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[ukan]

This is Lark Tennant, leave a message.

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[questionsonly]

I’m sure he will. This place makes it impossible not to.

But it won’t be… smooth.

Or painless.

[ukan]

We should never trust anything that is painless.

[questionsonly]

You're not wrong.

But somethings could be less painful.

[ukan]

[He's saying this and he means it, he believes it and has lived by it, but the port was painful in ways he's still not sure how to brace himself against. But pack is a safe, instinctive place.]

I need a break from running myself to the bone. Where are you?

[questionsonly]

Where you need me.

[ Jacobi is sleeping off the drink in his room. Kepler will find out tomorrow about his hand injury (possibly) but right now? Free as a bird. ]

[ukan]

I need somewhere with a door between us and the ship.

[Desperately.]

[questionsonly]

I'm in my cabin. Or I'm sure the Enclosure's free.

[ukan]

I'll be by yours in a few minutes.

[questionsonly]

Gravity on or off?

[ukan]

[oh. Now that he thinks about it...]

Off.

[questionsonly]

It's off.

You're on the door lock.

[ukan]

It isn't until Lark is in the door and, out of habit, locks it behind him that the full weight of this godawful week finally show on his face. He looks at the door, starts to unlock it, and looks at Warren. "Should I leave it...? In case Jacobi or someone needs to visit?"

[questionsonly]

"Lock it," he says, because it's not like Jacobi isn't a big boy. He can wear his big boy pants for one night.

He doesn't approach, because this is... new? New for him. But his body language is open, accepting, trying to beckon him in. It's in his eyes: anything Lark needs, he'll give it if he can.

[ukan]

Lark has more people in his life he can trust, he can talk to, than he ever has before. But there are still some things he couldn't say to someone who isn't pack. And there are some things he couldn't tell even Iris.

"I made a mistake," he says quietly, hollowly. "And I don't know how to fix it. So I just wanted to be away from it for a while." Here, where he knows another set of teeth will protect him, even if there is nothing to protect him from.

[questionsonly]

He nods, because that he gets. That he knows. That he's... lived in for the last few years, really. Since it happened. Since his world exploded. He still doesn't know how to fix this, but he has hopes.

Now he walks forward and he offers an arm.

"I know what that's like."

[ukan]

"I know you do." And as much as he wouldn't wish this on himself or anyone he cares about, he's glad that he can come here, that Warren understands and Lark could stop talking right now if he wanted, and Warren would still understand.

Which is why he pulls Warren into an embrace. He doesn't cling, Lark could never let himself do that, but he holds on and feels a little bit less alone. Being Lark, in his human form at least, the contact doesn't last long.

"Do you see a way forward with your mistake?"

[questionsonly]

"I do," he says earnestly, looking back at Lark, "it's not certain. Nothing is, when it's important enough. But I've got my first steps. A decent path. And hope."

He glances down for a moment before he returns his gaze to Lark.

"Would it be easier to bury your face in fur?"

Jacobi had found it very helpful.

[ukan]

"No, I...think I need to talk it out," he says, and he sounds very quietly surprised about it.

"I made a mistake with Alec. And it goes back years."

[questionsonly]

Oh. There's sympathy and empathy both. He's gotten a decent read on Lark and given the similarities, well, he an certainly see where he might need words to at least get his brain around a miscalculation like that. Feeling is good, but thinking it out is invaluable.

"What kind of mistake?"

He holds up a hand.

"Feel free to use... metaphor. Or make it up. Whole cloth."

He knows what it's like having someone who isn't thrilled other people know his business.

[ukan]

He thinks a moment. "Say you wandered into some post-apocalyptic world where the only vibrant animal left was a beautiful...eagle. We'll say it's an eagle. The only one of its kind you've ever seen, and you know if it stays in this place it will die.

"So you coax it onto your arm and you feed it--real food instead of the irradiated scraps it was used to. And you take it home and you want it to be happy and free so you build an elaborate mansion, and you let it soar over the walls if it wants, and sometimes it does and you don't know if it will ever come back." He looks away, thinking again.

"And you start rearranging your world for it. You want the city to be entertaining, you want your family to welcome it, you want everything in your home to be for it. And it always comes back so you think you're doing the right thing. Until one day it learns to talk and it tells you that all you've built is a beautiful, gilded cage that it has to accept or its only option is to never come back at all."

[questionsonly]

Warren takes that all in and there’s definitely more of that empathy rising in him as he listens.

“All right, I have questions. And I am taking into account… metaphor.”

He starts off with: “1. Did this eagle ever give you any indication before it decided to speak that it thought these measures were a cage? 2. Is there something that kept it from learning to speak before then? 3. Why does it consider those things a cage, gilded or otherwise?”

[ukan]

"I think it did. I know it did even if I couldn't tell you where or how. And I think I just never heard it. That's a recurring flaw of mine...when I see a solution I stop listening." As for what kept Alec from speaking before? Lark can't think of a way to fit it into the metaphor so he lets his admission of ignoring other people's feelings stand in for it.

"It's a cage because if he doesn't live in it, I won't go anywhere else. To be with me, the eagle always has to come back behind my walls."

[questionsonly]

Kepler considers for a moment, because he certainly knows what that’s like; he tends to be the kind of person who acts instead of speaks, who adjusts as far as he feels he can before commenting. The ways he relates to Lark are balanced with how he relates to Alec.

“Are you open to dismantling the cage?” But also: “And is the eagle aware he should have learned to speak earlier? And should continue to speak?”

[ukan]

"The eagle couldn't speak before. Physically, even. We had to learn together. I'm as much at fault for the...gaps in communication. I'm used to using words when they don't relate to me," a small, wry smile.

"I don't know how to change things. It's my den, Warren. My city. I've spent nearly all my life taking it, turning it into a safe place for wolves. I can't even picture myself being anywhere else for long."

[questionsonly]

"You still haven't answered... what makes it a cage," because that's the place he's seeing the opportunity.

He could point out a few other things, but he knows himself well enough to see those as less-useful avenues. The cage is the problem, either in practice... or perception.

"The choice to be with you. is a choice. If he doesn't view it as such. That? Is a problem. And that. makes anything a cage."