose," his voice is low and measured again, "my lady?"

[Genevieve]

Sweat beads along her scalp; it trickles down her spine, pooling then slipping over dips and ridges; Aurich tosses her the cloth that covered the blades he brought her; she catches it with one gloved hand - the free one, the right one - but her actions stop there: It's Heinrich she's watching, waiting for him to lunge at her and every cell of her body screaming that she will not be cut down without getting in a blow of her own. The prospect of death does not terrify her as much as she thought it might: The words she spoke had liberated something within her, some dark secret revealed, now thrown out in the open to be dealt with or swept under the rug. She's too finely tensed now, to strung and focused on the next move of the war-formed Garou in the room to give a whit of worry about her current lack of modesty.

[she did not let the colors fall to the ground. perhaps simply out of pure reflex. perhaps something else.]

Aurich asks his query.. of her. And for a moment a ripple of confusion caresses her strong, regal, feral-kisses features [a wolf's daughter, a falcon's daughter, no doubt about it] as if the prospect that she should actually have some say in what happens next is downright alien to her.

In the end she isn't allowed the option: Etienne will not suffer his kinfolk to dictate the course of events, no matter her abused state. With a glance in her direction that once again seems to wonder what strange cuckoo this is before him and how it found itself in the nest of his House, his protectorate, his pack. A look to Aurich: Withering but conceding as well. Every Philodox here cannot dispute the truth of her words, he least of all. "Enough," he says again, his words taut, resonantly tight, ringing true with authority given by blood and deed. The glittering onyx of his eyes settle now on Heinrich in his Crinos form, naturally towering over all present, a truth that doesn't seem to phase the elder of them in the slightest. No words pass: The order is given via totem. The look of judgement and disgust is clear. For a second the Crinos stirs, tongue lapping over vicious canine fangs, animal gaze locked on the Kin in question, the scent of blood and madness rich in brutal nostrils. A moment when the lunge Genevieve awaits may just happen [she should expect that one of the many other Garou present would prevent that; she should believe one of them on either side at least, would not allow a kinfolk to be slain before them. but for all appearances she expects no such thing. no protection, no succor. her terror exists on a primitive level in her brain that fuels a singular defiance; an animal knowledge that she has only herself upon which to rely]

...Heinrich slips back into Homid. Slouches, his expression blank, deep rooted in the ennui that claims him fiercely. Callous, manicured hands slip into his pockets, returned to him with the shift back to his natural state. His gaze is impassive on his Alpha. What of it? It asks with lassitude.

Etienne, still standing with an air of dominance, barely looks Liesel's way, but the hispo formed galliard moves to stand before Heinrich, clearly a threat to him should he attempt any further action. For one small moment, now that the Beta of his pack has been subdued, Etienne appears... old. Tired. His gaze moves to the Kinfolk still expertly gripping the sword, and speaks to her gruffly in his native tongue. "Why did you not speak before this, child? Did you think we would nurture his madness?"

Slowly... belatedly... she wraps the colors of house Doenhoff around her hips, hiding flesh and wound from view at last, a feat somewhat awkwardly executed with one hand - she does not relinquish the sword. Her chin lifts, her shrewd eyes unapologetic. Do not pity me. "He knew my fear was never what he might do to me. I knew I offered some protection to my dear ones. If I am to leave... then my shame is small price to pay for their safety."

The trembling wants to set in now, now that the adrenaline is fading, now that the metal taste in her mouth is receding, the ringing in her ears dying away. She shifts her stance, lowers the blade with ease, not letting the tip touch the floor,  her face turns, to the Adren who claimed her. Who called to her body and blood in a manner most unsettling, most delicious, most vexing, most unexpected. German slips from her lips now. "My dear ones are safe. I will go where you command if you still command it." Surrender.

Any intelligent man should already grasp that it is not in this woman to truly submit, no matter the courtly acceptance of her words.

[Aurich]

It is said that prime amongst the aims and responsibilities of House Unbreakable Hearth is unity both within and without the tribe; it is said that House Gleaming Eye, instead, makes the relentless snuffing out of corruption its concern.  Perhaps Etienne and Aurich should consider themselves both victors on this day, then, to have so deftly achieved both aims.

Yet Etienne simply looks tired.  And Aurich looks ... well; it's hard to tell now.  His mask is back in place, his control asserted firmly.  He bows his head ever so slightly to his elder.  It is the first such recognition of the other's rank and honor since they have met.

It is to Genevieve that he speaks, however.  "I do," he says, brusque.  On the very verge of curtness.  Stepping back from the table, there's a word to his retinue - "See to the details."

Then he's walking across the room.  Passing Heinrich without a glance.  Going to the door, seizing the warning shot of a parrying dagger; wrenching it from the door with a firm pull.  His is a hand skilled with bladed weapons, though perhaps less experienced with lighter arms such as these.  Even so, the turn of the dagger is deft and precise, held hilt-first now.

