This takes place on a tape recorder, a cheap thing bought at a local electronics store, something tossed in the dresser drawer next to the bed - Ra's voice, in soft arabic, just.. talking. The accents, the voices - they are not in english, no, but they are the conversation - word for word.. the accents in place where he interjects.

I couldn't help but wonder, watching her storm off like that - it wasn't like her, getting angry, being so close to losing control. Even in the midst of Chicago, even as a cub, she never really lost control. It worried me, I suppose - and I knew it didn't bode well for her or anyone else.

As long as I've known Nay - she has a bad habit - she bottles things up inside, and lets them rot. Those things compound and fester, and feed how cynical she is. Gaia knows our world is hardly the safest, sanest place - every day, we see the absolute worst the world has to offer from every perspective, and every day we're called to do something about it. It never has been easy. Nay, though, I think, sometimes takes it all personally - I've always thought I pushed too hard, tried too hard. She fits uneasily into the world.

Sometimes, I forget that even she needs a shoulder - and then when I remember all the guilt and the past come back.

Perhaps it really wasn't a good idea, this time - I don't know. The trouble with feeling something for someone else is it makes you do things on impulse, things out of pure worry that sometimes do more damage than the events you're worried about. I should know better - my nature isn't to heal a damned thing - I've been made to destroy.

She didn't sound too terribly out of sorts, at first - you could hear the strain in her voice as she extended the invitation. I decided the soft approach was probably the best. If she didn't want to talk, it was hardly my place to make her.

"Hello, gorgeous." One day, maybe, she'll believe it. I'll keep trying, anyway.

Her expression wasn't .. good. It wasn't accusing, no, but it wasn't good. "You sent her, didn't you?"

"Sent who?"

"Sue."

Sue? Wonderful. The question was, 'are they out to strangle each other yet?' "Sue? Sent her to you?" Funny, really - no bloody chance in hell. Nay'd never admit it, but the two of them are too much alike. "Hardly. Something tells me I'd have blood on my hands - one or the other of you would end up shredding furnature." And the walls, and the nearest continent...

"She came asking me what my fondest desires were and threatened to get you to help her figure them out...."

"Sue asked that?"

"Last thing I need in my life is some thrice be damned -warper- pushing at me to tell her what I desire most."

Wonderful again. You know, up until that moment, I'd thought Nay to have learned how to look /past/ some of those prejudices. Classifying warpers is about as easy as herding cats, and no less stupid a pasttime. I suppose that's what irritated me.. I should have listened. The fact that this /was/ so unlike her should have been a clue - I should blame the moon, but I have to blame myself. Idiotic wolf.

"Really."

"Got enough problems as it is." She was pacing - another clue. Then again, hindsight always is perfect. "She thinks that she can right the wrongs of her kind by fixing me...I tend to think it's a little too late for that."

"Something tells me /that/ isn't her motivation. Besides.. why would you need fixing?" I'd managed to get my hands on the milk - I'm not much of a parent, I'll be the first to admit, but there's something about milk that always seems to soothe the nerves. It was worth a try, anyway - I knew /I/ needed it. Sensitive subjects that were irritating me far more than I ever should have let them. Sue is my soul-sister, after all - not that Nay even knew or understood that then. She still doesn't, I think. But.. she's as much my family.

She snapped, then - her voice angry, "If it hadn't been for that fucking warper in Providence, you -might- have some cubs to crow about."

Nay's old fire.. it caught me off guard, and.. well, it took a minute. I just didn't know.. and it hurt, hurt so much when I finally knew what she was saying. I hurt for her, I hurt for not knowing - why didn't she trust me? Why didn't she /tell/ me? It wasn't about need.. she hadn't needed me for years.. but I thought...

It doesn't matter now. But Nay is.. and always will be.. as much my child as the children that bless me now. I just know that it hurt to be left out of this part of her life, to know that she was wounded inside and never even said anything. And.. I knew that I'd been blind.. and failed her in it. I should have known.

"I.. I see." I'm not good at being gentle.. not with Nay. It's never been our way, really - but I tried. I wanted, right at that moment, just to hug her. I kept seeing that angry cub in her eyes - /my/ cub. My child. "Nay..." I felt myself reach out for her.. I shouldn't have. I know I shouldn't - she was old enough, hard enough. It was a selfish thing to do.