He crosses to Genevieve.  This is the closest they have ever come: arms-length, but somehow it feels nearer.  Without a table between to divide them, Aurich seems a wall of strength and authority.  Here is a wolf who was born an alpha, if there ever was one.

The main-gauche is offered to her, held on his open palm.  "The rings of Doenhoff may only leave the land when worn on the hand of its lord and lady," he explains.  "This is our tradition.  Yet somehow, I suspect you would have preferred this token of our betrothal, regardless."

His hand lowers only after she has taken both blades in hand.  He is watching her again, astute, sharply perceptive.

"You have a reservation on the 6:50 to Dresden," he says, "and from there, a car will take you to a hotel not far from the estate.  I believe Saturdays are traditional for weddings.  We can arrange for any guests you may wish to bring, but I believe a quiet, dignified ceremony may be best.  You do agree?"

This much must be said: Aurich von Doenhoff certainly arrived expecting to bring home a bride.

[Genevieve]

I do, says he, breviloquent; terse. Head canted at a minute angle her chin dips in a subtle but eloquent nod of acknowledgement. Others of her ilk would be icy in such a gesture: She burns. Incandescent; a stoked flame from within.

There is stillness; watchfulness. The lord of Doenhoff removes a knife from a door, besides which a lost [fallen?] Adren is absorbed in his own emptiness; guarded fiercely by his own packmate. She is watched but unmoved - his attention holds eyes more rapt than she ever would; it is in his nature and is not denied. His closeness [she inhales, reflexive, breathes in his sent softly but deeply, takes it down into herself], as close as either of them have been to each other. Holds out the blade to match the set of the rapier she holds with a grace that marks the point where years of long training become second nature. The blade is hers; she is a blade herself. He speaks of the travel plans he has arranged that she will, of course, accept.

Her response is not immediate: As he speaks she tests the new blade, the completion of the set; breathes more evenly with both gloved hands occupied with the weight and assurance of finely wrought steel; full tangs and exquisite balance. There are no words needed to prove that his instinct on the matter of betrothal gifts was accurate. She offers him no smiles, no coquettish, breathless words of praise. She is pleased: She need not put words to it. Will he understand the connotations of her pleasure? She does not seek in his eyes for any hint of it.

You do agree?

Now her eyes sweep up to his: She is a tall woman, heels or not, but still she must look up just a touch, perhaps more. The azure of her gaze is as masked as his, the source of the heat in her eyes given no name.

"I shall be present. I shan't wear white," her voice is low, its natural range, an earthen alto, "I shall be alone."

She knows the way of her family: Whatever the right of her revelations, she will be all the more ostracized after today. And to all appearances she doesn't give a damn.

And turns on a heel, away from him, moving with easy, languid grace to the far end of the room where long windows mark out a vista of the old city. Blades in hand, loose, but always ready, she drinks in the city of her birth as, doubtless, the Garou make their exit... Aurich and his to do whatever it is they are so inclined to. Etienne and Liesel off to see to the judgement and punishment of one of their own. And it is only when the last wafts of Rage leave the room that she deigns to turn away from the window and walk back to the table. To pull a new chair to its head and sit down, blades across her lap, better than scepters, to reign among the proceedings Garou need not be bothered with.

[Aurich]

It was of course truth when Aurich informed his bride-to-be, prospective no longer, the traditions that dictate where the rings of Doenhoff may and may not be carried.  One begins to think Aurich incapable of telling a lie, or at least extremely unwilling to.  Even so, the choice of gifts must have been deliberate.  He could have easily gifted her with some other form of jewelry.  A necklace.  Bracelets.  A collar and manacles.  Or, if he were feeling more charitable: furs, perhaps.  Gowns of silk and lace.  A cloak emblazoned with his arms.  Something to adorn her, something to mark her as his.

Yet it was none of these things, these more traditional gifts, that he brought her.  Instead he's given her weapons.  At the summit of her surrender, he's chosen to arm her.

There may be some connotation to that, too.  Or perhaps he's simply an Ahroun through and through.

There is a flicker of amusement as Genevieve declares she will not be wearing white.  A beat later it's gone: replaced by the first softness that has crossed Aurich's face and lingered in his eyes.  Even when she revealed her wounds, he did not look at her like this.  It is not pity, but it is a sort of compassion.

She will be alone.  There is a sadness in that, he thinks.  That she should pass from the house that bore her to the house that claims her utterly unescorted, as though she were unimportant and unworthy of an honor guard.  That she should begin her time with Aurich the same way she will inevitably end it.

She turns away.  He stands a little straighter, closed again, pivoting to face her back.

"If you require anything in the coming days, do not hesitate to summon Otto.  It has been a privilege, Genevieve.  I will see you again on Saturday."

Whether or not she turns, he bows to her back, precise and military in his carriage.  When he leaves, his pack leaves with him.  His retainers remain behind, and the colors that wrapped her swords as well.