"I got 'honor' for it." A derisive snort follows "Just like when Creed scarred me." I can't blame her anger.. even now. I was too slow, had stayed too far away.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

A puppy's argument. The selfish side of hurt, the forever 'why' that I thought I'd given up a long time ago.

"You were too busy giving me a hard time about cubs to hear that they are no longer possible. Gaia only knows why Raymond stays...."

Simply. . "The same reason why Stacee waited for me. He loves you." I turned away for the milk, then.. Safe, glasses of milk. I didn't know what to do.. and Gaia, how much it hurt to hear. How much /she/ hurt..

"The bomb went off pretty much in my face. I was almost dead when Wolf got to me."

"At least we didn't lose you." I couldn't have borne that, I think. But something in her voice.. it was the /old/ hurt. I knew she internalized.. but how much she'd kept this - and even now, she was simply angry.

"At least...."

"Sometimes, Naydene-/rhya/" I thought it was best.. and suddenly all of that hurt started.. gnawing. I could taste the Rage eating at it.. I know I was cutting. I just wanted her to know.. to know how worthwhile she was. The cynicsm finally hit home.. and somehow it hurt worse than any of the rest.. didn't she understand? "You are /still/ a cub. I knew we'd grown apart, that we'd both changed.. I just hadn't realized how bloody well /much/."

I know that that cought her off guard. It should have.. I saw it in her expression. I think.. my memory, for once, isn't too clear.

It was her glare that should have given me warning.

"You expected something else? I'm not supposed to be cynical? I'm not supposed to be suspicious? I'm not supposed to be mad as hell because some halfwitted 'friend' of the Sept nearly got me killed and didn't have the common -decency- to clean up after himself? IF you expected me to stay that innocent and idealistic little cub and slough it off like some bad hair day, you're out of your hairy mind, Rael. This ain't Chicago and I got my battlescars like a good little wolf."

I think this is where I grew angry. I.. can't remember my emotions well.. but with that simple statment.. she wounded me deeper than she will ever know. How /dare/ she? After everything we'd been through.. that /I'd/ been through for her.. how dare she classify me with those bastards?

She kept going..."But -never- -ever- ask me to think there is honor in them, not now." Now a tear rolled down her cheek, "Not after all of this."

Honor. She /dares/ throw /that/ in my face? Honor. I could /feel/ her self-pity.. it gnawed at me nakedly, openly.. hungrily. She wanted an apology from me.. I think. I know I felt it - she wanted something from me to be an apology for how everyone else treated her. Honor.. battlescars? The honor from scars is hardly a thing we chase.. it's recognition. A mark that you have given something important up for another purpose.. something of yourself, something never replaced.

I wonder still why she never saw that? She was so self-absorbed, at that moment.. so /hurt/... the wound was still raw, or I'd reopened it. But I'd never raised her to self-pity. Never. I just knew then that I was angry.

"No, not honor. Necessity." It was hard to keep from Raging, then.. but that would have simply destroyed us both. Even irrational, I knew that. I think I tried to explain.. but I know I failed. I still remember the words, and they vaguely haunt me. A hundred other ways they could have been said..

"Have you ever thought about why /I/ fight? Honor? For me? Pah.. now /that/ would be something to see, wouldn't it. The dice fell badly, Naydene. That's all. I've never asked you to look for honor in anything but your own heart. It would have been pretentious of /me/, of all, to ask otherwise." I just had to ask. I just had to.. how far had I failed? how much of it was her? "And then that you couldn't even /tell/ me? Do you think me /that/ shallow? Or is it just that you think the old ahroun is just that self-absorbed?"

"You were humiliating me in the tavern. Pushing me. It was my first night off in a -very- long time and frankly, when I came back home, it was -easier- to just work a fortnight for 20's and forget about it."

Even now, I regret a simple apology.. but even now, I think I would not give it. How can I? I feel the sting of that attack.. she had.. has!.. the audacity to assume that I would hurt her so willfully?

I lashed out. We devolved into ranting, I think. "Really. Humiliating? Oh.. I just went /out of my way/. Let me tell you.. I set out that night with that thought in the back of my head - 'oh, hey, you old bastard, let's go out and give one of the few people you call family hell just for the giggle. Should be fun'. You don't think I'd have reacted differently if you'd bothered to just /SAY/ anything? I am /NOT/ bloody psychic.""

"I. am not. going to tell -anyone- that kind of thing in a fucking -bar-, Rael."

"How about anytime in the last /year/. I daresay you could have found a moment /somewhere/ along the way." A low growl. "Oh.. that's right. No, I couldn't understand /anything/ about that.. nope. Twenty years of being a fucking full moon, and one thing I'd /never/ understand is how much it all hurts."

Set's teeth.. I still don't think Naydene knows just how many friends I've buried, how many deaths I've seen. Seraphain, Sebastian, David.. the list goes on. The pain, the Harano, the unbearable burden of existance, of death, of /killing/. Sometimes it weighs more than others.. and to have it implied that I'd not understand something as basic as /this?/ Even now, my blood boils - she has no right. Nor will she ever.

"You know though.. what hurts worse is the fact that you never did. How many times I fucking hurt /you/.. simply because I had no idea that I was."

"Yeah, like I was supposed to say 'Ra? Know when you were being a jackass in the Squirrel about me not giving you grandchildren? Well, I'm barren. Neener'" She gives a derisive snort "All this from you like I'm doing -you- wrong. What a load of shit."

Shit, Naydene? Shit? That's all you ever /had/ to say. Ever.

"Really."

I had lost it. Completely.. I felt.. still feel.. humiliated and base. Wounded.. how can you tell your child - no matter the age - that they've hurt you? How can you show them the depth of everything you feel? How can you explain everything you've done, how much you will do, the sacrifices you'd make again?

"You will never know, Naydene.. /never/.. everything I have given for you. You have no conception of everything I would, if it would make any difference... And it might yet. You did, Naydene.. whether you will choose to admit it or not.. you did 'do me wrong'. You had no faith in me. You put me in with every other ass of a wolf you've ever met."

I.. went too far, though. I know I did. I didn't want to.. I just couldn't stop. It was wrong of me, but I couldn't stop.

"You know something, /niece/.. if you'd /bothered/ to say anything a year ago.. I /probably/ could have actually done something about it, but you're so bloody well sure you have to feel sorry for yourself, you don't even /ask/. Don't even bother. You know.. we probably still /could/. No warpers.. but you'll sit here and rot in your own self-pity before you'll even bother to admit you /don't/ have the entire world figured out."

"You think this is about pity??! Do you?"

"Self-pity, yes. You are staking your happiness on a physical defect, and then not moving past it.. or doing a goddamned thing about it. Nothing real. What.. you call me blind, now? Creed only took one of my eyes."

She was too calm.. I knew I touched a nerve. "No Rael. I am getting on with life. I'm tired of crying about it. My uterus looks like a truck rolled over it. I accept what happened, and get up for work every morning, just like I always have."

"Right. And /this/ is why you hurt every time I mention my children? Why you question why Raymond stays with you? Please. You lie to yourself."

Perhaps.. perhaps up until this point, I could have claimed some justification. Perhaps. Now nothing will ever be the same.

"You have one week. Get ready. Tell Raymond you'll be gone for a while. And rest assured that if you aren't ready, I'll come and drag you out of wherever you're trying to avoid me - you and I are going on an aisling."

"No Rael. I won't be forced into anything, by anyone."

"This time you /are/. I have /never/ forced anything on you.. but I intend on fixing you, and if I have to, I'll drag you through the entire tellurian in chains to do it."

I'm so sorry, Nay. In the end, you turned out to be right. For all of my wishes to the contrary, I'm no different than anyone else has been to you.

"Get out. We have nothing to say to each other now."

"Really. I think we do, Naydene. Just one.. I put /everything/ on the line for you. Everything. My life, my family, the woman I love.. everything. And you stand here and call me an insensitive bastard? I have known you for years.. been proud of you. Watched you stumble, watched you grow - lost half the light of my world for you. I have wanted nothing but your happiness. I have to wonder if you've ever thought of anything beyond your own cynicism."

I'm sorry, Nay. But I can't tell you that now.

For all that I hurt.. I never meant to hurt you. The things I've done I've done out of the fact that I care.. they aren't coin to purchase your care, and they aren't things that I ever intended to use in that way.

I still just hope you'll get past it.. that you'll let someone in. That.. in the end, you'll lose this.. self-pity, this self-loathing. And .. maybe, just maybe, you'll remember that we do love you.. even I do.

For all that it destroys.